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thought--bubble · 4 months

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Dreamin of You

Modern Dark Actor Aemond X (Non-Famous GF Reader)

Warnings below

Word Count: 3065

Modern Aemond Masterlist

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Banners by @arcielee

Warnings:: Jealousy, possessive behavior, obsessive behavior, Dubcon, insecurity, unprotected sex (p in v), oral sex (F receiving)

Based on THIS request

"Aemond! Over here!" You cringe at the noise, a man with a camera nearly screeching into your ear.

Aemond shields his eyes, trying to block out the flashing of the cameras as he tightens his arm around you, pulling you through the crowd.

It has been about a year since he got his big break. The leading man on a hit show that streams on Netflix. One of this year's biggest hits.

His life entirely changed nearly overnight, changing yours right along with it. You could no longer go out in public with him. You would be swarmed by cameras and people reaching out and grabbing at him. Women yelled out to him that they loved him.

Oh, how the women scream for him.

It doesn't surprise you. He is handsome and charming, not to mention tall, with a jawline that could cut diamonds.

Aemond used to be a quiet man. Hiding in the shadows. Shy and self-conscious. His disability made him bow out from most social situations unless you were there.

You had met Aemond back in primary school. Growing up beside him, you knew him better than anyone else. Or at least you used to.

The man standing beside you now, curling you up in his arm, is not the same man he was just one short year ago, and the realization hit you recently.

You had accompanied him to a photo shoot as you often do. Watching him flit about the place, shaking hands and charming them all with that beautiful smile. The two female models on set hanging on his every word. One being so forward as to brush her hand on his arm. Which he allowed.

Every day, you felt the pressure of his newfound fame start to squeeze into every facet of your life.

You had never been an insecure person. Never. Now you found yourself constantly comparing.

Aemond had been approached by models, a fellow actress, and even a pretty popular musician, and when you look at them and then at yourself, it's obvious that there is simply no comparison.

He is going to leave you or cheat on you at some point, which has you constantly on edge. You had been denying this, but what man wouldn't? What man would stay with his average before fame girlfriend when he could have a lingerie model? A pop star?

You know that he loves you and you love him too, but sometimes love is just not enough.

That's how you find yourself here. Standing in his living room, watching him update his Instagram after fighting your way through a sea of photographers.

Your stomach feels sick as you watch him, trying to build up the courage to say what has been bouncing around in your head for weeks.

"It's time," you whisper to yourself.

You clear your throat as you gently shake out your limbs. "Aemond? I....I need to talk to you."

"Course." He doesn't lift his head from his phone, no doubt jumping on every notification coming from his social media accounts.

"It's important"

He lifts his head and furrows his brow.

"Everything alright, love?" He turns his phone screen down toward his lap to show you that you have his full attention.

You open your mouth to speak and immediately the anxiety of what you're about to do hits you like a tidal wave. Am I doing this? Really doing this?

Aemond can sense the panic that is coursing through you and stands up and quickly walks to you, taking your hands.

"Don't be afraid, love, tell me what's going on," He squeezes gently. His tenderness makes this all so much more difficult.

"I think it's...... Aemond? I..... I'm leaving" the relief you feel at finally telling him is soothing, it's done. You've said it. No take backs.

"Leave?" Aemond grips his phone tightly, his knuckles turning white as he turns his head from you. "Leave where? Go where? For what purpose?"

"Aemond..... I mean leave..... us. This" You turn your head in an effort to avoid that eye. You know you shouldn't look away. It's you who is doing this to the both of you. What right do you have to be sad?

The gentleness on his face is replaced with shock, and he turns his back to you, taking a few steps away. His silence is deafening, but you want to be fair. Give him a moment to process this.

"I... I just don't think we fit anymore, I'm so happy for you, Aemond. You're so talented, and all this that's happening to you? You deserve it, and i want you to have it." You recoil slightly at your own words. You've been thinking it for months, but saying it out loud, saying it to him. It's so painful. So final. "But, there's no room here for me anymore"

As you feel the all too familiar sting in your eyes, you watch his form turned away from you. You want him to look at you. Let you know that he understands that you don't want to hurt him. That this is what is best for both of you.

Instead, he chuckles, and you're hit with a wave of confusion before he turns around and stalks toward you. "Leaving? You think you're leaving me?" The smirk that creeps its way onto his face sends shivers down your spine.

He clicks his tongue as he reaches you, pulling you in tight against his chest.

"You don't get to leave." He coos. "No, my darling, you'll stay right here." he gently runs his fingers through your hair, the movement comforting and menacing.

The little hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Who is this? This isn't the Aemond you know. Kind gentle, Aemond.

No, this person is someone else.

His lifts your face to him by your chin and kisses you gently. The way he moves between loving and domineering so seamlessly, it's as if there are two of him.

"You are mine little dove." He chuckles again as he looks down at you, the gleam in his eye, conveying a message that you are having trouble reading.

"Things have changed yes, we will figure out how to make you more comfortable, but one thing remains constant and that is you."

"You don't get to decide that." You wanted to say this with conviction but it comes out weak and feeble. You and Aemond have hardly ever fought and when you do, he wins every time.

Aemond sighs and smiles. "But I do. See i decide if we stay together. Me, and i have decided that we will. Now if there are things that we can work on to make you more comfortable I am happy to do that" He pushes his face into the crook of your neck as he whispers, " It's what's best for both of us"

You push him back, his arrogance finally pushing you over the edge.

"Who are you? Huh? This isn't you! This arrogant, entitled twat!" The dam that was holding back all of your frustrations fully bursts and you can't help yourself from offloading.

"You flirt with models right in front of me, you-"

"IT'S AN ACT!" He explodes, and you jump back, his voice unrecognizable.

"You think I want them? Those vapid cunts?" He grips your arm tight and shoves you down onto the sofa. The movement jarring.

"Don't shove me!" You move to get up but he leans down caging you in with his arms.

"When I sleep, I dream of you, when awake, I dream of you, when I do anything, I dream of you. There is not another for me, not in this lifetime or the next."

You push your body back on the sofa, trying to put a little distance between the two of you. He glares at you for a moment, lowering his arms from the sofa and bringing them to your shoulders.

"If you leave, I will find you, and I will drag you back to me" He slowly drops to his knees in front of you, sliding his arms down the length of your body in the process. "I'll always find you."

Your eyes widened slightly in fear. His love has always been expressed in gentleness, kind gestures, and soft caresses.

"What happened to being partners? Since when have you owned me as you seem to think?"

"I always have." He looks at you, not with malice, not with hubris, but with a look that tells you he takes this to be simple fact.

He pushes your skirt up, and begins trailing kisses up your thigh.

"Aemond.... we shouldn't. " His grip on your thigh tightens, but he doesn't stop. Your mind is telling you to push him away, stop him but your body is succumbing to his dangerous allure, like a lamb to the slaughter.

The closer he gets to your heat, the faster you lose your resolve. He's always had this effect on you. When he kisses you, touches you, loves on you, you all too quickly fall to your knees.

He slides his hand up your other thigh, slipping it under your skirt until he reaches your hip, gently squeezing at the flesh there.

You close your eyes and lean back on the sofa as he continues to lick and nip at your thigh. Every touch of his skin to yours sending currents of electricity through your veins.

"We're gonna be fine darlin" His voice is hynotizing. Just a moment ago you wanted to punch him in the face and now you are spreading your legs wider to give him enough room to fit his face between your thighs.

"That's a good girl, such a good girl" He moves his hand from your hip to your heat gently caressing you through the thin fabric of your thong.

"For someone who thinks we shouldn't be doing this you are very very wet" You feel the embarrasment rush to your cheeks but are unable to stop yourself from gently bucking your hips upward.

Aemond chuckles and clicks his tongue. "Is that was this was all about hmm? Have I been neglecting you sweet girl?" He moves your thong to the side and brings his finger to the wetness pooling there. "Hmmm seems I have, you poor poor thing" He mocks with fake sympathy.

You sigh as he grips your thighs dragging you to the edge of the sofa. pushing your skirt all the way up and exposing you to him.

"So fucking pretty" He leans forward and flicks the tip of his tongue on your pearl. Your leg twitches in response and he pulls his head back.

You groan at his teasing scooting your body closer to his face, as he starts to chuckle.

"Now, now sweet girl. I'm going to need you to admit, that you aren't going anywhere." He lightly scratches at the sensitive skin on your thigh with his thumbnail. You were supposed to break up and leave, This life with him was making you miserable. "Give me what I want, and I will return the favor" He again leans forward and flicks the very tip of your clit twice.

The teasing is starting to drive you to madness, you came into this room with conviction and a plan but it looks like you would leave this room with shame and satisfaction. "Fine! I'm not leaving, I'm not, I promise, I promise!" You feel a mix of discomfiture and arousal coursing through you but at this point you just don't care.

"Mmmmm" is the only sound he makes before again leaning forward and taking your engorged nerve into his mouth and sucking on it harshly.

"Fuckkkk Aem" You bring your hand down and grip his head, pushing his head closer to you and he is more than happy to oblige.

He slides a long course finger into you while he continues to swallow at your pearl. The sensations have your legs shaking uncontrollably, and as if your hips have a mind of their own, they buck gently against Aemonds face as he gives you everything he knows you want.

His finger crooks inside you, rubbing at the pad inside, gently calling your orgasm to him.

"Oh fuck ahhh!" Your whole body stiffens as he quickens the pace of both his mouth and finger.

As you tumble forward into your peak, you squeeze your legs around his head, the blood rushing to your face heating up your entire body. Is this heaven, or have you been tricked into hell?

After you finish sitting dumbstruck on the sofa, Aemond wastes no time. He slides towards you on his knees, wrapping his hand around your waist.

You rest your exhausted head on his shoulder and wrap your legs around his hips. With just one arm he lifts you slightly off the couch and slowly rises to his feet, you feel the muscles in his chest and shoulders tighten as he lifts you and himself from the floor carrying you into the bedroom. His hard cock pressed against you.

"Have I got you all stupid for me, sweet girl?"

You make some incoherent noises as he gently drops you onto the bed and climbs on top of you.

"I love you" He breathes the words directly into your ear, the sadness in his voice not lost on you. He slots himself between your legs tightly gripping your thigh and pulling it up against him.

"You can't ever leave ok?" He roughly kisses you before you can respond while he pulls you closer by the thigh pushing himself up tight against your core. "Not ever".

Aemond ruts against you, still fully clothed. "Can't live without ya." His voice sounds strained like this is taking everything out of him. "Won't live without ya." His movements become more rough, more desperate.

He pulls back from you just long enough to get your panties off, disposing of his boxers and trousers in the process, before slotting himself back between your legs.

He slides an arm under your back, bringing his hand to the back of your neck, raising your face to his.

"All I want is you. All I've ever wanted is you." His lips meet yours in a searing kiss, a kiss that screams don't go.

He pushes himself against your entrance, begging to be let in. You lean back further parting your legs and he pushes forward slowly.

"Fuck, I love you, oh gods I love you" He moans as he fills you up. Once he reaches the hilt, he lies down on top of you, sliding both of his arms under your shoulders before he gently starts to move against you.

Your bodies are pressed together so tight. You can hardly tell there are two separate people here.

"I'll never let you go, I'll never let you go," he repeats this over and over as his speed increases, his voice changing from desperate to domineering.

He grips your shoulders tightly, holding your body in place as he ruts up into you. "Do you understand now? You can never leave. I love you. You're mine. " his thrusts are slowly getting harder, as the heat again builds up in your abdomen.

"Fucking mine. Always mine. Forever mine," he growls the words at you as he bites into your neck.

"I'm gonna fill you up." He bites into your shoulder, pushing himself as far into you as he can get, but pushing ever still. He can't be close enough to you. He can't be far enough inside. Everything feels like it's just not enough.

He pulls back from you, has his speed increases, and his rhythm falters.

"Cmon cum for me sweet girl" He licks his thumb and brings it to your nub pressing down harshly on the nerve, his movements furious.

You whine out, your legs trembling as you feel your lower stomach growing tighter and tighter, the feeling overwhelming but so good. "Aem." You whimper, "ohhh gods"

"No baby, it's just me." He watches in wonder as you reach your peak for a second time, arching your back and yelling out loud.

"That's good. That's a good girl. Fuck yes baby" His movements become sloppy and he grips your hips tightly as he chases his release. "Say you love me," he growls his hips smacking against your skin with a loud slap sound as you moan out riding out the top of your pleasure.

"Fucking say it" he grunts as he tries to hold back his climax, "Please baby say it." His face is contorted somewhere between pleasure and pain until you acquiesce.

"I love you." The words flow from your mouth so delicately, so naturally. There was never a question as to whether you loved him. The question is whether that love is enough.

Hearing the words from your tongue immediately sends Aemond into the climax he was fighting as he screams out like some kind of feral animal thrusting into you harshly as he rides out his high, collapsing onto your chest leaving himself sheathed inside.

"I love you too"

You wake up the next morning to the alarm on your phone going off and grumble, turning it off and rolling onto your side, looking at a sleeping Aemond. Feeling ashamed of yourself for giving into him last night.

As you slide out of the bed to get ready for work he reaches out and grips your wrist tight.

"Where are you going?" His eyes are still closed and his body hasn't moved the only thing alerting you to his consciousness being the hand tightly gripping your wrist, and his voice.

"To work?" You move again to get out of the bed thinking the matter settled.

"Oh, no we are sending your letter of resignation today" He opens his eyes and shifts in the bed stretching but not releasing your wrist.

"Aemond, i'm not quitting my job!" You can't believe he would even think that was an option. You love your job. Why would you quit? Why would he even want you to? You look towards him in utter confusion as he slightly tightens the grip on your wrist.

"You can't go. You might not come back." He yanks you back into the bed crawling on top of you.

"Like I said before. You're gonna stay right here"

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#aemond fanfiction #modern aemond x reader #modern aemond fanfiction #modern aemond/ you #dark aemond x reader #modern aemond #modern aemond angst #modern au #ewan nation #ewan mitchell #ewanverse #ewan mitchell verse #ewan mitchell fanfic #jess fics #my modern war criminal bf

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heavenlyvision · 7 months

Text

Until hell freezes over

Word count: 6.7k

Pairing: Bi-Han x F!Reader

This is a part two to when hell freezes over

A/N: Longest fic so far woohoo, I’m overjoyed at the interactions and comments I got from the first part so thank you for the attention. I’m glad you’ve all been enjoying my writing; it encourages me to write more! I hope you all enjoy this part as much as the first and please reach out with any thoughts, feelings, questions, anything of the sort. I am happy to interact with everyone. And thank you for reading! :)

Summary: Ever since you and Bi-Han had sex he’s been staring at you even more than before, not that he’s admitted to it yet. A competition begins between the two of you, who can hold out longest?

