The post of saddest(?) supernatural moment gave me the idea to maka a list of my own... You know, an honest list which will not push any agenda or exclude one of the main character completely to forcefully feed to a romantic pair which does not even exist.

so here it goes-

10. Dean's reaction after Sam's death in 13x21 :

This one is so nominal and insignificant to be in this list and not one of top moments for a lot, but this scene ripped my heart open when I saw it for the first time. It manages to show us how Dean's whole world will literally fall apart and make him an empty vessel if Sam is gone and he can do nothing about it - and Jensen manages to portray it with just a walk, two blank eyes and then one drop of tear. Kudos.

9. Church Scene in 'Sacrifice' (8x23):

Anyone who has not cried in this scene? Perfeftly shows the core of the show, the deep love between two brothers- despite all the reasons, all the idiological differences, all the mature discussion and all- Sam is the baby brother of Dean; at the end he needs Dean to be there as a big bro, to tell him to let it go, to clutch him in his chest. Ultimately they will always choose each other and nothing else will come between them.

8. Dean's death in 9x23:

One of the saddest death of Dean, and perhaps it comes to this list because of the build-up and drama follows this. Both had their own reasons for the tension they had this whole season, but when the tragedy comes it hits so hard that all those logics fell apart. It scares to peep in Sam's headspace at this time of dean's dying- imagine you discarding the person you love the most as you are reasonably angry with him, and in a few days he is dying in your arms when you have hardly talked out your differences.

7. Why don’t you believe in us too (14x12) :

Probably should come much later in this list, but this scene stood out in my eyes because it was such a fresh air in the terrible plotless mimicry that SPN had become in later seasons. The scene after ages which sums up Sam and Dean, the codependent brothers whom we had forgotten. Such a long time after we see Sam the little brother, witness the emotional turmoil he was going through silently and how it exploded. The only scene which makes season 14 worth remembering. Also Jared just nailed this scene!

6.) Dead or Alive (3x16):

This scene breaks my heart in pieces. Dean bravely going for the last fight before the horrible death he will be facing. And he trying to cheer up baby bro, he wants the last memory with his brother to be in this car- singing along together... How his face slowly glooms at the end and his eyes full of fear... Early seasons really were gems!

5. Sam in Mystery spot (3x11) :

Undoubtedly one of the best SPN episode with perfect blend of mystery, fun, laughter, tragedy and emotion... The funny vibe of the episode ends in a moment when we see Sam is not waking up from the nightmare loop. Then we see a robot- a scary robot who only wants to get his brother back at any cost. This episode is yet another example of how Sam loves Dean just as fiercely as Dean does, and he is not any less codependent.

4. Barn scene and alone Sam (15x20) :

God! What can I say about this!

Just want to add, Sam wandering alone in the bunker after creamating Dean hurts me equally.

3. John's death (2x01):

Cannot forget this one. This episode happens to be another favourite of mine, and the way John sacrifices himself for his son proves that a father can go to any extent for his children. The farewell scene of John - where he asks for forgiveness and goodbye to dean without him understanding brings tears to my eyes. Such a beautiful acting by JDM and so realistic portrayal of a flawed, helpless and loving father.

2. End of Season 5 (5x22)

The ground was set, the battle was about to begin, the ultimate faceoff between Lucifer and Michael was going to start- then what happens? A stubborn idiot boy with a muscle car and hellbent attitude comes in between- knowing that he cannot survive this- just because one of these celestial entities have captured his brother as a vessel and he won’t leave his brother alone. Till his last drop of blood he keeps on trying- trying to reach his brother who is trapped under something much bigger- keeps on telling that It's okay, he is not alone, his big brother is here. And guess what, he succeed. His brother broke free the bind of one of the strongest entity of universe and fought. The climax scene gives me goosebump always followed by a bunch of grief and saddness the ending carries. Had season 5 been the last season of SPN, and this be the exact way the series ended, I would absolutely have no regret!

1. Sammy's first Death (2x21):

No matter how many sad scenes are perfectly executed in SPN, nothing can exceed the emotion of this one. Jensen will also not be able to exceed the level of performance be set in this particular scene. Period.

So this is it... I must have excluded many. And turns out my list is full of Sam and Dean only and I am also not unbiased 🤣🤣 Well, there are sad scenes that do not involve only the brothers and I still like them, but not my top 10. Maybe have to make list of top 11 to 20 in order to include them. 😁

Please share your favourite saddest top 10 as well.

Here's a little something I drew to celebrate this momentous occasion 😊. I didn't even realize what a special day today was until I checked IG and saw the Stouds' posts and a few others celebrating. My mind immediately went into hyperdrive so not only did I draw this but also a few dozen little ghosties that I hope to transform into stickers someday soon. How did you celebrate our dear Lockwood and Co.'s birthday?

barbie girl ｡˚ ⋆꒰ა♡໒꒱⋆ ˚｡ 🎀🍉

mike wheeler x doll collector! fem reader

smut. this is fucking nasty so if u guys dont like mike wheeler smut just s c r o l l ♡♪

age pairing : 17-18

warnings : none

the exchange of looks and stares between you and a classmate of yours in chemistry bubbled across the hallway. you had taken an interest towards this boy, “wheeler” as you called him. his glare towards you always sent chills to your spine. or even to your throbbing— we aren’t there yet.

it wasn’t a joke that he was hot. he was really hot for a nerd. his fingers always got your panties in a bunch. his nose— oh god don’t even get started with his nose. his nose is perfect and to think of it, his curls were cute.

you guys were partnered up for a project and he had to come to your house to finish, and that’s how he ended up in your room, admiring your collection.

mike considered himself a gentleman, a respectable boy, but boy did he reconsider those words as soon as he saw what you were wearing. half of the time he was over, he was either talking to you or staring at your hardened nipples under your shirt due to the cold temperature of your ac.

“you collect barbies?”

“yeah.”

“don’t you think they’re kind of uh.. creepy? imagine sleeping and first thing you see when you wake up is a doll.”

“i don’t think so. they’re quite pretty to me, to be honest”

“i don’t really have a collection. i play dungeons and dragons.”

his fingers lingered on your barbie doll that you were quite fond of. your malibu barbie. a wave of confidence washed over you.

you had remembered the lingerie set you bought a couple of months ago on impulse. it wasn’t like you were actually planning to fuck someone. you weren’t a virgin. you had taken a few polaroids of yourself wearing the dainty pink lace panties and the bra that was almost spilling your huge breasts.

“i’ve got a barbie you can play with.”

mike felt his cheeks go red. what was she implying? immediately, dirty thoughts went onto his pretty head. he had always thought that y/n l/n was hot, first of all, she was a cheerleader. she was pretty. he just chose to ignore those lingering feelings he had because he didn’t want a relationship.

“is this gonna be a one time thing?” he asked. they were both slowly closing the gap between them, feeling their hot breaths on each other. “it’s up to you, mike.” slowly sliding down her own straps of her pink gingham tank top.

“i don’t want it to be a one time thing.”

“so do i.”

those words made him push over the edge, as you pushed him to your bed and straddled him on top, grazing your fingers on the evident bulge in his jeans. he pulled you to his face and you guys started to make out.

you unbutton his shirt while his hands were fondling your thighs, later you came to unzip his jeans and later his underwear, leaving him completely unclothed. he went to pull your tank top until you stopped him.

“ah ah ah. you don’t get to touch me.”

“come on y/n. please let me touch you—“

“you have to work for it, baby”

feeling defeat, you had tied mike onto your bed posts. your bed didn’t look any different to your barbies’ clothes. it was all styled in pink and lace.

you teasingly take your shorts off. leaving you in your sheer pink panties that made mike drool at the sight of your pussy. sitting beside him, you slowly pull your panties showing him your glistening core.

“i wanna touch you so bad, barbie girl.”

“good things come to those who wait, ken.”

you unclipped your bra revealing your tits. mike watched your breasts move with a slack jaw, the tip of his dick having a shade of an angry red. of course, you didn’t fail to see that so you did him a favor.

“you’re so big mike” “how will you fit in me?” you showered him with praises that didn’t fail to make him moan as your fingers were wrapped around his cock with your spit coated in it.

you crawl on top of him, only for his mouth to be met with your cunt. immediately he latched his mouth onto your pussy, and licked a stripe up, leaving you shuddering with his touch. kitten licks turned into big licks. big licks turned into sucking. the sucking turned into him plunging his tongue in and out your throbbing core, making you catch your high and throw your head back in pleasure.

mike grabbed onto your hips to support you, further, his hands started to dig onto your supple skin. “m-mike— i’m close- oh god” the overstimulation made you feel weak. you eventually started grinding on his face. it had only been a few minutes yet this boy had made you come more than 2 times. you felt yourself release, him lapping up your juices with his tongue.

you pulled off his mouth and collapsed on the other side of the bed. “you alright?” he asked. he sat up and looked at you, noticing your chest was heaving up and down.

“i have an idea.”

“well, we can make that idea happen if you untie me.”

“oh i will.”

you had grabbed your lipstick shaped vibrator from the drawer of your nightstand, mike parting his lips in shock of all the toys you have hidden in your drawer. you quickly untied his wrists from the posts of your bed, him immediately getting on top of you and starting to kiss you.

“what are we gonna do with that little toy of yours?”

“use it on me, please.”

“mmh, what if i don’t wanna?”

“i don’t take no for an answer pretty boy.”

next thing you know, you were sprawled in your bed. legs parted wide and mike dragging the vibrator across your pussy. “o-oh! oh my god- fuck!” you said gripping the sheets. he had increased the speed of the toy, making you buck your hips unconsciously. surprisingly you squirt. (bye wtf im crying how does squirting even work)

“oh god, you’re a squirter-“ “shut up!”

“i wanna fuck you even more now”

“then do it mike”

he had lined his cock up your pussy and started to ease himself in slowly. he starts to pound in your pussy in a controllable speed, then it goes faster. faster until you feel like your back was going to break after all that arching. you could even see the tip of his cock visibly inside your womb.

“shit— you feel so good barbie.”

“faster- faster- please baby”

loud moans were heard across the room. you were thankful that your parents were away this week for a vacation in italy. if your parents were home, god you would’ve been grounded for half the year.

“y/n?”

“yeah?”

“can i um— ask you something? its- its more of a favor but like—“

“what is it?”

“could you uh— ride me.”

you looked at him with a surprised look painted on your face. you didn’t expect him to ask you for a favor like that, as if you weren’t the one who started this fuck session with him. his cheeks were red out of embarrassment, you smiled as soon as you saw his face and agreed with his “favor”.

you flip each other’s positions, leaving him under you. you sink onto his dick, firstly, moving your hips back and forth, ending up with you vigorously bouncing on him.

his moans were loud. he was whining like a bitch, showering you with praises like “y/n you’re so good..” “so fucking beautiful” “you feel so great oh god—“ he felt himself slowly reaching his high. he didn’t have a condom on. “y-y/n i’m about to cum.” he spoke so softly.

“i didn’t put a condom on”

“it’s okay, you can do it inside.”

those words pushed him over the edge, releasing inside of you. as soon as you felt his cum inside you, the knots inside were erupted.

you collapsed on to the other side of the bed looking at him. his eyes shut and his lips parted, chest heaving.

“that was nice” you said. just so that the silence wasn’t so awkward.

“yeah. you know, i’ve always liked you.”

“you did?”

