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sanjiafsincedayone · 4 years ago

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Why SaNa over other ships?

Now, this is not to hate on other ships or downplay them, because what shipping really comes down to is often simply preference. What characters or dynamics you enjoy and what reasons you might have for liking different things.

No, this is simply my own reasons for why I like SaNa and also why I think they could make sense and thirdly why it’s possible Oda could be setting it up to actually happen in canon. It’s all just my views and I apologize if I forget a moment or add something that is more head canon, but again, this is my reasons and they will always be partially biased. (And there are too many to remember them all properly, so if you want to add feel welcome to do so.)

I think Sanji and Nami is a lovely ship even based just on fan content and the community. But we also get some great moments in the manga, and I personally think there is potential for Oda to make an actual romance work between them.

1. Why I like Sanji and Nami

I personally fell in love with Sanji before I even started to watch or read One Piece, simply based on his voice actor (Hiroaki Hirata), his design and his fighting style. So obviously I already have a bias towards Sanji (SanjiAFsincedayone having a bias towards Sanji? Who knew?). I didn’t ship Sanji with Nami from the start and even now I am a multi shipper who enjoys fan content with Sanji as a main part of several pairs, most prominently ZoSan.

So, when did I fall for SaNa then? Well, I have talked about it in various posts before which you can find in my Masterpost - SanjiAFsincedayone, but for me shipping Sanji and Nami more seriously didn’t start until Thriller Bark.

Sanji took a knife in the back for her as she is dressed in a wedding dress, even this one scene is enough to explain why someone might like to ship them together.

I for sure saw many SaNa moments before that, and felt Nami seemed special to Sanji, but I didn’t think it would have a big chance of happening and I preferred other ships above it when consuming fan material. Again, shipping is after all mostly fantasy and wanting more of something in a romantic/sexual way. Thriller Bark was when Sanji and Nami’s interactions caught my attention properly and I started to look a bit closer and actually note the way Oda wrote them and their moments. Going back after and rereading I think there is a lot of interesting things even before that. But the wedding theme and bridal carry and how Oda showed them in Thriller Bark was just too on the nose to ignore.

What got me into shipping Sanji with Nami were mainly three things.

1. Their dynamics getting more interesting over time and Sanji and Nami being two of the most well written and interesting characters in One Piece. 2. Sanji consistently seeming to have a preference for Nami in combination with my belief that he is after true love and isn’t just a pervert forever doomed to be alone. 3. The manga showing the potential of it actually happening and them finally catching my attention in Thriller Bark. Basically there are moments to follow and look at in the actual story as well, which in turn also leads to more fan content and material for shippers.

So point 1 and 2 really is mostly about my preference and how much I enjoy watching them together and how well I imagine they would fit together. I think their personalities and desires overlap well with them being able to understand and compromise for each other while aslo being on a similar level of intelligence and communication. They also have their kindness and empathy as a highlighted shared theme for their characters.

Them talking about the Children in Punk Hazard or Sanji helping Nami turn in the argument between both Luffy and Vivi and Luffy and Usopp are some examples. Or Nami letting Sanji smoke in her body because she knows how hard it is for him. Small gestures like this show both understanding and a willingness to compromise.

I think they are fun and have a relationship that right now might need working on, but it’s clear how much they care for each other and how they actually appriciate each other a lot.

Simply put I think they are interesting together and I think they could work as a romantic couple in the future, where their dreams and family oriented views migh allign. Again, from how I view them as characters and interpret their wants and possible futures I think Sanji and Nami is a good match. They can have a restaurant either traveling the world or docked close to both Cocoyashi and Zeff, Nami can tend to her mikans together with Sanji and they can manage a restaurant for a living. I also think they are the most parental members in the crew and has shown some possible signs of wanting to settle down with families. This would also work well as a final contrast to their less than happy childhoods (You might also want to check out my post (Part 3) Sanji x Nami hints - Thematic parallels).

There is a lot of potential in their dynamics and how different they seem while they also seem willing to adapt and try to understand each other that make them interesting as characters of romantic plots. At the same time they have enough in common to relate to each other and work well together. Again, as a fictional ship within the fandom there is a lot of great artists, writers etc. that truly explore them and make Sanji and Nami a great and fun ship with an active fandom to engage with.

Of course there are more shallow reasons like them matching in age and being good-looking but really I could ship Sanji with almost any woman if it was only about the looks. I mean, Purin is basically made to be a perfect match for Sanji, but I personally find his dynamic with Nami much more interesting and his dedication to Nami is of course unpraralleled thanks to the time Oda has spent on them over many years.

I love Sanji and Nami as individual characters and with the amount of moments between them there is also a lot to explore and enjoy in the manga. It makes them interesting in a third aspect for me, which is of course analysis and the potential of them actually ending up together and looking closer at the way Oda writes them from a story perspective. For me what we have gotten from Oda in terms of Sanji x Nami moments is very interesting and I see potential there even though it would need more development to truly work for the current story.

But, again shipping doesn’t have to mean anything for the actual story... There are crack ships or slash ships that surely will never happen but that could still be great and fun to explore for the fans. Honestly, everyone is free to ship whatever they want. We all have different taste after all.

So, what about the manga then?

2. Why do I think they could make sense as a romantic couple even in canon?

First, my own view is that Sanji is someone who seeks true love, and as briefly shown with both Violet and Purin it seems like he would take an actual relationship seriously if given the chance. I also think it would make him happy and thus as Oda might want to create happy resolutions for the strawhats I think Sanji ending up with someone has quite a big chance of happening. This is combination with his preference for Nami and in turn Nami truly caring for him (though not yet in a romantic way) is something that makes me think it could happen. Other ships have potential too depending on how Oda decides to develop them, but considering how he keeps adding moments for SaNa in the way he does as of now I still think SaNa is the most likely ship for Sanji.

As I mentioned earlier I also think Nami has shown some possible inclinations for wanting a family (or at least being a great mother if we look at her with children in many arc, not the least Punk Hazard) and maybe even getting married eventually.

If she ends up with someone we will need to see a more obvious attraction and want for romance from her no matter what ship we might consider. She has at this point not shown a lot, but I do think the thematic parallels she shares with Sanji in combination with how their moments are written has the potential to grow into something more.

As a romantic pair I think Sanji and Nami would be happy, he would adore her and take care of her and both of them would probably find that ideal. In fact it’s already a big part of their dynamics and seem to make them both happy. They also seem to try to understand and show interest in knowing each other as seen with several scenes and general attention towards each other’s backstories. They also challange each other in different ways and we have seen them compromise a few times. I think compared to many other relationship in the manga Oda has shown more personal moments between them. So a romantic additional aspect is not too far off. Not that Oda would make it happen now, but that he would lay down the groundwork for it to work by the end of the series.

In short I think they would make each other happy, but also challange and grow thanks to the other. I think their dreams of traveling the world with Nami drawing her map and Sanji cooking on all the seas and finding All Blue and then settiling down together close to both their “homes” in East Blue with a restaurant and family seems to fit them both. It wouldn’t always be easy, but I think they would actually enjoy their dynamics with Nami bossing Sanji around most of the time.

Now this all sounds nice and all, but it’s of course just my imagination based on biased interpretations of the manga. So where do I get it from?

3. The way SaNa is portrayed by Oda

Now this is really the biggest point... Because again, I can ship whatever characters I want and it is just for fun. It doesn’t have to happen for me to enjoy it or I wouldn’t ship Sanji with Zoro. But with Sanji and Nami there are legit reasons in addition to my preference that makes me think it could happen in the manga.

It might take years to actually go through it all in order with my additional interpretations, but I will try to go through the basics themes and moments that to me could indicate SaNa over any other Sanji or Namji ship.

I think the obvious thing to talk about first is simply how Sanji definitely has a romantic (and sexual) interest in Nami. No matter what other character you might see with either of them, this has been shown consistantly over the whole manga. You may argue that Sanji might be interested in others equally, and though I wouldn’t agree it’s a fair point. However from a story perspective it would still need to be resolved. It’s highly unlikely for Nami to end up with anyone unless Sanji ends up with someone else and gets a happy ending too.

As for Sanji’s interest in Nami I personally think Oda has paid a lot of attention to it in a way that makes it the most likely ship for Sanji. He might yet add moments between other ships and develop them (most notably San/Pu of course), but in my opinion the way Oda has added Nami in other potential romantic moments with Sanji it seems Nami is above every other woman so far.

Most importantly I think we have seen:

Sanji leave Violet who actually seemed to show interest in him to run off to save Nami (and the crew, but the point is that Oda chose to highlight and add this moment with focus on Nami to begin with).

Sanji being more focused on Nami even when Vivi and Robin has been on the ship or at the same place. Oda definitely puts Sanji with Nami above other women at least in amount of moments and involvment.

Sanji being very concerned with Nami in front of Purin and being shown happy with her (the bridal carry for example) and saying he loves her right in front of Purin.

Sanji having stronger reactions to Nami than other women. This could just be my way of seeing it, but I do think we have seen the strongest reactions from Sanji when it comes to Nami. Not the least with turning into a literal devil when he heard she was kidnapped by Absalom. For example compare Sanji rushing after Nami in both Skypiea and Thriller Bark even to him going after Robin. Or his reaction to Nami getting sick in Drum. We simply have a lot of strong reactions from Sanji towards Nami in different ways and more importantly Oda seeming to add focus on them.

We also have him reacting to things like “women’s tears” or calls but only indicating Nami might be calling him personally. For example Sanji hearing Tashigi cry or saying he trusts Violet or Robin even though they are lying but for Nami adding things like “I think I heard Nami call out for me” or moments like “I leave my Nami to you”. Basically the way Oda writes it there often seems to be added a more personal stake in Sanji’s reactions and moments with Nami compared to with other women.

So from Sanji’s point of view, and the way Oda has written them so far, I think he puts Nami above every other woman. But more importantly, Oda shows us moments between them that he doesn’t add for other ships as consistantly or in romantic looking ways. Keep in mind that both Nami and Sanji are main characters, but they are not Luffy. Oda choosing to not use Luffy (who will obviously have strong moments with all of his nakama, like how he had his own time with Sanji both in Baratie and WCI) for some of these moments but rather insert Sanji or Nami instead for each other’s stories makes it more relevant. Because it’s not an obvious choice in the same way. It’s a choice based on their characters and dynamics within the world, not because of their roles as main hero or heroine. Here are some examples.

1. Their first meeting. Sanji is for the first time seen in love cook mode and he basically seem ready to leave everything behind for Nami. Right away his reaction to Nami is stronger than what we have seen from him and it seems to hold true even with time.

2. SaNa having interest and plot relevance to each other’s back stories. Sanji getting involved with hearing Nami’s back story and saving his sister. Also, calling her “sister” which indicates a platonic familiarity where he puts Nami above Nojiko romantically (yes, despite flirting some with her). Nami in turn also getting involved and showing interest in Sanji’s backstory, pushing to go with Luffy to save Sanji and being the one to remind us of Sanji’s past and character traits.

3. Sanji getting personally tantalized by using Nami. This has happened several times, the first with Kuroobi in Arlong Park, but also with Mr. 2 in Alabasta, Absalom in Thriller Bark and then in Fishman Island (Zou too, but that wasn’t just Nami) and on Zou. You can check my post (thought not updated fully) Sanji and Nami – Fights and danger for a more detailed view. (Even in movies like Strong World Sanji has a direct talk with Shiki about Nami and it seems most people are aware of Sanji being extra sensitive to Nami.)

4. Sanji asking Nami if she is jealous or if she loves him, indicating again that he is interested to know is she is interested in him. Once even responding “I love you too”. In general Nami responding in these situations in a more “positive way” or Oda showing Sanji interpreting her actions as more romantic. For example the “proposal” or the hug in WCI.

5. Romantic looking moments or themes. Now this is of couse not something that has been done mutually between them and thus aren’t actually romantic scenes. But the tropes and common use for many of the things that Oda has chosen to use for Sanji and Nami are romantic in nature. Of course the two forced marriages are the strongest examples with them rescuing each other from getting married to someone else. But we also have the switch body trope, the slap and of course smaller gestures like the bridal carries or the way Oda drew the hug between them in WCI. I am not saying that SaNa is the only ship with romantic looking moments, because San/Pu And San/Violet obviously has some as well. However, considering the amount SaNa moments and the fact that he has left Violet and Purin in particular for Nami seems to make the SaNa moments trump any other ship. At least for me personally SaNa as it is now and as Oda has portrayed it in comparison to other Sanji ships gets in the way of Sanji ending up with someone else unless Oda starts to make some changes.

I want to make some emphasis on how Nami and Sanji seem to get some “bigger” moments between them in almost every arc. Again, compare this to Sanji with other women, or even Nami with other crew members.

Baratie - Their first meeting and Sanji’s reaction to Nami and interest gets focus. Arlong Park - Sanji shows interest in Nami’s past and Kuroobi mocks Sanji by specfically mentioning Nami. ( Loguetown Arc, Reverse Mountain Arc, Whiskey Peak Arc and Little Garden mostly have small moments, like Sanji asking if Nami is jealous or Sanji giving Nami his jacket.) Drum Island - Nami is sick and we see Sanji worry and care for her and in the end even sacrificing himself for her. Nami worries about him too. Alabasta - Sanji fighting Mr. 2 looking like Nami and lots of small moments like Sanji asking Nami if she loves him.

Jaya - Nami showing interest in Sanji’s back story. Small things like Nami hiding for the bugs behind Sanji or Sanji. Skypiea - Sanji being hell-bent of saving Nami and making the others look for her. Then him saving Nami and Usopp from Enel and Nami being worried in return. (Both times Sanji gets hit by Enel Nami is there and worries.) Then a lot of small moments like him giving her a flower and Nami pulling Sanji’s ear for flirting with Conis. Long Ring Long Land - Nami encourage Sanji be the ball and win, but mostly small moments like Sanji getting annoyed with Aokiji for flirting with Nami or him sitting next to her and trying to kiss her. Water 7 - Sanji leaving his love letter to Nami and Nami being worried for (and impressed with) Sanji. Enies Lobby - Sanji losing against a woman, Nami being understanding and then stepping in to basically revenge him. Also Sanji hearing it as Nami loving him and then him showing up to save Nami and Usopp from Jyabura.

Post-Enies Lobby - Not much, but Sanji stepping in to make Nami and Zoro stop fighting and make Nami understand Zoro’s pov. Thriller Bark - Sanji just being extremely focused on Nami and worried about her throughout the whole arc. Also him getting specifically selected by Luffy to save Nami. Of course the wedding theme with the bridal carry and Sanji’s reaction to Nami. Also Sanji’s Zombie protecting Nami (and later kicking Robin) and his “obsession with Nami” being mentioned. Sabaody Archipelago - Another smaller arc, but we do get Nami worried about Sanji possibly drowning. And smaller moments like Sanji being angry for Nami being put in danger by the Fishman Riders or him telling Franky to take care of Nami as he runs to protect Zoro. When they return we of course also get the nosebleeds, and Sanji daydreaming about Nami’s development.

Fishman Island - Sanji’s reaction to Jinbei and Arlong. Also the fishmen pointing out that Nami might be their weakness due to Sanji’s “over reaction“ to her falling. Punk Hazard - The body swtich, Sanji’s body saving Nami and Sanji being careful with not hurting her etc. Also them working together to save the children, Sanji listening to Nami’s request and saying he loves her more because of her kindness. Also small things like Sanji giving his jacket to Nami again. Dressrosa - Sanji leaving Violet behind to save Nami, insisting that he should be the one to save her and then him getting attacked by Doflamingo and Nami getting worried and not wanting to leave him. Sanji basically tries to sacrifice himself for Nami for the 4th time (Drum, Skypiea x2, also maybe in Thriller Bark). Zou - We get a lot of focus on Nami and Sanji together, and then of course when Sanji is gone Nami is the driving force for his plot. Once again Nami is also used to taunt Sanji (inside Capone). Then Nami is both the one to mention Sanji being from North Blue and to listen to Pekom’s talk about his family. Not to mention her insisting on going with Luffy to WCI and having a fight with Zoro as she defends Sanji. Whole Cake Island - The way she pushes for them to find Sanji, her hapiness when they find him and her hurt and the slap. We even get something like Nami being tantalized with Sanji by both Purin and Brulee. The only strawhat besides Luffy who gets a personal story thread with Sanji and a personal resolution for their conflict is Nami. The tension seems personal and combined with Sanji having another love interest but choosing Nami above her it does seem like Nami is the more natural choice both for Sanji and for Oda.

There is also a distinct increase in romantic-looking moments between them, with them touching more than ever before.

Wano - Even after WCI it doesn’t seem like Oda is stopping the SaNa moments. Sanji manages to save and carry Nami three times in the beginning of Wano. On top of that we have the bath scene and of course a lot of small moments and mentions between them like Sanji asking Usopp to take care of “My Nami-san” or Sanji jumping in abobe Nami to save her from arrows.

How many times have we had Sanji be the one to go after Nami or save her? By his own choice, by being the one present or even by Luffy asking Sanji to go. Oda puts Sanji next to Nami a lot, and I think it’s possible he might be doing it for a reason.

Who knows what we might get, but the fact that we have as much as we do really seems to show Oda having a preference to put them together in various ways.

The point is they have a lot of time and moments dedicated to them from Oda despite them both being secondary characters. At this point it’s possible Sanji is the person Nami has moments with the most in the story besides Luffy (and perhaps Usopp) as they often end up together. Of course this is including them thinking about and talking about each other as well, and not just direct interacting. For example counting the body switch and Nami being worried and focused on Sanji while on Zou. Oda doesn’t have to, but he has chosen to write it like this. On top of that he adds romantic interest from Sanji and romantic looking moments between them.

I could go on, and there are plenty of moments and examples to find between Nami and Sanji that are interesting to look a bit deeper at. You can check out my Masterpost - SanjiAFsincedayone for some of them. But as it is now here are the main points for why I think SaNa at least has a bigger chance to happen than other ships with the two of them as it is now.

One-sided attraction and romantic interest from Sanji’s side that needs to be resolved in one way or another.

Nami seems special to Sanji. Even small things like only using -san for her and -chan for others is a detail that makes her stand out to him.

Great involvement in each other’s stories. Oda likes adding Sanji and Nami in moments together both for interaction and explenation about each other. For example Sanji is also often used to save Nami.

Interactions of understanding and changing dynamics between the two, like them compromising for each other or wanting to know about the other’s past. Matching personalities and a possible future.

Romantic themes and moments, mainly the weddings, but also the amount of times Sanji has saved Nami and things like the hug being drawn in a very romantic looking way with Nami being more focused on.

Tension and urgency. This is basically Sanji and Nami having a lot of focus on each other in dire situations and Oda showing it with specific mentions.

So, to summarize, I like Sanji and Nami both as indvidual characters and together. I enjoy them as a ship and to explore their dynamics in a romantic way no matter what they might end up as in the story. Anyone should be able to respect that people have different preferences. Additionally I think and speculate that they would work well and could happen in the manga as well. This is obviously a biased interpretation and opinion.

I might be wrong, but you should be able to respect that too as we have yet to get anything objectivly confirming any ship. We don’t know if any ship with end up canon at all. Maybe Sanji and Nami will remain a ship that never becomes canon, but even so they are a ship that is definitely worth enjoying.

I hope you found this post interesting and can enjoy your own ship and fandom while also seeing that it’s ok for others to like something different than you. Thanks for reading.

#sanji #nami #sana #sanami #sanji x nami #sanjixnami #sanami theory #One Piece analysis #sanji x nami analysis #sanjiafsincedayone #one piece manga

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tbzhours · 4 years ago

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love notes

sunwoo x you, fluff

[summary] sunwoo realizes he loves you [warning] mention of sex [words] 1.7k [a/n] happy birthday to sunwoo♡! who’s still crying over berry? :’)

You just got home after a long day with Sunwoo, going on a hike for a picnic on the hills and spending time at his place afterwards. Your heart was full, thinking back at how he let you know you were his first during the walk, despite sleeping together a few times already. He wasn’t used to touching you all the time but whenever he touched your shoulder or held your waist, he confessed about how it was turning him on. So he stopped touching you and just followed along the trail with you until you both found a good spot for the picnic.

You weren’t much of a person who feeds others but when Sunwoo reached his fork over to you, you couldn’t help to do the same back at him. Everything he did made your heart flutter and you really love how open he was. He was understanding of your time because he knew you had things to do outside of your dates. He adored that you’re a considerate person as well, being mindful of his study time since he was graduating this year. It was just a matter of weeks before he graduates from college.

Sunwoo was already accepted into law school, a dream of his since young. You could tell because his eyes shined whenever he randomly referenced laws in your conversations. Not that you mind. Passion always flows in the way he is, like the cooking book he brought to the picnic. It was about cooking for two (aka you and him). You found it cute, considering that he was into cooking and that he recently moved out of his friends’ shared apartment to live by himself.

He was excited not only because he could finally have some quiet time to study, but also because you could spend time with him without making too much arrangement around his friends’ time. Despite only dating for two months, this just meant he could explore more things with you, especially your shared interests and of course, in the bedroom.

You knew him from a year ago when you both were working at the same recreation center, monitoring workout rooms together but after you graduated, you hadn’t seen him since. Meeting him again almost a year later at a different building and finally exchanging phone numbers, you didn’t expect him to be interested in you too.

sunwoo: hey i dropped something in your bag before you left 😗

You tilted your head and remembered seeing something unfamiliar in your bag when you left Sunwoo’s place. You set your phone down, haven’t cleaned out the bento boxes from the picnic and pulled out the folded paper from your bag. You sat down on your couch and opened the paper. A card, seeming from a game, slipped out between the folds.

What do you love about your partner?

You looked at the written paper, noticing Sunwoo’s handwriting as your face flushed.

I love their smile, the way they listen to me as I talk. I love how considerate they are, giving me time to do other things that I need to do. I love how open they are when we have sex. I love it when they hold my hand. I love it when they share their world with me, though I might not understand it entirely. I love their good night texts knowing I sleep early. I also love their random 2am texts because it makes me smile when I read them in the morning. I love the pet names they use to call me as. I love many things about them, and their random kisses.

You couldn’t sleep all night, wondering if you had to write one back to him. He was such an old-fashioned type of person. You wondered where he got it from because he likes calling you through the phone, asking permission for things, writing poem-like texts, and just being upfront about what he likes and doesn't like. Again, everything he does made your heart race.

You closed your eyes to calm it. But wait, you hadn’t replied back to him since you read the letter and showered. You rambled off your bed to find your phone. As you checked the time after picking it up from the couch, it wasn’t too late yet. You sighed and finally wrote back.

you: i didn’t even see you put it in my bag! how did you do that? sunwoo: it’s a secret 😚 you: sneaky 😒 you: but ngl it made me smile… i just have a lot of thoughts running through me even though i was blushing too much over your cute handwriting and message sunwoo: thank you, i’m glad i did. that means you’re probably thinking about me you: i am sunwoo: i think about you too you: you sweet thing you: you sleeping soon? sunwoo: yes, as i’m thinking about our next date ❤️ you: i’m excited too~ you: good night, my love ❤️ sunwoo: good night ❤️

“Hey, you’re here.” Sunwoo greeted you when you knocked on his apartment door.

You rushed to his place right after work since your shifts didn’t overlap today. You smiled and greeted him with a hug. You hummed along, smelling his scent. “You changed your cologne.”

“You noticed?” He was surprised, chuckling when you pulled away. You really like his smell and seeing the smile on your face, he figured you might like this one too.

“Yeah.” Your nose crunched close to his in a tease. “I like it.”

“Good.” His smile stayed. “And I missed you.”

You gave Sunwoo a peck before he shut the door and led you into his house. You looked around, as if you hadn’t been here before then you set your things down beside the couch. You followed him into the kitchen and found the cooking book opened with ingredients around it. He was standing in front of you between the counter with his arms angling down to hold the edges of it. His black tee showed his body line, matching along with his curly hair. You couldn’t help to look at those pretty arms. Maybe you should have written that in your letter too.

“So, what’s the chosen menu for tonight?” You asked.

Sunwoo hummed, thinking even though you both had chosen it together through text. He sent pictures of some pages until you both picked a menu. He got all of the ingredients and your request for wine, and when he smiled with those thick lips, he answered, “A menu for two.”

So dinner was made with much laughter from following the steps. The kitchen was a bit messy from your little dances since he had music on. He turned it down when you both settled down to eat and chat about whatever came to mind. He suddenly thought of the time you mentioned about working at a ski resort for the season and suggested that you both go when it gets cold again. You wouldn’t mind teaching him how to ski too, even though you’re still a beginner since being a staff for rentals. He himself was getting into playing the guitar from a friend that he wouldn’t mind teaching you the basics he knew of too. That was something you both had in common: you both love learning.

As your laughs calm through the wine, you remembered keeping his written letter in your bag with yours and wanted to return one back to him. So you stood up after taking too many sips of wine.

“So Sunwoo, you know how you left your letter in my bag last time?” You started. He looked up and hummed, You shyly smiled, “Well, I wrote one back.”

“You did?” Sunwoo was surprised, watching you get up and came back to sit. You slipped the paper to him over the table. He opened it and started to read it. You could see how his eyes shined as they moved from word to word. His breath was calm and his smile was softly formed below those flowery cheeks of his. Once he was done, his breath was heard through his nose. It was hard to look at you when he finished reading your love notes. “Wow, this is so sweet. Thank you for writing back.”

“Do you feel the way I was feeling? Nervous? Blushing like crazy?” You chuckled, your face burning up from his big smile.

“Totally.” He set your paper down, eyes still lingering there as he thought back to his.

“There's one that stayed in my mind since I read it.” You confessed, still smiling as you could see written in your head.

“What is it?” He asked with anticipation.

You didn’t keep him waiting. “Sharing my world with you.”

He smiled, grinning actually. “When I wrote mine, I thought about how much--we haven’t said this to each other before but--how much I love you, and I really do. I love you, a lot.”

Sunwoo said your name after as your fingers fiddled over your thigh.

