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#and it does fit the song i guarantee it
monthlymanga · 1 month
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Soldier Poet King - One Piece ver.
There will come a captain whose smile is bright and free with a hat that's made of straw and stretch as vast as seas for fun and adventure he'll do as he please and if you want a savior give him something to eat
There will come a swordsman who wields not one but three the first mate of our captain dear and made of loyalty senses sharp and a goal to reach from a fight he never runs to win he is ready
There will come a burglar as pretty as can be with her maps all drawn by hand she'll navigate the seas her eyes on the clouds and royalties she'll command the ship they sail and guide them to safety
There will come a liar who's always quick to flee a marksman whose eyes are clear and hands that are steady a sniper, a warrior and fights bravely listen to his tales so tall he'll stand for his friends' dreams
There will come a chef with a deep love for the sea a dreamer and a fighter but flirtatious he can be has flaming kicks and a love for ladies and if your paths they ever cross you'll never leave hungry
There will come a reindeer who might look cowardly a doctor who has a heart bigger than his body a child named a monster and slightly naive but if you look one final time he's more human than he seems
There will come a scholar a flower-like beauty has a love for reading and archeology with limbs that blossom unnerving is she for her nation she'll explore and answers she will seek
There will come a cyborg a proud shipwright is he a little shameless and he wears his feelings on his sleeves works filled with passion and creativity he will build a ship for us to sail on every sea
There will come a skeleton who's gifted tunefully a lonely life he has led existence a mystery a promise to fulfill and a lifetime of memories the musician will play a song and sing with joy and glee
There will come a helmsman the first son of the seas like a calm before the storm he fights powerfully he's gentle, he's righteous and pushes equality the fishman steers with a smile and laughs wholeheartedly
There will come a pirate crew 'The Strawhats' namely the world will hear their laughter as they go on this journey with hopes and dreams and desires to achieve come and join as they travel the Merry and Sunny
With hopes and dreams and desires to achieve watch and read the story of how they find the~
One Piece.
breaking out of my manga posting for the sake of this idea I had. The world needed to see this.
READ TAGS BELOW (only if you want to tho)
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coldflasher · 1 year
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20, 56, 87
i totally dipped last night before answering any of these haha, oops
20. besitos by pierce the veil
56. faded heart by borns
87. weightless by all time low
thank youu! 💞
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chelseeebe · 6 months
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promise.
eddie knows about covering bruises and pretending to be fine all too well. but can he save the one woman he thinks he’s ever loved?
a/n: ok i’ve been a bit shit the last few weeks and this is genuinely the only thing i could conjure up but forewarning, it is sad and it does mention some pretty heavy topics that i know aren’t for everyone so i completely understand if u don’t want to read! my adhd riddled brain has already started a part two which does have a happy ending
title based on promise - ben howard i just thought it was a really lovely song and fits well with part two
read part two here.
18+. mdni! mentions of domestic violence, not explicitly described but the injuries are there and it is referred to multiple times throughout (eddie is not the perpetrator). smut. v much hurt/no comfort but not for long.
⋆˙⟡♡⟡⋆˙
eddie is positively wrecked.
who would have ever guessed working in a shoddy, run-down bar would be so fucking tiring?
graham had said that if he picked up a few shifts at the hideout a week, then corroded coffin could play once a month. a guaranteed slot and he got paid? this was like heaven to him.
he just hadn’t expected the little bar to be so exhausting. he supposes that his lack of work experience and the fact he was used to doing sweet fuck all most of the time was to blame. that’s not his fault. not really. after finally graduating high school a year or so ago, he just hadn’t found any work in the tiny town.
on one particularly boring mid-week shift, eddie’s sat behind the bar doodling on the back of an old receipt, tapping his foot along to the kiss tune playing on the stereo. wouldn’t be his first choice but he’s not complaining.
‘you coming for a smoke?’ you exclaim suddenly, causing his head to jolt up, running the biro over his shitty drawing, ruining it completely.
‘uh.. then who would be on the bar?’ he utters, quickly hiding the doodle before you could judge it. not that he thinks you would, but just in case.
‘eddie, it’s dead,’ you say flatly, looking around at the empty tables.
truth be told, he hadn’t seen another soul bar from you and graham since he’d arrived which was odd for a thursday. assuming that the usual bums that lined the dusty old stools were otherwise engaged today. that or they just hadn’t been paid yet.
‘oh.. yeah, okay,’ he nods, hopping down from the stool and grabbing his jacket. you’re already gone, bounding off down the hall to the fire exit you all used for smoke breaks.
eddie’s still fairly new and very rarely got invited on the group breaks. which was fine, he just wished that you’d all take it in turns so that he could smoke too. he gets it though, like he talks enough but yet not enough to really make friends with any of you.
you’re leaning back against the brick wall, cigarette hanging from your lips, ‘you got a lighter?’
it’s not like he’d been staring or thought about it that much, but he’d noticed how breathtakingly beautiful you were on his second shift. okay, maybe that’s a lie. he’d thought about it a lot. but anyway, he’d been utterly in awe at the way you handled the drunks, brushed off their creepy comments and stood your ground no matter how angry or persistent they were being. he admired that and just wished that he had even a smidgen of the confidence you had.
he fumbles in his pocket for the lighter, clumsily handing it over before getting his own pack out. it feels wrong to look you in the eye, god that sounded pathetic. you were older, far cooler than he was and positively stunning. if he remembers correctly, you must’ve been a couple grades above him at school but had left long before he graduated.
‘thanks,’ passing the lighter back to him, fingers ever so slightly brushing against his. it’s like electricity sparks through his veins.
he really needs to get a grip.
‘you enjoyin’ it here?’ you ask, eyes intimidating as they bore into his.
‘it’s okay.. tiring though,’ he shrugs, trying his hardest to maintain eye contact despite his inability to look pretty girls in the eye.
‘yeah.. you’ll get used to it,’ you chuckle, the smoke flowing out of your lips perfectly. he’s so pathetically down bad for you and you have literally no idea.
‘how long have you worked here?’ longing to keep the conversation flowing.
‘shit.. too long,’ chuckling as you take another drag. eddie could listen to that sound all day. ‘i think i was eighteen when i started so..’ pretending to count on your fingers, ‘six years?’
eddie blows the air out of cheeks, he’s probably be in a similar position if he’d have just graduated when he was supposed to so he can’t exactly pass judgement.
‘i think we went to school together, i mean, you were a couple grades above me but i remember you,’ hoping that that didn’t sound as creepy out loud like it did in his head.
‘oh shit, really?’ your eyes narrow, trying to place him though it’s obviously not going to happen, ‘i don’t remember you.. i’m so sorry,’ playfully hitting his arm.
the connection is enough to keep his delusions going for at least another month.
‘it’s fine, didn’t think you would,’ not many people did to be honest. he tosses his cigarette into the overflowing makeshift ashtray, waiting for you to lead the way back inside.
‘hey, it was a long time ago, i’m old now!’ you joke, walking back through the dim hall back to the bar. he tries his hardest not to let his gaze slip to you ass but he swears it’s only for a second.
the bar’s still dead, the stereo now blaring out some madonna tune he hated.
‘ugh.. turn this one off,’ he mutters, mostly to himself as he repositions himself back on his perch.
‘what?’
‘i hate this song.’
your jaw drops in faux-offence, ‘i made this mixtape you asshole,’ going to shove him off of the stool, ‘i can’t believe you can’t drop the cool guy act for one second to appreciate some madonna,’ laughing as you start collecting glasses.
his frown turns into an immediate grin, begging for your forgiveness as he starts to bop his head along to the beat. it’s not like anyone would see him and hell, even if they did, he didn’t care. not if it made you smile.
-
‘holy fuck, you been fightin’ with the door again?’ james remarks, pulling eddie’s eyes from his paper to spot you rushing into the bar.
your head is ducked, flashing the older man your middle finger, disappearing into the back before eddie can properly get a glimpse of your face.
but he knows.
there’d been a handful of times that you’d come in wearing a massive sweater instead of your usual low-cut tops and when you reached for something high up, the sleeve would reveal just enough for him to see the dark blue marks on your wrist.
he’d never been sure, not until now. but his stomach drops the second his brain puts two and two together.
ditching the paper and that asshole james behind the bar to slink off into the back, approaching the tiny staff room with the upmost caution. it’d never be wise to start throwing accusations around but he’s not stupid. eddie had watching his mom go through the exact same shit for years. knew all the tricks in the book to cover up bruises, cried his heart out every time his mom went back to his asshole dad.
only god knows how many times he’d planned out his fathers death. anger brimming in his tiny body the second he heard raised voices.
he knocks gently on the door, watching as you hurriedly wipe the makeup onto your eye. it’s not doing much, in fact, it’s not doing anything at all. the purple shining through undeniably.
‘you okay?’ practically whispering as he enters the room, knocking the door shut behind him. james’ comment had meant that this obviously wasn’t the first time you’d come into work with such horrid markings.
you sigh, giving up on attempting to cover it, slamming the metallic compact back into your locker. ‘i’m okay.. i’m fine,’ refusing to turn and face him.
you’re obviously not okay and it hurts eddie to know that there’s absolutely nothing he can do to help. instead, he takes a seat on the communal bench, if nothing else, he’d lend his ear for whatever story you wanted to tell him.
‘what happened?’ he dares to ask, not expecting to know the truth but it felt better than silence.
you sniff, closing your locker and finally facing him head on. there’s pain and guilt wracked all over your face, ‘i’m just.. clumsy,’ shoulders slumping, ‘i tripped..’
‘clumsy?’
you were anything but. eddie had watched you balance trays full of glasses without spilling a single drop. maybe other people bought your story but he didn’t. he couldn’t.
there’s a short silence and eddie shuffles, patting the empty space beside him, ‘you don’t have to lie to me.’ he swallows his anger, lets it rest in his stomach for a later date. there’s no doubt that if he got the opportunity, he’d kill the asshole that did this to you.
you swallow, reluctantly perching on the bench, ‘why are you even asking when you already know?’ not quite meeting his eyes, staring off somewhere into the distance.
‘i don’t know.. didn’t wanna pressure you..’ he’s familiar with the whole routine. the denial from his mother had broken his heart at such a young age even though he wasn’t stupid.
you blink, meeting his eyes for the first time, ‘he didn’t mean to.. was my fault,’ wiping the back of your hand against your sodden cheeks.
even hearing the words makes him inexplicably frustrated. not with you of course, but with the fact that you can’t see how much you don’t deserve that.
‘i don’t think you could do anything to deserve that,’ motioning towards your blackened eye. he’s not going to push it but he needs you to know that he’s here and would quite happily wrap his hands around that bastards neck.
‘you know.. my dad used to hit my mom,’ swallowing the large lump that had gathered in his throat, but finds enough strength to continue, ‘she was the nicest lady in the world.. she didn’t deserve that and neither do you,’ licking his suddenly parched lips. it wasn’t an easy topic then and it certainly isn’t now.
he’s not particularly ever open about what happened to his mom but if it convinced you even a tiny bit to leave him, it’d be worth it.
there’s a beat, followed by a muffled sniff but you’re nodding, staring down at the grimy tiles rather than his face. eddie reckons that he’d be overstepping his mark if he did what he wanted and leant over to hug you. so he doesn’t. putting a sympathetic hand on your shoulder instead.
‘you’re an angel, you know that?’ the hints of a smile creeping onto your lips.
‘yeah i know,’ he scoffs, bashing his shoulder into yours, only gently.
‘shut up,’ knocking him straight back.
you get up from the bench, puffing your cheeks out as you take one last look into the mirror.
it’s a gut-wrenching, awful sight and god forbid eddie has to ever see you like that again.
-
perhaps rather naively, eddie assumes everything is fine for the next few weeks.
understandably, you’re a bit subdued for a few days but you do revert back to your usual bubbly self come friday evening. no more bruises, no more groaning when you change the keg and absolutely zero mention of your wretched boyfriend.
so when he pulls into his gravel driveway one gloomy saturday night, he’s aghast to see you perched on his trailer steps. blinking through his headlights, soaked through from the rain with a busted lip and a torn shirt to match.
he near enough launches himself from his van, rushing over to your hunched over frame. damn near falling over his feet to get to you.
‘what the hell happened?’
you stand, clinging onto your poorly packed rucksack, ‘i.. i didn’t know where else to go,’ utterly defeated, any traces of life drained from your face.
he doesn’t say another word, bundling you into the trailer, slamming the lights on to get a proper look of you. his hands firmly on your drenched shoulders as he examines your injuries. your lip is cracked, the blood had wept from the cut and dried on your chin.
it’s awful. knocks him sick just to see you like this. your cheeks are stained with a mixture of rain and he presumes tears, hair hanging limp around your beautiful face.
‘what happened?’ he says softly, studying your face. he notices the small gash on your forehead, using everything within himself not to storm out of that door in a murderous rage.
your mouth opens but no words come out. it’s not as if he can’t put two and two together, he just doesn’t understand how it got to this point after last week.
‘it’s okay.. c’mon let’s get you out of these clothes,’ he blinks, collecting himself before taking your sopping wet bag. the clothes had all suffered in the downpour, damp and unwearable.
so he leads you into his cramped room, hastily rummaging through his drawers for something you can wear.
it’s a little self-indulgent and completely the wrong time but his heart flutters when you reappear out of the bathroom sporting his tee and a pair of old gym shorts. now showered and without the blood stains on your face, it’s a welcome sight.
‘better?’ he offers, though he knows a shower could never really help.
you nod, pulling the sleeves down over your hands. it’s so adorable and eddie seriously has to fight his compulsion to just pull you into his arms. he knows there’s no way he can protect you from everything but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to try.
‘you want a drink? beer?’
your eyes light up, a minuscule smirk appearing on your battered lips. he’s sure wayne would understand why he came home to a non-existent six pack. the berating would be worth it to see you smile again.
he collapses onto the couch next to you, beer in hand as he watches you slowly relax. delighted that he could offer a safe space for you, even if it did come with some very complicated feelings.
that night, admittedly very creepily, he watches as you sleep. terrified to fall asleep in his makeshift bed on the floor in case you needed him.
-
at some point in the last two weeks, eddie had gone from sleeping on the floor to sleeping in his bed next to you. you’d told him it was far too cold for him on the floor and he should just get in. which he did, with great pleasure. there was nothing to it of course, but a few times he’d woken up to your leg entangled with his or your face pressed against his back.
everything had just got a whole lot more comfortable. rides to work, cooking for one another and some shared looks that he’d been unable to put his finger on. not wanting to believe they had any deeper meaning but at the same time, he knew that that wasn’t how friends looked at each other.
it’s a rare night you both have off, sat in the trailer watching halloween, neither of you really interested in what’s going on on the screen. there’s an inexplicable tension in the air tonight, you’re quieter than usual which eddie doesn’t like.
‘you okay?’ he dares to ask. he’d felt a little overbearing those first few days, constantly checking on you to make sure you were okay.
‘hmm? oh, i’m okay,’ setting your bottle of beer on the table, ending up much closer to him when you sit back.
‘you sure? you’re quiet,’ keen not to let on that he was absolutely buzzing about your close proximity.
‘just thinking.’
‘about?’
you let out a soft breath, twisting around to look at him fully. the only times he’d been this close to you were in bed where he laid and listened to your soft snores and when you’d been covered in injuries. neither one were exceptionally great circumstances.
‘you,’ you blink up at him, smiling just enough to make his heart skip a beat.
‘me?’ he can’t decipher whether that’s a good thing or not.
‘mhm.’
‘what about me?’
you don’t respond for what feels like an eternity but your gaze lowers, glancing at his lips and back to his eyes. if he weren’t staring directly into your bright eyes, he’d have missed it.
‘i really want to kiss you,’ you say, so brazenly that eddie’s not quite sure if he’s heard you correctly, almost sputtering on his breath as the words process.
‘you.. you wanna kiss me?’ trying hard not to sound so astounded. pretty girls didn’t want to kiss eddie, not like this.
you nod, ‘can i?’
there are stars in his eyes, blood pumping around his limbs at an alarming rate. his head is fuzzy and if he weren’t sitting, he’d probably have fainted.
