#they were classic enemies to lovers types

[mask-of-anubis]

If the first half of season 1 had gone just a little bit differently a Nina and Patricia enemies-to-lovers plot could have been so plausible

[jenscx]

CALL ME WHEN YOU GET LOST !

# special 2k celebration ; aespa as classic tropes

tags aespaxreader, fluff, idol!au, fifthmember!reader, karina’s fic is inspired by haobin fanmeeting, zero angst, flirty x flustered, only one bed, sunshine x sunshine protector, enemies to lovers

🎙️ author’s note: thank you everyone for 2k followers! i was never expecting to gain so much traction for my writing but i’m really happy that people have been enjoying my works! as promised, here is a special fic to truly show how grateful i am for your support (*¯︶¯*)

YU JIMIN — flirty x flustered

jimin would definitely enjoy teasing you a lot. the first time she had made an offhand comment, her eyes were basically sparkling when she witnessed the blush that spread through your face. she likes the way your eyes evert from her gaze.

“oh? are you blushing again? did your heart flutter because of me?” jimin would ask, staring at you intently with faux innocence. she’s amused by your hand reaching out to swat her face away. despite your disdain for her flirty nature, some part of you felt satisfied whenever jimin’s attention would be on you solely. it was egotistical, but you enjoyed it nonetheless; the fact that this one girl had people bowing down at her feet, worshipping her, but she only focused on you.

jimin’s flirting has no end; during vlogs, behind the scenes, instagram lives, concerts and even fanmeets. like that one time, a fan had asked jimin who she would her sibling date in aespa and her response had twitter up in flames the next day.

“who would i let my sibling date?” jimin hums thoughtfully, her head swaying from side to side as she observes her fellow members. you catch the way her lips curl into a smirk above the microphone, “that person must be a kind and sweet girl then…”

there’s multiple chants of ‘y/n’ from the crowd of mys, no doubt due to the popularity of ynrina. you bow your head down, cheeks already slightly red. then, jimin says, “maybe aeri? she’s very caring and reliable.”

the crowd falls silent with disappointment and then one fan shouts, “why not y/n?!” the mention of your name makes you snap your head upwards and you reach for the microphone to retort. yet, jimin beats you to it and she giggles slyly, “y/n is mine.”

“what?!” another fan shrieks and suddenly, they all erupt into cheers and screams. you wince at their loudness, the fluffy headband resting neatly on your hair nearly falling down. jimin’s face is filled with satisfaction and your members are equally as stunned as the crowd.

you groan, already feeling the fatigue from having to do another late instagram live to feed the fanservice after today. jimin only grins, clearly elated by the response of the fans.

“jimin-ah, why do you like y/n?!”

the mentioned girl only hums, supposedly unfazed by all the commotion caused by her answer.

“y/nnie? her reaction’s are cute, no?” jimin smiles, glancing at you. unfortunately for yourself, the seating arrangement was according to age and being the second oldest, you found yourself sitting next to jimin. “and she’s a good cook. she always cooks for us and her ramen is delicious. i think she would make a good girlfriend.”

your ears burn with embarrassment as multiple flashes go off, capturing the moment that would surely make its way onto the trending page tomorrow. jimin merely nods, proud of herself.

“what about you, y/n-ah?!”

you swallow your saliva, inhaling sharply and picking up the microphone. there’s a moment of hesitation before you mutter, “jimin unnie would make a good sister-in-law.”

the crowd bursts into disappointment and jimin glares at you playfully with disapproval. she huffs, “am i not your type?” her question only further fuels the burning heat in your cheeks. you can barely look at her now, eyes staring straight at the numerous letters and gifts your fans had given you that were all laid out on the table.

“so who would you choose to date then?” jimin adds. you can feel the saliva in your throat drying up, “uhm… maybe… minjeongie…”

“kim minjeong, don’t steal my y/n!” jimin yells as minjeong rolls her eyes. your eyes fall on yizhuo, who’s already grimacing at the scene. you just know she’s imagining her twitter timeline tomorrow.

“stop making fun of her before she explodes,” aeri chides as jimin gleefully chuckles. the older one reaches over to prod at your cheek, feeling the warmth and then cradling it in her palm, “her face is so hot.”

“unnie—” your voice comes out strained and luckily for you, minjeong cuts in, “rina unnie, calm down.”

jimin halts for a second and then sighs loudly and dramatically. she leans back into her chair, pouting. you can still feel the adrenaline rushing through your bloodstream from her touch. it’s maddening the way she can make you feel so flustered without much effort.

true to your words, both ‘karina’ and ‘y/n’ trended on twitter the next day. the keywords had exploded in popularity and there were thousands of edits of this supposed y/nrina moment.

@jjimyangs | 28/09/24

ynrina’s cute relationship ^^ the way rina says her sibling can’t date yn because yn is hers where can i find a yu jimin for myself 🙈

@ningzhyo | 28/09/24

ynrina is REAL. i can’t believe they’re this flirty and sweet in front of us this is sickening omfg im about to throw up. if they arent dating i’ll eat my sock

@solddaeng | 28/09/24

aespa trending cuz of ynrina… thank you gay people for existing 🙏🙏

UCHINAGA AERI — only one bed

going on tour meant having barely an hour’s worth of sleep, frantic running and packing, drastic practices that drained your energy and sharing hotel rooms together. most of the time, the company would be able to book separate rooms for all the members. at least when they were free, they could rest with comfort. you appreciated that fact. either that or the company would at least have member sharing a twin bed hotel room rather than a single.

yet, the hasty planning of the tour led to some misunderstandings and confusion. everyone had been working extremely hard for the upcoming schedules and perhaps some miscommunication had happened. hence, that’s why you found yourself staring at a single bed with uchinaga aeri by your side. for the hongkong stop, aeri was to share a room with you and you didn’t mind at all. you had been her roommate for a couple of months before. aeri was neat, clean and helpful.

unfortunately you couldn’t fathom how you both would be able to fit on a single bed. the room had no other space to sleep on— other than the living room couch.

you turn your head back to the couch situated right in front of the television stand. there’s already a feeling of soreness that runs through your back as you observe the firm and rough texture.

aeri was already having back aches with the amount of practise you had been doing and she couldn’t suffer another night. you weren’t too fond of sleeping on the couch either.

“let’s just sleep together,” aeri offers.

“will we both fit?” you ask hesitantly.

aeri grimaces slightly before nodding. you had already showered and due to your fatigue, you didn’t even notice that there was a single bed instead of two. freshly showered, aeri heads towards the bed and flops onto it. her body already took up almost a third of the space available and there was no doubt that you had to at least squeeze together to accommodate you as well. your hand reaches out to the side to turn off the remaining lamps. as the room dims, you take hesitant steps towards the bed.

you sit on top of the duvet sheet and carefully maneuver yourself to slide into the blanket. aeri only watches and she slowly inches closer to the side.

your skin eventually rests against the soft sheets and aeri’s body. her touch emits warmth and it sends a tingle down your spine. you don’t dare to look up at her, choosing to stare away. your hands are placed awkwardly by your side

“is this okay…?” aeri’s voice whispers beside your ear. you sink further into the mattress, feeling the tips of your ears burn at her close proximity. swallowing your saliva, you mumble back, “ye-yeah.. it’s fine.”

you can feel aeri shifting a bit before nodding her head. a moment of silence passes. your eyes eventually flutter close but aeri shuffles around again. when you peek in the darkness, half of her limbs are dangling down the bed and her face is scrunched up in discomfort. she’s facing the other side and at the edge of the bed.

“you should come closer. you’re gonna fall off,” you state, guilt seeping into you.

“it’s okay— there’s, uhm, not much space,” she replies. you ignore her words and turn around. once you’re facing her back directly, you reach out to tug at her arm, pulling her closer to the middle.

aeri lets out a whine but she doesn’t resist.

“should we just cuddle?” aeri asks quietly. there really wasn’t another way. you were fine with skinship but something about cuddling with the japanese seemed too intimate. you hadn’t been too comfortable with physical touch at first but after getting closer to the members, you would no longer flinch at their advances.

among all the members, you would say you spent the least time with aeri. despite being the same age, you just got too intimidated everytime she was near you. her domineering figure that towered over your head was frightening. sometimes, when you’re talking, she would lean down to listen better and it only makes you even more aware of how much taller she is than you. something about the noticable height difference made your chest constrict and your cheeks flush.

“i guess so,” you try to hide the nervousness in your voice. unfortunately, it does crack a little but aeri pays no mind to it. just as you flip your body around, she flings a hand over your waist, pulling your back flush against her chest. goosebumps rise against your skin as you feel her body warmth.

“this is better,” aeri mutters, sighing comfortably. her cool breath breezes over your ear, forcing an involuntary shiver that makes you shrink in her arms even further. her legs are woven with yours, tangling together like threads. you can feel every inch of the smooth expanse of her legs that silently, you curse yourself for wearing shorts. “you okay?” aeri asks.

“yes, i’m fine,” you croak out, “goodnight aeri.”

“mhm— night, lovely.”

@aebbltrans | 21/09/24

🌙💬 bubble update

‘did everyone sleep well?’

+1 📸

‘i sure did 🤭’

seems like ynselle slept together?!

@aerishilton | 21/09/24

yn and gigi shared a hotel room and bed last night omfg and gigi posting a photo of them cuddling YNSELLE NATION WE ARE ALIVE!

KIM MINJEONG — sunshine x sunshine protector

you had known minjeong for a long time— ever since you were trainees. most of the time, she was broody and indifferent. popular for her cold looks, the stage name ‘winter’ suited her well. sometimes, rarely, she would smile. you didn’t understand why she had such a poker face on for the longest time until she had gifted you with the sight of her smile. then you understood that it was because the curl of her lips would give people heart attacks immediately.

minjeong wouldn’t smile often, but when she did, it was like a gift from god himself. hence, everytime she would grace you with her smile, you would subconsciously capture the memory in your mind.

when you had first debuted, minjeong was criticised heavily for not having any facial expressions. you had spent countless nights as burner twitter accounts arguing with trolls and haters. you hated how everytime she went online, her smile would dim further.

you would have your ipad, macbook and phone all displaying the comment section under minjeong’s fancams and everytime you spotted a hate comment, you would start arguing with them about how minjeong was definitely not a robot and she had real emotions. sometimes minjeong would wake up from her naps, groggily hugging your back for comfort and you would get distracted from this super important matter at hand.

(but minjeong always comes first and she gives really good hugs, so you’ll abandon your devices in favour of cuddling her under her thick, comfy blanket.)

one time, the hate comments were especially bad and minjeong didn’t come out for dinner, even refusing her favourite food. obviously worried, you had gone to her room, begging for her to let you in.

after some time, minjeong finally opened the door. you had felt your chest deflating at her puffy eyes and red nose, still sniffling. you spent that entire night talking to minjeong, saying how proud you are of her and how she shouldn’t listen to whatever mindless nonsense she was reading.

“—i know it’s difficult to express your emotions well and i understand. you can always talk to me. i just want you to be happy,” you had comforted her. minjeong only stared at you, confused.

“i’m the happiest version of myself right now,” she had stated firmly. despite the evident tears rolling down her rosy cheeks, her voice was full of conviction. you could only smile fondly and rest your head against hers, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

at that moment, you had vowed to always protect minjeong. that precious smile that you rarely saw— it needed to be preserved gently, like a diamond. if you could keep her in a museum, protected behind a layer of thick glass no one could penetrate, you would.

even a few years into your career, when aespa was steadily growing in popularity, you had deemed yourself as the knight in shining armor that would protect your minjeong from harm. traveling meant that fans would swarm the airport and paparazzi would camp outside the terminals, hoping to take photos of the newly arrived idols.

the moment you stepped out of the gates, fans had started pushing around and a crowd swiftly formed, surrounding the whole group and the bodyguards. minjeong was latched onto your arm and you felt her grip tighten as multiple flashes of cameras went off. you had pulled her a little closer to your body, ensuring that the horde of fans couldn’t get too close.

“winter! look here!”

"karina-ssi!"

minjeong’s head turns and she’s nearly bombarded by a new onslaught of fans, all pushing towards her like zombies. instinctively, you step ahead to block her from everyone, a scowl plastered on your face. you loved your fans and your life as an idol but sometimes the attention was overwhelming. hands reached out through the gaps between the security, holding letters and gifts. you had tried your best to grab any envelopes with one hand since your other was occupied with hugging minjeong.

one hand filled with letters, you try to muster up a grateful smile at everyone despite your annoyance that they were shoving cameras in your face. the other members were in front, jimin leading the way while aeri and yizhuo followed closely behind. you could see the gate where the company car was parked from far away. knowing that you would reach soon, relief settled in your heart while minjeong’s fingernails dug into your skin.

“you okay?” you ask loudly over all the shouting. minjeong nods meekly and exclaims through her mask, “i’m okay!”

almost a third of the way there, you hear a yelp within the crowd and a blur flashes by your face. security immediately tries to block off the stranger breaching through their protection. the person manages to just glide their fingertips on minjeong’s shoulder before you jump into action, grasping the collar of their shirt and pulling them as far away as you could from minjeong. then, you shove them forcefully into the hands of your bodyguards, leaving them to deal with the stranger. you can feel minjeong trembling beside you and internally, you curse yourself for not acting faster.

the rest of the trip to the car goes by smoothly; all the fans seemed a little more timid now, probably shocked that their idol would push them away and scared of the repercussions if they did get too close. the moment you entered the car, you inhale sharply, finally catching a breath of fresh air from all the commotion.

“thank you for just now,” minjeong whispers quietly and if you hadn’t been paying extra attention to her, you would have missed it.

“that guy got too close,” you shake your head, frowning at the thought of him being within a metre radius of minjeong. the girl only pouts cutely, “at least you were there to save me.” she says it like she’s a damsel in distress that you were owed the duty of protecting. maroon colouring your cheeks, you cough awkwardly, “just making sure you guys are fine.”

“you should join the security team,” jimin chuckles while aeri feels up your biceps, aweing in disbelief, “how’d you manage to throw him like that?! you don’t even go to the gym.”

meanwhile, yizhuo just sighs, “twitter’s going to be crazy tomorrow.”

@kminsiksgf | 29/09/24

DOES ANYONE HAVE THAT VIDEO OF YN TOSSING THE SASAENG AWAY FROM MINJEONG

@krynaeri | 29/09/24

oomf just blessed me with a new minyn moment 😫 wish i was mj so bad i want yn to be throwing people around for me.

@ynbubble | 29/09/24

🫧💭 [3.17pm]

mys~~ please be careful if you come see us at the airport ^^ walk slowly and carefully! to protect yourself don’t push around and make sure to be respectful!

+1 📸

look at how well minjeongie is taking her afternoon nap! like a cute puppy 🐶

NING YIZHUO — enemies to lovers (one-sided)

ever since the chinese girl had became your roommate, you had hated her. from the moment she landed in sm, she always managed to ignite a fire of rage inside you. ning yizhuo was cocky, rude and nasty in your eyes. you wouldn’t understand why jimin and minjeong were so prone to hanging out with her since she was a literal spawn of satan. sometimes you think that god sent her up to earth from hell to test your limits.

constantly eating your snacks, throwing paper airplanes at your head folded from lyric sheets, purposely bumping into you during dance practices, was there a day that went by without your blood boiling because of ning yizhuo? you hated how she used her angelic charms and innocence as a maknae to get herself out of trouble. when you had received the confirmation of shooting a debut music video, your heart had leapt, then dropped down into a bottomless pit when jimin had awkwardly muttered, “ning too.”

since your debut wasn’t truly confirmed until the music video dropped, you had prayed every day consistently, hoping that somehow, one of the higher-ups would decide to take yizhuo out of the lineup. yet, that never happened since on the seventeenth of november, you had debuted with yizhuo by your side. the anger you held for her subsided for a while during the first round of promotions since even it couldn’t overwhelm the happiness of debuting. but the moment everything settled again, it came back swinging in full force.

nothing you did seemed to restrain yizhuo from causing trouble. she would even bully you in front of the cameras, pinching your cheeks and smacking your shoulder roughly, all under the guise of being friendly. yizhuo knew you wouldn’t retaliate against her while shooting, so she took her chance. the popularity of the ‘tom and jerry’ duo, as fans had coined, only further brought suffering in your life. management would constantly want you and yizhuo to interact and they would force you to sit next to each other during fanmeetings.

“stop pinching me!” you yell, whacking yizhuo’s hand away with a my melody plushie a fan had gifted. the crowd only laughed at how yizhuo avoided your attacks and squeezed your cheeks gleefully. you wanted to smack that smirk off her face.

“mys, isn’t y/n so cute?” yizhuo asks, grinning proudly. head pounding from how hard your heart was beating, you give up fighting back and choose to glare at yizhuo between your squished cheeks.

“stop bullying her,” jimin chuckles, putting on a night fury headpiece. yizhuo rolls her eyes but she relents. throughout the fansign, she would make teasing comments, borderline almost hurtful if you weren’t already used to her antics.

one fan had asked, “how do you deal with ningning all the time? you’re very patient.”

you had to hide the disgusted sneer on your face and opt for a casual laugh, “she’s a handful. i’m just doing my best.”

yizhuo had obviously giggled at your lie and continued conversing with her own fan animatedly. just as another fan sits down, you hear the mind-boggling request of, “can we have ningy/n posing together?” your eyes had nearly bulged out of their sockets and you almost blurted out for her to repeat her question. unfortunately, yizhuo had heard her (because she has supersonic bat hearing, which you found out after you had cursed her under your breath and she merely winked at you).

“c’mere,” yizhuo wiggles her fingers around, pulling your chair closer and forming a half of a heart with her left hand. begrudgingly, you do the same with your right hand, smiling at the wave of flashes that go off. her other hand wraps around your shoulder, gripping it tightly but playing it off as skinship. you wince at the sharp nails that dig into your bare skin.

even after the fansign, you could still see the indents she left behind if you craned your neck. the car ride back to the dorms was the only peace and quiet you kept to yourself. yizhuo would normally be knocked out after such a tiring day and she, understandably, would much rather sleep than annoy her favourite member. you would sneak glances at yizhuo, who was coincidentally sitting next to you, making sure she wouldn’t jolt awake and scare you or anything.

(at least that’s what you told yourself.)

the bumpy ride only caused yizhuo to flinch and shift uncomfortably in her seat, cuddling further into one of the many plushies the fans had given her. you would use this time to stare out the window and admire the serenity of the scenery. when the car hit a particularly rough patch in the road, yizhuo jostled before her head dropped lowly onto your shoulder. you couldn’t even recoil away since you were sitting next to the car door.

“how cute,” aeri teases, pointing at yizhuo who rested soundly. you grit your teeth and scoff, “this wasn’t by choice.”

your quick quips attracted the attention of jimin and minjeong as well, who joined in.

“are you sure you hate her?” minjeong asks mockingly. you clench your fists and make a gesture of punching her. unfazed, she only leans further into her seat and whispers conspiratorially, “she likes you, don’t you know?”

“shut up—”

jimin cuts in, “seriously though, ningie has never paid so much attention to someone before.”

your cheeks redden involuntarily and there’s a conspicuous gulp of saliva that goes down your throat.

“what?!”

