#visions for music scoring

[ghostowlattic]

inner martian 

ghost owl attic

[feelingthedisaster]

the edits i'd make if i was in the aftg universe

[happymeishappylife]

The Score - Visions (Official Lyric Video)

[coconut530]

AMAZING CRANE WIVES ALBUM I LOVED IT A LOT!!! MAD DOG RUSHING RIVER ARCTURUS BEAMING SCARS MY BELOVEDS!!!

ALSO

Was SOOOO not expecting them to drop a single today, of all days. And it FREAKING SLAPS 👏🏼!! BEAT DROPS INSANE

[morphids]

false pretenses, hange zoë

so im absolutely obsessed with this thank you for putting this idea in my head😰😵‍💫wish i could tag u anon </3

original request here [X]

pairing: college au - engineering student!hange x student!female reader - they/them pronouns for hange, afab anatomy for both

summary: the best way to get what you want is to do it yourself right?

warnings: listen this is real slutty ok, explicit sexual content 18+ minors dni - loser lesbian!hange (hange has that autistic nerd rizz), its always the quiet ones, r thinks she’s slick af, poc friendly- no physical descriptions of reader, kinda-bratty/switch!reader (r gets v subby) top-leaning!Hange (im a top i swear), strap, dirty talk, nicknames, munch activities, fingering, finger sucking, cunnilingus, praise, brief asphyxiation, i cant think of anymore

wc: 4.9k (not proofread)

an: excuse the shitty engineering attempts im not a stem girl!! hope y’all enjoy <3

—

You watched Hange from across the library, gazing over their features as they frowned. Brow creased as they solved equations that your professor had so kindly left everyone to complete after your seminar. Sometimes you’d catch their teeth nip at their bottom lip, in pensive thought.

Hange wasn't around many people, not that you saw anyway, usually kept to themselves or with the same two friends you'd seen them with. Their head often deep into a book or back hunching over a desk working some form of assignment, headphones placed over their hair.

Looking over their face, you studied Hange's strong jaw, the way their slender hand held up the weight of their head as the other scribbled down notes into their notebook. The sluttiest black tank top layered underneath an unbuttoned white dress shirt, draping over baggy brown straight-leg pants. Hair up with so many layers resting against their cheeks, framing their lovely face as multiple strands plumed out from within the hair tie. Their amber eyes lay under small, thin, glasses atop their nose. God, that nose. Perfect to sit on. Perfect to ride to holy heaven.

If it wasn’t clear, you'd had a bit of an eye on Hange for the last semester, they had transferred from a different university a while back. Upon seeing them for the first time, you wanted to speak to them. Their slightly introverted nature had made you keep your distance, though, but it was getting harder to fight the urge to go talk to them. I mean, how weird would that be? Hi, I know you don't know me but I've been obsessed with you since you transferred here? Yeah right.

No, you had to be more creative than that.

You needed a valid reason to speak to Hange so that you didn’t come across as the world’s biggest creep. Luckily for you, Hange was by far the smartest person on campus. Grades always incredibly well above average, scoring top marks in every assignment they’d submitted. So much so, that the professor had pretty much already taken them in under his wing. Due to their helpful nature and extensive knowledge in a fair range of fields, your professor was preparing Hange to be his TA after graduation. Oftentimes, passing Hange over to tutor students in his classes that lacked the grades that were expected of them at this stage in the course.

And even more luckily for you, you seemed to be really struggling with the new module. Or at least that’s what your alibi was. Who needed to know that your grades had actually been consistent passes? You were pretty strong at your theory, but you had only slightly slacked off in your classes during your professors teachings of mathematical methods and linear equations. It couldn’t hurt to get a bit of extra assistance to fill in the missing gaps.

Deciding to bite the bullet, you walked up to Hange, they barely noticed a presence beside, music blaring through the headphones, until your shoes came into their peripheral vision, spotting the black boots right beside the chair.

Their gaze followed up your bare legs, eyes slightly widened as they realised you were indeed about to induce a conversation with them and not just wandering past to get to an actual destination. They removed one cup of their headphones off their ear, holding it up with their fingers so they could listen to you. You noticed the multiple bands resting above their knuckles, bulky metallic rings varied with different patterns and weldings.

“Oh, um— hi?” Hange spoke, slightly confused, they had been deeply distracted into their equations, not anticipating someone coming to speak to them. Definitely not you, of all people.

“Hey, um— sorry to ruin your flow, but I was wondering if you could,” hesitance struck you, feeling your carefully planned script fall apart under Hange’s gaze, eyes still wide and nodding their head as a prompt for you to finish, removing the headphones fully to rest the band on the back of their neck. Why are they so hot, you thought, fumbling over yourself. “If you could tutor me with this module, you’re the smartest person in this place according to Mr. Fritz,” You joked, softening your words with a meek giggle. An attempt to make not make it seem like a big deal even though you could feel your heartbeat thump in your ears and throat.

“You can totally say no, of course,” you quickly added, after realising you didn’t actually offer them an out, not wanting to pressure Hange into having more on their plate than there already was.

Hange’s eyebrows pulled together, lips split as a wash of suspicious perplexity strained their features, only for a second before returning to normal. Back to their friendly warmth with an amiable smile stretched on their lips.

“Sure, I’d love to help,” Their eyes held yours, you to let out a faint breath of relief. “I’ve got a few things to do on campus for a while, but, I can meet you after?”

“That’d be great, thank you!” You offered to exchange phone numbers for ‘easier communication’ to plan around Hange’s schedule, before duly proposing that they come over to your dorm, as the library closed after five o’clock, and your roommates were gone for a week-long field trip.

“I’ll let you know when I’m on the way, then,” They smiled, an amused smirk etching itself on their lips before they could help it.

“That’s perfect, I appreciate it,” You beamed, “I’ll, um, leave you to your equations,” You stepped away, turning around to make your exit from the library. Hange didn’t miss the way your eyes fell onto their lips for just, perhaps, a little bit too long than was deemed socially conventional, or the way you seemed to grow flustered as they stimmed with their fingers. Hange’s gaze followed you as you walked on, trailing down to your exposed legs underneath a short skirt that hung over thick, sinuous thighs. Hange looked back down at their notebook, as they chuckled, shaking their head with endearment at your crafty deceit.

Hange certainly isn’t stupid, due to their proximity working with the professor, they were painfully aware of the more… problematic students in Mr. Fritz’ class. You were never one of them. In fact, he had even used some of your past assignments as example guidelines for the newer students. Needing help with the easiest part of the module? No way were they believing that.

—

A knock at your door, and you smoothened the fabric of your clothes, hoping to reduce any lingering creases or maybe even just to calm your nerves. You had tidied up, making your bedroom look more presentable and less like a cove of disordered chaos.

Opening the door, there stood Hange, handsome and ravishing in all their tall glory. A hand reached up to stabilise the one strap of their backpack that hung on their shoulder, the other strap dangling behind. You tried to stop, you really did, but you trailed over their figure, lured into their nonchalant stance that just exuded casual confidence as they looked back at you, an eyebrow cocked up.

Breaking contact, you welcomed them in, Hange dropped their backpack onto the floor to relieve the weight of all the heavy textbooks from their shoulders. Hand raising back up to remove the headphones from their neck, placing them atop their bag, hooked on the top handle.

You sat at your couch, leaving enough space for Hange to comfortably place themselves on. Trying to be discreet, you watched as they took off their dress shirt, hanging it on the arm of the couch, you presumed Hange was using the layer against the slightly cooler breeze outside— you couldn’t lie, you were kinda glad to see it off. Hange’s bicep was well sculpted against their black tank top as it melted into toned forearms. Tanned and strong. There was a brown cord bracelet dangling from their wrist as they rested it on their propped up knee. God, I’m no better than a man, you thought.

“So, what’d you need help with?” Hange pushed up their glasses with their ringed index finger, you wondered if that was something they often did subconsciously before beginning a task.

“Linear algebra and probability theory,”

“Hmm,” Hange nodded, a short tug at the corner of their lips, leaning their elbows on the top of their thighs, “Yeah, that stuff is pretty hard, but,”

“What did you score on the last exam?” Hange turned their head your way, amber eyes meeting yours, with a devious look.

You froze, shit. It felt like a trick question, surely Hange didn’t know the score you totalled? Surely, Hange didn’t know that you were just seven marks from a full score? It almost felt as if they were luring you into a trap; to see if you’d double down with the lie and continue with this facade or if you’d crack and admit defeat. Lose-lose either way, you’d end up embarrassed or having to make yourself look incredibly foolish.

Voice breaking in your throat, you held eye contact. Whereas Hange’s was steady and sharp, yours felt like you were just exposing yourself further the longer you remained silent.

“I-I don’t remember,” A neutral answer, you decided, totally not because you had been rendered nonverbal, clearing your throat and seeing the way Hange’s lips stretched fully into a knowing smirk.

“Hmm, you don’t remember,” They were definitely mocking you now, voice low, humming and melodic as you felt the thunder in your chest beat. You looked down at your thighs, fingers fiddling with a loose hem on your skirt.

“Getting the impression I wasn’t invited over for some homework,” They chuckled, leaning back against the support of the couch, arm stretching over the top.

One sentence and it was out in the open, the illusion you thought was so deceiving completely shattered as your true intentions came to light. Yup, embarrassing, just as you thought.

“So, why don’t you tell me the actual reason you invited me over,” If the last sentence was a stab to your confidence, this one was an extra twist in the wound. Hange was smirking at you, the mirthful look in their eyes showing you that they were relishing in your embarrassment and flustered face.

You swallowed a deep breath, feeling your skin ignite both with anticipation and nerves so lethal you almost wanted to bury yourself underneath the seat, never to be seen again.

“I, uh—“ you mumbled, the script had truly crumbled, you had no plan B apart from just spewing out the truth. You’d die before you had to do that.

“You seem a bit flustered,” Hange hummed, leaning on the back of the couch, as their thighs came to spread, “Why’s that, hm?”

The unlevelled confidence that radiated from them just seemed to further your own unease. It wasn’t often you felt that way, usually being the one to initiate flirtations with others. Yet, everything about Hange just seemed to drag you into a state of bashfulness, totally out of character as you failed to make eye contact.

“Will you look at me, love?”

You ceded, eyes meeting, as you let out a sigh. Hange placed a testing hand upon your bare knee, tentative runs of their thumb over the skin. Soft, Hange thought. The feeling eliciting shivers down your spine, warm waves down to your core, reducing you to a state of feeling unreasonably touch-starved. Hange gazed down your thighs, deliciously covered by the fabric of your skirt, moistening the edge of their upper lip with the tip of their tongue, before flickering their eyes back to you.

“What is it you really want?”

Fuck. A short gasp escaped your throat as their hand trailed up, fingers reaching underneath the hem of the short skirt. Hange was toying with you, no doubt about it.

“I… I wanted to speak to you,”

Humming, their hand moved further, “Why?”

“I found you…” you paused when their fingertips skimmed over your panties, your thighs twitched. “C-captivating, needed a reason to speak to you,”

Hange chuckled, as they leaned forward to reach the bottom of your ear, your breath hitching as their lips ghosted over the skin.

“You could’ve just asked, pretty,” Hange’s voice whispered against your ear, as you closed your eyes. You were so down bad.

“Think I haven’t noticed you, huh?” One light kiss at your skin, “Think I haven’t seen the way you stare at me?” Another kiss, ever so gentle that you almost melted into them, biting back a needy groan. Hange’s hand squeezed at your thigh, fingers towards your centre, just barely grazing over the fabric.

“I mean—god, darling, if you wanted me to fuck you that badly all you needed to do was ask nicely,” Hange’s teeth nipped at your lobe, drawing out the skin with it.

“So, ask me nicely,”

Another squeeze at your inner thigh, and no longer could you withhold the groan that you’d been holding back. You were fighting so many demons right now, hesitant to verbalise your inner desires. Hange remained near your ear, licking at the soft skin. Fuck it.

“I want you so fucking bad,” Your voice came out so much whinier than you expected, used to hearing that tone from others, but never from yourself.

“Aren’t you gonna say please?” They chuckled, dragging it out, teasing. Hange eyed the pout at your lips, the slight frown in your brows—could tell you were used to getting what you wanted easily, to not submitting. They planned to fix that.

“Fucks sake—please, Hange,” You pressed your thighs together, trapping Hange’s hand as they gripped you, as a prompt for them to do something, anything.

“Better.”

With their other hand, the one not currently trapped in between your legs, Hange grabbed at your hip. Kneading over your hip bone, where the dainty zip of your skirt dangled. The sensation caused your thighs to loosen autonomously, as Hange opportunely released their hand an inch. Slipping underneath the hem of your damp panties, fingers teasing at your slit, collecting your slick.

“You this messy just for me?” Their sinful, warm words made you shiver, goosebumps down your arms as they hit your ear. You wriggled, skirt rolled up to your hips, exposing your panties. Messy, indeed. You were growing impatient as you attempted to roll your hips into their hand, craving contact. Hange’s fingers recoiled, pushing from your slit pulling the fabric with as they tutted. Tightening their other hand on your hip once more, stilling your movements.

“C’mon, surely you’ve figured out how this works by now,” Hange’s words sounded so sweet, if it wasn’t for the absolute torture lurking underneath. Eager to tease and play with you for as long as it would take for you to actually listen and cede. With a brattish groan and a sigh, you nodded.

“Words, darling, use them.”

“Y-yes, shit—all for you, Hange.” Voice breathy, avidly impatient. Your core leaked more slick when it clenched, totally ruining your panties as it clung to your folds. The sight absolutely delectable. “I need you so bad—can’t take it,”

There it was. Finally.

“Was that so hard?” Hange hummed, a satisfied smirk creeping over their lips as they teased a finger down your slit, only slightly breaking through your entrance. Pressing your lips against theirs as you whimpered into the kiss, biting at Hange’s plump bottom lip.

“Now then, be a good girl and stay put.”

Hange pressed their finger fully into you, soon adding another two once they saw how keenly you were taking them already, walls wet and ready. Your head fell into Hange’s neck, meek moans spilling from your mouth as their slender fingers hit the back of your squishy walls.

Without removing themselves from your warm heat, Hange cased a hand at your ass, pulling you on top of their lap. Using their clothed thigh to rut their fingers up even further, other hand forcing your hips into gyration against them. The friction from their jeans hit against your sensitive clit and with their fingers inside you, you were a hot mess already. Needy and desperate from their heartless teasing.

“Ah—that’s…fucking good,” You hissed, as Hange lapped their tongue down your neck, before sucking, branding you with many dark marks leading down to your chest.

Catching the hem of your shirt, you threw your arms up to discard it, revealing your breasts to the room’s cool air, heaving up and down with heavy breaths. Hange almost moaned at the sight of you, shirtless with a short skirt pooled around your hips, draping over their knees. Of course you weren’t wearing a bra, they thought. As Hange thrust their fingers into you, their mouth wrapped over your nipples, flicking over them with their tongue. Nipping lightly over the peaks. You arched your back into them, feeling yourself grow closer, the tension in your abdomen building as you bit your lip.

Your hips lost their rhythm, aimlessly chasing the feeling of Hange’s fingers deep within you. Languid gasps and breathless moans escaping your lips. So, so close to your peak until the sensation was suddenly stripped away, leaving you totally empty. Hange removing their fingers, you could hear your own slick cry as they did, your walls tensing.

“Wha-“ You were a bit dazed, a truthfully a little annoyed, you had been so close.

“You’ve not earned it yet,” Hange laughed, clearly relishing in your frustration. They liked this, liked making you destitute, left wanting. Hange had every intention of fixing that sugared insolence they could see within you. Had every intention of tearing it inside out.

Hange reached down to their leather belt, maintaining eye contact as they unclasped the metal peg, lifting you up off their knees slightly to pull their jeans down, before removing their tank top. Their chest rose up and down, bound beneath a black binder. You could see their own centre soaking through their underwear. You ogled their figure, groaning as your sinful thoughts worsened. The kind of imagination that would surely commit you to purgatory indefinitely.

Hange pecked your charming pout away, before bringing their soaked fingers up in front of your mouth. Spreading your lips open with their thumb, shoving it inside so you could taste your own slick on it. Their other fingers followed suit.

“Clean up your mess,”

Hange watched you, your lips bruised and plump as they split to allow entrance for their index and middle finger. Sucking your juices off them as you moaned, gagging as they hit the back of your throat. Brows pinched and eyes brimmed with tears from the hot burn. Hange’s thumb pressed against your bottom teeth, pulling your jaw open, a line of drool slipping out from the corner of your open mouth. Hange would kill just about anyone for you, they thought. Irreversibly addicted to you, your needy eyes and the way you fell to follow their orders.

“So beautiful,”

Hange hung over you. Looking into your glassy eyes, with the hold against your jaw, pinky finger at your chin, they held your mouth open, spitting on your tongue.

“Swallow.”

You did. Quite happily as you groaned, muffled as your mouth was stuffed. Feeling yourself grind against Hange’s bare thigh, your core clenching around nothing as you yearned for the feeling of their fingers back inside you. Your inner thighs completely soaked, spreading it all over Hange’s bare legs.

“Such a good girl—so obedient for me,” They hummed, relieving their attack on your mouth, taking their fingers out and grasping the back of your neck, “Wonder if anyone else has ever slut you out like this, hm?”

You shut your eyes, leaning into their touch as you whined out a passive ‘No’, shaking your head to Hange’s question, not fully trusting the strength of your own voice. Fuck, you were totally gone, lost in salacity and paralysed by your own thirst. Almost brain-dead as your desire thumped in your ears, and throbbed at your core. About to explode from your own ardour as it’d eagerly been building up. Hange was divinely addictive, a substance you should never have risked trying. You could never possibly go back now, too ruined to ever possibly go to anyone else. Totally and utterly hooked on Hange.

“Aw, look how docile you are now, pretty.”

Hange kissed at your neck, coming back up to meet your lips again as you mewled against them.

“H-Hange— please, need more,” You squirmed against their lap, “Can’t take it, need to cum so badly,” You were finally begging, hesitation leaving you to fend for yourself as Hange had you right where they wanted.

“Yeah? How do you want it, baby?”

In between strained breaths, you pointed to your drawers. Strategically placed next to the couch, as Hange reached over. Chuckling once they saw your strap in its resting place.

“This what you want?”

Nodding, you rutted against Hange’s thigh, forcing some friction to rub against your clit.

“Please, fuck,” You sobbed, visions of Hange stuffing you with your strap forcing you to squeeze your thighs against Hange’s lap.

“Since you asked so nicely,”

Hange gently nudged you off their lap, to allow them to slide the harness over their thighs. You sat beside them, legs folded underneath yourself. Hand placed delicately on the side of their head, pressing sweet kisses down the skin of their neck as they adjusted the harness to fit around the circumference of their thighs. Hange shivered under your lips, eyes shutting as they indulged in the sensation for a moment, cursing as you began to lick under their lobe. You were delightful.

Hange’s hand danced along your thigh, fingers streaming past your slit as they groaned at how unbelievably wet you were.

“You’re fucking sublime,” They groaned, dragging you over their lap, hands ripping both the skirt and your ruined panties off your legs. Hange laid their back on the couch, folding your bare thighs over their jaw. You bit your lip in keen anticipation, it was almost as if you had manifested this.

“Fuck—Hange, I’ve dreamt about this for so fucking long,” Your legs twitched above Hange’s face, as a radiant smirk shone on their lips.

“Yeah? Thought about this?” Their hands clung around the plush skin of your ass, fingers squeezing tightly. They pulled you on to a steady stream along their face, teased a lick up your folds before your slit was pressed down against their flat tongue, lapping up your slick as their nose rubbed over your clit.

“F-fuck, so much—was just like this,” You gasped as you rode Hange’s face, watching dumbly as their face contorted with gluttonous solace. Eyebrows creasing as they focused on eating you out. You crumbled, finally feeling some release after being teased for what felt like many unbearable hours. Truly, it was better than you could have imagined, Hange’s fly-aways catching on their cheeks and the sides of their face as they grew dampened, your slick slapping their cheeks and fogging up their glasses from splatters and wet heat.

