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#I still don’t know how to do backgrounds though
foreveralbon · 2 days
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go ahead and smile - mv33
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in which max is the only person who can bring her back to normal wc: 2k of straight yapping i'm so sorry
i really don't know if i like this or not but oh well
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Days like these are the worst. The ones where it’s easier to stay quiet and closed off than feign smiles and laughter.
It’s not often that you succumb to these mood swings, but when you do it’s difficult to get out. Thoughts swirl around your head - everything and nothing all at once. Messages stay unread, unanswered and calls are declined by the first ring. The curtains stay shut and you move about the world, eyes sullen and lips downturned in a small frown. A ghost of yourself.
Sometimes all that you ache to do is to reach out and hold someone you love and remind them of it, and have everything as normal as it used to be before you shut yourself out.
But by then it’s become a routine, one where people know not to bother you because no matter what they do or what they say, none of them can break you out of your shell.
It’s only ever Max who can do that.
His smile, his smell, his touch, his presence is the one thing that can bring you back down to earth. Day after day, he reminds you that he’s always there waiting for you at the end of your bouts. You’ve come to rely on him to know what to do when you’re like this - God knows you can barely think straight, so caught up in your own head that you don’t realise what’s going on around you.
It’s hard for him to help you if he doesn’t know, though. It’s been ten days since you’ve seen him in person, and four days since you’ve spoken to anyone but him. The isolation has fallen like a blanket over you, warm and comforting but a barrier to the world you aren’t willing to remove. Except for Max.
See, it’s far more simple to fake normalcy over text than in person, and although Max knows you better than anyone else, even he can’t tell that you’ve closed yourself off through the messages you send back and forth.
Come Wednesday night and you weren’t expecting him home, but the click of the front door is a pleasant surprise. You’re swaddled in the warmth of your bed, an old movie playing softly in the background as you watch with hooded eyes.
He calls out for you, and you can hear the scuff of his feet as he slips his shoes off, making his way through his house in search of you.
“In the room,” you call back.
Max raps lightly against your bedroom door, peeking in when you don’t respond. His face lights up at the sight of you. He rushes to your side, grabbing your face to kiss you in greeting. “Hi, schatje.”
“Hi, bub,” you say. You hug him tightly, but your grip isn’t as strong as it usually is, to the point where Max has to tap out to breathe as he jokes that you’re suffocating him.
Instead, you burrow your face into his neck, inhaling the strong scent of his cologne, hands tracing the lines of muscle on his back. It's a weak attempt in grounding yourself, but the heaviness that weighs down your shoulders is still there after a moment in his embrace.
So you just groan inwardly, moving to brush your cheek against his. “Good day?”
He hums in affirmation as he rears back a bit, blue eyes mapping the slope of your face. One look at your withdrawn figure and he can tell.
The bed dips when he sits beside you. He starts to rub comforting circles on your back, big palm warm against your chilly flesh. In his mind, he’s already formulating the right plan, following an unspoken routine that he keeps for times like these.
He’s never been the best at reasoning with others, but for you, he speaks with the softest voices, comes to the most understanding solution if that’s what it takes to bring you back to him.
“How about we go out for dinner, and if you don’t feel like eating more than an entrée, we can leave?” He compromises. When he’s met with silence, Max pulls you in closer, his lips lovingly meeting your temple as he murmurs, “Please, I’ve missed you, I want to spend time with you. Just an hour.”
You relax into his touch with a resigned sigh. “Fine. One hour. Then we go home.”
Dinner is far from good.
You sit there, picking at the Greek salad you’d ordered, pushing the greens around your plate. Max is sat awkwardly across from you, forking pasta into his mouth in long intervals.
The restaurant buzzes around you, waiters bustling about with silverware and stacked arms of dirty dishes. A couple next to you, bouyantly joyful, clink wine glasses and talk with wide smiles. You can't help the spark of jealousy in your chest at the sight of them. It should be you who's as cheerful as they are, having a great night with the love of your life as you mark his return home.
And yet, you can't find it in yourself to speak.
It takes for you to drain your second glass of wine before Max tries to break the silence. “How has work been?”
“Good,” you mumble. “But I’ve called in sick for the last three days. Didn’t feel like leaving home.”
“You didn’t mention that to me.” Max frowns, dropping his fork onto his plate. He reaches out to grab your hand, your smaller palm fitting perfectly into the crevices of his calloused one. “You should’ve told me.”
You shrug dismissively. “I didn't want to bother you with it.”
“That's bullshit, you could never bother me. Not with things like this.” His eyes hold a pity that you can't bear to see. The carvings on the edge of the wooden table suddenly become far more interesting, and you waver under his gaze.
It doesn't take long for you to bite out a harsh, “Can we leave now?”
He inhales, like he wants to say something. But then he mutters a low fuck before calling for the waiter's attention. As the man starts to make his way to you, you stand abruptly, chair screeching so loud against the tiled floor that even Max winces at the pitch.
“I'm gonna wait in the car, yeah?”
You barely lasted forty-five minutes.
If you thought the car ride was going to be any better, you were greatly mistaken. If anything, it's been far more tense than anything you've ever experienced with Max.
Your fists are curled, nails pressing crescent-moon indents into the sofy skin, and you have your teeth clenched so tightly, your gums and jaw are beginning to ache.
Max’s demeanour, however, is the complete opposite of yours. The sleeves of his dress shirt have been folded up to his elbows (courtesy of you; he’s always been the kind of get his cuffs dirty while eating), and he leans back in his seat, one hand on the steering wheel and the other in his lap, calmness and relaxation personified.
The car slows to a stop as he approaches a red light. On any other day, red lights are his opportunity to sneak a kiss from you, a touch, anything. But now, you stay staring ahead, refusing to meet his gaze.
“Oh, I love this song!” He exclaims suddenly. He taps the steering wheel in succession to the beats of the song playing on the radio, whistling in a half-assed attempt to keep a proper tune. Normally, the sound of his broken whistles would be enough to crack a smile out of you, make you howl in laughter as you tease him even.
But now, you just purse your lips and reach to turn the volume down, the biggest reaction he’s gotten out of you since the restaurant.
“Come on, schatje,” Max mutters dejectedly. “Don’t do that.”
Your silence is your greatest virtue though, so he takes it as a sign to stop, the car ride quiet all the way home.
You’re out of the car the moment Max turns the off the engine, door slamming loudly behind you.
Max trails behind you into the apartment, lights flickering on when he steps in. He watches you busy yourself with turning all the lights on and opening doors to let Jimmy and Sassy into the rooms.
It's just before you enter the kitchen - to pour yourself a cup of tea, he's ready to assume - when he rushes up to you. “Wait, wait.”
“What?” You frown in confusion.
Max just rests a light hand on your shoulder, guiding you to the comfort of your room. It's the first step to his master plan: take you somewhere familiar, somewhere you feel safe. He pushes you down on the edge of the bed and crouches in between your knees.
He grins up at you as your frown deepens. “What're you doing, bub?”
His fingers press into your cheeks, pushing them back to stretch your lips into the closest thing he can get to a smile. “See? It’s not the real thing, but that there’s the girl I know. Smiley.”
“Stop, Max,” you whine as you swat his arm away.
“I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me,” he coaxes gently. “I know it’s one of those times but I can’t help make it better if you don’t tell me what caused it. I'm ready to talk about it when you are.”
Truth is, you really don’t know what caused it this time round. Sometimes, you can pinpoint the change to a certain event. Other times, it just happens. It’s so easy to stop smiling because it doesn’t feel like there’s a proper reason to. Because there’s no one to smile for, nothing to be happy about. Then the isolation turns you in on yourself, nothing to pull you from under that blanket of loneliness.
“I don’t know,” you admit. Your throat feels scratchy because of your prolonged silence and the words feel far too forced. “I just… wasn’t in the mood to be happy.”
His tone is soothing, raspy voice whispering with a care you’re more than familiar with. “Is it because I wasn’t there?”
You swallow the lump in your throat, shaking your head. Then you pause before nodding as an afterthought. “I don't know. Honestly.”
“Oh, schatje. It doesn’t have to be like that, you know. You don’t have to push people away.” He speaks to you softly, never falling into the cusp of condescending like how so many people have chosen to treat you in these times. He reaches over the console to brush loose strands of hair away from your face, pausing momentarily when you watch him with a desperation in your eyes. A look that pleads with him to help you leave this bad headspace.
“Sometimes,” you whisper, “it feels like there’s no point. I just want to stay home and stay silent and not have to do anything or listen to anyone. And I know I shouldn’t, so I don’t. But then it just happens even when I don’t mean for it to. I don’t know how to make it stop, Max.”
“I know you don't want it to,” Max laments, “and I know sometimes it feels like you can only find help here-” He taps your temple gently “-But it doesn't have to be like that. You don't have to shut me out or shut yourself out, and you definitely don't have to pretend that you're alright when I'm not here. So call me, text me. I'll answer, because I don't want you feeling alone. I don't want you to push me away. When I come home, I don't this version of you because it kills me to see you trapped in yourself. I want you. My smiley girl.”
His words tug at your heartstrings, a hurt that only comes about from caring too much. From loving too much. It's foolish, you know, to try and stop the tears but Max is more than consoling when it comes, brushing away your pain with the pads of his fingers.
“I'm sorry for being a bitch earlier.” But your apology needs no accepting.
Max rests your head against his shoulder, his shallow breaths calming your racing heart. He’s home and everything is right.
It’ll take a moment for it to go back to normal, though. For your home to light up again, for the messages on your phone to be answered and for your friends to become your people again. But it’ll happen. It always does.
Then with a soft kiss to your forehead, Max cements his place in your heart. “Now smile for me.”
author’s note: and if only i had a max for times like these lol i think i'd be a bit more sane
@namgification @lipringlrh @queen-aria-things @disneyprincemuke @demvnsriot @hiireadstuff @33-81 let me know if you’d like to be added to my taglist!
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sainns · 3 days
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DROP THE ALBUM!ㅤ⊹ㅤPSH SMAU
PROLOGUE the breakup and afterwards
note i lied this did not come out at 330 im impatient and uhh he kinda did u dirty i apologize but yn is maybe a little dramatic IDK
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“i think we should break up, yn,”
you blink, lifting your head up from where it was resting on his chest. your sudden movement knocks the laptop off of sunghoon’s lap, the movie you were watching continuing to play in the background as you stare at him.
“what? wait—are you serious?”
he sighs, running a hair through his messy hair, “yeah, i am,”
“that’s so random. we’re literally cuddling in your bed right now, sunghoon,”
you shouldn’t be getting angry with him, if he wants to break up then he’s allowed to—even if it hurts you more than anything. it just doesn’t make any sense as to why he wants to.
you can’t wrap your head around it, as far you know—or knew—you were perfectly fine. you’ve been together for three years, so obviously you’ve fought but it’s not like they were big fights. everything in your relationship was good. at least you thought it was, sunghoon didn’t apparently.
“i don’t know... i was just thinking, you know?”
you stare at him blankly because no, you didn’t know. you don’t get what’s going on at all.
you can see discomfort makes its way onto sunghoon’s face, his hand coming up to rub his neck awkwardly, “we should take a break,”
“a break or break up?” you ask, “they’re different things,”
you fully move away from him, pulling your legs from out of the covers, sitting as far away from him as you can. you stare at the floor as you wait for his response. he’s silent for too long and you can feel your heart sink to your stomach.
“break up, i guess. we can still be friends, though,” he reaches forward to grab your hand but you pull away, “i don’t want to lose you, yn,”
there’s a lot of things you want to say to say to him; that you can’t be friends, that he’s stupid for thinking that you would be fine with it. you want to tell him that you’re mad at him beyond belief for doing this out of nowhere. he could’ve at least broken up with you when you weren’t laying in his bed. 
you don’t say any of these things, though. instead you nod, giving him a forced smile, “okay. if that’s what you want,”
“i’m really—”
you interrupt him before he can give you that dreaded apology, “i’m gonna go, i probably shouldn’t stay the night like we planned,”
you crawl out of bed, your feet landing on his carpeted floor. your back is to him and you hope and pray that he can’t hear the sharp breath slip from your mouth, keeping yourself from bursting out sobbing. you blink quickly, forcing your tears away and move around his room to grab your things.
“you don’t have to leave, it’s late,”
“it’s fine, hoon,” it’s not fine, “night,”
“okay.. text me when you get home?”
“yeah, sure.”
sunghoon is an idiot.
he's an idiot that you’re still friends with.
it’s been five months since the breakup and you’re still friends. you don’t want to be friends, but your desire to keep him in your life overpowers that. giselle and winter have both been telling you to move on, to cut him out of your life.
every single one of your friends can see how awful this is for you, especially with sunghoon still acting like he’s your boyfriend. it’s like nothing has changed between you two if you ignore the fact that you aren’t officially together anymore.
he even goes as far as to tell you about girls that he finds attractive. does he not know not to tell you stuff like? he doesn’t. he doesn’t get how horrible and heartbreaking it is for you to hear. having to sit there and hear him call other girls pretty is worse than anything you’ve ever had to experience, you think.
so after urging from both giselle and winter, you ghost him on the sixth month after your breakup. you don’t go to any of your previously planned hangouts (you give him some half-assed excuse about being ‘too busy’ when really you were just staying home and eating ice cream), you stop responding to his messages and eventually he stops sending them.
and you write about it.
you’ve written songs about him before, as embarrassing as it is to admit, but it’s how you express your feelings. the only difference is that they were love songs; songs about you pining over the boy, how you felt during your relationship, all of the good things about him. you’ve never written anything bad, not even during your first big argument.
you admittedly feel better after you’ve written everything down, but you also feel.. guilty. it’s like you’re making it a bigger deal than it is. it’s not like he cheated on you or neglected you or whatever other awful thing other songwriters have written about. he just broke up with you and tried to stay friends.
you eventually get over that guilt, thankfully. you know that you’re allowed to be upset and it’s not like he’s ever going to hear it. you’re sure he’s forgotten all about you already. maybe he even has a new girlfriend.
you try not to throw up at that thought.
you end up making a demo, send it to your agency, and it gets produced. after a month of promotion and teasers, it releases on the ninth of april. exactly one year after your break up. it blows up, much to your surprise—you weren’t necessarily a big artist but you weren’t super small, having around 840k monthly listeners but you weren’t expecting to make the billboard hot 100.
honestly, you should’ve expected sunghoon to find out about the song, but you weren’t. and needless to say, you were absolutely horrified when he sent you a message for the first time in half a year.
