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mrchiipchrome · 2 days

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The Best Kept Secrets...

W.C. - 3.7 k

a/n: all Spanish is in italics bc i'm lazy.

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Homecoming! From Barcelona’s youth academy to Manchester United and back again, read more about the incredible journey Ona Batlle and Y/n Leòn have made on their way to first team football at the Spanish giants…

The Red Devils lose 2 Spanish superstars as Batlle and Leòn prepare to leave in the summer, read more here…

A package deal! Manchester United stars switch rainy England in exchange for sunny Spain, will we finally get an insight to what makes them so great?

That’s what most of the tabloids had sounded like as soon as you and your girlfriend announced that you were leaving the club that had housed you for more than three years, the club that had helped you develop as players and people.

It was bittersweet, you had gotten attached to it after all like anyone would but it was time for a new challenge, and that was apparently having to deal with your older sister every hour of every day.

But having Ona by your side made everything miles better, the constant playful annoyance with your sister melted away as soon as her warm hand slipped into your own, the huge smile on your face something not even Mapi could wipe away.

Although that was a problem, well for Mapi at least. She wasn’t the only one who noticed the small seemingly insignificant touches between the two of you, the playful teasing, the stolen glances when you thought no one was looking.

It drove her mad, it was clear that the two of you had some serious feelings for each other and the fact that you were stupid enough to not see it was making her more annoyed than it probably should’ve. You even lived together, how could you not see how madly in love you were with each other?

But to start from the beginning, when Mapi came to pick you both up from the airport.

“I really hope it’s Alexia coming and not Mapi.” You groan into your girlfriend’s shoulder, sitting on the suitcases that you’d placed into the luggage cart, the sleepiness from the flight translating into grumpiness when you felt her hand stop threading through your hair.

“Come on, I’m not that bad.” The second you hear Mapi’s voice, your head snaps around, and despite you seemingly having complained about her only moments before, you wrap the smaller woman up tightly in your arms. Ona stays back and watches the interaction with a soft smile on her face.

“She didn’t cause you too much trouble, right? I know how she can be.” Mapi looks past your body to meet Ona’s eye, the brunette smiling softly in return and shaking her head.

“Slept like a baby the entire time.” Ona exposes you, joining Mapi in pinching your cheek like an old grandma would.

Slapping away both their hands, you maneuver around so that you can grab the luggage cart, gently pushing it in the direction you thought Mapi had come from.

“Amor, you don't even know where she’s parked, you have to wait for us.” Your sister’s eyebrows furrow at the affectionate nickname, but even more so at you actually listening to the shorter girl, since you were almost globally known to be stubborn beyond comprehension.

She’s even more confused when you let Ona sit in the passenger seat, seeing as it was your designated seat that you’d fight for if you had to. It all made her even more suspicious of you, something had clearly happened in England, more than likely between you and the girl next to her.

“When do you two get the keys to your apartments?” Mapi asks, her eyes trained on the road despite her talking. Ona looks back at you, almost questioningly but as you shrug in return, she decides that it’s best to just bite the bullet.

“I think we get them next wednesday, right amor?” Smiling softly, you nod your head at her so as to say that you agree.

“Oh, well you’ll just take the couch then for now?” Mapi asks you, not seeing the utterly confused look on your face, why would she think that you would sleep on the couch when you were perfectly fine sleeping in the same bed as your girlfriend?

“No, we’ll take the spare room.” There’s still some lingering confusion running through your mind but when Ona practically tells you ‘hey, she’s your sister’ you just decide to not think about it anymore.

Arriving at the house your sister shares with her girlfriend, you waste no time in disappearing out of the car and walking straight into the house. It had been a while since you’d seen the better of the pair and you didn’t want to delay your reunion any longer than you already had.

“Ingrid! I wish you could’ve come to pick us up instead, María was so annoying.” Enveloping the Norwegian in a bear hug, she quickly squeals as her feet leave the floor momentarily, but soon enough she hugs you back.

“My favourite Leòn, it’s so nice to have you home again.” Ingrid’s hands cup your face as she makes sure to really look at you, the last time you’d met in person had been at christmas almost 2 years before and there was no telling how much you’d grown into your features over facetime.

“Can you two stop bullying me, por favor?” Mapi groans as she comes into the kitchen, carrying most of your luggage, Ona entering just after her with the lightest of the packing in her arms.

When Ingrid’s eyes scan over the shorter girl, who shifts uncomfortably under what’s practically her sister-in-law’s gaze. But it’s clear that Ingrid approves when she sends the defender a bright smile, quickly bringing her into a hug of her own.

“You must be Ona, Y/n’s talked about you a lot.” Ingrid shoots Mapi a look as both you and Ona start blushing madly, the two of you shuffling out of the room under the guise of getting the room ready.

“There’s something going on there.” Ingrid notes out loud, telling herself to ask you about it later.

“Sexual tension, they need to get it out.” Mapi yelps as Ingrid slaps her arm harshly, the childish defender not expecting the assault.

Upstairs you and Ona were enjoying a soft moment of your own, with the defender laying atop you with her head on your chest, listening to the steady beating of your heart that speeds up every so slightly when her hand traces soft shapes into the skin just below your ribs.

Her head follows with the steady rise and fall of your chest as you breathe deeply, and as your hand starts to thread through her hair softly she can’t help but kiss at the underside of your jaw, nipping every so often just to hear the melodious laugh escaping your lips at the tickling sensation.

“You’re so beautiful, I adore you, I love the way you see the world and how you don’t fear being yourself, I love the way your mind works and even more just how great you are. Anyone who can look at you, know you, without feeling even the slightest bit of envy at the fact that they aren’t you is someone robbed of basic emotions. I love you so much that I just want to.” You wrap your arms around her body tightly, using so much strength you could without hurting her as you hug her tightly to your body.

Despite the smaller girl tearing up slightly at your heartfelt confession, she giggles lovingly when you hug her, pushing her face further into your neck.

“You know, there’s a beach not too far from here, we can go tonight when the oldies have fallen asleep.” Your soft breath against the shell of her ear has Ona shivering in anticipation, feeling a soft kiss being placed against the side of her head.

Feet slapping against the steps of the stairs wake you two from the little moment you were having, the knocks of the door startling you two even more, not that it matters seeing as the two women already knew of your relationship, right?

“Shh, they’re sleeping.” Both you and Ona have to keep from laughing at Ingrid’s hushed tone, and at the thud of your sister’s body as it meets the floor. But as the door closes, the two of you fall into a quiet fit of laughter, nothing stopping you.

Safe to say, that was the first time of many Mapi was confused by your ‘friendship’.

Over the next week, you and Ona could be found cuddled up anywhere, from under the apple tree standing proudly in the backyard reading together to the couch and even the roof (how you two even got up there in the first place Mapi didn’t even know.)

You were everywhere and if you hadn’t been her sister, Mapi would’ve probably killed you for being so oblivious to Ona’s feelings.

“They can’t see that they love each other, I’m going crazy.” The older Leòn complains to her girlfriend, who just continues to read her book like Mapi hadn’t even spoken in the first place, which only makes her groan harder.

“María, it runs in the family. It took you almost a year to realise that I liked you back.” The couch shakes with the force of which the woman in question slams her body into it with, her hands quickly running through her hair.

“But they’re so oblivious, they need to just-” Mapi gestures around with her hands like it would tell the other woman everything she needed to know, which it seemingly does.

“I know, but we have to let them figure things out themselves, we can’t meddle.” Ingrid sends a fierce glare towards her girlfriend, almost warning her of the consequences if she were to try pushing you and Ona to get together prematurely.

“Okay, but I’m not happy about it.” Crossing her arms and pouting, Mapi quickly gets a kiss pressed to her lips, a sneaky smile forming on her lips as she pretends not to notice the action.

“Playing hard to get then, are we?” Ingrid giggles out, settling her body over Mapi’s lap, placing kisses all over her girlfriend’s face. The sound of their giggles surround the room, filling it with joy that’s hard to replicate.

“Can you two not be gross for two seconds?” The two women on the couch look up when your voice echoes through the room, seeing you and Ona on the last step of the stairs, your hands joined together as your nose is almost turned up in disgust.

The two older women laugh when your girlfriend slaps the back of your head, clearly not approving of your words.

“Amor, it’s their house, they can do whatever they want.” You grumble in response, lifting your free hand to sooth the ever so slight throbbing in the back of your head.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re just about to go get our keys, so yeah.” Mapi and Ingrid watch as you and the shorter girl make your way to the door, another slap landing on the back of your head when you don’t wave goodbye.

“She’s so in love with that girl.” Your sister remarks to her girlfriend again as they see you climb into the rental car you’d gotten as you waited for your actual car to be transported over from England. They see the way you open the door for her and how you smile oh so timidly at her as she grasps your hand in hers.

“No meddling.” Ingrid points at Mapi, her stern gaze once again telling the shorter woman that she wasn’t fucking around.

“Yeah, yeah.”

The realtor explained everything, from how you could move in directly to how everything was already in the apartment, ready for the two of you to pack up. As the key finally gets dropped into your hand, you almost breathe a sigh of relief, not wanting to stay out there any longer.

But as soon as you entered the apartment, a loud groan fell from your lips, the boxes stacked on top of each other something that would take up the majority of your coming week. The rolled up mattress in the corner of the living room was the one thing you found to be positive, well except for your girlfriend’s hands on your waist.

“What are you thinking?” The shorter girl gets up on her tiptoes, her lips meeting your neck ever so slightly, tiny butterfly kisses being pressed all over the column of your neck.

Humming softly, your fingers tangle with hers over your waist, swaying your bodies back and forth in an almost dance.

“I’m thinking that we take the mattress, place it on the floor then we order some pizza and just ignore all the boxes in here.” You mumble out just loud enough for her to hear, feeling her smile against the skin of your neck. It was somewhat of a tradition, seeing as that’s what you had done when you first moved in together.

“I think that’s a great idea.” She whispers, her lips directly besides your ear just to get her point across even better.

After you order the pizza, you start moving some of the boxes out of the way to make room for the large mattress that’s all wrapped up. You loosen the belt containing it after enough space is created, watching it spring out and flop down on the floor.

It’s not long after that the pizza arrives and it takes even less time to pay for it and bring it back up to the apartment, the two of you plopping down together on the mattress as you start to eat.

“We have to start packing for camp soon.” Ona breaks the blissful silence with her whispered words, another groan falling from your lips, it was no secret that the spanish federation were unethical in their treatment of their players, especially with the threats of revoking the player licenses if you declined the call up.

“They can stick their call up where the sun doesn’t shine.” Ona’s soft giggle warms up your entire being, like it always did, she just had that effect on you no matter what.

“Yeah I know, but we have to make the best of it, don’t we?” Her hand comes up to cup your face and you lean into it, her thumb stroking your cheek softly.

Pulling her hand off your face, you drag her up off the soft foam of the makeshift bed. One hand wraps around her hip whilst the other one falls to the middle of her back, a light tune appearing from between your lips.

Swaying her body around to the tune, the two of you relish in the shared moment, the one so fleeting that even the most secure hands wouldn’t get a grip on it. Ever so often the hummed tune would change, sometimes to something slower, sometimes to something quicker, all that mattered was that you could stay there in that moment, all wrapped up in your lover's arms like nothing else in the world mattered.

Soon enough there were more than a few kisses being exchanged between you two, lips moving against each other sweetly in an almost synched rhythm.

“I love you so much.” With your bodies pressed up all tightly, you could feel her heart beating as her chest pressed tightly to yours, and in your mind you could only imagine it joining yours in a shared rhythm, a single heart beating for the both of you, a single heart beating for the same purpose, one deviating from what most thought.

She lays her head upon your chest, your hand on her back tracing up and down her spine as her short breaths tickle your collarbones.

The next day you two start on packing for the world cup, picking up different pairs of clothing and stuffing them into your bags haphazardly. You were both leaving for Australia within hours, not knowing that you’d come back as world cup champions.

Sitting together on the plane, you were both wrapped up under a blanket during the entire flight, sleeping for a while until you started playing card games together, not being bothered much by your teammates much to your surprise.

The group stages passed by in the blink of an eye, with both you and your girlfriend having masterclasses on the field, your shared room an asylum away from the loud group of trainers that seemingly only enjoyed the power aspect of football.

Beating Switzerland in the round of 16 was easier than you’d thought, but with a hattrick from you there was really no denying Spain’s dominance, quick and instinctively moving, Spain was the team to beat.

The Netherlands were the next team to beat, and it was nothing if not rather simple to beat the footballing giants, they’d managed to slip a goal by your keeper but there was no coming back from the two goals scored.

After that you had to beat one of the most on form teams in the entire tournament, Sweden. It wasn’t as easy this time, but ultimately you got it done without too much fuss, sending them to fight for the bronze medal against the host nation.

And then at last, the final. The final against England, a team that would be so hard to beat, nonetheless, you were ready to send them home with their tails between their legs, and with a goal (that would ultimately win you the golden boot) in the 20th minute you did just that. And so, you returned home to Spain newly crowned as champions of the world.

World champions who had to spend ages making their apartment a home right before the official season started, but not without help from their friends. 2

It became something of a team bonding activity when Mapi invited practically the entire team over to help with the ‘packing problem’, with you only finding out when they all turned up at your door asking to come in.

“María I swear to god, you have to stop inviting people over.” You groan as you open up the door to Alexia’s smiling face, Mapi sitting on a cardboard box further into the apartment.

“We were told you needed help, so we’re here to help.” Alexia says, pushing past you and into the space, the rest of the women following with.

“Alright baby Leòn, where do we start?” Grumbling at Lucy’s words, you point at a section of boxes you thought she’d be able to help with, mainly things that needed building like bookshelves and the couch.

“Okay everyone, some of you are going to help with the easy stuff and some with the more difficult. We’ll make a game out of it, the team that assembles the most furniture and packs up the most boxes wins, I don’t know, a batman figurine?” You speak, some of the girls venturing over to Ona’s side of the room and some coming over to yours, like they already knew what the teams would be.

“Starting in 3…2…1, go.” With that everyone is off, you and Lucy quickly discard the instructions and build the coffee table on free hand, Irene and Ingrid being a bit more careful as they assemble the bookcase.

After 20 minutes, it’s about even with you and Lucy having assembled the coffee table and gone through three or so boxes of random stuff that needed organizing, the rest of the girls on your team having put together more than a few things. But Ona’s team were just as efficient, about 70% of every cardboard box being gone.

Ripping up a new box, Lucy quickly starts laughing quietly, pulling a stuffed lion out of the brown box that she shows to virtually everyone.

“This yours, baby Leòn?” She asks, wiggling it in front of your face. Trying to take it from her, it quickly ends up in Mapi’s hands.

“No way, El Tigre. You still keep him?” She asks you wide eyed, like she couldn’t believe that you’d kept the plush even after all these years.

“Of course, he’s even got a girlfriend now, Ona thought he looked sad all alone in our bed.” Pulling out the small lion that was left in the box, Mapi looks at the small pink bow near its ear and smiles, even if you were technically an adult now, she would never see you as anything but the tiny little baby she’d gotten to be a big sister to at only 4 years of age. The four year old that had chosen the lion stuffie that was currently in her own hands.

She hugs you real tight, the women around the room all looking on in confusion at the two of you and the emotional moment being shared. Slowly she separates from you, a confused look on her face.

“Wait, ‘our’ bed, as in you and Ona share a bed?” She asks, her eyebrows furrowed up in a way that was totally Leòn, your brows furrowing in the exact same way.

“Yeah why wouldn’t we?” You ask your sister, your girlfriend coming up to clutch at your hips, your arm falling around your shoulders. Mapi looks at the two of you as realization dawns on her face, wow she really is oblivious.

“Wait you two…?” She points between you two quickly as Ona leans up to kiss your cheek, catching on to the memo much faster than you had.

“Amor, did you forget to tell your sister that we’re dating?” Ona asks, looking up at you with that adoring kind of look that makes everything so clear for everyone, of course you were dating.

“Oops…?” Mapi slaps your arm as you look at her cheekily, her own girlfriend coming up to place a kiss against her cheek, the two oblivious sisters both turning a bright shade of red.

During your life you had kept few secrets from your sister, but this one was probably the best one, even if it wasn’t meant to be a secret.

Like the saying goes, the best kept secrets are the ones never told, and well that was fitting for you.

#woso #barcelona femeni #woso imagines #ona batlle x reader #ona batlle #i'm losing on this fifa game #oops #i won #mapi leon #mapi leon x reader #ingrid engen #woso x reader

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krazyyyyyy · 2 days

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Forever Longing Solivan Brugmansia /Reader

Synopsis: A small glimpse into Sol's elementary life, where he abruptly meets the single most important person in his life...You

Warnings: Mentions of violence

Words: 2553

Notes: Don't know how many more of these I'll write, but I'm hoping to get around three more done if not a few more.

