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#anyway designs may and probably will change over the course as i figure things out... cuz the shoes arent cutting it for me
anominous-user · 5 months
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full versions of my de-sticked/hsr'ed version of triple threat
types + paths
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musicfeedsmysoul12 · 8 months
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The self indulgent blurb
“Hey, hey! Aizawa!” Shouta paused to turn towards the voice calling. Walking down the hall was the form of Nezu’s secretary, Mathews Vic. A plus size, short person, they had randomly appeared one day blinking behind their glasses in Nezu’s office. Shouta never found out to much about them, given Nezu hoarded their information like a dragon but they'd settled in well as a secretary. “Shit yeah good to catch you!” Mathews beamed. They flicked their braid behind their head, the random pieces of bone in it clinking.
Shouta was ninety percent sure the whole ‘bone in hair’ thing was to mess with people. “Mathews,” Shouta said to them with a nod. They were at work and not in private. Hell, he was outside his classroom on the third day. Probably Mathews's own design on that. They once told Shouts that ‘eavesdropping is essential for a hero student and if they over hear shut they shouldn't it's on them to keep their mouths shut’. Though they did keep the really confidential stuff hidden.
“Glad I caught you! Wanted to talk about two of your students. Midoriya and Bakugou,” Mathews said. Shouta sighed. Of course, those two. Shouta’s first impression had been of a slacker and a kid who'd been told for years that he would end up a villain thanks to his Quirk. It hadn't changed just yet, but something was bugging him about them.
“Whats on your mind?” Shouta asked.
“Well for starters I met Bakugou before. It was a year back and I caught the kid threatening some other kids about ‘not applying to UA cause I'll kill you’. He actually had his Quirk popping in his hands. I stepped in, told him off and moved on. But that kinda thing sticks in your mind you know?” Mathews said. “So when I saw him I was like. Ah! Must look into! And I have for the last bit other than when the Rat God, May he have mercy on our souls, asks me to do other things.”
The cackle coming in from their earpieces, showing Nezu was listening, made Shouta shake his head. The joke kept on going, it was funny enough but Mathews took forever to get to their point like the rat did.
“Anyways so I did further research and looked into teacher comments on Bakugou. Did you?”
“No, I never look at them. Half the time they're garbage with either inflated praise or sabatoge. I look at other things like grades and skill scores.” Shouta said honestly. He'd like to talk to the person who started the rumour he didn't read the files. He wasn't stupid, he just skipped things that often ended up being faked.
“Smart smart, cause Midoriya has the worst load of horseshit I've ever seen. This kid is apparently the most disruptive and unintelligent child, meanwhile he's nearly broke a record on our entrance exam. 90%! Can you believe it?!” Mathews spread their arms out with a grin. Shouta had known that, but figured Mathews and Nezu were just absurdly pleased by a smart kid.
Shuffling came from the classroom they were in front of. Both ignored it as Mathews rambled on. “Bakugou though… that kid has nothing but praise and being called a delight in his files. I was instantly suspicious.”
Shouta was now to. That didn't make sense with his attitude so far. It should have been more like Midoriya’s records then not. Or it would be if he faced Quirk Discrimination like Shouta assumed.
“So I went digging. I know you thought he was a victim of discrimination cause his attitude matched yours as a kid, angry, bitter, willing to scream at people-” Mathews rambled as a loud bang echoed from the classroom before quieting.
We need to work on stealth, Shouta thought to himself.
“So I went back further and dug up some of the social media of their classmates and holy SHIT. Aizawa? That explosive kid is a narcissistic sociopath waiting to happen!” Mathews said in disbelief. “And no this isn't ‘oh Explosive Quirk? You're a villain in the making!’” the high pitched sing-song voice made Shouta shake his head at them. “This is me ACTUALLY wondering cause that kid had used his Quirk on Midoriya multiple times for stupid reasons. Including muttering. I saw DOZENS of videos Shouta, all untagged so we missed them!”
The fact Mathews used his name showed how serious this was. “Vic-” Shouts began but they waved him off.
“Not now. I'm angry. You know the whole ‘hey so this school gets all grades audited’ thing we discovered. It's not because of Bakugou like you thought. It's cause of Midoriya! Cause until the entrance exam he was Quirkless! And they treated him like SHIT FOR IT!” Mathews exploded. “I can't tell you how much shit I went through Shouta, how much BULLSHIT I saw spew from the mouths of students and teachers. And Bakugou was a driving force!” Mathews shook their head, turning away from Shouta to stare at the wall.
He looked at his classroom, wondering why it was so quiet. It felt like a tomb, staring at it.
It was better than thinking on Mathews's words. He didn't WANT to believe it. He didn't want to think that they'd let an bigoted bully into UA. But Mathews rarely lied.
“Fuck, we fucked up.”
“We caught it early,” Mathews said to him, turning away from the wall. “I poked at Midoriya’s file to and he was Quirkless. It changed a week after the exam.”
“False negative? With specific activation?” Shouta asked.
“One option. Some of the videos had the kid freaking scrawny. Makes sense he needed to put on muscle for that Quirk. But like… there's also three other options.” Mathews said. “One, he met someone who can give people Quirks-”
“Like the boogeyman?” Shouta rolled his eyes.
“I met the fuck six years back, he wanted my Quirk,” Mathews said dryly. “I set off a glitter bomb in answer. But you do know there are other people with similar Quirks right? Nothing is unique and I want to point while laughing at any idiot claiming otherwise. Hell there's one with the exact same Quirk in Taiwan. Nice lady, works for the government.” Mathews shrugged at Shouta’s look. “No Quirk is villainous. It's idiots who say so.”
“I know that. I just wonder how you keep meeting these people.” Shouta told them.
“Sheer dumb luck. And also me being nosy as fuck. But anyway, so that's an option except my friend charges big bucks for a Quirk unless you go through the government so she's out and I can't think of anyone else in Japan since Boogeyman either died or went underground… wonder if the glitter… no right back on track. Our second option if a force manifested Quirk.” Mathews looked very uncomfortable saying that. Shouta understood why.
Force manifested Quirks, or FMQ only came about in serious circumstances. The idea Midoriya had one was haunting.
But it explained so much. The darkness in his eyes, the lowered face, the quiet looks he gave. It explained so much.
“Entrance exam?” Shouta asked. Mathews fidgeted. “... Vic?”
“I umm… sent you some videos of the worst bullying and a signed statement from a kid who told me a lot of stuff about Bakugou. Apparently they were friends of a sort? And the kid had a wake up call? It’s not… pretty.” Mathews winced. “But it’s possible Midoriya… tried to take his own life before UA. I don’t know if he did but it’s not good.”
“Fuck,” Shouta covered his face. His classroom was still so silent. Why?
“Which uhh leads me to the last option! A transferable Quirk!” Mathews said.
“...That’s a thing?” Shouta asked.
“Oh yeah I know like three heroes with one, and two non-heroes.” Mathews chriped as they motioned with their hands, trying to avoid the unpleasant conversation they just had. “It’s rareish, but it happens.”
“I see…” Shouta sighed. “Well, thanks for this. I now have to talk to my class who heard everything probably.”
“...Wait, wait… what… oh fuck,” Mathews paled dramatically. “I thought it was after school.”
“... did you forget AGAIN what times people leave school here?”
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ninjagirlstar5 · 27 days
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I love Haru, but he does deserve to get slapped every now and then for his pervertedness.
So, Haru is a pilot, that goes without saying with his hat and goggles as that's the most clear indication of his Ultimate Talent. His OG design was alright and I liked it as is. But I guess I just wanted to push his pilot design a little bit more while still keeping to his very casual look. So I, uh, replaced his vest with a bomber jacket. I'm sorry but I just wasn't feeling the vest as it looks like some kind of jacket that had it's sleeves ripped off and Haru decided to wear that cause he thinks it looks cool...which is actually pretty in character for him so it's not a bad design choice honestly, fkdgytdklymtlkym. I was just in the mood for a bomber jacket, so I gave Haru a bomber jacket. I just pushed the sleeves up juuust below the elbow to give the impression that he's pretty chill. When his temper is not flaring up, at least. But otherwise he's a pretty chill dude that just...wants to hang out and do dumb (perhaps even dangerous) teenage things and even go on a date or two. Anyways, back to the jacket, I also had it unzipped below his collar to again push the fact that he's pretty casual. But looking back on it now, I feel like I should've left the jacket completely open like his old vest. It would just fit his vibes better. But I decided not to go back and change the sprite simply because I was lazy and I didn't want to go through all the effort of erasing the linework and stuff. Just know the next time I draw him, I'm going to leave his jacket open. Also, I find it interesting that Haru's OG sprite has what looks to be a military symbol on his sleeve?? And his likes aside from women (of course) is also the military, at least according to the wiki. Which makes me think that Haru is a military brat of some sort, like one of his parents, probably his dad, was a pilot for the military or something. I could just be overanalyzing this but I don't think LINUJ would add these to his character without some kind of purpose. It'd be better if we actually had an idea of what his home life actually was, but alas, all we got in his FTEs was his love life (and his guilt over his role in Kiyoka's death, oof). Anyways, I decided to make that symbol on his sleeve a little more clearer on his jacket and I changed his necklace to dog tags to tie it all together. I found his blue necklace in his OG design kinda just...there...to fill in some space on his torso. And I thought it was kinda meh and out of place for such a plain necklace, so changing it to a pair of dog tags fits the whole military thing way better. After that, I changed his shoes to boots and gave him a ponytail cause...honestly, I just wanted to give him a ponytail. I love it when male characters have ponytails so Haru was lucky enough for my brain to go, "ponytail, now" while I was designing him. It kind helps his hair stand out when he's wearing his hat as it mostly covers his bangs in this redesign, not like in his OG sprite where tufts of his hair peaks out from underneath. Besides, I can see Haru being the kind of guy to grow out his hair, even if it's against regulations or something, like, say, occasionally serving in the military. For someone who seems to be interested in the military, perhaps even worked for it as a pilot, Haru actually has no issue in arguing against authority figures. No, seriously, if he's not arguing with Teruya in the killing game, he's butting heads with Kinjo. He may fall in line once, but if he has an issue with you, he doesn't hesitate to say it, regardless of your position. And with that, I just adjusted his color palette, desaturated his skin tone a little bit while making sure he remained tanned and that was it. Haru is done!
Man, I miss Haru. I feel like he really shined in Chapter 4 but I enjoy the little details of his character outside of his usual role of being the "comic relief."
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starwalker03 · 3 months
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Ayo it's late but 2023 Digital Art Progress
I drew the most digital stuff I've ever drawn last year. I finally pushed past a lot of my issues with the digital medium and figured out how to actually Do The Thing per se. so I think I got a lot better over the course of 2023. I definitely changed my visual style a lot, that's for sure.
Unfortunately I did lose my USB in 2023 as well so I lost a lot of my files. much sadness.
LONG POST. lots of drawings to get through and I have Thoughts.
Anyway these are dated in my files as March, which is my earliest I have rn, so this is kinda a representation of how I started the year.
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I was busy most of April so May has two files. these were both a part of my semester one project of my degree.
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I've got a lot of things dated for June, which is surprising. and not a lot of things dated after. I'm all over the place with starting wips and when it comes to finishing them... ehhh it happens eventually.
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I really wish I could go back in time and fix that leg. I just wanted to avoid drawing toes lmao. the thick line art really is a problem to me but that's neither here nor there.
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I think I finished a bunch of thing in June, because these are dated two days apart and I definitely started one before the other lmao. hell I think the one on the left was started in 2022.
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I'm not sure when this was but it was early in the year. I tried to veer away from the harsh lines and ended up swinging too far into semi-realism. I loved how it was looking (this is still a wip) but the amount of time it was taking was too much for me to replicate again.
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This definitely a June piece, because I wanted to do one character every few days throughout Pride Month. Didn't finish it.
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last year my friends and I considered starting to record and post our dnd games, so I did some arts of the characters of our current campaign.
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I think the solid black line art all of the same thickness was one of the main things I always disliked. I could never quite make it work with everything else I was doing.
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This is probably the only work I did with solid black lines that I really liked. it seems to work okay here.
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The July came around, and artfight with it! (this character belongs to Crimson_Deceit. You can find Crimson on instagram as Lova.cos or twitter also as Crimson_Deceit)
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and then the DCU rarepair exchange came in September and I didn't have time to write treats so I drew them, which spawned a new attempt at shading things that I've been messing with ever since. I prefer the way my linework looks with it.
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I messed around with clown oc designs in October, cause that was a mini trend on instagram. didn't finish fast enough to post it but i really like some of the designs.
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in December I drew the OCs of some of my friends, as we finished our playthrough of CoS last year. this is our cleric, a changeling who went through many names and faces, depicted holding hands with their player @angelicsky64817
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Last piece of the year was this muck around. I'm still trying to figure out some of these new style choices I'm making.
Finish off with a sneak at what I'm currently doing in the new year! I've been drawing one big piece so it's stretching over from january. It's still a wip. And it's such a big image I've gotta compress it.
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woo! now I gotta go finish that thing. there's gonna be three more characters to the right of the yellow one. why have I done this to myself.
i hope that in 2024 i can get more of a grip on the saturation of my newer styles of drawing. and learn some more colour theory. and also get better at drawing skin, cause I think I'm mostly okay at clothes but skin always looks boring or weird.
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capricioussun · 10 months
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I’ve been thinking about ways to differentiate my outer boys from their standard counterparts since…there canonically aren’t really any differences personality wise?
Of course this largely involves changing the worlds a bit, since that has the greatest impact on a Papyrus’s characterization.
And I think I’ve decided on a few things for them
🌙✨💫
Pictoris
Little bit of a neat freak. Cares a little more about his appearance (as far as seeming clean and neat comes across, though he isn’t exactly a stickler about it).
Floats/flies/uses gravity manip more often than Rus as it’s seen as more normal given. Space.
Tries (and mostly fails) to come across as more regal, more knightly than Rus. His priorities with getting into the guard are a little more focused on playing the part of a royal guard more, a little less on just using it for popularity (or so he says)
Loves the dogs truly but their fur gets *all* over his clothes and it kills him a little bit inside
Likes sweets a little less, a tiny (and I mean tiny) bit better at cooking
Still as sassy but sometimes does slip and comes across a little mean, usually reels it back quick but doesn’t apologize so much as changes the subject and tries to be more positive/nice
Overall, like Rus but if he was a little more uptight? Still very friendly and goofy though!!
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Antares
A little more outwardly aggressive, bad attitude type, but conversely, quicker to lighten up and emote than Edge. Quicker to fluster, quicker to lose his temperature, but he maintains Edge’s hard-to-actually-make-mad quality.
One could say he’s kind of naive, takes things even more at face value than Edge (Boötes is the only one allowed to take advantage of this, otherwise you’re getting yourself in his black book if you mess with and genuinely embarrass Antares)
Less resigned, more uneasy, errs more on the paranoid side than Edge.
Values the quiet a lot. Doesn’t have as difficult a time with derealization as Edge.
Loves animals, loves them a *lot, loves learning about any living creature, even fictional!
Reads more too, a big fan of fantasy and adventure books (with a guilty pleasure of preferring the aforementioned two if they have daring romance in them as well).
Overall sort of if Edge was more emotive/expressive, and a little sillier (just a little).
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Aurigae
Brattier and sassier than Stretch, but still a sweetheart all the same. He’d feel really bad if he genuinely hurt someone’s feelings, so he tends to click better with people who have a similar sense of humor.
Conversely also has a harder time with anxiety. Hides it just as well, but generally experiences more panic attacks (in secret) than Stretch.
Way more sensory inclined. Doesn’t like being touched, by anyone in anyway unless he’s very familiar/comfortable with them, and usually has something to fidget/stim with in his pockets (which I plan on adding more to the design, his jacket should have more pockets). Also floats/flies/etc more often, as this is also a good way to avoid unwanted contact.
Vapes instead of smokes but still does it super rarely.
Distraction is important, he works better if he has music or something else making sound, even if very quietly, nearby. Otherwise he’s probably sleeping because the quiet agitates his nerves.
A little more intense than Stretch, but comes across more social confident, would still prefer hanging out at home or with a couple of close friends.
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Their personalities are still works in progress, so they may change over time as I figure them/their AUs out better, but I feel like this is a good starting point!
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trinitylhearts · 2 years
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Thoughts With Trinity L. Hearts 2022 Jun 25
Today is Friday June 24th of 2022, I just watched four hours of YouTube and then scrolled a hour on Twitter while having breakfast, lunch, and a cup of green tea at home (And now a cup of honey vanilla chamomile tea). Experiencing a bit of “head pressure” probably from watching too much and focusing too much trying to connect the pieces which is what this is - my attempt to make meaning and sense of the yar-content of videos and tweets.
The two tweets I ended on were one by Lyndsey Ogle @lyndseyogle with the context of teaching humanities: “Most importantly, however, they figure out over the course of the semester, that unlike their math & science classes, they won’t leave my class with answers, we aren’t trying to prove something right or wrong. But instead want to understand the world better so we can be better.” https://twitter.com/lyndseyogle/status/1217927553962242049
And the second by Mike Rugnetta with the context of the SCOTUS’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade: “It all sucks and I know you’re mad and I know a lot of you think I’m not helping but I truly (in a very deep way) think we need to start shifting our trust in the capacity for change away from our government, and towards each other. I know that’s very hard.” https://twitter.com/mikerugnetta/status/1540389877799419904
And… I’m not familiar with Roe v. Wade or the history of abortion rights in general. This blog post is more about myself, which maybe cringe or self indulgent, and about figuring out what I should be doing in the context that I’m interested in learning how to write, draw, illustrate, and board game design / TTRPG writing and how to apply those abilities towards helping each other.
Which maybe is selfish in a way - though I choose to believe that art can help us get on the same page, point our flashlights on problems, and harmonize to solve them.
For context I’m a white 25 year old transwomen who lives with their father without a “job” - I sometimes work as clean up or as an extra pair of hands for him on their construction jobs (cleaning up roof shingles or interior remodeling - that sort of thing). November 2019 I was also diagnosed with bipolar schizoaffective, and decided last May to stop taking my medicine for the schizophrenia symptoms (and I already had stopped taking my medicine for the bipolar symptoms sometime last year) - and I’m feeling pretty alright for the most part, sometimes my bipolar and or schizophrenia gets the best of me but since I was diagnosed I have developed techniques for coping, adapting, and developing self efficacy.
I struggle trusting myself - knowing how to react or respond to my own thoughts and feelings, how to react or respond to others, how to react or respond to personal problems I encounter. And with my feeds seeing societal problems that people are outraged with and their distrust in institutions, and rightfully so, I also grow distrustful of institutions and of people generally.
Vsauce by Michael Stevens made a video a while back on Juvenoia with talking about Strauss-Howe generational theory - where currently we’re in a period of crisis where new institutions are built from the ground up, and in a cycle eventually they’ll decay and will have to be built again from the ground up within the next crisis phase. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc
And maybe it’s not all bad, my brother just shared with me a Twitter thread of video game corp. brands responding to SCOTUS’s decision; https://twitter.com/Nikeyg1/status/1540425566263906305?t=dpH9DpKCMknrUJP-cpPiXQ&s=19 
even though, I don’t think we can fully put our faith in big scaled companies to solve our problems when they’re guided by metrics like profits. I’ll mention Extra Credit’s video “Losing Player Trust - The Data Dilemma”, which with their ideas on comparison can also be applied to governments as well I think - - but anyways corp. or not we can use all the help & support we can get https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuEy0Y4xoT4
and also we should be mindful of a The Mitchells Vs The Machines scenario where we put all our trust into corporations to solve our problems or a Cyberpunk scenario where they gain too much power. Anyways like Mike said, I think we should be putting trust in each other to keep institutions not only accountable but reliably aligned to the needs, wants, desires & dreams of the people. As they say, “Of the people, by the people, for the people”, which I just googled was said by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg.