“I love you too, Sunwoo.” You confessed, then you sighed softly. “And I’ve been thinking about us- you know, like going to the next level from where we’re at.”

“Like being in a serious relationship?”

“Yeah.” You chuckled.

“It’s alright. I want that too.” He shyly smiled down, a soft chuckle following.

You were surprised because you both had only been dating for 2 months and you didn’t expect him to want the same. You both have had conversations about it before but as each day went by, his feelings for you grew and he wanted to love you more. You bloomed a touching smile. “Oh, Sunwoo.”

“We know a lot of things about each other and we know what we want.” He paused. “I would love to be more serious with you.”

“Me too.” You locked your fingers together and held them at your chest in excitement. “I can finally call you my boyfriend, wow.”

“You’re funny.” Sunwoo giggled then he smiled after a deep breath. “So day one, officially?”

“You bet.” You grinned from over the table.

“Bet on who’s going to clean these up?” He tilted his head, face pretending a confused look.

You shook your head with a laugh. “No, we’re doing it together.”

Sunwoo hummed and winked after. “Yep, later. Together.”

#the boyz #the boyz scenarios #the boyz imagines #tbznetwork #deobiwritersnet #sunwoo #tbz imagines #tbz scenarios #fluff #kpop imagines #miss me? yeah me too :(#still working on the love-tri fic!#hope you like this ♡

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gisachi · 4 years ago

Note

Hi ^^ I know that your requests are now closed but I was thinking that, given you have written jealous Shinichi, I would very much enjoy some jealous Ran! Maybe you can mix it with one of the prompts? Just throwing the idea out there, no pressure. Delete this if you don't feel like it, it's okay really. Thank you for writing these amazing fics, the shinran fandom is in your debt. ❤️

So this is the last (!!!) and longest (!!!) of the kiss prompts, and I dedicate it to multiple-requests Anon and to this Anon. I hope both of you still see this. It took me a while. ^^;;

P.S. Special thanks to @artycreaty for keeping this in check. You are awesome. 🥰

41. Kisses shared under an umbrella. 46. A lingering kiss before a long trip apart. (6,489 words)

Ran keeps telling herself she has no right to be jealous.

She has hundreds of reasons not to. They’re merely childhood best friends. Life would be much easier if she didn’t involve herself in his business twenty-four seven. Shinichi absolutely doesn’t look at her that way. And so forth.

She wonders why they’re even friends in the first place. If their parents hadn’t enrolled them in the same kindergarten, she was certain they wouldn’t even be on speaking terms. He lives in a world of grisly books and crimes, she in a world of martial and visual arts. Their hobbies don’t overlap. They excel in different fields. They enter the same university with completely unrelated majors. The only bond they have in common is their shared history. Literally bonded since they were four, until now at nineteen.

So when she sees him all jolly around his newfound circle who hold the same interest in Holmes or detective work, it shouldn’t surprise her as much. It’s part of university life, it’s normal, they expand their horizons, and Ran understands that it hits much differently when they bond with people who like the same stuff they do. Something she’s aware they cannot share a hundred percent.

She’s proud of him, and she absolutely has no right to feel jealous, especially when she sees him around taller, prettier, more interesting women from his course block. There is no reason for her to look away with a heavy weight in her chest everytime the women get giggly and touchy while he’s absorbed in narrating his stories.

Everytime she does, she reminds herself of how he didn’t seem to mind when she was casted as the protagonist of their high school play and the leading man was the handsome Araide-sensei. Or how he simply shrugged when she fawned over the brother of a classmate because he looked so much like the karate senpai she was crushing on. Or when she secretly caught Sonoko dragging the detective behind gym after P.E. to confront him about his opinion regarding an upperclassman courting Ran and his only response was, ‘She can like whoever she likes, Sonoko. I’m not her boyfriend.’

He never showed her any sign of jealousy, therefore he must not be into her. Simple as that. So it’s unfair for her to be treating him differently. Getting snarky just because he received sixteen new fan mails again, more now that they’re in uni, and two even coming from the popular criminology seniors he is often teased to? Or ignoring him unprecedentedly just because his eyes followed the back of a woman with long chestnut hair and voluptuous curves? There are plenty of fish in the sea, and he’s bound to be attracted to someone else. This is a pill she ought to learn to swallow eventually.

Eventually.

“Shinichi-kun, you never told us about your scariest case yet, tell us about it?”

Kaori closes her notes and so do the other two girls across her, and Shinichi’s eyes twinkle. He truly seems to enjoy study sessions with the little group they made consisting of some of his and Ran’s coursemates because they love listening to his stories.

“At the top of my head is this murderer disguised as a bandaged man, and he targeted us one by one…” and so the detective drones. Ran pauses typing and reminisces quietly. Ah, that one from summer three years ago. I was almost injured by that crazy man during my sleep but Shinichi woke me up in time.

“Ran-san,” Shun, her friend and coursemate, mutters beside her, also stopping his typing to listen to the detective’s story. “It’s ridiculous how popular Kudou-kun is with the girls. He’s full of wild adventures.”

“Yes, he is,” Ran says, smiling. “He’s been a girl magnet ever since high school.”

She watches as Kaori inches closer to Shinichi, listening attentively, chin on her palm and flirtatious smile on her lips as the detective rants on and on.

For the third time that afternoon, Ran looks away.

Ran keeps telling herself she has no right to be jealous.

She does, everyday, but it’s hard when he smiles at her, cares for her, holds her in a way she’s never seen him do for anyone else. It gives her hope every time the girls cling to him but he never touches them back, whereas he automatically slings his arm over her shoulder because she’s afraid or cold or he simply feels like it.

Then again, maybe she’s giving herself too much credit. Perhaps it’s a free pass for being around him for too long. She even gets to spend time with him during weekends and holidays. It isn’t special because it’s normal.

And that’s all she’ll ever be, a normal girl in his eyes.

“Ran? She’s pretty special.”

Ran reacts to the mention of her name and catches Shinichi looking at her. “She appears quiet but she can kick anyone’s ass without breaking a sweat. It’s bad if you cross her,” Shinichi gloats with a grin.

“Oh my god, really? We can bring her with us then!” Kaori claps her hands in excitement.

“Ah... But she won’t like that,” he follows up, wary. Ran has missed the topic they were talking about and now she’s curious.

“But ghosts aren’t real and Mouri-san can give them a good beating!”

“Gh-Ghosts?” The color in her cheeks drains, eyes freezing at Shinichi who has probably already expected that reaction, for he sports that same look of concern as those times he had expressed whenever she joined him in his way-past-bedtime elementary school adventures.

“We’ll investigate an abandoned house I always pass by walking home,” Kaori explains. “Last night I saw a faint cigarette light at the second floor window. It might be a fugitive or a homeless person or a ghost, who knows?”

“You don’t need to come if you don’t want to, Ran,” Shinichi assures.

Gulping, Ran contemplates whether going with them will do her any good. It’s a nice change, it’s been a while since she last tagged with Shinichi in his cases. But she isn’t exactly proud of shrieking like a little kid in front of serious criminology majors who may feel like she’ll drag their covert investigation down if she joins.

“...I’ll pass,” she answers meekly, and his coursemates sulk except Shinichi, who offers her a smile of understanding.

“Man, I thought we’ll be able to see Mouri-san in action!”

“That’s ok, maybe next time. We still have Shinichi-kun!”

“Shinichi-kun will protect us, ne?”

“Hah. Right. Invite Hakuba too, use him.”

“Oh c’mooon, Shinichi-kun!”

Ran closes her eyes, struggling to zone their voices out.

In her silence, Ran ponders if she has made a wrong choice.

Ran has no right to be jealous. So it’s unfair for her to be treating him this way.

The following weekend, Shinichi narrates what happened in their late-night investigation. Hakuba wasn’t there so Shinichi was the only available guy as usual. Ran refuses to hear any more details, both of the haunted house and secretly of the girls chancing onto him during the investigation. Shinichi is puzzled.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“Nah, just swamped with work.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“Want me to assist?”

“No.”

Her replies are curt from the couch of his house, not looking at Shinichi on the other end as she mindlessly cleans up her digital sketches. She hates how snappy she sounds but her brain is too absorbed with conjuring spiteful imaginations to even think of masking her annoyance.

“Ran, hey. Look at me.”

His low voice freezes her from drawing, and she slowly looks up to meet Shinichi’s serious eyes.

When this happens, she knows he’s reading her. She inwardly chants a prayer because now isn’t a good time. Whatever time isn’t a good time. She doesn’t know what to say when she’s aware everything she’s been feeling is irrational and unfair. She’s being selfish.

“You’re… stressed.”

“No, I’m… Eh?”

He scoots closer, an arm’s length away. “Your dark circles are more prominent now, you need a break.” His eyes turn a soft blue. “Let’s have dinner out? My treat.”

Ran is surprised, to say the least. The last time he invited her out was two weeks ago. She’s become so used to seeing him around others that any initiative from him sounds too good to be true.

“But I need to finish this project by tonight.”

“Let’s have food delivery then!” Shinichi announces, not rattled by Ran’s indirect refusal. “I know exactly what you want. Ramen and shaved ice.”

Her eyes thin at the absurdly goofy expression she knows he makes when he’s being mischievous. “Clearly you’re ordering that ramen for yourself. I only like shaved ice.”

“Damn! Miss Detective gets it.” A mile-wide grin stretches across his face, earning an eye roll from the half-smiling woman. “Let’s eat together on your short break, please?”

He leans within a respectful distance and she sees his smile better, pair of kind eyes locking with her overworked ones. “It’s been a while.”

Her heart throbs for him. So much.

She caves - of course she does - and breathes her acquiescence.

After two long weeks, they have dinner together, just them and Shinichi’s ramen and Ran’s donburi and shaved ice, Shinichi taking a spoonful of dessert from the cup when she isn’t looking and Ran snatching a slurp from his take-out bowl and laughing when he catches her.

With how heartfelt his laughter is in her presence devoid of any mysteries, Ran knows she’s probably giving herself too much credit, but for once she wants to believe she is the cause of why Shinichi’s happy.

Just for that night, she gives it to herself.

She’ll change the dark colors of her digital artwork to brighter ones after they eat.

Despite everything, Ran finds it difficult to contain her recurring jealousy.

The more she shares precious time with him, the more it gets harder to suppress the selfish emotions. What is so unsatisfying about being the best friend is that she is only the best friend. No more no less. At the end of the day, she isn’t the one he gets to cuddle with, to tease then kiss, to tell ‘I love you’ to, romantically.

“I love you.”

Ran feels her heart about to leap out of her chest.

“But please. Stop. Tearing. The. Cushions!”

The little furball he has scooped underneath a throw pillow wiggle from his grasp. The kitten and detective engage in a brief staring showdown before it jumps away to hide under a farther couch.

Snapping out of reverie, Ran watches her childhood friend slink dejectedly onto the partly scratched furniture. He’s fortunate enough that his mother isn’t around to give him a long lecture on Why Pets Aren’t Allowed in the House 101. She can always take Yukiko-san’s role and reprimand him for it, but as for this and the cat, she finds herself not wanting to intervene.

“Kaori-san sure is taking her time with her parent’s permission. By the time she does, Momo would’ve shredded all the pillows in this house.”

“You named the cat?” Ran asks, amused.

“She did.” He thinks for a moment, then sniggers. “Actually I did. I suggested a random name. She took it.”

Ran merely hums. What can she say? They’re getting close. Close enough to team up as parents to an adopted kitten.

“I’m surprised you also agreed to keep Momo when you never took in animals before.”

“Kaori said she’ll treat me to the latest Detective Samonji movie this weekend if I do. Can’t resist that.”

“Just you two?”

“Yeah.”

A beat. Then he turns to her.

“Wanna join? I can ask her to count you in since you’re kinda helpi—”

“N-no need,” Ran quips, “It’s—It’s fine.”

“No really,” Shinichi insists, “Kaori-san has a lot of money, she—”

“I’m going to Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum with Shun-san this weekend... so... I can’t.”

“Ah.”

Silence.

“It’s, um, for a project,” she bolsters.

“I know.” The faintest smile graces his lips. “It’s your thing. Both of you.”

“Mm.”

He doesn’t say anything else after that.

“Shinichi, you’re a detective, right?” she blurts out of the blue.

“Yeah...and?”

Then deduce what I feel. Here and now.

“Then you’re going to enjoy that movie!” Ran forces a beam, giving Shinichi a thumb of approval. “And you can discuss it with Kaori-san over dinner. I’m sure you two have a lot to say about it.”

Shinichi’s eyes linger on her, reading her like a book, and Ran has her mind reeling again, afraid to be read.

“Yeah, we do,” he finally says, ending the conversation.

Only a few words are uttered the rest of the afternoon.

Momo resurfaces and curls beside Shinichi.

Momo’s purring is loud, but Ran’s shattering heart is louder.

Ran must not feel jealous. She is not a girlfriend.

Because she isn’t a girlfriend, he’s free to fall for and date anyone else. Who is she to gatekeep him? There are plenty of fish in the sea, and he’s one big catch. Ran believes she’s a big catch, too. With the way she loves dearly, her future boyfriend is going to be very lucky.

Her future boyfriend is not going to be him.

“...mber the required fieldwork in one of my majors I told you? We actually go by batches. The first batch did theirs last month. The second batch was last week… and I— Ran, are you listening?”

“Ah! Yes,” Ran notices they have already reached her station and are now walking two blocks to her apartment. “Your fieldwork, right?”

“...Yeah,” he carries on. “I’m in the last batch... This whole winter break.”

“I see, I understand.” She smiles, getting what he means. No Christmas or New Year’s Eve together. The first time since they’re four. It’s fine, honestly. If it’s a required activity, then there’s really no way to go about it. She isn’t going to lash out just because she can’t be with him in her most favorite time of the year.

“And Hattori-kun and Hakuba-kun will be with you?”

“Hattori did his last month. Hakuba is in the previous batch. I’ll be stuck with the girls.”

Ran’s heart momentarily squeezes. “Where will your fieldwork be?”

“In Akita.”

Her pupils constrict. “That far?”

“Yes... so to cut on expenses, Kaori-san offered her house for me and the others to stay while we’re there—”

Kaori. Again with the tall, beautiful, intelligent Kaori. She bets it’s amazing to spend the holidays doing what he loves and with Kaori beside her, snuggling with him by the fireplace in a romantic snowy night and she might even confess, and it’ll be a great catch for Shinichi, and he’ll return with a girlfriend, and—

“Kaori-san is lucky.” The words flow out of her mouth, unbridled.

Shinichi looks at her. “Lucky?”

Ran remains quiet and keeps walking. It’s dangerous to say anything. She only has one thing in her mind and she doesn’t want to say it out loud. She has no right.

“Ran, hey.”

She doesn’t stop walking.

“Ran.”

She ignores his call.

“Ran… you’re jealous.”

She stops walking.

“Excuse me?”

“...You’re jealous…” Shinichi repeats quietly.

A contrast to his calm tone, his irises beset hers in the cold twilight and Ran attempts to shield herself but her bag and umbrella are in the way. She thinks of turning away but her feet are frigid like icicles, and Shinichi steps closer.

For the third time, he declares, “You’re jealous.”

Hearing her thoughts echo through his words renders her speechless.

It seems to take a moment before Shinichi’s brow arches, lips curl up as his eyes refuse to stray, and she hears a faint exhale even, like he’s exasperated, and suddenly he’s smiling - or is he smirking? sneering? - and...and...

It stings, is her immediate reaction.

For the longest time, she’d wanted him to take a hint. But if she had known this was how he’d react, she’d rather live a life having him oblivious of her emotional struggle. Dealing with that is more tolerable than witnessing him gaze her down in blatant mockery. He sneers as though he’s about to crack a joke and move on and forget such a laughable matter. That’s the last form of acknowledgment she wants for her honest feelings.

Heartbreak and shame and pain build up in her chest like a volcano closing eruption. Water begins to cloud her vision. She clenches her fist tight on her umbrella and Shinichi notices, and he takes another step forward.

“Ran…?”

“I am not, and you’re a fool.”

In a span of a breath, she’s sprinting in the opposite direction, tracing the path where they have walked, ignoring the distant yells of her name behind her. She runs and runs, and as she runs farther, with her thoughts muddy and breath short and dry, she wonders if she may have overreacted.

If he’s done that on purpose, screw him. If not, screw her.

After all, they are merely friends and she has no logical reason to act this way.

“Stop... running... will you!”

She hears heavy footsteps close in. It takes all the energy Ran has to prevent herself from turning her body around but his strong grip overpowers her.

“Let me go!”

“Why are you running?!”

“I can’t...deal with you!”

“Why? Was I right?”

“Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter!”

“Why doesn’t it matter?”

“Because I am your best friend!”

On another occasion, she would’ve successfully jilted away and run farther, but Ran is floored when he yanks her into a one-armed hug, so floored she drops her umbrella to the snowy ground.

“Stop saying that!” he hisses in her ear, frustration apparent.

“What are you— Let me go!”

He hugs her tighter.

“If you don’t let go in three seconds, I will screa—”

“I am happy!”

Ran stops struggling, eyes widening in shock.

Icy huffs tickle her neck as he half shouts, “I’m happy you feel that way!”

“You’re...You’re happy because I’m suffering?”

“What? No! I—”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? How?” The hurt in her tone is impeccable, prattling muffled against his chest as she spares him no moment to butt in. “You think I wanted to feel this? That I enjoy griping in helpless jealousy? And you’re rejoicing that I am? How full of yourself can you be?!”

“That’s not...You don’t underst—”

“I do understand! I understand that I am so incredibly stupid for catching this disgusting heap of emotions for an obnoxious, stuck-up deduction maniac that is my best friend and maybe it’s better after all that he never, ever sees me the way I see him!”

“Stop saying that, Ran!”

She thinks he has broken away, but he drags her back with an insistent tug, crashing his lips onto hers as she stumbles into his arms.

All willpower rippling through her disintegrates quickly like snow in high heat.

An impatient pop resonates as he separates, eyes slowly opening, breath thick and ragged.

“I know that is not how we explain things, but does that explain anything?”

She hears it. The madness. But more than madness, yearning bleeds through his voice so much that her frustration turns into physical pain. Blinded by an all-consuming ache, she tips her chin and presses her lips back against his, demanding for cure in the wrong place. Shinichi freezes, then relaxes. He moves his hand to her nape, four fingers in her hair, thumb treading her jaw.

They look like a scene in a movie.

Under his umbrella and hidden from view, they communicate through brushing lips and tilting heads. His mouth closing over hers with gentle force, her hands splaying across his chest, heavy with something that makes his heart pound under them.

She is so lost in the chase and his tender embrace that for a second she forgets she is kissing her best friend.

Best friend.

This doesn’t explain anything. It worsens it.

She pulls back, ending what she has so recklessly started. “N-no, I’m— No.”

She pushes him away, gathers the stuff she drops, and runs without looking back.

“Ran!”

He shouts her name. Twice.

On the third call, his footfalls die down. On the fourth, he stops running.

She doesn’t.

Thirty minutes before midnight, Ran stands outside his gate, boots buried half foot under the snow as she rings his intercom for the second time, thinking to herself how foolish she must be to cut communications with him for a week and then show up his doorstep looking miserable like a stood-up date.

It’s the start of winter break.

He’ll leave for Akita in ten hours.

She needs to give his Christmas present before his departure.

She’s crazy, pathetic, still frustrated, and hurtfully in love.

“Oi. You better have a good explanation for why you’re buzzing at goddamn midnig—”

“Shinichi.”

His surprised gasp is apparent even through the intercom. A rustle follows and with a croaky voice, he responds. “...Ran.”

Surely he isn’t expecting this. Not after the tantrum she threw days ago. He probably thinks she hates him more than ever. But what she truly feels is more overwhelming than all negative emotions combined, and may god grant her all the strength to address it all, tonight.

“May I come in?”

“The house is—The house is a mess I, um. I’m packing my stuff for...”

“I’ll help you.”

“...”

She’ll understand if he decides to turn her down. But the answer that follows the deafening pause is a low and quiet ‘Okay’.

Despite psyching herself hours before she came, courage wanes when he opens the front door and gate in his pullovers. She is welcomed in, and the trip up his room is wordless. Shinichi only talks when he points out that he’s already packed clothes for two days and will need help for two weeks’ worth. He lamely laughs when he instructs her to pick the tops and layers, and he’ll take care of the pants and underwear.

On a normal instance, she would’ve humored him and they would’ve been talking right after. Now she simply pulls an empty smile and then they fall back into silence.

She supposes he’s trying to act unbothered, to treat what happened a week ago as a one-and-done glitch in their friendship, never to be discussed again. She cannot fault him when she’s trying to do the same. But it’s not easy when in the stillness of the night the echo of their altercation howls, raging persistently in their ears.

What has he been thinking of for the past week?

Has he been kept up all night by the words she said and the words he left unspoken?

Are they still friends? Will they still be friends after this?

The kiss... What about the kiss?

So many questions. So little words. So little time.

Ran is seated on the floor, folding shirts and stuffing them neatly in his duffel bag. Her back faces Shinichi who is sorting out bottoms in his cabinet. She senses him sit on the floor, back against her but not touching. Neither dares to speak first.

A ringing phone cuts the silence.

“Mm, still awake. Good for two weeks right? Gotcha. No, I’ll meet you girls at the station, no need to fetch me. Pfft. I can walk. Ok, see you tomorrow.”

If Ran wasn’t so hyperaware of where she is and what she’s done, her mood would’ve shifted to the one she’d been trying to avoid. Now isn’t the time to think about that. Midnight sneaking out to go to his house is something she wouldn’t do even on good days. She scans her bag on the far couch, deliberately bringing a bigger one to hide his gift. Maybe she can just sneak it in his bag and leave once she’s done and he’ll discover it only when he’s prefectures away. Brown has always suited him, and he’ll definitely find the overcoat useful as spare protective gear.

That’s right. She always cares for him like this. She is his best friend first, and... and nothing second.

“Don’t just leave after putting your present in my bag. At this hour, I can’t let you walk home alone,” he says swiftly.

Ran’s eyes fly wide.

“How did you…”

He doesn’t say anything and continues with his business.

Again with the throat-drying silence.

Something in Ran’s gut compels her to speak, but she is surprised when he does first.

“I... I don’t like Kaori-san. If that’s what you’re thinking.”

Ran stiffens, pausing mid-motion from folding. “I’m not…”

He leans his back completely against her and she shudders, voice reverberating through her skin. “Ran, if you could just hear me out.”

Unable to talk and move, she does.

“Kaori-san and the rest... They know I love mysteries. They know I want to build my own private detective agency. They know my favorite Holmes’ story is The Sign of Four. They know how many crimes I solved in Tokyo. All the information about me which anyone can read from the internet and newspaper and from what I told them when they ask, they know. Ran, you know all that. All that and more.”

He angles his head to the ceiling as if he’s talking to someone there. Ran supports his weight, curling to her knees as she silently listens.

“You know of my first ever deduction because Christ, my first deduction was about you. You know of the two cases which haunt me until this day because I watched the culprit die in front of my very eyes. You were with me the nights I locked myself in here thinking about them. You know of the interesting, the boring, the absurd cases, everything, because I told you or you were there. You know of the odd way I play the violin while I ponder over a case. You know I forget to eat when swamped with new books to read. I have three copies of The Sign of Four but the one I keep beside my bed and read almost weekly is the one you gave me on my tenth birthday and that is all I need. You know me for me, Ran. Everything about me that is off the record, the good and the bad, you know all of those. Only you. The same way I do... about you.”

She feels him crane slightly to the side, addressing her.

“Ran.”

“Mm.”

“I love you.”

Ran’s heart almost completely stops beating.

“I love you,” he whispers, “more than I am even supposed to.”

All words seem to have fizzled out of her vocabulary as she sits still, stunned at what she’s hearing.

“I’m happy growing up with you, studying with you, bickering with you, acting stupid with you, investigating with you, eating with you, napping with you, hugging you, holding you, taking care of you, simply... being with you. Before I know it, it’s not the cases or Holmes or mysteries that complete my days, it’s you.

“For you to keep repeating that ‘best friend’ phrase, I…” He lowers his head.

“For who knows how long, I’ve loved you as that and more.”

Someone pinch her because in no way can this be real.

“I was happy thinking you’re jealous because it meant a sliver of chance you feel the same way. We could’ve remedied the misunderstanding easily, Ran. We could’ve talked it over like we always do. But I was stupid and emotions were high and in the end I… kissed you…” he takes another deep breath, “But—but you kissed me back, and my heart couldn’t stay still...”

Pulse drumming loud, Ran tilts her head on the side where he leans, wanting to see the slightest expression he makes as he continues.

“If my deductions are wrong and you’re mad for a different reason, and—and you returned that for a different reason...” she hears the pang of remorse in his tone, “then please forget I ever said anything and I’ll leave myself to die in humiliation once I’m out of your sight.”

He lays one palm flat on the floor and she notices.

“But if my deductions are right and you were indeed jealous, I...” She feels his head swivel enough to feel his warm breath fan across her cheek, before shifting back front and releasing a slow, guttural exhale he’s kept contained within.

“I’ll wait... until you accept it. Accept me.”

Ran may have choked on her throat for how long she’s held her breath.

In spite of herself, she knows she doesn’t need to think of what to say. She had it all in her head before coming here. Yet expressing it out loud is a different matter.

She isn’t ready, but when will she ever be ready? Shinichi undoubtedly isn’t too. Yet here he is, laying the groundwork for her, no holds barred and a stuttering mess at that. How she plans to build from it is the question she asks herself next.

Inhaling as though bracing herself, she places a hand beside him, pinky slightly grazing his.

“I didn’t... You never showed any signs.”

Careful and calm, he extends his little finger over hers. She doesn’t flinch, and both hands crawl closer until two fingers overlap.

“Either I’m a great pretender or you’re incredibly dense.”

“I’m...I’m not dense.”

“I’m a bad actor, then.” He slides his hand further.

“I was trying so hard to be a supportive best friend for you.”

