#they gave more of an explanation to the motives of the group which i liked but the scene dragged a bit too much to my taste. felt a bit off | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ikeuverse · 7 months ago

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MR. FUNNY GUY — l.heeseung

PAIRING: heeseung x fem!reader GENRES: fluff, humor WC: 3.8k+

WARNINGS: a few swear words, mentions of alcohol. yeji, sunghoon's sister, is portrayed in this fic as being of age, because there is a part that insinuates that she has been drinking.

SYNOPSIS: why was it so important to heeseung that you laughed at his antics? you hadn't felt the need he had to make you smile, to be the reason for your smile. a ride home was all he needed to understand your motives and talk to you about them.

NOTES: this came to me as a totally random thought and made me want to write it, without pretension. yes, konon is written as jake's girlfriend just because i wanted something totally different, and i've never seen anyone put her as the girlfriend of any of the boys. idk, nothing special, hehehe. i hope you like it!

masterlist

Every group of friends consists of having outstanding personalities or a representative for each thing among them. Heeseung could be the personification of the funny kid.

He had always been in charge of making the best jokes and making everyone laugh ever since he met his friends at the end of high school and the beginning of university. With Heeseung around, it was as if there was no sadness at all.

Even his attitude was that of a big, awkward, funny guy, which gave him even more credit for his antics.

Heeseung was responsible for making Jake stop crying when he got his first low grade in calculus at university. Not even his girlfriend was able to cheer him up, but Heeseung trying to prepare a smoothie and forgot to close the lid of the blender, causing all the fruit and mixtures to fly around the kitchen... Oh, that got a good laugh out of Jake. And a few curses from Jay, for sure.

Heeseung was also responsible for making Sunghoon and Yeji cry with laughter a week after their puppy went missing. She was crying and he said he would help his friends find her, even if their hopes were slim. Heeseung did find her, but that didn't stop him from coming back all wet and with mud all over his shorts because the dog had wandered into a garden and he ran with his life to rescue her. Telling that story out loud made it all worthwhile in the end.

What Heeseung never managed was to get many smiles out of you, Yeji's best friend. It wasn't as if you and she joined Sunghoon's group of friends very often, but when you did, you were the only one who stayed quietly in the corner of the room and didn't crack a smile when he made a joke.

At first, it didn't make much difference to him, not least because you only appeared occasionally and Heeseung only found out about you sometime later. Because you really were so quiet that you seemed almost invisible. But as time went by and Yeji attended more and more of the boys' meetings – even more so after she and you made friends with Jake's girlfriend – Heeseung didn't want to admit it, but he started to feel a bit insulted.

Why weren't you laughing at his jokes? Why didn't you crack a single smile at his antics in front of his friends? You were supposed to hate him, in Heeseung's mind. That was the only explanation for why he never saw a single curved movement of your lips.

"Relax, man" Sunghoon said one night when the two of them were in the kitchen preparing the popcorn for the movie. "Yeji said that Y/n is like that, very closed," he took a larger bowl to pour the contents into, placing it next to another in case he needed a spare. "She took a while to open up to the girls, so maybe it's nothing personal."

So it would seem. Heeseung thought, rolling his eyes as he tried to forget about it and focus on the movie night they all had together.

A whole month passed and he tried not to focus on the thought that you didn't like him, because if that were the case, Heeseung would have gotten there first. He knew everyone there before you did, so if you didn't like him, you might as well not hang out with them anymore and just be friends with Yeji and Jake's girlfriend.

But no, that night what he wanted to happen happened. And without expecting much, without creating any expectations that you would smile at him.

"What are you three doing?" Sunghoon approached and ruffled Yeji's hair, hearing his little sister grumble and curse him for it.

"Trying to make sushi at home" she huffed "But Konon's the only one who can, and she gives the hardest tasks to me and Y/n to do."

"Come on, I think we're doing fine," you said, avoiding looking at Konon because you knew she was laughing at the two of you.

You held up a hot roll you had just rolled, hoping it wouldn't fall out of your hand and spill all the rice. Your eyes met Sunghoon's and then looked at Heeseung, who was standing in the kitchen doorway.

"You're doing a great job," Sunghoon complimented.

"Yeah, long and crooked... Looks like Sunghoon" Heeseung pointed to the hotroll in his hand, and he almost shouted when he heard the sound of your laughter.

It wasn't possible what Heeseung's eyes were seeing at that moment. You. Laughing and then smiling at him... Did that really happen?

Sunghoon abruptly turned to Heeseung as if he was thinking the same thing. Of course, he and the boys were the only ones to hear Heeseung's lament that you never smiled at anything he did. But now it had just happened.

And he wasn't sure if he wanted to see it again, because strangely Heeseung's heart was pumping in a way that he wasn't happy about. Not to mention the fact that, apart from thinking about your smile and the sound of your laugh for weeks, the boy wasn't proud to say that he had dreamt about it.

Was it stupid to say that he had actually dreamed of your smile? Shit, that couldn't be possible.

"Heeseung!" Jake shouted to get his friend's attention, snapping his fingers in front of his face.

"Fuck, what a fright" Heeseung wriggled in his chair "What's wrong?"

"I've been calling you for about five minutes, what world were you in?"

"In the world where Y/n keeps smiling at him" Sunghoon hummed.

Fucking bastard... How did Sunghoon have to be so direct like that? All right, his friends knew and couldn't stand to hear Heeseung fantasize about it for weeks, but hearing it out loud from someone else made him feel like a bit of an idiot.

"In my defense, I'm still in shock about this" he tried to say, hearing Jay's laughter from across the room.

"Still? How long has it been... like, three weeks? A month?" he asked, already knowing the answer. If Heeseung were to count, it had been a month and a few days, because every month the girls tried to make a different food. And he distinctly remembers his skills – not unlike Konon's – in rolling the seaweed into sushi.

"Do you like her?" Jake sprawled further back on the sofa, almost throwing his legs over Heeseung's lap. Sunghoon was sitting on the floor staring at the TV while the movie was still playing.

"What? No" he said too quickly, regretting it the moment all the boys' eyes landed on him.

"Dude, you literally went to great lengths just to make her laugh for you" Jay got up from his chair to walk over to Sunghoon and sit down next to him on the floor.

"And when that happened, you didn't stop talking about it the whole time," Jake added.

"I said you could all make me stop talking—"

"We don't want to, it's cute" Sunghoon smiled "Besides I think it happened a few more times after sushi night."

"What?" it was Heeseung's turn to shout, startling Jake who was cursing at him quietly as he curled up on the sofa.

At that moment Heeseung was standing in the living room, pacing back and forth near the TV and watching his friends with mixed feelings. Jake was still recovering from his shock, Sunghoon was pressing his lips together, feeling guilty for saying it just then. While Jay held in his laughter and closed his eyes to wait for the conversation to unfold.

"You're just telling me about this now? Fuck Sunghoon, what do you mean?"

"Dude, I'm sorry" he said, "It's just that you got so excited about it that if I told you she smiled a few more times, you might explode."

"I'm exploding right now" from the coloring of his face, it could be possible.

What do you mean you smiled at Heeseung or something related to him and Sunghoon didn't say anything at all? Now he wanted to know, what was the occasion? Had he done something funny, said something at the wrong time, or made a joke? Or did you genuinely smile just because he was around? What had been the circumstance in which you smiled at him?

"All your gears are turning at the moment and I think it's my fault" Sunghoon got up from the floor, straightening his pants and then sighing, "But she smiled at times when you weren't looking."

"Why?"

"Look, I know your mind because I've lived with you for years, but I have no idea what she was thinking about it" Sunghoon's words had a unique effect on Heeseung. He was even more pensive.

"Yeah, he's right" Jake said.

"You too..." Heeseung then turned to Jay.

"Dude, we talked about this for hours and worked it out together," he defended himself, cringing when the other threatened to approach.

"Hey, calm down!" Sunghoon held him by the shoulders even though he knew his friend would do absolutely nothing to any of the three "Now that you know, you can do something about it."

"Yes, kill the three of you."

"Or talk to her and ask why" Jake shrugged and stood up, giving his best smile in response "Now how about we order something to eat? I'm starving."

"No, no more drinks for you today, young lady" Sunghoon snatched the glass from Yeji's hand, listening to his sister's protests even though she was already a little upset.

"But hey, we're celebrating" she tried to catch it, but to no avail, her older brother was taller and would surely use that to his advantage.

"Celebrating what? The loss of your liver?" Heeseung looked around at the number of glasses on the kitchen counter.

He sighed as he imagined that the owner of that house would have an extremely difficult time cleaning up, but his thoughts were soon cut loose by the sound of laughter that flooded the room. His body went still and his eyes widened at the sight of your standing in front of the kitchen door.

"Hey, Heeseung, you look like you've seen a haunting" you waved at him, smiling briefly and then turning your eyes back to the Park siblings.

"He just heard something" Sunghoon added.

Not knowing what it was, you didn't bother asking him and just walked into the kitchen where the three of them were still standing.

"What's going on?" you asked.

"Yeji's already drunk, so let's go home."

"But she's celebrating," you pouted "It's not every day you get an A in Professor Choi's class."

"The worst professor at that university" Yeji picked up a glass to raise and pretend to toast, then put it back on the counter.

"But you've had enough, so I think you'd better go home" he looked at his sister and then at you "Has Jake taken Konon yet?"

"They just got home, Jay told me as soon as I came into the kitchen" you looked around for something to drink "And you two, what are you doing here?"

Sunghoon had gone after Yeji before he left and Heeseung had been in charge of looking for you, so the two of them could take you home safe and sound. But he didn't want to say that out loud.

"We came after you two," Sunghoon replied.

"Okay, let's go" Yeji whined "I won't be able to finish my drink anyway."

"Not even if we just have one more beer? It'll be quick and—"

"Nope" Heeseung stood in front of you when you threatened to approach the fridge. Looking up thanks to his height, this was the closest he had come to you since you two met.

It might have been the effect of the drink or the moment itself, but he looked glistening and that had – strangely – made your heart flutter.

Blame the drink, blame the drink, please.

"Come on Y/n, these two dullards don't know what fun is" Yeji pushed past Heeseung, ignoring his protests as she grabbed you by the arm and pulled you out of the kitchen.

"That's it man, a few more moves and you two would be kissing in this kitchen" Sunghoon held Heeseung by the shoulders without missing an opportunity to tease him.

He acted on instinct to stand in front of you so that you wouldn't advance into the kitchen, right? He also ignored the distance between the two of you because he miscalculated his steps and Sunghoon was right to say how close you and Heeseung were. But those thoughts had to be pushed aside as quickly as possible.

And that happened when Jay's voice echoed in Heeseung's ears, standing next to his friend's car.

"Can you take Y/n home?" he asked. Heeseung didn't want to show his shock, but the orbs almost popping out in the expression that caught him off guard made Jay laugh right away "I've had a few drinks and I certainly won't be able to drive."

"But—"

"Take her and come back for me" Jay handed Heeseung the keys to his car.

"Why don't you just go along? I can drop you home later."

"Because I'm not finished here yet" Jay's lips protruded forward in a pout, he took a few steps away from Heeseung, nodding and smiling at his friend "And I don't want to witness anything pornographic in my car. Unless I'm the one doing it," he shouted the last part and Heeseung turned sharply in the direction you were with the Park siblings.

He would have given anything at that moment for you to be so drunk that you hadn't heard any of the shit Jay had said so far.

"Where's Jongseong going?" Yeji asked when he saw the boy disappearing among some people in the garden of the house.

"He said he didn't finish whatever it is in there" Heeseung sighed "Come on Y/n, I'll take you home."

None of you missed the mischievous giggle that escaped from Yeji, soon to be joined by Sunghoon. Heeseung knew very well about his friend, but why did his little sister even seem to be complicit?

"Do you know where I live?" you asked so naturally that Heeseung had forgotten how serious you were whenever you were around him.

"No, but you can tell me while we go in Jay's car," he said, and you just agreed and let him guide you to the vehicle. Neither of you cared what the Park siblings said as you and Heeseung walked to Jay's car. He showed himself to be a tremendous gentleman by opening the door for you and checking that everything was okay until you buckled your seatbelt so he could close the door and turn the car around.

"Can we go?" he asked and you nodded, giving Heeseung the coordinates so he could get to your house.

For Heeseung, the silence was necessary while he reorganized his thoughts because, for the first time, he was in a place alone with you. That had never happened since the two of you met.

Now for you, the silence was agonizing because it made you think and observe. To think about how hard you'd tried to get away from that man next to you and to observe how well he drove. His hands firmly gripping the leather of the steering wheel, his long fingers drumming now and then when they stopped at a traffic light or how agile his hand was at holding the gearshift. You also found yourself swallowing when his hand accidentally hit your leg when changing gears. He wasn't doing it on purpose, you knew that, but it was inevitable not to smile quickly.

"We're here" he was the first to break the silence, indicating that he had followed your coordinates very well, and now the two of you were parked inside Jay's car and in front of your apartment complex.

