Tumgik
#i just have no desire to watch any of the episodes anymore
favesgrave · 9 months
Text
something terrible is happening to me. i cant watch tfp anymore it’s lost its rewatchability for me
8 notes · View notes
Text
...why is the one episode when they're in the most Real Direct Actual conflict the one where they're actually the kindest and most gentle with each other. why can't they be like this when William isn't courting someone else???
#hi this post was written by me sometime whilst watching the last couple of episodes of Miss Scarlet and the Duke s3#those last two episodes... really were something???#I think I liked s3 more than s2 tbh#there was Definitely more Character Development#and I'm so intrigued to see where s4 picks up!!! what will she do about Mr. Nash's offer?! I truly cannot make any predictions!!!#also are we supposed to expect not to see anymore of Moses or Mr. Nash in the next season? since they're going to be off in Paris?#I really do hope not... I love Moses and Mr. Nash has grown on me so much since we first 'met' him...#I'm really invested in Nash's character development in particular and I'm loving watching his and Eliza's relationship play out#and then where the season left William... poor guy... he's really stuck between a rock and a hard place huh?#I don't buy into the idea that he needs to drop his own dreams and just accept Eliza's aspirations in turn for his own#because just as she wants to become a respected and sought-after private detective because of the influence of her father#and the lack of respect and friendship she faced as a child#I think William also craves love and a home and a family because he was largely denied that in his own childhood#imho it's not fair to say that he should just give up all his own desires bc they seem overly conventional in comparison to Eliza's#sure he can't expect her to forsake all her dreams. but we as an audience can't expect him to forsake all of his#(and Eliza shouldn't either)#each of them are going to have to do some self-examination and reconsider their own dreams and desires#*including* the place they want to hold in the other's life#if they're ever going to get anywhere together#but I mean. I still do feel for him.#yeah ok I think that's all my thoughts on the finale XD#I kept meaning to make an actual post about it but I can't seem to pull my thoughts together enough to be worth that#so you get this monster tag-ramble instead dkjhfkjsdh#gurt says stuff#miss scarlet and the duke
8 notes · View notes
grandline-fics · 5 months
Note
Hi :3 i just watched the new episode and i want to hit that girl she had to touch zoro and sleep wit him 💔
So may I request zoro xs/o about seeing him with the girl maybe some angst and fluff in the end?
DESCRIPTION: After an unplanned separation, you feel insecure about your new relationship
WARNINGS: angst to fluff
CHARACTERS: Zoro
WORDS: 1,852
A/N:  Thank you for this request! I think I rushed the ending a bit but I hope you're happy with it
*REQUESTS ARE OPEN*
MASTERLIST
———————
Tumblr media
Things between you and Zoro were new, incredibly new. There was still a lot you both had to come to grips with, sorting out your feelings and boundaries with each other and still in that moment of not knowing whether what was happening between you both was just lust or if it was going to lead somewhere real. So far you’d both been content to just enjoy the time and moments shared while keeping it all a secret from the crew, deciding it was better to wait before letting them know your personal details. That had been the plan, then it all went wrong in Zou. 
You’d been standing too close to Luffy as you all discussed saving Sanji who was in Big Mom’s territory. Because of that, you were one of the ones he wrapped his arms around and leapt off of the enormous elephant. From there started the longest time you’d both been apart as a couple-albeit a secret one- but you knew Zoro would be just fine in Wano. You just had to do your part and help get Sanji back so the crew could finally be complete again and wasting time thinking about a certain swordsman would only just jeopardise the safety of the crew. 
The entire trip and rescue had been an ordeal you never wanted to go through again. The fractured relationship between Sanji and Luffy had taken its toll- even though much of what Sanji did was to protect everyone- and the battles you had to endure too. You didn’t feel like you could properly breathe any sigh of relief for most of the journey. Yes, you’d all been successful but the loss of Pedro and knowing that as soon as you reached Wano it wouldn’t be long until you were brought straight into another monumental burden of fighting and defeating an Emperor of the sea and his followers. You felt like your head was swimming and stomach was going to be twisted into knots from it all. The only thing that kept you from showing your worries to the others was the thought of seeing Zoro again after weeks of being apart. 
So imagine your shock and hurt of the first seeing him again was seeing him and Sanji interfere during the aftermath of an execution. It wasn’t the fact that he saved a child or that he immediately got into a shouting match with Sanji that got under your skin it was that he didn’t even seem to look for you in the crowd where you stood with the others. Then as fast as you saw him, he was gone again; running to safety with a beautiful woman in his arms. You told yourself you were being ridiculous, that while it seemed like they knew each other Zoro was only acting on instinct to save someone and not because of some other desires fuelling his actions. 
At least that’s what you told yourself at first but as you and the others in the crew ran to escape Kaido’s lackeys you had to listen to Brook gleefully inform a heartbroken Sanji that he had walked in on the sight of this same beautiful woman sleeping contently with Zoro. While Sanji screamed loudly at the revelation you internalised all of your hurt until you were safe and alone, finally able to take out your fury and heartbreak on some random tree in the dense forest with your weapon until your body was too exhausted to move let alone care anymore. In the coming days of preparing for the raid on Kaido’s banquet you kept to yourself, doing all you could to focus your mind on the reason for being in Wano. Still you couldn’t help but numbly rationalise Zoro’s actions. 
Of course the weeks apart would give him insight into how he truly felt. Of course he would have realised he could do better than you. Of course you both only got together in the first place because on the ship, you were the alternative to having any needs he had go unmet. You had to face facts, this was just a fling for Zoro and nothing more. It just killed you inside to realise that you felt so strongly for him, you wished things had ended before it had gotten this far for you. The only thing you were glad of when Zoro finally reappeared was that he had a new sword to hone and train with so he stayed away from you. If there was to be a conversation you wanted it to be after the fight with Kaido, a clouded mind would only lead to mistakes and in this situation it would have been fatal. 
However on the night before the planned fight while the crew had finished their preparations and were beginning to turn in, Zoro walked towards you in the quiet night. He knew you had been keeping your distance from him so he could train and he appreciated that you were so understanding that when he was focused, he needed space. But now there was no more training he could do in the short hours before things would start so he wanted to properly reach out to you. He’d missed you during the time away but to see that you were completely unharmed was a relief. If you’d come back to him with so much as a scratch he would have killed the stupid cook because at the core of the matter it would have been his fault. 
Zoro frowned when you glanced his way and immediately moved to gather your things and find a new place to rest. His hand dropped to your arm but you surprised him when you quickly and sharply twisted from his touch. Then he remembered you two were still a secret. He glanced around the space and smirked to see the coast was clear, but even if the others were still up and about he wouldn’t have cared, not after the time apart. Still if you were still worried about telling the others he’d respect that. “We’re fine. It’s just us.” He spoke lowly to reassure you but it seemed to have the opposite affect when you snapped your head up to glare at him.
“Us?” You repeated coldly, expression melting into one of mock confusion. “There’s an us?”
“Wh-” Zoro was genuinely thrown for a moment and then he became worried that you had been injured in the time away and lost your memories of him. “Of course there is! What happened?” Again he reached out for you but this time your hand slapped his fingers with a sharp snap while the fierce glare returned to your eyes.
“Oh nothing’s wrong with me, I just don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. Last thing I’d want is to get cosy with someone else’s man.” Your tone was scarily even and Zoro still didn’t know what you were talking about. He didn’t even know how to fix whatever it was that was bothering you. Thankfully you clarified by lightly tapping the hilt of Enma that was against his hip with his other swords. “It’s cute she knows the right gifts to give you so early in the romance.”  Despite the sweet words, the venom in your voice was unmistakable and Zoro finally saw the pain dimming your eyes as you regarded his new sword.
“Hiyori?” Zoro asked startled that you’d even think there was anything romantic going on there. She only gave him the sword as an exchange that was it. “There’s nothing between us. Definitely not ‘cosy’ trust me on that.” At that you let out a short, hollow breath of laughter which worried Zoro even more when he was so used to your laugh being filled with warmth and joy. 
“Well the way Brook tells it, the whole situation seemed very cosy…” Slowly you stepped closer to him, finally for the first time in ages and dragged your fingers across his chest while your other hand slid up his arm, drawing your body further into his space. Your head tilted up, purposely letting your nose gently skim against his throat until you could peer up at him with your guarded gaze. “Something like this, if i’m remembering right. You don’t call this cosy?” Zoro was stuck, if he said yes he was screwed, if he said no he was also screwed.
“Don’t worry about it Zoro. We had our fun while it lasted, right?” You forced out in as light a voice as possible. “You should get some rest while you can and I don’t want to waste anymore of your time.” When you moved to pull away you were immediately caught by Zoro’s reflexes. While you were fast, he was faster when he wanted to be. You let out a gasp to be pulled impossibly close against his chest as his arms locked around you, holding your body against his. 
You wanted to fight against the hold that was strong, secure, and -as much as you hated it- comforting. Even now with your heartbroken mind racing, you always felt safe and warm in his arms. You tried to open your mouth to tell him to let go but you couldn’t. Part of you didn’t want to  because the last thing you wanted now was for your voice to be a pitiful, weak tremble but another part knew that even if you managed out the words, he would have listened. So you kept your mouth closed. “I’ve missed you. I wished you hadn’t gone after that cook with the others.” 
Your body tensed at his words, hearing how sincere they were made your knotted worries and spiralling hurt begin to loosen slightly. You didn’t regret helping with Kanji’s rescue but you did also wish you’d gone to Wano with Zoro. “I’m sorry you were made to think the worst. I promise you there wasn’t anything going on with her or anyone. There is no one but you.”  
“Don’t say that.” You whispered, trying not to melt into his embrace. Even with him telling the truth it didn’t stop the fact that your insecurities had surfaced and with them came concerns about everything. “Compared to someone like her I’m-”
“Perfect. Mine. Everything.” Zoro interrupted fiercely before pressing a kiss against your temple. “I’ll say it as many times as it takes to get you to believe it. But first-” You staggered when Zoro let you go and began stomping towards the Sunny. “I’ve got a skeleton to kill for causing you to hurt.” Bewildered by the immediately bloodlust rolling off of his frame you had no choice but to chase after him to stop him from killing another member of the crew while shouting that you believe him. When you finally caught up to him you pulled him into another tight hug with shaking hands. While things were still new between you two and it was clear you both had a lot to work out you now knew that for as long as you wanted him, Zoro would be there. 
579 notes · View notes
Text
VOID STATE THE SPONGEBOB METHOD
So I’ve been thinking about this
Maybe it’s because I’m currently obsessed with watching SpongeBob
But I was thinking
What if we use the void state or
Any “L.O.A” methods
As SpongeBob characters?
Here me out,
Let’s start here
The 3D is Squidward
Pessimistic, unhappy very cruel
Definitely the type to think that life is hard or isn’t fair
Then you have SpongeBob
Who’s optimistic hard working energetic and determined
We need to be like SpongeBob
The void state and our desires
Is the Krusty Krab
No I don’t think we have to work as hard but I definitely think we need that dedication and maybe even his delusion
He thinks Squidward is his friend
If we treat the 3D like it’s not against us but with us
As in the 3D isn’t the enemy it’s going by based on what YOU assume
Assume it’s kind to you that everything in your 4D that you WANT is already here
Think of it as this
He goes to work everyday
Never misses
He’s persistent
What we need to do
Is be persistent like him
Like SpongeBob
Squidwards negativity hasn’t stopped SpongeBob from meeting his goals from doing what he loves
So why should we let the 3D or any one or anything stop us from getting our desires??
Where would SpongeBob be if he procrastinated about working?
If he absorbed everyone’s toxic energy
While he is gullible and easily pressurized and manipulated
The only traits of his we’ll follow is his persistence, creativity,determination and delusion
Because Squidward(the 3D) doesn’t know what greatness our mind consists of
SpongeBob’s creative “imagination” helps him see and do things others cannot comprehend
The bubble buddy episode
When everyone was questioning why he was friends with a bubble(who turned out to be real in the end)
Or that episode with the box
Where him and Patrick were using their imagination to create digital sound effects and make it seem like they were in a movie
Stick to your delusions until they’re not fake anymore
Like when his bubble friend came to life in the end
If we use our imagination
We can create the life we want by acting as if we already have it
Fame? Pretend you’re doing a Jimmy Fallon interview while you’re in your room
Singer/rapper even if you aren’t good sing in the shower close your eyes act like your literally Beyoncé and sound just as good
Rich? Act like you’re the epitome of wealth
Beauty? Look in the mirror ignore those pimples look at yourself the same way you’d look at your favorite model
Or say you are a model
Naomi Campbell is shook when she sees me
The 3D is literally a book
If you don’t like the chapter you’re currently reading
Stop re reading it
What do you fear? What the next chapter is about? Life isn’t coming at you
It’s coming within you
If you don’t like how your book is going
Turn the page
Or better yet
Create a new book
Kick out a few characters if they don’t resonate with your current lifestyle and mindset
Create new characters
You can change your tomorrow
Or even right now stop wasting time
Your desires want you more
Just open your eyes
Open this new book and get to writing
Using your imagination
SpongeBob Style💕💕
I hope this reaches people
147 notes · View notes
traumakid-hideout · 2 months
Text
An episode of mania almost always always always starts out so euphorically, makes you feel like you’re on the perfect drug, makes your confidence and motivation sky rocket and has you romanticizing all the fun it baits you with. It feels so amazing, you feel like nothing can hurt you or get to you.
Then the irritability comes, genuine rage, such an uncomfortable and overwhelming increase in libido, dangerous impulses, social behavior to be humiliated from by the time you crash, severe sleep deprivation that disorients the fuck out of you the longer you go without it, without even feeling tired at all. But feeling completely out of control. And if it escalates, Lord help you. Hallucinations, bad paranoia, black outs, substance abuse (or relapse if you happen to be recovering), delusions, everything that could get you into a psych ward. It isn’t fun at the end and any pleasure you feel is completely illusionary.