Hope you enjoy this short story <3

Children’s happy laughter echoed loudly throughout the playground, as they began to spill out of the school building; marking the beginning of their cherished recess time. Kids ran freely playing around with friends, swinging giddily on the swing sets, and continuously going up and down the slide.

Well, all the kids but one…

A young, small, and quiet Solivan stood far away from the other kids, staring at the ground at his feet, avoiding any eye contact with anybody within the area. He knew he didn’t fit in with the others, given his introverted nature, he was considered an outcast amongst his classmates. People tended to overlook him, barely acknowledging his presence even when they were standing right next to him.

He was used to it, though…. He had his drawing supplies and stuffed animals, the only things that really made him feel anything close to happiness. The stuffed animals would never judge him, and, they’d always be around to listen to him when he needed it, an idiosyncratic concept to him growing up in a loveless household.

A soft tap on his shoulder causes him to lift his amber gaze from the ground and into the familiar brown orbs of his teacher, Mrs. Baker. A woman with a skinny frame and curly auburn hair that just slightly exceeded her shoulders. It took everything within him not to scoff at her arrival. She was keen on pushing him towards being more sociable with the other kids, a goal that would always fail in his favor. So why couldn’t she just leave him alone?

She crouched down to his height and spoke to him in her usual soft and steady voice, “Solivan, Why don’t you play with the others today? It seems they're playing a little game of freeze tag, doesn’t that sound like fun?”

Solivan spared a short glance toward where the kids were running wildly at each other, while some others stayed frozen in place, showing signs of annoyance at being frozen; he retracted his gaze back to the ground shaking his head, mumbling a small “No”

Mrs. Baker smiled understandingly at the timid young boy before her, “I know it might seem scary, but give it a chance, you might like it more than you think.” She attempted one last time to try to convince the boy to open up, even if it was just a little.

The boy remained silent, having lost interest in the conversation completely and hoping that his teacher would simply give up and leave him alone for the rest of the recess period.

Thankfully, it seemed fate was on his side, as he heard his teacher sigh next to him before standing up and walking away to a different part of the playground to supervise a group of rather exuberant children. Leaving him alone at last.

The little raven-haired boy sat on the ground, back pressed against the steel fence that separated the playground from the busy streets that lay not far behind. Settling down, Sol pulled out a small sketchpad from his back pocket; a notebook that was filled page to page in his numerous doodles, which he usually did during class time to pass the time.

Pulling out a pencil, Sol began to doodle, head buried in the notebook; heavily embarked on the mini sketches that required his utmost attention. After a while, he finally cranes his head back to admire his work; his sketch was that of a small horse with a small sketched figure of him seated cheerfully on its back.

He beamed at the drawing, proud of his work. While marveling at the sketch, the notepad is quickly ripped from his grasp. Startled and confused, Sol snaps his head up to look at the culprits. Standing above him, were three kids, obviously much older than he was, possibly four grades above him.

Sol was quick to spring up to his feet to try to get the notebook back, but to no avail, as the blond boy who held the item towered over him. He held the sketchbook high above his head, so even if the little boy tried to jump for it, it would prove pointless in the end

“Give it back!” Sol shouted at the kids as he continued to try to reach for what he considered to be one of his only sources of comfort. All three of the boys laughed at him, “Aww, is the little weirdo gonna cry.” a boy with red hair teased, pointing at him.

“You drew yourself riding a horse? What are you, some kind of girl?” The blond boy jokingly flipped through the pages of the book, briefly observing its contents.

“Stop it!” When Sol tried to reach for his sketchbook once again, the blond boy laughed, before tossing the book over to another boy; then that boy proceeded to also flip through the book and laugh before also tossing it to the next boy. Sol found himself playing in this miserable game of monkey in the middle; a game where he could only watch as his book flew through the air above him, out of reach, with no hopes of ever reaching it.

Eventually, Sol got the courage to defend himself from these bullies, and with all the strength he could muster with his tiny form, he tried to shove the bully who had the sketchbook in his possession. But, the shove proved unhelpful, as the bully didn’t even move an inch.

Sol could barely catch his breath before he was harshly shoved to the ground. A sharp pain pulsed through his body as his back was met with the hard ground; Sol opened his eyes to notice that his sketchbook had fallen next to his body, the bully had more than likely dropped it in outrage at Sol’s sudden rebuke. Sol swiftly snatched the book off the ground and held it close to his chest, shielding it from the bullies.

Sol lay on the ground in a fetal position, with his back facing his bullies, arms still tightly wrapped around his sketchbook. There was a sudden sharp pain on his side as a bully directed a fierce kick toward the young boy; another boy directed a kick, of similar intensity, toward his other side, leaving the little boy only to whimper in pain.

The group of bullies continued to relentlessly kick the defenseless boy, not showing any hint of mercy toward him. Tears ran down Sol’s cheeks as he could only endure the endless kicks that the bullies threw at him. He closed his eyes and hoped the boys would soon grow bored with this and walk away, or maybe a teacher would notice this assault and interfere.

It felt like an eternity that the kicking would continue, he almost thought it would never end…

Until a loud voice rang out and suddenly the kick stopped.

“Hey! Leave him alone!” Sol heard the unknown voice shout at the group of boys. He peeked from his position to glance at where the shouting came from; upon opening his eyes, he was met with his saviors back facing him as they spread their arms out wide to shield him away from the sight of the bullies.

“Get outta the way Pipsqueak! Or you're gonna be next!” He heard one of the bullies shout at the person before him. Sol noticed the stranger's visible shakiness as they stayed rooted in their spot in front of him; they were just as scared of these bullies as he was, yet they still chose to throw themselves in the middle just to protect him. He felt a surge of admiration for the stranger; this had been the first and only time someone stood up for him… his heart couldn’t help but skip a beat.

“No! I-I won't l-let you!” The stranger's words came out shuddered and breathy as if they were holding back tears. Luckily, their voice had been loud enough to possibly draw the attention of others nearby.

The twisted grins on the bullies' faces faded at the realization, and they looked around the area to see if anyone had caught the drift of what was happening.

“Shit!” Was the last thing Sol heard from them, followed by the frantic pattering of feet in the grass as the bullies quickly fled the scene. Leaving behind two frightened kids as a result.

Sol, who was still lying on the ground, breathed heavily, the fear coursing through his veins still running wild. He flinched when a blurry object suddenly came into his vision. As his vision slowly cleared, he noticed that the object was the outstretched hand of his savior; they looked down at him with a concerned expression, tears still lingering in the corner of their eyes.

Hesitantly, Sol took the hand, which helped pull him to his feet. He stumbled a bit but managed to regain his balance with a bit of effort and help from the person next to him.

“Are you okay?” The stranger asked him, their voice a bit hoarse from all the yelling yet still holding a subtle gentleness to it. Sol looked at them for a second, before shyly shifting his gaze off somewhere else and slightly nodding his head.

They smiled, their gaze landing on the item that Sol continued to hold tightly to his chest. “What’s that?” They pointed out the sketchbook, which, unknowingly to them, had caused the whole ruckus that just happened moments ago.

“... It’s my sketchbook,” Sol murmured under his breath, keeping his gaze away from the person in front of him. He never did well talking to people, never mind kids his age, this person wouldn’t be any different.

Their eyes lit up as he spoke, “You draw?! I wanna see it! Can I see pretty, please?!”

Sol was taken aback by their sudden interest in his sketchbook, his eyes were blown wide at them; he had never shown anyone his work before, nor had anyone ever asked to see it… this person was achieving a lot of firsts for him. He supposed he could show them, considering they had just saved him from a harsh beating.

“Umm… Okay.” Sol pulled the sketchbook from where it rested on his chest to hold it out between him and the stranger. He slowly navigated through the pages, properly allowing the person next to him to take in each piece of art. They were a bundle of excitement, commenting excitedly on almost every single little doodle in the book; it brought a small smile to Sol’s face, knowing that someone enjoyed his drawings just as much as he did.

“These are so good! You're so talented! Do you think maybe you can draw me something?” Sol felt his cheeks flush with an odd, unfamiliar warmth. They wanted him to draw something for them. Him? Out of all the people they could have asked? They wanted him to draw for them…

He fidgeted with the pages of the notebook in his hands, keeping his eyes glued to the ground, nervously. “Sure–”

“Wait! Before I forget, my name is Y/N!” They cheerfully cut him off, “What’s yours?” They talked a million words per second, which was a bit overwhelming, but Sol still found himself intrigued by them.

“My name is Solivan…” He spoke quietly, but loud enough for their newfound acquaintance to hear. “Solivan?” They tested his name out, “Well, Solivan from this day forward you are now my friend!” Sol stared at them dumbfounded. He never had a friend before, but didn’t think it would ever be this simple, yet here he was.

He didn’t get a chance to respond to their declaration when they continued to speak, “I’m thinking maybe a butterfly–No wait! A gecko… no…” They continued to list through a variety of animals, as Sol would stand and watch them in awe. He didn’t know what it was, but he felt some sort of connection to his new friend, it wasn’t unwelcome, but it was still strange.

“Oh, I got it! How about a dove? Mom says those are her favorite!”

Sol raises an eyebrow at them.“Like the bird? Are you sure?”

“Yeah!” They cheer.

Sol only nods his head in response, but a smile remains on his face at their jubilation. He sees the opportunity to speak after your moment of triumph and takes it, “I-um… thank you… for helping me. Not many would’ve done the same.”

They shake their head at him with a smile,“ Don’t mention it. You needed help…so I helped!”, the sincerity in their tone set Sol at ease. He wondered if had truly been missing out. If other kids acted just like Y/N, then maybe talking to others wouldn’t be so bad.

A mature voice suddenly rang out through the playground, catching everyone's attention, “Kids, recess is over! Start lining up with your class!”

“Aww man!” The child next to Sol groans, “Just when we were having fun, too!”. If their definition of fun was getting nearly trampled by a couple of older students, then Sol supposes he had the time of his life… Not really, though, but meeting Y/N was a nice surprise.

Children from all around the playground started to depart, moving to their designated class lines. Y/N started to make their way toward their line before they stopped to turn around to look at Sol one more time. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Solivan! Can’t wait to see the drawing!” And with that, the energetic second-grader gave him one last wave before running over to their class.

Sol gave them a little wave in return, watching as their figure got further and further away. It wasn’t long before he himself started making his way toward his own class, to continue the rest of his day. Of course, his attention wasn’t drawn toward that of his classwork, but rather that of the little dove drawing he spent the rest of the day drawing for that special someone he met.

Sol paid no mind as his art teacher rambled on and on about the importance of elements in art; his focus mainly on the small, worn-out sketch pad that lay open on his desk. He lazily drew his fingers along the delicate pencil marks of his old drawing from way back then.

Out of the drawings he had created during his entire childhood, that little dove that he drew for you in the second grade always held a special place in his heart. He remembers how bright your face lit up when he showed it to you the very next day; you insisted that he kept it in his sketchbook, under the circumstance that you get to view it anytime you want–which you would do on the daily.

He shifted his gaze from the paper to where you sat near the front of the classroom, trying your best not to fall asleep during the lecture. His heart ached for you to look at him the way you did when you were kids, now it was like he was a total stranger to you; another student who simply attended the same art class as you.

But with time, you’d eventually grow aware of his existence, you’d have too.

After all, you were his soulmate, just as he was yours.

#solivan brugmansia #tkatb sol #tkatb #tkatb vn #the kid at the back #tkatb x reader #katb vn #im tired

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liliannadelaphinehartifelt · 2 days

Text

Lucifer - [ FORSAKEN ]

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I need to write about him…! I literally can't stop thinking about him…like seriously he's been plaguing my thoughts for dayyysssss!!!

WARNINGS: [ MDNI ] + [ NSFW ] + [ SMUT ] + [ CORRUPTION & INNOCENCE KINK ] + [ SUPERIORITY COMPLEX LUCIFER ] + [ SLIGHT DUB CON ]

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It’s no secret that Lucifer gets obsessed with showing others the pleasures of the world and knowing you have yet to experience intimacy and now shy away from it in the afterlife simply because you fear being known as a virgin even in hell drives the fallen angel insane.

He figures your secret out quicker than anyone, always watching you closer than most, going out of his way to cluster and spoil you any way he can. When he's sure you're comfortable with his subtle advances, he moves into lingering touches and straightforward compliments.

You start to anticipate Lucifer’s attention, drowning in it whenever he's near. It’s a strange addiction you can’t shake, never having the chance to experience someone dote on you as much as he does, and he'll give into your sweet pining for him every time and not because he wants to be friends. Though it is rather flattering to his ego that you only have eyes for him.

His true interests in you stem from the desire to turn your soft words into moans of his name, imagining how the sparkle in your eyes will darken with pure lust when he fucks you for the first time, and deciding whether to make you take his cock once or more times than you'll be able to remember.

He simply has to lower your guard first, gifting you expensive items, studying your behavior outside of his company, and diligently building your self esteem with every word he says. It’s a methodical, harrowing approach, but he’s quite skilled at it.

Lucifer says all the right things and does what he can to earn your already cemented trust, and when he's sure you won't refuse his requests, he comes to your room late at night with a proposition.

He doesn't say much of anything when you allow him inside your room, eyes glowing brightly as he watches you perch yourself on the edge of your bed, gripping his cane to keep from touching the soft skin that isn't hidden by your short nightgown.

At first, his staring is something you're used to, don't see as a sign of desire, but rather a habit you assumed he has with every sinner. After a long moment, you begin to squirm, wanting him to speak since anxiety was your worst enemy, and being barely clothed in his presence was a reasonably new milestone for you.

“D-did you need something, Lucifer?” you ask him with a sheepish smile, and the blonde chuckles, biting his lip as he trails his gaze up to yours, “Yes, actually, I do, angel...” He shifts, doing away with his cane and top hat by the snap of his fingers before walking to stand in front of you. He may lack height, but you're shorter, especially sitting on a bed, and the instant height difference flutters your heart. A weird warmth spreads through your body as his scent engulfs you, a mix of pine and apple pouring off his tailored suit in waves and only intensifying as he brings a hand under your chin to lift it.

Lucifer is deliberately gentle, not wanting to startle you but drinking in your timid reactions to his touch. “Wanna help me with something important, sweetheart? It's fine if you don't want to, but you're the only one I trust to ask..” he smiles softly, holding your stare as it wanders his face for any clue to his true motives, but you find no hidden intent on his expression.

You're not naive, to a certain point, but he's far too skilled and manipulative to let you in on his goal, and so when you hesitate to answer him, Lucifer feigns a frown.

“Wouldn't you like to help me, baby doll? I'm your sovereign, after all, and it's only a small favor between friends..” his hold on your chin tightens a tad, and you gulp from the growing pressure he inflicts. You aren't allowed to look away from him then; the space between your bodies was inching towards non-existent as he nudged your knees apart with one leg, and you shivered as the fabric of his pants nestled between your inner thighs. A tender gasp leaves your lips as the fallen angel lowers his head, gradually caging you under his weight and closer to the bed itself, “You'll help me, won't you, sweet girl..” he purrs against your lips, breathing in the sultry whine of compliance you let out, “I'll help you, Luci.” You finally comply, running out of breath by the second, and deathly afraid of disappointing him with a refusal.

He grins, a deep laugh leaving his lips as you lift a hand to keep him at bay for a moment. “W-wait maybe I shouldn’t be doing this….with you…” is you can pant out as he grimaces at your hesitant action.

You don't want him to stop touching you, but you can't think straight with him this close, either, so you're prepared to break away from the devil himself until he smirks before getting a hold of your wrists. “What are you-??” The question dies on your tongue as he pushes you down entirely, grasping your jaw harshly as he kisses you gently, using his other hand to pin your hands above your head. You struggle underneath him for a second, trying to speak but too intrigued by the taste of his tongue gliding against yours, dazzled by the unfamiliar sparks in your core as he presses his thigh right on your clothed cunt.

That singular adjustment had your toes curling, a distinctive wet patch forming in your lace panties and rubbing off on his pristine white pants, and your face deepened another shade of red at the realization.

Why was this happening to you?

How could he possibly endure your hidden filthiness with so much passion?

Didn't he know you'd never done this before?

Never knew how to please another, let alone satisfy the king of Hell?