“yeah.” he said. kissing your lips softly. it wasn’t like anything you had done just a few seconds ago. it was a sweet kiss. the ones you share with pure love in it.

you guys were totally fucked up the next day tho, you had forgotten about the reason why he was even over at your house.

Distracted pt 2

<- First Part ~ Next Part? ->

MINORS ONCE AGAIN BEGONE

It’s finally here! First post of 2024, took me long enough.

ANYWAYS enjoy! Thanks for waiting for me. I love you guys.

A month went by after your… meeting with Sebastian in your room. An entire month. While you knew that wasn’t going to be a regular thing you figured something would’ve changed, maybe some light flirting here and there but no it went right back to the way it was for him. Daily tasks, chores, cooking and tending to the young Lord. Thats what your days were filled with. You sigh to yourself as you think about the events that happened between you two, the heat in your cheeks becoming obvious to anyone around. Thankfully you were alone right now. You pat your cheeks and mutter to yourself for being so easy for this man, not to mention now that it’s happened you can’t help but imagine what he meant by breaking you.

“Trust me darling, I’d break you…” echoed in your head, your cheeks becoming hotter and spread through to your ears and core.

Fuck. Not again.

You can’t be distracted again so soon, yes it’s been a month of you sneaking a self session or two but Sebastian satiating you only made your hunger that more intense when it came on. You glance around, the library was hardly used during this time of day unless the young lord wasn’t finished with his studies. Nobody would be coming. Not for awhile at least. It wouldn’t hurt to sneak one here right?

Right?

You shake your head and slap your cheeks. What are you thinking?! Anywhere outside your private quarters is unforgivable and you’d be fired on the spot if someone heard or found you. Can’t risk that, you’ll just wait for tonight to try and silently tap one out. As you exit the library you cross paths with Sebastian who was making his way there. You give him a soft smile and he stops walking to speak with you.

“Y/n. How is your day going?” He asks

“All is well. I just finished dusting the library and I’m now moving onto the windows.” as you explain what you’re going about doing you swore you saw Sebastian’s eyes dart to your lips. He was probably just listening, right? Probably.

“You’re working efficiently today. No distractions?” He teased and you immediately break out into a blush, not like your previous one hadn’t died out yet. “S-Sebastian!” You whisper as you try and hide your face from him. How embarrassing.

“Perhaps your distractions are worse now, hm?” He lets himself be amused about how easy you were to fluster. There you are, a mess in front of Sebastian. You felt your panties become wet from your excitement from the thought and tease. “P-please don’t tease me. It makes things difficult..” you admit, figuring that it was probably best to just be honest with the man. His eyebrows raise ever so slightly and a grin creeps onto his lips. “I’ll only do it when appropriate.” He walks past you and into the library to do whatever and you rush the opposite direction

You sigh as you continue about your day, assisting the others with tasks and it seemed like they were having a very….how do you put this? Shitty day, nothing was going right for them and you found yourself cleaning up more than you were helping. Your calm day was now hectic and tedious. At least you weren’t stuck in your head anymore, that was a plus. But it was obvious with all these set backs, not only were your three coworkers stressed but on top of that you all knew Sebastian was getting fed up.

That evening, while the others were getting extra work put on them as punishment, you were able to actually enjoy some alone time around the manor. You were doing another last sweep with your eyes to see if there was any last minute things you could do before heading to your quarters for the evening. Passing the grand staircase, the familiar statures of the Young Lord and Sebastian were walking down. You move out of their path and give a respectful bow of the head. “Young Lord, where are you off to at this time of night? Do you need me to fetch a coat, it is quite brisk outside.” You offer, awaiting the reply.

“I’ve been summoned for the evening for a mere meeting. It’s quite the pain. Sebastian will fetch the coat.” He said plainly, obviously not wanting to leave he comfort of his manor for this meeting. As Ciel declared that he would wait in the carriage Sebastian took this brief moment to speak with you. “Y/n, I must thank you for helping clean up those buffoons’ multiple messes. You assisted me a great deal. Keep up the good work.” Praise from Sebastian was no simple feat so your night was made and you decided to go to the bath and celebrate as well as you could with the alone time you knew you had in the servants area.

To your disappointment you found out that your own fingers weren’t enough for your hunger. Sure you got off but it wasn’t what you craved. You needed something, well someone inside you. The sleepless nights began from there out. You slept, but not much. Another week passes and you’ve been going about your daily routine in hopes you’d collapse from exhaustion sooner or later. The same routine with barely any events or excitement. Sebastian was still distant and busy with his own duties to pay much mind to you, the only thing you’d get is a greeting and maybe a few words exchanged throughout, as well as the occasional glance or two. Those glances gave you hope that he was still interested in you.

It was finally your turn for the bath and you couldn’t have waited any longer.

You ran your water.

Undressed.

And stepped into the tub.

A satisfied sigh leaves your lips as you began to slowly touch yourself in the bath, you couldn’t help but try again to not only relax yourself but pleasure yourself. You finish faster than normal yet still hungry for more, nevertheless you finish up your bath rather quickly afterwards. Stepping out of the bath room you return to your own room. You dress into your nightgown and lay in your bed trying to get warm quickly due to your damp hair catching every chill in the air.

You fall asleep.

You were woken up by the most subtle knock at the door, you flutter your eyes open as you heard the last few knocks and you rub your eyes and sit up quickly. Did you oversleep?? It was still dark. You hurry to the door and open it to see the figure of Sebastian standing in front of you.

“If I want some more fun. You’ll hear a knock. Now rest.” Echoed in your head as you look up at the red eyed butler.

“Good Evening.” He simply says, his voice lower and softer than usual.

“H-hello. Good Evening. Is all well?” You ask shyly as you step aside to invite him in. Watching as he enters your room you couldn’t help the thoughts flooding your mind. Your body reacting to his presence, you bit your lip as you wait for a hint, a confirmation, something to give you the okay to jump this man here and there. Sebastian looked over his shoulder before turning his body towards you. “I do hope I didn’t..” he began. His hand moving to unbutton his tailcoat. “..bother you.” He finished.

Oh my God.

His eyes were eating you alive. Those red orbs just drinking you in. Your body reacts immediately, soaking through your panties yet again, your skin getting goosebumps, the hair standing on the back of your neck. It was hitting you hard and he was only looking at you.

“Y-you’re never a bother, Sebastian. W-what can I h-help you with.”

Shit you’re stuttering. You wanted to sound flirtatious there. So much for that.

A low growl of amusement leaves his throat as he takes off his tailcoat and gloves. Watching this man strip the most basic clothing was the most attractive thing you have ever seen. “Don’t tell me you forgot what I said last time, Y/n.” The same echo plays.

“If I want some more fun. You’ll hear a knock.”

You remember that the knock was extremely subtle but yet, you somehow heard it while deep in sleep. Is that what he meant? No matter. He’s here now, undressing in front of you. Looking at you. Wanting you. You eye him up and down and you breathe deeply. “Would you like some assistance with your clothing?” You ask, miraculously without stuttering or stumbling your words. His eyebrow raises and his arms lower. “Please.” He simply says and you close the distance and began to undress this man. His skin smooth, cold, and gorgeous. You drink him in. Knowing if he came here on his own accord, you were about to get wrecked.

“Enjoying the show, dear?”

Wait did he really just use a pet name? No…Really? You take it without saying anything.

“Very much so..” you breathe out. Soon you feel two hands on your waist, gently grabbing your gown. “May I?” Ever the gentleman. “Of course.” You look up at him and his gaze sends another shiver down your entire body. The cold night air graces your skin and you couldn’t help but react a little to the suddenly exposed. Your arms hugged your body as you tried to get accustomed to the air around you, before you could a pair of hands grab your arms “Are you getting bashful on me or are you merely chilled?” He looked amused. You couldn’t help but grin ever so slightly. “Warm me up please?” A request? Are you insane? You’re lucky enough that Sebastian was here in the first place and not you’re making requests? “Well, since you asked so politely.” He replied. He is voice barely a whisper as he lifted you to the bed, your legs naturally wrapping around him as he placed you down. You didn’t want him far anymore, you needed him close, inside you. The lust you had for him was almost unnatural, yes you’re a horny bastard but it’s not ever this bad for one sole person. As handsome as he is, there was something threatening too. But none of that mattered in this moment, his hands dancing across your bare legs, teasing as he gets closer to your undergarment protecting your center. You didn’t realize the breath you were holding until you let it go from anticipation, your legs already beginning to tremble from his touch. “Darling y/n, you’re this excitable?” A subtle scoff of amusement escapes him as he began to take off your panties, a trail of your ‘excitement’ connecting you and the small piece of cloth as he slid them down. Your eyes meet his as he throws them aside, finally touching you. You bite your lip as he began to rub circles on you, your eyes rolling behind your eyelids. “Eyes on me.” He commanded lowly, you obey and look right at his red orbs that seemed to be glowing, you must already have the fog from pleasure and are seeing things a little funny…

You somehow stifled a moan when his fingers entered you and began to stroke your walls in a magical rhythm. You can’t already be building that fast, that’s just not fair. He could feel your body react and tighten round is long fingers. You were hopeless. “There’s the filthy girl I know” he says right as you’re inching towards your climax. “Don’t cum yet. I’m not finished.” Don’t cum? Excuse me? You do your best to hold it off but any flex or attempt you tried only made it feel better which obviously didn’t assist in any way. Your legs tense up and you bite your finger to hopefully hide the fact you just came. His eyes looked annoyed almost as he slipped his fingers out. “Tsk tsk, you can’t do one simple thing for me?” He asks and stands, all amusement vanished. “I-I’m sorry.” You mutter out between soft breaths. “Looks like I’ll stop playing nice then.” He undid his pants and got his cock into his hand, no words were exchanged just a simple look and you knew what he wanted. You moved and took him in your hand, stroking in a steady rhythm, hoping, praying you were starting to please him back, he made no sound of pleasure. Not a grunt not a sigh not even a twitch. You grit your teeth and part your lips, taking him into your mouth. “Good girl.” There it is. Now you got your praise, you’re happy. You bobbed your head and looked up at him, he looked regal almost with how he was looking down on you. His palm placed on the back of your head as he pushed himself deeper into your throat, almost making you gag on his length. A few more very difficult strokes of that and he released you from that torment and pushed you back onto the bed. “Take it like a good girl now.” He effortlessly slid inside you as he pulled your hips close. You gasp and put your hands over your mouth to suppress any unholy sounds that threatened to escape this room. He immediately began to pound your wanting pussy, reaching deep into your core and sending waves of euphoria through your body. How can someone feel this good? How can one person be so addicting? It was supernatural almost.

With one hand holding your hip and the other moving your hand away from your mouth, his perfect hair that was always in place, was slightly messier. “Let me hear those filthy little noises you try and hide.” Did he want the other staff to hear?? You still attempted to remain semi quiet as humanly possible as he ravaged your walls. As hot as it was you’d like to not have your coworkers know of your lewd sounds in the midnight hours, especially for WHO and why they came to be. That embarrassment may just kill you if anyone said anything about it.

