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#I always try to portray them like this lately
looptroupe · 2 days
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HI GORGEOUS!!!!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL US ABOUT YOUR WIPS AND AUS IM REALLY INTERESTED 🙏🙏🙏
Foams at the mouth
I’m in the middle of writing up a whole HC post for someone asking about a highschool AU but I’m gonna take this opportunity to sidetrack the conversation towards something I’d love to genuinely see from the series… a HEAVY (film) noir lean. Think: Bogart, Framed, Gilda, Vertigo… probably pushing the era back 40’s, 50’s way (Maybe even some 30’s lean in there, if I could get away with it) instead of the general 60’s vibe Lupin has going for it.
I think there’s a TON of potential there. I mean, I’m aware something like this was pitched (and never picked up, sigh…) so there IS sentiment there, and the idea has been thought about, but instead of TWCFM’s ‘serious Lupin’ I’d love to see a true noir ‘serious Lupin’. I think you can put these characters into a serious setting without making them straight up evil, and I’ll be honest, I think it would be way more appealing than the stuff they’ve been releasing lately (besides Zero. I have to admit that I loved Zero).
I’d want the gang to actually feel like criminals, though. Cutting shady deals in illegal bars, Lupin running his mouth to big players about whatever new heist he has up his sleeve. I’d take them back to being Miyazaki-esque ‘living paycheck-to-paycheck’ rather than ‘insta-rich Lupin funding his hedonistic spirit’ because I think that would work better in this universe: Lupin is constantly getting them in hot shit with the big leagues because he can’t keep his mouth shut. Jigen has shot ten guys this week who have come knocking at their hideout’s door looking for trouble. Goemon’s sick of digging graves and is antsy to finally be who he dreams of being. Fujiko’s got her eyes on a bigger prize, like always.
Zenigata’s an underpaid beat-cop-turned-inspector who has been trying to climb the ranks for a long while. He’s ambitious, but a little too soft for his own good: he’s hopeful in a way that most of the guys in his squad aren’t, and that makes him the perfect candidate for when the commissioner has to shill a shitty 9-5 case on an unsuspecting worker. A file lands on his desk, and he flips through it with this eager fire, like he’s just been asked to take on the world, and Lupin and his gang smile up at him from the pages.
Lupin is a crook, he learns. Part-time petty thief, full-time smooth-talker: a man with a legacy to live up to and not a whole lot to show for it besides a reputation as a lady-killer and a particularly long unpaid tab at the seediest bar in town. His sticky fingers have landed him in more trouble than they’ve gotten him out of, and recent reports say that he’s managed to get under the skin of the most notorious once-criminal-now-film-director in town… the very criminal that underhandedly paid Zenigata’s boss to start an official investigation in the first place.
Jigen is a gun-for-hire. Babysitter, bodyguard, hitman… whatever you need, he’ll do, however begrudgingly. He’s not a guy you mess with: and his reputation is actually pretty good in criminal circles. He’s well-respected and well-liked. Or, he was, until the monkey-faced man at the bar implicated him in a crime he didn’t commit. Now, he’s babysitting without pay, and he’s starting to get a little sick of having to put bullets into the faces of old friends who decide his bounty is worth more than his loyalty. Figures.
Goemon’s a man slightly-less-out-of-time. A famous Japanese-American film star, he’s known world-over for starring in Samurai flicks alongside his leading lady, Fujiko Mine. The thing is, Goemon is classically trained in swordslinging, and when Lupin offers him an opportunity to be the very person he’s been portraying on screen, he’s more than happy to throw his reputation away. He never cared much for fame, anyway. There’s just this one little hitch: he’s enamoured with the sword he last used on set, and he won’t take no for an answer when he asks Lupin to retrieve it for him.
Fujiko has her eyes on a prize a little more exciting than Zantetsuken: the film empire she’s helped build herself. The tabloids can’t get enough of her, and she knows that a marriage to the most famous director the world has ever seen might just secure her a place in history. The thing is, the man she’s trying her best to seduce has stopped paying her attention since his beloved priceless-antique-turned-prop-sword went missing, and she’s determined to get it back for him. Because what would make him fall quicker? Ah, there’s just one catch: Lupin is kind of charming, and the life he’s living is… exciting. Tempting. Fujiko likes playing with fire, but she’s starting to get a little too close to this one particular flame. The heat has her cheeks burning… Or maybe that’s Goemon’s doing.
They’re a strange little bunch, the Lupin Gang. But man, do people have a habit of underestimating them. Zenigata included. Because what he thinks to be a simple case of theft soon turns into something more sinister as the layers of movie-magic veneer begin to peel away. Maybe Lupin was onto something, targeting this guy, and maybe this hotshot director isn’t quite as reformed as he says he is.
He went to court recently, after all. Say, how much did he pay the judge to overturn that guilty verdict? Zenigata would like that sum as a pay rise once this has all blown over. That, and some fresh smokes.
((Mmm someone should hop on board and help me develop this I think. Could be a fun little exercise on the side… if it’s up anyone’s alley >:) ))
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ifindus · 10 months
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how do you imagine the nordics noses to look like? like from a side profile <3
Like this! 💖
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fire-eyed-raven · 7 months
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If every time I've seen Madara being terribly mischaracterised I've got a penny I would probably be reach already T_T
At least warring states/founding of Konoha times Madara
#I'm so sick and tired of the “macho-man” Madara as I call him#oh so agressive and a conqueror the quintessence of masculinity etc#so hungry for power and wanted to be a hokage etc#so confident!#but..... he is not????#It's very obvious in the Manga that he's sad and depressed and insecure in his position#and he's not a forceful tyrant as people love to portray him#he listens to what other people want ( his clan and Izuna) he doesn't try to force them to do anything unless it's inevitable#he hasn't wanted to be a hokage he was surprised and not sure that he would be a right choice for a position#when Hashirama told him he wants him to be a hokage#when he overheard Hashirama and Tobirama speaking he clearly was going to Hashirama to talk#he didn't confront them right on the spot like he could he turned and run#he didn't confront them at all until Hashirama came to him to speak ( too late)#that's not how aggressive confident person beheaves#and even later in the 4rth war ark....#his original plan hadn't included war or big scale violence#he wanted for it to be realised without much collateral damage ( war happened because of obito)#people always basing his dominative/sadistic interpretation off this ark#but the fact is - he doesn't enjoy dominating and beating people who are weaker than him#the mere fact of victory doesn't bring him joy or satisfaction#and people almost always write him like he gets off on it...#he is bored almost the whole ark - he gets emotional and exited when Hashirama appears#because it's Hashirama and because he is a promise of struggle#the promice of fight with an equal or stronger opponent#what Madara canonically gets the kick out of is the process of the fight the struggle the fight against the strongest opponent#he seems downright joyful when his ass gets beaten he's enjoying it and that's canon#the man canonically enjoys being overpowered and getting his ass beaten#and comments on how he's bored and unsatisfied with beating and overpowering others 🤦‍♀️#the fact that he canonically represent the ying part in the yang/ying pair with Hashirama#is another meaningful matte which I won't expand on here
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indecisivemuch · 1 month
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The Pact
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Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader
Summary: Seeing you yearn for a relationship and dejected over the lack of one, Luke Castellan proposes a dating pact. Little did you know, he was going to do more than just wait until the day the pact could happen (friends-to-lovers, fluff, pining, a lot of longing, lowkey jealous luke).
Note: Sort of inspired by Monica and Chandler's pact thing from Friends.
Word count: 3.4k
You were spending some time alone near the lake, trying to enjoy mid summer sunlight as well as the silence from the lack of campers and couples around. For some strange reason, the number of people dating at least tripled in the last three weeks. If you were honest, the sight of happy couples was starting to irritate you.
Your eyes glided through the lines in the novel you were reading, though you could barely get past a few pages before a degree of bitterness seeped through. You set the book down and sighed. Your head leaned against the tree behind you while shutting your eyes and furrowing your eyebrows. 
Oh, if only someone could love you the same way love was portrayed in books.
Before the scowl could grow permanent on your face, you felt light finger tips setting on the crease between your eyebrows. Instead of getting scared, you remained calm. You knew immediately who it was because there was only one person who would do that. The person sat down next to you and you turned to see them already smiling at you. 
To most, Luke Castellan was just the Hermes cabin counselor and best swordsman. But to you, he was a close friend and confidante. He has made it a habit to press softly against your scrunched eyebrows to prevent you from scowling further. It was somewhat sweet to you.
“What’s got you so bothered?” Luke asked, peering at you while tilting his head in a boyish manner. The look alone somehow made you blush. There was no denying that Luke was cute. You knew at least a handful of people at camp who would agree. It honestly surprised you that he was still single. Though you were somewhat relieved at that. For about a year now, you have had a little crush on the Hermes cabin counselor. It was not hard falling for his kind words and sweet actions.
“This is going to sound so stupid…” You let out a deep sigh.
“Oh, come on, since when have I judged you for being stupid?”
“Oh, so you do admit I’m stupid sometimes?”
“Yes, but is that really a problem, considering I find it endearing?” You hope he did not see the way your face heated up at his words. 
Little did you know, Luke did notice it, just like he has always noticed little details about you. Knowing he was the reason behind your pink-tinted cheeks filled his heart with joy. In fact, throughout the last year, it got to the point where he would grow very bold with his flirty jokes, disguising his feelings in between them. Honestly, he was surprised you had not caught up to the truth yet. 
“Okay, well, so many people have gotten together lately, and it’s got me a little bit annoyed.”
“Why?” Luke questioned.
“Because, I want that experience, you know? The teenage love thing. We already have a strange life, fighting creatures and going on quests that could kill us. I just want to at least experience an aspect of a normal teenage life,” you watched him nod and digest your words. “I didn’t want it, want it. But seeing everybody else experiencing it makes me wonder when it will be my turn, you know?” You sighed before adding, “To make matters worse, it seems like nobody is interested in me that way, so…”
Luke almost let out a chuckle of disbelief at your last remark. Oh, many Demigods found you cute. But if only you knew to look right under your nose. He has always been here. If only you could see him how he wanted you to and give him a chance.
Ever since the day Luke Castellan met you, he became a dreamer. During the night, every dream would be of you, while in the morning, he’d daydream of you until he would see you next. You filled in every thought, walking in his mind like it was your home. But even if it wasn’t your place, he’d still give you the keys without hesitation.
“So…you just want to experience teenage love?”
“Well, that, and ideally, to be loved too. I don’t just want some casual teenage love, but at the same time, I’m tired of waiting around.”
A lightbulb practically lit up inside Luke’s head as an idea popped up. The logical part of his mind was yelling that this was a bad idea, though the more chaotic side was pushing him to just give it a shot. Though, he spent little time contemplating.
“What if we make a pact? By the end of summer - so maybe in about a month - if you haven’t started dating anybody…let’s date each other,” Luke blurted out before his mind could talk him into backing out. It was stupid, and he knew it. But if that was one way to potentially date you, then so be it. 
Luke’s heart squeezed when he saw you completely frozen. He started panicking. Maybe he made it too obvious, and perhaps you didn’t like him in that way and were trying to find a way to back out. 
“I mean—just so the both of us could experience teenage love, you know? I think it will be great. We already get along well. We’re good friends. What could go wrong?” Luke tried in a more casual voice.
A lot could go wrong — you thought. A possible thing that could go wrong is that you would fall harder for Luke, and that feeling would absolutely destroy you when you two break up because he finally becomes genuinely interested in another girl. Or, it has you so hung up that you would confess to him, only for him to say that whatever you two had was just a pact. But Gods, your heart must actually be a fool to whisper to your brain, ‘I mean…at least you would no longer have to imagine how it would feel like to be his.’
“Sure,” you said before you could think twice about it. “Deal,” you grabbed his hand and shook it.
“Deal.”
Now…Luke just needed to do a couple more things in the meantime.
During the first week, you asked Clarisse to set you up with somebody. She introduced you to one of her friends, Dean. However, when you mentioned Dean to Luke, he clicked his tongue before warning you.
“I just think you deserve better, Y/N. I’ve known him for five years and have never seen him bring one person on a date twice. Last week alone, he went on a date with five people.” Since then, you haven’t spoken to Dean again, deciding that you don’t want to try and date a playboy.
Two weeks later, you asked this guy on a date. He came to the picnic you had set up with a bouquet of flowers. However, your smile faltered slightly when you realized they were the type of flowers you disliked. You shook the negative thoughts away. After all, it’s the effort that counts.
Things quickly went downhill as the guy started sneezing…a lot. His eyes were watering, and it seemed like he was borderline getting sick. You noticed him trying to stop sneezing. You could feel the guy trying—you really did. But the last straw broke when he turned away to sneeze mid-sentence but didn’t do it fast enough. 
Three days before the day that marked the day the pact would be able to begin, you attended a party hosted by the Hermes cabin. You were honestly done with trying to find someone to date. Perhaps, this pact thing was not such a bad idea after all, even if Luke might not like you as much as you like him. But at least you knew he would treat you well.
However, your numbers must have turned because somebody had walked up to you and struck up a conversation. With similar humor, your jokes bounced off each other’s, and you almost started crying from laughing at one point.
The sound of your laughter caught the attention of the Hermes cabin counselor. Luke could feel his lips slowly curling up into a smile at the sound of your giggles and laughter. He has always found the sound so endearing.
However, when he turned his gaze over at you, his eyebrows scrunched at the sight of you conversing with another Hermes boy — Oscar, who was also one of his friends. Luke was no longer paying attention to the conversation in his circle right now. His ears were busy trying to make out what that boy was saying to make you laugh like that. However, he almost left his friends when you touched Oscar’s arm while giggling at another one of his jokes.
You always tend to physically react to Luke’s jokes, from small touches while laughing to you playfully slapping his arm at his cheekier jokes. They never fail to make the tip of his ears grow red while his cheeks match the same color. Though Luke swore he had never seen you this way with anybody else. Hence, he was less than enthusiastic at the sight of you doing the same with another guy right now. 
You continued talking to Oscar, but your conversation stopped when somebody bumped into Oscar and spilled their drink onto him. 
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to trip…” the guy who bumped into Oscar apologized.
“Chris, it’s okay, don’t worry about it,” Oscar said, though a sigh quickly followed his words. “I’ll just go and wash the drink off, but I’ll talk to you in a bit, though?” Oscar looked at you. He smiled when you gave him a sweet nod.
“Sorry again, man,” Chris said before watching Oscar exit the cabin. He turned to you now. “So, how are you? Are you enjoying the party?” You answered Chris and started catching up with him. You and Chris met through Luke, though as the years went on you two became friends as well.
With your focus now on Chris, you did not notice the figure of the Hermes cabin counselor zooming past you two and outside, following a certain someone. However, your conversation with Chris didn’t last long because Clarisse swooped in and borrowed you from Chris. 
“So, I saw you talking to Oscar. Give me the details,” she said, dragging you down to sit beside her.
“He’s great! It’s so easy to talk to him and be around him.”
“Easier than with Luke?” you gave her a warning glare. You might have told her about your little crush on Luke, though you confessed that to her out of the belief that nothing would ever happen and that it would pass soon. Fast-forward to a year later, your feelings have not changed. 
“...No, but—”
“I’m telling you, Luke’s the best one for you.”
“He doesn’t like me like that.”
“If he doesn’t like you like that, he would have never made that pact with you." When you didn’t reply to her, Clarisse decided to bring something else up. “Alright, let’s move on and talk about something else then…another candidate. Dean told me you didn’t show up.”
“Show up to what?”
“He wrote you a note asking you to meet him?” the look on your face must have told Clarisse you had no idea what she was talking about. “He wanted to ask you out on a date in person after that talk you two had three weeks ago.”
“Where did he leave the note?”
“Apparently, he was planning to get me to give it to you, but he passed Luke on his way to me, who offered to give it to you.”
“Well, I never got the note. I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. Luke told me he’s quite a player.” Clarisse pondered on the information you just provided her. Dean was in no way a player. She knew he has only been on one date with another person at camp. However, the puzzle pieces quickly clicked for Clarisse and she leaned back with a smirk. 
Before you could question the look on Clarisse's face, Oscar came back to the party. 
“Well, if you don't mind, Oscar is back and I have a good feeling about him. So I'm going to go and talk to him,” you left Clarisse, walking in the direction Oscar did. Meanwhile, Clarisse only silently chuckled. She knew exactly what Luke was up to and it made her shook her head in amusement.
“Hey,” you touched Oscar’s arm, though the cheery grin on your face fell when he slightly flinched and shrugged your hand off. “Uhm, it’s good you got that stain off your shirt,” your eyebrows furrowed when you realized Oscar was not even making eye contact with you.
“So, tell me more about that quest you went on last year?” you asked, hoping to start a conversation again. However, Oscar quickly broke out the truth.
“Listen, you seem very lovely, but I don’t want to put myself in the middle of anything. I don’t want to cause any drama.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not the type of guy to steal girls my friends are talking to or having a thing with,” you scrunch your eyebrow in confusion. Just as you were going to question what Oscar was referring to, his eyes betrayed him and looked at someone. You followed his eyesight only to see Luke already looking at you while glancing between you and Oscar. Though realizing he had been caught, Luke looked away and back to his friends.
That was when everything made sense.
“Uh oh…” Chris’s voice snapped Luke from whatever his friends were saying. He followed his gaze to where Chris was looking, only to see you storming over.
“We need to talk,” Luke tried not to think too much about the way your hand felt on his wrist as you pulled him through the crowd and outside. As always, he blindly followed you to wherever you were taking him. 
You released Luke from your grip and stood with hands on your hips. You took a deep breath. 
“Are you kidding me? Have you been sabotaging me? You told me Dean plays around, but apparently he doesn’t. He also gave you a note to give to me, but you never did it. Then, Oscar, who I was getting along with, came back acting weird, wouldn’t even look me in the eye, and then told me we have a thing going on?”
Oh, Gods, you found out about what he has been doing.
“Listen…” Luke started off while rubbing his neck, though he was unsure what to say next because he was indeed guilty of every accusation you were throwing towards him. But how was he meant to trust fate that you would still be single by the time the pact would be able to come true?
So, he intervened in his own way. That included throwing away Dean’s note, having Chris spill a drink on Oscar to get the boy away from you so Luke could have a talk with him. He might have also suggested your date two weeks ago to get you flowers, despite knowing that the boy was allergic to flowers.
All he wanted to do was to make sure the pact could happen.
“Luke…why? You know I wanted this. I wanted to experience things and date someone.” You weren’t mad, but you were slightly disappointed and confused. You didn’t understand Luke’s intentions behind his actions.