You felt a sliver of shame run up your spine, your heart beating louder as fear settled in your chest, and a sheen of tears coating your vision. “M’ sorry… I'm getting your clothes…a-all messy,” you whimper into Lucifer's mouth, absentmindedly chasing his lips for another kiss as he pulls away slightly to address your thoughtful apology -as unnecessary as it is.

“No need to apologize, sweetheart. I love to feel how wet you get for me…Dont you? Means you’re enjoying my touch…” he drawls nonchalantly, pecking your lips as you nod in agreement, tentatively rutting your hips against his thigh for more friction. Lucifer hums in approval, studying your new-found reactions and encouraging your body to meld into his.

“It’s only natural, angel. I know you can’t help it….”

The remnants of purity shatter from your consciousness when he sits up above you, suit jacket and vest long gone, and his dress shirt halfway undone to expose his ivory skin. Your break out into a cold sweat spotting the rise in his crotch, a noticeable imprint of his cock stretching the white fabric of his pants, making your head spin.

Still, your focus on his heavenly features falters as he spreads your legs to rest on either side of his hips. A jolt of embarrassment hits you as cold air floods over your wet cunt, practically leaking though he's barely touched you there, and you're tempted to cover up in shame as he lowers his gaze to the sight.

“Please don't look-” you start to protest, voice shakey with worry, but he ignores your plight while trialing a hand down your torso until it cupped your mound. A pool of arousal coated his palm, drizzling past his fingers on contact, and you cried out from the subtle touch. Lucifer cursed, taken aback by your sensitivity but even more enticed by the thought of using it against you.

“It's hard to believe no one ever laid a hand on such a pleasant sinner like you…” he mutters incredulously, fixated on toying with your clit, circling his palm over it while dragging two fingers further past your folds. You gripped the duvet with tight fists, eyes rolling to the back of your head as heat entrapped your core and body tossing about to lessen the new sensation in fear of a high you'd never known before.

“Don't make me…please. Th-this…I-I can't..” you babble softly, reaching to stop his hand with one of your own and attempting to close your legs for an extra measure of protection.

Lucifer clicks his tongue, a twinge of anger biting his pride, “Keep your hands to yourself, or I'll do it for you..” he growls, and you throw him a pleading look, afraid of his authority and terrified of disappointing him.

“But I-” you start to counter his order but yelp instead as he pushed your legs back open, landing a harsh slap on your cunt as a warning, and you heed it this time with a gracious moan. Lucifer's eyes are narrow as your face falls slack, a clear indication you enjoy him being rough despite experiencing intimacy for the first time, “It’s so easy isn’t it?…Enjoying another’s touch… It’s a shame you had to wait so long for it, Angel. Breaks my heart…” he mumbles, a triumphant smirk on his face as he finally pushes one then two fingers into your hot walls.

You mewl at the sudden but slow intrusion, greedily clenching down on his digits with a lazy smile adorning your face, nodding slowly as he starts to pump them experimentally.

“You're tight…warm too. Mmm, you feel so much better than I imagined, sweetheart. Well worth the wait…” The King of Hell praises you fervently, finding your sweet spots without much effort and abusing them to his heart's content. Your mouth fell agape, poised to speak but failing to do so as tempered cries left it instead. You were in hell, and the devil was making your skin crawl with a new sin you'd never thought of indulging.

Pure lust.

Lucifer intended to get you addicted to it, addicted to him, and nothing else.

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Should I make a part 2 or leave it be??? Hmmm. Choices…choices… I hope you enjoyed it either way cause it was just sitting in my drafts for the longest time.

NO TAGS: 🚫

[ BONUS CONTENT + ]

Al don't be mad but you have some competition from this devilish twink- WOAH?!?? Who called him that?!?? (Not me I swearrr) ❤️ Alright ill stop. Credits to creator..

#Spotify #hazbin hotel #lucifer hazbin x reader #hazbin lucifer #lucifer hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel lucifer #lucifer x y/n #lucifer x reader #lucifer x you #lucifer smut #lucifer morningstar #lucifer morningstar smut #corruption kink

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stardustlixie · 2 days

Text

hyunjin, the heartthrob

[pairing: fem!dom!reader x sub!hyunjin]

[warnings: smut, degradation (like a lot), mean reader, lowkey pathetic hyunjin, dumbassery, confusion about feelings, angry sex (kinda?), unprotected penetration (don't do this), choking, hair pulling, bondage, cunnilingus, light slapping (like twice)]

[REPOST FROM MY DELETED SMUT BLOG]

[author's note: i can't do this anymore, the grip he has on my brain is insane. this is kinda weird?? read at your own risk lmao, not responsible for the brain damage, pt.2 might be written?]

hyunjin as the type of guy to be the uni heartthrob annoying you for no apparent reason. he keeps following you around, trying to talk to you, even tho your replies make it quite clear that you want him gone. you're the quiet, scary and academic type and he's the loud, funny and popular type. the entire campus questions why he's following someone like you around, but they're afraid of saying anything because his friends always keeping lurking, glaring down anyone who tries to question him.

even tho his friend group looks quite intimidating in the distance, they're just a bunch of dorks. and so is he. but with a massive crush on you. he finds you quite scary tho, your almost neutral expression and no bullshit attitude intimidating most people that come your way. he saw just a glimpse of your kindness once, when you baby-talked to your friend's cat, he almost lost it. but he mostly sees your other side, the undefeatable one that shows in the debates in your sociology class that he sneaks in to watch, the mean one that you once used to make someone cry when they targeted your bestfriend.

he gets off to that meaner side of you, that's his dirty little fantasy. he wants to be degraded by that side and be used for your amusement while he's unable to do something to help himself, and your softer side to soothe him afterwards.

but that just stays a fantasy.

until..

you're in the library one weekend, just to return some books and pick up new ones for your research, you walk out to the corridors to see none other, than hwang fucking hyunjin. he wasn't expecting to see you there, but he bursts into a smile, pulling his attention from whatever he had in his hands.

"hey, yn!" he waves at you, you shove your stuff into your bag and walk the opposite of his direction, also opposite to where you need to go. you can't do this right now.

it's not like you hate him, you think he's cute, you're beginning to get used to him following you, maybe you'd even give him a chance on a good day. but your day has been shitty enough as is. you can't bring yourself to interact with him just now.

"heyy, you didn't wave back." he jogs up to you and starts walking alongside you. oh how you wish he'd just be his own way for once.

he doesn't like your lack of reaction. you're not even sparing him a glace!

"come ooonnn, stop ignoring me!" he pouts at you with a whine all too dramatic.

"leave me alone, hyunjin" you hiss at him. you really don't wanna say something worse, but it's like he trying to........ provoke you? he's being much more pushy than he usually is, and there's no one in the corridors on a godddam weekend and you're very fucking close to snapping.

"ynnn!! pay attention to me!" he whines again, really wanting to provoke you. he's not blind, he notices you're not in a mood to be messed with. but a tiny, little parts of him wants to push you further, to maybe make you snap at him.

and when he crosses the line and touches your waist, you do.

you snap.

pushing him to nearest wall with some force, drawing his breath out of his lungs. you pin him there and your anger flows out, in sharp, hurtful words.

"the fuck do you think you were doing? what makes you think you can touch me? is this another dare from your group of fuckboys? or are you just a little attention whore who thinks he's entitled to everyone?"

you didn't mean a word you said, your anger was making up stuff on it's own, but he was flushed, a wild red on his face, that's when your gaze dropped to the floor, looking at whatever he dropped when you shoved him. you lean down to pick them up.

pictures. of you. not too many, not pictures taken by invading your privacy, but a few snaps of you in the corridors, or the canteen, or the library. times when you were fully aware he was there, from that one polaroid phase he had, he used to carry that thing around for a full two weeks.

the pictures flip something in you, you take your chances with him. you wanna test him, you know it's risky, but your brain isn't weighing it very well currently.

"god, hyunjin. look at you-" your voice drops an octave without you even realising it, and it does things to him that can't say out loud. you wave the photographs at him.

"-taking pictures of me like a little creep? so filthy. following me around like a desperate little slut. were you hoping to be discovered?"

you didn't expect him to be as affected as he was. breath uneven from your jump scare a second ago, ears red, with some of redness bleeding into his face, still affixed in the position you pinned him in. your leg shifts between his legs and his boner brushes against your thigh. what a surprise. he likes this. he looks away from you, but you turn his face to you with your forefinger, him gulping at the action. adorable.

"you really are an attention whore aren't you? following me around like that? clicking pictures of me? bothering me and hoping I'll take notice? pathetic." you tsk at him, he looks on the verge of tears but his boner says a different story, you experimentally press you leg over it, recieving a small whimper in return. yup, he's definitely enjoying this.

"you got hard just by me yelling and shoving you huh?"

he's torn, his brain sending him mixed signals, he's embarrassed, he wants to go back to his dorm and hide and never show his face to the world ever again. but he likes this, part of him wants you to humiliate him more, maybe do things to him that he won't be able to forget. and a part of him is even more embarrassed at the route his thoughts are taking.

you're not thinking straight. he's hot, you shouldn't be doing this, but some predatory instinct inside you wants to. you use him as a catalyst to get your mind off of whatever has been bothering you. it probably shouldn't be a big deal, he wants this anyway.

"tell me hyunjin, do you really think i don't notice? you think i didn't notice you staring at me when I was with Lin and her cat? do you really think i didn't see you when I had to drive that asshole away from her? you think i don't notice how you sneak into sociology and watch me from the corner? i do. how will you explain all that huh?"

fuck. he didn't think you noticed. he really has no explanation. he's fucked. you could report him, or worse, out him infront of everyone, you even have the photos with you. he should have thought this through. he's done for. he's pretty sure you're gonna report him-

"i'm sorry! please don't-"

"make up for it."

"w-what?" he's pulled out of his trance.

"well, since you've behaved like a pathetic slut, make up for it by actually being one. maybe then i'll forgive you"

he gulps, he would do it without second thought but he doesn't know if you're kidding or mocking him. he even has no idea how to say it, so he just sighs and nods.

"that's what i thought. follow me."

he follows you on shaky legs as you lead him outside of campus, and the next thing he knows, he's being pinned to the door of your apartment while you unbuckle his belt and whip it out of it's place. he has no idea what to expect when you detach yourself from him and seat yourself on the couch.

"come here." you order and he follows, walking over to you.

"strip." you say, he feels exposed under your intense gaze, even with you sitting down on the low couch while he stands in front of you, he feels like he's on display. he can't say he doesn't like it tho. so he puts on a show for you, peeling of each piece of his outfit one by one, jacket, followed by his shirt, then his pants, all in quite sultry a manner before he stops, only his boxers on, and looks at you uncertainly.

"off." is all you need to say before he's kicking them away, his erection springing free. you look at him for a good while, soaking in details of his body, pretty neck and collarbones, lean arms and torso and such a slutty waist, further down to his painfully hard dick, red and leaking, body supported by strong and pretty thighs. and for a guy like him, he has a big dick.

he's aware of your intense stare on him, suddenly feeling very conscious of his own appearance.

you get up from your place, his belt still in one hand, the other going to his shoulder, making him shiver before it glides to his back as you make your way behind him, gripping his hips and pressing your front to his ass, as if to tease, making his breath hitch. you bring his wrist his wrists together behind his back and tie them together with his own belt.

"i'm giving you a chance to back out, i'll throw those pictures away and you can walk out like this never happened. do you wanna stop?" you whisper into his ear.

"n-no."

"good, then kneel" you smirk, pushing him down onto his knees and resuming your place on the couch.

you take a moment to admire how pretty he looks like this, kneeling infront of you with his hands tied back, breath uneven and so disheveled. so, so pretty.

as you take your pants off, his eyes fly to your covered heat, cute. you can't help but slowly press your foot down onto his dick, drawing a pained moan out of him because his dick has been neglected for so long.

you part your thighs and your eyes are enough to order him to get to work. he shifts to you and licks a long stripe on top of your wetness before you shift your panties to the side. he can't help but drool at the sight.

he starts working immediately, licking and sucking like a man on a mission. and he's on a mission indeed, a mission to prove himself somehow, because he knows this is probably the only time this is happening and he wants to make you feel as good as possible, make you remember him, because he sure as hell will never forget this. and certainly never forget the sudden moan from you as his tongue laps at your clit, noticing you're the most sensitive there. he keeps that in the back of his mind as he sticks his tongue inside of you, quite literally making out with your cunt. your hand comes down to grip at his hair, drawing a moan that vibrates straight into your core.

his tongue moves in and out of you while his button nose touches your clit with each movement, he pulls his tongue out only to attach his mouth onto your clit enveloping it in warmth and sucking on it, making you pull stronger at his hair before he resumes his work inside of you.

he's too good at this, it doesn't help that it's been a long while since you last did anything sexual.

you push him further into yourself by his hair and he moans right into you, the vibrations bringing you awfully close to your high. you release a breathy curse which motivates him to speed up.

you cum with slight spasms, chasing down the delicious feeling as your thighs close around him, burying him into you, almost suffocating him, but he keeps going nonetheless.

you yank him back by the hair to look at his drenched face, he finally catches his breath, making his chest heave as he looks up at you with hooded eyes. you give his face a slap, not too hard, yet he only moans at the impact.

"you like being slapped, slut?"

"y-yes" he nods as well as he can with the grip you have in his hair. you slap him, the redness resulting just adding to the erotic look on his face.

"up." you instruct, he stumbles up onto his feet with a wince and you move to free his hands. his wrists are red, almost bruised by how hard he's pulled against the belt.

you lay back on the couch, beckoning him over.

"fuck me." you order. "if you can that is." you add after seeing the uncertainty on his face, he nods frantically.

"i c-can."

he says he can, but he melts the moment his dick enters you, he's too sensitive, having waited for so fucking long.

"feels so good. fuck." he moans into your ear at the feeling as he hovers over you. he starts to move, his length stretching you out and drawing heavy breaths out of you by the sheer size, his tip touches your g-spot without much effort, hitting it again and again as he starts moving.

his arms shake at your sides, everything becoming too overwhelming for some reason, your warmth wrapped around him, the stimulation suddenly making his head spin.

"f-fuck... " the poor boy is trembling, voice slurring as his hips move in an erratic manner, although it's taking you time to get used to him, you take the chances you get to mock him. your hand moves to wrap around his throat.

"you can't even fuck me, so pussydrunk already? i'll have to all the work myself huh?" he looks at you with glossy eyes as your fingers press down on the sides of his neck.

"please, please, please" he whimpers out, with no real context as to what he's asking for, his eyes screwing shut. his arms are barely keeping him up anymore, sweating and trembling like he'll fall.

"you're too fucked out to even use your brain huh? begging and you don't even know what for. it's okay tho, since that's all a dumb slut like you can do. i'll show you how you're supposed to make me feel."

you push him onto his back, getting a yelp in return and waste no time in grinding down onto him, resulting in a loud gasp from the boy. your hand finds it's way back to his throat. he lets go completely, hands falling to his sides and head pressing back into the cushions as he releases a string of broken moans while you ride him into oblivion.

"a-ah, fuckfuckfuck. oh god."

you laugh at his helpless sounds, suppressing your own becoming difficult.

"god isn't gonna save you here, baby."

that makes him let out a loud, almost sob like moan.

"please." he whines as his hips buck up in the slightest. you're getting closer with every passing second and it looks he is too.

"please what, sweetheart? want me to stop? because your pathetic self can't take it? or want me to fuck you dumb until you're left a babbling mess?" these words make him let out the loudest moan you've heard from a man. he really does get off on degradation.

"c-close. oh god, please. please. fuck." he's physically restraining himself from reaching out to you, hands grasping at whatever purchase he can find on anything around him.

"fuck. i'm close. you there? cum with me." you breathe out to him and he cums with a broken sob, his high hitting him like a train as his breath falters and his back arches beautifully, you keep moving throughout, riding out your own orgasm which hits in sweet waves, you keep going for a while after, just to overstimulate the boy a little, getting small, pained whimpers from him.

"c-can i touch you? please?" he asks, still in his post orgasm haze, his voice so adorably small that it makes you give in.

"go ahead." you say, expecting him to touch you tits or ass, but you didn't expect him to pull you body down to lay on top of him as you both catch your breath from your orgasms. he was holding on tight, like he'll fall if he let go. that little action did something to your heart but you pushed it back, not wanting to ruin the moment.

you originally planned to fuck him and kick him out, getting rid of those pictures anyway, but you think you don't mind if he stays for a while, you let him cling to you for a few minutes before the stickiness and stench of sex gets to you.

"hey, hyunjin? let's clean up hmm?" he makes a small noise but unwraps his arms anyway, but winces with you when you get off of his dick.

you pay no attention to his cum dripping out as you get yourself and him towels to clean up and put on some clothes.

he lets you drag him to the kitchen and accepts the water you give him, you're busy observing his features when his small voice snaps you out.