With stories and worldbuilding, I wonder how we can use them to design better systems than the founding fathers had with the U.S. or than other countries in history and in the present day? I also am reminded of a few videos, here’s a list:
How Do You Design a Just Society? | Thought Experiment: The Original Position https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3gWGtf_w_s
Comment Responses: How Do You Design a Just Society? | Thought Experiment: The Original Position https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crnj9R4HGCI
Politics in the Animal Kingdom (Playlist) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkLBH5Kzphe0Qu8mCW1Leef2xSxPK1FIe
The Rules for Rulers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
America From Scratch (Playlist) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpn_kDt8Duwgs0HUEW0F8kbV8O12Icsln
Extra Politics (Playlist) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BMjoxHASNb0uGK_XQrUx9D
Incentive Systems & Politics I - Making Congress Responsible for Their Decisions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa-vQ0L77LY
Incentive Systems & Politics II - Limiting Corporate Influence on Policy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu5QZmPG8zk
Incentive Systems & Politics III - Breaking the Gridlock in US Government https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X2es__Wtuk
Why Socrates Hated Democracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJBzhcSWTk
Brexit: What Is Democracy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr-ZeToI4R8
Is Democracy a Human Right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHid2PbcYhc
The Hidden Rules of Modern Society https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_SYW1ElDb8
Has The World Already Ended? Or Just History? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr0MmKlwd44
Comment Response: Has The World Already Ended? Or Just History? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSN_8SeNLMA
The Philosophy of Elden Ring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACTvcdXr95I
The Bronze Age Collapse - Systems Collapse - #4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HaqpSPVhW8
Earth Abides - Dystopias and Apocalypses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hieycSRUeM
I should read more books. I’m currently reading Nimona. Btw my head pressure is gone.
Anyways, I want to make webcomics, write short stories and posts, and create art that explores life, solving problems, and uses imaginalism, - (as the creator of Stillfleet, Wythe Marschall, coined: imagination as philosophy,) - and to support others..
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raifenlf · 3 years
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Why Loki’s Sylvie Is A Mary Sue
So I am firmly in the camp that Sylvie on the Loki series was/is a Mary Sue.  The last episode made me feel better and like maybe the show was doing a thing where they were faking you out that she was a Mary Sue only to show she was actually sort of a bad guy and I liked that.  But all the recent interviews make me think the show wants to go back to her being a Mary Sue.
But I feel like when I call her out for being a Mary Sue people tell me what are you talking about, she’s not a Mary Sue, bad things happen to her, etc.  But that doesn’t actually make her not a Mary Sue.  
Also, before we start, I know some people find Mary Sue sexist.  But I personally use the term for guys and girls. I don’t use the term to belittle women.  I use the term to criticize a poorly written character.
And I know Mary Sue is often used to describe fanfic characters.  But to me, this series is kind of like a fanfic because the writers took a character who had been in canon MCU material for ten years and then created characters around that character.  So, I kind of review it like I would a fanfic.  It’s very different than if the writers had created a brand new show with all of their own new characters.
Anyway, if you are not totally familiar with the Mary Sue term, then check this out:
I know the term Mary Sue probably means different things to different people.  But I have always used these guidelines when I write my own fanfic to make sure my characters never come off as a Mary Sue.
This article really gives you a full scale of what a Mary Sue is.  If you start reading it, you’ll immediately see why Sylvie is.  But I’m going to take out the parts that most fit Sylvie just to highlight why I believe she is a Mary Sue.  I apologize for this being so long.
Mary Sue Character Traits
Personality
Erm... what personality? The typical Mary Sue doesn't have one per se, because she isn't meant to be a character; rather, she's an entity by which the author makes cool stuff happen.
I feel like that is Sylvie in a nutshell.  She doesn’t have a personality.  I feel like even though she ate screentime, I still don’t really know her at all.  The writers love to say she’s badass.  That’s not a personality.  
Sometimes when I am writing stories for fun and creating new characters, I like to take surveys as my fictional characters.  Like the kind of surveys you’d see in a magazine, like personality types, what’s your dating style, etc.  I figure if I don’t know what my character would do in any of those situations, then I need to keep working on my character.  And if I was trying to fill out a survey pretending I was Sylvie I would have no idea what to answer because she doesn’t have a personality.  She’s just “cool”.
What little personality a Mary Sue has isn't as important as how other characters react to it. No matter how shy or socially awkward Mary Sue is supposed to be, other characters will be inexplicably drawn to her
This is so Sylvie.  Loki falls in love with her...why, exactly?  He falls in love with her in the big Nexus event moment...why?  Because she had a tough childhood?  Mobius spends like two seconds with her in a car and goes from hating her to saying she’s his favorite Loki.  For. No. Particular. Reason.
She's extremely persuasive; everyone finds her opinions to be better than their own
She enchants Hunter B-15 and then immediately Hunter B-15 makes it her whole entire life mission to back Sylvie up.  
And occasionally she'll be a complete asshole...This can manifest itself in several ways...The author wants to write a badass but doesn't know how. This leads to a character who mistreats everyone around her and is never called out on her abrasive, casually abusive behavior.
Sylvie talked down to Loki and treated him like garbage for all of episode three, but it was never portrayed as a bad thing and we never got any impression Sylvie later felt bad for the way she treated Loki
The author doesn't know how to hold back the character, meaning that she will succeed at practically everything. This means that when she encounters rules or authority figures who would otherwise prevent her from doing what she wants to do, she rolls right through them (and they praise her for her "boldness" in defying regulations). If a bad guy is violent and aggressive, she can beat him by being more violent and aggressive (with all that entails). It's impossible for her to go overboard because she's protected by Protagonist-Centered Morality.
Sylvie is shown as a kid to immediately be able to grab a Tempad and run away.  And she can kick ass way better than Loki, for no known reason.  She is always able to fight back against the TVA when they attack her.  And she can kill lots of innocent TVA agents but it’s okay because TVA bad, Sylvie good.
Skills
She will always be superior to the canon characters, regardless of what canon has established they can do or whether it makes any sense.
Whose skill was needed to defeat Alioth?  Sylvie’s.  Of course.  Sylvie needed to teach Loki her skills in order for him to succeed (!).  And again, she is literally called the superior Loki.
Relatedly, there's no effort to her skills. She never actually trains or learns anything to become more powerful; she just wins the Super Power Lottery, or is a freakish natural learner, or is just Inexplicably Awesome
We’re told Sylvie literally taught herself magic.  She literally taught herself to enchant people.  That. Makes. No. Sense.  Like, I have so many questions.  Like, why would it even occur to her to teach herself that?  And how????????????  This is really lazy writing.
Canon Character Relationships
Mary Sue is often designed to hook up with another character, often as a form of Wish Fulfillment. This isn't that bad in and of itself (okay, it is kinda weird), but Mary Sue accomplishes this without any sense of realism. She just grabs her lover's attention straight away, and their relationship will never face any obstacles or tension; it's true love from the start and nothing else. The biggest giveaway is if the love interest is explicitly the author's favorite character, and she essentially "cures" him of all the angst that ails him (at the expense of his characterization).
Yeah, so...this one should be pretty obvious to anyone who watched the show.  Loki literally falls in love with Sylvie immediately, and then he suddenly turns from “villain” to “hero” just because of loving her.  And this was definitely at the expense of his characterization.  And Loki just knows he falls in love with her.  There’s not even any moments of hmm what do I feel for this person?  It’s just true love, immediately.
She will be related to a canon character in some way. This (marginally) helps explain such phenomena as her being a Copy Cat Sue and other characters accepting her so easily.
Sylvie is a Loki variant.  They use this to help explain why Loki is drawn to her and why their falling in love immediately “makes sense”.
Most characters give her more heed than they normally would. The good guys never stop praising her
Seriously, it was so over the top and OOC for Loki to gush over her.  He literally tells her she’s amazing.  They don’t even make it subtle.
Characters' previously established personalities change in reaction to her. Proud, arrogant gimps suddenly acknowledge her superiority in everything. Reckless youths will listen to all her advice. Responsible leaders will defer to her instead. Villains will obsess with her to the detriment of all else. Extremely competent characters will become stumbling buffoons who require her help to do anything. Sweet, mild-mannered characters whom the author doesn't like turn evil and insult her. They all become unnaturally focused on her in some way.
Again, Loki’s whole personality changed in reaction to her.  He became a buffoon who needed her help to enchant the Alioth because of course he couldn’t do anything without her!  Hunter B-15 goes from doing whatever the TVA said to fighting the TVA just because of Sylvie.
Story Elements
Mary Sue is without exception a single-person Spotlight-Stealing Squad. The entire story hinges on her existence; if you removed her, there would be no story. 
Sylvie undoubtedly drove the whole story this season.  It all became about HER meeting the TVA heads because of HER trauma.  Loki’s life was only saved at the beginning because the TVA was trying to capture HER.  And SHE was the one who started the whole multiverse (!).
Mary Sue is The Chosen One, even if the setting already has one. There are many ways she can accomplish this: she can be a Sailor Earth type who "shares" the position with the canon hero; she may be vaguely "destined to help the destined one fulfill their destiny" (i.e. do all the work except the final blow so that the prophecy is still technically correct); or the canon hero may be revealed to be a Fake Ultimate Hero all along. Being the Chosen One doesn't necessarily involve her being a God-Mode Sue, especially as authors become aware of the phenomenon and try to avoid it, but it does make her critically important to the world and allows her to continue stealing the spotlight without the "god mode" label.
HWR wanted Sylvie to come with Loki in the end, like she was chosen all along right alongside Loki.  Like one of the most important characters in the entire MCU is now this character who we only met a few episodes ago.
Most Sues have an unusually Dark and Troubled Past. It's often used to create a Sympathetic Sue, but any type of Sue can have one
They tell us, over and over, how hard Sylvie’s life was because she was kidnapped by the TVA in order to create sympathy for her.
She almost never does anything wrong. In the rare instance that she does, it's usually; (a) a way for the author to disclaim her being a Mary Sue by introducing a single imperfection (that has no bearing on anything anyway), and (b) designed to show her smarts by making her feel instant remorse, and she'll be Easily Forgiven anyway:
So this one hopefully will not come true, as a lot can change between now and when the show is taped. But if the show goes on the way the behind the scenes team is talking, Sylvie immediately felt remorse for betraying Loki, and Loki has already forgiven her and is desperately looking for her.  Ugh.
Alternatively, she is more than capable of doing something wrong, be it in general moral terms or something that goes against whatever code she abides by, and she maybe even frequently does so, but don't expect the other characters or the narrative to ever acknowledge or comment on it in any real capacity. If the other characters do call her out, expect them to be treated like they're the problem for daring to criticize her at all.
Mobius calls her out for killing people, but Sylvie immediately says he’s a bad person and then Mobius agrees, because, of course.
She will often suffer from Special Snowflake Syndrome; i.e., she has a trait or backstory that sets her apart from her group or race.
She is the only female Loki, thus making her the special one among all the Lokis in episode five.
Presentation
In visual media, the camera just can't stop staring at her.
The camera would follow her in fight scenes rather than Loki.
Mary Sue Tropes
Okay, so there are specific Mary Sue tropes that Sylvie is.  One of those is Copy Cat Sue, which I think was referenced before.
Copy Cat Sue
A lot of fanfic writers...start to write something because of their passion for this character, but they find something about the character that doesn't mesh well. Maybe they're the wrong gender or are otherwise not close enough to the author's expectations...In any case, rather than put them through the Possession Sue process, they just get a Clone-O-Matic™ and out pops a Copy Cat Sue...the character might be intended as a replacement for the canon character, but without whatever icky traits the author hates. They'll then rob the spotlight, prove the canon character to be unworthy of his/her position, and either relegate the character to obsolescence or, perhaps, even remove them entirely.
Sylvie is basically a clone of Loki, she is a variant.  But she absolutely robbed the spotlight of Loki’s, and they literally call her the superior Loki.  I mean, they are literally not even being subtle about this.  And there was a feeling by myself (and a lot of other viewers) that Sylvie might ultimately replace Loki in the MCU. 
Black Hole Sue
Much like a black hole, this is a Mary Sue who "sucks in" the plot and characters to her. Characters will behave outside their personalities, logic will be defied, and rules will be broken for her sake.
Sylvie really does suck up all the plot and Loki definitely behaves outside of his personality just to fit the Sylvie show.
Jerk Sue
A Mary Sue who is mean or maybe even cruel, but are still treated as an ideal person.
Once again, Sylvie is basically a jerk all of episode three, but you’ve got Loki falling over himself to call her amazing in just the next episode.
Relationship Sue
A Mary Sue who exists to be the perfect mate for a specific character...this character has everything in the plot conspiring to enforce this One True Pairing...in Fanfiction, they are the perfect beloved of a canon character.
They literally have Mobius speculate that Loki falling in love with Sylvie is so extraordinary that it causes an entire Nexus event, that’s how huge this One True Pairing is (!).  And Sylvie is the love interest of Loki, the only character who had been around before the beginning of the series
TLDR: Sylvie has all the tropes of a classic Mary Sue character.  So calling Sylvie a Mary Sue isn’t being sexist or just randomly hating on the character.  If you use common Mary Sue characteristics to examine the character, she just has too many of these characteristics to ignore.
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Walk Away (Wanda Maximoff/ Reader)
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Hello!
Double Lizzie! All I will say is be prepared for chaos. Enjoy! :)
Summary: How will Y/n handle developing feelings for Wanda and an intricate history with Leigh? Will it all boil over on their birthday?
It was a mistake. It had to be. That’s the only way you could rationalize the invitation glaring obnoxiously back at you from the screen of your laptop. You pinched the bridge of your nose to ease the tension that had built from being in the situation.
As much as you wished you didn’t, you couldn’t help but feel the familiar sensation of irritation that began to crawl under your skin. It seemed that no matter how many times you played this game, you were always the one at the disadvantage.
Again, and again, and again.
The routine of her pushing you away and pulling you close was familiar, but you expected things to be different this time around. That was your own fault. You were foolish to think that anything would change.
The cycle would never end because you would never have the strength to break it.
Figuring there was nothing to lose, you pulled out your phone and dialed the number you had memorized years ago. It wasn’t like you expect her to answer anyway. She hadn’t since your night together and you were quite comfortable with her voicemail at this point.
“Hello?” The surprise of Leigh actually answering caused you to choke slightly. In an attempt to breathe through the fit, you began coughing. “If you’re choking you should’ve called 911, not me.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
You adored the woman, but nothing would’ve given you more satisfaction than to be able to flip her off in that moment.
With a final cough you rushed out a reply. There was no point in beating around the bush with formalities. She might hang up before you got to the point. “Was it a mistake?” The words clumsily tumbled from your lips without allowing your mind time to process how they may sound.
“Are you seriously-”
“The invitation to your party.” You clarified over the sound of Leigh’s response.
There was a brief pause. “Oh. That.” You furrowed your brows. “No, it wasn’t. You should come. I mean, if you want to come. I know it’s last minute.”
If Leigh wasn’t infamous for her brutal honesty you would have thought that was the opposite of what she wanted. “I’ll be there. I think it’s only fair since I missed your last one.”
Her last birthday must have been much harder than this one and the guilt that you left her alone for it still weighed heavily on your conscious.
An awkward silence hung tensely in the air. “Right. Well... See you then. Bye.”
“By-” A small frown tugged at the corners of your lips when the dial tone interrupted your parting. “Of course.” Leigh was always an enigma but lately you had been getting whiplash from the uncertainty of it all.
You couldn’t help but feel like you always seemed to lose a piece of yourself to her whenever you spoke.
There was one person who's conversations didn't come wrapped in barbed wire. One person who stole all your words away in the best way possible. Just the thought of her eased the tension that pressed heavily against your chest.
It was as if she knew you were thinking of her because your phone began ringing almost immediately after thoughts of her began to float through your mind. You couldn’t help but smile that appeared when you saw her name flash across your screen.
Your spirits had been lifted before you even heard her voice. “Hey, I was just thinking about you.”
A quiet hum drifted over the line and you could see her soft smile so vividly in your mind that it was almost as if she was there with you. “Is that so?” You hummed in response. “And what exactly was it that you were thinking about?”
Absentmindedly you began fiddling with a pen that was on your desk. “Oh, just that I kind of miss you, Maximoff.”
The sound of her laughter made butterflies erupt in your stomach. “Only kind of? Guess I should ask them to extend my time over here until you fully miss me.”
You gasped in mock indignation. “Don’t you dare.”
“I kind of miss you too, Y/n.” She said softly, and the butterflies multiplied. “I was actually calling for a different reason though.”
Again, you gasped in mock indignation. “So, you mean to tell me you didn’t call just because you couldn’t bear to go another minute without hearing my voice?”
The laughter that floated down the line was even more boisterous than before which caused your own smile to grow. “That and I have a question.”
“I might have an answer.” You replied easily.
You could hear the sounds from where she was become louder, but she didn’t seem fazed by it. “Are you going to Leigh’s party tomorrow?”
The pen slipped from your grip. “Technically your party as well. Tomorrow is your birthday too.”
“Parties aren’t really my thing. It’s Leigh’s party.” There was a shyness to her words that you found so endearing. “You didn’t answer my question.”
You picked the pen up again. “I’ll be there. I wouldn't miss it. I wasn't around for her birthday last year and it was after she lost-” you stopped yourself, not sure of how much Wanda knew about Leigh’s life yet.
“Her husband.” Wanda finished quietly. You nodded even though you knew she couldn’t see it. “Why weren't you there last year?”
On reflex your fingers formed a fist around the pen. “It’s a long story. A story for when you’re not who knows where.”
You dreaded the day you’d have to explain the complicated web of history that you shared with Leigh. The thought alone filled your body with anxiety.
It was as though Wanda could sense your discomfort, as she changed the subject. “I’m pretty sure I told you where I was.”
“I’m positive you didn’t. Keeping up the mystery.” You teased lightly. “Will you be back in town in time for the party?” The obvious hope that slipped into your words made you bite back a groan. You hoped she didn’t think you were desperate as you sounded.
There was a bit more commotion coming from Wanda’s end. “I actually should be touching down right before Leigh’s party begins. I wasn’t sure if I should go or not.”
“You have to go. Please. Then I can give you your present on your actual birthday.”
For a moment there was silence. “You got me a present?” She asked quietly.
Again, you nodded even though she couldn’t see. “Of course I did. You’re- I- We’re friends.” You stuttered out nervously even though friends was the last thing you wanted to be with Wanda.
“Oh.” She mumbled and suddenly the commotion became even louder. “Hey, Y/n, I have to go, but I’ll be there. I can’t wait to see you.”
A small blush spread across your cheeks. “I can’t wait to see you either, Wanda. Safe travels.”
Maybe tomorrow wouldn’t be as bad as you thought it was going to be.