Sebastian on the other hand didn’t like this ever so slightly louder moaning you’ve given him. Knowing you were holding back his quirked an eyebrow and moved the hand on your hip to your lower stomach, pushing a bit. This made his presence inside you that much more noticeable and you gasp at the sudden sensation change. It was intense, almost too much so. Dizziness taking over your mind as your eyes roll back once again, feeling a grip on your jaw, making you look at him once more. Fluttering your eyes open, seeing this visual come into focus was enough to send anyone to the pearly gates happily. He was enchanting, his figure over you, somehow glowing yet just too dark to make out many details below his waist, his glowing eyes piercing your soul and his melodic voice commanding you to be such a good girl for him. Your core yet again started to build another climax as your body temperature began to rise with the build. “You’re going to hold out for me this time, understand?” This was definitely a command and you did your best to obey. Adjusting your hips slightly so it wasn’t so much, at this point it was hopeless to not let those pornographic sounds leave your throat, you’ll just accept your fate with the embarrassment. As well as you were doing, pacing yourself as much as you could and trying to prevent another premature orgasm you kept building. “S-Sebastian please I-“ barely able to breathe out as he looked at you. “Beg for permission then.” His unamused gaze hurting your pride as you began to beg for your life. “Please Sebastian allow me to cum… I need to do bad and I- I can’t hold on m-much longer, I’ll be a good girl I swear it. Please let me cum.” The slew of words trailed out your mouth and flooded the air. Seemingly pleased with this begging he gave a single nod and upped his pace, the steady building became a rocket launch and you were thrown over the edge, your body tightening and all air leaving your lungs as you let out a long moan into a pillow you were able to grab in the process of it all. Sebastian fucked you through your orgasm and your entire body felt hot, like you were on fire. Again, how can someone feel this way? So perfect?

Without a moment to catch your breath, you felt your body flip onto your stomach, “on your knees.” He wasn’t done with you. As you obeyed and got on all fours he pushed your head down into the mattress below you. He slid right back into you without another word, picking up pace quickly afterwards. You thought it was intense before but this was a new level, thanks to whatever God that was looking out for you for the pillows and sheets that were stifling your noises. Although even with your moans muted the absolute vulgar sounds of both your bodies were filling the room, surely leaking into the hall. You’ve never felt such bliss though. Body on fire and mind like putty, you just prayed you could withstand this enough to pleasure him in return. Silent as ever he was, just breathing slightly heavier than his usual daily sighs. You looked back at him and his eyes were devouring your body, how it was reacting to him and just how good you were being for him. You didn’t move nor shy away from his intense pacing, you just took the borderline abuse. He slowed, coming to a bearable pace and allowing you to catch your breath. Your gaze unwavering from him as you two finally met eyes. “You’re doing much better than anticipated, yet it won’t be enough at this rate.” Blunt as always. “W-what do you mean?” You asked with dejection in your voice. Why weren’t you enough? Was your pussy just not pleasurable to this man?? “I do need you to be able to walk, I’d rather not have to find a replacement for you while you recover.” He explained, how could he hurt you that bad with just sex? I get being sore and maybe having to slow your walking pace a little bit not to the point of recovery time. You feel his cock slide out of you, a soft sigh of pleasure leaving your lips one last time as you sity on your now very dirty sheets.

“I’d hate for you to not finish…again..” you look down at your hands, embarrassed by your lack of skill. The sounds of clothing getting put on filled your ears, then along came a soft scoff of amusement. “Y/n, it’s perfectly fine. I appreciate your concern for my pleasure, but this was simply a test on how far I could push you without harming you. You impressed me, not the other way around.” In disbelief you looked up at him and you were met with his gentle smile that melted anyone lucky enough to witness it. “Now get some rest.” Not this again. He walked over and placed his lips onto your forehead, leaving a gentle kiss on your skin. Suddenly you became extremely fatigued, no exhausted and fell asleep right then. You fought it, you didn’t want to not at least walk him to your door like a decent human but alas, it overtook you faster than you could process.

“Rest”

That was the last thing you heard echo in your mind as you fell into darkness.

<><><><><><><>

Yay! You made it! Thanks again for waiting for long for this, I appreciate each of you. I still get notifications from the first one and I am so beyond touched with love and support. LMK if you want this to be a little series or something.

Bye!

i am sick like you as an incredibly casual fan who has since stepped back since october but was still following active blogs for it and i was always meaner than all of them so i like to watch it all go down and make fun of them but holy fuck its not even the half of it. there's a post somewhere that's one of those updates for "season 3 being possible" where one of the pieces of evidence is an actor from the show posted a picture of a woman who had 3 pigeons in front of her. and the person who posted this was like 37. 😭 they're all so insane and the second you say anything otherwise it's ruining hope and being condescending like oh my god it's a tv show girls...

to be honest like basic decency aside this entire thing is so ridiculous at its core i've never seen fandom brainrot at this level i know that's probably not TRUE and all fandom brainrot can end up like this but sooo many of them are so unself-aware it gives me a migraine. since when has throwing a tantrum a show got cancelled entitle you to getting another season 😭 they keep repeating that they deserve it and that they're so sad for the actors i even saw someone be like "making fun of the cancellation is ultimately cruel bc it means the crew who aren't millionaires and just everyday people are now out of a job, you're all being classist"... half of the ppl who post about it don't even ACTUALLY post about it anymore it's just been "renewal efforts" for two weeks now like holy fuck can you not take a hint... they seriously think asking netflix in the suggestion forms to do a season 3 is actually going to work if they just Believe Enough in the power of being 35

ok last ask I'm publishing for now bc it's an actual exit narrative lmao.

this touches on something I keep thinking about: the bizarre misunderstanding the fandom seems to have about how TV works. they talk about the actors and crew as if this one show was supposed to be their magnum opus and now they're all just sitting at home lamenting the loss of their livelihoods, and not signing new contracts, taking new auditions, moving on to other opportunities. they have this idea that they're going to persuade another network to pick the show back up, as if an entire TV production crew, sets, costumes, props etc. are a modular unit that goes on a shelf in a shoebox when it's not in use. it's very weird and kind of fascinating.

Alright, @paperstorm and @liminalmemories21 , based on this post, and your very sweet anon who asked what Carlos thought about TK getting snuggly with his dad:

Carlos is a man who wouldn’t imagine an adult relationship with his father with that much physical contact or intimacy and seeing this very attractive man who has an amazing relationship with his father probably was really, really appealing to Carlos.

We know, now, after four seasons, that Carlos desperately wanted a better relationship with his father than the one he had. When Carlos meets the Strands in 1.01, he finds a father and son team who work together who came down from New York, together, to join the 126. And the idea for Carlos that you could have an active working relationship with your father where the two of you were on the same team and there was as much respect as TK clearly had for his father when Carlos deeply believes his father never wanted him to be in law enforcement because he’s too soft. Carlos Reyes cannot imagine a world in which he is allowed to work with his father and be so unabashedly proud of him.

And then, LATER, at the bar, when Carlos is looking at this man who is actually too attractive to be real, he watches as TK snuggles in and leans on his father, and I agree with @paperstorm that part of this is about touch and that TK is snuggly and this is a good sign. BUT ALSO, that a grown man would cuddle his father in public and his father would ALLOW it. WILD. INCONCEIVABLE. And so very attractive to a man who I think WANTS that.

Which leads me to the part of my essay in which we get to how this leads to 2.04. It’s no secret, I adore 2.04. The lead up from 2.02 when TK is like “you spend so much time around my crazy family, when do I get to meet yours” and Carlos being like “refill?” and then the issue got forced at the farmers market. In the fight that ensues after the farmer’s market, the thing that Carlos says when he explodes is about how not everybody grows up with parents that threw the closet door off the hinges. Because Carlos is deeply envious of TK whose parents didn’t go silent when he came out and then pretended it didn’t happen. He’s envious of a TK who if he had tried to marry a woman a year later would have been like “Ummm….what the actual fuck, TK?” and made him sit and talk about it. (Do I still hate this storyline, yes? But it fits the narrative in this way) and like…not only did you, TK, come out and be accepted and encouraged, but it didn’t put a chasm between you and your parents of what they thought a man should be and what you were.

Like Owen Strand accepts and encourages the man that TK is. He accepts that TK is a gay man who is incredibly physically affectionate with anyone he loves and that’s okay. They still have a physical relationship and it’s not a problem and it’s actually something that is encouraged, meanwhile Carlos hasn’t said an honest thing to his father about who he really is and what he wants outside of showing his father he’s a good cop and a good man. And like, they’re not-not physically affectionate, Gabriel is a hugger, but the hug in 2.08 where Carlos is clearly craving more because his father whispers in his ear about the right kind of instincts still hurts every time, and the way he’s so pleasantly surprised with the hug from his dad in 4.08 after he asks Gabriel to be his best man and they hug for even a little longer and it’s just so happy that it’s relieved almost and that required a lot of work on Carlos and Gabriel’s parts to get there.

And so yeah, I think if we think about who Carlos says he was, and who we knew him to be in season 1, this man who was very clearly locked up in his own sense of who he should be versus who he is at his core, and what he craves. The narrative throughout season 4, that Carlos brings up, is that TK was the key that unlocked a lot of the parts of himself he didn’t accept and wanted to fix. And I think he saw this grown man who is gay and his age having the kind of relationship he wanted with his father and that man’s father not only accepted it but openly encouraged it and wasn’t embarrassed…I think it meant the world to Carlos.

I think he saw TK and not only wanted him but wanted to believe that the life TK had was possible for himself, and he wanted to get there. And damn it he did.

Which I think made it even harder for Carlos, in seasons 1 and 2, who was working to get rid of the idea that the queer parts of him and the parts of him that didn’t live up to the machismo of his community were broken and in need of fixing, to introduce this very unabashedly unashamed person to his parents. In 2.04, Carlos talks a lot about not wanting to shove his gayness in his parents’ faces, because in some ways the concept that being gay is something in him that needed fixing comes from his family and their lack of conversations in the years before TK.

To introduce TK to his family is the chance to have them confirm that they do feel that way, to reject Carlos and TK, to a man who strives for perfection and doing the right thing…terrifying. Not only for Carlos, but for someone to come and wound TK like that. So he avoided it, until he ran right into it…and then was mad because TK gets from Gwyn and Owen something Carlos wants desperately, and TK has always had it. And then to think of Carlos afraid of his parent’s reaction to TK when Gwyn and Owen just like love Carlos unconditionally…yeah…yeah, I think he was into it and envious from the start.

Which makes me want to go rewatch scenes between Carlos and Gabriel for their physicality for more research. Damn it, haven’t wanted to do that in awhile. Also, if the show would kindly retcon the murder of Gabriel Reyes and I can have a redo of the finale with Gabriel as Carlos’s best man (even though I hate that trope and want Carlos to have friends) as the start of season 5 I may start to forgive them.

(Please go watch With, Love to be filled with joy and rage about what we could have had as Benito is at his other gay son’s wedding…)

The Kuvira/Suyin parallels

So, this is piggybacking off my previous post about the Opal/Lin parallels, and to be honest I've always loved making this comparison, wince it's just so damn ironic and juicy.

Suyin and Kuvira are, of course, adversaries through a lot of the show, however, I think it's, mostly due to their similarities.

Both Kuvira and Suyin are, at their cores, leaders of their self made factions. Both also built said factions as coping mechanisms to the abandonment/neglect they experienced as children.

Both these characters garner the affection they lacked as children by having people depending on them. And also controlling said people. Suyin, by building a city and clan she was the matriarchal of. And closer to her, personally, keeping her family tight knit and her children isolated from the wider world and heavily dependent on her. As for Kuvira, it projecting her trauma onto a suffering nation and fashioning herself into being a hero of the people. Someone the people adored.

You don't really need to do a lot of mental gymnastics for this one. They were both isolated and lonely as kids, so they created environments where they were important and revered.

