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missblissy · 3 years

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Hi!! I want some pain so the Hurt/comfort post, about Alastor x reader with 1, 2, 4, 12??

((Of course Nonny!! Sorry for such a wait!! I've got a lot of these to work on lol. REMEMBER!! REQUEST ARE CLOSED RIGHT NOW, EVERYONE!! IF YOU SEND ONE IN I WILL NOT DO IT! I've had a few other people send some in and I'm sorry to say I have to delete them. I do not have any more room to take any more prompt requests. Thank you everyone for understanding! NOW.... Enjoy the Modern!AU Angst >:D))

1: “We need to stop the bleeding – now!” 2: “I hate to see you hurt like this.” 4: “I want to help you, so please let me.” 12: “You’re normally the tough guy. Today, let me be tough for the both of us.”

Something about today had felt off. Ever since you woke up, it just felt... not right. As if your mind already knew what was going to happen before it actually did. But no one can really know that for sure. That's why it's called a gut feeling. And that feeling told you that today... You might just die.

You've tasted blood before. But for some reason this time it tasted sweet, rather than bitter, and full of iron. There wasn't much for you to focus on other than the lights from the ceiling flickering over your head. You faintly heard a doctor screaming, "We need to stop the bleeding! BP is dropping- Let's go! Now!"

How did you end up here again, violently broken and bleeding out? Oh, that's right... You were driving home after work. It was another late shift during the dead hours of the night. Drunk drivers were often out during these hours of the night. One just so happened to hit you, and now you're here in a hospital.

You just wanted to go home and sleep. You wanted to lay beside your husband and not have to worry about anything. That was not your case, however. And instead, you tried your best to speak. A nurse who was pushing you along the gurney said, "It's alright, we'll help you, you're safe now." But all you wanted to do was ask about your husband. For someone to tell him what was going on. You were sure he was at home, sleeping soundly and without a clue what had happened.

And Alastor wouldn't find out until the next morning. He'd wake up to several missed calls from dozens of people and some he didn't even know. This man didn't even get dressed. He ran out of the house still in his pajamas and floored it to the hospital. Along the way there, Alastor would throw a massive fit. He'd smash his hands on the steering wheel, beating himself up over not getting there sooner.

He'd curse and swear and honestly drive like a maniac. Every red light he got caught at only made him angrier with the world. His tires would spin and shoot smoke the second the light flickered green and off he rushed again.

Luckily, you were out of surgery long before Alastor got to the hospital. A nurse walked him to your room, and he found himself staring at a sight he'd never imagine. You were broken beyond belief. The nurse gave Alastor a sorry look, "Everything's stable, for now," The nurse said, "But...." She shook her head, "It was one of the worse car accidents we've ever seen. We did everything we could-"

"Coma..." Alastor said the single word, "Induced or?" The nurse shook her head.

"Brain damage, though there is still plenty of brain activity," That was good to hear. It meant you weren't brain dead... yet. The nurse gave him a sorry look, then with a nod of her head, she left him there. Alastor slowly walked into your room and closed the door behind him. He even turned all the blinds so no one could see in the little windows from the hallways. Everything felt wrong.

He stood at your bedside. Taking in everything. The tubes, the machines, the wires. Almost immediately he felt his eyes burn with the threat of tears. And when he placed a hand on your cheek he couldn't stop the waves of them rushing down his face.

The sheer pain of the situation made Alastor sob like a child for the first time in his adult life. He sat down beside you and grabbed your hand, "Dammit..." He squeezed tightly, "Dammit!" He let out a little shout and brought your hand to his cheek, "I hate this-" He let out a small cry, "I hate to see you like this, my poor dear-"

He couldn't stop the waves of tears sobbing from his eyes. He'd never let himself cry like this before, but he felt like if he didn't cry, he wouldn't have the chance to later. With anger, he ran a hand over his face, aggressively wiping his tears. He threw his glasses off his face and they clinked to the floor. Alastor's fingers ringed into his hair as he let out another sob and pushed his bangs out of his face. He had completely lost all of his composure. Every part of him was breaking down.

Alastor sat down in the chair by your bedside and buried his head in one of his hands. With his other hand, he still held firm to yours. His fingers dug into your skin as let out another sob, "Please-" He hiccuped, "Please...!" He looked up at your unconscious face with watery dark eyes, "Please be okay," He whispered the words out quickly as he brought your hand to his lips, "Please let me help you-" He spoke the words against your skin, "I want to help you- Please let me... Just!" He paused for another quick sob, "Please just give me a sign your still in there..."

He was never a man to pray to any kind of god. He didn't believe there was one, to begin with. But Alastor found himself praying, hoping that anything would happen. He couldn't lose you, and certainly not like this. You never sign any DNR papers or made it clear to your doctors that you didn't want to be resuscitated. But you did tell Alastor if there ever came a day that you needed machines to keep you alive, you had asked him to pull the plug.

With the weight of what was once just a silly conversation that had now come true, Alastor found himself drowning in misery. He rested his head on the back of your hand as sat in his chair. He looked at his glasses on the ground as tears splattered around them, "I don't want to kill you," He whispered with a cry, "I don't want to unplug you if there is a chance you'll come out of this."

The stone-cold silence lasted only a second between the beats of your heart monitor. A beep, then silence. Another beep, then silence again. Alastor found himself swelling with rage and anger, but mostly sadness. He shook his head slowly as he stared at the ground. This can't be happening... He thought This has to be a dream... This-

Something sounded off. The beeps were getting... faster? Alastor looked up and stared at the monitors. He didn't understand any of them, there were so many, but something was happening. He watched numbers flicker and change when suddenly he felt a tug at his hand.

You didn't make a sound or hardly move but you're squeezed his hand. Alastor had never been so hopeful for something so small. He shot out of his chair with enough force to tip it over behind him.

"Darling!?" Alastor firmly gripped your hand and leaned over you. He let his free hand brush your hair out of your face as he asked, "Darling, please, for the love of god- Can you hear me?"

He waited, and waited some more. Suddenly her felt your hand squeeze him again while he searched your face for any signs, "oh my god-" He whispered to himself as he watched your face twitch with pain before your eyes flickered open. With lightning speed Alastor ran to the door of your room and swung it open, "Someone get a nurse!" He shouted into the hallway, "Please!" He ignored most of the odd stares he was getting.

It wasn't a second later that a small team of nurses rushed in to check on you. You had certainly woken up and the tubes down your throat were not comfortable at all. The intubation tubes were removed, along with the feeding tubes, while others updated your stats. Alastor waited nervously in the corner of the room as he watched a team of people work over you. He felt so helpless that he couldn't watch for long. He'd leave the room and wait in the hallway, trying his best to ignore the painful coughs and groans as tubes were pulled out of your throat.

When the nurses left, Alastor quickly went back into the room and to your side. You had only just started breathing on your own again. It was much harder to breathe than ever before, but you still managed. You were still groggy, swore, and very much in pain. Despite this, you still let the smallest and weakest smile crawl along your lips, "Hey..." Was the first thing you said to your husband.

You watched as Alastor's eyes flickered all over your form. From the casts, the pins, the cuts, and bruises. He searched your face for serval minutes than began a weak laugh that sounded similar to a cry, "H-hey..." He said with a long sigh, he even tried to wear a smile that just didn't sit right on his face.

"Al..." You raised a weak and tired hand to his face. He immediately pressed his cheek into the palm of your hand and shook his head, "I'm sorry," You said. But you had nothing to be sorry for, you didn't cause this or intend for it to happen.

He couldn't say anything, Alastor was too caught up with his feelings. You watched him break down all over again as if he was still living with the fear that you might die, "Hey- hey," You raised your hand slightly and made him look at you, "I'm alright," It was hard to see him so broken down like this, "I'm okay, I'm here." You reassured him, "I'm not going anywhere."

Alastor shook his head quickly as if he didn't want to bother you with his feelings. He sucked in a quick gasp for air then sobbed out, "I'm not strong enough to deal with something like this- Ever-.... I can't lose you." He said quickly.

You couldn't really scoot over but thankfully the bed was rather large. You gave Alastor's arm a tug and he quickly climb in and curled up beside you. He was careful to stay clear of any broken bones as he made himself comfortable.

You stared at the ceiling while Alastor shut his eyes and buried himself into the crook of your neck, you used your free hand to comb his hair despite the pain it caused you to move, "That's alright," You finally told him, "No one is strong enough to deal with something like this. You're normally so tough and good at hiding your emotions. But you don't have to do that. I'm alive, I lived, I can be tough enough for the both of us, even if it's just for today."

Alastor curled himself as close as he could beside you. He wanted nothing more than to hide and forget about this day, he knew how impossible that was but he still wanted it. You could feel his tears running from his face and onto your skin. He couldn't stop crying when normally he never cried. He didn't even cry at his mother's funeral. Even though you were the one in the car accident, somehow you felt that Alastor was in the most pain.

"Please don't ever leave me," His voice was raspy and broken as he spoke against the skin of your neck.

With a sad and sorry look on your face, you did your best to pull him closer and wrap your arm around him. You pressed your forehead against his and you felt a set of tears drop from your eyes. You did your best to smile as you spoke, "I won't," You promised, "I'll never leave you, I'll always be here."

#hazbin hotel #hazbin #hotel #alastor x reader #alastor x you #alastor / reader #alastor / you #reader insert #x reader #alastor #hazbin hotel alastor #human!alastor #human!reader #modern!au #angst #angsty #not fluffy #not cute

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headingalaxys-spicy · 2 years

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Demon Games! : America

Oh, boy does your life suck with Yandere! Demon America and since you decided to make sure your ‘research’ was sound you decided to play his game. How….noble of you. More like stupid but hey…..Honestly not my best work but whatever 3 glasses of wine deep sooooooo

Yandere! Demon America

In his chapter titled Bloody Money

You have to use the golden coin that is in the book and take it with you to a pitch-black room that has a mirror. You chant the words “Bloody Money” 3 times in the mirror. And since Alfred is obsessed with you since the monument you obtain the book on demonology, you’re going to see his form. Full-on complete with his large looming wings that seem to stretch from the mirror around you. Since you have his golden coin it’s the only thing that can protect you (for now) and will prevent him from immediately taking you into his realm.

“If you bring me more of those golden coins my dear~ I won’t steal your soul.” He’ll say to you in a menacing voice and he looks into your horrified irises. You’re shaken by his statement knowing full well that you’re not rich and wouldn’t really have any way to obtain more unless…..

“Oh no darlin~ you don’t need to be rich to find the golden coins like the one I desire. You’re just going to have to perform some difficult rituals and tasks for me. Like fighting trolls, warding off spirits, maybe even fighting off a demon that’s similar to me guardian one of the 13 of them. You possess one. So you’ve got 12 more to find. If you’re able to do so within the next 3 days. I won’t steal your soul.”

You see a mischievous glint in his eyes. “And since you’ve started the game you have to either win or lose there is no turning back.” He begins to cackle at your misery and the wide worried-eyed look you give him hearing this disturbing news. “The coin that you now possess will disappear when time is up. If you’re unsuccessful you’ll be sucked into my world for all of eternity. Good luck darlin~” He mockingly winks at you as he disappears from your sight and the clock will begin to tick on your ability to track down the other 12 coins.

“Oh, sweet y/n.~ This is a game you’ll lose because…..”

You scramble to the book to figure out where the other 12 coins could be hidden or at least get a hint to where they may be. To no avail. You find nothing but a few ripped pages from America’s chapter. Yeah, you’re screwed. But, nonetheless, he’ll humor you for the next 78 hours by summoning one of his familiars that don’t need much power to survive outside of the mirror. He looks just like the demon before you with blonde hair and pristine blue eyes.

“The names Alfred~ Dollface. Ready to find those coins so you don’t get your soul taken? I’m your hero and I promise I’ll save you from him.”

He’ll grab your hand and look into your eyes. We can do this I can save you! I’ll just need you to find or to do…..

He’ll give you a list of things to find or a task to complete: like a missing jacket, some glasses, simple stuff at first. Then as you try to find more and more things or complete more tasks for the demon while working he’ll maybe ask to keep that necklace that your best friend gave you that’s near and dear to your heart. Then it will escalate to allowing him to take some of your blood so that you could gain access to one of the coins. That’s a huge mistake on your part allowing a spirit like America to obtain such a thing from you. But, in your desperation to keep your soul from the powerful demon prince you don’t realize it. You even considered sacrificing another mortal soul you didn’t like so much, by considering murdering them. Once you thought about it, it happened. America can feed off these types of emotions and manifest them into reality. So be careful what you think of while trying to obtain the cursed coins. During these three grueling days America will be watching from afar draining you of every last drop of your energy all while you lose your mind with this false hero he sent to help you.

“Oh y/n you fell hard into my trap.” He’ll muse to himself as he fantasizes about having you in his arms.

All of these things will culminate in making America stronger and stronger and tying him closer to you entangling it. That even if you do manage to find the coins to ward him off it’s already too late his familiar was gathering precious information and harvesting your energy so that he can’t be unbound for you. It’s a losing game for you either way.

Just before you had your hands on the final coin. Alfred reaches for your shoulder firmly.

“Y/N, you’ve lost the game~” He states in a sing-song voice that’s strangely creepy to you. He’ll then proceed to morph into the demon you saw from the mirror. As for you, everything fades to black.

I got lazy and only did one character in this post. Sorry. Work right now is a little hectic.

#hetalia #hws america #yandere america #yandere hetalia #yandere headcanons #yandere hetalia x reader #alfred f jones #demon america #hetalia x reader #x reader

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bakatenshii · 4 years

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Flushed

Dabi x Reader (BNHA)

word count: 5.1k

TW: 18+, smut, dub/noncon, drug use/abuse, corruption, virginity, (mild) blood

A/N: I am 12 days late for Sunny’s birthday, but my heart beats for one person and one person only— the light of my life, my wife @blahkugo, who wrote me two (2!!) Shig fics for my bday Charity & Sludge, that I reread on the daily like the morning news. Cheeky shoutout to @thisisthehardestthing for writing one iconic sentence in here that I would have framed if I could.

flushed

/fləSHt/

(of a person's skin) red and hot, typically as the result of illness or strong emotion.

cleanse (something) by causing large quantities of water to pass through it.

Dabi doesn’t prowl for prey, he’s not on the lookout for fowl to take home for dinner. No, they come to him. It’s easy, always so obvious, he plucks them out like chicken in a hen house, ripe for breeding.

It wasn’t hard to spot a desperate girl burning out, Hell, the campus’ full of them. But you had something more, something fun, something that made his lips quirk up and his dick twitch— you were uncorrupted.

He can just tell, despite the airs you try to give, the aura of a virgin’s akin to an omega in heat to a starving alpha. Sweet, honeysuckle, the tiny flinches when a man gets too close, the breathy lilt in your voice when they propose something too risque; he inhales it all, commits it all to memory like you were desperately trying to do as you chewed on the tip of your pen and scratched out lines on the book in front of you.

He didn’t need to push, you were already teetering the line, but he did it anyways— because it was fun.

It was elating to watch you stumble into class the next day, eyes dark with sleepless anxiety, misery painted into every crevice of your features while your notes were tucked neatly into the drawer in his room. Really, you shouldn’t have left them so open on the lecture hall table, it’s like inviting a robber home and cooking him a three course meal.

Finals season marked the end of your social life, and the beginning of Dabi’s career. It was almost boring, the repetitive nature of his job; too easy, too simple, a mockery of the entitled bookworms who look down on scummy repeaters like him. But the entitlement is what fuels him, over-achievers fearing for two simple digits on a crumpled sheet of paper as if it’s worse than death itself.

He thrives off of their stubbornness to accept anything below perfect; the hilarity of it all, the irony that their insurance to achieve higher standards than that of a scum like him only fuels his lifestyle, bringing him deeper down the depths of degeneracy.

He sat behind you closer than usual, spoke a lil louder than usual, dropped in the most nonchalant comment about a study drug kids are crazing over these days. He watched as you flinched, hands stopped moving to listen in to the spiel he was spewing, the fishing hook he was dangling in front of you.

A magic pill, one that’ll help you concentrate, kill any sleepiness, get you buzzed for hours on end— best of all, it’s totally legal, he gets it from a pharmacist, scout’s honour.

That’s what he told you when you turned around to him at the end of class, whispering in hushed fear, nerves bouncing off your skin in goosebumps on your exposed arms.

Why he’s selling it? Because he needs some extra cash, he said. He knew you didn’t believe him, but he knew you were desperate enough not to care.

When you met him in the dead of night at the empty carpark of his building, he knew he’s got you; hook, line, and sinker. No self-respecting girl would meet bottom-barrel trash like him in a deserted location at half three in the morning, no, you were untainted, but you weren’t pure.

He didn’t need to know it worked, doesn’t matter what your test results reflected, all that mattered was that you came back to him a few weeks later, met him at the same dingy carpark, hands trembling slightly less this time.

He pretended to scold you, reveled in the way your lips curled into a soft pout, and warned you that tolerance builds fast. Do it in moderation, he had said— he’s the world’s biggest hypocrite.

You came to him only a week later this time, and Dabi had pretended to be shocked. He wasn’t, he gave you a lower dosage the last time, there was no way you’d have been satisfied. Microdosing leads the unsuspecting to addiction, the one fact he learned from school. He lectured you, asked you if you’d built up tolerance too fast, if you wanted to try something different?

He watched as your eyes lit up, pupils dilating in excitement at the promise of something different, something better. It really was too easy. You were too easy.

That night he invited himself over to yours, said he’d wanted to make sure you didn’t have any side effects. It was new, after all, and it was stronger. He’d sit there and be quiet, he promised; it was all out of the kindness of his own heart.

It was almost embarrassing how eagerly you’d lie to yourself in hopes of a better grade.

Dabi wasn’t gonna do anything to you that night, trust takes time to build up after all. Besides, it’s no fun to pounce on the prey before they started running. You studied the nonsensical scribbling on annotated novels, he studied your tiny movements, twitches, nervous habits; etched them into his brain for future use.

A too-long breath, a gasp, a clench of the fist signaled your come-up. He timed it, approximately thirty-five minutes for the initial peak, then smaller spikes at half hour intervals, totaling in four hours before you came down. Impressive, still, considering he’d given you the same dosage as the first time.

He stuck to his words, staying quiet only until prompted, offered you water every once in a while, really, he deserved an Oscar for playing the best supporting dealer. It only took two more sessions before your tolerance peaked again, calculated and timed to perfection right before the next assignment.

The beauty of seeking out an English major was that they’re always searching, reaching into the void for any type of inspiration to translate into eloquently formed words. The beauty of seeking out you, was that you were already in too deep, hooked by the lil pills and plunged into the bottom of the ocean.

Your grades rose while your inhibitions sank, a dramatic irony, isn’t that what they called it?

It’s cute, really, he only had to give you a nudge this time. Asked you how your assignment was going, played the sympathetic friend, and offered you something completely new, completely different. ‘Have you ever tried 2CB?’

Silly question, rhetorical, almost; of course you hadn’t. Innocent sweet girl like you never would’ve even touched weed, much less a hallucinogen. But he poses it to you in an eager tone like he’s genuinely waiting on an answer, like this isn’t just one big game to him. He laughed when you said no, asked him what it was— do you want him to show you?

You trust him, don’t you? He’s helped you through your exams, supported you through your assignments, honestly, he deserved a pat on the back. Don’t tell him you didn’t trust him, come on now, that’d break his heart.

He didn’t expect you to put up a fight, but you gave in almost too easily, guess those lil pills really did migrate and nest in your bloodstream.

The safety of your own dorm room was always granted to you, a faux-sense of security to veil you in, shield you from the true depth of depravity you’ve sunken to. He held you underwater in a net, ensuring you that he’d pull you up whenever— ‘just say the word.’

The net had long been cut, he’d admired the way you’d comforted down there, paddling aimlessly in hopeful conviction.

It’s become routine, almost. Dabi lets himself in easily, settles into the couch across your desk, pulls out a baggy and passes it to you. “A psychedelic,” he explains, “you’ll see colours you’d never seen, find beauty in everything, an artist’s best friend,” if he does say so himself.

He watches you pop the lil pill in your mouth, follow the stream of water pour down your throat, traveling the rips and divots of your tongue, before it drops down your throat into your bloodstream with a bob of your larynx. You’re so pliant, so obedient, he reminds himself to thank your parents for grooming such a cute lil doll.

You let out a loud gasp an hour and a half later, and he watches your fingers curl into themselves; and for the first time he speaks unprompted.

“You good?” It’s almost genuine; the curiosity, at least. He wants to know how articulate you are, needs to know how deeply submerged your consciousness has become.

He watches as you meet his gaze, little tongue dashing out to wet your lips, and nods once, twice, slowly. You shake your head almost immediately after, croaking out an, “I feel ill,” before pushing meekly at your desk to stand your body up. Cute, weak.

Just how he likes them.

He reaches an arm out to you, pulling you into his chest easily and nests your head into the crook of his neck. “Nauseous, aren’t you?” You nod, and he smirks. “Don’t worry princess, it’s just a rough come-up. I’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

It’s almost believable, how sickly sweet he sounds. Too many sitcoms accumulated in recycled dialogues to woo girls in any situation; mix and match, simple yet effective.

He can feel the restless rise and fall of your chest pressing against his, short quick pants as if gasping for air, a small hand scraping at his arm; yeah, you’re definitely coming up.

He picks you up and nestles you into your own couch, so easily as if handling a ragdoll, then walks to the kitchen and pours you some water. The perfect friend, the perfect support, the perfect dealer. You’re so vulnerable, so exposed, you don’t even know it; it makes his brain fog over with carnal desire to pounce— but he doesn’t. Not yet.

He lays back on the couch with you, arm snaking around your shoulder to coax you into a subdued euphoria. All the words he’s garnered throughout the years of fishing for his next meal come bubbling out so naturally in practiced scripts, “It’s okay princess, it’s a stronger pill. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.” He’s promising a whole lot, tonight.

“Hey,” he tips your face to meet his with all the tenderness of a lion stalking its prey, “I’m here, right? You trust me, don’t you? I’ve never let you down. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

It’s hard to force down the gagging noise on cue with his disgustingly fake, rom-com lines, but the way he can feel your body loosen, relax, and mold into his tells him he’s close. So close.

This is the best part, this is what he’s good at; the last stretch of patience while stalking his prey, with footsteps so light, treading so carefully, until the air slows down around him and he can taste your scent wafting through the air.

It happens in an instant, a whole-body jolt as you tense up, euphoria announced with a sharp gasp. The smile that crawls up his face is nothing short of sinister, predatory, but he knows you don’t notice. You can’t. Your eyes are strewn shut, basking in the high, and he takes the moment to swallow the pill he’s held under his tongue.

It’s no fun to tripsit, he doesn’t get anything out of that, and Dabi doesn’t do things for free. He feels your head fall back onto his shoulder, short breaths warming a ripple of goosebumps up his neck, and watches as you push your heavy lids open to gaze at the ceiling.