_______________
From the sound of it, the party was in full swing and you couldn’t help but feel nerves build in your chest as you knocked hesitantly on the door. “Y/n!” Jules greeted happily as she ushered you into the home.
“Hi, Jules.” You mumbled, still feeling the residual embarrassment from the last time you saw her.
She nudged you playfully. “If you plan on sneaking out tonight after your extracurriculars with my sister, just make sure you plan ahead.”
You shifted uncomfortably. “That’s no-” But she had walked away before you could finish your sentence. Looks like that ran in the Shaw family.
With a sigh, you ambled out into the backyard where it seemed everyone was gathered. You didn’t see a point in lingering inside when the memory of the last time you’d been there was still so fresh in your mind.
It only took a moment, but you finally found Leigh by one of the tables speaking animatedly to one of her friends. Your heart dropped at the sight of her in that black dress. You almost wanted to turn around and leave rather than run the risk of saying something you know you shouldn’t.
When she looked like that you knew you probably would.
The opportunity disappeared when she looked up and met your eyes across the yard. You took a steadying breath and made your way over to her, listening to her excuse herself from the other person. “Hey. You look lovely.” You said with a small smile, hoping that even if it was just for a night, everything would be okay.
The storm in her eyes seemed more subdued. Maybe you’d be able to stay afloat. “Thank you, Y/n. You look… nice as well.” The small smile and compliment she returned nearly sent you into shock.
“Happy birthday.” You offered her the wrapped package timidly. You ignored the small tingles that arose on your skin from where her fingers brushed.
The intricate design on the front of the gift appeared as Leigh slowly tore away the wrapping paper. “Is this what I think it is?” She asked quietly as she turned the book over in her hands.
You nervously rubbed your forehead. “It’s okay if you don’t like it. I just figured since In Time of Daffodils is your favorite poem, it’d be nice to have a first edition. Which, thinking back now, was kind of ridiculous since I’m sure you have a copy already and-”
Your rambling was brought to an abrupt halt when you felt Leigh’s arms wrap around your waist as she pulled you into a gentle embrace.
Despite everything in your mind telling you to leave, you couldn’t help but melt into her as your hands hovered tentatively over her waist. “Y/n. I love it. This might be one of the most thoughtful gifts anyone’s ever given me. I can't believe you remembered my favorite poem.”
The smile on your face was inevitable when she spoke to you like that. "Of course I remember." You mumbled softly. When she stayed in your arms, you allowed your hands rested lightly over the middle of her back.
You could feel your heartbeat racing in your chest when you felt her arms tighten around you.
“Hey, lovebirds. Break it up. You’re not in Leigh’s room yet.” Jules joked in passing as she made her way over to the snack table.
As if coming to her senses, Leigh abruptly stepped back and tossed the book on the table like it had burned her. The storm in her eyes was back in full force. You mentally cursed Jules. “I’m going to go mingle. Enjoy the party, Y/n.” Before you could say anything, she had rushed off.
All you could do was breathe out a heavy sigh as you rubbed a hand down your face. You looked around the party and recognized a few acquaintances, but no one you could actually talk to. They were all Leigh’s friends. Jules was your only other friend there, but you didn’t think you could handle the teasing.
With nothing else to do, you picked up the book Leigh had carelessly thrown aside and began reading. You just needed to pass the time until Wanda arrived.
You were lost in one of the poems in the book when you heard the volume of the white noise around you shift, almost like everyone began talking all at once. You decided to ignore it.
“Hi.” You heard a quiet voice say by your side.
That voice. The one that had begun to infiltrate your dreams. Your head shot up as your eyes met the sparkling emeralds before you. “Wanda.” You breathed out happily as you gently placed the book to the side.
She’s a dream that keeps coming back and I don’t think I ever want to wake up. You thought to yourself dazedly.
The corners of Wanda’s lips turned up in a genuine smile. A subtle hitch of her breath caught your attention. “Y/n.” Before you could even process what you were doing, you leaped in her arms. The sound of her surprised laughter filled the air around you as her arms pulled you closer.
“Happy birthday. I missed you.” You said into her shoulder, allowing yourself to relish in her touch.
In response Wanda buried her face in the crook of your neck, her lips lightly brushing your skin as she spoke. “I missed you too.” The warmth of her breath fanning across your skin sent a shiver down your spine.
I think this is happiness. Was the only thought in your mind as you remained wrapped in her embrace. You could feel Wanda shiver as her arms tightened around you.
Eventually Wanda pulled away and you couldn’t help but feel a sense of emptiness. “You look beautiful.” You said sincerely, allowing your thoughts to escape the confines of your mind for once.
Wanda ducked her head bashfully. “Thank you. You look quite beautiful yourself.” Your cheeks burned with her words.
Reaching into your jacket pocket you pulled out a small, neatly wrapped box. “When I saw this, I couldn’t help but think of you.” You explained as you bashfully offered her the box which she shyly accepted.
You watched with bated breath as she opened the box and pulled out the dainty necklace with a small crescent moon attached to the chain. “It reminded me of the night we spent at your spot. When we looked at the stars.” You added after a moment of silence, feeling your nerves build the longer she went without saying a word.
“Y/n. It’s beautiful. I love it.” Wanda finally said as gaze shifted to meet yours. There were constellations in her eyes. Your heart thudded heavily against your chest at the sight. “Can you help me put it on?”
Wordlessly you took the necklace from her hand and moved to stand behind her. Your breath became heavy when she pushed her hair to the side. You clasped the necklace and quickly moved to stand in front of her again. “Beautiful.” She blushed.
The rest of the night was much easier to get through with Wanda by your side and the hours passed by in a blur. “So, what exactly is it you do?” You asked with a quirked brow. “I mean, I know you get sent crazy places, but you always avoid saying what you do exactly.”
Wanda shifted uncomfortably at the question which you didn’t understand. “Oh. I do humanitarian work.” She began to play with her fingers which you now knew was a nervous habit. “With a really obscure company.”
You could sense that she was desperate for you to drop the subject, you just didn’t understand why. “Okay, Wanda.” You couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed that she didn’t want to tell you whatever it was she was hiding.
There was a brief moment of silence. “You know, I hadn’t acknowledged my birthday since I lost Pietro. I expected this night to be so hard.” Wanda admitted suddenly, her eyes clouding over.
You took her hand in yours. “We celebrate him today too, Wanda. Even if he’s not here with you now. He’s here.” You pointed to the center of her chest with your free hand, “And here.” Your pointer finger lightly tapped her temple. “And he always will be.”
A shaky breath escaped her lips and your heart hurt for the woman before you. “I know. I miss him. Everyday. Especially on days like today.” You squeezed her hand lightly in comfort. “But being here with you made today a little easier.”
“I know there’s nothing I could say that could ever fix the hurt, but I’m here for you.” You told her quietly. “You deserve the world, Wanda.”
A small smile formed on her lips, “Thank you. Hopefully we’ll see it together.” Wanda’s eyes widened slightly as if she wasn’t meant to say that out loud. You heart fluttered.
Almost immediately she ducked her head, her hair falling gracefully in her face. You reached a hand out to gently brush away a piece of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes.
Your hand lingered as your thumb lightly caressed her jaw. Wanda leaned into the touch, her eyes fluttering.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to kiss her. How can I be just friends with someone who I want to kiss? You thought to yourself as you became lost in her eyes. Wanda’s cheeks flushed as she raised her hand to rest over yours.
Her lips parted slightly, and your eyes were almost immediately drawn to the action. Your breathing became more ragged as you fought against every instinct to stop yourself from leaning in and feeling her soft lips against your own.
Am I dreaming or is she leaning in? You wondered in disbelief.
“Alright, sis! Time to sing happy birthday!” Leigh interrupted with a clap of her hands. Both you and Wanda sprung apart, matching blushes on each of your cheeks.
Your brow furrowed at the overdramatic smile on Leigh’s face. It was obviously fake and being fake was so out of character for her. “Looks like the spotlight is calling, birthday girl.” You whispered in Wanda’s ear with a playful smile.
A quiet laugh fell from her lips as she met your eyes. “Looks like it.” She bit her lip shyly. “To be continued?”
Your body vibrated with excitement. “To be continued.” You promised.
Leigh took Wanda by the hand and dragged her away just as she opened her mouth to respond. You could see Leigh’s jaw was clenched from where you stood.
A moment later everyone in the yard was singing to the two women and you couldn’t, for the life of you, tear your eyes away from Wanda and the way she shifted uncomfortably under the all attention she was receiving.
When her eyes met yours, her shoulders visibly relaxed and you played up the way you were singing in hopes of easing her discomfort. The smile that overcame her features made making a fool of yourself in front of all of Leigh’s snobby friends more than worth it.
As you were making your way over to Wanda after the cake had been distributed, you saw Leigh storms off out of the corner of your eye. You worriedly watched her disappear into the house.
“Hey, do you mind if I go check on Leigh? She looked upset.” You asked Wanda when you were finally stood in front of her.
Wanda shook her head with a small smile. “Not at all. I’ll go talk to Jules while I wait.”
You easily returned her smile. “I’ll be back.” You assured her as you turned to head inside, following the path you had seen just seen Leigh take.
When you walked into the kitchen you saw Leigh slam a bowl into the sink, the glass shattering on impact. Your eyes widened in concern. “Leigh!” Instead of answering, she took a plate and threw it into the sink as well, the shattered pieces mingling with the fragments of the bowl. You rushed over to her as she picked up another plate. “Leigh, stop.” You took her hands and gently pulled her away from the sink.
Her breathing was shallow, and her jaw remained clenched angrily, but no words left her lips. “Look, I know today is hard for you.” You began cautiously.
Leigh ripped her hands away from yours. “You don’t know anything.”
“Let me help.” The words bordered on pleading as you could see that all her defenses were up.
“I don’t need your help. You can’t do anything for me.”
Going against your better judgement, you continued. “I know you’re suffering, Leigh, and I know that you feel suffering is all you are but you’re more than that-”
Her words were so faint you could barely hear them. “Stop.”
“It can be a part of who you are, but don’t let the pain push away the people who care about you.”
“STOP!”
You recoiled in surprise, taking an involuntary step back. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to help.”
Leigh pushed a frustrated hand through her hair. “Well you’re not helping! Stop trying to fix me!”
“I’m not trying to fix you, Leigh.” You insisted as you took a cautious step forward.
“You are though!” Her eyes were wide with fury.
The last thing you wanted was to make her feel like she needed to be fixed. You just wanted to help ease her pain. “I really wasn’t, Leigh. I was worried, and I wanted to see if there was something I could do to-”
“You’re pathetic! I just use you and you keep coming back.” A dark chuckle fell from her lips. You flinched. “I’m not yours! I was never yours and I will never be yours! I’m never going to want you back so just stop!”
There was a heavy silence in the air as Leigh’s chest heaved from the force of her words. It was a low blow and she knew it. You’ve had plenty of experience being burned by Leigh’s words, but this time felt different though. It was final. She finally said how she truly felt. You were done avoiding that.
You schooled your features and nodded slightly. “Okay. I’m sorry. Have a good rest of your night, Leigh. Happy birthday.”
Leigh was a hurricane, what more did you expect than to be caught in the downpour?
“Y/n-” You left before she could say another word, so you didn’t see the way her face dropped as tears welled in her eyes.
If Wanda wasn’t still there you would have left and never looked back, but you knew you couldn’t leave her without an explanation. In a useless attempt to gather your emotions, you paused before entering the backyard and took a deep breath, clearing your mind.
The sight of Wanda’s smile brought you a small sense of peace, but it couldn’t take away from the fact that your precariously healed wounds had been ripped open. Ashes within yourself had been set ablaze in anguish once again. You needed to tend to the flames on your own.
“Hey.” You softly called, your hand on her elbow. She turned from Jules who quietly excused herself. “I'm sorry, but I have to go. I’m not feeling well.”
Wanda’s brows furrowed, and her eyes filled with worry. You mentally cursed yourself because you knew she didn’t buy it. “Are you okay?”
You nodded in hopes of reassuring her, your lips quirking up halfheartedly. “I really am not feeling well.” Which wasn’t entirely a lie. “Do you maybe want to do something this week though?”
The worry never faded from her eyes as she nodded faintly. “That sounds great, Y/n.”
“Perfect. I’ll call you. Happy birthday, Wanda. I hope it was a good one.” You leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her cheek, smiling slightly at the blush that was left in your wake.
Wanda began fidgeting with her fingers. “It was. Bye, Y/n.” She said shyly as you walked away. When you had disappeared out of view, Wanda turned to face the house. If something had happened with you, she figured she should check on Leigh. She was her sister after all.
When Wanda entered the kitchen, she found Leigh leaning against the counter, her face buried in her hands. Wanda knocked lightly on the wall to get her attention. “Hey, Leigh. Are you okay?’
Leigh’s head shot up, her posture relaxing slightly when she saw it was Wanda. “Why? What did Y/n say?”
Wanda blinked in surprise. “Nothing. I just wanted to check on you.”
A smile that didn’t reach her eyes formed on Leigh’s face. “Right. Well, I’m fine.”
“Okay, I just wanted to check.” Wanda eyed Leigh skeptically but didn’t push. “I think I’m going to head home, it’s been a long day. Thank you for inviting me. I had fun.” Leigh just nodded as Wanda began to exit the kitchen.
“Hey, Wanda?” Leigh called. Wanda stopped and turned to face Leigh, her eyebrows raised in question. “Look, we’re sisters now, right?”
Hesitantly Wanda nodded, unsure of where Leigh was going with her words. “Yes…”
Leigh shifted slightly. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Of course. What is it?” Wanda worriedly walked over to the other side of the counter, so she was face to face with Leigh.
There was a brief moment of silence before Leigh met Wanda’s eyes again. “I need you to stay away from Y/n.”
The surprise of the statement made Wanda laugh. Her laughter quickly faded away when she realized Leigh wasn’t joking. “You can’t be serious.”
Leigh rubbed at her temple, avoiding her twin's gaze. “I am. I need you to stay away from Y/n.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” Wanda eventually replied, her head tilted slightly. Leigh’s eyes hardened when she met Wanda's determined stare.
And we have concluded part 3! Chaos has ensued. Thank you all so much for all the positive feedback this story has been getting! I hope you all enjoy this part just as much. Are we team Leigh or team Wanda? I would love to read your thoughts!
As always thoughts and comments always welcome. :)
Tag list: @khiaraaa-in-spacee // @causeitswhatjesuswouldfreakingdo // @halobaby //@madamevirgo
// @aimezvousbrahms //@trikruismybitch // @marvels-writings
// @izalesbean // @imdreamingblo // @i-choose-you-cyndaquil
// @helloalycia // @scarlets-maximoff //@cantcontroltheirfear // @women-am-i-right //@funnysoldier //@myfavoriteficss //@imapotatao
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five-rivers · 3 years
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Green Sky Highway
Phic Phight Phic for @deuynndoodles
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The Fenton Ecto Cell Bettery (aka the Better Battery) was designed to draw power from not only an internal, pre-charged store of ectoplasm, but also from ambient, atmospheric ectoplasm.  This meant that it would never run out of juice so long as it was in the Ghost Zone.  The Specter Speeder was designed to travel in the Ghost Zone.  Thus, the Betteries were the perfect power source for it.  In theory.  
In practice… Well, that just wasn’t working out, and Maddie didn’t know why.  She gripped the underside of the dash and tried to push herself deeper beneath it to get a better view of the machinery.  
“Maddie?  You see anything?” asked Jack, who couldn’t fit under the dash.  He’d been inspecting as much of the engine as he could from the inside, which wasn’t much.  The Speeder wasn’t designed to be serviced while free-floating in the Ghost Zone.  
Which, now that she thought of it, was a serious oversight.  
“Everything looks fine,” said Maddie.  “Except that it doesn’t have any power.  Nothing’s lighting up, but all the connections look good. You?”
“I can’t get anything to work.  Anything.  It’s like… we’re in some kind of technological dead zone.  But that doesn’t make sense.”
Maddie pulled herself out to see Jack vigorously scratching his head and shedding dandruff everywhere.  “Ghosts do tend to disrupt technology.”
“But we fixed that.  We designed all our weapons to work with that.”
“We know there are things we don’t know,” said Maddie, “and it’s always good to find new things!  Though not pleasant to find them out like this…”  They should really test their inventions more, honestly.  
But it had been over a year of testing since they opened the portal.  They had to jump in at some point, didn’t they?  That was the whole point of the portal.  
She sighed.  “Well, we didn’t have a lot of forward momentum when the portal cut out.”  She looked out the window.  “We could see if we can get out and engage our jetpacks.”
“Uh, about that,” said Jack.  He swung open the door to the jetpack cabinet.  The empty jetpack cabinet.  “I may have forgotten to put them back after refueling them.”
“Jack…”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
Maddie massaged the bridge of her nose with her mostly-clean knuckles.  This was a repeat of the handle inside the weapons vault.  At least he wasn’t pushing the blame for it back onto Danny or Jazz.  That would definitely have started a fight.  
On the other hand, there really wasn’t any guarantee the jetpacks would even still be functional, so maybe it was for the best. For certain values of best.  
She groaned.  
There was a knocking sound.  “Is that coming from the engine?” Maddie asked.  
“No…” said Jack, slowly.  “I think it came from the door…”
They both turned to stare.  Something moved outside it.  They shifted to get a better view out the window.  
Phantom was out there, tapping on the door with a ten-foot pole.  
“That little unnatural abomination,” cursed Jack under his breath.  “He’s going to scratch the paint!”
Phantom apparently saw them and waved.  “Hey!” he shouted, just loud enough to be heard through the walls of the Speeder.  “Do you guys need a lift?”
Jack and Maddie turned to each other.  
“How did he know we were here?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack.  “Do you think he followed us?”
“It wouldn’t be difficult, but I’m surprised he didn’t show up on our detectors.”
“He does seem to have the ability to drop off of them.”
“True,” said Maddie.  “So, how do we handle this?  Fenton bat?”
“I don’t know, Mads.  He might be, uh, sincere?  That time with the ectofiltrator he did help me.”
“That’s one, single, datapoint.  He’s a been a menace every other time we’ve encountered him.”
“I don’t know that we have much other choice,” said Jack, nodding towards the dead engines and the empty jetpack cabinet.
Maddie huffed out a sigh, then looked back at Phantom, who waved again.  
“Fine.  We still have to decide how to deal with him while we’re cooperating with him.  Or if he decides to show his true colors.”
“Good idea.”
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Danny knew this had been a terrible, terrible idea the moment his parents opened the door to the Speeder armed to the teeth.  Why did they always feel the need to do that? None of the weapons, with the possible exceptions of the Fenton Bat and the Fenton Crowbar could even work here.
How his parents had, on their first jaunt into the Ghost Zone, managed to run smack into the Time Locked Lands was beyond him. They had to go to the one place in the Ghost Zone that the Speeder wouldn’t work and after coating the Speeder with some kind of anti-ghost spray that Danny absolutely refused to touch again.  Ever. Especially in ghost form.  Except with a ten-foot pole.
(If they’d left the spray off, he could have just pushed the Speeder back out of the Time Locked Lands.  But, no, they had to make everything as difficult and painful as possible.)
“I am not carrying all that,” said Danny, flatly.
(Especially because it would all turn back on once they left the Time Lost Lands, and if there wasn’t a Specter Deflector under all that, he’d eat his own belt.)
“Then we aren’t going anywhere with you!” proclaimed Maddie.  
