#season 3 is going to fucking destroy me.
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just remembered chapter 100 ...
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it ever hit you out of nowhere that castiel is living in a dead guy's body and the show just does not care. it does not care. jimmy novak might as well not exist the moment he or claire is out of sight. cas stole a guy's body and his face and his life, and we can't ever talk about it or discuss it in detail because of how fucking horrifying it is that sam and dean's best friend just walks around in a dead guy suit. there's not even a human soul in there anymore. it's just a corpse. stone-cold body snatcher indeed.
#castiel spn#spn#this is not like a Castiel Crime (tm) to be clear. this is more me being (un)surprised that the show is Like This.#castiel is a horror story he is so much a horror story in the rapture#and then they just uh. never bring up again how horrifying and fucked up this is for another like 7 seasons#and when they do its to briefly go :( claire lost her dad :) but its okay! she forgives cas for it!#which!! NO SHE SHOULD FUCKING NOT!!!#but we can't have that discussion. we can't talk about that. because to acknowledge that it's fucked up would mean making cas kind of. evil#in a way that would vastly improve his later character arcs btw. if we had to reckon with not only this massive transgression#but with the fact that cas himself STILL DOESN'T SEE IT AS ONE.#that on a lot of fundamental levels. he is still functioning as he did in s4. a lot of that base programming is still there.#something something how cas never changes out of his suit under his trenchcoat#but it's like. jimmy said yes. so it's fine. that's what it is to him.#anyway. i wish they hadn't been scared of making all three of the boys more fucked up in later seasons.#thank GOD for dean being interesting in how he becomes Worse <3 because they were not bringing that for castiel.#again. good version of spn where jimmy's bloodline is an off-shoot of the lucifer vessel bloodline. explaining a) how lucifer Got In There#and b) letting lucifer possess claire later so that the two of them can have daddy issues together.#something about cas being the monster-not monster that jimmy let in that destroyed his life.#something about lucifer being the monster-not monster that castiel lets in later. the cycles. they are cycling.
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I’ve said before that Akira is basically that “I didn’t know how to deal with having a crush on a classmate so I just wrote them a letter that said ‘Get out of my school’” post towards Zac, and he absolutely is, but Suoh is actually even more Like That towards Fubuki.
Suoh’s got whatever the homosexuality version of Cuteness Aggression is going on there.
#Overwhelmed By The Presence Of Bony Bitch Boy. Destroy Him. And Then Cannot Stand To Live Without Him. lol#BeyBurst#Beyblade Burst#Beyblade Burst Chouzetsu#Akira Yamabuki#Zac the Sunshine#Suoh Goshuin#Fubuki Sumie#Shitpost#Suoh realizes he's just gay in 3...2...1...#''Oh god oh fuck oh NO IT'S A CRUSH''#''NOOOOOOO NO NO NO WE ARE OF VASTLY DIFFERENT SOCIAL CLASSES AND ALSO MY HYPERTRADITIONAL FAMILY IS DEFINITELY HOMOPHOBIC THIS CANNOT BE''#''GET THAT PEON OUT OF MY SIGHT'' Sir that's your only braincell and also your entire source of emotional stability#Suoh's fucking life falls apart so hard literally as soon as he boots Fubuki lmfao#Fubuki: *Realizes he can do better* ''Okay this is fine actually. I'm very sad but what can you do for someone like that ig''#Suoh; sobbing on the floor after like one week with no shark boy: ''FUBUKIIIIII TAKE ME BACK CAN WE PRETEND THE WHOLE SEASON DIDN'T HAPPEN''#Fubuki: ''Are you going to call me a bitch again''#Suoh: ''YES''#Fubuki: ''...Alright sure back to normal then. Missed you buddy.''#And they lived dysfunctionally ever after#What a mess#FubuSuo soap opera when
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finally caught up with AOT as of last night... i really can’t believe eren asked that woman “what am i to you?” and just LEFT the next night like i kinda want his head on a platter omg.
#zee watches aot#i'm kinda blown away by finding out that he actually DID tell floch everything from the beginning like... bye#but even more shocking was historia knowing#i really wanna find out if the man she said is the baby daddy really is or if she's lying because???#i still feel like it's crazy that she got pregnant#especially if it was just for the sake of eren's plan#and him throwing that worst girl in the world shit back in here face like WOW#she should have just eaten you back then none of this would be happening!#the gang being forced to kill their former friends and ppl they grew up with because of this too like???#eren you're still my little meow meow (derogatory) but i HATE you rn#literally has backed everyone into a corner where their only choices are kill him (and by extension their friends who have become jagerists)#or die trying#OR let him destroy the world#fucks wrong w him why is this HAPPENING?!#i wanna go back to season 1-3 when i was a sweet summer child and didn't know eren was actually capable of something like this 😭#can't believe season 4 has made me a zeke apologist too like his plan was HORRIFIC and i'm so glad it didn't work out#but damn that man had been through the RINGER#grisha and marley did a number on him#i was glad to see#it was really fun to see annie and reiner fight out our side for once too#i also feel incredibly bad for them and it breaks my heart that bertholdt had to die#everything just SUCKS
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wtf is tmnt 2012
I was just having a casual conversation with my little brother, talking about 2k12, when all of a sudden I see him watching an episode from season 3. I ask him, "What's going on in this episode??? Why is Raph's mask just there? WHY IS MIKEY CRYING AND SCREAMING???????" And he responded with:
"Raph got turned into a plant dog."
...
"And then he comes back."
......
"The mutation gets sucked out of him."
...........
Yeah okay so what in the actual flying fuck is up with the 2012 show?
#I am not even exaggerating btw.#I spent the next like 15 minutes freaking out about the lore of the 2012 show according to my lil bro#SPLINTER DIES AND COMES BACK AND THEN DIES AGAIN?????????????#THE SPACE SHIT HAPPENED EARLY ON IN SEASON 2 OR 3 IDFK#BIG FOOT???????#ima ask him for more juicy lore hang on#I JUST HEARD “WOKE MAMA” FROM A BACKROUND CHARACTER WTF#THE EARTH PULLED A SONIC UNLEASHED???????????#THE KRAAANG ARE HIDING ON EATH#THEY MADE A BOMB#TRICERATONSSSSSSSSSS#BLACK HOLE#DESTROYED THE EARTHOKAY NEVER FUCKIUNG MIND THE SPACE SHIT HAPPENED IN SEASON 4#THE MUTATION APOCALYPSE???????????????????????????#Dude all this shit is blowing my mind so much that it turned my Tumblr blue#I heard about FUCKING SUPER SHREDDET#“Find ourselves some more freaks” EXCUSE ME WTF#OH ALSO THERES WHATEVER THEFUCK IS GOING ON BETWEEN MIKEY AND ICE CREAM KITTY#I OVE THAT CAT TO DEATH BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FLIP#“You can't just bring home big foot” WHAT#I THOUGHT CASEY AND MIKEY WERE FRIENDS WHY ARE THEY NOT FRIENDS WHY WHY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY#and thats all i got to freak out about#theres probably a ton more fucked up bullshit-#NO HES TRYING TO MAKE ME WATCH MORE OF THE EPISODE#I DONT WANT MORE HORRIBLY RENDERED BIGFOOT#MAKE IT STOPPPPPPPPPP#I HEAR IT#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA#“Don't you just hate it when big foot takes a dump in your shower??” EXCUSE ME BROTHER WHAT THE FUCK
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not acceptable
Charles Leclerc x fem!driver! reader
Summary: Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do when your pretty boyfriend is a lil dumb
Warnings: Excessive cursing, Lando slander, grown men sharing a single brain cell, fluff?
Word Count: 1.3k
Based on my favourite scene in Schitt’s Creek
In all the two years you’ve been in Ferrari, the speculations and rumours of you dating Charles were non-stop. Neither of you paid much attention to it. You were both in happy relationships. However, that changed in the summer of ‘22 when you broke up with your partner. It wasn’t messy and you both agreed it was for the better. You focused on the rest of the season.
Fast forward to the summer of ‘23, you and Charles were both single. You decided to give in to the speculations and give the relationship a real shot. You went on a few dates, each one being more fun than the previous one. Yet neither of you took the leap to become exclusive. You both liked each other but it wasn’t said out loud as much as you would’ve wanted to. So when Charles invited you to a game night with his friends, you thought it would be the one where he introduced you as his girlfriend.
You knocked on his apartment door at 7 pm. You had brought a charcuterie board because you panicked and the first thing your mind thought was cheese.
“Y/N! Come in.” Charles opened the door and hugged you. You tried your best to return while managing the charcuterie board. He laughed at your struggle, took the board from your hand and led you in. You spotted some familiar faces in the room. “Hey, guys. This is Y/N. My teammate as you know.” To risk being dramatic, the only description for what you felt was “death by a thousand cuts”. You still forced a smile and greeted everyone. You took a seat on the sofa next to Charles. “You brought a charcuterie board?” Pierre asked puzzled. “Dibs on gouda.” Yelled a familiar Brit.
**************
For the next few hours, you forced yourself to forget about your “teammate” and focus on the game instead. To everyone’s surprise, you were very good at Monopoly. You had already collected over $7000 worth of assets. You were more than happy to win by default. Arthur suggested Uno and everyone complied. You had never played it before which made the group very happy.
When you got your cards you leaned over to Charles and whispered “What the fuck should I do now? ” Charles peeked at your cards and by instinct you shied them away from him. “You have to show me the cards so I can tell you what to do.” He laughed. You rolled your eyes and showed him the cards. “How the hell did you get 3 +4 cards?” “Why? Is that bad?” “No no. It is very good and I am very grateful my turn is before you.” “I am gonna crush these motherfuckers” You silently giggled.
“Y/N your turn,” Andrea called out. You placed the +4 card on the table. “Seriously?” Lando sighed and took 4 cards from the deck. “I thought you'd never played this before.” “I haven’t. I’m just that good, Norris.” “You know you could put all the +4 cards at once? ” Charles whispered in your ear. When your turn came again you placed both your +4 cards down. “Oh come on. You’re an absolute ass.” Lando exclaimed. “You just got destroyed by a UNO rookie, Lando” Pierre doubled over in laughter. “Also you have only one card left. You can call out UNO” Arthur nudged you. “UNO!” You yelled. “Well, I guess we have a winner. ” Lorenzo sighed and folded.
You started feeling a little guilty. Your winning spree kept cutting the game short. It didn’t look like anyone was having any fun. Even if Charles isn’t going to introduce you as his girlfriend, you still want his friends and brothers to like you as Charles’ girl. Charles brought in Scrabble as his last resort. He wasn’t expecting to go through 2 games so quickly. You were chosen as the judge. You promised yourself to go easy on everyone. You weren’t sure if you were making a good impression on everyone but boy did your ego love this.
**************
“What do you mean ‘rizz’ isn’t accepted?” Arthur yelled. “Mate it isn’t in the dictionary.” “Then why does everyone call Lando ‘NoRIZZ’?” “Hey!” “I consider it as an acceptable word. We know the meaning. It exists. It’s a word.” You chimed in. “Thank you!” Arthur smiled and added 13 points to himself. The game continued and you limited yourself to simple words. And you accepted every word regardless of how ridiculous it was.
“Yes Pierre ‘Fuck’ is a word.”
“I mean we all know what ‘OMG’ is”
“Sure, Charles. You can make Frenglish words.”
You could physically feel the pain from the insanity of some words but you were on a mission. You nodded and smiled and carried on. The words became chaotic by the minute. Your last straw was when Lando argued that “Skibidi” should be accepted.
“That’s it. I can’t take this shit anymore. I respect the game too much to put up with this. You are way too old to use the word ‘Skibidi’, Lando.” “Yeah so wrong, Lando” Pierre fakes disappointment. “You! Fuck is not acceptable.” “Not acceptable. Yes sorry, Y/N” He bites back a laugh. “OMG!? Are you kidding me?” “I wasn’t.” Lorenzo shakes his head. “And my boyfriend sits there looking pretty and wanting to make up Frenglish words. THAT’S NOT EVEN A LANGUAGE. NOT ACCEPTABLE!”
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?” Charles looked up at you. “I said Lando is old.” You tried to shift the conversation. “Why the fuck am I getting slandered?” “No. I think it was something about your boyfriend being pretty and making up words.” Charles redirects you. “Um... I don’t remember saying that.” You mumbled. “Yeah no. That’s what we heard. Right Arthur?” Pierre snickered.
“Hey if my girlfriend says Frenglish isn’t acceptable then it isn’t, guys” Charles smirked. “Or it is. I don’t remember saying it.” You shrugged. “So you can do whatever you like.” The ceiling looked much more interesting than the gorgeous green eyes looking at you. “I think our work is done here. Let’s go guys.” Lando stood up. “And what exactly was that work, Norizz?” You called out as everyone was walking out the door chattering. Lando just smiled at you and closed the door.
You and Charles remained quiet and just looked at each other for a long moment. “I don’t k-” “Do you r-” You both spoke at the same time. Gentle giggles echoed in the silence. “I was gonna ask if you regretted it?” Charles looked at you with a hopeful glint in his eyes. “No. God no. Charles, I don’t regret it at all. But to be honest, I kinda thought you hosted this game night to introduce me as your girlfriend. It sucked ass when you called me your teammate.” You looked down at your feet. You contemplated if sitting down would make this whole shebang less awkward. But Charles quietened your thoughts by standing up and taking your hands in his.
“Cherie, seconds before you knocked, I was having a full-blown panic attack. I really really like you and I wanted us to be official but I didn’t know what you felt. The guys were there for emotional support because I do not trust myself with any high-risk situation.”
“You drive a car at 300 km/hr almost every weekend.”
“Please. That is nothing compared to you. Every time I get in the cockpit, I’m more worried about your safety than mine. I was going to introduce you as my girlfriend. Trust me the word was on the tip of my tongue but I was being a pussy and chickened out. I’m so glad you did it tho.” His smile made those adorable dimples pop as he hugged you. “I’m so glad I did it too.” Your voice came out muffled with your cheek pressed against his chest.
“And I’m so glad you called me pretty.”
#charles leclerc#charles leclerc imagine#charles leclerc x reader#f1 x reader#f1 imagine#charles leclerc fanfic#charles leclerc fluff#schitt's creek#schittscreekedit#netflix#fanfics#pretty monegasque
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Rainy Season - Part 2
What You Gonna Do?
Azriel x Reader
A short follow up to Rainy Season since you all have been so gracious with your responses - Initially I planned a time jump for part 2 but decided to give a taste of the aftermath of her leaving. Things will eventually look up for our girl, she’s just going through it right now. Stay tuned for more! I’ve decided to make this a short series.
Part 1 Part 3
Warnings: cheating, language
Azriel
Who wakes you when the morning comes?
Azriel awoke to rays filling the room with brightness. Shit - he’d overslept. Why hadn’t Y/N woken him? He looked over to find the bed cold, as if it had been vacant for hours.
Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he wandered to the kitchen, lacking its welcoming aroma of fresh coffee and the sweet and savory aromas of pastries and bacon. No, it was totally empty.
Where was she?
“Y/N?” He groggily called out into the house.
Silence.
Slipping on a pair of pajama pants he wandered to the door. The chill of the house whipping against his bare, muscled abdomen.
Perhaps she was basking in the sunlight on the patio. He always loved how she looked in the morning rays - a deity in her own right. He should probably tell her that sometime.
Padding to the front door, two things caught his attention.
One, his clothes were strewn over top of his bag and two, a note was scrawled in her messy handwriting.
No - not a note. A list of rhetorical questions.
“Who wakes you when the morning comes?
Who gives you all she has to give?
Who fulfills all her promises?
Who sees the good in you?
What are you gonna do when I’m gone?
Where you gonna go when there’s nobody home?
Who’s gonna love you when you’re all alone?”
He dropped his head. Fuck - things were good last night. What happened? As he bent back down to clear up the strewn undergarments, the strong, sweet scent of Elain wafting into his nostrils.
No - those questions were not rhetorical. They were a plea. “Who?” Who is that person to him?
Clutching his chest he realized just how terrible a mistake he’d made when he fucked Elain.
—————
Y/N
The warm rays of the Summer Court and the overwhelming weight of crushing heartbreak greeted me bright and early. A mockery to the pouring rain I’d traveled through last night, showing up at my grandmother’s door like a drowned rat.
Instead of chastising me for how long it had been since I’d paid her a visit, her brown eyes only met me with compassion. She knew me well and every ounce of pain on my face spoke the words that I couldn’t get out.
