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nackrosor · 5 months

Text

~Your Wish~

(Part 3/3)

Part 1 - Part 2

Brahms Heelshire x nanny!Reader

warnings/tags: nsfw, smut, dub-con (with very dubious p in v), power dynamics, mommy issues, Brahms is a perv through and through

word count: 2,9k.

author's notes: this is the filthiest thing I've ever written, I swear. I tried to imbue this with all my naughtiness lmao I hope it was enough! Also, here's some art I made 'cause I'm that generoussss. I hope you enjoy the food! Bon appétit! 🤤🌹

"Did I scare you, Y/N? I didn't mean to..."

He grimaced at the way his child voice came out broken and less convincing than usual, but in his state, even simply speaking was a feat.

You had been sluggishly fighting against his persistent grip on you, yet once you heard him speak, a loud gasp of shock escaped you, and your body stiffened under his. The way you tensed up made your back arch and your ass stick out even more. His focus shifted to your half-clad bottom, which was hovering only inches from his face. The drenched fabric of your panties had somehow stuck to the side, teasing him - torturing him - with that mouthwavering sight of you.

Oh, what a struggle it was for him to refrain from seeking your heat again and then shoving himself inside you, once and for all. He was shivering with restraint while proceeding to keep you pinned to the mattress. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold himself back, though.

He wanted you to know who he was before he finally and thoroughly claimed you as his. His pride somehow exceeded his yearning.

"B-Brahms...?" You hesitantly whispered his name, hoping to catch a glimpse of him behind your shoulder. You could only make out a dark silhouette in your peripheral vision, for both the darkness of the room and his tight clasp prevented you from seeing anything else. "How-? W-what?"

Your voice was a little louder this time, and you sounded sharper. He also noticed with satisfaction that you were now remaining still under his hold. That was good. It would make things easier. He'd prefer not to fight you, not to force you... But if you were to refuse him... He would not hold back... He couldn't...

"You don't have to be alone anymore in this big, scary house."

He made sure to stress out the last words, the same ones you used when you had confided your wish to the doll. He wanted you to understand… That wicked side of him wanted you to realise that he had always been there, watching you, listening in on you... That you have never truly been alone.

"Aren't you happy?"

He couldn't hide the impatience in his voice. His palm pressed harder onto your spine, imperceptibly rubbing up and down, seeking your touch. He found himself edging closer to you, his mask nearly touching your asscheek, his other hand ready to commit another despicable sin, the worst one yet.

“Let me see you? Please?"

He stopped in his tracks, momentarily stunned by your words.

You had asked so sweetly, your voice such a gentle caress to his ears, how could he have declined your request? After all, he had longed to have those gorgeous eyes of yours fall on him, finally seeing him, since the first day. And what would have been better than having you looking at him as he ravished you? Watching lust twist your features, the pleasure - he was igniting in you - flooding your lovely eyes. A shuddering breath escaped his lips as the vivid image arose in his mind, aggravating the torture.

Brahms loosened his grip, allowing you to turn around and lie on your back. As soon as your eyes met his, you let out another loud gasp. His gut flipped at the way your wide eyes flitted across his mask, chest, thighs, taking him all in.

You saw him. You were looking at him. Ah, what a dream... What a dream come true...

He wondered what was going through your pretty little head. How did it make you feel to know that the kid's voice you've occasionally heard reverberating through the mansion over the past few weeks hadn't come from a possessed doll or an imprisoned spirit... But from him. Your Brahms, in flesh and blood.

“B-Brahms…”

The way you tentatively called his name while looking up at him like a deer in the headlights was pure bliss.

He nodded enthusiastically in response and drew closer to you. His gaze flickered from your face to your hand, which he noticed slowly reaching up in his direction. He jerked back instantly out of reflex, frightened like a beaten dog meeting a loving hand for the first time, but as soon as he realized there was no threat in your intentions, he leaned back in and allowed you to touch his mask. Oh, how he yearned to feel your soft palm caressing his wounded cheek... to feel your gentle touch skin on skin… But that would have to be enough for the moment.

Now that he had your full attention. Now that you knew who he was and that no harm would come from him… with your eyes staring up at him with such awe and wonder…

He couldn't wait any longer.

His hand eagerly slipped between your thighs, fingers greedily seeking your heat. He caught with utmost satisfaction the way your eyes widened again, your lips parting to let out a shocked cry; you looked so adorable… so desirable… so vulnerable…

He kept his ever-attentive gaze fixed on you, desperate to catch your every reaction, as he stroked your wet folds and teased your entrance.

“W-what are you… Ah!~”

A tremor pierced him as he felt your body tremble so sharply when he easily entered you, triggering a loud whine from you as he drove his fingers deep into your walls.

His breathing was extremely shallow, and he could see your chest raise and fall as you began panting as well; the sight only served to add fuel to his burning desire, leaving him eager to make you cry and shiver just like that over and over again.

His movement against you was firm but frantic, fueled by his long-repressed need, which was causing him to shudder and whimper as he fingered you. He had no idea what he was doing, but your moans and squeals were guiding and urging him to keep hitting that spongy spot deep inside you which seemed to make you scream the loudest.

“N-no… W-w-wait…”

Your hands shakily reached down to seize his and halt his actions, but he quickly grasped your wrists and pinned them both on your belly, holding them down with one palm while continuining on driving his fingers back and forth, unrelentingly, into you. He could tell you liked it, the lewd sounds you were making told him as much. He knew his actions were pleasing you. Your cunt was so wet, and your walls welcomed his long fingers with such hunger, swallowing them fully with each push.

How would it feel to sink inside you? To have your tight, spongy walls suck and squeeze his cock dry? Would his cum leak back out? It always did when he used his doll, the one he had turned to look just like you… He constantly had to push his fluids back inside the hole…

“Brahms... S-stop… Ah!”

Your broken whimpers sounded so cute. You were so cute. What were you asking of him? Certainly not to stop. Not that he would or could. The feeling of making you squirm under his touch was intoxicating, a feeling he had just discovered and yet couldn't get enough of. He had already grown addicted. The sight of you laying there completely vulnerable, completely his, was filling him with such a rush of euphoria.

He released your wrists, disregarding the way you immediately but weakly started tugging at his hand again in protest. Instead, he reached down to his trousers, letting out a deep guttural grunt when he felt the dampness of the material, soaked with his seed. Leaked precum? Or did he burst into his pants without even realising? It didn't matter. His cock was hard and throbbing when he grabbed it, ready to slip out of the restraining cloth and finally sink inside you… He couldn’t wait, oh no, he couldn’t wait anymore-

“I said stop!”

His entire body shuddered violently, and his senses suddenly sharpened as if he had just awoken from a trance. Both his hands abruptly came to a halt.

He wasn't sure if he was shaking more from the thrill your imposing tone caused in him or the excruciating hunger that was gnawing at him, demanding to be satiated. Possibly both combined given the intensity of the tension that had taken hold of his body.

Brahms stared at you with bated breath and childish fear, like a misbhehaving boy caught in the act of some deplorable deeds by his strict mother. He didn't dare to make a sound nor move an inch as he waited to be scolded.

A strange glint passed your eyes, one that he could barely catch, let alone decipher. However, your entire demeanour seemed to alter abruptly in response to his reaction.

"What do you think you're doing?"

He gasped. A flood of dread shook his entire being and made his stomach churn upon hearing your stern tone. Did he upset you? Were you angry at him? He couldn't bear it. Oh no… He only wished to please you... Only ever wished to please you...

"What were you doing, mh?"

Brahms vehemently shook his head, his panicked gaze glued on your hard look.

“Brahms.”

Your commanding tone made him shudder again. He cowered, crouching down and dropping his head on your lap. He didn't dare admit what he was about to do, what he had been doing long before you woke up.

"Brahms!"

He felt your hands pull on his arms, but he only pressed his head further against you, burying his face in your womb, his whimpers muffled by your skin. His hands reached to your sides, holding you vehemently but not threateningly. He wanted to show you how good he was. How good he could be for you. He was sorry. Yes. He was terribly sorry. He would never upset you again.

"Please…" He pleaded in his childish voice, nuzzling his forehead into your belly.

"Please, what?"

He tightened his grip on your sides and cried again, "Pleaseee… I need you…"

His meekness only increased as you delayed to answer. His hands cradled your body, fingers clutching desperately at your nightgown and creasing the material. His head anxiously swayed back and forth as he rubbed his mask against you.

"Use your real voice."

Another tremor shook his body and he quickly obeyed your command.

"I need you."

His voice came out low and hoarse, such a stark contrast to his childish tone. It caused a vibration in your tummy. He could feel how your body shivered in reaction.

Raising his head to meet your gaze, he noticed that your eyes had widened significantly. Was it because of his voice? The way he begged? Did you like it? He could beg you again and again in his real voice, if it pleased you so. If that meant you’d let him have you.

"I need you, please…"

His fingers travelled slowly along your sides, gingerly getting closer to your panties again, quivering with impatience and constraint. He kept his imploring look on you as he stroked his fingertips on the damp fabric before slipping them inside to rub against your folds once more.

He saw your eyelids flutter and your chest rise harshly as you took a deep breath.

He whimpered as he felt your fingers weave into his curls and then capture them abruptly in a tight clasp.

"Lay down, Brahms."

He merely lingered for a moment to process what you had requested of him. Then he did it. He lay down on the mattress without question. Eager to please you. Desperate to be in your good graces. He would do anything for you.

His entire body was trembling with anticipation, a deep-seated urge to be touched threatening to overtake him as you climbed on top of him, claiming his former position. His body craved your touch so badly, yet he had to wait until you decided to put him out of his misery.

“You’re such a naughty boy. You know that?”

When he felt your weight on him and your groin sitting directly on his bulge, he felt his breath catch in his throat and his hips buck up instinctively. Only his unbuttoned pants separated his arousal from your heat.

He was losing his mind…

"Nobody ever taught you that's not how good boys are supposed to behave, mh?"

More whimpers flowed from his parted lips as you began to grind against him, painfully slowly but with force. He struggled to keep his eyes open and locked in yours; his quivering hands went up to hold your hips, seeking to control your movements, but you intercepted them and forced them down on the pillow on either side of his face. He let you keep them still.

"Please…"

"I will teach you… Yes, yes... I will teach you. Bad boys never get their way, no matter how much or how long they beg."

Brahms had always obtained whatever he wanted since he was a little boy. If he couldn't have it, he'd take it himself. But he wasn't going to admit it to you. He merely groaned and twitched in response, every inch of his body ignited by your leisurely and frustrating movement against him.

He craved being inside you... To spill his load deep within your core... but he was so worked up… he had been holding back for so long, too long… and the way you moved was so rousing, provoking him just enough to…

His body abruptly convulsed underneath you, a deep sigh of relief escaping from his lips as a dark and large wet stain appeared on the material of his trousers. All of the desire coursing through him reached a fever pitch that consumed every inch of his body.

He had never experienced such an intense and violent orgasm before. He had jerked off numerous times, but cumming never felt so good...

Brahms was still trembling and panting when his eyes opened again to meet yours. You had stopped moving when he started spasming. Even in the dark, he could see the blush on your cheeks, the way your eyes were wide and glazed as they stared down at him, your own breath coming in short.

"F-Fuck-"

His eyes were fixed on you, watching you as you gulped and shivered, clearly shaken by what had just happened. Your gaze kept darting back and forth between his pants and mask. When he felt your hands release his wrists, he pulled yours back, drawing you forward and causing you to fall on top of him with a yelp.

Brahms buried his face into the crook of your neck. Your scent was stronger than before, his nostrils filled with your natural aroma. His fingers trailed over your skin, feeling how clammy it was and relishing the way you shivered at the touch. He moved on along the curve of your neck until he reached the edge of your nightgown and peeled it down without hesitation, this time dragging it low enough to prevent it from rolling back up. The sight of your breasts made his stomach flip, just like it had done the first time. His body started to become stiffer once more.

“Again…” he whispered breathlessly as he lifted your torso so you could sit on his lap just like before, straddling his groin. He could feel himself getting harder all over again. He could not possibly resist you.

"B-Brahms?"

His hands greedily mapped your body, groping every curve and dip they found. His touch soon became frantic and urgent.

"Again, again, again!"

He hastily freed his growing erection from his pants and without giving you time to register what was happening, he seized your waist and pulled you down onto him.

At last, you had become one.

The quiet room filled with both his and your moans of pleasure, which only grew louder as Brahms started guiding your hips up and down, each time with greater force, allowing him to fully sink into you. You were so warm, and the way your tight walls clenched around his cock was more intoxicating than he could have anticipated. It was maddening. The sound of your cunt slapping against his groin was the the best sound he had ever heard. He mentally added it to the list of pleasures he had so quickly become addicted to and sought to experience again and again and again...

He was a mess of sweat and whimpers and tremors, and so were you.

Ah, to finally have you! To finally take you as his! This was everything he had ever dreamed and yearned for. You would never be alone or feel lonely again, and neither would he!

Please you night and day, whenever and wherever! That's what he intended to do.

Oh, yes.

He will be such a good boy for you.

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madschiavelique · 11 months

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Okay but picture this, Miguel getting jealous cause of another spiderperson flirting with you

Like he is doing a briefing with a lot of spider people and one of them keeps trying to get your attention and miguel gets jealous, sends everyone away and has a heavily make out on his platform in his office🫣

HIHIHI twirling hair kicking feet at this bestie

summary : miguel gets jealous of a random spiderperson flirting with you (not proofread)

content warnings : posessive!miguel, just jealous miguel, no use of Y/N, fem!reader word count : 1,9k

tag list : @fandom-ash

Miguel had invited a good group of spiderpersons who were still fairly new to the society, to bring them up to speed or simply to remind them of the procedures to follow on a mission.

You were there, just to supervise. Having been part of Miguel's elite group of spiders for some time now, you were perfectly familiar with all the criteria and stages of the anomaly hunt.

Nothing more than a quick briefing. The usual team was there, Hobie, Gwen, Pavitr, Peter B, Jess and you. You stood off to the side, leaning against a wall, arms folded as you watched Miguel give his speech a bit farther away.

"Hey, I've never seen you around before, do we know each other ?

Your eyes went to the person who had just spoken to you. It was an umpteenth Peter, blond-haired, not far from your age, and of course new.

Although you didn't appear everywhere all the time, most of the spiders knew what Miguel's group looked like. So you were a little surprised by his remark, but not enough for it to be too striking.

"You might've seen me on his team," you said, pointing with your chin at your boyfriend, who you hoped wasn't terrorising the newcomers too much.

You tried to refocus on Miguel's speech. Your relationship with him was not public; you had agreed that, for the time being, you would prefer to keep it a secret. There were several reasons for this, such as the fact that you might be seen as a spider with more privileges than the others - which wasn't the case - or the fact that you simply wanted to avoid trouble. This lack of information didn't stop Peter from coming back for a chat.

"So... what's your name ?"

You didn't even look at him, simply giving him your name and alias.

"And you're a new Peter," you sighed.

"You never get enough Peters, am I right?" he smiled, "although I'm obviously unique in my own way.

"Unique?" you smiled with a little chuckle, "how?", because Peters looked and acted the same, they were after all Peters, so you wondered how he would stand out.

"Like this," he approached you, tucking his fingers behind your ear and bringing his hand into your field of vision so that you could see a little flower between his fingers.

You gave a little laugh, taking the flower in your hand. It was soft, light and smelled wonderful.

"A Peter magician?" you pouted, shaking your head, "that's progress."

Miguel was going over the formalities of multidimensional cells when his gaze inevitably drifted to you. But he froze, tensing up as his eyes took in the little scene unfolding nearby.

You, against a wall, an ordinary Peter caressing your ear to perform a crummy magic trick and make a flower come out of it. Too close... he thought, he was too close to you. He didn't appreciate the proximity with which he approached you. Of course, the other team-mates in his squad could allow themselves to be close to you, whether you were in their arms or whatever, but for one of the countless Peters here to allow himself to be at your level? That he could not condone.

He saw a small smile forming on your face, his blood boiling. Wasn't he good enough for you? Was it because he didn't give you enough affection that you let any spider approach you? Or was it that he didn't do you enough favours, like performing magic tricks?

But Miguel was so good to you, it was almost impossible to get out of his arms when he hugged you. He gave you everything he could give you, even loving you to the point of giving you the last empanada left in the cafeteria if there was only one left, no matter how much he wanted it, and that's how passionate he was about you.

So maybe... you didn't realise that Peter was flirting with you?

Ah, maybe that was it, maybe you were just oblivious to what the nerd was trying to do?