“don’t you get it? why ningie only teases you?” aeri questions again, her voice full of intrigue this time. with the members’ stares on you, you can only squeeze your eyes shut and huff loudly, “it’s not like that!”

sighing, aeri turns back to her phone, “sure kid. whatever you wanna tell yourself.”

similar to aeri, minjeong and jimin do the same and indulge in their own conversation while you’re left to ponder about their words.

ning yizhuo who would only steal your pocky. ning yizhuo who would only doodle on your lyric sheets. ning yizhuo who would constantly find some way to make you angry. ning yizhuo who you hated.

you knew she was doing all this to get a reaction out of you but you hadn’t expected it to be for such a reason.

ning yizhuo who only ever wanted your attention.

your entire body flushes at the realisation and you freeze when yizhuo stretches her arms out, waking from her slumber.

“ah— sorry,” she says lowly, her voice raspy from the nap. you don’t bother replying her, scared that your own voice might crack. hiding behind your bangs, you face away.

yizhuo doesn’t take the hint that you physically cannot speak to her right now and she insteads places a hand on your thigh that sends sparks of humiliation throughout your veins, grinning slyly, “your shoulder’s super comfortable. lend it to me some other time, okay?”

🔔 NINGNING just made a post.

with my favourite y/nnie! ☀️💛

see all comments

aerichandesu don’t hog y/n all to yourself 😕

↳ imnotningning she likes me the most.

imwinter i thought i was your favourite?

↳ imnotningning sorry, no.

katarinabluu congrats on the newlyweds~

↳ imnotningning you’re my second favourite!

[thepettymachine]

Wandering Souls Challenge for TS3

Heeey so I made another challenge. Might be the last one I ever make who knows. But I got inspired by the Postcard Legacy for TS4 and made something similar but not similar to it. It took a minute to make but I hope you enjoy

Wandering Souls Challenge is a 10 generation legacy challenge where you go through multiple jobs and careers with story elements involved. This is a challenge if you don't wanna do just one career all of your sims life and don't mind moving around + mild drama but not soul shattering.

Tag: "wandering souls challenge" or "@" me

Rules:

I didn't really make any but don't feel obligated to do everything as an objective. Somethings you probably aren't going to get to everything and that's okay. If you do everything congratulations, if you don't move on.

I have no designated way to play this (ex: what town do you recommend in playing with this), I'm giving the player what they want to do within the confines of this challenge. It's your sandbox not mine.

You do have some optional goals for extra fun if you choose to do so.

Have fun

Carry On Wayward Son

When you were young, you didn’t take anything as serious as your music. Your obsession with the chords became as necessary as breathing and you’ll do anything but sell your soul to the industry. But as you grew older and had a family, you wish for more structure with your music in hopes for it to reach the people that desperately need to hear it. So you find an indie record company and work with them because your artistic freedom is still the forefront of why you’re doing all of this. Plus feeding your family and paying the bills. 

Objectives:

Start by making money through collecting tips while working part time jobs

Half way through your YA years, you try a Singing career or being part of a band but it doesn’t work out

As an adult, you enter into the Music career for more structure and to reach a larger fanbase

Pick a branch between classical or rock

Your lover/(s) must be all creative types like you (artist, sculptor, architect, musician, street artist, etc)

You encourage your children to also pursue the arts

Master all 4 instruments (guitar, bass, piano, and drums)

Get at least 3 tattoos somewhere on your body

2. Jeffrey Jeffrey Simzos

If the Grinch and Scrooge had a love child, it would be you. You couldn’t really get behind your parent’s idealistic dreams about music and art, it felt unstable and unrealistic to you. You want wealth and power at your fingertips and anyone at your beck and call. Whether its through a wealthy spouse, your boss, the corporate ladder, or getting into politics, you will reach the top. For there is no redemption arc and no grace to be given for Greed has already devoured the remnants of your dead beating heart.

Objectives:

Have bake sales as a child and dislike any attempts at the arts

Join the Business career

Be enemies with all of your coworkers

Go from a small house/apartment to a big mansion/house

Be the owner of multiple businesses around town + an additional home

Marry a rich sim you definitely married for money

Have at least one child with the butler or maid you hired

You become more power hungry so you join Politics after reaching level 8 of Business career

Steal campaign funds 

Your kids must be the top of their class, no exceptions (straight A’s, no skipping school, be apart of a club) or they are sent to boarding school

You are not close with any of your children

Optional: woohoo your boss

3. Yes Chef

Because excellence was required of you as a child, you tend to have a strong work ethic and unrealistic expectations for yourself and others while despising what you had to endure in your upbringing. The one good thing out of it was discovering your love of cooking. Cooking was a way for you to escape your worries and as an adult you desire to be a chef, going against everything your parents raised you with. You started from the bottom and found your way all the way at the top as head chef. But something is missing and so you explore other cultures and find new excitement in  nectar making. You figure when you retire, you wanna spend the rest of your days being a nectar maker on a giant farm in the countryside.

Objectives:

Start at the diner for the first half of your career, then move over to the bistro for the second half

Bartend for bars at night for extra income

Read every recipe and learn all the fancy drinks

Master Cooking & Mixology

Marry your childhood friend or high school friend you haven’t seen in years

Cook your spouse and children their favorites meals at least once

At the top of your career, you get bored and visit travel other cultures for their cuisine (go to France, Egypt, and China to learn their food recipes)

Get inspired by nectar making 

When becoming an Elder, move to the countryside, retire as a chef, and become a self employed nectar farmer. 

4. Country Roads, Take Me Home

You’ve always found interest in nature as a kid and instead of wanting to be in the comfy suburbs or stargazing the city’s skylines.You even had a knack for bringing stray animals into your home but they always seemed to run away when you left for school (according to your parents). That’s why instead of working a typical 9-5, you fulfill your childhood dream of being on a farm and working with your bare hands. Building a life you always dreamed of yet will work hard to maintain. There’s no sleeping in for this dreamer.

Objectives:

As a child you were part of the scouts

Live on a farm or ranch

Work as a self employed gardener

Master the Fishing, Gardening, and/or Riding skill

Adopt 2 strays (horse, dog or cat)

Marry your helper on the farm or Marry a townie that loves the outdoors/animal lover trait

Wake up in the early hours of the day

Have a big family cause free child labor

Raise a horse from baby to elder 

Optional: Own a cow plant 

Optional: Win the highest horse competition (racing or jumping)

5. He was #1

You’ve always had an interest in the outdoors but sports was your passion and you’re very good at it. So good, you were being scouted by agents who hoped to take you to the pros and have your name chanted by the thousands. Your dream did come true but another did not. You’re a closeted hopeless romantic who always wished to find their soulmate and have a family, but being a professional athlete with a recognizable face has made it difficult for you to find true authentic love. What will it take for you to find love and will you have to choose between your two greatest loves or can they both coexist together for your sake.

Objectives:

Enjoy your outdoor activities (playing ball, going to the pool, camping, etc) once a week

Find love through online dating 

Go on 3 dates with a person before committing 

Host a big wedding party and bachelor/bachelorette party and if possible, ask your partners parents for their blessing

Master the Athletic skill

Become a stay at home parent when you reach level 6  of the sports career

After a sports injury that takes you out of the field. You find yourself recovering and unemployed and decide to take care of your children while deciding your next move. 

You realize you want to be a sports agent so you go back to college as an adult and get your physical education degree 

Reach level 10 of Jock social group. 

Join the Sports Agent career

Gain the Eternally Faithful Moodlet

6. You Blinded Me with Science:

Curiosity killed the cat or in your case it just made you curiouser. You couldn’t keep your hands still and always have to be tinkering with something. So much so that you lost your beloved job at the science lab because you kept goofing around with some scrap from the town’s junkyard during company hours. No worries, you just decided to go all in with being a self made inventor and creating gizmos and gadgets the world has never seen before. Except one day, you find a mysterious device you’ve never seen before and upon activating it, you end up in the future. There are alot more prettier machines than the ones you’ve been messing around with and you sorta take one home with you. Oh well what’s the worst that can happen. 

Objectives:

Start out in the Science career but get fired after reaching lvl 3 in inventing and join the Inventor self employed career 

You spend your weekends messing around in the town's junkyard and blowing stuff up for your experiments. The neighbors even catch you dumpster diving around town 

Marry someone just as eccentric and quirky as you (ex: eccentric, neurotic, insane, socially awkward, slob, etc)

Master the handiness and inventing skills

Create all inventions, including a simbot

Make some of your children through the Time Machine (past: child - YA/ future: elder, you can age down if you wish) 

All your children’s traits have to be randomized

Optional: Go into the future and obtain all the gadgets to bring them back home to the present 

Optional: You even bring back home a plumbot and learn how to take care of one

Optional: Leave the Inventor career and present and work in the Astronomy career in the future.

7. Who You Gonna Call?

This generation can be played in two different ways. The choice is up to you. (Also double heirs can be accepted for this gen)

Super Skeptic Route:

The question you’ve always asked yourself was “Are Ghosts Real?” You believed in the supernatural, the horror stories, and the abduction of Bella Goth and was hoping to find evidence in the graveyards. But alas you could never find your ghosts and your dreams were crushed. Now as an adult, you’ve become a skeptic and believe it all to be a charade and try to speak sense into the “sheep” around you to see the light. Until one day you do encounter a ghost and for the last time, you investigate into the question, “Are Ghosts Real?”.

Objectives:

Work in a graveyard in your teen years

Have the Supernatural Skeptic trait. 

You dabble in Alchemy but it never takes effect on you. 

Join the Con Artist branch of the Fortune Teller career

Encounter 3 ghosts to convince you that ghosts are real

Leave the Fortune Teller career to become a Ghost Hunter

You convince Ghosts to move on/ Set them free rather than have them experiment on by the science lab (avoid opportunities that say otherwise) 

Do all investigations (spirit invasion, paranormal investigation, poltergeist haunting, ghostly presence, angry ghost invasion)

Ultra Fan Route:

As a child, you always found yourself interested in what couldn’t be reasoned or argued against, the supernatural. You obsessed over horror stories, wandered into graveyards, deep subreddits of conspiracies behind Bella Goth’s abduction and studied too many ways to become one. You started to give up hope of ever becoming one. Until one day you befriend a fellow occult member of society and it changed your life forever.

Objectives:

Work in a graveyard in your teen years

Have the Supernatural Fan trait

Master the Alchemy skill

Start a side hustle of being an author writing primarily in the horror genre

Publish 15 horror books

Join the Mystic branch of the Fortune Teller career

Befriend a supernatural of your choice to be turned into

Get 1st place at Trivia night at the Vault of Antiquity

8. Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Being a doctor was something you always thought you wanted to be. It came with status, notoriety, respect, money, student loans, and it was something more stable than what your parents were able to give you. You worked hard and got into the Medical career where you met your spouse and lived in a beautiful home with your two kids and pet. It’s like everything worked out in the end. But your desire to see the world burn just keeps rearing its ugly head and you can no longer contain the person you thought you repressed for so long. It desires the status and respect you’ve obtained but also infamy, underlings, and power.

Objectives:

Have the Evil trait

As a teen, be a straight A student, work a part time job, and be best friends with your parents, enemies with your siblings (if applicable)

Choose to go to college on full scholarship or enter the Medical career immediately. 

Marry a fellow coworker whose as ambitious or hardworking as you

Live in a nice home with a white picket fence, 2 kids and a pet of your choice

Befriend some townies who work in the Criminal career

Donate to criminal organizations at least once a week

Leave your job in the Medical career in your adult years

Join the Criminal career

Choose the Evil branch of the Criminal career and reach the top

Optional: Divorce your spouse, find a new home, bring the kids (or don’t) and marry your criminal coworker.

9. Baywatch

You used to work in law enforcement until the red tape got to you and so you went to become a private investigator. Solving crimes and digging through trash got exhausting and difficult as you try to serve others yet the system kept letting you down. After having a midlife crisis, You’ve come to realize that helping people can be simple, enjoyable, and have a great ocean view. Being a lifeguard wasn’t in the career plan but saving lives from the depths of the oceans and looking good in red too. Not a bad career change.  

Objectives:

Join the law enforcement career

Become friends with/date your cop partner 

When reaching level 5 of the career, you leave your job to go into the Investigative career to get away from the red tape 

Continue being an investigator until your Adult years

Have a midlife crisis and complete all the wishes or go get therapy at the hospital

At the end of your crisis, you join the Lifeguard career

Find an island or befriend a mermaid  

Master the scuba diving skill and logic skills

10. Master of None

Oh the journey you have been on. From caring about the music to fighting robbers in people’s homes, you’ve been through it all. As you worked hard for what you wanted, You have reached this crossroad and wonder what it all means and what it meant before. Maybe discovering yourself is what the journey is all about or maybe it's the experiences that shape you that gives you your form. Regardless, you’ve been feeling torn about what to do now and with no destination, maybe you start to express who you truly are. Who knows. There is no rush in the process or a destination in sight, only the curiosity that keeps your soul wandering on the journey.  

Objectives:

Join at least 5 different careers you haven’t played in this challenge (Education, Magician, Firefighter, Stylist, etc)

Have 3 best friends you maintain until Elder

Start dabbling in painting or sculpting in your free time outside of work. 

Meet the love of your life 

Be apart of your community - take opportunities that involve helping your neighbors/fellow townies

Pamper yourself -  go to a place in town for some you time once a week

Learn a new skill once a week (you don’t have to master it) 

If applicable, befriend your grandchildren 

Optional: turn your hobby into your job 

Thank you for playing. Feedback is welcomed

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  @griefabyss69! GriefAbyss has 97 fics posted to AO3 in the Stranger Things fandom and 92 of them are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by GriefAbyss:

Quiet Nights

Still Motion

Vulture

Concrete Lovers

All Is Fine

"If you're looking for quality Steddie smut, Grief's profile is where it's at. There's such variety to the fics they write, that I feel like there's something for all tastes. If there's a very specific spicy tag you're looking for, they probably have a fic for that.Their phillia series is particularly delightful." -- anonymous

Below the cut, GriefAbyss answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I write Steddie because we were given enough in canon to build a solid foundation of these characters—but not nearly enough to be satisfied. They’re also so easy to put into different situations, and in my case that usually means bondage! I think they’re both really interesting, well acted, and for me, they both ping that feeling you get when a character has a specific trait/experience/etc that you do. Also I really enjoy doing character explorations through sex and sex adjacent themes, especially BDSM/kink. What a character is or isn’t into can say a lot! More surface level; I like it when men are hot, especially with each other. :’ )

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Is there a trope name for when two people are just messing around—wrestling or whatever—and accidentally get turned on and it becomes this push and pull thing where you know the embarrassment isn’t going to win out but the tension is still so good that you’re still like cheering from the stands when they start making out? Probably. I don’t know it though. That kind of thing is fantastic, especially if they’re rivals/enemies/etc.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Getting together, 100%. It’s the majority of what I write over all of my work no matter what type of writing it is! I also love to subvert the classic romance / sex / friendship scripts, so there’s a lot of buddyfucking and first kisses after sex (sorry to my LARP AU readers lmao). I’d say that kink discovery ties in with that well, because it’s rare for me to write a getting together story without sex, and it’s rare for me to write sex without getting kink involved.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

Here are three that are my faves, and I think might become other people’s new favorites! All three are very different, but they’re so well written and give you something really good—or interesting—to chew on. dog at the door by cchapsticck is hands down my FAVORITE, in the way that it’ll gut you so beautifully. I read it during a time where it was very cathartic (life is sad, gross, and dumb sometimes, to be suuuper reductive lmao), and I’m waiting for a good time to revisit it. Take the tags seriously, this is 100% a horror story. your dog or your bullet but i'm always a/stray by andwhatyousaid is another gorgeous fic with dog in the title that will gut you, but in a much kinder way. I also read this at a time where it hit me in a very cathartic way—this is more about the survival and growth after a certain kind of horror. Leomund's Lamentable Belaborment Makes It Hard To Graduate High School by perceived_nobility is the first fic I read that really nailed Eddie’s internal voice in my opinion! If you’re a fan of depictions of Eddie with ADHD, this is absolutely for you. It has a lot of details in it that feel so real to life too.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

It’s more of a genre, but erotic horror. I’ve been trying to sink my teeth into it but it still comes out either too erotic with little horror, or too horror with little eroticism. I have the vague plot ideas, but I don’t have the balance yet! Related (or not, who knows), I haven’t written sex pollen yet, which I think is strange because I love complicated sexual tension! I do have notes written down on how I want to go about it though, so it’ll be a part of my WIP city at some point.

What is your writing process like?

Sometimes I get a flash of something that would be hot or beautiful or interesting, and open a doc and start writing before it disappears. If I’m not at home I have to make do with writing down the gist of the idea on my phone which is... fine. I think I’ve lost some good ideas to just being at work and unable to do much with them when they’re right there in my fingers instead of gathering dust lost in the back of my mind. I do have an ideas document that is miles long at this point, though! And approx 65 WIPs. So I have plenty to work with. Other times I spend months and months daydreaming about something, examining the plot/themes/etc over and over from different POVs, until it eventually just comes out of me with little input. I have a WIP that comes to mind, where I got up one day and started writing and like three days later—I ate and slept I promise—I had 50K. That was in October, and now it’s a respectable 70K+, because life got in the way of my momentum, and I had other WIPs to finish sooner. When this happens it’s like I’m possessed by writing ghosts.

Do you have any writing quirks?

Mostly just an extreme pickiness about my writing environment! I need to be alone, have a specific word processor (if anybody knows of a Linux equivalent for microsoft WordPad, win7 edition, hit me up), headphones—usually with white noise AND music playing, and sweatpants on. Some of my friends get fully dressed to write at a desk, and I wear what’s basically pajamas to write while sitting on my couch :’ )

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule? Oh my god I’ve learned my lesson with this one. For every fic I’ve written except for two of them, I fully finished writing and editing before posting them. I didn’t do that for one chaptered fic, and managed a decent update schedule, but with the second one… well, to the people who are waiting on a Vulture update, it’s coming soon! Thanks for your patience! It’s much easier for me to have a full fic to work off of, to change as I like, especially when it’s been a month since I’ve had the chance to even look at it. I think once Vulture’s done, I’m going back to strictly finishing before posting, though people have been very encouraging on it even though it’s not finished <3

Which fic are you most proud of?

I’m giving you two answers because I’m breaking the rules lmao 1. The first fic I ever finished and posted: Hell Patrol - It was kind of terrifying to share a piece of myself like that, especially in a fandom with so many people. I used to have a blog back in the day where I posted original art that got like no attention, which suited me well enough because attention seemed like a double edged sword at best—until this! So far 99.9999% of people have been nice. I’ve posted a lot, so I don’t really get nervous anymore, and I’ve gotten more comfortable writing what I want to. Mostly I get nervous about finding time to write everything I want to! 2. Silence Awakened - This was written for @steddiesmuttyseptember, and I really pushed both my ability to write under a tight deadline and my ability to turn something I thought was a very rough first draft into something I ended up liking a lot. I also had the idea for the gag sitting for a while, and was really happy to finally have a use for it! I’m not sure that I feel strongly proud of any of them over others, I think I’m just proud that I’ve finished things after a lifetime of struggling to finish any creative projects I started, and proud that my writing is—hopefully—getting better!