"i'm sorry." why is he apologizing? you find him looking down on the floor.

turns out he's sorry for clicking those pictures without your consent, it takes a while to convince him that you actually saw him taking those, just chose not to protest. well since you noticed him in places he didn't think you would, this didn't surprise him either.

you send him off with a warning not to die on the streets in a car accident.

fuck, you really need to get him out of your brain.

he's gone and you suddenly remember you need to clean your apartment before Lin comes over, you rush to find a way to get rid of the very obvious smell of sex in your living room, while you clean your brain goes on autopilot with it's thoughts.

so he's clingy after sex-

wait, what?

#skz #stray kids #kpop #hyunjin #stray kids x reader #skz smut #stray kids smut #skz imagines #skz x reader #dom!reader #sub!kpop #sub!idol #sub!skz #sub hyunjin #sub skz

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redxx95 · 3 days

Text

How Cherry Magic avoids romanticising self-sacrifice

Alright strap in boys, this is gonna be a long one.

Spoilers for the manga (mostly the english volumes but I will include a bit from vol 12. I'll mark it tho so yall may skip it if you don't want to be spoilered).

So in this one I want to examine how cherry magic does a great job at portraying self-sacrifice in a relationship as an actual flaw rather than a romantic ideal to aspire to. Very often you'll see characters in media putting their own needs aside for their lover. A lot of people will swoon at that because it is usually presented as proof of how dedicated they are to their partner and their wellbeing. (See... well the thai adaptation actually).

But what has pleasantly surprised me is how Toyota handles this in her manga.

Starting from the beginning, we all know the millions of things Kurosawa did for Adachi to get closer to him. After all, that is what's usually expected of him if we talk traditional gender roles. But one of the reasons Adachi even starts falling for Kurosawa is because of how he was for once able to do something for him.

For someone with very low self-esteem, being able to help this super-capable perfect man is a big boost in confidence and also raises his own selfworth.

So now let's look at a few instances of selfless action and the consequences resulting from them.

First one is the disaster-date in volume 4

Kurosawa does his very best to choose activities that he thinks Adachi will enjoy. That is his primary concern.

The effect this has on Adachi though is that the gap between them feels impossibly wide, only worsening his already low opinion of himself.

Whenever Kurosawa does something big, it makes Adachi feel that much smaller. That's why he'd rather them be equals in everything instead of one giving more than the other.

Next is the argument they have in volume 8

Kurosawa attempts to, very selflessly, protect Adachi from his lowkey homophobic parents. He doesn't want them and their opinions to hurt Adachi personally, so he ends up lying to him to keep the peace. The effect this has on Adachi though is disastrous. At first he's just generally worried about why Kurosawa would even lie to him in the first place, but then they have that fight in their living room and you really get a good look at how negatively this affects Adachi.

The very first conclusion he jumps to is that he's not doing good enough for Kurosawa to feel secure with him.

The next one is even worse, where he thinks he's not good enough in general. Both of these show how when pressed, he will default to blaming himself, believing that he is the problem first and foremost.

And then, if all of that wasn't bad enough, this happens next:

He's actually being self-deprecating again, something he hadn't done ever since Kurosawa told him not to in volume 5. And yes you can actually go back and check for yourself. Whenever he has negative thoughts after this point he's always pushing back.

So there's an escalation happening here, one that is entirely caused by Kurosawa not sharing his burdens with him, by making their relationship unequal.

I think it also hurts him extra bad because they've had this argument before, just with their roles switched.

So to him it must feel like Kurosawa is betraying the important lesson Adachi learned from that argument, which is that communicating with your partner is important, even when you feel like it might hurt them.

There's also something to be said about how most people would've probably stopped prodding when someone says "it's something I can't tell you", but Adachi knows that Kurosawa has a pattern of hiding his issues from him thanks to the mind reading, which is the whole reason they had that argument in vol 6 in the first place.

So, to summarize: Whenever Kurosawa acts selfless it takes a toll on Adachi's mental health. Because of his low self-esteem he needs to feel on equal terms with Kurosawa to be able to see himself as worthwhile. (And obviously he also loves Kurosawa and doesn't want to see him in pain just in general.)

So after all that, surely Kurosawa would have learned his lesson, right? Surely he wouldn't just do it again, right?

... Spoilers for volume 12 start here ✨

So volume 12 is all about Kurosawa overworking himself because he's been assigned this big project by their chief to oversee their company's spot at a stationery convention. (I didn't look up whether or not that's a real thing but it is in the manga universe I guess lmao.)

Adachi tries to help alleviate his burdens with mixed success.

(On the left he feeds Kurosawa because he needs to finish his work and doesn't have time to eat. On the right he tries to take a phonecall for Kurosawa but gets told that Kurosawa needs to hear it personally so relaying a message won't do.)

Then Adachi muses to himself how Kurosawa was always helping him out in the past and how Adachi can't do anything for him in return, especially since they're in different departments. He feels very useless, which is once again bad for his mental health.

Later at home, he offers to at least take over the chores for the time being, but gets told that Kurosawa actually enjoys doing chores so there's no need for him to help.

Kurosawa tells him that all he needs is Adachi to be close to him, while making out with him on the sofa. And right here we see how he only got half the lesson he was supposed to have learned in volume 8: In their fight Adachi told him that they should both be happy and he should share "all the hurt" with him, too. Well, the simple solution to that is not to see all his burdens as burdens, then he's not hurting and Adachi doesn't need to bother fussing over him! Win-win. Epic mind gymnastics 😎 (To be honest, I feel like this is actually very relatable to people that tend to give more than they take. We get so used to the weight of the burden that we don't notice it slowly pulling us down.)

So Adachi obviously notices what's going on and berates him about not having understood anything he said from that fight.

Throughout the volume Kurosawa gets more and more overworked, makes mistakes and is confronted with unexpected complications. He's very adamant about not asking anyone for help though, stating that he "can't be bothering his senpais any more than he already has" and that he's "doing this all for the sake of his future with Adachi".

He also still has some hangups about people seeing him as just a pretty face, as you can see in that flashback in the second page. He constantly feels the need to prove himself to others, which prevents him from ever seeking out help.

So when he inevitably reaches his limit, Adachi is finally able to be there for him, being the only one that sees through his facade.

(That hand kiss is so precious 😭)

Also, on that first page Adachi asks him whether or not he's fine, which reminds me of this panel from volume 6:

He really knows him so well.

Emboldened by his husband, Kurosawa finally does ask for help and is, of course, met with understanding and sympathy.

Spoilers for volume 12 end here ✨

So all this to say: Sometimes, when we try our best to be selfless and to protect the people close to us, we do more harm than good. Sometimes we cause harm to others (see volumes 4 and 8) and sometimes we cause harm to ourselves (see volume 12). It is of course a noble cause but it's not something to strive for at all times and can sometimes be actually counterproductive to what we wanted to achieve in the first place.

As someone who breaks themselves apart to help all the people around them, this aspect of the manga resonated very strongly with me and is probably the biggest reason I got so obsessed with this silly little BL romcom.

I know that this manga is not like, the best in quality. I know it's super niche and silly and cannot compare to the big popular mainstream manga with lots of depth and thought put into it, BUT.

A piece of art doesn't need to be "good" in order to resonate with people. You don't need to paint the mona lisa to reach someone and make them feel seen. You just need some sort of medium and a will to communicate something to the observer. (Something an AI could never replicate but that is a whole other discussion.)

This manga reached me when I needed it and it communicated a message that resonated with me and that is all it needed to do for me to love it to the point of obsession. 💖

Finally I'm done with this essay it is so long oh my god. If you reached the end of this, I'm so sorry. I hope you enjoyed it tho.

#cherry magic #happy pride month I guess #alternate title: adachi has 99 problems and kurosawa is all of them #he's also the solution tho so there's that lol

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zhaosbin · 3 days

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mr shen will see you now - s. ricky

summary: literally just the beginning of 50 shades of grey...

reader: ricky x afab reader

warnings: dom ricky x sub reader, oral (m receiving), cold!ricky, they have sex on his desk... MINORS DNI

a/n: i will proofread this in the morning also TYSM to the anon that sent this in ur sooo real

it was the first day of your new internship and somehow you got stuck interviewing the most affluent man in shanghai. you didn't really know much about shen ricky, other than the fact that he owns half of china and was ridiculously gorgeous. from the outside, he seems like a very stern and cold man so you were anxious the entire day leading up to the interview.

entering shen enterprises, you approach the desk lady who was dressed head to toe in YSL. you thank god you had worn a nice dress today although it was rather short, it seemed to fit the vibe of this place.

"excuse me, my name is y/n i'm here for the interview with mr shen" you say impressively composed.

to your surprise, the rather intimidating looking desk lady was actually very sweet.

"oh hello dear! please take a seat and i'll go check if he's ready" she says cheerily.

you thank her with a nod of your head and a smile while you try to keep your anxiety under control.

breathe y/n. it's just an interview like the hundreds of ones you've done before. it's just an interview...with an insanely attractive man... you cut your thoughts off when the desk lady reappears.

"mr shen will see you now" she says professionally while smiling at you.

you quickly get up to follow her into the elevators and try your hardest to push your thoughts from before away.

when the doors open you step out, half expecting the desk lady to walk in with you. you giggle out of nervousness and wave to her as the doors of the elevator shut, leaving you alone in front of his door.

gathering up any bit of courage you had left in this moment, you gently knock on the door to his office.

"come in" a deep voice says and you take one last deep breath before you open the door.

you don't think anything could have fully prepared you for this situation. not your four years of college or the three internships you had prior to this one. no. nothing could have prepared you to meet shen ricky.

you didn't think it was possible, but somehow he was even more gorgeous than he appeared in the magazines and newspapers.

hoping he didn't catch onto you openly eyeing him down, you take a seat with your pen and paper in front of his desk.

mr shen looks down at you, an unreadable expression on his face.

"h-hi my name is y/n and i'm here to interv-" he cuts you off.

"i know why you're here. i have a lot to do today so if we could get on with the questioning please" he says very straightforward.

you nervously smile and open ur notes to find the questions your company had prepared.

while flipping through all of the pages, you didn't notice the beautiful man in front of you staring at your legs, or rather, the parts that weren't covered from your short dress.

after finally finding the page with the questions, you look up at him to find him making direct eye contact with you.

"so the first question i have for you is to what do you owe your success" you say while reading the page carefully.

mr shen sighs.

"are these really the questions you want to ask me? you can look at any interview i've done before and find the answers to all of these" he says while sounding annoyed.

all of your anxiety comes back and your palms start to sweat. you haven't even been here for 5 minutes and you already pissed him off.

before you could even come up with an answer, he beats you to it.

"i want to know about you" he says sharply.

"about me? but sir i-i'm here to interview you" you mutter out confusedly.

having someone as cute and fragile as you calling him sir ignited something in ricky.

"i want to know why you chose to wear such a tiny little dress to come interview me. was it on purpose?" mr shen says almost seductively.

you had to have heard him wrong. there was no way this gorgeous man even took notice of your clothes let alone the length of them.

"i-i don't know what your talking about sir" you say gulping and biting down on your lip just a bit.

it was only a bit, but once he saw that there was no stopping him.

he motioned for you to come over to his side of the desk. you knew the interview was over at this point and you didn't really care if you got fired. maybe you did care a little, but the wetness beginning to form in your panties was all you could focus on.

you quickly get up, not wanting to piss him off even more. once you were standing in front of him, he patted his lap.

your eyes widened. he had to be joking. there was no way. there was just no way.

poking his tongue into the side of his cheek, you could tell mr shen was starting to get fed up with the slowness of your actions.

after seeing that, you immediately plop down on his lap, the skirt to your very short dress riding up your thighs a little more.

mr shen started gently rubbing your legs and you were trying to keep your breathing under control.

"are you okay with this?" mr shen asks you, for once sounding sincere with his words.

"yes mr shen. please" you all but whimper out.

"call me ricky or sir. do you understand?" he says going back to being his stern self.

"please sir. i need you so bad". you could feel the dampness from your panties transferring onto his expensive suit but neither of you cared.

after hearing this, ricky immediately pulls you in for a kiss.

the kiss didn't last very long and it was rather innocent, well, that was until he started grabbing your hair and kissing you harder.

you moan into the kiss while sliding your hips up and down his thigh desperate for any sort of stimulation.

ricky smacks your ass and you yelp.

"be a good girl darling" he says almost threateningly.

you halt your movements on his thigh and try to distract yourself by focusing on his lips against yours.

ricky pulls away from the kiss and pushes you down onto your knees.

immediately understanding what he wanted, you quickly undo the buttons to his expensive slacks.

you pull down his boxers immediately to see his cock already dripping with precum.

you waste no time attaching your mouth to his cock, taking as much of him into your mouth as you could fit.

ricky groans and shuts his eyes, grabbing the back of your ponytail to guide your movements.

"i knew you could be a good girl" he says smugly.

the only reply you could give him was a muffled hum around his base that had him jerking his hips.

after a few more bobs of your head, ricky was getting close. too close.

he gently pushed your perfect mouth off of him and made work of stripping your clothes off of you.

he lifted you up with ease and placed you on top of his desk.

having had enough of all the foreplay, ricky lines up his tip with your achingly wet core and slowly pushes in.

you both moan at the feeling and he leans in to kiss you again.

his slow speed didn't last very long and he easily switches into a much faster pace.

"fuck you're so tight" ricky groans out.

"please sir, make me cum" you try not to shout as his cock is ramming into you.

and your wish is his command.

after a few more harsh thrusts, you feel relief wash over your body. fucking you through your orgasm, ricky cums right after and let's out the sexiest moan you'd ever heard. you swore you could die.

before the two of you could even take a breath, there is a knock at his door. he places his large hand over your mouth.

"mr shen your 5 o'clock appointment is here" the same desk lady from earlier chimes behind the (thankfully) locked door.

"cancel it" ricky says sternly staring into your eyes.

you had a feeling this interview would last more than your reserved 30 minute time slot.

#zb1 x reader #zb1 imagines #zb1 smut #ricky x reader #ricky smut

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dix0nvix3n · 18 hours

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𖤓°⋆ Chapter 1 °⋆𖤓

⋆☀︎｡Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader ⋆☀︎｡Media: The Walking Dead; No Apocalypse & Alternate Universe ⋆☀︎｡Pronouns: She/Her ⋆☀︎｡ Warning: Smoking (Cigarettes), One mention of weed, Talk of a bad past relationship. (That's it I think?) ⋆☀︎｡ Word Count: 2.5k

⋆☀︎｡ Author's Note: It's finally here... the beginning of my magnum opus. Even though I only have this one chapter out, there hasn't been a single day since I came up with the idea for the fic where I didn't think about it at least once. I just wanna thank all the people who let me infodump about it; y'all are true soldiers, cause I can really ramble on. Special thanks to @sinkdownbeneath for helping me write the intro because I was completely stuck for months with almost nothing to show, and being the person who let me yap the most, he can account for me pretty much talking about it every day for the past five months. So, anyway, I guess I hope y'all like my first finished something that wasn't just a blurb. Last night I only had a little over 200 words at 10 PM something, and now it's 7:44 AM with 2.5k words as I write this... I don't know what got into me, but anyway, enjoy!

June 1st, 1992

Daryl finds himself propped up against a tree, catching his breath. The cool summer air around him makes his chest ache with every breath he takes. He had been running, hearing the twigs snap and the leaves crunch beneath his feet as he darted past every tree, trying to evade potential capture from a party that had him jumping out a window when the cops showed up due to a noise complaint.

He spent much of his life within the comfort of the woodland, underneath the thick canopy of leaves and branches, the first roof he ever felt safe under.

He gasped for air, his legs exhausted and his lungs overworked, adrenaline still pulsing through him as he slid down the rough bark of a tree, pulling his legs up to his chest.

He's close to the road, hearing a solitary car cruise past. He can tell it's late from the stars that peek through the leaves that loom above him in the thick black sky, but he spots his glimmer of hope, which seems to be the soft light of a gas station just a bit beyond the road's traffic barrier closest to him.

With a deep inhale, Daryl knew he had to walk to the gas station and reluctantly call for a ride in a phone booth.

After fully catching his breath, he pulled himself off the ground and began walking towards the gas station, already dreading the thought of the phone call.

Reaching the gas station, he saw two cars; one belonged to the lone worker at the cash register inside, and the other belonged to a woman smoking a cigarette at the side of the building. The woman did a quick wave at him, which he found to be a little odd just because most people at this time of night aren't too friendly, but he gave a polite wave back anyway.