‘please,’ he chokes, desperately forcing the word out before it becomes impossible.
your palms are soft as they caress his cheek, wishing that he’d shaved before this had unfolded. his heartbeat stutters, bubbling with anticipation as you lean in, gentle lips locking onto his as his eyes flutter shut.
this is it. he’d dreamt of kissing you for weeks, practiced on his hand an embarrassing amount of times and yet still nothing could’ve prepared him for how earth shattering this felt. his heart is practically jumping out of his chest and he’s sure you can feel it thumping against yours.
it’s as if fate had bought the two of you together, moving against each other in perfect harmony. if he died tomorrow, he’d die a happy man.
your hand creeps down onto his chest, holding yourself upright as you shift onto your knees. do you want to have sex with him? is this actually happening? his fingertips vibrate as they connect with your waist, like you weren’t even real and just a figment of his overactive imagination.
the second your lips part from his, he wants to cry, pull you back in and never let go. the absence of contact makes him whine, opening his eyes to see yours gazing back, they look different. different to how you’ve ever looked at him before, full of something unspeakable.
‘do you want to?’ you ask quietly into the minimal space between you.
eddie wants to so bad, more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life. nodding hurriedly to let you know just how eager he is. there’s not a chance in hell he’d let this opportunity slip through his fingers.
your lips twitch into a smile at his permission, fingers curling around the hem of his shirt.
but before you get any further, the trailer door clicks open and wayne is stood in the doorway, pizza box in hand accompanying his unimpressed scowl. ‘okay well, i think that’s enough of that,’ he grumbles, shuffling into the trailer as you climb off eddie’s lap, back into your own spot.
‘sorry wayne.. i didn’t know you were back so early,’ his cheeks burning, bashful as ever. it wasn’t enough for wayne to walk in on that but he was always now straining against his jeans, trying desperately to hide the tent while you reshuffle, pulling your shorts back down to a more appropriate length.
‘yeah yeah whatever,’ his uncle shakes his head, trundling over to the couch and tossing the box onto the cluttered coffee table, ‘move over boy, i wanna watch my programme,’ collapsing into the empty seat beside his nephew with a deep, guttural sigh.
the two of you share a sly smirk, tuning in to whatever shit wayne had put on without saying another word. stifling your laughter with a piece of pizza as eddie tries and fails to discretely pull a pillow onto his lap.
it’s hours later when you both crawl into bed and eddie has checked five times that wayne’s actually asleep before he gets to kiss you again.
bundled up under the covers when you pull him on top of you, your face gloriously basked in the bright moonlight shining in. it’s breathtaking.
‘you want to?’ you ask again, as if his answer had changed in those few hours.
he nods, his curls brushing fall down and brush against your cheek, ‘have you.. before?’ you ask cautiously. he’s not offended, even if he should be.
he has had sex before. only twice. when ellen had first joined hellfire, they had sorta had a year long fling which had ended after they had sex and ellen realised that maybe she didn’t actually like men. that was a super boost to his confidence. and then at senior prom when tina took great pity on him and somehow they ended up having sex in the back of his van.
he nods anyway, granted he’s not the most experienced but he’ll sure as hell try.
‘good,’ you smile, warm thighs wrapping around his torso as you reconnect your lips. it’s soft, gentle even. world’s apart from his previous encounters. this felt real, like you weren’t just kissing because you had to but because you wanted to.
it’s too cold in the trailer to care about removing your clothes, though he’s sure that’ll change in a minute. focussing on getting his tongue inside of your mouth, rutting against your pajama shorts. the friction causing his already semi-hard dick to rise, unable to contain the moan from escaping.
a smirk flashes across his face as his hand drags your shorts down your legs, savouring every moment of being able to touch your bare, supple skin. his hand makes its way back up your legs, repositioning the one he could grasp back around his lower back.
he has trouble getting his boxers down, too excited to focus on being smooth about it. appreciating the feel of your hand tugging the fabric down. you’re barely kissing at this point, your lips connecting with the corner of his mouth, all messy as the anticipation takes over.
‘you sure?’ he asks, gazing down at you with hooded eyes. he could just about remember what to do. sending a quick prayer upstairs to not let him be utterly useless.
‘i’m sure,’ you breathe, the feel of your fingers tangled into the hair that covered the back of his neck.
‘okay..’ he nods, mostly to himself as he wraps a head around his cock, positioning himself at your entrance. taking a brief moment to just capture this moment in preparation of it never happening again.
the pleasure overcomes his body as he slides in, already almost losing himself as he fills you up. a soft moan escapes your lips, gripping onto his neck. he is acutely aware that his uncle is asleep on the other side of the old trailer so he muffles his face into your neck, lips connecting with your jaw bone, kissing any and every bit of skin exposed to him.
sex had never felt like this before. at best, it had felt slightly better than when he jerked off, but this was something else. eddie knows it’s cliche and is definitely only because you feel so fucking good around him, but it’s as if you were made for each other.
hands pressed into the pillow so hard that he wouldn’t be surprised if there were a permanent dent either side of your head. using everything within himself not to start hollering, eyes fluttering shut against your neck. he moves in and out at an agonisingly slow pace. the small room filling with the sounds of your soaking wet cunt. its undeniable to anyone with ears and he just hopes to god that wayne is still asleep.
his own low groans vibrating against your cheek, mouth hanging open as his thrusts grow faster. you’re panting softly directly into his ear, spurring him on. despite the feel of your perfect cunt around him, the best feeling is knowing that he’s making you feel good.
‘h-holy shit,’ he mumbles nonsensically into the crook of your neck, not allowing himself to come for air because he know that the second he looks at your face, he’ll cum.
your one hand is splayed out on his upper back, the other holding onto his sweaty neck beneath his mop of hair. whining his name into his ear, driving him into a frenzy with the sound of your breathy voice, desire rippling through your moans. he should tell you to be quiet but that’d be cruel and he’d rather take the shame of wayne knowing than not hearing you.
your legs shift higher the position allowing him to reach the golden spot, nudging the soft, spongy spot over and over. eddie figures you’re far more experienced than he is. with no offence meant to you but you obviously know what works. this is new territory for him, a closeness that he’d never known possible.
you’re engulfing him completely, every single one of his senses encompassed by you. you’re all he can see even with his eyes screwed shut, all he can hear, taste and smell. god knows you’re all he can feel, calves squeezing around his back and your perfect pussy tightening around him.
he groans, feeling his stomach begin to twist in that all too familiar feeling. orgasms had never felt so good, it’s like everything was dialled up to level ten. ‘i’m gonna.. shit- i’m gonna come,’ he babbles far too loudly.
every noise tumbling out of your mouth was pulling him closer, no record could ever come close to the sweet mewls that were slipping between your lips. his arms begin to tremble under his own weight. feeling your legs quivering around his waist as your orgasm begins to overtake your body, sinful noises echoing around the otherwise quiet trailer.
‘ohh fuck,’ he growls, feeling your walls clenching around him, it was like he’d been pushed over the edge. the only way he can begin to describe it was otherworldly, flashes of white light illuminate his eyelids.
images of your face accompany your honeyed whimpers and he has to pull out before he explodes. spurts of his release cover his hand and admittedly the back of your thigh. if he had any semblance of control, he’d have been embarrassed but he’s not exactly sure that he’s still on planet earth.
he dares to open his eyes, watching as your chest heaves below him clinging onto his forearm with desperate fingertips. you’re looking up at him as if he’s the only person you’d ever seen. mouth slack as you regain your breath.
‘jesus christ,’ he whispers, hand resting on your angled knee as he floats back down to your planet.
eddie clambers off of the bed with a grunt, wiping a hand over his sweaty face. reaching down to grab his previously discarded towel. it wasn’t the epitome of romance but he darent to leave his room, petrified that wayne had just heard that entire encounter.
he’s a gentleman, of course, running the towel over your thigh to clean his mess. offering you a tiny shrug as if to say sorry. rather suddenly he feels rather conscious of himself, refusing to look at you as his cheeks flame.
it’s ridiculous. he’d just been buried between your legs and yet now couldn’t even look you in the fucking eyes.
before he gets up again, your hand reaches out, curling around his t-shirt. ‘stop,’ using his shirt as leverage for you to sit up.
in one quick movement, you’re placing a tiny onto his lips. a reassurance he really shouldn’t have needed but he appreciates nonetheless.
‘don’t do that,’ you hush, millimetres from his face, the shadow of his broken blinds shine upon your cheek. it hurts him to know that someone would dare look at you and want to hurt you.
if it were possible, he’d take all of your pain and carry it with him instead.
‘okay..’ he nods, resisting the urge to apologise once again.
you giggle and it sounds like the heavens have opened, pulling his body on top of yours as his bed makes an almighty squeak. if wayne wasn’t already awake, he certainly would be now.
-
eddie doesn’t know where the fuck you are.
you hadn’t come back to the trailer after work last night and now you’re nowhere to be found. you were supposed to start half an hour ago but hadn’t turned up and now his heart is pounding, mind racing at the horrific possibilities of what could’ve happened.
at first, he’d thought maybe he said something wrong? he’d just thrown out the suggestion of going to get the rest of your things and moving them in here while you got back on your feet. he hadn’t meant to push you out, god no, that was the last thing he wanted.
maybe stupidly he had presumed you wanted your own space. whatever the hell was going on between you two was so fresh, he didn’t want to even chance fucking it up.
the guilt wracks his brain, tempted to drop everything to drive around this tiny town looking for you. he’s so stupid. should’ve just kept his mouth shut and enjoyed it while you were there.
he’s just about to tell james that he’s leaving when the door to the bar opens and a rough looking man comes through with you held tightly underneath his arm. your eyes avoiding his direction, staring at the floor as the mystery man ushers you towards the back, making himself comfortable at the bar.
eddie’s heart shatters into a million pieces, watching open mouthed as you disappear into the back.
judging by the look on james’ face, he recognises him, reluctantly pouring his beer as they engage in useless small talk.
‘thought i’d better sit in for her shift.. wouldn’t want her running off again,’ the man announces, beady eyes glaring right into his soul.
eddie knows who he is. he’d never seen him before but he could tell. they all had that sinister aura about them, like they could flip at any given moment. his dad was the same, walking on egg shells around him just in case he said the wrong thing or looked at him the wrong way.
you emerge from the staff room, still vehemently avoiding eye contact, a shell of the you he saw just yesterday. ‘hey.. you okay?’ eddie asks, but it falls flat as you walk off without so much as a look back towards him.
he can’t believe it, how you could be so different so quickly. as if the past few weeks you’d spent together had meant nothing. he can’t blame you. not really. it’s a cycle and he knows better than anyone that it takes a thousand attempts to actually break out of it.
his shoulders slump as he rushes out the back, refusing to look at that assholes face any longer. willing himself to get a grip and not jump over that bar to strangle the piece of shit right now.
a hand clamps down on his shoulder and for a brief moment he thinks he might be you until james clears his throat, shuffling on his feet behind him, ‘you can’t save her man,’ squeezing his shoulder firmly, ‘you think we haven’t tried?’
eddie sniffs, shrugging him off. he didn’t appreciate the patronising tone in which james was speaking to him.
because god knows, if he couldn’t save his mom, there’s no fucking chance he’s not saving you.
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beenbaanbuun · 3 months
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emo!mingi
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im writing something big rn but for the time being, i can’t get the fact that mingi is a certified! emo off of my mind… like ever….
it’s all i think about and as an emo/metal girlie myself, i can’t help but think about mingi fucking you to his personal horny emo/metal playlist.
bc i can guarantee he has one. like the man said one of his favourite songs was dance dance by fall out boy??? like i can just imagine him taking the lyrics to that song a little too personally, stripping you bare on his mattress, putting you on your front and kissing down your naked spine. pete wentz was sooo right when he wrote that song… mingi does want sympathy in the form of you crawling into bed with him…
and i’m sorry, if that man ever listens to death of peace of mind by bad omens??? oh that man would be DONE. FINISHED!! because how is he supposed to hear that song without you popping into his head. memories of him folding you in half as he fucks into you, mascara tears streaming down your face as you cry out for him. chanting his name over and over again like a mantra… it’s like that song was written about you.
and that man has eaten you out one too many times to K.M.B by nova twins… he gets so pussy drunk and just goes dumb between your legs while the music degrades him and calls him out for what he really is. there really isn’t much going on between his eyes once he gets even a hint of your pussy juices. literally turns into a pretty puppy that exists solely for your pleasure, and you’re okay with that…
and i just know that this man goes fucking i n s a n e when he hears the first note of a deftones song. imagine him listening to my own summer (shove it) and just ramming into you. he’d have you pinned down as he almost completely loses himself, thrusting hard and sensual, trying so desperately to hold on to his last thread of sanity. trying so hard not to snap completely and let himself go absolutely feral on you. he wants to, so bad actually, but for the sake of you being able to walk the next day, he holds back… barely.
but like, we also know this man is a giggly baby half the time. like he’s such a princess and i refuse to believe that every single time you have sex with him, he’s completely serious. like imagine he’s trying to be but then the playlist switches songs and it’s a fucking limp bizkit song or something. like it just switches the mood entirely because how is he supposed to fuck you when fred durst is singing rollin’ directly in his ear. like you’re not telling me this man won’t collapse on top of you in a fit of giggles, rigid dick still pressed inside of you as he tries to contain his laughter in your ear. and you just slap his shoulder or something because what the fuck is LIMP BIZKIT doing in his sex playlist?!?!?!?
i’m so sorry, but emo mingi DOES THINGS TO ME!!!!! like it’s all i can think about at any given point in time and i need people to understand that this is my roman empire!!!
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queerfables · 8 months
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The Rules of the Twist
Given the themes of deception and sleight of hand in Good Omens season 2, I think most of us agree it's at least possible there's some kind of twist waiting to be revealed in season 3. We're bouncing around a lot of theories, but I wanted to take a step back and look at the general shape of what we might expect.
The big twist we've seen before in Good Omens is Crowley and Aziraphale's body swap. (Okay, technically it was an appearance swap. But that just doesn't sound as pithy.) Rather than anticipate an exact repeat of this trick, I'm considering the swap as a sort of model. What does it tell us about the rules Neil plays by when he pulls a twist in this story? What clues can we expect, and what can we not count on? Sure, there's no guarantee that a season 2 twist is going to map exactly onto what we've seen in the past, but I think it's a reasonable place to start. Take these as guidelines and take them with a grain of salt, but if you're sorting through all our fascinating Good Omens theories and trying to decide what you think, you might find them helpful.
So then, what are the rules?
Broadly speaking, Neil plays fair with twists. He foreshadows and includes enough hints for the audience to make a reasonable guess at what's going on, or at least to look back after the reveal and go, "oh, of course". But he still keeps some cards close to the chest.
During the body swap, there are two big gaps in the information we're given:
Key events happen off screen The swap happened between scenes, during a time that it was only suggested, not confirmed, that Crowley and Aziraphale would be together. The transition between these scenes also used film and tv conventions to make that passage of time "invisible" - we see Crowley and Aziraphale get on the bus, and then we see them in the morning going about their days separately, and we're conditioned to think nothing important could have happened in between.
Key tools (eg abilities, items, information) haven't been shown before The swap was not something we'd ever seen Crowley and Aziraphale do, and it wasn't something they'd ever talked about either. It fit comfortably into the established world building but it hadn't been specifically signposted as a possibility.
The other big twist that Good Omens pulled was the romance between Gabriel and Beelzebub as the explanation for Gabriel's disappearance from heaven. Both of these information gaps are involved here too. The offscreen event is obviously the meetings between Gabriel and Beelzebub that lead to them falling in love - up until Gabriel's flashback sequence, the only indication they'd ever met each other was a brief conversation at the airbase during Armageddon. The tool that we haven't seen before is Beelzebub's ability to create a fly vessel for Gabriel's memories (protecting him in much the same way that Crowley and Aziraphale protected each other with their body swap, in fact).