“I sensed that but ignored it because I didn’t want to assume anything.”

“You did though. Now we’re here.”

“Would you rather we aren’t?”

“I would rather we spend the last weeks of this year talking like normal than being stupid idiots before you leave.”

“It’s just two weeks, Ran.”

“Two special weeks I would’ve wanted to spend with my best frien-... with you.”

Without knowing it, his hand has completely nestled atop hers, four fingers curled between her thumb and index finger.

“Ran... You must really hate the idea of falling in love with me.”

“Eh?”

“You’re so wrapped with the thought that we’re simply best friends that you hold your love in chains as though it isn’t permitted to grow.”

“I… I didn’t want to ruin the only connection we have-”

“Two friends falling in love are still friends… They are also more. You cannot ruin an indefeasible connection. Friendship and love may be the only bond we have, but they’re the most important bond of all.”

Ran falls quiet.

“Geez…”

He releases a thick sigh, brushes his thumb across her splayed fingers.

“I have shit art appreciation skills, but I can take you to museums too... as a friend and as a date.” A beat, and a mumble. “Even to better museums than Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.”

She darts her head sideways, realizing something.

“Were you also…?”

“No.”

Ran doesn’t suppress the heartfelt giggle that bubbles out.

“Shun-san has a boyfriend, Shinichi.”

“I—” he pauses. “I wasn’t asking.” Ran giggles more.

“Shinichi.”

“Yes.”

“I love you too.”

The hand above squishes hers all too suddenly like he’s been blown away and is needing something to hold onto.

“I came here to give your present and to apologize for being so shallow and for acting without thinking and for a lot of things actually... but now I feel there’s no need, because then I wouldn’t have...” She looks down at their intertwined hands.

Before she can return his squeeze, he recoils.

“Oh, y-you do apologize. Running away like that.” He coughs, and she can practically hear the tripping in his tone.

“Aren’t you already used to it? I’ve done it many times,” she chides.

“No. Apologize,” he insists. “And look at me while you do.”

Ran’s stomach twists, heart kicking up a step.

It’s easy to talk without eye contact, but to be requested so after confessions are exchanged—

“Face me, Ran.”

The familiar voice of yearning strums her heartstrings, tone sounding a lot like a plea than an order and Ran finds her head instinctively craning at an angle, hand coiling on the floor trying to calm her nervous beating heart. She feels him shift behind as well.

She takes all her time to face him, partly unsure what to do, partly knowing exactly what she wants to do. Despite the deliberate slowness of their movements, it is when they lock eyes that time truly seems to stop.

Shinichi appears so different, so soulful. His blue irises glimmering, fixated on nothing but her as she reveres him with matching intensity. The same guy she treats as her best friend looks at her with tender love in his eyes, darting down her lips and up like no best friend ever would.

“I love you,” he says, breathless. “Make me your boyfriend.”

A wave of emotion sweeps over her, heartbeat fluttering in overdrive as they huddle on the floor, bags and clothes and time forgotten.

“From best friend to... such a shift-”

“Nothing will be different.” He rests his forehead on hers, gaze of soft blue patient though more intimate now, knowing what they share is mutual. “We’ll still do what we do... With exclusive romantic commitment and sweet nothings that translate to ‘I love you’ in more ways than one.”

She attempts a jab on his chest but he catches her fist, soft but jesting beam all too apparent and she does but play along.

“What about when we fight?” she asks.

“Same. But...” he slides a thumb over her quiet lips, parting them slightly, “I can do this once we make up.”

“...Like right now?”

“Like right now.”

A genuine smile is the last thing she sees before delicate pair of lips lands on hers, capping their one-week fight and their last night of the year together in the best and most unexpected way imaginable.

Ran keeps telling herself she shouldn’t be jealous.

Not because they are simply best friends, because they aren’t. Not because life would be easier if she didn’t involve herself in his business twenty-four seven, because it wouldn’t.

Not because Shinichi doesn’t look at her that way, because he does.

She shouldn’t be jealous because she absolutely has no reason to, is all.

“I haven’t forgotten about your present. I was planning to buy yours in Akita.”

“Stop lying, you totally forgot it.”

“I didn’t. Stop that.” Half-mast eyes rake her side profile, and Ran covers a mirthful grin with her mitted hand holding the umbrella, then yawns. Hours of packing and talking and laughing left them with roughly four hours of sleep. It isn’t like she slept the whole period because while sleeping in his room isn’t new, cuddling while they sleep is. Ran couldn’t simply shut her eyes and heart to that.

“I believe though,” he wraps a hand around her free one, pocketing both of them in his brand new overcoat, “I gave half of my present already.”

“Hnn. That doesn’t count as a gift.” Her hand shifted, coddling his own to a warm fit.

“Really?” A smug smirk pulls up his face. “I believe I am a nice present, Ran. That’s why they—”

“Screw this. You are unbelievable. A humbug. Why do people like you.”

“I know. Why do you like me?” Shinichi laughs as he avoids the swing of her umbrella.

From afar, they see Kaori and the girls at the meet-up point outside Tokyo Station, though they seem unaware of their presence yet. Suddenly feeling conscious, Ran feels the urge to disentangle her hand, but Shinichi holds on, firm.

“Why?” He asks in a low voice.

“I dunno… maybe this isn’t the best time…”

“Isn’t now the best time?” His smile is proud and natural, not one ounce of reluctance visible.

Although she gets what he means, that doesn’t free her of shyness and guilt. Somehow she feels like apologizing to Kaori for… she doesn’t know. She just wants to. Letting her see them like this makes her think that she’s giving her an indirect slap on the face. Shinichi certainly won’t agree because ‘What’s with women and their logic?’, but still, whether or not it’s all in her head, Ran needs more time to prepare for this.

But to her surprise, Shinichi lets go of her hand. They are still a few feet from view when he steps in front of her and turns around. “Maah, fine, I get it,” he huffs, then smiles. “Then, just give me your umbrella.”

The moment she does, Shinichi closes their distance and dips his face onto hers. Ran is given no leeway to gasp as loving lips seal her quiet. It isn’t as long as what they shared a week ago, but the emotions are loaded and full, speaking fond thanks and temporary farewell.

She doesn’t realize she has closed her eyes until he separates, and she’s met with the most tender, most angelic expression he wears only on the rarest occasions. He’s saying without telling that her feelings are valid, she doesn’t have to worry, and he doesn’t have eyes for anyone but her. Somehow, the snow is the sea and fish are swarming around but neither cares because they have already caught each other.

“You don’t have to, silly.” Three layers of pink blanket Ran’s puffy cheeks.

“But I want to.” Grinning, Shinichi hands her back the umbrella. “You don’t like hand-holding. You don’t like being seen. Don’t you think that’s a great compromise?”

“Idiot, many people saw...”

“No, they didn’t!” Upping the duffel bag slung on his shoulder, he steps back and gives her one last goofy beam. “I’ll see you next year, Ran. I’ll call as often as I can.”

Wordlessly, Ran watches Shinichi’s back as he jogs to his waiting companions, who by then have already had their eyes pinned on the approaching figure.

“That is Shinichi-kun! ...And Mouri-san!”

“Ehhh!!?! You’re a thing!”

So much for being subtle, Ran flushes inwardly as she returns the wave the other girls are giving her. At that moment she really does feel immature for her past conduct. All of them are sweet. Even Kaori.

“I knew it Shinichi-kun! Mouri-san is sooo lucky, I’m so jealous!” Ran hears their banter and sees her jab his bicep before acknowledging her. “We’ll take care of him, Mouri-san!”

The Ran from one week ago would’ve had her heart crushed by such declaration, but now she’s nothing but pleased and the smile that forms across her lips is nothing but honest. “Make sure he doesn’t drag your group into a random dead body, Kaori-san!”

“Hey!” surfaces Shinichi’s shout amidst the mincing laughter of the group and the onlooking passers-by, and Ran bids her last wave before they enter the station.

Smiling to herself, Ran returns home, the lingering promise of his kiss committed to memory, knowing that she doesn’t have to get jealous because she has no reason to. Their indefeasible bond is all the assurance she needs.

#shinran #kiss prompts #fanfic #lmk anon(s) if you see this and if you do then yaaay #thank you for requesting!#and thank you for reading!#:')#I have a love-hate relationship with this fic #it's only supposed to be 4 scenes #oh well it is what it is lmao #it's ok ig since this is the last (awww) from the kiss prompts!#😌#I tried so hard with a jealous Ran haha #jealous fics are good reads but writing them is hard :O

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chibivesicle · 3 years ago

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Golden Kamuy - Kikuta really deserved better [part 3] 280-283

I’m still behind on my GK meta. Here is my push to catch up before new chapters drop. Just a note of clarification from my last meta. When I discuss Yuusaku’s eyes being similar to Asirpa’s, I don’t mean that he has blue/green eyes like hers but just that his ‘innocence’ is represented by that but there may also be a difference. If he were not Hanazawa’s biological son, it would make a sweet plot twist and explain why he didn’t inherit the ‘natural abilities’ of the men of that family in the military. This sounds silly, but a major theme of GK is that children do inherit abilities from their parents.

Most of chapter 280 isn’t super useful, we learn that Usami discovered Kikuta’s role as a spy for central and that’s pretty much it. Kikuta seems to think that Sugimoto will be enough to stop Tsurumi which, I dunno, I guess makes some sense considering he’s one of the main characters, but meh.

He does get a badass scene where he tries to look cool and take Tsurumi out with him here . . .

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get to be badass as Tsukishima shoots him in the head. Recall that, he’s wanted a front row seat for the Tsurumi theatre and has rationalized in the past that he’s going to be Tsurumi’s right hand man -

[Sighs]. Oh Tsukishima, I’m more worried about your mental health and well being with these recent chapters. Honestly, the rest of the chapter seems like filler to me. The skins are arranged to reveal a location for the gold, at the fort in Hakodate, Goryokaku. The only other part I found interesting is here. Tsurumi makes his orders known and Koito is off in the corner by himself.

Koito, what are you thinking? How are you feeling? Are you upset by Tsurumi? By Tsukishima declaring he’s Tsurumi’s right and man and not your big brother? Tell me Koito? Are you no longer on board with things but caught up in the momentum of events?

And both groups are now en route to the location and - Kikuta deserved better.

Chapter 281 starts out with group eating squid in Hakodate as they check out the remains of the fort. It is mainly historical context information and how this is where Hijikata should have died. I’m not a Shinsengumi ‘fan’ so this plot point continues to be meh for me.

What is more important is that Boutarou told Shiraishi that the gold came from the Russian Consulate to the fort.

Kimuspu lead them there as the group of men organized by Wilk are in search of the gold at the Russian Consulate. They are able to break through a fake wall to find a cellar below where the gold is supposed to be.

Of course, since this is a manga this perfectly overlaps with other events in the manga - mainly the kidnapping of Koito by ‘Russians’ aka Tsukishima and Ogata. Wilk goes over to investigate and sees Koito Sr. deciding that Koito’s fate is set based on the current actions of the kidnappers.

It is interesting that the previous chapter had a very lonely looking Koito to lead into this flashback that is also related to him. Is this important or just luck in the plot/flashback story line? The men proceed to find the gold - but as Wilk examines it, it becomes clear that it isn’t the gold.

Instead, we are only left with Wilk asking him what is going on? And we have no idea what Wilk is looking or referring to, but it isn’t gold!

The flashback ends and the group is roaming around the fort a night only to bump into the 27th! Poor luck for the group indeed.

Chapter 282 starts off with a fight between the 27th and everyone else. Of course they are doomed from the start since they are up against monsters of a sort. After a few violent deaths, Sugimoto searches one of the men to find a telegram.

Welp, shit. There best effort to beat Tsurumi isn’t going to happen as he figured things out at the same time that they did. Shiraishi has a complete meltdown for several pages. Which I’m personally not a fan of - I’m just tired of him being the lazy comic relief by this point. But if you’ve been reading my meta since 2018, you’d already know how I feel about that.

Hijikata remains calm and tries to think of logical places to search for the gold. Digging directly into the ground would have been too obvious so it is likely in a building.

Frantic, Shiraishi runs into the door of one of the buildings. The group seem to descend into a sort of chaotic panic about finding the gold before Tsurumi gets there and then how to get the gold off the site. It all just seems odd. Like, dude, you guys need to just chill and stop shouting out random suggestions. Of course Sugimoto immediately concludes they will have to fight. Which isn’t a very clever idea from Sugimoto, it is his freakkin’ default state.

Of course Hijikata was planning to fight from the start. That has been his goal since the beginning of the manga! But this time, he’s enlisted the help of Sofia and her fellow Russian partisans. Who are on their way to Hakodate and we get an epic shot of her pouring vodka on her face.

It is a logical call, he needs other people who are experience fighters - someone who can go toe to toe with the 27th.

Chapter 283 then turns to give us a brief flashback into Hijikata’s planning for events. He knows the fort inside and out and takes charge (as he should in this situation). Before they left he met up with Sofia and tells her to bring her men to Hakodate that afternoon.

What is interesting is the conversation that unfolds as they discuss working with Sofia and her group. As a war vet, Sugimoto is the most uncomfortable with this, even if he isn’t quite aware of it, he thinks it is too much of a stretch. What surprises me is that Shiraishi, doesn’t trust her either and he even mentions Kiro, unless he personally thinks Kiro was more trustworthy than Wilk or Sofia?

Hijikata is confident that they will deal with things as they happen, but Asirpa clearly states that they can trust her. This makes sense based on how Sofia was there with Asirpa when Tsurumi interrogated her - she knows Sofia is someone whom she can rely on.

Meanwhile, Sofia is supporting the dream that Wilk and Kiro both shared in their youth and tells her men as such. Going way back to the flashback with the three of them and their interaction with Tsurumi as Hasegawa we know that she is the most caring and compassionate of the three leaders.

She is the type of person who could truly inspire others to work towards a common goal, and we’ve seen this through her actions, including taming that tiger. The idea is still crazy, but hey why not.

On the same train is Ogata, clearly following Sofia. He’s asleep and we get a flashback to him laying on the futon with his mom.

At the end of the chapter, it notes that she is saying some lines from a nursery rhyme associated with a children’s game. I’d go with the interpretation that many things are easy to enter or become involved with but are difficult to escape. How will this impact his role in the fight for the gold? Is he still acting as a sort of solo agent? Is he reflecting on this entire mess? His life choices? Lack of choices?

The rest of the chapter is again a bit meh. Of course Tsurumi has commandeered a train, looks like it is mainly carrying freight and Vasily as well. Vasya, what are you doing again? Why are you still after Ogata? And you are just humming a tune while you lounge on a horse in the freight part of the train. Okay . . . as I’m behind on this meta, others have already pointed out that Vasily is likely a Cossack, all comfortable on his horse. Which I feel like is a somewhat lazy ‘Russian stereotype’ since many different Slavic groups existed in the Russian empire at this point in history.

The end of the chapter does finally answer a question I asked in meta a very long time ago now here: https://chibivesicle.tumblr.com/post/178997911192/does-hijikata-have-a-useful-tattoo I remember asking if Hijikata had a useful tattoo b/c we never saw it in the manga - until this chapter. The answer? Yes. He fucking does have a useful tattoo. And he is a buff man despite his age and imprisonment!

All in all what to I think of these chapters? They are moving all of the groups together for some sort of confrontation. How does this all pan out? We shall see. Koito is def wavering in his support of Tsurumi. Ogata is in the mix, likely with the Russians. What is Vasily doing? How many men does Tsurumi have? What will Hijikata do based on his past battle at Hakodate? Will Asirpa be safe? Will Sugimoto finally get captured by Tsurumi and Ogata will have to rescue him? I’ve been waiting for that to happen for years now by this point!

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #sugimoto saichi #ogata hyakunosuke #asirpa #Shiraishi Yoshitake #hijikata toshizo #tsurumi tokushirou #warrant officer kikuta #tsukishima hajime #koito otonoshin #sofia #wilk #kiroranke #yulbars

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mybg3notebook · 3 years ago

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Gale: Manipulation, Lies, and Trust

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

Additional disclaimers about meta-knowledge and interpretations in this (post) while disclaimers about Context in this (one).

Before anything I strongly suggest reading this post about "Context, persuasion, and manipulation" to understand in a simplified way the meaning of the words we use, so despite not being related to bg3, it's related to communication and social issues. Since fandom loves to misuse them, I think it requires a proper explanation so we all know in which frame we are analysing these scenes.

Due to the fact that this post ended up turning into a much longer one than I wanted to, I split it into four posts, each of them showing how many sides Gale has in those scenes, how much his actions are "manipulative", how many details related to lore he shares, and possible interpretations of his behaviour, since it's rather easy to lose his scenes because they have the lowest priority. In this post I will only make a summary and a compilation of the broad details explained in those posts, so pick what you want to read since all these posts may have overlap of information and repetitive concepts (they were written to be self-contained as much as possible).

'Stew'Scene

"Loss Scene"

"Party Scene" (with Revelation scene)

"Extra Scenes": Death Protocol and Comments on Dreams

I'm analysing these scenes in detail because I noticed that many players incorrectly paraphrase Gale's words, putting in his mouth words he never said, so for the sake of transparency, I transcribed many fragments of his dialogues, making these posts more lengthy than they should be.

The stew scene

The details are shown in the post of the "'Stew'Scene". In this scene, Gale shares a friendly introduction with the stew and with a list of good deeds done by Tav. This shows that he has begun to trust Tav so he can talk about this issue earlier than he wanted to (he will wait much longer in the neutral version). As a gesture of honesty, Gale sets an explicit boundary by telling Tav to refrain their curiosity and do not ask about the 'why' of the issue he is about to talk about (under no circumstance he is forcing Tav to agree with the delivery of artefacts before telling them 'what' he needs). He acknowledges that it may be unfair not to give the whole context, but he still can't speak in detail about this very personal issue. As an interesting detail, his trust in Tav at this moment of the conversation is so honest that he has not shielded his mind, so Tav can intrude with the tadpole without Gale knowing it—if Tav succeeds— . If Gale doesn't trust Tav even successful intrusions of the tadpole can be perceived by Gale's trained and cautious mind. For more detail read the post of "The Tadpole".

I personally interpret the stew scene as one of those moments in which one is developing a friendship with a stranger, and at some point, someone has to trust first. It's a rare occasion in which the act of trust is shared in equal measure by both members in a new relationship. Usually, one of them offers a bigger portion of trust, testing the other, seeing if it was not misplaced or if it will be honoured later. It's a normal asymmetry, and in this case, Gale is only explicitly asking for that asymmetry in his favour.

Considering how Gale opens up later, Tav passed the test in his eyes. Helping him during his direst moment and accepting that temporal trust asymmetry made Tav “earn the respect of years” despite being a stranger he met a couple of days or weeks ago. But Gale will not be blind to that gesture. He will progressively honour that trust in the Weave, the Loss, and the Revelation scenes. And by the end of EA, if it is not bugged as usual, Gale's approval status can change to “best friend” (an information given as meta-knowledge, therefore very unlikely to be "a trap set by Gale". For more details read the post about "meta-knowledge").

It's pretty common for manipulative characters (whose trait of manipulation belongs to their personality, not characters who may have circumstantial manipulative actions) to expose their pain too soon with strangers as a tool to force empathy on the listener and "catch" them. Gale does exactly the opposite: he won't open up until having a solid ground where to place his trust. Nobody wants to share their pain in unsafe places, after all.

Helping him with artefacts is deeply appreciated by him and a great boost of his approval for obvious reasons: people tend to place their trust on persons who helped them in their most desperate situations or in their survival. It has to do with the unique connection that often happens between survivors of extreme situations (war-like) who helped each other in surviving. The shared link is deep. One could expect this link to be built with any of Tav's companions since the Tadpole experience is traumatising and extreme. I think this has higher chances of happening with neutral and good aligned companions, since evil ones may have little scruples to not honour the trust received.

Gale could have avoided Tav's questions and mistrust for this secrecy by just lying. However, Gale opts for an explicit enunciation of his limits and boundaries. And Tav is completely free to agree or not since Gale won't abandon the party if not. We know that, in that case, he will try to find another solution that he may find in Raphael's deal. Some players consider this situation of mutual agreement in the terms and conditions that the conversation will happen as a coercive one. What I see is diplomacy and negotiation rather than manipulation.

Gale's need for secrecy is related to two factors:

Survival: He needs to be sure that Tav won't kill him out of fear (which we saw during the scene with Nettie; it's a common procedure in Faerûn: exterminate what's dangerous). Gale's case is even worse because killing him will only activate the devastation he is desperate to avoid: Gale wants to survive but also wants to avoid the massacre that the “orb” can cause.

Personal reasons: Which is the main reason at this point: Gale is unable to speak about the "why" of this condition because it's originated in Mystra's abandonment and the horror of the “orb”: such traumatising experience that turns the Tadpole experience into an inconvenience (this is why his attitude with the tadpole is more relaxed too, he has already passed through a much worse, terrifying situation).

The Loss scene reinforces this concept when we see Gale—usually so verbose and impossible to shut up— can't speak or find the words to say what he lost and why. And only by the end of the scene, if Tav insisted with many checks, he managed to say something. It's worth noting that these checks tend to be strangely low for a character who is struggling with a personal secret. This is usually understood in DM-code as Gale wanting to share this info (setting a lower DC than the average). Gale is not finding the way to do it, and a Tav gently pushing him will do the trick.

It is for this reason I personally think that Gale's secretive attitude is more like a series of obvious clues he purposely leaves in his conversations for Tav to draw their own conclusions before he could finally open up. If all Gale's scenes are triggered (which at this moment is very hard to do with his priority being always the lowest) and Tav pushes him to speak more than he is willing to, the player obtains a decent amount of information to conclude that Mystra and Gale had a deeper relationship, and that the “orb” is something dangerous not only for Gale. To be honest, the death protocol is a gigantic red flag pointing out that Gale's primary condition is not to be taken lightly and “many innocents” can die because of it.

With a neutral or lower approval, Gale will not ask Tav to trust in him. He doesn't trust Tav either, and there is no promise to speak and disclose his condition later. Gale clearly is more mindful and caring with a medium or higher approval Tav who he is starting to see as a good companion/friend, while with a neutral or lower approval Tav he cares little about keeping the contact beyond what diplomacy demands.

It's not by chance that this Stew scene is meant to happen before the Weave scene. From a narrative, contextual point of view, the trust that Tav gave Gale during the Stew scene is afterwards paid with the Weave and the Loss scene. Let's remember that Gale would only ask for that trust if Tav is of medium or higher approval, so the Weave scene comes naturally (when not bugged). The neutral and low approval Tav is never asked for that trust and therefore the Weave scene never happens (if their approval keeps going down). In fact, Gale can leave permanently without any chance of convincing him to stay if he reaches very low approval. What I mean is that, from a narrative point of view, the Weave and the Loss scenes are Gale's way to return that trust that Tav gave him first during the stew scene and the first artefact consumption.

The Weave was not a premeditated scene. It happened by surprise, triggered by Gale's deep loneliness: Tav startled him when he was longing for Mystra while seeing her image in his incantation. He shares in that moment how important and vital magic is in his life, and only then, the previous actions done by Tav encourage him to share this experience. It's important to highlight that this is too personal for Gale, too important, and a bit painful too, since we know later (second dream) that every time he connects with the Weave, he meets with Mystra's disappointment: "What magic I can still weave is met only with undercurrents of disappointing silence."

After a moment of rambling, Gale invites Tav to share this experience. Here is where all the branches about explicitly displaying Tav's romantic interests can be developed; a neutral option for a friendship path, or very aggressive and violent reactions can be picked as well. More details about this scene can be read in the post of "Gale Hypotheses- Part 2", section: "Proposition to Cheat". And again, for a char so guarded of his own privacy and personal issues, sharing the Weave can be clearly seen as the repayment of the trust that Gale received from Tav during the stew scene.

The Loss scene

The Loss is a scene that starts with a mystery about Gale's incapacity to cast a spell. He keeps pushing Tav away, claiming that night to be of personal regrets. Tav knows already that something is dangerous in Gale's consumption of artefacts that can cause a catastrophe, so in this scene some links can be made between the two conditions.

If Tav gently pushes Gale to speak, we will notice that most DCs are rather low, meaning that Gale is not putting a strong resistance for the pushing: a friendly Tav pushing him can be interpreted as Gale wanting extra help to open up and speak (in the end he approves the caring despite his reserved persona). Gale gives many hints in this scene that suggest he was a Chosen of Mystra. The most relevant one is the Silver Fire reference. For more details about the Chosen's powers read the post about "Mystra and her Chosen ones".

We also see a reinforcement of Gale's pattern behaviour: He prefers to speak in this poetic way when he has to talk about painful topics (we see it after killing the druids that triggers “the barren oak” scene or during the goblin party scene). Talking in third person puts distance, but also the embellishment of his narration makes it easier for him to speak, after all he is a poet/storyteller as well.

What's clear is that the verbose companion, who always has a lot to talk about, is basically speechless in this scene, stuck in his "loss" (literally, metaphorically, and psychologically speaking). Part of this behaviour can be understood a bit more in the post about "Gale Hypotheses- Part 1", section: "Grooming". Besides being a private person, Gale also has a perspective that talking about things that can't be changed is useless. He is so stuck in the loss, that talking about it means nothing to him, "the outcome" is always the same.

After pushing Gale to share his burden, the presence of Mystra in Gale's life is undeniable for Tav. Gale sounds like a strong devotee that somehow lost Mystra. We know in this short description that he “did something” to impress his Goddess and earn her favour back, and in doing it, he failed, invoking death upon him. If Tav is sharp enough, knowing that Gale's consumption of artefacts is related to a “catastrophe” and a certain death of himself... maybe they can start connecting some dots and suspect that Gale's primary condition may be related to the loss of Mystra. My point is, even Tav has been informed quite a lot about Gale's “truth”. As we can see, the “Revelation” scene should not be such a shocking “revelation” as it was written, but more a “detailed description” of the situation.

