#but some others have their own stories.. not like a huge thought out plot but something i pick up and twirl around in my head | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nackrosor · 9 months

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~Midnight Healing~

𝓢𝓲𝓶𝓸𝓷 𝓖𝓱𝓸𝓼𝓽 𝓡𝓲𝓵𝓮𝔂 𝔁 𝓣𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓮!𝓡𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓮𝓻

[I highly recommend to put this song on repeat as background music. It will help set the mood.]

warnings/tags: 18+ smut, p*rn with feelings & plot, unexperienced reader, first kiss, first time, oral s*x (fem receiving), p in v, soft Ghost, slow dance, mutual pining, slight angst/comfort, Soap being the best mate, the team being supporting in their own way lmao, cap. price approved 👌🏻 summary: You're at the pub, enjoying a night out with your team. The soothing lulling music, the booze, Johnny's taunts and your own repressed feelings embolden you to invite Simon to join you in a slow dance. The dance leads to long overdue confessions which in turn lead to your first time together. word count: 12.5k. (longest one yet)

A special and huge thank you to my dear @magnoliabutters who has helped me SO MUCH. You've given me so many suggestions that inspired me to write the best possible version of this story. I probably would have given up halfway through if it wasn't for your support. I love you and appreciate you a lot. ♥️

You close your eyes and take a deep breath, elbows resting on the smooth surface of the counter with a thumb circling the cold rim of your half-full glass of bourbon. The soothing blues music playing in the background adds to your sense of calm, with notes vibrating through your limbs, echoing in your ribcage, and clearing your thoughts. You let yourself be lulled by the soft melancholy tune, quietly humming along and rocking your head in rhythm.

Given your job as a task force officer, you rarely get a breather and a chance to enjoy a night out. It is a luxury for you and that is what makes it so special, a time to truly look forward to. Especially when you can share it with your brothers in arms, your family, not bonded by blood but by a profound feeling born through shared hardships and nurtured by trust, respect and understanding. One would imagine you'd prefer to spend your free nights alone or with different people, perhaps even a one-night lover, rather than with your coworkers, the very same guys you spend your entire days with, through sweat and tears, anger and frustration, and occasionally a moment of respite. This is exactly the reason why you wouldn’t dare unwind with anyone else; they are everything for you, the sole people you trust and you would gladly give your life for without hesitation. Why would you need anybody else?

Seeing them loosen up for one night, just enough to treat themselves to a pint or a glass of whiskey is such the delight. You wouldn’t even need to chug a drink of your own to feel the tension leave your body, finally allowing yourself to relax.

This time is no exception. Same place, same company, same feeling of being exactly where you need to be, of needing literally nothing else in the world.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Soap's voice sounds clear in your ear and interrupts your blues-induced trance. A lazy smile greets you as you turn to look up at him. He settles down on the barstool next to you.

"Yeah… I love this music. It feels like a lullaby but instead of making me want to sleep, it makes me want to move, you know? "

"Sounds like you want to hit the dance floor! Care to give us a show?"

"Wouldn't you like that!"

You smirk at him, bumping your shoulder against his.

"Who wouldn’t?” he returns the nudge, playfully winking at you, “But I know someone who would particularly enjoy it, more than anybody else."

You raise an eyebrow, giving him a knowing look. Every time you come to the pub, you can't avoid one or two, occasionally three, drunken brash males hitting on you or simply gluing their eyes on you from afar, never stopping for the entire time you're here. You'd think that being literally surrounded by four menacing - some more than others - muscular men would prevent anyone from ever looking your way twice, especially weak-minded misogynists who don't believe a woman could take care of herself… That clearly isn't the case. Go figure! These people have no sense of shame or… self-preservation.

"What ugly old man’s ball sack-looking dude is staring at me this time?"

A chuckle escapes him. He shakes his head as he swirls the liquid in his glass before taking a sip.

“No ugly old man’s ball sack-looking dude , just a possibly ugly dude.”

"Oh?" a wry smile takes form on your lips, "well, I could get behind that."

"He's been throwing some not-so-sneaky glances your way ever since we arrived."

"Yeah?”, you ask, taking a quick glance around the room. “Coordinates, Sergeant. Don’t leave me in the dark."

Soap's eyes glint mischievously as he subtly nods to your left, then raises his glass to his lips to take another sip and mask his grin. You follow the trajectory of his nod, gaze skimming the whole length of the counter, overlooking the serene faces of Gaz, Laswell, the captain, until it locks on a familiar pair of big dark eyes. The smirk on your lips immediately falters and your stomach flips.

Simon is holding your gaze, seemingly unfazed, arms folded across his chest and muscles flexing under his black windbreaker. No matter how accustomed you are to seeing him in his casual attire, your heart always loses a beat whenever your eyes land on him. The way his skull balaclava hugs his face and the way the hood of his dark grey sweatshirt is all the way up, hiding his head, make his mesmerising eyes circled with black make-up even more striking and thus much more lethal to your poor weak heart. You’re so attracted to him, so infatuated… you’ve never felt this inexorable pull toward anyone before. It’s like a new form of gravity, so strong that you can’t even avert your gaze; it takes too much effort, like going against the laws of nature.

Soap’s giggle draws you back from the trance. Your eyes dart around aimlessly for a moment before you whip around to glare at your friend.

“You’re a bastard.”

He shrugs innocently, that stupid grin of his still tugging at his lips.

"You saw it for yourself, he was staring."

"Yeah, 'cause he probably heard you or read your lips or… something."

"Right,” he says with a scoff, elongating the word. “Didn’t know superman was part of the 141…"

His mocking tone makes you roll your eyes. Grabbing your glass, you bring it to your lips and savour the sensation of the cool, sweet but strong liquid flowing down your throat. As you knock the empty glass back onto the counter, you catch a glimpse of Ghost. Fortunately, this time he appears to be engaged in discussion with Price, providing you with the green light that allows your wistful gaze to linger on him, unnoticed.

"Well, you must admit that…”, you mutter almost to yourself, eyes reverently roaming his figure, “...if anyone had superpowers in our team, it would definitely be him."

"Heh. You certainly look at him as if he already has them."

Johnny interrupts your reveries again and you shake your head, tearing your eyes away from Simon and trying to clear your mind in the process. "Stop it. He's just, he's-"

"He's single, for all I know."

The sergeant shrugs again with an innocent smile as you give him the stink-eye.

"You’re a menace ."

You poke him hard in the ribs, causing him to wince and almost spill his drink. You both can’t help but laugh.

“I swear if you told him or anyone anything… I'll strangle you in your sleep.”

“Mmm, so passionate, y/n. He’s gonna love that.”

You roll your eyes again, yet can't help but smile.

Soap is your best mate; you're closer to him than the rest of the squad, which is saying a lot given how close the team is. You may or may not have let your feelings for Simon slip during a private conversation one night at the HQ while you were a little tipsy, and he's been a little shit about it since then, unwilling to let you live it down. You know it's all in good fun, there's no malice in his words, but his taunts do nothing to help you keep your feelings under control.

“You should tell him, by the way.”

“We’ve already talked about this, Johnny…”

“I just don’t understand why you’re keeping it to yourself. You scared of getting rejected?”

You shrug, your gaze fixed on the empty glass in front of you as you fidget with it absentmindedly. He struck a nerve. Taking the first step without being absolutely certain that your feelings are reciprocated and thus making a colossal blunder scares the shit out of you. Actually, the mere thought of taking a shot in the dark makes your stomach churn with dread.

“Y/n, he would never turn you down. Never .”

“You don’t know that.”

Soap scoffs incredulously. “C’mon! You’ve seen the way he looks at you! There’s nothing PG-13 about it.”

He pauses for a moment waiting for your retort but when you don't give him any, he draws conspiratorially close to your ear. “Although, I guess you don’t get to hear what he says about you when it’s just us boys…”

You perk up, turning toward him with a curious and clearly hopeful look on your face. Does he know something you don’t? Or is he messing with you? You can never tell with Soap.

“W-what does he say?”

Soap grins victoriously, undoubtedly pleased with himself for catching you failing, yet again, to hide your stupid little crush.

"Gave my word that I would keep my mouth shut..."

“Ugh!", you push him away with a hard smack on his arm, "you’re insufferable.”

“Go talk to him and find out on your own. In the unlikely case that what you fear the most happens, any of us smart boys would gladly take his place in your heart, love ."

You shake your head with a scoff, eyes drifting aimlessly to the other side of the room. Turns out, Johnny was trying to get under your skin, as per usual, however you can’t help but mull his words over.

Perhaps he's got a point, perhaps it is time to let it all out in the open and face the consequences , whatever they might be. Johnny said that Simon has talked about you with the guys. It might be nothing, but what if he really has let his own feelings slip during a conversation, just like when it happened to you with Soap? Or perhaps, he had a real heart to heart talk with his mates…

You have your doubts, but then again why would Johnny mention that he spoke of you? Why would he try so hard to reassure you that Simon would never reject you? Why would he stress out the fact that he often gets caught staring at you? Could your friend be doing this solely for a laugh? No, Johnny is not that kind of person. He cares about you and he clearly understands how much you care about Simon. He would not give you a friendly push merely to watch you fall face first to the ground. There must be some truth behind his jokes and teasing… but are you ready to risk it all to find out? Being rejected isn't the only fear that prevents you from acting on your feelings...

"Whatever.” You sigh at last, propping yourself up by pushing your palms against the edge of the counter. “I'm here to unwind, not get caught up in my head as usual. So… now, I’m going to dance. And, just to be clear, I'm not doing it for you or Simon or anybody other than myself."

The pointed look you give him makes Soap raise his hands in defeat, however it doesn't wipe that little smirk off his face. The glass grazes his curled up lips as he looks at you with an amused twinkle in his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah… You'll thank me later.”

His words get lost in the rising bustle of the pub; the cacophony of voices and the clatter of glasses gets louder just as the music fills your ears the more you get away from the bar. The soothing tune comes out of two huge amps set at either side of an empty stage, and floods over you, the sole person standing in front of it. You feel a bit self-conscious at first, sensing everyone's eyes on you but you try your best to ignore them. Letting your eyes flutter shut, you focus solely on the music, allowing yourself to be transported by the slow lulling rhythm.

Soon, you're swaying your hips in time, your feet picking up their own pattern. You don't care about how you're moving, how it may look; all you care about is letting go, setting yourself free, feeling the music pass through you, and being completely in the moment. You dance worry-free, entirely surrendering control of your body to the enthralling and sinuous voice of the electric guitar. Few things are more freeing than dancing like nobody’s watching…

The song comes to an end almost too quickly and so does the enchantment that has seized you. When you open your eyes, chancing a look around you, you immediately meet Simon’s stare. He's still sitting at the bar but now he's turned toward you, back to the polished wood of the counter, one elbow resting on its edge. Clearly he has been watching you the whole time, enjoying the show , as Soap said. You feel a thrill run through you. Perhaps it's the alcohol kicking in, perhaps those feelings pushed deep inside you are finally emerging to the surface. Or is it just the adrenaline of the dancing still holding control over your body?

Regardless of the answer, you find yourself walking toward him; the initial notes of a new song matching your sultry and unhurried steps. He firmly holds your gaze, but you notice the shifting in his seat as you approach him with renewed confidence.

You stop when you’re right in front of him, a coy smile plays on your lips while you hold out your hand.

"Care to join me?"

His eyes flicker to your extended palm then wander over your face, as if he's looking for a cue that would tell him whether you're joking or being serious.

"You're outta your mind, princess ."

You raise your eyebrow at the word 'princess'. He knows you don’t like to be called like that but he doesn't seem to care. He keeps using that stupid term, especially when he wants to reprimand you, putting you in your place or just to tease you and get under your skin. But there is something in the way he said it just now, an endearing nuance in his tone that combined with his thick accent makes you melt like chocolate.

"Why? You seemed really interested only a minute ago."

You tease him with a challenging look on your face while you nonchalantly tug down the zip of your biker jacket. After the dance you're feeling a bit flushed, you need to let your skin breathe. No other reason for uncovering your cleavage, right? Definitely not to draw his attention to the deep neckline of your dress. Of course not, why would you do that?

"I was only-"

You interrupt him, arms folding across your chest, drawing his eyes even more to the curves of your body. " Enjoying the show , right."

"No.” He counters quickly, his voice loud and clear even over the music. Doesn’t he sound a little nervous? Or are you simply imagining it?

“I was just… glad to see this carefree side of you. It's a good look on you."

You stare into each other’s eyes, your heart thumping hard in your chest. You didn’t expect to hear him say that.

"Well…”, you bite your lip as you try to ease your racing heart, arms falling back to your sides, “...dancing is very freeing. You should try it."

"I don't think it would work for me."

"Why don't we find out?"

Shivering just a little, you take another step forward. His head slightly cranes up so that he can keep his piercing gaze on yours. You move your hand on his wrist, fingers wrapping gently around it before giving a little pull in your direction.

"C'mon…", you give him a teasing smile as you step back, head nodding back to the space behind you, “...let’s go.”

Despite your pulling, Simon doesn’t budge a single inch, but you see him hesitate. You keep tugging at his wrist, stepping backwards, even attempting to pout, until he silently relents and stands up, letting you drag him toward the stage at last. You didn't expect him to give up. You thought you'd have to put much more effort into it, or that you'd have to be the one giving up in the end. You're genuinely surprised by the turn of events but you won't let that dent your spirit now. You've just started playing with fire and you can't help but feel the thrill of it, the excitement lighting up inside of you.

You stop when you reach the spot you previously made your own during your solo dance and turn around to face him. He stands there, tall and motionless, the hood of his sweatshirt still on; he looks so out of place on the dance floor, the sight makes you chuckle.

"Don't worry Si, nobody would dare judge you."

"I don't care about that."

"No?"

With a smile on your face, a gaze fixed on him, you start to sway your hips in sync again. His eyes immediately flicker down to take in your movements. He doesn’t seem to care about the fact that he looks like a freaking pole, standing so still in front of you, not moving even one muscle. His whole focus is on you and he seems to particularly enjoy being able to watch you from the best seat in the house.

“You could move your shoulders a little bit, you know? Or even just nod your head in time with the music.”

It’s so evident that he doesn’t know what to do with his body, where to even begin. You almost feel guilty of having dragged him there, of putting him on the spot.

“Here, follow my steps.”

You pick up a simple left-to-right footwork, following the slow but steady rhythm of the drums and encourage Ghost to mirror your motions with a nod and a gentle smile. He studies you, eyes observing your body attentively, picking up every little movement you make.

He appears quite stiff as he attempts to follow along; his bulky body doesn't seem keen to make him look as graceful on the dancefloor as it does on the battlefield. But he's trying at least, and quickly getting the hang of it.

“That’s it! You’re not half bad, Si!”

A soft chuckle escapes you as you bite your bottom lip. Seeing him dance - or try to - makes you oddly giddy, euphoric even. It's just such a rare and bizarre thing to see that you can't help but smile wide and enjoy the moment to the fullest.

Raising your arms in the air, you swing your hips and bend your knees as you lower your body to the ground, only to raise up again, twisting your curves like a snake. The thrill of his probing stare piercing you causes you to shudder; his eyes are unwavering, admiring your every move with utmost devotion. Having his undivided attention makes you feel alive, it makes you feel special and bold.

You take a step closer and reach out to grab both of his hands in yours, your movements mellowing to fit his laid-back rocking. His calloused hands are surprisingly soft and warm as they wrap perfectly around yours, like matching pieces of a puzzle; his touch feels comforting, stable, safe. As you look up at him, eyes locking once again, you feel your heart pound rapidly in your chest. A small smile takes form on your lips to mask the turmoil rising within you.

“This feels… nice, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

Your heart soars upon hearing his answer, smile widening.

“I didn't know you could dance."

"I can't dance”, you correct him with a light chuckle, “I simply enjoy moving my body to the music."

"Never seen you do that before."

"Well, most of you guys don't even like listening to music, so I only get to do it when I'm on my own… which is a rare occurrence since apparently you babies can’t leave me alone for more than one minute."

You squeeze his hands playfully, a cheeky grin playing on your face. You notice his eyes crinkle lightly in response.

"You can use my office, if you want. There's enough room to… move around."

You let out a hearty laugh, head shaking softly. Your eyes lower to the floor for a moment, monitoring the way both your feet move perfectly in sync and at the same time picturing the silly image in your mind.

"You gonna sit at your desk, grumbling over your paperwork while, with music blasting in my ears, I dance like nobody’s watching right in front of you?"

"Why not,” he says with a shrug.

His voice doesn’t betray his collected demeanour, but you know he’s smiling underneath that mask.

"Well, for one…”, you raise one eyebrow, giving him a knowing look, “I think it would get pretty distracting, rather quickly." You bring your joined hands to the level of your eyes and his chest, slowly interlacing your fingers with his. The muscles of his arms seem to tense for a moment.

"...Fair enough."

"Secondly…”, you trail off, eyes flickering up to meet his serious stare, voice losing a bit of its jovial nuance, “...people might start talking."

"Who cares."

His remark is curt and blunt, and it takes you a bit by surprise. He actually sounds as though he wouldn't care less if your coworkers were to start spreading rumours about you two possibly being... intimate. Or perhaps you're merely grasping at straws. After all, you're talking about dancing. Nothing more, right?

"You’re telling me that you wouldn’t care what the others may think or say?" your tone is clearly hesitant this time, vulnerable even, eyes frantically searching his, "...watching us dance like this? Being this close?"

He keeps silent for a long moment, gaze boring into yours. His hands then pull on your wrists, tugging you closer to him. He swiftly wraps his arms around your waist, while your hands fly onto his chest for support as a surprised gasp escapes your mouth.

“How could I give a crap about them or what they think… when I have you here in my arms?”

His straightforward statement catches you off-guard, causing you to stumble upon your feet. It feels like the tables have turned. Your flirtatiousness made him take the bait and now you’re the one who doesn’t know how to act. Your boldness instantly vanishes, it’s as if you never had it in you in the first place. A tardy nervous chuckle slips out of you as you struggle to regain your synced rocking.

“You must’ve had a drink too many, huh Si?”

“Never been more lucid in my life.”

You stare deeply into his eyes, a wild-eyed look on your face, as he firmly holds your gaze. Tension soaks the air around you, you can sense it getting thicker and thicker. Suddenly, there's not a single soul in the pub but you two. Your eyes locked, bodies swaying gently together, lightly brushing against one another. Your heart thumps forcefully against your chest.

[ 2:26 min .]

…

I just want to get your head back, baby

Give you all the love I got, for sure

So, baby, if you've got that feeling

You know I wanna give you that midnight healing

Oh, I just want to make love to you all night long

…

Perhaps it's merely your perception, but the music appears to get louder. The song’s lyrics are now distinctly clear; they echo in your head, tickling your mind like a subtle hint intended specifically for you.

Returning your attention to Simon, you detect a strange glint in his eyes. Did he receive the hint as well? The way his grasp on your waist tightens, palms roving over your sides and drawing you even closer to him, seems to confirm your supposition.

You both seem to lean forward, attracted like magnets, until your faces are merely inches away. The music deafens, slowly making its way into the background, providing the perfect mood for this special moment. Neither of you says a word, instead you let your eyes speak for themselves. Everything around you seems to blur into a negligible mist. Simon has you hypnotised, just as the music did, with the intensity of his gaze and the warmth of his touch. As one of his hands slides up to your neck, fingers grazing the soft hollow area just above your pulse point, a sharp shiver travels up your spine.

The room spins around you. All of a sudden, your heart pounds hard against your chest and in your ears. You sway on your feet with fingers tugging on his jacket to keep your balance. His hands move quickly to your back, to support your body as you shift your weight on him for a moment before catching yourself. You feel hot, dizzy, and out of breath.

"Y/n?"

"J-just give me a moment, will you?" You say rather harshly, unable to keep the rising panic and tension out of your voice.

His concerned gaze is the last thing you see before you abruptly pull away and dash back towards the counter, mind buzzing, chest tightening. You notice Soap’s smile drop into a puzzling look as he watches you rush over but before he can ask you anything, you hear Gaz's hesitant voice coming from behind you.

"What's going on?"

You throw a quick glance over your shoulder, instantly meeting his perplexed look. Your actions seem to have drawn the attention of Price and Laswell, too; you find both of their gazes set on you.

You struggle to take deep breaths, your eyes darting aimlessly from one friendly face to another while your hands clutch around the table edges, fingertips turning white. It takes all your efforts to not raise your gaze toward the dance floor and rest it on the man still standing exactly where you have just left him.

"Nothing! It's all going great!"

Your voice comes out higher pitched than normal but you try to mask it with the most convincing smile you can muster.

You turn toward Johnny before you can witness the other's reactions or give them time to question your words. Your friend pierces you with a questioning look that doesn't leave room for lies.

"I-I think I'm gonna pass out."

He immediately reaches out to place a comforting hand on your arm as he slides his freshly refilled glass towards you.

"You ok? What happened?"

Your hand shakes as you grab the drink. You rub it to your forehead, cheeks, and neck before moving it to your lips. The cool sensation of the glass against your feverish skin seems to ease your panic, even if only a little. You focus completely on the cold liquid scorching down your throat as you take a long sip.

You gasp, pulling from the rim of the glass. "Nothing. It's just-" you take another deep breath, squeezing your eyes shut,"...it felt all-too real, all-too quickly, I guess. I'm not entirely sure. I panicked."

"Y/n," he coos softly, gently squeezing your arm, "you don't have to do anything you don't want to-"

"But that's the point! I want it! We were so close, I mean… you saw it! If it wasn't for the mask, I’m pretty sure he would’ve leaned in for a kiss. I-I felt my heart was about to burst!” The words fall out of your mouth in a nervous rambling. “I wanted to close the distance so bad… that I fucking ran away." A deprecating chuckle escapes you, eyes rolling in disbelief. "I'm so fucking stupid!"

Johnny squeezes your shoulder again, offering you a genuine smile.

"You are not stupid, y/n... Well, maybe just a little bit." He grins in response to your not-so-convincing glare. "Could a little more privacy help you feel better? You know there are rooms upstairs, you could always go there if you want to..."

You watch as his hand disappears inside his jacket and reappears a moment later, holding a small silver key between his fingers. He holds it out to you and you take it from him mindlessly.

Soap laughs as he detects the mute query in your stunned expression.

"I took it earlier thinking I might get lucky and use it for myself, but it looks like I’m not the lucky one tonight…"

Your gaze darts from your friend's face to the key, then back to him. Your heart starts racing again as the true meaning that small metallic object holds hits you like an unforeseen gunshot to the chest. You let out a loud groan, your hands flying to your face to hide your grimace.

"What is it now?"

"Johnny...", his name falls out of your lips in a sing-songy cry, barely audible above the music and chatter. Lips quivering both in embarrassment and fear for the confession you’re about to make. With a whisper, you share, "I've never been with anyone before... I've never even kissed anyone." You chance a look at your friend through your fingers. "What if I make a fool out of myself in front of Simon? Hell, who am I kidding? I-I already have!"

The astonished expression on Soap's face only aggravates your growing anxiety.

"Creeping Jesus! Y/n… I thought you… uhm, it’s okay-," he awkwardly shifts in his seat, his mouth opening and shutting without emitting a single sound, at least not one that you can hear. His gaze abruptly darts to the side, focusing on something far over your shoulder before moving back to rest on you with a barely concealed alarm. "Ok, take a deep breath, he's coming over."

