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magicalink · 7 months

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Do they fuck or do they make love?

Headcanons with no specific AU! Mainly character x reader but it ended up implying character x character ships too in sime characters. I wrote this headcanons and when I was reading them to my boyfriend (who is my only beta reader) he started giving his opinions about them and I found his comments absolutely hilarious so I decided to include them! 🤣 First go my headcanons about the character and then my boyfriend's comments indented. Some of them are unhinged 🤣

Venti: Depends on the partner and the situation. He adores making delicate love to you but he's always up for a quickie in the middle of the house, the forest, anywhere and anytime you're willing. And oh Archons, is he intense when he does any of the two! He likes sex to be THE experience, and he tends to be over the top when it comes to it. Also an uncontrollable moaning machine.

Bf: Nah, he fucks. All the time. Cuz he is drunk all the time. We all know his only love is alcohol. I agree on the moaning machine part though, he is loud and doesn't care if others hear.

Diluc: Makes love. He has no time for sex if it's not with the love of his life. Doing it with him is a ceremony to remember. Expect long sessions full of kisses, heartwarming confessions, and body worshipping.

Bf: Accurate. Total gentleman. He only makes love. And possibly the first time you do it he will propose to you the morning after.

Childe: Fucks. He is all in for the adrenaline and pleasure in life, whether it's battle or it's lust. He wants to dive in and feel as much as he can,the more intense and dangerous, the better.

Bf: A fucking degenerate. He loves violence and competition and if he doesn't get it in sex then he's not interested. More of a masochist than a sadist, don't be surprised if you fight him and he ends up insinuating sexually to you. Especially if you're winning the fight. He wants to get beaten up. To sum up, he has a very weird way of "making love"...

Xiao: Makes love. To him, it's something sacred that should be shared with the people you love and respect the most. Will worship every inch of your body and be desperate to convey his feelings to you. Will focus completely on your pleasure, so make sure to calm him down and reward him a bit too!

Bf: Turbo virgin who self cock blocks all the time. He is always afraid: of hurting you, of making you uncomfortable, of saying something wrong, of looking at the wrong place...If you moan he asks you if you're okay. He gets soft all the time because he is afraid of hurting you. He has suicidal thoughts half the encounter. But yeah he makes love.

Albedo: Who knows, really. He's still studying what's the difference between the two. And he sure is doing an experiment and carefully studying it when he has sex with you. To be perfectly clear, he loves you, but this whole thing about sex and human relationships is new to him so he's trying to understand all these new feelings.

Bf: "Making love? Fucking? What is that? I'm the chalkman." Doesnt have a dick and if he had, he is not interested in human relationships at all. But if you manage to fuck him he would be writing down notes about it the whole time.

Scaramouche: Fucks because he thinks giving in to love will make him weak.💔

Bf: Fucks and he only thinks about his mommy issues while doing it. He only fucks to dissociate. And if you treat him with basic human kindness he will start seeing you as a maternal figure so be careful.

Wanderer: Now understands that lying about his feelings is the true form of weakness and doesn't want to waste a single more second of life, he makes love to you making sure he makes crystal clear how he feels about you: in the most explicit, toe-curling, fluid dropping way he can. If you like it hard, prepare to be smacked until you can't sit the following day.

Bf: He's gone to therapy so the mommy issues are better but he's still annoying af. He plays hard to get and pretends not to be committed but the truth is he's just being tsundere and hiding the fact that he is eating from the palm of your hand.

Kazuha: Makes the finest comfiest love in the world. Fucks like a horndog when he's drunk or high but won't stop telling you how crazily he loves you while doing it.

Bf: He is high af the vast majority of the time and during sex, it's no exception. If you manage to fuck him sober he will be the super reflexive and emotional type that cries during sex. But he fucks you lovely but won't make love to you, he only makes love with the love of his life Tomo, the rest of you are his cattle. He's a super friendly guy so after sex he will share his weed with you.

Gorou: He's a gentleman who wants to become good at making love but is extremely shy and gets flustered easily so he fucks sloppily. An adorable sight to behold!

Bf: I agree he is a little gentleman.

Tighnari: Makes love. Except when he's in heat. Then you have to be prepared if you wanna handle him.

Bf: another stoner. He would experiments with aphrodisiacs all the time, makimg them into weird salts or sth.

Cyno: Very similar to his jokes. He's completely sure he's giving his best at making love to you or Tighnari and showing you his devotion, but his poker face, stoic manners, and scary appearance make him look like he's angry fucking you. He doesn't get what he's doing wrong and doesn't do it on purpose. But it doesn't matter since you know him very well and not only are you used to his antics but you also have become sensitive to his very subtle changes of expression.

Bf: He can't help bit to tell bad jokes when he fucks. Self cockblocks himself all the time: either he goes soft in the middle of the act because he's laughing at his own jokes or he makes so cringy jokes that his partner gets uncomfortable and leaves. He can't help it, if he doesn't get them our he will explode.

Itto: Fucks wildly but it's his way of making love. He is just too brute to control the size and strength of his body, especially when he is under the effect of the feral feelings he has for you.

He loves you so much he can't help but to pick you up like you're a potato sack and swirl you in the air like you are a rag doll and take you with him everywhere. When he hugs you he leaves you breathless, when he kisses you he leaves you all sloppy and when he fucks you…well he leaves you sore for weeks but let's say it's totally worth it!

Bf: totally disagree! It would be so hard to fuck him, he would be clueless and friend zone or family zone you all the time. If you tell him you wanna be more than friends he would say "Superfriends??" With the biggest smile. And if you manage to fuck him he would be super careful, he knows he is a brute and is scared of hurting you.

Thoma: Makes super lovey-dovey love. Always double-checks if you're comfortable and enjoying the experience. Knowing he's making you feel good makes him glad and arouses him so don't be shy and tell him if he's doing it well!

Bf: nononono, absolutely wrong, you're blinded by his looks. He is a degenerate masochist and he only fucks Ayato. They have this weird dynamic where he literally acts as his dog.

Ayato: Another one who depends on the partner and situation. Honestly, he's so overworked that he desperately needs a good fuck. Ok maybe many of them. But not only he doesn't have the time, but also he can't be seen sleeping around due to his political position, so probably he'll only get to have sex when he finally finds the person he wants to marry. He hopes to be able to marry someone he actually loves instead of marrying for political reasons. So if you're the lucky one, expect heated sessions of lovemaking from this touch-starved man! Also, he'll love you but that doesn't mean he's gonna stop being a merciless tease 👀

Bf: Degenerate sadist who only has eyes for Thoma and makes him go through so much weird stuff they don't even remember what is to have normal sex. Tying him up and putting him on a leash is the most normal thing out of what they do.

Kaeya: Fucks. He lives for the spectacle and the mystique of it. Also, he's super popular around Mondstadt and wherever he goes so he sleeps around a lot. He has tons of admirers from both sexes and he makes sure to reward their love and devotion. He knows exactly how to please people, how to exacerbate his natural beauty and how to leave them crazy for him. He's simply so erotically natured. Probably the most experienced guy you know in the field.

Bf: Agree. Turbo slut. No more comments needed. If he manages to open his heart he can be sensitive. But that only happened once and it was with his own reflection in a mirror.

Heizou: Fucks lovingly 💕 He loves teasing and making his partner flustered. People and relationships are simply so fun and fascinating to him. And when he gets to be sexually intimate with someone it's even better! If you end up involved with him, be prepared to be taken to your limits.

Bf: Another degenerate. Probably makes you pretend you're a criminal to chase you around town. Pretty sadistic and I can imagine him having yandere tendencies. A cool guy though. When he is not horny.

Al Haitam: Zero interested in the matter. Until he met you. He is learning everything from scratch and even though he's always been a fast learner in everything, this subject is particularly hard since he needs to stop rationalizing and let his feelings take control for once. But his feelings for you are pretty intense, so little by little he is learning how to make love to you 💚

Bf: I imagine him as a turbo aspirator 3000. He would suck your soul out of your genitals. If you manage him to make him interested in sex, which is highly unlikely because he is like 0 interested in any kind of human contact. I picture him having sex with Kaveh and Kaveh would be a pillow princess and Haitham despite being the kind of guy who always sits down and just reads books he would be restless in bed, doing all the job and moving him around.

Kaveh: Another sweet-sweet love guy! He'll make sure to treat you like a princess and spoil you rotten in and out of the bedroom. He'll do the corniest expressions of chivalry but please bear with him, it genuinely comes from his heart. But if you want to see a more sloppy and wrecked side of him, you can always seduce him after he goes to the bar…

Bf: Sassy pillow princess. Or prince? Idk how to say it. He doesn't do anything but he will be all the time criticizing or praising what you do like a talent show judge. "Come on? Is it the first time you suck a cock or what?" You can imagine this kind of behavior is what infuriates Al Haitham and motivates him to go feral and fuck him around the whole house until he shuts the fuck up.

BONUS: This is an old draft but now that Neuvillete and Wriostheley are out, we couldn't let them out! So for this, we are interchanging roles, my bf will give you his headcanons and I will comment!

Bf: I'm 100% sure both Neuvie and Wriot are completely opposite in bed from their personalities in public. Our chivalrous and calm Neuvie is a pasional beast in bed. He is unsatiable, he is a dragon after all. Gives me the same vibes as Zhong Li who acts super calm but when fucking Childe he destroys 3 hotel rooms every night (exactly the type Childe loves. He got a crush on him when he struck him down at Fontaine's court. I'm sure Zhong Li will get jealous when he finds out and we will have some dragon drama going on) Back to Neuvie, he is super feral but he doesn't fuck, he makes love. It's his draconic way of making love. He is also very emotional and if he likes you, after having sex and having calmed down, he will open his wallet and start showing you the pictures of his 300 Melusine daughters and tell you their names and each of their jobs. He is a very proud dad.

Wriothesley loves you from a distance. While you fuck he is super sweet and loving, but during everyday life, he sucks at showing his feelings. He reminds me of the dad of Komi San, super silent but full of love. He communicates through glances (like a dog). Everyone thinks he is a bad boy but he's a super sentimental guy (won't admit it though) If you give him a gift he will treasure it forever and if someone breaks it or steals it from him he will beat them up.

One of his phrases would be "If something happens to my schmoochpsiepups I will kill everyone in Teyvat and then myself," and when he messes up with you for being unable to show his emotions he goes to a karaoke and sings "Baka Mitai" all depressed. He has 0 emotional intelligence and would go there often, crying "Oh, I wanted to tell Y/N how much I love them before they went away and I just groaned 'hmmm' AGAIN 😭😭".

YET ANOTHER BONUS: If Neuvillete and Wriothesley were in a romantic relationship, I'm sure Neuvie would tell him about all of his Melusine daughters. Wriot would act all cold and as if he didn't care but in fact he remembers all their names and thinks about them as his adoptive daughters. Don't be surprised if you walk down the street and see a Melusine falling down and he rescues her and goes to buy her an ice cream cone. He is a proud dad too.

Me: I have no comments. I agree with everything. And Wriot singing Baka Mitai would be amazing, he has the voice of Jotaro and Erwin after all.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Wow this post was longer than intended. AND ONLY NOW I realize we left Lyney and Zhong Li out. I guess bc to me Lyney is kinda teen coded? I feel like they wasted so much husband material making him look so young. I've seen the fandom drawing him as an adult and he looks so hansome. And both my bf and I rambled about Zhong Li but we forgot to include an entry for him 😂 He says it's ok because he's tied to Tartaglia and we spoke about him in Tartaglia's section 😂 God we are a disaster. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the post, whether you found the headcanons hot or my bf's comments funny. He is scared of getting cancelled though 😂

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xcaptain-winterx · 1 year

Note

Requests are open you say? How about Steve Rogers having a huge crush on the new recruit (reader) and being very awkward in trying to pursue her

Be a man

Steve Rogers x reader

summary: above

warnings: fluff, awkwardness, shy Steve, cum

a/n: English is not my first language, meaning you will probably find a lot of misspelling etc.

Part 2

Main Masterlist Steve Rogers Masterlist

Steven Grant Rogers also known as the hero Captain America. Fought against Hydra and their leader Red Skull, his brainwashed best friend, Ultron, his own team and even Thanos. You would think that Americas golden boy is unstoppable, that nothing can stop him.

You’re wrong.

See, Steve has years of experience in fighting due to the fact that he’s over a hundred years old and fought in World War Two. The only thing he doesn’t know about, or to be more specific, doesn’t have any experience with, is the opposite sex. Steve has never been on a date or had a real first kiss. Ok, yeah, he kissed Peggy and Natasha once, but that meant nothing. God, he’s still a virgin.

To sum it up, Steve is an awkward bean around women. He doesn’t always show it obviously, but ask him something not work related with a flirty smile, and he starts to sweats like a polar bear in the desert.

Steve always thought that he was going to be able to talk to ‘the girl’ once he saw her, that he will have no problem to communicate with her.

He thought wrong.

Steve is in the training room, punching the punching bag until it falls off again. He was supposed to be training with Sam, but he hasn’t shown up. So far, Sam always showed up or at least texted him if something came in between and he couldn’t make it. Steve stops hitting the punching bag and goes over to the bench where his phone is laying. He picks it up and swipes it open, seeing that he didn’t receive any text message from Sam.

It’s not normal for Sam to be late, so Steve decides that he’s going to look for Sam. He puts his phone in his pocket and walks out of the gym, in the direction of the living area.

As he walks down the hallway Bucky crosses his path, “Hey pal, have you seen Sam”, Steve asks.

“No, but I can imagine he’s talking to the new recruits, telling them something about teamwork makes the dream work, or some other shit”, Bucky says, mimicking Sam’s voice.

Steve’s brows furrow; what new recruits? Steve heard nothing about new recruits. “I don’t know anything about new recruits?”

“Transferred from a SHIELD base in Germany, I think. Sam will probably force us to introduce us to them”, Bucky says. Steve knows that it’s hard for Bucky to talk or communicate with new and many people at once, but he knows that he’s trying his best. Since he began going to therapy, his old self made more and more of an appearance, and Bucky feels a lot better in general even though it’s hard sometimes. He’s proud of Bucky. He’s trying his best.

“Better we do it now than later. Come on, Buck”, Steve says, patting his shoulder, and pulling him with him.

Bucky lets out a chuckle, “Ok”.

Both super soldiers walk towards the meeting rooms, thinking they might be there when Bucky suddenly stops walking. Steve looks at Bucky, silently questioning why he stopped. Bucky reads Steve’s facial expression before pointing towards the end of the hallway, “found him”.

Steve follows Buckys finger and sees Sam. Sam is not alone, he’s with a woman. A beautiful woman. A goddess.

Bucky sees Steve’s face heating up. “You good, pal?” he asks with a teasing voice. Steve doesn’t answer him, to lost in the woman’s beauty next to Sam. Bucky snaps his fingers in front of Steve’s face, trying to get him back to reality, but it doesn’t work.

Lost in thoughts, or to be more specific the woman, Steve doesn’t see how Sam noticed them too, and is calling them over.

“Steve!”

Steve comes back to reality when Sam calls him for the third time. Bucky laughs at Steve’s confused puppy stare, looking like he just woke up from a coma without any knowledge of what happened before. It gets worse as they see how Sam and the woman are now walking towards them. Bucky feels Steve panicking next to him. “Hey Steve, calm down, ok?” Bucky whispers to him.

“Mhm”, Steve answers, not being able to form any words. Sam and the Woman getting closer and closer to them.

“Remember, we just introduce ourselves” Bucky tries to calm him down, his own anxiety leaving and instead focusing on helping his friend, “You can do this. Just remember to think and talk at the same time, and don’t just stare at her”. If his friend wasn’t looking like a dead fish Bucky would’ve really enjoyed this moment. Him helping his friend talk to a woman like he did back in the 40s, but nothing about Steve’s current problem is funny. Well, maybe the fact that he for real looks like a dead fish.

“Ok” Steve says.

“Ok”

“You can do this, Steve”

“Ok”

And the woman gets closer and closer.

Steve begins to murmur what he wants to say, making Bucky look nervously at him.

The woman and Sam are now almost completely by them as Steve suddenly says, “I need to finish the mission report”, before sprinting the other direction.

“Hey, why did Steve-“ Sam can’t finish because Bucky is already sprinting after Steve, leaving him and the woman utterly confused. “BUCKY!”

Sam puts his hands on his hips, “normally they are not like this, ok? They probably just remembered to take their anti-aging cream”. He turns to you, “Super soldiers, you know”.