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fumifooms · 19 hours
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Chilchuck, family & alcoholism
Collection of thoughts and speculation on Chil’s upbringing, his dynamic with his family and how alcoholism ties into it all. If you want the groundwork info on Chil’s background I recommend my masterpost on his family, here it’s really just me speculating from the crumbs we get of his parents and siblings, how it’s all affected him and in turn affected his own wife and kids etc etc.
There’s nothing more I’d like on mother’s day than to speculate about Chilchuck’s maladaptive attachment style. I’m fascinated by how distant everyone is and how much he’s been devoted to them all despite having been so absent. Intergenerational trauma get over here
Actually it’ll be easier if I make a rundown here too, it’s just stuff I reiterate from my masterpost tho.
Tiny table of contents: 1- rundown: family facts 2- rundown: alcoholism 3- dad 4- parenting 5- daughters 6- wife
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^ Every time his dad gets mentioned. His mom never gets mentioned. His siblings I think are only ever mentioned in this extra, and then there are more ambiguous relatives cameos.
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We know is hometown isn’t Kahka Brud, but we’re not sure wether he moved there upon getting his own house (presumably around when he got married at 13), or if it’s only after his wife when he rented out his place to relatives then rented the place in Kahka Brud.
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If he rented it out to relatives, maybe that meant it was in his hometown? Especially if he and his siblings are "almost strangers" so presumably he doesn’t really keep in touch with his family. And I mean, he hasn’t seen his wife or daughter in 4 years so you can imagine how he’s like with his more distant family…
Additionally half-foots and Chil are very coded to be from an impoverished opressed working class people. So that’s the context.
I’ll say that I mentioned intergenerational trauma at the beginning, and I def think the distrust of elves is part of that, but here I want to focus on the interpersonal effects rather.
Copy pasting my masterpost thoughts overall: Chilchuck is hinted to have had a rather dysfunctional family himself (alcoholic father, distant siblings, etc). So he doesn’t really have the best model on how to raise someone and such. I imagine it was a sort of neglectful home situation, where the kids are encouraged to be independent. If they didn’t have to work or help around much, then a free range parenting sort of thing.
We do see how the family has full and warm feasts, where someone cleans his mouth with a rag, so it’s not like he didn’t have caring people or had a tragic childhood though! I don’t remember if it’s explicitely stated but he’s heavily implied to having grown up poor, as most half-foots, and I just think it’s the hardened hardworking family type of childhood where just like he does with others, they instilled somewhat harsh life lessons in him, which in turn encourages him to indulge in the simple pleasures of life like alcohol and sex, or at least women’s beauty and crass jokes. We do see he seems more optimistic when he’s younger in flashbacks, so a bunch of his harsh view on the world is still likely learned and earned rather than taught.
I still think he inherited many flawed views from how his father acted, like his attitude about excessive drinking not being a big deal, it being worth it. That work hard play hard, enjoy life die young mentality he has, shown mostly in the “alcohol” section of his Adventurer’s Bible profile, could very well be partly a result of the general poverty half-foot communities are that he grew in as well, like how he doesn’t hope for things to be as best as they could be and contends with good enough.  As far as I remember, his mother is never mentioned, but I doubt it implies she was out of the picture. She was probably a regular sort of mother that took care of the home and was still around when his father died, not unlike how Chil’s wife was implied to be a housewife. It looks like there’s a good age gap between one sibling to the next, that could be interesting to speculate about too. Mostly though I think it’s big family because it’s just sorta what happens when you regularly have sex and you don’t have contraception, being poor often makes family planning harder for various reasons and leads to more children.
Alcoholism context rundown:
Good Chilchuck analysis baseline here. Alcohol seems to be his main stress reliever/coping mechanism, especially for how emotionally constipated he is, and his job is being stressed about his party’s safety. Then he also mentions as a changeling that having his senses dulled feels relaxing to him, further confirming alcohol, as a drug that dulls senses, is something that he likes for the intoxication aspect and feels it’s relaxing. Alcohol also acts as a hunger suppressant, so it for sure has played a role in his dieting and unhealthy eating/diet habits, especially since he shows the instinct to drink to soothe hunger, all of that about how going hungry for 3 days used to feel manageable. Chil dieting info compiled here.
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Chilchuck is at his most effortlessly cheerful when drunk or drinking. Compilation of every time he was drunk here.
And to be clear, a cheerful drunk is still a drunk. He literally will drink anytime he gets the opportunity to even if he’s aware overdrinking leads to health problems and death. Like canonically. He does NOT see how drinking should be a problem and does not seek to show restraint with it.
Dad of the dad
Marcille and Chilchuck having a talk on how losing a dad be like "You lost your dad young too…? I know how it is, it must have hit you hard…" "No not really tbh. Do you want lasagna or chicken for dinner?" <- either genuinely doesn’t feel much about his dad’s death or has 10 layers of repression, idk which is worse
I think Chil not making a big deal out of his dad’s death, not having worries in following into his footsteps that way in the least, is super interesting.
As a buddy @saccharineomens puts it: " I kinda imagine chilchuck and his dad didn't have a bad relationship, but in general chilchuck is so blase about drinking (he sees it as a delightful time, a wonderful thing! he wouldn't mind dying doing something he loved!) that he's not very upset about his dad's passing? like "yeah, he died, but i was already an adult, he was an adult, he made his choices, i make my choices, it's cool" " And I’ll nitpick that we don’t know how old he was when his dad died, I always assumed it was pretty early since Chil left home when he got married, and like I’ve gone into he doesn’t seem to be the keep in touch type. It’s on the table though, and he could have learned about it through letter if nothing else and that contributes to the "meh" reaction.
And that is very Chilchuck, the whole "we made our choices, it is how it is, he died doing something he loved", and you can totally believe that that’s the crux of it, but I do think the nonchalance hints at the family overall being distant and not only the siblings, that there’s dysfunctional shenanigans going on in there more than just… Healthy coping and having moved on.
I wonder when Chil first drank… And I wonder how he came to realize he liked alcohol a lot. His father probably gave him sips… Or he stole them
No because, with how disaffected he is about his father and siblings I could definitely see him having started to kind of numb himself/dissociate with the help of alcohol in that home environment that felt so… Either devoid of feelings or too messy to get attached.
Because too… We saw him have a family/community feast of some sort presumably when he was a kid, in that chapter cover, so it’s not like there’s no warmth or sense of family at all, but then like… What went wrong? If as I theorize that girl with short black hair in that panel is his future wife, since she’s his childhood friend and all, what if his family/home life was always kind of cold and distant, even when gathered and cheery or despite those occasions? So then it’s like, at the family gatherings, she’s the most important person there to him, the one he actually connects to the most, the warmest presence he has…….. Someone he jokes around with that feels on the same speed as him, that doesn’t have the same connotations as everyone else present, a bit of a haven, someone different, a breath of fresh hair and a regained sense of childhood… Spitballing of course of course
I feel like they had a pretty big family and they were poor and such so there were always chores to be done etc, so their household might have operated like a mini busiess of sorts where everyone’s too busy, always has this and that to do and the mother asks them to go do tasks. I used to think it might be more of a neglect situation, where the kids are expected to provide for themselves and so cook their own meals and whatnot, both parents distant, but I don’t think so with the feast illustration. Chil at the beginning of canon used to see eating as a practical thing more than anything, you have to eat to live but don’t eat much or your weight will make your job more dangerous, might as well skip meals and have beer instead, etc etc. So the thought that he doesn’t know how to cook all that well despite this speculated background where he cooked for himself and keeps cooking minimalistic, since he does tell Senshi he taught him about cooking, is fair, but still… There could definitely be a situation where his older siblings were pushed into a parental role too, where they helped with the food and raising the younger siblings etc etc. As mentioned, the age gap between siblings may play into the dynamic as well. But on this front I have less ideas…
So yes my general take on Chil’s family is that everyone was too busy to emotionally connect as much as is normal, the parenting leaving things to be desired with alcoholism and emotional neglect.
Fathering
And I think that’s especially interesting considering he hasn’t been keeping in touch with his daughters either. It’s "they’re independent now" and that’s kinda it. His daughters haven’t sent him letters or visited him or tried to make him talk to their mom again. It does feel like with his own parents and siblings to me, where people are almost strangers, where relationships grow apart and everyone shrugs and goes ‘that’s how things are’. Is it that everyone including all his daughters gave up on trying to keep in touch, or is it that they all went "well divorced or not he’s absent, this is our normal tbh", and which is worse?
So yes, I think his relationship with his daughters is probably similar to his relationship with his parents, sort of hands off. Chil's dad was probably not a good dad but probably not quite a bad dad. A definitive He Was There, to quote another friend heh
Imo the thing with Chil is that he was pretty absent bc of work travels to dungeon dive, right. He’s working hard to provide for his family but in the process he’s not spending much time with them, slowly making a gap grow between him and them as they drift apart and change as people. He’s a career dad who never realized spending time with his family was more important and threw his pager into the ocean— But also here’s the thing!! You want to say being his family is more important, but money is arguably more important! They’re poor, they don’t have the privilege of free time as much. Sure he’s not there, but he is providing for them what they need to keep living and growing healthily. Similarly, you want to say Chil should stop doing harsh dieting for weight management, but, he has a point, maybe starving is still preferable than dying in traps. Of course the ideal would be to change jobs, but again, life is a struggle and that’s not always an option.
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^ Truly the classic "if you don’t listen to me, your parent, a cryptid is gonna kidnap you!" international experience………
He is so so so the "What? My way of parenting is kinda bad? But my father raised me like that, and look how great I turned out!" <- emotionally dysfunctional…….. "Pshhh what do you mean having an alcoholic parent negatively affects you? My father was an alcoholic too and look at me"  🤡
All of it was behavior normalized to him. And listen, I’m saying this but not as like, shirking of his part in it. This isn’t a teen or young adult, he’s middle aged, he’s become the one giving and not receiving the generational trauma. He’s chosen to never think deeper on the topic.
And like, he himself is so indifferent to his father and what their relationship was like, of course he wouldn’t notice if a parenting choice wasn’t great for his daughters. He doesn’t have a relationship with his dad, he’s not (at least not consciously) traumatized by him, so from his perspective it’s mission success! He got raised decent enough 👍⭐️ Except he doesn’t realize that like, not particularly caring if he died is sign of a problem between them in itself… And this even as he remains somewhat of an important figure in his life, especially since that’s who he sees on the other side of the life river in the ghost chapter. It’s implicitly the biggest instance of loss through death Chilchuck has in his life I think.
But despite it all he obviously does love his family a lot, right. So I do believe that like, while he has imperfect standards when it comes to parenting he still tries to be better than his dad was, that even if it’s necessary that he has a lot of long work travels, he spends time with them. And there’s sort of this dissonance that he’s both "it doesn’t matter wether i’m here or not, they’ll live, they’re tough girls. Oh they didn’t like my scolding earlier? It’s just how kids are" dismissive and "I love them so much and I want them to have a good life. I want to do my best by them" devoted and so so caring. And like that’s why he works so damn hard, he does it for them, but also that’s why the girls grew up with an absentee father and aughhhh AUGHHHH the unsolvable dilemma of it all Chilchuck in Dunmeshi truly represents like, the harshness of reality & the world and how sometimes things will just suck no matter what, and then of course balancing that with Marcille in their shared arc where she tacks on "And despite that there is beauty everywhere even in the small and menial things, despite that your flawed relationships and dreams are still worth fighting for" ie giving reconciling with his wife a shot, etc.
All that said I think the very strict "you’re gonna grow up to have a stable job by god, young miss" attitude, those strong work ethics he highly values and focuses on and no doubt tried to instill in is own kids, is something he somewhat inherited from his own upbringing and parents.
In my masterpost bit on his parenting, I said I don’t think he’d do any kind of corporeal punishment, but. I do wonder about spanking aftee all. It can be so so easy to rationalize it… Sigh
Daughter pov
Again, my general interpretations for the daughters are written in my masterpost. I think Patti knows her father the least and is the one least worried about jobs and stability and least settled down as a result. Flertom is the more social one who I imagine tended to be the one worried about her parents’ couple and their emotions the most. And Meijack… Ohh Meijack.
When your father tried his best to provide for you but he worked all the time and even when he was home he was either tired or stressed and he’s always liked to get drunk to relax and cheer up. When you know he values work ethics and respectability so you grew up to be capable and quiet. And when he says you’re like him you’re sort of puzzled, does he really know you so little, or does he know himself so little? But you like the feeling of your father ruffling your hair so you accept it and still you stand next to your mother just as quiet and just as stoic during family gatherings. He leaves again and again and when your mother leaves him nothing changes, really. You wonder if it’s more telling that you know him better than he seems to himself or that you don’t know him as much as you wish you did, or that you don’t think about him all that much these days. Out of sight out of mind
Thinking of those posts about how kids never forget and during the "draw your family!" things at school, some of the kids draw their working parents seperate from the rest of them...