He can feel your giggles reverberating through his chest before he hears them, innocent, pure, unsuspecting. He presses a soft kiss to the top of your head, because virtuous girls like you like to be treasured, made to feel special, safe— he can make you feel safe; no one’s told him not to play with his food before he eats it.

He watches as you flutter your eyelids at him, sigh into his touch, really, you’re the textbook prototype, he doesn’t even need to adjust his tactics. “You feelin’ good?” A hot breath into your ear, and he revels in the way your lips pout to let out a soft sigh.

Funny how differently you react when you’re high out of your mind, maybe it’s the drug, or maybe it’s just Dabi? You’ve always wanted a bad boy like him, didn’t you? Good girls like bad guys; it’s textbook cliché, and you’re the blueprint.

He doesn’t wait on an answer, he knows it: you’re feeling good, great— divine. He’ll be right there with you soon, he promises.

“Tell me what you see, princess,” Dabi’s not listening when a cascade of nonsensical descriptions come bubbling out, he doesn’t care. It’s all to get you to keep talking, shift your attention elsewhere while his hand slithers down your arm to play with the hem of your shirt.

At the first brush of his finger on the bare skin of your waist, he feels you purr into him, eyes rolling back in bliss. It’s his cue to give you more, invitation for him to snake his other hand up your naked thigh and knead the flesh gently.

Gentle does it, he’ll bring you higher as you go.

He ghosts a breath just under your ear, nipping at your lobe, and admires the full body shiver tumbling through. Moans, loud and needy, come panting out past your lips and echoes off the walls before bouncing back to him. He lets you symphonize short breaths and whiney pleas with each lick and suck traveling down your neck, painting blooms of purple and red as his hand travels dangerously high.

A firm grip is all the warning he gives you before he tucks his fingers into the crease of your thigh, laughing almost at how obediently you spread your legs. What happened to that pure, innocent girl? Guess under all that laid a dirty whore, just like the rest of ‘em.

It was slick, so wet, pussy dripping past the delicate lace and drooling over his fingers. Lace, befitting of a slut who lured him in with the fake charms of a virgin. He slides a finger down your slit, gathering up all the juices before presenting it to you.

“What do you see?” He holds up his finger, slick dripping down like syrup, and watches your pupils dilate in effort to focus. He can see the way your lips part, string of saliva connecting the two soft molds, before gasping out, “melting ice cream.”

“Want a taste?”

You clamp over his finger before he even asks you to, sucks on the digit like it’s a melting ice lolly, before your eyes shoot open and mouth twists in disgust. Of course it doesn’t taste nice, normal food isn’t even edible when you’re rolling like this. You’re sticking your tongue out, in an attempt to air out the taste, or maybe you’re just a dumb dog, a dumb bitch, he’s not sure. He doesn’t really care.

The same hand, now slick with saliva, grips your chin and crashes your lips into his. His tongue finds yours first, tip licking up the crevice of yours lolling out, and he sucks it into his mouth like it’s a crime for it to be kissing the air.

There’s no modesty, no gentleness, his tongue pries your lips open, and he feels the weakest form of resistance before he’s thrusting the muscle down your throat. He lapping over the back of your teeth, traces over each bump and rugae on the gummy sides, and snickers at your shit attempt to kiss him back with your slack mouth drooling out the corners.

He feels a pawing at his arm— your hand meekly grabbing at the sleeve of his shirt to bring him in closer, press his chest into your soft tits, crowd him into you more, more, more.

It’s cute; it’s stupidly desperate.

He gets it though, it’s no worries. Human nature is all it is; the desire to climb higher and higher— he wonders if he can get one out of you before the pill hits him.

There’s no gentleness in the way his hand slots between your legs and cups your dripping cunt this time. He wishes he has more time to admire the way your legs quiver and twitch with every firm pat against your clit, but he’s on a time crunch. There’s so much time to spare, he can play with it all he wants later.

He can feel your needy moan vibrate through his lips and reverberate straight into his brain, sloppy mouths working simultaneously together and against each other as he rips your panties and shorts off in one go. Any self respecting girl would shut their legs in shame, in embarrassment, any attempt to protect their dignity, but you don’t. He doesn’t let you, anyways.

A hand moves under your shirt to roughly grip at your tits in the same breath he sinks a finger into your sopping hole. Inhale; squeeze, thrust, exhale— you moan. It’s tight, as tight as a virgin pussy should be, but not too tight that it fights against the foreign digit ramming into it at a relentless pace too rough and quick to befit an unexplored hole.

He can feel the pulsing around him, gummy walls milking his finger for all its worth, and he digs his palm into your swollen bud; it’s all he needed for you to come undone. You don’t squeal, you don’t scream, the 2CB in your system rendering you incapable of anything except long breathy sobs of his name.

His finger pops out with a wet squelch, and he brings it to his mouth to taste it; tarty, thick— he’s still sober. You’re blubbering out drivel about the stars you saw, the colours swirling around at the peak of your euphoria, you think you saw God— is Dabi God?

Dabi had to laugh, pat you on the head with his hand covered in syrupy slick, watch it leak and clump your strands of hair. He picks you up with your shorts and panties drenched through dangling at your ankles, and walks you to your bed.

You don’t notice, still basking in the afterglow; he knows this. Not that you’d push him off, tell him to stop. Not in your state anyways. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.

He drops you once the bed’s in frame at the same time he feels his pulse rise, heart palpitate, and a wave of nausea threatens to bubble over. It doesn’t; he doesn’t let it. An experienced veteran would never. It’s a welcomed sensation, one he’s all too familiar with, and he gives himself a brief minute to breathe it in, savour it, before glancing back down at your limp body on the bed.

Is it your body? He can trace your silhouette from the dip of your waist, the full of your hips, something glistening, gleaming in the light— your pretty little virgin cunt. His eyes roll back at the next inhale before he finds himself landing on the bed on top of you, forearms digging into the soft mattress of your bed.

He hears your voice singing into his brain, soft lulls of his name stringing out in DabiDabiDabi— the desperation and need shooting straight to his cock, he doesn’t even need to look down at your soft pliant body, welcoming him, inviting him in.

“Feels good, yeah?” His voice comes out rougher than usual, low and strained, and laughs at how eagerly you nod, watches your chin catch the air and paint strokes of colour following the route it takes, “Who makes you feel this good?”

He knows, he knows because it’s all you’ve been able to say the past while, the only word on your mind that you can even blubber out—

“You, Dabi,” your pants grow heavier; his pants grow tighter, “it’s you Dabi, please—“

A hand reaches up to cradle his cheek, your soft, uncalloused, hand, and he grips it by the wrist before bringing it up to his face. He traces every line that curves and meets on your palm with his tongue, letting it be covered entirely with drool before wrenching it down under his joggers and into his boxers to cup his aching erection.

His hips rut into your palm almost immediately as a knee-jerk reaction, every hump into your tiny hand has him panting into your face, sweat beading at his temples. His tongue drops down to lick at your lips, asking for entrance, begging for access. Your lips might’ve parted just a fraction, maybe just to let out a breathe, but Dabi takes it as permission to thrust his tongue in and prod at your dormant one.

He can feel you gag at the sudden intrusion, throat convulsing to push back the unfamiliar slimy muscle, and he briefly considers yanking your hand out and shoving his cock down that pretty little mouth of yours.

But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t have the patience. He needs it urgently, needs your tight virgin cunny stretching and agonizing over his overbearing size, needs to feel the flutter of the gummy walls with each thrust; he needs it bad, he needs it now—

Your hand is wrenched away as he yanks both waistbands down to his thighs. He looks at you, eyes blurring through kaleidoscopic vision, and makes out your disoriented gaze staring back at him. Disoriented with toxins, disoriented with need, lust, desperation— a hand reaches behind Dabi’s neck and pulls him back down to crash bruised lips together.

It’s all the invitation he needs, not that he needs it, no, what he needs is to sink his painfully hard cock into that sweet, sweet cunt of yours. There’s a faint squealing coming from underneath him, and he thinks he can feel nails digging crescents into his nape, but all he can feel is your warm, wet walls clenching around him.

There was no need to prepare you for any longer, there’s no point if he doesn’t stretch your virgin pussy out with his own cock; it’s wasted on fingers, his fingers don’t deserve to feel the way you walls quiver and contract around it. The pitched cries stop eventually as he feels your body go pliant and soft, and he has half a mind to realize you’re probably starting to come down soon.

He doesn’t wanna deal with that, you won’t be sober for another few hours, but you’ve peaked already, and not with him; that’s not fair, that’s no fun. His cock stills inside you with half still unsheathed and he reaches down into his pocket to take out a baggy of powder. There’s a spoon in, thank fuck, and he feeds a small bump right up to your nose.

“Inhale,” he slots it right up your nostril, “it’ll make you feel good, didn’t you feel good?” Your head lowers to nod, bumps the edge of the spoon right into the cartilage of your nose, and inhale. Good girl.

The baggy is tossed haphazardly before he’s working his dick into you again, cockhead pushing through the doughy walls in search of that pocket at the end of your pussy.

You don’t struggle anymore, instead clinging onto his shoulders and carving half-moons into the flesh. It hurts a lil, and Dabi doesn’t like it when it hurts, not when he’s the one hurting.

He snatches your hands off him and pushes them above your head, into the plush forgiving mattress. His teeth are back on your neck, biting over the ripples of purple and green and red and blue, reveling in your cries and moans that come out in symphonies.

It feels good, great— divine, it’s what he deserves for bringing you to Nirvana. He’s basically your muse, after all, how can you truly describe rapture without experiencing it first?

He can hear your moans ringing out from underneath, can see them traveling in the air in hues of reds and pinks and reds and reds— there’s red on your bedsheets, of course there is. He forgot that’s what comes with a virgin cunt; blood, mixing with the translucent coating his cock, dripping down and painting the crisp white sheet red, drifting into the air and congesting the whole room with red.

He inhales the colour, sucks it into his lungs, and uses it to fuel the pistoning of his hips. Your breaths turn to pants, turns to sobs of his name leaving your lips again, and he thinks you look good, so good, taking his cock like this. You should thank him for bringing you to your second orgasm.

Just look at you, crazy isn’t it? Crazy what a lil pill can do. But he’s got something better, something so much better, something that’ll bring you to a new dimension. You want that, don’t you? C’mon don’t be shy, Dabi will bring you right there, don’t you worry.

There’s still the faint cries from your orgasm when he flips you over and pushes your face into the untainted sheets. He watches as your hands sprawl up to grip and grasp at something, anything, and his hands ease up on the hold on your skull for a second to let you wheeze and greedily gasp for air.

He flickers a trail of blue down your back, watches the flames dance and rage in a mirage, every bouquet indented by the ligament of each tender rib, and there’s a faint scream. The pitch rises with the flames, taunting it to go higher, faster, paint murals in every swell of your back until he can’t see anything except ash coal char.

Dabi blinks, squints his eyes as he throws his head back to focus on the paint chipping on the ceiling. It cracks and crinkles, shying away from his pointed glare, before he sucks in a deep breath and looks back down at you.

There’s no ash, no char, only warm tanned flesh, pressed flush against the pristine white sheets underneath. It burns against the pads of his long fingers splayed out across your back, and he winces in annoyance at the irony.

You don’t seem to notice his pause, too fucked out or fucked up to register what’s going around you probably. A mixture of both; Dabi can’t really remember what he’s given you or how long he’s been there.

He can’t decide if he wants to stay there anymore, can’t make out the pros and cons of either. He counts them off with each painful yank of your hair, each harsh thrust into your abused virgin cunt— it was that, wasn’t it?

He was there because he sniffed out a cute lil virgin, one so untainted and untouched, one begging for him to corrupt. He’s not known to be very generous, but sometimes he gets into one of those moods; it can’t be helped when there’s a desperate doll waiting to be torn apart.

He knows what you want, can read you with his eyes closed— you don’t need eyes to feel the pulse of a greedy cunny; it clenches with every slap of the face, damn near clamps down entirely as his slender fingers slither around to the front of your throat.

Two fingers shove past your lolling tongue and yanks your head back by the digits hooked on the corner of your mouth. There’s drool, and spit, and so many fluids coming and entering all at once— and then you’re coming, again, probably, for the third time that night. Fourth?

It’s methodical, straightforward, he reads the instruction manual once, maybe twice if the first one’s a bit faulty, and he’s got it down to muscle memory.

At the sound of heaving he looks back down again, admires the feel of two of his fingertips fucked straight into the back of your throat, and pushes down on the rugged gummy wall. You gag, and he laughs. It’s cute, so cute, you’re real cute, you know?

“Such a good lil whore aren’t you?” He digs his nails into the flesh of your hip and rams his cockhead until he can feel the kiss from your puckered cervix. “All fucked out of your mind, bet you can’t even hear me, can you?”

He watches as you gurgle out words past his fingers wedged down your slack mouth, and choke on the pools of saliva drooling out. It’s the funniest sight, fascinates him to death, really.

A slap to the face might bring you out of your daze, so he slips his hand back out of your sloppy mouth and revels at your body propelling forward straight into the headboard. He grasps at the tips of your hair and wrench your body back towards him before any satisfying impact could sound out. It’s a shame, but concussions are not in his agenda.

“Been fucked so loose, filthy slut can’t even keep your body up,” he rolls your hair around his hands and yanks back until your skull meets his chin; it’s excruciatingly painful, probably, and that’s why it’s the best.

It’s the perfect way for your mouth to fall open naturally, to scream, squeal, fluster around in attempt to be freed from the position— it creates the perfect hole for him to spit in. He watches as your face contorts in disgust, tongue pushed out to let his spit drool out the sides, but that’s no fun, not very nice of you, is it?

“Swallow,” he assists you with an extra hard thrust, and you choke on the moan coming out. His hand comes forward from your hip to rest under your chin before pushing it up so it clamps shut, “I said, swallow.”

Your eyes flood with tears that waterfall down your face, and God, he thinks you look the best like this— wrecked on his cock, body littered in purple and red, covered in sweat and blood and cum; his perfect lil cocksleeve, just for him.

It’s emotional, almost— religious, even, he can feel the palpitations in his heart thumping against his chest echoing off the headboard banging against the wall, and lets the euphoria consume him, wash over him as he coats your walls with hot ropes of cream and white, hips stuttering with your greedy cunny fluttering and clenching around it, milking and sucking in his cock in deeper, deeper, more.

He thinks you might’ve cum, might still be cumming, but all he can hear is the Messiah calling for him, choir singing lulling him into an infinite jubilation; he closes his eyes to bathe in it, let himself be cleansed and washed over with ecstasy.

When he pulls out, your body flops onto the mattress, and he watches as white dribbles out your quivering hole, mixing with the red on the sheets, creating a puddle of pink and magenta, before passing out in the fuschia.

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pink-flame · 3 years

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Like You Could Love Me

So...the Angry Flower Squad was making me SO soft over gifs and @mamirugbee wanted porch fluff with kissing and I remembered that @thedeathdeelers and @missjoolee liked my idea of using this post as a Juke prompt and here we are. I wrote this from 12-2am so it’s quite possibly incoherent and I’m not checking for mistakes until tomorrow so take it for what it is, a late night labor of love. Enjoy! 💜

Julie hadn’t slept for almost 48 hours.

Her school was hosting a Los Feliz High After Dark event for the lower grades who didn’t get to attend prom. It was pitched as being just as exciting as the dance but in practice was known to be little more than a glorified sleepover in the school gym with PTA members for chaperones. Flynn had been determined that that year would be different, and had talked Julie into joining her on the planning committee.

The good news was that Flynn had a real flair for party planning and decorating when she was actually invested (see the difference between the dance they tried to forget and the way she had helped Julie’s dad throw together an epic garage party in less than 24 hours). So by the time Julie and Flynn and the other volunteers were done the gym was fully immersed in a carnival theme full of cute booths filled with potential activities and cute backgrounds to take pictures in front of. It was definitely an improvement over the year before which had been an under the sea theme which had consisted mostly of a few blue streamers and Mr. Weaver walking around in an inflatable Nemo costume.

The bad news was that it had taken a lot longer than they had anticipated and they hadn’t fallen into bed the night before the event until close to 2am. Julie hadn’t been able to sleep even after she slipped into bed next to Flynn and heard her best friend start making the small whistling noises that indicated she was out cold. Julie had been kept up with thoughts of what her bandmates were up to without her and if they had lingered a little longer on what Luke in particular was doing right then, well that wasn’t that surprising.

She loved Alex and Reggie but neither of them had attempted to hold her hand and remarked on their “interesting little relationship” or suddenly developed the ability to touch her and instinctively joined her in reaching out to gently cradle the other’s face.

No, Luke was different, not that she wanted to say that in front of him unless she was sure he felt the same overwhelming feelings she did Oddly enough she was much more concerned about the possibility that he didn’t than she was about the fact that he was still..well, a ghost. It wasn’t that she was unaware that his ghostly status could lead to heartache for her later on, of course she was. It just didn’t seem so important suddenly. After what had happened with her mom, what had almost happened with the guys only a couple of months ago...anything could happen at any time. Tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed anyway so why deny herself happiness now if she could have it? If she could have it. Because that was still the question.

Because Luke obviously liked her but did he like her? That sounded so juvenile but to call it anything else...well, that was really scary. Evil ghosts and the looming possibility of their return had nothing on the insecurity that came with not knowing exactly how the boy you lo...liked felt about you.

So Julie didn’t get much sleep that night, Flynn’s alarm seeming to go off only moments after she finally drifted off. She had dragged through school that day, trying to match Flynn’s excitement for the night’s upcoming festivities though her own enthusiasm had quickly drained out of her altogether along with her energy. In the end it had been as fun a night as it could be with Julie spending most of it in a semi-exhausted haze. She and Flynn had played some of the games they had set up, and danced to the music they both agreed would have been better if it had been either DJ’d by Flynn or performed by Julie’s band, and when Carrie had sneered something about how tacky the theme was even that had been half hearted and without any real bite.

So it was a pretty good night all things considered and Julie was in a good mood despite her complete exhaustion by the time Flynn’s mom dropped her off early the next morning. Ok, so maybe part of her good mood was actually because of her exhausted state by that point as she found herself feeling giddy and her mind had gone sort of pleasantly fuzzy. That was her excuse for how she found herself half-skipping up the path towards her front door, singing to herself.

We create...perfect harmony

“Somebody had a good time.”

Julie’s head snapped up to take in the figure of the boy who leaned against the pillar of the porch in front of her, a small smile bordering on a smirk tugging at his lips.

Luke.

What was he doing there?

Was he waiting for her?

She had to play it cool.

She had to be normal.

She had to not give away all the feelings that had been swirling around inside of her for the last couple of months since they first gained the ability to touch each other whenever they wanted and promptly both became too awkward to touch each other at all.

She had to…

“I missed you,” She blurted.

One of Julie’s hands flew up to cover her mouth as she took the last few steps up onto the porch, trying and failing to ignore the way Luke’s eyes widened even as that vaguely infuriating smirk grew larger.

“I didn’t mean that,” She insisted once her hand had dropped back to her side. “I mean...I didn’t not mean it but...I just meant it would have been fun if you could have come. Any of you. All of you. Um...yeah.”

Luke let her dig herself deeper, waiting until her stream of words had come to a complete stop. When they finally dried up he pushed off of the pillar with one of his signature little bounces, letting his momentum carry him to within a step of where she stood awkwardly on the porch.

“Did someone spike the punch at this dance?” He asked her, amusement clear in his tone.

Julie shook her head a little too fiercely, indignant despite the fact that she couldn’t exactly blame him for suspecting that she was drunk.

She felt a little drunk.

Not that she knew what it was like to be drunk but she was pretty sure it was similar to this.

Not the point.

“It wasn’t a dance it was a school sanctioned slumber party,” She corrected, focusing all of her energy on not slurring her words or otherwise embarrassing herself. “And nobody spiked anything. And actually nobody drinks punch anymore. Just so you know.”

Luke held up both hands as though he were surrendering but that smirk of his was impossible to deny at this point, a fact that both made Julie incredibly irritated and simultaneously fighting the urge to lean up and kiss it right off his stupid face.

Ok, that was not helpful.

“Not a dance, no punch. Got it,” Luke said, his voice just soft enough to keep her annoyance more or less at bay.

“Why are you out here anyway?”

Julie hadn’t meant to ask that but it felt like any filter her brain generally had was long gone at this point.

Luke tilted his head slightly and reached up to scratch at the back of his neck.

“Oh, you know, just taking in the view.”

Julie frowned skeptically.

“Taking in the view?”

“Yeah,” Luke said, gesturing out at the plant filled yard. “Just communing with nature you know? Honestly, I forgot you were even out last night.”

“Oh.”

Julie dipped her head a little so she didn’t have to look directly at Luke as disappointment rushed through her. She was pretty sure she was too tired to keep the evidence of that emotion from being completely visible. She was so frustrated with herself for caring at all. He wasn’t her boyfriend after all. Why would be be waiting for her?

“Julie.”

She reluctantly raised her head to meet Luke’s gaze which was fixed insistently on her. His smirk had fallen away leaving behind a look at once more open and somehow harder to read at the same time.

“I’m kidding,” He told her as he took a half-step closer to her, so close that she had to tilt her head up further to maintain eye contact. “I was waiting for you.”

“Oh,” She said again, very aware that she seemed to have lost the ability to say anything else.

She reached deep down inside and mustered up the strength to pull out one further word.

“Why?”

His eyes somehow managed to soften even more and his voice was oddly breathy when he answered.

“Because I missed you too.”

And Julie knew that the most prudent thing to do was tuck that phrase away as something warm, and happy and precious to examine more closely when she had slept and had the mental prowess to actually determine what it meant for their interesting little relationship.

She knew that.

But she was exhausted not only from lack of sleep but from months spent questioning where they stood. She was happy to hear him say that he had missed her, of course she was. But she also found herself feeling strangely...angry.

How dare he look at her with those big soft eyes and stare at her like that if he wasn’t ever planning on actually putting her out of her misery by telling her how he felt or didn’t feel?

“I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that,” The words burst out of her without her permission.

Luke was clearly taken aback by her words, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,’ She hesitated, just enough awareness seeping back in to make her realize what a truly stupid thing she was about to say. “Like you could love me.”

She watched as a whole range of emotions rushed over his face too quickly for her to decipher exactly what all of them were.

“Julie…”

“Forget I said anything,” Julie interrupted, turning towards the front door with every intention to flee the situation. “I’m just really tired.”

“Julie!”

He said her name more forcefully that time and she froze. She didn’t turn back to face him though, the pounding in her chest and the heat spreading across her face giving her all the incentive she needed to keep her head facing away.

Luke wasn’t having any of that though.

He reached out to gently tug her back towards him, one hand settling on her cheek while the other rested on her waist.

If she hadn’t been blushing before she certainly was now.

“Do you not want me to look at you like that because...because you don’t feel the same?”