Warnings: 18+ only, smut, cunnilingus, fingering, masturbation, p in v sex, creampie, possessive!Bi-Han, hickeys (reader receiving), pussy slapping (one), inappropriate use of Bi-Hans official title, minor appearance of pussy drunk Bi-Han, return of mean Bi-Han, special appearance of soft Bi-Han, no use of y/n

Following the events of the other night, Bi-Han has been staring at you a lot more frequently. You can’t be certain what he’s thinking about, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. You had both mutually agreed to keep what happened between yourselves, but he keeps giving you bedroom eyes and it isn’t going to take long for someone to catch on if he keeps looking at you like that.

Subtlety does not seem to be Bi-Han’s strong suit, which you feel is cosmically ironic considering how subtle he is in other facets of his life. His eyes set you on fire, you know what he wants from you. You haven’t slept with him since the first time, three days ago now.

The reason for this is because you needed time to recover from the world class fucking you received the first time and because you want to get to know him more; by actually talking to him. Not that, that stops him from shoving you up against walls and sticking his tongue in your mouth when he gets the chance. Just the memories of his indiscretions make you vibrate with arousal.

Other than those few shared, private moments, he’s respected the fact that you don’t want to have sex again yet. He is getting impatient though, you can tell by the way his constant staring has gotten more intense. His eyes track your every move when you’re close to him, sometimes it seems like he’s actively fighting the urge to pick you up and walk away with you over his shoulder.

Everyone is in the training area right now, and Bi-Han is standing by Lord Liu Kang, and yup, he is staring at you, again. You really can’t be shocked anymore; you’ve come to realise that the most he communicates is with his eyes and his grunts.

Lord Liu Kang steps away from Bi-Han to talk with Kuai Liang on the other side of the training area, you take the opening to slowly shuffle yourself up next to Bi-Han.

“You need to stop looking at me like that,” you say quietly, keeping your head forward.

“Looking at you like what?”

You have to try real hard not to make a face of annoyance at him. He always does this, acts dense on purpose just to get under your skin.

“Like we’ve had sex,” you hush out at him.

He moves to stand directly in front of you and tilting his head down slightly he says, “That is a little difficult, considering we have had sex, sweet girl.”

He’s taunting you, it’s not fair, the nickname, his words, it’s all not fair to you and he knows it. It’s why he does it, he wants you to break first, to beg him for it, and as the days pass by, you’re worried you will cave and beg him to fuck you. And he is counting on it, it’s probably part of the reason why he pushes you up against walls and kisses your breath away. You get the feeling that the man has an impeccable resolve, which makes you want to break it. It’s turned into an unspoken competition between the two of you.

“You aren’t being very fair,” you try not to, but you can’t help but pout at him.

His eyes sparkle as he looks at your sulking face, “I’m not trying to be fair,”

Bastard, you go to tell him as much, but he cuts you off, “I am trying to get you to ask me for what you need, I want you to ask me sweetly to fuck you.”

He has said you undo him, but he is actively pulling you apart, he wants you at his feet and you’re afraid that you might comply. You are strong, you can resist him, you just have to want to win more than him and you are competitive. You’ve decided you’re going to turn his constant stares and teasing into determination. You are determined to win, you want him coming to you, head in his hands asking you for your body.

He can see the way your eyes harden with your own resolve and his light up in an amused way at it, you find it maddening that he’s getting joy from this.

“You will not be winning this, Grandmaster.” You say his title to stab home your determination, you want him to know that he is the one who turned this into a challenge. One that you aren’t willing to lose.

The use of his official title is effective, his smile falters for a second, a glimmer or his underlying arousal for you shining through his mirth. Good, you think.

“Mmm where has my sweet girl gone?” He asks you, his smug nature intact. Not good, you think, he might be able to play dirty better than you.

Your confidence in yourself is waning the longer he looks at you, “Just… stop looking at me.”

A smile breaks out across his face, “Not if it’ll get you to break first.”

You keep showing him your hand, he makes you weak, and he likes that about you. Maybe it would be smarter to use that to your advantage, rather than pretending he doesn’t affect you. He’s able to read you impeccably well, any lie you try and give him is probably going to fall flat. Lying isn’t something you consider yourself to be bad at but trying to lie to Bi-Han is like trying to lie to someone who can read minds, so it’s better to just avoid it.

“You’re right Bi-Han, I want you, badly, all the time,” you’re looking at him as innocently as possible.

One of his eyebrows raises in response, “Are you asking for something?” He’s hoping you are.

“Nope. Just letting you know how much I want you. All the time.” You state before walking over to where you were previously standing with Johnny and Kenshi.

You would’ve liked to keep talking with him, but you have a feeling that would be more to your detriment than his. Tuning back into Kenshi and Johnny’s conversation you realise they’re arguing, because of course they are.

“Just give the sword back Johnny!” Kenshi sounds exasperated with him, this is not the first time they’ve argued over this, and you have a feeling it won’t be the last.

“No way man! Do you know how much this cost me?” Johnny is just as equally exasperated as Kenshi. Their relationship and squabbles amuse you, until –

“Settle this, do you think he should give Sento back?” They both turn to you suddenly, dragging you into this argument against your will. How nice of them.

You really do not want to be dragged into this, “I have no stake in this, guys.”

“Yeah, exactly. That’s why you should decide for us,” Johnny adds.

Why would they want you to settle this, whatever you decide the other would be angry with and you like both of them.

“Look, guys, this isn’t something that another person can solve for you, and I’d really rather not pick, I don’t want to lose a friend based on a choice I make.”

They both stare at you, God, what is with all these men and staring.

Then you feel it, his looming presence coming up behind you, he grabs your shoulder to get your attention. You drop your head back to look up at him.

“Did you have something to ask, Sub-Zero?”

He looks down his nose at you, “mmm, you need to come with me.”

Straightening your head, you look forward again, you go to address the two men in front of you but before you can, Johnny looks at Bi-Han and says, “Wait, before you leave, settle this for us. Who do you think should have Sento?”

Bi-Han looks at the pair of them dead eyed for a moment, trying to give Johnny a chance to take his question back, “Don’t care.” He states plainly before grabbing your arm and walking away.

Why Johnny thought asking him was a good idea you have no idea, you turn around quickly to apologise to them both, they’re giving you a sympathetic look. Their pity is granted because to them, you’ve just been pulled away by the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei. Assumedly, about to get scolded for something, which may be half true. You give them a smile back; to try and assuage any genuine worry they may have, before facing Bi-Han’s back again, following him silently.

He walks you away from the training area into a quiet, empty area of the temple. Your heart is racing, you have no idea what he’s intending to do, he wouldn’t have cracked that easily, which means he’s brought you here for another reason. He’s stopped walking, back facing you.

“Bi-Han, why have you kidnapped me?”

He turns to face you, rolling his eyes at your light-hearted accusation, “I have not kidnapped you, that’s an exaggeration.”

Cocking an eyebrow at him and placing a hand on your hip, you say, “I am well aware, what did you have to ask?”

“How long?” He asks, he needs to start speaking in full sentences, more often than not he will state something like it doesn’t need further explanation.

Though you can probably guess with pretty good accuracy what he’s referring to, that doesn’t mean you’re going to make it easy for him. Time for a taste of his own medicine, he’s often acting intentionally dense to get you to admit to things, now it’s his turn.

“How long for what?”

His eyes harden at you, “How long until I can have all of you again?”

Is he trying to compromise with you? Maybe he wasn’t as confident in his own willpower as you thought, “that depends, are you giving up?”

“No.”

“It’s a competition now, Bi-Han, there is no timeline anymore.” Not that there was ever a timeline, you were just hoping to get to know him a bit more before sleeping with him again but seeing him increasingly get more desperate is too good to turn away from now.

Watching him struggle with what he wants to do next has you realising, two sides of Bi-Han are clashing right now. He’s stubborn but he’s also impatient, it’s thrilling not knowing which side will win.

“It’s a stupid competition. Childish.” He spits the words at you.

“You started it.” You shrug at him.

“I most certainly did not start this.” He points at you.

He’s getting angry now, it has you smiling, “you’re only annoyed now because I’m winning.”

He grunts at you, “This could end right now Bi-Han, if you just admit you’ve lost.” You’re offering him a way out; one you know he won’t take.

“What are the rules?”

You answer him honestly, “I hadn’t considered any.”

He stalks towards you, it has you taking steps back until you hit a wall. Both of his hands come up and cage you against it, he leans down slightly, head angled, “then I will.”

You look up at him, eyes large, taking him all in, “Bi-Han, you’re really pretty,” you tell him your internal thought by accident.

He looks shocked for a second before his head rests on your shoulder, he speaks into your neck, “Sweet, sweet girl, my sweet girl.” He inhales the scent of your skin, sending a shiver down your spine.

This situation is precarious for you, if he sweet talks you, you might cave. You need to get him back on topic. But before you can speak to get him back on track, he moves his lips to yours, one of his hands coming off the wall to grab at the side of your face, angling you to his liking. Tongue entering your mouth teasingly, you moan into his mouth, and he swallows the sound.

When he pulls back, he smirks at the look on your face, your eyes wet and soft for him, he always makes you feel so pliable. This competition is not made for you, you bend to his will too easily, he’s only kissed you and you want more.

You close your eyes tight, not looking into his eyes will help, he’s got pretty eyes that you fall into every time. You just need to not look at him right now.

“What are you doing?” He asks, his thumb stroking your cheek, a rare sign of the way he coddles you.

“I can’t look at you and your pretty eyes.”

He hums in response, “that’s fine, only need your lips for what I’m doing right now.”

Then he leans in to kiss you again, he’s being gentle, tender, tongue licking into your mouth and exploring, he’s taking his time, kissing your breath away.

He’s officially, completely, distracted from what he was talking about, lips moving against yours, consuming you. He moves his body closer to yours, the feel of him against you has a whimper slipping from you. The sound makes him grunt but it brings him back to himself, and he pulls away, but not before he plants a single wet kiss on your lips and then he’s pulling his lips away completely.

Forehead resting against yours, he huffs, “you wanna give up?”

You nod your head, and he seems pleased, but you continue on to say, “I do, but I’m not going to.” His small moment of triumph ripped from him at your words.

A low grunt is his response to you, he’s disappointed that you haven’t caved but only because he’s not going to either. “Want you and your tight, little–”

“Rules! What rules did you want?” you cut him off, his words are his weapon and right now he’s one good strike away from you giving in and letting him do whatever he wants to you.

He smirks at you, he knows how his words effect you, loves the way you squirm at the things he whispers to you.

“From now on losing counts as, kissing, touching, dirty talk, whispering sweet nothings to each other–”

“–Bi-Han, you’ve done all of those things, just now.” The gall of this man.

“There were no rules before,” he’s dismissive of your complaint.

You have an incredulous look on your face, “well, there goes your whole arsenal then.”

“Not really, I still have my pretty eyes.” He’s making fun of you, but you know the way you react to and compliment him has him soft for you.

“No nicknames?” You ask him.

He glares at you, “no nicknames.” He confirms.

That makes you sulk a bit, not only because calling him Grandmaster was one of your trump cards but also because you like when he calls you sweet girl.

“Can you still call me sweet girl?” You ask him gently; you genuinely don’t want him to stop but you’re also playing dirty by asking and you know it.

His chest rumbles with a deep growl and his head tips back, “Fucken, alright but only because I think it will benefit me more than you.”

When he looks at you again there is a cheeky smile on your face, “compliments? Can I still tell you how pretty your eyes are? Or how I love when your arms are crossed and your muscles become defined, or how hot your hands looks when they flex, or–”

One of his hands moves to cover your mouth, cutting you off, “Jesu– no, no compliments.”

You give the palm of his hand a small kiss and his head falls forward, chin on his chest, “You’re going to kill me,” he sighs.

You’re smiling against his palm; this round goes to you.

❆˖°

It’s been a few days since your rendezvous with Bi-Han, he had to go away for a couple of them to take care of some business but ever since he’s been back you think he’s been avoiding you. And you aren’t sure if that excites or frightens you. The upper hand was yours last time, now you’re worried that he’s plotting his revenge, and you have no idea what he would even do. His rules basically take away all of his trump cards, but they also take away yours. Leaving you both in a weird purgatory state of trying to figure out what to do next without breaking any of the rules.

There are a few options, but unless you can get away with walking around the temple grounds completely naked without anyone seeing you, there isn’t anything that could get him to break quickly enough.

You find yourself back at the rock, you’ve started calling it your enlightenment rock, on account of how often you come here to meditate. Though you aren’t here for spiritual guidance currently. Not unless the spirits can guide you on how to break Bi-Han’s will into fucking you senseless. It feels a little inappropriate to even think about here, but you think best here, and you need the peace right now.

Thinking about what you could do is exhausting, you’re not good at initiating these kinds of things, you’re more of a defence kind of person than attack. Which makes Bi-Han avoiding you even funnier, he’s pretty quick to go on the attack, usually.

You’re at a stalemate and you want to be the one to break it, but you’ll need a for sure thing, if you go in half-cocked and your plan fails it gives him an opening to get you to crack, which, in all honesty, you would. He breaks down all your defences with just a look, and now that you’re thinking about it, that might be his plan.

This is what you mean by thinking about this is mentally taxing, you’re either thinking too hard or not hard enough. The man is unpredictable, and you like that about him, just, not right now. You want to be the one to win and over thinking might cost you the competition.

A big smile breaks out across your face as you are suddenly blessed with a fantastic idea to get the man to break, not the kind of enlightenment you usually come here for but it’s the next best thing.

The moment is taken from you when you feel Bi-Han’s eyes on you, “Hello Bi-Han.” You don’t turn around to look at him.

“How do you always manage to know it’s me? I am a ninja, and I can’t even look at you without you knowing.” He’s curious about your sixth sense for him and you don’t have an answer that would satisfy him.

You shrug your shoulders in response, “I can feel it, that’s the best way to describe it.”

“And what do you feel when I look at you?” He’s moving closer to you, standing directly behind your sitting form. Any closer and his back would be pressed against yours.

You consider what to say, you could lie but like you’ve said, lying to him is damn near impossible, “It feels electric.” It’s the only way you can accurately describe how it feels to have his gaze aimed at you.