She pulled me into a bone crushing hug, ran a hot bath and steeped a pot of tea before laying in bed behind me and running her fingers through my hair until my heaving sobs turned to shuddering breaths and eventually a deep sleep.
It was a strange feeling. It had been too long since I’d seen her and yet, she showed me more love and compassion in a span of three hours than I had in the last three years.
Thank the gods the rays woke me early as I had to make it to the palace in Adriata immediately.
“Leaving me so soon?” Grandmother asked as I hurried out the door. “Sorry! I promise I’ll be back before lunch.”
I’d only met Tarquin a handful of times but sensed that he was a kind, benevolent ruler. Still, I expected to meet with his officials before being granted access to his office but when he’d heard who was here to see him, he immediately made time for me.
By the end of our meeting, he’d granted me renewed citizenship in the Summer Court and wrote to Rhysand effectively barring Azriel from his court. Careful to not create tensions in the court, he revoked the current ban on Cassian so long as he could keep himself from destroying any more buildings within his court.
Despite my numb state, a small smile flickered across my face as I imagined Cassian’s reaction to the news. He wasn’t one to hold petty grudges but he certainly clung on to that of being banned from the Summer Court. I just hoped he wouldn’t be angry with me for leaving without saying goodbye.
Additionally, Tarquin discussed my skill set with me and by the end of the meeting I had been offered a paid position in teaching self-defense courses within the palace to a variety of age groups, primarily focusing on women and children. I brought few assets with me upon leaving the Night Court and my pride was too stubborn to withdraw any of the money from Azriel and I’s shared account when I left. No, I could do well enough on my own - thank you very much.
After the battle of Adriata, Tarquin had ramped up efforts of ensuring his citizens were better protected on all fronts so his offer was mutually beneficial for his court and me, ergo not solely extended out of pity. My pride beamed at that.
I gratefully accepted his offer.
—————
I returned home. Home? No, not home - to my grandmother’s house to find that my sister and nephew were there waiting for me.
“Oh my gods!!!!!” My sister Camila yelped. Practically tackling me.
“Gran! You didn’t tell me that Y/N was coming for lunch. You secretive old thing.”
Before he could say anything I swooped my nephew, Alex, up into my arms and - ouch, I was not as strong as I used to be because it was an effort to lift him. He’d grown at least a foot since the last time I’d seen him. A pang of guilt struck me out of my blissful state and back to reality at the thought. It had been far too long since I’d come to visit my family.
“Where’s Uncle Azriel?” he asked.
The question struck me like a knife. My expression faltering as I scrambled to regain composure. “He’s on a mission.” I lied.
My sister’s brows furrowed. She was always too good at reading me but thankfully she didn’t press further. I would talk to her when I was ready.
We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and catching up. Alex animatedly told me of school and all of his friends - I couldn’t help but smile as the warm summer breeze whisped over my exposed skin. The tea tasted a little bit sweeter, the air a little fresher, and the company a little warmer.
—————
“Y/N?”
Rhysand’s distant voice echoed into my mind as I lay down for bed that night. I always forgot how far his daemati abilities could carry.
“Hello, Rhys.”
“I received Tarquin’s letter. Azriel has been on edge all day and…. Well, I’m not going to ask you to share anything you don’t want to but - it must have been bad. Take all the time you need.”
“I’m not coming back, Rhys.”
The words rolled through me so quickly that I almost believed them but I knew I’d need closure at some point. For now, I wasn’t ready for that.
Seeming to sense that exact thought Rhys only replied, “Write me or Feyre if you need anything at all.”
—————
Who cries knowing you don’t care?
Night time always brought out stronger emotions in me. I’d keep my emotional barriers held high all day but as the sun set, so did those walls. As I lay in bed that night the first waves of grief blew through me. Not a wave of my own grief which had been omnipresent within me but… Azriel’s grief through our bond.
Of course it took me leaving for him to feel anything toward me through our own mating bond. I shut it down as effectively as I could and cried. Tears of anger flowed as I realized that my presence was never enough but my absence was what it took for him to give a damn about me.
Who worries what the future holds?
I grieved the future that could have been ours had he only chosen me. I let the sobs pour out once again as his pain rolled through me in waves. He couldn’t even extend the courtesy of shutting down his end of the bond as he came to grips with the ramifications of his own actions. His emotions only brought me bitterness and maybe that was a flaw on my end but it sure as hell felt justified. I spent so long giving him everything and even now, I still receive only heartache in return.
Who’s tired of empty promises?
He swore he’d love me forever but forever only meant until someone better came along. Certainly it wouldn’t be long before he returned to Elain for comfort. Would he be courteous enough to shut down the bond then or would I feel the pleasure she brought as she soothed his emotional wounds then too? As he healed and made the same empty promises to her that he had to me? Hell, had he already made those promises to her? Would he hold to them for her?
What would he do now that I’m gone?
What would I do now that I’m gone?
———————————————
A/N brace yourselves, we’re getting a different character’s POV in the next chapter 😏 🔥
Tags:
@going-through-shit @kalulakunundrum @lisanna2000 @fxckmiup @sheblogs @emryb @one-big-fangirl @historygeekqueen @isa1b2h3 @bigcreatorwombatdreamer @theravenphoenix26
#acotar#sarah j maas#azriel x reader#Azriel#a court of silver flames#a court of thorns and roses#a court of frost and starlight#a court of mist and fury#a court of wings and ruin#azriel shadowsinger#inspired by hunter hayes#Tarquin#summer court#fuck around and find out#azriel angst#acotar angst#elriel#azriel x elain#elain archeron
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LORE | REKINDLED EPISODE 41 - TOWER 4
< Previous episode | Next episode >
Nothing quite sets in the holiday spirit like SPOOOOKY SHIT-
Can you believe it's been a year since Rekindled actually started? The way time flies when you're having fun. I had actually forgotten I had redrawn a lot of those first few episodes when I made it an official "thing" (i.e. when I put it on an update schedule and signed my life away foreverrr /j) so tracing back when Rekindled officially 'began' had me finding old versions of those first few episodes that were oooooof bro-
Okay, but for real, Rekindled's come a long way, and it still has a long way to go still which makes me so excited. As much as those who see what I do here like to assume it's purely out of spite and hate, I really do love working on this comic, and that includes the part of the process where I revisit old episodes of LO that, even after everything, I still love. The newer seasons may be dead to me, but what it used to be has a special place in my heart, and Rekindled has really helped me explore what could have been. It's made Saturday nights a thrill for me again - I get to enjoy two whole doses of LO content now, with a fun balance of flavors that makes being a part of this community twice as fun as normal. You could say it's really rekindled my flame for LO-
A very special thanks to @banshriek, who's helped me bring Rekindled to a whole new level that wouldn't exist without them. They've been an amazing assistant and a wonderful friend and I'm so thankful to have them in my corner <3
And thank you! All of you, for following along with Rekindled, reading my essays, destroying my ask inbox, and just being an awesome community full of awesome people. I've got a busy year ahead with lots of stuff planned, from art markets and expos to plot threads in Rekindled that I'm hyped af to get to; not to mention Lore Olympus officially ends this year, meaning I'll undoubtedly have loads to talk about (which fills me with both a strange sense of excitement and dread at the same time LOL) I'm gonna try and take it all in the best spirit that I can, I wanna come out of this shit sparkling like one of Hades' diamond golf balls.
Let's make 2024 a fucking banger.
#lore rekindled#lore rekindled comic#lore rekindled update#lore olympus critical#lo critical#anti lore olympus#happy holidays#happy new year
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Holy forking shirtballs
I'm choosing violence today. I started this on Twitter, but I'm going to finish my thoughts here like I always do.
But what really blows my mind the most is the way that people look at Aziraphale's "choice" at the end, as if he had one to fucking begin with.
I'm sorry, but Aziraphale knows how messed up Heaven is. He told The Metatron, more than once, that he did not want to go back to Heaven! We can debate what each of us means by "choice" all night because my "choice" and your "choice" might be two different concepts. He could have been strong armed by The Metatron or he could have looked at where things were headed and realized he had no choice but to intervene himself.
You need to ask yourself what Aziraphale has a moral imperative to do.
What do we owe to each other?
Seriously, if you have not watched The Good Place, I recommend you go and watch it, because it absolutely shaped how I've viewed Good Omens 2 since its release.
My levels of frustration with the bad faith mischaracterizations of Aziraphale are off the charts. If you are blaming him for everything, implying that he should have to grovel and that Crowley has a right to hurt him back, you have missed the point of Good Omens entirely.
I defend Aziraphale, but I don't think one of them is more right or wrong than the other. They're equals. They're a group of the two of them, acting and reacting to each other throughout history. They're Alpha Centauri.
I cannot even begin to explain how fucking devastated I felt when Crowley said these words, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. What he said took a lot of courage because he's finally admitting something they've both been too scared to publicly define for 6,000 years. Crowley has had to spend so long with a rough outer shell because he fell and had to hide all of his softness.
The look on his face was one of pure joy when he created that nebula, but I think the fact that he got to share that moment with Aziraphale is what has always stuck with him.
So yeah, seeing Crowley with a broken heart at the end of "Every Day" was sad for me as well.
My brain still lives here!!
But Neil has said that Good Omens 3 is not quiet, gentle, or romantic. I imagine it's going to be more like the the first season in which they are not central to the plot. GO2 will help us make sense of how they ended up where they are when we see the bigger picture with all the other major players involved with GO3.
Aziraphale was still a soldier and accidentally got himself discorporated in his own magic circle in season one. He had a platoon waiting on him to start Armageddon, and he deserted them to go save the world with Crowley instead. Aziraphale is a deserter. I need everyone to remember that. He yeeted himself out of Heaven and sought out Crowley before even locating a body just to warn him about what was happening so they could try to save the world together.
I can't help but think of 1941 and that magician who had been arrested for being a deserter.
Aziraphale disobeyed orders. That took courage but it branded him as a traitor against Heaven. They tried to destroy him for it the same way Hell tried to destroy Crowley for his part in stopping the war.
Aziraphale and Job are the only characters we have seen interacting with God directly. Aziraphale has spoken to God before and he is determined to do so again.
Aziraphale knows Heaven is flawed, but he also knows it's supposed to be good. He wants it to be good. He does not like the way the system works and he wants to make a difference. (And I'm pretty sure he's also determined to talk to God without being intercepted by The Metatron.)
Since when is that a bad thing? I don't get it. And I've had this discussion before.
If you need to change the system by burning the old one to the ground, it's still change, and we don't know what Aziraphale has planned.
It seems to me that people just want to see Aziraphale fail because it would punish him for returning to Heaven instead of running off with Crowley.
Some of y'all take everything Aziraphale says or does and twist those things into malicious anti-Crowley actions because you think the only reason Aziraphale exists is to make Crowley happy, and if he isn't thinking only about Crowley then he's doing something wrong.
Aziraphale does not exist as a plot device to further Crowley's character. They come as a pair. They've been learning from each other for 6,000 years. Crowley challenges Aziraphale just as much as Aziraphale challenges him.
You can be mad at Aziraphale all you want, but villainizing him is gross. Defending Crowley does not mean you have to tear down and mischaracterize Aziraphale anymore than defending Aziraphale means you have to tear down Crowley (but I don't see that happen on nearly the same level it happens to Aziraphale). Stop painting Aziraphale as an abusive partner, for fuck sake.
Aziraphale knows there are flaws in the system. He wants to make a difference, and since he has seen that Gabriel can change, then maybe the whole system can. He has to at least try, and if he can succeed then maybe he and Crowley can stop hiding and finally be together without having to look over their shoulders all the time.
Why is that a bad thing? He's just as protective of Crowley as Crowley is of him!
But don't forget that Aziraphale's wing was covering Adam and Eve too. As much as a wants to protect Crowley, he has a moral imperative to keep humanity safe as well.
He sent Adam and Eve into the unknown with a flaming sword so they could protect themselves.
As much as he wants to be with Crowley, there are 8 billion people on Earth heading toward the Second Coming and Judgment Day. They'll work together to fight alongside humanity in the end. Aziraphale should not have to humiliate himself just to earn Crowley's forgiveness. That's a rancid notion.
The Resurrectionist was a whole ass moral dilemma for Aziraphale, which is why I brought up The Good Place earlier, but that's a post for a different time.
Aziraphale has his own motivations and they're just as important as Crowley's, and they don't have to be chalked up to Aziraphale being the bad guy. Weird, I know, but shades of grey.
"To the world."
#good omens#good omens 2#aziraphale#crowley#aziraphale defense squad#yeah i'm being bitchy#no i don't care if you're offended#no i'm not interested in your aziraphale hate#i'm not interested in hearing takes about aziraphale being toxic from people who can't even be objective#some of y'all need to watch the good place because you need a lesson in moral philosophy#we should be able to have discussions about the characters without gross takes calling aziraphale abusive#az and crowley approach everything from wildly different perspectives because of where they are#just admit y'all shit on az because he doesn't look or act like crowley#I'm so done with the shitty aziraphale takes#they aren't even interesting enough to debate#they're just annoying
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Little pieces here and there (4)
Pairing: Buggy x Fem!Reader (One Piece Live Action)
Parts: one, two, three, five
Word Count: 4,2K, i should ask for forgiveness
Warnings: flirting, pinning, (FUCKING) FINALLY, unprotected sex, buggy detaching parts of his body during sex like the freak he is
A/N: i've been building this moment so long that i was, once more, inspired by god to make this chapter the longest ever, i hope you all enjoy and that the awaited smut doesn't disappoint and delivers (let me know, anxiety is killing me, love u all, see you in chapter 5, the final (until season 2) of this series) (again i'm really really sorry for any grammatical mistake!)
Day 5 after what happened during the Arlong Park fight, or what is the same for her = 5 AAP, (Y/N) is sure about three things:
1. With the choice of leaving her mercenary life behind, comes her new position as the ''strategist'' of the Straw Hat crew, a group of very unique people that after a couple of stops along the way, would arrive at the Grand Line.
2. Their next destination is Loguetown, which excited her; she loved the city, she never turned down an assignment that involved working there. They would arrive in a couple of days and stock up on everything they would need before beginning the greatest adventure of their lives.
3. Buggy's nose was real. Very real. And she missed him. Just a bit.
To be more precise, that bit of tension and constant sarcasm around her. She knew he was a pain in the ass, and that his staying on the ship wouldn't have lasted much more than an extra day and a half because one of her crewmates -Zoro- would have unceremoniously thrown him overboard anytime.
But it was really fun for her, so from time to time and in particular, when she passes by the helm, she finds herself remembering that annoying talking head and smiling a bit.
And so, after an entire week, they arrive at the famous Loguetown, the tomb of the most famous pirate of all time, a refuge for mercenaries, pirates and bounty hunters from all corners of the East Blue! No matter what, everything your heart could desire -except for the One Piece- you could find there. Jewelry, weapons, food, alcohol, a good bed to sleep and rest in, or other darker, macabre and adult types of entertainment.
Ah, what a city. Anyone could get lost among its endless alleys packed with people. That's why when the crew splits up, they do it in pairs, making sure that Zoro, who they had already discovered, lacked complete and utter sense of direction, wouldn't be left alone and lost among the city's infinite tide of pirates. (Y/N) is the one who goes with him, both heading to the largest armory in the city to replace his destroyed katanas while Sanji and Luffy take care of the food, and Usopp and Nami go around to do… she doesn’t really remember what. Trying clothes she believes.
She must say, however, that this swordsman is not exactly the most talkative person in the world even though their friendship has considerably grown and deepened during their little journey. Apart from sharing small notes about the city, how many people there are, or what they should do, they don't really talk that much; in her case, because she is absorbed in her surroundings, soaking in every possible detail. Him, silent because his reputation as a pirate hunter is famous around all the East Blue, and of course, in Loguetown there are only pirates. He prefers to stay alert to avoid future conflicts and have a peaceful morning. Not for him, but for his crew.
That's why when a gloved hand flies out of a dark alley, and violently covers the girl's mouth and nose, preventing her from screaming, while another grabs her by the waistband of her pants and yanks her back, forcing her to get in said alley, Zoro doesn't even notice, he continues calmly walking, minding his own fucking business, heading to only God knows where.
Farewell, mosshead.
In a blink, (Y/N)'s back collides with a strong torso, and with her heart in her mouth and adrenaline running wild in her veins, she stretches her right hand to reach the knife she has in the holster on her right thigh to destroy the asshole that dares to try to steal from her. Or murder her. Or that's her idea until she hears a familiar voice murmuring an “I got you” behind her, before turning her head and discovering the biggest, reckless buffoon she's ever met.
Buggy.