Resting your hand on their knees for stability, your fingers acted on their own as you came to reach underneath the strap that was dangled in the air, waiting to be used. Your fingers came to meet Hange’s folds, sliding easily past their sensitive labia, nearly as wet as your own, aching. Having been unbearably turned on since they saw your body’s visceral responses to them.

“That’s—so fucking hot, shit,” You whimpered, lost in the feeling of Hange’s insistent tongue slowly flicking deep against you and the way their centre seemed to just suck your fingers right in. Hange let out a muffled, guttural grunt into you, the vibrations making you clamp your thighs tight against their head. You almost felt apologetic, if it wasn’t for Hange, who seemed to get riled up by the very prospect of being choked out by your luscious thighs. Oxygen supply decreasing as amber eyes rolled into the back of their head, toned arms pulling you closer against them. Leaving behind marks on your skin that outlined where their fingers had been digging in.

Whilst simultaneously, you were plunging your fingers knuckles deep into their entrance. Your body leaning back as you bucked your wrist against them, fingers curling inwards against their walls. Hange’s eyes were stuck on you, watching as your body rocked against their mouth. Head hung back and breasts perked up as beads of sweat trickled down, illuminating your skin, the fine hairs around your stomach standing upright. Looking properly, they spotted a few moles scattered on your stomach, your lips were swollen as they bit out mutters of curses under your breath. Still trying to return the favour even despite feeling ruined. How divine.

The sight alone brought Hange to their knees, hazy pleasure erupting through them as they felt their body tremble. Truthfully, Hange seldom let people touch them, opting to typically give rather than receive, yet they felt like giving you permission to do whatever you wished with their body. They were so hypersensitive, extra responsive under your ambrosial touch. Debauched gasps melted into your core, still lapping at your slick as they rode through their own peak. Shuddering, as they seized their thighs against your wrist.

“Did you cu-“ Your excited, breathy voice was cut off by Hange grabbing your wrist, ripping your fingers out of themselves from overstimulation, their centre tensing with arousal dripping down their folds. Hange nodded as an affirmative, you could tell they were slightly stunned. Hange held your wrist against your back, elbow folding over as they lifted themselves up. Disconnecting your slit from their mouth, and moving you around as you returned to facing each other, your legs resting over their lap once more.

Hange’s spare hand caressed your jaw, uniting your lips together as they melded over yours. Sloppy, open-mouthed kisses, slipping their tongue into your mouth. You whined as they angled the tip of the strap over your folds, your slick lubricating the plastic. Hange was frenzied, desperately needing to see you stuffed with the silicone length. Elated from their own high, their words grew more depraved.

“Need to fuck this pussy,” They rasped, voice at the lowest frequency you’d heard from them, “Prettiest fucking pussy I’ve ever seen,”

Your lips parted as Hange slipped the tip inside, stretching your walls out as you gripped onto their shoulders. Hissing as you adjusted to Hange burying themselves into your tender flesh. Sinking yourself down on the strap as your hips undulated against them, pressure building up again within your abdomen as Hange fucked the strap deep into you. Tip massaging over your inner walls, repeatedly hitting that same spot that made your breath catch in your throat and your vision go white.

“Fuc—keep going, pleas—please,” Mewling, you shut your eyes, eyebrows furrowing as your nails came to scratch at Hange’s back. Your words coming out in broken sobs, tears spilling down your cheeks as you were split apart on your own strap.

“So full—Hange—“

Hange sucked against your neck, then licking over the sore spots.

“Taking me so well,” Hange praised, voice sweetly laden with saccharine honey, “Sat so pretty on my cock,”

“ngh—Shit-I-I’m gonna come,” You were shaking, thighs trembling and abdomen twitching. Finally about to release after being so cruelly edged twice. The expression on your way was picture-worthy, fucked out and wanton.

“That’s it,” Hange kept rutting up into you, muttering praises, “Come all over me, baby,” A nibble at your earlobe and you were done for. Your climax reached you, tensing up your spine, mouth agape as you shuddered, face contorted.

“You look so pretty when you come,”

Your core tightened as you spilled out your release; the force pushing the strap out from inside you, squirting all over Hange’s lap. The hardest you’ve ever come in your life.

Hange didn’t relent just yet, making sure to fuck you through your peak so you could ride every second of it. When you finally stilled, your head fell onto Hange’s neck, murmuring softly against their clavicle. Sighing, you lifted your head up, greeting Hange’s half-lidded eyes with your own. A beat and Hange reconnected your lips together, gently kissing you as you came down. Mind still fuzzy and reeling. Their hands caressed your hips, thumbs running down your skin.

“You’re beautiful,” Hange whispered, pressing a tender peck down against your swollen lips, “Wish you would’ve talked to me earlier,”

You laughed, breathy and uneven, as bashfulness struck again. Once the cloud of lust had settled, you were left with nerves, that doe look back in your eyes as you weren’t quite sure what to do now. What if Hange never wants to see you again? After all of this, you don’t think you could handle being emotionally ghosted. It was unlike you entirely, but the interest in Hange remained, simmering as you relished in their tight hold— a hold that almost promised you it wasn’t going to leave. You dared to dream.

“What are you thinking about?” Hange muttered, resting their forehead against yours, eyes closing.

“Um…” You hummed, hesitant, “This, I guess, I’m a little… nervous,”

“I guess I am, too,” They chuckled, pressing their head closer, hands still setting your skin aflame, “But, i-if you’d like to, I wanna take you out,” Pausing, “On a real date, that is, not under false tutoring pretences,”

You pulled your head back, trying to suppress the smile that threatened to stretch, an attempt at masking the hopeful beam in your eyes.

“I’d love that.”

—

listen u guys 😭 someone pls sedate me or give me a lobotomy cos what am i meant to do when i PINE over 2d characters

let me know if u guys enjoyed <3 i love to read ur comments and inputs

[jakei95]

[Post in English] Something Nyx and I want to publicly address, regarding the recent allegations in the Glitchtale Crew's Discord Server and it's moderators. I really apologize for the upcoming wall of text. These are our Twitter threads I have pasted them here, in case you don't have access to said platform. I have also added some additional notes to provide more context. All details under the line:

NyxTheShield: (Transcription from his official twitter thread) I read some mean comments lately and I just wanna be super clear: I havent been related to Glitchtale since at least 2022. I never considered myself part of the community and went through some much shit while doing stuff for it that my mental health was completely destroyed.

For people who thought I was an admin of the server, that was just in paper. I was constantly de-admin'd, demodded and kicked from the server through the years for simple stuff like asking the rest of the mod team to not say slurs or standing up against the Midnight Crew. I personally left the server for a long while because I really did not want to be around some of the people there. All of this happened years ago (from 2016~ to around 2020). On the early years, my full income came from Youtube/Glitchtale. I was a broke college student and my economic stability depended on it. Despite this, and making literally hundred of tracks and hours of music for the series, most of the income came from my own ad revenue. I was paid less than 2000 USD for all of the work. Essentially, I was paid in exposure.

This wouldn't have been an issue for me if at least I got to keep my artistic vision with the series. That didn't hold true for long.

From the second season and onwards, and in multiple instances, I would score the entire OST for the episode, watch the episode when it released, and then find out a completely new section of the episode (usually a battle scene) with music from somebody else This was completely demotivating to me because I wasn't being paid, the tracks would not fit the rest of the OST at all, and most of the income I made from the battle scenes. I had to work for weeks trying to compose music for glorified powerpoint presentations (Basically everything that's not a battle scene on the series was just still frames of characters barely moving) and do all the heavy lifting and I wasn't even let known about the guest tracks.

This added to the feeling of having absolutely no power within the community. I don't know if this was intentional or not (I don't wanna presume malice), but all of these things together contributed to me distancing myself from the community.

Honestly, there is A LOT more shit that went down these early years that are extremely traumatic to me that I would prefer to not talk about unless completely necessary, but I feel this is a good amount of context for what I wanna talk about next.

As you might be aware, extremely serious (and true) allegations were made against Camila and his partner, Veir, which was accused of grooming minors from 2015 to 2021 There are really good videos out there explaining the entire timeline of what transpired, but I specifically wanna talk about 2020.

(Jakei's note: Links to said videos are here: [1] [2] [3])

In that year, a public document was made by my head mod CrystalFlame alongside 2 other mods in the GT server, that exposed Veir and their actions. This document went mostly unnoticed. Even more, Crystal went through a lot of abuse for coming forward about their abuse and was almost ostracized from the UT AU community because of this.

Because of this, I was asked directly by one of the victims (and also representing the other victims) to please not speak up (Citing that they just wanted to move on and didn't want to involve themselves with more problems and expose themselves)

All the info was kept very vague from me, including the people who were involved, the extent of the stuff that went down, etc But I knew enough to know it was serious. I followed their request and didn't speak up publicly about this, but I banned Veir from my server, warned all of my mods and people close to me in those circles about Veir, and constantly tried to get Camila to please adress the situation. Despite this, she did not listen and we all know how stuff went down later in 2022, where the allegations came back again with full force. This time around I wasnt asked to stay silent so I spread the word around and confronted the entire mod team. I was shortly banned after that.

I needed to address this because this thing has been eating me alive for years. I was intentionally kept in the dark about a lot of context and nuance that would have completely changed my mind about speaking up or not about what happened in 2020.

Everything is easier in retrospective, and with the knowledge I now have about the situation I know for a fact that I would have spoken up about all that happened. But being asked directly to not speak up by the victims was something that goes against what I am Sorry for the long rant, but I really needed to get this off my chest. I am tired of having to deal with this kind of stuff. As a content creator/public figure I am trying my hardest to keep the communities I am active in as safe as possible.

I feel I could have done more for the Glitchtale community regarding the grooming situation, but all of the years of abuse that I endured really fucked up my judgement. I am not very good at dealing with people and I always trust the people close to help me for this kind of stuff

Sadly, in this case, those same people who were close to me were also the victims, so they couldnt have known or had a way to help me out, I should have helped them instead. Most if not all of what was described in this thread is backed up by screenshots, chat logs, and direct testimony from the people who were involved during this time.

I don't want to direct hate to anyone or start a witchhunt, I am doing this purely to decompress a bit and try to vent some of the trauma I experienced all these years.

============================================

Jakei: (Transcription from my official twitter thread) I would also like to share my experiences about my relationship with the Glitchtale Creator, Camila Cuevas. Publicly, we appeared as close friends, but in reality, that friendship was based on bullying and mistreatment, and this affected my mental health deeply.

Years have passed, and the memories still cause me pain. I decided to remain silent, but after the revelations of grooming cases in her community, I realized I wasn’t being too sensitive. The time has come to speak up about my experiences.

During the early years of Underverse, I was dealing with a serious depressive episode. Simultaneous internal and external pressures as an independent artist amplified my mental strain. Meeting Camila felt like finding a genuine friend who shared my passion for the fandom and understood the struggles of being a content creator amidst toxicity. At my lowest, I became compliant to doing things that I didn’t want to, just to keep people around me happy. For Camila, this meant allowing her to belittle my work and make me the butt of her jokes.

Only our veteran followers may remember the 'roasting games' between us on Tumblr (consisting of mutual insults), a spectacle where she'd always win. However, it was a game she privately forced me to "play" and I ended up accepting, despite the discomfort it caused me. These 'games' would give her a cool and strong image in the fandom while painting me as the dumb, 'cringe-worthy' friend. In essence, I became her personal punching bag, unknowingly reinforcing his reputation.

Camila's favorite term to demean my series 'Underverse' was “Cancerverse”. It felt like a constant contest where she'd always position herself as the superior writer and animator simply because my story and animation techniques didn't fit her standards. Years of being subjected to her ridicule left my self-esteem in ruins. I was okay with the negative feedback by some fans, but when my 'friend' publicly disrespected my art, it made me question my abilities as an artist.

I can't deny there were times when she gave me advice to deal with hate or hurtful comments. However, her damaging comments and treatment outweighed those moments of support.

My depressive state worsened around July 2017, where I had accepted people pushing me to do things I wasn’t comfortable with, while being part of Camila's demeaning games, just to appease her ego. I was introduced to Nyx during this time, he offered his music for my series, and eventually we started dating. We met in person in Chile, where I also met Camila. I hoped our friendship would strengthen but everything felt the same. Before I moved to Chile with Nyx, Camila reached out to me in dms, attempting to turn me against him because he opposed the use of slurs in the GT server. She claimed Nyx was being 'brainwashed' by his American friends belonging to the black and LGBTQ+ communities. She made fun of my dating choices, suggesting I was entering a toxic relationship, while showing off her relationship with her then-boyfriend (later exposed as a pedophile). She even quoted her own mother assuring me that Nyx would 'get back to normal', and if it didn’t happen, she would let me live in her house, almost like if she was telling me that Nyx would hurt me or make me feel miserable.

It only took Nyx 3 months to realize that the GT server was going in the wrong way. I initially felt compelled to defend Camila due to my inferiority complex, but soon realized Nyx was right. (Jakei's note: Not only Nyx was right, a lot of people that called her out over the years were right, yet they were not listened to at the time)

Even then, I found it difficult to distance myself from Camila due to the false sense of obligation I felt towards her. My fear of her making fun of my work kept me from interacting with others in the short period of time I stayed in her Discord server. I was afraid that she and her echo chamber would talk behind my back, something that I found out was happening in private chats until recent years.

Rebuilding my self-esteem wasn't an easy task. I began noticing the red flags – Camila's lack of respect not only for me but Nyx also, the emotional manipulation Nyx was suffering from Veir (something he used to do all the time with his other victims), her attempts to 'roast' me in front of her family and fans in the Underverse/Glitchtale meetings, and her constant criticism of my artstyle not being compatible to hers in the few collabs we made.

All these 'small' instances, dismissed as insignificant by many, caused me immense pain while treating my depression. I felt it was too late to express how I felt, as I feared being labeled as attention-seeking or oversensitive by her and her fanbase. Ironically, the moment she talked about her traumas after being bullied in the past, her feelings were the only ones that mattered any time she was involved in a problematic situation in the fandom and deserved to be the only to get pats in the back.

I never expected a sincere apology, as I was convinced she didn't remember or didn't care about the hurt she caused. I tried to maintain a facade of good terms with her, both publicly and privately. Eventually, I distanced myself from her, unfriending her and banning her from my own server even if she didn't interact there. I started focusing on my own work and the people who appreciated it. Despite this, the aftermath of the bullying continued to affect me.

Everything fell into place when the grooming accusations against her former boyfriend and server mods came to light. It was a shocking revelation, but it validated all my doubts and fears about her. The purpose of sharing my experiences is not to stir up drama, but to address the concerns of those worried about my association with Camila. I want to make it clear that I will never tolerate such behavior. Although the things I did for her in the past cannot be erased, I hope Camila at least deletes the animation remake I did for her and all the collabs that boosted her views for free, though I'm not optimistic about it happening.

As I've matured, my hope is that she and her crew learn from their mistakes, start behaving like adults, and take responsibility for their actions in their future projects and with their new followers. But I'm skeptical about any real change, especially if their server continues to exist. The best course of action for me was to cut all ties with Camila and Glitchtale.

NyxTheShield (now my husband) and I have endured too much from our treatment by Camila. We no longer want to be associated with her or Glitchtale. It's a chapter of our lives that we wish to close. It's time for us to focus on recovering our mental health, as remaining silent is only prolonging our pain. We have been working to improve our mental and physical health over the past few years and this is a crucial part of our healing process.

[steddiehyperfixation]

so you don't get lost (steddie ficlet)

written for @steddielovemonth day 17 rating: T cw: alcohol tags: first kiss, clubbing, college au, platonic stobin prompt: Love is about a hand reaching out to you so you don't get lost

“She’s totally into me, right?” Robin asks as they wait for their drinks at the bar, her smile a mile wide, and it’s been a minute since Steve’s seen her smile like that. 

“Yeah, totally,” Steve agrees. The girl Robin’s been talking to all night is drifting back over to them even as they speak, the two of them like magnets since they first traded smiles on the dance floor earlier that night. 

Robin glances back at her and bites back a wider grin. She bounces on her tippy toes and whispers to Steve, “If I make out with her it’s not gonna make you feel awkward, is it?” 

Steve shakes his head. “Go ahead,” he encourages. 

It had been a group effort to get Robin out tonight. Her university friends had enlisted Steve to help drag her out of the mopey funk she’d been in since getting broken up with two weeks ago, and it had taken an hour of Steve hyping her up while she kept crying off her attempts to do her makeup before she finally managed to make it to the club. He’s just glad it had been worth it. 

“I don’t even know if I remember how to do this,” Robin mutters, a little nervously, as she and Steve grab their drinks and rejoin her friends on the dance floor. But it turns out, she has nothing to worry about. The two girls resume their orbit around each other, and the second the next beat drops and the lights strobe, the other girl finally pulls Robin into a heated kiss. Steve watches this, and he smiles fondly. She deserves it. He’s happy for her. 

And he’s totally not jealous. Not necessarily of Robin, obviously, or the girl she’s kissing, but simply of the fact that they’ve so easily found a hot drunk stranger to make out with at the club and he…hasn’t. He can’t even remember the last time he’s had a decent kiss, much less scored at a club, though not for not wanting to. 

Steve finds himself glancing at Robin’s friend Eddie, the tatted-up metalhead Steve’s felt a pull towards since the first time they’d met. He thinks about kissing him every time they’re out together, and maybe there was a time when Steve would’ve just gone for it, a time before he’d taken a few too many hits to the ego and developed doubts and insecurities, but now the thought just makes him nervous. Eddie makes him nervous. 

He feels that nervousness now as Eddie catches him staring and he shakes those lovely dark curls out of his face and smiles at him. It bubbles in his stomach, flutters in his chest. Steve downs the rest of his drink and looks away. The alcohol floods heat through his veins and blurs his vision, but the ever-present thrum of anxiety just from being in Eddie’s proximity still isn’t dulled. He bobs numbly to the music, avoiding looking at anybody at all now, only staring at the floor or the wall or some super fascinating point just above everyone’s heads, sure he looks like an absolute freak. 

It goes beyond just wanting to kiss Eddie; Steve’s not stupid, he knows the only explanation for this sheer amount of nervousness he feels around him is that he’s got an actual, proper crush. Because not only is Eddie super fucking hot, he’s also sweet. Steve is an outsider in this group and he knows it, the college dropout who only tags along because Robin insists on it, but Eddie never makes him feel like that. It’s always Eddie who makes sure he’s included in conversations, always Eddie who makes a point to loop Steve into the context of inside jokes and stories whenever Robin is too distracted to. Steve craves those interactions, gets a thrill every time Eddie so much as speaks to him. So he doesn’t only want to kiss him, he also just wants Eddie to like him, wants him to see him as a friend at the very least. But it’s not like they’ve ever even hung out outside of a group setting, and sometimes Steve fears Eddie’s just being nice and he doesn’t actually see him as anything at all. 

Steve’s drifted so far into his own head he doesn’t realize his group is on the move, pushing deeper into the dance floor and leaving him behind. 

“Steve!” Eddie’s voice calls out to him and snaps him out of it. Everyone else has been taken by the crowd, but Eddie hangs back, reaching his hand out to Steve. 

Steve takes it, swallowing down the way his heart pounds as Eddie’s fingers curl around his hand. Eddie pulls him through the throng of jostling, sweaty bodies, and even though he maintains a tight grip on Steve’s hand, he still keeps looking back at him like he’s making extra sure Steve doesn’t get lost. Warmth blooms in Steve’s chest. Maybe he’s just drunk, maybe he’s just delusional, but all of the sudden he feels so very very cared for. 

“Thanks,” Steve says, nearly shouting to be heard over the music. 

“‘Course.” Eddie smiles as he turns around to face him. They’ve caught up to their friends now, but he’s still holding Steve’s hand. “I’d never just leave you stranded.” 

Of course he wouldn’t. He never has before. Steve just smiles back and squeezes Eddie’s hand. 

They’ve only just let go of each other when Robin and her girl, still kissing clumsily and staggering about the dance floor, stumble straight into Steve and knock him off balance. “Woah!” Eddie reaches for him again instantly, looping an arm around Steve’s waist to keep him from toppling over or careening into the crowd. 