And the Peter took another step.

That one step was too much.

"Well, you've got most of the information. We're going to cut this meeting short, you can all go." he warned, teeth clenched.

The elite team itself looked surprised as all the other Spiderpersons scattered to leave the room.

"Miguel? Is there something wrong ?" asked Peter B, concerned that perhaps the reason everyone had just been dismissed was because of something he had received from Lyla that was important.

But his eyes were riveted like arrows ready to be shot at the Peter who was still chatting to you.

"I just have to take care of a little problem," his eyebrows were furrowed, jaw tight.

Peter B's eyes drifted back to where his were, letting out a quiet "Oh" before calling the rest of the team and persuading them to come with him to... whatever it was for, as long as the elite were leaving too.

"And so you caught three anomalies in a single mission?" said Peter, absolutely amazed by the feats you were telling him about.

"Yes, it's becoming routine," you confirmed.

You noticed the room beginning to empty, and deduced that the meeting must have ended.

"I'm so happy that there are Spiderwomen around, and as competent as you are," continued Peter, chatting to you, "especially when I see that they're as beautiful as you are."

"That's very kind of you," you say simply, "the meeting's just finished, I think you'd better leave before you get your knuckles rapped."

Advice from someone with a very strict boyfriend on organisation, you thought.

"Could we meet again? How about the cafeteria?" he offered.

"That's very nice of you to suggest, but-" you bit the inside of your cheek as he cut you off.

"Oh, or maybe the park? I hear there's an ice-cream parlour that sells ice-creams in our likeness." he laughed softly.

"Would you look at that."

You swallow, his voice was strained and falsely interested, your eyes landing on Miguel who'd just arrived near you.

It's almost comical how tall Miguel was compared to him, towering over him in both mass and size to the point where he could crush him like a tin can.

"Oh Miguel O'Hara-" greeted Peter as if nothing had happened.

"I've never seen you here before," Miguel remarked, a vicious flash in his eyes.

He intended to take great pleasure in showing how much better he was than Peter, and above all in making sure he understood that you weren't interested in his advances.

"Oh yes sir, I'm Peter," he said.

"How original," said Miguel in a honeyed, falsely curious tone, glancing at you.

"The Peters must be the best for there to be so many of them," laughed Peter, and you felt like pinching the bridge of your nose.

"I see them more as a weed that hangs around," he said, looking into poor Peter's eyes, Miguel looming over him.

"Well, I think you should join the other Spiderpersons," you simply breathed with a polite smile.

"Yeah um," he swallowed, lowering his eyes from Miguel's to meet yours, he was appalled. "I'll see you sometime maybe ?"

"Never," Miguel decided.

Peter took a few steps backwards, unable to say anything else, and headed for the exit.

"You look upset, what's wrong?" you asked as Miguel headed for the control platform.

"I see you made a new friend?" asked Miguel, his eyes locking onto you with a dark gleam as he stepped onto the platform.

"Not really," you replied, your voice a little smaller as you in turn joined him on it, coming to sit on one of the desks.

"What did he want?" he asked, his tone insistent as he looked at you, standing and taking a step forward.

"Nothing special, he wanted to get acquainted," you said softly as he took a step forward, his eyes gleaming strangely.

"Just getting to know each other?" he said, arriving just in front of you and placing his two hands on either side of your thighs, tilting his head to the side, questioningly. "You're naive if you think he just wants to be your friend."

His face was close to yours, his whole body almost covering you, leaving you unable to move or get away. Your eyes locked with his a little more, and you understood, a small smile forming on your lips.

You put your hand on his cheek, and he pressed against your touch.

"Do I detect some jealousy there?"

He sighed, his jaw contracting slightly, his tongue creating a tent in his cheek. You raised an eyebrow - was Miguel jealous?

His hand came to brush against your thigh, his fingers moving up until they settled and gripped you, pulling you towards him with this simple grip until your noses touched.

"I didn't like very much how he was so close to you," he admitted, his lips brushing yours.

He came to kiss you, demanding, his lips pressing almost brutally against yours as his other hand came to rest on the small of your back, the latter pressing to bring you closer to him.

You tried to respond to his kiss, his lips and jaw so strong that you felt he was going to engulf you.

He came and kissed your neck, a small sigh of comfort coming from between your lips, which were puffed out and moistened by his kiss.

"You know," you said softly as your fingers ran through his hair, "he never stood a chance against... you right ?"

The statement made his ego swell, as if a huge weight had just been lifted from his shoulders and he felt so light. His lips tenderly kissed your neck, and you felt it.

He sucked at your skin, marking it delicately. He needed, needed the others to know that you had someone. And although you both wanted what you had to be private, he had a terrible desire for people to know that you belonged to him, and not just anyone. He came back to your lips.

"Say that you're mine."

He had to hear it, from your lips that were full of him. You moistened them with a flick of your tongue, his eyes attentive, dark.

"I'm yours," you affirmed softly.

He came to kiss you again, pulling away from your lips to let his fall on your cheek.

"Make me believe it," he said, drunk on your skin. "Say that again."

His kisses covered your skin, wanting to coat it entirely with his lips so that he didn't miss any part of it.

"I'm yours," you whispered, drowning in his adoration as your fingers caressed his cheek.

"Again," he whispered as his lips kissed your eyelid.

"I'm yours," you whispered, your other hand coming around his chest to bring him closer to you.

"Again..." his voice was barely audible, kissing the tip of your nose.

Of course you were his, everything already belonged to him. Did he want your heart? It was full of him. Did he want your thoughts? He had replaced every one of your ideas. Did he want all of you? He would only have a body and a soul that was already attached to him.

When his lips returned to yours, it was you who kissed him, and he melted under the sensation of your lips on his.

"I'm yours."

Your eyes gazed at each other, each living in the other, and he wrapped his arms around you, pressing you hard against him, closing his eyes to enjoy the moment.

He wouldn't let any weeds near his flower.

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onakomiyaki · 29 days

Text

just a silly crush (not) pt.2

pairing : daniel ricciardo x childhood friend-brabham!reader

summary : your wall is starting to crumbling down, thanks to daniel. and the ice exterior you've been putting on for years started to melt, thanks to the daniel, the sunshine himself.

warning: unedited and rushed work, harsh words, slowburn.

a/n : we start to explore what's going on with y/n brabham. and honestly this is one of my favorite chapter to write so far!

most of juniors that tried to befriended you have one same goals; to get you to help them to get close to some of your friends-your driver friends of course. or maybe that's just how you've been treated your whole life when you grow up, so you just assume that they want you for something–link to the drivers in this case.

if there is something you know best about f1 is that it is a hot topic amongst your juniors in modelling world and oh how they wish to be one of the wags of the f1 drivers.

many have tried, from buying you some expensive gift, trying to go on a lunch date with you, or just be your matchmaker–which let's be honest, sound kind of dumb when you surrounded by some of good looking-breath-taking drivers, not only in f1 but on some other motorsports as well–and the list is still counting.

and you, by natural, got a lot of heat from it. but you're fine. by the end of the day you're still the one who spend some holidays with those drivers, not them.

but not even once succeeded to even own your private phone number.

"(y/n) you really need to be nice to your colleagues, the media is onto you again." anna, your manager, watch your reflection with annoyed expression.

"what is it now?" you simply ask, eyes closing as you massage your temple.

"you were voted as the most cold-hearted models to work with." she exclaim, walking towards your direction with ipad in her hand.

you just stare at the pad with unamused expression. you read the headline with a frown on your face, then let out a scoff.

"(Y/N) BRABHAM, THE EVERCHANGING ICE PRINCESS,"

"COLD AS THE ARTICS, HERE ARE (Y/N) BRABHAM'S ICONIC RESTING B**** FACE!"

"i honestly adore (y/n) so much, she's an icon. but it is-it is hard to get close to her. to make friend with her outside the work talk. almost like she build this wall around us."

"i remember she's constantly sat alone in the dressing room-sometimes she just sat there with her headphone on. and when she's alone no one dare to talk to her-she's just that intimidating!"

and there's more articles and some interview snippets from your junior about how unapproachable you are.

"ice princess? what am i, elsa from frozen?" you said, scrolling away.

"i told you to be nice to those young models, (y/n)." anna said, snatching the ipad from your hand.

you finally turn your body, looking up at your manager. "they only want me because they want to get to know my friends." you stated.

"well maybe they want to be your friends? can't you just humor them for once? it won't kill you to gave them some of your friends' numbers..." she asked, sitting down on the sofa, just across you.

"anna, im not trying to gatekeep those men. they are welcome to get to know lewis, lando, carlos, charles, max, esteban, pierre-"

"and daniel."

"-nope. not daniel, not a chance." you finally turn your body, pointing at anna with frown on your face.

"why not? you know him the longest i'm sure you'll find a model that will fit him as a girlfriend." she asked, throwing a little smirk at you.

"that's the problem, i've known him almost all my life! what if i introduce him to a wrong person then shit went downhill? what if they only want his money? i can't risk that anna." you said, voice gone an octave higher.

"(y/n) you know that's not true. that's just you being scared of nothing-"

"anna you don't understand! he is the one constant in my life that i can count on–he keep me grounded okay? i am me with him and the thought of losing him-"

"(y/n)-"

"‐point is im not gonna risk my friendship like that. especially with daniel. if they want to get to know those drivers, just attend the race, get a paddock pass or something. im sure if those drivers truly interested they will come." you finally stated, voice stern as you turn your back on your manager like a kid throwing small tantrum.

anna shakes her head in disbelief as she walk away from you, taking the ipad with her. "you're such a child sometimes."

"oh but you love me enough to stay with me for 10 years." you bite back.

"and i am amazed at myself for doing that. okay back to the topic, can just think about befriending your junior, please? that's all i ask from you, and you know i never asked anything from you." anna said as she walk out from your room, closing the door behind her.

you just sat there, pouting as you return your attention to your original task, watching the replay of british gp on your laptop.

it has been almost 2 months since your party and your meeting with daniel. and its also been 2 months since you call him. yes, texts were exchanged, but of course you miss his voice as well.

between your tight schedule and his race, you never find a time to call him. well you can but choose not to. you don't want to distract him.

as you saw the checkered flag being waved you take your phone, wanting to send daniel a congratulations text for his p5.

p5 bigman. congrats! podium next maybe? i miss watching your shoey thingy.

you stop, hovering at the send button. you want to call him. should you call him? you should probably call him instead. its his highest position of this season afterall.

but what if he's busy? he should be loaded with interviews by now right? ah there's also briefing right? you shouldn't call him. but, it won't hurt trying to call him. worst thing that can happen is the call never got answered anyway.

so you just sat there, phone in your hand as you chew the inside of your cheek, tasting a bit of iron when you accidentally bit too hard.

10 minutes have passed, and you're still staring at your phone. pretty sure by now daniel would've changed his outfit, already out of his race suit and maybe already headed back to his motorhome.

before you chickened out, you press the call button. the call is connected and you shriek, pushing the phone away as if the phone burn you.

"please don't answer, please don't answer! please-"

"hello?"

"p5 mate, that's a good one." one of the engineers welcome him with a clap on his shoulder, but voice is not as excited as it should be.

"yeah, thanks. i can do better, i will do better next time." daniel said, voice a bit trembling from the adrenaline that still coursing through his body.

he pull the baclava off or his head, sweats dripping from his brown curls. his freckled face flushed, chest heave heavily as he wait for his water. if you look close enough, you can see steam seeping out from his racing suit.

he tear the velcro of his race suit, pulling the zipper down. "daniel! points for both of us!" lando, race suit sat snuggly on his hips, greeting the older man with a beaming smile.

"and you did amazing out there. keep up with the goodwork." daniel said, ruffling the younger's hair, smiling proudly at the young brit.

although daniel got points for mclaren, he knew that all eyes are on him. expecting something more from the ferocious honey badger, a win maybe. and truth be told he also expected more from himself.

the fact that p5 is his current highest position in this season really speak something. of course its not a bad thing, but he can't help it. he knew mclaren put a lot of faith on the 7 times champions to take home the first trophy for mclaren.

he silently walk back to his driver room, helmet sat snuggly on his waist beneath his arm. michael, his trainer, follow him while he ramble about their next training session.

but of course the only voices he heard right now is just some static buzz and noises. he is dissosiating, moving autopilot towards the sofa and plop down. his body instantely melts as he stare blankly at the ceiling.

"- and (y/n) will be there and all." michael said.

at the mention of your name, daniel's ears perk up and he only gave the other man a puzzled looks.

"sorry, you were saying?" he said.

"daniel this is getting ridiculous. i've spent 5 minutes explaining how we can improve your training and you just listen to me after i mention (y/n). just call her for godsake." michael said as he put some notes for daniel down on the table, throwing an acussing stare at him. daniel flustered under his gaze.

"sorry i was just– its not that! i–"

"i get it buddy, you're hopelessly in love with (y/n)" michael said, patting the aussie on the shoulder as he walk out from his room. "you really should call her man, stop playing the tough guy card, you're not fooling yourself or anyone."

daniel sigh in defeat, unable to come out with a comeback. to think that everyone but her knew about that–his feeling–is just sad at this point. michael was right, he is hopelessly, pathetically, desperately in love with you. for years now.

he knew he loved you eversince he saw your freckled face blushed under the australian heat, helmet in your hand 20 years ago as you listen to your father explaining how you can improve your turns and how you should control your kart well.

he loved you eversince you introduce yourself, voice cocky and proud after winning the carting session. "(y/n) brabham, and i will be an f1 driver." he remember what you said as you walk towards him and he was stunned, just silently watching as you walk away from him, your ponytail swaying left and right.

he loved you eversince you give him a can of cold soda, putting the can on his cheek. he jumped, flinching at the sudden cold sensation on his cheek. and that was the first time he heard your–oh so cute–cackles.

he loved you eversince he found you hiding away out of the karting field, sitting alone on the grass. he saw how your back was trembling, so he sat down with you. "i will never be a driver. i will never be enough." you said, wiping your tears as you lean into his left shoulder. and daniel listen to the voice of your soft sobs, letting his race suit wet from the tears.

he loved you. still love you. and will always love you. desperately so that it hurts him whenever you call him your bestbuddy ever or whenever he listen how you cry after unlucky relationship with some random man or when he went out on a date with some random girls, trying his best to burrow his feeling deep, which of course doesn't work.

just let me be your man, dammit.

so, daniel let out a deep shuddered breath as he sat down. his eyes landed on his phone that laying on the table, next to the report papers michael left for him.

should he call you?

he shakes his head, raising from his seat to walk towards his fridge. he took one of the bottled juice michael had prepared for him. he took the lid off as he empty the bottle in no time.

after throwing away the empty bottle, he shurg off his race suit, tossing it to the nearest chair.

he was halfway from taking his heat suit off of his body when his phone rang. its so embarassing how his head whipped quickly to his phone and how he struggle to just shrug his heat protector away.

"oh shit-"

he crashed, fall to the floor before quickly running for his phone. he accept the call, let out a wheezed air as he press the green button.

"hello?" he calmly said as he rub his elbow.

"hi danny, you busy?"

"no-no not at all. i was just chilling in my motor home. i have interview in 5 though. do you need something?" daniel finally sat down, this time on the floor.

he wait for your response as lay down, face facing the ceiling.

"oh. no, not at all. i just want to congratulate you on p5."

"you watch the race?"

"i always watch your race, maybe not in person, but i never missed your race."

and now daniel turn into 17 years old girl who got called by his crush, giggling and twirling his hairs. "really?" his voice squeak pathetically, so he clear his throat.

"yes, of course! i will always support my best buddy no matter what, even if it from afar."

oh.

yeah, bestfriend.

ouch.

"aww, geez. thanks, brabham. i knew you're in love with me."

"hah! you wish, ricciardo! anyway-"

"yeah?"

"you're doing great sweetheart. do not forget who you are and what you capable of. keep your chin up, bigman."

daniel smile slowly creeping back on his face. he can feel how flushed his face right now.

"thank you, (y/n)."

"you are most welcome, honeybadger. bite 'em okay?"

he turn his body so that he's laying on his side. he used his left arm as a pillow.

"can i bite you instead?"

silence. daniel held his breath, biting his bottom lips as he wait for your answer. and when he about to apologize, daniel heard you clearing your throat.

"alright pump the brake romeo. anyways, i will leave you be now. i'm gonna catch some sleep here. talk to you later, ricciardo."

"alrighty, cheers, brabham."

and the call end just like that. and daniel feel silly. he pull his phone closer to his face, gently hitting his forehead with it.