The context seems clear so far: Gale knows he hides the details of his condition (which are not so hidden anymore), and knows that it's information that can cause a second abandonment (whether as a friend or a lover). Gale is at this point in his life very tired and lonely of struggling with the “orb” inside him too. He could use some emotional support, and this is why I believe he has less tough DCs that one should expect from a character who is actively holding information he doesn't want to share. We need to remember that Gale lives in a permanent anxiety mind-state, too focused on Artefacts and the disaster he can cause, increased with the dreadful, hungry feelings that the “orb” inspires with each passing day. He is getting fond of Tav at this point, and their abandonment would mean too much, even though he knows that he may deserve it.

We know that Mystra abandoned him, but did not ban him from using the Weave. I personally speculate that maybe Gale's point of view of the situation of the “orb” and the following abandonment of Mystra is partial: Mystra may have abandoned him not on purpose but as a consequence of having that Weave-sucking power in his chest. As it was explained in the post of "Mystra and her Chosen ones", Chosen ones have a deeper connection with her, and they are able to use raw magic in the form of Silver Fire. This means that Chosen are part of Mystra herself (in Dead Masks, it's stated that Mystra leaves a bit of her own divinity in each of her Chosen), so Chosen ones are also part of the Weave, always connected to Mystra who is the Weave. If the “orb” inside Gale consumes Weave, and we all know that Weave IS Mystra, it's not too far to conclude that Mystra may have abandoned him as a safety measure since, if Gale remained as Chosen, his contact with her would be deeper and would expose her to the “orb”, destroying her eventually. But this, again, it's a mere personal speculation.

The party scene

Gale has finally reached a degree of trust in Tav that gives him enough courage to finally speak about the details of the "orb" (and I emphasise details because in broad aspects, he already shared what's most important: the “orb” in his chest is a dangerous thing. If Tav assisted in his death protocol, this is undeniable by now, unless Tav did not pushed him and respected his privacy).

If he is romanced, he promises much more: confessions in the art of conversation, pleasures in the art of the body, and, hopefully, acceptance. For Gale, acceptance is a big deal: I personally believe he shows a fair level of naivety on this matter. It seems (especially later, with his arguments in the morning) he thought he needed this level of intimacy to reach acceptance first (a process that this book guarantees to happen), so he could speak openly. He wants to have this night before any confession because he wants to acquire acceptance which, in his mind, would prevent the abandonment he viscerally fears.

Gale is so eager to spend the night with Tav first and confess later that the only way of not doing it is not romancing him at all or telling him that Tav is not in the mood. It's not clear in EA if this ends the romance; I think it doesn't since the disapproval is not big (there is no change in the approval status).

Gale wants to be with Tav intimately so badly that he doesn't mind Tav having casual sex with other companions first as long as the "commitment" part would be established with him. This is reinforced by the fact that, if Tav never shared the Weave with Gale, there is no way to sleep with him: Gale is not a character for one-stand nights. He craves for deep connection, for commitment, in whatever fashion he can get it. Mystra taught him not to ask about exclusivity after all, and because of the ephemeral nature of his relationship with her, he craves for something meaningful and more committed.

Mystra was his first love. After her abandonment, he made the mistake of the “orb” that dragged all his energy into studying Netherese magic and possible solutions. I consider it fair to think that maybe Gale never had a relationship beyond the Goddess, and all what he learnt about romantic relationships was through books like the one he mentions or, as a poet, through novels or romantic poetry. He must have an idealisation of love (also proper of a poet) that made him believe that through sex “intimacy” there is a guarantee of acceptance.

His pattern, in my opinion, says that he tends to make mistakes in his emotional state, which is mostly triggered by the “orb” and the potential of “abandonment”. Not so much with Mystra herself. He seems to be nostalgic, but more aware of what loving a God causes (his regret is explicit during the conversation about Karsus). He seems to be quite done with "her romantic love", but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to be forgiven nor he doesn't love her as the essence of Magic itself. More details in the post of "Mystra and her Chosen ones".

Some players see the “Revelation” scene as manipulative. Although that's personal interpretation, if we analyse the kind of information withheld by Gale we found little new: the dangerous nature of the “orb” had been indirectly disclosed in all the previous scenes. Tav being surprised about the “orb” seems strange. And Gale sleeping with Mystra has little relevance: in a game for adults, why are past partners such a big deal? The scene is so confusingly written to make it sound as if Gale is still in love with Mystra, but previous scenes showed he has been working on getting over it. Despite loving Mystra as the embodiment of Magic herself, Gale showed to be very aware that all that love belonged to the past (second dream), to a younger self, and even though he is not certain if he loves her still, he is clear that nothing good comes from relationships between mortals and gods (comments on Karsus). He is very explicit about desiring her forgiveness (second dream). So, there is little withholding information at this point for a Tav who pushed him to speak. Now, Gale's attitude certainly has been tactless. Not the best decision to disclose a past lover with such a degree of fascination just after sharing a night with Tav. But it's understandable since in order to “disclose” the “orb”, Gale needed to provide the context of his young love for the Goddess.

The whole scene of the Revelation seems very, very unpolished, mixing tones and confusing information that was given before and presenting it as if it were a revelation when it's not the case. It jumps from one drama concept to another, and never sticks to one, and Tav's options tend to be extreme: or the player calls this disclosure a “great betrayal”, or makes it seem as if nothing has happened, giving little options of what Tav already knows, or if they want to show a moderate annoyance since most of the information has been disclosed already, but still Gale's timing is annoying. Part of this can also be written on purpose to show what a disaster Gale is when it comes to the potential of “another abandonment” in his life. Hard to tell in EA.

Tav's romantic options react as if Gale confessed to have cheated on them, while what he explains has a different degree of conflict: he confesses he is not sure he still loves Mystra, but his lines in previous scenes show he wants to get over it, without losing his magic/relationship with Mystra, because magic is too important in Gale's life. At times, Tav's options are meant for them to react with jealousy, other times as if this were a big betrayal, or as if Gale's romantic past should have been disclosed before the night, and in the last part of the scene, Larian remembered that the “orb” could be considered a conflict too, so Tav has some occasional options to react to the “orb” as if it were a big revelation (when it's not, because we had 3 scenes, four if we include the death protocol, stating its dangerous nature). So, I personally understand why every person has a completely radical interpretation of the situation: it has been written in a rush, and I see it as very inconsistent in tone and context. This all makes sense when one remembers Kevin VanOrd stream where he explained that Gale was meant to be in the second wave of companions, and not in EA. Gale's writing was rushed and it shows in the last of his scenes and his meeting scene.

Some people may argue that talking about a previous lover right after sharing the first night is, at the least, a very bad taste. However, the player (not Tav) can understand the reason behind it: Gale started the story in order to explain in detail the "why" that has been left up in the air since the stew scene. That "why" can only be explained if Gale discloses Mystra's relationship as the origin of his mistake. So... on one hand, this disclosure right after the shared night is unfortunate for Tav (especially by picking the long version of the explanation in which Gale shares too much unnecessary detail). On the other hand, if he omits this relationship, it's harder to explain the context of why he got the “orb” in his chest.

In general I think this scene has been handled poorly. The whole “conflict” portrayed here implies two aspects: He slept with Mystra, and he has an explosive “orb” in his chest. Neither of them are truly big arguments for the drama degree that this scene seemed to have been written because we already know, to a certain degree, about them.

The “orb” is not truly “such a revelation” at this point. The stew scene alone gave Tav and the player a clear idea that something in Gale could cause a catastrophe without consuming artefacts. After the death protocol that certainty is clearer. So, these “revelations” are more like “extra details” of problems we already know about. Which is what he exactly says when introducing this scene: “Those are but the broad strokes. The time has come to paint you the true picture”.

Having past lovers seems also a strange concept for a “betrayal”. Adults carry pasts. It's true that maybe speaking of a past lover in the same moment he awoke with a recent one is in a pretty bad taste; it's a bit more understandable when you finish the scene: the origin of the “orb” problem was Gale's love for Mystra, so it makes sense to start from her. However, I see the conflict of the conversation switching constantly in three directions: the fact that Gale had a lover that didn’t talk about the previous day, that “Gale is still in love with Mystra”, and that he has an “orb” that Tav “never” knew about it. A very inconsistent conversation.

It's true that Mystra is not a standard lover—she is a goddess—but she is quite known to have these affairs (at least for the player), especially during her past when her direct contact with any human was not banned. It should be more surprising that Mystra seemed to have broken that ban for Gale's case (since she only kept in direct contact with her chosen ones: Ao's decree). And it's also clear the scene tries to show that Gale is still “in love” with her, which is very confusing with what he spoke during the Loss and mainly, during the second dream. Again, I personally feel the scenes of the party and the romance are a mess from a cohesive narrative point of view, and they are the result, alongside Gale's first meeting, of his rushed introduction into EA.

This post was written in June 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

#bg3 meta #bg3 gale #gale #gale of waterdeep #bg3

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trials-by-blood · 4 years ago

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Male with Gender Neutral S/O. S/O is protective over their Yautja. One day, on the mothership, a female gets interested in the male. S/O firmly shows the male is theirs. Male is very impressed by their antics. (If possible, make it naughty ish. Like pulling on Yautja tresses. I apologize if that makes you uncomfortable. I don’t know what you’re rules are.)

Okay so, It’s done! Like another prompt, I decided I should consciously try to be concise and cap it off before going over 2500 words or else it could go on and on. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be naughty because I’ve made the decision to keep this blog at a PG-13 rating. I wound up RBing my original post (The one announcing open asks) with a loose outline of my rules after receiving this very ask. Yeah, I kinda had that “Uh-oh, I forgot the most important step” moment.

This one sort of ran in a few unexpected and at times turbulent directions. I hope you enjoy this reply although it veered a little off course.

-Ghardeh-

The ooman was always a pain. Ghardeh called them H’ko. It was literally the word for no. Why did Ghardeh call the ooman this? Because it was the first word in Ghardeh’s language that they had learned and one they loved to use. No, no, no. “No” to proper clothing in the current yaut fashions, “No” to any food item they found suspicious, “No” to bathwater heated too hot, “No” to sleeping in the kehrite as unblooded should, “No” to observing Ghardeh’s hunts via a live stream transmitted from the eye lenses of his helm because they did not like the idea of possibly witnessing their companion’s death in real-time. A definite “NO” to learning to hunt as well. They didn’t have any interest in hunting to prove themselves.

H’ko, H’ko, H’ko. Ghardeh had heard the word in that terrible accent so many times he’d begun mockingly repeating it back to the ooman out of frustration, eventually, it became their pet-name, and later it became a term of endearment. Ghardeh had long given up on the notion that H’ko would ever become a warrior, but that was fine, the ooman was proficient in mechanics and electrical work and it was a respectable profession for an ooman.

Bound for the Clan ship, Ghardeh did not worry much about the ooman’s safety. His clan worked with oomans regularly and in H’ko’s case, as they weren’t a warrior and wore typical ooman dressings, the people would regard them with the same scrutiny as the unblooded: well beneath the gaze of warriors. And yautja women? Well, they ignored their male counterparts ninety percent of the time too, doubtful they’d even register H’ko’s presence at all. Other yautja should simply pretend H’ko didn’t exist as they tagged along safe and sound under Ghardeh’s left arm, and if anyone spared them a second glance it would likely be assumed that H’ko’s role was that of a hired repairer and no more.

Ghardeh had prepped H’ko very sternly and more than once for this visit. Speak to no one above their rank. Do not make prolonged eye contact as it is seen as a challenge. The breeding season is near so if a female propositions, allow Ghardeh to decline and do not intercede. That last instruction was very important.

Ghardeh had known that humans were often monogamous, and when asked H’ko confirmed that they would prefer not to share Ghardeh’s romantic attention with others. This was one of the many compromises in their unusual partnership. Ghardeh would sleep and engage in sex acts with H’ko and only H’ko, but they had agreed to allow Ghardeh to donate reproductive material non-sexually to females if it was asked of him. Ghardeh had to explain to the ooman: if you are a strong warrior and a fine hunter, it is your duty to contribute your traits to the next generation. They had accepted that aspect of yautja culture begrudgingly, taking a long time to think through and voice all concerns about it just as Ghardeh had done as well when it became apparent that his ooman companion did not enjoy the notion of their mate being dragged to a stranger’s bed chambers if a proposition was accepted. The ordeal of Yaut mating practices also seemed to upset them. A female will usually test a warrior to be absolutely certain that she’d chosen a sire well. This often involves dangerous feats or enduring a physical altercation. H’ko had been unhappy with the very common occurrence of males limping their way home after a failed encounter with a choosy woman.

Ghardeh was merely reviewing all of this information in his head whilst he lied on his back and massaged at the stress crease in his forehead with his knuckles. Tucked against his left side and in the crook of his arm was H’ko, snoring and blissfully unaware of Ghardeh’s anxiety. H’ko would be relatively safe for sure, but something always went wrong when he tried to bring them aboard the Clan Ship. Last time, H’ko accidentally got dragged off with another group of oomans after being mistaken for a member of an ambassadorial tour group. None of the actual ambassadors had the gall to inform their extraordinarily intimidating guide that H’ko was just some random person who was grabbed, scolded for wandering off -which they had, but not from that group-, and herded along with the rest of the soft little aliens. Ghardeh was tempted to tether H’ko to his own body this time, so they couldn’t move more than ten feet from him.

Ghardeh sat up and scrubbed a knuckle against his closed eyes as he prepared to leave the bed, then let a hand fall on H’ko’s shoulder to gently shake them awake. It was time to dress, eat, and prepare.

Docking went smoothly, and disembarking was uneventful as well. They were greeted by Chulonte, a friend and hunt brother who knew H’ko well and even dipped his head slightly to acknowledge their presence.

“The meeting place has been reserved, we should go now, the others have already gathered,” Chulonte told them briskly before turning away and leading them on.

Ghardeh leaned toward H’ko and dropped a hand on their shoulder. “We’ll acquire a midday meal after the meeting, just the two of us.”

Ghardeh was pleased when H’ko gave him an earnest closed-mouth grin. H’ko liked when they ate alone yet in public. Called them “dates”.

-Taylor-

Ghardeh was in the meeting with his equals, a loose coalition of hunters each with their own private hunting vessels who always coordinated with one another so that their time hunting on various worlds did not overlap. Apparently, there were laws in place to prevent over-hunting on some planets and to avoid over-exposure on others. Taylor was told to wait outside with Chulonte’s hounds. They were big ugly scaly beasts. One had a face like a cross between an English Bulldog and a cod, the other was nothing but a fangy maw of teeth and horny protuberances growing from its back but they were rather friendly, at least toward Taylor. Taylor wasn’t completely fluent in the Yautja dialects but it had seemed that, as a favor to Ghardeh, Chulonte had given his hunting hounds a command to guard the tiny human among them. The animals hovered close to where the human sat and would stand from their seated positions if any passerby veered too close. Taylor chanced a hand at petting them, Bulldog Face kept dropping his enormous head into the human’s lap for more attention, Spikey Back wasn’t into it and lied down just out of reach.

A group of women began to form nearby, but not too close, as Spikey Back had stood and shown the lot of them his teeth when they tried to form a cluster too near to where Taylor sat waiting for Ghardeh. Taylor could hear this and that which was said among the women. Some of the discussion was pretty damn raunchy. They were here to find action and had planned to greet the hunters when they conclude their meeting and disperse. They said things about what they wanted to do to the hunters they had chosen, sometimes what tests of strength and resilience they were expected to endure, but more often the discussions leaned heavily into overtly explicit themes. The woman who wanted Chulonte wanted to see if he could track by scent as accurately as his hounds could and if he succeeded in this test she would, and Taylor could only partially decipher the phrase, “??? him so ??? that his spine comes undone from his pelvis”. It made Taylor’s skin crawl, especially when all of the women laughed approvingly at what the other had said. Taylor hoped it was a lesser evil in being just a filthy joke but given how tall and strong they appeared, and how dangerous Ghardeh had told Talyor they were, they wondered if they really could injure their partners in such a way. It certainly seemed possible.

Taylor felt tension building in their chest. They heard them name off nearly all the hunters they’d seen enter the meeting room and every brutal ordeal they wished to subject them to, and it was only a matter of time before Taylor heard Ghardeh’s name. It happened, and when it did, the human’s pet name was mentioned as well.

“Ghardeh is a difficult one to persuade, too difficult to bother with up until now. He now has rank advancements, clearly enough to afford him a live trophy. That’s worth some regard, but how to get rid of H’ko long enough to have adequate time with the man?”

“Seems like Chulonte’s dogs make fine enough guardians for it. Let us coordinate our liaisons then-”

Taylor couldn’t keep their mouth shut. They’d been infuriated by three ugly words. Live Trophy and, It.

“I am NOT a Live Trophy! And Ghardeh is NOT available for your abuse!” They shouted, causing both of the hounds to jerk to attention and search for a threat to their charge.

-Ghardeh-

Ghardeh had correctly predicted that the meeting would go very much as it had in all of the previous seasons, a few smooth agreements, a few disputes, a fight or two, and then they’d leave and continue about their personal business. He left that meeting room with lunch on his mind and the expectation that H’ko would be clamoring for a meal as well, he had not anticipated being met with the sight of them dangling from the grip of Dar-bak’di, the most fearsome of the local young women who roved in a pack during the breeding season. H’ko was kicking and gasping for air as they flailed in her grip, Chul’s hounds were being bribed into complicity by the other women offering them whatever morsels they had in their bags, and Dar-bak’di was making a show of how easily she could destroy a mere ooman. Now it was Ghardeh shouting H’ko! H’ko!

It took a great deal of convincing to get Dar-bak’di to release H’ko, and the limit of her mercy was to drop the gasping ooman on top of Ghardeh and call them both abominable, in addition to accusing Ghardeh of something akin to bestiality. Dar’bak-di had smelt Ghardeh’s amorous n'dui'se all over his ooman companion and she refused to believe it when she was told that H’ko was a legally hired mechanic. To perform mating practices with species classified as prey was frowned upon, but not against any written law. The truth of the matter was, H’ko was unbelievably lucky to survive the encounter and had, hopefully, learned something from it.

The ooman did not argue or make a fuss on the way home, and whether they liked it or not they were carried. The bruising around their neck was already blooming into hot red blotches. Ghardeh said nothing of it but make no mistake, he was furious. He’d told H’ko in no ambiguous words not to engage in conversation much less an altercation with yautja women! And what did they do, start a fight they could never under any circumstances survive on their own.

Upon his Vessel, Ghardeh placed H’ko in bed and with the intention of letting them sleep the ordeal off. After leaving the room, he went to the galley to serve himself a drink before grabbing the kit to treat severe bruising, but heard the soft soles of H’ko’s feet padding behind him.

“Go back to the bed and rest,” Ghardeh told the ooman flatly without turning to look at them as he poured a glass of c’ntlip.

“They were saying terrible things,”

Ghardeh sighed and set aside the decanter before taking the first sip and responding.

“They’re lonely and horny, of course they were speaking in lewdisms. I warned you that they would speak this way about whatever they set their longing eyes upon.”

“But it was about you and-”

“I don’t care what was said about me! You disobeyed the most important instruction I have ever given you! You could have been rent to pieces! You directly challenged an individual no less than twice your height and perhaps four times your weight! Worse still, she was legally in the right to throw you through a wall if she wanted to!”

“She called me a Live Trophy!” H’ko shouted through a snarl.

The tone immediately triggered Ghardeh’s expression to twist and eyes to darken as he postured for a fight -albiet only a verbal one- but the words gave him a reason to pause as he processed what was said. Live Trophy, it was nothing else but a slur, and H’ko’s anger was justified. H’ko tended to show a fear response with tears and soft whines when they were angered, though, which Ghardeh was always bewildered by. A show of anger more familiar to Ghardeh had come first this time, perhaps because his own mannerisms had begun to rub off on the ooman, so a second pause was taken to scrutinize H’ko’s face. Ah, the grimace and tears were building behind the facade. Ghardeh deflated.

“She called you a Live Trophy?” he asked, softly this time as not to elevate H’ko’s anger further.

It was too late to abate the ooman’s upset. Fat droplets ran down their rounded face and they stopped making their oh-so-important eye contact as they nodded to confirm that, yes, they’d been called a live trophy.

Ghardeh moved in to close the distance between them in two strides before dropping both hands on his ooman mate’s shoulders with a great sigh.

“We will treat the bruising on your neck, then we will prepare a meal on our ship, then we should talk about what happened.”

H’ko did that typical human thing by saying nothing and gripping the yautja around the waist in an embrace. Ghardeh tried the rumble affectionately, but frankly, he was now furious beyond belief for all new reasons. Live Trophy. Had he known such a term had been thrown at his companion, he’d have been inclined to challenge her too.

“You were brave Tay-Lar, for defending your honor.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Ghardeh said with a genuine growl of approval this time, stroking the back of his companion’s round head.

#yautja #predator #asks #violence #human/yautja

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foxglovethings · 4 years ago

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Poly Ships

Being asked whether or not I prefer poly or monogamous ships in RP got me thinking about something that comes up a lot, not just between me and people I RP with, but people across the board in RP communities. Whether we personally involve ourselves in it or just see friends and other players within the community participating in it, poly ships can really stick out and I kind of just want to put down my thoughts for people who might not be familiar with it, or are unsure about what that means, or are considering trying it for themselves or... you know whatever. I’m just writing this out of my ass, so forgive me for being super informal. :)

Under a cut because it’s long.

Open vs. Poly Arguably the #1 most important element of this kind of RP. There’s a ton of overlap with open relationships and poly ones, with almost all open relationships being poly, but not all poly relationships being open. If you or your RP partner want your characters to sleep around and/or have casual sexual or intimate encounters with others, that’s an open relationship. Polyamory also extends to developing those romantic attachments, and can be more time consuming and emotionally laborious (in a good way, IMO).

It’s important to discuss with your partner exactly what you two are looking for and how your characters would react to that. And if you choose to only have casual encounters and later decide you also want to have a second romantic ship with someone, you need to discuss that with your partner even though they already agreed to the first part.

While many of us do not have the same attachments to our characters and their relationships as we do our real life ones (not assuming... you do you), they can still be very personal and important to us, and being jumped with something as big as extra romance can be hurtful or irritating or just... like rude. Don’t do that to your partner. And if you suspect your partner has started changing the rules of the characters’ relationship without asking you, you can always just be like “Hey, are you still interested in the boundaries we set or were you looking to change them?”

A good RP partner won’t react negatively to that sort of questioning. If they do, well. Um. Hmmmm.

Kinds of Poly Relationships “I know it’s just RP and I don’t mind my partner adding a second character to their relationship, but I personally don’t want to.” You know what girl, that is totally fine. Not every poly relationship is three poly people all dating each other. Not every poly relationship is two poly people and a third poly person dating one of them, even.

There are a bunch of terms you might hear regarding these kinds of relationships, but the most common are “V”, “Hinge”, “Satellite”, and “Unicorn”. Both V and Hinge refer to a single person with two partners. The two partners probably aren’t dating one another, but are both comfortable dating the “hinge” person. Those two people may not even be poly. IRL it’s almost always important for them to get along, but in RP you can do whatever feels coolest to you. Have them stab each other, idc.

A satellite partner is one who joins a solid relationship but is not considered the “main” partner. I will say this term is a little out of date, and I only really hear it from older folks (30+) who are already used to it. I personally don’t care for it because it tends to automatically set the third person at a “lesser” position, but that may genuinely be the situation for your characters and no one’s bothered by it. A boy toy vs. a husband type thing.

And a unicorn is something I think a lot of people are already familiar with. That unique individual who pushes all the right buttons for both partners, with the three (or more) of them all happily dating in a pile, loving one another with no particular preference. This is super cute and can be incredibly soft and wonderful if you’re comfortable with characters sharing that way.

No one of these setups is wrong or lesser than the other, and again, your character does not need to be poly themselves to participate in several of them.

Managing Poly RP Relationships One of the biggest obstacles dealing with poly relationships IRL is the jealousy factor, and while that is a much more delicate thing to deal with outside of the game, the same sort of practices can still be applied.

The number one way to curb jealousy problems is literally to just spend meaningful time with your RP partner. I know, shocking. Just because the relationships we curate for our characters aren’t real, they can still impact the player behind the screen. Picking up another partner for your character probably means you’re going to be spending time playing with that other person, whether it’s alone or in a group.

When in a group, just make sure you show attention to both characters (within their comfort zones, of course). When you spend time alone with one character, make sure the other player still feels valued by making time for them too. These things don’t always have to be completely equal: Sometimes one partner will feel left out and you can spend a bit of extra time with them to compensate. Meaningful reassurance is a huge and important thing! Do it!

What’s important is that you openly communicate with any RP partner you have and they openly communicate with you. How much time do you guys like to spend RPing? How comfortable are you all with extra time spent elsewhere? What sort of scenes are you comfortable with if they involve the other partner?

I really don’t encourage people to just assume a player will be fine with something, even if they’re your RL partner or your best friend of 400 years. Just ask them what they’re cool with and do so whenever something new comes up. Y’all can navigate your boundaries safely... as long as you talk to each other.

And that’s about it from me. RPing out a poly relationship can be cool and fun, but enough people have had bad experiences with them, either that they felt bullied into it or their partner basically dropped them or whatever, so I hope this helps or reassures someone.

I will say, as a last note, that sometimes people can be real buttholes about this stuff. Either they mistreat you by being presumptuous or unfair or just shitty, or they’re a nosy weirdo on the outside with personal problems and a lot of insults in their arsenal. For the former, just make sure you communicate with them as much as possible, and if you feel uncomfortable you should never be afraid to disengage. For the latter, fuck them kids they suck.

I prob missed some stuff idk feel free to add things if you want.

#ooc note #just my thots and prayers

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forasecondtherewedwon · 4 years ago

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Unhallowed Arts

Threesome: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones x Brad Davis Rating: E Word Count: 11,077

This is a submission for Thotumn, organized by @spideysmjs!!! Today’s prompt: Threesome (but this fic also includes previous prompts: Semi-Public, Face-Sitting, and “Don’t Be Gentle”).