Eyes wide open, she screams against his palm, pissed off by the way he scared the shit outta her. Extremely angry, she yanks his hand away from her mouth, turns her entire body around and looks at him with what he would swear, is the most annoyed expression he ever saw in his entire life. Before the clown can excuse himself and his lack of manners, just as she begins to see that stupid smile appear on his stupid face, she slaps him so hard that for a second, he thinks his head will detach from the rest of his body.
Then, and pushed by an outburst of passion that comes out of she doesn’t even understand where, a mixture of adrenaline, surprise, her desire to kill him with her own hands and the -sexual- frustration with which he abandoned her the last time, she grabs his vest, pulls and kisses him. Again, all before Buggy can even react.
The kiss is brief. Really quick, but intense as hell, and she manages to leave him breathless. Yes, him. Only him. Because the moment they separate, when (Y/N) pushes him back, she spits out a heartfelt “You're an idiot!”
What a fucking rollercoaster. He doesn't even remember what he was about to say anymore to greet her. He's in fact, too stunned to speak. Did she slapped, kissed, and insulted him in less than a minute? Oh, she's a freak, just like him. The only difference between them is that she knows how to pretend the opposite. But she can't hide it from him. Not to the king of the freaks.
''I missed you too, baby'' he admits with an amused smile, moving his jaw a little from side to side, as well as his neck; that woman is stronger than he expected.
''Yeah? Because I really didn’t.’’ she spits once again, taking a deep breath. ''Liar'' he retorts, eyeing her up and down. ''Liir'' she instantly mocks, still recovering from the tsunami of emotions that just passed through her. ''What the fuck are you doing in Loguetown?''
''I came looking for my sorry excuses for a supporting cast,'' his crew. Were they still alive? Would have sworn Zoro destroyed all of them but who knew. ''and turns out I found the perfect, shiny, little new supporting star for my show'' he adds, as flirtatious as always around her, approaching (Y/N) again.
''Oh, I feel flattered but as I already told you, I don't like being in the spotlight. I relate way more to the shadow around it.”
He rolls his eyes but nods in understanding, reaching out to grab the girl's waist. ''Mhm. What about a private show, then? We have a play to finish, If my memory's not betraying me.'' He whispers honeyed, closing the distance between the two just a bit more. Cannot stop himself, neither he wants to. He knew as soon as he recognized her on the street, he would not let her go without putting order in their outstanding matters.
She’s about to add her usual sarcastic and smartass remark saying something among the lines of ‘without inviting me to dinner first?’ but she chooses not to. Just for once. ''I could agree to that.'' The girl admits, tilting a smile. ''Not here, tho.'' Pressing the clown's chest with her index finger, signaling for him to stay still, (Y/N) runs her tongue over her upper teeth, taking a couple of seconds to think.
In the end, she raises an eyebrow, and with an amused smile, she asks: “Do you trust me?”
''Not in a million years''
''I knew you would say that.'' She still takes one of his hands, that was still on her waist, and starts walking quite fast towards the other end of the alley, pulling him with her. He doesn’t object at all, despite not knowing where the hell is she taking him, and simply follows her lead, unconsciously squeezing her hand to not to lose her in the crowd.
Not many minutes later, after climbing some stairs and turning a few streets, there they are, in front of a beautiful tavern with windows decorated with ornate dark wooden planks, designing patterns of small squares, offering a beautiful view of its interior. The building was not one of the largest in the area, but it was not one of the smallest either. She knew from experience* that the floors above the tavern were rooms rented to the pickiest pirates. They had enough space to rest comfortably after a long voyage at sea, with a good bed and several locks on the doors and windows to prevent intrusions, attempts at robbery or murder, or a drunken idiot making a mistake and entering the wrong room.
*She knows this because a couple of years ago she needed to sneak in during the night to steal a jade seal from a famous pirate captain, who had previously stolen it from the temple it belonged to a few months before. Getting in wasn't easy at all.
Walking to the side of the building, where the windows of the rooms can be seen better, (Y/N) looks right, then left, making sure there’s no one nosing around.
‘’Here we are.’’ She announces, looking at him with a devilish smirk on her face. ''Now pay attention, here's my brilliant, unique and exceptional plan. It will absolutely blow your mind.’’ He cracks a genuine smile after hearing how she praised herself. She sounded almost like him.
“First step: Throw your head up to that window over there,” she points said window with her index finger, two floors above their heads, “and tell me if there’s someone sleeping inside. Or if you see any sign someone rented the room.’’
Confusion is the feeling that crosses his beautiful face for a second, looking at her with a raised eyebrow and lips pressed into a small incredulous smile. She wants to sneak through the window without being seen and not pay a single berry? Exactly what a true pirate would do. He was starting to fall in love with her.
Without a second thought, his head separates from his body and floats to the open window, slightly sneaking in to check as she asked. And as fast as it goes up, it returns back down, just like a yo-yo. ''Clear'' He confirms, amused.
''Perfect, second step: now throw your right hand, same window, and leave it there.'' And he does as she says, no questions asked, because he could not do otherwise. Because he wouldn't want to do otherwise. He was not made to follow orders and still, deep down, he knows he would follow hers. Or better said… he would follow her around. She was, maybe, not a theatre kid like him, but to his eyes, she shines brightly.
Not as much as him, tho.
Once Buggy's right hand waits patiently on the window frame, (Y/N) grabs the clown by the shoulders and strategically positions him under the window. Then she takes his left hand, bringing it forward. "Third step: with this hand you propel me into the air, with the other you grab me and you help me sneak in."
''And the final step?'' Getting very close to his face, the girl rubs her nose against his and whispers, voice low and lustful, ''You float to the window and meet me inside for that private show you mentioned before.'' He already knew the goal of that whole improvised plan, but he almost purrs when he hears her say it.
Then Buggy throws her upwards without prior notice, way stronger than she expected, and a sweet, genuine laugh escapes (Y/N)'s lips at the lack of gravity and that distinctive tickle in her stomach that rises to her throat. Not even when he uses that floating hand to catch her and guide her to the room, her feet on solid ground again, she’s able to stop laughing.
She expected this whole forbidden getaway to be entertaining, but not so, so fun. There was no point in denying the obvious: the complicity, the chemistry between them is criminal, asphyxiating, palpable, and so, so /real/. It's not only about physical attraction and sexual tension anymore, they were actually really compatible, which could only, and is already, making things one hundred times better.
As soon as she's inside, still giggling a bit, she's quick to reach the door and securely close it, fitting the bolt with a pair of lockpicks that she had on her. On the other hand, as soon as Buggy gets inside the room he chooses not to lose a single second, because every second he wastes is one less that he can enjoy that fantastic woman who is driving him crazy; before she can return to the center of the room, he has already recovered his right hand, thrown his hat to the floor along with his coat, and has rushed towards her, kissing her again, this time without a hurry, but voraciously, passionately, with the irresistible yearning he has been suffering for almost two weeks. He wants-- no, he needs to make her his. The desire making his blood boil. Her warmth, her smell, the taste of her lips-- even her laugh. It was too much. Too intoxicating.
(Y/N) welcomes him, sighing deeply against his lips, tilting her head a little, melting in the kiss, her hands flying to his hair to take out the bandana and pull at his blue locks, to which Buggy responds by grabbing her from the back of her thighs, lifting her up and carrying her to the bed, near the window. He lets some of his weight fall onto her, loosely holding himself on his knees on the mattress. She closes her legs around his waist, pressing him even a little closer against her body, excitement coursing through her veins like poison.
All that little game with the clown was just flirting, huh? Yeah, sure.
For a minute, everything is kisses, stealing each other's breaths, strong caresses on arms, legs, and back over clothes. There are bites at each other's lips, seemingly incapable of getting enough of the other, the attraction between them driving them both so absolutely insane than getting some distance to get naked seems impossible.
“Baby,” raspily, he press his crotch between her legs to let her feel his growing erection under his pants. ''I suggest you getting naked before I rip your clothes off by myself.''
She moans in response, wetter, more aroused by every second passing, unable to even think about playing hard to get this time. ''Aye aye captain'' she manages to whisper back mischievously, separating her hands from his body in order to pull her own shirt up and throw it somewhere in the room.
He grunts, but makes the titanic effort to separate himself from her, standing on his knees in front of her laying body, licking his lips, breathing heavily, eyes half-closed, already fucking her in his thoughts. Of course, seeing her undress for him is quite a show.
After her shirt comes the button and zipper of her pants. Although before getting rid of these, she pulls the scarf around the clown's neck, forcing him to lean over her again, and after it goes his vest. Given the girl's haste, he lets escape a hoarse laugh that reverberates inside his chest and decides to help her with whatever’s left between them; shoes, pants, gloves, and underwear.
''You're gorgeous'' he breathes, taking in her image in front of him. “You’re almost making me feel guilty for what I'm about to do.”
Before she could even ask, or threaten with a ‘don't you fucking dare’ or something among those lines, one of Buggy's hands flies to her own, and pins her wrists against the bed with such force, she hisses, heart in her throat, deafening her ears. She remembers herself, this was all too good to be true, and that damn clown promised to make her beg. He wasn't going to forgive her so easily, was he?
Her fault.
''Sweetheart, open your beautiful legs for me, will you?'' Returning to the bed, the clown settles between the girl's thighs, running -with the only hand still attached to his body-, one of her legs, from the knee to the hip bone in a slow and tortuous caress.
''Now, I'm pretty sure I warned you about what's about to happen last time you took advantage of my... uncomfortable, kinda-hostage situation on your stupid little boat. When you decided to push me to my limit.''
She is too aroused, too turned on to think clearly, her mind clouded by the same rush of hormones that’s making her incredibly wet. Having him now naked between her legs, threatening her in that low tone of voice, exposed helplessly in front of him, doesn't help at all; it is, as a matter of fact, making things way worse.
''You wanted me to beg, right?’’
''Exactly. It's that easy.'' After a couple of strokes, he grabs his erection and runs it slowly through her wet folds, both of them barely containing a moan in their throats at the sensation. He, perhaps, better than her, because (Y/N) involuntarily pushes her hips upwards, trying to get some more. ''Ah-ah. Want me to fuck you, sweetheart? Just beg for it. Beg for /me/.''
Being the proud woman she is, it's not exactly easy for her to seriously beg for something. Joking? Of course, any time, even sarcastically, but something is telling her, her sixth sense probably, he won't settle with a sarcastic remark and dove eyes.
Closing her eyes tightly, she lets herself be carried away by pure and absolute desperation every time he runs his erection through her, lubricating himself with her fluids. He is silent, already tasting the sweet victory he’ll feel when he manages to break her and make her beg. Although this doesn't happen as quickly as he would have preferred.
''(Y/N)'' He warns, and it's the first time he says her name out loud. The first time she hears him, with his raspy voice and his beautiful accent, pronouncing her real name instead of some compliment or silly nickname to call her.
Welcome, breaking point.
''Beg--''
''I need you,'' she interrupts him in a low whimper, lifting her hips. ''Bugs-- Buggy, I need you to fuck me. Now.”
Usually, it's moments like this particular one in which the clown enjoys recreating himself, making others beg a little more, -sex, mercy, forgiveness- doesn’t matter-, taking his good time listening to her moans and cries of desperation. But he can't help it, the second he hears the girl call him by his name, telling him how much she needs him, and that silly attempt of an order at the end, he knows it’s game over, and he decides to give her exactly what she wants, penetrating her suddenly the last time he runs slowly through her folds. A sweet moan of relief and pleasure escapes from (Y/N) chest along with a "Fuck, Buggy--". From him, a hoarse grunt. A shiver runs down their spines, and quickly, Buggy recovers his other hand, freeing her from his grip, to aggressively pull both of her thighs to bring her closer to him, and begins to thrust hard, all shreds of self-control escaping from his body lightspeed.
He pushes into her as deep as he can in no time, burying himself between her legs, face hidden in the crook of her neck, hands keeping her legs open, close to his hips.
She doesn't know what she likes more, the erratic sound of his breathing and panting in her ear, the desperation with which his whole body seems to search for hers or each penetration sending an ecstasy shock through her nerves, but she soon becomes a puddle of sweet moans, whimpers and breathing as heavy as his, one hand pulling hard at his blue hair, the other resting on his abdomen, nails digging slightly his skin with each thrust.
''Oh god, Bugs--’’
''Moan my name louder baby,'' he breathes before biting her shoulder, leaving the mark of his teeth imprinted on her skin. ''I want them to catch us. I want them hearing you scream my name.”
And she does. She moans his name again, just not as loud as he wants. Which means there is something, something he can do better. Something to push her to her limit, to make her a believer, and make her /his/.
Summoning all his willpower, and not before one last, violent thrust, the clown stops and suddenly pulls out of her. (Y/N) complains with a loud cry, opening her eyes to ask what the fuck is he actually doing, how dares he to stop. Thank God, she doesn't have time to threaten him before he speaks.
''On your knees.'' And of course she obliges, on all fours, the simple idea making her completely lose her mind. Only thing, Buggy doesn't intend to keep her like this for a long time; as soon as she exposes herself for him again, he buries himself once more inside her as deep as he can and starts thrusting again, slowly but strongly, ending each thrust with a loud slam. This time, both hands separate from his body, one reaching for her delicate neck, which he circles with his fingers and presses to lightly cut off her breathing. The other one flies to her mouth, pushing between her lips with two fingers that she soaks in her saliva.
(Y/N), unable to articulate a single complaint, sucks, bites and licks them, muffling against them every sound that escapes her throat.
A pleasure shock, like a lightning bolt, forces her to arch her back the moment that same hand flies to her clitoris and starts masturbating it, overstimulating her.
Buggy is really determined to make her his, to not let her forget about him, to become the legitimate protagonist of each of her erotic fantasies, so to finish driving her crazy, the hand he has around her neck lifts her up, pulling her until he forces her back against his torso in a beautiful reference to the day they met and the first time he felt that magnetic attraction inevitably pulling him towards her.
''So. Much. Better,” he manages to whisper between grunts and raspy moans, surrounding her abdomen with one of his arms to keep her in place, close to his chest, sacrificing penetrating her as deeply as he would like but without caring in the slightless because he knows, she is quickly reaching her orgasm. He can feel it in the way her walls contract around his cock, in the beating of her heart in her throat against his hand, and in how her hands reach for anything, trying to support herself; in this case, his arm around her, nails scratching his skin.
''C'mon baby, cum for me.'' He groans, refusing to fall headfirst to his own orgasm because he doesn't plan to finish before her. Under other circumstances he would have done it, he has never been the kind of generous lover who thinks of his partner's pleasure before his own. This woman is breaking some old habits and patterns just being the way she is. And he doesn't care at all.
A few more thrust, the lack of enough oxygen in her lungs and that wonderful pressure on her clitoris, and (Y/N) explodes in an orgasm so strong she begins to breathless moan Buggy’s name over and over again like a mantra, which obviously feeds his ego so, so much, it ends up sending him over the same edge, moaning her name under his breath, resting his forehead on her shoulder, hugging her body tightly as they ride their climax.
…
''Told you I would make you beg'' he cracks a devilish smirk, wrapping his right arm around her shoulders when he finally lies on the mattress.
''Yeah'' she giggles, although sarcastically, recovering by the second, enough clarity to recompose her own ego. ''You also told me you would make me find the One Piece without going to the Grand Line and I cannot see it anywhere yet.''
What a subtle way of asking for a second round, he thinks to himself, clearly pleased -instead of offended- for the way his smile stretches even more, looking intently at her.
“You're right.” He would have liked to lie on the bed for a while, getting back some energy and attack again, but damn him if he ever dares to reject a provocation as bold as that one. He wouldn't forgive himself.
Getting out of bed almost as quickly as he lay down a few minutes ago, Buggy cracks his neck from side to side, and taking one of the chairs next to the table in the room, he turns it in the air, leaving it pointing towards the girl.
He then sits down, leaning on the backrest, relaxed, exhaling an erotic, slow sigh as he exaggeratedly separates his legs in a clear invitation for her to come closer and sit on them.
"What did you say the other day? About liking a man with his entire body, capable of fucking you in his lap and making you scream his name?"
