#and you absolutely should talk about your own experiences
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change your ticket home
a top gun maverick AU
pairing: Bradley Bradshaw x Sherrie McHone (fem!OC)
summary: After a successful business trip on the West Coast, two Wells Corporation engineers have problems getting back home. Thank god for Bradley Bradshaw, a man who is determined to make their hours waiting in the terminal as enjoyable as possible. And if he and his pretty travel companion (and colleague) get closer along the way? Well that’s just a bonus.
warnings: difficulties of being a woman in a male-dominated field, minor misogyny from coworkers, yearning, pining, Bradley being an absolute sweetheart, it's vaguely alluded to but Sherrie is named after the Steve Perry song, American Airlines bashing bc this fic is based on a real and horrible experience I had a few years ago. and yes, the title is from the one direction song.
word count: 9.8k | masterlist
note: happy saturday! this has been in the works for almost a year and I'm so thrilled to finally be sharing it! this is dedicated to @gretagerwigsmuse, who gave so many wonderful ideas and has continually been a cheerleader for this fic. happy birthday!
Friday, July 15, 2016 | 06:36 AM PST | San Diego, CA
“If I fake a heart attack, we can get out of this meeting, right?”
She looks over at Bradley sprawled in the uncomfortable café chair in his navy suit, his arm slung over the back of her chair. He’s down to just his crisp, white button-up, jacket, and tie abandoned within the first ten minutes of the call.
“Suck it up, we’re almost done.” She rolls her eyes. “And Martin knows you’re a supremely healthy thirty-two-year-old, so no, I don’t think that will work.”
“Sherrie…” His whine is cut off by her hand covering his mouth as she unmutes her microphone and mentally praises his decision to sit so close to her. Not having to pull out both laptops was just an additional perk on top of her ability to silence him.
“That’s correct, Sean. We got them to agree to a small batch trail run for the connectors. We’ll be working together on running them through environmental testing before committing to a full contract.”
“And why are they agreeing to that? Because frankly, it makes no sense to me why they would want to do that.”
Bradley straightens up, his eyes narrowing at the Teams box showing the older man’s initials. “Well, Sean, as Sherrie explained before. Harris hasn’t produced connectors like this before, and they’re interested in the test results, specifically the shock data. So they agreed to take on half the burden so they can use the information for their own use. If this works how we think it will, this will be a huge boost for their business, even if the patent is shared.”
She looks at him, half admonishment and half appreciation, always a little bit amazed when he had her back, no matter how many times he had done it. “The contracts team is drawing up the final agreements and negotiating with their team next week, so best case scenario is we have reports with usable data by the end of the summer. Worst case, it’ll drift into the middle of Q1.”
“That’s great work you guys did out there, thank you. Alright, I think that covers everything we had to talk about today. McHone, Bradshaw - have a safe flight back, and everyone have a good weekend!” Martin ends the call before anyone can add anything.
Bradley laughs. “God, he’s just as sick of Sean as I am. I can’t wait until he retires.”
“He’s not that bad; you’re just grumpy because you had to dress up for the staff meeting, and then Martin said cameras off today.”
“I am upset about that! I will be logging yet another suggestion that we should have casual Fridays and casual travel policy. But I’m more upset because he talks down to you all the time! Like you haven’t been carrying this department on your back since we started ten years ago!”
“Carrying is an exaggeration, Bradley.” She looks up from where she’s putting her laptop away. “I think you have time to change into something comfy before we board.”
“American Airlines Flight 2307 from San Diego to Charlotte, Boarding Group A can now board.”
“Or not.” She giggles as he groans, reaching over to pull her other air pod out of his ear. “Come on, it’s a long flight; you can sleep on the plane. Just be thankful you’re not wearing an underwire bra and heels.”
“I don’t know how you do that.” He mutters, shooing her away when she tries to pick up her carry-on, throwing it over his shoulder alongside his own.
“I don’t either. I’m going to get a massage when we get back to Boston.”
“Ohhh, a massage sounds nice.” He subtly sticks his elbow out for her grab, which she gratefully does, letting his tall frame guide her to their gate. “You know you didn’t have to wear heels, right?”
“You should shut up while I’m still thankful you yelled at Sean for me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sherrie leans her head on his arm as they wait in the priority boarding line, one of the perks of traveling on the company’s dime. Normally, she would worry about being more professional while carrying her work bag that had the Wells Corporation logo embroidered on it, but she can’t bring herself to care. Yesterday’s meetings ran late, and the following client dinner had kept them out until almost midnight. After packing, going to bed late, and having to get up at 3:30AM to get to the airport, she was exhausted.
She takes her bag before they scan their tickets, not fighting when he grabs it again on their walk down the jet bridge.
“Where are you sitting again?”
“I’m in 16C.” She snorts at Bradley’s pout. “What? You knew we weren’t going to be sitting together.”
“But I’m going to be bored all the way back in 21D by myself.”
“Bud, you’re going to fall asleep in the first 30 minutes like you always do, and then I would be stuck for the next four hours with you leaning and drooling on me.”
Bradley whips his head around, “That is a baseless accusation. I do not drool!”
“You 100% definitely do drool, I’ve seen it.” Her smirk widens when his attempt to fight back is cut off by the flight attendants greeting them.
He ushers Sherrie on first, politely nodding to the flight crew before following her down the aisle, ducking down to whisper. “I do not drool.”
“You absolutely do drool. You also snore.”
She can feel eyes on them as they shuffle down the aisle, making eye contact with an older woman who raises her eyebrows in appreciation at the hunk of a man behind her.
This happens everywhere they go.
Bradley is such a gentleman, always opening doors and carrying her bags, that people never believe the two are just friends and coworkers. She’s had complete strangers fight with her when she says there’s nothing between them. Unable to accept that it’s just platonic.
As much as she wishes it could be more.
After years of learning all the little details of each other, she knows they would be good together. Their decade-long friendship allowing her to thoroughly analyze how well their personalities would mesh. They share the same beliefs and have the same interests; they even have overlapping friend groups. They’re made for each other.
On paper.
In reality, it will never happen.
She won’t let it.
“Is this good here?” Bradley’s question interrupts her weekly internal spiral; his big brown eyes blink at her over his shoulder as he puts her bag into the overhead compartment.
“That’s fine. Can you grab my water bottle out of the side pocket?
“Here ya go, ma’am. I’ll meet you by the water foundation when we land, okay?”
She nods, smiling as he hustles back to his seat to avoid a family almost flattening him in their haste to get to their assigned seats.
Her seat neighbors haven’t arrived yet, so Sherrie sits down without bothering to buckle, tucking her work bag under the row in front of her after pulling out her plane kit. Her pencil case from college that she’s repurposed to hold her headphones, phone charger, gum, hand sanitizer, and a few other small necessities.
Her phone buzzes as she’s storing her water bottle and the little bag away in the pocket of the seat in front of her.
Bradley is woken up by his seat neighbor hitting his arm as he reaches to grab a drink, nodding at the guy’s apologetic face before trying to get comfortable again. Alan talked way too much at dinner last night, and it was a struggle to stay awake during the project manager’s third round of gushing over how brilliant and profitable Sherrie’s proposal would be for both companies.
“Sir? This is for you, do you want it?” The muffled question is accompanied by someone shaking his shoulder. He peels open his eyes to see the flight attendant holding out two packets of Biscoff cookies.
His face must be confused enough for the short woman to take pity on him. “Your friend up there said these are your favorite and asked me to give hers to you.”
His heart warms up, taking the treats and saying thank you. He enjoys the cookies, washing them down with the ginger ale he also got, thinking about how well Sherrie knows him. He forces himself to wait for them to finish snack service before he gets up to use the restroom.
“Thank you.” Bradley revels in the way Sherrie jumps when he pops her headphone out, purposefully brushing his lips against her ear. “Hmmm, you were right, your seatmate is cute.”
She glares up at him, a smile threatening to break through. “Isn’t he? He fell asleep five minutes after take off, just like you.”
“Yet, another baseless accusation!”
“I heard you snoring.”
“You shouldn’t lie in front of small children.”
“His mom said he’s seven months old; I don’t think we have to be concerned about teaching him to lie while he’s still in a car seat.”
“Probably shouldn’t chance it, though. Say I don’t snore.”
“You just said I shouldn’t lie. Should probably go to the bathroom before you start holding up traffic.” She puts her headphone back in, wiggling her fingers at him before going back to reading on her phone.
It gives him the strangest sense of déjà vu.
Tuesday, March 25, 2005 | 10:43 AM EST | Charlottesville, VA
“…and he said you had already-” Bradley cuts himself off, realizing she can’t hear him. He chuckles; he should have known better than to just walk up and start talking.
He doesn’t know Sherrie McHone very well. They had taken all the freshman intro to engineering requirements together, and this year their classes had split into their chosen disciplines. His mechanical, hers electrical. But he knows her well enough to know that she can pretty much only be found without her headphones during class.
He remembers the first time they spoke last semester after he accidentally walked right into her. He had told Danny it’s because she’s so much shorter than him, but it’s really because he wasn't paying attention.
Sherrie had only taken one earpiece out to make sure he was okay before continuing onto her class, seamlessly weaving between upperclassmen as she shoved her headphone back in.
“Sherrie?” No response.
He lets out a tiny huff and checks his watch. Normally, he wouldn’t care that she’s clueless to his existence even as he’s right beside her, but he’s got a class soon, and he’s still two buildings away. So he does the only thing he can.
He pops her headphones out and steps back for fear of getting smacked.
Her head whips up, narrowing in on him freakishly fast. “What the fuck, Bradshaw?”
He’s surprised to learn that she knows his name.
“Sorry, Sherrie! I’ve been trying to talk to you for like five minutes, and you somehow haven’t noticed, but I’ve got class in 15 minutes, so I needed to get your attention.”
“Oh…” Her green eyes widen in surprise, the apples of her cheeks turning a light pink. “Sorry about that. What did you need? Wait. How did you find me?”
A fair question.
“Khondker told me where you sit.” He partially fibs.
All semester he had been watching her disappear after EE221, the one class they shared. It had taken him a while, but he was pretty sure he had found her secret study nook in the electrical engineering wing of the building. Their TA had only confirmed Bradley’s theory of where he could find his fellow sophomore.
“I don’t understand this last section we’ve been learning, and Khondker said you had already finished the homework and could help me. So could you?”
“He didn’t help you?” Sherrie raises an eyebrow in disbelief.
“He tried.” Bradley scratches the back of his head, remembering how frustrated the patient man had been after his third attempt at explaining. “I just really don’t understand circuit loops. And he thought having a classmate explain it to me would make it stick. That or he was just so sick of me, he’s pawning me off.”
He watches her think, her pencil rapidly tapping against her notebook, making him nervous.
“I don’t want to be rude, but if you don’t understand current loops, I’m not sure how much help I can be. I understand the material, but I’m not a miracle worker.”
Her bluntness makes him smile. “I’m not expecting miracles, just help with the homework. If you have time.”
“Okay, just as long as you don’t get your hopes up too much.” She grabs a bright pink notebook and opens it up. “So, I’m usually free-”
“I don't want to interrupt, but I do have to get to class, so could we figure out a time later today?”
“Sure, I’ll be here until my class at four. Feel free to sit down if I’m not here; it just means I’m grabbing food.” He nods, backing away. “Wait! Bradley! Go down this hall and out the side door. You’ll be like halfway there already.”
“Awesome, thanks!” He starts to jog down the hallway, looking back to see her putting her headphones back in. Waving back when she smiles and wiggles her fingers at him before going back to her homework.
Friday, July 15, 2016 | 3:16 PM EST | Charlotte, NC
“Our flight got delayed, and I’m hungry.”
Sherrie jumps, not expecting Bradley to get that close to her face three seconds after she exited the bathroom.
“Okay, I could eat. Where do you wan-”
“Auntie Anne’s.”
He’s walking away before she can even process what he said. She allows herself one second to appreciate the way he looks, walking through the concourse - navy slacks fitting his legs perfectly and all their bags thrown over his broad shoulders - before she’s clicking along after him.
“Bradshaw!” He freezes and turns, almost taking a lanky teenager out with her backpack. “Oh my god, Bradley! Be careful! You almost took that kid’s head off.”
His smile is sheepish as she shuffles them over to the wall. “I did not do that on purpose.”
She giggles and takes her backpack from his shoulder. “Yeah, I kinda figured. But you should have seen his face. His life flashed before his eyes. All sixteen years.”
“I can carry that Sherrie.”
“That’s okay, I got it. No! Bradley!”
He ignores her, smiling at her frustrated little stomp when he hands over her tan, cross-body purse out of her work bag. “You just carry that and make sure I don’t take out any toddlers or old ladies.”
“How am I supposed to do that if I’m ahead of you?” She snarks as he steers them toward the food stands.
“You’re smart; I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Bradley laughs when she mocks him under her breath. “I can hear you, smartass.”
“You were meant to, Bradley.”
His heart flutters at the teasing wink she sends over her shoulder. It’s been twelve years since they became friends, and he still feels like that 20-year-old kid who was nervous to talk to the pretty red-headed girl he had a crush on.
He can feel eyes on them as her heels catch people’s attention, and he finds himself glaring at men who are shamelessly staring. Her shoes aren’t loud as they click along on the tile floor, but it’s hard to ignore the beautiful woman striding along in business casual.
It happens everywhere they go.
Sherrie has always been beautiful and painfully unaware of her effect on men. It never matters where they are - at work, the rare baseball game he forces her to attend, happy hour with their friends from school - she always catches attention. It doesn’t bother him because she never reciprocates, and he’s always the one to give her a ride back to her apartment.
Even if he wishes it was their apartment they were going to.
He’s watched her change over the last decade, seen her grow as a person. He’s risen through the ranks with her professionally, the two of them matching each other step for step with each promotion and raise. He’s publicly assured her that her hair still looks good as it’s deepened color with age, now less red and more auburn. He’s privately appreciated the way her body has changed, softer and curvier than when they were kids. Her wide hips are a frequent star in his daydreams.
It's the only place where they’ll ever be in a relationship.
He knows they’d be perfect together. Old friends who know each other so well they don’t even have to talk to communicate sometimes. Whose attitudes fit together like puzzle pieces, perfectly in sync with each other. He knows it won’t happen. Can’t happen.
“Grab us a table, and I’ll get the food.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t fight her about paying, knowing this will be covered under their per diem. “Don’t forget my-”
“You’re frozen lemonade, I know!”
Bradley rolls his eyes at the hand that waves over her shoulder, settling their bags at a table and keeping an eye on Sherrie while sending an update to Mav.
His thumbs hover over the keyboard. He wants to tell his uncle the whole situation - that he’s not afraid to flirt with Sherrie.
“Everything okay?”
Bradley looks up to find her eyebrows furrowed as she sets a tray down.
“All good. Just sending my family an update that we’re delayed.”
She nods, sitting in the chair across from him. “Here’s your mini pretzel dogs, with mustard and a frozen lemonade. This is my pretzel nuggets, cheese sauce, and Diet Coke. Oh! And I got us these cinnamon sugar pretzels to share!”
“Thank you for remembering the mustard.”
“Bradley, when have I ever forgotten the mustard? Here, take some napkins.”
He shoves an entire mini pretzel dog in his mouth in lieu of answering her question, which they both know the answer to. Never. She has never forgotten his love for pretzels with mustard.
They eat in comfortable silence, the way only two friends can, occasionally dunking into each other's sauces as they scroll through their phones.
“Hey, how is your da- oh Bradley! You got mustard on your shirt!” His head snaps down to his shirt, groaning when he sees the yellow blob on his white button-up.
“Fuck! This is new, too!”
Sherrie dives into her bag, muttering about a stain stick, a triumphant noise escaping when she comes up successful. Scooting closer to him, she’s hit with a wave of nostalgia as she helps him clean his shirt.
Friday, April 6, 2007 | 10:12 PM EST | Charlottesville, VA
“You should’ve been gone, knowing how I made you feel!”
Sherrie’s head pops up from the lab reports she’s grading.
“And I should've been gone, after all your words of steel!”
She knows that voice.
“Oh, I must've been a dreamer! And I must've been someone else!”
She knows that voice very well.
“And we should've been over!”
She rushes for the front door, hoping and praying that the idiot she’s become close friends with this year isn’t actually outside her townhouse.
“Oh! Sherrie, our love holds on! Holds on!”
She whips the door open and, sure enough, drunkenly singing to her neighbor's house is Bradley Bradshaw.
“Bradley!” She hisses at him, ignoring the flutters in her stomach when he points his big, goofy grin towards her and not the tulips the soccer girls next door planted in front of their bay window. “What are you doing? It’s 10 PM!”
“You didn’t come.”
“First man to ever care about that.” She mutters, snorting at her joke.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing. What are you doing here?”
His puppy dog eyes are vicious, and she has the urge to slap her hand over her eyes so she doesn’t succumb to their power. “You didn’t come to the party!”
Sherrie sighs, she thought he might be disappointed she didn’t come to the annual Sigma Chi Easter Bash, but she never thought he would actually notice her absence. Or that it would result in a drunken serenade.
“Bradley, I told you I had a lot of grading and might not make it tonight.” She gently reminds him, stifling a laugh when he trips over his own feet while standing still. “You okay?”
“I have to pee. Can I come in?”
She’s pretty sure he’s just making excuses but lets him in any way; she doesn’t need to deal with him getting a public indecency charge on top of everything else. “Shoes off, Bradshaw. Bathroom is right here; I’ll be in the dining room.”
“Yes, ma’am!” He sloppily salutes her, losing his balance and thunking against the wall, one shoe still on.
Sherrie just blinks at him before returning to her spot at the dining room table, holding in the laugh threatening to escape. She settles in her chair, focusing on the mediocre reports her students had turned in.
“I washed my hands!” Bradley’s abrupt entrance startles her. “Can we have a snack? I’m hungry?
She watches in amusement as he shuffles to her fridge, riffling through the shelves before opening the freezer and gasping.
“I love pretzels. Can we make these? Please?”
The box of pretzels belongs to her roommate, but she’s not strong enough to deny Bradley’s big brown eyes two times in a row so she makes a mental note to buy Amna a new box the next time she goes to the store. “Yeah, we can. But no touching the oven when you’re drunk. Go sit down.”
“I’m not drunk!” He argues even as he follows her directions, plopping himself at the table and nosily leafing through her done pile. “Wow, lots of red here.”
“Bradley! Don’t look at those!”
“Why not?”
“Would you want some random student looking through your homework?”
His rebuttal gets cut off by the oven beeping, announcing it’s up to temp. After she pops the tray in the oven, she turns and catches him appreciating the pj shorts riding up her shapely legs.
“What?” Her head cocks in confusion.
“Nothin'… cute shorts.”
“Thank you.” He watches in fascination as she snips at him even while her cheeks turn pink. “It’s almost like I was dressed for comfort and not planning on being interrupted.”
“But you’re glad I’m here, right?”
“I’ve had worse company on a Friday night.” She nudges him out of her chair. “While those are baking, go find something to watch, and I’m going to finish grading this report.”
“Such a responsible TA.”
Pride fills his chest as Sherrie snorts at his joke and goes back to work. They’ve officially been friends since last year, but he still tries his hardest to make her laugh. She's always so busy and stressed, and she does the cutest little snort-laugh when he catches her off guard.
He puts on a random movie, just grabbing a VHS case with the Disney logo on the side, before plopping on the couch. “Is there a reason you have so many kids movies?”
“Those are Jayla’s, she collects them.” Sherrie answers, never looking up from the table. “What did you choose?”
“It’s a surprise!”
“You don’t remember, huh?”
“Nope! I’ll be quiet now.”
She hums a thank you in his direction, and Bradley keeps his promise, watching her work and staying quiet until the timer goes off. His chin hooked on the back of the couch; he follows her movement through the kitchen as she pulls the pretzels out and transfers them to a plate.
“Can I have mustard, please?”
“Sure can.” Sherrie smiles at his dopey smile as she makes her way to the couch. “Here, take these, then we can eat.”
He gulps down the painkillers she drops in his hand, chugging the rest of the apple juice after they’re gone, smiling when she absentmindedly praises him for listening. He shoves a bite of pretzel in his mouth and mashes the play button, and is pleasantly surprised to find A Bug’s Life was the mystery choice.
“I love this movie,” he garbles through a pretzel. “I love how Flick wins over the princess just by getting a chance to show off his true self.”
“That was shockingly wise for the drunk man sprawled on my couch.”
Bradley thanks her, already a bit more sober but not enough to pick up on her teasing. “So, why didn’t you come? Grading really couldn’t wait?”
“It probably could have, but I’m not a partier, Bradley. You know that.” She dips a piece of pretzel in the mustard. “Besides, I really didn’t think you would notice I wasn’t there, Mr. Popular.”
“You’re the only person I invited; of course, I noticed when you didn’t show up.”
“Really? No one else? Why?”
“I know it’s almost finals, but I wanted to hang out without any books in front of us; that’s all we do lately. Study. Plus, you’ve been extra stressed about something that you don’t want to talk about, and I just wanted you to relax since you won’t talk to me about whatever is bothering you.”