Absent father and when he’s at home you get the crumbs of him that you get and you’re grateful for it and that’s that <333
She doesn’t know how much he loves them bc he hasn’t showed them in a long time </3
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The horror of drunk Chil in my fics is often about what in this state he can’t do rather than what he could do, how someone who’s as proud of his skills and work ethics as he is has truly changed, not comprehending how he could become so sloppy or how he could allow himself to get like this, marred the values he preaches above all else. It’s in the way that he fumbles with doorknobs, that he could never lockpick a door if you were to lock it, and it both being your salvation and bringing you extreme distress at the thought of it all. His footsteps usually featherlight now sound heavy as stone, like a troll’s.
You know the thing that gets me so bad with alcoholism angst is when people describe the drunk person as a stranger. Often making a metaphor that they’re monsters, have some monster they shapeshift into uncontrollably once in a while, as a way to split the unreconciliable halves of the person sober and drunk in your vision of them……. It gets me soooo bad Little Puckpatti growing up on tales of trolls kidnapping disobedient kids and replacing them with doubles so no one even knows they’re gone… Coming face to face with a drunk Chilchuck that roams the halls of the house with heavy steps in the night, because she wanted to go drink a glass of water, too thirsty to sleep………..
And this is where I reveal that I wrote a fic about just that!! Trolls that thump and tiptoe through the night Mei @ Chil, You made me of stone and still every day you wear me down and chip away at me bit by bit
In the end notes I describe my takes and interpretations: With Mei I tried to give the sense of a kid who sacrifices some parts of childhood to feel closer to her parent, like not playing games to spend more time with him no matter how empty, or wanting to be worthy in his eyes. With Fler, since she was the one in canon to take in their mother and write Chil a letter explaining the situation, I feel like she’s always been the one most involved and aware of the problems in their family. The one most there to emotionally support or to understand what the vibes in a room meant. Puckpatti I think knows her father the least, since with time I think Chilchuck was more and more away from work and more and more cynical like the flashbacks of younger him dungeon diving. I think because of her not minding unstable odd jobs that she’s the most passive, that she’s the most go with the flow. I do also love when Mei is the one most aware of her parents’ flaws and most critical as the eldest, but not in this fic. Meijack grows up to never touch a drop of alcohol, what people joke is the one difference between her and her father. Flertom drinks, too much sometimes, but she considers drinking should be a social activity rather than a habit. Puckpatti only drinks on special occasions when she has the chance.
They already don’t have that much time together because of his work, I wonder how big of a percentage the amount of memories the daughters have of him are when he’s not himself truly… How they kinda reconcile it all. It’s their normal. 
And the thing that’s gutting too, is that Chil always looks so so much more open, relaxed, cheerful and happier when drunk than he usually is. He doesn't know how to get his defenses down without alcohol
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"you're all that's good"
Because we do see how he truly used to not be so closed off and bitter. But distrust and fearing for betrayals from both coworkers and then his wife aka the person who’s supposed to be closest to him (he doesn’t even have close family besides his daughters. Does he even have close friends) turned him into what he is now. He was so cheerful!! Happy and trusting and optimistic.
He leaves and she left
God there’s the whole ‘wife leaving him’ trauma too is the thing… It had to have fucked him up so bad like no wonder he got paranoid and decided not to open up to ANYONE like. He never saw it coming is the scariest thing. He didn’t expect her to just up and leave. He didn’t see the warning signs. He won’t know if it’s coming this time either.
….. But then also, why he didn’t reach out to her (besides hurt) was because it was a petty silence treatment, like "oh she left without saying a word? Fine well I won’t reach out to her either" <- man who is so not fine and collected about it. It’s been FOUR YEARSSSSSSS I wonder if he always was like… "This week she’s gonna send a letter. … Ok fine, this month she’s gonna crack. … Within the year she’ll come crawling back." and it’s a bit why it was allowed to go on for this long unchecked like… Why he still considers her his wife even though functionally she’s more of an ex by that point after 4 years.
I can never stop thinking about him and his wife they’re fucking crazyyy. Him not reaching out to her started as a silent treatment from frustration. She never reached out to him either, she just up and left, didn’t even leave or send one last letter she’s just gone and has left this all behind, the house and everything in it. It’s been 4 years but he still considers her his wife and considers themselves only "estranged", "due to circumstances we haven’t seen each other in years". His face in the panel he said this is interesting too, trying to be casual but defensive and exasperated, already dreading the judgement and questions. He moved out of his house to rent a place in Kahka Brud instead. How much of him not reaching out was avoidance… Guilt, frustration, sadness, confusion, just procrastinating and dread and fear of a rejection more concrete, or something else… Maybe realizing he doesn’t miss her as much as he should, not enough to chase after her or try to get her back, just resigning himself to it… Is he a bad husband, is he a bad person? Should they reconcile?
Not seeing it coming… It’s half trust, that this person who’s so dear to you could never just up and leave and hurt you like that, half entitlement, thinking that she would never think of leaving, and third it’s blinding himself to the warning signs, not wanting to believe or acknowledge them. Because like, there WERE some, he said she "suddenly fell into a bad mood on the way back [from the outing]" and I don’t think he’s too dumb to be aware that something was off, he literally just dismissed it and then went surprised pikachu face when it turned out things were indeed off.
Part of it is definitely, how do you even react if your wife walks out on you without warning. If it happened to me I think that I wouldn’t reach out for a while either, wait for them to reach out to me first, give them space. As I put it in one of my marchil wips, "I respect your right to be rid of me too much to try and shackle you to me if you want to leave". Inaction is easier than admitting he’s scared to check and find out that the worst case scenario is true. It’s been years and he still hasn’t worked it out why she left. Do you think that’s on purpose. That he doesnt want to know for sure. It’s so so so scary to try and do anything about it
He said he didn’t reach out right away when she left because he was petty and wanted to give her the silence treatment back. Ok but is it that he blames her for their marriage falling apart or does he blame himself and he’s just misdirecting the conflicted feelings? Did he not reach out because a part of him was too scared to know why she left or if she would refuse to come back? Did he just think that she’d come back on her own, and things would get fixed while still staying unsaid and unconfronted like they always have, the first month, then the next and the next, until it was a year in and it sunk in that oh, maybe she wasn’t coming back?
He seems genuine here when he says that he was angry about it and gave her the silent treatment, but it is an habit of his to lie to make himself look worse instead of showing vulnerability, so who knows.
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He is so so scared of being affected by relationships. Same thing with his compulsive habit to disguise his worry for anger. It’s why he doesn’t want people to have expectations of him, "I’m a coward I’m selfish", because then they can’t be disappointed, they can’t be surprised if he bites, they can’t leave when you lose what they’ve been staying for.
He has avoidant tendencies too. Every time there’s an interpersonal issue he just accepts it’s out of his control immediately. He’s passive when it comes to relationship problems, just like with coworkers, relationships are a ticking time bomb to him, and he just wants to be left out of it and come out unscathed. It comes back to his pessimism. He doesn’t think that like, things could be better. According to him life is tough and cruel, you accept your lot in life and make the best out of it and that’s it. If people are scummy you don’t whine about how unfair it is, you close yourself off and work to not be taken advantage of again and adapt. So then with his wife, when Marcille is like "Have you tried… Talking?" it’s such a crazy idea that it might work at all, that he could have the power to fix things… And that’s why it’s such a big deal when he goes "Alright I’ll try… I don’t know if it’ll go as well as in the stories, but I’ll try". That CRUMB of allowing himself to be hopeful is so huge
Honestly for the longest time I misread this bit, I thought she left in the night like how Marcille framed it, but no she left after he left for work. She left after he left again.
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The way it’s told, it really sounds like Chilchuck just came home from work, stayed probably a couple of days in which they went to that outing together, then left for work again right away/soon after and it’s like. Was that outing the most special thing you guys did together. You came home from like a month of work, you had one outing where she ended up having a bad time, y’all didn’t talk about it further and then you left for another couple of weeks. Are you kidding me
Your married life is waiting for your husband to come home, spending mediocre time together, being shut down when you voice discontentment, and things being left unaddressed before he leaves again.
She left when he was gone for work, but did she leave the day of, or did she flip flop on it and took a while before working up the strength to leave? Was she waiting to see if he’d say anything before leaving and when he didn’t that was the last straw?
Chilchuck trying to prove a point that half-foots can make it out there, trying to rely more on himself because that’s the only person he can trust. His wife feeling like he's leaving her behind (because he does. over and over and over and over.) This guy just keeps throwing himself into work because he thinks it's what's best for everyone. Hey sir neglecting emotional needs can be kinda detrimental to everyone involved, I think you might wanna know that ^ quotes courtesy of @soappox
And to come back to alcoholism for a bit, alcoholism is alcoholism, and someone asked why I thought that a Chilchuck with depression would drink and cope through alcohol, since drinking seems to be something cheerful to him. It does puzzle me a bit but it’s worth going over, so… I don’t think him using drinking as a coping mechanism is far fetched at all. Cheerful drunks that are alcoholic still can absolutely use alcohol in ways like that. If something makes you happier, or even just more numb which translates to you feeling more free etc etc, then I definitely think it tracks that he’d keep drinking. Like personally I do think he’d drink a lot after his wife left him, and in rough patches like that. Depression -> not wanting to have to think, the days are blurring together and you either don’t want to be conscious or you want to feel something etc etc -> drinking for the alcohol. Alcoholics tend to be, well, dependent on alcohol. If something bad happens etc they’re usually more likely to go harder on it rather than stop. We can debate on when and why Chilchuck first started to drink but it’s straight up his favorite food now and it’s deeply ingrained in his life, in his favorite outings and activities and priorities and moods and meals. A CHEERFUL DRUNK IS STILL A DRUNK!!! They drink to get happy not drink because they are happy, though obviously the two can have overlap.
Chil represses sooo much. His solution to interpersonal conflict and feelings is just don’t think about it and dull your feelings & senses to everything ✨ I love him. I need to kill him with hammers Like the other day I was thinking about an AU where he might have ran away from his neglectful home or something, but then I remembered he deals with everything including his family by dulling his feelings and senses to things 🫠 He wouldn’t leave
I’d say he doesn’t look troubled by loss through death, moreso loss through mistakes. His nightmare is his daughters dying yes, but moreso them being killed, there’s an axe in the wall etc, it’s about having failed to protect them.
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If he can’t fuck something up or if he’s already fucked it up there’s this pacifying sense that he can’t have the rug pulled from under him, because that’s what having connections is, having a wife isn’t an insurance it’s a rug waiting to be pulled. And his brand is sort of Flawed Mr Mistakes Man so he’s kinda been having to cope lol. I do think he throws himself into workaholism, because it’s sort of the only way to live he knows, making yourself capable and useful and spending his days working like that, less time to think, too tired to think. Senses dulled, senses that are usually too sharp, cutting with clarity that he prefers ignoring and avoiding. Work is something he doesn’t have to feel through, something that gives him pride and self-esteem, something through all the danger and life or death risk feels safer, emotionally. No one taught him how to deal with things another way, it’s always been suck it up and work.
Conclusion
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Stop smoking we love you and we don’t want you to die
No drinking will not externalize your feelings no it won’t vent them out well please Chilchuck ple-ea-ease…….
</3 They should invent an alcoholism that doesn’t make you dysfunctional and hard to be around
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^ Drunk, by The Living Tombstone
I’ve been thinking about enneagrams and Chil is 6w7 highkey. Becomes 3 when stressed, a little 8 but it’s more that he wants security so much that he becomes paranoid rather than having the core of an 8 y’know. I haven’t dug into it for quotes yet but this paper goes hard if you’re curious.
Dropping my relevant Spotify playlists here bc why not: Chilchuck & his wife, marchil angst
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Note
Heyy, I'm new on tumblr, even though I've been reading void blogs and success stories from chrome over the past few months but this is my first time actually getting tumblr. I've asked this to other bloggers but nobody seemed to reply, maybe they're on break but I don't really know since I'm new here. So I tried the secret subject sleep trigger and after it was over I woke up (as the person in the hypnosis directed me to) and laid on my bed absolutely motionless for about 15 minutes, my legs got sore since they were suspended from from the bed (the bed is a bit small) so I folded my legs while keeping my position same, then I remembered that I saw in a video about astral projection that you can visualize you have a rope hanging above you and feel that you're holding onto that rope and pulling yourself, so I did and it felt like I was actually pulling myself up and finally it felt like my legs were pulled up and once it happened, the thing I experienced after this was mind blowing, I WAS BLOWN. My earphones were still attached but there was no audio playing (since the sleep trigger hypnosis had already ended and my internet wasn't on) but I heard music for a very short while and after that I heard the audio which I previously heard in the mind awake body asleep binarual beats audio by phase evolution and some high pitched sounds occasionally, even tho anything wasn't playing. It felt like I was aggressively being pulled up and thrown down and my skin was being stretched vigorously and it also felt like my body was being tensed up and then back to normal and while this was happening I affirmed for the void, affirmations like 'I am in the void state rn' 'I always wake up in the void' 'Why do I always wake up in the void' such and such. After a while of this everything started to calm down so I thought I was in the void but as things started to calm down I could again slowly hear the background noises (like my mother talking and trees rustling) and again I was feeling how I felt when I laid motionless previously and then eventually my mother woke me up (even though I wasn't really asleep this whole time). I'm writing this long asf paragraph to ask you what actually happened when I experienced that because I am absolutely clueless, where I went wrong because I eventually couldn't enter the void and how I can improve or what I can do to succeed the next time (I'll be trying again tonight).