“Ah! Sorry!” Robin giggles before she’s whisked away again. 

Eddie laughs. “Good for her, right?” 

“Yeah, good for her,” Steve says, watching his best friend spin out of sight, and when he looks back he startles at how close he and Eddie are, suddenly very aware of Eddie’s arm around his waist and his hands on Eddie’s chest. 

“You okay?” Eddie asks, his grip on Steve tightening like he means to steady him. 

“Yeah, thanks again.” Steve regains his footing, but he doesn’t pull away. There’s something there, he thinks, in the way Eddie’s always reaching out to him so he doesn’t get lost, literally and figuratively, in crowds and conversations. It could just be friendly, it could just be nothing, but for the first time, Steve lets himself hope. He even thinks about leaning in right now, but then he thinks about it too much, and he doesn’t. 

Instead, there’s a weird moment where they’re both just staring at each other. Eddie’s got this confused little smile on his face like he’s waiting to see what Steve will do, and when Steve doesn’t do anything, Eddie’s smile abruptly becomes more playful as if he’s trying to break the tension, and he starts theatrically swaying them to the music, even though it is most definitely not the swaying sort of beat. Steve laughs, his racing heart making it come out giddy and giggly, especially when Eddie drops his waist to grab his hand and twirl him around. 

Eddie pulls him in close again then, and this time Steve doesn’t think at all. In fact, it’s unclear which one of them leans in first; all Steve knows is that their lips finally, finally meet in the middle and he finally, finally gets to tangle his hands in Eddie’s hair, and it’s sweet and it’s hungry and it’s absolutely perfect. Steve holds onto Eddie and he gets lost in him. 

When Steve meets back up with Robin outside after the club closes, they exchange a celebratory, congratulatory high five, the both of them with matching kiss-swollen lips and dates set for next week. 

[endofthebookpod]

"I can't remember exactly how we went about picking this particular episode for this moment . . . absolutely insane to me that I'm like working on a script and I get to even just write [Dean's] name down there. It was very strange. Yeah, I mean, so much of that was the brainchild of Robbie and Jensen working together as well, like they had a vision and a plan for the Dean of it all . . . It was super cool to see it happening, like to be talking about it for a long time and then for it to actually be on paper and then to see the early cuts of the moment and then when it was like cut with score and music like it gave me chills the first time I saw it. I was like this is such a cool ending to an episode and people are gonna be freaking out in the best way. And I'm so excited." –Nic Chatree Sridej

[seeingivy]

the season of us

phd!eren x f!reader

**part of my canary mate fic

previous part linked here

--

Follow Up: Gabi Braun  Hello Y/N,  I hope you’re having a great week!  Just letting you know that Gabi and I had a great meeting last week. We’re going to start processing her paperwork and everything. She seems like a very sweet girl. She spoke very highly of you and all of the hard work you do. I can’t wait to hear all about it when you come home in a few weeks!  Love,  Pieck 

“so do you always have such a shit look on your face or is today something special?” 

you nearly jump at the sound of eren’s voice, not having noted when it was that he sat in the car. you had taken the free time to open your emails, the one from pieck standing particularly out between the usual mix of promotions and comments that levi left on your documents. 

you note that eren’s wearing his glasses again today and that much to nanaba’s delight, he’s freshly cut his hair to avoid man bun status all together. 

“you got a haircut.” you state. 

“you’re wearing a green sweater.” eren responds, mimicking the tone in your voice. 

“what?” 

“i thought we were both just stating random facts.” eren deadpans. 

that was one way to start the day. 

you roll your eyes, peeking over your shoulder as you pull out of his driveway. in your peripheral vision, you can see that eren immediately reaches for the aux cord hanging in between the seats and plugs in his phone. 

“i mean. you had to know that i was making a comment about your haircut. that you got in between the time we last saw each other.” 

“a comment would be something objective. like, eren i love your haircut, you look so handsome. you just simply stated that i got a haircut, which is a fact. which i am obviously aware of. since you know, i was the one who got the haircut and all.” 

you sigh. 

“i don’t understand how you have this much energy to fight before you get coffee in your system.” you mumble. 

“you bring out a special irritation in me. you should be flattered.” eren responds. 

you scoff. 

“oh trust me, i am. it’s my true honor to haul you around in my car and have you sass me every morning.” 

eren doesn’t take the bait and the two of you continue to drive down the street in silence. it’s often quiet that way, nothing filling the air between the two of you except for the music. which at the current moment wasn’t filling the awkward air at all. 

you peer over to the passenger seat at the red light to see eren scrolling through a playlist. you’re not sure if your eyes deceive you, but in the blur, you swear that the name of the playlist is your name. something that looks eerily similar to the shape of your name.

you swear you’re imagining it. and against your better judgment – and something you’re positive you will most definitely get teased for even mentioning – you ask him if it’s true. 

“is the name of your playlist my name?” you ask. 

no. the name of his playlist is obviously not your name. 

eren looks over at you, green eyes almost bored, as he answers. 

“yes.” 

he responds like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. that his simple response warrants why your name would be in his playlist, like it’s something as casual as what the weather's like today or how far the two of you are from the coffee shop. eren scrolls towards the middle of the playlist and starts playing the song. 

The Song for My Brother - Nam Hye Seung, Park Sang Hee 

“why is your playlist name my name?” you ask. 

“because we agreed that it was going to be my turn to play music today.” eren states. 

you glare at him. 

“you’re acting like that explains why you have a playlist that has my name as the title.” 

“yeah. we agreed that we were going to play movie scores for each other since we both liked them.” 

“did that warrant you making an entire playlist? with my name on it?” you ask. 

“i’m trying to put you on good scores. i can’t go repeating them and they all depend on the mood. don’t go taking it personally or anything.” 

you roll your eyes. 

“does it count as putting on when i already know the score? everyone’s watched crash landing on you, you dumbass. besides, this isn’t even the best one from the show.” 

eren looks over at you, almost intrigued. 

“you watched crash landing on you?” eren asks. 

“i’m more shocked that you did.” 

“and what is it that you thought that i watched?” eren asks. 

you shrug. 

“baby sacrifice rituals. joe rogan. the antichrist.” you offer. 

you think your eyes deceive you again, that eren’s trying to fight off a smile. then again, your original instinct was correct. 

“no, those are part of my morning mantras. i watched the show with my mom and my sister.” 

you laugh in response. 

“what do you think the best one is from the show?” eren follows up. 

“same sky, different world.” 

“wrong. it’s picnic.” 

you shake your head. 

“picnic is a classic because it does have the hints of the main title in it so it feels nostalgic. i like the violin. but same sky, different world is too perfect tone wise for what’s happening at the end of the show. it gives the last scenes of the show an entirely different air. because they are under the same sky but in different worlds.” 

eren smiles. almost too brightly and you’re convinced that he’s taunting you. 

“so you really are into scores?” eren asks. 

“did you think i was just saying that when i mentioned it yesterday?” 

“i mean, a little bit. the only other person i know who listens to them as seriously as me is my little sister, karina. she plays the cello too.” 

you scoff. 

“i’ll be making a counter playlist for tomorrow since you’re getting so competitive about this entire thing, which in hindsight i should have realized would happen. now, get out and go get the coffee.” you respond. 

in the three minutes that eren leaves, you get a notification on your phone. 

[busstopbilly]: I am finding myself in dangerous territory.

[lizontopoftheworld]: The K during rush hour? 

[busstopbilly]: Ew, I would never go over there. If I wanted overpriced food, I’d at least go somewhere where the food is edible. 

[busstopbilly]: No. I’m in dangerous wallflower territory. 

[lizontopoftheworld]: YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[lizontopoftheworld]: don’t you have like horrendous foot in mouth syndrome when it comes to her? what was it you did last time?

[busstopbilly]: I told her that her friend’s boyfriend, well now he’s her fianceé, was too loud or something like that. I am ninety percent she told them and that I won’t be invited to the wedding, but that’s not a big deal. 

[busstopbilly]: Let’s just say that I did something that could be perceived as weird. And I didn’t think that it would be weird, because now she knows that I thought about her. At length? 

[lizontopoftheworld]: you sound like a murderer 

[busstopbilly]: Is this how perverts feel? 

[lizontopoftheworld]: I ALMOST CHOKED ON MY SPIT 

[busstopbilly]: I’m glad you find my torment so amusing. 

[lizontopoftheworld]: RELAXXXXXXX

[lizontopoftheworld]: you’re so melodramatic. i’m sure she didn’t think much of it. and even if she did…why don’t u just go for it :D 

[busstopbilly]: You can choke. 

[lizontopoftheworld]: OH MY GODDDDDD

[lizontopoftheworld]: you said she was pretty 

[busstopbilly]: And that’s relevant why? 

[busstopbilly]: i just need you to assuage the fact that I’m not a creep so that I can use it to move on through my day. 

[lizontopoftheworld]: does my endorsement mean that much :) 

[busstopbilly]: Obviously. 

[busstopbilly]: Your opinion is the only one that matters to me, pretty girl. 

[lizontopoftheworld]: bro can u relax its like eight in the morning 

[lizontopoftheworld]: u have my seal of approval that u are not a creep. or a pervert? NOW MOVE HENCEFORTH THROUGH UR DAY

[busstopbilly]: Thanks, Liz. 

eren returns after two minutes, with both of your coffees in hand. you shoot him a grateful smile as you stick yours into the cupholder and make your way towards the hospital.

--

“hey. can i talk to you in the fishbowl?”

you look over the top of the divider to find gabi peering over the top, eyes expectant as she waits for an answer. 

red eyes and messy hair. 

you give her a nod, picking up your laptop and walking down the length of the hall with her. 

“everything okay?” 

“yeah, yeah. i just had a question that i wanted to ask you. with people not around.” 

“okay, sure.” 

you swing open the doors of the glass conference room and plop down at the end of the wooden table. gabi looks over her shoulder before talking, double checking the door is closed, before she turns back to you and gives you an awkward smile. your first instinct is to make a note – that this something that you most definitely have to interrogate falco about later. 

“are you about to confess that you committed a murder to me?” you ask. 

“what? no!” 

“you’re just particularly flighty. whispering, looking over your shoulder. are you sure everything is okay?” 

gabi slouches down into her chair. 

“no, no that’s partially what i wanted to talk to you about.” gabi starts. 

you can tell that she’s fumbling words together. that she hasn’t thought about this entire thing that deeply, only because it’s very clear to you that she’s exactly like you – that when she has to say something important, it’s rehearsed in her head four times before it actually counts. 

that much is obvious from the way that she talks in the meetings. talking about papers, about her proposals – the order of the words are almost identical to what she had written, which to you, was a sign that she had almost memorized them, rehearsed them over and over again to make sure that they were perfect. 

you wonder if she found conversations as difficult as you sometimes. that when they weren’t rehearsed, they were almost impossible to control. 

eren did mention that you had a rather unconfident way of talking. 

“thank you for connecting me with your sister. she’s very sweet and she’s been really helpful.” 

you shoot her a smile. 

“i’m glad that she could help. is everything going all right with that?” 

“yes. yes, we just submitted all of our forms to get an appointment and everything. there’s just a problem.” 

“which is?” 

“do you remember when….when you offered me the help and you talked about how hard it is to juggle this thing with everything else? you said that it could be a lot at times?” 

you nod. 

“i do remember that. what about it?” 

gabi’s voice sounds strained when it comes out. 

“did you mean it? was it really that hard for you too?” 

you can’t help but deflate at the sound of her voice. at what she’s asking you. 

was it as hard for you as it is for me right now? 

“yes. i did mean it. in every sense of the thing. that type of thing is hard, hard at any portion of your life, but especially when you’re trying to figure out your own thing and what it is that you like to do.” you respond. 

gabi’s face melts. 

“really hard.” she affirms. 

“do you want to tell me what part of it is hard right now? just so that i can see if i can help you?” 

you’re not sure what it is, but the mere question sends a flood storm of words babbling out of gabi’s mouth. it’s hard to keep track but certain things stick out more than others. 

“i just don’t know what to do because i have to help my mom translate most of the forms. then i get so irritated that i end up doing the entire thing by myself when i’m supposed to be reading all the papers that eren gave me for our abstract. falco’s having the time of his life chatting with everyone and he always invites me to come out to talk about stuff with mikasa and jean, but i can never come because i’m so busy. and this is one summer! one summer where i’m supposed to just be doing research to figure out if i like this. and then…and then i feel guilty. why am i complaining when they did so much for me? i want to help them, i desperately do, but i can’t help but feel like i’m missing out on something here. i want so bad to go to the conference with all of you in marley, but i don’t know if i can pay for transportation. when am i going to get this much time alone again with falco?” 

gabi’s eyes widen at the last part, coupled with a pink flush that creeps up her neck. you so desperately wished that you could sick it to eren – that you knew for a fact that falco and gabi weren’t just being friendly.  

you wonder why that’s the first thing that you thought of. and choose to ignore it to pick your words carefully. 

“i’m garnering that…transportation is the issue here?” 

you choose to save her from the embarrassment of pointing out what she said – especially when it’s very clearly something that she does not want to discuss. 

gabi shoots you a grateful smile. 

“i dropped three grand on sending in the applications for the stuff with my family. pieck told me that i’d probably have to spend more down the line. i know this is a great opportunity but i can also just present at the conference at the end of the fellowship and go off of that.” 

you shake your head. 

“i’m going to drive in my car. i’m pretty sure that freeloader falco is going to ask if he can join me in a few weeks. did you want to come with us?” 

gabi gives you a tired smile. 

“i can’t impose. that’s a lot of gas money.” 

“that’s a non-issue. i would love to have you there when the four of us all present our work together. granted, i’m sure that eren’s going to blab the entire time and let none of us get a word in because that’s just who he is, but still. it would be a great place for you to network and see how things work. plus, at the undergrad level, it’s kind of a who can show off more contest.” 

gabi groans. 

“ugh. don’t say that.” 

“granted, some of that doesn’t go away when you become a grad student. just think about the fall social. levi fully instructs me to go brag so that i can make him look good. but for the most part, it is people who are interested in that type of thing.” 

you sigh. 

“it’s really hard to grapple with what to prioritize. i love my family more than anyone else, but you also have to not give up things that are really important to you. that…that can make you harbor a lot of resentment. and i don’t want you to be resentful towards your family because, it’s such a hard and complicated thing to grapple with.” 

“yeah.” gabi responds. 

“it’s not supposed to be your job. but it is. you want something entirely different, but your family is what you’re strapped with – good and bad.” you add. 

you sigh. 

“you wouldn’t be imposing if you came with me. i hate to drive long distances, so you can even take over for a little bit. i refuse to let falco drive my car so it would kind of work out perfectly. but think about it. i’d at least like to be able to help with some part of everything you rambled about. the part i can actually help with it.” 

gabi gives you a halfhearted smile. 

“you don’t have to make up stuff to feel like i’m giving you something back.” 

you smile back. 

“i wouldn’t do that. and i know that you know for a fact that i’m not kidding about falco’s driving since you basically risk your life everyday when you try to get here.” 

gabi smiles. 

“don’t even get me started.” 

“you don’t get me started.” 

gabi takes a pause. 

“you…you won’t tell him what i said earlier right?” 

“i’m not sure what you’re referring to.” 

gabi sighs a breath of relief. 

“god, falco’s right. you kind of are the best.” 

--

eren notes that he’s in a particularly bad mood when he leaves the feedback on the abstracts that levi asked him to review. this point is only made apparent to him when he sees you at focus group afterwards, the expression in your face cueing him into the fact that he’s about to get an angry lecturer. 

“did you really feel the need to leave a comment on every single line of the abstract i wrote?” 

“i didn’t write a comment on every single line.” eren retorts. 

he shouldn’t be so quick to talk back. to respond with the first thing that comes to his head. 

“oh sorry. you left the line where i wrote my name blank. that’s awful kind of you.” you deadpan, as you slam hard on the button of the elevator. 

the elevator whirrs up, quietly whining in the background, as eren huffs a sigh. 

“i fixed your entire algorithm, that was entirely dogshit by the way, without saying anything snarky. you could have done the same.” you respond. 

and that was exactly the problem. that you had rewritten his algorithm perfectly, so perfectly that he couldn’t find a mistake or rectify the new issue that they had at hand. 

“would it kill you to get a spell checker? did you get your bachelors degree from a cereal box?” eren asks. 

you roll your eyes. 

“quit being so patronizing, eren. not all of us are afforded the privilege of writing in our first language.” 

eren has no response for that. only because he feels horrible

“did you run the numbers?” eren asks. 

“what?”

“did you run the algorithm after the fact? after you fixed it.” eren asks. 

you shake your head, following directly after eren as he basically darts out of the door of the elevator the second that it opens. he smacks his password onto the free computer quickly, offering quick smiles to the people that wave as they walk past, and pulls up the code that you had fixed earlier that day. 

eren runs play on the code and you instantly detect the problem. 

three steady lines and one that doesn’t even take off. 

“what the hell? what happened there?” you ask. 

“colt’s not meeting the mark. well technically, he’s not even moving past the starting line.” 

the algorithm is supposed to be simple. training against itself to see if there’s a significant amount of progress that can be simulated for future sessions. and for three of them, that much was true, even promixing. 

but for one person, it’s staggeringly bleak. 

you reach for the closest chair, rolling it up next to where eren’s sitting, and reach for the mouse. eren can tell that what you’re going to do next – that you’re going to read every line of your code obsessively, to see if you can find a mistake as to why colt wasn’t responding to the stimulation therapy at all. 

eren only knows that because he tried it himself hours before. 

“that can’t be.” you murmur. 

“it is.” 

you click back to the tab with the windows, the color coding of your graph pissing you off entirely. three yellow lines – signaling good progress – and one that was bright red. 

noting your complete failure. 

“so what are we doing to do?” you ask. 

“if colt doesn’t pass the round that we give him this week, he’s going to be excluded from the group.” eren murmurs. 

“what?” 

“it’s part of the ethics guideline that we wrote. that would technically be the third time that he gets stimulated unnecessarily and we…we can’t just keep doing it when it’s something that has more risks than harms.” 

you scoff. 

“more risks than harms? there’s quite literally nothing else that he can do in his condition.” 

“i know that. but technically, we could push things over the edge. make them worse and i would hate to do that.” 

eren shrugs. 

“i didn’t mean to be harsh on your abstract. it was fine, i just…already ran the numbers and was prematurely upset about it.” eren asks. 

you give him a halfhearted nod, as you stare back at the line. 

“i thought your concern with falco was that he was going to get too emotionally involved. you don’t seem to be taking it so well.” 

eren pinches his lips into a line. 

“you’re seeming very passionate about it as well.” 

“well, that’s the difference between me and you. i wear my heart on my sleeve and you pretend like you don’t have one.” you respond, pushing up out of the chair as you read through the charts that have been stacked at the check in station. 

eren makes a quick observation. that every time he’s argued with you, it’s because he’s already been in a bad mood before. 

he’s quick to follow suit at your side, noting that your eyes are glued on colt’s chart, razor focused on the notes that floch had left earlier in the day regarding his status. eren can see bright red hair turning down the hallway as eren reaches forward and shakes hard on your shoulder. 

you get his hint and follow eren down the length of the hall to the the room of the focus group. only to be met by the most crushing sight, and quiet possibly, the only one that fills you with enough determination to get it right when you do the stimulation therapy next week. 

at the sight of colt finally laughing with everyone else in the focus group. 

