#to a steven universe fic of all things

[kraviolis]

how do i include the nocedas in my gravity falls/steven universe/over the garden wall/walking dead game crossover family tree

[ethereance]

Au whereupon reviving Shiro and Lance through the power of Altean alchemy, a side effect of Allura’s ability is that they end up bright pink. Everything is the same except they’re just. Bright pink.

[thebuttsmcgee]

It kinda feels like when the Owl Crew were all saying their goodbyes to working on the show again.

Nearly everyone in the tags is getting ready for The End.

Like. Damn. It really is the end as far as we know for the entire franchise of The Owl House.

Man.

[orestesimp]

Issue #6

COLLABORATED WITH @THIRSTWORLDPROBLEMSS

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: You and your unfriendly neighborhood Spiderman wind up far from your usual neighborhood and you need to find a way to leave before it's too late.

Word count: 2,600 words.

Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | thirstworldproblemss’ Masterlist

[Previous] [TBC]

Your home is gone. 

Everything is gone. 

All you can see is white. A vast, empty space surrounding you, blank and endless as far as the eye can see. 

You suck in a surprised breath, already flinching because you expect a place so white and sterile to smell like sharp stinging disinfectant, but to your surprise it's the opposite. It smells of nothing in here.

“Mierda!”

You turn at the sound of his voice, and find Blue-Spiderman behind you.

“Shit!” he growls out. His hand comes up to his hair, fingers fisting into the poor strands as he starts tugging at them in frustration again. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“Wha– What happened?”

There was a helicopter, you think… darkness... a loud noise... the wall of your apartment exploding into a cloud of dust and rubble.

"Did... did a fucking helicopter just crash into my apartment!?"

He ignores your question, opting to fidget with his wristwatch instead, swearing and muttering to himself, while you try to make sense of what’s happening. 

“And… And then…” And then the otherworldly light show. At the time, you thought you were dying, but you’re clearly not dead. You’re just… someplace else. “What is this place?”

“We weren’t supposed to end up here,” he says, ignoring your question once again. He smacks at his watch repeatedly before swearing again and then leaves the poor thing alone.

“Come on.” He unceremoniously grabs your arm and starts marching forward, dragging you along.  He seems to have some destination in mind, though you don’t know how he can tell left from right in this expanse of nothingness, let alone where to go.

“Wait, wait,” you protest, “Where are we? What is this place?” Maybe if you repeat yourself enough he’ll finally give you an answer.

“We have to get out of here. We can’t waste time.” There is no pause in his steps, he marches on as if he’s expecting you to calmly accept the situation without further explanation.

"Can you please just stop for a second and tell me what’s going on?!" you say, digging your heels against his strength to try and stop him for even a second. 

He takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring with anger and irritation. “We’re in an interdimensional fabric where the interstitial domain emerges. It’s void of any discernible quantum fluctuations or energy-matter manifestations, constituting an absolute absence of existence or spatial-temporal coherency and–”

He’s still talking, throwing out a string of convoluted science terms, one after another in quick succession, but all you hear is an endless stream of jibberish. 

His words seem strangely far away, like your ears are plugged or something. You raise a hand to rub at one of them, then at your forehead when that doesn't make the sound go back to normal.

Normal. Ha! Who even knows what "normal" is for this place anyway. Everything since you left your apartment has been so bizarre that you're not surprised your head feels a little wonky.

And there's something weird with your hand too. You pull it back from your forehead and hold it in front of your face, staring at it.

Strange. The tone of it seems off, somehow. Opaque and lighter in shade then you’re used to. Almost like it’s fading.

It's only when he moves to stand in front of you that you realize you can see the red and blue of his suit though your hand. The whole of your palm is turning translucent.

“Shit!” he spits out and steps forward, grabbing and yanking your hand towards him as he inspects your palm.

Whatever he sees clearly doesn’t make him happy. His mouth is at an angle of irritation you had not thought was physically possible before.

"What's your name?" he demands.

"You know my name!" You scowl, tired of keeping up this farce, you know he knows it, and you're not playing this game with him. 

His annoyance seems to grow deeper. “Yes, I know your name. I'm asking if you remember it.”

What kind of stupid question is that!? Of course you remember your own name. What a condescending jerk! Does he get off on making everyone around him feel like an idiot?

Your name is… it’s... it's... uhm…

... huh.

The first syllable of your name is on the tip of your tongue. Your lips shape the sound, but nothing comes out because you don't remember what vowel comes next. Or what comes after that.

Your name... Why can't you remember your name?

“I–I don’t...” you hesitate, blinking in confusion. You don’t understand. How did you forget something so simple? “I don’t understand what’s happening. Where are we?”

“I just told you where we are,” he bursts out impatiently.

You wince at his words. God, he did explain, didn't he? You just... can't remember what he said. You know he used a lot of science-y words… Is that why you can't remember what he told you?

 “Look, it’s been a rough day. Can you explain it to me again, please, but like you’re talking to a 5 year old?”

In front of you, his expression softens ever so slightly, and he takes another deep breath before continuing more calmly.

“We’re in a space between worlds,” he explains, this time in plain speech, thank god. “It’s a void. Nothing exists here. If we stay too long, we won’t either.”

“Okay, but what am I supposed to–”

“Think happy thoughts,” he orders with a testy bite, which is not at all very helpful in making you think of happy thoughts.

“What, like think of a joke or…?”

He scowls at your question, as if it wasn’t a perfectly reasonable question to ask in the circumstances.

“No. Close your eyes and think of a happy memory. Something important. And personal. It’ll keep you tethered to your physical body,” he says, and despite the terse snappiness that remains in this rude man’s voice, you don’t put up a protest.

You close your eyes, trading out white for the black behind your eyelids. You try to form a memory—any memory—but nothing comes to you.

“I can’t think of anything,” you say, as worry starts creeping into your chest. You don’t understand why something that should be simple is so hard to do all of a sudden.

Then you hear his voice in the darkness.

“Think of someone you love. A day you spent together, or if you can’t think of something, then just think of their smile, or the color of their eyes,” he continues, and with each quality he lists out to you, there's a warmth that leaks through the hardness of his voice.

In your mind’s eye, a memory unfolds pixel by pixel. One of your favorite childhood memories of going camping upstate with your family. You’re wearing a pink ball cap, and your parents are standing by the tent, watching as the family dog runs up to you with a soggy tennis ball in her mouth.

Your mom is smiling at you as she waves from afar, gentle and patient. Her eyes are squinting against the bright sunlight, but you can’t remember the color of them. 

Gray hazy mist invades the edges of the memory, eating into the vivid colors, the picture distorts until the smiles of your parents morphs into a faceless blob.

Your eyes snap open, and you can’t keep the panic out of your voice. “What’s happening to me!?”

You don’t remember… You don’t remember what they look like. Who they were, you can’t–

“Hey, hey” his voice snaps you out of the fog, His warm palms come up to cup the apple of your cheeks, face mere inches from yours.

“Stay with me.”

And you're trying, you really are, but the panic is already here. Eating through your veins and crawling under your skin with an itch that won't go away.

“I– I can’t– I don’t–”

You can’t feel his hand anymore. Can’t feel your cheeks either. Can’t feel the clattering of your teeth from your trembling or the hard beating of your heart in your chest.

“I don’t remember her eyes.” Your fingers clutch onto his arms, but no matter how hard you dig in with your nails, it sinks into nothingness,  “I don’t– My mom. I– I don’t remember her name, her face, her–” 

Your feet seem to have fused to the spot you are standing on. They feel heavy and weightless at the same time. You try to move, but can't. Your body is no longer listening to you, and you’ve forgotten what it’s like to coordinate your feet, for the right foot to take a step forward and have the left one follow.

“Lyla,” he tells you, thumb smoothing over the apple of your cheeks, and you can feel the rasp of the rough calluses on it. “Your mom’s name was Lyla.”

The panic subsides at the familiar name. 

Lyla.

Your mom's face comes flooding back, the way her eyes would crinkle at the corner when she laughed, the proud smile she wore at your high school graduation, the soft sound of her voice singing you quiet lullabies as you drifted off to sleep.

“She used to make the most disgusting mac ‘n’ cheese, and whenever you’re sad, it’s all you want to eat,” he reminds you and your mouth tingles at the memory of the thick layer of dripping cheap cheese, scalding hot on your tongue. 

You adjust your grip on him, and you can feel the texture of his suit under your fingertips now. Your fingers aren’t as numb anymore, neither is your face. 

“Food worked, huh?” The corner of his mouth tugs into a half smile, eyes soft as he gazes down at you. “Figures.”

He leans down, hunching over until his forehead rests against yours. “You know that pizza place down on Downing street that you always go to the day before payday? With the gross doughy crust and kimchi topping that you love so much? Think of that.”

You can picture it clearly. The brick brownhouses, the familiar waft of oven-baked dough, and hint of coal burning, and slowly but surely, your stomach warms at the thought of it. 

“Think of those ugly pink fur slippers you wear constantly at home when it gets cold,” he says, and you do, gradually become aware of the soles of your feet and the weight of your own body being held up by them.  

He goes on like that, listing off things about you. The way he talks about them is almost insulting, but there’s an undertone of fondness hidden underneath that you can’t make sense of. He describes your favorite cozy sweater, calling it “ratty���; your favorite corner of central park that he thinks reeks of piss; your favorite episode of Grey’s anatomy, the one where Cristina has to get cut out of her wedding dress, which you always watch when you need a good cry.

The sound of his voice seems to shiver through you, the warmth of it settling low in your belly.

The more he talks, the more you remember, memories bleeding back into your consciousness. The simplest things come first... The sensation of running your fingers through your hair. Stepping barefoot into grass on a summer day. What it feels like to want someone.

And, as he continues to talk, awareness of your body comes trickling back until you're acutely conscious of his forehead pressing against yours; his hands, big and gentle where they're wrapped around your upper arms; the heat radiating off his big body inches from yours as his deep voice lists off all sorts of intimate things about your life, things he has no business knowing. 

Control of your body is returning to you. You can blink now, even if it requires conscious effort, and you blink up at him as he pulls back to look down at you.

“You back with me?” he asks softly, one big, warm hand rising to cup the back of your neck in a way that makes you lightheaded.

You tip your head ever so slightly until you catch sight of your hands, now totally opaque instead of that eerily ghostly sheen, and you nod back at him. 

“I– I think so.”

“Good.” 

You’re still a little bit frazzled. Disorientated by the whole experience that it takes you a while longer to gather your thoughts together. 

You still don’t know where you are. You don’t know what the hell just happened. Or what this place is supposed to be. Calling it a ‘void’ doesn’t really explain as much as he seems to think it does. How on earth did you just lose control over your body like that? Why did your body literally start to disappear, fading into the nothingness? 

A chill trickles down your spine as you recall the lack of sensation, and you grip his arm underneath your fingers just a little bit tighter to remind yourself that, yeah, he’s still here. 

It makes you feel just the tiniest bit safer. 

With one arm still wrapped around your shoulders, he brings his other wrist to his mouth and speaks into the watch. “Lyla, have you got a lock down?” 

Huh? Lyla? What is he– You don’t understand. Wait, is he talking to your mom? What does he mean he’s locking down your mom!? 

There’s a crackle of static in your ears, and the endless white gives way to a burst of color as reality reforms around the two of you. A wall of masonry appears brick by brick before you, nothing but blue clear skies above. There’s a crunch of gravel on the concrete tiles beneath your feet, and when you look down to your right, you see the New York skyline below you. The bird’s eye view of the city is familiar. It’s one you’ve seen many, many times before. 

You’re on top of the Chrysler building. 

For a second you panic at the height. You clutch onto the man who has once again saved your life, and he lets you, holding you steady, with one big palm resting on the small of your back. 

“You’re okay,” he says, shushing you until you relax in his arms. “You’re okay.” 

You stay like that for some time, held in the safety of his arms, until your heartbeat slows, until the pulse racing in your throat is no longer in a clustered lump and you feel like you can breathe and think again. 

And now that you can think again, your brain is racing a mile a minute. All the things that have happened… All the things that this man said to you to bring you back to yourself. 

Things that no one except for you would know about. It’s too personal and intimate. Even if he had somehow been stalking you, he wouldn’t know these things unless he has been stalking you from childhood. The things he knows about you only comes through years of being with a person. Your habits. Your likes. Your dislikes. The things that upset you. The things that make it better when everything else has gone wrong. He knows all these things about you that he really only should know if he’s known you for a lifetime.  

"Who are you?" you ask him again, pulling back slightly to stare up into those blood red eyes inches away from your own, "Who are you really?"

"My name is Miguel O'Hara,” he says, holding your gaze, “and I’m Spiderman from another dimension."

Dedication & Credits: To my sister clown in arms @thirstworldproblemss thank you for putting up with me since this series started, I have been bugging his poor woman every second of her waking day. Please give her all the love because I couldn't do this without her or even if I did, I wouldn't have 1/100000000000000000 of the fun I have now with her.

[intooned]

MY FAVORITE SHIPS!

This was a LONG time coming! And I want to thank @expensiveeggplant & @coffinbrotherr for putting up with my procrastination while boiling down the who and why of this list!

Adventure Time: Finnceline

My first real ship, the first fanfiction I ever read, and I spent hours watching Finnceline AMV's way back when YouTube didn't have commercials. Finn and Marcy's personalities and experiences play so well off of each other that I'm thoroughly convinced the writers were terrified of their potential. They would be an amazing butt-kicking couple, but that wouldn't leave Finn with as many flaws to develop as a young man coming of age. And it's such a shame because you know they'd always have each other's backs and best interests at heart. And with a fully grown adult Finn I'd bet money they'd have at least turned out as cuddle buddies... who occasionally engage in some very aggressive cuddling courtesy of my good friend Lofty! (Click at your own risk!)

Flame Princess and Huntress Wizard were great and had their cool moments with Finn, but something tells me Marceline would give up her immortal life in a heartbeat to protect Finn. Having seen each other's pasts and memories and going out of their way to help each other with deep-rooted life issues, Finnceline just has more depth to work with than the other ships.

Gravity Falls: Dipper x Pacifica x Mabel

The first episode I ever saw was the one where Pacifica and Mabel play mini-golf. I wasn't fully paying attention and assumed Dipper and Mabel were just best friends dealing with a bully. The car ride home together was cute and solidified my first ever threeway ship. THEN I found out they were siblings...

Then I found out fanfiction didn't care! In fact, here's a [link] to the BEST fanfic I've ever read for this ship, enjoy!

Star Vs. The Forces of Evil: MonStarco

The MonStar AU is where things are relatively the same except for one thing: Star is half or part monster. It makes good sense that Star, being an interdimensional magical princess from an interdimensional magical kingdom would be a little more... interdimensional. It gives some fresh blood to Starco fics, which can be a bit too vanilla most of the time, especially when you get to parts where Star's otherworldly anatomy and quirks cause all sorts of problems and shenanigans!

Sort of like her muberty phase but she's stuck looking that way, and if you remember the show said there's a chance every Mewman actually COULD end up stuck in butterfly form! Super interesting! It reminds me a lot of the episode of Teen Titans(original) where Starfire was going through alien puberty, and how fun of an episode it was to watch. The fact that there's tons of Monster Star AU and Mewberty art out there helps a ton as well!

Steven Universe: Lapiven & Stevinel

Lapiven: These two are the perfect example of "cute sunshine boy X hot goth gf". Plain and simple, Steven's optimism is exactly what Lapis needed to begin working through what happened to her. And no one appreciates a cinnamon roll the way a scarred person does. Also, tell me they don't look like a couple everytime they're onscreen together? I mean really watch them! Blushing, giggling, constant eye contact, twinkling eyes, immediately responsive to each others change in mood, plenty physical contact, elation whenever Steven calls or visits.

You can call it platonic for the Shtewball, but Lapis adores Steven in every sense of the word! She warned him and negotiated his safety when she realized Homeworld would get involved. She held Jasper prisoner in her own head just to protect him. She faced her trauma and returned to confront the Diamonds, ready to put hands and feet on an enemy she knew she couldn't beat. And entirely because, to her, Steven's safety was more important than her own life! Weigh out those exact same scenarios, their exact same interactions with each other with just about any other two characters in animation and tell me it doesn't make sense? I swear most of their episodes together are just them going on dates!

Stevinel: Now this is special to me. On the opposite side of the scale Steven and Spinel share the same feelings of abandonment and inadequacy from and by Pink. Of course they aren't the only ones, but Spinel didn't raise Steven as a parent or sibling. There was no one better suited to empathize with Steven's issues, and his downward spiral into becoming a monster who hurts people.

What Spinel went through in the movie is too on the nose for what Steven goes through in Future, and I'm flabbergasted that the writers chose to have her be of little to no help when Steven needed to be shown that he didn't have to hold himself together on his own!

But back on topic. The other Gems love Steven, but Spinel is wired to love him just like Pearl, on top of whatever blooms between them naturally. So when those wires were damaged from Pink's abandonment, it's quite poetic that Steven is the one to mend them. From there It's as easy-peasy pink-heart-squeasy to assume the seeds of affection could sprout from such fertile ground. It also helps that Rebecca Sugar blatantly suggests Steven and Spinel's relationship isn't concretely platonic, at least for Spinel. Even going so far as to give us fan service!

Possibility is all that is needed for shippers and fanfictioneers to run wild with wishful thinking. I also might have a revenge boner for heartbroken characters who find happiness despite the tomfuckery done to them. "Pink abandoned me in her garden? Guess I'll have Steven frolicking in mine.

RWBY: Nora's Arc

Although I may grow enamored with other RWBY ships, I always come back to this one. It's just tons of fun! Responsible & Awkward meets Extroverted Hurricane, legally banned from IHOP and the Sloth exhibit at the zoo! Premium family man real estate meets poster girl for found family and there's no one better than Jaune-1-of-8-kids-Arc to get the job done!