You looked out of the window, a sigh escaping your lips as you looked back at the boy in the car sitting next to you.

"Thanks, Heeseung" you said sincerely, opening a smile when his eyes met yours. Heeseung smiled too, but he didn't look so happy about it. He seemed... Annoyed?

"Can I ask you something, Y/n?" he said just like that, not even bothering to respond to your thanks. But you didn't mind either, after all, your sobriety was starting to kick in, but even so, your alcohol-addled body made you more curious than usual.

"Anything," you said.

It took him a while to formulate that question, pondering whether he should really ask it or just let it go and get on with his life as if it didn't affect him. But it certainly did. Heeseung knew why he had dreamt it, he had to ask.

"Why haven't you ever smiled at me?" might seem like a silly question from the outside, or even sad if the person was as sentimental as Heeseung.

At first, your eyebrows drew together in surprise. But then everything relaxed and you unbuckled your belt to turn around and face the boy.

"What do you mean?"

Heeseung repeated your gesture a few seconds later, unbuckling his belt and turning to face you too.

"I mean, ever since we met you've never smiled at anything I've done," he shrugged, trying to sound firm in his words, not wanting to waver or show how ridiculous it might seem "Surely Yeji has already let it slip that I'm the clown of the group and, I don't know, you're the only person who's never given me a single smile."

"Does that bother you?"

No. He should answer, to appear tougher.

"Yes, a little" Heeseung didn't want to follow his thoughts, he wanted to act on the emotion of the moment "I thought you didn't like me or, at worst, thought I was so dull that you begged the girls to get away every time we met in a group."

He was being so honest with you, opening up so genuinely that you felt a little bad. Maybe your way of acting on everything you'd heard hadn't been nice, you might have been a bit extreme with it.

"I'm sorry" was all you managed to say, without knowing exactly why you were apologizing. Whether it was for your reaction or for never getting to Heeseung and wanting to get to know him.

"Why?" he asked.

You didn't want him to ask, so you wouldn't have to explain yourself, you'd get out of the car and drive away. But Heeseung's sparkling eyes seemed to call out to you every second, guiding you to him as if you belonged there, staring at him as the words came freely out of his mouth.

"We have a group of friends at college and certainly Yeji's brother and his friends are sometimes a topic," your gaze quickly shifted to the window behind Heeseung. Anything being more interesting than his eyes paying attention to you right now "I once commented that... Well..."

"Say, it's okay," he tried to encourage you and you looked back at him, could blame it on the drink if something got out of hand, and would say the next day that you didn't remember anything you were saying. Even though by then your sobriety had reached more than half of your body.

"I told I thought you were very handsome" you nibbled your lower lip and continued, not even giving Heeseung time to process the information "A friend of ours said that you were not only handsome but funny, but that was a danger."

"What? Why?" he tried to shake off the tingling feeling in his chest and his cheeks heating up at the confession. So you thought he was handsome from the start.

"Have you ever heard of the theory of the funny boy being a danger?" you crossed your arms and snorted when Heeseung denied it with a nod "He'll make you laugh so much, you'll laugh. Laugh and laugh until you're naked in his bed."

It was his turn to laugh, hiding his face with his hands and messing up his hair.

"Shut up, don't laugh," you groaned in frustration, uncrossing your arms and trying to push his hand away from your face. The contact was electrifying, even if it only lasted a few seconds. Heeseung uncovered his face and looked at you.

"So Yeji's friend said that about me, and you believed it?" Heeseung wanted to sound confident as he raised an eyebrow, even though, if he had to get out of that car, his legs would be as soft as jelly.

"Well..." a few seconds passed and you sighed, "I avoided contact so I wouldn't have to believe it. I don't know, preserve myself as much as possible since you seem to be well known at the university."

"So you didn't want to smile at me because you thought you'd end up in my bed?" Heeseung leaned forward a little, looking a little defiant. You leaned forward too, your hands resting on your lap.

"You make all the girls smile, what difference would it make if I smiled at you?"

Don't be so honest, Heeseung thought to himself, but it was already done when he launched into it.

"Maybe because your smile is beautiful and when that happened on sushi night, I ended up dreaming for a long time."

"What? Did you dream about my smile?" you almost shouted in the car.

"Too many questions for one night, don't you think?" Heeseung pretended to shake himself, looking for the car keys that he hadn't even taken out of the ignition. Turning on the air conditioning might be a good idea since neither of you made any mention of leaving.

"Too many confessions for one night" you leaned back in your seat.

"I think we're going to need a few more nights for you to tell me more" he also leaned back in his seat, but his head remained turned in your direction.

"Are you asking me out on a date?"

"Would you?" he asked back, a stupid – but extremely beautiful – smile adorning his lips as he said again, "I want to prove that friend of yours completely wrong."

"I'd love that, then" to his surprise, asking you out had been completely light-hearted. He didn't feel like throwing up or running away, or even saying something silly, stuttering... Nothing. Heeseung was just himself as he watched you bend down to him and brush your lips against the corner of his.

From the way Heeseung's head was tilted, giving indications that he wasn't going to move, you purposely kissed him on the corner of the lips, pulling away before he made any risky moves.

"I'm waiting for a message from you so we can make an appointment, mr. funny guy."

You winked at him, watching as the tip of Heeseung's tongue traced the exact spot where your lips touched the corner of his. The smile never left him as he watched you open the door, wave, and close it to leave.

A smile had never left Lee Heeseung like that.

#enhypen fluff #heeseung fluff #enhypen #enhypen heeseung #heeseung #lee heeseung #enhypen au #heeseung x reader #enhypen x reader #enhypen masterlist #lee heeseung fluff #heeseung fanfics #lee heeseung x reader #heeseung imagines #bay writes.

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flowerbloom-arts · 11 months ago

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If you don't mind me asking? Can you elaborate more on the problematic aspect of Mumrik please?

Don't take too much of my word for it because this isn't very researched and this is more of a stream of consciousness than anything but fanon "Mumriks" (Joxter and Snufkin), as I've seen here and there, fall dangerously close to antisemitic caricatures and Romani stereotypes.

For one thing, Joxter and Snufkin's personalities being equated leads to a mash of their negative traits, and their negative traits being laziness, deceitfulness, uncleanliness and tendency for thievery/utter disregard for the law to the point of amorality or indecency applied to both with either "natural explanations" (saying that's just an Inherent Part Of Their Species) or dubious motivations is deeply entrenched in stereotypes of the Roma throughout Europe.

The fandom tends to mystify Joxter and Snufkin alot on very shaky ground, with forebodings (gut feelings) that are treated as a magic litmus test for things to come or having a connection with ghosts or using divination like tarot which is based on either throwaway lines or background details that don't particularly affect the plot yet the fandom treats as one of their major traits that get used in plots alot. Romani people get stereotyped with that sort of mysticism alot, especially in association with the Fortune Telling business and to a lesser extent Mediumship and general superstition. I could also chalk this up to the mystic cat stereotype, particularly in association with witches and the like.

Joxter gets (or at least got, a while back) casted as the malevolent counterpart to Snufkin for the sake of Daddy Issues Angst, and that combined with people's dissatisfaction with Joxter and Snufkin's more human designs gave way to very impish or even monsterous depictions of Joxter (and sometimes Snufkin), which we can make parallels to antisemitic caricatures of Jewish people; sharp teeth, pointy ears, strange eyes, predominant nose, hind legs, tails, claws, generally untrustworthy vibes all around. Unclean and tattered, not to be trusted by others in any proximity; good for nothing thieves and tricksters.

People like to make "Mumriks" this massively marginalized group, afterall the two fellas we know are like... Hrm. But Joxter's lifestyle is hopelessly conflated with Snufkin's... Darn. People try to draw lines where they think they are but in doing so, it trying to replicate Tove's style of "some behaviors being inherent to a species" (which one can debunk with some critical thought and literacy) they accidentally create these stereotypes, they don't draw clear distinctions between Joxter and Snufkin even though Snufkin's mother is a Mymble, they don't consider how weird it would be within the context of our culture or even the context of these characters, yet somehow...

But this is just my thoughts as they currently are, I have thought about it alot but I do need to be on the lookout for more examples and do more proper digging. Again, I'm not accusing anyone of bigotry and purposefully baking them into characters who are clearly their darling faves, I'm just saying that there are certain things one must keep in mind when it comes to characterization and headcanons, or else one could accidentally recreate malicious bigotry without any malice.

#moomins #mumrik #moominvalley #snufkin #joxter #fb answers #antisemitism #racism

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pinkvaquita · 9 months ago

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In a dream...

♡ Pairing: Pure Vanilla x White Lily

♡ Flavor: Comfort//hurt. Idk how to call it but I guess that works

♡ Warning: None

♡ Author's note: I can fucking belive I'm actually doing this omg-. First fanfic of this whole messI got myself into. I wrote and traduct this half sleep. Hope you enjoy it <3

♡ Aqui tienes la version en español <3

Pure Vanilla was in a place he had never seen before in his life. It was a deep forest in darkness, the sunlight seemed to be unable to penetrate the dense treetops. If under normal conditions he could barely see well what was a short distance from his face, now everything was nothing more than confused shadows surrounding him in every direction.

It was strange. He didn't understand what he was doing there or how he even got there, he didn't even remember it. He also had no idea which path he should take to get out of there, everything looked the same.

He took a deep breath, seeking to remain calm despite the worrying situation in which he had found himself. He closed his eyes to intensify the sensation of pure air entering his body, encountering by surprise a smell that was painfully familiar. White Lilies.

The air left him in a sad sigh, all his sighs were nothing but sadness as she returned to his mind. Especially when he was alone and with nothing to distract himself from a pain that tormented his poor heart, clinging to her for more years than he could count. He turned to the place where his nose told him the smell that meant melancholy to him came from.

He could not imagine the surprise he would feel when, upon managing to locate the exact point, his eyes opened slightly before a tiny but strong source of light. On a group of white lilies, there was a butterfly. Fragile, small, the color of polished silver, but with a brighter light than any firefly.

Pure Vanilla walked gently towards the small insect, observing it with attention and tenderness. Smiling slightly at this one.

The butterfly, after a few seconds of being still, took flight and began to enter the forest. A normal thing for any bug with wings, what was not normal was that when they flapped they sounded like the tinkling of bells. Or that it will leave behind it a path of tiny sparkles like dust. Even less than where it happened, the light it gave off showed more of those sets of white lilies, along with more butterflies with the same appearance and characteristics outside of their nature.

It took him a few seconds to realize that this was a sign, but when his eyes adapted better to the flashing spectacle he was able to understand it. It was a path.

“Where are you directing me?” —he asked without waiting for any answer. He himself had understood that the way to obtain an explanation was to let himself be carried away by curiosity. And a strange feeling that called him to continue.

The forest was still just as dark, but now with the path that opened before him it was impossible to fear. He felt safe and protected by the little guides, even if they could do nothing more than give him light.

The scent of lilies with each step felt more intense the further he went. It would have been overwhelming for anyone, but for him it was a motivation to not give up or stop. Without realizing it, he was running through the forest as if the heavy clothes did not stop him or he was afraid of tripping over a branch. He did not stop even when the trees gradually disappeared, in their place there were now bushes and vines that grew in size until they entirely covered the path.

Advancing through the thick nature was a difficult task. Walking while at the same time removing leaves and branches from your walk as well. But the fresh air that hit him as he left the compressed space there was no comparison to what was in front of him.

It was an entire field of lilies, on the horizon it was difficult to see that there were some other species, but the main one in that area was the variant that he would recognize anywhere. White lilies on the left, white lilies on the right and in the middle...

She was in the center. The light of the moon and the butterflies fluttering around her made her radiant beauty even more captivating to him. She wore the most beautiful white dress he could have imagined her in, as white as the flowers surrounding her and long that trailed on the floor. Oh, she looked like the queen he always thought she was.

“White Lily?”

She didn't respond with words to the call of her name, but the slight smile forming on her face was all Pure Vanilla needed to see to know it was her, to trust that it really was her.

He shouted her name as he ran again. With even more motivation as she began to extend her arms, waiting for him with them open to receive him after what he knew had been years of separation. Of pain. Of betrayal. Of guilt for abandoning her.

And when he finally had her at the tips of his fingers, when he was already rushing towards her with the joy that being together again gave him.

She disappeared into the very air, like the dust of the silver butterflies that brought him there.

And he woke up… alone in his room. Feeling the emptiness in his heart once again. Almost tearing up from how beautiful it was to see her, and how devastated it left him that they were just his dreams again.

#Purelily #white lily cookie #pure vanilla cookie #crk fanfic #happy valentine's day #cookie run kingdom #cookie run #crk #pure vanila is a desperate simp #he probably cried after that #also. Cafekitsune made those beutifull deviders #go check that tumblr if you want them #pure vanilla x white lily #white lily x pure vanilla #fanfic made by pinkvaquita

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centrally-unplanned · 8 months ago

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As I am now full-in on the body count section of The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, I do have growing complaints about how it handles its sort of mystery build-up and reveal aspects. There is an adage for mystery novels to "have your answers ask more questions"; you set up a mystery, you *resolve* the mystery, but that resolution itself just creates deeper mysteries. This of course works very well to keep ratcheting up tension and keep the story moving forward; but it also resolves tension at the same time, you do actually get answers as you go. As an author you can perhaps think of there being a "quota" for the number of active questions for the reader to be considering; if you stack too many at once its both too hard to track them and is frustrating to read about, the story never delivers.