Finally getting up to the phone booth, Daryl looked down at his watch, which read 1:00 AM, causing him to let out a deep sigh, realizing how late it was and how much of an inconvenience it would be for someone to come and pick him up.

He stepped inside the phone booth, staring at the phone for a minute before popping in the quarters he luckily grabbed from the living room floor of the party. If he hadn't grabbed them, he'd be completely fucked and have to figure out his way back to his apartment.

After dialing the number he knew would pick up, the phone rang just a few times before a tired and clearly just woken up by a phone at one in the morning voice picked up.

"Hey, Mr. H... Could ya pick me up?"

"Thanks. 'm sorry about this; kinda just started walking and didn't stop. Ended up at some party, and now I don' know where I am."

"Yeah. Place is called Peachy Speed, never seen another gas station called this; it must be family-owned or somethin' and the closest road sign says it's on Navel Street. You know where I'm at?"

"Okay, cool. See ya in a bit. Sorry again."

After hanging up, Daryl stepped out of the phone booth with his head held down, letting out a deep exhale and running a hand through his hair until he heard a pair of feet shuffling up to him.

He looked up to see who it was, and it was you, the woman who waved at him.

"Need one?" You held out an open pack of Marlboro Reds, with only one cigarette missing from the pack.

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks." His thoughts stuttered for a moment because he was caught up in the fact that you came over to him. You're really pretty, and now Daryl feels like a nervous schoolboy trying to ask a girl to the prom just because of a simple gesture.

He grabbed a cigarette out of the box and reached to pull his lighter out of his pocket, only not to feel it, and checked the other pocket to have the same luck. "Shit."

You let out a small chuckle. "Need a light too?” You pulled a lighter out of your pocket and handed it over to him.

He nodded his thanks and popped the cig in his mouth before lifting the black bic with a spiderweb seemingly hand-painted on up to the end of the stick. Flicking the flame to life, he took a long inhale and handed you back the lighter, as he really took a moment to take in the sight of you.

You were in a black tank top tucked into a pair of black ripped jean shorts. Under the pair of jean shorts were fishnets with an intricate pattern of moons and stars, and you had on a pair of slightly battered-up Doc Martens.

As he exhaled the first plume of smoke into the night sky, he saw your kind smile, which sent a rush of warmth through his face. Your lips had a simple gloss on them, but your eyes were a different story, painted with smokey eyeshadow, sharp graphic eyeliner, and two rounds of mascara on each set of your top lashes. He also noticed the simple yet pretty titanium stud on the left side of your nose and two helix rings on both your ears.

He thought you were gorgeous, his heartbeat a slightly faster pace than what it normally rested at.

"Rough night?" You asked as you lit up a cigarette for yourself, letting out a slight gag at the taste and smell that you weren't used to, which caused Daryl to let out a small chuckle.

"Sorta. More of just hated the fact I had to call and wake someone up to come and get me. First time smokin'?" He said before he took another drag.

"How'd you know?" You said sarcastically as your face contorted in disgust a bit at the taste building up in your mouth and throat after each puff.

"Maybe try a different brand. You'll find one ya like." A small smile graced his lips as he butted off the ash at the end and took another drag.

"Nah. Think I'm quitting after this one. I'll just stick to weed."

He let out a chuckle. "May I ask, why'd ya even start?"

You let out a small groan, running your hand through your hair in slight embarrassment. "I finally left my shitty boyfriend once and for all. I finally realized he'd never like me for the real me. I constantly had to put on this mask around him, and I finally found out that it was impossible to fix him and the fact he didn't actually like me. I know it sounds weird, but I guess my thought process was that my epiphany about him would stick with me after smoking one like a character in a movie or something." You let out a laugh. "Stupid, right?"

He snubbed out the end of the cigarette, as it was almost a roach at this point. "Nah, it ain't stupid. A lot of my best thoughts come after smokin' one, cleared my head more times than I can count. You deserve one after the bullshit he put you through, I think. Hope the prick is havin' a shit night after realizin' he's lost you cause ya seem awesome to me so far."

You felt warmth begin to rise in your cheeks at his words. "Thanks. I know I deserve better. I'm just pissed; it took me so long to realize it. So, anyway, what's your name? I can't believe I haven't asked yet."

"Name's Daryl; what's yours?"

You had a few good puffs left of your cig but decided to snub yours out as well since you didn't like it anyway. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Daryl. My name is (Y/N). Do you wanna come sit with me at my spot against the wall? My most likely melted slushy is calling my name to get this taste out of my mouth."

"Yeah, I can. Might be a bit till my ride gets here, so I might as well sit down." He started walking to your spot, and you followed in tow.

When you got back to your spot, you looked down at your slushy on the ground. The dark purple concoction of blue raspberry and cherry slushy combo was completely melted. "Goddammit." You didn't fully care though; you paid for that slushy, because you were stubborn it meant you were going to have all of what you paid for, so you drank down the rest of the sugary liquid with a satisfied sigh. It was luckily still cold, at least, and it was just what you needed to get the taste of the cigarette out of your mouth.

As time passed, you and Daryl talked about whatever came to mind as you doodled some intricate pattern on the front of the pack of the Marlboro Reds with a sharpie, ultimately moving to the back when you ran out of room. You found out that he works as a mechanic for motorcycles and cars at a nearby auto body shop, that he rides a motorcycle that he built himself a few years ago, that he loves to hunt on occasion, specifically with a crossbow, and that he ran from the cops at a house party tonight.

You knew your short time with Daryl was up when you saw a 1987 Ford Sierra MK2 pull into a parking spot at the gas station, and Daryl stood up, doing a quick stretch. The man in the car smiled and made a small wave at you, and you did the same back.

"It was nice meetin' ya, (Y/N). I'd talk more, but I don't wanna keep him up any longer." He said as he gestured a hand towards the man who came to pick him up.

"It was nice meeting you too. Thanks for talking to me, Daryl." You pulled the pack of cigarettes from your pocket and held them out to him. "Take these. You need them more than me. Plus, I just quit." You grinned at him as he took the box from you.

"Holy shit, thank you." He smiled back as he placed the box in his own pocket and slowly started walking backward towards the car. "Hope ya have a good night and that Nick the dick has a shit one.

You let out a laugh at the nickname Daryl gave your ex-boyfriend and waved him goodbye with a "You too." You leaned your head back against the wall, staring up at the night sky as your eyes finally began to feel tired, knowing you should head back to your friend's apartment soon and try and get some sleep before your nine AM shift.

Once Daryl got in the car, he let out a quiet sigh as he looked out the window at you, wishing he dared to ask for your number. You were the first good conversation he'd had in a while, and his schoolboy-like crush on you kept growing the whole time you talked.

"So, who's that?" The man said as he shifted the car into gear, Daryl noticing the grin on his face.

"A girl that started talkin' to me after our call. Name's (Y/N)." He pulled the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, mindlessly tracing the pattern of doodles you did.

"You ask for her number? The car was now beginning to be backed out of its parking spot.

"Nah. Mind if I smoke?" Daryl shook the pack and began looking for one of the lighters he left in the glove compartment a few weeks ago.

The man shook his head with a slight sigh and said, "Go ahead." He wasn't shaking his head over Daryl wanting to smoke, but over the fact he wouldn't ask for your number when he obviously liked you, but he knew he couldn't push him; he understood Daryl's nature.

Daryl looked back out the window at you, opening it as he blew out the first cloud of smoke. He then looked back down in his lap where the box lay, flipping it over to the back to see what you had drawn there as well. His breath hitched as he saw it. On the back was your phone number, and above it said, "Call me" with a smiley face.

The tips of Daryl's ears were beet red, and he tried to hold back his face from turning the same color. He looked back out the window at you to see you grinning at him this time, to which he smiled and waved goodbye to you as the car pulled out of the lot. In Daryl's twenty-three years of life, he could say that this night was one of his best.

"Daryl, why'd you call me Mr. H again? Son, you've known me for five years; how many times do I gotta remind you to call me by my name? It's Dale for you."

Daryl let out a small cloud of smoke this time, wanting to savor this one on the peaceful ride back. "I'll tell ya again, it happens when I'm nervous; didn't wanna wake you up, s'all, and you still are my boss after all."

"Daryl, you're like a son to me, and I told you to never be nervous if you need help, and that includes coming and picking you up in the middle of the night if needed. I'm here for you." Dale placed his right hand on Daryl's shoulder, keeping his left on the wheel as he squeezed his shoulder lightly before returning it to the steering wheel.

"Now, it's not Mr. H or Mr. Horvath, son. It's Dale."

Daryl rolled his eyes playfully. "Yes, sir," he joked, letting out a chuckle.

It was the next day around 10:30 PM when Daryl picked up the phone on his nightstand and finally called the number you gave him, nervously wrapping the cord around his finger. The phone only rang twice before the other end picked up, "Hey, is this (Y/N)?"

The inner teenage girl in your brain screamed in excitement, so happy that he finally called. "Omg, Daryl! I was wondering when you were gonna call me. I've been waiting since I got off my shift."

"Didn't know if you worked a mornin' or a night shift, and I didn't wanna leave too many voicemails on your friend's phone."

"Yeah, I worked a morning shift at the diner today. I got off at five. Morning shifts are the fucking worst." You're lying on your stomach on the couch, playfully curling the phone's cord around your finger and kicking your feet back and forth in the air.

You and Daryl talked for an hour, mainly talking about the shitty customers you dealt with today, sounding especially frustrated about the woman who yelled at you just because the diner was out of unsweet tea that you couldn't do anything about because the place was also out of tea bags to make more. What did she want you to do? Just up and leave your job and go buy the tea bags, your fucking self?

"Even though I don't want to, I gotta go to bed 'cause I have another morning shift tomorrow. I get off at five, so call me around six-thirty, okay?"

"I get off at five too. Works for me. Goodnight, (Y/N)."

"Goodnight to you too, Daryl."

The call ended, and you both looked up at your respective ceilings, smiling as warmth bloomed through your faces. You both slept well that night, falling asleep to the thought of calling each other tomorrow.

⋆☀︎｡ Extra author's note: Here's what Dale would look like in 1992, I took Dale's age of 64 from the show since the apocalypse started in 2010 so he'd be 46 in 1992. I think this picture of Jeffrey Demunn is from when he was 43 maybe? I can't remember but that's close enough to 46 and even if he isn't 43 in the image he fits the look of someone in their mid-forties. Just imagine him without the cowboy hat, okay? There's not a lot of pictures of him when he was younger.

⋆☀︎｡ Taglist: @mrdixon , @yevmarie , and @shadowcitrine

⋆☀︎｡ Divider creds: @ saradika, go check her account out! She has some very cute dividers!

#daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon #daryl dixon smut #daryl dixon x reader smut #daryl dixon x you #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon drabbles #norman reedus #;daggerwrites 🗡️📝#daryl dixon fanfic #daryl dixon fanfiction

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olenvasynyt · 3 days

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I have always been uncomfortable with the SF scene where Cassian takes Nesta on the hike, but I didn't fully understand why until my most recent reread. And it is one of the reasons why I am anti-Nessian.

This is a summary of my tiktok video, feel free to check it out, and follow me over there as well if ya want.

So this hike was right after Nesta lashes out and tells Feyre that the baby was going to kill her during the birth, and this was because of her frustration and hate towards Rhys and the IC and how she has been treated.

Chapter 46 of ACOSF: “Is it respect that she offers you?” Nesta spat. “Is it respect that your mate offers you?” Feyre went still. … “What do you mean?” “Have any of them told you, their respected High Lady, that the babe in your womb will kill you?” “…I do know that your mate ordered everyone not to inform you about the truth. Did you all vote on that too? Did you talk to her, judger her, and deem her unworthy of the truth?”

It broke something in Nesta—broke that rage, that roaring—seeing those tears begin to fall, the fear crumbling Feyre’s paint-smeared face. She had gone too far. She..oh, gods.

But as Feyre and Cassian both point out, she saw the parallels between Feyre’s situation and her own, and decided to avenge both of them. Rhys and Amren were hiding the truth about Nesta’s powers, she knew that a lot of them did not trust her to know the truth about her own body.

Chapter 47 of ACOSF: I think she saw the parallels between your situations, and, in her own way, decided to avenge both of you. That’s my feeling too. Rhys disagrees.

I think Feyre’s situation was much more serious than Nesta’s powers being kept from her, but that is also why it was good for Feyre to find out the truth even if the situation was upsetting.

Cassian was like oh "I’m sorry you found out the baby could kill you" and Feyre was like "I’m not. I’m mad at you guys for not telling me. Nesta was the only one brave enough to."

Chapter 47 of ACOSF: “I’m sorry you had to learn of it.” “I’m not. I’m furious with all of you, I understand why you didn’t tell me, but I’m furious. Well, we’re furious with Nesta. She had the courage to tell me the truth. She told the truth to hurt you. Perhaps. But she was the only one who said anything. — I wish you’d found out a different way. Well, I didn’t. But we’ll face it together. All of us. — I want you to come back home. Both of you.

I love how Feyre, who is the one was the victim in this moment, was like “I’m not sorry this was how I learned about the baby but I’m glad someone told me. Rhys overreacted, I calmed him down and I want both of you home.”

Rhys overreacted. He completely and utterly overreacted. — Rhys had no right to chase you from the city, or threaten Nesta. He has realized that, and apologized. I want you to come back home. Both of you.

Now kind of going off topic with Rhys threatening to kill Nesta: people get mad at Cassian for not standing up for his mate. And I can understand that, I also think that’s frustrating and Cassian not standing up for Nesta is something we see often, including the Ember and Randall bonus chapter in HOFAS. But it can be complicated because a lot of people will defend Cassian like this: Rhys is high lord and it will be very hard to stand up to him as someone who’s not on his level, so of course Cassian couldn’t do anything to defend his mate in this situation. And yes this is true, and we see a very similar situation between a High Lord and their superior with Tamlin and Lucien in ACOMAF. Lucien tried to stand up for Feyre but couldn’t, and was shut down and abused.

But if people are going to use this idea to defend Cassian, that he couldn’t stand up and fight his high lord, we have to make this comparison between Rhys to Tamlin. And a lot of pro-Rhys people don't like that conversation.

But anyways, this argument cannot be applied to this hiking situation at all, because Feyre mindspeaks with Cassian and says that Rhys overreacted, she isn’t mad at Nesta, all of those things I talked about before. Feyre says that she wants both of them home but Cassian still brings Nesta to a hike and says he’ll call it a punishment to sort of appease Rhys because he knows Rhys is still mad about the situation. “Tell Rhys it’s a punishment.” Rhys was not the victim in this situation, Feyre was, and she was like fuck Rhys! He was wrong for overreacting! Nesta was braver than you guys and I want her home.

Where did you even head off to? The wilderness. I think we’ll stay out here for a few days. We’re going on a hike. Nesta has never been on a hike in her life. I guarantee she will hate it. Then tell Rhys this is her punishment. Because Rhys, despite apologizing for his threats, would still be furious. Tell him that Nesta and I are going to hike, and she’s going to hate it, but she comes home when I decide she’s ready to come home.

But Cassian still brings Nesta on the hike.

And he was definitely doing it for Nesta and to help her work out her thoughts and not solely because of Rhys, but this hike is a terrible way to help a suicidal person work out their thoughts.

This hike pisses me off so much. The way the IC decided to “rehabilitate” Nesta in general pisses me off. I liken Nesta’s “rehab” to those therapy wilderness camps where people get kidnapped and brought to the middle of the mountains for. Those rehab camps revolve around forcing people to get to their lowest to rehabilitate, to acknowledge their mistakes, and it is a horrible, abusive system and very often results in resentment at best and death at worst. And I think Nesta being locked up was the same thing and this hike is the same thing. One of the several things those rehab boot camps do is force their patients to go on strenuous hikes for multiple days, and when it’s beyond their physical capacity. It can lead to exhaustion, dehydration, injury, and death.

And one of my least favorite things in this entire book is that when Cassian realizes that Nesta is suicidal, he continues the hike up the rocky cliffs of the Illyrian Steppes with barely any food and even less talk. He doesn’t look at her or speak to her in days.

It is to force Nesta to get to her lowest moment so she’ll break down. Exactly like what happens during those rehab camps. It is forcing her into this breakdown in an unsafe place with no professional help.

Cassian knew that Nesta often hated herself. But he’d never known she hated herself enough to want to…not exist anymore. He’d seen her expression when he mentioned the threat of falling. And he knew going back to Velaris wouldn’t save her from that look. He couldn’t save her from that look, either. Only Nesta could save herself from that feeling.