You only have time to curse under your breath and pull your hands away from your face before you feel a presence behind you that makes every hair on your body stand on end.

When you hear your name being called, you turn warily to face the man standing by your side, stomach twisting as you meet his inquisitive stare. You believe you can also see a flicker of hurt in his eyes, too.

"Simon, I'm… I'm-"

"She needed some fuel, L.T.!" Soap rushes to your aid, grinning up at Ghost and smacking him on the arm - a little too hard. "She's all good now… right, y/n?"

He gives you a quizzical look, as if he's asking whether you're ready to handle the situation on your own or if you need more time; at least, that's what you believe he’s trying to convey.

You respond with a feeble nod before your gaze shifts to Simon. You offer him your glass. "A sip?"

He stares at you intently, seemingly studying your face, his expression now unreadable.

"No."

"A-alright, more for me..." you fake a smile and then guzzle the drink all in one go. You slam the empty glass on the counter as you suck air through your teeth, grimacing at the piercing sensation of the scorching liquor spreading inside your system. Your gaze is drawn to Soap's, and you give him a somewhat confident smile, which he returns with a little wink.

Your hand then moves on its own accord, finding Ghost's large palm and interlacing your fingers with his; the contact sends a chill up your spine. When you look up at him, a ghost of a smile appears on your lips. You're not sure what you're doing or what's going to happen, but you try not to second-guess yourself too much and risk screwing up for the second time in a row.

Taking a step back, away from the counter, you beckon him to follow you.

"Come with me…"

He does not resist your pull. He does not hesitate for even one second. He trails behind you as you lead him up the stairs and to the second floor.

Neither of you dare utter a single word as you walk through the corridor and come to a door that matches the number on the key Soap gave you. You don't dare glance at him as you walk in, taking in the dim tavern-like atmosphere of the tiny bedroom. Your gaze is immediately drawn to the king size bed in the centre, which takes up most of the space. Your mouth goes dry. You wonder what Simon might be thinking, if the same thoughts that course through your mind are pestering him as well.

The sound of the door being closed startles you and makes you whirl around. Your gaze immediately captures his, and you gulp under his piercing stare.

With slow heavy steps that mismatch your thundering heartbeat, he walks over to you, stopping only when he’s towering right over you, standing tall in all his imposing height. You keep your gaze levelled in front of you, unable to meet his eyes, however his fingers curl under your chin and nudge your head up, forcing you to face him.

" Princess… " he murmurs in a low breathy tone, his voice tinged with something akin to irritation, “why are you playing little games with me?”

Your stomach flips again. Of course he’d assume you’ve been messing with him, leading him on; it’s only fair considering the odd behaviour you’ve had all night. And probably not just tonight.

“I’m not, trust me…”

He pauses for a brief moment, his keen eyes studying your face, possibly looking for proof of your sincerity.

"You brought me here. Why ?"

"I-I don't know…"

"You don't know?"

You mentally reprimand yourself for your dumb answer and shake your head in an attempt to dissipate the haze that has settled over your mind.

"I mean, I know why, but-" you try to swallow but your throat is dry. The intensity of his dark eyes boring into yours causes you to stutter, "f-fuck Si, you make me so nervous I can't even think straight!"

Your voice comes out louder than intended and soaked with frustration. Your hand moves on his wrist, tugging at it to pry yourself free from his grasp, but his hold on you does not relent.

"You were dancing for all the pub to see until a minute ago, and I make you nervous?"

"Yes! Of course! I don't give a damn about those strangers! Why should I? Besides that's not the point! You make me nervous because you are... you are-"

You shake your head again as you let out a shuddering breath, your gaze averted from his. You know you can't really back down now. You have to tell him the truth but it's damn hard to find the right words to express exactly how you feel. And more than that, to finally find the courage to say them.

You feel like your heart is on the verge of bursting out of your chest.

"You’re someone I really care about, Simon."

His fingers squeeze your chin, urging you to look up, and when you do you notice that his eyes have softened.

“That made you panic?”

You give him a lopsided smile, but a short-lived one, for your anxieties come tumbling back, slithering into your mind and compelling you to address them, once and for all.

"T-There's something else..."

You want to tell him that you've never been with a man before, that you've never even had your first kiss yet, and that the thought of him, the only man you’ve ever loved, desired , possibly being your first, makes you incredibly nervous and self-conscious. You really want to tell him everything and free yourself of this burden but your voice gets stuck in your throat and you gape up at him, feeling your stomach churn.

Simon waits patiently for you to speak up, his fingers still holding your chin. The soft look he offers you seems to ease your tension a little.

"I have…”, you draw a sharp breath, "...no experience in this field , if you catch my drift...”. You mutter those few words in a small voice as your face twists into a grimace.

Your confession hangs in the air for what feels like eternity, your heart seems to have stopped beating altogether.

"I know."

“Wha-?!”

You are completely thrown off by his matter-of-fact tone.

"H-how? Why-" you stutter, mouth gaping, your eyes wide. How could he know? You've never told anybody, not until a few minutes ago. But he couldn't have heard you, could he? That would be impossible.

"Is it really so fucking obvious?"

"No.”

In stark contrast to yours, his voice sounds cool and collected. His fingers graze your skin as they move up from your chin to your cheek. "I figured you had no idea how this worked when suddenly you’re lacking your usual confidence and turning into a bloody school-girl. It threw me off at first. I thought you didn’t want this…”

" Hell…”, your head slowly shakes in disbelief, eyes darting to the side.

Suddenly you don’t know if you should feel relieved, ashamed or sorry for it all. Your own body chooses for you, opting for an odd mix of the three; shoulders slumping, mind buzzing, you stare into space while his words sink in.

So he's been into you the whole time but your mixed signals, caused by your stupid anxieties, have made it look like you were not into him? Or that you were just playing with him? Seriously? What kind of shitty B-rated rom com is this?

" So , you've never been held by a man.” Simon’s calm voice draws you back to the moment, his fingers taking hold of your chin once again. “ Blimey . Is that what makes you so nervous?"

"Is it really not a problem for you?" you ask out of genuine curiosity, brows furrowing as your eyes meet his.

Simon’s scoff almost turns into a hearty laugh as he holds your gaze, eyes crinkling.

"No man has ever put their filthy hands on you and I should be - what? Sad? Disappointed? For God's sake, princess..."

He shakes his head, fingertips taking better hold of your jaw as he leans down.

“You and your worries…” His tone is almost scolding but playfully so, eyes studying every feature of your face. “Stop thinking so much, you numpty . It’s not good for you.”

“Tell me something I don’t know…”, you let out a long shuddering breath, in an attempt to let go of the lingering worry still tightening your throat, "I just… don't want to fuck this up, Si. You mean too much to me..."

He hums softly.

Silence engulfs you. A silence tinged with renewed tension. Not the type of tension that fuels your anxieties but the kind that makes you warm inside. Soft distant notes coming from downstairs fill the room, washing over you in a soothing yet electric wave, reminding you of the dance you shared, of how close you were and the desire that was rising, burning hot, inside of you.

Just like a magnet the attraction between you and Simon grows.

His free hand moves on the small of your back, pulling you closer to him and just like before, out of instinct, your hands land on his chest. He holds your chin high, his gaze piercing straight to your heart.

"Do you want me to kiss you?"

You bite your lip, surprised by his forwardness, a nervous giggle shaking through you. "What kind of question is that-"

"Do you want me to kiss you, princess?"

He asks a second time with a more serious tone that makes your nervous giddiness fade. Looking deep into his eyes, you take a long breath to ease your racing heart, or at least attempt to.

"Y-yeah, I want you to kiss me."

His hand moves over yours resting on his chest, and guides it up to his neck.

"Pull up my mask, uncover my mouth. Only my mouth."

You stop breathing altogether, heart jumping in your throat.

"Y-You want me to do it?"

"Aye."

Touching his mask, pulling it up to uncover his face feels like such an intimate gesture… Your eyes roam reverently over his newly uncovered skin as your fingers gently peel up the fabric of his balaclava, until his mouth is completely exposed to your sight and you can let your adoring gaze truly linger for the first time. You’ve caught glimpses of his face before, his chin looking vaguely familiar for the few times you’ve seen Simon drink or eat in front of you and the team. But that’s all it has ever been: glimpses. You’ve never been allowed to study his clean-shaved chin and alluring mouth like you are now, from so up close.

"You have pretty lips…"

Your comment slips out of your mouth before your mind could register it and you grimace out of embarrassment. "Uh, sorry, that was-"

Words die on your tongue as soon as you feel his hand firmly squeeze your jaw. Your eyes immediately dart to his, which bore into yours. Slowly - breathtakingly slow, he draws closer until his lips hover inches away from yours and you can feel his hot breath on your skin. You swallow dry. In a heartbeat he closes the distance, kissing you gently, softly but with a clear, barely-withheld passion.

You respond to the kiss after a moment of stun. The contact of his lips on yours feels like a soft dream at first, one that seizes your mind in a haze and makes you walk on cloud nine, and then grows in force, as if Simon can't contain his desire any longer.

Your lips part and his tongue slips into your hot mouth, eager to explore this new territory. You moan in the kiss and meet him in a twisting dance of control.

Every move comes surprisingly natural to you, as if you’ve done this a million times before.

His hand travels down from your back to your ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh with a possessive squeeze, then slips even lower to lift your short black dress at its edges and tug it upward just enough to expose the back of your thighs. He doesn't waste time when moving his hand onto that newly uncovered area, kneading the tight flesh there as he bends forward, causing you to arch your back and latch your hands around his neck. Bodies tucking closer.

You take a deep breath as you slightly pull away, lips still grazing his, your hot breaths merging together.

All the words you thought would play out in your head in such an important moment are now nowhere to be found. Instead, it’s all just a feeling of rightness between you and him. None of your fantasies could have ever prepared you for a feeling so… intoxicated.

"Simon…", you usher in a barely audible whisper, slipping your hand under his jacket and feeling his muscles tense under your wandering touch. His lust clouded eyes search yours, his chest heaving hard, hands pressing against you and relenting a second later, as if he’s trying to restrain himself.

"...I want you to be my first."

A guttural sound comes out of his mouth at your words, his fingers spread again on your ass cheek, squeezing it hard and causing you to whimper. His gaze seems to get darker and he draws closer once more, teeth grazing your bottom lip, nibbling at it.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

And just like that, as if a barrier has been finally lifted, his lips crush onto yours once more but harder, hungrier than the first time. In one swift motion he yanks the biker jacket off your shoulders and tosses it on the floor. You instantly match his eagerness, returning the favour; his own windbreaker dropping at your feet.

Before your mind can register what’s happening, you find yourself back against the wall, your shoulder blades hitting the hard surface in an audible thud. You feel your guts twist as heat starts to pool in your belly.

Your lips are still connected, unwilling to separate. His hands dive on your hips, the thin fabric of your flared dress creases under his ravenous groping. One hand slides down, curling up the hem and slipping underneath, meeting the side of your bare upper thigh. His palm closes around it, firmly, possessively as he lifts your leg up to his hip; you wouldn’t be surprised if you were to find a red mark on your skin later, nor would you be displeased. You moan in his mouth in response and let your own hands wander on his body, blindly scanning the muscles of his torso from above his sweatshirt, only to slide lower and lower, until you find its edges and curl them up. Your fingers sneak under the fabric, meeting the smooth skin of his abdomen; his muscles tense up at the teasing contact. Your palms climb up his abs, his pecks, committing the tactile sensation of every inch of his taut torso to memory.

As you both pull away, gasping for air, you let your eyes fall to where your hands disappear under his clothes; you want to look at him, feast your hungry eyes on his naked body but before you can do it yourself, Simon grabs the hem of his sweatshirt and pulls it off his head, adding it to the rest of your discarded clothes. However, he doesn’t give you time to take his bare chest in, for he grabs the back of your thighs and lifts you up like you weigh nothing at all, walks you over to the bed and drops you on the mattress.

Only at this moment are you allowed to let your eyes wander over the muscles of his torso, probably the only part of his body you've already had the pleasure of seeing in the past, although mostly in not so pleasant times, when he needed to be patched up. This time it's totally different. Your hungry gaze devours every inch of him, glinting in twisted pleasure when it meets the scars that you remember having tended to yourself.

You're too eager to touch him again to keep laying there waiting. Quickly throwing your boots off the side of the bed, you crawl on your knees toward him, hands latching on the inseam of his trousers to unzip them. In the meantime he yanks his own boots off his feet and out of the way, with eyes glued to yours.

When you're done with his zip, before you can tug his jeans down, he pushes you back on the mattress and joins you on the bed, settling himself on top of your body, knees resting at either side of your legs.

“I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time.”

The way his raspy voice breaks a little as he ushers his confession makes your stomach twist.

“Do w-what, exactly?”

His hands move on your collarbone, peeling the thin straps of your dress and your bra off your shoulders. You allow him to tug them down your chest as you look up at him with nothing but unyielding passion. His eyes wander over your freshly uncovered breasts and you can see his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, jaw setting hard.

He takes a moment to answer, staring down at you, perhaps struggling to give voice to something that has been swirling against the recesses of his mind for quite some time.

“Push you on a bed, pin your body under mine and… taste you.”

A sharp shiver runs up your spine at his words, heart skipping a beat.

One of his palms closes around your breast, firmly squeezing the soft flesh, while the other lifts the skirt of your dress up to your stomach. Without missing a beat he bends down beneath your thighs and presses his mouth against your panties, just above your lower belly.

“Oh!”

Your hips buck up on their own at the sudden stomach-churning contact. His free hand moves to rest on your upper thigh, pressing your body back against the mattress.

"This is uncharted territory, innit?"

"I-It is, Lieutenant…", you match his playful tone even though your voice is but a mere whisper, struggling to get out in between your ragged breaths, "...nobody has yet claimed that path..."

You hear him hum in appreciation and you feel his voice too, vibrating against your core.

"Don't mind if I do."

You take a sharp breath as you feel his lips press against you again, only lower this time, teasing your most sensitive part. The thin fabric of your underwear does nothing to muffle the intense touch and yet the obstacle irritates you, you want it out of the way and Simon seems to share your feelings. Both his hands move on your hips, grabbing the hem of your panties and sliding them down and off your legs. A thrill curses through your whole body at the sight of your undies being tucked inside the back pocket of his jeans. Simon’s eyes crinkle lightly as they watch your reaction, lips curving into a smirk.

You don’t really care about them now, whether he’s planning on returning them or making you walk out of here butt naked. All your attention is drawn to the cool breath blowing against your delicate skin, turning hot only a second later as Simon leans closer, until you feel his lips meet your heat and cause you to whimper. The cloth of his mask grazing against your folds only adds to the stimulating touch.

His hot tongue swipes up your core once, twice, with hands spreading you wider for him to reach every inch of you. Another slow stripe from your entrance up to your clitoris and your body shakes in ecstasy. He latches his lips to you and starts to suck hard, swirling his tongue around your nub and dragging it up and down along your wetness.

He said it. He wanted to taste you. And that is exactly what he’s doing, with no hesitation whatsoever, nor waste of time. You’re already a quivering mess beneath him, pathetic whines falling from your parted lips, hands closing in fists as fingers dig into the sheets.

“F-Fuck, Simon…”

You feel his soft chuckle against you; it drives you mad.

He shifts from his position, lips pulling away as he grabs the back of your thighs to tug you closer and pin your spread legs to your stomach. You chance a look at him through your heavy lidded eyes. His lips and chin are wet with your juices, the sight ignites a fire inside you that you’ve never felt before. The way you’re spread for him, your privateness so thoroughly exposed for the first time in your life… you thought that you’d be embarrassed, that you’d be awfully shy to show yourself like this, especially to him. You do sense a faint tightness in your stomach and a warmth spreading in your face, yet there’s another feeling prevailing over the rest. A feeling that surges from Simon himself; the way he leans back down, hands travelling up your body to grab your breasts, the way he’s devouring you like a starved man, the way he’s taking care of you, making sure to pleasure you, to make you feel good… It allows no room for awkwardness or discomfort, only a warm pervasive and soothing feeling of pure care and devotion to wash over you and envelope you whole.

The lewd sound of his mouth working against you has long prevailed over the music and it only seems to grow in tone the more the tightening of the heat in your belly grows in intensity. You feel it coming, the high is close. Your hands fly toward him, landing on his head. You grab his mask, tug at it, feeling it slip from its place, then you freeze abruptly, as soon as you realise what you’re doing. You look down again, instantly meeting Simon’s hard stare. A strange glint passes over his eyes; he seems to ponder something for a moment then come to a final decision. In a few dismissive moves, he pulls away from you, grabs the dark fabric curled under his nose and yanks it off his head, throwing it carelessly on the floor.

Your heart is sent into a frenzy. It no longer knows what to do; whether it should keep thundering in your heart for the intense and building pleasure or stopping altogether for the shock of what you have just witnessed. Your wide eyes wander toward him, curious and hesitant at the same time but they only catch a glimpse of his bare face before he disappears between your legs once again, latching his mouth on you even more greedily than before, possibly feeling more free in his movements without the mask impediment. You want to watch him, stare at him as he drives you to heaven but your head falls back on the mattress, eyes squeezing shut and back arching sharply as a wave of skin-crawling chills sets your entire body aflame. It is nothing like the orgasms you’ve had before, when you touch yourself. This is a new feeling; it’s intense, it goes to your head, it makes you dizzy and wordless. It makes you feel loved.

Simon keeps moving against you, tongue curling at your entrance, gathering up the fruits of his hard work. His hands still pinning your thighs close to your stomach, fingers digging in your soft flesh as he eases your shakes.

Your mind is still struggling to come out of the haze when your hand blindly travels down in search of him. Fingers tug at his short locks of hair, urging him to come up to meet you. He lingers a moment longer to press a soft kiss on your swollen bundle of nerves, then on your lower belly and between your breasts as he makes his ascent. Finally he faces you, eyes meeting again.

If your body wasn't already heavily overwhelmed, the sight of his beautiful sharp features would send all your senses into overdrive.

He looks at you so openly, dark eyes twinkling with adoration and what you can only read as vulnerability, that you find yourself unsure of how to act.

Would this special moment turn awkward if you were to make a comment on his looks? You wouldn’t want to make him uncomfortable. Removing his mask must take such an effort… you don’t want to risk making this more stressful for him. You opt for keeping your comments to yourself, at least for now.

Instead, you let your hand rest on his face, caressing his skin, softly, slowly, as if it’s the most fragile thing in the world and you have to handle it with utmost care. You hope that by doing this you can show him and reassure him that everything is ok, nothing has changed, surely not for the worse. That you deeply appreciate the fact that he decided to let his guards down, to be vulnerable with you. That’s what you try to convey with your adoring gaze and your tender touch, and you sincerely hope it reaches him.

When you feel him lean into your touch, a content smile spreads on your face and you instinctively tilt your head up, capturing his damp lips in a passionate kiss that instantly rekindles the desire inside of you. Simon matches your eagerness, hands travelling down your body to caress, grab, squeeze, grope and tease anything he finds on his path. You do the same, mapping his muscular torso, skimming your fingers down to his navel.

For a moment, only a moment, you hesitate to go lower as you get caught up in your head, worries threatening to hold you back again, but the way he interrupts the contact of your lips to place a trail of sloppy kisses down the sensitive skin of your neck makes your worries fade again and you slip your hand inside his unzipped jeans. You relish in hearing the guttural sound that rewards your action; it compels you to rub your hand over his boxers with more confidence, feeling his bulge with a light squeeze.

Simon hastily brings his hand to his waistband and tugs it down, his boxers receive the same treatment. Your hand now closes around his erection, giving it a few tentative strokes. He draws a sharp breath.

“ Bloody hell , princess…”

He mutters in the crook of your neck and you shiver. His reaction encourages you to increase the vigour of your movements.

“Is this ok?”

He hums softly, hips starting to buck in sync with your hand. He lets you fondle him, drag your fingers on the tip wet with precum, make him moan in pleasure as your hold around his girth tightens… then he pulls away, grabs your hand and brings it to his lips for a soft peck on its back.

You follow his movements, eyes drawn to his lips then flickering down to his cock. By the touch you assumed it was pretty big and the sight only confirms your thoughts but it shocks you anyway.

You hear him huff a laugh through his nose.

“Do you think you can take me, mh?”

Your eyes dart back to his face, meeting his amused look.

“I don’t know…”, you bite your lips, the angles of your mouth curling up in a playful smirk, “but I sure as hell ain’t gonna back down from a challenge.”

Your heart soars with joy seeing his face crack into a pleasantly surprised expression, a chuckle coming out of his mouth.

“Good girl.”

He pins you with his mesmerising gaze, bending down on you again. He leans on the side, toward the bedside table. You crane your neck to watch. His hand slips into a black smoking-bowl and comes back with a small metallic sachet. Protection. Of course. This place is well-equipped. Your curious eyes keep following his movements as he takes the condom and secures it onto his throbbing erection. You swallow as his gaze moves back on your face, your stomach starts churning again. He seems to sense your nervousness and leans down, hand grabbing your jaw, eyes piercing right into yours.

“Don’t worry, princess. I’ll be gentle.”

You nod with a smile, then take a deep breath.

“It’s okay. I trust you, Si.”

He leans in for a quick soft kiss, hand guiding his erection between your legs, tip rubbing against your slit to coat it in your wetness. Your whole body tingles in anticipation.

“Stop me anytime if you need to.”

He waits for your confirmation before he slides in, bit by bit, easing you to the intrusion. An instant groan comes out of his mouth.

“Oh, you’re so fucking tight!”

Your brows furrow, your jaw sets, soft cries come out of you as he settles inside your walls but you don’t stop him. He kisses your neck, right on the spot he learned that makes you quiver the most, your hands clutched at his sides. It doesn’t take long for the nagging feeling to fade and for you to get accustomed to the sensation as your core stretches to welcome him fully.

Simon feels your body relax and starts to push into you, slowly, carefully, letting out pleased grunts of his own. His hands wrap around the back of your thighs and lift them up to his waist. You latch your legs around his body, a maneuver that allows him to bury his cock deeper inside you and that causes a loud moan to erupt from you.

“G-God… That’s…”

His lips trail back from your neck to your jaw, teasingly brushing your skin, until they hover on your open mouth; his eyes take in your contorting features with a pleased smile.

He rocks at a steady pace against you while his hands roam your body, travel up your hips, caress your breasts, skim along the shape of your arms, stopping only to let his fingers interlace with yours, and pin your hands down to the mattress, at either side of your head.

You feel your lucidity slip from you completely. No coherent words come out of you, only a nonsensical mumbling. The way he’s thrusting inside of you, so deep and precise, hitting that perfect spot at each push, it takes every fiber in your being not to scream out loud and make the whole pub know how Simon’s fucking you sensless.

You can only focus on how you’re connected to him, how he is filling you up so beautifully, how your bodies move wonderfully together; it’s almost like a dance, a primal animalistic dance that belongs to you two only. You even have the music to accompany your dance moves, a soft sensual melody that perfectly complements your passion-imbued union of trembling bodies.

So this is how it feels to have sex? This is how it feels to be wholly consumed by lust and desire? Or could this overwhelming sensation simply be Simon’s doing? To have him make love to you?

“Y/n…”

It takes a lot of effort for you to hum back in response.

Simon’s lips crush clumsily against yours as his movements become frantic and sloppier. He must be close to reaching the high. And so are you. Your eyelids are heavy, your sight slightly blurred and unfocused.