You smile as Sam claps your shoulders and says, “how about I show you the training room?”. You nod, letting him lead you to the training room.

Meanwhile, Steve is sprinting towards his room, looking like a gazelle who’s running away from a predator. Steve thought he could talk to her, but no.

Once he reaches his room, he locks the door, and then just stands there, staring at the locked door; what just happened? He begins to hyperventilate like how his pre serum self did when he had an asthma attack. The room feels like it’s shrinking. Steve feels small and scared. Just the sight of the woman made him with a snap of a finger feel like his weak 40s self before the serum. Back when no one liked him.

While Steve is having a panic attack, Bucky is running towards Steve’s room. Bucky started running after him some seconds after he sprinted away, and normally Bucky would’ve caught up to him, but Steve’s panic and the super soldier serum made it a bit difficult. Luckily, Bucky knows Steve like no one else and knows that he’s hiding in his room.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, knocking on the door. “You good, pal? Can I come in?”. He waits, but no answer comes, so he tries opening the door but it’s locked.

Bucky sighs, “Steve, let me in”.

On the other side, Steve is debating if he should let his best friend in. His debating goes too long for Bucky though because the next thing Steve hears is Bucky saying ‘Friday unlock the door’, and the door opens.

Bucky walks in, seeing a teared eyed Steve who’s breathing fast and heavy. Bucky strikes over to him and pulls him slowly down to the floor, sitting face to face with each other. He takes his hand and puts it on his heart, “Steve, hey. Focus on me. Focus on my heartbeat. You feel mine?” Bucky says, putting his other hand on Steve’s heart, feeling how his heart is still beating fast. “Steve, focus on my heartbeat”.

Steve looks at his friend and tries to focus on his heart. He closes his eyes, only trying to listen to Bucky’s heartbeat. “Yeah, I feel it”.

Bucky gives him a smile, “ok, good”.

They sit in silent for a few minutes, Steve’s heart beating now slower and his breaths coming out normally.

Bucky waits until Steve’s heartbeat is fully back to normal before asking “better?”.

Steve nods, “I didn’t think we would have had to use that method on me”, he says chuckling.

This calming method showed Bucky’s therapist, Steve. She told him that it would help Bucky calm down when he’s having a panic attack, and it did in fact help. The night after she explained it to him, Bucky woke up from a nightmare and started to panic. Steve’s room is right next to him, so he heard his friend’s panic. He tried the method that night and it worked perfectly. It took some while until Bucky calmed down, but it was way faster than without the method, and Bucky was able to fall asleep again after.

To other people, this method may look a bit weird, but it calms his best friend down, so who cares? It’s also no surprise that Steve is the only one allowed to do this method. Sam once tried it and Bucky punched him in his face when he put his hand on his chest. Sam left the room angrily and annoyed with a broken bloody nose. Bucky punched him with his metal arm. He thought Sam was in danger that second and in a state of danger he uses his metal arm. Bucky apologized to Sam though, and he truly felt bad and sorry. Sam instantly forgave him though, he knows it wasn’t his intention.

At least not in that situation.

Bucky even ‘baked’ Sam some brownies. Well, more like bought some Brownies and said he baked them. Sam knew he didn’t, but said nothing and just enjoyed eating some good, tasteless brownies with a smile on his face.

“Well, we didn’t think you would ever run away from a girl”.

Steve sighs, “Yeah. Back then, they would run away from me. Now it’s me running away”

“Why did you?”

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t know. I got scared I guess?”.

When Steve looks at Bucky again, he comes to face with a blank stare. It kinda reminds him of Bucky’s winter soldier stare. If they weren’t having an emotional and serious conversation, Steve would’ve been actually concerned that something happened that made Bucky go into Winter Soldier mindset.

Bucky scares Steve when he suddenly jumps up, “You know what” he pulls Steve up, almost making him fall over “You will have that girl”.

“Huh?” he asks, confused.

“Or just someone”.

He doesn’t like the thought of Bucky helping him. Bucky was a true player back then, a gentleman, but a player.

“I help you talk to women. I can do that. I did that a hundred years ago” he stops when he realizes “fucking hell, that’s a long time ago”.

Steve scowls, “Language, Buck”.

“Sorry”.

“I get that you’re trying to help me, and I appreciate that” Steve takes a deep breath before continuing, “but I can’t”

“Why?” Bucky asks crossing his arms, standing like an angry parent.

“I just can’t, ok? Also, colleges are not allowed to be in a romantic relationship”.

“Then look for someone else. There’s this woman named Leah. She works at my favorite sushi place and I heard-“

“I don’t want someone else!”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, a teasing grin on his face. “Ohhhh, so you want her. Ok, Steven. I see you”. He winks at Steve as he groans.

“I didn’t say that. I just-ugh, I like her, but-there’s not gonna be anything between us” he tries to give his best friend a reassuring smile, but knowingly fails. “You can ask Leah out”, Steve tries changing the topic.

“No, she’s not my type”.

Bucky knows that Steve won’t stop having a crush on the new recruit. It took Steve a hundred years to get over Peggy. He was still in love with her even after being unfrozen. Now imagine he’s thinking about the new recruit until he dies. Bucky doesn’t want that. God, he was honestly happy when Peggy passed. That woman was like a snake slithering her way into his friends heart only to poison it. He didn’t like her from the second she interrupted Steve and his conversation. Dumb Bitch.

He wants his friend to be happy. He wants to be an uncle. He hopes Steve will get himself together and talk to her.

“Ok. Whatever you say”, Bucky says, patting him on his shoulder. They continue talking, but this time about what movie they are going to watch for their ‘we need to learn about cinematic history’ movie night. While talking, Bucky’s mind continues to wander back to their original conversation, and about the fact that Steve doesn’t want some dating teaching from him. In all honesty, he’s slightly hurt by that.

He could still help him somehow, though.

It’s been a week now since he saw the new recruit and he’s been trying to avoid any situation that could lead to him seeing her. Steve knows it sounds silly, but he’s scared of her. Scared of seeing her. Scared of her seeing him. He hasn’t been training for a week. Steve knows the chances are high that she will be there. The only sort of trying he did this week was going for a run. Alone.

Sam noticed a change in Steve. Everybody did. Steve was never a huge extrovert and now he’s such an introvert. He doesn’t even eat with them anymore because she could be there, or just walk past them eating.

Today he needs to be brave, though. Bucky asked him to train together because he’s the only good match for him. Bucky told him that winning against Sam slowly starts to get boring, and that Steve needs to train again. Cardio is good, but Steve needs to do more.

After trying to convince Bucky that they can also train outside or anywhere else than the training room, he knew from Bucky’s reaction that it’s not gonna happen. So now he’s on his way to meet Bucky in the training room.

To say Steve is nervous is an understatement, he’s almost shitting his pants.

Bucky assured him they would have the room for themselves and Steve just hopes that that’s true.

Steve walks into the gym and surprisingly sees no one. No Bucky. Steve was already late because he was nervous, so it confuses him why Bucky isn’t here. He looks at the clock on the wall and sees that he’s sixteen minutes late, meaning Bucky is to late too.

“Maybe he’s still asleep”, Steve tells himself. Technically, he would be happy that Bucky is able to sleep, but it’s the first time since a week that he’s training and last time, Sam already didn’t come.

He is just about to go to Bucky’s room when he hears a soft voice.

“Well, it’s only seven in the morning”.

Steve turns around and freezes.

It’s the woman

Oh, no no no no no

“Every normal person would be asleep at this time”.

Steve is unable to speak, he’s just staring at her. Not even blinking, just staring.

She looks at him with a smile, waiting for an answer, or just something.

When Steve realizes that she’s waiting for an answer, he clears his throat. “Yeah, uhm-I uh, I mean he likes to sleep-uh- he can’t sleep that much and-uhm yeah. He normally only uhm-sleeps with me- Wait not like that-uh I mean, he just likes to sleep with me-no. He uhm, he sleeps better with-me-uhm because I’m a good sleep partner- no, I just-uhm. IM NOT GAY”.

Steve looks at her with wide eyes. He knows he just made a fool of himself, so he tries to save himself.

Tries.

“There’s obviously nothing wrong with liking-uhm men, but I’m not like that. Yeah, uhm I hate men- wait not hate men, I like them, but platonic like ha ha. I like woman. But I’m not a relationship-I uhm”, he doesn’t want to look like he is desperate for a relationship. She could think that he’s trying to ‘hit on her’. He believes that what it’s called, but you can never trust Tony. “I’m not into relationship- uhm, the romantic, uh, kind-just the other kind”

Now she looks at him with wide eyes. The only other non-relationship kind she can think of is the sexual one. She can’t believe that Captain Rogers, the golden boy, is such a man. The worst part is that Steve doesn’t understand what he just said and instead looks at her with a nervous smile. Poor boy thought it sounded more like normal relationship, platonic kind. It didn’t, though.

“You do you, I guess” she says, feeling incredibly uncomfortable. She didn’t think her first time meeting Captain America would be like this.

Steve sees that she’s not comfortable or at least confused by what he’s saying. Maybe she doesn’t like his answer.

So he continues to try to fix this conversation.

“I uhm I would like a relationship-with someone-uh I want to-“ he can’t say dancing, that sounds boring. He needs to come up with something that everyone does these days. Something that she would probably like “do Netflix and chill”.

Steve needs to get better at telling when he can trust Tony and when not.

“Oh, uhm” she doesn’t know what to say “that’s nice I guess”.

Right now, Steve would rather fight against HYDRA than talk to her. He can feel how he’s sweating. And if that already isn’t bad enough, he starts to really look at her. Oh boy.

She’s wearing tight black leggings with a matching black sport bra. She must’ve been already training for a while because he sees some drops of sweat on her chest area, running to her cleavage. Steve is directly looking at her cleavage, not taking his eyes off it.

He doesn’t notice that he’s looking at it, well, that he’s so obviously looking at it.

She puts her left hand on her right shoulder, acting like she’s massaging it, and not like she’s trying to cover her chest.

Steve’s eyes move to hers, and it only takes three seconds until realization hits him.

“Shit!” he screams, making her jump “oh, I’m sorry I didn’t want to scare you-I uhm, and I didn’t want to stare at your you know-chest. Not because they are not pretty, they are-NO Uhmmm, they uh. It’s just”.

Steve stops talking when the door opens and Bucky walks in with a smile on his face “Language, Steve. Good morning you two”. At least someone is having one.

“Morning”, she says, smiling at his best friend before walking away to lift some weight. Deep down they are both happy that Bucky saved them from the awkward situation, though, Steve is also sad because he wanted to talk to her, to have a chance, but he failed.

Bucky smiles after her, then turns to Steve. “Hey Steve, how are you?”

“You knew, didn’t you” Steve almost spats, his voice echoing throughout the training room. He turns around and sees how she is looking at them.

He quickly turns back around, facing Bucky, who just gives him an innocent smile. “What do you mean Steve?”. Bucky knows that Steve can’t say anything about that, due to the fact that she can hear everything they are saying.

Steve glares at him, grinding his teeth. “That you would be late”, he lies.

“Yeah”.

Steve wants to scream, but he can’t “why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, his veins showing.

“I texted you, Punk”, Bucky says as he walks over to get a punching bag.

Steve frowns; Bucky didn’t text him. He pulls out his phone.

Love❤️‍🔥- I’ll be a bit late

Send one minute ago

Steve cringes as he sees the name Tony and Sam saved Bucky on his phone. He would rather want Punk with that heart. Platonic style. He doesn’t know how to change it, though.

“Didn’t you see my message?” Bucky gives him a fake questioning expression. A teasing one.

“I must have missed it”, Steve says in a monotone voice “I mean it says you send it a minute ago. Bucky”.

“Oh, you know. The signal is quite bad here”

Steve closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Yeah, Bucky. You would’ve thought that Tony would’ve already handled it”.

Bucky snickers “Yeah”.

“Yeah”.

Bucky walks with the bag over his shoulder towards a hook to hang the bag on. He turns to look at Steve, a grin on his face when his eyes move to look behind Steve.

“Hey, how about you help her, Steve~”, Bucky says loudly.

Steve follows his eyes and sees how the recruit is struggling with moving some weights out of her way, so she can put the bench there to do some bench presses.

She looks at them and gives them a shy smile. “That would be kinda nice”.

Steve looks back at Bucky, panic in his eyes. Bucky gives him a big smile that says ‘yes’.

It’s time, it’s time to shine, Steve. He can do that, he can easily lift that.

‘Ok, Steve. Pull your ass cheeks together and help her’ he thinks to himself as he walks towards her. He stops in front of her, getting lost in her eyes for a second. This time he snaps back quickly though and moves the weights away.

“Thank you, Captain Rogers”, she says, his back still towards her.

“Mhm” he can’t bring out a single word. Instead of turning back to her, he sorts the weights, so she doesn’t see him blushing. “You-You’re welcome”.

He hears her getting on the bench and takes that as his cue to leave.

“Hey, Steve!”

Please, don’t Bucky.

“You should help her. Stay behind her to make sure that her arms don’t give in”

Steve doesn’t turn around this time. He can hear how she doesn’t lift any weight, meaning she is looking at them.

“Yeah, I uhm would, but- mission reports. I need to finish the mission report”, Steve lies “important stuff you know. Not like helping her isn’t important, but yeah. Avenger stuff is important….”.

It’s that second that Bucky realizes that Steve is the worst person in admitting his crush he ever met. The best friend he is, he needs to help him. “Oh, I already did them for you”.

Great, now Steve’s lie is a lie. Thank you, Bucky.

“No, I don’t think you did”, he tries to save himself “They were on my desk this morning, unfinished”

Good job, Steve.

“I did them this morning. We were on the same mission, Steve. Only one of us needs to do them” Bucky says, punching the bag “I send you a message”.

“No, you didn’t-“ he looks at his phone to see a message from Bucky.

Love❤️‍🔥-already did the mission report.

Send a minute ago.

Bucky knows Steve like the back of his hand. He knew what excuses he would use to try to flee the scene. A laugh almost leaves his mouth as he sees the face Steve is making. God, he missed teasing him.

“I thought you were asleep”.

“No, I wanted to finish it. You’ve been quite stressed the past week, and I wanted to lift some weight of your shoulders”.

“Thanks, James”.

The tension between them is noticeable. So noticeable that the recruit is more uncomfortable than when she was alone with Steve.

She gets their attention when she walks past them to grab her water bottle. “Have fun training”

“You already leaving?” Steve asks disappointed, sad that she’s leaving.

“Yeah, I’ve already been training before you both came. Also, I need to find Sam. He promised to show me the rest of the compound. I only saw half of the facility so far and don’t want to get lost at some point”, she says. So far she didn’t get lost because the most important areas were already introduced to her, but it’s better to know the whole compound. “Bye” she waves them before opening the door and walking through it.

No one says anything until the door closes. Bucky is the first to break the silence, “wow”.

“I know you did that on purpose!”

“I was trying to make you talk to her” he grabs his shoulder “I just want to help you. She’s a beautiful woman-“

“Hey!”

“See” Bucky says, “you’re jealous when I just say that she’s pretty. You have a crush on that girl, Steve”.

Steve sighs in defeat. “Ok, maybe”.

“I KNEW IT” Bucky screams, jumping like a little kid on Christmas morning “FUCK YES, STEVE”

“Language”

He stops jumping and looks at him. “You will get that girl. I promise” Bucky looks like he’s about to cry “oh my god, you’re all grown up”.

Steve lets out a slight laugh. It’s almost ridiculous how happy Bucky is that there’s a girl that he kinda likes. It reminds him of how they talked about their futures when they were little. They talked about carriers and family, and how they will be called uncle Steve and uncle Bucky by their best friends kids.

“Are you crying?” he asks, seeing Bucky wipe his eye.

“Pfff, no”.

Oh, he’s definitely crying.

“Calm down, Bucky. Just because I like her doesn’t mean that she likes me”.

“Yeah, because you’re just an Avenger, the symbol of America, a super soldier, owner of America’s ass-“

“Ok, I get it”. Steve isn’t dumb, he knows that people know him, that he’s quite famous; god he sounds like Tony. All this doesn’t make him the most liked person in the world, though, and not everyone fall for him. Not just because he has blond hair and some women like dark hair, or he is to old schooled and doesn’t know every new show on Netflix, or women are not into him because they hate male genitals and prefer women’s….parts. The shield only shows what he shows the world and not the people he cares about. He doesn’t show his emotional side with all his flaws.

“You like her, right” Bucky asks, knowing the answer.

