#and then i drifted into het only stuff | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dangermousie · 1 year

Text

A web novel recommendation - Wishing You Eternal Happiness

I am currently about a fifth into a novel that is in the running to replace Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir as my favorite het web novel. It is Peng Lai Ke’s Wishing You Eternal Happiness/ 表妹万福.

This novel couldn’t be more different from Dreamer, with its hard-edged and hard-souled protagonists ruthlessly cleaving their way to the world and, eventually, each other, its smart cynical air. Except in one thing - the world of Wishing is just as bloody and dark. Its two protagonists are gentle, deeply wounded souls who may find salvation in each other but even something as basic as safety almost seems out of reach.

Jiafu, our heroine, is neither a modern-day transmigrator, nor some exotic princess or demoness. She is very much a period woman of her time, from a weathy merchant clan, whose beauty is her curse. You can tell the novel’s tone from that utterly bleak opening chapter where she, a favorite concubine of a capricious dying emperor, is ordered to be buried alive with him and is not even given the “grace” of white silk but slowly suffocates in the coffin, scrabbling at the lid. There is no grand threats of vengeance on her part, not dramatic opera events. Just despair and death. The whole introductory chapter is haunted by emotional ghosts - the empress’ unrequited love for the monster on the imperial bed (turning into desire for Jiafu’s suffering after he dies), the emperor slowly dying in his prime after waging too many wars, and his fear of being haunted by Pei Youan, a brilliant if sickly minister who died of illness long ago on one of imperial campaigns. There is no triumph for anyone, only loss.

Jiafu wakes up in the past after her death but there are no plans for grand revenge or world domination. All she wants is to stay with her family and to avoid the future emperor and also her future husband - in her past life, he gladly gave her away to the emperor once the emperor asks sending her to a life of trauma and horror and eventually awful death. Her schemes to do so are small and driven by desperation. But unfortunately, things never go as she wishes. The marriage may be easily scuttled but the attention of the royal monster not so much.

Jiafu is such a deeply wounded person - some of the deep melancholy of the novel is that she wants so little - a normal life with someone who won’t sell her or bury her alive; she does not need to love him or even be married - and even that seems almost impossible to achieve. She is fighting for her life so desperately.

Her widowed mother and brother are lovely but they cannot be her bulwark. Who can? Pei Youan.

Let’s get this out of the way - I FREAKING LOVE PEI YOUAN!!!! He is a rare cnovel ML who would be considered a good person by any standard. But he is no shining powerful hero. Pei Youan, despite his brains and ability, drifts through life. I don’t mean he’s abandoned “work” - he assists the father of Jiafu’s eventual monster emperor ably etc etc. But emotionally he just exists, having given up on anything in his life, a sort of a living ghost. In modern terms, he clearly has depression. Apparently his background is pretty awful (and it does not take much to guess he’s actually not a Pei but a secret son of the imperial dude/Jiafu’s emperor’s half brother and in past life got killed for that) but all the bad stuff that has happened has not made him weak or self-pitying or dramatic, just a quiet, competent ghost. Jiafu is fighting for her life desperately - not even for happiness but for survival - but she knows happiness is possible, it’s just lower on her Maslow hierarchy of needs. But I don’t think Pei Youan can process happiness for him can exist.

Anyway, Pei Youan (at least in his ostensible identity as a member of the Pei family) and Jiafu are some sort of distant cousins. The reason Jiafu latches on him is because he is the sole man in her past life who showed her kindness and tried to protect her. When the emperor took her for the first time in past life, she begged for his help and despite barely knowing her, he managed to get her out and send her to her husband (only for said husband to gladly gift her back to the emperor.) Jiafu knows he is not interested in her, she knows he dies young, but he is her best bet, all she hopes is to marry him or even be his concubine, anything to stay out of the paws of the future emperor who fixates on her yet again. The scene where she explains it to him after he protected her, her desperation meeting his quiet competence but denial is one of my favorites.

I am spoiled enough to know eventually they do get married and things go all to hell for Pei Youan even more than before (In fact, @mercipourleslivres who knows me too well, sold me on this novel by mentioning that at one point Jiafu gets to be a Decembrist wife) and there is ultimately a hard-won happy ending. But even this early in, when they have not interacted that much, it is lovely to see Jiafu feel reassured around him, her desperation mixing with a tiny bit of reassurance at least and to see frozen Pei Youan feel something around her and not even understanding that this is his coming alive somehow, slowly and tentatively, but unmistakably so.

OK, where to find? The novel is complete in Chinese and can be found all the usual places. There is an abandoned translation of the first 20-odd chapters than can be found on novelupdates.

And I made a word doc of the MTL of the entire novel, here:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/yfoqmeaetx9xe3a/wishing_you.docx/file

Happy reading!

#cnovel #wishing you eternal happiness #peng lai ke

68 notes · View notes

merxcurias · 29 days

Text

(this is a LONG rant post about nalu and big 4 and how mashima doesnt give a damn about any of them. buckle in it is the year of the christian lord 2024 i dont give a damn if i strike a nerve with big 4 shippers by criticizing this fucking series. yall run this damn fandom and have mashima pander to you every week. let me complain and HEED THE TAGS)

i rmbr the other day i saw a post by a big four shipper talking about how they were so lucky to be getting the new anime and how nalu shippers had been living off scraps for years and i gotta say some of yall are STRANGE and out of TOUCH cuz damn whats all this official art and these nalu moments in every other chapter??

but even then, genuinely what makes yall think mashima GAF about making nalu endgame? that he ever cared about making any of the big 4 endgame?

yes ik gajevy is canon but are you srsly okay with the way mashima handled it?? "ah yes this girl was brutalized by this one guy severely and he wants to make amends but dont have him say it out loud or apologize, just through little gestures, OH suddenly shes okay with him being close to her and doesnt have any trauma or nightmares or panic attacks around him ever at all and have her drift away from her literal best friends and only ever be with him and oh she performed mouth to mouth on him okay- THEYHAVEABABY."

i really do believe he didnt intend for natsu and lucy to be together from the beginning which is why he hadnt made them kiss or anything in the OVER A DECADE LONG main series. like bruh he is MILKING THE SHIT out of his IP by dangling nalu like a carrot on a stick and dropping official art here and there and having casual ship moments (aka typical close friendship stuff but make it romantic by including breaking and entering, sexual harrassment) cuz he knows thats what gets continous readership. he'll keep pandering to yall and giving yall bullshit at the expense of the original story and characters (see: gajeel and levy becoming shells of what they used to be for the sake of some unhealthy rushed ass het ship)

anyways i am lwk bitter about that post cuz FUCK DO YOU MEAN CRUMBS YALL ARE THE LOUDEST BITCHES IN THIS FANDOM LMAO 😭😭😭

#* ft salt #* ft #anti nalu #anti big 4 #anti mashima

5 notes · View notes

larkral · 2 years

Text

I've been on a journey through my fanfiction past for some reason (the universe works in mysterious ways). I literally opened a box looking for a picture of me in high school and found a printed annotated copy of my first fan work: a twenty page Animorphs self-insertion story. Only one other person ever read it.

My second fandom was X-Men the movie, and I wrote a fairly vast number of (bad, very bad) smutty het chaptered works several of which never got finished. There wasn't much in the way of community in the fandom as far as I was aware, I didn't have a beta. Every chapter I posted had both explanations of why it took me so long to post and pleading exhortations to comment on the work for god's sake. And lots of people commented very complimentary things.

My third fandom was Battlestar Galactica, which was so dead by the time I came to it that there was basically one livejournal community with ten people in it and I sought them out and as I was writing, I was basically talking daily with everyone in fandom about everything we were all working on. I never expected many people to read my stuff because the fandom was so dead, and so basically all the comments and kudos I got were outrageously validating.

So now I'm deep in Carry On fandom and writing fic for the first time in years and there's a wonderful discord and a lot of people hanging out on Tumblr (which I am still bad at) and I have two lovely people beta'ing my incredibly specific AU and I'm definitely getting a lot of very nice and thoughtful comments but I'm still very much losing sleep over the fact that I feel like I'm tossing bits of my soul into the void and they're just drifting away.

And it almost makes me feel like this thing isn't good and isn't worth my time. (I have a spouse, and two children, and a chronic illness! My resources are shockingly finite) which is wild because I absolutely wouldn't be writing this except for myself.

Anyway TIL that even though I've changed my perspective on reading WIPs, posting as a WIP is not great for me!

#long form musings on famdom #pretty sure this isn't what timblr is for #fanthropology #wip feels

2 notes · View notes

just-here-for-the-moment · 3 years

Note

Hi and congratulations for the milestone!! 🎉🎉

I did promise I’d take the wheel for a spin and it must be fate because this came up:

It seems fitting, that man is known for his talents with his mouth, tongue and fingers 🥴🥴

I’ll leave you with a question to go with the result (feel free to ignore if it doesn’t tickle your fancy); how long does he last until Frankie has to have a taste?

Congrats 🎉❤️

Ohhhhh frick, how could I POSSIBLY ignore that question?? Because now my head is simply reeling with HOT THOTS about Frankie Morales, finally eating you out, after you tease him endlessly.

And, of course because this is Frankie, I have to tip my hat to the seminal masterwork of “All Hail the King” by Kat @pilothusband, without which we would not have the headcanon of Frankie Morales as the pussy-eating king, which we all now know as gospel...

Thank you for helping me celebrate! There’s some real hot stuff under the cut, people!

The Game

Word count: 4500

Outline: Frankie Morales x “You” (cis/het female reader; “blank canvas”/no physical description/no name/no use of “Y/N”)

Warnings: Mature/Explicit, 18+ only; mature and vulgar language; mentions of making out; teasing Frankie; one mention of oral sex/M receiving; oral sex/F receiving; vaginal fingering; Frankie has a FILTHY praise-kink mouth; Frankie going primal caveman on your pussy when he finally gets there

You’ve been on two previous dates with Frankie, and each one has ended in some truly smashing makeout sessions. The man is an excellent kisser, and it’s been so long since you had that, you’ve gone a little crazy with just kissing on your first two dates.

On your first date he took you out for a drive to the scenic overlook, and after an hour of good conversation, the sun had set low behind the ocean and you made out like teenagers in the cab of his truck for another hour.

Date two was an action movie, and since the theater was practically deserted when you sat down, you got a wicked idea. You tickled your fingers into the curls at the back of his neck and invited him to join you in the back row, and you made out again for all 105 minutes of explosions and punching. Neither one of you remembers the plot.

Tonight is date three, and after an early dinner out, you’ve decided that it’s time to invite Frankie back to your place to see what else he can do with that talented tongue.

You pour him a cold drink and he sits on your couch, but neither one of you really wants to talk. There’s too much electricity in the air. Your head is fuzzy with want. You’ve been able to kiss him plenty, but you haven’t had the chance to do more. And then you get another idea, a leftover ‘game’ from your teenage years, something that was hot back then when you played it with your boyfriends… maybe it still works?

“Do you want to play a game?” You slip your feet out of your sandals and tuck one leg under you to swivel toward him on the couch. You smile at this handsome, sweet man with your most secret smile and bite your lip as he frowns and looks at your bookshelf full of board games.

“You mean like Scrabble?” His confusion is adorable, and you giggle as you move closer to him on the couch, your voice low… “Not like Scrabble.” You flutter your eyelashes up at him and now his frown is gone, replaced by a look of interest.

“What kind of game did you have in mind, pretty girl?” And now he looks very interested, his broad hand coming up to your shoulder to stroke your arm, pulling you closer for a kiss. But you don’t let him pull you in all the way, you stop a few inches from his face and whisper… “A naughty game.”

And now you can see the sheer hunger in his eyes. The way his pupils flare and his deep coffee eyes fix onto your lips. He tries to go in for a kiss and you pull away, just out of reach. You hold up one finger and place it to his lips, stopping him in his tracks.

You smile up at him from under your lashes. “That’s the game.”

“I have to chase you?” He flicks his eyebrows up, not looking impressed.

“No. We try to get as close as we can, but we can’t touch. We tease each other, just to see how long we can hold out.”

He chuckles. “That’s a terrible game.”

“You don’t think anticipation is hot? How about this… what do you want to do to me the most? If you play my game you might get to do it.”

He looks less skeptical now. He glances at your lips, then back to your eyes, before his gaze trails down, down, down your body. You shiver, and from his look alone, you feel hot and cold all at once.

You’re starting to think this might be… well, not “dangerous,” just more of an experience than the last time you played, which was at an age where the absolute wildest possibility was that you would get to feel a boy’s hand on the outside of your bra.

You bite your lip and blink with nervous anticipation, waiting for him to take the bait. He could decide right now not to play and you would still let him ravish you, let him put his mouth and hands and dick wherever he wants. You would welcome it.

He meets your eyes again, and you hold your breath, feeling a heat creep up to your cheeks and down to your cunt at the same time. His whole body is still, except for the rise and fall of his chest, moving breaths slowly in and out, and his big brown eyes that blink occasionally as he considers you with a thoughtful expression.

This is torture, waiting for his answer. You’re about to break first, tell Frankie he doesn’t have to play your silly game, when he moves just his mouth. His bottom lip opens a crack, and his tongue slides out of the corner and sweeps across that plush, velvety top lip, half-hidden under his scruffy mustache.

He moves the tip of his tongue slowly, deliberately, keeping his eyes fixed on your face... watching you watch his mouth. You suddenly realize that this is his opening move, he’s playing your game already, and he’s playing you as well. You set the rules, and he’s already winning.