--

an: eep! we enter the scores part of the fic. anyways, for those of you who wonder, these were the scores that were mentiond in this chapter and some of my favorites from crash landing on you: the song for my brother, picnic, and the story of us! I can't wait to share more eep

taglist: @invisible-mori @multiplefandomthings @chericos @wheredidmycrowngo @chaoticpxnda @aizzon @stuffeddeer @butterfly-skinnylegend @najaemism @hellokitty-doll @constanciandrea @iblamesusy @jaegersdiary @f4irygard3n @misadear @fell-4-u @coyloves @sobbangchan @you-always-made-me-blush @th0tformikasa @yell0wdreams @itzmeme @elliesbabygirl @miniaturemartian @differentrunawayperson @k0z3me @stroberiz @stillnotherapy @cherryredribbons @bsenpai @cacapeepee

[superblysubpar]

steve harrington x you

2,390 words

warnings: nothing much, steve's got shaved hair as per the request for today, some kissing, some ednancy/dad eddie, you're eddie's best friend

A/N: thanks so much for your patience as I work on getting all of these posted that were missed. I hope you enjoy them, it's been great to get back into writing after a couple of really hectic weeks

a blurb for the "Trick or Treat, Freak?" event

Your lips purse around the neon green straw as your hips sway in time to Hanson booming out of the shitty speakers. The soles of your boots like velcro against the sticky cement while thuds of dart meeting board echo as you pass. Rum and cherry sweet on your tongue and warming you from the inside out as you look up and down the crowded bar.

A blue polished finger startles you as it crosses your vision and pokes your forehead.

“Dude, relax,” Robin laughs, leaning against the old wood top. Despite already having a drink in her hand, she hasn’t strayed far from the bar tonight. The bartender in a jersey serving up cocktails and beers with a red lipped smile and a musical laugh to blame you were sure. “He’ll be here. He’s probably just stuck in traffic. Or they stopped at their hotel before coming.”

“Right,” you blow a breath out of your nose and look over at the stairs that led to the bouncer, “Yeah, you’re right.”

Robin’s blue eyes sparkle under glittered lids, a dimple forming on her freckled cheek. “Hold on, can you say that one more time, a little louder? Where’s Steve, I need him to hear this.”

Your eyes roll just as brown fizzy soda sloshes over the side of your cup before it met your lips, narrowly avoiding a landing place down the front of your shirt as hands squeeze at your ribs, startling you with an accompanied:

“Boo!”

“Eddie!” The shriek loud and drawing the attention of most of the bar as you turn to face the menace behind your jump scare. You swat at your best friend’s chest. “Asshole.”

Eddie’s cheeks dimple, shorter curls bouncing across his forehead as he knocks a ringed knuckle under your chin. “I missed you too.”

Your arms wrap around his waist, his around your back in a tight squeeze, the kind of hug only old friends can share.

“I did miss you,” you murmur, drawing back to take in all the ways he’d changed and all the ways he hadn’t. He still had a faded band tee, the laundry detergent clinging to it new but mixed nicely with the familiar spice of his cologne. Ripped holes in the knees of well worn black jeans, but his hair shorter, broader shoulders. A smile that still lit up any room though you could see the sleep and stress heavy under his eyes. “You look like crap.”

Eddie rolls his eyes as he squeezes Robin and kisses her temple, murmuring something about scoring the digits of the cutie behind the bar yet, before he turns to you with a theatrical pout of his lips.

“You know, that’s a real shitty thing to say to your best friend who you haven’t seen in months that you know is dealing with a three year old who doesn’t understand the concept of quiet time when the baby is napping.”

Your snort is only slightly muffled into the rim of your cup, “Oh my god, you’re such an old man.”

Eddie grabs a beer from Robin’s hand offering it up without looking away from the bartender chatting with her. He smiles at them, then you again as you drop the act and tug on his wrist and whine, “Where’s the pictures I was promised? Does Amelia know how to say her favorite Aunt’s name yet?”

He laughs, “Not yet. Although yesterday she said ‘tuc’ when a big school bus drove by, so like, no big deal, but my baby’s a genius.” He takes a sip, shrugging his shoulders like it was a joke, but you know it’s not. He nods his head towards the entrance, “Nance has the pictures.”

“She didn’t come in with you?” Your frown disappears and melts into a smile when you see her talking animatedly with her hands while descending the stairs.

“Speak of the devil,” Eddie looks around and leans down to whisper in your ear, timing perfect with the wrinkled nose of Nancy as she looks around the shitty dive bar, “She’s gonna hate this place.”

Your smile widens as Nancy mumbles something to the man entering with her, honeyed eyes roaming over the crowd as he laughs at whatever she said. Steve’s still dressed in his work clothes, a blue sweater and a gray peacoat, dark wash jeans that fit him just right and have you distracted already.

Eddie whistles, nudging your shoulder. “Christ babe, these shoes are new and here you are drooling all over them. I get enough of that at home.”

Your hand pinches his side, his yelp drawing the attention of his wife and Steve. He smiles at you, hand waving a little before it adjusts the black cap still sitting on his head.

Eddie sighs deeply next to your ear and grumbles, “Can you two just fucking, like, do the damn thing already? My god, just go up and-“

“Nancy!” Your yell overly loud and too enthusiastic as you dig a heel into Eddie’s toes and he snorts a half laugh, half grunt of pain.

Your arms envelope her and the two of you rock back and forth and squeal like girls after a Summer break of not seeing each other every day of school. Over Nancy’s shoulder, Steve places a large hand on the back of Robin’s shoulder and whispers something in her ear. She pokes at his beanie that he quickly tugs down further with a scowl. A paranoid glance around before his gaze meets yours and a timid smile forms on his lips before he turns back to Robin.

Nancy’s quick to whip out the photos from her little clutch when you ask and Robin squeals, the pair of you look over her shoulder and coo at their perfect kids. Brown curls and bright blue eyes and dimples worthy of her dad smile up at you in a photo of their toddler holding up a drawing she made.

“Oh shit,” Eddie pats at his jeans, “Beth told me…” he frowns as he searches his pockets, “Sweetheart, where’d-“

Nancy’s already pulling something out of her purse, a neatly folded triangle with your name written in Nancy’s neat penmanship, with a crudely drawn heart around it.

“For me?” You swoon as you grab it and hold the little piece up to your chest when Robin frowns.

“Wow, they’re so not getting good Christmas presents from Aunt Rob-“

Nancy holds up another triangle, cutting her off.

“They can have whatever they want. Do hey have college funds set up yet?”

Nancy and Eddie laugh, a puzzle piece fitting with another as his arms wrap around her waist and her hand reaches up and caresses his chin that hooks over his shoulder.

He kisses her neck, “Want your usual?”

“Yes please,” she kisses his temple before he untangles his arms, squeezing her hips gently before he heads over to the bar.

The interaction makes something in your chest ache, something deep inside of you yearning for a connection that just works like they do. Knowing you don’t need it, but it’d be nice to have someone grab your usual, to hold and ground you when life gets a little crazy.

Nancy’s whisper is all knowing, her blue eyes cutting into yours just as much. “It’ll happen.”

“What?” Something stuck in your throat that you clear away, thumbs brushing over your drawing as you avoid her stare.

“I’m just saying it’ll happen, I know it sucks waiting for your person, but they’re probably closer than you think.”

The searching glance up isn’t intentional, but you’re startled to find Steve staring at you already. Your body flushes when he smiles at you from the bar next to Eddie.

“Oh,” Robin laughs, tucking her drawing into her lavender blazer pocket, “They’re close alright.”

Nancy looks at her then you, finding you glaring at Robin. Your mouth opens to tell her to shut hers, when a drink appears in front of you.

You’re expecting to see silver rings around the cup, but all you find is a gold class band and you swallow, looking up to see Steve offering it to you.

“Extra cherries, right?”

The words come out of plush pink lips surrounded by a dusting of dark scruff and it may as well have been a question asking you to take off your underwear from the way your body heats up.

“Ye-yeah,” you stumble over the word as your fingers meet his, “Thanks.”

“Oh,” Nancy hums, “That is close.”

“Told ya,” Robin snickers into her cup.

“What?” Steve blinks at them, gold and green disappearing with fluttering lashes each time he does.

Nancy points at the bar, “Oh, Eddie, what’s? Yup.”

She disappears quickly with her obvious fake call from Eddie.

Robin doesn’t even attempt to be subtle, she just smiles at Steve, winks at you, and turns away.

Steve watches her go with a frown, then looks at you. “Do I wanna know-“

“No,” you shake your head, tight smile. It warps into a real one when you look down at the piece of paper though. You hold up your drawing, “Did you see what Beth made me?”

He smiles at the drawing that is so clearly you and her on a face time phone call, “Wow, a real Beth Munson artwork. I’m jealous. I must have it. What’s your price?”

Your laugh is effortless around Steve, and you hold it close to your chest, playing along. “Sorry sir, this item is not for sale. Nothing you offer could ever convince me to part with it.”

The freckles next to Steve’s eyes disappear when his smile makes the laugh lines there crease. His two on his cheek lift as he grabs at your elbow, gently nudging you over to the wall to avoid a group of rowdy boys entering the bar. He has to lean in when they all whoop and whistle, hitting backs and shouting about teams winning. His lips brush your ear with each word.

“Everything is for sale. Come on, name it. Anything you want, it’s yours.”

The words invite a shiver to trickle down your spine, something loosening in your shoulders, like someone cracked an egg on the top of your head and it’s leaking into every nerve you have. Your brain feels fuzzy from the way he smiles. Your tongue too heavy in your mouth, but somehow you swallow down butterflies that seek to escape through your throat and say:

“How about a date?”

Steve’s hand does a poor job of hiding his smile, his chin dips down in defeat, but he clears his throat. His eyes melt like brown sugar and butter right in front of you as they hold your stare. “Sure, but I was already going to take you on one, so I feel like I’m practically stealing this original, one of a kind artwork. Anything else you want?”

His head tilts with the question, and the tip of his shoes tap yours, a hand squeezes at your waist, grounding you as the room spins from how dizzy his lips being so close to yours is making you feel.

“I’m,” you suck in a breath as you lean in, the Backstreet Boys crooning overhead in an ironic soundtrack to the moment as you shake your head, “I can’t think of anything. What’d you have in mind?”

Steve’s hand moves from your hip to your lower back, gently nudging you closer. His adam’s apple bobs before he asks, “A kiss?”

Your answer is a nod that bumps your already too close lips together. Steve catches your bottom one with his, gently parting your mouth as his hand slides up your spine.

It’s a dizzying kiss, one that makes your stomach flip and your feet press up onto your toes to chase him more. One that melts and flows into more than one kiss, your hand with your drink and drawing resting against his hip while your other clings to his neck. Steve’s nose bumps against yours as he deepens it. Tongue tracing your lips before it meets yours and he’s gasping for a deeper breath against your mouth, but unwilling to part from it.

Your hand slides up the nape of his neck, pushing at the beanie as your smile breaks the kiss when loud cheers echo through the bar. Steve shakes his head no at the sound, smiling too, but still refusing to part from your kiss until your hand pushes under his hat and you gasp.

“No, no, don’t-“ Steve’s already laughing at your look of pure joy, admiring the way your face is brighter and lips shinier from his kissing, so he doesn’t even try to stop you when you rip the hat off.

“Holy shit!” Robin’s voice is louder than anything in the bar when you reveal that Steve’s hair is shaved. “What happened? I mean why?”

Robin, Eddie and Nancy rejoin your group, wide smiles at you that you roll your eyes at. Steve gently takes the cap back from you and puts it back on with a frown.

“I work in an elementary school, what do you think happened?”

“Oh no,” Nancy laughs, covering her smile with fingers polished ballet slipper pink as Eddie shakes his head.

“It looks good,” you murmur, fingers reaching forward with a mind of their own and brushing along the base of the cap behind his ear.

“Yeah?” He asks, leaning in again, smile and eyes only for you as you nod.

His nose bumps yours but he stops just shy of your lips when Robin groans loudly.

“Thank god you’re moving back, I don’t think I could stomach this alone.”

Your head whips over to the trio, Nancy and Eddie smiling at your shocked expression.

Eddie waves his hands next to his sides like he’s a magician saying ‘ta-da’.

“Surprise!”

Your drink spills to the ground as you leap towards them both, shouting about how excited you are as you all hug and cry and you pester them with accusations and too many questions on the level of an interrogation.

Steve’s hand rests on your lower back the whole time, thumb soothing brushes up and down your spine. Eventually he whispers something about grabbing you another drink before he kisses your cheek and disappears with a promise of being right back.

[whenmemorydies]

Carmen, Natalie, and the Berzattos

CW: this post talks about domestic violence, addiction, mental health, racialised trauma, toxic masculinity and intergenerational trauma (this show deals with so much friends!).

Go gently with yourself if you choose to continue to read. Also its a long one (longer than my usual!) so fair warning if you're diving in: maybe put the kettle on.

Following on from The Claw, The Scrunchie and The Prayer Card metas (Part 1 and Part 2), I've been thinking more about The Berzattos (represented via Natalie's hair claw in Carmy's apartment) and their presence (seen and unseen) in season 3 of The Bear.

@espumado's fantastic meta on The Night of the Hunter and its use in The Bear, particularly as it relates to Natalie and the struggle she goes through in season 3 has informed a lot of this post. My reblog of that post also contains a lot of thinking that I had started to scratch at but haven't been able to expand upon until now. Also check out @currymanganese's brilliant analysis of The Night of the Hunter in the context of romantic relationships in The Bear.

Another source of information I've used in the research for this meta is this fantastic interview in the LA Times with the cast involved in 2x06 Fishes (thanks @brokenwinebox for sharing it!). Also thank you to @thoughtfulchaos773, @brokenwinebox and @devisrina for the chat about the above interview and discussions about Donna Berzatto's relationship with her son, Carmy.

Finally @vacationship's most excellent breakdown of the roles taken up by characters in The Bear according to Adult Children of Alcoholics ('ACA') roles defined by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruise and communicator types as developed by Virginia Satir has also informed this post.

The Berzattos

Okay so, given what we know about Carmy and about the Berzattos, it would seem obvious that, yes, his birth family is going to impact Carmy. I think its probably so obvious, that a lot of the fandom, myself included, have taken Carmy's relationship with his family for granted this season. To be fair, we were also getting Claire and the Faks shoved down our throats so some things flew under the radar including, in my view, the Berzattos.

What got me thinking about the Berzattos as a source of anguish for Carmy was a rewatch of 3x03 Doors - specifically Carmy's panic attack during that episode.

The first panic attack of season 3

At this late point in the episode, we've been watching Carmy and the crew's slowly escalating struggle with the demands of fine dining, when we arrive at Carmy running expo and calling for hands. His voice is hoarse and it sounds like he's been screaming for some time. His vision starts to blur and as he continues to call out for hands, we see glimpses of what appear to be intrusive thoughts, interrupting Carmy's work and triggering a panic attack. The sequence of shots that appear during this panic attack is below:

I note that Carm appears to be trying to come out of the panic attack by remembering his time at The French Laundry and Noma - much like memories of immaculately plated food helped him regulate during his panic attack in 1x08 Braciole and memories of Sydney helped him to regulate during his panic attack in 2x09 Omelette.

The final thought Carm has during this panic attack - indeed the thought he has when it appears that his panic attack is reaching its peak - is of his sister Natalie, in a church praying:

Note: I'm working on the assumption that the above memory of Natalie takes place at Marcus' mother's funeral. This is based on the clothes Natalie is wearing and how her hair is styled.

Its at this moment in his panic attack that you can see the crest in Carmy's emotions. The orchestral score during this sequence also builds to its climax at this point. Carmy's face screws into a tight grimace and he practically spits out the word, Fuck. Its only then that the music cuts away and we hear Sydney's voice bringing Carmy back to the present:

The fact that thinking about Natalie (praying while she carries the next generation of the Berzatto family) is what causes Carmy's panic attack to peak is what got me thinking more seriously about the impact of his birth family on Carm. ( This is something that others including @mitocamdria and @moodyeucalyptus have also picked up on here and here - the Bear hive mind at work!)

Below is my attempt to map these impacts out, from the perspective of intergenerational trauma, which can be described as,

"the apparent transmission of trauma between generations of a family. People who experience adverse childhood experiences growing up, or who have survived historical disasters or traumas, may pass the effects of those traumas on to their children or grandchildren, through their genes, their behaviour, or both, leaving the next generational susceptible to anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, and other emotional and mental health concerns."

I'd argue that intergenerational trauma can continue well beyond a person's grandchildren, particularly in cases where the systemic factors may have caused a trauma (for example: racial segregation, colonialism), continue to impact on multiple generations of a family.

So lets start by looking at Carmy's mother, Donna Berzatto...

Donna's trauma

I preface the below analysis with the caveat that we are not told what mental health diagnoses (if any) Donna Berzatto has (though she is clearly struggling with her mental health when we first meet her in 2x06 Fishes). The inferences I make below are based on what we have been told in the show about trauma that Donna has experienced.

Recall 3x08 Ice Chips where Donna and Natalie are talking in between bouts of Natalie's contractions. At one point in the episode, Natalie says:

I don't remember your mom.

To which, Donna sadly responds:

You don't want to.

Donna then becomes silently tearful remembering her mother.

Its clear from this very brief exchange that Donna has experienced some level of abuse at the hands of her own mother: Michael, Natalie and Carmy's maternal grandmother. That abuse has no doubt impacted on Donna's ability to parent her own children and likely influenced how she parented them as well.

As a mother myself, I've found that one of the hardest things about parenting has been avoiding the repetition of harmful behaviours that I've picked up through my own childhood. For all of us, the first - and often most memorable - models we have for how to parent have been the experiences we've had with our own primary caregivers (whether they were our birth parents or other adults in our lives). If those models were abusive or violent, we have to work that much harder to make sure we don't fall back on those examples when raising our own children. (And let me tell you, in the heat of the moment when your child is cracking a tanty in the grocery store, it takes A LOT to not revert to learned behaviours and instead take a step back and act from a rational place of calm lol).

For many folks who've had abusive childhoods, raising your own children can also be a very triggering journey. This article goes into a bit of why this is the case. If you've not been able to do any work on yourself or receive help to work through your own childhood abuse, you risk "blowing your trauma through" your children (I've borrowed the phrase "blowing trauma through" from African-American therapist and trauma specialist, Dr Resmaa Menakem, whose fantastic book My Grandmother's Hands has also influenced this post and a lot of my thinking about racial and intergenerational trauma). Given Donna's own history of abuse with her mother, its not a big leap to assume that she has "blown her trauma through" Michael, Natalie and Carmy with each of her children experiencing this in different ways.

There's also Donna's clear mom rage, no doubt built up over years as a single parent, and epitomised in the line from 2x06 (that broke my heart when I heard it because it resonated so much),

I make things beautiful for them, and no one makes things beautiful for me.

Based on the show's lore, up until 3x08 it wasn't evident that Donna had ever taken any steps to try and work through her own mental health issues and trauma. Once we get to 3x08 though, when Natalie says that she didn't tell Donna about her pregnancy because,

I just didn't want all the stuff you bring with you.

Donna replies by saying:

Yeah. I've been trying to put that stuff away.

Natalie then asks her mother how that process is going and Donna responds,

Its not easy.

Natalie then tells her mother that she's glad Donna is trying and Donna says she's glad that she's trying too.

Its not much, but the above exchange points to a slight shift in Donna's approach to her own trauma and to her parenting. This shift appears to have put Donna and Natalie's relationship on firmer footing than it has been in the past. Whether it will be enough for Carmy's relationship with his mother is another question and one I'm sure we'll see play out in season 4.

The Berzattos and Italian American racialised trauma

Other than the above exchange in 3x08 Ice Chips, we have no information about Donna's parents. I assume that Donna was born in America given her description of the Feast of the Seven Fishes (also known as La Vigilia) as described to Richie in 2x06 Fishes. During her description, Donna speaks about the Italian immigrants who brought "their seven best things" with them as if she's speaking about ancestors, not her own generation.

She does not use the first person here:

[I]ts based on people who left Italy to find new dreams and homes with new people. And they brought their seven best things from their sea to their new homes. And not so their families end up being a bunch of fuckin' jagoffs. (lmao)

Then Class A Jagoff, Uncle Lee storms into the kitchen and tells Donna that her retelling of the Seven Fishes legend is "not even close" and refers to all the sevens that occur in the Bible. Which is likely a closer explanation for the feast (see this overview on La Vigilia published on the Italian Sons and Daughters of America website). Notably, it was southern Italian and Sicilian immigrants that popularised the Feast of the Seven Fishes in America.