However, Luke misinterpreted the look on your face. He thought you were genuinely upset, and that alone pinched Luke’s heart. He gulped at the idea that he might have disappointed you or made you sad. Screw waiting until the pact happens before confessing. What use would that be when you might somehow start hating him?
“...Maybe I wanted it to be me,” Luke confessed, watching your eyes widen. “You told me you wanted to experience teenage love and feel loved, and you’re tired of waiting until it’s your turn. But I have never told you what I want.” Luke took a step closer to you before starting.
“I want to be the one to take you on dates and give you your favorite flowers every single time. I want to be your personal hype man and be your shoulder to cry on if you ever need one. I want to sit with you by the lake while you read. I also want to read the books you read and those little annotations you make. I want to learn about the things you love and the things you don’t. I want to do things you love. I want to show and tell you just how amazing you are every single day. I want to let the feelings I have right now grow cause I really like the idea of loving you, and I want to get there someday.”
You stood there shell-shocked. This felt almost surreal, like something you read from one of your novels. You have always wished to have someone who practically walked out of a romance novel.
“I want you.”
And here he was, standing in front of you, begging for a chance to be yours.
“And I know you just want teenage love, and I could offer you that. But just know I’m also offering so much more, even if you don’t treat the pact the same way as I do and will only view it as a casual relationship. But I suggested that pact and chased all those guys away because I like you a lot, Y/N. And in hindsight, it was stupid and selfish. But I did it because I felt like it was the only way I could have you.”
“I like you too, Luke,” the words slipped out so easily like they were always meant to be said. “I want you to be my teenage love. I want you too.” You’ve been walking around asking when it would be your turn. If only you had paid attention and looked closer instead, you might have noticed he felt the same way. You wanted everything he has spoken of and be just the same for him — to be there for him and learn to love the things he does.
“And I look forward to every single one of the things you’ve told me, and be the same for you. I really can’t wait for it. However, there is one thing I really want right now,” you said as you walked closer to him, one hand taking his own into yours.
“What?” Luke rasped out, looking so tentatively at you. Gods, whatever wish that spills from your lips this second will have him scour the world for it—whatever guarantees your happiness.
“I want you to kiss me.”
Oh, you could ask him for a thousand kisses, and he would give you a million.
Luke’s cheeks grew rosy at your request. He stepped closer, tucking your hair behind your ear without breaking eye contact. 
“Can I?” He whispered in a honey-like tone, and you knew right then that if he kept talking to you in that voice, you’d do absolutely anything he asked.
“Mhm,” your quiet hum granted Luke permission to his next addiction. Without hesitation, Luke attached your lips together with both hands caressing your face tenderly. In return, you wrapped your arms around his shoulders and pulled you both closer until your bodies were flushed against one another. Slowly but surely, you also tangled your fingers in his curls. Luke almost immediately melted against your touch, sighing in contentment against the kiss.
Luke was convinced this was now his new favorite thing to do. He wondered if you could taste it through the kiss—his feelings and borderline infatuation for you. Either way, he intended on making every kiss like this: wholeheartedly and as if it would be your last. 
Now, if you were to ask Luke Castellan how to get the person of your dreams, here’s what he’d advise you:
Step 1. Be stupid and propose a dating pact (tick).
Step 2. Chase away every other potential candidate (tick).
Step 3. Confess (tick).
Step 4. Fulfill all those promises you have made about loving the person (To be continued...But, he’s intending to do this for as long as you’ll let him).
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allur1ngs · 4 months
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✮ see no evil, hear no evil ✮
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TW: unedited, smut (dom & top!bada, sub & bottom!reader, teasing, strap usage–r!receiving, reader tries to ride bada’s strap for a bit before bada takes control, bada is very cocky in this one…idk mafia bada is just always so cocky to me during sex, bada’s strap is referred to as a cock/dick, exhibitionism, bada doesn’t receive again, sorry…, erm… dumbification, hyo hears you and bada fucking two times, she will never rest…), italicized words with quotes around them in this fic indicate a thought, and in a long block of text indicate a flash back, the picture in the middle purely for aesthetics/a visual aid and not meant to represent reader’s skin tone or body type!! this is entirely canon divergent and not a part of the mafia au timeline!!!!!!!!!!! if you want to read the canon version of this scenario, read this
SUMMARY: hyo will always be a dedicated bodyguard. she takes pride in the fact that she is able to stay by your side each day, and protect you. the only downside? she has to exercise immense amounts of self-restraint when she stands outside your bedroom or office door, and hears bada fucking you.
WC: 5.6k
A/N: an anon asked it so we did it!! a collab w my wife @bebeyue, make sure to read her continuation of this by clicking the three ellipsis at the end of this fic (this is a threat)!!!! this is the only time i’m cosigning on any form of hyo content–i make exceptions for aeri–so enjoy this one piece!! (ps. pls do not send any requests for hyo–i’m only writing for bada!!) but besides that, again, this is a “behind the scenes” of this drabble, but uses this fic as an opening, pls enjoy!!
DISCLAIMER: all characteristics portrayed are purely speculation and fiction, they are not meant to reflect bada or team bebe’s actual character, values, or attitudes. please keep this in mind!!
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Kim Hyo is a diligent bodyguard, and no one can deny that fact. Although Bada may at times nitpick at things she does, she can’t dismiss Hyo’s commitment to her job as your bodyguard. Through thick and thin, she’s been there, watching over you. Early mornings and late nights, her presence is never far.
Take, for instance, the current situation unfolding between you, Bada, and Hyo.
"I'm starting to think you really do want us to get caught." Bada’s voice comes from inside her office, and leaks into the hallway. Coincidently, you’d accidentally left the door open when you entered to hand your faincée her glasses. Now that accident left you in a rather compromising position.
Hyo stands outside Bada’s office, her back against the wall as your fiancée eats you out and toys with you. She’s not exactly sure what is specifically happening inside but from the sounds of moans, you’re enjoying what Bada is doing to you.
"I-I don't." You answer your fiancée’s prior statement, a hint of shame creeping into your voice.
"There you go again," Bada says, tapping her tongue against the roof of her mouth in displeasure. 
Hyo hears a shuffling sound and then another moan rings out from the office, this time the sound is significantly louder–she lets out a sharp breath and clutches her hands tightly together in front of her, struggling to keep up her professionalism. 
"Do you enjoy lying to me?" Bada continues.
Trying to distract herself, Hyo forces herself to think of something else. “What are we having for dinner tonight–” She begins a thought, but it’s interrupted by the sound of Bada’s stern voice speaking up again.
"Should I make you cum like this? Make you fucking cum all over your panties as punishment?"
“No.” You squeak, "Please--"
“The Boss is being very stern this time.” Hyo finally manages to collect herself enough to think a clear, coherent thought. “The last time this happened–” Her thought is interrupted by another that invades her mind. 
“Be honest, you like that type of stuff–” Tatter’s amused voice echoes in your bodyguard’s mind, her entire body going rigid.
“Fuck.” She mentally curses, closing her eyes behind her sunglasses. “It’s not like that–” Despite what fibs Hyo may try to convince herself of, the mind never lies. It is the truest and most honest representation of thought.
So it’s natural that Hyo thinks of the night prior to this most recent excursion between you and Bada, when you’d engaged in such activities.
The day had begun normally, much like today had, until certain events led your bodyguard to a cruel fate.
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3 days earlier
Standing on the steps of the Lee mansion, you beckon over your wife. “Come here,” you say, voice brimming with excitement.
Bada, who’d just spoken to Hyo, and asked her to bring around her Porsche 918 Spyder, turns to look up at you standing on the second step of the stairs toward the open driveway. “Coming.” She says, dismissing Hyo as she ascends the steps in your direction. When she reaches the step you’re standing on, positions herself behind you and starts to trail kisses up and down your neck. “Have I told you that you look beautiful? I love this dress…”
“You’ve only told me five times already.” You laugh while reaching into the pockets of your dress–a feature that you reverently appreciate–to pull out your phone. “But thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.” She mumbles into your skin, dragging her nose up and down while continuing to press heated, wet kisses on the crook of your neck.
“Bada, I want to take a picture.” You huff, trying to focus on opening the camera app on your phone.
“Take one then, I’m not stopping you.” She replies, never slowing down her sweet assault on your neck. 
“I can’t when you’re kissing me.” You argue back lightheartedly.
“Just angle the phone so I’m not in frame–”
Not convinced, you gently shy away from Bada’s lips. “I’ll let you give me kisses after I’ve taken the picture. Just two seconds, alright?”
“Fine.” Your fiancée pouts as she wraps her right arm under your boobs, unintentionally making them pop.
You barely notice as you lean back into her chest and hold up your phone, closing your eyes and smiling for the picture. But Bada does. She sees the way the skin of your tits shine in the low light, and how the picture looks incredibly intimate, like it’s something not meant to be seen by foreign eyes. She leans in, completely entranced by the photo, and your reflection–
The moment slips away like a gentle whisper in the breeze as you slowly open your eyes and your smile widens at the picture. You don’t comment on the nature of the photo, only saying, “It’s so cute, I have to post it on Instagram!” Which you quickly do, all the while Bada remains silent, moving her head back into the crook of your neck.
The kisses she’d given you prior, although passionate, are nothing compared to the heat with which she charges the kisses she places on your skin now. She uses just the tip of her tongue and drags it across your neck, which makes you freeze, and a puff of air leave your lips.
“Maybe we should stay in.” She whispers between kisses.
“Bada, you made reservations.” You mumble, bringing your hand up to the side of her head, clutching onto strands of her long, black and white striped hair. At the same time, Hyo pulls up in the Porsche. She parks it right in front of you both, then turns to face you, but when she catches sight of the intimate moment you two are sharing, she instantly faces forward and clears her throat. She tries to make it seem like she’s not listening to what either of you are saying, but your close proximity makes it almost impossible. 
“Fuck the reservations,” Bada says into your skin, winding her other arm around your midsection–again making your tits pop out. “It’s been a while since we had sex.”
“Bada, Hyo is here with the car.” You whisper, using weak force to pull on Bada’s hair in an attempt to pull her off of your neck.
You succeed, but your fiancée is displeased. “So?”
“So,” you give Bada an astonished glance, “she can hear and see us–”
“She’s not even looking our way.” Bada points at Hyo, who’s scrolling through her photo albums, trying to busy herself. “She’s on her phone–” Your fiancée suddenly frowns, pressing you closer to her chest. “Hyo, why are you looking at your phone?”
Your bodyguard instantly sits up and snaps her head in Bada’s direction, looking like she’s about to break out in a cold sweat. “Sorry Boss, I was just…uh–”
“Oh stop picking on her.” You gently swat at your fiancée’s arm and break away from her hold, quickly grabbing her hand and practically dragging her forward. “Let’s just go and eat dinner like we’d planned–”
Although you’re not able to see, Bada sends Hyo a look that screams, “You ruined my plans,” as you force her into the car.
Hyo gulps, moving to face forward and placing her hands on the wheel of the car.
Yeah, she’s in for it.
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The rest of the night surprisingly goes without a hitch after that. After leaving the Lee mansion, Hyo had proceeded to drive you two to the La Yeon, an upscale restaurant that serves traditional Korean cuisine, and only caters forty guests at a time. Bada had reserved a private room for you both to dine, so naturally Hyos stood outside as watch, only hearing small noises from your lively chatter.
But the real hell began on the car ride back to the Lee mansion. 
The three of you had been sitting in a peaceful silence when you suddenly spoke up, curiosity striking you, "Just how much did you have to pay for the private room we ate in?"
Bada nonchalantly shrugs, "Not much."
"Somehow, I doubt that," you banter. 
Bada shifts her gaze from staring straight ahead to glance at you. "Well, it wasn't much for me."
"Ah, that makes more sense," you nod, releasing a small laugh. "But you know, you don't have to take me to fancy restaurants. I'd be happy to spend time with you, no matter where we do it."
Your fiancée shakes her head, "I don't take you out of obligation. I do so because I love you. I want you to experience establishments that are worthy of your presence."
Turning your attention to Bada, you gaze at her through the barely-lit car. Her eyes reflect deep sincerity, sending butterflies fluttering in your stomach. "Bada... I'm just a woman—"
"You're not just a woman," she interrupts, her eyes stern yet holding glints of love behind the firmness. "You are my woman. My fiancée. What kind of spouse would I be if I didn't treat you?"
Bada's passionate gaze makes you turn away, your hand ghosting over your mouth as you grow bashful. "You can't just say things like that," you whisper, your voice meek and soft.
"Why? Does hearing how much I love you make you nervous?" Bada laughs, amused by your reaction.
"I just..." you trail off, struggling to find words to express your feelings. "I love you." Those three words are the only way to convey the warmth coursing through your body.
Bada smiles softly, grabbing your hand which you’d positioned in your lap. "I love you more."
You intertwine your fingers with hers, observing the way she affectionately runs her thumb over the gem on your engagement ring. "But you know," you suddenly add, prompting your wife to look up from your joined hands to meet your gaze. "you could have mentioned we were going to a Michelin-star restaurant. I felt a bit underdressed..." Your eyes shift down to the silky white dress you're wearing. While undeniably elegant, its somewhat scandalous design features thin straps supporting a teardrop-shaped neckline that accentuates your boobs, which gracefully twists into the bodice and tapers into the gown's lower hem.
"Underdressed?" Bada says incredulously. "You look absolutely beautiful–"
"All the other women were wearing name brands and elegant dresses–" you protest, but are cut off.
"What does it matter what they were wearing?" Bada furrows her eyebrows, genuinely confused by your words. “You could walk into this restaurant in your pajamas, and you’d still outshine every single one of those women.”
You let out a sharp breath, smiling shyly. “There you go again. I think you enjoy making me flustered.”
“If you’ve just barely realized that, I clearly have not been doing my job.” Bada laughs, gently squeezing your hand, which still remains in her grasp. “By the way, I thought I had thoroughly expressed how much I love the way you look, earlier.”
A fire lights in your stomach as you glance at her. “Well…”
“I really am not doing my job, am I?” Bada uses her unoccupied hand to gently touch the side of your face, and leans in. “I’ll just have to show you how beautiful you look in this dress.”
That last sentence sealed Hyo’s fate. She continued to drive as you let out small giggles, and Bada whispered things in your ear. What exactly she said, Hyo doesn’t want to imagine.
Upon arrival at the Lee mansion, you and Bada are a mess of scandalous whispers, and chuckles as you both ascend up the steps, your bodyguard lagging behind to park the car. But it seems you two are far too excited to keep your hands off each other, because when Hyo walks toward the Lee mansion steps after returning the Porsche to the garage, you’re both nowhere to be found. Your bodyguard rushes up the steps, mumbling curse words under her breath as she opens the door and races up the mansion’s winding staircase, heading toward the only place you must be, your shared bedroom. 
When she makes it there, she instantly walks to the right side of the door, her back up against the wall. She lets out a small sigh of relief, glad that Bada was too busy to tell her off for lagging behind. 
But then she hears it, a small sound, simple and tiny, innocent. 
“Bada!” You squeal, while a creaking sound barely reaches Hyo’s ears. It sounds like you’d been thrown onto the bed.
Inside the bedroom, Bada moves to hover above you, planting either of her arms beside your head. She smirks down at you, her eyes sweeping over every sliver of your skin that’s available to her prying eyes. She leans in to rub her nose against yours cutely, watching how you crinkle yours and smile out of instinct. “You’re fucking adorable.” Bada breathes, then places a sweet kiss on your lips.
“I love you.” You whisper when she pulls away.
“I love you more.” She whispers back, moving her hand to grab at one of the straps of your dress. She thumbs at the silk until she slowly begins to move the strap down your shoulder, the movement so light a shiver runs up your spine as you watch her. When she fully slips down the strap of the dress, your bare tit is exposed to the cold air, which makes your nipple pebbling because of the sudden temperature difference. “No bra?” Bada presses her thumb against your nipple, starting to trace delicate, mithodical circles to the sensitive bud.
“The fabric is thicker than it looks–” You breathe, but the words die on your lips as your fiancée moves to drag the other strap of your dress down. Now both of your tits are exposed to Bada’s hungry eyes.
“I really love this dress.” She grabs either side of your boobs, pushing them together to oggle the way your flesh meets to make a tantilizing image. The soft skin of your tits glows in the light, and the way your nipples continue to pebble because of the cold has Bada captivated.
“I think you should take it off me.” You say coquettishly. 
Bada stares at you for a moment with an excused expression before she releases your tits and sits up. “Actually, I had different plans for you.” She steps away from the bed, making her way to the dresser beside it before opening the bottom drawer. You turn your head to the side to watch with a confused expression, but what she pulls out from the drawer makes you smile.
Bada takes out a bottle of lube and her long, black strap, glancing at you from the corner of her eyes to see you carefully studying her every move with excitement in your eyes. “Looking forward to it, are we?” She remarks.
“Should I not be?” You flip over onto your stomach, placing your head in the palm of your hand as Bada begins to take off her dress pants and shirt. Like always, she only has her boxers and her bra on while she puts on her strap.
“Do you need help?” You pipe up.
Bada looks up and smiles. “If you’re offering.”
You quickly get off the bed and kneel down in front of your fiancée, helping her manuver through the harness and secure it onto her pelvis. When you’ve finished, you don’t stand up, instead, you look at Bada as you lean forward to press a kiss on the head of her cock, running your tounge along the silicone.
Bada lets a small hiss at your actions, her hand coming down to gently rest on your head. “C’mon.” She pats your head, signalling you to get up.
You do so without a single protest falling from your lips, but you take the bottle of lube out of Bada’s hand, pop it open and slowly place a glob of the sticky substance into the palm of your hand. Before your finacée can say anything, you lean in and place a passionate, all-tongue kiss as you rub up and down in cock, twisting your wrist like you’re really trying to give her a hand job.
Bada groans into your lips, grabbing the sides of your face and deepening the kiss until you’re just swapping saliva messily, small strings of it clinging to each other’s lips, connecting you two together. “Sit on the bed.” She whispers inbetween your clash of mouths.
You pause, then take a step back from your fiancée, your lips parted as you let out staggering breaths. Backing up until you feel the edge of the bed gently collide with your legs you sit down like you were told to.
Bada is quick to follow after you, but to your surprise, she doesn’t push your back onto the bed; instead, she climbs on and reclines against the bedframe with her back cradled by pillows. Her position makes her cock stand tall on her pelvis, the large head slightly drooping downwards when she slaps her thighs. “Sit on it.” She tells you, a glint of mischief in her eyes.
