#when I play a character it's usually out of love and I want them to be the star of the show. yknow

[goldenhallas]

1: Where in Thedas is your Rook from?

Her clan primarily roamed the forests of Ferelden

2: What is your character's alignment?

Chaotic Good, sometimes leaning a bit too much into the chaotic side

3: Race and subclass?

Dalish Elf, Veil Ranger

4: If your Rook was a companion, where would they be found?

In the Veil Jumper camp, hanging out with Amelia and the other woman who's always with her. I like to think those three are good friends who love to gossip with each other.

5: What emotion did they usually pick?

Purple. She's a mischievous one.

6: What companion are you platonically close with?

Bellara. They're kindred spirits. They're so alike in so many ways - they're both very curious and excitable, they both have ADHD and trouble sitting still, and they both write to focus their minds. They also both have a little brother that they lost and dearly miss.

7: Romantically close with?

Davrin <3<3<3 she likes him from the moment she sets eyes on him, flirts with him a lot, and falls for him hard and fast and with all her heart. They have a lot in common when it comes to their adventurous spirits and the way Dalish clan life was never enough for them. And their senses of humour compliment each other, they have the best banter and love to tease each other.

8: Who are they suspicious of?

Lucanis, initially. He is an assassin, after all. Their friendship is the slowest to develop, especially once she chooses Minrathous over Treviso. They do eventually come to trust each other and become friends though. Ise has a fondness for Spite too. She thinks of him like a cute but naughty dog who likes to nip.

9: Does your Rook get along with their chosen Faction?

Kinda sorta not exactly? Haha. She adores the Veil Jumpers and they adore her, but they're like a dysfunctional family. She's a chaos gremlin always getting into (and often outright causing) trouble, so Strife is perpetually cross with her, but part of that is because he's scared he'll lose her to one of her shenanigans someday. Their relationship is like… misbehaving kid and exasperated dad

10: Are they proficient in playing any instruments?

She plays the elven lute decently well – a guy she dated for a while taught her how. She also loves to sing but is terrible at it.

11: Weapon of choice?

Bow and arrows

12: What is their orientation?

Straight. Loves men A LOT. Dates a lot because she's a hopeless romantic and wants to find the one - and she does, in Davrin :')

13: What are their thoughts on killing? Is it a necessary evil or do they enjoy it?

She likes being in the thick of battle. It gives her a rush. She enjoys killing monsters and demons, but with people it's more complicated.

14: What hobbies does your Rook have?

She knits! It's a focusing, calming thing for her. She knits a sweater for every single party member with the letter of their first name on them - including Assan and Manfred of course! And Lucanis’ says ‘L & S’.

She also likes to write fiction, mostly adventure and romance stories.

15: What NPCs do they like? Which one's do they dislike?

She ADORES Antoine and Evka. They're instant besties. She also loves Strife despite their difficulties. Irelin and Amelia are dear friends. She doesn't like the First Warden much. Hates the Mayor of D'Metas crossing and leaves him to die (regrets it later because of what he turns into though)

16: Do they have a favorite creature in the Thedas?

Halla. She knits a lot of halla plushies in all different colours. Once she meets Assan she falls in love with him instantly and starts knitting griffon plushies too.

17: Do they enjoy life as an adventurer?

She loves it. It's the only life for her. She gets restless if she's not on the move, seeing and doing new things.

18: What would your Rook be doing if they weren't recruited by Varric?

Probably wandering the forest, stewing about Strife sending her away, wondering if it's still too soon to go back yet lol. The Veil Jumpers are family, she misses them dearly when she's away.

19: How do you think they'll meet their end?

When Davrin goes on his calling, and Assan goes with him, it'll shatter her heart. Likely, she won't live long after that and will quite literally die of a broken heart.

20: Would they side with Solas or fight him?

Well... Solas’ arrogance pisses her off and she likes to poke and prod him, but she can't help seeing flashes of good in him. She senses his pain, sees the abused spirit of Wisdom peeking through and she wants to help him. But she'll still fight that motherfucker to the death if she must, her friends and loved ones come first always. In the end, she ends up saving him and reuniting him with Ghilana Lavellan, because its the most compassionate option, and she can see how good Ghilana is for him, how he melts for her, she can feel how much they love each other. And she's a sucker for romance. She definitely writes fanfic with Bell about the Halla and the Dread Wolf after.

21: What is your Rook's favorite ability?

Lightning Quiver

22: What languages is your character fluent in?

Common and Dalish

23: What do they do after an absolute crisis?

She climbs into the tree tops. She finds being above her problems helps her solve them.

24: Does your character believe in the afterlife?

Yes, she believes in the afterlife, as the Dalish do

25: What specialization best represents your Rook?

Veil Archer. She was always a talented archer even before joining the Veil Jumpers, so it was just a matter of them teaching her their techniques to enhance what she already knew

26: What animal best represents your Rook?

Red fox. That cheeky, somewhat manic look in their eyes is very Ise, as is their resourcefulness and cunning, and the bright red fur/hair of course.

But also magpies! She's very curious, obsessed with collecting shiny trinkets and baubles, and is fiercely protective of her “nest”.

27: What was their life like before the events of Veilguard?

Similar to how it is now, but with less darkspawn and elven gods lol. She went on adventures, veil jumping and exploring ancient ruins and collecting artifacts and shiny things, and learning about ancient elvhen culture.

28: Is your character the de facto leader of the party? Or do they consider someone else to be the leader?

She's the leader. Varric told her to look out for the team, and that's exactly what she'll do. She never wanted that kind of responsibility, but since it has fallen to her, she'll step up and do her best. She never does anything half assed.

29: If you could choose a different faction for your Rook, which one would they have joined and why?

The Wardens. She likes being part of something bigger than her, where she can adventure and fight monsters.

30: What's your favorite thing about your Rook?

Appearance wise, her bright red curls. Personality wise, her fiery, compassionate heart and undying optimism – the way she never lets the cruelty of the world make her bitter or cruel and always has a crazy plan to get out of any situation. Her lust for life. The way she's so full of love and wears her heart on her sleeve.

Rook Questionnaire

inspired by @cassieuncaged's BG3 Character Development Questions but for Rook instead!

1: Where in the Thedas is your Rook from?

2: What is your character's alignment?

3: Race and subclass?

4: If your Rook was a companion, where would they be found?

5: What emotion did they usually pick?

6: What companion are you platonically close with?

7: Romantically close with?

8: Who are they suspicious of?

9: Does your Rook get along with their chosen Faction?

10: Are they proficient in playing any instruments?

11: Weapon of choice?

12: What is their orientation?

13: What are their thoughts on killing? Is it a necessary evil or do they enjoy it?

14: What hobbies does your Rook have?

15: What NPCs do they like? Which one's do they dislike?

16: Do they have a favorite creature in the Thedas?

17: Do they enjoy life as an adventurer?

18: What would your Rook be doing if they weren't recruited by Varric?

19: How do you think they'll meet their end?

20: Would they side with Solas or fight him?

21: What is your Rook's favorite ability?

22: What languages is your character fluent in?

23: What do they do after an absolute crisis?

24: Does your character believe in the afterlife?

25: What specialization best represents your Rook?

26: What animal best represents your Rook?

27: What was their life like before the events of Veilguard?

28: Is your character the de facto leader of the party? Or do they consider someone else to be the leader?

29: If you could choose a different faction for your Rook, which one would they have joined and why?

30: What's your favorite thing about your Rook?

[ouiouimochi]

Grumpy Snowman

pairing/s: jin kamurai x reader

wc: 700

warning/s: no beta we die like zenji, short, characters may be ooc, no thoughts head empty when making this, wonky phone format

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙

On the 1st day of simpmas, my true love gave to me

“Why is my name on this snowman? Tohma, give me your gloves. Whichever half-wit made this has shit for eyes.”

“That would seem unwise, Captain” Tohma voiced, concealing a glint of mirth in his eyes by closing them accompanied by his signature smile.

Jin crossed his arms, waiting for the other male to follow his order until his vice captain eventually slipped off his gloves. The silver haired male wore one glove on his dominant hand before tracing a finger over his name on the snowman, erasing it in the process as well as leaving an awkward looking crevice on the surface of the snowman.

After removing the glove and throwing it back to Tohma, both of them proceeded inside Frostheim without a word.

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆

Crunching of snow accompanied your humming while on the way to the Frostheim house, mood elevated for today. You immediately went for the main entrance, already used to being called over on a certain grumpy man’s whims.

Your eyes then turned to the area of snow you played with Luca and Kaito on, smiling fondly at the fun memory…

Laughter filled the air after a few thrown snowballs. You three eventually settled for making snowmen.

Left to your own devices, you finished yours— it looked like it was frowning. With a giggle, a certain someone immediately came to mind and you start to unconsciously write his name on the body of your work. You stood up with a fond smile, proud of your masterpiece—

You then stopped on your tracks when you noticed something wrong with the cute snowman you made with your friends. Eyebrows scrunched, albeit a little upset.

‘Whoever tampered with my work is quite the busybody’

With your mood a bit flipped over, you walked into the giant castle.

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆

“Oi, servant. Your mood seems to be more down than usual. It's fucking ruining my tea.”

You gathered up the documents on the coffee table, compiling them together into a neat stack. You sighed.

“Someone ruined a work of mine.” You actually don't know why you answered when he wasn't even asking. Perhaps your ruined mood did the talking for you.

“Hmn? Do you know who did it?” He spoke gruffly. Despite the unbothered tone he put on, you were already quite familiar with the way Jin talked and acted.

He cared— not that he'd admit it— and he'd reason out that no one should bother “his favorite servant”. Although after thinking about it some more, he sometimes went over the top…

You shook your head, waving off his question. Who knew what he'd do to the poor perpetrator if he were to find out. You felt silly now for being upset over a small thing that can't even be called an issue.

“I- Nevermind that, it wasn't that important anyways.”

You took another stack of papers, sifting and scanning through them, before neatly compiling them yet again. Your eyes met his and you found that it was already staring at your form the whole time.

Standing up, you took the papers you needed to hand to Cornelius.

“I believe it's my cue to take my leave now, Jin.” You awaited his response as if asking permission to go out.

He clicks his tongue and takes a whiff out of a cigarette. With a puff of smoke and slouching into the sofa, he finally spoke.

“Do what you want.”

You smiled at him, doing a small bow before turning on your heels.

“Please do take care, it has started becoming colder as of late.”

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆

“Tohma, you damned rat. You knew all along and didn't fucking stop me.” Jin’s eyebrows were deeply furrowed, his mouth into a scowl.

“I believe I did warn you that it was unwise, Captain.” Tohma's annoyingly matter-of-fact voice reached the silver-haired male’s ears

After summoning the busy vice captain to his quarters in order to investigate what got you so down, Jin was only met with the other ghoul’s irritating snicker as he revealed that the Captain himself was the one involved in the said incident.

He pinches his nose, clicking his tongue again.

“Go fucking send her this then.”

“Should I include in the letter that you're sorry for calling her a half-wit with shit for eyes?”

“You got a damned death wish?”

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆

Later that evening, you received a package containing a delicate snow globe that had a polar bear and brown cat inside.

You had an inkling of an idea who sent it— perhaps you'd have to mentally apologize for calling him a busybody.

'Maybe the snowman was actually ugly'

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙

note/s: soo I'm participating in the simpmas event, courtesy of @justwinginglife , where I post a fic for a diff character (that I simp for) each day until the 25th. Hopefully I'll be able to commit to finishing the event— I cannot promise that the ones I post are gonna be complete either. Do expect short fics instead of the fleshed out ones. I do apologize for my inactivity, uni has absolutely been destroying me

lastly, even though it was jin's fault for erasing his name on that snowman i made for him— I'd 100% agree with him and say it isn't his fault character apologist anything could be his fault but I'd gaslight everyone to think it was their fault instead

taglist: @ryescapades , @minasfwoopyponytail + anyone else who wants to be added!

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

How I would re-write Stella Goetia, Backstory + Season 1

Probably my most popular posts on this blog are about Stella from Helluva Boss. I like to talk about her because I think she had the potential to be a really nuanced character, and I really would’ve loved to see her and Stolas have a more complicated relationship.

So I’d like to talk about the direction I would’ve taken her characterization and story in.

I do need to stress that this is NOT a writing “fix-it” post. Canon Stella may be an evil bitch, but she’s MY evil bitch and I LOVE HER. I’ve already talked quite at length about how her character and conflict with Stolas being purely black and white is not a bad story decision, but to me is less interesting than having a grey or nuanced conflict.

I just want to go over a rough outline of what I would’ve done with her as a character. Just because it’s different, doesn’t mean it’s better or is “fixing” the canon story. I also am not trying to make Stella inherently more sympathetic/likable/or “woobify” her—this is just a ROUGH outline of what I’d do to flesh Stella out as a person, and ideas I’ve had for her character that would make her (and her relationships with Stolas and Via) more appealing to me personally.

I just really wish Stella had gotten more depth, and wanted to talk about it.

(LONG) Rewrite Summary below!!!

While I think there’s also an interesting re-write where Stella and Stolas are not in an arranged marriage, and may explore this idea as well, this time around I am going to be sticking with the canon background that their marriage was arranged.

Instead of having Stella be an evil heartless spoiled child who strangles puppies, I would give her a very strict upbringing where from birth she was groomed to be the “perfect noblewoman and wife”—I would base her upbringing and the expectations placed on her on what was expected of Regency noblewomen.

Basically, Stella would be raised to be able to run the house/estate when Stolas was away, be accomplished in the “domestic arts” (hosting events such as parties and balls, being able to do embroidery and other hobbies “befitting” of her class, and being involved in charitable efforts). She would be taught to be quiet, graceful, courteous, and to always anticipate the needs of her husband.

Stella’s “true” personality as a young child would be boisterous, loud, and precocious. Stella loved playing outside, singing loudly, and dancing.

She would have gotten in trouble with her parents often due to this (“Dancing for fun is what the poor do, Darling. You should only dance to find a suitable husband”) and would be punished by her Father by his ordering the rest of the family and their staff to ignore Stella completely and act like she didn’t exist. This would usually result in Stella acting out even more to try and MAKE everyone pay attention to her, until she’d get too tired to continue and start acting “proper” (I.e. quiet, not speaking too loud or speaking out of turn, being obedient, etc.)

Her relationship with Andrealphus would have been strained, as he would have been the “golden child” while Stella would be the scapegoat. I’d also like to give Stella magic fire powers. Because honestly why does Andre get Ice Magic and Stolas get space magic and Stella is the same type of demon as them apparently and gets nothing??? Boring.

Maybe this is basic, but honestly I love characters with fire powers who have to learn to control them. As child, Stella would have difficulty controlling her fire abilities, and would be not be taught how to use or maintain her powers, but would be taught to suppress them.

As an aside—again, I’m not giving Stella a traumatic childhood to make her more likable and more pitiable. I have two reasons I’m giving her this backstory—1) I believe that even people with great parents still end up with some childhood trauma, because being alive and growing up *is* traumatic. And 2) I think that there’s a lot of pretty good evidence that ROYAL upbringings, and the expectations and restrictions that come with them, are especially traumatic in a very particular and very intense way.

Doesn’t mean that they’re not extremely privileged, but that privilege also doesn’t take away that trauma.

I think it’s very realistic for both Stella AND Stolas, as children of royalty and nobility, to have a lot of childhood trauma surrounding their upbringings, and that’s something I really want to explore in my rewrite—how they cope with their traumas and how it impacts their relationship and their ability to raise their daughter and navigate conflict.

By an older teen to young adult, she would have learned how to behave as a “perfect noblewoman”. This is when she would meet Stolas for the first time (with a a Chaperone of course).

There would be a little bit of time shortly before and after their marriage where they would have their “honeymoon” period—both Stella and Stolas were very infatuated with each other and mistook that infatuation for “true love”.

This time where they were extremely infatuated with each other would last about a year, after which they would slowly begin to realize that the idealized images they had of one another was false. They would start to argue more, have a harder time compromising etc. until they finally realized they fell out of love, and maybe were never in love in the first place.

Even though the two of them would have come to this realization, it would be separately, and due to their upbringings (where you don’t really talk about your feelings and push them down) they would NOT talk to each other about it.

This would be the first big crack in their relationship, and they would both have a lot of guilt over it.

I like the idea of the two of them really, really want to stay in love with each other, but after they get to TRULY know each other they just…never fully “click”. They realize they don’t have the same interests, they can’t really find anything to talk about, and they just. They don’t stay in love.

Stella would be very in denial about her true feelings after this turning point, and would still try to convince herself that she really loves Stolas. She would have a lot of deeply buried guilt over not loving him, and see it as a failure of her “duties” as his wife.

After this, they would find a way to keep their relationship would be cordial and respectful, but it would always tinged by an unspoken awkwardness. It would be almost business-like in nature, and they would start spending more and more time apart.

To cope with this lackluster relationship that they were both now stuck in, Stolas would throw himself fully into his duties (which I would want to show a little more of…seriously what does…what does he do??? What does he use the grimoire for????) and Stella would do the same—throwing herself into her duties as the lady of the house and a Goetia Princess.

Stella would host parties and balls, she’d make sure manor was always clean and orderly, she’d become a patron of the arts.

The basis of their relationship would become one of them sticking to the roles that were thrust upon them since birth.

Things WOULD change for the better though after Octavia’s birth.

Because for a while, Stolas and Stella would have something, someone, that brought them together, that they both loved and cared for dearly.

Something that Stella and Stolas would have spoken about before having Octavia is that they did NOT, under any circumstance, want to raise Via like they were raised.

As I already went over, both Stella and Stolas would have dealt with abuse and neglect growing up—Stolas’ abuse stems from his parents being LARGELY absent in his life and him being very neglected as a child, while Stella’s stems from her parents being extremely controlling and giving her very little, if any, freedom.

They would firmly agree on letting Via be her own person, on making time for her, on not putting too many expectations on her.

And, in this rewrite, I would not have them be abusive or neglectful parents. But I would have them be very flawed parents, whose own traumatic upbringings negatively affect their ability to raise Via.

I would want to explore Stella and Stolas fighting to break the cycle of abuse they went through, but still struggling because they don’t have a good frame of reference for what being a good parent looks like.

Stolas doesn’t realize that he’s not always giving Octavia all the time with him she needs, because in his eyes he’s spending tons of time with her—it doesn’t occur to him that he’s actually being neglectful towards her, because to him, spending any long amount of time with her is more than he ever got from his father. He’ll spend time with her, and talk to her, but not really LISTEN to what she’s saying she needs, and doesn’t understand why she doesn’t like the things she used to, or is mad at him for not taking more time for her.

Stella doesn’t realize she’s still being controlling or pushing her expectations onto Octavia by making passive aggressive comments suggesting she wear more “appropriate” or “feminine” clothing, or take up a “nicer” hobby like needlepoint and drop taxidermy. She gives Via the freedom to choose what she wants to do, but doesn’t fully SUPPORT those choices, and doesn’t understand why that’s so important, since in the end Octavia is still enjoying freedoms that Stella only dreamed of as a child.