How did you get the idea for Quiet Nights?

This was another @steddiesmuttyseptember story! There were prompts: Soft and Slow, Backseat, Clothes On. Those really helped me get started, and I find it fun to write about public sex and also the idea of getting stuck on the side of the road with your hot best friend, so this was fairly easy to write. It was definitely one of those “I daydreamed about this for months and it fell out of me” fics. I also really like Steve’s car and need to write more about it :’ )

When writing Still Motion, what was something you didn’t expect?

This is the first fic I wrote where I felt like I was finally getting a handle on Steve’s voice, which was a nice surprise! I also had such a strong idea for the premise, but not for the ending, so figuring out how to carry that through but still having a satisfying end to the story was harder than I expected. I’m really glad I figured it out, though.

What inspired Vulture?

For anyone who’s read Vulture, this might sound weird, but trauma. It’s absolutely not 1:1 in the fic (and the story isn’t even really about trauma at all, despite the traumatized characters), but sometimes you gotta write about something through 100 filters and let that writing be a comfortable place to live in. Maybe some of the adjacent themes crept in, but it’s not really a puzzle or a mystery to solve—ultimately the story changed so much after the first few chapters that it isn’t really about that anymore. This is one of those WIPs that I come back to when I need some place where I can solve the problems that come up and it doesn’t even take anything away from me to do it. Also I wanted to explore a way more fun part of life, which is hearing an album so good you would eat it if it was possible, and then add in the sexual tension between Steve and Eddie, plus the vulnerable tension of their feelings.

What was your favorite part to write from Vulture?

I have a lot of favorite parts from this! It’s a pleasure to write, when I have the time to actually sit down and get to it. (Though I did write myself into a corner and had trouble fixing that, which halted progress on it, but I should be able to update it this month unless my life Gets In The Way <3) A few favorites are: 1. When Steve found out Eddie gave nobody else a copy of the tape. 2. The scene where Eddie’s sitting behind the counter at Family Video with Steve, severely sleep deprived, and the follow up scene where Eddie visits Steve at Family Video and brings him something. 3. The callback to the play wrestling scene in Chapter 1 in Chapter 8. That was a long time coming! Especially since I wrote Chapter 8 after a long break from working on this.

How do/did you feel writing Concrete Lovers?

This was a WIP I started almost a full year ago, because so many people were so nice about Acceptance and Negation, which is the first forniphilia/human furniture story I wrote. I wasn’t going to write more of A&N, so I started this one because not only did I want to revisit this kink very badly, but many people have said A&N opened them up to it. So this was written for the human furniture enjoyers, old and new! Including me. I felt great writing it, even though it sat at a dead end for months and months in my WIP folder. The fic I was writing for Dom Eddie week had turned into oh no they’re both switches, and so I decided this was a great chance to work on Concrete Lovers. I love this style of domming, especially from Eddie, who’s always so dramatic that writing him being so casual and playful about domming someone—even if he doesn’t know that’s what he’s doing—is really, really fun. And Steve, man. In A&N I was able to articulate something so fundamental to what I enjoy about enemies to lovers, and the beginnings of getting into a kink you had no idea you had, but I needed to get back inside of his head and go onto the next step. How does he feel when he trusts Eddie so much that he’ll just shrug and go with the flow, until he’s so at peace and horny that he realizes he’s breaking social rules—and Eddie is letting him? How will he feel afterwards as he struggles to get back to normal? They’re both not knowledgeable about BDSM in this fic on purpose, and so navigating the aftercare was a good exercise in not being too “by the book” about it. So all of that to say I had a lot of fun, especially once I got back into it. Even the idea of it—Steve standing there holding up the incense sticks—is so beautiful in my head, it’s very gorgeous and quiet. I’ve never seen incense holder done in any of my research—or “research”—for this kink, so it was satisfying to take it from my head and make it into something concrete. I’m very happy with this one!

What was the most difficult part of writing All Is Fine?

God. Finishing it. This one was so fun to write—right up until it was the most difficult thing to get through, and not for any particular reason! I’m glad I did it though. I think if I had been more committed to fleshing out the first parts before the sex, the rest of it would’ve been more satisfying to write to be honest.

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

The scene in Transcending Dualities where Eddie and Steve both dump their tapes out onto the floor to share music is one I love. I think Steve is a “I listen to everything including Rap and Country” kind of guy, so he had a few of the same tapes as Eddie, and the way Eddie figured that out was really funny :’ ) And the scene in Waves where Steve forces Eddie to keep his mouth open by holding his teeth apart with his fingers. It’s just hot, strange, and vulnerable! It’s one of those ideas that hit me in a flash that I had to write immediately.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Like I said earlier, I hope to update Vulture this month! Other than that, I should have a steddiemicrofic this month, and I’m working on a sequel to Lingual Frenemies for Sub Eddie week in April. And a few other things that I might get done on time for the deadlines for corrodedcoffinfest’s May Mayhem and some steddiesportsau prompts! Also random WIPs I’m tapping away at that might get finished this month. No promises on an update to LARP AU before April but it’s been a while and I did some work on the next installment today. I have a lot of ambitions and very little writing time these days :' )

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Thank you to everyone who runs this blog, it’s made my To Be Read list a million miles longer, and I’ve found some fics here that I really loved! Thank you to whoever nominated me, this made my week! It was such a pleasant surprise <3 Also, thank you to anyone who’s given me any encouragement, or feedback. It’s easy to feel like an outsider in a fandom (especially after not participating in one for many years), but I’ve met a lot of friendly people here <3  Lastly; get weirder with it!!!

Thank you to our author, @griefabyss69, and our nominator! See more of GriefAbyss's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[princesssarisa]

My post about whether or not Lydia should be saved from Wickham in modern Pride and Prejudice retellings has gotten more likes and reblogs than I expected. It's made me think of another possibility of why Austen didn't save her from him.

Presumably, Lydia and Wickham's marriage could have been avoided in only three ways that would have left Lydia's reputation intact. The first is if they had only been planning to elope, but it was prevented, as with Georgiana. The second is if they had been found earlier and separated before Lydia lost her virginity. Or else Lydia could have listened to Darcy and left Wickham, and then Darcy could have used his influence to protect her honor: e.g. by claiming that she was kidnapped, or by arranging a decent marriage for her.

If Austen had wanted to make any of those choices to free Lydia, she could have done it without drastically changing the plot. But if she had, it might have felt a bit too "literary" and unrealistic.

I've just been re-watching some of Dr. Octavia Cox's literary analysis videos on YouTube. They reminded me that Austen always loved to skewer the tropes and clichés of other literature, especially Gothic melodrama, whether in outright parody or in subtler deconstruction.

Dr. Cox's video on the elder Eliza's fate in Sense and Sensibility particularly highlights this trend in Austen. She argues that Eliza's story is a classic, clichéd Gothic melodrama (a beautiful orphan, an abusive uncle, thwarted romance, forced marriage to a cruel man, a "fall" into a life of "sin," and ultimate illness and death, all narrated by Colonel Brandon in heightened, poetic language), and that Austen's point in including it was arguably to highlight that this wouldn't be the fate of her heroines. Marianne comes close to it with Willoughby and with her near-fatal illness, but in the end she's saved. Austen's point was arguably to say "Yes, I know all about this type of melodrama, I know all the clichés, but I'm relegating it to the backstory, because that's not what I want to write."

(I don't know if everyone would interpret the elder Eliza's storyline this way, but it's how Dr. Cox reads it.)

Maybe with Lydia's fate, and with the backstory of how Georgiana was freed from Wickham, Austen was doing something similar.

I'm not enough of an expert on Georgian literature to know if the rescuing of girls from predatory men with their virginity and honor intact was a cliché or not. But it does appear in late 18th century comic opera. For example, Mozart's Don Giovanni: the title character is the ultimate womanizer, but he has no success with any of the women he tries to prey on over the course of the opera. His seductions are stopped by the timely, chance arrivals of his enemies, his victims get away unscathed, and he pays for his crimes with his life in the end. Or The Marriage of Figaro: the Count's designs on Susanna are thwarted, and he's humiliated and forced to beg his wife's forgiveness.

If stories of womanizers being thwarted and punished, and their female victims saved with virtue intact, were as common in the literature of the day as they are in opera from that era, then maybe Austen used Wickham and Lydia to deconstruct them.

We definitely see some skewering of poetic cliche in the fact that despite Mrs. Bennet's fears/hopes, Lydia's honor is saved with a bribe instead of a duel.

Maybe like the Eliza backstory in Sense and Sensibility, the backstory of Georgiana's near-elopement can be read as a more perfect "literary" example of a girl escaping a cad's clutches. The elopement was thwarted partly by pure chance, as Darcy paid a surprise visit just before Wickham and Georgiana meant to run off, and partly because Georgiana was a “good victim,” whose conscience got the better of her and who chose her family and honor over her whirlwind romance.

But similar luck isn't on Lydia's side, nor does she make the right, “virtuous" choices. Darcy doesn't find the lovers until Lydia has already been living with Wickham, and like a typical reckless teenager, she cares nothing for either her reputation or her family compared to her infatuation with him. So Darcy is forced to bribe Wickham to marry her, Wickham goes unpunished except that he loses his hope of marrying rich, and all the characters have to live with the results of the scandal for the rest of their lives.

By having Georgiana's successful escape from Wickham be mere backstory while foregrounding Lydia's lack of escape, maybe once again Austen was saying "I could have freed Lydia this way – I know the tropes other authors might have used to free her – but I'm a more cynically realistic writer than that, so I won't."

I have no idea if this is valid or not, but it's a theory.

[mimideeznutsinyomouth]

YANDERE RIVAL

Wanted to try something new👁️👁️

TW!: Theo is a bit of a sadist. Darling is into it and of course, the usual sadistic darling shenanigans. (Darling is also a yandere), classic cliché high school musical, enemies to lovers, 'I hate you but I love you too' type of plot but more murder. Just two yanderes inlove. (He's secretly pathetic)

Theodore Maddox was annoying as fuck. Ever since middle school, he won everything that you've been in. Poetry, calligraphy, spelling bees, and every academic challenge. It was like he was destined to be number one, while you had to stay as the second placer.

And the worst part was that he knew what he was doing.

He would glance at your frustrated face and grin like a villain who had just won a battle. And you hated how handsome he looked with it. You barely had any supporters because, of course, everyone knew he'd win anyway.

And it all started because you fucking liked him. No. Loved him.

You stalked his socials. You took secret pictures of him.

 However, when you were about to tell him to meet up with him behind the school, you heard it.

Laughing.

So much laughing. And it was because of you.

"Who does she think she is?"

"She's mid, you know?"

"I guess that's kind of true,"

You heard his voice in the middle of those bastards. They thought you were a cheap woman not worth even noticing. You felt tears sting your eyes, but sadness wasn't the only thing in your heart right now. Hate.

You swore on your heart that you would make him feel like what you felt now.

But it was so goddamn difficult.

Why did you come up with trying to defeat the golden boy anyway? It was stupid?

Were you just trying to get his attention?  

Either way, you were sick of it. Seeing that smirk. Every competition. Every goddamn game. Every test and effort you tried to put out.

You hated it.

How your heart fluttered whenever you saw it. How it made you follow him every time he went home.

But, you were getting tired because of it. Maybe. Just maybe.

Getting him neglected will surely let him see your potential. (And maybe get him jealous.)

Theodore liked that fire in you.

He thought you were just every kind of girl that fell for him. Stupidly naïve, thinking they can "Fix him".

He saw your slumped-up body that day. You were kind of adorable, but not that hot, like those annoying cheerleaders. Sure, they were hot. You couldn't really fit the standards of being popular. But, your once lovesick expression turned into a façade of hate and competition.

Were you really trying to claim his spot as one of the most impressive students in the school?

Cute.

Like you.

At first, he didn't mind. But the more you tried to win against him, the more his intrigue rose. But, no, he didn't love you. He really didn't. Don't mind the pictures in his room. It's just a personal collection (Of you)

But did he really forget to get your attention enough?

Why the hell are you hanging out with one of the school nobodies?

He watched you as you laughed with the boy, eating one of the chicken nuggets in his lunchbox. He could see the boy's hand discreetly landing on your shoulder.

And for the first time in his life.

The sparkle in your eyes was bright and shiny. Something that even he never saw before.

The great Theodore Maddox…

He clenched his fists, his heart clenching painfully as the smirk on his face was replaced with a frown.

… became insecure.

might make a pt 2

[enviedear]

what would jace do if he fell in love (or lust?) with the daughter of a team green family, who of course is putting her own family first too? do you think we'd be getting a romeo + juliet type story or is it more the denial of feelings enemies to sort-of-lovers kinda flavor?

for the sake of inclusion and a bit of differentiation i’m going to add that reader is adopted into the greens. they’d have been a highborn but to no family of consequence. probably included to the family at the will of a dying yet hopeful viserys—and despite the fact that they’re not blood related to the greens/targtowers they’ve embraced them fully. their gowns are in the classic hightower hue, socially as perfect as alicent, and just as calculated as the rest. in jace’s case, i doubt his morals can be put to the side, no matter how much he loves them (this is the same jacaerys that will preach the true targaryen ways to his own mother) but i do think he believes that he can make them see his stance. he just needs to talk to them (he’s very much his mothers son) i think the dynamic would depend mostly on how the reader navigates the war and what their family is telling them. are they stepping back from it all? going full speed ahead? or are they doubtful?

i think jace’s motive is to save, above all. he’s known you since you were kids and he can’t imagine a world without you, but i do think his duty would hold him back. i mean the amount of restraint he showcases in the show is insane, just imagine if his lover was separated by the very war he’s grown to hate. he would think, no matter what you tell him, that a life as a hightower would be a burden. he’d never wish for the one he adores to be burdened. especially by the usurpers clan. he loves them, he respects them—the same cannot be said for his feelings towards their family. and yet, still his love remains.

all this to say, i think he’d be consumed with the notion to rescue you from them because there is no way in hell he’s ever bending the knee to them. his love leads him to yearn for heroics, but the dependent factor for him acting on his wants would truly lie with you—even above his own duties as heir. nothing reigns him in better than the fact he can’t force himself to make your decisions for you. he won’t act until you’ve thrown the first stone or sent the first message. jace’s love is all consuming, and he knows it. he’ll bide his time, impatient and worried, waiting for you to seek him out.

thanks for sending something in nonnie, i love characterizing jace <3

[ll7esxs]

hmm what about enemies to lovers w/ Kick? Kind of going along with the head cannons you made of why they don’t like you. Sorry if it’s not much, I fear that’s the best my mind can make up 😔

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎 ˚｡⋆♡༘˚ ❀ੈ♡˳───────𖤐˚︵︵˚𖤐───────♡ੈ❀

✧ 𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐋𝐄: Enemies to lovers with kick ✧ 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐌: Call of Duty Ghosts ✧ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒: Kick ✧ 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: Character X G!N! reader! ✧ 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑��: Slow burn, enemies to lovers ✧ 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: Verbal conflict, emotional tension, enemies-to-lovers dynamic ✧ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 4030

The First Meet

You were former field intel—trained, tested, and hardened. Sharp in both strategy and aim. When they assigned you to dual-capable support, it wasn’t a promotion, it was a need. A solution. Someone who could bridge both ends of the op.

The assignment to the Ghosts' station wasn’t by your request. It was abrupt, high-priority. They didn’t want just anyone—they needed someone who could run comms, decrypt under pressure, and still hit targets without hesitation. That someone was you.

You walk into the base’s comms bay for the first time. The air is cool, the low hum of screens buzzing. You crack the door open slightly, not wanting to interrupt.

He’s there—locked in, eyes narrowed, sharp brows drawn in deep concentration. He doesn’t even glance your way. Maybe didn’t hear you. Maybe he did, and just didn’t care.

But from that first glimpse, you could already tell: he’s the type who doesn’t waste focus. And now, you were stepping into his world.

He doesn’t look up when you walk in. Voice low, flat, and laced with sarcasm: “If you’re delivering coffee, make it strong. If not, I need some cigarettes.”

You glance sideways, unimpressed but unmoved. Cool and composed. “I’m your new handler for recon data.”

That’s when he pauses. Eyes lift to meet yours.

Amber—no, gold, almost glowing under the wash of the screen light. A fleeting moment of surprise flashes across his face, subtle but there.

“Oh. Good,” he says, finally leaning back in his chair, tone dry as ever. “Try not to fry my drive like the last guy did.”

You arch a brow. The game had begun—and clearly, this wasn’t going to be a quiet assignment.

You didn’t flinch. Just crossed your arms and replied coolly, “Not here to babysit any driver. Just to make sure you don’t brick the mission while you're being clever.”

That was it—the spark. The gate to the classic enemies-to-lovers chaos creaked open right then and there.

He didn’t hate you, no. But damn, did he dislike you. The attitude, the sharp tongue, the way you came in like you already had the place mapped. Kick couldn’t stand people who came off too smart, too fast. Especially ones who mirrored his own bite.

He paused, your words hanging in the air, then sighed—lips twitching into a slow, amused smile. He stood, gaze leveled, one brow raised. “What did you just say to me?”

You didn’t back down. “Well, Kick, I’ve heard what you did when you first—”

He cut you off with a scoff, “Yeah, did. And what is it? ‘Bygones be bygones’? English not your first language or somethin’?”

That was the first round. A volley of sharp words and stubborn faces. Neither of you backed off—and maybe that’s exactly why it started to matter.

The Tension Builds

Week one? It’s a cold war dressed as teamwork.

You deliver your part of the job—clean, precise. He mocks you with nothing but a look, that infuriating half-lidded stare like he's already picked apart everything you've done. You feel it.

He delivers next—and you critique, straight-faced, surgical with your words. Every joint task turns into a quiet, brutal game of chess.

When you double-check his system patch before a field op, he doesn’t argue. Just shrugs, clicks a few keys, and redoes it. Not because he cares—no. But to let you know he really doesn’t care.

Later, during a mission brief, you silently reach into his routing code and correct it mid-scan. Not flashy. Not even out loud. Just enough to keep the op running clean.

Hours later, when the tension is finally dying down, his voice cuts in behind you—low, even: “I thought I told you not to touch the codes I work on again.”

You don’t even turn around. You’re trying to enjoy what little peace you’ve got.

With a sigh, you reply, “It’s my job too. What if the data report was filled with fake intel?”

There’s a pause. And behind you, you swear you hear the smallest scoff of approval—buried in annoyance.

Yeah. Cold war. For now.

Kick isn’t the type to beef. He doesn’t waste time on ego games—too seasoned, too practical. If it doesn't serve the mission, it’s noise.

So after that first week of sparks and code edits, the tension just… fizzles. Not into warmth, not yet—but into mutual exhaustion. You both have work to do, and not enough energy to keep clashing.

The coldest thing he does is withhold. Support, emotion, any trace of personal investment—he keeps it all sealed behind that quiet, unreadable calm.

And because you're both adults, professionals, and frankly too tired to keep drawing battle lines, it just... levels out.

One evening, over systems check, he says it offhand while typing: “Didn’t think I’d meet someone here who could keep up. You’re not half bad.”

It catches you off guard. You look over, blinking. “You either…”

No smile. No softness. But it lands different. Not flirty. Not dramatic. Just… respect, finally cracked open.