Luke’s voice shook a little as he gave voice to that question, his thumb seeming to stroke across her cheek without his permission.

Julie was reeling, everything feeling surreal and dreamlike anyway because of her lack of sleep but when combined with Luke’s gentle actions it felt more and more unreal. She couldn’t help but remember the last time he had touched her face, how they had clutched at each other thinking it was the only chance they would ever have. Now they had new chances every day and they had been wasting them.

Why had they been wasting them?

“Wait...feel the same as what? Feel the same as who?” She asked as her brain finally caught up with what he had actually said.

He visibly swallowed and she took some comfort in the fact that apparently he was nervous too.

“The same as I feel,” He paused. “About you. I...I love you, Julie. And if that makes you uncomfortable I never have to say it again, ok? But it’s how I feel and I just wanted to say it. Once or whatever.”

“But…” Julie felt a giggle rising up inside of her as exhaustion and the pure absurdity of the moment settled in. “But I love you too.”

Luke’s thumb froze on her face as his eyes lit up with something close to hope.

“You do?”

Julie nodded, the giggle finally bursting out of her only to be met with a grin from Luke so radiant she wished she could capture it in a photo to look at later.

“You love me,” Luke said again as though he needed to confirm beyond any shadow of doubt.

“I love you,” Julie repeated agreeably. “And you love me?”

Luke nodded, bouncing a little on his heels as he somehow managed to step even more into her space.

“I love you.”

“Well…” Julie sighed happily. “Well, that’s great then.”

Luke let out a bark of laughter that probably would have been loud enough to bring her dad to the porch if anyone but her had been able to hear it.

Before she had time to remark on how obnoxiously loud he could be he was crowding her back until she bumped into the pillar he had been leaning against when she got home. The moment her back made contact with its firm surface he was bringing his other hand up until he was cupping both of her cheeks. She barely had time to adjust to that very much welcome sensation before he was lowering his head and aligning his lips with hers, pressing them together in a chaste peck that was still enough to send her heart racing. He started to pull back as if to gauge her reaction but she was having none of that. She had been waiting for this for so long and as previously established she had absolutely none of her usual ability to deny herself what she wanted.

And what she wanted was her hands on Luke Patterson right then.

She reached up and latched one hand on the back of his neck and the other threaded deep into his hair giving it a little tug just because she could. She had been wanting to touch him so badly ever since that night in the garage when she’d almost lost him and she’d been wanting to touch his dumb, messy hair ever since “I’m Luke by the way”. So she did.

He let out a little pleased sound that was cut off when she stretched up to press her mouth back to his, this time with twice as much force and no intention of separating anytime soon. To his credit he took the hint pretty fast, his hands dropping from her face to wrap around her waist tugging her body to press against his as he moved his lips insistently against hers. And wow...that was something, the sensation of almost all of her pressed up against almost all of him.

He wasn’t warm, not exactly, but he wasn’t cold either like she had feared he would be. It was more like his body was mirroring back exactly her own temperature, leaving it hard to determine where one of them began and the other ended when her eyes were closed as they currently were.

Or maybe that was just them.

Maybe it was like that quote she always saw floating around online about souls being made of the same stuff.

When she was well rested and thinking rationally she had always rolled her eyes a bit at stuff like that but now...she was beginning to see the appeal.

Julie massaged absentmindedly at the back of his neck as she drew his lower lip into her mouth, the sound he made in response enough to have her pulling back with a giggle.

“Come back here,” He mumbled, his lips chasing hers even as she turned her face away leaving him to press soft, wet kisses to her cheek.

“Now you sound drunk,” She told him, turning back to face him and looping both arms around his shoulders. “My dad will be up soon and I have no idea how I’d explain...this...when he can’t even see you.”

Luke groaned as he leaned down to rest his forehead against hers.

“You’re right.”

“I’m right,” Julie echoed.

It was true but that didn’t mean she was happy about it.

They stayed like that for another minute or so, just enjoying being this close to each other with nothing to hide. They might have stayed like that longer but Julie suddenly let out a yawn she couldn’t contain directly into Luke’s face.

Luke pulled back sharply but the soft smile that seemed to always be reserved just for her remained in place.

“You need to get some sleep,” He told her firmly.

She wanted to argue but all that came out was another yawn.

Ok, so there was no arguing with that.

“Goodnight,” She told him, suddenly feeling shy as she backed towards the front door wanting to keep him in her sight just a little longer.

Luke gestured around them to the soft light spilling around her yard.

“Good morning,” He corrected with a grin.

Never one to let him have the last word, certainly not when she was too tired to be embarrassed, Julie leapt forward to press one final lingering kiss on his lips, retreating before he could do more than return the pressure.

Julie backed towards the front door, the grin now firmly on her face and a rather dumbstruck one adorning his.

“Band practice later,” She reminded him. “Don’t be late.”

Then she slipped into the house and up to her bed, incredibly tired and pretty sure of exactly what she would be dreaming of.

#I blame the #angry flower squad #for this #and also my other friends who encourage me to see juke everywhere #you know you are #and I love you for it #feels so good to write dumb fluff honestly #Juke #Jatp #my fics #fanfiction

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sunlight-moonrise · 4 years

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The Five Dates (Reid Request)

Summary: Reader decides that she wants to help Spencer experience the things he missed out on when he was a teenager.

A/N: I had a couple of people ask for a part 2 to The Five Times so here it is. Originally was gonna leave that fic as a standalone but writer’s block on my other WIPs led to this sequel. I strongly recommend reading the first part before reading this one so that the story-line makes more sense. As always, thank you to the lovely @spencer-reid-in-a-pool and @wishingwellwriting for being fantastic betas. They have amazing fics, so if you need another Spencer Reid fix, they can most definitely deliver. Enjoy!

Category: Fluff

Content Warnings: None

Word Count: 6.0K

Masterlist

The first date I had with my neighbor, I don’t think it really counted as a date.

Spencer and I were eating dinner at my apartment after he told me the man who tried to attack me was in custody. We were sitting on the couch with the TV on but I didn’t know what was playing since we were talking the whole time.

He told me that he does magic tricks, enjoys ghost stories, and loves to learn. In return, I told him my favorite hobbies, some habits that I can’t get out of, and food that I enjoy cooking. He listened with rapt attention, hanging on to every word I said. It was amazing being able to spend time with someone like this. It felt like I’ve known him for years rather than a few months.

“…and that’s probably my worst experience from school,” I finished, recounting the tales of my teenage years. “What about you? Anything you wish you can take back from the early days?”

Spencer suddenly turned away from me and became silent. I looked at him in confusion. Was it something I said? Did I offend him?

“Oh, I—I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?” I asked, my voice coming out as a whisper because of how low I spoke.

He quickly shook his head, as if driving away some bad thoughts that plagued his mind. “It’s not you. It’s just that I was a 12-year-old prodigy at a public high school in Vegas. I didn’t have a lot of fun experiences.”

I could hear the sorrow in his words when he told me this. I know how cruel kids could be, especially to someone they considered an outcast. My heart ached for the little boy who went through so much misery at such an early age.

There were a few more seconds of silence before I had a lightbulb moment. “Well, maybe we can change that,” I suggested. “We can do some things that typical teenagers do.” A million ideas immediately came to mind. We can go bowling or ice skating or bike riding.

“I don’t know. I kind of got over that point of my life.”

“Oh.” There was no hiding the sadness in my voice, which made me feel worse. There’s no reason for me to feel dejected over his statement. I shouldn’t be so selfish.

Spencer must have sensed that something was off with me because he quickly tried to correct himself. “It’s not that I don’t want to have these experiences. I just find it embarrassing that I haven’t had them yet, even now.”

“I’m not going to judge you, Spencer. I don’t want you to feel embarrassed with me,” I assured him. I moved my hand towards his as an offer to hold, which he surprisingly took. His hand completely enveloped mine. “Tell me some things that you’ve always wanted to do when you were younger but never got the chance.”

He took a moment to think while I anxiously waited for his response. “I never had the chance to have a sleepover. I had too many responsibilities at the time. I always wanted to go to a festival or a carnival. I also—” he suddenly stopped talking. I noticed his face turning slightly red as he bit his lower lip, his other hand patting against his leg.

“What is it, Spencer?”

“I-uh always wanted to wine and dine a girl, maybe take her to see a play or movie. I wanted to take an evening stroll and just stargaze for a while.” His voice became smaller the more he talked. I hated that he started to feel self-conscious around me but knew that it couldn’t be helped. I was going to change that. I was going to make sure that Spencer Reid experienced teenage fun.

“Anyway, it’s getting late,” he said, removing his hand from mine. “I have to go in tomorrow and I am sure you have an early day as well.”

“Let me put these dishes away and I’ll walk you to the door.” I grabbed our plates and walked to the kitchen, placing them in the sink. My mind was racing with thoughts on what to do for Spencer. When I returned to the living room, he was already by the hallway, grabbing his belongings.

I slowly opened the door for him, watching as he stepped out of the apartment. Before he made it too far, I grabbed the sleeve of his arm, prompting him to turn around. Here goes nothing.

“Spencer Reid, would you like to go on a date with me?” I asked, the pitch of my voice a lot higher than normal. Despite feeling nervous, I made sure to look him in the eye and maintain contact. He stared back at me, mouth agape while his face was turning pink.

“Are you sure?” he questioned, looking down at his feet. Mental note: build up Dr. Reid’s confidence, at least around me.

“I have never been more certain of anything in my life,” I answered honestly. I smiled at him when I noticed his lips tugging upwards.

“Yes. I would like to go on a date with you, (Y/N).” The smile on his face was adorable and I was happy to be the cause of it. “Uh m-maybe I could get your number, so that we can talk,” he added.

“Sure.” I took my phone from my pocket before giving it to him. He put in his number, a bit slowly but I wasn’t complaining. I saw it as more time I got to spend with him. Once he handed my phone back, we just stood in front of each other for a while.

Before I lost my resolve, I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips against his cheek. Before either of us could do anything, I muttered a quick “Goodnight Dr. Reid,” and closed the door. My heart thumped erratically as I slid down the door.

“Goodnight (Y/N)” I heard through the block keeping us apart. His footsteps got quieter and quieter until he eventually opened and closed his own door.

At that moment I couldn’t help but think that I was definitely infatuated with Spencer Reid.

●●●

The second date I had with Dr. Reid, I was a nervous wreck.

Spencer and I have been texting back and forth these last few days. Luckily, we were both free this weekend, so we planned on going out. I haven’t told him yet where we’re going, much to his dismay. The only hint I gave him was to dress casually.

I’ve done some research and found that there was a food festival happening Saturday afternoon. A lot of local restaurants will have stands and distant establishments will be sending food trucks. Their theme is “Around the World” so we’ll get to explore various cultures. I’m hoping we can learn some new things from the different cuisines that would be showcased.

Saturday came around and I made sure I had everything ready. I wanted our date to go off without a hitch. I wanted this to be one of Spencer’s best experiences.

I heard a knock on my door, causing my heart to pick up a bit. I don’t know why I started to sweat. Sure, I’m going on a date with a good looking and successful man but there’s nothing to be nervous about, right? Right.

I heard another knock, more hesitant this time. I quickly made my way towards my door, taking a deep breath before opening it. Thank the angels I took in that breath because I immediately lost it again at the sight of him.

Spencer was holding a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Lavender roses and red carnations were a few that I could identify. I think the purple flower might be an orchid.

He lifted them towards me, a slight tremor in his hands. “These are for you.”

“They’re lovely Spencer, thank you.” I grabbed the flowers from him, taking in the smell of the blossoms. “I’m going to put these in a vase. I’ll be right back.”

I made my way to the living room to do just that. I grabbed my bag and a jacket before checking myself in the mirror one last time. Happy with my appearance, I returned back to Spencer. I shut the door behind us as we walked towards the elevator.

“You look beautiful, by the way,” Spencer said as we entered the elevator. I can tell he was still nervous, the thrumming of his fingers against one another and the bouncing on his feet a few signs hinting towards his anxious state.

“You look dashing as well. Although I do remember telling you to dress casually, mister,” I said, a small smile appearing on my face at the sight of his own.

Spencer was wearing a dark pair of slacks with a light purple button-down shirt. His hair was slicked and combed back. He was rocking back and forth on his beat-upped chucks and I can see the mismatched socks peeking through. He looked a bit silly, especially considering where we are going, but handsome nonetheless.

“I don’t have casual clothing. Plus I wanted to look good for you.” I could feel my face getting warm because of his words. “By the way, it’s doctor.”

I giggled at his comment, which caused him to laugh as well. We exited the elevator and out of the lobby.

“We’re going to take the subway to our destination,” I informed him. “It should take less than half an hour to get there.”

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”

“It’s still a surprise, doctor,” I beamed at him.

Fortunately, we did not experience any delays on the train. We spent the duration of the commute getting to know one another even more. He told me some stories involving outings with his co-workers and I could tell that he really loved each and every one of them. I shared some work stories and funny memories with my colleagues as well.

Once we got to our stop, I grabbed his hand and led us to the festival. It was a 10-minute walk from the exit. I turned to him as soon as I saw our destination within our sights.

“A food and wine festival?” he questioned.

“Yeah, I know this isn’t exactly what you had in mind when we were talking the other day but I thou—“

“I like it, especially since I’m spending the day with you.” There goes my heart again, picking up pace as if I ran a marathon. I’m sure he says these things on purpose just to see me flustered.

Spencer squeezed my hand in his and we explored the grounds. We decided to share a plate from each stall so that we can experience as much as possible. Spencer walked us to the first stall he saw, which showcased food from the Philippines.

“Did you know that Filipino food draws roots from their neighboring Asian nations as well as some Spanish countries?” he stated as we looked at the menu, “It is considered to be a perfect blend of Western and Eastern food. Actually—” he suddenly stopped himself. I looked at him curiously, wondering what caused his interruption.

“Sorry, I have a tendency to ramble.”

“There’s no need to apologize. I want to hear what you have to say. Let’s order something and you can finish telling me.”

He smiled brightly at me and squeezed my hand. After ordering a siopao to share, we sat at a table while he finished telling me facts about Filipino cuisine. As a matter of fact, he told me a lot of information about various cultures and countries as we walked from vendor to vendor.

We tried risotto from an Italian booth, which Spencer said was not as good as his friend’s cooking. We also got carne asada tacos from a Mexican food truck, where I discovered that tomatoes, dragon fruit, and vanilla originated from Mexico. We ate some sake nigiri sushi from a Japanese stand. I found out that Spencer cannot use chopsticks to save his life. I decided to feed him so that he doesn’t accidentally drop our food. We ventured to numerous vendors and had our fill in almost everything that was offered. We even had desserts and some drinks.

By the time Spencer and I made it back to our apartments, we were both stuffed. I was close to going into a food coma and I knew Spencer wasn’t far behind either.

“I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that much food in my life,” he commented as we stood in front of my door.

“You and me both. I’m sure I gained 10 pounds,” I joked, enjoying the way he laughed at my attempt at being humorous. I still held his hand in mine, not wanting the evening to end, but I knew it had to. We had spent the whole day together and we were tired.

Spencer made the decision for us. He lifted my hand, placed a chaste kiss on my knuckles and wished me sweet dreams before he retreated to his own home.

At that moment I couldn’t help but think that I was definitely charmed by Spencer Reid.

●●●

The third date I had with Spencer was ruined, but then fixed.

I was organizing a picnic basket when I received a call from him. I was puzzled as to why he was calling, especially when we’re supposed to meet up in a couple of hours.

“Hey (Y/N)” His voice came out gruff as if he just woke up.

“Hi Spencer, are you okay?” I heard some coughs coming from his end and I immediately became concerned over his well-being

“I don’t think I can go out this afternoon. I’ve been sick these past few days. I was really hoping to get back on my feet by now. I am so sorry.”

Before he could say anything else, because I knew he would in his remorseful state, I interrupted him. “Spencer, it's fine. We’ll raincheck,” I assured him. He tried to thank me, but another set of coughs came over. These sounded worse than the first ones.

Spencer managed to get out a goodbye before hanging up the phone. I contemplated what to do. He sounded so sick and miserable on the phone. He likely has a sore throat, maybe even muscle aches. The idea of him alone and shivering caused a dull pain in me.

I decided that I was going to see this man. I could make him something warm to eat and lend him my thickest blanket. We could even watch a movie together too.

With that in mind, I made some chicken soup and herbal tea. I put the items in containers before placing them in my picnic basket. I grabbed my largest and heaviest blanket, placing it over my shoulder. It wouldn’t fit in the basket, no matter how many times I folded it. Lastly, I grabbed my laptop, so that we can stream movies. Spencer once told me he wasn’t big on technology so I had no idea whether he owned a TV or not.

Once I had all the essential items, I made my way across the hall, knocking on his door. Unsurprisingly, it took a while for him to open the door. I waited a minute or two before he answered and was disheartened by what I saw.

Spencer was pale, well paler than usual, with a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. His under eyes were dark and his nose was so red. He wore a robe over his pajamas. He looked as if he was about to fall over any second now.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, eyeing the blanket wrapped around me. His voice was slightly slurred and he was leaning on the doorframe to keep himself up.

“Well I figured since I couldn’t take you out on a picnic, I’ll take the picnic to you.”

He looked down at my hands, noticing the basket I was holding.

“You shouldn’t be around me, you’ll get sick.”

“Spencer Reid, you’re worth the cooties. May I please come in?”

He relented, leaving the door open for me to follow. I took in his apartment, appreciating his more vintage style. He had a massive collection of books, some of them in languages I couldn’t even identify.

“You have a miniature bookstore in here,” I commented. I turned towards him, seeing his figure laying down on the couch.

“I like to read,” he simply said, the words muffled by the couch cushion he was lying on. I went towards him, shrugging off the blanket from me and placing it on top of his lap.

“If you get cold, use this to keep you warm. I’m going to heat up the soup and tea. Try to stay awake for me.”

Spencer nodded his head, bunching up the soft material in his hands. I quickly grabbed the content from the basket and dashed to the kitchen. It took me a few minutes to find where he puts his utensils, but I had everything taken care of in no time. I even found a tray to help me carry the food.

I brought the dishes to him, warning him of the heat. “I hope you like chicken soup and ginger tea. I added some honey to satisfy your sweet tooth.” He thanked me, holding the bowl close to him to keep him warm. I settled myself on the couch next to him, happy that he wasn’t complaining about our proximity.

“I have my laptop with me. We can watch some movies if you want.”

“I’d like that a lot.” We ended up watching The Matrix and Minority Report. Spencer tried his best to stay quiet during the films, but couldn’t help but to comment about certain technicalities and improbabilities. I found his rambling endearing, adding in my own opinions after he finished sharing his thoughts. I had to remind him to not strain his voice when he got on a tangent on how the idea of living in a simulation is not possible. He lost me once he started talking about quantum physics.

Spencer looked at the clock, noticing the late hour. “Are you going to leave?” His voice was low, and I am positive it was not because of his ill state. He was talking with passion and intensity a few moments ago.

“Do you want me to?”

“No. Is that selfish of me?” My heart skipped a beat. Knowing that he wanted me to stay with him gave me feelings I couldn’t quite describe.

“Of course not, Spence. We could have that sleepover you missed out on,” I stated enthusiastically. He stared at me for a moment, and I wondered if I misunderstood the situation. Before I could apologize for my assumption, he started talking.

“That’s the first time you called me Spence.” He’s right. All this time I’ve been addressing him as Spencer or Dr. Reid. “I like it,” he finished.

“Let me grab my pajamas and some toiletries. I’ll be back before you know it.”

I sprinted to my apartment, changing into my sleepwear and grabbing my necessities before returning to Spencer’s. I am sure I was there and back under five minutes.

Spencer and I continued our evening playing board games. We played some chess (which I lost at) as well as poker (which I also lost at). He showed some card tricks and tried to teach me a basic one. I couldn’t do it as smoothly, but he said that with practice I could become a magician.

I knew the night was coming to an end when he began to yawn every few minutes. Despite saying that he could stay up longer, his body needed to recover.

“You should take my bedroom,” he offered after coming back from the restroom, “You’ll be comfortable there.”

“Absolutely not. Slumber Party rules dictate that we sleep in the same room.” He laughed at my proclamation.

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. Now I’m going to use your bathroom. Do you keep your spare sheets in the closet?”

He nodded drowsily as I made my way to his bathroom. I did my nightly routine and grabbed a blanket from the closet. When I returned to Spencer, he was already dozing off.

He looked so peaceful at this moment, I’ve never seen such a look on him. I kissed the bridge of his nose and made my way to the armchair.

I settled myself as comfortably as I can.. Before I fell asleep, I could have sworn I heard a “Goodnight” coming from his direction. When I peeked to see if he was awake, his eyes were still closed but he had a wide smile on his face.

At that moment I couldn’t help but think that I was definitely captivated by Spencer Reid.

●●●

The fourth date I had with Spence, he was in charge.

Spencer told me that he wanted to take me out as a way to show his gratitude. I wanted to tell him that it was unnecessary, but he looked so eager and I didn’t want to take that away. Plus, I was looking forward to whatever he came up with. I know that with Spencer, I am bound to have a good time.

He kept everything a secret for me, which was no surprise considering how our first official date went down. The only thing he told me was to dress nicely, yet comfortably.

My body was pulsating with excitement. I made sure to spend extra time with my makeup. I didn’t want to go overboard, but I definitely wanted to accentuate my features. I chose to wear a maxi skirt with my favorite blouse. I added a few accessories and paired everything with some heels.

I didn’t have to wait long before hearing a knock on the door. He always seems to have impeccable timing. I practically floated towards my door with how happy I was.

Spencer was dressed in black dress pants and a deep blue button-down. The outfit was accompanied with a dark tie and blazer combo. He even had dress shoes on, which came as a surprise since this man loves his chucks.

“You look as handsome as always, Doc.” He smiled at my words. I love that he was more comfortable with my compliments. It seems like we came a long way from him stammering over his words and fidgeting with his hands. Although I must admit that I am going to miss his bashful behavior.

“I got this for you.” He revealed what appeared to be a corsage in his hands, the flowers of the accessory matching the one pinned to his blazer. “Uh- I-I know it is probably a bit um juvenile. You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”

“Spence, I love it. And I’ll love it more if you put it on me.”

He beamed at me, taking the corsage out of the casing and carefully securing it on my wrist. He was so gentle and patient while doing the task. Once he was done, we headed down to the lobby.

“I hope you don’t mind that I am driving,” he said as we made our way to what I assumed to be his car, a two-door pale blue Volvo. I was not surprised, this is his exact style.

“As long as you get us to our location in one piece, I don’t mind at all.” He opened my door for me before settling in on the driver’s side.

As Spencer drove, we talked about the antique style of his possessions. He shared that his Mom had a similar taste and he was very close to her when he was younger. I wanted to ask more, elated that he was telling me about his family, but decided to hold back. The way his voice wavered as he was talking showed me that this was a major effort for him. I decided to share some stories about my family and their influence over my own lifestyle.

