#when i just started playing i had less of a grasp of the plot then now

[noramthe]

I need to rewatch venti story quests/events to get some things and hints about his lore that I’m sure i forgot about when i first started playing

[dolche-tejada]

You know, I think this ending would have been slightly less of a fucking disappointment if the heroes hadn't been so unfairly favored by Horikoshi compared to the villains. I mean, seriously

Deku destroys every bone in his body multiple times throughout the story and is warned that if he continues, he'll permanently lose the use of his limbs ? Everything's fine, his body's just got used to being reduced to a bloody pulp somehow so there's no consequences for him. In fact even when he literally loses his arms to Shigaraki, he gets them back two minutes later thanks to Eri because guess what ? Her horn still works even when cut off from her body. How convenient.

Gran Torino gets his ribcage obliterated by Shigaraki ? Don't worry guys, he'll survive that despite his old age and injuries, and this to have no particular role in the plot afterwards.

Bakugo dies heroically trying to buy time before Deku arrives ? Lmao, did you really believe it ?? No of course not, Edgeshot just uses his last-minute Deus Ex Machina to save his life at the cost of his own and- Oops nope he's fine too, my bad !

Hawks murders a criminal fleeing for his life in cold-blood ? The best Hori has to offer is him completely free and in charge of the HSPC.

And no, losing his quirk isn't a real consequence for him because not only it literally played a major part in saving the world with Vestige!Hawks raising an insurrection among AFO's quirks, but also because his quirk has always been the element through which people exploited him.

Endeavor abused his family for years and completely destroyed his eldest son ? No jail time and no media backlash for that, the only blame he received was due to the heroes' failure to stop the League during the Raid Arc.

And don't even get me started on this bs about facing hell or whatever for what he's done : He's literally free and wealthy ; he has Rei, Fuyumi, Shoto, his sidekicks and Hawks on his side ; and all the difficulties he's apparently going to suffer are off-screened.

Deku had to sacrifice OFA and his future hero career to save the world ? Guess what, Bakugo invested all his time and money to make him an Iron-Man suit and now he can still be a hero with everyone else.

There are plenty more examples of this but I think you get the idea. Now let's take a look at the villains' ending :

Toya is now a piece of charcoal kept artificially alive for the few years he has left, unable to move a finger, and whose few minutes a day during which he can stay awake will be spent talking to his father who abused him as a child.

Toga, a literal teenager, killed herself to save Ochako and because she knew it's still better than rotting at Tartarus her whole life.

And not only did she die but she did by bleding to death. Let me repeat for those who have trouble grasping what I've just said : In a manga where the heroes can survive having their heart blown to bits, being impaled Kakyoin-style or smashed against buildings like a fly on a windshield, one of the main antagonists died of a fucking hemorrhage…

As for Shigaraki, after learning that his very birth and all the tragedies of his life have been orchestrated by AFO, after all this development and narrative promises about him being saved in the end... Deku just kills him.

Because despite all his speeches about saving him, it seems like the best our MC could do was beating him both physically and mentally until he crumbles to dust…

Compress on his side is apparently locked up for life and kept alive by machines too.

A begging Kurogiri tried in a desperate attempt to save Shigaraki, only to be unceremoniously blown up by Bakugo and dying off-screen without anyone giving a shit, including Aizawa and Mic.

And Spinner will now spend the rest of his life struggling with the extra quirks inside him that affect his body and mind, while having to cope with the thought that his boyfriend best friend and companions have either died alone or are locked away for life in horrifying circumstances.

Clearly not the same as with the heroes...

Now don't get me wrong, even if they suffered just as much from the consequences of their actions or the plot as the League, this ending would still be a disaster in terms of writing but AT LEAST it wouldn't reek that much of hypocrisy.

[nymphoniah]

can I request old man Logan where he’s looking for his glasses and he finds the reader sitting in his seat wearing them & teasing him how can he see without them. Then something primal inside him overcomes him to put her in her place

I hope that’s not too silly of a request I just drool over old man Logan especially with his glasses

you know i’m no good | logan howlett

i love this old man… i need him like air!!! ackkkk </3. tysm for sending this request in, we all need a grumpy logan in our lives :3 also i just read the old man logan comics and lord!!! i absolutely need to write more of himmmm

pairing: old man!logan x younger!reader

content/tags: NSFW minors dni, 18+ only, implied age gap (reader is in their 20’s), soft dom!logan, afab!reader, boot riding, smut, daddy kink, swearing, pet names (princess, doll, etc), a little bit of dacryphilia, logan refers to himself as an old man, porn w a lil bit of plot if you squint, crybaby!reader

you absolutely love the way logan’s glasses hang off of his nose bridge—always making sure when you’re peppering his face in kisses, you kiss the little bump that accentuates his features.

logan was a little embarrassed at first, wearing his glasses around you. thought it made him look older, already felt senile just taking them out of the case.

“c’mon!” you tease, placing a kiss on the tip of his nose. “i like the way you look in them,” you push him further, toying with the frames of his glasses.

“i look older in ‘em,” he says, playing off your kind words, “never was a fan of wearing them in the first place,” logan continues to drone on.

“charles says otherwise,” you snap back, your fingers playing where his glasses sit on his ears, flipping the glasses slightly up and down off his nose bridge.

logan chuckles, allowing you to continue playing with his glasses. “fine, i’ll wear ‘em,” he obliges much quicker than you thought he would—god knows the man loves to put on a fight.

but for you? he’d fold instantly. that’s what you do to him, you’re his little soft spot.

“only ‘cause you like it, princess.”

so when time passes, and you start to see him wear his glasses less and less, you decide to mess around with him a bit—give him a little surprise!

now here you are, sat in his armchair with a small smirk forming at the corner of your lips. your legs crossed, eyes peering up at him, but this time—his glasses perched on your nose.

logan approaches you slowly, his footsteps heavy, his figure towering over yours. he’s just come home from work, dressed up in his black and white suit, his tie slightly undone. he looks especially tired, like he’s had a long day.

“you broke your promise,” you trail off quietly, losing your smugness as logan looks down at you, his eyes sullen. “forgot these at home,” you continue, pointing at the glasses.

you try to ease the tension in the air by cracking a joke. “bet you couldn’t even drive straight without these.”

your words draw no reaction from logan. it’s painfully obvious that he’s drained from the day, and has no patience for whatever you have planned.

“i don’t have time for this,” he shrugs you off, pulling at your arm to get you up on your feet, “get ‘outta my spot, need to have some fuckin’ peace for once”.

you hate when logan gets like this, refusing to let you know what’s occupying his thoughts, keeping you in the dark—pushing you away.

so being the stubborn girl you are, you stay limp, refusing to move from the armchair. “no.” you retort, voice low and quiet.

logan can obviously lift you out of the chair with no issues, no tugging on your wrists or anything of the sort. but he sees that you’re at least trying to ease him up, make him feel the tiniest bit better. so he bites.

“can’t hear ‘ya, princess” logan says, the timbre of his voice gravelly, his eyebrow now raised, watching for your next move.

“no.” you respond sternly, shifting your weight further into the leather, tugging your arm away from his grasp.

something inside logan snaps. maybe it’s just ‘cause he had a bad day at work, or perhaps he just got riled up, seeing you get all bratty with him. knowing him, it was probably a combination of the two.

“no?” he mocks, sounding bitter as he lets out a tsk. “wrong fuckin’ answer, sweetheart.”

and that’s when the mood changes. the tension is still there, but there’s a shift. you feel your stomach turn, in a weird, twisted way—aroused by the way logan looks down at you with displeasure.

“need me to put you in your place, huh?” logan spits out, grabbing you by the wrist, finally pulling you out of the armchair.

taking little effort, he makes you stumble to your knees, your palms hitting the ground of the hardwood floor. you’re kneeled in front of logan, feeling foolish, stupid for trying to pester him after a long day.

“m’sorry,” you mutter, eyes glued to the floor, his glasses sliding low on your nose.

logan perches down to your height, bending down so that he’s level to your ears. “it’s a bit too late for apologies now, doll,” he coos, cupping your face with one of his hands.

he squishes your cheeks together, making it so that you’re looking up at him now. his eyes are sullen, facial features stern, the bags under his eyes a bit darker than usual.

streams of sorry, sorry, sorry is all you can manage let out of your pretty little mouth. you feel so guilty, upsetting him. sure, you had no ill intentions, but you know you pushed him—you should’ve just gotten out of the stupid chair, could’ve avoided this stupid mess.

the thoughts continue to drill into your brain, the regret. your eyes start to get teary, you just can’t help it. after everything that logan’s done, all the shit he’s been through, you didn’t wanna add onto his problems, cause any unnecessary stress in his life.

“don’t cry, princess” he consoles you, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. logan steadies himself back up, seating himself into the leather armchair where you once sat.

you shift around, slotting yourself between his legs, your pink, teary eyes looking up at him. “m’sorry still, didn’t wanna make you mad,” you sniffled out, taking off his glasses, placing them on the coffee table.

you leaned your head against his leg, your cheek nuzzling into the fabric of his slacks, your tears staining the pants a darker shade of black.

logan looked down at you, his tired eyes admiring the way you sat below him, practically worshiping him. “you’re just needy for your old man, hm?” he says, patting your head gently as you continue to weep.

“can’t help it, lo,” you murmur, tears becoming less frequent as he continues to tangle his fingers in your hair. “you’ve been gone a lot.”

your eyes fall down to his black leather dress shoes, the stitching of the shoes frayed, the material slightly worn at the edges. your fingertips play with the toe of his boots, trying to ground yourself.

“i know, i know, doll,” he replies, wiping away a stray tear from your cheek, his eyes catching the way you were staring intently at his shoes. “show me how much you missed me.”

your mind is still racing, trying to find a way to ease the pain you felt on your heart, the residing guilt you felt from earlier.

that’s ‘till you let your body think for itself, mindlessly hovering your clothed cunt on top of his boot. your breath stutters, trying to make sense of your actions, but it’s the last thing you wanna do.

all you want to do is turn your brain off—make sure that the pain goes away, that all your troubles could be temporarily solved.

“need this, need you,” you whine, placing yourself firmly on his boot, slowly grinding against him, pressing the temple of your head onto logan’s knee.

logan feels himself hardening at the sight of you getting off on him, his cock twitching as you paw at his slacks, your roaming hands finding their way to his crotch.

“fuck…” he hisses out, tilting his heels slightly upwards, making it so that the toe of his shoes angles right against your cunt. “my filthy girl just needed her old man to comfort her, yeah?”

you moan out in pleasure, your eyes shutting tight as you pace yourself, rutting against the rugged leather rhythmically. your cunt was leaking with your arousal, the excess slowly dripping down the sides of his shoes.

“missed you… so bad… d-daddy,” you cried out in between pants, your breath quivering, feeling the pressure in your core building up. “don’t know what i’d do… without ’ya…”

“you don’t need to worry about that, princess,” logan coos, “daddy’s right here,” he punctuates by nestling the toe of his shoe deeper inside your messy cunt.

“shut your pretty little brain off and keep riding me like that.”

[zriasstuff]

Mercy—Draco Malfoy x reader smut

Warnings: 18+ oneshot (1.7k words), barely any plot; just porn, sub!draco

To the person that requested a Draco Malfoy fanfic like 10 days ago: here it finally is

Draco inhales sharply through his teeth as you go over his bleeding wound with a cotton ball. You had told him a thousand times already to not get into a fight again, yet he just wouldn’t listen and did so nonetheless.

“C'mon they deserved it, you understand right?”, he tried to justify his actions, to which you shook your head in disapproval.

“You can’t just go around acting like a dick and then expect people to clean up after you all the time”, you lecture him, hoping he’ll see his wrongdoings.

“Well for now I got you, don’t I?”, he smugly retorts, hissing along the way as the cotton ball touches his wound again. What a prick he could be sometimes.

“For now”, you warn him sternly. Draco was well aware he’d have to play nice with you, his close friend who genuinely helped him when he needed it.

You, of course, didn't want to enable Draco, but he did show his gratitude in pleasant ways. Ways such as treating you to stuff in Hogsmeade, helping you with homework, sweet talking you to professors, and so on.

Today's wound landed on his lower torso, something he’d gotten from a guy on the Gryffindor quidditch team, whom he insulted as mudblood. Being a pure blood yourself, you were aware of your guys' hate towards muggles, but you didn’t condone it.

Seeing his pained facial expression, pulling all types of grimaces, you say “I know it hurts, but that will only help you to learn your lesson.”

��And what lesson is that? That I have to show less mercy next time?”, Draco stupidly grins when failing to acknowledge his fault.

“Sure, tough guy”, you roll your eyes at him.

Now, he was almost all fixed up and you just had to put a large, squared band aid over his cleaned wound.

As you lean in towards his lower torso, you hear a huffed grunt coming from Draco, who is looking a bit thrown.

“What is it, did I hurt you?”, you ask him.

Draco wasn’t hurt. More so, he was rather feeling something completely opposite.

Innerly, he started replaying the moment in his head of when your tits made the lightest contact with his dick. They had brushed over his groin, when you were leaning in to put the band aid on the wound.

Of course you hadn’t noticed, but he certainly couldn’t forget. His mind was going through all sorts of dirty, nasty, mental images. That one little touch caused all restraint to fly out the window, and all he could think of was how you would look naked, tits uncovered, bouncing in front of him.

How would fuck your tits and afterwards paint them with his cum. The position you were in also allowed you to give him a perfect blowjob. Draco was sitting on a chair and you knelt in front of him because it was the easiest way for you to treat him.

Surely, you wouldn’t have imagined that this position would cause his poor mind to fantasize to such naughty extent.

It became all too much in his head, such a reaction from so little touch. Was he really that horny and desperate? Draco tried to block it out, to not make this weird.

But seeing you like this, having felt you in such a way, simply made you too irresistible.

Draco didn’t even know what got into him, but he bent down promptly, grabbed your ponytail and told you exactly what he wanted- no craved right now.

“Please suck me off right now”, he suddenly muttered in your ear, giving you the most troubled look you’ve ever seen.

“What the fu- what the hell is wrong with you?!”, you exclaim at his words. You couldn’t fully believe what you just heard.

Draco pulls back again, letting go of your ponytail in the process. He seemed slightly ashamed, but you could tell he wouldn’t let go of this easily. Hell, if he played his cards right…

He himself couldn’t even fully grasp why he wanted this so badly all of a sudden. His mind was definitely fucking with him. But with all the stress he was under- being involved with the Death Eaters, and having no way of venting- all he needed was you right now.

“Please, just do it?”, he appeared defeated. You’d never seen him so frantic before.

“Look, I really need this, I need you. You’ll help me with anything, right?”

Needing to come up with a response, you go over all the possibilities in your head. You arrive at a well thought out conclusion seconds later.

“You’ll explain yourself later”, you firstly demand from him. You saw that Draco was completely out of his element, but that’s not why you agreed. Doing this for him would have him at your mercy, maybe you would enjoy holding this over his head later on. Win win, right?

“Ready?”, you coo at him before your hand makes contact with the growing bulge in his pants. Draco winces a little, letting out a relieved moan.

From all the pent up frustration, he desperately needed this. While you stroke around his bulge, he already starts jerking his growing length against your palm. That’s when you give his cock a warning squeeze.

“This isn’t up to you”, you talk down to him. Innerly you loved every second of this. Draco going from harsh and brassy to obedient.

Abruptly, he stops moving, so you carry on with palming his cock until it’s visibly hard through his pants. Here and there a little wince escapes his mouth, wanting immediate pleasure instead of tedious teasing.

After enough playing around, you start to unzip his pants with your mouth. You make sure to glance at him while doing it, just to see how crazy it drives him. His stunned reaction was so worth it.

Every second he relished and wished you would just take him in already. When you remove the last layer of clothing, you’re shocked to see how much bigger he is than you’d ever encountered. From your eyes widening and your mouth gaping slightly, he could tell his size turned you on.

His cock was incredibly hard and leaking drops of precum already from all the teasing, practically aching to be sucked and toyed with.

Your tongue licks a long stripe along his shaft first, which evokes a small whimper from Draco. Instantly he shuts himself up, wanting to control himself, but you want to hear more of those delicious sounds.

So, you keep peppering his cock with kitten licks, especially at his leaking tip. No longer able to hold himself back, Draco fully lets himself go and lets out a breathy whimper.

“Please stop with the teasing already”, he whines after having already endured that much.

Luckily you are feeling generous, so you slide him into your mouth, his big cock disappearing inch by inch. When it glided fully in, it hit the back of your throat, making you gag.

Draco had to forcefully keep his hands on his thighs, otherwise he’d destroy your throat right now. His cock felt so good in your warm, wet mouth. He was amused, seeing you gag from his length.

Not wanting to back out, you ignore your gag reflex. You keep your tongue flat, and start bobbing your head up and down on his cock. Instantly, you feel the saliva running down from the corners of your mouth.

It was messy and sloppy, and the whimpers coming from Draco were heavenly. While trying your hardest to not gag, you continued sucking and twirling your tongue around him like a lollipop. Of course you made sure that his balls didn’t feel left out either. With one free hand you gently massaged them, rolling them in your hand.

Soon enough the stimulation had gotten to Draco. The way you glanced up at him, doe eyed, salivating on cock, awakened some strange feelings in him.

A few more seconds of pure ecstasy, and he started violently bucking his hips, signaling his oncoming orgasm.

More uncontrollable whimpers and curses left his mouth. Finally, you tipped him over the edge when you let his cock hit the back of your throat repeatedly.

His ropes of cum quickly dripped down your throat- shame that you could barely taste it as he was in so deep.

“That was fucking amazing”, he sighs at you, completely out of breath.

With his cock still hanging out, even though it’s soft, you have a fun idea. You spit in your mouth, and as Draco watches, he has no idea what you’re up to.

His eyes widen, when he sees your hand move towards his cock again.

He curses loudly, when you start to pump his shaft. It was absolutely too much for him, especially after he just came.

“Tell me, did you come?”, you ask Draco in a teasing tone. He didn’t answer as he was too focused on the mix of pleasure and pain that was being inflicted on his poor, overused cock.

Completely ignoring the question, you ask it again, yet when there was no answer this time you start pumping him even faster than before. “FUCK”, Draco yelps out, as he clings onto his chair with both hands.

“Earlier when you came in my mouth, did you ask for permission?”. Of course he didn’t, that’s why you asked.

“No”, he whines, looking dazzled. “Stop fucking with me”, he groans, but secretly he enjoyed being messed around with. Maybe that’s what he needed, someone assertive, yet caring.

The agonizing pain was becoming too overpowering second by second.

“Ok, please let me off, I’ll be good next time”, he continues whining in his needy tone.

“Who said there’ll be a next time”, you coo, “and don’t lie, you’re enjoying this”. You continue torturing his cock until he finally can’t take it anymore, twitching uncontrollably in your hand.

As you keep roughly squeezing and pumping his cock, Draco painfully comes a second time. He throws his head back before looking at you again, meanwhile you seductively licked his cum on your hand. In the end, Draco managed to huff out a hoarse “thank you”.

After this blissful experience, Draco would be making sure, that there would in fact be a next time.

[dearlyd3parted]

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚍 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚖: 𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜 | 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚔 𝙻𝚎𝚎 𝚡 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

🕸️syp: Mark Lee is many things; A 2nd year college student, A stressed Stark Industries intern, Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman, and also your childhood friend. He's also a secret fifth thing, a loser hopeless romantic who's been in love with you for years. Due to his inexperience, it takes him two failed attempts at a confession until the third is finally a charm. 🕸️mark lee x fem!reader - (127 centered) biggest idiots in love u will ever read 🕸️feat: a bit of nct dream, xiaojun from wayv, and yunjin from lsrfm cause mother 🕸️word count: total 26.2k 🕸️warnings: some profanity (mark is very stressed ok), descriptions of injuries (blood, cuts, bruises), light angst, mostly just misunderstandings and such, brief mention of smoking, eventual smut 🕸️authors note: ok i genuinely had so much fun writing this one i love mark so much and i live to push the spidermark agenda. i don't follow any exact mcu plot. just inspired more heavily by tom holland cinmenatic universe! also he has glasses in this fic, i know canonically spiderman has perfect vision but idc i have a nerd agenda to push ;p i've only proofread once, so pls bear with any typos. to my current followers who were waiting on me to post, i spent a lot of time on this one so that is why content is delayed, but i hope it makes up for it! im doing more piwon next! i really like this one and hope u do too. pls reblog and like and follow for more ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ 🕸️chapter index: chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 tags🏷:

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟷: 𝙵𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚎𝚝𝚛𝚢 - wc: 8.3k

Mark Lee has always been sure of his identity.