The worst part is I still normally never want it to stop. Because the depression after, which gets so ugly and terrible the longer, more intense the mania is, is something I’m not looking forward to at all. That, and mania can really sometimes convince you that you love it. I’m not wanting to go there though, because I have a lot to lose. Even if I don’t lose anything, I’m tired of this cycle and just can’t afford to desire it anymore. So I’m managing where I can, but wow it’s just scary to watch it take you higher and higher into it, and further and further away from yourself.
This is precisely why I despise any sort of stigma toward bipolar disorder. It’s so misunderstood, misquoted, and mistreated. I just really want and need some help. My hands are so sweaty and shaky, my heart and my mind are racing, I can’t stop talking, I can’t eat. I can’t focus, I can only fixate. And it’s just so overwhelming already.
171 notes · View notes
sarucane · 6 months
Text
Why did Ed think becoming a fisherman made any sense at all?
Seriously, this was always a ridiculous idea. Stede gets zero blame for laughing the first time Ed says it--it's an even crazier and more extreme whim than Ed saying "we'll go to China." And it's reasonable that it blindsides Stede for Ed to be leaving--a few hours ago Ed was making Stede breakfast in bed and taking Stede out to his favorite restaurant, and now he's leaving forever. That's a hell of a mindfuck there. So why does Ed think it makes sense to follow this whim?
Ed starts this episode by throwing away his leathers. He's trying to discard and excise the 'kraken' part of his personality, trying to consciously transform into something else (hence wearing Button's clothes).
At first, he's also trying to embrace being with Stede.
Tumblr media
He volunteers information that shows how important Stede is to him by describing the mermaid vision. But, just like when he told Stede about how "sometimes it's nice to just be patient," Ed's not directly owning his feelings here. He's skimming right past the fact that it was he, himself, who was choosing (unconsciously, but still choosing) to die, and his bond to Stede is why he came back. In fact, the closest he comes to actually saying he felt a certain way is by admitting he panicked over the twine.
And Stede, who just feels so secure in this relationship right now, more comfortable in his skin than we've ever seen him, just does not get Ed's insecurity. He doesn't reassure Ed by saying "the breakfast is great with or without the twine" he says "it actually made it!" And when Ed tells about the vision, Stede doesn't seem to register how big a deal it was.
They're not communicating here, they're just not. They've had this very intimate experience, but there's still distance between them. The visuals reinforce this: they're at opposite ends of the bed, they don't come close to touching at any point in the scene. Ed's dressed and Stede's comfortably naked.
Ed snuck out of bed and went to throw his leathers away by himself. He doesn't tell Stede what he's done, and Stede doesn't comment on Ed walking around in Buttons' clothes. Ed's thrown away the kraken--and then he watches Stede embrace being "a sea god."
Tumblr media
And this fear and disconnection to Stede goes right back to how Ed's been acting ever since he came back. He's not been opening up to Stede. He's not been willing to get vulnerable with Stede again; he doesn't trust himself not to wreck it and get his heart broken, and he doesn't trust Stede not to break his heart. The filmmaking choices (bless this amazing meta for explaining it all) have been signaling this ever since they found each other again: they love each other, but they're on different wavelengths.
Ed's trust in Stede is brittle, even before he gets the idea that he and Stede want different things out of life (piracy vs anything-but-piracy). So, Ed goes out and sits with himself. Then he takes Izzy's suggestion and he listens to himself, to his desire not to live a certain life anymore.
But rather than deciding to talk to Stede about this, he decides he's going to leave before the conversation even starts.
Ed gets really, really close to real communication with Stede here. He admits that he doesn't feel safe in the relationship, and that the speed and intensity that Stede has reveled in have made Ed feel less safe.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
And even now, even though he lost all track of Ed for a big chunk of the day and now he's being surprised by deep withdrawal--Stede is still all in. He could have been heartbroken or angry. He could have panicked and apologized, or frozen and shut down the conversation.
Instead, Stede listens. And he tries to make good on what he told Ed: "I love everything about you."
Tumblr media
But Ed doesn't really hear this, because he doesn't trust Stede, the connection between them, or himself. Because "Trust no one" includes not trusting oneself.
Rather than engaging with what Stede actually says, Ed starts ranting, and uses his own insecurities to push Stede away. Stede's right, it is panic.
Stede mirrors Ed's body language all through this part of the scene. He gets what's happening, understands insecurity and what it can trigger (particularly related to an insecurity of "I'm bad for you you're better off without me") deeply--which is why it's so easy for him to forgive this later.
Tumblr media
But while Stede understands exactly what's going on now that Ed's finally talking to him directly, for Ed it's all confusing and happening much too fast. So he shuts down, lashes out, and bails out.
Figuring himself out is complicated, navigating his relationship with Stede is complicated, trust and self-realization are complicated. Fishing, on the other hand, is simple. Unlike love or psychological integration, there's no risks in fishing.
Tumblr media
123 notes · View notes
cleabellanov · 2 months
Text
Jet-Skiing through identity: a deep dive into Mobius M. Mobius (part 2) 🛥️
Even the kindest of hearts have a trigger point, a spot that can catch a bullet without bleeding; making it part of the heart's anatomy.
Tumblr media
I'm only saying that because I associate Loki as Mobius's soft spot("I know you have a soft spot for broken things"), and Loki turning his back to that in s1e2 as the trigger point. Imagine you have that courage, to do something everyone around you thinks is wrong. Then, just as you were going to prove the opposite,our efforts turn to be in vain.
For Mobius's character, this means he has to turn around at 360, to where he came from; with inovative ideas not working, it all comes to accepting defeat.
He manages that excellently in front of Ravonna: caring more about reassuring her everything will work out rather than focusing on himself. Another example of how much Mobius cares about others, even when he should care more about himself.
Episode 4, season 1, is crucial for where Mobius's story is going.
We can see so many interesting things in his conversation with Loki, like the way he handles stress through amusement. Asif this emotion isn't worthy enough, but to be laughed at:
Tumblr media
"You like her! Does she like you?"
After all, let's not forget Mobius was already (and even earlier than this episode) catching feelings for Loki. His own words put this straightforward: "Just kind of an asshole. And a bad friend". Notice how he doesn't use any word similr to "traitor". He still considers him a friend, albeit a bad one, after everything he's done. Mobius might do his best to hide it, but he's still forgiving deep down. And it's not even Loki's departure in time and space that matters the most to the analyst. It's his alliance with Sylvie, hinting once again at the jelaousy of his character I talked about in part 1. "It's ruining my reality right now!" in Mobius's words.
But when he is told by Loki that they're all variants, Mobius doesn't simply dissmiss the idea. He could, and should, given the position he is in. But the brightness of his mind, and that little flicker of hope he still has in his Loki makes the difference. After all, hope is what makes us believe: it's the desire of having something to believe in.
Watch his reaction when he is told all this:
Tumblr media
He is masking it flawlessly in front of Loki and the hunters, but that raising hope makes him search: is the trickster out of tricks for once? What if, all this time, that feeling he had inside himself but hid away is actually a sign, gently whispering to him there is more he should know about? That is a bravery so different from live action, and battling with superheroes: the bravery of discovery. Loki telling the truth means Mobius living a lie - a scary thought of course, but not scary enough to stop him.
This all drives Mobius to finding out what actually happened with hunter C-20. And the rest is history.
There is a certain honour in telling Loki he was right from the beginning. This new approach, this insight Mobius now gains over everything give him not only a rush of adrenaline, but also the confidence he didn't allow himself before. Therefore, he wasn't just working half a measure. The limits that were set were not part of his perimeter, but of the TVA's. Now that he sees that, he can also break those limits.
He is also free to speak his mind. And Loki is so deserving of these words that this scene right here is one of the most precious in the entire series. Their wonderful dinamc certainnly gives extra points to that.
Tumblr media
Now Mobius isn't just an analyst anymore. He is a rebel, betraying the only thing he believes in, the one institution that shaped his entire existence. This rebellion isn't just external, but internal as well. Ultimately, only one part of the internal conflict won, but the other still exist, like two sides of the same coin, spinning and spinning. But he still has the hope that he'll find something better on the other side, and doesn't stop just because it's a hard thing to do.
If it was easy, everyone would do it. (Loki in Thor The Dark World)
I wanted to write more but this is already getting too long (like damn I'm fangirling hard) so see you for part 3!
73 notes · View notes
creedslove · 9 months
Text
Whiskey Intoxication 🥃
Tumblr media
Agent Whiskey (Jack Daniels) x f!agent!reader
He's intoxicating, you want him even if it's not healthy, but there's one problem: he doesn't like you 🥃
Summary: you can't help but feel jealous of Whiskey when he sleeps with his target instead of just getting information
Warnings: angst, jealousy, jealous!reader, mentions of smut, unrequited feelings, age gap (not specified, but Whiskey is older than you), sort of depressed Whiskey
A/N: I had this idea after the frustrating attempts I had of roleplaying with Whiskey characters on c.ai; it just didn't work, but I at least this one shot came out of it, lol!
1.8k words
Tumblr media
You paced the room, looking out the window and watching the glaring lights from the city at night; checking the time, it read half past midnight and Whiskey still wasn't back. Knowing damn well where he was and what he was doing you shook your head, finally getting rid of your party dress, kicking your heels off and getting on the couch. The hotel room was comfortable, large and fancy, but it felt so empty and the fact your partner hadn't been back only made it worse. It hadn't been long since you started being paired up with Whiskey on missions. It had always been fun and exciting to go on missions with senior Agent Whiskey. He was experienced, fun, and so great at fighting, you were always safe and all your mission results were successful. For quite a while, it had been your favorite kind of job, that was until you noticed Whiskey's usual flirt actually made you giggle, and that his eyes would roam all over your body whenever you were dressed up to go undercover or you would have to hold hands, wear fake wedding rings and occasionally exchange a peck on the lips in public in order to make your cover even more believable, but when you noticed you suddenly felt butterflies in your stomach whenever he was around, how your palms were sweaty and that your heart raced the moment that damn cowboy shot you a beautiful smile. 
Just as your heart clenched every time he gave some other woman the same kind of attention, how he flirted with them, charmed them, placed his hand on their knee at a bar stool or times like these, where he chose to straight up sleep with the target instead of just getting all the information he could and get out as fast as possible. You hated how you never got to be one of Whiskey's girls, perhaps because you wanted to be more than just one night stand. He knew that, he heard you multiple times talking about your desire of having roots, building a family and all that cliche. For a while, you thought you and Jack were the same, judging by the stories you heard about his background you had figured he would want to have a second chance, but you just guessed he didn't. Perhaps the trauma of losing it all was enough for him to make up his mind and decide he didn't want it anymore, it kind of made sense to you why he was just sleeping from woman to woman without any emotional attachments. 
Another situation that really hurt you, was to know that you almost became one of them; it was during your mission to England, you, Jack and the other agent from Kingsman had to go undercover in a music festival, which was actually a pleasant surprise, if it weren't for the fact Jack had been turned down by the target in a way it really embarrassed him, perhaps it started a midlife crisis, you wouldn't be able to tell, but the reality was that in no time you and Jack were back at the hotel, he had your body pressed against the wall as you were both making out inside the elevator. You would probably never forget how your body felt on fire at his mere touch. His cologne lingering on your body, his lips on yours and then on your neck. It was all intoxicating. It was addictive… and just as it had started, it had ended just as abruptly. He let go of your body and cleared his throat, feeling suddenly embarrassed and went straight to his room. After that certain episode, he hadn't said anything else, and you were forced to do the same, pretending it never happened, though your heart and your body ached for another one of his devilish touches. 
You pulled a blanket over your body and sighed at the desperation that grew in your chest. What the hell was going on with you? How could your feelings for Whiskey keep growing even if the rational attitude would stay away as much as possible and perhaps try to go and meet someone else; it was a dead end. You couldn't simply use someone else's feelings in order to get over yours for Whiskey, it was wrong and someone would end up hurt. 
The moment you heard the door unlocked, you took a deep breath, knowing he would be there, smelling like another woman, probably with a shit eating grin and still a little dizzy out of his sex haze. It didn't matter if it was only his business, he still took the opportunity of having his fun. As he walked inside the room just like you had predicted, he kicked off his shoes and began unbuttoning his shirt, well, the rest of it, as he hadn't even bothered buttoning it all the way up in the first place. As he got closer and sat next to you on the couch, you could see the hickeys all over his neck, your stomach twisting at the undeniable proof he'd been with another woman. 
You had never been married, but you'd been desperately in love with a man who didn't think twice before sleeping around, even if he didn't belong to you, just the fact you two had to act as a married couple in front of people had already given you a sense of ownership. It was wrong, but that was how you felt, you felt as if Jack Daniels was your cowboy, your man, and it gutted you to see him so close without actually being able to touch him.
"I'm tired, sugar.." he groaned as he extended his legs and rested his feet on the coffee table 
"I bet you are… getting your dick wet every mission is exhausting" you rolled your eyes at him, not controlling your tone and saw him shake his head, getting up with a groan and taking a step away from you, he never really understood why you would always get so snappy at him the moment he slept with a target; he actually did understand it, he knew you had a crush on him, but he thought you would've figured out he didn't reciprocate the feelings and that you should have done something about it. It just annoyed that cowboy to no end how you were nice and sweet one moment and the next you seemed you couldn't even stand being around him. 
He placed his hands on his hips and took a deep breath, clearly annoyed 
"What's your problem with me, huh? I was doing my job, I got ourselves the leads and information we needed, better than staying here all night sulking like a goddamn spoiled child!" 
He took a step closer, feeling so angry but you scrunched your nose softly and sneezed a couple of times, earning a puzzled look from him 
"You are reeking of that bitch's cheap perfume, Whiskey! Stay away!" You said angrily not needing another allergy crisis kicking in at that moment. He sighed deeply one last time and took his stetson off, locking himself in the bathroom so he could shower and continue his conversation with you. 