Still, they manage to be a fairly functional and loving family towards Octavia. And Stolas and Stella maintain their cordial and business like relationship for Octavia’s sake, and to keep up appearances.

During Octavia’s teen years, when she’s 14-17, is when more cracks begin to show—Stella and Stolas have been keeping their relationship together, but it’s stagnating more and more. Stolas throws himself even more into his duties with the stars (or whatever) and Stella begins to become gradually more and more concerned and anxious about making sure her family maintains a “perfect” reputation among the other royals of hell.

Stella begins to throw more balls and parties for Hell’s charities (if this version of hell has banks, and police and prisons, they can have charitable organizations, okay.) As her and Stolas’s anniversary starts to get closer, she begins planning a HUGE ball for Hell’s nobility to celebrate. It’s hugely important to her.

While she’s doing all of this, Stolas is beginning to have an early-to-mid-life crisis. His work and duties that used to be engaging and fun are feeling more and more like a chore, his relationship with Stella has stagnated and is purely for show, he’s getting more and more anxious about Octavia approaching adulthood, and his whole life is beginning to feel more and more claustrophobic.

So. Stolas decides to do something wild, spontaneous, and very selfish, before he loses it. On a night where Stella is attending an Opera, and Via is spending the night with friends from school*, Stolas dresses in clothes he assumes “the common folk” would wear, and goes to shady bar in IMP city, with the goal of meeting someone to hook up with.

This is where Stolas meets Blitzø. (Sorry, I’m. I’m not doing the whole “paid childhood friends for one day” background.)

They have what both assume will be a one night stand at Blitzø’s place. It goes. MUCH better than either of them would have expected sex-wise. The two start meeting up more and more when they’re able to. Stolas begins to open up more to Blitzø, but it stays VERY sexual—eventually Stolas comes clean about who he is and they start to hook up at Stolas’ place whenever Stella is out. Stolas is very much infatuated with Blitzø (and the sex they have). Blitzø thinks they’re having non-complicated fun.

During AAALLL of this is when Blitzø learns about the Grimoire, and asks if he can “borrow” it for I.M.P. Stolas is impressed with Blitzø’s confidence and drive, and agrees to let Blitzø use it anytime, with the one exception being the night of the full moon. There is no full moon “deal” beyond the agreement that Blitzø cannot accept clients on the full moon because Stolas needs the book back that night.

During all of this is ALSO when Stella begins to notice Stolas acting differently, he’s slightly more energetic, he’s spending less and less time in his study and the manor in general, he doesn’t look her in the eyes when they do have time to chat briefly. It’s odd, and she’s suspicious of SOMETHING going on but she’s not sure what.

Stolas DOES feel guilty about cheating on Stella, but justifies it by telling himself that they’re not in a “true” marriage, and it’s “just sex”, so he’s not really cheating on Stella.

The night of Stella and Stolas’s anniversary ball arrives. To Stella, everything goes as expected, and it’s a huge success.

During the ball, though, we get the same scene we get in the Circus—Blitzø gets caught trying to sneak into Stolas’ room. Instead of the guards bringing him into the party, they call Stolas outside privately to deal with it (because why would the disrupt the party by dragging a party-crasher through the middle of a fancy ball?? I didn’t really understand why they did that in the og episode)

Stolas dismisses the guards, and we learn that Blitzø has been sneaking in (with Stolas’ permission+ knowledge) to get the grimoire after the full moon when he and Stolas don’t have time to meet up in person. Like tonight.

Instead of just handing off the grimoire like usual, Stolas and Blitzø end up hooking up (mutually and wholly consensually). Stolas does not return to the party.

Stella is really concerned about how Stolas’ absence looks, especially at a ball she planned with so many high profile demon lords present, but she’s able to wave it off as Stolas feeling a little tired and retiring early, due to it being the day after his full moon duties and all.

Instead of returning to their room, that night, Stella sleeps in one of the many guest rooms. She doesn’t know where Stolas is, but she’s mad at him for leaving early without saying anything on such an important night, and is hoping not coming to their bed will send a message—she’s tired anyway and doesn’t want to get in a big fight before bed that will tire her out more.

The next morning she has tea in the garden with some close friends. And this is where we get the infamous “Sorry, I fucked your husband!” scene.

After this, well. Stella kinda loses her shit. She had been pushing down all of her negative feelings and thoughts and frustrations surrounding her life and relationship for YEARS, because in her mind, as long as she was able to maintain the facade of having a “perfect” life, it would be worth it.

And now in a moment she’s lost the thing that, after her daughter, mattered to her the most.

She essentially explodes in fury in a way Stolas has never seen before—they get in a huge argument—Stella’s fire powers come out and burn down the manor’s garden, things just really get out of hand.

So. What would follow would be most of what we see of Stella in season 1 of HB—now that that floodgate has been opened, she finds she’s struggling to control her feelings, she’s mad and sad ALL THE TIME, and she’s deeply deeply hurt in a way she didn’t know she could be.

She can’t show her face in society, she doesn’t know WHAT to say to Octavia, she can’t believe Stolas could be SO SELFISH after EVERYTHING she had done to make sure their family was in high standing—and she can’t push down her feelings anymore. She’s never been so furious in her entire life.

And so she contacts a hitman, Striker.

I really like the old fan theory that Stella hired Striker in a moment of irrationality and anger because of how hurt she was—obviously her hurt does not justify trying to have her husband MURDERED, but I like the idea that she called the hit because she was deeply hurt and unable to cope with those feelings—not because she just hates him to the core of his being and has for their entire marriage. Her anger would be a coping mechanism, if she’s so busy feeling furious she doesn’t have to actually sit with her feelings of betrayal and sadness and hurt.

From here, the rest of season one would play out like in canon, we don’t see Stella in person again, just the apparition of her in Ozzie’s.

I’m going to stop here because this post is already way too long, it it’ll help me to think more if I split it up.

If you read this far please tell me what you think! I think I’d like overall for Stella and Stolas’ relationship to mirror Blitzø and Verosika’s, or maybe become a foil to it. From here we could honestly go either way—either Stella becomes a true villain, or she becomes an antagonist turned hesitant ally like Fizz, Ozzie, and Verosika.

I can see both being interesting, so maybe I’ll do a rewrite for both. We’ll see I guess.

*it weirds me the FUCK out that we don’t know anything about what Hell’s kids do, like I assume schools exist but ???anyway in this rewrite Stella and Stolas send Octavia to a fancy private school—cause the thought of her having NO friends or social circle makes me so sad)

[naughtyneganjdm]

Love's Second Chance: A Holiday Reunion - Chapter 9

Summary: Joel is having a hard time coming to terms with Y/N not wanting to be with him and Tommy tries to help him through his tough time. Negan sets up a surprise for Y/N's children and lets them get an idea of what his life normally is like.

Characters: Joel Miller, Tommy Miller, the reader (OC), Negan Smith, Elizabeth, Peter, Dale Horvath, etc.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60501985/chapters/155702092

Warnings: 18+, Swearing, angst, depression, drunk Joel, Joel jerking off, smut, public play, unprotected p in v, etc.

Notes: This chapter probably takes a deeper dive at Joel's depression that he has in this story. If that's a trigger, I will warn people of that ahead of time.

Days had passed since Tommy had gotten that call from Y/N asking Tommy to watch over Joel after things went down with them. At the time? She had been very vague and when Joel came home that night, he tried to blow off like everything was okay, but Tommy knew better than that. No one knew Joel better than he did. So he could tell something was off with Joel. During the day, Joel would bury himself in work and during the night, he’d drown himself with the bottle.

Lately, Tommy had been spending a lot of time with Maria so he hadn’t really been around Joel much. When Elizabeth and Peter were home, he had nothing to worry about. But over the last few days, he knew that they would be with Y/N for something she had planned out. That’s when Tommy truly had to worry about Joel. Being alone meant that Joel would be alone to his thoughts and Tommy didn’t like the idea of that. Even though he had planned to spend time with Maria, he knew that he needed to check in on Joel. Especially with Joel being so closed off about everything.

Moving down the stairs, Tommy stood at the bottom of the steps when he saw Joel sitting sprawled out on the couch. There was a nearly empty bottle of whiskey in Joel’s hand. Both his hair and clothes were a mess. Whatever he was watching on the television was incredibly loud causing Tommy to cringe at the sound of it. Reaching the first floor, Tommy moved across the room and reached for the remote to turn down the volume getting a scoff from Joel.

“You look like shit,” Tommy commented, tossing the remote next to Joel on the couch who pulled himself up slightly from where he was seated on the middle cushion. Joel’s eyelids were heavy with an irritated expression covering his features. Pointing to the bottle that was in Joel’s hand, Tommy tried to get his brother’s attention. “Did you drink all of that in one sitting?”

Dropping his head down, Joel lifted the bottle of whiskey that was in his hand to look it over. Dramatically shrugging his shoulders, Joel dropped the bottle back down. Not giving Tommy an answer, Joel just went back to watching the television ignoring Tommy in the moment.

“We need to talk,” Tommy announced, moving around the coffee table to sit on it. Blocking Joel’s view of the television had him grumbling under his breath. Annoyed, Joel tried to look around Tommy, but Tommy leaned over to get in his line of sight again. “What’s going on Joel? What’s wrong?”

“Who said something was wrong?” Joel sneered, bringing the bottle up to his lips to take a swig of the alcohol. Hissing out when he dropped the bottle back at his side, Joel shook his head. Avoiding the answer was a common thing for Joel. Over the years he had gotten good at shutting himself down, but he didn’t usually drown himself in his woes with alcohol. “I’m just watching a movie.”

Leaning in, Tommy immediately groaned out and threw his head back after he got close to Joel, “Jesus, Joel! You stink. You smell like a fucking distillery and…you just overall smell bad.”

“It’s not that bad,” Joel grunted to himself, lowering his head down. Pulling his shirt forward, he took a whiff of himself and grunted. Dropping the material of his shirt back down, he dramatically shrugged his shoulders and grumbled. “It ain’t that great either, but what does it matter? I got no one to impress. I’m alone.”

“Give me that,” Tommy snatched the bottle of alcohol from Joel’s fingers. Standing up from the coffee table had Joel scowling out. Trying to reach for the bottle, Joel fell to his knees from the couch. Pushing his hand into the center of the coffee table Joel tried to balance his weight. That alone proved that Joel was severely inebriated. Stumbling over his feet, Joel tried to get the bottle from Tommy who easily avoided him at every turn. “It’s time to hide this shit…”

“Don’t do that!” Joel called out after Tommy who was swift to move into the kitchen in search of anything else that Joel could drink.

Grabbing every bottle, Tommy realized that his brother was having a very bad problem and he needed help. A loud crashing sound filled the air evoking Tommy to jump and pushed the bottles aside. Heading back into the living room, Tommy sighed loudly when he looked down to see that Joel was face down on the floor. The coffee table was flipped over with Joel’s leg still laid out over the top of it.

“That’s it…” Tommy was infuriated with his brother right now as he headed over in the direction of Joel. “This has to stop.”  

“I’m fine,” Joel growled with Tommy turning him onto his back to make sure that he was okay. After confirming that he was fine, Tommy went over to the coffee table to pick it up and clean what had fallen off of it. Lifting his head, Joel noticed that the room was spinning causing him to groan out and drop his head back against the floor. Soon he felt Tommy returning, hooking his arms firmly underneath Joel’s armpits. With his strength, Tommy managed to drag Joel’s body toward the bottom of the stairs. Pulling him up into his arms, Tommy turned backwards toward the stairs so that way he could pull Joel up the steps. A thud filled the air with Joel’s boots hitting each step with every pull upward Tommy made. Hisses were escaping Joel’s throat with his ass colliding with the edge of each one of the steps. “Goddamn it Tommy! Let me go!”

“If you weren’t drunk, you’d easily be able to stop me,” Tommy reminded Joel, bringing attention to the fact that Joel was the stronger one between the two of them. But in this state? Joel could barely hold his head up. So he was in no condition to be making any kind of demands from Tommy. Each grunt from Joel’s throat grew louder until they got to the top of the stairs. Starting to swat at Tommy’s hands, Joel seemed pretty desperate to get Tommy to let go of him. Flopping much like a fish out of water would. “You’re drunk as a skunk big brother. You’re not gonna be able to stop me.”

“This is bullshit!” Joel slurred, his feet kicking against the floor of the hallway while Tommy dragged him toward the bathroom. As they reached the door, Tommy dropped Joel back onto the ground eliciting a loud groan from Joel. Anger flooded his veins, but at the same time Joel felt his stomach turning. Closing his eyes, Joel’s main focus at this point was not letting himself vomit everywhere. Right now? He was losing the battle. “Tommy? Tommy! Help!”

“With what?” Tommy was quick to look back over his shoulder after pushing open the bathroom door. Desperately trying to pull himself up to his knees, Joel was looking at the toilet. In that moment Tommy saw all of the color leaving Joel’s face and he swiftly reached down to try to assist his brother in getting to the toilet. The moment he was near it, Joel’s arms hooked around it. Thankfully they were able to get there in time for Joel to start throwing up immediately. “Fuck Joel!”

Standing up, Tommy brushed his fingers through his longer hair, slicking it back. The sounds that Joel was making proved to Tommy that Joel was miserable. It had been a very long time since he had seen his brother get this drunk.  Noticing that Joel was having a hard time staying up on his knees, Tommy reached to brace his brother up. Doing his best to not get any throw up on him.

By the time Joel finished, he was hovering over the toilet heaving. Breathless, Joel’s body was shaking. Guilt was eating away at Tommy that he let his brother get this bad without realizing it. Brushing his fingers through Joel’s damp hair, Tommy got Joel to tip his head back so he could take a look at him.

“We need to get you into the shower,” Tommy announced, stumbling as he stood up. Moving for the shower, Tommy turned it on. Testing the water, he made sure it was warm before heading back for Joel. Reaching for the bottom of Joel’s t-shirt, Tommy tugged at the material, but Joel simply groaned and dropped his head to the side. Instead of focusing on that, Tommy reached for Joel’s boots pulling them off in a firm tug. Then he easily got Joel’s socks off. Trying to turn Joel, Tommy felt a large amount of restraint and he hissed. “Goddamn it Joel.”

Huffing out, Joel couldn’t put up much more of a fight with Tommy starting to undo his belt, “What in God’s name are you doing?”

Forcefully pulling off Joel’s jeans had Tommy pulling Joel toward him against the bathroom floor. Tossing Joel’s jeans aside, Tommy gave Joel a glare and then went back to work on getting the dark blue t-shirt that Joel was wearing off of him. Not being sensitive with it, Tommy yanked the shirt up causing Joel’s limp arms to go with the movement and Tommy tossed that to the ground too.

Leaving Joel in his boxer briefs, Tommy dragged Joel toward the shower and braced him against the corner of it. Directing the water at Joel had him hissing out in anger with the water flowing down over him. Kneeling down beside Joel, Tommy was doing his best to make sure that his brother didn’t pass out.

“The hell happened to you?” Tommy inquired reaching for the shampoo to pour a large amount in over Joel’s head. It had Joel’s dark eyes locking with his and if looks could kill, Joel’s glare would have killed him. “It’s been a long time since I found you like this.”

“I’m not a baby,” Joel huffed with Tommy caressing the shampoo into his hair to lather it up. In this position Joel felt like he was a child being reprimanded.

“You’re acting like one,” Tommy’s deep southern drawl echoed throughout the room. There was frustration in his eyes while he took care of his brother. Swatting at Tommy’s hand, Joel hissed when Tommy smacked back at him. “You don’t want to be treated like a child? Then stop acting like one!”

“I’m not!” Joel growled, dropping his head down while Tommy worked his fingers through his hair to help get the shampoo from it.

There was a whole lot of bickering and trying to push Tommy away. Until finally Tommy stood up. Instead of leaving, Tommy just reached for the bottle of body wash. Holding it over Joel, Tommy started to squeeze the bottle covering Joel’s body with it.

“Now either clean yourself up, or I will do it for you!” Tommy snatched the clean washcloth that was sitting on the counter of the bathroom sink. Tossing it at Joel, it landed at the center of Joel’s chest. Biting down on his bottom lip, Joel did his best to pull himself up enough so that he could scrub at his body to the best of his ability. When Tommy thought the soap was washed away from Joel’s body he turned off the shower and tossed Joel a towel.

“Dry yourself off,” Tommy demanded, leaning against the sink. Joel was still sitting in the shower looking rather pathetic. Right now Tommy’s heart was pounding inside of his chest. That whole thing was quite the workout and he was furious that it had to get to this. This wasn’t normal for Joel. Tommy couldn’t even recall the last time he found Joel this drunk and in this kind of condition. Joel looked like a wet dog just sitting there with the towel in his lap. Joel’s hair was in front of his face and there was a pathetic expression over his features. “Now Joel!”

Rolling his eyes, Joel lifted the towel to start wiping at his face and his chest before dropping the towel back down. By the way he did it? Joel just seemed to give up and Tommy didn’t know what he was going to do. It looked like Joel was about to explode, but instead he dropped his head down and started sobbing, “It’s over.”

“What’s over?” Tommy was confused, his eyebrows furrowing with Joel’s sudden outburst. Joel was not the kind of person to cry like this. Even if he was drunk, so Tommy just stepped forward and stared down at Joel. This was not a situation he knew how to fix.

“My relationship with Y/N,” Joel buried his head into his hands. Lowering down, Tommy knelt beside his brother, tipping his head to the side.

“That’s been over for four years Joel,” Tommy reminded his brother with a shake of his head. Tossing his right hand out, he tried to get Joel’s attention but he was lost inside of his misery and his tears. “You’re kinda late to react big brother.”

“No! You’re not listening to me!” Joel whined, dropping his hands down at his sides causing the towel to drop in his lap.

“Well you’re not making much sense now are you?” Tommy fought back with Joel who reminded Tommy of a child with the face that Joel was making.

“She doesn’t want me anymore,” Joel responded with a whimper, his cries broken. Tommy had never really seen Joel act like this before so he was still tense. Joel was not known for having meltdowns. “I did the most romantic thing I’ve ever done. I reckon you wouldn’t even believe me if I told you what I did.”

“Try me,” Tommy shrugged, waiting to hear his brother’s story. “You’d be surprised what I would believe these days.”

“The other day? I bought this dress for her. When we were married, we were walking through this shop and she was breath taken by this dress, y’know? But it was so expensive. We couldn’t afford it at the time. So I thought by buying it for her, she’d appreciate it. I laid the dress out on her bed with a flower and a note with directions. I sent a car to pick her up. I had it take her to the high school. I put up signs for her to follow. It took her to the planetarium where I explained to her the first time I fell in love with her was in that room. I explained how much I loved her,” Joel rambled having to cover his mouth for a moment when he thought he was going to throw up again. It took a minute for the feeling to go away before he started up again. “I sang to her. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve sang?”

“I imagine a long time, hmm?” Tommy replied back seeing Joel drop his head into his hands again. “What has you so sad Joel?”