TFTBN breaks this rule; not every time, but a lot. In particular with Su's identity/trauma origin it happens all the time, you get literally dozens of "more mystery" moments behind it before you ever get any answers around it. Its just too coy by half! Why is my narrator like deliberately hiding their own thoughts from the reader across dozens of instances where those thoughts would be extremely relevant? The tension has already been ratcheted to the max, you can set it aside for a bit if you want but if you dangle the question in front of me too often it loses impact.

And even though now we have been getting answers, its *still* playing coy. You have a flashback to a scene of child Su being confronted by Ran over her identity mystery, and she breaks down and starts to explain it, and then the scene just cuts, so you only get a half an explanation. Which is enough to pretty much piece it together, so like the tension is gone? Now when you are coy about it (multiple times after that scene!) its a little lame actually, who ya fooling! But what it did is take away the opportunity to just have a really good scene. You cut away from a character's moment of emotional revelation and interpersonal confrontation.

Mysteries, to simplify of course, do two things for the reader; they make you turn the page in your desire to know more, and they set up dramatic stakes for their reveal in scenes. Its a balancing act ofc but you don't want to sacrifice the latter to keep baiting the former.

I feel this too around the "villain faction" for the story. Right now the villain faction is a virtually-unknown group of actors who have had no interactions or relationships with any of the characters, using mystery tactics to kill people. We are many chapters into that plot, multiple people of note have died, but they are still just strangers - their stated motives minimal and seemingly farcical.

Ofc I am no fool, I understand via meta knowledge and have picked up on the hints they have dropped that they will in fact not be strangers in full - I get how stories work. The problem is that meanwhile we have had like multiple scenes of the group having the traitor debate - "is it one of us?" But that question is silly because I *know nothing about the villains* of substance. Why would any of these classmates betray their group for them? We have no info on that. Oh sure sure I have these like, tiny *mechanical* hints. Like one time Seth? He gave a thumbs up to Ezekiel, when they were supposed to be mad at each other. Sus, my dudes. But that isn't a *motive*, right? Its not a compelling story, its just data. Because the story wont resolve any of its dangling questions, the idea that any of these people is a traitor is just dumb, you would have to like explain the entire plot in one infodump to sell it as interesting. By insisting on drip-feeding every mystery, instead of chained resolution-renewal, these plot threads aren't developed enough to work when they need to.

I do think this comes back to the fundamentals of the pacing issue - there is essentially a desire for this story to be longer than it is. Its a 3000 page book (equivalent ofc), but it isn't, not really. I am ~1000 pages into it I guess, but its probably not even ~500 pages in actual content. I could do this in definitely 400. And this is more than just a padding problem - its that structural thing, to make that length work and still be decent as a story (which it is, its a good story overall) you have to sort of chop up your big moments , which sort of kills them.

Like there is a character, Jia Fang, a fellow student who doesn't go with the group, but is mentioned a bunch as a sort of wild card, and its built up right? They are totally gonna show up somehow, there is tension about what they are up to, and then bam, they literally burst through the door. Its great, they make a huge impact, the chapter ends on that cliffhanger.

And then after maybe a few paragraphs with them the next *multiple chapters* are about a conversation between other people, about other topics where Fang is barely mentioned, and then literally, literally, we get multiple other student's academic thesis presentations, before the plot that Fang showed up to be involved in kicks back into gear. Its self-sabotage right, the literary moment broken apart because the story has to hit quota.

Its certainly a case where the serial nature of the publication would make it ludicrously difficult to fix, that I totally get. Art is really, really hard.

#the flower that bloomed nowhere

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highfantasy-soul · 8 months ago

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NATLA - Episode 3: Omashu (3/3)

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

An explanation of what I'm doing here and my history with ATLA.

Of course, full spoilers ahead.

Katara is drawn to Jet as she sees her own rage, loss, and desire to fight reflected in him. In the animated version, Jet shows up to save the Gaang after they stumbled into a fire nation campsite and Katara immediately falls for him but it's not super clear why other than 'he's hot and beat up firebenders'. In the live-action, we meet Jet walking into Omashu and he helps the group with no ulterior motive - setting up his character as someone who truly cares about people struggling in the war and is willing to go out of his way to help. He only reveals he's a freedom fighter when Katara sees Sai trading info with a fire nation spy - so they both are sharing a secret about the enemy rather than an obvious connection of 'yeah, everyone can see the fire nation soldiers would be bad' connection like in the animated show. The live-action adds nuance and secrecy, and not letting Sokka in on seeing that secret adds to the conflict between him and Katara later on - they both have negative info on the person the other has attached themselves to in Omashu. I like how Sokka didn't 'immediately clock' Jet as a bad guy in the live-action or at least, didn't immediately get super jealous of him. Yes, their relationship starts out rocky with him annoyed Jet is taking the lead talking to the guards and flirting with his sister, but he doesn't have the heightened 'I don't like this guy because he's succeeding fighting the fire nation in a way different from me' that he has in the animated version.

It's funny to me seeing people complain that live-action Katara got a lot of agency taken away while saying nothing about how in the animated version, Katara immediately turns submissive to Jet and they have their whole flirtation and Katara defends him to the ends of the earth. I don't have a problem with the animated way the story was told, but it's funny to see people complaining about the live-action when the same issues (or more pronounced) are in the animated version. In the animated version, I didn't see Katara's connection with Jet being that he shared her anger and desire to fight the fire nation, it came off as 'he's hot and charismatic therefore everything he does must be right'. In the live-action, we see how Katara's fire and rage at the fire nation is reflected in him and that's what she's drawn to - yes he's hot and charismatic, but it's more clear that she identifies with every aspect of him: he's fighting back (something she's always wanted to do) and he's created a community to help those harmed by the fire nation. Having Jet help her through a waterbending block by remembering the good aspects of her mother added so much more depth than him just complementing Katara's skills and her deciding to blindly follow him. Instead of just 'Katara, you can do this' he actually gave her good advice - making her defense of him much more believable.

Animated Jet is cartoonishly evil, kicking old men, lying about him being an assassin, kidnapping Sokka, flooding a whole town, and tricking Katara and Aang into helping him kill the village - live-action Jet is much more believable and nuanced which I think is a really good choice. We see that he's "right" (ie, he IS rooting out spies and ineffectual leaders who have led to the fire nation operating with impunity in the city) it's only his methods that are wrong.

While it's good to see Sokka caring about someone just because in him defending the old man Jet was harassing, I think it adds a bunch of depth that the person Jet is attacking in the live-action is the person Sokka connected to - plus, the fact that he actually is a fire nation spy. The animated Jet is painted as 'look at this obviously bad guy going way too far' while the live-action makes him much more nuanced and less clearly 'bad'. Yes, he's willing to sacrifice some innocent lives for the cause, but it's not like he's just making information up to get people on his side or trying to kill an entire village. He's still 'wrong' to be willing to sacrifice Teo's life and the lives of people who aren't responsible for the state of the city, but it's not cartoon levels of misguided. In the animated show, he just attacks and bullies an old man just wandering around - in the live-action, he's actually going after spies causing real harm in Omashu - he's not a caricature of a rebel fighter, he's a real person who's mostly doing the right thing.

This actually mirrors and combines the lessons Katara and Sokka learn in The Great Divide - they each side with the group that's more like them and both don't want to believe that the side they identify with could be wrong. But instead of 'these people are clean, organized, and educated, therefore I like them' for Katara, she sees her desire for justice, change, and community reflected in Jet. Instead of 'these people like to eat, are ok being messy, and are more war-like so I like them' for Sokka, he sees his desire for more than just being a warrior, for him to contribute with his ingenuity and creation as well reflected in the Mechanist.

Sokka being drawn to The Mechanist as he sees his own ingenuity and curiosity - rather than strict 'warrior' expectations reflected in him. I like that he's directly responsible for completing the designs for the airship that ends up in the hands of the fire nation, not because they stole the wrecked ship, but because he trusted the Mechanist and helped him before realizing he was purposely giving the designs to the fire nation. It adds just that small bit of direct connection/lesson for Sokka. I also like the very clear parallels between the Mechanist and Jet - in the animated episode, the Mechanist is found out and there's no question, the jig is up immediately. I like how they handled his duplicity like they did Jet in the animated series - one of the siblings knows the truth but the other won't hear it. The Mechanist is also able to give Sokka some great advice to change his world-view while in the animated version, they just both fall in together naturally with no real character building dialogue to solidify that. The animated show does a lot of that sort of dialogue so I'm not sure why they didn’t make a point of it in this episode, but I guess in the animated version, the focus was on Aang and all the 'lessons dialogue' we got was Aang learning that it was ok that the Mechanist was changing the Air Temple. I like that Sokka gets a good character moment in the live-action and we get to see his nuanced arc with gender roles explored.

Because of this reassurance by the Mechanist, we now start to get Sokka stretching out his skill set and starting to come up with mad, slap-dash plans to achieve their goals. While that was always present in the animated show, I like that it took Sokka getting some confidence and growing as a character to start embracing that side of him. And what a first plan it was: riding those crates to the top of the mountain.

And finally, Aang's role in this episode: I adore the fight between him and Zuko. This is the first time in live-action that we've seen them go head to head and I'm glad they waited for it to be a *moment*. The fight was so stylized and classic - demonstrating Zuko's martial skills without bending and the differences in their fighting styles. The different sets and props used were such a nice touch and you can tell so much care was put into that fight.

Some specific things that were incredible there: Zuko's skill with the bowstaff, him screaming "YOU READ MY DIARY!!!!!" sorry, sorry "YOU HAVE MY NOTEBOOK!!!", the auntie beating him with a brush for daring to hit a child!!! How dare he!!, THE CABBAGE MERCHANT, and Aang constantly trying to stop the fight like 'bro, chill tf out!"

Aang's lesson is really delved into in the next episode and I like the 2 episode arc structure they move to so that the themes and lessons can breathe. Again, in episodic, 20 minute animated episodes, you follow a singular plotline and it's resolved within that 20 minutes, but all 20 of those minutes are devoted to that one plot - when you only have 8 episodes, that 20 minutes per plot is split up and woven together with other plots rather than seeing the singular story in one chunk. It's just a different structure (that fits better with the serialized, binge structure) of 8 hour long episodes.

I think people got so used to seeing ATLA in bite-sized chunks where the focus is super narrow and issues are solved immediately, their brain had trouble shifting gears to be open to a different structure for telling the story.

Anyways, there's my analysis for episode 3 - it was the episode where I became fully invested in this telling of the story and couldn't wait to turn on the next one.

#natla #netflix atla #atla #avatar the last airbender #netflix avatar #omashu

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white-weasel · 9 months ago

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Saw VII and Jigsaw thoughts this fine Saw Saturday! (We actually watched the movies on Thursday but shhh it was Saw Saturday for us in spirit)

I am so sad that Saw VII was…. Not Very Good to put it mildly. Very rushed and all over the place and just did not give me the same feeling as the other Saw movies which was upsetting as this was kinda supposed to be the end cap of the main series :(

Dr. Lawrence Gordon, the character you are. I was so excited when I saw that he came back for this movie but was so disappointed when he was barely in it. I was really hoping for him to be more involved in the story or at the very least to be given a little more explanation for why he joined up as an apprentice. Like give me this man’s psyche and emotional state!!! What made *him* decide to help John do unto others what was done to him? Did he buy into the philosophy? Did he develop some sort of weird Stockholm Syndrome when John nursed him back to health after he survived his trap?

Idk if this is just me but they treated Jill kinda weirdly in this movie? Quite literally just kept her locked in rooms and not allowed to do anything and like. Obviously I would also run to police protection if I had just tried to kill an incredibly dangerous serial killer and failed like Jill did at the end of Saw VI, but I just wish they gave her something more interesting to do than have a weird dream about Hoffman killing her with a train car and cower in fear

The blood and violence was so bad this movie and I genuinely don’t know why. My guess is it’s something to do with the movie being shot/intended for 3D? But even then I don’t think that should make the blood, like, pink right? I’m not watching Saw for the gore necessarily but it was a bit disappointing when you’d see Hoffman’s face ripped open from the end of 6, and then the next shot it looked totally different

(Speaking of the 3D, the scene at the end with Gordon tossing the saw was so unintentionally funny because of it. Like, yes king throw your hacksaw at the audience)

On the plus side I thought the character of Bobby was an interesting angle to explore. A man who basically used Jigsaw for clout and profited off of faking trauma then has to go on and live through that same trauma x10

(It is kinda weird that his wife was punished for his mistakes though considering she literally didn’t know he was lying……… like we saw in 6 with the mother and son that John doesn’t want to hurt those he thinks haven’t done anything wrong (though of course his logic on what that is is skewed) but now he’s suddenly cool using this woman as motivation for a man to do these traps? Seems off)

Mostly solid trap designs this time around!