There's clear pressure from both these women for their "people" to conform to the rules they set. Suyin threatens Kuvira and Baatar Jr with banishment. One another occasion, she enables Korra's hunt for Aiwei, despite the obvious risk this endeavour would bring. While Kuvira's methods of control are more... barbaric? I'd call concentration camps barbaric but to each their own.

Suyin 🤝 Kuvira threatening poor earthbender himbos. God I wish that were me.😨👀Haha who said that?

They're fiercely protective of their carefully crafted status quo, since it is, essentially, a coping mechanism. The further it falls apart, the further their own psyche does too.

Suyin's qorst nightmare is her family and city falling apart, while for Kuvira it is when her Empire crumbles.

They can become increasingly manic and desperate the more danger their 'works' are, tossing any moral code or even sanity out the window.

They'll grasp at any straws to protect what's theirs. Suyin pressured Korra into going into the Avatar state, despite Korra's clear discomfort. Kuvira, meanwhile, harnessed the energy of the spirit vines and laid waste to Republic City.

There both even willing to endanger their allies, even those closest to them. Suyin taking her youngest sons on a dangerous mission to try and kill Kuvira (someone they most likely knew as children) while Kuvira herself nearly murdered Baatar Jr, her fiancé and closest supporter, just for the chance of taking out Korra. Rip Beifong brothers you really are the true victims here.

This desperation is understandable... its all they have. Both Kuvira and Suyin grew up alone, feeling unloved by their families. This led them to acting out. Be it for attention or any other reason, they ended up being too much to handle for their parents

We all know about Suyin scarring Lin, right? And this being part of the reason Suyin was forced to leave her home and dropped off at her grandparents. I find it interesting that it is implied that Kuvira too severely injured her mother, perhaps this also being the catalyst for her being given away by her parents too.

Perhaps because Suyin's second chance was so good for her, she wished to extend one to a troubled young girl. I firmly believe she saw a lot of herself in Kuvira (for better or for worse). The line about "hurting someone in this family" easily made me think of what Suyin did to Lin and see that she regrets it and doesn't want Kuvira to go through the same.

Regret, however does not fix all and neither Kuvira, nor Suyin know how to atone for what they've done.

It seems hard for either of these characters to understand the hurt they've caused nor that their actions have consequences. However, Suyin and Kuvira are treated rather kindly by the narrative. We've seen planty of people talk about how Su is coddled by the show's writing. And Kuvira is treated with a similar gentle hand. Redemption is a muddy subject for me, however I will say that bothese very complex and fascinating characters were done extremely dirty by shallow writing.

However, I will finish this long silly ramble by saying that it is very in character for Su to forgive Kuvira, despite this possibly making her children uncomfortable.

A huge part of Suyin's ideology is believing in second chances. However it runs deeper than that. As stated before, her family is the most important thing in the world to her. And Kuvira is part of that family. It's not surprising that Su is hurriedly doing damage control on everything after B4 and everything that happened.

I find Kuvira and Suyin fascinating characters. Their trauma, their drive and the mild insanity with delusions of grandeur is what really pulls together these two tormentors of the Beifong family together for me. ❤️

-

Also, on a side note. I find it very curious when people like one of these characters, but dislike the other, since they are so similair with their arcs and personalitywise. If you are a Kuvira stan and a Suyin hater or a Suyin stan and a Kuvira hater, could you clue me in a little on the thought process? Is it like. Just vibes? Or is it one of the small differences between Su and Kuvira that feels so jarring that it seperates them completely?

I wrote this as a part of my 12 days of ficmas, I hope you like it!

It is a Robert ‘Bob’ Floyd x female!reader imagine.

The prompt is Naughty vs. Nice.

Warnings: smut, use of the word ‘daddy’, (18+), this is only proofread by me

Your boyfriend was usually a rather timid person, which was why his occasional confidence shocked you every time, and let a thrill run through you.

He was usually gentle but sometimes in the comforting confines of your bedroom he had a tendency to be rather dominant.

If you were blatantly honest the quotes you heard and saw everywhere around Christmas time regarding being naughty or nice always had an impure undertone, and somehow it definitely affected Bob.

You could see it in his face whenever you encountered the saying and in his glance at you.

When you had a relatively free evening you decided to tease Bob with it, thinking that it would be a nice surprise for him.

You found a nice and slightly suggestive pyjama set to wear and approached Bob with it, who was sitting on the couch watching tv.

You sat down on his lap and wrapped your arms around his neck, caressing the back of his neck as well as pressing a tempting kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“It’s coming on Christmas, and for that occasion I wanted to ask you something,” you whispered into his ear, and you felt Bob’s channeled attention on you.

“I wanted to ask if I was naughty or nice this year, daddy,” you added and watched Bob’s adam's apple bob as he swallowed harshly.

His hands moved to grip your thighs and pull you closer, your crotch brushing against his.

You let out a silent chuckle as you connected your lips, to which Bob eagerly replied by opening his.

He was quick to pull you even closer and before you knew it you found yourself on your back on the couch, with him hovering over you.

His fingers found their way to your core and you breath hitched when they brushed over the outside of your panties.

Bob wasted no time burying his fingers in between your lips, which tore a moan from your mouth.

He pulled his lips away from yours to watch you, taking in every single reaction you had to him.

Not one tremble went unnoticed and each one made his chest swell with pride.

He was entirely focused on your pleasure and it made you even weaker, knowing that he got off on your pleasure alone.

His eyes were hungry and proud, much unlike the Bob you knew, but it made your skin light up in sensitivity.

Your thighs clenched around his hand and he sent you a scolding look, waiting until you opened your legs again before he continued.

Opening his fly with one hand he simultaneously shifted into position above you, his eyes never leaving yours.

His gaze was all encompassing and you were taken by surprise when he lined himself up with you, thrusting into you in a perfect mixture of gentle and rough.

You were lucky that him chasing his pleasure was that perfect mixture as well.

Bob was relentless and you were both a sweaty mess when you finished, your orgasm chasing his.

Your heavy breathing mixed between you and Bob let his head fall to your collarbone in exhaustion, kissing the exposed skin there.

Your hand found its way into his hair and your caressed it gently, reveling in post-coital comfort.

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One of the things I didn't like about AMC S1 of interview with the vampire AMC was making Lestat the " CHEATER " of the relationship . Here's why :

As some of you may know by now Lestat had many people who he loved & called lover in the whole vampire Chronicles . As much as it hurts me to say it unfortunately Louis wasn't the only one who was called Lestat's " lover " BUT Louis was his official " eternal companion & later consort " in Lestat's choice . So we can say that " lovers " or having multiple relationships at the same time with someone else wasn't like human affairs called " cheating " in Anne's version .

I saw a post on Lestat being canonly a cheater because Lestat was with David when in the tale of the body thief at the end of the novel Louis & Lestat were together again . Or when Louis is with Lestat at the last book even though Louis is with Lestat officially there's still another person who Lestat had a thing for .

I'm sorry but this thing called " cheating " doesn't make sense in the vampire world . They're made to live & love forever . Why did the show runners cheapen Lestat that way ? Why did they cheapen Antoine like that ? 🙄

AMC version made it really interesting by adding the human equivalent of sex to Louis & Lestat's relationship or maybe in future other vampires too . But this also created the whole " affair or cheating concept " too .

Because love for the vampires is something endless especially for Lestat he almost fell in love with anyone who paid attention to him & didn't neglect him or to be honest didn't know the real him well enough .

So by adding a human equivalent sexual relationship they made it like " so if Lestat is having a sex with someone else behind Louis's back " then he's a cheater . Is the AMC version gonna go all the way to other Lestat's lovers to him cheating on Louis ? Specifically David or some girl in the blood communion ? And I'm not even gonna talk about Gabrielle 😬

I hope this rule applies to other vampires relationships too cause Louis seeing Lestat as the " cheater " in the relationship isn't how vampires relationship work .

But I will say this : although Lestat loves being called a slut he's really not a slut at his core , having the capability of loving a lot of people doesn't mean you're a slut .

It seems that Lestat has no love for Antoinette of the show whatsoever . ( Which I have my doubts on ) So it's mostly about the " someone who listens to Lestat's complaints or sex " about her . Which is known as " cheating " .

So I hope either this rule applies to other vampires too or eventually we see that there's no such thing called " cheating " in the immortal world of vampires . Because that would only cheapen Lestat's character & I'm not gonna be okay with adding something to his character that wasn't the case in his original character .

But I might not have much information about Lestat's relationships or the affairs in the whole Chronicles. So if I'm wrong please correct me because I'm very confused . 😅❤️

Oh we are so BACK

When I tell you I saw this and died. HELLO?????

I keep hiding my face lahshjsdhjgfsaf HE HAS NO RIGHT. NO RIGHT AT ALL BEING THAT SEXILY INTENSE AAAAAAAAAAA

Anyway, I should probably try to make some attempt at describing the event since. If I don't I'll just be barking/crying/hiding my face for the next twelve hours.

Basically--and I'm not sure this is going to be across the board, but it held true for Napoleon and Sebastian at least--each suitor has a birthday event this year instead of a separate story. Comte's won't be released until tomorrow, but they have posted a preview.

From what I gather, he talks a little bit about himself and reveals parts of his past that haven't come to light in the game yet. There wasn't really enough to convey a coherent narrative beyond attending a party, but the line displayed here does get across the larger theme:

Comte: (I don't need momentary pleasure or ephemeral affection any longer. Now that I know love, there's nothing but you.)

He talks about how the aristocracy have thrown parties and extravagant celebrations for his birthday for most of his life. But none of it has ever really made him happy, largely because he knows that they are attempts to strengthen and broadcast power relations within high society. While I don't think he means it's entirely devoid of well wishes, I do think he sees it as a nexus of influence--and thus, by nature, impersonal. And honestly, I don't think he's wrong about that; the higher the echelon in social standing, the more it requires performance to maintain the position.

That being said, there is a fascinating flashback where he remembers a pureblood telling him about how falling in love with a human is an experience of another caliber entirely. My understanding is that Comte was still a fairly young vampire at the time, so he didn't really understand what the person was getting at. It seems like the other pureblood was trying to convey the difference in feeling, perhaps the fact that humans are more grounded in accordance with how they live--the reality and necessity of change.

After reading this--and the recent 5th bday story--I can absolutely see how change is something Comte has a complicated relationship with. He's known a certain way of life for so long, has constructed a sensibility of distant, rational maturity. After all the heartbreak of his youth, and two very acute traumatic events in his life, I can see why he'd be so afraid of broaching any kind of proximity with another person. Because on some level it's so much easier not to put your feelings on the line, to never have to fear devastating loss. And that's to say nothing of the worry of being unable to measure up on behalf of another person, of letting them down.

I'm so excited to see the rest of the contents, but something about the preview made me equal parts giddy and enamored (all I do is kick my feet with excitement LOL). I think what gets to me with Comte is that he truly does love companionship as a place to rest, a place where he can be honest about himself and his feelings without fear of ridicule (and the same goes for MC). In a world increasingly obsessed with surface level performances of power, status, and emotion, it's hard not to feel his exhaustion to the core.

Also, because these lines at the end more or less destroyed me in the best possible way:

MC: ...The you who had nowhere to belong no longer exists. In much the same way...Abel, I belong to you. Comte: ... Comte: I wish I could say to myself all those years ago, the me who kept indulging in such paltry things. Comte: Until you meet MC, you will never know love... The warmth of MC in my arms filled me with such joy I was near tears. (I don't need momentary pleasure or ephemeral affection any longer. Now that I know love, there's nothing but you.) The moment my lips found hers, the sweetness lit a fire deep in my body. Comte: These cute lips that melt against mine, the heat of your skin, the love that envelops me in your embrace--always leaves me so deeply in love with you.