It seems that since birth he has had a very firm grasp on himself, what his personality is like, what he wanted in his future, what he wanted in the very moment. Mark has never been a mystery to him.

When he was in the 6th grade, he knew he was a buzzing personality. He knew he was a jokester, always smiling, always laughing, even when the moment didn't call for it. He knew that he loved to talk about anything, really. He could spend hours talking an unsuspecting classmate's ear off about his favorite subjects (math and english, never science), the video game he just played, or some cool new thing one of his favorite superheroes did.

However, because of his...as one would put it in kind terms, passion for life and anything that excited him slightly, he had a hard time making friends. Sure, he had some, the same handful of guys who had been perpetually stuck with each other since elementary school, but making new ones was the problem.

It was at that point that Mark realized he is also a people pleaser from time to time. Especially at 12 years old when everyone is dying to fit in. So, in order to get some of his peers to find him...not annoying, he tried to mimic their personalities.

Mark amped up the snarky-ness and the sassiness, changed his look to what could best replicate what was popular at the time, and started talking about Tony Stark maybe 30% less (That really was the best he could do).

And surprisingly....it worked. For a bit there, he was thinking he might slowly climb his way up from whimsical nerd to just some dude. God, he wanted to be just some dude so badly.

Then one day he saw you.

You sat alone on the end of a lunch table, a pizza lunchable in front of you as you clicked away on your DSI, seemingly playing...Pokémon? Of course, adorned with a Star Wars backpack sat right next to you. He shuddered a bit at the sight, but not negatively. He just really wished that was him instead of what he was currently doing, trailing behind the kids who play basketball after school with an immense 'cool kid' vibe to them.

Mark took immediate note at how they snickered at you, the word nerd being thrown around being most obviously about you. As he gripped onto his tray, a sly smile masking an internal panic on his face, he figured it was a perfect time to prove himself as he followed his pack leaders.

Mark cleared his throat as he approached you, ready to strike. "Nice backpack, Young Jedi." He snickered, his voice as condescending as he could make it out to be when addressing a really cool backpack.

You paused your game with a swiftness, swiveling around to look at him, not an ounce of offense on your face. Without a beat, your deadbeat expression bounced back.

"Nice bowl cut, loser.”

Needless to say, Mark didn’t make the cut for just some dude. He would be staying a talkative and giggly nerd for a while, he was sure of that fact about himself. He knew that was him. It was okay, though, because he didn’t want friends who he couldn't be himself around. After that whole facade, he knew he wasn’t the nonchalant cool guy he tried to resonate with.

He also knew that after a thorough and heavy apology his friend Taeyong had made him give you, he had just met someone who he resonated with a lot more.

He knew he was your new friend.

(To which you only agreed because of his Captain America themed backpack. Besides, your jab at his bowl cut that truly was awful made it even.)

A year later, he was certain that you were his best friend. Maybe it was a bit selfish that he had so many best friends, you including his flock of seven other boys who had just become stuck to each other.

But…there was something different about you. Like you were his ultra best friend, if thats a thing. After the initial awkwardness of your first meeting, the friendship only soared. Helping each other with homework, rewatching ‘Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith’ for the 30th time, fangirling over Tony Stark and the avengers. He never thought he would meet a girl that understood him so well, and in turn who he understood, too.

Until the 7th grade, he couldn’t quite place what it was that was so different. You were integrated into his group of friends, he didn’t treat you any differently and you didn’t with him. Yet, for some reason, he was happier when you were around, and even happier when it was only the two of you.

His heart was a mixture of things every time he made a joke and you laughed because of him. It had also dawned on him that even if you and him had your many similarities, you were still more reserved and cautious when it came to other people. Despite that, you seemed comfortable around him, enough to confide in him and share whatever you wanted to.

So, when you confided in him tearfully that the boy you had wanted to attend the spring formal with was going with another girl, as your best friend he decided to step in and take you himself to cheer you up.

Seeing you a bit happier at the outcome of that night, wearing a navy blue dress he remembers oh so vividly as the colorful lights seemed to be illuminating your smile, his heart sank to his stomach. That was when it had hit him what had been so different about you.

Mark knew that he liked you. He liked you terribly.

He knew he liked you as he danced with you, his hands tenaciously at your shoulders as you thanked him with a smile for not letting you come alone. He knew he liked ever since you started to feel ‘different’ in the best way possible, and he knew he would keep liking you for a long, long time.

And that is exactly what he did.

Middle school passed by in a flash, and he never liked you any less. In fact it was impossible to not like you more. You, who was always on his side through all his phases, who brought an extra sandwich from home to share with him at lunch, who gifted him the missing star wars comic in his collection for his birthday, who defended him against all the snickers and teases of the rest of the friend group, who was the cutest girl he would ever be blessed to see, who joined the academic decathlon in highschool so he wouldn’t be alone. How could he not crush on you harder?

Just because he liked you so much, didn’t mean that he rushed to act on it. Quite honestly, when he first realized all these feelings were heavy to hold and the only way to let go of them was to confess, he had a nervous breakdown. What would he even say? What would you say? How would he even explain this to you? You were always so headstrong and focused, would a measly schoolboy crush even appeal to you? Was this the end of the world?

Once he calmed down, however, he realized that there was no rush to explain the feelings he himself couldn’t even muster to say aloud. All that mattered is that you were in his life, and he was in yours. And he was pretty damn content with that. Maybe in the future, if he still felt so much and he had gotten much more confident, he’ll be able to tell you. At the moment, 15-year-old and sophomore in highschool Mark had no rush at all.

And then, he was bit by a spider.

Of course, it wasn’t a normal spider. Because god forbid anything ever be normal in Mark’s life. One morning, he woke up with body muscle his lanky limbs did not have when he went to sleep and a strength that broke his desk bunk bed in half. If it wasn’t obvious something was off, his glasses stuck on his hand for the better part of an hour sure confirmed it.

Yup, Mark knew it. He had turned into some sort of a Spiderman.

At least, that’s what he called it. It’s what he decided to go by when a very confused passerby asked him who he was as Mark saved his bike from a thief. A quick sew of some blue and red fabric with a poorly stitched on symbol, and he was putting these powers to test.

He had a good run making a name for himself on Youtube under this ‘Spiderman’ pseudonym. It was a blissful first few months, figuring out the basics of his powers, slamming into the wall maybe only a handful of times, fighting neighborhood crime in a heroic way that he used to only be able to gawk at the avengers doing.

However, ignorance is bliss. Mark couldn’t possibly be ignorant to the way that he was making enemies who didn’t like the interference with their crimes all over queens, and fast. He especially couldn’t ignore it when a particular petty group of criminals had hit rookie Spiderman with everything they had, and the bliss ended as he limped away his first gruesome fight he had managed to win with his life.

As he dragged his way across the city, whimpering and crying as the universe decided to make his first terrible day on the job even worse with rain, he was aware of how roughed up he was, he needed help.

He couldn’t just go to his Aunt and tell her her 15 year old nephew had been putting his life in danger for the last few months. He couldn’t go to the hospital and risk exposing the identity he tried so hard to protect. He certainly couldn’t let his rowdy friends know by showing up to Taeyong’s apartment.

So he found himself barely making it up to your fire escape, knocking with the last bit of strength he had to get your attention from your Calculus homework to his figure in the window. He was limp and a mess of “i’m sorry”’s and “i don’t know where to go”’s as you pulled him in, speechless at the sight in front of you.

You didn’t get angry, you weren’t annoyed, you didn’t ask him a million questions. You only bandaged his wounds, and offered open arms as he cried and cried until he couldn’t anymore.

As Spiderman Mark gripped your hoodie, his tears staining it with salt, he knew he felt safe. God, he always did with you.

He knew that he loved you. Because honestly, wasn’t it impossible not to?

The revelation that he was in love with you didn’t come with much shock, if he asked 6th grade Mark if he knew this day would come, the answer would without any doubt be a yes.

It did come at a turning point in his life, however. He met Tony Stark, got suited up with Stark Industry gear that made every nerd crevice in his mind vibrate, fought with the avengers, nearly joined the avengers, accidentally revealed himself to his aunt, and then his other 7 friends, fought against avenger-level-threat villains, and quickly rose as one of the most famous heroes around.

Throughout everything, he never loved you any less. And even through his trials and tribulations as he settled in this neighborhood Spiderman identity, you never strayed from being his best friend. He didn’t need anything else to feel like the luckiest man in the world.

Except, maybe an answer to the dying question he wanted to know for years and years. Was he just your best friend? Or has he always been something more? On the few times you’ve told him something along the lines of, ‘I will never care about anyone like I do about you, Mark’, (And no, he actually didn’t memorize that one word for word) Did it also mean what he has always meant, or was he just dear to you in the friendliest way possible?

Although Mark was older, 18 years old and graduating from highschool, he still had that same mindset he had as an angsty new teenager. His feelings for you only weighed more and more in tons and tons over the years, especially since he was able to name it as love. Yet, he found it hard to explain why he still hadn’t felt any rush to act on them.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, even if anyone who would hear his logic might think it was. As he watched you say goodbye to peers and friends at graduation from a distance, happiest as ever in your cap and gown as you were set to attend MIT with him in the fall, he knew it wasn’t because he didn’t want to. He dreamt of it some nights, actually. He hadn’t known you his whole life, but for some reason, it felt like you were always there. When he had that stupid bowl cut, when he tried out for the soccer team and made a fool of himself, when he got his first B on an english paper, when he got bit by that spider and bit off more than he could chew, when he was applying for college and decided to major in computer science and engineering, you were there.

As you pranced back to him as you finished saying your farewells, he couldn’t help but think it would always be this way. You had him, and he had you. The night you both graduated, you both sat on a rooftop, staring at queens under you as you shared a pizza. Naturally, it felt like you would always be there. You were just natural.

Despite that, It had been nearly seven years since he first met you. Nearly seven years since he told himself he would confess when the time was right, when he was more confident and hopefully a little bigger.

He was definitely taller, and involuntarily grew some muscle. Luckily, his hair hadn’t seen the after effects of a bowl cut in years. His voice didn’t squeak when he talked to you or any girl for that matter, and he liked to think he was 10% less of a nerd. At least, enough to be charming when it counted.

So as you both left highschool for your first year at NYU, he decided he checked a sufficient amount of boxes to go for it. However, it was clearly going to be harder said than done. Just seeing you the night after he made up his mind that the time has finally come, his forehead was slick with nervous sweat and somehow he walked right into a pole. Your questioning about why his ‘Mark tingle’ hadn’t worked–which is what you had named his 6th spider-sense–didn’t help not one bit.

Truth is, it was terrifying. He didn’t know why. He had fought against intergalactic villains and catched runaway trains with his bare hands. Yet a simple ‘I’m madly in love with you’ was too much for him to handle.

Mark composed himself, running it through his mind during every late night patrol. He was going to do it, and soon. First, he had to get over the initial fear. After that, love sparks would fly.

Soon turned into weeks later, then months, and then an entire year. Before Mark could blink, it was the 2nd year of university and the ‘initial’ fear seemed to be a perpetual one.

In his defense, the first year of college was very busy. The both of you were buried in the books, biochemical and computer science engineering not being easy majors, and of course trying to maintain extracurriculars. Mark with his Stark Industries internship, that both was still a pseudonym for Spiderman duties, and this time around an actual internship he had begged Mr. Stark for. You, with the school's Debate team and interning wherever it counted and wherever paid.

Mark would be a liar if he said there was absolutely no time, though. A plus to the both of you being the unassuming and socially awkward nerds all throughout the years meant that you didn’t peak in highschool. University could be a time to blossom, be more social, enjoy the journey a little more, maybe attend a party or two.

Watching you in this beaming light as you entered a new chapter of your life, an enigma shining more than ever, it only intimidated Mark even more. Which is why his after-graduation-confession plans had stretched out a whole year later.

Mark never felt like he was losing you, though. Losing his mind? Most definitely, but not you. You were closer than ever, Mark was content.

Telling himself that he had you on his side through everything, and he would continue to have just that is what helped him sleep at night. He would stop being a coward eventually, and just like the movies, the sun would shine a halo around you, his eyes would meet yours, and he could finally confess. Time, there was lots of it, right?

Wrong. Again, it seemed like Mark’s reality was always perpetually shifting or going the opposite direction that he was aiming for.

Today, he found himself standing outside of one of the many NYU buildings, waiting for your cell biology class to be done with. It had become a habit to him to make sure you got back to your apartment safely after classes that ran into the evening, claiming that as the resident neighborhood spiderman, it was his duty to escort you. Even though in reality, you were capable of getting around just fine, and this was just another excuse for Mark to spend even more time with you.

He was wiping down his glasses when he heard the door open and you walked out, tired out from a full day of classes. He wasted no time putting on his glasses back on, making sure he caught every bit of you. Mark always thought you looked best like this, hair down and tousled in comfy clothes, today a cardigan and some baggy jeans, the night making your features even softer.

You smiled despite your weariness, waving at him, and Mark smiled right back. “Hi, Mark.” you said, walking up to him as you clutched onto your bag.

Mark reached for it, slinging it over his shoulders, the heaviness of textbooks and all your other supplies being nothing to him. “Y/n! How was your day?” He asked enthusiastically.

You stared at him with those eyes you get, sighing as you looked down. “It was alright…I got assigned two group projects, though. I mean, two, seriously? In the first month of school?” You complained and talked with your hands like you always did when you were angry, as you both started walking, Mark listening to every word.

Mark inhaled sharply, making a face at the thought. “Yikes. Two on the same day is some luck. My operating systems professor said we would have a group project soon as well, but at least we get to choose our partners.”

You pouted up at him, finding your situation unfair. “We can’t even have that luxury. I don’t know any of the people I was assigned with.” You complained with a frustrated sigh.

Mark sympathized with you, knowing how unfortunate that must be, but when you looked so expressive and adorable as you complained, it was hard for his heart to stay still in its cage. “That really does sound like it sucks. I hope they aren’t rude or some slackers.”

You shook your head looking off at the city in front of you, when all Mark could do was look at you. “I don’t think they will be too bad. The group project for cell bio, I got this one guy…Xiaojun, I think, for a partner. He seems like he’ll be a big help.”

Mark’s head tilted, his glasses tilting in the process. “Mm, really? How so?”

You looked at Mark with a pursed smile, shrugging at the recollection. “He’s very receptive, first to offer to help with research. Gave me his number so I could call him ‘if anything’, so I gave him mine as well. He’s nice, a little too nice maybe, but nice.”

Mark felt an uncomfortable lump in his throat, he hadn’t heard of you and any other guy in ages. He didn’t want to. As he took in what you had said, recognizing the name of a pretty well-known school heartthrob, exchanging numbers with him, and even the whispered fact of him being too nice, he didn’t like it. Not one bit. Surely it couldn’t be that this Xiaojun was…taking an interest in you?

Mark had to make sure as he forced down the lump that prevented him from speaking. “Ah…so sounds like…he’s flirting with you.”

You both came to a stop at an intersection. You pondered your words as Mark stared at you, reading your every visible thought. “It seems like it. He’s a nice guy but I'm not interested if that is the case…because…” You said, your words trailing off as you looked at Mark with a distant look in your eye and shrugged after a moment. “I guess, I don’t have a reason to not be interested. Should at least hear the guy out, I suppose.”

Mark’s heart sank to the floor in record speeds. And he’s jumped off of buildings. As the light turned from the orange hand to the walking man, he stalled a few seconds, shaking off this new dread as he jogged a little to match your pace. “H-hear him out? So you…you like him?”

You giggled a bit, shaking your head with a smile. “I didn’t say that. I just met the guy. All I’m saying is I’ve always said no, no, no, and no. Maybe it’s time to move…Uh, I mean, to stop saying no so quickly.”

All Mark could process in that sentence is that there were others that you had to say no to. As he looked down at the sidewalk he was strolling on, his world view seemed to crack a bit. He had always known how amazing you were. Your eyes an ocean he wanted to sail. Your hair framing you in the most flattering way. Your sarcasm and humor that brightens his day. Your drive. Your kindness. Your intelligence. Your generosity. Should he keep going? He could, he could spend days listing everything that was right in you. It had just never dawned on him that other hormonal and sappy guys like him could do the same and act on it. Worse, that you could entertain it.

“As in…look for someone?” Mark asked, his voice sounding pathetic beyond his control.

You sighed, staring off at the distance, not wanting to look at him. “I don’t know…it’s just…something I've been thinking about. It feels like I'm overdue to try my hand at this whole love thing…”

Overdue. Overdue. Is that really how you felt? Mark supposes you have both gone your whole lives without dating someone. At this point in your lives, that can be considered a while. Mark had never felt like he was lacking in that category, love, because he had so much of it for you. You didn’t know that, though, and now you felt overdue.

Mark’s palms were sweaty as he gripped the straps of both of your bags. “There’s…no rush, though, right...?” He questioned, trying to preach his own stupid, stupid anthem.

You nodded, a bit solemnly if he had to add, looking up at him with a strange mix of a smile and pout. “You’re right. No rush.”

Mark sighed a breath of relief. A relief that didn’t last long as you spoke up again. “But there’s also no reason to push it away anymore.”

Mark had so many questions, such as why were you set on ‘pushing it away’ until now, where the hell did this Xiaojun come from, how it can be possible that a certainty he awoke with this morning can crumble a mere few hours later, and how he could possible be so stupid, stupid, stupid, cowardly, and naive?

Mark inhaled a sharp breath, trying to stabilize himself. He wanted to freak out, he wanted so badly to bring the both of you to a halt and grab your hands, begging for you to not even think about this. However, that would also be stupid, and if he showed that he was anything short of understanding during this conversation, you would never share anything like this with him again. Then, he would be completely in the dark about your apparently beginning love life.

“If…that’s what you want.”

Stupid. Idiot. Buffon.

There it was again, that forced smile that Mark was too busy internally panicking to notice himself. “He hasn’t even said anything that confirms the suspicion. But…I’ll see. I’ll figure out what it is that I want.”

Mark nodded, trying to play it cool as his fingernails dug into his palm. He didn’t even notice that you had arrived at the train station, standing in front of the train that took you home.

You looked up at him, smiling softly as you reached up to flick hair out of his face. It didn’t help the melting pot that was his current emotions. “You texted early that you wanted to get an early patrol. You should go get ready. I’ll be okay from here.”

Mark normally would have shaken his head no immediately, insisting that he take you all the way to your front door. Today however, he felt as if the longer he spent around you, the closer he was to losing it. “You sure? I really don’t mind-” is all he managed to say as you cut him off.

“Positive. I can join you on comms later tonight. Gotta get some homework done first.” You said, looking back as the train started to pull into a stop. “You go get ready. And eat something or you’ll be off your game. Last time you went out hungry you nearly crashed in an office window.”

Mark chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck, thinking to himself that of course only you could make him laugh and make him want to yell in such a short span. “Aye-aye captain, I’ll do that. You better go before the train leaves.”

You nodded, taking back your bag from him and waving. “I’ll come to yours tomorrow. We have o-chem in the morning. We can swing there?”

Mark smiled, as best as he could by this point, nodding. “Yeah, we’ll swing there. Text me when you’re home.”

You shot a thumbs up as the train doors opened and you rushed to get in. “I will, bye Mark! Careful!”

His heart warmed, you had always told him to be careful, no matter the hundreds and hundreds of times he must have gone out now. It wasn’t enough to make him unball his fists though. “Bye, Y/n.” He said back, missing its added sense of joy.