“That’s sweet of you, Bradley. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you; it’s just that my family has been…” She waves a hand through the air, a deep sigh escaping. “It’s complicated. I’m trying not to think about it too much.”
“Well, I’m here if you do want to talk.”
“Thanks bud. How about you? How’re your parents?” She takes one last chunk before nudging the plate in his direction and settling back into the corner.
“Mom is good; she’s close to being considered cancer-free. I think we’re gonna throw a party when she gets there.”
“That’s awesome, Bradley! I’m glad she’s doing so well. How’s your dad?”
“Mav isn’t my dad.”
A record scratch plays in Sherrie’s head as she freezes. She knows she’s heard Bradley talk about his dad, and she’d seen photos of his parents the one time she had visited his frat house last year. He had specifically pointed the photo out, telling her it was his parents. She had even been next to him when he was on the phone when he said “dad” to the person on the other end.
“My dad died when I was three. Mav is- was his best friend. I call him dad sometimes because he’s the closest thing I’ve got.”
Sherrie feels her heart break as Bradley sniffles and sadly shoves a mustard-covered pretzel in his mouth, unshed tears clumping his eyelashes. She’s never seen her friend like this before; she’s experienced many other emotions - frustration, joy, confusion - but the pain creasing his brow is new.
Comforting crying people has never been her forte, but instinctively - almost like they moved without her permission - Sherrie’s fingers run over his hair. Gently stroking the sun-streaked waves as a few tears escape down his cheeks and she scoots closer, letting her body press into his side and hoping the proximity helps.
“I’m sorry for crying on you.” He quietly apologizes after a few minutes of tears.
“S’okay. Family can be hard sometimes.”
“Complicated.”
“That too.” She hums, not moving as he swipes at his eyes and leans against her more, his head resting on her shoulder in a slouched position that can’t be comfortable.
“I love Mav; he’s my dad in all the ways it matters. It just sucks that my actual dad won’t be here for graduation. Like, I know he’s missed so much of my life already, but something about him missing college graduation is worse than everything else. It’s just so unfair; I barely remember him, but I just- I just miss him so much, Sherrie.”
Her heart cracks in half at the whispered confession. She can’t even imagine the pain of losing a parent at such a young age. The inability to remember one of the people responsible for giving you life, all memories fuzzy and most built from second-hand recollections of those who can remember. So she says the one thing she would want to hear.
“Tell me about him.”
Sherrie knows she said the right thing when his red-rimmed eyes brighten, and he immediately launches into a beloved story detailing his father’s love of pranks. She listens dutifully — laughing at the right moments and asking questions when Bradley gets carried away, forgetting that she doesn’t know all the people in his story — and feels her heart warm more and more. She’s always liked Bradley, probably more than she should, but it’s hard not to like him. He’s considerate, smart, and funny, not to mention handsome.
Thankfully, before she gets lost in thoughts of broad shoulders and strong jawlines, a big glob of mustard drops on Bradley’s t-shirt, abruptly cutting him off. The two stare in silence at the yellow condiment sitting on the black cotton shirt, somehow surprised at its appearance, before breaking down into giggles.
“C’mon Bradshaw,” Sherrie grabs his hand, pulling him off the couch. “I have a Tide pen we can use on that mess.”
Bradley follows her up the stairs and into the bathroom, teasing Sherrie about the way her tongue pokes out when she focuses. She takes the gentle taunts, grateful he’s focusing on that and not on her pink cheeks or the way her eyes keep darting to his toned stomach. She’s not sure it was completely necessary for him to strip his shirt off, but she won’t be complaining.
“Well,” A few minutes later, she interrupts his rambling story about a slip and slide. Or she thinks that’s what it’s about; she missed the first part. “I think this is as good as I can get it.”
“That’s okay; it’s not like it’s new or anything. Thanks, Sherrie.”
She steadfastly ignores the pounding heart in her chest as miles of golden skin gets covered back up, trying to not feel too disappointed by its disappearance.
Friday, July 15, 2016 | 3:56 PM EST | Charlotte, NC
“Oh, this is ridiculous!” Bradley complains a bit too loudly, ears going hot when several pairs of eyes curiously dart toward him, but his focus doesn’t stay on that for very long when he catches the face Sherrie makes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!”
He squints suspiciously as she avoids eye contact. He usually takes her at her word and doesn’t push, but the frown pulling down the corners of her pink lips sets off bells in his head. “Sherrie, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Bradley. I’m fine.”
He grumbles at her lack of response but settles again in the spot they had claimed after finishing their snack. The gate was still packed, but they had found a prime location with outlets; the only downside was having to sit on the floor, something that is getting harder the older they get.
Bradley scans the area, trying to scout out some open chairs for them to grab, while Sherrie goes back to the movie they’ve been watching on his phone. His eyes drop away from the chairs in surprise when she scoots closer and leans on his shoulder. It’s not uncommon for them to sit close like this at home in Boston, sides pressed together, but she makes a point to be professional when they’re on travel.
“Hey,” he gently nudges her side, concern rising when she doesn’t lift her head, choosing to tilt her neck back, looking up at him with tired eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Panic grips his chest when tears start forming, clouding her green eyes. “Sherrie?! What’s wrong?”
“We were supposed to be halfway home by now, and I’m so uncomfortable. I’m sorry, Bradley, I’m just so tired.” She whimpers, hiding against his bicep.
It hits him like a glass of cold water. Of course, she’s uncomfortable. She’s been walking around in heels and her pantsuit since 4AM California time after getting maybe three hours of sleep. His suit and shoes are comfortable and easily wearable for twelve-plus hours, not to mention the jacket and tie that were ditched sometime after the mustard incident.
“Oh, Sherrie, it’s okay. Let’s go change, yeah? Then we’ll find a quieter place so you can close your eyes and maybe get some sleep.”
“But the policy…”
Bradley resists the urge to roll his eyes at her insistence on rule-following. “In the nicest way possible, Sher, fuck the policy. You’re uncomfortable, and I care about that way more than I could ever care about a stupid, archaic policy.”
He stands, unplugging their phones and gathering their bags on his shoulder before turning to his best friend, who is still on the floor. “C’mon, we’re putting comfy clothes on.”
“But Bradley-”
“No arguing.” He interrupts, helping her off the ground and directing them back towards the restrooms. “We’re not going to sit in our suits for god knows how much longer.”
“But Bradley, I don’t have anything to change into. We had such a packed schedule I didn’t bother to bring normal clothes.” He ignores the thumping of his heart when her hand grabs his forearm, warm fingers slipping under the edge of the rolled-up sleeve as she tugs to slow his pace. At that information, he slides them out of the flow of traffic and over to the wall, Bradley pressing her against one of the columns lining the concourse atrium.
“You don’t have any regular clothes? What about your pajamas?”
“I have a pair of leggings because I was going to do a training run in the gym last night, but that’s it. I can’t wear my pjs because… well, they’re not appropriate for public.”
“Your leggings are clean, though, right?” He asks, ignoring the thoughts of what non-public appropriate pajamas might look like.
“Well, yeah, dinner went so late I barely had time to sleep before we had to be up. I guess I could buy a shirt at one of the SmartShop- what are you doing?”
Bradley peers up from his knees, where he had started digging in his bag. “I’m grabbing one of my shirts for you. Would you prefer a t-shirt or a sweatshirt? Actually, you’re definitely gonna get cold, sweatshirt for you.”
He pulls the worn, gray crew neck out, shaking it out before handing it over.
“You still have this?” The disbelief in her voice makes him laugh.
“Of course, I still have that! Relay was always my favorite event of the year. And that year was my favorite one.”
As the philanthropy chair of Sigma Chi, part of his job was to sign the brothers up for volunteer events and fundraisers. With his mom’s diagnosis, he ensured their schedule included the campus’ annual Relay for Life event, pouring as many resources as he could into the fundraiser that directly helped advance cancer research.
“Wait, but why was junior year your favorite?” She asks, brushing her fingers over the cracked, screen-printed logo.
“Because that’s the reason we became friends, Sher.”
Surprised green eyes meet sincere brown eyes, a thousand words said in the silence of their stares, both remembering the lead-up to that day in April so many years ago.
Bradley’s eyes widen in panic as everyone at the gate starts moving as a herd. They had finally found seats to relax in after changing, the group of passengers waiting with them shrinking as time went on. And now, with only ten minutes until boarding, their gate has changed again.
“Sherrie, wake up!” He feels bad shaking the snoozing woman off, but they have to move with the group to make it to the new part of Terminal A in time for their flight. “C’mon, honey, they changed the gate again — we gotta go!”
“What are you- again?! Shit!” She wipes the bleariness from her eyes, slinging her bags over her shoulder and grabbing the hand he holds out.
The two coworkers, along with fifty of their fellow passengers who have stuck this out, speed walk down the first branch of the terminal. The entire group picking up the pace when turning the corner towards the second branch where the new gate lives. By the time they hit the second branch, everyone is practically running — time ticking down to boarding — no one wanting to miss this flight.
As if the blob of Flight 1121 passengers racing toward the end of the terminal didn’t garner attention from other gates, the entire terminal is staring by the time they reach gate A28, and several people start yelling in frustration.
“This is unbelievable!” An older gentleman’s unhappiness is interrupted by three simultaneous updates pinging everyone’s phones.
Bradley’s head drops back in disbelief, wrapping his arm around Sherrie when her head thunks against his chest. He doesn’t even get a chance to comfort her before the gate agents are making announcements about getting people on other flights, providing hotel rooms, and the vouchers that will be shared.
“Again, we apologize, but if you have flexible travel plans, we ask that you please go to the end of the line so those with time constraints can be taken care of first. Thank you for your cooperation, folks!”
“Well, that’s us, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Sherrie blows air out of her lips, a mischievous smile taking over her face. “Hey, at least this means extra per diem money.”
Bradley laughs as they move to the back of the squiggly line that’s forming, letting her take the bags so he can step away to call to update their supervisor and then his pet sitter. It only takes a few rings for his boss to pick up. “Bradshaw! What’s up? You okay?”
“Hey Martin, all good. Just wanted to let you know that our flight has gotten supremely delayed. We won’t be home until tomorrow morning sometime.”
“Jesus, do you guys need anything?”
“Nah, we’re good. The airline is putting us up in a hotel for the night and giving vouchers for a bunch of stuff. Just called to let you know and for a heads up on the expense report.”
“Well, that is the most important part!” Martin’s honking laugh makes Bradley chuckle as he glances to check on Sherrie’s progress in line. “How’s Sherrie? She good?”
“Yeah, she’s good. She’s holding our spot in line for getting new tickets and stuff.” And it looks like she’s made friends already, he silently adds, smiling at her interacting with the elderly couple in front of her.
“Good. Alright then, I’ll see you on Monday, but let me know if you guys need anything. And hey! If you two end up in the same hotel room — remember what I said on your first day!”
The line goes dead, and so does Bradley’s smile, his stomach churning like it does every time he remembers his first day at the Wells Corporation.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007 | 11:15 AM EST | Boston, MA
“Will you calm down?”
“I can’t, Bradley. What if no one likes me? What if I fuck up?!” She hisses, working to appear calm as they wait for their supervisor to show up, but failing.
“First of all, we’re starting together, so you have at least one person that likes you. And you’re great, everyone will like you. Second, there will be mistakes, but we just graduated — they’re not going to let us do anything alone because we don’t know anything yet.”
Sherrie nods, tucking her hands under her legs and trying to breathe. Bradley’s words are encouraging, but he doesn’t know how difficult her internship was last summer. The older engineers she shadowed treated her like a glorified coffee girl and secretary. Even when she had pointed out a mistake they all had missed, there was no change — just the addition of making her type their reports to see if she could catch something the non-engineer tech writers would miss.
This is a brand new company, but misogyny wasn’t unique to Waite Green Construction. Every woman has to work twice as hard to prove her worth and intellect, no matter her age or experience. She’s just hoping her onboarding mentor will be the only other woman in the department; it would be the perfect way to gain a professional mentor once she’s out of the probation period.
“Good morning, kids! How was orientation?” Mr. Teresi walks into the conference room.
Bradley shakes his hand first, “It was good, sir. Nice to see you again.”
“Good to hear! Learn lots of new things.”
“Yes, I think we can be considered experts on trade secrets now.” Sherrie jokes, focusing on making sure her handshake is firm but not too firm.
“Wonderful. So, I’m guessing you two have been introduced, but just in case you haven’t. Bradley, this is Sherrie McHone; she’s an electrical engineer. And Sherrie, this is Bradley Bradshaw, a mechanical engineer.”
“We actually went to school together, sir.”
“We’re friends,” Bradley adds, the two of them exchanging small smiles.
“Oh, great! Well, that makes things easier getting started. Now let’s go over my plan for the two of you, and then we’ll get lunch, my treat for your first day.”
Their supervisor talks for half an hour, going over things they’ll need to be trained in and their first assignments. By the time he’s done, several notebook pages have been filled and highlighted with things that need to be looked up.
“Alright!” The older engineer claps, rubbing his hands together. “I’m sure your brains are overloaded with information, so go drop your things at your desks, and we’ll head to lunch.”
The recent graduates gather their notes and head for the door, quietly talking about a training they’ll be attending next week when he stops them. “One more thing, guys. They never mention it during R&D orientation, but I feel it’s necessary to mention it to new people. Here at Wells, there isn’t a fraternization policy among non-management coworkers or between any employees in different divisions. But we are a fairly small department, so keep in mind who you interact with and what impacts that may have at work.”
Sherrie feels the blood drain from her already pale face as her brand new supervisor stares at her the entire time he speaks, ignoring Bradley completely. She’s going to be sick. Less than four hours into the first professional role of her career, and it’s already happening.
This is the moment it starts, she thinks, her heart pounding in her throat as she robotically nods. It’s never the men that get these warnings. It’s always the women. Always us. Always me.
“I don’t care about that. But there are some people who will, even though they shouldn’t. And I want you guys to have the best experience here you possibly can. You’re both extremely bright, and I’m excited about your futures. I don’t want you to get bogged down by the opinions of others. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” They answer in unison before filing out of the conference room.
“Sherrie, don’t worry about that. He’s just-”
“Trust me, Bradley. I know exactly what he was saying. I’m going to use the restroom, and then I’ll meet you guys at the elevator.”
“Sherrie…”
But she ignores her friend, shrugging her purse over her shoulder and keeping her face neutral as she heads for the single-stall ladies’ room. Fighting to hold the tears back until she’s inside for fear of being perceived as emotional. A quality no woman can afford to have in a professional setting.
Friday, July 15, 2016 | 8:05 PM EST | Charlotte, NC
“Hey, everything? Martin says hi.”
“We’re good! This is Mr. and Mrs. Ludden; they’re going to visit their newest granddaughter. How’re Sophie and Louis?” Bradley smiles at the excited way she introduces them, putting a steadying hand on her back when she bounces up on her toes.
“Oh, congrats! They’re good; Marie can watch’em one more day, problem.”
“Good, we’ll have to get her a thank you present for the short notice.”
“You didn’t tell us you guys had kids!”
Bradley and Sherrie freeze in place, eyes widening in surprise at the older woman’s words.
“Oh- uh- we-” Sherrie giggles awkwardly. “Sophie and Louis are our cats; we don’t have kids.”
“I’m so sorry!” Mrs. Ludden gasps, hand covering her mouth in shock while her husband groans her name.
“Louise, how many times do we have to do this before you stop making assumptions?”
“It’s okay, innocent mistake,” Bradley assures them.
“Well, they’re such a cute couple. I just thought they would have adorable children, too!”
“Actually… we’re not…”
“Oh, lord. Let me guess. You’re not dating. You’re just friends.”
“Coworkers too, but we were friends first.” Sherrie suppresses a laugh when the older gentleman rubs a hand over his eyes in exasperation.
“Don’t even start, Clayton!”
“I wasn’t going to, dear.”
Bradley can’t help the laugh that escapes at the comfortable ribbing they give each other; it reminds him of his friendship with Sherrie. The easy way they tease, never going too far.
“Would you two like to join us after we get rebooked?” Bradley asks. “We’re going to use our food vouchers tonight to grab dinner before we head to whatever hotel they put us up in.”
The four adults move through the line, chatting about small things and comparing pictures of grandkids and cats. It’s a nice way to spend the time, especially when they get to share judging looks when a woman throws a tantrum and yells at the gate agent. But soon enough, they’re walking back to the main concourse and deciding what food to get.
“No, stop. You just sit here with the bags, and I’ll grab the food.” Bradley gently pushes Sherrie back into her chair, rolling his eyes as he talks over her protests. “I know. You want mac and cheese, Diet Coke, and whatever pulled pork flavor looks best.”
“He’s sweet,” Louise says, watching the two men make their way over to the BBQ place.
“He’s annoying.” Which makes her companion laugh. “Yes, he’s very sweet. I’m lucky to be such good friends with him.”
“Can I ask why the two of you aren’t together? He even knows what food to bring you.”
“It’s just never been like that between us. We’ve always just been friends. And he’s annoyingly smart, so he always remembers what I order.” Sherrie half smiles, pushing down the pain in her chest at the harmless curiosity, watching Bradley laugh at something Clayton says as she remembers the first time he remembered one of her favorites.
Saturday, March 4, 2006 | 1:34 PM EST | Charlottesville, VA
“Thanks for meeting me on a Saturday, Bradshaw. It’s just such a busy semester.”
“No problem. You know you can call me Bradley, right?”
“Oh, sorry. Do you not like being called Bradshaw?” Sherrie blinks when a bottle of Diet Coke and a small bag of Skittles is set on the table in front of her. “What’s this?”
“Your favorite snack.”
“Right… but why?”
“Because you have that about 50% of the time when we meet up to work on this project. Now, I finished transcribing the interview with Commander Buck last night. Did you want to- Sherrie?”
She shifts her focus from the food to the boy across from her in the study nook they’ve claimed as theirs for the semester. “Why do you remember my favorite snack?”
“Because we’re friends?” Brown eyes look into hers, equally confused.
“We’re friends?”
“I hope so; otherwise, this is gonna get awkward when you hug me in a minute.”
“Why am I going to hug you?!”
Bradley laughs at her flabbergasted expression, but it doesn’t hurt her feelings like it does when other people laugh at her. Something about the tone of the laugh makes it feel like he’s laughing at her, but rather with her, and she just doesn’t know the joke yet.
“Because as team captain, I am happy to announce to the Relay Chair that Sigma Chi has officially raised $5,000 thanks to your idea.”
“Bradley, that’s incredible!” She doesn’t feel silly when she bounces around the table to hug his neck, rocking them back and forth in excitement.
“Well, if you think that’s good - let me show you what we’re anticipating to raise this month…”
Friday, July 15, 2016 | 10:12 PM EST | Charlotte, NC
“I just don’t understand how we’re having such bad luck!”
Sherrie rolls her eyes as he unlocks the door. “Bradley, breathe. You’re being very dramatic right now.”
“How is “we’re out of rooms” a legitimate reason for the hotel to give? Not that I mind sharing with you, but like how is that possible? The airline specifically works with them to book rooms for things like this! And the airline! That gate agent who wanted to book us to fly into Hartford and then drive the rest of the way to Boston! That's insane!”
“I don’t know, the Bradley flying into Bradley joke was pretty funny.” She mutters, clicking the lights on as she checks the cleanliness of the room.
“It wasn’t.” Bradley pouts, flopping onto the bed closest to the door. “Do you want to shower first?”
“No, go ahead, but I’m going to wash my face first so I can do a face mask. I’m so dry from the airport air.” He listens to the sounds of water running and the quiet humming as she carefully applies the drenched sheet to her skin. “All yours!”
“Thanks, Sher. I won’t be long.”
He showers quickly but takes extra time cleaning his teeth, his mouth feeling gross after the long travel day. When he comes out, he’s surprised at how cozy the room feels. With only one lamp on, the air conditioning set low to keep the fan running, and an old movie on the TV, it almost feels like they could be at home in his living room. They silently move around each other, Sherrie heading to the bathroom with a pile of things while Bradley organizes his things for the morning, wanting to get as much rest as possible before their early alarm.
He scrolls through emails and texts while he waits for her to shower, turning the television off since he knows there’s a small chance of either of them making it five minutes after they kill the lights. He's updating Mav on tomorrow’s travel plans when Sherrie comes out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel. Bradley sees her packing things out of the corner of his eye, not fully paying attention until he plugs his phone in.
“That’s what you wear to bed?”
“Bradley!” He laughs at how she jumps, her hands coming down to cover her shorts.
“What? They’re cute! Very pink.”
Her face goes as pink as the pajama set she’s wearing. “Stop making fun of me!”
“I’m not! You know, I love strawberries.” He can’t help the way his eyes roam up and down her body, admiring from the spaghetti straps on her smooth shoulders to the scalloped edge of her shorts. “I see why you didn’t want to change into those at the airport.”
“Oh my god…” She huffs, climbing into her own queen bed and stuffing herself under the sheets. “You set an alarm, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Want me to turn the light off?”
“Please. God, this day cannot be over soon enough.”