#buggy x reader#buggy the clown#buggy one piece#buggy the clown fanfiction#buggy x you#op buggy#one piece live action#one piece x reader#captain buggy
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IN BETWEEN. charlie bushnell x reader – 02
02 | WELCOME TO NY
previous | next | masterfile
SYNPOSIS. when a girl's co-star is good to her and now she wants it more than everything in between. (smau)
A/N. wow actual content who knew! i give some tidbits about rina and lukes dynamic as well for funsies (takes place at the start of the season premiere to probably episode 4-5 ish)
liked by iamcharliebushnell, walker.scobell, and 322,778 others
thelnarchive best people to star in my first show with actually
walker.scobell pov: you at the end of this sentence 🤓👆
↳ thelnarchive that**
↳ leahsavajeffries��destroyed him with one word that's insane
user1 she's so gorgeous it's killing me
user2 her photo dumps are so cute it's so RAHHHHH
↳ user3 thank you yn for keeping us fed
iamcharliebushnell no photo creds? thats crazy......
↳ thelnarchive 📸: charlie bushnell
↳ iamcharliebushnell thank you 😁
user4 she's so pretty, i would go to hell and back for her. she could be sent to the underworld and i would go and traverse the entire underworld for her and bring her back, have hades let me walk out with her only if i don't turn my back and bet you baby i'm no orpheus because you're coming home
↳ user5 this is so real but also what the fuck
dior.n.goodjohn PRETTIEST IN CAMP HALFBLOOD
↳ thelnarchive NO YOU!
iamcharliebushnell for everyone's information, she yapped for like the 2 hour makeup and hair session
↳ thelnarchive you weren't interested in the cultural impact of feminist retellings of mythology? 😔
↳ iamcharliebushnell i didn't say i didn't listen to every bit
user6 yn ln being a yapper and charlie being a listener was not in my 2024 bingo card but it is pleasantly accepted
↳ user7 the chemistry is kind of crazy
bellie 💋 @G1LLMOREGRLS
theres like less than 3 minutes of luke and rina screen time but the way they look at each other is insane. ik luke visiting rina before leaving was implied and like them him contacting her even after the attempt too i still want to see some because the potential angst is so insane
🗨 19 comments 🔁 129 retweets ❤️ 707 likes
user1 "i lost luke three times in my life." if they remove this it better be for something even more heartbreaking
user2 honestly truth i'm manifesting so hard to see some of their iris messages like i can just imagine it
↳ G1LLMOREGRLS oh my fucking god that's so true, i want to see luke begging her to come with him and then her begging him to change his mind
user3 i want the new seasons to come sooner because i trust in rick's capability to give us what we want 💳💳💳
↳ user4 i trust in the editor's to make what rick gives us even better brah
↳ user5 what if i said lascotellan to a hozier song
user6 the show ate with levitating as the replacement for poker face in e6 so i'm expecting a tragic song for their scenes too
↳ G1LLMOREGRLS dare i say we get a scene of luke regretting his actions juxtaposed with a scene of him and rina arguing with her telling him to silver springs by fleetwood mac
↳ user6 LUKE AND RINA ARGUING OVER HIS ACTIONS TO SILVER SPRINGS. YOU'RE A FUCKING GENIUS OOMF
↳ G1LLMOREGRLS luke thinking about her constantly when he thinks abt why he shouldn't have done it is so "you'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you"????
user7 YOU'RE SO CORRECT FOR THIS ‼️‼️ i'm so insane over them, tragic greek couple of the century
user8 i fear no one will ever beat rina saying she wanted to go to the underworld to get him back but deciding not to and letting him repent in elysium or try for reincarnation
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iamcharliebushnell hanging out with the muse
thelnarchives you call me "the muse" so often i'm starting to think you don't know my first name anymore.... 🤨🤨🤨
↳ iamcharliebushnell 😔 i would never do that to you muse
↳ thelnarchives i'm gonna start calling you traitor.
↳ user1 wat why would she call him traitor
↳ user2 oh you sweet summer child
user3 picture 3 is so cute i love her so much !!! and charlie's there too i guess
dior.n.goodjohn why are you hanging out with MY girlfriend
↳ iamcharliebushnell you snooze you lose :/
walker.scobell you owe me like 2 meals from our past bets and you keep saying your busy but obviously you're not???
↳ iamcharliebushnell hanging out with the muse is a trip priority, man 🤷
user4 i'm obsessed with how charlie calls her muse they're so i want to Bite them.
↳ user5 he ate with the pet name
user6 that's actually me in the second photo guys
user7 WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT HER HAND PLACEMENT IN THE THIRD PHOTO???
↳ user8 girlie's just scratching her own cat
#luke castellan imagines#luke castellan x reader#percy jackson imagines#percy jackson and the olympians imagines#percy jackson#percy jackson and the olympians#percy series#pjo#pjo series#pjotv#heroes of olympus#luke castellan#charlie bushnell x reader#charlie bushnell#charlie bushnell imagines#smau#pjo smau#pjo tv show#percy jackson tv show#percy jackon and the olympians#percy jackson smau#pjo au
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Judging SPN Seasons By How Messy It Would Be If Sam And Dean Started Having Sex
Season 1: freshly reunited. no one else in their world but them. they are obsessed with each other. they would fuck like feral dogs and it would make them so much worse. also dad is there. unspeakably messy. 12/10
Season 2: dad just died. the grief sex would be more tears than come and at least one of them is probably saying johns name mid fuck. dean might have to kill baby brother (TM) and so the obvious reaction to this would be extremely possessive sex. sam would not like that attitude (with the one exception of if it happens when hes drunk in playthings). messy in even grosser but marginally less feral ways than szn one. 13/10
Season 3: milder. still obsessed with each other but more settled into it now. deans turn to maybe die and sams turn to be uber-doober possessive about it. unlike sam, dean would be extremely into that. and his deal is comin due so he might as well. sad and tragic,, but not that messy. probably still more tears than come. 6/10
Season 4: dean just came back from hell to find sam fucking his new demon girlfriend. the angels are there. they're still hunting but Stuff Is Going On and god knows they need to be grounded with each other to make it through. sex would probably help. would do the opposite than make things messier. would be vicious. definite chance dean might try to feed sam his blood. 4/10
Season 5: apocalypse fuck. oh fuck. ruby is dead. angels and death and demons and god and destiny. sam and dean are the most experienced and secure theyve ever been and yet. the whole damn world is about to explode. and yet they are still tortured and annoyed by the goofy everday hunting horrors. fucking would be nice for them, would remind them they belong to each other. they think theyre gonna die so the consequences wouldnt matter a whole lot. less insulated and worried about holy judgment so the incest thing may be a bother now. 2/10
Season 6: you fuck your brother but its not your brother he's different in ways you cant explain but you havent seen him in months and you thought you lost him and hes not quite right but fuck he looks like him and talks like him and knows everything about the two of you and he fucks like a greek god and hes mean as a motherfucker in bed but you can take it its fine its worth it its sam godammit-
15/10
Season 7: stranded up the creek without even a twig for a paddle. both brothers are destroyed and traumatised and forcing each other forward by force of necessity and a brotherly hand on the back of the neck. at least its just them alone together (dean please ignore the hallucination of lucifer sitting in the corner and judging our cock size-). sex would go terribly and be the most unsexy sex ever sexed. but they would probably like the closeness if sam could handle it. messy but wouldnt ruin them long term. there would be a terrible Dick joke. 8/10
Season 8: WHOA BOY WHAT A DOOZY. BOTH BROTHERS HAVE PARAMOURS ON THE SIDE WHOM THE OTHER FUCKIN HATES. DEAN IS PURGATORY FERAL AND HAS ONE EYE ON A VAMP. SAM IS SOFT HAS HIS PINKY FINGER TWINED AROUND SOME RANDOM GIRL. WHY DIDNT YOU LOOK FOR ME?? // YOU TOLD ME NOT TO!! // YOU TRUST A DAMN VAMPIRE OVER YOUR OWN BROTHER?? // YOU HIT A DOG... meanwhile sam is doing the trials losing his mind again and dean is losing his mind about that. letting you down was my biggest sin//there is nothing i would ever put in front of you. messy. 10/10.
Season 9: less than ideal with sam possessed by and angel. dean is rocking with the guilt and confliction. the mark of cain is also making him a bit feral again. theyre safe together in the bunker but thats already claustrophobic enough sex might just suffocate them both. pretty messy. 7/10
Season 10: your big brother is an angry angry man but its not his fault right??? its because of the mark right?? he cant control it and you love him and you want to stay in the safe house/bunker/tomb with him you dont want to leave anymore and you need him. youve both been through enough. you deserve this. there would be minimal messiness caused by sex with your brother rn. exception to those few weeks where he was a demon. 2/10
Season 11: gods sister is here and its the apocalypse again. dean hates what he has with Her. at least his sammy is here. at least theyre together. still crazy about each other. gay incest sex is the most reasonable reaction. god might find out- but then again, he and his sister are pretty wacked out together too, and are we not made in gods image?. 1/10
Season 12: Mom is here and so is lucifer and his kid and also the cunt ass brits. not ideal. minimal messiness so long as no one finds out. and fuck all them anyway its pretty clear sam and dean can only ever really trust each other. sex would be affirming and safe here. they are absolutely fucking in the kitchen to the smell of toast and coffee. dean discovers he has an std because no its not normal that your balls have iched like that for the past four years you need to go to a doctor and dean i swear on the impala if you gave it to me- . 3/10
Season 13 to 15: fellas is it gay to have sex with your brother who you've been functionally married to for over a decade? probably not right ha ha. if they havent already fucked by now theyre not going to. theyre just gonna be intensely platonically married until they die. they both have erectile dysfunction by this point . sex would mean everything to them but change nothing they would still be old and married in their bunker with the devils kid tomorrow regardless. they dont care what people think anymore. fuck all messiness. 1/10
Post Season 15 Finale/Heaven: we deserve a soft epilogue my love sammy. mildly concerned about being kicked out of heaven for incest but with everything else theyve done they still made it there. it would be the least of their sins. lovely soft and nothing hurts. can you make a sex tape in heaven? 0/10
#labelling this one under 'things i spent too much time on but love anyway'#constructive criticism is more than welcome here#spn#samdean#wincest#first times#edit to clarify:#this isnt rating how /good/ it would be if they got together in each szn. just how /messy/ it would be
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The writers I think mostly completely by accident with the assistance of James charming his way into becoming a main character created the perfect storm to ensure people who love spike would reach absolute peak levels of being completely obsessively deranged about him forever
Season 2:
He’s a punk rock villain with killer cheekbones, enchanting eyes, and an absolutely DEVILISH smile - who’s an incredibly dedicated and dangerous fighter who specifically seeks out challenging fights he’s not guaranteed to win (brave and reckless - normally traits seen in heroes) hates everyone except his mentally ill physically sick wife (the statistics of men who leave their wives when they get sick in the US is horrifying like nurses literally have to warn married women who get sick it happens so often) who he’s hopelessly devoted to and unbelievably soft with and always listens to her while also exuding a psychotic amount of sex appeal and is just F U N he loves being a vampire and he loves fighting and it makes it so much fun for the audience. While still showing how much he respects and admires his enemy for her skill, strength, resourcefulness, and intelligence - NEVER underestimating her just because she’s a tiny blonde girl - and instead of destroying the world for love he SAVES the world for love - a villain doing good to get the love of his life back who essentially dumped him for her ex????????? D E V O T E D and shockingly extremely trustworthy??? And has amazing chemistry with our heroine and is there for a pivotal moment in her life and is the only one there for her when she has no one else????? *enemies to lovers girlies ENTER THE CHAT*
Season 3:
He shows he fucking MEANS IT when he says Dru is the love of his life when he shows up in Sunnydale because he blames Angel not Buffy or Drusilla but the man actually responsible for all their problems and he is the most pathetic mess we’ve ever SEEN!!!! He’s crying and drunk all the time and he’s so sad he goes to Buffy’s mom TO TALK 💀😭 our pathetic sensitive little self admitted lover boy who KNOWS he’s love’s bitch and he won’t be pretending he’s anything otherwise who shows how clearly he sees and understands other people and the depths of his emotional intelligence so much so Buffy herself admits she can’t fool Spike she can fool her friends BUT NOT SPIKE OR HERSELF EXCUSE ME MA’AM WHAT???????
AND Spike doesn’t just uselessly MOPE forever he gets some perspective and is like I know what I’m gonna do to her back and I’m gonna go do that now! 😁👍🏻 showing he never stays down for long and is always gonna get back up to keep fighting for his love while BOTH he and Buffy still honor the truce even though he’s broken it by coming back??? While Buffy’s all “I violently dislike you” YEAH OK GIRL WHATEVER YOU SAY *enemies to lovers girlies chomping at the bit intensifies*
Season 4:
CLEARLY heartbroken about Drusilla (DEVOTED!!!) but it’s turned into anger and resentment directed at Harmony who how bizarre looks nothing like Drusilla but A LOT like Buffy…… hmmmmmmmmmmmmm HOW INTERESTING *enemies to lovers girlies are vibrating with anticipation that turns into a full blown combustion when something blue happens*
Spike doesn’t pretend to love Harmony in order to get what he wants from her (shown in direct contrast to Parker) he’s ironically very honest despite being a villain - he’s showing he’s STILL loyal to Drusilla in ONLY loving her even after she’s dumped him... again!
We see Spike treat Buffy the EXACT same way he treated Drusilla during something blue reaffirming THIS IS HOW THIS MAN LOVES WHEN HE LOVES YOU. He’s extremely affectionate, helpful, protective, caring - D E V O T E D - and is truly just the most certified lover boy we’ve ever fucking seen
Season 5:
SURPRISE HE’S SECRETLY A LOVESICK MAMA’S BOY POET AT HEART UNDERNEATH THE BAD BOY PERSONA AND A PROTECTIVE BIG BROTHER AND NOW BUFFY AND HER FAMILY’S MOST LOYAL DEFENDER AND IS WILLING TO DIE NOT JUST FOR BUFFY BUT FOR ALL THE SUMMERS WOMEN AND HE KNOWS AND SEES BUFFY SO DEEPLY AND INTIMATELY AND CAN HOLD SPACE FOR HER PAIN LIKE NO ON ELSE CAN AND SHOWS THE DEVOTION THAT ONCE BELONGED TO DRUSILLA NOW BELONGS TO BUFFY AND IT IS GOING NOWHERE EVEN WHEN SHE DIES AND WE'VE SEEN IN HIM CRY BEFORE BUT NEVER HAVE WE SEEN HIM BREAK DOWN LIKE HE DOES AT THE SIGHT OF BUFFY'S BODY!!!!!!!!!!!
*all of us screaming, crying, throwing up, climbing the walls and generally just losing our minds*
Season 6:
No soul, his love is so great for Buffy as is his loyalty and devotion to her, he now helps all of his dead love’s friends fight evil and is raising her sister and dreams of saving her every night for 148 nights 🤚🏻😭 don’t even fucking talk to me I can’t take it
Forgive the absolute 180 in tone change here:
Dick game is FIRE - his touch is the only thing that makes Buffy feel alive AND SHE WAS IN HEAVEN BRO SHE KNOWS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE IN HEAVEN AND SPIKE IS THE ONLY THING KEEPING HER GOING like damn girl yes YOU FUCK THAT HOUSE DOWN!!! Also he is now just naked 50% of the time just to drive us all even FURTHER out of our minds and somehow has just gotten even hotter as the seasons have gone on like this is what’s been hiding under the leather jacket all this time! Enjoy!
And THE MOST unintended consequence of jw’s vindictive writing:
SPITE
He clearly didn’t want us to love Spike and tried to manipulate us into hating him in such a blatant and clumsy ooc attempt all that did was weed out the weakest amongst the Spuffy/Spike fans until all that remained were us:
The most devoted and stubborn fans who REFUSED to have the thing they loved ruined or taken away from us and were smart enough to see through his bullshit manipulation attempt in the first place.
Genuinely they created the equivalent of supersoilder strength level fans with this absolutely lethal combination of events 💀
AND THEN as if all that wasn't enough he goes and gets his soul on purpose for Buffy so he can be the man she deserves and she can love him without hating herself for loving him despite the immense pain it will cause him which is the most selfless thing we have ever seen anyone do for Buffy only to be topped when he sacrifices himself to destroy the hellmouth, save the world and free her from Sunnydale!!! Plus ya know once he gets the soul even though he did it for her he never tries to use that as leverage to get anything from her like he truly expects nothing from her at all but still wants to help her and James delivers the most devastating performances we've ever fucking seen, finally tells her friends off which has needed to happen for 5 seasons, the "you're the one speech" him being a dad to all the potentials with Buffy giving us supernatural parent core who made it through their rough patch with their first kid in season 6 with Dawn and now are just the beautiful team with their found family and Buffy finally has someone who can truly carry her burdens with her and just all the tenderness and devotion they both deserve after so many years of pain and fighting. Basically giving the audience the message that even if you have a metric ton of pain and trauma there are people out there who see you and understand you and there is a chance for you to heal both together and separately to build your own version of a more normal and stable life. It's a message of such hope and I personally know several people, including myself who watched what Spike and Buffy have and it inspired us to look at the relationships we were in and realize we deserved SO MUCH MORE than what we were getting and in my case it turned out I was being emotionally abused and manipulated that entire time!! Much like Buffy was by both Riley and Angel. So it isn't an exaggeration to say Spuffy saved my life in a lot of ways both in being there for me at such a dark time and helping me draw a map of how to get out. Not to mention loving them in fandom spaces has helped me connect with so many people just like me who share very similar experiences and have helped me feel so much less alone and has helped me heal in so many ways 🖤
Spuffies get "hOw cAn yOu liKe sPiKe aFtEr wHaT hE dId" all the fucking time and truly the better question is how can you NOT like Spike???? HAVE YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION AT ALL??? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT GOOD RELATIONSHIPS NEED TO WORK?? BECAUSE AT THEIR CORE SPUFFY HAS THEM ALL!