Hi! I'm wondering if you can offer any insight into something that's been bugging me with all of the changes. This is genuinely not a hostile ask - I know first-hand how hard (necessary) change management is. I don't envy the position y'all are in.

That being said - I'm having a hard time making sense of the strategy around the roll out for the last few big changes/"experiments"). It seems like the folks doing the messaging vs the actual feature management are not on the same page.

It has been stated several times that:

"We’ll be testing [our new] ideas in an opt-in basis with people who’ve been using Tumblr for years, and more especially with people who’ve never even heard of Tumblr (a difficult group to find)."

We've also seen, repeatedly, that

"Tumblr is a place where you can tailor and customize your experience to individual preferences."

With those statements in mind, the choice to roll these new features out to folks who *didn't* volunteer - and not offer any way to "customize our experience" seems like a strange one.

An expectation (which was positive) was established only to be directly violated within a few weeks. It makes it challenging to get a read on what y'all actually mean -- and to extend good faith or trust when communications do come out.

If you say you're going to do something, then do it, it builds trust. If you don't, it erodes trust. And that just makes your already difficult jobs harder - and the userbase even more reactive and knee-jerk resistant.

Can you give us a sense of what's going on here? Or can you at least pass this feedback on to whoever is handling the messaging around this stuff? We can see that y'all are striving for transparency, but that's only effective if it's honest/consistent.

[TL;DR: Tumblr's messaging emphasizes testing changes with volunteers, and offering the ability to customize - but that doesn't seem to be what's actually happening. What's up?]

this is a really great question, thank you for asking it. you've accurately pointed out some glaring holes in our communication strategy -- some of that is even my fault, to be honest, as someone who tries to help shape our public communications.

the easiest answer is that there's a lot of work happening on the internal tumblr side, and not all of it is the same kind of work, and therefore not all of it is being communicated consistently. that's a huge problem if you're not inside of it, as you point out; the contradictions seem weird for anyone paying attention.

i'm currently a part of the @labs group and we're trying to come up with radical ideas for reshaping tumblr, prototype them quickly, show them to people, and iterate on them, and reject them quickly if they don't make sense. the Tumblr Mini thing recently is an unfortunate example of that -- something leaked way too early, before we even got a chance to really understand how the thing we prototyped would be received. that may never go beyond the thing people saw, for good reason: it doesn't make sense. we're learning from it, but it's unfinished.

in that Labs group, we do want volunteer-based feedback, and we're actually starting that very soon with targeted user research. you may see some surveys soliciting that feedback soon, or invites to be a part of the testing. i'm extremely excited by that, because some other ideas we have feel like they should've been a part of tumblr since the beginning.

but.......

there's a whole different group at tumblr that are making "core product" improvements, and a lot of their work is reflected in the recent staff post about product strategy. their aim is to alleviate a lot of common points of confusion and frustration, some of which will seem counter-intuitive to people who have been on tumblr for many years and learned (what i call) "the hard way".

a lot of that core improvement work will be rolled out, experimented with, and iterated on, the traditional way: involuntary A/B tests, rather than volunteers. that is standard industry practice, because when you're trying to understand the behavior of millions of people, just asking for volunteers introduces too much selection bias.

however, it's important to note that even today's rollout of the new desktop navigation was released to some XKit devs beforehand, so we could get early feedback. so sometimes we do roll these core things out for feedback first, before "regular users", before we A/B test it. usually those small initial experiments are hyper-targeted though... in this case, because we do actually care about XKit and third party developers. you don't see that though!

so full transparency: not everything we do is going to be volunteer-based, not everything we do can be communicated adequately before we test it, not everything during testing will be customizable, because how much we want to customize is dependent on the outcome of these tests. it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.

and furthermore, this is kind of how it's always been, for better or worse, since around 2016 when tumblr started believing in A/B tests and experiments, rather than just "ship it and we'll see"... the common denominator, though, is that we want your feedback. we don't do a good enough job soliciting that feedback, but we do want it. (i kinda wish we had an easy feedback button for the new layout.) we do make decisions based on feedback, but we augment that decision-making process with hard data from experiments.

i hope that makes sense? there's too much to cover to provide you with the full context. i could write a book about it. all i can confidently say is that we're trying as best as we can to balance the ideas of keeping tumblr special and unique, while trying weird/bad/good/uncomfortable new directions to help the platform grow and thrive. status quo and complacency aren't acceptable; tumblr needs to change to survive. i am just as uncomfortable and upset by that fact as anyone, and i worry every day and night about it, whether the price of survival is worth it.

we'll see, hopefully together.

Hello, World

A SAGAU / Self Aware Fanfic Chapter 1 TWs / CWs: Combat, a battle happens in this, possibly OOC characters and inaccurate lore (This is my first time using CWs so feel free to @ me if I should add anymore though!) In which Teyvat meets a futuristic version of the Reader, and the Reader shows Teyvat what the humans of Earth are like in their future. ~

Apologies for taking so long to post this! I just got back from the hospital so I haven't been able to be online much these past few months, but hopefully I'll have more time to write now! My brain is still foggy from my visit to the hospital and what caused it, but @nomorefstogive and @2broschlininahotub shared some really cool ideas and I got inspired by @thatdeadaquarius and their amazing posts so I wrote this fic as a gift for them and everyone in the Genshin / fellow Armored Core fans who are into SAGAU / general SAGAU community! Y'all are amazing, so I thought it was only fair that I make this gift. I'm still learning English and my memory is still really foggy so there might be some inaccuracies with the lore and whatnot, but I hope you all enjoy this nonetheless! More under the Read More:

~

~ The boot-up process has always been familiar to you. Like waking up when you were human, it has always been familiar to you. Zeroes and ones, lines of code danced across your vision as it took in fields of grass dancing on the breeze across the horizon of the strange new world you woke up in. Magic and elements, wisps of the cosmos and the elements that it was made of danced across your fingertips. It felt... familiar, not as familiar as the boot-up process as your mind came to and your chassis slowly moved off the ground but an almost pseudo-familiar feeling of deja-vu- Ah, yes. Your optics zoomed in on your surroundings. Another day, another isekai. No matter. You were used to this. You were prepared for this. You had read isekai stories and SAGAU fanfictions in the past after all, when you were still human. Before you became what most folks you came across in the worlds you were isekai'd to a mecha-god-deity-something. It helped, the first few times. When your fellow future humans and AI brethren lost contact with you amongst the stars and the countless dimensions the people and machines of Earth now explored in the far future, you had to rely on yourself and sometimes the fact that you (alongside most if not all of your fellow humans nowadays) weren't human anymore. 'Well,' you mused to yourself, 'time to make the most of it.' ~

~

'Well,' Bennett thought to himself, 'I saw this coming.'

If he had to be honest with himself though, he really wished this wasn't happening at all.

The unnaturally large group of Ruin Guards continued stomping to where he was, and Bennett raised his sword in defiance. He could feel the ground vibrate with their footsteps, the pebbles and blocks on the ground jumping up every now and then as they drew nearer.

Bennett closed his eyes and drew a breath, but he did not notice that none of them had stopped to fire their missiles at him. None of them had stopped to lock onto him, despite him standing still while he was completely in the open amongst the ruins surrounding them all.

In fact, while he had been the one to wake them up, he was no longer their target at all.

Something huge slammed into the ground in front of him, and Bennett's eyes whipped open before his jaw dropped.

In front of him stood a massive machine, one Bennett thought was a brand new type of Ruin Guard that had awakened to get rid of him like the others due to his bad luck... before he realized that it did not have any similarities to Khaenri'ah's technology, nor was it facing him at all.

In fact, the machine was facing down the Ruin Guards in front of them.

In a sudden and explosive whirlwind of movement and light, it charged straight through the group, some kind of blade made of pure light that manifested on its wrist going straight through the first Ruin Guard it encountered before the machine jabbed it into the midsection of another.

Both the machine and the Ruin Guard hit the stone wall on the opposite side of the ruins with enough force to make the entire area shake as if hit by an earthquake, before it pulled out the blade and turned around to face the rest at an impossible speed.

'How can a machine so large move at such insane speeds?', a voice in the back of Bennett's head asked.

The machine continued to seemingly not care about the laws of physics, a burst of light and heat emanating from it as it flew above the rest and sent down a barrage of rockets in response to some of the Ruin Guards attempting to fire their own at it. The Ruin Guards didn't stand a chance.

As the smoke and dust cleared after the resulting explosions, Bennett came to the realization that the machine wasn't even trying at all.

It was barely even bothering to acknowledge any of the rockets sent its way, it was barely even acknowledging the existence of any obstacles in its way as it continued to simply move around the ruins by plowing straight through stone walls and whatever pillars remained, and Bennett realized it was barely even using any of the actual weapons it was visibly carrying around as it simply stuck to using its blade and ramming into the Ruin Guards after it saw the destruction it caused with its rockets.

In fact, Bennett realized this was barely even about getting rid of the Ruin Guards at all.

As his mind processed that there was only one singular Ruin Guard left, this was all about protecting him.

The charge in the beginning of the battle was meant to draw their attention from him and take the battle somewhere else far away from Bennett. It only used its rockets once, and that was after it was already very far away.

Most of the time, it was only using its blade, and soon Bennett saw one of the reasons why.

The one remaining Ruin Guard didn't have time to react before the much larger machine protecting Bennett jabbed it through the midsection with its blade, but it didn't fall to the ground after it was stabbed. Instead, the light coming from it changed to match the light coming from the larger machine and its blade, and after the blade was pulled out from it, it simply remained standing completely still.

Bennett turned and saw that the other Ruin Guard and several others that had been stabbed were all standing still too, unmoving but fully functional.

He couldn't dwell on it much however, as the larger machine turned around to look at him with its numerous... eyes? They certainly didn't look like human eyes, but Bennett thought they looked similar to a Kamera one of his dads in the Adventurers' Guild had once.

It stepped closer, its movements deliberate and careful with its hands raised in a placating gesture as it slowly approached him before it stopped some distance away from him.

Bennett heard something crackling to life somewhere inside the machine.

"... Are you alright?"