He grunts at you in response.

You’re smiling because he’s so soft for you in the oddest of ways, “you asked,” you tell him.

“Shouldn’t have.” He pauses before continuing, “Mmm, what are you doing out here? It’s getting late.”

And it is, you had realised this you just needed the silence to give you ideas for your plan. The temple has too many people and you often get pulled into conversations, you don’t mind, but you’re taking this competition unnecessarily seriously.

“I have been thinking.”

“And what have you been thinking of?” He asks.

“I’d tell you, but I think it would count as whispering sweet nothings to you.”

You can practically feel the way he rolls his eyes from behind you, he huffs a breath out and you can feel the air brush against your neck. You stifle your reaction, not wanting him to have the satisfaction of your body reacting to him without physical touch.

He’s moving his face closer to the back of yours, lips close to you neck but never touching, “there is nothing I can say right now that won’t break those stupid rules.”

You can’t help the shiver that runs through you at his breath whispering over your skin “you made them.”

“Might break them too. You’d like that wouldn’t you? Me breaking first, taking you however I desire–”

“–You are walking a very thin line Bi-Han,” you remind him, he often gets lost in the words he speaks to you.

He takes a step back, sighing again, “Come back to the temple, dinner will be served soon.”

You look back at him and smile, “I’ll be up soon.”

“Don’t take too long, it’s supposed to be cold tonight,” he mumbles at you as he begins to walk away.

It’s adorable, the way he cares if you eat on time or if you’ll be warm. He’s driving you crazy without even realising it, if he turned back and said one more thing concerning your wellbeing, you’d break the rules by running up to him and hugging him.

❆˖°

Waiting is all you can do right now; you’re waiting until everyone has gone back to their quarters so that you can sneak into Bi-Han’s and put your plan into action. It’s not going to be particularly fair to him and you don’t know if he’ll classify it as cheating, but you don’t classify it as cheating, not technically anyways.

It’s almost quarter to midnight when it sounds like everyone has turned in for the night and you take the opportunity to sneak from your room and briskly walk to Bi-Han’s.

Approaching the door, you tentatively knock at it, waiting for him to answer and slide the door open feels like it takes forever but when he does you feel like you might fold on the spot, he’s wearing a loose robe, his whole chest on display and the worst part is, his hair is down and in his face a little. He has such soft looking hair, and you want nothing more than to run your hands through it.

Bi-Hans face is decidedly unhappy until he realises it’s you at his door, and then he’s smug, taking in your gaze, all gooey for him.

“Evening, sweet girl, you here to give in?” He’s grinning at you like you’re his prey.

You hurry inside past him, careful not to touch him, “No, I’m here to win.”

He groans, exasperated at you, like he couldn’t just cave now and end it all. “C’mon, just give in, I know you want to.”

“and I know you want to, too,” you’re standing in the middle of his room awkwardly, you’re trying to decide how you’re going to do this.

He slides the door closed and turns to look at you, his head crooking to the side slightly, hair falling into his face a bit. His arms are crossed over his chest, and it has your skin on fire, he looks irresistible to you right now and it’s not fair.

“What are you here to do, exactly?” He raises a questioning eyebrow at you.

You purse your lips, you know exactly what you want to do, you’re just feeling a little shy. Fuck it you think, and you shrug your own robe off your body, you’re completely bare beneath it.

Bi-Han’s eyes go wide, “What are you planning, sweet girl?” He’s breathless at your bare figure in front of him, completely taken aback by your uncharacteristic boldness.

You move over to his bed and sit down on it, propping yourself up against his pillows, “I’m going to touch myself and I’m going to make you watch.” You’re fighting against your own embarrassment, skin breaking out in a deep blush.

He looks entirely too pleased with this situation, “Mmm, go on then, show me how you touch yourself.”

“You can’t sweet talk me! that was one of your rules,” you point at him, “If you break the rules you lose,” you’re pouting at him.

He’s nodding his head, staring at your legs, waiting not so patiently for you to part them, “mmhm, I know, just spread your sweet thighs.”

You’re not sure if you should call him on that or not but since you’re also walking a thin line you let it go. He’s moving to sit at the foot of the bed, eyes never leaving your body as he does.

Slowly, you part your legs, and he lets out a quiet growl at the sight of your pussy, wet and wanting. Reaching down, your fingers run through your slick, spreading it all over your folds. You insert one finger into your hole, whining at the feeling, before you move it to your clit, rubbing small, controlled circles into it.

Little whimpers and quiet whines leave your mouth, you’re trying to hold in your sounds as you use your fingers to bring you pleasure. Looking over at Bi-Han you can see a thinly veiled animalistic look in his eyes, he’s trying to restrain himself. Feeling tortured by his inability to touch or even speak to you right now.

Your movements speed up on your clit and a gasp is ripped from you, Bi-Han’s staring heightening your pleasure.

“Ffuck – stop, stop.” He’s suddenly asking you to stop.

“Mmm, but I am so – ngh – close,” you don’t stop, your breaths coming faster and whines pitching higher, you’re so close to finishing.

Eyes wet with how close your high is, your other hand reaching up to grab your own breast. Bi-Han looks angry, his hand reaches out and rips yours away from your pussy. You whine in response to your pleasure being ripped from you at the last second.

“I told you to stop, shit.” He looks really angry, and you can’t help but feel a little smug, a small, suppressed, smile painting itself on your lips.

“You lost,” you tell him, though by how angry he is, you think he already knows that.

He squints at you with an accusatory glare, “wouldn’t have if you just fucken listened to me.”

“Yeah, but I wanted you to lose.”

He snarls at you, “you fucken win and now I’m taking you how I want.”

“Okay,” you smile brilliantly at him.

“Try not to be so pleased with yourself.” He’s hot when he’s grumpy.

But you can’t help it, you won, and he lost and now you can have sex with him again and feel victorious. It’s a good day to be you.

He moves over you and leans down, kissing you harshly, he pulls away but only to pull your mouth open and then he’s shoving his tongue into your mouth. You moan against him; you’ve missed his lips against yours. He’s being more forceful with you than usual, sexually frustrated and annoyed that he’s lost this arbitrary competition against you.

Pulling his lips from yours he starts kissing your neck, sucking deep marks into your skin.

“Bi-Han, not my neck, the others will see–”

“–Good, mine, you’re mine.” He sucks another mark into the centre of your collarbones, “Isn’t that right, my sweet girl?”

You nod your head, “Mhm, m’yours.”

The groan he lets out can be felt against your skin where his mouth is attached, he continues downwards. Sucking hickeys into your skin as he goes. He reaches your cunt and nuzzles his face into it, licking between your folds. His actions make you whine, back coming off the bed, his hand reaches up and pushes you back to the bed by your stomach.

Then he uses both hands to spread your thighs further apart, enough so that he can fit his shoulders between your legs. He turns his head into your thigh and sucks a mark there.

“Got such a pretty cunt, Mm gonna fucken ruin you,” your hole clenches at his words and he watches, he has a wolfish smile on his face at your reaction.

“God, fucken missed seeing how needy you are, love the way your body reacts to me,” he adds.

He’s driving you mental, “please,”

“Mmm? You need something, sweetie?” His tone is mocking, he knows exactly what you want.

“Want your mouth, on me, please?”

“Say you want my mouth on your cunt and then I might oblige.” He’s staring into your eyes, waiting for you to repeat his words.

It has you blushing again, it feels so filthy to say out loud to him, “I want your mouth on my cunt, please.” Your voice wavers as you mumble the words out.

You feel really exposed, legs over his shoulders as he looks at you, refusing to break eye contact.

“Not good enough, try again,” he has an amused look on his face, but his tone is serious.

You repeat yourself louder, “want your mouth on my cunt, please, Bi-Han,” you whine a little as you say it.

He chuckles at you, “all you had to say, sweetheart.”

He tucks his head down and licks along the length of your pussy, your back goes to arch again but he predicts that and moves his hand back to your stomach and holds you down.

His tongue enters your hole, licking into you before moving up to your clit, then he suctions onto it. Two of his fingers coming up to enter you, crooking them up into you, finding the spot he did last time and fucking into it.

You’re biting your lip trying to keep the noises in, head rolling back onto the pillows behind you. He removes his mouth from your clit but doesn’t stop his fingers.

“Eyes on me, do not stop looking.” He warns.

You aren’t focusing though, his fingers inside you taking you elsewhere. He pulls them from you and smacks your pussy at your lack of response, it has you jolting upright.

“Eyes on me, and stop biting your lip, wanna hear you.” His words slur together a little.

You look him in the eyes again, “yes, Grandmaster.” You mumble mindlessly, a little lost in the pleasure he’s given you.

“Fffuck, look at you, so pretty and dazed.” He moves his mouth back to your pussy, lapping at you like his last meal.

He’s eating you out with the conviction of a man who’s afraid he’ll never do it again, you maintain eye contact with him, but you feel like they might cross. You move your hands to his head, grabbing at his hair. He hums at the feel of your fingers pulling at him.

You’re getting closer to your peak; he stuffs his fingers back inside you and it pulls a loud moan from you. He groans into your cunt, the vibrations pushing you closer to the edge. His fingers speed up as he sucks unforgivingly at your clit. Your moans come louder and faster, and then he pulls his mouth away to blow cold air on your clit, it feels sharp and has you coming with a yelp. Your hands move to grab at his sheets, attempting to ground yourself.

He’s pleased, watching you fall apart on his fingers, when you’ve come down from your high, he pulls his fingers from you. But he leans down again and licks up your cum, he keeps licking at you and you try to wiggle away from his unrelenting tongue.

He pushes you down and uses both hands to hold your thighs open, “stay fucken still.”

“Ngh – it’s too much Bi-Han, mm sensitive, please.”

“I know but you’re gonna take it.” He tells you.

He’s licking at you fervently, in your pussy hole, your clit, sucking on your folds, he’s lost in your cunt. He flattens his tongue against you and shakes his head and it has you coming suddenly against your will. A breathy whine pulled from deep inside your chest, the force of it bites at you, the feeling too much. Your grip on his sheets hardening, if you were more present, you’d worry about tearing them.

He pulls back satisfied with the way you’re squirming, he keeps his hands on your thighs, holding them apart.

He’s staring at your fluttering hole, “could suck on your pussy for the rest of my life.”

Your thighs are fighting against his hands trying to close, he lets go and lets you close them. You take a moment to catch your breath, the overstimulation sending shocks through your body. A sharp kind of pleasure.

Tears in the corners of your eyes, one falling, Bi-Han climbs on top of you and leans down, licking it away.

“You’re such a sensitive little thing.” He whispers to you.

Then he moves his mouth to yours, devouring you through a kiss. He kisses you until you’re reaching up to him, running your hands through his hair, and then tugging him away.

He pulls back from you, lips ghosting over yours, “What is it?”

“Want you, please?”

His grin is wide, “love the way you ask me for things, such a polite girl.”

He pulls back, resting on his knees as he undoes his robe, throwing it onto the floor, the sight of him bare makes your cunt jump and mouth water.

He locks eyes with you, “You’re staring.”

“Yes.” Is all you can manage, “you’re… beautiful.”

“Jesus woman, too nice, such a nice girl.” He leans down and pecks your lips, your cheeks, he noses at the side of your face before kissing your ear, neck, anywhere he can reach.

Your hands reach out to rest on his shoulders and your legs move to rest your thighs on his hips, pulling him closer. His skin rests against yours, and you hug him to you. Your face moves to the crook of his neck, and you place a kiss there.

His hips slowly start to grind into you, the sweet intimate moment broken by his dick slipping through your folds.

“Sooo, fucken wet, always so wet an messy, mmph,” he speaks into your neck.

You move your hips against him, the feel of his cock rubbing against you making you wetter, rutting yourself into him more, “Bi-han, need it, please.”

“ngh – you can – hah – fucken wait,” he’s teasing you, your punishment for winning.

You whimper as his dick continuously slides over your clit; his upper half pulls away so he can look down to where he’s rubbing against you. Enjoying the way your hips are raising to chase him.

Deciding to take mercy on you and himself, he grabs the base of his cock, and slips the head into you, “hah – I forgot how fucken – ngh – ridiculously tight you are.” He groans at the feel of you wrapped around him, “you’re so – mph – warmmm.”

“Bi-Hannn~” you moan his name; he keeps sliding into you at a leisurely pace, trying not to hurt you.

“I needa fuck you more often – nghh, keep this cunt ready for me.” His hands are back on your thighs, keeping you open so he can watch himself slide into you.

You can feel his dick twitching inside you, he’s turned on watching the way he’s splitting you open. He’s about halfway in when he starts rubbing your clit, moving a hand off your thigh to do so, “you needa relax for me, sweetie.”

Your pussy clenches around him, “that’s hard when you keep talking.”

“Mmm, love the way I talk to you, don’t you?”

“You know I do,” he knows, he just loves the ego boost he gets from hearing you confirm it.

Then he drives all the way into you, and it pushes a gasp from your lungs, a long-drawn-out groan comes from Bi-Han. His question was just to distract you so he could bully his cock the rest of the way into you.

He looks up to the ceiling and away from where you’re connected, “ffffff–”

You raise your hips to grind against him, clit rubbing against his pelvis, the full feeling has you seeing stars.

“Mpphh – stop, unless you want me cumming now.” He warns you.

You whimper at him but can’t stop grinding into him, he pulls his hand from one of your hips and pushes them down, holding you still. The way he can hold you down turns you on, you’re still trying to rut up against him though.

You whine his name, and he snarls at you, “hold fucken still, needy fucken–” Your cunt tightens around him, and he has to take a breath, his dick twitching in you.

He shoots you an angry glare, “I can’t help it,” you tell him.

He knows but he doesn’t want this being ruined because he came too soon. He lowers his body down and presses flat against you. Skin to skin, it has you preening, you wrap your legs completely around him, ankles connecting behind him. He sinks deeper at your movement and a guttural moan comes from deep in his chest.

Pulling his head from your neck he presses kisses all over your face before taking your lips in his again, kissing you deeply, passionately. Licking into you deliberately, taking his time. Then he starts gently pulling from you, moving in and out of you at a languid pace. His tenderness makes your heart sing, his pace is consistent, unrelenting, and makes your head spin.

Lips parting from yours he moves to your ear, whispering praises to you, “sweet girl – ngh – sweet cunt, tastes so sweet – mph – sounds you make are so sweet.” Soft clapping noises are filling the room.

The sounds in the room are a mix of the slapping of skin against skin and the wet noises your cunt is making. It’s making him dizzy, he’s holding back, being gentle and sweet, always trying to remember to be careful with you.