"you stupid boy..." he said to himself.

but he can't help it, he wished that you're here with him. god how he want to hug you right now. even better, kiss you right now.

"oi, danny! we need to go now!" one of the pr team shouted as he knocked the door.

"yeah! coming! just gimme a sec!"

meanwhile, you on the other side, had to stop and do a manual breathing after the call. you're slapping your face with both your hands as you watch your reflection on the mirror.

"bro pull yourself together! he is your bestfriend!"

"can i bite you instead?"

"AAAAAAAAAH!"

you let out a scream as you recall what he said to you. his deep voice haunted you–making you both dizzy and anxious (in a good way). no, definitely not. you can't! panicking, you get up from your seat as you pacing around the room.

"that bastard."

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#daniel ricciardo #daniel ricciardo imagine #daniel ricciardo x reader #dr3 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #Spotify

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sapphic-agent · 11 months

Text

Let's Talk About the Bakugou Problem

I've been enjoying the Bakugou slander here on Tumblr, but I haven't come across anyone that gets to the root of the problem with Bakugou's character yet. I think it goes further than him having anger issues, being annoying, or even how violent and abusive he is. Why I think Bakugou is a bad character is due to the effect he has on the plot, world-building, and the rest of the characters. There's a lot of layers here, so I'd like to take the time to talk as in-detail as I can while typing on mobile.

*Note: I'll be following the anime as it's easier for me to follow and pick specific examples. Manga readers if you have anything to add I'd love to hear it, even if it's against what I've listed here*

*Note: Bakugou fans you're more than welcome to read, though I warn you might not like what you see. I tried to keep this as constructive as I could without letting my own biases seep in (whether I succeeded is up for debate) so that everyone could read it whether you like Bakugou or not. I'm fine with criticism towards my points, I only ask that you remain respectful. I won't engage with anyone who disrespects me or other users*

1. Consequences

This is a big one among Bakugou critics, so I think it's a pretty good place to start. Bakugou has almost never faced actual consequences to his actions (there's a difference between something bad that happens to happen to him and the world around him not accepting his behavior). There are two instances that I can think of that there was a direct ramification to something Bakugou has done. The first was during the Deku vs Kacchan fight where Bakugou does get suspended for four days while Izuku gets suspended for three days. The other is when he and Todoroki fail the provisional licensing exam. However, there's a problem with these two instances I mentioned.

With the D vs K fight, Bakugou was the one who goaded Izuku out of the dorms and instigated a fight. Izuku was trying to get him to go back to the dorms so they could settle their "issue" under adult supervision. He was trying to do the responsible thing. For Izuku to only receive a day less of punishment seems unfair. Though, you could make the case that he should have ignored Bakugou, it's still very clear that one was way more at fault than the other and there was barely a difference in their punishment.

The provisional licensing exam actually did well with failing Bakugou. It was almost a great lesson; that he can't say and do whatever he wants and expect the world to roll over for him. Unfortunately, it's undermined by Todoroki failing as well. Yes, Todoroki failed because of Inasa. But a) Inasa attacked him first which should have resulted in disqualification (what was Todoroki supposed to do, not fight back when he was being assaulted?) and b) Inasa's entire character seems shoehorned into the story. He doesn't really add anything to Todoroki's character as most of his problems with Todoroki were already resolved back in season 2. He also contributes nothing to the overall story. Shindou, for example, has a hand in testing 1A and forces them to work together congruently. Inasa seems like he was put in the story simply to make Todoroki fail. Why does Todoroki have to fail? Because Bakugou does.

It seems like Horikoshi always softens the blow for Bakugou in a way, if he's dealt any blow at all. By not allowing Bakugou to face consequences on his own, he might as well not be facing them at all.

Why are consequences so important? Because Bakugou's privilege is a problem.

I don't think I've seen anyone address this. The root of Bakugou's behavior comes from the fact that he was allowed to do all those terrible things because the world around him was tolerant of it. Teachers turned a blind eyes when he bullied Izuku because he had a great quirk and Izuku was quirkless. He's allowed to do and say whatever he wants because he has a great quirk. While people seem to be harder on Izuku because of either having no quirk or not being able to fully control his quirk. This is a huge part of the story that was set up in the beginning, but was almost never addressed despite being persistent throughout. And it's the most present with Aizawa.

Bakugou attempts to attack a fellow student the first day of class? Simply restrained, no repercussions. Bakugou uses excessive force against a classmate despite his teacher telling him to stop? Nothing more than a few not-so-nice words. Bakugou assaults his partner and refuses to cooperate? No words at all.

Now look at Izuku. Doesn't have full control of his quirk? His teacher attempts to humiliate and expel him in front of his classmates on the first day of class. Saves a classmate in an admittedly risky rescue mission? Said teacher proclaims he lost his trust and labels him a problem child (despite the orchestrator of said mission- Kirishima- being in the same room and not getting spoken to at all).

(I don't know if Aizawa's projecting, but pandering to the kid with the strong quirk while simultaneously disliking All Might isn't a great look.)

Even before UA, Bakugou is praised by the heroes for his strong quirk against the sludge villain despite the fact that his quirk made everything worse while Izuku is scolded even though they were the ones who did nothing while he did what he could to save someone.

"All men aren't created equal." That's one of Izuku's very first lines and a central point of the story. It's something you expect it to address multiple times, especially in regards to Izuku and Bakugou. But Bakugou being spared from consequences every single time he does something terrible means that the statement is validated, but the problem still persists and is never rectified or solved. Even if you think Bakugou "changed," that doesn't make his privilege go away.

2. Plot Compensation

The story goes out of its way to make Bakugou seem like a better person than he is.

My first example is the Sports Festival, specifically his fight with Uraraka. In this fight, Bakugou is met with booing from the audience for not going easy on her. And right off the bat, this is weird. Because not only have we never seen this attitude toward women heroes before or after this, the show is trying to tell us something when Aizawa tears the crowd down. Almost as if saying, "The crowd is dumb and wrong and if you think like the crowd, you're dumb and wrong." Aizawa claims that Bakugou is treating Uraraka like a real opponent by not going easy on her.

...is he though?

Because we never see Bakugou stand still in a fight like he does with her. Bakugou's fighting style relies a lot on mobility. During his fight with Tokoyami, who he knew he had an advantage over because of the light from his quirk, he isn't standing still. During his fight with Todoroki he isn't standing still. He only does this with Uraraka. Because this isn't Bakugou showing respect, it's him still looking down on her. He doesn't see her as a serious opponent, just an obstacle in his way.

And I know this sounds like a bold claim. But if you recall, Bakugou immediately confronts Izuku after the fight and accuses him of giving Uraraka the idea she used during their match. He assumes it was a ploy from Izuku, implying that he didn't think Uraraka capable of coming up with a plan with the potential to work against him. This isn't respect for an opponent.

(Note: the only thing in Bakugou's favor is it's probably not because she's a girl. He just naturally looks down on everyone who doesn't immediately stand out to him with a show of power like Todoroki)

Then we have the revered scene with the League or Villains.

This scene is praised because it "subverts expectations." That the violent, angry kid doesn't want to be a villain. He wants to be a noble hero. Aizawa- again- silences claims against Bakugou, citing that he wants to win and he knows he can't do that if he's a villain.

My thing is, however, the League targeting him in the first place. Why would they do this? Bakugou clearly has a heroic quirk. He scored first on the entrance exam. If they did any research at all beforehand, they would know that Bakugou was at the top of his class before UA and is in the top five currently. And they'd know he has wealthy parents.

(You would think Dabi especially would draw parallels to Endeavor and would be aware that Bakugou's ambition and heroic quirk don't make him similar to the League who have been discriminated against, shunned, and abused for most of their lives. Even with his behavior at the Sports Festival, Endeavor isn't the noble and kind type like All Might and most other heroes. So I'm not sure why Bakugou's behavior immediately screamed villain potential)

Nothing about him suggests he's had a hard life like most of the League. Nothing about him suggests he'd want to leave his comfortable life and secured future to become a villain.

This scene sets up Bakugou's redemption, right? It leads us to the Deku vs Kacchan fight and All Might's advice is what makes him take on his "save to win" mentality.

But not only does this seem like a convenient plot device, it decidedly ignores the uglier part of Bakugou's decision.

Bakugou rejected the LOV because he saw them as losers. But what if they hadn't been losers? What if they had been doing as well as they were at the end of season 5? Merging and becoming the MLA front, organized teams, wealthy, successfully recruiting members right under the heroes' noses.

Maybe Bakugou wouldn't have outright joined them. But at this point before shifting his perspective, his answer might have been very different.

But the story goes out of its way to hammer in Bakugou's scarce good traits to take your focus away from his overwhelming bad ones.

3. Bakugou's Character Shift "Development"

The way Horikoshi wrote Bakugou in the beginning is very different to how he is portrayed later in the show. No, I don't mean his development. I mean the major shift in his character between seasons 1/2 and season 3/4.

Bakugou in the beginning of the show is cruel, meanspirited, and violent. And he's still all of those things throughout the show. The one difference is that it's played for laughs in later seasons.

Bakugou's actions and words in seasons 1 and 2 are portrayed a lot more serious than in later seasons. He's an antagonistic force, one that Izuku has to strive to overcome not just to be a good hero, but for himself as Bakugou has been one of the most prominent obstacles in his strive to become a hero.

Look at his behavior during the battle trials. It's something serious, something that has even All Might worried. Bakugou knew he could have very well killed Midoriya and didn't care. It's brutal and almost hard to watch because at this point in the show Midoriya is weak and tiny (visually, we know he's never really been weak) compared to Bakugou and can really only outsmart him to win.

We never see Bakugou display anything close to this level of violence in later seasons. Not in the Sports Festival or 1A vs 1B or D vs K or the licensing exam or even against literal villains. Season 1 went out of its way to show Bakugou's cruel behavior even using it as something Izuku has to learn how to overcome even if he has to risk everything.

By season 3, the perspective has changed. Bakugou name calling people, belittling people, yelling, and his acts of violence are now exaggerated for comedy. None of his actions are taken as seriously as they were before, despite some being almost or just as bad.

(It's worth mentioning that this was also around the time Bakugou began to get popular among fans)

A great example of this is in season 5 when he throws his headpiece at Izuku and makes him bleed. His casual act of his aggression towards his lifelong victim is present to make the audience laugh, despite the fact that Izuku was bleeding and the 1A boys are (rightfully) horrified.

(I'd like to add that there was no real reason to do this. Nothing he was saying would have exposed OFA and even if it had, he was done talking by the time Bakugou threw it)

If Bakugou had really changed at this point, this would have never happened in the first place. I can't call this changing or development, I call this his actions shifting into comedic relief and away from the serious connotations they previously held. By taking that away, it allows Bakugou to continue to do the same things he has all his life while under the guise of development. It undermines what's supposed to be his redemption arc.

4. Other Characters

Bakugou isn't the only one who gets a character shift. It's approximately the moment that Bakugou begins to get more attention that the other characters lose the substance they had at the beginning of the show.

The ones hit most notably by this are obviously Uraraka and Iida. They were Izuku's first friends, his original trio. More than that, they are set up as interesting characters with their own arcs and paths for becoming great heroes.

Even though I did have my complaints about her fight with Bakugou in the Sports Festival, it does turn Uraraka onto improving past her goal of becoming a rescue hero. She wants to become better in other aspects of being a hero so that she can succeed and keep up with her stronger classmates. She proved herself capable of this during her fight with Bakugou and it was the catalyst of her character development.

Iida was not only resolving himself with caring for Midoriya as a friend as well as being his rival and wanting to surpass him. There's also this darker side to him that no one expects from goody two shoes, straight-laced Iida that had so much potential for exploration.

Both of them are tossed to the side in favor of Bakugou. I would even go as far as to say that after season 2, they're almost irrelevant until season 6 and even then they're limited (before season 6 Uraraka's only character trait is that she ignores he feelings for Midoriya to become a better hero, which came out of nowhere and does nothing for her character). And they barley ever get moments with Izuku during time despite being his first friends.

Todoroki is a similar yet very different case. At the beginning of the show, he was intense and has strong feelings. (An interesting parallel is that if Iida was his friend becoming his rival, Todoroki was his rival becoming his friend and both relationships speak to Izuku as a character) Even if he didn't express them, we as the audience knew they were there. But as times passes he becomes flat and dull. Even though he's supposed to be part of the new trio, he's barley present (the dynamic between the three of them is uninteresting all around as it's basically Bakugou yelling at Izuku with Todoroki in the background. They never have any deep or heartfelt moments nor do they have good chemistry) and barely gets any one-on-one interaction with Izuku despite them being very good friends.

(I can't blame this all on Bakugou as the show also shifts from focusing to Todoroki to focusing on his own abuser which is part of the issue with his lack of character, but Bakugou's character does contribute to this problem of making the abusers more sympathetic than the victims)

Most if not the rest of 1A fade into the background after this, save for a few who have notable moments sprinkled in throughout the show. You can take this as a Bakugou prevalence problem, or it can be seen as Horikoshi just not knowing how to balance characters.

However, the character that suffers the most because of this is Izuku himself.

I don't think it's a bad thing that Izuku admires or looks up to Bakugou. I don't think it's a problem that he doesn't see anything wrong with Bakugou's behavior against him. Izuku grew up in an environment where that was normalized. That he's worthless because of his lack of quirk and Bakugou deserves to be on top because of his great quirk. Of course he internalized that, even though he knows that a quirk doesn't determine someone's worth. He was never given the tools or the means to beat that mindset.

What I despise is the fact that everyone around him enables it.

As I stated above, Aizawa is definitely the worst when it comes to this. Not only shoving Bakugou and Izuku together and making it Izuku's job to get Bakugou to cooperate, but hardly if ever condemning Bakugou when he lashes out against Izuku. Even without their history, what Bakugou does is wrong and should be treated as such.

Unfortunately and even though I love All Might, he's also guilty of this. It's true that he might not know the full extent of their toxic relationship, but All Might sees Bakugou instigate a fight with Izuku and decides it's okay to tell Bakugou about One For All. Bakugou did nothing to earn this honor: he hasn't shown Izuku support and hasn't been a reliable ally he could depend on. But even disregarding that, Bakugou had just been captured by villains who work for All For One. He was the last person on Earth who should have been entrusted with this secret.

The adults in Izuku's life enable and reward Bakugou's bad behavior and urge them into forming a relationship and partnership that frankly shouldn't exist (and only does to make Bakugou a better person and hero, it does nothing for Izuku). It's to the point where almost Izuku's entire character revolves around his relationship with Bakugou and how he improves because of it and how he helps Bakugou improve. And he further projects this when he "subtly" implies that Todoroki should forgive Endeavor, which feels like a justification towards the audience of his own feelings towards Bakugou.

5. Accountability

I mentioned consequences as my first point. But what many who want this miss, it goes hand-in-hand with accountability.

Unlike consequences, Bakugou more or less does take accountability in the form of his apology. But the apology was lackluster for a couple of reasons. The main thing is that it feels like a list of excuses rather than simply owning up to the fact that he was shitty and there's really no good reason for it. But simply explaining why you hurt the person you hurt isn't giving them the apology they deserve. It's making it about you.

Another thing, though, is that the apology is very scarce. It skips over the worst of Bakugou's actions. Nothing he said was anything 1A didn't already know. They don't know about the s*icide baiting which is one of the worst things he's done to Izuku (and that's only what we saw, who knows what Bakugou's been saying for years?). It also ignores everything he did in UA, which was a very big part of the problem. He treated Izuku poorly months prior to the apology and that shouldn't be ignored.

As far as accountability goes this apology isn't that great. But it's something. No, what's worse is that the other characters don't hold Bakugou accountable.

The other characters more often than not turn a blind eye to Bakugou's behavior. We've already covered Aizawa, but the rest of 1A is guilty of this too. No one says anything about the Battle Trials. Hardly anyone condemns Bakugou when he attacks or insults Izuku. Sometimes they'll chime in like Uraraka or Kirishima, but other than that no one outright tells him off. This is out of character for Iida in particular because he's such a stickler about rules and courtesy for others (he literally told off a six year old when he punched Izuku and tried to stop Mineta from perving on the girls, why wouldn't he do the same when it comes to Bakugou?). It's almost like the characters are blind to Bakugou's behavior.

What's weirder is that Mina and Kirishima- who were both stated to hate bullying- are friends with him. Why would the show go out of its way to tell us this only to saddle them into the "BakuSquad?" It doesn't make sense.