You tilt your head to the side in confusion but crawl towards her anyway, taking off your panties before placing your thighs on either side of her hips and sitting down just shy of her cock. “I thought you said you were going to show me how beautiful I look in this dress.” You lightheartidly banter. Truthfully, you don’t care who does the work, all you want is to have Bada’s dick inside you, tearing you apart. But, then again, if she was going to tease you, you might as well do it back once or twice.
“What, you can’t fuck yourself on my cock?” She laughs, stretching her arm out to place it on your right thigh.
“I can.” You huff, feeling embarrassment start to burn in the pit of your stomach. 
“I don’t know.” Bada imitates a thinking face. “You’re kind of a pillow princess if I’m being honest.”
“Wha–” You stutter, your mouth dropping open. “I’ve eaten you out before.”
“And who was still in charge then?” Bada argues, her amusement growing every passing second.
“Well–”
“Listen to me.” Your fiancée suddenly cuts you off, leaning forward so that her face is only inches away from yours–her cock slaps against her stomach, the action going unnoticed by her, but not by you. “Fuck yourself on my dick, and if you do well, I’ll take over and finish you off.” She takes her left hand and places it on your cheek, rubbing her thumb against your cheek. She takes note of how your skin feels unnaturally warm. “Does that sound good, baby?”
Your eyes, which had gone wide out of pure shock stare back at her like lustrous gems. You slowly begin to nod, forcing yourself to close your mouth and swallow. Bada nods with you, then moves to rest against the headboard again, her back hitting the pillows. 
Although the tone she’d taken on was domineering, she still holds one hands out for you to take, so she can help you up onto her cock, while the other bunches up your long dress so it’s not in the way. You, of course, take her hand and with her added strength, lift yourself up until the tip of her cock just barely slaps against your pussy lips. You let out a shaky breath at the small surge of stimulation, but focus on inching your hips downward. Slowly, the tip of Bada’s strap fills up your pussy, every inch making you breathe harder and your hips stutter. The slight confidence you’d felt just a moment before instantly fades away as you close your eyes and stop moving.
“It’s only the tip, I should be able to take more,” you think, but truthfully even just the tip of Bada’s long and thick strap would be hard for anyone to take.
“Don’t do it all at once.” Bada’s voice breaks you out of your thoughts, making you open your eyes and look at her. “It’s big. You’ll hurt yourself.” She says tenderly. “Just take it slow.”
You listen to your fiancée, carefully and meticulously sinking onto her cock, taking small breaks in between every inch until you’re finally able to sit in her lap, every inch of her monsterously big cock inside of you. “Oh, fuck.” You pant, leaning forward to catch your staggering breath and to give your pussy a time to adjust.
Bada watches you with a fond smile on her lips, she leans in to press a small kiss on your cheek–which just so happens to angle her cock further into you, making you gasp. “You took it all, I’m so proud of you.” She whispers sweetly, the soft side she only has for you peeking through her dominant demenour.
“I–” You say through heavy breaths. “Fuck.”
“It’s alright, just breathe.” Bada grabs hands grab at the sides of your face, trying to ground you. “In and out honey, in and out.”
You try to take in a deep breath but it catches in your throat. Still, with Bada’s guidance, you slowly begin to calm your breathing until it settles into small puffs.
“There.” She mumbles. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” You nod, shaking your head. “Just…it’s been a while–”
“I know it has, which is why you need to take it slow baby.” Bada’s eyes flash with a small glint of worry. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m not, just took a little longer to adjust.” You place your hand over Bada’s, now wearing a confident expression. “I can do it.”
Your fiancée gives you a hesitant look but slowly leans back, allowing you to take the reigns. You start off slow, moving up just an inch before sitting back down. Then the next time you go up you go a bit further, so on until you’re able to take out half of Bada’s strap before slamming back down on her lap.
You also start to pick up your pace, angling your hips forward so her cock drags against your walls deliciously. You let out small, breathy moans with each rise and fall of your hips, still trying to get more out of her strap. But it feels like you can’t. Every time you think you can take out more you feel your legs weaken and have to slam yourself down on her lap before you awkwardly fall.
All the while Bada watches you, carefully zeroing in on the base of her cock, which is only wet with a minimal amount of your slick. She catches every moment you struggle on top of her, trying so hard not laugh at how cute your frustrated face is. “Do you need help?” She asks after she notices you lose your rhythm and slam onto her lap with a small annoyed curse.
“No.” You say stubbornly. Trying to prove her wrong, you use all your strength to lift up from her cock and this time manage to get another inch out before you have to quickly go down again. This time the sensation is deeply pleasurable so you let out a louder moan, but in your attempt to savor the feeling you once again lose your rhythm.
“So, you still don’t want my help?” Bada tilts her head to the side, just barely able to stop herself from chuckling at the glare you give her. But this time, you don’t answer her, instead, you just pant on her lap, looking like a defiled angel in your silky white dress that’s clutched between Bada’s hand, the straps having fallen so far down your body that some of your stomach is revealed, the other covered by the tight bodice. “All you have to do is say yes, and I’ll keep my promise from before.”
Truthfully, beyond feeling bad for your current inability to pleasure yourself, Bada just really wants to fuck you. The dress you’re half wearing is still doing things to your fiancée, the contrast of the pure white against your skin, which is stained with sin and sweat makes her desire to slam her cock into you reach incalcuable heights.
Looking at your fiancée, you bite your bottom lip in thought. There are two ways you could go about this. You could keep trying to ride Bada and probably only give yourself half the pleasure she can, or you can say yes and let her fuck you like she said she would.
…The answer is obvious.
“Yes.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Without a single second to spare, Bada lets go of your dress and grabs ahold of your hips, flipping your positions with such quick speed that it leaves you dizzy and giggling. 
Bada runs her hands up and down your figure for a moment, leaning down to place a kiss on one of your tits before placing one on the other.
“Put one of the pillows between your head and the headboard.” She tells you, pointing at a lone pillow beside you.
Confusion flows through you but you do what she asks anyway, propping the pillow on it’s side so it cradles the top of your head.
Bada gives you a smile, then takes both of your hands into hers. She coils her long fingers between yours and stretches her arms out so that your arms are held above your head. “I’ll show you how good my cock can feel.” She whispers into your ear, the words just barely leaving her lips before she takes out the entirety of her strap out of you and slams it back in.
The sudden fast and strong movement makes the headboard slam against the wall, and your head slides up, wich would have painfully hit the metal if it weren’t for the pillow Bada told you to put behind your head.
Your fiancée’s deep and fast stroke makes you let out a moan, your mouth falling open.
“Yeah,” Bada mumbles proudly. “Bet that felt so good after all that fooling around you did before.”
Outside of your shared bedroom, Hyo stands frozen in her spot, the sound of the slamming accoumpanied by your loud moan making her gulp. She hadn’t been able to hear a thing before this, which is why the sudden rancourous noise startled her, almost making her jump.
“It’s fine,” She tells herself. “They’re just…having fun, that’s all.”
But again, another loud slam followed soon after by your pleasure-filled cry leaks out of the bedroom, the sound echoing cruelly in Hyo’s ear.
“Fuck…” She squeezes her eyes shut.
Inside the bedroom, you don’t have the capacity to worry about about the fact that anyone in a five foot radius would probably hear you moaning and screaming like a whore, because your fiancée is fucking you within an inch of your life.
Like you’re a ragdoll, Bada takes you by the hips and angels them so that one is up in the air and the other lays on the bed, her cock slamming in and out of you at an insane speed. She’s moving so fast that your slick–which had tripled from what you produced when you were fucking yourself–is squirting onto her boxers and creaming at the base of her cock. It looks like a ring of sweet whipped cream against her thick black strap.
“I need to get this room sound-proofed.” Bada manges to say between heavy breaths. “You’re screaming like a fucking pornstar, baby.”
You’re unable to say anything, the only thing falling from your lips is moan after moan, which is somehow not overshadowed by the thundering sound of the headboard banging against the wall.
“Aw, have I fucked all the thoughts out of you?” Bada drives her cock into you in a deep stroke, hitting that sweet spot in you that has you seeing stars.
“Fuck!” You close your eyes, mind turning to mush as your fiancée quickly takes her strap out, the ridging on the silicone catching against your hot and gummy walls, giving you profound pleasure.
Another rush of slick follows the exit of Bada’s dick, strings of it clinging from your pussy to the black strap, connecting you both. It would be poetic if what you were engaging in wasn’t pure, unadulterated sin. Immoral is the way that your lover slams every inch of her cock into you, sweat and your essance falling onto the sheets, leaving a stain as a testament to your depraved doings.
Bada reaches over to take the silk of your dress into her hands again, flipping all of it upward so that she can properly see her dick splitting you apart, rubbing your walls and hitting the front of your clit perfectly.
“Not a single thought in that pretty head of yours, is there?”
Proving her absolutely correct, you don’t respond.
“That’s okay baby, you don’t have to think. You just have to lay there, looking pretty in this dress while I slam my cock into you.” The way Bada cooes into the hot air of your bedroom makes your eyes almost roll back into your head. She knows just what to say, and when to say it. “Keep moaning like that, it’s fucking hot.” She adds, her own cunt pulsing beneath the fabric of her boxers. The way she’s pounding her strap in and out of you so forcefully makes the base of it rub against her cunt harshly, the slight pain and pleasure mixing together to make the coil in her stomach slightly tighten.
Like the obedient slut you are for your fiancée, you let out one loud, scream of, “I’m close!”
That only serves to reinvigorate Bada, who quickly takes your leg which is up in the air and sets it on her shoulder, allowing her to push her entire pelvis into you with a fast and intense stroke, which again hits your g-spot.
That’s what finally makes the tight coil in your stomach burst, a long stream of cum gushing from your pussy as Bada continues to fuck you through your orgasm. Of course, you can’t help yourself. Every loud curse and moan that falls from your lips settles into the air of the bedroom before floating through the crack between the door and the wall, the sound reverberating in the hallway of the Lee mansion.
Hyo, who had been counting to one thousand in her mind with her eyes screwed shut and her head down, realeases a long breath. She shakily breathes in and out, applauding herself for her immense self-restraint.
“It’s over.” She thinks, the voice of her internal dialouge fostering a relieved tone. “That was a long one. Sounded like she was getting strapped–”
Hyo surprises herself with her last thought. She suddenly straightens her back, shaking her head a bit.
“Stop–stop thinking about it.” She mentally scolds herself. Her cheeks are red, but under the dim lighting it’s impossible to see, and the wide, ashamed look in her eyes is hidden by her sunglasses. “That’s your boss and her future wife in there, it’s not–it’s not right.”
It isn’t.
But her wandering thoughts would be the least of Hyo’s worries, because while she counted to one thousand moments prior, a certain blonde Bebe girl had spotted her standing outside your and Bada’s shared bedroom, all the while your loud moans and slamming sounds filled the air.
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“If I’d have known she was there I would have told her to keep quiet about it.” Hyo grumbles. “Now all the girls think I’m into that type of stuff–”
“Ouch!” The sound of your hurt whine cuts Hyo’s thoughts off.
She freezes in her spot, but out of pure instinct, and briefly forgetting what was going on beyond the doorway to Bada’s office, she reaches for the holster of her gun, and swings around to look inside the office.
And what she sees changes everything…
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unhelpfulfemme · 7 months
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Another thing I liked is how Laurent's trauma is handled, because usually when a character has a Secretly Traumatic Backstory there's some kind of annoyingly maudlin scene about it. Either they get into some kind of big conflict with the love interest and are forced to explain themselves so they don't get judged or dumped, or the love interest intrudes on a vulnerable moment and sees them being abused or somehow handling the consequences of that abuse, or they are explained the circumstances by a benevolent third party, and this changes their view of the abused character because now they're god's poorest meow meow and I just fucking hate it every time.
Like, this is why I stopped reading this type of story: because the amount of crowding and backing into a corner and privacy violation that happens to abused characters in order to coax them into opening up about it and reassure them that they're okay is so annoying. I feel like I've been psychologyposting on main too much lately, so I might explain later why I feel this way or I might not but in any case I hate it.
I love that this book is the literal opposite of that, that Damen not only doesn't crowd Laurent and insist that he open up, but that Damen ensuring space and privacy and time to calm down for Laurent when he's overwhelmed is repeatedly portrayed as an act of friendship and caring and love (that Laurent later reciprocates, because they both lose their heads when something pushes their buttons and understand this about each other).
I also love how Damen doesn't fall in love with Laurent because Laurent is sad and fucked up, or because he's so brave to have put up with the abuse, or because Damen too is sad like Laurent (I'm physically restraining myself from going off on a rant about how shared trauma is hardly ever a good foundation for a relationship): no, he falls in love with Laurent because he's whip-smart, and a good leader, and funny, and tender once he opens up, and a lateral thinker, and a man of integrity who keeps his promises and pays back his debts (and because he's pretty and blonde and good at sporty shit that Damen likes). Some of these things may have been shaped by the awful shit that happened to Laurent, as they were also probably shaped by his station or his education or his body type or any other circumstance of his life, but it's refreshing to have a character who went through awful shit but who also has other things going on for him that make him loveable instead of being completely defined by his trauma. And even when Damen finds out, the way he thinks about Laurent literally doesn't change at all - the things he likes about Laurent are still seen in the same light as always, Laurent's personality as a whole is still the same, even his attitude towards what Laurent did to him when they first met doesn't change much (as we see in the short story epilogue). And even this last bit is really cool because Laurent is never stripped of his agency or made out into some sort of helpless victim currently, both of which would probably mortify him with how much he's trying to establish that he's not at any opportunity.
And I also like how it's not necessary for Laurent to tell Damen about it in order for them to be close, nor does Damen push him into it. And everyone else seems to agree that it's Laurent's story to tell when and how he wants it told, except for the villain of the piece, who reveals it in the most awful way possible. This is particularly important because Damen spends three books grabbing everyone in Laurent's life by the shoulders and shaking them and going, "Why do you care about this guy??? Have you noticed that he's kind of an ashole?? Why are you loyal to him?? Why???" and no one ever says anything, because they're protective of Laurent and don't want to take away his agency or privacy because it's his fucking story to tell. Even after Damen finds out, we don't see him mention it and he probably lets Laurent open up or not on his own terms, as he does with everything else that doesn't directly concern him. Even though we've seen through Laurent's dialogue time and time again that he's probably conceptualizing it in some fucked up ways in his own head and needs yet to realize that he's not some kind of twisted pervert for what happened to him, crowding him about it before he's ready won't accomplish much.
And the story itself backs all this by never being maudlin about it even though it's obvious what happened pretty early on (I figured it out really early, I remember suspecting it almost immediately and being dead sure of it by the Ancel scene in the garden); it kind of elipses around it, gives hints and parallels to other characters in similar circumstances, has Laurent say incoherent shit that makes sense in context, has other characters hint at it, but with Laurent being one of the central characters it's cool that the story gives him that respect and doesn't wallow in the tragedy of it all.
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berrieluv · 1 year
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Rocket Queen. 
eddie munson x fem!reader.
summary: where you're Steve's girlfriend but Eddie fucks you to record your moans and put them in their new song. (inspired in the legend where fans say axl rose was having sex in the studio with steven adler's gf)
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cw. chating kink, breeding kink, creampie, dub-con(?)
Eddie Munson wasn't one for revenge. He prided himself on being the 'freak' back in his High-school times, but in contrast with his looks, he always tried to show a good image to his fans. More when he knew some teenagers (Dustin, by example) saw him as a role model.
He knew how important portraying a good image was for all the teens, but when Steve Harrington made mocking comments about his band, claiming he would never listen that kind of music, he felt... his ego felt hurt.
Corroded Coffin was very successful when that happened, so Steve's comment shouldn't bother him that much, knowing that kind of music wasn't for everyone.
Steve Harrington didn't have many things he enjoyed in this life, he worked for his parents in New York and he wasn't a fan of his job just as he wasn't a fan of Eddie's band music. The only thing Steve Harrington truly liked, was you.
"so... How do you record everything?" You asked, big bright eyes looking at Eddie with a smile planted on your face and Steve rolled his eyes, annoyed, because it seems that lately the only topic in their conversation was Eddie. "Is it cool? Like the movies?"
"Oh, is really cool, princess" Eddie started, smirking, and he could feel Steve's eyes trying to burn him alive "I could show you. I mean, the studio, you could go one day, sometimes the managers allow visits"
"It would be so cool!" You clapped, looking at your boyfriend with an excited smile and he couldn't help but give you one back. "I'm not a big fan of rock, I have to be honest" Eddie could say "But I'm always open to hear new things"
He smiled, and Steve's annoyed face only made Eddie feel better.
And that took you there. A quick talk with Eddie's manager and you were walking around the Label. Eddie took you to the room where Corroded Coffin recorded their songs, he explained to you the panel and showed you the instruments.
"I was working on a sad song, you know, something heartbreaking" He starts, and you look at him with a smile "You have any anecdotes?"
"No, I don't think so"
"C'mon, princess. You're telling me Steve has never break your heart?"
"He's not like that" you murmur.
Eddie chuckled and then looked at you dead serious "wait... so you don't know?"
"know what?"
"I– I shouldn't tell you, forget I say something"
But now you were left with this curiosity killing you inside, because what didn't you know?
"Tell me" you begged, looking at Eddie with doe eyes.
"I feel like I shouldn't. I mean, Steve's my friend..." That's not completely a lie "But, I've never been the kind to lie" That was in fact a lie "Steve brought a girl to the last party we had... The one where we celebrated the release of our new album"
You frown "But he told me he wasn't going to that party. He had an extra shift"
That was true. Eddie knew, and everyone knew. But he shrugged "He was here. With a girl. She was really pretty. Blonde, tall, skinny, I think she had a few works done but they looked good" You felt your heart drop at Eddie's words and looked at him, worried "Not that, not that you're not pretty because you are. You just have different kinds of beauty"
"What does that mean?"
"I mean she looked... wild you know, she dressed a bit like me, kind of" He smiles "But I like the way you dress too, I've always been a fan of those skirts you use... always wondered how would it feel to slip my hand under"
He starts, sitting on the chair in front of the recording panel and opening his legs, feeling like he owned the place and showing himself confident when you felt your legs starting to shake.
"Do you... do you think Steve slept with her?"
"Well, he did disappeared for a long time to go to the bathroom. A friend, who had a little crush on her, told me he lost her when she headed to the bathroom" He smiles "But, hey, I don't know, just... just silly observations"
You nod, your mouth biting your nails and feeling lost, because you couldn't think Steve was one to do that. Because he has never lie to you, and suddenly you found out he was not only where he said he wasn't but with someone else. Cheating on you.