“Grandmaster – hah – harder please, I want more, want all of it.” You tell him, trying to encourage him to let go, to fuck you how he pleases. Like how he promised.

“Mphh – fucken, whatever you want, sweet girl – shiii” He kisses your cheek, before moving his head back a bit.

One of his hands braces behind your head on the bed, the other grabs your hip, holding you against him tightly. He spreads his knees slightly and then he’s fucking into you at such an unforgiving velocity it leaves you breathless, weepy moans and whimpers coming out of your mouth in a broken manner.

“How’s – hah ngh – this?” he asks you, smirking cockily at you.

“good, sogood – mph – always so good Grandmaster.”

He speeds up more, something you wouldn’t have thought possible, “never letting you go, mine, you’re fucken – ngh – mine now, sweet girl.”

You feel overwhelmed, his words, the speed of his thrusts, the strength of them, it’s making you cry. Bi-Han notices and laughs, “too fucken much for you? Mmph – look so cute when you cry.”

You nod your head, eyes glassy as you look at him, tears slipping from the corner of your eyes. His smile is filled with pride, he loves that look on your face, never wants to forget it.

Your hand is grabbing onto his forearm by your head, the other scratching at his back, the feeling of your nails digging into his skin has him moaning. He looks down your bodies, watching where you connect.

“I’ve missed the way your – ngh – little cunt creams around me – mph,” he mumbles out, words slurring together, he’s getting closer to cumming.

Your pussy tightens around him, almost impossibly so, “cumming, mm cumming – hah–” You warn him, gasping moans leaving you.

“Fuck, fuck, fuckfuck – nghh – you feel sooo – ngh,” He’s cumming too, pumping you full of his cum.

He keeps fucking it into you until you tell him it’s too much, then he’s leaning down and wrapping his arms around you. He takes you with him as he rolls onto his back. Leaving you resting on top of him, his cock still inside you, both of your releases leaking from your hole.

“Mmmm, I’ve missed you. Couldn’t say it earlier, might’ve counted as sweet talking” He whispers against you.

Your heart leaps at his confession, “I missed you too, a lot.”

“We aren’t ever doing this stupid competition ever again.” He looks you firmly in your eyes, trying to drive home his point.

“Yes, Grandmaster.” You joke with him.

But he groans in response, and you can feel his cock hardening inside you, it has you blushing and tucking your head into his neck, hiding your face.

He chuckles at you, “Shouldn’t have deprived me, it’s gonna be a long night for you, sweet girl, I’m nowhere near done with you and your sweet little cunt.”

❆˖°

A/N: Oh mi gosh, 🤭 Bi-Han went a lil crazy in this. I make no apologies, you asked, and I supplied. And again I’m glad so many people enjoyed my first part. I say this every time but please if you want another part, or if you have any thoughts, feelings, ideas, requests, please reach out! I love hearing from everyone, and I am more than happy to interact with people.

Part three

One lovely @belle-oftheball34 asked to be tagged, so here ya go <33

#subzero #subzero x reader #subzero smut #subzero x reader smut #bi han x reader #bi han x reader smut #fanfic #bi han x you #smut #mk1 #mk1 2023 #mk1 smut

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physalian · 5 months

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Humanizing Your Characters (And Why You Should)

To humanize a character is not to contort an irredeemable villain into the warped funhouse mirror reflection of a hero in the last 30 seconds to gain “narrative subversion” points. To humanize is not to give said villain a tragic backstory that validates every bad choice they make in attempt to provide nuance where it does not deserve to be.

To humanize a character, villain or otherwise, is to make them flawed. Scuff them up, give them narrative birthmarks and scars and imperfections. Whether it’s your hero, their love interest, the comic relief, the mentor, the villain, the rival, these little narrative details serve to make all your literary babies better.

Why should you humanize your characters?

To do this means to write in details beyond those that service the plot, or the themes, or the motifs, morals, foreshadowing, or story. These might be (and usually are) entirely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. So, if I wrote lengthy diatribes on pacing and why every detail must matter, and character descriptions and thematic importance, why am I now suggesting go free-for-all on the fluff?

Just like real people have quirks and tics and beliefs and pet peeves that serve our no greater purpose, so should fictional people. Your average reader doesn’t have the foggiest idea what literary devices are beyond metaphor, simile foreshadowing, and anecdote, but they can tell when the author is using motif and theme and all the syntactical marvels because it reads that much richer, even if they can’t pinpoint why.

And, for shipping fodder, these tiny little details are what help your audience fall in love with the character. It doesn’t even have to be in a book – Taylor Swift (whether you like her or not) never fills her music with sexual innuendo or going clubbing. She tells stories filled with human details like dancing in the refrigerator light. People can simultaneously relate to these very specific and vivid experiences, and say “not that exactly, but man this reminds me of…” and that’s (part of) the reason her music is so popular.

What kinds of narratives need these details?

All of them. Visual media, audio, written, stage play. Now, to what degree and excess you apply these details depends on your tone, intended audience, and writing style. If your style of writing is introspection heavy, noir character drama, you might go pretty heavy on the character design.

But even if you’re writing a kids book with a scant few paragraphs of setting descriptors and internal narration, or you’re drawing a comic book – if you have characters you want people to care about, do this.

Animators, particularly, are very adept at humanizing non-human characters, because, unlike live acting, every single stroke of the pen is there with intent. They use their own reflections for facial references, record their own movements to draw a dance, and insert little bits of themselves into signature character poses so you know that *that* animator did this one.

How to humanize your characters.

I’m going to break this down into a couple sections: Costume/wardrobe, personality, beliefs/behavior/superstitions, haptics/proxemics/kinesics, and voice. They will all overlap and the sheer variety and possibilities are way too broad for me to capture every facet.

Costumes and Wardrobe

In the film Fellowship of the Ring, there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment where, after Boromir is slain by the Uruk-Hai, Aragorn takes Boromir’s Gondorian vambraces to wear in his honor, and in honor of their shared country. He wears them the rest of the trilogy. The editing pays no extra attention to them beyond a split second of Aragorn tightening the straps, it never lingers on them, never reminds you that they’re there, but they kept it in nonetheless. His actor also included a hunting bow that didn't exist in the book because he's a roamer, a ranger, and needs to be able to feed himself, along with a couple other survival tools.

Aragorn wears plenty of other symbolic bits of costume – the light of the Evenstar we see constantly from Arwen, the Lothlorien green cloaks shared by the entire Fellowship, his re-forged sword and eventual full Gondorian regalia, but all those are Epic Movie Moments that serve a thematic purpose.

Taking the vambraces is just a small, otherwise insignificant character moment, a choice made for no other reason than that’s what this character would do. That’s what makes him human, not an archetype.

When you’re writing these details and can’t rely on sneaking them into films, you have to work a little harder to remind your audience that they exist, but not too often. A detail shifts from “human” to “plot point” when it starts to serve a purpose to the themes and story.

Inconsequentiality might be how a character ties, or doesn’t tie their shoelaces, because they just can’t be bothered so they remain permanent knots and tripping hazards. It might be a throw-away line about how they refuse to wear shorts and strictly stick to long pants because they don’t like showing off their legs. It might be perpetually greasy hair from constantly running their fingers through it with stress, or self-soothing. A necklace they fidget with, or a ring, a belt they never bother to replace even though they should, a pair of lucky socks.

Resist the urge to make it more meaningful than “this is just how they are”. If I’m using the untied shoelaces example – in Spiderverse, this became a part of the story’s themes, motifs, and foreshadowing, and doesn’t count. Which isn’t bad! It’s just not what I’m talking about.

Personality

In How to Train Your Dragon, Toothless does not speak. All his personality comes from how he moves, the noises he makes, and the expressions on his face. There’s moments, like in the finale, when his prosthetic has burned off and Hiccup tells him to hold on for a little bit longer, and you can clearly see on his face that he’s deeply uncertain about his ability to do so. It’s almost off the screen, another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. Or the beat of hesitation before he lets Hiccup touch him in the Forbidden Friendship scene. Or the irritated noise he makes when he’s impatiently waiting for Hiccup to stop chatting with his dad because they have a giant dragon to murder. Or when he slaps Hiccup with his ear fin for flying them into a rock spire.

None of those details *needed* to exist to endear you to his character or to serve the scenes they’re in. The scenes would carry on just fine without them. He’s a fictional dragon, yes, but these details make him real.

Other personality tics you could include might be a character who gets frustrated with tedious things very quickly and starts making little inteligible curses under their breath. Or how they giggle when they’re excited and start bouncing on their toes. Maybe they have a tic where they snap their fingers when they’re concentrating, trying to will an idea into existence. Or they stick their tongue out while they work and get embarrassed when another character calls them on it. They roll around in their sleep, steal blankets, drool, leave dishes in the sink or are neurotic with how things must be organized. They have one CD in their car, and actually use that CD player instead of the phone jack or Bluetooth. They sing in the shower, while they cook, or while they do homework, no matter how grating their voice.

They like the smell of new shoes or Sharpies. They hate the texture of suede or velvet or sticky residues. They never pick their socks up. They hate the overhead light in their room and use 50 lamps instead. They hate turning into oncoming traffic or don’t trust their backup camera. They collect Funko Pops and insist there’s always room for more.

And about a million others.

Beliefs, Behaviors, and Superstitions

*If you happen to be writing a story where superstitions have merit, maybe skip this one.* Usually, inevitably, these evolve into character centerpieces and I can’t actually think of one off the top of my head that doesn’t become this beyond the ones we all know. A few comedic examples do come to mind:

The Magic Conch in “Club Spongebob” and the sea-bear-proof dirt circle in “The Camping Episode”

Dean Winchester’s fear and panic-driven actions in “Yellow Fever” and “Sam, Interrupted”

The references to the trolls that steal left-foot socks in How to Train Your Dragon

I’m not a fan of wasting time writing a religious character doing their religious thing when Plot Is Happening, but smaller things are what I’m talking about. Like them wearing a cross/rosary and touching it when they’re nervous. Having a specific off-beat prayer, saying, or expression because they don’t believe in cursing.

The classic ones like black cats, ladders, broken mirrors, salt, sidewalk cracks can all be funny. Athletes have plenty, too, and some of them, particularly in baseball culture, are a bit ridiculous. Not washing socks or uniforms, having a team idol they donate Double Bubble to and also rub their toes. A specific workout routine, diet, team morale dance.

Other things, too. A character who’s afraid to go back downstairs once the lights are off, or fear the basement or the backyard shed. Or they’re really put-off by this old family photo for no reason other than how glassy their eyes look and it’s creepy. They like crystals, dreamcatchers, star signs, tarot, or they absolutely do not under any circumstances.

They believe in all the tried and true ways of predicting the weather like a grizzled old sailor. They believe in ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches, skinwalkers, doppelgangers, fairies. They talk to the cat statue in their kitchen and named it Fudge Pop. They whisper to the spirit that possessed the fridge so it stops making all that racket, and half the time, it works every time. They wear yellow for good luck or carry a rabbit’s foot. They’re not religious at all but still throw prayers out to whoever’s listening because, you know, just in case. They sit by their window sill and talk to the moon and the stars and pretend like they’re in a music video when they’re driving through the city in the rain.

Haptics, Proxemics, and Kinesics

These are, for all you non-communication and psych majors out there, touch and physical contact, how they move, and how they move around other people.

Behold, your shipping fodder.

Two shining examples of proxemics in action are the famous “close talker” episode of Seinfeld (of which every communication major has been subjected to) and Castiel’s not understanding of personal space (and human chronemic habits) in Supernatural.

These are how a character walks, if they’re flat-footed, clumsy, or tip-toers. If they make a racket or constantly spook the other characters. If they fidget or can’t sit still in a seat for five seconds, if they like to sit backwards or upside down. How they touch themselves, if they do a lot of self-soothing maneuvers (hugging themselves, rubbing their arms, touching their face, drawing their knees up, holding their neck, etc) or if they don’t do any self-soothing at all.

This is how they shake hands, if they dance while they cook or work. It’s how much space they let themselves take up, if they man-spread or keep their limbs in closer. How close they stand to others or how far. If they let themselves be touched at all, or if they always have their skin covered. If they always have their back to a wall, or are always making sure they know where the nearest exit is. If they make grand gestures when they talk and give directions. If they flinch from pats on the back or raised hands. If they lean away from loud voices or project their own. If they use their height to their advantage when arguing, puff their chest, square their shoulders, put their hands on their hips, or point fingers in accusation.

If they touch other characters as they pass by. If they’re huggers or victims of falling asleep on or near their comrades. If they must sleep facing the door, or with something solid behind them. If they can sleep in the middle of a party wholly uncaring. If they sleepwalk, sleeptalk, migrate across the bed to cuddle whoever’s nearest with no idea they’re doing it.

If they like to be held or like to hold others. If they hate being picked up and slung around or are touch-starved for it. If they like their space and stick to it or are more than happy to share.

Do they walk with grace, head held high and back straight? Or are they hunched over, head hung, watching their feet? Are they meanderers or speed-walkers? Do they cross their arms in front or lace their hands behind them? Do they bow to authority or meet that gaze head on?

I have heard that Prince Zuko, in Last Airbender, is usually drawn sleeping with his bad ear down when he doesn’t feel safe, like on his warship or anywhere in the Fire Nation, or on the road. He’s drawn on his other side once he joins the Gaang. In Dead Man’s Chest, just before Davy Jones drives the Flying Dutchman under the waves, two tentacles curl up and around the brim of his hat to keep it from blowing off in the water.

When they fight, do they attack first, or defend first? Do they touch other characters’ hair? Share makeup, share clothes? Touch their faces with boops or bonks or nuzzles and eskimo kisses? Do they crack their knuckles and necks and knees?

Do they stare in baffled curiosity at all the other characters wholly comfortable in each other's spaces because they can’t, won’t, or don’t see the point in all this nonsense? Do they say they’re happy on the outside, but are betrayed by their body language?

Voice

Whether or not to write an accent is entirely up to you. Books like Their Eyes Were Watching God writes dialogue in a vernacular specific to its characters. Westerners and southerners tend to be written with the southern drawl or dialect, ripe with stereotypical contractions. Be advised, however, that in attempt to write an accent to give your character depth, you could be instead turning off your audience who doesn’t have energy to decipher what they’re saying, or you went and wrote a racist stereotype.