He chuckles and turns the lamp off, listening to her shuffle around in the sheets as she gets comfortable. It’s quiet for a few minutes, and he can hear her breathing leveling out, but he can’t keep quiet; the conversation at the airport running through his mind.
“Sher?” It takes a second, but she quietly hums in response. “We have to talk about it again.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Sherrie-”
“No, Bradley. We talked about this two weeks ago. Nothing has changed since then.”
“Yes, things have changed since then. You interviewed for that principal engineer position. Which if you get-”
“I’m not going to get it. They’re going to pick Trevor.”
“They’re going to pick you. You’re the best person for the job!”
“That’s not how it works, and you know it.”
He’s silent, the crushing weight on his chest feeling heavier when he hears her sniffle.
“Oh, Sherrie…” He slips out of his bed and into hers, wrapping the woman he loves in his arms. He lets her cry, knowing she’s frustrated and exhausted, only speaking up again when she’s calmed down. “I’m sorry, honey.”
“No, I’m sorry, Bradley. It’s not fair that we’ve been dancing around this for so many years, and I keep saying no. You deserve someone who isn’t afraid to be with you. Not a coward like me.”
“You’re not a coward; you’re one of the bravest people I know, Sherrie Anne McHone. I know how critical people are of women, in this field especially. And I love you, so I don’t mind waiting until we’re in a position that you’re confident won’t jeopardize your career. So, we’ll wait to hear about the job, and once you hear that you’ve gotten it, I’m treating you to the nicest dinner in Boston.”
“Bradley, we don’t know-”
“I know we don’t know. But think about how it would be if it does. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
“But what about-”
“Doesn’t matter, honey.”
“You don’t even know what I was gonna say.” Sherrie mumbles, cuddling further into his side, making it clear that he wasn’t allowed to leave.
“I know, but it doesn’t matter, whatever it is — we’ll figure it out.”
Saturday, July 16, 2016 | 10:32 AM EST | Somewhere over Virginia
“She’ll take a ginger ale; thank you so much.” Bradley balances his apple juice, the two packets of Biscoff cookies, and the bubbling soda he got for Sherrie. The smiling flight attendant moves past their row as he turns to his row companion.
They’re finally on their way home after waking up to more delay announcements. The additional time meant there was time to get coffee and some fruit from the hotel before their taxi back to the airport arrived, and the Luddens had even stopped to chat for a second at the gate, excited that they had gotten bumped up to first class since the flight was nearly empty.
All things considered, it had been a good morning even though Sherrie was insisting on working during the flight. Bradley is sure it’s an attempt to ignore their talk from last night, not wanting to dwell on the emotional moment when things are still so up in the air.
He looks over at the woman he’s known since he was eighteen, overwhelmed for a moment by how little things have changed since the first time he ever noticed her. Bradley fondly watches as she furiously types, hunched over her laptop with headphones, playing what he knows is eighties hair bands.
Her nose wrinkles in frustration, and suddenly it’s 2003 again, and he’s trying to get the attention of the red-haired girl whose table has the only empty chair left, something he desperately needs since this book can’t leave the library. He’s unable to get her attention and resorts to knocking on the table, heart skipping a beat when the prettiest green eyes he’s ever seen blink up at him. Bradley gestures at the empty chair, silently asking if he can sit, and is grateful when she nods because her smile is making his knees wobble. For the next hour, he tries to take notes for his paper, but he keeps getting distracted by the beautiful girl across from him. Bradley isn’t sure if he’s upset or happy when she packs up her stuff and leaves, giving him a little wave when she notices him watching her.
That had been thirteen years ago, and her intense focus still distracts him, but he’s not afraid to interrupt her this time. Fingers rub her arm that is covered in his sweatshirt again, but this time, he knows it smells like her shampoo instead of his cologne. Her smile still sends his heart skipping when she looks up at him, her pretty eyes widening in joy when she catches sight of the red snack packaging and the plastic cup holding her second favorite soda.
“Thank you!” She whispers, leaning across the empty middle seat in their row to kiss his cheek. “Oh, and we should go out to lunch when we get back! I want to try that new noodle place that opened in Southie.”
He just smiles when she immediately gets back to work; cheek puffed out from the cookie she stuffed in her mouth.
Maybe she’s not avoiding their talk from last night.
Thursday, August 11, 2017 | 2:15 PM EST | Boston, MA
“You got a minute?” Bradley knocks on the edge of her cubicle. It may be a different floor of their building, but all of the office space is the same dated stuff from decades ago.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“First of all…” He ducks down and presses a swift kiss to her plush mouth, still trying to make up for all those years he couldn’t. “And don’t say anything because I already checked before I did because I wanted to kiss my girl.”
He chuckles at the pink spots that shine on her cheeks. It’s been a year since Sherrie snagged the promotion, and they officially became an item, but she still turns a little red whenever he says something sweet.
“Second, you are all packed, right?”
“Yes, why?”
“I was gonna swing by the apartment and get our bags so we can head straight to the airport after work.”
“You took the afternoon off? Why?”
Bradley was expecting this question and smoothly fibs. “I worked the hours out with Martin for this week so I could run a few last-minute errands. Do you want me to grab snacks?”
“Okay, Mr. Secrets. When you’re at home, could you water the ivy? I forgot this morning, and I don’t want it to die while we’re gone.”
“Of course! Need me to do anything else?”
Sherrie hums, staring at the ceiling as she thinks. “One more kiss?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Bradley happily complies with her request.
“Okay, now you have to go. I have to finish prepping for this meeting where I get to yell at Sean.”
“That’s my girl. I’ll pick you up later. I love you.”
“I love you, too. Have fun with your mysterious errands.” Sherrie teases, and Bradley smirks back, knowing how much she would be freaking out if he knew what he would be doing while she professionally reamed out their least favorite colleague.
“Thanks, honey. Text me if you think of something.” Sherrie waves over her shoulder, already zoned back into her work.
Bradley doesn’t dare look at his buzzing phone until he’s safely on the elevator, pleased to see confirmation texts from their hotel and the airline. Would it be cheesy to quietly propose in the airport that was a catalyst in their relationship? Maybe, but he knew Sherrie would love it. He’s just hoping the TSA didn’t call out the ring that would be hiding in his carry-on.
#deltasupremacy I also want to give a special thanks to @sometimesanalice, who gave so much encouragement through the texts despite having no idea what I was writing - you're the best! tagged some friends and most those who interacted with the original announcement post for this fic all those months ago!
tagging: @gretagerwigsmuse @sometimesanalice @laracrofted @theharddeck @hangmanbrainrot @hangmanssunnies @thesewordsareallihavetogive @princessphilly @katieshook02 @atarmychick007 @kmc1989 @a-court-of-roscoe-and-baby @misfitpeach @luckyladycreator2 @scarlettwidow19 @mini-bee-bee @midnightstarqueen @shamelessghostwagonwobbler
divider credit
#top gun maverick fic#top gun fic#bradley bradshaw fic#rooster fic#top gun maverick au#top gun maverick imagine#top gun au#top gun imagine#bradley rooster bradshaw fic#bradley rooster bradshaw x oc#bradley bradshaw x oc#bradley bradshaw imagine#rooster imagine#elle writes
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PSA: if you ever, ever feel the urge to make assumptions about the abuse history of a real ass person in a discussion about depictions of fictional abuse--in particular, any variation of the words 'you don't know/should learn what real abuse is'--
a) don't
b) you're a piece of shit
c) never ever ever fucking do that
d) step on legos for the rest of your life.
#whosebaby talks#the salt files#anti-survivor cw#people absolutely cannot fucking resist doing this ever#and the ones who go mask-off usually have some lovely things to say about how you should--in fact--*experience '''real''' abuse*#it happens over and over like clockwork every fucking time#this is a big reason i appreciate LL fandom these days so much because not one single person has done that#including when i'm talking on my own blog about characters they personally like#shoutout to y'all this is the only media-specific fandom i've ever been in that was like this#anyway hi i'm an abuse survivor and the next time someone says this shit to me i am posting screenshots with no names edited out#that's not something i'm in the habit of doing even about shitty takes that upset me deeply; but i am putting my foot down on this one#if you can't fucking behave about this basic bit of decency on the posts i make on--again--my own damn blog#and you don't want to get ripped into then block me and/or filter tags; and mind your own fuckin business#blog policy
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I often see posts about curating your own online experience that make the point, “content creators aren’t your parents.” And, yes, that is absolutely true! And I try not to be like “as a parent,“ but as a parent…
EVEN PARENTS ARE SUPPOSED TO ENCOURAGE RESPONSIBLE READING/VIEWING BEHAVIOR. NOT filter everything ahead of time for their kid.
When my kiddo was 5, his pediatrician was asking him the usual Well Child Visit questions (“What are your favorite foods? What do you do to get your body moving? Do you know what to do if you get lost in a public place?” Etc.) and she asked, “What do you do if you see something on TV that scares or upsets you?”
I piped up like, “Oh, he doesn’t watch TV without one of us in the room,” which was true at the time and is still largely true now. She said, “Yes, but that won’t always be the case, so make sure you’re talking to him about what to do if he sees something that upsets him.”
So we started talking to him about that, and the answer is simple: “Turn it off or leave the room, and talk to someone you trust about what you saw and what you’re feeling.”
The answer is NOT “Ask your parents to make sure you never see anything upsetting again,” because that’s just not possible — and ultimately that would be doing the kid a disservice, since sooner or later he’s going to be out in the world where we can’t control what he watches or reads. That doesn’t mean we don’t try to make sure he’s watching/reading age-appropriate stuff, it just means that’s not the only safeguard he has — and that’s a good thing.
So yes, content creators aren’t your parents and aren’t responsible for making sure you never see anything you don’t like — but also, your own parents should have taught you what to do when that happens. So if they didn’t, take it from me, your internet mom:
Turn it off.
Walk away.
Talk to someone you trust about how you’re feeling.
And leave the person who created the thing that upset you alone.
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trein...
#i want to write beautiful romance of him falling in love again#with some angst as he still loves and cherishes his wife and awaits their meeting once again#but maybe he comes to realize that his wife would want him to be happy... and that is all he feels with you#the heavy guilt.. he doesn't want to leave her and her memory behind#and it leaves him unwilling to pursue you#eventually though... eventually trein would let his guard down#maybe at first he's done nothing but compare you to his lovely wife (not aloud) but he comes to see the two of you are different#but both wonderful in your own ways#maybe it'd just end in him staying as your close friend and confidant.. he feels as though it's wrong to even think about loving someone els#trein is such a complicated character to simp for given his wife#and the fact he is canonically still very much in love with her#would he ever be able to accept the fact he may be falling in love again?#would he be scared that he is betraying her? would he be scared that you could go dying on him too?#omg imagine if he fell in love with you but you've only got so much time left to live..#the trope of knowing the person you love is going to die.. yet still loving them anyways#makes me so weak!#or knowing that you will return to your world.. between that and his wife.. he decides to leave you be and admire from afar#up late at night talking with the moon (his wife) and asking her what he should do#is she okay with this? would she be angry once they reunited?#or maybe she sends him a message from above and lets him know it's okay to be happy even if it's not with her#he loved her once.. and still does.. but that doesn't mean she's all he ever has to have#trein should be happy even if that means it's not with her by his side#omg and imagine meeting his daughters at one point somehow and they just absolutely adore and fawn over you#they cherish you just as much as he does... and seeing you fit in so well makes him love you all the more..#theyre trying to set their father up because they want him to experience the joy of love once again#he doesn't have to live in and reminiscence on memories he can still make new ones#maybe you give trein that feeling of youth once again.. and when he first meets you it's like the first time he saw his wife and he has a --#-- crisis about it#might be going into the WIPS cause i have a million more thoughts on him#all the staff for that matter really. abt to blabber in rb's to this post later
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THE DIVORCE OF THE CENTURY
TRANSCRIPT OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS BETWEEN GRIAN AND GOODTIMESWITHSCAR, DAY 1:
His Hon. Judge BdoubleO100: Silence in the court!
[Court is not silent]
His Hon. Judge Bdubs: Silence in the COURT! I can have you all HANGED!
[The court falls as silent as is possible with a dozen Hermits present]
Judge Bdubs: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today—
Cleo: Ahem.
Judge Bdubs: WHAT?
Cleo: That’s for weddings, Bdubs. We’re not doing a wedding. In fact, if you think about it, this is about as far away from a wedding as you can get.
Judge Bdubs: Fine fine FINE. Dearly beloathed, we have all been dragged here today because SOME PEOPLE can’t get ALONG. Grian, step forward!
Grian: Do I— is this the podium for witnesses? Who built this and why did they make it out of nothing but trapdoors? So. Okay. I’m filing for divorce.
Scar: Wait, I thought I was filing for divorce.
Judge Bdubs: LET THE DEFENDANT SPEAK.
Ren: Bdubs, my man, that’s the petitioner. The court hasn’t accused Grian of any crimes.
Cleo: [darkly] Yet.
Grian: I haven’t done any crimes! I’m filing for divorce from Scar, obviously. As my lawyer will tell you—
Judge Bdubs: Do you have a lawyer?
Grian: Yes, your Honor. This is my defense lawyer Mumbo Jumbo Esq. [Waggles a hand behind his back and hisses] Mumbo!
Judge Bdubs: Mumbo’s your defense lawyer? Aren’t you supposed to have a divorce lawyer?
Mumbo: [steps forward and bows nervously] Well, I’ve never divorced anyone, but I have got a lot of experience in defending, er, mainly myself, come to think of it, and also my valuables. From Grian, as a matter of fact. So I think I’ll stick with ‘defense lawyer’ if that’s alright with the court, thank you.
Judge Bdubs: [leans aside to confer with Cleo] Is that alright with the court? Ask Joe.
[Court Scribe JoeHills confirms this is probably alright with the court]
Judge Bdubs: Good, good, next! Scar, do you have a lawyer?
Scar: Oh, absolutely. My lawyer is this cat I found outside.
Judge Bdubs: Not Jellie?
Scar: Jellie doesn’t believe we’re really divorcing and wouldn’t come.
Judge Bdubs: Is this cat a qualified divorce lawyer?
Scar: She’s a—let me look at those markings—she’s clearly a personal injury attorney.
Cleo: Have you been personally injured, Scar?
Scar: Why, thank you for asking, I have. My feelings have been very hurt!
Ren: Uh, Bdubs, maybe the court should establish some facts. Why they’re divorcing, what the court can do for them, that sort of thing.
Judge Bdubs: YES. Let’s start with the facts. Now, we all know why you and Scar got married in the first place. Don’t stand there and make that innocent face at me, Grian, I know all the secrets. You got married because Etho and I had the WEDDING OF THE CENTURY last month and you were JEALOUS—no, don’t talk, THE JUDGE IS TALKING—you were jealous of us. [aside] Bdubs and Etho had the wedding of the century, Joe, are you writing this down?
Court Scribe JoeHills: Yep, your Honor, I’ve written that down.
Grian: It wasn’t that good.
Judge Bdubs: YOU TAKE THAT BACK.
Grian: Etho had his bouquet wrapped in a Kleenex box.
Scar: [sentimentally] Don’t you listen to him, Bdubs, I thought the flower arch was lovely.
Judge Bdubs: Thank you, Scar! I—
Cleo: You can’t find in favor of Scar because he said something nice about your own wedding decorations.
Judge Bdubs: [with dignity] —was NOT going to do that. Ahem. So, you and Scar got married because you were jealous—
Grian: We didn’t! It wasn’t like that!
Judge Bdubs: —and now you want to get divorced. Why?
[At this point Petitioner Grian and Petitioner Scar, who have been studiously avoiding each other’s gazes, appear to lock eyes by accident. They both jerk away like they’ve touched a blaze rod. Grian immediately swivels to face the bench, and this scribe has to note that at normal times Grian’s stare is disconcertingly like two soulless voids looking back at you, so it’s even worse when he’s attempting a poker face. Scar becomes very interested in his cat defense lawyer and doesn’t look at Grian at all.]
Grian: The thing is, you see, this marriage was a scam from the start.
*
EVIDENCE #1
[Dramatization by Court Scribe from participant testimony]
One month previously, a note landed in Scar’s bedroom attached to a firework rocket with a red bow and rose. This was very romantic, or at least it would have been romantic if the rocket hadn’t lodged in the rafters and set itself and a chunk of the surrounding wall on fire, but in any case it was clearly Grian making an effort, so Scar deciphered the coordinates scribbled on the charred note and set off to find out what was going on.
They pointed to a spot in the middle of nowhere. In Scar’s long experience of Grian, this meant an equal chance that they were going to make out or he was going to get inventively murdered, but this was always a gamble worth the odds.
But when he arrived, on a green hill in a quiet spot of the server, it was neither. The top of the hill had been leveled off and covered with birch wood, on which Grian was industriously spelling out something with white wool, though Scar couldn’t make out the words from his low angle of approach. Grian stopped when he spotted Scar and launched up to meet him. His wings beat so fast they were nearly vibrating.
“Scar,” Grian said, “Scar.” His grin was one of a cat who had stolen not only the cream, but the milk, the cow, and everyone else’s cows for good measure. “Scar, I’ve had an idea.”
This was clearly a planning-a-prank type of meeting, which probably meant no making out, but Grian’s pranks were not to be missed. “I’m in,” Scar said. “Do we get fancy costumes? I want a fancy costume.”
“No, Scar, that’s not the point—wait, yes, actually.” Grian angled his wings to carve tight spirals around Scar’s coasting flight, always a sign of excitement, and nudged the angle of their joint descent to land on top of the white wool scrawls. “Yes, fancy costumes are a big part of it, but that’s not—listen, this is my big gesture. Just look down.”
Scar looked down. The wool said, WILL YOU MARR.
“I ran out of wool,” Grian said. He flapped a hand. “Just because it’s a big gesture doesn’t mean it has to be finished.”
“What was it supposed to say?” Scar said innocently.
“Scar!” Grian shifted from foot to foot when he got agitated, which was always funny. “Fine! Okay! Stand there.”
The hidden trapdoor beneath their feet gave way as Grian pressed a switch. Scar yelped for form’s sake, but nothing exploded, and the only thing at the bottom of their tumbled slide was an underground bunker.
It had a table, and two chairs, and a huge corkboard on the otherwise blank walls. Grian had always had a thing for bunkers.
“This,” Grian said, with a flourish, “is the Wedding War Room.”
Scar looked around the bunker and asked the important question. “Are you going to decorate it?”
“Am I going to—no, listen, that’s not the point either. You can decorate it, if you want. The point is, you know how Bdubs and Etho got married?”
“It was beautiful,” Scar agreed immediately. “That wedding chapel? Incredible, honestly, Bdubs is a true artist. Oh! Remember the part where Etho put a river of lava through the chapel roof and glitched it into a heart?”
“Okay, but, you know what Bdubs and Etho got?
“Eternal happiness?”
“Scar.”
“No, what?”
“Bdubs and Etho got royal diamonds,” Grian said impressively. “From the vault.”
“Are they still royal diamonds if Ren’s not king anymore?” Scar said. “I thought we blew up the vault, anyway. You blew it up. I was there.”
“Do you pay any attention to anything that’s not Scarland?” Grian said. “Mumbo didn’t know what to do with the diamonds so he and Iskall built a new vault. I think Mumbo and Iskall and Impulse are the only ones who really know how to get into it. Anyway, everyone got so warm and fuzzy about Bdubs and Etho’s wedding that they all decided to open the vault up and just gave them diamonds.”
“Free diamonds?” Scar said thoughtfully.
“Free diamonds!” Grian’s eyes glittered. “Think of that vault. Stacks on stacks on stacks of diamonds. Thousands of diamonds! We could have some of those, for nothing, just by saying some words. And that’s not even mentioning the wedding presents! We’re out here spending days and days grinding resources and stocking our shops when we could be swimming in it! That could be us, Scar.” Scar had entirely forgotten the lack of interior decorations; he always did, when Grian got on a roll as mesmerizing as this.“And so,” Grian took a deep breath and held out his hand, “Scar, will you marry me?”
Scar took his hand with an enormous wave of affection. “Grian,” he said sincerely, “I have never, in my whole life, wanted to marry anyone more.”
*
EVIDENCE #2
Mumbo took the news more earnestly than Grian had expected.
“Oh,” said Mumbo. “Oh, haha, wow—seriously? Scar said something and I thought it was just a joke, but you guys actually… Wow!” He cleared his throat. “Grian, mate, it’s been a long time coming. I’m so happy for you.”
“Don’t get sappy,” Grian said. “It’s just a wedding. I mean,” he clarified, “it’s a very important wedding, obviously, because it’s my wedding, but I don’t need you to get sappy about it. I don’t even need you to talk about it. I just need you to bring diamonds.”
“I didn’t even know you were going to ask him,” Mumbo said, ignoring the very clear instructions Grian had just given him. “Or did he ask you, or—mate, that’s just brilliant. This is brilliant. Is it because Bdubs and Etho had that wedding? That was really beautiful, I don’t mind saying, I got a little bit teary.”