Time always seems to fly with Spencer because before I knew it we were already parked. Being the chivalrous man that he is, Spencer made sure to open my door for me. He held my hand as we walked to the restaurant. I admired the ambiance of the venue. There was a band playing soft jazz music and lights scattered upon the ceiling. The décor was beautiful and the overall atmosphere was very cozy.

The hostess led us to our seats after Spencer informed her of our reservation. We sat at a corner table, providing us the perfect amount of privacy.

“Have you been here before?” I asked.

“No, I haven’t. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine recommended this place. He said that it was the perfect place to...uh, woo a girl.”

“Well, I am entirely wooed. But that is mostly due to the present company.” He smiled at me, before looking at the menu. I decided to do the same after noticing the pink tint at the tip of his ears. I still got it.

The rest of our dinner went smoothly. We ordered our meals as well as a glass of wine, in which I was informed of the many health benefits that come with drinking a glass of red. I was able to convince Spencer to show me a magic trick using a coin and napkin. He did it multiple times, yet I couldn’t find out how it worked. We talked about music, literature, art and so much more. We were so deep into our conversation that we didn’t notice our food had arrived.

My food smelled amazing and tasted even better. I couldn’t help but ask Spencer for a bite of his. He was willing to share as long as he got a piece of my food as well. We ended up splitting our meals with each other.

After paying for the entire bill, much to my protest, Spencer took my hand and led me out of the restaurant. I thought it would be the end of our night together but was wrong. Spencer said that there was one more surprise for me.

The car ride this time was a bit on the longer side and I wondered where on earth he could be taking us. It wasn’t until I saw a sign that a large smile appeared on my face.

“A drive-in theater?” I excitedly asked.

“Yes,” he confirmed, “I hope you don’t mind watching a scary movie.”

“As long as you don’t mind me holding you when I get scared.”

“Deal.”

It was not difficult to find a good spot to enjoy the film. I screamed and jumped multiple times for two hours straight, much to Spencer’s amusement. He attempted to distract me by telling me facts about certain aspects of the movie which marginally helped. By the end of the film, I had started to get drowsy due to all the mini shots of adrenaline.

“Did you have fun?” he asked as he drove us home. I could hear the uneasiness in his question. I’m not sure why he was nervous, this was hands down the most fun I ever had on a date.

“Of course, Spence. This had to be the best date I ever went on. Thank you.”

He smiled widely at the road and I made sure to cherish the moment. It was not often that I got to see such a large grin on Spencer’s face. Happiness was such a good look on him. It makes him appear much more lively and handsome.

I closed my eyes, allowing them to rest momentarily. I didn’t expect to be so tired from an outing. The motion of the car driving on smooth pavement was almost like a lullaby that lured me into a light slumber.

I’m not sure how much time has passed before I was lifted into someone’s arms. If it wasn’t for the scent of coffee and cinnamon, I surely would have panicked. I felt the press of warm lips on my forehead and couldn’t stop the sigh that left my mouth. I buried my head deeper into the arms that cradled me.

At that moment I couldn’t help but think that I definitely adored Spencer Reid.

●●●

The fifth date I had with Spencer was unplanned.

Spencer has been going on cases more often recently, so we didn’t have a chance to meet. We’ve been texting one another, even calling if time allows it, but I wanted to see him.

When he told me that he was finally flying back home, I decided to meet him at his job. I considered whether or not this would be crossing boundaries, but chose to accept the consequences of my actions later.

The drive to the building where Spencer works was not as long as I imagined. After receiving a visitor’s pass from the front desk and a vague direction of where to go, I found myself lost on the sixth floor.

“Can I help you sweetheart?” a feminine voice asked me. I turned to see a brightly colored fashionista in front of me. I was in awe of her vibrant attire. “Hun?”

“Oh uh, I’m sorry. I’m—I’m waiting for Spencer Reid to return. Umm, is there a place where I can wait for him?”

She beamed at me, her comforting smile providing me some relief. “The team isn’t coming for another half hour. You can wait in my office if you’d like.”

I nodded my head and followed her, taking in my surroundings. I have never been in such an official building before.

“Here we are,” said the kind stranger, leading me to a room filled with a bunch of monitors and computers. “I’m Penelope by the way. I work with Spencer and friends.”

“I’m (Y/N), Spencer’s neighbor.” I practically saw a lightbulb go over her head as she let out a squeal. Penelope started talking a mile a minute, I couldn’t understand what she was saying. It wasn’t until she saw the bewildered expression on my face that she paused and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that Spencer has spoken about you a few times. I didn’t want to assume initially but I figured who you were earlier. Our resident genius doesn’t get many visitors here.”

My face heated up. I was stuck on the fact that Spencer spoke about me to his colleagues, the people he considers his second family. I wondered what he said. Hopefully nothing too embarrassing, he always seems to catch me at some mortifying moments.

“Anyway,” Penelope continued, “you have to tell me about yourself. Spencer doesn’t share enough details and I promised not to search you up.”

For the next half hour, Penelope and I traded information about ourselves. She told me how she got the job as a technical analyst and some other activities she does outside of work while I told her about my typical routine and favorite pastimes.

Penelope’s phone vibrated and she immediately looked at her screen. “They’re here. Let’s go meet them upfront.”

We walked back to where I came from, standing in front of the elevators. We didn’t have to wait long for the doors to open before I saw a pack of people exiting. My eyes instantly landed on Spencer, he was the tallest in the group.

Spencer was currently looking at his phone, typing something on the screen. He finally brought his head up once he put his cell away and I felt mine vibrate with a notification. Once his eyes landed on me, he pushed past the people he was with and darted towards me.

I opened my arms as he drew me into a tight hug. It is a shame that I have not embraced Spencer more because he gives the best hugs. Everything about him automatically puts me in a tranquil state of mind.

“What are you doing here?” he asked once he put some space between us.

“I wanted to see you. Is that okay?”

“It’s more than okay. I missed you.” That beautiful smile graced his face one more. How is it possible that this man is in my life?

The sound of someone clearing their throat pulled Spencer and I away from our bubble. My face heated up as I saw his friends surrounding us.

“Who’s this pretty lady Reid?” asked the muscular man. I looked at all his colleagues, recognizing the blonde as the woman who was at his apartment a couple of months ago. That was when I mistakenly thought she was his girlfriend. She smiled at me, no doubt knowing who I was.

“This is (Y/N), she’s my gi—uh she’s my ummm …” he trailed off, glancing at me. I didn’t notice that we have yet to establish our relationship with one another.

“I’m his neighbor,” I finished. Spencer introduced me to his team before telling me to wait while he gathered his belongings. During his absence, Penelope convinced me to join her for a girl’s night out in the future with the other ladies. I couldn’t say no to the offer, her enthusiasm was seeping through her pores.

When Spencer returned, he grabbed my hand and said his goodbyes while leading us to the elevator. I saw Penelope whisper excitedly to the muscular man that I learned was named Derek, before the doors even got a chance to close.

“My car is here. I can drive us back home,” I informed Spencer.

He nodded his head as we exited the building and made our way to the car. I know that Spencer does not particularly like to discuss his cases, so instead I asked him questions of the places he has been at recently and whether he had the chance to explore. He animatedly told me of a book he purchased that was in a foreign language as well as a vinyl record he got at a music store.

“Can we go to the park?” he suddenly asked. I was a bit confused but decided not to question him.

“Yea, sure.”

The park was not far from where we currently were. After finding a spot and getting out, he took my hand in his once again, leading us down a serene trail. The sound of crickets chirping while the soft wind breezed through us was very relaxing. I looked up at the sky, taking in the tiny visible stars and full moon.

Spencer stopped walking in the middle of the trail, tugging my hand so that I was closer to him. He stared at me as his tongue brushed across his lips.

“(Y/N)?” His voice had that shy tone once again.

“Yes, Spencer?” He brought his hand up to tuck some loose strands of hair behind my ear.

“May I kiss you?”

My heart started racing at his question. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. My voice was stuck in my throat so I nodded my head instead.

Spencer’s hand gently held my cheek as he leaned down towards me. I closed my eyes once his soft lips landed on mine, wrapping my free hand around his neck. He tasted sweet, as I knew he would. I pressed more firmly against him, enjoying the sound of his moan when I swept my tongue across his lower lip. He allowed me to explore his mouth as he did the same to me.

I pulled away after a while to catch my breath. Spencer placed his forehead against mine, breathing heavier than I have ever seen.

“(Y/N)?” he panted out, his voice a lot more confident than it was beforehand.

“Yes, Spencer?”

“Would you like to be my girlfriend?”

I looked into his gentle hazel eyes, embracing all the emotions he was showing me through them. That gorgeous smile adorned his face once more. He looked so beautiful right here.

“I would love to be your girlfriend, Spence.”

I captured his lips this time around, relishing the warmth of his mouth on mine.

At that moment I couldn’t help but think that I was definitely in love with Spencer Reid.

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prorevenge · 3 years

Text

Ex-girlfriend had me arrested and contributed to stealing $1000's of dollars from my bank account before I got my retribution.

This is really long but ends with a lot of irony and perfect results.

TL;DR Ex lies and has me arrested because I didn't take her on trip with me. She also destroyed some of my property and possessions while stealing others along with cash and bank card. Prosecutor finds out it's all lies files charges to which she wants me to have dropped. That angers me so I turn over evidence of her other crimes. She goes to jail. Good stuff!!!

About 13 years ago I was in an amazingly toxic relationship, and was completely blindly stupidly in love or so I thought at the time. We had been together about 2 years and had been living together since literally the first night we met. I owned my own home which I worked from and made great money and asked her to quit her job after one too many incidents where she had to deal with a handsy boss. Months into our relationship we rented an apartment out on the beach but I kept my house and we'd go sleep there 2-3 times a month. Since she was looking for a job I told her I would pay our bills while she found and settled into her new job. Her job search lasted about 5 minutes and then she took to hanging out around the house while I worked 15-16 hour days. We spent all day everyday together except for when we would go out to bars together and she'd meet her girlfriends and I'd meet my people's. I got burnt out on work and since I owned my own business I decided I could have my subcontractors do the day to way work and I'd take a year to travel while working remotely 2-3 days a week.

It was around this time I noticed a change in her attitude and our relationship. She became suspicious and accusing me of cheating which was completely unfounded and confusing to me since we were together almost always. Had I listened to those around me I would've put that relationship out of its misery and walked away. However, I decided to try and make her see I wasn't what she thought I was. I obviously see now it was projection and her on concern about being caught sleep around.

We took a year and went all over the US on road trips, going to music festivals, and seeing friends all over the country. We also went to Europe a few times so she got to do and see not just our country but 7 others on my dime while cheating on me but making me feel like the bad guy.

Things would be great while traveling until we were about to land, or just after we got home then she'd pick a fight and I'd go to my house for the night. Our last trip together was to Portland for 10 days in the first week of October. We had a great time and things seemed like the worst was behind us. Boy was I wrong! In our town there's an annual halloween street party. We had each gone for 10+ years before we started dating and every year since we began dating. This particular year I had decided I wanted to go to voodoo festival in New Orleans which is the last week of October and our local shindig is the last Saturday of October. This caused a huge fight between us and I told her I needed a break to assess our relationship. This brought out an evil side in her which I'd never seen. I was shocked and wasn't going to tolerate it. I packed my bags and went to the airport and caught my flight to NO. I got there the day before the festival started and went and gambled and did my tourist obligations on Bourbon Street. That evening I was missing her so I booked her a ticket and tried calling her but got no answer. I texted her and let her know that a ticket was at the airport and a car would be waiting to bring her to my hotel but still got no response. Hours after I called her she drunkenly calls me screaming about how she knew I had one of my whores with me on this trip. She went on for 20 min before I told her to forget the ticket and to fuck off at this point I was 100% done. At that point she asked what ticket because she hadn't seen the text (flip phones were the worst for that reason) but it was too late in my book. For her to think I was that type of person and the seriously personal attacks she launched into let me know there was nothing left to salvage. Before hanging up I told her when I returned I would be moving out of the apartment and I would no longer be paying for everything so she had a week to make arrangements.

Because we were living together she had access to the spare key to my house I kept in our apartment. She went to my house and dumped bleach all over my clothing and my sneaker collection. That there would be enough for me to murder her if I wasn't a decent person. She also stole 300+ records and my spare bank card plus the $10,000 I kept for emergencies (bail money) in a safe hidden in my closet. This was an intelligent woman but her thinking during her little crime spree wouldn't indicate that. Instead of using the bank card herself she gave it to a friend of hers and they spent over $3500 on purchases and withdrew $5500 from my savings. I only found it was happening because my bank called and wondering why my card was being used in 2 separate states minutes or hours apart in the same day. I shut the card off and filed fraud claims and put her out of my mind for the rest of the week while having a blast. Festival was great and had a great time hanging out drinking, drugging, gambling, and partying while in New Orleans. The festival ended Sunday and I flew home the following Tuesday. I come off the jetway into the terminal and am met by two detectives. They ask my name and I of course started answering all their questions. Within 5 minutes I'm in handcuffs and being led away for felony domestic violence, terroristic threats, burglary, assault, and criminal mischief.

I had left on my trip on a Friday afternoon. That next day is when I sent her the ticket and we had that blowout where I ended it. She called the police and told them we were fighting and I came to her house and she wouldn't let me in, so I threw a brick through her sliding glass door. Once in then I started to strangle her and one of girlfriends tried to stop me and I punched and beat her up. She told the police I fled to New Orleans. (The level of crazy here is beyond scary she staged a break in by smashing a door in our apartment, had hand marks on her neck to be photographed, and the other girl had a split lip...all faked) The police somehow got my flight info but didn't bother to check that I wasn't even in town when all this allegedly happened. I went to jail and bonded out ($35,000 bond) and had to hire an attorney. Based on charges filed I was looking at 12 years now that's what I would've served but still scary AF. I knew I could prove where I was so wasn't overly concerned. However it cost me $3500 for bond and $10,000 on an attorney. I got my $3,5000 back when my case was dropped. After getting out of jail I went to the airport to get my car and she had slit all 4 tires on my car leaving the pearl handled switch blade I bought her as a gift in the last tire.

My attorney gets all my travel documents to the prosecutor and the charges are dropped. I was going to let the rest of the shit go and be done with her. Honestly if losing that money meant I'd never have to see or deal with her again I would've paid double. The prosecutor was pissed and filed charges on both my ex the other girl who lied to police. At this point he didn't know about the fraud complaint from the money stolen from me. Again I was going to just let it go until my ex called me. She tried apologizing by saying she was sorry she had to do all the stuff because I told her I never wanted to see or speak to her again while in New Orleans. By doing those things she felt it would get my attention is the way she put it. I told her she was a spiteful bitch and karma would run over some day. Her response was I was spiteful for leaving her and going on the trip without her. My last words to her that I would be very spiteful and her oncoming karma rolled into one. Because I had texts asking her about the damage done in my home and the missing $10k/bank card and the money spent in which she admitted all of it I turned those over to the prosecutor. He filed theft, burglary, identity theft, misuse of credit card, and about 4 other charges on her. She had a key but no permission to be in my house so the burglary charge stuck and so did 5 of the other charges. She got 6 years and did 3. Once out I would see her when I was out because she has always bartended or been a waitress. Over a three year period I saw her working at 5 places. At all 5 I notified the manager or owner that she was thief not to trusted and gave them just enough info to see she was a felon. She lost those 5 jobs. After that she moved away. Last I heard she lived in Chicago. Feel sorry for whatever person this parasite is currently attached to.

Crazy Psycho = 0 Me = 1

(source) story by (/u/Burnvictim49percent)

#prorevenge #by /u/Burnvictim49percent #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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sergeant-angels-trashcan · 3 years

Note

for the otp game gimme the og pairing, kate and Matt Murdock c'mon u kno u want to

Getting back to my ROOTS love it

1. What was their first impression of each other?

“WHOMST this garbage can?” with a side of “oh no he’s hot” for Kate like, okay, it was more of a “oh you’re a COMPETENT garbage can” but still, a garbage can.

2. What is their ship name?

Mattkate? amongst my various playlists and document names they are also “feathers and horns” and “evil eyes and daring dodos” “

3. Describe their relationship dynamic.

garbage just kidding. in a lot of ways they are opposites attracting--Kate is good with big plans but has trouble with details while Matt is ALL about details. Kate is a contingency planner, while Matt is more impulsive--at least when fighting crime. Kate has a LOT more practical experience than Matt does. That’s flipped in their romantic relationship--Matt’s more likely to slow play something or be cautious while Kate has a “ah fuck it” mentality. Go for broke, fix the damage later

4. What was their relationship like before they got together?

pftpfpfpf antagonistic but in a dumb way, like, both of them constantly spiritually eyerolling at each other but also secretly impressed with the other’s skill. they were weirdly touchy-feely with each other early on in their friendship, due to checking on each other’s injuries, etc (weird for them, not weird touching)

5. How would they describe each other?

they both think the other is reckless which all of their friends would think was hilarious if they all also didn’t have a stash of bloodstained towels that are Matt and Kate’s fault

Matt thinks Kate is one of the strongest people he’s ever met, and she’s...not forgiving, exactly, but always willing to give people a chance. he also thinks she’s really funny.

Kate describes Matt as simultaneously the smartest person she’s ever met and the dumbest person she knows. He’s brave, selfless to a fault, and has a “look at all the fucks i give” mentality that she really admires

6. What do they love about each other?

Matt loves Kate’s determination and her steadfastness. In a lot of ways, she’s easily distractible, terrible with time, but if she says she’s there for you, she’s there, no matter what. She’s also not afraid to tangle with powerful people, so the have that in common,

Kate loves Matt’s “Stick it to the man” attitude, how deeply he cares for his friends, and that he’s normal, mostly, but saw a problem and decided to do something about it.

7. What do they have in common?

concussions

also looking at people they have no business tangling with and fucking with them anyway.

8. What are some differences between them?

Kate is very aware that she’s human. This is something she’s aware of in fights and forgets after, so she’s bad at taking care of herself.

Matt knows he’s human and ignores this fact during fights but is VERY aware of after. So he makes sure Kate takes care of herself.

Matt also angsts a lot more than Kate about the morality and legality of vigilantism, whereas Kate’s been doing this since before she could vote so she’s kind of over it. Matt also has a lot more doubt over being a superhero and Kate’s all in.

9. What made them realize they were in love?

they’ve lowkey been in love for most of their relationship, honestly, so for both of them it was a lot of little things building up over time. One morning Kate was tying Matt’s tie for court and he had a split lip--he was going over his opening statement, drumming his fingers on her hips and she just went ah. that’s what this feeling is. it wasn’t like, a startling revelation, just something that settled back in her gut, something that was always there.

Matt realized he loved Kate, like, truly madly deeply, one day listening to her snoring in the vents between his office and hers. Looking back, though, he thinks he first started falling in love with her when she threatened to get into a physical altercation with Stick

10. What are their love languages?

cuddling. they’re SUPER physically affectionate. or not even affection, just touching to check in on each other.

they also bandage each other’s wounds

11. Do they get married? Who proposes and how?

i know nobody will believe me but I DON’T KNOW!!!! Because Kate doesn’t see the point but Good Catholic Boy Matt MUST GET MARRIED. Matt probably resigns himself to them never getting married and then Kate proposes to him after some fancy event--basically her in a full length evening gown on one knee (that pops very loudly) and Foggy whooping in the background.

That, or one of them is hospitalized and there’s some Shenanigans with letting the other in and Matt’s like “never again. we’re getting married,” and Kate’s like “fine but we’re using my insurance” (while she’s hooked up to an IV and oxygen)

it’s the least romantic thing ever but both of them think it’s PEAK romance and get very sappy and emotional about it. Sister Maggie is over the moon. Father Latte is stoked. They are completely unaware of the fact that Kate actually has to be convinced to have a Cathoic-ish wedding, and that Clint is very upset he’s not allowed to perform the ceremony

Kate’s dress is fabrics Matt likes to listen to against her skin. Matt wears a burgundy tux with an arrow tie bar.

12. What would happen if they never met? Matt’s life is the show, Kate probably winds up back in California. I hate to be like “Matt dies young” but that’s what happens, folks.

13. Who dies first? How does the other one react? this isn’t real life. fuck death. also, considering Matt has been missing, assumed dead, i can say Kate reacts Not Well, takes down a drug smuggling ring, becomes invested in Frank Castle as a human person, (re)joins SHIELD, and teaches Karen self-defense (seriously, it’s like...a whole thing I started writing)

14. Are there any love rivals? Frank Castle, Elektra Natchios, and movie!Matt. Two of those have polyamory potential. one is just getting his ass kicked

15. Describe your favorite moment of that ship!

their UST cuddle sessions. where they’re like “we’re not cuddling” but they TOTALLY are

16. What do other characters think about this relationship?

mostly varying shades of “oh my god, they’re gonna die”. Most of their friends think it’s cute--Frank Castle doesn’t get it at all, Foggy sometimes wonders if Kate is a bad influence. Father Latte LOVES them together, can’t wait to marry them. Clint doesn’t think Matt’s good enough for Kate, but that’s pretty typical.

17.Describe or write a really fluffy scene!

this is a post-midland scene where father latte yoinks Kate into the church

Sister Maggie glares and bitches—who knew nuns bitched?--but the other bed gets pushed up against Matt’s. Kate’s not entirely certain what Sister Maggie thinks is going to happen—Matt’s clearly not in any position to do much more than sleep and moan in misery—but the nun’s eyes soften a bit when she sees Matt’s hand still clasped between Kate’s.

“I’m not leaving him,” Kate repeats, aware that she’s starting to sound like a petulant child and not much caring.

It’s done, though, and Kate lays on her side, facing Matt and still holding his hand like it’s a lifeline. Exhaustion settles around her like a heavy blanket and Kate fights through it to wriggle just a little bit closer to Matt, close enough to press her forehead against his arm, remembering other times they’d slept like this that seem so long ago.

…

Matt doesn’t wake so much as he slowly drifts toward consciousness. There’s something different about it this time, something he can’t quite remember that makes him anxious and excited all at once.

Someone is holding his hand, something is warm all along his side, and even though his hearing is muffled, Matt can hear someone crying out.

He breaks the surface and gasps for air.

So much pain, his leg feels like it’s on fire and his skull feels two sizes too small and his ribs crackle with pain every time he breathes.

But something--

Someone is holding his hand, hugging his arm and he can’t smell or hear or taste but the calluses and the scars are familiar and Matt's heart leaps into his throat.

“Kate,” he croaks, squeezing at her hand while tugging at her arm. “Kate, it’s nightmare, wake up.”

Matt can’t even count on one hand the number of times that method of waking Kate up has worked, mostly because it never has, but this time, someone’s looking out for them because it does.