“Si, I think I’m about to-”

He pulls away from your lips, spine straightening, piercing eyes landing on your face as one of his hands slips from yours and travels along your body, down toward your core. He deliberately rubs your slit with his palm before he picks up a hectic waving motion to stroke your swollen nub, immediately triggering a shock wave of shivers to spiral up your back. Your head spins at the additional stimuli. Your eyes squeeze shut, cries fall out of your mouth as you contort in pleasure.

You feel his other hand grab your jaw and shake it lightly, demanding your attention.

“Eyes on me, beautiful.”

You look up at him with glazed eyes, dizzy and yearning for your release. With every stroke and every thrust you lose yourself more and more into the bliss.

His hand settles on your neck, closing around your throat, not hard enough to delay your breathing but providing you with such a thrilling and wicked pressure that makes you salivate and that instantly sends heat flaring in your belly, causing your need to build faster and even more intense.

Panting hard, your hands now free, you grip onto Simon’s strong arms while you progressively lose focus on every way he’s indulging your desire, instead centring your heightened senses on the feelings he’s awakening. The last thread of restraint then finally snaps and you reach the peak, core lightening with an answering flame that you’ve never felt before. You lose yourself in the waves of pleasure overtaking you, barely taking notice of Simon’s rutting inside you once, twice, three more times before his body goes still against you and a deep groan erupts from him. Both of you anchor the other’s body, pressing together, relishing in the other’s shudders and panting breaths. You’re so flush against him that you can feel his heart, challenging your own in a speed race and then gradually slowing down.

Chest heaving, you cradle the back of his head, letting your fingers thread between the roots of his hair, while he blows his hot breath on the crook of your neck as you both ease down from your highs. The warmth of his body is comforting against yours, you never want him to let go. The rousing feeling of his cock still buried inside you, resting between your fluttering walls is one you could easily get used to. It almost takes your breath away when Simon slides out of you, leaving you bare.

His damp lips press against your boiling skin, trailing up your jaw. You close your eyes and take a deep breath, committing this idyllic moment to memory.

His thumb gently strokes your chin, fingers resting upon your cheek. When you open your eyes, he's already looking at you with the loveliest smile you've ever seen graze his face. You return it with one of your own.

"Si..." you pause, staring deep into his eyes. There's so much you want to say, a multitude of emotions running wild and untamed inside of you that needs to be addressed and yet you struggle to find the right words to tell him how you feel.

The realisation of what has just happened downs on you. You've spent years fantasising about this moment, fearing the real thing wouldn't even come close to your idealised perfect first time. Wondering when, where, with whom you would live through this experience. You're euphoric to admit to yourself that the real thing has surpassed the fantasy by a landslide.

"I'm... glad it was you."

It sounds silly when you say it. You could have chosen from a billion other thoughts you had swirling in your head, yet this one drowned out the rest. But as silly as it may sound, it’s the truth: you’re beyond thrilled he was your first. There’s no other man in your life that you trust, respect, and love as much as him with whom you could share such intimacy.

You see the angle of his lips curl up to one side, the pad of his thumb softly brushing the outline of your bottom lip.

" I'm glad it was me ."

Your face cracks as you erupt in a giggle. With your palm against his cheek, you gently push him away. "Simon..."

He smiles down at you, his eyes crinkling as he leans down again to kiss the crown of your head before drawing all the way back and getting off the bed.

Your gaze follows him as he tosses the used condom into the trash can and pulls up his underwear and jeans. As he picks up the rest of his clothes from the floor and gets dressed again, your devoted gaze glides up and down his body, a permanent smile engraved to your lips. You feel so lucky to be able to witness such a sight… You still have a hard time believing your eyes.

“Now, who’s enjoying the show ?”

His amused glance meets yours, and you give him a sheepish smile, followed by a shrug.

"I'm just taking it all in..."

"Oh, you've already taken it all in , princess."

You let out a shocked scoff, your mouth wide open. You dismissively wave your hand in front of your face and shake your head, as you feel a crawl of heat flooding to your cheeks.

"Oh, shut up..."

You love his sense of humour. It’s one of the qualities you like the most about him. And now that you’re… well, even closer to him, the sarcasm is only bound to get more pungent. Not that you’d complain about it.

His low chuckle fills your ears as you distract yourself by adjusting your bra and dress, then taking a seat on the side of the bed to slip your boots back on. You notice a heap of black and white fabric on the floor at your feet and bend down to pick it up. It's his balaclava.

The thought doesn’t even have time to fully form in your mind that you’re already pulling the mask over your head. Unfortunately there’s no mirror in the room to check your reflection, to see how the skull fits you but the cloth feels surprisingly nice against your skin and… you can smell his scent.

The sudden lack of rustling from behind you causes you to spin around and you find Simon staring at you, holding your jacket. He walks toward you, handing you the garment, reaching then for your face to adjust the fabric on your nose and on your chin. He stops to give you an appraising look.

"It looks better on me."

You chuckle, smacking him playfully on the chest. “Oh, c’mon… what if I want to wear one, too?”

"And hide your beautiful face? Negative.”

“Well, then…”, you pin him with a challenging look, palms pressing hard against your cheeks, securing the mask on your head. “I won’t let you hide your beautiful face, either.”

You see him softly shake his head as he huffs a chuckle through his nose. After a moment, he reaches for his back pocket and retrieves your undies, waving them high above your head.

“What? You’ll put those on your head instead?”

You try to suppress the laugh by biting on your lips but it erupts out of you anyway, like a river in flood. The pointed look he gives you only makes it worse.

“Alright, alright…”

Still snickering, you pull on the fabric and peel it off your head, holding it out to him.

He takes the mask from you but doesn’t let go of your undies. He puts them back in his pocket as casually as he took them out.

You scoff, tilting your head to the side. "Really?"

“I’m keeping them, as a memento.”

You stare at him, appraising his solemn expression. If he wants them then you’ll let him have them - the fabric is ruined anyway. They're not even your favourite pair, thankfully.

“First and last time you steal something from me, Si!”

“Can’t make promises, princess.”

Your chest swells as you try to read between the lines. It's inevitable. You can't help but wonder if he means to tell you something else. Will there be a next time, or multiple next times? Does he plan on stealing something else? Like, your heart? To be honest, he's already halfway there, but he doesn't need to know that. At least not yet.

You keep on looking into each other's eyes for a bit longer. You think you can detect the profound fondness behind his look. Your lips curl up in a shy smile.

“Ehm… I believe we kept the guys waiting long enough." you say, breaking the silence. "We should get back downstairs."

He gives you a curt nod but instead of moving away, he draws closer to you. Taking your chin between his fingers, he leans down and angles your head to brush one more kiss against your lips. The contact is strikingly gentle and it takes your breath away. It’s a kiss infused with unspoken words of devotion, promises, feelings which are too strong to be shared so early on but that are already there, growing, blossoming. Both your hearts are gardens in bloom.

He pulls away, resting his forehead against yours for a lingering moment before taking a step back and disguising his face once again.

The action saddens you but at the same time it fills your chest with pride; you're the only one who has been blessed to bask in the beauty of his seldom-seen bare face and no one else will receive such special treatment. Not today. Hopefully never. Is it selfish of you to wish that? Perhaps, but you don't care. Not when images of your lovemaking are still so fresh in your mind. Not when you can still feel the worshipping touch of his hands and tongue on your body. Certainly not when the cool, humid air of the room hits the wetness of your exposed core beneath the dress.

You exchange a knowing look before moving towards the door and walking down the stairs together. That soothing tune, now linked with poignant core memories, floods in your ears once again, growing louder as you return to the main area and towards the bar. Your team is still at the counter, exactly where you left them... how long ago? You have no idea how much time has passed. You were too engrossed in your passion to pay attention to the outside world and its trivialities.

Johnny glances behind his shoulder just as you and Simon make a beeline toward the group. You can see his lips moving; he must be saying something to the others because they all crane their heads to look at you before returning to their drinks. Soap is the only one who whirls around, bivouacing on his seat and all over the counter like a fucking braggart as he meets your eyes and winks at you.

Oh, he'll take yours and Simon's hookup as a personal victory, and he'll brag about it; you already know it. But you're far too happy right now to be bothered by it. Let him gloat. You're the one who got the reward, anyway.

When you eventually make it to the bar, no one acknowledges your arrival. Nobody says anything about your absence or the dance prior to that. Their silence only serves to emphasise that they are all aware of what happened. The furtive glances they cast your way, some more mischievous than others, serve as plain confirmation.

"Now that we're all here, I suppose we can head out."

The captain's voice calls out to everyone as he stands up from the barstool. "Unless the two lovebirds fancy one last drink?"

You try to ignore the appellation he used and the way your stomach flipped in response. You raise one hand and shake your head, avoiding his eyes as well as the urge to glance up at Simon. "I'm good."

A beat.

"Alright then. Off we go."

On cue, everyone gets off their seats, some knocking back their glasses, others stretching their legs. You take advantage of the shuffle to walk over to Johnny and hold out the key to him. He takes it back without a word but the sly smile playing on his face is hard to miss. You hope at least he has the decency to hold off of grilling you for deets until you’re back at the HQ.

You seem to catch a movement in your peripheral vision: Price giving Simon a firm pat on the shoulder? You’re tempted to turn your head to take a better look when a loud scoff interrupts you and draws your attention back to your best mate.

"Bloody hell, y/n! You and L.T. are not joking around!"

Your brows furrow upon hearing his remark and when you follow the trajectory of his stunned look, your eyes widen as they meet the cloth of your undies poking out of his back pocket. You spring into action right away, grasping the exposed edge to yank it farther inside his jeans. Simon’s own hand reaches behind him to wrap around yours, fingers interlacing, as he maintains his focus on Price in front of him. Your chest swells at the gesture, heat rising in your cheeks, but you manage to turn around and zap Johnny with a fierce glare anyway.

He makes a show of zipping his lips and throwing away the key. However, the grin he flashes you is so contagious that you find yourself returning one of your own.

It appears like you're in for a ride full of taunts, jokes, knowing looks and funny name-calling. Your mates will give you two no rest… but who gives a shit about it? Simon said it first. Why should you care? You'll take this and much worse if it means getting the chance to explore your feelings with the man of your dreams and spending many more nights out - or inside his spacious office - dancing together.

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ladyluscinia · 6 months

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What Exactly Did David Jenkins Say?

Look, I'm still staunchly of the opinion that Word of God statements and creator interviews are overvalued in fandom, especially when they get pulled out mostly as gotchas without then continuing to analyze whether or not the show canon is successful at getting across that same message. Death of the Author is good, actually, and we should remember that. But they are worth looking at in the context of evaluating intent vs execution, and for future speculation - just, like, please with less of the whole mile high pedestal idolizing and backlash cycles.

But if overvalued "Word of God" is annoying, then overvalued "supposed creator statements that have gone through three rounds of telephone and any given blogger has only heard about a quarter of them, which they'll use confidently anyway" is worse. So, since I'd already looked up interviews for various reasons...

Here is a fairly comprehensive list of interviews David Jenkins has given and statements he's made during them, presented without commentary (save curating which statements get highlighted). All provided with links. I definitely missed some, so if you have any that you want to add, please do - though if you could trim off any commentary and save it for tags / your own post with a link that would be cool.

Also, again, just because he said it doesn't make it incontrovertible canon that only a blind person wouldn't understand. Some of these even arguably contradict each other. The creator's intent doesn't always translate to what the show is doing, nor do you even have to think it was a good idea.

(Listed in chronological order from oldest to newest - post contains spoilers below the cut)

Pre-S1

Gizmodo - Feb 22, 2022 - with Cheryl Eddy (io9) - Link

Why this story - Really, it was the enigma of Stede that drew him in. "I think actual pirate stuff is fine, but it's not necessarily my cup of tea. And I think Taika [Waititi] felt similarly. But hearing about this guy and reading about him and seeing that, you know, he left his family, then he met Blackbeard, they hit it off, and we don't know any of the details in between. So filling those blanks in, and having a very human story, and then being able to do it with the pirate genre, that was like, 'Oh, this would be cool.'"

Post 1x01 - 1x03

Polygon - March 5, 2022 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, and Rhys Darby interview

About Stede running off to sea - "Stede thought he could outrun his baggage, and you can't outrun your baggage."

About S1 - "I don't think there was enough improv on set! We had an insane schedule, with a huge amount of plot. We were budgeted and designed as a one-hour show, but with a half-hour production schedule, which means we really had to chase these episodes to get them shot. And then there are certain emotional beats that we really needed. So trying to find places to find the fun was hard."

Mashable - Mar 5, 2022 - with Belen Edwards - Link

About the show concept - "It was Jenkins' wife who first told him about Stede's adventures; she thought it would make a good TV show."

On casting Rhys Darby - "Stede did a terrible thing to his family. If you cast it wrong, he's a very hard character to get behind," Jenkins said. "Very quickly, the only person I thought of for this was Rhys [Darby]. He has this childlike quality that's endearing."

About the story - "Seeing them discover a need for each other that neither anticipated and charting how that relationship goes is the meat of the story." + "If you're on this ship, you're running from something, and you're running to something that you can't be on land"

Mentions of matelotage - "In fact, one of Jenkins's favorite pirate facts that he learned while working on Our Flag Means Death was the term matelotage, which was a civil union between same-sex pirates. "The more you look at it," he explained, "the more you write to the fact that this is a queer-positive world.""

Discussing piracy careers - "Something else that astounded Jenkins about pirates was "just how fast it all moved — their lives were quite short," he said. "Your career [in piracy] wasn't very long.""

Post 1x09 - 1x10

Decider - Mar 24, 2022 - with Kayla Cobb - Link

David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, and Rhys Darby interview

Pitch for the show - "That was in the pitch," series creator David Jenkins told Decider. "That was the reason, to make them fall in love with each other."

About the romance - "The main thing to me was to side-step coming out," Jenkins continued. "I just want a romance. I want a Titanic romance between these two people. We don't have to do the coming out story and then the non-binary story for Jim [Vico Ortiz]."

About S2 and the show - "The show is the relationship," Jenkins said. "So, we end in a place where there is this breakup. What happens after a breakup between these two people who, one’s realized he's in love and the other one is hurt in a way that he's never been hurt before? What does that do to each of them in an action, pirate world with them trying to find each other again? So again, I really love those rom-com beats."

Collider - Mar 24, 2022 - with Carly Lane - Link

On making it a romcom - "It's the only reason to make the show. If you didn't do that, it would just be weird. I mean, you're using the rom-com beats. You're using these like they're together. And it's funny because so we're so habituated to be like bromance, bromance, bromance, and it's such a simple move to put them together."

Discusses focusing on romance - "I guess I really... I get kind of bored. How much pirate can you do? They're going to rob stuff. They're going to steal ships. There's only so many pirate stories you can do. So if you're going to do a workplace story, I mean, you're essentially having this... You'd have this same amount of relationships in Grey's Anatomy in the ER. So it's standard. It's the most standard. We're making a soap opera on a pirate ship, and to use those soap opera beats... I like it, and I like the flavor in a comedy when you have something that's played genuinely up against very ridiculous things."

Discusses history and kissing scene

Discusses importance of going home to Mary - "Yeah, that was the problem for me in the story. I knew that I wanted to have the end where he goes home, because you need to give Mary her day in court. I just wanted to know from Mary's perspective what happened and then to see that, yeah, they're friends."

Is Lucius dead? - "You got to wait."

EW.com - Mar 25, 2022 - with Devan Coggan - Link

David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, and Rhys Darby interview

Pitch for the show - "To me, [Stede and Blackbeard's relationship] is the reason to make the show," Jenkins explains. "When Taika and I were first talking about it, he was like, 'Oh yeah, that's the show.' I first started reading about Stede and how he befriended Blackbeard and we don't know why. Very quickly, it was like, 'Oh, it's a romance.'"

Polygon - Mar 25, 2022 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

Discusses 3-season intent - "I think three seasons is good. I think we could do it in three."

Discusses acts within S1 - "To me, when you see him get stabbed, and the blood runs through his fingers, it’s like 'Oh, no, the clown got stabbed! And not comedy-stabbed, he got stabbed stabbed!' That to me is cool. And then having Blackbeard find him as the end of what would be the first act of our story felt good to me."

Discusses kiss scene filming and the national moment around gay rights

What to focus on a rewatch - "I think Con O'Neill does such a great job. He's such a complex character, and it's such a tortured relationship. And that's a love story too, between him and Blackbeard. It's a very dysfunctional story, but it's fun to watch. Watch that maybe, on a rewatch, looking where their relationship ultimately goes."

TV Insider - Mar 25, 2022 - with Meaghan Darwish - Link

Discusses show pitch - "When I was pitching [the show] to people, I'd be like, 'Okay, so it's about Stede and Blackbeard, and then they hit it off and then they fall in love.' And then people are like, 'Okay, cool,' Jenkins shares. "And then they really fall in love, and become intimately involved."

Discusses historical inspiration

Discusses S2 direction - "But when [Stede] goes to find [Blackbeard], he's gone and his crew's been abandoned. And so watching them try to negotiate that, that's a good rom-com beat," he adds.

The Verge - Apr 15, 2022 - with Charles Pulliam-Moore - Link

Discusses being surprised by queerbaiting legacy - "...part of me knew that, yes, Stede and Ed's romance was going to be real. But one part of me felt like, 'We're going to do this story, and they're going to kiss, and maybe that's not even going to be that big a deal. Maybe it'll just be a blip.'"

Discusses writing romance - "I'd never written a romance before this one, but I think with Ed and Stede, the question's always 'what's the need for each other?'"

Discusses falling in love and Stede's accidental seduction - "It made sense to have that love be almost like a teenage version of falling in love — one with all these intense and conflicting feelings. They're middle-aged, but Stede's young. Ed's young. Emotionally, they're like 16, and they've both got a lot to learn."

Discusses Con O'Neill as Izzy - "He plays an exhausted quality that's really lovely because this character could just be generically evil, and the way Con plays, it is like, he's credible. I believe that he can do some damage if he wanted to. My favorite thing I've seen about the show is somebody saying that Con's playing the only human with a bunch of Muppets. It does feel like that a bit where he's like Charles Grodin in The Great Muppet Caper."

On Izzy being in love with Blackbeard - "I think Izzy's deeply in love with Blackbeard, and it's a very dysfunctional kind of love, and he's like the jilted spouse who's losing his man to fucking Stede Bonnet, and he can't believe this is happening."

Discusses masculinity and piracy as an escape from that

Discusses diversity and trauma based stories - "And the consensus in that very diverse room was that we wanted to show that isn't just wallowing in trauma. We don't have to do a coming out scene or focusing on the trauma of it — not to say that those stories aren’t valid."

Gizmodo - Jun 20, 2022 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

Musing on fandom response to the show - "I'm wondering if the fact that because the queerness of this show isn't gaslighting the audience, and isn't a function of wanting to do something, but not being able to produce the results because of network standards. I think we just happened to be in this lucky spot where the show is actually queer… and I do think that people are responding to that."

Comparing fanfiction to writing - "And Con O'Neill's audition was one of those things I would go back to. I would watch that and be like… Oh, right, that's the show. And in a way, you're writing fanfiction for a certain actor and character because you want them to do something, and you're like–" at this point, it must be said, Jenkins let out a maniacal little giggle. He’s just as thrilled to show off Con O'Neill's ability to seem both deeply exhausted and menacing as the rest of the fandom. "And you [as the writer] you're like… And then Izzy does this now."

EW.com - Dec 13, 2022 - with Devan Coggan - Link

Discusses The Chain sequence - "I had initially wanted that end sequence to be like the FBI raid in a mob movie, where the feds come in, and they've got boxes of stuff, and everyone's running, and someone makes a dash for it," Jenkins explains. "So, it's like a mob movie or FBI raid story, and then it's also a story of Stede's lover coming back."

Pre-S2

Collider - Oct 2, 2023 - with Carly Lane - Link

Discusses fan reaction to S1 - "I thought that they'd kiss, and people would be like, 'Oh, cool, cool!' I kind of thought people would know a little bit more [about] where we were going, but then in hindsight, no, people have been hurt and burned on so many other shows and then made to feel silly."

Discusses starting S2 dark - "One of these characters is very, very damaged and has never made himself vulnerable in this way before, and I don't think [he] would react very well to having his heart broken in this way. I don't think it would be cute, and I don't think it would be funny. I think it would be scary as hell to watch a very damaged guy that we've established in Ed, who killed his dad and thinks he's not capable of being loved, deal with rejection and see that Stede really hurt him."

Discusses adding more female characters

Discusses S2 needle drops including "This Woman's Work"

Discusses 3-season arc

Post 2x01 - 2x03

Mashable - Oct 5, 2023 - with Belen Edwards - Link

Discusses fandom response to S1

About the canon gay relationship - "To watch the explosion of enthusiasm around [the kiss] was disorienting, almost," Jenkins said. "I thought people would react to it, but I didn't think the reaction would be that big. And then it was moving, because I didn't realize that this audience felt so unserved in general, as far as storylines go."

Insider - Oct 5, 2023 - with Ayomikun Adekaiyero - Link

Tease on leaning into the Stede / Ed / Izzy love triangle - "I think Izzy, in a certain way, got the worst deal in the first season," the showrunner tells Insider. "He gets jilted and then he still is in spurned spouse territory at the beginning of the second season."

Discusses Izzy's arc - "What is that relationship about? And I think by the end of the season it kind of becomes a little unexpected of who they are to each other and what they mean to each other," he teases

Discusses addition of Zheng - "He likens Zheng's way of pirating to a successful tech startup, compared with the garage sale vibe Stede had going on the Revenge."

Discusses introducing Hornigold - "I thought Hornigold was the most obvious because he was the person who made Blackbeard what he is. And Blackbeard has a father complex, so it's natural that he's going to bring his former captain back," the show creator said. "It's a struggle with him because he and dad figures don't historically do well."

Discusses importance of the mermaid scene

Inverse - Oct 5, 2023 - with Hoai-Tran Bui - Link

Reveals he didn't commit to the romance until shooting 1x06 - "Jenkins always intended his pirate comedy to end with a romance, but he'd envisioned it as an unrequited love. "It was going to be about Stede learning what love is, and Ed making himself vulnerable and getting burned," Jenkins says of his original pitch. But Darby and Waititi's choices in the scene, which they played without diffusing the tenderness with a joke, made him wonder if they could take the show in a new direction."

Discusses mermaid Stede idea from S1 - "We talked about Stede as a mermaid very early on in the writers' room," Jenkins says. "At some point, yeah, I want to see Rhys Darby as a merman." + "They wanted us to come up with a Season 2 pitch during Season 1. And that was one of the ideas we hit on, and I can't quite remember how we got there, but it was us asking, what is a pirate world? Are there mermaids? Is there magic in this show? With pirate stuff, I don’t know that I want there to be magic, but there was a way where it was something really beautiful about a mer-person, and I like the idea that their coming together would have a mythic size to it."

Discusses historical divergence

Discusses matelotage and pirates as weird outsiders

TV Guide - Oct 5, 2023 - with Allison Piccuro - Link

About the shipping culture - "It's the meat of the show, so it's great to have people bought into the central romance. If it were a bromance that we were trying to make look like a romance, that would suck."