“Yes, of course, but-“

“Then you will go to her and tell her that”. Bucky claps his hands. “You will tell her how much you like her. You will take her dancing and to the movies. Understand?”

“Yes, Sargent” Steve smiles.

“I know she’s the one. You will propose to her at sunset and give me some nephews and nieces”. Steve laughs at Bucky’s hyper fixation about his crush. Both of them are acting like two teenage girls.

“A uncle to Steve Jr’s and….uhm…what’s her name again”

“……”

“………..”

“……………”

“………you don’t know her name?”

“no, not really”. Well, that’s awkward.

“Oh my god, Steve”, Bucky is regretting his decision to help his friend “how about we start with you introducing yourself?”

“Bucky, please don’t do anything stupid”, Steve pleads. He doesn’t want Bucky to give him to much pressure. The thought of Bucky trapping them in a closet scares him, or him basically throwing him against her.

Bucky just looks at him confused. “You will do something stupid. I’m here to prevent that from happening”.

“Promise?”

“Promise” Bucky says showing Steve his hands “I swear on Sam’s life”.

Steve smile slowly falls and Bucky corrects himself “ok, I swear on uhm, your life”.

“I guess that’s ok”

Since then Bucky’s been on the mission ‘get a sister-in-law’, with no luck though. He thought being a wingman would be easier, but it’s not. Definitely not. Or he has just a bad person that he needs to help.

So far Steve had like four times eye contact, spoke two sentences in two conversations. The one sentence only being two words.

The best try so far was when Steve was in the kitchen, reading the newspaper, when she came and asked him if he could move a bit so she can get to the fridge, and Steve said ‘yes’. He said something, made eye contact, didn’t walk away and didn’t stutter. He didn’t even sweat! Steve did this on his own without him and for that he needs an applause.

And the worst try was when he was ‘forced’ to train with her.

“You can do this Steve”, Bucky whispers to Steve before giving him a pat on the shoulder and pushing him towards the mat.

Steve still hasn’t introduced himself yet, so Bucky thought it would be a good opportunity to see the skills of the new recruits and to train with them. Surprisingly, Steve is now sparring against his crush, the woman they still don’t know the name of.

Steve walks on the mat, giving a quick look over his shoulder to see Bucky giving him a thumbs up.

He takes a deep breath before saying, “Ok, come at me”.

To say he’s impressed is an understatement. He’s fascinated by her skills, by the way she moves with such grace. Instead of directly coming at him and trying to punch him, she moves around him. She does that the whole time, dodging every single move of him while he tries to land a hit on her, well, more like pinch her. He wouldn’t hurt her. Ever.

At some point Steve finally manages to get a hold of her, but she is quicker and kicks his one leg away and then uses his arms to lift her up and wrap her legs around his neck, bringing him down. Steve is now on the mat with her legs around his neck, her directly hovering over his face. Steve doesn’t know why, but he’s not complaining about this position.

He gets himself back together and uses his legs to his lower back of the mat and makes a roll, so now she’s on the mat, with him in between her legs.

Steve can be lucky that most of the recruits are already doing their own thing because this is not a professional normal work position. Sam, who just walked in, stopped next to Bucky when he sees the scene. He looks at Bucky and sees how he’s directly looking at where Steve’s face is.

“Stop doing your creepy eye thing”, Sam tells him, but Bucky simply ignores him. Sam is about to say something when he hears a loud slam, and sees her on top of Steve, straddling his hips “oh”.

This scene doesn’t last long though because Steve flips them around, now straddling her hips and pinning her arms above her head. She tries to move around under him, successfully. Her back towards and is about to use her knees to make him fall off. Steve thinks quicker though and flips them again. Her back against his chest and his back against the floor. He wraps his legs around each of her legs, making her unable to move them, while he wraps his arms around her neck, taking her in a headlock. She tries to wiggle away, but can’t.

She taps his arm, signaling him that he won. Steve lets her go, softly lifting her arm to help her up, and then getting up after her.

“Everything ok?” he asks, wanting to make sure that he didn’t hurt her in some kind. That would definitely make admitting his feelings harder.

“Yes”, she smiles at him, panting slightly, “thank you, Captain Rogers, for training with me”. The smile she gives him is a true, generous smile. Steve doesn’t see how Sam and Bucky are exchanging scared looks.

“Y-You don’t need to tank me”, Steve says. Now it’s the time to introduce himself; he can do it. He takes a deep breath before continuing. “And you can call me S-“

He gets pulled away by Bucky, forcefully getting pushed against his chest. Steve looks Bucky confused into his eyes as Bucky pulls him with him behind the corner, out of sight of her, with Sam walking next to them. All the way to behind the corner Bucky keeps Steve against him, while Sam blogs other from seeing Steve’s side.

“What are you doing? I was just about to introduce myself”

Sam looks at him with wide eyes. “Yeah, something else was also about to introduce himself” and points to Steve’s crotch.

Steve looks down and sees what Sam is talking about.

For the first time, the golden boy is having a boner. A huge one. The serum really did make everything bigger.

“Oh, no no no no” Steve goes.

“Hey, it’s ok” Bucky tries calming him down “it’s uhm normal”

“Yeah, you know how many boners I had in my life”, Sam continues.

“See, even Sam thinks so. Did you ever notice how often I had when we were out with some girls, or just when I was thinking about one”, Bucky continues, Sam nodding his head the whole time. Both giving Steve a smirk. “You have them everywhere. In the shower, during work, in bed, I even had them when we had a sleepover”.

“Oh my god” Steve hates talking about that. He doesn’t know what’s worst, talking about women things or about men and their boners. “I had it in front of her, in front of everyone” he cries out.

Sam pats his shoulder. “No one saw it”

“You did!”.

“Because we watched both of you”, Sam assures him. “The others did their own thing, and she looked in your eyes, man. Not what’s below Captain America’s waist”

“Maybe she felt it though”, Bucky says.

“Bucky!”

“Your not helping, man”, Sam shrugs and looks down “ok, maybe she did because you know, it’s not small”

“See, Wilson! You agree”

Steve had never been this embarrassed in his entire life. He covers his erection with his hands, but it only makes it more obvious. He’s trying to cover his boner while his two best friends are talking about his penis size and how often they get a boner. He wants to dig himself a grave.

“Guys!” Steve whisper screams, getting their attention back. “I need to get rid of it”.

“Of your giant boner?”

“Yeas, Sam. What else is there to get rid of?” Steve says. Bucky slaps Sam on the back of his head, with no context at all. “What was that for, Bucky?”

He shrugs “I know you would like to do that, but are too nice to actually do it”. Steve just wanted to have a nice day where he maybe finally managed to speak to the woman of his dreams, but no, everything had to go like shit. “What do I do?”.

Sam and Bucky look at each other before letting out an obvious loud breath of air. They turn to Steve. “Well, you could try to calm down” Sam says, and Bucky continues “or you could, you know, help yourself out”.

“No!” Steve doesn’t even want to imagine helping himself out. The simple thought disgusts him and he feels an incredible feeling of shame.

Steve shakes his head at them. “Tell me something, that helps uhm, the problem”.

“Remember when your mom caught us looking through her drawers and spanked you”.

“….”

“Are you getting harder?” Sam asks, looking at his now slightly bigger boner.

“N-no” Steve pushes with all might on his boner to get it down “s-say something else”. He begs his friends for help.

Bucky looks hopeless “I don’t know what to say to get her off of your mind”. Steve wants to say something when Sam holds up his hands.

“Hold up, her off of your mind” he says looking at Steve, “so it wasn’t just because you got a bit close to her”. The smirk on his face is huge, a teasing one.

Steve groans out of frustration and pain.

“You know, I could see you together”, Sam goes, giving him a thump up.

“I know, but he’s too afraid to ask her. He couldn’t even introduce himself”.

“You didn’t introduce yourself to y/n?”

Steve looks at him and repeats her name softly. Y/n. Your name sound like an angel, a page out of the Bible that you worship and say as a pray. He would do that. Say your name like it’s a holy prayer. He wants to say your name again again and again. Whispering your name in your ear as you slowly share a kiss.

“Shit” Bucky says. He thought that Steve’s boner couldn’t get any bigger, but he was wrong. So wrong. It’s now almost twice as big as before. “Sam, why did you say that?!”

“I didn’t know this was going to happen! I just said her name. I didn’t think he would get hard because of a name”.

“Well, he did!”

They hear people coming into the training room. A lot by the sound of their talking. At least fifteen entered the room. Now you add them three, plus y/n and plus the seven recruits that were already in here. That makes twenty-six people. Two, Sam and Bucky, already saw Steve’s boner.

“Guys!” Steve screams “what do I do?!”, hiding more in the corner.

“Obviously getting her out of your head doesn’t work”.

“How about you stay in front of me while I walk out”.

Both shake their head “they would see you though and stare at you. Also, there are too many. You wouldn’t make it out unnoticed”.

“What if I wait until they leave”.

“Steve, they will eventually walk to this corner when they get more weights, and then see you”

Steve looks hopeless. “Bring me some pants that- I don’t know, doesn’t show my you know”.

“Steve…nothing can hide that boner”, Sam says “there is only one option”.

“What?”

“you could…help yourself out, Steve”

“No”

“Steve, please”

“No”

“Pal, listen-“

“No, Bucky. I can’t do that. I can’t just touch my…member…and..bring myself pleasure”, Steve hates talking about it. “How am I even suppose to do it?!”

“You take your dick in your hand and hold it tight, then you start to move your hand up and down. Personally, I would advise you to do it fast but-“

“I meant where!” he covers his ears trying to forget what Bucky just said. Though he learned something new. “I can’t just do it here, it would..spill”

Sam looks around until he sees something that could help “take this to collect your sperms”. He shows Steve an empty probably by someone forgotten water bottle.

“But-“ Steve knows that this is the only way and that he should accept it, but he doesn’t want to “fine”.

“I wait around the corner so no one walks over here, while Bucky makes sure you don’t get a heart attack” Sam says, winking before walking around the corner. Bucky gives Steve a slight smile before turning around. He doesn’t need to see his best friend Masturbate.

Surprisingly, Steve isn’t that loud. Sam only heard him once or twice a bit louder. One time he was screaming Bucky’s name because he turned around for a second.

Sam walks over to them when Bucky gives him a thump up. Steve is sitting on the floor, panting heavenly. Next to him, a completely full to the top water bottle. Or more like cum bottle.

“Congratulations on your first orgasm, Steve”

They are on their way out now, happy that Steve doesn’t have a big gun in his pants anymore.

“Hey, Sam”

Fuck

“Hey, Y/n” Sam smiles, while Steve panics. He’s drenched in sweat and is holding a bottle of his own cum.

You smile at Bucky and Steve too. You look at Steve and see how he looks like he’s in pain and completely drenched. “Are you ok, Captain Rogers?”.

Bucky and Sam quickly cover him up. “Oh yeah, he’s fine, he just-“

“Is hungry!”

“Uhm yeah and you know how you can get sick when you didn’t eat”

“Yeah ya get really sick”

You stare at them for a second, trying to process what they said. “Oh, maybe you should drink your shake then, Captain Rogers”, and point to his ‘shake’, and give him a smile.

“I-“

Bucky stops Steve. “Yeah no, he will just get something from the kitchen, you know?”.

“Bucky’s right, uhm I don’t think that would be such a smart idea to drink the shake. Hah ha” Steve says awkwardly.

Your smile falls. “Oh, yeah sure. I just thought that would help. We don’t want you passing out”.

Was his answer mean, is what Steve thinks. He doesn’t want you to think he just didn’t drink the ‘shake’ because you said that. Steves heart pains as he sees your reaction; you looked so sad. It obviously isn’t that big of a deal. Surely you forget about it later, but what if you don’t? You don’t forget that he didn’t want to drink the ‘shake’. What if you think you’re dumb for asking that? He thinks for a second, a long second, a second that will change everything.

“You’re right”, and opens the cap.

#chris evans #steve x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers #steve rogers imagines #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers smut #steve rogers angst #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers x reader fluff #steve rogers x y/n #captain america x y/n #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america #steven grant rogers

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skepticalcatfrog · 2 months

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Kerch, Ghezenism, and the Van Eck Family