It's jw writing so NOTHING will escape his toxic bullshit but Spike - because he was hated by jw for so long - so much of the time when he tried to make Spike less popular he just kept making him better and more complex and more and more targeted to the female gaze which is exactly why he snapped and made the choices he literally forced everyone else to go along with despite their protests with that scene to make it the most traumatizing scene in all of Buffy history not just for the audience but for the actors as well because yes it is incredibly horrific and upsetting to watch (which is why I skip it on rewatches) but I still am able to see if for what it is which is a narcissist lashing out at people he hates because he hasn't been able to control them and too bad for him I refuse to be manipulated by his bullshit so it failed completely and made so many of us that much more stubbornly protective of Spike and his and Buffy's relationship not just from other fans but from the creator himself 🙃🖕🏻like he basically just trauma bonded us to Spike and Buffy which has led to the creation of one of the most devoted, loyal, intelligent fanbases who is absolutely unhinged (affectionate) with their love of this character and his relationship which is why we are all still creating and writing about this character 25 year later and show absolutely zero signs of slowing down or stopping 💀
#spuffy#spike btvs#meta#btvs meta#spike and buffy meta#spike btvs meta#spuffy meta#also every spuffy I know shares so much life experiences and personality traits with buffy herself like we are often making choices#and judgements about the narrative from the perspective of buffy herself & we’re all picking spike#so many people who pick other love interests truly so often rarely see buffy for who she is either#if you don’t get spuffy you don’t truly understand buffy herself
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I think Harvey would be thw type of person who makes love specially when he’s feeling sad. Like he needs comfort and to be as close to his s/o as possible, fingers intertwined and all that nice shit. How do you think reader would comfort him after he had a discussion with someone of his family?
{Oh, My Human Heart} Harvey Specter x Reader
So my mind went to [SEASON 8 EPISODE 5 SPOILER WARNING] where Harvey went up to Boston to defend his brother against his wife's divorce. That shit crushed my soul man, so this is based on that! Enjoy!! Title is a lyric from this song.
Word Count: 3,191
Warnings: fluff, hurt/comfort, angst, smut, Season 8 Episode 5 Spoilers
Summary: When Harvey returned home from visiting his brother unexpectedly, there is an obvious weight to his shoulders as he slumps inside. And it’s your mission to find out what it is and wipe it from his memory.
Tagging: @kjbg-fantasymoon (your request is next babes <3)
~~~~~~~
The door slammed. Hard. Concerningly hard.
“Harvey?” You shouted out into the kitchen, taking off the towel from your shoulder and set it on the counter. No one responded. Worry coursed through you, and you grabbed the knife from the cutting board. Just in case.
Your husband rounded the corner and you jumped, but let the fear drain from your held breath and set the knife down. “Jesus Harvy, you could’ve… hey, what are you doing back here?”
Harvey looked indecipherably pissed. He had hard creases in his face and his lips pressed in that flat line that meant someone was about to see that side of him that meant he was gonna raise hell. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out, and he let his hands fall to his sides.
“Okay, okay come sit, love,” You reached for him and guided him to the island. “Do you want to talk about it? A distraction? To be left the hell alone?”
That communication strategy had worked wonders when Harvey came home from a lethal case. All the details you knew about this one involved his brother and a divorce from his wife. It had already shattered Harvey’s heart to hear they were splitting up, but this was… this was rage. Raw fury.
“I am going to open my mouth and let the floodgates go with it, and I just need you to try and make sense of it. Because for reasons only known by Jesus-fucking-Christ himself can this be possible.”
You just nodded, letting Harvey take some deep breaths. You noticed his hands were shaking. He was shaking. What the fuck happened in Boston?
“Marcus called me up there to represent him for his divorce,” Harvey started, thumbs in his eyes. “He told me that it was because she had an affair. I was ready to go kick down her door and take their kids away myself. Turns out, he lied to me. She was divorcing him because he started gambling again and he told Haley not to tell Katie.”
Your blood ran cold, all remorse leaving your body for Marcus. How could he fucking do that?
“So, tell me this Yn. Why would my own god damn brother, who I spent my money on to build him a dream restaurant, lie to my fucking face? Not once. Not twice. Four times. Four opportunities he had to tell me and he waited till the last fucking second. I-I can’t even begin to describe how sick it makes me feel to have Haley be put in that position.”
“It is wildly unfair for her, and for their son,” you felt awful for them. They were the sweetest kids and didn’t deserve to have that weight on their shoulders.
“I mean, was he not apart of the fucking family when mom did that to me? Did he suddenly just show up on our doorstep one night looking for a place to sleep like a stray cat? No, he didn’t. He’s my fucking brother. He was there when mom did it to me. And he saw what it did to our family. What it did to me. He was the one trying to fix our fucking fucked up family. To piece it together after the fall out and he expects me to do the same when he did the one thing worse than practically fucking cheating on her.”
“Harvey I think that's a little-”
“Now he’s destroying his own life. No, not even destroying, destroyed. He has ruined all chances of working things out between him and Katie and honestly, I can’t be fucking bothered to watch it crumble to the ground. And the worst part of it is he had the audacity to ask me to win this case. He doesn’t deserve to win let alone ask me. What a selfish, lying son of a bitch-”
“Harvey,” you placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him from walking away. He had been moving around animatedly, now up out of his seat and waving around. “Take a deep breath. Please.”
He did.
“Good,” You smiled softly.
He took another. And another. “Sorry… just- sorry.”
“It’s okay,” You came and stood in front of him, hands flat on his chest. “Let’s go and get you changed and we can keep talking through it. If you’d like.”
Though Harvey’s eyes were harsh, that anger wasn’t directed at you. You’ve dealt with him like this on more than one occasion, and you’ve learned to recognize the difference. He didn’t dare look at you the way he is now.
After taking his hand and leading him up stairs, you took your time undressing him so he could be more comfortable. Once upon a time he had told you that the feeling of your hands on him could make him forget anything and everything. It was only in your best interest to do that for him now. To calm him so he could see the full picture.
Starting with his tie, you walked to the closet and hung it up in the empty space from where you picked it out this morning. Much the same with the jacket, tossing his still crisp white-shirt in the laundry. He handed you his belt and shoes, and while you put them away, he took off his dress pants and put on sweats by the time you came back.
“Better?” You asked, placing his hands across your middle.
He smiled, “Better.”
Harvey was still sitting, but he rested his forehead against your stomach, just breathing. With calm hands you massaged his scalp and neck, his shoulders and arms. It was important to give Harvey his space at times like this, letting him speak when he wanted. Otherwise he’d just get defensive and shut down. That was not beneficial to either of you.
“I’m so fucking mad at Marcus, Yn.”
“I know, my love. I know,” You spoke softly, kissing the top of his head. “So am I.”
“I just don’t understand how he could do that after what mom did to me. I thought- I thought we were brothers again.”
His voice cracked, and you could feel the first tear drops soak through your shirt and cool your skin. Your stomach clenched and dropped. You know Harvey and Marcus have been rocky for decades, but since he forgave his mom and started rebuilding their relationship, things naturally got better with Marcus.
So much for all that hard work. And you had been so proud of him for taking those steps. And you knew the toll it took on him. Now it was all back at square one.
“I am so sorry, Harvey.”
“What the fuck do I do?”
You paused for a long while. “I don’t know.”
When he looked up at you, eyes all red and bleary, you wanted to fly to Boston and smack Marcus yourself for putting Harvey right back where he was when he was sixteen. He may not have been the one asked to keep a secret this time, but he knows what it’s like to be in that situation. To feel so pinned and powerless. The looming decision of whether he should betray his mom or dad, a constant threat, and either outcome will ruin the family.
“Are you up for listening to my ideas or do you still need to get things off your chest?” All you got was a shrug and a few spilled tears. “Okay, there’s no rush.”
“I just don’t know what to do, Yn. I have no fucking clue what I’m supposed to do. I want to beat him into the dirt the most. I want to hold Haley and tell her that none of this was ever her fault and she is not the one to blame. Goddamn do I want to hug Haley right now…”
You had to close your eyes. You didn’t want to see Harvey in this position, especially because you knew what this did to him. It stirred up all those memories and emotions from decades ago. Now they were all at the surface, controlling every one of his thoughts. And there isn’t a whole lot that you can do to get them to stop.
“I think you’re angry.”
“You’re goddamn right I’m angry,” Harvey huffed, making you let out a weak chuckle.
“And I also think that I know you when you’re angry. And that you don’t think clearly when you are. So, how about we distract you for a while and then we get some sleep. Then, maybe in the morning, we lay it all out again and go over what we know. Look at all the facts and whatnot. Because, despite your very much warranted anger towards Marcus, he is still your brother. And family means more than anything to you, Harvey. I can’t let you spend the next thirty years in regret for not trying. You owe that to yourself. Not anyone else.”
“I don’t even know where to start with all this bullshit.”
“That’s where I come in,” You smiled, sitting in his lap with one leg on each side of his. “Look Harvey, you have every single right to be upset. I am pissed at Marcus for doing that to Haley. But I will not let this drive another cavern between you and him. The two of you have been through enough. He fucked up, and he knows it because you’re Harvey goddamn Specter and you told him he did. But you forgave him once. And you forgave your mom. It is worth a shot to hear him out, and I’m not saying it has to be right away either. Just eventually.”
Harvey’s brown eyes darted around your face, that tight line still on his lips. When you tilted your head and batted your lashes, he sighed out, nodding. “Okay, okay fine you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” your smile made him finally unclench the space between his brows. “It’s because I’m really good at knowing who you are, and knowing how to approach a situation. You’re good at being a kick-ass lawyer and I’m good at taming that kick-ass lawyer.”
“You love it when I let that animal out of the cage,” he smirked, hands stroking down your thighs.
“If you refer to yourself as an animal in a cage again I will walk out that door and spend the night at Donna’s.”
“Okay okay,” he grinned ear to ear, pressing kisses on your cheek, then down your neck. “I’m sorry for being so… hostile. Thank you, Yn. For calming me down.”
“You’re welcome, my love.”
“I don’t know what it is that you do, but you make it all disappear.”
“It’s my secret,” you whispered, kissing his lips. “And I won’t ever tell.”
“I bet I could make you tell me,” Harvey winked and grabbed around your waist, taking you with him when he leaned back.
“Oh, is that a fact?”
“No, but it is a challenge.”
He tangled his hand in your hair, bringing your mouth to his. He tasted like whatever cheap whiskey he had on the plane and mint. You let your body form to his and didn’t mind the way his tongue found yours. Harvey’s hands were gentle as they peeled away the cardigan on your shoulders, tossing it away to be picked up later.
He took his time, slowly stripping you and easing you on your back. You wrapped your legs around his waist and needed to have his mouth on yours again. He was such a good kisser. So thorough and precise with what he wanted to do to you.
And he was always very thorough.
Harvey placed kisses down your chest, down your stomach and to each hip.
“Babe-”
“Shh,” he hushed. “Just let me do what I want. You just lay back and look pretty. Fuck do you look pretty, my love.”
Your heart melted. Normally he had a wicked, dirty tongue but tonight was obviously different. He wanted something to focus on, and if that was going to be you, then so be it. You surely weren’t going to stop him from spreading your knees and tucking his head to your core.
If Harvey could do one thing for the rest of his life, he’d sure have a hard time picking between you and the law. While he loved his work, your mind and body were two things even the high of winning couldn’t compare to. Harvey loved you. Ferociously. With every part of his body he loved you.
His tongue circled your clit, and your hand went in his hair to keep him there. The laugh that tumbled from him was nothing short of star-seeing. One thing about Harvey is if you weren’t satisfied and thensome, neither was he. He loved making you cum on his tongue, loved how you tasted.
It wasn’t long before you warned him you were close, and he just hummed into you, vibrations making you arch up off the bed, tugging equally as hard on his hair as you did the sheets beside you.
“I will never get sick of making you feel good, Yn. I love that I am the one who gets to spend these moments with you.”
“Harvey,” you swooned, cupping his face to bring him back up so you could kiss him. Your scent was strong on his lips and made you only need him that much more. All it took was a few impatient grabs at his shirt to make him take it off so you could finally get your hands on that body of his.
All that time in the boxing gym surely paid off.
Harvey brough your knee up and pushed it flat on the bed, pulling the other one around his hip. He pushed in, chest to chest with you as he sat still for a few moments.
“I love you so much, Yn,” Harvey whispered, thumb training down your cheek, your neck. He slid it all the way down your arm and laced your fingers together, kissing them as he pulled back. He wouldn’t leave your lips alone, not that you wanted that in the slightest. He was all soft words and pleas of desperation. Telling you how good you felt.
It was like your wedding night all over again. When the two of you met, it had been in a fury of hands and tongues. All fast because there wasn’t a second to waste when it finally happened. But on your big day, he laid you down, just like this, and worshiped you all night long.
Every word from his mouth was just him telling you how much you meant to him, his body seconding that omission. He was so dedicated to you, to making you feel good. It was all long, smooth strokes of his body inside yours, the warmth of your combined breaths. Swallowing each other's noises of pleasure.
“I am so in love with you,” Harvey smiled. “I am so fucking in love with you.”
You couldn’t hide your smile if you tried. It wasn’t rare that Harvey was affectionate– per say– but this was an illusive moment. He wine and dined you whenever you asked, you were always his plus one anywhere in the world. But it was these small, yet enormous moments of intimacy that you cherished the most. This was a side of Harvey that took a very long time to bring to the surface. And he too realized the weight of just taking his time and being soft with you.
“I love you too, Harvey,” you whispered against his face, his mouth now busy with the side of your neck. Harvey couldn’t keep his hips slow for long, and they snapped to yours. Air pushed out of your mouth and right into his ear, right where it drove him crazy to hear what he did to you.
“Fuck, my love, if you keep making those sounds this isn’t exactly going to be how I-”
“Now it’s my turn to take care of you,” you responded, locking your ankles together behind his back.
A shiver ran through his shoulders and he dropped to his elbows, hips driving into you faster and faster. Harder. It didn’t take him long to reach his high, fucking you through it. His heart pounded underneath his skin so hard you could feel it. A slight sweat at the back of his head where hair met skin.
When he lifted his head, his eyes looked less… weighted. He looked much more himself. Muc more like Harvey and a little less like Mr. Specter.
You mentally patted yourself on the back.
There wasn’t anything you could do to convince him to not drag you into the shower down the hall. The warmth of the water, the heaviness in your body only made his fingers on your scalp that much better. He kissed all over, giving your ass a loving smack when getting out before wrapping a big towel around the both of you.
“Promise in the morning that we can do this all again and then I can make you a big breakfast?”
“Only if you promise that there will be sausage and bacon,” your eyes were droopy, but the smile reached them anyway.
“Good thing Postmates will go to the grocery store nowadays,” Harvey slipped one of his shirts over your head, straightening it out over your body. “You look so adorable in my clothes.”
“I know, why do you think I wear them when you’re gone?”
“You wear my clothes when I’m gone?”
You pff’ed out some air, “Don’t act like you don’t notice the suspiciously large pile of your laundry in the hamper when you come back.”
“I don’t think you know how happy that makes me, Yn,” Harvey’s smile was nothing short of pure adoration. He was never short on pure adoration when it came to you.
“Yes I do,” You smiled, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Why do you think I do it?”
“Because you know me. Really really well.”
“That I do.”
Harvey breathed out, shaking his head. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me for something anyone would do for their husband.”
“Well, in my experience, most wives aren’t nearly as observant or as dedicated as you are, Yn. And I want you to know how much I appreciate you and everything you help me through when I don’t know how to help myself.”