Eddie took advantage of your distraction and took your bare leg with his big calloused hand "Don't think about it too much" He says, pulling you close to him "It's probably not true" Now his hand was really fucking close to your core "Maybe he wasn't even here and I mistook him for someone"
He knew Steve wasn't there. He send him a text telling him how sorry he was he had to miss the party, because yes, they weren't exactly best friend but they were rolling with the same group of people, so eventually they learned to deal with one another.
"You think?"
He just shrugs, sitting you in his leg, his hand caressing your inner thigh and slowly putting your underwear aside. "Eddie?" You ask, he just looks up at you and murmurs something "Whatcha' doing?"
"Just... just want to show you what I think Steve was doing... with that girl"
You frowned, but didn't complain, it was Eddie, who you learned was sweet, good Eddie. A role model for teens, and he was a friend of Steve, he couldn't try to harm your relationship, and it was merely superficial, thought you would like to remind your pussy that, because it felt wet. Like you haven't feel it in weeks.
"But you said he wasn't here" You pout. And Eddie tells you, again, he couldn't be sure. It was dark, and this was Los Angeles, there were tons of brown heads with pretty hair. "What if he gets mad?"
"You would figure out how to fix it, princess. Tell him it's not your fault. You were trying to solve a doubt, weren't you?" You nod and you open your legs more, Eddie takes your leg and puts it on top of his other leg, allowing you to be well open for him "Aren't you the best girlfriend? The prettiest too"
Eddie puts aside your wet panties and chuckles at your desperation, because this wasn't your boyfriend, and no matter how much you tried to play the morally-right part, you were horny, needy for Eddie's fingers.
You tried to move, allow Eddie to put his fingers inside of you instead of just circling your clit, but he had other plans, and he showed you.
"Baby..." He started "If you want me to show you what Steve did, you need to stop moving" And you nod, because in your head the thought of Eddie knowing exactly what Steve did was completely posible, and the fact that you were 'learning' the mistake your boyfriend committed was what allowed your conscience to stay still.
"Eddie I think I go–"
"But Steve took longer" he murmured in your neck, taking your hips with both hands, your core was touching against the fabric of his skinny jeans and he moved your body back and forwards.
"Eds–"
You cried, not knowing if it was because you wanted him to stop, or because you wanted him to keep going, at this moment you knew two things;
This was wrong.
This feels really, really good.
Your whole face felt hot, your body felt like it was about to burn in pleasure and your body moved so easily against the rough fabric because you were unimaginably wet.
"You like it, don't you?" He started, but you couldn't admit it, because it made you feel even guiltier. But he has never be more right in his life. You were loving it, your body was reacting in ways it hasn't with Steve. "Don't try to say no, princess. I'm seeing those tears, you're crying on pleasure. Your body can't stop moving against my thigh"
And it was true. You didn't notice when he stopped touching your hips but now your body was moving by itself, desperate to feel the friction against Eddie's body, maybe desperate for something more.
"Steve won't be–" you moan "He won't like this"
"What he doesn't see, doesn't hurt him, mhm?"
His finger starts circling your clit, moving around at a fast pace, adding two more fingers to his touches. "Up" he orders, and you happily obey, without thinking about it, you lift your body a little and he puts his fingers inside. "Ride me, would you? Ride my long fingers, baby. Then I'll replace them with ma' cock"
You whined, and you did it like a whore, happy to hear that instruction and wanting nothing more but to find your release in Eddie's fingers.
Your cum was leaking from your pussy, wetting Eddie's fingers completely and borderline jumping on them, and if it wasn't for his strong hand on your hip you wouldn't have any self control over this. The pleasure started to build in your belly, intense, your sopping pussy meeting Eddie's fingers over and over, making you scream his name, and beg for more.
"Eddie, we should stop"
He slaps your thighs and shakes his head, leaving a burning sensation in your skin, holding you when you came again in his fingers, and standing you up so he can unzip his pants.
"Dick would be cheating" you murmur, looking at Eddie's pink and hard cock. It wasn't as thick as Steve but it was almost as long.
"But you have to, princess" He pouts "I can see how needy your slutty cunt is"
You pout and shake your hand, knowing he's not lying, you can feel your wetness drooling from your thighs. Eddie doesn't care, he's taking your hand and your body, sitting you in his cock, slowly instructing you to go down. Not like you mind, of course, you couldn't complain. You weren't complaining.
"Fucking your boyfriend's friend, I see" He teases, smiling back at you when he feels your pussy clenching thanks to his words. "Cumming on other man's cock, aren't you? You get so wet at that thought I can feel your pussy begging me to keep it up. Such a dirty, dirty slut"
"M' gonna fill you up with my cum, baby. Steve's gonna wonder where you got all that cum from, what're you saying?"
"Don't know"
He smiles and takes your hips to make you move faster on his cock "Pretty dumb girl, you can't know, can you? You're just so pretty, so cockdrunk"
"Faster, Eddie" You cry.
"You' cumming again? Already?" He thrusts "Fuck, baby, if you cum that much and in so little I can see why Steve's obsessed with you, you make a man's ego grow big"
You moan and yell Eddie's name, your walls tightened around Eddie's cock. Eddie smiled at the sight of his cum drooling from your swollen lips.
You thanked you were sitting on Eddie's lap, otherwise you would've fall. When he cums, his hands slipped under your shirt, feeling a bit sticky from his attempts to clean your cum when he was fingering you. He thrusts deeper into you, making you see stars, and his movement were sending another building orgasm to your body.
Eddie's movements became more desperate with your moans, needing, wanting, to fill you up even more, his cock was twitching inside your sore pussy and he pulled out immediately after he came for a second time.
He took you in his arms and combed your hair, leaving what felt like an intimate forehead kiss and ordering you to see the mess you made on his cock and his jeans, your full pussy still tainting the fabric. A white, sticky mess leaking out of your pussy, now that his cock was out you were able to see just how much he cum.
"Did so good, princess"
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"The song is really, really good" Robin mentioned back at Eddie's place, a few months after Steve decided to make fun of him. "Like the rhythm too much" She chuckles.
"Whose moans are those?" Steve said, looking at Eddie. "They... they really add to the song"
"A girl I met back at the last album release party"
"Sound familiar" he murmurs, and Eddie just smirked.
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moonstruckme · 7 months
Note
Hi! I am absolutely in love with your writing! The way you portray our boys is just *chefs kiss*
Anywho, I was wondering if I could request poly!marauders x plus size reader? Maybe she is very confident until somebody picks on her and she starts becoming obsessed with dieting and stuff. (I'm struggling a lot with that rn) just a bunch of worry and comfort from our boys.
If you don't feel comfortable writing this or just the prompt I gave it's okay. Ily!♡
Hi, thanks for requesting my love! I'm really sorry you're struggling right now, I know how hard it can be and hope you're doing your best to take good care of yourself. You're beautiful just as you are <33
cw: size insecurity, behavior that hints at disordered eating
poly!marauders x plus size!reader ♡ 1.2k words
The worst part is, you know they weren’t even really trying to insult you. 
You smiled as best you could, said your thanks politely, and moved on. Moved on outwardly, that is. Inside, the words play over and over in your head, like a song on the radio that gets worse each time you listen to it. It wasn’t that they were vicious, or particularly clever, or even wrong. It’s just, you’re not used to people commenting on your body like that. 
You know you’re not skinny. So does everyone else. Neither of you typically feel the need to confer about it. Every now and again, some cruel busybody will say something, but that’s fairly easy to brush off. They’re insecure about their own looks, they have nothing better to do than fixate on strangers’ appearances, they’ve probably been on diet pills since they were twelve. You wish them well and mostly forget about it. But what’s worse is when someone comes to you with good intentions. The idea of being perceived as pitiful or wrong—really, having your physical form perceived at all—by someone who seems to want the best for you is what really hurts. That’s what makes you want to hide, to shrink yourself down until they can’t see you anymore. To become the invisible status quo. 
It’s why, over the last few days, anything skintight or remotely showy has been relegated to the back of your closet in favor of things that hide your figure. Why you’ve stopped drawing attention to yourself with colorful makeup and instead started focusing on your health. Well, your health as it presents itself externally. 
“Anyone else fancy a dessert?��� Sirius muses as you sit reading on the couch, Remus reading the next book in the series beside you. 
“Um, no,” James says, holding up a hand of cards from the game he and Sirius have been playing, “you only want to go so you don’t have to stick around and lose.” 
“Whatever my other, subconscious motives may be,” Sirius says guilelessly, “I really feel like something chocolate. Don’t you, Moons?”
That’s always a safe bet. Remus looks up from his book, intrigued. “I could go for some chocolate.” 
Sirius grins. “What about you, gorgeous?”
That’s usually a safe bet too. But you shouldn’t. “Thanks, but I’m still full from dinner.” 
Sirius looks cheated, and Remus cocks his head at you. “Really? Didn’t seem like you ate much.” He’s not wrong. Remus had made the most incredible feta pasta, it was borderline heartbreaking to leave any on your plate. But you’re trying to practice restraint, and thankfully, James had happily taken care of your leftovers for you. “Did you have a late lunch or something?”
“Mhm.” 
James looks up, eyebrows furrow bemusedly behind his glasses. “No you didn’t, angel. You said you didn’t feel like lunch after we had breakfast together, remember?”
“Oh.” You nod. So what? You’d had a late breakfast, and a decently sized dinner, and why do you really need more than two meals anyway? Who made that rule? You’re a bit hungry, but your body just needs time to adjust to your new routine. It’s used to overindulging. And nothing about today means you deserve dessert. “Right.” 
Sirius wraps his fingers delicately around your ankle, smoothing a path up your shin with his palm. “Darling,” he says, and he looks distracted as he runs his fingers over the old scars on your knee, but you know him well enough to recognize when he’s keyed in, “did you eat anything today, other than breakfast and that little bit of dinner? Any snacks or anything?” 
You can’t help the little rush of pride that goes through you. “No.” 
Sirius doesn’t look proud. In fact, he’s frowning, as are Remus and James. You change tactics. “I’m not really hungry, though.” 
“No?” Sirius' voice is unsettlingly gentle. “Why don’t you want to have dessert tonight, pretty girl?”
“Because,” you say, beginning to feel defensive (though you’re not sure of what), “I don’t need it.” 
“It’s not about need, though,” James says, and why is it beginning to feel like you’re in an argument? “It’s about what you want. Do you want a little something sweet?”
“I…” Yes. The answer is yes, but do you want it more than you want to feel good about yourself? “I think what I want more is to prove to myself that I can go without it.” 
Remus’ scars shift as his face scrunches in concern. “Dove,” he says, and you can’t decide if his tone is more reprimand or pity. You don’t like either option. “Where is this coming from?” 
“I’m just…I’m trying something new,” you decide. “I want to lose a little weight, okay? Nothing crazy.” 
“But why?” James sets down his cards, looking completely befuddled. “Angel, you’re gorgeous. You can do whatever you want, but we love you just like you are.” 
“And,” Sirius adds before you can reply, “we love you most when you’re happy. I sort of thought,” he says, lowering his voice like he’s telling you a secret, “that our late-night treat runs made you happy. No?”
“They do.” You pull your legs up onto the couch, away from Sirius’ touch. “I just…I think it would make me happy to be a more normal size, too.” 
Remus looks gutted. “Honey, you…it’s your body, and you should do whatever feels right for you to be healthy, but…we love you like this,” he insists, ardent. “You’re beautiful, I mean it, and I hate the idea that you might want to change for…well, for anyone other than yourself.” 
You hesitate. You’re not actually sure who you’re doing this for. When had you become one of the people who want for you to be smaller so desperately? “You seriously don’t think I would look better if I were thinner?” You’ve never been one to put much stock into what any men think of your appearance, so you feel silly for asking, but you’re in a vulnerable state. And really, don’t all guys want a girl that looks like the love interests in the movies you all grew up with? 
James looks you in the eye, letting you see the earnestness in his as he says, “You’re absolutely lovely, right here, right now. We wouldn’t change a thing.” 
Your answering smile is oddly watery. Remus makes an awfully lovely cooing sound, leaning over to wrap an arm around your waist and paying no mind to the chub there as he pulls you into his side. “Don’t be upset, darling. You know what I bet will cheer you up?” He smiles as you look up at him questioningly, kissing between your brows. “Some chocolate. How would you feel about that?”
You let out a quiet little laugh. “Pretty good.” 
“Yes!” Sirius pumps his fist in the air, already abandoning his cards and standing up. “I knew you’d come through, gorgeous. Now I think the more pressing question is, do we want chocolate pastries or chocolate ice cream?”
“Ice cream, obviously,” James says. “Before it gets so cold out we don’t feel like it.” 
“Not all of us suffer from weather constraints,” Sirius argues. “I vote pastry.” 
“Why would you bring ice cream up if you didn’t want it? Think long and hard, Pads. Are you going to feel like a frozen dessert when you need three layers to go outside in a few weeks?”
Remus rolls his eyes at you as you follow them out the door, letting your boys continue their bickering all the way to the store.
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astupidweeb69 · 1 month
Note
hello!! I am kinda nervous to write this bc I absolutely love your writing and the way you portray Toby is just so real. I love how you make him both a loser and a force of nature, like just bc he has no rizz doesn't mean he can't do anything lol. But I was lowkey thinking about your stories the other day and like, what if Y/N also had some screws loose? Like he pops up at her house covered in the blood of some guy who wouldn't leave her alone and instead of calling the police like a smart person she's just like: " 😳 omg you did this for me??" I know it's unrealistic and silly but it's also kind of interesting???
Ticci Toby x Violent! Reader
Toby with an unhinged reader? Well - there's a recipe for disaster lmao.
I know I said I'm not taking requests but this ended up becoming a scenario. I just had some inspo - hope this is what you were looking for! Because the reader isn't submissive? Idk
Y/N has some messed-up thoughts and there are mentions of violence under the cut!:
The reader I imagine in this case would have only seen how cringey Toby is - thinking he was just a creepy guy who's taken a liking to them and would avoid him at all costs. Probably up until this point assume that he's a wimp (Toby would initially try his best to seem weaker and unassuming when he approaches the person he likes)
The scenario I imagine is that Y/N grew up around conflict, and is fully comfortable around violence, even throwing a few punches themselves here and there. Maybe ended up in Juvie when they were younger and now works in some retail job - something where they regularly interact with the general public.
A customer tries to hit on Y/N when Toby's there - big mistake.
But Toby doesn't say anything at first.
He doesn't have to.
Y/N immediately shuts the customer down. But the guy doesn't let up. Curses are thrown back and forth, Y/N's wrist is grabbed.
He touched you.
Toby doesn't like that. Not one bit.
You get reprimanded by your boss after you punched the unruly customer in the face.
Luckily they didn't press charges.
You had a bit of an edge, from your surly demeanor and fucked sense of humor, but Toby had no idea you'd do that.
Kind of turned him on. He knew he picked you for a reason.
But alas, that was the extent of your revenge. You already had a record of aggravated assault and you didn't need another one added to the list.
Luckily for you that scrawny, lanky boy who always stared at you when he came in had a plan in motion.
Late at night, a knock on the door wakes you up from a nap on the couch. Of course, you look through the peephole first before answering.
Red.
Everything is red.
Only until you hear a familiar voice pipe up do you realize who it is.
Toby.
The blood covered so much of his face it was hard to point out who he was at first.
He speaks to you through the door, somehow already knowing you're there.
And he tells you what he did.
It takes a moment for you to process all the grizzly details, the way he followed the man, cornered him in an alley, and beat him so hard he'd pretty sure he cracked his skull on the brick wall.
He sounded giddy about it. Gleeful.
He was far from the loser you thought he was.
And you liked it.
Liked that he did that for you.
After all, in your head, hurting someone for someone else was the greatest form of love. It was the kind of devotion you'd always dreamed of from a partner.
You open the door.
Toby is surprised, but soon sees a look on your face he recognized. The kind of expression of sick joy and arousal that comes with blood lust.
You're blushing too. Blushing for him.
Everything was finally coming together perfectly, and once you let him into your home, he's never going to leave.
The relationship would start right off the bat. Toby is one to rush things.
It's all to claim you. Both mentally and physically. So you're attached to the hip pretty much. Expect a lot of PDA (Toby does not care who sees lol)
And a reader who's fully on board?
Yeah you're going to bring out the worst in each other. He'll encourage you to do more crimes, to get bloodier, to join him.
It would be a very bad situation for everyone involved.
But especially for anyone unfortunate enough to cross the paths of you two lovebirds.
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Text
IOTA Reviews: Derision
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Well, here we are. This is the episode you've all been waiting for me to cover. The one people claim is the cream of the crop when it comes to badness, not just for the insane amount of retcons and cases of character assassination, but for how it retroactively makes one of the most criticized parts of the entire show worse by comparison. If you've seen the episode, you know what I'm talking about.
Let's get into the fourteenth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Derision
We start off with Marinette waking up for the day before getting a call from Adrien, who gives one of the clunkiest pieces of exposition I've ever heard on this show, and that's saying something.
Adrien: I was just going to tell you how excited I am that we're meeting at the swimming pool later, and to wake you up just in case you were still sleeping.
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Just as she hangs up, Marinette's hands start to tremble, having visions of a locker, hinting at some old memories resurfacing. Just to get this out of the way, but one thing I want to give this episode props for is the way these panic attacks are portrayed. The colors change, the environments warp around, and it gives off a very uneasy feeling. It kind of reminds me of this one episode of The Twilight Zone, “Little Girl Lost”, which used similar visuals to depict the otherworldly atmosphere of another dimension.
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Marinette meets up with Adrien at the local pool, and has another panic attack. Kim and Ondine seem to notice this.
Kim: Woah, Adrien. That must've been some prank you pulled to make Marinette freak out like that. What did you do to her?
Ondine: It's not funny, Kim! Can't you see Marinette's not okay?
Kim: Oh, come on. She always reacts like that when someone pranks her.
Kim then proceeds to tell Adrien and Ondine (and by extension, the audience) about what he means. I'm going to talk a lot about this, so to make things easier for all of us, I'll give you the short version so you have an idea of what happened.
About a year before the events of “Origins”, we see Chloe was bullying Marinette even more than she did before then, constantly pulling sadistic pranks Megan from Drake & Josh would find to be overkill, while making her late to class. To make things worse, none of her teachers believed her and took Chloe's side all the time, giving her detention on the weekends. Mylene, Rose, and Juleka try to help Marinette, but apparently, Chloe orders them to not talk with her before saying that “she'll be there to make Marinette's life a nightmare”.