You release a shaky breath and scoot an inch closer on the couch. You flick the tip of your tongue out, letting it wet your bottom lip. You bring your lower lip in between your teeth and bite down hard, watching Frankie’s eyes drift to your mouth. You release your lip from between your teeth and then exhale a sigh and a breathy moan of, “Hmm…”

You reach your hand up to open the top button of your thin cardigan, the one you like to wear because it’s your color and it’s soft and it fits you like a dream. But it’s also the one that you wear on third dates on purpose, with no blouse underneath it - just a lacy bra and a heart full of hope pounding in your chest.

He watches your fingers with that hungry look resurfacing, the one that made your stomach flip a moment ago. He scoots closer to you, closing the gap until his denim-clad leg is a centimeter from your knee, one arm draped over the back of the couch, thick fingers resting just an inch from your shoulder.

No touching, you had said. Frankie is making it clear to you that he knows the rules and will play them to their limits. He reaches up to the neck of his denim shirt, the top two snaps already open, and then he unsnaps two more. The neck of his shirt falls open, and the amber light from the lamp scatters across the planes of his neck and clavicles. You can’t tear your eyes away from his golden skin, and you feel the emptiness of your pussy as it starts to leak into your panties.

Frankie holds himself still, waiting for your next move. You aren’t sure what to do next, and truthfully your brain went completely blank the moment you caught sight of Frankie’s chest. You decide to raise the stakes. You get up from the couch, moving to stand in front of Frankie where he sits. His deep brown eyes are watching you intently, smoldering as he takes in your form just an arm’s length away. His gaze skates from your face to your breasts to your hips and back up, and you wait until his eyes come to a stop before you make your move.

You reach up to the second button of your cardigan and open it, then the next one. You see Frankie’s eyes go wide, pupils flaring black as he realizes what you’re doing. You fight the giddiness that surges up inside you, forcing your face to remain as neutral as possible. You see Frankie’s cock twitch once in his jeans, and you are delirious with the sudden realization that you’re holding quite a lot of power over this gorgeous man.

Your fingers continue their dance down your buttons until all of them are free, and then you grab the lapels of your cardigan. Frankie’s eyes flick to your hands where they hover at your breasts, and you pause, drawing the moment out for as long as you deem just short of cruel. You open the cardigan and shed it from your shoulders, tossing it on the couch seat you just vacated.

Frankie takes a sharp breath in, and his eyes flutter closed for just a moment. When he opens them again his brown irises are nearly blown black with arousal, and you almost feel bad for escalating the game this far. You take three steps backward toward the hallway, curling your finger to draw Frankie up off the couch. You break the silence with one word, “Bedroom.”

He surges up off the couch so quickly that you think he’s decided to break, to just grab you and pounce on you and end the game. But instead he halts a foot away, and looks deep into your eyes with a smirk. Something like a warning in the back of your brain tickles, uh-oh.

Frankie starts to undress, and as you see more of his golden skin in the low lamplight, you start to think that you might concede first. He sheds his baseball cap, then his shirt, tugging the remaining snaps open with a single pull. You drink in the sight of his naked torso, the soft patches of hair that mimic his delectable facial scruff, the breadth of his wide shoulders, and the curve of his abdomen where it meets his waistband. There’s a faint trail of hair that leads down, and now you’re dying to follow it where it leads.

He toes his work boots off, then opens the fly of his jeans. He pulls them down and off with his socks, and now he’s standing in your living room, clad only in a pair of black boxer-briefs, the soft cotton fabric doing a valiant job of containing his massive erection. You fight the urge to sink down to your knees and rip his underwear off, shove your mouth down onto his cock, see how deep you can take him. You hear yourself shudder as you inhale, nearly a sob, and it echoes in the silence and stillness of the room. Frankie looks pleased with himself, coiled and waiting for your next move. He must know how close you are to breaking.

You take another few steps backwards, keeping your eyes on Frankie as he follows you down the short hallway to your bedroom. You open your jeans as you cross the threshold, pushing them down along with your underwear and kicking them off into a corner. You reach behind you to unclasp your bra, and Frankie pauses to watch you, hands braced on either side of the doorway where he stands, his corded neck and shoulders tensed. You reach up to one shoulder and slowly pull the strap down. Then you do the same to the other strap, moving deliberately, watching Frankie’s ears go slightly pink as he clenches his jaw. You stand with your back to the wall, and you rest your back and shoulders against it, no longer trusting your watery knees to hold you upright. Then you tip your jaw up at Frankie. Your move.

Frankie crosses the room swiftly, long legs eating up the distance between you. He braces each large hand on the wall on either side of your head, then leans in closer, caging you in. His dark eyes fix on yours, and for just a moment you forget how to breathe. His gorgeous hooked nose is just an inch from yours, and if you tilted your head up you could bump noses, engage him in a kiss. But you’re not ready to give in just yet.

You gaze into the liquid cocoa pools, and inhale as silently as you can through your nose, smelling the clean cotton scent of Frankie’s detergent as it mixes with the masculine musk of his deodorant, the expanse of his tawny skin giving off its own salty hints. You feel a sharp twinge between your legs, another clench of your pussy, and now that’s all you can think about. You’re throbbing and wet, hot and getting hotter.

You press your thighs together in a futile attempt to relieve the ache, but it only makes it worse. You exhale and it comes out on the back of a whine, a faint noise that you know Frankie hears, because his expression changes to hunger again, mixed with a secret and knowing smile that tells you that you’re in deep trouble with this man. You have underestimated him, and you’re going to learn that lesson in a very memorable way.

Frankie is sweet and kind, soft-spoken and gentlemanly. You try to think back to what you assumed would happen when you proposed this little game, that maybe he would get a little bit horny, play along with you for a few minutes, and then pretend to give in just to get his arms around you. Instead, you seem to have awakened a strategist, someone who is used to making important calculations toward an end goal. You mistook Frankie’s softness for something it definitely is not, and now you’re regretting having challenged him. He’s not going to go easy on you.

Your stomach does that sick roller-coaster thing that it does sometimes, and you feel your heartbeat kick up a notch as Frankie uses those sharp eyes of his to inspect you. His penetrating stare moves from your eyes to your lips, which part involuntarily, an invitation to kiss you if he dares to give in first. He breathes slowly through his nose as his eyes trail down to your breasts and back up, taking in every inch of your bare skin. You feel like you’re being strangled by his gaze, but it is delicious.

Frankie takes his hands off the wall and then drops slowly to his knees. You look down at him in surprise. He opens his mouth and his voice is low and commanding. “Hands above your head for me, sweetheart.”

You lift your chin level with the floor and lace your fingers over your head, leaning harder into the wall with your shoulders. Your heart thrums in your chest, a steady tattoo that reminds you that you’re alive, but that also makes you feel very close to passing out. You try to remind yourself to breathe, breathe, breathe. You widen your legs just a bit for stability, and you hear Frankie chuckle low in his throat.

He starts talking, and were it not for the wall holding you up, you swear that you would buckle to the ground as he bathes you with his delicious, filthy monologue.

“Did you know,” Frankie intones, his voice raspy with desire, “... that you have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen?”

You rush an exhale out through your mouth, and suck a great heaving breath back in. He’s only just started, and you’re not at all sure that you’re going to survive this. You dare to tilt your head to look down at Frankie, but his eyes are not on yours, they’re staring intently at your pubic mound. He’s transfixed, the secret smile gone as he stares between your legs.

“In fact, I think that this might be... the most tempting pussy that I’ve ever had the pleasure of looking at. I could just bury my face in her right now.”

You feel like you can’t breathe, and you lace your fingers tighter behind your head as you stare down at Frankie’s soft curls, his nose just inches from your sex, his tongue dripping honey as you feel yourself getting wetter. Frankie continues his dirty talk, spilling the gorgeous, filthy words right into the center of your being.

“I would definitely like to taste her, see how she drips for me when she really gets going. Do you drip or do you squirt, honey?”

You clench your butt muscles and lean your shoulders even harder against the wall, a desperate attempt to stay upright as your knees threaten to give out. An involuntary whine slips out from your lips, and Frankie tilts his head to look up at you, that mischievous smile curving back across his lush lips.

“Would you like that, darlin’? Would you like me to eat you out?”

You bite your lips hard and struggle to stay standing. All you want to do is give in, collapse down onto Frankie and let him have his way with you. You feel another new rush of slickness hit your center and you almost break. Not yet, your brain whispers. Just wait...

Frankie turns his face back to your pelvis and then braces his hands on the wall, so close to your hips that you can feel the warmth emanating off his skin. But again, not touching you, he’s staying within the rules that you set for him. He’s too good at this, and now you know that you’re definitely going to lose.

Frankie slowly leans forward, bending his elbows to move his face closer and closer to your crotch. His nose comes an inch away, then half an inch. For a moment you hope that he will slip and make contact and lose, but he doesn’t. He has excellent muscle control and his arms don't even quiver as he finally stops, hovering just a centimeter in front of your cunt. You are wetter than you ever have been, and you swear that you can feel it leaking down the inside of your leg, trailing down your thigh as Frankie tortures you.

His voice is a whisper now, velvety and soft, and you strain to hear him above the rushing of your own heartbeat in your ears.

“You smell amazing, honey.” He closes his eyes and inhales, taking your scent into himself like you’re the sweetest flower at the farmer’s market.

It hits you suddenly that this is the most debauched, most intimate thing you’ve ever done with a lover. No man has ever dared to just smell you like this, and you feel something twist inside the bowl of your pelvis, like a spring being wound tighter. You realize that you’re not breathing, and you open your mouth into a little o-shape to take a slow, cooling breath into your lungs. You regain your steadiness and settle deeper into yourself to try to hold out, to hang in there just a little longer.

“I bet that you taste like heaven, pretty girl. I can’t wait to fuck you on my tongue, lick you inside and out.”

Frankie leans back and looks up at you with a wink. “After you touch me first and lose, I’m going to lick this pussy so hard that you come six times while you scream my name.”

You gurgle out a surprised, “Oh!”

Frankie sits back on his heels and stands back up, a little triumphant, like he knows how close he pushed you to the edge.

You release your hands and place your palms flat on the wall by your hips, not trusting them to hang loose at your sides, lest they decide to reach out and skim over his broad shoulders of their own accord. You look up at Frankie where he hovers over you, and you lick your lips and whisper to him.

“Frankie, I want you. Please touch me.”

He arches one eyebrow at you. “Does that mean you want the game to end? Are you giving up?”

You close your eyes and shake your head no, and for a moment you’re not sure if you’re even capable of playing the game any longer. Your head is fuzzy and your skin is screaming to be touched. You take a deep breath in and then out, and when you open your eyes Frankie is looking at you with concern.

“Do you give up, sweetheart? Or do you want to keep playing?”

You choke out a strangled whisper, the barest hint of speech. “I want… I want…”

Frankie comes closer, bracing himself on the wall again, big arms boxing you in as he moves into your space. He tilts his head down and murmurs, “Tell me.”

You look up into his eyes and the whole room tilts to the left. All you can see is Frankie, and he’s all that matters while the rest of the world spins dizzy around you. You feel sick with anticipation, and you know that this is your fault, that you were the one who proposed this stupid torturous game in the first place.

You just want it to end, you need it to end now.

“Frankie, I… I want…”

“You want me to eat you out? Stick my tongue inside that gorgeous pussy and fuck you with it until you come? Is that it?”

He leans closer and still doesn’t touch you, just keeps stringing you along with his depraved poetry as he tilts his head to hover an inch from your ear.

“Or maybe you want me to finger-fuck you, too? Stretch you open and see how good it feels? I bet we can make your pussy squirt, make you gush around my hand when I reach deep inside and hit your g-spot. I bet you’ll soak the bed, you sweet thing. Maybe squirt clear across the room.”

“Oh god.” You whine and duck your chin, trying to resist the urge to turn your head toward him and make contact, kiss him and then let him go wild, do all the things he’s been threatening to do.

“Frankie, I…”

“You what, sweetheart?” His tone is just this side of mocking, and it makes your cunt clench.

“I need…”

Frankie pulls his head away from your ear and looks you directly in the eyes.

“Use your words pretty girl.” His voice has an edge now, firm, sounding like a direct order. “Tell me what you need.”

“I- I want, I need… I need you inside of me. I want you everywhere, Frankie.”

“Yeah? You need me, sweet girl? You need Frankie to take care of you?”

Your face crumples, a whine of pure desire making your throat ache. Your pussy drools another bit of slick down your inner thigh. You want to cry, and Frankie frowns at you with genuine concern.

“I can take care of you, sweetheart. Anything you want, you just say the word. But first…” He leans his head down lower, lower, lower and stops, his warm breath fanning over your lips as he whispers.

“... first you have to touch me.”

You moan at that, the unfair knowledge that all you have to do to get everything you want is to give in. And he’s so close, his nose just a centimeter from yours. All you would have to do is lean up, kiss him, and-

Frankie abruptly pushes off the wall and takes two steps back from you. The sudden absence of him makes something in you snap. You rush at him and practically knock him over, kissing him with a snarl and wrapping your arms and legs around him as he laughs in surprise. He braces both big hands under your bottom and half-carries you to your bed.

He plops you down on the bedspread and then leans down over you as you kiss and kiss and kiss him. Now that the dam has broken, you’re not sure you’re ever going to stop, and you don’t give a flying fuck that you just lost at your own game. As far as you’re concerned you won, because you’re naked on your bed with Frankie laying over you, his hard cock pressing against your wet seam through his boxers.

You open your legs wide and wrap them around Frankie’s waist, and he kisses you before pulling back with a gentle shush against your lips.

“Wait wait, pretty girl. We’re not gonna fuck yet. I gotta eat you out first.”