Summary: “What’s the compromise between abruptly shutting this down (her sex drive weeps) and getting in bed with a guy who will make the experience too emotionally intense?

'Have you ever had a threesome?’ Michelle blurts.

'…What? No.’

‘Neither have I. But I’ve been, um, wanting to try it.’

Have you? she demands of herself, wiping a damp palm on her jeans.

‘You, me, and someone else?’ Brad’s eyebrows are very high on his forehead. ‘That’s a lot of bodies, uh, coming together.’”

Brad Davis has a Mary Shelley mug. He used to drink from it—coffee he brought to work in a thermos from home, which smelled so delicious that Michelle would go out of her way to inhale it over his shoulder, pretending to let him show her something on his monitor—until the mug cracked and he switched to using it to house typical office junk. She asked him about the mug exactly once, fearing it was bait to intrigue a certain kind of person, to make him seem like a certain kind of person himself. But he surprised her. Turns out he’s not a douche (or at least not a douche who lures women in with female authors of historical significance), just a genuine Shelley fan.

He’s not many things Michelle initially assumed him to be, striking them off a mental list over the months they’ve worked together: not a guy who takes the last free seat at the table during a team meeting, not a guy who checks out his own reflection on his black phone screen, not a guy who wears sturdy hiking boots for show. When they troop out to conduct surveys on behalf of the conservation initiative they work for, Brad scrambles up the side of eroding banks and squelches into marshland until water soaks his socks and surface residue clings to his leg hair.

Brad’s not pushy, though she’s well aware that he’s been watching her as long as she’s been watching him.

Early on into them working together, she fell into his arms. Literally fell. The team encouraged Michelle to wait for the second truck, the one bringing the ladder, but she got stubborn and climbed the tree to check the bat box the old-fashioned way. Unfortunately, some of the branches were dead and hollow inside, but Brad caught her when she dropped eight feet. And then flirted with her before she could catch her breath. She had some less friendly words for him in return. The first time he surprised her was when he immediately respected her clear boundaries and backed off. They’ve learned to work easily with each other and drink together in the same booth when people from the initiative hit the bar—on evenings they don’t smell too much like they spent the day in Mother Nature’s armpit. They’re friendly, could almost be friends, except that she’s incredibly conscious of his persistent attraction to her, even if he doesn’t do anything about it because he’s not a douche. It’s a knowledge Michelle simply lives with.

But there have been an awful lot of evenings lately of smelling like whatever swamp she waded into during the day, of either going straight home to shower the stench away (thank fuck for rent with utilities included), or hunching over her laptop as she tries to get a grant application finished before a midnight submission deadline. Nobody she works with is holding their breath for the day the government decides it should just give them the money to protect local habitats without making them prove themselves over and over and compete against other worthy environmental projects for the funds. So, Michelle works, and she wades, and she loses many of the evenings she could be out getting laid.

On a regular they-better-pay-us-for-the-overtime evening and not a marshy/swampy/boggy one, she’s comfortably stretched out in a booth with Brad across the table. Two of their colleagues were here a minute ago, but they got up to… go to the bathroom? Grab another round? That’s a little hazy, but Michelle can feel something becoming clearer to her. Observing her own hand as she twirls the base of her latest empty across the tabletop, she asks a question.

“You like Mary Shelley, right?”

Brad, glassy-eyed but still trying to look professional with the way he has his hands folded on the surface in front of him, smiles at her. She can feel it.

“Yes. Her creativity was astounding. If I were in the running for the Miss Universe pageant—”

Michelle jerks her chin back and looks up to make a face at him.

“—and they asked me what historical figure I would most like to have dinner with, I would say Mary Shelley. Hands down.”

“Cool story, bro. Hey, Brad?”

“Mhmm.”

She can tell by his drifting gaze and expression of introspection that he’s planning out his pageant answers.

“Do you still want to sleep with me?”

That focuses his attention. He laughs uncomfortably.

“Why… why would you think that?”

“Oh, so, what’s your limit?” Michelle presses, slightly snide with the alcohol in her bloodstream. “You’re not interested in going past holding hands? Making out for no more than five minutes? Because you obviously want something,” she rambles on. “You look at me, I know you do.”

“This isn’t just an idle question, is it?” Brad asks.

He leans forward to look at her as carefully as his tipsiness will allow. As if he already knows the answer. Their thought patterns are very similar, she’s found. It’s why they’re effective at work and why it’s possible to fall into a discussion on books during their overlapping lunch hours. She likes him—not a lot, but enough to have started this conversation. She stares back at him.

“I wouldn’t say no to it,” he offers quietly, though the bar is crowded tonight and Michelle doubts their words are traveling beyond the booth.

Now, Brad’s looking at her in a way that makes her realize, all this time, he’s barely been looking at her. With the permission to think of her in this way, there’s a clear desire there, a gaze that slips again and again to her mouth. Huh. Ok. Maybe she didn’t completely think this whim through before sharing it with him. She can’t fuck that Brad. She’s been imagining the drinking companion, the nice forearms he reveals when he literally rolls up his sleeves in the field, the man who will always be a little on her nerves for flirting with her as he cradled her against him. Someone whose world she could casually rock with the assurance that they both have enough self-confidence to carry on afterwards without getting clingy or feeling disposed of.

What’s the compromise between abruptly shutting this down (her sex drive weeps) and getting in bed with a guy who will make the experience too emotionally intense?

“Have you ever had a threesome?” Michelle blurts.

“…What? No.”

“Neither have I. But I’ve been, um, wanting to try it.”

Have you? she demands of herself, wiping a damp palm on her jeans.

“You, me, and someone else?” Brad’s eyebrows are very high on his forehead. “That’s a lot of bodies, uh, coming together.”

“Come on, Brad—”

“‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’” he guesses.

“I was going to say, I thought you loved Frankenstein.”

She rounds her impulsive invitation off with a smile.

—

Michelle doesn’t volunteer to select the third person. When she considers which of her friends and acquaintances she’d be comfortable having sex with, well, there’s Brad. That already hasn’t gone the way she predicted. Everyone else she’s close to either feels like family, is in a monogamous relationship, or just isn’t attractive to her in that way. She consoles herself over putting the choice of their third into Brad’s hands with the thought that he seems like he’d be the most suspect person in a friend group (yes, they get along, but there’s something sleazy about the way he tries too hard), so whoever he asks can only be more tolerable than him.

“So, a buddy of mine said he’d be into it,” Brad says as she’s passing his desk one day. Michelle stops dead and he swivels in his chair, drumming his fingers on the armrest.

“You’re talking about…”

“Yeah.” He darts a look around, then hits her with a conspiratorial smile.

“Oh. Ok. Good. Turtles,” she says more loudly to cover for them. Her gaze darts to the nearest desk, but Jocelyn’s wearing headphones and bobbing her head as she populates a spreadsheet. Reassured, Michelle takes a step towards Brad and lowers her voice again. “What’s his name? How do you know him?”

“His name’s Peter. We play soccer together.”

“How the hell do you have time to participate in organized sports?”

“That’s what I do while you’re working your way through the New York Times Best Seller list,” Brad jokes.

“Fair. But who is this guy?”

“You want his résumé?”

“No, I want to know he’s not going to give me an STI or try anything freaky.”

“Freaky,” he echoes. “As opposed to threesomes, which are an incredibly common thing to do with your boyfriend.”

“Or your friend from work,” Michelle retorts, to keep things very clear. Brad appears fleetingly wounded. Too bad. He can say no any time, but it’s obvious that he’d rather see her naked in a threesome than the alternative. Which is never.

“Yeah, of course. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about Peter. He’s responsible, he’s single, he was raised by his aunt and they’re still really close. She comes to all our games.” He lets out a derisive sort of laugh and Michelle narrows her eyes at him.

“That’s sweet.”

“I guess,” he concedes.

“Why’s he single?” she asks, rapid-fire.

“I don’t know, because he wants to be?”

“‘Wants to be’ like he’s emotionally stable and waiting for the right person to come along or ‘wants to be’ like he’s a flake with commitment issues?”

Brad gives her a look like she’s overthinking this; it betrays an utter lack of comprehension of a woman’s perspective on relationships. The validity of her questions goes over his head.

“Why does it matter if he has commitment issues?”

“Relax,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m not trying to date him, it just says something about his personality. I don’t want to do this with somebody selfish, because if he’s selfish in other areas, he’s probably selfish in bed.”

“He’s a good passer,” Brad says. “On the field. He always ends the season with more assists than goals.”

“That’s… not a totally useless testimonial.”

“I appreciate your approval.”

Michelle would laugh if his tone weren’t a little too earnest. The way he really wants to impress her can be grating. Well, he’ll soon have his chance to impress her in a situation where she actually wants to be impressed.

“Get back to work, slacker,” she tells him, returning to her own desk.

Fifteen minutes later, Brad texts her with three different dates to choose from. Michelle pulls up her calendar, colour-coded with deadlines and days she’ll be working out in the woods. Taking late nights and the need for long showers into account, she picks a date, then leaves her thumb hovering over ‘Send’. She puts her phone down.

This is where she could still back out. Brad’s mentioned it to his friend, but she’s under no obligation to either of them. Would it be awkward to change her mind and see Brad at work every day? Yes, though she could always say she just wasn’t that serious about it to begin with. Which she wasn’t! For someone who’s soothed by referring to her colour-coded calendar and progressing through life with each forward step carefully considered, tossing out a suggestion to have a threesome was rash.

Michelle eyes her phone.

On the other hand, Brad likes her too much to be a dick post-ménage à trois, which, as far as she can see, is sort of an ideal trait in a threesome companion. If she were going to do this. She wheels her chair back and cranes to peer across the room at him. Focused on his screen, he brushes his black hair out of his face with a quick swipe of his hand. Damn, he is nice-looking. The kind of guy Michelle would definitely approach at a bar for a one-night stand if he flashed a smile her way. If picturing him naked intrigues her, then the idea of lying down between him and another muscled body (Brad said soccer, so she’s assuming this friend has an athletic build) while the three of them wind over and under each other like a braid definitely ticks a big ‘YES’ box in her brain. Her hand shoots out for her phone. She hits ‘Send’.

Three bodies which will, in Brad’s words, be coming together. Maybe not what Mary Shelley had in mind, but anticipating this threesome does more for Michelle’s libido than an electrified jigsaw of corpses ever could.

—

It’s a different bar, and she’s in different clothes, but otherwise, it’s not a totally foreign way for Michelle and Brad to spend their Friday evening. Provided he shows up. She darted home after work and a loaded glance at Brad, showered, and starred deep into her neglected makeup bag like it was some sort of prophetic tool. Michelle, it said to her, you don’t want lipstick smeared all over your face and eyeshadow fallout stinging your eyes. Leave it at mascara and a whole whack of waterproof eyeliner. She obeyed these wise words with trembling hands, nearly prodding herself in the eye with her mascara wand because, even with a doable task to concentrate on, she was nervous.

She adjusts her short, black skirt, rocking side-to-side on the stool. For a regular date, it’s the kind of item she would borrow from a friend, but it struck Michelle as incredibly gross to wear a friend’s skirt to a threesome and then return it to them afterwards, so she bought this one online. During work hours. Feeling incredibly furtive, though everybody dabbles in online shopping during lulls in their workload. The skirt was never a normal purchase; she knew it was going to end up right here, right now, between her ass and a barstool. She gulps the end of her whiskey and goes back to cradling the beer that’s been her emotional support as she waits for the guys.

Arriving ten minutes early has felt like an age—time stretching wretchedly like those clocks in ‘The Scream’—but she finally hears a familiar voice calling her name. Flipping her hair out of the neck of her leather jacket and grabbing her support system, Michelle turns to spot Brad’s face. He smiles and waves, stepping through the crowd that’s building steadily as the after-work drinkers are exchanged for the cutting-loose-for-the-weekend drinkers. When she slips down from the stool, her skirt rides up, and the man who is usually just a co-worker allows himself to notice. His gaze on her bare legs feels good.

“Sorry we’re late,” he says, though they both know she’s early. But Michelle will take this pleasantry over an implication that she’s overeager.

Since they were at work together only a few hours ago, she skips small talk.

“Where’s your…” Friend, she’s going to say. She doesn’t need to.

Brad—tidy in a partially unbuttoned blue shirt—angles himself towards her side, making room for the woman taking the barstool she vacated, and Michelle sees a man approaching with the two of them as his clear destination. Her first sense of him is filtered through Brad. Once, through Brad’s description, twice, through Brad’s cologne. It may be coming off her friend’s skin, but the scent clings to Peter in her brain. What she’s smelling is the woods, only more expensive somehow, like a perfume company bottled the idea of glamping. Doesn’t matter that the scent doesn’t suit him at all. He walks with his head up, eyes openly excited, and it makes her think of a schoolkid progressing through a museum’s dinosaur exhibit. All he’s missing is a backpack with straps for him to clutch. Letting her gaze skim down from his face, Michelle actually can’t picture him trying to haul on a backpack; his shoulders look broad and strong, even under the incongruous red hoodie he’s wearing.

“Oh,” he says when he sees her standing next to Brad. Under any other circumstances, she’d be taken aback by his eyes scanning the full length of her body, but she’s going to fuck this stranger tonight and when he looks back up to her face, he’s grinning. “Hey.”

“Hi,” she replies, more guarded, less forward, until Brad suggests trying to find someplace to sit and Michelle’s able to check Peter out from behind as he leads them away from the bar. Nice butt.

They snag a coveted corner spot as a small group in business attire is leaving it, settling with Brad between them. Peter makes himself useful by dashing back to the bar and returning with the fingers of one hand twined between the necks of a trio of beers and the fingers of the other slightly dipping into the liquid in a pair of tumblers.

“I didn’t know what you’d like beyond what you’re already drinking,” he says, jerking his chin towards the beer Michelle finished while he was gone.

“That’s fine,” she assures him. “I don’t want to be too… I want to be aware of…”

God, trying to discuss the imminent threesome directly is making her flustered. She has a swig from the new bottle he placed in front of her. Peter leans across Brad and offers his to clink with. Where Brad’s face is aggressively handsome in the heavy line of his eyebrows and the sharp perfection of his teeth, up close, Peter’s is cute and unintimidating.

“Here’s to being a consenting participant tonight and remembering it tomorrow,” he says.

Unintimidating, but not uncompelling, especially when he tilts his head back to drink and she can watch the line of his jaw.

Michelle blushes, but knocks her bottle against his.

Two rounds deeper for them and one for her, the heat of the bar and the alcohol in her system are getting to her. She winds her way back from the washroom and shrugs out of her jacket before sitting down. Peter manages to get the end of his sentence out, but Brad doesn’t even try to respond as he takes in the low sides of her silky top. Michelle slides closer to him than she was sitting before and puts a hand on his knee as he finally turns his head and stutters out a reply to Peter. Peter looks past him and catches her eye. Her heart’s springing up and down in her chest because she realized, staring at her reflection as she washed her hands, that, if they’re going to do this, somebody’s gotta make a move. Peter, sleeves shoved up, is staring back at her like he’s been thinking the same thing. His hand smooths over Brad’s thigh.

Under the table, Brad keeps his legs still, his feet flat on the ground. His comfort in his own skin is something Michelle’s always respected. He even succeeds in raising his glass steadily to his lips and taking another drink while Peter runs his hand higher. With a little throat-clearing, Brad parts his thighs further. She doesn’t mean to be, but Michelle’s waiting for Peter to go first. They were talking about something innocuous when he said just enough to imply that he’s never been in a threesome either. Regardless, there’s a confidence in the way he touches Brad. She trails her fingers up Brad’s thigh and Peter locks eyes with her as their gazes cross watching their friend swallow.

Suddenly, the man between them is a little less present, even with the sharp breath he takes at the moment Peter tucks his hand against his crotch. Michelle rests her hand over his. She feels his skin, lets her fingers slip through his, as Brad gasps and swells beneath Peter’s palm; she can tell—they have to change the curve of their grip to accommodate the erection. Brad’s arm curls around her waist and presses her into his side as her and Peter’s hands move together, stroking through Brad’s pants, rubbing him. He glances at her, heat in his eyes, but she’s looking at Peter again by the time she leans in and kisses Brad’s throat. She draws it out into a lick at the slack way Peter’s mouth is hanging open. Hopefully, the fall of her hair is blocking the necking from the view of other patrons, but that hope is tough to keep in mind when Peter’s tongue appears to wet his lower lip. Like she’s kissing him.

There’s a squeeze between Michelle’s thighs that has her gripping Peter’s hand more firmly, urging him to jerk Brad off faster. She glances towards Peter’s lap and he lifts his hoodie with his free hand to expose the bulge in the front of his jeans. The scent of her perfume rises as sweat trickles between her breasts. They knead Brad rapidly until he chokes out a plea for them to stop, begging to take this someplace private. She grabs her jacket in one hand and links the fingers of her other through Brad’s. Tugging him to the exit, she trusts Peter to bring up the rear.

—

Making out in the back of a rideshare is bad behaviour, so Michelle takes the passenger’s seat when the car pulls up. Because she is feeling the need to go back a step from risky under-the-table handjobs and just kiss someone. And that someone is not the friend she arranged this with. She glances at the sidemirror as they’re passing under a streetlight and Peter’s staring at her. He winks. Slowly, like she’s just looking idly around as they drive, she turns to glance into the backseat. Brad has his arm stretched out along the top the seats and his fingers have dipped into the neck of Peter’s hoodie. Michelle’s pulse accelerates just imagining the warmth of that throat. Scrambling for her phone, she sends Brad a text.

Put your fingers in his mouth.

She faces forward again for about a block, prolonging her outward nonchalance even as she hears a vibration, followed by Brad’s soft snort of acknowledgement as he reads her text. She glances around the edge of her seat and sees him act. His hand comes out of the sweatshirt to take Peter by the chin and turn his face towards him. Briefly, he inclines his head towards his friend, speaking too quietly for her to distinguish the words, but Michelle guesses it’s something about her watching because Peter’s gaze jumps to her as he opens his mouth and accepts two of Brad’s fingers. She can see him sucking as Brad withdraws, cheeks flushed. He looks to her—for approval, she thinks, until he holds his wet fingers up and curls them in the air in a highly suggestive motion. Oh shit. Michelle feels herself pressing down on the floor of the car like she’s in the driver’s seat with the accelerator under her foot.

They’re going to her place where: she’s on home turf, she knows it’s clean, she can go right to sleep after kicking them out. Also, the one luxury of her second-story apartment is the king-size bed her friends seriously, outrageously got on ladders to help her push through the sliding door of her balcony because that was easier than carrying it up the narrow staircase. Tonight, she plans to get some good use out of all those acres of mattress.

As with the hijinks in the car, she knows both men are watching her as she lets them into the building and then through her front door.

“Kitchen,” Michelle says, with a loose wave of her hand. “Living room, bathroom. And the bedroom’s at the end of the hall.”

Brad excuses himself to empty his bladder and/or psych himself up in the mirror above the bathroom sink and she’s wondering how to entertain his friend during these uncertain moments of transition when Peter basically lunges forward and kisses her. She moans into his mouth because it’s sudden but it’s good. His hands go right to her ass and her arms wrap around the back of his neck, holding him against her. With her heels, she has a handful of inches on him, but that doesn’t appear to make him pouty or daunted. It’s less than a minute, probably fewer than thirty seconds (understanding the flow of time is temporarily lost on Michelle), but they separate panting.

“You can tell Brad to stick his fingers in my mouth all you want,” Peter murmurs, still staring at her lips, “but I’ve got something I wanna to stick places too.”

“Understood.” She nudges her thigh into his groin.

“So, you guys aren’t waiting for me, huh?” Brad asks with a tight smile as he walks out of the bathroom to see Peter’s hands on her ass and her pressing back against him.

This is kind of the idea, all three of them experimenting with each other, but she can tell he’s annoyed that anything went on while he was out of the room. That he’s possibly jealous. Though it doesn’t feel right to move away from Peter, Michelle knows how to rectify this. She strides to Brad and puts her hands lightly on his chest before kissing him, more coyly than Peter kissed her. She lets Brad come down to her as he hunts out what he wants from the kiss. This feels nice too, though it has more of the familiarity of kissing a friend—even though they haven’t touched in this way before—than the bubbling lust that went with kissing Peter. As she continues, tracing her fingers to the center of his chest to stroke his skin and begin undoing his buttons, Peter comes up behind her and helps her out of her jacket. She hears her keys jingle in the pocket and tap against her phone. When his hands sneak through the sides of her shirt to run across the underside of her breasts, Michelle pushes Brad back, back, back, and the three of them stagger to her bedroom.

She and Brad make out in the dark for a while, and without light, the kissing get rougher, their breathing ragged. Once she has all the buttons of Brad’s shirt undone, she reaches back for Peter and he grips her hand tightly as he grinds his erection against her ass. They’re pressing snugly into her front and back when she thinks of things like being able to locate condoms and ogle muscles—both activities require some light. Michelle squeezes out from between them and turns her bedside lamp on, angling the shade so the light stays low. Turning to check on them, she sees one man standing there with his shirt open and dishevelled and the other rigid in the front of his jeans. Brad’s hard too—she felt it when she stood against him, but his erection’s not visible from where she’s standing now. It’s odd, seeing the space between their bodies and knowing she was just in it. But with Peter rubbing Brad’s dick at the bar and Brad clearly turned on by having Peter suck his fingers on the way here, they’ve been messing around too. Why should they pause to get her back in the middle? Stubborn and curious, Michelle crosses her arms where she stands and gives them an expectant look.

Peter reacts first; he grabs the back of Brad’s neck and stretches up to kiss him. The instant their mouths meet, Michelle understands the three of them have a problem. Trading off sexual favours, these guys are ok, but being on two sides of the same kiss makes them competitive. Fucking weekend athletes. Countering the dominant neck-grab, Brad bats Peter’s arm away and takes his face in his hands. It’s not sweet, it’s controlling. Peter’s next move is yanking Brad’s body against his by crumpling the open front of his shirt in his fists. Oops, well, alright, Michelle decides. Maybe it’s better to put herself back in the equation.

Because she has no intention of babying Brad through this experience, when she slips between them, she puts her back to him. Picturing his disappointed face, she raises her arms.

“Take her shirt off,” Peter interprets, tearing his hoodie over his head in a flurry that peels the t-shirt beneath halfway up his torso.

It’s evident in his method that Brad isn’t interested in being told what to do with her. He makes sure to drag his hands over her as he takes his time. Maybe he’s being a dick about it—that’s what the narrowing of Peter’s eyes tells her as he stares at Brad around Michelle’s head—but she’s enjoying this. There’s something about having spent so much time with Brad and those hands that has her pressing back against his erection. She’s witnessed him performing countless practical tasks, like driving the stakes for ‘Trail Closed’ signs deep into semi-frozen ground with a sledgehammer to protect new plant growth in the spring, knotting a rope leash around the waist of one of their colleagues as overkill when they wade into a pond to collect a sample, or just his impressive typing speed. (Not as many words per minute as she logs, but still.) He’s only quick when he pushes the material above her breasts and shifts his hands down quickly to cover, then massage them. She can almost hear him internally screaming at Peter that he beat him to this, only she doesn’t care. He’s tugging her nipples now and she shuts her eyes with a sigh.

“You like that?” he asks into her ear, which is when Peter loses patience for this display and removes her shirt the rest of the way himself.

Michelle retaliates by dropping her arms and edging his shirt up his stomach while Brad continues to caress her chest, now also kissing her shoulder. Though Peter lets her remove his t-shirt herself, she can add a willingness to get naked quick to the few things she knows about him; he seems like he’d be just as happy to whip all his clothes off at once as go through the foreplay of undressing each other. She remembers what he said to her in the kitchen. He has his own aspirations for tonight and the grin he gives her when she gets his t-shirt off makes her wonder what he wants and how soon she’ll be giving it to him. Michelle can’t feel any part of her resisting. It’s… surprisingly freeing.

Brad shuffles behind her, slipping out of his shirt, and her heart leaps as his chest presses to her back, skin to skin. Peter makes a grab for her crotch, but she lifts her eyebrows wryly and spins to face Brad instead.

“This fucking skirt,” she hears Peter mumble behind her as he slides his hands up her thighs to play with the hem.

It’s not exactly a sexual fantasy she’s fulfilling when she digs her fingers into Brad’s hair and combs it back, but it’s definitely a fantasy. He just has great hair. Sometimes, when she’s bored in a meeting, she’ll look over at him and feel this compulsion to run her fingers through it. She discovers that the strands feel soft and wonderful, so there’s one dream realized.

As she’s moving the palm of her hand down to cup his cheek, she shifts her head to the side, catching Brad’s eye and nodding back towards Peter.

“Kiss him nicely,” Michelle instructs.

Brad’s dark eyes bore into hers for a moment, then he breaks the stare and looks to Peter.

“Let’s go, Parker.”

Satisfied, she gets out of the way, circling behind Peter. While he’s partly distracted by the kiss (tamer than last time, by the looks of it), she rests her hands on his waist. Then, Michelle thinks, Screw it, and feels him up all over his chest, shoulders, and stomach, before wending her way down to his hips. His jeans are probably really putting pressure on his erection right now. She’ll help. After flicking the button open, she means to move away, but… plans change. She’s barely dipping the tips of her fingers below the waist of his jeans when Peter pulls away from Brad’s insistent mouth to mutter, “Well, that’s not fair.”

Instead of continuing, Michelle delights in retreating. Peter’s protesting noise is absorbed by his friend’s lips and she pats his ass before going to tease Brad. First, she guides the hand Peter has on Brad’s shoulder up into his hair so he can share her joy at how touchable it is. Then, she grazes her palms down his back. His friend’s body is dense with muscles, like somebody who goes to the gym a lot, where Brad’s is lean. Their work is a decent split between time indoors and outside, fairly physical, so she knows he has strong legs, good lungs, all the endurance he needs for the days they have to park far from a trailhead or navigate gullies. She forgot to ask what position they each play on their soccer team, but she’ll be concerned with another type of position for the foreseeable future.