~

~ A lot of things can happen when you're Diluc, and a lot of things can happen when you're the Darknight Hero. However, a giant machine probably the size of several houses and then some carrying Bennett (who was barely even the size of what could be called its pinky finger) in one of its massive hands asking him where the nearest Knights of Favonius official is was not something he expected to encounter tonight. Bennett cheerfully waved at him from his perch, a big grin plastered on his face as Diluc could only stare at him in shock. Diluc idly wondered how he looked right now. He had recently gone to the Dawn Winery after Adelinde reported "strange things happening near the Winery." He had barely started his patrol when he saw a massive explosion in the distance before meeting the machine and Bennett soon after when he journeyed towards there to investigate, so the Darknight Hero was standing in a field with his neck craned up to look at the massive machine looming above him. His face was blank and neutral, something he had trained over the years, but his inner confusion threatened to bubble over. Diluc wondered if this was the strangest thing he'd ever encountered in his life, or if this was going to be the strangest for the foreseeable future. Probably not. Actually, most definitely not. Something deep in his gut told him that things are just gonna get wilder from here on out. He drew a deep breath in order to collect himself, before clearing his throat and speaking up in his diplomatic voice. "I will take you to where you can find the nearest official member of the Knights of Favonius, but I am afraid you are going to have to be the ones to explain... how should one put this, whatever the situation is and- everything, frankly. I hope that will not be a problem for the two of you?" "No, it won't be." The machine answered, its voice crackling with some kind of static noise. Diluc almost reeled as he took note of how the machine spoke... precise, blunt, and straight to the point. Almost like- "Yup! No worries Master Diluc, we should be all fine from this point here on out! Let us proceed to our next destination, my stalwart steed of valiant steel!" Bennett yelled, visibly bubbling with excitement as he gestured towards the city with his hands. The machine was still looking at him, but Diluc could basically feel the way it was looking at him had changed. It must've noticed his reaction to how it spoke, but before long it chose to instead back off a bit and give him some space. Gathering himself to the best of his ability and refocusing on the task at hand, Diluc gestured to the both of them. "Follow me." ~

~ Mondstadt looked... peaceful, during this time of the night. Diluc had gone ahead to inform the Knights about your and Bennett's arrival, but the latter boy had made no move to leave his spot on your hand. In fact he seemed rather content, he was swinging his legs from his perch high above the ground to the tune of a song in his head only he could hear as the both of you waited across the bridge that lead into the city. The two guards posted in front of the city gates exchanged glances between you and themselves every now and then, sometimes speaking in hushed tones and whispers, but otherwise kept a commendably professional posture as they too awaited Diluc to return with the rest of the Knights of Favonius. It was remarkably silent, come to think of it. ... Except for the growing number of people not so subtly gathering behind the city gates as they too, noticed your presence. Many of them took note of Bennett's presence on your hand, but worryingly you weren't sure if most of them took that as a good thing or as a sign that his bad luck had brought trouble to Mondstadt itself. (You had to almost wrangle your targeting system from singling out targets from the crowd when your audial systems picked up some of them downright whisper-yelling that "Bad Luck Bennett" did in fact bring nothing but chaos and trouble to their doorstep. You did not mind people badmouthing you, nor did you blame them for being afraid of you especially after the explosions you assume they all saw from the distance, but something about them saying things like that about Bennett activated some protective instinct buried deep inside your processors.) "Make way! Make way for the Knights of Favonius!" The crowd parted, revealing Diluc and Jean with the rest of the Knights as they slowly marched their way through the crowd. It wasn't hard to notice the way their expressions shifted as they took in just how massive you were. You let Diluc go first into the city across the too-small bridge for a reason, even kneeling on one knee as you were doing right now you absolutely towered over them, at full height you were probably tall enough to look over the city walls and look down upon the city itself. It really wouldn't be that hard for you to just ram straight through the city walls like a sledgehammer going through a house of cards, now that you think of it. Remarkably however, Jean managed to keep her composure strictly professional as she craned her neck to look up at you and Bennett as she prepared to address you. However, as she opened her mouth, someone else came barreling in. Klee barely even seemed out of breath after her sprint as she came to a full stop right in front of Jean before excitedly yelling, "WAS IT YOU?!" Your optics blinked. Jean could only balk in surprise as Klee took your silence as confirmation and continued her onslaught of questions. "HOW DID YOU MAKE SUCH A BRIGHT BANG?! WHAT KIND OF GUNPOWDER DID YOU USE?! HOW MUCH DID YOU NEED?! DID YOU EVEN USE GUNPOWDER?! WHAT DID YOU USE?!?!" Your processors kicked into overdrive as you processed her questions, before you went screw it and opened up your shoulder compartment. Klee's eyes were practically shining as she watched one of your rocket launchers, the one you used in your fight against the Ruin Guards, slowly transformed into shape and the missiles it housed within became visible. For a moment, all was silent. "LET'S GO BLOW UP SOMETHING!" "KLEE, NO!" ~ End of Chapter 1 ~ Apologies again if there are any grammar errors and / or lore inaccuracies! This is the second ever fic I've written and it's... 4 AM in the morning where I live since I had to write every single last word again in 3 hours due to an error that erased literally everything (rip) and you can probably tell my poor grasp of English and even poorer memory was a pain in the butt as I wrote this, but I hope you all enjoyed this nonetheless! I'll finish writing the other chapters soon, hopefully they all don't get erased too but until then I hope you all have a great day!

warnings: 7 minutes of heaven, public sex ?kinda?, spin the bottle, hate sex, biting

if you saw me post this earlier.. no you didn’t!

a game of spin the bottle led to 7 minutes of heaven. all of you sat in the circle, and if you were being honest, you wouldn’t care who you got stuck in a closet with for 7 whole minutes.

you wouldn’t care, but you would make an exception for her.

jill.

there had been a lot between you, though you wanted to forget it just for tonight just incase you were shoved in that closet with her.

but, you still didn’t plan on kissing her. even if it meant you had to stare at her for that whole time.

kirby took the bottle in her hand, spinning it lightly with a laugh. you zoned out for a minute, coming back to life when the bottle had stopped.

stopped between the two of you.

you and jill.

in a closet, for 7 whole fucking minutes.

feeling your face burn red and anger and embarrassment, you stood up, not making eye contact with the girl who stood before you, and turning down the hallway.

as jill watched you storm off, she raised an eyebrow at kirby, who had a puzzled look on her face, then moving to the hallway herself.

“hell’s your problem?” she asked, turning to you before you both entered the closet.

“what do you mean, ‘my problem?’ im stuck, with you! of all people, it had to be me and you.” you said through gritted teeth.

“that shouldn’t matter right now. kirby said that before everyone started playing, we had to forget about anything going on between eachother and what-not and just have fun. can you just do that tonight? you came to a party for a reason, best not fuck it up” she took your face in hand, feeling yourself burn up.

“it’s only 7 minutes.” she pushed forward, pulling you in. your noses were touching now.

“only? please.” was the last thing you scoffed, but it came out as a whisper, before the two of you crashed together, lips fighting for dominance.

hers won when she bit your lip slightly, forcing ber tongue into her mouth.

soon enough you realized it had only been 30 seconds.

this 7 minutes was gonna be the hardest 7 minutes of your life.

her knee spread your legs open, holding them in place. your heated core rubbed up against it, seeking for pressure.

“i know it’s killing you. so lets just fuck like we hate eachother. okay?” she breathed up against you, her fingers rubbing your clothed clit.

Okay,since I’ve just randomly randomly just reblogging Thanatos things,I decided to actually post things,more specifically an LO rewrite because f it.

At its core I do think LO is a good story,just that bad writing has squandered any potential it has to be good,so please have my take on this.(more specifically my take on Persephone,hades,and Thanatos because I have to stay on brand)

Anyways-

(The sequel)

Persephone:

She’s older.shes physically in her late 20’s/early 30’s and about seven to eight centuries older.

Her AoW only extended to those ransacking the garden.(I swear,it would have been so much more understandable to root for her if it only extended to 4-5 people instead of an ENTIRE CITY,since we know other gods have done much worse)

Her work in the underworld was mandated by Zeus as community service for the AoW.

This is more or less Zeus hitting two birds with one stone,he gets perse to make community service and maybe(hopefully) gets hades to open up to the smucks outside of the underworld because he now has an employee not from there.

Due to her guilt about the AoW,she decides that while she’s working in the underworld she’ll set out to be the best her she can be and make up for the souls she took.

At first nobody really likes her and they just think she’s someone who needed to be dragged here by Zeus and won’t amount to anything,but she ends up being the hardest working of the staff and getting a fairly infamous “employee of the month” streak,her only real fumble being Sisyphus(of which she rightfully corrected totally not being getting Hermes to drag his ass down back to the underworld and give his his infamous punishment,of which instantly gave her back any respect she lost.

She’s the type of person you think you can disrespect until she gets genuinely mad at someone,in which case everyone goes out of their way to be nice to her even though it takes a lot to get her mad.

Demeter never sheltered her,just that she heard from her mother and brother(oh yeah Plutus is in this au their twins) about the shit that happened up their(even saw it for herself a few times)and decided to nope out of that drama.

She likes the underworld a more than Olympus due to the fact people don’t get butthurt nearly as much,due to them needing to deal with crap from other gods and sometimes mortals(like Sisyphus)

Demeter was an amazing mama and nobody can convince me otherwise.

Plutus told her about the underworld so she does know a bit,but otherwise it’s a cultural shock.

She brings homemade baklava in every day of work.

She actually sent a letter to Demeter telling her about the community service…however she never got it thanks to a certain daughter of Nyx always dead set on causing discord.

Hades:

It took him two solid seconds to realize what Zeus’ plan was with Persephone so he initially looked for any reason to fire her,until he learned she was here for community service and just decided to wait out her punishment(jokes on him Zeus forgot to tell perse what her sentence was so she worked in the underworld for like a year until demeter found her when in reality she was supposed to be there for like two months)

He does eventually soften up to her(obviously) but it takes a while and a lot of baklava.

Honest to god I have no idea how to incorporate minthe in this au

Leuce is his dead wife,she died fairly recently so he’s still hesitant to connect with anyone.(“I miss my wife,Thanatos,I miss her a lot I’ll be back-“)

Recently he’s been coping via sinking into his work,Hecate and the others have taken notice but they don’t really know what to do.(their the ones that CAUSE death not deal with it)

He slowly started distancing himself from the rest of his family after the titanomachy and even more so after leuce died.

The only person he acts openly soft around is Thanatos,who he views as a son.

The only part of his extended family he interacts with is Hermes,who he actually has a really good relationship with(albeit still strained since leuce)

Fuck it.everyone has flowers symbolism.

Hades is white lilies(subject to change),perse is asphodels,thanatos(and Hypnos) is poppies,leuce is forget-me-nots,Demeter is daylilies,Plutus is orchids,Hecate is nightshades or cow parsley.

Thanatos:

He genuinely finds it hard to focus on doing his job,so people just call him lazy,so he doesn’t really try to set the bar high in return because he knows he’ll just end up disappointing everyone.

The only person who doesn’t have low expectations and wants him to try his best at his own rate is hades,who understands he finds it hard to focus but still wants him to try his best anyways.

Rotates between living with hades and Nyx(who is an extremely doting mother.

Hypnos still resides within the hr department and Thanatos helps him hide because the last thing he needs is a grumpy Hypnos.

He deals with peaceful deaths while Hermes and the keres deal with the rest.

He’s the type of person to tell himself one moment he’s gonna be really productive today and then spend the next fifteen minutes chatting away with a butterfly.

Also he can talk to butterflies.but nobody believes him except Hermes,perse,and Nyx.

The moment he finds out what Eris did she gets the “WHY WOULD YOU THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA?!?!!?” Of her life.then queue Thanatos and the other Nyx children present trying to get her to explain why she thought this was a good idea and her just saying “bc it’s funny”

Erebus = dad with no physical body who still interact with me via shadows.hades = dad with physical body who I want to impress but I don’t know how.

(If you didn’t catch on he has adhd)

Understanding the Core Four of La Pluie

Last Saturday, I screamed into this hellsite about the brilliance of La Pluie episode 10, and in the last couple of days, I read many amazing metas from my fellow La Pluie fiends that broke down all the well-executed dimensions of this episode (keep an eye out for this week’s La Pluie meta roundup from my pal @lurkingshan). When we last saw these characters in episode 9, Lomfon was running the hamster wheel in his brain, trying to figure out how to navigate his situation of hearing Saengtai (and Patts) when it rained. Tien was nursing a crush on Lomfon, and Tai and Patts had made things official and were stronger than ever. Then came episode 10, which turned everything upside down and left us speechless.