Jigsaw survivor support group is also interesting! I couldn’t tell if everyone in that scene was actually survivors we had previously seen, but it was cool to be able to pick out a few of them and be like “oh my god I remember you!”

Wish we had gotten to see more Hoffman this movie as well, though seeing him go complete cold blooded killer in the police station was kinda fun, even if it was extremely goofy and unrealistic

If they wanted to, I could definitely see a world where Hoffman is still alive. Yeah he doesn’t have the saw to cut off his own leg, but we know you can skip the chain by breaking your own foot (Eric Matthews) and we also know Hoffman has no qualms about doing that sort of thing to survive (Reverse Bear Trap escape) so he definitely did that. The only question is if he could actually get out of the bathroom afterwards

There’s probably a lot I’m missing about my Saw VII thoughts but unfortunately it’s probably my least favorite of the bunch rn. I think it had some good ideas, some ideas that I was actually super invested in, but the execution was rushed and a lot of our existing characters were seemingly flattened to make them work

So maybe it’s just because I was coming off the disappointment in VII, but Jigsaw was an enjoyable movie to me! The pacing could be a little bit weird, but I also recognize that it was made like… 7 years after the last movie and they were probably trying to find a way to “modernize” the franchise and bring in new fans

The main thing I didn’t appreciate about this movie is how I felt it basically had to trick me for its twist to work. I absolutely LOVE the idea of “the game you’re seeing play out actually happened 10 years ago. We just didn’t say it was a flashback.” It’s such a classic saw thing to do and a lot of it a was foreshadowed. However stuff like the technology level and some of the fashion choices of the victims (I’m thinking specifically of the style of jeans Mitch wore) don’t always work with what would have been around in like 2001 or earlier. Maybe that’s me showing my age and I’m underestimating what was around in the late 90s/early 00s but it just made me a little mad because I felt I couldn’t just sit in the twist and instead had to justify why it didn’t make sense

I do however like the idea of Logan being someone who was saved from his trap by John. He was put in for making a careless mistake, only for John himself to make a mistake in his sedative dosage, not giving him an actual fair chance to fight for his life. It does help bridge the gap between the very obviously personal revenge John took in his first trap with Cecil towards the philosophy he spouts about the games being about appreciating your life later in the timeline

Genuinely though the whole movie I thought the killer was gonna be Detective Hunt, Halloran’s partner. I totally thought it was gonna be something similar to Logan where he wanted revenge on Halloran due to all the shit he had gotten away with. Also, the movie made such a point that “omg the body showed up at Eleanor’s studio/warehouse but only Logan and Eleanor knew about that place” but like….. Hunt followed them to that location. He could have gone in and placed the body there later to frame everyone and then told the cops about the workshop just to make sure the evidence was found. I was so convinced it was him because I felt like Logan was a bit too obvious for most of the movie lol

I liked the shotgun barn game. Very good early Saw trap/game. Short, sweet, and gets the lesson across

Logan’s reveal was hard as fuck, I don’t care what anyone says. I already made a post about how that scene is full of banger lines but it bears repeating: “I am him” “You have a choice: scream or don’t” “I speak for the dead” like okay sir go off

Logan certainly isn’t the most interesting apprentice or character, but I truly think that’s only because we don’t get to see him as an apprentice very much. From everything I’ve seen, he does not come back for either of the next two movies which I think is such a shame because there’s something to explore here with him being the first apprentice! With him being moreso an equal to John, teaching him part of his philosophy that’s so iconic about him, that’s a different apprentice dynamic from what we’d seen before and ahhhh I just wanna know the direction they would have taken this guy

Also makes me curious how much the other apprentices knew about each other. Amanda and Hoffman obviously interacted, but did anyone know about Logan? Was he just like “none of my business” when shit was going off the rails after John died? I want answers on how the Jigsaw apprentice relationships operate lmao

Overall, not the best Saw Saturday showing but yknow what, they can’t all be bangers. At the very least these movies have given me something to chew on and I also still enjoyed myself a lot. Saw, they could never make me hate you even if they’re doing the most with it!!!

I’m hopeful that my friend and I will be able to watch both Spiral and Saw X next week and then we’ll officially be through all of them and I won’t have to worry about any more spoilers! Hooray!

#sawposting #saw series #saw franchise #white weasel talks

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toaarcan · 1 year ago

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I want to get back to writing eventually, but this is just on my mind at the moment:

Re-integrating a character like Fiona into the Freedom Fighters post-Mecha Sally is weirdly easy, just because of how much shit they’ve been through in the past few weeks.

Fiona: You're being weirdly nice to me. It’s kinda confusing.

Sally: Last month Eggman shot me, rewrote the universe, roboticized me while trying to do the same to the entire planet and nuke every piece of technology on its surface, peeled my skin off with a blowtorch and shoved a bunch of guns in me while I was still awake, rebooted the universe again and tried to kill me with a failsafe when he lost. And while that was happening the council I set up to limit the power of the crown gave said crown to Ixis Naugus, who proceeded to exile one of my best friends from the city and make an alliance with Eggman to assassinate my brother. I'm finding it really hard to care about the small shit* these days.

Fiona: Are... are you okay?

Sally: No.

(*I’m referring to Fiona’s betrayal as “small shit” for a few reasons, 1) People in-universe don’t like or respect Scourge and treat his actions with appropriate scorn, and 2) Sally in particular has recognised that she was an abuse victim and so she’s more vigilant when it comes to other people in similar positions, which includes Fiona (do not challenge me on that, I have receipts), so she is substantially more willing to offer an olive branch than she otherwise would be. Also, 3) It had basically zero impact in the comic itself. Sally already didn’t like or trust her, Amy was upset about what Fiona said for one issue and then immediately got over it and also never exchanged words with her again, Ant took it as motivation to propose to Bunnie and then neither of them ever mentioned it again either, Tails was more angry about Sonic dating Fiona than he was about anything Fiona did within seven issues, and Sonic himself stopped giving a shit after 172 itself closed. Least impactful betrayal ever.)

I have it in my head that Mecha Sally was the turning point. It changed things. These characters just went through an intense amount of trauma, and it’s altered a lot of their perspectives. I recognise that, had this been an official continuation, they likely would’ve snapped back to normal fairly quickly. But I’m not trying to write an official continuation, I’m doing my own thing. And I say “Trauma responses for everybody!”

Eggman overstepped the line at warp speed, and that’s going to cause him problems. And not just because he pushed them so far that they decided that “Waking up the 3000-year-old apocalypse robot” was a risk worth taking.

(Art by @nicholas-anderson)

Fiona either escaping from her previous situation, or being forced to return by circumstance, would be coming back to a group of people who aren’t the same as they were when she left, and are in a position where they’re a lot more capable of understanding her perspective too.

And also, like, Sonic not going back to save her when they were kids is actually addressed. And explained.

(Sidenote: The explanation is that he did go back and save her, but it was actually Auto-Fiona 1.0 that he found. Being young and not knowing what an Auto-Automaton was, he assumed that Fiona had always been a robot and gave up on trying to save her. He didn’t know she was real until she turned up in Knothole after he came back from space.)

Things between her and the FF would still be fairly rocky in places, but honestly that has more to do with Fiona’s own trauma response being anger and self-isolation than anything else, and that the last people who were unexpectedly nice to her really didn’t have her best interests at heart.

#Sonic #Sonic the Hedgehog #Fiona Fox #Sally Acorn #Emerl the Gizoid #These kids all have trauma and they're not okay #Someone give them all a hug

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doomednarrative · 2 years ago

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one thing i rlly like about your plaga leon au is that you actually give a realistic and in character reason for it to happen. it makes sense and it’s compelling. a lot of those aus don’t have as much thought put into them besides “leon’s basically a verdugo now” which just leaves more annoying questions. like what happened to ashley? did the cult’s plan work? what about ada, or krauser? nobody thinks of that they just want leon to have mandibles and kiss luis. that’s fine in art but when constructing a world you need more than that lol anyway this is half a rant and half praise of you 🩵

One thing about me personally is even if I write au stuff, I Want and Need it to be possible within the realm of canon as far as "Does this logically work within the limitations of the story the canon is trying to tell/work within the lore" and "Does this actually work for a character and match up with their motivations and ideals?" I will never do something Solely for the sake of shipping, even if it might look fun.

The whole point of why I (and Claire and Ethan) went with the plaga au in the first place is because A. It's just fun to see what an impact that would have on the rest of Leon's story and what unique challenges it presents for him in the future, B. It does actually give an explanation as to how he manages to survive so much stuff in 4 because he's got something biological on his side and thus helps him to save Ashley with some more ease, and C. Leon has a track record history of letting himself get hurt or putting himself in more danger if it means keeping other people safe. So writing out the exact plaga we gave him and that motivation for actually taking it on for himself Makes Sense within the realm of sticking to his usual motives and such.

Ever with the au changes we made because of the remake, the biggest part of why Leon takes on the plaga is Because he's trying to save Ashley. It isn't about Him, it's about what will give her the best chance of survival, his own future consequences be damned. If this time can be different, if he can actually manage to save Ashley and get her home safe and remover her parasite in time, then whatever sacrifices he makes are worth it to him, and that's in line with everything we ever see him do. He takes those risks Very frequently, like a good example being the opening of 6 where he tells Helena they're making time to save that one guy's daughter even tho it's in vain in the end. He knows he wouldn't be able to live with more loss on his conscience if he refused to help.

I have seen a few au's that do take this kinda stuff into account, like @polarspaz's stuff has Leon take on a prototype of Luis's work because the stress of fighting has made his Plaga develop faster, and taking the prototype means he'll be mutated but regain control of himself without the hallucinations and the hivemind stuff, so that also increases his chances of getting Ashley home safe and allows him to save Luis later on as well. @alvivaarts also has an au fic, Simulation Swarm, that I've been reading on and off where Leon and Ashley both get their plagas removed but because it was so late stage in the game, they Both still end up with some permanent mutations that Luis is trying to research how to reverse for them, and it basically becomes a group effort kinda thing to look out for each other after the worlds turned on them.

So like, there IS ways to do this au that you can still have your fun while actually making it Work in universe y'know? And without throwing Ashley out with the trash because if there's anythng that infuriates me more is when people just make these au's and then don't include her in it at all. That shit makes me so mad when she's so central to the entire story and would absolutely be tied up in any decisions Leon makes during the course of 4. If it's not to the benefit of trying to get them both to safety then Why would he do it in the first place y'know?? She's important to him, he's not going to discard her like that.

Anyways that's more of a long winded answer than I meant to give but anytime you ask me about this au I will take it as a chance to go off on a tangent ~

#this is something that clearly bothers me a lot too sid rest assured #and its stuff im constantly thinking about when i write my fics and backstory for it all #i love infected aus but if im gonna do them im doing them Properly #ask #answered #kief rambles about resident evil #plaga leon au

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j0hb0y · 1 year ago

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Dark Deity "Review"

Hiya Papaya! 👋

Yesterday and today i played some of Dark Deity but i didn't really like it that much.

Although it looks great and the animations are really good, it has some big issues which really tore down my motivation for playing this game. (To be clear i would probably finish it, if steam won't let me refund it, because all in all the gameplay is like fire emblem and i like fire emblem and i maybe can look past the major issues)

-> Live Update while writing this: Steam gave me a refund :)

The "review" is a tad long so i put a cut here to occupy less space on your timeline or whatever it's called on tumblr.

I played with a controller btw.

Let me talk about the story first and then the gameplay:

Story:

The group you're following are in like an military academy and they're taking an exam. After that the king orders that everyone graduates and join the ongoing war with another country.

After that the group gets led by two people (i'm not sure what role they're really playing) and you recruit some people and fight many bandits, until some "old" mage comes along and asks them if they found some sort of stone. They say something like "maybe" and the mage goes evil mode and summons an army of undead (which i unfortunately found out after finishing this chapter because the enemies looked like completely normal people and not undead).

Shortly after the nameless group went back to the kindom capital and fought for some reason deserters and then i stopped playing.

-----

I couldn't really get into the story that well because i was thrown into it without any good and/or memorable explanation and thus i was just more or less confused. Especially due to the conflict happening in the northern region and the army went to the south for some reason ?

Gameplay:

To be clear: This game plays like a fire emblem one and i like this core gameplay. However, the execution was not to my liking.

First things first, this game didn't explain things to you: like for example the different armor or weapon types. How am i suppose to know what exactly a chain, leather or plate armor does ? I know that there is a damage type system in this game which increase or decrease damage based on the armor you got on, but do they have an additional defensive stat which adds or subtracts to the characters respective physical and magical defenses ?

Another example are the class "active" skills: some things like heal or push are self-explanatory, but you don't know what phase or chain do until you used the characters turn to find out.