(I've asked this to quite a few bloggers but got no reply and I don't know if they're on break or if my question got sent)
Love youu and have a great day ahead 💕
There is a whole range of sleep states that negate out-of-body experiences and beyond, from MABA to the void and experiences in between like SATs, hypnagogia, sleep paralysis, the trance state, and etc. I can't tell you what was happening because I'm not you, and even if it was happening to me, I can't tell if I would know what was happening even if it was happening to me.
For everyone, it's very much a learning experience; there are still things that happen to me where I need to do research because it's very new! My mindset is just to affirm and hope for the best because even if it's not something you're aware of, it doesn't mean it can't help or you failed.
Just assume every new experience is an opportunity opening and just take it even if you don’t know what it is because there are things that happened to me in 2020 that I now realize, "Oh, I almost shifted. Oh, that was the void state. Oh, I was astral projecting," now in 2024. There’s a lot of potential in the the unknown and in the realm of OBEs it will benefit you to just assume the best and affirm lol I promise it will take you far
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I’m starting off this blog with a bunch of old art of Hyrule, in fairy form and otherwise.
I have no idea what I am doing.
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itismouse · 2 years
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i’ve been compared to ai a few times, so here she is :)
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antikosm · 4 months
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Aro/Ace Terms Masterlist
Please let me know if I forgot anything
NOTE: There is a distinct difference between someone's personal orientation versus how they feel about sexuality/romanticism as a whole. Someone who's sex/romance repulsed may be in favour of open sexual/romantic expression or even vice versa (shoutout to @sowearecleariamhere for informing me of this!)
Types of attraction
Sexual - I wanna have sex with that
Romantic - I want to date that
Sensual - I want to hug that
Platonic - I want to be friends with that
Platonic crushes do exist. They are called “squishes”. You go through the same process of having a romantic or sexual crush but instead of landing them in bed, you’re on the floor at 2am with pizza rolls, Shrek in the background, talking about eldritch monstrosities (or whatever your shared interest is)
Aesthetic - that looks so heckin’ cool/pretty I love it
Intellectual - the desire to engage with another in an intellectual manner, i.e. having a conversation, picking their brain, and finding out how they think
Terms describing degree of attraction
Aromantic - lack of romantic attraction
Asexual - lack of sexual attraction
Aplatonic - lack of platonic attraction
Aroace - lack of both sexual and romantic attraction
Demi - attraction only forms once a strong emotional bond has been formed
Grey/gray - rarely/seldom experiences attraction
Allosexual - someone who experiences sexual attraction
I think I’ve also heard/seen it referred to as ‘arosexual’ but that’s honestly a bit confusing
Alloromantic - someone who experiences romantic attraction
I personally shorten both of those to “allo” (pronounced ‘aloe’)
Apothiosexual - sex-repulsed
Apothioromantic - romance-repulsed
Apothiaroace - often shortened to just ‘apothi’. In addition to being aroace, apothis are repulsed by romantic/sexual scenes, items, displays, etc. to varying degrees
Sex-neutral and sex-positive/favourable aces exist as well
Not all of us have the same level of comfort with sexual and romantic activities so please check. I mean that applies to everyone anyway, but please check and don’t assume that just because someone is aro/ace, that doesn’t mean they are sex/romance repulsed
Queerplatonic - Queerplatonic typically refers to a relationship that bends the lines between a romantic relationship and a non-romantic relationship. A queerplatonic relationship (QPR) often goes beyond what is socially acceptable for a platonic relationship but does not fit the typical notion of a romantic relationship.
Alterous attraction - a type of emotional attraction to someone that isn’t entirely romantic or platonic.
Chastity - actively refraining from sexual activities. This is NOT part of the ace/aro spectrum, though it is a common assumption when someone says they are ace/aro. Thankfully we’re getting a bit more representation in media now so it’s not as common of an assumption as it used to be, but it’s still there, especially in those communities.
An absolute FANTASTIC addition by @heyftinally in case anyone doesn't see the repost
Gonna expand on sex favorable/neutral/repulsed, since this is a masterlist after all: - Sex favorable - regardless of your sexual orientation, you personally want to engage in sexual activity with someone (significant other, one night stand, friends with benefits, etc) - Sex neutral - if you're with someone who wants to engage in sexual activities then you may or may not, depending on a variety of factors, but you have no strong inclinations for or against engaging in sex itself as an activity. Basically it's "alright" Sex repulsed/averse - the idea of personally engaging in sexual activities makes you want to hurl/cry/claw your skin off/spontaneously combust. If someone suggested doing sexual activities together, you would probably vehemently say "No!" before they even finished the question. You would rather do anything else - Sex positive - refers to your attitudes about sex in general. Regardless of where you fall in the above three terms, you recognize that other people want to, and should have the freedom and right to, engage in consensual sexual activities, even if you personally don't like or want those activities. Essentially shorthand for "I respect the right of other adults to have gay sex, have gender-weird sex, have sex with multiple people in and out of monogamous relationships/marriages, and have weird, wild, freaky kinky sex, so long as all participants and consenting adults". You can still personally want zero sex for yourself or think a particular kink is weird/ick, but you can, in tumblr speak, be normal about consenting adults doing consenting adult stuff - Sex negative - conservative purity culture, basically. You think nobody should have sex ever, or at least not until marriage, and when they do it should only be the "right" or "good" kind, as arbitrarily decided by you/society/some collective. You think badly of, look down on, and may even treat badly anyone who doesn't have the "right" kind of sex in your opinion. You are not normal about consenting adults doing consenting adult activities (even though they don't involve you in any way)
A wonderful addition from @overlord-of-chaos Sex aversion is not the same thing as sex repulsed.
If you are sex adverse, you personally have no desire to partake in any of those actions but seeing or knowing other people partake in that doesn't bother you.
Sex repulsion is when you can't stand doing it yourself, seeing/hearing about/knowing that others partake in it, or even just the idea of it.
Microlabels/Terms describing flavour of attraction
Note: -sexual is used for many of these so we don't have to deal with duplicates confusing things. All of these prefixes can be used with -romantic, -sexual, -platonic, and I imagine -alterous as well
Abrosexual - orientation fluctuates between a variety of orientations
Aceflux - similar to abrosexual, but orientation is contained to asexual spectrum
Acespike - someone who is asexual but may experience intense, brief, and random bouts of sexual attraction
Aegosexual - disconnect between oneself and the target of arousal
Amicusromantic/sexual - only experiences romantic attraction to those who they have formed a platonic relationship with (subset of demi)
Angled aroace - the same as oriented, but for those who are demi, grey, flux, etc.
Anthrosexual - someone who is attracted to humans and alterhumans regardless of gender identity/expression
Bellussexual - has interest in the aesthetic/aspects/certain sexual actions, but does not experience sexual attraction or want a sexual relationship
Caedsexual - previously allo, but now ace due to past trauma
Cupiosexual - wanting a sexual relationship but not experiencing sexual attraction
Finsexual/gynesexual - attraction to femininity
Fraysexual - opposite of demi. Attraction dissipates once an emotional connection has been formed
Linsexual - attraction to androgyny
Lithosexual - experiencing sexual attraction but not wanting it to be reciprocated
Loveless Romantic/Lovelessromantic - those who cannot feel love or feel disconnected from love but can feel romantic attraction/don't feel disconnected from the concept of romance
Minsexual/androsexual - attraction to masculinity
Orchid - the opposite of cupio; experiences ____ attraction but has no desire for a relationship of that type
Placiosexual - not wanting to be on the receiving end of sexual activities but wishing to perform them on others
Quiosexual - unable to distinguish between sexual attraction and other forms of attraction
Qui(r)oromantic - inability to distinguish between platonic and romantic attraction
Reciprosexual - not experiencing sexual attraction towards someone until you discover they experience sexual attraction towards you
Requiessexual - similar to caedsexual, but rather than trauma, ace identity originates from a state of emotional exhaustion, usually from a past sexual experience
Oriented aroace -  an aromantic asexual (aroace) individual who experiences a form of tertiary attraction, that they feel is significant enough to warrant a place alongside their aroace orientation. (i.e. gay aroace, bi aroace)
Angled aroace - someone who is on the aroace spectrum (grey, demi, fray, etc) who experiences a type of attraction significant enough to stand alongside their aroace orientation
Examples of mixed orientations
Heteroromantic asexual biplatonic
Poly greyromantic pansexual
Apothi abroplatonic
Placiosexual aromantic finplatonic
Aroace cupioplatonic
Pan lithioromantic
Fraysexual biromantic aplatonic
You can get WAY more specific than what these cover, but just to give a general idea
Amatonormativity
Amatonormativity is the assumption that all human beings pursue love or romance, especially by means of a monogamous long-term relationship. The term was coined by Elizabeth Brake, in her book Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law (2011).
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celaenaeiln · 11 months
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Jason: *on private line* Swanhead.
Tim: Red Hood. Don’t call me that. What is it?
Jason: Send me my location, I don’t know where I am.
Tim: Hold-
Dick: *batkids group channel* Hey Baby Bird.
Tim: Nightwing. Again don’t call me-you know what? Nevermind. What’s the problem?
Dick: I need you to send me my location, I got kidnapped overseas.
Tim: Red Hood too.
Jason: Hey! I didn’t get kidnapped, I was violently taken hostage for a minor drug deal that went wrong. Totally different.
Tim: Right.
Jason: Listen here you little shi-
Dick: Oh, Little Wing’s in Belarus. Coordinates: 53.6212, 27.94683 and there’s a bike nearby he can use to get to the aircraft landing space close by but he’ll have to be careful because it’s swarmed by mean-looking guards.
Tim: …..
Jason: Since when are the guards nice-looking?
Dick: Little Wing, when you get kidnapped as often as I do, you get to pick and choose who you like.
Tim: Not getting into that mess but how’d you know Jason’s coordinates?
Dick: Older Sibling’s Intuition!
Tim and Jason: Bullshit.
Tim: Anyway, I’ll send Batman to pick you up.
Dick: Wait, no, Batman will bring Robin and little D just went over to J-Superboy’s house to play video games.
Tim: ….Okay, then I’ll send Batgirl.
Dick: No Batgirl’s throwing it back at a frat party so don’t bother her. She’s winning.
Tim: Orphan.
Dick: No she’s busy dismantling an underground mercenary establishment in Shanghai.
Tim: I’ll-
Dick: Nah, enjoy your date with your golden teddy bear tonight. It’s also a bit of a distance to go from Gotham to Metropolis to pick up your other one.
Tim: OKAY HOW DO YOU KNOW EVERYONE’S LOCATION BUT YOUR OWN?!
Dick: ….Tee Hee 😋✨
Jason: *muffled* did he just “Tee Hee?”
Tim: ….where are the kidnappers, I gotta rescue them.
Dick: *in the background on Dick’s line: sobbing and nonstop muffled thank you’s*
Dick: Whaddya mean? They’re fine. Right, guys? *more crying heard*
Tim: Dick….
Jason: *on private channel* Shushhh. Just let him have this. Still send help though. For them.
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osaemu · 5 months
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GETO SUGURU: ❛❛ SNOWFLAKES IN MY STOMACH WHEN WE KISSIN' ❜❜
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.ೃ࿐ your boyfriend can't be home for christmas? fine then, you'll just spend it with his best friend! but be prepared, 'cause your boyfriend's gonna be mad when he gets home. NSFW
contents: fem!reader. modern!au. best friend!gojo. degradation, spanking, p –> v, you guys are loud and you get walked in on! gojo gets slutshamed.. a lot. and he's very annoying!! also there's lots of borderline crack in this fic, have fun with that! 3.6k words, not proofread.
author's note: it's been a hottt minute since i've written for geto and i lowk forgot how to write him.. anyways.
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“what do you mean, you’re not coming home for christmas?” you huff, hopping on your bed and lying on your stomach. 
the man on the other end of the phone sighs exasperatedly, and you can almost see suguru massage his temples when he replies, “i have work, baby. i’m sorry, but i really can’t miss this chance to—”
it’s the night before christmas eve, and you just learned that suguru won’t be home in time to spend christmas with you—obviously, you were upset, because you’d been looking forward to spending the holidays with him. but to your dismay, holiday season’s always the busiest time of the year for businessmen like suguru.
“fine,” you groan, rolling over onto your back and staring at the ceiling. a soft sigh escapes your lips as you do so, and you mutter something about life not being fair as suguru lists all the reasons he can’t be home by christmas morning.
“i have a big meeting with some potential investors tomorrow, and there’s no way i’ll be back by the morning after,” suguru explains tiredly. you can hear the sleepiness in his voice, but the selfish part of you wants to keep him on the phone longer—it’s only seven, and you could easily spend the next couple hours convincing him to come home sooner.
“but suguru—” you try, even though you know nothing’ll convince him at this point. 
“i’m sorry, honey,” he interrupts. after a moment, suguru’s voice softens and he continues, “i just can’t make it home by christmas. we can spend the day after together, though—i think i’ll be free for the rest of the week.”
you roll off the bed, stuffing one hand in the pocket of your hoodie—suguru’s hoodie—as you make your way to the kitchen to grab a mug of hot chocolate. the other hand still holds your phone to your ear, and you swallow back the rest of the protests you have to suguru’s absence.