Kate jerks upright, her breath coming in sharp pants that echo in the silence, loud enough that even Matt can hear. Her hand tightens around his as she catches her breath, gulping in enough air to make a sad, heartbreaking little noise. “It’s real, you’re alive?”

Matt doesn’t respond because he’s using what little energy he has to reach for her with his free hand, his fingertips clumsily bumping against her cheek.

She makes that sad little noise again, one that Matt knows would rip right through him if he wasn’t already in excruciating pain.

She’s leaning over him, then, the tips of her hair brushing against his bare skin before she’s raining kisses on his face, light, gentle, sweet kisses.

This is familiar, Matt thinks, feeling like this might have happened a few hours earlier, before someone changed the room so she could lay down next to him.

He doesn’t know how to comfort her. Before—this, before everything, he would have listened to her heartbeat before deciding if he should ask her if she wanted pressure or space. And he would have either scooted to the far edge of the bed, or he would have rolled on top of her, setting his weight on her to keep her grounded and present.

18. Describe or write a really angsty scene!

sooo uhhh not strictly mattkate but from a wip where Matt doesn’t let Kate know he survived the explosion at midland and Kate stumbles into the punisher season 1 storyline uhhh i have nothing to say for myself

“He left me.”

“What?” Frank’s thunderous gaze is fixed on Kate now, and she falters under it.

“Matt. He, um. When he. At Midland,” she stumbles through the thought and Frank softens. “he didn’t just—I don’t know what Karen told you—he didn’t just die—he--he stayed. Her name was Elektra.” Kate takes a deep breath and it’s like she’s rehearsed this, how she would say it and the words come too easy.

“She was he ex-girlfriend, former love, from college. She came back into his life about the same time we met you. And it was rough, you know? They still had feelings for each other, but he picked me—or maybe he didn’t, maybe it was because she died and that made the choice for him. There’s a lot of magic bullshit in this story,” Kate answers Frank’s unspoken question. “And it was magic bullshit that brought her back to life, only not quite right. Not quite human. She’s who they were fighting at Midland.” Her eyes prickle hot with tears as she says the worst part, the part her mind worries like a dog with a bone when she can’t sleep at night. “He chose. To, to not let Elektra die alone, he chose her over me. He decided that life with me was worse than death with her,” and there it is, the whole ugly, painful truth, I wasn’t enough, it was Elektra all along, and it burns the back of her throat, it constricts her chest. The tears burn tracks down her cheeks, cooling along her jaw. “I hate him. He made me believe—I thought what we had was real. I thought he loved me--”

Her voice breaks on a sob she can no longer contain, and all at once Frank surrounds her, his arms crushing her to his chest, his gentle shushing ruffling her hair. “Hey there, sweetheart, hey, it’s all right. He loved you, anyone could see that. He could have gotten trapped, could have gotten hit in the head, we don’t know.” His hands drag up and down her spine. “I’m right here, sweetheart, it’s okay.”

19. Talk about a headcanon you’ve never talked about before. so it’s not exactly MattKate but Kate was married to America, once, in space, and they just...forgot to get divorced after they broke up. So there’s a whole thing with the three of them that involves Matt and America becoming really good friends--I mean, they both like punching stuff, that’s a solid basis for a friendship, right? And they get lunch every few months and Kate’s just like “why is my ex-wife texting you” and, of course, the “Kate and Elektra dated” headcanon, which dovetails really nicely with Matt/Kate/Elektra ot3. Kate and Elektra just sprawled on Matt’s couch asking him to bring them food because they’re heiresses they’re too pretty to get things themselves

20. What does a typical date look like for them?

Kate trying to keep Matt from listening for crime. Kate grilling Matt about the kitchen, Kate guessing the relationships of the other diners and Matt telling her if she’s right or wrong. Stopping a mugging on the way home and making out in an alley.

21. What’s a really significant moment in their relationship?

WHOOPS MISSED THIS, but it’s the first time they take Fisk down. it was them working as a team, recognizing their romantic feelings, just. all around a good day. it’s an anniversary they celebrate every year

#Anonymous #mattkate #matt murdock #kate bishop #hawkeye #Daredevil #my stuff #ask meme answers #give me more this was fun #if it's a ship i've written for i'll probably post some stuff i've already written #also what the hell is happening with the formatting what did i do

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everlarkficexchange · 4 years

Text

Prompt #12

based on prompt #12 katniss walks out of the fitting room wearing only a bikini to ask her friend if it suits her but it isnt her friend at the other side of the door but peeta. [submitted by anonymous]

written by @endlessnightlock

beta’d by @msariadneoliver

Rated T for language

Katniss

“Which one do you like best?” I asked, holding up two different bathing suits- both cute choices, I thought, but nothing that showed too much skin. “I kind of like the pink one myself.”

“Neither,” Madge said flatly. She snatched both hangers from my hands and turned to put them on the rack so quickly you’d have thought they were venomous snakes.

“What’s wrong with either of those?” I said.

Madge still had her back to me, but the eye-roll she gave was so hard I could feel it. “You know what’s wrong with them, they’re one-piece. I told you, no one-pieces allowed on this trip.”

“Madge.”

“You need to relax. Loosen up a little. And the best way to do that is with some male attention.”

“But Madge, you know that most guys are dicks. I don’t want any male attention. I’m not interested. I’ve already told you, no thank you.”

“Female?”

“Nope. Still entirely straight, unfortunately.”

That one got Madge to laugh at least.

“Look, I’m just not interested in another person taking up space in my life right now.” She finally turned around and looked at me pointedly then. “And you know, I feel weird having this conversation with you. Why are you so interested in my love life?”

“You need one. That’s the point.”

My best friend had talked me into coming along with her to Tigress, a swimsuit shop in the Capitol Mall, with the intent of finding a suit that I could take along to her destination wedding in Mexico.

Believe me, that little bridezilla was lucky I loved her so much. It was my one day off of work this week, and it was a good hour and a half drive from our hometown of Panem to get here. If it’d been plausible I would’ve been more than happy to do my swimsuit shopping at home.

Unfortunately for my shop-local sensibilities (the ones that had more to do with the fact that shopping in the Capitol was my own personal version of the seventh-level of hell), Panem’s mall had closed a few years ago, leaving us with a dismal selection of discount chain stores, thrift shops, or Effie’s World Fashions- a place where most of the clothes were suited to seventy-year-old cat-ladies, as our only choices.

I’m pretty sure Madge would murder me before she’d let me buy a bathing suit from Wal-World or DollarMart for this trip.

Madge also absolutely shot down my idea of ordering a suit online; I wasn’t deemed “trustworthy” enough for that. “I need to see what you’re looking at first hand,” she’d told me, “if I leave things up to you you’ll buy a frumpy granny-skirt or something.”

Madge turned from the rack, and when she caught my eye I recognized the maniacal gleam in those seemingly innocent hazel eyes of hers. She was scheming.

Madge sighed dramatically and put her arm around my shoulders, pulling me close- something she actually had to bend over to accomplish, being that she’s a good five inches taller than me. And today she wore heels.

Who wore heels to shop in? I don’t know what kind of person would want to inflict that brand of misery on themselves…

Oh, wait. Nevermind, I forgot who I was talking about.

Madge was a sadist.

“Katniss, don’t you ever, somewhere deep in the recesses of your mind, want to try and look hot?” she asked sweetly, as if she didn’t already know the answer. “At least once in your life while you’re still young and cute?”

“No,” I said, shrugging her arm off. She was going to have to come up with a better argument than that. “I wouldn’t even know how to begin at this point.”

“Why do you say ridiculous stuff like that? You know it’s not true. Deep inside that surly brain of yours is a party girl just itching to get out.”

“Not hardly,” I scowled and marched past her, intent on getting a look at a rack full of tankinis and foolishly hoping she’d drop the subject. I hated this particular conversation today, every bit as much as I’d hated it the one hundred and fifty other times I’ve had it with her in the past.

I blindly stared down at the suits passing through my hands as they swished across the rack. I couldn’t have told you what a single one of them looked like, honestly. “You know I’m wired that way. I don’t do “sexy”.” I said.

Madge chased me down, hissing her response in a mock-whisper, which was patently ridiculous because people walking past the front entrance of the store could probably hear what she was saying. “You know as well as I do you’ve just got what Cato said stuck in your head.”

“It’s not because of anything that lying sack of crap had to say,” I told her, exasperated. “Madge, what I’m trying to tell you is that it doesn’t matter, don’t you get it? I know I’m not sexy. I don’t need to be sexy, I can live a perfectly happy life as plain old me.”

“But-”

“No buts- you need to accept it. I have an exercise for you now. Ready?”

It was her turn to scowl.

“Ready?” I repeated, mocking her chirpy tone. “Good. Now say it after me: “Katniss is not sexy. Katniss is a good person, so it doesn’t matter what she looks like-””

“Bullshit,” she countered.

Oooh, Madge was swearing… that meant I’d gotten her riled up. She never swore.

“That idiot didn’t know his own ass from a hole in the ground,” she continued, not allowing me to explain that my feelings had nothing to do with my ex, “especially when it came to anything that had the least bit of something to do with you.”

“I know Madge…” I agreed, while privately musing that my friend seemed to have forgotten about all those losers she used to date herself.

I felt like asking her if she needed to go to the hospital because I was fairly certain she’d developed a serious case of Gale Hawthorne-related amnesia. That guy had brought new meaning to the word prick.

“And bullshit to that second thing you said,” Madge continued, so impassioned by now that I watched spittle fly off her lips. “Sexy is what’s going on inside your head. Sexy is less about how you look and more about how you feel.”

“I feel like I should live in sweatpants.”

Madge rolled her eyes. “You are gorgeous. I just wish you could see that. And you’ve got a great little figure!”

I scowled at her choice of words, letting my eyes drop briefly to her own much more impressive chest and curvy hips. “Yeah, “little” being the keyword.”

“Shut up. You don’t want big boobs anyway. They’re a pain. You’re lucky you’re smaller- you can wear all kinds of things I can’t fit into.” Madge looked over my shoulder, her eyes seeming to falter there for a millisecond before she glanced back at me.

She looked away for so long that I was beginning to think I’d gotten a reprieve, but then she spoke up again, this time with a little smirk on her face. “Katniss, now I’m the one with the great idea. Yours was complete shit by the way- just so you know that.”

“Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “Are you going to leave me alone now and let me shop for suits in peace?”

“If you do one thing for me first. Humor me, please?”

I didn’t know whether I was going to like this or not, but I nodded.

“Go find a dressing room and I’ll bring you back some suits of my choosing. You have to try on everything I bring you. No buts.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Please, just trust me. I have a much better sense of style than you do and you know it…” she sang the last few words and I groaned.

“Oh my god, stop it!” I grumbled. “Fine, whatever it takes to get you to knock it off. But no-.”

Madge cut me off. “No buts, I said. Trust me, I’ve only got your best interests in mind.”

I shut the dressing room door behind me, and once I had secured the lock in place (damn thing didn’t seem to want to turn all the way), I proceeded to unbutton my jeans and shuck them off. I left them lying in a puddle on the floor. My shirt quickly followed, leaving me to wait for Madge in my bra and underwear, my thinking being that I might as well be prepared when she got here.

The sooner I started trying things, the sooner we could leave.

A minute later, Madge knocked on the dressing room door, so I pulled it open just far enough to let her in before quickly shoving it closed behind her.

“Oh good, you shaved,” she said after a quick perusal of my body. “That’s very good.”

“Why, does my body hair offend you?” I grumbled. “Because you know I don’t have to shave, right? I’ll walk around the beach like Bigfoot if I want to.”

“No no no. Don’t get huffy- I’m used to your hairy everything. It’s just that a smooth body will help you get into the right mental space for bikinis and sunshine, not to mention thoughts of a wedding hook-up!” Madge chirped.

“Shut up. Not having a wedding hook-up.” I told her, crossing my arms over my chest.

She just shrugged. “You never know though, do you Katniss?”

“Oh, believe me, I know.”

Madge smirked, so I changed the subject.

“No, I just figured I’d better be ready for anything today, so I gave in to the demands of society and got rid of my excess body hair,” I admitted, my eyes dropping to her armload of suits.“What did you bring me?”

“Oh you’re such a martyr for the cause Katniss,” Madge said, rolling her eyes.

If we weren’t such good friends, I’d have wrung her neck by now.

“But I’ve brought you all kinds of good things,” she continued while hanging up about eight different bikinis- each in varying colors and degrees of tininess- on the closest hook hanging from the dressing room divider wall. “Just make sure you come out and show me when you find the one you like the best. I’ll be waiting outside the door when you’re ready, okay?”

Peeta

“Hang on, my shoe came untied,” Delly told me, halting abruptly in front of a high-end swimsuit shop and dropping to one knee. “I don’t want to trip over the laces.”

“You should have double-tied them,” I said. “Finally, you’re reaping the benefits of my years of advice.”

She shook her head, laughing without glancing up at me. Delly had spent years teasing me about my slightly obsessive relationship with my shoelaces. I’m sure she saw this coming from a mile away. “Ha-ha, smartass.”

She hesitated before standing up, and I groaned internally when I realized that something new had caught Delly’s interest.

She squinted, staring inside the hazy yellow windows of Tigress.

After a moment, her whole face lit up with recognition. “Peeta, look!” she exclaimed, standing up quickly and grabbing my arm, pointing into the store like she’d found her long-lost puppy or something. “It’s Madge!”

“That’s weird seeing her here, don’t you think?” I asked, discreetly attempting to get Delly to walk again, and hoping my tone of voice told her that maybe we didn’t need to stop and talk to each person we ran across today.

“Hmm, well, she looks busy…” I added, for emphasis.

Any other time, I would have been more receptive to catching up with an old acquaintance from high school, but I was exhausted. And that was entirely Delly’s fault. She’d demanded I go on this shopping trip after I made the mistake of telling her I needed some new shoes.

I finally gave in, because I thought I didn’t have anything better to do today, not realizing that scrubbing out the bakery’s oven with my own toothbrush would have been an improvement over this.

Oh, to look back now and think of that younger, foolish, free-from-the-clutches-of-his-best friend version of myself from six hours ago, the one who hadn’t spent most of the day being dragged around the Capitol Mall like her own personal manservant. That Peeta, innocent that he was, who had forgotten the way Delly liked to look at everything while shopping, and by everything I meant every. Single. Damn. Thing. In. Every. Single. Damn. Store.

It hadn’t taken me long to see the error of my ways, but at that point, it was much too late.

Turning to me, Delly popped her straw in her mouth and took a long drink of her lemonade, staring me dead in the eye, unblinking, before finally answering me like I was her two-year-old nephew. “We can’t do that Peeta, she’s waving us inside.” Delly finally said. “You don’t mind if we go in and talk to her, do you? I haven’t seen her in so long. Did you know she’s getting married?”

“Yeah,” I shifted the bags in my hands and looked longingly towards the exit. “I heard.”

“So… do you mind?”

I sighed. It’d be nice if I ever learned how to say no to her. Today was not going to be that day it seemed.

“Sure, Dells. Why not?”

Katniss

“Madge…” I grumbled, looking around the dressing room furtively. I knew it was a waste of time because the space wasn’t that big, but I didn’t want to believe she’d actually done something like that to me. “I’m going to murder you.”

She’d taken my jeans and shirt with her!

I gave up the hunt for my dignity before glancing at myself in the mirror again with a sigh. I’d tried on all the bikinis, including one that was just a step above being naked- purely out of curiosity, of course.

The suit I was left wearing was the only one she’d brought for me to try on that actually covered enough of my body to be somewhat decent.

And honestly… I liked everything about it. I could admit to that.

The suit was a soft orange and had a simply-designed bottom that covered most of my ass along with a string top that made my breasts look good, leaving only the slightest hint of the tops and sides of my cleavage exposed. It wasn’t too much or too flashy. The suit was, dare I say, tasteful? Attractive.

And I actually felt kind of hot in it.

Who knew?

Peeta

“Peeta,” Madge greeted me, “you look great!”

‘Thanks, you too,” I told her, grinning. Madge Undersee still looked the same, blond and beautiful. Not that she’d ever really been my type.

No, my interests had always lain with her high school best friend, someone smaller and less porcelain in appearance, with a long dark braid and an intimidating frown.

Even after all this time, I found myself wondering what had happened to Katniss.

It’d been years since I’d seen her, but she’d never really left me- she remained this ache that I knew would never go all the way away.

I’d always been too nervous to talk to her back then, and I was still kicking myself over letting that opportunity slip through my fingers. Even after all this time, I’d never found another girl that measured up to Katniss in my eyes. That first crush had hit me hard and never left.

“You look worn out! Has Delly been making you drag her bags around?” Madge asked, putting a hand on my shoulder sympathetically. “You’re still such a good guy Peeta.” Her voice dropped conspiratorially then. “Are you seeing anyone by chance?”

I almost choked on my own spit, the question was so unexpected. I knew she was engaged, so why was she asking? “No,” I replied, sure I sounded confused.

“Just checking,” she said easily, “you never know. Hey, there are some chairs over there by the dressing room. Why don’t you sit down for a while?”

“That’s a great idea!” Delly chirped in.

“They looked super comfortable,” Madge urged, lightly shoving me in that direction. “You might as well, I have all kinds of things I need to talk to Delly about!”

I thought briefly about resisting, but gave in when I realized how futile everything was. I might as well have skipped signing a new lease on my apartment last week because this mall seemed destined to become my new home.

But why kick against the pricks?

“Fine,” I said as I readjusted her bags to keep from dropping them. “Delly, just come get me when you’re ready?”

I made myself at home next to the dressing room, leaning back in the surprisingly comfortable upholstered chair and propping my legs up on the footrest. I even closed my eyes.

I left my phone in my pocket because now that I was alone I realized how much I needed the quiet and wanted a chance to be alone with my thoughts. Seeing Madge again had shifted those old memories of Katniss to the front of my mind like it was 2009 all over again.

God, I still remembered how she was all I ever seemed to think about back then.

There wasn’t anything flashy about her. Katniss was a small girl with a slim figure, never really garnering as much attention as someone like Madge did from the guys in our class.

But Katniss? She was just so pretty it drove me to distraction. Everything about her had me sweating and pining at the same time, especially the way she moved through the halls with no regard as to what anyone might think of her. She was cool and hard-edged and intimidating as hell. She never tried to be popular or trendy, but everything she did seemed to work for her.

It definitely worked for me.

I wonder what happened to Katniss after high school. Was she married, or still living around here? I knew she’d gone out of state for college, and it wasn’t very often that people came back once they’d left. She wasn’t on any social media that I knew of, other than a Facebook page she hadn’t updated in about five years.

I don’t know what her life is like, but I’d love to see her again.

Maybe it was just the nostalgia talking, but it hit me hard, the realization of just how much I wanted to turn back the clock and have one more chance with Katniss Everdeen.

“Are you out there?” I heard a voice call from one of the dressing rooms.

Shit, maybe I ought to move, I hadn’t realized anyone was using them.

The thing that was really weird though was that it sounded a lot like Katniss on the other side of the wall.

I wanted to laugh at myself. There was no way it could be her!

“Okay Madge,” I heard, and sat there watching, dumbfounded, while the dressing room door slowly opened.

Oh god, it was her.

“I think I found one I like,” Katniss kept talking, looking down at her body, “although the suit probably could cover a little more. But I think you must’ve really wanted me to show off my ass-“

My heart stopped when she looked up. I’d never known that was possible until that moment, but that’s exactly how it happened.

Katniss’s eyes met mine, those same beautiful grey eyes that still haunted my dreams. That soft-looking mouth, hanging slightly open in shock, just the way I’m sure that mine was.

Katniss, completely surprised to see me.

Katniss in a string bikini, standing there like a goddess on some random Friday afternoon. Smooth olive skin, gorgeous legs, a navel I’d like to drink out of, a slightly rounded stomach. And her breasts, they were beautifully shaped and had just the slightest, most devastating bit of overspill peeking out the sides.

I think Katniss must’ve gained a little weight since high school or something, leaving her just a little fuller in all the right places.

I was trying, really trying, to keep my eyes in respectable spots, but I just couldn’t take them off of her.

I’d never, ever, seen this much of Katniss and my mouth and brain both refused to work in the aftermath.

“Peeta?” she said hesitantly, pulling that braid I’d spent so much time wanting to know what it felt like over her shoulder.

I leaned forward then and forced myself to look up at her flushed face. “Hey…” I stuttered out, feeling like an idiot before correcting myself. “Hi, Katniss.”

#Springtime Edition 2020 #endlessnightlock #prompt 12 #early submission #submission

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evalieena · 3 years

Text

35 Questions for Fanfiction Writers

well since dearest @bachint asked, here goes nothing!

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

well if no downplaying’s allowed i guess i’d give it a 3/5? some mistakes since i’m not a native plus i”m still working on getting my english style better! i like what i come up with all the same, i’ve improved a lot these past two years, and my grammar isn’t that bad i guess?

2. Why do you write fanfiction?

to do what developers didn’t do in the first place to make good use of my imagination, to cope with the fact that some characters don’t exist and i will never follow another one of their adventures, to forget about a boring real life...

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

my writing doesn’t stand out lmaooo but i guess i’m always trying to focus on the character’s psychology, struggles and all that, so if someone likes my work, it’s ‘original’ bc it’s usually quite different from the usual stories where there are a lot of dialogues and interactions.

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

i’ve been inspired a lot by @welcometogressenheller (i wish i could do as well as she does.....), @aceklaviergavin (kudos to you even if you never see that post and you probably don’t know who i am), and some others whose name i forgot (sorry!)

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

i didn’t write much but i guess that my latest fics are really nice (There’s No Light In You Anymore, and the whole Faith series on AO3). also my big project “Now That You’re Gone”, i’m glad i’ve been able to write that much for it and i intend on continuing as soon as i find the motivation!

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily?

pain, struggles and all that comes with it as long as it’s in the character’s mind, because beware here you step in a dark space

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most?

ordinary scenes of life? i always find my writing lacking as soon as i step out of my comfort zone, i’m all for rambling and never-ending pain

8. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write?

desmond/descole surely

9. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write?

all the good guys (and dimitri allen because i’d love writing about him but i’m? just unable to?)

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for?

that may come as a surprise! angst!

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

a mix of question 8 and 10 and you’ve got your answer

12. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about.

professor layton and the shattering secrets!!! i’m so happy of what this AU will look like when i’ll be done writing the following chapters, at first it probably looks annoying but heck i wanna promise anyone who’s reading it that the plot twists are gonna be worth it even though the overall background isn’t that original because i’ve mixed up different elements from other games (aaaand we’re back in our oh-so-amazing comfort zone that covers up a massive lack of imagination)

13. First fandom you ever wrote for?

ummm? the vampire diaries maybe? back when i was 10 or 11 lol

14. What’s your favorite fandom to write for?

hands up... pROFESsoR LayTON

15. What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve ever written for?

i didn’t write for many fandoms but back in my younger days i used to do self-insert fics with the vampire diaries cast and it was so odd and i wish i hadn’t just confessed that on my tumblr blog

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

nothing that comes to mind

17. A trope you’ll never, ever write for.

dunno either

18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?