“You’re stranded in the middle of the Ghost Zone. I don’t think you have a choice.”
“We do!”
“I could literally just fly over there and snatch you right now.  Plus, again, stranded.  Do you even have any food in there?”
“Of course we do!” said Maddie.  “We aren’t incompetent.”
Jack looked guilty.  Danny decided not to bring it up.
“Okay, but still, you’re going to run out eventually, and then you’ll still be floating in the Ghost Zone with no way to get out.  You aren’t going to get another friendly ghost coming by.”
“I’ve never seen a friendly ghost to begin with!”
“Maddie…”
“I can just leave, you know,” said Danny, planting his hands on his hips and bluffing for all he was worth.  He was not leaving his parents here to be used as hostages or who knew what else.  
Hopefully, they wouldn’t call the bluff.  They shouldn’t.  No sane, reasonable person would.  He was their only way out of this mess.  On the other hand, his parents had never been completely sane, reasonable people.  
Danny thought his odds were about fifty-fifty.  Which meant he could hope.  
Jack and Maddie had an intense, whispered conversation. This, thankfully, lead to them divesting themselves of most of their visible weaponry.  Which meant that they still had more guns on them than most professional soldiers during a firefight.  
Well, it was better than he’d expected.  But it was still too many.  
“Take the Specter Deflectors off,” he said.  “What do you think will happen if I try to carry you and you have those on.”
There was muttering.  
“Come on, come on,” said Danny, snapping his fingers. Which really shouldn’t work through his gloves but did anyway.  
Sometimes ghost nonsense was good for making lasers fly from your hands, and sometimes it was good for tiny aesthetic breaks in physics. It was a grab bag, really.  
“Alright,” said Danny.  “I’m going to fly over and pick you up.  Don’t hit me.”
Oh, jeez, he was not looking forward to carrying them all the way over to the portal.  Sure, he could bench press a school bus, but there was a difference between holding up a school bus for a minute and carrying two people who hated his guts a mile through enemy territory while flying slowly enough not to give them windburn.  
Sure, it’d probably only take a few minutes, even then, but those would be the longest few minutes in his entire life.  Not counting his actual death.  
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Being carried by Phantom had to be the single worst experience in Jack’s entire life.  
It wasn’t the speed or the lack of control – he loved carnival rides – or the height – Jack couldn’t tell you how many buildings he’d jumped off in pursuit of ghosts – or even the fact that Phantom was a sinister specter, and ectoplasmic emanation, a putrid piece of protoplasm – he’d been carried by ghosts before, usually ones who were a lot more upfront about wanting to kill him.  
Actually, Jack didn’t know why he didn’t like it. He just didn’t.  
Maybe it was just how uncomfortable it was?  But Jack did way more uncomfortable things. Like interacting with his sister-in-law. Brr.  
Maybe it was the lurking feeling behind every interaction he ever had with Phantom that there was something he just wasn’t seeing, some hidden truth that would make everything about Phantom, every contradiction, every confusion, make sense.
Nah, that couldn’t be it.  Maddie would have figured it out by now.  That’s why they made such a great team.  He noticed the things she didn’t, and she noticed the things he didn’t.  
“You’re going the wrong way,” snapped Maddie.  
Just like that!
Wait.  That was a really bad thing.
“I’m not going the wrong way,” snapped Phantom.  “I’m avoiding Walker’s prison.  I don’t know how he didn’t catch you on your way out, but I’m not eager to be thrown in jail for a thousand years.”
“Ghosts have jail?” asked Jack surprised.  
“Depends where you are,” said Phantom.  “Walker isn’t really a sheriff, though.  There’s no government behind him and he just makes up rules randomly so he can lock up anybody he doesn’t like.”
“Like you,” observed Jack.  
“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you’re even wanted by whatever passes for the law here?”
“First, rude.  Secondly, there are realms in here that are just as organized and civilized as any country on Earth.  Just because you opened your portal into the equivalent of post-apocalyptic Detroit doesn’t mean it’s all like this.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Maddie.  
“I could arrange that, you know,” said Phantom, stilling.
Jack laughed nervously.  “Maybe another time?”  The ghost would do what it would do, but they didn’t need to encourage him to bring them even deeper into the Ghost Zone.  They were currently banking on Phantom’s obsession with heroics to get them home, but if they changed the equation…  Yeah, Jack didn’t want to deal with the consequences of that.  
Ghosts were like computers that ran only one program. One homicidal, destructive program.
It was like that thought experiment about an AI whose job was to maximize the number of paperclips.  It’d just keep on making more and more paperclips until nothing was left.  Which was why they had to be stopped.  
Easier said than done, as Jack and Maddie had learned.
“You don’t have to be so freaked out,” muttered Phantom. “It isn’t like I’m going to kidnap you or anything.”  He pretended to sigh.  
What was the point of that?  He had to know that Jack and Maddie wouldn’t fall for his tricks. Actually, come to think of it, he was miming breathing, too, and had been the whole time.  
Maybe that’s why Jack was so uncomfortable.  The constant undercurrent of deception.  
Hmmm… something to think on.  
“What’s that?” asked Maddie, pointing.  
“Uh,” said Phantom, who did a double take.  
Ooh, that wasn’t reassuring.  
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Danny clenched his teeth, his parents’ reactions to him weren’t reassuring, and even less reassuring was the way Pariah’s Keep had moved from its usual creepy location and to this new creepy location. Not that there were any non-creepy locations in the Ghost Zone.  It was part of the place’s charm.  
No, really.  Some part of Danny craved the creepiness.  He was half-ghost, after all.  
(Even if his idea of creepiness was, according to his friends, sort of lame.)
But back to the main point.  The keep really, really shouldn’t be here.  And it was creeping him out.  
It should be okay to just… fly past it, though, right? Just being in its airspace in the past hadn’t done anything bad.  So, flying by with his parents in tow shouldn’t do anything either.  Right?
Danny put on more speed, just in case.  This coincided with a bunch of large ghost ravens (or were they crows?) dive bombing them and forcing him to land to defend himself and parents.  The only land around being the rim of the island that supported the keep.
He knew something like this would happen. Maybe not exactly this, but he just knew he’d be attacked and everything would devolve into nonsense, and—
Huh.  The birds weren’t attacking him, just his parents.  Oh, these were racist (mortalist?) birds.  Gross.  Trust Pariah Dark to have bigoted birds.  He called up a shield to protect his parents.  Whereupon they shot him in the back, shouting about how he betrayed them to the birds, because why not?  
Why was his life like this?
He pushed himself up off the ground.  Starbursts twinkled behind his eyes.  Neither his parents nor the crows were in sight.  The crows could have gone anywhere.  His parents on the other hand…
There was only one place they could have gone.  
Well.  At least none of the nonsentient traps would work on them, seeing as they were humans. What were the odds that they’d run into one of the sentient defenders?
Well… considering the ravens?
Yeah.  That’d be about one hundred percent.
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“Maddie, I don’t know about this…” said Jack, examining the tall, vaulted ceiling.  
“We had to get away from Phantom.  This was the only way to go.”
“But he came here for a reason, Mads,” whispered Jack, tip-toing.
“Yeah, this is definitely a trap.  But what can we do?”
“Jack?  Maddie? This is not a place you want to wander around in! Oh, holy—” There was a loud thump.  
Maddie grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him forward. “We have to get away from him.”
“Come on!  This is a floating island!  I’m your only way off!  Why are you like this?”
“He has a point,” said Jack.  
Maddie stopped.  “I guess he does.”
“This is literally the worst place you could have picked to run away!”  A sound like a very large door opening and closing reached their ears.  “This is Pariah Dark’s place!  Where did you even go?”
“Mads?”
“Yeah?”
“Who’s Pariah Dark?”
“I think that was the name of the ghost that sucked the town into the Ghost Zone a few months ago.”
“Please, guys!  I’m trying to help you here!  This place is ultra-dangerous!  You could accidentally – yikes! – wake up Pariah Dark.”  
“Maybe we should…”
“Yeah,” said Maddie, “maybe we should.”
“Phantom!” called Jack.  “Phantom!  We’re over—” The floor opened up underneath them and they fell into the dark.  
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Maddie woke to a dark room, tied to a chair.  She noticed the faintly glowing ghost in front of her and jolted backwards.
The ghost wore a set of painted and engraved plate armor, a pair of lavender-white eyes glowing from behind the slats of its visor.  A knight, of sorts, Maddie supposed.  
“You…” droned the ghost in a painfully stereotypical ghostly moan.  “Enemies of the king… why have you come here?”
“Huh?”
That was Jack’s voice.  He was tied behind her, apparently.  
“We don’t have anything to say to you,” snapped Maddie.
“Uh,” said Jack.  Something twisted behind Maddie.  “Are you a friend of Phantom?”
“A friend?  A friend?”
“I’m going to take that as a no,” muttered Maddie.  
The door of the room flew off its hinges.  “Fright Knight!” shouted Phantom, pointing a glowing finger.  “Wait, you aren’t Fright Knight.  Who are you, and what do you want with my- With, uh, the Fenton ghost hunters?  Who I don’t know very well at all. Promise.”
“What,” said the ghost.  
“What,” said Maddie.  
“What,” said Jack.  
“Okay, forget everything I just said.”  He gestured at the ghost.  “Who are you?”
“My name is Paladin, my liege.”
“Okay, okay, cool, cool.  I- Wait, what?  What did you call me?”
“My liege?”
Phantom looked like he was having an existential crisis.  
“Maddie was right!” exclaimed Jack, who couldn’t see Phantom’s face.  “You did lead us into a trap!”
“What?  No?  I’ve never even met this guy before!  You are a guy, right?”
“Yes, my liege.”
“Right.  I’m going to put that on the backburner and freak out about it later.  How are you- Why are you—” Phantom shook his head.  “Why are you here in Pariah’s Keep?”
“It’s your keep.”
“Since when?”
“Say what now?” asked Jack and Maddie at once.  
“Look, this is news to me, too.  But, back to the question.  You.  The keep. Why?  I mean, you weren’t here before.”
“That is because Pariah sealed me, my liege.  When you defeated him, I was released and immediately swore fealty to the true king.  You.”
“I am so freaking out right now, but we’ll revisit that. Later.  Right now, I have to get these guys home.”
“But they have hostile intentions towards your person, my liege!”
“Everyone has hostile intentions towards me.  I’m honestly surprised you haven’t attacked me yet.”
“Ah.  My liege, perhaps you should seek the services of a priest, if all your experiences with new people are such.”
“Is that the medieval equivalent of a therapist?”
“I fear I do not know what that is.  Why do you ask?”
“Because the last time I talked to one of those, they purposefully picked at every one of my insecurities and then tried to murder my, uh.  Someone close to me.”
“An evil counselor, then,” said the knight, gravely.
“I want to agree with you, but somehow I feel like you’re talking about something completely different than the image in my head.”
“That may be true, my liege.  Doubtless, you are very wise.”
Maddie was… lost.  
Very lost.  
Even so, her prerogative was escaping.  She started twisting, trying to get to the knots around her wrists.  
“Did you, uh, pilot the castle out here?”
“Yes.  I sensed that mortal enemies of the king, that’s you—”
“I will debate that as soon as my brain stops screaming at me.”
“—had entered the Realm.”
“Right.  Yeah. Thank you.  But I can handle these guys.  And I need to get them home.  Please. I made a deal with them.”
“With these?”
“Hey!” said Jack, offended.  
“I mean, I use the term deal pretty loosely.”
“Hey!”
“But yes.  Please.  Just.  Dang.  How did you tie them up that quickly?”
“It’s a hobby.”
“Do you mind if I take the chairs?”
“They are your chairs, my liege.”
“I’m still not used to that.”
“Are you quite certain you want to take them?  And just… Let them loose?  The dungeon here is very functional.  We even have an oubliette.”
“Raincheck.  But thank you.  Really, I mean it.”  Phantom flew behind Maddie, and she protested as the chair she was in was yanked upward. “Uh… I might have gotten turned around a time or two, so if you could…”
“Of course!  The keep does seem to have sustained some damage, so we will have to take some detours.”
“Phantom!  Phantom! Put us down and untie us.”
“Nah, I think I like this better.  Your kids can untie you once I bring you back!”
“You’re going to drag us all the way through the Ghost Zone?”
“That’s the plan.”
.
The rest of the flight was surprisingly pleasant. No one attacked, and his parents were much easier to carry in the chairs.  Sure, they struggled, but the struggling was much more manageable than the wriggling from before.  
They were mad at him.  But they were always mad at him.  So.  
No loss, really.
With the utmost carefulness, Danny set them down in the middle of the lab, still tied up, and then began zapping then tossing their most troublesome inventions into the gaping maw of the portal while they screamed at him.  
Normally, he wouldn’t do this, especially after successfully rescuing his parents and hopefully raising their opinion of him, but some of those inventions were painful.  Like.  A lot painful.  And dangerous.  Also, he was doing his level best to avoid thinking about the whole ‘king’ thing.  
Which he couldn’t do forever.  
Especially since Jazz walked down the stairs, probably drawn by the screaming, to see Danny shoving half of the Ghost Catcher through the portal sans-strings.  
“Uh,” said Danny.  
“Get that ghost, Jazzy-pants!”
Danny vanished and fled upstairs.  
.
Jazz had seen many strange things in her life, but that scene was one of the weirder ones.  
It took some time to untie her parents, longer to extract herself from the ensuing rant and their attempt to salvage their equipment from Danny’s all-too-explicable rampage.  Honestly, she was surprised Danny hadn’t snapped earlier.  
She opened the door to his room.  It was empty.  She squinted. He was not just leaving her hanging like that, with no context to what happened other than their parents’ ranting.  She opened her door.  
Danny was lying on his side on the middle of her rag rug, hugging Bearbert Einstein.  
“A ghost told me I was king and that I needed a priest.”
Oh boy.  
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Text
Unrequited
azriel (acotar) x reader
Summary: takes place during acofas, you and Azriel are mates but he doesn’t know it yet, angst, fluff, and everything in between
*Also this is my first imagine ever so I'm sorry if it sucks lol! There will be a part 2 to this, but I am still working on it!!
word count: 3927
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The winter solstice was in a few days and you weren’t sure what to get some of the inner circle. You walked briskly down the streets of the Rainbow, chilled to the bone due to the wind. You had made the dumb mistake of rushing out of the townhouse - to avoid any questions of where you were going - without taking your scarf. Your current outfit, which was a chunky knit blue sweater with leggings and boots, wasn’t enough to keep the chill away. But the cold wasn’t the most important thing on your mind. You had already bought presents for Rhys, Feyre, Amren, and Elain, but that left Cassian, Mor, and Azriel. Mor and Cass would be pretty easy to buy for, but you put it off knowing they would look through your room trying to find their solstice gift. But Azriel, that would be much harder.
Every waking hour, the shadowsinger haunted your thoughts. Something you had come to conclude was unrequited.
You had realized the mating bond between you two before he did.
It had clicked a few months ago while on a diplomatic mission. The aftermath of Hybern had left things chaotic, and if you were being honest, it still was. Rhys decided to send Cassian, Mor, Azriel, and you to travel to some of the other courts to bring back reports on the recovery after the war. However, traveling did have some dangers. While you were on your way back to Velaris from the Winter Court, your group was ambushed by a group of Hybern soldiers who had been hiding out in the mountains. Had it not been for Azriel’s wings shielding you from the initial arrows, you would’ve surely been dead, and that’s when it clicked for you. But like an idiot, you didn’t say anything.
You had thought if the bond had clicked for you, it would've clicked for Azriel too. You realized your mistake when Azriel hadn’t acknowledged any change between you two. You hoped that he would figure it out in the coming weeks, but he didn’t. You knew the same sort of situation happened with feyre and rhys so you still held out some hope. But as the months went by, and you realized the bond still hadn’t clicked for Azriel and it felt too late to tell him.
At least that was the excuse you made up. Truly, you were also afraid of the rejection that could have followed. You weren’t a fool, you knew him and Elain had some sort of connection, and that shattered your dreams even more. The possibility that he wouldn’t accept the mating bond to be with the fair skinned, doe eyed fae. Everytime Azriel was in the same room as Elain, she was the only thing he would pay attention to. During gatherings, you would plaster on a smile and act as if you were happy, but Cassian and Mor, your best friends, could sense your discomfort. They tried to ask you about it, but seeing as you would shut down anything they said, they decided not to pry too much. Amren ended up figuring out the source of your discomfort had to do with Azriel, but kept your secret until you would be ready to share it.
You came to the conclusion that distancing yourself from him would be the best option, so that's what you did.
You walked down the street till you got to one of the finest seamstresses is Velaris. Since you were an artist like Feyre, you decided to draw out a dress and have it made for Mor. The color was blood red, her signature. It was a silk slip dress that would come down to her mid-lower calf and it would be embroidered with a brilliant gold thread. You drew out a pattern of the sun, stars, and moon, which you hoped she would like. To go along with Mor’s dress, you got a jeweler to make a custom necklace and bracelet set to go with it. You designed more dainty jewelry that had gold stars with diamonds, since she was a dreamer.
You decided to design Cassian’s gift as well, creating a beautiful silver and black dagger with a moonstone on the hilt. It was a beautiful dagger, but you also made sure it was usable, because you would hate for it to go to waste. To add onto the combat theme, you also decided to buy him new fighting leathers with touches of red embroidery to match his siphons. Lastly, you bought Cassian a bottle of fae wine, which definitely wouldn't last long.
The last thing you got for all three of you was a friendship necklace. Although that sounds corny, the two of them had become such a positive force in your life and you couldn’t imagine life without them. Keeping with the celestial theme for the friendship necklaces, you bought a sun, a moon, and a star. The sun for Cassian, the moon for Mor, and the star for you. Although they are opposites in some ways, all three need each other, just like the three of you needed each other.
Now that you had gotten Mor’s and Cassian’s solstice gifts figured out, it was onto Azriel’s gift. You honestly had no clue what to get him. Due to distancing yourself, you weren’t sure if there was something that he wanted. You were positively stumped. Lucky for you though, you ended up spotting Mor in another shop a few stores down from where you were, most likely getting the rest of her solstice gifts. You decided to sneak up on her as a friendly prank. Grabbing her shoulders, you yelled in her ear, making her jump.
“Oh mother above, it’s just you, y/n! You scared the life out of me” Mor said.
“Doing some last minute shopping?” you asked. “I could ask you the same thing”. Giving her a playful smack on the arm, the corners of your mouth curled upward, even the simplest remark from her could make you smile.
The two of you were currently standing in front of a jewelry shop, looking at the collections of necklaces and earrings through the window. “Wow” you breathed out “These are all so beautiful”
“Indeed they are, although they’re quite pricey”
“How pricey is pricey?”
She whispered the amount in your ear and you stopped breathing for a second, “Holy Mother wow, that is quite the price tag. At least we can admire it from a far”, you laughed out. Even though you got a very generous salary from Rhys, you still felt guilty spending so much money on materialistic things.
After a moment you said, “Actually, since you’re here, I do need help finding a solstice gift for Azriel”, softening your voice at the end, “Any ideas?” you asked, drawing out the syllables.
“Well, I always get Azriel some cool towels, clothing, or a dagger!” Mor said. A small scoff came out of my mouth as I shook my head and raised my eyebrows. “Fine!” she exclaimed, “I may have overheard him needing a new leather sheath for Truth Teller.” grumbling towards the end. “Oh that sounds great, thank you for the help! Now let’s go off to the closest leather goods store and find a sheath!”.