I'm also of the mind that Nora's bombastic personality is meant to draw people to her, because she's absolutely terrified of being alone and left behind again. And with family gatherings at the Arc residence, isolation is all but nonexistent.

Wakfu: Yumalia

Dreams do come true! LET'S GOOO! Not much to say; they were set to be together from first sight and it was a rollercoaster from there. A lot like Aang and Katara, Yugo got his feisty princess and Amalia got her dashing hero. It's classic, it's timeless, and you love to see it done well!

The Dragon Prince: Rayllum

Obvious cuteness is obviously cute. It's nearly unheard of for the strange but exotic alien girl to be the one intrigued and smitten with the human boy. An action adventure fantasy but the non-human girl is the awkward one hiding her feelings? Sign me up! It's a breath of fresh air!

Sonic The Hedgehog: SilverWolf

The newest addition! Some fresh meat to sink my teeth into as I rekindle my love for the Sonic franchise! I haven't followed anything Sonic since the fever dream that was Sonic 06, but happened to see a few panels of Silver talking to what appeared to be a new character, Whisper the Wolf! Shy, soft spoken, but not from timidity, rather a desire to not scare others away because of her frightening features.

Pairing her with the very approachable and reassuring Silver makes for good chemistry in my opinion. I also adore Whisper's color scheme and the combination of silver, gold, and neon lights they have in a lot of comic panels together. They'd make a cute pair that's easy to reduce to a blushing mess with any little bit of teasing, and I'm here for it!

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT!

I have loads more ships but these are the ones that I felt were most worth sharing.

[nebbyy]

Lester Papadopoulos/Apollo x reader - It's Over, isn't It?

A/N: okay so a few weeks ago I was listening to the song “It’s Over isn’t it” form the Steven Universe series and this scenario came to my mind, so I thought I’d just make it a fic! For this piece I didn’t see a point in assigning a gender to the reader, so we go with gender neutral all the way😎😎(neither your godly parent is specified since it doesn’t really add anything to the plot, so you can choose whichever you prefer)

PART TWO IS HERE

Warning: insecurity, jealousy, angst (WITH comfort tho), mentions of suggestive activities

Word count: 3209

You kinda hate yourself right now, and you hate yourself because you are so angry right now.

Well maybe angry is an exaggeration, but still, you’re really, really upset.

And you know you should be anything but upset right now. I mean, the love of your life finally has the chance to go back to his home in the Olympus, regain his honor and his status as a god. Those were all good things that you should be ecstatic about, right?

Well, wrong.

Just thinking of it made you feel like you could throw up at any moment. Thinking about the fact that Apollo. Because, what will be of Lester, your Lester?

Your whole relationship had started because he wasn’t Apollo. He wasn’t the tall, tan, handsome and all mighty God of the Sun; he was just a normal teen, whose only things that made him stick out were his acne, his clumsiness and a somewhat nice voice. His mortal condition didn’t even give him a single chance to act in his usual exaggerated, narcissistic self. He had to start off from the start, build a personality that wasn’t based on his godly qualities, but on something more real.

And in that situation he found himself in, with his new eyes he had seen you, and you truly seemed like a deity to him. 

How could you be anything less to the rest of the world, he thought. You were your godly parent’s greatest hero, you were liked and admired by most campers both because of your victories and your looks. And he spent oh so many nights fantasizing about taking you back with him in Olympus, giving you the godly status that should be rightfully yours. But hell, with the body he’d found himself in he’d barely the courage to come up to you to talk.

He told you so many times how absolutely surprised he was when he found out that you actually liked him back, even if he looked like any 17 year old loser, his actual words. And you remembered too, how his voice was so shaky as he tried to muster up a coherent sentence, how his cheeks shone a bright red, how his hands were trembling as you took them into yours and his palms sweating. But in your mind, that was more beautiful than any sonnet, any haiku, any poem, any grandiose, Apollo-like gesture. Because that was Lester, not Apollo; and in your eyes, Lester’s awkwardness was what made him stand out, because it was purely genuine.

Now ever so often you wonder, if he used to feel like you’re feeling right now, like you’re no match to the person you love. You look at your reflection in the mirror of the bathroom, and the mean joke that played your mind made you highlight all the flaws you could spot in yourself. All things that a god could never accept in their lover. You feel so wrong, so flawed that you just wish you could turn yourself into mud and reform your appearance completely.

Gods, you’re being ridiculous right now, you think, you just want to slap yourself in the face and yell at your reflection to get a grip goddamnit! You’re one of the greatest heroes of your time, you survived two wars, you can’t possibly draw the line at a failed relationship with a god. 

At one point someone might think: but why are you so opposed to the idea that your boyfriend is finally becoming a god once again? How ungrateful can you be??

But the point is, you know damn well that the whole point of the creation of Lester was forcing Apollo into a form that would’ve been the total opposite of who he is.

Because Apollo is naturally flirty and superficial, he loves to love and be loved, and he pursues anything and everything that he finds beautiful. But he got bored easily of his love conquers, hence why he has so many kids. So in your mind, it was only natural that as soon as he was back to normality, he’d grow tired of you and move to the next mortal that piqued his interest, maybe even leaving you a single parent to a new demigod.

That’s why you couldn’t stop that nagging feeling deep into your core, as you walked out of your cabin, hearing all the girls already speculating about how beautiful, handsome, shiny and dashing Apollo will be once he goes back to his form. “And who knows, maybe he’ll set his eyes on some of the friends he made in here” squealed a girl, from which cabin you did not know nor care. Her friend replied: “Yeah I mean, ain’t no way he’s gonna keep staying with the same partner forever. I mean, come on, he’s Apollo!” They both giggled like school girls, then kept gossiping about something else, but you did not care enough to keep eavesdropping their whole conversation.

You really hated yourself for being like this right now.

Of course, you know that those two girls meant no harm, it wasn’t their fault if they knew just as much as you did about Apollo’s tendencies. And about that you’re already came to terms with, but there’s something else you hate yourself for…

You stopped reaching out to him. Or even worse, you even started to avoid him. 

Not also him, but your friends and siblings as well. You closed yourself off of everyone else in your life, opting to spend your free days in Camp by yourself, whether it is in your cabin, sparring or all alone in your favorite spot in the forest.

Which is exactly where you’re directed to right now, as you put your headphones in your ears, wasting no time to press play and then abuse the volume up button to muffle any sound from the outside. You walk past the two girls, past another group of guys that were training with one another, and past your friends too, who you didn’t noticed as they were calling and waving at you to join them for a quick snack, leaving them rather confused and preoccupied as it seemed that you were stuck in a trance, locked out in another dimension of your own.

You didn’t even see Lester excusing himself from the group to subtly start following you wherever you were going.

It’s a quiet place, the one in the forest, protected by a thick layer of trees and bushes that makes it hard to reach it; but it’s worth all the climbing and scratches for the beautiful sight of a clear waterfall that fell right into a circular body of water, surrounded  by a rather big field of moss, so soft and fresh to lay on during the hot summer nights.

And so you did, letting yourself fall on that natural mattress, then closing your eyes to feel the light breeze on your exposed skin, and let the words of the song that’s blasting at full volume at the moment fill your ears, although you can barely focus on what they’re saying

It really seems unfair, all of this. That you thought you had fallen in love not with a god, but with a boy. Somehow forgetting that boy and god mixed in Lester, two sides of the same coin.

And maybe he forgot too, because every time the two of you were together, he suddenly couldn’t bring himself to think of the responsibilities that were waiting for him. With you, he forgot about his lost and very much missed abs and tan, he forgot about his chariot and his comfortable place in Olympus. Hell, you even made him forget about all his old lovers. It was really only you in his eyes, just as he was in yours. If only he’d ever told you all of this though…

Your mind keeps swirling in a million thoughts, until it fixates on one memory in particular.

You and him, alone on that very same spot in the forest. In a similar situation as you were now, too, with your crappy phone playing music softly in the background, as the the two of you laid together, one next to the other. You turn around to look at him briefly, only to find him already looking at you. “What, do I have something on my face or..” he just shake his head with the most lovestruck eyes you’d ever seen, batting his eyes slowly before looking at you once again, “I just really want to kiss you right now”.

Your eyes widen. His eyes widen. Did he really just say THAT?

Neither of you were sure how or why, thinking back to it, you wonder if it was his godly charm poking at the back of his head. But that didn’t matter at the time, the future in which he came back to his godly state seemed so far from you, it wasn’t even an option in your head.

Nevertheless, after the initial shock from his words, you silently answered him with a slow, almost numbed movement of the head, nodding slightly, almost scared that if you moved to fast you would’ve whisked him away, or that he could’ve changed his mind already.

But that nod was all that he needed before crashing his lips against yours, one of his hands flying to grab the side of your head, while the other stayed put on its place against the ground to keep him from falling on top of you.

The kiss was an absolute mess: teeth clashing, nose bumping against each other,... but it was perfect that way to you. You broke away from each other for a brief moment to catch your breaths, and you just look into each other’s eyes. With chests heaving, breaths mixing, you both started laughing, if only for a moment, a laugh of disbelief at what had just happened.

But that laugh didn’t last long before he moved his head closer once again, this time more slowly, more confidently. The kiss was in fact much less messy, your lips found their place against each other, the panic from before had morphed into pure butterflies in your stomach and fireworks in your eyes.

After a minute at most, you broke apart once again, but only for Lester to reposition himself on top of you in a more comfortable position. Your bodies closer than ever, you could feel everything of him….

What happened after still makes your cheeks flush red at the mere thought, but it also causes a frown to form on your face. Those times, when it was just the two of you are over. Maybe it was just a time of crisis that brought you two together, the shock from a morta perspective might have caused him to cling onto the closes person he could find. You can’t help but imagine Leste- Apollo in that moment, laying in the clouds of Olympus in a much similar scenario, maybe with a beautiful nymph or a smaller deity, or a mortal he laid his eyes on while he was on this earth-

“There you are! I should’ve known that if you’re not around you’re definitely in here.” If it were a normal, mortal voice, you wouldn’t have been able to hear it over the deafening high volume of the music blasting in you ears. But it wasn’t a mortal voice.

It was loud, it was melodic, it resonated in the air like the echo of the most beautiful of songs,…

You wouldn’t even need to turn around to know that that voice came from no other than Apollo. That’s right, he probably came back to his true form already. You can’t even imagine what a scene that would’ve been, to see the handsomely perfect god walking around Camp Half Blood, how many boys and girls had probably followed him around drooling over the sight of him. 

You wish you could just stay put, coldly dismiss him and let him go for what probably is the rest of your life and his eternity. But, curiosity gets the best of you, and you can’t help but turn around tentatively, eager to see what your boyfriend really looks like.

Your mouth quite literally hits the floor at the sight. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve always found Lester really attractive, but this.

This was something beyond the concept of handsome or beautiful.

This, him, was beyond what humans can perceive and comprehend.

Yes, you knew that his skin was tanned, but as he stood in front of you it seemed as if his body was made of bronze.

And yes, you also knew that his hair was blonde, but that didn’t make them justice. They flew, like rays of sun through a clouded sky.

Of his eyes you knew nothing about, but you were pretty sure at this point that no description could really depict just how deep, bright, captivating, alluring, even, they really were.

Your mouth quite literally hit the floor at the sight. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve always found Lester really attractive, but this.

This was something beyond the concept of handsome or beautiful.

This, him, was beyond what humans can perceive and comprehend.

Yes, you knew that his skin was tanned, but as he stood in front of you it seemed as if his body was made of bronze.

And yes, you also knew that his hair was blonde, but that didn’t make them justice. They flew, like rays of sun through a clouded sky.

Of his eyes you knew nothing about, but you were pretty sure at this point that no description could really depict just how deep, bright, captivating, alluring, even, they really were.

Your throat felt tight, your mouth dry, and your whole body gives you this tingly sensation. With all of your strength, you took a deep breath to try and calm yourself down, before mustering all of your strength to speak without a pathetic shaky voice. “I thought you were going back as soon as you got your body back.“

“Ain’t no way that I wasn’t coming to kiss my beautiful partner goodbye.” He grinned as he swiftly took a seat right by your side, propping himself on his elbow, his eyes never once leaving yours. You swore his smile was intoxicating, you’d say contagious even if the thought that this might’ve been your last moments together didn’t fill your mind with sorrow.

You wanted to protect yourself from this, detach your mind and heart from him before he does it first, leaving you with an aching heart and moving on with his eternal life.

You felt a hand come up to your cheek, holding it softly as the sweetest melody came from his lips, “I’m gonna miss you madly once I’m back there, you know?” At that, you can’t help the deep anger that fills you from inside, a feeling that expresses through icy, stinging words, as you turned your head away from his touch, “I’m sure you’ll move on in no time.”

He frowned. That wasn’t the reaction he expected from you at all, but he didn’t really take it personally, it was so obvious that there was something troubling you. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” your voice is louder, a mixture of frustration and anger. But also so much sadness, that can be felt by just how strained the sound that came from your throat is, almost as if you were fighting back tears. You swallow hard, trying to recollect yourself, “I mean that you are a God, I am just a mortal. One of many. I’ve got nothing special to be remembered for, to be remembered by you for the rest of eternity. And Im okay with it, really. Our destinies were never meant to combine, I was just another one of your lovers.” As you spoke those last words you couldn’t help but let the tears flow from your eyes, those who always looked at Lester with a mix of love and mischief, now only filled with a never ending sadness.

Slowly, as to avoid scaring you off, the renewed god took your wet face in his warm hands, pulling you closer and wiping your tears off at the same time. Gently, he spoke: “My love, you couldn’t have said anything more wrong. You are special to me, and I could never forget you. In thousands of years that I’ve existed, no one had ever treated like you did, like I wasn’t a god. Sure, it was temporary and you knew I could’ve incinerated you as soon as I got back to… this.” He looked down, gesturing at his body, a sight for sore eyes that could’ve really made you unfocus on anything were you not so taken by your talk with Apollo at the moment. “But that didn’t stop you from treating me like we were equal. And I hated it, at first. I thought it would be part of my punishment. But as time passed, I realized that being your equal was the highest of honors I could ever get. You’re… you’re crazy strong, incredibly smart, unbelievably beautiful, way too kind for your own good, especially with those brats of the kids in this Camp.”

You giggled at his words, a consistent contrast with your tearful eyes and quiet sobs, “Some of those brats are your children too, genius.” “Well then it must run in the family.” You laughed again while shaking your head, but only for a moment before returning your full attention on the boy in front of you. He took the sign to continue.

“What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think I could ever be able to let you go. Over all the lovers I had through the years, which I’m sure you know are many, you’re the only one that saw me and treated me with true love and care. Not with fearful devotion, never fearing what I was capable of. I only ever saw this kind of love in Sally Jackson, and I mocked Poseidon for letting a mortal like many treat him so casually. But now, now I get it, and to be honest I can’t help but think that you’d deserve to be called a deity far more than many others who already are. Maybe even more than me. So I refuse to ever let go of this blessing that fate has given me. And if in order to do so I have to take your soul and put it on the sky above, to rest as a star forever by my side, so be it. But trust me you’re not getting rid of me so easily.”

You crumbled like a sand castle at his words, that he spoke with the very same tone, on the very same spot when you still called him Lester, and you promised to stick by each other’s side for the time you had left, only a few months before this whole encounter. You let your head fall into his broad chest, sobbing softly as you desperately clung to him. Your tears weren’t of sadness anymore, but of relief, for you had just been given the confirmation that your lover was still yours.You spent the rest of the night there, cuddling as close to eachother as possible as you rested in peace. 

The morning after, at dawn, when he had to officially go back to his daily duties, he begrudgingly got up from his place in your arms, placing butterfly kisses on your arms and neck, careful not to wake you. He left a little not right next to you, one that read: 

“I had to go, didn’t want to wake your pretty face this early in the morning.  Meet me here at dusk tomorrow, Forever yours,  A.”

It made you smile, seeing that note as soon as you opened your eyes, almost made you forget the lack of your boyfriend next to you,… and the yelling of your friends and siblings calling for your name in the distance.

You wasted no time walking towards those voices, and when they asked you just where the hell have you been all night, you just smiled and brushed it off, but everyone noticed how your usual bright self had mysteriously came back after days of brooding.

Hours later, you were calmly eating dinner with the other campers, laughing and talking and eating seemingly decent food. You were totally clueless as to where exactly Apollo was, but you guessed he was on his chariot, on his way to let the sun set and go to your secluded spot. But little did you know, he was in neither of those places. He was actually walking up to Zeus’ throne, tall and proud as he respectfully bowed to his father. “Apollo, I see it took you no time to get used to your old life once more. I trust you have learned your lesson.”

“Indeed, father. And I came here to thank you for it all. It was… better than I expected.” Zeus lifted a brow suspiciously, eyeing his son as if trying to make out what’s in his mind just by his appearance. “Mmh I hardly believe that you only came here to thank me for your punishment.” “Heh, you’re not wrong, father. I came here to make a request.”

“Depends. What is it that you desire?”

“How do you make a demigod immortal?”

[claritys-silly-things]

Something something Sunday, something something headcanon post

- Ponyboy loves mint chocolate chip ice cream, but dally hates it. He claims it tastes like toothpaste and every time he says this, the group has to hold pony back from attacking the guy (fair)

- (modern) Someone show the curtis brothers Steven universe sobs

- The curtis brothers have dimples and smile lines and other facial things. like Darry has crows feet and pony has worry lines on his forehead because I think it’s cool and I have those even though I am like. Young.