It's hypocritical that everyone in 1A is so tolerant of Bakugou but get annoyed with others; like Monoma for example. Or even Mineta because as much as I dislike him he's constantly being called out by 1A. It means that they know certain behavior is wrong and/or shouldn't be entertained, so we know they aren't completely unaware. But the fact that they largely ignore Bakugou's behavior and condemn Monoma's is so weird. You can't excuse one and not the other.

Conclusion

There's certainly more than this to my dislike of Bakugou. But I think I've mostly covered his negative impact on the story. Doing a deep dive into his awful personality is something I wouldn't wish on anyway. Many others have done that anyway, so I'm content to leave it out. But I hope you liked my little breakdown!

#anti bakugo katsuki #anti bakugou #anti aizawa shota #bnha critical #bhna criticism #bhna #mha #mha critical #criticism

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copperbadge · 7 months

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Hello, Mr. Badge, I seem to remember that you once posted about your processes and systems for staying organized in life with Excel spreadsheets etc. I’ve been struggling a lot with depression and executive dysfunction issues and don’t want it to impact my work.

Do you use the same processes at work? I get overwhelmed with the amount of documentation we have and the exceptions to the rules in our processes.

I'm so sorry you're struggling! It's really rough, and the more complicated the task feels, the more fraught it seems, the harder it is to even get a start. I feel that hard.

As for organizing work like my home life....well, it's sort of the same. I don't make a strong distinction between life and work simply because a lot of what needs organizing in my life IS my work, so it's tough to talk about them separately.

For example, I use Google Tasks to build a to-do list each day, but that to-do list starts with "stuff I'll do before work" then "shower" then all my work stuff, then "evening" and then all the stuff to do after work, ending with "7pm chores" (because I have a lot of stuff to do right around 7pm, which I need to post about elsewhere). Then the stuff I've pushed off to next day is below that, and that just bumps up the next morning. What's important isn't really how I keep the list, but that I keep it in a way that is constantly accessible, and I've trained myself to 1. put everything on it, even stuff like "grocery shop" and 2. check it whenever I feel lost. I don't find google calendars very helpful, however, so while work makes me use one for meetings, everything else goes on a calendar I made in Google Sheets that I'm just super used to by now.

It sounds like you're having a fairly specific issue, which may not even be related to your mental health (though assuredly the mental health issues aren't helping). If you have a lot of confusing documentation and exceptions in the stuff you do at work, that can be legit stressful even for someone who isn't dealing with other stuff, so I just want you to know that this may not only be a You Problem. My problem is usually the opposite, in that I'm often the first person doing something, or the only person who's done it in a while, so there's no documentation at all. But when I do have documentation I often will simply rewrite it.

After all, just because you have a handbook doesn't mean you have to use it. You can copy it over into another document and make yourself a step-by-step guide and/or a checklist. Like, I do our holiday cards every year, and my "HOLIDAY CARDS" document says "Here's the first thing you do, here's the second, do this before going past that, check this before asking for that". Literally at one point the document says "Stop. Before you go any further, do this step. Even if you don't understand why, do this step" because in the past I've disregarded that instruction ("Why on earth would I do it this way?") and lived to regret it.

Making the guide really, really sucks. Often it will take me four or five passes at a project before my guide is comprehensive (this is my fifth year doing the holiday card project and the document still has some steps missing at the end). But once you have it, it's invaluable, and often in the past I've found other people want my guides because they're fairly clear and precise about what needs doing when. For example, you might say, "Open the file and move column B to in front of column A. NOTE: THERE IS ONE EXCEPTION, THIS IS THE EXCEPTION." Or "Once you've saved the file, save a second copy to your backup folder so you can go back to it if you delete something you shouldn't. Stop and check: is this file from before or after October? If after, remember, you have to also rename it." If you find that there's a mistake you make frequently, figure out what would stop you from making it and add that in.

(We had a guy at work whose last name was VERY long and Italian, and so when I was working phones he got a special entry in the directory document I made -- the first line was all his directory info and the second line was just the phonetic pronunciation of his last name. He found out, which I had never intended him to do, and lost his shit laughing. "No wonder you're the only one who gets it right!")

So my recommendation to you is to create your own handbook, your own templates, and your own way of doing things and just slip that back into the system you have at work. Draw a diagram by hand if you need a flow chart. My approach to all my organizational issues has always been "What would make me do this correctly / prevent me from doing that thing wrong / remind me what to do / make it easier for me to start".

I think of this nowadays as the "Take the cupboard doors off" school of organizing, because to really make full use of my kitchen in a way that I liked, I had to take some of the cupboard doors off. It looks messier and kind of cheap, but it's actually a much more organized system now, and who's in my kitchen other than me?

#sam has adhd #adhd #organizing

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familyabolisher · 5 months

Note

I don't think I've ever seen anyone say much about loveday before, if the mood strikes you I'd love to hear what makes her compelling to you!

oh god you can really pinpoint how long someone’s been following me based on whether or not they’ve ever seen me (or anyone) say much about loveday. i will try to make my handful of thoughts here brief—a lot of this is somewhat corollary to my fucking massive backlog of takes about cytherea, which i feel is fitting considering we can pretty much only get a sense of ms heptane through what we know about her terrible terrible girlfriend.

i think the main thing i find interesting about loveday heptane is her role as this kind of invisibilised governing structure that, like, scaffolds the discourse of gtn. if the core drive of the book is (as i would argue it to be) gideon “learning” cavalierhood, and by extension us as readers understanding what cavalierhood “means” relative to the discourse of the text, then part of how this process of elucidating cavalierhood-as-subject-position takes place is in this three-way interplay that happens between gideon, loveday, and protesilaus relative to cytherea. put simply, gideon, loveday, and protesilaus can be understood as cytherea’s three cavaliers, and placing them in this equivocal discursive position allows us to draw useful conclusions about how we might understand the nature of cavalierhood, and how that understanding might be informing the wider narrative.

because the narrative focalises gideon as our protagonist, we could argue that she takes primacy within this triad, so perhaps another way of putting it is that everything she does relative to cytherea (and, later, harrow, though i think it’s significant that cytherea acts as a catalysing force towards the creation of that cavalier subject position that drives the book) ought to be examined with reference to a) protesilaus and b) loveday. as i said, all three occupy a discursively equivalent position relative to cytherea—that of the cavalier. so when we see this kind of courtship unfold between cytherea and gideon, and take on the language of grooming, objectification, predation, etc., alongside this process of, like, subjugating her, subduing her into a position whereby cavalierhood becomes a coherent possibility, we can understand one dimension of cavelierhood as a subject position to involve a form of sexual subjugation made somewhat salacious by its being socially taboo. at the same time, protesilaus as functionally cytherea’s cavalier is a dead body being reanimated, wholly at the behest of cytherea’s will, and loveday as cytherea’s cavalier is long dead, mourned, batterised, and made into a symbol of devotional grief (‘cytherea loveday’). when gideon ‘learns’ cavalierhood, she is ‘learning’ how to become the reanimated corpse and the beloved battery and the site of sexual availability. all three are then operating in tandem to make the nature of cavalierhood legible to us.

(i think this is at its most salient in the avulsion scene, which is one of the few moments in the book where we see cytherea make a fairly straightforward reference to loveday with “I’m sorry. We take so much. I’m so sorry.” there’s also this—

She said abruptly, “Why did you want to be a Lyctor?” [...] The older woman was leaning against Protesilaus’s arm. She looked extraordinarily sad, even regretful; when she caught Gideon’s eye, a tiny smile tugged on the corners of her mouth, then drooped again. Eventually, she said: “I didn’t want to die.”

—preempting her much later and more straightforward claim to palamedes that she & loveday went through with the lyctoral process because she “thought it would make me live.” this alongside the suggestion that she looks ‘regretful’ and the attention paid to gideon in a sentence that seems to be covertly about cytherea’s grief imo makes a fairly solid case for reading this exchange as another passing reference to loveday; there’s an emphasis, however covert, placed on cytherea’s grief and guilt in this chapter that hasn’t thus far made itself especially apparent. & it’s significant that these references crop up alongside a scene which has gideon acquiesce to being subjected to a brutal process of batterisation which serves as a fairly efficient metonym for the entire lyctoral process, and arguably by extension the entire state of cavalierhood, and also sees cytherea use language like ‘darling,’ ‘good girl,’ ‘poor baby,’ ‘i’ve got you,’ &c. &c. specifically to facilitate that process; these complex, overlapping networks of sexuality & subjugation & death & grief & lyctorhood are being put to pretty significant work in that chapter.)

re. loveday specifically—i’m really interested as well in the fact that, like, the seventh house seems to have this specifically chivalric culture attached to it (more so than some of the other houses, though it’s seemingly present across the whole internal body of the empire to some extent). we see this in, for instance: cytherea and dulcinea are duchesses when a duchy is a medieval apportioning of land; protesilaus and [presumably] loveday’s title is ‘the knight of rhodes’; dulcinea’s name references don quixote, which examines and parodies the conventions of chivalric literature and culture in spain. gideon and cytherea’s relationship is conducted rather like a courtship between a knight and a lady; though this speaks more to empire-wide social conventions around cavalierhood as a whole, i think it’s interesting that the narrative focalises cytherea (of venus!) when drawing attention to dynamics of love & sexuality within the relevant social order. all this is to say that i think cytherea and thus loveday by extension fit pretty coherently into the chivalric cultural narrative that muir is working from, and i think this gives us a lot of scope for thinking about what the two of them are ‘doing’ wrt gender.

& i think it’s fairly plain that the text is, among other things, interested in interrogating contemporary articulations of ‘lesbian gender’ abstracted through the various lenses that allow for diegetic consistency. what i mean by this is that, for example, we as contemporary readers who attach meaning to ‘butch’ as a descriptor know that gideon is a butch and we are to make sense of her character as such, but that’s not a gender framework that she has available and thus not a meaningful diegetic descriptor; we can’t say that gideon says or does X or Y or Z because of extant cultural norms around butchness, because those cultural norms don’t exist for her. we can, however, notice how the attention paid to rendering her as legibly ‘masculine’ in-text run parallel to (among other things) a particular kind of masculinity articulated in the language of chivalry, knighthood, &c.—which is legibly present in the text as cavalierhood, and is thus explained, historicised, problematised, all while acting as a vector by which we can think about the legibility of butchness in an imperialist social order.

(i feel like a proper reading of what tlt “does” with gender is its own post—real aveheads will remember—suffice it to say that i think the above is part of the fabric from which that discourse unfolds itself.)

i bring this up because i think loveday is something like the ur-text for this specific reading—which is why i’m so interested in her and the force she exerts over the narrative in gtn. most people seem to lean towards reading her as a butch (as a character we ought to understand as a butch &c.), and i would agree; i think it’s significant, however, that we can draw that conclusion based on cytherea’s demeanour/preferences (lol) and a handful of characteristics attributed to her in the very sparing accounts of her that we have in-text. however reliable or otherwise the accounts we have of her might be, i think it’s noteworthy that her lover remembers her as a ‘nice girl [who] died for me,’ clearly agentive in the decision to effectively sacrifice herself for cytherea (“i didn’t want to do it at all [...] she and i thought it would make me live”), memorialised in what to me reads as a symbolic marriage (‘cytherea loveday,’ the taking of the partner’s name—this along with the fact that john misremembers cytherea’s surname as ‘heptane’ and we never find out her functional ‘maiden name’ means that i think my reading of it as a gesture to marital conventions is more than fair), whereas eg. mercy and augustine remember her as ‘looking like she wanted every one of us beaten to death,’ seemingly generally unpleasant and antagonistic. this idea of someone who comes off as aggressive, unfriendly, standoffish to outsiders, but is loving, self-sacrificing, devotional to an excessively servile degree in romantic relationships is very much—not stereotypical, necessarily, but archetypal, and especially archetypal to the ‘chivalrous butch’ that i think muir is employing. add to this the things i said above about the seventh house seeming to operate on a culture of chivalry, her title being that of a knight, the kind of necromancer-cavalier relationship that cytherea solicits from gideon closely resembling a chivalric courtship, and i think there’s a case to be made for loveday as a stand-in for this archetypal ‘chivalrous butch’ that the text then probes and problematises.

this is interesting to me because i think it allows us to read loveday and her presence in gtn in particular as something of a discursive signifier rather than a fully fleshed-out “character”; i mean, crucially, she’s not fleshed out, she’s entirely subsumed by cytherea! if (and i realise i’m going a little crazy here; blorbo from my autism, &c.) we read the version of cytherea and loveday present as disciples at canaan house as representative of how butchfemme negotiations of gender can be subsumed into an imperialist social ordering via the conditions of chivalry, we can think about loveday then being collapsed into a signifier for a discursive position such that her presence in the text governs how gideon navigates cavalierhood and how we as readers understand and interpret it (cf. how i opened this piece, talking about the gideon-loveday-protesilaus triad), and how by extension the imposition of subjectivity via subjugation eschews the agency of the subject in favour of transforming them into a set of signifiers, symbols, representations, &c. (this is—i have to say it—this is the crux of the argument i make in salolita, and, as we all know, lolita is a huge part of the scaffolding of these books.) it also allows us to read cytherea as we receive her in gtn as a kind of unravelling or destabilising of that signifying dynamic, which we can of course extrapolate onto the destabilisation of the necromancer-cavalier-lyctor thing as a whole that gtn introduces and articulates through her.

and i guess i just—i’m interested in this! i think the gender angle and the subjugation angle are my two preferred ways of approaching these books, and i think it’s pretty easy to eke out some v compelling readings by kind of throwing loveday heptane at the frameworks and seeing what happens.

#ask #tlt

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curseofhecate · 7 months

Text

My heart wont start anymore, for you

Sirius Black x fem!reader

She was in love with him. He never felt the same

1.7k

tw: mention of Y/n, slight swearing

This has been in my drafts since August. The ending is sloppy.

It had been going on for years now. Ever since she'd first saw him, that September 1st on platform 9¾, she'd only ever had eyes for him.

Stolen glances, innocent brushes of her hand against his, so many signs and yet he never picked up any of them.

Sirius Black was too focused on other girls to notice his best friend pinning after him, even now, after all these years. And yet her feelings never changed.

"So, who's that?" James teasingly asked the black haired boy, glancing towards a ravenclaw girl in their year, who was practically eyefucking Sirius from across the room.

"Jessica Monroe" Sirius smirked, then continued eating his breakfast. "Dude, that's like, the 3rd one this month" Remus pointed out.

"It's not my fault the ladies can't resist me"

"And as it seems, neither can you" Peter chimed in. "At least n/n here hasn't fallen for your charms yet" James joked, eyes set on the only girl in their friend group.

"As if!" She laughed, trying to cover up the rosy color of her cheeks.

Little did James know how wrong he had been.

It wasn’t until two weeks later when things really started going downhill. She had just returned from her perfect's duties when she found Sirius waiting for her in the common room. It was well past midnight and everyone had retired to their dorms long ago.

"Finally, I've been waiting for you for hours" the boy jumped up from his spot on the couch once he saw her. She stared at him confused. He gently grabbed her wrist and dragged her to sit beside him as he plopped himself on the couch.

"What are you even doing down here at this time?"

Sirius ignored her question. "I need to talk to you."

"Well, couldn't it wait until the morning? I'm exhausted" She groaned, leaning her head back on the couch.

He ignored her again.

"I realized something."

His words had her sitting straighter in mere seconds.

Had he finally figured out her feelings for him?

She wasn’t exactly subtle about them either.

He must know.

Sirius looked at her. Whatever it was she was suspecting at that moment could have never even come close to what was yet to come.

"I've been sleeping with Thalia" he breathed out.

It wasn’t unusual for Sirius to sleep with different girls then dump them within the course of the next week. Most of the time he didn’t even mention who it was he was having sex with, so why would bringing her up now?

"Okay?"

She finally said not knowing how else to respond.

"The thing is, I want us to be more. As in, I actually have feelings for her. She makes me the happiest just by smiling at me. So much that makes me want to stay by her side until the end of my days."

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm in love with her. Hopelessly and utterly in love."

And it was in that moment when the little candle of hope she had burned out.

The thing was, that even if Sirius was with other girls, it never lasted long simply because he had never loved any of them. The flame was just weaker, flickering.

And now there he was, talking about how he couldn't imagine a world without the blonde Gryffindor, going as far as to admit being in love with her. There was no candle anymore, only a paddle of melted wax where it once had been.

The girl in front of him, blinked back tears as she shook her head. "I want her to ask her on a date '' Sirius continued.