After that, the silence shifts. Not cold anymore—charged. You feel him watching during ops. Long glances. Nothing said.

Kick doesn’t fall fast. He fights it, like it’s some mission breach.

But you got under his skin. And he’s not used to bleeding quietly.

The quiet understanding? Gone. Work’s tense now—not personal, but pressure-cooked from the mission load.

Kick’s hunched over the relay case, calibrating for the infiltration op. You spot a flicker—diagnostic lag. Instinct kicks in. You override part of the setup without asking.

His jaw tightens instantly.

“What the hell are you doing?”

You don’t back down.

“Fixing what you missed. You forgot to compensate for the static backflow on the east relay. If I hadn’t—”

“If?” he cuts in, voice sharper now, “You wanna bet comms failing mid-op on your name? Because I don’t.”

He snatches the cable from your hand. You don’t flinch.

“I’ve pulled people out of worse with a busted mic and a bent antenna. You don’t get to lecture me like I’m green.”

That’s the crack. The voice raises. The weight of the job pressing down.

His reply is low, clipped:

“Then stop acting like it. You want this job or a pissing contest?”

It hangs in the air. Both of you glaring, hearts racing—not because of each other, but because everything around you is too much.

The tension erasing slowly

You and Kick were on the same field support op. You were almost pinned in crossfire during retreat — and he didn't loop your comm in time.

When it’s over, you're walking back into the safehouse. He’s trying to defuse it with nothing.

Inside, Kick’s already ditched his vest, silent as ever. When you step in, he looks up only briefly and mutters: “Good to see you alive.”

It’s stiff. Distant. Not like him—not after months of working together, knowing each other’s tones, silences, everything.

You pause. Then exhale with a dry, tired smile, eyes half-lidded like sleep was dragging you down where you stood. “I think if I had gone down, you’d still be making jokes about it.”

He doesn’t answer right away. You finally lift your gaze to his—and for once, it’s not guarded.

Just worn. Jaw tight. Guilt sitting somewhere behind those amber eyes.

It hits. Hard. You can see it in his eyes—no snark, no defensive walls. Just a raw, quiet thing that makes the whole room feel smaller.

Kick doesn’t say anything, but that look of his? It’s a heavy one. Like it’s all falling into place—things he doesn’t want to admit.

“Oh man…” he mutters, eyes narrowing, face still as stone. “Can’t believe you. After months of working and enduring my asshole behaviors, you now think I don’t care if you die? I thought you were good at reading people.”

You tilt your head, something sharp flickering behind your eyes. You step closer, voice steady but cutting: “I think you care more about being right than being reliable.”

The words sting. You see the tension coil in his shoulders, but he doesn’t back down. Instead, he lets out a low chuckle, though it’s tight. “You really know how to make a guy want to punch drywall, you know that?”

You can’t help it. You chuckle too—half tired, half bitter, but there’s something else there too. Maybe relief. “And yet you’re still standing here.”

For a moment, the air is thick. Neither of you makes a move, just standing there, locked in a silent tug-of-war.

Kick’s gaze softens for a brief moment—something you’ve never seen before, not from him. A flicker of warmth, quickly buried beneath that hard exterior.

He doesn’t say much, just that small, almost begrudging smile tugging at the corner of his lips. And then, the words come, slow and heavy like he’s not sure he even believes them himself. “You did good, Y/N... And don’t make me regret saying it again.”

You don’t respond. You’re too tired, too caught off guard by the rare glimpse of approval to even form the words.

He doesn’t wait for your reply. He just turns and walks out, leaving you standing there, staring after him as the door closes.

You shake your head with a quiet exhale. It’s not the apology you expected. It’s not the comfort you wanted. But maybe... maybe it’s enough.

Well, he’s not that bad.

You don’t know how long you stand there, but when you finally leave the room, the weight of the mission and the weight of what’s been said still hangs in the air. Neither one of you has said the things that need saying, but for once, you both understand.

After that moment, everything between you and Kick shifts. It’s not obvious—no sudden confessions or grand gestures. It’s in the quiet, the moments when the tension between you both starts to loosen just a little, bit by bit.

You find yourself slipping into conversations with him that you never thought you’d have. No more sharp words or unspoken grudges. Just... talking. Just being.

And you start noticing things. Small things. The way his gaze lingers for a moment longer than usual. The soft exhale he lets out when he’s finally out of a mission zone, or when his eyes catch yours unexpectedly. It’s almost like he’s letting you in without even realizing it.

One night, the conversation shifts. You’re sitting in the mess hall, the low hum of conversation around you, but the two of you are lost in your own little world.

You catch yourself asking, voice softer than you expect: “You ever get tired of this? The waiting. The quiet. The silence just before it all goes to hell?”

Kick’s brows furrow, a rare sign of uncertainty, as he thinks about the question. The silence stretches, and you wonder if you’ve asked something too deep.

Finally, he answers, voice low and steady: “Sometimes. But not right now.”

You don’t say anything after that. You just let the quiet settle in, the unspoken weight of his words lingering between you both. He’s not exactly opening up, but he’s still here. Present. And that, for now, is enough.

Kick’s the kind of guy who doesn’t let silence last too long. He’ll fill it with something—anything—to break the tension. Whether it’s rambling about the latest op or ranting about some random thing that’s bothering him, he’s always got something to say.

And you get used to it, the way his voice cuts through the quiet, his words bouncing off the walls, pulling you into his world. It’s just who he is, a talker at heart.

But there’s something else you notice too, something that shifts over time. You’re sitting together one evening, the air thick with unspoken words. Kick leans back, hand instinctively reaching for a cigarette, but before he lights it, he looks over at you.

“See? You’re not bad when you don’t smoke.”

You say it lightly, but you know there’s a part of him that’s changed. That used to be a constant, the cigarette, the smoke curling around him like a shield. But now, with you? He’s different.

Kick just shrugs, a half-smirk tugging at his lips, that familiar glint in his eyes. “Oh yeah? Don’t get used to it.”

And maybe, just maybe, you do get used to it. The way he’s shifting, the way he’s adapting, even if he won’t admit it. It’s not about the smoking anymore. It’s about him—about how he's willing to change little things for you, even if he won’t fully acknowledge it.

You’ve never been one to fish for validation. It’s not your style. But when Kick starts running his mouth—those familiar lines about things being “too easy” or “not challenging enough”—it’s hard not to notice the pattern. It starts sounding like a broken record, and you can't help but wonder if there's a part of him trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

You catch him in the middle of one of his rants, watching him as he struggles just a little—nothing big, but enough to make you think. It’s like he’s pretending not to feel the weight of it all.

You can’t help but tease him, leaning in just enough to throw him off balance with a suggestion: “If you need something, just ask, alright? I can... run a search, or fix something.”

He just glances at you, barely pausing from his task, a shrug in his voice as he responds: “Well, yeah. I’m good, thanks.”

You shake your head, about to head back to your own work, but something pulls you back to him, that nagging feeling that he won’t admit it even when he needs help.

“I mean, you could use someone to keep up with you.”

For the first time, there's a pause. Then, he looks up at you with a small smirk tugging at his lips. “Yeah? Guess you’re stronger than I thought.”

It’s said lightly, but you both know it means something more than just a casual comment. Something shifts in the air, a quiet acknowledgment between you two. And for a second, it feels like the walls between you are a little thinner.

When it broke all

You're now sitting in front of Kick, the room dim and quiet after the medic left. Just the two of you now, a low hum from some overhead light filling the silence. He’d been patched up — nothing too crazy, but still enough to make you wince when you looked at him. Scrapes, bruises, a stitched gash or two. The usual. His job was always messy like that. Being a tech specialist didn’t mean he got to sit behind a desk — more like crawling through collapsed buildings or trying to hack a terminal while bullets flew past his head.

You watched him breathe for a second. Still alive. Still stubborn. And then, you broke the silence.

“You know, at some point,” you said, pulling your legs up a little, “you’ll run out of places to get shot.”

He tilted his head toward you with a lazy half-smirk. “Then I’ll finally be symmetrical. Bonus.”

You didn’t smile. Not exactly. But something softened in your face. Maybe your eyes stayed on him a second too long. Long enough for him to notice, anyway. His smirk didn’t fade, but it quieted.

You reached over to the medkit sitting beside you, flipping it open with one hand, fingers sorting through gauze and antiseptic pads. You pulled out what you needed and glanced at him — a look that said, "May I?"

He just gave a slow nod, the kind he gave when words weren’t worth the effort. So you moved in closer, Your hands, still chilled from the metal table, met warm skin just below where the bandage ended. He stiffened. Just barely — the kind of flinch someone doesn’t mean to make.

“Sorry,” you murmured, not sure if you were apologizing for the cold or the closeness. Maybe both.

You leaned in a bit more, just slightly, head dipping down for a better angle. It wasn’t anything romantic — not intentionally — just practical. Close work meant being close. That’s all. But still, you could feel the space between you shrink. His breath slowed. You didn’t say anything about it, just started cleaning the wound, your touch careful.

He didn’t joke this time. Didn’t move. Just sat there, letting you patch him up again like he always did.

And you… you stayed right there, pretending your hands didn’t tremble a little as they brushed across the side of someone you were trying way too hard not to care about.

“From what I’ve heard,” you say quietly, eyes still on the angry red line across his skin, “the Federation had your photo on a kill list.”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. But something shifts in his eyes — a flicker, like a match catching fire for a split second before going dark again. He looks at you then, not startled, not angry. Just... watching. Like he’s trying to read between your words, see what you’re really asking.

Kick’s voice comes out low, dry, like gravel under boots. “Yeah. I figured someone would’ve mentioned that.”

You don’t meet his gaze. Your hands keep working, steady and careful, cleaning the edge of the wound like it’s just another scrape on just another day. But the silence between your words carries weight.

“Doesn’t mean you stop being careful,” you mutter, not accusing, not gentle either — just honest.

His chest rises slowly under your fingers. A long breath in. He’s not the type to make promises. You both know that. But maybe that wasn’t what you were asking for.

Maybe you just wanted him to understand that someone is still watching, still keeping track of where he bleeds.

And maybe, just maybe, he already does.

“You knew. About the list.” His voice was low, like he was talking more to himself than to you. “And you’re still with me. Others would just be scared shitless for their lives.”

He said it like it didn’t matter — like it rolled off him easy. But it didn’t. You could hear the way he tried to bury the edge in his tone, how he made it a statement instead of a question just so he didn’t sound like he needed the answer.

You kept your eyes on his chest, still dabbing at the edge of the wound, slow and steady. The smell of antiseptic filled the air between you, sharp and clean.

“I’m your second on field,” you said simply. “I don’t abandon people mid-mission.”

A pause. The kind that stretched just long enough for him to maybe say something, but he didn’t. So you did.

Softer this time. Almost quiet enough to be missed if he wasn’t already listening.

“And you’re not just anyone out there.”

His breath caught — just a little. And your hand stayed right where it was, resting lightly against his chest, waiting.

Neither of you moved.

You don’t even realize how close you are until the air between you starts to feel thinner, heavier — like breathing takes just a little more effort now. Like something’s shifted and neither of you wants to name it.

Then his hand grazes your waist. Just that — a brush of skin, rough calluses against your ribs.

There’s no dramatic moment, no sharp inhale or trembling gasp. Just stillness. A long, weighty kind of silence where your eyes find his — and stay there.

You glance down, almost unsure, to where his fingers now rest gently against your waist. His hand, worn and scarred from years in the field, strong and steady, holding you like something fragile. Your eyes lift back to his, and there’s a quiet frown between your brows, your lips slightly parted, voice barely a breath.

“…Kick…”

But he’s already watching you. Expecting you. Like he knew this moment would come, he’d just been waiting for it to land.

“Yes, love.”

And then he leans in. Not reckless, not urgent. Just slow. Careful. Like he’s giving you every chance to stop him — but you don’t.

You don’t step back. You just meet him halfway.

The kiss isn’t soft, but it’s not rushed either. There’s no hesitation in it, only weight — the weight of everything unsaid, everything felt but never spoken. It’s steady. Grounded. Like both of you had been carrying something too heavy for too long, and now, just for this moment, you’ve found somewhere to set it down.

You stay there — not in a rush to pull away. Because this… this was never about timing.

The first kiss might’ve been steady — a question asked in silence — but the second… the second burns.

You don’t know who moved first, maybe it was both of you at once, but suddenly it’s not careful anymore. It’s need — sharp and unspoken — rushing in like a tide neither of you can stop.

You slip your hands up around his neck, fingers curling at the nape, holding on like you’re afraid letting go will break whatever this is. His hands find your waist, rough and certain, pulling you closer — close enough to feel his heartbeat, fast and hard against your chest.

Your mouths find each other again, this time deeper, messier, hungrier. The kind of kiss that doesn’t ask for permission anymore — it just takes. There’s heat in it now, in the way his lips press against yours, in the low, raw grunt he lets out when your nails brush against the back of his neck.

Both of you have your eyes shut, not needing to see when you can feel everything. The tension, the years of pretending, the battlefield closeness that’s finally collapsed in on itself — it’s all there, pressed between you.

And in that breathless space, nothing else exists. Not the mission. Not the kill list. Not the war outside the door.

Just you and Kick — two people who’ve seen too much, lost too much — finally letting themselves want something. Even just for a minute.

You both pulled back from the kiss, breathing a little uneven, like the air had changed shape around you and neither of you were quite ready to speak yet. The space between you hummed, charged and warm, and for a second, all you could do was look at him.

Then you smiled, crooked and knowing. “I just… I know it’s not your first time, Kick.”

He raised a brow at you “Damn. You got me. I was gonna ask if you’d sign my yearbook,” he said, deadpan, like the two of you were in some high school hallway instead of a half-lit room that still smelled like antiseptic and smoke.

You snorted. Just a little. But it slipped out, and he caught it.

He leaned back, still perched on the cot, watching you like you were the most interesting thing in the room. Which, let’s be honest, you were.

“So?” he asked, half-teasing. “Was it at least top five?”

You gave him a look, unimpressed but amused. “It was fine.”

“Fine? Fine?” His voice pitched up, full mock quite outrage. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“You had a mild concussion and at least two broken ribs,” you replied, already turning toward the door. “I figured you deserved a morale boost.”

He grinned — smug, even through the wince of pain when he shifted. “Guess I’ll have to earn a real one next time.”

You didn’t answer.

But the silence you left behind wasn’t cold. It wasn’t awkward. It was filled with something heavier — certainty. The kind that didn’t need words, didn’t need to be spelled out.

You paused at the door, hand resting on the frame, and glanced back over your shoulder.

“And for the record,” you said, eyes flicking to his, “top five is generous.”

“Top three,” he called after you, smug as hell. “Don’t lie to yourself!”

You were gone before he saw the smile tug at your lips — that twitch you tried to suppress and failed miserably at.

And Kick leaned back, wincing at his ribs, a hand resting lazily across his chest, still smirking like he’d just won something.

Not bad for a first kiss under fire.

[remmicks-bloodbag]

Bad Descisions || Spencer Reid

Warnings: Praise Kink, fingering( f receiver), hate sex, p in v, Spencer being picking on reader, enemies to lovers, creampie,uses of the name slut ,was this proofread? NOPE 18+ y’all

Author’s note: This is my first time writing for Spencer. So if Spencer seems a little off I’m sorry! And I was harassed for this smut btw 🙄

If there was anything you hated more than your co-worker Spencer Reid it was crowds and parties. Here you were leaning against a wall in the corner of Rossi's House at a party he was throwing. The only reason you came was cause Garcia promised to replace the book she ruined with coffee a couple weeks beforehand.

Everyone was spread out amongst the house mingling and laughing. Some were by the bar getting drinks that Garcia was making. The only two that weren't participating would be Spencer and yourself. You looked out of place and awkward even as you stood in your corner nursing a glass of expensive red wine as your eyes trailed over everyone. Bouncing back and forth between the people that wander the room.

It was too much. Your nails started tapping against your glass of wine rhythmically as you tried to calm yourself. But you couldn't seem to do so. Not with the death glare you were getting from the corner adjacent to you from none other than Spencer fucking Reid.

You looked towards the tall messy-haired doctor with your own glare and mouthed a 'what' to him before zoning out and looking down at your glass of wine. Jolted back to reality by the voice of your co-worker's voice. You looked up eyes meeting his brown ones that looked down at you with confusion, anger, and something else. "You know you could try and mingle. You've been standing in this corner for a while you are not exactly enjoying yourself, huh?" He asked hands in his pocket. "Fuck off Reid." You spat in annoyance as your tapping against your glass sped up.

His eyebrows raised slightly as he looked at you taking a step closer to you. "No need to be grouchy L/n. I was simply checking in on my work enemy." He took his hands out of his pockets raising them in surrender with a faint smirk on his face words laced with sarcasm. "Work enemy? What are we Spencer five?" You scoffed glancing at him before taking a sip of your drink. "Well, we aren't friends L/n. And you are no friend of mine." As he looked back out at the crowd. "Besides you look like you hate this place. This isn't really your type of party." Your head snapped towards him. "Then tell me Reid what is my type of party?" You questioned glaring at the man. "You know a cafe with tea books and classical music." He shrugged as a scoff left your lips.

"I'm here for the free drinks." You mumbled leaning onto the wall ignoring his jab at you. A sigh left Spencer's lips. “You know for the second most intelligent person in the BAU you sure are an odd duck. You hate being in crowds and you didn’t come because of the party you came for free drinks. You are strange y/n.” He rambled. “Yeah whatever.” You rolled your eyes watching Hotch and his date leave the room only to be brought out of thoughts once again by Reid.

“You should drink and dancing you know. Normal people stuff.” He spoke as he glanced around the room. “I am normal. I like my books and drinks instead of people.” You replied causing him to snicker at you. “You normal? Please your anything but normal and you fucking know it. That’s why your lacking social skills.” He answered making your eyebrow twitch in anger. “I might be lacking social skills Spencer but at least I’m not lacking in other areas.”

Once again his eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Oh really? And what would those other areas be?” He asked turning and facing your only to be met with your side profile as you watched the crowd. “Like I would tell you.” You glanced and scoffed at him. A smirk graced his face as he took a step closer. “Why not tell me though? What’s a little confession between enemies.” A playful tone laced the words he spoke. Turning to face him you looked him over reaching out and running a finger down his tie. “You first.”

“No my work enemy you should go first. I think if any of us are going to divulge sensitive information over this topic it’s you.” He spoke as he watched your finger run over his tie. “Hmm…I like tall messy haired doctors.” You teased as you spoke slowly tugging his tie making him jolt forward. “Is that so? Your attracted to tall doctors then? That’s reasonable. I just have one question for you l/n.” He looked down at you. A cocky smile on his face that made your gut twist. “I’m a tall doctor and I’m standing in front of you. Why aren’t you making a move.” He whispered.

“Cause it’s your turn to make a move doctor.” The cocky smile on Spencer’s face morphed into a smirk. “When did the rules say I needed to be the one to make the damn move. Tall doctor. Right here.” He spoke making a hand gesture to himself. “Then fix me doctor.” You replied twirling the tie between your fingers. “What exactly needs fixing?” Eyes trailing over you as you sat your glass of wine on a table next to you. “My body.”