“We slept together. It was romantic. It was perfect,” Joel rambled on, his head shaking while he spoke. “But then after? She told me that she thinks that I only want to be with her again cus’ Negan is there. That the only reason that I want her back is because she has someone else in her life. She doesn’t think I genuinely love her,” Joel explained with a broken breath, his whole-body aching while he sat what felt like in a puddle with his soaked boxer briefs.

“Do you wanna get back with her because Negan is in her life?” Tommy questioned, his eyes curious with Joel throwing his hands up again. Even though Joel was frustrated, Tommy was going to push the subject. “It’s a good question Joel. You didn’t make a move for four years. I could see why she would think that since you never made a move before.”

“But see! That’s not true!” Joel stressed to Tommy knowing that he didn’t always tell his little brother about their relationship. “We had sex all the time after we got divorced. So many times. Even when I was with Tess. So I’ve obviously still been clinging onto her. It’s not like I never truly made a move.”

“But did you ever do something like you did at the school? Something romantic? A gesture that would sweep her off her feet?” Tommy pressured Joel to answer the question, but by the way Joel looked at him, Tommy had his answer. “She loves you more than anything Joel. Except your kids. Y’know that. Anyone with eyes knows that. I’ve never seen a gal look at someone the way that she looks at you. I could only wish to have Maria love me that much in the future.”

“Then why doesn’t she want to be with me?” Joel bit down on his bottom lip, the droplets from the water falling from his hair trailing down his face. Sadness was eating away at Joel and Tommy could visibly see that his brother was shattered over all of this.

“Joel, I love you. You’re the man I look up to the most in this world, but you forget the things that you did to her. You left her Joel. You broke her heart,” Tommy claimed, recalling their past together. Outstretching his hand, Tommy pat Joel on the side of his face to get Joel to look up at him. “You were everything to her. There wasn’t a person that questioned how much she loved you. I saw it when I was a kid. I see it now. But when you left her? I don’t even know if you realize how much you truly broke her.”

Hearing this from his little brother didn’t help. Dropping his head, Joel swallowed down hard with Tommy explaining things to him, “You have to understand what a shock everything was to everyone. Your relationship was so good for so long. The two of you were like the town super couple. You fought all the obstacles and you won. You both gave up your lives to take care of me. And then she got pregnant with Elizabeth and her parents disowned her. The two of you had to face the world completely on your own and you succeeded. You made a life for yourselves. Most couples never accomplish that. No matter how much help they have.”

“Tommy…” Joel breathed out, the reminder of the past causing the ache at the center of his chest to grow.

“No, you don’t understand Joel. You and her? You were the couple that everyone wanted to be like. The two of you? God it was sickening during the first half of your marriage. The way the two of you looked at each other? I’ve never seen a love like that. It was why you two won that stupid snow king and queen every fucking year big brother. You were a team. But not only that? You two were so in love. And your family was perfect. You were like a couple that walked right out of a television show. Yeah, you were young but it was beautiful.”

The sobs of Joel started up again, his head burying into his hands to try to hide from Tommy that he was having a break down about his past, “You never fought. You never got angry at each other. And then all of a sudden after how many years of perfection, you just started getting so angry. And it was bound to happen at some point. The fighting. All couples fight. No one believed it when you separated. It was never Joel. It was never Y/N. It was Joel and Y/N. Together since their teen years.”  

“I got confused,” Joel declared, shaking his head when he thought about his past.  “I made a horrible mistake. I was depressed and I let that cloud my judgement. I didn’t seek help and…it made me make poor decisions.”

“Then why did you wait until now to do something about it Joel?” Tommy was asking the same question that Y/N did which frustrated Joel.

“I don’t know!” Joel growled, grimacing when he thought about that answer. “Tess and I broke up because I never showed her affection. I didn’t tell her I loved her even though I did care about her. I just…I always loved Y/N. Tess knew that. I knew that. No one I slept with was gonna get from me in a relationship that Y/N did.”

“Which honestly isn’t much at this point Joel. The old you? Sure. This one? It’s not the same man that I grew up with,” Tommy informed his brother with a frown. Even though Joel was an amazing human being, he failed at certain parts and Joel needed to hear it. “You are the best big brother. I owe everything to you. I do. And I’m gonna look up to you until the day I die. And you’re a great dad. If I have kids? I wanna be just like you. Pete & Ellie love you so much. You’ve been an amazing dad. But you? You’re lacking in the emotional department.”

“Thank you,” Joel didn’t appreciate that comment, but Tommy was just being honest with him.

“After our parents died, you just shut down. I’m surprised that you did so well with Y/N for so long,” Tommy declared wondering how they made it as long as they did in the first place. “I just never thought it would be you leaving her. I thought it would be the other way around when you started getting so fucking angry. That woman loved you endlessly. If I have someone love me that much in my life, I could only be so lucky.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Joel spoke quietly, trying to faintly dab at himself with the towel. “I want her back. But there is Negan…”

“Joel,” Tommy started, going to say something but then stopped. Biting down on his bottom lip Tommy considered what he should and should not say. “Do you love her? Like really really love her?”

“I do,” Joel answered quickly without missing a beat.

“Then maybe you need to let her go. I’ve seen her with Negan,” Tommy stated with a frown, knowing this was likely not the advice that Joel wanted. “He makes her happy Joel. Real smiles. He makes her laugh.”

Hearing that gutted Joel and he forced himself to look away from his brother with his jaw flexing, “Every time she is with you, I see her crying. I know she loves you. I do. I see it. But you broke her heart. You hurt her. Without meaning to Joel. Maybe if you want her happy, you have to let her go.”

“But what about me?” Joel blurt out having Tommy inhale sharply. “What am I supposed to do when the only one for me is her?”

“Joel,” Tommy began, his words stopping. Reaching for his brother’s hands, Tommy pulled Joel up to his feet. Leading Joel out of the shower, Tommy was careful with not getting Joel to slip. Once he had him on the rug, Tommy pat his brother on the shoulder. “I think you’ve had so many chances at this point that you’re just gonna have to find a way to make things work.”

Instead of responding to his brother, Joel wrapped the towel around his waist. Carefully working off his boxer briefs, Joel kicked out of the wet material. Bracing his hands on the counter beside the sink, Joel looked at himself in the steamed over mirror. He really did look terrible.

“Do you wanna watch a movie?” Joel grumbled under his breath attempting to wipe at his face with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, sure,” Tommy dug into his pocket to reach for his cell phone. “I was supposed to go out with Maria, but I’d rather be with you right now. Keep you from drinking more.”

“No, no. Don’t,” Joel shook his head, struggling to keep himself up. Turning to face Tommy, he kept himself braced on the counter. “I don’t want you to be like me. You go out with that girl and you be happy. Because one of us needs to be.”

“It’s okay Joel,” Tommy went to continue to call Maria, but Joel reached for Tommy’s phone. Shaking his head again, Joel swallowed down hard and sighed. “We can watch the movie together. I can go out with her tomorrow.”

“Little brother, I’ll be fine,” Joel tapped Tommy on the side of the face while handing him back his cell phone. “I reckon I’ll go lay down. Close my eyes and try to rest.”

“You sure?” Tommy confirmed with Joel, his dark eyes worried about his older brother. “I don’t mind.”

“I insist,” Joel winked taking his time to balance his weight. Slowly moving to the bedroom, Joel did his best to make it to the bed. Dropping onto it, Joel noticed behind heavy eyelids that Tommy was watching him. Confliction filled his body before Tommy went to go get ready. Reaching for a pillow, Joel buried his head underneath it. Trying to focus on something other than the sadness he was feeling, Joel eventually heard footsteps in his room. “I’m fine Tommy.”

“Just call me if you need me,” Tommy begged of his brother having Joel push the pillow away from his head. “I will be here in an instant if you need me.”

“Will do,” Joel gave a sign with his hand that it would be okay. “Go enjoy your girl. I’ll survive.”

It looked like Tommy thought he was making a mistake in leaving. But when he did, Joel stretched his arms out. Hearing the front door open and close, Joel gave it a few minutes before pushing himself up into a seated position. Reaching his hand out to grab his laptop that was on the dresser, Joel opened it up and put in his password. Looking through his folders, he stopped on one that he looked in often. Swallowing down hard, he opened it up and scrolled through until he found the file that he wanted.

Setting his computer on the bed, Joel rest back on his elbow and sighed staring out at the video. Stretched out on their old bed, Y/N was naked while Joel set up the camera. In their past years, Joel was always very big on recording things and she allowed it. Although, she had always requested him to delete the videos after so the children would never find it but Joel had a hard time getting rid of their past together.

Biting down on his bottom lip, Joel grumbled under his breath when he watched a much younger, leaner version of himself entering the screen in just a pair of light jeans. Maybe it was wrong watching something like this, but Joel didn’t give a fuck at this point.

Keeping his eyes locked on the screen, Joel watched the video closely. His pulse leapt in his chest when he heard her moans start to flood from his laptop when the younger version of himself started going down on her. Even though the video wasn’t the best of quality, Joel could remember perfectly what this moment was like. The taste of her. The sounds that she made.

Unhooking his towel, Joel lowered his hand and started to palm in over his length. Closing his eyes, he pictured what it was like to be with her. That it was her hand touching him and not his own. The sounds of her crying out his name in the video had him hissing out. At this point he would have done anything to be with her like this again.

Opening his eyes, Joel watched as his younger self stood up from the bed and pushed his jeans down his legs. Even back then the way she looked at him took his breath away. Tommy was right. The way she looked at him was unlike anything he had ever felt before. In the video he crawled in over her and the sound she made sent chills throughout his body. There was something in the way that Y/N touched him in the video that made him bite down on his bottom lip.

“I love you, so much,” Joel could hear her words lingering when they started making love. Their breathing was loud with her telling him how much he meant to her.

“I love you,” Joel groaned, curling his fingers around the shaft of his erection after hearing him whisper the same thing back to Y/N in the video.

Maybe this would be the only sexual interactions he’d have with anyone from here on out. Maybe this was all he deserved and he would have to learn to accept it. Now that he was alone, there weren’t many options really at the end of the day. And that was his own fault.

----

“I don’t understand why we have to wear these, but mom doesn’t,” Peter complained with the pressure of Negan’s hands over his shoulders leading him in the direction that he needed to go. Today Negan told them that he was taking them somewhere special, but halfway through the drive both Elizabeth and Peter had to put blindfolds on. Elizabeth was being led by Y/N and Peter was being led by Negan. “Why can she know where we are going?”

“Because I asked her if she would be okay with it, so she knows where we are,” Negan’s deep raspy voice grumbled from behind Peter who huffed loudly. “Just a few more steps and you are going to be okay,” Negan instructed and it felt like they were walking for quite some time. “Watch your step. The ground is gonna feel weird.”

“When can we take these off?” Elizabeth stammered, letting out an uncomfortable breath. Keeping her hands out in front of her trying to prepare herself from not running into something.

“A few more steps,” Negan instructed finally stopping and patting Peter on the shoulders to alert him that they were ready to go. Wherever they were, it was cold out. So Peter easily figured out that they were outside, but what was weird is he thought they had walked into a building at first. “Okay. I think you can take them off now.”

“Finally,” Peter groaned, dramatically pulling the blindfold off letting out an astonished sound when he realized that they were standing at home plate of the baseball stadium that Negan’s team played at. “Holy fucking shit.”

“Peter,” Y/N laughed, helping Elizabeth get her blindfold off. By the expression over Elizabeth’s face Y/N could tell that Elizabeth was in awe of it. Both her children loved sports so when Negan asked her if he could bring the two of them here, she was eager to allow it. And by the looks on their faces? That was all she needed to know that she made the right decision.  

“Mom, this is so fucking cool,” Peter retorted with a snort throwing his hand up in the air to stare out at the slightly snow-covered ground of the field. His big, brown eyes were full of amazement and he bounced somewhat in place. “We’re on the actual field. Most people that end up here go to jail for being where we are. Unless it’s the team, obviously! But we’re nobody and we are standing on the field.”

“Hey,” Negan hushed getting Peter to look back at him. “Don’t say that about yourself. You’re not a nobody. None of you are. All three of you are someone.”

With a smirk, Y/N reached out to squeeze faintly at Negan’s shoulder appreciating hearing him say that to her son. Giving her a wink, Negan leaned in to press his forehead to hers before leaning back.  

“What do you think?” Negan stepped forward, loosely wrapping his arms around both Peter and Elizabeth’s shoulders. Both of the children stepped in closer to him as they gazed upon the stadium from where they were standing on the field. “Obviously, this will be cooler in the summer and spring when I can bring you out here and maybe you will get to enjoy it without the snow.”

“This is really cool,” Elizabeth noted, gazing over at Negan who gave her a wink. Giving them both a firm squeeze, Negan released them and then stepped back to reach for Y/N’s hand to hook his fingers with hers. “How did you do this?”

“Well, I kind of work here,” Negan snickered drawing Elizabeth to roll her eyes and turn away from him. Snorting out, Negan shrugged his shoulders and swallowed down hard. “I thought you two might want to see this since you both love baseball so much. I called in a favor with my coach to let the two of you come here. I have an apartment in the city that the four of us will stay at tonight. So…yeah. I thought you might enjoy getting to experience this.”

“Can I run around?” Peter begged of Negan, looking over his shoulder. Smirking, Negan gave a single nod and watched Peter immediately take off running through the small amount of snow to run around the field.

“You can check out anything you want too,” Negan offered to Elizabeth who stood there for a moment trying to act like the older more mature person over her little brother. That didn’t last long though because soon she was running toward the middle of the field to look out at all the seats that were surrounding them.

“You have provided these two with so much bragging material over these last few weeks,” Y/N declared letting go of Negan’s hand so she could wrap her arm around his waist. Almost instinctively Negan wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in closer to him. “Do they really let you come here whenever you want?”

“Not really,” Negan stammered, smirking with the way that Peter and Elizabeth seemed to be getting a kick out of being here. Peter did a roll on the ground that had Negan snorting out at his antics. “The coach just owes me some favors. I also told him that I was looking to impress my girlfriend’s children.”

“And that worked?” she was surprised to hear that, tipping her head to the side so they could lock eyes with one another.

“Yeah. The team has been trying to get me to date since I lost Lucille. They thought I would play better if I had someone I was with,” Negan claimed, recalling what things were like over the last few years. “Hearing that I had a girlfriend, he immediately jumped on it.”

“So you’re telling the people you work with that I’m your girlfriend, huh?” she inquired, her eyebrows bouncing up in curiosity. Pressing her hand in over the center of his abdomen, she turned in closer to him and couldn’t help but smile. This was all starting to get very official between them.

“Well, you are,” Negan countered leaning down enough to nuzzle his nose in against hers. Depositing a faint kiss over her lips, Negan hummed and lifted his head back up to watch the children. Pointing to the camera that was hanging near Y/N’s chest from the strap, Negan tried to bring her attention to it. “You should be taking photos of them. They are gonna want that bragging material and since their mom takes good photos? Go for it.”

“Yes sir,” she tipped up on her toes to kiss Negan once more. Stepping away from Negan, she started using her camera that she brought to take photos of Peter and Elizabeth while they played. Noticing Negan’s silence, she looked back at him to see that he was eyeing over the stadium. Instead of having that excitement that Elizabeth and Peter had, there was a sadness lingering in his eyes. Snapping a few photos of him without him realizing, she knew that it had to be him thinking about this upcoming season being his last.

“They look like they are having fun,” an older voice called out to them causing them to look back to see the coach of the team approaching them. Moving in beside Negan, the man pat Negan on the shoulder and sighed loudly. Seeing Elizabeth and Peter running around seemed to impress the coach and he couldn’t help but smile. “I take it this means it was a success in impressing the girlfriend’s children?”

“You tell me,” Negan held his hand out to where Elizabeth and Peter were now tossing snow at each other from where the pitcher’s mound was. Y/N lowered the camera and moved in when Negan waved her forward. “Dale, this is my longest friend and my girlfriend, Y/N.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Dale outstretched his hand to take Y/N’s in his politely to introduce himself. “You have to be a very special one to finally land this one. I never thought I’d see the day when he’d get with anyone after he lost Lucille.”

“It’s still new,” Negan informed Dale with a whisper causing his eyes to bounce up. “But we’ve known each other most of our lives. We just lost contact for a while. We were best friends growing up.”

“Ah, so we can probably share secrets,” Dale teased Negan elbowing him in the ribs eliciting an uncomfortable laugh from Negan. Bringing his attention back to Y/N, it looked like Dale was searching for something to talk about with her to keep the conversation going. “I take it your children are fans?”

“Big fans,” she explained with a bright smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you after watching you on the screen for so long. Or out in those seats. I’m sure once Peter and Elizabeth realize you’re out here they will be excited to meet you too.”

“I’m not much,” Dale assured her, waving his free hand about. A hearty laugh fell from his throat and it was charming. The coach actually seemed like he was a pretty nice guy and that impressed her. “So…is this guy treating all of you good?”

Negan’s arm hooked loosely around Dale’s shoulders, his thick eyebrows bouncing up after Dale’s question.

“Very good. Negan is an amazing man,” she stressed knowing that Negan was beyond good to her. Clinging to her camera, she sighed loudly and shrugged her shoulders. “Do you two want a photo together?”

“He’ll break the camera, but it’s not a horrible idea,” Negan joked letting out a hiss when Dale elbowed him firmly in the ribs. Both of them laughed, pushing slightly at each other in a moment of fun. The two of them posed for one of the photos before Dale playfully shoved Negan away again.

“You’re a photographer, huh?” Dale was curious when he moved in beside Y/N to look at the photo of the two of them that she took. By the way he was squinting, it looked like Dale was having a hard time focusing on them. Putting his glasses on, he let out a long exhale when the photos became clearer. “Are you any good?”

“She’s very good. And she’s a great writer too,” Negan answered for Y/N, wanting to bring attention to her talents. It had color flooding into Y/N’s face, her eyes lifting from the camera to look up at Negan. “She always wanted to be a journalist when we were growing up. You’d be surprised just how talented she really is.”

“May I?” Dale pointed toward her camera. With a nod, she allowed him to take her camera to look through the photos she had taken. Truthfully? Over the last few years she had gotten self-conscious about the things that she had done. So having this stranger looking at her photos made her feel nervous. Especially since he was Negan’s boss in a way and the coach of a professional baseball team. Taking a moment to look away from the photos, Dale’s eyes looked over his glasses and he locked eyes with Negan. “Why aren’t you hooking her up with a job Negan?”

“I guess that’s a good question,” Negan snickered stepping forward to move in beside Y/N. Curling his arm around her waist, Negan gave her a firm squeeze. The way he smirked drew attention to his dimples and it sent a warmth throughout her body. “It’s one I will have to consider.”

“I have a job,” she alerted them, speaking up with Dale going back to looking at her photos. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to say that. It was a job, but it wasn’t much of a job. She knew that it wasn’t one that would impress others.