Voice isn’t just accent and dialect, nor is it how it sounds, which falls more solidly under useful character descriptions. Voice for the sake of humanizing your characters concerns how they talk, how they convey their thoughts, and how they become distinct from other characters in dialogue and narration.

If you’re writing a narrative that hops heads and don’t want to include a big banner to indicate who’s talking at any given time, this is where voice matters. It is, I think, the least appreciated of all the possible traits to pay attention to.

First person narrators have the most flexibility here because the audience is zero degrees removed from their first-hand experiences. Their personality comes through sharply in how they describe things and what they pay attention to.

But it’s also in what similes and metaphors they use. I read a book that had an average (allegedly straight) male narrator going off and describing colors with types of flowers, some I had to look up because I just don’t know those off the top of my head. My immediate thought was either this character is a poorly written gay, or he’s a florist. Neither (allegedly), the writer was just being too specific.

Do they have crutch words they use? like, um, actually, so…, uh

Or repeat exclamations specific to them? yikes, yowzers, jeepers, jinkies, zoinks, balls, beans, d’oh!

Or idioms they’re fond of? Like a bat out of hell. Snowball’s chance.

Do they stutter when they’re nervous? Do they lose their train of thought and bounce around, losing other characters in the process? Do they have a non-Christian god they pray to and say something other than “thank God”? Are they from another country, culture, time period, realm, or planet with their own gods, beliefs, and idioms?

When they describe settings, how flowery is the language? Would this grizzled war hero use flowery language? How would he or she describe the color pink, versus a PTA mom? Do they use only a generic “blue, green, red” or do they really pay attention with “aquamarine, teal, emerald, viridian, vermillion, rose, ruby”?

How do this character’s hobbies affect how well they can describe dance moves, painting styles, car models, music genres?

This mostly matters when you’re head-hopping and the voice of the narrator serves to be more distinct, otherwise, what’s the point of head-hopping? Just use third-person omniscient.

If you really want to go wild, give a specific narrator unique syntax. Maybe one character is the ghost of Oscar Wild with never-ending run-on sentences. Just be sure to not go too overboard and compromise the integrity of your story.

In the book A Lesson Before Dying, a somewhat illiterate, underprivileged and undereducated minor has been given a mentor, a teacher, before they face the death penalty. At the end of the book, you read all of the letters they wrote to their teacher. There’s misspellings everywhere, almost no punctuation, and long, rambling sentences.

It’s heartbreaking. The subject matter is heavy and horrible, yes, but it’s the choice to write with such poor English that has a much bigger impact than perfect MLA format.

How to implement these details

Most of these, in the written medium, need only show up once or twice before your audience notices and wonders why they’re there. Most fall squarely under character design, which falls under exposition, and should follow all the exposition guidelines.

These details exist to be random and fluffy, but they can’t exist randomly within the narrative. If you want to have your character be superstitious, pick a relevant time to include that superstition.

Others, like ongoing speech habits or movements, still don’t overuse, especially if they’re unique. A character might like to sit backwards in a chair, but if you mention that they’re doing it every single time they sit down, your audience will wonder what’s so important and if the character is unwell.

And, of course, you can let these traits become thematically important, like a superstition being central to their personality or backstory or motivation. These all serve the same purpose of making your character feel like a real person instead of just a “character”.

Just think about tossing in a few random details every now and then and see what happens. One tiny sentence can take a background character and make them candidates for the eventual fandom’s fan favorite. Details like these turn your work from “This a story, and these are the characters who tell it” into “these are my characters, and this is their story.”

#writing advice #character design #writing tips #writing resources #exposition #writing tools #writing a book

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whosaidsealscantfly · 1 year

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My two cents on the whole situation

I think a lot of people in the Welcome Home fandom are misunderstanding the bigger picture here. It's resulting in a lot of people expressing disappointment and pointing fingers at people who aren't even the problem, and while the intentions mean well, it's causing the toxic environment Clown doesn't want.

In his post, which has now been privated, he talks about how overwhelming everything is. He even directly states that it's not just about boundaries, and while he has trouble putting it into words (and I will not put words in his mouth in the process either), Clown indicates that the sudden spotlight and attention is overwhelming him. And that's completely understandable - he's just one guy! Plus, he's been making stuff for Welcome Home for years, so it only makes sense to fluster over the sudden rush of attention in only a week. A week!!!

The reasons why boundaries come into play with all of this isn't just because his THREE rules were violated by garbage people. It's the fact that he had no time to establish boundaries beforehand, and it's stressful to suddenly have to think of EVERY facet of fandom culture and establish the dos and don'ts. But as Clown said, what's happened has happened, and all we can do is move on. Which leads me to my next point:

Clown explicitly said to not reprimand people on his behalf. He doesn't want the fandom to waste time and energy on people who have already crossed the line. What has happened, has happened. With that said, it's important to educate and point out when someone has crossed a boundary, but you shouldn't go through so much effort and anger over someone who clearly doesn't give a shit.

I've seen a lot of people who are making posts with a lot of "shame on you!"s and "You are all trash." I've also seen comments on harmless fanfics or art saying things like "You're the reason this fandom sucks." What awful things to say!

This fandom is probably one of the best fandoms I've been a part of. Why? Because a large majority, and I mean a LARGE majority, are respectful of Clown and want to do right by him. I've never seen a community band together so quickly to change their ways, apologize, spread the word, and evaluate the decisions they've made: not just in this fandom, but every fandom they've ever been a part of. That's HUGE. I've been on the internet for a very long time, and I don't think I've ever seen anything like that.

Yes, there are BAD eggs in this fandom, but there always is. What's important is that I haven't been seeing those bad eggs. Like, at all. I haven't seen a single explicit NSFW post, and I haven't seen a single piece of mass-produced merch. I've only heard about them through word-of-mouth, but I've never actually seen anything with my own eyes. Not that I doubt anyone, but I'm saying this to illustrate just how little bad eggs there are in the community. And this is a HUGE community.

In fact, I think we're so good, that we're starting to punish ourselves for making fandom content, and that is also awful. I want to reiterate what Clown's three major rules are:

Refrain from publicly posting NSFW content or content that wouldn't be safe for children to see/read.

Do not mass produce merch. Commissions and personal projects are fine, but they cannot be mass produced to be sold.

Do not impersonate and claim his art as yours. Give credit!! Don't trick people, and don't profit off of someone else's work!

And that's it! I've seen a lot of people taking down their fanfictions and art and AUs just because they're worried about Clown. That's super sweet and it warms my heart to hear that the community is so considerate, but remember, the three rules above are the only don'ts. Lots of people are scared of continuing to overwhelm him, and they're also scared that he might stop the project all together.

I assure you, he's not. Firstly, his fan works guideline is still pinned on his Tumblr blog!! If he wasn't sure of fanworks all together, he would have simply privated the post and write a new one with new rules. The rules have not changed. He loves to see fan interpretations, your AUs, your OCs, and your art! This is all explicitly stated! You can read it here incase you forgot -> https://www.tumblr.com/partycoffin/712519493403934720/apologies-if-this-has-already-been-asked-but-how?source=share

Secondly, he actually posted an update on his ko-fi that indicates that he's doing much better and that he's "elbow deep" into working on Welcome Home! I'm a member that gets to see all of his posts on ko-fi, and while I'm not going to show you the whole post (obviously), I will quote an important part you guys should see: "You have all been so delightful to me (Setbacks happen with an abrupt shift in attention, I realize, so roll I will with this newfound experience!) and I was like 'Oh, let's post a tasty preview!'"

Clown acknowledges all of the goodwill and kindness the community has shown. He even states that he's learned from the experience and he's working hard on Welcome Home to see it through!

This was a very long two cents, so I'll end it here.

tl;dr, You guys are being too harsh on each other/yourselves, and that's the last thing Clown wants. He's doing better, Welcome Home is still being worked on, and you shouldn't have to shame yourself or others for posting perfectly kosher fandom content. There's only three major rules, three, so you shouldn't have to feel bad about what makes you happy.

#welcome home #wally darling #welcomeh #frank frankly #julie joyful #eddie dear #poppy partridge #howdy pillar #barnaby b beagle #sally starlet #i think those are all the tags lmao #erica speaks #anyway stop being mean!! y'all are fine just be your silly little selves #I should also note that this isn't to change your mind if you want to delete your stuff #This is just a reminder that your stuff is okay! As long as it doesn't break the three rules ofc

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furst1ded · 2 months

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Thoughts on Shipping Alastor from an AroAce person

(this entire thing is copy and pasted excerpts from a Discord rant so if the grammar is funky, that's why, I just felt like giving my 2 cents on the topic)

Aroace people can still participate in romantic and sexual interactions. All being aro/ace/aroace means is you don't feel romantic/sexual attraction upon seeing other people. You can feel it later on or in waves or could never feel that attraction but still can participate and love others in a fulfilling way. Some aroace people are fine performing intimacy onto others but dislike reciprocation, others are the opposite where they're fine receiving but not giving. It's a spectrum.

The nuances of asexuality and aromanticism aside, you can be in a relationship without being in a relationship. Platonic relationships beyond friendship are a thing (QPRs for example). But like, I get it. Not everyone who ships Alastor keeps it confined to a QPR. And his character seems pretty sex-repulsed and romance-averse. But here's the other thing. He's fictional. As long as his character remains aroace in canon, fans taking the silly radio man and making him kiss the devil isn't taking away from aroace representation.

This next bit is coming from me as an AroAce person myself. I ship Alastor. I write/read him kissing people and fucking and acting romantic. And guess what? It's related to expressing my sexuality. Alastor is one of my favorite characters in anything ever and I love that there's a character that represents a facet of myself in a popular media. I relate to him so goddamn much and that's why I ship him. He's a fictional character I like that I project onto, so I use him as a way to navigate and explore romantic/sexual relationships that I'm never going to participate in myself. He's not real so I just puppet him around to live through vicariously in the scenarios I don't want to be a part of myself but find super interesting. It's not anything new, I do the same with my own characters in the stories I write them in, it's part of storytelling, I just use him for a specific type of story for a specfic part of myself.

It's not like we're hurting anybody by shipping him. We're not drastically effecting canon and making him an alloromantic. I've seen plenty of fics that ship him that either make it a QPR or they thoroughly explore the nuances of his asexuality and what subtype of sexuality he is and how he navigates it and I love those fics because they speak to me on a spiritual level. Grayromantic Alastor, demisexual alastor, sex-repulsed but romance-favorable Alastor, sex-repulsed and romance-averse Alastor in a one-sided ship fic, etc they're all so important to me because it helps me live out my own sexuality and romantic orientation and explore myself.

I get it. Not everyone is respectful. Not everyone feels the way I do and use characters in this way. It can suck seeing people just ignore his sexuality when asexuals and aromantics don't get much in terms of screen-time. But you can't control everybody and what work they put out. And trying to censor stuff like that does more harm than good. I just explained why fics involving Alastor are so important to me. They normalize QPRs and aroaces being in relationships. That's probably what pisses me off the fucking most. If we're not allowed to write about aroaces being in relationships or romantic/sexual situations, you put aroaces into a box. A box where every aroace is perceived as sexless and loveless, which just isn't true. A box where aroaces are prudes or infants who can't handle hearing the word "sex". It's just so frustrating. You can be mad at fics that expressly rewrite or stomp on his sexuality, sure. You can't stop them, but you can disapprove of them. But let the rest of us have our fun making the literal devil and TV head man have the hots for a man whose teeth are yellower than the sun, Jesus Christ.

TL;DR: asexuality is a spectrum, I'm aroace and use shipping as a way to explore and express myself and I know I'm not the only one, trying to suppress works where an Aroace character is seen participating in romance or sex can actually be harmful in that it promotes only one idea of what being aroace is, and at the end of the day the character I'm talking about doesn't even exist.

#sorry to flood the aro and ace tags with more hazbin stuff but I feel like what I said can be important to the community outside of hazbin #asexual representation #asexual #aromantic #aromantic asexual #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel #radioapple #radiosilence #radiostatic #one sided radiostatic

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taizi · 4 months

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every high and every low

i wrote a tiny little something for @mangogreent, it isnt much but i hope you like ! happy birthday lake ! title borrowed from glad you exist by dan + shay (listen with your platonic nakamaship hat on and dissolve into seafoam with me)

read on ao3

Luffy’s body doesn’t scar easily. It’s one of the many facets of a frankly unhinged healing factor; his body shuffles micronutrients and vitamins around like a circus clown juggling pins, wounds healing so quickly and completely that there is rarely a trace left behind.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. The smiling pencil-mark curve beneath his eye is one of them. The cruel, gaping burn across his chest is another.

Sanji and Chopper have spent hours going over dietary needs and goals for everyone aboard Sunny, not just their captain. But it’s their captain whose food works like a miracle in his stomach.

If Sanji thinks too long and too hard about Totto Land—about Luffy’s trembling, emaciated limbs when he handed over a disgusting, ruined bento, the way his skin plumped up and shone with good health within minutes of a meal—there are very good odds that he’ll spiral into a fit of grief or guilt or panic no matter where he is or what he’s doing at the time. So he tries not to think about it, and instead loads his captain with carbs and protein and fiber at every opportunity instead.

Suffice to say, Luffy’s skin is largely whole and undamaged, only a few faint scars scattered here and there that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t really looking. His rubber body is a marvel, but it burns like a starving furnace, and sometimes it does him a disservice no one could have possibly seen coming.

“You don’t feel that?” Usopp says with a frown.

“Nuh-uh,” Luffy confirms blithely, watching the feather move back and forth across his arm. “If you pinch me or poke me with something sharp I will, but if it’s soft it’s like it’s not there at all.”

For a moment, everyone sits there and absorbs that information. Sanji can feel it settling over his nakama like a blanket of snow; cold and promising to pack in and be a pain in the ass to shovel through. Sanji has to readjust his understanding of the world, too. It takes him a minute.

The only touches that Luffy feels easily are the ones that hurt. That’s true for everyone, in a sense—but just because a slap might register louder and faster than a gentle touch doesn’t mean the latter doesn’t carry a weight of its own.

Sanji wonders, abruptly, if the last thing Luffy felt from him was the fight they had on Whole Cake when Sanji was desperate to free his captain of his obligations to a pathetic, useless cook—when he did everything in his power to drive him away.

Nami and Brook have joined Usopp in the game of poking Luffy’s arms and legs and squishy sides in the name of proving him wrong, finding a spot where he isn’t so thick-skinned. Brook’s phalanges drumming against his ribs make him giggle a bit, but how much of that is real feeling and how much is simply delight at all the attention and affection pointed his way?