These are pretty big gaps, really. And given that Neil knew there'd be years between seasons 2 and 3, I expect he would have leaned pretty heavily into them if he wanted to hide something. So how do we predict a twist if we can't know where it is and haven't seen what it might involve?
Unanswered questions
This is the big one. Looking at where the furniture isn't, you might say.
What's interesting is that the questions that point to a twist aren't usually subtle or ambiguous. For the body swap, the two converging questions were: what did Agnes' last prophecy mean, and how could Crowley and Aziraphale survive their executions? In season two, some of the unanswered questions signposting Gabriel/Beelzebub were: how did Gabriel lose his memory, why was he carrying a box, what was the significance of the song he kept singing, who was he at the Resurrectionist with...
I think guesses about upcoming twists are most convincing when they seek to tie up loose threads from the show. For this reason, I'm a little skeptical of theories proposing the kiss between Crowley and Aziraphale involved some kind of twist. It isn't impossible, I just don't see any unanswered questions there. (Savvy readers may note that I too have speculated about a twist hidden in the kiss. I do find the possibility fun, but it's not a theory I'm seriously committed to). If I was going to really buy into one of these theories, I'd want it to explain one of my big unanswered questions other than "but how could they get into a fight that hurts me so deep in my soul?" That's definitely a question I have, but not technically a mystery.
It's worth noting that in the case of the body swap, we were initially given a false answer to the question "how did they survive their executions?" The angels and demons watching attribute it to Crowley and Aziraphale having "gone native", believing that their natures had fundamentally changed, making them immune to holy water and hellfire. It might be the case, then, that some of the apparently resolved questions this season warrant further investigation. Is there more to the story of Gabriel's disappearance than we know, for example?
2. Unexplained details
If examining an unanswered question is looking at where the furniture isn't, then this is where we take all the pieces of furniture piled up in storage and see if we've got anything that fits. Everything is fair game here: script, acting, music, props, sets, costumes, editing, camera angles, audio effects, visual effects, everything. If it's on the screen or coming through the speakers, it was put there on purpose by multiple teams of highly skilled and attentive creators all working together to create the final product.
I think you could probably do an entire meta on all the little details pointing towards the season 1 body swap, but here are some of the big ones:
"Crowley" sees the restored Bentley, but takes a taxi instead of driving it
"Aziraphale" circles "Crowley" when they order their ice creams, the way Crowley more typically moves around Aziraphale
"Crowley" says "tickety boo", an extraordinarily Aziraphalean phrase
The collar on "Crowley's" jacket is a beige tartan rather than its usual red
There are general differences in the ways David Tennant and Michael Sheen embody the characters throughout the swap
Similarly, Gabriel and Beelzebub's romance has lots of small details pointing to it. The big one that keeps showing up is the connection between Gabriel and flies. He mentions them and interacts with them repeatedly, and although it isn't obvious at first glance, there's a fly in the box that he carries to the bookshop. This all culminates in the reveal that it's the same fly, Beelzebub's gift to him.
Here's the problem, of course: if everything in the show is intentional and crafted with meticulous attention to detail, how do we know what actually matters? This is why I think it's so important to look at the unanswered questions first. There's a joy in seeking out Easter eggs and connecting all the dots, and sometimes you might strike gold this way, but there's also a lot of noise in the signal. It's helpful to know the general shape of what you're looking for, so you'll know when you've found it.
You can reverse engineer this. Start with details that jump out at you and then look for a puzzle they might explain. This works, but it's a little easier to get lost in the weeds, struggling to sort out what's significant and what's a fun reference to another piece of media or a hint to a question that's already been resolved. Going back to the twists we've already seen on this show, the unanswered questions around them were really big and obvious, so I think it's a good idea to ask: if I hadn't noticed this detail, would I have thought this was a mystery that needed solving?
Okay, but what do we do with this?
Well, maybe nothing. These criteria can't confirm or rule out any theories, after all. I'm laying it out like a rubric but it isn't really, I'm just describing a few storytelling patterns we've seen before and making some rough guesses about how they might show up again. If I were really serious about this I'd probably take a look at other examples of Neil's work and see how well my model holds up there, but the truth is I'm not really familiar with enough of his other works to do this. (Confession time: I was always more of a Pratchett fan).
The main reason that I've laid everything out like this is it informs my thinking when I stress test my own theories, and I figured other people might be interested in it. I'm also hoping it will help me to be able to refer back to this when I write meta in the future. For my own purposes, I find a breakdown like this helpful because it gives me a sense of how a writer approaches their story, where they'll tip their hand and where they'll hold things close. It's no guarantee and it wouldn't be any fun if it was, but in a lot of cases we're not aware of our own patterns, so it can be surprisingly illuminating.
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allamericansbitch · 9 months
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after listening to bad idea right, my first thought was how much i admire that olivia is just blindly taking risks and doing what she wants. like that song is weird, it does weird stuff with production and lyrics and that's risky, especially considering it's her second album and she's probably facing ungodly amounts of pressure from herself, her label and the public to try and top sour. she could very easily make a 'guaranteed hit' and just do something simple but she's choosing artistic integrity over success and at her age that's very cool. plus her art direction is always insane and completes the whole picture in an amazing way. she's not succumbing to any of the pressures, wouldn't blame her at all if she did tbh, and it's very clear she's behind everything and just doing what she sees fit with her work.
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You Ruined Me (Do it Again)
a/n: this is my first time posting fic to Tumblr so if I've made any mistakes please let me know so I can learn how to fix them 💖 this was also my first attempt at sevika x reader, I hope y'all enjoy! There are more parts that I can upload if y'all end up liking it
Warnings: drinking alcohol, referenced cheating, smoking, gambling, possessive!sevika, referenced sex (explicit!), sexually explicit teasing.
Summary: Your first night out in a while after leaving your cheating ex does not end how you expected it to...but then what did you expect, going to her club?
Word Count: 1.4k
Read on AO3
18+ | MEN AND MINORS DNI | 18+
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Final
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You needed this. It had been too long since you hit up a club and just danced the night away. Work had been a bitch, your last breakup still lingered in the back of your mind, and it was high time that you simply had some fun.
Now, after several way too sugary cocktails that probably had enough booze to kill a small human, you were letting loose on the dance floor. You’d always been able to move your body just right, whenever a beat made you feel a certain way, it was guaranteed to have eyes on you as you swayed your hips and moved your feet.
You were twirling around with your best friend, Jinx, laughing and singing along to the tunes that blared loudly on the speakers all around you. You were having such a good time that you almost didn’t notice the door to the club swing open, an entourage of people swarming in being led by an imposing, hulking woman you knew all too well. Sevika.
Her short hair was tied back into the little ponytail she normally wore, that you used to love to tease her about. She still stuck to her favourite outfits, loose fitting pants with a chunky belt, a tight fitting tank top and the cloak that covered her mechanical arm to stop people from staring. She was all muscle, large hands with thick, talented fingers, solid arms with toned biceps.
Strong thighs that you knew were just perfect for lifting you high in the air and fucking you silly. Shaking your head, you focus on the beat of the song, the vibration of the dancefloor, the heat of the bodies moving wildly all around you. Now was so not the time to be staring at your ex.
Jinx groaned. “Is that who I think it is?”
You shrugged. “You know she has shares in the club. She practically owns it. Just ignore her and keep having a good time!”
Jinx giggled, throwing herself into your arms. “Amen to that, sister!”
You dance some more, for 20 minutes or so, completely ignoring the corner of the club reserved for gambling tables, knowing that’s where Sevika would be. It was getting hotter in the club as it got busier and busier.
You leaned into Jinx. “I’m gonna get a drink, you want one?”
Jinx shook her head, eyeing up a cute blonde girl who was also dancing with her friends. “Nah, I’m good, sparky.”
You giggled at her. “Okay! Happy hunting!”
She shot you a playful glare as you headed to the bar. It was pretty busy, but the bartender here was good, and he made his way through orders quickly. You felt someone sidle up next to you, feeling a pang of annoyance as her order was taken first.
“Whiskey, top shelf. 2 ice cubes.”
You pinched the bridge of your nose. Of course, it was her. You should’ve known from her size and the sheer heat that was radiating from her. You clamped your thighs together as your body responded automatically to her closeness. Now was not the time to let your pussy do your thinking for you. You stay quiet, hoping she won’t notice you.
Naturally, you’re not that lucky. She double-takes when she realises it’s you. “Y/n? What’re you doing here?”
You huff out an irritated sigh. “Just clubbing, like everyone else.”
The bartender hands Sevika her whiskey but she doesn’t move as you place your order. You hear her snicker when you order a sweet cocktail.
“Some things never change, huh? You still like your drinks to taste like juice.”
You glare at her coolly. “Yet my tastes in other areas have definitely changed.”
Her smile falters, but she soon masks it with a shit-eating smirk. “Oh yeah? So, you’re not totally down bad for me anymore?”
Your hands ball into fists, frustrated that she’d use your pillow talk against you, in such a public setting. You know reacting in any way will just add to her satisfaction, so you breathe deeply and relax your hands, grabbing your drink.
“I was a fool to be ‘down bad’ for you at all. You’re a real asshole, Sevika.”
You’ve lost sight of Jinx, so you find somewhere to sit and sip at your drink, your muscles thanking you for the break. You don’t bother trying to look for Sevika, your eyes find her at the poker tables out of habit. Judging by the large pile of coins at her end of the table, she’s winning. Nothing new there. You finish your drink, pushing your complicated feelings aside. She’d never have a chance again at winning you, that’s for sure.
You’re in the bathroom, applying a new layer of lipstick when she comes in. You stiffen as she enters, brushing past you to go into one of the stalls. Her hand lingers at the small of your back as she passes you. The gesture would seem innocent to most, but you felt the undeniable flutter of your pulse as the heat of her touch tore through you. You focus on the task at hand, steadily applying the dark shade as she comes out of the stall and washes her hand. You feel her eyes on you, roaming over your body in the tight, black dress you decided to wear tonight. It hugged your curves perfectly, kept eyes on your ass and your tits, made you feel powerful when people drooled over you. Just like she used to. There was a time where you would never have made it to the club at all wearing a dress like this. Sevika used to just quite literally tear them off you.
“It’s a beautiful dress.”
Her voice is low and husky. You try not to think about it, or let it replay in your head. “Thank you.”
You put your lipstick back in your purse. She smirks at you. “It’d look better on my bedroom fl-”
Without thinking, you turn and put a hand against her mouth. “Do not finish that sentence, dear god.”
You’ve made your first mistake. She reaches towards your face, and you stupidly let her, transfixed by her as you always have been, like a moth to a flame. A moth that really, really likes the feeling of being burnt.
That was your second mistake.
She steps into your space, her hand caressing your jaw. Your knees feel like they could buckle any second.
“Oh, princess, having trouble colouring within the lines again? Here, let me help…”
Her fingers trace your bottom lip, wiping away a smudge of lipstick. Your eyes flutter close, and your lips part, wanting, waiting…then you feel her.
She crashes into you like a starved animal, her lips devouring yours as she kisses you like you’re her oxygen. You can’t help yourself, you know you shouldn’t let this happen, after everything that happened between you, but it just feels so damn good.
It’s rough, it’s messy and it’s just so…Sevika.
Her body presses into you, and you moan as her thigh brushes against your core. She doesn’t waste the opportunity, her tongue invading your mouth, tasting you. She moans into your mouth when she does, which sets your cunt alight. Your need is growing, you know that you’ll be ruining your panties with how slick your pussy is getting but you care less and less the more Sevika kisses you, nipping roughly at your lower lip, her thigh rubbing against you. She knows how to work you up, after all she used to be the expert. Her hands are everywhere, gripping your waist, your face, your neck, and your ass. She loves your firm, little ass, palming it roughly, admiring how it fits perfectly in her hands. She tries not to think about how it almost belongs in her hands.
Sevika breathes out a soft “Huh” then you’re left in the cold as she moves her warm body away from you. A needy whine escapes your throat, and Sevika chuckles but you see no laughter in her sharp, grey eyes. You reach for her, but she dodges away, smirking at your confused, searching eyes.
“Not down bad for me at all, huh princess?”
Then she’s gone, leaving you panting and pissed out of your goddamn mind. She was playing with you, because that’s what she does best. You bruised her ego earlier at the bar, and that was her taking her revenge. Because why else would she kiss you like that, unless she wanted to prove that she could still make you squirm?
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farfromstrange · 11 months
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Tupperware | Matt Murdock x Reader
Masterlist
Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Reader
Summary: A conversation about kitchen supplies leads to something more...
Warnings: SMUT 18+ MINORS DNI, oral m!receiving, unprotected p in v (wrap it b4 you tap it), multiple orgasms, aftercare
Word Count: 6.7k (This is a literal Smut Beast)
A/n: Yeah, whatever you think the title means in context, I guarantee you, this is different. But also, maybe not. I found this in my drafts because it was originally planned as an FG One Shot, but I decided to just throw my plans off the board and turn it into a reader insert (I've written this a while back, but I reread and edited it). Funny story: I found this writing prompt and it reminded me of the accent I have and how I say Tupperware (and how everyone in my State says Tupperware, the German version ofc), and I found it funny because that is definitely something I did when I said it in English for the first time. Anyway, enjoy!
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The couple sat on his couch, the lights of the Billboard growing more distinctive as the sun started to set. He was working on the paperwork that had piled up over the days while she was reading something on her laptop. The steady typing of her fingers synchronized with her steady breathing. He didn’t mind the sound of her working. He enjoyed the carelessness of it all. Just two people seeking the comfort of each other’s presence while doing two completely different things. It wasn’t weird, it was productive.
At some point, he reached for her leg that was poking his side and placed it in his lap. She smiled at the casual, domestic action. His fingers stroked her calves absentmindedly while his mind continued to occupy itself with the information on the case that reached in through his headphones.
He heard her laugh at something. He smiled as he asked, “What?”
“I was looking for some accessories for our kitchen,“ – his heart bloomed at the pronoun, – “And now Google is trying to sell me  Tubberware,” she stated. “I don’t even use Tubberware anymore.”
The headphone fell from his ear.
“What are you saying?” Matt asked.
His lip twitched, more in disbelief than amusement, but it was also weirdly adorable, the way the ‘b’s’ rolled from her tongue.
“Say it again,” he told her.
Her eyebrows crinkled. “Tubberware,” she said, remaining serious and clueless throughout.
“Say it again. Slow.”
“Tubberware.”
“Slow, very slow– actually, say the first syllable.”
Her frown deepened. “Tub,” she said confidently.
Matt bit his cheek. “Wrong.”
“What do you mean, wrong?”
“I thought I caught that. You’re saying tub. It’s P.”
He had to keep telling himself not to laugh, but it was so incredibly hard with the pout on her lips growing by the second.
She removed her leg from his lap and sat upright, laptop moving dangerously close to the edge of her thighs. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Tupperware,” he stated. “Tupper.”
Blood rushed to her cheeks. “It’s Tupperware?!”
He couldn’t hold it any longer. The laugh rolled off his lips like a serenading song. “It’s Tupperware, always has been, always will be,” he choked out.
The pout came back, stronger than before. A frustrated pout. This was entirely different from the confused and irritated one. “I thought it was tubberware because it kind of looks like a tub,” she muttered.
“Oh, baby,” he laughed.
“It looks like a tub,” she said.
“I know it does. I’m sorry.”
“Stop laughing at me, you dick!”
“I’m really sorry, sweetheart. It’s just… say it again. Please. For me.”
“So that you can make more fun of me?” she asked. “No thank you.”
“I’m not making fun of you, I promise. It just sounds so cute when you say it. Do it for me, please. I want to hear it again.”
She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of laughing too. She was supposed to be mad at him, but she somehow couldn’t because looking at it from this angle, she realized how stupid it was. Tubberware. It was hilarious, even.
“Tubberware,” she said again, trying to breathe through the fit of laughter bubbling in her throat.
Matt laughed. “Again,” he begged.
“Tubberware.”