Jack stared at himself in the mirror after his shower, seeing the hickeys the target left on his skin and sighed; just because he didn't share the same feelings for you as you did for him, it didn't mean he liked rubbing it on your face. It hurt you, but you also had to understand it was part of the job and if roles were reversed, he would have to accept you sleeping around just the same. You were lying on the bed now, only the nightstand lamps were on, as you kept staring at the fake wedding ring on your left hand, absorbed in your thoughts deeply, barely noticing when the mattress sank next to you at the weight of the cowboy, who sat by your side. 
"Darlin' I'm sorry about earlier, I shouldn't have called you a child" he told you in a soft tone, knowing how much you hated whenever he called you anything related to that, he was older than you, yes, but you were a functional adult who hated when he tried to pull that card on you. 
"When I said I was tired, I wasn't talking about our target, I was talking about this life… this lonely, pointless life" he shrugged and took your left hand into his bigger one, his rough fingers stroking your wedding band distractedly "I just feel lost, like I have no real purpose, I have no one to come back home to, no one to spend all the money I get with, it's just weird…" he confessed, giving you his honest sad eyes, and you softened up. As much as you often felt angry with him because of the unrequited mess of feelings you both were in, you also felt so sorry for him. Jack was still young, he still had time to build a family, find someone to be happy with, instead of dwelling into his loneliness and sadness like he did. 
"I'm sorry Jack… I was harsh to you too, I know it was just part of your job, well, our job and I was selfish" you sighed "but I don't like seeing you like that, you know… upset" 
"Don't worry about me, sugar…" he squeezed your hand gently, his finger still toying with your ring "I'm sure one day you'll be an amazing wife, you're already a great fake wife to me, and I ain't even worthy of you, in our fake marriage, I mean" he chuckled softly "you'll be great at it, and if you ever have kids you'll be an amazing mom, I just know it." 
"Jack, you know you can still have it all, right? I know about what happened, when you were married for the first time, but you can try it again, you can remarry, perhaps even have children, you can start all over again" 
You can start all over again with me. 
You can marry me.
Have kids with me. 
That was what you thought but didn't dare say it. 
"It's too late for me, I already had my happy ending, sugar, I just lost it" he shrugged and got up, walking to the couch and settling down, he was too much of a gentleman to impose his presence in bed with you, even if that was exactly what you craved, even if you couldn't have him whole, you would like to at least have the feeling of his arms wrapped around you, but unfortunately another mission was coming to an end and nothing happened. 
You sighed and buried your face into your pillow, resting your eyes in hopes of dreaming about the man who was right there but so out of reach at the same time. 
____
Tumblr media
162 notes · View notes
Text
The light is blinding (Joel Miller x fem!reader)
Summary: When he's hurt, you offer to wash Joel's hair for him. Turns out there may be other forms of comfort you can offer him too.
Genres: character study; angst (sorta); hurt/comfort; SMUT. Joel's POV.
Author's note: I watched TLOU ep 1 last night, then made bad choices today in favour of hyperfocussing on this 8k Joel fic. I mean, this was sort of inevitable tbf. We've been handed a sad, scruffy, brown-eyed, dusty apocalypse DILF, and there was no chance of me not adopting him as a blorbo. Anyway, this is my first attempt at Joel, I wrote this in a trance so god knows what it says and I haven't spent any time on editing/correcting. Can't promise it's any good, but if you want to wash his hair as much as I do (lol) maybe you'll enjoy it, who knows. P.s. I promise it does get super smutty. You just have to survive the extensive internal monologue and many rounds of haircare first. (I'm just like that :P)
Warnings: 18+ ONLY. Minors interacting will be blocked. EXPLICIT SMUT (unprotected p in v sex, totally ignoring practicalities like birth control in the apocalypse bc we can); canon-typical themes such as grief, apocalypse, infection/disease, trauma, injury. SPOILERS - if you know the core plot points or have seen episode one you'll be okay. Joel's POV.
Word count: 8.2k
GIF by @joelmjller (Pls lemme know if you'd like me to remove this!)
Tumblr media
How did he get here, exactly? All stretched out on his back, your careful fingers twining through his wetted, grizzled hair?
Well, he supposes he got here because a smuggling deal had gone sideways - like usual.
He got here, because he’s getting too old for this shit, and because someone precisely young enough for this shit had garnered the advantage just long enough to land a gun barrel blow to his head. A blow which then made room for all manner of nonsense, of course; like Joel being teep kicked into a desk. The desk - owing to its sturdy construction and deliciously planed hardwood - had withstood the blow. Joel’s body, however -far less sturdily constructed - had reacted far less favourably to that particular transaction.
Most of all though, cracked ribs and busted shoulder aside, Joel is here, because of you. He is here, because you offered to wash his hair.
Joel isn’t a clean man, by any stretch. Who could be anymore, with the way things are? In truth, he’s forgotten what it’s like not to be coated with a layer of dirt and smoke and ash. But apparently, even in the midst of an apocalypse, the dried-in, caked-up, days old blood matting his hair had left something to be desired.
He’d agreed to your offer only because - honestly - it was starting to itch. Because this time he truly couldn’t do it himself, the searing pain in his ribs seeing to that. Making sure he couldn’t quite raise his arm high enough or dip his head low enough to get the job done.
He’d agreed to your offer, in part, because he thought you would be quick. And - he now realises - you are being anything but.
You have him stretched out on his back, on a repurposed dentist chair. The worn, dark green leather creaks beneath him as he adjusts, positioning himself just so. You’ve installed a makeshift neck rest and basin to the rear of the chair, and Joel’s head is currently dipped backwards into the warm water, your fingers diligently combing through the strands to release the debris and muck.
You use a cup to cascade the water from the basin over his head, cupping it with the other hand to guard his face and neck from any rogue rivulets. Then, you ease your fingertips over his scalp, massaging in circles, being extra careful -he notes- around his recently closed wound.
Yes, to Joel’s dismay, you are taking your time. You are being so thorough and so attentive, in fact, that Joel even wonders if you will end up washing the gray right out of his hair - Joel’d never been wholly convinced that his newly-developed colouring was ever anything more than a thick, impenetrable layer of dirt and ash.
You hum thoughtfully, a sweet, innocuous note as you assess your next step. “I’m switching out the water, okay?”
That doesn’t sound okay at all. That doesn’t sound done. And Joel had thought that this would be quick. Had needed this to be quick.
Before he can grunt an answer though, you are winding a towel around his hair, presumably attempting to save the drips from reaching the floor as you swap out one basin for another, setting down the one now filled with muddy brown water, and bending carefully to lift a second steaming basin of fresh water on to your makeshift plinth.
He needs to stop this here. “That’ll do,” he says gruffly, motioning to sit up -carefully- despite the pain in his ribs.
“Lie back,” you insist, the sound of your voice muffled through the towel wound over his ears but soothing nevertheless. “I’ve only managed to rinse out the blood and bird’s nests so far. We still need to wash and condition.”
Joel would protest more vigorously -means to, in fact- but the soft smile on your face dissolves him like sugar before he can do so.
He frowns though, for good measure. “Fine. Just make it quick.”
“The quicker you relax Joel,” you sing song, “the faster I’ll let you out of my seat. Deal?”
He grunts. He doesn’t relax. He can’t relax.
“And,” you add playfully, as if reading his mind. “If you can’t relax, you’d better learn fast to fake it.”
Joel sighs deeply in frustration as he lies back, and you usher him gently into position. However, the slow, deep breath he expels does genuinely serve to sink him more deeply into the chair. Does force him to release just a jot of the tension snaking through his taut muscles.
You hum again, softly, in satisfaction, and he thinks he can even hear a smile on your mouth as you foam his hair with some sweet-smelling product, your fingers resuming their careful ministrations across his scalp.
It’s nice, he notes, unwilling as he is to admit it. Your touch could knock him out better than a barrel full of oxy and a bottle of the good stuff. He almost lets himself enjoy it - an attractive woman like you working your hands into his hair, massaging with your thumbs, your fingers, your palms. Applying pressure and sensation, even into the tight muscles in his neck. Loosening some of the tension at his temples. He even consciously relaxes his forehead, feeling his frown soften. Closing his eyes instead of fixing his stare on the broken picture rail he’s sure he could fix with a few tools and a little bit of effort.
He breathes more deeply as he closes his eyes, focussing in on the sensation of your touch. On the scents flooding his nose. Floral and sweet and fruity. It smells of you, and he breathes it deeply. He tries not to think about how his pillow will smell of you later.
It shouldn’t be possible for you to smell as good as you do, Joel ponders. You even have him wondering whether perhaps he’s not the only game in town. Whether there’s another smuggler dealing in contraband which hasn’t even occurred to him to barter with. Perfumes and oils and essences. He doubts that you would be mixed up in smuggling, but he doesn’t doubt that you are capable of far more than surface-level assessments might suggest.
After all, people only survive this long with one of two things: brutality, or blind luck - and no-one is that lucky that they’ve never had to dabble in the former. Everyone who has made it this far is only out for themselves.
Therefore, who knows what secrets you hide behind your sweet facade, Joel contemplates. Though, if he did have to believe there was anyone selfless left on god’s blighted earth? If he had to believe in someone, Joel would bet cards on it being you.
He sucks in another long, slow breath, and the scent of you envelops him all over again. For a moment, he finds himself wanting to believe in you. But it’s never too long before he recalls he gave up a long time ago on believing in anything. Anything except his wits and his fists and his gun, at least.
“That’s it Joel,” you praise as he relaxes - uncoils - just a shade, and the smooth tone of your voice slides right under his skin. The thought that you want to make him feel good makes him tingle. Makes him forget - almost - that he doesn’t deserve that.
Meanwhile, your deft fingers and thumbs continue to work nimbly into him, sliding over the contours and bones and ridges of his skull. Applying a warm, steady pressure against the muscles at the nape of his neck. Circling your thumb against a spot that sends a buzzing, suffusing warmth skittering down the length of his spine. Blooming through him - and, it has been so long. So long since Joel felt anything resembling pleasure that when he feels this warm honey trail down his back, an involuntary moan overspills his parted lips.
Shit. There's no chance that you didn't hear that.
The moan reverberates in the tight, quiet room. Lingers far longer than it sounds out for. Lingers, despite how quickly Joel cuts it short - clamping his mouth shut and hoping he can pass it off as a grunt or some expulsion of pain from shifting in his chair.
Your fingers halt, still tangled in his hair. “D-Do you want me to stop?” There is a heat in your tone, Joel thinks, the vowels and consonants warm and full like the pop and crackle of a hearth.
It's new. And it occurs to him, ever so suddenly, that maybe you are enjoying this too? Touching him?
After all, he’s not insisting upon it. Didn’t suggest it. Has not attempted to prolong it. And yet, you continue, working diligently. Soothing him. Freely offering your praise and those little, contented hums - those small, burgeoning sounds which make his fingertips ache to have your skin beneath them, so that he can keep on making your lips overspill with those sweet sounds of satisfaction.
Indeed, Joel’s hair has got to be cleaner now than it’s ever been. He’s been in your chair longer than he ever intended - and you don’t seem to be working any other angle. Don’t seem to be after any contraband that he can get his hands on. Haven’t submitted any requests. Fished for any information.
Perhaps then, you are enjoying him. Enjoying performing this act of service for him - though god knows why. Perhaps you are even looking down at his body right now while he’s all laid out for you in this worn-out chair. His long limbs stretched out, clothes tugging taut over his tight, muscular frame. Perhaps you like looking at him like this, his hair slicked back and away from his sharp face and his hawkish nose, watching the twist and pull of the muscles as he sets his jaw - needing to consolidate all of his resolve simply to resist your sweet, sugary touches. Perhaps you liked when you watched his eyes flutter closed under your touch. When you watched his lips part with that sound. That throaty, undone moan, all for you.
Joel’s not stupid.
He’s clocked the way you look at him sometimes. With this gentle, inviting hunger. The way you always make the effort to come over and speak with him whenever opportunity presents itself. The way your appealing body bends to him like a flower to its sun, as though he has anything nourishing about him. As though he has anything but darkness to offer.
He’s clocked you too. Has seen the way kindness and warmth dance across your features like a living, licking flame. Has seen you glow brightly too with a steady, constant fire, which he is sure must run hotter and more fierce beneath the surface than any would estimate. He had noticed too, of course, the swell and contours of your body, hiding beneath your clothes in all the places he most enjoys.
He’s thought before how he’d like to find out where the hunger in your eyes could take him if he chased it; but in the end he knows there is never any further to go than here. That every road is a dead end since the world ended. That the quarantine zone is the only place with walls more impenetrable than his own.
Still; he’s thought about you more than he’d care to admit. To Tommy. To Tess. To you. To himself. Has thought about the way your lips might feel on his. How soft and warm your body might be if he held it up against him. The way his calloused hands might look with his fingers sunk into your flesh, grabbing up handfuls of you like you are his daily bread - the very thing he needs to survive.
Of burying his head between your thighs for hours and trying to suck the impossible sweetness out of you, as though, somehow, he could then begin to understand how someone as good as you is capable of existing in a world as shitty and cruel as this.
He’s had darker thoughts too though. Thoughts of filling you rough and sudden - if you’d let him. Of burying his anger in you with every thrust, deep enough that he could attempt to forget it. Of letting you take his rage from him for just a few moments - as if it could ever truly leave him for a moment longer than that.
But of course, in actuality, he’s done none of that. Joel hasn’t pulled on a single one of those threads. He hasn’t unravelled.
Instead, for the most part, Joel has simply ignored you. Ignored you, because that’s the precisely the last thing he wants to do. Ignored you, because the safest option - Joel has established - is usually to give himself the opposite of whatever he thinks he wants.
That is… he’s ignored you until today. Until you offered to wash his hair. A simple yet towering offer of kindness in a world blighted by dark and rot. An offer that feels like more than he deserves when all he’s ever done for you is to give you the brush off. To answer you tersely, his aim with every interaction to have it over quick.
Still… he’d said yes. Or, at least, he’d declined to protest. Had nodded. Had followed you.