To keep things even, Michelle unbuttons Brad’s pants. He makes a needful sound and goes momentarily loose between her body and Peter’s. This is not the reaction she expected from a man so socially comfortable, who apparently maintains a far better work/life balance (and, presumably, a steadier sex life) than she has lately. These noises, which continue as she works his zipper down against the push of his erection, expose him. He makes himself vulnerable. Something zinging through Michelle’s body compels her to take advantage.

She and Peter propel Brad’s co-operative body towards the bed. The guys land with a thump and continue kissing; Peter’s fingers form a gun as he angles Brad’s jaw, driving his tongue into his friend’s mouth. Michelle stares at them, breathing hard for having done nothing. Not breaking the kiss, Brad raises a hand to reach for her, but she’s quicker than that, dropping to her knees. She and the band of his underwear get along immediately—it’s easy to uncover his dick and the elastic cradles him instead of trying to snap back into place against his abdomen. Though the access with his pants still on isn’t amazing, she kisses his stomach, then the head of his cock. Up above, Brad moans.

With a smirk, Michelle repositions a little on her knees and grasps her friend’s thighs. He’s whimpering. He’s full-on whimpering. She leans in and licks slowly up his length. Her heels are already starting to bother her, so she reaches back and tugs them off one at a time. The next thing she means to do is gather her hair out of the way as she shallowly sucks Brad’s erection and strands swing forward, trying to tangle in his open zipper and stick to the saliva she’s coating him in, but Peter’s hand is there first. Still making out with Brad (she can hear it if she can’t see it), he encircles her hair in his grip and rests his fist lightly on her shoulder. Dammit. She’s a soft touch for his soft touch, closing her eyes to the sensation of his knuckles brushing her skin. This stranger is ruining the nice underwear she put on tonight.

“Please, Michelle, please,” Brad breaks free of Peter’s mouth to say.

He reaches out to hold her ribs, cup her breasts, but while he and his friend might share the field on Saturdays or whenever, they don’t seem to be on the same team tonight.

“Nope,” Peter informs him. “I get her next.”

“None of that possessive shit,” she warns.

“Can I please have you next?”

“You must be a real pain for your friends,” Michelle guesses sarcastically, letting him guide her over to his lap instead of Brad’s. (Who’s probably looking sour. She doesn’t know. Her eyes are glued to Peter’s.)

“No pain, I promise. I’ll be gentle.”

She rolls her eyes and settles in, straddling him.

“Oh my—” There is no ‘god’ because he kisses her before she can finish.

That’s his second annoying offense in seconds and she’s going to let him know. Really, she is. But he’s reminding her that he never let go of her hair by lifting it and slipping his hand against the nape of her neck to caress her skin. Michelle angles her hips and grinds up and down the swell in his jeans. Peter doesn’t mess around stroking her legs and hips, he just darts both hands beneath her skirt and traces the edges of her underwear where they curve around her thighs and narrow between them. She can feel him draw the fabric aside and gasps into his mouth, anticipating his fingers, when Brad tips the both of them over.

It’s disorienting, but they twist onto their sides and her friend scoots close behind her, so she decides she doesn’t mind.

“You’re not getting out of this,” Peter speaks quietly against her mouth when she thinks he’s about to kiss her again.

Michelle finds herself smiling, almost laughing, as he flips her skirt up and elects to take her underwear off. There’s only so much he can do like this, so she takes over, kicking them to the floor. That’s annoying offense number three; those underwear are sexy and she thought she’d be showing them off some before they hit the hardwood. Weirdly, Peter’s disregard only makes her smile broaden.

“Like I was trying,” she quips.

“Are we bantering,” Brad checks, “or are we fucking?”

“Dude, I am so sorry for the people you sleep with. Banter is an important part of the process,” Peter instructs.

“Fuck you, Parker.”

“And when you do, I guess I can’t expect any banter. I’ll adjust my expectations.”

“I’ll adjust your nose with my fist,” Brad responds in a playful tone. Michelle isn’t completely sold and she wavers, sandwiched between the two of them.

“Cool,” she says, “but actually, I am here to get laid.”

Two sets of male hands collide where her thighs are pressed together. She takes a deep breath at their enthusiasm, unable to tell whose fingers are skating along the skin just above her pubic hair and whose are subtly attempting to wedge between her legs.

“After you,” Brad says smoothly.

“Thanks, man.”

Her friend’s hands retreat a short distance and Peter insinuates one of his thighs between hers to create some space.

“This ok?” he checks, sweet face even sweeter horizontal.

“Be my guest,” Michelle says, copying Brad’s formality and reaching up and back to squeeze his shoulder so he realizes. She gets a kiss on her neck in response.

Peter’s fingers run slickly through her arousal. It’s a methodical mapping, feeling as though it’s meant to arouse her rather than him, but their eyes meet and he��s wearing an expression like he’s the one being fondled, though his erection cleaves to his abdomen, twitching under his clothes as he fingers her.

“You’re teasing me,” she points out, pulse jumping at her inner thigh.

“Am I not supposed to?”

Michelle tries to rock harder against the pass of his fingers and he moves them away with a grin and a chiding, “Ah!”

“Just give her what she wants,” is Brad’s disgruntled input.

She turns to watch as he sits up and undresses from the waist down. He gives her a smile like they’re on the same side, demonstrated by him advocating for her pleasure—something Michelle’s quite comfortable doing on her own. And yet, alright, her friend’s heart is in the right place, and it is difficult to monitor and decipher the fluctuating moods and responses of two other people, and his directive is obeyed. Peter’s fingers return and push through the wetness he helped generate, touching her entrance and gliding inside her, one finger, then two. Michelle groans deep in her throat because finally.

Brad lies down at her back again and, with Peter working her up, she fumbles behind her and grabs her friend’s ass to encourage him closer. She can feel him hard and hot against her, partly touching her rumpled skirt, partly her skin. He rubs against her and reaches an arm around, greedily squeezing her hip, then sweeping down to feel for her clit.

She’s sweating between their bodies, breathing hard and shuddering involuntarily when Brad gets his fingers positioned to trap her clit and begin gradually cracking her mind like peanut brittle. Where he’s painstaking, Peter’s exultant. He increases the pace of his fingers until they’re shuttling in and out of her. Michelle grips Brad’s wrist with one hand, Peter’s neck with the other, then switches, then moves both hands, grappling for some constancy that the part of her brain currently squashed beneath her need for satisfaction knows she’s not gonna get. Her hips are writhing in their hands as a clear goal fights its way through the fog of lust: unzip Peter’s jeans. It’s tricky, with the over- and underpass of arms, but she does it and he thanks her with a sloppy kiss that only seems to land on her mouth by miracle.

“Close,” she gasps.

Behind her, Brad groans and nips at the base of her neck, making her shake. He’s humping her quickly, pushing with his hips as he pulls back with his fingers on her clit. Good thing Peter hooks his fingers firmly inside her so he doesn’t get jostled off this ride. Good thing too that his curling motion strikes her so, so right. Michelle cries out and comes, his fingers still pumping ruthlessly inside her, Brad pinching her clit, and then coming himself; she feels the jet spurt up her back, probably some on her skirt too.

Which is why she did not borrow clothes for this threesome.

Peter’s expression is impish as he tries to keep coaxing her through the pleasure, but she pushes at his chest and he finally takes his hand away.

“Oh my god,” Michelle sighs, flopping back and half onto Brad.

“Go team,” her friend pants from beneath her.

“Yeah. You guys have some kinda cheer you do at your games?”

“Sometimes we bump chests,” Peter offers, hands suddenly on her boobs.

She twists, trying to see Brad’s face without lifting up. Her temple makes contact with his chin.

“Does your friend have an off switch?”

“If he did, I’d skip that and just pull the plug,” Brad says. He wraps an arm around her and she wiggles until he relaxes the hold, forcing him to make it less territorial.

“Aww,” Peter says, managing to cup her breasts in a perfunctory way, like he’s pushing them up to prevent under-boob sweat while she cools off post-orgasm, “you guys are bantering. I knew you could do it. Also,” he adds, “I don’t know if anyone happens to be keeping track, but I’m the only one who hasn’t gotten off.”

“That sucks, man.”

With effort, Michelle sits up and glares at Brad’s unconcerned face.

“Don’t be a dick,” she says.

“Yeah, Brad,” Peter joins in.

Shaking her head, she puts her back to her friend and checks Peter’s face for her go-ahead. He nods in rapid approval, so she grips the waist of his open jeans and pulls down while he lifts his ass from her bed. Fuck, the three of them never even got under the sheet. Then again, it’s easier to be mobile above it. Plus, it’s an extra layer between her expensive mattress and the fluid drying on her spine.

Because Peter doesn’t seem like the kinda guy who cares to be undressed layer by layer, Michelle doesn’t striptease herself with taking off his clothes slowly. At some point, he kicked his shoes away, meaning it’s straightforward to yank the boxers and jeans down his legs. Her intention is to remove them completely. He doesn’t seem to have a hell of a lot of regard for her intentions.

“That’s far enough, I swear,” he says, when she has his jeans around his shins. “I’m good. Nike time. Just do it.”

“Just do what exactly?” Michelle asks indulgently. She rests a hand on his naked thigh and tries not to stare openly at his dick, red as a slap.

“Anything. Whatever you want. Brad says you’re multitalented.”

Brad rolls over lazily to glare at Peter.

“What the hell, Parker? Don’t make it sound like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I talk about Michelle like that!”

“I get it,” she says, cutting him off. Please shut up, Peter, she thinks. “You talk to him about work. You appreciate me as a co-worker.”

“That’s definitely why I’ve heard so much about you,” Peter agrees provokingly. “Because he appreciates you as a co-worker.”

“You know what?” Brad bites out.

“What?”

Michelle rolls her eyes and opts to terminate this snippy little back and forth by grasping Peter’s cock and bending over to wrap her lips around the head. That shuts both of them up. Thank god, some fucking peace.

He emits a deep groan of approval and weaves his fingers into her hair, slightly bucking his hips. As she sinks to take him deeper, she hears another groan—hoarse with an entirely different emotion—coming from Brad. She doesn’t stop. If he has something to say, he can damn well use his words. Michelle clutches the inside of Peter’s muscular thigh and sucks as she starts to withdraw only to plunge him farther into her mouth. Peter’s hand finds hers and tangles their fingers together next to his hip, catching some of the sheet in his grip too. The gesture dizzies her heart.

While he’s seeing god, Brad’s apparently seeing red, because he taps, then tugs, at her shoulder, until she pulls off of Peter and shoots her friend an impatient look.

“What?”

“I’ll do that,” he says, nodding towards Peter’s straining, saliva-slicked erection.

“Somebody better fucking do it,” Peter says in the tragic tone of an established sufferer. They ignore him for the moment.

“You want to?” Michelle asks skeptically.

When Brad averts his eyes from hers, she realizes that, no, he doesn’t want to, he just doesn’t enjoy watching her blow Peter. She wavers, wondering if she should cancel tonight halfway through. Maybe that would be sacrificing what she wants for the self-esteem of these two men, but they’re just so goddamn annoying. They’re supposed to be friends and they’re acting like rivals. Michelle doesn’t owe loyalty to either of them, she’s nobody’s girlfriend, and yet she’s getting the feeling that she needs to pick a side. Even a novice like her can tell this isn’t the way a threesome’s meant to go. If they were worse at this, she might be able to walk away.

Abruptly, Brad kisses her, then nudges her gently aside as he drops to his elbows to pick up where she left off. Peter draws a fraying breath. Well, either these two aren’t combative enough to present her with an ultimatum, or they just want to get laid as badly as she does. If Brad bites Peter or some shit though, she’s throwing them both out and leaving the necessary medical care in their hands. Michelle will not be responsible for these men and their egos.

Peter tweaks her fingers, their hands still clasped. She leans in close to observe his heavy breathing and the way his hair’s sticking to his sweaty forehead.

“I still want you,” he whispers. The words are like static shock, like a finger tracing unexpectedly down her neck. “And you better be quick because I think Brad thinks he’ll get extra points for speed.”

He gasps, eyes rolling back, and Michelle instinctively cups his neck, running the pad of her thumb along his throat. She doesn’t glance over at Brad; hearing the frantic wet noises paints a sufficiently informative picture.

“You think you can concentrate while he’s doing that?”

“Totally.” Immediately, a desperate, guttural croak leaves Peter’s lips.

“You sure?”

“No, but I still want to put my tongue inside you and that should count for—uhhh!—something.”

“Such as?” she asks with a wry smile, straightening her legs out so she can remove her unspeakably defiled skirt.

“Hell if I know, my concentration was pretty shitty to begin with.”

“Center yourself,” Michelle says in the calm, instructive tone of a yoga tutorial as she levers herself over his chest and rests her ass lightly on the hard planes of his pecs.

“Brad,” Peter begs, “cut me some slack for one fucking minute, dude.”

“One minute, huh?” she teases.

“Are you doubting me?”

“Peter Parker, I don’t even know you.”

But, somehow, she’s beaming down at him as her hair falls around her shoulders. For an instant, he looks completely focused on her and not the sound of Brad switching from giving him head to pumping him in a fist (his version of slack-cutting, evidently). Peter eyes her from her face down to where her legs are spread above his body. Then back to her face.

“I’d like for you to.”

Her teasing expression softens. She parts her lips to respond and he wrenches her forward, onto a mouth that opens at once. He licks up into her, then keep his tongue tensed and prods her clit back and forth. Michelle curls into herself, thighs suddenly snug against the sides of his head, fingers locked in his hair.

This is, perhaps, the single event within the larger experience that sells her on threesomes. Peter’s mouth feels incredible on its own (like he’s fusing the peanut brittle shards of her mind back together again and going too far, melting them into goo), but the intermittent moaning that leaves it due to Brad’s contribution down below means Michelle’s riding something that licks, sucks, and vibrates. She’s a mess. Tilted forward, she’s nearly crying out to plant her hands on the bed and just grind across Peter’s tongue, but the hand not hold hers has her hip in a formidable hold and she can’t reach far enough to be comfortable. Each time she thinks to force her eyes open and check his face to make sure he’s enjoying this as much as she is (and still breathing), Peter’s eyelids are flickering as he absorbs the combined pleasure of taking from Brad and giving to Michelle. She’s shaking and trying not to get too rough with him, smoothing a hand over the hair she’s been practically pulling out at the roots. Peter counters with a quick smack to her ass before seizing her hip again. Fine, she won’t be nice.

Michelle shifts and rolls her clit against the tip of his nose. It positions her entrance above his wide-open mouth and he slides his tongue thickly back inside her. The sound of him tongue-fucking her is graphic. He loses his rhythm and gets even more aggressive with his mouth—she figures he’s close to release. Peter groans and arches his neck and chin up when he finishes, so she lifts swiftly away, hating to do it, aching and slippery.

She throws herself off of him, collapsing back onto her elbows with her thighs quivering. Dazedly, she observes Brad hurrying from the room with his lips clamped together (not a swallower then—the things she’s learning about her friend tonight). Peter’s lying there, spent. With her emotions high, their tableau causes her to despair. It’s over. It’s all over. One of them’s too wiped to carry on, the other’s just finished giving oral and won’t want to return just to bring her to orgasm. Michelle lets her head hang back and swipes two fingers over her clit, catching it and adding pressure on the upstroke.

Peter rolls over like he’s risen from the dead.

“You don’t—” she begins, but then he’s there, between her quaking knees, suctioning his mouth to her and using his tongue to fiddle around with her clit. His arms are limp and heavy as they hold her thighs down and open. Any energy he has is converted into strokes and twirls, from there into her overwhelmed sobs. Brad walks back in to Michelle yelling, “Peter, fuck!” as she climaxes with her head thrown back and his pressed insistently into her groin by her stiff hand. When Brad comes to sit on the bed, Peter’s leg kicks out and catches him right in the stomach. The kick drives him off the mattress and onto the floor with a thud.

Michelle scrambles away from Peter, to the edge of the bed, as Brad stands and starts putting his clothes on, his back to her.

“Are you going?”

She sees Brad’s shoulders rise and fall as he sighs, but he doesn’t answer her. Once he’s dressed from the waist down, he lifts his shirt from the floor with a swish and slips his arms in as he walks back out of the room. Uh oh. Michelle glances to Peter who appears maddeningly unsurprised. She yanks at the bedsheet until he moves off of it, but touches her wrist as she wraps it hastily around herself to chase after their friend.

“I’m sorry if I wrecked this for you,” he says.

“No.” She shakes her head. “He wanted tonight to be something it was never going to be and I thought, when he invited you, that he could handle it, but… I gotta go talk to him.”

“I think I’m already lucky he didn’t jump up and break my nose, so I better stay here.”

“Alright.”

Michelle almost stumbles trying to keep the end of the sheet off the floor, but she gets to Brad while he’s still buttoning his shirt, patting his pockets to check for wallet, phone, keys, maybe the little Swiss Army knife he carries because it always comes in handy eventually.

“Brad,” she says, cautious in cotton and bare feet.

He cuts a look at her with his dark eyes.

“Better not,” he suggests.

“You’re really leaving?”

“Do you need me to stay?”

She hesitates, leaning away from him slightly at the question.

“Well, it was supposed to be—”

“No,” he interrupts. “Do you need me to stay?”

His eyebrow twitches with everything he’s suppressing: hurt, hope, jealousy. Brad’s smart, he knows the answer, but he still ventures forward with grave determination, the way he’d lead a group of their colleagues down a forest deer path that may or may not be crossed with poison ivy. But Michelle is not something for him to sweep clear and overcome.

“We can only be friends, Brad,” she tells him, straight and honest. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy doing this with you…”

He grins ironically, giving her a glimpse of his bright, perfect teeth.

“Please. You two were shutting me out before Parker booted me in the stomach.”

She doesn’t really have a defense for that. They might have touched Brad, grabbed him, licked and kissed him, but none of that compared to how she felt whenever Peter took her hand. She’s actually a little scared to walk back into her bedroom and face that.

“He didn’t mean to,” Michelle asserts awkwardly. Brad lifts his eyebrows. “Probably,” she qualifies. He nods tiredly.

“If he tells you I was a dick to him after our next game…”

“What makes you think I’ll still be in contact with him then?” Brad gives her a look and she frowns, chastened. “I’ll believe him,” she says instead, “and I won’t blame you.”

“This sucks,” he admits, smiling tightly at the floor.

“Can I get you a glass of water for the road? Transit fare?”

“I’d actually rather get out of here and begin the process of trying to forget what Peter’s dick looks like close up as soon as possible.”

She says nothing to champion the dick in question. That would be cruel.

“This was… something I hope we can laugh about someday,” Brad says, and quickly kisses her cheek.

“I’ll—” they say together.

“—text you tomorrow.”

“—see you on Monday,” Michelle says. “Oh. Uh…”

“Space,” he says, understanding.

“Probably good for right now.”

“Yeah.”

When he leaves, she locks the door and bangs her forehead against it. Fuck. She’s going to have to get a new job, isn’t she? Walking in to spot his heartbroken face every day is more than she wants to deal with. Their initiative has a bigger office downtown, not the outpost-like space they work out of. She can apply there. Probably should’ve ages ago, when she started outgrowing the place she’s at. She’ll miss traipsing around outside the city, having to check her legs for ticks, her hair for spiders, and her arms for dead-branch-inflicted scratches deep enough to require infection-preventative measures, but she can buy some fucking plants. Start a garden in her windowsill. Hike on the weekends. Regain some of that thankless grant application time by devoting it to projects more clout will actually allow her to push forward. Be the chooser instead of the beggar.

Michelle laughs at herself, faintly tipsy and two orgasms deep, standing alone in her entryway in a poor man’s frat party toga.

She gets herself the glass of water she offered Brad. She pees with her goddamn adult white sheet scrunched up in her lap like a bride’s dress on her wedding day. She strides back to the bedroom and drops the sheet at the door.

“Hello,” Peter says, perking up.

“Hello yourself.” The man is stark naked and unashamed. “You’ve been, what, chilling?”

“I also eavesdropped.”

“You’re a loser.”

“I’m the loser you haven’t kicked out of your apartment,” he points out. His gaze slips naturally to her chest as she climbs onto the bed on her knees and takes a seat beside his prone body.

“Why is that?”

She asks rhetorically, but Peter either doesn’t pick up on that or ignores it. She kinda likes that about him. Where Brad tries so hard with her, Peter leaves her room to try a little too.

“You like me.”

“Unfortunately, that is possible.”

“Unfortunately? Give me back those orgasms I gave you then,” he demands.

“Orgasm,” Michelle corrects, emphasizing the singular. “The first one was assisted. You can’t take full credit.”

“Bullshit.”

She shakes her head but Peter grabs the back of her knee, pulling her forward, stretching her out, until she’s on her back, laughing, and he’s hovering over her, inches from a kiss that she really, really wants to receive. Strange.

“Is not,” she tells him flatly.

“Then I’m earning that plural.”

“Oh yeah?”

Instead of kissing her or lowering himself down onto her or otherwise touching her in any way at all, Peter leaves. Michelle sits up and looks after him, baffled.

“Where are your washcloths?” he shouts from the bathroom 30 seconds later. A laugh bursts out of her.

“Tall cabinet next to the shower!”

She listens to him running water in the sink. Laughs again when he returns at a run.

“Flip over!” Peter says wildly.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Come on, while it’s still hot. It’ll feel nicer.”

Michelle rolls her eyes and maneuvers onto her stomach. He washes her back with the warm cloth. He washes her back. She folds her arms under her head and pillows her cheek on them, candidly observing him. In a practical sense, Peter’s wiping away what Brad left behind, and buying himself time to get hard again, she’s certain. But it doesn’t all feel like practicality. Not when every pass of the cloth is so careful, or when Peter makes another sprinted trip to the bathroom to heat it up for her, or when he’s lying down alongside her by the end, beginning to lightly kiss her clean skin.

“I don’t understand you,” she hears herself confess.

“I’m an enigma,” he agrees. Michelle snorts.

“I do like you though.”

“Called it.”

He chucks the damp, cooling washcloth over the side of her bed and she glares at him.

“This room has wood floors. Which I pay for. As a feature of this apartment.”

“It’s not on the floor, it’s on my jeans.”

“So, it’s soaking into your jeans right now? That’s convenient for you.”

“Is it?” Peter asks vaguely. His hand is rubbing back and forth very low on her back.

“I’m assuming you’re not planning to get back into wet jeans tonight and make your way home.”

“I would if you asked me to,” he swears, giving her puppy-dog eyes.

“Are you forcing me to say this out loud?”

A winning smile. She sighs in exasperation and turns onto her side, propping her head up with her hand.

“Peter, would you like to stay over?”

“Do you want that?”

“You’re a pain,” she says for the second time. Peter continues smiling, waiting. Michelle takes a deep breath and keeps her eyes on his, not letting her gaze drift around the apartment that is nice but lonely, tranquil but lifeless. It has life with this surprising person in it. “I want that.”

He shuffles close to her with a grin.

“I want that,” he says, brushing his lips across hers.

“Mmm,” Michelle agrees. Her eyelids fall. She parts her lips for his tongue. His hand fits into the curve of her waist and slips over to touch her back. His thickening erection nudges her mons, then her abdomen as he swells against her. Her moan skips and drags and Peter clutches at her more purposefully, tipping her onto her back.

“Condom,” she remembers, and points him to the box tucked out of sight. Discrete for the fact that she bought it for use in a threesome with a work friend and a total stranger.

Peter holds up her copy of Frankenstein, resting beneath the box.

“You a fan?” he asks, returning it to its place and tearing open the wrapper on the condom.

“I’ve read it twice, but I think I prefer Dracula.”

“Aw, I’m a wolfman guy,” Peter offers. He puts the condom on like it’s a sock or a baseball cap; there’s definite familiarity there. And Michelle doesn’t care. “Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster are creepy, sure, but the wolfman is two different people: the regular guy and then this creature in the shadows during the full moon. I don’t know, I think there’s something really cool about that. You ever watch the old Lon Chaney movies?”

Ok, she more than likes him. She likes him quite a lot. Smiling, Michelle shakes her head.

“Well,” he says, but he stops talking then. There’s a depth to the look in his eyes as he gazes at her. She lets him in and stands as horizontal witness to his existence in blinks and breaths and the pound of his heart she can almost feel from here.

“Why don’t you get the light?”

Click.

In the dark, it’s less of a performance, not that Peter doesn’t clearly intend to perform. Michelle’s eyes rest without the light and she breathes deeply as Peter comes over her and kisses her neck. Her eyes are still adjusting while he takes a meandering route down her chest, pressing his mouth harder against her breasts. He licks across her nipple; she scratches her nails up the back of his neck and into his hair. When she lets out the smallest huffing sound of enjoyment, he cups his hand between her thighs, skates a finger along her entrance. As if she wouldn’t be wet. As if the foreplay didn’t start the minute he walked back in with that warm cloth and draped it across her back.

“Any specific requests?” he asks, lifting his head from her chest. She can see his face now. Enough light gets in around the edges of her blinds. She runs her fingers through his loosely curling hair, then arches her body up against his.

“Don’t be gentle.”

Michelle feels the eager tremor of his hand against her inner thigh as he lines himself up and eases inside her. His breathing catches. She tilts her hips and raises her knees from the bed, urging him in, farther, all the way. Peter withdraws and she’s assuming he’ll build up to what she asked for, but he slams back in. Though she clenches her teeth around the sensation of him filling her so hard and so well, a whine escapes.

“You’ve been waiting for this,” she acknowledges, accuses, admires.

He pauses, hands planted to either side of her on the bed.

“Like I said, I’ve heard a lot about you. I’ve been waiting for this since I convinced Brad to tell me your name.”

She wants to think and hide and hold him close, but she can reflect later. He seems to agree. Peter’s thrusts are rough and rhythmic. Pounding into her like a machine one minute, he’ll be playfully grabbing her wrists and licking her neck the next. When she tightens her legs around him, he lets her change their positions, only to haul her beneath him again—on her stomach this time—as he rocks in and out and wedges his hand under her to rub her clit. They chase each other across her mattress and Michelle comes clawing at her pillow, invigorated by the certainty that this is the best time she’s ever had in bed. Peter bites her earlobe as he snatches one of her scrabbling hands and spills into the condom.