“y/n! I still have shopping to do” a scowl appearing on her face. “Fine, I guess I’ll just call Cassian, cause his judgement might be better than yours, when it comes to knife related things of course” you said, baiting her.
“Ugh, I hate you y/n”
“I hate you too Mor”
“Fine, let's get going before I change my mind” she grumbled. Then we took off down the streets of the Rainbow to find a sheath.
The task was easier said than done, for you at least. Being indecisive and a major over thinker, you had looked through close to 100 sheaths, but none of them seemed good enough to hold the blade that Azriel never let anyone else touch. Except Elain.
While you were lost in your thoughts, you laid your y/c eyes on the perfect sheath. It had a bright cobalt blue stitching to match Az’s siphons. Along the tip and lining the top of the leather was a thin coat of silver plating with little sapphires embedded in the metal. You quickly snatched it up and paid a hefty price for it, but it was perfect.
“Thank god you finally picked one, it felt like we were in that store for centuries”. Mor sighed, probably a sigh of relief for getting out of the store, “But y/n, it’s perfect, I know Azriel will love it”
“Do you really think so? I just want it to be the perfect gift and I’m scared he won’t like it because what if it’s too simplistic and what if-”
“Hey! It's perfect! Don’t stress too much y/n. And for the record, I think that you’re an amazing gift giver - the amount of thought you put into gifts make it all the better.”
You could feel a blush creeping up your cheeks and mumbled a small thank you.
“Anyway while we’re here do you need to get anything to go with your solstice outfit?”
“Oh Actually, I was so stressed about getting everyone’s solstice gift that I forgot to buy my dress” your voice falling off at the end. You felt yourself being yanked to a harsh stop and the saw Mor’s face staring at yours, mouth gaping and eyes wide.
“Are you crazy?? Solstice is in 3 days and you still don’t have anything??? Oh honey, our shopping isn’t done yet.” And with that statement you found yourself being pulled into the nearest dress shop. After trying on nearly 20 dresses you finally found the perfect one, which Mor approved. It was a light blue silk dress that was more fitted at the top but flared down at your waist. It had a cowl neckline, a slit going up the side to the mid upper thigh, and accentuates your curves beautifully and has a slight shimmer to it. You looked ethereal in it
---------------------------------
After your exhausting day of shopping, you couldn’t wait to get out of the cold. You swiftly walked back to the townhouse. Once inside you made your way to your room to set down the gifts, change your clothes, and grab your book. Then you quietly headed down to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea and sat on the couch to read. The house was quiet since all of the others decided to go to Rita’s tonight. You decided to stay home for some much needed relaxation. You opened your book and started reading. After a few hours, you felt your eyes drooping and eventually, sleep consumed you.
The loud noise of the front door caused you to stir and your eyes fluttered open. You were too exhausted to look so you just laid your head back down and tried to go to sleep. You could hear Mor whispering something and then felt yourself being lifted off the couch and being held close to a chest with your blanket still draped on you.
“Cass?” you whispered hoarsely along with a string of incoherent words
You heard a slight laugh “Not Cass but It’s ok, go back to sleep”. Then you felt yourself being gently placed on your bed and the sleep hit you before you could mutter a thank you.
---------------------------------
The sun was setting towards the sea as you sat in the sitting room of the town house. You were in your blue silk dress with a glass of wine in your hand. Rhys and Feyre were by the mantel, quietly talking while Mor and Amren were across the room. Near the window I saw Elain, and from the corner of my eye I could see Azriel making his way towards her. My face fell but I quickly plastered on a smile, not wanting to concern anyone. Especially since today was also Feyre’s birthday and we had planned a surprise for her. Feyre thought she could slip her birthday past us, but we hadn’t forgotten. After a few minutes, Cassian made his way from the kitchen with the enormous cake.
You floated towards Feyre and gave her arm a light squeeze. “Happy Birthday, make a wish before the candles melt!”
She blew out the candles and then we ate cake before opening up the presents.
---------------------------------
Rhys snapped his fingers and piles of brightly wrapped bags and boxes filled up the sitting room. Amren was the first to open her presents. Naturally, everyone got her something jewelry related. Amren opened mine and you saw a wide smile set across her face, she picked up the diamond necklace and nodded a ‘thank you’ your way. You returned the gesture back, a small smile forming on your face.
Next, Cassian handed Mor her present from him and she pulled out a-. You couldn’t believe what you were seeing. He bought her red lingerie. Your face turned slightly red, but the Mor said “Don’t let him fool you: he couldn’t think of a damn thing to get me, so he gave up and asked me outright. I gave him precise orders. For once in his life, he obeyed them.”
Then, you heard one sharp knock at the door.
Nesta.
You saw Cassian tense up a bit. Nesta walked in, linking arms with Elain. She got a glass of wine before heading to sit in a chair in the back of the room. The silence was deafening. Finally Varian started talking and the present opening resumed.
From Amren, you received a new calligraphy set. It was so beautiful and you loved it. From Rhys, you got some books. It was perfect since you loved to read, and they were ones that you had been wanting to read for a long time. From Feyre, you received a painting as well as a new paint brush kit.
Cassian made his way to you and set a gift down in your lap. You opened the dark blue box that Cassian had placed in your lap. He had gotten you a sky blue hardbound journal with a gold embossed star on it. You desperately needed a new one, and this was perfect. You walked over and gave him a hug, whispered “Thank you, I love it.”.
Next you opened Mor’s present. You nearly choked when you saw what she got you and your whole face heated up. She got you a matching navy blue lingerie set like the one Cassian bought her.
“Yeah, I wasn’t too sure what to get you so I thought we could twin”. You looked around the room and saw the others holding in their laughs. You could’ve sworn you saw a tinge of red on Azriel’s ears. You just smiled and mouthed a silent “I’m going to kill you, but thank you” at her.
There wasn’t anything from Azriel. Your heart twinged. Had you not been important enough? It was just a present you reminded yourself, fixing your composure before handing Cassian his present.
He ripped it open like an animal, squealing when he saw it. A promising reaction given the amount of thought you put into it.
“Did you design these? They look amazing!”
“Yeah, I’m glad you like it. It took a long time to figure out what to get for your dumb ass”
“You mean my cute ass”, you smacked his arm and then got up to give Mor her present.
You closely watched her reaction as she opened her dress and jewelry, a large smile spreading across her face.
“You really buy the perfect presents y/n, I love it”.
“Oh Cass, Mor. One more thing.” You pulled out the small boxes with the friendship necklaces and bracelets handing it to them. “This was just a little something extra I thought of, I hope you like it”. You knew you would have started stuttering and crying if you had said the meaning to them, so you just handed them notes instead. They read over them, eyes glossing over, and pulled you into a hug.
“This is the only time I’ll wear jewelry” Cass stated, causing you to chuckle
Then Mor said, “I am never taking this off” causing you to laugh again.
Finally, Azriel opened up his presents. He had opened up all the others. All that was left was yours and Elain’s gift to him. He found his way to your present first, opening it.
“A new sheath for Truth Teller. I heard you needed a new one” you quietly said.
He held your gaze and smiled, “Thank you, it's great”. Suddenly feeling exposed, you quickly gave him a nod.
Then he went to open Elain’s gift. “It’s a powder to mix in with any drink.” she said.
Silence.
Elain bit her lip and then smiled sheepishly. “It’s for the headaches everyone always gives you. Since you rub your temples so often.”
Silence again.
Then Azriel tipped his head back and laughed.
You hadn’t heard him laugh before, and mother above it was gorgeous. You had never heard a sound so deep and joyous, a sound which made your heart clench. A part of you wished you were the reason he was laughing. You forced on a smile and spent the rest of the night drinking away the slight pain in your chest.
You were exhausted by the end of the night, sitting on the couch with Cassian and Mor, Azriel and Rhys seated on the opposite side of you.
Out of the corner of your eye, you saw movement towards the door, and craned your head to see what was going on. It was Nesta making her way to the door. You felt the couch lift next to you.
Cassian. He had swiftly pushed past Feyre and went after Nesta. This wouldn’t end well.
---------------------------------
Cassian had come back quiet and brooding, walking straight to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of liquor. You got up off the couch and followed him straight into the kitchen.
“Cass, let’s take a walk, yeah?”
“I just took a walk”
“It wasn’t a question”. You grabbed a white shawl and his hand and led him outside. “What happened?”
“What’s there to talk about? It was like all the other times. Why did I have to fall in love with someone who doesn't even love me back. Who looks at me like the Illyrian born bastard I am. Who hates the idea of being in the same room as me.”
You grabbed Cass’ hand, lightly squeezing it. “Don’t say that. Nesta, she,” your voice stopping for a second “She’s different. The way she handles pain and copes is different. Give her time. She just needs time. I know how much that may pain you, but you can’t rush healing”
You pulled him into a hug
“And for the record, I know the feeling more than you know” you quietly said “unrequited love”, head pointed at the ground.
Cassian tilted his head down to look at you, his face painted with confusion. You could tell he wanted to know more, but didn’t want to pry too much.
You hesitated before continuing, not sure if you wanted to reveal your closely guarded secret. “I-“ your voice faltering, “I found my mate”. The words seemed to have rushed out of your mouth and tears pricked your eyes as you said that. After months of hiding it, you had finally gotten it off your chest.
Cassian stood shocked, staring at you. “You found your mate? And you didn’t think to tell any of us? How long ago was this”
“I-, I found out who he was around the same time Rhys sent us on that diplomatic mission. And I didn’t tell anyone because he doesn’t even know yet.”
“That was almost 6 months ago, and you didn’t say anything?”.
The tears had started flowing at this point, “I thought he would figure it out. But by the time I realized he wasn’t going to figure it out, it was too late. He had already set his eyes on someone else. And I know I could never compete with Elain, even if I am his mate.” the last part slipped out without you realizing.
“Elain? What does she-“ his eyes widening “Does that mean Az is-“
You slowly nodded, tears welled up, threatening to spill out.
“Oh, mother…”, he pulled you into a tighter hug and that’s when the gates broke. You couldn’t hold back your tears as you sobbed into Cassian's chest, his hand stroking your back.
you must have been there for 15 minutes before you realized the other might start getting suspicious. Regaining your composure, you dried your tears and tried, to the best of your ability, to hide that you had been crying.
Looking back at Cassian, you gave him a slight smile before muttering, “Thank you. I’m sorry for dumping that on you, but please promise me you won’t tell anyone. Please.”
“Of course y/n, and don’t apologize, if it makes you feel better, it helped to take my mind off of Nesta and my own problems, which I desperately needed” he chuckled out.
With the smile still on your face, you linked arms with Cassian before saying, “Oh mother above it’s freezing, let’s get back inside before we turn into popsicles!”
He let out another laugh before the two of you made your way back into the house.
---------------------------------
You walked into the house and your sliver of happiness was crushed as you saw Az and Elain sitting at the table smiling and laughing quietly to themselves. Elain had her sketchbook out, showing Az her plans for the garden.
Your distraught had been clear to anyone who saw your face, and you were too tired to realize you weren’t able to hide it fast enough. Not being able to view the scene anymore, you quickly got up, muttered happy solstice, and grabbed your coat and purse before heading out the door to your apartment.
While walking home, you were consumed by your thoughts. You hated the pangs of jealousy that coursed through you. You often found yourself jealous of her soft spokenness and kindness. You also found yourself jealous of her effortless beauty. It was something that kept you up at night. She was so likeable and easily approachable, something you wished you were.
You were so drowned in your own thoughts that you hadn’t noticed a male following you till it was too late. One of his hands clamped on your mouth while the other grabbed your waist and pushed you into the nearest alleyway.
The male pulled out a knife and your tears started to fall. You were terrified about what he would do to you. This could be the last time you would have seen your family. You were struggling and kicking against him but it was no use. Your senses were groggy from the alcohol and drowsiness.
You had been so stupid to walk home alone at 2 in the morning. No matter how angry you were, you should’ve just stayed at the town house.
Before you could realize what was happening, you felt a sharp pain shoot through your side.
The sound of a clatter.
Receding footsteps.
A crimson stain blooming.
Your body crumpled to the ground and your vision started blacked out. This was it. Nobody could hear you and nobody could save you.
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spenciegoob · 3 years
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A Short Film
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A/N: hey hey hey... mid writing this I realized how much I jumped the gun and thought this was a good concept, but now that I’m thinking too hard about it, maybe it’s not. I also wrote too much of it to back down now, so hopefully someone out there enjoys this as much as I did in my head lol.
Summary: Spencer steps way out of his comfort zone to ask his film major girlfriend a question.
Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader
Category: Fluff
Content Warnings: nothing really...  Spencer hardcore struggling with technology
Word Count: 3.5k
Masterlist
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“Hey Garcia, do you think you could help with something?” Spencer asked, rubbing the back of his neck nervously and not looking up from the floor of her office.
“Of course, Boy Wonder? What can I do for you?” Garcia answered while excitedly turning her chair back to her wall of screens.
Spencer grabbed the extra chair in her office and mumbled, “Actually um,” causing Garcia to completely abandon her position and fully face the genius.
“Spencer, are you okay? Is something wrong?” Spencer couldn’t blame her for asking. He was sweating more than usual, his face was bright red and he hadn’t stop fiddling with his hands since he shut the door.
“Oh no, nothing’s wrong. I just, uh, I don’t really know how to ask this,” Spencer stumbled back. It was the truth after all. No life experience had prepared him for such a request, one that in the grand scheme of things was not a lot, but to Spencer.
To Spencer, it was everything.
“That’s okay. Take your time,” Penelope stated back, and coming from anyone else, Spencer would have believed it was sarcastic in nature. But he also knew that Penelope was one of the only people he could never find judgement or maliciousness from.
You were the other.
“So Y/N and I as you’re probably aware have been together for 2 years now, and you also know that she just got her degree in cinematography and design, which is really funny if you think about it because I know nothing about any of that, but she knows everything. You know, sometimes she’ll explain to me what she sees through her eyes and it’s nothing like what I’ve ever been able to. I’m rambling now but I want to do that,” Spencer spurted out, and once he was done, he took a breath so deep Penelope whole-heartedly believed if he spent one more second talking, he may pass out.
“Woah there, slow down. First of all, that’s adorable. I love Y/N so much. Second of all, how exactly am I supposed to help you see things that way? Shouldn’t she be more help?” Penelope questioned, now completely confused about Spencer’s intentions with this very early morning visit.
“She can’t exactly know. It’s kind of a surprise thing,” Spencer answered shyly. He hadn’t even gotten to the punchline and yet, he was contemplating every move.
Was this a good idea?
But when he saw the way Penelope lit up before she yelled, “Tell me everything, and spare no details. None!” He knew he would stop at nothing to make this perfect.
“So here’s what I was thinking.”
That was 1 year ago today, and since then, Spencer has tried to figure out what to say when he revealed his big project. He stood in front of the mirror every day for 365 days trying to find the perfect way to put it. Still when you sat on your shared couch gazing up at him in amusement, confusion and adoration all at once, his mouth was dry and his throat clamped up.
“Spence, you’re starting to scare me. Are you okay?” You asked, watching as your boyfriend stared at you like a deer caught in headlights with a laptop and assorted cords in his hands.
“Uh, yes! Yes I am okay. I just need to um, this needs to go. You know what? I wasn’t told how to do this part, can you help me?” Spencer paced back and forth between you and the TV four times while he was talking before he stopped defeated in front of you. He wouldn’t have asked for help unless he was certain Penelope was smart enough to insert a black screen in the beginning of what caused the laptop to burn a hole in his hand.
“Yes, of course,” you said, slightly chuckling at his confusion. Spencer Reid and technology, whilst tragic, was also very adorable. “What are you trying to do?”
“I need the video on the laptop to play on the TV,” he stated simply. At least he knew what he wanted. That was a new, first step in the right direction.
“Okay easy. Just hand me that cord, and,” you drew out the ‘and’ as you bent around the TV and plugged in the cord. “Perfect. Now just plug this end into the laptop and hit play.” You handed Spencer back his end of the cord, watching as he examined the object and the side of the computer to know where exactly to put it. It almost felt like watching a toddler try and find the rightly shaped hole for the triangle piece, and you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t endearing.
Before he could break anything, you stepped in. “I know you’d be able to figure it out, but it’s that one.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled back sheepishly. 
“Okay so a little back story. A year ago today, I asked Penelope to teach me how to record videos on my new phone. Thank you for that by the way, the camera on it is really cool, and I’m not just saying that because it’s one of the only things I know how to work. Anyways, I started secretly recording videos of you, of us, anything that reminded me of you, and me talking about you. So I sent them over to Garcia and she pushed them all together, and I think what I’m trying to say is I made a short film? Home video? It doesn’t really matter, but I’m showing it to you now.” Spencer didn’t acknowledge the shocked look on your face as he settled next to you and put the laptop on the coffee table.
But as you watched him find the video and set up, your jaw stayed slack. Spencer Reid, the world’s biggest technophobe, figured out how to use an iPhone camera just for you. While to others it may not seem like a lot, to you. 
To you, it was everything.
“Spence, I don’t even know what to say. This is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” It didn’t feel like enough. The amount of awe, and love that filled your chest was so comforting, so warm.
It felt like home. It felt like Spencer.
“You don’t have to say anything, just watch,” he stated before hitting the spacebar, something he’s seen you do plenty of times.
The video started out with Spencer crouching down slightly to where the phone was set up against a bookcase in front of the couch.
“Is it recording?” He whispered, and when he realized it was, he took a step back and gave a thumbs up before rushing to sit on the couch. You couldn’t help but let a full smile stretch across your face, an involuntary act when it came to Spencer.
“Hey, love bug. It’s Spencer, but wait you knew that because you can see me.” There was a small pause as Spencer squinted to see if you could actually see him from his position on the couch. When he realized he was in frame, he continued. “This is totally weird that I’m technically talking to myself right now, but I hope future me gave you an explanation. I tried to wait for a good time to start recording this, and in the two weeks I’ve known how to work that thing,” Spencer said as he pointed to the camera. “We’ve been on a case. I came home tonight, and you’re sleeping right now, but if I stay quiet enough I can say what I need to.”
You looked over at Spencer as he was twiddling with his fingers. Something he only did when he was nervous. You reached over and grabbed one of his hands, giving it a reassuring squeeze, but when you tried to pull away so as to not truly disturb his fidgeting, he caught it. So, you intertwined your fingers together, and continued to watch past Spencer.
“I came home today, and all I wanted to do was hold you. Granted, that’s every day, but today was just, it was really hard. When I came home you were asleep on the couch. One time you told me you didn't like to sleep in our bed while I was away, something about it being too big. At first, I was mad because your poor back, but today I changed my mind because the amount of steps to get to you was much less.”
Spencer unlocked the door to the apartment, resting his head against the wood as he inserted the key into the lock. The most recent case had ended with the death of both the latest victim and the unsub, and he couldn’t bear another second of remembering the scene play out in front of him.
All he wanted to do was lay in her arms, but when he opened the door, the apartment was completely silent.
And then he saw a little fuzzy sock clad foot sticking out from underneath the huge, fluffy blanket on the couch. Slowly, he walked towards you, finding you fast asleep with a t-shirt of his tightly snuggled up to your neck and face.
Spencer got down on a knee in front of you, and brushed the hair that had fallen over your eyes. Slowly, they fluttered open at his feather touch, only to widen with realization.