His eyes widened before he chuckled crossed his arms across his chest as he was once again pulled closer. “And you know I’m a busy man and what my PHDs are right?What’s wrong with your body.” Your smile now was replaced with your own smirk. “Do you think you can help or not.” You deadpanned. “Well I’m not that kind of doctor but yeah I can help.”

“Good.” You chirped your other hand playing with the fabric of his cardigan. “The shall we begin.” He whispered in a suggestive manner. The anger for each other was still there just resting at bay. The amount of drinks you’ve had and you don’t think Spencer had any drinks which was probably why you guys weren’t at each others throats as usual. “Let’s get out of here. My place?” You dragged him out of the party by his tie ignoring the whistles coming from Derek when he saw the two of you. “And here I thought you didn’t do anything social. Your place huh?” He questioned as you tossed him the keys to your car as you climbed into the passenger seat.

“Yeah my place now hurry up before I change my mind I’m already regretting this.” As you closed the door and Reid jogged around to the other side getting in and took off towards your place.

—

Closed discarded on the floor as moans and the squelching sounds your wet cunt made filled the room along with Spencer’s groans as his middle and ring fingers curled with almost every thrust of his fingers. “Bet you always wanted to fuck me huh Reid? Is that why you look at me like I’m a sex toy?” You sat up a bit leaning on your forearms.

Fingers leaving your hole clenching around nothing as you whimpered. “Projecting are we? I think you wanted to fuck me that why I barely touched you and your already acting like a bitch in heat.” He mumbled pulling one of your legs over his shoulder as he rubbed his tip through your wet folds nudging your clit.

“Fuck I hate—“ you we’re cut off by Spencer thrusting into you. “Oh fuck.” You arms slipped from holding your upper body up. “What was that l/n? What do you hate?” He asked keeping his pace slow almost agitating. “I hate you.” He leaned closer one of his hands pulling your head up to his face thrusting deeper. “Prove it then. Prove it you hate me.”

Moans and whimpers falling from your lips as his pace sped up throwing your other leg on his shoulder fucking his cock into you a deep as he can trying to get any sound out of you. Your hands gripped onto his forearms on either side of you as he placed kisses along your shoulder as he fucked into your hole with vigor.

"How do you like being my toy, Spence? There, don't stop." Your eyes rolled back as the headboard struck the wall. A sudden sharp pain on the side of your thigh making you yelp at the stinging. “D-do you e-ever shut the fuck up l/n.” He groans as you open your eyes to look at him. His tussled hair lay slick with sweat in front of his forehead, and his cheeks were flushed.

You were growing desperate for release. Hands leaving his forearms as you gripped the sheets. “Fuck! Please please please.” As you uttered the words, they fell from your mouth in a begging and pleading manner, in contrast to all the times you had upset him or argued with him. “Please Reid ‘m sorry won’t be mean anymore.” Spencer sucked his teeth as he exhaled a breathy sigh of irritation before gripping your jaw making you keep eye contact with him.

“Since your such a desperate slut I’ll have to believe you.” Hand sipping from your hip down your stomach to your clit. Pressing his thumb on the bundle of nerves rubbing circles onto it. “Cum l/n and you better not forget who made you cum.” Your toes curl as your back arches off the bed as your mouth opens in a silent scream. Your body went lax as Spencer continued to fuck your pliant body.

“Now we know what shuts you up.” He quipped as you laid there fucking you impossibly deeper than before. You could feel the soreness in your legs and the sensitivity from your orgasm just seconds ago as he swipe his thumb across your clit once more making you whine in protest. “Spencer please—“

“I’m close l/n you can take one more.” His other hand gripped your side as he leaned down and bite your shoulder muffling a moan. A few thrust later and you cum again clenching around Spencer once more letting out a small moan. Hips stuttering as he thrusted in deep hips stilling as he filled your pussy.

He pulled out with a hiss and a whimper from you as his cum seeped out your hole. “I hate you.” Spencer mumbled placing kisses along your shoulder. “Yeah yeah you hate me. Love you too.” You rolled your eyes.

—

“What’s up with Reid and L/n.” Emily spoke leaning against JJ’s desk. The two looked over to see Reid sitting down her mug along with her poetry book.

“Bet you they fucked.” Garcia popped up out of nowhere. “No way.” Emily shook her head. “200 dollars they fucked.” Garcia smirked. “Your on.” Emily shook her hand as JJ shook her head and went back to her paperwork.

[horseshoegirl]

Set Me Alight: Part 7 - Paint It, Black

📜Life is messy. And complicated. And writer blocky, with a dash of imposter syndrome... I just want to put that out there... Anyway...

Well, the poll won out. You all want to know what Jake said to Midge. This is solely a flashback chapter. I can't say I'm surprised at who you all disliked in the last chapter, though I hope this one will give you some insight into why Midge has held on to this for as long as she has.

Special thank you to @teacupsandtopgun for helping me to write a certain part of this! You can thank her for the puns! And @sarahsmi13s for taking a peak at it!

❗️+18, Minors DNI, Strong Language, Enemies to Lovers, Original Female Character (s), Short OFC, Bradley Bradshaw x Natasha Trace, flashbacks, Halloween college parties, school, angst, sexual themes (overhearing), drunkness/inxotication. I mentioned angst, right? 💀

#8k <- yes, i know

Part 6 | Masterlist | Part 8

*Halloween Four Years Ago*

Giving orders to a football team to put up Halloween directions was not an easy feat. They were kids in a joke shop, only too happy to take every opportunity to jump-scare each other with a spider, a white sheet or slide out from behind a door and shout boo! 

Despite the antics, you were grateful for the help. Nat and you wouldn’t have finished in time. And even then, you suspected Nat probably would have given up halfway through, merely deciding to throw Yellow Caution Tape on the walls and call it a day. 

You wouldn’t have stopped - even if it became a doomed effort. 

Bradley’s friends weren’t what you expected them to be. True, their appearance fit the bill a thousand times over. Tall, broad shoulders and bulging muscles were all the product of hard work - including Bob, who was smaller than the rest, though not by much.  Even their mannerisms, from how they acted childish and goofy to how they winked or playfully flirted, everything you saw played into the stereotypical type that was the classic college football jock. 

Then you got to know them—really know them—and hated yourself for ever associating them as such. 

You already knew Bradley and had met him on occasion. When he stayed over to be with Nat, he was often up before you, and you’d chat with him over a cup of coffee. He always brought her a cup to wake her up when he could, and it always made you smile. 

His story was a sad one. His father passed away when he was only two years old, leaving his mom to raise him alone. While he couldn’t regale you with his memories of him, he instead offered you the stories attached to his father’s things: a button-up Hawaiian shirt in pale pastels, a pair of coffee-brown Ray Ban sunglasses, and even a worn Milk chocolate leather-strapped bag he used to lug his books around campus. 

Then, his mom passed away in high school, and his father’s best friend took him up until the point decided to leave for school. Bradley chose his words carefully when he spoke of any of them, offering little, and you wondered if the loss was still too much for him to bear. 

Or something else had happened, and he didn’t want anyone to know. 

 But as you helped him blow up a few balloons for the floor, a song from a later decade played through the speakers, and Bradley lit up, producing a smile wider than the nearby Jack-o-lantern. He launched into a story about how much his parents loved music and how his father would play the piano, which alone made him want to learn. 

You asked him if and when he did if he’d play for you one day.

Javy Machado, however, couldn’t be more different from Bradley if he tried.

He was just as meticulous as you when it came to detail. The two of you were discussing the best way to tape Velcro to the kitchen cupboards to stick fluff to the sides and mimic cobwebs when you discovered this fact. He was … quietly smooth and persuasive, with a suave smile that indicated he could charm his way into or out of any situation he wanted without needing to flirt or play it thick. 

“Angle it like this, Maeve,” he had explained, stretching the piece out. “Principle of maximum contact area equals maximum adhesive stretch.” 

You had raised your eyebrows at that remark, which prompted him to chuckle softly. 

"Science major," he shrugged with that smile, making your internal monologue stutter to a halt until you went, "Wait... What?!" 

He only laughed at your reaction, amused in a way like he’d been expecting it. But it was that look of genuine interest in his eyes that made you ask him properly. 

He didn't know what field of science to specialize in, but Javy made all of it sound amazing. From stars to not dirt—it's soil—to understanding how the world worked, he knew he wanted to spend his life trying to figure it all out. If he could throw a ball around and be part of a team with his friends, he considered himself fortunate to do both. 

Even if his passion was so far removed from your own, you may have seen some of yourself in his journey, trying to fit in while doing what you loved most. 

Holding up a string of lights against the wall, Reuben Flitch told you he was floating through school, waiting for the day he could finally be free. On that day, he’d take over his family’s business. Comparing him to the fractured story of your brother and sister following in your parent’s footsteps never seemed to cross your mind. 

Because when you asked what the business was, his face lit up with an enthusiasm you hadn’t expected. 

“My grandparents own vineyards," he had beamed. "They've been in the family for generations. I've grown up with the land, the grapes, and the entire winemaking process." 

He told you stories of growing up, playing through the vines and rows of trellises, making you long for the rows of apple trees at Aunt Viv's. He also talked about spending time with his grandfather, learning the process of pressing grapes and his grandmother tending and picking the grapes. He spoke about the people, everyone from the gardeners to the people who bottled the wine to his siblings, with whom he'd played hide-and-seek within the cellars. 

He told you a business major was worth it, as much as he loathed it, if he could own the place one day.  

You hoped he did. 

But Mickey Garica and Bob Floyd were... characters, to say the least. It was easy to talk with them, even laugh with them, as the three of you spread tiny black spiders all over the apartment. 

Mickey couldn’t stop asking if you could paint him one day, though you imagined it would be fandom-inspired rather than a realistic portrait. The second you asked him about his favourite universe, he launched into a word vomit of praise for each and every one. He spoke of Lord of the Rings, Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Batman—not DC—as the character deserved to be separated from the rest. 

It made you wonder if the one portrait would be enough. Still, you happily humoured him, saying you needed the practice. 

He was in Health Sciences, hoping it would be enough to get his foot in the door to become a firefighter. He talked about it so passionately, about being capable of making a difference and saving lives, that you honestly couldn’t see him in any other role. 

And given the opportunity, Bob was so full of sass and witty comebacks to the ones you managed to throw his way, you were surprised he was seeking an Anthropology and Archaeology degree. He seemed to have a natural talent for what Comedians had labelled “crowd work.” You honestly would have taken him for a drama major had he not told you differently.

However, once he explained his choice, you understood why. Growing up, having been a Boy Scout, learning about nature, rocks, and life. He wanted to know more about life, history, and how things were. 

A visit to an archeological dig site in high school sold it for him. His eyes lit up when he spoke about ancient civilizations, lost artifacts, and all the mysteries surrounding human evolution. He rattled off facts about Neanderthals and cave paintings, which had you urging him for more. 

He happily obliged and was encouraging when you offered a few that you knew of. 

All of them were so passionate about what they wanted to do with their lives, even Bradley, who wanted to pursue football seriously as a career; you admired all of them for it with your entire heart. 

But Jake Seresin was... you didn’t know. Nor did he, it seemed. 

Jake was there at your side every time you went back up that ladder, claiming someone needed to catch you should you fall again. You had rolled your eyes, a slight smirk gracing your face, but you let him all the same. 

He wasn’t as open as the others, wanting to flirt with you more than anything else. Somehow, you managed to get him talking about football, and when you asked him why he played, he admitted that his father had gone and played at the school. He had been urged to apply, and his family would support him throughout his entire ride. 

“Family money,” he said, his tone light when you gawked at him. You didn’t ask what his parents did, but knowing he came from a rich family, you wondered if he didn't want people to know. You certainly didn't. Nat didn’t know, at least not yet. 

It prompted him to add his parents weren’t pressuring him into one career or another; they simply wanted him to keep up with the sport. So, he was buying time and taking electives, trying to figure it out, though he would have to make a decision soon. 

And it made you wonder, under that confidence, under that layer of charm and ease on his surface, if he was searching for what everyone else in the group had already found. While everyone else didn’t fit the stereotype, you wondered if Jake was attempting to mould himself into it. 

How you wished to tell him, he didn’t have to. 

But Jake wasn’t a painting you could tear apart or theorize about. And as you pinned that last streamer to the ceiling, you realized over the course of the afternoon, you’d unwittingly developed a bit of a crush on him. 

You weren’t stupid. You recognized the signs the second he caught you off that ladder. The second he handed you that shot. He was laying on the charm, the flirty glances, the playful smiles. Even the slight touches on your waist as you leaned back, pining streamers to the ceiling, were waving the red flags in your head. 

Jake was either genuinely interested or actively looking for someone to hook up with tonight. 

It wouldn’t be you, that’s for sure—not even for someone so charming and handsome as Jake Seresin. 

In the last two hours, the guys took turns getting ready first while everyone else finished with the final touches. They wanted you and Natasha to go first, but you vehemently refused, knowing they’d ruin hours of hard work if left unsupervised. 

You also wanted to see this through to the end, but you kept that to yourself. You had revealed enough of your quirky, artsy side to them. You did not need to add to it by gushing over the decorations or how the entire apartment turned out, possibly damaging whatever relationship you'd established so far. 

People were weird when it came to shit like that. 

Jake and Bradley emerged from Nat’s bedroom just as the two of you were headed toward yours. The hallway was already lit in a deep red from the lights now neatly strung up in the corners of the ceiling. Though the sun was beginning to set, shining warm light through your window, you knew the total effect would be entirely eerie when night rolled around. You couldn’t wait to see it.

Bradley was dressed as Indiana Jones: a white shirt, a brown leather jacket, and a fake whip at his side. His outfit was complementary to Nat's Marion Ravenwood, her costume the classic white dress from the first movie you spent a while making. Though she did ask you to take some creative liberties with the design, the dress was more risque than necessary. 

The only thing remotely movie-accurate about it would be the puffy sleeves.

You couldn't help but whistle when Jake stepped out from behind Bradley. Instantly perking up at the noise, he let out a sly smirk and straightened the lapels of his deep black leather jacket. 

"Danny Zuko, huh?" you laughed softly. "Guess you've got the whole 'bad boy' vibe down." 

Jake smirked at you, copying one of the iconic character's signature moves by sliding his hands into his black leather jacket pockets as he strode by. "Only missing my Sandy. You wouldn't happen to know where I could find one, would you?" 

You coyly peered at him over your shoulder as you continued down the hall. Unknown to either of you, Nat and Bradley had stopped to watch the interaction, filled to the brim with curiosity. 

"Wouldn't know. I'm more of a Rizzo myself. Too much sass and not enough patience for leather pants." 

"To get into them or to get out?"

With a glimmer in your eyes and a smirk on your lips, you pivoted to face Jake completely, still walking backwards. “You're quite the smooth talker, aren’t you?” 

Jake shrugged, giving off the vibe of, ‘I can’t help my reputation.’ However, you could see the easy grin on his face, and one side of his mouth crooked upwards, making him appear boyish—just like the character he was dressed up as. 

It made your heart flutter inside your chest. 

“It’s a shame I’m more into the rough-around-the-edges type,” you teased softly, pausing by the corner. 

Liar. Oh, you horrible liar. 

Jake’s grin didn’t disappear when you saw him press his tongue to the inside of his cheek, arching an eyebrow. Instead, it turned into a knowing smirk.

“Is that so?” he teased.

You flushed, at a loss for words. Jake's teasing gaze lingered, and the lift in the corner of his mouth suggested he saw right through your lie. Your cheeks burned hot. 

Jake's chuckle echoed softly down the hallway as you made your escape, somehow making your heart race faster. You didn't dare look back, but you could feel his eyes on you as you turned the corner and down the hallway to your bedroom.

As Jake retreated back into the apartment, Bradley coughed lightly. He exchanged a knowing look with Nat, who had been watching your retreat. He jutted his head once toward you, and Nat replied in kind with a single tilt of her head toward Jake. 

They didn’t need to say aloud what they were thinking. They’d talk about what they discovered later, but it wouldn’t stop them from pressing this interesting development further. 

When she reached your room, Nat found you already in your robe, sitting at your vanity, brushing your hair. You had already laid out your costumes on your bed earlier in the day, and Nat raced to hers the second she saw it, making grabby hands at the fabric. 

"Ahh, it turned out so great, Maeve!" she exclaimed, grabbing the top and holding it up. You glimpsed at her through the reflection of your mirror, smiling when she hugged it to her chest.

“If I had made it any deeper, Nat, you’d be showing off more than just dangly bits.” 

She blew a raspberry at you. You giggled, shaking your head.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to do couples costumes. I never thought Bradley would go for it,” she said after a while, standing next to you and straightening her hair in the mirror of your vanity.

“Really?” you asked, concentrating on not poking your eye out with your mascara. 

“How else am I going to shoo off all the girls practically clamouring to get with Bradley? It’s a nice way to do it, don’t you think?” 

“Maybe. Not every costume as a twin, though,” you said, lowering your hand to gesture to yourself. You hoped Nat would at least acknowledge the effort you’d made or pep you up for a party you'd originally never wanted to hold. 

“What about the Danny wandering around the apartment ‘without his Sandy’?”

You dropped your hand from where you had started fixing up your other eye, glaring at her reflection in your mirror. “Really, Nat?” 

“What, you don’t dream of a little Summer Lovin?” 

You felt your face flush. As if Jake would ever really go for someone like you. “It’s Halloween, Nat.” 

“Exactly. It’s Halloween, and it’s getting colder. Maybe you’ve got chills, and maybe they're multiplying.” 

You groaned, dropping your head and smacking it against your vanity. 

“You’re sure he’s not the one you want?” she bumped you with her hip, grinning.

“Can you stop with the Grease puns? Please,” you squawked. 

Nat laughed, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger as she stepped away. "Okay, okay. But if you change your mind, I think Danny Zuko out there wouldn't mind being 'the one that you want.'"

Fingers wrapping around the handle of your hair brush, you didn’t lift your head from the vanity as you chucked it in Nat’s direction. She laughed hard, and you didn’t need to look to know you had missed her completely. 

Nat eventually cajoled you into helping her slip into her dress, adjusting bits and pieces of fabric here and there. You sat back down at your vanity as she twirled once in the mirror, declaring she was satisfied. Then her eyes went to the door, and her attention shifted to Bradley and what waited beyond it. 

"Are you okay if I go out? Do you need any help?" Nat's voice was laced with excitement, and her eyes gleamed with anticipation of finally having a party as she smoothed down the sides of her dress.  

You shook your head, leaning back in your chair. Nat didn’t meet your gaze. "No, I'm good. I only need to touch up my makeup, and my dress is a slip-on," you smiled. "Go make sure Bradley keeps his hat on." 

Nat wiggled her shoulders, biting her lip to mute her squealing giggle. The puffy sleeves of her short dress waved with her, and she precariously tip-toed out the door on her high heels. Once in the hallway, she dramatically yelled, "Come and get me, Indiana Jones!" 

You stifled a giggle, shaking your head, allowing yourself to turn back to face your mirror.

Staring at yourself, you searched every part of your face, making sure your foundation, blush, eyes, and lips were just how you wanted them to be. You toyed with a strand of curled hair, wondering if what you had done was enough—if all of it had been enough. 