Given the above, it doesn't seem to me that Donna is a first generation Italian immigrant. Depending on the Berzatto family history, its possible that Donna is the daughter of Italian immigrants or the granddaughter of them. Her Italian ancestry could stretch even further back in time. At this point in The Bear, we don't know.

What we should note is that Italian immigrants and in particular, southern Italian and Sicilian immigrants to America, endured a history of racism in that country before their acceptance into the category of "white" in America.

Image source: How Italians Became 'White', The New York Times

This NY Times article provides an overview of the racialisation of Italians in America over time. The article notes that,

"[d]arker skinned southern Italians endured the penalties of blackness on both sides of the Atlantic. In Italy, Northerners had long held that Southerners - particularly Sicilians - were an 'uncivilized' and racially inferior people, [considered] too obviously African to be part of Europe."

This racism of northern Italians towards those from the south of the country was no doubt tied to Italy’s own racist and violent colonial history, including its involvement in Europe's rabid "Scramble for Africa". In the course of its time as a colonial power, Italy came to brutally invade and occupy Eritrea, Somalia, Libya and Ethopia.

Note: I don't think its a coincidence that, Ebraheim, Somalian "grill master", medic and veteran of the American military intervention in Somalia, found himself working at an Italian American beef sandwich shop. Much in the same way that its no surprise that many folks in my Tamil family ended up in the heart of the British Empire - the UK - after fleeing civil unrest and genocide in one of its former colonies (Sri Lanka). As Tamil writer A.S. Sivanandan is famously quoted as saying about post-colonial migration: "we are here, because you were there."

Once they first arrived in America in the 19th century, racism against Southern Italians continued:

"They were sometimes shut out of schools, movie houses and labor unions, or consigned to church pews set aside for black people. They were described in the press as 'swarthy', 'kinky haired' members of a criminal race and derided in the streets with epithets [that were more commonly] applied to enslaved Africans and their descendants[.]"

Though while Italian Americans experienced the severe racial prejudice described above, particularly during their early history in America, some were still able to benefit from their European ancestry in ways that people with non-European backgrounds were unable to. This included: being able to apply for US citizenship, being able to marry, own property, and choose where to live - things that BIPOC people often faced great barriers (if not outright bans) to accessing.

Notably, in Chicago where the Berzattos are based, the history of Italian racialisation differed to other major cities in America. In Italian Immigrants, Whiteness and Race: A Regional Perspective (p. 6) Italian historian Stefano Luconi notes that,

[I]n Chicago, Italian Americans competed primarily with Polish immigrants, who generally turned out to be less hostile to them than Irish Americans in New York City or Boston, and overall their accommodation within the adoptive society was easier than elsewhere.

Given the above, the Berzattos' connection with Polish "family members" Uncle Jimmy Kalinowski, Uncle Lee Lane, and Cousin Richie Jerimovich appears rooted in a long history of Polish-Italian relations in Chicago.

Note: Ancestry.com tells me Kalinowski is a Polish and Jewish last name. Uncle Lee identifies as "Polski" in 2x06 Fishes and in the draft script for 2x06 is listed as Uncle Jimmy's brother. While Richie's ethnicity isn't explicitly stated in The Bear, in 3x04 Violet, he refers to his daughter Eva as żabka which is Polish for "small frog" and is also used as a term of endearment for girls or women.

Eventually Italian Americans were assimilated into the racial category of "white" both legally and in the popular imagination of the country. This happened in a few ways including via Italian Americans claiming whiteness for themselves, particularly in active opposition to Black, African American communities. This is despite their historic racialisation in comparison to Black, African-descent people (which, in a better world, could have been the basis for shared and sustained solidarity between the two communities). Luconi observes that,

"in Brazos County, Texas, Italian Americans learned to claim whiteness for self-protection, which involved showing off hostility toward African Americans in the mid-1890s [...] By the same token, after realizing the social benefits of being characterized by a white identity, Italian Americans in Baltimore embraced the racist premises of the local political leadership in the early twentieth century and joined two campaigns that unsuccessfully aimed at disenfranchising African Americans in 1905 and 1909 by amending the state constitution." from: Italian Immigrants, Whiteness and Race: A Regional Perspective (p. 15)

The above NY Times article states that in 1892, the lynching of 11 Italian immigrants who were accused of killing a police chief in New Orleans resulted in Italy breaking diplomatic relations with America. As a result of this and to prevent unrest in the Italian American community, US President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed 12 October as "Columbus Day" and encouraged Americans to celebrate the contribution of the Italian Christopher Columbus to the creation of America.

Apparently, this sleight of hand (a legerdemain because it: (a) magically erased generations upon generations of First Nations who have existed in the Americas long before Columbus' arrival (and who continue to do so), and (b) because it vanished the explorer's penchant for rape and enslavement of the First Nations' people that he did encounter) was enough to reinstate diplomatic relations between America and Italy as well as carve out a place for Italian Americans in the white, American imaginary.

Indeed, despite recent calls to stop the celebration of Columbus Day led by First Nations people across America, it is Italian American organisations (including the Italian Sons and Daughters of America) and prominent Italian Americans that are some of those voices leading campaigns to keep Columbus Day as it is, reductively and disingenuously dismissing its critics as attacking Italian-American heritage.

Note: the above views are obviously not shared by all Italian Americans. See below protest staged by Italian Americans in the Berzattos' hometown of Chicago, in opposition to the city's Columbus Day Parade (Source: Fox 32 Chicago):

One of my heroes, Toni Morrison, once said of American national identity,

"In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate."

White supremacy operates amongst racialised communities through divide and rule, with these communities pitted against one another, trying to achieve as close a proximity to whiteness as possible. In the US context, that proximity brings those communities closer to what is perceived as "American". The above examples show how some Italian American communities in America shifted the racial categorisation of their community to "white" over time by fighting for that proximity. I would argue that that shift came at a great cost, as all racism does: a cost to the BIPOC communities that were fucked over in the process and a cost to the souls of those now "white" Italian Americans who participated in divide and rule to get closer to a white supremacist position of power. Dr Resmaa Menakem would refer to those costs as traumas for both BIPOC communities and (now) white, Italian American communities.

In My Grandmother's Hands, Dr Menakem discusses the impact of racialised trauma on white people. Specifically, that white supremacy - or as Dr Menakem refers to it, "white body supremacy" - is itself a trauma response. I won't get into the details of this framework (and make this post longer than it already is lol) except to say its fascinating and I'd encourage you to read My Grandmother's Hands to find out more. Its relevance here is to illustrate that on top of our individual, personal traumas, we each carry with us racialised trauma. I make the point of articulating this because while The Bear alludes to race (sometimes masterfully as in this scene where Donna tries to play divide and rule in her own way), it often does so obliquely in ways that are not always obvious to viewers (for example, see director Ramy Youssef's discussion in Variety about the bike crash scene in 2x04 Honeydew). But make no mistake, race permeates this show.

For example, I think about Uncle Lee’s jab at Mikey in 2x06 about the latter living with his mom, and compare this to Marcus living with his mother throughout seasons 1-2 or Sydney living with her father in seasons 1-3. I think about how in many communities of colour, multi-generational living isn’t seen as shameful because the focus is not just on financial dependence but on relationships and care. Certainly, an adult child might not be financially independent but if they are caring for their parent, this is something to be valued.

I think about how the move to individualism (championed by Uncle Lee) away from family and community (features that Italian culture is historically very well known for) is a shift that, for many Italian Americans, may be viewed as a cost incurred as a result of an allegiance to white supremacy.

I think also about the words of Tema Okun, who wrote about how white supremacy shows up in organisational and professional settings in her 1999 article "White Supremacy Culture" and how in that work, Okun noted particular identifying characteristics of organisational, white supremacist culture, including (but not limited to):

individualism;

perfectionism;

either/or & binary thinking; and

a sense of urgency.

Sound familiar? I thought they might. These are traits that Carmy has exhibited in almost every episode of season 3 (and periodically in seasons 1-2). Notably, these are traits that are also valorised in the world of fine dining, as we see it through Carmy's eyes throughout season 3 (in flashbacks and in how he chooses to run The Bear). And we all know how well this shit is going for our man (lol).

I'll get into this more in an upcoming meta (again, this is me manifesting in a bid to force myself to finish writing the thing lol), but I just wanted to point out how both in terms of his racialisation and his professional career, Carmy is immersed in white supremacy - whether he wants to be or not - benefiting from its privileges while also being witness and therefore, subject, to its horrors. No one escapes this shit, not even those who've been welcomed into the fold at the top of the hierarchy.

All of this - the racialised history and trauma associated with the Italian American community as well as the clear whiteness that marks the fine dining industry - makes Carmy's character that much more fascinating to me. Here is a character with seemingly no personal prejudices towards BIPOC folks. He loves the BIPOC folks in his life quite dearly (in particular, Marcus who he treats as a brother, and of course Sydney, in whom he's found a soulmate). I think this is likely due in large part to the role Carmy's siblings (Mikey and Natalie) played in raising him. These two characters also appear to care deeply for the BIPOC people in their lives without much of the prejudice that many who have been racialised and socialised in their community might harbour. And in their roles as surrogate parents for Carmy, they appear to have modelled that healthy and normal (because we must remember, what is abnormal is racism) respect for their fellow humans. They're not perfect in this (recall 2x06 and Mikey's bombastic objectification of Claire) but we do see repeated glimpses of their goodness throughout the show (recall 3x06 and Mikey's kindness to Tina, or the pantry scene in 2x06 and the gentleness he displays towards Carmy there). This is in contrast to their mother, Donna, who clearly has done no work to prevent blowing her own racialised trauma and prejudice through the bodies of her kids.

Also while the racialisation of The Bear's BIPOC characters is readily apparent (because the white supremacist culture of the West is more attuned to looking at non-white people and automatically seeing race), its white characters are also racialised and have racialised histories. The above was my attempt at stepping out a bit of the racialisation of The Berzattos, of Carmy, and of the racialised trauma that they also carry with them.

Phew.

Okay, now back to the Berzattos...

Carmy's birth

Recall 3x08 Ice Chips and Donna telling Natalie the stories of each of her children's births. By far, the birth that appears to cause Donna the most rage, the most pain, is Carmy's. It also happens to be the only birth out of her three children that her (by all accounts) deadbeat husband is present for. Donna describes fighting with her husband during the entirety of her labour with Carmy and that the hospital was fucked because it seemed like everyone went into labour at the same time. She then tells Natalie that Carmy took a long time to arrive:

Note: Its not lost on me that Carmy's obsession with speed, rushing and sense of urgency was almost definitely drilled into him from birth, given the rage with which Donna describes his "slowness" in being born.

Donna then goes onto express how frightened she was and the further difficulties involved in Carmy’s delivery:

It was so hard and so scary because he kept getting stuck, and they just kept having to move me, and I remember they were moving me in all these positions. And then at one point, I think they had me fucking upside down or something.

And then, so brutally it becomes darkly funny (I've pushed a kid out too: it can be so painful, if you don't laugh, you'll sob hysterically lol), Donna describes Carmy's birth as just all around fucked:

The whole thing was fucked:

No seriously, very fucked:

So Carmy entered the world and the experience of his delivery was fucked nine ways to Sunday for his mother. A very difficult beginning to this life for a baby, to say the least. I would go so far as to say, given the way Donna is recounting Carmy's birth, that she experienced birth trauma, and possibly developed birth-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Contrast this with how Donna describes Michael's and Natalie's births:

Despite Michael also having difficulty being born (Donna recalls that it seemed like "he wanted to stay" in the safety of her womb), Donna says that she felt really good, great and strong during her labour with him and that his birth was even described by a doctor as an "amazing" one.

Donna describes Natalie's birth as "beautiful" with Natalie arriving after Donna had had a restful sleep and a vivid, prophetic dream. Donna then goes onto tell Natalie that she was delivered in the presence of a "sweet" girlfriend (Cicero's first wife, Gail) who sat with Donna during labour and who played "Baby, I Love you" for Donna as Natalie arrived.

The differences in how Donna recalls Mikey, Nat and Carmy's births and Donna's propensity in the past for holding her children's "mistakes" over their heads (recall 2x06 Fishes and the story of how Natalie got the nickname "Sugar"), make me think that she was likely to have rubbed Carmy's difficult birth in his face when he was younger. I think that Donna was also likely to have either intentionally or unintentionally (or perhaps both, depending on the circumstance) made Carmy feel less than his older siblings, maybe not as wanted. We have some evidence pointing to this happening in Carmy's past, peppered throughout the show.

Growing up in the Berzatto house:

As a child Carmy had a stutter, which causes speech to inherently slow (as it takes longer to form words and sentences). He was also scared to speak. Now a stutter in and of itself would not make the person speaking scared. Its other people's reactions to a stutter that would do that. Given Donna's vitriol at how slow Carmy's birth was, and her obsession with time (anyone fancy a kitchen timer? this lady's got 700 of them), its not a stretch to imagine that any delay in Carmy articulating himself as a child would have been met with ridicule or rage from his mother.

We know that all the Berzatto children grew up scared of their mother, a survivor of abuse herself, and an addict who drank to excess with clear mental health issues that it didn’t appear she was seeking treatment for. Recall Natalie's disclosure to Donna in 3x08 Ice Chips:

Carmy also grew up embedded in a particularly toxic type of white, heterosexual masculinity embodied by his brother Mikey and "cousin" Richie (who undoubtedly had it blown through their bodies by family, friends and the white supremacist, homophobic culture we are swimming in, in the West). I've previously discussed this in my meta on the use of 90s alternative rock in The Bear and more recently, in this reblog of @mitocamdria's meta Sublimation and Intellectual Orgasms.

Carmy gets called "a weird little dude" for knowing how to mix a drink in 2x06. He gets called a "gayrod" for owning the Noma cookbook in 1x01. He gets called a "soft shitty bitch" for calling Pete instead of Natalie in 1x05. He gets called a "mopey little fuck" in 2x06 for questioning Mikey and Richie right before they accost him with a veritable wall of gross dudebro, horndog descriptions of Claire (a girl they know and are friends with - again, fucking gross). Carmy hears his mother describe Steve as "gay" for being "arty" in 2x06 (recall that Carmy is also "arty" in that he can draw and likes fashion). If you weren't performing alpha-male dominance like Mikey, Richie, Uncle Lee or even Uncle Jimmy, the Berzatto household was a rough place to be. Truth is though, that all of those white, alpha-males have their own demons, and in the case of Mikey, those demons drove him to take his own life. The truth is that, like white supremacy, no one escapes toxic masculinity unscathed either.

We know Carmy suffered from low self-confidence as a child which might have led him to feeling aimless. He tells us in 1x08 Braciole that he got shitty grades because he couldn't pay attention in school, he didn't get into college, didn't have any girlfriends or many friends for that matter. Carmy also tells us in that same monologue that he wasn't "built" in the same way as his brother, who could walk into a room and take its temperature right away, who was loud, hilarious and magnetic.

I think about how for someone like Carmy, Mikey would have cast a long shadow. I think about how hard it would have been to have lived under that shadow while trying to figure yourself out.

It wasn't until working in fine dining that Carmy found his purpose. He says in 1x08,

For the first time in my life, I started to find this station for myself.

This must have been intoxicating and affirming for Carmy. Yet I think about how, after all that, he could return home having achieved accolades and fanfare in his career, try his best in the chaos of a Berzatto family Christmas to diffuse the powder keg that is Donna, and still be called "Michael" by his mother, his very existence in that moment, feeling like a puff of smoke.

We also know that Carmy's eldest siblings ended up being like surrogate parents for him. Mikey almost certainly was a father figure given the absence of his biological father in Carmy's life. Its not a stretch to imagine Natalie as taking on the role of a surrogate mother, given Donna's abuse and how Natalie looks out for almost everyone throughout seasons 1-3 of The Bear. In this video, Jeremy Allen White also talks about the tattoo Carmy has of two angels with a sun in between them as representing his brother and his sister, further confirming the roles of his "guardian angel" siblings.

I think about Natalie, parentified big sister that she is, sneaking a wad of cash into Carmy’s pocket as he leaves her and Chicago for New York in 3x01. I think about her calling him “honey” in that same episode as she affirms that she knows how good he is at being a chef - “honey” being a term of endearment commonly used in family settings but between parents and their children, not as commonly heard between siblings.

I also think about Mikey being born the eldest, the first and only (for a time) to have to deal with his mother's trauma and expectations. I think about how he took on the work of looking after his mother and his siblings when his father left the Berzatto home. I think about how Mikey is described by the actor who plays him, as a "dreamer who's not allowed to dream. He has to take care of everybody."

Loose ends

Another set of incidents haunting spread throughout season 3 also raised concerns for me, in that they remain unresolved and point to a resolution or confrontation for Carmy and the Berzattos in season 4. I named them in my reblog of @espumado's post on The Night of the Hunter. For ease of reference, I'll bullet point them here:

Carmy finds a box labelled "DD" (his mother, Donna's nickname) at The Bear at the end of 3x05 and looks through it. He appears frozen as he finds a baby photo of his mother holding a baby I assume is him. The episode ends at this moment and neither the box or Carmy's reaction are revisited for the remainder of season 3

Cicero tells Carmy during 3x09 that Donna wants Carmy to call her back about "the baby" (one assumes this is a reference to Natalie's baby) and that Carmy has been "fucking avoiding it" (one assumes again that the "it" here is the baby...but maybe its also just the act of calling Donna back)

But then Carmy says something strange:

Yeah. Hoping it would just go away.

Surely, Carmy's not talking about a baby. Babies can't just go away. And I don't think Carmy is so malicious that he'd wish his sister's child to disappear. I also don't think Carmy would refer to his mother as "it" (he's never done so up to this point on the show, as monstrous as she can be).

And in case you were wondering, Cicero's response to Carmy also doesn't sound like it applies to a baby or Donna (lol):

[Y]ou run right the fuck into it.

Intergenerational trauma and legacy

So what is the "it" that Carmy wants to go away? What is the "it" that Uncle Jimmy tells him to face by running "right the fuck into it"? My suspicion is that this is Carmy's baggage. The baggage that comes with being born a Berzatto and being born to Donna. All the stuff that we've been talking about here. Its also the baggage that both Nat and his mother have been trying to "put away":

Above from 3x02 Next: Natalie in conversation with Carmy. "Its not great 8am stuff."

Above from 3x08 Ice Chips: Donna in conversation with Natalie.

Carmy is trying to do this too: put away his baggage, while having been the "Lost Child" (referring to ACA roles and the recording about them that Natalie was listening to at the end of 3x07 Legacy) and the youngest child in his family for so long but now having to be the "Hero". @vacationship's post on ACA roles as they relate to The Bear gives a great breakdown on what the "lost child" and "hero" roles mean.

In the LA Times interview mentioned above, Jeremy Allen White says,

I don't think Carm's ever been outside of himself enough to really take in another person in their entirety, sadly. I think that's Carmen's real struggle.

As the youngest child of the Berzattos, Carmy has never had to step outside of himself to the extent that Mikey, Natalie or even Donna have had to. He has never had to care for anyone other than himself, until he inherits The Beef. And that responsibility is a HUGE one.

But Carmy jumps into that role, initially fuelled by the desire to retroactively fix his relationship with Mikey and fix "the family". Recall again his monologue in 1x08 Braciole:

[I]ts very clear to me trying to fix the restaurant, was me trying to fix whatever was happening with my brother. And I don't know, maybe fix the whole family because that restaurant, it has and it does mean a lot to people. It means a lot to me.

For the longest time, I interpreted "the family" that Carmy refers to here as his chosen family: the crew at The Beef. I think that while that was true, it wasn't the whole picture. I think Carmy was actually being more expansive in his definition of family to include his entire family: chosen and birth.

So while Carmy is obviously trying to make The Bear a success for Sydney ("Syd, we're going to get a star") and for Marcus ("Take us there Bear", "Yes, Chef"), as well as for the rest of the chosen family he first found at The Beef, Carmy is also trying to fix the restaurant for the Berzattos. Specifically, Carmy is trying to do what his father and brother couldn't do in keeping The Beef/The Bear going. He is trying to embody the Hero ACA role, vacated by Mikey with the latter's passing, even though his sister told him from the start, in 1x01:

No one's asking you to.