“This has nothing to do with any weddings anyone else had,” Grian said with dignity. “Our wedding will be better, but that’s unrelated. I didn’t come here to talk about that. I came here to ask you something.” He took hold of Mumbo’s hand in the most meaningful grip he could muster. “Mumbo, we’ve been friends for years, right?”
“Of course,” Mumbo said nervously.
Grian gave it a second’s pause for the sake of drama. “Mumbo Jumbo, will you be my best man?”
“Ah,” Mumbo said, which was not what Grian had expected. “Ah. Er. Might be a problem there.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Well, you see, five minutes ago, Scar…”
*
EVIDENCE #3
<Grian> scar
<Grian> scar
<Grian> scar
<GoodTimeWithScar> yES?
<Grian> my base.
<Grian> now.
<GoodTimeWithScar> On my way
GoodTimeWithScar hit the ground too hard
<GoodTimeWithScar> oNE MINUTE
<Grian> come in the back door
GoodTimeWithScar hit the ground too hard
<GoodTimeWithScar> Was that a trap??
<Grian> mumbo is mine
<GoodTimeWithScar> No he isn’t, Mister!
GoodTimeWithScar was slain by Ravager
GoodTimeWithScar was slain by Ravager
GoodTimeWithScar was slain by Ravager
GoodTimeWithScar was slain by Ravager
Grian was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [HoTgUy]
<Grian> MUMBO IS MINE
GoodTimeWithScar was slain by Vindicator
GoodTimeWithScar was slain by Ravager
Grian was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [HoTgUy]
<Renthedog>: :o
GoodTimeWithScar burned to death
<Renthedog> Everything okay there, gentlemen?
<Grian> best man debate
GoodTimeWithScar was poked to death by a sweet berry bush
<Grian> all settled now
<Renthedog> wait
<EthosLab> Wait
<BdoubleO100> WAIT
<TangoTek> are you two…?
<Grian> invitations dropping tomorrow. wedding gift mandatory.
<GoodTimeWithScar> Come one, Come all!
<Grian> only diamonds will be considered real presents
<PearlescentMoon> huh
<impulseSV> omg finally! So happy for you guys!
<PearlescentMoon> be honest Grian, is this because Bdubs and Etho got married and you had to one-up them?
<Grian> NO IT IS NOT
*
EVIDENCE #4
The bachelor party negotiations were even more hard-fought than the best man.
They held the impromptu negotiations in the Wedding War Room, which was now covered with loving maps and hundreds of bits of paper that neither of them had read since putting them up there. They looked good, though, so Scar kept adding more.
There was a pile of paper strips on the table in front of them. Scar and Grian sat facing off like two negotiators at a ceasefire.
“Mumbo’s my best man,” Grian said, picking the first name off the pile without breaking eye contact and moving it to his side of the table, “so he comes to my party.” Scar gave in with a modicum of grace. The possibility of having bachelor parties at different times had been wordlessly considered and then summarily dismissed by both combatants.
Scar escalated it to a blood sport as he picked up the next bit of paper. “Pearl’s coming to my party.”
Grian yelped and grabbed Scar’s wrist. “She is not. I knew her first!”
“I know her better,” Scar countered. “Or at least,” he added, “I know her building style better.”
“You can’t just steal my friend because you like her building! That’s not how that works!”
“I think she’d enjoy it,” Scar said meditatively. “I’m going to have champagne. Glitter. Razzmatazz.”
“I will have more champagne,” Grian said mutinously. He hadn’t taken his hand off Scar’s wrist. “And more razzmatazz. You can’t have Pearl.”
“Oh, all right then,” Scar said, since Pearl was one of Grian’s oldest friends and he’d never had a chance of getting her anyway. Grian plucked the piece of paper out of his hand and put it on top of Mumbo’s paper. “I get Bdubs, though.”
That was a given. Grian didn’t seriously dispute it, though he opened his mouth to try. “I—yes, fine. You can have Bdubs.” Scar swept the piece of paper to his own side of the table.
“And that means,” Scar proceeded, with the grand momentum of a train starting to roll, “that I get Etho, as well.” He shuffled through the bits of paper and displayed Etho’s name like a magic trick.
He watched Grian calculate his chances of getting Etho if Bdubs was going to Scar’s party. “…okay, yeah, you get Etho.”
“Also that means I get Cleo,” Scar said. “She’ll come if Bdubs does. We don’t want to split up friends.” He drew Cleo’s name towards him, sliding another couple of slips underneath it at the same time. “Oh, and Joe as well, if Cleo’s coming.”
“What’s that other one?” Grian said suspiciously. He trapped Scar’s hand and pried out the third name. “What—no, you can’t have Ren.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Scar said in his most reasonable voice. “Hear me out. I have Cub, right?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well, I have Cub, and Bdubs, and Cleo, and Joe, so, by royal decree…”
“You can’t have Ren just because the five of you were in a royal murder cult with him!”
“Excuse me, mister, that wasn’t a cult. That was the royal court!”
“It was too a cult,” said Grian, a man who had once persuaded Ren into living in camper vans in the woods with him for weeks in order to break into a military base and steal a magic box.
Ren’s name was already safely on Scar’s side of the table. “And if I have Ren, then I have to have Doc—”
“Look, Scar, if you get all of Bdubs’ current and former exes—”
“—what’s a ‘current ex’—”
“—Etho and don’t interrupt me, if you get everyone Bdubs has ever had a relationship plus their plus ones you get ninety percent of our friends.”
“Is it my fault I throw good parties?” Scar protested. “Look, you can have—”
“I’m having Impulse,” Grian interrupted, pulling his name out. “I need more redstoners.”
“What for?”
Grian waved a hand. “You just need them around.” Scar nodded, unable to find a flaw in the logic. “Also I get Joel. And Martyn. And Timmy.”
“I built Jimmy a train,” Scar objected. He put his fingertips on the other end of Jimmy’s name while Grian attempted to steal it.
“All right, this is the ‘disputed’ pile,” Grian said, pushing it to the side. “Who else?”
Now they had a disputed pile, it started filling up. “If I have Cleo,” Scar said, “then technically I should have Scott—”
“You can’t keep using that trick!”
“Then how are we going to fix it, Grian?” Scar’s tone was eminently reasonable. “I think we should just let people be friends.”
“They are friends,” Grian said. “They’re friends with me.”
“They could be friends with me.”
“Tell you what,” Grian said, a warlike gleam coming into his eyes. “We’ll ask them.”
*
TRANSCRIPT OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, DAY 1 (CONTINUED):
Judge Bdubs: So that’s how the split started?
Cleo: You weren’t even married at that point.
Grian: Right! Exactly! We weren’t even married and Scar used underhand methods to steal my friends!
Scar: Excuse me. You went around the server threatening everyone who you didn’t think was coming to your party. Talk about underhand methods! I just offered them a good time.
Grian: Your bribed them! You bribed them to come to your bachelor party! [stabs a finger at Judge Bdubs] You even bribed him, so I don’t know why we put him in charge of this divorce.
Judge Bdubs: Nobody is allowed to question the integrity of the judge! I am as PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW.
Scar: That’s a good point. I gave you netherite, Bdubs, you should be ruling in my favor.
Judge Bdubs: You gave me ONE netherite ingot, I’m not giving you a ruling for that.
Scar: Grian, I think this judge is biased.
Judge Bdubs: HOW DARE YOU.
Grian: Scar is right, this judge is corrupt! I can’t believe we were forced into this farce of a trial and the judge is corrupt! Joe, I demand a new judge.
[Court Scribe JoeHills indicates that he is pretty sure this whole divorce trial was Grian’s idea in the first place, and also that judges cannot usually be replaced just like that, and the Court Scribe personally does not have a reserve list]
Judge Bdubs: I refuse to SIT HERE and be SLANDERED! You’re both guilty! [slams gavel] TAKE THEM TO THE DUNGEONS.
[Court Scribe JoeHills confirms that the petitioners have not actually been accused of anything—despite obviously having committed many crimes, Cleo would like to me to record—so cannot be found guilty, and in any case we don’t have any dungeons]
Judge Bdubs: Fine! I give up! CLEO, YOU’RE THE JUDGE NOW.
Judge Cleo: Wait, am I?
[Judge Bdubs forcibly transfers the judicial wig to Cleo, upon which the snakes in her hair make a spirited attempt to eat it.]
Scar: Can we get on with it?
Judge Cleo: Yes, you can shut up. You can all shut up! Thank you. That’s better. Are you sure you two can’t just settle it out of court so we can all go home?
Grian: No, we can’t. Me and Scar have [checks his notes] undergone an irreparable breakdown.
Scar: Sure, we might have had an eruptable breakdown, but you can’t say it was my fault. I tried to make it work. I built us a honeymoon island! It had palm trees and deckchairs and everything. I’m coming here in good faith and I deserve to be the innocent party.
Grian: I want all the diamonds Scar has.
Judge Cleo: Joe, is he allowed to ask for that?
[Court Scribe diligently references the law summary he found on the internet, suggests that at this stage the judge can grant temporary financial orders on petitioner request]
Grian: Fine, I want half of Scar’s diamonds.
Scar: I need all my diamonds for Scarland materials!
Grian: They’re not your diamonds! They’re my diamonds!
Scar: Then I get half of all your dark prismarine, thank you very much, that will be amazingly useful.
Grian: You’re not touching my dark prismarine! I’ll sell it all if you try!
Judge Cleo: Nobody is touching anyone else’s anything! Ren, stop laughing, this is a serious courtroom. Grian, you’re not allowed to sell your dark prismarine. Scar, you’re not allowed to hide any of your diamonds. Everyone is going to keep things exactly as they are until this trial is done.
Grian: Do you trust him? Look at him, look at his face, would you trust that man? Of course you wouldn’t! All the diamonds should stay in my base while we’re having the trial.
Scar: This is outrageous! This is an outrageous demand! You can’t just question a man’s honor like that!
Judge Cleo: Well, put them somewhere safe. Joe can keep them.
Grian: [grudgingly] I suppose we could put them in the Royal Vault.
Judge Cleo: You want to put your valuables in escrow?
Scar: I don’t see what birds have to do with it.
[Short pause while the concept of ‘escrow’ is explained to both petitioners]
Scar: Well, I’ll do it, but I think Grian should put all his resources in nestcrow. Seeing as it’s all his fault.
Grian: I did everything right! I was the perfect groom!
Judge Cleo: You know, Grian, somehow I have my doubts. Go back to your marriage testimony. What happened next?
*
EVIDENCE #5
“Ahem,” said Mumbo. “Ahem.”
Grian rolled his eyes, jumped up on a table, decided that wasn’t good enough, flew up and perched on the light fitting, and yelled, “Everyone! It’s happening! The best man is speaking!”
Silence fell.
“I was actually going to announce you,” Mumbo said. He cleared his throat. “All right! So! This… is a bachelor party!”
The bachelor party–all three of them–looked at each other.
“Woohoo!” said Iskall.
“Party time!” tried Pearl gamely.
“I was promised champagne,” said Scott, who had been lured through the portal with one bribe only.
“There will be champagne,” said Mumbo. “As best man, it is my job to plan the bachelor party, and to plan a party that is… appropriate, and thoughtful, and informed by my long friendship with Grian, so,” he coughed, “if everyone could check the boxes under their chairs for supplies, we do have an event. Sort of thing. Kind of a party game.”
“Er,” said Pearl, checking under her chair. “This is… quite a lot of...”
Iskall started to giggle.
“Seriously, I was promised champagne,” said Scott.
“Yes, yes, we’ll get to that,” Mumbo said. “First, we’re going to sneak into the other party and blow them all up.”
“...so many ender crystals…” whispered Pearl.
“Look how they sparkle!” said Iskall.
“What about the—”
“And! When they’re all dead,” said Mumbo, “we can take their champagne.”
Grian flew down from the light fitting and landed in front of Mumbo. His eyes were shining. He took Mumbo’s hands in his. “Mumbo,” he breathed. “I’ve changed my mind. Can I marry you instead?”
“Er,” said Mumbo. “No?”
“Did you even order any refreshments?” said Scott.
“Listen,” Mumbo said, “it’s Grian’s party, we were going to end up doing this anyway, and it’ll be fun.”
“Dibs on blowing up Scar!” said Grian.
“We understand, Grian,” said Pearl.
“I suppose that’s sort of romantic?” said Scott in an undertone. “You’d think he’d have more trauma about it, after all the–”
“This is going to be so funny,” Grian said, scooping up handfuls of ender crystals. “Best–best man–ever.”
*
EVIDENCE #6
The actual wedding was a subdued affair.
The wedding venue had just about survived, by virtue of being several hundred blocks away from either bachelor party, though the smoking craters were visible in the background. From the front, the building was a charming mansion with flowers in every window. From every other angle it might be a gray shell, but Grian was a very busy person who was getting married and he couldn’t be expected to get to everything.
On the morning of the wedding, when Grian finally pieced himself together and dragged himself back from respawn he was met by the two Best Man candidates: Mumbo, who was sitting on the step of the venue dismally trying to piece his scorched suit back together, and Cub, who was completely unruffled and appeared to be doing a crossword.
“Oh, Grian, you made it.” Mumbo abandoned his scorched hems in relief. “Some people haven’t even respawned yet. We really do need Scar, though—”
“I’m here! I’m here!” Scar, impeccably dressed in a blue morning suit, swooped in from above, trailing flowers and losing his top hat in the process. “Gosh. Nobody else made it, huh?”
“I don’t believe this,” Grian said. “None of them?”
“Weren’t you supposed to open the portal again for the Empires people?”
“I forgot,” Grian said. “But we can’t focus on that. We have to focus on the fact that at least twenty Hermits promised to come, and now they aren’t here.”
“I, um,” Mumbo said. “I take full responsibility for the original idea, but I think the seventh time you blew up Bdubs and Ren and Doc and Zedaph you did blow up all their stuff as well. And I think some people got hit so hard they won’t respawn for a week.”
“That was their fault,” Grian said. “For being in the way of my ender crystals.”
“Seven times?” Cub said.
“Oh, as if you’ve never blown up someone and all their stuff seven times and pushed their respawn into next week.”
“So, what?” Scar said. “Do we just…not have a wedding?”
Mumbo coughed. “I think you should still get married.”
“What?”
“I just think,” Mumbo gestured vaguely. “You know, your whole thing. And Jevin made you the suits and everything. It would be a shame. You could have an intimate wedding without any guests, you know. I’m just saying.”
Grian attempted to trade a skeptical look with Scar. This didn’t work, as Scar had gone faintly red and wasn’t looking at him. “An intimate wedding, you mean, right here?” Scar said. “Now? Oh, yes, of course, but you know, now I come to think about it, I don’t know I can get married.”
This smelled like weakness. “What’s wrong with marrying me?” Grian demanded. “Are you backing out?”
“No, I—I need my top hat! I can't get married without my top hat!”
“Are you scared, Scar?”
“Of course I'm not scared!” Scar said indignantly. “We’ll do it right now! Who’s marrying us? Oh—Joe’s still respawning, isn’t he? Cub, you can do it, can’t you? Cub’s an ordained priest, you know.”
“That’s right,” Cub said agreeably.
“Is he?” Grian said suspiciously. “Which religion?”
Cub’s faint smile didn’t change at all. “Don’t worry about that.”
“You don’t want to think too hard about it,” Scar said breezily. “But he’s very official! Very well-respected in the community.”
In all their planning, Grian had given no thought at all to the actual wedding. He was nearly certain that the chanting from the officiant was supposed to be pleasant and inoffensive, about, well, love and stuff, and he was also fairly sure the officiant’s eyes were not supposed to turn black as a flaming rift appeared behind him spewing an unknowable sense of dread, but at that point Scar kissed Grian thoroughly, and that lasted so long that Mumbo had to break it up after a few minutes with a polite cough, and by that time Cub had finished chanting and gone back to his crossword.
“That was very touching,” Mumbo said, apparently relieved they weren’t still kissing right in front of him. “Shame about the guests, but you can’t have everything.”
“Shocking,” Scar agreed. “Do they still have to give us presents? Maybe if we waited a week and did it again? I have to say, I could use a little more time to get the trees right on Honeymoon Island.”
“We’re not having a honeymoon, Scar, I told you,” Grian said. “This wedding is just business, and we don’t have any business without the presents.”
Mumbo was wearing the expression that Grian had always vaguely compared to an accountant breaking the bad news about something unspeakable going on in the stockmarket. “To be honest with you,” Mumbo said, “I don’t think many of them were in a present-giving mood. I think, um, you might have to write off the presents.”
“Are you telling me,” Grian said, “that this whole scheme has been a complete failure?”
*
TRANSCRIPT OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, DAY 1 (CONTINUED):
Judge Cleo: So, let me get this straight, the plan was to scam all of us—
Scar: Scam is a strong word. More like a trade, if you think about it! A trade where we get presents and you get a warm sense of fuzziness and wellbeing.
Judge Cleo: —exactly, to scam us, and it all went wrong, and you realized the marriage was a mistake? That was weeks ago, though. What happened between that and the divorce?
*
EVIDENCE #7
LIST OF POST-WEDDING WRONGDOING COMMITTED BY GRIAN AND SCAR, VARIOUS (condensed from two hours of court arguments)
i. “Well, then I took some deepslate from Grian because I needed it for Scarland, which is just borrowing, if you think about it.”
ii. “Scar really owed me diamonds because it was his fault the scam didn’t work.”
iii. Lengthy descriptions of the damage from ensuing weeks-long prank war.
iv. “He should honestly have expected me to put chickens in his storage system.”
v. Evidence received from Xisuma that this lagged out the entire server.
vi. Evidence received from Grian that Scarland lags out the entire server anyway and this is probably a crime so why can’t the court do something about that.
vii. Strong representations from both sides that the other one snores and hogs the covers and this probably ought to be a crime.
*
TRANSCRIPT OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, DAY 1 (CONTINUED):
Judge Cleo: [face down on judicial bench] Have they stopped talking yet?
Court Scribe JoeHills: No, they’re still going.
*
EVIDENCE #8
FURTHER LIST OF WRONGDOINGS COMMITTED BY GRIAN AND SCAR
viii. “Yes I did blow him up after that, but it’s not illegal if it’s funny.”
ix. Complicated debate about whether ensuing sabotage was funny enough not to be illegal.
x. Representations from Grian that everything is Scar’s fault with absolutely no legal backing at all.
xi. Representations from Scar, ditto, with the addition of fake law he says his cat defense attorney told him.
xii. At this point, Court Scribe JoeHills has given up attempting to make sense of the petitioners’ ongoing argument.
*
TRANSCRIPT OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, DAY 1 (CONTINUED):
Judge Cleo: Enough! ENOUGH! No! Shut up! If I have to listen to one more attempt at utterly specious reasoning from either of you I am going to pick up this gavel and I am going to drive its handle through my own skull. This is definitely both your fault, you are terrible people, and I hope you get divorced harder than anyone has ever got divorced in history.
[Mildly stunned silence in the court]
Judge Cleo: Right. Good. I am about to quit. But before I quit, because Joe asked me nicely to come here today, I am going to order one of you to serve the other with divorce papers before tomorrow. That’s the next thing on the list: one of you has to formally divorce the other. No, I am not going to hear any more arguments, I’m done with this whole thing, you can find a new judge. Yes, Scar?
Scar: [lowers his tentatively raised hand] How do we know which one divorces the other one?
Judge Cleo: [looks blank] Well… I suppose it’s who serves their papers first?
*
COMPLAINT TO COURT:
Submitter of complaint: SCAR
Body of complaint: Grian wont accept divorce papers and keeps avoiding me.
COMPLAINT TO COURT:
Submitter of complaint: GRIAN
Body of complaint: scar didn’t take a single copy of the papers despite the fact i filled his bedroom with them
COMPLAINT TO COURT:
Submitter of complaint: SCAR
Body of complaint: Grian paid impulse to make a divorce paper printing redstone machine. It feels like this, should be Illegal!
COMPLAINT TO COURT:
Submitter of complaint: GRIAN
Body of complaint: scar employed my best man to make him a rival printing machine. this is sabotage.
COMPLAINT TO COURT:
Submitter of complaint: ZEDAPH
Body of complaint: Er, I know you’re doing a whole trial thingummy, but I would really like to be able to move around my base without swimming through mountains of divorce papers. Does it look like this is going to be possible any time in the near future?
COMPLAINT TO COURT:
Submitter of complaint: DOCM77
Body of complaint: WHY HAVE SEVENTY THOUSAND BADLY-PRINTED COPIES OF DIVORCE PAPERS BEEN SHOVELED INTO THE PERIMETER! I AM HOLDING ALL OF YOU PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE! I WILL RAIN DOWN FIRE AND BLOOD!
*
TRANSCRIPT OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, DAY 2:
Judge Mumbo: Right, so, apparently I’m supposed to be ruling on who served who with papers.
Scar: Excuse me! Objection! This new judge is clearly biased.
Grian: No, he’s not. This is all completely fine. Mumbo can be the judge now, and he can just wear a different hat when he’s being my lawyer.
Judge Mumbo: I am a bit biased, I have to admit.