Your eyes melted, much like your heart when he hugged you. Nice and tight and just how you liked them. You always felt impossibly safe with him, and his hugs were impossibly your favorite thing in the world.
Harvey would listen better in the morning. Especially after a good night's sleep. You just hope that all your efforts will lead him in the right direction. And that direction isn’t the clearest right now, and that’s okay. Both of you know it’s okay to not make a decision as big as something like this.
But you know Harvey will try. And that is all you can ask of him.
#harvey specter#harvey specter suits#harvey specter x reader#harvey specter smut#harvey specter fanfiction#suits smut#suits fanfiction#suits fanfic#suits tv#suits
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Wildest Dreams
Jeffrey Dean Morgan x Reader
Song inspo: Wildest Dreams by Taylor Swift
Summary: Y/n's celebrity crush, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, makes her dreams come true when she meets him at a bar after the walking dead comic con.
Warnings: NSFW, 18+, *Jeffrey is single*, plot, smut, sexual tension, cursing, sex, oral, daddy-kink
This is my first attempt at fanfiction ever, ahhh! Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!
This can't be happening right now. I can't believe he's actually right there. I'm about to touch him.
"Well hello there." Jeffrey's smile widens as I approach his open arms. "What's your name, darlin'?"
"Y/n...Hi" I smile and let him wrap his arms around me.
"That is a beautiful name, y/n. You ready?"
"Yeah, but can we pose a different way though.. maybe looking at each other?" I ask, hoping he can't hear the nervousness in my voice.
"Absolutely, doll." He turns his body facing mine and gently places his fingers around my jawline, looking directly into my eyes and lifting my chin to meet his gaze. "Relax." His tone is soft but demanding.
The photographer counts to 3 but it feels like 10 because Jeffrey's hazel brown eyes are burning flames into mine. I swear this man is staring into my soul as if he can read every thought I've ever had about him. Including that one, because the left side of his mouth suddenly raises and he lets out a "negan-like" chuckle that only the two of us can hear.
I'm the first one to break away from our embrace and I can feel my cheeks redden as I take another glance at him. I make a mental note to never forget what he looks like in person and let my stare linger a little too long on his chest hair peeking out from his white t-shirt. His smirk grows wider and he leans down, putting his mouth next to my ear. "You... are adorable."
When he leans away, the smell of tobacco, leather, and sweet mint fills my lungs.
Even now as I sit in my car, his scent is burned into my nose and the front of my shirt.. I'll never wash it again. My eyes close and my head falls back against my driver's seat.
The rest of my evening is spent binge watching The Walking Dead -season 7 of course - and ordering too much room service. I should go out. I drove 3 hours to Austin, TX.. by myself, which is a big deal for me. I should at least explore the city while I'm here.
I shower and throw on some jean shorts and a cute top, pretending I'm not bothered by the fact that I just washed any trace of my parasocial boyfriend off of me. At least I have this. I hold the picture we took and study it for the 48th time today.
After google searching "nightlife in Austin", Sixth Street seems to be where it's at, so I head that way and although it's only 7 minutes away from my hotel, it takes me 30 to find parking. I have no clue where exactly I'm going or what I'm doing, but hell - I met Jeffrey Dean Morgan earlier. If I could do that, I could do anything. I apply some lip gloss and tell my anxiety to go fuck itself before climbing out of the car.
Bright neon signs from every building light up the street and I smile to myself at the couples holding hands walking past me. I browse around at my options for drinks - not food - because I destroyed $70 worth of room service earlier - and make out the faint sound of Wildest Dreams by Taylor Swift coming from one of the pubs up ahead as if it's calling my name. "Shakespeare's." the old sign reads, and I know that's the one. I make my way into the mildly crowded pub, find a seat at the end of the bar, and don't waste any time ordering a drink.
I bring up the picture of Jeffrey and me on my phone and study it.. for the 49th time today. I'm lost in my thoughts when a deep voice fills my ear. "Shit. That is one handsome dude." He takes a seat next to me and orders himself a drink while I stare at him wide-eyed and unable to speak. Oh.. my god.
Jeffrey orders his drink and turns his body towards me slightly with that signature grin on his stupidly handsome face. He breaks the silence since my lips seem to be paralyzed at the moment.
"Tell me what you're thinking, y/n." ... he remembered my name.
"I'm thinking that there is no way this is real life right now." I grin and look around, trying to mentally focus on suppressing the redness in my cheeks.
He laughs as the bartender places his drink down. "Want me to pinch you?"
"You can do whatever you want to me." I say under my breath as I sip my drink, surprised by my liquid courage. If he heard me, he ignores it and I internally cringe at myself.
"Cheers, darlin'." We tap our drinks and I throw my head back to finish mine completely. I sense his gaze on me and turn to face him completely. "So.. What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?" He fires back.
"Apparently having a drink with my celebrity crush." I laugh and cringe again. I need to stop.
"Crush? Me?" sarcasm drips from his smirk as he sips on his whiskey. "Would have never guessed.. not with the way you were blushing like hell during our picture."
My mouth drops open. "I was not!"
"No? Lemme see then." He nods towards my phone in my lap.
I pause hesitantly before handing him my phone and unlocking it for him. Bad idea. Instead of looking at our picture, he clicks on the camera button and turns it to selfie mode. He raises my phone in front of us and leans into me. I'm caught off guard but quickly lean into him, our faces touching and I smile as cool, calm, and collected as I can be in this moment.
He snaps a couple pictures of us and looks at them. "We are fucking cute as shit." He shows me and I laugh.
He pulls some glasses out of his jacket pocket and slides them on his face while holding my phone. I watch him in awe as he takes it upon himself to browse through my phone. My heart drops when he goes to the home screen and sees himself as my wallpaper with cute little hearts and cherries surrounding him. Fuck.
I wait for his reaction but it doesn't faze him. And if it does, he says nothing. He stares at the screen a little longer then finally glances at me with a smirk before turning his attention back to my phone. His thumb presses the tiktok icon and I watch curiously. He's not seriously about to suggest we make a tiktok together. Ick.
Worse. Instead, he clicks on my favorites and multiple squares of his face pop up - edits of him. I almost reach for my phone, but part of me likes that he sees it. What is wrong with me.
He looks at me and raises his brow. For the first time all night, I don't blush when he looks at me and it seems to amuse him because he chuckles and looks back at my phone. He clicks on one of the edits and watches himself on top of another woman kissing her passionately. I watch it with him unashamedly. Before it ends, he suddenly clicks my screen off and hands me my phone back.
"Why did you save that?" he asks with a serious tone.
"Uh, I jus - I liked it." I shrug.
"You like watching me make love to women?"
I laugh to myself. "Uhhh. Yeah, I guess so."
He pauses and stares at me, this time with a serious expression. "Do you wish it was you?"
My eyes widen and I open my mouth to answer but no words come out.
He stands and puts his jacket on. Oh great, I scared him. Good job y/n.
"Let's go." He throws a $100 on the bar and motions for me to stand up too.
I'm obviously not going to question this man. If he tells me to bark, I'll bark. I almost faint when I feel his big palm firmly placed right above my backside as we're leaving.
We exit the bar with our heads down as we quickly walk to his car. He opens the passenger side and I get in, waiting for him to appear on the other side. Leather, mint, and tobacco fill my lungs and I'm gone once again.
I'm so lost in my head that I don't even notice that he's already in the driver's seat. "Whatcha thinkin' about?"
"Don't ask me that. I don't even know anymore." My answer amuses him and he drives a few blocks away to one of the "rich" hotels. The entire ride over is awkward silence with the exception of Jeffrey blowing puffs of cigarette smoke towards the crack in his window every few moments.
"Y/n." He puts the car in park and turns towards me while flicking his cigarette out the window and rolling it up. "At any point tonight if you want to leave or.. you.. want me to stop, I need you to tell me, okay?"
I look at him and his face is the most serious I've seen it all day.
"Okay." I whisper.
"Come here." Is all he says before I'm leaned towards him over the middle console and so close to his face that our noses are touching. I wait for him to make the move but he doesn't. He looks down at my lips and sighs. "Fuck. I'm not going to kiss you."
I back away a little, feeling embarrassed before he continues explaining. He brings me back closer to him and his hand caresses my cheek. "I need you to understand that tonight is a one time thing, y/n. You.. you can't catch anymore feelings for me than you already have, okay? I'm going to make you feel good, but I'm not going to break your heart in the process."
The smell of his minty cigarette breath tempts me and I have to mentally restrain myself from not crashing into this man's lips. But I just nod instead.
"Good girl." Is all he says before he gets out of the car and comes around to open my door.
The way up to his room is quick and discreet. It's 11pm so we only pass two people on the way up and they didn't seem to recognize him. Even his hotel room is already filled with his signature scent, minus the tobacco.
"Would you like to stay the night with me, y/n?"
"Um, obviously. Are you kidding? ..Yes, I'd love to." I laugh and look around his room.
The lights are off, but the room is bright enough with the city lights shining through the windows. I fall into the bed dramatically on the side closest to the window.
"I'm gonna take a quick shower. Make yourself comfortable, okay?" he grins before closing the bathroom door. I stare back at the closed door and imagine what he looks like getting undressed behind it.
I glance around the large room and notice his phone sitting on the nightstand next to "his side" of the bed. He went through mine.. so it's only fair if I -
I reach over and grab his phone. 042266. I type in his birthdate and the phone locks. I laugh to myself. Too easy, old man.
There's a recent text message from.. my number? I click it and the picture he took of us at the bar pops up. And another one - our picture we took at comic con. He sent them to himself.
I don't want to intrude on his personal business too much, so instead I open his camera and take some goofy selfies. The bathroom door opens while I'm mid tongue out. He stops and stares at me as I slowly set his phone down on the bed. I shrug at him and he shakes his head a little and laughs. He appears in nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist. I turn my gaze away before I get carried away and my eyes get permanently glued to his torso.
"It's okay, y/n. You can look at me. In fact, I want you to."
I look back at him and don't even bother hiding how hard I'm checking him out now. I observe every hair on his chest and my eyes travel south until I'm imagining what he looks like under the towel. A lucky water drop runs down his flat stomach and disappears and I'm hoping the drool I just felt run down my chin was just my imagination. He walks slowly over to my side of the bed and stands next to me.
"You ready to find out what my cock looks like, y/n?"
If I was drinking water right now, I would have just spit it out all over him. I nod and he drops the towel. His cock springs free and I stare at it in awe. He's about 7-8 inches of thick perfection and I've never seen something so hot in my life. He looks down at himself, a proud smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.
"Tell me one of your fantasies, y/n. We're not doing anything tonight that you haven't already thought about."
"I - well, one of them is.. putting it in my mouth." I look up at him innocently.
"What are you waiting for, then?"
I get up and push him gently for him to sit on the bed, then get on my knees in between his legs. If I weren't still buzzing from the drinks earlier, there is no way I'd have the confidence to do this.
He leans back slightly with his hands on either side of him on the bed and looks down at me through lust filled hazel eyes.
"It's all yours baby." He smiles and tucks his bottom lip under his teeth.
I slowly take him into my mouth, savoring the taste of him - like man and fresh leather soap. I groan around him as I take him further and the growl that escapes his throat encourages me to take him as far in the back of my throat as I can.
"Fuuuck baby." His deep voice strains and I watch as his head fall back with pleasure. I continue steadily sucking him and stroking where my throat won't reach. His moans grow louder with each time he hits the back of my throat.
He suddenly thrusts his hips up slightly, causing me to gag and jolt back a little.
"Goddamn it, y/n. You are not making me cum yet." He hanks my hair back and his cock pops out of my mouth and stands strong against his stomach. It's big and wet and throbbing, and my legs clench together and the sight of him.
I stand up and take my shirt off, then my bra. Then slowly slide my shorts and panties down while facing away from him. A satisfied moan escapes his lips and he wastes no time grabbing me and throwing me on the bed. He positions me until my head is on the bed and my ass in the air before I feel his cock press against my soaked pussy from behind. He rubs himself against my wet slit until I'm whimpering and begging him to put it in me.
"Beg for me, baby." He slaps my ass and the sensation causes me to jump a little.
"Please, Jeffrey. I need you. Please."
"Baby, now I know that's not what you call me in your fantasies, is it?" Another slap to my bare ass makes me yelp.
"Daddy.. please!"
His dark chuckle fills the room and every one of my senses is on fire. His scent, his voice, his dick all surround me until I'm crying and pleading for this man to ruin me. "Please daddy, I need you. Please."
"Sorry, princess. I'm taking my time with you." He flips me over suddenly until I'm laying flat on my back. His knees push mine apart, signaling me to spread open for him until he positions himself above me. He leans over me until our faces are inches apart.
My hands roam over his lean body and scratch his back lightly as his lips travel down my neck. His hard cock slides back and forth between my slit and it feels too good every time it brushes my sensitive clit.
"Goddamn, you are soaking my fucking cock and I haven't even put it inside you yet, baby." he groans and bites my nipple gently before taking it into his mouth and sucking so hard it hurts.
He finally leans up, sitting on his knees, and positions his cock right at my entrance.
"Was I or gentle or rough in your fantasies?" He rubs the head against my clit before sliding it back down. My pussy is weeping for him at this point.
"Rough.. please." I choke out.
"Please.. what?" He growls.
"Please daddy!"
He chuckles. "You want it rough baby?" I nod and a tear runs down my cheek at how bad I need him.
"Be careful what you ask for." In one motion, he enters me fully, causing me to scream out at the sudden sensation. My body feels like it was just completely ripped in half, and I wouldn't want it any other way so I cry out for him to do it again. He smirks before pulling out all the way and ramming himself back in.
He starts thrusting at a steady pace and I concentrate on the way his balls feel slapping against me.
Even more tears fall from my face from the extreme emotions he's making me feel. Horny, desperate, obsessed, in.. love.
Fuck.
"Baby. Why are you crying?" He slows his pace and leans over me, assessing my eyes.
"I - I don't know. I - I just.."
"You want me to stop?" his voice is filled with lust and concern.
"No! .. No, don't stop. I just.."
I love you.
"I want it slower." I lie.
"Y/n.. I know you better than that already." He says gently as he thrusts into me deep and agonizingly slow. His lips brush over my ear. "Tell me, baby." He kisses my neck before grabbing my jaw firmly and looking for answers in my eyes. "Tell me, y/n, or I'm stopping."
I close my eyes and blurt out before I can stop myself. "I - I think I love you."
Jeffrey's expression falls serious and he looks back and forth between my eyes while slowly releasing my jaw. His head drops and his eyes close as if he just got slapped, but he continues fucking me.
"Goddamn it, y/n... I told you.. I told you not to catch feelings."
I just stare at him and cry. "I'm sorry."
He closes his eyes again tightly as if contemplating what he should do next. Before I can say anything else, his lips crash against mine. I kiss him back passionately and his tongue slips into my mouth. He picks up the pace with our kiss and his hips and I moan into his mouth.
"Fuck, baby. What am I gonna do with you?" his breathing grows faster and heavier with mine.
"Jeffrey.. fuck, I'm - I'm."
"Cum for me, baby." He growls and quickens his thrusts again.
I scream out for him and he moans into my neck.
"Jeffrey.. you know what else I fantasize about?" I ask him while trying to catch my breath.
"What's that, baby?" His balls slap against me over and over and over.
"What you taste like when you cum."
He lifts his head to look at me and paints a devilish grin across his face. "Yeah? You want me to cum in that pretty mouth, baby?"
I nod without question. I've dreamt about what this man tastes like for so long. If this is our one and only night together, I need to know.
"Fuck." He pulls out of me and leans back on his knees, bringing my head with him as his fingers tightly grip my hair.
"You ready, baby? Open up." His voice is deep and hoarse as he moans out and I swear I've never heard a man sound as sexy as he does right now.
His warm, salty cum fills my throat and I greedily swallow every drop of him, licking his tip until he's completely drained.
"Holyyy shit. Look at my dirty girl." He grins down at me and strokes my hair like he's proud.
He drops down in the bed and holds his arm out for me to lay next to him. I lay my head on his chest and listen to his rapid heart beat. A few minutes pass and I'm hoping he forgot about my little comment earlier. Well - big comment. I can't believe I told him I love him. I mean, I do love him and I think I have for awhile now, but why did I have to be a psycho and tell him that.
He finally breaks the silence. "Y/n.. We have to talk about it."
I sigh. Here it goes. "I know.. listen.. I didn't mean it. Obviously, I barely know you. I was caught up in the moment and I was just.. emotional. I promise I'm - I'm not crazy. I know this is a one time thing and I'm okay with that."