“No Frankie, please. Please just fuck me.” You clutch and grasp at him, trying to pull him into you. He braces himself on his arms and hovers maddeningly over your face as he smiles.

“No, baby. You said if I played your game you would let me do what I wanted. You lost. I win.”

Frankie moves his mouth to your ear and whispers. “I get to eat your pussy until you’re screaming my name.”

You moan, a high-pitched cry of defeat. You want him inside of you now, not a moment longer. You’ve been tortured and taunted long enough, and you haven’t even gotten a glimpse of his cock, other than to see the impressive way that his erection fills out the contours of his boxer-briefs.

Frankie kisses you and tells you to release your legs, and then he stands up and wraps his big hands around your ankles and pulls you to the edge of the bed. He kneels on the floor and looks up to your face with a wicked smile, the look of a man who is about to enjoy his victory over you.

You try to remind yourself that you lost, fair and square, and now your punishment is that you will have to wait to feel Frankie’s huge cock stretching you open. You’re going to have to take your punishment like a good girl.

Frankie pushes your legs up and back toward your chest, and you hook your hands behind your knees to hold them open. He takes the first tentative lick of your clit, and you cry a soft “Oh!” and toss your head back.

Frankie’s fingers stroke your outer labia, top to bottom, and he spreads you open with his fingertips. You feel the cool air hit your slick, and then the hot swipe of his tongue through your folds. This is torture, you think, but only as much as I deserve.

Frankie licks your clit gently before suddenly surging into you tongue-first, going as deep as he can, licking into you deeply. He curls his tongue up as he withdraws, and he hits the bundle of nerves on the underside of your clit. He does it again and again and again, and before you can warn him that you’re about to come, you’re shuddering and breaking apart in his mouth.

Frankie eases two big fingers into you and you’re grateful for the thickness of them, giving your muscles something to clench and squeeze around while Frankie softly licks your clit, working you through your climax. When you finally relax your legs, he sucks your clit into his mouth and then releases you with a smack of his lips.

“That’s one, pretty girl, but I didn’t hear you scream my name. We’ll see if you can do that with any of the other five.”

Frankie dives back into you face-first, and fulfills all of his threats from the game.

---

“Everything bagel” tag list: @quica-quica-quica @anaaaispunk @justanotherblonde23 @gracie7209 @nicolethered @honestly-shite @driedgreentomatoes @dihra-vesa @1800-fight-me @the-queen-of-fools @juletheghoul @kesskirata @honeymandos @silverwolf319 @mourningbirds1 @greeneyedblondie44 @spacedilf @maxwell–lord @anxiousandboujee @cevvie @sherala007 @writeforfandoms @libellule2001 @deadhumourist @mandoalorian @javierpinme @eri16 @mandocrasis @pilothusband @bastillealmighty @eri16 @jitterbugs927 @babiiface95 @toomanystoriessolittletime @yespolkadotkitty @fisforfulcrum @prettylilhalforc @mswarriorbabe80 @littlemisspascal @wildemaven @coreychick @castleamc @coreychick

#JHFTM 300 followers celebration #You ask and JHFTM delivers!#pedrostories #pedro stories #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fic #frankie morales x you #frankie catfish morales x you #frankie morales x reader #frankie catfish morales x reader #frankie morales x female reader #frankie catfish morales x female reader #frankie morales smut #frankie catfish morales smut

440 notes · View notes

dragon-kazansky · 3 years

Text

Two broken pieces | Helmut Zemo

Requested by @lieutenantn

Falling in love with someone so quickly was suppose to be a troupe only used in stories. Real life wasn't suppose to work that way, at least you never believed it to. Though, there is a saying, 'when you know you know,' which you could apply here.

You knew. From the moment his eyes locked with yours, you knew something was going to happen.

You had his back, he had yours.

You stood up for him when Sam and Bucky scolded him in the garage, playing it off by telling them there was no need for arguing. You grabbed Bucky one the plane when Zemo overstepped his boundaries. He thanked you when Bucky backed off. You just nodded at him. He turned the conversation to you, wanting to know more.

You could see the way Sam and Bucky were looking at you, but despite that, you talked to him. You were attracted to him, to his very being.

He made your heart race just by looking at you.

When things got hot in Madripoor, Zemo had reached for your hand and pulled you away from the gunfire. His hand in yours felt so right, so perfect.

He only let go when you both rejoined with the others. It was after that when things seemed to fall into place.

You were always glancing at one another, sharing secret smiles, having little conversations with each other. He caught you alone at Sharon's place, asking about your wellbeing. It had been an eventful night.

In the club, he stayed within your line of sight the entire time. You kept glancing at one another. You would smile and look away.

How could such little things hold so much power over you?

It wasn't until you were alone in your room that night that you thought about it. You lay awake thinking.

What was happening? Why was Zemo affecting you so much? When was the last time someone had made you this happy just with their presence?

You can't possibly let this become anything more than fleeting glances and sweet conversation. Besides, Zemo was only going to go straight back to prison once this was over.

He deserved better than you, a broken soul drifting through life.

Zemo was very much in the same mindset. He stood near the window, whiskey in his hand. He was looking out over the night fallen city.

He was thinking of you.

You had certainly made things interesting since his escape. You would smile and talk to him. You defended him. He could still feel the ghost of a touch of your hand in his. The way your hand fit in his, he missed it.

He was also broken. You could do so much better than him, but that didn't stop these feelings from forming. They were barely a bud, but they were there.

On the plane to Riga, he brought you something to eat. Zemo sat across from you. You thanked him softly.

He was admiring you.

You could feel a blush coming on as you felt his eyes on you. You picked at your food.

"You don't have to eat it," he tells you, voice smooth and deep. He could read you the dictionary and you would listen to every word.

"I want it."

You nibble at it. He let's out a small breath of a chuckle. The tension was thick, but not uncomfortable. It was just that neither one of you knew what to do. You were so drawn to one another, but neither one of you would push past the wall you had built.

You couldn't fall in love with him.

He couldn't fall for you.

He had a job to do. He had to see it through. It was his priority. He hadn't come here to fall in love with someone he barely knew.

"You should rest. We have quite a ways to go." He hets up to leave, but you grab his sleeve gently, tugging at it.

"Don't go."

He looks down at your hand, then your eyes. He sits back down and you don't miss the way his tongue pokes out to lick along his lower lip ever so quickly.

He stays as you finish eating. He stays while you drift to sleep. He is there when you wake.

You try to ignore the growing feeling in your gut as you walk alongside him. His fingers lightly brush against your hand as he takes you up to the safe-house. You want to hold it, feel it, but that would be crossing the line.

You didn't deserve someone so... brilliant.

You shy away from him once you get inside. A distance forms between you both from there on. Zemo keeps seeking your gaze, but you refuse to meet it. His heart aches for your attention, but he doesn't get it.

You're sheltering yourself from him. If you push him away, maybe these feelings will dissolve and you won't have to worry over how much it will hurt to see him go when he is inevitably arrested.

He hates it. He just doesn't bring it to voice.

The funeral. Walker handcuffs him to a boiler, impatiently waiting for Sam to talk to Karli. Zemo could care less about Walker's unimportant chatter. His eyes on you. You're sitting on the ground near by, eyes watching Walker's pacing feet.

He wants to call your name. He wants those eyes up on him.

Bucky goes after Walker when his patience runs out. No doubt a fight will break out. You are quickly on your feet and watch them go through the door. Before you can follow them, Zemo calls your name.

You stop and look over your shoulder at him.

"Be careful."

You nod and leave. Those 2 seconds of eye contact were enough for now.

Zemo is hurt. Walker had the audacity to gut him in the head with the shield. That would bloody hurt.

You're kneeling beside him as he recovers on the sofa. You're committing his features to memory. Any moment the Dora Milaje will come for him and take him away.

He stirs.

You sit up.

He removes the towel from his face and his eyes meet yours. His whole body relaxes. You're here looking over him. Anyone would tell you he didn't deserve your concern, but he was glad. More so.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes."

Careful hands rise to his head. The feeling of your fingers checking for any sign of a wound made him shiver. Your gentle touch attending to him, what did he do to deserve that.

Zemo was a broken tainted man.

You were a broken tainted soul.

The only thing that would make of you whole was each other, but you refused to acknowledge it. The answers to all your prayers was sitting right in front of you.

Zemo grasped your wrist softly. He lowers your hand and holds it. You meet his eyes, silently asking what he was doing.

He wants to say something, but Walker arrives. The tension shatters and you both stand up.

"He's going back to prison," Walker says, pointing at Zemo.

You find yourself standing in front of him, almost protecting him. Zemo saw.

The Dora Milaje arrive. Walker tries to reason with them, but it only results in a fight. It's not until Sam and Bucky get involved that you feel a hand on your wrist. You're being pulled into the bathroom by Zemo.

When the door shuts he turns to you and doesn't give you a second to say anything. Hands on either side of your face, he kisses you. It's the most hungry, greedy kiss, he can manage.

"I'm tired of pretending," he says, pulling away. He moves to pull up the grate on the floor.

"Zemo?"

"I didn't come here to fall in love with you. I had no intention of opening my heart to anyone ever again, but here you are. I can't think of anything else, not even my mission, while you refuse to look at me." He sits with his legs dangling down the hole. He turns and looks up at you, hand out.

You stare at it.

"You've fallen in love with?"

"Yes."

"I thought... I thought this was one sided."

He smiles.

"How could anyone not fall for you. We must go now."

"Where?"

"Anywhere. If I stay, they will arrest me. If we go, I can say goodbye to my family properly and whisk you off anywhere you want to go."

You look at his hand again.

"You can do so much better than me, Zemo."

"No. No, I cannot. You're the best there is."

You glance at the door. You can still hear them fighting. You look back at Zemo, the way he is looking at you. You know what you want and you give for it. Your hand in his.

You leave.

There's no looking back now.

As he leads you through the tunnels, he says something that hits you strongly.

"We shall be broken together, because together we are whole."

You have no intention of letting go of him. Zemo came into your life a criminal who wanted super soldiers dead. Now, he stays as the man who will love you completely and utterly with his whole being.

@ajeff855 @moonstuffsteve @sky-writes-stuff @lieutenantn @lostghostgirl94 @friday18eo @yaskna @my-blood-is-maple-syrup @gingerwriter97 @lunamooney2406

#zemo #helmut zemo #helmut zemo x reader #zemo x reader #baron zemo #baron helmut zemo #marvel #tfatws #the falcon and the winter soldier

265 notes · View notes

unrestedjade · 3 years

Text

Baseless Ferengi headcanons no one asked for and that get increasingly queer-navel-gazing and self indulgent because the horrible space goblins have consumed my brain:

- Mobile ears, because if hearing is so well developed and important to them they should be able to aim those big stupid radar dishes. Also because then they can emote with them and that's cute. THE AESTHETIC IS PARAMOUNT.

- Since they canonically sharpen their teeth with chew sticks and sharpeners, their teeth must grow continuously. So I submit: subcultures that let certain teeth grow out as a fashion/political statement. Ferengi punks and anarchists with 5" tusks. Ferengi with all their teeth filed flat (mom and dad HATE it).

- Corollary to the above, most of their teeth are crooked. At the least, they don't share our fetish for straight teeth. What if their teeth are deciduous, and there's no point in trying to force them into perfect alignment, since they'll just fall out and get replaced? So like, sharks but their teeth can also grow longer with no limit. WHAT HAST EVOLUTION WROUGHT ON FERENGINAR :V

- Parents nagging their kids to sharpen their teeth "or they'll grow up into your brain and you'll die :)"

- Personal space? Don't know her.

Okay I need a cut because there's too many now. WHOLE SOCIETY OF GAY HOMOPHOBIC UNCLES AND AUNTS GO I HAVE A PROBLEM

- I can't remember who on here put forth the idea of them having retractable claws but Yes. :3

- Pushing back against the worst canon episode a bit but: relative ear size being the only obvious sexually dimorphic trait, and even that having enough of a gray area that the only way to be 100% sure you're talking to a male or female Ferengi is if you do a blood test. Unless they're intersex! *shrug emoji*

- This is why they're so fanatical about gender conformity and their Victorian "separate spheres" attitude to men and women's roles. Capitalist patriarchy is fragile! And as artificial to Ferengi as it ever was to Humans! (self-indulgenceeeee about gender shiiiiit)

- You know how with domesticated rabbits, the rabbit getting groomed and paid attention to is the boss? Yeah. Go ahead and paint your bestie's nails, just don't be surprised if she cops a little bit of an attitude with you from then on.

- Their fight/flight/freeze/fawn instincts skew heavily toward the last three, and what a lot of other species read as annoying sucking up is the Ferengi in question feeling anxious and unsafe. Especially if they don't feel integrated into the group. Even being at the bottom of the pecking order is better than not being in the flock at all.

- If they DO opt for fight, it's ugly and typically their last resort. Bites or scratches will get infected without intervention-- microbes that their immune system can handle could cause big trouble for aliens. You might wanna check for full or partial teeth that break off and get lodged in the wound, too.

- Too many of these are tooth related but I don't care. :B More teeth stuff: you know what else has teeth that grow constantly? Puffer fish. Likewise, Ferengi can chew up mollusk shells as easy as potato chips, and they need the minerals for their teeth. (Imagine grandpa Sisko offering Nog a crayfish for the first time and watching as he just...pops the whole damn thing in his mouth and crunches away...)

- Their staple foods seem to be grubs and other arthropods, high in protein and fat. I've unilaterally decided their cuisine also involves a lot of edible fungi, ferns, plant shoots and seeds. Gotta get those vitamins. Overall flavor profile leaning toward umami, vegetal, and fresh herbs, and pretty mild (or "delicate" if you wanna be snooty about it, which a Ferengi probably would let's be real).