“It’s so cute, I can’t-“ his voice cracked.
“I hate you!”
“I know you want to laugh,” he titled his head knowingly, “so laugh.”
“No,” she said.
“Please."
“Don’t tell me what to do,” but at this point, she was already laughing. The sound he loved so much grew louder by the second.
Her stomach hurt. His did, too.
“I’ve been saying it for years,” she said between breaths. “And no one’s ever told me. Oh, God!”
“I’m sorry,” said Matt. “I didn’t mean to… Tubberware.” He giggled. “It’s adorable.”
“Shut up!"
"I'm sorry, I'll stop." He wiped some more of his laughing tears.
Grateful for his attempt to compose himself, she nodded. "Okay,” she turned back toward her laptop, “While we’re already on the issue, do we need anything else?"
He threw his head back, thinking. “We could use some new spatulas,” he said. "And lunchboxes. Tupperware has some great choices, you should take a look."
Her laugh died into a smile. “You know I love you, right?”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
“What I’m saying is, we’re not getting Tubberware.”
“Why not?” He cocked an eyebrow. “They’ve got great kitchen stuff and it’s easy to use. You know, for me as a blind man…”
“Matt Murdock, are you one of those Tubberware grandmas?” It was her turn to laugh.
He pouted. “Shut up.”
“Oh no, we need to talk about this.”
“No, I’ve got work to do. You should buy what I just said. We definitely need that.”
“Alright, let me see what Amazon has," she said.
“No, we'll get it from Tupperware," he retorted. "I've been using nothing else for years."
“That's not my problem. There are cheaper options. Amazon, same-day delivery.  Why do we have Prime if we don't use it? And don't say because of the Podcasts, we have Spotify, which is ten times better."
“Tupperware has better quality.”
“I'm buying the spatula and the lunchboxes from Amazon, end of discussion.”
There was a playful smile on his lips, already telling her what he was about to say next was merely a joke. “You’re not the man of the house,” Matt argued. “As the man of the house, I dictate where we buy our kitchen supplies.”
She gasped, her mouth hanging wide open as she processed his words. Even though it was a joke, she couldn't help but feel slightly offended at even the prospect. Shaking her head, she cocked her eyebrows at him and said, “And as the woman you depend on to suck your dick, I strongly suggest you think about what you just said.”
He bit his cheek. “Oh, so we’re going there?”
She smirked. “I thought you could handle it, tough guy.”
“Okay, that’s it!” He tossed the case file aside, tore the laptop from her hands, and pulled her into his lap in one swift motion.
Matt was always the first to suggest a gentle game of teasing, but he barely had any tolerance for it. He was always the first to get riled up, no matter what. Perhaps she should have thought twice about her words, but it was so much more fun to see him like this than give in too soon.
He rolled her hips down into his, his fingers sure to leave bruises as he guided her along his slacks. The moan she let out was guttural.
Matt bit down on her earlobe. “Mouth off on me again and this is all you’re gonna get for the next week,” he said.
Her thighs fluttered around his own. The heartbeat between her legs bounced off his muscles. The room suddenly grew too hot to breathe the toxic air in.
“On second thought,” she began, though when Matt’s lips wandered from her ear to her neck and down to her cleavage, the words got caught in her throat.
He ran his hands under her shirt. Her skin was hot. The rough callouses of his fingers pulled the fabric aside until it slipped off her shoulders.
“No bra,” he smirked. “Nice.”
She whined. “I really need to buy kitchen supplies now, Matt,” she tried again.
He sucked one of her nipples into his hot mouth. If they were hard due to the cold air in the apartment or because his touch sent her into overdrive she wasn’t sure, but once he was on her all she could think about was his stupid mouth on her tits.
Her nipple slipped off his tongue with a pornographic plop. “I want you to do as I say,” he said.
“You can't use your bedroom voice when we're talking about the apartment. Oh, fuck!”
He slapped his hand flat on her ass.
“You were saying?”
She wanted to wipe that shit-eating grin off his perfectly wet lips.
“Stop teasing me.”
Matt leaned back from the mess he made on her chest, eyelids fluttering innocently, hands rested on her hips again. “You said you needed to buy kitchen supplies,” he said.
And he was instantly back in his teasing mood, believing he finally got the upper hand.
“I lied,” she said.
“No, you didn’t. You really need to buy kitchen supplies.”
She huffed. “Fine, guess I’ll do it myself.”
He wanted to laugh.
Her shorts accompanied her shirt on the floor. Half naked, she plopped down next to him on the couch again.
Matt choked on nothing at all, her scent thick in the air. When her thighs moved, the sound it made was wet, hot, and sticky. He loved that sound. He loved it most when it was as close to his ears as possible, squished between those perfect thighs that made the sound unbearable.
She threw her head back, throat exposed. She sighed. Her fingers ran over her body, barely touching, only testing the waters. All hairs on her body stood at full attention, the ache between her thighs thudding so hard to the point where she could hear nothing but blood in her ears. Her heart sped up, half because of embarrassment, the other half because of excitement. She wasn’t sure what was stronger. They’d never done anything like this before and she doubted he’d even let her. Up until this point he hadn’t done anything but listen closely though, fists clenched around the soft fabric of his slacks close to his crotch.
Her fingers ghosted over the waistband of her panties. Black silk. He liked the feeling of lace on her, but after some time it began to tickle and he hated the way it itched at his skin, so she barely wore lace anymore. He had his hands on her at all times, she had to adapt.
Matt’s hand shot out instantly. Her fingers barely breached her panties and he already had enough. “Don’t you dare,” he said.
“Why?” she challenged. Her voice was nothing but a series of breaths.
“Because it’s mine.”
“If you won’t touch me-“
He shoved his fingers down her underwear.
“Fuck!” Her head fell even further down the armrest.
“You were saying?”
“I’m sorry. Keep going.”
“Why?” his thumb stopped over her clit. “Why should I give you anything?”
“Because I will buy or- or do anything you want from now on, I promise!”
“Watch your tone, sweetheart,” he bellowed.
“Please,” she squirmed, searching for any kind of friction. His hand kept her hips restrained without even trying, any move grazing her just enough to make her body jolt, but not nearly enough to be pleasurable.
“Hm,” he hummed.
“Please?”
“Okay,” and he pressed his thumb down so hard, she swore she saw stars dance around her clouded vision.
She moaned just the way he liked it. “Fuck.”
“Will you keep quiet?” Matt resumed his work. Even though his pants were painfully tight, he acted like nothing had happened. “I need to finish this paperwork,” he told her. “I won’t ignore my responsibilities just because someone decided to be a needy whore today. So if you want to cum, you better stay quiet so I can concentrate.”
His thumb worked its way up and down her clit, circled, and drew patterns she’d never seen before. She bit into her bottom lip until it drew blood.
He knew her body better than anyone else, better than herself even. He knew what she liked, what made her squirm, what she didn’t like, and what could make her body shake instantly.
Her body was an altar. He had every last inch mapped out to perfection. Her skin was soft like a sunny day in spring and it smelled salty like the sea, sweet like the field of flowers in Central Park, and distinctive like summer rain. Every time he touched her, he was on fire. The temperature in her body changed with every flick of his fingers. Every hitch of her breath he caught onto. She didn’t even have to tell him to keep going, he simply knew.
Matt worshipped her body like he would kneel on the bench at church. She was a row of burning candles before the cross and he knelt before her like a pathetic disciple willing to do anything to please the divine being.
Her stifled moans through the palm of her hand drove him crazy. Usually, he was a lot more composed than that, but it was late, he was overworked and he was horny, and he couldn’t concentrate with the wetness of her arousal lying thick in the air. He licked his lips to taste it. He tasted the air like a starved man.
Matt growled. “Fuck this,” he said.
She protested silently when he retreated his thumb. She sat up against the armrest, staring at him. His hair stood in all directions from the hand he ran through it, his lips plump, seeking friction.
“Come here.” He grabbed her hips and placed her back on his lap, legs on either side of his thigh. “I need you close to me,” he breathed into her mouth as they met halfway. “Ride my thigh.”
She swallowed. “What?”
“Ride my thigh. Be a good girl and ride my thigh. You want to make yourself cum, hm? I’m giving you an opportunity here, unless, of course, you’re too pathetic to do it yourself. Do you need me to help you, hm?”
She swallowed again. “Please,” she said.
His hands gently began to roll her hips against him. “Like that?” he asked.
The moan she let out was answer enough.
“Feel good?”
She bit into her lip, nodding wildly.
“Use your words,” he said. “Don’t hold back.”
Her head fell on his shoulder, hand seeking something to hold onto behind him at the back of the couch.
The silence earned her another hard slap on her ass.
“Answer me.”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Feels good. Keep going, please.”
Matt smirked. “Good girl.”
The leather was dented under her fingers. She held onto the couch for dear life. His hands guided her hips deliciously over his thigh, the fabric of his slacks mixed with the silk of her underwear sliding against her sensitive clit over and over again driving her closer and closer to the end.
She saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Her eyes rolled back. The pressure in her lower abdomen began to build slowly but steadily. She involuntarily sped up, sloppily fighting against the slow pace he’d set. He would’ve stopped her if he hadn’t been so riled up already, so he let her. He let her chase for the sweet relief the knot in her stomach prepared her for.
“Matt,” she whined his name.
One of his hands began to stroke her back. “I know,” he said. “I know, baby.”
Her thighs twitched around his, her entire body shaking underneath his touch. It was all too much. His rough hands on her hot skin, his fingers digging in sure to leave bruises, and the gentle coax of his hand on her back, stroking innocently to help her through it. His touch was too much to bear.
Matt instantly reached out when she threw her head back. The moan sounded delicious in his ears. He caught her head with his hand around the back of her neck, making sure she wouldn’t fall over and hurt herself. She clenched around nothing, thighs threatening to close but his own kept them open.
A tear slipped down her cheek. She wasn’t crying, not at all. The tear came from a place of pure pleasure. Her body couldn’t handle it. The sensations he put her through left her speechless every time he touched her. She couldn’t breathe. Her throat was dry.
His thumb drew circles on the back of her neck. He brought her back to earth after it just shattered before her very eyes.
“Fuck,” she choked out.
Matt guided her back into his chest and she took the support gladly. His heart beat against her bare breasts. The bulge in his pants became painfully clear once she regained feeling in her limbs. It brushed her thighs where it lay between his own.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded, playing with the hairs on the nape of his neck.
“That was…” she couldn’t find the right words.
“I know.”
She didn’t quite trust her legs when she twisted to swing the one between his thighs over the other one. She kept her hands on his shoulders to straddle him without falling over.
Matt tilted his head, eyes searching for hers. “What’re you doing?” he asked hoarsely.
“Looks like you need some help,” she stated. She played with his belt buckle.
“It’s fine. You know I don’t need anything in return for making you feel good.”
“I know, but I want to. That looks painful.”
In one swift motion, she pulled the belt out of his slacks and tossed it aside.
Matt chuckled at her eagerness. “You are insatiable, you know that?” he dove in to kiss whatever bare skin he could reach.
His lips sloppily kissed down her neck and up again, chasing her lips. She kissed him back as hard as she could. Their teeth clashed, tongues fighting each other for dominance, knowing he’d win anyway. He swallowed every breath she took, sucking her dry and breathing new life back into her mouth.
She opened the button on his pants, trying hard to pull it down enough to get his aching cock out of them.
He caught onto her plan. Shifting his hips, she managed to reach into his boxers.
“Wait,” he said.
“What?” she blinked at him.
Matt reached for the hem of her panties. His fingers flexed.
Rip.
She gasped. The silk fell to the floor in nothing but flaps of fabric.
“I’ll buy you new ones.” He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth.
“Fine.” In response, the buttons of his dress shirt flew in all directions. She ran her hands down his chest, satisfied with the ripped front of the shirt hanging loosely off his shoulders.
He chuckled. “That’s fair.”
She kissed down every exposed sliver of skin on his torso. Her tongue ran over the jagged scars, the freshly healed bruises from a couple of nights ago. He was beautiful. With the billboard casting a pornographic red light on them, eyes closed, he looked like the child of an angel and a demon. His entire existence was ephemeral, his body a wonderland.
She sucked one of his perky nipples into her mouth. He arched almost entirely off the couch.
“I love you,” she breathed against him.
She liked the way the words sounded. For someone so afraid of admitting her feelings not so long ago, she’d come quite far. It had become her new favorite thing to say. Though the true weight of the statement came in the moments they were intimate. She could chant the same three words to him all day, but the second they were close to each other, touching where only they could touch, those three words regained their true meaning. It was sweet, almost innocent. The kind of love everyone wished for. An endless spiral of butterflies danced around in their stomachs.
Matt chuckled. The very same sound turned into a moan once her teeth dug into the flesh around his nipples.
“I’m worshipping you now,” she told him. Her kisses traveled down his body.
Her warmth on his chest disappeared. Instead, the hot trail of kissed lead to the opened button of his slacks. Her tongue played with his belly button, the happy trail leading into Neverland.
She kissed each scar on either side. “Perfect,” she hummed. “I don’t deserve you and yet you’re mine. This is mine. Only mine. No one else’s.”
“I’m yours.”
“Mine,” she kissed the lower part of his stomach. “Mine,” her lips landed on the hem of his boxers. “Mine,” it was an animalistic growl. She pulled down his underwear swiftly.
Matt didn’t have time to comprehend what was happening. He was so in awe of the way she touched and spoke of his body, he listened to her for the sake of having her praise him over and over again. The words carried innocence in their sinful ways.
He choked on air. His scars long forgotten, her mouth opened around its original destination.
“Lord have mercy!” he grabbed a fistful of hair.
Her tongue licked a thick stripe down his shaft.
Matt was a religious man. He prayed regularly and went to church and Sunday Mass. He swore never to take God anywhere other than he needed to be, but that woman and her cursed mouth made him see God in the fiery land of his unseeing vision. What they were doing was outright sinful. He knew he’d go to hell for saying the lord’s name in vain. He’d go to hell for everything he’d ever done and yet, while that was the truth, he didn’t care because, at that moment, he was living. He was alive. He’d gotten used to the thought of going to hell, seeking penance almost every day since. With her though, something had awakened inside of him. He couldn’t let it go. The Devil inside of him wanted to play.
Her mouth danced perfectly to the gospel of his moans, he forgot who he was. He tried hard not to push her head further down his cock, although the warmth of her throat sent him into pleasurable overdrive.
The cold air hit the head, falling from her lips like a wet towel. “It’s okay,” she said. “Take what you need.”
It was all the confirmation he needed.
His hips bucked up into her throat. She had laid off the gag reflex the first time she had his cock in her mouth, knowing the act alone could turn her on for more than one day. She could cum from simply touching him, hearing the dirty sounds slip past his swollen lips, and she’d be more than okay with it. The sounds he made were heaven’s gift to her, she was sure.
His cock twitched against her throat. She braced herself, eyes already closed. 
“Stop,” he choked out.
She instantly sat back on her heels, naked and worked up.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.
“No, not at all.  I just… I need you.”
His chest heaved with the denied orgasm. The one he had denied himself. Anticipation rutted through his veins.
She swallowed the precum mixed with spit inside her hollowed-out mouth. The skin tingled. “You want me to-“ she pointed to his lap.
Matt sensed the motion. “If you want to,” he said. “But you can lay back and let me do all the work if that’s what you want. Just tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.”
Her thighs trapped his. She’d never been so comfortable doing that before. She was completely naked on top of him while he sat there, half-dressed, eyes searching for what he couldn’t see. Blood rushed to her cheeks. The position was compromising.
He pulled the hair from her face. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
“Yes,” she nodded. “I don’t know what I’m doing but yeah, I’m sure.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve got you.” He pressed his lips to her collarbone. “Mine,” he licked a stripe up her pulse point. “Mine,” the spank landed right on her ass. The next touch of his fingers made her shudder. Her cheeks flooded red with blood. “And mine,” he parted his fingers between her thighs to spread the lips of her pussy wide open.