“You’re home!” You squealed, throwing your hands around his neck. Immediately, he reciprocated the hug, tighter than usual. Spencer tucked his head into your neck and inhaled the scent of your shampoo, a grounding technique he would never tell you he developed. The hands he delicately placed at first across the expanse of your back grew heavier, drawing your body closer to his. 
You pulled your head back, him following your movements, and stared deeply into his eyes for a second. The moment you two locked eyes, he knew the jig was up. Spencer knew you could see right through him, and he knew that even if you weren’t there to witness what he had, you saw it replaying over and over in his eyes.
“You must be tired, let’s get you to bed.” Your words shocked him at first. Usually, the people in his life would ask insistent questions on his mental well-being, and while they were greatly appreciated, Spencer was never one to open up when asked to.
You, however, didn’t meddle, you didn’t push. You simply gave him a place to feel safe as you two settled under the duvet together, never letting go of one another even for a second. You held the back of his head, slowly brushing your fingers through his curls as he laid against your chest. Your fingers were medicinal to him, softly taking away the pain and violence of the day, and replacing it with security, comfort, love.
“No one’s ever been that excited to see me before, let alone knew how to take care of me the way you did. I just,” Spencer trailed off and looked towards our bedroom, where you stirred in your sleep looking for him. “You’re about to wake up and wonder where I went. Now you know what I was doing in “the bathroom” for 30 minutes actually meant. Alright, see you next video, love bug.”
The screen cut to Spencer obviously holding the phone close to his chest, the only thing in frame the space where his shoulder and neck met. The soft chords of the start of Vienna by Billy Joel can be heard from outside the room he was in. 
“Okay, I’m gonna have to sneak up on you. I’m sorry in advance.” 
Spencer finally addressed the camera. As the Spencer on the TV quietly left his position in what you could only assume was your bedroom, you looked over at your very real Spencer softly smiling at the TV.
When he caught your stare, he said “Watch, this is my favorite part.” Turning back to the TV, you watched as Spencer carefully tiptoed to the living room, placing the camera to lean against the vase in the middle of the dinner table to face the kitchen.
In the kitchen, you watched yourself very poorly sing along with Billy Joel using a whisk that you just got done washing as a microphone. The blush that crept up your neck and to your cheeks with embarrassment still felt the same as it did that day.
You hadn’t heard Spencer sneak up on you, not until he was right behind you and let out a soft chuckle at a note you missed. Spencer had never seen someone jump out of their skin as much as you did when he made his presence known. 
“Jesus Spencer, you scared me!” You yelled before a smile crept up your face. You couldn’t help it, even in the most embarrassing times, not when Spencer looked at you like that.
“Sorry, love bug. Although, I didn’t mean for you to stop the show.” At that you hit his chest with the whisk/microphone, both of you laughing fully now. “Come here.”
Spencer took your hand, pulling you softly to his chest where you laid your head to his heart. Wrapping his hand around your waist, the two of you started to slowly sway to the music. You both were incredibly offbeat to Vienna, but listening to Spencer’s heart, you realized that the tempo you were dancing at matched up. Unbeknownst to you, due to the adrenaline of being scared, Spencer could feel your heartbeat on his abdomen, and was swaying to that.
You didn’t know how long you stayed like that, dancing to the in sync beat of each other’s hearts.
The clip of you dancing however only lasted 10 more seconds as the next scene of Spencer bundled up for the fall played. You had met Spencer during the fall, and fell in love with the way the red, yellow and orange leaves contrasted against his honey eyes. This clip was no different.
“Hey, love bug. I’m on my way to deliver this coffee to you in between classes, but I had to stop so I can show you my new friends I’ve made along the way.”
The camera panned down to 4 little ducklings surrounding Spencer’s converse, most of them just waddling around, but one was insistently pecking at the rubber toe of his left shoe. Spencer pointed at the little deviant and said ‘that’s you’ before bringing the camera back up to his face.
“I may have made the mistake of feeding them the fruit I was bringing you, which reminds me I should probably go get you more. I don’t think you’ll be mad though. How could you? Look how cute they are! I kind of want to take them home, but I definitely know that’ll make you mad. Anyways, I just wanted to show off that you’re not always the animal person in this relationship. See you soon, love bug.”
“Oh my god, Spencer. That was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, but to confirm your thoughts, yes, I would’ve been mad,” you stated, the giddy smile never leaving your face, and giggles spreading themselves through your words.
“I know, I know. They belong in the wild,” he said back, holding up his free hand in faux defeat.
A new scene presented itself to you, this one being Spencer setting up the camera on the bathroom sink while brushing his teeth. You knew you were approaching by the music slowly getting louder.
You entered you and Spencer’s shared bathroom, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart by Elton John playing out of your phone. He was brushing his teeth, and you followed suit, not stopping the small dancing as you did.
You looked at Spencer, and started moving side to side, your free hand grabbing the crook of his elbow to join you. Looking in the mirror expectedly, you watched Spencer look up at the ceiling before joining you, a smile on his face.
Slowly, the two of you fell into a rhythm to the beat of Elton John, making funny faces to each other in the mirror as you did so.
You reached out fully to lean your head on Spencer’s shoulder as you watched.
The scene on the TV shifted once again to show a very flustered you standing in front of the TV with Citizen Kane paused. Your hair was in a messy bun, and you were sporting one of Spencer’s old Caltech t-shirts, and fuzzy black pants with little pumpkins printed everywhere.
Spencer was also wearing the same fuzzy pants.
“Spence, I’m gonna sound crazy here,” you sprinting off the couch after pausing the film you were currently trying to study for your film analysis class. 
“You’re not off to a great start here,” Spencer laughed out. Spencer once told you that no matter what he thought about a book or film, he wanted to listen to you ramble about it for hours. The first thing he fell in love with about you was the way you challenged his thinking, expanding his mind to the possibilities of learning about the difference between production design and cinematography. You taught him something that no class, book or person could ever.
Your mouth dropped open, an over exaggerated gasp leaving your lips, your hand meeting your chest softly. 
“Meanie.” Spencer and you chuckled at the antics, and when the laughs died down, you continued. “Here me out, though.”
And from there, you went into a deep dive about the unreliable narrator, and how it affects camera placement in the scene you two just watched. 
“Oh my god. I talk that fast?” You asked Spencer, who just let a breathy laugh out at your realization.
“Don’t worry, I think it’s adorable,” he whispered the last part, the smile on his face turning from one of hilarity to one full of love.
30 seconds into your rant, you realize the phone he was attempting to hide close to his lap. Your eyes flicked between the camera that was pointed at you, and Spencer, who’s face filled with confusion as to why you stopped talking.
“Are you recording me?” You asked, a smile never leaving your face. Oh no, he’d been caught. Spencer has to think of a believable excuse, and quick.
“Uh, yeah, sorry, I just uh... I figured instead of you trying to write it down later, you’d want all your notes now.” Perfect!
“Damn, that was good,” you said, nodding softly at his swiftness. You couldn’t be mad he lied, how could you when the truth was this beautiful?
“I know, right? I came up with it on the spot,” Spencer joked with you. As if TV Spencer knew he was interrupting a moment, a throat clearing came from the video. The Spencer you saw was from 3 days ago, and was sitting in his car in what looked to be the Quantico parking garage.
“Hi, love bug. I’m days away from showing you this, and I still don’t know what to say. I hope the me you’re with now has figured it out. So, uh, yeah. That’s it. Uh, take it away, future Spencer. Actually, you’d be present Spenc-” The video cut off, courtesy of Penelope Garcia.
“Y/N,” Spencer started, turning to face a very emotional you fully. “I still haven’t found the right words. None of them could express my love for you, and perfect doesn’t come close to describing you. I know you have a thing for supporting evidence, and I think I just provided a lot to prove that the best thing to ever happen in my life is you.” You let out a small giggle, the tears welling in your eyes breaking free. “Oh no, if you cry, then I’m going to.”
You let out a full laugh now as Spencer wiped the tears falling down your cheeks before continuing.
“Before you, I was reckless. I didn’t care what happened as long as I did something to help. Now, I have a reason to be careful, a reason to care. I can’t do that to you, and if I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you, I need to live.”
You inhaled softly as Spencer reached into the pocket of his pants, taking your hand in his.
“Which brings me to my question,” he said with a small smile and cocked his head. Slowly, he dropped down to one knee in front of you.
“Y/N Y/L/N, will you marry me?” Spencer opened the velvet box to reveal a simple silver band with a square cut diamond delicately placed on top.
“Spencer Reid, yes. I will marry you.”
With shaky fingers, he slid the ring on your fingers, the fit perfect. You couldn’t wait any longer, and grabbed his face in your hands to pull his lips to yours. Your lips molded together in perfect harmony, lulling you deeper into Spencer’s embrace. 
“I love you,” you whispered against his lips.
“I love you, too,” Spencer answered, only pulling back far enough to mumble before kissing you again.
Note to self: thank Penelope Garcia.
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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years
Text
YOUR EMPLOYEES AND INVESTORS WILL CONSTANTLY BE ASKING ARE WE THERE YET
I think I've figured out what's going on. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated.1 Don't Get Your Hopes Up. Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, the harder it is to bait the hook with prestige. And that is almost certainly mistaken. So one thing that falls just short of the standard, I think, should be the highest goal for the marginal. Big companies think the function of office space is to express rank. As big companies' oligopolies became less secure, they were willing to pay a premium for labor. You can see it in old photos. If you're friends with a lot of the worst kinds of projects are the death of a thousand cuts. And what's especially dangerous is that many happen at your computer.
And the microcomputer business ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. In 1450 it was filled with the kind of turbulent and ambitious people you find now in America. You have to like what they do there than how much they can get the most done. That's not what makes startups worth the trouble. Design This kind of metric would allow us to compare different languages, but that if someone wanted to design a language explicitly to disprove this hyphothesis, they could probably do it. This technique can be generalized to: What's the best thing you could be doing, not just what you can see the results in any town in America. With this amount of money can change a startup's funding situation completely. There I found a copy of The Atlantic. Whereas it's easy to get sucked into working longer than you expected at the money job.2 That's ok. I think you have to do all three. But more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well.
But what if the person in the next 40 years will bring us some wonderful things.3 They all know about the VCs who rejected Google. The writing of essays used to be.4 You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.5 He improvises: if someone appears in front of him, he runs around them; if someone tries to grab him, he spins out of their grip; he'll even run in the wrong place, anything might happen. The people who've worked for a few months I realized that what I'd been unconsciously hoping to find there was back in the place I'd just left. It was supposed to be something else, they ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. By 2012 that number was 18 years. The first thing you need is to be willing to look like a fool.6 Google they have a fair amount of data to go on. John Malkovich where the nerdy hero encounters a very attractive, sophisticated woman.
Many of the big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders.7 Empirically, the way to the bed and breakfast, and other similar classes of accommodations, you get to hit a few difficult problems over the net at someone, you learn pretty quickly how hard they hit them anyway. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake as the people who list at ABNB, they list elsewhere too I am not negative on this one was the only way to get lots of referrals is to invest in students, not professors. It will actually become a reasonable strategy or a more reasonable strategy to suspect everything new.8 Never say we're passionate or our product is great. Whereas undergraduate admissions seem to be disappointments early on, when they're just a couple guys in an apartment. Programmers at Yahoo wouldn't have asked that.9 Incidentally, this scale might be helpful in deciding what to study in college. VCs think they're playing a zero sum game.
I spend most of my time writing essays lately. Almost everyone's initial plan is broken. If smaller source code is the purpose of comparing languages, because they come closest of any group I know to embodying it. Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time. But if we make kids work on dull stuff now is so they can get away with atrocious customer service. In fact, here there was a kid playing basketball? Of course, figuring out what you like.
Go out of your way to bring it up e. The industry term here is conversion. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. At least if you start a startup, people treat you as if you're unemployed.10 But hacking is like writing. Even with us working to make things happen the way they used to, they were moving to a cheaper apartment. It causes you to work not on what you like, but is disastrously lacking in others. I do in the rest of the world. Their defining quality is probably that they really love to program.
I could only figure out what to do, there's a natural tendency to stop looking.11 Economies of scale ruled the day.12 One is that this is simply the founders' living expenses.13 I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I think I know what is meant by readability, and I think they're onto something. Multiply this times several hundred, and I get an uneasy feeling when I look at my bookshelves. You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.14 Everyday life gives you no practice in this. Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on anything they don't want to want, we consider technological progress good.
Notes
Samuel Johnson said no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Which is precisely my point. If they were regarded as 'just' even after the egalitarian pressures of World War II the tax codes were so new that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but except for money. They don't know enough about the new top story.
The image shows us, they tended to make money. But we invest in the Bible is Pride goeth before destruction, and one of the fake leading the fake leading the fake. In No Logo, Naomi Klein says that 15-20% of the aircraft is.
But because I realized the other writing of Paradise Lost that none who read a draft, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. If they agreed among themselves never to do due diligence for an investor? The best technique I've found for dealing with the other.
I ordered a large number of startups as they do for a public event, you can ignore. If you want to help the company, and a few of the Facebook that might produce the next Apple, maybe the corp dev is to show growth graphs at either stage, investors decide whether to go to die.
If you walk into a big company CEOs in 2002 was 3.
Or rather, where w is will and d discipline. But that turned out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest country in the sense of mission.
In Shakespeare's own time, because they can't afford to. The company may not be able to raise their kids in a company in Germany. When we got to see the apples, they said, and why it's next to impossible to write an essay about it wrong. That will in many cases be an open booth.
I'm not saying you should probably be worth trying to tell them exactly what constitutes research in the early 90s when they say they bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. As Jeremy Siegel points out that there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs. Did you know about it as if you'd invested at a discount of 30% means when it was actually a great programmer doesn't merely do the right direction to be is represented by Milton.
But a lot of the next round. It's hard to say exactly what your body is telling you. In Russia they just kill you, they tend to be very unhealthy. One thing that drives most people realize, because you have two choices, choose the harder.
Though Balzac made a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this essay talks about programmers, but one by one they die and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. Or rather, where it sometimes causes investors to act. Eric Raymond says the best hackers want to trick admissions officers. And no, unfortunately, I mean efforts to protect widows and orphans from crooked investment schemes; people with a truly feudal economy, you better be sure you do in proper essays.
The top VCs thus have a better education. Or a phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or some vague thing like that. You need to fix. But the question is not much to maintain their percentage.
Kant. Loosely speaking. The real decline seems to them to lose elections. Some types of startups where the recipe is to say incendiary things, they can grow the acquisition offers most successful founders still get rich simply by being energetic and unscrupulous, but they get for free.
World War II to the frightening lies told by older siblings. That's one of the most general truths. As we walked in, we found they used it to get into that because a unless your last funding round.
But this seems an odd idea.
Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Shiro Kawai, Garry Tan, Chris Small, and Nikhil Nirmel for sharing their expertise on this topic.
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joaquinwhorres · 3 years
Text
Treacherous Waters (Leonard McCoy x Reader)
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SUMMARY ››››› After finals at Starfleet Academy all of the cadets flock to local bars in search of a good time. Which is exactly where you meet Leonard McCoy. And you are more than willing to show him a good time with the understanding that come Saturday morning he'll be gone, and you'll never see him again. Which is exactly what happens...until five years later your starship has a massive failure and the only ship around to save you is the Enterprise.
WORD COUNT ››››› 3,072
WARNINGS ››››› Drinking and mentions of sexy times. 
A/N ››››› Sooooo originally this was just supposed to be a “dancing in a bar with Leonard McCoy” fic but then I got an idea and well, it’s this. 
Prefer OC’s? Read it on AO3.
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Finals Week at Starfleet Academy was a glorious occasion.
Or perhaps, more accurately, the Friday evening after Finals Week at Starfleet Academy was a glorious occasion. Because the Friday night of Finals Week was when the beautiful, young, pent up cadets flooded the local bars in desperate search for some unbridled fun.
Which Y/N was more than happy to provide
"Kirk's here," Kiesh hissed, her fingers digging into Y/N's arm in her excitement. Y/N flinched, and Kiesh released her quickly, but was too distracted to mutter an apology, her gaze fixated on the near mythical figure of San Francisco nightlife.
The tales that followed Jim Kirk were outlandish and obscene and wholly captivating.
There was the story of his birth aboard the USS Kelvin minutes before his father saved the lives of everyone who'd been aboard the ship.
There was the story of how he'd earned his spot in the Academy by taking on three security Lieutenants in a fist fight and walking away with no more than a bloody nose.
And of course there were the stories of his romantic conquests. Although romantic was probably not the right word for it. Carnal, sensual, lustful, and erotic all seemed a bit more descriptive of what transpired between Jim Kirk and the girls of San Francisco.
And like any mythical figure, these tales were enough to warn off a good number of girls from falling into his sheets...while prompting others to search for him to either worship or conquer themselves.
Kiesh fell firmly in the later category. She was no Kirk acolyte, but he had become a point of fixation for her because he was what no other man had been to her--unattainable.
Y/N scanned the crowd for the golden haired casanova, but the bar was too packed. It was an ocean of voices and species and color, all flowing to the electric undercurrent that ran throughout the bar. Y/N's eyes caught on the blood red uniforms of cadets too eager to indulge their youth to waste any time by going home and changing clothes.
Two palms pressed into either side of Y/N's face as her roommate turned her attention away from the cadets, past groups of people wearing the colorful and patterned designs native to their home planet, and to the end of the neon purple bar. There, just visible between the bodies of two friends having a chugging contest, was Jim Kirk with his head thrown back laughing.
"He's gorgeous," Y/N murmured. She'd figured he had to be, but it was one thing to hear about Adonis and another thing completely to see him in person. Kiesh's hands fell from Y/N's head, allowing the other girl to turn back to her. "I'll see you tomorrow then?"
"I might not make it to breakfast." A coy smile curled Kiesh's lips up as she started off through the crowd, disappearing amongst the crowd.
Y/N followed her progress, watching the other girl choose a space at the bar directly in Kirk's line of sight, sliding into the chair and tossing her long purple hair over one shoulder to reveal the expanse of skin from her neck to her chest, and then below the crop top.
And then she waited.
Watching Kiesh work was a sight to behold. Each trap was delicately set, carefully tailored to the man she'd picked on that given night. She planned each movement--the way she walked, the angle of her body against the bar, the look she painted on her face--to snag men like a siren, luring them into her dangerous waters.
As much as she wanted to see this play out, Y/N had other more important things to accomplish.  Like finding her own catch for the night. And she wasn't going to do that by standing in one spot all night.
If Kiesh was a siren, then Y/N was a shark, moving constantly throughout the room in search of the perfect prey. She weaved in and out of small groups, eyes scanning the members therein. There were groups of friends laughing together, cadets challenging each other to drinking games, girls who like her and Kiesh came with one purpose in mind, and others who came to have a good time by themselves, cadets be damned.
But it wasn't until her fourth slow, methodical lap that she saw him. Or rather, she saw Kirk slap him on the back with a large grin before making his way over to where Kiesh leaned on her elbows. More than the broadness of his shoulders, the tussle of dark hair, and the deep red color of his uniform, it was the scowl he was shooting at Kirk's back that caught her attention and drew her across the bar to him as if smelling blood in the water.
"You look like a man who doesn't dance," Y/N said, folding her arms on the back of what was once Kirk's chair. It took him almost three seconds to realize that she was talking to him, and when he did, he lifted his eyebrows--the look an interesting combination of amusement and apprehension.