He watched as you walked in, taking a seat and looking back at him once. He didn’t even have the guts to stand there and watch you leave, looking back twice before he was sprinting up the subway stairs and running down the street.

The slight chill in the night felt even colder as he ran, wind blowing smack in his face, but he kept running until he found an alleyway, running deep into it until he was out of sight, away from any pedestrian eyes. The cuff Mr. Stark had given him came in handy at times like these, when all he wanted to do was be suited up as soon as he could, His heart wouldn’t stop racing as the press of a button had him in his full spider-suit. He tightened his backpack onto himself, and he was off, shooting himself up in the air, and running across a ledge before throwing himself off.

He didn’t even react as he reached closer to the ground than normal, shooting a web to divert his fall just in time. Even when he was swinging way too fast, weaving through buildings and poles and cars. All he could think about you and your words. When he woke up in the morning, he thought he had time, lots of it. Now as dusk falls over and the cars underneath him couldn’t be as loud as his thoughts, he finds out he doesn’t. Or perhaps he did, and now it had run out on him.

.   　˚ ✭　 * ✦　. ‧₊˚🕷‧₊˚　.　✦　˚ .˚　 ✭　.

“So, the last thing I said was, ‘I’ll figure out what it is that I want,’ and then we got to the train station.” You finished explaining to your roommate, Yunjin, as she sat on the opposite side of the couch.

You had only met Yunjin last year, but she already felt like one of your best friends you had ever made because of how easy it was to tell her all of your problems. Of course, you already had one of those, Mark Lee, who had been wreaking havoc in your life since you had first caused him to become the laughingstock of the popular kids back in 6th grade. But you couldn’t tell him absolutely all of your problems. Especially the biggest one, that you had always had a strange sense of infatuation for him that you expected to go away, yet here you were.

If you had to pinpoint when it began, you would say when he knocked on your window sophomore year of high school, bloodied and in the famous original spiderman costume. Mark had always been loveable, long before he got bit by that spider. It was what you liked most about him, his ability to always see the positive, to always somehow wear a smile and a laugh. In someone like that, it takes the utmost trust for them to allow the most vulnerable parts of themselves to be seen.

So, it wasn’t the suit that made you realize what you had felt. Even if you had been a major Spiderman fan and the revelation was only a little life changing, that was the last thing on your mind. He was hurt, he was scared, and he needed someone, and his first thought was you.

You thought it was a fluke, feeling so much for someone so unexpected. Surely, it was bound to go away. Yet, it didn’t. The feeling was nagging and adamant, just like Mark, and refused to let go.

After some time, you came to terms with the fact that nothing about it was unexpected at all. Since you met Mark, you spent every waking moment with him. Going to your first hero convention, building the Lego death star you got for your birthday, the school trip to Venice, middle school dances, high school dances, all of it was Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark. Every memory, the good and bad, that held a special place in your heart had Mark. How was he not to become special as well?

You thought about coming straight out with it, hoping to get closure or acceptance or anything that would help maim the feeling of overflowing love. However, Mark wasn’t just Mark anymore, he was Spiderman. While the latter didn’t matter much to you, it had become a part of who he was. With his great powers, came great responsibility. Not just that, but it seemed like him almost dying every other weekend had become his new reality. While it was stressful watching Mark go through all of that, even as you became his girl-in-the-chair of sorts to help him on patrols, you couldn’t imagine how stressful it was for Mark for himself. It felt unfair to throw a confession on top of everything he already had to deal with.

So, you decided if anything were to happen between you two, Mark would have to initiate it.

While you may have kept it better under wraps, Mark always wore his emotions on his sleeves. It would take an outstanding idiot to not notice the way he acted around you. The way his ears go pink before his cheeks do, the way on occasion he’ll forget to respond as he stares in a trance, or he’ll fumble with whatever object he has in his hand. Mark had always had those awkward, loser-ish tendencies, but it was undeniable at how they seemed to be at their worst whenever you were around.

He had to have at least entertained the idea. So, therefore it was just a waiting game. When Spiderman was ready to take that leap, so were you.

You waited, and waited, waited, and waited, and waited some more. Suddenly, the second year of university came, and you were still waiting.

Honestly, it had brought you down that no moves were made as you graduated high school. Needless to say, that the fact he was still radio silent when entering university only made you more discouraged and had you wondering if your premonition was wrong after all.

Your new roommate turned friend, however, was quick to catch onto your gloominess, and almost immediately connected the dots that it was about Mark.

Since you caught her up on everything she needed to know, while of course keeping Mark’s secret locked away, she had become a trusted person to confide in. As opposed to your clear inexperience, Yunjin had more experience on her love life resume, and was always at bay with advice.

Her recent advice being something that she believed would speed up the process, to display your availability, and to flaunt that you were planning on using it. In whatever form that may be.

So, when Xiaojun exchanged numbers with you, (and in your defense, was indeed being a little too friendly) it was the perfect opportunity to test the theory.

That is how you found yourself here, playing the conversation back and forth amongst each other to try and decipher if it worked.

Yunjin groaned, hand coming down to smack the pillow in her lap. “‘I’ll figure out what it is that I want.’ You guys are impossible. It is crystal clear what you both want.” She said with a shake of her head. “Is that really all he said? ‘If that’s what you want?’ How did he…I don’t know, was he panicky or shaky or anything?”

You thought about it with a sigh, shrugging. “I mean, I guess he was a little. At the stop walk he…almost forgot to move? But he had just come from that Stark internship, he’s always like that after it. Like a deer in headlights.”

Yunjin sighed as well, biting her bottom lip in thought. “Okay, this is good. This is a good start. We’ll just have to ramp up the Xiaojun thing and eventually, he’ll be forced to crack.”

You smiled, a little bittersweetly, your hands clenched together. “I hope it plays out like that…otherwise all this for nothing.”

Yunjin could read you like a book, a superpower of hers Mark didn’t always have, ironically. “Not for nothing. You know, you could always say something.”

You looked up at her with a knowing look, shaking your head with a sigh. “You know I can’t. He’s got too much to deal with, he’s literally sp…super busy. With school and the stark internship. I just can’t.”

Yunjin nodded as she stood up, taking the memo not to pry any further. “Alright, I hope this works then, for the sake of you both.” She said as she grabbed your face in her hands jokingly. “Seriously. I’m sick of looking at it.”

You swatted her hand away, chuckling. You hoped it worked too. With your whole being.

.   　˚ ✭　 * ✦　. ‧₊˚🕷‧₊˚　.　✦　˚ .˚　 ✭　.

Mark landed on the roof of his apartment that night exhausted from a full day of work followed by an evening patrol. Crime was quiet lately, with his biggest cases today being a measly shoplifter and a cat stuck in a tree. The type of quiet that came before a storm. Mark had too much on his mind to think about that, however. All of which involves you.

He deactivated his suit and found himself back in regular clothes, waltzing his way down the rooftop access stairs, all the way to his apartment on the 6th floor. 

He came in fidgety and anything but calm, seemingly too pumped with adrenaline and emotion to be as tired as he usually is after days like this.

Mark had the opportunity to be roommates with two of his friends, Johnny and Doyoung. Luckily for him and unluckily for his friend, Johnny was sitting on the couch, a gaming controller in his hands as he looked up to see the ball of nervousness make its way into the once mellow apartment. “Hey, Mark.” Johnny greeted, not talking his eyes off the TV. “You wanna play overwatch? Doyoung’s out for the night.”

Mark could barely register the question, his backpack slamming on the kitchen table as he plopped down on the couch next to Johnny. “What? No, no. I’m good, don’t wanna play. I have to talk to you, though.”

Johnny sighed, not taking his eyes off the screen. If his hands weren’t so busy, he’d probably grab his head too. The subject was painfully obvious. “What’s up?”

Mark sat back, looking at the ceiling. “Y/n. I messed up. So bad, dude.”

Johnny nodded, trying to feign surprise. “I see. How is she by the way? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

Mark ran his hand through his hair, shooting the back of Johnny’s head a look at the inappropriate question during his time of stress. “She’s fine, dude. She told me something today.” Mark said, taking a deep breath to begin his rant. “You know, I told you…I’m confessing soon. Or I’m planning to. When I work up to it. I thought…shit. I’m so stupid. I thought she’d wait for me. She doesn’t even know, but I thought she’d wait. Apparently, there’s this dumb guy she has a group project with. Xiaojun, that’s his name. He’s flirting with her, I’m assuming. They exchanged numbers and everything.”

Johnny listened with his eyes a little narrowed, nodding in understanding. “Ah. I know that guy. He’s pretty cool.”

The look on Mark’s face couldn’t be described as anything less than offended. “He is arguably not. I mean…I know people must try to hit on her and stuff, but she was like…all cryptic. Saying things like ‘maybe it’s time to not say no so quickly’ and ‘I’m overdue at this love thing.’ She says she doesn’t like him but…she’s…she’s looking to date right? It’s gotta mean that.”

Johnny raised his eyebrows, fighting the urge to keep playing his game or turn and start shaking Mark by his shoulders. “Listen, Mark. Y/n’s a nice girl, full package, great person, gorgeous as well, and a single college student. Dating is kinda what you do. Especially with someone like Xiaojun.”

Mark’s world couldn’t crumble any faster. If only Doyoung was there instead, he at least would have broken the news a little nicer. “Oh, God. Shit. What…what do I do? She’s gonna start...dating.” He muttered with his hands on his face, glasses pushing up to his head.

Johnny stifled a groan. “Mark, you do what you should’ve done years ago. You just tell her, man.”

Mark didn’t like that answer. Of course, it was the only one that made sense, but he was hoping that someone would have some sort of miracle solution. “You say that like it’s easy.”

“Shouldn’t it be though?” Johnny retorted. “I mean, you’ve known this girl nearly half of your life. She cares about you a lot. You see it, I see it, we all see it. A confession isn’t going to break a bond like this, it can’t. You’ve got to know by now that what you’ve got is stronger than that.”

In the eyes of Mark, what Johnny said went against what every imagined worst-case scenario told him, even if logically it had made sense. You weren’t the type of person to cause a grand thing or make Mark feel bad about something so small. That was inherently the problem, however. Nothing about this was small. Small is the last word he would use to describe how he feels about you. You wouldn’t consider small something that could fill every ocean on earth's surface and then some. “How do I even tell her? I can’t just say ‘I’m in love with you.’” Mark argued, his voice sounding more and more pathetic.

Johnny used a brief moment to shoot a look at Mark, his eyes going back to the TV as he finally put his controller down and completely discarded the match he was in, leaning on his knees. “At this point, that’s exactly what you say. Your problem is that you’re trying to make it too grand, too perfect. Y/n has never been the type to be a stickler for that. It doesn’t matter how you do it, it won’t affect the outcome. If the feelings are there, which if you ask me, I think they are, then they’re there. Plain and simple.” 

Mark felt a lot of things, but at that moment defeat was most prominent. He had been imagining for years how he would confess to you. In one fantasy he would buy a billboard in Times Square and take you to see it, or perhaps he would learn the guitar and write you a song. He could make his own advent calendar, buy you a present everyday each specifically curated to your wants, and on the final day, a beautiful piece of jewelry. You deserved nothing short of perfect, but now he had to ask himself if that was really what you would want, or if he’s trying to pull every string he can for it to work in his favor. 

“So, what do I do…?” Mark said quietly, running his hand through dark hair.

“I just told you. Just tell her. Write her a poem, take her to dinner, or just straight up come out with it. Just tell her, as soon as you can, before it’s too late.” Johnny said, a supportive hand patting Mark’s back. “No more waiting. You’ve run out of time. I’ve told you this before, but I promise you it’ll turn out fine.”

It had been a wild afternoon filled with many unwanted revelations and a nasty swirl of emotions, but the quick conversation had brought Mark to the eye of the storm. He was backed into a corner, with only one way out, and that realization had finally dawned on him. “You’re…you’re right. I have to…as soon as I can.” 

Johnny ruffled Mark’s hair, reaching for his controller. “That’s the spirit. You wanna play Overwatch now?” 

Mark shot up and grabbed his bag from the table. “Nah, I’ll pass. I’m beat. I’ll probably just go to sleep, honestly.”

Johnny nodded as he returned his focus back to the TV. “Night, then. Don’t stare at your ceiling all night.”

Mark scoffed as he called from the hallway. “Wasn’t gonna do that. And goodnight!”

1.

He didn’t stare at his ceiling, but he did stare at his desk and lined paper almost all night. Johnny’s first idea of writing a poem was thrown out there randomly, but Mark didn’t think it was half bad. It was a short read on your end, and easy to get the point across without Mark having to do much talking. So, he wrote away, trying various different styles. From haikus to Shakespearean sonnets, to a ballad, each one frustrating him more and more. He even tried to make his usually sloppy writing neater than usual with cursive.

In his last attempt, he decided to ditch all rules of quatrains, lines, and rhyme schemes and instead write whatever he was feeling in a free verse poem. Finally, he felt the poem was right. Enough to say what he needed yet not including the words he needed to tell you himself. With a sigh, he laid out the poem neatly on his desk, ridding all evidence of his struggle the past hour by clearing off all pens and discarding all crumbled up sheets of paper in a trash can.

Mark found himself staring at it over with pride. Was it cheesy? Yeah. Was Mark a hopeless romantic? Certainly. That is just who Mark is, he knows that. After all these years spent with him, surely you know that too by now.

He was drained by this point, his eye lids that have felt stretched open the past few hours feeling too heavy for him to fight against them. Finally, he flopped on his bed, being able to close his eyes and drift to sleep, with plans to give you the poem laid on his desk the next time he saw you. 

.   　˚ ✭　 * ✦　. ‧₊˚🕷‧₊˚　.　✦　˚ .˚　 ✭　.

Mark didn’t process that he would be seeing you much sooner than he expected. Soon being the next morning that you had set to head to class together. How could he when he was so out of it? He hadn’t felt as physically and emotionally tired as he did yesterday in a while, which consequently probably caused him to sleep through his alarm the next morning. 

So, he slept like a boulder, missing all of your incoming calls and texts saying that you were headed to him, blissfully unaware of the poem laid out on his desk.

Mark still slept like a baby as you arrived at his apartment, and of course Doyoung had let you in without hesitation. It was completely out of his control as you made your way to his room on a mission to wake him up. Mark stirred awake, slowly and whiny, as you shook his shoulder, your voice quiet yet enough to wake him up gently. “Mark…you overslept. Get up now, so we won’t be late.”

Mark groaned, rubbing his eyes as you stepped away from him, your job complete. In Mark’s freshly awoken state, he didn’t see what the problem was as you browsed around his room while he gained consciousness, eventually pulling his desk chair out to sit at. Sitting down, your curious eyes landed on the only thing that was laid out, his poem. Well, your poem.

He sat up, his hands still attacking his eyes, trying to rub the sleep away, and you were already well into reading it. Your face was a scramble of feelings that only grew in perplexion as you read every last word, and even getting the chance to read it twice before Mark realized. After a particularly effective yawn and stretch, his eyes landed on you with your eyes set on the paper. Only then did Mark shoot up on his feet, his limbs stumbling as he decided if he should play it cool or snatch the paper from your hands, his only thought being, “please tell me she didn’t read it, please tell me she didn’t read it, please tell me she didn’t read it, please tell me she didn’t read it.”

At Mark’s not very subtle reaction, you put the paper down, looking up at Mark from the chair. “That’s…” Is all you managed to say, not being able to choose between the words intense, beautiful, star striking, devoted, or out of place in Mark’s room. So instead, you stayed speechless for a moment, another feeling the poem invoked as you studied his every move. “Did you write that…? For who? Your writing looks different-”

In a split second, Mark was torn between answering your question with a “yes” and several “you, you, you, you, it’s all about you, only about you," ’s which is what he should have done, or lying his head off. 

The image in his mind of you sat in front of him, seeking answers to your questions, looking at Mark like you were searching for something, it seemed to move in slow motion. This was the plan, was it not? He would hand you the poem, and then he would just admit it was about you. You were more than smart enough to piece together what that implied. 

As he cut you off, he hoped that was what came out, a mere couple of words that would be all he needed to say in the moment. However, when has anything ever gone his way?

“I didn’t write it!”

Mark said a little too desperately, wishing he could exit this sack of meat and bones and punch it across the face. “Not my writing. Too neat. I uh…I found it…on my desk! In my coding class! Must be some kind of secret admirer, I think.” He exclaimed, watching as your face went from something that he couldn’t tell was hope to neutrality, drinking in his lie as fast as he had come up with it.

“Oh…well, that’s…wow. They must really like you,” you pondered as your eyes grazed over the paper.

Somehow, the poem that he had poured his heart into for you, had turned into the sign of affection that a made up secret admirer had written for Mark. If you weren’t right in front of him, he’d fall to his knees, grabbing his head in his hands as his first confession attempt results in a failure down the drain. “Yeah…I guess so…”

Turns out, confessing right away was going to be much harder than he imagined.

.   　˚ ✭　 * ✦　. ‧₊˚🕷‧₊˚　.　✦　˚ .˚　 ✭　.

chap. 2

chap. 3

[fuckingstrange]

Requesting nsfw male reader getting overstimulated by Reid but like they like it but are still all needy and whiny and stuff

New Sounds

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WARNINGS: PWP/Porn without plot, REQUESTED, Overstimulation, Multiple Orgasms, Shower Sex, Men whimpering, Reader whimpers and Spencer loves it, Oral fingering(? (Spencer puts his fingers in ur mouth idk)), USE OF THE WORD "MEMBER" ONE(1) TIME

WORDS: 629

PAIRING: Spencer Reid x m!reader

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a/n:: YES IK ITS NOV 10TH WHEN IM POSTING THIS, AND I STILL NEED TO POST THE TRICK R' TREAT KINKTOBER FIC, BUT I AM STRUGGLING

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You have your hands positioned up on the tile wall of Spencer's walk-in shower, your arms quaking with the effort to stay standing. You can feel his breath ghosting over the back of your neck, his hand pumping vigorously along your throbbing shaft.

You have to rest your forehead against the wall, your body nearly bent over, positioned at an angle with your legs spread. You pant against the shower wall, groaning as you thrust into Spencer's enclosed fist.

“Fuck, Spencer-” You groan, your body raked with shudders as his wrist flicks just the right way to send you tumbling over the edge. Your vision clouds, his low mumbles falling on deaf ears.

You struggle to come back from the clouded high, your pelvic area feeling like it's on fire. You grunt weakly, looking down to find him still stroking your twitching cock.

“One more, babe.” Spencer suddenly whispers in your ear.

You pant, quivering. He's pushed you to cum twice before, but never a third time. His thumb finds the slick tip, the pad swiping over your slit pulling an unfamiliar, quiet whine from your lips.

Spencer's hand only moves faster at the new sound elicited, his other hand suddenly leaving your hip to let two of his fingers probe your lips. Your mouth opens, letting him shove them in. They curl, now having a grip on your lower jaw.

“You've got this,” He encourages as your hips sputter, another, softer whine getting muffled by his fingers. “Come on..”

You weakly thrust into his hand, the burning in your pelvis making the precum you leak feel like lava. Your hips twitch as you start to whimper, all of your energy feeling like it's being slowly sucked from your being.

“I'm right here, baby,” Spencer soothes as your whole body quakes in his grasp, the hot water still beaming down on the both of you. His hand moves faster, tightening around your harshly throbbing dick as you continue to whimper around his fingers.

Your body starts to feel light, chest heaving as your mind starts to cloud, the staticy sound ringing in your ears. With a few sloppy, uncalculated thrusts, you're cumming hard all over his enclosed fist, eyes shutting as your head gets thrown back against his shoulder, the water that beats down on your face getting ignored as it mixes with some of the tears you weren't aware of had fallen.

Spencer holds you tighter as you tremble, his hand slowing down, but not stopping. He works you through the third orgasm, listening to the way you whimper around his curled fingers. He pumps you until your cock is twitching in his hand, unable to soften from the ministrations.