Or how about when you got 3 new units in one chapter with some stones they had equipped: You got a short tutorial (there is a tutorial hub to get tutorials but why should i go open a tab to look up every new thing when you just could've told me) about those stones, but the chapter had some teleporters as terrain and they didn't tell you shit about them, not even the fact that those were in fact teleporters.

Oh yeah, 2 of those units are already gone the next chapter without any reason (or i didn't catch it because i was so desinterested).

-----

But what about the classes in this game?

There are 6 class trees with a tier 1,2 and 3 class level. And that is a really good system, let me tell you. based from the tier 1 class you can choose between 4 next tier classes. Each of them have their own 2 class skills which get transferred to the next tier (i've read this, but i can neither confirm or deny this). That means you can personalize your characters how you want them to be strong.

Talking about strong, some classes seem incredibly strong like the Reverie or Conjurer which heal themselves for 20% of the damage they dealt or the Guardian which heals a unit and that one gets "additional" healing over the next 3 turns.

However, that class tree system got a major issue. The classes can change our weapon type. Meaning your character can go from a bow to two swords. It sounds nice, but every class is range locked: Melee can only attack 1 field, Archers can only attack in a 2 range and Mages have a 1-2 range. That means that you can screw yourself when your glass canon archer becomes a frontliner or your physical nuke uses magic after promoting. The worst thing is that you can only know of that changing weapon thing, when you look at those uninforming icons which represent the damage type.

Something that additionally sucks is that the personal skills do sometimes not have useful information for them: For example Brookes personal skill "Killer Instinct: Crit multiplier increased against full health enemies" but by how much ? 10% ? 5% ? or maybe even just 1%?

To add to that, the game sometimes gives you units without any real good reason: For example prisoners which you can rescue and they go like "okay i'll follow you until i die" (when a character dies they loose stat points instead of completely dying which is actually a pretty good idea!) and that's it. Looking at you Sloane and Sophia.

-----

The preparation phase is additionally frustrating because the item trade system didn't feel good and was more clunky than anything.

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The game also has some technical issues like when i need to confirm when i hover another enemy to check the combat statistics instead of just switching when i select them to attack. Or when you get an item and the game kinda glitched and you saw some attack range pop up (most likely from the dead enemy) when you spam pressed the confirm button. Or when starting a bonding conversation, at the base, and it started sometimes when i only chose one of the two persons.

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Oh but the worst thing is that the damage numbers shown in multi-attacks are sometimes completely wrong. I had several occasions where it showed something like i received 12 Damage but in reality it was only 7. This was the most confusing thing about this whole game and it completely threw me off.

To be fair those multi-attacks are really really cool, but i'm not sure if that trade-off is actually worth it.

Final Verdict:

I really want to like and recommend this game, but i just can't, sorry :(

I played 5 chapters and a bit of chapter 6, but it didn't catch me like i hoped and tbh i wasn't going through all 28 chapters (+ 7 or so dlc chapters) with 0 motivation and interest.

I most likely forgot some parts i wanted to talk about, but it's 3am already and i'm too tired to remember.

Anyway this was my "review" of Dark Deity. Thanks for reading!

#dark deity #review

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th3-art-of-dying · 2 years ago

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Prayers of a non-believer

Introduction

I am not affiliated with, nor do I adhere to, or believe in, the system of any established religion or group that deals with ideas involving death, the afterlife, or the like. This does not mean that I am without beliefs or ideas on the subject. Ideas are something of which I am in no short supply. I like to think of my belief system, as I am sure most people do, as the one most likely to be true, as depressing as it can be.

First, let me say this, there is One Shining fact above all facts, and it is this, none of us really knows for sure. No one knows exactly what happens after death in regards to the soul. Anyone who says otherwise, to be blunt, is lying or confused. All of the books that you hear about out there, written by people claiming to have either spoken to God or having some spiritual, out of body experience which gave them a vision of Heaven or Hell or, in some cases, teleported them to heaven or Hell, are either lying to get attention or to make profit or they are simply delusional. If a person honestly believes that they had an experience in which they visited hell for a brief period of time, they have experienced some sort of hallucination, or perhaps, there exists some other scientific explanation for the occurrence they are describing. However, no one has gone to hell or seen hell or heaven or spoken to Jesus because, frankly, none of those things are real. I realize this is not exactly the most popular opinion, However, I do respect the right of every man to believe whatever it is he chooses to believe and would ask that you do the same for me. If at this point you are offended, I would suggest you do not continue this session of reading and move on to a different page or post. It does not get any better after this.

So why am I saying all of this anyway? What reason could I possibly have for reigning on everyone's eternal parade? Honestly, I have asked myself this very same question many times. If this belief that I have is true, why would I want to tell anyone and bring them into the same darkness that I am in? If ignorance is bliss then surely knowledge is a torment So why would I want to subject others to the same torment that I myself endure? It took me a while to figure it out myself, but after a long time of pondering the question, I finally realized what it was. The more I think about it, talk about it and write about it, the more I seem to form a clear understanding inside of my head on the subject. At least from my perspective.

There are many elements to my system of beliefs all of which are inner-connected in some way or another. All things are relative, but there are dots I have yet to connect, connections I have yet to make, but each time I write about it I discover a new connection or think of a new idea. So I keep going. If truth be told I am searching and will likely always be searching for a full understanding of a thing I am likeky not meant to fully understand. I'm searching for the truth and I have no time for anything less, even if the truth is horrifying. A secondary motivation for this search, if I'm honest , which looms in the back of my mind, as I do my best to try to ignore it, is the idea that I could be wrong. If I am wrong and I express this wrong idea to the world, perhaps a more enlightened individual or entity will come along and lead me from darkness into light. This may seem crazy but you did read the title of my page did do not?

This is not an invitation for all of you Christians out there to start barraging me with lines about Jesus dying for my sins and all that nonsense. I was a theology major and it's more likely than not that I know more about the Bible than the pastor of your church. Not bragging, just saying and no offense but when talking to a Christian about spiritual matters, I find that more often than not, the conversation is far from logical. I will not delve into this topic for many reasons, all I'm saying is, spare me.

The whole purpose of this series is to share my true unfiltered struggles in life. The search for answers being one of my biggest battles. The only way to truly portray the turmoil within, is to illustrate things as they are. At times I find myself in very dark places mentally. I may have very dark or offensive ideas that will be portrayed I may illustrate a scene which could be disturbing to some or a conversation with the idea of a particular God that may greatly offend you These articles may be deeply depressing displays of ideas or content However they may not exactly reflect my coherent beliefs precisely due to the state of mind I may be in at time being described. So please, keeap that in mind. I simply wish to share without sensor. I would ask that you do not judge me too harshly, however, It is not my place to tell you what to do. So, in closing, I can say I feel I cannot prepare you any better than I have so good luck and thank you truly for reading and as always much love to you all.

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neartheeasternfence · 3 years ago

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“Pretend as Nothing Happened”?

Impressions; Chapter 48

According to observer Kamiya, his colleague has been “uncharacteristically irritated” since the reunion with his former boss. It has been hard for readers as well as Yashiro, to make out Doumeki’s feelings to the point of such an explanation given. In this chapter, at last, he mentions things that happened four years ago. He says he does not forget having been left behind by Yashiro on a few occasions. Yashiro gave grazed shots to Doumeki in the left thigh and right shin in order to keep Doumeki staying, and confronted Hirata alone (ch.33, vol.6). One panel of that event is used again. What was more shocking to Doumeki must have been that Yashiro walked away in silence from their ‘bedding of love’ (ch.27, vol.5). It was what Doumeki feared more than anything else.

It turns out that Yashiro’s motivation for stepping into the current conflict was Misumi’s request in addition to Kido’s debt. Kyouseikai (destroyed by Tsunakawa’s revenge) kidnapped Niki, Ryuuzu is its remnants, Okuyama-gumi (split from Sakura Family) is backing Ryuuzu, and Okuyama-gumi, still independent, is affiliated with Kyokuseikai. And there are antagonistic elements between Kyokuseikai and Doushinkai to which Yashiro essentially belongs, and has been trouble between Ryuuzu and some sub-group of Doushinkai. It is complicated, no less.

Muraji asks Yashiro that either Doumeki or Kamiya be kept close by for surveillance and escort. When Doumeki declares that it should be Kamiya-san and not himself, something wavers within Yashiro. Originally, Yashiro is a yakuza who excels at gathering information rather than fighting. Here, too, he had a fair grasp of this conflict’s inner workings. Doumeki murmurs, “I always cannot compete with anata (you).” The word(s), or the fact that Doumeki reveals his feeling makes Yashiro has some impulses. Yashiro suddenly grabs Doumeki and drags him into the condo entrance and to the elevator. Doumeki is terribly startled (to forget to put his gloves on...).*

Four years ago, when Yashiro took Doumeki’s hand and pulled him into the back seat of the Lexus, likewise, he was immensely surprised (ch.20, vol.4). Yashiro may appear capricious, on the one hand, he is a fully scrupulous person. Yet that does not mean he does not act impulsively. At that time, although he looked to have been driven mainly by sexual urges, he must have had sentiments for Doumeki, who was cut in the cheek and bled, was almost shot, and might have lost his life for Yahiro (ch.23, vol.5). Yashiro must have had a feeling of care for Doumeki and a desire not to lose him. Some may realize straight away that that kind of emotion can be sublimated into ‘love.’ Yashiro does not. Instead, he expresses such undifferentiated feelings in the form of sexual arousal. It is his way.

Continued on Voi Che Sapete Che Cosa è Amor

---------------------------------------- Note: *Doumeki has occasionally forgotten to put on a glove or sock, or grown his left little finger again, I guess all of which will be corrected in volume 8, as they had before. It looks like he has started using a pocket square from this chapter.

Source: https://twitter.com/saezuru_comic/status/666889664909803520

#saezuru tori wa habatakanai #saezuru chapter 48 #twittering birds never fly #鳴鳥不飛 #still could be spoilers

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aquamarinescarlet · 3 years ago

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The Psychology of Us

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Word count: ~3.5k

Warnings: mentions of smut (nothing explicit)

Summary: It seems like you’ll never get the answers you want, but little did you know…

Author’s note: This is probably my favorite story yet. It got a little steamier than I originally planned, but I think it turned out okay. I hope the explanation makes sense, it’s something I do use in real life so I thought it’d be fun to write about. Anyhow, thank you for everyone who read, and have fun with the last part :D

Taglist: @helloalycia @gingerbreadcookieforlife @xastrydx @trikruismybitch @b0mbdotc0m @ima-gi--na-tion @cristin-rjd @arealearp @1-800-maximoff @zarriaza329

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

“I know, I know, I’ll be at your place at seven.” You said to Angie as soon as she reached you.

The hallway was packed, yet you were still able to notice her presence.

“About that,” she sounded unsure, “I came to tell you about this small gathering Pietro is doing at his place tonight, and I was wondering if you’d come with me?”

“So I can be a third wheel? No thank you.”

“He will have other friends over too, don’t worry.”

“Then why can’t you go by yourself?”

“Because I don’t know any of them and I don’t want to be there all by myself.” She reasoned.

“Just stick by Pietro and you’ll be fine.”

“Please!” She pleaded, giving you her best puppy eyes.

You weren’t opposed to the idea of going to Pietro’s house, a small gathering would be a nice change of pace from your usual Friday night parties. But your mind was in a different place right now and a party wasn’t exactly on your plans. You couldn’t say no to her though, maybe you could sneak out early, who knows.

“Fine, I’ll go.” You gave in.

She cheered, hugging you eagerly, and walked away before you could change your mind.

It was Friday again and you were still stuck on the girl and her puzzle. You’d seen her seven more times in the past two weeks. Now you had compulsively read eight books in the span of one month. Eight books all due to her, it was more than Diego reads in the same time.

Even your family was starting to question this sudden new hobby. Aalways keeping yourself locked in your room or with your nose deep down into a different book wasn’t normal.

Despite that, you were no closer to solving the mystery that was the girl from the library. She refused to give you her name when you asked her for it. She refused to explain the logic behind her recommendations. She just had fun watching you drown in frustration.

You were close to giving up, to start avoiding her until you forgot completely about the whole situation. But you enjoyed these moments. You were excited at the prospect of seeing her, not that you’d ever admit it out loud.

Of course, all this excitment died down the moment she started to mock you for nothing, with that annoying smirk painting those perfect stupid lips of hers, growing your desire to wipe it off of her.

There was something, though, that caught your attention, something about the books she recommended. You enjoyed them, you savoured every story, every plot, every character. Diego always tried to get you to read some of his favourite books and you gave up after a few pages. But not these ones, you liked them, and you had to figure out what kind of spell she used to make you like them so much.

“I think I’m going insane.” You muttered while staring at the ‘map’ you had created on your bedroom wall.

It contained post-its, notes, the title of all eight books and the answers that earned you each recommendation. A pathetic attempt to find a connection between this whole thing.

“You are getting too worked up on this, I mean, look at your wall,” Diego, who had been hanging out with you this afternoon, gestured towards it, “it looks like something right out of a detective movie.”

“It’s not that bad,” you said exasperatedly, “I just need to figure this out.”