Then your eyes came to rest on your costume, so carefully draped across the end of your bed through the reflection in the mirror. 

You're not sure why "Flaming June" happened to be your favourite painting, though you supposed it had to do with the girl in the painting so casually draped across that seat next to that fountain. She was curled up almost like a serpent, covered in sheer transparent vibrant orange, the painting's only bright pop of colour.

The painting was supposedly meant to depict nymphs, sleeping Greek nymphs for that matter, or even Victorian society's obsession with beauty. However, you argued differently in the paper you wrote for it.

You cared more about the juxtaposition of fire and tranquillity in the piece than about whatever cultural influence or social construct it had at the time. That one girl was at the centre of the painting, wrapped in sheer, see-through colour. She was meant to be the focus; that much was certain. 

Maybe you thought her dress signified the chaos of the world around her, and all she wanted to do was find a moment of peace. 

You’d spent countless hours at the fabric store trying to match the correct shade. Once you had completed parts of Nat's, you spent even countless more at your sewing machine, staying up late to make progress on yours. 

And each time she asked you to make alternations on hers, the more drastic you made it to be ‘just that much sluttier', the more you thought about what you could do to yours. In the end, the thin straps holding up your dress, revealing bare shoulders and the long slit between your breasts, ending just before your belly button, was all you could stomach. 

You held the dress up, contemplating your thoughts. You could do this. You could survive one simple Halloween party - one simple college rager party. 

Right?

———

The second the apartment was starting to flood with arriving guests, Jake realized you hadn’t emerged from your room with Nat.

He had been off to the side near a bookcase, talking with Bradley, hoping to stave off the crowd and the rest of the football team for a little longer. He knew they'd want to talk football and strategies for the season, and Jake simply... didn't. 

He wanted a night off. He wanted to relax and have a good time. And talking about football wouldn't be it. 

Bradley had said something to Jake, but he hadn’t been paying attention. He was too busy searching the gathering pods of people for your face. Why, he didn’t know. But he was eager to find out. 

Bradley snapped his fingers in Jake's face, startling him from his search. "Earth to Jake!" 

Jake shook his head, focusing back on Bradley. "Sorry, what?" 

Bradley raised his eyebrows under the rim of his fedora. "What's going on in that head of yours?" 

Jake regarded him for a few seconds before finally looking down at his drink, bringing it to his lips, admitting, "I'm just looking for Maeve." 

As Jake took a drink, Bradley grinned. "She's probably still getting ready. Nat said her costume was based on her favourite panting." 

Jake didn't even look up from his drink when he asked, "What's her favourite painting?" 

"Why? You looking to make a good impression?" he said, still grinning. 

"Fuck off, Man," Jake snapped, taking another swig to finish his drink. Bradley only laughed, now shaking his head. He would have let Jake simmer in his ask, but this was you. He had to give Jake at least a decent running chance. 

"It's Flaming June, the chick in the orange dress. It's a brilliant costume idea. She made it herself." 

Of course, you would have made it yourself, Jake thought. 

"Surely you came across that painting with your 'rich upbringing.' Nat was practically force-feeding information down our throats a few seconds ago to ensure we recognized her costume. It’s some Freddie Luigui piece. I don't know." 

"I know it," Jake snapped. "I've seen it before." 

Jake was pretty sure he had, maybe once at one of his father's fundraising parties, though he actively searched his mind, trying to remember what it looked like. 

Bradley remained silent, slouching against the bookcase and crossing one leg over the other. He narrowed his eyes at his friend and tilted his head. 

"Why the sudden interest in Maeve? She isn't one for..." Bradley trailed off, searching for the correct word. Just as Jake was about to ask him what he meant, Nat's approaching heels on the hardwood floor stopped them both. 

She stopped at Bradley's side, red solo cup in hand, looping her arm through his. "What are you two handsome boys gossiping about over here?" she giggled at her boyfriend, her chin plopping lazily down onto his bicep. "See any snakes in the crowd, Indy?" 

Bradley pulled his face back into a grimace, reciting the famous line. "Snakes. Why does it always have to be snakes?" 

Jake rolled his eyes at their banter, placing his empty cup on the table between them. Nat giggled, tilting her head back, indicating to Bradley she wanted to be kissed. He complied without protest, leaning down, pressing his lips to hers in an overly dramatic display merely to piss Jake off. 

"Get a room," Jake groaned, mocking a wrenching noise. The couple separated, turning to Jake with amused smirks. "You've heard and seen far worse, dude." 

Jake shuttered, the unwanted memory of walking in on Nat and Bradley from weeks ago flashing through his mind. Sharing an apartment with Bradley had its moments - some good, some decidedly less so. It made him wonder if Maeve had to put up with the same shit he did. 

“Where’s Maeve?” Jake asked Nat, ignoring Bradley's remark. "I haven't seen her yet."

Nat opened her mouth, about to tell him you were still getting ready, when she caught sight of a flash of orange stepping out from behind the corner of the hallway. You came into view, your head angled down, mindful of stepping on your dress as thin streams of transparent fabric trailed behind you at your sides. 

Javy let out a low-toned whistle from somewhere in the room, and heads turned, one by one, as you took your final step into the apartment. 

“Damn girl, you clean up nice!” 

Lifting your head, you were surprised to see eyes on you. Javy glided forward to greet you from where he had been standing at a nearby table, and you smiled at him, though a little weary. Deep down, you knew his comment was meant to be a compliment. But something coarse, like sandpaper, rubbed against your heart at the remark, lingering longer than you would have liked. 

“What? Not bad for a fine arts major?” you joked somewhat deprecatively, though your voice held none of it. 

Javy held out his hand, and you grabbed it, allowing him to lift it above your head. With a pump of his wrist, he urged you to spin under his arm several times, letting your dress fan out. You giggled as he urged you, though you wobbled on your heels. The dreaded things were Nat's only contribution to your outfit, and you were severely regretting it. 

He let you go, thinking you had your footing on the last, slowed spin. But when you came to a stop, you were on the verge of falling over, your head dizzy, and your legs unbalanced. 

To his credit, Javy tried to reach out and steady you, already regretting the step he took back. However, before he could, another pair of hands, one on your hip and one taking your hand, steadied you. 

Jake’s hands were firm on your skin, pulling you close as you lost your balance. You fell into his chest, head tilted back, half falling over. And looking up at his face, seeing the amused grin on his lip, you drew in a sharp breath at the sight. 

"Letting me make a good first impression?" he quipped.

“By catching falling women?” you laughed breathlessly, bringing your free hand to his chest. If you had let your hand stall slightly longer than necessary, you would have never admitted to it.

“Seems noble enough,” he replied, helping you to stand. Though he might have let go of your hand, he didn’t let go of your waist. “Or do you make it a habit to test the reflexes of every guy you meet?”

You couldn’t resist the playful jab. “Only the ones who seem like they can handle it. And the pretty ones.”

Jake's grin widened, and he even risked sneaking a quick peek at your lips, letting them rest there for a few seconds before his eyes roamed the rest of your body.

"Flaming June, right? Frederic Leighton's Masterpiece."

You blinked in surprise, letting out a small gasp. You honestly expected to tell people what your costume was, not just some girl in some random orange dress. Jake's knowledge of the painting, let alone his identification of it so quickly, was scoring him some major brownie points. 

"You know your art," you commented nonchalantly.

He shrugged, "I might know a thing or two. I always had a thing for the classics. By the way, it suits you." 

You practically preened under his gaze. "Thank you," you said, a shy smile creeping onto your face. He beamed at you in return. 

Yes, you might have a crush on him. But for the first time that day, you figured it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

—- 

This was a bad idea - Oh, this party was such a bad idea.

Believing you were having a good time and actually having a good time were two separate things. You certainly felt one of those things. As the night went on, and with each drink you tipped back, alcoholic or not, regret built in your stomach. 

You weren’t sure what you were expecting. Maybe you were seeking reasons where there initially were none, allowing Natasha’s suggestions to slowly chip away at your resolve until you finally gave in. Maybe it was the promise of letting loose, to embrace the spirit of Halloween with all its creative potential.  

Maybe it was the promise of making new friends. Of getting to know people outside the art department. Natasha had told you to mingle. She wanted you to mingle, and yet... you didn’t know where to start. 

You didn't expect Nat or Bradley to coddle you, but they could have introduced you to a few people besides the core group before things had gotten this bad. You didn't dare approach Javy or Rueben, who played beer pong and chugged beers back like it was nobody's business. They were off doing their own thing, and you didn’t want to intrude. 

 Mickey and Bob had gone home earlier in the night. Bob proclaimed he had a midterm to study for, and Mickey wanted to go home anyway so he could call his family in peace. You strongly suspected he wanted to watch Halloween movies instead.

Rocky Horror sounded like a wonderful idea right about now. 

You couldn’t hang around Nat and Bradley all night, either. And nobody from your art classes would even dare set foot inside a party where nearly half of its guests were from the sororities.

You knew that. While you did extend the invitation, you told them you wouldn't blame them if they didn't come. They had looked at you with such disregard you wondered if they were seeing you through newly polished rose-coloured glasses. And standing up against the wall next to your bookcase, like an insipid wallflower, you could hardly blame them for it either. 

You couldn’t introduce yourself in a place where you were the outsider, even within the walls of your own home. Soon after the first few attempts, that realization settled deep into your chest. And you couldn’t help but feel like you had done this to yourself -  an attempt to be part of something like this, even if just for a night.

But Jake… Jake was still here. At least, he should be. He had been by your side for the beginning of the evening, talking to you about what projects you were currently working on over another drink—not whiskey—after you had started to hiccup while putting up decorations. 

After he recognized your dress, you weren’t ashamed to tell him. You had launched into the ideas and thoughts behind two paintings and one sculpture, an old table that you were trying to turn into an elemental-type sundial. You told him about the zodiac signs you had already burned into the wood after sanding it down and how each was placed in its own little section as it related to its element. 

You had reached halfway through your thought process when you realized how lost you were in your explanation. You froze mid-sentence, blushing harder than the colour of your dress. 

"Sorry," you had said. "I ramble when I get excited about my art.” 

But Jake’s interest hadn’t waned. If anything, it urged him to ask, “How did you find something you're so passionate about? Creating things... making art?"

His question had made you pause, though not over what to say but merely how to say it. “It was my voice when words fell short or my escape when the world grew too loud.” 

You caught a glimpse of something in Jake’s eyes—a flash of longing, a momentary crack in his confident demeanour. What followed was a slight nod. It was there, and then it wasn’t, as if he’d accidentally revealed more of himself than he wanted. Then he caught himself, suddenly straightened his spine, and continued the conversation as if that brief lapse in judgment never happened in the first place. 

Ten minutes later, he excused himself to get another drink. And you hadn’t seen him since. 

You scanned the room for him, hoping to spot that black leather jacket among the sea of people. But it was impossible. Under the dim, eerie glow of the lights, each costume blurred into the next, and the crowd swallowed any hope of finding him.

Reaching for whatever mixed drink Nat had made you earlier off the table, you pushed yourself off the wall, weaving through the throngs of people, figuring you might as well try to see if she knew where he had run off to. 

Liquid sloshed over the rim of your cup onto your hand as you dodged a zombie here, a fairy there, and music pulsing like a heartbeat through the packed room. Laughter and snippets of conversations swirled around you as you scanned the sea of faces, both masked and not for Nat. 

Glasses clinked, a witch cackled, and the scent of spiced pumpkin mingled somewhere in the mix with the tang of alcohol and body sweat. By the time you spotted her leaning heavily against the kitchen Island, red cup in hand and her laughter too loud, eyes slightly unfocused, you knew the night had taken its toll on her sobriety. 

She was too preoccupied with telling a bunch of people a story to notice how you quickly launched the contents of your cup into the sink behind her. You extended your arm when you were close enough, looping your arm around her waist. Her arm came up at the same time, sliding across your back to pull you close. 

Nat tilted her head back onto her shoulders, glancing at you with happy eyes. "Maeve!" she whined tipsily. 

Given how far gone she was, you were surprised at how accurately she pronounced your name. She bent slightly, still holding her red Solo cup in her hand, to hug you tight, her face smooshing into your neck.

“It looks like you’re having the time of your life,” you snorted. She nodded against your skin, biting her lip in a smile with a happy, drunken snigger. She lazily pulled back to meet your eye, and you smiled at her. 

“Have you seen Jake around?” 

Nat paused, her gaze flickering around the room as if she'd genuinely forgotten about him, though she didn’t lift her head off your body. "Jake? Oh, I haven't seen him in a bit,” she slurred slightly. “Why? Do you two likeeeeeeeeeeeeeee each other? Is Jake going to make you scream grease lightin’?” 

You reached for her red Solo cup and pried it from her hand. “Okay, yup, you're cut off.” 

“Nooo,” she pouted her arm a dead weight as she tried to take it back. Her hand hit the bottom of the cup, and liquid shot up, once again covering your hand in whatever type of alcohol Nat managed to mix together. You could only sigh. 

“Here comes the fun police,” she muttered under her breath. “I thought you’d be off doing your own thing.” 

Well, that fucking stung just a tiny bit. 

“I’m not going to be the one who cleans up your vomit tomorrow morning, Nat.” 

“I’ve only had,” she held up her hand, widening her thumb and pointer finger probably further apart than she thought, “this much to drink.” 

“Ahm...”  

Luckily for you, Bradley appeared, having seen what was going on. He looked amused yet concerned as he slid between the gap of the island and Nat to observe his girlfriend babbling nonsense on your shoulder. “What’s happening here?”

Nat made another grab for her cup, but Bradley gently intercepted her, taking her hand into his before she could even grasp it. 

“That,” you offered. 

 “I think it’s time we get you to bed, love,” he suggested, wrapping an arm around her waist. You let him take her, happy for him to bear her weight. 

Nat leaned into him, mumbling something incoherent, a mix of protest and agreement. Bradley spared a glance at you, silently thanking you in your unspoken agreement. You nodded, watching as he sandwiched her to his side and carried her off towards her room. 

It always seemed like one of you was always taking care of her. At one point or another. 

After getting rid of Nat’s cup, you felt the sticky residue of both of your spilled drinks on your skin and felt the urge to run to the privacy of the bathroom to wash it off. Stumbling down the hallway, blusters on your feet finally making themselves known, you let your hands casually slide along the wall. The music from the party faded into a muffled, dull noise as you walked. 

You wanted to smile at the lights. The red eerie glow along the top corners of the ceiling only reached not even halfway down the wall, plunging the floor into a dark abyss. You clumsily stuttered through it, unable to see anything below your waist.

It was exactly as you pictured it, and yet you couldn't bring yourself to manage the slightest grin. 

The bathroom door was down at the end of the hall slightly ajar, with the red LED light illuminating its edges from behind. You zoned in on it like a wobbly arrow to a target, tired and completely done with tonight and everything about it.

You reached for the curved handle, about to push the door open, when a high-pitched giggle came from behind the piece of wood. You shot your hand back like you had been burned, and with a quick turn of your heel, you plastered your back up against the wall. 

You immediately knew what was happening behind that door, and it made you throw up in your mouth just a little. 

Ugh, I’m going to have to disinfect the hell out of that bathroom tomorrow. 

The next voice you heard, however, made your heart drop into your stomach. 

“You like that, don’t ya, sweetheart?”

You didn't want to believe it, but you had to see for yourself. Leaning forward off the wall, you peered through the crack in the door, only to spot a black leather jacket taking up most of your view—the same black jacket you had complimented Jake on earlier that day. It was a stark contrast to the red glowing light above him, and something snapped in your heart and recoiled back as one slender bare leg in beige fishnet stockings wrapped around his. 

There was an overly drunken and seductive 'ahm,' forcing you to glance over his shoulder at the girl he was with—her costume was a bejewelled Taylor Swift outfit to match her long blonde hair. 

You swallowed your bile and adverted your gaze, pressing yourself back up against that wall, out of sight and hidden completely from view. 

You knew this was a possibility; Jake was merely looking for a hookup and nothing more. You had considered it all afternoon. Yet, you couldn’t help but feel utterly hurt at the sight. 

"I mean, Nat's pretty clever befriending that girl.. what was her name, Maeve?" the girl snickered. 

"I know. It sounds like something out of those weird fantasy books everyone loves." A whimper from his companion followed Jake's breathy and muffled laugh.

At the dig, your hand went to your chest, your heart thudding painfully under your palm. The realization they had been talking about you, about Nat, made tears flood your eyes. 

You didn't understand it. Or maybe you did, and you were too blinded by the possibility of someone like him, someone like Nat, Bradley, Bob, Mickey, and Rueben, to beat the fucking pyramid scheme and care about someone like you. 

What other explanation was there except the fact you had been blinded by those who proved to be the exception? Blinded by the fucking elementary school crush cause he had flirted, smiled, joked, and maybe even showed some half-decent interest in you. Clearly, the second he figured out you weren’t going to hook up with him, he sought his sights on someone else. 

Jake wasn’t trying to mould into the stereotype. He was the fucking stereotype.

"Even her costume," she sneered. "Like, who the fuck dresses up like that for a college rager Halloween party? You're supposed to dress up slutty."

You couldn't speak, staring down the front of your dress to what you had thought had been a risky enough slit. You couldn't even breathe. 

"You kidding me?" he laughed lowly. "Bradley was practically screaming at us what she dressed up as. I'd have no fucking clue what she was otherwise. I'd guess some random Greek Godness obsessed with that awful shade of orange."

Your hand slid up from your chest, around your throat to feel your harsh, rough swallow. Only it didn’t stop there, suddenly finding yourself wrapping it around your entire mouth, stifling any noise wanting to escape. Through shaky inhales in and out of your nose, you fought hard to stop yourself from crying over this. 

Over him. Over a fucking jock who would say anything to hook up with a girl. Only to get his dick wet. 

But you couldn't prevent the tears from welling up in your eyes, or from one finally spilling over, dropping down your cheek only to stall there, or how the hand covering your mouth curled up around your cheekbone, only to stroke away the tear. 

You refused to look back at the door through the crack, so you fixed your gaze on the darkness consuming the ground. And as you lowered your hand, you caught the ugly black smear marring your skin.

 How could you not? Standing in the glow of that red hallway light, it was the only thing you could see.

The artistic irony hits you like a freight train. Here you were, dressed as the girl in your favourite painting. Her dress had been the only bright shade of colour in the entire painting, and you, standing in the top half glow of bright red LED lights, had failed to notice what had been staring you in the face all along.

Orange was muted by red, and black bled through all. The only thing about you that stood out the entire evening was this tiny black mark scarring the back of your hand—black tears from smeared mascara.

"I would have guessed an orange," the girl snickered, quickly followed by a mewl. "Though she practically blended into the wall, I couldn't see her with the lights." 

Lips plucking on skin echoed off the title and out the door, and Jake drew in a ragged breath as he agreed. "She did blend right into the fucking wall, didn’t she?"

Your eyes burned. The girl giggled. 

“How long do you think this one will stay? She seems… different, to say the least.” 

Jake sniggered. “Seriously, you think Natasha Trace is hanging around that girl out of the goodness of her heart?” 

His laugh was so full of malice that it was nothing like the ones you had heard pleasantly filling your ears earlier. 