The title pretty much sums it up. This is a rather extensive analysis, and to be honest with you all it is 2,500+ words. So get into this absolute beast at your own risk!

~~~

From my experience in this fandom, I've seen it discussed very frequently how important religion is in the Grishaverse. Not only is it very deeply developed, to the point where many of the different countries have unique beliefs - which I'm not sure is seen very often in newer literature - but the various religious systems are also deeply important to many major characters, such as Matthias and Inej. However, one aspect of Grishaverse religions that seems to be overlooked somewhat often is the Kerch religion of Ghezenism. This may just be me, but I have a lot of thoughts on it. A big reason for that is that Wylan is, and always has been, my favorite character, and the culture surrounding Ghezen is actually a very important part of his character for many reasons. When you look into it in the way that I have, you discover that there are a lot of peculiar aspects of Ghezenism that make it stand out, as well as many ties that it has to major aspects of the story.

Right away, one thing that makes Kerch religion different from the others is how deeply connected to the economy it is. So much so that a lot of aspects of the two subjects are one and the same. Given that Ketterdam is a city largely fueled by commerce, it makes sense that Ghezenism would heavily tie into Kerch culture as well. Symbols of Ghezen can be found in many places throughout the city, even beyond the Church of Barter. A very good example of this is Vellgeluk, the island where the Crows meet Van Eck expecting to get their reward from the Ice Court heist: “Smugglers called it Vellgeluk, “good luck,” because of the paintings still visible around the base of what would have been the obelisk tower: golden circles meant to represent coins, symbols of favor from Ghezen, the god of industry and commerce,” (Six of Crows, Chapter 44). This just goes to show how many people in Ketterdam, and the wider country of Kerch as well, put their faith in Ghezen. Vellgeluk is a chosen place for smugglers to do business, specifically because favors of Ghezen are still present there.

Another interesting part of that passage is the fact that Ghezen is referred to as the god of industry and commerce. Kerch may have other gods, but as far as I can remember - and I may be wrong, but I don't think I am - we never hear about any of them. A similar situation can be found in Fjerda, where Djel is specifically the god of life, implying the existence of other gods. In Fjerda, it is very clear that Djel is mainly what they base their culture and belief system around. This makes perfect sense for a god of life, but isn't Ketterdam’s situation a bit more unusual? The most frequently discussed god, Ghezen, represents industry. We can assume Ghezen is the primary god within the Kerch religious system. Not to mention that their largest church is called the Church of Barter, barter obviously being a term that has much to do with economics. Ketterdam, if not the entire country of Kerch, seems to have no real concept of the separation of church and state. They quite literally hold auctions inside of the church; the auctioning of Kuwei is not a singular event.

The impacts of religion can also be seen in the culture and behavior of the people of Kerch, as seen in a brief section of Crooked Kingdom. “Kerch women—even the wealthy ones—didn’t bother with anything as frivolous as embroidery or needlepoint. Ghezen was better served by tasks that benefited the household,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 14). Obviously, things like this are much more typical of religion. But I would argue that even this holds traces of the same values expressed by the connection between Ghezenism and the economy. It is specifically mentioned here that Kerch women are encouraged to participate in tasks that will “benefit the household”. This displays one of the very prominent aspects of the Ghezenite religion, which is that one of the most important things a person can do is be productive, and create a prosperous life for themselves and their family.

In addition to direct ties between Ghezenism and the Kerch economy, occasionally the legal system is put into the mix as well. While considering what consequences his father might face after the events of the auction, Wylan reveals this piece of information: “Knowingly entering into a false contract for the purpose of subverting the market wasn’t just illegal, it was considered blasphemy, a blight on the works of Ghezen, and the penalties were harsh,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 41). Essentially what he means by this is that not only is tampering with the economy against the law, but it is also heavily frowned upon in a religious sense, and anyone who does so will face punishment from both sides. This is extremely unique, even within the Grishaverse. This single sentence also reveals another very interesting thing about Kerch society. The market, as it exists in Ketterdam, is believed to be a creation of god - it is referred to here as being a part of the “works of Ghezen”. That, more than anything, is concrete proof of just how interconnected the economy of Kerch is with its primary religion. This also means that committing a crime such as Van Eck did isn't simply illegal (which we can assume he has no issues with), it is also an act that goes against his own religion. But stop to consider for a moment: does he really have a problem with that either?

There are numerous examples throughout both books of Van Eck blatantly abusing the values of his own religion. On its own, the teachings of Ghezenism aren't inherently bad. After all, things such as tampering with the market for your own gain are actively discouraged using the threat of blasphemy, which I'd say is generally beneficial. The issue, however, arises when Van Eck in particular attempts to twist some of these values in order to justify his own actions. If there is one single quote from the duology that exemplifies this, it would be this one: “Ghezen shows his favor to those who are deserving, to those who build cities, not the rats who eat away at their foundations. He has blessed me and my dealings. You will perish, and I will prosper. That is Ghezen’s will,” (Six of Crows, Chapter 45). Van Eck openly believes that, since he is a member of the upper class, he is somehow more deserving of a blessing. He is insistent that “Ghezen's will”, or what he interprets as what Ghezen wishes for him to do, is to trample others in order to further his own success.

It doesn't matter to him who stands in his way, and it never will, because his goal is only to make himself more wealthy; he simply hides this behind a thin veil of piety. This motivation is especially clear when he is speaking to Inej while he is holding her captive. “When I leave this world, the greatest shipping empire ever known will remain, an engine of wealth, a tribute to Ghezen and a sign of his favor. Who will remember a girl like you, Miss Ghafa? What will you and Kaz Brekker leave behind but corpses to be burned on the Reaper’s Barge?” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 7). He frames people less fortunate than him - in this case Kaz and Inej - as forgettable and unimportant. The only thing he considers truly important is wealth, which he equates to power. He even references Ghezen here, claiming again that all of his actions, as well as his empire and legacy, are meant to show his dedication to his religion. He also claims that his ability to attain this level of success is a sign that Ghezen favors him. That in particular is a display of his extremely warped view of Ghezenism. The truth is that his success can only be attributed to his unethical actions, but the fact that he claims it is due to Ghezen's favor means that he will never be able to be convinced that he is wrong. He has what he believes to be an airtight justification.

His classism is also extremely evident, while indirectly, in an exchange between Kaz and Wylan earlier on in Crooked Kingdom. ““Your father much for charity?” “No. He tithes to Ghezen, but he says charity robs men of the chance at honest labor,”” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 2). This shows that Van Eck is very protective over his wealth. Which, quite frankly, is more likely than not the exact opposite of what Ghezenism is intended to promote. Based on what we are shown from an outside perspective, it seems as though one of the main aspects of Ghezenism is to create a prosperous economy for everyone. However, what Van Eck seems to believe is that he is intended to simply accumulate as much wealth as he possibly can, and keep it all for himself.

It is incredibly clear that Van Eck doesn't care about the well-being of anyone other than himself when it comes down to it. It could be argued that he cares for Alys, and will care for their child when it is born, but this simply cannot be proven. Just look at the exact mirror of this situation: Marya and Wylan. Wylan states about his parents, “I think he really loved her. They fought all the time, sometimes about me, but I remember them laughing a lot together too,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 14). If we are to believe that this is true, and Van Eck truly did love Marya, that doesn't change the fact that he didn't hesitate to send her away as soon as he discovered that Wylan couldn't read or write. There is no evidence to say that he wouldn't do the same to Alys, under similar circumstances.

And, of course, this all leads back to the matter of Wylan. When Van Eck decided that Wylan wouldn't be useful to him, he stopped caring about him very quickly. Near the end of Six of Crows, we hear more of the specifics on Van Eck's opinion of Wylan. “I have hired the best tutors from every corner of the world. I’ve tried specialists, tonics, beatings, hypnotism. But he refused to be taught. I finally had to accept that Ghezen saw fit to curse me with a moron for a child. Wylan is a boy who will never grow to be a man. He is a disgrace to my house,” (Six of Crows, Chapter 45). Van Eck believes that Wylan is a curse from Ghezen, purely because he thinks that Wylan will be incapable of producing profits for their business. This is perhaps one of the most egregious examples of his blatant abuse of his own religion, because he is entirely willing to abandon and even murder his own son in order to fulfill his goals, which he claims is all Ghezen's will.

There is no feasible way Wylan would be able to grow up being raised by Van Eck, and not be affected by his religious ideas in some way. In fact, there is evidence contained in the text that proves this rather thoroughly. There are even certain things that have already been cited within this analysis that can be circled back to, such as the quote just above. This quote exemplifies the sort of treatment Wylan was subjected to while growing up. This is mostly speculation, but it's safe to assume he was told at a very young age that his own father considered him a punishment from god. That is objectively terrible, and we know that by the age of eight his father was his only parent. The psychological impacts that that would have on a child that young are unimaginable.

Additionally, we can return to this quote from Crooked Kingdom: “When I leave this world, the greatest shipping empire ever known will remain, an engine of wealth, a tribute to Ghezen and a sign of his favor. Who will remember a girl like you, Miss Ghafa? What will you and Kaz Brekker leave behind but corpses to be burned on the Reaper’s Barge?” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 7). While Van Eck is not talking to Wylan here, and Wylan isn't even present at the time, this passage still indirectly displays Van Eck's feelings about Wylan. Here he is expressing the fact that he maintains that if a person is not able to create wealth and prosperity for themselves, they are essentially useless. As we know from the previous example, he believes this of Wylan as well.

It is evident that Wylan was taught Ghezenite values from a young age. While examining the exterior of the Church of Barter, his thoughts include this: “He didn’t need to be able to read the words engraved over the arch. He’d heard his father repeat them countless times. Enjent, Voorhent, Almhent. Industry, Integrity, Prosperity,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 31). This is confirmation that Van Eck frequently encouraged Wylan to think about these values, and it can be inferred that it likely wasn't in a particularly positive manner. Industry, integrity, and prosperity are clearly the three main ideals of this religion, and we can easily be led to the conclusion that Van Eck is certain his son is capable of none of them.

It is also suggested that Wylan may even associate his father's disapproval with religion subconsciously as well. A good example of this is in Crooked Kingdom, after Wylan is taken to the Church of Barter. “Van Eck shook his head. “Every time I think you cannot disappoint me further, you prove me wrong.” They were in a small chapel topped by a dome. The oil paintings on the wall featured battle scenes and piles of armaments,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 31). While this is also simply meant to provide the reader with a description of the environment, the juxtaposition between the two halves of this passage cannot be an accident. What we can observe here is that after Van Eck once again expresses his ever-present disappointment with Wylan, emphasis is immediately put on the fact that they are in the church. This, along with the other passages listed, creates a clear link between Wylan's negative relationship with his father and the effects that their shared religion has had on it.

What I consider to be one of the most important quotes for this subject, despite also being the shortest one used, comes near the end of Six of Crows. After Wylan has played his role in foiling Van Eck's plan to trick the Crows, he says this: “Maybe you can pray to Ghezen for understanding, Father,” (Six of Crows, Chapter 45). This is sort of the first act of retribution that the reader sees from Wylan. He has just made his father look like a fool, and then he practically spits in his face by taking the thing that was used against him for so long - their religion - and using it against his father instead. Not only is this moment incredibly satisfying, it also marks the beginning of Wylan's growth as a character that eventually leads to him being able to stand up to his father in more ways.

Despite being arguably the least explored Grishaverse religion in online spaces, I find Ghezenism to be extremely interesting when it comes to the ways it ties into the themes of the story. It represents wider, more general themes found throughout the book, such as the idea that people often value their own success over the well-being of others, but it contains even more when examined under a closer lens. It opens the door to a completely new aspect of further analyzing the relationship between Wylan and his father, and introduces vital elements of in-depth characterization for both of them. The way Wylan and Van Eck each view the same religion is highly indicative of their individual values, and that is a very interesting thing to expand upon. It simply goes to show just how much thought went into creating both the culture of this world, and the characters who live within it.

#this is virtually just a huge monster of a brain dump #don't bully me too hard if some details are off guys #six of crows #crooked kingdom #leigh bardugo #grishaverse #shadow and bone netflix #shadow and bone #shadow and bone s2 #wylan van eck #wylan hendriks #soc wylan #wylan soc #wesper #jan van eck #marya hendriks #alys van eck #ketterdam

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dyk3ification · 1 year

Text

low | ellie williams

summary: ellie has been and always will be on top, the dominant one. but when reader asserts her control, ellie can’t help but fold a little. basically ellie x dom! fem reader. (written from ellie's pov)

warnings: slight choking, name-calling (teasing), slapping, r receiving, r riding, strap-on sex, pet names, subtop! ellie x dombottom! reader, no use of y/n, if i forget anything pls lmk, 18+ (minors PLS dni.)

word count: 2,592

A/N: hi i havent written in so long and i cant stop reading ellie fics atm so i figured why not! plus i feel like there's a shortage of dom! fem reader fics out there. i just thought it would be a different reading experience to almost be in ellie's head, pretend ur reading her journal or sum fr. all that being said i hope you enjoy!! pls lmk if you do!! and a big ty to @elliewill for all her help and motiv when i was writing and debating this fic, i love her so bad.

i'm in charge, always. in charge of pleasing her, fucking her, loving her; in charge of her. the power complex when she's beneath me while i pound into her, getting to watch her face as the only sound she can make isn't even moaning. just short, open-mouthed gasps and whimpers, her eyes always locked with mine. her eyes would feel like they were nearly piercing into my brain like two damn fucking ice picks.

it only made me want more. more power, more of her. the way her eyes would hold their gaze on mine, even when the pleasure would threaten her to squeeze them shut; or go half-lidded. which was so unbelievably fucking hot to watch, knowing i was the reason for that- i needed her to look at me. i needed to know that she knew who was in charge, who was doing this to her, and who was making her feel so good. so i could know i was that person. who owned her, and fucked her so well she could barely keep her pretty eyes open. or her mouth closed. one of my hands began to travel, the journey starting from one of her thighs that i had pressed into her abdomen as i fucked her, not forgetting to drag the pads of my fingers over her skin; knowing how she reacted- and loving the feel of her shiver beneath them when she did react. the journey ended at her neck, one of my favorite places of her to hold. especially during times like these. i had a hold on her, physically and metaphorically. i threatened a squeeze, smirking softly as her pretty little lips parted when i did. those perfect lips, that were glazed from her drool, and mine. those lips that she couldn't keep shut, but could only let those heavenly fucking sounds out of. the sounds of encouragement, the sounds that i caused her to make. a short gasp fell from those damned lips of hers when i threatened the squeeze. i leaned in even more, my own lips barely touching hers, but enough for her to whimper against mine. it killed me knowing she whimpered, just for me. just for a fucking kiss from me. i began to speak, wanting to hear more of those pretty little praises. whether by sounds or words, despite knowing the words would probably be broken; but that made it even better. “yeah baby? you love me fucking you, ‘feels good, yeah?”

“yeah.. it feels good fucking me, doesn't it, baby?”

my grip on her neck loosened for a moment, more so fucking slipped. i let out a wry laugh to disguise the clearing i needed to do for my throat, nearly choking over what i just heard. i squeezed her throat this time, using her neck as leverage to pull her face to mine. baby? is she fucking with me? her face was smug once we were face to face, i couldn't tell if i was feeling her pulse on my palm or my own fucking heart pounding. baby. why did she sound so fucking hot-

“you okay, baby?” she spoke again. jesus fucking christ. her delicate hand trailed up my forearm, i knew she was watching my face to see if i'd give in. cave into her touch, her words; her. she stopped at my wrist, and my grip on her neck was merely even a hold at this point- and she used it to her advantage. she lifted my hand slowly, placing my thumb between those fucking lips of hers. the same lips that were making me so fucking weak with their words. “`m fine.” i mumbled, maybe stuttered. i knew i didn't look it, but i was so ready to just fucking collapse. and she knew it.

“you sure?” she asked again, the plump skin of her lips brushing against the pad of my thumb when she spoke. i can't fucking do this shit. i hadn't even realized i had stopped moving, or lost my grip on those delicious fucking thighs of hers. but she did.

oh and did she use it to her advantage. she took those thighs and pulled me in again, locking me in with her. i couldn't hold back the groan, i was holding it in for too long at this point. her words, her voice, her fucking lips.. the pressure against me from the fucking harness of the strap when she pulled me in. everything. i dropped my face into the crook of her neck. too ashamed to even face her. god does not fucking give his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers.

“ohhh, c’mon baby…” she fucking cooed. i just pressed my lips to her neck, trying to keep together any fucking amount of dignity i had left. if i were ever to whimper- so help me god. she fucking giggled. i suppose the hitch of my breath when my hands practically shook against her waist; was not keeping my act together.