He doesn’t help her remake her bed with clean sheets because he claims to be “bad at it.” She’s debating the potential truth of that when he returns with a bowl of popcorn after leaving her alone to do it herself, joins in, and somehow puts a lavender pillowcase on inside out. Michelle sets it right with a laugh and they get back in bed together, popcorn and her laptop playing Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man between them.

She slips away to shower after Peter falls asleep with his head on her lap. When she gets back, she quietly removes the bowl and the laptop. The bed’s a king—she’s used to her space and she doesn’t need to sleep close to him—but Michelle squirms into the warmth his body radiates. He stirs enough to breathe in the scent of her hair, kiss her forehead, and thrust his hand into hers. Confused by the gesture, she frowns at his face, with its softly closed eyes.

“By the way,” Peter mumbles, shaking her hand, “nice to meet you.”

Michelle smiles and pats his arm as he drops it over her, instinctively pulling her close.

#my writing #thotumn #peter parker is a thot #spideychelle #spideychelle fanfiction #peter parker #peter x mj #peter x michelle #peter parker x michelle jones #michelle jones #brad davis #been sitting with this done for almost a month lol

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mthought-s · 3 years ago

Text

The Truth Behind Unpopular K-pop Opinions (video essay transcript)

youtube

[Voices voicing unpopular K-pop opinions]

[Unpopular k-pop opinions in robot voices] x3

An unpopular K-pop opinion is made up of three things:

An opinion

K-pop

And asking: Is it unpopular?

If a statement checks these three boxes, congratulations you have an unpopular K-pop opinion.

They started off being posted on anonymous confession blogs and forums. Some of the oldest Tumblr blogs and posts for these opinions are from 2011 to 2012, documenting over a decade of K-pop opinions. Unpopular opinions and confession blogs aren’t anything new. It's been a practice in online spaces for a long time for people to anonymously share opinions that could potentially be problematic or offensive towards others. Sometimes the opinions are completely neutral. Websites like Tumblr even have these anonymous options built into their websites with anon asks. It’s an opinion with no consequences, a statement for people to debate and discuss.

Today, they have spread to Twitter threads and YouTube videos. And they’re super popular. Actually, popular isn’t the right word. They’re super controversial. They’re provoking—not necessarily thought provoking—just provoking. They garner hundreds of thousands of views, if not millions, on YouTube. Then for Twitter threads, these opinions are capable of starting fanwars and conversation with possibly thousands of quote retweets.

Many fan accounts use them to stir up views and engagement, having thumbnails and threads that feature controversial topics. At times, these unpopular opinions aren’t actually unpopular. Unpopular becomes synonymous with negative where these pieces of fan content and engagement contain negative opinions to discuss, not necessarily ones that are unpopular and go against the majority opinion. For these opinions, it is also difficult to actually determine if an opinion is unpopular because K-pop fandoms are so large and diverse. In a way, these opinions are incorrectly labeled as unpopular. Instead, they are controversial. These are controversial K-pop opinions. For the sake of simplicity though, I will continue to refer to them as unpopular for the remainder of this video. Unpopular K-pop opinions are our gateway into conversation in K-pop spaces.

There’s many pros to these opinions.

They provide a place for people to express an opinion opposing the majority opinion. The majority opinion is very powerful because it leads to agreement and consensus. Unpopular opinions shake things up. They go against the majority. They cause people to question their biases and further research for reasons to defend their own personal opinion. That opposition against the majority can create conversation, leading to fleshing out people’s thoughts on their stances and deepening the understanding behind the topic that those opinions are based on.

Unpopular opinions can also bring light to issues. It provides a platform to be honest. At times, people don’t want to challenge the majority opinion in fear of being witch hunted and dogpiled on for pointing out an issue. For example, people in the fandom space might be using a potentially offensive term. The anonymity of unpopular opinions can provide a spark to a conversation where alternatives to a term can be found and the community can educate themselves further.

One more reason is that unpopular opinion Twitter threads, YouTube videos, blogs, and forums all provide avenues for people with similar opinions to find each other. People can build relationships with each other and create long, lasting friendships. It enhances the community experience of a fandom, providing a sense of commaderite between fans.

There’s also many cons to these opinions and platforms though.

These opinions are essentially gossip. Gossip has a thrill to it. It feels good, but it can be harmful to others. At times, unpopular opinions can begin to cross personal boundaries where they discuss the mental health, sexuality, political opinions, and other invasive topics of K-pop idols and the K-pop industry. Many people in K-pop communities find unpopular opinions invasive of the privacy of idols and disrespectful of their personal lives. Unpopular opinion accounts and blogs encourage people to speculate and possibly spread mis- or dis-information around the online space. This can harm the perception of a celebrity, causing discourse within the fandom.

Unpopular K-pop opinions can make people feel like they’re right for having the opinion they have too. These opinions are no longer viewed as opinions, but as facts for many people. They confirm biases and can create echo chambers where people say the same thing again and again. There’s no deeper thinking, only confirmation bias and ostracization of people who disagree.

While these anonymous platforms can be used to shed light on issues, they can also be abused to say things that are genuinely problematic and offensive without consequences. In some instances, unpopular opinion blogs have been automated where opinions are not reviewed by an actual person or a moderator before being posted. This can lead to opinions being posted that have slurs in them and viewpoints promoting harm to others.

Unpopular K-pop opinions exist in a limbo where there is both good and bad to them. They will always exist for a hot take rant or a structured essay. Although, there’s something shifting and changing in fandom spaces that has changed the view on them in recent years. There’s a new truth to what these opinions represent and why there’s so much push back against them now in particular. Let’s break down the truth behind unpopular K-pop opinions.

The current state of fandom is not ideal for these opinions to exist in. In the past, fandoms have been largely disconnected from each other. Instead of a fandom being one, cohesive group of people that coexists in one space, fandoms look more like this:

Online fandoms are separated by websites. There is overlap of users, but fans are usually mostly active on one website or platform for fannish activities. This would be called their main platform. Then, fans are further divided on websites by their interests. For instance, if someone is a fanartist, they’re usually around other fanartists because it’s the same interest. Overlap is more common with interests where someone can be a fanartist, but also a fanfic author. Someone can be into critical analysis of a TV show, but also be a merch collector. No one is ever in fandom for only one thing.

This is how fandom is usually organized. It differs from fandom to fandom, but this is the bare system of organization. Now, take this organization we’ve discussed already and increase its scale and intensity significantly. That’s what fandoms look like now. Instead of a disconnect between groups though, everything melts together. Cross-platform discourse, especially between Tumblr and Twitter, has become increasingly more common along with cross-interest discourse. Many spaces such as fanart spaces that would have their own discourse and are disconnected from the main fandom space, now meld into the main fandom space anyway. Discourse and discussion is not divided depending on what your interests are anymore, everyone is partaking in it whether they actually care about the interest or not.

In recent years, there has been an exponential increase in people joining online fandom spaces. Many old, already established fandoms and franchises such as Harry Potter and Star Wars had reboots. This allowed a wave of new fandoms to learn from them then build themselves. Add on an increase in internet usage over the years with the appearance of new media to support these fandoms and you have a much larger fandom subculture. Where a majority of fandoms used to be smaller, more tight knit, fandoms are increasingly becoming humongous, interconnected online communities.

And these communities don’t only exist online. In real life, we can see this fandom growth with the expansion of fan events. We see fandoms represented in concerts, passionately singing along to their favorite artist’s song. We see them in conventions, cosplaying and going from panel to panel to meet other fans. We see them in meet and greets, competitions, tours, and so much more. Fandom is bigger than ever, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to millions of people having more free time and spending that time getting into fandom and learning fan culture.

More people means more problems though. Fandoms have never had a good track record of trusting each other in the first place, but more people leads to more mistrust. Stances and opinions in fandoms become more complex. There’s a necessity to clarify and thoroughly explain oneself in order to not get “cancelled” for failing to acknowledge something. You can’t just say anything because people that don’t know you will assume you said something else from what you did say.

In online fandom spaces, people assume intent and decipher posts in order to ensure the original poster’s morals are aligned with their own. Many look to not take the post at face value and look further to ensure the post they’re sharing has an author they agree with. This desire to know the original poster or op’s original intentions pushes people to fill in the blanks with assumptions.

Fandoms begin to generalize and hard-line opinions to compensate because taking the time to learn hundreds of thousands of people’s full, thorough opinions on increasingly complex and multifaceted topics has become more difficult. It’s easier and takes less mental strain and energy to assume intention than actually learn it.

This trend of an increasing interest and population in fandom culture has also led to other trends and changes in how fandoms protect themselves as opposition and complexity in opinion grows.

The fandom police or fanpol are a group of people within a fandom who engage in policing. Policing is to regulate, control, or keep people in order. In fandom history’s past, fanpol have existed with smaller groups trying to bring their version of order to a fandom. Usually these fanpol groups censor other people in the fandom by dogpiling, using disinformation in expose threads, and mass reporting. They’re not favorable groups of people, being unpleasant and downright vile in some cases where they dox and cyber stalk people who disagree with them. Fanpol has become synonymous with fandom bullies.

In today’s current fandom era, these smaller fanpol groups have expanded to where they’re not small, specialized groups anymore. These censoring and policing ideologies have become ingrained in the majority of a fandom or large, overwhelming groups of the fandom. It’s no longer just policing, it’s an entire change in how fans interact with each other. It’s an ideological change. Fandoms essentially police themselves now, no small group of people needed.

The truth behind unpopular K-pop opinions is that they are subject to a changing fandom environment.

Opposition is seen as hatred with hidden agendas to defame and slander. Fandoms want to protect themselves. They’ve begun to police each other on a large scale to do so instead of community building and actually knowing each other. Fandoms have become hypersensitive to opposition because more often than not, that opposition turns into hatred, harassment, and eventually a person who has awful, malicious intentions gains a platform and can’t be taken down. That hostility is a safety measure, a precaution that compensates for a fandom’s failure to bond with each other. It’s not necessarily their fault that they have failed though.

Unpopular opinions have always existed, but even though they’re unpopular they’ve become popular to do. In the face of growing hostility to opposition, the anonymous platform of unpopular K-pop opinions allows for expression. It allows for opposition to exist that isn’t malicious. Sometimes people just don’t like things that are popular or want to criticize something properly without fear of being sent death threats or being constantly harassed for that criticism. Mild unpopular opinions and criticism cannot exist in this current environment.

We are in a state of fandom where mild disagreement is treated the same as downright hatred. It’s faced with hostility and aggression for the reasons I specified earlier. Eventually, we’ll reach a state where mild agreement is treated the same as downright hatred. Where anything that isn’t enthusiastic, gleamingly positive support and showers of love are seen as malicious and attacks against a celebrity or interest.

And it’s so complicated. On one hand, we want to let these milder opinions exist and allow people to express how they truly feel. However, there’s more often than not, hidden agendas behind these milder opinions. There’s agendas to hurt and harm fans and idols.

The truth behind unpopular K-pop opinions is that they exist and have become increasingly more common to express because of this conflict. Fandoms do not know each other anymore and aren’t focused on community building, leading to a spike in hostility to opposition to protect themselves. K-pop fandoms don’t actually care about K-pop anymore in the way they’re supposed to care about it. They should care about their groups and want to build a fandom that loves that group. They’re not doing that though, so when they’re faced with harm from outsiders they don’t know how to combat it as a fandom. K-pop fandoms don’t care about each other. They care about clout. Unpopular K-pop opinions are used to gain their clout through rage clicks and clickbait. That’s why unpopular K-pop opinions have become popular. That’s the truth.

I was originally going to end this video right here. However, I don’t think I can end on such a depressing and hopeless note. If you look at my channel, I haven’t uploaded anything for weeks (months) because I’ve been consumed trying to figure out how to end this without sounding defeatist. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.

So, here goes:

K-pop fandoms can break away from this fandom state where truth seems almost impossible to obtain and clout is seen as king by just choosing to be true to themselves. Be true to their goal as K-pop fans. Their goal is to love their idols, love the thing that brought them into the fandom in the first place. That’s the goal of every fandom. You’re in a fandom because you want to talk about things and enjoy something with other people.

It’s about appreciating the music, content, and interaction groups give fans. That’s why streaming and voting is so amplified to K-pop stans. They stream and vote to show love to their groups because their individual words and actions might never reach them. It’s how the fandom is capable of expressing themselves en masse to their favorite group so that way their favorite group can feel the love they feel for them.

And you can express that love in different ways too. You don’t need to vote and stream, that’s just one of the unique and direct options K-pop stans have. Fanartists express their love by creating art. Fanfiction writers write fanfiction. Editors make edits. If you’re not a creative, simply listening to the music, reading the lyrics, and engaging with others about the music and content is a way to express your love.

The truth behind unpopular K-pop opinions doesn’t need to be the truth anymore. We can change the fandom state by choosing to be ourselves. We can build a community and bond. We can protect our fandom spaces from malicious people and trust each other. You and I are K-pop stans, fans, whatever you want to call it, because we love our groups.

And if you’re just a random person watching this video, you can be in on this too. I hope you’re feeling what I’m feeling right now. I hope you’re feeling it, okay? We love them for who they are, okay? That is our truth and we should live it.

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slightly-nerdy-rambles · 4 years ago

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Robstar Week Day 6: The Start of Forever (Prompt: Wedding Bells)

I love weddings. They’re just these big, happy, fun parties! So for this prompt I ended up going full self-indulgent mess and just sort of jumped in with very little plan... and I think what little plan I had didn’t even make it into the fic, whoops. The end result is less a single cohesive story than it is a series of events meant to evoke a sort of snapshot of these dorks’ wedding, and I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

(Note: You’re going to see a certain character here whose presence would make the Royal Family Verse go very differently, as I’ve had pointed out to me. Rest assured that I have not forgotten him in that ‘verse, and simply have different plans for him there than I do here.)

The Start of Forever

Penguin was really not having a good day.

It should have been an easy heist, or at least a relatively low-risk one. The Bat’s brat was getting married halfway across the country, which meant the whole posse was out for a couple days. And, sure, he’d made the mistake of getting cocky while Batman was away before, but this thing was a big deal – something about alien royalty, he hadn’t been keeping track of the specifics – and the way he figured, the only buddies of the big guy who wouldn’t also be there were the small-fry or the newbies of the Justice League. Still formidable to common criminals, of course, but to veterans who’d been dealing with the Bat himself for years? His gang could handle it.

But now here he was, his thugs already captured, his trick umbrella wrecked, and fleeing for what was beginning to feel uncomfortably like his very life. He could hear footsteps behind him, and he knew it was only a matter of time before –

There was the lasso. Before he could even try to dodge it, he was bound up tight and thrown flat on his face.

Penguin glared at his captor as she stepped into view, calmly looping up the other end of the rope bound to him. “Aren’t you supposed to be at a wedding?” he grumbled.

Wonder Woman gave him a flat look. “This was the only way to convince my colleague it was safe to go. I was watching the ceremony live, and I’d like to get back to that, so let’s get this over with.”

With one hand, she pulled him up by the loop of rope around his torso and glared deeply into his eyes. “Where are you hiding the loot?”

********

“Yeah, I really can’t help but feel sorry for anyone who tries to mess with Gotham right now,” Wonder Girl said, pausing to take a drink from her glass. “Di might be tough in the field, but she loves a good wedding. I’m kind of surprised she even volunteered to city-sit.”

Batwoman chuckled and leaned back in her chair. “Part of me kind of hopes a supervillain shows up there, if one hasn’t already. Not only would it make a great story, but it would prove the old man right about not leaving the city vulnerable and Wonder Woman won’t have to be mad at him.”

The two women shared a good laugh at that, before settling in to watch events around them. The wedding was a very… unique affair, which was inevitable when one considered the couple in question. Starfire was still technically Tamaranean royalty, after all; her marriage to a prominent hero (or rather, another prominent hero) meant too much for relations between her home planet and Earth to host it under the privacy of civilian identities.

Not that most of the Titans Network weren’t used to going around in uniform off-duty, but it made things interesting when fancy tuxedos and dresses were paired with the masks. The resulting “badass masquerade” feel of the party was oddly suited to both the many superheroes and the handful of boisterous Tamaranean dignitaries that had managed to attend.

Across one very active dance floor, over at the head table, Beast Boy and Cyborg were starting up a chant. They’d already had all their silverware taken away after one too many rounds of “tapping the glass to make the bride and groom kiss,” but this had only slowed them down for about twenty seconds.

Amidst an increasingly disruptive chorus of “Do it, do it, do it,” Raven leaned over to Starfire’s side. “They’re going to keep doing that until you give in,” she muttered.

Nightwing looked over from her other side and pointed out, “If we do, it’ll only encourage them.”

Raven shrugged. “Your call.”

Starfire just smiled and turned toward her husband. (Her husband! X’hal, that sounded good.) “I believe it all depends on whether we want to,” she declared, right before leaning forward to give him a quick peck on the mouth. His half of the table promptly erupted into cheers.

“Mmm.” Nightwing gave her that goofy little smile that never got old, and then stood up and held out a hand to her.

“Come on, let’s head back to the dance floor before they start up again.” His smile widened as he added, “As much as I enjoy kissing you, I’d rather do it on our own terms.”

Starfire laughed a little as she accepted his offer, and together they made their way into the throng.

As befitting its hosts, the wedding reception was a mixed bag of American and Tamaranean traditions. In a general sense, there was plenty of overlap – good food, energetic music, and a whole lot of dancing. But it was still worth noting when the couple made their way past several tables of casually chatting guests only to come across a traditional Feasting table sprawled over with several Tamaraneans (and one specially-invited reporter who’d wanted to sample the local flavor of the royal half of the wedding).

The free-for-all had died down significantly by now, but one youth had planted himself cross-legged in the middle of the table and was munching happily – and completely in leu of a fork – on a slice of wedding cake. He perked up upon seeing Starfire, and promptly flew over to her.

“Sister!” he chirped, still clutching his cake. “This Earth dessert is very good! Do you think I can bring some back home after this?”

Starfire smiled good-naturedly and shared a knowing look with her husband. “You might have a hard time getting a wedding cake, but a normal one shouldn’t be a problem,” she said. “I can even give you a recipe Cyborg and I came up with that uses Tamaranean ingredients, if you would like.”

“Why don’t you join us when you’re done?” Nighwing offered. “Star says you’re pretty impressive on the dance floor, and I don’t think you two have had much family time yet.”

Wildfire grinned and nodded, but as he returned to the table, Starfire lifted a few inches off the ground and swung around to face Nightwing. That was another Tamaranean tradition – for the happy couple to fully embrace their rapturous joy by spending as much time in the air as possible – and one she was all too happy to indulge. A little impish smile crossed her face as she pulled him out to the center of the reception hall.

Oh, but he did look fetching. They had opted to dress in the wedding wear of each other’s cultures, and as much as she loved her lacy wedding gown, she loved even more how well it paired with the long, loose white sleeves and classic armored accents of his suit. Even his mask had been altered for the occasion – narrower and sleeker than normal, with a dark silver replacing the usual black edges and tiny flared accents at the corners.

“I must admit, I do not at all mind you having to wear such a handsome mask on a day like today,” she thought out loud, pulling close to him as the two began to move in beat with the music. Then, leaning in and speaking in a voice too low for anyone but him to hear, she added, “I wouldn’t mind if you continue to wear it tonight, either.”

Nightwing smirked at that, resting a hand on the back of her neck and pressing his forehead against hers as he twirled her around the dance floor. “Sorry Your Highness, but I fully intend to see you properly for our wedding night.” He considered that train of thought for a moment. “Although we might be able to bring it on the honeymoon.”

Starfire held back a snort of laughter, instead schooling her face into a mock pout. “It is less fun when you refuse to be flustered.”

A little smile crept into the edge of her expression. “And this is a poor time to start calling me ‘Highness.’ You’re technically a prince now.”

Nightwing’s smile broadened. “I still can’t quite get over the thought of that. Please feel free to remind me whenever you like.”

Now Starfire did laugh. Rising a little higher from the floor, she wrapped both arms around his waist and looked to him with a silent question.

Her husband (and thinking that was still absolutely delightful) knew her well – he just smiled again and secured both arms behind her shoulders in answer, allowing her to lift him off the ground with her. Together, they joined the flighted guests that twirled whimsically high above the rest of the party, sharing in the joy of their union for both their worlds to see.

#Teen Titans #Robin #Starfire #robstar #robstarweek #Beast Boy #Raven #Cyborg #Wildfire #I'm not gonna tag everyone with one or two lines we'd be here all day #The intrepid reporter may or may not be one Clark Kent #His coworkers still don't know how he and Lois managed to get an invite #Probably because she's all buddy buddy with Superman #lucky

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astrallines · 5 years ago

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The Crumbling Tower of 2020

Notes on the Triple Conjunction

Hello friends. What follows is a short introduction to the incredibly rare and historical astrological conditions of the year 2020. This was written with the intention of accessibility first and foremost; I believe it’s important that people have some idea of this moment in a historical context, and the tools to evaluate the themes and stories that are emerging currently and in the near future. To my eyes astrology is at its most useful when it is neither prescriptive nor prophetic. It is foremost a tool of psychological midwifery; reading the meaning of the world and its events.

So it’s in my interest to be painting in broad strokes. If you want concrete predictions or exact dates for orbs of conjunction now and in history, then there is a vast field of mundane astrology for you to Google. The myths I’m unfolding here are only for context and consideration—I hope you find them helpful.

Also, there will be a major western bias in my evaluation of history, which sucks, but that’s the milieu I grew up in and can speak to, and it remains the information most easily available. But of course astrological conditions are affecting the entire world. We can still trace the vibe through western examples.

Our Axial Moment There are two incredibly rare astrological events happening this year. One event is the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign of Aquarius. These two planets come together routinely, mechanically, every 20 years. But the rhythm of their waltz is such that each meeting takes place in signs of the same element for 200 years at a time. So when they conjoin in Aquarius, in the last weeks of 2020, that will be their first time together in an air sign since the 14th century.

Since 1802, all of their conjunctions have been in earth signs. (Much more on the significance of this later, but some may already notice this 200 period’s coincidence with the industrial revolution and the age of capital). In the 200-odd years before 1802, they would join every time in fire signs—and for the 200 years before that, water. One waltz more brings us back to the 1300s and 1200s, the previous epoch of air signs. Returning to the present day, we should realize that since an age like this persists for two centuries at a time, it is essentially impossible for someone who witnesses such a transition, to have ever even known anyone who witnessed the previous transition. That is, the 100 year old person in December 2020—even if they had, as a newborn, shared a breath with a 100 year old person—would not reach far back enough in history to have even a dim, second-hand knowledge of the epoch of fire (1603-1801). These periods are effectively the frame edges; the curtains around the drama of the world stage.

Rare as it is, the other historical aspect of the year is much rarer: the fact that Saturn and Jupiter will also conjoin Pluto in Capricorn before they dance their first step together in Aquarius. Though these 3 will never occupy the exact same degree together, they will come very close, on and off throughout 2020. Of course a triple conjunction of planets will always occur in more unpredictable intervals than any pair of planets because of the 3 separate orbits. Famously—well, famous among astrologers—it last happened in the sign of Capricorn during the founding year of the city of Babylon, 1894 BCE.

History of the Elemental Epochs Because the Jupiter-Saturn synodic cycle is so regular, and because we didn’t know about outer planets til the 18th century, the dance of these two planets through the elemental stations is by far the oldest astrological tool for determining epochal periods. It has long been assumed to be the basic attitudinal/affective backdrop of the zeitgeist. (Now that we know about Pluto, we have a new vibecheck every 12 years! But isn’t it funny that generations didn’t have names until we noticed Pluto in 1930?)

I would be remiss not to mention that there are overlaps between these periods. For instance, Jupiter and Saturn were briefly conjunct in an air sign (Libra) for a few months in 1981. So toward the end of each epoch, humanity gets a little multi-month preview of the coming age. 1981 and the transitional period is a whole other topic in itself, but that’s all I’ll say here.

Even though these elemental ages have been observed for so long, we don’t have a ton of historical examples to draw upon to get a sense of the nature of a particular epoch. As for the air age that we’re entering into, we can refer to the high medieval period as the last instantiation, but to get a third example we have to go into history 6 centuries before that! Soon the world starts to look so different from the current day, that we have to stretch the imagination that much farther. So let’s just a get a brief summary of the previous cycle through the elements.

Earth 1802-2020

This is the epoch we are still in as I write this. It began during the industrial revolution, and the earth themes are undeniable. Human begins have had a resolutely atomic understanding of the universe; materialism is rampant; and it feels that capital and capitalism are catalysts of most human drama. We take things literally and concretely: instead of speculating about other realms, we want to drive our spaceships to big slabs of land like the moon and Mars. We have discovered how to build and make so much STUFF!

Fire 1603-1801

This period is famous for the enlightenment and the French and American revolutions. The time of great sparks! Reason, brilliance, luminance ... self-validation and self-determination. This is really when human beings began to appreciate the value of the idiosyncrasy of a particular thinker. “THIS dude’s contribution” etc. Rights, laws, freedom, were all in vogue. “Here I am!” say the fire signs.

Water 1425-1602

Just as materialist scientism was born out of the liberating thought of the enlightenment, so were the insights of the enlightenment enabled by the world-broadening discoveries of the renaissance. During the water epoch, everyone was sailing everywhere, being introduced to new cultures, and the “new world” was reached by the Europeans. At home, classics of antiquity were being rediscovered and the world was broadened in that sense. Shakespeare was poppin off in a big way. The concept of the stage is essentially water; water is the idea that there is an affective component to reality at all.