Grian: No you’re not, Mumbo.
Scar: Admit it, there can’t be a fair trial for Grian under these circumstances!
Judge Mumbo: Uh—
Scar: Because I know Mumbo, and he can’t resist these…HoTgUy abs!
[Minor chaos as the court attempts to enforce a dress code]
Judge Mumbo: [removes his wig] Sorry, Grian, he’s right. Scar’s papers are accepted.
Grian: TRAITOR.
Mumbo: Scar, can I have another calendar?
*
TRANSCRIPT OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, DAY 3:
Judge Ren: Court is called to order! Where’s—oh, there you are. Scar, you’re late.
Scar: Sorry! I was working on our honeymoon island.
Grian: What do you mean, our honeymoon island? Scar, we’re divorcing.
Scar: That doesn't mean you can just abandon a build, Grian. Some of us don't leave our backsides unfinished.
Cleo: Someone please get Ren a glass of water, I think he’s going to choke.
Judge Ren: Ahem. Now, gentlemen, I understand Scar is filing for divorce from Grian on the grounds of [checks his notes] desertion, abandonment, and unreasonable behavior.
Grian: Excuse me, what! If I’ve been unreasonable, what about him?
Scar: I have been a model of rationality and recti— rectic— ridiclitude.
Judge Ren: Indeed. I have heard Scar always finishes his backsides.
Grian: I’ll give you unreasonable behavior! This whole thing is your fault! If your bachelor party hadn’t been so badly defended I wouldn’t have been able to blow you all up.
Scar: Well, mister, if you hadn’t overthrown Ren in the first place he might have shown up to our wedding in spite of it!
Grian: If you’d been better at your job I wouldn’t have been ABLE to overthrow him!
Scar: You—you—oooh, I oughta—
Grian: [tauntingly] Ought to what?
Judge Ren: Scar, no, not in court…!
Scar: HOTGUY! [Retrieves bow from improbably small pocket and summarily murders his co-petitioner on the witness. Chaos ensues. Trial name hastily changed.]
TRANSCRIPT OF TRIAL PROCEEDINGS FOR THIRD-DEGREE MURDER, DAY 1:
Judge Ren: Listen, Scar, did you, or did you not, kill another petitioner right in front of me?
Scar: What? Oh, yeah, I just shot Grian.
Judge Ren: You can’t just—My dude, this might have been a crime of passion, but you understand this is a court and that was murder, right?
Cleo: Objection.
Judge Ren: Yes?
Cleo: We can’t start prosecuting for murder now.
[Pause as the court considers the comprehensive history of all Hermits present.]
TRANSCRIPT OF TRIAL PROCEEDINGS FOR THIRD-DEGREE MURDER, DAY 1
TRANSCRIPT OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, DAY 3:
Judge Ren: [once Grian has returned from spawn] You’re going to have to come to some sort of agreement, gentlemen. It’s been days.
Grian: I think we should fight.
Judge Ren: This court does not do trial by combat. I refuse to be witness to such barbarity.
Cleo: I mean…if you think about it, it would stop them arguing.
Judge Ren: …
Judge Ren: I think I could stand to watch someone else compromise their morals. From a distance. Who wants this wig?
Judge Pearl: [settling in at the bench] Right! I think you two should fight. To the death.
Grian: LET’S FIGHT.
Judge Pearl: Riding ravagers.
Scar: What?
Judge Pearl: It would be funny.
Scar: Ravagers, though—
Grian: Don’t listen to Scar, he just murdered me. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Scar: Alright! Alright, we can fight, but I’m only doing it if it’s somewhere dramatic.
Grian: …What do you mean, dramatic?
*
TRANSCRIPT OF DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, DAY 3 (CONTINUED):
[The court has moved proceedings from its custom-built courthouse to a location considered ‘acceptably dramatic’ by Petitioner Scar. We are now in the dim, cavernous monolith of the Royal Vault, where the walls are sheer deepslate lit only by flickering lanterns, and mountains of diamonds and chests gleam softly in the shadowed gloom. The court is gathered here to watch the petitioners fight symbolically over their own escrowed valuables, which are piled in the middle of a stone platform built by Grian and Pearl, and see a final conclusion to this bitterly-fought split. At either end of the platform are pens with two enraged ravagers donated by Tango, salivating at the buffet of violence and blood about to—]
Judge Pearl: [leans over the edge of her observation chair] Joe! What are you doing down there scribbling?
Court Scribe JoeHills: Oh, I’m just adding narrative color.
Judge Pearl: Well, stop doing that and pay attention to the fight! We’re about to start!
Bdubs: FIGHT!
Cub: Let’s go!
Mumbo: Grian, mate, you’ve got this.
Bdubs: RUN HIM THROUGH, SCAR. TEACH HIM TO MAKE FUN OF MY WEDDING DECORATIONS.
Doc: What happens if they both die? I would like them both to die.
Judge Pearl: Contestants! Mount your steeds!
Grian: [has succeeded in landing on his ravager’s back, something Scar has not yet managed] I want you to know, Scar, that whatever happens—
Judge Pearl: Scar! You can’t just stand there, you have to TRY to ride it.
Grian: —I think we can count this as a—
Bdubs: FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Scar: [his head comes up to look at Grian] —a double victory?
[As if this is a code word, Grian and Scar’s gazes meet. The Court Scribe feels obliged to note that when Grian and Scar smile at the same time, history suggests something terrible is about to happen.]
Scar: Well, hello there, Mister Ravager! Would you like to get out of that pen?
Bdubs: Wait, what’s he—Scar, you ain’t supposed to break the wall that lets them at us! SABOTAGE!
Judge Pearl: GRIAN!
Grian: [shrieking as his ravager swerves into the crowd of spectators] Scar! The switch!
[Your trusty Court Scribe hurriedly dives out of the way as Scar flings himself into the pile of his and Grian’s valuables, where the tell-tale glint of redstone has been hidden under the piles of chests.]
Ren: Why do both of them have all those empty shulkers?
Cleo: Wait, wait, did we just give Grian and Scar unfettered access to all the diamonds in the vault?
Judge Pearl: WATCH OUT, THEY’VE HIDDEN TNT UNDER THE—
[Scar slams a switch. The world explodes. The Judge and most spectators are instantly blown up. The only survivors are your Court Scribe, who managed to get behind an obsidian pillar, and Cub, rising above the chaos on pre-equipped elytra wings with the philosophical serenity of someone who saw this coming.]
*
POSTSCRIPT
It’s a beautiful day, the sky is a clear and serene blue, and Grian and Scar have gotten away with everything.
Grian coasts joyfully ahead of Scar on outstretched wings, loaded down with boxes and boxes of ill-gotten diamonds, looping head-over-heels only when he can’t contain the energy bubbling through him. “We are the greatest, Scar. We are geniuses. We are the greatest geniuses who ever lived.”
“Oh, we are,” Scar agrees instantly. A lesser person might have pointed out their first plan failed spectacularly and their hasty second one only succeeded by luck, but this is why Grian married Scar specifically. Only he’s not married to Scar any more, is he? For one shining moment Grian had forgotten that.
The crater of the Royal Vault is far below and receding, the debris scattered like little jeweled toys. Grian is recalled to the present gleeful moment in which they are geniuses who have pulled the whole thing off and are richer than every other hermit put together. “Where are we going?”
“I was following you,” Scar says.
“I didn’t think this far ahead! I only planned up to the part where we stole everyone’s diamonds!”
“Oh, well, that’s easy,” Scar says confidently. “Change course to Honeymoon Island!”
Grian doesn’t have a good argument against that, and anyway, he’s too happy and diamond-dazzled to argue. Scar strikes out to the azure ocean and Grian dips into his wake and soars behind.
Scar has outdone himself, as usual. Honeymoon Island is just one long crescent-shaped beach with crystal seas, golden sands, palm trees, deck chairs, and—somehow—little iced coconut drinks that keep reappearing and each have a little paper umbrella. Naturally, Scar hasn’t thought of including a safe room for all their new valuables, so Grian has to dig out a makeshift bunker for all their ill-gotten gains, but when all that excitement is done, Grian throws himself onto a deckchair with a coconut drink and closes his eyes.
“So?” Scar says, in the expectant tone of someone who has spent three weeks fiddling with the palm trees that are currently casting an exquisitely-latticed shade over Grian’s eyelids, despite the fact they were technically divorcing all that time. “What do you think?”
“It is very pretty,” Grian admits grudgingly. “We can’t use it for a honeymoon, though. We’re divorced.”
“Are we divorced?” Scar is thoughtfully making origami out of his paper umbrella. “We did ditch them all before the trial officially finished.”
“Oh, we’re absolutely divorced. Super divorced.”
“I suppose you’re right. No honeymoon for us, then?”
An idyllic silence falls over the palm-fringed beach. The sea laps at the shining sands, creating a soft music from the shells and pebbles. The leaves rustle. This coconut drink in Grian’s hand is surprisingly good.
“Scar—”
“Hey, Grian—”
There is a pause.
“Go on,” Grian says impatiently.
“No, no, I think you should ask.”
“I asked last time!” This is ridiculous. It’s a shame Grian has been enchanted by the ridiculous for years now. “We’re probably not even talking about the same—”
Scar interrupts, which is rude, but unfortunately he’s picked his most golden and unfair voice, like the sea caressing the sand, and Grian is momentarily helpless. “Will you, Grian,” Scar says, “do me the great honor of marrying me? Again?”
Grian throws a paper umbrella at him. “Scar,” he says, “I thought you’d never ask.”
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strawberry
Daddy Dom! Joel Miller x Sub! Female Reader
summary: You feel ashamed for using your safe word with Joel during a session—he assures you you’re his good girl no matter what.
warnings/tags: 18+ only, MINORS DNI. (TW) daddy kink, lots of dd/lg lifestyle elements, reader is collared (day collar) age gap that is self indulgent, reader is mid to late 20’s and Joel is in his 50’s but tweak that to your imaginations if you like. SMUT; p in v sex, rough sex (that reader asks to try), spanking, possible overstimulation (if you squint??) Joel basically fucks reader too much and too hard. USE OF SAFE WORD. aftercare and lots of fluff, references to a pop culture film that i haven’t seen in forever but it’s fine. PLEASE BE MINDFUL OF TAGS AND WARNINGS. if this isn’t your thing, no worries just scroll on by.
MOODBOARD FOR AESTHETIC PURPOSES ONLY, READER HAS NO PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION.
word count: 2.4k
a/n: this is totally self indulgent, all for me as someone who has dabbled in the lifestyle before. if this is not your thing, no problem at all but kindly keep any negative comments to yourself. huge shoutout to the lovely @swiftispunk for inspiring this with the snippets of her own upcoming series that i am oh so excited for, darling han thank you for not only inspiring this, but for listening to me talk about it and encouraging it! and also to sweet mya @cavillscurls because truth be told her own fic brought back so many memories of a time in my life where i was genuinely so happy, in love, and felt safe with a partner. okay, i am gonna run away to the gym now to listen to 1989 tv (again) and pretend posting this is not nerve wracking as hell.
He’s fucked you plenty of times before.
But never like this. No, never, ever like this.
He’s relentless.
His thrusts are coming quicker, sloppier, harsher.
It doesn’t hurt, but it’s intense. Too intense.
Joel Miller is truly testing your limits tonight.
No, he was pushing you past your limits.
Because that’s what you’d asked him to do.
“Alright, sweet girl. This is the last time I’m gonna ask you before we get started. Are you absolutely, one hundred—no, one thousand percent sure that you wanna try this out tonight?” he had asked you beforehand, skimming the strap of your light pink, lace lingerie with his index finger, his feathery soft touch sending a plesant little chill down the length of your spinal column. Of all the sets you owned, it had to be Joel’s absolute favorite. Normally, it was him who would pick out what you would wear, but tonight he’d decided to let you choose for yourself and oh, you did not disappoint. He fucking adored you in the color pink; loved how sickeningly sweet, precious, and innocent you appeared in the hue as you did the filthiest things to him, with him. When you nodded eagerly in reply to his question, a sigh fell from his lips, the doubt written all over his face as he remarked, “I really don’t think you’re ready. I think we should wait just a little a while longer.”
“I’m ready,” you’d insisted, stubbornly. “I promise. I wouldn’t be asking for it if I thought I wasn’t. But I am, I promise, promise, promise I am.”
“Daddy knows what’s best for you, sweetheart—”
Fingers curled around his bicep, you’d batted your eyelashes, giving him those eyes that brought him down to his knees for you a lot more often than he cared to admit, those eyes that made Joel feel like he was learning his role all over again, despite over two decades of experience under his belt. He used to pride himself for his ability to stand firm against pouting lips, fluttering lashes, and pleading gazes. And then you come along and suddenly it’s like he is in his thirties again and he’s navigating this kind of dynamic for the first time. Even after a year and a half with you, he’s still trying to figure out how to completely unwrap himself from your little finger.
“Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
Christ, you made things so goddamn difficult.
“You really think you’re gonna be able to handle it? You think you’re gonna be able to handle me when I get real rough with you, baby? Hm?”
Without missing a beat, you replied, “Yes, Daddy. I can handle it. I know I can.”
You had been so certain that you could.
Confident, even. So confident that when he began going over the rules and reminded you to use your safe word if you needed him to stop, you’d giggled and stated, “I’ve never needed to use it before and I don’t plan on using it tonight.”
Oh, how very wrong you had been about it all.
You’d overestimated yourself, and underestimated Joel. Severely.
His hips snap roughly into yours without an ounce of mercy, over and over, again and again. Beads of perspiration start trailing their way down the sides of his face, the tip of his nose. His chest is flushed, red, and also slicked with a thin sheen of sweat.
You’ve already shattered, unraveled, come undone all over his cock several times—every time with his granted permission, of course. Because you knew better than to come without Daddy’s permission.
Your cunt is swollen, sensitive, too sensitive and at a point where it could start aching if he doesn’t let up soon. However, it seems like Joel’s only getting rougher and rougher as he chases another release.
“Joel—Daddy,” you manage to correct yourself at the very last second through a slew of frantic little gasps for air. “Daddy, please! Daddy please—”
His large hand tightens around both of your wrists pinned to the mattress above your head. Surely he must think you’re begging him for more, when the reality is you’re about to start begging him to stop because it’s just too much and you can’t handle it; but there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to stop, the part of you that doesn’t want to disappoint the man who means the whole, entire world to you.
The man you belonged to, the man you loved.
Even through the haze, you try telling yourself that it’s all mind over matter, mind over matter, mind—
“Stop,” you whine, squirming underneath him. “I—can’t take it anymore, Daddy, I can’t take it—!”
Releasing your wrists, Joel pulls himself out of you and you breathe out in relief, until he flips you over onto your stomach without warning. You let out an audibly loud gasp when his hands reach down and take your hips, pulling them up off his bed, putting you on your hands and knees. He brings down one of his hands on your ass in a stinging slap. “That is just too bad, ‘cause Daddy ain’t done with you yet, darlin’ girl. Not even close to bein’ done with you.” Wrapping his other hand around his base, he grins to himself as he glides the head of his cock up and down your slick folds. When it grazes your clit, you jerk forward, away from him, and he tuts, bringing you back to him, his fingers digging into the pillow soft flesh of your hips. “Oh no baby, you ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
“But Daddy, I just can’t—”
You’re cut off by your own cry when you feel Joel’s length stretching your walls all over again. It’s just too much.
And you really, really can’t.
He leans over you and presses his lips to your ear. “You asked for this, didn’tcha? Asked to be fucked like a big girl, huh?” He bucks forward into you, eliciting another strangled cry followed by a string of pathetic whimpers. Bringing his palm down in a second strike, he demands, “Answer me when I’m takin’ to you. You wanted this, said that you could handle Daddy bein’ rough with you, ain’t that right now?”
“Strawberry.” You say the word so quietly, you can hardly hear it over the ringing in your ears.
Joel spanks you for a third time, in the exact same spot—so hard, there was simply no way you would wake up without a mark in the morning. “I need’ya to speak up. You’re such a big girl after all—”
“Strawberry!” You grasp fistfuls of bedsheets and the signal for it all to end tears itself from the back of your throat. “Strawberry, Joel! Strawberry!”
It’s only a millisecond that he freezes, if that.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Joel curses under his breath, pulling out of you. The bed shifts as he climbs off of it and scrambles to pull on his sweatpants before he’s at your side—you’re still on your hands and knees, an unmistakable look of panic on your face. He puts a gentle hand on your back. “Baby, are you alright?”
Your heart is pounding, your breathing labored but you manage a small, tight nod of your head. “I-I’m fine. I just—” Stopping, you grip the sheets tighter, warm tears brimming your eyes. Shame over what you’ve just done is already creeping in and sinking into your bones.
“Are you hurt, sweetheart? Did I hurt you?”
Joel’s voice is calm, but you can hear the concern that laces his tone.
“No.” Your own voice is small. “No. You didn’t hurt me.”
“Is it alright if I move you?” he asks. When you nod your head, he reaches out for you and helps you to sit on the side of the bed. Dropping to his knees in front of you, he takes your hands and his and feels his stomach sink when he realizes they’re ice cold; he begins rubbing them between his own to warm them up. “Baby if I hurt you, you need to tell m—”
“I promise, you didn’t hurt me,” you reassure him, swallowing the thickness rising in the back of your throat. You clock the skepticism in his dark brown eyes and a tear slips out, rolls down your face, and splatters onto your bare thigh. “I’m not lying, Joel. I swear.” Tugging one of your hands out of his, you reach up and instinctively clasp it around the blue sapphire pendant hanging from the delicate, gold chain around your neck—he’d presented you with his birthstone last year, not only as a symbol of his ownership of you, but also as a beautiful reminder of your commitment to one another. “You believe me, don’t you? You believe I’m telling the truth?”
Joel’s expression softens. “‘Course I do, baby.” He cups the side of your face gently, brushing away a second teardrop with his thumb. “But I’d really like to know what happened so I can figure out how to best help, okay? Can you tell me what happened?”
Embarrassed, you try turning your head away, but he holds your cheek in his hand, gentle but firm.
“S’okay. You can talk to me,” he encourages softly, his gaze meeting yours once again. “Tell me.”
“It was just too much,” you mumble, meekly. “And too intense.” Heat floods your face as you admit to him, “You were right. I just wasn’t—I wasn’t ready for that yet.”
In an effort to lighten your mood, Joel lightly gives your cheek a delicate pinch and chuckles.
“Daddy’s got that real annoyin’ habit of bein’ right ‘bout a lot of things, don’t he?”
“I’m sorry.” Your bottom lip quivers. “I’m so sorry.”
His smile falters. “Sorry for what?”
“For using the safe word—”
Joel’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Y’know you ain’t supposed to apologize for needin’ to use your safe word, right? That ain’t how it works, darlin’.”
Dropping your necklace, you place your hand over his on your cheek. “But I feel bad,” you confess. “It makes me feel like—like I let you down, you know? And that’s the last thing I want to do. I just wanted to be really good for you.”
“Oh baby.” Joel lifts himself from the floor. He sits on the bed and pulls you onto his lap, brushing his lips against your temple. “You are such a good girl for me, sweetheart.”
“But I couldn’t take it,” you sniff. “I had to stop.”
“And that’s okay,” he assures you. He wraps you in his arms and gives your body a gentle squeeze. “It ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed ‘bout. You’re still really new to a lot of this stuff, y’know? S’why I told you I didn’t think you were ready.”
“I should’ve listened to you.”
He winks. “You should always listen to Daddy.”
You offer him a tiny, watery smile. “I know.”
“And say we try this again one day and it’s just not somethin’ you like or that makes you feel good—or maybe you never wanna try it again at all,” he says with a nonchalant shrug. “That’s okay too. You are still my good girl no matter what—my perfect girl. Always. You understand me?”
“Really? You promise?”
Joel holds up his pinky.
“Oh, you’re being really serious,” you tease him.
“Sure as hell am, darlin’.”
You lock your finger around his and he pulls you in for a sweet kiss.
“I love you, Joel,” you murmur against his lips. You giggle again when he clears his throat and smacks your ass lightly, playfully. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, baby.” Joel pulls away and touches the tip of his nose to yours. “How’s ‘bout we get in the bath and get all cleaned up? Hm?”
“A bath?” You instantly perk up. “With bubbles?”
“With bubbles. And I’ll even let you throw in one of those smelly ball things you fuckin’ love so much.”
You swat at his chest. “Hey! My bath bombs smell really good, thank you very much!”
Joel doesn’t particularly like emerging from a bath smelling like a petunia, but for you, he’s more than happy to bathe in a sea of them, glitter and all.
You trace his collarbone with your index finger.
“Daddy? After our bath can we just cuddle in bed? Maybe watch a movie?” He raises an eyebrow and you smile sheepishly, adding, “Please?”
“‘Course. Pick any movie you want, sweetheart.”
“And can we have ice cream while we watch too?”
He pins you with a stern look. “Alright, now you’re just pushin’ it and takin’ advantage.”
You jut your lower lip. “Please, Daddy?”
There’s no arguing with that, not tonight.
Joel decides to let you have your way. “Alright.”