What I think I took for granted this season was just how much Carmy's desire to repair the legacy of the father figures in his life (as represented by the restaurant) was brought to an urgent and frenetic head for him in the late stages of Natalie's pregnancy. Upon rewatch of 3x09 Apologies, I picked up on some interesting script choices and imagery that I think have been chosen purposefully to relay to us that this is the case and that the impending birth of his niece is indeed, weighing on Carmy.

Now, at the start of 3x09, Carmy may or may not know Natalie has just had her baby. I assume he does. After Marcus watches that clip about magic, followed by unnecessary Fak, Claire and dumpster content (lol) and then Sydney practising how she's going to break Shapiro's offer to Carmy, we cut to the kitchen of The Bear and we hear Carmy calling out orders while running expo. He's yelling again. His voice is hoarse like it was in 3x03 during his panic attack. We see Carmy's intrusive thoughts at a rapid clip intercut with close ups of his, Sydney's and Richie's faces. We also hear Carmy repeatedly yelling at the staff to push:

Please give me the fucking agnolotti. Push.

Lets fucking push, please. Lets fucking go.

Push, please.

Push, chefs! Please! The cook is fucked. Refire, please.

Push.

From a quick google, "push" is used in restaurant settings but not in the way Carmy's doing here. I've seen it used to mean "sell" an item (as in getting a server to "push" a particular dish to diners so they order it) as well as to describe a busy period during service (as in the restaurant is in the middle of a "push").

In 3x09, Carmy is yelling “push” like a midwife at his sister's side while she pushes out her child, the next generation of Berzattos, into the world. But instead of his niece, Carmy is trying to deliver one more in a litany of dinner services at The Bear.

Note: you can clearly see here that the jagged lines that have appeared since season 1 when Carmy is having intrusive thoughts are actually made up of what look to be hundreds of claw marks. I've noted in a previous reblog of one of @thoughtfulchaos773's posts (that I can't find atm sorry) that this evokes Carmy (the Bear) trying to claw his way out of a mental spiral and back to equilibrium. @currymanganese also noted that the lines themselves look like a neural network, driving the point about Carmy's mental state home.

And then directly after the above "push" scene, we see copious amounts of water ejected over the The Bear's kitchen island, washing away flesh coloured food and sauce that looks like blood splatter:

Having rewatched 3x09 through the lens of intergenerational trauma, with the spectre of Natalie's labour, Carmy's apparent resistance to seeing Natalie or her baby, and having just heard his hoarse voice screaming push, push, push...to me this water started looking a whole lot like birth waters breaking, and amniotic fluid flooding The Bear:

Note: Rest assured, amniotic fluid doesn't contain all those suds.

@espumado pointed out in their The Night of the Hunter meta that the song playing during the above "push" and "broken waters" scenes of 3x09 is a song by Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch from a war documentary. The song is "The Forever Rain" from the documentary series The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. I'm sure its no coincidence that a song from a documentary about the Vietnam War - a war whose veterans were the first to be assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - is being used in a scene acting as an allegory for childbirth, given what we know about how traumatic Carmy's birth was for his mother, and inevitably, for him as an infant.

So why is Carmy so preoccupied with Natalie's pregnancy and the birth of his niece?

I think this all ties back to what Carmy told us in 1x08: that he wants to fix the restaurant (and in the context of season 3, this means making The Bear a success) and that in doing so, fix his family.

Note: which is also why I think we are shown that magic clip that Marcus is watching at the beginning of 3x09 with this bit of dialogue from it: "What makes magic different is that its inherently honest. You tell someone you're gonna deceive them before you deceive them. In some way, that makes it more difficult." We were told in 1x08 what the restaurant means to Carmy and his reasons for fixing it, but Storer and co have spent all of season 3 distracting us with Claire and Fak-shaped sleights of hand getting us looking elsewhere to understand Carmy's behaviour. By 3x10, Carmy's motives haven't changed. He's doing this for his family. All of his family.

Specifically in the context of Nat's pregnancy, Carmy wants to ensure that The Bear is a success for the next generation of Berzatto children, for his niece. And if Carmy is being haunted by a need to fix his family's legacy, particularly given the impending arrival of Natalie's baby - the youngest Berzatto after him - then his desperate, rageful plea to Syd after she brings him back from his panic attack in 3x03 Doors, is even more distressing:

They're going too fucking slow!

What Carmy means is:

I'm going too slow and this restaurant is going to fail because of it. And this baby is going to inherit my failure, just like I inherited Mikey's and just like he inherited our father's.

Remember: Natalie is a part owner of The Bear and so any financial failure of the restaurant will be felt by her and her family just as it would be felt by Carm.

What Carmy needs to realise is that while a brick and mortar institution may fail, what remains are the relationships, the people that he has met because of it (shout out to Chef Terry and her speech in 3x10 Forever, also shout out to Mikey and his chat with Tina in 3x06 Napkins). And if there are people - if there are relationships - there's always the chance to build another future together, again.

Conclusion (yep, I'm almost done)

I think about how whether he likes it or not, Carmy was able to pursue his passion in cooking because of his family’s racial (and class) privilege, particularly as a member of a community that was invited to join in the spoils of white supremacy. This privilege was most clearly embodied by the fact that the Berzattos had the means to own The Beef and the culinary opportunities for Carmy that flowed from that work and experience (contrast this with Sydney, Marcus and Tina's experiences in entering this field, which I've discussed here and which @freedelusionshere discusses here).

I think about how Carmy subverted and used that privilege to bring along the original crew of The Beef with him to The Bear, lifting up his largely BIPOC employees. And then I think about how he ran roughshod over them in order to try and meet the insane expectations he'd set for himself (in large part, as a result of his family's history).

I think about the safety net that Carmy had with Natalie and Mikey who were there to take care of The Beef, their family and their unwell mother, giving Carmy the room to find himself professionally. I think about Mikey leaving behind a restaurant for Carmy but also leaving behind an entire family for him too.

I think about Carmy not realising that while The Beef was a burden in some ways, it was a blessing in so many others.

I think about the clear intergenerational trauma that Carmy is contending with while trying to balance so many perceived, competing demands.

I also think about Donna's dream, the night she went into labour with Natalie:

In this nothing dream, I mean nothing dream. And it wasn't Chicago, and it wasn't New York. It was some sort of hybrid city, you know? And there was a fish tank. Big fish tank in the middle of the city. It was this giant fish tank, and I was the only one looking at it.

[...]

And I remember the colours were, they were so sharp and vivid and neon, you know, and I was the only one looking at it.

[...]

I was just staring at it for the longest time. And all of a sudden, I noticed that the glass started to come apart like it was gonna split. But I wasn't worried, you know? It wasn't bad, because I knew that more people were gonna get to see these beautiful fish.

And then I woke up, and I was sweating, and my water had broke.

When Donna had her children, she had no idea that she would lose her eldest child to suicide. She likely had no idea how far she was going to push her daughter away from her due to her abuse, and she most certainly did not know that her youngest would cease contact with her for years while becoming a renowned chef. None of us parents know for certain how things are going to turn out for our children, or for our relationships with them.

We can only hope, and do our best: do our best to break harmful cycles while trying to nurture children who will leave the world a better place than it was when when they arrived. And if our kids manage to do this not because of us but in spite of us, in spite of our slip ups and mistakes, in spite of our baggage, then honestly, we should be even prouder of them. Because it meant they were able to integrate our trauma, our histories, and their trauma, and their histories, all of it, and make something beautiful, something better.

And I think I can see why Donna wasn't worried when the fish tank started to crack. I get why she was so happy that more people were going to get to see her beautiful children and the world they were going to create, in spite of everything and because of everything.

As usual, tagging folks who might be interested (absolutely no pressure to read this fucking long ass thing though), but keen to hear from anyone who wants to discuss:

@currymanganese @thoughtfulchaos773 @moodyeucalyptus @vacationship @mitocamdria @brokenwinebox @espumado @tvfantic87 @turbulenthandholding @anxietycroissant @angelica4equity @devisrina @kdbleu @freedelusionshere @ambeauty @afrofairysblog @fresaton @hwere @ciaomarie @ambeauty

[ghostowlattic]

Heartsick 

Ghost Owl Attic

[dabisbratz]

can we cam up? eren yeager x male reader

w.c: 4.3k

genitalia terms: dick, cock, hole, fuckhole, cunt (1 time), pussy (1 time)

WARNING: spit, blowjob, rimming, anal (obvi), creampie, dirty talk, humiliation, filming, degradation, humiliation, nerd!eren, jock!reader, intoxication, may read kinda dubious but it’s 100% consensual, light d/s dynamic, alcohol, weed mention, dumbification, eren compares you to a hentai character one (1) time bc he’s deranged

a/n: i was kicking my feet twirling my locs screaming into my pillow writing this and it shows. also eren has a BIIIIG phat crush on you but i didn’t wanna get too into it… you definitely remember him, probably even sexted him w/o even knowing it was him

Let’s get one thing straight: You're not an arrogant man. Not at all— in fact, you’d consider yourself to be quite humble. This night may be about you and your winning score, but you’re humble about it. Considerate, even. So you feel no guilt when you accidentally spill alcohol on someone’s shirt, explaining that if they can somehow find you on instagram and send a DM, you’ll pay for the laundry and potential damages. The stranger peers at you with a funny glint in his green eyes as his hands pull the wet fabric apart from his skin, his glasses falling down the arched bridge of his nose.

You shrug and wave to your teammates, your football jersey loose on your form as you make way through the frat house’s large interior. Music blares in your ears for the millionth time tonight, the bass rattling your skeletal system with each increasingly tipsy step you take. Grinding, flushed bodies invade your vision, all around you as you shimmy through the sea of bodies to pour yourself another generous shot. Cool, blue rays of strobe lights dance and flicker across your eyelids. Warm, pink rays that caress your cheek like the confines of your safety helmet, the vinyl of your mouth guards. It overwhelmed you at first, so bright and unapologetic as your eyes adjusted and focused.

Somewhere beneath the tranquil hum of alcohol flowing through your veins you can feel your phone buzz in your pocket, rippling through your skin and sobering you up just a little.

Your girlfriend.

She’d been blowing up your phone all night, something along the lines of forgetting her gift for your anniversary— what was a few weeks, anyway? — and how ungrateful you were for yours. She was a good lay, a quick way to resort to getting your dick wet on particularly lonely nights; when you couldn’t stand the sound of silence dancing around your head. But that was all.

You shake the thought of her squawking voice the second you find Connie, surrounded by sorority girls with glossed lips and pink-tinted eyes. Finding solstice in his company, they’re huddled relatively close, knit together in some sort of baked clique. He’s perched over a bong, lighter in hand as he inhales the fumes with muffled haste. Pothead.

Your hand finds the crown of his head, palm nestled in the bristles of his buzz cut. Noone is allowed to touch Connie’s hair, at least not when he’s coherent enough to stop them. It usually ends in flying fists and bruised cheekbones, but all the man sends your way is a hazy glare. Someone punching the university’s all star just isn’t a good look. Especially when he’s pretty and popular with the public.

“Do that again and I’ll throw this bong at your head.” It’s an empty threat, clear of malice and slurred on Connie’s bitten lips.

“Yeah, yeah,” You steal the smoke exuding from his mouth, swishing the fog in your mouth a few times before blowing it back into his face. “Never again. Scouts honor.”

You shoot back up, mind reeling and posture straightening as a particularly pretty cheerleader hands you a bottle of something you can’t quite make out. It’s brown and rich though, smacking against the glass as you take a swig and chase it down with Connie’s leftover beer of all things.

One thing leads to another and suddenly you’re trapped between sobriety and full on plastered drunk. You remember chugging something sickeningly sweet, despite it leaving a harsh burn in the back of your throat as you took in a deep breath of victory. There were many eyes on you, loud cheers reverberating off the walls as you’re hoisted into the air for your skillful performance and high-fived by your frat brothers. But there are those green eyes again, staring straight through you with a look you can’t quite place.

Not that you can place much. You’re shitfaced.

He smells good, you later discover. There’s a strum of wind as he pushes forward and straight by you, weaving through the crowd like he’s invisible. The swaying of bodies— the sight is still so freshly imprinted in his brain, and it makes his head swim while liquor glides across his tongue, clumsy and inexperienced. He must not get invited to parties often. Or maybe he does, and you’ve just never noticed him.

He’s quite nerdy, some sort of graphic design on his stained shirt that resembles that of a video game or cartoon logo, and a poor excuse of a beard litters his chiseled jaw. And oddly handsome, pale face flushed from the alcohol, pink and pooling at the apples of his cheeks as he stares at you expectantly. But you’re not into men, and all the shots in the world couldn’t get you to even think of advancing with one. He quirks his thick brow in passing, settling back into his seat with a depleting mumble you can’t make out under the loud music.

But the alcohol paired with the sultry music-choice is doing things to you, you can’t help but stare longer than you should when he swallows down his adams apple, throat bobbing as he downs a fruity drink. His tongue darts over his lips, quick and steady as he nods along to the bass. You’re thinking with your dick, pushing past the batting lashes of cheerleaders and curvy bodies of sorority girls until you’re uncomfortably close to the guy who won’t stop looking at you.

“Do you- do you have a staring problem?” You ask, a slight slur to your voice as your face leans in close enough to count the nerd’s lashes individually.

Just to reiterate, you’re not arrogant. In the slightest.

He jumps back in response to the evasive question, strands of hair falling over his glasses as his emerald eyes roam your face. The lines are blurring now, his nerdy, almost irritating face looks kissable and inviting— his parted lips look warm and skilled. You can smell the pineapple on his tongue, sweet and citrusy.

“You heard me,” You hiccup straight into his face, watching his gorgeous features distort into something not even remotely akin to disgust, which makes confusion rack your brain. “Do you talk, or what?”

Your tongue is sharp, much to Eren’s chagrin. You’re too pretty to talk to people like that, especially him. He may look the way he does, but that doesn’t mean you can talk to him like that. It’s not like he can’t recognize a brat when he sees one. Usually, you’re a bubbly team player— everyone likes you, even if they say they don’t. Still, he shakes his head, humoring your drunken irritation. He understands, at least a bit, as he has a natural temper of his own.

Truthfully, Eren has been keeping his eyes on you for the past millennia. It started when he accidentally walked in on your practice, a sunny day that simply got brighter when he saw your face, cheerful and bright as you joked along with your teammates— Jean, Reiner, Levi? Was it? It didn’t matter, his focus was on you.

You and your sinfully tight compression shorts. You and your hands that curl into fists as you grasp at his sheets like a lifeline, as if holding them tight will somehow keep him inside of you, right where he belongs.

You and your stupid football that’d smacked him right in the face at full speed. But it was in his favor, you came running over apologetically as he rubbed away the blooming bruise. Your voice was sweet then, a melodic chirp that he couldn’t stop thinking about since then. He wants to hear it break.

It seems you too always meet at the expense of his dignity. But not tonight.

“Your phone is buzzing,” Eren grunts, sliding his glasses back up his nose and turning his head away. His glasses are fogged up, but it might just be saving his pride. He’d rather not get hard in front of the person he’s been fantasizing about for the past few months, not when you clearly had no recollection of him. He doesn’t blame you. “My bad. I’m not, yknow, stalking you or anything.”

“Oh, because staring for hours and stalking are very different things,” You’re staring at his lips now, ignoring the vibration in your hand. The second your phone screen lights up you slam it face-down into your front pocket. There isn’t an ounce of remorse in his voice, like his response is calculated and open-ended. “What if I like that?”

Your eyebrows wiggle, even with the mind splitting sensation of your brain beating against your skull. Almost as hard as your heart hammering in your chest. Eren’s scoff is barely audible over the music, but the comment has his heart racing.

You pull him in by the collar of his t-shirt, fists bunched up in the dark fabric as your lips press against his. It’s feverish and sloppy, your teeth occasionally grazing his own. His mouth is hot and wet, fruity essence on his tongue as it slips past your lips and into your mouth. You’ve never had a kiss feel this good. He nips at your bottom lip, pearly teeth digging into the skin until he feels you make an embarrassingly high pitched noise in your throat.

There’s a twinkle in his teal eyes as his posture straightens, slowly leaning back to catch a breath of fresh air (as fresh as it can get, anyway). You watch him readjust his position, lifting his hips instead of his actual body, practically rutting into the thickening air as he shifts. His bubblegum lips curl into a lazy smile as his fingertips circle the rim of the red solo-cup he’s been drinking from. “What if I like you?”

Your breath catches in your throat.

“Your phone just doesn’t shut up, does it?” There’s clear agitation in his voice, his arched eyebrows furrowed as your feet carry you somewhere much more secluded. Eren trails behind you, his eyes glued on the mound of your ass as you walk. He has to help you occasionally, without even knowing the layout of the place, just so you don’t fall over. The light shine of your phone screen emits across your hip, and he can see the contact of whoever it is that’s so deeply desperate for your attention.

Too bad it’s all on him.

“I’m a pop— popular man.” You finally respond, shutting the door behind you to what Eren assumes is your bedroom in the frat house. It’s between two other bedrooms and across from three more, with a sizable closet that holds more trophies than clothing.

“Can see why, pretty mouth like that,” The words slip before he can think, but it’s worth it to see the way you oh, so conveniently hiccup in response. The implication of you being some type of campus whore makes your throat feel tight, and you can’t help but twitch in your tight pants. “Talks a lot of shit, though.”

“You talk too much.” Correction: he doesn’t talk enough. But you shut him up with a kiss anyway, hungry and frantic because whatever this is, whatever you feel when you look at him, you don’t want it to end. His hands travel under your shirt, cold from his previous icy drinks, and you squirm under his palms. He spreads goosebumps across your skin, and when his fingers brush the bud of your nipples you can’t help but jolt where you stand.

A malicious grin snakes across Eren’s face, all teeth and predatory as he runs his tongue over his sharp canine teeth. “Been thinking about fucking you for weeks. The whole time we were talking, all I could think about was shoving you down on my dick.”

Oh. Your cock aches at that, which is almost already too much for you, you’ve never done this before. Not with a man, not with someone who looks at you like they’re going to devour you whole. You swallow hard, alcohol dispelling from your body the more blood rushes south, and suddenly you’re on your knees, unbuttoning Eren’s jeans with trembling hands.

The door locks behind you, a small click that only the two of you can hear. You look back up at the nerd, who’s watching you intently with a smirk.

He’s a complete juxtaposition to his appearance— if you were a bad man you’d call him a loser, but he exudes dominance and power. You want to wiggle under his gaze, shifting your weight between knees. Eren’s large hands cradle your face, oddly tender and affectionate as he rubs your cheekbones, slowly sliding them to the sides of your head. He lifts your gaze, forcing eye contact.

His glasses hang low on his nose, clouded from his breath as he lets out a satisfied sigh. You want to pull on his hair, flyaways barely reaching the base of his neck as the rest remains in a ponytail.

“This okay?” His tone is beyond sincere.

“Yeah,” You breathe, momentarily losing yourself in the forest of his irises. Blinking rapidly, Eren removes his hands from your head to free himself from his jeans, his long cock decorated in a small vein that disappears below his head. It’s pretty, arched against his stomach and dripping onto his shirt. The leaking precum makes you wonder how long he’s been hard. “Yeah. This is—this is more than okay.”

“Open,” It’s more of a command than anything, Eren’s very hands on, his fingers slipping into your mouth to pull at the corners of your mouth. Your tongue covers your teeth, your mouth watering as his salty fingertips graze your tongue. His other hand is busy working at the head of his cock, twisting smooth circles over the slit until it crashes down against your tongue. Again, and again, and again. “Good boy.”

You find yourself drooling on your jersey, sucking in a deep breath through your nose as his tip rests on your tongue. He goes slow at first, letting you suck on the tip while his fist roams his shaft. You’re a big boy, he knows you can handle much more than just the head— even if he is thick. Your eyes water immediately, gagging instinctually as he shoves his dick deeper into your mouth. “Say thank you.”