“anyways, i gotta go,” suguru murmurs, obviously suppressing a yawn. “love you, baby. n’ i’m sorry, but i really can’t do anything about it.” 
he hangs up before you can reply.
almost instantly, you dial satoru’s number—he’s probably the only other person you and suguru both trust enough to confide in about your problems, and like always, satoru picks up right away.
“hey, satoru?”
“heyyy, i already heard about it from suguru,” satoru replies, and there’s some suspicious squelching sounds in the background. are those grunts, too?
“uh, what are you doing?” you ask tentatively, hopping on the counter and sitting with your back pressed against the wall. the oddly wet sounds continue for a couple more seconds, and then they stop. “satoru?”
“shit, sorry, i was in the middle of something,” he replies with a breathless laugh. “yeah, i’m done now. wanna see?” your phone lights up with an invitation to facetime, and you hit the ‘x’ immediately.
“no, i don’t want to see whatever the fuck you’re doing,” you grumble, ignoring his laughter. “you’re disgusting, i’ll call you ba—”
“no, i’m free, i’m free!” satoru interrupts, and you can practically hear the smile in his voice as he continues, “suguru won’t be back for christmas, right?” 
you pause and sigh, closing your eyes for a second. “yeah, he won’t be.”
“and you want a way to get him to come back sooner, right?”
“yep. you have anything in mind?” you ask, half-hoping that satoru’ll be able to come up with some genius plan to get your boyfriend to fly back here to make it in time for christmas. but if you’re being honest, you know that there are very few things that could convince suguru to drop his supposedly important meeting and come straight home.
and somehow, satoru devises a plan that makes you certain he will.
————
the next morning, you receive a text from suguru asking you to facetime—under normal circumstances, you’d just ask him to call instead since you’re at a cafe, but not today. today, you want him to see you and your mischievous little plan, so you eagerly accept.
“hey, sweetheart,” suguru says the second the call connects. his dark hair is pulled back into its usual half-down half-up style, and he props up his phone on something to use his reflection to adjust his tie. “how are y— wait, is that satoru’s jacket?”
you smile innocently and turn the phone to show satoru, who’s sitting just across from you at the table by the window. after satoru’s taken his time to wave and blow a kiss to suguru (who rolls his eyes in response), you turn the phone back and say, “oh, i just got a little cold. it’s pretty chilly down here!”
suguru frowns, brown eyes narrowing at your cheeky expression. “very funny. why didn’t you just bring your own jacket? or one of mine?”
oh, this is the question you’ve been waiting for. you shrug off satoru’s rather comfortable jacket and show suguru the tight, long-sleeved shirt you’re wearing underneath it. the fabric hugs your skin in a way that shows off all your curves, and even better, it’s a light shade of blue that’s somewhere in between the color of satoru’s eyes and hair. 
“i did! but then it just got so cold and satoru was nice enough to offer me his jacket,” you say nonchalantly, pretending not to notice the way suguru’s jaw tightens. you flutter your eyelashes innocently and smile at suguru, thoroughly enjoying the way his eyes focus on your outfit.
“you jealous?” satoru chimes in, snatching the phone out of your hand and posing in front of it, admiring himself in the camera.
“no,” suguru mutters, but it wouldn’t take a genius to tell that he’s just lying through his teeth. satoru grins in response, making a peace sign with his hand and winking.
“good, ‘cause i’m gonna be hangin’ out with her all day long!” satoru cooes, blowing suguru another kiss before you swipe your phone back out of his hand.
“is he joking?” suguru grumbles, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow, seemingly unimpressed. you shrug in response, not buying his cool and collected persona. you know suguru better than most, and the subtle way his shoulders tensed the second he saw you in satoru’s jacket gave it all away.
“nope,” you reply, soft lips tugging themselves into a little smile. “we might spend christmas together too, ‘cause you won’t be here. but i guess i don’t really mind anymore—satoru’s good company!”
satoru covers his mouth to hide his laughter at your comment, giving you a thumbs-up when suguru doesn’t reply. your boyfriend says something about already being late and having to go, and this time, you’re the one who hangs up.
“oh, we definitely got him,” you grin, smugly lifting your mug of hot cocoa and clinking it with satoru’s in a celebratory expression. satoru hums in agreement before he takes a sip of his cocoa, face growing pink at the sudden warmth.
“so, how long d’you think it’ll be until suguru texts you that he’s on his way?” satoru asks, leaning back in his chair and blowing on his cup to cool off the smoking-hot liquid.
“hopefully soon.”
“i’m betting on… three hours.”
three hours later, you don’t get a single text from suguru. four hours later, nothing. on the fifth hour, you finally receive a message from him, but it’s just a “how are you?”
“was that not enough?” you whine, half-looking at your phone as you walk through the mall with satoru. “how else can i convince sugu to come back by tomorrow?”
satoru shrugs, pulling the red lollipop he got from a toy shop’s cashier out of his mouth. “i mean, we tried jealousy, so how ‘bout we go the other route?”
you tilt your head curiously, waiting for satoru to elaborate. 
“y’know, why don’t ya tempt him in… other ways?” satoru wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and your face grows warm despite the chilly air around you.
“satoru…” you pause, face unreadable as you stop walking and turn to him. satoru holds his breath in anticipation, waiting for your verdict.
“that’s a really good idea.”
————
and that’s how you ended up in a clothing store, sifting through hundreds of dresses in search of one that’d be alluring enough to draw suguru back home.
“what color does he like on you?” satoru asks, seemingly oblivious to the strange looks he’s receiving from the other people in the store as he examines handfuls of dresses with interest. “red? black? white?”
you shrug, running your fingers over a form-fitting dress the color of suguru’s eyes. “i dunno, do you think he’d like this?”
satoru turns, takes one look at the dress, and instantly grabs it. “c’mon, let’s get you into a dressing room.”
the second you and satoru get there, the dressing room attendant gives you both a weird look. her eyes settle on satoru, and she asks, “weren’t you just here a week ago with another girl?”
satoru’s face goes redder than you’ve ever seen it. “uh, yeah, i was. oh, this one’s my best friend’s girlfriend, not mine—”
you shove him aside and hand the dress to the attendant, smiling bashfully. “just trying on this one, thanks.”
the attendant eyes satoru suspiciously and then nods. “okay, but he doesn’t get to go inside. last time, we got a noise complaint from the other customers.”
if you thought satoru’s face was red before, now it’s a shade redder than you knew was possible. in fact, you’re almost considering sending him to the hospital to get checked on as you close the dressing room door behind you and try the dress on.
it’s a little tight, but that’s expected given the skin-hugging fabric. after a couple minutes, you turn and admire yourself in the mirror—the dress, thankfully, fits perfectly. the fabric accentuates your features in the best way possible, and it’s all you can do to stop yourself from staring in the mirror any longer.
“how do i look?” you ask, stepping out of the dressing room and doing a twirl for satoru. his jaw drops, and he nods instantly. 
“yeah, this is the one,” satoru affirms, taking out his phone. “want me to be the one to send the pics to suguru? that way we can still make him jealous!”
you give him a thumbs-up and blow a kiss at the camera, trusting satoru to take a flattering picture before you head back into the room to change out. on your way out of the store, you buy the dress at the counter—knowing suguru, he wouldn’t reply to satoru’s text, but you just knew he was dying to see you in that in person.
————
later that night, well after satoru’s gone back to his house and you’re relaxing in your own, suguru texts you again.
sugu: can we call?
you grin and roll over onto your back, nestling yourself deeper into your pillows before you dial his number. it only rings once before he picks up, and he instantly asks if satoru’s still with you.
“nah, he went home,” you say offhandedly, toying with the corner of your sheets. “did you like my dress?” you ask coyly, enjoying the way suguru pauses for a long second before replying.
“yeah, it looked good on you.”
“that’s it?”
“it really brought out your eyes.”
you bite your tongue to suppress a groan, instead opting to bury your face in a pillow instead. you had just spent the past twenty-four hours running around in circles, doing everything possible to get suguru to come back, and that’s all you get? really?
“anyways,” suguru continues, and you hear a soft rustling sound in the background—if you had to guess, he’s probably in bed right now. “how was your day, baby?”
“good,” you respond briskly, a soft scowl appearing on your face. suguru, being as observant as he is, picks up on the subtle change in your tone, but he doesn’t say anything. “satoru and i had a really good day. how was yours?”
suguru pauses before answering. “i missed you.”
“then come home, sugu,” you plead, even though you know that there’s no way he’ll be back in time. but it’s worth a try, right?
“you know i can’t,” suguru murmurs, exhaling softly. “no way can i get a flight back this late and make it back by tomorrow morning. i—”
“then get a sleigh!” you huff indignantly, unable to resist smiling when you hear suguru laugh. “please, sugu? christmas won’t be christmas without you.”
“just spend it with satoru,” suguru mutters under his breath, and that’s when you realize that your efforts haven’t entirely been in vain. he’s obviously sour that you spent the whole day with his best friend instead of him, and a small spark of hope starts to fester in your heart. 
“maybe i will,” you reply coyly, and you can hear your own smile in your voice—and you’re sure that suguru can hear it too. “anyways, i’m a little tired. good night, baby.”
“night.”
————
the next day, you host a party in your otherwise empty house—after all, it’s christmas, and it’d be rather depressing for you to spend it alone. so you invite satoru, satoru’s friends, and their friends, and so on. word gets around fast, and people show up in droves.
which is why you don’t notice when suguru himself slips in through the back door.
you’re giggling with satoru and his stoic friend kento when they both stop laughing, and you look up at them, confused. “what is it?” you ask, sipping the sweet liquid in your glass with a smile.
“suguru?” satoru asks, lips tugging themselves into a wide smile. “guess you didn’t wanna spend christmas alone, yeah?”
you turn around, half-expecting satoru to be joking. but to your surprise, your dark-haired boyfriend stands in front of you, smiling dryly. you stare at him for a solid two seconds, certain that you’re hallucinating. “sugu? but i thought—”
“thought you could mess around with my best friend?” suguru muses, arching one of his eyebrows. his suit’s a little wrinkled, and his hair’s more disheveled than normal, but somehow, he seems more alert than ever. suguru’s amber eyes go from yours to satoru’s wide blue ones, and satoru shrinks away from him with a nervous smile.
“i’m gonna go,” kento says offhandedly, a glint of amusement in his eyes. he turns and disappears into the crowd, leaving you, satoru, and suguru alone in the living room. 
“hey, bro, it was her idea!” satoru says instantly, raising his hands as if he’s a burglar in front of the police. you turn to him in disbelief, scoffing indignantly at his pitiful attempt to get out of trouble.
“no, it was your idea!” you insist, jabbing your finger at satoru. he gasps dramatically and pretends to faint, to which you roll your eyes good-naturedly. you turn back to suguru, rounding your eyes in an attempt to gain his favor. “i swear, sugu, this was all satoru’s idea!”
“you liar,” satoru grumbles, crossing his arms and huffing childishly. you turn and glare at him, and coupled with suguru’s unimpressed look, it’s enough to scare satoru off. 
and now it’s just you and suguru, alone in your mint-scented living room. christmas pop plays in the background from another room, and maybe it’s just the dim lighting but you swear you can see suguru’s face go a shade redder than before.
“hey,” you mumble, averting your eyes.
“hey,” suguru replies. he smiles, and just like that, all his features soften. “don’t you want to know how i got here so fast?” he drawls, reaching out and brushing something off your shoulder. his fingers trail down from your shoulder to your collarbone, which is all the more prominent thanks to the dress you’re wearing. incidentally, it’s the same dress you had sent suguru a picture of yesterday—maybe that’s why he can’t take his eyes off you.
“yeah, how did you get here so fast?” you ask curiously, suppressing a shiver as his fingers trace your figure down to your waist. suguru’s eyes go from your dress to your face, and he grins.
“well, i had to leave right before my meeting started and bribe some passengers with a shit-ton of money for their seats,” suguru starts, taking you by the hand and leading you to your shared room. “and believe me, it was a lot of money. and most people still said no, ‘cause they want to be with their families for the holidays.”
he makes a face as he pushes open the door, and stops in his tracks. your face grows warm as you realize that you had set up your room for him too—it’s illuminated with soft candlelight, the linen sheets are changed, and you—oh, you look perfect in suguru’s eyes. it takes a great deal of his willpower to stop himself from fucking you right there and then.
“oh, yeah, it was a lot of money,” suguru continues, smiling down at you coyly. “between the deal i just fucked up and the ridiculous amount of bribes i had to make, i think you owe me.”
suguru makes his way over to your bed and sits, spreading his legs and showing off his growing erection. you grin, following him and sitting in his lap. “did you miss me, sugu?”
“damn right i did.”
and barely a minute or two later, he’s got you face-down ass-up in the sheets, a calloused hand clamped over your mouth to muffle your increasing moans. “shh, wouldn’t want our guests to hear ya,” suguru whispers, breath hot against the side of your face.
you squirm underneath him, mind hazy from the feeling of his dick buried in you for the first time in.. how long? does it matter? “s-sugu, please fuck me,” you mumble, pretending not to notice the way he hasn’t bothered doing anything to you besides use you as his personal cockwarmer.
in the short time he’s been inside you, suguru’s barely moved—and fuck, he enjoys watching you squirm around and beg him to do more than just.. nothing.
“sugu, plea—”
he cuts you off with a slap to your ass, relishing the lewd whine that slips out of your lips in reply. “fuck, you thought y’could get me back here by fuckin’ with my best friend?” suguru cooes, shifting his hips. 