“As a photographer? Or a writer?” Dale wondered, giving her his attention in that moment. It had her lips parting and she was considering telling him the truth. But? What would be the point of that? It wouldn’t impress him and it probably would have him thinking less of her. Negan was this famous baseball player. And what was she? So instead of giving him an official answer, she just shook her head and looked away from him. “Then why not use your boyfriend to get what you want in life? He’s got the connections. It’s the least he can do for you.”

“Truthfully? I just appreciate having him in my life,” she claimed, locking eyes with Negan who gave her a smirk. Winking, Negan extended his hand out to hook his fingers with hers firmly. “Just getting to be around him is helping me enjoy my life. I don’t need him to hook me up with something else. I just want to be near him. Negan has brought me a sense of happiness that I haven’t felt in a very long time.”

“Oh, I like this one,” Dale noted, pointing at her before lowering his head back down to look at the photos. A laugh fell from Dale’s lips when he turned the camera to show one of the photos that Y/N had taken of Negan in his black boxer briefs and his opened black button down on the first night they slept together. “Can’t keep your clothes on, can you?”

“Forgot to delete those,” she announced with a warmth flooding to her cheeks when she reached for the camera to politely take it back from Dale who was snickering. Looking to Negan, she lowered the camera down at her side and felt bad that she left those photos on the camera. “Sorry.”

“Oh, he’s not embarrassed,” Dale assured her with a wrinkle of his nose. Pointing to Negan, Dale snapped his fingers together as if he was trying to remember something. “I’ve seen worse from Negan. I was there for that photoshoot of yours that they had you do Negan. Remember that?”

“Ah! Yes! Dale here was perving,” Negan stated with a laugh, stepping in closer to Y/N after she hooked her camera back around her neck to let it rest against her chest. “Giving the photographer ideas for poses. Neither him nor I are shy.”

“This is very true,” Dale rubbed his hands together nodding his head back toward the building. “Do you have a minute to talk about something Negan?”

“Sure. Just let me get the children to come inside with us. I want them to see the locker room,” Negan motioned Dale to wait, looking back over his shoulder. “Liz! Pete! Do you two wanna meet the coach and see the locker room?”

“Fuck yes,” Peter blurt out excitedly eliciting a groan from Y/N with how her son had no filtering system right now. Both of her children ran back to introduce themselves to Dale. Small conversations came from it where it took a while for them to get back into the building, but when they did both Elizabeth and Peter seemed happy to see everything behind the scenes. “This is so cool Negan.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Negan found amusement in how eager both Elizabeth and Peter were to look at everything they could. This was a place he had gotten so used to over the years that he barely noticed the things that they did. They were just part of his environment, but for them? Everything was so new and exciting. “Come on, I’ll show you the clubhouse.”

Waving them to follow him, Negan led them into the area and over toward his player stall where his things were hanging, “This is where I spend a lot of my time, obviously.”

Peter dropped down into the seat that was in front of Negan’s area and spun around letting out an excited breath, “This is so cool.”

“Did you show them the batting cages?” Dale spoke up drawing their attention again with Negan shaking his head. “We have them here for training. I think before you leave you should take them there so they can play around a bit.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Negan motioned Dale to a wait a minute with him turning to Y/N and the children. “You guys can look around. I need to talk to Dale about something real quick here.”

“Take your time,” Elizabeth was gazing over all of the players’ names that were over their individual cubby area, her eyes big while she read each one of them.

Snapping his fingers, Negan pointed at Peter and got him to raise his eyes from where he was looking, “Don’t steal anything, okay?”

“Hey! Why are you pointing at me?” Peter placed his hand in over the center of his chest like he was feigning being offended by what Negan was saying. With a wicked smirk, Negan’s eyes narrowed and Peter chuckled. “I swear, I won’t.”

“Good boy,” Negan winked, back stepping toward the office at the back of the room to go have a discussion with Dale.

Like her children, Y/N walked around the clubhouse, taking her time to admire what everything looked like. Out of the corner of her eye, Y/N could see that Peter was gazing over something that was on one of the benches.

“Hey!” she called out noticing that Peter looked like he was about to swipe it. “What did he just say?”

“I was just kidding!” Peter scoffed with his cheeks blushing over. Lowering it back down to where it was previously, Peter back stepped away and held his hands up in the air now that his mother’s eyes were locked on him. “Seriously mom.”

“I’m not taking my eyes off of you,” she declared, turning to face her son. When she did that she could hear the sounds of Negan and Dale talking through the crack of the door that was left open.

“I kind of need an answer kid,” Dale pushed causing Y/N to look over her shoulder to see that Negan was slouched over in the seat that was in front of Dale’s desk. His head was buried in his hand and Negan looked tense. “The owner is pushing for some kind of response from you. Everyone here wants you to take the offer. I want you to take the offer.”

“I don’t know yet,” Negan grunted, his head raising slowly with him throwing his hand out in the air. “You know I would prefer to play. This is a big decision for someone like me who was just meant to play.”

“I think everyone knows that you would prefer to play. You’re a God out there. You were destined for this shit kid. But we both know that if you have one more serious injury to your knee that you could be walking with a cane for the rest of your life. You’re testing your limits even playing a final season,” Dale reminded Negan who slid down further in the chair. Nervousness overcame him with Negan bouncing his good leg. “You will still be making the same kind of money. You know this sport just as much as I do. If not more. It’s my last year. It’s yours. We should end it right.”

“I really wanted some time to think it over,” Negan exhaled loudly, his eyebrows furrowing with the lines in his forehead growing.

“They’re going to pick someone else Negan if you don’t given them an answer soon,” Dale assured Negan, placing his hands over the top of the desk when he leaned forward to get closer to Negan. “What’s holding you back?”

“A few…things,” Negan swallowed down hard lifting his fingers to pinch at the bridge of his nose. Whatever they were talking about sounded serious and it made her wonder what it was. “Give me until New Years and I’ll have an answer for you.”

“I’ll try and get them to hold out until then,” Dale offered throwing his hands up in the air, confused as to why Negan seemed so uncomfortable. “I think you need to take this offer Negan. It’s the best for your future. It’s best for the team. This was the life you were destined for. The fans love you. The players love you. I think this is the best option for you.”

“Yeah,” Negan bit down on his bottom lip, humming to himself for a second. “Let’s say I answer yes, do you think they will do a few favors for me?”

“Like what?” Dale’s eyebrow arched in curiosity causing Negan to shrug. “If it’s within reason, I’m sure they would. They’ve already pulled so many strings for you as you know. When you wanted to take that time off to be with Lucille, a lot of people wouldn’t have gotten away with that.”

“And I’m thankful for everything they have done for me,” Negan placed his hand in over the center of his chest, patting where it was rested.

“Hey mom!” Peter was loud calling out to Y/N causing Negan to look toward the door. It had her stepping away with a nervous breath knowing that Negan had just caught her eavesdropping on the conversation. Great. She should have just minded her own business.

Shuffling over to Peter, she went to join him to see what he was calling her over for. A few minutes later Negan came back out drawing all of their attention as Dale followed him behind holding two baseballs in his hands that were in protective cases.  

“Come here,” Dale urged the children forward noticing the way their eyes got big when they saw the baseballs were covered in signatures. “Now I usually save these for auctions to make some money for things, but since Negan here says the two of you are such big fans, I thought you might be interested in having these. Just don’t tell anyone how you got them. Or if you do tell them, say this guy got them for you.”

“Seriously?” Peter was thrilled, reaching out to grab the case to look over the ball that was inside. “You’re giving this to us?”

“Do you like it?” Dale was curious and it had Peter nodding immediately. “Then yes. It’s a gift.”

“Thank you so much,” Peter turned to Y/N to show his mother the ball causing her to laugh at how excited he got.

“Here you are,” Dale held the second one out to Elizabeth who gazed between Dale and Negan.

“This is so nice,” Elizabeth finally accepted the ball having her eyes gazing over it with adoration. “Why give us this? We didn’t do anything to deserve it. And I’m sure these cost a ton. Wouldn’t they be better off with someone else? Why us?”

That question got Peter to glare out at Elizabeth making it obvious that he wasn’t ready to give it back after he was gifted it.  

“Why not you?” Negan stammered back, his eyes narrowing when she lifted her head to look at him. “At least we know it’s going to two people that are going to cherish it for the rest of their lives, right? They aren’t going to try to sell it to make a profit.”

“Totally!” Peter answered before Elizabeth could and he eagerly jumped forward to hug Dale. It had the older man gasping out, then letting out a big belly laugh at the excitement from Y/N’s younger son. “Thank you!”

“You remind me of my grandson,” Dale explained with another hearty laugh. Peter pulled back, looking up at Dale with a big cheesy smile. “I like you.”

“At least someone does,” Elizabeth piped in, teasing her brother eliciting an angered breath to fall from him when Peter stepped away from Dale. Reaching out with her free hand that wasn’t holding the ball, she playfully ruffled Peter’s dark hair.

“You two want to see the batting cages?” Dale inquired getting both Elizabeth and Peter to nod. “Follow me then…”

Instead of following Dale, Negan remained standing in the middle of the clubhouse and it made Elizabeth stop, “Are you coming?”

“I want to show your mom something real quick. We’ll be right there,” Negan winked, pushing his hands into his pockets. Dale led the children toward the door and it had Y/N’s head tipping in curiosity.

“You trust him with the children?” Y/N wondered looking back toward the door to see that they were gone.

“I trust that man with my life. He’s a good man,” Negan assured her, moving around Y/N to close the door so they had a moment alone. Having him do that made her nervous. Was this because he had seen that she was eavesdropping? “I need to ask you something.”

“If this is about what I heard, I swear I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on purpose,” she stammered immediately having Negan’s eyebrows bounce up in amusement. Throwing her hands up, she tried to think of a good excuse, there just wasn’t one. “It’s just…I heard you two talking and I kept listening to it. I know it was wrong, but…”

“I don’t mind,” Negan hushed her, holding his hand up to stop her from continuing. Once again he appeared to be amused with her instead of upset over what happened. “This has nothing to do with that. I just want to ask you something kind of important.”

“Alright,” she felt awkward with Negan stepping in closer to her, towering over her.

“I know you said that you don’t mind all the baggage that comes with being my girlfriend,” Negan started, tipping his head from side to side. Dragging his hand up over her arm, Negan stopped at her shoulder to give it a firm squeeze. “But with this being my last season, I’m going to have a lot of paparazzi, reporters and fans around. All the time. I need to know that you are okay with that. People might start trying to get into your personal life. It will probably be short lived, but people are…intense. I need to know that you will be okay with that.”

“What exactly are you expecting?” she outstretched her hands to caress in over Negan’s arms hearing him breathing loudly. “Are you going to dump me if I have a certain answer?”

“God, no,” Negan shook his head, refusing the idea of that. “It’s just, I really want to be with you. I want us to try something here and give it a chance. But I know my life is hard. Lucille hated it. A lot. At first she thought it was cute, but people suck sometimes and they will get in our business. Even if we try to be private. It can be overwhelming.”

“I’m not with you because you’re a celebrity Negan,” she reminded him, it had Negan nodding his head about sucking in a sharp breath of air. “I’m with you because you make me smile. You make me happy. You bring a lot of happiness to my children. And it’s only been a few weeks. You could be a celebrity. You could be poor. I don’t care because all I want to do is be near you. I don’t care what comes with it. As long as I’m with you? That’s all that matters to me.”

“I love you,” Negan breathed in a low rumble of a voice causing her heart to hammer in her chest. Sweeping his index finger in underneath her chin, Negan tipped her head back and lowered down slowly. Clearly he liked her answer. “So much.”

Bringing their lips together in a passionate sweep, Negan hummed against her lips when she braced her hands against his chest to balance herself. Palming down over the center of Negan’s chest had him smiling when he broke the kiss.

“You have no idea how much I’m in awe of you,” she insisted, stroking her fingers over the side of his face. It impressed her the man that Negan was considering where he was in his life. There were a lot of things that could have made him a horrible person, but he wasn’t. At least not with her or her family. Taking a look around, she swallowed down and bit down on her bottom lip. “Are there cameras in here?”

“I…what?” Negan snickered, the bridge of his nose wrinkling in curiosity since that was a very random question to be asking him. Nodding her head about, she waited for and answer and he gazed back over his shoulder. “I mean, considering the teams gets naked in this room, not really…”

“Good,” she bit down on her bottom lip reaching her hand out to hook her fingers into the waistband of Negan’s black jeans getting him to stumble forward in closer to her. Tugging firmly on his belt had his lips parting with his eyebrows bouncing up in curiosity. “You deserve the world, you know that?”

“Hey,” Negan rumbled while she pulled apart the belt in his pants. Grunting, Negan realized she wasn’t gentle about the way that she was pulling apart the material of his pants. Fluttering his eyes to a close, Negan felt her dipping her hand beneath his pants to palm over his manhood through the material of his boxer briefs. Cupping her face in his large hands, Negan got her attention back on him and he shook his head. “I have the world right here in my hands.”

“Fuck,” she slurred out, her eyes locking with his. Hearing him say that took her breath away. With him saying that, she actually believed that. It had been a long time since she had felt that from anyone. Meeting Negan’s lips in a desperate kiss had him wrapping her up in his arms. There was something in the way that Negan looked at her and kissed her that made her feel like the only person that mattered in the world. “Everything about you is perfect.”

“Not everything,” Negan mused against her lips, his words vibrating against her flesh. Again her hands tugged at his pants getting them further open with her pushing down the front of his boxer briefs to get his semi-erect manhood in her palm to caress over it in slow, firm strokes.

“You have such a nice cock,” she commented eliciting a wicked smirk from Negan who lowered his head to watch her touching him. “I can’t believe I didn’t jump on it sooner.”

“To be fair, you tried. Many times,” Negan reminded her, sweeping his thumb over her bottom lip. Growling out with her lips sucking at the tip of his thumb, Negan’s long eyelashes fluttered to a close. “The world just didn’t want it to happen.”

“Completely unfair,” she gave Negan one final kiss before carefully lowering down to her knees. Stroking over his body, she enjoyed watching his reactions to her touching him. Negan was a very verbal and visual lover. If he liked something, he let you know. Sure, he could still be cocky at times, but he wasn’t afraid to show you what he liked. Pressing faint kisses against the tip of his manhood had him licking his lips with his fingers loosely curling around the back of her head. Each kiss grew in wetness having Negan breathing heavily before her stroking his free hand against the side of her face while she pampered his body.

“So good,” Negan grunted with her wet kisses that had the warmth of her tongue dragging out against the sensitive tip. Starting to take the tip between her lips, she swirled her tongue around his body having his muscles in his ass and thighs flexing drawing him forward toward her. Humming against his flesh, every bob of her head she allowed more of him into the damp heat of her mouth. Dragging her tongue along the underside of his shaft with every pull back had him moaning out. Taking her time to vary between giving him a blowjob along with pressing hot, sloppy kisses against the head had him bucking his hips up toward her. Having her starting to take him back further in her throat had Negan biting down on his bottom lip firmly trying to hold back the sounds he wanted to make. “Enough.”

Urging her from his body with a wet popping sound had her staring up at him with her big eyes waiting for what it was that he wanted. With her lips shimmering and her breathing heavy, Negan leaned down to hook his arms around her to get her up to her feet.

“Everything okay?” she licked her lips, letting out a surprised sound with Negan turning her to face the wall. Bracing her hands against the wall, her eyes closed tightly with Negan swiftly pulling at the back of her pants to get the material down over her bottom. Hooking his left arm around her hips, Negan pulled her flush back against him having her whimper with the warmth of him pressing against her flesh. Faint kisses were being pressed at her neck with Negan using his free hand to reach between them to lead his body into hers. Gasping out, her eyes closed at the stretching sensation she felt and she hummed out. Tipping her head back giving Negan better access to her neck and her jawline with his moan vibrating against her flesh.

“Fuck,” Negan winced, his right hand reaching up to hook his fingers with hers. Starting with slow, steady thrusts, Negan nuzzled his nose in against the side of her neck sporadically pressing kisses against her skin.

Closing her eyes, she tried to stifle her moans with every forward thrust he made against her with his hips bucking up against her bottom. Squeezing her fingers tighter around his, she knew that they were stepping into dangerous territory considering where they were, but it was a moment where he truly had her swooning over him.

“You mean everything to me,” Negan grunted, nipping at her jawline drawing a cry from her parted lips. “I would do anything for you. I hope you know that.”

Reaching back with her left hand, she curled her hand around his body to urge his movements to go faster. Winces filled the clubhouse with her starting to meet his thrusts, bouncing her hips back against his leaving a smacking sound filling the air.

“Fuck,” Negan moaned, doing his best to stay quiet with her movements determined against his. A whine fell from her when he pulled his hips back leaving her with an empty feeling. A moment later, she was being turned so that he could press her back against the wall. Breathlessly, Negan stepped forward and curled his fingers around her wrists to press them back against the wall firmly. Hovering his lips over hers had her whimpering involuntarily wanting him to kiss her. “You are fucking beautiful.”

“So are you,” she tipped up, dragging her lips over his having him smile against her lips. “We need to make this quick because the last thing we need is the three of them coming back looking for us.”

“Yes ma’am,” Negan hummed, finally bringing their lips together giving her what she wanted. Working her pants further down her legs, Negan adjusted his position. Adjusting her wrists, he made sure to clasp them in one hand while his other hand reached down to grab a firm hold of his erection. Breaking the kiss to look down between them, Negan teased the swollen tip of his cock over her clitoris having her arch her hips forward toward him. “You’re something else. Y’know that?”

“And you’re teasing me,” she frowned letting out a gasp. Leading his length back between her thighs, it had her head tipping back when he sank into her. Having her thighs close together made it a tighter fit and it had Negan moaning out immediately. Pressing his forehead to hers, Negan started thrusting into her again and again working to get them both to a release. Whimpering out, she did her best to wiggle at her wrists wanting to touch Negan, but he was keeping her where she was. There was some force being squeeze at her hips helping to aide her hips forward and backward with him fucking her face to face. Lowering her head, she watched his lengthy cock thrusting into her time and time again with her muted cries falling from her throat. “Holy shit.”

“Too much?” Negan started slowing down his thrusts which caused her to immediately shake her head begging him to keep moving. Dropping his head back drew attention to the prominent vein at the side of Negan’s neck that was bulging with her gasps growing louder with every movement he made inside of her.

“Let me finish,” she begged knowing that while she enjoyed this position, there was a position that she wanted to try in here. Stepping back allowed his length to pull from her body with his cock bouncing. Allowing her hands to drop at her sides, she shakily led Negan over toward the seat in front of his locker area. Shoving him into the seat let her look him over and it was so attractive with the way he was staring at her. Turning her back to him, she carefully moved in over him balancing her hands on his hairy thighs. Helping her lower herself down over his swollen erection had her whimpering out with the sensation of him filling her again. “That’s good.”

“You’re so wet,” Negan slurred against her earlobe, his right arm hooking around her hips to help aid her movements while she bounced herself over Negan’s cock leaving a wet smacking sound to fill the clubhouse. Hearing her cries getting louder, Negan knew she was reaching that point where she was right on the verge of orgasming.