- What if Dallas had an older brother or someone that’s like how he is to Johnny but to Dallas and that person died and then his mom died and he hated his dad and had no reason to stay in New York so he left

- I just painted my nails with random ass old nail polish I found and every nail is a different color and I think that’s something cherry would do

- Pony, soda, and twobit are all double jointed in different areas of their body and they’ll just do shit to creep the rest of the guys out, especially dally and darry

- Dally is fine with gore n shit irl but cant handle weird body contorsions

- Johnny will randomly say the most horrifying things like “doesn’t everyone wish they could go to sleep and not wake up” and it just traumatizes ponyboy. Twobit is also like this but a bit more goofy. Pony ends up doing the same thing post-book but says it to sound like it’s a joke like two bit and when people tell him to stop he’s like “it’s true tho🧍🏽‍♂️”

- Since dally is so pale, he gets “red” so goddamn easily but he looks more pink. Every time he feels too much of any emotion, he’s pink. If it’s too hot he’s pink. Two bit makes fun of him for this and has been punched in the face at least twice for it. Pony is the same but that mf turns like BRIGHT red

- One sided dalbit bc Dallas is fucking aromantic but it’s funny for giggles and shits cuz twobitch just keeps embarrassing himself trying to flirt (vox and alastor core) (someone make a fic about this cries sobs)

- (Modern perchance) Pony is in like advanced classes n shit but fucking hates it. He’s still good at it and will cry if he gets a bad grade, but he doesn’t like it

- (Modern) Pony fucking hates Miguel O’Hara and is absolutely positively disgusted bc like half his friends simp so hard over that man (may or may not be based on me) (it is)

- two bit unironically believes so many conspiracy theories and spreads it to pony and Johnny

- I randomly made mozzarella sticks rn on a whim and soda would 100% impulse make food all the time and just figure out the recipe himself. It’s usually decent.

- Pony loves back to school season but hates actually going back. Like he likes the idea of going back to school and getting new school supplies, but within like, two days, he hates all his classes besides English

- Soda will burst out singing out a lot no matter where he is. Even at night. You can’t stop him (me)

- Rip sodapop you would’ve LOVED musical theater sobs

[azewritessillystuff]

Wishing upon a dying star

Wanderer angst (gn reader x Wanderer)

Warnings: Reader died, (?) Suicidal thoughts, doubt, overall angst.

Tw: Gn reader x wanderer, canon story, not proofread.

An: based on the song Love like you by Steven Universe 💕 I saw an edit of it on the Wanderer and thought it might fit ✨ This is my first work please be nice to me 🫣

I thought I might be bad

The Wanderer was by no means a ‘good’ person. Everyone who roamed teyvat, even he knew that. From his Fatui background to every part of his wooden heart and limbs tied with strings did he ever consider himself pure, nor innocent.

But now I’m sure that it’s true.

Sure, he had scorned the world for all its worth and cursed the lands he despised, but now, looking at you, if he thought previously he was a monster, he now realized he must be a demon.

And your an angel.

‘Cause I think your so good

Your smile, your laugh and every fleeting touch felt like a gift from the archons he never had believed in. You were the epitome of perfection- you were everything good in his godforsaken world, basically. Why you chose him, he’d never know.

And I’m nothing like you

He really wished he could be like you, he really did. He wished he had the courage to walk up to you and say he loves you. He wished he was brave enough to hold your hand and never let go. He wished that he felt worthy of your presence in his life. He wished for a lot ever since meeting you. But wishing never got him anywhere, did it?

Look at you go

Wishing really never got him anything

He wished that his creator had loved him, he wished his friend would stay with him forever, he wished the child would have lived the life he hadn’t.

He wished he could spend eternity with you.

“Ha. How stupid. I should have never…”

Never what? Met you? Loved you? Cared for you?

No.

He should have never wanted to be more than what he was to you.

A cold, heartless puppet. 

I just adore you

Yes, Wanderer adored you. Even as your skin turned colder and colder in his hands, you were still the most bright thing in his world. 

Your so kind. You wouldn’t leave him, right? 

Please don’t.

Because deep in his heart he knew this wasn’t his fourth betrayal.

A betrayal is when someone else stabs your back and hurts you.

No, this time it was his fault.

This was your first betrayal he supposed. 

And it would be your last.

I wish I knew

There he was again, wishing for something he didn’t deserve, how frivolous. Disgusting. Something he expected of himself.

What makes you think I’m so special

If Wanderer looked back, he’d ask you why you loved him. He wasn’t special. Everything he did was failure, failure, failure.

He failed his creator

He failed his companion

He failed his friend

Now he failed you.

Really, he cursed this world. If it wanted to take everything away from him, it might as well kill him.

Coward.

Cowardly world.

Cowardly him.

Disgusting world.

Disgusting him.

Perfect, beautiful you.

I suppose you deserved to leave him and this world.

You must be somewhere better.

With someone better.

His mind could no longer accept any other possibility.

So please let this puppet live his delusions.

Guys did I do good for my first fan fic? I don’t know if anyone will read it but oh well ✨ I tried.

Ps: send me requests please send me requests 😭

[ivystoryweaver]

With You part 4

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Summary: The truth is out. Will you see Jake again? Is Moon Knight back in business?

Pairings: Jake Lockley x reader, (Marc Spector x reader, Steven Grant x reader). Gender neutral reader. No use of Y/N. Reader is engaged to Marc and Steven.

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings/notables: Angst, comfort, references to alcoholism and recovery, cursing, a little bit of voice-raising I guess, some arguing, some touching/grabbing but no one is getting hurt i promise. Let me know if I missed a warning. Probably inaccurate DID, based on the show.

Dividers by saradika

PREVIOUSLY, on “With You”...

The two of you held one another in the middle of your drafty little kitchen, the shared answers between you only raising more questions.

“I think you should talk to Steven,” you suggested gently, “if you feel ready.”

Resting his forehead against yours, (Marc) rubbed your back soothingly. “Yeah. And maybe...maybe Jake too.”

It occurred to you, over the next two nights, that perhaps you were a heavy sleeper. 

Marc and Steven had a little heart-to-heart about “that bloody stupid pigeon” - Steven’s words, obviously. Steven made it to class and to his university library shifts. Marc’s two years of hard work and sobriety paid off, because he was now equipped with a wonderful support system - you, Steven, a close friend of his, and he even called his old sponsor. 

Then he attended a meeting (his idea). It was also his idea for Steven to keep his normal schedule. Marc felt guilty enough for getting Steven fired from the museum those years ago. (That, plus all the secrets.) So he changed his mind about hiding out in the flat with you. Routine was key. Routine and communication. 

You were so proud of your guys, but there were still a couple of glaring issues: Jake and the bloody stupid pigeon. 

Three nights after you first met Jake, you were determined to talk to him again. Marc had tried, Steven had tried, but Jake was used to operating completely alone. You got the feeling that this alter rarely did one damn thing he didn’t want to do. 

So you set three of the loudest, most blaring alarm sounds to go off on your phone - one at 2am, 3am and 4. You warned Marc and Steven, of course. In the event that Jake fell asleep, one of them would most likely wake up. Or Jake might not even front that night. 

But in case he did, you wanted to be awake for it. The alarm wasn’t for him anyway. It was because you had apparently slept through Jake’s entire existence, and you would never get to know him if things went on this way. You had to try.

So, tonight you made the effort to sleep in actual pajamas - black satin ones - a gift from Steven, instead of one of Marc’s comfy undershirts. The outfit wasn’t particularly revealing - you weren’t trying to seduce anyone, you just wanted to look a little more presentable than the worried, frantic mess from the first night you met Jake. 

Exhaustion overtook you easily and you did fall into a deep sleep, only to be jolted awake by your blaring 2am alarm, which scared the shit out of you. This could possibly be your worst idea ever. But you quickly realized, while trying to calm the hammering of your heart, that your fiancé was not in bed with you. 

Sitting up and pushing off the bed, you trudged to the bathroom to splash cold water on your face before checking the apartment for signs of life. Nothing. 

So you waited. 

You were alllmost back to sleep when he arrived - through the damn window, again. 

Sitting up, you flipped on the bedside lamp, just as he pulled his flat cap from his head and raked his fingers through his lustrous, chocolate waves. Sporting what you were starting to believe was his signature look - this alter carried himself with a self-assurance you had never seen from your fiancé. 

His expensive but worn leather jacket stopped at his waist, meeting well-fitting, sleek black pants. The same crisp, white shirt and dark tie, along with black, leather driving gloves completed his style. These weren’t clothes off a rack - they were tailored to fit him perfectly. He had chosen his look for a purpose...you assumed. 

“Jake?” you softly greeted, easing off the bed. 

Warm brown eyes stared at you, flashing as if momentarily caught off guard, before he pulled at the fingers of his gloves, just like he had done the first night.

“Go back to bed, cariño,” he implored, his voice rich, alluring, and much deeper than Steven’s. “It’s late, you should sleep,” he added, forcing himself to look away from the black satin draping itself over your body. 

“I don’t respond well to orders,” you nonchalantly replied, easing toward him. “I was waiting for you.”

Clenching both of his removed gloves in one hand, he stopped and turned to glare at you. “Why?”

“Why not?” you shrugged. “It’s the middle of the night. I was worried.”

He scoffed. Dropping his gloves, he peeled off his leather jacket, turning his back to you. “Well, don’t. I can take care of myself.”

“Apparently not,” you shot back, reaching down to gather his discarded hat, gloves and jacket, domestically picking up after him, as if it were completely natural to you. “Not since Marc woke up in an alley the other night, in the Moon Knight suit.”

Jake was not sure what was more infuriating at the moment: you touching his shit, or you running interference for Marc. 

“I get it - can’t let anything upset Marc,” he growled, jerking his clothing out of your arms, a little more dramatically than he intended. You didn’t even flinch. “Believe me, muñeca(o), I’ve been dealing with him my whole life.”

You rolled your eyes, bristling in Marc’s defense. “Okay, first of all, I am not your doll.” You matched his glare with your hands on your hips, “and secondly, you can fuck right off.”

“Happily,” he sarcastically agreed. “You’re the one who ambushed me.”

True. You were in rare form tonight. However...

“Oh. I didn’t realize walking around my own bedroom was considered an ambush,” you fired back. “I was worried about you, Jake!”

“You were worried about him,” he sneered, dropping the pile of clothes onto the bed. “And I get that. You two are getting married, or whatever. Just let me do my job in peace.”

“And what is your job, exactly? Being Khonshu’s slave? Almost getting yourself killed?”

Dragging a hand down his face, he groaned.

“I fucked up, okay? It’s never happened before.” Angrily jerking off his tie, he silently cursed himself for coming in the window again, without making sure you were asleep. Although part of him knew, deep down, that he was dying to see you. And now this. Now you knew what had happened to Marc, that night, in the alley. 

“Jake, I can’t control what you do,” you admitted, your voice softening. You rarely ever raised your voice, let alone argued like this with Marc or Steven. But Jake just got under your skin. The heat in your cheeks and the heaving of your chest was definitely all worry. Nothing else, not at all...right?

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” you started again, boldly reaching for the tie clenched in his strong fist, which he held tightly to. “Your choices are yours. I respect that.”

He waited for a moment. “But?” He prodded. 

“But,” you added, swallowing hard, “You could have seriously been hurt. Khonshu is not obviously not protecting you. He doesn’t care what happens to you.”

“No one cares what happens to me,” he snapped, jerking away from you, tossing his tie carelessly. “That’s how it works. I protect them. That’s my job. That’s my only job.” 

“Bullshit,” you challenged, following him closely. “I care what happens to you, Jake. I care!” Reaching out, you desperately took hold of his forearm. “I’ve been waiting three nights in a row to see you again. I set my alarm just to wake up and see you. I’m yelling at you, Jake, and I never yell, ever. You’re driving me crazy!”

“Is that right?” He lowly growled, grabbing your arm - the one connected to him - and walking you back toward the wall. If you wanted his attention, you damn sure had it now. “You’ve known me for three days and I’m driving you crazy?”

All the air rushed out of you as one grip became two. Jake grasped your shoulders and pressed your back up against the wall, bending his knees slightly to descend to your height. “I’ve been sleeping next to you for years, mi amor. So believe me when I say that I know how you feel.”

“Jake, I...” you struggled to breathe normally as his dark eyes burned into yours, the grip of his fingers unyielding, yet somehow tender. “I didn’t know,” you finally uttered. “I didn’t know you were there, all this time. We don’t even know each other.” 

“I do know you,” he confessed, his voice softening as his thick fingers loosened their grip. “I know you. Marc and Steven too. So I can protect you.”

“But who will protect you?” you whispered, placing your palms on his chest to brace yourself, the heat of his firm body seeping through his dress shirt.

His searing gaze faltered, eyes dropping, his jaw clenching in determination. “Doesn’t matter. I have to do this for them. You have no idea how many enemies Marc has. Nothing else can happen to him.”

“What do you mean?” You asked him, your voice softening. “Doesn’t being an avatar make more enemies? Marc was trying to leave all that behind.”

Shaking his head, Jake turned his face away, sighing loudly. Why was he even doing this with you? As foreign as a personal conversation felt to him, he couldn’t deny how good it felt to be looked after - to be worried about, to be touched. 

“He can’t - leave it behind. It’s not safe,” Jake finally explained, his head still turned to the side, avoiding your pleading gaze. “We’re not safe without Khonshu.”

You wanted to protest, but in all honestly, how would you know? 

“Jake,” you whispered, pushing your fingers up the definition of his chest, over the length of his neck to trace the sharp edge of his jaw. God, he was beautiful. So like the men you loved, yet completely his own, complicated person. You knew next to nothing about him. He could have his own life, his own family - someone of his own to come home to.

...but why, then, had he spent years sleeping next to you? And why were you drawn to him like this - following him, touching him, shouting...your emotions wild and unpredictable?

“Jake,” you began again, your breath faltering as his eyes met yours.

He couldn’t take it - being this close to you. “What?” he rasped, his voice softly betraying the stern pinch of his dark eyebrows. “What do you want from me?”

Releasing your shoulders, finally, he took hold of your hips, pulling you flush against his chest. “Tell me, cariño,” he whispered darkly. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want -” you hardly recognized the plea in your own voice, you fingers still dancing over the angles of his handsome face. 

Jake’s eyebrows shot up inquisitively, the corner of his mouth curling slightly. You realized, then, that he seemed pleased to see you falter - to see you speechless. 

Well, fuck that. 

“I want to know you,” you finally admitted, returning the press of your fingers to his chest, your gaze dropping. “I want to know who you are, and if...if you have anyone. Someone - a family. And I want Marc and Steven to know you.”

Ah, he should have known. Releasing his grip on your hips, he pulled away, nodding as he headed toward the edge of the bed. Pushing his discarded pile of clothes aside, he sat down on the edge, resting his elbows on his knees. 

“I don’t know what you were thinking,” he finally responded, “but...this is my only home.” His eyes met yours from across the room. “You’re my only family.”

Your whole world stopped.

All at once, you were both devastated and thrilled. Jake had no one else to answer to in his life - he could be a family with you and Marc and Steven, if he was willing. Even if he didn’t want to be involved with you romantically, you wanted him to be a part of your life. But what kind of lonely existence had he led? Out at night, the avatar of a god, bringing vengeance to the vilest of men...protecting the system, but getting nothing in return? 

But the two of you couldn’t solve everything in one night. You would try, once more, to take what was in front of you, one step at a time. 

“I am,” you finally answered, crossing the room to ease down on the edge of the bed beside him. “I am your family. And this is your home. You don’t have to hide from us, Jake, or sneak in through windows.”

“I’m not...hiding,” he attempted, eyes downcast as his shoulder rubbed up against yours. “I just don’t want to take any more of their life. Of yours.”

“They’re trying to talk to you, you know. You don’t have to shut them out.”

He said your name then, and it almost felt strange to hear him say it. Different, but...good. 

He waited until you turned your head to look at him. “What I have...the way we are,” He tapped a finger to his temple, “in here...it’s not like a phone call. It doesn’t always work like that. It’s not always a sure thing.”

Shit. You violated the my-man-has-DID rules somehow. “I-I’m sorry, Jake, you’re right. It’s not my place to tell you how to...I don’t know, interact with your alters. I’m really sorry.”

Scowling, he paused, making you wonder if you really offended him. 

“Are you always this damn infuriating?” He cracked a smile, letting you know it was all right. 

“Actually, I’m usually a very calm and reasonable person,” you chuckled, leaning against his arm and giving him a little shove. “You just bring it out in me.”

Oh, he liked the idea of getting under your skin. He liked it a lot. 

“Really?” He teased. “You mean you don’t scare the shit out them in the middle of the night? Follow them around? Drive them crazy...wearing that?” He threw your words back at you. 

What a little shit. 

“No,” you steadily answered him, your gaze open and honest. “I guess I’m just here to drive you crazy.” 

@stormydaysxx laaundromat @rivalriotrenegade @wordacadabra this--is--music @i-still-dont-like-your-face​

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

why do so many people keep calling ed izzy's abuser? I thought it was kind of funny how wrong they were at first because I love being right but at this point I feel like, if you really believe that why do you even like this show? where the main love interest is a violently abusive indigenous man? that sounds boring as shit. what would possess the writers of the show for them to make such an awful decision?

but then I think, if this many people believe it does that mean I'm the one who's wrong? or is it that the creators fumbled that storyline when they should have been clearer about it? or maybe it's just that most people on here have had their reading comprehension scorched away by Sherlock Holmes conspiracy theories and Steven Universe discourse. I can't tell. sometimes I think the internet may have been a mistake.