within seconds i was being pushed onto my back, my own hands getting thrown at my sides. she crawled right onto my lap, her thighs on either side of mine, caging me in. i was absolutely fucking gone. i threw my hands up, my biceps staying against the bed. “babe.” i managed to get out, my eyes probably looking fucking wild. do i look at her face, her tits, her? she had rode me before, just not.. like this. “what is it, baby?” she said so fucking casually. like it was just some ordinary fucking question. is she fucking insane?

“noth.. nothin’.” i said through a shaky breath, real fucking dominant ellie. my eyes darted back and forth between her own, and her hips as she took me in again. that perfectly tight little cunt of hers sliding both of us right back into place. i bit down on my lip, leaning my head back into the pillow and just staring at the ceiling. i was gone.

a few throaty moans escaped my lips. a sound i rarely let happen. get it to-fucking-gether. the pressure on me from her bouncing on the stupid fucking cock, the sheer sight of her fucking herself on me like the little fucking slut she was. i could barely even watch her, i'd embarrassed myself enough. all i could do was let a hand run up her thigh, too weak even to caress it the way i usually would. i stopped at her hip, those perfect round hips she moved so fucking well for me. she had the power now. she had power over me.

“you like watching me fuck you, huh baby? so fucking dirty-” she spoke almost brokenly, but the words. the words. i think i let out a choke from them. if she ever knew how close to the edge i was right now. so close to soaking through the thin cotton of my fucking boxers. just from this and the friction, i’d never fucking hear the end of it. maybe i wanted to listen to it, though.

“mm- mhm. watching.. watching you take me s-so fucking good baby…”

she froze, stopping all her movements. those eyes piercing mine once again. oh fuck.

“did you just fucking stutter?” she said with that smug little fucking look, i could practically hear a laugh in her throat. she tilted her head, slowly leaning down to be face to face. i'm fucking gone. i furrowed my brows when i looked back to her. keep your fucking composure ellie. get it together. “no.” i practically choked on the syllable, my hand on her hip slipping slightly. she just gave me a smirk, that slutty little, smug, fucking smirk.

“fuck.”

it was all i could say- whimpered, when she jutted her hips forward, if she didn't know i was on the brink before, she sure as fuck did now. my hands had dropped at this point, i had to of looked like such a fucking fool. i couldn't even keep my eyes open at this point, but i had to. i couldn't miss seeing her like this. being such a slut and owning it. owning me. she looked so fucking hot right now, taking me in and out of that tight cunt effortlessly, her hair thrown to one side, her perfect fucking tits bouncing with every jut of her hips. and she was all fucking mine, and clearly, i was all fucking hers.

i squeezed my eyes shut, unsure of how else to hide how fucking close i was. how fucking close i was to letting go into my fucking boxers beneath the goddamned harness of the strap she was fucking herself on. i kept my eyes shut, unable to look at her knowing what i was about to fucking do. how fucking embarrassing.

until i felt that sweet little hand of hers on my neck, her touch gentle and her skin soft. my eyes were jutting open, as much as they even could, if they weren't rolling fucking backward already. i whined. how fucking pathetic.

“babe-”

i tried to speak, only to be cut off by a smack on my fucking cheek. from the same dainty hand that was just on my neck. and i fucking moaned. the sting of it. the fucking sting that came from that sweet hand of hers.

“i want you to look at me when you cum.”

and i nearly did right there. she knew what she was doing, what i was trying not to do, the entire fucking time. i just gave her a nod, too embarrassed of what would come out sound or word-wise if i were to fucking speak. usually, i’d be ravenous at this point for her to fucking cum, abusing that cute clit of hers while she bounced on me. until she gushed around me and collapsed. but that's the last possible thing i could even fathom doing right now, she was waiting on me. fucking herself to the brink. fucking me to the verge of insanity, it felt like.

“what a fuckin’ pussy..” she muttered through her heavenly fucking moans, shooting me a smirk. and i let out a fucking gasp. a fucking throaty, wimpy, loser-like fucking gasp.. a whimper.

i knew she was nearing her end, the way her hips twitched at the end of every hip thrust, the way she began to slouch towards me. i just wanted to fucking touch her, and i couldn't.

but she was fucking herself.

“you like watching me play with my little clit, baby-”

fuck.

she was starting to lose again.

“you're so fuckin’ hot, baby..” i finally managed to speak coherently. barely. my eyes darted down to what she was doing, taking my chance when she tilted her head back from the euphoria. those pretty digits of her’s making circles over her clit, so wet her slick had them glistening. god. she looked so fucking pretty like that, using me as a fucking toy. fucking herself into euphoria. so much of a slut for me that my cock wasn't enough. she needed even more.

that hand of hers that had slapped me, that nearly had me coming, amongst other things; still on my cheek. anytime my eyes fluttered shut, she'd give the skin of my cheek beneath her palm a smack. reminding me of what she wanted from me. this tap, she wanted something else. those fingers she had on that clit of hers just mere seconds ago, now being dragged down on my lower lip, tugging it when she did. teasting me with the essence of her cunt that i loved so much. it took everything i had in me not to give in and suck on them like some little bitch, yearning to taste that sweet shine on them.

i wasn't that weak, though.

“go ahead. suck ‘em off, baby. just like my little mouth does on that big fucking cock of yours.”

nevermind.

and i did. wrapping my lips around those two fingers, stabilizing myself by wrapping my hand around her wrist. being a little bitch, her little bitch. i knew i must have looked like one too. sucking the juices of that delicious pussy of hers off of her fingers, latched onto them like i was fucking dehydrated and hadn't had a damn drink in days.

“this must be how pretty i look.. huh? when i'm suck- sucking your dick.”

there she was.

she slipped. if we were in any other situation, i would've caught it. but she did. of course, she did. so she snatched her sweet fingers away, wrapping them around my jaw to cover that slip-up that showed how weak she still was. like i should be fucking talking. to keep my eye contact locked with hers, those gorgeous fucking eyes.

“gonna… gonna cum all over your fucking cock, baby,” she said through broken moans and her pretty little sounds, continuing to fuck as much out of that silicone as she could take. without my relentless ‘help,’ she couldn't take as much. but she was taking it “so good.. my fuck.. fuckin’ whore..” her eyes were glued to mine. the contact unbreakable. like something was holding the connection of us together so fucking well. and there was; pure fucking lust. she knew how badly i wanted to watch. watch her slick shining all over my cock every time she moved up on it, watch it pool at the base of it. soak those perfect fucking thighs, knowing i'd clean it all up for her after.

she was losing.

but fucking so was i.

she let out one loud moan, gasping as she began to tremble, her hand that was once on my neck dragging down to my abdomen. clutching on for dear fucking life. i let out a grunt when her face was down, letting her fuck herself through her orgasm. “so fucking good, baby..” i said as i watched her, hiding my own trembling with hers. i was sure my lip would be fucking bruised from how hard i was biting it. my hands slipping down her hips yet again, still wanting to keep her precious body stable and safe while we, she came. i am no better than a man.

the skin of my abdomen beneath her fingers, now indented with crescent shapes from her damn nails. a wet spot from slick on the base of the strap.

and beneath it.

she collapsed onto my chest, her chest rising with every fall of my own. our bodies fitting together like two puzzle pieces that created a perfect picture. i threw an arm around her back as she lifted her hips off with a short breath, allowing me to pull out.

and there she was, there i was. fucked, literally. I tightened my arm around her back, her sweet body curling against mine when i did, dancing the pads of my fingers along her ribs.

she nestled her cheek into the valley of my chest, her sweet fingers dancing up the strap of my sports bra. “hey.” i spoke up, lifting my hand from her side to brush some wispy hairs from her temple, some of them stuck to her sticky skin. she looked up to me, using my chest as a pillow for her chin. that pretty face, all mine.

“you really think i'm a pussy?” i quirked as i looked down to her.

a beat.

“i mean.. you are what you eat.”

“speaking of.”

i smirked. i had a mess to clean up.

#ellie williams x reader #ellie williams smut #ellie williams x you #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams #ellie williams x y/n #tlou x reader #tlou #tlou2 #tlou smut #ellie williams oneshot #ellie william x afab!reader #the last of us #the last of us smut #ellie williams x reader smut #tlou ellie williams

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hollowtones · 10 months

Note

first yiik impressions?

Hi. Thanks for your message. I've been thinking about this for days. I wrote paragraphs. Here you go!

Everyone talks up how the game is bad, but I've never looked into it much myself, so I went in with an expectation along the lines of "people whose opinions I often agree with think it was an awful mess, I'll likely think something similar". Expectations were low. Even then I wasn't really ready.

"YIIK" is a game of tedium. I don't think it's a game about tedium, that's something different (though it could be, if it was a different video game altogether; "what if the world was made of pudding" etc). To some degree I think the tedium is by design but I'm not really sure what it's in service of.

I don't think tedium in a video game is a bad thing. "Morrowind" and "Breath of the Wild" are two video games I like very much, and some of my favourite memories of those games are of slowly wandering through empty expanses, or having to suddenly deal with equipment degrading or supplies dwindling because I forgot to prepare. Moments like that feel thoughtful! They're interesting moments of reprieve or of tension that feel thoughtfully and intentionally designed! "YIIK" feels like trudging through chest-deep molasses so it can shout "hey did you know you're stuck in my molasses right now? that's weird, why are you stuck in my molasses right now? did you notice?" directly into your ear.

You'll notice this is a pattern.

Combat is turn-based and involves completing little minigames, timing button prompts or hitting targets or some such. It's a cute idea that wears out its welcome when you start realizing how long every single one takes to resolve, especially when you have multiple party members, and sometimes multiple enemies (I'm told this part specifically gets more egregious as the game goes on). I don't think it's awful or unsalvageable but I'm not super into it as of the point we're at.

This is a pattern.

Leveling up is a manual process that you have to unlock, and it involves going to a save point (any save point? we didn't check), to enter the Mind Dungeon, to enter the actual Mind Dungeon, to walk down a set of stairs and enter individual doors one-by-one, so that you can choose how you want to allocate stat increases, so that you can walk down a different set of stairs to commit your choices and spend your banked experience to level up. I think "you can only power up at specific points / times / locations" and the granularity of stat growth are interesting ideas, and the environment they made for it are a charming idea, and I don't think it needed to be a "Hotel Mario" level that you had to slowly walk through. It could have been a menu. They could have used the resources for a nice background or backdrop for a menu that accomplishes the same thing.

This is a pattern.

I haven't really mentioned anything about the story or writing yet. The protagonist's name is Alex and he's a very self-important nerdy misanthropic dickhead white man (a very specific kind of guy that I've definitely met at least once or twice) who is obsessed with a paranormal message board populated by people like him and desperate to find out more about the disappearance of a woman he witnessed. (The woman & her disappearance are based on the real life death of Elisa Lam & aren't handled with a whole lot of tact, IMO, but other people have put this into better words than I can right now. It sucks. It keeps coming up and it makes me bristle every time.) Alex is a bad person. I know he is. You know he is. The game knows he is. I've seen some reviews say a negative point of the game is "the main characters aren't likeable", which I don't really get, because that's the point of the characters, as far as I can tell. The issue, then, is how much time the game takes to exposit at you how bad the characters are. It's exhausting. Every time Alex has a monologue, it feels like it sums up to 10 minutes of "I am a bad person. I am a bad person. Alex is a bad person. This character is a bad person. Do you get it? He's a bad person. Alex is a bad person. Do you understand yet, player? Alex is a bad person. You should know that he's a bad person. Do you get it?"

This is a pattern.

(I don't know how interested I am in bringing up the game's lead writer right now, if at all, but there's a well-known anecdote where he talks about wanting to write a story about a bad person who is forced to grapple with himself and do better, and how the reason why his game wasn't well-received was because people who play video games didn't get it & weren't ready for a story like that. I dunno. I can understand being upset about negative reception to something you poured time and sweat into, and saying something hasty because of it. "Final Fantasy 4" is a beloved RPG classic, though, and "Disco Elysium" came out the same year to overwhelming praise. I haven't played either of these yet, though, so I'll admit maybe I'm off the mark here.)

The characters we've met so far (i.e. the ones that aren't unnamed NPCs) are… well. There's a smarmy younger kid who idolizes(?) Alex & also made the aforementioned paranormal website. So far it seems like he mostly exists to go "hey fuck you Alex, you dickhead" and immediately say something even more insensitive. There's the insensitive based-on-a-real=ass-dead-woman elevator woman, who immediately disappeared from the narrative while still being an essential part of the narrative. There was a dead(?) robot in a bedroom, who had a choir of ominous hooded people monologue about how weird and sad and strange and uncanny the scene is. What the!? There's a woman who works at the arcade and has Powers. Her design's cute. (I feel like, generally, the game's visuals are Fine. The audio, too. That all ranges from Just Fine to Surprisingly Neat. I don't really have much issue with those aspects of the game, but I don't have much to say about them either.) Alex and Kid Whose Name I Didn't Care To Remember are constantly very uncomfortable to her, because she's a woman and because she isn't white, in the 15 or so minutes we've seen her on-screen, and she gets to tell them off, but then immediately kind of goes "well whatever I can smile and put up with this and hang out with you". It feels misogynistic. I know to some degree Alex is misogynistic on purpose, because the game is bludgeoning your skull in and yelling "ALEX IS SHITTY TO WOMEN! AND PEOPLE OF COLOUR! DO YOU GET IT? HE'S SELF ABSORBED IN A SHITTY WAY! DO YOU GET IT, PLAYER? YOU UNDERSTAND THAT ALEX SUCKS ASS YET? MAYBE 10 MORE MINUTES OF THIS WILL MAKE IT CLICK?" But for a woman of colour (the only one we've seen so far who isn't Probably Just Dead) to finally tell him off for being a shithead, only to turn around and go "well it's ok, you're cool now, let's hang out now because it's narratively convenient and you're the protagonist" is pretty damn egregious!

This is a pattern.

Writing in general feels stilted and long-winded. Most of the main characters feel like they don't talk like people do. Alex gets to feel like a person but that's mostly because he gets to talk to himself so damn much. Most of his monologues feel like overly flowery prose, like someone padded it out with identical adjectives to meet a school essay word count. There's an interesting idea or premise or setpiece every now and then. There's a spark. A glint of something compelling. Every single time this has happened so far I find it immediately snuffed out by an over-blown "oh my god!!!!!!! how weird!!!!!!', or a very long plot dump, or a Joss Whedon-ass quip. There can be no small moment of joy. No story element or visual element can stand on its own legs. There can be no room for ideas to breathe. No space for the player to wonder, to dream, to play in the space. The narrative is compelled to suffocate iself on itself, to take up all space, to swallow itself whole in its making. One very minor (so far?) side character has some interesting dialogue in this one dream world, and I think "oh that's neat", and then I learn they're lines taken wholesale from a book (and I think that's fine, reference is fine, but I have a bit of a chuckle over the fact that this character is the reason why the game has a giant REFERENCES option in the main menu). The literal first minute of the game is a bird telling you "oh my god, the title of this game, right? why'd they spell it like that? so fucking dumb, am I right!" It feels insecure. It reads like the writing has no confidence in itself. It has to make a comment about how silly and video-gamey it is, roll its eyes at itself, mock itself for the thing it's doing while continuing to do it without addressing it or discussing it or doing anything with it.

This is a pattern.

There's a specific part of "YIIK", at this early point in the game (we're only around the start[?] of chapter 2), that feels emblematic of the thing as a whole up to this point. Alex is getting phone calls from a stranger. They're confusing and weird and sound a little like something you might hear in a dream. They make references to some shared past, some childhood, some understanding of Alex, or maybe of you, the player. They've come up a few times. Every single time, I'm left thinking about what it could mean, how it fits in with everything we've seen so far & what the game seems to be talking about, with regards to connecting to other people and to yourself. It's a neat little thing. It's a neat idea. I'm charmed by it. As much as my thoughts on this game are largely negative, I still try to look at it fairly, to understand it, to talk about it, to let myself be surprised by it. As soon as I find myself thinking about this, my thoughts are immediately drowned out by Alex telling me how weird the phone call is, how random and uncanny and dumb this is, and how he's rolling his proverbial eyes about it, in spite of all the other paranormal happenings around him, for another period of Just Too Long. And I am sapped of all strength and I crumble to dust.

I'm genuinely transfixed. I'm transfixed! Maybe the fact that I wrote Paragraphs about the 4-or-5 hours I've seen of the game can tell you as much, even if you skip everything I wrote in them.

I can't wait to see more.

This, too, is a pattern.

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thefunkyspoon · 3 months

Text

Humans Are Weird: Synesthesia

Okay, here's another one. You know how some of us get vibes from numbers? Like 1 being green, and most multiples of 7 being a Wednesday. I think it would be rlly funny trying to explain it to an alien.

"JustcallmeQuince? I was looking at your chart, and... it says you can see colors, words, and even times to numbers??" The Wasllook questions, baffled by the idea. He had no idea what in the Zoleck that could even mean.

The human perks up, putting down her odd looking meal, supposedly called a "sandwich".

"Oh. Er, yeah. Why?" JustcallmeQuince responds, tilting her head and raising just one eyebrow; an odd movement that, in this scenario, most likely means she is confused. "Well, I don't understand it. Could you explain?"

She leans back in her seat, her expression fading away into a small smirk, and she does something quite odd. She...rolls her eyes? Why? What does that mean?? I decide not to question it, as human behaviors are so often irrational and weird.

"Okay, sure. So, it's basically when you correlate colors, times, dates, words, letters, and numbers to eachother. Like how 'A' is red." She explains, though it just makes me more confused. How does that work? Do all humans do that?

"But...the letter 'A' is not red."

"Yeah, but they're the same. Like how 42 is a tired mom."

I try my best to look like I'm getting it, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. "Uh-huh... and, all humans experience this?"