I loved and enjoyed every aspect of this episode: acting, plot development, cinematography, screenwriting, and more. But the one that blew me away the most was how the motivation and drive behind each character’s actions were perfectly in line with the character traits the show has already established. I initially wanted to write this post only to explore these traits, but after observing the La Pluie fandom discourse for the past week, I expanded it to include my defense of why every character in the La Pluie Core Four "deserves" the resolutions the show is poised to give them in the coming days.

Tien:

When Tien enters the pivotal conflict scene in the rain, he walks into a kiss between his brother and the guy he has a crush on. Absolutely heartbreaking. We see him stand still on the side, while Patts rushes to push Lomfon away from Tai and punch him repeatedly in the face (though not hard enough, as my friend @bengiyo argues here, and I fully agree. That ass-whooping should've been harder and longer). And after Patts and Tai walk away, Tien faces Lomfon, who just recklessly messed up the lives of everyone around him with no regard for anyone's feelings.

Here’s a quick list of Tien’s personality traits that were on display in this scene:

Tien is calm. He is pissed, he is rattled by the events, and yet he starts with a pretty calm "What did you mean?"

Tien is logical. He immediately counters Lomfon's explanation about his hearing loss and him being Saengtai's soulmate with, "You liar. I'm speaking now, and you can hear me."

Tien is a good communicator. He clearly confessed his feelings to Lomfon and how he thought his feelings were reciprocated, even when his heart was in tatters. He managed to be the most open and honest person out of everyone involved in this mess, and he hadn’t even done anything wrong. We would’ve completely understood his actions if he had just walked away after cussing out Lomfon, but that’s not the Tien we’ve seen and adored for the last nine episodes.

Tien is brave. He had been developing feelings for Lomfon for a while, and he thought his feelings were reciprocated. Being vulnerable and confessing your feelings to your crush is a nerve-wracking experience in its own right, and yet Tien confessed his feelings after Lomfon had just kissed his brother, potentially ruining any possibility of a relationship between them. For that alone, he is one of the bravest sonsofbitches I've seen in a BL so far.

I was not expecting to be surprised by Tien in this episode. I don’t exactly know what I thought his reaction would be to the Lomfon-sized wreaking ball I knew was coming, but I had only anticipated a heartbroken Tien. Instead, I got a Tien who was the only level-headed and rational person in this fight. And all of these wonderful traits were already established in the show's previous episodes:

Tien is one of the calmer Saengs. We have seen each of the Saeng brothers handle their parents' split very differently in the flashbacks. Saengtai and Saengchan are usually in tears and are physically reactive, whereas Saengtien and Saengnuea are the ones holding them back and comforting them.

Lomfon is not the only one who ran experiments to understand his feelings. Tien is also logical (albeit less neurotic and more sensible than Lomfon), and he worked through his sudden feelings for Lomfon after they held hands in the classroom by holding hands with his friends. He’s also open to opinions from others, as he talks to Tai about his feelings. Which makes him…

A good communicator. Tien also calls out Tai’s reluctance to communicate with his mother rationally, and to try and understand her side of things in the divorce and her relationship with her boyfriend, Nu.

Tien is an excellent subversion of the "playful and less mature younger sibling" character because, while he is easy-going and playful, he’s also the most emotionally intelligent and mature character out of the Core Four. Moving on to his elder, albeit much less emotionally mature brother, Tai.

Tai and Patts:

I’m analyzing Patts and Tai’s actions together because this way it’s easier to compare their words and actions towards each other in this episode, to their relationship dynamics that were established previously. The explosive fight and the subsequent breakup were shocking, but smart cookies like @lurkingshan, @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup and @ginnymoonbeam posited in our conversations, before the episode aired, that it was time for Patts’ frustrations and insecurities to rise to the surface. And boy did it rise up. This conflict between the primary couple has already been extensively analyzed by @lurkingshan here, so I will add my little observations on how Patts and Tai’s behavior in this fight is supported by the writing of the show so far.

@ginnymoonbeam has shared her thoughts on Tai’s avoidant personality, here. I want to add that Tai is also incredibly stubborn and hard to please. His father says so, to Patts during their dinner in episode 5.

The phrase "seems like an understanding person" is very telling, five episodes later. Tai also has the propensity to see life in black and white, especially when it comes to romance. His faith in soulmates is broken the moment he witnesses the end of a soulmate relationship. There is no room for explanation, as evidenced by his decision to ghost his soulmate for 2 years, and his coldness towards his mom, whom he has decided is the sole villain in their parents’ divorce. Simply put, he reads too much Nora Roberts (check out @syrena-del-mar’s excellent meta, La Pluie meets Nora Roberts).

Moving on to Patts. First off: no Patts hate is allowed in this house. I do not condone violence, but I also think the reasons behind the display of violence deserve to be talked about without the air of dismissal surrounding it (@shortpplfedup backs me up on this, here).

Patts had been understanding of two years of silence from Tai, and had been incredibly patient while working and finding solutions to Tai's fears around relationships and commitment. All the emotional labor in this relationship had been done by Patts, he verbalizes his desires and thoughts every time and is often left hanging by Tai, in silence. After Patts and Tai’s (supposed) heart-to-heart in Doi Mae Pliang (shout out to @indigostarfire and @lurkingshan for the incredible observation that Tai chose not to verbalize his answer to Patts’ question "Do you want to be my faen?", here and here), Patts must’ve felt that they are finally on solid ground, after years of uncertainty.

When Tai lied and hid his plans with Lomfon at the park, Patts must’ve felt devastated. And when he saw Lomfon kiss Tai, he finally snapped. He took out his anger on Lomfon, but as @bengiyo observed, Patts still managed to not leave a single bruise on Lomfon. His restraint is a sign that his frustration is not directed at Lomfon, but at Tai. Patts’ anger and Tai’s refusal to communicate openly escalate the fight further and further, until all the tension breaks at Tai’s room, with Patts agreeing to break up.

Something that stood out to me in this conflict is that the escalations were so well written that they did not feel like they were being done just for the sake of moving the plot along. Every question thrown at each other’s faces and every furious answer spit out in response felt natural and fluid. When Patts shows up at Tai’s door, he is not there with the intention of picking the fight back up. The first thing Tai asks Patts is, "Are you drunk?" and Patts tells him that he is not. They both know and understand how horribly this can go if one of them loses control. When Patts asks him "You still love me, don’t you?", Tai infuriatingly responds "This is exactly why I don’t want to talk to you".

And we see Patts getting angry at his response, shouting this:

To which Tai responds with this:

Tai did not utter those words to aggravate Patts. He truly believes that in an ideal, happy relationship, the couple must be completely compatible, so totally in sync that they will know all the answers to the questions that didn’t even need to be asked. Tai stumbled into a clear understanding of the Patts-Nara mess in episode 8 and told Patts that he was not mad about it. He did not ask questions or demand answers from Patts. Sometime during his deadly trek up Doi Mae Pliang, Tai decides that their love is enough to conquer whatever the universe throws at them. Not understanding, not communication, but love. That’s why Tai shuts down every time Patts demands an explanation; he thinks needing one means that Patts does not love him "the right way". And when Patts finally blurts out "Let’s breakup", we see him immediately absorb the weight of those words and backtrack. But for Tai, this is the final proof he needed to confirm that Patts is not right for him. So, he thanks Patts for the time they shared together and shuts the door in his face.

I sincerely hope Patts holds his ground and does not apologize unnecessarily to Tai. Tai is 100% in the wrong here; he needs a stern talking-to from someone who understands both Tai and how love and relationships actually work (my money is on Tai’s dad), and then he needs to do some very difficult but necessary introspection about his understanding of love. When he is finally done and realizes that he has made a massive mistake, I hope that Tai is the one who seeks out Patts to reconcile.

And finally, the messiest mess of the Core Four…

Lomfon:

Sigh. Oh Lomfon, you fucking disaster. I’ve been wary of you, I’ve been fascinated by you, and now I want to buy a ladder so I can climb on it and ring your head like a fucking bell till you forget the “How to acquire Tai in ten easy steps” list you have in your head.

There is no question in my mind that Lomfon fucked up spectacularly. He orchestrated a date with a man who was already taken, proceeded to reveal the truth about his soulmate connection in the most dramatic and emotionally destabilizing way possible, and then kissed him. And he does all this in the midst of developing feelings for this man’s brother.

Folks, I now have a confession to make. The nearly 2k words I had put before this section were to gently lure you into an "In defense of Lomfon" post.

The two major criticisms I’ve seen so far that are leveled against him are that he has disregarded Tien’s feelings and that he has been grossly manipulative in how he chose to reveal his soulmate connection to Tai. I will try to tackle both of them with an objective lens. My goal here is not to pose an explanation or argument for every shitty thing Lomfon has ever done in the show; it is just to present Lomfon’s traits, stripped from the (rightful) anger the fandom feels after the events of episode 10, so I can understand and accept the redemption the show might give him in the coming week.

Before I get into the specifics of the defense, I want to focus on the Keychain Acquisition scene we finally got in this episode. We see Tai run after his dad, and Tai suddenly notices Lomfon, who is focused on the papers in his hand and wearing headphones, about to walk into a busy street. He rushes to push Lomfon out of the way, tells him to be careful, and then runs after his dad again. From the moment Tai touches Lomfon, to the moment Lomfon looks up only to see Tai running back, this whole interaction takes about fifteen seconds. I counted them. Fifteen seconds.

When we watched this scene, @lurkingshan and I could not believe how absurdly mundane it was. The show has been teasing a connection between Tai and Lomfon for weeks, and this is it? Tai pushed him out of the way of a moving car and shouted an obligatory "be careful, it’s dangerous" in Lomfon’s general direction before going back to his own problems. But that’s all it took for Lomfon to decide that this mystery stranger is his "first love". He did not even get a proper glimpse of Tai because, by the time he looked up, Tai was already running. I wonder how much of Tai’s voice he actually registered, given the fact that he had to rip his earphones off first and that he was disoriented from being pushed to the ground.

I understand that teenagers have wild imaginations, but even for them, this is a level of delusion that is only achievable if any and all human contact is rare. I have held hands and gently pulled and pushed friends and family members out of the way countless times in my life while crossing a busy road. If Lomfon had saved the keychain as a reminder of the day he almost died before a kind stranger saved his life, this would be a completely different post. Since Lomfon attaches such an intense meaning to an event that is so commonplace (the showing-kindness-to-strangers part, not the almost getting-hit-by-a-car part), all this scene shows us is that Lomfon is utterly and pathetically lonely.

I’m not just reading this from the keychain scene. Since this show has some very clever writers, Lomfon’s "Social Loner" status is established from the very first episode. Before Tien meets Lomfon at the bookstore, we see Tien interact with his friends and his brother. In contrast to this, when we see Lomfon for the first time, he’s alone and is immediately picking a fight with Tien. Which leads to Lomfon meeting Tai for the very first time, and Tai intervening to break up the catfight. Tien even says this to Lomfon:

Remember when we were theorizing about Lomfon potentially knowing Tai before this incident, after the Keychain was introduced in episode 7? Because in episode 2, when he meets Tai at the coffee shop, he talks about Tai’s articles? And we were thinking, there’s no way he just stalked this person online after meeting him for about 2 minutes, just because he took his side. Nobody would be that obsessed, right? Right? Nope. This boy is really THAT obsessed, because he does not have a single friend who can take his side on a daily basis and normalize this experience for him.