Part of her wanted to scramble away. He couldn’t see but he could feel everything. It was just about the same as having him watch every inch of her body closely. Every last crevice he wanted to memorize. She wasn’t sure what to think. Her brain refused to function. She was entirely bare to him.
“Matt,” she said his name.
“You’re beautiful. Nothing to be ashamed of.” He kissed her again. Passionate, loving. “Remember our safe word?”
“Hmm.”
“Tell me.”
“Red.”
He flicked the switch. “Okay, good girl,” the dark sound of his voice made all the embarrassment vanish. Instead, heat shot through her core. “Good girl, having your good little cunt spread for me. Just want to look at you the way I can. Want to see what’s mine. Want to feel how wet you are from riding my thigh. Oh, look at you!” he smirked. “This is turning you on, isn’t it? Your heart’s going crazy and you’re literally dripping.  You’re making such a mess on my good pants. You want to make a mess on my cock now too, don’t you? You want to be my good little slut and ride my cock?”
She only whined.
His hand slapped across her ass harder this time. The collision stung. “Use your words,” he demanded. “Use your words or I’m leaving you like this.”
“I’m sorry,” her voice came out sobbing. “I’m sorry. I want you inside of me. I want to be your good girl, I promise.”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yes, please! Please fuck me, Matthew. I’ll do anything. Please!”
“Don’t cry.” He wiped her cheeks. “I know I’m good, but no need to cry. You’ll get what you want. Want to make you feel good, hm. You deserve it for always being so patient.”
“Yes, I’ve been patient. I’ve been good. So good.”
He laughed. “You’re already so dumb for me, baby. You sure you can take this?”
“Yes!”
“What’s your color?” The always caring Matt Murdock peaked out from under the dark, sex-crazed facade only she got to see.
She shuddered. “I-“ words came harder than they should have.
His head titled. Worry spread across his face, ready to take back whatever he said.
“Green,” she eventually managed to say.
She only wanted the ache between her thighs to be numbed. She wanted him so incredibly deep inside of her, she could feel him bulge her stomach, everywhere he could be inside of her.
Matt smirked, and it only grew darker from there.
“Good girl,” he praised again.
She slapped her hand on her mouth. He bottomed out quickly, without warning. He penetrated her without thinking twice about it, burying himself so deep inside of her, he could feel her walls contracting around him with every inch. She sucked him in and she screamed. She was sure she screamed. Her hand was the only thing keeping the neighbors from knocking on their door. His name slipped from her lips like a prayer, like she was singing his name in church and the word echoed off the walls for everyone to hear. Except no one was supposed to hear this. It was just them. This was their safe space. They could be however they wanted to be like this, and only then they could touch each other so sweetly when the world wasn’t watching them and they didn’t have to worry about anything other than themselves.
The sound was new, even for Matt. He too was sure he let out the nastiest sound known to man, but unlike her, he had no intention of masking it. He bottomed out and he chose to stay like this for just a little while longer, waiting for her muscles to relax, waiting for her to enjoy this.
The impatient roll of her hips eased his worries.
“Okay?” he asked quietly.
She breathed through her nose, “Okay.”
“Then ride me.”
And she did.
She started with a slow pace, taking her time to adjust to his size. Every inch of her felt perfectly filled out. He managed to reach parts of her she never could’ve found on her own. He had this way with her body, it was like a high that never ended, the endless train on the river of sugar rush.
Her eyes trailed up his body. Head tilted back, his eyes fluttered with every thrust of her hips. One arm flexed with the pressure he applied to the leather seat, the other was placed softly against the flesh of her hips. He made sure she knew he was there if she needed him to take control, though, at the same time, the move seemed almost domineering, leaving her no choice but to do as he wanted. She was completely at his mercy. Even the slightest touch made her cave. He knew it and she knew it.
If he’d told her to drive to hell with him, she would have.
The slow and steady pace felt like heaven to him. Her hips drew patterns to chase that spot so very deep inside of her, only he could reach it. The swirl was delicious around his cock, the hot, soft flesh of her insides rolling against him, up and down and up and down. He listened to her heartbeat, strangled breathing, and the goosebumps on her skin. Moan after moan escaped her lips, growing louder and louder until she couldn’t hold it anymore. He filtered out every hint of discomfort or frustration. What she liked, what she continued doing, and what just didn’t seem to work. She explored herself without even realizing and it turned him on even more. He could’ve sworn he felt himself getting harder inside of her if that was humanly possible.
His ears only picked up on rushing blood and labored breaths. There was nothing else but the feeling of her body, the scent of sweat, and bittersweet arousal on his lips and tongue. He was entirely enveloped in her. Everything was about her. Her body, her wetness, her heart. The heart between her legs, loud and dominant.
She whimpered at the sight before her. Matt Murdock in all his glory, half naked with his shirt ripped at her fingers, fabric, and skin clutched between her nails. Sweat coated his forehead, mouth slightly agape. His lashes fluttered around his unseeing eyes. She didn’t even have to move. If she wanted to, the sight would’ve been enough to make her come undone in a matter of seconds. He was so comfortable in her presence, his shoulders slouched in absolute relaxation as her movement urged him closer to his own release.
The next time her hips rolled down into his, he met her movements. His hips jerked up with a purpose. That purpose lay deep inside of her and he knew where it was. The thrust from underneath made her cry out. The spongy spot inside of her danced with euphoria as the head of his cock brushed against it.
He chuckled breathlessly. “There it is,” his head stayed hung over the back of the couch.
She braced herself. The new wave of pleasure only spurred her on. The way he dove impossibly deeper into her with every brush against that sweet spot had him reeling, gripping the leather for any kind of support. She followed close behind, her hips beginning to move as if her life depended on it. With every thrust, she sped up. Although her legs slowly grew tired, all she could feel was the tingling knot deep in her stomach blossoming into a beautiful flower and waiting to blow.
The hand that had once laid around her waist landed around her throat instead. The leather wasn’t nearly enough to keep him composed if that was even possible.
Hell’s Kitchen always haunted him. Noise and smell followed him home, and the sound of innocent people getting hurt kept him from falling asleep most of the time. He couldn’t tune it out. The city was a part of him. Even asleep, he dreamed of all the bad that was out there and all the things he’d done in his life, the things that lead him there, the people he’d hurt. The city never slept and neither did he, not really.
Though with her, for the first time, he was able to breathe. She overwhelmed his senses to the point it almost became unbearable. Her touch singed his skin yet calmed his mind down to the point he could tune out everything else and just focus entirely on the woman atop him. Sight was overrated. He didn’t need to see to know the way she moved was graceful in itself. Everything she did, she did with passion. The rolls of her hips were angelic. With her head thrown back, sweat and tear all over her face, she was the most beautiful person he’d ever come across. He could feel every inch of her, smell her, taste her. The whole wide city disappeared in the wake of her existence.
She was his salvation. He was drowning.
“Matt,” she sighed. His name rolled sweetly over her lips like she was singing him to sleep.
He squeezed his fingers around her pulse point. The pressure caged her in, sending moons across the stars in her galaxy. She reached for his wrist, not sure if she wanted to keep him or push him away. The tingling traveled from her stomach into every last crevice of her being.
He twitched inside of her. His muscles tensed. She rolled against him again, chest to chest. Hard nipples brushed against each other.
She dove in for a taste. Sweat had nestled into his stubble. Air was overrated. She kissed him until her lungs had nothing left to give. Until there was no other way but to swim back to shore to take a deep breath.
They’d fucked before. They had sex before. They’d done a lot of things. Whatever this was though, it counted as neither. Time was of the essence. Not too little, not too much. Just the right amount of time, simply savoring each other, getting to know each other as much as humanly possible in the most intimate sense. Subconsciously, they’d both been carrying way too much pressure. It showed in the way they craved each other. Starving animals in the middle of the desert preying for sustenance.
She scratched her nails through the hairs on his chin, leaving red marks down his throat. He groaned ever so softly into the depths of her mouth.
“I love you,” she said. His name came in serial moans. She breathed hard, heavy. Lost all sense of space and time, as if she couldn’t even believe it herself.
Matt tasted the salt on his tongue, wet strains of tears carried from her drenched cheeks to his. She was crying, whining, begging, and as lovely as it was to hold her like this, the words were the last straw to destroy his composure completely.
“I love you.”
He flipped her over like she was a doll, easily handled, thighs opened to grant him the space he needed to get between them. All the while his hand remained on its throne around her throat.
She moaned. The red lights of the billboard shone at him from behind, fading into hues of purple and blue with each thrust. His hips brushed against her clit every time he dove forward, hard and relentless, deeper and deeper. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. The lights became a distant memory. Nothing mattered but the hot pressure inside her lower abdomen, his weight on her, the twitch of his cock against the spot inside of her at the same time he brushed the spot outside of her and all eventually just became too much.
“Sweetheart, look at me,” he demanded. “Look at me!”
She forced her eyes open. He loved it when she looked at him, vulnerable, exposed. And though she tried hard to obey, his pace made it almost impossible to keep her eyes open long enough. Not much longer and the only was about to snap.
“Who do you belong to? Who’s making you feel good?”
“You,” she gave him the answer he wanted. “Always you.”
“That’s right, sweetheart. Me, only me. You’re-“ he thrust his hips forward, “Mine. Mine.” he dug his teeth into her shoulder.
She sobbed. It was too much. Too good, too much. Her entire body was on fire.
“Matt, please.”
Waiting for permission, anything.
Fingers intertwined above her head on the armrest. She clawed onto him. His hand traveled down between their bodies, catching her clit just right between his fingers. Just a little more. Circles and triangles and more circles.
“All of this is mine, understood?” his face buried in the valve of her breasts. “I’m so in love with you,” he said. “So fucking in love with you.”
The Billboard outside exploded in fits of color. The coil snapped. She gave up the little control she had left, clinging onto him, shocks of pleasure wreaking havoc. Her pussy clenched around him. It was tight, so tight, and she kept him there until she could milk all he had to give her.
Matt stiffened. His mouth stayed open in a silent moan. Sound only came back to him once he came, hard. All the pressure from the week before unloaded and he fell on top of her, moaning, panting. His body vibrated with the aftershocks. The heat inside of her walls sucked him in until every last drop was spent, dripping along his softening shaft, out of her. 
The world stood still.
“I love you,” the admission blew hot against her sternum. Her hands raked through his hair, holding him.
She sighed blissfully. “I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
Matt was a sensitive person after sex. During, he took control. He hardly left her any time to breathe or think. After though, the world came crashing back in, his senses so overwhelmed by everything, he just needed someone to ground him. His mind wasn’t back yet, ears rushing with blood and every nerve in his body straining. The only thing keeping him sane was the beating of her heart against his ear.
Not sure if she could trust her legs just yet, she gently rolled them over. “Come on,” she whispered. “I’ll clean us up.”
He lay there, eyes directed at the ceiling. Her warmth disappeared only to be replaced by a lukewarm washcloth on his stomach.
She helped him out of his pants. The cold air of the apartment eased the burning.
He had regained most of his consciousness by the time she laid back on top of him. The sofa wasn’t spacious and for the first time, he was glad there was no space for her to move anywhere but his bare chest. The skin-to-skin contact made the sudden awareness less unbearable. He needed to focus on the feeling of her. He needed to remember what it felt like to breathe.
She traced patterns on his skin. Eventually, she asked, “You okay?”
“Thank you,” he said.
“You know, I love you too. More than anything.”
“I know.”
“I’m in love with you,” she looked up at him. “I don’t just love you, I’m in it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He couldn’t help it. “Oh,” the tears flowed freely.
“Hey-“
Matt choked out a laugh. “You’re the best damn thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said. "And I don't even know why I'm crying because I'm not sad, I'm happy."
Her eyes softened. She touched his cheek gently. He closed his eyes, leaning into her touch, kissing her palm, down to her wrist, and back up.
“I was thinking,” she broke the silence.
“Dangerous,” he muttered.
“Hey!” she slapped him only slightly, but it was enough to make him groan.
“I was thinking,” she began again. “How about, you and I,” her fingers traveled down his exposed chest, “take the day off tomorrow, stay in,” she kissed his throat, “and have absolutely filthy sex everywhere in this apartment until I can’t walk anymore.”
He moaned. “That won’t be so hard,” he said.
Needless to say, he didn’t buy any kitchen supplies that day, the day after that, or the day after that. Truth be told, she never got the chance to buy them.
“We can start today.”
The second they stepped into the shower, her chest was pressed to the cold tiles as he took her from behind.
Even if she’d wanted to, the throbbing between her legs the next morning made shopping for something as useless as kitchen supplies an impossibility. And as she sat on the kitchen counter in the morning, back arched with his head buried deep between her thighs, she realized she wouldn’t regain feeling in her limbs anytime soon.
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comradekatara · 3 months
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Re: Zuko sexism and fandom: I think that a LOT of people are just genuinely unwilling to actually view Zuko's bad behaviour as actually consequential. He gets "forgiven" by the Gaang and he has a big dramatic duel and then he rules the Fire Nation so it's fine actually. If it wasn't fine he wouldn't have been forgiven, like Jet! They use the lens of end-of-series Zuko, influenced by how the Gaang forgives him, to then retroactively handwave away his earlier behaviour and view it as if end of series Zuko is just misguidedly doing those things, rather than it being an actual expression of what he believes in and his morality at that point in time. Part of it is an abundance of sympathy and projection because he's the most explicit (and arguably only explicit, because other child abuse victims are never injured or attempted-murdered that we know of, and that's the bar for many viewers. Neither are any other than Zuko positioned piteously or as victims of Serious Injustice.) child abuse victim in the show and we see so MUCH of his internal struggle. For like a whole book. There's also a consistent trend of viewing the Fire Nation as Yes, Actually, being better than the other societies, they just shouldn't have tried to spread it via war, so yes Zuko is ✨indoctrinated✨ but in a feminist galaxy brained way not a bad fascist way. So the colonialism would've been fine if people had just agreed with how great the Fire Nation is! Pretty much the entirety of Zuko's bad behaviour is handwaved away as "he's a good guy who had a bad life! We forgive him for all of it, he's trying!" And to a lot of viewers, it's also "he's also hot and I've had a crush on him since I was like 14!". He's genuinely a huge asshole to pretty much everyone around him like, almost 24/7, for the majority of the show. And he has his reasons but he's still caused a lot of harm, and that we see? he's basically only revised his views on violent colonialism, making his Anger other people's problem, and some parts of racism. He only ever addresses what he's done to the Gaang and Uncle to. Does he buy Song another ostrich horse? Does he give Kyoshi reparations? Did he ever find out if that farming family with the kid Lee were harmed for harbouring a FIRE NATION PRINCE? What did he do to apologise to the Southern Water Tribe? Whatever he did to apologise to and thank Mai, if anything, I can guarantee it wasn't enough. That's just his personal stuff, never mind his policy choices as the New Fiery Dictator. It's so boring and frustrating how much people gloss over his jagged edges, because without those edges his narrative and how he fits into the world and story just collapses completely.
you’re so right about all of this. I think his final scene with mai is especially emblematic of how his resolution is framed as “and they all lived happily ever after” even though I remember perfectly well how he treated that poor girl so I’m just yelling at her to run away the whole scene. although I will say that stealing song’s ostrich horse was probably his most justifiable crime just bc if I was a disfigured burn victim and someone tried to touch my face without asking I’d also consider committing petty theft against them. ngl. he still does owe her a new ostrich horse though. and of course framing his ascension as some grand victory is thematically/telelogically appropriate, but I highly doubt he would be like. good at firelording. but that’s for another post. ppl really like smoothing out his edges and treating him as if he’s beyond reproach when everyone only finds him so compelling in the first place because his flaws are so obvious, so they assume he’s more “complex” than the other characters (and also more relatable, but that’s for another post too). it’s actually kind of funny if you think about it. “he’s the best because he’s so noticeably flawed and therefore so complex but also I love him so he doesn’t have any flaws actually and is probably a feminist socialist who loves eating pussy and listening to women.” and this is also lowkey how ppl talk about sokka too but at least sokka does actually do those things, zuko doesn’t even pretend to😭 anyway. i keep saying today that you guys couldn’t handle revolutionary girl utena, but you guys REALLY couldn’t handle revolutionary girl utena…
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ghcstao3 · 10 months
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Hi ! since I have no one else to tell this to and I really like the way you write ghost and soap I'd like to tell you. OK so as we know of ghosts backstory he was buried alive, so I was thinking of in the future soap goes through the same thing because of the song "like real people do" by hozier (honestly theres a lot of hozier songs that fits them, like it will come back but thats for some other day). I think it'd really fit them
not often i write hurt/comfort actually so this. this was good. even if both are vague and also minimal (oops)
hope this is okay ;-;
-
Ghost has always understood the fear of being just a second too late.