No they're wrong here's what's going on. People all read this shitty fic called Hell or High Water where Ed was everything the Izzy stans say he was and then instead of realizing that Ed is sad everyone regressed into thinking that the Kraken Era TM was going to be incredibly violent, like serial killing blond men because they look like Stede levels of violence. Even if you didn't read HoHW you saw art or read fic from people who had engaged with this fic and succumbed to it's premise. So there's been this background radiation of misunderstanding what the Kraken is on the fandom for several months. So inevitably when Ed did some mild violence and then attempted suicide by threatening murder until the crew took matters into their own hands, which is not abuse or torture by any stretch, btw, it's a murder-suicide at worst (I say at worst because I consider it fuckery-suicide I don't think Ed was trying to kill people I think he was trying to force them into a situation where they thought it was kill or be killed so that they would choose to kill him, but that is my interpretation and you are free to think it's a botched murder-suicide I have no problem with that), which, murder is something the show has never condemned and if it did it would be horribly inconsistent. So anyway, Ed's whole Kraken Era was categorized in the show by him being sad and doing so many drugs and begging someone please god anyone to kill him and trying to break Ned Low's record out of the evil boredom, but because it had a murder-suicide element to it and Izzy's toes were getting removed and he waved a gun around at everyone once (in a way that felt to me like he was trying and failing to work up the nerve to blow his own brains out but I digress) people who liked HoHW and were mad that people had called it out were like "see hes being violent HoHW author vindicated" as if anything Ed did rose to the level of that fic

And you want to know how I know this read is bullshit? Because when I watch the show with people who don't read fic or interact with the fandom and then I gauge their reactions without showing my hand they all implicitly understand that Ed is reacting to Izzy in a way appropriate to how pirate captains react to threats from subordinates. The spectrum of reactions has been from "hey isn't it weird how Ed was the Kraken because his dad was abusive and now he's the kraken because of Izzy? Maybe there's something there but idk" to "I don't think you can apply the logic of domestic abuse to a pirate captain and first mate but also Izzy had it coming" to "I cannot feel bad for Izzy after last season, I'm sorry." To "lmao Izcel" and I've showed this show to roughly everyone I know. The only thing I can conclude from the fact that people who don't engage with OFMD fic almost unilaterally thinking that Izzy is in the wrong and then coming online to see people thinking the opposite is that Izzy as victim and Ed as abuser is pure fanon, like how Stede is a cinnamon roll who talks like Azeriphael.

But anyway yeah you're completely right about the fact that this would be a bad show if they decided to make Ed into a domestic abuser. I don't want to watch a rom com about a domestic abuser falling in love and I don't want a show that decided to make it's indigenous lead abusive when the stereotype of indigenous men as abusers is still to this day used as an excuse to separate indigenous children from their families and put them with white Christians in order to erase their culture. Good thing OFMD didn't make Ed abusive, so I still like the show.

[littlemisspascal]

Today marks the 3rd anniversary of my fic The Infinity Cube. I can still remember posting the first chapter, hoping at least one person out there liked it, and I can still remember how it felt to reach the end, a feat that wouldn't have been possible without the support of so many kind souls 💗 I wanted to make something for the occasion and having seen so many amazing web weavings out there, I thought I'd give it my best shot 😊

THE INFINITY CUBE: a journey home

Shades of Earth by Beth Revis // I Choose You by Adam Melchor // When Did It Happen? by Mary Oliver // First Love by Jennifer Franklin // The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde // The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons // The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman // 10 a.m Is When You Come To Me by Louise Bourgeois // Maybe In Another Universe, I Deserve You by Gaby Dunn // Maybe When the Time is Right You Will Find Me Again - K. Tolnoe // We Were Missing the Present by Mahmoud Darwish // Persona (1966) // Matched by Ally Condie // In the Pines by Alice Notley // It Wasn't Love // La Pointe Courte (1955) // "My better half" by Pablo J. Davis // The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller // Bioshock Infinite // Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar // Oh It Was Meant to Be - Kate McGahan // Pillow Thoughts by Courtney Peppernell // If My Body Could Speak by Blythe Baird // Fourth of July by Sufjan Stevens // Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore // The Blinding Star by Blanca Varela // Wild Spirit, Soft Heart by Butterflies Rising // Finding You by Kesha // Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths // Web weaving about the untold story in you // "Feel like making a deal with the devil?" // A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara // Reborn: Journals ad Notebooks by Susan Sontag // I love you like a rotten dog // Sax Rohmer #1 by The Mountain Goats // The Bubble (2022) // Rabbit Hole (2010) // Beginning with O by Olga Broumas // How many times can the same thing break your heart? // War of the Foxes by Richard Siken // On Death in Heartbreak // Lonely Day by System of A Down // This Road (The Mirror is a Trap) by Poe // Memory for Forgetfulness by Mahmoud Darwish // "Do you think we're soulmates in another universe?" // Radio Silence by Alice Oseman // "In one timeline we kiss" - Elizabeth Hewer // Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed // Almond Blossoms and Beyond by Mahmoud Darwish // X // The Collected Poems of Alvaro de Campos by Fernando Pessoa // Excerpt from Moony Moonless Sky's 'I am an observer, but not by choice' // @/lookoflove // Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg // "Do you know what it's like to live somewhere that loves you back?" - Danez Smith // Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros // The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White // Home // You and Me

All Pedro Photos - Pinterest // Reader in my story is physically a blank slate, I just really like the photo of Javi + Gabriela touching foreheads

[daimyosprincess]

WORTH THE RISK

—PAIRING: Dad's Friend!Boba Fett x F!Reader

—SUMMARY: Pushing your luck has its rewards.

—WORD COUNT: 10.8k

—RATING: Explicit, 18+ only — MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

—TAGS & WARNINGS: second person narration, no use of y/n, explicit sexual content, alternate universe, dad’s friend!Boba, reader has parents mentioned in the story, age gap relationship between an older man and younger woman (reader is an adult), secret relationship, dom/sub dynamics, daddy kink, oral sex (m receiving), throat fucking, unprotected p in v sex (wrap it up irl), light choking, this is straight up filth y’all I’m not even joking, if the previous things are not your cup of tea this will not be the fic for you 🥴

Please let me know if I missed anything!

—AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'll post this fic in a couple weeks! literally a month later here we are besties, the dad's friend Boba fic inspired by @maybege's post!! this fic ended up taking waaaay longer than I expected since the story took a turn I didn't plan for, but I'm really happy with how it turned out in the end! big shout out to Moss for betaing and all the besties who sent me incoherent emoji scrambles for my snippets along the way 💖 enjoy y'all!

Read on AO3 — Masterlist — Taglist

Setting out the last of the dessert trays on your parents’ patio table, you swipe a hand over your forehead. A delightfully cool breeze ruffles the hem of your dress, signaling the coming summer evening and carrying the pleasant mixture of laughter and music from the backyard. Satisfied with the arrangement of treats, you look out over the party of family and friends gathered on the lawn: neighbors, coworkers, and family of all sorts gathered together for your parents’ annual cookout, which your father fondly calls the “Bar-bo-polooza” (and which your mother decidedly does not). 

Scanning the crowd, you spot her bouncing their neighbor’s baby girl on her hip while your father diligently lectures her partner on proper grilling techniques over his beer. A swarm of kids darts around the party in what appears to be a high stakes game of tag, while a gaggle of your aunties and Uncle Steven are clumped together in tight conversation over the latest gossip. A smile curls up your lips—nothing bridges the generational or cultural divide quite like a juicy piece of insider knowledge.

Giving the yard a final skim, you give up on locating your boyfriend and head for your chair by the fire pit. You’re no sooner settled when you feel your phone buzz.

<boba 🖤🧸🧋: Better give me those panties now, princess>

Your cheeks heat immediately reading Boba’s message. You still can’t see him from your seat, but you know wherever he is, he can certainly see you. Crossing your knees, you make sure your hem rides just high enough to still be considered appropriate for a family setting. Your phone vibrates again and your eyes dart to the new message on your screen.

<boba 🖤🧸🧋: I’m not going to ask twice>

A heated shiver snakes down your spine, pooling in the dampness already nestled between your thighs. Your plan to tease Boba to the edge of insanity is already taking its toll. 

Logically, you know you shouldn’t be riling him up like this at a family function, but you can’t seem to stop yourself after he’s been out of town. You’ve missed his bone deep comfort, his small touches, and the safety of his arms. Hell, you’ve even missed the smell of him, breathing in that balmy spiciness that’s all his own. 

Of course, you’ve also missed his keen knack for making you black out with pleasure. But who could possibly blame you for that? The man is nothing short of a god when it comes to making you feel good, so it’s not your fault you rubbed him half hard in the driveway or brushed up against him in your flirty new sundress during the party set up. Besides, you’d been an absolute angel in his absence: texting him that you remembered to take your meds, drank enough water every day, and not touched where you wanted him most just like he asked.

Really, you’d been a complete saint. You only texted him those two dirty pictures because he asked for them. If anything, Boba should be rewarding you for your restraint instead of making you survive this cookout aching and desperate before he took you home and made good on all his filthy promises. Just the thought of what he said he’d do has your thighs pressing together. So, with a sly grin sneaking over your lips, you tap out a response.

<Or what? You can’t do shit with all these people around, old man>

Adrenaline pumping hot in veins, you hit send and click of your screen. You make a show of stretching so your tits press together, sure Boba’s got a laser focus on you after that message. 

Feeling supremely pleased with yourself, you chuck your phone into the seat you’re saving for your cousin, Ari. You search for their telltale blue hair and catch it over by the drinks table. No surprise there, of course.

“My, my, my, such a dirty little mouth on such a pretty little girl.”

A hot shock of electricity shoots down your spine. Boba’s sinful voice races across your skin deceptively gentle, like a blade wrapped in dark velvet: sheathed, but no less dangerous. 

Your pulse jumps under the thin skin of your throat. You don’t need to look up to know you’re in treacherous waters. His tone alone tells you everything you need to know—your “good” deeds never went unpunished with him, especially when you acted like you could get away with them. Putting your most dazzlingly innocent smile, you turn your face up to him, acting like you’re making pleasant conversation. “Wanna find out how dirty it can get?”

The corner of his lips twitch up. “Careful, princess.” His umber eyes burn with the unspoken magnitude of his threat. “You already owe me those pink panties of yours… don’t make me add to that list.”

Something hot and dangerous spikes in your core. You can practically feel his lips on your overheated skin, the scrape of his teeth down your neck. Luckily for your rapidly evaporating self-control, however, you catch Ari waving at you and you signal at their saved seat. The reprieve gives you a moment to swallow back the well of desire pressing against your throat. You’re already playing a dangerous game with your relationship—you really shouldn’t be adding to it by tempting fate, or Boba, in your parents’ backyard.

After moving to town two years ago, Boba and your dad had become fast friends, bonding over their love of classic cars and good whiskey. Freshly cut in your former employer’s downsizing, you had come home just after they had started spending weekends drinking and working on the old Chevy in your dad’s garage. It was over for you the second you saw him: broad shoulders, tanned, and impossibly gorgeous, Boba Fett was everything you ever wanted, wrapped up in a tight black t-shirt and well-fitted jeans. You never stood a chance.

For a torturous year you danced around your simmering mutual attraction, months filled with “accidental” touches and excuses to see each other more than strictly necessary for a daughter and her father’s friend. He gave you rides when your poor 2003 Toyota finally met its end, helped you move in with Ari, and even let you drunkenly cry on his shoulder at last summer’s cookout when you were sure your life was a failure. You really fell for him then. Hard.

Always teasing you with winks and flirty smiles, things finally came to a head at your parents’ New Year's Eve party. Scrabbling down the stairs for the countdown, you’d crashed right into him, his arms wrapping around your waist to halt your fall. By the time the voices outside yelled “Happy New Year,” you already had your hands (and mouths) all over each other.

The instant chemistry between you has only become more explosive since. In the almost six months of your relationship, you’ve orgasmed harder, louder, and more often than you thought was possible for a human being. But more importantly, you’ve also grown and learned a lot about yourself, with Boba coaxing you to embrace your needs without shame, both sexual and not. Mentally, you’re in a much better place than you were after you were let go from your dream job; and physically, well… you’ve never been more satisfied.

Of course, you’re not nearly ready to reveal all this to your parents. 

Boba has respected your choice to keep your relationship a secret, despite his desire to claim you as his own every time your mother introduced you to some nice boy from her temp agency. Her mentioning that she invited “Kevin from Jimenez Landscaping” today is partially what made you decide on wearing the particular little sundress you had on. Not for him of course, but to drive Boba wild while you humored your mom and talked to the guy. The rest of your scheme—putting your hand down Boba’s pants behind his truck and digging yourself into a very deep hole over text—had been more or less spur of the moment.

Staring up at him now, dead serious with little patience left for mercy, has your insides twisting in tight, needy knots. Boba is a man of his word and not above leaving you unfulfilled when he thought you deserved it. Maker did he know how to make you squirm.

“Okay, okay,” you relent, doing your best to tamp down the need leaking into your voice. “I swear I’ll take them off when Ari gets back.” 

You might be a brat but you’re not stupid: you know when you’ve flown too close to the sun. 

He smiles then, smug and shining, leaning down to plant what appeared to be an unoffending, fatherly kiss on the crown of your head. “That’s more like it. Not so hard to be a good girl, now is it, darling?” 

The sensual rasp of his whisper calls forth memories of love made sweet and long, making your stomach flip and tighten. Praying for the heat to leave your face, you clench your thighs together to ward them off.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Your head snaps up to see Ari’s freckled face plastered with a sardonic expression. Your confidant since childhood, your cousin is the only person who knows about your relationship—and isn’t afraid to give you shit about it.  

“Of course not,” Boba answers breezily, patting your shoulder, “we were just commenting on how perfect the weather turned out.”

Ari scoffs, dropping down next to you. “Yeah, sure. If anyone else here actually had eyes, they would see right through the two of you.”

You grin and accept the offered lemonade. “What? Can a young lady and a handsome older gentleman not talk at a party?” 

Boba’s hand squeezes your shoulder in a silent warning to behave. Still glowing with his praise of “good girl” echoing in your ears, you opt to stay so.

“Last I checked, they can,” Ari gestures back and forth between you. “It’s just the ‘fuck me’ eyes that make it totally obvious you’re screwing.”

“I myself prefer the term ‘making love’ over ‘screwing,’” Boba chuckles.

Ari immediately makes retching noises, their face screwing up in disgust. “Making love?! What are you, like a thousand years old?” They hold up a hand. “You know what, never mind, I don’t even want to think about that more than I already have to.”

Despite your cousin’s reaction, his words bloom heat in your stomach. As good as Boba is at straight up fucking, he also loves you so tenderly and slowly some nights it nearly brings you to tears. With sweet kisses wrapped in praise and gentle touches laced with assurances that you were his and he was yours, he crafted a devotion more sincere and pure than you thought your heart could hold.

Ari elbows you, pulling you back to reality. “Now unless you got tea to add to this conversation, sir, I’m gonna need you to beat it. Me and your girlfriend have some important information to discuss. Auntie is three margaritas deep and just told me some very interesting things about her divorce.”

Boba’s fingers drift across the nape of your neck in a subtle reminder of delicious possession. He makes a show of sighing in exaggerated defeat and comes around your chair. Sticking out his hand, he nods. “Ari.”

“Fett.” They shake and Boba heads over to where your dad is flipping burgers on the grill. Somehow even his walk made you thrum with electricity.

When he’s out of earshot, Ari whispers behind their drink. “Finally. Now, she said that she was the one who instigated the divorce…”

It’s not until you head inside to pee that you remember your promise to Boba.

<boba 🖤🧸🧋: Clock’s ticking, princess. Panties. Now.> Received 6 minutes ago

Shit. You groan and throw your head back on your shoulders. Why is there always a line when you want to use the bathroom? Especially when you need to get your panties off before your boyfriend reaches up your dress and rips them off for you?

When the door finally opens, you rush in. Clicking the lock, you immediately yank off your underwear, taking the briefest moment to admire them. Pink, cute, and soaked in the middle, you feel deliciously dirty holding up the scrap of fabric in the mirror to snap a pic.

<All yours 😘> 1 image attached

The urge to run and take another picture in his truck is extremely tempting, but a knock on the door has you rushing to finish up. 

Boba’s waiting for you when you step outside, looking handsome as sin as he leans against the deck railing. As casually as you can with a naked cunt and a pair of panties balled in your fist, you slip next to him and press them into his large hand. Maker, the sight of him stuffing the illicit garment into his pocket should absolutely not be as fucking hot as it is.

Seeing the scrunched look on your face, he chuffs a quiet laugh. “I can smell how wet you are, babygirl. Something’s got you all worked up, huh?” His tone is molasses, thick with self-satisfaction. “Brats do always love it when the consequences of their actions catch up to them.”

In an attempt to diffuse his pride, you pout and cross your arms over your chest. “I thought you said I was your good girl.” 

He flashes you that jaw-dropping smile of his. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.” 

Before you can get any more hot and bothered, you see your mother approaching with a gangly young man in tow. You curse under your breath; you’d forgotten about Kevin-from-Jimenez-Lanscaping. 

Boba snorts. “Speaking of consequences…”

Suddenly you’re very aware that you’re going to have to make polite small talk with your mother and a stranger with your panties stuffed in your secret-boyfriend-who-makes-you-scream-with-pleasure’s pocket. 

You’re also aware that it turns you on an embarrassing amount. Fortunately (or not), you don’t have much time to contemplate the extent of that particular depravity before Kevin and your mom stop in front of you. 

“There you are!” she exclaims happily. “Kevin, this is my daughter I’ve been telling you all about.” The young man smiles and shakes your hand politely and your mom turns to the older man. “And this is Boba Fett, our neighbor and family friend.” She drops her voice conspiratorially. “Now he’s very protective of her, so be careful. Even worse than her father.”

Boba bares his teeth in a sharp-toothed smile, gripping the younger man’s offered hand harder than necessary for the brief shake. The act of possessiveness has your blood boiling even hotter as the poor boy’s eyes widen in surprise. After a couple minutes of tedious conversation that’s mainly Boba glaring over your shoulder, Kevin excuses himself, thanking your mother for inviting him and apologizing for having to leave so soon. 

Watching him dart for his car, she levels a scolding tone at your boyfriend. “How is my daughter supposed to find someone when you stare murder at every single person I bring over?”

Unrepentant, he shrugs and smiles. Your shared secret dances on his lips. “I just want what’s best for her. Surely you can’t blame me for that.” Seeing your mother still unconvinced, he throws an arm around her shoulders and plants a kiss on her cheek. 