The two of you spend quite some time in the bath; normally a bath together ends with him inside you all over again, but tonight, all he’s doing is running a soapy wash cloth with your favorite shower gel—japanese cherry blossom—all over your body as he sits behind you, lips pressed against your ear. Joel washes you slowly, carefully, and all the while he’s whispering sweet, tender praise.
My good girl.
My perfect girl.
I’m s’proud of you.
I’m the luckiest man in the whole world.
After the bath, once you’re both dried and dressed in comfortable clothes—him in a clean pair of gray sweatpants and you in nothing but his t-shirt, Joel gives you the remote and instructs you to pick out a movie to watch.
“Make yourself real comfortable, baby,” he says to you, kissing the top of your head. “I’ll be back with that ice cream.”
You shoot him a hopeful glance. “Strawberry?”
“You tryin’ to be funny with me, darlin’?”
“No! That’s just my favorite flavor, silly.”
Joel grins to himself as he leaves the bedroom.
He knows that. Of course he knows that.
It’s why he always keeps a pint of it in his freezer.
You hop into bed and pull the blankets around you as your scan through the guide for a movie—you’d just decided on The Notebook when Joel appears again, a bowl and two spoons in his hands.
“You picked The Notebook again, didn’t you?” he asks without even looking at the flat screen that’s mounted on his wall over the fireplace.
“You said I could pick any movie I wanted.”
“Was just hopin’ you’d pick one we haven’t seen a thousand times,” he chuckled, sliding into his bed next to you. Joel places the bowl of strawberry ice cream in his lap and hands you a spoon. “C’mere, my sweet girl. Come closer.”
You snuggle up to him, and the two of you dig into the frozen dessert as the movie begins to play.
“Baby?” Joel speaks after a while, just as Allie and Noah share a passionate kiss in the pouring rain.
“Hm?” you ask, your fixed eyes on the flat screen, your mouth full of ice cream.
“You sure you’re okay?”
Swallowing, you look up at Joel, meeting his gaze.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” you answer honestly.
“‘Cause if there’s anythin’ else I can do for you…”
You purse your lips together and let out a tiny hum as you mull it over for a moment.
“You can hold me closer?” you finally suggest.
Joel shifts in his spot. “I can definitely do that—”
You stop him and point to the empty bowl.
“After you go and get us some more ice cream?”
He exhales an amused snort through his nose and shuffles out of bed, taking the bowl with him.
“Don’t get so used to bossin’ Daddy around,” Joel warns you playfully over his shoulder.
“Too late.”
divider credit to @saradika 🍓
#tw daddy kink#tw: daddy kink#joel miller x reader#joel miller smut#joel miller fanfiction#joel miller fluff#joel miller x you#joel miller x y/n#joel miller one shot#joel miller drabble#joel miller x f!reader#joel miller x female reader
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thinking about how I've seen OCD get talked about now, but haven't really seen many posts that actually explain what it is. And like, obviously people shouldn't get all their info about mental conditions from posts, but u can't deny that internet communities and stuff play a major role in people recognizing and putting names to their own experiences.
But like since the general public has like absolutely no idea of what OCD actually is (no thanks to popular media), and a lot of things I see talking about intrusive thoughts don't mention OCD (either bc they originated in OCD circles or bc intrusive thoughts aren't Exclusive to OCD or for some other reason), there should prob be more explanation put out on what OCD actually consists of.
Which is kinda hard in some ways, bc there are so many ways OCD can present in terms of what "themes" a person experiences, so someone talking about what their themes are might not ring a bell with someone who experiences different ones. But like, the core thing with OCD isn't the presence of certain themes, it's a specific pattern of spiraling thoughts and reactions.
Like. OCD is a mental condition/illness where people experience stressful, unwanted, repetitive thoughts. These are intrusive thoughts are what make up the "obsessions" part of the disorder. In response to these intrusive thoughts, a lot of people will perform certain actions or think certain things in an attempt to neutralize or disprove the threat they represent. These are the "compulsions" part of the condition.
For a more "traditional" example, someone experiencing intrusive thoughts that they might catch a communicable disease may obsessively wash their hands or google their symptoms to try to lessen the anxiety. While someone who is worried they might hurt someone (even though they very much do not want to hurt someone) may avoid being near sharp objects or may avoid the people they're afraid of hurting.
One of the issues with OCD is that performing the compulsions provides short term relief, but in the long term it only strengthens the stress caused by the intrusive thoughts, thus furthering the thought spiral and actively making it worse, to the point where, depending on your themes, you may be (almost) convinced that your intrusive thoughts represent the truth or the inevitable or something permanent.
Intrusive thought themes cam be literally anything, but some of the common ones are stuff like
Questioning your sexuality, gender, etc (what if I'm actually straight/gay/bi/trans/cis/etc?)
Being worried about losing control and hurting yourself or others physically, sexually, emotionally, basically any way (what if I want to kill someone? What if I'm a pedophile? What if I'm an abuser? What if I want to stab myself? Etc)
Fear of becoming or being sick
Worrying something bad will happen to you or people you care about
Worrying about your spiritual beliefs or lack thereof (what if I'm actually Christian? What if I'm actually atheist? What if i don't believe in the faith i ascribe to? Etc)
Worrying about relationship status (what if I don't actually love them? What if they're not "the one"? What if they're cheating? What if *I'm* cheating? Etc)
What if I'm a bad person?
Fear of losing things
Fear of things not feeling right (this is often be related to other themes via magical thinking. ex: if I don't have my things organized Just Right then something bad will happen)
Fear of unreality
Compulsions vary by theme a lot obviously, but some common ones include
Hand washing
Organizing things until they Feel Right
Checking and double checking and triple checking to make sure you did something correctly
Obsessively reviewing your memories to disprove a thoughtor make sure you don't believe something
Arguing against the thoughts in an attempt to disprove them
Testing your mental reactions to a thought or to certain kinds of content, to show yourself you don't actually believe or feel something
Obsessively googling symptoms, testimonies, things related to your thoughts
Obsessive prayer
Repeating phrases, mantras, affirmations, etc in an attempt to make thoughts go away
Avoiding things and situations that set off your intrusive thoughts
Repeatedly asking for reassurance from others ("I'm not being xyz, right?")
But yeah this obviously isn't exhaustive but, just, if this kind of thing sounds familiar, you should probably do some research on OCD, bc while intrusive thoughts can occur with other conditions, the intrusive thought-compulsion spiral is the core of OCD and isn't really a subaspect of depression/anxiety/ptsd/etc. and the treatment and management of OCD can look different from other stuff, so its a good thing to look into.
(Also it's important to keep in mind, esp if you're someone that doesn't have it, that someone's intrusive thoughts Are Not "secret desires" or "repressed urges" or anything the person even remotely wants to act on. Someone having harm-related intrusive thoughts is not at risk of actually acting on them, no matter how worried they are of doing so.)
Anyway this was a long post and I don't have a neat way to wrap it up and also I accidentally added a poll and now can't get rid of it so here's free poll. I'm running on nyquil and a small amount of straight gin (which works very well at numbing a sore throat) rn gnite
#ocd#actuallyocd#actually ocd#intrusive thoughts#my hand is fuckin stiff from typing this all out on my phone rip
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I’m not trying to attack you, but do you know that proshipper means someone who supports and romanticizes pedophilia, incest, and abuse? Your reblog on that post seems to read that you think antis just hate on people for having ships they don’t like. But it’s completely different than that. Just looking on the proshipper side of Tumblr and the internet and you can see people happily shipping children and adults and making nsfw content of such things.
i appreciate that you're not being outright hostile, but i have to say, that on its own put you above basically every anti i've interacted with.
i understand where antis are coming from, i really do. there are a lot of things on the internet that make me deeply uncomfortable, including the minor/adult ships that you mention. i don't want to anything to do with those kinds of ships and i would be happiest if i never saw them again. which is why i'm proship.
nine times out of ten, if i see that kind of ship brought up on my dash, it's because i was following an anti without realizing it, and they brought it up unprompted and untagged, to talk about how bad it is that they exist. they are the ones putting that kind of content in front of my face and making it harder to avoid.
the thing about people who ship those ships is that they're generally very aware that not everyone wants to see that kind of content, and so they tag it. they make sideblogs to talk about it. they don't go out of their way to shove it in people's faces. that means i, and everyone else who doesn't like it, can avoid it.
what antis want is for it to not exist at all. they want the tags to be purged and blocked, and for anyone who uses those tags to have their accounts deleted. and sure, that might get rid of some of it, but do you know what would happen to the rest? it would stop being tagged. people who don't want to see it wouldn't have the tools to avoid it. this isn't just a hypothetical, that's what's happened any time a fan space has tried to do that.
that's not even getting into the rabbit hole of what should be banned and what shouldn't. obviously any content that depicts real children or real life abuse shouldn't exist and shouldn't be allowed to be posted, but basically any platform that people use already enforces those policies, and there's not much of a slippery slope to go down there. if it involves real living breathing people being abused, it's bad. end of discussion.
but the same can't be said for fiction. ask ten antis for a specific list of all the content that should be banned, and you'll get ten different answers. what about kink? what about roleplay? what about horror and murder and anything that involves fictional characters being graphically tortured? what about people using art to process terrible things that have happened to them? what about art that uses dark themes as a horror element? if you just want to ban anything questionable to anyone, that's the line of thinking that gets any mention of lgbt existence banned. and again, this isn't just a hypothetical, this has happened before, and that's generally where it leads.
i know, from personal experience, that antis do, in fact, send harassment to people just for shipping things they don't like. i've gotten accused of absolutely vile shit for shipping two fictional characters who were both consenting adults. i've seen ship wars turn into moral battlegrounds, over ships that an average person wouldn't bat an eye at.
the thing about "romanticization" is a whole other can of worms. the anti logic goes like this: if someone sees something (even if it's very obviously fictional) in a positive light enough times, they will start thinking it's okay in real life, and go on to hurt real people. the problem with that is that it's just. blatantly untrue.
if it were true every horror movie fan would be a serial killer, every person that studies dark media would be an unhinged psychopath, and everyone who is into ddlg would be a pedophile. but they're not. they just aren't. people have directed movies just as fucked up as the darkest shit on ao3, and are still capable of being normal human beings who know right from wrong in real life.
even if someone is that impressionable, scrubbing away the existence of every piece of questionable content isn't going to solve their problem, because they're still going to be vulnerable to con men, scams, and cultists. the only thing that would actually materially help someone like that is developing their own morals and critical thinking.
children are also more impressionable, and there's a lot of content that's not suitable for them, but that doesn't mean that content shouldn't exist. it just means that they should stick to spaces designed for them (which most social media sites, tumblr included, are not) or, if they're old enough to be responsible for their experience online, they, or a trusted adult in their lives, should block and filter out things that they aren't comfortable with.
which is what everyone on the internet should be doing. it's what i do, and it's made the internet a much more pleasant place to be. and it's why i sometimes worry for antis mental health, especially teenagers, because they're being told it's right and moral to seek out content that makes them uncomfortable and to engage with the people making it. and that's just. really bad. it's not good for the creators that they're harassing obviously, but it's also really bad for them! it's not healthy to seek out things that make you feel bad, and it's a terrible internet safety lesson to teach minors that it's okay for them to seek out and engage with people making adult content.
individual harassment and crusading is never going to succeed at removing dark content from the internet. it just isn't. at best you might get a small percentage of people who create that content to stop sharing it, at worst you're just going to make people stop tagging it, and either way, you're exposing yourself to things that make you feel bad, when you don't have to.
if you want to materially change the type of content you see, you can. the block button is your friend, use it liberally. same with content filtering and tag blocking.
#oops this got really long#cd.ask#proship#disk horse#tw pedophila mention#uhhh what to tag#tw shipping discourse#this doesn't even get into the antis that i've seen proudly professing that they care more about fictional characters than real people#because i don't know how to explain to someone that real humans matter more than cartoon characters#or how to avoid content on platforms other than tumblr bc frankly thats a lot of the reason i don't use them#i don't trust an algorithm#also im turning anon off after posting this so if you want to send me hate you cant be a coward about it#also be prepared to get blocked and ignored#the only reason i answered this person is bc they weren't being hostile
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❝ 𝐈, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐍 ❞
𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. everyone says you’re the curse of your own legacy. dubbed “the worst ruler ever in history”, power is all you cared about. your selfishness leads to the downfall of your own kingdom, with you murdered at the hands of people you thought could be trusted. somehow the next day, you regress to the day you become the sole successor to the throne after the previous sovereign passed. can you prove your worth and show them you have what it takes to be the sovereign in this timeline?
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒. argenti, bronya, dan heng, dr. ratio, gepard, jing yuan, ruan mei, sunday, trailblazer (caelus & stelle)
𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓. f!reader. royal au, time travel au. angst, hurt/comfort, fluff. 1.9k words. inspired by billion manhwas that have this trope lol. the royal family is absolutely horrible and reader hates them. reader experiences dissociative amnesia due to trauma from said family and the previous timeline. lots of self-doubt. death is everywhere in this fic. a dark joke about betrayal (bronya). reader has hair (gepard). murder of a loved one and revenge (sunday).
𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐀. new year, new blog, and new fic but two months later! on spring break so i’m happy i got to write again, even if it’s just a little bit. watch me disappear for another six months or so because grad school’s a bitch.
𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈.
rumor has it among a group of chivalrous knights from a forgotten land that their deity, the god of beauty idrila, is in your kingdom. you happen to come across one of them when you snuck out of the castle. the knight introduces himself as argenti, a knight of beauty… a very strange one.
what person talks to objects as if they’re people and compliments them that they’re beautiful? as soon as he lays on you, he’s in front of you on one knee and kisses your hand, declaring that you’re beautiful, even as beautiful as idrila themself. surely you’re weirded out, but he seems sincere.��
there’s a possibility that your advisor sent a search party after you. you generally hate being escorted on your outings due to your upbringing, but going back there isn’t where your mind wants to be, so you ask the knight if he could be your company. ah, how could he resist a beautiful lady like yourself?
will he still see you as such when you ascend the throne?
𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐘𝐀.
house rand is known for their strong military leadership and is a unique case of nobility. majority of its lineage are commoners, going through a selection process as children to be adopted by the current leader and be trained as their successor. shortly before your ascension, former leader cocolia rand passed away. no one knows the cause of death, except her daughter.
marchioness bronya pays a visit to introduce herself as the new leader of the house. the two of you express condolences for your families, though you try not to flinch at how she praises the late sovereign like everyone else. she believes you can keep secrets well, which isn’t entirely wrong, so she asks to borrow you. you already know the topic of discussion: the actual cause of death of madam cocolia.
it’s me. her dialogue muffles into white noise. madam cocolia has made a deal with her daughter to kill her if anything happens. hm…? did you put trust in someone to stop you if you ever went insane? can you stab me in the back if that’s the case? your mouth runs on its own, and she’s in shock. you brush it off as a joke afterwards, saying she should ignore it. yet you can’t yourself as it’s been haunting you since.
do you trust her to end your suffering, for the good of the kingdom?
𝐃𝐀𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐆.
the archivist strikes you as someone who dislikes bothersome people, so you try not to spend too much time researching your condition. though upon meeting dan heng at the library, he appears courteous and doesn’t mind your company. what leaves you puzzled is that he doesn’t question your sudden interest in time travel and regression. instead, he leads you upstairs.
on the way there you trip and he grabs onto you, triggering a flashback of the mob capturing you with tight holds during your escape. realizing the intensity of his grip on you because your body’s shaking, he lets go and adjusts his hand placement to your back so you can get up. then he makes sure you’re alright before reaching the data bank.
he assumes that you’re still traumatized from your family’s death based on your reaction to that memory. everyone believes the same thing, and it’s definitely wrong. but you can’t magically convince them that you’ve seen the future where they’ll die because of you. however, his intentions make you feel at ease. he says he’ll be nearby for help. is it really okay to rely on someone else for once?
will he stick to his word and catch you when you fall to your death?
𝐃𝐑. 𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎.
the intelligentsia guild believes that knowledge is a valuable resource to obtain various mediums of information across the world. having one of their own at the castle not only as a professor at the royal academy, but as the advisor to the next sovereign is quite an honor. dr. ratio may be a brilliant scholar, but his interpersonal skills… not so much.
there isn’t a day where you’re spared from his lectures. to be fair, you’ve done questionable things after your family’s passing: sneaking out of the castle, researching time travel and regression, and raising raccoons that almost destroyed your garden and your servants’ sanities. nevertheless, you’re irritated by his emphasis on your reputation as a ruler. does it look like i want to be one? you storm out without a second thought.
after calming down, you search for him to apologize. you should’ve told him about how you felt instead of letting out an outburst. unfortunately he has gone home, but leaves a note that addresses your “odd hobbies” - ways to not alert the servants during your escapades, literature of topics of interest that aren’t in the library, and interventions of minimizing the chaos of your familiars. you take it as an apology; he’s more considerate than you think even if he doesn’t admit it.
can he stay by your side if you decide to abdicate the throne?
𝐆𝐄𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐃.
house landau is the “shield” of the kingdom, serving the royal family for generations. their current leader count landau is a stern man from what you recall the several times you visited him as a child. now he’s forced to retire due to his illness, replaced by his eldest and only son gepard, your childhood friend.
the two of you haven’t interacted much as you reach the training period for succession, whereas his father drills him to be insubordinate to the royal family as they have been. with your parents gone and the count ill, you can see him whenever you wish. but how should you approach him? more importantly, does he still see you as a friend? you give up instantly, exhausted from your mental trip to the past.
amidst the flames, he yells at you to run as shadows consume him. you shoot up - bloodshot eyes, rapid heartbeat, and heavy breaths. a pair of arms engulfs you, one hand rubbing your back and the other buried in your hair. rest, i’m here, he whispers against your forehead. you start to lose it, sobbing uncontrollably on his chest.
is this what giving in to your selfish gains feels like?
𝐉𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐔𝐀𝐍.
the sight of citizens flocking to the plaza can be seen from your balcony.
three people emerge from the crowd, who you recognize as residents of the civilization in the sky: the xianzhou alliance. they have no reason to be here unless it’s important business, and that happens to be you. how forgetful you are.
earlier you test a theory that hopefully changes your tragic fate. it takes courage to act like a jester in front of the council, sending diplomats to invite various factions to forge alliances. the entire court and yourself are amazed that one of the arbiter-generals jing yuan is here in the flesh. the xianzhou rely on themselves for help rather than outsiders, so there must be something that he wants from you.
little did you know while you’re interested in the xianzhou’s manpower, he’s interested in you. his two attendants have never seen their general smitten over someone before; it’s obnoxious. his visits become frequent; his purpose of seeking specific resources is really an excuse to shower you with gifts. he appreciates how headstrong you are throughout the tragedies you faced, wishing you give yourself more credit. he has faith in your capability as a sovereign, even if you don’t agree.
he’s not here to play with your feelings, is he?
𝐑𝐔𝐀𝐍 𝐌𝐄𝐈.
house ruan is revered by academia as geniuses of the century, yet rarely shows up in public as they care less about being in the spotlight. rather, they dedicate their lives to science. their daughter carries the household name with grace and elegance, though it can’t be said the same with her experiments in which she entrusts you to be her assistant.
lady ruan mei is interested in the concept of life. cycles of birth, growth, and death. existence of the living. development of cognition, emotions, and behaviors. they’re fascinating to her. creating lifeforms makes you feel some sort of sorrow; your creation is modeled after yourself. then you wonder how your family reacted when you were born.
soon you’re asked by the scientist about your existence, and whether you believe the gods can answer that. now that you think about it, were they involved in your regression? the human race worships the power of the heavens: creation and destruction. death is inevitable, but can the gods also rewrite reality? if they choose to send you back in time, did they want you to redeem yourself?
why bother going so far if you’re going to screw up again?
𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐘.
no one hosts festivities as grand as house oak. under the impression that you’ve been secluded in your room grieving over the previous sovereign, they’ll throw a small party to cheer you up and celebrate your upcoming ascension. the thought of announcing you want to abdicate the throne is tempting, but their efforts will go to waste so you scrap it. might as well keep up a front and plan your next moves.
you’re welcomed into the venue by the high priest sunday, the organizer of this party. you’re feeling nervous, not because of the amount of guests but because of his overwhelming presence. he doesn’t seem familiar, or are you misremembering? do you still feel unwell, your majesty? behind the high priest is a young woman who bears some resemblance to him, and everything all at once falls into place.
his sister is the precious sun of his life, executed by the eclipse. the high priest follows the royal family without hesitation, only for his loyalty to be questioned at her expense. he isn’t the type to act so rash, but for her he’ll go to great lengths to exact his revenge. you lie to the siblings that you’re fine and tell the high priest to take care of her. there’s more than meets the eye regarding your behavior, but he just agrees to not arouse any suspicion.
what secrets have your people been hiding from you?
𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐙𝐄𝐑.
there are twin raccoons that practically live in your garden and are your servants’ worst nightmares. somehow they’re kind of like you - living in luxury while rotten to the core. you remember ordering your servants to exterminate them last time, so you take them instead so you won’t freak them out, much to your advisor’s dismay.
later you discover that caelus and stelle are shapeshifters who lost their memories, with their only lead being a magenta-haired woman. to your surprise they love to gossip, which proves themselves useful to be your spies, gathering intel on the current news that could coincide with the ones in the previous timeline. they can also find information about that woman. killing two birds with one stone.
sometimes you worry about their work ethic, considering how chaotic they can be. for instance, their unhealthy obsession with trash cans. as much as you need them to get the job done, you realize you’re nothing better than your family. those two are extensions of yourself, learning about the world just as you are. so you step back and let them have fun with scraps. they’ll get to their missions eventually.
they appear to be loyal to a fault so there’s no way they’ll betray you, right?
#♪ .fics#honkai: star rail#honkai: star rail x reader#hsr x reader#argenti x reader#bronya x reader#dan heng x reader#dr ratio x reader#gepard x reader#jing yuan x reader#ruan mei x reader#sunday x reader#trailblazer x reader#caelus x reader#stelle x reader#honkai: star rail angst#honkai: star rail fluff#hsr angst#hsr fluff
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If its ok to ask; how do you feel about fat kinks? I havent seen any fat acceptance blogs talk abt it. /genq
I know it's a sore spot for a lot of fat liberationists (and yes, I'm quite familiar with why so please do not take to my inbox), I think people are scared to talk about it. personally, I think it is crucial that people with fat kinks are able to access fat liberation spaces so long as they leave the kink at the door. I say this not only because the majority of them are fat people, but because that community is steeped in a deep shame and feeling of brokenness for taking delight in fatness and/or weight gain, which perpetuates rampant fatphobia. and fat liberation is what will heal those wounds. I don't understand it when fat activists tell kinksters/fetishists/feedists, whatever you want to call them to stay out of the fat liberation movement. because what is the alternative? do you want them against the movement? that doesn't make sense at all. I think people are so uncomfortable, disgusted, or afraid of this community they don't understand, that they just wish they wouldn't exist. they aren't going away. kink is akin to sexuality, to identity, to queerness. I think what people really mean when they say feedists should stay out of fat lib is, "kink should stay within spaces designated for kink." we aren't talking about kink when it comes to who can belong in a movement, we are talking about people. it is wrong to equate every person who has a kink or a fetish to a predator. it causes very real harm to those people, because they internalize that message that their kink makes them a bad person who is inherently worthless, who has to hide. if feedists aren't welcome in fat liberation, they aren't welcome anywhere.
I think that people who love fat people, love feeding people, love their own fat bodies, who see their fattest selves as their most satisfying selves, would be natural allies to this movement once they find their way to it and feel safe and accepted here. I want to make it absolutely clear that ANYONE is welcome on this blog as long as they aren't harassing or harming anyone. so many of my followers and biggest supporters are kink blogs. some of my closest friends and fat liberationist allies are feedists. I know feedists who are way more educated and passionate about fat lib and body politics than most people I've met. I don’t wish for anyone to feel alienated on my blog - especially fellow fat folks and fellow fat allies. we are 100% FAT POSITIVE AND SEX POSITIVE on this blog, babey‼️
In fact I feel really glad when I see fat kink/feedism blogs engaging with my content bc it means that person is putting the work in to understand systemic fatphobia, how to be an ally to fat people (if they aren't fat themselves), but also healing their community through education and acceptance. and HOT TAKE, BUT: when it does happen?? when feedists aren't shrouded in internalized fatphobia, shame, and isolation, and instead start embracing this innate, powerful appreciation for fatness, it's literally so fucking beautiful? and so very queer?
choosing to gain weight on purpose as an act of self creation. because it feels Right for you. gaining weight to affirm the relationship you have with your body. getting fatter because you feel so much of your identity (even gender presentation!) is attached to your fat body. feeling sexiest when you're fat. someone else worshipping that about you. giving unlimited permission to nourish yourself and/or others - and taking carnal delight in it. releasing food rules and food guilt through centering pleasure. food and fatness as an erotic and sensory experience. finding feedist partners who also have this ingrained love of fatness that can't be replicated, partners who are willing and eager to support and adore your fat body, NOT merely tolerate it. reclaiming tropes used against you through kink, and turning a loving gaze inward. saying "fuck you" to the system and choosing to take up more space in a world that consistently tries to shrink you. never denying yourself pleasure even though everyone is telling you you don't deserve it. feedism is such an interesting facet of the endless spectrum of human sexuality and I think that once people in that community find liberation and heal their relationship to the kink, it can be one of the most radical forms of self acceptance and exercising complete bodily autonomy.
I already know that a love letter to feedism coming from a fat lib blog is gonna piss people off. I'm going to lose a lot of followers, I'm going to get a lot of hate. but. kink in general is SO demonized and SO misunderstood and as liberationists we should also be open to sexual liberation. so much of this discomfort around feedism comes from a lack of education and understanding about kink in general. feedism doesn't = fatphobia in the same way that bdsm doesn't = misogyny or abuse. quite the contrary, if practiced ethically, with informed consent. every community has assholes. especially when those communities are small, ostracized, and so young that there are next to zero resources for self acceptance, safety, education, and accountability. in fact, the assholes are the ones that you're going to SEE because every respectful person is staying away and out of your business. if you've been harassed by someone with a fat kink, that is so shitty and I'm sorry that happened to you. I know it happens a lot. try to remember that what you experienced was abuse, not kink.
what consenting individuals choose to do with their bodies is entirely their business and there is nothing wrong with kink. (and I will not stand for sex-negative, puritan bullshit in my inbox, thank you very much.)
reminder: fat pleasure is fat liberation.
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The house of Nightingale & Constantine ( P. 1 )
> next part
.・゜-: ✧ :-
You know, when Batman reassured him (was it tho? His way of using words is a bit... confusing.) of bringing in a third person for their common problem, Phantom, Danny, didn't press nor worry.
He regrets it now, just a little bit.
—
Dick liked Danny.
The small guy has been an absolute delight!
(He isn't grinning when he and Damian duke it out, doesnt watch fondly when Danny and Jason exchange the most weirdest ways of insulting someone or when He and Steph gossip, Cass sitting behind him with her hands in his hair.)
(He can see from the corner of his eye the way Tim hides a grin behind his hand, texting Danny someone rapidly and their Guest laughing at random times, the way even Duke, despite wearing the sunglasses, seems to warm up pretty quickly to their new brother friend.)
(It's doesn't help that he has black hair and blue eyes either.)
Danny has been living with them for some time now, temporarily as it may be, and grew on them all pretty quickly.
Bruce told them when Constantine arrived at the cave, seemingly irritated for unknown reasons, and they all were ushered to the elevator.
There is no noise as they arrive, Danny few feet off the ground and engaged on a hot topic with Steph as they go down the stairs.
The moment Constantine is in sight however, has their resident ghost snapping out of the conversation and zooming in on the man from afar.
It's kind of funny? The way his black hair fluffs up like in a Ghibli Movie, the way his eyes narrow to slits, glowing a faint green.
Many shout in alarm at the sight of agitation (?), Dick sees Constantines own eyes glow a eery gold??
It's like two cats staring down one another, a showdown.
(Someone should record this.)
The two meet down in the middle of the cave, Danny is bristling and John scowling.
"Really Bats? A Nightingale?" The blond man scoffs, pushing his hands into the pockets of his coat, hands roaming for cigarettes probably.
"Excuse me? I thought the line of Constantine died out back then, with the way you handle your stuff." The teen hisses back, a hand running through his poofed up hair.
"Hah!" The Hellblazer gives a mocking laugh, cigar already in hand and lit. "'With the way we handle our stuff'? Weren't the Nightingales out of commission not so long ago?"
The glow might have died out, but the tension only rose higher.
Danny turns to Batman, glowering.
"Asking for the help of the house of Constantine? Are you crazy? Those nutjobs have no self-preservation!"
John's eye twitches at the remark.
"No self-preservation, my ass. Nightingales do nothing but mess with stuff they shouldn't, talk about self-preservation when you have it yourself, pipsqueak."
And Danny? Danny growls.
"All you do is trick every being to do your bidding! One day all of this will catch up to your house and me? I will watch as it burns."
The blonds cigarette snaps in his grip.
"Burn? Me? Doesn't the house if Nightingales hunt the beings we 'trick'? It seems to me that your lineage is already going down as we speak."
The argument (?) continues and the batclan does nothing but watch as if its a particularly interesting tennis match.
(John looks like he's about 5 seconds away from strangling Danny and the teen about to bite off John's head.)
"What's going on?" Finally, Batman steps in.
"What's going on? What's going on?? You said you'd bring in a third person! Not a constantine!"
The bat shows no signs of anything really, when both teen and man whip around to face him.
"I thought you'd know better than to involve yourself with the house of Nightingales."
"I was here first! No take backs!"
"And yet I know bats longer, don't I, pipsqueak?"
"Foolish trickster!"
"Imprudent necromancer!"
(Apparently, beef between two houses of dark exists and they had the chance to experience it first hand.)
(This is one of the many occurrences.)
#dp x dc crossover#fic prompt#writing prompt#john constantine#danny nightingale#the house of Constanine and the House of Nightingale have infinite beef#constanine can and will punt this literal toddler#steph: fight fihht fight#danny and john have family beef#what if danny meets constantine but i do u one better#its hate at first sight#batman has absolute no idea what happening#hes taking it like a champ tho#its jason btw#the one who records this showdown of two feral cats that are alive (or half) despite the circumstances#dc x dp prompt#dcxdp#dpxdc
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A lot of people talk about Actual Play podcasts giving unrealistic expectations for TTRPGs (Surprise! Trained Actors improv differently from your average player, and even for indie APs, playing for an audience is completely different from playing among friends)
But I absolutely think that watching other people play CAN inspire new ways to play, in a way you can’t really get elsewhere.
It wasn’t until I listened to Friends at the Table and listened to how Austin Walker narrates the games they play that I considered the potential of treating a TTRPG less like the kind of collaborative improv we normally treat it as, and more like storyboarding.
The major difference being: Austin regularly talks about ‘the camera’. It is practically its own character with how much attention it gets.
“So I’m imagining this like one of those shots where everything kinda freezes in place, and the character is still moving to show the out of body experience they are having right now, and when the scene cuts back, these are the parts that are different.”
“Oh yeah, you open the box, and it’s like that scene in Pulp Fiction. Where we just see this golden glow from what’s coming inside. Your characters know what’s in there now, but I have no idea, we haven’t gotten to that point yet. We will come back to it.”
“Okay you see this symbol, and your character wasn’t there for it so they don’t know what it was, but we the audience can immediately connect it back to this one cult we were dealing with.”
At one point just blatantly goes “Oh man, actually should we change it to this, for a better thematic parallel to what happened in that other session? That might be a really good resolution for your character.”
It’s such an INCREDIBLE example of what you can do by treating the fiction so casually, and like the work in progress it actually is. Genuinely one of the best GM practices I have ever seen, and something that very quickly became a tool I make heavy use of in my campaigns.
The story isn’t a finished product, and it turns out treating it like a draft instead of a finished product makes the game able to do SO MUCH more cool shit.
#it’s SUCH a good way to narrate!#AND it’s system agnostic! AND it makes GMing a far more approachable practice!!!#TTRPGs#Friends at the Table
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jojo siwa claiming she's revitalizing gay pop and releasing 'karma' on the same night as conan gray's 'found heaven' and chappell roan's 'good luck babe' is so poetically ironic. it's like the universe WANTS to draw a comparison between jojo and queer pop artists.
the thing that makes queer pop compelling as a genre is the unique storytelling and experiences of queer artists told through their music. that doesn't necessarily mean every song by a queer artist has to be about their queerness. they don't have to scream "hey i'm gay!" in every single song they write. but claiming to be "reinventing gay pop" should mean you're telling interesting stories about your queer experience, right???
'found heaven' by conan gray is about growing up as a queer kid with religious guilt and disapproving parents. he equates being in love in an authentic way to "finding heaven", and the piece as a whole resonates with a TON of queer people in different stages of their lives. some people can look back at their childhoods and how much they've grown since then, some can relate because they're currently going through what conan's written about, and some people can sympathize with the way some queer people are treated, even if they aren't necessarily queer themselves.
'good luck babe' is a song about queerness and compulsory heterosexuality. chappell sings about a woman she was in a relationship with who decided to settle down in a conventional marriage despite being queer. the song reflects the denial a lot of queer people go through (specifically regarding the lesbian experience) and the unfortunate way a lot of them end up repressing who they are to conform to societal standards. it's fun, it's campy, but its message is still poignant.
as for karma… there's nothing inherently queer about that song. the music video for the original version, ‘karma’s a bitch’ by brit smith, featured a heterosexual storyline. jojo buying the rights to a song she didn't write isn't inherently a bad thing, a lot of mainstream artists do that all the time. however, if you're claiming to be a pioneer of the “gay pop” genre and your music doesn't reflect any queer themes or experiences, is it really “gay pop”? again, queer artists don't have to write exclusively about their queerness, but if you try to present yourself as a voice for the queer community without telling any of their stories, you're not going to be lauded as some revolutionary figure. if any of the songs on jojo’s album are actually about her experience as a lesbian or contain any queer themes, then i think she'd qualify as a “gay pop” artist. but so far, she's given us a faux edgy, generic pop song and tried to market it as some insane never-been-done-before feat. and honestly, if her entire album is like this and she continues to market herself this way, it's a slap in the face to all the genuine artists and storytellers in the queer community.
but let's stop talking about jojo siwa and start talking about the incredible queer artists who are truly breathing life into the "gay pop" genre: chappell roan, renee rapp, ben platt, conan gray, girl in red, kevin atwater, baby queen, mitski, clairo, dodie, and SO MANY MORE (feel free to add on some of your favourites because there are so many wonderful artists out there <3)
also: if you have a different perspective on this situation i would absolutely love to hear what you think and if you agree / disagree with this! i love discussing topics like this so feel free to reblog with your own take
#jojo siwa#karma#chappell roan#conan gray#queer pop#also the fact that this rebrand is a coverup for jojo's awful behavior#like be fucking fr#don't use the queer community as a sheild
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facts about The Fear, after 20 years of life with her
The Fear is NOT:
an intruder, invader, or some other entity from "outside" You
inappropriate, wrong, or incorrect
a responsibility
a punishment
"irrational" or otherwise able to be understood through a relationship to "rationality"
an "inaccurate" representation of reality
The Fear IS:
an innate part of you
extra-rational—she exists outside and completely independent from "rationality" and does not respond to being judged according to that lens
self-love—her purpose is to protect you and keep you safe
self-sufficient—fear is a 100% whole, complete entity that doesn't "represent" or "reflect" something else
earnest—fear is always a 100% real experience that is exactly as it is felt, and, needing no comparison or reference to any external reality, it is not "dishonest" or "inaccurate"— it asserts a claim about only itself
subversive [not quite the word I am looking for but it will have to do]— is not necessarily beholden to social and cultural norms of what should be feared, how much, and how you should respond. She does not stop existing in the absence or suppression of vocabulary to describe her.
a demand for care— she does not just communicate to you but to the community you are part of; she calls attention to an obligation that this community has toward you, to make sure that you are safe within it and that your experiences are heard and understood.
yeah, so, i've had severe anxiety for my whole life and the way it's been treated and dealt with, and the way I've been taught to understand it, has really fucked me up so I am trying to lay the groundwork for understanding it differently
I think it's pretty fucked up that we're taught to see anxiety as deceptive or inaccurate. Now, obviously the images or projections in my fearful thoughts do not usually "reflect reality," but I have come to see this as...not particularly important?
Teaching an anxiety sufferer to restructure their thoughts to dismiss and contradict "irrational" fear is, in my opinion, the same as teaching a chronic pain sufferer to restructure their thoughts to dismiss and contradict pain with no clear physical source. You might as well speak of "irrational" pain, and pain has the same relationship to rationality that fear has.
"Irrationality" is a quality assigned to fear that is judged by an outside observer, or by the collective cultural biases and hang-ups of a society, as not appropriate to a given situation. This is total fucking nonsense and we should be talking about that, because...well, the first reason is that it implies some kind of fixed standard for what fear ultimately is and isn't for. i like to tell people to watch one of those Coyote Peterson videos where he's going to get a tarantula hawk wasp to sting him, because he's obviously having a strong physical fear response, even though he knows it won't kill him. Is it "rational" to fear suffering and not just death? How much suffering? Sit with that one a little while.
The second reason, which is even more convincing, is that the "rational" brain is not consulted at any point, ever, when a person feels afraid. It's just a response. The fear response is not routed through the conscious, sapient, reasoning brain. And thank God, because if we needed to hear back from an upstairs executive before we could decide whether to run from a lion, our species would be extinct.
Techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy were absolute fucking shit at making my life any better, but fantastic at wrecking my ability to identify my own emotions, because Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for anxiety basically amounts to trying to brainwash yourself into thinking you don't feel the emotions that you do. It's a really neat way to develop bizarre psychosomatic symptoms and start experiencing anxiety through constant body pain, swollen lymph nodes, and digestive issues.
For an institution that pathologizes having "alters," psychiatry sure loves to encourage a suffering person to view normal and ultimately good parts of themselves as distinct, intruding entities to be shoved in a closet somewhere.
And yes. Fear is ultimately a good part of you, a part of you that loves you.
What began to set me free was feeling that acid terror and sickness and rage course through my body and realizing—really realizing—that I was being illuminated with this ancient, powerful force driving me to LIVE.
I want us to make it. I want you to live.
And you know what, I want me to live too.
I abandoned the doctrine of calming down—Lord knows it had never worked anyway—and started really just exploring and existing in the Fear.
How did that feel? Bad. Very very very very very bad and really not productive or helpful at all initially. Which was unavoidable. Necessary. She had been frantically clawing to communicate with me for so long, and I had been shutting her away, silencing her, resenting her presence in my psyche. I started trying to show gratitude toward the signals my body gave me. I started trying to show gratitude toward her—and i guess the Fear was a Her now, this just seemed more respectful.
And it seemed like nothing happened, but several things happened.
I stopped searching for validation. That was a big one. At some point I just...stopped needing a "reason" or justification for the fear I felt (trauma???? neurodivergence???? neurodivergence trauma????) and the fact that I experienced it became completely sufficient and satisfying to me. So much guilt and confusion disappeared.
I also became steadily more confident about my own boundaries, particularly in regards to recovery.
It's awful now that I think about it, but I think I felt this sense of almost moral obligation towards "recovery," as if I needed to "overcome fear" to be Courageous and Virtuous. It made me feel crushing guilt to feel any hesitation about this.
But then this started to change. It became more real to me that was the only person affected by the steps I did or didn't take toward recovery, and there was no moral dimension to it. A therapist couldn't put me in a box I wouldn't willingly go into.
Freedom from these judgmental frameworks is really important to me. I think that I always hated the idea of getting "better" because it seemed like "better" would mean just getting better at submitting to things I was afraid of while everything felt just as bad as it always did on the inside.
And on some level—even though I could never put it into words at the time—I violently hated the idea of "recovery" from some of my fears because it seemed like the ultimate denial of agency. I didn't want to "become okay with it"—the possibility felt dehumanizing. It felt awful.
And I realize now that this is because The Fear represented something I needed to have a right to. Many of my most life-destroying fears centered around things being done to my body, and if I could have pressed a button and been no longer afraid, I wouldn't have, even though it would have spared me so much suffering, because...I needed it to be okay to want agency over my body. I needed it to be right. The Fear, in this case, was a demand that my body be treated as sacred.
I realized that there were many cases where The Fear was a territorial claim of sorts, a demand that certain needs be honored and met—She needs this. This is FUCKING non-negotiable.
And it really...prompted me to look backward on my life and see The Fear differently: not as a responsibility I had failed to shoulder (me?? a little child??? responsible?? Responsible for being brave, when every day felt like facing a firing squad?????) but as a collective responsibility
Because I was not alone in those memories—I was surrounded by adults that saw me suffering, and often dismissed, ignored or ridiculed it. The Fear grew larger and larger; why?—to protect me. Because teachers, nurses, doctors, and camp counselors did not do any of the thousand thousand things they could have done to make that little girl feel safe. Because my well-meaning parents praised me when I was "brave" but I, a little kid, literally couldn't communicate how awful it always felt.
The Fear was not there to torture me. The Fear was and is doing her best to keep me safe. It's not wrong, there's no need for guilt. It just is.
It doesn't feel good. But maybe one day it will feel better.
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YES! GOOD! I’m going to just going to analyze the whole dinner scene, because it’s one of my favorite parts of the movie.
Mario and Luigi walk in, and immediately the whole room lights up to greet them. Despite everything that follows, one thing is clear: The Mario Brothers are happy to see their family, and the family is happy to see them.
The whole family confirms that they watched their commercial. Everyone except their mom insists the commercial was a bad idea, but the fact that they all watched it speaks to the fact that there is no indifference regarding Mario and Luigi’s dream. They’re eager to see where this endeavor leads, even if they think it’s going to end in failure.