Sure, it comes with the job—but it also comes with a lifetime of unearned misery and experience only the most cruel would wish upon their worst enemies.
He understands it too well, the suspension of a heartbeat in anticipation of finding out he’d taken a moment too long. The sharp breath sucked between teeth, the mental plummet that follows intense uncertainty—that fear is his closest friend.
And it’s that fear that kneels with him now, a weight, an arm around his shoulders as he claws at dirt with a ferocity that drives through the ache in his muscles and pounding in his head.
The smell of earth will linger in Ghost's senses for weeks to follow, the dark and soft soil will settle beneath his nails for an eternity. He's requested help but they'll never make it in time—but he can try. He will try. Because if he doesn't, there is no question of being too late. It's a guarantee that will carve out his heart and replace the pit with guilt, festering, everlasting.
He keeps digging.
Handful by handful. It stains pale hands, fine grains embedded in the lines of palms and circling prints of half-seared fingertips. Ghost can't breathe—but he has air. He has air. The coffin he's been promised by intel does not. Will not, if he takes too long.
Will not if the man he had tortured for a location only lied to escape an inhuman wrath when Soap was not found. When after weeks, months, Soap was still not found. Because they arrived on the day he was meant to die.
The day he was buried, as Ghost had once been. With one last lungful of air and a hammering heart, beaten and broken and stripped bare of everything.
As Ghost had once been. And he'd been lucky.
Finally, miraculously, his fingers scrape against old, roughly cut wood. Ghost doesn't care if he runs them bloody—he can only keep clearing dirt, praying thanks to a God he hasn't acknowledged in decades for Soap's captors not having left him entombed so deep.
Several feet down, still. But not so deep. Not so deep.
From inside, there's banging against the lid of the coffin. Curled fists working with a shared determination, but breath kept minimal, lips pressed firmly shut, nostrils flared. He knows better than Ghost ever had.
Ghost helps pulls him out. Lets Soap collapse against him when they've found ground away from the grave.
Help finally arrives. Soap clings to Ghost even as he's urged to get medical attention, and Ghost lets him. Would always let him. Fights to stay by his side as the sergeant's frail body is checked over, as he's stuck with needles and wrapped in bandages and doted on in a way Ghost never was.
And that's the difference, isn't it? The good and honest difference—Soap gets to survive because he has people who love him. People who expect him to return. It's impossible to arrive at his side too late because it simply isn't built into Soap's bones to be left behind. Discarded.
Like Ghost was.
Ghost waits at Soap's hospital bed until the sergeant wakes. He had made a promise to himself, long ago, never to let Soap suffer like Ghost in his previous life. Like Ghost prior to everything John MacTavish. And in part, he bemoans his failure—but so long as Soap is still breathing, his promise is kept. He knows this. Owes it to himself.
And without even knowing his entire history, Soap would want the same.
So Ghost waits on Soap to blink his bleary eyes open, blue eyes wide and vibrant despite the deep and purpling bags beneath them, and kisses him softly in renewal of that promise.
He presses his lips to bruised knuckles and smooths the creases of furrowed brows, speaks whispered vows and gentle words; reassurances to them both that never again would Ghost commit such a careless and stupid mistake as letting Soap out of his sights again.
One day their bodies are meant to be returned to the dirt. But not like this.
Never like this.
And Ghost will make sure of that.
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blainesebastian · 2 years
Text
coffee cart girl (pt2)
words: 3,588 ship: austin x female reader summary: you’re the coffee runner on the set of Elvis. Coffee deliveries run pretty easy, until Austin accidently spills coffee on you. notes: wow, I did not expect such a warm response! thank you so much :) part 1 is here. if you would like to be added or removed from the tag list, please let me know!  warnings: none tag list: @pearlparty, @theinvisiblecapricorn, @kittenlittle24, @andrewgarfields-girlfriend, @mirandastuckinthe80s, @nonsensical-nonce,
It’s been a few days since the whole coffee debacle and time continues on—coffee orders are taken, delivered and not spilled down the front of your shirt. Granted, you suppose that idea wouldn’t be too terrible given what you got out of it the last time. Though you’re not about to make a fool out of yourself, showing up to Austin’s trailer, asking to borrow another t-shirt. That’d totally be…ridiculous.
Okay, so the thought had crossed your mind only once, so what? You’re human.
“And ridiculous.” You emphasize to yourself as you check the orders and fill.
Sometimes it can be a mind-numbing process, coffee filling, and you’re really glad they can’t get too fancy on set. It’s just cream and sugar—no espressos, no lattes, no iced options. When it’s a Starbucks run? That gets a little hectic; can even take multiple trips. You chew on the inside of your cheek as your eyes run over the list…searching for one name in particular,
Butler – black, cream
Totally not playing favorites, or anything, you make that order next and take one tray off to make stops before filling the rest. You hum an Elvis song softly to yourself, habit of the job you’ve noticed, kinda difficult not to when you’re around it all day. Today it’s a mix of That’s Alright Mama and I’m Coming Home which makes no sense, and yet the tunes blend seamlessly together as you make turns around trailers and find the people you need to give coffee orders to.
You’re trying your best not to think about Austin, about him bringing you that coffee and talking to you about your script, about things that you got no business thinking about. But your mind wanders and, especially with all the buzz around set around how well Austin is playing Elvis, you kinda can’t help it either. His voice slips around your skin as you recall him asking about your writing, about whether you show it to anyone, making the hair on your arms stand up. While the Elvis outfits, especially the fits from the fifties, kinda squeeze your insides, you find yourself preferring when he comes to set—simple looks, the jeans, the t-shirt, the black jean jacket or the sherpa lined blue one.
You’ve never seen him without the black hair, but know he’s naturally a brunette, wisps of blonde. You wonder what it’s like to see him like that, how bright his eyes can be, what it might look like to notice him when the attention isn’t all over him.
You shake your head as you drop off a coffee in the makeup department before making your way to his trailer. Foolish—a handful of interactions does not make you special, nor important. Besides, you can’t let thoughts like this get in the way of what you’re here to do. Deliver coffee, obviously, but script work? Exposure? Elvis won’t be filming forever and it’s not guaranteed you’ll get picked up for another set job.
You carefully make your way up the steps, just in case, and knock. Taking a slow breath, you pause, listening to make sure before you open the door. Empty—just as it’s been the last few days you delivered coffee runs.
Disappointment crackles in your belly, spreading up to your ribcage as you make your way inside and set the coffee down on a small table in front of a couch. His jean jacket is there, whiffs of sandalwood in the trailer as you move to leave, mixed with something else that’s distinctly Austin.
Your stomach flutters and you quickly head out of there, closing the door behind you. You got work to do.
--
You’re fairly sure they’re working on the Trouble scene—you can hear the echoes of strong guitar strums, Austin’s voice ringing in the air and sending shivers down your spine. You wonder what it’s like being an extra in any of these concert scenes, what it’d be like to see Austin in full garb, pulling off Elvis moves and vocals. It’s impressive, would probably melt your right through the floor. You can only imagine.
Not to mention an extra salary wouldn’t hurt. Then again, doesn’t really open you up for what you should be doing—you pour over your script, flipping through pages, a headache pinching its way to your temples. This thing might never make any fucking sense. Some of the extras speak directly to Baz, at least the ones up front with Austin. You wonder…
“Y/N!”
You wince, turning to look towards Sal as she approaches the picnic table you’re at. One moment of silence for the great afternoon you were having—you already know it’s about to get ruined.
“Did you not get the afternoon orders started?”
You blink, glancing at the time. “I don’t start my rounds until three.” It’s two-fifty.
Sal narrows her eyes at you, crossing her arms over her chest in what no doubt will be a lecture. “Frank from lighting says he still hasn’t gotten his morning coffee—”
And you kinda stop listening there because that just…can’t be right. You know what that list said this morning, if only you could find the small clipboard that had all the morning runs. You must have set it down somewhere. Regardless, you know how to do your job, Frank didn’t ask for anything this morning.
“He wasn’t on my—”
“Maybe if you did a little less on attempting to crack into your big break,” She taps the script a bit aggressively, “and paid more attention to your job, we wouldn’t have angry lighting workers. Get moving.”
You work your jaw a moment—you know better than to argue, it’s not worth it, even when you know you’re right. You slide off the bench and collect your script, putting it into your bag for later, dropping it off where you keep your things. Quickly, you grab a cup and fill Frank’s order (a good memory, black with three Sweet'N Lows) and take it to set.
Seems like they’re between shoots or at least done with one scene and moving towards another because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to walk into the warehouse. Curling your hair around your ear, you see Frank working on a standing light fixture.
“Here you go Frank—” And as an apology is about to leave your mouth, he turns and practically snatches the coffee out of your hands.
“It’s about damn time, you know I’ve been waiting on this since this morning?” He snaps and you bite your tongue, hard. He definitely wasn’t on your order list this morning.
You’re almost not sure what to say; there’s nothing in it for you to argue your point, he’s going to be upset no matter what—just the kind of mood Frank seems to be in. You resist the urge to roll your eyes too and just take a breath.
“Sorry,” You say instead, a light smile. “Won’t happen again.”
“It better not—what’s Sal paying you for anyway, to lounge around all day?”
You swallow and do your best to not let this guy get under your skin. He draws the attention of a few people around him; you can feel their gazes boring into your body which causes blush to splotch along the back of your neck.
You open your mouth to say something else, or maybe just excuse yourself—get the fuck out of there, when you hear someone speak behind you.
“Hey,” Austin says, his voice a little firm. You turn to see him, standing in black slacks and a matching black button down, missing a suit jacket but the red tie stands out starkly.
You’re so busy taking him in, the black hair hanging loosely in a few strands over his forehead, skin soft on his face but clearly some charcoal eyeliner under his eyes, making them pop blue—that you don’t even realize that he’s not talking to you.
“You don’t need to talk to her like that.” Austin finishes saying, his shoulders a sharp line, seemingly a bit taller as he addresses Frank.
Frank pales when he sees Austin, glancing between you and him, attempting to come up with some sort of explanation. “Mr. Butler, I—”
“Everyone works on this set just as hard as you do, Frank.”
You cross your arms over your chest, a bit of a defense mechanism, as if it helps to keep yourself together. You really appreciate Austin’s words of support, especially since it resonates—you might not be a producer, special effects coordinator, makeup and hair, or even an extra. But you like to think that your job keeps grease on the wheels, you’re even willing to make extra trips or grab food for people if necessary without being asked.
Common courtesy just goes a long way.
Frank clears his throat and nods, motioning his head towards you as he turns to walk off with his coffee. Apparently that’s supposed to be some sort of apology—whatever, you weren’t expecting one.
Turning to look at Austin, you offer a small smile, “Thanks, you didn’t have to do that. Frank’s always a bit cranky.”
“You don’t need to make excuses for him,” He waves you off gently, one of his hands ending up on his hip—it somehow highlights his frame, his lean waist. “There’s no need to be rude to people.”
You would have to agree, goes against your motto that you keep around here—kill them with kindness, even when you’re having the worst day. No use taking it out on someone else. You sigh and let your arms drop, glad to feel that no one is really watching anymore, the drama has fizzled out.
“You’re alright?” Austin asks, raking a hand through his dark hair. It doesn’t stick back like you think he wants it to—must be hard to tame it without the gel assist.
“Oh yeah, I’m fine.” You smile a little…and then almost swallow the words on your tongue, but for whatever reason they make it out of your mouth, “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
He smiles, licking his lips, “Yeah, I’ve been running around a lot more recently between studios and sets.” You begin walking with him as you talk, exiting the warehouse and taking steps towards the trailers. “You been lookin’ for me?”
The question comes so casually that it almost reaches out and trips you and when your eyes look up at Austin’s face, there’s that soft smirk there pulling the corners of his mouth. Amusement is swimming in the depths of his blue eyes, causing heat to pour down your spine.
A soft laugh startles forward out of your chest, “I was not looking for you—I just—I noticed that I’ve brought morning coffee to an empty trailer the last few days.”
He hums, still smiling, “Guess I’ll have to start orderin’ coffee in the afternoon too.”
If you didn’t know any better, you’d say that Austin was flirting with you. But the thing is, it’s kinda hard to tell—he has that way about him when he talks to people, making others feel like they’re in the center of his universe, the gaze he holds and the way he steps closer to build that connection. You’re just a dime a dozen.
Even though it’s totally working.
“Afternoon coffee?” You suck in a playful breath, pretending to tip your head up in thought. “I’ll have to check my usual orders, might have to go to the bottom of the list. I’m a busy woman, I got other important people to serve too you know.”
Austin laughs, the action creating a soft crinkle to his eyes and for your stomach to completely flip-flop. That’s…that just doesn’t seem fair. You smile a moment, just watching him, because he’s a beautiful man and anyone with common sense can see that…and for whatever reason you seem to have stolen his full attention within his busy day.
Chewing on your lower lip, you laugh lightly too, motioning in the other direction, “I gotta go—Sal’ll be on my ass if I don’t get started.”
“Put me on the list.” He says, “Even if I gotta go on the bottom.”
You nod, gaze flickering over him as if to absorb this moment, keep it, “Your usual?”
He shrugs, “Surprise me.” Before turning towards the direction, he needs to go in.
--
You run down the list of people you need to grab orders from, automatically taking cups and careful not to mismatch what goes where. Ever since Frank, you have to admit you’re slightly rattled. Not because he upset you (not completely that, anyways) but because this job is important to you and you want to do it well. It may just be coffee orders but you take pride in what you do, it’s as simple as that.
Austin was right—everyone works hard on this set, no matter who they are.
Your eyes flicker to that last add-on: Butler, surprise me and kinda shake your head. Not much to surprise him with here but…you do fill up the coffee cup, add a splash a cream as he likes and then grab the cinnamon shaker, dusting the top.
See how that goes.
“Everyone’s talkin’ about Frank the incident,” Jillian comes up behind you, nearly making you spill this coffee. You let out a short breath, looking over your shoulder at her. Her eyes are bright with mischief, red curls bouncing as she talks, “And Austin coming to your rescue.”
Excitement seems to bubble in your stomach but you shake your head, setting his coffee down with the rest, “That’s not…exactly how it happened.” Though Jillian isn’t giving much detail, you can’t imagine what the rumor mill is spinning around this place. Drama like anything else is contagious, especially on a film set.
“Oh,” She grins, playfully putting her chin into the palms of her hands as she looks at you. She leans against the table, batting her eyelashes, “Please Y/N, tell me how it happened.”
You give her a look, attempting to squash this conversation before it starts. You got work to do…and there’s no use feeding fantasies, better let them starve and taper off.
“I got coffee orders to deliver.”
“I think he likes you,” Jillian declares as you go to pick up the tray. Thank God you don’t completely have it in your hands yet because you definitely would have fumbled. Her voice is so matter of fact but this is exactly how Jillian can be—a good heart but dramatic.
“Do you even hear yourself right now?” You ask, glancing around to make sure Sal isn’t lingering, or anyone else who could hear this half-baked discussion.
“Do you?” Jillian throws back with a grin, “C’mon, why not?”
A scoff sounds out of your throat. Why not? because of a million reasons why not. To start, you’re a nobody, a coffee cart girl on the set of a famous movie, definitely not a model or an actress, or anything within Austin’s league. You’re not saying you don’t think you’re attractive, you do. You’ve got nice hair that sometimes listens to how you try to style it, a normal body, slender in some areas, but dependable. Average—and there’s nothin’ wrong with that.