PL and the shattering secrets! huge canon divergence and one heck of an AU (also its original version is much worse, my mind was going crazy when i was 15)

19. Do you prefer canon-compliant, AUs, or something in-between?

i love reading AUs, writing some requires solid imagination which i have not, but honestly i don’t really mind

20. Gen fic or shippy stuff?

gen

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

desmond sycamore x his wife / randall ascot x hershel layton (be it romantic or platonic) / randall ascot x basically anyone from the MM i guess though i didn’t write anything about that yet (it’s about to change guys)

22. Do you listen to anything while you write?

yea i can’t write without listening to music - any playlist does the trick as long as i like what i’m listening to but usually i listen to sad soundtracks, or i’m inspired by some random lyrics

23. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?

i’d go with challenges bc my horrible ass has very few ideas but i usually come up with independent ideas

24. One-shots or multi-chaptered works?

one shots!

25. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them!

i don’t remember ;_;

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

i’ve got one OS in mind with randall/layton but i don’t want to be the talk of the town because it’s probably going to be awful? also any other fic including the PL3 crew

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

@welcometogressenheller telling me she believed i was a native!!! i struggle so much trying to improve my writing style in english and i have a lot of insecurities so it was so heartwarming and incredible to read...

also basically any other comment where people tell me they like what i write. i love that writers feel the need to take some time reviewing my works bc i need constant validation

28. How well do you handle criticism when it comes to your writing?

well i’ve never really received ‘harsh’ criticism or anything, save for some very rare remarks on my grammar so i guess i don’t know? at first it’s always sad to see that what i’ve done isn’t perfect but i guess it’s impossible to be perfect so i’m really happy that people take some time to underline what looks wrong to them

29. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out?

currently trying to with shattering secrets and it’s actually a great way to improve!

30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

MERCILESS ANGST

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

i wish i could but it would perhaps be a huge spoiler so i don’t wanna say much about them...

i have 1) annabell sycamore, des’s wife, whose personality fits very much mine. she’s a playwright, spends lot of her time writing and acting in front of des AND WITH des. also she’s a very realistic person and some people usually tell her that she’s being too pessimistic

2) aurelia from the shattering secrets and on her i really cannot say much... if anyone’s read this far it would be so nice if you could give SS a shot by the way!!

32. Summarize a random fic of yours in 10 words or less.

desmond sometimes finds happiness but it’s always taken from him

(isn’t that a summary for everything i’ve ever written?)

33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?

i don’t translate my works from my original language to english, i write straight in english. i spend a lot of time making sure i haven’t done any grammatical mistakes, checking the definition and the use of some words i’m not sure about, and sometimes it’s quite a pain and it can be also very discouraging bc i end up believing what i write comes from a random internet dictionary while deep down i know it’s not true but hey what can i say. huge insecurities laid bare here.

(if any reader of mine’s reading this, i apologize)

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

(beware: spoilers for the whole prequel trilogy!!!)

“Hershel Layton was puzzled. A funny emotion to feel for someone who loved puzzles that much, but nothing could ever describe better the way he’d felt for hours now, hours that seemed like ages.So much did happen in the span of a few hours.

First he’d learned his parents could be targeted by Targent, then Aurora had made it clear that she didn’t want to live anymore, all so she could protect them. Then Desmond—no, Descole—had taken the key from her hands, and revealed himself as the dangerous scientist Layton knew him to be.

Then they’d fought. Despair was filling the air, though Hershel didn’t understand what Descole meant when he cried that the Azran legacy was all he had to live for.

And as if there hadn’t been enough betrayals as it was, Emmy was soon to follow. Luke had been abducted. He’d had no other choice than siding with Descole to prevent Bronev from unleashing doom on Earth. Misery didn’t seem to end.

Just when he’d thought he’d finally be able to change things, Descole had been ready to sacrifice himself to save Luke. And then…

Then everything just collapsed.

He held his agonizing brother in his arms; the one who’d wanted so hard to take him down only a few hours back was now confessing, fearing death was on the way.“

[...]

from ‘Six Times Hershel Layton Remembered, Plus The One Time He Didn’t’

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

oops i haven’t got anything more to say but thank you for reading? perhaps?

#asks #asks for fanfiction writers #eve rambles #professor layton fandom #how does umblr work #also sorry my english may be lacking #you know the meme sorry for my bad english don't you #well i'm that meme

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hilarioushilarity · 4 years

Text

(not) lost in translation pt. 2

{I am a lying liar who lies, 2-3 days my ass. You can read Part 1 here.}

The second time Alexei meets Kent Parson is at the All Star weekend that season.

When Mama and Papa had flown back to Russia, Alexei had rapidly realised that he was effectively a thousand miles away from everything he had ever known, and that:

1) Nobody around him spoke Russian; and 2) He couldn't speak English.

Alexei hates English. With a passion. He's not stupid enough to tell anyone this particular fact, but he thinks it every time he sits down for his English classes and wrestles with prepositions and adverbs, or heaven forbid, attempts to conjugate a verb. Every rule had a million exceptions, so what was even the point of the rule? English as a language was just unfair, he had decided, and he tells Mama this over the phone one month in.

She is sympathetic, in her typical Spartan manner. "You'll learn," she tells him. "Practise for at least three hours every day."

Alexei is appalled. "Mama, when am I meant to get three hours of practice each day?"

"There is always time."

He honestly doesn't know what else he expected. "Okay Mama," he says, and then turns the conversation to how stupidly big portion sizes were in America. Criticising the diets of North Americans was always guaranteed to catch her attention.

To his dismay, his father just laughs at him.

"Papa." Alexei may or may not be whining.

"Your Mama told you to just find time, didn't she," he says, when he's finally stopped cackling for long enough to take a breath.

Alexei hangs up on him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Papa says, when he calls back a minute later. The wheezing laughs have stopped, which is a relief.

"Okay," Alexei says warily.

"I mean it." His father is abruptly serious. "I'm sorry for laughing, you're in a tough situation right now. English is not an easy language to learn." They both know that his father never truly gained fluency in it - never had the chance to need it.

"It's really hard, Papa." He doesn't think he's just talking about English anymore.

"Things worth doing usually are, Alyosha," his father says gently.

Alexei chews his lip. "I don't know if I'm doing anything right."

"Are you playing good hockey?" Papa asks.

"Yes, Papa."

"You aren't bullying anyone on the ice?"

"No -"

"Working hard? Doing your English lessons? Going to all your practices on time, practising anything your coach says you need to work on?"

"Yes -"

"Then you are doing it right. And I am proud of you."

His father's voice is warm, and it curls around Alexei. He suddenly, desperately, wishes he could hug his father tightly. "Okay Papa."

"Now go and practice your English," Papa says, and Alexei does.

So hockey is the only thing he has besides torturous English lessons, and he devotes himself to it. He racks up goals and assists every game, plays a clean defensive game, and keeps his stats glowing. English smalltalk remains his nemesis but he's getting there, one pleasantry at a time. Before he knows it, he's being invited to the All Stars Weekend. He dithers over the invite for a few days, until the head of Capitals PR eventually corners him on his way out of the locker rooms.

"You should go," LaRue tells him. "It's good for building up your fanbase." He continues to go on at depth about social media presences and ticket sales. Alexei dutifully nods his way through the lecture, and ends up promising to go just to escape.

For some unknown sin in this life or a past one, he is roomed with a D-man from the Aeros who talks loudly and snores louder than a chainsaw. Alexei realises this on the first night when he lays in bed, staring at the ceiling as the red digits on the bedside clock tick over from 11 to 12, then 1. There's a snore once every three seconds, accompanied by whistling through some gap between teeth. Alexei kills half an hour searching up English sayings to describe snoring and deciding that his roommate "snores like a foghorn" before he finally gives up and rolls out of bed.

The hotel they've been put up in has an indoor gym and swimming pool. Alexei slings on a towel, sneaking out of the room before taking the lift down. On first glance, the gym is deserted, because any sane person is currently asleep. Alexei, running on no sleep, does not qualify.

Except, when he's halfway through his reps on the elliptical, a quiet voice behind him says: "Um. Hi, Alexei?"

Alexei turns around and comes face to face with Kent Parson.

What they are is nebulous at best. More than acquaintances - Kent Parson had talked to his Mama and Papa and his Mama had said Kent was a Very Nice Person. But less than friends, certainly. After the draft, Kent had gone west to the Aces and Alexei had gone east to the Capitals. He hasn't really kept track of Kent's career, but he would have to be under an actual rock to not know Kent is the only other rookie at the All Stars weekend and the NHL's current leading scorer.

"Hello," Alexei replies. There's a drop of sweat slowly rolling down his face and he's painfully aware that he probably stinks a little. Meanwhile Kent Parson looks fresh as a daisy at one in the morning. The limits of his smalltalking abilities in English remain breathtakingly small despite the benefit of six months of English tutoring, so he kind of hopes Kent takes pity on his poor, sweaty form.

Kent does not. "It's been a while. Good to see you."

Goddamnit, they're smalltalking. "Good to see you, too."

Kent looks unbothered at the lack of scintillating conversation. He rolls onto the balls of his feet, fiddling with the strap of the duffel slung over his shoulder. "So uh. How's your mum?" he says, then immediately blanches. "Shit. I didn't mean - I just -"

"Good," Alexei says, mostly to put him out of his misery. "She good."

Kent looks earnest. "Oh, that's really good to hear." And then he seems to waver a bit.

"How is family?" Alexei says, when the silence stretches on. "They come visit after draft?"

"Ah yeah." Kent visibly brightens up. "They did! It was great, we had dinner and hung out a bit, and I gave my sister your mum's autograph - she's so cool by the way, but I bet you already knew that - I'd love to thank her again."

There are just - so many words. Alexei takes a few seconds to work through the sentence. "Glad to hear sister like. Maybe you see Mama again at game with Aces?"

"Definitely," Kent says, and Alexei's heard so many people say that over the past six months, but he thinks this time he could believe it. "So, uh. What's keeping you up?"

Only the loudest snorer on the entire American continent. "Roomie." Alexei searches for the words. "Snoring like foghorn."

Kent winces. "Jeez, I know what you mean. Did you try poking him to get him to roll over?"

"To scared to poke," Alexei admits. "Big guy."

"Who are you rooming with?"

"Winkler?"

"Fuck, yeah, he's a big dude. Better not poke him."

Alexei sighs. "Snore so loud - and whistle too. Like train." At Kent's blank look, he tries: "Choo choo?"

"Choo - oh god, you mean like a steam engine?"

Alexei pulls out his phone in answer. "How spell that? Steam engine?" He dutifully plugs in the letters Kent rattles off, and hits translate. "Oh. Yes. He steam engine."

"Heh," Kent says. "I double dog dare you to say that to him." He must catch the look of utter incomprehension on Alexei's face, because he quickly backtracks. "Not up with the slang yet? Sorry. I meant, you should tell him that."

"But why?" Alexei doesn't want to get punched.

"As a joke," Kent adds hastily. "It's funny, because we know it's stupid so we wouldn't do it."

English was just ridiculous. "Okay," Alexei tries. "Double dog dare you cycle on elliptical, see who faster."

"That's not..." Kent trails off. He smiles, then shakes his head. "That's not how it works. But we'll work on it," he assures Alexei, with a firm pat on his shoulder.

It's worlds away from the way the Caps' coach tends to roll his eyes heavenward when Alexei goes left when he should go right, or his English tutor, who is nice enough but is prone to banging her head against the table a little when Alexei fumbles the conjugation on a verb. "Not now," Alexei says. "Later?"

Kent checks his watch and he actually looks surprised, like the complete lack of other people didn't clue him in. "Wow, it's pretty late, isn't it?"

Unbelievable. "Why you up?"

"Got caught up practising."

Alexei sideeyes him. "Practising?"

Kent flushes a little. "Practising my stick handling. Shooting accuracy."

Alexei can't help but boggle at him. "You practising? At 1AM?"

"I couldn't sleep," Kent says, a little defensively.

"You crazy," Alexei decides, but there's a lot of fondness that must be apparent to even Kent, who looks less offended than he does a mildly grumpy, like the family cat when he accidentally stepped on her tail as a child. "But you wipe ice with everyone, so you champion crazy."

"Damn straight I'm the champion crazy," Kent says, planting his hands on his hips like a dork. "Yeah, laugh it up, I'll definitely be wiping the ice with you."

Alexei pretends to cower. "Okay, Kent Parson, I try best not cry on ice then."

"You will be bawling your eyes out," Kent says with promise, and then looks so affronted when Alexei just doubles over, breathless with laughter.

"I believe you," Alexei says to the ground, from where he's still bent over trying to catch his breath. "Cry many tears."

"You better," Kent says, but then he's laughing helplessly too, dropping his duffel. "Oh god, I really am champion crazy."

Alexei reaches over to pat him on the back. "Is okay, still like, even if Kent Parson practice hockey at one in morning."

"You don't think I'm too crazy?" Perhaps it's meant to be joking, but Alexei can't help but look up sharply.

"Never. You think Crosby best because he slack off?"

"I don't think he's ever stayed up until 1 because he was nervous about All Stars," Kent says, then bites his lip.

"You nervous?" Alexei asks. Kent hesitates. "Why you nervous?"

"I just - it's been a lot," Kent finally says. He's looking to the side, staring at the elliptical. Alexei waits, and Kent says in a rush: "I feel like I have to be the best, or - or else -"

"Not have to say what," Alexei says gently. "Not make you say."

Kent scowls. "It's stupid. Everyone's thinking it, they just don't say it. That I'm the second choice."

At the Draft, Alexei had known vaguely that Kent Parson and another boy called Jack Zimmermann had widely been slated to go first and second - in either order. It was true that every analyst had put the latter in first place, and that when Aces called Kent Parson's name there had been a slight pause in the audience's murmuring. Kent's smile had been strained as he left their table.

Alexei's stood across from Kent on the ice before. He's watched countless hours of tape of the Aces' play and by proxy, of Kent. Kent Parson on the ice is a force of nature, skating circles around defence and sinking pucks into the net as easy as breathing. And in his heart of hearts, he thinks the margin between first and second had been far smaller than most people thought.

But now, under the harsh gym lights that highlight the remaining softness of his jaw and the dark patches beneath his eyes, Alexei realises that Kent's still just a kid. Alexei's just a kid. They're both just teenagers. And there's very little of the player who had breezed past Alexei at the last Caps game with the Aces, or of the player who had mercilessly crushed their four game winning streak without batting an eye. Under the padding and past all the hype, Kent was far from the figure he cut on ice and as vulnerable as any other human.

"Even if people say second choice, what matter?" Alexei says. "You first. You here now. Play well. Maybe bit annoy on ice but not bully. And seem nice, polite to Mama. Thinking of sister even at draft. Get autograph for her. That matter. Not other people."

He hopes he hasn't overdone it - perhaps Kent wasn't looking for a heart-to-heart in the hotel gym at 1AM. But instead of taken aback Kent looks - a little watery.

"Why you cry?" Alexei is horrified.

"I'm not crying," Kent sniffs. "I'm not."

Alexei bites his tongue. "Uh okay." He politely looks away as Kent wipes his eyes.

"I'm not saying I can't cry," Kent begins, which Alexei takes as his cue that it's safe to look back at him. His eyes are just slightest bit red, and even that's only if you know what to look for. “I just try not to cry in front of others.”

"Okay," Alexei says cautiously.

Kent takes a deep breath. "Thank you."

"Welcome," Alexei replies automatically, then says: "But. For what?"

Kent stares at him. "For - listening? For not being an asshole about the fact I'm still some nervy rookie?"

Christ. People thanked each other for things like that in America? "No need thank," Alexei says. Then, desperate to change the subject, he adds: "So we agree! No need for nervous! You real KVP."

"The what?"

"KVP." Alexei gestures. "I see on Twitter - they calling you 'the Real KVP'".

"That's not - " Kent splutters. "That's my name, Alexei."

Alexei tries not wince. "Oh. Oops, sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" Kent brings out his phone, thumbing at something on the screen. He eventually holds out his phone, open to a websearch. "See? It's a joke on MVP. That's 'Most Valuable Player'."

"Oh," Alexei says again. "Make sense. Sometimes miss reference - thank you for explaining."

Kent stows away his phone, corners of his mouth twitching upwards again. "You've only been in the US for what, six months? Your English is great. If you put me in Russia I would probably just turn around and go back to the US."

"You miss good food then," Alexei tuts. "Russian food is best food."

"Hell no, I've seen what you guys count as soup. I'm not touching borscht with a ten-foot pole."

"Borscht is best soup!" Alexei tries to sound outraged.

"Look man, all I'm saying is that anything that pink should not be eaten."

Blasphemy. "You try pirozhki then? Small, baked -" He gropes around for the word, then gives up and calls up the translator app on his phone. "Dumpling."

"I've never had that," Kent says, but he at least looks intrigued. "What did you call it? Pay-roz-kay?"

His accent is actually appalling. "Pirozhki," Alexei corrects.

Kent frowns. "Poe-roz-ki?"

"Pirozhki"

"Poh-rosh-ki?"

Alexei nods in approval. "Good, sounds good."

"I like the sound of baked dumplings," Kent says. "Mm. Pirozkhi. I might go see if there's any places that do it in Vegas."

"Let me know if yes." Alexei nudges him. "I come try when Caps play Aces."

"You got it."

Alexei cuts off any further conversation with the embarrassingly loud yawn that escapes him then.

"Shit, it's like 1:30AM." Kent winces. "We have to get up at like 7 tomorrow - today? Holy crap we better go to sleep."

Alexei levers himself up, gathering his towel and bottle. "Hope not fall asleep on skates tomorrow."

"How about I check you if I see you dropping off," Kent suggests, then snickers at Alexei's raised eyebrow. "Bad idea?"

"Sure can check me?" Alexei makes a show of looking Kent up and down. He holds his index finger and thumb about ten centimetres apart. "So small."

"You asshole," Kent says, but he's laughing. "I'm not short, you're just a giant."

"If say so," Alexei shrugs. They start towards the elevator banks. "If help sleep at night."

"Fuck you, I sleep really well at night," Kent says petulantly. Alexei eyes the shadows beneath his eyes.

"I believe, I believe," he says instead with his best shit-eating grin. They get in the lift. "Okay, floor?"

Kent reaches over and pushes the button for 15. "You?"

"Twelve. Thank you." Kent nods, and they start moving up.

"So see you tomorrow, yes?"

"Yeah." Kent shoulders his duffel a little more firmly. "Be prepared to cry like a baby."

Alexei flaps his hands, just as the lift doors open on his floor. "Yeah, yeah, I cry so much."

The smile Kent gives him is small, but very real. "Good night Alexei."

"Good night," Alexei says, stepping out and turning to wave goodbye. The doors shut on Kent's smile, and Alexei stands there for a second, the airconditioning cool against his slightly sweaty neck.

"Hopefully not cry too much," he says to himself, before heading back to his room.

#kent parson #alexei mashkov #(not) lost in translation #patater #capichewrites

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kiasyth · 3 years

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I am so tired...

For the last couple of months, I've been helping out my neighbor with babysitting her two little girls. She's a single mom and doesn't have any family in the area, so I just want to help out.

Plus, she pays me to keep her girls.

She'll call me at the very last minute, "Hey, can you stay with the girls while I run to the store?" I honestly don't mind. It's not like I'm doing anything else, after all. I haven't been able to find a new job since March of last year, anyway.

Early this week, she called me at midnight, begging me to stay with her girls while she made a trip out of town. (The why doesn't matter but it was important for her to make the trip and I fully support her doing so.) I was over there by 12:15 and she did not get home until about 10:00pm. That's, basically, twenty hours babysitting. No problem. We had fun.

Problem, though: I am nocturnal. I literally go to sleep between 9:00 and 11:00am and sleep until sometime between 3 and 5:00pm. Obviously, this makes babysitting two active little girls a challenge. I did nap that morning for a couple of hours, but I still dozed off for a little while later in the evening. Oops. I informed their mother, though, and she told me not to worry about it that I need my rest too.

(She's actually pretty awesome as an employer, obviously.)

Thursday, I was getting ready to go to dinner with my parents (just to a local, cheap pizza buffet because I was craving pizza) and she asked if I could keep an eye on her girls where they were asleep in her car while she ran inside to pack some clothes because she had to head back out of town for the same important reason as before. (It wasn't resolved the first time, and remains unresolved, so I see this becoming a thing for a while.) So that the girls wouldn't be confined to the car for an unbearably long time, I asked if she would like me to keep them again, on the condition that she let us take them to dinner with us.

Obviously, she agreed.

I had them in the car just after 8:00 pm Thursday night. She got home at 10:00pm.

Just this week, I have worked 48 hours. Unfortunately, since I'm mostly doing this as a favor to a friend and not actually charging her much, a 48 hour work week (worked over what, technically, ended up being three days) earned me less than $200. It also earned me a case of complete exhaustion.

Someone just shoot me and put me out of my misery...

#personal #work #sort of...#I love my girlies #but I'm still exhausted #neighbors #babysitting #it takes a village #single parents

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canid-slashclaw · 4 years

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The Outliers - A Guild Wars Love Story

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapters 10 and 11,Chapter 12 Chapter 13

Thunder roared across the skies over Triskell Quay as raindrops began to fall over the lakeside village. Kaleb emerged from the waypoint near the traveler's district and realized he had forgotten to bring a raincoat.

When he arrived home late evening yesterday his father had handed him a letter from the Queen's Seraph Guard. The parchment stated that Corporal Kaleb Grimwald was to the Kessex Hills outpost by the end of the month. It also noted that upon his return, his unit would soon be transferred to an as-of-yet undisclosed location. With his return to active duty less than a week away, Kaleb wanted to inform Amalthia right away just in case he was unable to get in contact with her later on.

He managed to make it to the butcher shop just a few minutes before the rain started to pour down in sheets. But when he opened the door he immediately noticed that the steam whistle did not sound off once the door closed. Instead, the only sound he heard was the click of the latch.

"Is anyone here?" Kaleb said as he walked toward the meat counter.

"You don't need to shout so loud. My father is sleeping." Amalthia's voice came from her upstairs loft.

As she descended the spiral staircase, Kaleb noticed her footsteps were noticeably shaky and her gait off balance.

"Amalthia! It's so good to see you. And sorry about that, I'll be quieter from now on."

She did not look in his direction once she reached the base of the stairs. Instead, she headed over to the spice aisle and began organizing the various bundles of products.

"Things would be much quieter if you just left," she said in a somber, monotone voice.

Kaleb wasn't sure what to make of what she meant, so he remained in dumbfounded silence.

"Didn't you hear what I just said? Leave!"

Stunned by the sudden change in her behavior, Kaleb walked over then put his hand on her shoulder hoping she would look him in the face. But as soon as he touched her, she spun around, grabbed his hand then violently pushed it away.