“Fuck,” she panted, dropping her head back against Negan’s shoulder having him kissing in over her jawline when she took all of him into her. Simply circling her hips in small motions had him moaning against her flesh and it sent chills throughout her body. Knowing that they had to quicken this, she went back to rolling her hips firmly over Negan which had him moaning out. Almost knowing that she was right on the verge, Negan reached around with his other hand to circle her sensitive bundle of nerves with his rough fingertips. “Negan…”

“That’s it,” Negan growled, tugging at her earlobe with his teeth with the sensation of her warmth contracting around his cock. Breathlessly she continued to move her hips over him, not allowing herself that moment of pure ecstasy with her eagerly trying to get him to reach his orgasm. Wincing, Negan felt his body tensing up, his member starting to throb and twitch inside of her. Her movements slowed down with the warmth of his release filling her. Her fingers were digging so hard into his thighs at this point that he was certain she’d leave a mark, but he was okay with it.

Shakily pulling her hips up had her whole body trembling and Negan helped her carefully raise to her feet. Turning her to him, he peppered her with loving kisses before reaching down to pull his pants back up over his hips.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Negan picked her up in his arms surprising her with just how strong he appeared to be when he took her to sit on one of the sinks in the bathroom. Cleaning her up, she couldn’t help but be impressed with him and the way that he took care of her. Once he was done, he helped her pull her pants back up her legs and pampered her with a few more kisses. “Will you be okay for a minute? I probably need to clean up my area just in case we got some body fluids in places they aren’t meant to be.”

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him with a smirk, playfully reaching out to smack his ass. It had him stopping and looking back at her with an amused expression. “I can’t help it, you put it in front of me and I’m going to react.”

“I’ll remember that,” Negan chuckled, leaving her alone to herself. Squeezing her fingers around the sink, she took notice of how her legs were still tremoring. It was certainly a different experience having sex with Negan in a very public place like this. Sure, when she was younger she had sex with Joel many times in a locker room, but they were still young. It had been a very long time since she had ever done something like that. Great. There she was thinking about Joel again. That seemed to be happening all the time no matter how often she tried to get herself to stop doing that. Footsteps entered the room making her lift her eyes up to see Negan rubbing his hands together. “All clean. You wanna go check on the kids?”

“You might have to hold me up. My legs feel like Jello,” she declared having a wolfish smile expand over his lips. With a single nod, Negan moved in beside her to wrap his arm around her mid-section, helping to brace her against him.

Walking unhurriedly with Negan, they went to where Dale was allowing both the children to take turns with the batting cage so they could watch each other. After a few tries, they asked Negan to do it so they could see him do his work in person. By then she could brace her weight on her legs and she let him go. It was kind of amazing how strong Negan really was. Every hit that collided surrounded them with a booming sound with the baseball hitting the metal with a firm thud. If Negan didn’t have a bad knee, she was certain that he still had plenty of years still left in him to play the sport.

After Dale announced that he had to leave, they stopped at the batting cages. Finalizing things, Negan gave them a quick tour of the places they hadn’t seen yet. Negan promised that he would bring them back during the season and then they left.

Inside the car, she listened to the children excitedly talk about what just happened along with calling a few of their friends. This was a big deal for them and she knew that. So she allowed them to have that moment. Before they got to Negan’s apartment, Negan picked up some pizzas for them. When they pulled up to the building that she assumed Negan’s apartment was at it actually gave her a sense of anxiety. It was high end. Very high end. In the expensive part of the city and in a way she felt like she didn’t belong there. Having Negan taking them up on the elevator had the children excited to know that Negan had the whole top floor to himself.

“Holy shit,” Peter walked off the elevator, stopping in his tracks with Negan walking off into the apartment like it wasn’t a big deal. Surprise flooded her veins at the sight of Negan’s apartment. It had had a high ceiling, with large glass panels to serve as full length windows to stare out at the city. It was the twenty-sixth floor so they were high up enough as it was. Looking at both her children, they were just as shocked as she was. “This is fucking huge.”

“This time, I agree with him,” Elizabeth noted with Y/N stroking her fingers over the top of Peter’s head. Walking around the corner, Negan stopped in his tracks throwing his hands up motioning for them to follow him further into the apartment. “This is your home?”

“For part of the year. I have this, a small waterfront property and then a home that my late wife wanted really bad. It’s a lot of land in the middle of nowhere. That’s probably my biggest place and the home I spend the most time at,” Negan informed them waving them to start moving with him toward the kitchen area of the apartment. He had a dining room area and a few stools that were lined up along the side of an island which is where they all took a seat.

“And by small, what do you mean exactly?” Elizabeth was curious because small obviously meant something very different to her than it did Negan. “Like bigger or smaller than my mom’s home?”

“Smaller. It’s just one floor. I don’t need much when I’m by the water. Give me a seat, sit me down next to the ocean and I’m in my happy place,” Negan explained, handing out the pizza, but he noticed that everyone was eyeballing every part of his apartment.

There was a large sectional couch in the living room area with a gigantic television. In the distance they could see that there was a door open to an entertainment area that Peter was desperately trying to wiggle back and forth on his stool to get a look at.

“Before you break one of your bones by falling, go on. Go look,” Negan instructed Peter who eagerly shot up from the stool to run across Negan’s apartment to go take a look at everything that was inside. There were multiple arcade games, a ping pong table, a pool table and a video gaming area off in the far corner.

Elizabeth joined in beside Peter at the door finding herself amazed with Negan’s set up as well, “This is insane.”

“You should see the balcony,” Negan grumbled with a mouthful of pizza, pointing off in the direction where they could go out onto the balcony. Scrambling to go look had Negan chuckling and Y/N could tell that her children were no longer interested in pizza. “Well at least they are having fun.”

“Sure,” Y/N didn’t know what to say with Negan polishing off his first piece of pizza and reaching for another. “Negan, you are…fucking loaded.”

There was a silence between them with the chews of Negan slowing down. His hazel eyes seemed uncomfortable with his thick eyebrows bouncing up, “Is that a bad thing?”

“No, I just…” she felt stupid considering she knew that he was a famous baseball player that was the main draw of the team that he was currently on. Especially now that he announced his early retirement from his injury. “I just think about the house you rented back at home and you…”

“This isn’t me…” Negan threw his hand up in the air looking around at the place. “I mean yes, I really like the view from the balcony, the game room is totally me and the bedroom is mostly me. But I didn’t need something this big. They just persuaded me to get this apartment so I could do some kind of special for a magazine.”

“Elizabeth probably has that around somewhere,” she attempted to make a joke knowing that she was actually uncomfortable being here and it was hard to explain or even think, but she was. “You have three homes?”

“For now,” Negan answered her with a slow nod of his head. “Sometimes I need a change of scenery so it’s nice having the three of them, but I think when I’m done playing I will probably sell this apartment. It’s lonely here anyways. I don’t like how cold everything feels here. This is just the place that I would have interviews at. Photoshoots. Lucille decorated the other two homes to feel homey and they are much more comfortable.”

“I bet you brought a lot of women back here to get laid,” she commented having Negan swallowing hard and lowering his pizza to give her an awkward glance. “I’m sorry. I’m just saying you bringing anyone here would probably have someone immediately wanting to have sex with you.”

“Is everything okay?” Negan inquired, pushing his plate slightly forward having her let out a tremoring breath.

“Mom!” Elizabeth called out to her mother, waving her hand to have Y/N come out with them to see the view. “This is amazing. You have to come see this. It’s crazy.”

Getting up slowly from her seat, Y/N noticed the way that Negan seemed tense when she walked away to join the children out on the oversize balcony that overlooked the city. It was near sunset so the light was hitting the skyline a certain way that had light reflecting and it looked absolutely beautiful being there.

Out of the corner of her eye, Y/N could see that Negan came out onto the balcony with them and was leaning back against the glass paneling watching them with his arms folded out in front of his chest. Both children flooded Negan with questions about this apartment which Negan happily responded to. After all the questions, they went back to eat their food and then had Negan give them a tour around his apartment. Negan set the children up with the rooms that they were going to be staying in and toward the end of the night the children were in the game room while she was sitting out on the balcony with Negan. It was dark outside with the lights of the city drawing her attention.

“So…” Negan breathed out cuddling his nose in against the side of her neck having her laying in his arms in the lounge chair they were sitting on. “Are you ever gonna tell me what’s going on? Or am I gonna have to guess?”

“It’s complicated,” she explained to him feeling guilty that she had immediately shut down when she entered Negan’s apartment. “I was poor most of my life Negan. Even now, I’m just keeping my head over water. And then I come here and I’ve never felt like I didn’t belong somewhere more.”

“That’s silly. You’re always welcome in my home,” Negan assured her letting out a disappointed breath when she turned to face him, her eyes full of worry. “I don’t care about money. Or this whole status idea that people put on things. You and I grew up in the same place.”

“Yeah, but I can see the headlines now. Negan Smith hooks up with a gold-digging gutter slut,” she caused Negan to choke with how she vented about things.

“If someone says that about you I will happily fucking knock them on their pathetic asses for saying something so fucking stupid,” Negan suggested reaching out to hook his fingers with hers, bringing her hands up to pepper kisses over the backs of them. “You’re not a gold digger. I know that.”

“I don’t belong in a place like this Negan. You should be with someone…” she began feeling very down on herself, but Negan curled his finger in underneath her chin to get her to look at him. “I’m a nobody, Negan.”

“You’re very much a somebody,” Negan huffed out, sliding in closer to her to sweep his fingers over the side of her face drawing her closer to him. “In fact, you’re one of the only people I give a fuck about in this world. So you’re one of the most important people in the world for me.”

“Negan,” she frowned knowing that he was really stressing how special she was and with him palming in over the side of her face it had her leaning into his touch. Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the way his fingers sank around the back of her neck to sweep at her skin. “You’re one thing.��

“I’m the only thing that matters,” Negan cut her off before she could let her thoughts linger any further about things when it came to money. “This was the life that you wanted. Isn’t it? To live in the city, be a famous journalist and focus on your skills in photography? What makes you believe you don’t deserve this life?”

“The last thirty plus years?” she suggested with a frown hearing Negan snort and let out a long sigh. “I’m trash Negan.”

“If anyone else was saying that about you, I’d knock them on their ass,” Negan retorted with a scoff, hating to hear that she was talking about herself like that. “You’re not that. At all. You’re special. You’ve made a good life for yourself and your home is very nice. You just had a stone thrown in your river and it changed the direction you wanted life to go, but that doesn’t make you any less special. Y’know?”

Staying silent, Y/N wasn’t exactly sure what to say to Negan. Getting up from the chair, Negan held his hand out to her. Accepting it, Negan pulled her up to her feet and led her over to the edge of the balcony. Outstretching his hands, Negan held onto the railing while standing behind her allowing her to look out at the city.

“If anyone deserves a life like this, it’s you,” Negan informed her with a long exhale, depositing faint kisses over the side of her face with her leaning back into his warmth. “You’re hard working. You’re a good mom. You’re a good person. You’ve gone through a lot of shit. Stop thinking the worst about yourself and for once realize that you deserve good shit in your life. Allow yourself a fucking break. Because if you don’t give yourself one? No one else is gonna.”

----

Tags: @chainsawsangel @fancypeacepersona @violent-darkness @negansbestie @elegantfanficluv

@sanctuaryforthelost @dead-of-niight @dilfsandmartinis @jennydehavilland

[rambles-on-dragon-age]

The Veil Jumpers were founded by the Dalish but the Dalish aren't their only members. Did you skim past the literal intro to the Veil Jumpers when you were making your character? Arlathan Forest is riddled with reality warping magic and it's incredibly dangerous. They know it's incredibly dangerous and they risk their lives being there and exploring. There are still deeply mistrustful Dalish clans in the area re: the ones being massacred by the Evanuris that escaped that they're trying to help, that's just not the faction we meet. And if you forget, it is crawling with Tevinter Agents (the Venatori) as we have to fight them constantly.

I suggest you play the intro again because they don't meet Bellara and then walk into the bubble; they have already been in the bubble by time they meet Bellara. That's why her intro speech includes "hey, would love to go back with you to Veil Jumper camp, but we can't leave the bubble. Can walk in, cannot walk out. We are stuck." You comment on the funny fog you're walking through before you find her which is the "shell" of the bubble. You are already trapped in there with her, the resident expert, and probably only person that can free you. She has the upper hand in every respect and she knows it; she's just also, as a character, very open and curious and trusting through the rest of the game. You think it would be "more interesting" for her to act out of character and like she's still in a Dalish clan and doesn't like anyone she meets. You're projecting your personal desires at a character and situation that doesn't fit them. That's not the writer's fault, that's on you that you think all Dalish need to act the same. Then again, that gives you purchase to write all the fic you want to rewrite the scenes for your enjoyment.

Also, what proof would they give that they're from the Veil Jumpers besides the inside knowledge that Strife sent them (the name of their leader) because she's the best at elven magic (she is)? That stuff's probably not things that a massacring Venatori crew much cares about. Like what, a lil note from Strife that says "They're not evil." "Hey they're cool." "Trust me bro." or like a hall pass/badge that they give to their newest outsider friends? Arlathan forest has been long picked through of the best stuff and treasure hunters; what's left is incredibly dangerous and the Tevinter gits that try to steal it usually die in the process. Being a Veil Jumper is dangerous after all and the forest doing things it shouldn't is why the Veil Jumpers were founded.

And yes, you are missing the context. 10 years of in-world context apparently. Dragon Age is a mixed media franchise. There's an anthology of short stories, Tevinter Nights, that set up some of the factions and some of our companions and NPC friends and a four volume comic series, The Missing Collection, that details some of Varric and Harding's adventures before picking up Rook (that they picked up cause The Missing makes it obvious that Solas knows them too well and they need a new person that would throw him for a loop). You don't even have to buy them if you can't, you can find where people reupload them for free and share the download link. You can also read the wiki page and get a quick synopsis of each story instead if that's too much work. It'll give you a pretty good idea of the big themes and actions, though you'll miss the good little details. Dragon Age has never contained all of the story in the games. (see, setting up Celene and Briala and meeting Felassan in The Masked Empire or the fact that it's Fiona that's Alistair's mom and Duncan's old friend in The Calling.) Ruins of Reality (free as part of the Dragon Age Day celebration) shows Strife and Irelin getting involved with some of that dangerous awakening magic in Arlathan forest and can be safely viewed as a precursor to why they founded the Veil Jumpers. Between that short story and The Missing is when the group is founded.

But skipping all of that, we learned at the end of Trespasser that Solas was out in the world and has spent 10 years freeing slaves and spreading the news of his self and what he's working towards. He tells the Inquisitor much of the same information he's going to share with others when they catch up to him at the end of the game. Strife and Irelin are the ones that tell you the Evanuris were bad news when you meet them (Rook: OH joy I thought Solas was lying); safe to say, that means it's more likely to be common knowledge now between Solas and Morrigan running around then not. Bellara felt the fuckening happening with the Veil and the magic all starting back up again; it's an easy to accept explanation that that fuckening and the sky getting all weird a few days ago was Solas's ritual that went wrong and the gods busting out of their prison. Gods that they already know are bad news.

You're upset that the faction that welcomes anyone into their ranks with a common goal isn't acting like a Dalish clan when they are not a Dalish clan. It's not shallow writing, it's you getting an idea in your head of how you wanted their meeting to be and then calling it shallow writing.

We do, actually, see slavery in the slavery capital. Even though Neve tells us to our face in no uncertain terms that we are in the poorest part of the city and people here can't afford to have slaves. We walk through multiple homeless camps. There are people in cages and chains down by the docks. You have a mission to kill mercenaries capturing people to sell as slaves. You need to clean up the Blight in that tunnel under the Shadow Dragon hideout because that's a path they use to get slaves out of the city. There's notes about their other escape paths crumbling and needing work so they can keep going. "There's no slavery in Minrathous!!" you walked into a closet and asked why there's no toilet in this bathroom. There was slavery in Minrathous; they just didn't take us to the rich part of town and rub our faces in it to make sure people wouldn't miss it.

The Crows are putting on their best face to their new ally cause they would really really like help with their occupation problem. Crow!Rook and Lucanis have banters about how deadly and grueling and cruel their training was. Lucanis is the last of his family because of infighting slaughtering the rest. Illario straight sold him out to a blood mage, kills that blood mage before she can snitch, and then sells out the other crows and kidnaps/fakes the murder of his grandmother just because he wants to be first crow. There's more, I'm just not hunting it down. Someone else already compiled a post about all the banters showing the Crows are still a bloody problem. Again, the game didn't rub our faces in it so it's magically not there? It's there, it's just not in the limelight right now because of the whole "escaped gods trying to destroy the world" thing happening.

The factions themselves don't even interact until the final battle and only if you've helped them all. And things are kind of cut to the bone by then; it's do or die on a global scale. The cultural conflict does happen between your hired coworkers though. It's mostly in banter so you have to take the time to get to it (like most of the best details in these games tbh) but again not rubbing our faces in it doesn't mean it wasn't in the game.

Not everyone is super devout to their religion in real life either; we are in the North of Thedas instead of the South. Dorian never seemed as religious as the others, either. In fact he thinks they're going to think he's influencing you in terrible ways Inquisitor. Tevinter has never sounded as religious as the South seems and the South is where we've been. (Exluding Kirkwall, but they are operating like the Southern Chantry so it's safe to lump them in with Southern Chantry Behaviors.) How do you expect the writers to shoehorn the Black Divine into the game? Like, where would it have been appropriate? What would the Black Divine have to do with the little people and back alley factions we're working with here outside the Mourn Watch? Tevinter has long established that their Chantry is basically a figurehead and that the Magisterium is the ones that have the real power and do all the actual "work". We don't have any devout Chantry employed people like we have in past games, either, for them to bring it up and talk about it. *EDITING TO ADD A CORRECTION* It's no longer kind of hinted by conversations and codex entries, The Viper/Ashur is the Black Divine. We literally met the Black Divine and didn't even know it because they don't advertise it. Makes sense cause like if that's common knowledge then he'd probably be assassinated. But this man literally looked at the Magisterium, realized it was failing the people, and started an organization with one he could trust after they were stripped of their title to take direct action. Why couldn't he just give orders and do that as the Divine? Because as Divine he doesn't have political power here. Like. It was right there. He is actively among the little people as himself because his political self as Divine was powerless.

How would you expect them to arbitrarily shove in and retread the exact same stuff for a fourth time? EA set them up for an impossible task, repeatedly hamstrung them and their team, and they still produced a good game.