- Not much sugary food. I'm basing this solely on Quark's aversion to root beer as "cloying". Which could definitely just be his personal preference, but most of the people I hear hating on root beer cite the actual sassafras/sarsaparilla flavor (saying it tastes like medicine) not the sweetness. Nog might be the weirdo outlier for being able to enjoy it.

- Their home planet isn't bright and sunny, so their eyes are better at discerning shades of gray in low light conditions, with relatively weak color vision. Which could explain why they dress Like That.

- Conversely, human music has a reputation for stinking on ice because a lot of it is juuuuust lightly dissonant or out of tune because we can't pick up flaws that small. Ferengi can, and it drives them up the *wall*.

- Music? So many different kinds. Traditionally, maybe lots of percussion and winds, and water as a common component of many instruments to alter pitch or tone. Polyphony out the ass. Some of the modern stuff is an impenetrable wall of sound if you're not a species with a lot of brain real estate devoted to processing sounds. Pick out one melody to follow at a time.

- Yes, back to teeth again I'm sorry. It's a sickness. At some point in their history, pre-chewing food was just something you did for your baby or great grandma as a matter of necessity. Possibly your baby gets an important boost to their immune system and gut biome from your spit. At some point takes on a more formal intimacy aspect and gradually drifted from something all adults and older kids do to something only women do. Your husband and older kids have perfectly functional teeth, but you love them, right? =_= (Think old memes about husbands being useless in the kitchen if little wifey isn't there to cook, but even more ridiculous. Ishka was right about everything but especially this. Thank you for making your family chew their own food, Ishka. Not all heroes wear capes. Or anything!)

- How did they get started on the whole men: clothed vs women: unclothed nonsense? My equally stupid idea: men just get cold easier. Those huge ears dissipate a ton of body heat. Cue Ferengi cliches like "jeez, we could be standing on the surface of the sun and my husband would put on another layer." At some point, again, this got codified and pushed to ridiculous extremes in the name of controlling women and keeping everyone in their assigned box, to the point that women just have to shiver if they really are too cold and men have to pass out from heat stroke if the alternative is going shirtless, because That Would Be Inappropriate.

- Marriages default to five years, but they're also the only avenue for women to have their own household or any stability. Plus their religion places no emphasis on purity save for pure adherence to the free market and the RoA. So, curveball to the rest of their patriarchal bullshit: female virginity isn't a concern in the least. Bring it up and they'll rightly side-eye you.

- Family law is absolutely bonkers and lawyers that specialize in it make BANK. I feel like custody would default to the father usually but oh wait, the maternal grandfather has a legal stake in this, too, and your next father-in-law is asking HOW many kids are you dragging into my daughter's house, etc etc. Growing up with a full sibling is way rarer than growing up with half or stepsiblings, since it usually takes both men and women two or three tries to find someone they vibe with. (Not love, unless you're super cringe.)

- A misogynistic society is a homophobic society. Imo those flavors of shittiness just come in pairs. Homosexual behaviors are fine within certain parameters (aka "always have sex with the boss") but not on your own terms. To add spice, bisexuality is their most common mode (because I'm bi and these are my hcs for my fics I'm not writing, so there), but capitalism demands fresh grist for the mill so you better get het-married and pop out some kids you lowly peons. You have a choice so make the proper one. :)

- Corollary to the above, that doesn't keep all kinds of illicit "we're just friends with quid-pro-quo benefits for realsies" affairs of every stripe and every gender from going on everywhere. Many Ferengi have a lightbulb moment somewhere in early adulthood when they figure out their dad's business partner or the "auntie" who visited their mom every month had a little more going on.

- Plus there's way more gender non-conformity and varying degrees of trans-ing than the powers that be have a handle on. Pel isn't unique, even if most would have to somehow make it out into space to be able to thrive.

Damn a lot of these are just my personal bugbears plus THE GILDED AGE BUT WITH HAIRLESS SPACE RODENTS ain't they

- Women can't earn profit, okay. But lending or "lending" things to each other isn't commerce, riiiiiiight? To be assigned female is to master navigating a vast, dizzying barter/gift economy. Smart boys and men leverage this, too, and there are splinter sects that view this as the purest expression of the Great Material Continuum.

- Of course plenty of women make profit anyway, and just do their bast to dodge the FCA. The tough thing about insisting on using latinum as currency is that cash can be so hard to track, you know?

- Because of the RoA, guys are discouraged from doing favors or giving gifts without setting clear expectation of getting some return on investment. This can twist into an expression of friendship (and of course women do it too), and the ledger will keep cycling between debit and credit among friends for decades. A common mistake aliens make is to tell them recompense isn't needed without explaining why, or return their favor or present with something that zeroes out the debt. The Ferengi will assume you want to break off the friendship. (I cribbed this from dim memories of an African studies course I took in 2007 and whose textbook I know I still have but I can't frigging find it...)

- Flirting, they do a lot of it for a lot of reasons. Roddenberry made it clear that they're just straight up pretty horny, but there's no reason it can't pull double duty for building alliances with other people, smoothing over feuds or disagreements, or cementing friendships. Ferengi who are ace and/or sex-repulsed are possibly viewed similar to the way we'd view someone who's "not a hugger/not big on touching" and if they flirt just don't get offended if it doesn't go any further; aro Ferengi don't garner much comment aside from an occasional "wow how badass, never falling in love with anyone."

- where to even start on making sense of the Blessed Exchequer??? Like seriously, what is this literal prosperity gospel insanity, I need to force myself to re-read Rand and like, some Milton Friedman for this shit. Help.

- fuck I'm probably going to actually do that, RIP me...

#ds9 #star trek #meta #ferengi #i love them Too Much help #reliving my brief libertarian phase from high school from the opposite direction #my heart wants to make them simultaneously as queer and as repressed as possible #i didn't even make it to the goddamned blessed exchequer my head is too full #i will find beauty in this vulgarity if it kills me #this is too long #why did i spend my time this way

138 notes · View notes

maliciouslycreative · 3 years

Text

How I played damage control to an anti in a small anime fandom and may have led to her ultimate downfall

I know I had a really nice write up of this at one point but oh well. I’ll spill more of the tea in this one because honestly the tea was so hot.

There are a few things that I have to give context to first. Gaia online was like THE mega forum of the 2000s, you made a little avatar and through posting and doing other activities on the forum you made money to buy clothes for your avatar. There were forums for everything but the fannish portions were really what drew in most of the people. The anime I was into was Beyblade. It was a shonen anime about fighting with tops that were possessed by the spirits of magical creatures. The story was honestly pretty average but the characters were fantastic and the fandom is to this day still one of my favourites. The series had a primarily male cast and didn’t even have a female lead until the second season. This led to the fanfic for the English fandom being about 70% canon/OC, 10 % canon m/f, and 20% slash. The most popular character in the English fandom was by far Kai Hiwatari, the loner badboy of the team.

Also before we get started I would like to add that one of my best friends was neck deep in this and the two of us were more or less fandom married. This is the same friend that I fake dated, had feelings for, and she nearly got me into kpop in 2011 so like if you haven’t read that story please read it too because it will give you a good idea of how stupid I am and how much of a fanfic I have truly lived.

To set the stage I was 16, soon to be 17 when I joined the fandom and it was 2004. In September of that year I wrote a humour longfic that became an absolute smash hit and I found myself somehow fandom famous. It was around this time that I joined Gaia online. I made my little avatar and immediately went looking for the beyblade thread so that I could make new friends. I found the main thread, made my little introduction and at the end of it mentioned that I was a slash writer but I supported all ships. This is where I met C. She had declared herself the authority on Beyblade in these parts and I had just committed the crime of mentioning slash which was very obviously not canon and we did not discuss in this thread because we only discussed canon things. I was like well that’s a bit severe but like sure whatever I just want to hang out and have fun.

Oh boy did I have no idea what I was in for.

C was a year older than me and unfortunately that made her older than the majority of the fans at the time. Her favourite character was Kai, and she was not shy about talking about this fact. She stanned Kai above all other characters, and often at their expense. She was also a fanfic writer of a popular canon/OC series. Actually, she was so full of herself that she didn’t even call herself a fanfic writer, no her stories were in fact novels and were apparently very good. I never read them. But more on that later.

Eventually the slash fans got tired of her being rude to us in the general thread so we made a Beyblade slash thread. There was a core of like 8 or so of us and we honestly had sooo much fun. When C would be too unbearable in the main thread the people from there used to come over to our thread and we’d chat with them about non slash stuff because we were honestly all multishippers and just wanted to have fun. We’d get comments like “wow, I’ve had more pleasant canon het ship discussions in the slash thread than the regular thread”. We never worried about C coming over and getting upset about comments like this because she refused to be associated with anything related with slash lmao.

I tried my best to keep the peace between C, myself, and the rest of the fandom because ultimately I hate being in fandom drama. I just want everyone to have a good time. I’m a people pleaser. Unfortunately my newfound fame put me in the awkward position of being the most fandom popular person in our small community aside from C. Virtually every fan that read fanfics that came into our thread knew one of us or the other by reputation and C HATED this. Especially because people would come in to the thread, recognise me and go “oh my goodness I love your fanfics!” and I’d be super sweet with them and it’d lead into “I can’t believe how nice you are, I love you” which would lead to us crying at each other. This was not the kind of fan interaction that C got, no her fans were more kind that were there to praise her and worship her like a deity that had blessed them with some gift. Rarely did they tell her how kind she was.

Back in the mid 2000s there were really commonly those commercials (usually by Christian organisations) asking people to sponsor say children in Africa or to help build schools or provide drinking water. You all probably know the ones; know the language that they used in those commercials. My fandom wife, who I suppose I shall call wifey because yes we were THAT couple back then, once said that C described her fics like those people described donating money to save the lives of Children in Africa. So we used to joke that her fics were so good they’d save lives in Africa. Looking back at it all, she almost had a very fundamentalist Christian approach to bringing people into her fanfics. She of course tried to get all the slash people into reading it. None of us read canon/oc fic mostly due to our poor treatment at the hands of their fans and creators. Getting fed up I one day told her that if she would read any one of my fanfics that I would read the entirety of her novels. Yes, I was willing to commit to read a couple 100k of canon/oc fanfic that I’d never touch normally if she would even read one of my 1k 1 shots. Heck, I had a fic even that shipped 2 minor characters so she didn’t even have to sully herself reading about one of the main characters. It was honestly a good deal in her favour. I kept this up until the day we all left the fandom. Sometimes I do wonder if her fics were even ¼ as good as she claimed, but I will never know because she refused to read my fics.

She wasn’t all bad and a tyrant all the time. As long as people kept the conversations on track and didn’t come in to the thread saying things like “KAI IS SO HOT ND T3H BEST N I AM GUN 2 MARRY HIM” she stayed mostly civil. It was always hilarious watching InuYahsa or Naruto fans try to come in and bad mouth Beyblade because they’d unleash the dragon and C was great at chasing off undesirables in the thread.

The real apex of goings on though on Gaia was the guild drama. So guilds were like exclusive themed mini forums within Gaia. Anyone could buy one and run it however they want, as long as it still adhered to Gaia’s ToS. C of course was the owner of the only Beyblade guild. The fandom wasn’t really big enough to support 2 guilds so we just kind of let it go. Technically she allowed people to post slash fanfics but like everything had to be explicitly tagged and there was absolutely no slash RP. Wifey and I controlled a handful of minor characters together in the forum RP and definitely used to try to push the boundaries a little bit. Some ambiguous flirting here, a stray comment there. It was such a fragile balance though because C was heavy on the ban button. The active portion of the guild was just people that were in the cult of C and worshipped her writing.

Understandably the other slash fans and myself were getting disheartened by this. So we pooled our funds together and decided that we’d open a second guild that though it was run by slash fans we would welcome anyone into our ranks. We just wanted to have a fun place for everyone to hang out, and to hopefully run a few events out of. In hindsight, we should have seen what would happen. When we opened the guild, with me as the guild leader, it was like somebody blew up the whole dam protecting the delicate ecosystem we had cultivated. Every single person in the Gaia fandom that was not a zealous follower of C applied to be in our guild and left her guild. We of course figured that we’d attract some of the gen population but we did not expect to accidentally poach all of it. All of the moderators were getting messages from people thanking us for giving them a place where they could say whatever they wanted without fear of getting their faces ripped off or banned.

C lost her shit. She was so mad that we went behind her back to ruin her guild. We literally had to show her posts in the very public slash thread that we had been planning this in public and that it was not to ruin her life. We just wanted a place where we could freely post slash. The two of us had some spicy comments back and forth and then she dropped an absolute bombshell on me. Since Gaia’s mail system is terrible I unfortunately no longer have exactly what she said but it was something along the lines of “Ok, you win. I’m going to close my guild.”. Us slash fans had never been doing this to win anything. We had never been competing. We just wanted a safe space to be ourselves.

C never joined our guild. The fandom slowly faded out within the next year anyway. We weren’t getting new content so naturally people just drifted into other fandoms. C kept up with the main Beyblade thread for a lot longer than most of us but eventually that eventually faded into obscurity too.

I learned a lot about fandom bullies from those days. But honestly the thing that stuck with me the most out of everything was that if you provide a positive safe space for people they will flock to it. It may seem like there are so many hostile people out there, but there really aren't. They're the minority but they just make sure that their voice is the loudest. The best way is to ignore them and just do your own thing. The bullies just want attention and if you don’t give it to them and prove to them that their opinion doesn’t matter to you then they’ll move in and find something else to yell at.