If he’s being honest with himself, he could have asked Tommy to help him, even if he was trying to obscure the severity of his latest injuries from his dear ol’ brother. Even Tess - she’d have done it. With plenty of griping, but she would have done it.
The truth is though, that he wanted it to be you. Needed it to be you. He’d gravitated towards you, even before he knew what you might be prepared to give him. Even without any trade to offer. For you, he’d unravelled. Just a little; in a moment of weakness. He hasn’t slept and he hasn’t succeeded and he hasn’t succumbed for so long, that he finally slipped. Finally gave into one of his wants. Finally gave in to what he wanted most. To seat himself in front of the warm hearth of you and to feel a little god dang comfort.
Joel opens his eyes, expression washing clean with a new resolve, and your fingers still frozen in his hair. He fixes his gaze on the broken picture rail. Precisely at the point where it fractures. Where it needs fixing. He needs a little fixing too, he thinks. He’s sure now, that he’s chosen the right tool for the job, when not another damn thing could do it.
“No,” he finally responds, his voice unwavering, blinking his bitter coffee eyes, sweetened already by your sugar. A gentle gulp sinking down the corded column of his neck. “I don’t want you to stop.”
From behind and above him, he hears you release a breath as though you may have been holding one, tight in your chest, and you slide your fingers from his hair. “Good.” Good. The word rattles pleasantly in his chest when you say it. “We’ll do your conditioner next.”
And, for the first time, Joel unclenches his fingers from where they have been curled around the arm rests of the chair, clinging on to the lip until his knuckles had turned white.
This time - for all he can tell via his scalp - your touch feels a little bolder. A little looser. You even drag your nails over his head now, applying long, sizzling scratches which send that same buzzy warmth snaking down his back. You massage him more eagerly, blood flooding to his crotch as he thinks about having your strong, supple, precise hands work him in other places. He imagines, as your nails graze over him, how you might claw harsh stripes down his back in a moment of ecstasy. As your thumb massages a circle into the spot behind his ear, imagines how you might circle the soft pad of it around the swollen head of his cock, collecting up the glistening bead of precum as he leaks for you. Imagines, as you carefully pour a cup of warm, cascading water over his head, how he could bathe himself with the warmth of your skin on his. Imagines, as he hears the subtle wet sounds created as you scrunch sweet-smelling elixirs into his hair, how it might sound if your own juices were being coaxed out of you by his fingers until they began to drip, working down his veined, muscled forearm.
He allows himself to imagine everything he plans to deny himself. He at least allows himself to have that.
“That temperature still okay for you?” you ask as you lift the cup of water once again, fracturing his sordid daydreams.
Joel gives a terse grunt. It’s all he can manage.
“So,” you ask breezily. “Are you going anywhere nice for your holidays?”
It takes Joel a few moments to realise just what you’re doing. To twig. It’s a decade - shit, more - since he had a haircut like that, so it takes him a while to pick up that you’re echoing the banal small talk which used to occur as you sat down in the barber chair. Those memory cogs are stiff. He hasn’t turned them in a long time. He doesn’t want to remember that there was anything before. At least, not a lot of it.
Still, your bit takes him by surprise. It’s such a ludicrous contrast that it makes him laugh to think about how things have changed. Who can even go on holiday now? You can’t even leave the quarantine zone. Shit. Even if you could, you wouldn’t want to. And so, Joel laughs. He laughs and he barely recognises the sound from his own mouth. He laughs… and he instantly regrets it, because he knows better than to pull on any of those threads.
But; it’s too late now.
He laughs and you mirror him, the sound melodious and hopeful, and all of a sudden Joel can imagine everything he’s been avoiding you for.
He hasn’t been avoiding you because he wants to fuck you - not really. He’s fucked plenty of folk, and he’s moved on.
He’s avoiding you, because of how easily he can imagine you in a summer dress, twirling in the yard to show it off to him. How easily he can imagine you sitting on a front porch gripping your morning cup of coffee and the sun shining on your face as you smile up at him. How easily he can imagine you lifting a tray of freshly baked cookies out of the oven, batting his hand away as he steals one before it cools.
Truthfully, he has no idea whether you ever did a single one of those things before - before all this. He doesn’t even really care whether you did. He knows it’s a flat, idealised, empty picture postcard version of you.
But, even so, it still hurts.
It still hurts, because of just how easily he could imagine waking up beside you in his house.
The house that no longer exists.
The house with Sarah in it.
And that’s why he never pulls on that thread.
That’s why he avoids you.
That’s why this can never work.
Because you?
You make him remember all the sweet things. All the sweet things the world used to contain before the rot and the death and despair painted over everything. Infected it.
You make him remember the taste of fresh mangoes. The feeling of sand beneath his feet and waves washing over his toes. Saturdays at the mall. Picking away at his guitar in the living room. The easy jubilation of ball games on the TV on Sundays, with Tommy in the kitchen plating up chicken wings. Of bad movie nights. Of mornings spent around the kitchen table, and his daughter cooking up birthday pancakes.
That’s why he can’t ever start to be happy with you. Why he can’t pull on that thread; because all the good things in life are attached to it. All tied and knotted and tangled up with “before”.
When he dreams of you - when he lets himself - he dreams of then too.
He has to, doesn’t he? Because the past is the only place to build a future when the present is apocalyptic, isn’t it? When you are the only thing he hasn’t lost yet, and everything else -pretty much- is already dead and gone.
It kills him that he found you now.
Found you too late.
It kills him because Sarah would have loved you, and because he thinks he could have too.
You don’t know all of this, of course. You can’t ever know this. And so, your oblivious fingers continue touching him, until he feels another moan begin to spool itself tight in his chest, getting ready to unravel. This time though, he is less sure whether it is a moan of pleasure or of anguish. More and more these days, those two feelings have been starting to feel precisely the same.
“Can we move this along?” he asks gruffly, some of the weight settling back into his brow. He asks, predictably, for the opposite of what he wants. It has to be like that. There’s no other road anymore.
“We can stop whenever you like but… that’s a shame.”
His frown deepens. “Why?”
“Because your hands had only just started to unclench.”
Joel’s heart clenches at the thought you were watching him that intently. That you were weighing the state and tension of his body. Valiantly trying to release some of that weight from him, even when you must be so heavy too.
And of course, knowing this, he only tries to push you further away. Before his dreams of you are seared even more brightly under his skin.
“You know what. I should go.” His chest constricts - throat grows tighter, a lump forming.
Joel idly wonders if his grief will ever stop feeling so raw. That’s the second disease, he thinks. The other monster infecting everything around it. The shadow of the original cloud. He wonders if it will always be this debilitating, even after he’s pushed it down as far as it can go. It’s not only a grief for what was lost, he ponders. It’s also a grief for what he can never have again. It's a grief for you and all the ways he could have loved you.
He sits up -carefully but abruptly, hand clamped over his aching ribs- and his wetted hair sends rivulets snaking down his face, his neck, his chest. Inching beneath the collar of his green button down shirt. Collecting on his shoulders like a pattern of indoor raindrops.
“Joel,” you scold, tutting lightly. Following quickly after him with the towel, trying to mop up after him. Hastily, you towel off his hair. Sneak your hand beneath his collar, gathering the drops up from his chest and neck.
With effort, and a grimace, Joel swings his legs around, until he is sitting upright, feet planted on the floor. But, whether for the pain or for the promise of pleasure - he’s not sure - he can’t bring himself to move any further than that. Especially not as you finally round from the basin, the damp towel slung over your shoulder, your hands and wrists still shined and wet from caressing his hair in a way he can only describe as reverent.
You kneel before him, drying your hands off and setting the towel down before boldly sliding your palms up his denim-clad thighs. “Joel. Would you just let me take care of you?"
He meets your eyes and finds them soft but determined. Empty of darkness, even with the black expanding abyss of your pupil eating away at the colour of your iris.
Joel looks down at your hands as you begin to smooth them up and down, inching slowly up towards his crotch before retreating - repeating the pattern. He looks at you in displeasure, but there’s nothing about your touch which is unwelcome - and that’s exactly the problem. He swallows. Gathers his question up in his throat before he offers it to you gently, as though in cupped, outstretched palms. “How?”
Your beautiful eyes flash with pity then, he thinks, or something like it. It seems like a silly question, but after all this time he doesn’t recall what it’s like to be cared for. He doesn’t know how to let you.
Your palm reaches up to the scruff on his cheek. You smooth it fondly. “Lie back,” you encourage, with a soft smile which seems to glow from the inside, like a porch backlit with the glow of home. “And just let me take care of the rest.”
Joel has always found something to fight for, but today, he has no fight left in him. In truth, he doesn’t want to fight this. To fight you. It is easy to give in to you. In fact, it's too easy. That has always been the problem.
Your hands continue to travel up and down his thighs, and he feels the warmth of you bleed through the fabric.
God. He’s already hard for you. Already full and throbbing in his jeans. Already, he is imagining your hands wrapping around the thick, straining mass of him. Imagining the way that -in moments - you may be unloosing his belt, threading leather through denim loop. The way you might pop the button keenly with your thumb, and he might groan as you relieve the pressure. The way you might unzip the straining fly to have his substantial length spring free, so rarely touched and so so ready to be taken care of.
At the thought of that alone, he’s straining against the seams of his pants, a pressure which sits smack bang between pleasure and pain.
“Joel,” you whisper softly, and he realises he hasn’t yet moved from his position.
“Right.” He swallows. He lies back. Stretches himself out, feeling far more exposed this time, even if he is still fully clothed.
You stand, quickly disappearing the basin away and soon you’re back, standing over Joel and watching him laid out all needy like this. His eyes travel over you, entranced by your form, and he suddenly needs friction. Needs the relief he didn't even know he was waiting for until you offered it - or, implied it. He bucks his hips up, not even caring if he’s being subtle, and the denim and leather creak as he shifts. He punches out a breath as he strains in his pants, chasing any morsel of friction he can. The feeling of his shaft pushing harder against the seam as his whole cock twitches for you. For those hands. For that plush mouth. Maybe for that cunt of yours.
As usual though, when Joel feels anything good, there is a familiar swell of guilt too; this time, riding in on the flood of arousal to his cock. This time, there’s something new to be feeling guilty for too. Something to add to that already long list. He feels guilty for having all of these thoughts about you, despite never having asked you where you were from. Before. What you used to do. Who you lost.
“I’m sorry,” Joel offers, before he even knows that his mouth is moving. Before he’s even figured out what it is he’s sorry for.
Truth is, he’s sorry for so many reasons. For what he’s done. What he’s lost. Whatever you’ve lost. For not asking you about it. Mainly, he realises, because he can’t make you any promises. None that he could keep. Not to keep you safe. He can’t promise you that.
He thinks you’ll ask him what for - why he’s sorry. But instead, you say something else.
“Don’t be.”
If only it was that easy.
Even so, he looks into your eyes as your hungry gaze skims the length of his body, settling at the bulge at his crotch as you drag your tongue along the pillow of your lower lip. You’re beautiful. Vibrant. Full of life and lust and hunger. Alive in a dead world; and suddenly, it doesn’t matter one bit to Joel where you came from. It doesn’t matter what happened before. It only matters where you’re going. What you want. How he can give it to you.
But it is you who gives him something.
You hinge at the hips, slanting your mouth against Joel’s, and he feels your lips brush up against the scruff on his top lip. Feels the pillow of your plush mouth meet his before your tongue fleets out, licking into him like a searing, dancing flame. You hum hungrily into his mouth and his lips chase you as you pull away, another backlit smile dancing on your face, your features already beginning to resemble home to him in a world where there's no such thing.
Joel watches you move now, with quiet fascination, as you kick off your boots. As you wiggle your pleasing hips, untying then easing your cargo pants and panties down your thighs. His tongue curls around his lip as he is gifted glimpses of your skin - although you are still covered to your upper thigh by the yellow tunic top you’re wearing - and now he can’t help but palm himself through his jeans for a morsel of relief.
Still. What you're about to offer him? It feels like far too much. “What are you doing? You don’t have to-“
“-Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll stop,” you promise, meeting his eyes, open and honest and ready to back off if he doesn’t want this. But shit, how could he not want you? Look at you - and so he can’t. He can’t possibly tell you that, even though he thinks that he should.
“No. God, I want you,” Joel pleads, voice hollowed-out with need. All spent, like ash.
“And you’re going to have me.”
You kick your pants and panties off, leaving them to pool discarded on the floor, and Joel palms himself a little harder, grabbing the fat roll of himself through the denim as he catches a glimpse. They’re nothing sexy, of course; but from the way they’ve fallen he is able to note the telltale wet spot on the crotch. It looks like you’ve soaked them through, and God he wants to feel your wetness for himself.
You ease over him, settling your knees on to either side of the leather chair, where Joel’s legs are stretched out before him, sturdy thighs slightly parted to accommodate the arousal between his legs.
You’re still wearing your tunic top, bright yellow like sunshine, and the length of it dances and clings at intervals to your hips and thighs as you move. It’s driving him wild that you are bare beneath. All he can think about is that warm, delicious wetness of yours spilling over him. God, he wants to hear it. Wants to squeeze it out of you. Wants it to drip down the veined shaft of him.
You straddle his thighs, knees folded, the soles of your feet pointed up towards your ass cheeks, and your heat settles just below his own - not quite grinding over him, but tantalisingly close.
You take a moment like this to simply look at him. To gaze into his coffee brown eyes as though there’s something more to him than being sorry and bitter. Like you could see anything sweet there. Anything worth wanting. Then, you comb his damp hair back with your fingers, drawing the strands back from his forehead. Tucking and curling them around his ears.
Your touch - your tenderness - makes him ache. Makes him throb. Makes him want to bury himself in you. His tongue, his fingers, his cock, his feelings - anything of him you’ll take. And, as he wraps his arms around you a wracked moan unspools from his chest as his rough fingertips find the soft skin beneath your yellow tunic. As his touch traverses the contours of you he’s always admired from a distance.