"But when I do, I want it to be perfect. This is where I need your help. You know her better than me, you can tell me what she likes, for example which kind of flowers does she like the most? And what’s her favorite color? Does she prefer a picnic by the black lake or stargazing at the astronomy tower?" the boy continued rambling until the Y/n stopped him.

And as much as it hurt her to do so, she did value his happiness more than hers. In the end she agreed to help him.

It had been three weeks since Sirius and Thalia started dating. And it was safe to say they were stuck to the honeymoon phase.

The two couldn't keep their hands off of each other. They were always touching somehow and every chance they got to kiss, they did. They'd go on dates every other day and more often than not they slept in each other's bed, at the point where Remus had started complaining that she was practically living in their dorm.

Not to mention that they were always together. And when they weren't, which was a rare occurrence, all Sirius could do was talk about her.

She didn’t blame him. Thalia was a girl made out of angel dust, the prettiest and kindest one could ever be. She had to be the sweetest thing to ever walk on this earth.

Yet Y/n couldn’t help but envy her. The blonde was everything she wasn’t.

Once the two reached their one month anniversary it had started to become frustrating. And the closer the couple grew, the further the two friends slipped apart.

Sirius didn’t know what had happened between them. One second she was there, the other one she was gone, completely out of sight. It seemed to him that earth might as well have swallowed her whole and left no trace behind.

In the months following Sirius and Thalia getting together, Y/n had avoided him at any and every cost. She still hung out with the rest of the marauders, they were her best friends after all just not when Sirius was around.

Instead she’d now hang out more with Lily, Marlene and Mary, the three growing closer ever since she started sitting with them at dinner. She’d joke about how her and Marlene were practically married at this point and she’d even had made friends with Regulus (or something along those lines) after finding him up at the astronomy tower.

To say things had changed was an understatement.

It was a slow progress too. Yet Sirius failed to notice it. Until now.

Him and Thalia had had their first argument the night before. It was unusual for the two to fight at all, much less not be on talking terms. Sirius needed to talk to his best friend but how could he do that when she was nowhere to be found.

It was in the common room, well after dinner when Sirius managed to spot her. She was sitting next to Peter, helping him with his potion’s essay.

“Hey” he greeted taking a seat opposite her. She muttered a quiet ‘hi’ back but didn’t look up.

He sat in silence for a little while, waiting for them to finish. When he finally decided he couldn't wait anymore, he cleared his throat. The two looked up at him confused. “Anything you need Sirius?” she asked, rather coldly.

He wasn’t used to her calling him by his first name. It was either Siri or pads and sometimes ‘my star’ but never just plain Sirius. “Yes, actually. I need to talk to you.”

“Well can’t it wait. I have to help Pete with this and then I promised Lily I would put her hair into French braids” she said, trying to make up a lie to avoid him. She didn’t even know how to do French braids.

“It won’t take long, I promise”

“Fine,” She sighed. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Not here” he said, motioning for her to get up before doing so himself. He guided her upstairs to his and the boy’s dorm room. It had been a while since she’d last been there. And yet nothing had changed.

“What is going on with you?” Sirius asked after shutting the door closed and turning to her.

“What? Nothing. Everything is perfectly normal” the girl shrugged trying to play it off.

“Except it isn’t. You are never around anymore.We never talk anymore, you don’t even sit with us in the dining hall. I haven’t seen you since the last full moon and even then you didn’t talk to me. You were my best friend. Us against the world, remember? What the hell happened to us? What the hell happened to you n/n'' The more he spoke the more his voice rose.

“No” she shook her head.

“What do you mean no?” He asked, frustrated.

“Sirius, you were the one who started pulling away. After you got with Thalia you were always with her. And when you weren’t it was your main, not to say only, topic of discussion.”

“That’s not true” he argued.

“Yes it is! Tell me Sirius had you even realized I wasn’t around you as much before today?” she defended.

She was right. He hadn’t.

“And you know what’s worse? I was in love with you. I have been in love with you since the first day on the train.”

She has done it now.

“Do you even know how fucking hard it is? Listening to someone you love constantly about someone else?”

Silence. She hadn't intended to say this but she couldn't have controlled it. She had finally reached her limit.

Sirius looked down at the floor. He hadn't expected to hear such words from her yet he felt extremely guilty.

This was it. Her entire world came crumbling down and it was clear that whatever hope she had for salvaging their friendship was now gone. She had ruined it.

She looked up. Sirius' gaze was still pinned to the floor. It hurt her that he wouldn't even look at her.

She left the room slamming the door shut behind her. There were too many unanswered questions, more than before. There was confusion and then there were mixed feelings. It seemed that nothing was certain anymore.

And in that moment her heart stopped. And she knew, her heart wouldn't start anymore, at least not for him.

#the marauders era #sirius black x reader #curseofhecate

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loveysloveclub · 5 months

Text

meeting the freshmen - the man! au

in which, mark and ethan ruin molly's chance of making a good first impression with the new freshmen.

"god! i am so excited!" molly explained as she dropped onto the couch of her new home for her sophomore year of college. the group of sophomores had been back at school for about a week now, and were finally going to be able to meet the new freshmen that would be joining their hockey team.

"why?" ethan scoffed from beside her, engrossed in a game he was playing on his phone. the boys had yet to set up the new television in the sophomore house, so, instead of playing play station like they usually would, they had all downloaded a variety of games on their phone.

"because we get to meet the new freshies." molly stated in a 'duh' tone. mark chuckled at her from across the room, also engrossed on a game on his phone. "you're like the same age as them."

"you're like the same age as them." molly mocked the boy, pulling her own phone out of her pocket to text dylan about how annoying their friends were. "i do not sound like that!" mark exclaimed, offence dripping from his tone.

molly opened her mouth to rebut his claim, but was cut off by ethan. "and stop talking shit about us to duker." ethan butted in, his eyes not leaving his phone screen. "i'm not talking shit about you to duker." molly's phone pinged, the reply from dylan agreeing with her making her laugh loudly.

"yes, you are. you guys always do it." ethan rebutted, rolling his eyes before switching off his phone and sliding it into his pocket.

"can we go? we're gonna be late for bowling." mackie asked, slightly annoyed by his unreliable new roommates. "god forbid we're late for bowling!" molly exclaimed, her hand flying to her chest in faux horror.

mackie raised his eyebrows at the girl. and she suddenly felt as if she was a child being scolded by her parents. "i can't find my shoes." molly told the boy, holding her socked feet up in the air.

"we're going bowling, you don't need shoes." dylan explained as he also walked into the living room, also shoeless. "that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard you say." mark laughed, earning a confused face in return.

"is it though?" ethan asked aloud.

"i'm right here, you know?" dylan threw his arms up. "text molly about it." ethan shot back, a small grin tugging at his lips as he watched the smaller boy begin to get agitated. dylan simply shrugged before grabbing his phone and tapping his fingers against his screen aggressively. mere seconds later, molly's phone pinged with another message.

"dylan wants you to know that your on his shit list and he won't be speaking to you for the rest of the day." she read aloud, eyes flickering over to ethan who was reading the message from over her shoulder.

"molly." luke said, walking into the room with her shoes in his hand before throwing at them, to which molly barely caught without elbowing ethan in the face.

"okay, let's go!" mackie exlciamed, ushering everyone up from their spot on the couch. molly walked at the back of the group, laughing as she watched dylan get a scolding from mackie whilst luke laughed from beside him.

the girl didn't even flinch when an arm wrapped around her shoulder. "omg! i'm so excited to meet the new freshies!" mark squealed in her ear. "they're gonna be sooo cute!" ethan exclaimed from the other side of her.

"i'm gonna glue your dick to your forehead, estapa."

"what about ethan?" mark was offended that he was the only one who was being threatened. "i have much worse things in store." molly huffed before stabbing her now shoed heel into ethan's toes before walking faster to catch up with the rest of her friends.

it was no surprise to any of their former teammates that the group of sophomores were the last ones to arrive to the annual hockey bowling day. the group of six usually spent more time arguing then getting ready and were often late to just about everything.

it was also no surprise that dylan and molly had both gasped upon arrival, talking hurriedly about the bowling place selling slushies and running off hand in hand. the rest of the sophomores didn't even bat an eye as they continued to greet the rest of their teammates.

"you must be luca." ethan stated before doing what molly liked to call 'the douchebag' handshake. all guys did it, she thought it was funny. it was as if it was their love language towards one another. "yeah, and this is my brother adam and rutger and nick." the boys all went down the line doing their weird little 'douche' handshake. if molly wasn't currently overfilling her cup and spilling slushy all over the floor, she would have dropped dead with laughter right in that moment.

"i thought there was six of you?" rutger questioned aloud, his eyes raking the rest of the team for anyone he might have not met. "there is." ethan replied, a devious smirk on his face as he pointed over to the slushy machine where dylan was currently hunched under while molly over filled his mouth with blue ice.

"that's dylan drinking from the machine and the one trying to drown him in blue raspberry slushy is molly." mark told the group, the four freshmen holding back laughs of their own as they watched the duo get in trouble by the worker.

"i wouldn't be laughing if i was you, dylan's nice and all, but molly?" ethan began, a small grin on his lips as he spoke before blowing out a breath of air. the four already nervous freshmen tore their eyes away from dylan and molly to look at the edwards boy. mackie rolled his eyes, not even bothering to attempt to fix the mess they were creating before stalking off some place else.

"what do you mean?" adam asked, his eyes flickering back and forth between the blonde girl and the three boys who stood in front of her. luke had a confused expression on his face whilst mark seemed to understand the game that ethan was playing.

"yeah, molly's real mean until she thinks you're good enough to be friends with her."

"no she's-" luke was cut off when ethan elbowed him in his stomach.

"shit she's coming over. she so knows we were talking about her." mark exclaims. "yeah, she looks pissed." ethan laughed slightly before dragging a still confused luke away from the crime scene, mark following behind the two.

molly had since lost duker, who decided he needed to get something hot to eat since he could no longer feel his tongue. but she couldn't wait to meet her new teammates any longer, so she opted to leaving the numb mouthed boy in the line for food.

she watched with furrowed eyebrows as mark and ethan laughed at something with the new freshmen before stalking off, and dragging luke with them. approaching the four new faces, all of them turned to her with looks she could only describe as concerned.

they looked at her as if they had seen a ghost.

"hello?" her eyebrows were furrowed and her lips were turned upwards. but none of the boys spoke. molly chalked it up to them being nervous.

"slushy?" she asked as she held out the multi coloured liquid. all four boys glanced down at the slushy, "is it poisoned?" one of them asked, eliciting a laugh from the girl. "yeah, i put the rat poison i carry around in my pockets in it when no one was looking. no, you weirdos, it isn't poisoned. why would it be poisoned?"

"mark and ethan said you weren't very friendly." one of them spoke cautiously, earning an elbow into the stomach from his friend beside him. "mark and ethan are also going to wake up with missing limbs." molly grumbled before stomping away from the group of four, leaving them in a state of confusion.

she approached the two laughing sophomores, who were currently talking to their new captain, nolan moyle.

nolan took one look at molly and stood up from his seat. "i don't know what you two did, but i'm not saving your asses again."

mark and ethan's smiling faces dropped when they saw the sour face their friend was pulling. "it was ethan's idea!" mark immediately said when molly stood in front of them. "dude!" ethan shot back, shooting his friend an incredulous glance.

"you told them i wasn't a nice person?" molly exclaimed, her voice hushed to a whisper type of yell to avoid any of their nosy teammates eavesdropping. "we were just joking around. c'mon maxxy, everyone knows you're a nice person." ethan told the girl.

"they don't! they've never met me, and now they think i'm going to poison them." molly had had enough, and opted to saving her breath and not yelling at the two boys in the middle of what was supposed to be a fun day. instead, she stomped over to luke and flopped down on the couch beside him.

"you good, maxxy?"

"i'm calling ethan's mother and telling her he got someone pregnant." molly announced, angrily snatching her phone out of her pocket, only for luke to snatch it out of her hand and shove it in his own pocket.

"the freshmen will figure out you aren't a horrible person, and are only mean 70% of the time." luke shrugged, the statement earning him a slap upside the head.

"i'm never mean."

"yes, you are. but we love that about you, they will too. trust me on this, maxxy." and with that, luke stood up and travelled to the other side of the room, taking molly's phone with him and leaving her to sit there in a state of boredom.

usually, she would be messing around with mark and ethan but they were both on her hit list and it would be a successful day if neither of them went home with a broken foot in the shape of a bowling ball.

"why are you sitting here alone?" her eyes snapped up to truscott, who eyed her suspiciously. "am i a mean person?"

"do you want me to answer that honestly?" he replied, a humorous smile on his face. "you're meant to say, 'no you're perfect molly. we all love you, molly'. not whatever you just said."

"i'm not getting involved." he shook his head before stalking off to ask someone else what had happened.

molly released a huff of frustration, glancing down at her shoes as she clicked the tops of them together. upon hearing multiple pairs of feet approach her, molly lifted her head, expecting to see some of her teammates tell her that it was time to start bowling. she hoped not, she had no faith that her pink bowling ball wouldn't end up flying in the direction of where mark and ethan were sitting, both boys sending her apologetic pouts from across the room. what she didn't expect was to see all four new freshmen towering over here.

the one in the middle, who had long blonde hair and a backwards cap on his head, smiled shyly before holding out a cup full of blue ice. "slushy?"

molly smiled before taking the cup. "i'm luca, this is my brother adam, rutger and nick."

"it's nice to meet you."

"we wanted to let you know that we don't believe what ethan and mark told us." rutger nodded his head in agreement to what nick was saying.

"thanks ladies, i appreciate the gesture." molly smiled up at the group. "even though i have been informed that i can be quite mean, i promise never to be mean to any of you because you're all children."

"aren't we the same age?" adam asked, his eyebrows pulled together in confusion. "hush now, child." molly held up a finger, silencing the boy.

"yo! freshies, it's your turn!" nolan yelled from across the bowling alley.

"but seriously, thank you." molly repeated, smiling softly at the group of freshmen, who all nodded their heads whilst adorning shared smiles before walking off.

molly released a sigh of relief at the fact that the freshmen were no longer scared that she was going to poison them, leaning back in her seat.

her moment of relaxation was cut off when a body jumped into the spot beside her and a pair of arms wrapped loosely around her neck.

"we would like to formally apologise." ethan began from beside her, pulling on a piece of her blonde hair lightly to get her attention. molly's eyes narrowed, but she made no effort in moving away from the boy or pushing mark off of her.

"continue."

"we shouldn't of did what we did, we thought we were being funny." mark told the girl, his hands fiddling together in front of her face. molly smiled at the nervous action. "and if the freshmen thought we were being serious and do anything to offend you, we'll sort them out. we promise." ethan continued, holding up his pinky finger.

molly slapped his hand away. "you can't do that."

"why not?"

"because i've adopted them all and taken them under my wing. so, that means they're my children and you're not even allowed to look at them wrong."

"is this why you were so excited to meet them?" mark asked as the trio watched from afar as luca and rutger celebrated one of them getting a strike. molly hummed in confirmation, "i didn't have anyone to look out for me my first year, i didn't want them to feel the same." her voice was quiet now as she shrugged her shoulders in an attempt of brushing her feelings off.

"well, now you've got someone. two someones to be exact." ethan cheesed from beside her.

"you guys are still going to wake up with missing limbs and angry phone calls from your mothers."

#umich hockey #ethan edwards #umich #mark estapa #dylan duke #luca fantilli #rutger mcgroarty #umich wolverines #luke hughes #umich hockey imagine

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1d1195 · 10 months

Text

Traditional Extra II

How about another check in on these guys?

2.8k+ words

Just a little something kicking around in my brain. (I've got a bit of baby fever going on over here on these last few I know--I'll move away from babies for my next update)

You can read Traditional here

Her shyness was adorable. It was entirely too early to have this conversation. They’d only officially been dating for less than three months. But they also lived together. And worked together. He was crossing his fingers and hoping the earliness or suddenness didn’t matter.

She knocked on the door with Harry’s tea in hand. Even though she was no longer an intern, it was one way to get her little dose of Harry while at work even on the busiest of days until they could get home. She craved seeing Harry. Being near him made her instantly happy. Stealing kisses at work was one of her new favorite past times, and Harry found himself unbelievably happy about those, too. It didn’t matter that they ate dinner together, snuggled up watching TV, or fell asleep spooning. The little fifteen-minute teatime in the afternoon was enough to make her extra dizzy with love for him.