Air 1226-1424

Is it a coincidence that the least widely known stage of the cycle is the one we are now entering? Or is that just the nature of history, as it fades further into the past? This period was called, in the West, the “high medieval” era. It was marked by civic demarcations that more or less persist to this day—the previous few hundred years saw constantly changing borders, but now people grouped more firmly into ethnic or national identities drawn to territories. This is also where we got chivalry and the first real rights for women in a long time. And there was the discovery of an actual social life and leisure. “Hanging out” was invented, thank God.

Reality itself received a major patch update: we invented mechanical clocks, which caused people to relate to the passage of time in a totally new way. We used to just slice up the sunrise-to-sundown period into 12 equal parts; now hours were a constant length throughout the year. Common folk had glass windows in their homes for the first time, and the elite even wore glass in front of their eyes to correct their vision. Music became much more complex, as people had more time to take it seriously and form theories. People could go to libraries; for the first time ever there were more books in cities than in monasteries. Cities were finally the place to be. We invented the compass, the game of chess, and the printing press. The astrolabe, like the compass, allowed us to orient ourselves to something that was formerly hopelessly abstract (the stars). Most of this cool shit came from the Arab world, which was flourishing.

Air Epoch 2.0 That’s the historical overview. Obviously there is much, much more there for any anthropologist or history of philosophy ass person. But we are beginning to see some idea of the relation between the qualities symbolized by the elements and the respective periods. Now we can begin a more informed speculation.

The movement from the previous earth age to the previous air age seems to be one of dramatically more complex social relations. Less emphasis on the riches of a kingdom, and more emphasis on its culture, civility, and sophistication. Abstract things became the treasures. As we look to our own incoming air epoch, it is easy to envision a world that places more emphasis on networks instead of objects. Social media, gig economy, and blockchain all appear to be prefigurations of this. In terms of philosophy, it no longer seems very radical to conceptualize oneself as part of a universe whose essential composition is not defined by particles (nouns) but relations and processes (verbs).

What Was Babylon? I ain’t no student of ancient culture. Until a few months ago, I didn’t even know Babylon was where Iraq is. Of course I think it would behoove all of us to research as much as possible the previous instantiation of this astrological aspect, but I also think it’s valid to speak about its cultural impact through a layman’s osmosis. As far as I can tell: what is Babylon best remembered for? The miraculous hanging gardens, the Tower of Babel, and the law code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi’s code, inscribed onto a stele about a century after the founding of Babylon is celebrated as the first known written laws, some 190 edicts long—and by the estimation of modern scholars, supremely humanitarian for its time. What is the modern equivalent of the ancient innovation of codified laws? Hard to fathom, but something for us to consider as the new age dawns.

More famously, there is the story of the Tower of Babel. A persistent image of human hubris, even today people respond to the tower motif as a symbol of defiance of God or of nature, and it is routinely invoked when artists and pundits comment on the ecological folly of industrial enterprise. Human beings tried to use their intellectual capacities to reach the position of God. Without reading the Bible, I can tell you that the punishment for this was the diversification of languages. All of a sudden people couldn’t speak to each other, because there were so many ways to speak.

Today we take for granted the many languages of human beings, so what is the modern equivalent of this event? Taken as a metaphor, the variation of languages could represent a variation of worldview. Styles of interfacing with reality. Because the element of air is so closely associated with concepts like perception, the structuring of thought, communication, and virtual realities, we might imagine that in the new age we will begin to understand just how deeply diversified our mechanisms of interpreting reality are. Phenomenology seems like a pretty fringe field in our current world, but AI is certainly not; and content creators have increasingly brought phenomenological themes to the center of their work over the last couple decades. Just as the previous air epoch (12/1300s) saw the advent of movable type, perhaps we will soon develop novel means of recording our impressionistic realities.

Finally, Babylon was host to the famous hanging gardens. Supposedly built by king Nebuchadnezzar to please his wife who missed the natural beauty of Iran, it is still unclear whether this wonder of the world ever existed in physical reality. In any case, the story is relevant: a ruler, in the midst of tremendous infrastructural expansion, and with it the inevitable subjugation of nature, finds that his greatest cultural influence across the centuries is ecological restoration. Looking at these three legacies of Babylon together is rather interesting: the law code stele, though purportedly divine in origin, is unquestionably real to our materialist sensibilities—you can go and see it. The Tower of Babel, taken from the Bible, was probably not real in the same fundamental way; though there was without question a great ziggurat in Babylon, the Biblical account is not literal. The hanging gardens is the most mythological. So between the three we have different concentrations of myth and historical fact.

Second Second Life I write this in the first few weeks of social isolation during the coronavirus pandemic. There is much more to be said about the connection between this unprecedented social condition and the imminent radical astrology—maybe the subject of some other essay. But off the dome, we can see plainly the defaulting of Capricornian things: governments, businesses, economies, and social infrastructure. Without much of a choice, we are withdrawing our energy from the material to which we are accustomed. We’re cooped up in our houses, where the merciful currents of the internet continue to draw us on, to operate in cyberspace as normal. New social functions and vocabularies are already emerging as we are forced to reconsider the online networks that have seemed so toxic for the last few years. People find themselves operating “peer to peer” out of necessity. Some “inessential” products may no longer be available on amazon, but your neighbor might have them. More importantly, people are reaching out to each other for nothing more than human contact. We’ve been wringing our hands about the importance of human connection, but capitalism—through spectacle or stranglehold—has drawn us away from putting it first.

Social service is (along with certain essential aspects of the internet) ruled by Aquarius. Saturn, governor of concern, has already ingressed into this sign, but will retrograde back out in a few months; and then at the end of the year, it will be joined by Jupiter, who greases the wheels, expands the potentiation of Saturn’s concern, and affords prosperity to those who take social service seriously. And together they will inaugurate the new age.

#astrology #mundane astrology #great conjunction #jupiter #saturn #pluto #jupiter-saturn conjunction #saturn-Pluto conjunction #tower of babel #babylon #coronovirus #capricorn #aquarius #air epoch #elemental ages #jupiter saturn synodic cycle #triple conjunction

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aspoonofsugar · 5 years ago

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Hello! I was reading your hxh metas and they're amazing!! Thank you for such amazing content 💜 I wanna ask if you have any thoughts/opinions about Kikyo Zoldyck as indivual character and her role in the current/future narrative of hxh...?

Hello anon!

Thank you for the very nice words! And sorry for the long wait!

When it comes to Kikyo, I have talked about her briefly in these two metas:

When it comes to Kikyo I don’t think the text offers us any hint that her and Oito are related and I actually think Oito is Kikyo’s opposite.

Both are women of humble origins who improved their status through marriage.

However, Kikyo has completely accepted her husband’s ideology and traditions even if they bring harm to her children.

While Oito has stated she came to regret her marriage after having given birth to Wobble.

At the same time Kikyo is firstly introduced hitting a servant who (incidentally) was born in Meteor City like her, whereas Oito has shown interest and kindness towards her servant and has tried to build a personal relationship with her.

Moreover, the fact that it is implied that some servants come from Meteor City further highlights the difference between these two opposite realities. On one hand there are people who found their own identities on their profession i.e. on the role they have in society. On the other hand there are people who lack a sense of identity because they are not part of society. The educative mechanism of Kukkuro Mountain uses the lack of self of the latters to strengthen the formers’ sense of identity.

About this, Kykyo is an interesting example since she is both a person who comes from Meteor City, but also a member of the Zoldyck family.

However, if we consider several occurrences we can see how her authority is often put into discussion.

Who knows? Maybe she hasn’t been completely accepted as a person on equal footing with the other adults of the family and the servants deep down dislike her because of this. What’s more, her showing the most typical Zoldyck-like reactions to her children’s behaviors (like praising Killua for showing attributes of a perfect assassin) might be her way to try to fit in and at the same time an attempt to compensate her original lack of identity. Basically she used to be a person outside of society and now that she has been able to gain a status she completely identifies herself with the beliefs of the family she has been accepted in.

In short, as for now, Kikyo has been a very minor character and it is difficult to foresee if she will gain more importance in the future. However, I have highlighted above some traits which could be explored more either to better characterize her or to give her some development.

First of all, the most interesting piece of trivia about Kikyo is that she is from Meteor City, like the Spiders and even some butlers (see Canary). This is something, which has never been explicitly stated in the manga and which is mentioned in the databook. That said, it is a very interesting detail because we know that the people of Meteor City are extremely poor and are not even considered people by the rest of the world. At the same time, they are defined by a strong sense of kinship and comraderie to the point that they are ready to sacrifice for unknown countrymen. However, these traits are not present in Kikyo. As a matter of fact Kikyo makes her identity completely overlap with her role in the Zoldyck family. She is Silva’s wife and the mother of his children. What is more, she has shown zero sympathy for Canary who is supposedly from Meteor City as well. In a sense, Kikyo goes even further than other members of the family in celebrating the Zoldycks and their profession, to the point that her behaviour is almost parodic:

One reason of this, may be that she is partially staging her persona to try to compensate for having joined the family later on and for the clear lack of power that she has within her own family:

Among the adults, so far, Kikyo seems to be the one who has less authority to the point that Killua completely disreguards her:

These thoughts lead me to some considerations. I can see three possible outcomes for Kikyo’s character, structurally speaking.

a) She remains a minor character.

b) She receives some major characterization, but no development.

c) She receives some development either positive or negative.

In cases a) and b), her story-line will probably overlap with and be a satellite of Silva’s. In other words, she will probably share her husband’s outcome.

In case c), things might be different. As stated above, the development could be either negative or positive. I don’t see much appeal in a negative development. This is simply because Kikyo is a) already a negative character and b) not built up to be a very efficient antagonist. After all Killua has already wounded her before the beginning of the series and even later on she has never been very effective in stopping him. Killua ignored her attempt to stop him in the Zoldyck arc and it is clear the characters whose authority he respects are Illumi, Zeno and Silva. In short, I think a conflict between Killua and Illumi/Silva has been built up more than one between him and his mother. That said, it is still possible for a conflict to happen. Kikyo might prove to be a good antagonist on her own right and she might spiral as a result of the conflict with her son.

Finally, if she were to develop positively, I think that the focus should be on a choice between a superficial idea of family rooted in status, which is what both Kikyo and Silva are implementing, and a true family, which is what is born by the positive relationships among people. In a sense, this is a choice all members of the Zoldyck family will be forced to make in the end. As a matter of fact it is central to the themes explored by them.

As far as Kikyo is concerned, she has mostly shown negative traits when it comes to her motherhood. She is possessive towards Killua and neglectful towards her other kids. That said, I wonder if scenes like these:

Might be small hints to the fact there is more to her. That said, it could be very well nothing.

In short, Kikyo is a character we know too little about to make precise speculations, so take my above ramblings as pure hypothesis and read them with a grain of salt.

Other than this, I am curious about Kikyo’s relationships with her children. In particular, I am interested in her bonds with Killua and Kalluto. As a matter of fact Killua and Kalluto show to have different POVs when it comes to Kikyo’s relationship with her youngest kid:

On one hand Killua’s map (which is clearly wrong under certain aspects) describes Kalluto and Kikyo’s relationship as mutual love. On the other hand Kalluto’s thoughts and the family photo imply that they feel less loved than Killua. As you can see, we are in front of a contradiction. A possible way to solve this contradiction is to read it as Killua being oblivious of Kalluto’s real situation. Killua might have confused Kalluto’s attempts to be loved with authentic closeness.

At the same time, another element in Killua’s map might complicate things further. As a matter of fact Killua believes Kalluto to be jealous of Alluka. We don’t know the details of what Killua called “jealousy”. However, according to what we know of Kalluto so far, it is probable that Kalluto’s feelings for their sister stem from feeling unloved in comparison with her. What is more, since Killua is the one closest to Alluka, it seems coherent that Kalluto is jealous of Alluka because of her relationship with their brother.

In short, different elements might suggest that Kalluto has felt neglected both by their mother and by Killua. This is also coherent with the two different theories I saw around concerning Kalluto’s choice of clothes. On one hand Kalluto’s kimono resembles the way Kikyo is dressed in flashbacks:

What is more Kalluto uses a fan to fight and in the 2011 anime Kikyo does the same.

On the other hand Kalluto wearing a kimono might also be an attempt to look more like Alluka. Of course Kalluto’s clothes might also have nothing to do with neither Alluka nor their mother.

In short, it is clear that there is a conflict going on among the three youngest Zoldycks and I am expecting this conflict to be addressed in the future. What is more, it is possible that this conflict will highlight Kalluto and Killua’s relationship with their mother more.

As a matter of fact, the theory above might suggest Killua has more in common with Kikyo than what he would like to admit. Moreover, even if the situation with Kalluto were to be different than the one I theorized, this would not change some similarities will remain between mother and son:

Here Tsubone claims that Illumi and Milluka have taken after their mother the most. However, we know Killua himself shares some traits with Illumi. Finally @subdee has mentioned in this post that Palm resembles Kikyo to an extent. This is something I have never thought about. However, as I have highlighted here, Killua and Palm share multiple traits:

First of all let’s consider that Palm and Killua are very similar. Actually the tendencies Killua criticizes Palm for are present in him as well.

It’s not by chance that Killua who considers Palm a crazy stalker ends up stalkering her and Gon during their date. The truth is that Killua tends to be possessive just like Palm is and, just like her, he is both a person who has been objectified for all his life and a person who has the tendency to objectify others to an extent. As a matter of fact he has been objectified by his family to the point that his brother planted a needle in him to try and make Killua become what the family wants. However, he also comments this when he reveals that he called the being in his sister Nanika aka “something”.

Killua is Silva’s son because Silva’s education taught him to objectify others despite the fact this is probably one of the things Killua hates the most in the world.

Palm, as the section above explains, is a person others tend to objectify, but she too has the tendency to treat males figures who come into her life as romantic partners ignoring their circumstances and the kind of people they are (for example she doesn’t care that Gon is a child). In short others treat her superficially, but she does the same as well.

Even Palm’s other flaw i.e. the fact that she has mood swings is a flaw Killua has as well. He has shown several times througout the series that he can go in killer mode very quickly and especially in the beginning he has trouble controlling himself. This is very similar to Palm being scared she might hurt Biscuit and the boys.

And Killua changing his mind often and being whimsical is something his family has called him out for several times and is at the root of Killua’s major flaw i.e. the fact that he tends to run away and to back down from things he has decided to do.

So you can see how Palm and Killua are two people with similar flaws and this is probably why in the beginning they strongly disliked each other. This is also why them connecting is important for the both of them.

We can see how these attributes are possessed by Kikyo as well (she is overly possessive of Killua and has mood swings, as we were shown in her introduction). In short, it is possible Killua might resemble his mother even if he dislikes her and that he will have to face it through a conflict with her and with Kalluto.

Finally, this might be unrelated, but I find interesting that Killua has problems with female authority figures:

And I wonder if these problems are related to the kind of mother Kikyo was since he shows her no respect whatsoever.

These are my main thoughts on Kikyo so far. I am sorry for the long wait and I hope you enjoyed them! Thank you for the ask!

#hxh #kikyo zoldyck #killua zoldyck #kalluto zoldyck #hxh theory #asksfullofsugar #anonymous

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helbramstrauma-main · 4 years ago

Text

Beach Days

Masterlist

Albert DaSilva x Reader

Modern Era: How many romantic cliches can I fit into a one-shot. A lot, but I am still proud of it.

Word Count 2636

Sophomore year is coming to a quick close. Classes are wrapping up and the failing air conditioner is becoming more of a problem. Although the end of a school year is always bittersweet, one of the best parts is the summer trip. Specifically planning it, last year Katharine's family let us use their lake house for two weeks. However this year we have all decided to pitch in a little more to rent a house on the beach.

We found an Airbnb less than a mile away from the beaches of Rehoboth. There was a small argument between Jack and Race on which beach to go to, but all of the rentals in Myrtle Beach are out of our price range. Deep down we all know it doesn't matter where we go, good times will always follow.

Today at lunch we are making sleeping arrangements. Davey is big on maps, lists, and everything organized- without him, we would be lost. The bell rings signaling that lunch is starting.

"Y/n, stay after," my teacher says. Great, I am kind of in a hurry to get somewhere. I answer his question only half listening, and practically bolt out of his room. The hallways are not empty but are filled with extremely slow walkers, making me get to my destination even slower. It will be fine, I'm sure they won't start without me.

Once I made it to the lunch table I see Davey standing on his chair holding a book above Race, but I decide not to question it and instead take my spot next to Kathrine and Albert. Albert and I were practically instant friends, he is a year advance than me but were still in the same History my Freshman year. He helped me work out the winding halls if the schools, and we have been inseparable ever since. Recently though I have been trying to put a wall in-between us. It isn't that I don't like Albert, I just like him too much. Our relationship is completely platonic and I want to keep it that way, I cannot risk our friendship with my feelings. Although putting a wall between us will hurt our friendship temporarily it is better than ruining it completely with my one-sided feelings.

Race seemed to of lost interest in Davey's book as he takes his seat across from Albert. Jojo sits down in front of me and the rest of the boys eventually file in from the lunch line. I end up packing snacks throughout the day so lunch is more of a social period to me, rather than anything else.

Davey opens the book Race was trying to take to reveal a list of all of our names and how many people can fit in each room. Without dispute Jack and Kathrine claim the master bedroom, leaving us with five bedrooms and a pullout couch. Finch takes the couch because he doesn't want to wake anyone with his snoring. Davey claims the room with the two twins for him and Les. Crutchie takes the single room with another couch that Specs takes. Elmer, Romeo, and Mush claim the bunk beds with a single. Jojo and Race argue over who will get the top bunk in the bunk only room, while Spot claims he wants to bring a cot, so he "doesn't have to deal with anybody". All of this madness flies by leaving only one room left, the double. Albert and I are the only people without a bed, and people expected us to room together anyway. Therefore we were not claimed by any other group. I am not keen on having the smallest of the rooms though, makes me wonder how they fit two beds. At the same time, I am excited to be sharing with Albert even though I shouldn't be. I need to distance myself from him, but maybe being in close quarters with him will make me realize how unbearable he truly is.

A few weeks go by and eventually it is time for me to pack. Now is the time if I am going to be self-conscious about this or not. After about an hour of debating if I should go crop top or sweater, I decided on crop top because if I don't know I never will. Being a master procrastinator I manage to pack everything in under two hours. However, being paranoid I check my luggage every five minutes to make sure I remembered everything.

The next mourning I am anxiously waiting with my suitcase when I see Race's 2001 Saturn approach my driveway. He honks his horn probably waking up my neighbors so I run to the car not wanting to be confronted.

Only Race, Albert, and I were in the car as our luggage took up the rest of the space. To maximize space I sat on the passenger side seat in the back so the other seats could be collapsed. With Race's horrific driving skills it was relatively common for a suitcase to fall on me during the ride. Luckily the ride was only a little over three and a half hours so I didn't have to hear all of Race, and Albert's bickering for too long. Being in the backseat bars you from any conversation happening in the front seat, I didn't mind me time though. I will have plenty of time to talk to them once we arrive.

Although the ride wasn't long that didn't stop Albert form incrementally leaning his seat back more and more. At some point, I couldn't move my legs and I was practically squished against the door and the suitcases. Even though my situation was less than ideal, I couldn't help but blush at the situation. I rested my arms on either side of his seat, as they have nowhere else to go, and he arches his back just to look at me. This silent exchange is so intimate I could have sworn I saw him blush too. The moment is taken away prematurely due to Race's atrocious ability to drive. He swerves off of the highway onto the exit causing a suitcase to fall and crush me. All I could hear was the sound of Albert's laugh echo throughout the car.

I eventually get the fallen suitcase off of me and before I know it, we have arrived. Even though Race ignored the speed limit the whole way there we were still the last people to arrive. I grab my luggage and begin to explore the house with Davey as my tour guide. Once I struggle to bring my suitcase upstairs we eventually make it to the floor where my bedroom is, Davey and Les are the only other room on our floor, along with our shared bathroom. On the other side of the banister is the master with Jack and Kathrine. I open the door to reveal a small room with a dresser at the end of the bed. The room is barely wide enough to fit the mattress so you have to climb over the end of it to get in. I turn around expecting a similar situation but there is only a wall with a mirror.

What do you mean there is only one bed? It was listed as a double room on the website.

"Davey, where is the other bed? Isn't this the double room" I ask him, thinking he played a part in one of Romeo or Mush's pranks.

Davey laughs for a bit before answering me, "what do you think a double room is? It has a double mattress". Albert comes up the stairs carrying his suitcase followed by Jack. Davey and Jack make an awkward exit leaving Albert and me to unpack. We both laugh off the bed thing as a funny miscommunication but I couldn't help the blush on my face. A similar redness appears on Albert's face as we discuss the matter of the bed. He can't be sunburnt already?

Our room is incredibly small making it hard for Albert and me to maneuver around each other. Once I unpack all of my belongings, it is impossible to keep my suitcase in here as it takes up too much space, I throw my self onto the bed. Being able to stretch out a little more than I could in the car is nice. My space was soon halved as Albert did the same thing I did. His left side overlapping my own as we both stretch out. After a few minutes of a conversation, Specs opens the door to announce we are leaving for the beach in about an hour. I sigh and get up to retrieve my swimsuit. Looking at the options I brought I decide on some white high waisted bikini bottoms with a sunflower print top over a baby blue backdrop. It tied in the back and around the neck, so it was secure enough, to take Instagram photos in, but not much more. Even though the structural integrity of it was shaky at best, it still made me feel confident. Albert opts to change in the bathroom, so he could give me my privacy.

After I get my number on I am shamelessly taking photos in the full-length mirror, when I hear a knock at the door. I stop what I am doing to open the door to see Albert. He had to do a double-take before coming in. Usually, I would be disgusted but I let it slide because it gives me a little more confidence. Knowing that Albert thinks I look good is always an ego boost. He tells me that some of the boys are waiting downstairs and to go there when I am done. He decides to wait for me as I grab a hair tie and my black crochet cover-up. I can see him checking me out due to the reflection in the mirror, and I feel the heat rise to my cheeks. Albert is being a creepy but the attention is nice, especially since deep down, I know I want him to see me the way he is. I want to pursue a relationship with Albert, but the risk of losing his friendships keeps me from trying. However, that may change this trip if I keep seeing him look at me like he is right now.

Once we make our way downstairs I immediately spot Kathrine and stand by her, being the only two girls in the group have made us close. Therefore, I am about to tell her about all of my feelings towards Albert and ask for advice. Frankly, I would be lost without her, she gives the best advice, don't tell Davey I said that though. One the short walk to the beach Kathrine and I walk behind everybody else, so I can catch her up. Once I tell her my feelings she immediately lights up like she knows something. When I point it out though she plays dumb and doesn't give any details. Her advice is to simply go for it, and it will work itself out.

To be honest I don't think now is the right time to say I like him. For starters, I am terrified of rejection and on top of that, we are not only sharing a room but a bed as well. If he doesn't reciprocate my feelings it would make out sleeping predicament more uncomfortable than it already is. That being said, Kathrine seems extremely confident that Albert shares the same feelings.

Once we get to the beach I lay out my towel and take out my sun lotion. One time Race lit an aerosol one on fire and we have a strict no-spray rule now. Les is already building a sandcastle with Davey and Finch, while Romeo is desperately hitting on the passing girls. One day he is going to get punched, and he frankly deserves it. Specs and Crutchie are conversing with the local dogs while everyone else is either in the ocean or basking in the sunlight. I fall into the category of desperately looking for my sun hat which I know I forgot.

While I am leaning over in my beach back I feel an arm pull me off the ground. My eyes are closed out of shock but the laugh no debatably belongs to Albert. I try to squirm out of his grip but he is rapidly approaching the ocean and I don't have enough time to escape. After I realize this, I switch my strategy to comprise, begging for him to not get my hair wet. Once he is about waist-deep in the water I can tell that my pleads were not granted as his grip loosens around me. The cold water hits me as I am briefly submerged. My top withstood the fall which is a miracle but when I come up out of the water, I am looking for one thing, revenge.

I kick-off of the ground and splashing out of the water and latch onto his back. I know I can't pick him up so my only option is to bring him down. My arms latch onto his shoulders and he is thrashing about like a bull. Once he shook me off I quickly grab onto his torso bringing him with me. I was not thinking about collateral damage because he, in fact, fell on top of me.

After a while at the beach the sun begins to set the water becomes unbearably cold. The rest of the day is uneventful as people just want to go to bed after a long day of traveling. I hope in the shower to wash my hair, but if I make it quick as all of the hot water was gone. When I re-enter my room Albert is already laying on the bed checking his phone. He appears to type something before plugging it in beside mine, at the end of the bed. I crawl into bed but I don't go under the covers just yet. I throw my hair into a bun so it is easier to comb in the morning and then attempted to wiggle my way under the sheets. Our legs touch briefly before turning into a ball facing him. This causes Albert to laugh and do the same. Eventually, we become comfortable with the proximity and allow for our legs to touch.

A conversation sparks between the two of us and I can't keep track of time. The room is pitch black but I am still able to see the outline of Albert's face, we are incredibly close to one another.

"Seeing you today made me realize something," Albert says. This piques my interest and I prop myself up on my hands as he continues. "I can't pretend to be your friend anymore". My heart breaks into a million pieces, he isn't even my friend. I don't stop the tear the falls down my face, but I hold back the waterfall attempt to come out. "what I mean is, I want more. I can't pretend to just me your friend when I won't do much more. When I want to hold you all the time and call you pet names. I want that" Albert says all at once, noticing the shift in my mood. Kathrine was right, he would reciprocate my feelings! The tears threatening to come out retreat back as I am overcome with an overwhelming amount of joy.

All I manage to say in my joyous frenzie is, "then hold me".

Without hesitation, I feel out bodies press up against each other as our legs tangle. I instinctively nuzzle my head into the crook of his neck. I could get used to sleeping like this, I can get used to Albert.

#newsies #newsies broadway #newsies x reader #albert dasilva #albert newsies #newsies albert #fanfic #fanfiction #reader insert #sky flaherty #newsie #romanticfanfic #newsies fanfiction #newsie fanfiction #albert dasilva x reader #albert x reader

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