"Well, that's a first," he remarked. There was just a trace of an accent under his words that Y/N couldn't quite place.
"I highly doubt I'm the first person to notice," Y/N said, rocking on the balls of her feet. "Unless of course I'm wrong, and you're constantly barraged with requests to hit the dance floor."
He exhaled a laugh, the sound sailing past his lips, and into the glass he lifted up to his mouth. "You're not wrong," he said, taking a sip of his liquor and then placing it back down on the bar in front of him.
"Didn't think so. I rarely am."
He gave her a cautious look out of the corner of his eye as if still unsure where this conversation was going and why she was talking to him. As if people chatted up strangers in bars just to pass the time.
"So, since you don't dance, that begs the obvious question…what's a man like you doing in a place like this?"
He cracked a smile then, slowly tilting his head to look at her, really look at her, for the first time. "Shouldn't I be asking you that question?"
"Only if you subscribe to archaic 20th century gender norms," Y/N shrugged, smiling back at him. "Besides," she leaned closer, tipping her head towards his conspiratorially, and he shifted closer as well. "I don't think it's much of a mystery for me. I mean, look at our clothes."
His eyes wandered down to her deep V halter before seeming to realize he was still in his reds. "Fair point," he conceded, pulling back a little to take another sip of his drink.
"So?"
"A friend dragged me out," he admitted, eyes sliding back over to her. She raised both of her eyebrows as if she was surprised and didn't see Kirk abandoning him just five minutes ago.
"And left you to fend for yourself in a dive like this?" She shook her head as if scandalized by the idea. "You need better friends."
The cadet snorted and nodded his head. "You've got that right."
"Well, you're very lucky I found you before another girl did," Y/N said, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"That so?"
She nodded. "They may try to take advantage of you in such a defenseless state. All alone by the bar nursing a...what is that, whiskey?"
"Bourbon, actually." His eyes sparkled with an intoxicating warmth similar to the liquor he was drinking.
Y/N rolled her eyes lightly. "Same thing."
"Only technically."
"Technicalities are everything," she grinned. "Anyway, I'm willing to offer my protective services as a long time San Francisco resident to navigate these treacherous waters."
"You're from here?" he asked, genuine curiosity overtaking his features for the first time in their conversation. Y/N's smile turned a bit strained, but she nodded.
"Not quite. But I've been here for fifteen years. Just haven't figured out how to drop the accent," she shrugged.
"So are you from England then?" he asked, and she nodded.
"Next round's on me if you can guess where."
"Lon…" he started, and a grin grew across Y/N's face before he switched course. "Birmingham?"
She shook her head. "London."
"You tricked me," he accused lightly, his brow furrowing slightly but into more of mock offense and surprise at her cunning than anything else.
"You're highly suggestible," she shook her head, fighting to keep a smile down. "Which brings me back to the fact that you absolutely cannot remain alone in this bar tonight. It's far too dangerous for you."
"Guess I'll have to take you up on that offer then, darlin'." His smile was more subtle--apparently the fight to keep it off his face was going better for him.
"Y/N," she corrected, lifting her hand to offer it to him.
The man took it, his fingers surprisingly soft for a cadet. "Leonard," he answered.
Y/N let her hand linger in his, not pulling back until his grip loosened and his fingers trailed against hers to go back around his glass. She leaned her elbow on the back of the chair, placing her chin on top of her hand. "So Leonard," she asked. "Are you going to buy me a drink or am I working for free?"
He smirked, lifting a hand to call the bartender over as Y/N slid into the seat next to him, leaning her arms against the smooth chrome bar. The Tellarite bartender made his way over, and Leonard looked at Y/N.
"Well are you going to order or sit there staring at each other?" the bartender snapped. Leonard shot him a dirty look, and Y/N snorted.
"I'll have a Samarian Sunset on his tab," she ordered, pointing a finger at Leonard, and the man grunted. Leonard still looked rather displeased with the exchange but ordered himself another bourbon. The bartender walked away grumbling, and even Leonard looked rather grumpy.
"You know that's just his way of greeting right?" Y/N asked, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Tellarites consider it polite to attempt to start an argument when meeting someone. If he wasn't mildly insulting I would have been majorly insulted."
"And I thought you were kidding about being a guide."
"I would never," Y/N said with mock indignation, placing a hand over her heart. "Leonard, I take my promise to you very seriously. I will be at your side all night."
"All night?" he repeated, raising an eyebrow with a smirk.
"All night," Y/N repeated with a nod, keeping her eyes locked on Leonard. He met her gaze with an intensity that made her stomach twist with delight.  And of course it was right then that bartender reappeared.
He placed a martini glass full of clear liquid in front of Y/N, and a rocks glass with amber liquor in front of Leonard before making a derisive noise in his throat and walking away. Leonard didn't seem to mind as much this time.
"Cheers," Y/N said, reaching forward with her glass, and Leonard clinked his against hers, lifting it to his lips. She watched intently as she swirled her own drink so that a luminescent gold wisp spiraled out, turning the clear liquor the color of a burning sun. He pulled the glass from his lips, and she returned her attention to her own drink, taking a slow sip before placing it back down on the bar.
"So, Leonard," Y/N let the name roll off her tongue teasingly. "Tell me about yourself. Where are you from? What are you studying?"
"I'm a medical student," he said, setting his own glass down. "And I'm from Georgia."
"Ooh, a doctor and a southern gentleman," Y/N teased, shimmying her shoulders. "My mother would be so proud of me."
"Who said I'm a gentleman?" he asked with raised eyebrows, leaning closer to her. Y/N's mouth fell open slightly before she caught herself, stopping her body from melting completely right there in the seat.
"Don't threaten me with a good time, Leonard," she quipped, taking a sip of her drink.
"If you didn't want a good time then why did you come over here?" he asked, and Y/N grinned at him.
"Because you look like a man who doesn't dance."
"Well darlin," Leonard started, his eyes sparkling with the slightest bit of mischief and a look on his face that was enough to make something delicious twist in the pit of Y/N's stomach. "The night's still young."
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The night grew in both the amount of time passed and the amount of drinks finished. It was hard to state exactly how much of either had slipped away from the two of them as their glasses had been cleared a few times, but the world was just a bit lighter and hazier at the edges than was usual and the crowd slightly thinner than it had been when Y/N entered.
"Well, darlin'," Leonard's accent had grown heavier with the liquor, words dripping like molasses from his lips. "I should be gettin' back before curfew."
Y/N exhaled, the sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "Leonard," she said slowly, dragging out the word. Her own accent adding a richness to her words that had been precise and sharp earlier in the evening. "I thought I made it quite clear that I wasn't leaving your side all night, so you can't go running off to the dorms on me now."
"Need me to walk you home?" he asked, pausing from putting on his coat to settle the tab.
"Such a southern gentleman," the words rolled like waves from her, her voice rising and falling as he lifted an eyebrow at the screen he was signing. "Yes, I require an accompaniment home," she mocked. "And then I need you to pick a side you want me on for the next part of our night: top or bottom."
Leonard's eyes darkened, pupils blown wide before grabbing her hand and leaving the bar behind.
The cab ride to her apartment was...restrained. The two of them sat shoulder to shoulder in the backseat, eyes focused ahead through the windshield. Even as Y/N's hand drifted from her own lap into his, venturing up his thigh, both of them remained focused on the passing San Francisco streets. Leonard's hand came on top of her own. "Just wait, darlin'," he said, his words dripping with the richness of molasses as he folded his hand around hers.
"It's not polite to make a lady wait," Y/N quipped, shooting him a look out of the corner of her eye.
He snorted but made no attempt at a retort, instead patiently holding her hand until the cab stopped. Y/N opened her door, dragging Leonard by the hand and towards her apartment building.
The ride on the elevator was just as restrained as the cab drive, only instead of the beautiful lights of downtown, the pair stared at their distorted reflection in the sleek chrome doors.
There was a hum in the elevator though. Inaudible, but she could feel it singing across her skin, radiating from each part of her body that touched Leonard's. She bit her lip, and could feel Leonard look down at her. She allowed her gaze to slide over to him, drifting up to his face, meeting his eyes, already dark and boring into hers.
He opened his mouth to say something, but the doors slid open, pulling their attention away from each other and out of the elevator.
The pair walked down the hallway, stopping outside of her door so she could punch in the code. It took two tries for her to get it before the door clicked and she pushed it open, revealing her dark apartment. Y/N ventured in first, turning to invite Leonard in, but she'd barely opened her mouth before her face was in his hands, and he was walking her back into the wall.
The light switch jammed into her shoulder blade, and she felt a bit off balance, but his lips moved over hers with such a ferocity, it pushed everything else from her mind. Instead, all she could focus on was the feeling of his lips against hers, the taste of the sharp tang of alcohol he'd been drinking all evening. He invaded her senses, making it impossible to think of anything other than pulling him closer to her.
Y/N wound her fingers into his hair, urging him nearer to her, which he did, stepping forward, and moving a hand from her face to her waist, pulling her flush against him. His other hand wandered down to her chest as his lips began a journey down the curve of her neck. "I don't usually do this type of thing," he murmured against her skin.
"Go home with--ah--a strange woman from the--fu--the bar?" Y/N panted, pushing her hips into his for a taste of the friction she needed.
He pulled himself away from her collarbone to look up at her with hooded eyes. "Exactly."
"You're missing out," Y/N grinned, chest heaving. "Now take off your clothes so I can prove it to you."
The rest of the evening passed in a blur of bare skin and desperate sounds and more pleasure than Y/N had gotten out of a night out in a while.
It almost made her sad to see him go in the morning. Almost.
But him leaving was always a part of her plan for Saturday morning. Whether it was before or after breakfast, he would walk out of her apartment, never to be seen again. Instead, he'd fade into a memory of lips trailing against skin, fingers tangling in hair, bed frame rattling into the wall.
At least that's what was supposed to happen.
She wasn't supposed to see him again.
And she especially wasn't supposed to see him in a starship's transporter room, rushing towards her as she pressed her hand into Kiesh's side, desperate to keep the blood inside of her friend's body and not spilling out onto the transporter pad. He wasn't supposed to be there. And neither was she.
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worldsover · 3 years
Text
Judgement to the Desiccated ft. Karina
length ✦ 5573
genres ✧ sm type future; asphyxiation; blackmail; virtual_servant!Karina;
✦✧✦✧✦✧
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Air did a poor job of not being polluted so Lee Soo Man flooded the world instead. The man himself certainly must be long gone and could not have been in charge of that decision but the legacy of his company far exceeds the legacy of any other human collective in history. Once on this planet, gas was the fluid of choice for respiration and breathing was an unconscious reflex. Now there’s Aether by SM. How very on-brand of them to have the liquid air you breathe follow perfume naming conventions.
Open your eyes and exit the sleeping chamber. Aether has you work for each inhalation, it desaturates the color of the bedroom—maybe there’s a subtle but uncomfortable tinge of yellow—and it makes your nose itch. Your muscles wield much less force than they used to because of the lack of resistance the fluid provides. Moreover, it smells like hairspray as though the ozone layer is taking sardonic revenge.
Screens impersonating windows track your eyes to ensure realistic parallax, playing the scene of divine blue heavens that could not exist. An azure sky is a reward for those planets that have an atmosphere and a sun for light to scatter. Your walls are either chrome or drywall white and your whole bedroom is plainly decorated just like the day you moved in.
“Etymology of bedroom,” you think out loud, though it falls on no ears.
“Bedroom is a compound noun consisting of bed and room. Bed goes back to Old English bedd ‘sleeping place, plot of ground prepared for plants,’ which goes back to the Germanic-”
Plants and sleep are both strong words to use nowadays. The former doesn’t exist in nature and it seems you’re the only one who bothers with the latter. Faint buzzing distracts you from the AI’s response and signals you to the nano drones that swim throughout the liquid to process carbon dioxide from your lungs. This whole ordeal could’ve been much worse if you didn’t have brain interfaces doing the hard part of controlling your diaphragm. The most you need is a purposeful thought. Still, it gets tiring having to think the same thought every three seconds. In. Out.
Was the metaphorical Soo Man teaching a lesson in perseverance? You love K-pop and imagine it’s how trainees used to practice dancing, singing, being charismatic. Being an idol had to be as natural as breathing air. Inhale and exhale. Right now with any antiquated programming language you clung on to, you could write a single for loop that did the same job. For every three seconds: breathe in, breathe out.
“What’s for breakfast today?” Not loud enough. “What’s for breakfast?” you think it louder.
“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready for service.” It’s quite a kindness for SM to blur the bland dystopia you live in by augmenting reality through your neural device. A bosomy woman in a gold-lined but otherwise modest maid outfit appears from the corner of your eye and she bows. Ae-Karina is bewitching and almost becoming of her basis as its graphics have gradually upgraded over the rotations but you wouldn’t misconstrue the avatar as human.
“I said, what’s for breakfast!” It feels impolite to scream in your head, there’s other residents there, but finally the fridge lights up.
“Of course master. May I remind you eating is unnecessary?”
In. Out. Every day, she does remind you, yes. How kind of the company to put all your nutritional requirements in the new air. Aether goes in then Aether goes out. You wish the thoughts of breathing could fade into the background but they’re just like your cravings for food. Always hungry but never starving, whole though not once satisfied. Your eyes pause at her gorgeous face and she tells you there’s bacon. Take it from your fridge. Bacon goes in. Well, the drones take care of the out.
Your assigned living space is the entire 207th floor of a tower. Two hundred and seven floors below the surface. The neighbor a few floors upstairs says that he thinks living deeper is a sign of status. What a luxury. That guy should check the status of his facial muscles, maybe improve his code that lets him tell lies while he’s at it. A couple hundred flights of stairs to swim up is a useless skeuomorphism of skyscrapers in the days of the sun. In fact they were more than useless, you would've preferred a single vertical hallway as it would have let you propel upwards unimpeded. Each floor is the exact same, a glass door that affords no privacy for its residence, a false tree on each side. At the upper levels, malls, convenience stores and other gaudy retail, but it’s the gyms that mock you that you mock in return. They’re always empty.
Finally reaching the top is no true break even if it is a change in scenery. Inhale. Aether tastes a little different up here. Exhale. Can’t say you like it.
Countless satellites form a parody of the star from which the planet flew away, the false image refracted by the upper boundary of Aether. They can’t take away your memories of this star. Looking up at the sky once blinded you with ultraviolet radiation, burning your cornea. It was beautiful. Now everyone’s decided that if they’re playing the part of corporate dystopia, they might as well fit the aesthetic. In a way, it’s self-fulfilling. They wouldn’t have chosen a neon pink sun to compliment the blue and metallic gloom of the cityscape if it weren’t so ingrained in popular media already.
Still, you would’ve expected Google or Walmart to become the megacorp responsible for the state of the world, not a Korean entertainment company. Must’ve been quite the red paperclip scenario. Instead of material design or utilitarian architecture, tacky artistic structures line the streets. The same advertisements for albums that they’ve been selling for the past however long. It's all so obvious, the city could've been designed from scratch to accommodate new forms of travel and goddamn liquid air but instead they went with futuristic Tokyo.
Dubstep permeates your inner ear implants. A notification informs your thoughts that it’s “Hip-hop EDM dance pop with a strong jungle house groove and urban influences.” It’s dubstep. Liquid carries barely any sound so SM affords the option for implants if you're nostalgic for one of the senses. Even though it’s a slower form of communication than direct neural transfer, the noise comforts you. Of course the company would choose dubstep as their background music, but maybe they make money off refunds somehow. It switches to Ice Cream Cake. Much better.
You walk the not so busy roads towards a short brick warehouse in the distance and heavy rain soaks your clothes. No such thing as weather without the sun and water but it’s all simulated anyway.
A warm Seulgi adlib and you know it’s Psycho that starts playing. No, none of your senses are real. The most you could trust is your vision but even that’s being lied to. You could be living in a vat and fed all these thoughts, but then why make it so mediocre? Not paradise, nor torture but a lukewarm in-between. Guess that's what happens when SM Entertainment manages the post-apocalypse. Good on them for trying. The alternative would be a frozen hellscape without solar radiation. Can’t deny their work with geothermal and nuclear energy to keep the Aether warm so that you didn’t have to live underground for the rest of human history. It’s quite great PR to save humanity.
“Hey now, we’ll be okay,” repeats a few more times than you remember.
The Idea Factory Alpha White Delta Green says the neon tubes lighting the front of the brick and mortar building. Your ID card bears a name but it’s not yours, not until they approve your name change. Those usually get processed faster with how often people liked changing their names.
Sit at a desk with a sterile white keyboard and slick new monitor. Type and empty words appear on the screen: “Think for the many, not for the one. We need to think ahead.” A thumbs up. The company appreciates the input. That’s probably enough work for one day. Some SNSD live stages help the time pass, SM certainly appreciated the streaming numbers and it would net you some social points.
It’s hard to say what comes to mind when they ask you to envision a world without the sun and air, especially since it’s what you’ve known for... Two hundred years? There’s no frame of reference, that much you can tell from when you counted seconds to see how often the satellites completed their orbit. SM really took time to have them propel at random speeds, they love withholding sensitive information like that from citizens. To be fair, time is sensitive. Guess the meaning of that phrase changes like all parts of language.
Look around. Dozens of employees at identical workspaces all try to answer the same questions. Naturally, there’s no need for manual labor anymore but there will never be a replacement for human ingenuity. Nice slogan but you know you’re only here for data. Can’t see a need for customer retention though—what’s the alternative, skip Earth? See you on another planet?
“Hey bro, you come up with anything new?” Dave says. Two desks away, you see the enthusiastic, surprisingly spry man play around with a Newton’s cradle. The balls at each end bounce back and forth, not slowing down their rhythm any time soon.
“I think I got something,” you say, “Earth is not the answer. It can’t be, long term.”
“Ooh, I like that. Actually, I really like that.”
“What are you gonna do, copy me?”
“Of course not. You know how much SM hates plagiarism.” Click. Clack.
“Ha. As if there’s a single original thought left in the world.” Click. Clack. The imaginary sounds of metal spheres bouncing play in your mind. They got the volume wrong, no way it’d sound that loud from that distance. “You’d think with all their resources, they’d have figured out space travel by now.”
“I don’t think they want to leave, bro. Wouldn’t be great for profits.”
Your mouth opens to laugh and causes laugh8942.mp3 to play in Dave’s head. “I love it. SM probably hates that sass too,” you say.
“Oh no, they’re gonna arrest me for thoughtcrimes. Nah, they love creativity, just when it suits them. Also, if they actually did bust you for wrongthink like rumors say, I wouldn’t have this on me.” Dave twirls a finger and points at you and you thank his absurd flair for the histrionic that keeps you amused with such drab work.
“NewDrug.mp6. Would you like to play it?” the dry system voice notifies you.
“Woah woah there tiger, hold on.” Dave must’ve noticed your intrigued eyes and holds his hands up. “You might wanna experience that at home. But if you’re interested in more, ask for chicken parm at the vegan place. You know the one.”
Dave leaves his desk. He doesn’t return. You finish your work. Inspire. Expire. You’d rather not.