When I read SF for the first time I was so weirded out by this hike and I couldn’t figure out why. I do not find these chapters moving or inspiring, I thought they were toxic and sad and I still very much do. And if I’m going to be honest I felt like I was also being manipulated into getting emotional like how Nesta was.

And this is where I’m going to get into my criticisms for SJM.

I don’t know if she realizes this comparison between Nesta’s rehabilitation in general and the boot camps and just, bad, toxic therapy in general. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt because I think a lot of Silver Flames is about how the Valkyries helped heal Nesta and SJM and their hike during the Blood Rite was so much more inspiring at least for me and was definitely the climax and resolution to Nesta’s healing journey. SJM illudes to the IC’s biases very often in SF and I thought she was making Nesta’s rehab toxic on purpose, but the reason why I struggle with giving SJM the benefit of the doubt is because she said in an interview that that hike Cassian took Nesta on was inspired by a hike she and her husband went on during a vacation.

I also hate how she adds the idea that the mountains are healing, and there is a voice telling Cassian to keep pushing Nesta forward, “just one more mountain”. Like no. This again adds to the comparison of the fucking bootcamps because that is also a tactic they use.

Chapter 48 of ACOSF: The peaks weren’t as brutal and sharp as those in Illyria, but there was a presence to them that he couldn’t quite explain. Mor had once told him that long ago, these lands had been used for healing. Perhaps that was why he’d come. Some instinct had remembered the healing, felt this land’s slumbering heart, and decided to bring Nesta here.

This is fantasy, of course, so I am fine with this element of a higher presence that is healing to the characters who are struggling. And there is the symbolic element of climbing your mountain. But I need people to stop saying that this is a realistic way to treat people with actual problems in the real world, not only with this hike but also with all of the rehabilitation the IC made her do by locking her up. I might make a whole other video on that but if Nesta was in the House of Wind because she was addicted to alcohol and fucking strangers and spending money, this is not the professional way to go about it.

I like a lot of parts during this final breakdown where they talk about forgiving yourself, leaving the past behind. But I did not like the journey they made Nesta take to get to this point. Nesta could have very well had this breakdown not on this hike.

And this part ends with Cassian comforting Nesta.

“I’ll be with you every step of the way,” he whispered into her palm. “Just don’t lock me out. You want to walk in silence for a week, I’m fine with that. So long as you talk to me at the end of it.”

Like I appreciate this sentiment.

But, another thing that annoys me is Cassian’s conclusion after this scene

Chapter 50 of ACOSF: “She’d been suffering, and he’d had no idea how much it consumed every facet of her life. He’d seen her self-loathing and anger—but hadn’t realized how much she’d been aware of it. To know she’d hurt this much, for so long.

First of all, how would Nesta not know she was aware of her self-loathing and anger? She had actively talked about it before this moment??? She fucking has. And how did Cassian not know that she had been hurting this much for long long? I thought he was her mate who understood her? He talked about her traumas before in ACOWAR. Plus, I thought she was being rehabilitated. Helping her get not addicted to alcohol and spending money and having sex?

There is such a lack of awareness when it comes to the IC and this situation and I get frustrated when readers don’t understand it. People say that Nesta’s rehab was very serious and complex but no. It wasn’t. It is a terrible way to help anyone.

I think Nesta and Cassian still have to work on a lot to be an actual healthy relationship. And we saw the issues they still have in the Randall and Ember bonus chapter so I am very curious to see how SJM resolves their issues in future books, if she does so at all.

#anti inner circle #anti nessian #pro nesta #pro nesta archeron #nesta archeron deserves better #anti ic #anti sjm #sjm critical

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edgeray · 1 day

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*presses my face against your tank* HELLO RAY !!! :D I AM FINALLY HERE !! MY BRAINCELLS HAVE COLLIDED AND PRODUCED A THOUGHT !!

or, er, sort of? more like a vague vibe, but i digress. basically, consider: pining arle. how does she realize her feelings for you? how does she cope? how does her behaviour around you change? does it? what is she thinking the whole time? when would she consider making a move? essentially i would like to see you psychologically pick apart this woman. go as in depth into her brain or inner monologue as you want !!! the set dressing can be canon or an au, i’ll eat it up regardless :)) and as a professional angst writer i know you can write some absolutely monstrous (/pos) yearning and i’m frothing at the mouth thinking about it 🤤🤤🤤 lookin forward to your thoughts but also take your time with it !!! godspeed 🫡🫡🫡

An Unfit Role

(Arlecchino x GN! Reader)

A/N - Oh sev… you spoil me too much. You truly do. Somehow this turned into very ‘Arlecchino is a person'-esque and I don't know how but oh well. I don't know if this answered your questions very well, but hopefully this is what you mean by psychologically picking apart her! Was this enough pining? Content warnings / info - uhh none I think. just a lil bit of angst, 1.4k words

Arlecchino is many things. The Fourth Fatui Harbinger, a Snezynayan diplomat, the head of the House of the Hearth, and simply ‘'Father.’ She takes on many roles, and enforces them with an iron fist, every facade meticulously practiced and rationalized. Perfected as if she were an actor on a stage, every action and step is calculated beforehand. And if external factors or unpredictable variables crop up in the midst of her play? Well, a good actor knows how to improvise. Arlecchino is well aware of her roles, has memorized the lines and drilled through every movement. The Knave has many feats from each character she plays. A flawless performer, in those aspects.

A lover is not a character she can play. Someone who loves. It is a role that she cannot hope to touch, one she cannot imagine assigning herself too. She is far too inexperienced in what it pertains to. Her perception would grossly mischaracterize it, painting a rather crude display of what she knows of but doesn't know. After all, how could one act without an adequate example? No actor would want to showcase a poor impression of an original source material, an actor presents only their most remarkable qualities. A good actor knows what they cannot act, and it is this where her talents reach their limit. It is what her role as a ‘Father’ stems from; this inability to express something far too fragile and flimsy for her to hold.

Of the few showcases of others playing the role, Arlecchino is knowledgeable enough that they are simply inept showcases. The Tsaritsa, who has shown the capability to act, and yet chooses to conceal her abilities from her audience. Crucabena, an unqualified actor, whose words dripped with far too much venom for the soft-spoken voice that she used. Perhaps Clervie was the only accurate and genuine actor able to play the part, but one cannot appreciate the traits of an unfinished story. And the naive Peruere, who could hardly imitate her counterpart, was maimed by Arlecchino’s own hands. It is here that she learns that the role of a lover earns no applause, because it adds little to the plot, and so it lacks a function in her story.

Despite this, she finds herself in this scene, where she plays a character unlike her usual, an entirely new character involuntarily thrusted into her by the cruel machinations of her mind.

It is a subtle thing. First, she was just the Knave to you. But somehow, among your presence, her facade slips, and she dons another character.

She becomes a character who knows of nothing but the way her sight is captured by a singular person, a character whose dead heart begins to beat, daring to flutter back to life after it was painfully wrenched out of her chest by her favorite story's ending. She becomes acutely aware of this role when her eyes linger on you a moment longer than need be, when she indulges your empty but no less engaging conversations, when she familarizes herself with the particular fauna scent you carry. When she closes her eyes, your smile flashes through her mind, she knows she's fallen.

An actor knows when to quit, when they misfit the character they're performing. And yet her mind remains stubborn. Acting a role one does not fit will only damage the actor's reputation, and she intends on abandoning it. But it is difficult for her to dismiss how much she yearns for a warmth that the blood flames in her veins cannot bring. It is difficult to deny that she is not momentarily blinded and stunned by your beaming expression, even when you are not looking at her. It is increasingly more difficult to control the pulsing underneath her skin. This is a character she cannot control, instead, it often feels that the character controls her.

It is an unseemly, disgusting appearance for her. If it were physically possible, she would plunge her very own cursed, clawed hands into her chest, to grasp onto this fickle, volatile organ and crush it just to exhaust the remaining embers of a futile hope. If only it were as simple as that. Love is far too much of a complicated role for her, and yet it is somehow inescapable. Some sort of torment placed onto her by the archons.

She can long, she can reach, she can prance around you, but never can she touch. For love imprints its scorch marks deeper than any weapon or assault. One of the lessons her story has concluded to.

So, instead, she reduces its role to a minor character. She lets her stares remain, but she observes you from a distance. She does not dawdle a second longer besides you if she needn't be. She dresses the role of a lover as an observer. Everything she touches with these wretched, blackened hands soon turns into nothing but embers and ashes, and so the only way that you will remain is away from her.

On her desk, sits a vase with a single flower. It is your favorite flower, the flower that you smell of. It does not move from its place, nothing is done to it besides being watered. Its stem is so brittle, and the petals are far too easy to wither away.

(It is a reminder, every time she sits at her desk. Oh, how'd she like to stroke the patels with as much tenderness as she could muster. How'd she like to cradle it in her hands, this source of life, despite being so delicate, is so beautiful. How'd she like to be able to wake up everyday, and view upon this blossoming flower. But she is not a gardener. She knows nothing of how to make a flower bloom.)

Humans are the only viable actors for the role of a lover. A curse is not.

(In her dreams, sometimes you are in place of Clervie. Yet, like Clervie, the only moment she is able to cradle you is when her sword impales you. She will not let another flower wilt, she will not burn another flower.)

It is why you baffle her. Why do you gaze upon her with that expression, as if her claws are not one one more inch from piercing your skin and ripping into your flesh? How do you take her hands in yours, somehow slotting them as if they were always meant to, when they’re soiled with vulgar blood? Her cutting words and sharp tongue, how do they not dissuade you? How do you see her blackened skin, and not be driven away by such a mark of impurity and depravity?

How could you not tell that she is improper for the role that you seek?

She wonders if a flower is a poor description of you. She wonders if you are instead a Sundew ensnaring a spider, unwilling to let it escape. No, perhaps that is not fitting for you, because you are unaware how effortlessly she can char you–unaware of the imminent danger that comes with keeping such a venomous creature.

Arlecchino is many things. She is a coward, if only for you. She cannot abandon her role, but she cannot perform better, floating in the state of inadequacy that she so despises. Playing a lover makes her foolish, and it is a compromising role.

She is foolish, but she is despicable. She is selfish. And though she is perfect actor, even performers must fail to succeed. One day, her mental will and patience crumbles. She requests you into her office, your doe-eyed expression widens when she gives you the flower that sits lone in a glass vase on her desk. She tells you that you plague her thoughts, every feeling and emotion is muddied when they concern you, a culmination of things not within her grasp, not within her control.

It is your performance that finally teaches her what she lacked before: playing the role of a lover requires another. It is a role dependent on another character, otherwise it cannot succeed. It matters not how experienced one is with the other, as long as the characters are committed to it.

There is another lesson that she learned from you.

“I cannot act as a lover.”

“Why must you act to love me?”

Love is a fickle, unpredictable thing. There is no words to be practiced, no actions to be scripted.

Arlecchino is many things. A lover may be one of them.

#arlecchino x reader #arlecchino x you #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin x you #genshin impact fanfics #genshin fics #arlecchino #edgeray.writes #edgeray.requests

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forlorn-crows · 2 days

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would it be a bother to request some mountivy? something fluffy like them gathering veggies in the garden for dinner ^^?

-🌿

please pretend ivy has a southern drawl; don't know why he does, but when i thought of it, it seemed right? this is my first time writing ivy, so forgive the shaky characterization lol. i think he'd be very fond of mountain

“Mornin’, sweetheart; you’re here early,” Ivy drawls, strolling into the greenhouse with a thermos of coffee in one hand and two mugs in the other. Mountain is always struck with how much more comfortable his predecessor is within the confines of his element, versus shoved into a uniform on stage. Surely, it makes sense, but the contrast is the most stark he’s seen out of all the ghouls. His shoulders sit relaxed, and there’s a little bounce in his step as he approaches Mountain at the raised bed of herbs.

The taller earth ghoul shrugs. He’s offered one of the mugs dangling from Ivy’s thumb, a wide, handmade pottery cup glazed in baby blue. “Dew kept kicking me in his sleep. Figured I’d give him some room.” Mountain smiles sheepishly up at him.

“Little shit sometimes, ain’t he?” Ivy laughs. “But we love ‘em anyway.” He sets the thermos and his own mug on a vacant stool, then flings his hands above his head to stretch towards the glass ceiling. Toasty brown skin and stomach tattoos on full display when his t-shirt rides up. Ivy catches the blush rising to his cheeks when he sees Mountain not-so-subtly staring, so he grins and reaches out to pinch one of them lovingly. “Eyes on the herbs, clover,” he says with a wink. “You want coffee?”

Mountain sticks his tongue out at him to distract from the heat on his face. Ivy flicks dirt back. They share a laugh. “Yes, please,” Mountain answers after a beat.

“‘Course.”

He pours into Mountain’s mug first, the sweet, yet bitter steam wafting towards his face. He sighs and hums appreciatively.

“What’re we fancying for dinner tonight?” Ivy asks as he switches to pour for himself. “Lots of nice veggies comin’ up. Sister Lenora brought back some fish from the market yesterday, too. Ifrit’s lookin’ to smoke some, I think.”

Mountain takes a sip of his coffee, letting the warm liquid warm him from the inside out as he gazes up at the condensation on the greenhouse glass. Early morning moisture beads off in rivulets as the sun continues to rise on a brisk, refreshing day. He thinks back to Dew waking up in a vacant bed in a few hours. How he’ll complain of the chill, needing someone—or something—to warm him up.

“What about a fish pie? Or some stew, maybe? Lots of potatoes for either. Tomatoes looked nice and ripe, too,” Mountain suggests. Something warm, hearty. A meal that feels like it gives you a hug.

Ivy plucks a sprig of parsley from the bunch, plopping it in his mouth. “I like the way you think, clover,” he smiles, pressing the leaves of the herb through the gap in his teeth cheekily. Mountain smiles back, and they begin the day.

#the band ghost fanfic #ivy ghoul #mountain ghoul #the band ghost #ask #anon #ficlet #era iii ghouls #popestar era ghouls

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lovecolibri · 3 days

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The only thing I'm going to say about this (<- probably lying) is that it doesn't matter how Buck felt in that scene. Because Buck isn't real and doesn't actually have feelings. What DOES matter is how it comes across to the audience. And if the vast majority of the audience had an "what the fuck is this and why is it happening like this?" reaction and that was NOT the intention of the scene? Then it wasn't done well.

You should not have to come out after the episode and explain what the scene was supposed to do. If you have to, then you have failed in your job to get across to the writers, directors, and actors what the point and purpose is. And maybe you have failed to take into account what the characters are like, their trauma histories, and how the audience might react given their knowledge of the characters involved.

A lot of people never forgave tay kay for what she did to Bobby in s2, and then having Buck Begins give us this raw, vulnerable version of Buck and his childhood only to have her lash out a couple of eps later calling him "needy" and a bad friend because he asked something of her instead of just being there to give her whatever she wanted? It's no surprise fans and the general audience never got on board with that relationship. Because it wasn't good to BUCK and that's what the audience wants.

I am personally continually BAFFLED that this show gives these moments of gentle teasing and support and validation of Buck's feelings (even when he can overreact a little out of trauma response) to Eddie, and then continually put Buck in romantic relationships with people that don't even seem to LIKE him, much less adore all his quirks and the things that make him BUCK, and most importantly, the things the AUDIENCE loves about him.

It's.....it's almost like Tim isn't even trying. Because the audience isn't SUPPOSED to like these relationships for Buck. Because they aren't the right ones for him. Because we all know who is.

But also, at some point it starts getting questionable as to why the people that love him don't speak up to express concern about him staying in long term relationships with people that are not nice to him. We all know the bait-and-switch of tay kay in s4 being a FOX network call to shut down what Tim wanted to do, and then he left the show with someone who doesn't like, see, or care about Buddie (or really any of the main characters that aren't Angela to live out some revenge fantasy or Buck to live out...other fantasies). So they couldn't very well have all of the firefam desperately asking Buck if he was even happy as he wasted away in that loft all season, or even allow them to be kinda pissed he would choose to be with someone like that who nearly got Bobby killed by not telling someone immediately and interviewing him without consent, but it never sat right with me that it was all just never addressed and they had them breakup on good terms (sorry not sorry but if you think T*mmy isn't nice to Buck, tay kay was worse in every way and thats canon fact).