"You shouldn't be here!' She hissed and stared at him with a harsh glare the likes of which he had never seen before.

"Wha... what's wrong, Amalthia? Why are you acting like this??" The expression of hurt on his face was painfully obvious.

"Why? Are you really that dense? Look in the mirror then look at me... never mind... don't look at me cause it might give you the wrong impression," Amalthia snarled as she stomped towards the front door.

"What could I have possibly done to upset you like this? We had such a good time yesterday, I don't even get why you are suddenly acting this way," Kaleb said as tears began welling up in his eyes.

"Done? I'll tell you what you did, Kaleb. You walked through that door six months ago and entered more than just this building," Amalthia said as her eyes being tearing up as well, "you walked into my heart and never left!"

Hoping to comfort her, Kaleb rushed over, but as soon as he did, Amalthia pushed him back nearly knocking him to the floor. "Don't! Just, don't. You need to just step back for a moment and take a good whiff of reality. You are human and I am charr. The world would never accept us as a romantically-involved couple."

Kaleb shook his head. "I don't believe that's you talking. You're mother got to you somehow, didn't she?"

"Leave her out of this, Kaleb. The less I have to think of her, the better my life will be. I will open this door and you will walk through it agreeing never to come back," she said as she stepped back then opened the door to the pouring rain.

"So you're just going to kick me out in the downpour, are you? If that's how you are going to treat me then you are more cowardly than most humans I know. I fell in love with you because of your honesty and strength of spirit. And I don't believe for one second that you genuinely want to roll over and cave in to the norms of society," he said as he slowly stepped towards the open door.

"And I don't want to hurt you anymore than I already have, Kaleb. But you are correct in one aspect. I am doing this because my... mother... found a warband that was willing to accept me into their ranks. Please understand that I have to know how I would respond when I'm around my own people. Until I am exposed to that, neither of us can ever really be sure if I'm bonding to you out of loneliness or genuine love," Amalthia looked into his eyes as she fought a losing battle with her tears.

"I think I understand it now. Amalthia - I am going to walk out this door into dreary soaking rain and I'm going to head on over to Ulfgar's place and knock back the strongest lager he serves. It's fitting, I suppose, that today should be so gloomy. Anyway, fare thee well, Amalthia. You will forever be in my heart."

With those words, Kaleb departed running as his form vanished into the stormy torrent.

Amalthia knelt down and remained there for nearly an hour as sheets of rain began to soak her fur. She closed her eyes and began recalling the memories of the times that she and Kaleb had spent together.

"I have some warm tea for you, cub. It's been a long day for both of us," Ludrick's gentle voice came from behind as he gently placed his massive paw over her right shoulder.

"He is right!" She said as she placed her pawed hands upon the wet concrete.

"Amalthia..."

"I am a coward."

Suddenly, something within her snapped. She remembered her oath of loyalty to her original warband and what it meant to stand by those she cared about.

No. I am not a coward! I am charr! I will fight to my last breath in defense of those I love. And not even the dragons themselves will keep me away from you, Kaleb.

"I am not a coward!" She muttered as she crouched on all fours while angling towards the outside.

Ludrick sensed what she was about to do but he was too late in stopping her.

With a lunging burst, Amalthia loped from the shop on all fours, running at top speed in the blinding gale.

"I am chaaarrrr!"

Her fur became completely soaked but she didn't care. She knew where she had to go and how to get there. The only question was - would she be too late?

***

Rainfall fell heavily upon the town of Claypool as well. Soaked to the skin, a distraught Kaleb eventually found his way to the one place where he could find some measure of solace in his misery. The gas-powered lights gave off a bright orange glow just inside the windows of the Jotun's Corpse tavern.

Ulfgar had just finished serving some regulars when he noticed Kaleb's completely soaked slumped form resting with his head over his folded arms. The wise old norn immediately knew something was wrong and decided to prepare a special lager just for the distraught young man.

"By the looks of things, I can see water is comin' from more places than just your clothes. What's eatin' ya, lad?" The norn said in a voice that could shake the room yet was a gentle as a summer wind.

"Thanks, Ulfgar. It's been one of those days, yanno?"

"Those days, or those days? I can see a tale of woe behind those eyes plain as day. If you wish to get something off yer chest then I'll be right here if you wish," Ulfgar grinned as he offered Kaleb several towels.

"Definitely one of those days, my friend. Sorry about the puddles on the floor. I forgot to dress in weather-appropriate gear," Kaleb said with a downtrodden tone.

"It's not the puddles on the floor that concerns me, lad. It's the ones streamin' down yer face."

"Is there someplace we can talk more privately?" Kaleb asked as he looked around the tavern noticing all of the patrons still present.

"Of course. That table over there is especially reserved for just such occasions. C'mon my boy. Tell old Ulf what's been draggin' your bottom lip to the ground."

Once the two of them drifted on over to the more secluded location, Kaleb took one last draught before preparing his mind for what he was about to tell."

"Amalthia blew up on me earlier today for no apparent reason and claimed that any possible relationship wouldn't work out because of our differences. She said that her mom found a warband that was willing to take her into their ranks. I think her parents had a lot to do with her sudden change in temperament, honestly."

Kaleb exhaled upon thinking of the ordeal then removed his outer jacket hoping that doing so would help speed up the warming process.

"Hmm. It sounds like she wanted to protect you from further heartbreak. She may have been afraid that you would be afraid of her leaving you to be with one of her own kind."

Kaleb looked up at his long time friend and spoke with a tone steeled in resolve. "The truth is Ulfgar, I not only love her for who she is but also what she is. I am well aware that the mere sight of an interspecies relationship, especially between a human and a charr, is going to be fraught with monumental struggles from bigoted mindsets. However, there is this part of me that feels that it's the world that needs to change, not us."

"Then perhaps your true legend may lay along an entirely different path, my boy. It reminds me very much of an old norn story my father used to tell." Ulgar looked up at the vaulted ceiling of the tavern as he rested his crooked fingers against his bearded chin.

"I've got the time. Let's hear it."

Ulfgar pulled over a small chair then sat down across from the eldest Grimwald son.

"This tale is known as the Bear and the Wolf," the old norn said while gulping down a tall stein of mead.

"Long ago in the far Shiverpeaks, there wandered a lone bear. Now Bear was lost and lonely. He had become separated from his hunting grounds seasons ago when the ice sheet that connected his land with his current location had melted away."

"But off in the distance, he suddenly heard a long and somber howl. Curious to know where the howl came from, Bear followed his ears and nose to find out. What he came upon was something he did not expect. For lying in on the ground and fur matted in dried blood from an as-of-yet unseen wound, lay a she-wolf."

"Wolf looked at Bear fearing he would attack and eat her. Bear just wanted to investigate and see what was the matter."

"He soon realized that the wolf was injured. To Wolf's surprise the bear did not attack. Instead, Bear walked over, sniffed the wolf and just sat there staring at her."

"Wolf looked into those dark brown eyes then felt the strangest sensation come over her. It was as though she had known the bear before, but as to how she could not fathom. "

"Upon gazing into Wolf's golden eyes, Bear noticed that she looked strikingly familiar. Even though he could not figure out the reason, he swore to himself that no harm would come to her."

"Eventually, Bear realized that the wolf would need food soon and so he went to the riverbank and caught a fresh salmon for her to eat. Once Wolf had regain her strength, she repaid the kind act by cleaning with her tongue an old injury he had received ages ago."

"Over time the two became inseparable. Wolf hunted for Bear when prey was too swift for him to catch and he did the same for her when prey was either too strong or lived in fast-moving rivers."

"Then late one winter, Wolf came into season. Bear wanted to show his affection, but doing so would have been against the laws of nature. Yet, she was so beautiful. Why should they be denied the pleasures of each others' being all because of some taboos that had been handed down from generation to generation?"

"Then on the night of the full moon, Wolf and Bear did the one thing that others in their respective tribes told them not to do... they made love."

"The next morning when he awoke, Bear raised what he thought was his front paw as he placed it upon the outstretched back of Wolf. But he noticed that instead of a paw, he had a furless, blunt fingered hand. What's more, instead of the silken fur of the she-wolf laying beside him, she had the most voluptuous body of a flaxen-haired norn that he had ever seen."

"When both lovers realized what happened, they discovered that they had at one time been mates who had taken different paths in discovering their spirit animals."

Once Ulfgar finished his tale, he looked into Kaleb's eyes and said. "Every so often there are those who are put on Tyria for the sole purpose of defying cultural norms. Such people are referred to as outliers."

Kaleb just looked at Ulfgar with a stunned look on his face. "Wow. That had to be the most unusual norn tale I've ever heard. Thanks to you, I'll never look at a wolf or a bear the same way again."

Ulfgar laughed.

"And yer never likely to ever hear one like it again either. At least that's what my pappa always used to say."

Then it suddenly dawned on Kaleb. "They were your parents?"

An even bigger laugh echoed through the tavern as the old norn just smiled and winked.

"In a matter of speakin'..."

Several hours had passed and by now all of the patrons had left with the exception of Kaleb. Although he had consumed only a few more lagers, he wasn't completely smashed.

"I had better get home. My folks are probably worried that I may have gotten eaten by a risen or something."

"It's still a pourin' out there. Mind if I accompany ya home?"

"Thanks Ulf, but I'm fine. I'm sure I can manage my way home by myself. But thank you anyways."

After thanking Ulfgar for allowing him to stay past hours, Kaleb began his lonely trek home from the tavern. Thick drops pelted his wet hair and soaked overcoat then suddenly began to cease. When he looked up he saw a large umbrella hanging over his head. To his amazement, Amalthia was standing there holding it aloft.

With sullen eyes and ears hung low, she said to him in a soft voice. "You are going to catch cold walking home like that, silly."

"A... Amalthia?"

She looked down, standing upright, nearly a charr head and a half taller and gazed deeply into his dark brown eyes.

"I figured I'd catch you at or near the bar. Come, I'll walk you home, if you don't mind my terrible company."

Looking deeply into her golden amber orbs, Kaleb said in a reassuring voice, "you are never terrible company... well, almost never. Earlier today being the slight exception, right?"

"I completely understand if you cannot forgive me for how I acted towards you earlier. But at the very least, I wanted to tell you the why. I owe you that much."

"I'm listening."

Amalthia explained. "I am joining a warband known as the Blades. Once I am in, I will receive a last name that somewhat reflects some of my talents and personality traits. I am telling you this because mating between warband members is commonplace."

She went on further. "I know that open relationships in your culture is extremely taboo. Not so in mine. I also know if you found out that I had a physical relationship then bore cubs with one of my people, you would be devastated. I acted the way I acted in order to avoid having you subjected to even more emotional hurt."

"My house is just around the corner. I really wish I could introduce you to my family, but I'm not sure some of my members would receive you," Kaleb stated as he pointed towards the farmhouse at the end of the road.

"Give me your thoughts, Kaleb. Please."

"I've always been willing to go the distance, Amalthia. But you are going to have to meet me halfway. And by the way - there is nothing to forgive. Nothing will change how I feel about you. But if you only wish us to remain friends then that's fine too, I suppose."

She looked into his eyes for a moment, closed the umbrella then raised her head into the air and smiled.

"I love the rain. The water relaxes me and sometimes makes me say things that I normally wouldn't say to anyone."

Amalthia raised her arms aloft taking in the invigorating sensation of the raindrops against her wet furred body.

"My former warband leader violated me repeatedly in an attempt to prove what a weakling I was. I showed him a thing or two by nearly ripping his balls off with my hind claws. The truth is, I would sooner die than allow another one of my kind inside of me. It's quick and painful. I also drink nearly a cask of mead a day. I am a soiled, drunken loser who is just trying to make her way in this thing called life. If you would have a scrawny bag of bones such as me to call your mate then you would have to be godsdamn crazy!"

"Then I am crazy! Crazy in love with you!" Kaleb shouted with glee.

Amalthia looked down once more at him as she gently used her clawed index finger to brush back a lock of his hair that had washed over the left side of his face. "You silly mouse."

With a gentle caress, she slid her hand to the back of Kaleb's head then pulled him towards her muzzle. Her raspy tongue pushed past his lips as their mouths locked together in a synchronous embrace. When their mouths parted, Kaleb gently bit down on the side of her thick neck gnawing playfully until his nose rested just below her lower ear.

Savoring the sensation of her warm, wet fur Kaleb pointed towards the back of his home. "The barn has a spot where we could... you know, go all the way."

Amalthia laughed as she licked the top of his head then gently nibbled on his ear. "Kaleb. Remember what I said - one step at a time."

She then pulled back, looked him directly into his soaked face and said in a loving voice. "This was just my way of saying that I choose you over what society has chosen for me. I'm just playing the game for now… at least until we can find a way of being together in the long run."

"Then the barn can wait. It smells bad in there anyway." Kaleb smiled at her with understanding.

"Oh. I've smelled much worse. Trust me. Anyway, write me! I'll be sure to write back as much as I'm able. Once I'm in the Black Citadel we won't have to go through Ulfgar to keep in contact."

"You better believe that I'm gonna write you enough to fill an encyclopedia. By the way - I'm getting shipped back out to Kessex in the next week and from there, who knows? So it looks like we will both be doing the long-distance relationship thing for a while." Kaleb hugged her as they began to walk toward his house.

"Oh. One other thing I forgot to ask - how badly did I dag you in the butt?" She asked pointing to his posterior area.

"Not too bad. A little swollen, but otherwise fine. You have some moves on ya girl! Where'd you learn 'em?"

"Daddy taught me!" Amalthia smiled pointing towards the hilt of her sword.

"No wonder I got walloped."

"It also works great on rapist ex-warband mates as well," she chuckled.

With a final departing hug and light kiss on the lips the two lovers parted. Amalthia dashed off into the night running on all fours while Kaleb spent the next five minutes wringing out his wet garments. After cleaning up and getting into a fresh change of clothing, Kaleb fished around in his pocket for the wad of letters that Amalthia had written him previously. To his pleasant surprise, the letters were not soaked. He wanted to read them but was too tired to do so at the moment.

"Kaaalaab... there are some leftovers in the ice chest in case you want them," his mother called from downstairs.

"Thanks, mom. I'll be there in a few," he said as he grabbed some of the dry letters then lifted up the corner of his mattress to place his stash. But when he lifted it up, he found that the book on the mating habits of charr was missing.

Oh crap! Arg! Rachel! She must have been snooping in my room while I was gone.

Moments later, he ran to the door that led to his younger room and began knocking.

"Rachel..."

"Rachel!"

Her condescending voice came back just a few seconds later. "Stop banging on the door so loudly. Whaddyou want anyway?"

Kaleb growled. "You know what I want. What did you do with that book you checked out for me? I know you snuck into my room when I wasn't around. Don't lie to me!"

He was greeted by a moment of silence before he heard her snarky reply through the door. "Then maybe you shouldn't have left it in such an obvious hiding spot."

"You have no right going into my room snooping around! You got that?"

"I can go into your room when it involves MY property. That book was due back at the library anyway so I dropped it off at the return box. Gods only knows what would have happened if that librarian had contacted our parents and they found out that I checked out such a filthy book."

"Was there anything else with the book like a note or something?" Kaleb asked with a hint of distress in his voice.

"Nope. Not a thing."

At the other end of the door, Rachel sat on the bed with the Mating Rituals of the Charr. Vol. XI opened right in front of her. As she giggled and perused through the pages, she started fanning her face with the love letter that Kaleb had used for a bookmark. (Chapter 13 is also up on Google Docs)

#gw2 fanfic #tyriaslibrary #the outliers #charr and human #kaleb and amalthia #guildwars fanfiction

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perlukafarinn · 4 years

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Movies (I saw) of the 2010s, ranked

Because I had lots of better things to do but no inclination to do them.

As I went through all the new releases I watched this decade, a few things came to mind:

I missed so much! Most recently, I still haven’t seen Parasite, The Lighthouse or The Irishman. I’ve also seen only one of Disney’s live action remakes, two out of four Star Wars films of the decade, and I’ve missed quite a few of Marvel and DC’s outings. My tendency to mostly watch older films came to bite me in the ass here. But c’est la vie, there’s only so many hours in the day!

A huge part of my viewing history took place during film festivals, so festival movies are way over-represented here. I’m not mad about it.

There’s not too many outright bad movies on my list, because I tend to avoid movies that look bad or like I might not like them (shocker, I know). Even the ones in my bottom ten aren’t as dreadful as I was expecting.

There’s no way I can rank all these films numerically! What about movies that I can tell are good but just aren’t for me? What about movies that are bad but enjoyable? How can you compare tired Oscar-bait with soulless blockbusters? It’s impossible!

Hence these categories. I’m doing a top 10 worst and best, and the categories go roughly from worse to better movies, but otherwise this isn’t based on quality so much as what clever category names I could come up with (or couldn’t, as the case may be). I’m also listing the movies within each category alphabetically because that’s even less ranking I need to do.

Buckle up, this is over 6000 words...

Oh, and if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing I still encourage you to reply with your own favorite movies of the decade!

The Worst Exactly what it says on the tin. These movies aren’t just unenjoyable or disposable, they are actively unpleasant to watch.

American Hustle (2013) Wait, this got how many Oscar nominations again??

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) This movie is so bloated and yet they couldn’t find any time to actually develop most of the main characters? I had such a bad time watching this one, I ended up skipping out on the last part of the trilogy.

Hurricane Bianca (2016) This looked like it might be enjoyably bad but it wasn’t. I still love Bianca Del Rio, don’t get me wrong, but her humor is not the kind you build a whole movie around, yet alone two. And yet…

Hurricane Bianca: From Russia With Hate (2018) Yeah, I watched them both. I’m a simple woman: I see Katya in a trailer, I watch. I really shouldn’t have bothered, this one is even worse.

Iron Man 2 (2010) Superhero fatigue got me bad in the past few years but even before then I hated this movie. Literally nothing enjoyable here, I was aggressively bored while watching. The Lack (2014) This is a movie about women, written and directed by a man, called “The Lack”. You might think I’m being uncharitable to say this movie is entirely about penis envy but the writer/director himself confirmed this at the Q&A I was at. This is why Q&As are always a bad idea, people!

Left Behind (2014) This one tips into “enjoyably bad” at times but in the end, it’s still two hours of your life wasted on a movie meant to make its Evangelical viewers feel vindicated in their horrible beliefs. Morgenrøde (2014) I have a fairly high tolerance for slow movies but this movie is sloooowwww and literally nothing happens in it. This is the movie that taught me not to trust it when festival brochures use the word “contemplative”.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) Just dreadful. This is the worst kind of film in my books: the kind made to follow a trend, not to tell a story.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) It’s been eight years since the fourth PotC movie came out?? God, it’s been a long decade.

The Utterly Disposable I didn’t exactly have a bad time watching these but they left no impression on me.

Alex Strangelove (2018) Netflix has released so many unremarkable-looking teen movies this decade. This is one of the few I bothered to watch and it’s cute enough, I guess.

Fyrir framan annað fólk (2016) I am Icelandic but I don’t watch a whole lot of Icelandic movies and I feel kind of guilty about that. Not guilty enough to give a boring movie a pass, though.

Ghostbusters (2016) This super did not need to exist and not even my love for Kate McKinnon makes it any less disposable.

The Great Gatsby (2013) At least it’s pretty.

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) I remember this getting a few laughs out of me but that’s about it.

The Imitation Game (2014) I think I just… don’t like Beneditch Cumberbatch? Sorry. This movie is the perfect expression of the bland, middle-of-the-road biopic, with the added mishandling of the subject’s sexuality.

Isn’t It Romantic (2019) I love a good satire but this ain’t it, chief. This movie isn’t doing anything that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend hasn’t done 100x better.

John Carter (2012) If you’re gonna throw this much money into something, you could at least hire a charismatic lead actor. Then again, it seemed to work for Avatar. Magic Mike (2012) I did like that this sexy stripper movie kept showing how unhappy the main character is doing what he does as if that wouldn’t totally ruin the fantasy.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) Watched this on an airplane, which is fitting. This feels like a quintessential airplane movie; it’s mildly entertaining but ultimately disposable enough that it has completely slipped your mind by the time you reach baggage claim.

Paul (2011) Occasionally funny, I think? Barely remember it tbh.

Planetary (2015) There’s some interesting points buried in here but the movie’s too busy trying to look important to actually get them across effectively. Also feels surprisingly padded for just 80 minutes. Valentine’s Day (2010) Taylor Swift was actually kind of funny in this, which was a pleasant surprise. Zero impact otherwise.

“I Have No Memory of This Place” Movies I literally could not remember watching until I had read the entire synopsis, but for one reason or another was not comfortable calling “disposable”.

Bobby Sands: 66 Days (2015), The Departure (2017), Hell Is Empty: All the Devils Are Here (2016), Innsæi (2016), Last of the Elephant Men (2015), Late Summer (2016), Speed Sisters (2015), Una (2016), The War Show (2016) Lumping all of these together because they’re all festival movies I have hardly any memory of and that I may have in fact fallen asleep over.

Incendies (2010) Chalk this up to me seeing it almost a decade ago. When I finally remembered it, I could vaguely recall finding it affective. Probably due for a rewatch.

Prisoners (2013), Rush (2013), Warrior (2011) Around 2012-2014 I was working my way through IMdB’s top 250 list and I saw so many forgettable movies about men committing various violent acts. Literally can’t remember a single thing about these movies.

I’m So Sick of Superheroes Dear God Make It Stop I’d probably like some of these more if not for superhero fatigue but that is the trade-off for total global dominance. A couple of superhero movies did escape this category and you’ll see them later on my list.

Thor (2011), Iron Man Three (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Ant-Man (2015), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) Lumping all of Marvel’s movies in this category together because I don’t really have a lot to say about Marvel anymore. Special mention to Winter Soldier for being the movie that soured on me the most and to Age of Ultron for in hindsight being the beginning of my superhero fatigue.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Boy, this trilogy ended on a sour note. Man of Steel (2013) Confused story structure aside, this movie is utterly grey and joyless. It’s also army propaganda!

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) The only reason I watched this was because it was on IMdB’s top 250 list. Peter Dinklage was good in it, if I recall correctly.

Don’t Like This Nope.

12 Years a Slave (2013) Very uncomfortable to sit through, which I get was the point, but I’m not sure it was the right choice. It honestly feels like misery porn.

Black Swan (2010) I’ve long made peace with the fact that Darren Aronofsky will just never click with me.

The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012) This movie is exhausting to watch because of the near constant country music playing. Loudly.

Kate Plays Christine (2016) This is a movie about a really interesting topic but instead of the real tragedy that actually happened it chooses to focus on an actress’s fictional struggle to connect with her role. I think the movie wanted us to think the struggle was real (heh) but for that they would’ve needed a better actress. La La Land (2016) I love classic musicals and I really wanted to like this movie but in the end I just couldn’t. As a movie it’s okay but it’s not a good musical and the whole white savior of jazz thing was……….. an odd choice.