Before you can pull away with an answer, both hands return to the back of your head, holding you in place. He encourages you to breathe through your nose, cooing at your inexperienced efforts to catch the drool escaping your mouth, and even goes as far as to wipe one of your tears, “Gonna thank me? F’letting you be such a good, warm n’ wet hole for me?”

You feel yourself nodding, blinking hazily as he rocks in and out of your mouth. There’s a sound you don’t recognize coming from your throat, squelching and soaked, and it has you whimpering on the mouthful of cock. You don’t mean to make such a pitiful noise, but it feels so good, letting yourself go a little brainless over a cute boy.

You slurp loudly— not on purpose, but it earns a throaty chuckle from the man above you. He pulls out to let you breathe, his cock slowly sliding up your throat and past your lips until all you can do is whine and lean forward, lips wet with spit. The tears in your eyes spill unabashedly, your face nearly crashing against his dick.

“Thank you.”

“Hm? For what?”

You want to groan, to bang your fists against the wall because he’s being so mean. He knows what you mean, you know what you mean. Regardless, still focused on his cock just inches away from your face, you moan against nothing. It’s a light noise, breathy and quiet but effective enough to make his cock jump. “Please, please— I mean- fuck, thank you for letting me be…yours.”

Eren tuts, feigning annoyance as he grips your chin between his fingers, digging into the soft skin so you’re actually focused on his face. You smile into his palm, eyelashes batting against your cheek and he just can’t help but spit onto your cheek.

“What, d’you just go dumb the second you see some dick?”

You’re barely listening, instead grinding against the fabric of your jeans because his touch treatment has you feeling some kind of way. “Does your girlfriend know her boyfriend’s a cockslut too? Does she know other boys spend their nights getting your holes wet, fuckin’ you in the same bed?”

It’s much easier to hear the vibrations in your pocket now that you’re alone, the only barrier between you being the muffled music on the other side of the door. Eren’s hand leaves your jaw, and you have no complaints when he helps you to remove your jeans.

The jersey can stay on, though. He wants to fuck you in it.

He pushes you into your bed, watching you bounce in the mattress in nothing but your jersey, and helps himself into solely his birthday suit. You’re just as exposed, seemingly moreso, as he pulls your bottom half into his lap. It’s an odd position, not anything you’re used to, maybe your exes and past hookups— but never you.

Eren hunches over, his breath tantalizingly close to your hole. First, he licks a fat stripe across the surface, holding your thighs open when they threaten to instinctively close. You can’t prop yourself up on your elbows at this angle, your feet dangling over his shoulders while he holds you up. The nerd is stronger than he looks.

His tongue is hot and wet, and you feel yourself clenching when a glob of spit lands on your hole. He massages it in with his ring and middle finger, and your body finds itself squirming against his touch. You expect fingers, one at first, maybe, then another. But instead he uses his tongue, lets it dip inside and lap at your insides. Eren looks hungry, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he spreads you open and holds you there with an iron grip. A punched-out “Eren!” leaves your lips the second his tongue is lapping you up, leaving tingles up your spine and smog in your brain.

He kneads his fingers into the fat of your thighs, nipping occasionally where your skin folds into your ass, just to get another choked whine out of you. And, oh, you whine. The intrusion isn’t unwelcome, in fact, the feeling of Eren’s face slick with his spit as he tries to get his tongue as deep as he can into you makes your toes curl. You fist your bedsheets, finding comfort in the pillows you’re pressed into, and go as far as to hold yourself open for the man while he goes to grab something.

“Oh, baby. You shouldn’t have,” You shiver at the sound of his dark chuckle, and squeal when his ring finger finds a spot next to his tongue. “Look at that. Hole’s leaking. You just sit here and look pretty while I fuck it on my tongue, hm? Think you can do that?”

“Mhmmm, mhm, yeah! I can— I can do that, ‘Ren.” You sound like a bitch, with your nose buried in your pillow as you moan with every brush to that special spot inside of you. Your cock jumps against your stomach, leaking into your belly button and down your chest. Your jersey is ruined, but so are you, especially when Eren rubs your cock once, twice—

Holy shit. You’re cumming.

“That’s it, come on, give it to me.” Your jersey catches it all, right over your reserved number and embroidered nameplate. Your brain is too fried for you to care, tears streaming down your face as your hole flutters on his tongue and fingers. Sensitive now, moreso than you were before, you whimper and shimmy in Eren’s lap, simultaneously moving toward and away from his touch. He keeps you where you are though, staring at your blissed out face through clouded glasses and licking his lips like he’s just finished eating the best meal he’s ever had. And as if that’s not enough to have you cumming again already, he places an open-mouthed kiss to your puffy hole just for good measure.

“You felt so soft on my tongue, fuck, I almost busted right on you,” His cheeks are pink, and the rosy shade blooms down his neck and disappears into his chest. He pulls you forward by your wrist, sucking on your tongue and licking over your lips so you can taste yourself. He’s gonna be the death of you.“Bet this hole’s gonna be even softer. Nice and warm while you take my cock. Gonna let me cum inside? Pump that soft cunt full until it’s all creamy and used?”

He’s so filthy, so unashamed. The nickname doesn’t go unheard, and despite the slutty moan that you let out in response, part of you wants to pinch him just for that. Damn Eren and his shameless mouth! But you nod anyway, an everlasting stream of ‘yesyesyes’ floating in the air as he lines himself up to finally give you what you’ve been gagging for so prettily.

Eren just can’t help himself. Not when you’re folded up and presenting yourself to him like this. Not when your eyes are wide and your lips are parted and you’re letting out such pretty sounds. Sounds that belong to him. Plus it’s not all on him, you’re the one with an unlocked phone. You’re the one with space in your camera roll.

He’s sure the camera is shaky, maybe even a little blurry, but he makes sure to get your face in it, fucked-out and crosseyed as he pounds his dick into you, keeps you steady with his hand on your jaw. A string of precum connects you together, pooling at your ass and Eren’s thighs as his hips crash down, yours convulsing upward to meet him halfway. It’s a bit half-assed on your part, but who’s gonna blame the guy getting fucked stupid?

“‘Ren, you’re,” You sob in disbelief, eyes rolling along with your hips. “You’re— ohh, you’re fuckin’ me.”

He smiles down at you, feral and heated as he buries himself to the hilt inside you, his balls slapping against the curve of your ass. He never seems to stop, always chasing that feeling of you clamping down on him even when you’re almost too sensitive to take it. “That’s right, I’m fuckin’ you. Just how you like it, hm? Right in your fuckhole. S’what it’s there for, right?”

“That’s—“ Absurd? Vulgar? Objectification? It’s hot. It’s hot and you know it, Eren knows it, and your dick sure as hell knows it too because you can feel your next orgasm coming. “Yeah. N’my fuckhole.”

He makes a pleased sound in response, groans and pants joining your moans when he speeds up, his slow and deep strokes becoming fast and hollow, pounding that sensitive spot deep inside you over and over and over. “Should train you to take this dick.”

“Hold on,” Despite looking straight at him you can’t understand what he’s saying, not until his glasses are placed over your eyes and you’re blinking away the prescription blur. You struggle to collect yourself, wailing as you reach for his free hand that begins to nestle between your jawline and your neck. He squeezes affectionately, lets you cry and arch on his cock while he breathlessly sighs, “You look straight outta my favorite hentai.”

And, technically, you’re making a sextape now. A tape that showcases closeups of his cock disappearing deep inside you, pummeling your puffy hole until it carves the shape of his dick into you. Until only Eren can fit, big and thick and unbelievably deep. A tape that has you, a popular and well-known straight jock, crying on the dick of a guy you just met.

“Eren, m’gonna… ‘Ren—” You may as well scream, your body tensing as you spray across your chest — when did your jersey get bunched up enough to expose you like that? — sticky cum shooting out your spent cock until you’re twitching, handsfree and body ablaze. He doesn’t let up, castelon eyes narrowed as he fucks you through it, watching more cum squirt from your cock, milking himself for all he’s worth. “Inside, wanna be full, I deserve it, please, Rennie.”

He bounces you a few times, watching you fall back onto his cock until he feels himself aching hard, hard enough to start cumming inside you. It’s the nickname that gets him, groaning loud as he pumps a load inside you. It’s messy, and downright pornographic watching his cum leak out of you, just for him to fuck it back in with the head of his dick. It’s clear you feel proud of yourself for making him tremble inside you, and Eren takes the opportunity to scrapbook the memory.

“C’mere,” He’s not asking, simply pulling you closer to the camera so it can focus on your cum-stained face. “Smile for me, baby. Tell your ‘girlfriend’ how much you like it in your pussy too.”

[sorrowsofsilence]

1986 • ruffilo

Pairing: Best Friend!Nicholas Ruffilo x Fem!reader (oneshot)

Words: 5.7k

Warnings: FLUFFFFFF, Smut 18+ (car sex, PnV, pls wrap it b4 u tap it, fem!receiving).

Summary: Two friends living life in 1986, playing laser tag and going on drive-in dates , confessing their feelings that maybe they're more than friends.

note: eeeeeee, i love him so. (songs are Birdmad Girl - The Cure / Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode)

You never truly realize how much you care for someone until you're three rounds deep into laser tag, dominating as a duo.

Ruffilo's contagious laughter reverberated around the dimly lit arena, the blacklight illuminating the neon artwork adorning the walls.

Your vest glowed in bright pink, matching your best friend's as you both weaved through the narrow corridors, being cautious not to trip over the shoddily painted plywood flooring.

With your finger poised on the plastic trigger, you aimed your phaser at the enemy targets ahead.

"Strategy number four?" Nicholas shouted over the pulsing bass of the synth music blaring in your ears.

You gave him an enthusiastic nod and grin before turning around, back-to-back with him in position, ready for anyone to approach from either in front or behind.

The two of you advanced together up to the top level of the arena, past the colourful graffiti. Glancing to the side, you spotted a flash of blue from your peripheral vision and swiftly fired off a shot as the nimble body slid behind a wall. Miss.

"Blue vest, four o'clock!" you called out, and Nicholas rotated with you seamlessly, maintaining your formation until the blue vest came into view again from around the corner.

Ruffilo expertly aimed and fired his phaser, deactivating the light on the vest and eliciting an exasperated groan from the teenage target.

"Again?!" the teen exclaimed, throwing his hands up in defeat before retreating down the ramp, waiting for his vest to reactivate.

"One minute remaining!"

The announcement echoed throughout the dark arena, and you nodded at Nicholas before splitting up and sprinting to opposite sides to rack up as many points as possible before time ran out.

The frenzied last minute was a blur of neon lights, with the synth music now morphing into an adrenaline-pumping rush. Unseen enemies emerged from the shadows, the blacklight making their teeth glow as they snarled with playful determination.

A green vest sprang up from behind a barricade, but you were quicker, firing off a shot and hitting the target smack in the middle as you slid onto your knees, the black jeans you wore sliding along the wood, all while scuffing your new chucks.

The satisfying beep of your phaser confirmed your score, and you couldn't help but giggle at the surprised expression on the enemy's face as he trudged off, disappointed. It was worth the carnage of your attire.

"Thirty seconds remaining!"

Nicholas was not far, moving deftly around the abandoned fortress, his pink vest glowing in the dark. He had moved back to the second floor, and you watched as he took down three opponents in quick succession before disappearing into a maze of neon obstacles.

Fifteen seconds; your heart pounded in sync with the countdown. A streak of orange and yellow rushed past you as you sprinted back to the center of the arena.

"Ten seconds remaining!"

As the final countdown began, your heart pounded in your chest with the rhythm of the music. You caught sight of a purple vest and took your shot - a direct hit. But then, you felt a strange sensation; a sudden heat on your back.

You turned around just in time to see a yellow vest grinning at you from behind an obstacle; but before she could shoot, her vest turned grey, and you glanced to see Nicholas standing behind, phaser pointed outward with a smile.

His grey eyes gleamed with competitiveness and excitement as he gave you a thumbs up, and you grinned, biting your tongue as you nodded toward him, passing a silent thank you.

"Five... four.... three..."

You quickly darted behind a wall next to your best friend, chests heaving in sync as you shared another grin.

"Two... one... GAME OVER!"

The lights in the arena suddenly brightened, and the pulsating music slowed down to a stop. A chorus of groans and cheers filled the room as you both walked out of the arena, placing your vests onto the rack before lacing your arms together, faces flushed.

It wasn’t new to walk arm and arm, but for some reason, this time, your skin tingled against his, even more so than usual.

Nicholas smiled down at you as he then bumped his shoulder into yours, the mechanical voice of the scoreboard announcing the winner.

“Team Pink wins!”

You exchanged high-fives with Nicholas, grinning proudly at each other as your hearts pounded through the adrenaline.

"I knew we'd win," Nicholas said, trying to stifle his laughter. His eyes twinkled with pride as he watched you in awe.

You blinked up at him, an unexpected warmth in your chest, and an odd fluttering sensation in your stomach. You felt your cheeks heating up again under his gaze, but tried to ignore it.

“We always win. They’re going to get sick of us,” You laughed, the two of you walking to your shared locker.

Nicholas grinned at you as he slipped on his leather jacket, his eyes sparkling under the arcade lights. He ran a hand through his dishevelled brunette hair, causing a few strands to fall into his eyes endearingly, "We make a great team."

The words hung in the air between you two like an unspoken promise, a hidden code that only you both understood. And maybe it was the adrenaline high or the after-effects of victory, but everything seemed a little bit brighter- a little bit warmer with him by your side.

You and Nicholas had been attached at the hip ever since you met three years ago. He came into the record shop you worked at looking for the new, at the time, Journey album, frontiers.

It was so popular, that the only copy you had left was the one you saved for yourself; but when you locked onto those doe grey eyes, you couldn’t help but cave, handing over your beloved copy to the stranger who made your heart race.

The way his face lit up had made your entire day- and he swore he’d repay you by bringing you exactly 5 Twinkies.

And he did bring five Twinkies, the very next day.

Not just that, he brought you an extra one every single time he visited the record store after that.

Oddly enough, it had become your thing - his way of saying thank you for sharing your favourite band's album with him, which was your way of reminding him over and over that he owed you nothing.

But Twinkies were delicious, and he was cute, so who were you to say no?

After a year of this routine, Nicholas confessed that he'd been banned from every grocery store in town for buying too many Twinkies. The general store that got the most business confronted him, accusing him of re-selling them.

Yet you both burst into laughter, clutching onto each other as tears prickled in your eyes. How would you tell the owner that really, the two of you just liked the delicate pastry?

But even then, whether it was his dedication to repay you or his general kindness, something about Nicholas drew you in.

He was like a moth drawn to the flame of your friendship, and just like the moth, you couldn’t resist even though you knew it could be dangerous.

Considering the two of you were in long-term relationships with other people, at the time.

Yet, dangerous or not, you couldn't imagine a life without Nicholas. Whether it was his infectious laughter that always managed to lift your spirits or the way he could always find the perfect song to match your mood, Nicholas was more than just a best friend.

He was your confidante, your partner in crime, your shoulder to cry on when life got tough.

Most importantly, he was the one person who had never let you down. The one who made you truly happy.

The morning was rainy, nothing out of the ordinary as you sat on the loveseat in your living room. Your walkman was blaring a mixtape of The Cure and The Smiths, two of your best friend’s favourite bands.

As you were finally getting comfy in the cushions, you heard a knock on the window.

Nicholas had peered in from the outside, holding his shoulders in protection as you scrambled to open the door, watching him step in soaking wet and shivering.

You didn't ask what happened when you saw his sorrowful expression – you just ushered him inside and wrapped him in a warm blanket, sitting him down and getting him a warm drink.

He sat quietly for a while; the only sounds in the room were the pattering of rain on the glass, and his occasional sips from the mug.

Then suddenly, he had started sobbing.

You didn't know what happened – all you knew was that he needed you.

So, you moved closer, wrapping an arm around him and letting him lean onto your shoulder as he cried.

His sobs eventually faded into hushed whimpers, his body shaking with the occasional hiccup.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, his voice barely a whisper as he leaned into you. "I didn't know where else to go."

"You don't have to apologize," you had told him, running your fingers through his damp hair in an attempt to soothe him. "I'm always here for you, Nicky. You know that."

He had finally looked up at you then, eyes red and swollen from crying but still holding that same mesmerizing grey glow that drew you to him every single time.

"We broke up," he admitted in a hoarse voice, the words hanging heavy in the air.

The feeling of your heart clenching in shared pain made you sigh, pulling him into an embrace.

Ruffilo wrapped his arms around your body, pressing his face into the crook of your neck as he cried. He felt warm and perfect against your skin; but you mourned with him, holding his body protectively.

It had now been two months since your ex left you; so you knew this pain all too well.

Nicholas’ sobs subsided over time, leaving only soft sniffles and the steady rhythm of his breathing. Even after he'd quieted down, you continued to hold him, offering silent support as he curled into your side.

He eventually broke away from your embrace with a sheepish smile.

"Thanks," he mumbled, looking at you with eyes that held a depth of gratitude that couldn't be put into words.

It was then that you realized how close you were.

You could see the streaks made by tears on his face, the way his hair was sticking up in odd places from where you had run your hands through it.

He looked vulnerable - and yet there was a strength in him that took your breath away.

His gaze was serious as he looked at you, raw emotion swimming in the depths of his eyes. You could see a mixture of pain, confusion, and something else...something that made your breath hitch in your throat.

Coughing, you pulled away as your chest warmed, before suggesting something the two of you had become quite fond of.

“Wanna go play laser tag?”

And now here you were, watching him tuck his hair behind his ears in the neon lit lobby, your heart clenching again.

Something felt different. It wasn't the elation of your shared victory, nor was it the exhausted yet fulfilled sensation that came after a game well played.

It was something much deeper. Something you knew you felt all this time, but were too ignorant to let free.

Your heart pounded in your chest as Nicholas shut the locker door with a bang, snapping you out of your thoughts.

The brunette turned to look at you, his eyes meeting yours in an intense gaze before he suddenly looked away, his cheeks flushed under the dim lights.

"Do you want to grab a bite? I'm starving," he suggested, trying to sound nonchalant as he ran his fingers through his hair again. A habit he only did when nervous.

You nodded enthusiastically, tucking your hands into the denim jacket you wore, pulling the hood of your sweater beneath it upon your head.

As you walked side by side towards the arcade exit, you couldn't help but steal glances at your best friend.

Was it the blacklight, or was there a newfound glow about him? His smile was more infectious than usual. It reminded you of the first time he visited the store, his face glowing with excitement.

The same glow was in his eyes now, despite the recent tears.

Your favourite diner was open late, serving greasy burgers and shakes; a perfect end to an evening of laser wars.

You both were regulars, as Nicholas was particularly fond of their double bacon cheeseburger.

As you slid into your spot, a familiar red vinyl booth, a thought struck you.

These outings- the laser tag games, the shared Twinkies, the late-night diner visits- they weren’t just friendly hangouts anymore.

Or maybe they weren’t ever just friendly.

The two of you sat across from each other, huddled over the sticky Formica table as you chatted and laughed about anything and everything.

Nicholas's smile seemed to take up his whole face in the yellowing light of the diner, and you found yourself drawn to it. Drawn to him.

His sadness from this morning felt like forever ago, and your heart fluttered as his hand grazed yours as he reached for your shared drink, taking a sip.

"So," Nicholas began, twirling a fry in his hand as he met your gaze.

“So,” you echoed, watching him with a raised brow, reaching for the cup now, taking the straw into your mouth.

"I've been…thinking."

"Yeah?" You replied, your own hands growing still as you watched him attentively.

He nodded, setting down the fry and leaning back. His gaze never left yours, every bit as captivating as they always were. "Yeah…about us," he finally said.

Your heart skipped a beat at that, your stomach fluttering in response. Whatever nervousness had gripped Nicholas earlier, seemed to have transferred onto you now.

Ruffilo swallowed hard before continuing, "I was the one who broke up with Spencer…”

The silence hung in the air like a heavy fog, and you could see the anxiety creeping into Nicholas's expression.

Your mind began to spiral, his sadness from earlier lingering in your mind. If he left them… why was he so upset?

Yet you gave him an encouraging nod, urging him to continue.