So I don't have super high hopes that they will address this clear and obvious disconnect with Buck and T*mmy, but considering they made a point to have nearly all their screentime revolve around Eddie, and them not meshing as a couple it would be weird NOT to. Then again, *gestures to all that rambling above*

ANYWAY

The point it, at SOME point the audience does have to be a consideration because without an audience you do not have a show. So Tim needs to shake off the last of the Lone Star cobwebs, get KR the fuck out of the writers room, and make sure his intentions for scenes are ACTUALLY what make it onto the screen, and that what is on screen is stuff that will resonate positively with the audience. Maybe he should rewatch the first 3 seasons of the show himself to get back into the groove.

#911 #evan buckley #anti bucktommy #anti taylor kelly #i have not had my coffee yet ignore me #i just had to get it out so my brain would shut up about it

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tobiasdrake · 7 hours

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By the way, while we're talking about Gohan, Piccolo, and that moment, I want to take a moment to focus in on what he says here. Because it's fascinating to really stop and think about.

In his dying moments, Piccolo says this to Gohan.

"You were the only one who ever really talked to me."

Piccolo's existence is so complicated at this point that there's some ambiguity here. The first person ever to really talk to him. That's a bold statement. What does he mean by that?

What does Piccolo mean when he says "ever"? Let's stop to really think about that.

The first interpretation is that he's referring to this incarnation of himself. Going back to the day he was "born" anew.

I love how he was born wearing clothes apparently. Maybe he popped out of that egg and immediately used his signature Clothes Beam, an obscure technique but a valuable one.

For real, Piccolo's ability to create matter from ki is probably the most underutilized ability in Dragon Ball. This is, like, the one and only time we ever see it. It is never explained. Even Cell wound up having to create his arena from existing resources nearby.

But I digress.

Piccolo was reborn to finish the work he'd started: Kill Son Goku and take over the world. The 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai was his opportunity to do just that.

So. When Piccolo says "ever", he's talking about this, right? He talks to attendees at the tournament but their interactions are strictly hostile. He's here to kill Goku; He's not interested in socializing.

This is the closest thing to a friendly chat that this incarnation of Piccolo ever had prior to Gohan's training. So it's easy to hear him say "You were the only one who ever really talked to me," and go, "Yeah, that checks out." Though that's not really their fault.

But. Hang on. Piccolo's sense of self goes back further than that.

"Majunior" is always referred to and always refers to himself as though he and Piccolo-Daimao were one and the same. He is not Piccolo's son. He's a copy, splintered off from the Daimao and given a new body.

Kami explains it like this.

Effectively, Daimao split himself in two. One piece of him created the egg and sent it across the horizon for the other piece to escape inside, and that piece hatched into "Majunior".

It's a popular fanon to treat Piccolo Jr. like he's a totally newborn baby saddled with the Sins of the Father, but this is never how the source material treats him. Piccolo is Piccolo is Piccolo; the two are one and the same. Except one's a Mazoku and the other is not.

A revelation that comes at the cost of Goku and Raditz's lives.

So when he says "You were the only one who ever really talked to me," he's probably not talking about this incarnation. He's probably reaching all the way back to the birth of Piccolo as an entity.

When the Nameless Namekian ascended to the throne of God, he had to purge himself of the evil that had accumulated in his soul. That evil took form and shape, and it became Piccolo.

Given the description of Piccolo having "escaped", it sounds like they tried to imprison him moments after he first came into being. Makes sense; He's literally evil incarnate. A half-person Mazoku formed of pure evil, incapable of moral agency. Why would you want to let that loose?

But they failed. Piccolo got free and descended from Heaven into the human realm to wreak untold havoc upon humanity.

So. Y'know. Nobody's out there having civil chats with that.

...

But. Hang on. Piccolo's sense of self goes back even further than that, doesn't it? After all. As much as "Majunior" is a fragment of Piccolo-Daimao, Piccolo-Daimao too is a fragment of the Nameless Namekian, and he retains that knowledge, memory, and experience as well.

When Piccolo and God begin to speak candidly with one another in the ring, they don't speak Japanese. Instead, they're speaking their own language. A language not of this Earth. With courtesy translation for the audience.

They are speaking the Namekian language. A language from a race neither Piccolo nor God even knows exists. This is confirmed by Bulma and Popo, when they discover the Nameless Namekian's spacecraft.

This was the first language Piccolo ever knew, in the very first incarnation of himself.

This isn't God's history he's sharing. It's theirs, his and Piccolo's together.

Because Piccolo is pure evil. But he isn't. Like. The concept of evil. He is Nameless's evil. The corruption, the bitterness and resentment and fear and anger and uncertainty and despair that's cultivated in his heart over a lifetime of loneliness and isolation.

A Ryuzoku Namekian, child of Katatsu, sent to Earth to escape a climate catastrophe that destroyed their planet and killed their entire race, but two. An orphaned child landing in a deserted wasteland with nothing but an empty promise from a parent who would never make the trip.

We don't know what happened between then and his ascension to Godhood. All we know is that these days were spent alone. And a worm of evil grew in his heart.

This, it should be noted, is not standard procedure for becoming God. When Dende took the throne, he did not have to do anything to purify himself.

That's basically the entire vetting procedure for Dende's ascension.

The way God describes the process, creating Piccolo was something unique to his experience, because his predecessor had noticed a growing darkness unworthy of God inside of him.

I legitimately wonder if God spit Piccolo out as an egg, the way he later spit out the egg of his copy.

In the Namekian language, the word "Piccolo" means "Another world".

It's a word that Nameless knew intimately. Not just because it's from the first spoken language he ever knew. But because that voice command opened and closed his home.

Every day of his lonely life, waiting for a parent that would never come, this is how he came and went. Piccolo as he goes out and Piccolo again once he steps outside. Piccolo on his return and Piccolo once he's safe inside the only home he knows. Piccolo, Piccolo. Piccolo, Piccolo. This word defined his childhood.

This word was the only parent he had.

When he fractured, breaking off the darkness in his soul and externalizing it into a new body, that body took Piccolo as his name.

This has been his existence, since before he could remember. The life of a Namekian whose name has been lost to time. The man who became the man who became Piccolo. God, in his temple in heaven, has Popo by his side to offer companionship and assistance. But for the life he lived before that and for the part of him that fractured off, not once in this long and winding 300-year journey has he ever had a friend.

So when you really stop and take a look at where not just the original Piccolo but the original came from, at the foundation of where Piccolo truly began, those words take on a bit of a different meaning, don't they?

When Piccolo says, "You were the only one who ever really talked to me," that cuts a little deeper when you stop to really think about it.

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #piccolo

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seramilla · 2 days

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More angst for the Homophobic Heaven AU:

The Exterminations, and therefore the Exorcists, didn't exist until thousands of years after Carmilla's fall. When they DID begin Carmilla and a few other Fallen Angels tried to fight back, only to be stopped and teleported away by Lucifer. He told them that the Exterminations were to cut down the sinner population, and while some of them questioned this decision, most accepted it.

Carmilla, on the other hand, was furious. And after the other Fallen have left, demanded to know which idiotic Elder decided that EXTERMINATION was a good idea. Only for Lucifer to tell her that SERA was the one who signed off on it. Carmilla refused to belive this, the Sera she knew and loved WOULD NEVER. Maybe she was just the one that the Elders put forth to negotiate the term? Yeah that MUST be it. Because if not... NO, her Sera would never agree to something this barbaric.

For Clara and Odette in this AU, I was thinking maybe they're Zestial's. After a couple of Beetlejuice Carmilla and Zestial get "acquainted" which results in the twins. They don't get together but they still remain good friends. Like an amicably divorced couple. He knows Carmilla is still in love with Sera and while he fills in the Father role for the girls, he makes sure to tell them stories that Carmilla told him of Sera, their other Mama.

"What do you mean Sera is responsible? She would never do this! I refuse to believe it!"

Carmilla stands before Lucifer Morningstar, king of Hell, embodiment of Pride, who is sitting on his throne, looking toward him as if he doesn't have the power to rip her asunder with a mere twitch of his claws. The amount of rage and anguish she feels at his words, the sense of outright betrayal and disbelief coursing through her body, give her a sense of bravery and defiance that any of the other embodiments of Sin simply wouldn't tolerate from their subjects.

But this is Lucifer. Her friend, her former comrade in arms, her brother, allowing her to show this much insubordination. Because he knows how she must feel, and it's not like he can fault her for it. Not one bit. Not when this news is so personal.

"Carmilla. I know this may be difficult to hear. But this information comes directly from the Elders. While someone may not be telling me the entire truth...until I hear otherwise, I have to work under the assumption that it's true."

"NO! It's not true! It can't be true! She's not that cruel!"

He's never seen so much anger in Carmilla's eyes before. Never so much raw grief and lack of composure; not from one of his oldest and closest friends. He can tell this is eating her up inside. Whether it's true or not, he can't say, but the news is having the likely intended effect on Carmilla. Heaven had wanted to wear them all down. What better way to do that, than for the source of the misery to be coming from the one Carmilla loves most?

Carmilla's companion, the demon spider Zestial, places a large, gangly black claw on the woman's shoulder. He's been standing behind her the entire time, trying not to get in the way of official angel business. He's only a Sinner, but Carmilla will rarely go anywhere without him, these days. Lucifer has permitted his presence, for her sake. He's quiet, studious, and well-behaved enough, for a Sinner. It's the least he can do.

Unfortunately, the ancient Sinner's attempt to comfort her doesn't work as well as he'd probably hoped. Carmilla steps forward, away from Zestial and closer to Lucifer. Getting up in his face. Breathing hard; pupils blown wide; for all the world like she wants to slap him.

She doesn't. It's not his fault. What good would it do, anyway? Squabbles among siblings is so beneath her. It would lead to nothing except more pain and anger between the two of them. It would accomplish nothing and make her feel even worse than she does right now.

She steps back again, her claws clenching even tighter together, and turns around to face away from him.

"I have some business I need to attend to," Lucifer says, looking up at her back that is now facing him, trying to distill the tension by offering himself a way out. "Again, I'm so sorry, Carmilla. You can stay here as long as you need to, to...compose yourself. I'll keep the others away."

Lucifer is gone in the time it takes to blink. He's teleported himself away from Carmilla's presence, not even bothering to use the door to his throne room. He likely doesn't want the others to catch a glimpse of Carmilla in her moment of weakness. She mentally thanks him for that, at the very least. Carmilla knows the way she's acting is very unbecoming. It's not like her at all.

But how is she supposed to act. When he...when Lucifer had...when he'd told her that news?

Without the presence of her king forcing her to keep it together, Carmilla's composure quite literally shatters. The woman can almost feel her heart being torn in two, as easily as someone might rip a piece of paper. With a sob of anguish, she falls apart, in every sense that a person can. Instead of collapsing onto the floor, which would be easier, she rushes toward Zestial, his arms already open and bringing her in to be sheltered by his heated embrace.

Carmilla cries, she wails, into the obsidian of his robes. He just holds her there, stroking her hair comfortingly, letting the long, loose strands flow through his claws like water.

Carmilla hadn't even had time to fix her hair this morning. That's how little she'd cared about the usual decorum of these angelic meetings. She'd told him she needed to talk to Lucifer right now, it couldn't wait, and he'd dropped everything, and teleported her right into the throne room with the seven Deadly Sins. Her and Zestial's presence hadn't exactly been...expected, but Lucifer had tolerated it. For her.

Now, as Carmilla's tears begin to soak into his robe, she grasps into the dark material with her claws, pulling a little too hard, until the fabric starts to rip. Zestial doesn't stop her, though. His robes have been through worse, and he's rather talented with a spinning wheel, so he'll just deal with it later. This is so much more important.

"How could she?" Carmilla weeps into his chest. "How could she, Zestial?"

"My dearest Carmilla," the old spider says, holding her closer to him with both arms. The hand on the back of her head strokes her neck. "We know not yet if the king spake truth, or if Heaven doth but jest with thee. Have faith, Carmilla."

"How?" Carmilla asks, bluntly. "How do I have faith in anything anymore?"

"When we are lost, and all doth seem hopeless, faith is all that remains. Heaven shall employ any wiles to make all appear for naught. Believe them not now."

Carmilla starts to calm. The familiar smell of him, the smoke and ash wafting off the Sinner's body, is both familiar and comforting. She knows he speaks truth; Heaven cannot be trusted. It is not without precedent for them to say anything to drive a wedge between the fallen angels, or make it seem so hopeless, there's no use in fighting back. Carmilla is so embarrassed of herself. Like a child, she'd lashed out, and taken it out on Lucifer. Leave it to her oldest, dearest friend and companion to have more logic than herself.

Ever since she'd manifested down here, after Heaven had pushed her out, Zestial had been one of the few non-angels she's trusted. He's always been so different, more human, for lack of a better comparison, than any of her comrades that had fallen before her. They had changed too much, too drastically, for her to even recognize them at first. They'd lost their spark, their will to fight back...

Zestial, however, is a soul with as much wisdom as some of the angels in Heaven. He'd never lost his will to fight. In fact, it's one of the reasons he's lasted so long down here, and become such a powerful overlord. He knows when to show his hand, and also when to take a step back and assess. When to scheme, when to plan, and when to retreat. That's part of what she likes about him.

The fact that he's kind, patient, and loyal to a fault, is another reason. As well as the fact that he loves her so thoroughly, so passionately, and shows it, is yet another. She tries not to compare him to Sera, because they are absolutely not even remotely the same, but the way he holds her, kisses, her, makes love to her...it reminds her of her lost love, and the way she felt around Sera back in Heaven. But not quite. He is his own person, and had known going into this that there is still baggage there, that Carmilla still loves Sera, and yet...

He still holds her. Comforts her. Gives everything to the children they brought into the world together. Helps her keep that memory of Sera, a woman he's never met, alive for them, through his stories and fanciful tales. He doesn't have to do any of that. Gets absolutely nothing out of it except for Carmilla's endless gratitude and satisfaction. But maybe that's why he does it... Helping her and being there for her makes him happy. Carmilla doesn't think she'll ever be able to repay him.

Once Carmilla is calm, and she can look up at him with minimal new tears falling from her eyes, she can see his face is sad. But for her benefit, he smiles, ever so slightly, in that crooked, adorable way that he does. He pushes her hair behind her ear, away from her face, and then holds her cheek in his hand, to stroke it lightly.

"Fret not, Carmilla. All will become clear. Let us return to Odette and Clara. They are likely concerned for thee."

Carmilla nods. Once again, he's most likely correct. They'd left in such a hurry that morning, they hadn't had time to let the girls know where they were going.

"Okay," Carmilla says. "You're right. Let's go back."

Zestial nods in return, and then bends down, placing a final kiss to her forehead. It's not...romantic, per se, or platonic, either. It's somewhere in between. Or on a different plane entirely. It's hard to put a word to what their relationship is. But that's fine. They don't need a name for it. They are exactly what they need to be for each other, at this particular moment in time.

Pulling away, Carmilla wipes the remaining tears from her eyes. Then Zestial re-opens the portal, so they can go home to their girls, and rest off the stress of the day.

(Edit: Tagging @tanema123 cuz I know they love these two goobers, and who knows when I’ll dip my toe into Zestmilla again, Lmao)

#hazbin hotel #carmilla carmine #lucifer morningstar #zestial hazbin hotel #sera hazbin hotel #seramilla #zestmilla #odette hazbin hotel #clara hazbin hotel #ask #fan theories #carmilla fell later au

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spinnenpfote6 · 2 days

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I just re-read some pages of The Fellowship Of The Ring and I don't get why so many people take issue with around-20-y/o Elijah Wood being cast. While Frodo Baggins is indeed canonically about 50 years old, the book specifically mentions how he looks like someone fresh out of his teens because he kept the One Ring for multiple years, which is known to keep their owner young and fresh (at least at the beginning until they rapidly age after getting rid of it) - not to mention that since hobbits age slower than humans, Frodo would only be in maybe his 30s. On one page we are being told that multiple people gossip and wonder about how young he still looks, including Gandalf. So if anything, you could say that Elijah Wood was too skinny or too attractive (though I do think he looks like Frodo is described), but not too young.

And I actually like that he looks young because it not only does it make him look cute and innocent, but we also get the notion of someone who has had a relatively quiet and happy, sheltered life before (aside from the terrible death of his parents) and of someone who is visibly sensitive and innocent and gets taken care of a lot. The BIGGEST reason I like his young looks however, is the parallel to young soldiers who are ripped out of their homes by outer forces, by older men who are the ones who started the wars. Young soldiers whose lives are practically destroyed before they even really begin, just like Frodo's - even if he's already half a century old. He comes back traumatized and sick/disabled having saved the world but having lost so much. Most likely his innocence too.