You fail to push him away, the heat rolling through your body making your mind hazy with pleasure. The third high lasts longer, his sweet voice in your ear alerting you of reality still playing beyond the other state your mind is at. The fall back down from the fog is less hard than expected, your symphony of whimpers telling Spencer that you're truly spent now.

He doesn't let go of your dick just yet, fascinated by the sounds you're making. It's only when your hips press back against him, pulling away from his hand, does he let his cum-covered hand leave your twitching member and go under the stream or water to rinse off. One arm wraps around your waist, holding your still quaking body up against his to make sure you don't fall.

Spencer soothes your shakes with light kisses to the side of your neck, spinning you so that you're facing the stream of water, cleaning off the remaining release from your body.

“So pretty,” He mumbles against your skin, giving you a light squeeze.

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a/n: I guess y'all failed no nut November

[homelanderbutbig]

I Love You Too (G/T Homelander x Reader)

2248 words. Pure fluff. Homelander is 8 feet tall. Reader is non-descriptive. Beginnings of a relationship.

When you and Homelander officially became a couple.

Homelander has had this event burned into his brain, how exactly he wanted it to go. It would be like a scene straight out of the movies. You would be whisked away to a secluded beach by a horse-drawn carriage, where a private band would be playing your favourite song. You would walk along the rose petal covered sand to his waiting arms, where he would confess his love for you. You would return his feelings, and ask him to be your boyfriend. Of course he would graciously say yes, as if this wasn't all a part of his master plan. Lastly, you would kiss him as doves fly above your heads, and the starry sky is filled with fireworks.

He's been plotting like a madman all week, doing his damndest to set this up. A fairytale beginning to a relationship with you, as is befitting of a man of his impeccable standards.

And yet, just like everything else in his life, nothing ever goes as he plans. The people he's placed his faith in to get this together for him are not living up to his expectations. He's spending more and more time trying to fix their mistakes, to the point where it's consuming his every waking thought. Every failure keeps eating away at his resolution, to the point where he doesn't know if he should even go through with it anymore. If it isn't perfect, would you even accept his passionate admissions?

He's been avoiding you all day. It's a reality that's pretty hard to miss, considering he's the tallest man you've ever known. As the face of Vought's superhero team, the absence of his presence is odd. Or at least, it's odd that he seems to solely be eluding you. You happened to ask some of your co-workers who confirmed that Homelander was in fact in the Tower today, only furthering your suspicions. At least something serious didn't happen to him, but it doesn't make you worry any less that something's wrong.

When your shift ends in the evening, you do as you normally would and take the elevator up to his penthouse. You weren't certain that he would be there, but you're relieved to see him sitting on his couch in the living room. Regardless, he isn't his normal cheery self. He is a bundle of nerves taken the form of a man; his body language is so tense it's almost as if he hopes you'll leave by ignoring you. But you aren't that easy to deter.

"Hey Homelander, I didn't see you today. I was worried," you remark while you hop up onto the couch, taking your seat on the cushion next to him. He still won't acknowledge you, instead looking down at his fidgeting thumbs. His eyes are red and puffy; evidently he's been crying alone, only furthering your concern that there's something significant bothering him.

"You look like you have something on your mind," you say, tilting your head up at him. You place a hand on his thigh, as is customary when you need to coax the worries out of him. "It must be pretty important if you didn't want to talk to me about it. You know you can tell me anything, I won't judge you."

"I-I…" he starts, but quickly cuts himself off. His breathing stutters as he attempts to steady his composure. This was not how he wanted this moment to happen, with him grovelling at your feet and you holding the power over him. He is the world's strongest supe; he is the one who should be in control, not you, a measly human.

"I'm here for you, take your time," you reassure him, grasping his index and middle finger with your hand. Those two big fingers are all that will fit in your palm, but you still squeeze with all your might, making sure that he feels your encouragement.

Glancing down at you, Homelander feels a small spark setting his heart aflame. Your eyes, shining so brightly, remind him of why he's even in this current position. Why he's been fretting in secret all week. That boost of confidence has returned, as it initially did when he first wanted to even plan all this.

This is his only chance.

"I… I-I… I l-love you…" he finally blurts out, immediately shutting his eyes tight as the weight of his words hits him like a ton of bricks. The regret is instantaneous, his self-consciousness wasting no time at eating away his bravado. He can't believe he actually said it. He's just exposed the only weakness an invincible supe like him has, his desire for your acceptance.

The silence in the penthouse is deafening. And to make matters worse, you haven't said 'I love you' back. You aren't saying anything. Why aren't you saying anything? All he wants right now is to get up and fly away, far far away, but he can't. He can't do anything but sit and let his anxiety overtake his body, freezing him solid.

This was not the problem you were expecting was plaguing Homelander's mind. He got himself this worked up… over you? But then you start to really think about it. How close you've gotten to him over these last few weeks, and how your friendship has blossomed into something much more. He makes you happy by just grinning down at you when you visit him. It brightens up your day talking to him, seeing his canines poke out when he smiles, and hearing his heartfelt laughs as he listens to your every word. You can't help but think about him even when he's gone. The way that, despite your immense height difference, you've never felt more in sync with anyone like you do with him. It's as if he completes you, and makes you whole. He fills a part of you that's always felt empty.

You know you feel the same way he does. You know what you have to do.

Carefully, you maneuver yourself to kneel on top of his lap so your face is directly in front of his, completely catching him off-guard. He wasn't expecting this sudden seizure of control from you, but he raises his large hands to your back to keep you from falling off. At least now he's mentally back down to earth, focusing on your every move.

You are so close that you can see the worry etched into every nook and cranny of his face. His blue eyes are wide and twitching subtly, his eyebrows are pinched together stiffly, and his lips are quivering from what he's hoping will happen next.

"I… I love you too", you state matter-of-factly, unable to hide your smile at how his childlike innocence is peering straight back at you. At how nonchalantly you've shaken him straight to his core with four simple words.

And with your final devious chess move, you lean forward to kiss him.

You expected this to be a short and sweet smooch to affirm the beginning of your relationship. However, the second Homelander feels your lips he cannot help but push for more, so desperate for your affection. He's nearly moaning from the flood of intense emotions churning inside him, the bubble irrevocably bursting from the moment that he's been waiting for all night. You love him too, how can he not react so strongly? His kiss is forceful, almost like he's trying to smother you with his love, just so there's nothing else you'll ever think about but him.

You struggle to articulate even a basic sentence against his mouth, desperately swatting at his chest to get his attention. You lack the strength to hurt him, but luckily he still notices your light thumps against his suit and reluctantly pulls back.

Your face is flushed and breathing haggard, having been left flustered from how you were unable to fight against him proving his devotion. Not only are his lips twice the size of yours, but you also couldn't back away with his immovable hands keeping you in place. Just another little reminder of the disparity between Homelander and the rest of humanity; you truly are utterly powerless compared to the eight foot tall indestructible superhero you're currently seated on.

His jaw becomes rigid as he stares at your expression, until he looks away when he can no longer take in the fear he perceives. Tears are once again welling up in his eyes, his ears are ringing loudly, and his heart is freefalling down into the pit of his stomach. He's fucked up. He's ruined the moment. He's shown you the monster that lurks within himself, the one that can never be satiated.

But despite it all, despite his inner turmoil, despite the voices in his head telling him your relationship is over before it even got started… he feels you place a hand on his cheek.

Your demeanour is the opposite of Homelander's. What you see in front of you is a man fighting to keep the tears from falling, so broken from a deficiency of love. A man who could never stop those he cherished from abandoning him when he gave them his heart on a silver platter. What he sees in front of him is the only person in the world who cares enough to stay.

"It's okay, I'm not going anywhere. That kiss was… was just a bit too much for me," you explain sympathetically, using your fingers to wipe away the tears that dare stain his beautiful face. You can sense the tension ease ever so slightly with each touch to his cheeks as he revels in the feeling of your soft skin. He can't say he's felt someone touch him so sweetly like that in a long time.

"Do you wanna kiss me again?" you ask, repositioning both of your hands to stroke along his jawline. Always chasing after your affections, he leans closer towards you and gives a very hesitant nod, apprehensively swallowing hard from the thought of what he should be anticipating.

"Let's do it more like this," you whisper as you move forward to kiss him. This time you take the lead, purposefully going slow and delicate. He follows your pace instantly, eyes fluttering closed while he sinks into your lips like you hold all the power in the universe.

Homelander's never been kissed like this before, without a proverbial carrot being dangled in his front of his face. Whenever there's a scrap of romance on the line he always must face a thousand trials, go through a series of tests that he must pass without any errors lest it be withheld from him. But not now. Your kiss provides him with the love and care he's fought his whole life for, the tenderness he's always dreamed of experiencing. And you are reciprocating his wants, his needs right back.

Lifting your hands up to his hair you start combing through his undercut, giving him the little scratches that you know make him feel good. A whimper builds from deep in his throat as you run your nails along his scalp, and it doesn't take long for his whines to evolve into flat-out purring.

Eventually, he breaks the kiss to bury his head into the crook of your neck, savouring the way you scratch his hair. His deep voice rumbles through your body as he nuzzles himself further into you, emitting content hums while he melts into your warmth. If there's a heaven, Homelander thinks he's found it.

He wraps his arms around your back, spreading his fingers along your shoulders as he pulls you closer. He embraces you firmly, but not enough that you feel immobile. He's learned his lesson not to make you feel like you can't escape from his grasp, he wants you to be comfortable with him.

"You know, you don't need to do some grand display to show me that you love me," you comment softly. "You do it every day, just by being yourself. And that's enough. You will always be enough."

Your words are like honey to his ears, almost enough to make him start crying again. When he's with you, he feels a level of trust that he can't put into words. You understand him better than anyone else ever could. He's safe with you, as you are with him.

"I-I… love… you," he mumbles quietly, still having a bit of trouble getting that sentence out. It's been such a long time since he's said that, and truly meant it.

"I love you too," you chuckle, kissing the top of his head.

"I… love you," he replies, feeling confidence build up within himself once more. This phrase is starting to not be so hard to say, each time you say it back.

"I love you too," you respond, beaming when you sense a shy grin forming on your shoulder.

The two of you repeat this back and forth for a while, until your words blend together into one, and you fall asleep in each other's arms. This might not have been the way Homelander wanted this evening to go, but somehow… it feels right. In its own special way, it turned out better than he could have ever imagined. Because despite the tears and anxiety, from this moment on, he no longer has to cast his love out to an neverending abyss of hate. Now, he has someone to answer his call.

He has you.

[joelalorian]

Under False Pretenses - Chapter Five

Stepdad!Dave York x f!reader | wc: 5014 | masterlist

Summary: A challenging mission, whirlwind marriage, and an unexpected yet captivating stepdaughter push Dave York to the brink as secrets, feelings, and loyalties collide.

Warnings: Explicit, 18+ mdni. Stepdad trope. Unspecified age gap. More yearning. Feelings are acknowledged. Soft, sexy, and intense Dave. Domestic Dave. Good Dad kink. We like thick thighs in this house and so does Dave. Nicknames and terms of endearment. Mummy is a whole lotta bitch. No use of y/n. No smut in this chapter, but the plot is coming out to play.

Series Masterlist

Ranger became your shadow, watching over you in the basement suite overnight, riding shotgun in the car during the day when you’d drop off and pick up the girls from school. He lavished the girls with attention just as you did, running and yipping with delight through the backyard as they played.

Knowing that Ranger would be your and his girls' constant companion, Dave trained him to be a guard dog and a pet. He hoped Ranger would protect the three of you when he could not. After connecting with a K9 officer he knew from his military days, he worked with the pup daily, teaching him commands that he also taught you. Within a few months, Ranger transformed into a diligent yet playful dog twice the size of the little pup you found in the park.

Your mother hated all of it – having the dog in the house, the extra time Dave spent training the thing, and how he and the dog gravitated towards you. Yet Dave wasn’t bothered by it. In fact, he took joy in spending more and more time with the girls and you and Ranger, finding moments every day to dote over the four of you, almost like he was rubbing it into his wife’s face.

You didn’t know what to make of it, their relationship. It left you morally conflicted, the initial crush on your stepdad evolving with each passing week and growing into strong feelings for the man you came to learn more and more about after a few months. How could you be falling in love with your stepfather?

They had therapists for this sort of thing, right?

On the flip side of that, you watched your mom grasp harder, tighter to a man who seemed less and less interested by the day – and you began to wonder how they even got together in the first place. As curious as you were, you didn’t have the stomach to ask either of them, not with the deep feelings you had for Dave.

As the holiday season approached, Dave started traveling for work more and more as the couple’s outings lessened. Unfortunately, that left your mom home with nothing to do but work and nitpick your every move, driving you crazy. And the more Dave was away, the less your mom wanted to do with the girls.

“I don’t think your mom likes us much,” Alice told you quietly one morning while you helped her get ready for school.

Your heart clenched for the young girl, knowing how she felt. Your mom was never very good with children, not even her own. She was too selfish to put another’s needs first all the time as a good parent did. You thought it might be due to having you so young, but she never grew out of it.

“What makes you say that sweetie?” you inquired, needing to know exactly how much of a negative impact your mom was having on these sweet girls.

“I don’t know.” The little girl shrugged with a heavy sigh, staring at her feet while you brushed her brown locks.

“You can tell me anything. You know that, right? I will never get mad at you,” you promised, fingers working Alice’s hair into two neat braids once the tangles were gone.

“Promise?” Her eyes were sad yet hopeful, searching yours. You melted, holding out your pinky to Alice.

When she curled her small pinky around your larger one, you winked. “Pinky promise.” You finished tying off the braids and Alice climbed into your lap, Molly soon joining you on the bed. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Lisa got mad when we told Daddy we didn’t want to call her ‘Mommy��. He said we didn’t have to because she wasn’t our mom, but she yelled at us, saying we needed to respect our elders and call them what we’re told to call them.”

Mouth dropping open in shock, you hugged the girls tight. God, your mom could be such a bitch sometimes. What did Dave even see in her? Why did he put up with her bullshit?

“I’m sorry, sweeties. My mom can be… a lot, sometimes. But your dad is right. She’s not your mom and while you should be respectful, you don’t have to do everything she tells you. If you doubt something she asks or tells you to do or say, talk to your dad or come to me. Ok?”

Your hands ran over their heads soothingly and they clutched at your sides. Ranger whined at your feet as if supporting what you just told them.

“Ok,” Alice replied in a small voice, Molly nodding in agreement with her older sister.

After dropping them off at school, you texted Dave that you wanted to talk to him about the girls when he came home. He responded immediately, letting you know he’d be home that evening, and you could talk then.

You spent much of the morning and early afternoon tidying up the house and doing laundry, wanting there to be one less thing for Dave to worry about when he returned. Your mom came home from the office by early afternoon, and you immediately wanted a change of scenery just to get away from her after what Alice told you that morning. You weren’t in the mood for a confrontation, but you doubted you could keep your mouth shut if your mom provoked you.

Figuring you’d kill an hour at your favorite café before picking up the girls from school, you headed into town. It was a beautiful winter day, brisk yet the sun peeked through small breaks in the clouds as the scent of snow hung in the air. The kind of day you loved in the northeast.

The café was moderately busy with the late lunch crowd when you arrived, many of the tables occupied but no line at the counter. Placing an order, you glanced around for an open table when your eyes fell on a familiar broad form and the blood drained from your face.

His neighbor Roger setup this meeting then had the fucking audacity to not show up, leaving Dave sitting at a corner table of the café you told him about with a beautiful woman who was another major player in his team’s investigation.

On the one hand, Roger pissed him off flaking out like that – probably had a date with his mistress or some shit – but on the other? Who was Dave to complain about having a late lunch with a beautiful woman, even if she happened to be on the wrong side of the law.

As conversation went on, Dave flirted a little, ingratiating himself to the woman who served as the intermediary between the Russians and the traitorous military operator they were seeking to find with this operation. He wanted this mission done asap, so he’d do just about anything to get it over with.

The woman, Anna, made no attempt to hide her flirting, stretching forward across the table to run a long-nailed finger down his forearm before coyly sliding her chair around the table, closer to his side. A chill ran down his spine when she reached over, scraping those fire engine red nails through the thick hair at the base of his head. “Perhaps once our business is done, we could meet somewhere a little more… private.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Dave’s eyes catalogued her features – wavy, brunette hair artfully styled to flow around her shoulders, porcelain skin, lips painted ruby red, a small mole on her right cheek. Undisputedly pretty, yet he felt nothing but discomfort when she touched him. The idea of taking this somewhere private just to move the investigation along repulsed him. All he could think when he glanced between the ring on his left hand and this undeniably gorgeous woman was the fact that she wasn’t… you.

“Perhaps,” he finally replied, voice and brow pinched with confliction. Thoughts and feelings for you were beginning to interfere with his work. That was not good.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dave spotted a flash of something familiar, and his gaze slid past Anna toward the counter. He fought not to show any surprise on his face when your eyes met his across the busy café, momentarily forgetting about the woman’s hands still being on him. Fuck.

An inscrutable expression crossed your face, and you spun on your heels, clearly asking the barista for your order to go. Dave yearned to go to you, to insist that this wasn’t what it looked like, but he couldn’t risk it. He needed to gain Anna’s trust, to keep his focus on her for now. Even if he had zero plans of taking it any further than a business deal, he needed to give the woman the illusion that there could be more.

He watched, longing hidden behind his cold, dark chocolate eyes as you fled the café with hunched shoulders and coffee in hand, never looking back at him.

Anna noticed his distraction, tilting her head to search for whatever captured his attention. “Something more interesting than me?” she purred, her body matching her voice in the way she arched toward his side like a minx.

Swallowing down his thoughts of you, Dave returned his full attention to Anna. Forcing a chuckle, he shook his head. He couldn’t keep up the flirty banter, shifting back to business, solidifying plans for a meeting the following week.

The meeting came to its natural conclusion then, and Dave lifted Anna’s hand to his lips, placing a kiss on her knuckles to maintain the role he was meant to play. “I’ll see you soon.”

“I will have you in my bed this time next week, handsome. And once you’re there, you’ll never want to leave. I promise.” She glanced down at the ring on his left hand with a smirk while Dave fought back a shudder.

Once back in his SUV, Dave shed the mask and let the guilt wash over him for all the lies he had to keep hidden and the cover he had to maintain.

He arrived home expecting to find you there, yet your car was nowhere in sight. Dave groaned when he pulled into the garage next to Lisa’s parked car. She was home earlier than expected and he did not have the patience to deal with her right then.

He just really wanted to talk to you.

With your heart in your throat, you parked the car at the environmental park, relieved that you decided to bring Ranger as your wingman. He sniffed happily at the ground as you walked along the well-worn path trying to make sense of what you saw and how you felt about it.

That woman, with the body of a vixen, all glossy hair and painted lips… basically, sex on a god damned stick. Who was she? Why were her talons all over Dave?

Was he cheating on your mom?

It sure seemed like it. It also seemed like he wasn’t trying to hide it, letting the vixen paw all over him in public like that.

Why did it feel like a punch to your gut, like he was cheating on you?

Nausea bubbled in your stomach as Ranger led you along the path, and you gulped down a lung full of air to fight the feeling. As if the man could read your thoughts from miles away, your phone buzzed with an incoming text.

Dave: Where are you, Firecracker? We need to talk.

You left him on read, not yet sure how you wanted to respond or even what you’d say. Your emotions were all over the place.

All the strange things you noticed over the past few months started piling up, but you still couldn’t find logic in any of it. The only thing that made even a lick of sense to your mind was that Dave was a philandering asshole who just wanted to look like the good ol’ family man to his peers while doing whatever he wanted when no one was watching.

You worked yourself into a state by the time you picked the girls up and brought them home, having picked up pizza for dinner along the way. There was no way you were hanging out in the kitchen making dinner for everyone that evening. Fuck that. You didn’t even want to be in that damned house right now.