She shakes her head, apparently an action which means "no." "Not all. In fact, it can vary. Everyone has it at least to since extent, though. Like how the color red signifies danger, or caution," she shrugs, like it was common knowledge. I quickly write down the information in my notepad; this might be very important for later.

"Okay... and, you have it, I suppose?"

"Yeah. I have whole personalities, colors, letters, and times for letters. Do you get it now?"

Surprisingly, I actually did understand it better, though I probably would never really get it. Humans are just so...confusing. Their logic makes absolutely no sense. I nod, trying to copy the humans body language, and get out of my seat. I walk out of the office, to go report the information to my boss. All the while, I'm left in a state of confusion and disbelief. That sums up humans for you, I guess...

The End! Buh-bye <3

#humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are weird #humans are deathworlders #humans are terrifying #humans are strange #humanity fuck yeah #earth is a deathworld #earth is space australia #synesthesia

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doberbutts · 2 months

Note

as a transmasc jew, I really want to thank you for speaking out for us. you give nuance to these topics that is frustratingly lacking elsewhere. we can uplift our trans sisters while recognizing that trans men also experience discrimination. we can fight for a free palestine while recognizing that antisemitism is very much alive and real. these are two truths in my mind that others don't seem to understand.

Personally I think compassion is not a zero sum game.

When the black lives matter vs all lives matter debates were going on, someone summed it up really well by relating this to a family dinner where you were expected to keep your seat and wait to be served. As everyone tucks in to the food on their plates, one plate remains empty. Jamaal doesn't have any food. So he says, hey, I don't have any food. And the replies are unhelpful! Oh, there's more than enough for everyone. Oh, but the food is so delicious. Oh, but I'm about to get seconds. But not a single person fixes the fact that Jamaal still doesn't have food.

To me it's like that. Katie doesn't have any food. But neither really does Jacob. And it doesn't matter that Jacob is closer to the food, or that he can almost taste it from the smell, or that maybe a forgotten crumb has fallen onto his plate from those around him stuffing their faces without a care. Katie doesn't have food. And Jacob doesn't have food either. Katie brings up that she doesn't have any food and she's hungry. Jacob looks at his empty plate and adds that he also would like food. Everyone starts fighting over why Katie and Jacob don't have food and try to get them to blame each other. Some try to convince one or the other that the opposite party is hoarding all the food. No one solves the problem of empty plates at the dinner table.

I just think it's better to fix the empty plate. There's more than enough for everyone, so why doesn't everyone get an equal share?

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lizardsfromspace · 3 months

Text

Stumbling across that weird fanatically anti-transmasc cult again and this tweet really sums it up better than anything

Trans women are defined entirely by misery and tragedy. Historical trans women all died in asylums. That's why Christine Jorgensen, the first trans woman to get gender-affirming surgery in the US, tragically *squints* spent decades as a in-demand public speaker and headlining entertainer. Because trans women literally can't experience anything other than misery

I have a book from the 70s with an ad for a speaker's agency that lists her alongside Rod Serling and Cicely Tyson. And underneath Erich von Daniken, which is irrelevant to my point but really weird. She was not wasting away in an asylum. Many trans women led tragic lives; but many is not all, and there are historic examples, even really famous ones, of trans women who were happy

Why would they erase that to tell people trans women all suffer tragic fates and must suspect everyone oh yeah bc they're a cult preying on the vulnerable and trying to convince them they need protection (but oddly enough from other trans people more than anyone else?)

The trans man thing is a reference to Victor Barker, who was, indeed, a trans man and a fascist in the 1920s. But I think another key point is, uh, that was one fuckin' guy. Why are they tacking that on, except if they're trying to imply trans men are secretly fascists? But that'd be an absurd thing to belieTHEY BELIEVE THAT. That is a real thing these creeps believe now and are seriously implying on the reg

"You must be suspicious that trans men are fascists" is now part of their ever-evolving litany of apparently endless evil from transmascs who...called a internet famous trans woman an asshole? Made a bad tweet once? Literally anything a trans man ever does (or doesn't do) transforms into a collective action on the part of all trans men in their minds. Trans men aren't just not allies in their mind, but are comically evil Saturday morning cartoon villains

Also, of course, the insistence that trans men had it much easier than trans women. If all trans women's lives weren't misery, all trans men's lives weren't happy, either. This insistence they had it "easy" is giving James Somerton on Radclyffe Hall

This is, again, A Single Guy. You have proved two white trans men are fascists, one in the 1920s and one now. Maybe. Maybe some other factor is at play, some other identity shared, by these two men, and the majority of fascists. "Why do people think I hate trans men?" says a group with a list of trans men they hate they can trot out instantly

I think people are just primed to think evidence of one member of a marginalized group doing a shitty thing is proof they all do it, or to go "that's just one guy?". In another life this jabroni wouldn't be posting about how Mao would be a Baeddel (???), they'd be sharing Fox News stories about crimes to declare we need to deport all Muslims and Mexicans. It's the same psychology, just rotted by internet discourse instead of a more traditional reactionary ideology

Also you may wonder "wait, I'm a trans woman, and trans men calling me a Nazi happens quite rarely, actually". I'm a trans woman on the internet and trans men calling me a Nazi has happened a grand zero times. So you may then wonder why, precisely, this sweet, innocent bean who's never done anything wrong is called a Nazi so regularly they think it's a universal problem.

Anyway they tweeted out the Fourteen Words, but they said gay women instead of white children. Truly, how could anyone ever get the idea they're a Nazi

#long post #transphobia cw #transandrophobia

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michelleleewise · 1 year

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Hello michelle!!! For the sake of privacy you may call me Sage, but I love your work and I wanted to make a request for a fic. Completely okay if you're not up to it though. Don't stress yourself :)))

Here are a few points you can keep in mind while writing, the rest is totally up to you <3

¤ Loki and Reader have been sworn enemies ever since he came to the tower

¤ They 'hate' eachother but sometimes end up accidentally flirting

¤ Reader ignores the feels and gets with another person, much to the dislike of Loki and we get some jealousy scenes (if possible)

¤ Something happens with reader's,now ex, partner (cheating or sum) and loki unknowingly pokes fun at their relationship which causes reader to burst into tears. Loki's demeanor completely changes once he sees her current state and he becomes all soft and fluffy and calms reader down

¤ happy endings with confessions

TYYYY, ONCE AGAIN, LOVE YOU AND YOUR WORK 🥰

Hiiiii Sage!!!! Sorry this took a minute to get to!!! Thank you so much for sending this to me!! I absolutely love enemies to lovers🥰, this got a bit away from me and grew a mind of its own...I hope you don't mind!! I hope you like it!! 💚💚💚

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I Hate You

Pairing: Avenger Loki x Avenger female reader

Warnings: self esteem issues, sexual innuendo, flirting, kissing, y/n's bf being a total ass, swearing, mentions of injury (not very graphic), mean Loki, insults, mentions of cheating (not Loki), crying, throwing things, yelling, jealousy, I think that's it....let me know if I missed something......

Summary: y/n and Loki have "hated eachother almost since he arrived back on earth....but are things as they seem.....

A/n- aahhh!! Again....this totally ran away with me!!! Sorry!!! (Or am i?.....hehe) aaaand a new pic! 😁 a very very special Thank you to @mochie85 and @high-functioning-lokipath for helping me work part my writers block and brainstorming with me! Your amazing!!! 💚💚💚

You walked into the training room, setting your towel and water bottle down you made your way over to the mats, spreading your feet apart you bent over touching your toes standing back up you reached up to the ceiling before bending back over when you heard an all too familiar voice behind you "now that is a view I could get used to." He purred making you roll your eyes. You stood up turning your head to see the last person you wanted to "in your dreams Laufeyson." You sneered continuing your stretching "and who says I don't darling." He said slowly circling you "but in my experience, dreams are never as good as...reality." He said coming to stand in front of you. "Dont you have anything better to do....or anyone?" You snarked straightening out seeing a smirk spread across his face "is that an offer darling?" He asked taking a step closer "your disgusting" you said pushing past him heading towards the sparring mats.

"Come now darling, do you mean to tell me you haven't thought about it?" He asked quickly trailing behind as you stopped in the middle of the mat "I swear to God.." you sighed, freezing feeling Loki's warm breath on your neck "mmm I would allow that..." he breathed against your ear "in fact...I would expect it...demand it..." he whispered stepping close enough you could feel the heat from his chest seeping into your back "I would hear you screaming my name...and only my name...for all to hear." He continued, closing your eyes you felt him trailing his finger up your bare arm sending a shiver up your spine "but only if you were a good girl." He cooed nudging the shell of your ear with his nose "do you wish to be my good girl kitten?" He whispered, your breath hitching feeling his fingers slip under the strap of your tank top.

"can you picture it? I'm sure you have... Me taking you as you deserve to be...thoroughly..." he said shifting to your other ear "completely...your delicate walls clenching around me." He said, His words shooting straight to your core making you squeeze your thighs together. He huffed a laugh in your ear as his fingers traveled down towards the swell of your breasts "I know I can...and it is delightful." He said rubbing his nose along your ear "i...I hate you Loki." You gritted hearing him laugh again "mmm do you? Because your body tells a different story." He said tilting his head up "I can smell you kitten." He barely whispered, his lips ghosting your ear when your eyes shot open.

You quickly turned placing your hands on his chest shoving as hard as you could but barely moving him "oh dear...have I hit a nerve?" He laughed smiling at you. "I can't stand you." You growled watching him shake his head "you are incredibly pent up, I could help you release some of that...tension." He said taking a step closer "hate sex can be very...satisfying." He said, his smile spreading wider. God you wanted to punch him in his stupidly beautiful face. "Look Loki. I..." you were cut off as Steve walked in "y/n, can I have a word?" He asked making you sigh "uh oh...someones in trouble." Loki mocked laughing "you better run along kitten before you get put in time out." He snarked turning around. It took everything in you not to kick him in the back of the knee "now y/n." Steve said making you sigh. "Coming." You called out seeing Loki turn his head and wink as you walked over to Steve.

"What's up Steve?" You asked crossing your arms "walk with me." He said turning and walking out into the hallway as you followed behind him "we're getting a new member to the team, Jason." Steve said handing you a small file "I want you to be his go to on day to day things, showing him around, teaching him the ropes." He said as you nodded "he'll be reporting tomorrow so meet me at fury's office at six am sharp." He said turning continuing down the hall. You leaned against the wall flipping through the file "Jason eh?" Loki's voice sounded from behind you "can't you ever mind your own business?" You snarked quickly closing the file "now what kind of partner would I be if I didn't care hmm?" He asked crossing his arms

"do you try to be this insufferable or is it just your personality?" You asked turning to look at him "bit of both really." He snarked back "i do love to see how red your cheeks can get." He smirked down at you. "God I hate you." You sighed turning to head down the hall "oh I know." He called from behind you. Shaking your head you headed to your room, closing the door behind you you sat on the bed closing your eyes. "Dammit!" You yelled clenching your fists. You tried not to let him get to you, to goad you...but he always seemed to find a way to get a rise out of you and you hated it. You flopped back on the bed staring at the ceiling, if you were honest with yourself you didn't hate Loki...quite the opposite, but he had squashed any chance of anything ever happening between you practically as soon as he arrived. You took a deep breath, thinking back to that day.

You walked into the large ballroom, biting your lip you looked around the large crowd trying to find the one man you were here for. "Who is that gorgeous woman?" Nat asked coming up next to you "i...thanks nat." You smiled looking down "He would be an idiot to turn you down, now go get em tiger." She smiled nudging your side. You nodded as you set off on your mission, you wrung your hands together when you heard Thor's laugh booming through the room. You walked towards the blonde god when something caught your attention out of the corner of you eye. You glanced over seeing the God you were after walking out onto the balcony. "There you are." You said to yourself, smoothing your dress you followed behind him.

stepping out onto the balcony you saw Loki standing at the balustrade, his tall lithe frame clothed perfectly in his all black suit, hugging every curve of him to perfection as he sipped from his champagne glass. You opened your mouth to say something when another voice sounded from the shadows "I think she's going to ask you out." You heard, seeing Bucky step up next to him when you heard Loki laugh "please, me...go out with her?" Loki asked shaking his head "come on, y/n's a nice girl." Bucky said looking to Loki "she is insignificant...a weak pathetic little thing." He sneered looking out into the city "the day I do anything with her is the day I've lost my mind." He said sipping from his glass again.

You felt the tears prickling your eyes, closing them you shook your head when you heard your name "y/n? Are you ok?" Bucky asked as you looked up, your eyes meeting Loki's when you felt a tear stream down your cheek. "I...yes I'm fine...never better." You said quickly wiping your cheek you raised your chin "I think I need a drink." You said quickly turning back towards the doors "y/n...may I have a word?" You heard Loki's voice making you freeze. Everything he just said running through your mind "no Loki, you can't." You said turning your head to look at him "in fact, never speak to me again...Laufeyson." you sneered gritting your teeth when you saw something you couldn't describe flash in his eyes "very well." He said looking down to his feet as you turned and went back to the party.

You sighed at the memory, it had been two years since you had your dreams crushed, two years since you cursed Tony's existence when he decided to make you Loki's permanent partner on missions "but you guys work so well together." He had said making you want to punch him, two years you watched the man you had fallen for flirt with everyone but you. You rolled over looking at the clock you saw it was getting late so you decided to try to get some sleep before your new babysitting job started tomorrow.

You walked into the kitchen, setting your purse down you opened the fridge grabbing a bottle of water when the bane of your existence strolled in "well well, where are we off to?" Loki asked leaning on the counter "none of your damn business Laufeyson." You said turning to see your tormentor smiling at you "let me guess...date with the little boy?" He snarked walking around the counter "his name Is Jason, and your one to talk." You snarked back adjusting your low cut black maxi dress. "You know what y/n, you couldn't handle a real man." He said stalking closer to you making your eyes shoot up "and you have the emotional intelligence of a cucumber." You said matching his step "so why don't you run along to the bar and pick up one of your bleach blonde bimbos because that's the only woman who could tolerate you." You snarled as you came toe to toe with eachother

"atleast they would be able to satisfy me." He snarled towering over you "you wouldn't know how to properly service a man if you had a manual." He said smirking. Feeling your face heat up you raised up on your toes, even in your heels he loomed over you "you have no idea what I'm capable of...laufeyson." you said smirking back at him "you wouldn't even remember your own name when I was through with you." You said leaning closer, your chest brushing his, the cut of your dress pushing your cleavage up you saw his eyes quickly glance down before shooting back up "I would make you come so hard the only thing you would remember Is me." You whispered, smiling seeing his cheeks flush and his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard. "Hey babe, you ready?" You heard behind you, turning your head seeing Jason adjusting his tie "coming love." You said taking a step back from Loki you grabbed your purse turning to Jason "happy six months love." You said wrapping your arms around his neck smiling up at him, he was taller then you but considerably shorter then Loki "happy six months babe." He smiled back leaning down he gently pressed his lips to yours, feeling Loki's gaze on your back you tilted your head deepening the kiss hearing a low groan from behind you.

"Must you make such a display in a public area, I may lose my dinner." Loki snarked. You pulled back looking over seeing his eyebrows furrowed and his arms crossed "have fun with your hand tonight laufeyson." You said grabbing Jason's hand you pulled him behind you "night Loki." You heard Jason say but got no response "ignore him, He's just mad someone dropped a house on his sister." You said hearing Jason laugh you stopped and turned seeing Loki place his hands on the counter leaning forward shaking his head, his eyes screwed shut as he sighed. Maybe I went too far you thought when Jason tugged your hand "come on babe, we have reservations." He said as you nodded and followed behind him.

You couldn't get loki out of your head the rest of the night. Yes you bickered back and forth, but you don't remember seeing him look so defeated before. "Babe..." Jason said pulling you from your thoughts "yes...sorry I was lost in thought." You said looking over to him "its ok, I was gonna ask..." he started when you made it to your door "I heard what you said...to Loki." He said wiggling his eyebrows "oh! That...I was just trying to get back at him." You laughed looking down to your feet "well, I was thinking...we've been dating six months." He said as you nodded "and I was wondering if maybe....tonight we could...." he trailed off waving his hand in the air.

"Oh...umm..." you started, biting your lip when he stepped closer sliding a hand around your side "I wouldn't mind forgetting my name." He smiled when you placed a hand on his chest "I'm just...I don't think im ready yet." You smiled up at him seeing his face drop "well when do you think you will be?" He asked taking a step back as his hand dropped "I don't know. I just..." you shrugged looking down "I'll tell you as soon as I am." You said watching him nod "ok, goodnight y/n" He said leaning down kissing your forehead "Goodnight jason." You said opening your door slipping inside you quietly closed it behind you, pressing your back to the door closing your eyes, Jason's disappointed expression running through your mind.

You walked towards the bedroom slipping your heels off you flopped on the bed. It wasn't that Jason wasn't attractive, quite the opposite with his dark hair and blue eyes, but you had never been the type to fool around, wanting to find a deeper connection then just the physical. It's what caused your last boyfriend to "look elsewhere." You sighed laying back looking up at the ceiling "just do it y/n, your not a virgin." You told yourself rolling over you closed your eyes remembering all the times Jason had asked for more, waiting for you but you knew he was getting impatient. Smiling deciding you would invite Jason over for dinner and a little "dessert". You crawled up the bed climbing under the covers you snuggled down into your pillow trying to find sleep before your mission with his highness in the morning.