As his jaw falls open, slack with desire, you drink down his moan, catching the resonant sound in the cave of your mouth. Kissing him with a gentle yet constant hunger. With a red hot spark of deviance in your sweet eyes which almost makes Joel spill creamy ropes into his pants there and then. Your tongue travels along your lower lip. Your gaze drops, lust dark and heavy to the bulge at his crotch, and you unloop his belt with those hands of yours. They'll look small next to the size of him, he thinks. He likes that thought a lot.
“Let’s see what contraband you’re smugglin’ in these pants of yours, cowboy," you smile, and Joel's eyes crinkle with rare amusement. His face tips up with a lopsided smile which is quick to drop - all of him focussed on where you're about to touch him.
He twitches eagerly in his jeans thinking about how tight you will grip him, but you don’t touch him just yet. Instead, you shuffle yourself back, down his legs, giving yourself enough space to tug on his clothing and to ease it down his thighs. Once his pants and his boxers have reached his knees you stop there, abandoning them almost as soon as his thick, veined length is sprung free, nestling all tender against the hatch of greying hair trailing down his abdomen - where his shirt is lifted.
He’s flushed a deep colour already. Veined and needy and weeping for you. His need becomes even more urgent yet as he thinks of your hands and the way they move - the way they might touch him. Take care of him. As he thinks about you sliding your thumb over the pearl of precum at his head.
Still, he is not quite ready for the feeling when you dip forward to slide your tongue around the head of him instead, gathering that salty bead with your tongue, lapping it up with relish. He feels you hum around the head of him, the vibration sending a zip of pleasure flooding along his length. Making his balls tighten and ache already.
He wants you. He needs you. He wants you with an urgency, and yet here you are, still taking your time. Taking your time to suck at him and feel him weigh heavy over your tongue until your jaw aches from it. To grip him in your hand and marvel at the girth of him. At the way he is so sensitive that every motion and shift of your pattern makes him melt into the chair, increasingly boneless, his brow burdened with need.
You are tender with him. Careful, of his injuries. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You touch him like he’s wounded; everywhere. His whole body. His whole soul too. And he is, isn’t he? All of him is hurting? Has been for so long?
Joel groans, his lip almost splitting from biting down and stifling his moans. He never was a vocal lover but God, it’s different for you. And this time, the sound punches out of him as you shift. As you settle your cunt over him and he feels your sopping heat glide along his length for the first time. It is a non-descript sound, halfway between pain and pleasure; and instantly, concern flashes in your eyes. You pause; lift off of him with a rise of your thighs and check-in with him.
“Joel. Are you okay? Am I hurting you?”
Are you? His breath is searing in and out of his lungs. Ragged breaths, jolting his pained ribs. You have him on the edge and so alight with desire for you that his need feels unbearable. He’s aching to fill you up. His face is contorted and crumpled by his need, brows drawn down, eyes half-lidded. But is this pain? Or is this something else? Something he has forgotten.
For a moment, then, he almost answers “yes”. Yes, because he doesn’t remember anything else but pain and so, the sensation he’s feeling now? Isn’t that pain too? Is there anything else?
He’s almost grateful when he shifts slightly, writhes against the chair to buck his hips keenly up in search of you as you withdraw so cruelly from him, his muscles coiling up. He’s grateful that the shift does indeed send pain blooming through his side; because he knows then, with certainty, that you are bringing him nothing but pleasure.
He’s grateful too though, for the pain, because a pleasure like this? A pure hit of it, not cut through with anything he's more used to? Joel thinks it would be too much for him to take. Joel thinks you are too much for him. Far more than he deserves.
“Joel?” you prompt, sliding your palm against his scruff. He hears it rasp like a scraped match. “I want you.”
You don’t want me, the voice in his head sounds out. I have nothing I can give you. But those are not the words that make it to his lips. Those are not the words at all. “Then have me, sweetheart.”
Joel may have nothing he feels he can give you, but holy shit he wants everything you are offering. He wants your plush, velvet mouth. Your smooth thighs. He wants the pooling slick between your legs - and for once, just this once, he intends to allow himself to satisfy his needs.
He figures he will simply owe you a debt. Find something that you want or need and acquire it for you. He simply has to think of this like a transaction, doesn’t he? Something familiar. Something he knows. That way, he’s not taking anything he doesn’t deserve - and he sure as hell doesn’t deserve you.
Once invited back to his body, sure of what he wants, you kiss him. Deeply, hungrily, your tongue rolling and writhing against his. Your breaths just as ragged as his. Your thighs quaking next to his, your want more than evident.
You break for air and you rise up on your knees again so that you can settle over him, notching the fat, swollen head of him against your folds.
You look like a dream on top of him, and with this yellow fabric dancing about your thighs, you look to Joel like you’re wearing a sun dress. Indeed, when he looks up at you - when he blocks everything else out - you make it feel like nothing ever happened. Like nothing was ever lost.
You look just like you’re about to fuck him on his bed on white crisp sheets. Like you’ll fall asleep beside him and in the morning he’ll make you breakfast.
You look like everything he wanted and found far too late.
You are beautiful. You are good. You are gentle. Gentle still. Gentle despite everything. And where on earth did you learn that from - how on earth did you hang on to it - in a world like this? A world which has not been gentle with him. Which has been out to get him at every turn.
You are gentle with him, even when he is undeserving. Even when he has been anything but.
Gingerly then, you settle yourself over him, and once his head is notched there and your slick hand is guiding him home, he slips easily past your folds. His eyes flutter closed as he feels your warmth wrap around him, the tightness of you hugging his girth. You’re so tight that he feels like he must be splitting you apart, but the way you’re shaking for him, the way these delicious moans unravel from your mouth tells him it feels just as good for you too.
You’re gentle with him. Sinking down on him slowly. Being ever so cautious of his ribs and his bruises and scrapes. You’re making him feel so good. So close to coming undone.
But god, he’s not planning on being gentle with you.
There’s a part of Joel that wants to make love to you, sure; but he’s not even sure he’d know how to do that anymore. How to be tender. How to be gentle. And so, he reaches for you in the only way he knows how. Reaches for you with his arms, his hands. With a body that doesn’t remember pleasure - not really. With a soul that doesn’t remember anything good - not really. He reaches for you, with hands that only know how to kill things.
In the end, it’s clunky, when he extends his touch towards you. Rough - and far too desperate. He reaches for you like it’s survival - the one thing he knows how to do - and he claws at your hips, the rough pads of his flesh sinking into your skin like dough. He has the sense, at least, to check with you, to ask with words rasped through gravel in his throat if he can fill you up. And as soon as you say yes, as soon as your breathy affirmatives and pleas lilt to his ears, Joel is dragging you down on him. Spearing you -abrupt and sudden- with the fat length of his dick, surging into you all at once.
The motion, along with the sudden swell of him punches a breath from your lungs, your rib cage flaring with quick short pants. Your eyes, rolling back into your skull as you mewl his name, and god, if he wasn’t hurt he’d be drilling into you already, fucking himself up into you at a brutal pace, so long as you’d let him.
“S-sorry,” he stutters, with effort. “Too much?”
“Almost. Joel - fuck. I’m so full of you.”
He stills as you breathe around him, adjusting to his size, and as soon as you’re ready you rise up on your knees, dragging electric pleasure all along his shaft as your cunt strokes and grips him tightly.
Then, when you sink yourself down once more, impaling yourself on his length, Joel screws his eyes shut as he eases -glides- into the wet, warm cushion of you all over again. You’re so soft and tight and forgiving, your walls relenting to the girth of him, yet providing such glorious friction that it makes his head spin. Makes him see spots, the edges of his vision whiting out.
Next, Joel moves too, adjusting his hips slightly. Helping you impale yourself on him over and over like this. He keeps it going, despite the burn of pain in his ribs and his shoulder. He tries to guide you with the claws of his hands at your hips, until it begins to hurt him too much. Until all he can do is lie back and take it from you. All he can do is feel it, emitting gusty, billowing breaths from the shocked “o” of his plush lips as he attempts to stave of his end. To do all he can to take care of your end too before he spills himself.
He needs to. Needs to take care of you like this, because he can’t offer you any other damn thing.
He can’t promise to take care of you.
He can’t promise that to anyone ever again.
He will only break it.
So, no promises. But surely, he can feel pleasure, for these fleeting moments? Surely, he can give you that too, because even if he doesn’t he’s damn sure you deserve at least that much.
He reaches for you. In desperation again. Like it’s survival. Like he can’t live without this. Without you. Even though he has already. Even though he'll have to again.
For now though, for right now, he's filling you all the way up. Squeezing your juices out of you. Pushing them out with every thrust until he’s fucking you with wet, obscene sounds. Until your slick is coursing down his shaft, coating his balls, inching over him.
With a grunt, Joel gathers some slick with the two forefingers of his left hand, and he rubs the calloused pads of his fingers into your clit. You yowl at the pressure -the pleasure- and then you guide him with your hand over his, Joel quickly learning your pace and your patterns, replicating it perfectly when you release your guiding touch.
It feels so good. It feels so good and your eager, pleasured moans are billowing down to him, your cunt clenching down on him and his dick is feeling fucking blissful as you repeatedly sink yourself. It feels good - so good - and it’s more than he deserves but god, he’s going to take it. He's going to take it even if he has to be punished for it later.
He’s pretty sure the world has been punishing him for years anyway. Pretty sure it’s keeping score and will be sure to let him know about it if he dares to take too much.
For now though.
Holy shit.
It feels so good and you’re so beautiful. So perfect. Better than he could have imagined, his flattened daydreams of you nothing compared to the real thing. You’re a vision, and you’re too good for this blighted earth and you’re every bit deserving of the life Joel knows he can never give you.
It’s bittersweet and you’re beautiful; but you’re too beautiful to look at - bright like the sun in your yellow tunic, fabric moving around your thighs like a sun dress, like something you might have worn in the before times. Like you might have worn in his yard if he’d still had a home to offer you. Maybe. Maybe you would've. It kills him that he'll never know. Never know what you could have had. What he could have given you.
You’re beautiful, and god you’re too beautiful to look at and so he drags you down to his lips as you clamp down around him, squeezing him like a vice, causing pleasure to sear white hot from his middle, creamy ropes of cum filling you up as you convulse. Your spasming cunt sends jolting aftershocks zipping through his length, ekeing every last drop from him, draining him dry.
You’re too beautiful. Too good of a thing for him to hold on to - and so Joel keeps kissing you, his hands coming to cup your face as tenderly as his killing hands know how. Kissing you, for long enough that he can quash the tears which threaten to squeeze out from the corners of his eyes. He kisses you softly, his sentiments dissolving like sugar against your mouth - as sweet as he can muster.
He kisses you, until he feels the shape of your mouth morph into a smile, and that’s it. That's when he stops.
That’s when he stops, because he can’t let himself feel this. He can’t let himself feel this because he can’t pull on that thread. Not when everything he has worked so hard to push down is all knotted and tangled together. Everything he’s loved and everything he’s lost, all bundled up in his chest.
He can’t let himself feel this because it was far more than he expected to feel.
He’d thought that you would be quick. Thought -hoped- you were just using him. Like this was a transaction. That maybe this was how you collect advantages. How you’ve managed to survive. Instead though, you gave, and you took, but it was not transactional in the slightest. And Joel has nothing left in his heart or his pockets except ration cards. Nothing he can give you in return.
Most importantly though, he can’t let himself feel this, because happiness died when the world did.
Died when she did.
And, happiness?
Well - Joel doesn’t believe he deserves to feel it again.
That’s why he encourages you off of him a little too quickly, even when you pepper kisses along the column of his neck. Why he moves away a little too abruptly, even when you tongue hungrily at the salt-slick sweat which has pooled in the hollow of his throat. Why he sets his face, all stern again even as he’s still leaking out of you.
Anyway, he stands, grunting out in pain. Maybe in anguish. Pulling his pants up with his good arm, and preparing to go.
He sets his face, and he looks back at you, where you have huddled yourself in his spot on the chair, your makeshift yellow sun dress hitched up around your hips, exposing where you glisten, all slick with the evidence of what he just did with you.
You're beautiful. Too beautiful. You look like summer when he meets your eyes. A sun that is bright and constant, like it used to be before the rot clouded over the skies.
A light that is far too bright for him.
Part of him expects you to look sad. To look surprised that he has leapt up like this, motioning to leave so violently. Expects you to plead with him to give you more; but instead, you look at him levelly. Knowing, not naive. Maybe you too are clear on the limits of what’s possible. Clear that there are some things that can never be.
Still, as that soft smile plays over your face, as Joel holds the memory of your touch over his body, the bitter coffee look in his eyes sweetens just a little.
“Listen. Thanks," he states brusqely. It’s not enough. Not by any stretch. But unless you want some contraband or some shit, it’s all he’s got.
“No problem, Joel-y. I... I just wanted to take care of you. I thought you deserved that - at least once.”
Tears prick at the corners of Joel’s eyes. Stinging; but pushed down and flattened before you can even notice it. He’s not quite sure. Not quite sure whether hearing you say he deserves something he’s sure that he doesn’t counts as pleasure or pain, but he supposes that it doesn’t matter anymore anyway. He’s back to not knowing the difference. Not recognising pleasure or happiness when they stare him in the face, because now they have become strangers.
Joel nods efficiently at you. Picks up his rucksack and moves towards the doorway, trying not to think about the fact you’re still full of him. About the fact that you’re still smiling, that backlit glow of home imviting him in.
Truth be told, he can’t imagine ever being happy again.
If he could imagine it though? If he could imagine being happy, he’s sure as all hell that it would be with you.
You’re like summer, he thinks. Bright. Luminous. It's just that Joel’s not looking for the light.
For someone who’s so used to the dark? Like him? The light is blinding.
Still, he pauses in the doorway, turning back towards you for one moment more. From the surprise on your face now, he can tell you didn’t even expect that much from him - and by God, you deserve so much better.
His eyes sweeten, just a little further, and his face sets - now with a different kind of resolve. He offers his words, like they’re cupped in outstretched palms. Like he could be gentle. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“You don’t owe me a debt, Joel.”