Discusses playlists he makes

Discusses opening dream sequence - "I just like that it started with something badass. Stede, Blackbeard, and Izzy are on an arc together. Whether they're in stories together or not, their ultimate arc is together. I think, by the end of this season, the last episode, that first scene will be gratifying. I won't say why, but their fates are tied together."

Discusses Kraken arc - "But I think the thing that's good about this show is that it can go to really sweet comedy land, but I want there to be, like, if someone loses a body part, for instance, they lose a body part. To do justice to the fact that this guy is a killer and a monster, and dealing with heartache that he doesn't know how to deal with, I think you really need to go there."

Discusses Izzy in S2 - "I mean, he's jilted. He had a partnership with Blackbeard, and he knows he can't live up to this person that Blackbeard fell in love with... Who is that guy? What are his hobbies? What does it look like when he's not totally subsumed with his boss's love affair with somebody, and heartbroken?"

On S2 reunion - "The second season is them being a little bit more mature... It's the thing where you're in your 20s or 30s and you're like, "Well, should we move in together?" They have to make up some time because neither of them have been in a functional relationship before."

About genre of pirate stories - "...is a show about multiple relationships. That's what I want to see when I see this show. I don't want to see a bunch of pirate things that I've seen in other things, I'll just go watch another thing if I want to see that. That's not really my thing. I like the genre, but it's a very hard genre to budge. I want to see relationships in a pirate world."

Discusses the A Star is Born aspect of seeking fame / retiring

Mashable - Oct 7, 2023 - with Belen Edwards - Link

About the mermaid scene - "You need something expressive for when they come back together," Jenkins said. "Their reunion moment has to feel big and mythical. This is not a world where mermaids actually exist, but their love for each other has that size that you can get [a mermaid] in there somewhere."

About Kate Bush - "I love Kate Bush, and I love that song, and I know Taika loves that song," Jenkins explained of the choice. "So I wanted to find a place for that song somewhere in the second season."

Polygon - Oct 9, 2023 - with Tasha Robinson & more - Link

Compares S2 and "Golden Age of Piracy" stuff to Westerns, lists 5 he was thinking of - "Every Western that’s good is that story," Jenkins says. "'This way of life we made is coming to an end. It can't last. It's a blip in time. We created this thing because we need it to exist. We're outlaws, and we need a culture that suits us, but it's running out of time.'"

Gizmodo - Oct 9, 2023 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

Short tease on leaning into the love triangle

About Stede, Edward, and Izzy - "I think the three of them are on an arc together that's pretty inseparable," Jenkins said in an interview with io9. "And to watch Izzy try to process what's happened [in season one]… to watch him kind of grow and figure out what's his own story, if he can separate himself from this kind of toxic relationship, is interesting to me and I think gives him a lot of room for growth."

Post 2x04 - 2x05

IndieWire - Oct 12, 2023 - with Sarah Shachat - Link

Discusses directing and show creation

"The limitations of the show also naturally push it back towards moments with the ensemble and plot problems that it would frankly be irresponsible to tackle if you had a giant budget and a fully working ship-of-the-line to sail and then blow to bits. "That's the fun of the show to us, I think. If you open this up and you're like, unlimited budget, that would be terrible because I think you can get seduced," Jenkins said. "[It could be like,] 'Oh man, it's all leading up to a climatic battle on the sea.' And those things are great. But that’s not this show.""

"The nice thing about that, though, is you get to be the lo-fi show that’s like, 'Hey, we’re making The Muppets.'"

PopSugar - Oct 12, 2023 - with Victoria Edel - Link

About S2 Stede - "I like the idea that he learns and grows and he doesn't just stay a bumbling captain. He might be ridiculous, but he is getting better at it."

Discusses genre challenges - "How do you have a show that's a romance show but it's also a workplace show and they're criminals?"

Discusses Edward's redemption - "But Blackbeard still has to come back and apologize and be part of the community again, and give his little press conference. It was fun for us to look at that in the context of piracy, where they all do terrible things to each other. But even by their standards, what Blackbeard did was a bit much."

Discusses Izzy in S2 - "When Izzy shoots Blackbeard and they all mutiny on him, that's Izzy breaking up with Blackbeard. And they're both having their own journey in the wake of it, and Izzy's having his own redemption arc. He's trying to figure out, "Who am I if I'm not Blackbeard's first mate? Who am I outside of this relationship?"" + "If Stede's Spongebob, he's Squidward. I don't know what that makes Blackbeard. But there's a real pathos to Squidward."

Discusses trauma-based narratives - "As a diverse room in terms of sexuality, socio-economic background, and race, we thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a non-trauma-based story for these characters who don't get that historically?""

Variety - Oct 13, 2023 - with Hunter Ingram - Link

Discusses three act structure and making Stede work for a relationship - "The way I like to look at a season is in threes. The end of the first act is when they find each other, and this is the beginning of the second act. They've found each other, but they are pissed. Stede thought it was going to be [Kate Bush's] “This Woman's Work,” but, in reality, it is this headbutt –– literally."

Discusses the central romance - "It was always part of the pitch... that is the reason to make the show. The pirate genre is fun, but I wasn’t dying to make a pirate show. Taika wasn’t dying to make a pirate show. But the thing that was interesting to me was that Stede finds love, and he finds it with Blackbeard."

Discusses 2x04 plot - "This episode is based on a very, very thumbnail sketch of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?." Anne and Mary are Martha and George, and they are Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton."

Discusses adding historical pirates

Discusses Buttons exit - "I just love the idea of him turning into a bird: I love the idea of Buttons somehow being the one character that is able to figure that out."

Discusses Izzy and the crew's trauma plot - "We liked the idea that there is something about trauma and getting past that trauma, even on a pirate ship. They have been through two very different ways of living and they have to get used to each other again. But it's also a family that was separated, and becoming one family again is painful."

Discusses bringing characters back - "We could bring Calico Jack back, who, if you remember, was hit by a cannonball last season. Anyone who is that fun to play with and wants to keep playing, you always find a way to bring them back."

Polygon - Oct 14, 2023 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

Discusses 3-season arc and how keeping them apart with some plot device was never in the cards - "at the end of the first season, they're 14-year-olds, emotionally. In this season, it's more like they’re in their late 20s."

Discussing New Zealand production and ensemble cast writing - "It's pretty organic, because as we're going through and tracking everybody's journey for the season, we're watching the thing that holds us together — what stage of Stede and Blackbeard's relationship are we in? Because the overarching arc is, are these guys going to learn how to settle into a relationship?"

"The second season is more overtly about romance, and more a relationship story."

Energizing aspect of fan reaction

S3 is about "love is work"

Gizmodo - Oct 16, 2023 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

About the story - "I want to see them become a functional couple or fail to become a functional couple," Jenkins said. "Those are the most interesting parts of the show."

Discusses fandom engagement - "...ultimately the writers are also "the fans in the room." He goes on to say that, "We're fans of the world. We're writing fanfic about our own characters, our own worlds… It's paid fanfic, but it's fanfic." He gives another example: "If you're writing a season of Succession, you're writing fanfic Succession. You're just getting paid to do it. We, as writers–" it's clear that he's not just talking about the writers in the writers room, "become fans of the world and we all have things we want to see these characters do. What we do is not that different."

Discusses the A Star is Born aspect of seeking fame / retiring

Discusses Zheng Yi Sao

Villains of the series - There are a lot of new villains this season, but, Jenkins says, ultimately, "the antagonist on this show is normalcy… These pirates have a way of life that they're not finding in normal life. They've found a way to live and support each other and be there for each other. And that's always threatened by these larger, tyrannical forces that want to shut them down."

Post 2x06 - 2x07

Mashable - Oct 19, 2023 - with Belen Edwards - Link

Discussing drag performance in 2x06

"It is nice to see with Izzy's arc, where he finally breaks through whatever he's been doing to himself. He lets himself have that moment, which I just love. It resonates for Izzy, and I think it resonates for Con. Just personally, it made me feel good to see how it turned out."

Consequence - Oct 19, 2023 - with Liz Shannon Miller - Link

Discusses intent for romance - "...telling a love story in a serialized medium like television has its perils, largely because it's tough to know how much you can draw out any unresolved tension. "I think we take it episode by episode and we try to not piss people off in taking too long and doing double beats and triple beats," Jenkins says. "You can only do Will They or Won’t They for so long. Then you have to deepen it.""

Discusses pirate setting - "The emphasis on relationships also fits into the show's high-seas setting, which Jenkins finds similar to post-apocalyptic narratives. "It is a little bit like you're doing Mad Max, except there's relationships," he says. "Stuff's shitty, so you gotta try to find some joy. Of course, people are going to have a need for each other in these extreme circumstances, and I like the idea of these characters finding some level of a healthy relationship in these extreme circumstances.""

Discusses Jim x Archie

Discusses 3-season arc

Polygon - Oct 21, 2023 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

Discussing gender and power dynamics in Jackie x Swede / Zheng x Oluwande / Blackbeard x Stede + A Star is Born aspect

Jim not being jealous of Oluwande - "I think that relationship was always seen in the room as a friend relationship that got romantic."

About adding a villain - "I think a lot of the internal forces in Our Flag are the villains." + "I think this is a story about the age of piracy coming to an end. This way of life is coming to an end. And every Western that's good is that story: This way of life we made is coming to an end, and it can't last. […] I think every story about outlaws is about trying to preserve a way of life against normative forces that are kind of fascistic."

Historical accuracy - "The balance of the show is 90% ignoring history, and then 10%, bring it in, whenever we're like, Ah, gotta move the story forward! Remember, the English are out there, and they're really bad!"

Post 2x08

AV Club - Oct 26, 2023 - with Saloni Gajjar - Link

Killing Izzy was always the plan - "We wanted to show the depth of that character. Izzy is one of my favorites. He's like middle management who is in a sort of love triangle [in season one]."

Discusses how they really wanted the happy ending for S2 - "I think with season one's end, it was a gamble to leave it the way it was. Everybody stomached through it. Now if it turned out they didn't want us to make more, I just didn't want to have another story where the same-sex love story ends in tragedy, unrequited love, or if one or both of them are being punished."

Discusses S2 progressing the 3-season romance - "They’re a couple who is like in their late twenties right now as opposed to being teens at the end of season one." + "It was an interesting tension of, which one gives up their dream? A lot of times in relationships questions can come up, like who is going to give up on their dream to take care of the kids? Obviously, no one wants to, but someone ends up giving up more than they want to at some point. What's wonderful about a mature romance, and what I'd want to see more of in season three, is Ed and Stede making these tough decisions." + progressing past the getting together point

Discusses parallels, Republic of Pirates, and Zheng Yi Sao

Short bit about fan response

Collider - Oct 26, 2023 - with Carly Lane - Link

Discusses Ed leaving fishing - "I like that he had a little prima donna moment where he thought he could go and be a simple man, and then it's revealed that he really isn't a simple man; he's a complicated, fussy, moody guy. No, he's not gonna be able to catch fish for a living. For him to be told that, "At your heart, you're a pirate. You have to go back and do it," he doesn't want that to be true, but it was true."

Discusses Izzy's speech to Ricky - "I wanted to give Izzy a proper eulogy for himself. He gives a eulogy for himself, but it felt true writing it."

Discusses Izzy's death scene - "In a way, it's very much for Ed, that speech. The "we were Blackbeard" is claiming that he is also Blackbeard, that Blackbeard is not just Ed’s creation, and I like that for him, too, because he's worked so hard for that — and then just to say, "You can give it up." There can never be a Blackbeard again as far as Izzy's concerned because he's dying, and they did that together."

Discusses Republic of Pirates / music parallels from premier to finale

Discusses finale wedding - "We knew we wanted a matelotage in the season, which is the real term they had for marrying crew members. And yeah, they've always been in relief to Stede and Ed, and they're a little bit ahead of Stede and Ed in how much they can talk about things. So to have a bunch of family things in the season, like a funeral and a wedding, and have the parents kind of watch the kids sail away, felt right, and all of those things seem to work well together and build on each other."

Discusses retirement ending - "That will-they-or-won't-they is interesting to a point, but the real meat of it is always like, "Can they make the relationship, and can they do better than Anne and Mary?""

"Frenchie's in charge of the Revenge" + teases Stede struggling to give it up

EW.com - Oct 26, 2023 - with Devan Coggan - Link

Discusses Izzy's death and telling Con - "It feels like the logical end of Izzy's arc. It's heartbreaking to me because he's my favorite." + "I told him in the middle of shooting because I didn't want him to find out at the table read, obviously. I also didn't want it to leak. He was lovely about it."

Discusses Izzy's final arc - "You know, I didn't expect him to become kind of a father figure to Ed. I think we hit on that while we were breaking the [final] episode. He's in such a weird position: He's like a jilted lover, and then he's a middle manager who has to work for a terrible boss. He gets thrown away, and then he comes back. He really develops, and he becomes a part of this family. I think the biggest surprise was the extent that he was a mentor to Ed. They were both Blackbeard. They both made Blackbeard happen."

Discusses the happy ending intent - "With this season starting so dark, I kind of wanted to reward them for the work that they've done and the character growth that they've had. I wanted to leave them in a place where they're really going to try and make this work. I don't think it's going to be easy for them, necessarily. They're both still immature."

Discusses the wedding - "We knew we wanted a matelotage in the second season, and pretty quickly we landed on Lucius and Black Pete. It seems like they were ready for that. We made up a ceremony and everything, where they call each other mateys, and it was just fun to make our own version of a pirate wedding ceremony."

Discusses potential S3 and Frenchie's Revenge - "But it felt like a good place to end the second season. It felt like a contrast to the first season. If it turns out we don't make any more, I'm comfortable with that being a resting place."

Variety - Oct 26, 2023 - with Hunter Ingram - Link

S3 endpoint - "I love things in threes," he says. "That first act, second act, third act structure is so satisfying when it is done well, and you don't overstay your welcome. I think this world of the show is a big world, and if the third season is successful, we could go on in a different way. But I think for the story of Stede and Ed, that is a three-season story."

Discusses the draw of a "Golden Age" and it's ending

Talks about father figure Izzy and wanting a real sense of loss - "There is a nice parallel to have Ed treat him so badly at the beginning of the season and then come all the way around to where Izzy is this sort of father figure he doesn’t want to lose — because Ed usually kills his father figures."

Gizmodo - Oct 26, 2023 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

Teasing future Izzy - "Jenkins looked slightly sad himself, saying that "Ghosts exist in this world." I told him not to make promises he couldn't keep."

"Jenkins said that he doesn't see Izzy as a pure antagonist in season one because on some level… Izzy was right in his hesitations about Stede."

Discussing Con O'Neill & Rhys Darby acting

Jenkins confirms the season was always 8 episodes due to budget cuts

About S2 finale vs S3 - "The first season ends on such a downer, so it made sense to end the second season in a kinder spot." + "I think there's plenty of story left for season three, but I think that it was important to end this as if it was the end of the show, and on upbeat note and avoid the kind of "kill your gays" trope. I don't want to see Stede and Ed punished for giving it a go. I want to see them really say, 'yeah, we’re going to we're going to try to have a relationship'."

Teases S3 revenge against Ricky and going to the Americas

Vanity Fair - Oct 26, 2023 - with Sarah Catherall - Link

About the ending - "It's bittersweet. There's death and there's the rebirth of Stede and Blackbeard's relationship; there's a funeral, there's a wedding, and the idea that this family is going to keep fighting even as they lose members. And then it's about belonging to something." + "A lot of times, with this narrative of characters, same-sex relationships end on a dour, downbeat note, where one of them dies and it's unrequited or it's unrealized; something horrible happens and they're punished in a way. So it was important to leave it open and a lot more show to go, but also leave it in a place where it's happy."

Discusses Izzy as a mentor / father figure - "We felt like Izzy's story had reached its conclusion, where we put him through enough. And then there was the realization that he is kind of a mentor to Blackbeard and that he is kind of a father figure to Blackbeard." + "And it's also a pirate show, so he's got to die."

Discusses filming challenges - "It's a big show; it's basically a one-hour show that we're doing on a half-hour budget."

Discusses adding Zheng Yi Sao

Is the show a queer romance? - "For this show, it's important to me just to write a really bold-bodied romantic show that happens to be between two characters of the same sex. I think that the story beats don't matter, because if you've been in love and you've been hurt and you met someone you love—hopefully we all know what those feelings are."

Blackbeard's arc in S2 - "...the second season is about Blackbeard's midlife crisis. And then when they both have their midlife crises, they can open a B&B together." + "I don't think Stede and Blackbeard are ready to be married. They're emotionally saying: 'Let's give this a go.'"

Discusses historical piracy as "counterculture" that's been straightwashed and whitewashed

Did he feel responsibility to the fan community? - "As opposed to responsibility, it feels more like relief—that people feel seen and they feel good about it and they liked what we did. And so it feels like, Okay, somebody's out there and wants the show. The makeup of the writers room looks a lot like the makeup of the fan base. So as long as we're true to our stories in the writers room, I think we just feel excited that there's somebody waiting on the other end to enjoy it."

Paste Magazine - Oct 26, 2023 - with Tara Bennett - Link

Discusses whether fandom expectations felt weighty - "I think particularly for this season, that "bury your gays" thing… I didn't want to end on a downbeat for Ed and Stede. We did that in the first season. I like that there's a lot of different flavors. It's even a little melancholy because the Republic of Pirates got blown up. But there's still more good things."

Discusses production and plotting - "I wanted to start at the Republic of Pirates this season and end at the Republic of Pirates. And I knew I wanted the Republic of Pirates to be destroyed, ultimately. Within that, we are making a one-hour show on a half hour budget, on a half hour schedule."

Discusses planning the ending - "In terms of ending this season, it all felt right just in talking through it when we were in the room. It felt pretty intuitive. When you get to the third act of the story, things kind of settle in. There's gonna be a funeral. We always knew we wanted a wedding at the end of the second season. And I knew that I wanted Stede and Ed to start an inn together. So once you have those beats, it's kind of locked in."

Discusses Izzy's arc - "It's kind of a strange arc in that I knew we were going to put him through all these things, and I knew he would ultimately die. But I think him becoming a father figure to Ed in the last episode didn't really dawn on us until we were breaking the last episode. Asking what would this man say to Ed at the end because they've been together through everything? He went from a troubled and downtrodden employee to a jilted lover to a discarded employee, to someone that is just trying to find his footing again—no pun intended—to actually becoming this guy's parental figure on some level. And he's one person who kind of raised Ed right, because Blackbeard usually kills his parental figures. So, it felt right and it felt like that's how the mentor dies. The mentor in a story usually dies in the second act and then our hero has to go on and try to do it without them. It felt like the right journey for Izzy and a gratifying one for Con."

On leaving open for S3 - "I don't think it was a very hard thing to do. I think it was more that I felt a responsibility to leave Ed and Stede in a good place, at least for now. It's not gonna go well. They're not going to run a business well. Ed's too much of a talker. Stede can't focus. It's gonna be challenging."

Vulture - Oct 28, 2023 - with Sophie Brookover - Link

Discussing Izzy as a "father figure" and his S2 send-off being a priority

Meaning of piracy - "...what our pirates stand for is a life of belonging to something larger than they are in the face of a crushing, slightly fascist normalcy."

Re: Con O'Neill & Izzy's death - "I had to tell him about halfway through the season"

Third season about the work of a relationship between still damaged main characters

Discusses middles as about change and transitions, and wanting characters to change instead of reset, have them experience permanent consequences

About the final scene - "...Ed and Stede as the parents kind of watching the kids take the ship. Frenchie's the captain now..."

Objective of the crew - "...have had terrible things happen to them at the hands of colonial forces, so they want some payback. Party, plunder, and payback — the three P's."

Metro Weekly - Nov 1, 2023 - with Randy Shulman - Link

Discusses historical premise of S1 and easing into the romance

Discusses S2 genre - "In the second season, it was great because we know it's a romance and we can lead with that. It's a workplace show essentially. I wanted it to be more in the vein of early episodes of Grey's Anatomy or something where there are all these relationships on those shows. That's what you’re following — relationships and friendships that are taking place in a hospital, procedural. That's Grey's Anatomy. This is less procedural for the pirate stuff — and you need the pirate stuff."

Discusses not being into pirates - "But I'm like you. I'm not a big pirate person. In general, it's a big creaky genre that's hard to budge" + "Pirates of the Caribbean, those movies are great. That's not necessarily what I hunger to see, but in that genre, it's great. You're not going to beat that, especially on something that's lower budget. We've seen a lot of this stuff, so it's fun to take it then and don't do any of that stuff."

Discusses adapting historical piracy - "You don't want to see them punch down. You don't want to see them do terrible things to people who don't deserve it, which is not what they really did. So, in the show's world, I think piracy is like a stand-in for something. I think it's a stand-in for being an iconoclast and an outsider and queer in some ways and just different." + "Yeah, I mean, the British are there to be Stormtroopers, or Nazis in an Indiana Jones movie. I mean, they're in there to die essentially."

Discusses diversity staffing

Discusses performative masculinity

Discusses Izzy's death, happy endings, and openness to S3

#trust me i appreciate the irony of making an extensive word of god reference when i want people to stop blindly promoting word of god #(and also when i'm currently very irritated with the creators)#and fyi showrunners talk A LOT but i was already committed so this was more work than i was expecting #i'll even use a small bit of my extra hour of destiel day to post this (most of it was assembled while watching supernatural)#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd meta #david jenkins #word of god #ladyluscinia

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duckiemimi · 9 months

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i’ve seen some people say that if gojo didn’t meet geto, he would’ve turned out like naoya. and as open as i am to different interpretations, this is just…plain wrong.

naoya always felt like he had something to prove, despite the overconfidence he typically exhibited. he was born as a prospective successor to the zenin clan (the “true heir,” according to him), but toji was obviously more powerful than he was despite having no CE, and even in the rival clan, gojo was regarded as the child who tipped the balance of the world. naoya had this huge inferiority complex and that lended to his misogynistic tendencies, resulting in him trying to exert his dominance to show that he can live up to his aspirations and be on par with toji and gojo. also, gege made it a point to show how power-hungry the zenin clan was—always keep in mind that naoya grew up in a culture that valued superiority over everything.

gojo, on the other hand, simply is. he’s everything naoya is not—undeniably powerful and full of infinite potential. unlike how the zenin clan was portrayed, we don’t know much about the gojo clan and i think that was done with purpose. the zenin clan had to be introduced because we needed exposition for maki, mai, naoya, and toji (and megumi); we needed to understand how and why they turned out the way they did. gojo is the only gojo clan member we know, implying that we as readers have nothing substantial to learn from the introduction of the gojo clan (at least nothing substantial relating to the plot of the story just yet, nor would it add anything substantial to gojo’s characterization—he can stand as his own character without family background exposition).

naoya and gojo have always been different from the start. naoya looks down on people because of his insecurities disguised as arrogance, while gojo understands he’s treated the way he is because he was born the pinnacle of jujutsu. if gojo “looks down” on people, it’s not out of entitlement, but simply because he is that powerful.