With this information, some of Lomfon’s actions start making a little bit more sense, as his social isolation must make him very inept at reading normal social cues and emotions. He may fancy himself a logician, but he cannot factor feelings and emotions, his own or otherwise, into his calculations. I intentionally only used the word "obsession" when I talked about his feelings for Tai, because I know that he’s not pursuing Tai because he felt his heart flutter in his chest. He’s pursuing him because: 1. Tai took his side in the bookstore argument; 2. He then went home and stalked Tai on the internet and figured out that he’s a writer, which was interesting, because he likes... reading, I guess? (I’m feeling physical pain due to second-hand embarrassment from typing that sentence.) and 3. He found out that Tai has read some of his favorite books and figured that they must have the same passions and interests.

And here is my defense for the first criticism: When we consider just how little time he must’ve spent in his entire life, thinking about other people and their problems (because he must have the heartfelt and intimate connection it requires with only a rare few people), Lomfon does care for Tien. He held Tien back when he was recklessly rushing into a storm to save his brother. He calmed Tien down with very persuasive arguments that were both logical and empathetic. He respected Tien’s opinions enough to discuss the concept of soulmates with him twice (in episodes 7 and 10). During their discussion in episode 10, Tien tells him he doesn’t know whether he would choose his soulmate or someone he likes. After the scene, we see Lomfon sitting alone, ruminating on this thought for a few seconds. He asks his friend and possible crush for advice on what to do, and when he doesn’t get a concrete solution, he decides to give his way a try. And we see him make the call to invite Tien to lunch and a day at the park.

And what exactly was he trying to accomplish on this date, you may ask? Well, to paraphrase @bengiyo, he just wanted to run an experiment for "The Foot Pop" theory from The Princess Diaries. Matters of the heart are not something you can distil into equations. You either have to let the desire fully confront you, let it cloud your logical brain, and bravely let it guide you into your next steps. Or you can open up and be vulnerable about it with the people closest to you, ask for their opinions, and then take a decision that’s a bit more informed, yet firmly rooted in what you want based on what you feel. Both of these options are foreign to Lomfon. He has never solved problems this way, nor has he witnessed someone solving problems like this. So he recklessly kisses Tai, to prove to himself that all the calculations he had performed on his and Tai’s compatibility were right. He kisses Tai, and when he does not feel the butterflies, he pulls back, sees Tai’s stunned face, and immediately realizes that he has made a horrible, horrible mistake.

You know where he should’ve run the experiment, for better results? Riiiiiight here:

gif by the ever lovely @liyazaki

It could’ve been so simple and sweet. This loser just had to take the route that would cause the most damage.

Moving on to the second criticism that Lomfon is shady and manipulative in his actions in episode 10. I agree, he easily could’ve found a much less dramatic way to talk to Tai and Patts about this shared soulmate bond situation. But taking this straightforward route takes a lot of social courage and nuance, which Lomfon clearly does not have. If he and Patts had not been staring daggers since the moment they laid eyes on each other, the solution to their soulmate problem could’ve been calmly discussed at a table over breakfast. Since Lomfon decides to posture up to Patts as a romantic rival, with Patts already on edge about his intentions with Tai, Patts brusquely tells him to stay away from Tai. Which does not help matters one bit, and leads to Lomfon making all the wrong moves straight into disaster.

The biggest questions that were constantly in my head after this fiasco were "How the heck is Tien ever going to forgive him?". "Is a happily ever after even on the cards for Lomfon and Tien?". "Will it be believable and realistic if the writers give us one?".

I do not want to speculate on how the writers may choose to end this arc, because I want to ponder these questions purely based on what we know so far, without an ending of my choice already in my head, so I don’t skew my arguments to fit.

Lomfon may believe that Tai is the one who is most compatible with him, but he could not be more wrong. We have not seen any interactions between them where their personalities complement each other. We only see Tai in these interactions through Lomfon’s obsessive lens. But on the flip side, we see that Tien is rational and emotionally mature enough to give Lomfon an honest chance to explain himself and apologize. If Lomfon takes the time to look inward and understand his feelings for Tien, he will then convey them with sharp focus, and without any ambiguity. Because, let’s be honest, Lomfon is many things, but he is definitely not the type to prattle. And for Tien, who is also a straightforward and no-nonsense communicator, this approach might be the first step towards understanding and eventually forgiving Lomfon.

I know that I am skirting around a lot of Lomfon’s major fuckups on this road to redemption, but as I stated before, I’m not here to explain away all of his mistakes. I know Lomfon has some serious introspection and atonement in front of him. The only way he can ever hope for forgiveness is if he goes into this journey without hoping to be forgiven. He has to do it for the people that he has hurt, with no expectations in return.

Lomfon is not irredeemable. Does he deserve all the hate he is currently getting from the fandom? Yes. Did he deserve the ass-whooping? Hell yes. Will he also be worthy of Tien’s (and our) forgiveness if and when he reevaluates all of his actions and apologizes to him? Absolutely.

Shoutout to @lurkingshan, @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup, @wen-kexing-apologist, @ginnymoonbeam and @kyr-kun-chan for discussing their La Pluie thoughts and opinions with me, which helped coalesce my thoughts into this post.

Tagging @blmpff on request

For the very first time - Chapter 3

[or 5 times the Cap Quartet slept with each other and 1 time they slept all together]

AN: Sorry for the delay - Easter Holidays and life were getting in the way, so today, you get a 241 deal - I will be posting Chapter 4 straight after this one. Set the same day that Sam meets Steve (and Nat) in CA:TWS @catws-anniversary. Catch up on Chapter 2!

Much love to my beta @kingofsorrow20

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Mood board by me and dividers by @firefly-graphics

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Chapter Summary: Sam’s day started off weird when he found himself being lapped by Captain America when out for his morning run, but now Steve's extremely hot friend has appeared at his door. What’s a guy to do?

Chapter Relationship: Sam x Nat

Chapter Word count: 1.2k

CW: Strangers to Lovers, Flirting, Vaginal Sex, Nat going after what she wants.

Nat and Sam - May 2014

Sam was not expecting the knock at the door. He was only wearing a pair of sweats low on his hips, his skin still damp from his post run shower, but he went to open it anyway. Somehow he was not entirely surprised when he saw Steve Rogers' red-headed friend standing there, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips. 

Sam raised his eyebrow at her and she responded in kind, the unspoken communication understood by both of them. He took a step back, gesturing for her to enter, grinning as he did so and as soon as he shut the front door she was on him, pushing him firmly against his hallway wall, her blood red lips pressed to his. 

“Nat,” she mumbled against him, and it took Sam a second to understand what she was saying, as all of his brain power was currently diverted to his dick. His hands gripped her waist as he stuttered out his own reply. 

“Sam. Sam Wilson.”

“I know,” she replied, and he felt her smile into their shared kiss.

There was no real conversation after that, just the blazing heat of lust as her delicate, but no doubt lethal, fingers trailed over his exposed skin before ducking under the waistband at the back of his sweats to take hold of his ass, pulling him flush against her.

Sam started to think he might be a little in love, because, god, did he have a thing for people who knew exactly what they wanted and weren't afraid to go after it. However, part of him also thought it was a shame he didn’t get to spend more time with Steve. Oh well, he wasn’t going to complain about this turn of events and, to be honest, all thoughts of Steve departed as soon as Nat’s hand shifted and wrapped around his cock.

The action did, however, wake him up and he started to reciprocate, pushing her leather jacket from her shoulders and trying to steer them to a more comfortable place. He was more than capable of playing this out in the hallway if need be, but he’d prefer a comfortable bed where Nat could do anything she wanted to him - Sam was in no way disillusioned enough to think he was in charge here, and he was perfectly okay with that. 

He got them to his bedroom, though, and couldn’t help the grin that took over his entire face as Nat shoved him back onto his mattress and began to strip out of her remaining clothes, revealing pale skin encased in lingerie as red as her hair, lips and nails. Okay, Sam was now a lot in love, because ‘Wow!’. He wriggled out of his sweats with more enthusiasm than grace and saw Nat smile enigmatically before she climbed onto the bed, moving her body over his, her lace covered core scratching gently over his rock hard cock. 

He shuddered slightly and Nat cocked her head to the side.

“You like that, Samuel?”

He bit his lip as his head tilted back, and he nodded.

“Yeah.” At his admission Nat curled her nails into his pecs and raked them down his chest, raising welts in their wake. Sam bucked his hips up in response. 

“Oh fuck!” he shouted. “You’re gonna kill me, aren’t you?” He wasn’t even sure if he was joking or not, but if she really was gonna kill him, this was the way he’d want to go. However, Nat just leant forward, her warm breath ghosting over his lips, as she undid her bra and discarded it across the room.

“Only le petit mort.”

“My kinda gal.”

He raised his hands to cup her breasts, absolutely struck by how pale her skin was. He could see some fading bruises along her ribs and on her forearms, and part of him wanted to kiss every blemish in the hope they would then disappear. However, her breasts were more tempting. He rolled each peak between his fingers, watching as Nat shuddered atop him.

“Please. Can I?” His words weren’t working, but somehow Nat understood him. She moved a bit more and then Sam was in heaven as his lips latched around one pink nipple, suckling on it greedily, while continuing to play with the other. Nat let out a pleasured sigh and Sam felt pride well within him. He wanted to make her feel good and was happy he was achieving his goal. He was generally a giver in bed, getting pleasure from his partner’s pleasure, although he wasn’t above being a pillow princess every so often when the mood took him. 

His free hand skimmed down Nat’s side, and he felt the firm muscles under her soft skin. He had the feeling that he could be rough if he wanted and she would welcome it, especially given how she’d already marked his skin. However, now wasn’t the time. Maybe there would be other chances in the future.

Nat shifted above him once more and Sam got the hint, switching to her other breast, but the air was driven from his lungs the moment he felt her take hold of his cock before it was then enveloped in her warm, wet heat. He still felt the scratch of her panties against his hip - she must have just moved them to the side - but then his brain was gone as Nat rode him, just taking what she wanted from him as he continued to lavish attention to her breasts in turn. 

It was instinctual to thrust his hips up to meet her movements, and Nat didn’t complain. Her hands were on his headboard as she moved, her cunt clutching and pulling at his cock, and Sam had no idea how he hadn't already come - this was by far the most erotic encounter he’d had in a long time. ‘Sexy assassin coming to hit him up for a booty call’ had not been on his bingo card for this year, but he was definitely not mad about it. Far from it.

Nat began to let out louder noises, a series of guttural moans and grunts, and Sam sucked harder on the tit he had in his mouth, flicking the engorged nipple with his tongue. His spare hand rested on the small of her back, helping to guide her movements that had got more erratic. It was only a few moments later when she threw her head back, looking like a goddess above him, and her cunt clenched hard. Sam felt the strength of her orgasm, the way his cock was almost strangled by her body and he fucking loved it. He couldn’t hold back any longer and spilled into Nat, his own cries muffled into the soft flesh of her chest.

She collapsed on to him, both of their bodies covered in a sheen of sweat. Sam was certain that he’s breathing harder out of the two of them, despite not doing the majority of the work. This didn’t surprise him in the slightest. 

However, when Nat finally climbed off him to flop onto his mattress, her skin flushed pink, Sam was surprised when the first thing she said was “So, do you think Steve’s cute?”

Chapter 4

Tag list: @km-ffluv, @wheezy-stucky, @kmc1989, @kombatfather1796, @christywrites, @doasyoudesireandlive, @sonatabee-blog, @endlesstwanted