The only person with the common sense to help out Marinette is Socqueline, that girl from “Jubiliation”. Socqueline learns that Marinette has a crush on Kim, who is even more of a jerk than he was during the first half of Season 1, and when Marinette thinks about asking him out to the swimming pool after school, Socqueline advises Marinette to be careful. Sabrina tips off Chloe to Marinette's plan, so Chloe goes to give Kim advice to pull a prank on Marinette. At the pool, just as Marinette confesses her feelings to Kim, Kim gives her a box full of spiders, causing her to panic and fall backwards into the pool. Chloe films the thing with the intent to make it go viral, but Socqueline stops her plan before she can upload it. Kim doesn't seem to see what he did was wrong, seeing it as a harmless joke as Socqueline tells him to piss off.
It's here that Marinette determines that if she ever has feelings for a boy ever again, she'll need to be super prepared, explaining how much she knows about Adrien and his schedule in later episodes. Chloe then gets Socqueline expelled from school just a few weeks before the end of the school year. Marinette blames herself for what happened, but Socqueline tells her that sometimes, no matter how dire the odds seem, she needs to muster up the courage to fight the good fight.
Oh, and Marinette was almost akumatized by Monarch again, but it's really just an excuse to keep her away while Kim tells the story.
So... let's talk about this flashback. Clocking in at about ten minutes, almost half of the episode's runtime, this is easily the part everyone (myself included) seems to have problems with, for all kinds of reasons. Let's break down each and everything wrong with this flashback.
#1: The Portrayal of Chloe
Surprisingly, this is the least of my problems. Compared to Kim (who I'll get to later), Chloe is mostly in character with how she's usually portrayed by this point in the series. She's egotistical, she orders Sabrina around, she hates Marinette, and throws her father's name around over and over again like it's a boomerang. My feelings on the wasted opportunities with her character aside, this does make sense seeing how this takes place before Season 1.
But there's the problem. This takes place before Season 1, and Chloe does things she never did in Season 1, or any of the other seasons for that matter. She clearly has the teachers and principal doing what she wants, she can boss the other students around (which I'll also get to later), she pulls sadistic practical jokes on Marinette, and even uses her dad's name to get Socqueline expelled. In the show, she doesn't really do any of this. Sure, she can occasionally use her dad's influence to get what she wants (Lady Wifi, Rogercop, Frightningale, Determination), but it was never to this extent. While she also tried to act like she was better than the rest of her peers, barring Sabrina, nobody ever listened to her or took her seriously. Chloe also tended to focus on bullying Marinette, but she didn't do these kinds of practical jokes. Usually, it was either sabotage (Mr. Pigeon, Despair Bear, Gabriel Agreste) or just general name calling, and she picked on other students too (Dark Cupid, Reflekta, Antibug, Sole Crusher, Penalteam, Deflagration).
The point I'm trying to make is why the hell did Chloe stop acting this way? What caused her to stop being as bad as she is here? I get the whole point of this episode is to show how terrible Chloe is, but you're showing off all her bad moments in a flashback and never considering the other things she's done that would be just as effective. Wasn't the main idea behind Chloe's “damnation arc” that she started to change, but went back on her ways and became worse than before? If that's the case, I have to reiterate, why was she even worse in this flashback?
I also have an issue with making the cause of all of Marinette's trauma because of this prank by Chloe. Yes, the prank was terrible, and trust me this isn't me once again going “GRR! CHLOE STAN ANGRY BECAUSE RICH GIRL IS EVIL IN FLASHBACK!”. It's more along the lines of “Really? We're really doing this?”. While I'm glad that after Chloe's betrayal at the end of Season 3, the show is finally considering the idea of making her more than just comic relief as a villain, it feels like a case of too little, too late.
After so many years of making Chloe out to be harmless unless she screams her daddy's name, now you're treating her like a serious threat who traumatized Marinette for life? Chloe is the cause of Marinette's trauma? This is like if the person who killed Bruce Wayne's parents turned out to be a joke character like Egghead or Crazy Quilt. Just because a serious villain does something important to the story, it doesn't automatically make their prior unfunny antics go away.
But my main gripe with the portrayal of Chloe here is that this flashback fails to do something that still hasn't been done in almost five seasons and eight years: Explain just why Chloe hates Marinette so much. Chloe is unusually cruel here, and doesn't even have a reason to torture Marinette like this. Usually, Marinette gets in the way of what she wants, but here? Marinette doesn't do anything to warrant this level of dedication. You would think for a flashback sequence focusing on her and Marinette's history, they would actually explain why Chloe likes to single out Marinette, but they don't. The writers would rather take time out of the episode to remind the audience of why Chloe is the way she is, and why it isn't acceptable, than clarify what Chloe's deal with Marinette is.
Rose: She’s this way because her mother left her when she was young.
Mylene: So did mine, and you don't see me having fun bullying Marinette.
Gee, I wonder if Astruc himself had a part in writing that exchange or not.
If you're willing to acknowledge previous episodes while also discussing how poorly Chloe treats Marinette, it would help if you finally did something to inform the audience about why Chloe likes to torture Marinette in the first place. Did Marinette show Chloe up at a fashion show? Did Marinette impress Chloe's dad one time? Did Marinette just spill coffee on Chloe's shoes? I will take literally anything, no matter how stupid the explanation is, over getting nothing after eight years.
It's also pretty rich that that scene was trying to say that what happened to Chloe doesn't justify her actions when not only do we never get a scene like that pointing out how creepy Marinette obsesing over Adrien was, but later in the episode, Marinette specifically pins all the blame on Chloe in one line.
Marinette: Adrien! I know what's wrong with me! It's not my fault, and it's not your fault, either! It's all Chloe's fault!
So remember kids, just because bad things happen to you, it doesn't excuse your unflattering actions... except when it does, and in that case, it's all the fault of the person who wronged you in the first place.
#2: The Portrayal of Kim
I'll admit, I'm not really the biggest fan of Kim as a character. I don't hate him, but it feels like after Season 2, he just became that guy who really loves to swim, where even characters like Max, Marc, and Nathaniel had more depth to them. This episode however? Yeah, I couldn't stand Kim here.
Just like with Chloe, Kim is sort of in character as the same eccentric dude who has a habit of being insensitive and accidentally upsetting people (Animan, Syren), and I need to emphasize the “sort of”. Just like Chloe, this goes against his characterization in Season 1, where he was shown to be a bully like Chloe was (Lady Wifi, Timetagger, Origins) before later episodes made him a nicer person. However, unlike Chloe, the show sort of tries to retcon Kim's rude behavior to be more in line with his Season 5 self by portraying him as more of a bully who simply isn't aware of how harmful his jokes are, but it doesn't work because of how cruel he seems, and he doesn't have the excuse of knowing how terrible he is like Chloe does.
There's also how easily he goes along with Chloe's prank when she literally insults him and Marinette to his face.
Chloe: I heard Marinette asked you to go with her to the swimming pool.
Kim: Yeah, we’re going swimming together. Cool! 'Cause I love to swim!
Chloe: That’s not why she asked you, dummy!
Kim: It's not? Then, what are we going to do? Chloe: She wants to declare her feelings for you! Kim: For me? But why?
Chloe: Probably because she's utterly ridiculous, and so are you, which makes you two perfect for each other!
Kim: Oh? You think so?
There's not being aware of how insensitive of how you are to others, and then there's not being able to comprehend basic insults. Chloe doesn't even try to give Kim a backhanded compliment or secretly insult him (“You really like swimming, don't you? Good thing you can swim better than you do in class.”). She just calls him a dummy, and Kim still falls for her trick. If you want to have Kim fall for Chloe's plan, don't make her so obviously cruel. For God's sake, you're making the class in the Lila episodes look smart by comparison.
And even after retelling the story, Kim still thinks Chloe highly, not only saying how pretty she is right in front of his girlfriend, but he still thinks the joke was the funniest thing ever. After five seasons, Kim of all people should know about how mean Chloe is, given he was literally kidnapped and brainwashed into serving her while she sided with Hawkmoth (Miracle Queen).
The worst part is that Kim has nothing to do with this story at all. You could literally replace him with any other guy, even a nameless background character with no lines, and nothing would change. Hell, I'd argue it'd be even better as having Marinette be embarrassed in front of some rando would highlight the impact it had on her self-esteem when she tries to go after someone of a higher social class. It would also better justify the spider prank if someone else pulled it because “Darkblade” established that Kim was afraid of spiders.
And if you think I'm talking about Kim after this part, believe me, there's more to this schmuck than meets the eye.
#3: The Way Everyone Just... Lets This All Happen
Look, I get what the episode is trying to go for, narratively, and realistically. Sometimes, teachers and other authority figures just don't do their jobs when someone gets bullied. Hell, I was bullied for years by someone who liked to take advantage of my anger issues, and it wasn't until my last year of middle school that the faculty finally decided to do something about it. I also get that this entire flashback wouldn't happen if the teachers realized how cruel Chloe was and got her expelled. What I don't get is how the flashback portrays anyone who was there as unwilling to do anything to help.
First off, Marinette claims that the reason none of the teachers believed her was because they're all too afraid to stand up to Chloe, since she can call her dad and cost them their jobs, but that's far from the truth. The only time we see anyone actually being afraid of Chloe was when Mr. Damocles went back on refusing to expel Socqueline before Chloe threatened to call her dad and get him fired. Other than that, while we only see Ms. Mendeleiev and Mr. Damocles in this flashback, neither of them really show any signs of being afraid of Chloe. They just go along with what she says, and they don't even try to take Marinette's side. Just like Kim, this would be more understandable if these were different characters who were never shown to be this cruel to Marinette in earlier episodes.
Second, while I can sort of buy the teachers not caring about Marinette, the fact that her classmates don't do anything is another story. We saw Mylene, Rose, and Juleka trying to help Marinette, but right after they talk to her, Chloe just orders them to go away, and it's never explained why. Marinette said the teachers were afraid of Chloe, but does that mean the students are too? Again, later episodes would establish nobody takes Chloe seriously as a bully, so this part of the flashback makes no sense. What changed to make them stop being afraid of Chloe anyway? Once again, if these were a bunch of nameless characters who were more apathetic to Marinette's situation, that would make sense, retroactively showing how much Marinette's friends care for her. Instead, it's like that scene in RWBY where the main characters watch a student being bullied by a racist classmate, and all they do is say “Wow, racism really sucks, huh? Anyway, not our problem.”
Third, you're telling me that Marinette came up with multiple excuses not to go to school even with a few weeks left in the year, and Marinette's parents didn't see anything weird about it? They didn't think that something must be making Marinette want to do anything but go to school? I don't think they were even informed about the situation at school, unless you want to be generous and say they knew Marinette got detention. You can't even make the excuse that it would work if these were different characters, but these are Marinette's parents. You know, the same characters the show portrays as loving and affectionate to their daughter? You're telling me they didn't even think to look into the situation, much less talk to Marinette about school?
The problem with all the other characters in this flashback is in order to make what happens possible, they have to be as apathetic as possible. There's being unaware of a situation or being too afraid to stand up (which is unfortunately something that happens when people bullied sometimes), and then there's just not caring about the bully victim at all. It's ironic how even though a big part of the flashback was to show how awful Chloe was, it unintentionally make everyone else in Marinette's life seem just as cruel to let her suffer like that.
But I know what you're thinking. “What about Socqueline? She was there to help Marinette, so why didn't you mention her?” Well...
#4: Where the Hell Has Socqueline Been All This Time?
Like I mentioned in my “Jubilation” review, Socqueline is yet another unnecessary addition to the already overcrowded cast of characters in this show, and it seemed like this episode was meant to justify her inclusion, but it only raised more questions.
Just to remind you, this flashback establishes that Marinette was constantly bullied by Chloe until a nice girl in glasses stood up for her, and inspired Marinette to be more confident.
SOUND FAMILIAR?
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Yeah, this flashback is pretty much the same as Marinette's arc in “Origins” was, only with Socqueline in Alya's place. We get it, writers, Season 1 was good. Constantly repeating stuff like what happened in “Mr. Pigeon 72” isn't going to win you any favors.
This really highlights how pointless of a character Socqueline is, as despite supposedly being a really important person in Marinette's life, Marinette herself never thought to tell anyone about her, and judging from how Marinette described her to Tikki in “Jubilation”, I don't think she even stayed in contact with Socqueline after she was expelled. It's not like left Paris afterwards. All we know is that she went to another school and got a job at a local arts and crafts store, so why did Marinette just stop talking with her? Even with Felix and Zoe, they had the excuse of being in different countries, but you can't say that with Socqueline.
Also, this was something I just realized, but if Mr. Damocles got her expelled, why the hell did Socqueline treat him like he was any other customer at her job, much less compliment him as a principal?
#5: The Handling of Trauma in General, and How This Impacts Marinette as a Character
Like pretty much every other serious issue it tries to tackle, Miraculous Ladybug has always had a poor understanding of mental health. When it comes to portraying characters who struggle with some form of grief of trauma, like Adrien, Felix, Chloe, Zoe, and even Marinette, the responses usually amount to some variation of “Grow a pair and get over it, you big baby!”.
With Felix, Chloe, and Marinette, even if their actions are partially motivated as a response to either losing a loved one, trying to emulate their neglectful parent, or as a defense mechanism to avoid repeating an already traumatic experience, they're all proven to be in the wrong, and it's not to teach a lesson about alternative coping mechanisms or support systems. The show just says that they're automatically wrong for what they do, what causes them to act the way they do is never acknowledged, and instead, we're supposed to just act like they're being jerks for no reason. Compare this to Adrien and Zoe, who both had rough lives losing their mother at a young age or living with an abusive mother respectively, and rather than go into detail how it affected them or how they managed to become decent human beings in spite of it, the show just says that they're nice people, so people like Felix, Chloe, and Marinette have no reason to be mean to others.
This is honestly why I feel like this episode's depiction of mental health and dealing with trauma falls flat. In case you didn't know, I asked my followers who had to deal with some form of trauma to share their experiences and how it compared to what Marinette went through in the episode. For the most part, the common consensus seems to be that while the symptoms of Marinette's trauma and her reactions to it are very believable, a lot of it is contradicted by previous episodes, and it seems like it was only there to do a story about dealing with trauma.
So many episodes across Seasons 1 through 4 show Marinette dealing with Kim and Chloe without really any issue, and she showed no problem with starting relationships with Luka and Cat Noir, to say nothing about Nathaniel's brief crush on her in “The Evillustrator”. If Marinette was so traumatized by this prank, why did she want to go swimming in episodes like “Gorizilla” and “Mr. Pigeon 72”? Why did she bother to help Kim confess to Chloe in “Dark Cupid”? Why did she team up with Chloe to sabotage Kagami in “Animaestro”? Why did she suggest Chloe could change for the better throughout Seasons 2 and 3? Why did she continue to let Chloe and Kim use the Bee and Monkey Miraculous respectively, even after they got them from outside sources? This flashback is desperately trying to tie previous events of the series together together, but it only works if you ignore all the times Marinette has interacted with Kim and Chloe without having a panic attack.
Then there's how the flashback tries to connect this to Marinette memorizing all of Adrien's schedule to make sure he won't hurt her, an obvious attempt to rebuff one of the biggest criticisms of her as a character. Here's why it doesn't work.
First off, the setup doesn't work because while Marinette vows to do a better job getting to know the next person she falls in love with and how, in her words mind you, “He isn't friends with Chloe”. Putting aside the kindness he's shown her in “Origins”, she kind of failed to really consider her choice to pursue him if he stayed friends with Chloe if we're going to believe Chloe traumatized Marinette so much.
It also doesn't really explain the more predatory actions Marinette has taken whenever another girl tries to get close to Adrien (The Bubbler, Volpina, Animaestro, Oni-Chan, Heart Hunter), or how she tries to rig up situations to get closer to him (The Gamer, Gigantitan, Backwarder, Party Crasher, Felix, Psycomedian, Glaciator 2, Simpleman). And that's not even getting into how obsessive she is with him in other areas, like repeatedly playing a commercial he was in (Gorizilla), making a bunch of presents for him in advance (Christmaster), trying to kiss a wax statue of him (The Puppeteer 2), sniffing his pillow (Cat Blanc), or all the other times she's creepily obsessed over him.
But of course, you've probably noticed that I've forgotten to mention one key thing about what this flashback means: You know how Marinette tends to act nervously and stumbles a lot around Adrien when she isn't meticulously documenting his schedule? Yeah, they were essentially panic attacks brought on by her PTSD, and the episode tries to act like Kim did to her wasn't funny afterwards. Here's the problem with this.
YOU MADE MARINETTE'S TRAUMA YOUR PRIMARY SOURCE OF COMEDY FOR THE PAST FIVE FUCKING SEASONS!
You do NOT have the right to act like what happened to Marinette was bad when you were constantly playing her anxiety up for laughs for almost EIGHT YEARS at this point!
In addition to all the other examples I mentioned, we had episodes like “Psycomedian”, which confirmed that the same behavior that this episode is trying to say is connected to her trauma was hilarious to Adrien, as well as “Backwarder”, which thrived on playing up Marinette's anxiety towards Adrien and was said to be one of the funniest episodes of the show to work on by Astruc himself.
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THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES
#6: Why This Flashback Is Ultimately Pointless
But above all, the biggest problem I have with this flashback is because of how pointless it is. It's trying to better go into detail about why Marinette acts the way she does around Adrien, but did we really need to do that?
This flashback doesn't really reveal anything that we didn't know already. We know Marinette was bullied by Chloe, we know she was a lot more meek and needed others to stand up for her, and we definitely know that we're not supposed to like Chloe. Adding to my earlier point, if we actually got more insight into the origin of Chloe's obsession with Marinette, that would have at least made this flashback important to watch, but once again, despite being a flashback episode, we learn nothing about the characters that we don't already know.
But this flashback is also meant to explain why Marinette is so hesitant to embrace her new relationship with Adrien when we already got a reason for that last season. The first half of the season has made a big deal about how much her feelings for Adrien cost her the Miraculous, so why not focus on that? This flashback just feels like it's here to give more Marinette angst instead of focusing on the things they've already established. And that's not even getting into what she saw during “Cat Blanc”.
Why couldn't we just have a story about Marinette's own insecurities causing her to doubt she can make her relationship with Adrien work, seeing how poorly things ended with Luka? Have her worry that something could go wrong as a result of her need to overcompensate, or worry that Adrien could betray her. That way, you could have Adrien supporting Marinette in a way that reflects their partnership as Cat Noir and Ladybug respectively.
But no. Instead we have this flashback that's taken me about ten pages to fully dissect. And the worst part is that I still have the rest of the episode to talk about. God help me...
So after Adrien and Ondine explain how this prank could have done a lot of damage to Marinette's psyche, Kim decides to find Marinette, and apologize for being so—Ah, I'm just messing with you guys. After all, that would actually make Kim likable. So what does he say instead?