It had been a week since your date with Jason and things were beginning to feel off. You had tried to text him a few times but all be gave you was short one word answers, causing your anxiety to rise remembering your ex "no, he wouldn't do that, he cares about me." You said to yourself as you walked into the training room "your late!" Loki yelled sternly making you roll your eyes "I'm here aren't i?" You called back tossing your things down "I have better things to do then to wait for you to detach yourself from that man child of yours." Loki growled as you walked over to the mat he was on pulling your hair up "mmm miss the company of your hand already?" You snarked as he stared you down "what I do in my chambers is not your concern." He snarled gripping his daggers tightly "are we going to train or not?" You snapped closing your eyes. "Oh, is someone feeling a little...frustrated?" He asked laughing "Shut up Laufeyson." You said gritting your teeth.

"Ooo someone's not getting serviced properly." He laughed again making you sigh. "And i see it isn't Jason." He continued making your eyes shoot open seeing Loki point to the door. You looked over seeing Jason walk in with Shanice, one of Tony's lab assistants. "It seems you made him forget your name as well." You heard Loki say as you watched the two face eachother, a large smile spread across her face as she ran a finger up his bicep. "My my, maybe I should have a talk with her as well...I've heard she knows what she's doing." Loki purred coming up behind you. "Screw you Loki." You said as you walked towards Jason "anytime darling." You heard Loki call out as you got closer to the two.

"ok, I'll see you later." You heard Shanice say as she winked and turned back to the door "oh, hey y/n." Jason said turning to you with a smile "Hey love, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to come to my room tonight?" You asked stepping closer to him "I was gonna make dinner, maybe some....dessert." you purred running a hand up his chest "ok, sounds good." He said stepping around you heading for the locker rooms. You looked over seeing Loki watching you intently "see you tonight love!" You called out seeing Jason wave his hand in the air not turning around. You bit your lip, your anxiety flaring again when your eyes met Loki's again, something you weren't sure of swirling in them...pity...anger... making you uneasy as you grabbed your things

"leaving so soon?" He asked walking over to you "it's none of your business Loki." You said quickly walking to the door. "I wager he'll he too occupied to show." Loki called out from behind you making you freeze. You slowly turned trying to keep the last of your composure seeing him smile "I'll gladly collect that when your proven wrong...laufeyson" you growled quickly walking out before he could open his big mouth again. You headed to your room, slamming the door behind you throwing your stuff on the couch "God I hate him!" You yelled clenching your fists. You took a few deep breaths before grabbing a clean towel and heading for the shower.

You set the table, rushing into the kitchen putting the finishing touches on the spaghetti dish you made before taking it and setting it on the table "perfect." You smiled smoothing down your deep purple dress, adjusting the lingerie underneath as you pushed your beasts up when you heard a knock at the door "one second." You called out, taking one last glance in the mirror you hurried to the door, opening it seeing Jason standing there smiling down at his phone "Hey love." You said as he looked up, his smile dropping "Hey y/n." He said as you stepped aside letting him in. "So, I made spaghetti...your favorite." You smiled walking over to the table seeing he hadn't moved from the doorway "a...and I was thinking...after dinner maybe we could." You started

"y/n, I dont want to see you anymore" Jason said crossing his arms in front of him "wha...why?" You asked taking a step towards him "because, I don't want to be with you." He said, his tone cold and emotionless "but i...we...we were fine....everything was fine." You said feeling tears well in your eyes "well maybe for you." He said taking a step towards the door "I'm a man y/n, I have needs." He said as his phone rang "speaking of." He said pulling it out answering it "yeah...just give me five minutes I'm almost done....ok love you too." He said as he hung up opening your door "jason..." you breathed taking another step towards him "get it through your head y/n, I don't want you...now if you will excuse me there is someone waiting for me." He said smiling "and she definitely knows how to make me forget my name." He winked closing the door as he left.

You stood frozen, staring at the spot Jason had just been when you heard your phone go off. You felt numb, moving on autopilot you walked over to the counter, your hands shaking as you picked it up, seeing a text from Loki you opened it "Stark just informed me we have a mission in the morning, do try to be on time." You stared at it, your mind still reeling as you attempted to process everything that just happened when another text popped up "but I am certain you will be done early." Tears pricked your eyes as you stared at the screen when everything hit you at once "Dammit!" You screamed throwing your phone across the room watching it shatter against the wall. Storming over to the table you grabbed the dish of spaghetti throwing it hard at the door, glass and noodles exploding against the wood, the screams burning your lungs as you sank to your knees on the floor. "Why am I never enough?" You whispered to yourself as you laid down, curling into a ball on the floor you clutched your knees to your chest as the sobs wracked through you.

You looked across the bar, sipping your drink watching your target. You had been stuck on this mission with Loki for days and you were going crazy. Every snide comment cutting deeper and deeper as you still tried to process what happened the other night. Thankfully you were about to apprehend the hydra agent you were after so you could go back to the tower and lick your wounds in private when Loki's voice cut through your consciousness "are you sure you will be able to seduce him? I am not sure your his type." Loki snarked into the coms making you grit your teeth. You screwed your eyes shut as Jason's words echoed through your mind "maybe we should contact Shanice." He said laughing when your eyes shot open, looking across the bar your eyes met his seeing his smile drop. "Y/n?" He asked into the coms as you pulled it out dropping it onto your drink as you stood and began walking towards the agent.

"Hey there, can I buy you a drink?" You purred running a hand up the man's arm. "Not interested." He said not looking up from his phone "well how about a little fun then?" You asked stepping closer to him "I'm not into whores." He said finally looking up at you "especially ugly ones." He said laughing as he stood up "good luck." He snarked tossing money onto the bar as he walked off. You stood frozen staring at the bar when you saw movement out of the corner of your eye, looking seeing Loki punch the man in the face before dragging him through the door "shit..." you sighed quickly running after them you burst out the door looking around when you heard grunts coming from the alley

"how dare you speak to her that way." You heard Loki snarl as you ran into the alley "loki! What are you doing!?" You yelled watching him shove the man against the brick wall "securing the target, what else." He said holding the man there by the throat "we have to go!" You yelled hearing voices coming from further in the alley "I'm not through with this one yet." He snarled when a gunshot rang through the alley "Loki, let's go!" You yelled pulling your gun out from your purse aiming down the alley you fired a few warnings shots when you looked back seeing Loki slam the man's head against the wall as he slumped the the ground "loki, we..." you were cut off by a sharp pain in your shoulder knocking you off your feet "y/n!" Loki yelled as you sat up "fuck!" You yelled pressing your hand to your shoulder seeing red "Dammit!" You gritted as Loki walked over grabbing you arm pulling you up

"let go!" You yelled ripping your arm away "y/n, I was only.." he started when you looked up at him, seeing his eyes soften "get us back to the jet." You growled gritting your teeth as he gently placed his hand on your other shoulder, closing your eyes you felt the familiar tingle that came when Loki teleported you. Opening your eyes you saw that you were inside the jet "here, let me see." He said walking towards you "no, don't touch me!" You yelled storming to the back of the jet grabbing the first aid kit "stop being so stubborn and let me see it!" Loki demanded following you when you slammed the kit down "no! Haven't you done enough!" You yelled feeling the tears welling in your eyes as you looked up at him "just get us back to the tower so I can go back to my pathetic existence." You snarled ripping the kit open "y/n, i..." he started

"haven't you ruined my life enough?" You asked feeling the tears steaming down you cheek "you have made it abundantly clear how weak and useless I am, and guess what...you were right!" You yelled ripping your dress seeing the wound in your shoulder "so just get us back and I'll tell Tony to give you a better partner." You hissed pressing gauze to the wound "y/n please, just listen." Loki said taking a step forward you slammed you hand down on the table "no! I won't...get us back...now!" You yelled seeing him jump as your eyes met his "very well." He said looking down he walked to the cockpit as you sat down, holding your head in your hands unable to stop the sobs that wracked through you you tried to cover your mouth as you rocked back and forth feeling the jet lift off you closed your eyes thankful you would be home soon and back to your room.

~~one week later~~

You grunted at the pain in your shoulder as you slid your tank top on, trying to get dressed. You hadn't left your room since you got back and thankfully loki had given you a wide birth since, there was no way you could handle him right now. You looked in the mirror pulling your hair back sighing seeing the dark circles under your eyes "well, thats as good as its gonna get." You said walking to your door. You were happy to stay locked up but Bruce told you you needed to start working your shoulder, so you begrudgingly made you way to the training room, hoping you would be alone but already knowing better, the men in the tower practically lived in the gym.

You took a deep breath, walking inside seeing Loki training with Thor, his daggers sending sparks in the air as they clashed with Thor's hammer. Looking further you saw Steve sparring with bucky and Nat on the treadmill. You quietly walked in, slowly setting your things down when you looked up meeting eyes with Loki. You quickly put your head down sitting on the bench to tie your shoes when a woman's giggle pulled your attention to the door, sighing seeing Jason walk in with Shanice on his arm, running a hand up his bicep "last night was amazing." She said looking at you as she smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Mmm your so sexy." He purred as he pressed his lips to hers. I can't do this you said to yourself as you got up, feeling the familiar sting in your eyes as you grabbed your things when you heard the sound of metal clanging to the floor.

Turning around you saw Loki taking purposeful strides towards you, ripping his gloves off throwing them to the floor as he stormed closer, his eyes boring into making you shiver as he came up on you "Loki...wha..." you were cut off as his hand clasped the back of your head, his fingers twining in your hair as he pulled you to him. All rational thought left you as his mouth crashed into yours, electricity shooting through you as his lips caressed yours. You felt him pull back, opening your eyes they met his as they searched yours "y/n. I.." he started when you reached up burying you fingers into his messy curls you pulled his lips back down to yours, tilting your head deepening the kiss earning a growl from him as your tongue glided across his bottom lip.

"Y/n" you heard him whisper as your tongue dove past his parted lips, moaning into his mouth feeling his other hand at your hip slowly sliding down cupping your ass, feeling him shiver as you fingers dove under the hem of his shirt ghosting over the skin above his shorts, traveling around to his lower back biting his bottom lip as you pulled his hips towards you feeling his hard length press against your stomach. "Aahh....y/n.." he moaned as you sucked on his bottom lip releasing it with a soft pop as you pulled back looking up into his eyes as you both tried to catch your breath. "Loki." You vaguely heard someone call out as you stared into eachothers eyes, his hand coming up cupping your cheek.

"Loki." You heard again, realizing it was Thor "H..he's calling you." You whispered unable to break Loki's gaze "hmm?" He hummed as his thumb caressed your cheek "he's calling you." You whispered as Thor walked over to you "Brother, what is the matter with you, did you forget your name?" Thor laughed when you saw Loki smile "it seems i have." He said making your cheeks heat up you looked over seeing shanice huff before grabbing Jason's hand and storming from the room. "Well, I'll leave you two alone." Thor said as he walked out as well. You looked back up at Loki, his eyes soft as you took a deep breath "Loki, i.." you started when he pressed a finger to your lips "y/n, please....there is something I have needed to say for sometime now." He said quietly slowly lowering his finger he grabbed your hands

"what you heard that night on the balcony." He started looking down "i...I did not mean a word of it." He said looking back up to you "then...why?" You asked feeling him squeeze your hand "when I first met you, you were so beautiful and kind, and I was...I am...a monster." He whispered as you shook your head "no...you aren't." You said squeezing his hands back "y/n, I've killed people, I attempted to rule your planet, i..." he started when you placed your finger in his lips "that wasn't you, you...Loki...have been mistreated, abused, lied to." You said seeing a tear steam down his cheek "you have a big heart, even though not many get the chance to see it." You said wiping his cheek with your thumb "but i...I have been so unkind to you...the things I've said." He trailed off looking down

"would you allow me to make amends? Allow me to treat you as you deserve?" He asked, biting his lip as he looked back up at you, a sadness In his eyes you hadn't seen before. "Well, I suppose you do owe me." You said smiling making his eyebrow arch "that asshat did show up that night." You said nodding towards the door "so if I remember correctly I won the wager." You said seeing him smile "you are correct, what does the lady wish as payment?" He asked taking a step closer to you "name it and it shall be yours." He said bringing your hand to his lips kissing the back of it "a date...I want to go out to dinner with you...get to know you...the you that you've kept hidden." You said seeing him smile "as you wish, I shall be at your room at eight o'clock." He said taking a step back "I look forward to it." You smiled as he nodded and walked towards the door

"and Loki?" You called out as he turned "i...I'm sorry." You said biting your lip "for all the mean things I said to you." You said seeing him smile "I am sorry too, it will never happen again" He said placing a hand over his heart "you have my word." He said "eight o'clock." You said smiling seeing him return it before walking out. You couldn't help the squeal that escaped you as you grabbed your things and ran to your room to get ready. Excitement running though you at the prospect of a second chance, one you were not going to let get away this time.

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fillinforlater · 8 months

Text

Paradise

Male Reader x Kim Gaeul

Length: 4646 words

Tags: non-smut, story heavy drama, angsty, best friends, young love, looking for paradise

TW: to avoid spoilers, assume all trigger warning apply (I promise nothing sexual!)

Inspiration: "Paradise" by Coldplay (I love that song. Others have inspired me as well e.g. "Clocks" but this is THE one).

(A/N: Happy Anniversary to me <3 fricking 2 years since y'all had to read my first fic. Thanks for all the support! Enjoy this fic that means a lot to me. @firagaarmor, this ones for you too!)

“Can you tell me what paradise is?”

You raise your eyes over the sharp edge of your book, your mind still lost in the adventures of a young sailor, trying to make a name for himself and fighting with the deadly, dark blue sea and the temptation of strong liquor. He’s a brave man, firmly gripping the loose end of a rope to hold the sail steady while a thunderstorm makes his life seem defenseless, fragile, miniscule. The book is too tense, too captivating to stop now!

But then you continue to look past all the letters on old, yellowed paper, straight to her face. Feel her strong gaze grab you and freeze you in place with nothing but softness and innocence. Suddenly, the meaning these words had on you evaporates; the capturing story is nothing but a hallucination you experience while staring at them. You are not hallucinating now. She is here, she is real—and she is absolutely gorgeous.

“Paradise?” you sum up her question in a rather uncertain whisper, Gaeul nods nonetheless.

“Yes!” her eyes beam with thrill and she closes the gap between you and her on the couch. Usually, the two of you leave some space on the worn-out, white sofa, with you reading in one corner and Gaeul resting in the other. It’s rare for her to be this close; it makes you trip up and drop the book on your chest. “Tell me all about it.”

“Well it’s… simple, yet also very complex, you know?” You scratch the back of your head and avoid her face. Straight brown hair frames her soft features, puts a stark contrast between dark beauty and pale beauty, while every nook and cranny on it is just flawlessly carved—you’re red now.

“You need to tell me everything!” Gaeul insists.

“F-fine. Paradise is the place that we go to after we die. We of course don’t know if it’s real or not or if we have to do something or believe something to get in it. Maybe it’s guarded by angels, gods or titans! Maybe it’s just something we tell ourselves to feel better about what death might be: just nothingness. Sometimes people imagine heaven to be this overwhelmingly marvelous forest, where everything is in harmony. Sometimes they see it as a golden gate with everything perfect and beautiful behind it. Sometimes people just call some place on earth paradise.”

“Why?” Gaeul asks, her ears twitching but not really twitching. She is just excited to listen to you, probably. “Where is this place?”

“Well, uhm,” you mutter and scratch harder. Surely you’ll find an answer that will satisfy her. “I think you need to find this place yourself. Like I said, everyone thinks paradise is something different.”

Gaeul nods with the eagerness and naivety of a child. She still possesses this deeply rooted innocence, this greed for knowledge and finding new things. All these years of school could not squeeze it out of her, no belittling, no bullying, nothing can break her spirit. You adore her for it, you envy her for it.

“Paradise,” she says and returns to her original position. “Paradise, paradise.”

She smiles.

“I want to see it with you.”

Gaeul and you are stuck to each other like glue. God put this glue on you from the very beginning. Gaeul was born seventeen days after you, in the same hospital, and grew up in the same street, in the same town as you. You’d always meet her at the playground and from wordlessly playing with her in the sand to fighting and hating her, you felt every emotion towards her every day for all those long kindergarten days.

In school, it was more or less the same. Other people were always interesting for Gaeul, but she kept them at a distance, unlike you, who she never ignored or turned down. You were a bit more difficult back then, frankly, the teasing from the other boys about her was annoying, but you got over it the day you found out she liked the same songs.

“Seventeen?” she chirped when you mentioned their debut track. “You like Seventeen?”

“Well, yes. This song sounds very… nice,” you whispered, phone in hand, eyes on the pavement.

“Do you know all their names?”

“Ha, no way! There is like so many of them.”

Gaeul grins and grabs your hand. Triumphantly, she announces: “I know all of them, all thirteen! I guess I’m smarter than you!”

“Pah, I-I was born seventeen days before you. I’m older and I’m smarter!”

“No~”