(if anything, for him to put aside his sheer power to yearn for human connection, to want to close the gap between him and his allies—it’s all a testament to how painfully human he is.)

i’m not sure why people think gojo meeting geto prevented him from becoming misogynistic (actually, i do know why they think this way), but i think it’s unfair to dismiss the fact that geto was just as much of a little shit as gojo was. are we forgetting how they were both introduced in the hidden inventory arc? they both dunked on utahime! yea, sure they did it in different ways (gojo being straightforward and snotty, and geto going the roundabout backhanded route), but they were both just as bad as the other, both incredibly insufferable.

i wouldn’t say that it came from a place of insecurity (like naoya); it’s more like they both genuinely thought they were better than other people in general, regardless of circumstance. and they weren’t wrong about that—remember, they were two 16 year old teenage boys who were already classified as special grade sorcerers. of course, they’d be insufferable and annoying! they could’ve literally taken on the whole world together!

yes, geto was a monumental figure in gojo’s life—the memories linger and everything he does afterwards is tinged in geto’s absence, but that doesn’t mean his connection to geto is the only thing that characterizes him. he’s his own person now and he can live without him, despite their history. yes, he carries that grief for life, but since when did grief define you as a person?

#jjk #geto suguru #gojo satoru #satosugu #夏五 #sugusato #gojo #jujutsu kaisen #geto #gego #naoya zenin #zenin clan #also keep in mind im saying he’s not explicitly characterized as misogynistic #im not saying he cant have a certain heteronormative expectation no matter how subtle #but to outright say he’d turn out like naoya is such an incorrect take #they were different since the very beginning not bc geto walked into gojo’s life #stop reducing their characters to fit this heteronormative narrative u have for stsg!!

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lightningidle · 1 year

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A thought about Gerard’s scene in Episode 18, which is: Elody watches the conversation between Gerard and Rapunzel.

——————

Princess Elody is a tactical motherfucker, so even when these cool young women approach her and say all the right things, things that make sense, she doesn’t fully buy in. Not at face value.

When they talk about princes, it’s somehow both completely flippant and with caustic derision — like these young men were props meant to move the plot along, sole owners of agency in stories that weren’t even titled after them. (Elody wonders about their treatment of the princes as the fairies’ deux es machina, wonders about how easy it is to “kill a lot of princes” as Snow White explains. And by their own logic, how likely is it, really, that the princes are cardboard cutouts if Cinderella is so sure her stepmother, not even royalty, has her own book?)

There’s evidence to the contrary of this in her story specifically, which she has no trouble recounting. There’s no way her prince was meant to pacify her into an idyllic life, because he’s a layabout! He’s unreliable! And sure, he’s charming and fun, yes, he tried to pull her away from the war table, but that wasn’t because of any scheming to get her to stay in line, it was just because he wanted attention. He’s frivolous, he’s not a monster, she says. She’s so passionate in her defense of Gerard’s personhood that she almost misses the shared look of the princesses, the glint in Rapunzel’s eye.

Let us show you, Rapunzel says, what a monster looks like.

The scrying ritual is completed quickly and without fuss. Rapunzel stares into a mirror that ripples like water, and then, on the other side, there he is. More froglike than he’s ever been.

“You’re a prince, friends are probably pretty expendable, right? How many friends have you really had, other than Elody?”

Now hold on, Elody wants to say, that’s goading him. That’s not fair. Cinderella puts a firm hand on her shoulder and shakes her head no, to stay quiet, to wait it out. Elody bites her tongue and waits for Gerard to prove one of them right.

“Your friends seem to really value you as a person. I’m sure it’s a comfort to know that they’re not just sort of putting up with you because you’ll tag along and swing your sword, prove a little bit useful.”

Gerard has snowball fights with his friends. He has friends? He has a dedicated workout buddy? She’s not sure he’s ever been dedicated to anything, except for gossip... or her. Now that she thinks about it, he has always been unquestionably devoted to her, hasn’t he?

“I have seen some titanic feats of strength from my companions the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White. Truly impressive acts of heroism.

I do not think I have seen any of my sisters strain more greatly than the Princess Elody to find something kind to say about you.”

Elody does open her mouth to speak this time, which turns out to be a huge mistake when a writhing mass of knotted hair wraps around the lower half of her face. Not to constrict, only to silence. A pit forms in her stomach at the thought that Rapunzel might not be lying, that in trying to defend Gerard she only condemned the worst of him.

“Yes... I don’t... I don’t doubt that.”

Her heart breaks for the second time.

“But I haven't seen the Princess Elody in a while, and I think it's telling that I'm seeing you in this lake and not her or any of the other princesses. I think you’re... manipulating people, or not telling them the full truth.”

Her eyes dart to the other princesses. Snow White’s expression remains unchanged, though Cinderella’s darkens slightly. When Rapunzel speaks again, it does not escape Elody’s notice that she doesn’t acknowledge what Gerard pointed out; she deflects. Elody is getting angrier, now, tugging at the hair around her jaw, hardly even hearing the next bit until a third voice speaks up, says the Princess Elody cares for you deeply.

“Not quite the same thing.”

“It's not, but seeing as the last thing she saw of me was me running away after I had already done that, I’m grateful that she still cares for me at all.”

The hair gathering around her tenses. Elody was brought here to see that, when Gerard thought nobody else could hear, he would prove himself to be just an agent of the fairies, or an empty vessel, or a selfish monster. What she’s seeing is none of those things. But she’s also not seeing the man she knew as her husband: he’s grown and changed, almost become someone else entirely. She wants to call out to Gerard. She wants to get to know him all over again.

“Gerard,” Rapunzel hisses, “what do you think the odds are that it got into Elody's head that the virtuous thing to do was to fall in love with a cold and slimy frog, and that every kindness she has paid you in your life has been a testament to her charity, rather than anything about you that would bring her joy?”

Elody freezes.

“I don't know that I can answer that.”

“It doesn’t seem very fair to Elody that you can’t.”

“... I agree.”

The image in the mirror of the man who will never be a man again ripples and vanishes. Elody’s hands have fallen away from the hair around her face, which is convenient, as she finds herself suddenly holding a book. The hair recedes, and she doesn’t register what it is Rapunzel is saying to try and placate her, because the book in her hands is a slim volume, bound in her favorite shade of green and embossed in golden ink.

On the front is the title — The Princess Elody.

#neverafter #Dimension 20 #dimension 20 neverafter #gerelody #princess elody #gerard of greenleigh #d20 elody #elody of greenleigh #gerard and elody #d20 neverafter #my art #I GUESS #this is honestly just me trying to cope with that last episode #GERELODY NATION HOW WE FEELING

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factual-fantasy · 8 months

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@octonauts16 (Post in question) TLDR at the bottom!😅

Yeah, that was Wally <XD I doodled that on the screen while kind'a forgetting all the stuff I've talked about Welcome Home recently. How I don't wanna join the fandom and such..

But to be honest I've been kind'a torn on Welcome home over the past few days. I recently developed 3 big main reasons why I don't want to join the fandom and draw the characters. But those reasons are quickly starting to dissolve-

Reason #1. Now I don't know if I just saw the wrong side of the fandom, but it felt like everywhere I went there was shipping content. Cannon or not, it was everywhere. And of course I'm known for not liking ships or really drawing any lovey dovey content.. I was worried enough about people tagging all of my Welcome Home art as shipping, that I figured I'd save myself the trouble and just.. not post any art of it all together.

But then I thought about it.. I mean, Undertale was a huge shipping fandom too. And I was able to weasel my way around all of that and come out unscathed. Surly the Welcome Home shipping fandom wouldn't be much harder to navigate.. right?

Reason #2. I wasn't really sure.. what to draw exactly. Everyone seems to have their own interpretation for the story of Welcome Home. Wally's the Bad guy, no House is the bad guy and he's controlling Wally, no no Wally and House are both the bad guys together. Their world is real- no actually its all make believe and Wally is the only one who knows its fake- aaaa so many stories!

I felt like it would take a lot of work and research to make my own version/interpretation of the story and the characters. So I just dropped it and didn't want to bother. I'm still so busy...

...But then its like 4 AM and I have ideas for redesigns of every character, a story is being constructed, angsty situations are being plotted, lore is growing- I hardly know much about Welcome Home truly, yet I already have a whole world built that I wanna start drawing-

But! Its reason #3 that's kept me from drawing anything. Clown, the series creator.

Looking around the fandom.. It seems that Clown is like me. They have certain boundaries when it comes to their characters and what they do and do not approve of others drawing about it. I know about the copywrite issues they're dealing with.. people selling merch of their characters and profiting.. its really sad. But there's more to it.

I saw some artwork for Welcome home and went to the comments. Everyone was like "I'm so glad to finally find an artist that respects Clowns boundaries!" And I'm like uh oh- are people drawing things that make Clown uncomfortable? Has Clown been dealing with that? What are those boundaries? Is anything I would like to draw something that would cross said boundaries?

So out of laziness to not dig deeper to find these boundaries, but also wanting to RESPECT said boundaries.. I just cut off any artwork from being made all together.

But my interest in this series is definitely getting stronger. And maybe sometime after these projects are finally off my chest, I'll look into Clown and see if any of my artwork would cross a line..

For now I'm too lazy, and too busy to make any artwork for Welcome Home <XDDD Maybe someday though!

TLDR; The #1 reason why I haven't drawn Welcome Home fanart is because I think Clown has certain boundaries when it comes to fanart. And I don't know what they are, I am also too lazy to look into it. So I just decided to not draw anything at all until further notice <XDD

#my response #welcome home #welcome home clown #do I tag that? Maybe-

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twice-inamillion · 10 months

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Playing In The Future Home

Fluff and Smut

1.4 K words

(Jihyo and OC making new memories)

"I can't wait to see where we are going to build our future house," Jihyo said as she looked outside the window. The two of you are on your way to visit the plot of land that you showed her before through FaceTime.

"Minji gave me the keys to the gate so we can park the car inside and walk around." Jihyo puts up her hands closer, "Look, my hand is shaking from how excited I am right now."

"Don't be nervous. I know you are going to like it. We are almost there; just a couple more minutes."

You exit the highway and immediately make a left turn. Then drive down the windy road up a small hill and turn right into a private road. Only two hundred feet into a private road filled with trees and bushes, you are met with a large metal gate, "I'm going to open the gate; I'll be right back." Once the gate is open, you drive inside and close the gate around before driving again. The dirty road eventually leads you to a grass-filled field, "we're here."

The two of you get out of the car; Jihyo walks around for a bit as you get your backpack and binder. "What do you think?"

"It's amazing, and it's big. I love the trees and bushes that surround the entrance."

"Yes, Minji said that the previous owner fenced the entire estate so their animals wouldn't get out. Makes it easier for us because it ensures our privacy."

You take out your binder and show Jihyo some sketches that you and Minji worked on for the past two days. "Look, here are some examples of the potential layout," as you point at the 2D view of the whole estate. "This right here is the layout of the entrance layout just came in front, and we are standing here," as you point at the spot you are standing in. "The lot is huge, and it does have a slight hill towards the back and trees throughout the lot. What Minji and I thought was to keep the entrance untouched, just grass and the house in the middle. Because the area has so much space, we have the option of a one-story house that has spread out or a two-story house. We can also have detached buildings like a music room and multiple guest houses away from the main house but still close. We can even have a large pool with a building on its own, but we would need to childproof it. We have a lot of options to make this place perfect. Towards the back of the lot are multiple trees and a small stream that runs across the end of the property."

The both of you walk around, and Jihyo tries to visualize the house with the binder in her hands. "I like it, and I think the members will be happy. When do you think we can buy it and start building?"

"I talked to Minji about it, and she said that the owner has wanted to sell the property for a while since all his family has moved to the city abroad and has no more use for it. Regarding the building, we can talk to a few contractors and get the permits ready after we buy the property. Shouldn't be too long, but it all depends on the layout of the house."

"The faster, the better; I can just see the babies running around and having fun with each other. I want Jisoo to have a memorable childhood and grow up safe without the eyes of the public on her and the rest."

"She will; just imagine her playing with the twins on a swing or going down the slide. It's going to be perfect." You hold her hand and start to walk, "let me show you the best part." The both of you walk up toward the end of the property, where you see a hill surrounded by numerous trees. There is a special tree that is much older than the rest, and as you both get closer, Jihyo is amazed by its size, "Wow, the tree is huge."

"The tree isn't the only thing; turn around." Jihyo turns to see a fantastic view of the landscape. Her future is right before her, and the rest of the world is in the background. "Omg, the view is wonderful. Thank you, oppa," hugging you.

"Everything here is for us, our future. You deserve the whole world, and I will try my best to give you that." Jihyo tears up from happiness, and the both of you share a passionate kiss.

"Thank you."

After settling down, you both sit on the blanket and snacks you brought and enjoy a bottle of wine. Jihyo, a good drinker, enjoys the wine more than you and, little by little, gets tipsy. "Oppa, want to mess around a little bit? We're alone, so we can have a little fun," giving you a sexy wink.

"For you, I'm able to go all the way."

She pushes you down, gets on top of you, and starts to unbutton your shirt. "Don't do anything; I'll take care of everything and just enjoy." With your chest exposed, she kisses every inch of you, "oppa, you have a manly chest; I love it."

You give a soft moan as she kisses your neck, "Jihyo, it hurts."

Jihyo looks down and sees the large bulge in your pants, "Oh wow, hard already?"

"It's just that you're too sexy, I can't help it."

She undoes your pants and fishes out your cock. "Don't worry, little fellow; you'll get your turn soon enough." Once she's done with your neck, she stands up and pulls down her leggings and panties. Jihyo sits on your shaft, causing you to moan, "Ahhh, you're bending my cock."

"Hmmm, I can feel your cock throbbing, but it's not time yet," as she begins to grind on you. The feeling of her lips hugging your cock throws you over the edge, and Jihyo knows it. "How do you like that? You like it when I grind my pussy on your cock?"

"Jihyo, please don't tease; let me put in it."

"Just a bit longer," as she increases the pace. She puts more of her weight on your cock, causing you to moan in pain. "Fuck, I can feel your hot cock throbbing. You're such a bad boy, but good job on holding on. Here is your reward."

Jihyo grabs your cock and lifts herself, aligning it to her entrance. You watch as the head of your cock spreads her lips apart, causing you to gasp, "Fuck, you're so tight." She drops her whole weight, and her cunt swallows you whole, "Ahh… fuck, you're cumming already?"

You grab her waist and hold her tight, "take all of my cum!" She places her hands on your chest and digs her nails as she begins to ride you as you cum inside her. "Let it all out; I'll milk you of all you're worth."

You see her lustful eyes, the eyes of someone who's found her prey. She rides you as you cum, her tits swaying from side to side, "come on baby, do you like how I ride your big cock? Your cock that's filling me up with baby batter. Stay hard for me, okay."

Jihyo, with her head on your chest, can hear your heavy breathing, she knows that she has you in her hands. "You think you can go for another round?"

“Ye…yeah… I… I can."

She sits back up, ties her hair in a ponytail, looks you in the eyes, and begins to ride you once more. You can help you move your gaze, but she says, "Don't, look at me. You're mine."

All you hear now is the noise of flesh grinding against each other, Jihyo's tight walls choking your cock.

She rides you for about five minutes until you cum once, filling her womb with baby batter. "Yeah… just like that. Fill me up with your cum” as she tightens up her cunt. Once she's done milking you for the second, she lifts herself up and lays beside you.

Haven gotten a happy ending you look at her erect nipple and attach yourself you it. "Aww, my poor baby, there, there. Suck on mommy's tits until you're full, okay" as she caresses your head. You fall asleep attached to her breast as Jihyo hugs you tight in her arms.

#twice smut #kpop smut #male reader #twice fluff #kpop fluff #twice jihyo #jihyo smut #jihyo fluff #TM smut

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flowerandblood · 5 months

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The Prince and The Fox (7)

[ modern! • Aemond x friend! • female ]

[ warnings: kissing, fluff, swearing ]

[ description: After the events of her childhood, despite her best efforts, her neighbor and the younger brother of her friend Helaena, Aemond, does not want to know her. This state lasts until a house party organized by his older brother, Aegon, during which an incident occurs that will change their relationship forever. Slow burn, angst, toxic ex-Alys, rough Aemond. This is several anon requests combined into one fic. ]

WARNING: The main plot between the characters takes place in high school. Yes, in high school. The belief that teenagers wait with an intimacy when they are in love in high school is ridiculous to me. Aemond and the character here are the same age. Don't ask me how old they are, in my country you are of the age of consent in your first year of high school and an adult in the last year of high school, so if it is more convenient for you, think about it that way and decide for yourself. In this story, I am not following the trail that they are magically friends right away, but how they become friends and what that even means. I'm writing this fic to give the perspective of young, lost people, not adult women who want to see exactly themselves in everything they read. If that's all you expect, this isn't the fic for you.

I don't want whining about this in my comments or asks. I will delete these and block you. You have been warned.

Aemond + Evans Series Moodboard

This is my first story that has its own playlist, but yes! Get in the mood! Story Music Playlist. Song used in this chapter: Rammstein - Du Hast

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

From the day he called her there was a change in him that surprised her. He would come up to her at breaks of his own accord, stand and talk to her, telling her about his day, what he was reading and playing. After what he wrote to her, Alys never spoke to him again and he told her that he felt like a huge stone had fallen off his back.

They often wrote after school, complaining about homework or tests, no longer having the energy to study, tired and discouraged. They usually wrote for hours about nothing, sending each other memes or screenshots of articles they had just read, however, she enjoyed it very much and, most importantly, he enjoyed it too.

They always sat together on the bus listening alternately to his and her playlist. He let her lay her head on his shoulder, himself resting his cheek against her hair.

She knew she was in love with him, had known it for a long time, but she felt that everything was as it should be.

That they were coming closer together in slow, small steps.

He surprised her one day when they were standing at the bus stop. She already knew him enough to feel that he wanted to say something, but as usual he had trouble getting it out. He looked down at his trainers, his hands slipped into the pockets on the front of his black hoodie, his lips tightened.

After a moment, he grunted, not looking at her, she had a feeling his skin was rosier than usual, as if he was hot even though it was cool and unpleasant around them.

"I've been thinking a lot lately." He began, licking his lower lip as if he was carefully analysing the next sentence he wanted to say.

"I…em-well." He paused, as if he had lost the thought. She glanced at him with sympathy seeing how difficult this was for him.

"I figured if you wanted to, I don't know, hold my hand sometimes, or do some other dating shit, I wouldn't mind." He choked out quickly at last, embarrassed, his nostrils moving in an anxious breath, he wasn't looking at her.

She blinked, feeling herself blush, a hot sensation spread throughout her body, a pleasant tickle in her belly. She pressed her lips together, lowering her gaze, embarrassed.

Was he just telling her that he was ready to take things a step further?

That he wanted something more than friendship?

"Okay." She said softly, not knowing what else to add, as stunned by it all as he was, it seemed to her that she had never felt anything like it before in her life.

As usual they sat on the bus together, but this time she had the feeling that he had specially pressed himself tighter against her with his arm, his knee touching hers.

She was hot with emotion so she had to pull her jacket off, and as she returned to her previous position, she placed her hand gently on his.

He looked at her surprised and swallowed loudly, his cheek immediately pressed against her hair as she laid her head on his shoulder, his pleasant scent filling her lungs.

She felt him intertwine their fingers, his Adam's apple waved as he swallowed hard again, his thumb stroking her skin gently in a gesture of such immense tenderness that she felt emotional.

She didn't dare hold his hand as they walked down the shool corridor, she was afraid of malicious comments towards him from others, she knew he only dreamed of sitting in his shadow and never coming out of it.

However, he would sit next to her on the floor during breaks, listening to music with her on his headphones, he made her really like Rammstein, they often listened to her favourite song 'Du Hast'. He would sometimes send her great recordings of their concerts, which she watched with blazing eyes in bed in her bedroom.

What pleased Helaena most about their closeness was that she could spend time with both of them at the same time without fear of conflict.

They often played online games together on the PlayStation, something she hadn't done much before but had become addicted to because of them, also joining in remotely with them via her laptop when she couldn't see them.

She wrote him back quickly without a second thought, knowing that tomorrow was Saturday and she could sit up late with them.

She told her parents where she was going, grabbed a few things to change into thinking that if she stayed up late she would spend the night in Helaena's bed and ran across the street, knocking on their door.

She heard Vhagar's loud, excited barking and then someone's footsteps, Aemond opened it for her and invited her in.

"Hi!" She shouted loudly into the ether looking around for Helaena, she saw him give her a surprised glance, following her into the depths of their living room.

"No…we are alone. Helaena and Aegon have gone off somewhere, my parents are away until Monday." He said looking at her uncertainly, as if he felt he might have inadvertently deceived or confused her in some way.

She blinked, tightening her lips, feeling butterflies in her stomach.

They would be alone.

Like a couple.

"…if you don't want to, then..."

"− no, it's fine. What are we going to play?" She asked pulling her backpack off her back and placing it next to the couch.

They spread out comfortably on the large sofa next to each other with the pads in their hands, browsing through the various online games, unsure of what to play. They usually played as a group of three so they didn't want to continue through the levels Helaena was helping them with.

"How about this?" He asked lowly, opening a preview of a game in which the characters were warriors flying on dragons, fighting in sky battles against other players who were also online. The gameplay was for up to two players.

"Oh, yes, I've always wanted to play this!" She exclaimed excitedly, sliding slightly down in her seat, and he hummed under his breath, starting up the game, waiting for it to load.

They were able to choose their gender, outfits and equipment with great detail and also the appearance of their dragon, so it took them the first hour.

"A bow? Don't you prefer a crossbow?" He asked with some kind of disappointment looking at her choice.

"I want a bow." She burbled undaunted, moving on to her heroine's hair colour and what kind of hairstyle she wanted.

They decided they'd start with training to learn how to control their big sky beasts at all, and it turned out not to be easy to pilot them so that they flew where they wanted, didn't hit each other, and at the same time shoot at their opponent.

"Shit. This is a game for kids aged 12 and up. It shouldn't be that fucking hard." He muttered, clicking the buttons of his pad loudly, as soon as he shot his dragon flew off a bit to the side and the arrow didn't reach his opponent. She sighed loudly at his words.

"We are poor players. I don't know if there is any point in humiliating ourselves by fighting experienced twelve-year-olds who will destroy us after a few seconds." She said amused to watch them both get tired, she heard him chuckle lowly and felt her cheeks blush.

"Yeah. We can check out the exploring cities mode. There are whole maps here. Then the gameplay is about flying to specific points and completing missions." He murmured, quickly clicking something on his pad, switching them from training mode to travel mode.

"Oh, great! I love it!" She said happily, pleased with how nice and detailed the graphics were, their dragons flying side by side and circling over a large, golden city reminiscent of some medieval kingdom.

They played like this for a while, commenting only briefly on what they were doing and the dialogue between the other characters, occasionally getting into fights with someone, but without the control of the dragons it was much easier and they both got caught up in the story. She was surprised and blinked when she suddenly saw him press pause.

She glanced at him questioningly, thinking he had to go to the bathroom or wanted to get himself something to drink, but he just looked at her and slid a little lower on the couch so that their faces were at a similar height.

She could feel the heat in her lower abdomen and her heart beating fast, she felt her cheeks burning, she couldn't hold back a slight embarrassed smile. He hummed under his breath, the corner of his mouth curving upwards involuntarily.

"Wanna kiss?" He asked, and she felt a wave of heat surge through her body, she clenched her thighs together, feeling a pleasant pulsing and tickling between them, she felt like her lungs were filled to the brim.

She nodded her head.

He smiled and reached his hand up to her cheek, his warm, soft, wet lips clinging to hers in a sticky, loud, tender kiss. He pulled away from her for a moment to look at her, and then they embraced and kissed again and again, her hand slipping into his hair, soft and smelling pleasantly of masculine shower gel, she thought with her heart beating hard that he had taken a bath before she came.