Kim: Come on! Loosen up, you guys! It's like you can't even speak your mind these days.
Ondine: That doesn't give you permission to hurt other people!
Kim: Whatever! I'm the way I am and I'm fine that way! It's not my fault you guys have no sense of humor!
Yep, rather than having Kim realize the error of his ways and maybe be akumatized out of guilt, Kim just whines about how everyone else is just a humorless pansy these days. The writers pretty much made Kim's motivation boil down to “It's just a prank, bro!”. Even Monarch seems to go along with this, as he refers to Kim as “A free spirit feeling unjustly rejected”, when this was right after he called Chloe the prettiest girl in front of his own girlfriend's face. So Monarch sends his Akuma to Kim's goggles, akumatizing him into Dark Humor. Yes, that's really the name they're going with.
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Dark Humor is a pretty forgettable recolor of Dark Cupid. Other than inverting the red and black color scheme and giving him a targeting scope on his right eye, there's not much else to say other than the incredibly on the nose name they gave him. His powers are sort of like Dark Cupid's, only now, instead of turning people heartless, they now share his soulless brand of “humor”. At least, I think it is. His Alliance power is the Monkey Miraculous's Uproar, but it's not really clarified if he's only using Uproar arrows or not, judging from the use of the rubber ducky that we've seen King Monkey use before.
Marinette and Adrien transform into Ladybug and Cat Noir respectively, but once they meet up, we get the most controversial part of the episode that isn't connected to the flashback scene: Cat Noir gives Dark Humor the beatdown of his life and is about to Cataclysm him, for pulling a bad prank on Marinette a year ago. Yeah, a lot of people have pointed out that Adrien felt a lot of remorse for Cataclysming Monarch earlier in this season, yet here, Cat Noir looks like someone told him that Kim just shot the Pope. For God's sake, writers, you're five seasons in! How hard is it to determine whether or not you want your hero to be okay with killing people or not?
And of course, this bites him in the ass, as Dark Humor stabs Cat Noir with an arrow, not only changing his Cataclysm into something that creates a bunch of balls from his hand, but also making him just as insane as the rest of Dark Humor's victims. You know, I'm this close to starting a “Remember Season 1” counter, because this is just glorified fanservice.
Ladybug tries to summon her Lucky Charm, but is stopped by Dark Humor, so Ladybug transforms back into Marinette, transforms into Ladybug again, and summons her Lucky Charm for real this time, getting... a toilet. Of course, the only way to combat Dark Humor's bad jokes is by using even worse jokes! Genius! Ladybug places the toilet over Dark Humor's head and breaks it along with the goggles, freeing the Akuma.
Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage, gives Kim a useless Magical Charm, and Cat Noir apologizes for murdering Kim by saying his emotions got the better of him, which is like saying OJ Simpson and his wife had a minor disagreement.
Kim apologizes to Marinette for traumatizing her, and I guess that's enough for Ondine to forgive him for saying another girl is prettier than her.
After Marinette sort of explains what happened to Adrien, he goes over to tell Chloe to apologize, and we get... this scene.
Adrien: I know about everything that you did to Marinette last year, Chloe. You're going to go and apologize to her and prove to everyone that you can change. I'm sure she'll forgive you.
Chloe: (laughs) Forgive me? What do I care about her forgiveness? I couldn't care less about Dupain-Cheng's feelings! She and the likes of her only exist to suffer for my entertainment. Why bother having power if you can’t use it against those who don’t have any? You’re the one who’s getting things wrong, with your baker girl! You’re a prince! You belong with me, the princess! You’re in this world to shine! To make fun of all the losers who are only good enough to be used as doormats!
Adrien: You're nothing like a princess, Chloe. I supported you. I gave you multiple chances to become a better person. Everyone reached out to you, including Ladybug and Cat Noir when they gave you the Miraculous of the Bee again. But all you ever think about is yourself.
Chloe: And what else IS there to think about? Losers and nobodies? The little bees? The planet?
Adrien: We will never be friends again, Chloe. You and I are done.
Chloe: Traitor.
Okay, first off, “She and the likes of her only exist to suffer for my entertainment.”? That's the line you're going with? She sounds like a dark lord in an RPG game. How is this the closest thing we ever get to an explanation to why Chloe hates Marinette so much?
Second, ignoring the fact that we already had Chloe end her friendship with Adrien last season (Queen Banana), it's pretty weird that this is the breaking point in their friendship. Adrien doesn't mention all the other times she's bullied people or when she sided with Hawkmoth even when he brought up her time as Queen Bee. He saw her being mean to so many people over five seasons, yet only when he learns Chloe did something to his girlfriend that he decides to finally confront her. If we at least got a line where Adrien acknowledged that he essentially enabled Chloe for so long by thinking she could change, that would have at least sort of worked. Instead, he makes it about how she refused to change herself. Dude, you had the chance to stand up to her for years, and you even did so in one episode before you went back on it (Despair Bear). You have nobody to blame but yourself.
Finally, Chloe is pretty out of character here. She's way too calm about ending her friendship with Adrien compared to what happened in “Despair Bear” and “Queen Banana”. You'd think if the writers wanted this to be a big moment of catharsis for the audience, Chloe would at least beg Adrien to stay a little. But no, Chloe brushes it off when it could easily justify her getting worse in later episodes, and even Adrien doesn't even consider how much he thought Chloe's friendship meant to him. Because these writers are dedicated to making sure that any identifiable trait Chloe once had is removed so you have no choice but to hate her.
But hey, at least the episode's over. What did I think of it?
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Yeah, it wasn't very good.
I just... what else do you even want me to say here? I spent about ten pages going over why the flashback sequence doesn't work, I've already ranted about Cat Noir trying to kill someone with his Cataclysm in previous episodes (Hack-San, Jubilation), and I think you all know what my feelings on the portrayal of Chloe and Kim are.
I guess I can answer one question you may have: Is this episode worse than either “Penalteam” or “Queen Banana”? Eh, not really. Let me explain.
The problems with “Queen Banana” and “Penalteam” went beyond the treatment of Chloe with the way the stories were handled, with “Queen Banana” being a cheap jab at critics and TV executives while propping up their new character Zoe, and “Penalteam” being an excuse to have a soccer episode while making Cat Noir look like a buffoon right before the finale. Most of the problems with this episode have more to do with how they affect the way we see previous episodes, and why some scenes that were already unfunny are even less funny now.
With this episode, you can at least tell there was some effort being made to tell a more serious story here that went into what made Marinette tick. Yeah, it and the themes of mental health and trauma were handled about as gracefully as a ballet dancer trying to get a bear trap off their leg, but there's at least an attempt here.
Of course, this episode is still awful. The conflict with Kim not getting how much of a jerk he was after a year was dumb (as was him being even more of a jerk as Dark Humor), the fact that Marinette's trauma seemed to come and go when the plot needed it to really showed off how forced it is, and it only ends with you having more questions about Marinette and Chloe's rivalry rather than answering them.
While I'm still not a fan of this episode, and would still place it in my top five least favorites, I don't think it's the absolute worst. Although it's still the worst one so far this season from a technical standpoint.
THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS...KIM
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It says a lot when Cat Noir actually tried to murder someone in this episode, yet not only is he not even considered for the award this episode, the person he tried to kill ends up being the bigger idiot. Not only did he easily fall for Chloe's plan when she insulted him to his face, he failed to understand how it affected Marinette for a year, and when he was told about how bad it was, he refused to take responsibility for his actions, blamed it on other people not being able to take a joke, and only gave the smallest apology after he was almost killed for his attitude. It's honestly funny how he somehow comes across as more unlikable than Chloe, the character this episode was made to make you hate even more.
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gothicbarbie · 4 months
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MY TOP 10 BEST BL COUPLES OF 2023
So I guess I'm a little late considering it's now 2024 in most places, but well, better late than never. I tried and failed to rank top 20 or even 10 kisses... I just couldn't remember them all or even choose... but most of my top couples have some pretty great kisses, so at least there's that! I can, however, rank my favorite BL pairings from 2023, so... let's do it! I will be ranking these from least favorite to favorite because I think it's more fun that way... Also I credited all the gif makers at the bottom but I did list the tumblr user for each specific gif underneath. If someone wants me to remove their gif, please let me know and I will so! I just wanted to pretty up the post a bit.
Also, to clarify, any couple on a show that is currently airing and not complete yet is not eligible to be on the list for 2023. Trust me, there were many I wanted to include!
Honorary Mentions:
Tinn & Gun | My School President
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So, spoiler, a different GeminiFourth pairing will be on the actual top 10 so I didn't really want to include both pairings on the list, but I really did love the two of them in My School President. G/F just have such a wonderful and natural chemistry. The way they always look at each other just feels so pure and sweet. I really like pairings where one is secretly pining for the other, but Tinn/Gun also sorta had a hate/love ISH thing going for a little while. The progression of their relationship to actual boyfriends was just so fun to watch and really well done.
Dong Wook & Do Hyun | A Breeze of Love
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I watched this BL so quickly that it didn't really resonate with me as well as some other series, which is why these two didn't make the top 10, however, I really enjoyed their relationship on the show. I love hate to love pairings and I found their backstory scenes really sweet as well. I also thought they had a really nice chemistry and there were some strong kissing moments for a kbl.
Jihan & Jaejun | City Boy Log
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I didn't include these two on the main list for two reasons, one: the show is not over yet... i don't think? and two: this technically isn't a BL drama? IDK anymore, but regardless I love this series and this couple so dang much! I love the realness of them filming themselves and how their relationship is portrayed so subtly until their feelings just sort of emerge. They have some really wonderful and special scenes or moments together that we don't typically get on other series. I am anxious to see where the rest of the story goes and I hope the actors get another opportunity to work together. The side pairing is great too!
Top 10!
#10. Ai & Songkhram | Destiny Seeker
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These two were so damn fun to watch, I really loved the hate to love thing at the start that quickly turned into love (Or I guess always sort of was???). The actors had such a great chemistry together and they had so many fun little moments and bantery scenes together. While the rest of the series felt a little flat for me, their connection continuously kept me interested.
#09. Ze Rui & Zong Yi | Kiseki Dear to Me
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Honestly don't even know what to write about these two or how to explain why I like them, because there wasn't anything particularly special about their dynamic that typically draws me in, but I just really enjoyed the actors chemistry together and I really liked the progression of their relationship and how well they meshed together. Their kissing was extremely natural too.
#08. King & Eua | Bed Friend
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Firstly, these two are HOT AF, and I really loved the friends with benefits storyline between these two, but more than that, we have a perfect character imo with King, who was continuously there for Eua and always trying to help him and make him understand how much he really cared. The show could be very dark at times but I love that King was always sort of the shining light for Eua.
#07. Segaski & Yoh | My Personal Weatherman
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I can admit that the big draw to this show for me originally was the sexy scenes and moments, and while I do think the series could have done with some more scenery changes and better storylines, considering the time frame, I enjoyed watching the relationship between the two characters develop. It's nice to get a friends with benefits type of relationship and see how it progresses into more than that. And for a JBL it was nice to see some high heat with a happy ending.
#06. Su Yu & Wu Bi | Stay With Me
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SIGH. THESE TWO. So I mean, I understand the criticism of this show and their relationship. So many things are implied but personally I felt like the end half made it pretty clear that these two were 100% a romantic couple. (just wish it was clarified when that change happened) But the progression of their relationship from hate to love was so beautiful to watch. Even if it was just a friendship it was worth it imo to see how close they got. Fair warning, the finale episode is not the best lmao, but I hope we get a second season to sort of fix it? Fingers crossed on that one.
#05. Wan & Ki Tae | Our Dating Sim
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This was definitely one of the cutest BL's of the year and this couple falls into that category well too. I really loved seeing them re-connect. I love that they were old best friends (with feelings) that had a lot of issues to sort through and we saw some adorable flashback scenes as well as current scenes. I also love that they got together and were mostly happy instead of having a lot of intense drama.
#04. Li Ming & Heart | Moonlight Chicken
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These two... so much to say about them and yet I don't really know where to start. Gemini and Fourth just work so well together and I felt like this duo was even deeper than in MSP. They started out on bad terms but quickly became close and I really loved the progression of their relationship and then I adored how we also got to see them together as a couple too. My favorite thing about them was how hard Li Ming worked to try to understand Heart and how he learned sign language for him and encouraged him to get to know others like him and to put himself out there. They also had such a fun banter with playful moments and scenes. It was just so damn pure and sweet to watch with no unnecessary or stupid fillery drama.
#03. Jae Won and Ji Hyun | The Eighth Sense
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Something about this pairing just felt so much different than the typical KBL pairing. The show itself was so much deeper and had a more serious tone than we typically get, which was amazing. The actors nailed the roles and you could really feel the tension and longing between them right from the beginning. I loved their storyline so much and the actors seemed so comfortable together.
#02. Yamato & Kakeru | I Cannot Reach You
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This was one of my favorite BL's of the year and their relationship was a huge part of it. I thought I was more into hate to love, but clearly, based on this list, that isn't always the case. There is something so sweet and adorable about best friends turned to lovers. I really love too when we see one side pining for the other, so this couple was extremely enjoyable to watch!
#01. Chen Yi & Ai Di | Kiseki Dear To Me
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Good Lord these two... they had the perfect formula for my favorite type of pairing. Hate to love, drama, tension, angst, one-sided pining... it was so painful to have to wait every week for more. But god, it was worth the wait and their chemistry was just so good, their kisses were phenomenal too. Def. a memorable pair and a show I will be rewatching very soon!
THANK YOU to all these wonderful humans for making the most amazing gifs that I used in this post!
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pennyblossom-meta · 24 days
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L Lawliet: a deep dive into the expanded universe pt.01
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EDIT (07/04/2024): Added some imgs.
Apologies for being so late to give this a follow up to @maevearcher's meta which can be found here and here. As usual, she’s made excellent points and I'll try to answer the ones which caught my eye.
Since this post ended up gaining a life of its own and becoming a bit too long, I’m splitting it in 2 or 3 parts. The core of the content for part 01 starts after under the button to Read More.
Here we talk about L's humanity.
I'll start with a disclaimer of my own: while I consider the manga as the base for the story, I'm very much open to the expanded DN universe as a complementary study of the characters and their motivations — sometimes even filling in the blanks for some of the background mysteries, such as the dynamics of Wammy's House and how L's successors view him.
To further clarify: by canon I mean the manga and any works by Tsugumi Ohba as the base material. I think @maevearcher and I are more or less in agreement on that, from what she mentioned in her own posts. As she said, the written word is indeed the baseline truth.
The expansion of the DN universe also has its own very special set of problems; for example, in many ways, L:CtW (L: Change the WorLd) commits the sin of overindulgence by throwing in considerations that, arguably, go against canon. Besides the ending where L lives for a final 23 days and Watari dies, the portrayal of Near in the movie (though in the novel he's also walking a fine line between becoming partially and very much OOC) is also a point of contention. I confess that I really wasn't fond of the way they portrayed Misa as a potential crush of L given canon insights on his opinion about Light whether in the role of Kira or as a person (pg.64 of Vol 13: How to Read, henceforth referred to as V13:HTR), but aligning L to become more humane and forgiving was at least interesting.
The same happens with the live action movies, the 2015 series, and the musical. At least the game Spiraling Trap isn't clashing with canon elements — that I could tell. The main plot is separate from the events of DN and the dating sim is a little slice of heaven into L's thoughts and emotions which I dearly love.
However, while L:CtW does indeed overindulge, the novel AN:LABB (Another Note: LA BB Murder Cases) gives us a singular glimpse into L through the eyes of Mello while keeping the events mostly accurate to the main plot, even with its slight deviations. It's certainly an optional perspective to the core of DN, but one that I always found very insightful. In V13:HTR, Obha mentions how he would’ve liked that there were more novels about L and how he solved previous cases, in a similar fashion to how Nisio Isin approaches AN:LABB. Here’s what Ohba says in pg.61 of V13:HTR:
(...) I didn’t think up much for [L’s] past. For him to be in such an influential position, he must have solved an amazing amount of cases, but I have no idea what kind of cases they were or how he solved them. But I would love for NISIOISIN, who wrote the Death Note novel, to write more stories about that (...)
This means that, to some extent, even the original author, Ohba, accepts AN:LABB as close to canon — or rather, as canon as it can get given the creative liberties allowed to a third party writer. To that point, Nisio Isin took L’s capoeira demonstration during the Yotsuba arc and made it a whole thing in the novel, with L taking inspiration from Naomi Misora’s skills. However, given the importance of that event, in the main story, L takes a while to even remember Misora so we can infer that either the stress of the case is getting to him OR learning capoeira and subsequently Misora’s role in it didn’t leave that much of an imprint on him because true canon didn’t really put that much emphasis into it. Either way, it’s an extrapolation that works. The technicalities can be overlooked given how ambiguous the scene is, as there is more than room to deduce a different past.
At the same time, I am an apologist that there are shared characteristics to L throughout the different mediums. My own interpretation of L's character has the manga as a baseline, but the expanded universe has taught me that there are sides to him that might not be so easy to perceive in dialogue bubbles or illustrations alone. Little things like L's addictive personality or the way he represses feelings are visible in the manga but caught beautifully in the novels, for example.
Going from the written word into the screen also represents a loss of the purity achievable only within the narrative in-book, where you can extrapolate and reach your own conclusions without being subject to the bias of sound and movement — though manga aggregates the visual to words and with it an altogether different dimension of meaning. That's one of the many things I enjoy about elements of fiction introduced through books; the stillness of the images and the narrative are more complex. Every time the baseline gets adapted, it loses something or that something shifts to fit into the perception of others. It ceases being pure and its essence is fundamentally shattered. Like the concept of a musical score on paper that gets played by an orchestra, there will never be an adaptation as good as the source material because it breaks the illusion.
While I can certainly extrapolate and accept the loss, I find that the written word from the novels, the tone of a VA's voice and the body movements in a live action still complement the manga well, despite narrative clashes.
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About L’s humanity
Recently I've been re-watching the anime and it's incredible how Alessandro Juliani's understanding of the character resulted in such a well-rounded voice for L. I actually prefer the EN version to the JP because of the voice acting. It's superbly brilliant, even if L becomes less listless. He's certainly still aloof, but his aggressiveness is portrayed more vividly; in contrast, L in the manga feels a bit more dangerous and scary to me due to the range of expressions that the anime didn't manage to add in due to time and budget constraints. If anything L tones down how dangerous he can be. He does this on purpose so that he can trick and trip his adversary, as can be seen during his earlier interactions with Light. At times, L makes a mockery of himself, apparently placing himself in the position of a more demure individual while sharply observing the world around him and forming conclusions.