The moment Mario and Luigi sit down at the table, their uncles begin laying into them like it’s open season on financially struggling plumbers. Just full blown, no-holds-barred roast mode on their nephews.
Mario is on the defensive, but he doesn’t get angry, he’s just trying to argue his side. Clearly this is typical behavior for Uncle Tony and Uncle Arthur. They’re loud, overly honest, and obnoxiously confident in their opinions. Uncle Arthur, thankfully, has his wife to keep him in check. Uncle Tony, however, who is seated next to poor Luigi, is an absolute menace.
Luigi ignores all the teasing. He is only interested in getting food, but this is not an easy task. Tony’s verbal arguments are all directed at Mario, but Luigi is the one who gets prodded and shoved around, and that makes getting dinner next to impossible.
Luigi attempts to serve himself salad, attempts to ask for a roll, attempts to eat the mushrooms being put on his plate, and at every turn he’s either pushed away or talked over. He is clearly very soft spoken compared to the other men in his family, and never quite had the strength to stand up for himself... after all, everyone means well, they just lack self awareness. It isn’t worth the fight.
Thankfully, Luigi’s mom comes to the rescue, and puts a bowl of soup in front of her boy. She’s the queen of the caretaker role, making sure all the loose ends are tied up and that everybody eats.
But on the flip side, it’s interesting to note that once the uncles start tearing into Mario, Mario’s Dad serves him up a plate of food. He may have just been serving the person next to him because that was the polite thing to do, but I have a theory...
I think that this wasn’t the first night that Mario and his uncles went at each other. I think Mario’s Dad read the room, and figured that if Mario was going to spend dinner playing defense, he should at least remember to eat while doing so.
It also speaks volumes that Mario’s Dad doesn’t voice his disapproval until Mario asks for his opinion. Before then he avoids the subject and lets everyone else do the talking, but so long as he’s being questioned directly, he can’t help but be honest.
“I think... you’re nuts. You don’t quit a steady job for some crazy dream.”
This sounds like a voice of experience. Mario’s Dad has the figure of someone who has worked physical labor for a good portion of his life (look the size of those arms). He may have had dreams of his own when he was younger, but he had a wife and kids to worry about, and family took priority.
Speaking of family taking priority: “... and the worst part? You’re bringing your brother down with you.”
That settles it. The conversation has gone from a casual roast session to dead serious. The entire room falls quiet as Mario puts down his fork and storms off.
“What’d I say?”
Everybody at the table (except the niece, she’s long since checked out) gives Mario’s Dad different versions of the look™. Uncle Tony and Uncle Arthur have the same “Jesus Christ bro, you didn’t have to go there” expression, and Luigi just looks hurt on Mario’s behalf. His Dad, however, is just confused.
He didn’t get the gravity of what he said. His relationship with his own brothers– loudmouthed schmucks who call their own shots – is completely alien to what Luigi and Mario have. He probably knows Mario is protective of Luigi, but he doesn’t realize the depth of responsibility Mario feels for him. Anyone can see that Luigi is loyal to his brother, but Mario alone knows how loyal he is, and the implication that he’s betraying that loyalty is intensely painful.
I doubt Uncle Arthur and Uncle Tony truly relate to Mario and Luigi’s relationship either, but they’ve probably teased Mario enough to understand one thing: bringing Luigi into it is a line you do not cross.
Conclusion:
There is a lot of love in the Mario family.
Uncle Tony and Uncle Arthur are definitely the most insufferable of the bunch, but there is no malice in their teasing. While they are brash and overbearing, it’s all in good fun, and they get visibly uncomfortable when things go too far and someone actually ends up hurt.
Luigi seems to take after his mother; kind, nonconfrontational, and happily invested in a supporting role. While his Mom cares for and assists the family, Luigi cares for and assists his brother, both emotionally and in his business ventures.
Mario, in the meantime, takes after his Dad, who appears to be the oldest of the three brothers. He doesn’t always think before speaking, but he isn’t constantly running his mouth like Arthur or Tony, and acts with the gravity of someone who bears a lot of responsibility. He doesn’t quite “get” his sons, but he knows enough to see that Luigi follows his brother everywhere, and Mario does not always think before jumping into things.
Despite what Mario may believe, his Dad doesn’t see him as a “joke” so much as he sees him as an impulsive young man who doesn’t grasp the consequences of his actions. But Mario does understand the consequences of his actions, he just dreams big, and... thanks to Luigi... actually has the support he needs to pursue those dreams.
#mario movie#mario movie spoilers#super mario brothers movie#Luigi#Mario#Not Art#mario commentary#This got a lot longer than I thought it would#There were a lot of thoughts#Super Mario Brothers#Long Post
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anxiety gremlin — op.81
pairing: oscar piastri x anxious!reader
word count: 3.5k
warnings: mentions of anxiety and generalised anxiety disorder, description of physical symptoms including; nausea, headaches, sweaty hands, stomach pains, brain fog, mental struggles, mentions of panic attacks but reader doesn’t experience one, mentions of food and making food related decisions.
PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!
hello loves!
this one is very personal to me and it was a pretty selfish write tbh... I wasn't sure if I should post it but I decided to do it in the hopes that it brings people some comfort. Oscar's dialogue at the end is a message that I, as the author, want to remind you all. you've got this, even if it doesn't feel like it!
happy reading
love mimi
Sometimes, it felt as though the world was out to get you. You faced the world and your flight, fight or freeze instincts kicked in. When you woke up, it seemed like it was going to be one of those days. That unexplainable feeling of nausea turning your stomach and an unexplainable headache pulled at the back of your head. Your jaw tensed as the nausea hit you in another wave and you forced yourself to roll over and close your eyes. Maybe if you could get back to sleep you’d wake up feeling better.
Your mind however, had other ideas. Instead, deciding to send you down the spiral of impending doom - a lovely gift first thing in the morning. Thoughts whizzed through your head; Why did you feel so nauseous? Why did your head hurt? Had you forgotten something? What were your plans for the day and was that why this horrible feeling was creeping up? You sat up, accepting that you wouldn’t be falling back asleep and decided to get ready for the day. Perhaps a shower would help?
The warm water was soothing as it rushed over you and whether it was the heat or the steam or the fact you were doing something to distract yourself, for a moment you felt a little better. Exiting the shower you decided that while the nausea had subsided, it would be a good time to start hydrating and maybe think about eating something. Your phone rang and dragged you from your internal rambling,
“Hi baby!” You smiled, despite the fact that your boyfriend couldn’t see you,
“Good morning angel,” You could hear Oscar’s dopey lovesick grin through the phone, “how did you sleep?” You set him down on loudspeaker as you got dressed,
“I slept okay! How about you?”
“I would have slept better if you didn’t keep stealing the blankets…” You gasped,
“I do not!” Oscar laughed,
“You absolutely do! One night I’m going to record you for evidence.” You giggled,
“You do that baby.” Oscar nodded then realised you couldn’t see him,
“I’m just calling to find out what you want for breakfast? I figured I’d stop off at that little cafe that you like on my way home.” You gulped, you had no clue what you wanted or how to decide,
“I’d love that, thank you handsome!” You thought frantically for a solution, “Uhh you can choose for me! I trust you!” There was a pause on the other end of the line,
“Are you sure angel?”
“Yup, mhm, so sure!”
“O-okay…” After making Oscar promise to drive safely, you hung up.
You realised that for a moment while talking to Oscar, you hadn’t even thought about feeling anxious but it was as if that realisation had summoned the feeling back. All of a sudden your hands felt shaky and it was hard to focus on anything but the disconcerting feeling in your chest. Sitting down on the couch you did your best to control your breathing. Sometimes you wished that it would just turn into a panic attack and be done with. Anything would be better than this on-off-on-off situation. It was like feeling a sneeze that wouldn’t leave your body. Unsatisfying and unsettling.
The front door opening made you snap your head up and you realised that subconsciously you had been rubbing your hands on your sweatpants to try and get rid of the clammy feeling. You shook your head and smiled as Oscar walked through the door, you were just a little bit anxious, it was no big deal.
Oscar beamed at you as he entered the living room. He noticed that you seemed distracted and almost a little shifty. Your eyes kept darting around the room and your hands were absentmindedly picking at a loose thread on the hem of your t-shirt - a habit you usually despised because it had the potential to ruin your clothes. He said nothing, just walked through the room to the kitchen and placed down the paper bags filled with breakfast.
“You okay there angel?” You nodded at him but it wasn’t enough to reassure him, “Are you sure?” You nodded once more, why now of all times were you feeling sick again? You sat there grinding your teeth together and clenched your jaw, feeling too sick to open your mouth and reply. You wanted to reply, you really did! But your brain had decided that words were a step too far.
“Did you do something while I was out, hmm?” Oscar joked but all it did was make you more anxious, ‘was he angry?’, ‘was he going to shout at you?’, ‘breakup with you?’, “Come on troublemaker, you can tell me!-”
“Nothing! Nothing happened! Now will you please stop asking.” You snapped, immediately clapping a hand across your mouth in shock before the tears were welling up in your eyes.
“Oscar I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry baby I shouldn’t have snapped… Please don’t be angry!” You rambled a million miles an hour as your hands began rubbing and grabbing the material of your sweatpants again, not even realising your breathing had turned heavy and you were sweating.
Oscar stood there in shock, he had never seen you like this before, was this because of him? He slowly approached you, not sure of the issue and not sure how to resolve it.
“It’s okay angel, it’s okay” He held his hand out to you but you shook your head, talking through a clenched jaw in the hopes it would help the queasy feeling in your stomach,
“Hands sweaty.” Oscar nodded,
“Okay then, can I sit next to you?” You nodded, he gently took a seat next to you, careful not to jostle or jolt you,
“Is this a medical emergency?” You shook your head, “do I need to call an ambulance?” You shook your head once more, feeling like you wanted to cry.
How embarrassing that you were having an episode like this in front of your boyfriend after hiding it so well for so long. And even more embarrassing that you couldn’t tell him what was going on let alone why you felt the way you did,
“Is this a panic attack?” You shook your head no. Oscar made a little ‘oh’ and sat quietly next to you, unsure of what to say or do. You took a deep breath and forced yourself to open your mouth, despite how heavy your tongue felt.
“I’m just a bit anxious.”
“What about?” You shrugged,
“Nothing. Everything. Hard to explain.” Oscar smiled at you through your one word answers and short sentences,
“Well I can wait, it’s okay.” You nodded, hands starting to tingle with how long you’d been rubbing them against fabric and you winced as a sudden cramping feeling started in your stomach. Oscar seemed to notice your discomfort,
“Please let me hold your hand angel, I promise I don’t care if it’s sweaty and you think it’s gross, I just want to help okay?” You nodded, breathing deeply and letting him take your hand in his.
As soon as your hand was in his, his thumb was rubbing gentle circles over the back of your hand. A soothing motion that you let your eyes focus on. Watching his hands and how they moved, anything to keep your attention off of the anxious feeling.
As he sat next to you Oscar wondered how he should approach you to talk about this. Clearly there was something you weren’t telling him. He thought he knew what it was and he understood why you hadn’t told him. He knew that people got anxious, hell he was always anxious before a race, but he also knew that for some people it went beyond unsettling feelings. He guessed that that’s what you were dealing with too. He’d seen Logan feeling like this a few times and so he wracked his brain to try and remember what the American had told him was useful. How about distraction? It was worth a shot!
“Want to watch a film?” You nodded, eyes still laser focused on Oscar’s hands.
“I knew you had a thing for my hands but you are allowed to blink you know.” He joked, cracking the smallest sound of an exhale of laughter from you, that was a start.
“What film should we watch, hmm?” He grabbed the remote to start flicking through options, his hand never leaving yours, but aware that there was enough space between you so you didn’t feel smothered. “I think something cute and funny? Yes that’s a goooood plan Oscar.” You gave a weak smile once more as he talked to himself and he smiled at you, “how about Tangled?” You nodded and he selected the film, settling back into the couch, head looking at you once more,
“Do you want to cuddle?” You shook your head and he just shrugged, wanting to keep you as comfortable as possible,
“That’s okay, you just let me know when you do, okay?” You nodded and he squeezed your hand to comfort you, “Do you want to sit back on the couch?” Your body was still tightly wound and feeling like a live wire so you shook your head, physically unable to relax. And still all Oscar did was smile at you.
As the film started, you did your best to focus on it, finding yourself unable to stop smiling and releasing some of the tension in your shoulders at various points when your boyfriend spoke the lines along with the characters, with facial expressions. You watched on screen as Rapunzel and Flynn entered the Ugly Duckling Pub and you realised your body finally felt relaxed enough to sit back against the couch. Oscar silently breathed a sigh of relief, all he wanted to do was fix it for you but he knew that he could only do so much.
By the time the next song had finished, your body was subconsciously leaning against him. Your head rested on his shoulder and he gently tilted his head to rest on top of yours. You gave a little contented sigh. As you sat there, a wave of tiredness hit you, the physical symptoms and mental strain you’d been feeling since you woke up taking its toll. With Oscar’s warm body next to you and the comforting sounds of one of your favourite movies on screen, it wasn’t long before you felt your eyes beginning to slowly close. Oscar looked down at you and saw that your lashes had fluttered shut. He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of your head and let his own eyes slip shut.
When you woke up a couple of hours later, the TV was off and you were laying on the couch with a soft blanket covering you. You sat up and sleepily rubbed your eyes,
“Osc?” You heard low music drifting through the door to the kitchen and you could hear Oscar mumbling to himself and humming along, cursing occasionally when pots and pans clanged together. He poked his head out from the kitchen door,
“There’s my pretty girl. Good morning angel.” He cooed at you and the way you blinked back at him sleepily.
“What time is it?”
“It’s lunchtime! I was just reheating breakfast.” You nodded, sitting up and pulling your knees up to your chest as he padded across the room to take a seat at the end of the couch by your feet,
“I’m sorry.” Oscar’s eyes searched your face as you looked down at your hands in your lap. Oscar’s hand rested on your knee,
“Angel, you never have to apologise for something like that…” He trailed off, hesitant to ask you his next question, “do you want to talk about it?” You inhaled slowly, nodding,
“Yeah I think I would.” He gently nudged you with his elbow and you shifted back to let him sit in front of you, both of you sitting cross legged. He held his hands out to you and you took them with a shaky exhale.
“Umm… I’m not exactly sure how to explain it?” You admitted, your fingers playing with his own in an effort to keep yourself grounded as that familiar feeling of your shoulders tightening and nausea creeping up began to settle in. He followed your gaze,
“That’s okay, we have all the time in the world. Explain it however you feel is easiest.” You nodded once more,
“So obviously you noticed that I was feeling anxious,” He tilted his head to one side to show you he was listening as you continued, “That’s because I have generalised anxiety disorder. And the thing is… I feel like that most of the time.” You admitted shakily, desperately willing yourself not to cry. If Oscar was surprised or taken aback he didn’t show it, instead just linking your hand with his and squeezing, encouraged you continued,
“There are good days and there are bad days but I’m always anxious… There’s this constant feeling of underlying panic or anxiety or this sense of impending doom.” You looked up and noticed how Oscar’s eyes searched yours, willing you to understand that he wasn’t going anywhere, “I feel nauseous, I feel shaky, my hands get clammy, sometimes it’s like I forget how to breathe, my head and stomach hurt for no reason, my head goes fuzzy and it’s hard to focus on anything but the feeling of how anxious I am…”
“Baby…” Oscar breathed, you gave him a watery smile, tears filling your lash line,
“It makes me irritable, it makes me bitchy, it makes me snap at people I love, it makes me sensitive and emotional, I cry a lot, I cancel plans at the last second, I keep to myself and I build my walls up…” You trailed off, meeting his gaze and noticing that his eyes were filling with tears too, “Sometimes it feels like I’m two people. Me and my anxiety.” You couldn’t help the way the tears fell with a choked sob,
“Angel, can I please please give you a hug?” Oscar pleaded, itching to pull you into his arms and comfort you.
You nodded through your sobs, finally feeling the huge emotional release that had been building since you’d woken up. He reached for you, gently grabbing your arms and pulling you forward onto him. Falling back against the arm of the couch with you against his chest as you both stretched your legs out. He held you for what felt like forever, tightly wrapping his arms around you and stroking your hair, gently murmuring to you and kissing your forehead. When your sobs had subsided a little, he wiped your cheeks,
“My sweet girl…” He gently pressed kisses across your face, relishing in the way your crying eased and you let out a little sigh after each one, “Thank you so much for telling me angel.” He paused,
“Can I ask why you didn’t tell me before?” He asked gently. You sighed, fisting his t-shirt in your hand as you fought the nervous feeling that made your stomach flip. His hand rubbed up and down your back in a soothing motion as he felt you tense up in his arms, “I’m not mad at you baby, I just want to know what I can do differently in the future. I’d hate it if you didn’t feel safe enough to come to me for help.” You nodded, nuzzling into his chest, attempting to block out the world and focus on Oscar. Just Oscar.
“Everyone I’ve told has left…” You mumbled sadly,
“Hmmm?” His voice was soft, like he didn’t want to scare you out of answering,
“I told a few people growing up, uni friends and stuff, and they would always answer with the usual ‘oh yeah I feel anxious too’... Until I explained I had diagnosed anxiety disorder and then,” you sighed, “then they would tell me it was too much for them to deal with, or they would get mad at me for ruining plans, or tell me to just get over it when I tried to talk to them about it.” Oscar’s hold on you tightened a little as he felt a spark of anger burn inside him. How dare they? Anyone could see that you were trying your best, he gave you his full attention as you continued,
“I guess all of those things mean that I have a hard time opening up and trusting people with the knowledge of my diagnosis because it’s always backfired… Please don’t be mad at me… I do trust you, I just…”
“Hey,” Oscar’s voice was low to ensure he didn’t trigger you, “I’m not mad or disappointed at you baby, I’m frustrated with myself for not noticing sooner.”
“I’m pretty good at hiding it,” you admitted, the two of you led there in silence for a moment before Oscar spoke again,
“Well I’m beyond proud of you. For dealing with it everyday and for opening up to me.” You tilted your head up to look at him and pressed a soft kiss to his jawline,
“Thank you for listening.” He smiled back down at you,
“Of course.”
You summoned up the courage to ask him the question that had been on your mind for a little while,
“H-how did you know how to help?” Oscar breathed deeply for a second,
“There’s someone on the grid who uhhh, struggles with the same thing. They’ve opened up to me and explained what helps them so I figured I’d try?” You pushed yourself up to look at him in surprise,
“Someone on the grid?” Oscar nodded,
“I won’t say who, because it’s their thing to disclose and explain,” You nodded,
“Of course!”
“But they’re doing their best to work on things and ask for help and they’ve been doing really well.” Oscar made a mental note to ask Logan if he would consider talking to you.
“Well, Tangled was a great choice!” You giggled as Oscar nuzzled his nose into your neck,
“Yeah? I wanted to pick something that wouldn’t make you feel worse.” You couldn’t help the way you threw your arms around him and cuddled into him, so thankful for him and the thought and care he gave to you.
“I love you.” It was muffled against his chest but he knew what you wanted to say and so with a chuckle he kissed the top of your head,
“I love you too, angel.”
You stayed there for a moment before he was gently pushing you to sit up so he could look into your eyes, “I want to say something.” He hesitated and you nodded at him to continue. He gently held your chin with one hand, keeping you looking at him as his other hand found yours in your lap, linking his fingers with yours and squeezing, despite the way your hands were starting to get a little clammy again,
“You may have anxiety disorder but it’s not who you are, baby.” Your eyes widened, he continued, “You are not your diagnosis. There is so much more to you than that. You are kind and caring, you’re smart, you’re beautiful, you’re creative.” Your heart melted at how passionately he was speaking. “You’re loved and valued by me and so many others, angel… I love you, the anxiety gremlin that comes with you and all.” You giggled at how he referred to it,
“Anxiety gremlin… I like it!” He smiled, kissing your nose, you scrunched it up and he kept talking,
“I know I can’t fix it and make it go away, believe me baby I wish that I could. But I promise that I’ll be here through all the bad days and the good days. I’ll do everything I can to make it easier and more bearable for you.”
You couldn’t help the way you started crying again, happy tears this time, Oscar’s thumb gently wiping them away, “So when you’re feeling up to it, we’re gonna sit down and talk about how I can help. What I can do when you’re having a bad day, the things we can do together, how you like to be distracted, how I can help when we’re out in public, maybe a codeword?-” You giggled as he started speaking faster and faster, you stopped his rambling with a soft kiss, pressing your lips to his, your hand cupping his face, thumb rubbing over his cheek,
“That sounds perfect baby, thank you.” Oscar kissed you once more, pulling you into him,
“You just let me know when you’re ready.” You nodded,
“I will, I promise.”
“Good! But for now, we still need to eat our breakfast!”
#mimi.writes#tw anxiety#f1 x reader#f1 x you#f1 x y/n#f1 fic#f1 angst#f1 fluff#oscar piastri x you#oscar piastri x reader#oscar piastri fic#oscar piastri angst#oscar piastri fluff#oscar piastri imagine#oscar piastri oneshot#f1 oneshot
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