“we didn’t—”
“yeah, no shit, baby,” suguru interrupts dryly. “otherwise this’d be a lot worse for you—and for him.”
suguru’s dark eyes flit over to where the dress you bought lies, discarded somewhere in the corner of your room. he grins and uses his hand to turn your head, gesturing at the fabric. “and i bet he was the one who gave you the idea to do whatever the fuck that was,” suguru drawls, clicking his tongue. “tell me, whose idea was it to have him send me that pic? yours, or his?”
when you don’t reply, suguru sighs dramatically and grabs your hair, pulling your head up enough for him to lean down and whisper in your ear, “this’ll be a lot easier for you if you just answer—the—question,” suguru breathes, punctuating each word with another slap to your ass.
“it wasn’t m-mine!” you cry, looking up at suguru with shiny, rounded doe eyes. “i just wanted to—”
suguru cuts you off by pulling out of your drenched cunt just enough to allow him enough space to go back in, and his thrust is harsh and hits all the right places inside of you. your walls clench around him, and shit, suguru realizes that he missed fucking you like this more than anything else in the world.
“fuck, you’re so damn tight,” he hisses, shifting his hips again to allow himself more space to move. “did ya not touch yourself at all while i was gone?”
“n-no,” you stutter, swallowing another pornographic sound from escaping your lips. “i waited for you, sugu,” you gasp, feeling him hit spots you haven’t felt throb in a painfully long time. and fuck, you’re so out of practice that affer just a few thrusts, you’re mewling all over his cock and whining about how you’re close to cumming.
your vision gets speckled with spots of white as thoughts of suguru take up every corner of your mind, even as he teases you for getting so close so fast. but it’s not your fault you’re about to cum faster than you’ve ever done—you’ve tried fucking yourself with your fingers on times when suguru was out for work, but he’s spoiled you with his dick more than you can imagine.
and that’s why you cum all over his cock in what has to be a record-breaking time, tongue lolling out of your mouth as you mumble indecipherable words.
“aw, look at you,” suguru murmurs, stroking your hair as you tremble underneath him. even though it’s unbearably cold outside, it feels scorching hot in here—but maybe that’s because of both of your heaving chests in the aftermath of your orgasm.
“‘m sorry, sugu,” you mumble hazily, and suguru chuckles in response.
“it’s alright, baby,” he responds lightly. “y’know i like fucking your bratty cunt dumb every once in a while, heh.”
you two lie there, basking in each other’s presence for a little while longer before the bedroom door creaks open. and to your horror, satoru stands there, seemingly bored by the whole scene.
“can you two keep it down?” satoru groans, dragging a hand down his face. “we’re trying to have a karaoke competition, but you guys keep going agh—”
suguru hurls a pillow at satoru, cutting off his mocking moan. “you’re next, asshole,” suguru grumbles, getting off of you and covering you with the sheets.
“you’re gonna fuck me next? wow, what happened to hi, hel— oww, okay, i’m going, i’m going!”
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redhotarsenic · 1 year
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I decided to start playing around with some watercolor brushes I downloaded an eon ago while I’m working on the knives picture because I didn’t want to have a plain background but I still kinda don’t wanna put a ton of effort into it and the specific one I used is pretty damn nice
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tojipie · 1 year
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prison bf series linked here !
content: violence, injury, blood, incarceration
˚ ✧ ───────────
prison bf ! toji who beats the shit out of other inmates to have more time on the commissary phone with you, pocketing loose change from his bunkmates to use on your weekly calls.
“this is an automated message from the tokyo prefecture rehabilitative penitentiary, to accept, pres—“
“hey pretty girl.” the bass of his voice sends a tremor up the length of your spine. you can already picture his bulky form leaning up against the brick walls of the prison mess hall.
“hi toji.” you giggle, swinging your legs behind you with glee. “did you get my package?”
“course i got your package.” he laughs, slipping a hand into his pocket to fiddle with the trio of polaroids you’d slipped into the letter. “guards gave me a ton of shit for it though.”
“aww i’m sorry.” you mumble, feeling guilty for the trouble.
“nah, don’t worry about it baby.” he laughs, shifting to looking through the candids you sent of your sweet smile.
“did you end u—”
“wrap it up fushiguro i need to call my fucking lawyer!”
the crunch you hear through the receiver is nothing short of sickening. it’s a while before the older man brings the phone back to his mouth, mumbling incoherently to himself.
“—blood on my fucking hands… hello?”
“i’m here toji.” you say, listening intently to the sound of shrill guard whistles blowing in the background. “do you have to go?”
“you know how it is babydoll.” he says apologetically. you cant help but squeeze your thighs together at how soft he can be with you, even with blood splattered across his knuckles and a room full of men who fear him.
“you’ll visit me this week right?” he asks, wiping his hands on the front of his wifebeater.
“mhm, i’m driving up tomorrow! you want me to bring you anything special?”
“you uhh, still got those chips i like at home?”
“you know i do.”
“that’s my girl.” he laughs, hanging the phone back up on the hook.
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ariel26c · 2 months
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🎀Things I’ve learned about Shifting 🎀
1. Background noise doesn’t matter. I come from a Hispanic family household and let me tell you hun it’s freaking loud as hell. It’s like a zoo lol but guess what? I still shifted. At some point you will start to feel your CR kinda “fade away”. I have been in this state where I am in between my CR and DR. I can hear background noise from my CR but I still feel like I’m in a different room or I hear sounds from my DR as well. Has anyone experienced this?? Let me know, I’m curious 🤨
2. Have patience. Allow yourself to relax and naturally connect to your DR. Don’t stress about having random thoughts or having an itch or things like that. Have patience with yourself like seriously you got this babe. Sometimes for me it’s feels like it’s takes 1 or 2 hours until I feel fully connected to my DR. (It’s different for everyone btw) you may take less time than I do. Those things don’t matter if you decide that those things don’t matter.
3. Methods really aren’t needed. If you think about it all methods consist of the same thing usually. It usually consists of affirmations, visualization, subliminal audios, meditation, counting, blah blah blah. If you want to use a method, then do that but don’t force yourself to do a method that doesn’t resonate with you. If you don’t like counting, then don’t count. If you don’t like visualizing, then don’t visualize. Change things up a bit and listen to music that reminds you of your DR or do something that you think is fun.
4. Just because some people like to lie about their shifting experiences doesn’t mean that shifting is fake. Just like in every community there is going to be people that are dishonest or don’t have the best intentions but that doesn’t mean that shifting is a big inside joke. Don’t allow these people to discourage you from shifting to your DR or make you doubt in its existence. Don’t depend on other people's content to feel motivated or believe in shifting. Just KNOW it’s real and motivate yourself to shift. (even though motivation isn’t needed to shift)
5. Shifting is Real. I think we all should know this by now, but I don’t think people really fully understand just how REAL shifting is. I mean you are going to be able to use all of your senses. You will be able to taste food, see your reflection in the mirror, talk to people that may be considered as fictional in this reality, etc. The process of shifting is safe but if you are shifting somewhere that has violence or gore make sure you script your own well-being. High pain tolerance, no trauma, etc.
6. Time isn't important. Just because it's been 4 years or 5 doesn't mean you can't do it. Time doesn't apply to shifting because time is just man-made thing. We created the concept of time not the Universe. Don't blame the Universe for your "Failure". (Spoiler alert: it's not failure) You just need to realize that no matter what, it will happen. It is completely inevitable. Some people have shifted after 5 years so don't give up! It will be worth it.
7. You can't fail at shifting. When you do your method, you will shift to your DR or shift to your CR. You shift all the time. We are constantly shifting consciously or unconsciously. Manifestation and shifting are very much closely related. (But that's another discussion for another time) Just like how we are manifesting on autopilot we are also shifting on autopilot. So, when you do a sleep method, and you wake up in this reality instead of your DR you still shifted. (Just not to your DR) (Get it?)
I hope you found this post helpful! :)
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irndad · 1 month
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a/n: continuation to this, but you don't necessarily have to read it first! all you need to know is reader got shot protecting maeve, and both survived. spencer has been in love with her the entire time.
“Have you called Maeve?” 
She asks it on a beautiful, rainy day, about five weeks after the event in question. She’s a little too nonchalant about the whole thing, has been from the start- Spencer’s been correcting for that. He’s been treating her like something fragile, a beautiful glass figure that was almost shattered. This is something he knows irritates her, but how can he not?
He tries not to think of it, but the memory of her in a hospital bed, bandages over her abdomen, the wooziness of giving her blood. He can’t help his caution, now. People assume, quite often that Spencer was unaware of the fact he’s in love with his best friend. Like it was something he didn’t know, didn’t have to live with. 
Spencer can be oblivious about a lot of things, but being in love with the person he’s shared a desk with for 4 years is not among them. 
“No,” he replies, looking up at her as she sits down, handing him the cup of tea she made him. They’re at his apartment. She’s been cleared for desk work, but Spencer had been nervous about the whole thing. They’ve fallen into a rhythm of her going to his apartment after work, and for how determined he is to tell her how he feels, he’s not really able to pluck up the courage.
“Spence,” she sighs, “You have to call her.”
“I did! When it happened, I called her. We talked. We just don’t talk anymore.”
She furrows her brow in an adorable way, and Spencer’s heart threatens to fall out of his chest. He’s been playing a game of she loves me, she loves me not in his mind for the. Past few weeks. 
Took a bullet to see me happy. She loves me. 
She stirs her ceramic spoon, the clink of it against the mug fills the silence. She bites her lip, clearly disappointed with his response. 
Wants me to call my not but kind-of ex. She loves me not.
She’s wearing this blue floral dress, and he is trying not to stare at where the fabric has ridden up, kissing the skin above her knee. She’s got lipstick on, and he tries not to read into how she’s sitting so close to him. Except he is kind of reading into it. 
Before she got hurt, he had tried to shove this feeling down- tried to ignore the swoop of his stomach when she walked by, or when she gave him a compliment, or when she let him do a card trick for her. He tried to shove down how much he fucking hated it the one time she had a date pick her up at the office. 
She’s just easy to be in love with. She writes little smiley faces on post-it notes and leaves them on his desk, and when the whole Emily thing had gone down, she’d spent weeks taking care of him through her own grief. 
She’s sitting on his couch. Five weeks ago, she was half-dead in a hospital bed, and now she is on his couch, in a beautiful dress after returning from the job they both share. 
He does not want to call Maeve. 
The comfortable silence turns tense as the episode of Doctor Who plays in the background, and he’s still a little gunshy- she’s breathing, she’s okay. He feels creepy, but he lets his eyes close for a moment so he can hear the sound of her breath, to know it’s still there.
“Spencer,” she says, after she pauses the show, and he turns fully to face her, “I am okay.” She grabs his hand, and he takes a couple of seconds to process the touch as she places it over her own wrist. ‘I am fine. They fixed me up. You are allowed to stop worrying.”
Her tone is even, but intentional. She’s giving him permission, as if his presence is some guilt-driven notion that’s stopping him from getting what he really wants. It’s true, though, that he doesn’t always believe she’s okay. Notices how she’ll wince when she bends a certain way, and the scar by her eyebrow is healing well, but he still searches for it in her face.
He savors the feeling of the soft skin of her wrist under his touch, running his fingers over the junction of her hand and wrist with delicate affection. How she hasn’t figured out he’s in love with her is anyone’s guess. 
He wonders what it would feel like to kiss her there.
“I know I can call her,” he manages to say back, meeting her warm gaze in a maybe too honestly in love glance, “I’m where I want to be.”
“Before I got hurt, you picked out an outfit, you asked for advice on dating, Spencer. You did that. I just-“ she sighs, moving her hand from his grasp and pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, “The piece of you that wanted that is obviously still there. You don’t have to spend a Friday night with me in your apartment because you feel guilty that I got shot.”
“You’re not here because I’m guilty-“
“Then why-“
“You’re in my apartment right now because I am in love with you, and if you’re out of my sight for more than twelve hours than it’s like I forget that you’re still alive. That you didn’t get yourself killed before I ever got the chance to actually tell you.”
He’s not yelling. Well, he’s kind of yelling. Talking loudly, anyway. Her eyes widened and he’s hyperaware of how close she already was, is. She smells like lilies and her, and it’s all so present. She could have died. She might have never heard it. 
She’s heard it now, he supposes. All the weeks of agonizing, notebooks he’s managed to fill in the last few weeks trying to figure out a way to say it to her that could charm her into loving him back- all gone. He’s told her, now. 
All the cards are in her hands.
Her doe eyes almost sparkle at him, her head tipped to the side in a fond, loving gesture, and he wants to kiss her, wants to feel her faded-lipstick pout against his mouth. He wants his I love you to turn into I can have this. 
“Spence,” her voice is a trembling, insecure thing. One half of his mind wants to rage at him- there’s no way she’s going to tell him she loves him back, that someone like her could ever want someone like him. But the other half, one that seems dangerously like hope- she took a bullet for him. She didn’t even think twice. “You’re in love with me?”
It’s like it’s not even him who replies. Some bitter thing takes over his voice and speaks for him. 
“How could I not be? It’s you.”
It’s then he notices, that oh, she’s tearing up. 
A beat passes, and Spencer sucks in a deep breath before rambling an absurd amount. 
“You don’t have to- We can still be friends, obviously, you know that. But we can, I just- I needed to tell you because when you were in that hospital bed and you’d never heard me say it, I just couldn’t live with you never knowing. But now you do, and you don’t feel the same, and that’s okay-“
He doesn’t get to keep talking, because she grabs him by the collar of his shirt and kisses him. She’s warm and beautiful and her hair brushes up against his cheek and there’s something in him that takes over when he moves to  cradle her head between his hands, both desperate to keep her in his grasp and savor the moments he gets to hold her. She tastes like cherry chapstick and something completely undefinable. 