#malicious musings #stacey's adventures in fandom drama #lol #honestly it was such a fucking wild time #if i think of any other specific instances of drama i'll add them #god i wish i had screenshots of some of what went on #but sadly going through archived gaia posts is easier said than done

43 notes · View notes

thanksjro · 3 years

Text

More Than Meets the Eye #31 - Ammo and the Anti-Glowup

So, the Lost Light disappeared, stranding all the crew in space in their little escape pods. 200-some robots just lost their homes and worldly possessions. That’s absolutely horrible. What a devastating thing to happen.

Anyway, here’s Drift with a flashback sequence.

No hips, fingers all the exact same length, hockey pucks embedded in his forearms- Rojo, this is a crime you’ve committed. When will the long arm of the law stop your sinful, pancake-shaped hands?

About two years prior to current events, Drift, Riptide, and Pipes- yes, Pipes!- were wandering around trying to find a ship for the space yacht trip. The gang’s here to see who owns the big honkin’ ship outside. Problem is, Drift is unintentionally terrifying because he has a great deal of swords.

Now, you may say to yourself “isn’t it a bit odd that the species that has members who literally turn into guns would be nervous around a guy with swords?” This is a valid critique, until you remember that at least some of the folks who turn into guns were born that way, and Drift was very much NOT born bladed the fuck out. There’s an entire miniseries devoted to explaining this, it’s called Drift. The swords are a choice, one that he makes every day.

Drift is willing to pay an honestly absurd amount of money for the ship, if he can just find the dude with the paperwork- don’t ask where he got the money. Pipes isn’t being terribly helpful in finding them, so Riptide decides that now is the time to start practicing being proactive and pulls a Coyote Ugly.

No, no, he doesn’t.

He does climb up on a table and start yelling for the ship’s owners to reveal themselves, though. Which they do.

Now it’s time for the world-building portion of our comic issue. Let’s learn about chirolinguistics.

Drift, staying true to his Mary Sue nature, uses his near-perfect Hand skills to strike up a deal with the owners of the ship. This would be impressive, if it didn’t just look like the most convoluted hand-holding session in the friggin’ universe.

Still, Drift is rich enough to make Jeff Bezos weep with envy, so the arrangements are made and the lads go on their way, talking some mad shit about the original name of the ship as they do.

So it is revealed to us that the Lost Light is named after a festival for honoring the dead and disappeared, which makes the fact that Rewind and Chromedome were there all the more sad.

Back in the present, Megatron tells Riptide to shut up so they can figure out what the hell they’re going to do about this whole “our home and also ride has ceased to exist” situation. He’s putting an awful lot of distance between himself and the rest of the Autobots as he does it, something that isn’t lost on the more bitter people of the crowd.

But why were we even talking about the Lost Light in the first place? Not to reminisce, believe it or not. See, it’s time for Nautica to get a little panel time, and she’s going to use it to be a massive fucking nerd and explain how the quantum engines work. As she does, Ratchet notes that his hands feel funny. Must be the weight of his hand-stealing sins manifesting itself in his joints.

Nautica explains that the engines run off of improbability- it is highly unlikely, but not impossible, that the ship can reach light speed, and riding the fine line between what can happen and what can’t, results in the creation of power for the engines. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Brainstorm gave us a watered down version of this explanation back in issue #2. If it sounds familiar for a different reason, it’s because this is how the Heart of Gold runs in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Again, I’m not sure why it is that the British love this concept so much, but there you are.

Oh, it appears someone has a question. Let’s see what they want to know about, shall we?

…Rojo, what the fuck is this.

Our muppety friend here isn’t too keen on how much of a smarmy asshole Nightbeat is being right now, though I’d assume it actually has something to do with the fact that Nightbeat got smacked around with the pretty-boy stick while Getaway very much did not. While the two bicker- there’s a lot of bickering in Season Two- Nautica presents a theory on what happened to the ship; it went too far in the direction of “can’t” and made itself cease to be.

Megatron gives not a shit about quantum improbability, though. He only cares about how they’re going to get out of this mess. Which, y’know. Valid.

Blaster picks up a radio from Rodimus, who tells the gang that they’re to meet up on a nearby planet to regroup and figure out their next move. The call drops before he can get more than a couple Megatron-directed insults in, however. Megatron, in response, tries to be the bigger person, and almost immediately fails. We do get a headcount though, which is good, logistically speaking. This information is communicated to us by way of a splash page full of character head shots. We’ve got 20 ‘bots on board this ship.

Yep. 20. No more, no less.

As our friends approach the planet, we’re informed that it’s actually a Lectureworld- a planet devoted to the study of a single field. Except it’s actually a Smartplanet now, and it’s been privatized by the Galactic Council, so you’ve got to pay to go there. Cyclonus thinks that that’s bullshit, and I can’t help but agree. Crosscut tries to network with they guy about his play, probably because word got around that Cyclonus is rich as hell, when the lights cut out. When they come back on, Crosscut is nowhere to be found.

It’s time for a Whodunnit.

Tailgate immediately pegs Megatron as the culprit in this disappearance, and breaks out a gun over the matter. Megatron thinks that this is absolutely adorable, which only serves to further infuriate our marshmallow friend. I guess he’s still mad about the whole “I was a Decepticon for five minutes and got brainwashed over it” thing, and wants someone to pin the anger on who’s socially acceptable to hate.

Cyclonus and Ratchet both think that Tailgate’s not going about this the right way, but the guy is simply too het up to listen to them. Tailgate suggests that they lock Megatron in the engine room for the time being and-

OKAY WHO LET HIM HAVE THAT

Riptide breaks out his gun, and soon we’ve got a standoff going between the three of them. Cyclonus tries to deescalate, which makes Gears and Huffer break out their guns. Then Hound breaks out his gun, though he seems to be doing his own thing, by pointing it in Nautica’s direction.

Broski, I think that might be animal cruelty.

Megatron manages to shoot Ravage “unconscious” and catches him by the friggin’ throat, stating that he has zero idea how this guy got here. With the heat off the two of them for a moment, Megatron communicates to Ravage to play ‘possum for the time being. Ravage responds, and I wonder exactly how he’s doing that, considering I don’t think he has enough fingers to effectively utilize Hand as a language. Or fingers at all, really.

While this is going on, Cyclonus snatches the gun out of Tailgate’s hand, admonishing him for being reckless about picking his fights. Generally speaking, you don’t want to try to go toe-to-toe with a guy who’s responsible for the deaths of literal billions. Getaway swoops in to comfort Tailgate, calling him gutsy. I wonder if this will become a trend.

Swerve says a thing, as he is wont to do, and it’s made known that multiple folks have disappeared during this incredibly brief standoff.

Wow, Chromedome just fucked off, huh? He wasn’t even in that sequence, just left.

Everyone’s positively baffled by the current happenings. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to who’s being taken. I guess we’ve got a mystery on our hands.

And who better to solve a mystery than a detective?

Nightbeat wrangles all the leftover folks into a corner of the room, so they can figure out what the common denominator is with all the disappearees. He starts with the easy stuff.

And by “easy”, I mean the super-special racism Tyrest subscribed to.

If you’ve read Eugenesis, you know that Nightbeat was also part of the first wave of cold-constructed bodies there. However, the general populace wasn’t nearly as chill about it as they were in IDW. Also, Wheeljack was his dad. No word on if that particular tidbit made it into IDW lore.

It’s at this point that we learn about M.T.O.s- made to order soldiers. They were cold-constructed ‘bots created en masse during the war in order to keep up with the demands for troops. Pretty fucked up, if you think about it, being born to die like that.

Now where have we heard that name before…

Chromedome, can your love life not be part of the plot for five minutes, my guy?

Nautica makes the honestly horrific claim that a lot of folks owe their existence to Megatron being a warmongering fuck, and even Megatron himself seems rather uncomfortable with the idea. Some thoughts we keep to ourselves, Nautica, even if they might be technically true. And even if Ammo wants to tack on his two cents on the matter.

What did they DO to you, Ammo? You’re supposed to be hot! Where are my three-paragraphs of description as Hound stares slack jawed the entire time? I miss Polyhex Wars.

Anyway, it’s Megatron’s turn to get poked with the questioning stick, and he’s not having it. He claims that by revealing his mode of creation, he’s risking a repeat of Functionist ideology. This would be valid, if people weren’t literally disappearing without any sort of explanation as to why. As it is, he’s being a stubborn asshole, but I guess he didn’t get his reputation by being a decent person who knew when to back down, now did he?

It’s at this point that Ratchet remembers he knows all the info Nightbeat’s looking for, and the conversation on Megatron’s birth is shelved for another day. I’m sure it won’t be a major plot point later, not in the slightest.

As it turns out, Nightbeat’s theory doesn’t hold water, and folks are still popping out of existence. We get another splash page, this time with everyone’s mode of creation listed under their names, and we move on to other theories about what the fuck is going on. While Nightbeat has a minor crisis over what the answer could possibly be, the MTOs in the group reminisce on the Ten-Step Program, a series of tests they were put through to make sure they worked well enough to get handed a gun and shoved out the door. Riptide wasn’t a fan.

Riptide has more wood panelling than a 70’s-style ranch house, and I think that’s very brave of him.

It’s at this point that Ratchet remembers it’s been quite a bit since he last shat on religion, and takes the time to do so while informing the reader about Information Creep. This is a concept we’ve seen mentioned previously, during Chromedome’s runaround in Overlord’s brain, but it’s here where we get the juicy implications.

Because memories can become corrupted in the brain due to extreme age, what ought to be objective fact has to be reinterpreted due to missing pieces. This is why nobody knows what the Knights of Cybertron got up to, or if they’re even actually real at all.

The lights go out again, and when they cut back on, Cyclonus is missing, leaving only his sword behind. Tailgate is extremely distraught by this, but Nightbeat gives not a fuck about Tailgate’s impending breakdown. He only cares about the truth!

And then a giant eyeball shows up.

It’s Ultra Magnus, coming to us live from his shuttle, via holomatter avatar! He shrinks down to a far more reasonable size, in a panel reminiscent of the first time IDW readers saw Megatron.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a neat parallel, I’m just… not terribly sure why it’s happening. One could say it reflects a reversal in power dynamics, but that theory gets tossed out the window when you remember that this isn’t actually Verity. I suppose it’s just a cool little thing.

Because the comms aren’t working, Ultra Magnus has been forced to use this avatar to communicate with the folks in the Rod Pod. Megatron asks just what the hell is going on, but unfortunately Magnus isn’t sure either. Then his shuttle disappears, and it’s bye-bye grunge girl Magnus.

It’s at this point that Nightbeat decides it’s time to stop pussyfooting around and get serious. He tells Ratchet to throw HIPPA directly in the garbage and write down everything he knows about the Autobots who crewed the Lost Light. And he does mean everything, as we get the splash page again, this time with lots of neat info on our friends, including spark type.

Spark types will become plot-relevant in the storyline after this, but for now let’s focus on some weird gender essentialism that got slapped into the first print of this issue.

As we know very well by this point, Transformers as a franchise has a tumultuous relationship with the idea of women existing. You would think that the awkward introduction of other genders we got in “Dark Cybertron” would have been the end of things being weird in IDW. However, you would be wrong.

In an effort to explain why genders exist, Roberts had the idea to make it spark-based. Nautica, in the solo print of this issue, has an estriol-positive spark. Estriol is a type of estrogen, which is the hormone that develops and maintains feminine secondary sex characteristics, when present in certain levels, in conjunction with other hormones. Biology

This “spark = gender” idea is, generally speaking, not a great idea to be presenting us with, especially when the writer is a cishet male, because it implies biological essentialism- the idea that a personality trait/quality of a person is innate and predetermined by their biology, as opposed to social, cultural, or individual experiences. Because this story doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s irresponsible to reduce the experience of being a woman to a single, physical, unchangable asset, especially when all other assets of the same class have zero effect on one’s gender identity. You don’t exactly see many nonbinary robots running around, now do you? And there are definitely more than two spark types, despite the Transformers as a species being... very binary.

It also makes female Transformers into an “other”, which is a problem that has existed from the very start of the franchise, in some form or fashion, and really doesn’t need to be perpetrated anymore than it already is.

The estriol spark type was removed in the trade edition, and Roberts has expressed regrets over its inclusion, having realized that it was potentially offensive.

Getting back to the story, Swerve, Tailgate, and Ratchet have disappeared, though Ratchet seems to have left his hands behind. His stolen, Pharma-original hands.

That’s still fucked up to me. I don’t think it’ll ever not be fucked up.

Riptide reveals the reason that he wasn’t in Season One of MTMTE was because when he went back to grab a receipt for the ship two years prior, he’d discovered that the original owners were worshipers of Mortilus, Cybertronian god of death, and knew about the nasty little problem that was the sparkeater from the first storyline. When Riptide went to confront them about it, they beat him up so bad he was unconscious for two solid days.

Which is a long-ass time to be unconscious. That might have been a coma, Riptide. Jesus, I hope someone got him to a hospital after this beatdown happened, or at least scraped him off the floor.

With this last piece of the puzzle, we finally have the common denominator in this big ol’ mystery. Everyone who disappeared was on the Lost Light when it took off from Cybertron in issue #1, and everyone left behind- Skids, Getaway, Nightbeat, Nautica, Megatron, and Ravage- didn’t join until afterwords.

Of course, having the answer doesn’t do us much good when everyone is still missing, and Megatron seems to agree with me, because he’s about to throw hands, when Nautica lets them know that they’ve arrived at the rendezvous. Problem is, so has something else.

...