He sneaks a wink at you and you make a show of rolling your eyes even as your insides warm at his attention. Morally, you’re sure it’s wrong to enjoy this deception so thoroughly, but in this moment you don’t care; it lights some infernal fire inside you that burns hotter than any desire you’ve ever had.

“I hate to say it, but Boba’s right,” you play along. She still looks skeptical and he looks entirely too smug, so you elaborate. “I mean, what good is a guy that’s too chicken to even have a conversation with this grandpa?”

She bursts into a round of laughter that wipes away the previous exasperation from her face. “Oh, be nice to Boba,” she admonishes, lightly smacking your shoulder. “He’s no older than your father.”

A grin splits your face. “Gosh, you’re right, Mom! Boba’s only what, twice my age? I should really have more respect for my elders.” The words barely leave your mouth before Boba turns out his solo cup of ice water out over your head. Shocked with the sudden cold pouring down your face and neck, you instantly resort to tattling and finger pointing.

“No, ma’am, don’t come crying to me!” she manages through a peal of laughter. “You earned that one fair and square!”

Boba is positively dripping with his own self-satisfaction. “Sure did,” he brandishes a double-edged smile, paternally crossing his arms over his chest, “And I hope you learned your lesson, young lady.”

Your skin burns so hot you can feel the rivulets of water trickling down your neck heat up. Memories of your tits pushed up against the chilled hood of Boba’s truck flash across the backs of your eyes—you had complained you were cold after a skinny-dip in the lake and he wasted no time in warming you back up.

“Careful, princess,” he panted damply against your neck. “You scream any louder and you’ll have people come running. What would they think of a pretty young lady like you soaking an old man’s cock?”

It’s a miracle that you don’t immediately buckle when you catch his hand digging into his pocket to fist your panties. Keeping your eyes decidedly off him, you rush through an excuse to go up to your room to change. Before you can scurry off, however, he catches your elbow. 

“Here, take this.” Boba pulls off his overshirt and wraps it around your shoulders. “Can’t have you catching a cold, now can we?” Your mom nods approvingly before she’s pulled away by another guest. Once she’s out of earshot, he drops his voice low. “Go inside and meet me in the garage. I’m going around front.”

Even as you repress an excited shiver, your heart warms in your chest at Boba’s caution. He never made you feel bad for wanting to keep things private and always structured your affairs so you were never seen going or leaving together. And although you look forward to the day you’ll be ready to hold his hand and steal kisses in front of the world, sneaking around in the meantime did add an extra layer of excitement to your sex. 

Sandals slapping wet against the tiled floor, you race across the kitchen to yank open the door to the garage. Thick, sun-warmed air hits your face with a pleasant staleness, smelling of cardboard and motor oil. The quietness of the space clashes with the clamor of excitement pumping through your veins. Sweeping your eyes from one side to the other, a frown weighs on your lips when Boba is nowhere to be seen. 

No sooner does the displeasure darken your expression than you’re scooped up into a pair of strong arms and whirled around. 

Familiar lips and a suede voice swiftly gentle your startled yelp. “Quiet now, darling,” Boba purrs, practically preening with the pleasure of your surprise, “you don’t want to get us caught now do you?”

Your gleeful giggles of realization are smothered by his barrage of kisses, each one an intoxicating mix of passion and urgency. Boba hooks your legs around his waist, not caring about the water soaking into him as he walks you deeper into the garage.

The intense press of need pushing against your chest melts under his touch, releasing your lungs and draining to pool in your thrumming core. It’s been so long, too long, without him, your body surviving on the mere scraps memory could provide you—nothing in comparison to the sustenance of the man himself. Having him back in your arms, his marred skin beneath your fingertips, his thick torso filling the empty space between your legs… it unhooks the final thorns of discontent left from his absence. 

A wave of relief washes away the tenseness of separation, leaving you pliable and radiant once more; the release has Boba’s lips parting in a gratified groan at the satisfaction of being your sanctuary. You take the greedy opportunity to lick your way into his mouth to savor the way his taste fills yours. Lost to the sensation of your tongue sliding along his, a hiss escapes your lips when the back of your thighs hit the freezer’s lid. 

The chill dissipates quickly in the glow of Boba’s urgent heat. “Fuck I missed you, babygirl,” he pants against your pulse, “Even if you’ve been a karking terror all afternoon.”

“S’not my fault,” you slur, dragging your teeth across the tan skin of his throat, “missed you too much.” His salt seeps into the warmth of your mouth, spurring memories of late nights pressed together under a quivering lake water moon. Seeking that passionate warmth, your heels dig into Boba’s thighs to press him deeper into your eager desire.

Unyielding and unrushed as ever, he pulls back, refusing to let you usurp his control. Bereft, a whine flies from your throat and you keel towards him in a desperate arch. 

Boba catches your cheek in his palm and sharply angles your face to his. Pure dominance radiates off him in the unwavering set of his shoulders and the gleam in his eye, their darkness glinting like two sable jewels in the dim light. His raw power, sanctified by his restraint and your willing submission, shimmers in the air between your bodies—the ephemeral calm before his storm’s consequences. 

He knows that disquieting stillness of his never failed to draw your desire. Without a word, his free hand disappears into his pocket to free your panties.

“Mmm, is that the problem?” His strong fingers dig into your cheeks and he turns your head towards the dangling bit of bows and lace. You can feel how the visual evidence of your arousal affects him. He presses the damp fabric against his nose, sucking in a ragged breath. “Your needy little cunt making you act out?”

Your answer comes out more as a whoosh of air than a word, your insides twisting with the searing heat in his tone. “Noooo…” 

“So you’re just a naughty brat then?” 

You want to protest that you’re nothing but innocent but your throat is too tight with the thrill of his wrath. He balls the frilly underwear into his fist. “Shame. I was thinking about taking mercy on you for your good behavior while I was gone.” He cuts his eyes back to you, smirking. “Too bad brats don’t get that privilege.”

You jolt, panic locking your ankles at the small of his back in an attempt to keep him close. “No! No! That’s not what I meant!” you cry, your voice taunt with distress.   

A dangerous chuckle sounds in his throat. You’d shown your desperation, giving him the easy advantage. “Better start explaining then, princess. Or else I’m just gonna come all over these pink panties and you’ll get nothing.”

You blink up at him with pitiful eyes and a swollen-lipped pout. “It’s because I missed you,” you simper, tracing a finger down his chest. “Seven days is a long time. Too long.” 

Even through the haze of your shared arousal, Boba resists temptation. “Too long? Babygirl, we talked on the phone every night.”

He lets you press your face into the crook of his shoulder and your fingers begin to loop into the soft cotton of his shirt. “It’s not the same and you know it! There was no falling asleep with you, no lap to curl up in…”

“No thigh to get off on?”

You squeak when he pinches your ass, the subconscious roll of your hips halting.

“As cute and sincere as you may be, my darling girl, you still have a debt to settle for your behavior today.”

That’s fair, reasonable even. You had pushed him further than you yourself would have been able to stand. You slip your fingers under his shirt hem to graze your nails over the dark hair trailing into his jeans. “What if I gave you a little apology?” you offer with a fluttering of lashes. “Show you how sorry I am?” 

Boba’s breath hitches but he turns up his chin like he’s uninclined to accept your offer. “You really think a handy is gonna cut it after everything this afternoon?” 

The fevered dream from his absence flares white-hot in your mind. Grabbing his belt buckle, you haul your hips forward to press your slick folds against his bulge. “Not even if that apology is you fucking me into the mattress in my childhood bedroom?” 

Boba curses, his hips bucking into yours.

“Not even if it’s you ruining me in the room where I learned to touch myself? Where I’d cry out into the pillow thinking about what it would feel like to have a real man fuck me instead of stupid, silly boys? Not even then?”

“Princess-”

“I’ve been fantasizing about it for a while, you know… what it would be like to bury my face in those cute flower sheets while you fuck my tight little cunt till I’m sore. Had to take a cold shower while you were gone just to keep my hands off myself.”

In a burst of strength, he forces you flat back against the freezer. “Enough,” he hisses through locked teeth. “For Maker’s sake, enough.”

Despite his protests, he’s rutting his twitching cock into the slick mess at your apex. You grin into his kiss—you’ve got him right where you want him. 

“Awww, pleeeease?” you whine, sticking your bottom lip out. “Pretty please… Daddy?”

The sound that scrapes up from him is so utterly depraved that for a second, you think he might’ve come in his pants.

“Fuck, you’re… you’re…”

“A filthy little princess for a dirty old man?”

Boba pushes his hand over your mouth. “You… you have ten seconds to get in your room before I’m fucking you where you stand. And I don’t give a karking shit who sees. Do you understand me?”

“So, apology accepted?”

“One.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Two.”

“Okay, okay! I’m going!”

“Three.”

You’re flat out running for the kitchen door, wrenching it open without checking if someone is behind it. Luckily, your path is clear as you fly up the stairs up to your room. The lavender paint and neat rows of school awards are nothing but a pastel blur when you fling yourself onto the twin bed. Quickly positioning yourself, you hike your dress up around your hips so you’re completely on display. 

At this point, you don’t even care about the danger; you drop your hand between your legs and delve two fingers between your wet folds. The friction burns delightfully after days without so much as a finger to your clit. The relief is so sweet you have to bite down on your neckline to halt the sounds of delight from spilling out. Imagining just how much better it’ll be when Boba gets his hands on you has you bucking under your fingers.

“Just can’t help yourself, can you, little brat?”

It’s no use snatching back your hand—he’s seen your transgression and is all too ready to add it to your growing list. Grabbing your wrist, he wrenches you up off the bed and whirls you around so your back digs into the door. 

“Oh, babygirl,” he husks in a low, cruel voice. “You’re so fucked.”

He’s pressed so far into you the damp fabric of your dress burns, absorbing his overwhelming heat. Pure, wanton desire floods your brain, drowning any hope of sanity until all that remains is him.

Boba yanks down the ruffled sleeve covering your shoulder and sinks in his teeth, groaning when you buck against him. “But that’s what you like isn’t it? You like it when I put you in your place, when I treat you rough.” His large hand snakes up your chest to grab your throat.  

“Yes-yes, Daddy!” you gasp, writhing with prickling pleasure when he greedily palms your breast. 

He grunts, his hips thrusting into you. “You think calling me that will get you out of trouble?”

“I mean being in my old room… seems kinda fitting, doesn’t it-oh!”

Boba shoves his hand over your mouth. “Now don’t look at me like that, princess. I’m just helping you make better choices,” he grins, his smile sharp with intent. “That’s what daddies do, right?”

Fuck that should not make your clit throb like it does. Just when your knees start to tremble from the sweet friction he’s smoothing over your nipples, he tears himself away. Your cry of displeasure is choked off by a squeeze of his hand. With big, shining eyes, you blink pitifully up at him in a bid for more.

“Don’t bother with the kitten eyes, darling. It won’t save you… and neither will anything else you say.” He rubs his thumb gently over your pulse point, a jarring contrast to the pressure on your throat. “After your little attitude this afternoon, you’re going to have to earn the right to speak.”

Boba just tuts when you pout, a wicked flush of darkness shadowing his expression. “Brats don’t get what they want, especially not such disrespectful ones.” Licking his lips, his voice sinks even deeper. “Still think I can’t do shit with all these people around?”

When you don’t answer, he releases his grip on your neck to run his fingers up your skull and jerk your head back. Taking his time, he kisses you, devouring you until you’re fighting for air. “Little princess, I can do whatever I want to you no matter who’s around, do you understand that? Do you?” 

Your answer is nothing more than a pitiful waver but he takes it all the same. “Good. Now take the dress off before I tear it off. I’m gonna fuck that pretty throat until I’m satisfied you’ve learned some respect.”

You’re out of the offending garment before he even has time to unfasten his belt. Despite the heat in your veins, goosebumps blossom across your skin, heightened by the moisture from your dress. When Boba sees you rubbing away the chill, he smirks and snaps you to his chest. “Looks like you need some warming up…” 

Sliding his hands over your ass, he hikes you up into his arms with a puff, chuckling at your small sound of surprise. When he lowers you gently onto your bed, you wriggle into the position you know he wants: laid out on your back with your head hanging off the edge, ready for atonement. 

It feels almost like relief. This was the reason you tested Boba’s patience with your antics and attitude; you crave the way he gives you no choice but to comply, the thrill of a fantastical danger shaping you into something vulnerable and eager to please.

The fire in his eyes dampens some as he caresses a hand over your cheek. You lean into his palm, nuzzling into the soft gesture. “Look at me, babygirl,” he prompts gently. When your eyes drift up to his, a smile warms his face. “I know you like it rough and I’m going to give it to you, but I need you to promise to mind your body, okay? Let me feel your three taps to stop.”

As you’d practiced many times, you reach up and slap your palm against his thick thigh. His white smile gets even bigger and he bends to plant a quick kiss on your forehead. You glow with his affection. “Boba?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Can you grab a towel for me to lay on? I’m going to soak a spot on the sheets if you keep talking like that.” 

A devil’s grin stretches across his bronze features. “Stay right there and don’t move,” he instructs, his voice already husked smoke, “or I will make you only watch while I jack off with those panties.” 

If he’d waited a second before darting to the adjoining bathroom, he would’ve seen the way your slicked entrance clenched at his threat.

For a fleeting moment you consider sneaking a hand to your peaked nipples, but the threat of him making you watch and not touch is far too distressing to test. Before you can get too tempted otherwise, Boba strides back into the bedroom with a towel in hand. Without a word spoken between you, he bends and you hook your arms around his neck so he can lift you and lay the towel down.

Boba hums in appreciation when you stretch back out before him, biting back your longing under his gaze. He lets his belt loose and his pants slide down his thighs, finally revealing the gorgeous image of his thick cock. Flushed rosy with want and beautifully slicked with desire, it bobs against his belly full and ready for your touch. 

He steps back so you’re forced to crane your neck to see him. The baneful fire has returned to his dark eyes. He pumps his length once and your mouth waters in anticipation. “Hope you don’t think I’m going easy on you just because you finally decided to behave.”

You shake your head. 

“No talking and no hands, understood?” 

Now you shake your up and down. You know far better of him than to disobey.

“Good. Now we don’t have much time before someone comes looking for you, little princess, so open up that mouth and make Daddy proud.”

Thank the Maker for that towel.

Tilting your head back to make your throat one smooth channel, you stick out your tongue wide and ready. Just seeing the way his expression darkens with desire at your obedience has fresh slick wetting your thighs. Hell, your obedience turns you on. Not just any man could make you want to give yourself over to him and you’re sure there are next to none who could possibly deserve it. 

Boba steps forward, cupping your cheek in his rough palm and dragging the slippery head of his length over your lips, coating them in his arousal. You stay still, enjoying his taste and gentle attention; he would tell you when he wanted more.

When he rocks forward to let your tongue slide down the vein that runs the underside of his cock, you claw your fingers into the floral sheets beneath you. Your heart pounds against your ribs and your lungs bellow more air into your chest. He’s so close yet so far from where you want him. Spit begins to dribble from the corners of your mouth and your jaw twinges from its wide angle, heightening your need for him even more.

Boba continues his leisurely pace across your tongue, rumbling a few low, pleasured sounds. He notices your frustration—he always notices everything—and chooses to ignore it. It’s a lenient punishment in light of your behavior but it doesn’t make the waiting any easier or your cunt any less desperate.

The whine that escapes from you when he lets his head graze your front teeth is so small it’s almost silent, but he hears it all the same. “Mmm, is there a problem, darling? Something the matter?” The slow drag of him doesn’t stop. 

You flick your tongue over his frenulum in a wordless response. Although you can’t see him, you know his pretty brown eyes flutter shut at the sensation.

“Aaah hah hah,” he chuckles through a groan, “is this not enough for my princess? Is getting her tongue used while she’s naked on her pretty pink bed not enough for her?”

Again, since he hasn’t given you permission to speak yet, you stretch your head up to capture the head of his cock between your coated lips, lightly suckling his sensitive tip. When he doesn’t stop you, you let your tongue snake up to lick the pearled drop from his slit. 

A faint tremor runs through him, making his length thrum in your mouth. Boba curses and stoops to lay a hand on your throat. No pressure or grip to it, just his hand resting over the exposed column of your neck. 

“Swallow.”

His simple command races through you like a spark up a gunpowder trail, igniting the tinder of aching pleasure between your thighs. Reflexively your body snaps to follow his order, your jaw closing and your muscles pushing him deeper into the wet heat of your mouth. 

“Fffff- that’s it, babygirl. Juuuust like that… let me feel how good you take me.” 

The jagged sound of his enjoyment shoots bright seams of glittering ecstasy into your veins. Conscious of the lack of permission to touch him, you dig your heels into the mattress to push further up his shaft, sucking in a final deep breath before letting his girth slide down your waiting throat. 

The next seconds dissolve into a filmy timelessness where every single one of your senses are his—your every sensation and fiber belonging to Boba. Your breath, your sense of smell and taste, sense of direction, everything is all in his control, all his to direct and decide. Even as the need for air burns through your ribs, you feel impossibly free, weightless and perfect within his care.

Retreating into that protected soft space of submission, your mind goes blissfully blank, your sole happiness being Boba’s grunts of pleasure as he pumps his cock down your throat. Sweat slicks your skin and hungry breath claws at your lungs but they’re none of your concern, all you have to worry about is keeping your jaw open. Though it had taken some time to learn to get there, now you rejoice in finding this quiet place within his storm, relishing the way you fall out of time and into his world. Even with the strain and weight of him pressing down onto you, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

After some wonderful, unknown period of time, air hisses through Boba’s teeth as he retracts from your warmth. Still blinded by submission, you gasp in big bubbles of air, blinking against the tears of exertion pricking your eyes.