The bickering made you bond, while the fantastic songs of Seventeen drowned out all foreign criticism. You found more and more things to like and dislike about each other, which made every day spent together worth it. Be it playing games together, preparing food (let’s be honest, you mostly just tried mixing random ingredients and had her mom save it in the end) or just chilling on the couch—it never got boring.

It was about a year ago when you noticed that she had these long phases where she just did nothing. Her small body was positioned on the couch, always the same way on the same spot, and then she would look into nothingness. You wanted to tease her for it, for being a daydreamer, someone who spaces out and drools while doing it, yet you stopped.

She is so pretty.

You admired her. There was no drool, no dumb, mindless dreaminess in her eyes. She was in her own world, thinking of something so incredible, it made her beam with life. Her eyes were like orbs, set ablaze by golden light. Movies could never get her attention and admiration for this long—movies could never get your attention and admiration for this long. You were the one staring, you were the one drooling over how everything about her is just so flawless��you still do.

This was the day you noticed you liked her.

Seventeen days later came the day she asked about paradise.

That was the day she stole your heart.

…

Today is the day a cruel devil came to smash it into pieces.

Being friends with Gaeul for almost twenty years, it is only natural that her parents would inform you as soon as possible. You dropped your phone as the words left the speaker, it’s smashing on the floor goes unnoticed by you. Seconds later, you’re already on the street, on the run, straight to her parents’ house. You didn’t need to ring, her father wordlessly held the door open and pointed to her room.

She sits on her bed, her lower body tugged in a blanket, her back against the wall, her eyes… shut. You look at her mother, a mess of tears and snot; it’s not yet on her face but the moment she looks at you it, the dams break. Her knees unstable, she walks out of the room into her husband's arms.

“Gaeul, I—”

You look at her again. Her eyes are open, focused on the opposing wall, the sparkle of life, wonder, joy still strong, but it’s slowly getting drowned in this puddle of tears that glisten in them, a stain on her that you can’t bear to see. So you kneel down, reach for her hand and watch her leave whatever world she tried to escape into.

“Gaeul, I-I’m sorry,” you stammer out, your hands the ones shivering more, though you’d love to think that you’re strong and she is the one folding.

“It’s not your fault, dumbo,” she semi-laughs, semi-sighs. Then she rasps: “Nothing you can do about it.”

“I-I know… and I hate it.”

Silence. You look at her chest, slowly heaving up and down in a rhythmic cycle, gently increasing when you squeeze her hand and she looks down on it. Gaeul cracks a small smile, a smile so full of pain, every second you look at it is sending daggers to your chest.

Rage is building up inside you. Feel it creep up every limb, every toe, every finger, up to your head where you imagine the cruelest things you could do to the devil or deity who let this happen, no, who made this happen. They are a devil, and you will go down into the depths of hell to make them suffer for eternity.

How could they do this to her? What did she do? She doesn’t deserve this!

And you don’t deserve this either. What did you do, to see pain and horror like this? What did you do to hold a warm hand soon to be cold? What did you do, to see the love of your life become nothing but ash and dust, buried somewhere in the ground, forgotten in two generations, a life too short, too cruel to even call it that?

I’ll—

“Do you remember,” Gaeul suddenly asks, her voice soft and calming, like the wonderful, nostalgic wife you never had, you never will have. “The day I asked you about paradise?”

“Of course I do!” you blurt out, voice a bit hoarse. You could never forget the day you fell in love with her.

“You said that people can find paradise here on earth,” Gaeul starts. “I know I should probably go look for it myself but… can you go with me and show me paradise?”

The tears she held back in her eyes must have found their way to yours. Your vision is all blurry, your voice barely registers, but you are certain she hears you and knows what you're saying. You would never let her down, and in this moment, no feeling could be stronger.

“Of course, Gaeul. A-anything for you.”

You have only heard of cancer from these dramatic movies that people watch and then cry. Maybe somewhere in the news or a documentary, but then it was usually older people, not young and youthful spirits—those who don't think that a tragedy is right around the corner, waiting to rip apart their bodies, souls but first of all, their dreams.

Gaeul’s condition got worse rapidly. For the first two weeks, Gaeul’s mom would call you every other night because something seemed to be up. She was throwing up, had a high fever, the doctor was late, she didn’t respond—some of them were clearly only in the head of Gaeul’s mother who started to smoke again, the butts of cigarettes soon littering the tiled kitchen floor.

You’re not at all better though. Every time the phone rang, you ran over to her; throughout all other seconds of the day, you were frozen in place. Like a puppet, you sat on your bed, blankly staring at the wall and into nothing. Your body is perfectly fine, nothing hurts or is out of place yet everything feels agonizing in its meaninglessness.

You can’t even light up this tiny, simmering flame you always see in Gaeul’s eyes when you enter her room. It has not faded, no tears, no vomit, no painful breaths, nothing has put it out. It’s remarkable, beautiful, it’s the only thing that rids you of your agony for a moment.

When she was just a girl, Gaeul expected the world to tell her everything, to the minutest of details to the broadest of concepts. She sucked it all up like a sponge and let the mechanisms in her small, pretty head work with it for hours. Now it’s about to fly away from her reach in a cruel race where the world might only be jogging, but Gaeul legs are literally withering away under her tiny weight.

Yet you see the dreams in her eyes. She will not relent until she has—

Paradise.

Not even past the door frame, you drop the backpack to the ground. Gaeul jumps a bit and smiles at you in confusion. Your expression must be bewildering, funny, but she has no idea with what conviction your heart is finally urging your stupid brain to get going.

“Hey, what’s up? You alright?” she asks.

“Gaeul.” You reach for her hand, down on your knees to be level with the small, bedridden girl. “I’m going to look for it.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“I will look for it and find it! A-and then, I’m going to take you there, I promise!”

Gaeul looks at you funny, her free hand pushing away your torso in a playful gesture. A coughing fit interrupts her initial chuckle. “You’re playing around, talking weird stuff. But it’s funny.”

“No, I mean it—

“Paradise, Gaeul, I’m going to look for it—and I will find it for you.”

“Really?”

Really?

Early in the morning, the sky is still more dark, navy blue than anything else, you stuff whatever you might need into your backpack. Long forgotten and unnecessary are those school books and pens; you’ve not lost a thought about that in weeks. Frantically, you replace them with snacks, some water bottles, a map, a book, a phone, a towel, a shovel and a pocket knife. No dehydration, no getting lost, no boredom will prevent you from undertaking a journey to—

Where to, you wonder. The compass on your phone points in directions, probably the right ones, but it’s meaningless, useless. The correct route to paradise has to come from your heart. Your heart has already embedded its needle in the magnetic field that is Gaeul, now all you need to do is feel in which direction it points.

On the calm streets of this town you walk, along pretty houses which were always the start to all of yours and Gaeul’s games and adventures. It never ended here however. The two of you were always drawn to what's beyond the tarmac, the stones, the plastic. It all changes, quickly blurs to a mix of brown and green, every color in between, on this spectrum. On the soft soil of the forest underneath your feet, mixed with crunchy leaves and crunchier twigs, your adventure continues.

You might be closer, but this is definitely not yet paradise. Beautiful, but you can find it elsewhere equally as beautiful. Without second thoughts, you march on, deeper into the woods towards the pull. Gaeul’s magnetic field has this tendency to swirl off the main road. Suddenly, you find yourself in between thick bushes and young trees that make walking through them quite challenging.

Some plants wrap themselves around you like vines trying to hold you back. Slash them with the knife, bite into an apple and don’t stop for nothing. Soon, you find parts of the forest completely unbeknownst to you. The green looks darker, sunlight is a bit sparse and more animals run through your field of view. Bird, mice, dear, they all seem to look at you and when you hush and look back, it’s—

Peaceful. A piece of heaven, of paradise?

Though this spot may fill you with wonder and calm your heart, it's not yet paradise. It's all fleeting; the animals jump at your first motion, all it takes is a single cloud blocking the sun and its soft, faint rays are gone as well. You have to move onwards, past the mushrooms and moss, the deepest you have ever been in this forest.

Thousands of steps later, the dryness in your throat and the hole in your stomach force you to take a break. In midst all the tall, blooming trees you find a patch of grass, a glade, untouched by man. A perfect resting spot for the wild life, unbothered, untouched beauty. You feel a bit out of place, but you won't deny that it's a privilege to just sit down and take a breather.

You quickly down sandwiches and the water, realizing that both are not enough to quench your hunger and thirst. The sun is barely visible from here—how long has your adventure lasted until now? At some point you need to turn around, find your way back; thank God for phones and Google Maps, otherwise you'd be lost forever.

Amongst all of nature's sounds, you suddenly hear the splattering of water, probably in a small creek nearby. You grab your things and move closer to the source. The splattering gets louder and louder, oh, what you would give for the water to be clean and drinkable.

Uneven terrain and bushes block your way, but you can see the sun bursting through small gaps in between branches. You find an angle, with less thorns and stinging nettles and cut your way through it. Feel your heart throb in excitement, even when nature tries to resist you. There is something behind this, and now you are free to—

Close your eyes, because this cannot be real.

A picture before you, beautiful drawn, everything perfectly decorated, yet it cannot explain the stunningness of the sight before you. A wide open cliff gives you a perfect view of the entire forest and the lake in its middle. To your left, the outskirts of the city, only a couple of streets with both a school and hospital in sight. To your right a miniscule waterfall, fueled by the aforementioned creek. Everything is overstimulating, yet absolutely coherent in both its vibrantness and peacefulness.

Best of all, above a small rock overhang along this cliff, a pair of butterflies seem to happily dance around each other, blissfully unaware of the steep fall below them. No, they just love each other. Both swing their colorful wings to their own rhythm, not caring if someone sees, not allowing anyone to disturb them.

You carefully step towards their overhang, take a look down and see that it might be a dangerous fall, but you don’t feel any danger in this place. It is cozy, relaxing and quiet. There is nothing to fear, not even boredom. There is unlimited adventure and excitement amongst these gigantic trees, they embrace you with their twigs and tuck you in with their leaves. You can stay here for eternity, in fact you almost want to.

But not without Gaeul.

“I think I found it,” you’ll tell her. “I think I found paradise.”

“Gaeul is in the hospital.”

Your mothers first words when you return from your trip. The strain on your muscles, your back, your hands; they fade into the background the moment you realize what might be happening.

“What, why?”

“Her health has been… rapidly declining the last two days,” your mother says and urges you to sit down. You do not. “At some point, I could hear her scream from across the street, she… she has to be in so much pain.”

“A-and then?” You can barely stand standing around and not being by her side.

“They came like two hours ago, took her to the lake-side hospital. Her mother is—”

“I’m going there,” you say, drop your backpack and turn on your heels. Your mother sighs, deeper than ever. There is tears and misery in her eyes.

“I… don’t want you to go. You shouldn’t see this.”

“Mum, I will go. Why would you stop me? I need to be there; I can’t leave her now!”

Your mother stands up. You watch her reach for a cup of tea and drink the entire thing. Maybe it wasn’t tea. Maybe she needed some strength right now. This strong woman has never looked so vulnerable to you. She reaches for your hand.

“Okay… I’ll drive you.”

“You came,” Gaeul whispers, her voice hoarse, her eyes puffy, her skin pale. Well, she has always been quite the pale girl, but now her skin is rivaling snow in terms of whiteness. You push away a doctor and a relative or two and reach for one of Gaeul’s fragile hands.

“Of course I did. I’m never not there.” You smile.

“There you go, saying silly things again.” Gaeul smiles.

This is where you lose yourself in her eyes, those deep brown marbles, like bitter yet sweet chocolate—fitting to the overall mood in this hospital room. While you continue to stare into Gaeul’s dreams, the people around you go through all those stages of grief in front of the doctors, their powerless deities. Denial in her fathers voice, anger in the way her mother grabs her brother, they are bargaining, well onto their way into depression.

But Gaeul is still right there. She is still breathing. She is still breathing, even after they all leave the room. You stay by her side, long after midnight and most of the time, you just listen to her breath. Weak and shallow, but enough to keep her going. Then it starts to rain.

“Did we play in the rain back then?” you ask, looking out through the window into the dark clouds and the impending torrential downpour.

“Once or twice for sure,” Gaeul responds. You feel her eyes in your neck. “We should have done it more often.”

“Yeah, but only when the rain is warm.” Caress her knuckles. Gaeul sighs.

“Then I could have seen paradise in the rain.”

Feel a rush of excitement run down your spine when you turn to her.

“Gaeul, I think I found it. I found paradise! It’s not far from here. Let’s go there tomorrow or the day after—”

“Y-you did?” Gaeul suddenly squeezes your wrist tightly. “Where is it?”

“Near the lake, secluded in the forest. It’s beautiful—I’ll show it to you.”

“C-can we go now… please?”

Your eyes widen, your breath quickens. Someone has a belt wrapped around your chest and gradually tightens it. It’s as if there is poison in the air draining your life. This can’t get to you—no, it cannot be true. All the dreadful thoughts, you push them to the side, though they sink into your heart like the pointiest of knives. In your turmoil, you forget to answer.

Gaeul props herself up and stretches her arms out.

“Take me there, please.

“I want to see it tonight.”

No matter how much your heart bleeds, you find a way to work. For your best friend, the childhood love, the—current love. You easily pick up the thin girl and she finds the strength to secure herself on your back. She is light and heartbreakingly weak. Everything falls on you now.

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” you hiss when you piggyback carry the girl out of the room and quietly sneak her out through the fire exit. “But I’ll try my best to be your hero, Gaeul.”

“Don’t be some hero from your book,” Gaeul whispers, her lips right on your earlobe. “Just be you, that’s cool enough already.”

The rain is worse than you expected. Thick droplets a plenty make all colors of the quite illuminated town blurr. You just know you have to run away from them, towards the forest. There the roof of leaves will protect you from getting more soaked—which is not possible. After only a hundred meters, both you and Gaeul are two human sponges, drenched in heavenly water.

“It’s warmer than I thought,” Gaeul croaks as you sprint down the final street where the trees finally start. “Let’s play in this rain.”

“S-sure,” you grunt through gritted teeth, your exhausted legs barely keeping you upright. At the first tree, you take a breather. “But let’s get to paradise first.”

“How long is it?”

“About a kilometer. Can you hold my phone?”

Gaeul grabs it, the faint light showing a messy hill with a hundred reasons to doubt that you can carry her up there. Worriedly, Gaeul clings onto you stronger than before.

“Isn’t this too steep?”

You smile and adjust Gaeul, the friend on your back and take away all of her doubts by marching onwards, into the mud. Soon your legs are all covered in the heavy mixture of dirt, leaves, twigs, a couple of bugs, some plastic—it’s almost impossible to lift your legs over the taller roots breaching through the ground.

“Sorry that you have to carry me,” Gaeul murmurs, her face sunken into your back. The wind whips above the trees, their tips shake and you get showered in pine needles. You pause for a second, then laugh.

“Look at this mess! Mother nature is really playing with us tonight.”

“I-I’m sorry, I can’t—”

You pull a couple of needles out of Gaeul’s short, muddy, messy hair. In the faint light of your phones’ lamp. She looks like a ghost with barely lit eyes. God, it hurts to see her like this… but you will never deny that she isn’t drop dead gorgeous. The flame in her eyes hasn’t faded yet either. No matter how much fucking water the clouds above you pour down, they burn and they burn into your heart.

“Gaeul,” you say with confidence and unbridled determination as you take the first step on your final surge up to paradise. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t be sad. We are almost there. Hold onto my shoulders and you’ll be fine.”

Gaeul quietly sniffles into your thoroughly wet t-shirt, only a few tears, yet each of them is like a waterfall and adds to the weight of the most water you have ever seen in your life. Not even the oceans can compare to whatever mother nature has decided to unleash onto this area. If this is what it takes to get Gaeul to heaven, you will swim through it.

Again and again, until the end of time. And then you’ll still do it.

A bush brushing over your bodies, its evil thornes piercing your skin. You don’t feel it. Your hand shelters Gaeul, before pushing away the final branches of a familiar oak tree. There it is. Your heart skips a beat. You sink to your knees.

“Hey! Hey, are you okay?” Gaeul shouts, then she looks ahead. In this exact moment, a miracle: a lightning bolt in the distance, bright and wide, hits a far away field. Everything is illuminated, the ridiculous beauty of paradise visible in the middle of the night—for your best friend to see.

“What do you think?” you ask, out of breath and smiling brightly, brighter than the lightning. Gaeul has gotten off of your back and her weak legs carry her towards the overhang. The visual is impeccable, epic on so many levels, it’s like the grand finale to the universe:

Gaeul, the love of your life, looking at her paradise. It should be impossible, but she stands there. What might her face look like right now? You don’t need to see it to know.

Suddenly, she turns back around and sinks down on the floor. You try to catch her. A second to late, all you can do is prop her back up, shake the collar of her hospital gown. Her eyes are barely open, her lips tremble. You hug her tightly, not caring about the mud below you.

“Gaeul… no!”

Lying underneath the stormy skies, the only thing holding her in this world are your arms underneath her. Gaeul stretches out her pointer towards the horizon.

“I know the sun will rise.”

Her voice is but a whisper in the downpour, quieter than even the waterfall of tears running down your face—but it’s powerful enough to pull a single, all illuminating beam of sunlight from the edge of the world. In a final, painful but infinitely freeing breath, Gaeul says it all:

“This could be… you could be… no—

“You are my paradise.”

“Gaeul, I love you!”

As if to say ‘I love you too’, she puts her cold lips on yours a final time and flies away, forever. You hold her forever, kiss her forever, love her forever while the strongest gusts of wind don’t feel like anything. Gaeul is in your arms, looking so alive with her closed eyes and peaceful smile; but it’s all not true.

You decide to fall

faster than the rain drops,

faster than the waterfall

and then meet her;

for she is your paradise.

#kpop angst #kpop fanfiction #ive angst #gaeul angst #ive gaeul angst #gaeul fanfiction #kim gaeul

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