She heard him murmur as she felt him reciprocate his kisses, once in a while sucking his lower lip between hers, his hand tightened on the nape of her neck and hugged her tighter, their warm bodies touching.

His hands roamed her cheeks, her hair, her neck and her back and although she felt desire in that touch, it didn't make her uncomfortable, it wasn't intrusive.

She didn't want him to stop.

She felt something begin to happen to her as they both began to breathe loudly, their kisses faster, deeper, more intimate, more greedy, accompanied by the embarrassingly loud sound of their saliva, their fingers pressed painfully tight on their bodies.

"− so pretty −" He breathed out into her mouth and she trembled all over hearing it, feeling as if a pleasant wave of heat had passed through her body, the inside of her core between her thighs pulsed hard, for some reason she felt that she was terribly wet.

"− mhm −" She mumbled only, deepening the kiss thinking only of making sure he didn't stop, that she wanted this, that she wanted him.

That she wanted him to touch her.

He paused for a moment, panting loudly, his nose pressed against her cheek as he felt her take the arm he was embracing her with in her hand and slide it lower, grabbing his wrist.

"− did I do something wrong? −" He whispered in a trembling voice and drew in the air loudly, surprised when she took his hand in hers and gently placed it on her breast covered only by the material of her Tshirt.

"− fuck −" He muttered in shock, involuntarily his fingers tightened tentatively on her soft flesh, she could feel his accelerated breath on her face, that he was looking at what he was doing, where his hand was. "− so soft −"

She felt his words between her thighs, sighing quietly, unable to believe how pleasant it was, how warm and large his hand felt, his touch gentle, full of curiosity, respect and uncertainty.

He kissed her again, still keeping his hand on her breast, kneading it gently, sighing in delight as she struggled to catch her breath, moaning quietly when she felt the tip of his tongue gently brush her upper lip.

"− fuck − mmm −" He hummed quietly, thrusting greedily into her lips, panting loudly along with her, her hand pressed his fingers firmly against her breast forcing him to squeeze her harder and he groaned low right down her throat, her free hand roaming through his hair, his tongue invading deep inside her mouth.

They pulled away from each other, terrified and moved back quickly hearing the sound of a lock being turned and someone's laughter, Aegon talking loudly on the phone.

"She pisses me off, she's always jealous, I don't even get a moment's peace. No, I'm not going back there, I'm already home. Hi little nerds!" He threw them a greeting as he ran up the stairs to the first floor in a few sure strides, and after a moment she heard the sound of his room door closing.

They both swallowed loudly, trying to calm their breathing. She pressed her lips together not believing what had happened, afraid to look at him, not knowing what she should do now. She felt a terrible tension and a throbbing that she didn't know much of what to do about, and she was ashamed to ask him about it, so she just grunted quietly, looking down at her hands.

"Em….so. Shall we keep playing?" He asked in a low, slightly hoarse voice, and she nodded quickly.

They played for a few more hours without saying much, but they sat closer together, their thighs and shoulders touching, she could feel his body with her every move.

Neither of them pulled away, quite the contrary, sometimes when she was waiting for him to move she would lay her head on his shoulder, as she often did on the bus, watching him play and hearing him swallow loudly each time, trying to concentrate on what he was doing.

At some point she felt herself start to fall asleep, it was late but she didn't want to go home. It felt silly to be left without Helaena for the night though and she was afraid that Aegon would tease both him and her later.

That's why she simply laid back in with her face pressed into his neck inhaling his pleasant scent and allowed herself to close her eyes, just for a moment.

"− hey − Foxy − are you asleep? −" She heard him whisper, his warm hand gently stroking her thigh.

"− mmm −" She murmured softly, embracing his arm with her hands, cuddling into him like he was a teddy bear, he was pleasantly warm and smelled of himself, just the way she liked it, it felt good and comfortable. She felt him kiss her cheek a few times.

"Sleep. I'll cover you with a blanket later." He whispered, launching some other game on the pad, apparently a single-player one.

She felt him take his arm from her grasp only to embrace her and hug her close, and she snuggled eagerly into his chest, laying herself comfortably, his cheek resting against the top of her head, all she could hear was the quiet clicking of his pad and the sounds of the game which he had turned down so that she could sleep in peace.

After a while she fell into a deep sleep, squirming in his embrace. Then she felt a sudden emptiness and muttered under her breath discontentedly, searching for him with her hand in the darkness.

She felt someone's lips kissed her hair and stroked her cheek, she smelled his scent, his warm body laid behind her back and embraced her, covering them thoroughly with a warm blanket.

She placed her hands on his intertwining their fingers, his face snuggled into the hollow of her neck, she heard him sigh quietly as if relieved.

She fell asleep.

____

Aemond Taglist:

(bold means I couldn't tag you)

@its-actually-minicika @notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @randomdragonfires @apollonshootafar @padfooteyes

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coriphallus · 2 months

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A little rant on patch 6 and the implications for bg3's future

Okay, bear with me for a sec its gonna go somewhere eventually. My first bg3 run (thats spammed here on this blog) i played ascended astarion/dark urge romance where i picked the reject bhaal and become the absolute ending.

as it was my first playthrough on release i was vibrating off mt seat and i didnt really have elaborate HCs or anything, i was just doing a quick evil run until the bugs get sorted out. i didn't think much beyond "yes this dude would want the shiny stones for himself"

first time i saw astarion enthralled, i was confused. he asked me to do it, he was quite insistent on it since the beginning of the game. i was confused for a couple of hours, digesting the entire game i just played. Then it hit me; the game was calling me out. it was telling me ive been stupid for not having seen this coming and at that point i felt awe.

it was right, everything pointed to this, it was right in front of my eyes all i needed was to connect the dots that the game laid out quite visibly and i was just too caught up to see.

'well my durge would never do that' didnt matter because thats exactly what the companions thought. Gale thought the powers of an insatiable weave wouldnt corrupt him, that he'd stay true to himself, shadowheart thought shar had blessed and her she'd guide her, that she could be her true self under her influence, astarion thought he'd be free, that he'd cherish the bond he'd made with the player but at the end of the day power reveals; and when that power is acquired through the corpses of thousands its quite evident that Absolute power corrupts absolutely. IT WAS IN THE FKIN NAME.

it was a shining bait i was so focused on getting my hands on that i didn't look back to see the mountain of corpses i had to step on to get there. the game was telling me 'HEY LOOK AT EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE TO GET HERE, LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE OTHERS WHO THOUGHT THEY COULD ACHIEVE THIS, DO YOU THINK YOU'D HOLD HANDS AND SING KUMBAYA WITH YOUR FRIENDS AFTER ALL THIS?'

just as there was never an option where frodo could stab saurons flaming eyeball and sit on his throne with the ring on his finger and sam at his side, there was never an ending i could get my 'happy ending' the way id like it to. i wanted frodo to remain in middle earth and have some peace in the end, i didnt understand how he was 'too changed' to remain and sam wasnt when i first read the books. i was angry even, that i didnt get what i wanted. it wasnt like tolkien haphazardly put together an ending out of his ass bcs he didnt know what to do with the characters, its not that he didn't think while writing that the fans would hate it, he wrote a story that achieved its catharsis by reaching its narrative conclusion. it couldnt have done that any other way. it was deliberate. i may not have understood or agreed at the time but it was the story he wanted to tell, and it wouldnt be one of the greatest stories ever told if the writer wanted to please a 10 y/o like myself.

it was never out of character for my durge at all, i was just blissfully avoiding the NARRATIVE.

months later we get this absolute narrative abomination:

and all i can say is im worried.

im worried bcs this is a clear disrespect to the story they've written, im worried bcs if they can do off with huge plot elements and beats such as this just like that it shows a lack of commitment to their own plot and if a huge Point of the game can be treated like a minor mistake than what else can? was is just a lack of oversight that laezel gets killed under vlaakith? can it be waved off if enough vlaakith loving gith players come together and shout loud enough that they want to ride alongside their queen with their gith gf?

what part of the game is tangible to hold on to, and after two years worth of patches that are made to appease the fans at the expense of the story, will it still be the game i fell in love with?

i dont blame the fans for wanting, i blame the devs for delivering. that they could sacrifice the integrity of a pretty straightforward story bodes ill tidings for the future of this game.

yes i wanted this feature, but i was glad i wasn't given it. i may have been confused and slightly miffed that i didn't get to reign supreme with my evil bf, but i immensely respected the game that could call me out on it. i wish they could show the same respect to their own writing.

#bg3 #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate 3 #patch 6

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jeankirsteinsgirl · 9 months

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Somebody Else ~ Eren Jaeger NSFW

smut with plot

CW: vaginal sex, nsfw, angst, jealousy, fingering, cunnilingus, nicknames (baby, slut, babygirl), no condom, mating press, slight degrading?, reader and eren are broken up, alcohol, slight drug use, creampie, overstimulation. read at your own advisory, 18+

Summary: you and Eren just broke up so you decide to go to a party to move on. You make out with Jean briefly Eren sees you there and makes sure you know you’re his.

3.5k words

Two weeks. It’d been two weeks since you broke up with Eren, and more than you would like to admit, it was slowly killing you from the inside- tearing at your guts like a stomach virus you couldn't get rid of. Every time you opened your Instagram there he was posting another Instagram story of a girl grinding against him at some club, drink in his hand looking completely unphased in the slightest. This isn’t how this is supposed to work no no no, you broke up with him, HE should be the one moping around in sweatpants not having left his bed since Thursday. But he was fine, apparently not giving any second thought to the termination of your long-term relationship. This was misery. You finally understood what everyone was talking about in every breakup song ever- you just couldn’t get over it. You had to remind yourself that this was your decision. You did this to yourself, it was you who couldn’t deal with him going out all the time, it was you who needed more attention, it was you who said you were hindering each other’s growth, it was you who said you should break up.

“God i cant believe im moping over Eren while he’s out having the absolute time of his life with Armin.” you think to yourself. After what felt like hours of scrolling through his instagram and old pictures of you and him you decided it was time you did something different. Maybe Eren had the right idea, maybe forcing yourself to move on was really the best way to do it. So you called the two people who knows how to party harder than any of your other friends. Sasha quickly responded to your SOS message about needing to get back out there and Connie said he was conveniently planning on hosting this huge house party tonight at 11. Great. You’ll be there. Looking at your phone it was 7pm now and you figured it couldnt hurt to get ready now and show up a couple hours earlier to help Sasha and Connie set up. So that’s what you did. First you needed to shower badly it had been about 3 days of laying in your bed in the same sweatpants and tanktop and if you were gonna pick up any guys you had to get the depression stench off. Sp first thing you did was hop in the shower letting the steam waft over you, feeling the warm water against your soft skin, thinking about the last time it was this steamy in here, Eren’s hands massaging the shampoo into your scalp his lips tracing kisses- NO. No were not doing that this is about getting over him remember. “You’re getting ready for a party to hookup with the first hot guy you see, thats what this is. This isn’t about him” you tell yourself like a mantra, trying to convince yourself that it was actually true.

You hop out of the shower smelling like warm vanilla and cinnamon, your signature sent that got you lots of compliments all the time - much to Eren’s chagrin. You slowly brush your thick hair out before deciding on straightening it, tossing it in a messy half up half down style. You put on some glowy natural makeup with heavy eyeliner and glittery eyeshadow, I mean after all it is a party you have to look the part. You trot over to your closet listening to some upbeat music to prepare for the night. Dancin over to your clothes you inspect your options and settle on a tight black spaghetti strap dress that you know hugs your curves in all the right places. After finishing getting ready you hop in your car and drive over to Connies surprisingly large house - perfect for house parties- you think to yourself. You pull into the long driveway leading up to the front door and see a few cars already parked in the parking lot, you quickly recognize your best friend Pieck’s car. The red VW bug could be spotted anywhere. Getting a little more excited now you happily walk through the front door and into the kitchen where Sasha, Connie, and Peak were. Connie leaning on the bar dragging on about the latest girl he hooked up with, Sasha punching him in the arm dissapprovingly and pieck sitting at the island laughing. Their faces light up with excitement as they see you, its been too long since they’ve gotten you to go out with them and their very enthusiastic about your sudden interest. “Oh. My. God. That cannot be who I think it is” Connie teases, making fun of your prolonged absence from the friend group before wrapping you in a tight, warm, already drunken hug. “Don’t mind him, were just glad you finally decided to join us!” Sasha says her eyes lighting up as she walks over to hug you in one of her famous bear hugs. “Alright, alright Sasha you can let me go it’s not like I died” You giggle softly before wiggling out of her grasp and grabbing a seat by Pieck. “These two am I right?” Pieck whispers as she leans over to you and rolls her eyes. You agree and let out a quiet laugh before asking what the plan was before the party starts.

Connie says they’ve mostly got everything ready, they went to the store earlier to get the snacks, and alcohol, but he asks if you can get the solo cups from the garage. So you do ad everything was ready. It was just a matter of waiting for everyone to get there. It was about 9:45 now, so your friends decide to share the stories of all the events youve missed in the past two weeks, laughing the whole time while pregaming just a little. Before you know it its 11:15 and people are flooding in, you knew Connie was charismatic and that he had other friendgroups, but not this many. As more and more people arrived the music got louder, the lights got dimmer, and the sent of weed wafted through the air. Connie and Sasha had long left to go dance and Pieck, not usually one for this big of a crowd was petting Connie’s dog on the couch while talking to Annie.

You scanned the chaotic atmosphere and decided now was as good of a time as any to join in on the fun, so you finally dragged yourself off the stool at the island and joined the bustling crowd of sweaty, drunk people. Connie, surprisingly, had a more indie taste in music - the 1975 being his favorite band. He idolized the british drug addict aesthetic of Matty Healy much to your disdain, but at least his parties always had the best music. In the middle of the party you closed your eyes and swayed your body to the steady beat of the music, finally feeling something other than sadness. Feeling a little tipsy by this point you didn’t care who saw you or what they thought of you, you just let yourself enjoy the smooth vibrations of the music.

Until you felt something brush against your waist. You opened your eyes from your music induced coma to see a familiar face close to yours. Jean Kirstein. You, like your friends had known Jean for a while but you weren’t by any means close. Eren never liked you talking to him. But you always thought he was sort of- pretty? And that was only heightened by your drunken state. “Heard ‘bout you and Eren” Jean said sort of matter of factly, it was the first time anyone had directly mentioned Eren to you since it happened. But surprisingly you didnt get that well of sadness in your throat instead you felt slight annoyance. Why was Jean bringing up Erean? “Mhm” you nodded nonchalantly as you continued dancing, Jean towering over you. “Shame” he tsks. You cock an eyebrow up at him in confusion before he continues. “Cant believe Jeager would waste a pretty girl like you.” He said as he lightly grabber your hips with his rough fingers. But you didnt resist him, looking up into his lidded amber eyes it was clear he was drunk too. But isn’t that why youre here, to make bad drunken decisions? You leaned into jeans grasp and turned around pressing your ass into him making him gasp slightly, he hadn’t expected you to be this forward. “Don’t worry ‘bout Eren anymore Jean.” You whisper into his ear sedcutively, cocking your head back to reach his ear. “Yeah? Is that right?” Jean says before placing a single kiss on your jawline, just to judge if you were actually into this or not. After he pulled away you turned around and with some magical sense of sudden confidence pulled him into for a deep kiss. You could feel him smirking over you as he glided his tongue over your bottom lip, you could taste the whiskey on his tongue and smell the intoxicating scent of his cologne. His hands ran from your waist lower and lower until they reached the soft crest of your ass. Moaning into his mouth as he touched you, Jean went from making out with you to placing, sloppy, hot, open mouthed kisses down your neck to your collar bones. “Y’look fuckin’ amazing tonight you know that?” You blush slightly as he continued his attack on your neck. “Wanna feel these beautiful tits bounce under me.” Now it was your time to take the lead, you snaked your small slender fingers under his t-shirt feeling his abs earning a soft groan, leaving sloppy, lipglossy kisses down his neck now. “”Lets go upstairs baby.” Jean growls in your ear before grabbing your hand leading you beyond the crowd of people.

Little did you know Eren was watching the entire time from the couch, legs spread, blunt between his fingers, Mikasa practically drooling over him. He takes a long drag before ghosting it over her lips “Where the fuck she going?” he whispered. “Huh? Oh her” Armin states in disappointment. He’s been trying to get his heartbroken best friend to move on for the past two weeks and it doesn’t seem to be working. “C’mon man you’re not with her anymore” Armin states before taking the blunt from Eren and inhaling. “She’s my girl, not fucking Kirstein’s” Eren remarks angrily, glaring at the scene before him, watching every movement of your ass against Jean, hands balled into fists so tight his knuckles were white. “I dunno man she’s probably just tryna move on. ‘Mean you did the same thing.” Armin remarks back trying to calm Eren down. Just like Eren’s worst nightmare he sees Jean whisper into your ear and drag you upstairs. He knows what that means, he’s done that more times than he can count, and he’s not about to let Jean get away with that. “I’ll be a dead man before I let Kirstein fuck her.” Eren grunts through his teeth before setting his beer down and standing up, knocking poor Mikasa off his lap. “Eren c’mon man dont waste your energy on a slut whose not even your slut anymore” Armin laughs out. “Don’t fucking call her that Armin, she’s my girl, she just doesn’t know that right now.” Erem storms off, Armin losing sight of him as he marches up the stairs with determination. “This whole fucking party’s about to get ruined.” Armin sighs dejectedly.

Meanwhile as you and Jean make it up the stairs you open the door to the first bedroom you see and Jean tosses you on the bed, both of you too drunk to really comprehend the weigh ot your decisions. Jean snaked his large hand up your thigh and you wriggle under him while placing sloppy kisses over his, now shirtless chest. Until you hear a loud bang as the door opens. Fuck. Fuck it’s Eren. What is he even doing here? Why did he know you were in here? Was he watching you? “Get the fuck off her Kirstein” Eren spits out at Jean. “Look Jeager we’re kinda in the middle of something if you don’t mind” Jean smirks. “I said fuck off Kirstein.” Eren grits through his teeth, balling his fists. “Oh yeah and what you gonna do about it Jeager?” Jean antagonizes, its like they both forgot that you were sitting there they were so entranced in fighting eachother. “Guys its okay. Jean go back downstairs I’ll meet you down there in a minute okay?” You say hopefully, doing your best to avoid a fight. “Whatever man” Jean huffs as he walks out and slams the door.

“The fuck you think you’re doing fucking Kirstein?” Eren asks loudly as he walks over to where you’re sitting on the bed. “Eren… I… you know we broke up” “Fuck does that have to do with anything? You’re my fuckin’ girl you better get that through your thick skull, you understand me?” “Eren…” You sigh out at how difficult he was being, but you knew you wanted him, you couldnt deny it. “Eren I’m just trying to move on… I- I mean I thought you already had considering your instagram stories….” You trailed off. “You think I wasn’t looking for you in every slut I met at the club?”. This comment caught you off guard. I mean no, you didn’t think that. Eren was hot, everyone knew it, he had so many options, you never even stopped to consider thinking he still wanted you.

“I- I didnt know…” You said stil trying to process the idea that Eren still wanted you. Eren took your chin in his fingers and lifted it up to face him, before you had the chance to comment he smashed his soft lips into yours. God your lips moved perfectly together, so in sync. Memories flooded over you as you breathed in his masculine cologne You could feel his teeth tug at your bottom lip and you gasped softly, allowin eren access into your mouth. His tongue danced around your mouth perfectly, he knew exactly what he was doing. His fingers played with the hem of your dress as his other hand was massaging small slow circles on your inner thigh. “You look so hot tonight don’t you baby. You tryna get me hard for you princess? Hm? Wanted me to notice your pretty tits?” The truth is he was right, he could read you like a book. You wanted him to see you in this dress. You wanted him to see you grind against Jean. You wanted him to stop you. “Mhm” You moan out softly as his lips had moved to sucking dark hickeys on your neck. “Gonna show everyone you belong to me. Show everyone whose good little slut you are.” God his words had you dripping you could barely control yourself you needed him. He pushed your shoulders back so you were laying flat on the bed. He slowly drug your tight dress over your head before his eyes traversed your body seeing the wet spot in your light pink panties.

“Wet for me hm?” Eren cocks an eyebrow teasingly “Or is all this for Jean?” “Y-you ‘ren its all for you.” You whine out softly, looking up at him, your gaze practically begging him to touch you.

“Can I take these off babygirl?” Eren asks with a false since of sweetness. You nod your head frantically as her quickly removes your panties from your core. He teasingly slides two of his fingers up your entrance collecting your wetness, spreading it for you to see. “Such a slut, you were just about to hop on some other guys dick and you’re already soaked for me.” He giggles and pushes his fingers into your lips waiting for you to suck. “Taste yourself for me, ‘wanna see you suck on my fingers. This just made your wetness pool even more, dripping down your thighs now. Eren’s fingers were gracing the crease of your upper thigh, purposefully avoiding touching you where you needed him most. “Ren please…” you pout. “Why should I make you feel good huh? Wouldn’t you rather have Jean” he cruelly teased, gracing his fingers over your clit everso softly. “N-no ‘ren- please I need you” you beg. Eren loves it he loves watching how wet you get while you beg for him to touch you. “Alright, ill touch my pretty little slut” he says swfitly shoving his ring and middle finger past your soaked lips with an obscene squelching noise, the cool metal of his rings providing a delicious contrast with the heat of your core. He relentlessly starts moving them in and out, curling them upwards hitting that perfect spongey spot inside you. It hadn’t even been five minutes and you were about to cum all over his fingers. He knew too, and moved his fingers even faster and deeper. Suddenly your high washed over you likes a tidal wave, your pusy gushing and your whole body shakin. “Such a messy little pussy for me” He removes his fingers and spreads your lips “So pretty too” He spits on your sensitive pussy and rubs it in with his thumb before lowering himself to attach his lips. He licks up and down your slit before he settles on sucking hard on your sensitive clit. “Eren its… t-too much” you whine out at the delicious overstimulation. “Yeah? Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you grinded on some other guy.” He chuckles into your sopping pussy pushin his two finger back in.

You could feel your second orgasm coming on even stronger than the first one of thats even possible. “Already gonna cum for me again? Such a needy girl, bet Jean couldn’t make you feel like this could he?” eren teases, but you couldn’t even respond because of the overwhelming pleasure. But he doesn’t stop at your second orgasm, he loves seeing you squirm under him overstimulated, mascara running down your face, eyes squeezed shut. He adds a third finger and easily slides it in “Your pussy just sucks me up so well baby, ‘bet your ready for my cock already” he says as he relentlessly pounds his fingers into your tight pussy, your wetness dripping all over his hand “Making such a mess too” he laughs. Before you know it you’re cumming again, squirting all over his hand, shaking uncontrollably. He finally pulls his fingers out, he slaps your sensitive clit and laughs to himself when he sees the relief in your face. “Oh baby, you thought we were done? I havent even been touched yet.” You reach out to pull his sweatpants down but he tsks “No babe, I’m gonna fuck you. Gonna fuck my cum into this pretty little pussy.” He says as he pulls his huge throbbing cock out, the pink inflamed tip was leaking with precum, you could tell he needed you desperately. He folded your legs up to your shoulders and slapped your clit with his tip. “Please Eren, I- I need it.” you whine. “So impatient” he tsks before sliding all of his length inside you at once, his girth providing a satisfying burn at just how much hes stretching you out. “Fuck baby I missed this pussy.” He groans out as he takes no time to allow you to get adjusted to his size, he’s snapping his hips hard and fast and especially deep due to the filthy position he has you in. “You take my cock so well baby, fuck.” he groans as he brings one hand down to rub your clit with his thumb, his black strands of hair clinging to his red face due to his sweat. You could see his muscles flexing underneath you with everythrust and it was outright pornographic how is abs contracted. You whimper out in pure euphoria as he pounds into your tight little cunt, nearing your fourth orgasm. “Gonna cum in this tight little pussy. Gonna pump you full of my cum.” Eren grunts out as his thrusts become faster and more sloppy. As he says that your walls contract around him as you reach your orgasm, screaming his name. The contrction of your walls around his despereate cock was enough to send him over the edge as he moans loudly pupming your sensitive cunt with every last drop of his cum, fucking it up in you to make sure he doesn’t waste a drop. When he finally pulls out he just stares at the erotic scene in front of him.