"Hmph." I feel his chest rise a little and he sighs. I lift my head up to look at him and he smiles wide at me before kissing my lips.
"That's too bad y/n.. Cause I was thinking we could do this again tomorrow."
The End.
If you read this, thank you so much. This is my first time writing fanfiction, so pls be nice. If you hate it, I'll cry. :') Xo,kb.
#jeffrey dean morgan#jdmfanfiction#jdmorgan#negan#negan fanfiction#twd negan#negan twd#the walking dead negan#dead city#negan smith#negan smith fanfiction#jeffrey dean morgan x you#jeffrey dean morgan x reader#jdm x reader#negan x reader#jeffrey dean morgan smut#negan smut#jdm fanfiction#jdmfanfic#jdm imagine#jeffrey dean morgan fanfic#jeffrey dean morgan fanfiction#jdm smut
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Ok, I think I might be exiting the "are you fucking kidding me?" period and ready to make a real argument, so lets talk about Three Act Structure!
Is OFMD S2 just the "Darkest Hour"?
A very common explanation I've been seeing for some of the... controversial... aspects of S2 is that it's meant to be that way. That the middle act is where the protagonists hit their lowest point. Where we get the big failure point. Where everything looks kind of shit.
S2 is supposedly just that point. It's The Empire Strikes Back. People have been making that comparison since before the first episodes even dropped, telling everyone to expect something that could be disappointing or unsatisfying - it's just a matter of needing to wait for S3 to pull it all together.
It's not a baseless framework to consider the show through - I'm pretty sure David Jenkins has mentioned it in interviews (or at least mentioned he planned for three acts / seasons) so it's certainly worth asking how he's doing at the 2/3rd mark.
So - quick summary of Three Act Structure:
Act 1 introduces our characters and world. It includes the inciting incident of the story and the first plot point, where a) the protagonist loses the ability to return to their normal life, and b) the story raises whatever dramatic question will drive the entire plot. Act 2 is rising action and usually most of the story. The protagonist tries to fix things and fucks them up worse, in the process learning new skills and character developing to overcome their flaws. Act 3 is the protagonist taking one more shot, but this time they are ready. We get the climax of the story, the dramatic question gets an answer, and then the story closes.
If you want examples, the Star Wars Original Trilogy is a very popular template. And, hell, he said it was a pirate story... the main Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy also does a solid job with their three acts.
Let's compare. (Spoiler: I'm not impressed 🤨)
---
First thing I need to establish... Wait. Two things. First is that Three Act Structure is flexible, so we can't really analyze success or failure by pulling up a list of necessary plot beats that should have been hit in X order. Second is that if you tell me you are writing a romance with a Three Act Structure - where "the relationship is the story" - the first thing I'm going to do is ask you how you are adapting it. Because while there's not necessarily anything preventing you from applying this to a character driven plot, most people are familiar with it as plot structure for externally driven conflict.
Unless there's a reason the status of the main relationship is intrinsically tied up in the current status of the war against the evil empire, a standard Three Act Structure is going to entail either an antagonistic force that absolutely wants your main couple apart being the main relationship obstacle OR the romance aspect being a subplot to the protagonist's narrative adventure. None of those sound like how the show has been described.
So how is OFMD adapting it?
---
Act 1
(Can't figure out how well Act 2 is doing if we don't start at setup.)
Right out the gate, OFMD breaks one of the main "rules" for a story where the Acts are delivered in three parts. Namely the one where the first Act is treated as an acceptable standalone story, with it's own satisfying yet open ended conclusion.
In Star Wars, A New Hope ends with the princess rescued, Luke finding the Force, Han finding his loyalty, and the Death Star destroyed. The Empire isn't defeated, the antagonists still live... the story is not over, but this one movie doesn't feel unfinished.
Similarly, Curse of the Black Pearl gives Jack his ship back, Elizabeth and Will get together, and Norrington has the English Navy let them all off the hook and give Jack and the pirates one day's head start.
OFMD's final beat of S1 being Kraken Arc starting is not that, even if Stede returning to sea is still a pretty hopeful note. Now... I don't necessarily think this was a bad call. At least, not if the story is the relationship. It's easy to close on a happy ending and then fuck it up next movie if the conflict is external and coming for them. Not so much if you're driving the story with your protagonists' flaws, in part because it should be really obvious at the end of setup that your main characters need development and can't run off together right now. I actually like that they were risk-takers and let S1 look at the situation clearly vs doing a fragile happy end, because it takes into account the difference between a character-driven and plot-driven narrative.
I think OFMD's Act 1 actually ends at maybe the Act of Grace? Well, there through the kiss on the beach, counting as our "first plot point" before everything goes wrong, basically.
At that point, they have setup the story and characters. We've been introduced to Edward and Stede's current issues. Signing the Act of Grace does make the intertwined arcs between them real - it's no longer a situation that either one of them could just walk away from like it was in 1x07 - and we narrow in on the (alleged) driving question of the show:
It's not about "Will Stede become a great pirate?" or "Will we develop a better kind of piracy for the crew?" - the show is the relationship and the big question is "What is Stede and Edward's happy ending?"
Act 1 ends on their first solution, being together and making each other happy and admitting it's more than just friendship. Act 2 starts, appropriately, by saying both of them are currently too flawed for that to go anywhere but crashing and burning.
Now... looking back, what does Act 1 do well vs poorly?
I think it's really strong on giving us the foundation for BlackBonnet's characters and flaws. We aren't surprised Stede goes home or Edward goes Kraken (or at least... we weren't supposed to be surprised. There are still a lot of holdouts blaming Izzy for interrupting Edward's "healing" despite how at this point in the story it doesn't make sense for Edward to have the skills to heal... but I digress). The relationship question is compelling at the end of S1, the cliffhanger hooks, and the fandom explosion of fics did not come from nowhere - the audience was invested.
I also think Act 1 does a great job of settling us in the universe. We understand the rules it abides by, from how gay pirates are just a fact of life to how there's no important organs on the left side of the body. Stede has a muppety force field. Rowboats have homing devices, and port is always as close as you want it to be. Scurvy is a joke. The overblown violence of pirate life is mostly a joke, but we are going to take the violence of childhood trauma seriously.
Lucius's fake-out death, while technically part of Act 2, works well because Act 1 did a good job of priming everyone to go "obviously this show wouldn't kill a crew member for shock value, and we're 100% supposed to suspend disbelief about how he could have survived getting flung into the sea in the middle of the night." And we do. And we get rewarded for it.
Regarding antagonists - a big focus of any setup - the show is deliberately weak. The one with the most screentime is Izzy, and he's purposefully ineffective at separating our main couple. Every antagonist is keyed to a particular character, and they function mostly to inform us of that character's flaws and development requirements. The Badmintons tell us about Stede's repression and feelings of inadequacy, and Izzy tells us about Edward's directionless discontent and tendency to avoid his problems. Effectively - the show is taking the stance this will be a character driven narrative where Stede and Edward's flaws are the source of problems and development the solution. No person or empire (or social homophobia) is separating them...
...which leads me to something not present - there nothing really about the struggle of piracy against the Empire. Looking at Curse of the Black Pearl... we see piracy is in danger. The Black Pearl itself is described as the last great pirate threat the British Navy needs to conquer. Hangings are omnipresent - Jack is sentenced to die by one almost as soon as he's introduced to the story, when his only act so far had been to wander around and save Elizabeth from drowning. OFMD tries to invoke this kind of struggle in 2x08, but there's no foundation. Our Navy antagonists are Stede's childhood bullies, and so focused on Stede the crew isn't even in danger when they get caught. The Republic of Pirates is getting jokes about being gentrified, not besieged.
Even the capture of Blackbeard by the Navy is treated as a feather in Wellington's cap but not a huge symbolic blow against piracy... because we just do not have that grand struggle woven into Act 1. You only know the "Golden Age of Piracy" is ending if you google it, or have watched a bunch of pirate shows.
Overall, a solid Act 1, well adapted to the kind of story they've said they were looking to tell - a romance in the (silly-fied) age of piracy, instead of a pirate adventure with a romantic subplot.
---
Now, Sidebar - Where is the story going?
The thing about the dramatic question - in OFMD's case: "What is Stede and Edward's happy ending?" - is that a) there's normally more than one question bundled up in that one + sideplots, and b) while you aren't supposed to have the answer yet, you can usually guess what needs to happen to give you the answer.
Back to our examples... Luke's driving question is "Will the Empire be defeated?" Simple. Straightforward. Also: "Will Luke become a Jedi?" The eventual climax of our story from there is pretty obvious... the story is over when Luke wins the war for the Rebellion in a Jedi way. That's the goal that they are working toward.
Pirates of the Caribbean is a bit more complicated. We're juggling more characters and have a less defined heroic journey, but there are driving questions like "Is Jack Sparrow a good man?" and "Is Will Turner a pirate / what does that mean?" and even "Will the British Navy defeat piracy?" They get basic answers in Curse of the Black Pearl, and far more defined ones in At World's End. Still, this is another plot-driven narrative. They've laid the foundations for the Pirates vs Empire struggle, and when that final battle turns into the trilogy climax then you know what's happening.
OFMD is not doing a plot-driven narrative. To judge how they are doing at their goals, we have to ask what they think a happy ending entails in a character sense.
Clearly it's not the classic romantic sideplot, where the climax is the first kiss / acknowledgement of feelings. They've teased a wedding in Word of God comments a lot, so that's probably our better endpoint. Specifically, though, a wedding where both of our protagonists aren't ready to flee from the altar (big ask) and where they've both grown enough that their flaws / mutual tendencies to run away from life problems won't tank the relationship.
In Stede's case it's still massive feelings of inadequacy and being too repressed to talk about his problems. Also he ran away from his family to chase a lifelong dream of being a pirate - "Is Stede going to find fulfillment in being a pirate captain, or will the real answer be love?" Edward meanwhile expresses a desire to quit piracy and retire Blackbeard, but we also find out he's struggling with massive self-loathing and guilt from killing his father - "Is retiring what Edward wants to do, or is he just running away?"
If they are going to get to a satisfying wedding beat at the climax of their story, what character beats do we need to hit in advance?
Off the top of my head - both characters need to self-realize their flaws (a pretty necessary demand of anyone who runs away from problems). They are set up to balance each other well, but also to miscommunicate easily. They have to tell each other about or verbally acknowledge that self-realization so it can be resolved. Stede has to decide how much being a pirate means to him. Edward has to decide if he's retiring and what he wants to do. They both need to show something to do with getting past their childhood traumas given all the flashbacks. Through all this, they also need to hit the normal romance beats that convince the audience they are romantically attracted to each other and like... want to get married.
Oh, and this is more of a genre-specific sideplot, but once they demonstrate a behavior that hurts the people who work for them, they need to then demonstrate later how it won't happen again. Proof of growth, which is kind of important in a comedy where a lot of the humor is based in them being massively self-centered assholes. Stede doesn't earn his acceptance in the community until he kicks Calico Jack off the ship, making up for causing the situation with Nigel in the first episode. A workplace comedy can get a lot of material from the boss as the worker's antagonist, but if you want the bosses to stay sympathetic you have got to throw them some opportunities to earn it.
All that sounds like a lot, but like - the relationship is the story, right? If we spend so much time on establishing flaws big enough to drive a story, we also have to spend time on fixing them. Which is where the turning point hits.
---
Act 2: How it Starts
This is where the full story reality-checks your protagonist. Glad you saved your boyfriend and embraced new love in Act 1, but his repressed guilt means he's about to completely ghost you, and your own abandonment issues and self-loathing are about to make his dick move into everyone else's problem.
Again, it's a non-conventional choice OFMD has this start at the very end of S1 rather than with a sudden dark turn in the S2 premiere, but it's still pretty clearly that point in the Three Act Structure.
In Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back opens with a timeskip to our Rebellion getting absolutely crushed and hiding on a miserable frozen planet. The Empire finds them as the plot is kicking off and they have to desperately flee. They get separated. Han and Leia try to go to an ally for help and end up in Vader's clutches. It's a sharp turn from the victorious note that A New Hope ended on.
Pirates of the Caribbean's Act 2 starts dark. Dead Man's Chest opens with our happy couple Will and Elizabeth getting arrested on their wedding day for the "happy end" escape of the last movie. Jack has not been having success since reclaiming his ship, and we'll soon find out he's being hunted by dark forces. As for the general state of piracy, we get a horrifying prison where pirates are being eaten alive by crows, and a new Lord Beckett making the dying state of piracy even more textual. "Jack Sparrow is a dying breed... The world is shrinking."
The key here is making a point that our heroes aren't ready. This is the struggles part - things they try? Fail. The odds do not look to be in their favor.
Now, OFMD apparently decided to go all-in on flaw exploration, especially with Edward. The first 3 episodes of S2 are brutally efficient in outlining Edward's backslide. In S1 you could see he had issues with guilt and feeling like a bad person. S2 devolves that into a destructive, suicidal spiral where Edward forces his crew into three months of consecutive raids, repeats his shocking act of cruelty with Izzy's toe offscreen (more than once!), escalates it with his leg, and finally they state directly that Edward hates himself for killing his dad so much that he fears he's fundamentally unlovable and better off dead.
Stede's struggles are subtler, but most definitely still there. He's deliberately turning a blind eye to tales of Edward's rampage, half from simply being too self-centered to care about the harms Edward causes others, and half from being unable to face or fathom that he had the ability to hurt Edward that much. Upon reunion he wants to put the whole thing behind them, not addressing why he left in the first place. Very "love magically fixes everything" of him, except Stede is no golden merman.
Interestingly, here, BlackBonnet's relationship dysfunction has very clearly been having a negative impact on the surrounding characters we care about. Make sense, since it's the driving force of the story, but that also adds a lot more relationships we need to make right. Like... Edward is the villain to his crew. The show focuses on their trauma and poisoned relationships with him. And then draws our attention even more to Stede taking his side to overrule their objections to him.
For a story where the conflict and required resolutions are primarily character based, and the setup had already given the main couple a good amount to work with, dedicating a lot of S2 to adding more ground to cover was... a choice. Potentially very compelling on the character end, certainly challenging on the writing end... but not a complete break with the structure.
Bold, but not damning.
---
Act 2: How it Ends
Now it is true that Act 2 tends to end on a loss. Luke is defeated by Vader and loses his hand, and Han has been sent away in carbonite. Jack Sparrow for all his efforts cannot escape his fate, and he and the Pearl are dragged to the locker.
But the loss is not the point. The loss is incidental to the point.
Act 2 is about struggles and failure, but it's also about lessons learned. There's a change that occurs, and our cast - defeated but not broken - enters the final act with the essential skills, motivation, knowledge, etc. that they lacked in the beginning.
Luke Skywalker could not have defeated the Empire in Return of the Jedi until he'd learned the truth about his father and resisted the Dark Side in The Empire Strikes Back. (Ok, confession, I'm using Star Wars as an example because literally everyone is doing so, but frankly it's a better example of formulaic Three Act Structure repeating within each movie because on a trilogy level - relevant to this comparison - it is a super basic hero's journey in a very recognized outfit and as such the Act 2 relevance is also... super basic "the hero tries to fight the antagonist too early" beat where he learns humility. Not really a lot going on. So, for the better example...)
Dead Man's Chest has a downer ending with the closing moment of the survivors regaining hope and a plan against an enemy now on the verge of total victory - a classic Act 2. But in that first loss against Davy Jones we get Will's personal motivation and oath to stab the heart, Jack finally overcoming not knowing what he wanted and returning to save them from the Kraken (being a good man), Elizabeth betraying Jack (being a pirate), Barbossa's return, and Norrington's choice to bargain for his prior life back. The mission to retrieve Jack from the World's End is the final movie's plot, but things are already on track to turn the tables back around as we enter the finale.
Now, relevant sidenote - one major difference between Three Act Structure within a single work vs across three parts is that Act 2 continues into Part 3, and only tips over into Act 3 about midway through. This is because obviously your final movie or season cannot just be the climax. That's why both movie examples start with a rescue mission. They have to still be missing something so they can get the plot of their third part accelerating while they go get whatever that something is.
But if you wait until the 3rd movie / season to get the development going at all - you're fucked.
Jack's decision in the climax of At World's End to make Elizabeth into the Pirate King goes back to the development we saw in the Pearl vs Kraken fight in Dead Man's Chest. So does Elizabeth's leadership arc. Will's whole arc about becoming Captain of the Dutchman gets built upon in the third movie, but it starts in the second. Not just as an idle thought - he's actively pursuing it. Already consciously weighing saving his father vs getting back to Elizabeth as soon as he makes the oath. Everyone is moving forward in Act 2. Their remaining development might stumble for drama, or they might be a bit reluctant, but I know that they know better than to let it stick, because they already faced their true crisis points.