It felt shallow to you but it also sounds like you barely scratched the surface and didn't really bother taking the time to thoroughly explore what the game offered because you were so offended it wasn't what you, personally, wanted out of it. Which is fine, just say it's a bad game. But absolutely flying past what the game does have while you insist it doesn't have those very things?

a really cool part about dragon age veilguard is the first scene where you meet bellara, especially if you're a shadowdragon mage and you have neve with you

so to set the scene: bellara, the dalish elf who's devoted her life to the conservation, discovery and protection of her people's lost and ancient history, meets two strangers, two tevinter mages, in sacred arlathan. They tell her, hey your gods are back in the world but also they suck and we gotta kill them, and instead of telling them "fuck off you vile enslaving shem, you defile this land with your presence" like most normal dalish, not only does she instantly believe them that her gods are bad for some reason, they're back among the people and need to be stopped, she also happily starts telling them all kinds of secrets and valuable knowledge about ancient elven magic and is even so kind to, without question, take them on a grand tour of this very historically important and sacred ruin in arlathan to find a truly priceless artifact, a one of a kind archive of ancient elven knowledge thought lost forever, because really, what could these unknown tevinter mages possible want with that!

...

are these writers smoking crack?? is that it? theyre smoking crack??

[galactichoneybee92]

Dialogue V.S Soliloquy

... and why we haven't really had a Helluva Boss love confession yet.

~*~ Spoilers Below for Mastermind ~*~

I've seen a lot of confusion on this topic floating around the internet and I thought I would offer up my 2 cents on the matter. Like, maybe Vivzie will come out with a tweet that proves this entire theory wrong or something but until then, here is my interpretation.

The song starts off as Stolas addressing the courtroom. He even leads into it saying something like "Lets do this the way I do best- with song." He then proceeds to play a sort of evil villain role, pretending that everything was all part of his evil plan and how dare this dumb little Imp try to take credit for his accomplishments- really playing up the condescension in a way that the Goetia will buy. He's playing to his audience with the ultimate goal of redirecting the blame from Blitz to himself. He's campy and dramatic the whole time until he gets to the line "And I have no regrets."

At that point you will notice a change in the background. As soon as he sings that line we suddenly aren't in the courtroom anymore but in this starry galaxy backdrop with feathers floating around and he immediately sings "I have regrets." Like, it's the very next line. "I have no regrets. I have regrets." The tone shifts from his silly villain monologue to something sadder and more somber. All of this combined is why I believe that this is when the song stops being an address to the court room and becomes a soliloquy.

If you think back to highschool when you were learning about Romeo and Juliet, that's when most people learn about soliloquy- A device used in theater to let the audience into the character's mind. It's usually shown as the character on stage by themselves, speaking their thoughts aloud so that we as the audience can know what they're thinking, but it's accepted that the other characters in the play cannot hear this part.

When Mastermind makes the drastic shift away from campy stage play into somber reverie, I believe this is meant to be a soliloquy. After all, the "I have no regrets. I have regrets" line wouldn't make any sense if Stolas was still addressing the courtroom. He doesn't want them to know he has regrets or that he's questioning everything or that he's even questioning why he's willing to throw everything away for this one man that he's not even on good terms with right now. Additionally, Blitz's parts in this song are his thoughts too: "What have you done?" and "I don't deserve this."

They were both screaming in their heads about how much they love each other but I don't think they've said it out loud, not to each other or anyone else. When Satan sings his part he doesn't comment on any of the lovey dovey stuff, just "Isn't that adorable, we've been betrayed by one of our own." He only comments on Stolas's performance from the beginning of the song. He goes on to talk about how Stolas's hubris had gotten the better of him, but nothing of his heart.

These two haven't confessed their love, they've just both accepted it. I think the purpose of the duet was to show that they're finally on the same page with what they want out of the relationship, but they've still got some work to do in regard to actually getting there. They've said it in their heads- now they need to say it to each other.

[stelly38]

Stage whispers: *He liked the mustache!*

(Interview from Us Weekly, by Yana Grebenyuk)

Rivals fans aren’t the only ones who developed an appreciation for Declan’s mustache — so did Aidan Turner.

“It’s so funny. I don’t think I’ve told anyone this yet. But usually whether it’s a costume or facial hair or an accent, I’m always very eager to let them go when the job is done,” Turner, 41, who plays the beloved character on the hit Hulu series, exclusively told Us Weekly. “It feels almost inappropriate to be walking around wearing a costume piece from the character. You want to get out of the city and out of the thing and just leave it all behind. But I found this one quite tricky.”

Turner recalled finding ways not to say goodbye to Declan and his iconic facial hair.

“I was making an excuse with the showrunner Dominic [Treadwell-Collins]. I was saying, ‘I need to keep this mustache for a few weeks because we have reshoots.’ And he said, ‘OK, maybe a week or so.’ And sure enough we did do some reshoots,” he recalled. “But I remember at the time thinking, ‘I really don’t want to get rid of this.’ And when the reshoots were done, I think I kept it for another week when I didn’t need to.”

After having so much fun bringing Declan to life, Turner didn't want to let go of the character or his signature stash, adding, “I kind of lied to a few friends saying that they might call us back for more reshoots. I wasn’t ready to get rid of it — and that’s never happened to me before. I think the universe does tell us things and there’s something in that. There’s a reason why I didn’t want to get rid of it. I enjoyed the show so much and I really responded to this character and I didn’t want the world to be over.”

Fans — and the cast — are still awaiting news of a possible renewal. But if and when Turner gets a call about another season, the actor said he would be ready to start growing the mustache back.

“I delayed ridding myself of the character before the next job, which is strange. But yeah, I did that,” he shared. “[Growing it for season 2] would be a really fun thing. I can’t wait to grow it again. I’d love that.”

Based on Jilly Cooper's novel of the same name, Disney+ and Hulu’s Rivals centers around a feud between two men fighting for control of a television station in 1980s Britain. In addition to Turner, Rivals stars ensemble cast David Tennant, Katherine Parkinson, Victoria Smurfit, Alex Hassell, Bella MacLean, Nafessa Williams, Emily Atack and Danny Dyer.

Word about Rivals traveled fast, with many viewers tuning in for the age gap romance between Rupert (Hassell) and Taggie (MacLean). Fans then stuck around for Turner’s performance as Declan, a journalist trying to balance being a present father and husband with his drive to tell stories that mattered.

“It’s always lovely [to hear how well-received the show and Declan is]. Any actor who says he doesn’t want to hear nice things like that, I don’t believe them. It’s always nice to hear those things, especially in the early days of a show being released,” he told Us. “I’ve been aware of how it’s been received in this country [in the U.K.], which has been really positive.”

Turner, who has been in the industry for nearly two decades, knew Rivals was something special. 

“There’s a funny thing that happens when you’ve done a fair bit of work over 20 years. You land the plane on some things and some you completely miss the airport,” he quipped. “When you do land the plane, you start hearing from people that you’ve not heard from in a little while. My friends whom I haven’t spoken to in months have just emailed me saying they love the show. And it’s like, ‘Wow, it must be really touching people.”

Turner continued: “But not having the social media element, it does keep you very much out of the loop. But I love to hear that it’s being received on a really positive level. … I suppose to some degree it is always still a surprise when people respond to a show and really like it.”

While Turner saw the potential with Rivals, he knew the public’s reception and reaction was out of his hands.

“You wish great things for your project, especially [with] U.S. It’s such a huge market of English speakers so it’s a very big territory for that market. But you just see how people respond,” he noted. “Being an actor there is a lot of disappointment and some shows you think will travel that don’t — and you get confused by that. I just gave up years ago trying to figure out what the business wants and what the markets pick. So it’s so lovely to hear you say these things though [about the support]. It puts a real smile on my face.”

Rivals is currently streaming on Hulu and Di5ney+.

Link to original article, which is full of annoying junk ads and pop-ups, but here it is.

[wholoveseggs]

Hi, I really love your work and think it is out of this world with how you are so connected with the characters and details! I would love to see one of Elijah and reader getting intimate and her having to use the safe word and him being all sweet (like usual!). Thank you ❤️

Cedar

18+ ---- {Masterlist} {Tag-List}

{Elijah Mikaelson x f!Reader} What begins as a night of unrestrained passion shifts when Elijah takes things too far, and he makes sure to show you just how deeply he cares for you in the aftermath...

♡♡ Thanks for the request @eternalnoble !! hope you enjoy ~ ♡♡

3.6k words - Warnings: pure smuttt, rough sex, oral sex (f!receiving), safe word usage, praise, blood drinking, biting, choking, blood kink, dom!elijah, protective elijah, intense aftercare, and a smidge of angst...

@starkleila @lydia1369sworld @notleylaaa @vampiresluv

@myanmy @xflowerbombxo @maryvibess @always-and-forever-daydreaming

@spnaquakindgdom @amournoir @meeom @damienmorton @wickedmuse

@cs-please @complicatedandconfusing-25 @youcanhavemybuckanyday @akala6670229 @yeaiamme2

@itsjulzandmydiamonds @witch-of-letters @elijahstwink @rosecentury

@amanda08319 @starshipcookie @li-da-savage @veggie-eggrolls @spideybv28

@sunkissedebony97 @idk00sblog @savannaounana @sekaishell @b1tchy

@loving-and-dreaming @fancycassie-stayfancy @hcqwxrtss123 @iamawkwardandshy @ziayamikaelson

@absolutemarveltrash @darkened-writer @nina6708 @evasmlp

@madeinmyownmind-blog @lovelyy-moonlight @blacknightrises @poppet05 @sweetieseven

@xoxo-shy @nova-j @decaffeinatedparadisepost @fandom-princess-forevermore @theotherworld97

@origshipfan @cocoabliss @eternalnoble

Elijah was in a mood from the moment you walked into the party. You could tell just from the way he was holding himself, standing up tall with his chin raised and his back straight as a board. He was looking over everyone as if they were beneath him and he was so far above them, his dark eyes narrowed and his jaw tense.

You approached him with a drink in hand, offering it to him and pressing a kiss to his cheek. "What's got you so upset?" you asked quietly.

He took the drink, taking a sip as his other hand rested on your hip. He was pulling you against him and you had to hold onto his shoulder to stay balanced. He leaned down, whispering in your ear, "you know how I feel about this little dress you have on,"

You couldn't help but grin, leaning further against him and taking his earlobe between your teeth. "What's wrong with my dress?" you teased, knowing the reason behind his attitude.

"Nothing at all," he replied smoothly, "I just can't stand the idea of everyone else seeing you in it. How are they supposed to resist you?"

You giggled softly, leaning up and kissing him. "They can't. But i'm all yours,"

His hand slid over your ass and gave a firm squeeze before he pulled away, a small smirk on his face and a dusting of pink on his cheeks as he looked around and made sure no one saw him do that. You just shook your head with a smile, he tried so hard to be the perfect gentleman in front of everyone, but you knew the real him. And the real him loved when you teased him, when you pushed his limits, and when you wore the kind of clothes that drove him mad.

It was a dangerous game you were playing, the kind that would end with you face down and your hands bound as he had his way with you. The thought of it made you squeeze your thighs together, shifting on your feet to try and get rid of the pressure in your core. It was only early evening, there was no rush to get home …yet.

You and Elijah mingled with the crowd, his hand staying on you as often as possible and his body close to yours. Everyone wanted his attention and to speak with him, but you could see the tension building up in him as time went on. He had been so busy lately, and equally pent up. You both needed a night of release, and you had no doubt that was what he was planning.

When you had enough of the party and you could see that Elijah was on the brink of losing his patience, you walked up to him, your hand finding his. You stood on your toes, pressing a kiss to his jaw and whispering in his ear, "take me home,"

He finished his drink, placing it on the tray of a passing server. "I can't think of anything I want more," he whispered back.

The drive home was torturous. Elijah kept one hand on the wheel, the other on your thigh, his thumb brushing along your skin as he drove. It was innocent, but you could feel the tension rolling off of him in waves. You reached down and placed your hand over his, stroking his knuckles and smiling when he turned his hand over to hold yours.

When he pulled into the driveway, he cut the engine and stepped out of the car. Before you could get out yourself, he was already at your side, opening the door for you and offering a hand.

The more gentlemanly and sweet he was, the more you knew he was holding back. He wanted you right there in the driveway, and you knew the second the door closed behind you, his patience would be gone.

He led you into the house, locking the door behind you. Before you could take another step, he had you pressed up against the door, his lips on yours in a hungry, desperate kiss.

Your hands found his suit jacket and shoved it off his shoulders, his own hands finding your thighs and hoisting you up. You wrapped your legs around his waist and kissed him back, your arms draping over his shoulders.

He carried you up the stairs, never breaking the kiss as he made his way into the bedroom and dropped you on the bed.

You propped yourself up on your elbows, watching him strip off his suit, tossing his clothing carelessly on to the floor. His eyes were dark, his hands were already shaking. You had never seen him so desperate for something, and it made a fire roar in your core.

When he was naked, his hands reached for the hem of your dress, pushing it up and over your head. Your bra and panties followed and then his mouth was back on yours, his hand holding your neck to keep you in place. Your hands found his hair, grabbing fistfulls of the thick strands as his hand moved down your body.

"Elijah," you whined, squirming under him and trying to reach for his cock. He was still being sweet, kissing your neck and leaving marks along the way. But you wanted more. You wanted the animalistic, feral side of him. The side that took what he wanted. The side that left bruises and bite marks.

"Patience," he murmured, pulling away.

You whimpered, but stayed quiet as his hands grabbed your wrists and pinned them above your head. His eyes darkened, a growl rumbling in his chest as he held you in place. You tested his grip, trying to pull away, but his grip tightened and his lips turned up in a smirk.

"I've been thinking about this all night," he said, his free hand running along your neck, tracing the vein under your skin. You swallowed thickly and bit back a moan, his hand squeezing your throat and his thumb pressing into your jaw.

He leaned down, his tongue sliding along your jaw and then his teeth sinking into the flesh of your neck.

You gasped and arched your back, your hands tugging against his grip and his hand tightening. His mouth sucked harshly at the bite mark, his hand loosening enough to let you take in a shuddering breath before his mouth moved down to your collarbones, sucking dark marks there.

This was only the first bite and Elijah had so many ideas on where he could mark you. He was planning on drawing out every ounce of your pleasure, driving you to the edge until you were ready to burst and then pulling back. He wanted you to be ruined, his name the only thought in your head.

"Do you remember the safe word?" He asked, his mouth moving to the underside of your breast.

"Yes,"

He smiled, his eyes meeting yours for a moment before he sunk his fangs into your breast. You screamed, tugging against his grip as a mixture of pleasure and pain ran through you. Your back arched, your fingers clenching into fists.

"Say it," he demanded, pulling away and lapping at the bite mark, a low groan vibrating in his chest.

"Cedar," you gasped, your thighs squeezing around his hips.

"Good," he whispered, "and if you can't speak, three taps,"

You nodded, biting your lip and whimpering as he left a trail of bites and hickeys along your ribs. He was moving lower, his free hand spreading your thighs and his mouth moving down to the apex of your legs.

You never knew if he was going to lick, bite or suck, and the uncertainty was driving you wild. He had an iron grip on your wrists, keeping you pinned as he marked every inch of your body. He was moving lower and lower, leaving teasing little bites as he reached your thighs.

You could feel his warm breath against your core and you whined, bucking your hips up and trying to get him closer.

"Be patient, sweetheart," he said, his lips curving into a smirk, "we are just getting started,"

You huffed, falling back against the pillows and letting out a low whine.

He laughed, his fingers tracing patterns along your thighs and then his teeth were sinking into the tender flesh there. You gasped, throwing your head back and letting out a string of curse words.

Just when you were about to demand he stop teasing and start fucking, his tongue pressed flat against the your clit, licking at it slowly. He held your hips down as he ate you out, his tongue finding all the places that made you shake and writhe.

Your skin was stringing from all the bites, bruises blooming where he had been. The pain and pleasure were mixing, making you see stars. His tongue was working wonders, bringing you higher and higher, his mouth sucking on your clit as two fingers pressed inside of you.

Your back arched, his grip on your wrists tightening and a broken moan left your lips. The mix of pain and pleasure was overwhelming. Your body writhed, your mind was stuck between pushing him away and holding onto him. You cried out and squeezed your eyes shut, feeling the rush of pure euphoria crashing over you.

You were panting, your hands clenching and unclenching as he crawled back up your body, his lips finding yours. You could taste yourself on him, the mixture of sweat and slick covering his chin.

"So pretty," he murmured, his thumb tracing the marks along your collarbone.

He pulled back, his eyes scanning over every bite and bruise he had left. He was pleased with his work, a low purr rumbling in his chest.

His hands gripped your hips, pulling you towards him before suddenly flipping you over. Your face was pressed against the pillows, his hand tangling in your hair holding you in place.

You could feel his warm breath ghosting over the back of your neck, a shiver running down your spine.

His other hand ran along the curve of your ass, squeezing the soft flesh and then giving it a harsh slap.

You cried out, your hips bucking back against him.

"I don't think I can be gentle," he said, his tone light, "is that okay?"

"Fuck, please," you whined, squirming against the mattress, "I want you, Elijah, please,"

You heard him chuckle softly before he tugged in your hair, a sharp gasp escaping you as he leaned down and bit into your neck. He was rough, his teeth sinking deep and his hand coming down hard against your ass again.

You moaned loudly, the mix of pleasure and pain driving you mad.

When he pulled away, his lips pressed a gentle kiss against the new bite mark. "So beautiful," he murmured, his hand sliding down and tracing the outline of the bite. "Will you be a good girl and take what I give you?"

You nodded, letting out a low whine and pushing your hips back.

"Good," he breathed, his hand wrapping around his cock and lining himself up with your entrance. He took his time, easing into you slowly and hissing out a curse, holding you still by the back of your neck.

You whined, turning your head as much as you could, trying to see what he was doing. He was leaning over you, watching as his cock slowly sank into your tight pussy. When he bottomed out, he stayed still for a moment, looking down at you.

He could see how badly you wanted to push back and fuck yourself on his cock. But you couldn't move, and he smirked, leaning down and kissing between your shoulder blades

"Such a good girl," he murmured.

When he finally started to move, the thrusts were slow, agonizingly so. His lips moved from your shoulders up to the back of your neck, nipping and biting and soothing each mark with a kiss.

He had you pinned, trapped between him and the bed with his cock deep inside you, stretching you to your limits. His breath was warm on the back of your neck and he let out the softest moans that only grew louder as you squeezed around his length.

He sped up his movements, snapping his hips against you and holding onto you. His nails dug into your neck and he buried his face between your shoulder blades, moaning out your name as he fucked you.

You were panting, whining, begging for more and he obliged, the sound of your desperate cries fueling him on. You were a mess under him, your body rocking back and forth, the sheets bunching in your hands, your mind in a haze of lust and ecstasy.

The mix of pain and pleasure was driving you crazy. You could feel him pressing you further into the bed with every thrust, his hands gripping you as if he was trying to crush you. He was panting, moaning your name and biting at your skin as he chased his release. His pace becoming punishing.

His hips stuttered and his thumb unintentionally pressed into the bite mark on your neck. Your head was forced further down into the pillow, and the pain caused tears to gather in your eyes.

Your throat was burning, the lack of air making it hard to focus on anything else. The pleasure he was giving you was being drowned out and it became too much. You were going to pass out. Panic began to rise. You couldn't breathe. You needed it to stop.