It should be cute, but Sanji can see—and feel—it cutting everyone to the quick. Robin has closed her book, watching the scene without a smile on her face. Franky’s hands are unmoving around the great feathered monstrosity he and Usopp have been building at the table together up until this point, as if he’s forgotten he’s holding tools in the first place.

Enough is enough, Sanji decides, and sets aside his pride along with his bowl of red velvet cupcake batter and maryse spatula, moving around the counter with purpose.

“Got an idea,” he says at length and Nami scoots gamely to the side. Sanji keeps moving before he can get in his own way and takes Luffy’s round face in one work-hardened hand.

Luffy, who has been known to use his actual skull as a battering ram, usually fights with his whole chest and carries most of his injuries there, too. His face, aside from an unfortunate unsupervised incident with a knife when he was little more than a toddler with a highly questionable and often day-drunk role model, is unscarred.

Sanji brushes his thumb against Luffy’s cheek, where the skin lays very thin over sensitive nerve endings. His captain blinks up at him, brown eyes wide and trusting, every bit as if he’s looking at someone who has never hurt him before.

The crew present is watching raptly, their disquiet transforming into absurd, single-minded scrutiny. There’s a reason they’re not only living in the New World but thriving there—they’re good at adapting, at assimilating new information, at smacking the curveballs right out of the park on their second swing.

“Feel that?” Sanji asks.

Luffy tips his head curiously, just enough not to dislodge Sanji’s hand. Perfectly willing to sit still and be held when it’s his cook doing the holding.

“Kinda,” the boy says, the barest hint of a furrow forming between his brows. It’s the beginning of an epic spoiled sulk that everyone who loves him is intimately familiar with—because his nakama belong to him, and so Sanji does, and so his hand on Luffy’s face does, and it is rapidly occurring to Luffy that it’s not fair for all of those things to be true and for him not to be able to feel it.

Sanji can’t help but smile, always equal parts charmed and exasperated by the future king in a pout. He leans in and presses his mouth to the same place his thumb was, kissing the soft cheek firmly. He can almost see it when Luffy zings to attention, his overwhelming focus zeroed into that singular point of contact.

By the time Sanji straightens, Luffy is already beaming ear-to-ear.

“I felt that!”

Sanji returns to his dessert prep, perfectly satisfied with the changed world he leaves in his wake. Chopper is already clambering over the top of the table, scattering the bits and bobs of the engineers' project into an irremediable mess in his haste to bury his favorite human in fuzzy reindeer kisses, and similarly everyone else’s eyes are gleaming with promise.

Luffy’s rubber body is both a wonder and a menace, much like the golden soul it houses. But where it falls short and fails him, his friends will pick up the slack. Luffy is probably going to get his cheeks and forehead pinched and poked a lot more when he’s whining or complaining or elsewise being his annoying, incorrigible self.

But he’s also going to get kissed a lot more there, too.

#one piece #opfic #black leg sanji #monkey d luffy #sanlu #nakamaship #my writing #op #mangogreent #it turned into pure fluff 🥺🥺 nakama soup for the soul

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kipperlillyclerickiller · 29 days

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Exploring Unconventional Bad Kid/Ratgrinder Parallels

Obviously, when Brennan introduced the Ratgrinders in FHJY, some clear parallels in class composition popped up. Every member of the Bad Kids has a corresponding Ratgrinder who shares their general build/role in the party and (presumably) some of their psychological issues as well. But when I was rotating the characters in my mind, as one does, I realized that there were some other interesting character foils to be pointed out. I've listed them below under the read more, along with more detailed thoughts on what aspects of the characters are highlighted with each comparison.

Also I spent way too much time working on this, so I'm including a DNI banner on here (made by @kipperlillyforpresident, who also graciously let me bounce ideas off in the DMs)

Kipperlilly Copperkettle/Gorgug Thistlespring: the first parallel that i came up with. they both have issues around rage that are belied by their physical appearance, with klck being a tiny halfling who experiences an excessive amount of rage that doesn't "benefit" her adventuring-wise as she's a rogue, while on the hand, gorgug is a half-orc who started out as a barbarian in part because it is what he's physically predisposed to be, despite actually having an extremely gentle personality, only transitioning to artificer in his junior year. both have relatively normal middle-class backgrounds but still have issues; klck's anger issues regarding not having a tragic backstory are well-documented, but gorgug also has baggage that made him minimize his presence at the beginning of his high school career, stemming from growing up in a household where rage wasn't really considered at all bc it's an emotion so antithetical to the thistlesprings' way of existence (to be clear, i think the thistlesprings are great parents; it's just that they didn't really know how to address this aspect of gorgug's development)

Ruben Hopclap/Fabian Seacaster: black boys showing off the sensitive side of masculinity. last episode established that the ratgrinders are living in ruben's mansion, which he presumably bought with his rockstar money and lives in without any parental figures, meaning that he and fabian have similar living situations and probably similar issues with trying to avoid loneliness that result in attention-seeking behavior (ruben's music career and fabian's max legend status). finally, the turncoat potential: fabian has admitted to listening to ruben's music and beefed with gertie bladeshield against the rest of the bad kids. meanwhile, ruben's experiencing some sort of guilt/reluctance with the ratgrinders' plan as expressed through his interactions w/ wanda childa. i believe they can bridge the bad kid/ratgrinder divide and i want them to be friends sooo bad

Ivy Embra/Fig Faeth: most straightforward similarity is their sylvan elf heritage, but i think that the similarity that matters the most would be their image/self-portrayal, with ivy being a sort of mean girl with an edge, similar to the type of person that fig wanted to portray herself as in freshman year (even though fig is actually much more soft-hearted/sentimental). this comparison is honestly more of a what-could-be scenario that sheds light on potential alternate facets of fig's story bc 1) ivy being an elven ranger is pretty similar to sandra lynn but has the edgy persona fig only took on after she found out about her tiefling heritage and 2) we have literally no idea what's going on with ivy's emotional landscape. still, this comparison compels me, especially in light of finding out how porter and jace groomed the ratgrinders, and the way that sandra lynn got used by bobby dawn when he was an adventurer. it's like a dark mirror of what could have happened to fig if the circumstances were worse (and the fact that bobby dawn is a teacher in aguefort rn and was also collaborating with porter to an extent.... the cycles are cycling!!)

Mary-Ann Skuttle/Riz Gukgak: just little guys. specifically smaller races often stereotyped as villainous and acting in the service of the party rather than for themselves, though while we see that riz acts for the party out of genuine passion, mary-ann seems to be more apathetic. both are disconnected from regular teenage social norms, generally unbothered/unaware of looking "uncool", and more focused on their personal interests, as mary-ann has her plushies and riz has his mysteries (and his business cards from freshman year lol). even when riz joined all the school clubs this year, he did it for the sake of kristen's campaign/getting scholarship money to help his mom more than for his own reputation. another prominent similarity is a heavy compartmentalization of emotion: we don't really know what's going on with mary-ann but she hasn't shown any emotion even when trying out for bloodrush and seems remarkably unbothered for someone who's been presumably been shatter-starred. riz, in contrast, has a lot of emotions/anxieties but channels them into mystery solving and other activities, an approach encapsulated by the baron quote from fhsy: "You love the truth. You seek it so much that you cut your hands upon the inside of crystals. But, you use deception to protect yourself from something you fear." riz also isn't very forthcoming with his emotional state, evading questions from his mom and Jawbone, as well as his friends. His initial drive to solve mysteries stemmed from the emotion from his father's death, but iirc he didn't even tell the bad kids about how pok died until sophomore. And now, he's grinding in school/extracurriculars for scholarships to avoid considering the possibility of the bad kids splitting up

Buddy Dawn/Adaine Abernant: catty and blonde. (jk) both of them feel anger prominently and express it in their spellcasting (versus a more martial class), but in very different ways. adaine's whole arc throughout freshman and sophomore year has been about accepting that she has the right to be angry about the way that her parents abused her, and that her anger can be a source of power in her spellcasting; contrast the way she brained doreen with the ladle in the first battle with the corn cutie bc she didn't know what to do versus later battles in sophomore and junior year when she's learned adaine's furious fist. on the other hand, buddy uses his cleric spellcasting as a healer in order to sublimate discomforting feelings and avoid dealing with the idea of agency and consequences of emotions like anger. his whole conversation with kristen is basically him going "i don't feel anger because i repress it so deeply and i don't engage in violence, just help other people kill because that is helio's will. my hands are clean tho :)" (he is so funny) additionally, adaine has found a support system in her adventuring party, as well as jawbone and ayda, while buddy is the odd one out in the ratgrinders as lucy's replacement, isolated from preexisting support systems as he has just moved from highcourt and subsequently becoming so very vulnerable to getting shatterstarred

Oisin Hakinvar/Kristen Applebees: idk these are the only guys i have left. ok my original idea was they both have plot-relevance related to adaine's summons, with oisin hijacking adaine's dust mephits to tamper with the cloud rider engine and whatever the fuck is gonna go on with K2 in the next episodes. also have a narrative presence defined in part by the women they're crushing on, with kristen dealing with her attraction to tracker/gertie/women in general throughout all the campaigns and oisin being introduced as seemingly flustered by adaine's attention. but honestly i think the strongest parallel is that they're both haters (kristen calling klck "4dogs" and oisin calling buddy dawn "hayseed", fight!)

and of course, how could I forget...

Lucy Frostblade/Gilear Faeth: the Chosen Ones. both have plot relevance and relation to Ankarna through their ancestry. both just have a melancholy vibe. ppl from mountainous cultures often live off dairy products... i'm gonna extrapolate and assume that lucy loved blueberry yogurt

#fhjy #fhjy spoilers #ratgrinders #kipperlilly copperkettle #ruben hopclap #ivy embra #mary ann skuttle #buddy dawn #oisin hakinvar #lucy frostblade #actually tagged all their names bc i spent so long working on this lol

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theysaidhush · 15 days

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Dear Christopher,

-> Pairing: Ex!Bang Chan x Reader

-> You write a letter to Chan one year after he breaks up with you, asking questions you wish you had answers to before he left.

-> heavy angst, bit of smut

I thought love was everything I needed. You said it was everything we needed. I believed it. Truly did. Because even if everyone likes you, even if I am everyone, everyone is not me. They don't get to see you when waking up, they don't get to touch your face like I wish I did, don't get to hold your hand or look into your eyes when we were dinning - that, I wish I did too. I'm just realizing that I might as well be just everyone, don't you think so too?

"I will love you, to the moon and back."

Was your trip to the moon too short that it did not last long? Was trying to reach out for the stars too tiring? It wasn't even what I asked for...

I met you on a sunny day, remember? I bet you do, because as much as I want you not to, so I can blame you, I know you do. You're just like that, so perfect that it's actually hard for me to write this letter. I want to point at your flaws and scream and screech at that blank, virgin piece of paper. But I can't. It holds too much meaning to me. I still have it. Why do I still have it? Ah, seriously...

So yeah, we met on a sunny day. I think it was holidays? At least for you. Those are rare aren't they? You were nobody, walking down the street. No holy glow, no charming or alluring walk. Just you, your cap and your way too baggy black clothes. I wasn't sucked it, did not look twice at that strange man covered like a person would if walking in Netherlands. And you came to me and told me a weird pick up line with that accent of yours that made me think about what you said twice just because I couldn't comprehend it. I wouldn't have answered if it wasn't for your giggle. You were giggling. Giggling for God's sake. What man giggles in 2022? But you sucked me in, just like that. With those charming dimples. Suddenly, the ocean wasn't enough to quench my thirst, no weight was heavy enough to hold me down and no colors was enough to paint you and picture you just like you were that day. It was so overwhelming I wish I hadn't met you, that day. I was a blushing mess (I still am when recalling that scene), my hands were sweaty and I was feeling dizzy. How dare you sounding so pretty? Because yeah, you made me realize that a sound could be pretty too. I fell in love for the first time in my life. I fell when I met you.

We met later. You were late. I did not think much about it. I am not one to care for those kind of things. Still am. How could I known it was a telltale sign? How would I known? You asked me questions about myself. You were the first to actually make me feel like an interesting person. Is it fool? I don't know. But I loved telling you about my life. You always hear, you always listen. I love that about you. I could have told you about how I saw an ant carrying another ant, how funny I thought it was, and you could have laughed like you were here to witness it, like it was actually funny. I could have told you about this really sad movie that I watched a few days prior and you could have scrunched your face and furrow your eyebrows as if you were trying not to cry. I could have told you about that stain on my table that I just can't clean and your fingers would have itched to do it for me. I fell in love a second time. I fell when I got to know you.

And then you left. I appreciated spending time with you. I appreciated the way you asked me if you could hold my hand. Just by that I could tell that your mother was a lovely and respectable person. I appreciated the way you were always trying to find something to do. I did not care about that suffocating thing covering half your face.

"I wanna see you do plenty of things so that I can know what you like and what you doesn't. I wanna get to know you when you are surprised, sad, happy, delighted. I wanna fell in love with every facet of your personality." you said. Was what you found not attractive enough? Was it not enough to keep you entertained, Chan?

Then you told me you had to leave. I hoped it wasn't just a summer fling. But you asked for my number, and we talked even after you left. Even in my sleep I was thrilled about waking up and reading your text in the morning, can you believe that? Who gave you the right to take my heart hostage and to care for it? Your texts were sweet, your voice in our weekly phone calls sweeter. And those pictures of landscapes even more. Got me thinking about how I wanted to be by your side. How I wanted to watch this sunset with you, how I wanted to hold your hand and kiss you until I can't breathe.

We never kissed. I regret that. I despise that. But maybe it is because we weren't meant to. And yet, in the darkest of night I was thinking about how I wanted to be next to you. How I wanted some warmth, some love. How I wanted to trace your body with my tongue. How I wanted to hold your hands while I'm making love to you. For the first time in my life I was horny. I wanted you to fill me up, to caress and to touch. I wanted to feel your fingertips on my body, to feel you fingers in my private part, to hear your whispers in my ears as you are delicately rocking my body. For the first time in my life I was a stranger in my own body. Touching and trying to please myself just like you would do if you were there. How funny, I'm sounding like a perv.

But you slowly started to disappear. Photos getting blurry. Texts getting shorter. Phone calls getting rare. Affection being yearned for.

And then you told me that you could no longer be with me. And that's when I fell in love for the third time. I fell because I realized how our one year relationship meant to me. You took everything with you. After that, the sun rays were burning flames, the smell of coffee was suffocating, the laughs of people was defeating, my thoughts were deadly.