You feel the muted thump of him dropping to his knees near your head. His thumbs are brushing away the salty trails as he cradles your head like a fragile flower against the wind, a smile blooming radiant on your damp face.  “Baby… my darling girl,” he pants through seeded kisses, “you did so good for me, took it all… can you believe it? Almost couldn’t stop myself from coming down that perfect throat.”

You’re still hazy, drifting through the fog of your accomplishment, but you manage to pull apart your wet lashes to see his beaming smile. Its luminance turns up your own lips. “I… I did?”

Before now, you’d never managed to get the last thick inch of his cock down your throat—though not for the lack of trying. As oxygen flushes through your system, your head clears. “See,” you croak, buoyed by your success, “doing it in my old bedroom was a good idea.” 

Genuine mirth crinkle up his eyes. “You haven’t seen anything yet, princess.” Boba turns and scoops you into arms, pressing you close to take in your scent. “I still gotta make you scream into the sheets, remember?” he murmurs against your temple.

You happily slide against him, relishing the way he fits perfectly against you. “Pretty sure I said ‘screamed into my pillow.’”

He snorts, caressing his hand along your jaw. “How about I make you do both?”

Taking your wild giggle as confirmation, he flips you onto your back to hover over you. You bite your bottom lip against your laughter as he trails tickling kisses down your neck and over your sternum, your breath hitching when he latches onto a pert nipple.

“Tell me…” he rasps through his mouth’s divine suction, “tell me how you would touch yourself.”

The great, crested wave of fire that crashes through ignites your limbs, making you jerk like a puppet on tangled strings. You never felt ashamed with Boba, he has always been your safety, your refuge; he’d wiped more tears than you’d let anyone else ever see and you’d twisted fantasies into his ear that would make the devil blush. But telling him how you rutted into your hand, sweating and barely keeping in your breathy sounds as you tried desperately to understand why boys your age never turned you on suddenly felt absurdly embarrassing.

He must have felt you stiffen under him because he prompts you again. 

“I, um… I mean…” Why was this so embarrassing? It’s not like he didn’t know you were into the more seasoned male age range. Sucking in a steadying breath, you realize he’s stopped his ministrations to observe you with a keen eye.

It only makes your unforeseen shame bruise darker. You force a chuckle from your gut. “Sheesh, you know how to get a girl to blush, don’t you?” Your words are too high and paper thin—your façade not remotely convincing, not even to yourself.

Boba’s eyes flick over your strained expression, his lips pressing into a thin line before he bows his head to place a small kiss on your stomach. “We can talk about this now, or we can talk about it later,” is all he says. It’s all he has to.

You blow out a weighted breath. His way of making you confront life while still giving you a degree of choice could be as infuriating as it was liberating. If you talk about it now you likely won’t have time for the down and dirty you’ve been craving all week (and, at this point, might shrivel up and die without), but the thought of soldiering on in this cold shadow of shame is utterly unappealing. 

Maker, you’re a buzzkill. 

Boba slaps a smack against your hip and you yip at the sharp sensation. “No apologizing,” he warns. “Just answer the question, princess. Don’t worry about anything else.” His palm opens to rub away the lingering sting.

Feeling your anxiety swarm like wasps, you try to sink back into your warm mental refuge where things were easier. Try as you might, however, your brain refuses to release itself from its nervous confines to slip into that softer shape.

It had been so terribly confusing back then. Watching your friends swoon over boys in your grade or just above, you tried to see what they saw in them: the supposedly hot guys on the basketball team with their burgeoning height or the apparently dreamy, mysterious poet laureate of your high school. You never understood what they saw in these lanky, acne covered boys or why they would cry so profusely over them. A real partner wouldn’t make you cry, you’d thought, he would take care of you, show you the love you were told you deserve.

But oh how you had wanted to understand, to have a believable answer when the subject of crushes came up at the lunch table or someone’s sleepover. Everyone else did. 

You only made the mistake of saying the school’s head coach was hot once—the grossed out looks and “old enough to be our dad” comments made sure of that. Eventually you settled on the safe choice of the football team captain for your obligatory answer whenever the subject came up. Even though it wasn’t true, the pressure was off then.

When you went to college, things didn’t change, no matter how much you hoped they would. You thought maybe it was just the boys at your school you weren’t attracted to, that maybe you were normal after all. 

Tears lodge in your throat at the memory of the guys you’d fucked trying to fix what was surely broken inside you, the nights you spent wishing it wasn’t the kind eyes and visible signs of life experience that drew you to the men you desired. Trying to pursue the older guys at bars and social events never ended well for you either; their kindness always dried up when you didn’t want to go back to their place immediately, followed by cutting comments about “daddy issues” and all the mean things that came with them.

Finding Boba, finding acceptance had been a taste of heaven. A golden slice of peace, the vindication that you weren’t some freak or wrong to want a partner who cherished and cared for you. Your stomach drops at the thought of that pure, devoted love. He gave you all of that, asking for nothing in return but your happiness, and you can’t even bring yourself to claim your relationship in public.

Shame curls in on you like leaden weights. He deserves so much better than you. Someone who isn’t afraid to tell the world they love him and proudly walks at his side—not some scared girl who can’t even bring herself to face her own parents. The wound you thought had long healed rips open inside you, spilling its tainted blood into your heart and a scalding brine down your cheeks. 

Before the first sob can sound from your chest, you’re pressed tightly into Boba’s front, held fast by thick, warm arms that stall your rising grief. A watery stream of words tumble out of you all at once. “Back then, it was-I thought-and I couldn’t, I mean I tried-”

“Shhh, baby, just breathe. It’s okay, everything’s alright… yeah, just like that, princess, that’s my good girl.”

His gentle touch and storm soothed voice has your sobs ebbing under his care. “I-is there something wrong with me?” you whisper in a fragile voice. 

Boba presses his mouth to your temple, pulling you somehow even tighter into his warmth. “Babygirl, why on earth would you think there’s something wrong with you?”

Because I’ve only ever wanted an older man who babies me even though I’m a grownass woman. 

Because I think you fucking me in my childhood bedroom while I call you Daddy is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me. 

Because I’ll never love anyone else the way I love you but I’m still too scared to tell people about us.

You’re vaguely aware of being pulled under covers and tucked in tight to his side. Despite the furnace warmth of him and the blanket, you can’t seem to stop shivering against some inner cold. Piece by patient piece, Boba pulls out your discontent, wiping away new tears and kissing the old ones from your lashes. Somewhere in the back of your mind you register the darkening sky outside your window but he assures you Ari’s got your absence covered.

Tracing his roughened fingertips up and down your spine, he tilts up your chin to kiss your forehead. “Darling girl, why did you never say anything? That’s all too heavy to have to deal with by yourself. Especially when I’m here to help.”

Why did you? You’d shared so much of your other burdens—your disillusion after losing your dream job, your struggle coping with your life not following your set mental timeline—why had you kept all this to yourself?

“I don’t know…” you whisper, letting your pointer finger trace along the collarbone of his newly revealed chest. “I guess I felt like… like even though what I like isn’t normal, that being with you would make those bad feelings go away… and you make me so happy I thought maybe they would disappear if I never looked for them.” Hearing these half-baked assumptions out loud makes you hide your face in his shoulder. You feel like an idiot. No, worse. An idiot who’s wasted all her sneak-away time crying instead of getting railed by her boyfriend.

Boba makes a sympathetic sound, squeezing you closer to him. “I want you to listen to me, princess. Really listen. Number one, no keeping things from me that hurt you or make you upset. If you need to cry the whole thing out or scream about it until you’re hoarse, that’s fine as long as you tell me. Understood?”

You make a noise of agreement and borrow deeper into his hold. He allows you his comfort for a few more moments before gently unfurling you to run his thumb across your cheek.

“Number two. There’s no such thing as normal. Not a fucking thing. You like what you like just like everyone else likes what they like. Being attracted to handsome men like myself is not anything different than having a preference for blondes or brunettes, yeah?” He kisses you on the tip of your nose and you can’t help but smile up at him. “Besides, you wouldn’t find anything wrong with me being attracted to special princesses who have dirty little mouths and dirtier minds, would you?” 

Heat rises to your cheeks. “As long as I’m the special princess,” you mumble into his palm, suddenly self-conscious under his attention even as you revel in it. Maker, how do you still want him to pound you into the mattress after an emotional breakdown? All his patient love seems to only make you hornier now that your tears have been shed and your fears have been voiced.

“Always.” Boba chuckles and chucks up your chin for a kiss. When you slip your tongue into his mouth and wrap your arms around his neck to deepen the kiss, he pulls back just far enough to murmur, “Still needy, darling?”

How could you not be? Your need for him feels different now, though. Not so much more or less intense but an entirely different kind altogether, like a fire that burns just as hot but with a different fuel than its predecessor. Treading carefully around this new flame, you hold a tentative hand out to test its heat. “We don’t… if the mood isn’t right, we don’t have to… and we’ve been gone for too long already-”

Boba drags his hot mouth over your jaw, positioning you beneath him. “Then a couple more minutes isn’t going to change that, now is it, babygirl?”

You frown even as your hips seek his. “But the whole ‘sexy fantasy’ thing is kinda ruined.”

Taking your hand in his large one, he draws it down his chest and over his stomach until you feel the hardness of his arousal filling your palm. “Does it feel ruined to you?”

Rock hard and fire hot, he leaks into your fingers. Your stomach clenches. Not too distant memories burn bright and vivid behind your eyes: recollections of impossible fullness, banished thoughts, and the generous stretch to accommodate him. 

“Tell me,” he commands, knowing his firm tone always had you melting like silvery mercury in his palm. “Does it feel like I don’t want to be buried in your sweet cunt? Ruining your ‘innocence’ all over again like you want me to so badly?”

His roughness, the obvious tint of desire in licking up his neck and cheeks all have their intended effect: you succumbing to your desires within the paradise of his control. “N-no, it feels like-fuck-it feels like I want you inside me,” you pant, desperate and breathy. You arch up in offering and he bows his head to enjoy the fruits of your desire.

Sliding a hand down your waist, his fingers trail torturously close to your wet heat only to skim over it with the barest of touch. “How did you imagine it back then?” The crackling weight in his voice sinks through your skin to light in your core. “Soft and sweet? Gentle nothings whispered in your ear as you came apart?” 

Without warning, he slaps at the wet flesh between your thighs and covers it with his broad hand, claiming it for himself. Perfect nettles of pain flash across your mind and you jerk against his hold. “Or did you want something a little rougher? Want a man who knew how to treat this pussy like it was all his?”

You can’t help it now. The fire he coached is burning you from the inside out, blossoming from you with slips of petaled flame. “A-all yours,” you manage thickly, twisting against him for more. “Wanted to be taken care of, wanted to be fucked without having to think…”

“Yeah, I know, baby, they didn’t know how to touch you, did they?” Two of his thick fingers push past your lower lips to slide through the slick seam there. Trailing over your slit for a languorous second, the pad of his middle finger circles your swollen hood. “They didn’t know how to rub that cute little clit so you screamed, huh?”

“Not at all,” you sob, your voice quivering as you shake from the electric sensation of his fingers. “Never knew, never knew-”

Boba smothers the rest of your pathetic sounds in a kiss that pushes deep into your pillows. “Awww, my poor princess,” he croons. “So achy and needy with no one to help. No wonder you were all over me that first time, whining and riding my dick like you would die without it.”

Never mind that he had been equally out of his mind, pounding into you that night like a man possessed with adoration. 

He notches a finger at your fluttering opening, ringing it around your flushed entrance just to see you squirm to get him deeper. “Remember how you begged me to fuck you, princess? How you didn’t even want to wait for me to stretch out your tight cunt?” Sinking in an effortless finger, he dips to lap up the beads of sweat from the hollow of your throat.

By the time he’s pressing in the blunt head of his cock, you’re face down and ass up, shimmying your hips back onto his length through a babble of pleas. “Please, Boba, please I want it deep, so fuckin’ deep I cry.”

Huffing out a breath that curls over the dampness of your spine, Boba grips the back of your neck to snap that first delicious thrust into you. Your broken sob is muffled by the rucked bedding, matching the slap of skin in a salacious accompaniment. Never one to do things in half measures, he digs a hand into your hip, anchoring your body to drive into you harder. He hits that divine spot that you didn’t even know existed before him.

The air whooshes from both your lungs in a blurred haze of ecstasy. “Shit, baby,” Boba squeezes your nape, “I’ll always give it to you… always, darling girl. Anything you want, I’m always yours, forever.”

You know it with every breath in your body and hair on your head—Boba loves you with every fiber of his being and he never hid that fact from you. From the way he looks after your safety to the care he takes just to see you flash a simple smile, you never had to wonder if he loved you the way you love him, not even for a second. 

The realization happens suddenly then, tipping your axes so you could center on the one truth that had orbited just out of your consciousness: Boba is worth the risk. He always has been. No matter what you might lose or gain by sharing your relationship, he would always be worth the risk.

You swirl with dazzling vibrancy, this epiphany developing in full splendor within you. “Yes-yes-yes!” you repeat mindlessly, flinging an arm back to search for his tethering touch. His hand disappears from your hip to intertwine with yours. Face crushed into the rose covered sheets of your old bed, breath tearing into your lungs as soon as it’s knocked out again, you smile. It had all led to this: all those years wondering if you were somehow broken, all those loves lost trying to fix what didn’t need repair, that one New Year’s night when you stopped denying what you truly wanted—all of it, everything, had been worth the risk.

Boba pulls on your hand, forcing you to arc farther back so that last sweet, solid inch of him is finally able to press into you. “Ffffffff-that’s it, that’s fuckin’ it,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “You’re better than heaven, babygirl, you know that? Sweeter than anything I’ve ever had.”

You want to tell him the same but your head is filled with hot, sparkling clouds of stardust and your throat is tight with cresting pleasure. “Yes, Daddy, yes!”

“Shit, you calling me… say it again. Say it again and don’t fucking stop.”

You’re chanting now, watching how the room around you shrinks to a pinpoint as you draw higher and higher with him. The prick of light and the chorus of your glass-thin cries shake with impending explosion when he drags his blunt nails down your back, swelling over your hip to find your throbbing center. “Is it as good as you imagined?” he husks, his own voice leaden with delicious strain. “Getting fucked into the mattress you dreamed on?”  

Each snap of his hips sends your clit skating over his calloused fingertips. “Better, so much better!” Crushing your eyes closed, you surrender to the scorching wave waiting to take you. “Please, Daddy! Please fill me up so everyone knows I’m yours!”

Boba jerks forward, breaking the pattern of his thrusts to fold over your back. His sweat dampened skin melds to yours and fuses you into one splendid being. His hand travels from your shoulder to clasp around your throat. “You really want that, darling girl? You really want everyone to know you belong to me?”

Your answer doesn’t waver, solidified by your new-found conviction. “As long as they know you’re mine, too.” 

Muscles rippling to lock at your affirmation, Boba’s head drops to your shoulder. The groan that heaves from his chest rattles through your bones like a welcome spirit charged with animating the last gasps of your union. “C-come for me then,” he chuffs in your ear with his last dregs of restraint. “Come for me so they know what you fucking do to me.”

Would he ever truly know how easy, how intrinsic to your being coming apart for him is? How your world had only ever been ordered by his particular equation, even before your eyes first met? Unraveling to be respun with his thread is your very nature, and you would always yearn to be in his weave, stitched and re-stitched by his expert hand. His fingers press tight against the glowing center of pleasure at your core and you burst into a glorious, unbound tapestry of light. Undulant patterns of pleasure flow through your every inch, anointing your entire body in golden thread from the crown of your head down to each individual toe.

Feeling the hot claim he spills inside you is the final beautiful detail in your joint creation. These final fleeting moments where it feels like your very souls mesh together are always your favorite; Boba’s guard comes down and you rise to catch him, your usual roles reversing as he burrows into your warmth. “Always, baby. Always yours,” he promises, his voice thick and sweet as honey.

Echoing his sentiment in utter bliss, you tighten your grip on his hand, joy taking flight when he does the same. Content and at peace, the pair of you roll so you’re pressed flush together, still joined in the middle when your limbs re-tangle. Boba pushes your hair back from where it had stuck your forehead and plants a kiss in your hair. 

You’re happy to smooth your palms over the scarred bronze of his chest to rest them lazily around his neck, his heartbeat jumping under your touch. How could you not realize this, that he, is worth more to you than any fallout from revealing your relationship? Was this not what you shed all those tears for, what you wished for every single time you tried to fit into another man’s mold? 

A resplendent joy feathers out in your chest, floating down your arms, then your legs with soft announcement. “Boba?”

His finger traces up your spine. “Yes, my princess?” His voice is dense as goose down and packed with comfort. 

You swirl your own shape into his skin. “I meant it, you know. I want… I want everyone to know we’re together. I don’t want it to be a secret anymore.”

He goes silent, his only sound the movement of air in and out of his lungs. Even as you know he always takes time to consider his next move, your pulse still ticks up with a spate of nerves. The lines on your spine continue and you do your best to temper your unease as the long moments inch by. 

Eventually, a rumble reverberates in his chest. Your ears prick up.

“You don’t have to do that, babygirl, not before you’re ready. Just because it slipped out in the heat of the moment doesn’t mean it has to be set in stone.” Boba shifts to wrap his arms around your waist, holding you impossibly closer. “I know there are more risks for you than me in our relationship.”

You hate the far off note of despair in his voice. You hate the way he sounds like he’s resigned himself to a truth that isn’t at all what it has to be. “No,” you sit up on your elbow to cup his cheek, “there’s not. Not in any way that matters to me. You’re-”

“Princess, it’s okay, I-”

You silence him with a kiss, suddenly feeling like you have to get the next words out of your body before they explode. “You’re worth the risk, Boba. You always will be. Every single day since I met you, you have done nothing but prove that to me.” Your pace picks up as your truth spreads its wings. “I was afraid before, not of being with you but of what others would think about my preferences. I didn’t want them to judge me and think I was only with you because I have “daddy issues” or whatever, not because I love you more than I thought people could. And I know my parents will be shocked but all they want is what’s best for me, and you’re what’s best for me. I know this now—and I’m not ashamed of it.”