I’m sure it’s fiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

#transformers #jro #MTMTE #issue 31 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #incoming analysis #overthinking about robots #comic script writing

132 notes · View notes

hargrove-mayfields · 3 years

Text

Dream Boy Lover

June 12, 1985

The dead heat of Hawkins summer is almost in full swing, but in the damp cement back room at Hawkins Community Pool, it’s freezing.

Waiting out the time before her next turn in the chair is Heather Holloway, laying down on the wooden bench, one leg hanging lazily over the side. She’s got a pair of sweats on over her bathing suit and a throw blanket that was supposed to be on the back of her mother’s expensive couch wrapped around her shoulders.

With her on the same bench is Billy Hargrove, laying on his back like her, their heads touching so that curly pieces of their sprayed hair get tangled together. He’s got his ankles crossed one over the other, wearing his lifeguard hoodie and a pair of boots, but the tips of his nose and fingers are still ice cold. Even out of the sun, lounging around on break, he’s got a pair of aviators propped up on his nose.

They don’t have to be back out in their chairs for another hour or two, something about the manager's nieces coming in and taking over everyone’s shifts, so they’re just killing time.

Heather’s got a gossip magazine that’s a bit too immature for her, the kind aimed at middle schoolers rather than a couple of fresh out of high school adults, and she’s reading out loud anything she finds interesting. Billy’s got a bag of skittles he got from the vending machine on his chest, and occasionally, when he doesn’t have a cigarette hanging from the corner of his lips, he drops a few into his own or Heather's mouths. She’d suggested the skittles, he likes M&Ms better.

After a few minutes of silent page turning, Billy feels himself start drifting off to sleep, it’s too cold and he didn’t sleep last night and he’s bored, but Heather startles him awake with an exclamation of, “Oh! Listen to this.”

She clears her throat and reads in a smug, over enthusiastic voice. “How to tell if your crush likes you back.”

Billy groans, he knows the teasing that’s about to come will be insufferable. Ever since Heather got herself a relationship, she’d been trying to get him to follow suit, and she’d weaseled it out of him with hardly any effort that he’d already been gunning it for someone.

Pretty much every day he had to get at least one reminder that he was a coward and a wimp for not making a move, her obsession with his romantic life just that intense, but he’s usually a good sport about it. Like now, as he listens to her read out of a magazine too lame for even his little sister, not interrupting her once as she reads off the list.

Well, at least until she strays from what is actually printed on its glossy pages. “Number one. Does he or she talk to you everyday?” She waited for barely a second before reprimanding him. “Come on William, I’m expecting answers here.”

Sighing through his nose, he plays along. “Whatever. Sure.”

“Okay. Number two. Does he or she tell you all of his or her deepest secrets?”

“Deepest? Dunno about that.” That answer isn’t good enough for Heather, who waits impatiently for him to give her a better one. “Alright, fine. Yes.”

The smile on her face is almost audible through the excitement in her voice. “Number three. Did he or she give you his or her phone number like, the third time you ever talked to each other?”

“That’s not in the magazine, Hetty.”

“Um, it totally is.” She says it like she means it, but there’s a little hint of humor in her tone almost giving her away.

Because she’s so relentless, Billy admits, “It was the fifth time.”

“Number four.” The pause between her words as she thinks of something to taunt Billy with is enough that he knows something ridiculous is about to come out of her mouth. “Does he take you out to the quarry, a place we all know is the cooler older brother of Lover’s Lake, in the middle of the night ‘just to hang out’?”

“That’s it, I’m cutting you off.” He announces, reaching behind his head and snatching the magazine from her hands, flipping it around so he can read it. “My turn.”

“Oh no.” She says with a giggle.

There’s the sound of laminated pages flipping until, Billy says, “Ooh, this one sounds good.” in a tone matching the one Heather used when she started reading.

“How to know if your relationship is going to last.” He gasps for dramatic effect, and Heather can’t stifle a giggle while she waits for the rest of the question, “Do you call each other a thousand times a day and whisper sweet nothings over the phone?”

Even though he can’t see her face, she rolls her eyes. “Duh.”

“Did you pine helplessly after each other for literally three years just to kiss on the first date?”

“Yeah and it was awesome.” They both laugh at that one, her obviously overdone response enough to break the false seriousness they had going.

It’s also a challenge for Billy to do it again.

“Do you stay over at her house every night just so you can wake up together in domestic bliss? Does she pack your work bag for you every morning like you’ve been married for years, and make you your lunch in a little brown bag and kiss you on the forehead on your way out the door and-“

“Alright, alright. I get it.” Billy’s point having been proved, she takes her magazine back and sets It aside with the rest of her stuff. “You’re just jealous because you won’t shoot your shot with Steve.”

“Am not.” He scoffs, trying not to let the little bit of offense he felt at that show. “Have the situation perfectly under control.”

“Sure. Is that why you spend all of your time sighing wistfully and daydreaming about your one true love?” Her hands are clasped together at her cheek and she lets her voice get higher and dreamier.

“My options are limited.” It’s a lame excuse just to deflect the truth and they both know it.

So she calls him on it, and uncontainable smile accompanying the song-Singh remark. “You didn’t deny it!”

“What?”

“That you’re in love with him!”

“Thought that was obvious. Why the hell else do you think I’m still single?” He motions vaguely to himself. “Just look at me, Hetty. Could have anyone I wanted.”

“Except Steve.” The reminder is mostly meant to be like, a way for her to show him that he should just make his move already because he can have anyone he wants, but, having missed the point entirely, Billy sighs and agrees. “‘Cept Steve.”

“I don’t know though, Rob’s been putting out some feelers, and like, her gaydar is super good.” Her and Robin are probably more involved in this than their idiot best friends by this point, it seemed to be all they ever talked about anymore. “She’ll be able to tell you if he’s on the market.”

“I don’t need a lesbians dating advice, thank you.” Billy chuffs. “Pretty sure I can figure it out on my own.”

“Oh.” In a show of feigned nonchalance, she holds her hands above her face so she can examine her painted nails as she says, “So I guess you already knew that his freshman year, Steve dated Tommy Hagan for an entire month.”

The rest of their skittles were sent scattering all over the stained up concrete floor as Billy sat up quickly, his boots swinging to the floor and blood rushing to his head fast enough to knock him silly. “What?”

“See. You had no idea.” Sitting herself up much more gracefully, Heather turns so she’s facing Billy with her legs crossed. “For months you’ve been moping over your straight dream boy, and he’s been bi the whole time.”

“No way.” Stupidly baffled is the only way to describe the look on Billy’s face.

“Yes way.” She nods smugly. “He said so himself.”

This was something she thought was completely obvious at this point, so she can’t help but say, “Seriously, William, when were you going to open your eyes? Someone who doesn’t like you isn’t going to let you crash at their place and tenderly bandage your wounds.”

“S’not tender.” It’s such a confident comeback, Heather could almost believe it.

Almost, but she’d heard all the stories about how Billy’s dad would rough him up, kick him out with a nasty split in his lip or bruises all over, and he’d drive all helpless to his savior Steve Harrington’s house to get patched up. Not tender her hind end.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, because I also seem to remember him driving an hour into the city to pick you up when your car broke down, sooo…..” Billy wouldn’t win this one, she had just about a million other courting attempts from poor Steve on stand by.

“It wasn’t like that, H.” His gaze fixes to the floor, to a green skittle melting over in the corner, as he mumbles, “We’re not even friends.”

“What about when he saved you a seat on the basketball bus?” The nerve of him to come running back to her with all of his romantic troubles and woes, and still deflect like this. She almost couldn’t bear it. “Or literally like, a week ago when he hand delivered a bunch of super thoughtful birthday gifts to you?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say!” His hands are thrown up in exasperation, though Heather would argue he doesn’t have the right be upset when he’s the one doing all this to himself. “He’s just too nice for his own good.”

“Please lord give me the strength to deal with this boy.” She turns her eyes to the wooden ceiling, joining her hands together in a false prayer. Sighing through her nose, she turns her attention back to Billy, who’s trying to hide his smugness with how frustrated he’s making her. “William. I know you think you screwed that friendship over forever, but I promise you, if Steve didn’t forgive you, he wouldn’t let you in his house, let alone do all this other stuff for you.”

“Dunno Het, kind of hard to forgive someone who doesn’t apologize.” She could ring his neck for how casually he says it.

“What! You mean you didn’t say you were sorry yet?” Rolling up the discarded magazine, she smacks him on the back of the head with it. “William that was like, seven months ago!”

The strain in his voice tells her they’re on the same level of annoyance. “What am I supposed to do! Tell him I’m sorry I almost killed him with my bare hands, and he’ll just forget about me being an evil bastard so we can live happily ever after like you and Robin?”

She hits him again. “One, you are over exaggerating by a long shot buster, and two, you need to quit projecting your crap onto that boy before someone else comes along and swoops him up.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that you’re an idiot William Hargrove.” Another whack with the magazine as she tries to explain the situation, something that makes perfect sense to someone who isn’t emotionally constipated, to Billy who is, well, extremely emotionally constipated. “Steve is trying to move on. He flirts with you like, every day and he was willing to be civil without an apology. That doesn’t mean you ‘aren’t even friends’”

“It means that you,” Her cherry red fingernail presses into the material of his hoodie, “you are the one that needs to forgive yourself.”

“You think so?” There’s a sort of disbelief in his voice, but it’s not like he’s doubting himself so much as he’s mocking Heather for thinking it’s so easy.

And that, well, she’s used to it. They’ve been friends since early December, so she didn’t let him being a big jerk put her off after so long dealing with him acting like this. “Yes I do, as a matter of fact.”

“Think you’re giving me too much credit then, sweetheart.”

“You are so difficult.” She felt like a tired mother scolding a child. “Now you listen up and you listen tight. I don’t want this self-deprecating garbage keeping you from what you deserve, you hear me? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’m telling you, you have got to take it.”

“Steve does not care one little bit what you think of yourself. He likes the real you. Not who you think you should be, not who you think he deserves. He wants you.” Maybe she’s being dramatic, who knows, but Billy keeping his mouth shut means she’s probably on the right track. “And I guarantee you, you will never forgive yourself if you let that boy go.”

Sure, she’s up on her high horse there, talking down to Billy like he’s completely incompetent, but she’s been in the same boat. From experience she knew Billy’s heart would never recover if he lost Steve to someone else. It was in part for her sake so she wouldn’t have to hear about it, but mostly for her best friend, who already had so much other stuff on his plate to deal with that she wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.

“Don’t be so dramatic Het.” Is what he comes up with, but he’s biting the corner of his nail, something he only does when he’s thinking hard about something. It doesn’t take very long for him to break. “Promise you’re not just hyping me up?”

“You know me better than that. I don’t have a dishonest bone in my body.” With her hand on her heart she promises, “I wouldn’t say any of that stuff if I didn’t mean it.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He waves her off, but he looks sort of queasy, won’t hold eye contact with her for more than a second. “I’ll think about it.”

“You better.” Leaning over across the bench Heather wraps him in the best hug she can in the awkward position. “You know you’re my best friend in the whole wide world, right?” He lets out a breathy laugh against her hair, “I know, I know.”

It’s for Billy’s sake that she lets him drop it. Were it up to her entirely, she’d want him to make his decision now, she’s tired of watching him be too scared to make decisions for himself, but really, they’ve been at it for half a year, what’s a few more days to get the ball rolling?

So she listens with her full attention, keeping her arm around his waist to never fully break off the hug, as he shifts the conversation to more casual topics, like his failed attempts at trying to teach his little sister how to drive, how his new tattoo is taking way too long to heal, and how he’s triple booked for swim lessons tomorrow morning.

When after so long Adams' voice cuts over the speakers calling for the next ten minute pool check, their break is officially over.

The manager pops his head in to tell them they need one of them to switch out, and Billy, after sitting in one place for so long, stands up and stretches his limbs before he offers himself up, “You stay here in the cool, princess. I’ll keep watch over your loyal subjects.”

It’s obvious he just wants some time to himself, so, where she normally would’ve come back with something silly about how the pool goers respected his abs more than his authority, she instead gives him something to think about during his solitude.

She waits until he’s kicking his boots off and shoving them under the bench to say, “You know, maybe it’s fate that the both of you, absolute hunks that you are, have stayed single this whole summer. You’re probably like, destined to be together.”

“Keep dreaming Holloway.” He says, snatching up his whistle and his smokes from the pile with the rest of his stuff.

All smugly nonchalant she replies, “I’m leaving that up to you, lover boy.”

Billy just laughs as the metal door swings shut behind him, but he admittedly goes on to do exactly that, dreaming of his pretty boy up in the lifeguard chair.

Realizing it might be a hazard to public safety to ignore his responsibilities to drool over Steve Harrington while he’s on duty, he blows his whistle at a kid holding another one under the water, and tries to let the noisy pool distract him.

Heather’s right, this is getting to be ridiculous.

Read also on ao3!

27 notes · View notes

bisluthq · 3 years

Note

*WARNING Domestic violence topic* Could you explain to me why seven could sound queer?, Like I can see how many Taylor songs can be interpreted in a queer way, but with seven I can't see it, like for me it's clearly about domestic violence and the only possible queer thing I can hear it's the closet part...but in this particular case I do not think it refers to sexuality but to literally hiding form your abusive parents. Sorry if this was asked before or if it's disrespectful to ask.

So firstly let me just say that victims of abuse who hear that in the song are so valid. And I’m not here to “take away” a song that speaks to that experience. If it brings you comfort and relief, that’s amazing.

Do I think Taylor meant it as a song about domestic violence or escaping from that? Honestly, no. Because she described herself in LPSS as longing for that time in her life and talked about how she misses being able to throw tantrums and feel more freely and without judgement; in her head she’s thinking about this period in her life very fondly. Now, this is one of those death of the author moments because if you’re an abuse survivor who found comfort in this you... shouldn’t care wtf Taylor meant by it, what matters is what it means to you. Same as how if betty speaks to your sapphic teenage love triangle, it shouldn’t matter that Taylor imagined James as a boy.