“Okay, two things,” he put up both his index and middle finger, “first: it is that bad, it’s just a bunch of books; and second: why are you so desperate to figure this out?”

“I’m not desperate,” you argued.

“Yes, you are.” You heard him mumble.

“And aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

“Not that curious.”

“I just want to prove her wrong,” you explained.

“Because you care about what she thinks?” He seemed genuinely confused.

“No, I-”

“Look,” he interrupted, “I know you. I’ve known you for a long time. You have never been one to care about what other people think of you. So why her?”

“I-,” you were at a loss for words.

Why did you care? It bothered when she insulted you, even though you knew it wasn’t true, and you’ve never been bothered by such things before. It bothered that she knew nothing about you and still had the nerve to deem herself better than you, even though this was all the more reason to not care about her opinion at all.

Was it really a bother though? Or was that just an excuse? And if it is an excuse, then what were you excusing? Why were you still doing this? You’ve been dragging this out for a month. Why were you so keen on proving her wrong after all this time?

You don’t need to prove to her that you’re smart: you get good grades, you’re the captain of the football team, you even have a scholarship in one of the best colleges in the area. Of course she doesn’t know any of this, but that’s not enough motivation for you to spend a month trying to prove her she’s wrong about you.

For all you know that crazy scheme of hers to recommend books could be fake. She could just recommend books she likes and hide the reasons behind those questions. But then why did you enjoy those stories? And why would she put up a whole facade to recommend some books to a random stranger she met in a library?

“Do you like her?” Diego’s voice brought you out of your own thoughts.

The look you gave him was one of disbelief. You almost wanted to laugh at his words.

“Like her? How can I like someone who pisses me off so much?”

“Then why do you keep going back?”

“Why I- because- I- I’m curious.” You didn’t sound as confident as you wished. It wasn’t a lie. You were curious. But curiosity was not the only reason you kept going back, although you couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was.

“I don’t believe you.”

You didn’t answer. You didn’t know how to answer. Thankfully you didn’t have to when, with a quick glance at the clock, you were able to change the subject.

“We’re late.” You simply stated.

“For what?”

“I told Angie I was going to meet her at her place at seven,” you gestured towards the time, “it’s seven thirty.”

“I didn’t agree to this.”

“C’mon, please,” you pleaded, “it’s going to be a small, like, get together or something, and I know Angie will leave me alone at some point to makeout with her boyfriend.”

“Okay fine,” he gave in and you made a little celebratory dance, dragging him out of the house.

Since this was supposed to be casual and between friends, you didn’t waste any time at Angie’s, where you’d usually spend hours getting dressed and ready.

Pietro’s place wasn’t far, which you were slightly thankful for since Angie wouldn’t stop talking about him the whole ride. He’s such a good kisser. He’s so cute. Did you know he plays soccer? He looks so hot in his uniform… You love your friend, but that’s just too much.

As always you weren’t the first one’s, and by the amount of people it was far from a “small gathering between friends”. The apartment wasn’t small, but sure felt like it with the almost fifty people crammed in there.

You were greeted by Pietro himself, who offered you each a beer before pulling Angie in for a kiss, causing you and Diego to roll your eyes. You gladly took the beer, if you had to endure this, might as well have some alcohol to help.

Two beers later and your mind was no longer fixating on the girl-from-the-library problem. Instead you were having a friendly debate with some of Pietro’s friends about which college was the best, the typical rivalry. Having only Angie to back you up was making the whole thing harder.

“Hey Piet,” a tall blonde boy called out, interrupting the conversation, “is Wanda going to join us?”

“Doubtful, you know how she is…”

“Who’s Wanda?” Angie’s voice was laced with jealousy causing the boy to laugh dramatically, which only seemed to make her madder.

“She’s my sister, don’t worry,” he reassured her. It made sense, he had mentioned he lived with his twin sister.

You watched as he pulled Angie away from the group, probably to makeout, as you had predicted, and you looked at Diego, to stop him from commenting anything, only to find his place empty.

You left the group as well to search for him, and was surprised to find him shoving his tongue down some girl’s throat. You could’ve left them alone? Yes, you could. But did you? Of course not.

“Y’know,” you tapped on his shoulder, earning his attention, “when I bring you to a party so I can have someone when Angie left me, I expect you not to leave me as well.” You teased.

“Shut up.” He tried to sound serious, but the smirk gave it away.

“You owe me one.”

Feeling a sudden need to go to the bathroom, you let them be and went in search of one. You opened a door you thought led to a bathroom, but found yourself in a corridor which had other four doors that probably led to bedrooms, at least one must lead to a bathroom.

“Pietro, I already told you, keep that door closed!” You heard someone scream from one of them.

It wasn’t just anyone though. That was a voice that had been haunting you for a whole month now. Okay, haunting was an exaggeration, but still. You quickly closed the door, muffling the music and chatter.

As you rested your back against the wall, a surge of power took over you. The new information taking over all your thoughts. You had the upper hand now on this little game of hers. It was your turn to play.

Her door was easy to identify, being the only one with light seeping through the cracks, and you made no effort to be quiet or discreet when opening it.

She was sitting in her bed, long red hair loose over her shoulders, a book in hands. Her expression was soft despite the interruption, she hadn’t looked up, so she had no idea it was you who was standing there.

“What do you want Piet?” A mischievous smirk grew on your face.

“Wanda,” you uttered as if trying it on your tongue for the first time, earning the girl’s attention.

The shock that took over her features did wonders to your confidence.

“A beautiful name,” you continued, daring to take a few steps inside her room, “I see you favourite color is red,” you referred to the endless amount of details on her walls, shelves, bedsheets, all a different shade of red.

You walked further into the room, exploring everything in sight. She followed your every move with her eyes, too stunned to say anything. Were you crossing a line? Probably. Should you be invading her personal space like that, without a warning? Probably not. But she has been invading your personal space for weeks, so you couldn’t care less.

“Ah, you play the guitar,” you grazed your fingers over the instrument sitting on the corner of the room, “I didn’t think you had any talents other than insulting me for no reason.”

You were enjoying this too much. Your eyes landed on some pictures and notes clinging to a wall.

“Sokovia,” you said after reading one of the notes, “so you are Sokovian, that’s interesting.” Your gaze fell to her desk, a pile of textbooks stacked there. “Psychology,” you laughed, not because it was funny, but because it was going to piss her off even further, “you are more likely to drive your patients crazy than to actually help them.”

“How…,” you turned towards her, “did you…,”

“Get in here? Learn your name?” You offered some suggestions since she didn’t seem capable of finishing that sentence herself. “Pietro.” You simply stated and watched as her face went from stunned to mad.

“How do you know my brother?”

Was that jealousy you were sensing? Or was she just upset that he had told you stuff about her? You decided to play with it a little bit.

“He is a sweet boy isn’t he? So hot and so nice,” you teased and she advanced towards you, making you a little frightened, but not enough to back down, “it’s hard to believe you two share the same genes.”

Your face was mere inches from hers and you suddenly felt like the air was growing thick, making it hard to breathe. A feeling of warmth taking over your chest and stomach. In spite of all the discomfort, you managed to keep your composure.

“I so want to wipe that pretentious smirk off of your face right now,” she growled. Oh, how the tables have turned.

“Why don’t you?” You challenged.

Football had given you fast reflexes (except for that particular event a few weeks ago), you were ready to catch her hand if she tried anything. Instead of her fist or her palm, you were met with her lips attacking yours furiously.

The kiss was needy, hungry, desperate even. Your hands made their way to her waist, pulling her impossibly closer. It was a battle, a fight neither of you were willing to lose. Tongues fighting for dominance, teeth biting lips, jaw, neck, hands pulling on skin in such a way it would definitely leave marks.

Clothes fell to the floor as you backed her to her bed, pushing her onto the mattress, this feeling, a necessity for her, on the pit of your stomach growing ever more.

Safe to say your plans of leaving early were postponed. At some point during the night you had managed to find Diego and let him know you wouldn’t be needing a ride back home. Your disheveled state and red marks, which were already showing up on your neck, didn’t go unnoticed by him, but he didn’t have time to comment on it. You mentally dreaded the moment he would start with the questioning.

Some shifting on the bed caught your attention. Slowly opening your eyes, you were able to catch Wanda staring at you with a soft smile. Your back was facing her, so she didn’t know you were awake, but you could see her clearly from her bedroom mirror.

And what a sight it was.

“You’re staring.” You called out, and watched her face turn three shades redder out of embarrassment from being caught.

You turned around so you’re now facing her, although she wouldn’t meet your gaze.

“What’s on your mind?” She kept quiet. “Okay, wanna know what’s on my mind?” She nodded lightly. “Well, I’m thinking that I would have never, not in a million years, pegged you as being shy.” She tried to stifle a laugh while bringing her hand up to playfully hit you on the arm. “That’s more like it,” you teased.

“I’m not shy,” she defended.

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

“Because… “ she lost it mid sentence.

“... you’re shy and sweet, just like your brother said,” you recalled from the day you spent together in the arcade.

She hit you, yet again, on the arm, slightly harder this time, but not enough to hurt.

“Tell me this then,” you finally reached the topic that has been bugging you for weeks, “what was all this for? The mystery, the games?”

She fell silent, seemingly in deep thought and you got scared you had killed the moment.

“Okay, so maybe I’m a little shy,” she admitted and you celebrated internally while your face remained unfazed, “and that makes me scared of…”

“Talking to people?” You helped out, but she covered her face with her hands in embarrassment.

“Please, don’t laugh at me, I know it’s stupid-”

“It’s not,” you interrupted, uncovering her face, “go on.”

She took a deep breath before continuing.

“I’m scared of talking to people… especially people that I like.” Although it sounded like a confession, you weren’t exactly sure what it was about.

“So you liked me?” You asked in disbelief. “From the beginning?”

Her already red face was growing darker by the second.

“I had seen you before, with Diego, in the library, always complaining, always stating how boring it was,” she shook her hands in the air for the purpose of drama, “and it was annoying, but it was also cute and- and I always wanted to talk to you, but I never found courage to do it.”

To say you were shocked at the new information was an understatement. She liked you all this time? And you just thought she hated your guts for no reason? Wow, that’s precious.

“Okay, so…” you tried to say in the stunned state you found yourself, “how- why- the- why did you do all that then?”

“Because I had like, this sudden flow of confidence, and since you had this cocky personality I thought you would like someone who was the same, so I said what I said, and I did what I did and-”

“I started to hate you.” The way you acted when you first met must’ve hurt her.

“Exactly, and I thought I had screwed up completely, until you showed up again, and my stupid brain associated that to the idea that the way I had acted worked. So I kept it up. A persona, in a sense.”

“What were you planning to do then? Keep that act up forever?” The question made her slightly frustrated.

“I don’t know, I didn’t think that far, I just enjoyed your presence, even though you still seemed to hate my guts.” You laughed and moved closer to her, wrapping your arms around her waist.

“I did,” you whispered close to her ear, “I hated your guts, but I also enjoyed it, the games, the mystery, that’s why I kept coming back.”

“So it worked,” she said excitedly.

“It sort of did.” You stared into her green eyes, for a few seconds. “There’s something else in my mind too that I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“Ask away.”

“So… about the recommendations-”

“Oh my god,” she didn’t let you finish, “you haven’t figured that out yet?!” She exclaimed in disbelief, when she opened her mouth again you knew what was coming.

“Don’t say it.” You warned.

“You really are slow.” She said it anyways, a mischievous grin painting her lips.

“Damn, I hate you,” you said jokingly, unwrapping yourself from her and making a move to leave the bed.

She stopped you short, wrapping her arms around your shoulders and pulling you back, causing you to fall on the bed laughing hysterically.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I won’t say it anymore.”

She let you go and sat up and across from you.

“Good, so are you going to explain it to me or not?” You questioned and she rolled her eyes playfully. “And don’t you dare tell me there is no logic behind it, there has to be one.”

“Yes, there is a logic,” she mocked, “it’s quite simple actually, the ‘color’ is what sets the mood for the book.”

“How so?”

“Uhm, like, we associate colors with stuff, like black is associated with death and evil and white is associated with peace and purity,” you nodded, “it also works for feelings, associating those with colors, so when a person says a color I can pick a book that has elements that are associated with that color, or that causes a feeling that we associate with that color.” She explained.

“That explains the psychology major thing.” She seemed happy you remembered, even though it was mere hours ago.

“Basically,” she agreed, “so, ‘person’ is what defines the relationships that surround the main character, so either romances, friendships, families, strangers, y’know?”

“Yeah okay,” you tried to follow along.

“And ‘place’ is to decide how far from reality the story should be, if the person says a place that’s close to their home, they tend to prefer stuff closer to their comfort zone, so no fantasy or sci-fi, and vice-versa.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep,” she beamed a smile, “simple isn’t it?”

“Does it always work?”

“No, it’s a really subjective thing, the more I know the person the better, but sometimes it just doesn’t work.” She admitted. “It worked on you like a charm though,” she teased.