The girls were barely through the door when you dumped the pizza on the kitchen island and bolted with Ranger hot on your heels, skulking in your basement hideout as you heard Dave greet his daughters. His deep, rumbling voice – the one you got off to memories of just the night before – suddenly made you feel dirty. Like somehow, the thought of him cheating on your mom with some random woman seemed worse than the salacious thoughts you’ve entertained of him cheating on her with you.

For fucks sake. You were upset that your stepdad might be cheating on your mom with someone other than you. You wanted him to cheat on her with you, ached for it. What the fuck was wrong with you? You were an awful person.

Unable to sit still, you paced the below-grade living space under Ranger’s watchful eye, desperate for something to take your mind off the man upstairs… off your mother… and off the pitiful life you were currently leading. You needed to get out of that fucking house for the night, if not forever.

You heard the door from the hall upstairs open and rushed into the bathroom, knowing it was Dave headed down the stairs. You did not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with this situation. Feeling safer behind the locked door, you turned the shower on and picked some music on your phone, turning the volume up as loud as possible when you still heard the soft tap of his knuckles on the door.

On the other side of the door, Ranger whined, and Dave patted his head. Sighing when the music turned louder, he looked down at the dog. “Come on, bud. She doesn’t want to deal with us right now,” Dave told the pup. “Let’s go upstairs for dinner.”

He’d let you avoid him, for now.

An hour later, you slipped from the house using the private entrance. The crisp evening air made you glad you were dressed in jeans, boots, and a sweater beneath your winter coat as you walked the sleepy neighborhood streets toward the small downtown area. You’d get an app ride home if you drank too much, but for now, it was refreshing to walk. The movement helped to clear your mind of… well, everything.

You needed to make some friends in town, you decided. Too long since you last had a girls' night or even a close friend to bitch about things with. During your time together, your ex-boyfriend isolated you from your friends without you even realizing it until suddenly, you had no friends left and the only person you could turn to was him, or your mom. He at least allowed you to maintain that contact. Probably because he knew your relationship with her was tense at times. Once again single, and in control of your own life (well, mostly), you were eager for socialization.

Dave couldn’t stand it. He gave you some time to make sense of what you saw earlier, but a couple hours later he went in search of you, unwilling to give any more space or time. He needed to know what you thought you saw; what you thought you knew. And, whether or not you planned to speak to your mother or anyone else about it. He needed to speak with you ASAP.

Slipping from the living room where your mom sat watching some ridiculous reality show now that the girls were in bed, Dave ventured down to the basement. He searched the suite for you and came up empty.

You must have snuck out through the private entrance. Was it sneaking if you were an adult free to come and go as you pleased?

Frustrated with his wandering thoughts, Dave shook his head and pulled his phone from his pocket as his body sank onto your bed, laying back against your pillows. The scent of you enveloped him.

Using an app that he stealthily downloaded on your phone – you had a shit ton of apps, and he figured you’d hardly notice a new one in the mix – Dave tracked your location. It was for safety, his girls and yours, he rationalized at the time, that same rationale easing his guilt at tracking you down now.

In reality, he just liked being in control. And knowing where you were was one way of maintaining that control when he could do little else when it came to you.

The app showed you at McCready’s, a hip little pub in town Dave visited a few times. He could see you liking it there. Did you go alone? Were you there to meet someone? A man? Were you going to go home with whomever you met? Would you bring them here or go to their place?

Dave’s thoughts spiraled as your scent surrounded him until he finally jumped up from your bed. He couldn’t stay there, in your room, without your consent, not like this. He needed to see you, again he rationalized, as he rushed back up the stairs to change. Throwing on a pair of jeans and a henley, Dave slipped on a jacket and grabbed his keys.

From the kitchen, he called to Lisa, interrupting her focus on that ridiculous show. “I’m going to meet up with the boys for a bit. Keep an eye on the girls while I’m gone.”

Lisa’s expression transformed from annoyance to interest. “Where are you meeting them? Maybe I want to go too.”

“Nowhere you’d want to go. Besides, you can’t. You’re the only adult home.” Dave spun on his heels to avoid further discussion, ignoring Lisa’s demand to know where you were and why you couldn’t watch the girls as he slipped on his shoes and entered the garage.

Pulling out of the garage, he was surprised to see your car still in the driveway. Did you walk or catch a ride with someone? It didn’t matter. He knew where you were, and he was on his way.

The parking lot was full to bursting with the Friday night crowd, forcing Dave to circle the block before finding a spot a street or two away. He stepped out into the crisp night air, pulling his jacket tighter as a cold wind cut through the alleyway. The walk from the car to the bar was agonizing as his thoughts clamored about in his head. He hadn’t meant to track you down – at least, that’s what he tried to tell himself, but even he knew that was a lie – and now that he was outside the bar, there was no way in hell he’d turn back.

McCready’s pulsed with the low thrum of conversation and music playing from the overhead speakers, dimly lit by the warm glow of string lights. Dave’s gaze darted across the crowded area, homing in on you almost instantly.

Perched on a barstool, your body angled slightly away with an elbow resting on the counter as you twirled a half-empty glass of wine in your hand. The soft light of the bar illuminated your features, catching the faint sheen of makeup and the gloss on your lips as they moved in polite conversation with the man beside you.

Dave’s stomach twisted painfully. Was that a laugh? It was. He watched as your head tilted back, a smile lighting up your face, transforming the air around you.

The ache in his chest grew sharper. He longed to be the one, the only one, to make you laugh like that.

Dave froze just inside the doorway, his feet refusing to move for a moment. Forcing himself forward, Dave weaved through the crowd with practiced ease. As he approached your spot, he caught snippets of the man’s voice – a deep, gravelly tone trying too hard to sound charming.

You smiled again, soft and indulgent, but this time Dave caught the slight downturn of your eyes, the way your fingers tightened around your glass, knee bouncing. It wasn’t real, he realized. You weren’t charmed. You were merely entertaining the guy without any better options.

It didn’t matter. This guy didn’t matter.

But the knot in his stomach only grew as the man leant closer, his hand brushing yours on the counter. Every instinct in Dave’s body screamed at him to intervene; to stake a claim he had no right to make. Not yet.

Dave stepped closer, feeling a magnetized pull toward you, until he stood at your back, close enough to see the faint tension in your shoulders, to catch the faintest scent of your perfume over the haze of spilled beer and warm bodies. His chest tightened, the magnetism of your presence nearly overwhelming.

The man stood as tall as Dave, with a thicker build, light brown hair on his head, and facial hair shaggy and in need of a trim. Gray shot throughout it, along with crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. The guy was older than Dave by a handful of years, it seemed (and less attractive if Dave said so himself). Could that be the type of man you were attracted to? Unkempt jackasses with dad bods?

“Since you’re new in town, we should go out sometime. I could take you to dinner and show you all the popular spots.”

You hummed noncommittally in response, and the man kept trying. Dave didn’t catch his name.

“I have a sailboat,” the man said, his voice tinged with smugness. “I could take you out for a sunset cruise. Just us, the water, and a bottle of champagne.”

Dave’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding audibly. A fucking sailboat? Who was this guy, Captain looking for his Tennille?

“Oh, I love sailing!” Your voice was too bright, your laugh too easy. “My best friend from college raced competitively. I used to love watching the races!”

Dave barely heard the rest of the conversation, his vision narrowing as he fixated on the subtle tilt of your head, the way you played along, humoring the bastard. His fingers curled into fists, and for a brief, irrational moment, he imagined how satisfying it would be to plant one of them right in the guy’s smug face.

Then the man made his move.

“So,” he said, leaning closer still, “how about we get out of here?”

Fearing you would say yes, Dave lost all sense of reason. He moved before you could answer, his hand finding your arm, the firm grip startling you. “That won’t be happening,” Dave growled, his expression menacing.

You whipped around, wide-eyed and furious. “What are you doing?” you hissed at Dave, eyes burning holes through him.

The other man straightened, his brows furrowing as he glanced between you and Dave. “Is this guy bothering you?”

You couldn’t pull your eyes from the way Dave’s dark ones bored into you, pleading for you to speak to him.

Dave didn’t flinch under the other man’s glare. “No, I’m not bothering her. Nor is she leaving with you.” His tone left no room for argument.

Yanking your arm free of Dave’s iron grip, you heaved an exasperated sigh and shot Dave a glare before turning your attention back to the man you’d been talking to. “Sadly, no. He’s not bothering me. He’s… my stepdad.”

The word hit Dave like a physical blow, your tone drenched in bitterness. You were so much more than that if only you knew the truth.

The man blinked, clearly caught off guard. “So, you’re not—”

“Not a chance in hell,” Dave snapped, cutting him off. His gaze remained fixed on you, the weight of his dark chocolate stare unbearable.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Dave!” You slumped back against the bar as the other guy walked away, your voice trembling with barely contained anger, and maybe a hint of something else. “What is wrong with you? What are you even doing here?”

Stepping closer, Dave let his voice dip and soften. “Just looking for you… looking out for you,” he replied simply, the tension falling from his shoulders now that your focus was back on him. The cacophony of the bar faded to nothing, the only sound he cared about was your breathing, your sweet voice.

A pit of yearning grew in Dave’s stomach as your hooded gazes clashed. He never knew a feeling like this pull toward you and for all his reputed self-discipline, Dave was but a man powerless against a woman, when that woman was you. He knew how wrong it was given the circumstances, but nothing ever felt so right.

Dave York needed you like he never needed anyone before, not even his first wife. Visceral, this thing between you, and he thought – no, he knew – you felt it too. How could you not?

Giving in, refusing to question it any further, Dave slid his hand over yours, twining your smaller fingers with his larger ones, and ever so gently pulled you to stand next to him.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Mouth popping open slightly, a fire burned suddenly bright in your eyes, fingers curling tighter in his grasp. There was no mistaking it now. You felt it, too, this magnetized thing pulling the two of you together. A smirk crossed his lips when you nodded dazedly.

Now that he touched you, Dave could not bring himself to let go of your hand. He didn’t care who saw, not that he knew anyone in this crowd anyway. Skin soft and enticing, he wanted to touch more of it, more of you, until he mapped every square inch of your body.

The night air had grown colder while you were inside, sending a shiver down your body and Dave pulled you closer as he led the way to his SUV. Silence reigned during the walk across the parking lot and down the sidewalk, lingering during the length of the five-minute drive back to the house.

Mind whirring visibly behind your eyes, Dave glanced at you often. Finally, just as he pulled into the driveway, the house sitting dark as night as he eased the vehicle into the garage, Dave cracked.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he murmured once the ignition turned off.

“They’re hardly worth that.” Wide eyes met his, lips turned up at the sides into an almost smile. “I don’t even know where to start,” you admitted.

Nodding, Dave opened his door. “Come on, we’ll talk down in the basement.” Rushing out of the car before you even had a chance to move, he opened the passenger door and helped you out of the vehicle. Like magnets, your fingers entwined with his of their own accord as he led you through the private entrance to the basement.

“Are you cheating on my mom?” you blurted, body flopping down onto the couch and sinking back into the cushions, Dave beside you still grasping your hand. He refused to lessen his grip despite your gentle attempts to pull it away.

“No.”

A firm answer. A full sentence in one word.

You didn’t know whether to feel relieved or pissed off. His dark eyes darted back and forth between your own, searching for something, anything hidden in your gaze.

“Then what was all that,” you gestured wildly with your free hand, “at the café? That… woman… was all over you. Is that how you usually behave when no one’s around to catch you?”

Dave gazed at you with those big, brown, puppy eyes, yearning for you to see him, really see into the depths of him. “Of course not,” he insisted. “I can’t say much, but that was part of an assignment, a role I have to play to get this particular job done. Nothing has – or will – ever happen with that woman. I promise.”

You believed him, though you could tell there was more he wished he could say. “Ok.”

“Was that why you ran off and ignored me all day? Because you thought I was cheating on your mom?”

His voice was low, you shuddered at both his words and how they washed over you. Was that why you reacted so?

No, not really.

You couldn’t hold back the truth with the way he looked at you, his thumb caressing your knuckles drawing delightful chills to run down your spine. For a moment – just a brief moment – you allowed yourself to believe that he might feel the same way about you, might have a debilitating crush on you as well. That’s why you sputtered out the truth.

“N-no…” you stuttered, clearing your throat roughly. “No, that’s not why I ran.”

“Then why?” Eyes pleading, he squeezed your hand, encouraging you to explain.

“To be honest, I was hurt.” Pausing, your gaze dropped from his eyes to his lips, before darting back to meet the dark heat in his gaze again until you could no longer bear to look at him as you blurted out the dark truth. “Hurt that you would cheat with someone like that and not with… me. How fucked up is that?”

After a beat, then two of silence, you chanced a look at him. Your breath caught in your chest as his eyes widened impossibly further, pink tongue darting out to lick his plump bottom lip as he stared back at you, everything about him intense. Dave turned fully towards you on the couch, taking your other hand in his to pull you into his lap.

“That’s exactly why nothing will happen with that woman. She’s not you.” Dave leaned forward ever so slowly, placing the softest kiss upon your lips. It lasted only a second, but it changed everything.

tbc

Chapter Six

tag list: @imdrinkingpedro @lillaydee @ppascalrain @yorksgirl @missladym1981 @baronessvonglitter @slimybeth69 @mellymbee @untamedheart81 @inept-the-magnificent @wannab-urs @thundermartini @peelieblue @harriedandharassed @mysterious-moonstruck-musings @sunnytuliptime

[littlejuicebox]

An Early Highharvestide Feast

(Soft Dom Astarion x Female Reader)

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Setting: 4 years after BG3, "good" ending, Unascended Astarion x F Reader Notes: Took a break from my WrenxAstarion fic to write this Thanksgiving-themed (kind of but not really... lol it just worked for the plot), one shot. This idea was playing in my head, and I had to get it out. Hope you all enjoy and have a happy Thanksgiving! This might end up being a Part 1 of a mini story. I'd like to do the fluff scene with all their friends around and imagine the lives they've lived. I love to see comments about what you liked in the story, it inspires me for other fics. Rating: Mature 18+ / smut Word Count: 2.5K

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You’re in the kitchen, flowers strewn about the marble countertop as you arrange the bouquets for tomorrow’s banquet. It’s been four years since you’ve seen everyone at the same time, and finally, finally, the old gang will be back together in one room in less than 24 hours. Your heart practically soared in anticipation... a Highharvestide banquet in your very own home, with your favorite people in the world. You wanted everything to be just perfect.

The planning had taken weeks. Astarion had left the menu to you, of course, apart from the wine and alcohol selection. He had taken that from you quite early on and it had been more than a tenday before he solidified his choices between his frequent business meetings and your political events. He’d focused heavily on guiding you both in politics and expanding your wealth the past few years, while you focused on gardening and improving Baldur's Gate... plus navigating the lack of anonymity in your life.

Admittedly, you’d stumbled clumsily through your change in status, from unknown woman to Lady Ancunin, while Astarion glided into the position like he’d simply left his post for a long vacation. You’d been happy to take the lead in the wilds while a tadpole was lodged in everyone's brains, but you were even happier to hand the reins to him once the city was safe. And you were always proud to tell your friends that he’d navigated the two of you through the changes quite well.

In fact, he'd just purchased a second property outside of Baldur’s Gate with aims to start your very own winery; his pet project that he loved quite dearly. It was beautiful to watch Astarion approach something with such passion and vigor. After becoming the heroes of Baldur’s Gate, it had pained you that he could no longer stand in the sun. Not as much as it so obviously pained him. His mask was carefully crafted, and yet you often saw right through it. You hoped that perhaps one of your friends would bring news of a cure for his condition to the feast.

He had always been adamant that he’d make the same choice over and over again, but guilt still stabbed you like a dagger to the gut when you saw him watch the sun rise from the deepest depths of your manor or caught him studying your tan lines from your many hours spent out in the garden, your own personal pet project, specializing primarily in night blooming plants.

Astarion’s voice pulls you from your reverie as he enters the kitchen with Scratch trailing behind him. His vermillion eyes are focused on a scroll in his hands as he grasps a bone from a jar and tosses it into the dog’s bed. Scratch obediently settles himself into the plush mattress, content to gnaw away at the treat.

“Darling, your dog went after the chickens again. One of the staff had to run him down and then give him a bath. We may want to seriously consider a trainer. Command beast works all well and good when you’re around, but not everyone has that skill set in their repertoire, dear.” His tone carries just the slightest tinge of annoyance; you two have had this conversation before. But you know in his heart of hearts that Astarion loves the blasted dog perhaps more than you do.

You glance at Scratch, currently focused on giving you his best look of feigned innocence. The look reminds you quite a bit of another white-haired miscreant standing in that very same kitchen and you chuckle. Distracted, you feel the miscalculated slip of your hand as you reach for a particularly thorned flower stem. The punishing sting causes you to wince and pull in a sharp intake of breath. Blood blooms in buds of red on your fingers and the scent catches Astarion’s attention immediately.

His eyes are alight as he chides you. “You really must stop bleeding everywhere, my heart. It’s distracting.” He places the scroll down and comes to your side, grasping your hand in his to examine the damage.

“Perhaps if you helped me with these arrangements like I’d asked, I wouldn’t be in this situation, my love.” You respond with a soft huff, but you extend your hand towards the vampire, already quite aware what his next move will be. He bends to lick the red droplets from your skin before he kisses the knuckle of your hand. Astarion will never waste such a precious thing, that much is certain.

“Perhaps if you more frequently used the staff -- that we pay quite well, might I add -- to do things like tend your garden, put all these flowers in vases, and perform any number of menial tasks, then you wouldn’t be in this situation.” The vampire retorts with a raised eyebrow. “All of this is below your station now. It truly pains me to see your beautiful hands doing such things, my dear.”

You smile as you close your eyes and whisper a healing incantation, sealing the superficial wounds with minimal effort. You swivel in your seat and turn to face your husband, eyebrow arched to mirror his own, voice slipping into a coy register. “And what, Lord Ancunin, would you rather see my hands doing?”

You won. You could see it in the darkening of his eyes as he placed his hands on either side of the counter and pressed forward to look at you, red eyes flitting between yours.

Astarion had ebbed and flowed in his sexual appetites, especially in the first few years of your union. He had been plagued by panic attacks and night terrors something awful; they still occurred but not with the same horrid frequency. Your many nights of herbal teas and "flower child" magic, as he so lovingly called it, eased the suffering. You’d been content to ride the waves of desire with him, and it seemed more recently, as the two of you adjusted to domestic life, his appetites had returned with force.

His face hovered just inches in front of yours, eyes alight with a combination of adoration and lust as he pressed a soft kiss to your lips before pulling back and running his eyes greedily down your body, cocking his head as he fantasized about any number of dirty things. “I have several delicious ideas for those hands, darling.”

The flowers were scattered on the ground, along with a broken vase in an instant. The vampire hoisted you up with relative ease before placing you onto the cool, marbled counter. His hands grazed up the side of your silken gown and then delved under the hem to explore your bare skin. He quickly found his way to the junction between your thighs and a pleased, rakish smile crossed his face.

“No underclothes, Lady Ancunin? You truly do desire to test my patience today.” His eyes locked with yours as he knelt in front of you, draping your legs over his shoulders and pushing your dress up to reveal you to him fully.

You would have to enlist the help of the staff tomorrow afternoon. The tradeoff was well worth it, you thought, as your silver-haired husband bowed his head before you to run his tongue against your slit, a little hum escaping him as he tasted your warmth. He ran his tongue up to your clit, his lazy, languid strokes pressing into you. Always such a tease.

“Astarion…” You murmur, bucking your hips toward the vampire as your hands found silver curls of hair and took hold.

A smile snaked its way across his lips as he continued his torment. You were wriggling, desperate for more, which the elf adamantly denied you, his hands gripping into your thighs as he brushed his feather light tongue against you once more. Just enough stimulation to keep your attention, but not enough to provide any relief.

“My love..” Your tone is practically begging for him to give you more.