But yeah, so for Taylor it was not meant to be about abuse. It was about feeling stuff more freely. And let’s take a look and examine at why it feels so fucking gay to... like... basically every queer woman.

Please picture me

In the trees

I hit my peak at seven

Okay so Taylor is setting up a narrator - presumably herself. Especially in the context of her hyperconfessional marketing and the LPSS explanation we’re literally meant to picture Tay. But tbh that doesn’t matter so much - it could be any little girl. This little girl is “in the trees”... which isn’t really where little girls are supposed to be. In these very first lines Tay is setting up a little tomboy character.... and then she says “I hit my peak at seven” - ergo this rugrat period of abandon, where I was free to play in the trees, is “my peak”. It was the best time in “my” life.

Lots of people feel that, it’s not inherently gay, but for queer women - I don’t know about other shades of queer but suspect yes - childhood often represents even greater freedom than to hets because it’s before we felt deviant. There was nothing to compare ourselves to. Sure, we might’ve played families in het couples like heteronormativity is felt by children too, but that kind of thing was largely asexual and we didn’t know yet that other people felt differently about it all.

Like I only realized I was different in late middle school and I didn’t have the word for it for ages tbh. Like I just knew I didn’t get the fuss about boys. When I was a little kid? I didn’t know what the fuss was really. It was a kind of “peak” so yeah, I feel that in my bones.

Feet

In the swing

Over the creek

I was too scared to jump in, but I, I was high

In the sky

Here we have her playing, once again with reckless abandon - she’s standing on a swing (naughty!) and swinging high over a creek. But she’s slightly nervous. I relate to that too, it’s not a gay thought it’s a little kid thought I think - because while she’s enjoying her freedom and the chance to play, there’s an awareness of the risk. That’s a lot of childhood and what makes her such a greater songwriter is how she’s able to capture these feelings we’ve all had before, in this case the rumbunctious nature of free play paired with the cautious nervousness of knowing you can fall.

With Pennsylvania under me

I mean this simple makes it more autobiographical for her, like if we didn’t know her was her that was the me , now we really do.

Are there still beautiful things?

This is speaks to her nostalgia for this time period and serves to highlight how much she misses it. She wishes she was young and innocent and had that freedom of playing in the trees and above the creek and feeling like she’s flying just because she’s standing upright on the swing. This is meant to be her “peak”.

Sweet tea in the summer

Cross your heart, won't tell no other

The first line is setting up mood again, it’s innocence and suburbia and freedom and the hot days of summer vacation. The second is a common English phrase - for the ESL folks - that means “let’s keep a secret”. It’s extremely common for little girls especially to have secrets with each other. “You’re my best friend and I’ll tell you something I haven’t told anyone else before but cross your heart you won’t tell anyone else” is the kind of thing that has probably happened at a sleepover for every woman (gay or straight). So Tay’s whispering and telling secrets to her best friend aged seven in the heat of the summer and the neat rhymes kinda remind me of those clapping games you play as a kid.

And though I can't recall your face

I still got love for you

Again, I think this isn’t specific to gay kids necessarily - it’s that idea of having lifelong affection for your first best friend even when you don’t know where they are, can’t imagine them in adulthood, maybe can’t even remember their surname and frankly don’t really want to or care... but you still have warm feelings towards them.

Your braids like a pattern

Love you to the moon and to Saturn

So the friend is a girl. And here’s where the non wlw readers will have to work with me a little bit because as I’ve explained before a very common, enteral part of the queer female experience is obsession with other girls’ femininities. We notice things like hair and clothes and makeup on girls far more than straight girls seem to and waaay more than het guys do. A friend of mine who is v butch noticed like minor shit that any of us change in our appearance. Describing in detail a girl’s appearance feels - on a gut level - pretty gay. Now this isn’t a detailed description, but she links this physical trait - this pretty, braided hair her friend has - to loving her.

Now, she is a child in this story. This isn’t a sexual kind of thing in the child’s mind. She’s obviously not “in love” with her friend aged seven. But she is saying her deep, overwhelming love for her friend is inextricably linked - via rhyme scheme - to her feminine appearance.

This incredibly close, quasi homoerotic friendship is a near universal wlw experience and I’m sorry but it differs from straight girls’ close friendships because it’s... a lot. It is “love you to the moon and to Saturn” and obsessing over her clothes and hair and little habits.

And there’s no vocab for this, nothing to prepare you for it and nobody bats an eye because little girls are supposed to be friends with one another but like... you’re way overinvested and often that other girl isn’t and starts to drift away because she isn’t having this language free connection and it’s legit heartbreaking.

Passed down like folk songs

The love lasts so long

This childhood friendship becomes an anecdote, a moment of folkloric storytelling, but it never completely fades away and tapping into this first - not quite sexual but very sapphic - experience is super easy.

And I've been meaning to tell you

I think your house is haunted

Your dad is always mad and that must be why

And I think you should come live with

Me and we can be pirates

This sets up the narrative some people - I understand where y’all are coming from and I am here for it - hear of domestic abuse. The thing is, it’s not Tay’s character who is getting abused. Tay is a small child - and she’s envious of and nostalgic for that era of her life, when she thought that her best best best friend’s asshole dad was simply reacting to ghosts. It speaks to an innocence her character has which may not be shared by her friend, the girl with the braids.

But Tay is innocent and she says “come with me” and run away so we can be pirates together. Now, on a very basic and superficial pop culture level it’s worth noting Keira Knightley in POTC is pretty fundamental to any queer millennial woman’s sexual awakening. However, that’s not what Tay’s referencing here. She’s saying, at least on some level, let’s run away and be gender nonconforming. Again, she’s a small child. She doesn’t know why she wants that. But she doesn’t tell her friend “let’s run away and be princesses” - she wants to be a pirate. It links to the first scene in the song of her being a tomboy in the trees and on the swing, honestly. There were also a number of cross dressing female pirates, many of whom were gay back in the day so it’s a subtle nod to how a lot of childhood fantasies actually are rooted in possible historical fact.

But also come on, every queer girl wanted to be a pirate idk why really we just did. Like I say I can explain it as a desire not to conform to gender norms but it’s also just... another weirdly common fantasy that she’s tapping into.

Like idk this song is so fucking gay and it’s not trying to be but every line is just... felt in my bones. Like little me is seen by this song.

Then you won't have to cry

Or hide in the closet

This is obvi the line people go on about and look. The friend’s dad is clearly an asshole like that’s established. But the line has a double meaning. She’s saying if you run away with me to be a pirate on the high seas you won’t have to cry anymore and you won’t hide in the closet. It’s an innocent thought but it’s also a double meaning, right? You won’t be abused, you won’t be sad. And you’ll be with me out of the closet. It could’ve been “hide under the bed” or “behind the curtains”. But she picked closet. And that word gives this verse a second meaning, which is particularly palpable given as I say this is a very gay song from a thematic standpoint.

And just like a folk song

Our love will be passed on

Again, this is a deeeeep love. This is someone she wants to run away with. And she probably doesn’t know why, she probably doesn’t have the words. She’s a little kid. But this friend of hers is the person she wants to rescue and run away with and be together with even though she - Tay - is pretty content otherwise. In fact, she longs for this time in her life. It was full of beautiful things. And yet despite being happy, she was willing to drop it all for her little female friend she was clearly preoccupied with.

Please picture me

In the weeds

Before I learned civility

I used to scream

Ferociously

Any time I wanted

I, I

Again, this reiterates she is nostalgic for this time period. It was a good time in Taylor’s life. It was a time when she could be herself, before she had learned civility and what was expected from her by society. Which ties back to that thing I said right in the beginning, about how this first quasi sapphic friendship is cherished by queer women because we didn’t know it was weird. We hadn’t “learned civility” yet. We could scream, we could run around and climb trees, and we could ask our friends to run away with us not knowing those thoughts didn’t occur to them with the same intensity.

Sweet tea in the summer

Cross my heart, won't tell no other

And though I can't recall your face

I still got love for you

We’ve discussed this already. It’s still queer coded to me.

Pack your dolls and a sweater

We'll move to India forever

Passed down like folk songs

Our love lasts so long

So she’s once again cementing the fact that this is a little female friend with the dolls, and again suggests running away together and says even though none of that happened and she grew up and realized this... was actually a fairly specific experience not a universal universal one and she learned civility and heteronormativity but this foundational, pure, innocent gay love... will always remain in its complete innocuous harmlessness but immense power.

And so, yeah. This song is probably Taylor’s gayest shortly followed by Treacherous.

But if it means something else to you, I’m by no means taking it away. Anyone can enjoy her music in any way they like.

It’s just weird that most queer women feel their childhood selves are completely seen by this song if it was a complete accident 🤷🏻‍♀️

#tw domestic violence #tw domestic abuse #sapphic themes in tay’s music

17 notes · View notes

incarnateirony · 4 years

Note

You didn't ship Destiel until S13!? That really took me by surprise! In that case, thank you for defending the ship even if you didn't ship it, that's really nice and your meta made it easier to deal with the antis. And welcome to the Destiel side of the force! :)

Yeah, several people -- @dotthings off the top of my head, I really don’t remember who else -- literally witnessed the screaming fall into the dumpster.

Again, I really don’t know if I still consider what I do ~shipping.~ I have no specific demands for how their relationship continues from here, I just acknowledge it within the work. The difference that hit in S13 was welcoming that content instead of guarding myself against it because we got slammed with several consecutive bookends that completed an entire romantic arc and punctuated it with a far more impacting mirror of an endgame that didn’t even have said romantic arc to begin with, in Swan Song, so like??? what am I supposed to do? Just ignore it? Act like I can’t understand what just happened in front of me?

To put some perspective, I’ve been running SPN games for... a while. My most recent one was on a discord server that’s niche, but my prior one was on a giant multifandom server. I covered for Cas to keep his power levels in check to the story balance without like, making the humans irrelevant. My Dean at the time was hardcore shipping trash. His name was Chris, he was a bisexual dude in Chile, psychologist, good dude. But like??? it deadass annoyed me? How up Cas’ ass his writing was? The shippers that came in actually kinda annoyed me with trying to matchmaker them in game??? Like. I saw it, but I guess it’s the old “That’s not what the show is about” (which unlike how fandom whips it around, doesn’t mean it can’t exist at all, it’s the obsessive tunnel visioned focus that pissed me off because it kept railroading scenes)

But despite that, during and before it, I was yeah, defending it. Just because I wasn’t an active ~shipper~ didn’t mean I was cool with people stomping on people for very reasonably seeing the stuff my last post mentioned. I just kinda kept myself from investing because I know this old media song and dance too well and didn’t expect it to break, say, S10 levels. And then 11 happened. And then 12. And then--

Because no matter what this fandom says, Castiel’s alien mystified staring at Dean, while great chemistry in old seasons, does not actually compare to things like frequent lunch dates, need and love yous, mixtapes, Eileen being Sam’s Cas in 15.09 and so on. In the actual, not-head-up-ass-about-old-rewritten-content-meta’ed-15-times-over often fused to really bad hot takes on what people call queer coding. But I could respect that, say, the ramifications of swapping Cas and Anna roles to keep Misha around while Julie was bouncing out and getting uncomfortable naturally landed Cas in the hero’s journey goddess role, ala princess Leia if you will, the distressing warrior nondamsel rebelling against the empire and whatnot. But that doesn’t start or end at star wars, that’s thousands of years of human writing.

So while yes, the show heavily stripped the actual content that would have traditionally structured it romantic, people like seeing that x their chemistry early on-- not crazy.

And I defended it for years /to my wife/ despite my server vexations. On this giant dozens-of-thousands-of-users multifandom server not connected to any core fandom spaces and hosting innumerable fandoms and walks of life, I was the oddball out -- me. As a nonshipper annoyed by the crowd, often having 20-30 people logged into my channel at a time playing everything from early Cain to Benny to TFW to Wayward to *throws dart at board* whatever, of the hundreds of names that drifted through the game in sum (including player rotations, OCs and audience that just came to watch/read like a fic), you know how many antis we had?

Three.

One was my wife. so removing her, two.

Do you know how many shippers there were?

Yeah neither do I, just, “pretty much all of them.” a few hung in “see it, don’t care, moderately annoyed” like I did. But this idea that the GA is a bunch of het-guzzling bozos that can’t do the same basic math all of you fucking did before you got here, just because some other dead-ass irrelevant ship composed entirely on leftfield interpretations to validate niche fandom ships -- that shit’s so far fucking divorced from goddamn reality.

As for my wife, yes. She was an anti. In fact long before I wandered into fandom social media (I think I actually jumped in around S12 bc I saw Dabb taking over and Bobo getting promoted and was interested in Yockey-- Yockey was the first person I tweeted at), I was on these servers, running these games, having these ARGUMENTS with my wife to be quite honest, because like, look, I get it, Destiel fandom can be weird and needy and over the top but they’re not crazy for what they see out of it. By Carver era it was classic subtext.

But she had followed Winbros for years not realizing it’s literally run by the real world becky and her BFFs that have tasteful POVs like “Misha Collins is cancer” “Dabb is a disease” and whatever else on their personals that proxy through their posts and motivations. She attended it on Facebook, which is THE goddamn conservative magafarm asshole platform and yeah, read a lot of shitty arguments. Yes, she picked up sayings like “it ruins the show”. Yes, she hated it. No, that didn’t mean I felt anyone deserved more than mild frustration for their behaviors at the time just because they were stuck in fanfic-shipping-fiction-over-romanticised-land and not canon-divergent-show-genre-complex-interpersonal-relationships fiction.