“Everyone knows after what Nat did, she needs an image clean up. Playing the saint, befriending the weird loner art girl, giving her the best friend badge?” 

“If she thinks she’s got a place in the big leagues, she’s in for a rude awakening,” the girl murmured. “Pathetic. People like her don’t belong with people like us.” 

There was a pause. “It’s just like Natasha, though. She always needs an audience, something to validate her feelings. It’s brillant really.” 

Jake's agreement was a silent blow, his next words the dagger. "Nat's smart. She knows how to play the game. Maeve's just...convenient."

Convenience. The word echoed in your mind, bouncing off the walls of your already crumbling self-worth.

“Give it a year. Trace is going to drop her the second the next new shiny person comes along. And everyone is going to forget about the little art girl she used up and discarded. Or she’ll become the most hated girl on campus.” 

Without your back up against the wall, his words might have made you crumble into that dark abyss. 

“Can we stop talking about her now?” the girl whined. “I thought you promised to get me off.” 

Jake chuckled lowly, the sound morphing into a low, predatory growl. “You brought her up, sweetheart. But don’t worry—I’m all yours now.” 

You pushed yourself away from that wall, stumbling down the dark hallway to your bedroom out of instinct, refusing to subject yourself to any further torture. But just before your door, you fell into the wall, your shoulder throbbing as you slouched against it. 

The world around you swirled, leaving you consumed by one thought—and one thought alone.

That. Fucking. Asshole! How dare he! How fucking dare he!

To hear Natasha be demeaned, your friendship demeaned and used as a stepping stone in pursuit of a meaningless hookup... anger boiled under your skin. You didn’t care what he or what they had said about you, but Nat? 

If Jake thought he’d succeed in sweet-talking you, to play you like a puppet on a string, just as he assumed Nat had been doing, he had another thing coming. If he was going to talk shit about your friendship with her, you’d show him just how spineless you could be. 

Oh, he’d wish he’d never caught you off that fucking ladder. Wished he had never met you and flirted with you, obviously a ploy to find someone to hook up with. You gagged at ever having a crush on him in the first place. 

But as you leaned against the wall, trying to steady your swirling thoughts, doubt wormed its way into your mind.

What if he was right? 

What if your friendship with Nat was just a convenience, a way for her to maintain her status or recover from her sorority fallout? You knew nothing of it, nothing more than what she told you. There could be more to the story, things she hadn’t revealed, things nobody else had either.

 No, you shook your head, trying to dismiss the thought. Nat had been there for you in ways no one else had. 

Jake was just an asshole. Plain and simple. 

But then another thought sucker punched you in the gut. 

You couldn’t tell anyone else what he said. You wouldn’t be responsible for causing that type of drama within a friend circle, one that long before you ever showed up. They never would have believed you anyway, and Nat… she worked so hard to get out, escape the rumours and gossip, to put it behind her. She didn’t need to know about this.

You had no choice but to carry this burden alone. It was a lonely decision, but perhaps loneliness was a small price to pay for the semblance of harmony among friends—or so you tried to convince yourself.

But Jake. You could no longer give a rat’s ass about Jake. If he wanted to attack Nat, then fine. You hit him right back. That much you could still do. 

Whatever had possessed Frederic Leighton to name the piece you currently embodied, “Flaming June,” whatever possessed him to gift that girl with fire in her name, that fire was suddenly born in you. 

A flame that sparked and kerosened your soul to burn, hot and bright. It was a wildfire that rushed under layers of skin and ignited every nerve, ending with a ferocity you never knew you possessed. It was born to protect what you had found - Nat, Bradley, Bob, Mickey, Javy and Rueben. And that fucking asshole would never be allowed to put you down, Nat down, like your family did, ever again. 

Pushing yourself off the wall, you stepped into your bedroom. Slamming the door, the lock clicked hard into place. 

It never opened the rest of the night.

NOW YOU KNOW....

Tag List:

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[jadehaven]

A summary of the thoughts as I slowly realized that #Elrondriel would indeed become a thing in the show:

(for context, ROP was my first introduction to LOTR, so this was my perspective as a viewer with no concept of the lore)

Season 1:

Who is this guy? Is he her friend? More? Oh she touched his face, maybe it’s like, unrequited? Am confused.

Is this how elves flirt? What’s the history here? Oh well, she’s leaving anyway.

*Enter Halbrand* HOT DIGGITY DAWG now THATS what I call a love interest 😏😏😏

*Eating up all the enemies to lovers tropes and swooning over Halbrand*

*Elrond and Galadriel scenes* Me: Nah get this nice guy OUTTA HERE where is HOT HALBRAND? (future me is aghast that I would overlook the literal loml Elrond, Gal and I are the same ig)

Halbrand: *Is Sauron* Me: What!?? Nooo! No no no no no this can’t be happening oh noooo

*Elrond saves Galadriel*

Me: Wait

*Forehead touch, tears, deep breaths*

Me: Waaaiiittt

*Gasps* Omg. Of course, he loves her!! They’re going to fall in love! It’s perfect contrast to the enemies to lovers story— a *slow burn, best friends, it’s always been you* kind of love? Right? RIGHT!? That makes so much sense! I’m 1000% calling it for Season 2.

*Sometime between season 1 and season 2, discovers the heartbreaking truth* LOL what?? She’s his WHAT??! 😭😭😭

*Still holding out hope, clutching my suspicions like they’re my grandmas pearls*

Season 2:

Holy sheet he’s mad. Ofc he’s mad. But he’s her best friend :c?? Pls don’t make me sad like this, you’re supposed to love each other!

“You were my friend!!” Mhm yknow they tend to use this word a lot

That’s… that’s a lot of hand holding there…

omg she put her hand on his CHEST OMGSJHDHFBF

“It was entirely of your choosing, the lost king blah blah” Ok but this is literally him saying he knows her type?

Hollldd up, I see what’s happening. Tension. There’s negative tension. I’ll bet if they stick to the trope, there’ll be a *moment* between them at the end that breaks the tension. There has to be.

*Galadriel gets caught by the Barrow-Wights* Wait for it babe, Elronds going to rescue her oh— yep, there he is. Saving her again. Because he’s the love interest.

“Promise you will put defeating Sauron over saving my life” Pfft hahaha miss Galady, our boy has it bad, there’s no way he’ll stay true to that promise. (For real though this sentence just showed us what the most important thing in the world is to him, it’s her y’all)

*Galadriel gets captured and brought out to the battle field* Ooooh yup. Look at his FACE when he sees her, the slow mo and everything wow. That’s his whole life right there. He can’t sacrifice her, he can’t do it.

Dang he’s gonna do it???

“Let me bid her farewell” Omg please kiss her goodbye haha but no they wouldn—

0/////o!!???

O/////O!!!!!!!

I CALLED IT I FKING CALLED IT ARE YOU KIDDING ME I AM SCREAMING

THIS IS THE MOMENT THAT BROKE THE TENSION.

Everyone online: iT wASNt RoManTIC

😐

Sigh. Of course it “wasn’t romantic”. THATS THE WHOLE POINT. That’s how this whole “forced to kiss” trope works. They don’t have feelings for each other yet, that they’re aware of anyway. It’s supposed to be an awakening. This is only the beginning.

*Continues to get gaslit by everyone and their mother including the actors and writers themselves*

Ok ok fine. Maybe I’m delusional about the whole thing. But every scene so far has been classic romantic arc set up. If they have a scene next episode where Elrond saves Galadriel again and maybe like, puts the ring on her finger all proposal style, then I’ll know. That would seal it for me.

*Episode 8*

*Speechless*

LITERALLY SPEECHLESS.

That’s it yall. If you didn’t pick up on that, then I’ll see you next season for all the slow burn tropes. I can see them already. LFG. #Elrondriel for life.

[magicwhiskers29]

Alright listen. I don’t want to get into ship drama, because this isn’t really about there being a problem with people liking a ship or whatever, but I’ve been stewing on this for a while, and I feel like we have GOT to talk about how strange it is that 5 seasons in, and Spicynoodles is still wildly more popular than Dragonfruit. I said I would talk about that, so here. Think of this as more of a fandom analysis than anything.

Speaking as someone who’s been lurking in the fandom since the start of 2021, so from before the pilot or S1 had aired in the US (Or UK, in my case), I can say from experience that Spicynoodles has always been very popular. Using the way back machine to see the AO3 tag stats for Jan 14 2021, we get that it’s by far the most used relationship tag (41 of 125 works, for anyone curious) which… Yeah, that lines up with how I remember it being at that time. And considering the state of the show at that point, this makes sense!

Red Son was the primary villain of season 1 (or at least the one who acted as antagonist in most of the episodes, if you want to argue that it’s technically DBK) who treated MK like a nuisance of a rival, and as someone who gave him silly nicknames and who bounced off of banter with him quite well. Given that they’re two male characters in a rivalry, and given coming fandom shipping tropes, I don’t think it’s surprising at all that they started being shipped in the first place.

I think especially giving the other shipping content type stuff in season 1. The most we got from MK himself (or Mei, for that matter) was that he was physically disgusted by the idea of dating Mei. Cool, so they’d set up that MK didn’t want to date his best friend, so what they’d effectively done, in this case, was get the female character out of the way of the ship preemptively. And for the record, I really like that MK and Mei and two close and intimate friends who would never want to even entertain the idea of dating! I think it’s cute and refreshing, but what’s relevant here, is that there isn’t (yet) a female love interest to ‘get out of the way’ of the rivals/enemies to lovers yaoi.

Also worth noting that Shadowpeach hadn’t taken off yet due to Macaque only being in one episode, and not being in the pilot (though it was still a thing – that same way back machine page lists it as having 10 fics written. It’s just notable that it was significantly less popular than Spicynoodles) and that Freenoodles was still mostly a background thing. The two prominent (male) characters that they had to ship were MK and Red Son.

The thing is, the show wasn’t going to stay in that kind of position for long. Revenge of the Spider Queen, the season 2 special, aired about a month after this early January 2021 snapshot, and I think it fairly succinctly marked the direction the show was intending to take Red Son and Mei specifically. The special gave us a lot of interactions between Red Son and the main cast in general, and of course many that I’m sure fuelled the Spicynoodles fans, because yeah, Red Son and MK bicker and clash in silly ways this episode! But they’re not the focus pairing at any point.

When the group splits up in the Celestial Realm, Tang goes with Pigsy (Yep, that’s normal) Sandy stays back alone (also par for the course) but then… MK also goes alone, whilst Mei goes with Red Son. This means that an important section of the episode is spent with MK overcoming his demons himself, whilst Mei and Red Son bicker and clash and get closer. They even pull a classic “mistaking the male and female duo as dating” joke, which whilst I don’t expect that or anything else this episode to have necessarily radically altered the shipping scene, or even particularly make Dragonfruit a thing, I do think it’s indicative of the increased importance these two would have as a duo, and as parallels, going forward.

And then Red Son isn’t really in season 2. Perhaps it’s not surprising that as of the Wayback Machine’s snapshot of August 12 2021, about 2 months after season 2’s initial release (though still before the US release of the show) although Spicynoodles is still dominating the AO3 tag, Shadowpeach is starting to properly gain. This makes sense given that Shadow Play had aired by this point, but it is worth noting still, imo. It means that, in general, M/M is still dominating the fandom, being curiously, a good deal more popular than even the platonic relationships, such as MK and Wukong or MK and Mei.

But I think season 3 is where it all gets a little baffling to me – especially the season 3 specials. A major plot point this season, is that Mei is secretly the weirder of the Samadhi Fire, Red Son’s signature weapon that he was born with. Combining this with s3e2, the Great Grand Dragon of the East, which puts the focus on Mei’s relationship with her family legacy, and general family struggles, it becomes quite obvious that Red Son’s and Mei are being written as parallels. Red Son and MK still have scenes together this season, which surely fuelled Spicynoodles, like the iconic ‘extra blankets and warm milk’ scene, or the scene where MK shapeshifts to fly Red Son off, but note how I specified individual scenes there rather than season-wide concepts?

Now, this analysis is not the place for me to say one ship is better than the other, or that there’s any kind of problem with having a preference one way or another. My point is that the show’s focus was very clearly on Red Son and Mei’s relationship, and that by this point, they have a very solid foundation for a ship, and yet Red Son and MK are still absolutely dominating that as a pairing.

Skipping ahead to July 4 2022 in the Wayback Machine for the AO3 tag, Spicynoodles is still the most tpopular ship, with Shadowpeach as a fairly close second and… Dragonfruit nowhere to be seen. Now, I will say, I can’t check the exact ship stats for this time. There is no saved Dragonfruit page. However, I can say that Dragonfruit is nowhere to be found on the sidebar of common relationship tags in the main tag, and also that M/M is almost 5 times more common than even F/M in general. Is this distribution unusually for fandom? No, but I think it’s relevant here, because the show had finally become more accessible by this point, with all three seasons available, but Spicynoodles was still dominating.

And to save us all some time, suffice it to say, this trend continues. Mei and Red Son are the more focused on duo, but also yet the far less popular ship. To check the stats today, March 9 2025, Dragonfruit has 441 fics, compared to Spicynoodles’s 1742, and whilst this obviously isn’t the best metric for gauging ship popularity, it is both an easily accessible one, and imo, a somewhat indicative one. I’m sure anyone in the fandom could easily recount how common Spicynoodles is in general, and from personal experience, I can say that yeah! Dragonfruit is hard to come across! It’s not non-existent, but curiously, it is rare.

These days, we have Shadowpeach absolutely dominating, as by far the most popular ship, as the show has further developed Wukong and Macaque’s relationship, whereas, frankly… MK and Red Son haven’t had much screen time together as of late at all. I’d honestly wonder if to some extent, Spicynoodles has lost it’s top spot because it began sharing its trope space with Shadowpeach a little too much, and that led to the more relevant ship taking hold. But that’s not necessarily relevant here, so I digress.

So how is it that we can have the crux of the season 3 finale be Red Son cupping Mei’s face as he withstands the uncontrolled fury of the Samadhi Fire to tell her not to give up, that we can have Red Son’s main season 5 appearance be a duo episode with Mei once again focusing on the Samadhi Fire as well as their blossoming friendship, that from the fairly early days of the show, they’ve been set up as duo that parallels each other, and yet I honestly wouldn’t blame anyone for calling them a rarepair?

There’s a few wishy-washy sort of arguments that could be made. Oh, the show isn’t really about shipping, which… yes, it’s not! In a literal sense, Red Son warming up to both MK and Mei is a friendship thing! Macaque and Wukong’s big fight ended their friendship! Tang and Pigsy are technically just good friends who raised a random orphan child together! But see how inside a fandom context, that list starts to sound more and more ridiculous? And see how suddenly not interpreting Mei and Red Son as romantic because the show isn’t about romance starts to sound like an excuse?

(I should say, obviously it’s perfectly fine not to interpret them as romantic in general, but my point was that I don’t think it’s fair to cite the show’s direction as a reason for that in general)

But I’d honestly say the most likely reasons I’d expect to hear would be either that people aren’t as interested in Mei as Red Son or MK, or that they’re put off by it being an M/F ship. And… Hm…

At that point, doesn’t the issue sort of start to sound like it’s just that Mei is a woman? Doesn’t it just start to sound like despite having similar foundations, Spicynoodles is more popular than Dragonfruit because it doesn’t involve a female character? I’ve tried to make it very clear in this post that I think Spicynoodles starting more popular is for good reason, but by this point, I fundamentally can’t quite understand why there’s still such a big gap in popularity.

Because this is the reading comprehension website and because I really don’t want this post to just be an excuse for ship wars, I should say, no, I’m not calling anyone who prefers Spicynoodles a misogynist. Obviously it would be stupid to make a claim like that.

What I am saying though, is that the general fandom trends towards these ship’s popularity are very likely rooted in misogyny, and that the answer to why there is such a disparity between these ship’s popularity is because fandom doesn’t fundamentally want to engage with female characters in the same way that it does male ones. It’s quite easy to already note that Mei is fairly underrepresented in the fandom given the prevalence and importance of her character to the show, and that hardly hurts my point…

I wrote this post because I really like Mei, and it bothers me to see her overlooked in general, and I wrote this post because I came across this other post earlier, and it struck me how much I was reminded of Spicynoodles vs Dragonfruit. It makes me sad to see, so mostly, I wrote this to express my frustrations. Once more, this is not a hate post for any of the M/M ships mentioned here.

[captainblou]

COMING SOON

(With the cheapest cover art ever known to man)

Drive me to the moon - a good omens human AU

A classic enemies to friends to lovers set up, a lot of angst and an eventual happy ending, where Aziraphale is a professional dancer and Crowley a rally driver

(Stay with me, it's gonna be fiiiine, you'll even think rally might be fun after that)

Excerpt:

The Ritz, privatised by the brand for the occasion, was masterfully decorated, in a tasteful mix of athletics and Christmas themes. Gladly accepting the glass of Champagne offered, Aziraphale took a moment to look around, lingering his eyes on the pictures displayed all around the room. Gomens really endorsed a large variety of athletes, from the more traditional sports professionals, like football players, to more niche competitors. As a dancer, Aziraphale was grateful for the opportunities the brand had given him. Their endorsement was the main support for his career, and together, they had made competitive dancing a sport to be reckoned with. As he was walking the room to admire the pictures of his colleagues - that particular picture of Eric Bunn breaking the water on a 10 metres dive was absolutely stunning - he came across his own face, shut by effort and concentration. He winced. It was not that he didn’t like the way he looked while dancing; the costumes and makeup were always amazing, and the dance always made him look more elegant and graceful than he truly was. No. It was just that he didn’t like the way he looked, period. He had always known that he had an unconventional body type for an athlete - he had always been a bit round on the tummy, and pretty much everywhere else actually - and he had mostly made peace with it at the start of his career, as his features never revealed to be an obstacle. But to see himself on display like this would always make him feel uncomfortable. The picture was beautiful. He was not. “Admiring yourself huh?” He jolted his head to see who had made the comment, and his stare landed on the back of a tall, thin figure just passing him. A flow of fiery red hair was brushing narrow, sharp shoulders in a black tuxedo, and its owner barely turned their head to smirk at Aziraphale, continuing their walk to the furthest table in an over the top swaying of hips.

Coming soon, writing is 90% done 🫡

Tell me if you want to get on the tag list my dear readers 💛

[bwjbivee]

PLAY TO WIN

Olivia Miles x reader :enemies to lovers, angst, yearning, tension

Ps: this is my first time trying to right and english is not my first language so yeahh…

You’ve hated Olivia Miles since the first time you played her. Or at least that’s what everyone thinks. You remember it too clearly. Your first nationally televised game. She stripped the ball from you like she owned it, scored on the other end, then jogged back past your bench with that smug little smile. That look that stirred something inside you. Like she knew something about you that you didn’t.

That was the night it all started. That night in the hotel. In silence. In shadows. In bruises on your neck and hands gripping hips and gasps muffled into skin. It felt something at the same time it didn’t you both knew it.

And then the cycle began. Every game. Every matchup. The fake tension for the cameras, the real tension in locker room closets and hotel bathrooms. You barked insults on the court. She talked shit in interviews. You stared too long during post-game handshakes. She brushed your hand like it was nothing. You and honestly thats what you keep telling your self—that it meant nothing.