He nods, but that doesn’t mean at all that he accepts your assertion.
His eyes tick over to the broken picture rail, right where it fractures. His gaze lingers on it for a moment, cataloguing what tools he might need to fix it. Clocking the picture frames of salvaged art you have leaning up against the wall, not yet hung.
“I said, I'll make it up to you.” You nod efficiently back at him, and Joel drinks one more long measure of you in before he leaves. Maybe it's not quite a promise, but right now, it's all he's got.
He’d burn the world down for you, he thinks, if it could change a damn thing.
Thing is though, the world has already burned.
He can’t make you many promises. Can’t keep you safe. Make you happy. Offer you a home.
He’ll only let you down.
Maybe all of that is true. Maybe it is - but Joel knows one thing for sure. You’re brighter than the sun, and, in a world full of darkness? He just can’t look away, even though you’re blinding.
839 notes · View notes
kittyball23 · 3 months
Text
True Crime (a Trolls fanfic)
Summary: Bruce hears something unexpected on the True Crime podcast he listens to
__________________________________________
Beach days were always the best.
It gave his wife Brandy the ample time she needed for a little R n R. It gave their 13 kids the fun they craved, hitting the waves and splashing about in the warm Vacay Island waters. And it gave Bruce the opportunity to kick back, tan, and listen in on the next episode of his True Crime podcast.
His kids were well-behaved for the most part (save for Bruce Jr. and his biting problem, and perhaps Freddy with his desire to stuff his body into whatever little cramped spaces there were). But, with a quick reminder to mind their manners and beware of any rough waves, he knew that they were well off.
As he settled down on the towel, he could hear the faint sounds of his children laughing and splashing, their mother floating on a surfboard nearby and watching over them. Bruce then removed his vest, rubbed tanning oil on his body, donned sunglasses, popped on his earbuds and began to play the podcast. The narrator's mysterious voice began to speak, introducing the story.
“In tonight's episode of True Crime, discover a true story about betrayal, deception, and greed, and the defeat of two nefarious villains who were finally dethroned from their treacherously influential reign…”
Bruce was already intrigued. Ooo, this is gonna be a GOOD one. He could tell. He tucked his arms behind his head and got comfortable.
“When one is a troll, there is no better way to live your life to the fullest than with hugging, dancing, and of course, singing. But for one troll, these harmless activities become the paramount of his nightmare for the next two months.”
Bruce scrunched his nose, skeptical. Singing and dancing that led to, as the narrator described, a ‘nightmare’ situation? He had to hear the rest of this.
“You never expect this sort of thing to happen to you, you know?” a new voice said, which Bruce could presume was the victim of the unfortunate scenario. “I sure didn't. They seemed like a nice pair of siblings. I never suspected anything malicious. They saw my performance, enjoyed it, and asked for some tips to boost their own careers. We had some drinks and… and the next thing I remember is waking up in a diamond bottle.”
Yikes, Bruce thought, pitying the victim. He sounded like a nice guy, too, with the calm, serene tone his voice had. Trapped in such a cramped space for so long sounded awful.
“And you won't believe who those said siblings were,” the narrator continued. He was very right in that, too. Because as soon as the podcast began to play a sample of the hit single ‘Watch Me Work,’ Bruce’s jaw practically dropped on the floor.
No way…
“Yes way. You heard correctly. Criminals in this case are none other than superstar sensations Velvet and Veneer, from the bedazzling city of Mount Rageous. But following them now, is a not-so-bedazzling record. (And we don't mean the musical kind.)”
A new female voice began to list off charges. “Troll-napping, Troll torture, not to mention tax evasion. You won't believe how many yachts, bling, and exotic PETS they illegally bought!”
Even if Bruce could believe it, he was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around the initial news. Velvet and Veneer? The well-known household names that his kids - and himself for that matter - were fans of? Well, not anymore! Hearing such things that they did made him sick. Man… it’s gonna be hard separating the art from the artist.
“And today, just two months after the duo was turned in by their assistant, Crimp, they find that their names live on forever not in fame, but in INfamy,” the narrator said.
“Oh, I feel awful,” the distinct voice of Veneer said next. “I wanted nothing more than to be famous, and… Vel made me believe that it didn’t matter HOW we did it, as long as we DID it. Even… even if it meant KILLING a troll. It was real rough - I mean, sucking up his talent was easy enough, but we were literally sucking the LIFE out of him. His skin was turning pale - and, like, not in a stunning Victorian way, either - and that magenta hair of his was turning whiter and whiter by the minute…”
Magenta? Bruce wondered. He’d known a troll once with magenta hair. His own younger brother. Could it be…? No, it couldn’t… I mean, there’s PLENTY of Trolls that have magenta hair, don’t they?
“I didn’t say anything to Velvet though because, truly, I was too afraid to stand up to her. She’s my sister! My biggest inspiration… I didn’t wanna discourage her. But now, I see that what we did was wrong. Very, VERY wrong.”
Good, Bruce thought.
“But despite the change of heart, this Mount Rageon still has to serve at least another six months in juvenile imprisonment, alongside his sister,” the narrator said. “It comes as much relief to the now-free victim.”
“Jail can’t be fun,” the same serene voice from before admitted, “but I’m glad they’re serving their time. Everyone makes mistakes, and just like it’s important to learn from them, it’s also important to pay the repercussions for your actions.”
Well said, Bruce had to admit. He also had to admit something else.
That sounds a LOT like something Floyd would say…
And if his suspicions were not enough…
“While recovery has been successful for the troll and he has plans to return to singing, he still feels as though something is missing from his life…” the narrator continued.
“I was solo-ing around for quite a bit of time before I ran into Velvet and Veneer,” the Troll said. “But, really… I would LOVE if I could perform in the band I was in years ago… but, we kind of had a fight, and ever since that fight, we haven’t seen each other. If we could reunite - oh - that’d be a dream come true. It’s been too long.”
Bruce swallowed. Twenty years is a long time…
The next part was the real kicker, though.
“Until that day, 36-year-old Floyd still holds onto the hope that he will see his bandmembers - also known as the brothers who made up the band BroZone - someday,” the narrator said.
“John Dory, Clay, Branch, Spruce… if ANY of you are listening, I want you to know that I miss you. And I want us to be a family again…” the Troll - FLOYD - said.
Bruce’s thumb went to hit the pause button. He had to stop. This was a lot to process, all at once. He was flabbergasted. Bamboozled. Shocked. He broke down everything he had heard piece by piece, trying to make sense of it.
Velvet and Veneer were baddies.
They had taken Floyd.
His brother Floyd.
They’d used his talent.
They’d almost killed him.
He would’ve never had the option of seeing his brother again.
But now, he did.
“Daddy! Daddy!” one of his kids - Windy - was suddenly calling to him. “Bruce Jr. threw sand in my eye!”
“I said I was sorry!” Bruce Jr. protested.
“Only after Mom told you to!” LaBreezy pointed out.
“Did not!” Bruce Jr. countered.
“Did too!” Cove jumped into his sister’s defense.
“Well, Daddy, aren’t you gonna punish him??” Windy demanded to know. The way he saw it, it wouldn’t be fair to let him slide!
But the way Bruce saw it… well, he wasn’t seeing anything. His brain was still overloaded with what he’d learned.
Brandy had followed the kids, curiously noting her husband’s surprised expression. “Honey?” she questioned. “Are you all right?”
Bruce looked at her resolutely.
“I… I have to find my brother…”
55 notes · View notes
scoobydoodean · 3 months
Note
Do you have siblings, and what order are you in?
How do you view and feel about Sam running away multiple times, and then in 5.16 Sam running away are the only memories he's given? (and do you think angels did that purposefully?)
I am the younger of two and I understand how Sam can run away and how it would only be about getting away from their, but that Dean would feel the brunt of it all. But I can totally imagine my older sibling understanding Dean, but not necessarily Sam's pov.
I also don't think Sam's reasoning is ever fully explained, at least in 5.16, it makes him seem much more selfish and uncaring. I think he assumed Dean was better equipped to handle living with their dad alone simply because he behaved, it just happened to be that Dean and dad were linked - and I don't really know how much they talked about their relationship with their dad till they were older.
I wonder if Dean ever would've considered leaving John and living somewhere near Sam, or even running away with Sam.
I have three siblings. I'm in the middle. Two older siblings and the caboose is 7 years younger than me. So I remember what it's like to be the baby but I also know what it's like to play older sibling to a sibling several years younger than me. My younger brother and I are also very close.
If this was all prompted by my comment the other day that I wasn't looking forward to watching "Dark Side of the Moon", I don't dislike the episode because it shows Sam running off. I do have issues with the episode, but a large part of my distaste for it is that it is generally very depressing. It being depressing in of itself isn't a criticism of the episode—it's supposed to be depressing because it's about total loss of hope and belief for Dean (and then Cas as well losing hope at the end of the episode). It's doing what it's supposed to do in that sense. It's just hard to watch. Unfortunately, a lot of people take the bleakness of it and the idea that Dean is a burden and etc as truth and not manipulation meant to drive him to say "yes", and that also makes me rather sour about it.
I don't care that Sam wanted to go to college, or that he was happy at another family's thanksgiving at one point in his life. The Flagstaff memory bothers me a little because Sam's fond recollection of it, unmarred by any negative associations, clearly suggests he didn't face any consequences for running off once John found him. The fact that he never even into his adult life considered that Dean might have faced consequences does feel rather self-centered, and that's on purpose. I don't care that Sam went to school or that there were points as a kid where he wanted to run off.
I do disagree with the premise that Sam still desires some normal core Thanksgiving. I simply don't think that would be a favorite memory for Sam anymore. Just a few episodes prior to this, in "Swap Meat", Sam sat down with someone else's family for a normal, family dinner and he hated it. He found Gary's parents absolutely obnoxious. He told Gary afterward that he envied his life, only to turn to Dean and say he lied.
SAM I totally lied. That kid's life sucked ass. All that apple-pie, family crap? It's stressful. Trust me – we didn't miss a damn thing.
Or observe earlier in the episode:
DEAN You ever think that you'd want something like that? Wife, rugrats, the whole nine? SAM No, not really my thing anymore.
In fact, it's Dean who envies the normal life in "Swap Meat" and several other episodes (ex: 2.20, 4.19) whereas Sam indicates several times that a normal life is not something he wants (2.02, 2.10, 2.20, 4.08, 4.19, 5.12). In 4.08 and in 2.20, Sam in fact overtly states that he would not go back and choose a normal life now if he could go back. In 3.01, 4.19, and in 5.06, Sam also heavily emphasizes the importance of family within the hunting dynamic. I track a lot of this within the tag #sam the hunter.
I think there is a strong argument to be made that Zachariah ran them through heaven like rats in a maze in 5.16, directing them toward certain memories and not others in order to make Dean believe that Sam doesn't care for him (I have a separate post to make about this in more detail). However, I don't believe Zachariah forced in memories that aren't "greatest hits". I think he just drove them away from any happy memories Sam has with Dean and toward ones where Sam grasped independence from John, misappropriated to make Dean feel Sam doesn't care about Dean or appreciate/recognize his sacrifices (the former is not true, but the latter is in fact true in many cases).
Note though that when Joshua arrives and takes them to heaven's garden:
SAM: This is heaven’s Garden? DEAN: It’s-it’s nice… ish. I guess. JOSHUA: You see what you want to here. For some it’s God’s throne room; for others it’s Eden. You two, I believe it’s the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. You came here on a field trip.
So right there, we have a shared favorite memory, right after (presumably) any potential influence Zachariah had on what memories they were seeing was eliminated.
What primarily irritates me about this episode and many other Dabb/Loflin episodes is their perpetual need to insert the narrative that Sam wants a normal life he explicitly states he does not want over and over and over in everyone else's episodes, while they write Dean as someone who says things like "I mean, we’re supposed to be a team. It’s supposed to be you and me against the world, right?" It implies a sort of desperation vs apathy that, even when contradicted in subtler ways, I just don't find interesting... And yet they seem to harp on the same dramatic "misunderstanding" over and over and over for all eternity. And Dabb continues it after cutting ties with Loflin. In fact he continues to toy with these obnoxious dramatics to the very end of the series in a way I find unbelievably tired and obnoxious and I resent it. He's the same one-trick pony when it comes to his ideas on Dean and Cas conflicts in the later seasons.
As to your last bit there: Dean did consider running off. We see this in "Bad Boys", and in that episode, we also see that Dean doesn't end up abandoning their family because he felt Sam needed him. We hear a similar narrative in regards to John in 1.06 from the mouth of the shifter—that Dean had dreams of his own, but Dean felt that John needed him, so Dean stayed. John echoes this when he says that he was an emotional wreck and Dean took care of him (2.01). We see Dean also taking care of Mary in "Dark Side of the Moon" after she gets off the phone with John, upset. 5.16 casts Dean as someone perpetually sacrificing his own needs for his family, but unappreciated all the while. In fact, Sam doesn't recognize any of his sacrifices. Dean is nothing more than a blood offering on the altar of family. Zachariah intends this narrative and leans into it heavily in the scene where he explicitly manipulates what Sam and Dean are seeing.
MARY: Don’t you walk away from me. I never loved you. You were my burden. I was shackled to you. Look what it got me. The worst was the smell. The pain, well. What can you say about your skin bubbling off? But the smell was so… You know, for a second I thought I’d left a pot roast burning in the oven. But… it was my meat. And then, finally, I was dead. The one silver lining was that at least I was away from you.
Zachariah has Mary speak about Dean being a burden to his family and to her, but it's potentially more layered than "Dean has abandonment issues". What Mary says about being shackled to Dean—being burdened by her child—firmly recollects Dean's claim to Cas in 5.03 that he's chained to his family through responsibility, and that finally being away from Sam is a relief. This fake Mary says death was her escape from similar chains of responsibility to her loved ones. It was the only escape. Burned up and dead but finally free. There's an implication there that Dean can finally escape responsibility in a similar way, and in two episodes, Dean is going to try and escape by saying "Yes".