However, today she was surprised to find a little baby, sitting alone, in a round little activity seat. He babbled to himself as she entered, and she smiled immediately. “Well, hello,” she cooed. Placing Harry’s tea on his desk she smiled curiously at the little one. “Who are you?” She asked him and knelt in front of him playing. He wasn’t quite a toddler, but maybe a bit over a year old. He was simply adorable: soft wispy hair, beautiful round eyes. She was immediately in love.

She always did well with babies. Her smile was warm and maternal. In college, she spent some of her time tutoring and babysitting when people inquired. Little ones always enjoyed her gentle nature. Honestly, she was definitely one of those women who wanted a tribe of her own little cuties to follow her around one day in the future. The baby gurgled, hitting the different activities around his seat. He smiled at her, a bit of drool falling from his little perfect lips, and he reached out making a grabbing motion with one hand. She waved back at him. She held out her finger so he could grasp his squishy little hand around it. “Hi,” she giggled again. “Did you get here all by yourself?” She asked him which of course led to no response, but he enjoyed her voice and gave her a big, drooly smile in return. The door opened and in walked three people. “Oh hi,” she glanced over her shoulder as Harry closed the door behind them. “I brought your tea.”

“Hi,” he said awkwardly. “Um...”

“You have a baby,” she said. “Did I miss something?”

The two people with him smirked. “Hi, love,” the woman said. “I’m Sarah, this is Mitch. We’re Harry’s friends.”

“Oh, the ones he doesn’t pay,” she smiled.

Harry rolled his eyes. “I like her,” Mitch whispered toward him but so she could still hear.

“Your baby is very cute,” she said poking at some of the toys while the baby kept a firm grasp on her hand.

“We’ve heard so much about you,” Sarah said sweetly crouching down beside the baby and activity seat next to her. “Hi, cutie pie,” she kissed his little nose making him giggle excitedly. “Would you like to hold him?”

“Yes,” she answered immediately, almost before Sarah finished her question. The three snickered at her. Sarah lifted the baby out of the seat and held him out to the waiting girl.

“Sometimes he is fussy with new people,” Mitch warned. He usually grabbed handfuls of hair and screamed every now and again.

She nodded. “That’s okay, must be scary getting passed around a bunch of people that aren’t Mumma and Dadda, huh?” She asked the little one who still nuzzled against her neck effortlessly, not worried at all that she was a stranger. He may have been fussy sometimes, but it seemed today wouldn’t be one of those days.

“Well, he definitely likes you, hmm?” Sarah laughed rubbing his little back as she held him.

“I have a wide-open face that babies love,” she explained. “I think I look like a teddy bear.”

Harry was speechless. He wanted to introduce his other best friends to his girlfriend. He would like to say she looked nothing like a teddy bear, but instead a beautiful angel with a halo around her head. But instead, he was tongue-tied watching her with the baby. She was a natural and his heart was aching with longing. His brain started imagining her holding a little one that looked like the perfect combination of the two of them. “Harry, you’re staring,” Mitch muttered under his breath, this time so no one could hear but Harry.

Shaking his head quickly to pull him out of his daydream, he knelt beside the two women and smiled at the baby. “Mitch and Sarah were jus’ saying they wanted t’have a date night jus’ the two of them,” Harry explained. He reached out to cup the side of the baby’s face. Harry’s palm was the same width as the side of his little head. His thumb skimmed over his hair gently, brushing his ear making the baby’s eyes flutter shut. “I sort of volunteered myself t’watch him,” he explained. “We were jus’ putting his sippy cups in the fridge.”

She smiled. “Could I help watch him too, if it’s alright with you guys?” She asked Sarah and Mitch. She didn’t want to make the parents uncomfortable. Of course, they trusted Harry, but she was a stranger. It was nice to let her hold the cutie pie, but she wouldn’t expect a whole night if they didn’t want it.

“We wouldn’t leave the baby alone with just Harry,” Mitch smiled. Harry rolled his eyes at the joke. He’d been left alone with the baby plenty of times before. It happened that some of those evenings he hadn’t spent with her over the last year were spent with the baby.

“We sort of expected you two to be a package deal,” Sarah winked at her.

Harry adored the blush that painted her cheeks. She liked that—being a package deal. Harry liked it too. “Mitch and Sarah are leaving me with their car,” Harry explained.

“You going to be good for Uncle Harry?” Sarah asked the baby. He giggled reaching for him. He crawled into Harry’s embrace. Giggling and bouncing as Harry placed his feet on his lap.

“We always have a lot of fun, don’t we lad,” he murmured kissing the top of his head. “Would y’mind leaving early?” Harry asked the girl beside him.

“You’re the boss,” she reminded him, standing now while Harry stayed put on the floor with the baby. “I just follow orders. I am working on something with Niall right now. I’ll have to finish that up.”

“That’s fine. We’re not leaving for at least an hour. Some business to attend to,” Sarah smiled. “Harry is going to invest in our new music label, supposedly.”

“Oh, how lovely!” She said excitedly. “I’ll send the paperwork to you once I get back to my office,” she said for Harry’s benefit. His heart warmed over with adoration for her once more; anticipating his needs. It was quite the quality she had.

“Surprised Harry doesn’t have you in here with him,” Mitch said with the sound of delight in his voice. Harry glared at the carpet bitterly.

“He tried, but Niall beat him in an arm-wrestling contest,” she explained. “He’ll tell you—”

“The table had water on it!” He was still quite sore about it and wished Niall had given him a rematch. The whole predicament was laughable to her but still very upsetting to Harry. He wanted her around all the time.

“—his arm slipped,” she finished ignoring Harry’s interruption.

“They arm-wrestled over you?” Sarah laughed. “Harry Styles, the poor girl is not a trophy!”

Harry knew that and found himself rolling his eyes as he played with the little one to keep his mind occupied and not wallowing in pity over the fact that she was down the hall most of the time. Even though they drove in to work with one another, back home together, and of course lived in the same house. She insisted that as CEO he should have his own space. Niall liked to remind him of the time he threw the keyboard in her presence—of course he would never hurt her, but where would he put her in his office so she would be out of the line of fire when Harry became that agitated again? It was better for his simmering temper and for her safety to be down the hall.

“Unbeknownst to me,” she continued while Harry was lost in thought. “I only found out after. But I did try explaining to Harry several times that it makes more sense for me to spend some time away from him, so he doesn’t tire of me.”

Sarah and Mitch exchanged a knowing look and Mitch shook his head at her. “Oh, love, I don’t think Harry’s ever going to tire of you,” Mitch promised.

Harry was silent during their little exchange other than interrupting to defend his loss against Niall. He rolled his eyes at the wonderful girl he adored so much. His eyes stayed on his friends’ little babe. Listening to her worry about growing tired of her made his stomach knot sickly. He wouldn’t ever. He couldn’t. She was his favorite thing to wake up to in the morning and the last thing he loved to see before falling asleep. Getting to be in the same building as her and working with her was a godsend; he was so lucky to be near her so often.

If anything, Harry worried about suffocating her.

He looked up at her from the floor with a knowing little smile. His left dimple dented his cheek deeply, making her stomach flip with adoration for him. She needed to leave before she kissed him all over his pretty face. Looking like a lovesick idiot in front of his friends. People who expected her to protect their most precious angel without falling all over Harry for a few hours. “Well, just to be sure, I better get back to Niall. I’ll see you later,” she cooed.

“See you later,” Harry answered, voice oozing with love that made her knees feel weak. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she meant the baby.

Harry held the baby in his arms while she got another sippy cup cleaned and ready with more milk. The little one was supposed to be asleep or hopefully falling asleep any minute but seemed much too excited to play with Harry to even think about resting. Harry was bouncing him effortlessly, his arms looked delicious curled around the little one. Like he was meant to hold a baby; Harry had big strong muscles, but they looked so delicate and still protective around the small little bean. Her heart fluttered at the thought of how natural he looked.

“Mumma and Dadda will be very upset with us if you don’t go to sleep, cutie pie,” she said but the little one thought her voice was pretty. Harry found it pretty, too. He liked the way it sounded when she spoke to him. Not quite baby-talk, but not exactly how she spoke to Harry either. “They might not ever let me play with you again if we keep you up all night,” she caressed the back of his soft little baby head, the hair feathery and light, like a bird’s wing. She was in love.

Harry smirked and kissed his little forehead. “Y’got t’sleep, lad.” She took the bottle from the microwave and handed it to Harry. The little one pushed it from Harry’s hand, so it fell to the floor. At the same time, the baby reached for the sweet girl. “I know she’s pretty; I don’t want t’sleep either when she��s around,” Harry murmured. He bent to get the bottle. “But y’can’t play with her when you’re tired either,” Harry explained. Her face was warm at Harry’s description, and she snuggled the cutie up to her chest. Harry placed the bottle between his lips and his little eyes seemed to close almost instantly. “Jus’ wanted a cuddle from y’kitten, before falling asleep. Can’t say I blame him.”

She smiled and brushed her fingers across his velvety soft cheek. “He’s so cute,” she whispered. Swaying as she held him in her arms.

Harry figured they would eventually talk about kids. He wasn’t sure when exactly, but it would happen. Harry definitely didn’t think it was going to be on a Tuesday evening when she had only just moved her final belongings in two weeks prior.

Yet all he could think about was her gorgeous being glowing with a rounded tummy. He wanted it. Bad. The idea suddenly consumed him. Wanting everything that would go along with it.He wanted every one of her possible mood swings. Every morning of nausea. All the cravings she could have. He wanted everything with her and a baby that would be a perfect meld of her and himself. She could feel Harry’s mind spinning in thought. She could see it in his face. But she had no idea that Harry was imagining a gaggle of little babies following the beautiful girl around their home. Snuggling on the porch furniture while she read to them and gave them lemonade. Or playing hide and seek around the yard. He wanted her pregnant right now. “What’s on your mind, Mr. Styles?” She hummed, interrupting his thoughts.

“Promise y’won’t…get nervous or worry?” He asked. He sounded nervous. For god’s sake he never even thought about asking her about kids in over the year she knew him. How was he supposed to just spring this on her right now? She was young. She had so much time to think about kids. She didn’t need to rush. But she looked so goddamn pretty with a baby in her arms Harry couldn’t help but think she’d be even more beautiful if the baby was her own.

She looked up at him with a smirk. “Sounds worrisome,” she answered knowingly. Harry rolled his eyes.

“I…I think y’would look really pretty if y’were pregnant, love,” his voice was so quiet. Softer than a whisper. He loved the flush of her cheeks and how she seemed to drop her nose to the little one’s head so she could almost hide in his wispy hair. Her shyness was adorable. It was entirely too early to have this conversation. They’d only officially been dating for less than three months. But they also lived together. And worked together. He was crossing his fingers and hoping the earliness or suddenness didn’t matter.

“Yeah?” She responded. No clear emotion about his idea either way.

“Yeah,” he nodded in affirmation.

It wasn’t often she thought about her six-year age gap with Harry. Almost everyone permanent in her life had five or so years on her. Before everything, before she knew how the world worked, she dreamed of being married and having kids by her mid-twenties. After everything, the last six years of hardship…it was a laughable thought.

But Harry was six years older. He probably thought about having kids a lot more now than she did. Of course, she loved kids. Of course, she wanted them. She had no idea Harry wanted them too. Suddenly, she was fourteen again. Just finished reading a young adult romance novel that had her dying for an all-consuming love like the one she read about. One that made her want to be married and have kids by the time she was 25.

And she could. Harry wanted to give her everything. Harry would give her everything she ever wanted. He was able to make everything better. She could have that crazy pipe dream with him that she imagined when she was in junior high.

“I think I’d like that too,” she admitted.

The relief on his face was utterly adorable. She didn’t know what to add to her statement. “Oh, thank God,” Harry mumbled.

She giggled trying not to jostle the baby. Harry ushered her to his room where he created a little makeshift sleeping pallet on his bed for the little one using a pillowcase and blanket. A little raft on the sea of Harry’s duvet. Once the baby was down Harry wrapped her in his arms. Attaching his mouth to hers and backing them out of the room towards what used to be “her” room but was now just a guest room.

“Oh, are we starting now? I think we should wait maybe a little bit, no? At least until Sarah and Mitch come back for their child? Or you know maybe we should actually date for a year?” She asked against his lips with a cheeky smile and giggle.

“Practice makes perfect,” he murmured back and pushed until she was laid on the bed.

“Baby,” she paused his delicious kisses. It was hard. She had to keep a tight rein of control on her mind to do so.

“Hmm?” He kissed the length of her neck, following an imaginary path to the hollow of her throat, and began skimming across her collarbone.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“Kitten, I love you so much.”

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#harry #harry styles writing #harry styles fluff #harry styles blurb #harry styles blurbs #harry styles smut #harry styles angst #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfiction #ceo!harry #sugardaddy!harry #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #one direction #one direction writing #traditional

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pedroscurls · 2 months

Text

chance encounters | pt. 1

character(s): Benny Miller, fem!Reader, (very) brief cameos from the rest of the Triple Frontier boys at the end summary: You've lost your way after losing your best friend in a tragic car accident. So, you go back to the one sport that makes you feel closer to him. word count: 1.9k a/n: This story is very personal to me and pulled from some real-life experiences (maybe not exactly, but still). I know I said I wouldn't write anything within this time period with April being such a very emotional month for me, but I've found that this story is actually helping me through my grief. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy and thanks for reading 🫶 warnings: very brief mentions of grief (which will be a reoccurring warning) series masterlist | ultimate masterlist

“Benny Miller. I’m the owner and potentially, your coach,” the man says with a charming smile. He’s tall, broad, built, and you can’t help but notice his deep blue eyes. There’s a sense of comfort that you feel when you look at him. He’s dressed in red shorts and a white t-shirt with a dark cap placed backwards on his head and you can see the dark blonde curls peeking out from underneath it. “Welcome to Miller MMA Gym.”

“Hi,” you finally respond, saying your name to introduce yourself. Your hand grips the strap of your duffle bag that was placed over your shoulder. You feel slightly out of your element even though this is your comfort zone. Fighting is your comfort zone.

“Nice to meet you. Let me give you a tour of the gym and then we can sit down and go over your goals and everything else. Sound good?”

“That sounds good,” you repeat. “Thanks.”

Benny spends the next twenty minutes giving you a tour of his gym and you can tell just from the sound of his voice that he loves this sport and he has put a lot of thought into creating a gym where he can share with other like minded people. There are black mats in the entirety of the building with thick, red outlines at the edges. There are about seven heavy bags lined up along the wall with an octagon cage towards the back of the building. The gym is small, cozy, and it makes you feel like it’s a place where you belong.

“This is a really nice gym you got, Benny.”

“I know it’s not as big as other MMA gyms. We don’t have all the fancy equipment, the extra free weights, but I like that it’s small. Plus, I don’t just let anyone train here.”

“Oh?” you ask, brow arching. “So, I’m guessing this is a bit like a consultation?”

Benny nods. “I want to make sure we’re a good fit. This sport…” he sighs. “I want people who are dedicated, who will push themselves to the limit, you know? I don’t want to waste your time and I certainly don’t want you to waste mine.”

“Makes sense,” you agree.

He removes his sandals and steps onto the mat. You follow him and set your duffle bag down, your feet touching the cushioned mats and your gently bounce on your toes before you sit down in front of him.

“How long have you trained for?”

“Never actually had a coach or joined a gym like this, if I’m being honest. My best friend,” you sigh shakily. “He used to fight, was an amateur though. He taught me everything I know and always encouraged me to pick up the sport too.”

“So, what changed?”

“He died.”

Benny offers you a solemn look. He bites the inside of his cheek and nods. He knows grief all too well and he had known the minute you stepped into his gym that there was something lingering within you, something that you wanted to keep hidden. “I’m sorry.”

You shrug. You had grown tired of hearing that. Why would they be sorry? What could they even do about it? It simply frustrated you. “Anyway, fighting’s always been something I felt comfortable doing and I don’t want to join an MMA gym where it’s all ego and trying to one-up one another.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Benny adds. “I’ve been to gyms like that and I fuckin’ hate it. I mean, we’re all there because we love the same sport. It can get competitive and sparring can get really bad… Which is why I like doing these consultations before even making a commitment with someone. I don’t want my gym to be like those.”

You nod, the corner of your lips lifting only slightly, but as quickly as it rose, it drops. You always had to catch yourself whenever you felt an ounce of happiness or relief. It didn’t feel fair. It didn’t feel right to be happy when your best friend was gone.

“Well, I want to fight, Benny. Competitively. I don’t know if I can even make it, but I want to try. Fighting is where I feel most at home.”

Benny smiles. You see his blue eyes light up. Then, he reaches his hand back out to you. “Well then, welcome aboard. I’d love to have you, and I’d love to train you and be your coach.”