But this movie will slingshot Austin’s career, he will quite literally be in the spotlight more than he already is. He dated Vanessa Hudgens for Christ’s sake—he does not have his eye on you.
“Listen—he talks to everyone, Jillian. He’s not like some asshole celebrity who thinks he’s too big to talk to the little people. He’s down to earth, sweet even, and thoughtful…” Jillian raises her eyebrows as you describe Austin, giving a bit of a tell me more spirited attitude.
“My point is,” You clear your throat, straightening your shoulders, “That does not mean he’s into me.”
Jillian hums for a long moment, “Guess we’ll see.”
You laugh lightly, shaking your head as you pick up the coffee tray. She’s incorrigible but at least she’s good at making you smile. You wave her off, telling her you’ll talk to her later after this coffee run and make your way through the trailers, doing all the necessary stops except for one.
You pause outside Austin’s trailer, as if you haven’t been up the steps and inside a handful of times by now. Jillian’s words keep ringing in your eardrums to the point where it makes it hard to concentrate.
“Get a hold of yourself,” You mumble, moving to walk up the steps and knock on the door. You wait, almost wishing he wasn’t there because that’d make everything a lot easier, except you’re pretty sure you can hear a guitar strumming and then stopping, movement.
You back down a step as the door opens, Austin dressed in his comfortable clothes, hair slightly damp and brushed back. Your stomach drops all the way into your knees,
“Hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Nah,” He shakes his head, moving aside to let you in. You hesitate for just a moment and can’t stop your legs from walking forward—you’ve got the time, why deny the invite. “Just practicin’. Sometimes it helps to sing in-between takes to concentrate my voice.” You’re not sure whether he means the accent or just practicing in general but figures it doesn’t matter.
The image alone that is conjured up by his words is more than enough.
“What are you playing?”
Austin takes a sip of coffee, seemingly pleased at the addition of cinnamon because he smiles, “Are You Lonesome Tonight? Something easier on the vocals that I can sing acapella.”
You find yourself drawn to the guitar, your eyes traveling over the simple strings, the chestnut-shaded wood, fingers itching to touch.
“Go head,” Austin lets the door close quietly, motioning to the guitar, “You’re not gonna break it.”
You laugh softly, reaching out to run your fingers along the base before gently strumming the strings, “That song always makes me cry,” You admit, looking over your shoulder at Austin. You can only imagine how it would sound, the cadence of his voice, crooning out one of Elvis’s slower songs. The words always resonate with you, strike that cord that Elvis no doubt was searching for.
It's one of the best things about his music, how it can relate to anyone who really listens to the lyrics.
“Elvis was a lonely soul.” Austin nods, moving to set his coffee down as he sits on the couch. He picks up the guitar and runs his fingers over the strings. Your eyes are drawn to his hands, a simple gold band on his middle finger. It seems to come to him so naturally, sinking into the notes, the emotion behind them.
You smile a little and nod about his comment on Elvis—seems ironic that it could be true but, she supposes his celebrity status didn’t protect him from those types of feelings. You curl your hair around your ear as he begins to play the chords associated with the song, lyrics leaving his lips.
Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Sinking to sit on the couch near him, you watch, drawn in almost like a moth to a flame. It’s so easy to see why he was picked for this role, how much of himself he gives into it. And it’s not as if he’s playing a persona, this is something learned, it’s so natural that goosebumps raise on your arms.
Austin’s eyes meet yours once he stops playing, the musical notes fading into the silence. It’s not uncomfortable, something shared between you. Smiling a little with a motion to the guitar, “That was actually pretty incredible.”
He raises his eyebrows, setting the guitar aside with a slight laugh as he reaches for his coffee. “Is that an air of surprise I sense in your voice?”
Your cheeks kiss pink before shaking your head, “Not exactly—” Maybe a little, “I just think passion is nice to see.”
That response seems to surprise him, his lips quirking just a little as he takes a sip of coffee. You’re not sure if that’s a good thing or not—you figure Austin has to be aware of the effect he has on people, especially now with this role, the charm and charisma he possesses. A soft smile or kind word in any direction capable of opening doors for him.
“What are you passionate about?”
You chew on your lip, swallowing, really considering the question. No one has really asked you that before…and you have to admit you’re having trouble figuring out what to say. Before you open your mouth, a quick set of knocks sound on Austin’s door before it opens.
Someone from wardrobe, she thinks his name is Phil, pauses. His eyes widen just slightly but it’s gone as soon as it appears, “Sorry Austin, we’re ready for you.” He gives one more look in your direction before leaving.
The silence is deafening, as if you’ve finally realized what you’re doing on Austin’s couch, in his trailer—you stand up so fast your head almost spins.
“I uh—I should get going.” You smile, though clearly a bit shaken, “I don’t want to keep you from wardrobe.”
“You’re not—Y/N.” Austin says, standing from the couch as well.
But you’re out the door before you talk yourself into staying.
--
thank you so much for reading! I do have an idea for pt3 but will most likely be playing this by ear and interest :)
703 notes · View notes
tarotwithlove · 2 years
Text
pick a card: pick a scene from a film i love
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.。*♡ for singles; are you ready for love? what if ... you pursued the connection with your crush?
group 1: fallen angels, dir. wong kar wai / group 2: kamikaze girls, dir. tetsuya nakashima / group 3: syndromes and a century, dir. apichatpong weerasethakul
reminder that this is a general reading and messages found here may not apply to everyone. take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and don't force anything if it does not fit.
personal readings are open! feel free to dm for more information or to discuss a reading that is not listed there ♡
feedback, constructive criticism, requests and tips are appreciated! ppal cupidfemme
credit to theonlinemedium.com via @sororkaf for the "ready for love" spread used!
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structure:
i will first be using the "ready for love" spread to answer the following six questions:
what you want in love? what you have learned from love? what is holding you back from love? readiness of your heart? readiness of your mind? readiness of your spirit?
this will then be followed by a reading on the connection between you and your crush.
feel free to read whichever section in your selected pile calls and applies to you and disregard that which does not. furthermore, if you are called to one group for your "ready for love" messages and another for messages on your connection you are more than welcome to mix-and-match at will ♡
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1. FALLEN ANGELS, dir. wong kar wai
“as time progresses, you realize that a lot of the coolness and comedy held in the wordlessness of these characters is actually a façade to cover up just how desperately lonely everyone is. [...] the only way you know about their dreams, their aspirations, their full personhood is the disembodied thoughts they express through the narration. [...] no one is open enough for a real dialogue and connection, so instead they find other ways to force people to stay. maybe it’s sex, or violence, or a sales pitch. sometimes it works for an hour, for a night, or even a week, but it can’t last. even in the end, where the killer’s agent and he zhiwu find each other in silence and ride off into the sunset on a motorbike, the connection doesn’t feel permanent or guaranteed. a spark can only go so far. without real and open dialogue, the vice-grip will loosen and someone will leave. then we’re back in the beautifully lit dive bar, leaned against the jukebox as a mournful song plays, thinking of what could have been.” – with “fallen angels,” less words are more, oluwatayo adewole
channeled songs: spider by hoshi (“i want to stay here with you here, tangled up and trapped together”) · elevator (127f) by nct 127 (“let's just keep it simple”) · in the aeroplane over the sea by neutral milk hotel (“but for now we are young, let us lay in the sun, and count every beautiful thing we can see”) · call me maybe by carly rae jepsen (“before you came into my life, i missed you so bad”)
cards pulled: ace of wands, the devil, three of swords (rx), four of swords (rx), ace of swords (rx), the chariot (rx) and the ten of swords ; five of cups (rx), page of swords, king of cups (rx)
ARE YOU READY FOR LOVE?
hey there, pile one ♡ to begin this reading, i am seeing that what you want from love is to be understood on both an intelligence and sensual level, where you might have previously only been seen through the sensual lens; desired for your body and not for who you are in your entirety. you want to feel as if you have the full attention of your partner with regards to your wants and needs. you want to feel desired and attractive to your partner even after a long time of being together. you may be wondering if your standards for love are too high and if you should be lowering them in case they leave you “single for life”.
what you want from love and what you have received from love are at odds. the relationships you have had in the past may have been driven by the physical; hook-ups where the partners did not communicate with each other what they really want leading to confusion and heartbreak, sometimes this could have been your partner who did not communicate that all they wanted was a purely physical relationship while at other times it could have been you. there is a history of codependency in your previous relationships that often saw you losing yourself in your partner, and losing your identity in what your partner wishes for it to be. yes, your previous relationships have caused you a lot of pain, but they have also taught you so much about yourself, about the truths of your desires and standing independently in who you are, as well as about being a better communicator. or have at least pushed you towards doing the difficult work of understanding yourself in all these ways.
while you have this idea of what you want in love and your past experiences have taught you so much, there is still a lot that is holding you back from love. past heartbreak most of all. you are so hung up on the pain of your past relationships and connections that it is causing you not to progress on your journey towards love. there is a call for you to heal, and this can only be done if you confront your wounds instead of ignoring them and pretending it's all okay when it is not. you may not be able to forgive those who have hurt you, and you honestly do not have to, but if you do not address the pain they have caused you in some way it will only make the pain worse, will only hurt you more, and will hold you back from love.
now to delve into the readiness of your heart, mind, and spirit. i see in the four of wands reversed that your heart is ready or is very near to being ready. you have gone through a lot of change and have had to face a lot of darkness, but you are also fighting for your own healing. you are in a way, after all these challenges, becoming yourself. as your heart strengthens, you may feel as if you are strong enough to handle everyone else's burdens on top of your own but do not go down this route of being so caught up in the opinions of others, especially of any new romantic interests, that you risk your sense of self and identity. your heart wants you to know that while you may be looking for love, you may be apprehensive because of past hurt, but both the challenges and the work you are doing in healing has made it strong enough to handle any heartbreak or challenges that may arise in the future. and challenge is inevitable. hiding from it does not serve you.
for the readiness of your mind, i started hearing “let's just keep it simple” (from elevator (127f) by nct 127) when i got to this point, so what i am seeing is that your mind and heart are quite at odds. while your heart is prepared for love your mind wants to take it slow and thinks it would be best to shy away from commitment for the time being. your love life may be lacking in fun, either always too serious or fun for the other party and not necessarily for you, and right now that's what your mind is yearning for, or what your mind believes to be the safest route. it may also be, in line with this, that you are overthinking love and, thus, are scared of committment. your past relationships and connections have caused so much pain and damage that your mind is not strong enough to potentially deal with that again. so keep it simple, keep it cute, buy me a drink and leave it at that, is basically what your mind wants at this moment. it is important to listen to your mind, if you don't you may risk ending up in a far worse state then when you started your healing journey. meditate, rest, nourish your mind and soul and truly introspect on the residual mental wounds from past relationships and connections by which you continue to be plagued.
as for the readiness of your spirit, here i pulled the chariot reversed and the ten of swords (the ten of swords slipped into my spread without me realising until the end), which is a good sign. it's interesting to me that your reading is associated with fallen angels when, like the movie, it is a tale of two different stories; half of you ready for love and half of you only wanting to pull back and not embrace it yet. with the chariot reversed, your spirit acknowledges these challenges and blockages that are keeping you from truly moving forward, however this is what it is ready for. moving forward. your spirit recognises the work you still need to do put but it is ready for the challenges that may, and will, arise, as we see in the ten of swords. your spirit asks you not to shy away from new opportunities out of fear. do the healing work necessary and trust that your spirit (and heart and mind) will be rested and strong enough. trust that you are strong enough and that you are fully capable of facing these risks for the chance at a high reward.
WHAT IF ... YOU PURSUED THE CONNECTION WITH YOUR CRUSH?
this might be difficult to hear, but you must know that what spirit asks of you is to move on from this connection. yes, there is love in your future, but it is not here in this connection and in order to find it you need to move on. this crush may not be going anywhere, and from what i am seeing, you do not want it to. it will hurt to let go of this crush, as it always hurts to let go of something you have poured your heart into, but as important as it is to let go it it as important to actually feel your pain so that you may re-enter the dating pool in due time.
now to go into depth about why spirit urges you to not pursue anything more with your crush, at least not in a romantic sense. the page of swords and king of cups reversed suggest a warning. this person may be important to you as a friend, or as an “activator” of sorts to give you an opportunity to prove to yourself that the work you have put into healing has been sufficient. in a relationship, however, i do not see you two complementing each other, rather i see you as a couple that is argumentative and conflicting in various areas of life and relationships. this crush is highly emotionally immature as a lover where you are more mature and stable, and are doing the work into growing. as a result of this, you may be in a mindset and time of your life where you may be wanting to start a family, but this person is just not ready for that. at least–and i'm sorry,–but not ready to start this family with you. if this person is capable of maturing, they are not ready to do it for you or for your possible relationship. now, if this is person is married and making you all these promises, know that that is all this is: empty promises made to keep you within a reachable distance without any intent to actually step up and do the mature thing. a relationship with this person may not at all be happy. spider by hoshi was in my head from the moment i started your reading and i realise now that this is where it becomes most relevant. you may be intoxicated by this person's dark energy; excited by the toxicity and danger of the situation, and not realising or refusing to realise how much it could hurt you.
2. KAMIKAZE GIRLS, dir. tetsuya nakashima
“like enid and rebecca in "ghost world," these two lonely girls travel through a world of their own creation, manufactured from the detritus of pop culture and pronounced alienation. [...] ichiko punctures momoko's isolation, taking a pin to the bubble the other girl calls self, which may be a metaphor about japan (or not). what the film does say, with infectious exuberance, is that in a world in which shopping is a cartesian truism -- in the immortal words of barbara kruger, "i shop therefore i am" -- it's so much nicer to go with a friend.” – two girls with one goal: they just want to have fun, manohla dargis
channeled songs: round&round by nct u (“everything is useless, i revolve around you, without being able to move closer”) · applause by lady gaga (“give me that thing that I love (i'll turn the lights out)”) · overcome by sparky · talk by hozier (“imagine being loved by me!”)
cards pulled: the magician (rx), the star (rx), eight of pentacles, six of pentacles, five of wands, four of cups (rx) ; two of pentacles, queen of pentacles, the lovers
ARE YOU READY FOR LOVE?
hey there, group 2 ♡ to begin your reading i see a certain lack of confidence that stops you from having relationships. what you want from love is to feel known by your partner; to be loved even for those things of which you are insecure as well as to love someone through those things of which they are insecure. especially those insecurities that they have not shared with others. in love, you desire rawness, trust, equal give and take.
your past experiences with love, however, have caused you to lose faith in love and the universe's promise to bring love to you. you wonder why you can't be as happy as others are, you wonder when it's going to be your turn... your faith has been tested by your past romantic experiences, and current romantic situation, but if you must take any lesson from this it is that the Divine and spirit are there for you. if you must learn anything from your past experiences it is to trust in the universe as it prepares you for the gentle love you deserve, and as it shapes your self-confidence and feelings of worth to be ready for a well-rounded relationship. do not fall into cynicism, or into thinking that all love has for you is pain because this is absolutely not the case.
as for what is holding you back from love, besides the lack of self-confidence i see that you are focusing too much on education or work. and while this is important, of course, you are throwing too much of yourself and your time into these endeavour and not paying attention to the opportunities at love that are coming your way or being offered to you. or, you are throwing yourself into work and school as a distraction. because if you can just focus on this next presentation this assignment this meeting you don't have to focus on addressing and healing your relationship-related pain.
now to get into the readiness of your heart, mind, and spirit. for this part we have the six of pentacles, five of wands and the four of cups (reversed).
your heart wants so badly to share love and good fortune with another. it has taken then pain that past relationships and connections have caused it and has become only even more capable of loving.
your mind and spirit are at odds with this, however, with neither having fully healed from these past experiences. your mind is still sensitive to heartbreak and in any upcoming relationship you may be prone to overthinking, to looking out for every sign that means they will leave you or will otherwise hurt you. you heart mind desires yes–something new, someone who will will challenge it and you–but it is so unsure of what lies ahead it does not feel ready to pursue anything yet. similarly, your spirit is wounded. it is as reluctant to open up to someone new as your mind. both your mind and spirit require nurturing and for you to go through a period of withdraw in order to help them heal. right now, even if you have someone in mind, it may be best not to pursue anything romantically. surround yourself with those you love, meditate and journal, and treat yourself with love as you would a partner. if you are feeling discontent and unhappy with the state of your love life at the moment, allow yourself to truly feel those emotions instead of burying your feelings in distractions.
remember that it is a very limited amount of healing that we can do by ourselves; no healing at all if you choose to distract and ignore and pretend. it is a painful journey, but it is needed. like our main characters in kamikaze girls, what you may need now, far more than the relationship you're seeking, is to open yourself up to friendship and the love found within friendship. it could be friendship that you are not allowing yourself from experiencing by throwing yourself so much into school or work, but there is someone offering it out to you. an olive branch you just need to accept, even if it is awkward at first.