You got me thinking about me. About I could would have be if I never met you. A happier version of myself. Confident and proud. But instead, you got me thinking about what was wrong about me. Was I not enough? Were my quirks and habits too weird? Was my voice and my laugh repulsing? Was my body disgusting? You got me dreading looking at my reflection, you got me dreading meeting new people. What if they didn't like me? What if I was not interesting enough? What if I was too loud? too obnoxious? too silent? too shy? too quiet? to weird? too ugly? too clingy? too distant? too mean? too nice? What if I was me? What if they didn't like me?

And I hate myself for saying this, because this is not all your fault. I was insecure before meeting you. But you gave me a taste of self-confidence, and it was like drug, addicting. But it was a you thing. The way you made me feel like we were on top of the world. You took it with you. I don't know how to go back to my old self.

I hope that one day I will heal feel again. But for the moment I will try.

It's been a year now. I still love you. I'll never love someone like I loved you. But you'll never love me like you love music. And I respect that. I only found out a few months after our break up that you were a world wide star. Mask and cap be damned, your voice is one that I can't forget. I think I understand now. Why you left. And again, I respect that.

I love you. We could have talked about it

I love you. If only you had told me

I love you. I'm sorry you didn't feel loved enough to tell me about your job

I love you, I wish you just told me why you left

I'm sorry. I should have try harder.

But maybe I was just that. Maybe I was just everybody. I'll try to forget because I genuinely wants to see you happy. Maybe one day I'll thank you for helping me growing up as a person. Maybe one day I'll tell about my first love to my friends. Maybe one day I'll write you another letter and write:

"And one day, your name didn't make me smile anymore."

To Bang Christopher Chan

From A Baby-Stray Stay

#stray kids x reader #bang chan x reader #chan x reader #stray kids smut #stray kids angst #bang chan smut #bang chan angst #skz x reader #skz angst #skz smut

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thief-of-eggs · 2 months

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I love the way you write Alastor and the way you write Luci. I know so many writers who maintain a very specific stereotype about aroace people, e.g. “Ew don’t touch me, you’re gross and I want to kill you because i would rather DIE then be touched” or “haha this character hates every single type of affection and is snarky because of it” and it’s just so icky to me… like yes some aroace people hate touch but they don’t hate other people, arocas people can have friends

yes alastor is snarky, it’s not because he’s aroace. he’s just a bitch (said with love) and his sexuality shouldn’t be used as his only personality trait,

idk if any of that rant made sense but I js wna say how much I appreciate the way you write and characterize Radioapple :3

Firstly- thank you so so much, this is so amazing to hear!!! It means a lot to me to have a canon aroace character, which is why I love diving into/embracing it in the fics I write!!

100% as you said, Alastor is a bitch because Alastor is a bitch, nothing to do with his sexuality. He’s a bit self centered, a bit harsh, a bit inconsiderate- but that’s just him and his sparkle. Not his sexuality.

And as for the hating touch- I wish more people understood how asexuality and aromanticism is a spectrum! It’s not a one size fits all! It’s huge!!!

Personally, I like to think that Alastor doesn’t particularly like touch due to past trauma, as well as sensory issues. I don’t think it’s all to do with his aromanticism (I think he’s more the type to be indifferent to romantic things, not repulsed by them) But I do think his touch aversion is real, just not stemming from his aroace identity.

And of course, I’m not in Alastor’s head (or Vivzie’s) but I like to think that touch is OK with Alastor, so long as it is on his terms- and I think “on his terms” includes those people whom he’s given either silent or spoken permission to in regards to touching him. Which is a huge difference from “I hate all forms of touch and I’ll kill you if you touch me”

We see with Mimzie and Rosie and Niffty that Alastor is OK with touch- he lets them initiate touch and he doesn’t bat an eye. Which is why I think so long as he’s comfortable with them, then touch is somewhat permitted. He may not feel the same sort of butterflies or attraction etc through touch- but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy it for what it brings to him!

I think it’s a big trust thing, and I also like to think it changes day to day. What’s alright on one day may be too much on the next. But I also like to think that Luci would be 100% understanding of that.

As you said- it’s not just all or nothing with aroace people, and it sucks that that streotype exists. At its core, asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction- but that says nothing against physical touch in general. And aromanticism at its core is a lack of romantic attraction- which again, says nothing on physical touch!

Not to mention, love is such a complicated, multi faceted thing. Aroace people are not incapable of love. Aroace people are not stony beings who do not crave reassurance and human connection. We just crave it differently than others.

#thank you anon this ask made my night #these characters are just so special to me !!! so this means a lot to hear #egg answers #hazbin hotel #radioapple #appleradio #hazbin alastor #lucifer morningstar #alastor #asexual alastor #aromantic alastor #aroace alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor and rosie #alastor and mimzy

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lostinthesasuke · 8 months

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do you think sasuke is religious or upholds his clan's religious practices? i was rereading and in the part where they go to resucitate the hokages orochimaru says "there's nothing left of the uchiha's nakano shrine", to which sasuke answers "the exterior doesn't matter" and it got me wondering

HI YES thank you so much for sending this ask. it's very close to me. elaborated a Lot under the cut but tl;dr - yes.

he is religious in the only way he remembers how to be. preserving Uchiha tradition and culture is deeply important to him. when he said the exterior of Nakano shrine didn't matter, sure he was referring to the fact that there was a hidden underground level... but it meant much more than that.

genocide doesn't just claim lives, it claims languages and religions and every facet of culture. konoha has been known to participate in the censorship and eradication of culture. this assimilation functions as an extension of genocide.

by virtue of being a survivor, i think sasuke feels an obligation to "carry the torch". since he was so young when the massacre occurred, it's likely a lot of practice and customs have been lost altogether. this is distressing to him. even during his character introduction at 12 years old, his clans "restoration" was first and foremost in his mind. to me this statement was never about re-population as many people interpret, but about justice, pride, and culture.

he feels as though the Uchiha name has been "tainted" and it is his responsibility to "purify" it. but what that means to him shifts over time.

the Uchiha clan's religion is obviously based on and deeply tied to the Shinto religion, just like the clan's jutsu and kekkei genkai. many Uchiha jutsu are named after Shinto deities.

this part i am not going to delve into too much yet because one day i will probably write a paper about it, but one of the tenets of Shinto belief is the importance of purity. Shinto practice and customs are regionally variant but the practice of purification is central. death is considered to be extremely impure. this context is deeply relevant to Sasuke's belief system and the way he thinks about himself and his clan.

it is likely that the uchiha religion is closed, evidenced by nakano shrine being kept a secret. sasuke not only has to contend with the fact that the remaining pieces of his culture are guarded and hidden, requiring the use of high-level dojutsu to decipher, but also that any of it may have been altered. the revelation that the stone tablet was altered in order to facilitate madara's manipulation and further subjugation of the uchiha was destabilizing. sasuke has to put the pieces of his religion back together with mostly his memories to rely on.

many parallels can be drawn between sasuke and the sun goddess Amaterasu. when she is betrayed by her brother Susanoo, she withdraws into a cave and plunges the world into darkness. Susanoo conspires to manipulate her into leaving the cave, and then binds her.

this gender reversal is sort of fascinating. Amaterasu and Susanoo contradict the popular notions about the sun and moon and the masculine and feminine. of course this reminds me of sasuke as well, because everything does.

sasuke is typically associated with the waning crescent, the phase just before a new moon, and itachi with a full moon. since sasuke is associated with the moon, the yin, and the feminine, it would logically follow that he would be passive like water; low like a valley. however, he subverts this expectation.

i believe this is a big part of why he makes so many people uncomfortable. he is fire and lightning and he is not a perfect victim.

after speaking to the kage and revealing the secrets of Nakano shrine, he resolves himself to burn the world down and be reborn like a phoenix. like the waning crescent before a new moon.

he is not "pure" the way itachi expects, kishimoto states, or many fans anticipate. he has strong convictions and he is confident. he is not apologetic and he is impossible to ignore.

the first time we ever see sasuke associated with the sun is after he learns the truth about the massacre. he leaves his cave. he sheds hebi and becomes taka, predator instead of prey. he is ready to spill as much blood as it takes.

i have many ideas about what Uchiha religious customs might look like, and many of them concern fire. the uchiwa fan that stokes the flames is their crest. they are seen as fully fledged members of the clan once they can perform katon jutsu. the shrine that houses the Uchiha's patron deity has eternal flames lit.

drawing from my own religion, one of my favorite metas draws a parallel between the Uchiha fire affinity and

אש תמיד (Aish tamid)

which means eternal flame. (sorry for line break, tumblr hates right to left languages). Aish tamid refers to the flame in the temple of Jerusalem that was always kept alight before its desecration by the greeks. just like the torches located in Nakano shrine.

the greeks attempted to hellenize and extinguish Jewish culture. they outlawed observance of Shabbat and circumcision, spat in the face of kashrut by sacrificing pigs in the temple, and even built statues of their gods within. the Jewish people rebelled against them and the flame was rekindled.

rebellion, justice, and pride in culture is in the spirit of fire. unending, always enduring. Sasuke and the Uchiha clan embody this, their crests always emblazoned on their clothes even at the cost of armor. from Madara's rage, to the coup, to Sasuke's revenge, justice is an integral component to the Uchiha ethos.

to me this is a really interesting contrast to the will of fire. the will of fire is the ideal of nationalism-- putting the state before the self. this idea is lauded as heroism. it was originated by the senju, no wonder.

meanwhile, the uchiha clan with their fire affinity and deeply spiritual connection to flame are seen as transgressors. they are seen as disruptive to the ideal of the "will of fire" due to their strong cultural identity. they refuse to assimilate into the dominant culture. they prioritize their love and familial bonds with each other over konoha's interests.

naruto wiki im going to kill you

they are labeled with the opposing "curse of hatred".

it is no surprise then that itachi was praised for his strong "will of fire" for carrying out the massacre-- putting the well-being of the state over the lives of his family. groomed into following the senju doctrine and abandoning his own culture. assimilated and outcast.

in modern culture Aish tamid is kept alight by the continuation of religious practice- praying and studying Torah keep the flame burning. "The exterior doesn't matter". the flame is already burning within Sasuke.

sasuke carries on whatever pieces of his culture he remembers, and he prays in the dark, and he thinks of his mother with her hands clasped at the kamidana, and he visits shrines often on his journey. he lights incense and he burns brightly. and he walks on.

#naruto meta #uchiha sasuke #txt #ok whatever sorry this is 10 million words i couldn't figure out how to trim it down more #thanks for sending me this hope it is interesting #ask

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cult-of-the-eye · 4 months

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LEMME HEAR YOUR UNHINGED TMA RANTS! <3

Oooh I think I've already posted a lot of my rants but one of the characters who I haven't really had a whole rant on is Martin K blackwood.

THIS MAN. This man is so wonderfully written. A lot of characterisations of the "nice one" are quite flat and don't really expand much on them being nice apart from maybe giving the person low self esteem. What I love about Martin is how masterfully it uses that sort of prototype of a character and makes it much more gut wrenching and relatable. He starts off as sort of the office dunce from Jon's pov, which early on we also realise is unreliable. He's the bumbling idiot, the sweet fool and I get it. As a fat person, I feel like a lot of us feel pressured to be the comic relief or to put it more precisely, the one to be laughed at. And he's seen the gap in the archives, he's seen that role that needs to be filled and he's easily filled it. When you have the group of Tim and Sasha and then Jon, the only thing that could unite them is mutual awkward laughter towards Martin. And Martin is used to seeing what's there and filling the gaps, man is a people pleaser to a fault, he has had to guess what his mum didn't like about him and change accordingly, getting it wrong every time. He makes himself palatable which is so REAL especially for a fat person and/or traumatised people.

And then we see this more calculating side of him. He LIED to all his colleagues and his BOSS about a qualification to get a job and then kept that lie going for at least a couple of months. Listen, I don't think it's fair to label Martin as completely a manipulative calculating guy who's just put on a mask but it's also not exactly fair to characterise him as just a sweet, tea making guy who wears jumpers. And that's what I love about him. He's so complex. I feel like it delves into the idea of having both a saviour complex as well as an inferiority complex. He's had to make choices that are above his skillset early in his life and frequently, he's been blamed for causing other people's emotions so he naturally thinks he has control over how other people feel. Which gives him that sense of responsibility, like I can save anyone cause I can control their emotions, if I'm nice enough then they won't be mad/ill/sad/they'll love me. But at the same time, these sort of underhand methods of indirect communication don't resonate to him as causing any damage cause he doesn't actually think he's important enough to cause damage or have an impact on other people's lives

I don't think it's of any shock to anyone that my favourite Martin is angry Martin. It's the part that fights against both aspects of this inferiority/saviour complex because it 1. Is a path of direct communication. He has the opportunity to state exactly how he is feeling and the focus is on that rather than how can I get the other person to respond. 2. It recognises that he is important. Anger is in response to perceived injustice, frustration, annoyance and all of those things are in a way, self preserving. Obviously it's not good to do that too much (see: Tim Stoker) but there you go. I'm not saying angry Martin is perfect or anything but I'm saying that it's so satisfying and interesting to see cause it completely goes against the characterisation we've been given so far and it introduces a whole new facet to Martin - that he doesn't want to be ruled by his trauma and past experiences.

It's honestly a joy to see Martin develop into someone who fights more against the role he's been "given" while simultaneously playing into it. His whole Peter Lukas arc is very much a part of that. Essentially he's saying I'm not important enough to contribute the way you are (inferiority) but I'm still going to try and control things behind the scenes (saviour). So when Jon goes to save him it breaks that, he looks him in the eyes and tells him you, Martin K Blackwood are Important, you make an impact and you Mean Something. You don't have to save us all. It's such an important part of his character arc and honestly it blows me away every time I think about it.

Plus obviously the whole isolation thing is just so AGH it's just so built in to his character it makes complete sense that he has a tendency to isolate himself. It fulfills both the inferiority and saviour - he doesn't think he's important enough to be missed but also he feels like it'll push them into missing him. Solving the problem and putting himself down in one fell swoop.