As quickly as you started, you run out of steam. No longer inflated with the sense of frantic urgency you had before, you sag back down onto his chest. A quiet second flicks by, then Boba’s grabbing you, hauling you up into his arms to kiss you like a man desperate to live. He says nothing, his lips working against yours in fervent passion but you can feel the sentiment he doesn’t speak. Each pass of his tongue and nip of his teeth communicate more than any words could: his joy in your self-realization, the excitement of proclaiming your love to the world at long last. Your only wish is that you could have given him this sooner.

When he finally lets you break for air, his handsome face is lit up with a smile more radiant than any sun. Whispering your name with a reverence of only the truly devoted, he brushes his nose over yours. “Babygirl, I… I’m so proud of you. You never cease to amaze me.”  He sweeps his lips over yours again. “I love you. Always have, always will.”

Besides his love, Boba’s greatest gift is his forthrightness. You never have to guess with him and now, no one else will have to either. They’ll know where his loyalties lay. 

“That’s a good thing,” you tease into a quick kiss. “Because all my aunties, and uncle Stephen, are going to be very jealous that you’re off the market.”

Boba chuckles in that bone-deep way that always makes you warm all over. “I didn’t realize I was in such high demand.”

You push yourself up on his chest. “Oh, don’t lie to me, Boba Fett. I’ve seen the way you flirt and wink at them. They eat it up and you know it!” 

Sitting up with you, he grins. “Just being polite, princess. You’re not jealous, are you?”

Maker, how could you ever be jealous of anyone after the sex you’d just had?

“Oh, not at all. Because at the end of the night, you’re coming home with me.” You smirk up at him. “Speaking of which, we better get back out there before those same aunties start tearing the house up looking for you.”

“Only if you promise not to clean up and put these panties back on for me, darling girl,” he counters with a devilish smirk of his own.

Giggling, you bite your lip. “Anything for you, Daddy.”

He’s worth the risk.  

[pro-sipper]

I definitely agree with "fiction affects reality" in the sense it can introduce new ideas and concepts to an audience that never considered or heard of them. What I take issue from puritans drawing the conclusion of "oh so this means someone reading an incest fic will make them want to kiss their sister" is that they only ever think about how it can make someone do bad things but never positive things. In fact, if they think about how fiction can motivate someone to do good things, their argument would fall apart quickly when they realize how often this isn't the case in reality. There's so much popular fiction out there you can find radical, far-left themes inside of so if fiction really was this powerful mind control device that puritans act like it is, all the normies who watched stuff like Gundam or Squid Game or Chicken Run or Hunger Games would have become radicalized anti-war vegan anti-capitalists but they didn't. While there are people out there where that absolutely was the case, that was entirely on those peoples' own ability to see those themes and agree with them. You can also find bigots in fandoms for media with positively portrayed women, queer, and BIPOC characters. I could drag a raging homophobe into a movie theatre to see every action movie with a positively gay character in there, he's still going to walk out as a homophobe. The reality is, fiction can never make you learn something you refuse to learn.

...and people are absolutely not looking at ship art, reading AO3 smut, or playing morally bankrupt eroges with the intention to learn something, nor expect that these things were made with the purpose to educate.

Exactly!! Such a good point about how they only expect fiction to affect things on a 1:1 level if it's something negative.

I'm sure it's been said before but overall positive and light shows like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic or Steven Universe have so many good messages that are delivered in an appropriate way for even kids to understand and yet their fandoms are notorious for being full of hate and arguing. If a show was all about the power of friendship and fiction affects reality so severely, surely their fandoms would be the happiest places on earth?? No? Maybe because that's not how things work...

Hopefully one days antis will understand. If they even want to at this point.

[campingwiththecharmings]

*These weren’t necessarily written and/or posted in October, but that’s when I read them 😊

🔥 - explicit/mature content

Star Wars

Sunk (Poe Dameron x Reader) - @reallyrallyauthor

🔥An Unorthodox Method (Poe Dameron x F!Reader) - @the-little-ewok

🔥Kinktober Day 1 (Love Bites) (Poe Dameron x F!Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥Kinktober Day 4 (Sex Pollen) (Poe Dameron x F!Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥Kinktober Day 7 (Soft and Slow) (Cal Kestis x Reader) - @flightlessangelwings

🔥Kinktober Day 10 (Stripping) (Stripper!Poe Dameron x F!Reader) - @youvebeenlivingfictional

I just called to say I love you (Poe Dameron x Reader) - @nowritingonthewall

Adore you (Poe Dameron x Solo!Reader) - @dailyreverie

🔥Kinktober Day 25 (Breeding) (Cowboy!Din Djarin x Cowgirl!Reader) (Part of the Gardens of Babylon Universe) - @spacecowboyhotch

Moon Knight

🔥Over the Counter (DBF!Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

Vivid (Marc Spector x Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥Shades of the Moon (Virgin!Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @missdictatorme

Boundless (Witch Hunter!Marc x Witch!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥Price You Gotta Pay (Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥The Sweetest Sound (Mafia!Jake Lockley x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

🔥The Sweetest Taste (Mafia!Jake Lockley x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

🔥Kinktober Day 10 (formal wear) (Steven Grant x Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥Kinktober Day 6 (Phone Sex) (Jake Lockley x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥Kinktober Day 12 (Formal Wear) (Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥What a Show (Mafia!Jake Lockley x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

🔥La Petite Mort (Ghost!Steven Grant x F!Reader) - @hon3yboy

🔥Pumpkin Porno (OnlyFans!Steven Grant) - @ominoose

In the morning light (Marc Spector x Reader) - @dailyreverie

🔥Nature Boy (Werewolf!Marc Spector x F!Reader) - @hon3yboy

🔥Sleeping Dogs (Werewolf!Marc Spector x F!Reader) (Part of the Dancing with Wolves Series) - @hon3yboy

🔥What A Wicked Thing To Do (Werewolf!Marc Spector x F!Reader) (Part of the Dancing with Wolves Series) - @hon3yboy

🔥Kinktober Day 23 (Begging) (Marc Spector x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse

🔥Couch Sex with Miguel (Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader) - @romanarose

🔥Kinktober Day 7 (& 8): Soft & Slow (Cockwarming) (College!Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥soft s3x and grey sweats (Miguel O'Hara x F!Reader) - @wyvernest

Ex Machina

🔥Peak-A-Boo (Ghostface!Nathan Bateman x F!Reader) - @hon3yboy

🔥Perfect Little Fuck Toy (Nathan Bateman x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

Sucker Punch

🔥Product Demonstration (Club!Blue Jones x F!Reader) - @melodygatesauthor

🔥Monster Mash (Rockstar!Blue Jones x F!Reader) - @hon3yboy

Triple Frontier

Under cotton and calicoes (Santiago Garcia x Reader) - @dailyreverie

Make this feel like home (Santiago Garcia x Reader) - @dailyreverie

🔥Kinktober Day 30 (Cunnilingus) (Santiago Garcia x F!Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

🔥Just A Little Push (Will Miller x F!Reader) - @missdictatorme

Scenes From a Marriage

🔥Kinktober Day 2 (bath/shower) (Jonathan Levy x F!Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥Kinktober Day 15 (Against a Wall & Voice Kink) (Jonathan Levy x Reader) - @spacecowboyhotch

The Two Faces of January

🔥Kinktober Day 7 (Slow and Soft) (Rydal Keener x F!Reader) - @eyelessfaces

🔥body talk (Rydal Keener x F!Reader) (part of the Oxford Comma series) - @whatthefishh

Misc.

🔥Just A Scratch (Jack Mohave x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥Take Care (Anselm Vogelweide x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥Service Fee (Llewyn Davis x F!Reader) - @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction

🔥If You Wanna Be Wild (Javier Peña x Latina!sex worker!informant!Reader x Santiago Garcia) - @romanarose and @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction (i already recced this but there's more so 🙃)

Thank you to all the wonderful writers for sharing their stories with us 🥰❤️

*For more recs, please feel free to check out my fic rec tag.

**If you’d like to have your fic removed from the list, I completely understand, just let me know

[zombee]

I feel like the luckiest Our Flag Means Death fan in the world after the season 2 finale. By a series of incredible circumstances - including a significant metatextual realization that came in at the 11th hour - it was close to perfect for me.

This essay has everything. Completely normal behavior over a television series. Steven Universe references. The David Jenkins School of Whatever is Best for the Bit. Humbling catharsis.

First: this piece does not exist with the central thesis of “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad.” I feel like thousands of words have already been written on this since Thursday, so I’m going to try to not get too in depth on that.

Second, cards on the table, because it’s relevant and I don’t want to waste your time if this is going to sour your ability to hear me out: I’m an Izzy Canyon hater. For MANY reasons, but from way before the concept of the Canyon existed, (some) Izzy fans pinged me in the same way as Snape/Kylo Ren fans did, and before May 2022 was over I went from genuinely enjoying Izzy’s character and place in the narrative to hating him because his fans made it impossible for me to enjoy him anymore.

(SOME! of his fans. Please don’t keep making me say this, although I’m not going to talk about the Canyon directly anymore after this. I know there are a ton of normal Izzy Enjoyers and even Canyonites, I am literally friends with many of them, please take this all in the good faith it’s intended and if you’re not One Of The Bad Ones then you’re fine! I very carefully don’t go anti-Izzy on main, and when I stopped enjoying his character, I stopped writing him into fics. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just want to be honest. Anyway.)

The season 2 finale made me weep over Izzy Goddamn hands.

ALL season long, I was disgruntled. All season long. I really, truly, DEEPLY appreciated what they were doing with his character and arc, I thought it was wildly on brand for the themes of community/queerness in the show, I saw the vision, I liked it!!! But. I wanted a fucking apology, yall. I needed three seconds of “sorry I called you a slur, Ed :/” and that would have been enough. But I had to let it go. It was poisoning my enjoyment of the whole season, which I loved with very little exception (not none!) and I just had to let it go. I wasn’t getting an apology. That didn’t negate what they were doing with his character.

Yall. They withheld the apology on purpose.

THIS FUCKING SHOW!!!

Let’s go back a bit. I was at the episode 6 + 7 screening, and the breakup shook me. Probably a LOT more than if I had watched it alone in bed at 3am on my laptop - five days of no sleep after NYCC, lots of emotions, seeing it on a big screen with a hundred other intense fans, etc etc - but I did see other folks reacting in parallel ways to me when the episodes aired to the regular public, so maybe I would have felt the same way. Regardless, I was mad at Stede and to a lesser extent Ed. I NEEDED AN APOLOGY FOR THAT FISH LINE. I needed it! “Whativah” autocorrects to “WHATIVAH” in my phone. I was going through it.

(When I rewatched the episode when it aired it was not nearly as bad as I remember, lol)

So now the episode 8 screeners go out and the reviews drop and I think I catch one half-glimpse of a “What a heartbreaking ending!” kind of snippet, and some of my friends who are spoiler fiends unintentionally drop little hints about similar ideas (devastating/heartbreaking/split the fandom) type shit.

And I was a fucking WRECK! about it.

I do love this whole show with my whole chest. I do!!! But I’m not rotted because this is an excellent television show, I’m rotted because two old men kiss each other! On the MOUTH!!! in an excellent television show. You get it, right? I’ve written 700,000 words across almost 100 fics and 98% of them are dedicated to those two men falling in love in different universes. 

So it just did not even occur to me the “heartbreak/devastation/fandom split” would be about anything but Gentlebeard.

Another piece of this that was fucking me up - David Jenkins and his “satisfactory” ending biz. My brain was reacting like this show was ENDING ending, even if I knew logically! that this is just season 2!!! And I wasn’t ready for that, because what if it wasn’t personally satisfying, and I’m a mess about it? Why was I so worried about not liking it? I’d liked the whole season! Even if they didn’t nail the landing I wasn’t going to stop writing fic or hanging out with my pirate community & friends. 

…is what I kept trying to tell myself, but the way anxiety disorders work is funny like that lol. What if I did stop writing fic and hanging out in pirate spaces? That would hurt much more than a show I like disappointing me. And for anyone who’s having that experience with ofmd s2, I’m so very, very sorry. It sucks and that’s where my epiphany came from on Wednesday before the finale.

Because it has happened to me before.

I flit from hyperfocus to hyperfocus, as ya do when you’re spicy, but the last thing to get its hooks in me PROPERLY like pirates was Steven Universe. And I did NOT like the way the regular season ended!!! (I actually really did like most of Future; that’s not what I mean. I mean season 5). I don’t like how they handled the Diamonds, tldr; I think the scope of their villainy got too out of hand, and I was left grieving the thing that had meant enough to me I ran a fan convention for four years based around it. 

Side note: imagine if I had channeled the hyperfocus of almost a million words of fanfiction into an American OFMD con instead. We could have made magic :( I did consult with Our Con Means Death though so I am at least a teeny tiny bit of that one!

I did not like the way Steven ended… but I do respect the story they were telling and think they told it well.

I’m still sad about it. Steven is still one of my most beloved, it will always be beautiful and great to me, but that experience did and does sully my memories. There is so, so, so, SO much more good than bad from being in that fandom, and I cherish it. And I hope, if you’re having this experience with OFMD right now, that you’ll find similar comfort.

But, like I said at the top, “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad” has been belabored already by people better at writing about it than me. I just had the incredible privilege to remember my brush with lower case T trauma and having that experience in my last REALLY big deal fandom. That’s why I had been so extra anxious about being disappointed. Because it happened to me before. It helped so much to connect those two.

So the finale happens, and it’s actually about twelve hours of me going from “eh, rushed but fun, whole season was great” to “THIS MAYBE IS THE BEST SHOW OF ALL TIME, ACTUALLY!”

BECAUSE THIS SHOW MADE ME CRY OVER IZZY FUCKING HANDS!!!!

They literally told me this was the story they were telling this season. “Men can change” “The end  of piracy” “Ed leaving Blackbeard behind (ish).”

As for me? I didn’t get an apology for the fish. Instead, I got “Sorry I was a dick.” “You weren’t a dick. Life’s a dick.”

Just… fuckity BAM. THREE FUCKING SENTENCES resolving that fight. Saying so much in so little.

In real life, should these two men have an actual conversation about this shit? Sure!!! But that’s not how OFMD tells its stories!

It works in symbolism. It works in vibes. It works in an hour’s worth of content into each half-hour episode, and for how much lamenting I have done about the pacing, I would prefer that 100x to having to stretch it out too much.

I have said since March 24, 2022 that OFMD wields anachronism as a weapon. First and foremost, it’s fucking funny, but in addition to that, it’s stating clearly: “This is a fantasy world. This is not real history. This show is about romance (and so much more than that), and the rest is just VIBES!!!”

Sometimes vibes can be historical accuracy. Sometimes vibes can be true emotional poignancy. Sometimes vibes can be Ed finding his sunken leathers in the sea, changing underwater somehow, and coming out of the ocean like the Birth of Fucking Venus, because water and rebirth and mermaids and shit is all very prominent this season. And ALSO, and this is very important! BECAUSE IT LOOKS FUCKING COOL!

I don’t want to do much real Izzy meta here. It’s been said by others, and better than me. But it was telegraphed and it was symbolic – he was the paragon of Traditional Piracy in season 1, for goodness’ sake, and Traditional Piracy is Toxic Masculinity, and he was a part of Blackbeard and Ed had to leave Blackbeard behind (yknow, ish), and he got this ABSOLUTLEY FUCKING LOVELY! storyline about appreciating what a (queer) community can do, and god fucking shit fucking dammit… most of all, best of all (for me), was Buttons landing on Izzy’s grave at the end. Men can change. And Izzy DID!!! He did it for Ed. For love. For community. I am puzzled by “it’s fucked up to use Izzy to further Ed’s storyline” because… this was Ed’s season, in the way that season 1 was Stede’s. And Ed cannot be removed from piracy as a whole (neither can Stede!) so to have this old, set in his ways, coded-queerphobic character blossom to the point he can give this gift to Ed and to piracy… idk man. I just find it so fucking beautiful.

It is okay not to like what they did. It’s okay!!! It’s okay, and it’s okay to mourn, and while it’s not okay to do [insert vile behavior here], it’s okay to carefully examine what you think is “bad writing” vs “what you would have preferred to happen” and give good-faith, textually-based criticism on that.

But I want to remind you over and over and over again, this show works on vibes. It tells its stories leaving many, many, many gaps. There are many things I would have liked to see, and y’know what? I would have told the Izzy story differently. I would have personally done it differently. But it’s not my show! It’s not my show, and I am humbled and delighted to remember that, and to appreciate Our Flag Means Death for what it is and not what it isn’t.

Other words have been written better than I could about the 18 months between seasons 1 and 2 and what that does to us as rabid fans with expectations of how things will go. Millions and millions and millions of words have been written about OFMD, fictional and non, and that is going to color our expectations and experience. We had built it up SO MUCH in our minds and along the way I think some of us forgot (INCLUDING ME!!!) that it is first and foremost about Vibes.

The vibes of Izzy’s death are about rebirth and forgiveness and leaving traditional piracy behind. And he got to die in Ed’s arms, knowing (HAPPILY!) that he had been wrong, and giving Ed the gift of letting him know he is loved, and being a part of something. We had a funeral but we also had a wedding. The only constant is change. Men, piracy, Blackbeard; it all changes. And Izzy found peace in that.

Before my last point, I want to @ myself on things I felt versus realizing in the end it is (I will say it until I’m blue in the face) about vibes.

· I was convinced they left Buttons’ transformation ambiguous because they wanted to leave room for it not having been real. NO!!! It is real, until they decided it isn’t. Magic in the OFMD universe? Fucking why not!!! IT’S SYMBOLIC!!! IT’S IMPORTANT TO ED’S STORYLINE AND THE CENTRAL THESES OF THE SHOW!