As to @maevearcher ‘s first point:
(...) An image of this lonely autistic genius, locked inside the confines of his ways, waiting for the right person to come along and save him from the banes of his solitary existence…until he meets Light and realises there’s someone out there who he can relate to, for understanding and stuff. I personally don’t buy too much into that.
The depth to which L relates to Light can be overestimated, but not without reason. Theirs is mostly an adversarial relationship with varying deviations throughout the expanded universe, but if we solely consider the manga then we get this comment from Ohba regarding whether L has any friends on pg.64 of V13: HTR:
Nope. And when he says that Light is his first friend that’s a big lie. He never considers him a friend. He probably secretly thinks really negative things about him.
During the Yotsuba arc, L is at a disadvantage. Light has turned the tables, tricked him into what Beyond Birthday could not do and thus gained a solid position into rendering L almost powerless to charge him. To elaborate on the latter point: BB wanted to create the perfect, unsolvable crime to humiliate L, making him lose, and thus “spend the rest of his life trembling in fear of B’s shadow” (pg.163, AA:LABB); L would know who the guilty party was but wouldn’t be able to prove it or bring that person to justice. As such, L would not be able to solve the mystery. At the end of the novel BB fails due to Misora’s quick thinking and that’s that. However, Light has several advantages that BB lacked, starting with his own social position, charm and the impeccable reputation of a model student and the prized son of a police chief who helps solve cases every now and then.
We can argue that, what truly happens in manga canon, is L and Light showing how much they respect each other for their detective skills, forming a sort of strange kinship within the cat and mouse game, especially when Light loses his memories of the Death Note. The game thrills them and they enjoy pushing each other’s buttons. No one else has ever challenged them like this. That being said, the first time they meet up for coffee after the tennis match, L is observing Light like a hawk, keeps testing him for a reaction and seems somewhat irritated at how much Light talks. I would venture a guess that L doesn’t actually like Light that much, even when he loses his memories. He might even find Light a nuisance when he waves the flag of morality — though this is a common problem L is confronted with when dealing with the Task Force, in particular Chief Yagami and Aizawa. This also places him at another gruesome disadvantage, as he’s surrounded by people who openly dislike and criticise his methods. The Task Force is also extremely wary of the way L pursues Light and think he’s being stubborn without proof to substantiate his reasoning. Ironically, it’s Aizawa, one of L’s most critical subordinates, who initiates Light’s downfall years later once he starts to consider L’s suspicions in light of Near and Mello’s tactics. 
Both L and Light respect the game, no matter where it takes them. I would further make an educated guess that Light even preyed on L’s vulnerabilities during the Yotsuba arc, predicting how L might fall into depression for failing at the game. Light was more than capable of understanding that L’s competitive and childish side would make him a sore loser, especially given that he had already “lost” the first round of battles just by showing his face. Even if there is a sliver of friendship between both during Light’s months of amnesia, it’s dead and buried the moment he becomes Kira again. 
My conclusion here would be that, while what happened with Light was extreme, it was also somewhat similar to Beyond Birthday’s eternal enmity towards L: the challenge, the need to humiliate and take down the greatest detective, one of the most brilliant minds to ever walk the Earth. There are some notable quotes from AA:LABB that reference what it is to be L, surrounded by future challengers and individuals who both look up to L and want to prove they’re better than him:
Pg.69
By simple arithmetic, L's ability in 2002 was the equivalent of five ordinary investigative bureaus, and seven intelligence agencies (and by the time he faced off against Kira, those numbers had leapt upward several more notches). This is easy to think of as a reason to respect and admire someone, but let me say this as clearly as possible: that much ability in one human is extremely dangerous. Modern danger management techniques rely heavily on diffusing the risk, but his very existence was the exact opposite. In other words, if someone was planning to commit a crime, they could greatly increase their chances of getting away with it by simply killing L before they began. That was why L hid his identity Not because he was shy or because he never left the house. To ensure his own safety For a detective of L's ability, self-preservation and the preservation of world peace were one and the same, and it would not be correct to describe his actions as cowardly or self-centered.
Pg. 117
L was the goal of everyone in Wammy's House. Everyone of us wanted to surpass him. To step over him. To step on him. M did, N did, and B did. M as a challenger, N as a successor. B as a criminal.
Pg. 160:
B approached Naomi Misora, calling himself Rue Ryuzaki. Rue Ryuzaki - L.L.  For anyone from Wammy's House, there could be no higher goal than identifying yourself with that letter - and Beyond Birthday seized this case as his chance.
One of the biggest problems with these quotes is that they paint a very complicated — and, ultimately, suffocating — picture of what it is like to be L. Ohba himself mentions Watari’s predisposition towards collecting geniuses from all over the world and what Wammy’s House has turned into, under the snippet for Watari’s character (pg.60 V13:HTR):
He’s a guy who cultivates detectives for fun. That’s kind of terrible, isn’t it?
Everyone profits from L. Watari becomes richer than ever. Wammy's House becomes breeding ground for geniuses who end up dreaming of a life where they enjoy constant thrill and challenge. However, in order to do so, the dream cannot be complete until the successor crushes the original; until M, N, B and A defeat L. At least one of L’s successors couldn’t handle the pressure and committed suicide. B, known as Backup, runs away from the orphanage and goes on a murder rampage. Having never met L in person, he deduces several personality quirks that the “original” demonstrates, going as far as exacerbating them in order to be creepy and repulsive. Mello, who boasts of having met L in person and being privy to stories about how he defeated several other detectives (then taking their aliases as a trophy) both fervently admires L and wants to step on him. 
Step on him. That’s quite the turn of phrase. It does sound scary, doesn’t it? To be surrounded by people who would take the opportunity to pull you down, no matter how much they admire you. They want to be you, to prove that they’re better than you. It’s game and ego. Life and death. Winner and loser. 
And that’s perhaps the most blatant summary in approved canon of what it is like to be L that we’ll ever get. We can, of course, argue that Watari cares about L. He’s not only his handler, but also the one who brought him into Wammy’s House. It’s fairly clear that he nurtured (and even enabled) some of L’s most distressing character traits, though I wouldn’t necessarily say it was with a purely utilitarian agenda. It’s perfectly acceptable to extrapolate how Watari might’ve wanted to keep L, a child of great intellectual genius, happy by allowing him to be challenged and properly educated. In fact, AN:LABB (pg. 145-46) even gives us L’s perspective on the kindness that justice can achieve, which is confirmed within the expanded universe to be similar to Watari’s teachings as L confronts Kujo in L:CtW. 
"I have nothing to do with him," L said. "To be completely accurate, I do not even know B. He is simply someone I am aware of. But none of this affects my judgment. Certainly I was interested in this case, and began to investigate it because I knew who the killer was. But that did not alter the way I investigated it, or the manner in which my investigation proceeded. Naomi Misora, I cannot overlook evil. I cannot forgive it. It does not matter if I know the person who commits evil or not. I am only interested in justice." "Only... in justice... " Misora gasped. "Then ... nothing else matters?" "I wouldn't say that, but it is not a priority." “You won't forgive any evil, no matter what the evil is?" "I wouldn't say that, but it is not a priority." "'But..." Like a thirteen-year-old victim. "There are people who justice cannot save." Like a thirteen-year-old criminal. “And there are people who evil can save." "There are. But even so," L said, his tone not changing at all. As if gently admonishing Naomi Misora. “Justice has more power than anything else." "Power? By power ... you mean strength?" "No. I mean kindness." He said it so easily. Misora almost dropped the phone. L The century's greatest detective, L. The detective of justice, L. Who solved every case, no matter how difficult... " ...I misunderstood you, L." "Did you? Well, I'm glad we cleared that up."
I would, once again, venture another educated guess that, while Watari’s primary reasons for starting a program of successors to L was noble, it ultimately backfired on an individual level. Society wise, the letters, as L calls them in L:CtW, are a force for good. They solve crimes, help law forces around the world to keep peace. Some of them even become scientists like Dr Kujo — though she becomes the main antagonist in the spin-off novel. However, the pressure this kind of lifestyle fostered creates a group of individuals who are highly competitive and manipulative. Some, like A, can’t handle it. Even L has his own troubles, being called a reclusive sociopath, possibly by the police forces who treat him as a utility rather than a person. He’s someone they admire and resent, who is tolerated given how effective he is at cracking down cases. 
This passage from L:CtW paints a grim picture of the way L suppresses his own feelings as he breaks down for not being able to prevent Maki from being kidnapped (pg. 150-51):
"Light...it hurts. My heart--" It was a hurt that L Lawliet had suppressed, that he had to suppress in order to continue his existence as the peerless Detective L. How had the world's top detective been described in regard to facets of his personality rather than his ability as a detective? He had been called a kinky detective who relished bizarre murders, a human computer capable only of measuring mass murders in terms of cold numbers, a reclusive sociopath. What L thought of such estimations of his personality only L could know. But no one could truly understand L. How L did not and could not forget the faces of thousands of victims. Who could comprehend the man who had lived his life, and had to live confronting all the lives that ended prematurely, the tears of grief-stricken survivors, the devaluing of life as a daily reality. How was it possible to measure the pain of such a man? Was it a strain so heavy that L's back curved under all its weight? Was it an agony so terribly to leave the indelible dark circles around his eyes? Was it a feeling so bitter that every bite he took needed to be coated in sugar? The chronically rounded shoulders, the inevitable dark circles, the eccentric tastes--L suppressed the pain of being a champion of justice, but the evidence of the pain was moulded into his very body.”
Even within the clear disparity from the official canon, this passage slaps. It humanises L further, making the detective become a person and not just a machine who is content with his lifestyle. I know there’s a tendency for those who prefer the manga to see L as someone who is unabashedly himself and perfectly alright with the life he lives. I would argue that the Kira case was not only the most difficult challenge L ever faced, but also a series of moments where he had to be at his best — and at his worst. He had to do everything within his power to solve the case, not only because of his pride but because of what he considers to be his sense of justice. Saying with such confidence ‘I am justice’ is a rather cheesy and childish thing to say out loud, though I read it as both what started as a child’s stubbornness and what L became, as he positioned himself as a barrier to prevent crimes. 
L suppresses himself, represses his emotions; he tries to control them, as Fu Takashi says in an interview, he is “dependent on games or battles of the mind”. Perhaps this is a consequence of the foundations of his personality. Despite L’s innate stubbornness, it could be argued that this is as much his fault as it is Watari’s, who didn’t nurture L’s social skills as he should have when he was a child. By not having an outlet outside of his hobby, L is trapped in a prison of his own making. Superficially, L is a “smart guy who hates losing”, but what about the rest? What about the things that make him human, the connections with others? In the same interview, it is mentioned how L feels lonely and needs affection. But what affection can you get when you isolate yourself from the world and keep everyone at arm’s length? He’s not a machine. Even machines become obsolete with time, and need outside help to keep functioning.
As for the latter point, if everyone around L is trying to step on him, humiliate him and surpass him, then it’s only natural that his emotional defences would be up. Aside from Watari, whose loyalty he can count on, he’s alone. L has no one else. And everyone around him will have a dangerous, significant probability to betray him.
Next in part 02: About romance, having someone close and intimate, the meaning of the Monster speech.
Tagging @rinneroraito, @flametrashira and @sharkiethrts who might be interested in this meta.
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mxdarling · 16 days
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[“put that down! you’ll hurt yourself with that.” / “you’re so pretty when you smile.”]
•❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅• •❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅•
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ೃ⁀➷: summary: idia bought a new multiplayer game, and he wants to play it with his player one, you.
ೃ⁀➷: word count: 2.3k (2334)
ೃ⁀➷: reference/Inspiration: playlist
ೃ⁀➷: event: [200 followers event]
[author's note:] JDJDKD MORE IDIA CONTENT WOOHOOO this was supposed to be his belated birthday gift from me but uhh cough cough writer block hit me like a bitch soo.. didn't finish before new years, and it's now like- 4 months late??? anyways, thank you anon for requesting idia with dialogue #3 and #7!! my last yandere idia work had him a little creepy so i made him cute this time loll i hope it's to your satisfaction anon!
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[warnings:] lowercase, yandere behavior, more fluff than yandere, established relationship, reader is a gamer, cuddling, kisses, reader is ticklish, poor explanation of game mechanics, mentions of fear for judgement, reader is portrayed as a crybaby, one paragraph mentions idia being a creep, game is a rip-off of minecraft (fantasy version), toxic teammates.
[note:] If there is anything else triggering here that I didn’t list in the warnings section, please tell me. i don’t condone this type of behavior, this is merely just for entertaining purposes and some sort of coping mechanism for me. if you continue to read beyond this point, ignoring my warnings, i am not responsible for your actions from here on out.
[GN reader]
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IDIA SHROUD seemed to be in a good mood today, at least according to what you've seen so far. probably because his latest purchase is the cause of his being in such an upbeat mood. not that you're complaining; it was rather cute seeing him all excited and giddy when he found a new game to play. it's like a whole new, different side of him comes out whenever he starts to ramble about the features of the game and why he should absolutely play it right now. of course, as his player one, you're automatically going to be the first person he's going to play with. not that you mind, really. playing with idia was always a fun experience; it reminded you a lot of how you would spend your free time back in your world.
(those days of laziness, those days of unproductivity where you did nothing but lay down on your bed and do nothing—no school work to do, no club activities to do, no studying for an upcoming exam—just pure idleness. then when you're bored, you could just use your phone, PC, or iPad to entertain you as the day goes by, playing nonstop until late hours in the evening. god, you miss those days.)
you often wondered what genre of video games this new world had to offer. you knew that it wouldn't be so different from your own world, but you weren't sure just how many of your friends were affiliated with gaming entertainment. out of fear that judgement would be placed upon you if you shared this interest of yours, your love for video games has been hidden—so to find someone else (with that someone else being idia) that likes video games and is very well versed in them is a dream come true. it was a long process to get him to play with you, let alone consider you a friend and not try to avoid you every 2 seconds—still, it was a feat you were proud of because now you get to experience many, many different sides of idia that you would have never known 9 months ago.
(you once heard idia curse like at least twenty times in one breathe when one of his teammates was being shitty and a prick, he sounded so angry and scary that you backed into a corner to avoid getting burnt by his scorching, bright red hair that grew the more angrier he got. the only reason he stopped was when he heard quiet sobs in the corner of his room and turned around away from his computer to see you huddled in the corner of his room. quickly he went over there, completely abandoning his game and comforting you. he hates seeing his cute prefect cry, especially because of him, he's not the great at comforting but when he hugged you so tightly, your quiet sobs turned into silence. right then and there he swore to never be the reason you're crying and when you do, he'll be right there with you.)
you are currently cross-sitting in his very comfy bed, watching as idia set up two controllers and plugged in the PCs to turn them on (you're still surprised he's got more than 2 PCs, which, if you really think about it, his family background makes it make sense). after waiting for the PCs to turn on, he then connects the controllers to the PCs and opens up the game on both screens. you would insist on helping him set up, but due to you literally being isekai'd into this unknown world of twisted wonderland, you aren't too familiar with many things besides the whole magic stuff—plus, you aren't too keen on breaking any of idia's stuff because of your lack of knowledge on how to do technology.
(technology in general is so extremely confusing, you would argue wholeheartedly all day and all night, and idia would agree with you and low-key flex on how knowledgeable he is in the field of technology, just to impress you and show how reliable he is. secretly, he likes it when he's useful to you.)
"sorry! it took a while to set up..." in slightly shaking hands, he hands over the controller to you while holding the other in his free hand. he looked rather nervous when he faced you to give the controller, like he's worried he wasted your time waiting for him. it reminded you of a puppy looking up to its owner apologetically when they did something wrong, so cute, you thought, adorable even, you added.
"haha! it's okay! you didn't take that long anyway." you gave him a reassuring look, a soft smile, and bright eyes, showing him that you weren't bothered by having to wait a bit as he set up for you two to play.
both screens show the in-game loading screen, and the bar quickly fills up due to the fast internet speed (one you're quite envious of). slowly it fades to the starting screen, where a big text is bouncing 'tap to start' in both of your faces. Idia presses to start immediately, wanting to get into gameplay as fast as he can while you take a moment to admire the visual aspects and effects of the game in silent awe. you always had a thing for the visual stuff that was shown in-game. by slowly pressing the button on your control, you enter the game and begin a fantastical journey with idia.
“put that down! you’ll hurt yourself with that.” he says worriedly as he watches you damage your avatar's HP bar this early in gameplay. usually he gets really annoyed when he plays with noobs and normies; they stink at comprehending basic knowledge, do dumb things in-game, ask too many questions, and ruin the whole gameplay experience for him. 'ugh, how annoying.' is his usual reaction to such—of course he wouldn't think of that towards you! never ever would he ever think this way towards you; even if you do things noobs and normies usually do, he can't bring himself to be annoyed—you were too cute in his eyes. he would never admit this to your face, though, and he still gets red just at the thought of him thinking you are cute. It's true though; don't get him wrong, but... the embarrassment that comes with thinking about these thoughts is just too much for his poor little heart! honestly, he's for sure that one day you'll be the death of him, does he care though? not really; in fact, he would probably love that.
(he blushes so hard whenever he thinks of you in his clothes; it's the way your natural scent clings onto his shirts, the way his shirts made you even cuter than you already are—one of the only reasons he doesn't wash his clothes immediately because he wants to savor your smell to memory. he's a creep, yes, but he's one devoted creep.)