Its game day. Your team’s warming up on one end, hers on the other. ESPN cameras hover courtside. You feel her before you see her Olivia Miles, stretching near halfcourt, her gaze already locked in. You look away not giving her the satisfaction.

But then there’s Kennedy a forward from your squad. Smooth talker. Too confident. She leans close during stretches, nudging your hip, whispering in your ear. “You know, if Liv keeps staring like that, she might burn a hole through your jersey.” And then just laugh like she didn’t just say something you’re gonna keep thinking ‘bout the whole game. You snort “Let her try.” After a while It’s mid-game. You just hit a shot over Liv—nothing but net. You’re jogging back when Kennedy smacks your ass and winks. A classic teammate thing, stupid and playful.

But not for her—Liv, she’s there and then suddenly she’s on you not defensively—physically. Hand on your waist as she boxes you out. Too low. Fingers digging in. Her body’s flush with yours as you try to pivot, but she holds. Not enough for a foul. Just enough for a message. You hiss her name through your teeth. “Back off.” she murmurs, low in your ear “Why? Heard you liked hands on you.” You flinch. Your heart stumbles. The cameras catch it. Every. Damn. Frame.

It’s all over TikTok by midnight.

Clips of Liv pressing into you. The low murmur. Your stunned face. Kennedy watching with a raised brow. And then the infamous replay of the ass-smack + possessive block + Olivia touching you like you were hers.

Fans go insane on tweeter:

“liv jealous???”

“tell me this ain’t a rivalry this is ROMANCE”

“her hands were NOT on the ball bye”

#nailyssa who??? #livandreader #sapphicbasketball

You pretend not to care. At least that what you say to your self until you get tagged in another edit: your highlight reel set to “Jealous” by Labrinth. Then a new one. And another. You mute your phone. But later that night… it buzzes a text from her.

Olivia:

You like getting touched in front of people now?

You stare at the screen. Heat curls in your stomach. You type. Then delete. Type again.

You:

You jealous?

Three dots. Then—

Olivia:

Come find out.

Part two?

[layer-10-love]

Lady Moon.

2012 leo x reader-

As the leader or the team, Leo tended to be more focused in leading and less interested in other ‘lesser’ hobbies. So it’s a bit of a surprise when you find a romance novel underneath his pillow.

aka, boy fail cringe leo (affectionate) also i wrote this like in 40 minutes so apologies for bad writing

As the appointed leader, Leo tried to be serious and mature about his role;with no help from his brothers. Strong, calm, confident, stoic and mature was what he was supposedly was. Unfortunately, anyone that knew him for more than a few minutes would know that he is none of these things. At least to a certain extent.

Truth is, Leo…was a big fat nerd. No surprise there. He liked watching space heroes and often gushed about it to the nearest living creature, giving them new meaningless memories and a massive headache. He liked making stupid jokes and god awful puns. It was honestly sorta cute to you.

What was a surprise was the book that was underneath his pillow. You technically weren’t supposed to be going through his things, but he technically should’ve given back that black cat plushie you let him borrow for Halloween. Picking up the book, you glance over the title.

‘The Man and the Moon.’

From the looks of it, it was a romance novel.

…Leo? Leon? Leonardo? Fearless?

You never pegged him for the type to read romance books, hell, you never pegged him for the type to read things other than Japanese literature or comic books.

‘A classic romance novel tells the story of two star-crossed lovers, Max and Luna - both literally and figuratively. Max is a successful businessman who has dedicated his entire life to making his dreams come true, and Luna is a quiet and mysterious woman who seems to have a special connection with the moon. Despite coming from different backgrounds, Max and Luna quickly find themselves drawn to each other, and they must navigate the rocky terrain of love and discover the true meaning of happiness.’

You read as you skimmed over the summarization of the novel. It seemed like a good read! But, if you talked to Leo about your little discovery, you’d probably be in for another classic Leo Lecture about not snooping. Again, it was fair in your humble opinion.

And if you shared this information with his brothers, he would be ridiculed and mocked by his brothers, despite them having weirder hobbies. Aka, Mikey and his weird obsession with boiling pizza. Ah, brotherly love.

You made a mental note on the book and carefully stored it away underneath Leo’s soft pillow.

He doesn’t need to know.

——-

Leo seemed to be busy more often than usual, with the lame excuse of being occupied with meditation and training in his room.

Which was a bummer since tonight was a movie night with everyone. Raph, Mikey, Donnie, April and even Casey were here!

You huffed and sat on the floor in front of Mikey who was sitting on the couch.

“So, what shitty slasher flick are we watching tonight?”

Raph grinned menacingly while holding a dvd and standing in front of the television.

“It’s not a slasher film, god knows Mikey would have nightmares again. Not that I’m against the idea of Mikey suffering, but I don’t want to have to let him sleep in my bed again.”

Mikey cheered from the back,

“I knew you cared about me! See, Casey? Raph likes me more than you.”

Casey frowned and groaned.

“C'mon! Do we really have to watch a baby version of scary movies?! What happened to entertainment and morality?”

“I’m surprised you know the word, ‘morality’”, teased April.

“Nah, I think he’s just throwing out random words and hoping that one of them will make sense. Remember when he said that we should ‘photosynthesis’ and ‘equilibrium’ with the enemy?”, you add mockingly, “You almost made Donnie pop a blood vessel.”

Speaking of Donnie, he rushed right through his lab door carrying multiple blueprints and plans for whatever new project he was working on.

“Hey four eyes! Gonna join us for crappy baby's first horror flick?”

“Why do you call me four eyes, Casey? I’ve never even worn glasses before, so why would you nickname me something that doesn't make any sense?”

“Easy.”, started Casey, “Glasses make you a nerd. YOU are a nerd without glasses, therefore you need glasses since you’re a nerd.”

“Casey connecting the dots? Hell must’ve flown over and pigs must’ve learnt to fly.”, you snickered.

After a whole debate between Donnie and Casey, the pizza was brought by Mikey and the rest of the snacks were laid on the floor by April and Raph. Monthly movie nights were truly a miracle.

But, there’s something missing.

“Where’s Leo?”, Mikey questioned while taking a disgustingly large bite of his pizza.

“Fearless? Eh, he’s probably in the dojo training like always.”

“Probably, but usually everyone joins for these types of things! Do you think he’s training or doing something else?”

“If you care so much why don’t you ask him for yourself, [Name]?”, Raph says, really not caring about anything else other than the movie that he picked.

You grumble and reluctantly head over to Leo’s room, hoping that he wasn’t doing teenage boy activities. Ugh.

You considered knocking on his door, but then you remembered the plushie he never returned and slammed the door open.

Leo scrambled off the bed and onto the ground, holding a familiar book before throwing it off into the distance, praying you didn’t see. He chuckled nervously while leaning suspiciously on his bed.

“Oh! Hey, [Name]…! Uh…do you need something?”

He seemed so anxious and nervous…it was actually kinda cute! It’s like you have two little creatures on your shoulder, each one trying to give you a way to navigate this whole situation.

‘Leave him alone and give him space! That’s the nice thing to do.’, says the one on your right shoulder.

‘Get the book and make fun of him!!!’, giggles the one on your left shoulder.

…it’s obvious who won.

“What were you reading, Leo?” You ask with a teasing grin, watching him squirm under your gaze.

“Oh…uh me? Uhm…comic books! Yeah comic books! I was reading a really weird part so that’s why I was surprised when you came in and…”

Whatever other words that were being soren from him was ignored, you only think about how oddly adorable it was.

You glance at where the book was hastily hidden and chuckled.

“What comic was it?”

Before Leo could make another desperate and obvious lie, you quickly snatched up the book from where he tossed it and read the title. It was the same one as before.

“The Man and the Moon?”, you teased.

“That isn’t mine! April just asked me to hold on to it for her!”, he blushed as he tried to regain his confidence and composure.

“Cmon, Leo, we both know you can’t lie to save your shell.”

He paused and looked away, blushing furiously and fidgeting with his fingers. You sighed and took his hand.

“Hey.”, you look into his eyes. “I pinky swear that I won’t tell your brothers. You know how they are.”, you think back to the time Raph was found playing a dating simulator, and how the bickering lasted for weeks.

“Plus,”, you continued, “it’s not the worst thing you've ever done.”

“…You don’t think it’s weird?”, he asked cautiously.

“Why would it be weird? Like, people read romance all the time.”

“But, y’know…I’m a guy…and a mutant turtle…and well��”

You shrugged and climbed onto his bed, leaning against his plastron once you had sat down next to him.

“Romance is nice, I guess. It’s just another genre in a variety of genres.”, you felt and heard his heart thump faster as he gulped nervously.

“So…”, You started, “Are you gonna go to movie night or what?”

Leo’s eyes widened as he seemed to have a revelation.

“The movie! Crap, I forgot about that!”

[unityrain24]

ok people here's my essay. (also note that this was for my english class so it is written in a different style than i usually would. it had to be all formal and grammatically correct and such)

2212 words, analytical essay

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: A Queer Allegory for Religious Trauma

ND Stevenson’s She-Ra and The Princesses of Power is an animated Netflix original series rebooting the classic 80s show Shera: Princess of Power. This time, however, the show is chalk-full of diversity, varied body types, queer representation, pleasing colour palettes, and a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers lesbian romance. The first four seasons follow Adora (aka She-Ra) and the princesses of Etheria’s fight against the Evil Horde, using their magic to try bringing peace and justice to the planet. A portal is opened at the end of the fourth season, however, bringing the planet of Etheria out of the isolated dimension of Despondos. No longer separated from the rest of the universe, Horde Prime arrives at Etheria- not only bringing higher stakes than any season preceding it, but an entirely new layer of symbolism to the series. The final season was a clear allegory for religious trauma, an especially relevant topic for the show’s majorly queer audience.

When his armada arrives at Etheria, Horde Prime sends his army of clones and robots down to take the planet by force. Unlike the Evil Horde that had been trying to take the planet before Prime’s arrival, who were disorganized, messy, and industrial, everything under Prime is sleek, elegant, efficient, and most importantly: white. Horde Prime’s ships are white, Horde Prime’s robots are white. Horde Prime’s skin is white, his hair is white, his clothes are white, as are all his clones. Pure, unblemished white, with only sparing accents of grey or green.

In colour theory, white has a few meanings. The colour can represent purity, cleanliness, innocence, and even righteousness. This colour theory is heavily incorporated into biblical verses, metaphors, and artwork (and some might even argue that our modern idea of white comes from the Bible). In art, God and angels are almost always depicted wearing white, as is Jesus in his resurrection. Halos of white or light yellow are shown adorning holy figures' heads. Several bible verses use white robes or other white objects as a metaphor of the wearer’s purity. White is still used in several Christian rituals/customs today, such as weddings, baptisms, and more. White is one of (if not the) most important colour in Christian lore. Even in instances where pure white isn’t used, there is a clear correlation between light versus dark and good versus evil. 

White has more than one meaning, however- on the opposite side of the coin, white can also represent coldness, blankness, emptiness, and loneliness. The most interesting thing about the show’s use of white is that it encapsulates both facets of its representation. Horde Prime uses white to represent his purity and perfection, but to the people of the colourful, messy world Etheria, this is a cold, eerie colour. As are Horde Prime’s ideals. His perfection and purity is synonymous to coldness. The white represents both- not only simultaneously, but as the same thing.

Horde Prime’s empire being entirely white is no coincidence- neither in-story by Prime, nor in real life by the writers. Horde prime uses white to represent everything he stands for, and the writers use white to represent everything Christianity stands for.

Horde Prime is a being that has lived an amount of lifetimes beyond comprehension- every time his body starts to grow old and fail, he selects a new clone of his to insert his memory and very essence into. So even though he has a new body, he is still him. And the reason for this? To fulfill his self imposed purpose of bringing peace and perfection to the universe. To thousands of planets he has been, one at a time, to reach this. Horde Prime believes there is only one right way to do things, and that humanity cannot be trusted to govern themselves.

Every planet he takes goes the same: he arrives with his ships, and slowly implants chips into the neck of each and every being on a planet. These chips take away the autonomy of the host, and they are left blank. No personality, no choices, no person. All their actions are perfectly automated and controlled by a hive mind, and Horde Prime can take specific control of and see through the eyes of any individual at any given time. With Horde Prime in control, there is no war, no famine, no pain. There is only peace, perfection, and purity. And anyone who does not conform, does not accept his gracious rule, are dealt with accordingly. Entire planets have been left desolate and barren, entire peoples subjected to genocide for not accepting Horde Prime. All dead in the name of peace.

These ideals upheld by Horde Prime are strikingly similar to Christianity. Perfection and purity are two of the main ideals of Christianity, in hand with righteousness. Christians strive to “be like Jesus,” to be their idea of a good person, to be loyal to their religion, and to make it into Heaven. Several rituals to “repent” exist when they feel they have not upheld these standards correctly- including prayer, confessionals, sacrament, and baptism. Even though true perfection, purity, and righteousness are typically seen as unattainable to everyone but the Godhead, it is common belief that constant trying will at least get you as close to it as possible. Conformity is another key aspect of Christianity, though it is not advertised, and to the exact extent it is upheld depends on the sect. In general, though, Christianity pressures every one of its followers (and even those who aren’t) to behave a certain way, to think a certain way, and to only associate with others among themselves.

Horde Prime’s way of upholding these ideals isn’t dissimilar to Christianity’s either. Much like Horde Prime’s Galactic Empire, Christianity has had a long history of forced assimilation. From the Spanish conquistadors to the pilgrims and other colonial settlers of North America, death and pain has come in the wake of the spread of Christianity for hundreds of years, amongst various sects of the religion. Native peoples have been murdered for their loyalty to their “savage” non-Christian ways, land has been stolen, and indigenous religions and other important cultural traditions have been changed past recognition or completely erased, all in the name of “saving,” all in the name of “love,” all in the name of “what’s right,” all in the name of God. Christianity is the only right way, Horde Prime is the only right way.

Its likeness to Christianization isn’t the only resemblance Horde Prime’s ways share with Christianity, however. When Horde Prime arrives at Etheria, three people are brought aboard his ship- Queen Glimmer, one of the Etherian rebels that had been fighting against the Evil Horde (and now the Galactic Empire), Catra, a high-ranking member of the Evil Horde that had been taking over Etheria before the Galactic Empire arrived (but is in love with Adora, who is one of the rebels), and Hordak, the leader of the Evil Horde. Hordak was a clone of Horde Prime’s that had been stranded on Etheria, which was in an isolated dimension. He spent his time in isolation trying to take the planet so that if he was ever reunited with Horde Prime, he would be seen as “worthy”. Horde Prime, however, is displeased by Hordak’s actions- claiming that Hordak was trying to take the planet for selfish reasons rather than for Horde Prime, and for giving himself a name. As such, Hordak must be “purified.”

In this purification process, Hordak’s mind is wiped, and he begs for forgiveness and to complete the process. He is then dressed in white and walks into a circular pool with liquid that reaches his waist. The liquid is electrified for several moments, and his screams can be heard, and then it stops. He is left blank, and Horde Prime and the other clones watching praise him for being the purest among them. Later, Catra is subjected to the same process against her will, and is now a mindless servant of Horde Prime as well. This process is almost identical to the Christian concept of Baptism. While exactly how baptism is carried out varies between sects (full submersion under water versus just a sprinkling, infant versus child, etc), the purpose remains the same- to purify past sins.

A more abstract similarity between Horde Prime’s empire and Christianity is the use of titles. Prime’s clones refer to each other as “brother” (and to Catra as “sister,” once she has been “purified”), and Horde Prime as “big brother.” Not all sects of Christianity use such titles to refer to each other, but some do; notably Catholic nuns or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). But even those sects who do not refer to each other as brother and sister often view Jesus as their “older brother” and God as their “heavenly father.” 

Horde Prime himself has many more titles than simply “brother” or Emperor of the Galactic Horde, however. Other titles given to him include Ruler of the Known Universe, Regent of the Seven Skies, He Who Brings the Day and the Night, Revered one of the Shining galaxies, and Promised one of a Thousand Suns. In Christianity, Jesus also is referred to by many names. The Saviour, the Redeemer, the Son of God, the Son of Man, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Prince of Peace, the Lamb of God, and several more. In addition to titles, some of the phrases in general used by Christians and the Galactic Empire are common. Both use the word “rejoice” when telling of their faith. Amongst Christians, “glory to God in the highest” and “[God] is the same yesterday, today, and forever” are not uncommon phrases. “Glory be to Horde Prime” is a common phrase expressed by the clones, and even more so, the infamous mantra “Horde Prime sees all, Horde Prime knows all” repeated so many times throughout the season.

The titles used for each other perpetuate a feeling of conformity and a feeling of “otherness” concerning those who do not conform. The titles used for their leaders perpetuate subservience, power imbalances, respect, and devotion. The phrases used in relation to their leaders perpetuate devotion and omnipotence. These are true of both Horde Prime’s Galactic Empire and Christianity.

Horde Prime was a genuinely disturbing villain who represented every painful thing Christianity is made of- toxic perfectionism and purity, conformity, obedience, control, and omnipotence. Loss of expression and individuality. The fear of being constantly watched. These are things that anyone with religious trauma may deal with, but it’s especially true of queer people. Queer people have had a long history of oppression at the hand of Christianity (and colonialism in general). From outright murder to conversion therapy and other abuses, from abandonment to dismissal, Christianity has perpetuated all of it for centuries. And it’s still something that happens today.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has a majorly queer audience, due to both the creative process of the show and the representation within the series itself. Not only is the creator of the series (ND Stevenson) queer, but so was practically every character- whether they were a main character, side character, or background character with only a few seconds of screen time. One of the main plots of the show is the complicated lesbian romance between Adora and Catra. As such, the series attracted a good number of queer fans, and religious trauma (or at the very least, religious fear) is a topic that hits uncomfortably close for many.

Other pieces of media that incorporate religious imagery have a tendency to be unclear about how it is framed. Is the imagery shown to be wrong and the victim is right and prevails? Is the imagery shown to be right, and the pained victim in terrified denial? Is the imagery shown to be truly wrong but inevitably triumphant anyways, no matter what the victim tries? It is so muddy in so many pieces of media. The important thing about the fifth season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power was how it was framed. Perhaps it was because it was a kids show, or perhaps it was the queer creators’ spirit and defiance, but the series was clear in their framing of Horde Prime. The perfect white make the audience uneasy. Horde Prime’s retelling of his victories fill the audience with dread and then hollowness. The “baptisms” of Hordak and Catra are disturbing. Every aspect of Horde Prime and everything he stood for was presented as wrong. Without any doubt.

 And even more importantly, the people of Etheria were able to prevail. She-Ra and the other princesses were able to defeat Horde Prime and his empire, and free those forced into subservience by his chips. Catra (and Hordak) were saved. The ships were destroyed. The people of Etheria were allowed to be free and express themselves and be people. This message was something very important to the queer audience. Not only was the fifth season an expression of queer pain, but an expression of queer hope. Neither thing should be ignored. Pain is valid. Hope is needed. To be healthy, both need to be recognized. To have a series that expressed both, and in such a queer way, was extremely important to so many people.