The happiness flutters in your stomach and you force yourself to ignore it. You don’t smile at him, but your eyes - your eyes have always been so expressive. Your eyes soften when you look up at him, tears threatening to spill over, and you reach out to shake his hand. “I’d love that, Coach.”

“Welcome to the team,” he grins. “Let’s see what you got.”

—

An hour and a half later and you’re dripping with sweat. You’re leaning back against one corner of the octagon, knees close to your chest as you rest your arms over them, trying to catch your breath. Benny didn’t waste any time assessing your abilities, but you welcomed the distraction and for the last hour and a half, you hadn’t thought about your best friend.

“We got one more round,” Benny calls out. “Get back up, let’s go.”

You let out a deep breath and nod, standing. You shake your arms to loosen them, feeling the fatigue slowly begin to settle in. You glance at the time and see it begin to count down. Once the round begins, the sound of a buzzer filters the small gym and immediately, you bring your hands to cover your face, standing in an orthodox fighter’s stance.

Benny holds out the pads and calls out the following combinations:

Left jab, cross, left hook!

Double jab, cross!

Right front kick, double left round kick!

Throughout the round, you’re moving in the cage, staying light on your feet and never crossing them. You don’t even notice the way Benny’s smiling down at you, so proudly and full of hope.

“Alright, thirty seconds left!” Benny calls out. He notices how locked in you are, how focused, and he hasn’t seen someone as motivated in a first session as you. It gives him hope that you’re actually serious about competing.

Left jab, right body kick!

1-2 punch, left hook, right body kick!

Again!

By the time the round ends and the buzzer fills your ears, you’re breathing heavily, sweat dripping down your temples and the sides of your neck.

“Holy shit,” Benny chuckles. “You’re amazing.”

“My stamina is shit,” you say breathlessly.

“We’ll work on that,” he smiles. “Great job today.”

You remove your gloves and sit back down, leaning against the same corner of the octagon as you begin to unwrap your hands. You see the initials on your wraps and you’re brought back to reality. You bring your hands to stroke your dampened hair back and away from your face, redoing the hair tie to pull your hair into a tighter ponytail.

“That was– It felt like home,” you admit, looking up at him.

Benny chuckles and extends a hand for you. You take it and stand up, following him out of the octagon. “I’m excited about you, about this partnership. I think you’re gonna be great.”

You look at the time and realize that it’s already way past the normal business hours and quickly, you grab your duffle bag. “I didn’t mean to keep you here longer than you needed to be. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Benny says softly then adds, “I just realized we didn’t get to the paperwork side of things.”

“I can come in tomorrow,” you say, draping the strap of the duffle bag over your shoulder. “And however much it is, I’ll pay it up front.”

Benny’s eyes widen. “Whoa, whoa, wait–”

“I’m serious about this, Benny. There’s nothing I want more than to fight and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to do that.”

“Okay, tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock sound good?”

“Sounds great.” You shake his hand once more and he leads the both of you out of his gym. You look up at the sound of another man’s voice and see three other men - all of different statures - greet Benny with a smile. You don’t spend another second sparing each of them a glance, just now wanting to get home.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Benny calls out. “And I think I’ve got a great nickname for you.”

You toss your duffle back into the trunk of your car and shut it closed. You look over at Benny and notice all four men staring at you, but Benny’s the only one grinning. The other three, you notice, are staring at you with a look of hesitancy and curiosity. You take note that Benny’s the taller out of the four, but there’s another one that’s only a few inches shorter. He’s just as broad and built, the same blue eyes, but hair much shorter and slightly lighter. Then, your eyes veer off to the other two, your eyes lingering on one man in particular with a Standard Heating Oil cap placed atop of his curls. The other man standing next to him is the shortest, but he has just as big of a presence as Benny. His hair is greyer, but you have to wonder if it’s due to stress or if he’s much older than the rest of the group.

“A nickname is too soon, don’t you think? You don’t really know me yet, Benny.”

Benny shrugs. “Let’s just call it a gut feeling.”

“Okay, so what’s the nickname?”

“The Warrior,” he grins.

You chuckle. You actually let out a laugh and for months, you had almost forgotten what it was like to laugh. It’s ironic really, almost like your best friend was taunting you from even beyond the grave. He had always called you his little warrior after everything you had been through and how you had never given up, always willing to fight your way through difficult hardships. But now… Now you can’t even imagine fighting your way out of this grief that has taken over your life.

Benny then looks over at his friends, not realizing that he had forgotten to introduce them to you. “We can talk it over. I’m open to other nicknames, but it just seems right for you.”

“We’ll see, Benny.”

“By the way, these are my–”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Coach.” You interrupt him, not bothering to spare another glance at the other three men. You climb into your car and start it immediately, pulling out of the parking lot without another look at Benny or his friends.

Benny turns to his friends and shrugs. “She’s got potential,” he begins. “I think she can make it big.”

“You say that about almost everyone, Ben,” Santiago chuckles. “Is she usually that… standoffish?”

“She just lost her best friend,” Benny sighs.

“Damn,” Frankie mumbles.

“And you think that it’s a good idea that she fights?” Will asks. “Emotions and all of that–”

“I think she needs this,” Benny admits. “And we all know how it is to lose someone close to us.”

“Does she–” Frankie sighs. “Does she have anyone else to rely on?”

Again, Benny shrugs. “I just met her a few hours ago, but something tells me that she might be alone.”

“Fuck,” Santiago adds. “Well, is she any good?”

Benny nods. “Like I said, I think she can make it big.”

“Well, whatever you need, we’ll be here,” Will says, clasping a hand over his younger brother’s shoulder. “Now, should we all get out of here and go get some drinks?”

Santiago grins. “Yeah, let’s.” He nods in Frankie’s direction and adds, “Vamanos.”

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal character #garrett hedlund #garrett hendlund character #oscar isaac #oscar isaac character #charlie hunnam #charlie hunnam character #triple frontier #will ironhead miller #benny miller #santiago pope garcia #frankie catfish morales #triple frontier fanfic #triple frontier fanfiction #story: chance encounters

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wolfytae-exe · 9 months

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Hiii, I'm here to make an ask jsjss

I've just been thinking about giving Soobin maybe not his first, but definitely his best handjob ever

Like maybe you're both in a new relationship together and you just want to help him because he's stressed and AGHHHH 😩😩😩

I bet he's the type that says "fuck being quiet if it feels good" so he's literally as loud as he can be, not caring anymore

THIS ASKEBJEWNE IM SORRY IM GETTING TO THEM ALL SO LATE😭😭

(mention of alcohol, drabble-ish, slight exhibitionism, Soobin is whiny tbh, Beomgyu is kind of a dick, this is like borderline crack in the beginning, drunk sex acts, shitty ending, subby-ish soobin, slight exhibitionism)

Bunny (s)(d-ish)

Soobin and you have been dating for about a month now, introduced to each other by some mutual friends. I was only common for you both to attend certain house parties said friend hosted from time to time.

Yeonjun loved throwing parties, but especially loved when you and Soobin showed up, you both always truly enjoyed hanging out with him and never go just for the free booze. It really means a lot to him to know you both are his friend too and that he was able to bring you both together, it’s the hopeless romantic in him.

You and Soobin were separated in the crowd, him playing beer pong and you dancing away to the heavy hip hop music; you liked r&b more but a couple drinks loosened you up. Speaking of a couple drinks, Soobin was currently losing and drinking wayyy to much to be the designated driver, you both knew staying over was the only option at this point.

The song switches up a few times and you’ve left to the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge despite the crowded space in the house. You pulled out some lime whip shots and started spraying it into your mouth before sneakily putting it back and grabbing left over pizza from the near back of Juns fridge.

You closed up the fridge and lifted your pizza above the sea of bodies while squeezing past, you grip on the crust was actually quite impressive because you managed to make your way into the back of the house without losing not even a freezing cold topping.

You sat on one of the plastic seats as began to eat, ignoring the way Beomgyu walked by and make the most disgusted face you’ve ever seen. “Cold pizza is fucking nasty.” He commented. “Suck my dick.” You replied with your mouth full, opening your legs into a manspread and looking up at him. “I’d rather not take my chances at herpes.” He responded quick, leaving you to gasp and shut your legs as he laughed and patted your back before leaving.

A pout emerged onto your face as you continued to eat your oh so cold pizza. “Y/N!” you heard under the loud music. “Y/N~” You heard again, a bit louder this time “Bunny?” You called back, recognizing the slurred voice. “There you areee~” Soobin giggled as he stumbled out the house and over to you.

“Just eating pizza.” You smiled as he wrapped his arm around your shoulder and crouched down. “Yummy- Ahhhhhh” He opened his mouth wide, wanting a bite, this is why you guys were so perfect for each other. You put the pizza in his mouth and pulled when he bit down, breaking the piece off.

Soobin hummed and stood up, planting a kiss on your forehead before letting you know he was heading inside to use the bathroom. You simply nodded and let him leave. Soobin left you with the crust of the pizza which was way to hard to bite so you just threw the rest away.

You took yourself back inside and began asking around for your boyfriend, but the moment you made it towards the steps upstairs you got a text from him telling you to come to the bathroom near the guest room. With a sigh you trudged up the steps and down the hall.

Once you were in front of the door you knocked, not bothering to pay attention to the moans on the other side of the door because it just sound like it was coming from one of the neighboring rooms. When you walked in, really knocking to announce your presence, you were stunned, slamming the door behind you and leaning on it as Soobin leaned on the sink jerking off with muffled moans.

“Fuck, bunny.” You sighed at his unbothered state, jerking off faster now that you were here. “H-help-“ He panted, thrusting into his hand while you just stared. “Y/N!” He whined and you broke out of whatever trance his cock put you in. “Can I?” You asked him with big eyes, contrasting his lust hazed hooded ones. Soobin just nodded, letting go after a few more pumps before you took him into your hands.

His cock was bigger than you thought, his hand made it seem like an average thickness but the moment you touched it you knew, your fingers couldn’t even close around it. “You’re so big, Bunny.” You comment, jerking him off. You both were drunk, not even realizing you were in Yeonjuns guest bathroom or that you were at a party. Not to mention this was your first time being intimate together.

The whine that Soobin let out made you squirm, jerking off the red tip of his cock. “Oh- Fuck- Just like that please- Make me cum please.” He whined and babbled, hips thrusting into your fists.

Your thighs rubbed together and a whimper left your throat. “You like that, Bunny?” You asked, jerking him off faster and planting a kiss to the base of his cock while looking up at him. Sweat sheened on his forehead and neck and his head fell back, “yes-yes, so good-“ Soobin panted, trying hard to whisper.

You couldn’t help but kiss up his shaft and squeezing your fist around the tip of his cock as a response, giggling at his whiny voice. “So cute, Bunny, you’re so loud.” You tease as he loses all control over his voice, the tightness around his cock making his eyes roll back. “Fuck- fuck being quiet- ngh- so good-“ Soobin whimpered, “Cumming- oh fuck im cumming-“ the taller warned with a loud long groan before cum spewed out into your tight fist, throbbing and pulsating hard.

“My god- Binnie~” You gasp as cum dripped down your forearm, you let go of his cock and more cum flung out at the release of pressure, making you yelp when it hit your chest and chin. “Holy shit!” You giggle before standing up and licking the cum of your chin like frosting. “You’re so hot.” Soobin slurred with half open eyes.

“You’re hotter, Bunny.” You slurred back before turning on the sink behind Soobin and running the water over your arms. Soobin moved away from the sink and pulled up his pants. “Thank you, honey.” He mumbled, now tired from one of the best handjob orgasms he’s ever gotten. “For the compliment and the handjob.” He rambled out before jumping hard, feeling his heart jump out of his chest at the loud knock on the bathroom door.

“YOU GUYS BETTER NOT BE FUCKING IN MY BATHROOM.” Yeonjuns voice blared from the other side of the door. “fuck.” You both whispered at the door.

#smut requests #txt smut #kpop smut #txt hard hours #non idol au #txt #soobin hard hours #choi soobin smut #soobin smut #soobin hard thoughts

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thr-333 · 1 month

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I just realized. I don't think I've seen anything about April in OaaHF. Where is she? What does she do in the resistence? How aware is she of Leon's situation?

Set while Leon is recovering from his first facial scar:

“No, no way!”

Leon groaned as the yell woke him, sound getting choked out by the bandages wrapped tight around his neck. Constricting his airway making it so he could never get a full breath, was always light headed. Although that could be the bloodloss.

“We need his portals, its not a-”

“I don’t care if it’s a transport mission, I don’t care if he’s at the very back line, you are not getting him out of that bed,”

Leon scrunched up his face so he wouldn’t have to deal with the light of day. Or the light of med bay. He wanted to go back to sleep and it wasn’t even the yelling that was stopping him. Pain flared along his face and shoulder in tandem with his heartbeat. Bandages pulled meticulously tight making every throb worse.

“It’s not an active mission, I’ve mapped out the points all Kraang will be avoided-”

“Then you do it!”

That voice, Leon knew it even past the haze pain. Probably helped that there were no painkillers available to keep him floaty. He sighed his big sisters voice was always soothing, well when she wasn’t yelling at him. Although he supposed she technically was.

“Ape’s I’m needed here,” Leo reasoned, his voice was deep and raspy. Huh Leon wondered if his voice sounded closer to it now, “I can’t up and leave the resistance without aleader for a minor mission,”

“So you admit it’s a minor mission!” April accused, Leon tried to open his eyes. The best he could make out was a couple of blurry figures until the light forced him to shut them.

“Minor but needed, lives are at stake here April,”

“His life is at stake!” Leon opened his mouth, but his throat was raw and the skin of his cheek pulled weirdly threatening to make him throw up if he tried. He tried anyway, why should be matter? “If he moves that wound, the wound you gave him is going to tear right open, he won’t survive that a second time,”

“April it was an accident, my hand slipped,”

His future self was right of course. After all he had been the one to sacrifice his scarf to keep as much blood inside Leon’s body as possible. He had literally held Leon’s life in his hands. You didn’t do that for a person you were actually trying to kill… no matter how much it looked lik you wanted to seconds before.

That was fine. It was an accident. Leon shouldn’t have baited him.

“Bullshit, also I don’t give a crap, he’s not ready for field work!”

“The doctor cleared him,”

“Which you know they shouldn’t have!” April screeched, ugh Leon wished she wouldn’t, “Come on Leo you're a medic, just look at him!”

There was silence. Leon held still pretending to be asleep. Which was easy as he was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. Only the jabs of pain and his sister keeping him present.

“It’s between him and them,”

“Him, everytime, my little brother should come first everytime,” Leon’s heart didn’t know if it should skip a beat or clench. It was the answer he wanted to hear- but one he was completely undeserving of.

“I can’t play favorites,”

“Plaaeesseee,” The pure amount of sarcasm poured into the tone would have shot three men dead, “Is that why Mikey’s locked up in the underground bunker within an underground bunker, deep fried and finished with magic?”

“April-”

“Or how about Donnie’s lab, which is enforced with thirty percent of our titanium stores?” Leo would have rolled his eyes if they wouldn't just keep rolling back into his head. Obviously it wasn’t a matter of favoritism, his brothers were simply more important than him, “And how me and Cassie keep getting shortlisted missions? Junior hasn’t left your side in months and you haven't left this safehold in a year? Yet guess who’s going on missions every other week?”

“It’s all a matter of circumstance,” Leo’s voice took on a cold and harsh tone, “I’m trying to keep everyone alive for the sak-”

“Everyone but Leon,”

She called him Leon… when had he become Leon? When has he started solely thinking of himself as Leon? Why was his futureself exclusively Leo? The thoughts were to hard to capture, slipping through his hands like sand. He wasn’t sure he wanted to dwell on them anyway.

“Well sucks for you but I care about keeping him alive, even if you don’t,”

That wasn’t fair, he cared about Leon he did, as much as he could. Leon didn’t make it easy, after… after everything he caused. He couldn’t blame his future self for being a bit weird. He cared where it counted. Leon would’ve been dead three times over now if he didn’t.

“This mission is needed-”

“I’ll go then,”

No, April

“April, No,”

“If it’s so important you need to drag him out of bed and risk reopening the slice you put in his neck then it’s important enough for I, commander O’Neil to take over,”

“You’re not who you are in the future, you’re not Commander O’Neil,”

“And I never will be if you keep coddling,” April spat, “Besides I don’t care about being a commander right now, I care about being a sister, so it’s either I take the mission or you cancel it,”

The silence stretched on. Leon grasped onto his threads of consciousness. Purposely twitching his shoulder to get the fiery pain to keep him awake. It was amazing how something could fill him with so much dread yet he still selfishly felt hope that they would go through with it. Because he was selfish, rather stay hidden away in bed in a back room of the stronghold while his big sister fronted all the danger.