He flops on the bed next to you and pulls you onto his chest before twirling your hair between his fingers. “I love you, I never stopped loving you.” “I love you too Eren” you blush as he presses soft a kiss to your forehead. It’s safe to say you weren’t meeting Jean downstairs…

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ravenalla · 1 year

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Okay I swear this will be my last rant post before the next episode airs but I have to get it off my chest cause I keep seeing the argument made that people disappointed Din gave the darksaber away are forgetting the lack of plot in the previous seasons, which I very heavily disagree.

I can’t speak for everyone, but at least for me when I’m saying I’m disappointed Din did not become Manda’lor I am not saying I hated the adventure of the week side quest format they had. That’s what I liked best about the show! It was great in season 1 feeling like Din was just the random guy off on his own adventure with this baby he found, I would have loved for it to have kept that small space western feel. Season 3 becoming this big interconnected universe with a corrupted New Republic plot connecting to the sequels is what I was most worried about just because I personally don’t like that direction. The more they’ve tried to go the Andor route and make this show about the Galatic politics, the worst it’s become imo (we literally have two white dudes writing a plot point about droids liking being underclass and serving the soft democratic people that is ruled with the help of a former Nazi, but ohh it’s okay it’s Jack Black and he’s funny and the Space Nazi and the Space Nazi doctor are really sorry for what they did, look the New Republic is just as bad as the fascist imperials 🥺🥺)

What some people are not getting is that the darksaber is ALL. DIN. HAD. LEFT. There was no driving force or goal for him after episode 2, they reunited him with his child in a spin-off show, they have him redeem himself fairly easily without any emotional impact, and now they took away the opportunity to do one last interesting thing with him. Din does not have his own actions or thoughts throughout most of the season, and when he does it’s just retracing the character development they already gave him in previous seasons (i.e. the whole droid fiasco). He’s a plot device, meant to further Bo-Katan’s character and help her with her goals or have him in danger so she can save him. It was okay if Din did not become Manda’lor, but they can’t just make him having the darksaber out to be a huge deal, show him trying to learn how to train with it, and give it up so stupidly through a loophole just so Bo-Katan can lead again when she has done nothing to actually earn it or apologize for the way she disrespected Din’s entire culture again and again. She was a terrorist who has done a 180 into suddenly being an honorable character just because of a few action scenes, no introspection or interesting conflict between her and the covert about their differences, nothing about her actually thinking about her past mistakes, just the covert being there to look like dumbasses who settled on a dangerous planet where their children get eaten so Bo can lead missions, look a million times more competent in comparison, and suddenly be the one who deserves to lead.

There doesn’t have to be a big plot each episode, but it’s not being executed well like it was in the first two seasons. The goal was getting Grogu to a Jedi, and we were given the interesting side adventures on that journey. Din needs to find somewhere he can lay low, he goes to Sorgan and becomes tempted by a domestic life. Din needs credits, he takes a job with some old acquaintances and sees what kind of slimy person he could have been. Din needs to find other mandos to help him find a Jedi, he runs into a small town desperate for help with a Krayt Dragon and showcases his pride in being a Mandalorian but his respect for other cultures and his willingness to do the right thing. He travels to a planet ruled by an former Imperialist because the Jedi he was searching for was there and helps her to save a town both for their sake and his need to give his son the best life he can have. See the pattern? They were side adventures, but they weren’t a random hodgepodge of ideas, they fit the story and the tone, giving us interesting side characters and helping to develop our main characters. Din showed his leadership, his growing kindness, his frustrations, his annoyances, his fears, Grogu becomes more adventurous, vocal, and attached to who he’s starting to see as a father figure. They both aren’t talkative characters, but they had feelings and personalities we saw. They had moments between them that wasn’t just exposition for the plot or a push towards an action scene, it showed their lives and values, their relationships. Little moments like Din being happy to hear Grogu’s name, Cobb sharing his story and why he valued the armor, Omera talking with Din about his life and wondering if he could stay, Frog Lady wanting to get her eggs safely to her husband and Din comedically trying to make that happen. The story was driven by these characters decisions and their personalities.

Season 3, on the other hand, has taken away all the life of these side adventures in its goal to tie in a larger Star Wars narrative that connects to other shows. They are not character driven anymore, and instead the characters are being twisted and molded to do and say stuff that’ll get us from point A to point B instead of the other way around. The point of Din breaking his creed is not to see what that would mean for his identity or how he wants to live with Grogu by his side, the point is to take him to Mandalore so that he can ultimately get trapped and fall down a hole so Bo-Katan can see the Mythosaur. The point of Bo-Katan’s crew leaving her and her staying in a random castle for no reason doing nothing all day isn’t for her to recognize her past failings or show us what their relationship was like and what it meant to her, it’s to have an easy offscreen explanation so that she can come to the covert without anything challenging in the way. The point of Din’s coverts staying on a monster-infested planet where Paz’s son is kidnapped isn’t because it makes sense they’d be there or that Paz suddenly even has a son we’ve never seen before, it’s so they can put in CGI monsters they thought were cool and have Bo save the day so they can have a flimsy reason she does need to be leader again. The point of spending time with the covert and having random pirates attacking Nevarro wasn’t to develop the other mandalorians as actual characters, it was to have them accept Bo easily so that she can “walk both worlds” and give Carl Weather’s character more screentime. And so much more.

Things are happening, but it doesn’t matter whether they make sense or fit the characters anymore, because all the side quest are focused on is bending over backwards trying to make you believe this Bo deserves the darksaber narrative. Before that it wasn’t like the Covert was planning to take back Mandalore, Din wasn’t planning to take back Mandalore, Bo didn’t tell anybody what she saw so there was no real stakes for anybody. Nobody in the main plot has had any purpose as more than side characters besides her. Din may have been the main character, but the people he met on his journey didn’t just do stuff to contribute to his own character or finding a Jedi. Omera had her own goals, Cobb had his own goals, Fennec had her own goals, Boba had his own goals, and they all still worked well with the narrative without diminishing each other, Din developed on the way by learning from the other characters and them him. What the fuck does Din want this season? Paz? The Armorer? The answer is whatever will make it easiest for the plot to retake Mandalore and have Bo be the Manda’lor for these writers, despite it being shown previously they have no reason to care or like Bo-Katan.

Like, some character moments are there. Bo is changing. I’m not saying that’s not happening at all. But it’s being done in a way that is sabotaging every other aspect of the show to force this plot that they wanted, the sidequest are feeling duller because they aren’t for these characters to have fun adventures we get emotionally invested in that simultaneously furthers the actual main characters goal, it’s let’s just have a CGI dragon, let’s have Lizzo and Jack Black guest star, let’s have Zeb from Rebels be in there for no reason. Unless again you count Bo as the main character, but like honestly she’s not even having natural character development. She went from being an antagonistic ex-terrorist to suddenly being kind and charitable with hardly any buildup or insight into her feelings. It doesn’t feel organic. I know she lost everything, but they still made it seem like she blamed Din for it only to have her rescue him once and completely abandon that hostility. The best we really have gotten is Grogu remembering his past while with the armorer and setting up his future as a Mandalorian, but even that feels cheapened when the armor he was given isn’t even talked about with the person who he shares the symbol with him that signifies their relationship, making me think it’s just another merchandise decision.

We wanted Din to learn to rule because, even if we did have to say goodbye to the adventure of the week type format, it would have been in service of his character evolving into something he doesn’t think he deserves or is good at. It would have been the next step in his journey, accumulating everything he has learned, the growth he went through using both diplomacy and his skills as a fighter time and time again. Instead, they chose to really quickly ditch any of the conflicts he had so they could have him free to do this instead. If they had waited one more season, this could have possibly been done well imo. Din’s arcs could have been brought to a meaningful and satisfying conclusion, and then you could have made him and Bo-Katan become co-leads. It wouldn’t have mattered as much then if they decided to focus a little more on her. But instead they essentially abandoned Din’s story they’ve spent two seasons creating to go ahead and tell her own.

The side quest aren’t what people are complaining about. It’s that they have no meaning for our characters other than having everybody circling around Bo most of the time or creating some big connection to the sequel triology and setting up the Star Wats MCU, which wasn’t the style of writing this show did. I don’t care how many ways people want to argue against it, Din is not the main character in this season, which is not what they have been selling us all year, and he doesn’t even have any engaging story or arc as a side character either. That is the problem, and that is why these side quest and the lack of an actual plot do not work.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian season 3 #mando critical #rant #din djarin #bo katan kryze #grogu #hope this made sense

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janovavalen · 4 months

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—soft skin ㆍ୨୧ㆍ

aegon Il targaryen × niece!reader

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ short story au

—part one — two — three — coming soon

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ summary: the two of aegon and y/n never got along. never—all until aegon catches the oh so wonderful, sweetheart y/n targaryen at a club.

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ word count! 3257!

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ warnings! drugs (cocaine, alcohol, weed) typical targaryen incest, small obsessive/obsession if you squint, smut, arranged marriage

this fic will NOT follow the story line/plot of HOD! although i made up this au, i do not own house of dragon nor do i own the series, books, and characters! all rights

the next morning things were a little different from the night before. of course, like any other two individuals who go to a bar and end up leaving to have sex in one's house, they’re bound to wake up and feel awkward. especially when the drinks and drugs they took were off in the morning.

y/n woke up with her head turned to the window as the open bed was cold and smooth. groaning with her hand automatically laying atop her head at the pain that throbbed through it.

her face twisting in discomfort she sat up to feel her chest and shoulders be smacked with the coldness of the house. looking down in slight concern and confusion at the coldness she saw her breasts out in the air with no covering.

‘what the fuck…’ covering herself with the silk sheets she looked around at the strange environment to see the a huge window that showed the city down below. marble walls painted dark green that almost look black. the room itself was dark all around as the only light that came through was from the gray sky.

looking around a bit more hopefully to find her clothes or—hell, anything to cover up. she found a button down shirt that wasn’t the one she wore last night but it’ll do.

picking it up and seeing she couldn’t find underwear, y/n’s feet touched the cold feet of the floor below her. the smell of weed and food being clouded into the house itself as she looked around.

the dark long hallway had small pictures on the walls and random expensive things on small tables.

looking at one of them she scoffed at the architecture of a naked woman with huge breasts and the man hugging her legs almost sucking her as she looked down at him.

touching the table that held it, the coldness from it deeply into her fingers she mentally noted—everything in this place is cold.

walking herself down the hall hesitantly with her hand touching the darkened wall she went down the stairs and saw an even bigger downstairs.

the living room with a black clothed couch and dark green carpet under the couch with a glass coffee table that had some empty beer bottles on the top of it. there was a ball table off into the distance with more beers atop it.

once she settled all the way downstairs was where she met the man she fucked last night.

his white hair was lightly tied back into a small ponytail as he wore not shirt but only black sweats.

‘your awake, thought you died along the night’ he scoffed.

‘you’d wish i did…making breakfast, huh?’ she walked over to him and pressed her body against his back as he hummed in agreement to move around the eggs on the plate.

‘never knew you cooked—‘

‘oh i don’t…this is from my mom. i’m just warming it back up. it was in the refrigerator’ he admitted while y/n smiled a little.

‘i could have cooked for you, my mom teaches me some things along with the maids of my house’ y/n let her hand work its way down his back and over the scratches, her scratches.

smiling to herself a bit before moving away with her legs out in the open, welcoming the cold air to swiftly pass her. she let her fingers dance across the white marble table of which was squeaky clean…surprisingly.

walking more over to the large window that looks down on the city below she admired the view. the overlook was beautiful, the clouds however, blocked the sun itself from shining and showing its brightness.

her thoughts causing her to block out the noise around her, she thought of home. and how utterly angry her mother and father would be when she gets back home. especially since at this time they would be checking or even escorting her out of her apartment and back home to their open arms in waiting.

she never complained, never argued, never fussed, kicked or cried when it came to them being over protective. she understood to her mothers extent that’s she means extremely well and wants nothing but the best for her.

but y/n never wanted to be grown up, wrapped in bubble wrap and closed off from the world.

y/n likes to thinks that’s the reasoning to her rebellious ways.

as she looked at the overview of the apartment window, aegon made his way over to him with a new blunt in hand and glass of wine in the other. y/n failed to notice his presence before he let his head place itself between her shoulder and neck, inhaling her scent.

‘i see you’ve taken a liking to the view of the city. seems like you haven’t seen a view like this before, which i would not believe’ he scoffed as she shook her head and crossed her arms. the warmth from his chest that was pressed against her giving her comfort in a way.

‘hm…you’d be right. i have seen views such as this. much better ones actually. your window seems to only capture the darkness and gloom of the city. i promise you there’s much better than this’ she grinned while tilting her head a bit more to the side as he started to kiss down her shoulder.

‘hm, really? then maybe you can promise to take me one day?’

‘me take you?’ y/n scoffed while turning around. swiftly and softly prying the wine cup from his hand.

‘i thought that was supposed to be the other way around, no?’ she tilted her head to the side a bit before taking a small sip of the bitter sweet wine.

‘you need more wine, sweeter—i can get you some if you’ll like’ she teased while walking up the stairs as he got a clear view of her ass.

scoffing and inhaling a bit of his blunt as he felt his pants get a sudden tightening, he reluctantly followed her up the stairs a bit farther than she actually was.

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ

‘then that would mean i’d have to give you something in return’ he hinted while she sat down on the bed with her legs crossed and the wine in hand, taking another sip.

‘did you just completely forget about your breakfast—‘

‘no i put it away, i was only making it to impress you—if breakfast is what you want let me get you something better than some heated up. how about breakfast later?’

‘later?’ she pressed up an eyebrow with a small smile as he got closer to her, him now being closer to her face as she uncrossed her legs and allowed him to slip his way in between them.

‘mhm, later—‘

‘well then what’s now?’ she looked down at his lips before his eyes, which he noticed and did the same.

he didn’t even have to reply before he greedily pressed his lips against her own which she was quick to follow with, her head being moved up a bit at the forcefulness of which he delivered.

as she kissed back more gingerly she tried to hold her grip on the wine to make sure it didn’t get spilt on the sheets. he noticed that her hand wasn’t touching his body as he would have liked it too which made him quickly turn around to grab it from her hand and place it on the coffee table.

when he went back to her, both of his hands held her face close as he slid himself closer to her between her legs.

groaning into her mouth, she smiled a bit before kissing him more forcefully as he followed her, the two of them in sync.

the next move he did—completely startled y/n. he let go of her face and grabbed onto her legs to have her sitting on his lap. both of her knees pushed against the comforter as he held her hips down his own.

her hands now holding his face, aegon gripped her hips as his breath quickened. she noticed this and decided to moved her hips slowly making him groan into her mouth which she swallowed with her kisses.

‘fuck—‘ aegon grunted as she started to move a bit quicker.

the intensity she was feeling had her get lost in them as she completely stopped kissing him but didn’t move her mouth away. except they were caught in an open mouthed kiss as he kept his slightly lidded eyes on her closed eyes that were focused and lost in pure pleasure.

aegon ached and needed to be plushed and wrapped around her warmth, pulling her body up and off of his hips to redirect her back onto the bed which drew out a frustrated whine as she lost her high—he hurried and pulled down his sweats.

‘don’t you worry, baby. you’ll be pleasured. you’ll cum being wrapped around me. full, and tight’ aegon grunted as she looked into his eyes and nodded her head. her chest quickened up and down with heavy breaths.

pumping himself to prepare as a bit of pre cum started to leak form his aching tip, he closed his eyes before pushing himself into her making her moan out.

‘shit…oh my—‘ she mumbled while he slowly moved in and out to fit himself around her pussy.

her legs wrapped around him just like the night before he quickly went to grip her thigh. his fingerprints making small dents in the soft plush of her skin. this causes him to be in her deeper, his soft tip lightly grazing over her sweet spot making her gasp.

‘keep going—harder’ she encouraged as he gripped his shoulders with a bit of force while he worked his hips to thrust into her own.

the skin to skin contact creating an echo in the room around them, y/n went to moan out as she felt her high peeking its way through only for him to place his lips above her own, making a sloppy kiss.

‘i’m cumming…i’m cumming’ y/n breathed as he got faster with more force—‘cum around my cock’ he told her—to him it was more of a beg, a beg to feel the tightness of which would be wrapped around him.

just as aegon said this she came, her pussy clenching around his cock, making him cum deep inside herself. the both of them cumming as he softly mumbled her name in her lips while she kissed him slowly and in a daze.

the moment was completely soft. warm and slightly wetted bodies pressed against each other as their chests grazed each other with each breath they took from the rise and fall of their lungs. y/n’s still wrapped around his hips that were unmoving, still attached to herself.

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ

after their shared showers which resolved into round two, the two of them got dressed in different clothes. aegon had clothes from helaena’s previous stays which only made up to her moving out and back with their mom who saw it coming.

y/n at the moment was getting her hair nice and done before seeing her parents which she knew was probably beyond worried sick about her for not being home right now. especially since last night.

y/n was later informed that a bodyguard snitched and exposed that y/n had left last night and never came back home.

jace and luke were blowing up her phone—mostly jace. of how worried they were and how mother was furious—her dad did his thing and tired to keep her calm given the fact she was known for blowing up with anger a lot so this wasn’t his first rodeo.

when she was done with her hair she hurried and rushed her items that were taken out of her purse and back into the bag, hurrying to her phone and putting it into her purse as well.

aegon has just now been getting out of the shower after their moment, he caught a glimpse of her slipping on one of her boots making him hurry and wrap the towel around his waist and rush to her side.

‘where are you going?’

she didn’t reply until her shoe was tied tightly—‘i have to get back home, my parents and brothers are worried…i’ve overstayed my welcome’ she mumbled while slipping on her next shoe.

aegon’s heart was practically racing. he’s very self aware that he’s only met her last night but he’s been trying to deny himself of being slightly enfranchised with her overall behind once her mother and brother told him about her when she was born.

he’s never met her until now and the moments they shared can’t just be overlooked. he’s done this countless times—more than he’d like to admit but for once he actually caught himself being actually interested into a one night stand.

he hoped the affection they shared with each other made it out of the bedroom.

‘no…no you haven’t you can stay for as long as you like—i don’t mind, i really don’t—‘

‘aegon..’ y/n huffed out while moving her white hair behind her ear that had fallen while she was tying her shoe.

moving next to him to where his chest was close to her own and his head looking down a bit to be eye to eye with her. y/n placed a hand onto his wet chest and she passed it lightly.

‘i have to go, and if this is meant to be something more…maybe we’ll meet again…’ she gave a tightly lip smile while looking between his lips and eyes which he noticed but focused on her eyes, her eyebrows frowning sadly a bit as she kissed his lips softly. aegon subconsciously moving in sync with her.

pulling away from him slowly which had him almost chasing her lips to be back on his she stepped back—‘bye’ she mumbled while gripping her purse around her shoulder.

he watched her form walk out of the bedroom in a rush and down the stairs as he stood frozen. unable to follow her, scared to actually see her walk out of the door.

the grip on his towel grew tighter as his heart burned for her. his eyebrows frowned with the distant thought of some imagined reality that she came running back into the room to wrap her arms around him.

seeing it wasn’t true, he knew what he had to do. he had to get her back. he had to get her back into his arms where she could stay, safe and sound.

ㆍ୨୧ㆍ

back at home y/n gotten one hell of a greeting. the second she stepped foot into the doors of her parents home her mom, rhaenyra ran to her and clasped her hands along her face checking her for any bumps and bruises.

daemon—her dad—did the same hit from a distance, seeing the way she stood a little limped and how y/n would subconsciously lean forward a bit, a bit odd to him since she never faltered in her stance.

‘where were you! i was worried sick! do you know how worried i was?’ her mom yelled as she gripped her face.

‘i’m sorry! i’m really sorry i didn’t mean to leave for so long, i just wanted to go out with a friend and thought i'd be home a little sooner but it got really dark and i didn’t want to be out in the dark since i know how much your warned me about it. i'm really sorry mom, i promise i am’ y/n held her moms hands that were still upon her face with comfort.

rhaenyra looked her in the eyes with sorrow and recurrence as she sighed and gave in the tough motherly act, bringing her daughter in for a tight high immediately.

y/n always loved her mothers hugs. they were the right amount of tightness and warmth that gave her the impression she was being loved by a weighted pillow or blanket. that’s what y/n used to call her mom sometime when she was a baby, her blanket.

daemon was the same, only he gave small, short and sweet hugs. sometimes even shoulder pats or a head pat which he mainly gave to her brothers. he was only really overly affectionate to rhaenyra.

sighing as she let go and gave a small smile to y/n who gave one back, rhaenyra let her go but not before giving her arm one last squeeze to send her on her way.

which y/n openly took and went to her room after daemon gave her a small hug and kiss on the head.

as she walked to her room she couldn’t ignore the fact that jace and luke were following her.

‘stop following me like a bunch of creeps, you could get pepper sprayed for something like that out in the open’ she mumbled as they scoffed and walked to her side.

‘where were you!’

‘you seriously fucked up your chances of living in that apartment anymore’

‘what? seriously?’ y/n sarcastically gasped as she looked at jace and rolled her eyes as he lightly pushed her making her laugh a bit, luke shaking his head with a smirk.

‘there's no way you actually went out and stayed out? where’d you even go?’ luke asked as they approached y/n’s room.

when she opened her door, they were quick to follow and shut the door behind them, ready to fully involve themselves into the juicy story they were about to be told.

y/n smiled to herself at remembering the night and morning she had. body of which made her spend a night that she would most likely remember for the rest of her life.

turning around as she took off her shoes, balancing herself out with holding onto the table that held small decorations.

‘well…i drank’ y/n looked as they let their jaws drop.

‘i danced and sang, i even smoked a little’ she smiled more as they looked at each other as if they were being told the most craziest thing ever.

‘what?!’

‘no way!’ they both replied as she laid down next to them on her bed, the two of them moving to be near her more while she laid on her back and looked at the ceiling.

‘mhm…i even met someone’

this made jace’s jaw open even more if it was humanly possible. jace almost flipped the bed when she told him.

‘what….wait wait—you met a guy?’ he asked lowly.

‘hey, it could’ve been a girl—‘

‘stop joking y/n did you actually?’ he asked. y/n noticed his worrisome eyes and sat up to comfort and ressure.

‘jace it was okay, nothing serious happened anyway…we only talked.’

and fucked—she mentally thought to herself as she laid back down next to luke who played with her stuffed animals.