"Cedar," you gasped out, but you couldn't find the air to make the word any louder.

But Elijah heard you, he could feel the way your body tensed up and the way you were struggling to breathe. He let go of your neck, pulling away from you and sitting back on his heels.

"Are you alright, sweetheart?" he asked, his voice full of concern, his hands helping you roll over onto your back.

You gasped for air, tears slipping down your cheeks as you struggled to catch your breath. He looked so concerned, and you felt awful that you had ruined the moment.

His eyes went wide at the sight of your tears, and he started to apologize. "Oh my love, I'm so sorry," he said softly. He gathered you in his arms and sat up, pulling you into his lap. "I went too far, I shouldn't have-"

You buried your face into his neck and wrapped your arms around him, trying to calm your racing heart as his arms tightened around you.

"It's okay, I just couldn't breathe for a moment," you told him.

You could feel the guilt coming from him, and you lifted your head to press a gentle kiss to his jaw. His hand cupped the back of your neck, stroking softly.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, kissing your forehead.

"It's okay, Elijah. Really."

You leaned in, your lips ghosting over his, but he didn't move, just stared at you with wide eyes and his brow furrowed. He was falling into his guilty, protective state, the one he always went to when he thought he hurt you. His hands were so gentle, so careful, and he looked so upset.

"Elijah," you said softly, smiling. "It's okay, you didn't do anything wrong...you stopped when I said to,"

His hands ran along your back, tracing the outline of your spine. His lips parted and he sighed. "I pushed you too hard," he whispered. "You're crying,"

You lifted a hand to wipe the tears from your face, only realizing just how many of them there were as your vision cleared. You probably looked way worse than you actually felt, and you knew he would blame himself.

You took his face in your hands and smiled again, giving him a gentle kiss and pulling him down on top of you. You ran your fingers through his hair, stroking gently as your other hand held his.

"You know how much I love when you let out all your power on me," you reminded him, smiling up at him.

Elijah frowned, but the guilt in his eyes faded away as you reassured him. You cupped his face in your hands again, smiling up at him and stroking your thumbs over his cheeks. His skin was warm to the touch and he seemed to relax as you continued to smile at him.

You spread your legs, and raised your eyebrows expectantly. Elijah watched you, and then his eyes fell down between your legs where you were open and waiting for him.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice soft and quiet.

You nodded, lifting your hips up. He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, his hands resting on either side of your head. His cock brushed against your inner thigh and you shuddered, letting out a soft whimper and reaching between you both to line him up.

He slowly eased back inside you, his kisses gentle and loving as he began to move. He kept his pace slow, making love to you as if you would break at any moment. But it felt amazing. Your heart swelled at his gentleness, the way his hands caressed your skin so tenderly and lovingly, how he kept murmuring sweet nothings in your ear as his body pressed you down into the bed.

"I love you, so much," he mumbled against your lips as his hips slowly began to roll against yours, his cock pushing deep inside you and pulling a moan from your throat. His hand reached between your bodies, rubbing at your clit in time with his thrusts. "Let go for me, sweetheart."

Your back arched, your eyes squeezed shut. You let yourself go, floating away in the warmth of the pleasure, of the love you felt for him. His eyes locked on yours and he smiled, leaning in and kissing you deeply as his own release took hold. He buried his face into the crook of your neck, grunting as he emptied himself inside you.

"You're so perfect," he said softly, lifting his head to kiss along your jaw, then down to your throat. You felt the graze of his fangs, but he didn't bite. "My good girl,"

Your cheeks flushed and your head fell back onto the pillows as you tried to catch your breath. You were a mess. You felt as if every ounce of energy had been sucked out of your body. Elijah slowly eased out of you, pressing one final kiss to your forehead as he collapsed beside you.

He pulled the blankets up over the two of you, holding you against him. He stroked your hair and smiled softly as he watched you catch your breath.

You buried your face in his neck, inhaling deeply and nuzzling into him. You were tired and your whole body ached, but in a good way. It was the kind of ache that made you smile and hold him closer to you. You never felt as loved and cared for as when you were with him.

Elijah's fingers brushed over all the marks on your body. You could see him frowning, his jaw tensing as his eyes lingered on every bruise and bite. His hand fell away, and he pulled you tighter against him, his breath uneven.

He closed his eyes, but you knew his mind was far from at rest. Guilt lingered in the tension of his embrace, his protectiveness now tempered by the knowledge that he'd pushed you too far. Elijah prided himself on control and hearing you use the safe word struck a chord deep within him. Like he could no longer trust himself with you, no matter how much he wanted to.

“I hurt you,” he murmured, the words almost too soft to hear.

“You didn’t,” you replied, lifting your hand to stroke his cheek. His eyes opened, dark and conflicted.

A tear slipped down his cheek and you leaned up to press a gentle kiss to his skin, wiping the wetness away.

He swallowed thickly, his fingers brushing across the mark on your neck. The skin was red and bruised, the outline of his teeth imprinted in the flesh. He couldn't help but frown, a sick feeling rising in his stomach.

“I should’ve been more careful,” he admitted, his voice tinged with regret.

You smiled, your thumb brushing over the crease in his brow. “Elijah, you don’t need to carry this. You’re allowed to let go with me, just like I let go with you.”

His lips twitched into a faint smile, though the weight behind his eyes didn’t entirely lift. He pressed a soft kiss to your temple, his hand smoothing over your hair as if grounding himself in the moment.

"You should sleep," he whispered. "You need rest."

"Stay with me?" You asked, your fingers tangling with his.

"Always," he murmured.

The warmth of his embrace eased any lingering tension, and you felt him relax as sleep began to claim him. You nuzzled into his neck, your heart swelling with love for the man who could be both fierce and tender in equal measure.

You watched him as his body slowly gave in to sleep. His head dropped down against the pillow, and his hand slipped from yours as he dozed off. You couldn’t help but smile. He looked so peaceful, as though the storm within him had finally stilled.

He was a very passionate man. He took what he wanted when he wanted it, and you loved how he could go from soft and sweet to rough and intense in just a matter of moments. You trusted him to love you and protect you, and he did... with everything he had.

[misc-magic]

Ohh thank you for the tag, Eden!!

Mwahaha I gave myself cat ears because why not, right?? Also there were no freckles, so I went with those little diamonds instead lol.

how do you spend your free time?

I spend what little free time I have writing, doing a couple other hobbies, and trying to keep on top of my house, chores, and errands. And you know, trying to do it effectively despite the adhd lol!

what are your hobbies and how did you get into them?

I don't usually list writing as a hobby because it's more like my life's blood. I get irritable if I don't write. But my other main hobby is music. I play the piano almost every day. My guitar and ukulele are collecting some dust recently, but I will get back to those, too. Playing music is the most relaxing thing for me and I always end up wanting to pick instruments back up even if it's been a minute. As for how I got into it, I started playing the piano at the tender age of 9 and just never stopped lol. Reading is another big hobby of mine. I turned the formal dining room of my house into a library so I could have a place for all my piles of books. I'm in a reading slump currently, but I've learned to just let it be and eventually I will be consuming books like crazy again. This is another one I don't know the origin of, it's like I've been reading books as long as I can remember. (Other hobbies include crocheting, video games, DnD, journaling, and then there's a section of what I call "dead hobbies" as in I did them obsessively for a while but haven't done them in ages but might pick them up again in the future let us not discuss it adklfjkfj.)

what book or movie left a lasting impression on you?

This might be a really dorky answer, but... I read A Midsummer Night's Dream by good ole Billy Shakes when I was like twelve and it changed my brain chemistry forever. I don't know what it was about that play... I read a bunch of others around the same time and like I loved Macbeth and Othello and The Tempest. But there was something about all the fairies and fantasy that I think was the start of my obsession with all things magical lol.

what kind of music do you enjoy?

Ohhh it's constantly changing. When I'm listening to stuff with lyrics or that I want to sing along to, I'm really into folk, indie, jazz, neo soul, and k-pop, but like I also used to listen to a lot of alt rock and punk rock so I know a lot of those songs, too. I'll kinda switch between stuff, especially 90s rock is something I'll play when I'm feeling ~nostalgic~ lol. But when I'm listening to music for writing or concentration, it's all instrumental or in a language I can't speak. So I'm listening to a TON of piano music, classical, and lately my other obsession has been mandopop. I actually really love k-pop for this, too. It's like I can listen to these up beat poppy songs without getting distracted by the lyrics. And yo Mandarin is just a beautiful language to listen to. Anyway, I tend to like most music and I'm always looking for new stuff.

who is your favorite character (atm or all time) and why?

Because I couldn't hope to choose one for all time, I'll go with at the moment and that is none other than the time traveling demon butler Barbatos.

(Assuming here that we're talking about characters that aren't mine because they top the list every time lol. Though actually even if I listed the ones that are at the top, nobody would know them because they aren't my OM OCs and I've never posted about them here lkdfjkfj.)

Barbatos is just such a great character that was horrendously underutilized in his source material. They kinda made him the end all be all solution for when things got out of hand. He could fix any plot hole with a bit of time travel or ancient demon power. But he has so much more depth than that. And maybe in some ways, he reminds me of myself. He's quiet, but observant. He notices everything, keeps track of all the details about someone, remembers everything. The main difference between us is that my adhd makes me scattered, so Barbatos feels like the type of person I have the potential to be if I could keep it together. It's less about the fantasy of someone taking care of me and more about the fantasy of being competent lol. What does this say about me? Let us not look any deeper.

He's also just really cool and mysterious and who doesn't love a guy who can cook, right? His demon form design is top notch in my opinion, with those cool wing like horns and the tail. He's just great in every way and I've written several essays about him on my side blog al;kdfjkdlfj.

Weee that was fun and as usual I wrote too much lol.

OPEN TAGS~ if you are my mutual consider yourself tagged because I want to see all your answers!

tag + q&a game ₊˚ෆ

hello! i thought it would be cute and exciting to do a tag game with all my mutuals to not only talk about themselves, but have fun! so here is my short little game:

alongside this picrew, share 5 things about yourself!

• how do you spend your free time? • what are your hobbies and how did you get into them? • what book or movie left a lasting impression on you? • what kind of music do you enjoy? • who is your favorite character (atm or all time) and why?

i will start first!

my name is rurumi and i enjoy spending my free time writing!

some of my hobbies (outside of writing) includes: drawing, building gundams and keyboards, and fashion! i got into most of them on a whim and became instantly hooked. aside from self-expression, being into fashion also helps with making friends in college because you always have something to talk about!

a book that left a lasting impression on me would have to be either kafka on the shore by haruki murakami or before the coffee gets cold by toshikazu kawaguchi. both stories have kept me up at night thinking a lot about the 'what ifs' in life.

i enjoy soul/r&b alongside anything of jrock influence, but i will basically listen to anything that sounds good. i am currently listening to 'so what' by lucy!

my favorite character at the moment is rin itoshi from blue lock because hes so ridiculously edgy, but at the same time i sympathize with him a lot. on the other hand, my favorite character of all time is suletta mecury from the witch from mercury series, she's an absolute ball of sunshine that i aspire to be.

tagging (+ no pressure) ₊˚ෆ

@kaiser1ns @naenaex0xx @shomatoriashi @choccorin @ryescapades

@rindreamery @soleillunne @kissxcore @rainswept @mitsvriii

[kaija-rayne-author]

Some thoughts on Dragon Age Veilguard a couple weeks after playing/reviewing it.

Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to skip to the cut if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Note: My reviews for DA and my blog posts about DAV in particular aren't edited. I don't have the time, energy, or heart to edit them properly.

It's been 16 days since I finished DAV.

And sadly, my opinion still hasn't changed. Especially after learning about Joplin from my friend's artbook. (Joplin is the original concept and art concepts for the game. It had so much we were all really desperate to see. It was gorgeous. And they scrapped it.)

I don't know why they scrapped it, it was exactly what so many of us wanted.

Honestly? I don't care why. I'm sick of all the excuses people keep making for BioWare turning out such a shitty game.

Were there reasons and difficulties I don't know and will never know about? There usually are.

But those things are honestly irrelevant when it comes to producing a quality product.

I work my ever loving ass off to make sure my books are good. And I don't have a team to help me and a 250 million dollar budget. I do everything myself because I have to.

Indie studios turn out fantastic games with cool worlds, good fighting systems, and interesting monsters all the time. With some help and some budget, sure. But not likely on the scale of what they had for DAV.

I'm both a creator and an editor. When you're making a product for sale, it's incredibly foolish to change a series title too much from what worked before. Sure, fix problems, streamline stuff, but people generally don't play RPGs for anything past the worldbuilding, writing, story, and characters. There's action RPGs, sure. I'm playing one now and loving it (Greedfall).

It's a solid RPG that feels like an RPG. (DAV did not.) The fighting system works. The companions are actually useful. They kill bad guys all by themselves! It's quite refreshing tbh.

When you're creating something for fun, sure, do what the fuck ever you want as long as it isn't harmful to someone else. (Don’t put words in my mouth. By harmful, I mean specifically things like racism, sexism, ableism etc. Not whether someone dislikes the colour green and thinks the word 'triggered' means unhappy or uncomfortable. It doesn't. It's specifically a needed mental health term.)

When you're creating a product for sale, you make decisions. IE. I chose to write a reverse harem series. That's a choice influenced by the business reality that my queer books hardly sell at all.

I still love the characters and world I built, still love the plot etc. But it was still a decision on my part. Because my work of words is my only income. I'm disabled and recovering from a pulmonary embolism. My partner is recovering from a broken back and has at least one, possibly two more surgeries to go. We don't get very much help from anywhere. Money is so tight it squeaks. I'm hoping with the decision to write m/f reverse harem, my sales will improve (They already have with only two books out. Third before end of year.)

So. No. No more excuses for BioWare. They've always, from rumour, had a lot of control over the games they make, even if EA does pollute the studio by owning it.

Someone made the choices that resulted in such a shitty game. Someone approved the terrible (in some cases, racist, sexist, and ableist) writing. Someone thought the editing was just fine (it really really is not).

Someone (likely Epler given what he's said in interviews) decided that it was a good idea to Disney-fie the most recent addition to an adult, dark fantasy game that has historically delivered a lot of horror elements. While somehow condescending to kids at the same time.

Someone decided to remove so many of those dark fantasy elements. It's especially obvious in the not-fucking-darkspawn. They made them goofy, not scary and vaguely horror inspiring. But it's all throughout the game.

Someone made decisions. Those decisions made an awful game.

Someone decided tying your companions' skill points acquisition to their level of bond with you was a good idea. Maybe it looked good on paper. I don’t honestly care. It made it nigh impossible to get them high enough to be actually useful. Meaning your OP character always has aggro. Fine, I guess, if you're a tank player, but what about the rest of us?

Someone decided to remove blood splatter from a freaking BioWare game.

Someone decided to go with that wretched art style.

Someone decided nerfing the rogue class was a good idea. Why even have them? They're just light skirmishers, not rogues. Without, y'know, the rogue skills that make a rogue.

It was a decision, each and every time.

Someone decided everything about that game.

So miss me with the excuses.

I would like actual reasons, but I highly doubt we'll ever get them.

Someone made unwise and often foolish decisions during development of DAV. The results are clear.

Simply by the fact they aren't releasing sales numbers... that indicates it's probably not doing well. Larian basically called their earnings for BG3 out weekly.

It mostly just makes me sad now. DAV could've been fantastic. Because of decisions human beings in positions of power made, DAV, while having some good parts, just sucks.

[natsukishinomiyaswife]

So I took a shower and literally got the best idea for an AU! ♡

So I really love role reversal tropes, and appearances not meeting expectations and all that stuff... so I propose to you:

Grunge bakery owner!Trey x Coquette (or maybe sweet lolita?) body piercer!Lydia

(Note: this AU takes place when the characters are older, like early/mid twenties)

Pretty much all the people at Trey's bakery (including Trey himself) look intimidating/out of place at first glance, but when you get to know them you realize how kind hearted they are, and how much they care about the bakery.

Things are the same way on Lydia's end with the Tattoo shop she works at, everyone looking soft and unassuming. Yet they're all talented at what they do, with a passion for their craft.

Some staff at the bakery include:

Deuce (delinquent): New hire at the bakery and still learning the ropes, he mainly does deliveries for now, getting the job for his mom's sake

Cater (punk rock): Does the advertising for the bakery and runs all of their social media accounts, can usually be seen at the counter (filming packaging people's orders)

Lilia (heavy metal) and Malleus (victorian goth): They handle the catering for major events, such as weddings, birthday parties, etc. Malleus got his job at the bakery thanks to Lilia, who suggested him for the position. Lilia is not allowed near the kitchen, and Malleus makes sure of it.

(More to be added when I can think of more lol ♡)

Some staff at the tattoo shop include:

Idia (comfy, casual): A tattoo artist who specializes in new school, he usually keeps to himself, playing games on his phone/tablet when he has no customers. (He and Lydia are exes, but their relationship was short lived, and ended on good terms)

Kalim (fairy kei): Receptionist of the shop and (after much convincing) Idia's apprentice. He got the job after learning Jamil worked there (and wanted to work at the same shop as him)

Jamil (street wear): A body piercer alongside Lydia, he hopes to one day be a tattoo artist, though he hasn't found an apprenticeship yet. He currently travels to different events and conventions to promote the shop (and get away from Kalim lol ♡)

Jack (cottagecore): A new tattoo artist at the shop, he specializes in realism and watercolor (specifically when it comes to nature/landscapes/plants).

(More to be added when I can think of more lol ♡)

But yeah! For my mutuals/friends, I made sure to include some of the characters you guys have OC x Canons with, so feel free to include your OC in this AU ♡ (And if you do, please tag me, I would love to see it! ♡♡♡)

Also, feel free to let me know what you think! ♡♡♡

Thank you! ♡

(Edit: I just realized it would be funny if their businesses were next to each other, and people keep mistaking them as working for the opposite business. So people keep thinking Trey owns the tattoo shop/works there, and that Lydia works at the bakery lol ♡)

Tagging: @scint1llat3, @cheerleaderman, @offorestsongs, @viperbunnies, @midnightmah07

@justm3di0cr3, @boopshoops, @0honeybones0, @oya-oya-okay, @beneathsakurashade

@skriblee-ksk, @kathxrat-01

[biff-adventurer]

roleplay tips: characterization

so it's come to my attention that there's a misunderstanding on what "characterization" actually is. we all know what the phrase implies: we make sure we know why characters do what they do, be it an immediate influence or one from the distant past, as well as the beliefs they hold and the personality traits they display.

however, i've seen people have trouble actually executing the character traits they want to the detriment of themselves and others. this post is meant to clarify the execution of characterization in the context of spontaneous roleplay.

i'll take biff as an example just so no one else feels self-conscious. so biff, poster boy wol, himbo, literal meme incarnate (born from the little comic that goes: i wonder what the wol is doing? while wol is bouncing on the egg mount in the background), hero of eorzea blah blah.

what did i want for this character?

thematic cores: love, adventure. what kind of love? love in all directions; what does it mean to love so fully and so easily? what does it mean to have unfettered compassion for the problems of others? life is an adventure, and i want to see the world. i am full of endless curiosity, i am excited to find all that life has to offer. wherever i go, i love and i learn. because i love you, i will do everything in my power to bring you ease and happiness. (i want to be loved. i want to be worthy. do i matter? i'm sorry. i'm trying my best.)

personality traits: passionate to the extreme, whether it be joy, sorrow, anger, fear, guilt, etc etc. not book smart, but heart smart (he has to be able to make friends somehow). self-effacing, to a fault. temper problems. an insecurity driven need to always be useful to the people he loves, or else he will be irrelevant and forgotten. a strong sense of justice. incredibly stubborn. untrusting toward those he loves, and too trusting of strangers. impressionable. very emotionally sensitive, and wears his heart on his sleeve. pretty standard hero character stuff, anyway.

how do i enact this in roleplay?

spontaneous roleplay often puts roleplayers in situations where they have to make quick decisions while they respond to the simuli around them. since we want to be expedient for the sake of others, it can be hard to see what shape your choices take in the long run.

to deal with this, i look at my character's internal emotional reaction first. then, i go on to consider what possible dialogue choices i have to work with, and what trait each would show about my character. since the telltale games were very popular when i was a younger rper, i tend to map out my characters' responses as though they are part of a telltale storyline.