“That it did,” you couldn't deny. “Okay, so if I got it right, color sets the mood, right?”

“Right.”

“Then what is red associated with?” You looked around her room, filled with several details in red.

“Anger, love, passion-,” she stopped talking when she met your eyes, a mischievous smirk on your lips.

You slowly rose from your position and crawled forward, never losing her gaze. You quirked an eyebrow suggestively as you got closer. You sat on her lap, faces inches from another.

“Well, I can show you some passion.”

#wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda x reader #mcu #marvel #fluff #ittle bit of angst #wanda x you

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lipstickstainz · 4 years ago

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just a few days - s. r.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader Summary: There’s no denying that Spencer and you hate each other. What happens, when you are forced to spend a few days together? Warnings: enemies to lovers, language, smut, fingering, oral (f receiving), typical criminal minds stuff Word Count: 4.5k A/N: hello friends. this is my first one shot and I hope you like it. gif not mine.

„I didn’t think you could be any more of a shithead, but you just proved me wrong.“

Many people believe in love at first sight. The heart starts racing, the knees go weak and you feel dizzy. You want to get to know the other person at all costs. Which is total bullshit, of course. You can't fall in love with someone at first sight. Interest, yes, but that's not love.

With Spencer and you it was different. The first time you met, you were breathless. Your muscles tensed to the breaking point, the blood pulsed in your ears, and your stomach turned. Only, in your case, it definitely wasn't love.

„I saw a trash bag on the side of the road today. Reminded me of you“, you shot back and Spencer rolled his eyes.

Hate at first sight really did exist, and Spencer and you were the prime example.

There was always a stupid comment, a scathing sideways glance, or catty laughter. Neither of you took it personally - why would you? You weren't interested in each other's opinions - and it didn't interfere with your work, which is why Hotch didn't say anything about it. It annoyed him, but he had also noticed that the quality of your work was higher when you were at each other's throats than when you worked separately.

You couldn't even remember why you had been so hostile to each other from the beginning. It was mutual antipathy, but no one knew why. You didn't know each other from anywhere else, had never met anywhere. Actually, you were someone who gave people a chance first to get to know them reasonably, but with Spencer it only took one look before you were sure you definitely didn't like him. Was it his aura? His charisma? His constant need to be smarter than everyone else?

At first, the two of you had been holding back. You had been professional with each other, staying out of each other's way as much as possible and not exchanging more words than necessary. Everything had been fine until one day something slipped out of Spencer's mouth. The team had been sitting in the conference room discussing the latest case. You had said something about the murder weapon when Spencer had rolled his eyes.

"Is something wrong?" you had asked him, annoyed. Spencer sat up straight in his chair and grabbed the crime scene photo.

"I've never heard anything so stupid," he said, looking at you with amusement.

"Excuse me?"

"Stop it," Hotch intervened. "We don't have time for bitching. JJ, inform the department we're on our way. Wheels up in thirty."

From that moment on, there was no turning back. You tried to belittle each other, but Hotch had forbidden you to relate it to work. Teasing and mean statements were allowed, but you were not allowed to get in the way of your work. And the most important thing: no arguing in front of outsiders. The team was used to it, but if others got wind of it, it would undermine your authority. So you had to pull yourselves together at times. Which was no problem.

Once inside the police department, Hotch divided the team. "Y/L/N, Reid, you'll go to the crime scene and examine the house for any abnormalities that might indicate motive," he said, and you looked at each other with disgust in your eyes. Hotch cleared his throat and gave you a look that said, "Get your act together or I'll send you home."

On the way to the scene, the radio was playing and you hummed the tune contentedly. You almost forgot who you were in the car with if Spencer hadn't suddenly turned off the radio. You made an annoyed noise.

"I wanted to hear that."

"I know," Spencer grinned, glancing at you briefly before looking out the window again. "And that's why I turned it off."

Sometimes you could strangle him.

The house was pretty run down from the outside. Spencer and you looked at each other. "If I had to hide your body somewhere, it would be right here," you grinned, walking toward the front door.

"I won't give you the satisfaction of killing me," he said, his mouth twisting into a crooked smile. "My death should have meaning. I'm not going to let someone like you kill me over that."

The interior of the house was in complete contrast to the exterior. Every room was cleaned and tidy, there was not a speck of dust anywhere, and the way magazines, pictures, and other decorations had been laid down indicated -.

"OCD," Spencer noted. "Look, Y/N. The magazines all have the same number of pages, the picture frames on the windowsill are all the same distance apart, and -" , he opened a cabinet in the kitchen, "the handles on the cups all point in the same direction."

"So the person has damage like yours," you said, surveying the pictures in the hallway. Luckily there were only two of you, or you would have had to stifle the comment.

"Ha. Ha. I don't have OCD."

"You still have some damage. Forensics said traces of bleach were found throughout the house," you added to his insight, walking down the hall. "The unsub cleaned and left everything like this."

"And how would you know that?" asked Spencer, who had followed you. In the ceiling in the hallway was the hatch that led you to the attic.

"The pictures in the hallway are not of the victim. They're printed photos of people from the Internet. There is no connection." You climbed the ladder and what awaited you there did not surprise you. The attic was filled with junk. It seemed like everything had just been shoved in. But again, there was not a woolly mouse to be seen.

"Apparently, the unsub places a lot of importance on maintaining the appearance of orderly, clean living."

You nodded at him and pulled your phone out of your back pocket. "Garcia, please search for wealthy families where children have been hospitalized with broken bones, hematomas or other injuries," you said, and Spencer snatched the phone from your hand. Annoyed, you looked at him.

"Equate that to sports injuries again, please. Thank you," he asked her before hanging up and tossing you the phone.

"Sports injuries?" you asked him, and he nodded.

"No parents would take their child to the hospital with injuries like that without an explanation. Sports injury is a good way to disguise something like that," he explained and you left the loft. When you got back into the car, you looked at him.

"If you snatch that phone out of my hand again, you'll be the next one with a slit throat," you smiled sweetly at him.

Spencer laughed out loud. "You grow a few more inches first, then maybe you can get to my throat."

Back at the precinct, the team profiled him and shared it with detectives. The plan was to lure him out of hiding and hope he would say or do something so you could arrest him.

"Bailey is targeting young couples in their twenties and thirties who are still in the early stages of their lives. They all moved in together a few days before they died. They were all very messy, which showed not only in their apartment, but also in their style of dress," Rossi explained.

"That's why two of our team will go undercover to draw him out," Hotch continued, giving Spencer and you a meaningful look. You knew what that meant. And you weren't in the mood for that. "Agent Y/L/N and Doctor Reid will be moving into a house on the outskirts of town, in the exact area where the last victim was found. Since he likes to return to the scene of his crime, he'll take notice."

"And then what do we do?" the sheriff asked, writing diligently.

"He'll show up a few days later and then we can go get him," Emily brought the conversation to a close and the group broke up. Hotch motioned Spencer and you to come with him to an adjoining room.

"I blindsided you with the proposal, and for that I'm sorry," he said, looking from Spencer to you, "but I'm afraid we have no choice. Tomorrow morning you'll move into the house and then it's only a matter of time before he comes. Just a few days. And until then, please try not to kill each other."

Spencer and you had been sitting together all night, working out a plan. Not only did you have to pretend to be a happy couple in front of others, you had to pretend behind closed doors. And that certainly wasn't going to be easy.

"Spencer, I'm only going to ask you this once," you began. "Are you okay with me touching you? Otherwise, we'll have to figure something else out. You can't flinch when I reach for your hand or give you a kiss on the cheek, even if I don't want to do that myself."

"I can handle that," he grinned. "As long as you promise not to snuggle up to me in your sleep. Because then I'll have to vomit."

Hotch was pretty happy with your plan and wished you good luck. He didn't want to bug the house because you still needed privacy, but the whole team was on speed dial. Besides, the others would take turns watching you. You weren't afraid, but knowing the others were always there calmed you down a bit.

The next morning, Spencer and you drove to your house. It looked a lot like the last victim's house. One story and an attic, the front yard hadn't been tended in ages. Spencer parked the car in the driveway and got out first so he could open the door for you like a gentleman.

"Are you ready for our new life?" he smiled, pulling you into his arms before you headed toward the door. His perfume was so strong it clouded your mind.

"With you, I'm ready for anything," you returned, placing your lips on his cheek.

Living with Spencer was more pleasant than you had imagined. You spent most of your time together in silence, Spencer with a book and you with music or magazines. You didn't avoid each other either, but spent every second together. Spencer always helped you cook and you helped him do laundry. You even went shopping together. There were little spats in between, but otherwise you got along fine.

You also noticed some things about Spencer that had completely escaped your attention until now. For example, he always had several books lying next to him when he read one. Which made sense if he finished one of them within ten minutes. Also, he would always mouth off a little when he was talking about something that was bothering him. And when he was talking about something he liked, he spoke with an incredible passion that was contagious.

What surprised you the most was sleeping next to each other. Since you also had to pretend to be overjoyed at home, you had also planned to share a bed. It was the most sensible and the easiest. Spencer's presence even calmed you down when you woke up in the middle of the night because you had a bad dream, and his regular breathing in the evening helped you fall asleep.

On the fourth night, a nightmare jolted you from sleep. You didn't remember what exactly you had dreamed, but you knew that you wouldn't fall asleep again so quickly. As quietly as you could, you got out of bed, not wanting to wake Spencer, and went to the kitchen. You flipped on the light over the stove, grabbed a glass, and filled it with water. After a big gulp, you felt better, but still worried. Tired, you leaned against the counter and rubbed your hand over your face.

"Are you alright?" asked Spencer, entering the kitchen. He was wearing a loose T-shirt and boxers. Something you hadn't noticed before.

"I didn't mean to wake you, I'm sorry," you said honestly, putting the glass in the sink. Spencer just smiled, "I had a nightmare."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, standing next to you, you shook your head. "Okay." He was about to head back toward the bedroom, but stopped in the doorway. Spencer looked at you and you smiled weakly. He approached you again and reached for your hand. Carefully he pulled you to him and put his free hand on your lower back to press you closer to him. You laid your head against his chest and could hear his heartbeat. Then Spencer slowly rocked back and forth.

No one said a word as you danced with each other in the kitchen in the middle of the night. You enjoyed each other's presence and warmth. Spencer put a finger under your chin and made you look at him. There was no hate or dislike in his eyes. There was a twinkle in them that confused you greatly. Gently, he placed his lips on your forehead before pulling away.

"Let's go back to sleep," he smiled, pulling you by the hand back into the bedroom. In bed, he reached his arms out to you so you could lay your head on his chest. There it was again, his heartbeat. But this time it was faster, steady, but faster. Spencer reached for your hand again and intertwined your fingers. "Sleep well, Y/N," he was still whispering, but you were barely aware of it. You had never fallen asleep so quickly.

The next day, the two of you went for a walk in the evening. Spencer's hand in yours no longer felt strange, but very familiar. The whole relationship between you had changed fundamentally. There was no more bitching, no more evil glances, no more spiteful laughter. You wondered if it would stay that way when you left the house, or if you would go back to your old ways. Secretly, you hoped that you would remain friends when all this was over. Even though you had only been here a short time, you had actually grown fond of Spencer. You just hoped he felt the same way about you.

"Y/N," Spencer whispered when you reached your street.

"Huh?" You looked up at him and he smiled lovingly at you. You would never get enough of that look.

"Please look at me when I tell you this now. There's a man walking across the street, right at our level, with his hood pulled over his head," he continued to whisper and I tried not to let on. "He's been following us for two blocks. I think it's him."

I nodded. "We need to show him that we are to be his next victims," you stated. When you arrived at your house, Spencer pulled you even closer. You knew what was coming. You didn't resist, and not because it was part of your plan, but because you were waiting for it.

Spencer put his hands to your cheeks and leaned down to put his lips on yours. Your heart started racing, your knees went weak, and you felt dizzy. If Spencer hadn't been holding you, you would have slipped through his fingers. His lips were soft and warm and when you kissed him back, a grumble sounded from his chest. One of his hands moved to your butt, pressing your hips against his as he slid his tongue into your mouth. You felt hot and warm shivers ran down your spine. You tried not to think about the fact that you could feel his erection against your belly, but failed miserably.

With his other hand, Spencer reached for the key and opened the door without breaking away from you, then pushed you into the house where he could have pulled away from you, but he didn't. His kisses grew hungrier and greedier, his hands reaching under your butt so he could lift you up. Your legs knotted behind him. He carried you toward the bedroom and pressed you against the wall. You rubbed your hips against his and he moaned into your mouth.

"Fuck, Y/N," he groaned, sliding a hand under your shirt. His fingers danced over your bare skin and his touch burned into your skin. You wished this moment would never end.

"Cameron Bailey, put the knife down and raise your hands," Derek called out. Spencer and you jumped apart, completely confused and gasping for air, and saw the team standing in your bedroom. Derek took Bailey into custody and led him away. How had you not noticed that he had come into the house?

"Are you all right?" asked Emily, but you could only nod. What would have happened if Bailey hadn't broken in? How far would Spencer and you have gone?