Our final stage of Martin is one that is far from perfect, far from healed but absolutely closer than he was at the beginning. He shows more of himself, in working towards realising he makes an impact on people, telling jokes and just sharing his thoughts to Jon. So what does him stabbing Jon mean for this? Honestly I'm not entirely sure (I'm gonna be honest I did not realise this rant would be so long lol) but I'm thinking along the lines of this is an ultimate show of acceptance of his significance and rejection of his need to save people. He is committing the most direct act of all, he's doing this in the same need to help people but instead of being manipulative about it, he's just directly doing what needs to be done. But also he's not saving Jon, he's doing the complete opposite. He couldn't control Jon's response to the situation, as much as he wanted to, so he did what jon wanted. I might not be explaining this right cause I'm not entirely sure what I mean either but I'm trying to say it's a poetic end. It's separate from everything he was but in a way that's parallel to and pays homage to his struggles. He's still being sort of a saviour and he's still arguably not the most important person in this scenario but the point is that it's in a different way than he's used to. In my opinion, a better way.

Anyway yeah thank you for enabling me, I didn't know how much I needed this rant and I didn't know I had so much to say lol. <3

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin k blackwood #jmart #jonmartin #tma character analysis #character analysis #martin kartin blackwood #martin blackwood #tma martin #tma martin blackwood #answered asks

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akillerbeforeyou · 3 months

Text

Anything.

(Kai Anderson x fem!reader)

Authors note: Heyy! This is my first time writing for Kai (and writing on Tumblr in general) so please feel free to tell me how you feel about it! It will be a two-parter (smut in the second part) because I'm lazy and didn't feel like writing more. Also, this is barely proofread.

Also! This fic is heavily inspired by a Kai bot from @fear-is-truth I wouldn't have had the motivation to start writing again if it wasn't for that bot so thank you!

Word count: around 1k

Content warning: implied sexual content, implied violence, that's pretty much it for now.

read part two here

It was my fault. I had fucked up, big time.

From the very beginning, Kai had taken a liking to me. I've always been good at following rules to a tee with little to no hesitation. So naturally, I became one of Kai's favorites. When the role of his devoted girlfriend was first assigned to me, I assumed it was just that- a role to play- just another tactic to sway the voters in favor of him. I mean, who doesn't love a candidate with family-oriented values? it would be a way to humanize him and soften his image to the public. and who better to play the part than the one woman who had been willing to walk to the end of the world for him since the very get-go? Over time, I realized our relationship was more than just a facet of his public persona. I genuinely cared about him- and in his way, he felt the same. He would ask something of me, and I would do it. Never once since joining the cause did I feel threatened by him. Until now.

I woke up confused, not remembering having laid down in the first place. As my vision cleared, I recognized the basement, dimly lit and empty. The grogginess I had originally woken up to started to fade as I looked down to find I had been completely tied down in the chair I was seated in. That's when I reminded myself of the previous 'mission' I had gone on with the rest of FIT where we had to retreat early to avoid getting caught after I had been the one to draw too much attention to the group.

Fuck. Kai wasn't anywhere in sight, but I could feel his presence. I had been by his side since day one and I knew all too well how this would end. The sound of his footsteps broke the silence in the room, followed closely by his voice.

"Now. What am I going to do with you?" I could feel his hot breath tickling the back of my neck as he leaned over to whisper in my ear. "Divine Ruler. I'm sorry. I really am." I did my best to get out full sentences but every few words I was interrupted by involuntary sniffles. "Good girls don't fail their leaders. I thought you'd learned that by now.." he paused, and I held my breath as I remembered the multiple occasions I had watched others being brutalized for mistakes smaller than the one I had just made. "You know I have to punish you, right? It wouldn't be right for you to get away with screwing up this big." he circled me as I bit my lip, trying to hold back tears and completely unable to respond. "Say something, little lamb." he paused before feigning concern "Aw, are you scared? is that it?" I looked up and nodded my head. "Well, you should be. I'm furious with you. and you know what I'm like when I'm furious at someone." my heart pounded in my chest as I scrambled to find the right words to say- if that was at all possible. "Please Kai-" I stop myself midway through using his name, knowing that will only further my punishment "-Divine Ruler, I'm so sorry I am. you know I would never purposely sabotage you, sir" I say as my lips tremble and hot tears begin to stream down my face. He leans in, impossibly close to me before continuing to speak. "How cute. Look at how much you're crying for me when I haven't even hurt you- yet." "Yet..?" I stutter watching a sadistic grin spread across his face. "That's right, little lamb. I haven't decided how I'm going to punish you yet, but there'll be a punishment, I can assure you that much." Another moment of silence as I try and think of some sort of response- to no avail, of course. "Perhaps it's time I really whipped you into shape, little lamb. Maybe then you'll learn how to behave properly like a good little girl would." His tone is cruel and sharp enough to cut glass. I inhaled deeply "Please- Divine Ruler don't you think there isn't any need for that" I looked up at him with doe eyes "I've never failed you before sir it won't happen again- don't I deserve to be let off with a warning" Normally, talking to Kai like this would be a sure-fire way to end up being thrown in a ditch- but I knew deep down he'd be somewhat more lenient with me than the others, considering our relationship. "Oh, you think you deserve to be let off with a warning? Why's that? Because you're my special little lamb, and you've been a good girl up until now?" he pauses with a light chuckle to himself "Well, I'm in a bad mood now, Y/N, so I don't really care what you deserve. I want to punish you, and no amount of pleading and weeping is going to change my mind." he said, with eyes as cold as ice and words as harsh as nails. "I've been such a good girl" I plead with both my tone as well as my eyes "Please baby, I love you" the second sentence I speak in a whisper, knowing Kai would either react extremely negatively to me calling him baby or extremely positively, but no in between.

To anyone else, it would seem as if he did not react- but I could see his face soften as he soaked in my pleas. He would never admit it, but he liked it when I called him baby. And he liked it even more when I was begging and at his mercy.

"Baby" my voice quivers as I look up at the man I adore- as well as fear. Kai's expression softens some more, and the cruelty in his eyes has almost completely faded.

"Again."

I take a deep breath of air and try my best to smile sweetly through the tears "Baby, every single thing I do is for you. for us. please" I watch as Kai's breathing becomes heavier. his mouth curls up into an almost predatory smile as he hears my words. "That was perfect," he says, caressing my cheek. I lean into his touch as his thumb circles over my cheekbone. His gaze remains locked on mine, filled with something seeming more like affection than hatred. He continues in a gentler tone "You are my good girl, aren't you?"

"Of course I am. I would do anything for you." I watch as his grin returns, less sinister and a lot more warm. As fucked up and unhealthy as it was, there isn't anything that turns Kai on more than devotion.

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"Good girl," Kai says sweetly as if he had completely forgotten about his earlier anger

"You know what I want from you now, don't you, my little lamb?" I bite my lip, mascara stains my face "Just say the word, and I'll do whatever you want" "Hm... I could still punish you, couldn't I? You failed me when I needed you most.... you've got to atone for that somehow, don't you?" my stomach flips as he leans in even closer to me. "But... maybe I can forgive this time. I am feeling particularly generous today, after all. I've got a better idea."

"Thank you, divine ruler. you really are good to me. please tell me, what idea are you talking about sir" I ask in my softest tone, letting Kai take the rails. "Don't play dumb with me, sweetheart... you know very well what I'm talking about." he draws his hand even lower, moving it up my thigh, slowly inching upward. I throw my head back and hiss slightly as his hand trails up my thigh, a shock of pleasure courses through my body at the small contact he makes. "I'll do whatever you want. I live to serve you. Just please- untie me from the chair, baby" Kai takes a moment to think to himself before he begins unties to me. As the bonds are undone, I can feel the blood rush to my limbs once more, relief washing over me after what seemed like an eternity of suffering.

"Good girl. Now... get on your knees."

Feel free to give me constructive criticism! I am also thinking of starting a taglist so let me know if you want to be tagged in part two/future fics. Thanks!

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jackwolfes · 27 days

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prompt #59 with wesper pls 🤲

“Tell me to go and I will but ask me to stay and I'll never leave you again” Prompts: [1] [2]

The scene through Wylan’s bedroom window is lightning and malice, the rapidfire patter of rain gunshots on glass reminding him what little kindness waits for him outside, but right now inside isn’t much better. He stands with his arms at his sides and bare feet uncomfortable against the cold wood floor. The fire in the hearth is low enough to offer little comfort.

Across the room, dripping rainwater onto Wylan’s expensive bedroom floor, Jesper stands resigned to whatever pain Wylan plans to inflict upon him. That hurts. The accusation of it digs beneath Wylan’s ribs like a burrowing beetle, carving out space between sinew and bone and biting down where it hurts most. It isn’t my fault, he wants to scream, but he’s too cowardly to say anything, not even I’d never hurt you. Not even, I’m sorry.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Wylan finally manages. “If my father found out…”

Jesper doesn’t interrupt him. It is simply Wylan’s voice failing him, as it has so many times before, because as with every other facet of Wylan’s being, failure is his natural state. He doesn’t know what he’d even say if he could muster up the strength to speak, so perhaps silence is better.

What would he even say? If his father found out he would, what? Actually disown him like he’d threatened to do days ago when he found him tangled up half naked with a serving boy? Kick him out of this prison he’s forged, the one that Wylan has so rarely been happy in but has always been mostly safe in? Both are plausible options. Wylan has always been a weak little lamb under the blade of father’s butcher knife, kept alive on a whim and little else. He can’t imagine his father going so far as to actually see him killed, but once he’s thrown out of his good graces, what hope would he have to survive?

Just Jesper, who doesn’t owe Wylan a damn thing.

Jesper. Wylan can hear the echo of his own voice whispering that name a dozen different ways through the seasons. Kindly, reverently, desperately. Never in between the expensive silk sheets of his bed, but in plenty of other places they shouldn’t have been: the stable, most often, but the kitchens, too. Out in the gardens when the weather permitted it, a few times in the library, that once at the inn as they travelled out of town because neither of them had been able to hold back. Those golden slivers of enjoyable memories might be the only time Wylan has ever truly felt happy on his father’s property. Jesper has given him the world time and time again, and all Wylan did was see him get thrown out on the street and fired for taking the time to love him tenderly.

The floor doesn’t creak when Jesper takes a step forward, which means Wylan’s sharp inhalation is entirely too audible. Over the heavy storm outside and the occasional crackle of firewood, the sound is a vulnerability. An admission. Wylan fights against every urge telling him to damn reason and run to Jesper, to throw himself in his arms and hold him close, and he hates himself for picking the safe option. He hates himself for a lot of reasons, but Jesper still crosses the room under the flickering firelight and comes to a half a bare few inches away. The rain water dripping off his clothes creates a puddle on the floor, seeping towards Wylan’s bare toes, but neither of them move.

“Tell me to go,” Jesper whispers, “and I will.”

Wylan shuts his eyes. He should, he should, he should, he isn’t strong enough to form the words between his lips. He simply cannot resist the magnetic pull of Jesper Fahey and all his charm, all his divinity, all his — perfection. Even with his eyes shut he can sense that Jesper is close, and maybe getting closer. His body stays deathly still, torn between wanting to jerk away back to where it’s safe or leaning into Jesper’s touch, where it’s safest.

“If you ask me to stay, I will. I’ll never leave you again.”

The husky edge to Jesper’s whispering voice floods Wylan’s senses, in past his lips like cherries and chocolate, down his throat, around his wrists, in his head. His eyelashes open with a flutter; he parts his lips. Steel eyes stare at him like he is precious, worth keeping around, and Wylan was never going to survive without him in his life.

He surges up to kiss Jesper fiercely, grabbing the back of his head to hold him close. The chill of rainwater caught in the tight coils of his hair press into Wylan’s fingertips like holy water sanctifying his skin. Wylan feels everything. Jesper’s hands on his hips, turning the thin fabric translucent with water and imprinting the shape of his palms into Wylan’s body. In a moment Wylan will stretch upwards to deepen the kiss and his shirt will peel away from his skin — maybe even sooner if Jesper chooses to be so bold as to pull it off for him — but the mark feels unerringly permanent. It is a brand on skin, but instead of pain it brings with it liberation.

Wylan steps backwards, still clinging to Jesper with desperate hands. The clumsy gesture makes them both stumble but their lips don’t stray apart, which is more than what Wylan needs. Lightning cracks, blindingly bright against the dark night sky, and the thunder chasing its heels provides cover for the quiet little moan that slips between Wylan’s parted lips. He can barely hear it himself over the roaring rush of blood in his ears, the slam of his heartbeat thudding in his head, the dizzying slide of Jesper’s tongue along the backs of Wylan’s teeth as he plunders for gold. This is his one chance at pure secrecy, and it feels magical.

The back of his legs hit his mattress sooner than he realises, the impact juddering through his body and shooting surprise through his frame. Unbalanced, he tumbles backwards and hits the soft mattress with a thwump of silky fabric, but Jesper catches himself before he can fall.

It instantly pushes too much distance between them. Unceremoniously, Wylan is jerked free from the dizzying bliss he’d been feeling a second ago. The chill in the air takes its place, reminding him how cold he is without Jesper near him. Splayed out on the mattress with Jesper standing above him like that and framed by the lines of his spread thighs, he shivers. But the furrow in Jesper’s brow is enough to make Wylan nervous. His fingers twitch, lying on the mattress beside his head with his palms facing the sky expectantly. Jesper’s eyes flicker to the side and catch the motion. He says nothing, and Wylan sees want warring with apprehension in the metallic shine of his eyes.

And maybe Wylan is a coward, but Jesper isn’t. Jesper is one of the bravest people he’s ever met. They’re barely touching anymore, but the tiny point of contact between Wylan’s knee and Jesper’s shin is just enough to lend him strength.

“Stay,” Wylan croaks.

Sunshine blooms. The eye of the storm hits them like midsummer. Life erupts in Jesper’s eyes as he smiles that real, earnest, perfect smile, and he says, “Don’t want to ruin your bed getting it wet, do I?” As if he hadn’t made a million messes before with Wylan a beautiful, willing casualty. So Wylan laughs, breathless and giddy, and spreads his legs apart a little wider as he enjoys the show that Jesper puts on, haphazardly and clumsily stripping out of his rain-soaked clothes. They hit the ground with an ungraceful slap, and when Jesper clambers naked onto the bed (and onto Wylan) he’s barely even dry. He’s hard, though, and oh so pretty, and before Wylan can reach out to grab hold of him and start to give him the pleasure he deserves he’s taking hold of Wylan’s wrists and pinning him down onto the bed. Wylan jerks, spine arching with a breathless little moan, but Jesper kisses him and does not leave — he said he wouldn’t, and Wylan trusts that he means to keep his promise.

#oh i reeeeally liked this one i kinda wanna make it into smth longer but we shall see #wesper #soc #six of crows #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #wesper fics #soc fics #fics #asks #capybarablunt

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