“Fine,” Relief and dread, unfortunately not in equal measure, “You come back alive understand?”

“Oh darn, there go my plans,” April tossed back, a shade closer to her usual teasing tone but still tense.

Leo didn’t answer. Because he was Leo, even in Leon’s own mind. But the older turtle huffed. Leon listened to his footsteps fade as Aprils got closer. The dip in his bed bit him to open his eyes.

“Heya blue, you awake?” April’s hand gently brushed his forehead, Leon cringed as he opened his eyes, “How’re you doing?”

He couldn’t answer, not really. So he leaned into her palm. Flinching as the small movement pulled on his wound from neck to cheek. He hissed through the pain. Tight bandages around his throat feeling suffocating as he would have struggled to breath even without them.

“Sorry, sorry, just wanted to check in,” The details of Aprils face were hard to make out pain blurring them out, “I’m going away for a mission,”

“Do… t,” Leon tried to sound out, it didn’t come anywhere close, but hey look at that: His voice was raspy.

“Don’t worry about me, it’s my job to worry about you,” She pat his cheek, thumb rubbing soft circles under his eye, “Seriously, please, it’s ok to care about yourself, you should, once in a whil- actually all the time,”

Leon shook his head imperceptibly. She was wrong. He had done that, over and over again. Each time they lost so much. He couldn’t, not anymore. Why couldn’t she understand that?

Leo understood that. He knew what it was like to sit with that guilt, that self hate. He knew how to work for others to ease that feeling even a little bit. As losses stacked everyday and crushed him under their weight.

“I bet your thinking something stupid right now,” April pinched his opposite cheek, the unscarred one that showed off his brilliant red stripe, “I wish you were better so I could beat my love into your skull, but we’ll have to save that for when I get back,”

Leon plucked up the strength to use his right arm. Greaspoing Aprils loosely. He needed to get his point across, even without words, he had to.

“I will be alright, you rest up,” April moved from his grasp to instead thread their fingers together, “I’m your big sister, I’m always going to look out for you, even if I have to do that by not being here,”

No, no that wasn’t what he meant. Leo jerked to grab her again. White hot flares shot through his shoulder. Fuck, wrong arm. Darkness clawed at the edge of his vision, plusing in time with the pain searing through him.

“You’re so………. Don’t let anyone convince you…..” April's voice faded in and out, “ We have always…….. None of this………… alright Leon?”

Leon, that was the last word he caught before his world faded to black. The last thing he heard his sister say.

When he woke up.

She was gone.

#One and a Half Futures #oaahf #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #future leo #rise #tmnt

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polyamorousmood · 2 months

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How do you deal with insecurity in a polyam relationship?

I've been in a poly V before, with my girlfriend at the time, and her other partner; but I honestly wasn't really invested in the relationship so I wasn't bothered.

I feel like,, if I have a partner and we either a) accept another and form a triad or b) I end up with a metamour again, I would end up worrying that my parner(s) would leave me to simply be together.

(For context, I have AvPD so like... abandonment is a complex of mine and I'm working on it but I'm still so insecure a lot of the time.)

So.. yeah. I've seen you address jealousy/envy, and I know I'd probably deal with a bit of that (in the sense that 'oh, b gets to spend time with c while I'm at work, I'm envious' kind of way) but I know that insecurity would be the thing that would bother me the most

Polysecure by Jessica Fern is generally considered a holy text 🛐of polyamory and this exact question in particular. I haven't read it personally (yet. Its on my list my list is just long 😅) So if you haven't given that a go yet, everyone I know who has read it, has recommended at least sections of it. I know it talks about attachment styles and how to handle those, which might be helpful if you have avoidant personality disorder.

The other thing, of course, is consider bringing this up with a therapist, because I am not one. And this seems like a touchy enough topic that everything I say here is pulled from my experience and should be taken as "ideas to think about🤔" and not "clinical advise that will Fix It🪄" As per usual, LOTS to go over here. So. read more.

P.S. after typing up everything, I realized this post I wrote to help a supportive partner address insecurity might also be helpful for you, and even has a worksheet! Its probably better formatted too. So.. maybe I wasted my typing here 😓. C'est la vie.

Firstly, you never said you identify as polyamorous. So if you're not... you could just date monogamously 🤷 as much as I love 💟polyamory and would like it if the whole world loved it too, if that's gonna be too big a thing for you, there's no reason you have to bother at all.

If you are going to date polyamorously for whatever reason, BEFORE you introduce another person to the mix, have a regular, set time you and your partner spend apart. It sounds counter-intuitive, but maintaining your own social life and identity outside your partner is huge. Do this especially when you're super invested and want to spend every second with your partner. That's honestly true whether you're poly or not, but in this specific case. I think a lot of the fear is bolstered by the idea that without you there, your partner is just spending that time loving the other person. And maybe they'd like to do that more blah blah blah. But this proves that's not the case: when you're not there, you partner is getting drinks with the girls, or building model ships, or any other numerous things they like independent of you. And it also means you're not just pining over your partner when you're gone, you have other shit to do too. And you'll come to look forward to your two hours a week at the coffee shop (or whatever). You will learn reasonable time apart does not equal less romantic interest.

And then, on the flip side of that, set regular protected time with your partner. Not to say never ever will something come up that interrupts that. Emergencies arise🚨, or the time may have to be renegotiated later, etc etc. But having the confidence that no matter what, you'll have a movie date every week, or that Tuesday night is Romance Night, or whatever you decide on, can make it easier. It can help prevent you feeling taken for granted, and can naturally curb NRE with other people if that starts getting unruly. If your partner starts wanting to cut into this time for not-important-shit, tell them you're not okay with that, or -- and only if truly it feels okay to you -- at least get them to make the time up the next day. And you, of course, need to treat it as special too. Make the time important, fulfilling, and intimate. It can be any activity, as long as its bonding time -- quality time, in the truest sense of the word.

Take time to get to know yourself, and share it with your partner. What do you consider to be sacred between you and your partner? Are you okay with your meta and your partner having sacred things -- what type of things? Do you feel better knowing the details of your partner's other relationships, or will that make you more jealous? (I like knowing more, because the thought of my partner having this secret life without me makes me more insecure, but other people are very reasonably of the opinion that hearing that their partner had so much fun without them is a bummer.) How much about you are you okay with your partner dilvulging to your meta(s)? Go through this on as many things as you can think of. Now, what you're comfortable with is not the only factor here; you and your partner will probably both have to make some concessions to reach something workable, but I've found that process, with a good partner, to be more securing in and of itself. You both are working together towards a common understanding. Its generally good practice to avoid hard-and-fast rules here, when possible. For example, "I'm only okay with you dating others if you're home by 11🕚 every night" makes some sense, but if taken literally means if your partner gets a flat on the way home, or has to deal with your meta's mental breakdown, or even just wants to see a movie that won't finish until 11:05 -- that's a betrayal. Perhaps even just asking for a one-time allowance is a betrayal. Instead, work for understandings or guidelines. Maybe the similar understanding in this example is "its hard for me to sleep alone, so I'd like you to generally be home by 11:00, and notify me as soon as possible if that's not going to happen" and then when they bring up wanting to stay out late one night for something, you can ask if its possible for them to do it on a night you don't have to work in the morning (maybe they can, maybe they can't, the point here is that its a dialogue, see below). There will be some trial and error here, so be prepared for that and stick it out.

Don't take every problem as a sign things are doomed, or your partner is divesting, or your partner isn't worth your investment. There will be times when someone is actually abusive, or there will be irreconcilable differences. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about "My partner is late for the second time this week, they're pulling away from me, this is the beginning of the end"-type shit. No it ain't. A good exercise for this is to explicitly outline your worst-case scenario💣, followed by a best case-scenario🌈, and then a few most likely cases⬜. So from our example above, worst case is that they're pulling away (so you have to pull away faster so you "win" and avoid pain), best case-scenario is that they're late because they're buying you a gift on their way home, and most likely scenario is that traffic's worse than they planned or they ran into someone at the gas station and stopped to talk for a bit or whatever.

Figure out how to self-soothe. Make a stache of nice things your partner has done for you that you can check on your own to remind yourself you're important to them. Reframe some of your jealous worries. Remind yourself of things you're looking forward to with your partner. Make a vent journal. Whatever clicks to you.

And as always, 🗣️talk to your partner. Productively talk to your partner.🗣️ Talk to your partner as much as possible about how things make you feel, and make sure they're doing the same. I talk more about how to talk through problems here, and its worth the read imho (even though its equally long). But for now, know that forming this habit on its own is functionally indistinguishable from being securely attached. As long as the communication is you and your partner vs the problem (and not, for example, your insecurity vs your partner's willingness to compromise), this will be good for the relationship, and you will feel better for doing it. But to form that habit, you have to do it with everything, not just Big Problems. You have to tell your partner sincerely how much you appreciate stuff they're getting right, you have to tell them about small problems that you can handle on your own, you have to tell them about things you're not sure how you feel about yet.

#jealousy #insecurity #poly relationship advice #ask box is always open

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journeyman-tier-fibercraft · 6 months

Text

Man finished! I rate him a solid very cute out of ten.

This guy was published as a doily insert plus edging for a linen table cloth (seen Here). The linen part was of zero interest to me so I knit him as a stand alone doily and I very much prefer him as such. Chart A (the "doily") and Chart B (the "edging") match up for knitting in the round as a single doily.

Below the read more is going to refer a lot to the charts, which I got from the amazing Ramona French. While this is the only version of the charts I've seen, looking at the Rav page it seems to also be cut into A and B charts in the same spot. It makes sense in context of the original pattern but I don't like it, both for the reason i'll get to below and also because I straight up just don't like how it looks in the original pattern.

Even without the alterations I'll propose, I think he's a good doily just as he is. The problems I have are barely noticeable/nitpicky now that he's blocked out.

Starting with the edging vs doily distinction. This problem starts with the original pattern since it has you knit chart A for the insertion and chart B for the edging around every insertion and the linen tablecloth edges. But divorcing the actual charts from the linen, the charts really should be rows 1-31 of A as the "doily" and Chart A rows 33-41 and all of chart B for the "edging". The reason I'm so specific about this is because it's focus for any changes I would make. The end of chart A and the beginning of chart B flow together perfectly. It's where the doily/center flower ends (Row 31) and the edging begins (Row 33) that is the problem spot.

(I should've picked a darker colour foam to block this out on, sorry if it's hard to see)

The large center petals (doily) end with a yo, twisted knit 1, yo at the very tip. Then the set up row for the edging is all knits with a yarn over... that is off center of the petal. In a more personal gripe, I don't like how the mesh in the flower portion looks next to the edging. It's not bad (and would probably bother me less if it weren't off center) but it's not my favourite.

The mesh not looking nice next to the edging is an easy fix that comes directly from a doily that has a very similar feel to this one. Sechsblatt is another doily I've knit and also has a 6 petaled flower with mesh between the petals and an edging, but it's edging is separated by several rows of plain stockinette. In my revised chart I added just one odd numbered row of stockinette. I'm not 100% on this change, it's something that you just can't know if it looks good until it's swatched out.

The change I am 100% on is centering the yarn over to be directly above the tip of the center flower petal. There's a number of ways to do so, I'm honestly surprised it wasn't done for the original pattern. My revised chart moves the k2tog on row 35 to directly over the center stitch of the petal, which required moving the start of the repeat one stitch left. This also needs swatched out but I'm fairly confident it'll line up, at least better that just being blatantly off center like it is in the original, and since the k2tog was just moved instead of being added, the stitch count should still work out.

All other changes to the chart were simply made for personal preference/printing convenience.

Eventually I'll knit this revised version but I don't have a timeline on that yet, knitting the same thing multiple times is bad for my attention span. Regardless I would wait because I want to see how the crochet bind off holds up. I usually pin out every chain of the crochet bind out individually but I thought pinning two together looked really good on this particular doily. It made the blocking process a lot tighter. That could've been because I accidentally stretched it too much in the first place (I forgot this doily was 6 parts instead of 8) but it was incredibly funny to behold.

#knitting #knitblr #lace rot #lace knitting #doily #project: doily 13 #he's so pretty ahhh!!#i'm minorly obsessed with his edging. i think it would look so pretty at like the edge of a skirt or cuffs or something #i'll have to come up with something to use it on that isn't so femme to make me dysphoric.#or i'll just add it to the edge of a shawl that i already don't intend to wear lmao

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copperbadge · 3 months

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I've finally decided to stop waiting for my friends and my schedules to all line up, and take myself on vacation. You seem to be someone who travels on your own semi-frequently. Do you have tips and tricks on how to make it less awkward on your own, or does that just not bother you?

Ah, congratulations! I hope you enjoy your solo journeying.

I have to admit that I don't get a lot of awkwardness as a solo traveler, or if I do, I don't notice. I think to begin with, in general dudes get less side-eye about doing anything solitary. I didn't even consider that traveling alone was seen as strange until I was in my thirties, I think, and other people started remarking on it -- not in an awkward way, just like "Wow I wish I could do that." (You can!)

Not everyone is comfortable with it, admittedly, and I get that, like anything it's not for everyone. And there are legit safety concerns women face that men don't, although I think also those tend to get blown out of proportion by our culture -- like the peril is real, I'm not saying women don't face safety issues when traveling solo, but the dangers aren't as constant and immediate as people think.

I just really love solo travel, because I get to do exactly what I want, eat what I want, skip things I decide I don't want to do. I'm kind of a people pleaser (this may not be news) and I don't mind doing what other folks want to do but sometimes that can come at the expense of what I want to do, which simply isn't a concern when I travel by myself.

In my experience, which is admittedly not universal, I find that there isn't really much awkwardness from solo travel most of the time -- it's harder to, for example, be in an airport alone, because there's nobody to mind your bags if you need to hit the bathroom, nobody to ask if you need something you didn't think to pack. But it's not like I've ever gotten a weird look for going through airport security alone, or checking into a hotel room alone. I think it does help to remember that people who work in hospitality have seen it ALL, and a single person checking into a hotel room doesn't even register. Like, if you aren't getting drunk and pooping in the decorative planters in the lobby, you aren't making an impression. :D Tour guides are very used to single people taking tours, and for all the train conductor or flight attendant knows, you're traveling to wherever you're going to meet up with 15 of your closest friends. Half the time I've checked into hotel rooms alone, it's been for work and I'm meeting 5-10 colleagues, and I just happen to be the first person to arrive at the site.

The only time I ever encounter much awkwardness is in a cab/rideshare, or eating alone, and even with eating alone, like, I went out to eat on my own for probably a solid decade before anyone remarked that it was a weird thing to do. But I've never particularly gotten that from waitstaff; like, occasionally I'll get a "Just one?" or "Dining alone?" but that's not really awkward, to my mind. I felt a little weird about it in Europe but that wasn't because I was solo, it was because I didn't speak the language. I was fine with it in England.

For cabs or rideshares, and this is true not just when traveling but also when I'm traveling locally in Chicago, I tend to come up with a "cover story" ahead of time in case the driver is chatty. I rarely say anymore that I work in fundraising, because while it does shut some people up (they don't want to be asked for a donation) others will be like "Hey could you fundraise for me, I have this great idea for a nonprofit knitting alpaca-wool socks...for alpacas!" and I have to be like "That's not really how this works." Usually I say I'm an art historian because a) I can fake that pretty well in casual conversation and b) nobody knows what follow-up question to ask. Academia of any kind is a great cover if you are traveling, because you can say "I'm here on business with (local museum you are visiting as a tourist) but I signed an NDA, so I can't really talk about it" and you seem mysterious plus you add excitement to the driver's day. Are you a spy? An art thief? Are you about to discover a new Van Gogh? Are you consulting with the science museum about a Bigfoot specimen?

But yeah I think the most important thing to bear in mind is that nobody really looks at other people and thinks, "That's weird, why are they alone?" Like in an ordinary day, I don't ever see a person alone on the bus or in a shop or whatnot and think, "That's weird, why don't they have someone with them?" We do tend to think people are judging us, but honestly most people aren't even noticing us, let alone forming opinions. And if they are, I think it's a great comfort to know that especially when traveling...we will never see them again :D

Anyway, good luck! Remember, even if you did forget to pack something, as long as you have your phone, your wallet, your meds, and your keys, anything else can be acquired or lived without.

#sam travels #travel

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