When she pulls away after a moment that feels entirely too short, heavy lidded eyes meeting his in affection, and Spencer thinks he’d like to do that for the rest of his life. 
“I love you too,” she says back, and he commits it to memory, the sound of her so-sweet voice wrapping around the words he’s fantasized about hearing since the first time she smiled at his joke about philosophy. “I’ve loved you a really, really long time, Spence. I just thought I lost my chance, you know with- with everything. I never really thought I had one.”
He can’t even speak, really. He doesn’t think he can wrap his head around the fact that she felt like he wouldn’t like her back. 
It doesn’t feel like a concern, now, when he leans in to kiss her again. She smiles into him, and Spencer memorizes the feel of her waist encircled in his arms, when he realizes that this is the heart he is able to hold without limits. 
She loves me too, he thinks. She is safe, she is okay, and she loves me back. 
On the following Monday, when Morgan sees the two of them with linked hands before Hotch gets to the office, he doesn’t say anything. 
He does hand Emily 20 dollars, though. 
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eternally-racing · 3 months
Text
baby steps | lando norris
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pairing: lando norris x wife!reader (plus their adorable lil kiddo) 
genre: fluff
warnings: none 
word count: 2.5k
summary: Lando needs a little bit of encouragement to head off to his first race after the birth of your daughter, so what better thing to do than surprise him on race day?
note: this fic can be read as a stand alone or as part of the racer girl series !
---
When you first showed Lando the two lines on your positive pregnancy test, your entire world had changed. It felt like such a whirlwind of excitement, and before you knew it you were 9 months pregnant watching Lando’s races on television. It was pure luck that your water only broke the day after the season ended, which meant that Lando had a cherished couple of months with your baby girl, Piper, before heading back to racing. 
The two of them had become quite the dynamic duo in your household. From the moment that Lando first looked at your daughter, he knew that he was in love. He was an amazing father and you told him exactly that at every moment you could. It was one of the biggest fears that Lando had, being an absent father or not knowing what to do. Before you met Lando he was fully in his bachelor lifestyle, not once even thinking of kids, but now he was the biggest girl dad you’ve ever seen, giving into your daughter’s every whim. It’s exactly why Lando says he wants to give up racing all together once he sees your daughter cry for the first time when he leaves to go to the MTC for the first time since she was born - he would do anything for Piper, he would give up everything he loved if it meant that his little girl would be happy. Luckily, he had you to keep him grounded, and after more than a couple of tearful conversations you had helped Lando make peace with continuing on with his career with you and your daughter there to support him in the background. This was the first week that this was truly going to be tested though, since it was finally time for him to fly to Bahrain. 
“Say goodbye to daddy!” you say as you pick up your daughter’s hand to make her wave. 
You can see the way the wheels are turning in Lando’s head as he stays frozen in the entryway. He’s not forgetting anything, there’s no way he could with your packing lists that he’s used for every single race since you started dating. Even if he did forget something, he knows he could easily get someone from the team to either shop for him or send it over.
“Y/N I - , I don’t know anymore about this,” Lando mutters with his grip on the door handle loosening. 
“Lan, cmon now, I can’t have two babies in this house at once.” you joke as you pinch his cheek. “But seriously, you’re gonna be okay? Just do your best out there. I’m only a phone call away all the time if you need me. You’re going to be great and we’re cheering you on from here. I’ll send you all the pictures and videos and everything so it’ll feel like you’re still with us.”
While Piper can’t talk yet, she still reaches out to Lando to gently pat his shoulder - which only brings more tears to the forefront of Lando’s eyes. He always said his daughter was smart beyond her years, able to sense things even some adults don’t notice. 
“What if Piper can’t fall asleep without me reading her story? What if she learns how to walk before I’m gone? Or what if she forgets that I even exist?” 
“First off, I have memorized “the Rainbow Fish” perfectly from the 7 different times you taught me it. She’s not going to walk because she’s barely 8 months old. And lastly, she’s not going to forget you Lando, I promise you that. Do you trust me?” 
Lando doesn’t miss a beat when he says “always.” 
You hand your daughter off to Lando’s arms in exchange for the carry on that’s currently in his hands. You know that all he needs to do is hold her, to remember that feeling of being with her so he can keep that memory with him for the week ahead. You’re not the only one who’s noticed the way that Piper always immediately seems to calm down whenever she’s in her dad’s arms. There was something special between the two of them, something so unbreakable - which is exactly what you tell Lando. 
“Plus I think she’s in that phase where she’s starting to like you better, so I could use some alone time with our little bug” you tease as you squish your daughter’s cheeks. When Lando sees you cracking jokes it makes him feel a little more at ease - if you were so comfortable with this then why shouldn’t he be too? With one last hug and kiss, Lando finally walks out the door with a promise to facetime you once he gets to the airport. 
Piper starts crying the second she realizes that her dad is really gone, and honestly you shed a few tears too.
 “Don’t worry Pipes, we’re going to see daddy sooner than you think,” you whisper to your daughter as you try to soothe her. Little did Lando know that you had a bag packed in your bedroom for you and your daughter to surprise him at the paddock on race day.
The expectations were low for Lando in Bahrain, both from the media and from himself. He had been very upfront about having different priorities this summer than just racing, so he had been a write-off in so many people’s minds. That’s what made it even sweeter when Lando saw the checkered flag first in Bahrain, marking the very first time he had ever won at the circuit. It’s no secret that Lando had become more sensitive since he had become a dad, but when he says “This one is for my girls, I love you Y/N and Piper” over the radio, it brings tears to everyone’s eyes. 
Lando is already over the moon. He gives a big cheer to the roaring crowd before going to hug the rest of the team. It’s absolutely electric and it really seems like everyone, regardless of whether they are a McLaren fan or not, could appreciate how much this win meant to him. 
But the sweetest moment is when he spots you. You’re a little bit off to the side, a couple of security guards standing around you to make sure that nobody would try and trample over you and Piper. Little Piper is wearing a pair of noise canceling McLaren branded headphones on her ears as she hangs out happily in your arms. It’s like she spots her dad at the same time too, since she starts waving her arms in Lando’s direction. Lando immediately stops everything he’s doing to run over to you two. You have a knowing look in your eye, like you were just waiting for him to finally spot you both. 
“Oh my god, you’re here.”  Lando lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Having you both here makes him finally feel complete, like his heart was finally whole again. 
“There’s no way we were going to miss daddy’s first race of the season. Congratulations, babe” 
Lando has questions of course - how you managed to pull this off without him noticing, whether Piper gave you trouble on the plane, and so much more. For now, though, he just wants to spend time with you two. He almost forgets that he’s at the race entirely, let alone that he won it until a team member comes up behind him to ask him if he’s ready to do his interview 5 minutes from now. 
When Piper reaches over with her little grabby hands for Lando, you of course give into her whims as you pass her over to the sweaty driver. It also gives you a second to pull out your phone and capture the moment for yourself. Piper is playing with the visor on Lando’s helmet, learning a new form of peek a boo that you know that she’s going to want to keep playing when you get home. You’re the one who helps keep Lando on track, giving him one last kiss on his helmet before you tell him to head off towards the hoard of media personnel eagerly awaiting his appearance. When you go to take Piper back from him she refuses to budge, and with both Piper and Lando giving you their classic puppy dog eyes, you know you’re outnumbered. 
“Keep her safe, Lan, okay?” It’s a rhetorical question. You know that Lando wouldn’t let anything happen to her - but it’s still a big crowd, the biggest you’ve ever been since you gave birth, and it’s a little scary to not hold onto her here. 
You don’t think anyone has ever seen Will Buxton this happy as he pulls Lando aside for his post-race interview. 
“I have to say, congratulations on an absolutely brilliant drive from you today, Lando - and would you like to introduce the special guest you’ve brought with you?” Will asks with a grin. 
Lando can’t help the similar smile that is etched on his face as he looks at his little girl. “This is my daughter Piper, and she’s just the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I can’t share enough praise for my beautiful wife Y/N too - words can’t describe how much she means to me.I really wouldn’t be standing here in front of you today without her support.”  Lando looks back at you with a smile and kisses Piper on the cheek to end off his sentence, but Piper seems to be more interested in the texture of the mic than her dad at the moment. 
“What does it mean to you to have this be your first win as a father, Lando?” 
“Oh man, this little girl is everything to me - I just want to do my best on the track so that Piper can look back and always be proud to have me as her dad.” 
The moment is made extra sweet as Piper tosses and turns in Lando’s hold so that she can cling to him like a koala bear, pulling herself further into Lando’s chest. She is starting to like the microphone just as much as Lando, so she pulls her face right onto it before she says her very first word - “dada”.
At first Lando thinks he’s hallucinating - there’s so many people around and there’s so much noise that he can barely hear himself think. But then Piper says it again and he can’t help but start to cry.
“She -, she- called me dada, oh my god I can’t believe it,” Lando’s in pure disbelief as he stares in awe at his little girl and looks back at you watching in the crowd. For a minute he forgets that there’s a full corral of people watching him until he hears a collective “awww” from the crowd.  “Sorry it’s just -, wow, she’s never done that before.” he says sincerely as he wipes the tears from his cheeks.
It’s now Piper’s turn to cry as she gets overwhelmed with all the eyes that are staring at her, pushing the microphone away from her as she buries her head into Lando’s shoulder. She is just a little kid, after all. Lando wraps up the interview as fast as he can, apologizing as he whisks Piper away to try and lift her spirits. 
Luckily it’s time to head into the cooldown room, which proves to be the perfect place for Piper to calm down from her outburst. The antics continue there as Lando bounces Piper on her lap, pointing to the TV screen to show her all the highlights. 
“Look at daddy about to overtake uncle Charles! And there’s uncle Alex, and uncle George...” Lando continues to retell the story of the last two hours as the other two podium sitters, Max and Oscar, chime in intermittently. Sometimes Piper’s gaze falls to Lando’s new hat instead of the screen, but he’s happy to have her in the room with him to share this moment. 
You have to really bargain with Lando to get him to hand Piper back to you so he can head to the podium by himself - it’s only at the rational explanation of not wanting your baby covered in champagne that he finally gives in to reason. Piper loves seeing the celebrations on the podium, adding in some cheers of her own when she sees her dad jumping up and down with joy on the podium. The little girl is addicted to the shine of the Bahrain trophy in the sun and you and Lando both later joke that she likes the piece of metal better than the both of you combined. 
It’s no surprise that Piper falls asleep on the car ride home - you do the same next to her as the jet lag catches up to you both. Piper still keeps one hand firmly on the trophy, having barely let it out of her sight since Lando brought it to her. Lando can’t help but feel so lucky as he looks through the rearview mirror at the both of you. 
It never gets any easier - leaving. The next weekend Lando heads to the United States and Piper cries the whole day once she notices that he’s packing a suitcase. You’re honest with Lando when you tell him that you’ll see him once he gets back, there’s no way you and Piper would be able to handle all the time changes and long haul flights that would come with going to every race.
You still watch every race though, throwing sleep training to the wind as Piper often stays up at all odd hours to watch with you. There are so many moments where you wish that you could be there with Lando, especially with the season he’s having. As the journalists would say, Lando’s “dad powers” have brought him his best ever start to a Formula 1 season, as he has yet to finish outside the top 3 so far. 
“What do you think is going to happen when I don’t come home from a trip with one of those?” Lando jokes as he sees your daughter absolutely enamored with the newest addition to her trophy collection. It’s the Australian GP trophy, which proves to be the perfect vessel for Piper to put her cereal pieces into. The little girl has taken to yelling as her new favorite hobby, and she shows it off every time she squeals with joy when Lando walks through the door after a race.
“I don’t want to find out, so you’ll just have to keep getting podiums, Lan” you joke back as you lean your head onto his shoulder. 
----
author's note: oh man, this has been sitting in my drafts FOREVER as i tried to perfect it but i really wanted to share it with you all. Thanks for all the love - asks are open if you want to say hello or make a request! Until next time! - Em 🤍
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emmyrosee · 2 months
Note
So some idea for Sukuna fluff 🥺 like imagine you want to take a picture with him and at first he gets annoyed because he thinks this is stupid af and his grumpy ass just doesn’t understand stuff like this. But when he sees that you are like really upset he changes his mind and be like “come on brat, let’s do it” 😭 He still thinks it’s stupid but at least you are happy now 🥺 idkkk this thought just came to me, maybe you will use it one day, love your works 🫶🏻
“Kuna-baby!” You chirp, throwing yourself next to him on the couch. He flinched to the side to make room for you, and you curl into his side as you lift your phone up to fit you both in frame. “Smile!”
“For what?”
“My picture!”
“The fuck am I smiling for free for?” He scoffs, and you feel your heart stop for a sec and your smile falters slightly. “I smile for Ma and when kids fall. That’s it.”
“Not even for me?” You ask with a chuckle, but deep down, your heart hurts, and you hope this is just mindless teasing.
“You’re no exception to any of my rules,” he says flatly.
He means it.
You give him another chuckle and push off of him, letting him go back to his game and scrolling through your phone to try and combat the hurt in your soul at his harshness.
Apparently, the mood shift is too much for your boyfriend, and he paused his game again and moves his headphone from his ear, “what’s with you?”
“Nothing,” you lie.
He groans, “is this seriously making you upset? The fact I won’t take a stupid picture with you?”