“Mm, darling. I do believe I need to show you what else your hands could do, don’t I?” He grabs your hand and yanks it towards your sex, where he guides you to play with yourself. Hungry red eyes watch the show as arousal begins to drip from you onto the countertop. He slips two long fingers deep inside your cunt and curls them slightly, pumping the digits in and out, which earns him a delightful moan. Still on his knees, the vampire removes his fingers from inside your walls and licks your juices off his hand before sliding your legs off his shoulders and standing. He makes quick work of ripping your gown over your head, pressing gentle kisses against the newly freed flesh of your chest. You are now completely barren and exposed to your lover, his lustful eyes stoking the fire between your legs.

His own arousal is now clearly straining against his clothes. Astarion quickly undoes the buttons of his collar and lacings of his trousers, freeing his cock before your hungry gaze. You’re still playing with yourself as you watch the man completely undress before you.

“Now darling…” He murmurs in that sensual tone reserved only for you. He guides your unoccupied hand to the twitching length of his cock and wraps it around the shaft, giving a few experimental pumps into your hand. “What else can your beautiful hands do?”

You take the queue and begin moving your hand around his length. Astarion hisses in pleasure, rolling his hips as he fucks your hand. The vision is quite lewd; you're playing with your own pussy as you pump your lover’s cock in time, your respective arousals just inches from one another but not touching. It's enough to cause the heat in your cheeks and your sex to rise and illicit several excited keens from you. He teasingly moves his length closer to your entrance, pulling away just as the head of his member brushes against you. You want to scream every time he pulls away, the bastard lives to tease you to the edge of desire.

Astarion was watching the scene with rapt interest, absolutely transfixed. His breath was quickening as he pressed himself into your hand, watching the head of his penis sheath and unsheathe itself under your ministrations as your pussy prayed to be plunged into, leaking arousal all over the cold countertop. He was always more in control in these situations, able to keep a firm hold on his desire in a way you never could.

“Look at my little treat, making such a mess on these expensive counters.” He murmured in mock disappointment and mock condescension, eyes burning with excitement. “Play with yourself and show me the mess you make when you cum for me, my sweet.”

You moan, desperate to have him fill you. “Astarion, please. Fuck me already. Please.” You’re keening, fingers rubbing against your clit with vigor. Desperate for something to fill the ache inside you, you remove your hand from your lover’s cock and shove two fingers into your wetness. The stimulation is fantastic and rips a moan from your vocal cords as your head tilts back.

Astarion chuckles darkly at the scene before him. It was no secret that he loved the way you inflated his ego when you begged for him, a writhing mess of wanton desire for his eyes only. The do-good, stoic hero of Baldur’s Gate turned into a desperate, needy little minx under his touch. He never tired of it. “Cum for me, darling. And then you will get your reward.”

You aim to do as he says, using one hand to plunge in and out of yourself while the other rubs frantically at your clit. Your legs are spread wide, displaying everything to the vampire as you push yourself towards release. Finally, the bubble bursts and an orgasm crashes around you, sending waves of pleasure throughout your body and into your thobbing sex. The pulsing seems nearly endless, and you feel the ooze of your juices sliding between your legs as you ride the wave of pleasure. When you come to your senses and flutter your lids open, Astarion's eyes are boring into you with such desire that it causes a tremor of excitement to run down your spine.

In one swift move he has you in a new position. Your feet are on the floor, albeit legs a bit shaky, and your ass is turned toward your lover, body bent at the waist. Your face is pressed into the counter, into the stickiness of your own juices. Everything smells of sex.

A delicious groan escapes from the vampire as he presses the head of his cock into your entrance, ready to take you from behind. “Beautiful... now, let’s see if I am able to make you come undone once more.”

Astarion slams into you with vigor, the force of the movement knocking the wind out of you as he groans in appreciation. Your soaking wet sex offers no resistance and you gasp at the pleasure of the rapid intrusion. He repeatedly drags himself back at a tortuous, languid pace just to thrust himself balls-deep once more, snapping his hips into the flesh of your ass, moaning every time he takes you to the hilt.

“Oh gods!” You exclaim as he picks up the pace, pumping into you with increasing speed, his cock curving gratifyingly along your insides. You feel yourself clenching around him as his efforts push you toward another peak.

Astarion growls and grabs your hand, guiding it once again to your clit. You’re climbing up to a second release as he rolls his hips behind you in an unceasing onslaught.

“There you go, little love. Won’t you cum for me again?” He coaxes in a graveled whisper as his lips and tongue trail down your spine, never once ceasing his thrusts. The vampire’s teeth find a beautiful little spot at the meeting point of your shoulder and neck, and he bites down, just enough to draw blood. The sensation pushes you over the edge and you spasm around your lover, your cunt eagerly gripping at his length.

“Oh! Oh... oh, my love.” The vampire groans as your throbbing sex pushes him over the edge, his final pumps turning sloppy as he spills into you. The two of you are a mess of panting chests and tired limbs for a few moments before Astarion straightens himself up and gently pulls you from the counter, dotting kisses along your shoulder where he left the bite.

"That was wonderful." You whisper, turning to face the vampire as you plant a gentle kiss on his lips.

“Mmh.” Astarion agrees in a little hum as he looks down at you with soft and loving eyes, pushing strands of hair away from your face before holding your chin in his hand and planting another kiss on your lips. The slightest of smiles flits across his lips as he runs his hands down to the curve of your waist. You move to begin cleaning up the mess you two made when your lover grabs your hand and begins to tug you away from the kitchen.

"Now, now, darling. Leave that be. I haven't finished showing you what else your hands can do… and we only have a bit longer before our friends show and ruin all the fun. Seems my Highharvestide feast came a day early." He muses, before eagerly leading you to the bedroom you both share. The flowers would have to wait.

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Part 2: Happy Highharvestide Day (all fluff)

[decoraskei]

Stay the night? <3

pairing ⸺ fem!reader x part1!joseph (modern au)

summary ⸺ your shitty boyfriend gets angry at you over something petty so you do the next best thing, turn to your best friend who you hook up often with…

tags ⸺ friends with benefits, fluff and smut, porn with plot (sort of), drinking, sweet talk, praising, overstimulation, wet dreams, cheating, kissing, hugging, hair pulling, body worship (?).

word count ⸺ 1,860 words and 9,736 characters.

notes ⸺ this is kind of my first fic so don't expect the best from me, not sure if this is good but thank you my friends for reading this before i posted this ily guys ❤️! and again, minors please dni.

This wasn't the first time this happened. Your boyfriend tended to get angry over small things you did like when you forgot to do HIS laundry, like when you forgot to take out HIS trash -- it was all too much for you.

So one night when he finally snapped on you again you left and headed for your trusty friend who you knew would never let you down when it came to situations like these. You started crying on your way to his house out of pure frustration and anger from your boyfriend nagging you around all day non-stop and once you had finally arrived you slowly crept your way up to the door and knocked.

You heard a lot of moving around, almost like someone was in a rush. You were about to knock again before he swung the door open and gasped in joy when he saw you, then his face slowly switched to one of concern at the tears staining your cheeks. He didn't have to ask you what happened because this wasn't the first time you came to him about this kind of thing so he nodded understandingly before moving aside so you can walk in and so he can close the door behind you.

He helped you to the couch by holding your shoulders and when you gently sat down it was almost like he had 60 seconds to do everything, rushing like you would disappear soon. He turned off the lights because he knew your eyes would be sensitive from crying and got one thin blanket then another which was thicker before placing the two together and laying them on you.

Then he vanished off to his kitchen until you saw him return with a bunch of sweets and you swore your heart almost melted. He wasn't even your boyfriend yet he treated you better, perhaps a sign. he poured all of them into a big bowl and gently settled them next to you only to turn around again and grab the remote. He took his seat beside you and grabbed a pillow near him on the spacious couch to place it on his stomach as he laid back and moved his big but gentle hands to guide your head to lay on the pillow.

Not a word was shared between you yet so much was done to make you feel better, and in his grasp you felt special and like you were the only girl in the world.

"What'd he say this time?" As the opening scene to the movie comes on he breaks a silence you didn't even know was present. You shift your head to look up at him and you see him still playing that same concerned expression on his face from when he first opened the door and set his sights on your saddened one.

"I don't wanna talk about it…" You felt bad for not giving him context yet letting him do all of this for you but you truly wanted to enjoy this moment and think less of your bum of a boyfriend right now. He nodded sympathetically and turned his gaze back to the movie playing, it was a comedy and you were mentally thanking him for being so considerate as to not turn on anything else like a romance, horror or just something that wouldn't lift your mood.

-

"Well, that was good." The movie had ended and when he said that you thought your time was over and you had to go back now. you felt greedy and almost like a leech for wanting, yearning to stay longer. He noticed your faltering smile and quickly stood up to walk out again and you thought of the worst -- until he came back with board games, drinking games, card games and drinks. I couldn't help but laugh at how sweet he was and we both moved to the floor and started deciding what board game to start with first.

-

He let you stay the night, thankfully. You didn't wanna see your boyfriend right now and Joseph was here to keep that from happening for you. You dressed in simple pyjamas you had left at his house before.

I may have left out one detail, you and Joseph have hooked up on various occasions and it was safe to put you two in the 'friends with benefits' category. You weren't ashamed though, when your boyfriend wasn't good at his job and made you feel like shit Joseph was before him anyway and you both had no idea why you weren't dating yet. Tucking yourself into the covers you could hear him humming to himself in his bathroom and it made you smile even though you were drunk out of your mind from all the drinking.

Eventually he got into bed shirtless and with pyjama pants he bought to match yours and in a way you found it adorable. Some drunken small talk before he quickly fell fast asleep and you couldn't help but let out a quiet hushed laugh. You turned around to the other side and started getting comfortable before your eyes closed shut and you began to let out calm and soft snores against the pillow.

Sometime in the night Joseph began shifting. He had a wet dream and of all people he knew it was YOU, who was right in bed next to him. He turned to look at you with the obvious hard on and stain in his pants and his eyes lingered on your small sleeping form, it took everything to not just take you asleep but he was way more decent and respectful than that so he gently shook you awake and you fluttered your eyes open to see him looking half-drunk and desperate, for you.

"Babe, need help.." He mumbled out and as you registered what was happening you softly nodded, still trying to wake up fully. That was until he slid down your pyjama pants with a grunt and then your panties in advance to grab a hold of your knees and prying your legs open with his big hands. You smiled at his eagerness before he dove down and let you rest your legs on his back and wrapped his arms around your thighs for more comfort. Licking at you eagerly, sliding his tongue up and down and stopping at your clit every now and then to watch your back arch off the already sweaty and cold sheets of the bed. Nobody ever did it as good as him and sometimes you swore it was like he had a map of your pussy laid out in his head, tracing his tongue over all your favourite spots and making you squirm in pleasure.

His tongue peeked through your entrance and it was hard to keep quiet but whenever you made a noise he gripped at your thigh -- an obvious message telling you to shut up despite there being nobody to hear you, maybe he just wanted to focus. In reality it was the fact that your moans and cries of pleasure made his dick twitch even more and he was on the brink of loosing control. But so were you. You felt your eyes reach the back of your head as you had a short but amazing orgasm wash through you head to toe only making your legs shake slightly.

He departed from in between your folds and unwrapped his arms from around your plush thighs and wiping his slick covered face with his hand. He reached for the waistband of his own pants and slid them off and you swore you let out an audible gulp at the sight of the wet patch and obvious bulge covered by the thin fabric of his boxers, almost like it was waiting to be set loose and run wild. You got the message and bent over but you wished you got to see his cock spring free from the restraints of his black briefs.

You felt the warm and wetness of his member resting on your lower back now he was pulling back and pressing it at your entrance and letting it slowly stretch out your walls, the feeling all too familiar to you. Once he was fully sheathed inside you he hugged you and wrapped his arms around you to feel at your tits, his thrusts sloppy and messy but oh so amazing.

The long sequence of whines and sobs as he started getting faster against you, noticeably enraptured by the feeling of himself rubbing along the walls of your insides. And as for you, the feeling of him slipping in and out at such a overwhelming pace made you cum quick.

You thought that was the end, you thought. When he slowed down you were content but you grew surprised when he started going at it again despite having filled you already with his own seed. You grew louder, a little fragile from your first two orgasms but nothing was stopping him. A loud pornographic sounding moan escaped past your lips and stopped hugging you to now be plunging into you on his knees right behind you only to grab you by your hair .

He used his grasp on your hair to his advantage and every time you were at the tip of his pretty cock he pulled you back by your hair and thrusted forward which only let more ear-splitting moans break out from between your wet lips. The way he fucked you silly made you drool and the only think keeping you sane right now was the sweet nothings he whispered into your ears.

"So good f'me.. Please.." he almost begged. He finished again and even though he did he continued to thrust, only this time he let go of his grasp on your hair and went back to hug you to slow himself down a little. It was almost like he knew that every orgasm you had you became more delicate and he shouldn't push you but here you were still overstimulated as hell. He finally noticed how loud you were but oblivious to you he had neighbours who have had complained about you before so he snaked his hand around your neck and then to your mouth to cover it.

Two more thrusts and he released himself into your plush and soft cunt yet again. This time he stopped and pulled out, fortunately. Falling forward on the bed he grabbed a hold of you and chuckled. Taking a hold of the covers to pull them over the two of you and embrace you under the warmth of the covers you were safely asleep under not too long ago. You felt yourself smile as he softly kissed along your shoulder and back and neck.

"Thank you." He murmured and you two fell back into your separate deep depths of slumber, him content and you happy he decided to stop when he did -- but you were still happy.

thank you sm for reading!! i know it may not be the best considering my overusing of 'before' & 'and' but i hope to improve in the future!! (i hardly have motivation to write) if you have any requests for the next one just send a few tag suggestions/what you want in the fic and if its a character i dont rlly know then ill look at some clips or read about the character so i can try make it possible 4 u! tysm <3

[springalwayscomes]

To love and pamper: Together

Read to Love and Pamper here

Plot: You’re on the edge. Do the dishes, warm the milk, change diapers, cook lunch, try to get some sleep in between and start all over again; it’s taking you every part of yourself to try and be flawless in raising your daughter. Jungkook is here by your side though; why can’t you just lean on him?

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Angst, fluff, Established Relationship, Parenthood

Wordcount: 3.7k

Content Warning: swearing

Author’s Note: Hello! They are back🥺 I loved writing To love and pamper so much that I had to write a part two. Take this as a gift for our Bangtan’s 10 years!💜 I hope everyone of you is staying healthy and happy these days.

The gif is not mine, it belongs to @jung-koook.

Let me know if you want to be part of my taglist so I can tag you when my new works come out!

Early mornings with Jungkook taste like strawberries, extremely sweet. Maybe it’s the way he holds you unconsciously in his sleep, or the way his hot breath delicately hits your face, but it makes you never want to leave. The soft glow coming from the dim light on your nightstand is long gone, the rays of the sun coming from the window slowly took up over the darkness during the night, they touch Jungkook’s features gently, careful as if not to wake him up.

His lips parted, eyes shut and cheeks full, soft snoring. You kicked him tonight, just enough to make him stop snoring too loudly for you to sleep, for at least a bit. It helped until he started again. You wonder why when you have to get up he suddenly starts to snore less, as if to play with you. It makes you want to dive right back between the sheets before you even got out.

You sigh, looking over at Baram. They say that things will be getting better in a bit, that it will be easier, you just have to get used to it. You love her, totally, wholeheartedly, with all of you. But sometimes it just gets unbearable. This is new to you, the both of you. Jungkook is doing better, even though there are still times when he breaks down. It happens to you too, but usually you don’t let yourself slip too much. It’s just that you’re scared; she’s so tiny, so fragile and vulnerable, so defenceless and you have to teach her how to face the world, you have to protect her and lead her through it all, when even you yourself still kind of don’t know how to.

Jungkook’s arms squeeze you tighter, as if he heard your thoughts. It makes you smile, your heart calming for a bit. He still has his eyes closed, his brows furrowed and lips pouting.

«Don’t go» he murmurs, voice low and sleepy. He nuzzles his nose into your neck, sending shivers to your spine as his hair tickle your skin. Your hand reaches them, playing with the strands, his lips leave pecks, soft ones that hold an incredible amount of love, too much even, for this early hours of the day.

It’s comforting, to feel his warmth around you and his hands on your body.

«I have to clean up» you’re not really prone to leave the bed either, but you still try to.

«I can do it later» he whines, holding you tighter. His fingers caress your back, kisses getting down on your shoulder. His hair are disheveled and you know that yours are too, all over the place.

«You have rehearsals,» you let out «and Baram is going to wake up in a bit and I won’t be ready»

«What time is it?» his grumpy voice sends a weird shiver down your spine. You glance at your phone on the nightstand, eyes narrowing to protect themselves from the light of the screen.

«Seven and ten» you let him know. Though it doesn’t look like the new information is going to change anything for Jungkook.

«Please, wanna cuddle» he pleads, eyes shut, his digits digging into your skin.

«Kook, I don’t have time for it. It’s the only time I can do things without having to check on Baram, when she’ll wake up I won’t be able to-»

«You’re so noisy» he complains. You let out a huff, trying to get out of his grasp.

«Kook, let go. You can sleep more, just let me go» If only his arms weren’t so strong you wouldn’t have any problems.

«Not gonna» he mumbles. You sigh annoyed.

«Then don’t, but let me go anyway!»

You didn’t mean to, but you raise your voice a little too much. It echoes in the room and you pray every single god that was ever worshipped tha-

Baram breaks out in a cry, loud and angry, incredibly so. For a moment, you still. Suddenly getting up doesn’t feel so electrifying anymore. You force yourself to do it, though. Leave the warm sheets and the soft mattress, sit up and-

«I’ll take her» Jungkook stops you with a hand on your back, a second later he’s already up and standing beside her cradle.

You watch him bend down and narrow his eyes at her, cheeks stained with the lines of the fabric of his pillow and face totally sleepy. He cooes at her, taking her in his arms as carefully as he possibly can. He lulls her a little as he makes his way back to your bed, Baram still crying desperately in his hold.

You sigh and lift the covers.

«Where are you going?» his big eyes skim over your body, upper half covered in one of his shirts, definitely too big for you, legs displayed only for him to see.

«Getting her paci and the diapers» you announce. Jungkook shakes his head.

«She just needs her pacifier, she didn’t poo»

«She will soon!» you tell back. Jungkook huffs, letting you do your thing. This is not the right moment to pick up a fight, even if it’s a little one. With Baram in his arms, his top priority has to be her. So he lulls her, sings a bit at her and wipes her unstopping tears with his thumb, only that finger taking up more than half of her face.

You come back in a minute, pacifier in your hands and a new pack of diapers in the other, wipes blocked between your chest and the inside of your arm. As soon as the pacifier goes into her mouth all of her worries fade away, too distracted with the new element in her mouth. You watch her features soften, face from angry red going back to a pure sweet pink; and so does your heart. With seeing her easing, seeing her stop her cries. It might be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but god, do you love her. It’s in moments like this that you realise how lucky you are, when you see her calm down and realise that yes, you’ve got this, at least for now.

Jungkook let’s out a heavy breath, still lulling her from time to time. He gets up slowly and does the same as he walks, afraid that even the slightest hint of movement will disturb your 4 months old baby. He walks in circles, arms swinging from side to side gently and eyes never leaving her face. They look like out of a fairytale, out of a movie. It makes your stomach twist and turn with love, suddenly overwhelmed to the point that a smile graces your features. You watch from afar, his dark locks have become too long to not get in the way of his eyesight, hanging down as he looks at the same eyes as his, closed in a silent sleep. You can’t see his expression because of the strands of his hair, but his smile is contagious. Every time he looks at her, god, the world makes sense. Finally. And to believe that such a beautiful creature, a fragile little soul that still has to go a long way, was made by you and him; that thought renders him breathless all the time.