It wasn't long before the team was back on the plane. Spencer sat alone at one end of the plane and you at the other. You hadn't had time to talk about what had happened, because after Bailey was arrested, you had packed your things and gone to the airport with the others. But what did you want to talk about? About the kiss? About the touch? About your friendship, if you could call it that? Never in your life had you been so uncertain as at that moment.

Spencer probably didn't want anything more to do with you, and you tried to tell yourself that you were okay with that. You tried to adjust to things going back to the way they were. It scared you that deep down you cared. You had hated Spencer for years and just a few days with him had completely turned your feelings upside down. And that bothered you the most.

"I could use a beer right now," Derek said when you arrived at Quantico. "Anyone coming?"

"I'm going home," you replied, slinging your bag over your shoulder. "My shower is waiting for me and my bed is calling for me too."

"Same here," Spencer gave and together you walked to the elevator while the others talked about where to go to celebrate. The silence between Spencer and you was unbearable, both outside the elevator and inside. You wanted to say something, but couldn't manage more than a guarded smile, which he kindly returned. At least no more bitching.

"Good night, Y/N," he said goodbye and left without turning around once more. You took a deep breath and headed home as well.

Once home, you dropped your bag on the floor and tried to wash off Spencer's touch in the shower. You brushed your teeth to scrub his taste from your tongue, but nothing could chase away the thoughts that haunted your mind. You put on fresh panties and an oversized shirt, which ended just below your butt. You were on your way to the couch when there was a knock on your door.

Without hesitation you opened the door and your heart stopped. Spencer stood in front of you, hands buried in his pockets and a small smile on his lips. "Hi."

"Hey," you said softly, and you didn't realize until then that you were standing in front of him half-naked. Embarrassed, you pulled the hem of your shirt down further. He glanced briefly at your hands and blushed before looking you in the eye again.

"I know this probably sounds stupid, but I don't know if I'll be able to sleep alone tonight. I've gotten used to sleeping next to you and after today, I don't think either of us should spend the night alone," he babbled, entering your apartment without prompting. You shut the door behind him. "Besides, there's something I wanted to do." Carefully he put his bag on the kitchen counter and came towards you with long steps.

It was not five seconds before he pressed his mouth on yours and a sigh came out of your mouth. His hands were everywhere and nowhere at the same time, so greedily they moved over your body, while yours got caught in his hair. When his fingers grazed your bare skin on your legs, you slumped against him.

"I didn't want to let you go home alone," he whispered between kisses, looking deep into your eyes. "I didn't want to sit so far away from you on the plane either, and when I got home, all I wanted was to be with you." His tongue dominated yours as his hands slid under your shirt. Your skin burned like fire where he touched you. "Tell me to stop, Y/N. Please tell me to stop and leave. Because if you don't do it now, I'll stay forever."

You went to kiss him, but he broke away from you and grabbed your chin with one hand, making you look at him. He was expecting a response. "Stay, Spencer. Stay forever and I'm yours."

That's all the confirmation he needed. His hands were on your hips again, but moved further down to briefly stroke your ass before leaning down and grabbing the back of your thighs. Without effort, he lifted you up and his lips assaulted your neck, and as he sucked on the soft spot where your jaw met your neck, all you could do was whimper his name.

Spencer carried you into your bedroom with ease, his mouth never leaving your heated skin. The warmth in your body grew with each kiss as he gently laid you on the bed. You pushed yourself to the head of the bed, allowing your head to rest on the soft pillow as Spencers hovered over you to kiss your neck.

His lips moved to your collarbone, his hands slid under your shirt and you arched up to meet him so he could easily pull it off. Hastily you reached for his shirt and undid the buttons to rip it from his torso. His weight was heavy on you and his hot skin almost burned you with every further touch. Without a word, you unbuttoned his pants and he kicked them off his long legs. For a brief moment you looked at each other. In that look were all the apologies you wanted to say, but that was no longer important. What was important was the man in front of you, the man you had fallen head over heels in love with in just a few days.

You put your hands on Spencer's back and felt the muscles dancing under your fingers. You took a quick glance at his black boxer briefs, which already seemed a little too tight for him.

"God, you're beautiful," he moaned as he glanced down your body. His hands were on your breasts and he rolled your left nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Again, you arched up to meet him.

"Spencer," you moaned, "no teasing. Please," you begged, closing your eyes to feel his touch more intensely. When you opened your eyes again, you could see a crooked grin on his face. He was enjoying your begging. Before you could say anything, he grabbed your panties and you could hear him ripping them. Cool air met your hot core and Spencer's boxers landed on the growing pile of clothes on the floor. You had to swallow. He was long and surprisingly thick and you wondered if he would fit. Spencer looked at you silently with raised eyebrows.

"I'm on the pill," you explained, grabbing his shaft with your hand and running your thumb over the tip to smear the pre-cum, making him moan with pleasure. You pumped him two times before Spencer grabbed your wrist.

"I won't last long if you keep this up, love," he rasped, guiding his pulsing erection to your wet entrance. You hooked your legs around his waist and pulled him so close to you that there wasn't an inch between you. He looked at you one more time, searching for something in your face, but you just smiled at him, drunk with love. And then he glided home.

His cock was stretching you like no man before did and it almost hurt, but with the pain came the pleasure. Spencer rested his forehead on yours and his breath was hot on your skin. "Are you okay?" he asked softly, stroking your cheek with his thumb. You leaned into his gentle touch.

"Move, please, Spence," you purred, and that was all he needed. He withdrew almost completely from you before thrusting into you again. He quickly found a steady pace and his length stroked all the right places. The heat between your thighs spiraled in your belly and you dug your nails into Spencer's back.

"Spencer, fuck," you breathed and he grinned before pressing his lips to your throat and gently biting your collarbone. Before you knew it, he was sliding his hand between your bodies and rubbing furiously over your clit and it was all getting too much for you.

Your nails raked across his skin and certainly left a few marks on as you climaxed and your vision went black.You spasmed around his cock and felt it twitch inside you. Spencer moaned a mixture of swear words and your name as he coated your walls with his cum, his fingers digging into your hips and probably bruising them.

He placed his lips on yours one last time before carefully pulling out of you and disappearing into the bathroom, returning with a warm washcloth. "Careful, love," he says softly, running it along between your legs to wipe your mingled cum. When he touched your sensitive clit, you flinched involuntarily. He returned the washcloth to the bathroom before lying back down with you. He pulled you to him and kissed your forehead. "Can I tell you something?" he breathed, you looked up at him quite exhausted.

"Of course."

He smiled lovingly. "I've fallen head over heels in love with you in the last few days," he confessed and your heart stopped. "The moment you laid your head on my chest in bed. You turned my whole world upside down and I can't imagine spending a single day without you anymore."

"You don't have to," you replied, putting your hand to the back of his head so you could pull him down to you. Gently you placed your lips on his and you felt his cock twitch against your belly. That's how strong your effect on him was. "I love you, Spencer."

In one fluid motion, he rolled onto you and pressed his mouth onto yours. This kiss was like the one in the house, angry, hungry and greedy. His hand slid between your legs and his fingers gently circled your clit. Your legs twitched and he pushed further down so he was eye level with your cunt. Gently he slid two fingers inside you and you moaned loudly. "I love you, Y/N. Don’t you dare forget it, when I make you scream and cum around my tounge.“ He licked long stripe from your entrance to your clit and gently sucking on it. Your body shook under his tounge and touch, as he slipped to fingers into your dripping cunt again. „Are you ready for round two?"

#spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid headcanon #spencer reid one hot #spencer reid blurb #spencer reid fanfiction #enemies to lovers #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x reader smut #criminal minds #criminal minds smut #Emily prentiss #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #Jennifer jereau #dave rossi

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randomgamefan · 3 years ago

Text

It's chapter 4 babey, not too long awaited and definitely something I'm excited to share!

I won't keep ya, get into it, feel free to yell in the comments!

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The four quickly headed out of the factory, Leshy looking as if the tech would jump out and bite him, which was quite amusing for P03. Grimora and Leshy stayed in front, chatting about cards as they walked, though Grimora world occasionally glance back at the two.

Luke walked at about the same pace P03 hovered, keeping his eyes on the ground, at least until the robot spoke.

"And why are you tagging along?" P03 asked with a smug face, it's tone implying Luke probably wasn't 'worthy' to walk with the scrybes, or something like that.

Luke shrugged. "I was invited to come along, and what else was I going to do? Sit in Leshy's cabin alone?"

P03 snickered. "Invited? What, by the insane duo at the front?"

Luke gave a nod. "yeeep. Got a problem with it?" He asked, trying to stop himself from letting a smile creep into his expression.

P03's display flicked, it's face now annoying, but it didn't respond.

Luke studied the robot for a second. For the entire time he played this game, P03 was incredibly self-centered. Why would it play along with Grimora? There had to be an ulterior motive, but what would P03 have to gain by coming? The whole situation boggled Luke's mind, for the short time he got to think about it.

It didn't take long for the group to reach the outer edges of Magnificus' domain, the air around them seeming to glow with a magical hint. The rocks on the ground shined and shimmered, though nothing was as bright as the factory reflected in the sunlight. The dirt under their feet was coarse, rocks and other things seeming to be uniformly mixed in.

The tower itself wasn't far away, though they had to cross a couple more bridges, much to Luke's dismay, though they soon approached the entrance to the tower itself. It loomed over the party, with what Luke would guess to be about 4 or 5 stories, all in worn brick. Moss and vines had taken over a large majority of the tower, which only enhanced the feeling of age. There were few windows, to be fair Magnificus didn't seem to be the type of person to longingly gaze out a window.

As Luke was looking the building up and down, a strange sort of crackling and whizzing noise came from beyond the main door. He pulled his gaze from the tower, staring at the door for only a moment before,

"HEY, LOOK OUT!"

A large stream of magic poured out of the door, Luke not even having a second to process it before something grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him off his feet and away from the stream.

Luke felt his heart beating out of his chest, taking a moment to calm down before realizing his feet weren't on the ground. Glancing over, a very startled looking P03 held him up. Holy shit, P03 had just saved him, what the fuck.

Before Luke had time to process what just happened, P03's expression turned to anger, and it dropped Luke to the ground. P03 might as well have marched in the tower, yelling a loud, "You almost killed me, what the fuck was-" before cutting itself off

Luke got quickly to his feet, running inside to see what the hell had just happened.

P03 stood in front of Magnificus, who seemed quite pleased with the anger of his fellow scrybe. Beside Magnificus were his three students, the lonely wizard bouncing a bit in place.

"Good shot," Magnificus commented. "Try to hit them next time, though."

"Okay!! Thank you master Magnificus!" The small wizard commented, seeming quite excited with the praise.

There was silence in the room as the other two scrybes made their way inside, clear surprise on their faces.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Magnificus asked, examining the group that now stood on the bottom floor of his tower.

P03 looked annoyed. "Are we just getting no explanation for this??" It practically shouted, gesturing around the room.

"Is there one needed?" He asked, raising his eyebrows at P03.

"For once I do agree with it." Luke commented, looking around with confusion. "there's a lot here that doesn't quite add up."

Last Luke had seen, Magnificus' students were locked up in essentially torture chambers, unable to escape and in a lot of pain. And from everyone else's reactions, that was the last they had hurt of it either.

Magnificus sighed, seeming to realize that he had to explain. "I suppose Luke opened my eyes. He knew how to play his cards and used my wizards against your creations." He gave a slight glare to P03.

"And Lone was going to leave if you didn't." The pike wizard commentated.

Magnificus seemed to be annoyed at that being revealed. Luke secretly felt a bit liberated - Lone deserved freedom, and here he was. Well, and the fact that.. hey wait.

"Did you just say that I helped you see their worth? Wait, you were watching in act 3??"

The words escaped Luke's mouth as soon as he thought them, He was glad, of course, but surprised to hear that he helped free the magicians.

The four scrybes in the room stared at Luke. Leshy and Magnificus just looked confused, while P03 seemed shocked and Grimora appeared.. not just surprised, but also a bit happy?

P03 turned to Grimora, seeming exasperated.

"Grimora! You *inscrybed* Luke?? What the fuck?!"

"I didn't mean to!" She countered. "I didn't think he was dead! I was just going to make a momento of everything!"

"Well, kind of hard to miss the recovery process, I don't think he had the ability to do that on his own, do you??" It countered.

Grimora growled. "I still couldn't have known he was dead!"

"You knew fine well there was a possibility! You did it on purpose. Admit it Grimora."

Luke took a moment to step in. "I'm sorry, can we please go back to the part where someone said I was dead?"

Luke could barely keep his footing, his heart beating loudly in his ringing ears. He held a hand to his head, trying to process anything that had just been said.

"Oh, and you didn't even tell him he was dead, just lovely! Grimora, I can't believe-"

Luke couldn't hear any more of what was being said. His vision was blurring at its edges, and he felt his entire body collapsing under him. The last thing he could remember was Lone cry out in alarm as his knees buckled

He just needed a few minutes

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