‘do you even know his name?’ he tested as she shrugged.

‘no, i can’t remember’

its aegon…our cousin.

‘hm…typical. you better hope this type of news doesn’t get out in the open and back to mother. that’ll be the day she really changes on you’ jace warned before walking out of her room. luke took his sign to leave and gave y/n a small smile before leaving himself.

the words of jace giving her reason to really think of what she’s done and the extent of things it could ruin for their family.

#aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aemond targaryen x reader #aegon ii targaryen #house of the dragon #hod #fanfic #smut #short story au ㆍ୨୧ㆍ

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fire-of-the-sun · 9 months

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Ilsa and Ethan: There's Still Hope

Spoiler Warning for M:I7!

I'm sure a ton has already been said about Ilsa in the new movie, whether it be lamenting her loss or developing theories as to her potential return in the next film, but here are some contributions I've been mulling over. This isn't going to be an exhaustive list of reasons why she's still alive, but I will try to address some and add my own thoughts into the mix.

I agree with the discussion that one of the best clues of this all being a fake out lies in Ethan and Ilsa's reunion near the beginning of the film. Ilsa plays dead during the fight and Ethan momentarily believes it before she attacks him and reveals herself to be alive. As it stands, this looks like a foreshadowing to her eventual, real death, however, I think it instead acts as setup to her still being alive. I think it's clear that her death fakeout exists to give us clues to her eventual return as well as deflect audiences from even considering it as we're trained to accept that foreshadowed events that transpire in most stories would simply be the end of it, but this isn't a typical story, this is Mission: Impossible, and nothing is as it seems and this film establishes that that's more true now than ever.

And if you're really going to kill Ilsa off, why do a fake-out at all? Why not just have her die later without warning and really shock the audience? Why already have the fans ruminating on the possibility early on and telegraph it long before it actually happens? Consider Julia's "death" in M:I3. The film starts in media res and there's a strong sense of tension throughout the whole film knowing that that's going to happen. Julia is going to get kidnapped and possibly die no matter what, but it's okay to spoil this scene in advance because she doesn't die. Because why would you tell the audience that's going to happen right away unless there's going to be some kind of twist where she lives? What's the point in watching the movie if you know that Ethan is ultimately going to fail and it's going to have a tragic, unsatisfying ending? Julia's death fakeout is a tactic meant to trick him and the audience and make him feel like he's lost only for the twist to be that he ultimately wins and Julia remains alive. I believe a similar tactic is being used with Ilsa which has the potential to be a very well-executed plot twist rather than a disappointing one if done correctly and not completely abandoned in the next film. I actually think that without the fakeout and just a sudden and completely unexpected death I'd feel more worried but, as it stands, I think the choice (among many others) actually serves to legitimize this all being fake.

After all, the best twists are ones that you can see coming if you're really looking for it and that's okay. It's okay that we've figured it out - that means the director ultimately did their job right. Some viewers, especially more casual fans, are taking what they were shown at face value and not considering there's any more to it. They're falling for the trick and that's fine too, because a good twist is one that is set up in a way that leaves clues but also remains largely hidden especially as the audience isn't looking for it. A magic trick that deflects us from seeing what the magician is actually doing. When Ilsa shows up in the next film, some people will feel rewarded for their observations and others will finally see all the pieces click into place that they disregarded before and both be satisfied, but I digress...

Another huge scene to look to for clues lies in the team discussing the severity of the threat and really cementing just how difficult it's going to be to trick the Entity before the party. I think it's very possible that there are missing conversations here that we will not be privy to until the next film as Ethan would never let his friends be in such danger without having a real plan on how to protect them and the audience always knows what the plan is so when things go awry we're aware the complications were unprecedented. In this case, we really have no idea what they're walking into, nor do we see them effectively prep for it. Unless I'm forgetting something, why did Ilsa need to be at the party at all? Why would Ethan put Ilsa in danger like that for no real reason especially after already enduring those brief, agonizing moments earlier when he truly believed she was dead and had to consider a world without her in it and knowing that Gabriel has taken someone from him in the past? Ilsa is her own woman and can do what she wants, but we don't see him even trying to protest her inclusion and voicing fear for her safety for her to even refute.

The scene where Ilsa meets Ethan on the balcony afterward is incredibly short and could feel tacked on given that there's no real lead up to it, but it could very well be the aftermath of a heavy conversation where - feeling burdened by the weight of what must be done - Ethan leaves the room to think and Ilsa follows. She looks particularly chipper here despite the seriousness of what's going on and I believe her benign comments about Venice are purposefully meant to distract Ethan in an attempt to cheer him up. Notice how he shakes his head a little after he answers, like he knows what she's trying to do before giving into her and hugging back. She's calm because she has faith in the plan while he's nervous about it. As a side note, I think it was a touching detail to have Ethan return to this same balcony to grieve (publicly).

We also see Ethan and Ilsa looking at each on the boat before he takes her hand on their way to the party. This, of course, acts as yet another sweet gesture to showcase how strong their relationship is at this point but, again, Ethan doesn't seem that happy. This isn't a relaxing date (which they deserve), he looks tense as he takes her hand. Notice how he's fidgeting as he strokes her fingers and rubs his own fingers together in his free hand. It's like he's trying to hold onto her as much as he can knowing what's going to transpire and, once again, Ilsa looks like she's trying to comfort him by stroking his hand back, never taking her eyes off him. It's a nice continuation of the dynamic of their previous moment together.

And, if this is truly Ilsa's last outing? Why hold back on basically every aspect of it? If it's truly Ilsa's last fight, why not make it her biggest, baddest fight yet that showcases all of her skill but also begins to feel truly unwinnable? We've seen her face intimidating foes before, so if she's truly going to meet her match, you really need to sell to the audience that all her usual tricks aren't working and let us see on her face that she knows she's losing this fight, which would also help build a sense of dread. I've only seen the film once at this time, but I don't recall her looking too worried at any point at the party or during her fight with Gabriel. She's a brave and skilled woman of course, but she seemed incredibly unfazed by it all, almost like she knew how it was going to go. I want to add that there's no way of knowing for sure when entering into any fight that you're guaranteed to survive. Gabriel could have stabbed her anywhere and there'd be no way to anticipate that beforehand but, as I've seen pointed out, her hand is also on the knife when it plunges into her chest. The only way to know for sure where the blade would go to look deadly but still survive it would be to guide it there herself and that seems like something the skilled Ilsa would be able to pull off.

And if it's truly Ilsa's end, why not go out of your way to make it as sad as possible? What if Gabriel leaves her just alive enough for Ethan to find her and they have a heartbreaking final moment together where they perhaps exchange a line or two before he watches her die? Of course, to add insult to injury, the grieving process is pitifully brief, focusing more on Grace's reaction than Ilsa's own friends. Why not have a stronger reaction from Ethan, Benji and Luther that absolutely breaks the audience's heart? Just compare Ethan's reaction to Ilsa's death to the assumed death of Julia in MI3, the other love of his life. Yes, technically, that was a very different situation and Julia was his wife after all and Ilsa isn't, but they don't even compare. Heck, we even get to see Ethan mourn Lindsey, a friend, in M:I3 longer than Ilsa. I understand that the movie can't languish in sorrow for too long and Ethan is used to compartmentalizing to get the job done, but this is also one of the biggest losses he's suffered and right on the heels of proclaiming to his friends how he'd never let anything happen to them. This is also the longest movie in the series so far and it has no excuse for skimping on the aftermath of the death of one of its biggest and most beloved characters. Ilsa's death is sad but leaves you feeling more empty and disappointed than utterly devastated - at least for me.

We've also seen Ethan act before, as is a necessary skill for a spy, and I think the fairly subdued reaction to her death speaks to his ability to act realistically sad (he's had practice for this exact situation too as he's probably channeling all the awful things he felt when he believed her to be dead at the beginning of the movie) but also speaks to the fact that it's not actually real because if it was I think it'd be a far stronger reaction. Yes, Ethan could just be becoming desensitized to losing people after enduring it so many times but I don't think he'd hold back for Ilsa. His partner. His equal. Someone he loves deeply and offers his only chance at a life beyond this. That chance, that love, that happiness, are now gone forever and that's not something you just take in your stride.

And yes, maybe Rebecca needed or wanted out of this franchise to film other projects but that's only more reason to give her the best sendoff you possibly can and I don't think anyone, not even the director himself would be able to admit that this was worthy enough of her character and respectful to Rebecca. If even her final fight was, for whatever reason, purposefully undercut, then what else did the director choose to take away despite having so little to begin with and why? If, historically, it's not in his nature to pull something like this based on his previous work in the series and his own passionate comments regarding the character, why would he now? It's the overall lack of care in regard to her character all of a sudden that makes it all feel fishy.

And if this is it for Ethan and Ilsa, why not push the romance? Instead of just a hug on the balcony, why not feature their first kiss or, at least, a much longer conversation that cements where they really are before it all gets taken away? If the director attempted to include a kiss in the past but scrapped it because it wasn't the right time, he probably intended it to happen eventually. Why not sneak it in right before she dies if these are their last scenes together anyway? Maybe a kiss would only serve to telegraph her demise further by making the audience more nervous about her fate, but it also would have made it even sadder knowing they had finally reached that point right before she died. If the intention of all of this is truly just to make Ethan and the audience sad and it's going to hurt one way or another, you might as well push it as hard as you can to achieve the desired effect. Regardless, I believe that when she comes back in Part 2, they'll finally get that well-earned kiss and that's what the director is waiting for.

But why have Ethan lose another woman he loves at all? Why watch him go through an entire series where all he does is lose lovers only to have him ultimately end up alone especially after developing the perfect romantic partner with him and getting audiences on board with it over the course of multiple films? It all just feels unnecessarily cruel and, as it's nothing new for him, what is it really adding to the story or his character? Losing another lover is predictable at this point but bringing one back and actually letting him be happy? Now that would be a twist! What a triumphant moment it would be for Gabriel to see Ilsa return in the next movie (and perhaps have a rematch) and realize that he's the one who'd been duped? That the Entity is not infallible? That Ethan has been one step ahead of him this whole time?

I don't think I'm alone when I say that the best possible ending for the series and Ethan's story is to get to live his life with Ilsa given he wasn't able to with Julia, trusting the IMF in the hands of new operatives like Grace to carry on in their stead (notice how they focused on that other new recruit during Ethan's introduction as well like they're preparing him to pass the torch). He finally gets to go with Ilsa like she asked him in Rogue Nation and in Fallout and they both finally get out of the game and live happily in the peace that they helped ensure and so deeply deserve. Ethan has sacrificed his own happiness to save the world so many times, why can't he and Ilsa finally get to find some happiness with each other? This series has had it's bittersweet moments but it's never been a tragedy. The conflict is meant to feel insurmountable (it is called Mission: Impossible after all) but the heroes still win and get to be happy and I expect that to continue to be the case in the very end.

Now, I understand and agree with confronting real consequences as we face our final antagonist of the series, but I would honestly predict an actual death from Luther or Benji in the final film - staples of the series and longtime friends of Ethan - that would hurt the audience too but not steal a future from him and perhaps Ilsa's "death" is also meant to deflect from the real death that's coming which would still, naturally, makes things very bittersweet. That being said, if this series wanted to continue to lean into happy outcomes over sad ones, then simply having Ethan get to live peacefully in the knowledge that he was able to keep all of his friends safe would be enough for him and for me.

As of now, I'm actually feeling hopeful about the potential for Ilsa to return. I think there are currently more viable reasons for why she could still be alive than dead and I think it would vastly improve the story they're telling rather than take away from it or feel forced because, as it stands, the execution of her death does feel less than the caliber of what this series is capable of and a surprise return would certainly remedy that. It wouldn't feel like a gimmick given the nature of the series, nor do I think it would undermine the death scene we got since it didn't have any impact on the plot and barely any on the characters anyway. Ilsa returning would improve things, not take away and if this all works to bring her back, it will take what was a lackluster plot point and unceremonious exit of a major character to a brilliant showcase of subterfuge both for the characters and the audience and the latter sounds more like the Mission: Impossible I know.

The first time Ethan faked the death of a woman he loved to protect her; he lost her. Now he's had to do it again and this time, he'll get her back. There's still hope.

#mission impossible #mission: impossible #ethan hunt #ilsa faust #ethan x ilsa #ilsa x ethan #mi7 #mi7 spoilers #mission impossible dead reckoning #mission: impossible dead reckoning #ilsaethan #mission impossible dead reckoning part one #mission: impossible - dead reckoning part 1 #dead reckoning part 1 spoilers #julia meade #luther stickell #benji dunn

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aurorabyler · 2 years

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Flashbacks in Stranger Things: When, Why, and How They Are Used (Long Analysis)

sit back and relax everyone. this is gonna be my longest post yet.

disclaimer before anyone proceeds--i have not tagged this post with any relationships other than byler so if you do not like this pairing please just scroll past this post! i never cross tag because i truly want a safe fandom space for everyone. this is just my analysis of the show and my own brainrot.

I’ve thought about the usage of flashbacks in Stranger Things a lot over the past few weeks. I saw a post by user @girlskth on Twitter (HUGE shoutout to them for this very eye-opening post, please go check it out their tweet and give them all the love!!), who mentioned the contrast between Max’s scene in Dear Billy (running up that hill → from Vecna), versus El being trapped by the vines in 4x09. First: we need to talk about flashbacks as they have been used throughout film and TV history as a key literary device. Here are some articles that I found that explain why flashbacks can be so important to understanding characters:

This quote is vital:

"Flashbacks are really a function of character, not story…the visual image we’re seeing is what the character is thinking and feeling at that present moment…it illuminates a character’s point of view.”

Flashbacks are never pointlessly placed. There is always an intent behind reverting back to the old material to demonstrate something about the character’s current mindset.

These two scenes are clearly parallels (complete credits to @girlskth for bringing this up), as both Max and El are encountering the same situation–being trapped in Vecna’s lair and hearing a monologue from him. The scenes are not only plot parallels but visual ones.

However, there is one thing lacking in this parallel, and @girlskth brilliantly points out what it is—their emotional connection. Max relies on flashbacks of her happiest memories to free herself from Vecna’s trance and come back to reality. There are MANY flashbacks of her platonic relationships (her friendship with El being the most significant), and her romantic relationship with Lucas, which is ultimately what gives her enough time to run away from Vecna.

Now, going into El’s scene, I as a viewer was EXPECTING that they would show flashbacks of El’s happy memories with Mike during his monologue. This is coming from someone who does not ship these two characters together at all.

I like them as friends, and I was still waiting for them to show us moments from their kiss at the snowball, from Mike giving Eleven the name “El,” from Mike calling her for 353 days in season 2, from Mike saying “No, El, you’re not the monster–you saved me,” from El saying she loves him at the end of season 3…but nothing.

Absolutely no flashbacks were shown apart from the scene of the boys finding El in the woods. This is extremely odd for a couple who has supposedly been the centrepiece of Stranger Things for four seasons, or, in the words of people who ship these characters, have been “built up for four seasons.” But no. Nothing.

This is an INSANE contrast to Max’s Dear Billy scene, which went out of its way to show her history with all of these characters over the 3 seasons her character has been in the show.

The concept of “show, don’t tell,” is critical in understanding this parallel. Take Max’s relationships that are highlighted when she is in Vecna’s trance: these flashbacks all occur because she knows they will give her strength. She is never verbally prompted to think about these memories because she has confidence they will help her fight in her darkest moment. Here’s some more information on show don’t tell and how it is used in media:

If we apply Max's unconcious logic to El’s scene in Vecna’s lair, being able to pull from her happy memories with Mike should have been something that came relatively naturally to her. Except, this didn’t happen. What did happen? El’s memories with Max DID come naturally, and those memories ultimately saved Max’s life.

Zero Flashbacks to Mike/El's Past Seasons' Dynamic

While waiting for volume two, even as someone who likes this pairing platonically, I was excited to see flashbacks to season 1 Mike/Eleven once they reunited at the Nina Project. I’ll always be nostalgic for seasons 1 and 2 and I wanted to see some of their friendship dynamics from those seasons come back. I was literally expecting there to be some sort of “still pretty?” flashback, or some other cut back to season one. Again, I am saying all of this entirely as someone who 100% believes in a byler endgame for this show. I was still very surprised by this, and it is clearly intentional on the writer’s part.

Some would argue that the lack of flashbacks is due to the varying perspectives in Mike’s monologue scene. We see Mike’s, Will’s, El’s, and Jonathan’s POVs switching between each other in this scene. When peeling back the layers, we learned that Mike's monologue utilizes the miscommunication trope in a big way. Let’s analyze:

Mike is under the impression, because of Will, that “these past few months she (El) has been so lost without you…You make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all–like she’s better for being different. And that gives her the courage to fight on.” —Will, 4x09

First and foremost: Mike’s monologue would not have happened without Will’s veiled confession in the van. He believes Will’s feelings are El’s, and it is these feelings that make him think that what he says is what El needs to hear.

Mike is TOLD (not sure if he entirely believes it especially after the final scene in the cabin when El walks away from him, but we’ll have to wait for more scripts to see the truth), that El has been “lost” without him and that she “needs” him to be able to fight.

This is what he is TOLD by Will about El, and this is not true, as NOWHERE during any of El’s scenes at school in California, or once Mike comes to visit, or during her time at the Nina Project, or during her battles with the military + Vecna does El EVER give the impression that she somehow needs Mike in her life to keep fighting, or that he gives her courage. In fact, given all of the parallels El draws between Mike's "what did you do?" and Brenner's "what have you done?" I would say what Mike gives her is the opposite of courage.

El keeps fighting because she has come into herself and she is powerful and strong, not because she needs Mike there to help her. And Mike, prior to Will’s confession, knows this is the truth, as seen by the line in the official script that was cut out from the show:

If El truly needed Mike to “fight on,” as Will implies with his own feelings, I believe that more flashbacks would have been utilized, regardless of the multiple perspectives in the scene, to show how Mike has supposedly helped El “fight” in the past. But none of this was shown BECAUSE El’s battles have always been about her personal arc and growth. In the past seasons, El has never relied on or needed Mike to help her fight–he has been misled because of Will’s veiled confession.

Perhaps the best example of El’s battles being about her own growth is in the 2x09 scene where she closes the gate: you'll see here that all the flashbacks she has during this critical battle have to do with her personal growth and past trauma. The same is true of her fight with the Demogorgon in season 1, of learning from Kali in season 2, of fighting Billy and the Mind Flayer in season 3--her relationship with Mike is not critical to any of these battles. It is her friendships and familial love that motivates her as well as her own coming of age.

The miscommunication about El "needing" Mike to be able to "fight" explains a lot of things, including, at least to an extent why Mike VISIBLY HESITATED when saying “I love you” for the first time in his monologue. There are obviously other reasons to this that have been analyzed by many other people, but I feel this miscommunication is critical.

This is something that has really been annoying me ever since season 4 came out: the whole plotline about Mike not being able to say he loves El should be extremely clear to audiences about what it implies. I love romance and I KNOW that the Duffers can write amazing love stories (Lumax, Jancy, Jopper…).

Lucas and Max never once say they love each other but it is clear to audiences–they SHOW it in their own ways.

True love is shown, not told–especially in media.

That is how the most popular romantic pairings are so believable to audiences. Showing, not telling your love for someone, makes it feel real. And boom: ever since season 3 and ESPECIALLY after season 4, there have been hundreds of thousands of people saying that Mike/El's dynamic seems "off" somehow.

My point here is that if you love someone unconditionally, if you are truly, deeply in love with them, you would not hesitate for a moment to say that you love them, especially if they practically beg you to say it while crying about that very fact. You would also not call them “ridiculous” after they start crying and then you proceed to deflect blame about a situation you caused onto other people.

Love is powerful. To me, it’s one of the most powerful things that exists in this world. And I believe that the writers of this show feel the same way: Love Conquers All. I’ll insert one of my favourite quotes from Avatar: The Last Airbender to display how I feel about this topic:

"You have indeed felt a great loss. But love is a form of energy, and it swirls all around us. The air nomads' love for you has not left this world. It is still inside of your heart, and is reborn in the form of new love." -Guru Pathik, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Real, romantic love is never something that should be questioned at critical moments. Let me emphasize: I do not question that Mike platonically loves El. He clearly loves her a great amount as shown by what he has gone through with her over the course of the show, just as he loves Lucas, Dustin, Max, Nancy, etc.

Millie literally said in an interview for ST4 that “Mike is not loving Eleven the way she wants to be loved.” This situation for El is honestly extremely heartbreaking because she truly deserves so much better than what she’s been given. El is one of my favourite characters and I love her dearly, and seeing her suffer because of this relationship as well as the bullying at school hits very close to home for me. She deserves so much happiness and I hope she gets to have endless amounts of it by the end of season 5.

How else have flashbacks been used in Stranger Things?

The article I cited earlier holds true to the Stranger Things writer’s perspective on flashbacks. Remember: "flashbacks are really a function of character, not story…the visual image we’re seeing is what the character is thinking and feeling at that present moment…it illuminates a character’s point of view.” Utilizing flashbacks as a literary device in this manner has been seen multiple times in the show at key character moments.

Will and Joyce

This flashback is key to showing Joyce's relationship with her son and how much she loves him. It holds true to the article in that it SHOWS that while searching for Will, she thinks back to the time they spent together in Castle Byers.

Jonathan and Will

Jonathan's relationship with Will is key to season one and remains one of the most beautiful parts of Stranger Things. This flashback, just like the ones with Max and Joyce, happens naturally. Jonathan associates The Clash with Will and can't help thinking back to their happy memories together once he hears the song play. This simple scene shows the depth of their relationship.

Hopper and Sarah

In my opinion, this is by far the most effective use of flashback Stranger Things has used to date. When I watched season 1 in 2016, this was the scene that made me cry my eyes out. I still think about it to this day as the catalyst that started my long-running love for this show. While trying to revive Will, Hopper is reminded of his daughter Sarah's struggle with cancer which led to her death. This flashback is a perfect representation of Hopper's development.

Hopper's arc in seasons 1 and 2 was one of my favourite things to watch: he starts as someone cold and isolated who drowns himself in drugs and alcohol to cope with his past trauma. Eventually, he learns to love again in all sorts of ways once Joyce comes back into his life. Hopper's drive to find Will and his love for Joyce inadvertently led him to El, and as he says in season 3:

"For so long, I'd been stuck in one place...And then, I left some Eggos out in the woods, and you came into my life. And for the first time in a long time, I started to feel things again." -Hopper's Letter, 3x03

In summary: flashbacks are used with intent and to SHOW the audience a character's internal struggles and thoughts. Stranger Things follows the textbook way to use flashbacks effectively, and has clearly been selective for a reason when it comes to which moments they choose to remind us of, as well as when, how, and why these moments are used. They have juxtaposed two very similar scenes and how the characters have escaped from the series' antagonist, Vecna, using these flashbacks/memories to their advantage. The final battle between El and Vecna was driven by El's love for Max. Mike was under the impression that what he said was what El needed to hear because it was veiled in Will's feelings. While these ideas have been widely discussed, showing how flashbacks have been effectively used throughout the show and comparing them to their usage (or lack thereof) in season 4 gives us excellent insights into El's headspace, as well as what the future holds for these characters. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into this analysis so I really hope you enjoyed it! Please give it a reblog if you can and leave your thoughts in the comments. I'd love to know your interpretation :) Thank you so much for reading! <3

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