· I was unhappy, and still am a little, about the Polycule Situation, but now that I realize Oluwande is Zheng’s Stede… I am less so. The Zheng : Auntie :: Ed : Izzy vibes, btw? Fuckin immaculate.

·        Obviously they touched on Stede/Ed’s “killing people trauma” but I’d reallyyyy like Stede to address it, and even though I think Ed’s is left on a very satisfying note, I’d like him to dip a bit more into it as well. But if they don’t, oh well! It’s not like they ignored it, they just didn’t have a Deep Dive like I Wanted Them To!

· They didn’t deal with Ed throwing Stede’s shit away. They just ignored it! Stede started to collect new trinkets, and I believe that was as much about giving the audience back the old feeling of the Revenge as it was anything important (not to say it wasn’t also important thematically!!!). Just like Ed going back to his leathers is both Extremely Important thematically and about putting Taika back in the leathers because that’s what Blackbeard should be wearing for the epic final scenes for the sake of visually keeping the show consistent. That’s Blackbeard’s uniform.

· Stede’s frilly little outfits my beloved. God I hope they give him back some of his frippery in season 3. I think they will re: cursed suit BUT his journey this season was about something else, so!

· Ed’s stupid little non-profit non-apology, oh my god. It was so funny. And there is a transition from eps 5 to 6 where Ed is back in his leathers and the crew is more comfortable around him. They didn’t have to have him do a Real Apology, it’s implied it was all settled. What was the timeline? A day? DOESN’T MATTER, BABY, VIBES!!!

· Lots more, I’m sure, but now that I’ve tried to let it all go, I’m remembering less of what I wanted and appreciating what I got!

And, last point here, I think it is also very very very important to remember that a lot of people are normal about this show. In fact, WAY more people are normal about this show than aren’t. And that is EXTREMELY! IMPORTANT!!! because otherwise it wouldn’t be profitable and we all know what would happen then. We are the core of it, to be sure. Without word of mouth that stems from our intensity, this show would not be NEARLY as successful as it is. I truly, truly believe that.

But.

Do normies need deeply emotional discussions dissecting the central relationships? No. What normies need is Ed and Stede running dramatically toward each other on the beach and kissing. And I am happy, so fucking happy, to realize that’s what I need too. I’ve got fanworks for the rest.

I love this fucking show and this fucking fandom and its fucking creators so much. Fuck.

[novantinuum]

Reformation ref sheet for an AU Steven (named "Astra") who's been invading my brain since like,, April. It's VERY wide, apologies. There's a lot going on here because this man is incredibly old and has poofed way too many times for varying reasons. (See This post for how I headcanon that Steven can poof and still be considered a hybrid being.)

While I will not talk in huge length about certain aspects of his AU on this blog due to some of it involving strong NSFW themes, there is a ridiculous amount of other lore I've developed over time for Astra, and I love him to death. He is my sad, lonely mans who I metaphorically hurl against the wall like a sticky hand when I need to feel something.

This version of Steven will likely never have any kind of full ass fic or comic made about him. Despite that, I do enjoy sharing some art and fun character lore for him from time to time. So, I might as well finally give followers like... literally ANY context for him. I've had this ref sheet for a while and just have never gotten around to throwing it on here, LOL.

Ridiculously long dump about my guy under the cut.

Subnote, this was supposed to be a quick post but I can't help myself and wrote you a fucking BOOK under the cut because I love my guy so much UWU

(Content warning I guess for like, extremely vague mentions of Steven/Steven later on.)

-

The huge tl;dr of Astra is as follows: he's a version of Steven who exists for SO long that he basically transforms into something of an ancient, lonely god.

He's outlived every single person he once knew as a child, and so as a result is starved for affection. At the same time, being vulnerable is the absolute scariest thing for him and he's really shit at navigating relationships, F.

The guy is THE most powerful living creature in his entire universe by the end, and yet remains a soft-spoken, (generally) benevolent soul. He dedicates himself to acting as caretaker for the vast, populous world he exists within, and to maintain the continuing legacy of Gemkind. A big discovery that occurs in this AU is that Gems are in fact susceptible to entropy over the span of millions of years and will eventually fall "inert," (but not him because of weird hybrid biology stuff he honestly sees as more of a curse than a blessing) so a huge plotline early on in Astra's lifespan is trying to either find a "cure" for this issue or to develop a means by which new generations of Gems can be created without the reinstatement of Kindergartens so Gemkind doesn't overtly go extinct.

-

But, to start... this Steven diverges off a point in canon- this is the timeline where he actually takes up the Diamonds on their offer of the throne in the movie, believing he may have a better chance of heralding true societal change working from the INSIDE rather than stepping away. Because he pours himself so thoroughly into his role on Homeworld and his mind is continuously occupied by this purpose, he never experiences the events SU: Future, nor does he develop his "pink mode" (yet...) or corrupt at all.

However, he's also so engrossed in his work that he's... kind of a shit boyfriend to Connie as years go on. (In that he's not terribly attentive... always super busy... their visits are often cut short, or few and far between.) Their relationship never really goes anywhere as a result, though Connie wants it to. To be fair so does Steven, but he's so scared that everything he's worked so hard to organize and set up in this new era will fall apart if he steps aside from his role for even a moment that he can't allow himself to follow that want.

At some point here he learns he can poof through a complete freak accident, and that's where things really begin to change in this timeline.

It takes a good few months for him to reform, but once he does he's back at it with all his work on Homeworld pretty quick.

The thing is... he doesn't have an innate physical need to eat or drink or sleep anymore, because he now consists of entirely hard light. It mimics human biology to an insane degree, so he COULD do all those things, but he doesn't need them to persist. So... he kinda takes this as an excuse to cut those activities out of his schedule entirely so he can spend more time focused on his duties as a diamond.

Connie is NOT a fan of this, and this leads to some debate and tension within their relationship. That being said, they remain an item...

Up until out of nowhere, Connie dies in an accident on Earth while Steven is off planet in a place where he doesn't have any contact with them for a few days. By the time the Gems are able to get in touch with him, it's far too late to resurrect her.

The kicker? In the autopsy it's discovered that she was a few weeks pregnant when she died.

Steven is emotionally gutted by this... and the thought of what could have been... and poofs.

The guy is understandably destroyed when he comes back in his next form, and his form reflects that- his gem flips as a sort of metaphorical severing from his own humanity.

He spends a long while in a deep depression at the loss of his childhood sweetheart... at the loss of any potential for (as far as he sees) a "normal" human life. There's a part of him that resents the choices he's made to end up in this present, but like, there's still work to be done.

And as the years move on, a LOT of that work is mitigating the growing relations (for better or for worse) between Gems and humans as humanity stretches their legs and reaches out into the stars. Humans kinda get... really aggressive in their expansion though, and quite territorial, and it leads towards some inevitable conflict between them and Gemkind. This time, with them more at fault. Things get so spicy that some groups of humans and Gems go to war.

Steven tries to mitigate one of these situations at the front lines- and gets poofed by a disgruntled Gem, speared straight through the back because she (kinda wrongly) assumed he would take the humans' side due to his ancestral ties to them.

When he reforms this time, he is glowing a perpetual pink. The Gems don't really know what to make of this, but he seems to be in perfectly fine health otherwise, so they assume it's just a normal aspect of this new neutral form.

And while this isn't something Steven has context to figure out until like... billions of years later, what's actually happened is that he's entered a permanent pink mode, pretty much. Guy's just got that much bottled up, unaddressed trauma.

He spends a long time in this form, and over all these thousands of years oversees the slow return to peace between Gems and humans... their marriage as a space age federation... and their deeper exploration of the galaxy. Beyond their home solar systems exist a bounty of alien species they've yet to meet... some friendly, some less so. There's definitely some conflict that crops up amidst the local galactic neighborhood when Gems and humans show up on the playing field here, lol.

But all-in-all, Steven develops a fairly peaceful and predictable routine during this reformation- living more like a Gem than ever before. He's still got the Crystal Gems at his side through all of this, and they are some of his greatest confidants.

And then... without any warning... Gems begin to go inert. Amethyst is among them.

Some of them simply stop reforming after they poof... especially those who were older Gems, or who have been cracked before. Steven and the other Diamonds using their powers together are able to "fix" this at first and "jumpstart" their reformation, but it's just a bandaid of a fix- these Gems will fall inert again pretty soon. And the longer they persist without poofing from alternate causes, the more unstable their form, power, and memory becomes. (Think of this as Gem dementia at its late stages,,, oof.)

The bottom line? Just like organics, Gems aren't immune to the forces of entropy. Sooner or later, their gemstones will decay from the inside out. Stubborn to find a way to save the ones he loves as he watches them slowly deteriorate all around him, Steven dedicates himself to trying to find a cure. But deep down, a part of him recognizes the futility of this. What he believes Gemkind actually needs to do is to develop a means of rebooting Gem incubation that doesn't destroy planets, so they can rebuild their quickly dwindling population and keep their legacy alive.

The big problem with this is that Gems take a SHIT load of energy and resources to properly incubate, so that puzzle will take a long ass time to sort out. There's kinda a lot of chaos that happens during this time. The reality of their own blunt mortality freaks out a bunch of Gems, and Steven has to do damage control with the heads of state for a lot of other alien species.

In the interim, all the Crystal Gems and some of the Diamonds (White is still in the picture, though) end up falling inert. Pearl is the last of the CGs to do so.

Steven is understandably SUPER gutted about this, and poofs yet again. (Lol notice a theme? Poor mans keeps poofing from friggin' anguish. Help him.)

After reforming with barely any changes, it's right back to work for this guy. He and the rest of his team of researchers are unable to find any cure for Gems decaying and falling inert, but they do end up making huge leaps and bounds in other kinds of tech. One of these advances allows Steven to finally deep-scan his own gemstone down to the atomic level to check for decay- this was previously a process that was very invasive, and came at the risk of irreparably damaging a Gem, but not anymore.

He expects to find evidence of the same micro decay that's been slowly eating away at the rest of Gemkind within his OWN diamond, but the thing is...

He just... ISN'T decaying at all? Even though the sheer age of this gemstone itself should suggest otherwise? As it turns out though, his existence as a hybridized being makes him kind of... an anomaly. When he first reformed all those thousands of years ago, all the data within his gem- data that would otherwise be susceptible to decay- was translated into genetic material. DNA that's woven entirely out of hard-light... but, DNA that has also been constantly regenerating itself thanks to a combination of all the intricate biochemistry surrounding the human telomere and his healing powers.

In other words, he is incapable of falling inert from natural causes, like micro decay. He's functionally immortal. Unless someone shatters him (or... heaven forbid... he shatters himself) he simply can't die.

Which, all of a sudden, makes his race to save Gemkind from their quickly approaching extinction all the more personal. Because if he FAILS- then he'll be the very last of Gemkind. There will be no one else left in this world who is even remotely like him. (Humanity has mixed and mingled with the galactic locals so much by now that they're very much unrecognizable from what they once were.)

His spirit is very nearly broken by this discovery, and he is severely tempted to throw all his own principles out the window and just sanction the construction of new Kindergartens again, if only to keep the dwindling Gem populations up and birth new generations. Perhaps surprisingly, it's White Diamond- the last Gem left who Steven actually knew since the very beginning- who urges him to reconsider. To not give up on his own morality, to not revert all the miraculous changes he's worked for these long few million years.

The big shift in the tides is when he discovers the means to jump to alternate timelines, and thus the existence of the greater multiverse. This allows him to gather intel and ideas from a far greater spectrum of sources.

And eventually... it's with the aid of many alt versions of himself from other lines across the multiverse that leads to him finding a suitable, eco-friendly solution to his Gem incubation problem. (This is the aspect of this AU I cannot discuss in length for discretion's sake. Use your imagination. Or don't, I don't care.)

The following two sections, I'll be talking more about the broad thematics than anything else. At this point, know that there are now new batches of Gems being created all the time. Gemkind is no longer at risk of any extinction, but now- like any stable organic species- new Gems are made at the same rate that they fall inert.

So, the BIGGEST thing here with this reformation is that this is overtly where this guy picks up the name "Astra." Why a name change? Well, after White finally went inert, leaving him the last Diamond in existence within this line, it basically just felt... upsetting to him, to continue to go by a name that every person he ever loved used for him. Thus, the new name is overtly a means to distance himself from that past, and from that pain. (It's also a name he chooses while thinking back to a meaningful conversation he had with White, back before she went inert, oOF. I'll probably yell about that at some point in another post.)

So, too, is the lack of any tangible facial features. He HAS a face, but others just can't see it. He subconsciously obscures it from almost everyone's sight as a means of avoiding vulnerability. One might also have noticed by now that this guy's proportions have gotten like, really strange and sorta "stretched out" over time the larger he becomes... and this is intentional, as it's yet another way he's just becoming more inhuman in form, yet another way he's internally separating himself from those humble human origins of his.

But here's the thing, though.

Deep, deep down, to be human and to live a simple human life is basically all he's ever craved. It's everything he feels he's lost forever, with the death of his Connie. And instead, he's kinda stuck in a hellish sunk cost fallacy of his own making, acting as eternal caretaker for this world that- no matter what he does to try and make it a better place- will never quite be PERFECT. Thus, in his mind, even though he's literally fixed Gemkind's BIGGEST problem, he can't Stop. He can't Rest. He simply can't allow himself himself to lay down and Sink Away into the unknown.

And even if he could allow himself to do so, he is so, so scared of walking that path alone.

If he's going to die... he wants that end to be at a lover's side.

How, though, is someone who's basically a god supposed to find anyone in this multiverse with experiences they can remotely relate to?

Well... ultimately, Astra finds that it's far, far easier to build up a close relationship with varying versions of himself than anyone else. He's... kinda trash at it, though. This guy has so much bottled up Gunk in his head and is so starved for any form of affection that he has a habit of throwing WAY too much of himself into the relationships he engages in, and expecting that same level of commitment in return. There's one relationship with an alt Steven he's in for a while that ends up pretty unhealthily co-dependent before it fizzles out, and then another where he assumes the individual is committing to this partnership for the long run, but then no... actually Astra was always pouring more into this dynamic than he was receiving in return.

This second relationship, when it ends, is pretty devastating to him- since it was one that lasted for like, a LONG ass time. Unimaginably long. We're talking billions of years, here.

Uh-oh! And now he's even more distanced from other people. Folks can't even parse his actual chosen name at this point- except he isn't really consciously aware of this for a while?? It's yet another silent cry for help, yet another internal defense mechanism specially intended to keep others from truly getting to know him. Because every time he does... stars. No matter what he does, he keeps getting hurt. Almost everyone he knows and loves is torn from his life eventually... if not by death, then by some form of tragedy... and he's just so, so tired.

He wants literally ANYTHING to change in his life. He craves some new form of purpose. He craves the attention of someone who might love him as passionately as he loves them.

For a while, he almost believes he's found that- in yet another close relationship he forges with an alt version of himself- but while this other Steven does care for him immensely, it's only as a friend. Which kinda kills Astra, because he's like, lost in the sauce levels of In Love with this guy. There's a LOOOOOOT of story I have here with this, oh my god. If I am thinking about this AU I am usually thinking about this Old Man Yaoi. The great bulk of it is very NSFW themed though, so y'all getting the cliff notes.

The MOST important thing to know though, is that Astra both makes intense leaps and strides in once again allowing himself to be vulnerable with this man, and ALSO kinda intensely fucks their whole mutually agreed situationship up. It's messy. I am crying and wailing at these two old dumbasses. Jesus fucking christ.

But then, it's in the aftermath of this whole deal that an individual named Orion comes into the picture.

Orion quite literally falls into Astra's world by complete accident, but it's a very lucky accident- because she is a diamond hybrid version of Connie from another universe who- beyond a few differences- has a strikingly similar history to his. The big difference, though? She never found a means to create new Gems without Kindergartens, so she was the last of just a few thousand Gems who existed in her entire line. Part of a deeply endangered species.

This version of Connie arrives in some very deep mental turmoil, and so Astra does his best to give them a stable home and a place to heal. And while a past version of him might've been tempted to throw way too much of himself into the slow building rapport they have, he's blessedly Learned a thing or two from the past few major relationship experiences he's had... and chooses to like, ease up. Just offer himself as a friend first and foremost, should they care for one. Man learns restraint, lol.

And it's a damn GOOD thing that he does, because out of the genuine friendship they foster, Orion is the one who ultimately falls in love with him first. The relationship that's established here is one that's balanced, a true partnership where they simply make each other better people. It's through Orion's encouragement that Astra eventually reconnects and makes up with that last person he had an intense relationship with, even.

In time, Astra truly grows to thrive with Orion in his life. He becomes a far more open, vulnerable person, someone who feels safe to truly exist as who he is, to bare every complicated, battered facet of his past to those he trusts. While he may have taken the LONG road to get here, he too heals. And as a result...

One day, Astra simply stops glowing entirely. Shrinks down to more reasonable proportions. He stops hovering around on automatic, stops subconsciously scrubbing the memory of his face or name from people's minds. He stops denying his truest, deepest self- the reality that he was born an organic being, and raised as a human.

The burred reality that all he's ever truly wanted since the day his first lover died is to be a father.

To live a quiet, simple life with the people he loves.

For so long it was a mirage of a future he thought he'd never chase down, but for how much he made all the wrong choices the first time around, now he has a second chance.

And so in my brain, that's exactly what happens. Astra and Orion start a family together and continue to act as guardians over this universe for many years to come, until- after they are satisfied with the long life they've lived together, and their children have moved on to start forging their own paths- they eventually pass Beyond at their own will in each other's arms, ending their impossibly long godhood at peace.

I really don't know how to end this post lmafo, so I will simply say: if you somehow read all of this, holy shit you are so brave. Thank you for engaging with my insane ramblings. Have a nice day LOL FUIHSNUFSJG

This man haunts my brain so much I missed two off ramp turns on the highway the other day while thinking about him. Help me.