He walks back to her cradle, carefully laying her down and back under the covers. You let out a sigh of relief and head out of the bedroom, straight to your kitchen. There are so many things to do that you lost count. It’s not like your kitchen is one of those where there’s dirt on the floor and too many piles of dishes in the sink, but it’s not exactly clean either; with Baram waking up every two to three hours of the night your sleep schedule has become a nightmare, both yours and Jungkook. You start to do something, then feel the need to rest, take a nap and go back to do what you were doing, but things like making lunch and dinner or do the laundry, things you cannot actually postpone, take over most of the day. And then there’s work, Jungkook’s and yours. Your schedules have been remade and remade several times to help yourselves with your daughter, but even with all your efforts you always end up extremely tired. Jungkook has rehearsals on his own most of the time, the times he chooses usually don’t fit with the others because of their schedule, so they end up meeting once a week to rehears all together. He still has to go to the outside meetings, wether it is an interview, a new project or a shoot; not all the time, but a great number. It doesn’t happen every day, but three to four days of the week he’s working. You’re okay with it, after all he can’t just say no to his job, you wouldn’t want him to, you know he loves it.

It’s the same for you, after all. Its just that you’re not required to be in a studio to work, at least not one like his. You have one at home, your paintings and the smell of clay filling both the space and the air. So your days go by, busy and stressful but full with love and adoration for your little one.

«What are you doing?» Jungkook is standing at the kitchen door, hair disheveled and eyes still not used to the light of the morning. You didn’t hear him coming out.

«The dishes» you say. He gulps, lips pouty and hands aching to hold you.

«Please come back to bed» he pleads still from the doorway. With how you sigh though, his ministrations seem to change, steps shortening the distance between you and him. He stops behind you, arms on their way to your waist before you block him with your next words.

«I don’t have time to lose, Jungkook»

«You consider it a loss of time to spend some time with me?» He’s annoyed. You can hear it in his voice, how sharp it sounds.

«You know I don’t mean it that way» you shake your head, grabbing another dish from the sink.

«Do you?» his question makes you turn. Eyes gazing at him, his face scrunched up as he’s thinking hard on something. Brows furrowed and lips pouty again, eyes focused in yours.

«It’s been what, two weeks since we last cuddled? Or when we went out together? When I come to bed most of the nights you’re already asleep and-»

«Cause I’m tired?»

«Yes, I am too Y/N»

«Great, welcome to the team» your answer makes him grimace, but it gets worse when you add: «What do you want me to do, spend the only free time I have laying on the bed and doing nothing?»

Jungkook suddenly feels like a cold jet of water is getting sprayed on him. Cheeks burning and blood hot, both angry and hurt. Something deep inside him stings, burns and bends, twisting in all the ways as it tries to break and come out unfiltered.

«Are dishes more important than us? Really?» Your eyebrows raise up.

«When did I ever said that?»

«You’re doing it now» he scoffs.

«Is it so hard for you to relax, just a bit?»

«I’m not! I’m just saying that this is the only moment I have to just-»

«It’s the only moment we’re together too!» he raises his voice a bit, eyebrows furrowed and eyes glassy, lips pouty. He gulps harshly.

«We’re always busy, is it so hard to just spend some time together?» his voice is trembling, as if he’s on the verge of breaking. It stops your breath, a big tight knot fills up all the space in your throat, your hands drying themselves on your trousers.

«We do it, Jungkook» your voice softens as you let out your words. They make Jungkook’s head shake slowly, he lowers his gaze and fixes it on the ground.

«I just miss you» he whispers. The hurt is clear in his voice, shoulders dropping. You feel your heart tighten, fingertips aching to caress his soft cheeks just at looking at him like this.

«Kook, I’m sorry…» you breathe out, guilt taking over you.

Jungkook hates this. Hates that you don’t spend together as much time as you used to; he knew it was about to happen with the birth of Baram, but still he hates it anyway. He doesn’t blame it on her, because why would he, he could never even if he tried to. But still, he hates it. He misses it, craves for your touch, craves for your caresses, your warmth around him, the feeling of having you close not just in a sexual way but in whatever way possible. He misses spending evenings on the sofa under the covers, soft and sweet kisses layered on each other’s skin in silence and between low giggles, as if they were meant just for the two of you, a little secret fuelling love to your hearts.

«I… I miss you» Jungkook sighs, low and barely hearable, shoulders down and eyes on the ground. Your heart sinks deeper into your chest, heavy and sad at the look on his face. You feel your throat tightening, your eyes sting. You don’t want him to feel abandoned or not important enough, never. But there’s just- too much. Too much things to take care of, too many things to do and to look after, too much effort to try and anticipate the next move, to take care of everything, to be careful about being wrong, that you’re just-

«I know baby, and I’m sorry» you nod, «but I don’t know how to- I’m- I’m just-» your voice trembles and suddenly you’re crying. Crying in sobs, like a little baby, like Baram would.

Jungkook’s arms wrap around you, instantly and so tight it makes you tremble with vulnerability. It’s like a second instinct, to kiss your hair as his fingers dig into your back, careful and pampering.

«I’m sorry» you hiccup, your tears wetting his shirt. You feel so bad for making him feel like this. You spent your time trying to keep everything under control, everything in check and always ready, anticipating every move and every cry, trying to be ready in every condition and situation, you didn’t think-

«It’s okay» he whispers, another kiss lays on your head, «I’m sorry- I’m so sorry baby» he snuffles, shaking his head. His eyes burn, his lips move desperately in pouts, trying to hold back the tears, eyes shut. God, he’s so inconsiderate. So fucking inconsiderate and selfish. You gave birth to another human. You are tired. You’re trying your best. You’re stressed. Trying to have everything under control. And he’s here, complaining about you not cuddling him.

«I’m so sorry, please don’t cry» he snuffles again, voice shaky.

«I’m- I care so much about- y-you» you sob, nuzzling into him. Jungkook wants to drown himself in your tears. His heart swells and shrinks at the same time.

«I know, I know» he shakes his head.

«I should’ve- been more considerate, you- you-» you hold him tighter.

«No, you’re right,» you mumble against his shirt «I was just- so- I feel like I have to be careful of everything and I’m- I’m burning out»

Jungkook knows. He can see it, every time that you anticipate your next moves or the ones of your baby, every time that you let go he can see it that you’re not fully relaxed, that you’re on the edge. But he is here too, he is part of this too. And it makes him feel bad that you don’t rely on him just as half as you rely on yourself. He is your man, your person, your lover and you shouldn’t be the only one burdened; even if he is too, he doesn’t want you to think that you have to hold it all together.

«Rely on me» he snuffles.

«I do it already»

«You don’t do it enough» he lays a kiss on your forehead, and you feel wetness on your skin. He must’ve lost his battle with the tears and gave up at some point. When you raise your glance his eyes are puffy, red with tears and oh, so incredibly deep. It’s like looking at two ponds, so clear and majestic that for a second you lose your focus. His dimples show up as he gulps, trying to gain back his sobriety, cheeks wet.

«Stop holding it all in» Jungkook sniffs and his lips twitch, his voice is shaking and you can feel your heart being wrapped tightly by a fist and being desperately squeezed.

«Let- let it out, you- let it out on m- me» he’s on the verge of breaking, holding back the new tears as they pool into his eyes.

«Ple- please» and so he does. He sobs, and you lose it too. Seeing him so fragile, broken, something snaps inside of you.

«I- I hate not being ab-able to take it away from yo-u» he sobs, lips trembling, fingers digging into your back.

«We chose this to- together» he hiccups, his nose digs into your neck, runny and wet.

«You are- you’re the most- important thing. You and Ba- Baram. I’m part of this too, just- why can’t you let go? I… I- give me some weight»

«I can do it- I know I can but- you won’t let me. Baby, I love you- I-»

You’ve never seen Jungkook so broken. You’ve seen him cry, many times actually, but like this, never. You hate it. All the pain, all the tears, you wish you could take them from him and make them yours, make it all go away. You squeeze him so tight you’re afraid you will leave him breathless, fingers digging into his skin and lips on his neck, kissing away the problems. Then, you realise. And god, it makes you want to slap yourself in the face.

He must be feeling like this. Just the same as you do. It’s unbearable to see him hurting and not being able to do anything about it, but that’s what you’ve been doing all this time too. You wanted to do your best and ended up trying but left him out, only focusing on Baram most of the times.

«I love you so much- that… I don’t know , sometimes when- I feel like I will explode when I look at you, I- I love you that much. Baram is our- our daughter and we’re a family and I’m- I just want to be a good dad-»

«You are, Jungkook» you whisper.

«You are, baby. I’m so sorry, I was-» you shiver and his hands dig deeper into your back.

«I was just on the edge cause I’m not used to this. It’s still all new and I- I just wanted it all to be perfect and I tried so hard that- I lost sight of us. I was so focused, I-»

«It’s not just us» he murmurs on your neck

«It’s you too. I hate seeing you like this, cause- I know you and when I tell you to- when I tell you to relax I don’t do it just for us, I know you need it too. Your brain has to stop working and- you have to know that there’s someone going through this with you»

«Like- earlier, why can’t you just lay down and relax? I know- know that Baram is a lot to handle and she need attention but- you need it too. You need to take care of yourself cause I- I would be…» his hiccups get muffled by your neck, and you feel his lips tremble on your skin. He lays a kiss on it, shaking and shivering.

«I would be lost without you. Totally- lost. Please. Just- I will wash the dishes, fuck the dishes. If they stay there, what? So what? I want us to be fine, I want you to feel supported and support me but if you don’t let me, I- I can’t»

«Please, just… let me help. It hurts, it hurts a lot not to be able to be of any help to my family. Love, I-»

«I’m sorry» you whisper again, tears wetting your cheeks. You cut him out, and you didn’t even realise it. You wanted to be the best for your daughter and ended up only counting on yourself and making him feel useless most of the times.

«I promise you, I promise I will try my best- to let go. I’m- I’m not doing the dishes, fuck the dishes» you hear him laugh lightly, a deep kiss layered down again on your skin.

«I didn’t realise what I was doing. I was just scared. She’s so fragile and little and I was so afraid of doing something wrong. I was selfish, I-»

«You weren’t. You were just scared» he kisses you again.

«We’re together» he whispers. You nod, face hiding in the crook of his neck.

«We’re together» you smile. You wipe your nose with the sleeve of your shirt, trying to hold back another hiccup.

«It’s alright now, ssh…» Jungkook holds you tighter, body against yours practically glued together. It doesn’t make you feel spaceless though, it makes you breathe. For the first time in months, you feel like you’re breathing again. Even with your runny nose and the tears on Jungkook’s cheeks, the both of you feel light now.

«I love you so much baby, you don’t even know» he whispers.

«I think I know» you kiss his shoulder. Jungkook smiles, his head leaving the the space of your neck and his starry eyes looking straight into yours. They’re still wet, but the tears have stopped coming out. A bit red, puffy from both the sleep and your cry.

«Come to bed? Until she wakes up. When she does-» he hiccups, «I’ll warm her milk and change her diaper. And the dishes, I’ll do the dishes and you can lay down a bit more? Do you want me to fill up the bathtub? We can take a bath when she falls asleep again»

«Love, breathe» you chuckle, looking at him and his endless rant. You look at him, and god, how lucky you are. That he loves you, and you love him. That he’s yours, you’re so happy he’s yours.

«Yes, that would be perfect» you smile.

Jungkook gulps, cheekbones raising and eyes filling with warmth and affection.

«Let’s go. I want to cuddle for at least two minutes. Do you think she will let us?»

Taglist: @p-i-e-d-p-i-p-e-r

[new-kit-on-the-block]

Miraculous - The watered-down significance of akumatization

(This is an analysis, but it's also a sort of rant. So there's a lot of text underneath the cut. Just a fair warning.)

I have a problem with the way that the latter seasons of Miraculous handle akumatization.

There's a pretty basic rule of thumb when it comes to writing the bigger moments of your story:

If something is a big deal, let it be a big deal.

Seasons 4 and 5 don't always do that.

Let's take a look at what I mean.

These are screenshots of the three separate occasions that characters have broken out of akumatization in seasons 4 and 5.

Take note of who these characters are and their importance (or lack thereof) to the overall plot.

On the one hand, you have Alya and Nino, the two main characters' respective best friends. It's only natural in a show like this for these two to be strong enough to break out of akumatization, it makes the main characters look like they definitely chose their friends right.

And then you have Alix's Redditor conspiracy-theorist older brother.

Why is he one of the big three who managed such a significant feat like this?

It's not like he's been shown to be particularly strong-willed. In fact, one could argue that he's even less so than most other characters due to how much further he fell into the rabbit hole of Lila's manipulation than anyone else.

His gullibility and irrationality are the entire reason he gets akumatized in the first place.

And he doesn't ever play a significant role after this, either. The only other time that he even had so much as a speaking role was the other time he got akumatized way back in season 1 for not being allowed to sacrifice someone to the Egyptian gods.

Now, these aren't the first times that people have fought back against Hawkmoth while being akumatized. But they are the first times that they've successfully broken out.

Pixelator questioned Hawkmoth's authority over him, and in response, Hawkmoth did something with his hand that started causing physical pain to Pixelator, reinstating his control over his akuma.

The only other time an akuma victim fought back was Robustus, which was a special case because he rebelled against Hawkmoth by using the specific abilities that were granted to him.

Neither of them even tried to escape akumatization.

Akumatization has always been set up as something powerful. Something that takes the worst parts of you and amplifies them to the point of no longer being capable of rational thought.

We never end up questioning why people don't try to resist akumatization if they know that they might end up hurting people. We already know the answer. It's because they can't.

Even Ms. Bustier, possibly the character who hated akumatization the most at the time, couldn't avoid becoming akumatized despite her best efforts.

So three separate people breaking free from their akumatization should imply that Gabriel's control over his victims is getting weaker, which would be a very big deal.

But nothing is ever done with that. After Alix's brother, nobody ever broke out of akumatization again. The ability to do so is used as nothing more than a plot device in these few episodes.

Another thing is that, if anything, Gabriel's grasp over his victims' emotional state should be even stronger.

His akumas are canonically more powerful than before, to make the lucky charms that Ladybug hands out stop working against him.

If bigger and more powerful akumas don't make his hold on people even stronger than before, then the entire arc of Ladybug realizing that she can create charms to prevent people from being akumatized more than once, and Hawkmoth's counter-arc of nullifying her efforts by simply creating bigger akumas was all just a complete waste of time.

After Guiltrip, I assumed that they were building up to Rose being able to break out of akumatization through her naturally positive nature alone, and then they would have an arc of her teaching others how to do the same.

Suffice to say, neither of those things happened.

Rose's "inner voice" that she's apparently had in her head this entire time doesn't serve any actual purpose other than to make her worthy of the pig miraculous.

To be clear: I don't have any issues with Rose's invisible illness never being mentioned at any point before Guiltrip. That's the entire point of an invisible illness.

My point is that Rose's ability to break free from negative emotion-based mind control is an extremely important ability that was never even so much as hinted at before or even brought up again any time after Guiltrip.

So, once again, it's just an extremely important one-off ability that doesn't matter and doesn't affect the stakes whatsoever.

These seasons keep throwing moments at us that should be very big deals but are never treated as such.

Now let's compare all of this to an actually good akumatization-related scene.

When Chloe successfully rejected akumatization.

When this happened, it was huge, and it felt like it too.

Not just because of how impressive the feat itself was, but also because of where Chloe was in her character arc.

Chloe was under the impression that Ladybug might never let her be Queen Bee again. Full stop.

She had potentially permanently lost a privilege that really mattered to her, Lila was starting to get inside her head, and she was becoming mean to Sabrina again.

By all accounts, Chloe should've been in the stage of her arc where she started to revert back to her old self. The old Chloe would've accepted Hawkmoth's words without a second thought.

If this was the conventional Zuko-style arc that so many writers try and fail to replicate, this would've been the scene where it seems like she may not actually get redeemed, and would fall back on old patterns of hers. Which is an interesting enough arc on its own.

But we instead have a girl who doesn't have any way of truly knowing better, has no good role models, and is close only to people who enable her worst behaviors. And she chooses to be good.

Her worst fears are starting to come true, nobody seems to have any care or respect for her, and a smarter and more experienced grown man is using all of these negative emotions against her to mind control her. And she still chooses to trust the process and work to gain back Ladybug's trust. Exactly like Ladybug told her to.

The one time she was given really good advice, it stuck with her.

This is the moment that flat-out confirms that Chloe can be redeemed, and actively wants to be better.

Not only did she not get akumatized, she almost made it look easy.

But the show still makes it perfectly clear that this wasn't an easy feat by any means.

She was visibly exhausted and scared after the akuma left, breathing heavily like she almost just drowned.

But the important part is that she did it. She didn't get akumatized. And she is shown to be rightfully proud of this fact.

It's also interesting to note that no other character has ever broken out of akumatization, mid-akumatization.

In the seasons to come, several people would be breaking out of akumatization after they had already been akumatized. But Chloe is the first, and only, person to reject akumatization before it even took hold.

That's how you give a moment like this the emotional weight that it deserves, by letting it stand on its own and not bombarding your audience with the same scene played out by several other characters.

Chloe was the only one to do this, and that shows that she could bring something special to the team if she actually got the chance to be a heroine again. It makes us consider the possibility that her stubborn and argumentative nature might actually end up being a silver lining. She can still be herself while saving people. In her own way.

She can be a hero. She can become a better person. And she doesn't have to change a thing about herself.

It would be a really nice message to send.

Which just makes it all the more disappointing when it doesn't amount to anything.

If the point of her character was that she could've been better, but became worse instead, that would've made for an interesting sort of tragedy.

But that's not what it is. I know that's not what the writers intended because if that were the case, then Ladybug would've probably had some lines about how much potential Chloe had, and how well she was doing before she went back to her old self.

We don't get any of that. What we get instead is the show and characters acting like Chloe was always as bad as she is in seasons 4 and 5.

She never actually liked Adrien. She was never kind to her father or Sabrina. She never wanted to get better.

And that's just not true.

Sorry, the main point of this post was to showcase the difference between important moments that were given the appropriate emotional weight, and those that weren't. But I just went off on a bit of a tangent there.

God. Even when this show gets something right, it gets like ten other things wrong.

Anyway, TDLR: If you want a moment to be significant, let it be significant. Let it make big changes that actually matter. Don't be a coward who's too afraid to change the hierarchy of your story in any kind of way that matters.

If you want a moment to have an impact on your audience, give it time to breathe on its own, and don't repeat it for at least a little while after.

And for God's sake, if an ability is a big deal, then don't let some unimportant side character that no one cares about also have that ability. It just makes it seem like it's not.

[ragnarlothcat]

I know I’m a chronic overthinker but I’ve been in the same fandom for three years or so now and I was reflecting that writing seemed so much easier when I first started out. Just looking at my output since 2021 shows a clear trend: I’ve been writing much less and it’s been taking me way longer.

I figured that I’d gotten a little burned out and that three years is a long time to focus solely on the same two guys making out and that there’s a limit to the number of situations I can put them in before I start to get bored. But I don’t think that’s quite my problem because even now, a million years later, I have ideas for dozens of fics and AUs that would be interesting to explore or funny to write.

No, it’s that I’ve let the larger fandom overwhelm me and it’s left me constantly second-guessing my writing. And I don’t mean that I’ve gotten nasty comments or asks, because I haven’t! All the other fans have been consistently wonderful and fun people with really valuable insights. And it’s not that I’ve been obsessing over stats or comments or worrying about going against popular headcanons. I mean, I’m just as excited as anyone else to see an AO3 email in my inbox but I’m also perfectly happy posting niche fics for an audience of me and my three weirdest friends.

It’s more that after so long engaging with other fans and other fics and the general meta, I’ve ended up writing too self-consciously. I’ve read so many interpretations of canon events, analyses of characterization and comparisons between fiction and real-world politics over the years, and I’ve enjoyed them because I genuinely care about these stories and these characters! I like seeing what everyone else thinks and then considering their points of view, no matter how bewildering they might seem at first.

But now it feels like I’m writing almost defensively, like I have to justify every choice I’m making based on this enormous and contradictory body of information. Three years ago I’d have written a scene in a few thousand words and moved on to the next plot point with my momentum intact. Now I’m constantly wringing my hands over things like physical details (I guess he’s not exactly a redhead) or broader social implications (is this trope misogynistic?) or finicky logistics (these locations are too far apart for this scene to make sense) or controversial character nuance (does writing this guy as a kind, doting husband make me an abuse apologist???) and the result is that I’m paralyzed with indecision and a ridiculous need to support everything I write with a lot of context that isn’t especially fun to write or, I suspect, especially fun to read.