I'm not sure we can say the same about OFMD.
S2 does a good job of adding problems, yeah, but there's not really any movement on fixing them. Our main couple stagnates in some ways, and regresses in others.
Stede opened Act 2 by running away in the middle of the night back to his wife without telling Edward anything. We know he did it because of feeling guilty and his core childhood trauma of his dad calling him a weak and inadequate failure. Now in S1 he actually speedruns a realization of his shitty behavior with Mary, but what about S2? Well...
He continues to not talk to Edward about... pretty much anything. My guy practiced love confessions galore but Edward only finds out about going back to his wife via Anne, and it gets brushed aside with a love confession. He seems to think Edward wants him to be a dashing pirate, or maybe he just thinks he should be a dashing pirate. Idk, it doesn't get examined. Regarding his captaincy, they give him an episode plot about Izzy teaching him to respect the crew's beliefs, but this is sideplot to a larger arc of him completely overruling their traumas and concerns (and shushing their objections) to keep his boyfriend on the ship so. That.
Stede kills a man for reasons related to his issues, shoves that down inside and has sex with Edward instead of acknowledging any bad feelings. At least this time Edward was there and knows it happened? Neither Chauncey's death nor his dad have been mentioned to anyone. He gets a day of piracy fame that goes to his head, gets dumped, and ends on a complete beat down by Zheng where he learns... idk. Being a boor is bad? He's still wildly callous to her in the finale, and spends the whole time seeking validation of his pirate skills. He reunites with Edward, kisses, and quotes Han Solo.
Where S1 ended on a great fuckery, his S2 naval uniform plan after they regroup is ill defined except to call it a suicide mission - and we don't get to see what it would have been because it devolves into a very straightforward fight and flee. And gets Izzy killed. Quick cut funeral (no acknowledgement of his S2 bonding with Izzy), quick cut to wedding (foreshadowing), quick cut to... innkeeper retirement? Unclear when or even if BlackBonnet discussed Stede's whole driving dream to be a pirate and live a life at sea, but I guess that got a big priority downgrade. Despite the fact he was literally looking to Zheng for pirate-based compliments in the post-funeral scene.
I guess he's borderline-delusionally dogged in his pursuit of love now - so unlikely to bolt again - but he's also got at least a decade of experience mentally checking out in a state of repression when he's unhappy. And he's stopped being as supportive and caring toward the crew in that dogged pursuit, while arguably demonstrating a loss in leadership skills, so, um, good thing someone else is in charge?
And if Stede is a mess, Edward's arc is so much worse.
As established, they devote the Kraken to making Edward worse. He literally wants to kill himself and destroy everyone around him in the process because Stede left, and this is fixed by... Stede coming back. That's it. The crew tries to murder him and then exiles him from the ship (and Izzy takes the lead on both, indicating exactly how isolated Edward has become), but it's resolved in half a day by Stede just forcing them to put up with his boyfriend again. Like they think he murdered Buttons and still have to move him back in???
The show consistently depicts Kraken Era as a transgression against the crew, but they also avoid showing Edward acting with genuine contrition. He admits he historically doesn't apologize for anything, and then mostly still doesn't. It's a joke that he's approaching probation as a performance (CEO apology), and then the only person he genuinely talks to is Fang - the one guy cool with him - and the only person who gets a basic "sorry" is Izzy - the guy he really needs to be talking to. Edward's primary trauma is guilt, but apparently he only feels it abstractly after all that? He's only concerned with fixing things with Stede, despite Stede being about the only person around who hurt him instead of the reverse.
Speaking of primary traumas, Edward hating himself doesn't really go anywhere after the beat of self-realization. Apparently Stede still loving him is enough of a bandaid to end the suicide chasing, but he doesn't like. Acknowledge that. Edward is maybe sorta trying to go slow so he doesn't hang all his self-worth on Stede again (you can speculate), but they a) absolutely fail to go slow, and b) he doesn't make any attempt to develop himself or another support structure. Just basically... "let's be friends a bit before hooking back up." And then we get the whiplash that is Blackbeard and/or retirement.
Kraken Era is Blackbeard but way worse, like no one who has known Blackbeard has ever seen him. In the Gravy Basket Edward claims he might like being an innkeeper, before destroying his own fantasy by having the spectre of Hornigold confront him over killing his dad. The BlackBonnet to Anne & Mary parallel says running away to China / retiring makes you want to kill each other - burn it all down and go back to piracy. Stede rightfully points out prior retirement plans were whims. Edward gets sick of the penance sack after a day and puts his leathers back on to go try "poison into positivity". But also claims to be an innkeeper (look - two whole mentions!) when trying not to send children to be pirates after teaching them important knife skills.
Killing Ned Low is a serious, bad thing that prompts ill-advised sex and then going hardcore into retirement mode - leathers overboard, talk about mermaid fantasy, get retirement blessings from Izzy, end up dumping Stede for a fishing job instead of talking about how he's enjoying piracy. The fishing job, however, is also a bad thing and a stupid decision because Edward is a lazy freeloader fantasizing about being a better person. We have an uncomfortable, extended scene of "Pop-Pop" weirdly echoing his abusive dad and then sending Edward to go do what he's good at - disassociate, brutally murder two guys, fish up the leathers, rise as the Kraken from the sea. He continues with comically efficient murder but also he's reading Stede's love letters and seeking to reunite with him so... wait, is this a good thing? Post makeout / mass slaughter he's trading compliments on his kills with Zheng so. Yeah. Looks like it. Murder is fine.
Wait, no, skip ahead and Izzy is dying and Edward suddenly cares a whole lot as Izzy makes his death scene about freeing Edward from Blackbeard. Now being a pirate was "encouraging the darkness" because Izzy - a guy who had little to no influence over Edward's behavior - just couldn't let Blackbeard go. Murder is bad again, and he is freed. Minus the little detail that the murder he explicitly hates himself over was not related to Blackbeard or piracy whatsoever, so presumably haunts "just Ed" still. Anyway he's retiring to run an inn with Stede now, as the "loving family" Izzy comforted him with in his dying moments sails away from the couple that can best be described as the antagonists of their S2 arc. Also Edward implicitly wants to get married. It's been 3 days since making out was "too fast". He's still wearing the leathers.
So most of the way through Act 2 and Edward's barely on speaking terms with anyone but Stede, who he has once again hung his entire life on really fast? Crushing guilt leads to self-hatred leads to mass murder and suicide, but only if he's upset so just avoid that. He's still regularly idealizing Stede as a non-fucked up golden mermaid person (that maybe he personally ruined a bit) because he barely knows the guy. His only progress on his future is "pirate" crossed out / rewritten / crossed out again a few times, "fisherman" crossed out, and "innkeeper ?"
Just.
Where is the forward movement?
It's not just that the inn will undoubtedly fall apart - it's that the inn will fall apart for the near-exact same reasons that China was going to at the beginning of Act 2, and I can't point to anything they've learned in the time since that will help them. I guess Stede realized he loved Edward enough to chase after him, but that was in S1! They should be further than this by now. You can't cram another crisis backslide, all the Act 2 development, and the full Act 3 climax into one season. Certainly not without it feeling like the characters magically fix themselves.
If they just fail and keep blindly stumbling into the same issues because they don't change their behavior, then Act 2 doesn't work. You're just repeating the turning point between Act 1 & Act 2 on a loop.
---
Where Did They Fuck Up?
Actually... lets start on what they did right.
The one consistent aspect of S2 that I praised and still think was done well in a vacuum (despite being mostly left out of the finale) was the crew's union-building arc.
With only 8 episodes and more to do in them than S1, side characters were going to get pinched even if the main plot was absolutely flawless. That was unavoidable. With budget cuts / scheduling issues, we regularly have crew members simply vanish offscreen outside of one scene, meaning cohesive arcs for your faves was not likely. Not to say they couldn't have done better - my benefit of the doubt for the TealOranges breakup and Oluwande x Zheng dried up about when I realized he was literally just her Stede stand-in for the parallel - but something like Jim's revenge plot from S1 was realistically not on the table without, like, turning half the crew into seagulls to afford it.
The union building works around this constraint really well. They turn "the crew" into the side arc, and then weave Izzy's beats in so that they aren't just about Izzy. The breakup boat crew working together to comfort each other and protect him turns them into a unit, and Stede's crew taking it upon themselves to address the trauma vibes while the captains aren't in the way solidifies it across all our side characters. The crew goes to war with Stede's cursed coat and wins, they Calypso their boss to throw a party, and they capitalize on a chance to make bank with an efficiency Stede could only dream of.
We don't get specific arcs, but Frenchie, Jim, and Oluwande are defaulted to as leaders in just about every situation, and Roach is constantly shown sharing his inventions with different characters. Individuals can dip in and out without feeling like the sideplots stutter. Any sense of community in S2 is coming from this arc - even if there are cracks at the points where it joins to other storylines (Stede and Edward, Zheng, etc.)
So why does it work? Well, because it's a workplace comedy, and you can tell they are familiar with working on those. They know where the beats are. They know where to find the humor. They know how to build off of S1 because they made sure the bones were already there - an eclectic group of individuals that start as just coworkers, but bond over time in the face of their struggle against an inept boss who they grow to care for and support while maintaining an increasingly friendly antagonism because, you know, inept boss.
OFMD does its best work in S2 when it's being true to its original concept... and its worst work when it seemingly loses confidence in its own premise.
"The show is the relationship," right? It's a romance set in a workplace comedy. The setup of Act 1 was all about creating a character-driven narrative. So given that... where the hell are we getting the dying of piracy and a war against the English Navy?
That's not a character-driven romcom backdrop, it's an action-adventure plot from Pirates of the Caribbean or Black Sails. It's plot-driven, creating an antagonistic force that results in your characters' problems. Once the story is about the fight against the Empire, the dramatic question becomes the same as those adventure stories - "Will the British Navy defeat piracy, and will our protagonists come out the other side of the battle?"
Forget the wedding. The wedding is no longer the climax of the story, its back to the happy ending flash our romantic subplot gets after winning this fight.
Except, of course, trying to pivot your story to a contradictory dramatic question near the end of Act 2 can be nothing short of a disaster, because either you were writing the wrong story until now, or you've completely lost the plot of the real one. I shouldn't even be trying to figure out if they are doing this, because it should be so obvious that they wouldn't.
And yet.
What do the Zheng and Ricky plots add to the story if not this? Neither of these characters have anything emotionally to contribute to Stede and Edward - they truly are plot elements. It's a hard break from the S1 antagonist model, but it also takes up a lot of valuable screentime. This was considered important, but still Zheng's personality and motivation only gets explored so far as it's an Edward-Stede-Izzy parallel with Oluwande and Auntie, and they only need the parallel for Izzy's genre-jumping death scene. Which follows a thematically out-of-left-field speech about how piracy is about belonging to something good (workable) and how Ricky could never destroy their spirits (um...?). And then David Jenkins is pointing to it and saying things about "the symbolic death of piracy" and speculating S3 might be about the crew getting "payback"??? An idea floated by Zheng right before our temporary retirement, btw.
Fuck, the final episode of S2 didn't have time for our main couple to talk to each other because it was so busy dealing with the mass explosion of Zheng's fleet and Ricky's victory gloat. We get lethal violence associated with traumatic flashbacks until they need to cut down enemy mooks like it's nothing, at which point we get jokes with Zheng. The Republic of Pirates is destroyed outright, and it feels like they only did it because they got insecure about their "pirate story" not having the right kind of stakes. Don't even get me started on killing a major character because "Piracy’s a dangerous occupation, and some characters should die," as if suspending disbelief on this aspect makes the story somehow lesser, instead of just being a fairly standard genre convention in comedy. Nobody complains about Kermit the Frog having an improbably good survival record.
Did someone tell them that the heroes have to lose a battle near the end of Act 2, so they scrambled to give them one?
Just... compare the wholly plot-driven struggle in 2x08 to Stede and Edward's character-focused storylines in 1x10 and tell me how 2x08 is providing anything nearly as valuable to the story. Because I can't fucking find it.
At best they wasted a bunch of time on a poorly integrated adventure plot as, like, Zheng's backstory or something, and just fucked it up horribly by trying to "step up" the kind of plot they did for Jim. In which case the whole thing will be awkwardly dropped but damage is done. Otherwise, they actually thought they could just casually add a subplot like this because they've done something wildly stupid like think "pirate" is a genre on the same level as "workplace comedy" and can just trample in-universe coherency while you draw on other media to shore up their unsupported beats.
Bringing us to the most infuriating bit...
---
"...end the second season in a kinder spot."
If this was the goal, the entire season was written to work actively against it in way that is baffling and incompetent.
The really ironic thing is that the reason that the Act 2 part typically gets a downer ending is because of the evil empire that OFMD did not have to deal with until they pointlessly added it. A plot-driven story has an antagonistic force - a villain - that the heroes need to defeat. Something external working against them. The story ends when they beat the thing, and it's not much of a climax if they do most of the defeating before you get there. Ergo, they have to be outmatched up to the climax. Ergo, the second part cannot end on them feeling pretty comfortable and confident going into the third.
The same rules do not apply in the same way to a character-driven arc.
We already established Edward and Stede declaring their love is not the end of the story. Nor, necessarily, is both of them confidently entering a relationship. Even once they've developed a bunch they will have to show that development by running into the kinds of problems that would have broken them up before and resolving them better.
David Jenkins keeps talking about this idea that S2 is getting a hopeful open ending and S3 will get into potential problems, and like... I don't see any reason why they couldn't have done that successfully. They didn't, but they could've.
If S2 grew them enough as characters and then had them agree to try again in the last minute of the finale, they absolutely could have had a kind and hopeful ending where you were confident they could do it. And then a potential S3 can show that. It's a bit rockier than they were counting on, but they have learned enough lessons to not break up. And then the overall plot can build to proposal (start of Act 3) and wedding (the romantic climax). It doesn't have to be a blow out fight to be emotionally cathartic.
(Hell, the main rockier bit that they overcome in the S3 Act 2 portions could be marriage baggage. I'm sure they both have some. It would work.)
In the same way focusing on our character's long term flaws and character-driven conflict makes an Act 1 "happy ending" more difficult, I suspect it makes an Act 2 "happy ending" easier.
Instead they wrote an Act 2 that failed to convincingly start development and got confused on its direction, and then presented a rushed finale ending in a copy of the predictable disaster from S1 as though it's a good thing. They yanked the story at least temporarily into an awkward place where a romcom is trying to sell me on a bunch of serious drama / adventure beats that it has not put the work into, and inviting comparisons to better versions of those same beats in other, more suited media that make it look worse. The need to portray everyone as reaching happy closure overrules sitting with a major character death and using it for any narrative significance, while still letting it overshadow those happy endings because a romcom just sloppily killed a major character with a wound they've literally looked into the camera and said was harmless.
If I'm being entirely honest, Dead Man's Chest ends effectively at Jack Sparrow's funeral and then cuts to the British Navy obtaining a weapon of mass destruction, and it still feels kinder and more hopeful just because I leave with more faith the characters are actively capable of and working toward solving their problems.
OFMD S2, in contrast, has half-convinced me our main couple would live in a mutually obsessed, miscommunication-ridden horror story until they die.
---
Additional Reading
Normally I link stuff like this in the post, but that requires more excitement than I'm feeling right now. Here's my alternative:
Where I thought they were going with Edward - really outlines the mountain of character development they still have unaddressed
Where I thought they were going with Izzy - touches on a lot of themes that might be dead in the water & also context that's still probably relevant to why Izzy got a lot of focus in S2
My scattershot 2x08 reactions
An ask where I sketched out the bones of this argument, and another where I was mostly venting about the fandom response
This one, this other one, and this last one (read the link in op's post too) about genre shifts and failure to pull them off
The trauma goes in the box but it never opens back up - the whole point of Act 2 is that they needed to start opening shit like that - and also they focus so much on needed character growth and so little on following through
They can't even carry through on character growth that we got last season???
Why Izzy's death feels like Bury Your Gays ran smack into shitty writing
EDIT: Oh and this post is REALLY good for outlining the lack of change in way less words than I did
#our flag means death#ofmd#ofmd s2#ofmd s2 spoilers#ofmd meta#three act structure#character arcs#blackbonnet#genre#blackbeard ofmd#stede bonnet ofmd#my meta#ladyluscinia#ofmd critical
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