WHAT IF ... YOU PURSUED THE CONNECTION WITH YOUR CRUSH?
pulling these cards genuinely made me so happy... this connection, if pursued, would be such a prosperous one. even when obstacles arise, as they do in all relationships, you will find a way to work through it together. there is balance here. yet, in the beginning things with this connection may be far more tricky. you will be in a situation where you have to make a decision; it might be this crush is in your workplace or is a close friend and you have to figure out what would be best for both parties moving forward in this relationship.
in fact as we have both the two of pentacles and the lovers, you may often need to make difficult decisions, address priorities and, if needed, re-prioritise. such as in a situation where you may find yourself questioning if you are ready to juggle that which a relationship asks of you with what your job or school also asks of you, or, in the relationship where you may have to choose between staying in one country with your partner or moving away (i'm seeing to another country, in particular) in order to pursue academic or professional goals.
however, as i already mentioned, this relationship will be harmonious. as a partner your crush is stable and level-headed, thus creating an equally as stable relationship environment. they will meet your standards–shockingly, to you, if your standards are particularly high–and will not only have money but will want to share their wealth with you and look after you. you two form a balanced union in which you empower each other, encourage each other and boost each other's confidence. there is a long-term quality to this relationship and, if committed to, may result in marriage. of course if marriage is not for you or not accessible to you i definitely see some kind of life commitment or life commitment ceremony taking place.
3. SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY, dir. apichatpong weerasethakul
“what is it all about? like weerasethakul's previous features - tropical malady (2004) and blissfully yours (2001) - it takes as its starting point a tale of tangled human relationships, in this case the faltering love life of a demure young female doctor at a remote, upcountry thai hospital. then it takes off into alternative worlds, alternative realities, unrealities, surrealities. the same scenes are played again, in different settings, with different people. the buddhist idea of reincarnation is being sported with. or is the film simply questioning the 19th-century train-tracks of traditional narrative?” – syndromes and a century | film review, peter bradshaw
channeled songs: replay (pm 01:27) by nct 127 (“i just wanna be loved”) · make me cry by pip millet (“im numb, lonely, thought i was the only one, it's hard to find the right words, knowing that they'll all hurt, in sync with the sunset, down and I am out for the night, surrounded by the darkness, trying to find the light”) · at seventeen by janis ian (“i learned the truth at seventeen, that love was meant for beauty queens”) · bungee by nct dream (“come here, babe, there's nothing to fear”)
cards pulled: eight of pentacles (rx), six of wands (rx), ace of wands (rx), the magician, the chariot (rx), four of pentacles ; temperance, queen of pentacles, ace of pentacles
ARE YOU READY FOR LOVE?
hey there, group 3 ♡ in love i see that you want something careful, something thoughtful. you want a relationship where you hold each other accountable and work together to love each other as the other needs. you want a relationship where no one wants for the love they desire, and where you can feel safe, protected and assured.
as for what you have learned from love, the six of wands (reversed) tells me what you have learned most of all is doubt and lack of confidence. you see the love and attention your peers and friends receive and you have come to doubt your own worth and attractiveness. you feel unloved and neglected, and as if you'll never have a real, meaningful love. as a result of this inattention your confidence has been greatly shaken. this is what love has taught you: you are unworthy of it. but you are not. i cannot emphasize enough how worthy of love you are.
you are being held back from love by your inability to define what you really want from it. it is an inability which leads you to direct your energy into too many places and which drains your energy, such as having a lot of “crushes” that go nowhere, going on dates that don't fulfil you, going on dating apps even when they exhaust you. you don't have a proper vision of love, which, for a lot of you, i see can be chalked down to simple lack of experience in relationships and love.
now to look at your readiness of your heart, mind and spirit. for your heart we have the magician, which is a clear message that your heart is ready for excitement, love, and experimentation with love. you are able to create opportunities, especially outside of your comfort zone, to meet someone with whom you'll be in a relationship, even if fleeting. as well as this, you are in an ample position to manifest the love you desire. this is what your heart wants, and it is okay to embrace that if it feels right for you.
as for your mind... you are so intent on reaching the goal of love you have in mind that your mind spurs you to act too forcefully. your mind must come to terms that it, and you, will not always have control in life. it is ready for life, yes, but it must recognise that love is in the hands of the divine.
while for your spirit, again i feel a lot of inexperience in this group, as well as a lot of pain. this pain can come either from past relationships or from never being considered for romantic relationships. your inexperience and pain is deep-set into your spirit and, as a result, entering a relationship will lead to a sense of possession, bordering on the unhealthy if you are not careful. your spirit is greedy for love and reassurance. it won't be ready unless you properly resolve the trauma of your past and let it go.
WHAT IF ... YOU PURSUED THE CONNECTION WITH YOUR CRUSH?
after the heartache and neglect you have been put through it will ease your heart to hear that a love worthy of you awaits.
temperance, the queen of pentacles and the ace of pentacles showing up signifies a prosperous relationship. in temperance we see that this love will be patient and understanding, even if it does come at the hands of a lot of effort. is that anything to worry about though, for isn't effort one of the greatest signs of love? one of the greatest signs of care? there is compassion in this relationship, more on the part of your partner as you will be faced with having to work on your own negative traits. are you selfish when situations call for selflessness? quick-to-anger when the situation calls for your understanding? rude when you should be patient, clingy when you should leave your partner with room to breathe? this relationship will provide you with a safe space within which to address and work on all of this.
in the queen and ace of pentacles we see that this relationship will take “hard work”, but not in the miserable sense, rather in the sense that these two people are so commited to making something beautiful last for a long time.
in this relationship, you will prosper as individuals and as a couple; flourishing in how much you want to see each other live their best lives possible.
i keep getting drawn to making comparisons between how a farmer tends to his farm or a gardener tends to his plants or a florist tends to his flowers. so this person may be in one of those professions or may be perfectly capable of looking after the gentle and fragile which–and no shame in this at all–you currently are. this person might have a very rough exterior which is scaring you away from making any move towards them, but they are honestly such a kind, gentle soul.
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barrenclan · 2 months
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This is the first time I've been brave enough to send an ask so- first off: This comic has been my obsession ever since I discovered it a little over a year ago. Keep up the fantastic work it's REALLY great. I'm looking forward to seeing more once the hiatus is over (which better be long and satisfying! You deserve a break!)
BUT. the true purpose of my ask is to say that I've had thoughts about the song "Kool-Aid" by Bring Me The Horizon being a PAFWcore song- esp from the perspectives of Pinepaw and Rainhaze. (I sort of want to make a pmv some day to part of it...)
Aw, thank you! How kind of you to say, I'm glad you've been enjoying the comic.
I would love to see what you made with this, of course. I think it works very well!
"Is this what you wanted? (No) Do you want some more? (Yes)" <- pinepaw as hell...
'Cause you got a taste now, drank the Kool-Aid by the jug So suffer your fate, oh, come here and give me a hug Nobody loves you like I love you, oh, my dear But you should've known that this was gonna end in tears"
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Music related asks are always open! I believe it has been suggested before but I don't mind. This song does work well with Slugpelt; actually, I could see it being a good fit for her voice, too. I like your analyses!
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I like the motif of a town that once flourished becoming "hidden" here. I can almost imagine Wheatstar singing this song.
"Love was all that it could give But it died so other towns could live They don't bury bodies from the drowned But they drowned our little town"
"When the leaves Go floating away In the pale moonlight of day Iury anchors in our ghosts And we can let our heartbeats go"
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Honestly that's so real of you. I love the "omg this music just like my blorbo" moments. Also you're like? Correct? This is Cormorantpaw as hell.
"Looking into your eyes I know I'm right If anything's worth my love it's worth a fight We only get one chance and nothing ties our hands You're what I want, listen to me"
"Running away will never make you free And nothing we sign is any kind of guarantee I wanna hold you now, I won't hold you down Shaking the past making my breaks"
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anulithots · 6 months
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I think using immediate gratification is the only *semi guaranteed* way to get any amount of work done.
(kindly) Forget goal setting and 'what does this mean to me', my brain does not want to do the task even if I want to do it.
Therefore, I shall play my favorite songs while doing a task, if I'm daydreaming half the time, at least I'm doing it. And I'll go outside and sit on a patch of grass for that task I've been having executive dysfunction for. (I can go outside, which has a nice amount of stimulation for me... so I can pet the grass and still get distracted, but it's better than being inside where you'll have the once and awhile turning on of the air conditioning. Outside there's constantly changing surroundings, so it keeps the back of my brain occupied.)
I'll use things I enjoy that are semi-productive (like writing) to avoid the tasks I don't want to do (like math), I'll use that necklace to stim with, I'll make a story out of it while I learn it so I can call it worldbuilding (which is easier for my brain to do). I'll constantly have the tabs open so I can be reminded that it exists. Any amount of instant gratification is better than trying to force my brain to do a task, even if it can be slow going, being distracted becomes a part of my process...even if it can be slow at times.
TL;DR - use things you enjoy, and surround yourself with your hyperfixations (soundtracks from fav show or smth), so that way brain is focused on the dopamine instead of the task... therefore tricking the brain. (Also have something to stim with, I use one of those prayer bead necklaces that broke.). It's okay to do a little bit of work, then get distracted, then go back to do that bit of work. We do not want brain to throw a fit.
Other helpful things:
HOW TO BEAT EXUATIVE DYSFUNCTION TO TAKE CARE OF PLANTS
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python333 · 5 months
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if 141 had fav songs, what do you personally think their favs would be 😨
-💐
if you notice that a majority of these are 80's/90's songs no you didn't for price i'll say he's a fan of longer, more drawn out songs, like 4+ minutes, so maybe something like Hotel California by Eagles. i think he likes more build-up in his music, but also likes music he can just keep on in the background—he's not an avid music-listener or anything, but him listening to music also isn't a rare occurrence—and i feel like Hotel California fits that pretty well.
for ghost i'm gonna say True by Spandau Ballet, for some reason i imagine he really enjoys whatever genre this song is—i looked it up, it said new wave and alternate/indie pop but it's like. more specific than that. you get what i mean. also, hate me if you want, but he's a secret, very ashamed Weezer fan. dude listens to Island In The Sun daily. it's 100% in his top five for his spotify wrapped. it's the tiniest bit out of character, but you can't tell me it doesn't fit him.
for soap something like Hold the Line by TOTO, for the sole reason of me being able to see him belting it out while driving and almost getting into a car crash NUMEROUS times because of it. yes, he's a very smart boy, no, that does not stop him from the occasional stupid activity. also, please note that he will listen to any and all genres. whether it's heavy metal or hyperpop, i guarantee you he'll listen to it.
for gaz i think he listens to more podcasts than he does songs (for podcasts: i think he'd like What Now? with Trevor Noah or The Big Picture with Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins) but if i had to choose a song i'd say Doo Wop (That Thing) by Ms. Lauryn Hill or Fantasy by Mariah Carey. i say those because i literally can't imagine him listening to anything else.
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sunburnacoustic · 1 year
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Muse full gigs
Some full shows that are available, for anyone who wants to partially relive the Muse live experience.
I figured no one's made lists in a while.
La Cigale, Paris By-Request gig 2018
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rarities + I guarantee I'm gonna fuck up Space Dementia + water spitting + Matt and Dom playing Grammy hosts in the way they announced the winners of the by-request polls
Some cool and noteworthy gigs:
Live Lounge 2012
The Mayan 2015 (performance wise this gig was stunning)
Royal Albert Hall 2008 (Teenage Cancer Trust charity gig - Megalomania on the pipe organ!)
Reading Festival 2011 (10 years of Origin of Symmetry - played the album start to finish)
AOL Sessions 2006
Reading 2006 (Muse's first time headlining if I remember right. Plus, Matt's moves!)
Glastonbury 2004 (first Glasto headline and a must-watch! Of the iconic mad-scientist, white lab coat era. Muse had called it the best gig of their life so far, at the time) (*Ruled By Secrecy was played live but wasn't included in the concert footage DVD and isn't in this video upload either)
Montreaux Jazz 2002 (height of piano maniac-ery days. Would also recommend Pinkpop 2002 but they don't. have. the footage anymore :( Space Dementia at Pinkpop 2002 was phenomenal. 2004 is also good, but I never found 2002 again. Speaking of which,)
Pinkpop 2004 (most songs are in, a few performances missing unfortunately)
MCM Café 1999 (marvel at what a good live act this young band aged 21 already was—with about 4 years of gigging experience under their belts. Insane how good they are.)
Wembley 2007 (H.A.A.R.P. The first band to sell out the newly rebuilt Wembley Stadium. 90,000 people. You need to understand, seeing Chris lift up and point his bass at the crowd at the end of the slightly modified Jimmy Jam riff before Time Is Running Out was a religious experience that changed me and we're lucky enough to live in an age where you and I can witness it over and over and over again and I'd suggest that you do)
Rock Am Ring 2018, uploaded to the Internet Archive by the Muse Historical Society!
Austin City Limits 2013 Philipshalle 1999 Philipshalle 2001 (all suggested in notes, check out the crystal clear gifs from @hotbellamy! :O )
A few additions I remembered after publishing: Eurockeennes 2000 (opened with a then-unreleased New Born. Matt playing a full gig in red sunglasses. Treat to watch. Link's stretched up to fit modern screens but if you want a bit of clarity and don't mind the late 90s ratio stretch, here's a different link) 2002 (quality's a bit shit but that is literally what telly used to look like)
Shepherd's Bush Empire 2006 (Early gigs are always interesting because over time Muse develop different ways of playing songs that are fresh off new albums. The way they work through Take A Bow live is a bit different here, Dom's the one controlling the opening verse synths! During the Abso tour, Matt would play that bit on the piano as an intro to Space Dementia and if I'm remembering right, he does now on the pianos (correct me—this was on the ST tour as well). Also, Starlight in Bm at this gig)
Rock Werchter 2023 (Muse play Rock Werchter in Belgium almost every year, except for the pandemic and 2012 I think, but this year's was a bit special. Best performance of Madness I've seen in a while, I love what he does in the outro! MOTP returns to the set. Muse had tech troubles at the end that caused them to restart Knights of Cydonia twice, to no avail. They finally cut it back for a guitar-bass-drum-vocals-only performance of Showbiz, and Matt's voice sounds exceptional on it— the best in recent years)
Bizarre Fest 2000 (BLESS SOMEONE HAS RESTORED THIS FROM VHS TAPE IN HD, this is so much better than back in the day!! If the falsetto at 1:13 doesn't do it for you, you're into the wrong band, nothing else will help. What an electric performance this was!)
Gigs from WOTP 2022/23 festivals tour last summer:
Nova Rock Rock In Rio Ejekt Fest Isle of Wight Hurricane Festival 2023 (a festival at which Matt once complained that Muse's set was cut short by... hurricanes. But the audio mixing at this gig was really good!)
These are in no particular order, and obviously not complete, I just realised no one had put together a gig archive in a while so I thought I'd give it a stab!
Will edit and add others whenever, there are obviously glaring omissions still!
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