I’m aware that this problem is entirely in my own head and that no one has asked me for any of this. And it’s not that all those questions aren’t interesting and important things to contemplate. But I miss the days of sitting down at my laptop and going “wouldn’t it be funny if these dorks played a video game together?” and then writing exactly that.

I don’t know. Were my fics better three years ago? I kind of doubt it. I’ve looked back at some of them and if nothing else I now have a better grasp of what tense I’m supposed to be using. But I definitely had more fun writing those older stories, which maybe feels more important.

[questforgalas]

Now that I've played the MW campaign and am even more unhinged about the MW3 campaign, here are my completely unasked for thoughts on how Activision should've mapped out the games for an at least 6 game story arc

MW

Absolutely no changes. Kyle is a precious muffin. Price is a precious muffin. Alex is a precious muffin. Farah is a queen.

Interesting campaign. Diverse levels. Dynamic and well thought out storyline.

MW2

My baby. The love of my life. My most precious muffin. That campaign? That storyline? Chef's kiss. Ale and Rudy? The best additions. Valeria?? Fucking wonderful. That plot twist?? Grasping my pearls

No changes

MW3

More 141 levels, make the intro levels 141 as a well oiled machine, digging up the intel telling about the prison break. Give more background to what Farah is in the middle of instead of dropping right in especially with fucking Graves suddenly chilling on the comms, bridging that gap between MW2 and here. Take out a good chunk of the Makarov cut scenes and give more levels chasing intel, letting the player put together the pieces with every cold trail Makarov leaves behind, getting frustrated along with the team. Keep the flashback once the team reaches boiling point, but make Ghost less inclined towards Johnny to keep more inline with their reluctant start in MW2.

Shepherd and Graves go off the grid after they give their intel, they disappear. Makarov is making moves in Urzikstan so 141 goes to help ULF (did I mention more 141?). It was a distraction, they uncover Makarov's plans for London, scramble back, it plays out, Price ends up dead (it's a military game, people are going to die, and Price dying had the most potential impact. Come along, I'll explain), Makarov gets away.

Final cut scene is a funeral send off Price deserves, montage of the boys back on base dealing with the aftermath, and Laswell finding Ghost, explaining how he's the Lieutenant, he's the obvious next choice to take up the mantle and Ghost simply says "I'm not the obvious choice" and the final scene pans on Gaz, the Robin to Price's Batman.

The levels will be meatier, longer, and at least 5 more added to deepen the story. Diversity of the play style will be more than just standard campaign and online-layout. The Makarov plot will be discovered by the player, not told to them, adding more intrigue to the character. The final level will be multi tiered, hopping between the two pairs. Actually 8 hours of gameplay instead of the measly 3 they gave us (yes, the MW3 campaign is 3 hours of gameplay compared to MW and MW2s 8 hours each)

MW4

Open to 141 arriving on mission, Soap tapping Gaz on the shoulder and says "Ready when you are, Captain" with that cheeky smile. Makarov's gone dark, eerily quiet the past couple months, but they have a lead on Shepherd and Graves so they're going in. It all points back to Mexico, Graves accepting his military career is fucked after Las Almas and turning Shadow Company into full mercs instead of PMCs now, specializing in weapons dealings. He recognized the advantage a deal with Valeria could have and they've been working together.

CUT TO LOS VAQUEROS/141 REUNION. More Alejandro and Rudy background (just let Alain Mesa, the BAFTA Game Award Nominee for this freaking role, fucking shine). Dive into the Valeria background, make the raid mentioned during her interrogation a flashback level in Valeria's POV. The team has to go undercover to get close to the intel, Rudy gets picked, gathers the intel, but gets compromised. Now its a race to rescue Rudy. Ale and Gaz go after Rudy while Soap and Ghost follow the lead Rudy got them. Ale and Gaz raid a cartel base/prison, let Ale take Gaz under his wing recognizing the young captain's feeling the pressure, some banter, some advice, wholesome Ale and Gaz bonding.

Soap, on the other hand, is barely being contained by Ghost. He's in full attack dog mode with Graves scent nearby and Ghost has half a mind to let the demolition expert go completely feral, but the lieutenant part of him keeps his sergeant in check. Further their dynamic, more banter balancing right on the edge. They clear out the compound, find a gold mine of intel around the dealings, and Johnny gets to put the bullet right between Graves' eyes.

One line in the intel catches their eyes - Makarov

MW5/6

Make the Makrov storyline a 3 game storyline - MW3 intro and back-to-back MW 5 and 6. Now with ties in Mexico and ULF, all established teams and beloved characters can be brought in in some aspect throughout both games to take him down.

Ale and Rudy are cleaning up El Sin Nombre's ties in Las Almas, cutting each line of Valeria's arms dealings, trying to cut off the courier of Makarov's destruction.

Farah continues to lead ULF to free Urzikstan, Makarov taking advantage of the dissent and chaos and placing a foothold there, ultimately dividing forces and efforts from his background machinations.

With Makarov's trail warm again, the 141 are out for blood. Could take the plunge and make GhostSoap canon through subtle dialogue options or touch gestures in cut scenes. The end is possibly near, they're all allowing themselves to think about the future, why not take the plunge Activision? Or they stay vague/platonic and the dynamic is further developed. Dialogue options and cut scenes show further bond with Gaz as well who's stepped into being Captain a little more, easing into the shoes.

MW5 is cat and mouse. Makarov leaves little treats and traps and the team is chasing after their tails, always 3 steps behind him. Give Makarov more scenes, not telling the player his plan but let his character development fly. Let the unhingedness flourish.

Finally, they catch a break at the end of the game and MW6 is the final chase. 8 hours of them hunting down Makarov. Ale and Rudy cleaned up Las Almas and can join them, bringing the whole gang together internationally (bonus points to make one a cold weather mission and the two Mexicans are just bitching the whole time just for Soap and Ghost to tease them back about payback for having to deal with the Mexican desert for a whole week). Two characters would die (not in one game, over the course of the two) - Farah (she's been a fighter her whole life, it would be a full circle for her to heroically go out with a gun in her hand) and either Ghost or Soap.

Soap dying here would be so much more impactful. He'd be more established as a character, have deeper relationships with all members of the game, and it's highly possible to have a situation where a charge isn't going so he's the only one who can pull it off (reminiscent of Hevy in TCW). Going out in a blaze just like he's always imagined.

Ghost dying would be another full circle option with his canon (it would be a sacrificial choice, dying on his own terms as his own choice) and with his long career, it would be heartbreaking but understandable. This also leaves the 141 in the hands of the two youngest, the Captain and the new Lieutenant, tasked with bringing in the next generation of the best soldiers.

And if there just happens to be a cut scene where Johnny has an extra pair of dog tags and a modest ring dangling from his chain? Then you know I infiltrated the Activision writers' room.

Oh what happened to Shepherd you ask? End credits role on MW6 and another cut scene begins. A lone cabin in the middle of nowhere in the woods, smoke trailing out of the chimney. Cut interior, a haggard Shepherd bent over a desk, mumbling to himself, scribbling on something. He tacks the paper on the board in front of him, revealing Gaz and Soap's pictures amidst a mess of strings and maps and notes saying "Traitors". Then it cuts black

Boom, there you go Activision. Enjoy all of your awards and record breaking sales. It could've been that easy

[dangermousie]

A pusher post: What Happened in Bali (2004)

This monster hit of a drama (also known as Something Happened in Bali) starred three about to become huge stars - Ha Ji Won, Jo In Sung and So Ji Sub. It's one of my favorite kdramas of all times and was HUGE when it aired, but because it's almost 20 years old, is nowadays less known than it should be.

My elevator pitch for it would be: "What it's like to be the object of (adult) Domyouji's obsession in real life." Answer - misery and self-destruction.

The plot seems fairly straightforward and revolves around four individuals, all of whom are damaged and none of whom are that likeable but some of whom (if you are me), you end up loving anyway.

Ha Ji Won is Soo Jung, a poor girl working as a tour guide who ends up being torn between attentions of two very different and very damaged men - the icy, ambitious, poor one played by So Ji Sub and a volatile, abused car crash about to happen wealthy one played by Jo In Sung. (In possibly my favorite performance of his ever.) The fourth main character is a wealthy young woman played by Park Ye Jin who was in love with So Ji Sub but threw him over for the status and money of arranged engagement with JIS.

Bali is a very dark drama, in a way dramas really aren't today. Yes, of course there are dramas with damaged or even negative protagonists, tragedy, and darkness. But what old kdramas sometimes had is a certain grinding every day aspect of misery, if it makes sense. It is not larger than life, there is no message, it's not healing. It's broken people trying to get through soul-crushing darkness and being ugly about it and often failing.

Ha Ji Won, the pivot of the story, is not happy or noble. She is desperate and grasping; she wants money and she wants love and she wants everything, anything to feel the gaping hole in her soul. I knew the story wasn't going to be your usual one when I saw the scene where Jo In Sung's character Jae Min offers her $$$ for a one-night stand and she calls him a jerk (and you see by his reaction he doesn't even understand that what he said was insulting - he is puzzled. In his world, everything can be bought and sold, and there is no such thing as affection) and then asks whether he is going to pay before or after. In her world, there is no room for the grand gesture, for throwing money in his face. She leaves only because he kicks her out (giving her money but not doing anything - which is so telling) telling her to buy her new shoes (hers are broken) and saying "it's not fun any more" (the first of many instances she really throws him off any usual ways he deals with things). And then she trips on her broken heels walking out, sprawling in the lobby, inelegantly grabbing and picking up money.

When we first see her, she seems mostly well-adjusted but the more the story progresses, the more we see she is just as broken as Jae Min, who just be the most broken kdrama ML that I have come across. (So Ji Sub's character In Wook has frozen himself and somehow avoided some damage that way; it doesn't hurt that his damage unlike SJ and JM's isn't reinflicted over and over; and Yeong Joo, our secondary girl, is largely content - she mostly accepts the devil's bargain she made for money.)

One of the biggest pleasures of this drama for me is contrasting in the way Jae Min is going to be with Soo Jung eventually - utterly desperate and brought down and willing to beg and beg and beg, and the way he is at the start - emotionally detached, with all the 'power' on his side - I mean, contrast his propositioning her for that one-night stand and the scene where they finally make love, a dozen eps from then.

BUT! And I think this is one of the reasons I love this drama so much - it is not a story of love as salvation, it is the story of love as damnation. As far as Jae Min is concerned, this is the story of devolution. His soul wakes up and he falls in love and he commits himself utterly and that breaks him down more and more and eventually makes him a broken destroyer of himself and the woman he loves. Because, the drama seems to say, in his environment, only a true cold monster can thrive or at least survive; the moment he loves someone, he's done. The way this drama shows abuse is so telling. His monster father beats him regularly even if Jae Min is a grown man (there is a scene in his office in ep 2 where daddy is practicing golf in his office and Jae Min flinches any time the golf club is in his vicinity, and almost stutters and it's a small preview of what we are going to get.) But his mother who spoils her "baby" even though that "baby" is a grown man, but only if he does what she wants; he's supposed to have as much self-determination as a poodle, is as bad.

And there is Ha Ji Won - she is so desperate, so alone, so grasping, so greedy, so alive. She is a rare kdrama FL who sleeps with both her leading men (not at once, it WAS 2004 :P) and takes so long to decide that she loves Jae Min because she doesn't want to let go of even a crumb of what she can have because she's been so starved in every way.

And then there is the infamous ending

SPOILER

SPOLER

SPOILER

Where Jae Min (who has been through total hell by then; god the scene where he's on his knees begging his father to spare Soo Jung, trying to convince the man he never loved her) believes wrongly but reasonably that Soo Jung never loved him and played him to take all the family's stuff in cahoots with In Wook and goes into their room (where they just finished banging) and shoots them both right after she just finished telling In Wook that she is going to go back to Jae Min despite the risk because that's who she loves is !!!!! And as she dies, she tells Jae Min, for the first time, she loves him. And he goes out and the last shot (no pun intended) is him on his knees putting a gun to his temple and a shot ringing out. And that's the ending; our main three dead (and Jae Min never knew she never betrayed him and only finding out she loved him when it was too late), the sole survivor is the ice cold secondary girl. All people who had some humanity dead and destroyed by the monsters heaping constant wrong and abuse on them until they broke and said monsters continuing with their nice lives.

And the thing is - the drama does not condone anyone - not the family abusers who break Jae Min down bit by bit in the drama, not Jae Min who does the most monstrous thing at the end, going from a man willing to die body and soul so Soo Jung could live to the man who himself kills her, not In Wook who steals everything who wasn't nailed down, nor secondary girl who will never be touched by anything, not even Soo Jung who got into all of this because of her greed - it just lays it all out and presents their humanity and goes "watch. watch. watch."

Nobody would make this nowadays. They'd need a message or a cynical tint or w/e. Not just - sometimes there is no moral, no message, sometimes you watch people self destruct and love them as character even if not as people anyway.

There has been a rumored remake (shudder) for years but it has never taken off the ground and thank god. Without cast and with modern way of doing dramas, it would be terrible.

PS Speaking of terrible, the clothes in this drama oh my GOD.

[humanmorph]

pal33. i kind of just wanted to post a drawing but ended up writing a ton somehow...

I didn't take a ton of notes for this. I think it's mostly because it's so cold lately I don't feel like taking my hands out of my pockets, and also I'm not great at typing while walking so I'd have to stop, which, cold again!

Keith talking about how ruminating /calms Eclectic down/ made me grasp my head. Like in disbelief. I went HUH?! out loud. I still haven't quite pinned down the exact emotion that was brought forth by, but I think it was partly a kind of the feeling that I was actively being catered to when I wasn't expecting that OR even wanted it like. I already liked the guy. This was unnecessary. And the other part was that I love it. Absolutely obsessed with this flavour of weirdguy-ism. It's so good in a... Hm. Ok I'm having Eclectic thoughts that I'll hold onto for now, but like. "good to have a character sketch" yeah it sure is!

...and here are a bunch of other Eclectic thoughts that aren't the ones I just mentioned. i did not even expect to type all this when i started

(SANGFIELLE SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH? sorry.) It IS kind of strange to have a new character coming in this late w/ how close the Blue Channel crew is... I've noted before that it's like, different to other FatT seasons were everyone is just so coworkers ever (Sangfielle being the epitome of that. To Me. "[...] and it is you standing over the body of someone you used to work with." BANGER line). Even Phrygian was weird, but in a way that fit because of who they were. What also plays into this is noone except Figure really having space for gravity clocks. Which like... obviously characters can have relationships without those, but there's a reason they exist which is like, this is so important that it has mechanical advantage, or this is something I want to explore, like that means something? And I still wish Phrygian had had more, because the one with Figure didn't even end up coming up like, basically at all. It's a shame Brnine was so popular re: clocks bc those two could've really benefitted from a gravity clock, since they were together on missions a lot with the B-Plot thing. Well and also I liked them. Sigh ok I got sidetracked. Phrygian... But yeah, it may just be that this sortie is exterbating it bc Eclectic is literally by himself fucking around disconnected from everyone going through the horrors together (and that's bonding, baby!). I don't know how much longer the season will be, and maybe the feeling I currently have, which is like "it's the Blue Channel! ...and that other guy" will change. And like if it wasn't clear I do love that other guy I think that other guy is the most immediately compelling character Keith has had (similarly to Phrygian, actually. With Phrydge it was the concept & design that really excited me (Branched!!!) and with Eclectic it's that he's literally so funny and also Keith acts him great)! And he JUST got here, so I don't wanna be unfair. But it's been kicking around in my head & I wanted to write it down at least. It's like, would /I/ like his character to have a deeper connection to the rest of the player characters? Yeah generally I guess I would. Does Keith gaf about that as a player? I don't know that, but it's probably less of an impulse for him than, say, Ali. That would be my guess as a listener, anyways. And I hope Keith is having a better time playing now! It feels like it, but then again I also had no clue that he /didn't/ with Phrygian until he said it. (Still miss Phrygian though. Which is in combat with me being actually really happy with how they end up, like it might be the most a character 'death' on FatT has worked for me (not that there are /that/ many, but still).)

Back to. the episode: Good ep! I don't have all that much to say (OK. LIE). Just a thoroughly good time in a bunch of different ways. Love the singular character focus. Also just really Fun, like, made me laugh a lot. Fun interactions between good friends and whatnot. A bit that made me laugh was at the end when Ali was trying to figure out how to be find a way through the catacombs and suggests something that Austin has this "what?? no. thats scary." reaction to. Wait I'll just get it:

ALI: [talking about navigating the catacombs] And does it involve going through one of these body holes. AUSTIN: (genuinely aghast) Oh my god! ALI: Like, are there other tunnels. AUSTIN: There are other tunnels but you never have to go through a body hole- well, I shouldn't say never. That's SO creepy.

Which then gets the very great visual of Brnine doing that. Like it IS creepy and person having to crawl through tight space IS a thing that just gets me, even though it doesn't really get focus here I can't help but immediately picturing it... I was also for some reason expecting for there to be another body blocking the way... I've said this before and then was immediately like haha jk but I'm over it I will stop pretending I'm NOT kidding. I want Figure to roll worse. I miss Gur. Can you Fail Figure? I miss my friend Gur Sevraq. It's a thin line between that and Figure dying though (I DON'T WANT THIS. Because I want them to go further as a character but also, (thought I had only recently) what happens to my friend. Name of Gur Sevraq?). Anyways Gur... "This is false. But not all false things are impossible. And many have happened before." and "This is a thing that has already happened. She has seen it." <- has me sitting down and stapling my fingers. The. Perennial. Perennial

I don't have anything to say about Brnine aside from that I love them and that Ali is on her A-game. "Brnine is. Brnine and killed the president but is still a goofy loser" like. Ok. That's everything to me

The differences in, say, Thisbe's dream vision vs. Figures is interesting. And Cori falls somewhere in the middle? Like, Figure catching on really quickly, and also being in this situation of... all their friends are dead. People fear them. Being so immediately one that they are uncomfortable in & that feels somewhat alien vs. Thisbe being in a role that she envisions for herself and as such presumably feels comfortable in? Austin seems to be playing at the hooks with the visions (& they are what got immediately affected when they entered those), and for Figure it's probably "The only way to escape the Witch is by endangering others, but they seem eager to accept the risk." that feels the most relevant there? Maybe the Witch part less so, but least Austin mentioning that Cori specifically sacrificed herself to save Figure reminded me of this just now. For Thisbe it's "Fighting is not my purpose, but there is nowhere else for me until the fighting is over.", which I already talked a bit about above, though what's super interesting to me there is that this is obviously not all that's happening. I don't quite know what to do with there being More of Thisbe / units of her type... Or how she feels about that, if any which way. Cori's is interesting too because next to her sword + shield tenets being pulled in (specifically mentioning that they should be on the defense multiple times, which Cori ignores to charge ahead!) it's also the sense of her not wanting to be... underestimated or looked down on. Which is very much the vibe with Elle as a rival btw (it's fun. I'm happy Austin is having a good time with them lol). Oh! Also Austin says something about how it would've gone bad either way (even if Cori HAD stayed back to defend), which is another difference to both of the others visions, but expecially Thisbe's. Vibes just different. Well I'm curious what'll happen there next! Brnine is coming to visit! I didn't even mean to type this much but this really is very cool to me. I'm looping back around to what Gur said, too... Wish they were here...

Oh and Cori being glad to see Figure & hugging them really got to me too. They're sweet :' ).

and finally.

#MILLIEMENTION

I'm a simple woman I hear her name and I clap and cheer. originally this drawing was at the top but then I was like nah this is for people who either read everything OR clicked the readmore to then scroll past it... either way. work for it a little. i liked how it turned out! this is currently my new favourite brush.