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voidcat · 2 days

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— a broken record

characters: aventurine/you, the ipc, original planets & characters, xianzhou alliance (mostly mentioned)

notes: 3.5k of a beast! Hello, hi, as I’ve mentioned before our mc has a prewritten history and backstory which will be revealed as the story goes on, hence the shifts of perspective you’ll come to see as you read & as I write. Second part of this chapter is an example of this. The storyline begins linear but this will be distorted as the plot goes on. Hsr characters and ipc doesn’t have full of revealed role so I’m taking creative liberties and adding planets, systems and characters when I see benefiting the story. I hope I do the characters justice and you guys enjoy this as much as I do:) love yall bye<3

songs: Too Sweet, It Will Come Back, A Dramatic Irony

i. it will come back

The corporation has its eyes everywhere; but not all those eyes belong to them.

It is a well guessed and partially accurate fact, that their arms and limbs, eyes and noses spread far and wide, recording every instance big or crucial; watching intently to plan their next move.

The IPC spreads far and wide, beyond stars and planet systems many don't even know the existence of. But as there is a price to everything, their range comes with its cost.

His heels echoing on the stone pavements, Aventurine knows of the strategists and analysts the corporation has working under them. Just because he is yet to meet one in the flesh does not make them any less real, though that’s where the rumors seem to hint at. An urban legend at best, exceptional people all in their own field, always watching, observing, recording, collecting information.

The rumors start after this part, where their loyalties lie.

It is something not many care about frankly, everyone has their reasons to work for— or under the IPC, it’s not up for others to judge why someone would willingly work for them, harvesting data for them; nobody knows for certain whether these analysts travel from one location to another, or stay stationed at certain spots for long periods of time; do they like to watch planets burn and shackled, or are they prisoners of the corporation via the extension of someone dear, with hostages and deals one’s forced on; all these questions and more nobody dares to ask around.

As people stare at him, Aventurine walks towards his target, the classy looking pub across the street, the best and most prestigious in the area, known for its delicacies and safety, or so the people of this planet think.

His outfit is the same, the flashy peacock holds his head high, a smirk adorning his face, eyelids low, he is well aware of the attention he gathers, as intended., Ggo on, keep staring, a voice inside him says.

Like anyone else in his line of job, he didn't give much thought to those rumored, but now there is a spark, and his eyes intently roam the place as he enters, hat in one hand, he keeps close to his chest.

There are signs for those wandering eyes.

Or so the people whisper about the urban legends. No one sticks out exactly yet, those kinds would not end up a myth if they stuck out like a sore thumb.

It was pretty much the same with the history of IPC and how it gets the job done, their tactics and course of action always following a system, even with the risks taken, the gambles taken into account, there was always a formula, a pattern that follows– then he decided to take a look at some records and found out interferences happened.

The why of it remains a mystery as of now, the how does not take much; they hold the information, it is up to them how many cards they lie on the table, how much they keep to themselves and how they name their price. A little rebellion as much as they can afford maybe, is it their conscious or just selfish desire, or to feel that they hold the strings above all; he is yet to find out.

Eyes on his target, he makes his way to the secluded booth, greeted with enthusiasm laced with a little fear. Not many people of this planet know of the outworlders traveling beyond stars, only those who rose to their respective ranks are given access to such information after all.

The arrival of IPC is both something that sent them into frenzy; excitement of the ‘what-if’s, fear for the worst case scenarios. They don't need to know of the fates of those erased from the maps to get that survival instinct kicking in.

Eyes lazily gazing over the marshall and the gambler, you take a sip from your drink, allowing the ambiance of the place to take over.

A delightful tune to your eyes, no hungry gaze locked on you for once, a decent cocktail by your hand and a job almost done. The planet itself isn't too advanced but more or less up-to-date with the systems surrounding itself; or the ones in charge are, which is a great deal considering certain systems and planets’ situations. Better to have some sort of an idea than to jump in blind. The gambler’s interactions seem to near its end, still managing to captivate the small crowd around himself until the very last second, flashy smiles and dazzling gestures. From the air around him and the happy but reluctant face of the marshall, you can safely assume a deal has been struck between the planet and the IPC, one can only hope it won’t bring destruction and grief with it, or that all life will cease to exist by the time that comes; with the IPC, one can never know for sure, when it is resource-rich planets they intent to use and mine.

Sweet tunes of the piano and bass remain vibrating in the air, a cello and a small set to keep up the rhythm. The little gathering dispels yet not all of them leave, scattering around the place.

He arrives by your side sooner or later, still making sure to take his time and talking with few others he must’ve seen worthy of their word or to kill time somehow. By the time the gambler sits by your side, you let your finger dance over the rim of your glass, half of the whiskey already gone, faint notes of its scent lingering in the air.

Aventurine tilts his head to the side, beginning with a line not too daring but equally natural and tame; nobody wants to scare people away within a few words, and he has plenty of time before he is expected back in the headquarters of IPC.

instead of a reply, you grace him with a smile and your fingers wrapping around your glass.

Taking your smile as a sign to keep going, he takes the seat next to you, resting his forearm on the counter. Faking a gaze at his clothes, “It seems I must've overdone it.” he says halfheartedly, in question. The voice of a man who knows all too well what he was going for, a sheepish smile that feigns innocence, fully aware of the cheap acting it’s putting on. Warming the atmosphere, creating an air of comfort and ease, friendliness and truce.

“Cannot say for sure,” you hum, “up until now you’ve had everyone’s eyes on your person,” your fingers relax around the glass, “which is more or less how the usual crowd operates, you only happen to beat the others to the quota today.”

He listens as you speak, noting how you talk in sync with the music. As primitive as the planet might be, the access to data was plenty and right under his palms, yet such small details are lost, he wonders if the music lacks lyrics or if they play it here so, just to bring out the conversations happening.

“Well, lucky me, or how else could I find myself a spot near yours truly?” he exclaims, both of you aware how cheap and easy the compliment is.

“I doubt you would have any struggles.” you say as you bring the glass to your lips, taking a small sip of the ashy drink. As true as it is, he takes a step back, filling the space with a smile instead.

Do you find him so charming that you would allow him to draw near any other way or have you noticed how he stands out among the rest as well– your spot here at the bar does not have the best of view but anyone with a slight curiosity could notice it was a certain class he had a meeting with prior. Maybe it's the difference of status you mean, that his meeting alone would be intimidating. Yet it isn’t enough of a reason to justify this possibly, this particular establishment isn’t one anyone can waltz in, hence the reason it was chosen for today’s meeting.

Humming to the melody, you take another sip. “How do you find the establishment so far?” you inquire and at your question, he chuckles. “I see, I see, I should’ve held back a little, maybe leave the hat back at home, huh?”

Only at his words you seem to notice the hat by the counter, your fingers leaving the glass to play with its rim instead, feeling the fabric and the details adorning the garment.

“I wouldn’t know.” you say, closing your eyes, “But speaking for myself, I’m quite fond of the combination so far.”

Silence falls over for a while as the music continues.

“What brings a lovely person such as yourself, alone at the end of the workweek, to a place better enjoyed with someone else?”

Unnecessarily long, his brain jabs at him, but he doesn’t care, from your reactions, you seem to enjoy the rambling and the coyness.

“Exactly what you’ve said at the end.” is your reply. Nails hitting against the glass, you draw out a melodic series of clanks. You follow the rhythm well, he notes, with recognition and following at hand, it is no difficult feat to speak in sync, allow the music to swallow and put your words into spotlight.

“Perhaps the most prestigious place around here, and a little pretentious in the eyes of some– like a certain face I happen to be avoiding, but that’s where the charm of it lies, wouldn’t you agree?” you change the topic and bring it back to where he left, giving him two options, two different roads to take.

Is it the ex that is pretentious or does he find the location as such; he has a feeling the answer to this remains ‘both’.

“The ambiance manages to be intimidating and capture a warmth to it, too.” he says, “a troublesome ex perhaps?” Why pick when you can have it all, he is willing to take it and where it’ll go, until you put down the stop sign.

“And delightful melodies all around, truly a safe haven at times.” you continue his words. “Not really, just his own person, blue hair to match his soul. It often felt like, with his own goals set in mind, ambitions and beliefs, what other people thought to be pretentious was nothing more than a misconception frankly.” you sigh.

“And yet, too much to deal with at the end of the day, hm?” Aventurine asks.

With melancholy on your face, you only close your eyes and nod with a hum.

“You remind me of him.” your words catch him off guard, a lightning bolt down his spine, he finds himself straightening up in his seat.

At his sudden reaction you hold back the chuckle that's by your lips, “with all the contrast you hold to him, relax,” until you cannot, and giggle, “it seems I’ve gotten rusty, my apologies, I was trying to–” you ramble off, unable to finish your sentence.

Cute, he thinks, and another part of him finds it impressive how despite it all, even when words seem to escape your grasp, you still manage to speak in rhythm.

A new song begins playing, with a slight change of tune and color, making Aventurine raise his head without noticing.

“Have you ever thought as if some songs– music can resemble a person?” Your question pulls him out of his bubble. With your chin resting against your fists, you stare at him with big, shiny eyes. The ‘how so?’ rests on his tongue, “It can depend on the song, and the person, I’d assume.” he plays it safe. “How do the lyrics to this one go?”

You let out a hum in sync with the music again, you must’ve heard it plenty before, or just like it to a certain degree.

“I wouldn’t know.”

You say it matter-of-factly, like a kid stating they like ice cream.

The initial surprise wears off and he allows another smile to bloom on his face, unable to rid of his furrowing brows and the confusion still lacing his beating heart.

His eyes quickly go over the place and he cannot spot a single musician in sight, just an old looking gramophone by the bar, behind the counter, jolting by itself at times, as if giving out its final performance. He could swear he saw a small batch of musicians when he entered, they must’ve taken a break perhaps.

“Whoever’s behind it must be an excellent compos–” “honey, you make this so easy.” Your words glide off with the melody, yet something about it sticks out, poking at his ears, something in his guts tell it is distorted.

Yet you keep smiling at him, almost a dreamy, singsong state to your person.

“What is it that catches your attention to the music here?” He hears you speak, eyes looking for the musicians he swears were there several system hours ago.

Swinging slightly to the melody, he knows better than to not keep someone waiting.

“How it brings out the words spoken by whom you’re speaking.” He states, like a kid answering for a pop quiz they’ve been memorizing for all week long.

“And how it drowns out anything else from the outside.” You complete for him, “that's the main reason this place is often sought out by a certain class.”

He has noticed it too, of course, every planet primitive or advanced, always have their ticks and tricks to separate classes and to feel important in their little bubbles.

Eyes finding yours, Aventurine finds your expression to be distracting, you should know better than to smile like that, naive yet sharp, pure yet knowing, holding the secrets to some sort of concept he does not even know the existence of.

He weighs whether to speak next or wait, but it seems you won’t be making any moves until his begins.

“It must’ve been difficult to compose pieces with such a certain goal set in mind though, I’d be delighted to meet the geniu–“ “Oh, how I wish we too had lyrics to accompany our songs just like yours beyond stars.” Your exclamation cuts through the air like a dagger.

What you’ve said registers a bit later than he’d prefer but his face pales before his consciousness gets to work.

“Oh but you didn’t know, did you?” Your voice tone hasn’t shifted much since the moment he has met you, but he begins to find it grating, how you seem to enjoy toying with him, to the best of your abilities.

“Not many outworlders do, none at all, if we are being frank here.”

“And why is that?” Aventurine asks you, glasses pushed to the bridge of his nose, his demeanor a tad more intrigued.

“Now that…” you begin, leaning towards him slightly, “I truly don’t know.”

Hands clasped before you, you take your eyes off him as if this is just some casual date between citizens of the same village.

“But I know what your lot says, that this is a primitive planet at best, just happened to be lucky and advance in certain areas.”

This much information at your hands, you must be among the ranks of government officials. It does not come as a surprise to Aventurine that the Marshall would bring along more than just manpower to an important meeting, determining the destiny of countless lives.

“It is only fitting that the art here has evolved to the form it once had when life was anew and the people had nothing but fire, stones and one another, walls of the caves to draw on, piles of wood to set fire to.”

He takes notice how you avoid using the word ‘devolve’, you must’ve seen something in this turn of events that makes it different to what it used to be, possibly more than just the state of your species.

Not so long after this rundown that you take your leave, still humming the same song from before, Aventurine finds himself wondering what meaning have you attributed to it— and by extension, to him?

And by the time he is back on the ship, preparing his report, his mind begins to forget about you already.

It is unlikely that fate will cross his path through this planet again, reading its name in future reports will be the most at best. The songs however, take their places at the back of his mind, playing over and over when he has just lied down to take a moment,

An interesting detail, indeed, he thinks. But the question remains: was it left out deliberately, or truly only known by the natives of the planet, unable to be reached with no interaction nor contact? Sloppy work or is something bigger at play?

Ii. a dramatic irony / l’inverno

Luofu is ever changing and eternal, as it ever was, just as its citizens are.

Yet today is not one of those days, today, your countless days of watching, noting, and occasionally drinking tea, pays off; the anomaly is on the move, and so are abominations of abundance. Posing the picture perfect threat, as they are meant to be, you wait to see how fruitful this one will turn out to be. Planting seeds often results in disappointment, for most of them require constant care. It’s the matter of collecting those that can stand on their own that enrich one’s wealth.

The anomaly that was supposed to become an abomination themselves stand between the people and the abominations of the stage, one fist clenching, other readying the makeshift weapon, eyes going back and forth, telling those they once swore to protect to stand back.

It is too early to celebrate but you think a nice dinner in Aurum Alley to treat yourself after the day comes to an end would not hurt a soul. Whispering small words on what to do and not, ‘hey didn’t we keep dental records back in the day as well?’, silently entering in and typing in the name of that lost warrior to their system… such things shouldn’t necessarily earn you a pat on the back– it’s not your fault the people have grown slow and dull with the days of peace they are born into. A tea against the artificial sunset wouldn’t hurt a soul, and it certainly won’t hurt the financial resources of the IPC though.

Your job, though what it entails is often unclear, is no rocket science as the people of the blue planet once said. It’s where and how you plant the seeds of suspicion that matters, how you goad them all the while making them feel the ideas were theirs to begin with, just a little nudge toward the right direction, no big deal there.

Focusing back on the present, you go over the expressions people seem to carry. Despite the fear in their eyes, the people watch the ex knight with hope, chests rising high because they have faith they’ll leave this place alive.

Yet something still stinks.

You have left the ‘how’ of the ex knight managing to live out like a regular knight, stranger occurrences have begun to appear at a rapid rate nowadays, got everyone in a frenzy, even the IPC, which, in and of itself is a great deal of success. With the path of Akivili under the spotlight once more, the horizon seems a little wider for you; creating discordances within the flow of events now that their attention has been divided.

You return to the scene before you and notice how the fist does not only clench but seem to hold, then you recall how the time forsaken warrior jumped right into the abominations as they picked out the innocents lying on the ground– not a distraction but a set up.

Setting up the stage before the grand finale, a knight defying time and logic, you can see in their eyes and body how the rumored impulsive nature has evolved, shifted into a new path, bringing along with it a technique unique to its time and person.

You watch as the lights go out and the show starts. It lacks the elegance it was rumored to carry but you’d not be surprised, this is something borrowed, something learned, without their old master, there is no longer a correct way of applying it yet they still play it like a violin, pull the strings and trap the abominations in, one by one, three by three, they try to attack but the knight deflects faster than them.

Then taking a pause, steadying a step back, they look back and tell the people to evacuate the space. As you watch people hurriedly go all around, desperate to help in some way, one running off to alert the authorities, your eye catches a string not shining like the rest, positioned oddly.

In the shadows, nobody sees, and it the crowd, nobody notices you moving.

Crouching down, you pick it up and place how the rest seem to be angled.

Satisfied when you see the golden, light-like shine return to it; a glance at the knight and you see them move, enduring the hits and swinging out the makeshift bow, performing like a violinist and radiating trust with every step. Nowhere near their master yet but quite on the way and more than enough.

By the time the backup arrives, the young swordmaster of ice and soldiers behind him arrive, you take your leave, pulling up your hood, you bring a hand over to your face, letting it sit and feeling the change.

The Alliance seems to be doing well under the general and from the looks of it, it will continue to do so. The nearing presence of the IPC won’t hold as serious a threat as it may to other planets.

The representatives of the company don’t seem to notice your presence as you walk past them and toward the alley.

Among their ranks employees with duller and duller senses, one might even be hopeful as to think the downfall of the corporation will begin shortly.

#a broken record #aventurine #honkai star rail #aventurine x reader #aventurine x you #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail x you #aventurine fanfiction #hsr fanfic #hsr fanfiction #gender neutral reader #aventurine fanfic

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