Last Days in the Desert (2015) I’m a sucker for good, thoughtful religious films. The idea of Jesus and the devil being played by the same actor was intriguing to me and I liked that the devil wasn’t evil so much as just tired. But ultimately, this movie felt a little too cold for me.

Magic Mike: XXL (2015) I have no idea why every critic on the planet seems to love this movie. Strippers aggressively thrusting their crotch in your face is not sexy, it’s uncomfortable!

A Silent Voice (2016) Melodramatic and not in the fun, over-the-top way.

Vonarstræti (2014) It’s good but it’s just not for me.

Wir Monster (2015) I saw this at a Q&A screening and decided I didn’t wanna stick around after the credits rolled. On my way out, I tripped and almost fell onto the actors as they were walking past me. That experience had a way bigger impact on me than the movie itself. Make of that what you will.

Guilty Pleasures/So Bad They’re Good An enjoyably bad movie is a better watch than a middlingly competent one.

#REALITYHIGH (2017) Incredibly clichéd and tries way too hard to be “hip” or “lit” or whatever it is the kids were saying back in 2017. Don’t care, I’ve seen it four times.

Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016) The first Bridget Jones is a highlight of the genre. The second one is just bad but the third tips over into enjoyably bad. I also loved having Renée Zellweger back on my screen!

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish (2019) Recently watched this with my sister while baking and wrapping Christmas presents. It’s a terrible movie but we had fun (mostly by making fun of it).

Descendants (2015), Descendants 2 (2017), Descendants 3 (2019) I’m not apologizing for this even though I feel like I kind of should.

The Kissing Booth (2018) This movie is like a 13-year-old’s first fanfic come to life so of course I’m gonna love it. Even if the love interest is incredibly unappealing.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012) Who would’ve thought at the start of the decade that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson would turn into indie darlings starring in one critically acclaimed film after the next? I love that for them.

Oscar Bait but I’m Not Biting Not sure the Oscars weren’t a mistake tbh.

The Artist (2011) I kind of enjoyed this but ultimately it’s watered-down Hollywood history made appealing to modern audiences and its aim is far higher than its reach.

Birdman (2014) It was a fun watch but it left no impression.

Darkest Hour (2017) Technically a good movie but such obvious Oscar bait I just couldn’t fully enjoy it.

The Help (2011) Let’s leave the white savior narrative behind in the 2010s, shall we?

The King’s Speech (2010) I love Colin Firth. I barely remember this movie.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) Don’t love that the racist cop is the most fully fleshed-out character in this movie while the black characters are all unnamed extras.

Whiplash (2014) It’s just drumming, J.K. Simmons, it’s not that serious.

I Feel Like I Should Like This More This category is mostly three camps, as you’ll see.

120 battements par minute (2017), 69 Minutes of 86 Days (2017), Fire at Sea (2016), I, Daniel Blake (2016) All important movies with a worthy message that I just couldn’t connect with on a personal level.

Adieu au langage (2014), Before We Vanish (2017), Bridesmaids (2011), Jagten (2012), A Separation (2011), Timbuktu (2014), Transit (2018), Winter’s Bone (2010) Critically acclaimed, maybe it’s just me?

Her (2013) The rest is all movies I expected to like more than I did. I’m not sure what didn’t click with this one. It’s been a while since I saw it.

Get Out (2017) I wasn’t gonna watch it because I don’t really watch horror so when I finally caved, I knew pretty much everything about it. Watching a movie the first time knowing everything that happens in it and after seeing it dissected for months on end by every critic on the planet does take a lot of the enjoyment away, as it turns out.

Gone Girl (2014) Really thought I’d love it. It’s good just didn’t click with me.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) It’s pretty. Liam Neeson is always fun.

Pacific Rim (2013) Mako is great and I enjoy the chemistry between her and Raleigh but ultimately this one just kind of slipped out of my mind as soon as I’d seen it.

Toni Erdmann (2016) It’s too damn long!

The Tree of Life (2011) I just watched this the other day so it’s very possible my opinion will change. I was expecting to love it but I… didn’t. It felt like this movie was trying too hard to be profound and important, at the cost of actually saying something, well, profound and important.

No Strong Feelings One Way or the Other I actually have nothing to say about any of these movies and most of them are good but they had to go somewhere.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), Boyhood (2014), Brave (2012), Creed (2015), Django Unchained (2012), Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), Flavours of Youth (2018), Frozen (2013), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), Interstellar (2014), Intouchable (2011), The Jungle Book (2016), Monsters University (2013), Rogue One (2016), Schaste moe (2010), Shutter Island (2010), Three Identical Strangers (2018), To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018), Undir trénu (2017), Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Middling Festival Fare I have nothing to say about these either but I couldn’t lump them in with the others. I mostly liked them more than the movies in the previous category and they took bigger risks. Some of them might even be great, just very much not my cup of tea.

3 Tage in Quiberon (2018), Acid Forest (2018), Amateurs in Space (2016), Barakah Meets Barakah (2015), Der Andständige (2014), Disappearance (2017), Dreams by the Sea (2017), En fremmed flytter ind (2017), Føniks (2018), The Girl Down Loch Aenzi (2016), God Exists, Her Name is Petrunija (2019), Gods of Molenbeek (2019), Jag är Ingrid (2015), Já, Olga Hepnarová (2016), Looking for Oum Kulthum (2017), Mister Universo (2016), Neruda (2016), The Raven and the Seagull (2018), Rester vertical (2016), Slow West (2015), Sugar Coated (2015), Summer Survivors (2018), Tickled (2016), Worldly Girl (2016)

Maybe Not the Best But a Lot of Fun Better than those guilty pleasures but generally pretty flawed. Austenland (2013) A very cute little romcom. Extra points for Jennifer Coolidge, the most underrated character actress of this century.

Baby Driver (2017) I feel like revisiting this one might not be as enjoyable for reasons that have nothing to do with the film’s quality but I had fun watching it in the theater.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) I was a fan of this franchise from the start so even though this movie is kind of dour and dark, it was still a blast to watch. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) Do I love every choice this movie made? No. But I saw this at a midnight screening, in full cosplay with my friends, in a theater packed with fans. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I, Tonya (2017) For a movie that contains so much abuse and such a bummer ending, it’s surprisingly entertaining!

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) Lego Batman is my favorite Batman.

Nothing Like a Dame (2018) I just really love Maggie Smith.

On - drakon (2015) This movie feels like it was pitched as “Twilight but with dragons!”. It’s fun, though, and it’s got an interesting aesthetic and a proactive heroine who gets herself out of trouble with ingenuity and bravery.

Sing Street (2016) I love the soundtrack to this movie and the characters are incredibly endearing. The story is very simple in not a great way but it doesn’t need to be deep to be enjoyable.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) I like that they skip the origin story for once and keep the scope of it fairly limited. A very nice little slice-of-life teen movie combined with a superhero flick. Tom Holland is a good Spider-Man. Would’ve been better without Iron Man tbh. Star Trek Beyond (2016) I feel like they got the characters right here, which was a problem for the first Star Trek of the rebooted trilogy. It’s a fairly inconsequential movie but it’s a blast.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan so I don’t have a lot of opinions here. It’s fun! Not a lot more I want from Star Wars. Ultimately didn’t intrigue me enough to wanna see the rest of the trilogy.

Ten no Chasuke (2015) This movie is a little weird, a little goofy and a lot of fun. I like the guy who just constantly lives through different movie plots because the angel writing his life can’t think of anything original, that tickled me.

Good Movies I Don’t Have a Clever Title Here They’re good movies, Brent.

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground (2018) An enjoyable, well-made documentary but considering its subject matter disappointingly conventional.

Black Panther (2018) This movie could have been much better had it not been under the constraints of the MCU. Still one of the best offerings of the genre this decade.

Boy Meets Girl (2014) We need more movies like this. Not just for representation (although that is important) but also because cinema needs a greater variety of stories than are currently being told.

Brooklyn (2015) The scope of this movie is very small but the characterization is nuanced and every aspect of the film goes towards furthering that.

Bugs (2016) The focus of this movie is split between its very interesting subject matter (the use of bugs as food around the world) and the chefs we’re following around who kind of seem like dicks and honestly drag the movie down a lot.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Steve Rogers is one of my favorite MCU characters, purely on the strength of this movie. In a world where no one seems to know how to adapt Superman to film, it’s nice they got this one right.

Cloud Atlas (2012) This movie has such lofty ambitions and I admire it for that, even if the execution is off at times. But the use of yellowface is..... bad. It’s very bad and the directors should have known better.

Cold War (2018) I love the music in this, which is good because it is near constant.

Damsel (2018) I love a deconstructed western and I love Robert Pattinson. It’s a shame that the female character at the center of the story wasn’t better developed, considering how much screen time she got.

Damsels in Distress (2011) This movie is quirky and cutesie, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (and usually isn’t mine) but I love it. Some solid acting goes a long way.

Der kommer en dag (2016) This movie is two hours of children suffering yet it comes across as so optimistic? I think it’s the space race stuff. Who doesn’t love the space race?

Frantz (2016) I am always down for stories that reckon with the effects of WWI.

Future Baby (2016) There’s a scene in this movie where a surrogate mother gives birth and it is both very graphic and heart-wrenching. If the rest of the movie were more like that one scene, it’d be on my shortlist for the best of the decade.

Fyre (2019) How was Fyre Festival a real thing that happened?

Girls Don’t Fly (2016) Girls don’t fly because the man training them to be pilots is a dick and treats them horribly. It’s a bummer but important to uncover.

Hidden Figures (2016) Kevin Costner’s character needed to be written out - black stories that don’t involve “good” white people are both possible and necessary. But I adore all three main actresses and they do some amazing work.

Hjartasteinn (2016) The subject matter is cliché but it’s handled beautifully.

The Lego Movie (2014) Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you’re part of a team!

Journey to the Shore (2015) I honestly wasn’t sure how to feel for most of the run time of this movie but by the end it got me.

On Body and Soul (2017) This movie feels like a dream and I mean that in a good way.

The Salvation (2014) Have I mentioned that I love deconstructed westerns? Mads Mikkelsen is always on point, even with garbage material, but he’s got some good stuff to work with here.

Searching for Ingmar Bergman (2018) This movie made me more interested in its director, Margarethe von Trotta, than Bergman himself. Everyone should check out The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum!

The Shape of Water (2017) This movie is very much like a fairy-tale, which means it’s not particularly nuanced or complicated, but it is beautiful.

Still the Water (2014) This movie starts with a cow being graphically slaughtered and yet the only word I can think of to describe it is “gentle”. But maybe skip the first five minutes if you’re sensitive to blood or animal death.

Studio 54 (2018) How were the 70s even real?

Sumarbörn (2017) It’s a rare feat to get such good acting out of child actors.

Thor: Ragnarök (2017) The best MCU movie. It’s a lot of fun without once losing its heart, which is a rare thing for Marvel (just google the words “bathos” and “mcu”, other people have covered this already).

Warm Bodies (2013) The cutest rom-com of the decade features a zombie as its main lead. I’m not mad about it.

Wild Tales (2014) The dissonance between the realist shooting style and the cartoonish violence often results in some excellent dark humor. The rest of the time, it just feels kind of off.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) Jordan Belfast is both a lot of fun and utterly despicable and the movie is not afraid to go as balls to the walls as it needs to.

The Young Karl Marx (2017) So like... Marx and Engel were into each other? At least a little, right?

Great Movies Also No Clever Title

Andið eðlilega (2018) Okay so I don’t watch a lot of Icelandic cinema but from what I have seen, I am incredibly encouraged by the direction it is heading. Call this exhibit A.

Ága (2018) This movie is very slow and not a lot happens but that’s kind of why it works so well. It hooked me in and had me genuinely interested in every uneventful scene.

Brecht’s Threepenny Film (2018) I walked away feeling like I’d understood maybe one third of this film but it left me with a feeling of exhilaration that’s hard to define and that few films manage.

Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010) Adèle Blanc-Sec is like Tintin and Indiana Jones combined except way better. In a just world, she would be a much more popular character and the reported film trilogy would have actually happened.

En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (2014) This movie is delightfully weird and messed up. Nothing more to say here.

The Favourite (2018) I was honestly expecting to be let down by this movie after all the overwhelming praise but as it turns out, it deserved all of the accolades and possibly more.

Gravity (2013) This movie was kind of marketed as “realistic sci-fi” and while I can’t say it felt particularly real, the emotional arc sure as hell did.

Inception (2010) The complexity of this film was vastly over-hyped but it’s still the best work I’ve seen by Nolan (though to be fair, I still haven’t seen Dunkirk). Kreuzweg (2014) The film is composed of just fourteen still shots, representing the Stations of the Cross. That could have come across as really gimmicky but it works because the shots are well staged and the material is just that good. Loveless (2017) This is the bleakest, most depressing movie I think I’ve ever seen. The Martian (2015) The best thing about this movie is the way it shows the world coming together just to save this one guy. International cooperation is the future!

Paradies: Liebe (2012) This is a movie about sex tourism and it is as unpleasant to watch as that sounds. But it’s also incredible.

Paradies: Hoffnung (2013) The third in Seidl’s paradise trilogy (I missed the middle part, don’t remember why). Just as messed up as Liebe but mildly more palatable.

Une nouvelle amie (2014) I saw this movie with my dad, which was kind of awkward, but that doesn’t take away from its beauty. We really do need more stories like this.

Tale of Tales (2015) I am always here for a fairytale adaptation, particularly ones that stick close to the dark, gruesome, humorous tone of most traditional fairytales.

Welcome to Norway (2016) This movie is just really, really funny.

White God (2014) If you’re sensitive to animal abuse then this is not the film for you. The dogs in this movie actually won the Palm Dog Award and it was well deserved. They’re very good dogs! Tom of Finland (2017) How refreshing to see a movie about a historical gay person that isn’t all death and tragedy! It does have some of that, unavoidably, but it’s also a lot of fun and ultimately is a celebration of a very important sub-cultural figure.

Vinterbrødre (2017) I wasn’t expecting a movie set in a mining community to look this beautiful.

Wonder Woman (2017) The best superhero movie of the decade, despite the slightly messy third act. It’s such an earnest, hopeful movie and unlike most films of the genre, it’s not afraid to take itself seriously or to come across as cheesy. Superheroes are cheesy! That’s one of the best things about them!

Amazing Animation I don’t like animation being singled out from live action as if it’s somehow less, but I wanted to highlight how many excellent animated films were made this decade.

The Breadwinner (2017) I’ve seen this film’s production company, Cartoon Saloon, been called the Irish version of Disney but Disney has never made anything half this daring. Coco (2017) The ending made me sob like a little kid. This movie doesn’t get enough credit for being one of only two Pixar films this decade to live up to their early work.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) The flight scenes in this movie gave me actual vertigo and I loved it.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) The rare sequel that’s actually better than the original! For all the franchises that exist out there just to continue milking that cash cow, it’s nice to see something get continued because the filmmakers had more stories to tell.

Loving Vincent (2017) This movie has been criticized for a weak plot, to which I say: it’s an animated movie made up of oil paintings! Do you really care about the plot? Sometimes the spectacle is all you need, especially when it’s something that touches you as deeply as Vincent van Gogh’s art does.

Moana (2016) Moana’s scenes with her grandmother and Te Fiti are up there with some of the most emotionally evocative stuff to come out of Disney studios. It’s a pity the rest of the movie couldn’t quite live up to that.

Rise of the Guardians (2012) Mostly, this movie just looks incredible. I am also an eternal sucker for Chris Pine, even if his voice sounds weird coming out of a teenager’s mouth.

Song of the Sea (2014) This is the most beautiful animated film I’ve ever seen outside of Studio Ghibli’s best, both the look and the feel of it.

Tangled (2010) I know I sound like an old fogy but this movie would’ve been much better if it had been traditionally animated. Still pretty good!

Toy Story 3 (2010) It’s been nine years since the third Toy Story came out?? Christ, this decade.

Your Name (2016) I really should be watching more anime.

Zootopia (2016) Disney’s best work since Treasure Planet, which is an underrated masterpiece. It’s almost worth the resurgence in furries (jk furries, you’re okay).

This Is Why You Guys Should Be Watching Documentaries Because documentaries are a seriously underrated art form.

Ama-San (2016) This is the kind of cinema vérité filmmaking I live for.

Behind the Curve (2018) The existence of flat earthers remains baffling (well, maybe not that baffling when you look at the rest of our society) but this documentary is excellent.

Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) This is a documentary about a cache of lost silent films that were found in the 70s and most of the movie is silent, with information being conveyed through text and images. It’s these kinds of choices that elevate a good documentary beyond just educational programming.

Exodus: Where I Come From Is Disappearing (2016) Absolutely heart-wrenching. It’s difficult to watch but the issues it discusses shouldn’t be looked away from.

Foodies (2014) There’s a foodie in this movie who rates his food on looks before he even tastes it and a chef whose signature dish is a dessert called “sex on the beach” which includes a very realistic-looking used condom. I wanted those two to meet but they never did and that is my one criticism of this film.

Free Solo (2018) I developed a fear of heights after watching this movie.

The Great Green Wall (2019) I had never heard of the great green wall before seeing this movie. It’s so surreal to get a window into a society where no one is arguing about climate change because they are already undeniably feeling the effects of it. And by strange, I mean incredibly sad and upsetting.

How to Let Go of the World: and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change (2016) Speaking of climate change. This movie takes on climate grief and shows why you can’t stop at that, why you need to push past it and keep fighting. I’d argue The Great Green Wall actually does that same thing and better but it’s still a very necessary message.

Into the Inferno (2016) Werner Herzog is just. The best. Especially his documentaries.

Kismet (2014) This movie examines how art affects people by way of one of the least respected art forms out there (soap operas). I just really love that premise and the execution is even better.

Merchants of Doubt (2014) Honestly fuck every single person making money by hastening our descent towards climate catastrophe. Good movie, though.

My Scientology Movie (2015) This was the first Louis Theroux movie I saw and it’s a great one to start with. For all they’ve been treated like a joke, Scientologists are actually pretty scary.

The Other Side of Everything (2017) The personal is the political in this film. What an incredible look at the ways our past shapes our present and future.

Pervert Park (2014) This movie fucked me up.

The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) The conceit of this film is looking at the US prison system indirectly by keeping the camera outside the actual prisons and off actual prisoners. It works incredibly well, just astounding documentary film making.

Push (2019) Just when you thought you couldn’t hate the rental market any more!

Safari (2016) Fuck trophy hunters.

The Silence of Others (2018) I didn’t even know about the Spanish 1977 Amnesty Law until I saw this movie. Maybe that’s just my own ignorance but I feel it shows how necessary documentaries like these are.

Tower (2016) I cried like a baby watching this movie. Using rotoscope animation to tell the story of the 1966 shootings a the University of Texas was I think an excellent choice and made for a unique documentary.

Visages villages (2017) Agnès Varda is possibly my favorite director and it hurts to leave this one off the “best” list (call it an unofficial #11). Still not sure I shouldn’t have swapped out one of the actual top ten for it.

Welcome to Sodom (2018) The world is so fucked up.

It Stayed With Me Movies that left me reeling and that I couldn’t get out of my head for days after watching (call all of them an unofficial joint #12).

The Act of Killing (2012) Speaking of fucked up! It is absolutely surreal seeing these mass murderers try to justify their actions to the interviewers. “I was just doing my job” is no excuse and trying to use it as one is actually reprehensible.

Arrival (2016) I didn’t actually see it until this year and I felt it couldn’t possibly live up to the hype but it did! It’s reminiscent of Interstellar in that in this ‘hard’ science fiction story the ultimate solution is based on an emotional revelation but Arrival pulled it off much better. The Congress (2013) This is basically two movies in one; one is fairly grounded sci-fi and the other is just a straight up acid trip in film form. In any case, Robin Wright is absolutely flawless.

Carol (2015) Cate Blanchett please date me. Grüße aus Fukushima (2016) I’m always gonna be a sucker for a movie about women connecting and helping each other through trauma.

High Life (2018) I saw this one knowing nothing about it and ngl it shocked me a bit. The way it incrementally got more and more fucked up made me feel a bit like a frog being slowly boiled alive. November (2017) The atmosphere this movie creates is unreal. Maybe not the strongest characterization but it balances a feeling of magic and wonder with just utter bleakness and it left me reeling. Paterson (2016) I can’t even fully explain why I loved this movie so much or why it stuck me. Mostly, it’s just so damn cozy. The Square (2017) I mean, that scene with the ape man was fucked up right? Tangerine (2015) I don’t think filming on your iPhone is the future of cinema or anything but it does show how accessible filmmaking is slowly becoming. Also, that scene of Alexandra performing Toyland is one of the best musical moments in cinema this decade and that is not up for debate. Team Hurricane (2017) I’ve never seen a movie with an aesthetic like this before (it’s very vaporwave) but this film is about and was mostly shot by a group of actual teenage girls. It’s a little melodramatic in places but at the same time that feels very sincere and the girls all clearly have a lot of talent and a lot to say. Varda par Agnes (2019) This movie probably wouldn’t have stuck with me so much if Agnès Varda hadn’t died earlier this year. She is a truly unparalleled figure in film history.

The Best According to me, anyway. But I’m right.

Cameraperson (2016) This is a different kind of documentary filmmaking. What it most reminds me of is Beaches of Agnès (no, I’m never done talking about Agnès Varda) but even that is not a perfect comparison. It’s deeply personal while also covering an insane variety of topics. Embrace of the Serpent (2015) This movie feels like a dream and I mean that in the best way possible. At turns beautiful, brutal, and absolutely baffling. The Florida Project (2017) I’ve seen this movie criticized for glorifying poverty and I can’t discount that opinion. For my part, I thought this movie did an incredible job balancing the world as seen through the eyes of a carefree child enjoying her summer and the dangerous, precarious reality of living in poverty. Inside Out (2015) When Pixar gets it right, they get it really right. The Love Witch (2016) I just really, really love witches. The best looking live action movie of the decade. The fact that writer/director/editor/producer Anna Biller hasn’t made another film since is an actual crime. Melancholia (2011) No movie has ever hit me this hard in such a visceral way; I was miserable for days after seeing it. Lars von Trier is an asshole but he knows how to film depression. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Believe the hype, it is actually perfect. And I don’t even like action movies! Moonlight (2016) It’s rare to see a movie this deeply, devastatingly human. The final two shots of the film, paired together, are literally the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in a theater. Kona fer í stríð (2018) The best Icelandic movie that’s been made yet. Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir is a national treasure. Shoplifters (2018) I mean, who’s expecting a movie called ‘Shoplifters’ to be so devastating? It’s such a painful film but it is also heartwarming and intimate. Un couteau dans le coeur (2018) This movie is strange and funny and violent and gorgeous. I’ve never had such a good experience at a film festival as I did the two times I went to see this movie.

#well it's done #this was mostly written for an audience of one aka me #but hey this took a while so do check it out if you want

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