She, too, cracked about the same time I did. I was more receptive sure, I saw it more sure, but after a mix of addressing some personal problems, making an OC that completely changed how her perception filtered Dean and Castiel working together, whatever-- and yes, 12.19->13.5. The night of 13.5, the final shot, as the screen went dark, she stared over her phone and, with tonal distaste, said “Oh. So they’re going there.”

Yes, it’s that fucking obvious. No, she didn’t admit that’s what did her in. Not until the end of the season, when she admitted she had been bullshitting arguments since early season 13 because, literally, and I quote, “otherwise Min wins.” -- which, if that comes by way of my own wife, I can only stare into the fandom camera at other people that have turned this show into a decade long money sink and have been divorced from the actual canon path for like minimum 3 years, maybe 6, yelling about it being wrong all the time, etc. Because on the internet, people convince themselves they have ownership and power, that their opinion of what the piece should be overrides even the creators, et cetera. Yeah. There’s a lot of disingenuous horse shit.

TLDR my wife fell into the dumpster and, as the flag of the end of our weird spats, and a birthday present, I made her this, since she IDs as Dean (OLD vid, has hiccup issues newer ones don’t)

youtube

So, yup, dat me.

To this day I still don’t read fanfics or browse fanart or any of that. I’ve never cared about that face of the fandom. I’ve never cared about making up rando ships, I’ve never cared about exactly how any given relationship plays itself out, I just enjoy the ride and address it as it does indeed play out. Most shipping culture still pisses me the fuck off with its dialogue, as I’ve made very clear. But because I’m acknowledging the text instead of denying what keeps happening more centrally and critically every year on screen, I’d be called a shipper. Because I’m tired of watching people spew logic even most children could pick apart in an endless roundabout of negativity, because I have no tolerance for absolute horse shit and fandom whining so I just lay out counters to bad talking points, I’d be called a shipper.

But 13.5ish is when I finally let myself start emotionally receiving the content rather than barring it off in a distant wall of exhausted old gay that knows their media too well. Why? Because it already completed and went above and beyond every element of the original way they painted the original goddamn endgame and I guess because I won’t set unfair bars against queer relationships and set them at Extra Hard Difficulty, I’m a shipper. IDK. This fandom fucking exhausts me. Fandom culture in general exhausts me.

24 notes · View notes

just-here-for-the-moment · 3 years

Note

You just had to bring the symbol of Victory into this didn't you?!???? Is this some sort of euphemism I should look forward to or!??!?!?????

Yes!! Let me “paint you a picture” (groan)... Also, I sat down to draft my response and it's somehow *gestures at this whole mess* 2300+ words!?? And confession time! I’ve never even SEEN "The Mentalist"! Everything I know about Marcus Pike has come from cute GIFs and the Internet and fanfics… so… I don’t even know what’s going on with me today. But thank you! :D

(This is leaking over from this post if anyone needs to play catch-up)

Paris

Word count: 2300+

Rating: mature, 18+ only

Outline: Marcus Pike x “You” in Paris, reader is an Art History Professor (cis/het female reader; “blank canvas”/no physical description/no name/no use of “Y/N”)

Warnings: slow burn; cute Marcus Pike; coffee and pastries; kissing and stuff; public-ish sex in the Louvre after hours; spontaneous P/V sex (probably unprotected, idek) we're all adults here, wrap it before YOU tap it!

It’s like, you and sweet Marcus have definitely hit it off and you’re really into each other after that field trip meet-cute and your date, but you haven’t slept together yet. He gets called away for a case, so you wish him good luck and hope that you can see each other again soon.

A few days later it’s spring break and you have a trip to Paris planned to complete some research for your next publication. You email Marcus while you're waiting to board. You let him know that you’re going to be out of town for a few days, but that you hope his case is going well, and maybe when he's back you two can pick up where you left off?

You land in Paris and check your messages, and you see that Marcus has replied to your email. He says he can't share the details of his case, but that he hopes he'll be wrapped up by the end of the week, and that he definitely wants to see you again. He asks about your research trip, so you shoot a quick email back to fill him in on the details.

You get to your hotel and sink into a hot bath with your phone. You open your emails, and your brain tells you that you're just checking to confirm the details of your appointment with your research contact in the morning... but the little uptick in your heart rate tells you that you're actually looking for another reply from Marcus. And it's there. He says that he loves Paris and that your research sounds exciting. He asks where you’re staying? You give him the name of your hotel, and tell him that you haven't stayed there before, but it's cute.

Before the water even gets cold you have another reply, sending the butterflies behind your navel into a tizzy. He says that he's stayed there once or twice and that the café in the lobby has excellent pastries. You smile and let yourself imagine a vacation with Marcus, here in Paris, sharing pain au chocolat over a little table in the café. You refill the tub with hot water and sit daydreaming for so long that your fingers prune up.

You get out of the bath and wrap yourself in a plush robe, and sit on the edge of the bed. You email Marcus back, wishing him a good night and telling him that it's late where you are, but that you promise to try one of the pastries in the morning with your breakfast coffee. By the time you're in your nightgown and ready to sleep he's responded, wishing you sweet dreams and hoping that your research goes well. You smile and reply, "Thanks," and then drift down into pleasant dreams.

The next morning you take yourself to the little lobby café and treat yourself to a café crème and an almond croissant. Marcus was right, and you nearly moan aloud as you wrap your mouth around the flaky pastry. You open your email and send him a picture of your croissant with one bite missing, and you joke that you blame him for ruining you for any other boulangeries you might visit during your trip. By the time you're done with breakfast he's responded with a wink emoji and a quick "Sorry I ruined you," and you desperately want to email him back and boldly ask him to ruin you in other ways. You stop yourself, and your brain can't think of anything appropriate, so you just don't respond and you leave to go to your research appointment.

The day is long, and the dusty archives and a few misfiled papers cause small irritations. But you find a few of the things that you needed, so you call it productive enough. You break at 3 p.m. and decide to start again fresh in the morning. Maybe an early dinner and another scalding hot bubble bath will set you right. You decide that the weather is nice, and that your hotel is close enough that you can stroll back and people watch, disconnect your brain from your work and transition into relaxation mode along the way.

You arrive back at your hotel and go to your room to change. There is a card slipped under your door, the front desk letting you know that you have a delivery of some kind to pick up. You try to remember if any of your colleagues or your boss mentioned that they would send you anything? Is it paperwork? Some kind of file for your research? You decide to shower and change into a nice dress to lift your mood, and then head back out for dinner.

You take the card to the lobby desk and hand it to the desk clerk and he disappears into the back office. When he returns you're surprised to see that he's holding a floral arrangement, not huge or ostentatious, but lovely and cheerful and somehow your favorite color exactly. The clerk sets the vase on the desk. You reach for the card and open it.

"Good luck on your research. -Marcus"

You break into a wide grin and you practically float back to your room. You set the flowers on the room table and open your email to thank him. You send him a photo and an effusive "Thank you!" and a winky kiss emoji. Is that too much? No - if one little emoji scares him off then he's not the guy you thought he was.

He responds within minutes, a quick "You're welcome. Glad they arrived in one piece." and his own winky kiss emoji. Your heart flutters and you reply immediately, "They're really lovely. Thank you for thinking of me."

A moment later his next email pops up: "Can I take you to dinner and pick up where we left off?"

You reply: "Absolutely! I'll let you know as soon as I'm back in town!"

He responds: "No, I meant tonight."

You hesitate, does he want to call you and chat on the phone while you eat dinner? Some kind of video call, like a virtual date? Before you can type your reply, a new message pops up: "I'm actually in Paris. My case is here and I arrived a few days before you did. I didn't want to scare you off or come to your hotel unannounced, but I'm free tonight and I'd love to see you."

You throw your head back and laugh. This is definitely way more fun than eating alone and people-watching. You message back an enthusiastic, "Yes! I'm ready when you are!" and he emails you and says he'll see you in 30 minutes in the lobby. When you get downstairs he's waiting by the front desk, all soft scruff and loosened tie and warm brown eyes, just as you remembered. You smile and hug him, and in that moment you feel like a fairy-tale princess meeting her prince, being swept off your feet in the most romantic city in the world.

You have dinner at a cozy bistro around the corner, Marcus making you bubble with laughter as you talk. He listens to you moan about the missing pieces of your research, your pressing need to track down a letter from one artist to another that was mentioned in an old diary but which hasn't yet surfaced. You're sure it's around the archives somewhere, just waiting for you to piece it together with the rest of your project. Marcus tells you that his case is almost wrapping up, and if you want he can arrange to catch the same flight home as you. You smile and tell him that would be nice.

You finish dinner and he asks if you want to go to the Louvre, and you check the time and say that they're almost closing. Marcus smiles at you and says, "Don't worry about it," and he looks a little mischievous. You tell him you're up for an adventure, and he takes your hand and ushers you into a taxi.

When you arrive he asks the desk staff for someone he knows, and you make a quick run to the restroom. When you return, Marcus has two laminated badges, special access for professionals and visiting staff that allows you to stay for a few hours past closing. You can't believe your luck, being allowed to spend extra time in one of the most special places in the world, not to mention that your escort is the most handsome and charismatic man you've ever met.

You start in the Denon wing and wander through the museum, talking and laughing quietly, enjoying the opportunity to see things that you would normally have to fight hordes of tourists to see. And maybe "enjoy" isn't the right word, because if someone asked you how you were feeling right now, you would say you were "on cloud nine" or "elated" or "floating." It feels like a dream, and you're not sure if you're going to remember all of it later, but you desperately want to, and you're trying so hard to file every sight away into your brain.

When you reach the Mona Lisa, an odd hush falls over you, and you realize it's the first time you've ever seen it without a crowd twenty deep in front of it. Marcus seems to know what you're feeling, because he takes your hand, almost shyly. And he keeps holding it, warming your fingers as the two of you walk on. You stop in front of Delacroix, "Liberty Leading the People," and you tell Marcus that it's the first painting you ever fell in love with, a million years ago in high school during your very first art history class. You look at the painting and he looks at you, and when you finally turn toward him he captures your mouth in a warm, urgent, soft kiss. You can feel your eyes sparkling at him when he pulls away, and you don't say a word, you just smile and hold his hand as you walk through doorways and up and down stairs.

You come around a corner and there it is, probably the most famous statue in the world: the Venus de Milo. She takes your breath away, and then Marcus does, too, stealing a kiss when you least expect it. And you're torn completely in half, unsure if you would rather keep kissing him or just stare at the curves and planes of her body. So you try to do both; you kiss him and keep one eye on the Venus and you start to feel dizzy, like you've overloaded on sugar, but it's just the impossible circumstances that you've found yourself in.

And you break apart from him, and take his hand again, leading him into a corner that's a little more private. You back yourself against a wall and pull him to you by his tie, and you kiss him the way he deserves, with your full attention and precision. Minutes pass slowly, and you only come up for air because you're afraid you're going to faint. Your thigh is blazing hot where Marcus's hand has raked up under your skirt, and the only reason you don't fuck him right there is because of a security camera keeping watch on the alcove.

You tell him that you both should finish your tour and go back to your hotel, and he agrees. You try to keep your mind on the art, and you tell Marcus about how awestruck you were as a student when you learned about the way that sculptors could depict every curve and dimple of a woman's body through the wet drapery technique; the sensuality of the human form made only slightly more modest when viewed through a veil of fabric; the sheer awesome impossibility of marble carved to look like gauze.

You both get lost in the conversation, and you wander up a staircase and around a corner, and there it is: your absolute favorite piece of art, the piece that you have studied and memorized and dreamed about. And you've seen it before: you've been to the Louvre a handful of times, but this time there are no noisy footsteps echoing off the marble, no tourists trying to capture the glory of it with their tiny and unworthy cameras and phones when there are perfectly good books and postcards available in the gift shop... the Nike to end all Nikes, the Winged Victory of Samothrace. You are, quite simply, blown away.

And if it had been a normal weekend walking tour of the sacred Louvre, if you had been there with anyone else... you wouldn't have ended up wedged against the wall of the archway to her left, skirt hiked up as Marcus pounded into you, one of your bare legs hooked over his hip and your arms wrapped around his neck. If it had been any other day or any other time, you would have stopped him before he unzipped his fly and pulled his erection out; you would have had some remaining shred of propriety, of decency. But it wasn't a normal day and he wasn't a normal man, and you really weren't yourself.

You had gotten carried away by the late hour and the thrill of being allowed to wander the empty museum, and if you were being honest, you really wouldn't have wanted to stop it. You wanted to give in to the romance of the city and the priceless treasures on display and the heady conversations with Marcus. You wanted to be exactly where you were, with exactly who he was, doing exactly what you were doing and feeling exactly how you felt as he thrust into you and grunted your name like a chant while you traced the lines of the Nike with your lust-blown eyes.

You didn't make it to the Richlieu wing until a year later, on a sunny Saturday morning with your new husband Marcus.

--- Just-here-for-the-moment’s masterlist

Roll call: please message me if you don't want to be on my "all fics" tag list!

@221bshrlocked @danniburgh @starlightmornings @honestly-shite @spacedilf @anaaaispunk @silverwolf319 @greeneyedblondie44 @maxwell–lord @nicolethered @the-queen-of-fools @driedgreentomatoes @juletheghoul @dihra-vesa @anxiousandboujee

#marcus pike x you #marcus pike x female reader #pedro pascal characters #marcus pike x female art history professor #idek dude #i just started writing and it all just went blaaaaah #i ain't even sorry

120 notes · View notes