“It’s not stupid,” you pout. “I just… wanted… a new wallpaper. For my phone…”
You practically feel his eyes roll back into his skull as you continue to scroll on your phone. Then, he wraps an arm around you, tucking you back into his side with your chin resting in the dip of his elbow, “don’t be like this, brat.”
“Im not being like anything.”
“Youre being a pouty brat.”
“Oh, am I?” you sigh.
“Fine,” he snips, resuming his game. “See if I care.” The room is shrouded in tenseness, practically suffocating for you both. You take a deep breath, understanding his discomfort but simply being told “no” would’ve been just as sufficient.
The game doesn’t last long, though, as apparently he’s discomforted in the silence too.
He takes a deep inhale through his nose and pauses again, pressing a kiss to your temple and using his hand to rub your cheek, “make it a good one. And I get to approve it before you make it your background.”
Immediately, you perk up, smiling softly and shifting to be in a more comfortable position, angling your phone to take a picture. He angles his head to bury his nose against the crown of your head, and his eyes close as he takes a relaxing breath of your scent. You’re quick to snap the picture secretly, admiring how blissful he looks merely relishing in your warmth. Then, he flashes you a close-mouthed smile, one wide enough where the dimple in his cheek is prominent, and when you snap that picture, his face falls.
“Hate that fuckin’ thing,” he grumbles.
“What thing?”
“The fucking divot in my cheek,” he says. “Makes me look like a kid.”
“Baby,” you coo, twisting your body to cup his cheek in your hand, “is that why you don’t like having your picture taken?”
He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. You know the answer. “I think it’s handsome,” you purr.
“I don’t care what you think.”
“Yes, you do,” you snicker. “Clearly. But that’s okay. Because I think you’re perfect.”
“I am perfect.” He presses another kiss to your head, “now shut up and let me play. Glad your ass is happy now.”
“I really am, sukuna. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Ever again. Ever.”
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sayoneee · 4 months
Text
☆ POISON
“miss her, kiss her, love her, wrong move you’re dead, that girl is poison” - bell biv devoe (2.2k)
contains: luke castellan x daughter of aphrodite! reader. acquaintances to friends to secretish lovers. silena + drew mentions. during tlt.
kashaf’s note: u cant tell me a group of teenagers lived together at summer camp and no one had secret parties. dont @ me for the 90s music references (+ i imagine avantika vandanapu as silena, and momona tamada as drew)
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i. and if there was a problem / yo, i'll solve it
“CASTELLAN?” YOU APPROACHED him slowly, tone cautious as if you were speaking to a wounded animal, although in this case, maybe you were, as you reached for his bruised knuckles, remaining persistent, even as he tried to withdraw his hands out of your grasp. “why’d you do that?”
“did i need a reason?” there is a forced jocularity to his words, a well-practiced mask he is never seen without, and you cringe slightly, your gaze catching the grimace that twists his lips. his attempt at a ‘roguish’ grin falls flat, the expression a discordant note against the backdrop of his injuries. luke’s already busted lip splits open, a thin line of crimson carving a river down his chin. he moves to wipe it off the back of his arm, but you’ve already pulled off the bandana tying up your hair (a birthday present from a half-sibling) and begun rubbing at his face.
luke’s eyes widened at the gesture.
despite being tentative acquaintances since your arrival, you’re still annoyed that luke castellan continues to underestimate just how much of his heart he wears on his sleeve — or rather, just how well you manage to see past his facade. his blatant lie hangs in the air, unacknowledged. instead, you deliberately shift your gaze to the purples and blacks that mar his knuckles, setting about wrapping them with your bandana, obscuring the damage.
“i could’ve done that myself,” luke says, amused, his words lightly appreciative. still, at your answering glare, he tosses his hands in the air in surrender as ‘ice ice baby’ continues in the background, uninterrupted, “but thank you, though.”
“i’m no apollo kid, but it’ll do,” you shrug instead of accepting the gratitude, tugging him to his feet, ensuring to grab his uninjured hand, and hauling him outside. 
“you’re no apollo kid, and you decide to take the injured man away from where the apollo kids are actually gathered,” luke muses, once again entertained with himself (was there any other emotion this boy could experience besides amusement?), once the lights of the apollo cabin are so far behind you, neither of you could fully see each other.
“you’ll live,” you say, scowling at him through the darkness, forgetting he couldn’t actually see you.
“and you’re moody for a daughter of aphrodite,” he says, still holding onto your hand as he trails after you.
you stop in your tracks, pinch the bridge of your nose, count to three, and finally turn to luke, who still has his stupidly pleased-with-himself expression on his face. “luke castellan, if you don’t end up dying of some tragic fate or the other i will hunt you down myself.”
“duly noted.”
“holy hera, do you even want to know where i’m taking you?”
“nah, i think the mystery really adds some suspense.”
“that’s it, i give up,” you say, before beginning to drag him back to the apollo cabin, when he plants his feet in the dirt ground firmly, grinning crookedly at you as the moonlight finally shines through the clouds, suddenly bathing him in a luminescent glow.
“nah, c’mon, let’s go to your spot.”
you glare at him, watching how his stupid grin only seems to grow in size, an annoyingly endearing trait. with a sigh, you continued to drag him along, scowling each time he tried to make a quip.
“what if we get to your spot, and i find out this was all just a ploy to murder me?” luke muses out loud, looking thoughtful for once.
“do you seriously believe that if i was gonna murder you, i wouldn’t have done it by now?” you say, pausing when he shrugged in agreement, “we’re here though, whiney baby.” 
luke’s eyebrows rose as he took in the secluded area near the dunes, finally meeting your gaze again. “aw, i can’t believe you just planned out our first date.”
“i seriously don’t know what any of my half-siblings see in you.”
“so you’ve discussed me then.”
“shut up, i dragged you all the way here, because even though i know you like attention, i don’t think you wanted the attention you were getting from punching that poor hephaestus kid in the jaw,” you say shockingly sincerely, startling both yourself and luke.
luke doesn’t say anything, letting what seems like a confession hang in the air, instead, sits down near the water, and rubs a hand across his jaw, watching you as you follow suit, sitting next to him. 
after spending what seems like minutes in silence, watching the waves lap at the shore, luke finally speaks, staring out at the horizon, his tone slightly hollow, and devoid of all things you have come to label as luke castellan, looking eerily similar to the night he had returned from his infamous quest, “heroes aren’t meant to be happy.”
you drew your legs to your chest, wrapping your arms around them and resting your head. “i know — achilles, orpheus, theseus…” you trail off.
“and hercules,” luke adds, almost melancholy. 
“i think i’ve pretty much accepted i’ll die young,” you say, your words coming out in nothing but a whisper despite the two of you being alone.
luke nods in solidarity, lost in thought. “it shouldn’t have to be like this,” he finally says, voice hardening.
ii. talking sweet and looking fine / i get kinda hectic inside
“okay, for this technique, i’ll need a partner,” luke says, looking straight at you. “can you come up here?”
deciding to oblige him, you rolled your eyes good-naturedly, smiling as you joined him in front of the other campers, who had begun whispering when he called out to you. in the crowd, just past your half-siblings looks of shock, you can see the stolls passing around a wad of cash. 
luke addresses the crowd once more, “i need everyone to be paying close attention here, we’ll be demonstrating how to parry, or counterblock for the newcomers.”
as both of you get into position, luke smiles, “don’t forget to go easy on me.”
you laughed, “don’t bet on it, castellan.”
your demonstration ends up feeling like eons, as the two of you continue to dance around each other, parrying and jabbing, and lunging, and striking, and parrying. both of you are panting, your faces flushed as you continue, and just when it seems like you have the upper hand, luke side steps, and easily parries your finishing blow, disarming you in the process.
you laugh as you yield, loving the exhilaration from the fight, but when the two of you face the campers once more, more than half of the crowd is slack-jawed. 
luke, ever the showman, can’t resist a grin, “not only was that your lesson to not underestimate aphrodite cabin, but also to show you the level we’re trying to get you guys to. now, partner up and spread out.”
before you can turn back to address luke again, drew is suddenly at your side. 
“what the fuck was that?” drew hisses, grasping your elbow and leading you away from the training session in full swing, pulling you into your cabin, where silena sits on your bed (still in her armor), clearly awaiting this impromptu confrontation.
“what was what?” you choose to feign innocence, examining your nails before glancing up to see the twin expressions of horror on both silena and drew’s faces. 
“do not act dumb,” drew eyes you coolly, “it’s so beneath you.”
“i’m not acting dumb,” you rolled your eyes at the both of them.
“yes you —”
“you and castellan,” silena interjects, “we want details, now.”
“what details even are there to give?”
silena grabs drew’s arm, pulling her back from apparently nearly pouncing on you. 
drew rolls her eyes at the hand on her arm, and then focuses on you, “you’re literally our next head counselor and you and castellan had never so much looked at each other until this week and now he’s asking you to help demonstrate training techniques, like hello?”
silena snapped her fingers in agreement, “c’mon, you can’t deny that something didn’t happen.”
“nothing did,” you crossed your arms across your chest.
“you know what,” drew says, “if you wanna be like this fine. come find me when you finally decide to — i don’t know — talk to your sisters?” she storms out of the cabin, leaving you alone with silena, who sighs, gives you an apologetic look and goes after drew. 
“well, that was a shit show.”
you whirl around to see your head counselor standing at the entry of the cabin, poised as ever, not a hair out of place as she stood, examining her manicure, looking bored, as usual. 
“couldn’t agree more,” you sigh, sitting on your bed, head in your hands. 
your head counselor takes a seat beside you, “look, i don’t care for whatever petty drama just unfolded, you’ll get over it, daughters of aphrodite and all,” she waves a hand in the air, “— but for now, we have more pressing issues. i’m gonna leave for college soon, and the entire cabin knows you’re my successor.”
you nod as she paused, meeting your gaze, and you can’t help but examine the perfect shape of her eyeliner, scanning her entire picture-perfect face in an attempt to discern her mood.
“i don’t care whatever it is you have going on with castellan, but you need to complete the rite of passage, before you become head counselor.”
“the rite of passage?” you asked, having only heard the phrase in hushed conversations around camp, the knot in your stomach tightening as she continued.
“no child of aphrodite is a true child of aphrodite without having broken their first love’s heart,” is all she offers as an explanation, completely straight-faced. “castellan is perfect for your rite of passage.”
your eyebrows furrow as you consider her words, and with a final nod, and gentle squeeze of your arm, she leaves you with both her legacy and your mother’s legacy in your hands. 
“oh, and before i forget, whoever doesn’t do it always ends up cursed.”
iii. now let me pray to keep you from / the perils that will surely come
luke’s shoulder brushing against yours has turned out to be extremely distracting, and now you can understand why your cabin is more notorious for breaking hearts, rather than falling in love. you can’t seem to focus on anything except how close his hand is to yours, even the golden hue of the fire or the sing-alongs can’t divert your attention. 
the distance between the two of you grows imperceptibly smaller when luke suddenly clears his throat, on the verge of saying something, when a twig snaps behind the two of you, causing you to jump apart and look at the intruder. 
annabeth is standing behind the two of you, looking faintly apologetic, but also terrified. “sorry if i interrupted you guys,” she offers, rubbing her arm.
you share a glance with luke, nodding at him. “you weren’t — luke can always talk to me later,” you say, offering her your trademark smile.
annabeth nodded, “thank you,” as luke gently squeezed your hand before getting up to comfort her.
“don’t thank me, sweetheart.”
you’re at your usual spot when luke rejoins you, running a hand through his curls. “sorry,” he says, “someone left a spider in athena cabin, and no one could kill it.”
you chuckled, “if it wasn’t a total accident, i’d bet money it was travis and connor.”
the corner of his mouth quirks up at the mention of his siblings, “i think you’re spending too much time around them to pick up on their habits.”
“or maybe, i’m spending too much time around you,” you offer, smirking at him, trying to ignore the funny feeling in your chest as he smiles genuinely at you.
“i like to say i’m an acquired taste,” luke shrugs, sneaking a glance at you as you laugh at him. 
“i think i’ve acquired that taste,” you say, without thinking, before realizing how phenomenally stupid that sounded.
luke smiled widely, “y’know, if you weren’t a daughter of aphrodite, i would’ve told you how corny that was —” you shoved him here, “— ow, let me finish, but i actually am really glad to hear that.”
“no wonder,” you smirked, “i can practically hear your heart beating out of your chest.”
“okay, look who’s confident all of a sudden.”
you shut him up with a soft kiss that has him seeing stars. 
iv. i know what’s weighing on your mind / you can be sure i know my part
“again, what the hell is going on with you and castellan?” silena asks one early morning before breakfast, birds chirping as she’s lining her eyes with kajal, glancing at the mirror in her hand as she sits at the top of her bed.
“nothing.”
“i literally saw you guys making out and had to scrub my eyes out with soap,” drew adds, looking extremely disgusted at the thought of relieving that experience, as she paints a fresh coat of nail polish. 
“fine, you’re right,” you concede, curling your eyelashes. 
“don’t you have to do the rite of passage, though?” drew asks, pausing to look up at you.
“i’m not doing the rite of passage,” you say slowly, setting the eyelash curler down on the vanity.
“excuse me?” your head counselor has her hands on her hips, the annoyed expression on her face marring her perfect features, towering over you as she stands in front of your bed.
“i said, i’m not doing the rite of passage,” you enunciate, looking up at her, maintaining eye contact.
the temperature of the cabin seemed to drop ten degrees, and for a minute or so, your stare remained unbroken until she shrugged. “your decision... but don’t say i didn’t warn you,” before dramatically whirling around and heading to the pavilion.
silena gave you a look as drew arched her brow, and you simply shrugged in response.
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