"I... I broke up with Spencer because of you," he confessed, his eyes darting to the side as if the confession was too big for him to say out loud.

Your heart pounded in your chest, your mind reeling at this revelation. Nicholas was silent for a moment, wringing his hands together nervously under the table.

The rubber of his vans tapped the floor anxiously, "I realized..." he began again, his voice soft, "I realized that it was you I wanted to be with.”

His words filled your ears, wrapping around you like a blanket of elation, limbs growing warm as the tingle of his confession sunk in.

"I didn't mean to fall for you," he confessed, looking back at you now with an intensity that made your stomach twist with anticipation. His gaze was pleading and full of regret as if he feared the consequences of his confession.

"No..." you whispered, a soft denial of his fears, not his feelings., “You aren’t alone.”

He watched you from across the table, almost hopeful.

“I didn’t mean to fall for you either, Nicky.”

A gasp of relief escaped Nicholas' lips as he stared at you, his grey eyes wide with disbelief; as if he was trying to comprehend the words he'd been longing to hear.

A moment of silence stretched between the two of you, and the air was thick with unspoken words as the bustle of the diner dimmed around you.

"You mean..." Nicholas began, but trailed off again, this time with a glimmer of hope in his eyes that dared him to believe this wasn't just a dream.

You gave your best friend a nod of affirmation, heart pounding so hard you could barely hear yourself think, "I mean it, Nicholas. I... I feel the same way about you."

The words hung heavy in the air between the two of you, each syllable sinking in slowly. You watched as he processed your admission, a flurry of emotions crossing his brows before relief spread across his face.

His shoulders visibly relaxed as he let out a breathless laugh and ran a hand through his hair again - a nervous habit indeed - but this time it was accompanied by a grin that reached his eyes.

"Bitchin…” he mumbled before continuing, “I- I don't even know what to say.”

You chuckled lightly and teased, "That's a first."

Ruffilo laughed too, the sound filling the air around you in a delicate melody.

He squeezed your hand gently and then let go, leaning back into his seat while watching you.

“Well, Y/N,” the brunette smiled, “Would you like to join me on a date?”

You pondered a moment, placing your finger on your chin playfully, “Hmm. I might need to check my schedule.”

Nicholas rolled his eyes, grinning again.

"Sure you will," he responded, chuckling as he shook his head at your jest. The tension had finally eased, and the atmosphere between you was as light as it always had been, but now with a newfound hue of affection permeating through.

“I’m deadly serious,” You said, nodding with folded arms.

He let out a dramatic sigh, playfully leaning forward with his elbows resting on the table as he gave you a teasing smile, "And here I thought you were easy to convince."

"Maybe I am," You finally relented, your smile matching his as you met his gaze. "But only for you, Ruffilo."

His eyes widened slightly at your words, his cheeks tinged pink under the diner’s fluorescent lights.

"Only for me?" He asked quietly, his gaze warm and full of affection as he watched you.

You nodded with a soft smile, reaching over to take his hand in yours. "Only for you."

"It's a date then,” he finally managed to utter, his voice shaky but full of happiness. You could tell he was trying his best to control the tremor of excitement running through him.

"Yes, it’s a date," you confirmed, your voice barely louder than a whisper as though afraid someone else could hear the secret promise between the two of you.

As Nicholas drove you home in his old beat-up car, you couldn't help but take quick glances at him from time to time. His eyes were focused on the road, yet you noticed how he nervously wiped his hands on his thighs every so often.

He let his fingers drum on the steering wheel, before asking, “Would you like to go to the drive-in?”

"Isn't that a bit too cliche?" You teased.

Nicholas chuckled, keeping his eyes on the road but unable to hide the grin creeping onto his face, "I suppose it is, but I thought we could embrace the cliche," he replied, “Besides, I have something in mind that might make it a little unique.”

You couldn’t help but feel intrigued, “Oh really? And what would that be?”

He flashed you an enigmatic smile, and your chest warmed at the mystery in his eyes, "That would be telling," he retorted, the corners of his lips turning upwards into a charming smirk.

The only movie playing was the new Aliens, which left an uneasy feeling in your stomach as Ruffilo pulled up.

Yet, as you glanced over to see Nicholas pulling out a small portable radio from the backseat, your curiosity piqued.

"What's that for?" you quizzed, eyeing it with amused bewilderment. "I thought we were here to watch a movie?"

Nicholas gave a knowing smile, setting the radio up on the dashboard. "We are," he replied, "But who says we have to listen to their audio?"

He tuned the radio until a familiar tune wafted through the crackling speakers.

This girl has got a smile That can make me cry This girl just burns with love She's burning, burning deep outside

"Ah," you laughed in understanding, "So we watch Aliens but pretend it's all just an extensive music video?"

He gave a triumphant nod, "Exactly! Told you I'd make it unique."

With that, he parked the car in a secluded spot, letting the radio play between the two of you in the car.

Night time, night time sets my house on fire Oh, I'll turn into the melting man I'll lose my life to feel I feel desire

Sliding closer to Nicholas he wrapped an arm around your shoulder- something that normally wouldn’t leave you nervous- but this time made your stomach swirl with butterflies.

"Comfortable?" he asked, his voice barely audible over the music. His gaze was steady on yours, the faint glow from the drive-in screen shimmering in his eyes.

"Never better," you replied, a soft smile spreading across your face as you nestled into him. You then added, "This was a good idea."

"I aim to please," he returned with a smirk, his arm tightening slightly around your shoulder. His eyes flickered back to the movie screen, but his mind was elsewhere.

The tension in the car had shifted again, this time to something much more intimate and private.

Your heart pounded as you turned to look at him as he continued to watch the screen, his profile illuminated by the distant light. Your best friend was always handsome – that’s undeniable – but tonight, there was a different aura about him.

A raw vulnerability and softness that tugged at your chest.

With a deep breath, you made a move, lacing your fingers with his.

He turned to look at you, surprise evident in his eyes. But it quickly melted into a gentle warmth as he gave your hand a soft squeeze, entwining his inked fingers with yours.

The connection sent sparks up your arm, making your pulse quicken in response.

His gaze fell to your linked hands before returning to meet your eyes. A soft smile played on his lips as he gently stroked his thumb over the back of your hand, a simple act that sent waves of affection and warmth through your body.

Burn wild, wild, wild, and never turn away Oh, sends me all her love, she sends me everything She sends me everywhere

His eyes were soft, glimmering under the moonlight as he looked at you as if you were the only thing that mattered.

"Y/N," he started, his voice barely a whisper. He seemed unsure, a slight tremble interrupting his words.

"Nicky?" you answered gently, encouraging him to continue.

"It's just…” he paused, swallowing hard before continuing, “I don’t want anything... I mean... I’m worried about moving too fast.”

Your face warmed, awaiting his words.

“But I really want to kiss you.”

The intensity in his face made your breath hitch, caught off guard at his honesty. For a moment, you were silent, taking in the weight of his words. His eyes searched yours for any sign of reaction, the atmosphere between you two becoming thick with anticipation.

"Nicholas," you started, holding his gaze. The warmth of the moment was enough to set your heart racing, yet there was also an inexplicable calm that washed over you, "I want you to kiss me too."

His face relaxed into a relieved smile as he gently caressed your cheek with his free hand. The touch sent a delightful shiver down your spine, making your heart flutter with excitement. A faint blush crept onto his cheeks as he inched closer, his breath hitching ever so slightly.

Nicholas slowly leaned in, maintaining eye contact till the very last second when his eyes fluttered shut.

His lips were soft and firm as they latched onto yours with need, an intimacy in that shared silence only broken by the quiet hum of an 80's ballad playing on the radio, and the low murmur of the movie in the background.

It was as if time had stilled for this moment, allowing you two to explore this newfound love at your own pace.

His hand left yours to cradle the back of your neck, pulling you closer to deepen the kiss. Your hands found their way into his hair, the soft strands tickling against your fingertips.

And when you pulled away, the faint taste of mint from his earlier chewing gum lingered between you two, creating a flavour that was uniquely Nicholas.

You couldn't help but smile at him, your fingers gently tracing his cheekbone as you whispered, "That...was worth the wait."

“Really?” He whispered, leaning to press his forehead against yours, brushing your noses together.

You nodded, watching him in awe before kissing him again, taking his bottom lip between your teeth.

A shaky breath left his lips as he pulled you closer, allowing you to control the kiss with your tongue.

It was a feeling of bliss that seemed to stretch on forever, his touch electric against your skin, his pulse a rhythm matching yours.

His tongue traced yours slowly, the sweet intimacy of each action leaving you breathless as he pulled you onto his lap, allowing you to straddle his waist.

Every trace of his fingers against your skin as they slid up the back of your sweater, sent a shiver down your spine; every soft gasp from him was like a plea for more.

His lips never left yours as you ran your fingers through his hair, tugging gently on the strands. The kiss became more intense, and more passionate, and before you knew it you were both fighting for breath in between kisses and soft touches.

All I ever wanted

All I ever needed is here in my arms

Words are very unnecessary

They can only do harm

The radio continued to play an array of songs, drowning out the sounds of the movie that was now nothing more than background noise. You pulled away to catch your breath, resting your forehead on his and staring deep into his eyes.

Words failed him as he traced circles on your thighs with his fingertips, causing shivers to run down your spine.

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly as he saw your reaction to his touch - a reaction that only served to boost his newfound confidence.

Your fingers entwined in his hair again, tugging softly when his lips began to trail down your neck. A soft sigh of pleasure escaped your lips as his teeth grazed over the sensitive skin, and a delightful shiver coursed through your body when his tongue darted out to soothe the mark he had left.

His hands continued their exploration, memorizing every curve and dip of your body.

Nicholas paused, pulling back just enough to gaze into your eyes. There was a question in his eyes, a silent enquiry for consent, and you gave him a nod, a clear affirmation reflected in your eyes. His lips curved into a soft smile, his fingers tracing the hem of your shirt before he gingerly lifted it over your head.

As his eyes roved over you reverently, as though you were an exquisite work of art ready to be cherished and adored, your skin burned under his fervent gaze.

Nicholas leaned in again, capturing your lips in another intoxicating kiss, creating a rhythm only the two of you knew as he etched his memory into the canvas of your skin.

His lips ghosted over your neck again, peppering soft kisses down to your collarbone.

"You're beautiful, Y/N," he murmured against your skin as you pulled his shirt off his body, tossing it to the back of the car.

Flipping your bodies, Ruffilo hovered over you, pressing your back into the faux leather seat. Allowing his fingers to graze down your chest, every touch was a reverberation of desire echoing through your chest and spilling into every part of you.

A soft gasp escaped your lips as he left a trail of kisses down your chest, his hand skimming along the waistband of your jeans until he pulled the denim down your legs.

Leaving you only in your underwear, he smiled, absorbing all of you with his eyes before delving his head between your legs in fervour.

You arched up against him as the warmth from his mouth seeped through the fabric, heating your skin underneath. The sensation elicited soft moans from you, each one encouraging him further.

His name echoed rhythmically in the confined space of the car, the sweet sound making him shudder with pleasure.

Your best friend’s hands moved to the sides of your panties, fingertips tracing the elastic band before slowly sliding them down your legs and discarding them onto the back seat. He paused for a while, savouring the view before him like an artist appreciating his masterpiece.

Opting for a slow exploration, he took his time to taste and discover every inch of you. His tongue glided over your most sensitive spot, sending shockwaves of pleasure throughout your body.

Your hand found its way back into his hair, tugging slightly harder than before as a wave of ecstasy washed over you. Your moans grew louder, each one turning into a chorus of his name, fueling his desire to take advantage of the fact you were finally his.

Nicholas indulged himself at your core, lost in the taste and texture that was uniquely you. He slid his inked fingers along your core as his tongue pressed against you, before sinking them into your body as you arched with need.

Your body trembled under his touch as he continued to move inside you, the heat and wetness amplifying the pleasure.

A low growl vibrated against your skin as he took in the sight of you writhing beneath him, your eyes tightly shut and lips parted in bliss.

He never faltered, his tongue and fingers working in a perfect rhythm that left you spiralling towards your climax. It was an intimate dance between two lovers, a sweet symphony that echoed through the silent night of newfound devotion.

Gasping his name, your hands gripped his shoulders as your body convulsed under an onslaught of pleasure, rutting into his mouth. With an arm across your pelvis, he tried to hold you down, yet the car shook with your movements, windows steaming up from the heat generated within.

His name was a chant on your lips as wave after wave washed over you, leaving you panting in its aftermath.

Nicholas slowed his movements, helping you ride out the aftershocks before sliding back up to your lips, and swallowing your moans.

"You okay?" he murmured against your lips, his voice a gentle whisper in the quiet car. You nodded, leaning into his warmth and threading your fingers through his hair once again.

"I need you" you murmured softly, your voice shaky with residual pleasure, “I don’t care if it’s too fast. You want me. I want you.”

His eyes widened slightly, but the raw need in your gaze was enough to urge him foward.

He fumbled awkwardly with his jeans in the tight space of the front seat before slipping them off.

His boxers followed suit shortly after, leaving him exposed before you.

You reached out to touch him tentatively, watching as his eyes fluttered shut at the contact. Your hand moved over his desire slowly, exploring him with a delicate curiosity that had his lips parted in pleasure.

Before you could continue he gripped your wrist, holding you still before sitting back and pulling you onto his lap as he caught your lips in another kiss.

Nicholas paused to meet your gaze with a hand on your hip and the other guiding himself to your entrance. His eyes shone with unspoken words, his heart pounding against his ribcage as his face warmed with admiration.

You guided him slowly, gasping as you felt his body fill yours.

Nicholas’ grip tightened on your hip as he moaned into your mouth, a small whimper escaping from his lips that made your heart race even faster, ears heating with excitement.

Nicholas moved with you slowly, languidly pacing that left you begging for more.

“You’re so tight,” he whispered against your neck.

You smiled into his cheek, breathing out a laugh as you let his hands guide your hips in a repetitive motion along his body.

"You're so big," you returned, your voice a soft purr in his ears, sending delicious shivers down to his very core. Each slow, deliberate movement of your hips driving him deeper into you was an exquisite torture, leaving him wishing he had just confessed his feelings years ago.

He had loved you all this time.

Nicholas closed his eyes, succumbing to the raw sensations of your body wrapped around him. His fingers dug into your thighs with need as you moved in sync, the friction causing both of you to moan in erotic harmonies.

It was intoxicating. You were intoxicating. He was intoxicating.

His name escaped your lips again as he held you up, fully pounding into you from beneath.

A gasp tumbled from your lips when he altered his angle, hitting a spot that made lights dance behind your closed eyes. "Nick," you moaned out, pressing your fingers into his shoulders.

Your words were coated with a desperate tone that had him complying without second thoughts. The need to satisfy you, to worship and adore you in every way possible clouded his mind.

“Fuck-” He cursed, and you watched as his brows furrowed in desperation, eyes squeezing shut before he stilled.

Watching him fall apart inside of you as he released left your thighs squeezing together in desire, pushing you to your own orgasm.

He watched you in awe as you came undone with him filling your body, and he held your neck, pulling you against him once again, pressing his lips to yours.

Your wet bodies, sticky and warm from the remnants of your passion, clung together as if they feared separation.

“Y/N,” He said softly, your name mumbled against your lips.

All I ever wanted

All I ever needed is here in my arms

Words are very unnecessary

“I want to be with you forever.”

You nodded, panting into his chest before smiling. Sliding off his body the two of you dressed, relishing in the intimacy shared moments ago.

Nicholas tucked your hair behind your ears, watching you with adoration before leaning down and reaching into the glove box.

With a raised brow you watched him pull out the pastry with a grin, holding it toward you.

“Twinky?”

Tags: @sammyjoeee @cookiesupplier @th4t-em0-k1d @dsireland86 @whenthesummerdies

@spicywhenspeaking @veronicaphoenix @lma1986 @calleyx13 @somewhere-diamond

@auratheopossumwitch @blackveilomens @skulliecadaver-blog @darkmxgician @deathblacksmoke

@sitkowski @thefallennightmare @silentglassbreak @thatchickwiththecamera @xserenax-13

@xxkittenkissesxx @anameunmusical @amelia-acero @rumoured-whispers @anything-more-than-human

@blacksoul-2

[wizzard890]

Something something the leitmotif that plays when we see Robert Oppenheimer immersed in the forces of modernity shaping the world in the early part of the century, the leitmotif that shows us that physics was the avant-garde, lunging forward into the new history as wild and brilliant as the work of Picasso and Eliot and Stravinsky, the leitmotif that shows the awesome blessing of vision

is the same leitmotif that plays three hours later, when we see what has become of the world. What may become of the world. What hangs over the audience like a sword and Oppenheimer like an eagle returning every day. The same motif for the same actual thing: the endless charge of history, modernity, the destiny of the 20th century, something that was cracking open like a new birth and also doomed to crack open like a fissure in the earth.

(Because history is sometimes more elegant than narrative, many scientists at Trinity had their backs to the explosion, and were told to only look around through a welder’s glass, to prevent damage to their eyes.)

It’s a question posed by the score itself: can you unsee the hidden world? Can you unlearn Cubism, can you say Eliot’s hollow men weren’t the shape of things to come? The physics of the bomb were uncovered, not created. Is the deeply human act of seeing, of reaching to understand, the transcendent spark of something beautiful? Or is it, for this man, in this time, something profoundly unholy?

Light is both a wave and a particle. And it’s the same music in both scenes. 

[barrenclan]

idk if someone's said this before but July by American Murder Song is a very patfw-ish song. i can't pinpoint it exactly but a lot of it reminds me of cootstorm especially 's refusal to leave the territory but there's also the idea of going west, like the idea of leaving the territory and later moving further away from defiance, and the very last part of the song is reminiscent of Rainhaze to me, how he kills Asphodelpaw, and in doing that, kills his old self so to speak. just a thought

Oh, how did you know that I've been listening to 1816: The Year Without a Summer and specifically July on repeat for the past month? Are you reading my mind? Anyways, I do really love that song with Cootstorm, especially how the narrator curses everyone who is leaving and insists that he'll never leave this land. Though I do hope Cootstorm wouldn't go so far as murder.

Black in the cotton and rot in the lamb Ash in the windows Ash on the land Summer got spooked Went yellow and ran We ain't going nowhere We ain't going, going nowhere

Outside the tree coughed up blood 'Stead of leaves Coughs from the floorboards Coughs from the eaves I climbed the coughing tree Noose at my sleeves I ain't going nowhere I ain't going, going nowhere

Deepdark would certainly believe he was the protagonist of this comic, that's for sure. Will Wood isn't really my taste but I do like the tone of this song.

I'm that first-person they talk about in all the books I'm that perspective you cannot doubt, see how I look Control the narrative reliably, baby, it's all about me

So, God forbid I'm seen just as an average human being I mean, imagine if antagonists lacked any evil scheme I'm the gap between a tragedy and comedy

I see the vision!

So there's this Castle of Rats I mean a million of them, butchering each other As they try to get a window open Burying the new dead beneath the old dead

There isn't anything in this world could make you go back There isn't any meaning in the metaphor I'm weaving a series of words that hurt me more The more that I repeat 'em

I like it when people suggest OSTs, it's very vibes-based. Spooky songs are great soundtracks for this comic!

Lol, Nat, no people haven't sent me obscure Appalachian string band suggestions for music before. I do like this sound with the comic, though, I think it fits very well. If PATFW was a show or movie I was making, I'd score it with a lot of western/appalachian string music.

Ah, MNQN! One of my friends likes that band a lot. This is a very very Rainhaze song.

You've changed within Some selfish mutation A stranger I once called a friend

Man will almost certainly be replaced by a new order of intelligence Stop looking for monsters under your bed You are the monster

Oh, you've seen that Darkstripe video too... big fang. I love Ween, so any song of their you give me is good far as I'm concerned. Rainhaze being a Johnny on the spot fits him very well, always willing to break his back for other people.

I'll be your Jonny on the spot I'll be your Jonny on the spot My daddy died, and left me all he's got I'll be your Jonny on the spot

I get up early in the morn' I get up early in the morn' I slop the pigs, and momma shucks the corn I get up early in the morn'