44 notes · View notes
You watch Bang Brave Bang Bravern and you ask yourself, how much of this was intentional and how much casual.
The girl in the box is an actual child. We see her grown up in the future, and her face and body changed, she is a child and she get adopted and watch cartoon and does not have a romantic relationship with one of the leads. But her body is still sexy, and in the beach episode she have a bikini and low waist jeans, and her tits giggle, and it is normal for tits to giggle, but was this fanservice for the classic mecha public, was it a critic to how these character are represented. She is a baby, but we see a shot of her ass, and we are not sure if the very cis very male director didn't do this scene as a consolation price to the men forced to draw oiled abs and men grinding on each others.
The CIA waterboard the protagonist, and it is a traumatic experience not even being saved and thanked can cancel out. There are two other waterboarding scenes after, one against a child and one against a giant robot. They both play comedically, because they both fail. It is just to show how the genre of the story changed, from real robot to super robot, or does it means more? Is it a critic to the system of torturing people to get information, because it will never function, and maybe waterboarding a giant robot will not get you anything, or is it just for laugh?
And you ask yourself, why are you asking these questions on a gay mecha anime, and well, i would not ask these questions if it was not a gay mecha anime.
It is a show decided to change genre three times and mix real robot and super robots in a gay romance that save the worls, and it is meant to be a love story to the old super robot genre, and to aks the question of why these type of stories exists. Maybe i should ask myself these questions.
They reference evangelion, but they are not able to give a woman character space, and you have no idea if it is for parody or for being unable to do it. There is an autistic fujoshi, and she is only an autistic fujoshi. There is the woman love the protagonist, and she save his life, but she is not important to the plot to she stay on the sideline. They tell you the military is not that bad, and you close your eyes to it because it is set in a not so far future and maybe things have changed, and than they give you two men singing a love song to each others shirtless.
And then the story tell you that the desire to die honorably, the very japanese feeling of getting out in a spectacle, is not good. It is actually what the evil guys want, to die honorably. You deserve to live, and you deserve to want to live. You can say no and hope in a future with the men you love. And if you want to live any diegetic explication for the super robot effects will disappear, and people will be able to transfer you the energy to resuscitate the commands and transform in the final gold form, and your hairs get longer and you can now defeat the final main guy, a giant angel created from the deaths of your other enemies. And since now everything does not need anymore to make sense, your partner is send to you again, for a third time, and you want to kill him for what he put you thought but you take his hand and the sky is blue and everyone is happy and the world is saved.
Where does the comedy end. Where do the serious thoughts start. How does the fanservice, and which kind of fanservice, control the plot. And it is a gay mecha show.
26 notes · View notes
ineffably-human · 8 months
Text
Today in 'Shadows things hundreds of people have decided are true that I really don't understand at all,' we have... [spins wheel]
'Nandor's seasons-long burning desire to become human' - everyone here knows what a cult is, right?
Like at its most cliche, we understand how cult leaders work in fiction, at least? They say 'hey, dude, you seem very lost and in despair. Good thing I know a secret key to Paradise nobody else does, and I alone am equipped to get you there, and also I understand you better than anyone else in the outside world ever will.'
Nandor came to Jan in an existential crisis with no idea of what would help him, and left convinced that becoming human would do the trick. (This is because Jan is good at her evil job.) He dove into that belief because he was diving into a cult and that's what they do. He felt that vampirism was a curse because he was in the middle of a huge emotional crisis, and his new way out of that crisis was telling him vampirism is a bad thing that is causing his problems (instead of loneliness, a poorly fitting job, sudden changes in his close servant-friend, existential stuff humans go through as well...)
When he's out of that crisis, he never mentions becoming human again. He never mentions feeling cursed by vampirism again. In fact: he visits his homeland where everyone else became vampires, and decides that if everyone else is a vampire there's nothing special about being a vampire. (Read: in normal circumstances, with the chance to feed his ego, he feels special being a vampire.) In fact: when given fifty-two wishes that we see him use on his body multiple times, he doesn't use them to be human, or to do any human things.
I can see why, in the throes of S3, you could pin some of his backstory onto the Jan thing and see it as Nandor resenting being turned. Nandor is the one who lost more than he gained being a vampire, in terms of his glory days etc. We know nothing about how it happened or if he wanted it. The first time he tells it, all his wives left him because he suddenly changed into this dangerous unpredictable monster.
But the second time we hear it, in s4, it's implied that when he became a vampire he suddenly abandoned them all? (It's pretty vague tbh.) Also it's made extremely clear he was a terrible husband to start with. If the thing with razing Antipaxos doesn't tell you enough, his behavior in s4 seals it in: the peak of Nandor's human life was as a violent, insecure bully, who took everything he even imagined he wanted and never slowed down enough to understand how empty he felt.
Being a vampire gave Nandor time and space to think about parts of life he'd never have considered when he was alive. The losses he felt allowed him to be more patient and more sober. He enjoys fighting and violence now, but he seems to think about honor and mercy just as much. You could argue that Nandor's main personal arc - his 'I'm okay, you're okay' if you will - is accepting the person he is now over the person he used to be. Think of how much more natural his leadership was this season rallying the vampires in a crisis, instead of the forced protocols and rituals of the earlier seasons.
I don't think that someone with one foot in a world that literally doesn't exist anymore, who has trouble talking to most people outside the house and loves to watch familiars fight to the death, would be happy as a human. I think he'd work a day or get a single summer cold, and beg Laszlo to turn him again, actually.
(I don't think he and Guillermo would have a great relationship if they were both human, either - these are people who bond over knight-vassal courtly love vibes and trying to kill each other. What can life as a mortal couple possibly offer to fulfill them?)
But all of that is speculation. Here's what isn't: Nandor wants to be a human for a single episode of the show. It is not a richly established part of his character. If we're talking pure facts, it's a thing that happened that one time, and has never been spoken of again.
51 notes · View notes
streettealee · 11 months
Text
Some thoughts
Morpheus is kind. I know a lot of folks say he isn’t or he is but only to those who matter, but... hear me out: he’s the personification of dreaming. He’s literally king of The Dreaming. And we see time and time again how kind he is. And how powerful.
I remember watching about the first half of the season - or, say, the very first few episodes - and thinking “wow, maybe some of these characters are right, dreams do seem pretty useless.” That’s where I realised, at first, the kindness. The kindness of a pleasant dream while you die in your sleep to ease a horrible suffering. The sort that perhaps not many understand. But it is still a kindness in the only way Morpheus can do. I thought he was still sort of weak then, but kind. He could do this for people. Give them peace and temporary joys.
Morpheus genuinely seems to mourn Lyta’s loss, as much as she and her accidental involvement in The Dreaming due to the vortex damaged his realm. Now, I haven’t read the comics or graphic novels, so I don’t know anything beyond Netflix’s first season so far. It is with regret that he has to send back the ghost of Lyta’s husband and tell her she could not come to The Dreaming pursuing a life in it anymore. In the moment, it feels horrible, but he lets her keep the baby, I think, as one last favour. The idea that he was cruel in stating the baby belonged to him because it was conceived in The Dreaming and that he would come for it (unknown when) is fair, and maybe it would be perceived as a twisted sort of kindness. And unless I’m mistaken, he did not specify when he would take the child. He may yet either change his mind or retrieve this child much later down the track after a full life (you can argue with me on this as I’m not entirely sure about any background lore or if I’m forgetting something from the episodes). But I consider this another demonstration of the kindness that he is allowed to show, that follows the rules of dreams.
As an aside, I think that’s pretty incredible, the way the writers were able to convey the subtlety of Dream’s power. There are rules, of course, that the Endless seem to follow, but also limitations for each of their purposes (Death can only deal in death, Dream only with dreams, Desire with desire, and so on). This has all probably been said before, I didn’t dig deep enough yet, but I still wanted to express my admiration and awe over all this.
Anyway, back to subtleties and power and small acts of kindness. It wasn’t until Morpheus, Dream, was facing down Lucifer Morningstar in Hell that I really understood his power. At first, I was very afraid for him, because I also did not see how Dream could win out against all that Hell represents, no matter if Dream also includes nightmares. (Honestly, the episode title ‘A Hope In Hell’ should have been a dead giveaway for me, but hush, I was thinking of a song by that title instead at the time.) Of course, there was Matthew’s kind of cheesy line that “dreams don’t fucking die”, and then Morpheus’ winning move against Lucifer was “hope” which is very much the essence of dreams that I really understood the level of his power. Hope is what persists, as is famously known to do so with teeth bare and knuckles bloody, and maybe it was simple but it really hit me then. There is a lot that can be done to crush hope, but look to yourself: even in the most hopeless points of your life, there are dreams. A dream of something better, something different, something else, something full of revenge maybe, something that is beautiful and soul-saving - whatever it is, I believe, there will always be that. There will always be a hope in hell. And I know I’m just spelling out the whole idea behind that episode, but the simple power of hope, and the kindness of dreams giving that hope to you - the kindness of Dream himself - is pretty fucking powerful.
Perhaps Morpheus was not always this way. We hear from many characters that he has changed since his containment. We hear often, too, that he is selfish. But there is so much commentary from others about who he is, what he’s like, his true ugly self and yet... all I see is kindness. The kindness, perhaps, that these otherworldly only know how to do. They do not know of human acts of kindness as they do not have the luxury of being human. But they understand a sort of mercy. And gentleness. We see many struggling to understand over the course of the show that the Endless only exist because of humans, and we see Morpheus learn this, and that is perhaps where he finds this deep respect that fosters his kinder side.
Nightmares are awful. But Dream removes those too for those who do not deserve the torture of them in the show. If I recall correctly, he does at one point address nightmares as being challenges that dreamers have to face to overcome their fears, and it is in that way he is trying to do them a favour. For he also works in revelations too, to aid in a dreamer’s understanding. But when a nightmare is focused on a trauma or horrible event, we see Morpheus provide comfort where he can and, in some cases, remove these nightmares. We can also see him alter people’s entire perspectives too, through various means, and again, I am just amazed at this subtle power. He does not have to use thunder and lightning like some god, he does not have to hold a knife to anyone’s neck, he does not have to speak very loud at all or deliver threats of dismemberment. No, he works in smaller ways. And I absolutely love that.
Look, I’ve only done one watch through over the course of three days. There’s probably a ton I’m missing and this is just the very on-the-nose, tip of the iceberg sort of thing. There’s probably stuff I’m forgetting, background things I don’t know, and overall, this is probably just a very basic look at obvious key themes. Whatever. The point of this was to express my excitement and enthusiasm for this new discovery I’ve made. I think this show is brilliant in so many ways. Morpheus is a fascinating character. I have a feeling him and this story will be on my mind for a while.
64 notes · View notes
acelucky · 10 months
Text
How they react to being called Daddy...
I recently really got back into The Walking Dead, and now I only have one episode left and frankly I’ve been putting off watching it as I’m worried it’ll break me. But in the meantime I got some inspiration to write a few TWD head canons and short fics for the first time in ages. Below is the first of these, featuring Abraham, Negan, Daryl, Eugene and Gabriel (There may be a part 2). 
Any Minors/Under 18 - DNI!
Warnings: Stating the obvious, but use of the word ‘daddy’ in the bedroom, sexually explicit language, spanking, cock-warming, thigh-riding, associated anxiety, questions of faith, choking.
Abraham
He’s a daddy and he knows it.
So Abraham is over the moon when you call him daddy for the first time, and he cannot hide how excited he is about it.
Loves it when you call him that, mostly during sex but occasionally around others, when eating or out and about, if you quietly agree with him and whisper, Yes daddy, it sends shivers down his spine.
And deep down it’s because Abraham is a big teddy bear who has a soft heart, it makes him so proud to know you love him and feel both safe and confident enough to call him that.
Will absolutely shower you with praise, love and kindness. Brings you gifts and all that sweet stuff, because you’re right, he is a Daddy and he needs you to know how good he is at looking after you.
Abraham likes it rough and fast, a lot of the time. But not all the time, he can take it slow, full of burning desire and love making – but in the world they live in there often isn’t time for that. Fucking isn’t an art anymore, fucking is survival and to survive he knows you have to be quick. Being called Daddy helps him get there quicker, it also puts him into quick/desperate fuck mode. He’ll be faster and rougher too with fingers or his lips/tongue, but that doesn’t mean he’s sloppy, he knows exactly what he’s doing and how to get his partner there in a minute or less. Being called Daddy inspires him to get the job done better.
If you’re into it, he’ll love it when you lay across his lap to be spanked.
One of the aftercare kings. “Baby, what can daddy do to make you feel better?”
Will probably tell a few others he’s been called Daddy, he’s so proud of it and we all know what he’s like. But he wouldn’t just blab to anyone, I think he’s more likely to confide in the people he’s closest to about how happy he is.
Daryl
It takes Daryl a long time to feel comfortable enough with someone that he’ll want to get intimate with them.
So calling him Daddy is absolutely not something you can just rush into as it’s likely to freak him out and make him become quieter around you again.
When he hears it for the first time, he suspects you have been wanting to say it for a while, there’s some trepidation in their voice, you open their mouth as if wanting to say something several times before you do. And when they do with your cheeks all aflush, eyes looking away and immediately finding yourself having to apologise apologise.
And all of this is enough for Daryl to understand and not be afraid of the next level.
“S’ok baby, you can call me daddy if want.” He responds softly as he strokes your hair, continuing to roll his hips slowly, eliciting small moans from you.
If you explain it’s just because of how safe you feel, Daryl can’t help but kiss you over and over, not wanting to break the kiss or contact he’s currently experiencing. He’ll edge himself until he cannot hold it back any longer.
So for Daryl, Daddy is more of a comfort thing, a love thing and less of a power play thing.
Bonus – he loves having you sat in his lap when he’s around others so he can occasionally whisper in your ear/play with hair or stroke cheek. He isn’t big on PDA but this is the one thing he likes, the closeness. Having a partner helps Daryl to drop his defences when around the others and allows him to be vulnerable. 