Biff's Husband: “You have such a soft, tender heart. I love every inch of you.”

the options i can consider here:

"Even the dangly bits?" eyebrow waggle (flirty)

"Yer always so kind to me, husband." (low self-esteem)

"I can't help it. I know how it feels to be a stray." (empathetic)

"And your wisdom protects it valiantly." (grateful)

"I wish I could see it the way you do." (frustrated)

the action or dialogue i choose depends on how i want the RP to go, or what tone we established earlier, or what kind of plots we've agreed to cover. from the above, i chose option 3 because it extends to a greater conversation about feelings and motivations. it lets in the other character while also giving biff a chance to talk about himself in a way that invites someone else to share something vulnerable.

obviously, it demonstrates empathy. the other choices would have lead me down other roads. i usually have a flowchart in my head for how i think this will all play out.

flirty > his husband likely feels dismissed > husband frowns and elbows biff (or worse) > biff is embarrassed for trying to flirt so either he laughs it off or very sadly apologizes > if he laughs, it makes his husband feel dismissed again > suddenly our characters are in a conflict and we're tasked with ushering them out of it, which is a pain > can point toward an unwillingness to open up

low self-esteem > husband feels compelled to comfort him > biff grows upset that he's made it about himself > onus on husband to dispel the situation or let biff sulk by himself > uncomfortable for ooc and ic, and demonstrates a self-absorption trait we don't want (unless this story was originally sought out)

empathetic > husband feels invited into the conversation and shares how he feels like a stray > biff asks him to say more about that > suddenly they're having a deep conversation about their pasts > possible character development or bond deepening

grateful > husband feels appreciated and vows to continue protecting his husband > biff holds him tight > romantic sweet nothings ensue in perpetuity > fluff roleplay activate!

frustrated > husband concerned about biff's temper > biff continues to grow frustrated at his own inadequacies > roleplay turns serious in tone > suddenly i have to find a way to diffuse biff's temper or burden my rp partner with the task > can imply instability of character, which can be dangerous for character and relationship

i apologize if this all sounds very "duh, gwenny, i'm not STOOPID", but i think it's important to make explicit what often goes unsaid, for the benefit of those who can't articulate exactly what they're looking to do. i could give another example involving more conflict, but i think that might be overkill.

all the little choices in dialogue are the actions you're taking in character. not just the literal actions of whether or not you're fighting. what your character says reflects what they believe. if you want them to show up as an empathetic person, you've gotta actively choose empathy or make it obvious to others the way your character speaks that they're coming from a place of empathy. it all adds up to a bigger picture, and suddenly you've realized that you're getting the ending that you wanted, because you worked hard to get there.

obviously, you can't always know how others will receive your character. my character would be a lot louder, cartoonish and unhinged in a closed story than he typically is in roleplay venues. that's because venues are active scenes where we're dealing with other parties who want to have a good time! we don't wanna put a damper on their day unless they're expecting meatball-spicy drama. we often have to give a lot more space for others to be included than we normally would in a fic, where we establish everything on our own.

BUT, having several different choices prepares you for any future misunderstandings. you can tell them your character's motive during that period, but when you are ultimately asked to do something different because of some mistake, you have other choices and a clearer picture of how to have your character create and progress relationships in a story. and you show you are willing to work on both your character and yourself, as well as offer compromises via these other paths, in order to tailor the bond between two characters in a way both parties can agree on.

and it becomes a lot easier to own up to mistakes when you look at your character as both a person that is not you and a literary device meant to convey certain ideas. it's not a personal attack on what you believe, but rather a comment on how people feel from what you've written. that is very useful feedback, for both fics and roleplay writing.

trust me, this comes from years of making incredibly embarrassing mistakes and having to write them into character development unwittingly, because i was an idiot. so unto you i bestow these tools to avoid the shame i suffered......

[marchofmistria]

Who is your farmer? How did they end up in Mistria? Were they with the Adventuring Guild?

Meg is a fairly typical girl from the Capital. Fed up with and constricted by her laborious work and her monotonous routine, she searched for a way out of a life she could easily predict. She was never a member of the Adventuring Guild, but began checking the notices posted there daily as soon as she decided she was fed up with her normal everyday. As soon as an offer appeared, she decided that she'd try it for a year, and if she hated it she'd move back to the Capital. She doesn't know a single thing about Mistria before she heads there, but it feels like home as soon as she steps over the bridge.

2. Who do you, the player, like as a character the most? Does this differ from your character’s favourite villager?

My favorite character and the farmer's favorite characters are the same. Meg form a quick friendship with Celine, Reina, and Adeline and view them as her closest friends. She also finds solace in Elsie, who acts like a second mother (or rather, a cool aunt) to the farmer and happily gives her advice on all matters. As for romance, Meg and March feel a spark the first time they meet (even though they both think it's completely unrequited). Meg is a social butterfly and makes friends easily will all the townsfolk.

3. Did your character have any prior farming or ranching knowledge before coming to Mistria? Or adventuring?

Meg had absolutely no prior knowledge in farming or ranching before she came to Mistria. She killed nearly all her houseplants, and the only animal she'd ever cared for was her beloved pet cat. She had to learn everything from scratch, and definitely failed before she began to get a feel for growing plants (in no small part because of Celine's advice). The ranching came a bit more naturally to her, but she definitely also required Hayden's help quite often.

4. What is your character’s favourite way to spend the day? On the other hand, what is your favourite way to spend the day in the game playing?

Meg loves to bring gifts to all of her friends in Mistria. She seems to always miraculously have whatever the townsfolk need and want. She especially loves to spend day in the mines, carry everything she found to the forge (including a gift for March), show off her blacksmithing skills, and then walk with March to the Inn for dinner.

As the player, I love foraging and mining the most. I also always look forward to chatting with all my friends and hearing what they have to say that day.

5. Does your character have any animals on the farm? Who are their favorites?

At this point, Meg has two cows and two chickens (besides the cat she should have brought with her from the Capital). Her kitty is her first born and will always hold a special place in her heart, but she can't pick favorites between her children.

6. What is your character’s take on the magic slowly seeping back into the land of Mistria? Were they familiar with magic prior to this?

Meg was familiar with magic prior to coming to Mistria. She's heard of witches who used it and sold it in the Capital, and always felt jealous of their powers. Who knew that by finding her place in Mistria, she would be able to unlock those powers too? She sees it like her full potential was unlocked when her soul finally found its place in Mistria.

7. When pets come: what sort of pets are you hoping for?

Meg will finally be reunited with her brown and white tabby cat Charlie <3

8. What does your character look like in the game?

Meg is of medium height, thin, and very pale. She burns easily so she's always lathering herself up in sunscreen, but still has a lot of freckles that manage to poke through on her nose and shoulders when she doesn't cover up. She has BIG curly brown hair that reaches down her back, as well as brown eyes. She's social and makes friends easily, but in a quiet kind of way. Easy to get along with, but usually prefers to hang out with a small group of friends rather than in a large crowd.

9. What does their farmhouse look like so far?

So far, Meg is going for a dark academia aesthetic in her house with lots of browns and greens.

10. What does their exterior farmland look like at the moment? Have you set up any special sort of shrine around Caldarus’s statue?

Meg is trying to keep a traditional look on her farm to match the interior of the house. She made sure to make a special place for her to spend time with her close friend Caldarus.

11. Final question: what are you most excited for with future patches?

Marriage!!!

Fields of Mistria Questions

Who is your farmer? How did they end up in Mistria (were they with the Adventuring Guild?)?

Who do you, the player, like as a character the most? Does this differ from your character’s favourite villager?

Did your character have any prior farming or ranching knowledge before coming to Mistria? Or adventuring?

What is your character’s favourite way to spend the day? On the other hand, what is your favourite way to spend the day in the game playing?

Does your character have any animals on the farm? Who are their favourites?

What is your character’s take on the magic slowly seeping back into the land of Mistria? Were they familiar with magic prior to this?

When pets come: what sort of pets are you hoping for?

What does your character look like in the game?

What does their farmhouse look like so far?

What does their exterior farmland look like at the moment? Have you set up any special sort of shrine around Caldarus’s statue?

Final question: what are you most excited for with future patches?

[bigball-thefrog]

Omg you’re back!! Yay! I’ve missed your writing so much!☝🏻 Now that you’re back I would like to request a little something. I was thinking of maybe something with Sanji. So basically I was thinking of something along the lines of the reader being in love with him and him being in love with her too but the reader is scared of being with him because of her past. So when Sanji approaches her with that she rejects him out of fear and starts avoiding him, so then maybe he begins to get curious about it and asks either Robin and Nami about it and one of them tells him what happened in her past. I don’t know just something along those lines🤔Like maybe she accidentally hurt her past partner? Oh and it would be cool she was the baker of the ship just to have that chef and baker dynamic. And as for her ability you can make that up. Anyway hope you can write it!

HELLO!!!! Thank you so much kind words and thank you for the request, I haven't written for Sanji in so long. This was really sweet and I actually am considering making this into a Character ai bot if you wouldn't mind. I hope I wrote it well and you enjoy it

Warnings/Tags:

Angst to comfort

Rejection

Bullying

Readers has had their feelings played with in their oast

Insecurities and fear of romace

Female reader

______________________________

Narrator POV

For your skills in baking delicious treats and fighting with your baking utensils, Luffy quickly asked you to join his crew. You accepted and that's how you met him... Sanji...

Usually Sanji preferred to be the only own allowed to work in the kitchen, but when someone as skillful and as beautiful as you came in, he didn't mind sharing his space. And quickly you two found your rhythm together. When he'd be making soup you'd be quick to make garlic bread to go with it. Sanji was making chocolate mousse for dessert? We'll you were making doughnuts to be filled with the mousse! The kitchen would be filled will mouthwatering aromas of your baked goods and Sanji's meals, inside the kitchen it was a show to watch you both work, knives chopping, spices being tossed between you two, you were both almost the exact same person now split in half and making a delicious storm in the kitchen, you two, were perfect together.

And now only were your skills in the kitchen a match, your feelings for each other were also a match. It was only a matter of time before you two to fell for each other. A baker and a chef, it's a match made in heaven! Or rather, match made in the kitchen ☞( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞. You loved Sanji, and he loved you back, and more than other ladies! Yes, out of all the ladies in the world, you were the one to win Sanji's heart, and he wanted no one else but you. And you loved him all the same, but there was a big problem. You didn't think he could or would like you back... You had been hurt so many times in the past when it came to romance that you grew to accept that no one would genuinely love you. And then it happened, Sanji came to you with a beautiful bouquet of your favorite flowers and your favorite meal and he asked you out. You froze, you wanted to belive his confession but your insecurities, your pain from the past, you just couldn't believe he was being genuine. "I can't..." was all you managed to say before running away, leaving Sanji confused and heartbroken.

Sanji POV

"I can't..." The words rang through my head, over and over again. Why? Why couldn't she accept? Was it something I did? Did she not like me that way? After that failure of a confession she began to avoid me completely, she'd cook completely, she'd take her meals to her rooms. It was tearing me apart and I just wanted my kitchen partner back...

I was currently stirring some stew for lunch, since that night my energy to cook was low, I still put effort into all of it but it felt like my motivation was gone now that she wasn't with me in the kitchen. I was brought out of my self loathing thoughts when I heard Nami and Robin entering the kitchen, "Sanji, is everything alright?" Robin asked, "Luffy's getting impatient and everyone's realized lunch is taking longer than usual." Nami said, looks of concern on both of their faces. "I'm alright ladies... Just a bit tired lately..." I said and went back to stirring. I could hear them mumble about how something was definitely wrong then Robin spoke again, "Is this about your confession?" I froze, my lips trembled and I stepped away from the pot to wipe my face. Nami sighed and Robin nodded her head. Both girls sat me down and tried to comfort me, "It's not your fault Sanji." Nami spoke and pat my shoulder, "But then what was it it? Why did she reject me??" "It's because she's been through a lot in the past, stuff that's made her more scared of romantic relationships." Robin reassured. I raised my head at that, "Her past? What happened?" "Well, you see, back at her home island, she had a partner, someone she really cared for. But there was an accident... He was helping her bake when he started an argument while cooking and they were so distracted by their argument that he slipped while carrying a pot of boiling water. He was burned all over and she felt immense guilt, and since then she's been scared to let someone get close like that, she just doesn't want to accidentally hurt someone again..." Nami said, Oh, my poor sweet darling... She wasn't able cooperate with her past lover in the kitchen and he got hurt, now she carries all the guilt on her shoulders... "So, it's not your fault Sanji, your confession was beautiful, it's just that she's scared she'll accidentally hurt you in someway..." Robin said. "But what do I do? How do I show her that I'm being genuine and that I really love her with all my heart?" "Nami, you're gonna have to do something deep, something personal, something that can get under those walls she's built around herself." Nami said and squeezed my shoulder "A love letter is always a good choice. Writing down all your thoughts feelings for a person to see." Robin said. A love letter? Writing all my thoughts and feelings of her and letting her read it? It could work. Filled with a new motivation I thanked both girls and got to work, after making lunch of course.

Narrator POV

He spent hours, writing all his thoughts, and all of his feelings towards you and how much he loved you. What was supposed to be a love note, ended up being a love book since Sanji wrote over 100 pages dedicated to his love for you put into words.

It was after dinner now and Sanji was alone cleaning until he heard footsteps and he turned to see you, "I'm just here to bring in my dishes." you mumble and put your dishes in the sink before quickly turning to leave, but Sanji quickly took your hand in his and pulled you back, "Please don't go Mon amour, I have something to give you..." He pleaded, holding your hand delicately in his. "A-alright..." you stuttered, trying to control your already racing heart from jumping out of your chest with the way Sanji held your hand. He momentarily let go to grab his love note/book and placed it in your hands, you looked at him confused before looking up at him, waiting for an answer. "It's all my thoughts, all my feelings put into words... All about you Mon amour..." you felt your heart break before you could protest, Sanji spoke again, "Please my dear, just skim through it, you don't have to read all of it, but just see how I feel, how I genuinely feel about you." Sanji pleaded. You sighed and flipped through the pages, each one the word love written so many times, how he loved your body, how he loved your smile, how he loved how passionate you were about baking, he just seemed to love everything about you, inside and out. You were tearing up as you flipped through each page, then the last page you read entirely and it was your breaking point:

"My love, Nami and Robin told me about what happened with your previous partner and I need to say, it's not your fault. He started that argument and got himself hurt. It brings me deep pain that you now feel this way now. That you do not deserve love because of one mistake from a fool that wasn't looking where he was going. My love, you do not need to carry such weight on your shoulders, you can lean on me and let go of that weight, because I love you and there is nothing you could do to hurt me and make me angry or hate you. Your body, your face, every mark, every curve. I would spend days kissing every imperfection on your your body, yet it wouldn't even take a second to, because there are simply no imperfections on you. You are simply perfect, your passion for baking, your loyalty. My darling you are perfect in every way possible, and I couldn't have asked for a better kitchen partner and best friend. Please, believe me when I say, I love you and that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, the both of us together in the kitchen, creating our love in the form of food for everyone to experience. I love you, Ma chérie."

You could not stop crying, his words hit deep and meant so much to you. Sanji was quick to wrap you in a tight comforting hug. "Shhh it's okay... You don't have to cry my love... I'm here, and I'll stay as long as you want me to." He held you close to his chest and rubbed your back, "I'm so sorry Sanji... I was just so scared it was another joke.." "It's okay Mon amour, I understand your fear, but I would never play with a lady's feelings like that, especially not yours." "So you still love me?" "With all my soul" "Do you still want to date?" "With all my existence."

"Kitchen partners for life?"

"Kitchen partners for life~"

______________________________

Alright this is it for now, I will post my poll very soon for you all to decide what I write next, and I will see you all very soon.

Kelly🐸

[gloriousburden]

Sometimes I get Lokius related shit on my dash and the posts are so stupid that I wish I could call them out and immaturely berate them, because how the fuck do you really think that Mobius had any love for Loki???? How are you that stupid? Did you watch the series with your eyes closed?

Like it just pisses me the fuck off so bad. I really do not want to see you comparing them to every single Taylor Swift lyric in existence when you understood NEITHER character. Fuck the whole thing about them not understanding Loki, they didn’t even understand Mobius. The guy’s an asshole, but no one talks about it because he’s played by Owen Wilson and is a male character to be shipped with Loki.

I don’t like being rude to people on here but Lokius shippers are dumb as fuck. And the fucking comparisons they do to basically every trendy M/M ship that exists right now??? “Time husbands” please shut the fuck up.

If people are going to ship them, I’d at least respect them a bit if they actually acknowledged how stupid it is and how wrong they are for each other rather than the rose colored version of it they’ve created, as well as demanding that it becomes canon. If they actually acknowledged how horrible Mobius was to Loki, rather than acting like he was always very kind to him and understanding. Once again, if Mobius were a female character… they’d be calling her morally grey and evil and you’d hear “UM. I support women’s RIGHTS and WRONGS!!”

Because at least I’ve seen SOME Sylki shippers acknowledge the dislike Sylvie has for Loki. They acknowledge that it’s an odd/‘toxic’ pairing, and that Loki’s character was neglected and put down to lift hers up. Something I will never see a Lokius shipper do.

Also please listen to more music. Not everything can be Taylor Swift.. really tired of this genre of person that’s been existing for the past… 3(?) years. Lokius shipper who loves Taylor Swift and is usually a fan of every trendy series for approximately 2 months before immediately dropping it for the next series or some indie game that probably has a good plot with good morally questionable characters but the fandom misunderstood it all so badly and instead of any kind of discussion about canon you get “He looks like a cinnamon roll, but will totally stab you!”

[fujii-draws]

OKAY! Chatot rant in tags below! Read at your own discretion.