"whoops! sorry didn't see that, haha..." nervously laughing at your mistake, you eat whatever consumable you have in your inventory to try and restore as much health as you lost. as your avatar munches on the food in its hand, from the corner of your screen, you can see idia's avatar walking towards you. once it's near enough to your avatar, you can see the animation of a bunch of items being dropped and your inventory picking up due to the proximity between the items and your avatar. you opened your inventory, curious about what he just gave you since it looked like quite a lot of items, and confused about why he was giving you so many items in the first place. your eyes widen in shock as the items he's given you are one stack of steak, every weapon in-game (sword, axe, pickaxe, shovel, hoe), but in steel, and a full set of steel armor.
your mouth continues to gape open as you put on the armor set on your avatar. how did he get so much stuff this fast? it hasn't even been an hour yet! "where.. did you get so much stuff!?" you ask naively, following idia around as you don't want to get lost, die, and lose all your stuff. "stole half of those from villages, some from mining, and a few from trading" he says so casually as he continues to walk in an unknown direction, like this was a regular thing for him, not to mention this was a hard difficulty! he's playing this game like it's not easy mode! "could've gotten more if it weren't for those stingy mobs..." furrowing his eyebrows, he let out a small huff of frustration, pressing slightly harder on the buttons on his controller, not noticing how your mouth dropped down even further at his passing comment. as she presses on, walking in an unknown direction, you're hit with the hundredth reminder that he's on a whole other level than you when it comes to gaming.
three hours in, and you guys decided to play on public servers, where you'll get to play different game modes other than the usual story and survival modes. once the two of you picked a game to play, the room quickly filled with laughter, shouting, incoherent grumbling, screams of terror, and many more in between. you two decided to save a team game as last since idia wasn't enthusiastic about playing together with other players because he just wanted to play with you, and there was an underlying fear that you would encounter toxic teammates. but since you were practically begging him to just try it at least once, he couldn't help but give in to your pleas.
it was fun, he supposed. it wasn't as annoying or infuriating as he thought it would be, but he still had to keep up not making really snarky remarks when certain players were interacting with you. he'd hate to have you see such a mean, ugly, and disgusting side of him. other than that, it was an okay experience. he thinks it would've been better if it was just him and you on a team; wouldn't it be kind of romantic? you and him against everyone else?
then what he feared most would happen actually happened. suddenly some fucking jerk is screaming insults at you for not being good enough, and before that teammate got two more words in, he exploded on them. curses upon curses spit out his mouth in rapid speed, and the voices of that said teammate slowly but surely die down as their ego and pride go down with them. in the midst of anger and chaos between him and the teammate, you could feel tears building up inside you; everything around you started to blur, and the sounds that filled your ears were starting to get tuned out. you couldn't even hear that idia stopped screaming curses, turned off both PCs, and went to take the controller from your hand, lift you up into his lap, and slowly wrap his arms around you.
once he had you fully in his grasp, he tightened his grip, making sure not to let you get away from him. he wasn't good at words, especially when trying to comfort someone, but seeing you cry was making him cry too. he did, after all, swear to always be with you when you cry. raising one of his hands, he placed it at the back of your head and gently pushed towards his neck. then his hand went down to rub your back, up and down, up and down, at a slow pace. letting you cry it all out in peace while also letting you know he's there with you.
a few minutes have passed, and your sobs have gone silent. your eyes have become droopy and sleepy, and it feels almost impossible to keep them open. suddenly, a hand lifts your chin, and you feel a pair of lips come into contact with your forehead. it wasn't like a quick kiss; no, the kiss lasted for at least a few seconds before pulling away. even then, upon pulling away, you feel another kiss on your cheek, this time a little quicker than the forehead kiss. then another kiss on your other cheek, then another on your nose, another on your jawline, another on your earlobes, and finally, his lips hovered over your own lips.
you could feel the hesitation when he let out a nervous breath; the thought of your lips on his always sends him into an electrifying and drunken daze. he can't think straight when he's this close to you, but even then, it gives him an unusual feeling of contentment and confidence. the luck he has to be able to snag such an adorable, cute, amazing, and beautiful person like you in his life. he almost can't believe it. swallowing his own nervousness for your comfort, he presses against your soft lips delicately. soon after making physical contact with your lips, he feels a smile form on your face—a small smile, yet it was enough for him. any smile from you is enough for him, because seeing you happy is the best view he could ever lay his eyes on.
feeling out of breath, he's the first to let go but also the first to frown at the loss of touch. i want to stay like this forever, he thought as he watched you emit a giggle after the kiss. fire burns brightly in his heart, and he starts to wonder if you being the death of him will really come true. his cheeks burn that ever-warm red that he knows you've seen many, many times before, but he can't help it. when you pull him into a world through rose-tinted glasses, no way could he be immune to such an effect.
"i really can’t take it when you cry like that… smile for me, alright? you’re so pretty when you smile."
•❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅• •❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅•
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PLEASE DO NOT COPY, REPOST, SHARE, TRANSLATE OR REUPLOAD ANY OF MY WORKS TO OTHER SITES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION + REBLOGS AND COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED.
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schizopositivity · 2 years
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how to advocate for schizophrenics and psychotics in every day life:
correct people when they misuse the word "psychotic" (as in if they use it in any other way but a serious disconnect from reality, delusions or hallucinations)
correct people when they use the word "schizophrenic" as an adjective (its not!!! its a severe and persistant mental disorder)
correct people when they call people "crazy" aka "shes been acting crazy lately" (they likely dont actually mean it and this word is thrown around a lot, but as a schizophrenic im asking you to not use this word to describe people since this has been tied to me and my fellow psychotics for ages)
do not assume that a psychotic person is dangerous in any way (psychotic people are more likely to be the victims of abuse than be the abusers)
when talking about mental illness or the mental illness community as a whole consider, does this apply to psychotic and schizophrenic people as well? (if not, youre not talking about the whole community! its that simple)
do not purposley trigger someones paranoia aka telling people that theres someone after them (this is always harmful and potentially life threatening, its not a joke and never was)
dont assume schizophrenia is "just hallucinations and delusions" (its much more than that, it has negative and cognitive symptoms as well, which for some people is much worse than the positive symptoms of hallucinations and delusions)
dont make lobotomy jokes aka "lobotomize me" jokes (these procedures were used to turn schizophrenics into "pets" so that other people could better deal with us, its not a joke)
dont act "crazy" for shock value aka wide eyes, rocking back and fourth, shaking (our mannerisms arent for you to pretend to be crazy with, this is who we actually are, im looking at you rock bands)
dont fear the people on the street talking to themselves aka calling the cops on them (these people are suffering, these people need help, them being psychotic doesnt make them any more dangerous than anybody else)
dont use the word delusional for every idea you dont agree with aka "that conservative politician is delusional!" (delusions specifically describe strongly held beliefs outside of reality, not just beliefs outside youre specific world view)
dont expect people to express emotions the same way you do aka "why arent you reacting?" (many schizophrenics stuggle with flat affect and cant change it, it doesnt mean we dont feel things, just that we dont express them the same way)
dont expect us to be able to do the same amount of, or intensity of work you do aka "i work 5 days a week, you have it easy!" (executive disfunction is very common in schizophrenia, it doesnt make us lazy, we are just disabled)
dont post derealization without tagging it or TWing it as such aka that post with a fake european country saying that americans dont even know what country this is (we already struggle enough with figuring out whats real and whats not we dont need "pranks" or "jokes" trying to fool us without any TW)
dont assume schizophrenic and psychotic people cant see your post or view your media or anything else (we are real people interacting with the world just like everybody else, we can see your jokes about us, or your media portraying us as dangerous, we arent fictional characters)
dont assume youre superior to, or smarter than us (once again we are real people, we deserve the same respect as anyone else on the planet)
dont call someones delusion stupid aka "obviously youre not the reincarnation of kurt cobain thats stupid" (you have no idea how real these are for us, they dont always make sense to you but they do to us, please respect that)
dont ask if were hallucinating right now (its none of youre business! and if we say yes youll likely ask where it is, and if we show you youll likely look in the direction of the hallucination which is dangerous, it blends the real world with the hallucination and its already hard enough for us to tell the difference)
dont stop trusting us and what we say just because were psychotic (we still deserve to be listened to and trusted just like everybody else)
learn about less talked about symotoms like catatonia, avolition and word salad (these are just as common as the talked about ones, but just less talked about cause i guess it doesnt make for an intresting horror movie)
learn more about schizophrenia and psychosis from actual schizophrenics and psychotics (a great example is the podcast Inside Schizophrenia, scrolling through this blog, looking up students with psychosis)
TLDR: no go back and read it, its the least you could do
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saw you might be taking requests? can you do a drabble where y/n is a survivor of domestic abuse and levi ends up raising his voice at some point and y/n gets triggered and levi comforts them? pls skip if ur uncomfortable with this!
absolutely LOVE that my very first aot request is heavy angst
You're Safe | Levi Hurt/Comfort Oneshot
✧ word count ➼ 1.6k (i think this word count is just my standard at this point lmao) ✧ content/warnings: mentions of abuse, panic attacks, dissociation, canon!verse, reader is a survivor of domestic abuse, levi being comforting in his levi way, all the not fun stuff that comes with being a survivor, please let me know if i missed any trigger warnings! ✧ notes ➼ I know that everyone's experience with being a survivor is vastly different. If you would like it portrayed in a different way, feel free to send me another ask and I will try my best to match it :) Not sure if this needs to be said, but if you ever need support or solidarity, my ask is always open!
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You could tell that something was off the minute he walked in through the door. 
While Levi was rarely in a “good” mood after expeditions, you could tell that this most recent one must have gone much worse than anticipated. It was already getting late into the night and your anxiety was already elevated, having been waiting for Levi to arrive back home all day. The debrief must have taken much, much longer than usual, which was never a good sign.
You came out of your study to meet him in the living room, your heart dropping when you saw the dark look on his face and how ruffled his uniform and hair was. 
“Levi?” you asked quietly as you approached him. 
You could tell that he was exhausted and incredibly stressed at the same time. He looked like he was about to collapse down onto the ground and that it was taking all his energy to keep going.
You reached out slowly and placed your hand on his arm, gently holding him. 
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” he grumbled, shrugging you off. “Just a long day.”
You gave him a small, half-hearted smile, knowing that it was definitely not “just a long day”. However, you knew that it took Levi much longer than a normal person to process distress and decompress and given the fact that he was in the Scouts and took regular deadly expeditions outside of the walls, distress was a constant in his life.
“You know that’s not true,” you said quietly, turning towards him as he walked past you. “Talk to me, Levi.”
He stopped walking and you heard a soft sigh come from his mouth. 
“Not now, _____.”
You frowned at him, knowing that “not now” easily translated to “not at all”. Although you knew to give him space, you also knew that if he went to bed in distress tonight, then he would wake up even worse tomorrow, which would make him detach even more, leading into an endless cycle of self-destruction and stonewalling.
“Levi, please,” you said, approaching him again. “What happened? Talk to me.”
He stopped walking and quickly glanced at you with irritation showing in his eyes.
“I said not now, _____!” he yelled out, a bit louder than he had intended to.
You felt yourself flinch and freeze as your blood ran cold. The sudden and drastic change from near silence to his voice bouncing off the walls immediately brought your mind from the present reality and into a dissociative state as you felt your eyes lose focus and your ability to perceive the room around you began to dissipate. Your breathing destabilized as you took a step back away from him.
Given your current state, you weren’t able to see Levi’s eyes widen as he realized what had just happened. You couldn’t see his face pale upon seeing your reaction. You couldn’t see him walking towards you as you quickly turned away, maintaining distance from him. You couldn’t see him open his mouth to speak or hear any words that were meant to come out after.
“I need to go to the restroom,” you muttered quickly as you rushed to the bathroom in the most composed way that you could, as tears began to cloud your vision.
Once you were in the bathroom, you shut the door behind you and leaned over the sink, unable to keep the tears back any longer. You shut your eyes as disturbing memories, ones that you thought you had stored away for good, emerged. You shook your head in an attempt to get them to go away and took a sharp inhale, your breath getting caught in your throat. You vaguely heard that your sobbing was audible due to your unsteady breathing and you quickly covered your mouth in an attempt to muffle yourself.
You felt the world begin to spin around you as you cursed at yourself in frustration. You didn’t understand why you were like this. What had happened was a long time ago. You knew that Levi wasn’t that person. You knew that he wouldn’t hurt you. You knew that, even when he was frustrated, he would never take his anger out on you. 
So why the hell do I still feel this way?!
You opened your eyes again once you heard a gentle knock on the bathroom door with it slightly opening since you hadn’t closed it all the way. You saw Levi approaching from the other side of the door and you immediately looked away, quickly wiping the tears off your face in a vain attempt to keep him from seeing your crying, although there was no hiding your swollen eyes or how red your nose had become from sniffling.
There was a solemn look on Levi’s usually expressionless face. He knew what was running through your head. He knew about the rampant thoughts that must have been plaguing your mind. His heart had dropped once he saw your reaction, but at that point, it was too late to take back what had just happened.
“Hey, _____,” he said, his voice gentle and soft.
You continued to look away, averting eye contact. 
“I’m fine, Levi,” you said with a flat tone, desperately trying to mask your vulnerable state.
You saw him place his hand down on the sink near you without actually making physical contact.
“Can I come closer?” he asked, still keeping his voice low, never taking his eyes off you.
You were quiet for a second as you continued to try to control the tears that were gathering in the corners of your eyes again. You shakily nodded at him as you slowly turned towards him again.
He slowly approached you, pausing for a second before gently placing his hands on your shoulders. He had approached you slowly, noticing that you slightly flinched again when he raised his hands. The most important thing to him right now was to ground you back to the present moment, and indicate that there was no danger.
After he felt you slightly relax upon his touch, he pulled you into a tight hug, placing his hand at the back of your head to hold you in as you buried your face into his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to you. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”
Upon hearing that, you weren’t able to hold your tears back anymore as you gripped at him, with your sobs becoming audible. You pressed your face against him, as if you were desperately trying to hide.
“N-No,” you said quietly, with your voice slightly muffled. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I still act like this. I don’t want you to feel like I don’t t-trust you or that I’m afraid of you or that I-”
“Stop,” he whispered, cutting you off. “It’s okay.”
He gently ran his fingers through your hair in an attempt to soothe and comfort you, placing a kiss on the top of your head.
You continued to press yourself against him. Although you were still sobbing and soaking his shirt with tears, your breathing had stabilized and you no longer felt like there was a storm tearing through your mind.
You both stood there for a minute as he continued to soothe you and ground you back into the present. 
Once he heard you take a deep breath, he spoke again.
“Come,” he said quietly, pulling away slightly, and gently directing you out of the bathroom and into the living room, leading you to the couch.
He sat down, pulling you in as you followed suit. 
You curled yourself into a ball, resting your head against his chest, taking comfort in the gentle rhythm of his heartbeat and the warm touch of you leaning against him. You still felt incredibly embarrassed from getting so heavily triggered and continued to hide your face in him.
After a few minutes of silence, you finally took another deep breath and pulled away slightly to look up at him.
“I’m sorry,” you said, wiping away any residual tears that had gathered on your cheeks. “I feel pathetic.”
He looked at you, his eyebrows slightly coming together as worry entered his eyes at your statement.
“Well, you don’t have to, but I know it’s hard,” he said quietly, gently brushing his fingers against your cheek and tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear so that he could see your face better. “It’s okay.”
He placed his other hand on your waist, giving you a gentle squeeze as a method of reassuring you of his prolonged presence.
You gripped at his shirt to ground yourself. You were here with Levi. The person you lived with currently was not your abuser. The person you found yourself being held by was someone that loved you unconditionally, in the best way that you wanted to be loved. This person cared and would never bring harm to you. You knew that. 
Slowly, a small smile appeared on your face as you parted your lips to speak again.
“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice barely audible.
He returned the smile, pulling you into a gentle kiss that lasted for more than a few seconds. 
You allowed yourself to relish in his scent, his touch, the sound of his breathing, the feeling of his hands against you, and how, despite him being relatively small as a person, you felt engulfed by him, as if his presence was able to wash away all of the chaos that resided in your mind.
He pulled and rested his forehead on yours.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered, matching your volume. “You’re safe.”
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defectivehero · 4 months
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dialogue
Sometimes, I hate dialogue. Sometimes, I love it. Will I ever be perfect at it? Absolutely not. Are there a few things I've learned as I write more dialogue? ... Yes. Here are some of those things:
[as always, no pressure to use any of these tips. writing doesn't have a "one size fits all" formula.]
Conversations aren't always super smooth, equal exchanges where everything is reciprocated. Sometimes, individuals cut each other off. Sometimes, one individual is doing most of the talking while the other is mostly listening. Think about your characters and what is unique about them. Then, embrace that in your writing! Things like: a) answering questions two paragraphs later, b) dodging the subject and then coming back to it, and c) saying one thing but meaning another are just a few examples of ways to liven up dialogue. If a character is super energetic and eager, they may dominate the conversation (unknowingly or knowingly). If a character is more withdrawn, they may pause before speaking, speak in smaller fragments, or elect not to speak at all. The unique personalities and circumstances of your character can show through in dialogue.
Consider more than just the dialogue. This is probably my favorite thing to do, because sometimes, I just can't get the words to be perfect. And that's okay! Often, a sentiment is better portrayed through a description of a person's body language—think of gestures, facial expressions, etc—than through written dialogue. Think about a character who has gotten sick as an example. There's two ways you can approach their dialogue: 1) focus on the words they're speaking and use descriptions as accessories, or 2) focus on their body language and use dialogue as an accessory. I often find myself thinking that dialogue has to be the main focus, but it doesn't! For the sick character example, I try thinking about how they look and how they may feel. Often times, those kinds of things can also inspire dialogue! In this case, the sick character may: speak with a more raspy tone; have trouble getting the words out; have an interrupted flow of speech because of sniffles or coughs; shiver with cold or sweat; or have a hazy look to their eyes. Details like these often take away some of the pressure I put on myself to have the perfect dialogue.
Dive into the mechanics of the person's voice. Is their voice raspy, gravelly, deep, high? Is there an underlying emotion showing through? How about the volume—are they speaking loudly, softly, or somewhere in the middle? Do they accentuate their statements in a certain way, such as breaking their statements up into shorter phrases with pauses in between?
Think about the setting. I say something along these lines in virtually every writing tips post, but I think the setting is super important and a great way to add some flavor to a dialogue. Where are your characters? Is there anyone nearby—and if so, how do they respond? Do the characters drop to a whisper to avoid eavesdropping or do they carry on as normal? How about the place where the interaction occurs—is it traditionally loud, quiet, or somewhere in the middle? What time of day is it—does the conversation take place in the early morning (think raspy voices from sleep) or late at night (quieter to avoid noise)? Perhaps it's in midday, but the surrounding area is a street bustling with activity?
Explore the context behind the interaction. Why is the conversation occurring? Is it a purpose or task-focused interaction? Is it context-specific? Are there certain elements of language that can only be understood by certain people (think inside jokes or language specific to a place/occurrence)? Also, evaluate the importance of the interaction taking place and go from there. If you're stuck on a part that isn't necessarily inherent to the story (which I usually am), consider shifting to description instead! You can also use dialogue to reference past occurrences, if that makes things easier. Think of a character getting home from work and speaking to their partner. Their partner asks them about their day and the character explains it: "My boss said..." In this example, you would be able to bypass writing the actual interaction between the boss and the character, and instead introduce it to the audience through the character's retelling of it.
I hope these help! Sorry if they're confusing—dialogue is definitely difficult! Each writer will have their own process, and I'm not claiming that mine is picture-perfect.
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