Inevitability all of the above leads to cockwarming, on special occasions... Daryl isn’t really sure who is in control at this point, he just feels bliss.
Negan
This King will have the biggest smirk on his face when you call him that for the first time, like you would not believe.
In fact if after you’ve been dating a while you haven’t called him it he’s going to bring it up himself when in bed together and ask if you’d call him it, he asks in such a way that you simply cannot refuse.
King of the daddies and keen at encouraging you to ride his thigh ‘bare’ back.
Calling him daddy over and over along with generally being very vocal in bed is a sure way to get him riled up and likely reaching orgasm quickly. He doesn’t have the best control and when you have so many dirty words spilling from your mouth and calling him Daddy he just can’t help it.
Will ask, “Who’s your daddy?” When in the bedroom, especially if taking them from behind and your back is flush to his chest.
Spanking – yeah he’s into it, mostly during sex if he’s fucking his partner stood up or from behind. He knows it’s one of the ways he can get you to call him Daddy and watching your flesh turn red and wobble is such a turn on for him.
Also a fan of choking – but only if you are too. Having you in a chokehold and feeling your delicate pulse under his fingers is such a thrill, to know you love him and trust him enough to put your life in his hands, ugh, it’s the thing dreams are made of. He worries sometimes about his fascination with the ‘chokehold’ he wasn’t like this before…but then most people have changed. Everyone has their coping mechanisms, his just happens to involve sex and the one he loves.
Also really good at after-care, may chuckle a bit when he smooths your cheeks over or anywhere else that’s aching.
Eugene
Will think you’re making fun of him, no one has ever used that word to describe him. He’d stop whatever the two of you were doing and turn tomato red, likely this would be the end of your make out session.
It’s because to begin with it makes him uncomfortable, truth be told – he doesn’t really get it at first and would prefer if you called him pretty much anything else.
At least at first, there’s a small part of Eugene that gets excited by being called Daddy and he cannot quite comprehend why. Perhaps it’s because of how most people see him, or how they saw him for a long time, now this word brings confidence in himself.
The above being said, if you talk to him about why you like to use that word in the bedroom and he understands the intention behind it, he’s on board. It just takes him a little while.
And then he really likes it, he still doesn’t get why you’d call him that, but it makes him feel adored and like he’s worthy.
He’ll give dirty talk a go, it’s not his forte and he’d rather be submissive, but just occasionally he’s happy to switch it up, though there is definitely an element of acting rather than it coming naturally to him. So it’s unlikely he’ll initiate you calling him that in the bedroom, but on the occasions you do, he can play into the role.
Gabriel
“I’m used to being called Father….but not Daddy….”
Yup, being called this may bring up some issues for Gabriel…
He gets a little bashful and shy the first few times and in his awkwardness completely desn’t know where he should look or what to do with his hands.
But he isn’t against it per say, he’s able to separate religion and romance/intimate moments in a way that’s admirable considering what he does and his beliefs.
It will still take him a while to get comfortable with the idea, and he’s quite honest with you about that. As long as you’re willing to listen and be respectful of his boundaries, he’s happy to embark on the fantasy with you.
And secretly he comes to adore being called that, it can still make him go a little awkward but in a matter of moments he’ll warm up to it and the role…well it fits him like a glove.
Gabriel loves it if you’re in control, riding him while calling him Daddy. It makes his heart flutter and sends him into a state of seeing stars. He never knew it could feel this good.
Prefers it if you save calling him daddy for special occasions so that it doesn’t feel like that’s how you see him on a day-to-day basis. He prefers the connection to be on the same level generally, but every now and then he’s down.
43 notes · View notes
motherofplatypus · 11 months
Text
Miraculous Finale Review: Part 2 (Recreation)
Welcome back y'all, I hope you had a nice break from Conformation, because we are continuing our ride to the abyss.
You think S3 ending was bad? You think Simpleman was bad? You think Ephemeral was bad? You think Penalteam was bad? You think Evolution was bad? You think Destruction was bad? You think DERISION was bad? Well, say hello to Recreation, where you'll be taken for a long ride to the tunnel of The Writers Gonna Prove You're Wrong By Showing You How Much Worse They Could Go.
Tumblr media
Yeah, idk why i put that gif there, but i really like it when i found it.
Anyway, may the great lord have mercy on the poor souls watching this episode. Because this? This is just a huge, massive, gigantic, gargantuan, cosmic, heaven through hell level of no. In every single way possible. This is a disgrace on every writers out there. Everything is so wrong that I don't even know where to start.
I'll just go with something small and talk about the fight between Bugnoire (ugh) and Monarch. Remember when Hawkmoth beat the crap out of both heroes with just the butterfly miraculous, a miraculous that's not designed for a direct fight? Now he has one that can one hit K.O, one that can transport him anywhere, two that grants defense, one that can transform him into any element, one that can paralyze the opponent by showing them their deepest desire, one that can grant any superpower (stupid power), one that can disrupt his opponents power, one that can shrink and multiply himself where each of his replica can use the One Hit K.O power, and one that literally can turn back time (sure he can't use it anymore since it eats away his life, but desperate time takes desperate measures).
There's countless combination where he can win with literally no effort. How the hell did he lose, if not because of divine level plot armor?
And the way Ladybug (I aint calling her Bugnoire. But I'll admit i like the costume) so easily took the rings? Something that should've happened in Intuition? So not only did they kick Adrien out from the finale, they also had to insult his intelligence by showing how easy it was for Mari to do it. Hooray for Girl Power That Exist By Degrading Male Characters Into Moronic Dumbass Creatures.
Also, Ladybug now can summon a Lucky Charm to her liking? I mean, a piano, a baseball bat, and handcuffs? And she can do it infinitely now. So what's the point of the goat miraculous then?
"But the cat and tiger have similar power."
The cat caused bad things to happen to whatever they touch, and those bad things tend to be destructive. The tiger only cause destruction by punching it real hard Sure, Ladybug has more utility whereas goat has more flexibility in terms of power, but I'm adding it here because it's just total BS.
And we were robbed of LB and CN vs Monarch, but I already rant about it in part one, so I'll save room for other points.
Quick reminder on previous post, remember the whole quantum essence thingy that makes those walking Q-Tips able to track Ladybug because they're inserted with the essence of both the Ladybug and Black Cat power? Now Bugnoire has both, why aren't they going after her?
On to the next one, how is Lila isn't affected by the nightmare? And no, I'm not buying the "She actually got it, but it's off-screen" excuse. She already used it on her sudden friendship with Kagami, and if you think that excuse can be used again, in the finale, you're dead wrong.
Then things got worse with the end credit scene where Lila (she called herself Iris, but i refuse to call her that) just rolled in to a new school just by asking Damocles to let her in. Hello? Administration? I get it if she's the mayor's kid or something, but she's nobody. Classic miraculous, you never fail to disappoint me with your lack of logic.
Speaking of lack of logic, we got Mirakungfu (?) Luka and co. Just when i thought the show couldn't get any worse with their lack of explanation (sarcasm), they introduced this.
Where or when or why or how any of this was written in without prior hint or scene or anything that isn't going to get explained from a tweet where That Guy gonna block anyone who as slightly as disagreeing with him, i have absolutely no idea, and I'm used to it. I mean, sure, why not? Drop all the plot convenience, plot armor, retcon, and Deus Ex Machina in the finale. Heck, I'm suprised that Goku and Naruto didn't appear to find the One Piece under the Eiffel Tower and they become the World's Greatest Chef to finally defeat the Founding Titan who controls an army of Shinigami.
Dear Neptune, who the hell wrote this scene?
Tumblr media
Makes sense.
And I honestly don't know how it could get any worse, but at the same time we know it will get worse.
And Su-Han, you said you left to get some help from the temple in Multiplication, where is that help? Don't tell me the help is Luka and co who just learned how to kick asses off screen a few weeks ago? Good grief.
Still talking about the Mirakung-fuck-the-logic, we got Bunnyx. Yeaaaay. Oh wait, it's the adult version. The younger one still exiled.
What did she said? She can't meddle with the present, but Luka and co can? Yeah, that's right, and she proceeds to transport them to Paris, which literally her meddling with the present.
"Well she's not actually doing something there, so technically she's not wrong."
Technicality, technicality. Well technically I'm gonna whoop yo arse with a baseball bat if i met you, writers. Be ready.
Moving on to Gabriel's wish. He won, hooray or oh nooo, I couldn't care about it anymore. Anyway, we're shown how to make the wish, by calling the true form of Tikki and Plagg and call upon Gimmi.
First off, it's a waste of time showing their true form if in the end you're just gonna call someone else. It's like having the reception to dress like a queen just to ask them where the manager is. But you all know why this happen, since they need more dolls to sell.
Second, if all he needs to do is to call their true form, then why on heaven through hell didn't he just do that in Deflagration? He doesn't need to unify them, he just need to call. His victory was literally at hand and he can win, but OF COURSE they gotta drag things even further because they forbid logic to even exist in this stupid show! This is the entire conflict of the show, his main goal, and something he already knows how to do it, so tell me why on earth did—y'know what? Fuck it. I never see anyone complain about this plot hole, so certainly its not even relevant.
And now, the time has come, to talk about the reasons why this finale is not only bad, it's straight up something that will go down in cinema history as the worst thing that could ever exist. So take a deep breath, cause we're near the end.
Tumblr media
The pure, unfiltered, audacity they had to not letting Adrien learn the truth of either his father and Chat Blanc. The two most important things of his character, all gone wasted. All because they forbid this boy to show actual emotion and becomes an interesting character that exist outside of being a simp and a trophy wife.
"But he know about Chat Blanc from his nightmare."
Mate, that's his nightmare. Nightmare is terrifying, but it's not real. We know that's something that happened, but he doesn't. That's just a horrible nightmare that he constantly has because of the akuma. He never know that it's actually real, and will never know.
Plus, that's Anticat, not Chat Blanc. Different name, different identity, different everything, but the same BS.
And then another pure, unfiltered, audacity of Gabe telling Marinette to not tell Adrien about the villain he is but instead the time he tried to be a good father? This is the funniest joke I've ever heard in the show.
What exactly did you try to do to be a good father? Making pancakes that even flies said "I ain't eating that shit"?
You literally imprisoned your son, never spent time with him until you know you're dying, cut him off from society, make him as your forced labor for your brand against his will and violates the rights of children, not letting him love the girl he wants, forcing him to get together with his ex, fly him off to the other side of the world away from his friends, akumatized people that you know is after him, gave your son nightmare to get your ultimate plan to work, using parental authority to abuse him mentally, and you were trying to turn him into a villain!
Audacity.
And then there's another pure, unfiltered, audacity of making Marinette (deep sigh) forgave Gabriel.
"But she didn't actually forgave him."
She showed him kindness. She offered him another chance in his last moment. After everything he did. After all the people he hurt. After he literally responsible for her losing her life as a teenager.
He turned your whole family into villains, the whole world into mindless puppets, turned a pregnant lady into a villain, and have you forgotten that he turned your partner into a literal world destroyer that gave you PTSD? Sure, Chloe made you suffer and you won't forgive her, but him? Who did the same, if not universally worse? You could show him kindness?
"But it's because she's worried about Adrien—"
Adrien. Adrien. ADRIEN! THE PERFECT BOY THE PERFECT SON THE PERFECT THIS AND THAT AND AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH I HATE THAT GUY! HE IS ONLY PERFECTLY WASTED AND USELESS! SNAP HIM OUT OF EXISTENCE RIGHT NOW! HIS EXISTENCE RUINED EVERYTHING!
Tumblr media
I would love to end things right there and then because I'm sick of it. But no, the king of the worst thing to ever exist in history have yet to be talked about. This is the realest and most absolute fucked up thing in history of kids show.
Gabe becomes a hero
I know we shouldn't ask what they were thinking, but just why? What did he do to deserve a statue and the title of a hero? He's a fashion designer in public eyes, and that's about it. But that's not what's fucked up about it.
How could you even think that a girl who was mentally abused by her mother, never raised properly by her father, had to ask her mother why she doesn't love her, never known love, was disowned by her father for his own incompetence of raising her, and left with her abusive mother to be raised with most likely another series of abuse, as someone who is irredeemable?
And how could you even think that a terrorist, who's so fully aware and willingly imprisoned his son, cut him off from social life, prevents him from loving someone he choose, literally turned him into his slave to work for his business, and who would straight up beat him up once he learn he's a superhero, as a sympathetic villain?
"But people in the show doesn't know that."
Yes. That's true. But we know. We've seen what he had done. We've seen how rotten he is. We've seen how slowly crumbling into dust is a fate he deserves and we enjoy every second of it. And yet, after every vile things he had done, until the very end, Thomas and co still putting him under the "sympathetic villain" spotlight.
I know many of you who read this will try to defend Thomas and the writing. Trying to reason and excuse what he did here. But I'm sorry, I will not accept it. Even if he apologize, i will not accept it. Because this is beyond messed up. This is basically him spitting on the face of people who have been abused. This is him saying abuser deserves to be glorified.
Tell me folks: what logical reason do you have that you see a child abuser as someone who deserves to be seen as a hero?
This is no longer a matter of whether someone is an asshole or not. This is concerning on terrifying level.
I'm here to say this once, to all of you who still support the show: I'm concerned and sorry for you. The show that you loved, the show that brought you joy, the show that you may have recommended to other people and praise it, it was created by a monster.
Im not even gonna bother scoring it. This is not something that kids should watch. The message is too horrible to be let slide. It doesn't matter how good the animation and action is, they've spat on victims of abuse, and they're happy with it.
That being said, this has been my review. You can agree or disagree, just keep it civil with someone else who have an opinion. I know i might missed a lot of points, and I'm genuinely sorry if in the last part of this post i might be a bit too offensive even for salt post standard. But now, I'd like to hear your opinion. Was i exaggerating stuff or i made a wrong statement. Was i wrong for calling That Guy like that? Let me know, cuz you might help me see things in a different light.
46 notes · View notes