In contrast to your commute to work, the roads fill with others on your way home. You have to know. Take solace in the comfort of a bench where a huge McDonald’s arch bathes the surroundings and its people with a yellow glow. Really shouldn’t watch it now, especially if Dave says it’s a home type of watch but you have to know. A family of five watches you pass out. They, along with every other passerby, ignore your still body draped over the chrome outdoor seating as you look like yet another junkie. The title is correct after a fashion, the simulation is some sort of new drug. The details of the exploits that happen in the immersive replay wash over you but you don’t need them to know that it’s the sort of lewd that SM would not allow—at least not publicly and not without the right exorbitant payment.
Suit pants and underwear go straight to the laundry. That must’ve been an embarrassing sight but no one bothered to stop you, so it doesn’t matter. Look up where this vegan place was that Dave so presumptuously assumed you knew about and you find that it’s about four Avengers’ stores down from work. He must’ve eaten there before.
“Yo Dave, just wanna make sure, what’s the name of the vegan place called?”
“What are you talking about, man? You telling me there’s some secret underground farms that SM wouldn’t know about?”
You can’t tell when you got to work, a lack of standardized timing would help as well the haze of living in a monotonous dark. “Nah, I mean, for the-”
“I have no idea,” Dave emphasizes each word, “what you’re talking about.”
“I see.”
Work flies by, unusually.
“Hey, can I get a chicken-”
“Uh, this is Maron’s Veggies Only, it clearly says on the sign.”
Clear your throat. “Parm.”
The shifty part-time worker looks around and rubs his fingers gesturing for money. “No digital.”
Over the counter, you pass him a gold coin stamped with a holographic 1 and he hands you a USB stick and a laptop in return. How old-fashioned.
“It’ll sync with whoever you have set as your avatar experience aspect,” the worker says.
“Thanks.”
Ever vigilant as the patrol is, the alleys are the last place you want to go to hide with the obvious criminal element within them all but you head to one anyway. Dump the anachronistic technology in your storage pocket dimensions. Looking at its contents, you’d have to clean that mess up later, but the more you look like an average slob the better. The biggest problem with the inventories is all the people squatting in them. Inspectors wouldn’t care about the archaic ruins you left in yours.
“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready to service.”
“I’d like to go on a date. A special date.” You highlight the key word special and sit on your living room couch. No one’s going to look in your glass door and regardless, you wouldn’t be the pervert for glimpsing into someone’s home.
“Ah yes, master. Ae-Karina is ready to fully service,” she says with a provocative tint in her tone, her sclera disperses to black to match. A pole drops from the ceiling while parts of her maid outfit dissolve which reveals more of the silky skin of her thighs, her lissom arms and most importantly her overflowing breasts. Ae-Karina wraps her legs around the pole and spins around, teasing fingers trace curves on her body to harden you. Her dance is precise but sultry regardless. She pulls up her short skirt to flaunt more of her ass beneath white panties and then pulls down to flourish her cleavage, not trapped by a bra. “Are you enjoying your maid’s show?”
“Very much so, yes,” you say.
Half of a smile forms before a glitch occurs and she teleports next to you, fully nude. It doesn’t pull you out of the illusion however. You just stare and drink in the splendor of her created body.
“You’re not going to touch?” Ae-Karina says.
A feel of her tits and you find it softer than pillows you used to rest on. Soft isn’t much of a character that exists anymore when the whole world is engulfed in liquid. No one has beds, especially with the rarity of sleep. Therefore, her mounds are a consummate dedication to the texture as you squeeze and pinch at her cute nipples.
Her maid outfit rematerializes as she straddles you. It provides more friction to your pants as she begins her lap dance. The weight of her body dragging across your legs and clothed erection induces your carnal impulses further. If only you could fuck the virtual idol. You have to make do with the imprint of her pussy lips on your bulge sliding up and down. Breath in. Breath out.
Ae-Karina pulls down your boxers and spits on your erection. It's not real but her hands so slick on your cock and you let reality slip. Real is for the past, you have desires gratified in the present. There is no real person nibbling at your neck but your nerves activate in sexual desire without discernment for truth. No, she doesn't love you, but when the voracious mass of ones and zeroes says it loves its master, you say it back.
"I love you."
ILOVEYOU infected ten million computers in 2000. An explosion. Calibration engaging. It’s 1:21 PM, Sunday, July 18, 2286 and hypothetically the sun would be out in its full rage. At this latitude and longitude, you’re at what was once the epicenter of all—Seoul, where a fountain caused a chain reaction allowing the hopeful remnant of a world to exist. It lasted a surprisingly long time without the sun and without Aether but the dying planet would succumb inevitably to the ever-increasing contamination so SM of all corporations took charge. A different kind of chain reaction occurred when they acquired a restaurant chain that discovered the recipe for liquid air. The law is on its way and prepared to punish you to its full extent.
You reel while your ears ring. An even sexier version of the woman you already fantasized about appears from your peripheral vision in the crater of your floor. A skimpy cop outfit, striated with reflective material that seems to wane black at different angles, outlines Karina’s curves. She has a tool belt with absurd gadgets, such as a knife baton hybrid, a taser combined with a spray bottle and a Tamagotchi. None of this is necessary. They could just immediately arrest you, impose limitations on your devices. Sure, SM cloned people to deal with underpopulation, but why Karina would be the enforcer is a whole nother issue. Maybe the entertainment company loves their irony?
“Halt. You’re under arrest. Any resistance will be penalized according to the combined Terms of Service of all SM and SM associated products.”
Fucked anyway, you figure you might as well go for it. Escape into your inventory and only seconds later you’re forced out. You manage to get what you need regardless.
“Violation of access rights will be charged to your account.”
It’s so obvious but there’s a reason you kept so much gold in physical storage. As you swim away, the sides of your apartment start to bubble. Bubbles? Already, your limbs feel unsteady. Something’s wrong in the Aether.
“This is standard procedure for escaping suspects that are indoors. Again, this is all agreed to under the Terms of Service.”
“When the fuck did I ever click accept to that shit?”
“When you were born in this world and decided you want to stay in it,” Karina says out loud. You hear her say it. Your physical ears process the vibrations in the air that come from her mouth. Gravity thwarts your desperate escape as your limp body floats on the limit between liquid and air. The atrophy of your muscles becomes apparent within the gaseous atmosphere. She watches you sink down as the room drains of all the false air though her eyebrows crease when she inspects you closer. Your breaths are involuntary. Despite your muscles shorting out, the force of gravity and the pressure of the gas bearing down on you, you’re breathing and you don’t mean to. Her eyes wander farther down. On your pants, a concrete rod stamps the fabric.
“Oh, you like what you see?”
“Shut up, criminal. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”
“Your pussy,” you say and she scoffs.
“Original.” Karina bites her lip as your erection continues to grow behind its prison. You use all effort to put your hands up.
“Please, miss Karina. I’ve been bad.”
“I could punish you even more for sexual assault.”
“Then do it.”
Heat radiates the room in a way you haven’t felt in a while and droplets of sweat form on each of your bodies, especially on the thighs that her revealing outfit parades. Her facial features contort in deliberation and the wait kills you. You bat your eyes at her before Karina takes off her tight shorts and drops herself into your anticipatory face. This makes no sense but none of this life made any sense so you decide to go with the tides.
Centuries of training your respiration has led to this moment, but when you finally have real air to breathe, you spit at the opportunity and choose to suffocate. Then you spit at her pussy and lap it up. Karina’s nectar transfixes your olfactory glands, for once a smell that isn’t the sterile Aether. Your eyes are mesmerized in parallel because of the perfect design of her pussy, a single crease that leads into her hole that your tongue emphatically explores. Karina spreads her thighs wide to reveal a small nub that craves attention. So give it. Suck and swirl and flick your tongue, and the woman provides you the tight clench of her legs as a gift. And the sounds, rediscovered glorious noise. Loud, almost too loud, and clear is how they assault your ears, even surrounded by the flesh of her thighs. Muffled by the weight of her legs, you hear Karina moan in approval but she’s still clearly in charge with how she chokes you with her legs. This is not about your pleasure but hers, and any satisfaction that you derive is not only incidental but probably punishable by SM copyright law.
Karina squirms her hips subtly on your mouth. Her eyes are sharp and she’s just about to stop your hands from moving but she notices them clasp together.
“I’ll do anything to make you cum, please.” you say sloppily as her pussy juices fill your cheeks and drip down your chin.
“God. I can’t.” She takes deep, contemplative breaths. ”That’s more time added on for inappropriate behavior.” Her groaning and brief squeals make her words sound incogent.
You give her a concluding lick and a kiss on her slit. “So what have you been doing right now then?”
Point to a corner of the room and a subtle red light indicates a recording camera. At once, she pulls out a hose from a pocket that could not fit it and the vacuum submerges the room with noise. Her expression shifts quickly to serious.
“We don’t play games here in SMTOWN unless it’s SuperStar so don’t fuck with me.”
“Look who's trying to be a comedian. How about you fuck with me any further and the video gets released.”
“That’s funny, you think you have any sort of power-”
“Yoo Jimin, I suggest you don’t push me more.”
“Where do you know that name from? Right now.” She weighs herself down on your neck.
“You think I don’t have contingencies for if I die too? Karina, we can make this a  win-win scenario. We both get to cum, we both get to walk away unscathed.”
“Fuck you.”
Your weak arms wander between her thighs. At any moment, a feeble punch towards your face or another ten seconds of asphyxiation and she could call your bluff. Even if you did have the ability to expose her perversions in any way, there would be no permanent recourse, not as long SM was in charge. So it surprises you when Karina takes off her shorts. 
“Goddammit. Your cock just looks too good. And your mouth, how are you so good with it?” Put up five fingers when she motions to remove her top as well, and instead she opts to take off your clothes, seizing your pants and throwing them to join the rubble in the room.
A finger slips in, then two and a third dares. Her flawlessly architected pussy lips clings to your digits and Karina shudders in reply. You explore her wetness and find it’s smooth to the point of having no faults, but her juice inside is gloppy and causes your fingers to stick more than the liquids she spills from her slit.
“Who said you’re allowed to have more?”
You lap up the nectar on your fingers. “Then why’d they make you taste so good?”
Your thumb teases her sweet tight asshole and puts just the slightest amount of pressure on it while you finger her with more intensity. The mass of her butt burdens your torso the closer she gets to orgasm. Her eyelids squeeze close and you see her body ripple in anxious pleasure. Karina shows off her pearly whites, teetering on the cliff of hysteria.
“Yes, yes! I’m so close,” she screams.
"Not yet."
“Fuck." Karina sobs, "God. Damn, fuck I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just fuck me.”
“My pleasure,” you say. There’s no need for you to grab her since she brings herself down to your groin, which you’re thankful for as your arms are as good as jelly now. Fortunately, your cock throbs as hard as ever while Karina’s slit rests on it.
“Say you’ll delete it all, all the evidence, promise me.”
“You’re gonna fuck me first or what?” Your breath hitches while she makes a strangled noise as her velvety walls swallow your cock whole to leave no room for comfort. Her tightness is stifling and you have to start counting just to breathe again.
“One two-”
“Be quiet.”
But there is no quiet when pleas for your cooperation intersperse her excessive profanities when she seats herself into your cock and ricochets up and down. Sweat emanates from her creamy skin while her legs widen to find a better angle for her supporting knees in her cowgirl position. Grapefruit and other citrus mingle with the scent of the sweat, fruits you haven’t seen except on billboards in music videos. As much as your mind crackles and your blood roars for every atmosphere of pressure Karina’s walls provide on each thrust in and out, you can’t help but reminisce on sweeter, more innocent times.
The white fluorescent lights in your apartment sputter. For all the advancements in technology, some among many things never change. Light refracts differently in air, less bright, but you can see the pure enjoyment on Karina’s face no matter the luminescence. Karina slows her ride to pull her hips down harder instead and she jolts when your cock finds the most tender spots inside her pussy and it interrupts her babbling.
Karina almost hyperventilates when she gets up to spit on your cock. She pulls out some kind of meter from her tool belt and sighs when there’s no beeping and you recognize it having to do with carbon dioxide. She gets back to dribbling saliva and the filament trailing down to your shaft mesmerizes you. This spit is real, not simulated, and it wettens your erection in a mix with her pussy juices to paralyze you further in your already listless state. Her bare thighs jiggle and you can’t exert much force with your hands but her buttcheeks are firm with just a bit of give.
“Thank you for this cock, thank you for being bad,” Karina says as you watch her ass sink deeper while her pussy holds your dick taut. She’s frenetic when bounces up and down to play an unadulterated orchestra of slick noises between your groins.
“You’re welcome,” you accomplish getting out the words between planned breaths. Your hands cup her buttcheeks but you fear they may break with how she strikes her ass into you.
Karina turns around once more to give you the spectacle of her facial expressions as she fucks herself into you. Knead her calves laying on your torso and they take no energy to spread them though she brings them back together, compressing your hard shaft within her pussy. A new game you play with her, a separate rhythm of loosening and tightening. Her feet press on your chest to help her bounce, but the way they bear down on your lungs against the timing of your breathing causes you to fumble. Your cock bends straight forward as she plunges herself into you and it sends prickles to your entire skin, making the new angle difficult but worth it. Karina takes your hand and starts sucking on your fingers.
“You want my promise that bad?” you say.
“Yes, as bad as I want your cum. I swear, I need it.”
She draws her knees up to her torso and hugs her legs to keep thighs as tight together as possible. Karina couldn’t keep her word, she was trying to kill your cock with constriction.
“Fuck, your pussy is so fucking tight. God, Karina, fuck. You’re so good.” Even if good isn’t the word you want to use to describe her.
“Do it, please, please. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, baby. Karina can be a good girl, a good maid, a good cop, whatever you want. Just don’t get me in trouble, please.”
Karina’s mouth stops saying words though her lips writhe, drunk in increasing lust. Her cheeks flush, before the rest of her skin joins in redness while she grapples your chest and whatever spare limb she can find. You still struggle wresting control of your body but nature seems to take over when you drive yourself into her and match her needy cadence. The air in the room is replaced by a new air but it isn’t Aether. Passion, sweat, heat and all fluids that you both exude join squelching sounds, slaps and moans in harmonic bliss when her body tenses and she screams. As her body tightens, her pussy especially holds your cock for dear life and endeavours to wring out all your semen as her wetness throbs and spills. Karina starts counting to three repeatedly and you laugh though your amusement quickly subsides when you feel her juices become more viscous and she continues her ride, even in the dying pulses of her climax.
“Was I good?” Karina asks.
Just a moment goes by before you mentally send her a screenshot of all the recordings being deleted. Karina hasn’t stopped fucking you yet so at least it wasn’t a ploy.
“Thank you, thank you, I love you.” The flexion of her pliant legs brings them all the way back to rest on top of your legs. Karina lays prone above you and finally give you a kiss. The citrusy flavor may be closer to lime than grapefruit but it’s been so long that you can’t remember which scent is which. Lips crash and her tongue lashes out at yours trying to establish dominance. Keep still to let her investigate your mouth while her pussy does the same to your shaft.
You savor the way Karina’s top emphasizes the bouncing of her tits synchronous with the rebounding of her waist on your cock, but your mouth waters when she frees them. Take the shortest moment to relish in the sight before Karina smothers you with her plump globes. You wriggle your face to try to breathe. Inhale, up and exhale, down, but all you inhale is the scent of her orbs’ sweat. Her hips undulate with a pace at least double yours breathing and the echoes of slapping flesh resonate throughout the air-filled chamber. The loudness is unlike any you’ve experienced in a long time. It’s almost a flashbang every time her ass slams into your lap, especially as you start to see white when orgasm threatens to overload you with preludial pulses.
The last words you hear infected ten million computers in 2000. Fade to black. Cut. You’re slammed out of existence back into existence as a sun rebirths both within you, heating your core to a dangerous high, and from your eyes, dazzling you in an unforgiving white light. In the throes of unconsciousness relapsing to consciousness back to tenebrosity, your streaks of semen suspend in the Aether like a dead tree resting from the wind. What flashes your mind in its orgasmic state are two things only you would remember, plants and weather. Your hyperventilation is unconscious but not unwelcome, as it’s the first time in a while your breaths were reflexive even in the liquid air. However, basking in your newfound power, you start to choke. Right. You breathe in and out again. In and out. In. Out. In. Out. Back in.
“Replaying KarinaArrestsYou.mp6.” A hint of vexatious glee in the system’s otherwise dry voice. You don’t stop for it.
✦✧✦✧✦✧ 
AFF, AO3
It’s pretty silly but the idea danced around in my head ever since I saw the absolute Black Mirror concept that SM had for aespa and I concur that Karina is insanely hot.
As I’m writing this, this Kurzgesagt video on the idea of a rogue Earth comes out and now I have to rewrite stuff to make it at least a little consistent. I’m obviously already going nuts with all these ridiculous sci-fi concepts but this video almost feels too targeted to me writing this for me to ignore it.
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ohheyitsyouagain · 2 years
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HOOO BOY.
everyone, I would like to introduce you to my newest project/au: Furry Emblem. it’s exactly what it sounds like. each of the classes is a different type of animal - the black eagles are birds, the blue lions are cats (their designs will probably come next!), and the golden deer are ungulates. yes, that leaves out a few characters, but... eh, whatever. I’ll figure it out as I go.
(this is all a very elaborate way of saying I hate drawing humans and would rather draw anthros. also I’m a furry.)
anyway, extra design details/commentary under the cut for anyone who wants it:
some general stuff first:
this is the first time I’ve drawn these characters, birds or not, and jesus christ I didn’t realize how complicated their outfits were. I simplified them pretty heavily, since I actually plan on drawing these more and I don’t want to agonize over every pin and tassel every time.
and somehow, they still feel too messy. oh well.
none of them wear shoes! this is purely a personal thing. I can’t handle animals wearing shoes, and I cannot explain why.
Dorothea and Ferdinand both change a little over the timeskip, other than the stuff that happens in the game. I thought it would be fun to draw them a bit like juveniles, even if they’re basically adults by this point.
this only means something to people who’ve seen my bird art before, but I’m drawing them a little different than the ducks I usually draw! it’s most obvious in the beaks and hands.
tiny detail: Ferdinand, Edelgard and Hubert’s fingers are rounded because they’re wearing gloves.
those three are also the only ones with talons, because they’re the only predatory birds. you may think I had something deep and meaningful in mind with this, but no, it’s just a coincidence.
yes, these are all their canon heights.
I have no idea if I’ll make a proper sheet like this for the timeskip designs. it would be nice to have all of their heights on hand, but also... do you have any idea how exhausting it was to make this. I don’t think I’d go through this again just for some new hair and outfits.
okay, now for the character-specific stuff! gonna go from left to right with these.
Caspar
blue jay
he was the easiest species to decide on, next to edelgard.
trans of gender, lucky for him blue jays have zero sexual dimorphism aside from a size difference (most people think he’s just short).
probably the most realistic as far as colors go.
Dorothea
rose robin
after the timeskip, her chest turns pastel pink.
ignore that she has two toes. it’s... complicated, alright. pretend she has three.
Ferdinand
white-tailed eagle
“if he’s a white-tailed eagle why isn’t his tail white” only adults have white tails!
Ferdinand falls victim to what I liked to call the “fried chicken conundrum.” meaning that if you make his feathers too dull, it looks grey or brown instead of orange, and if you make it too bright, it looks like... well, fried chicken. I think I managed to find the middle ground, though.
a friend and I genuinely got into a debate on whether or not he wears a skirt. we concluded that he definitely doesn’t, but I’m going to continue to pretend that he does and draw him wearing one. (mostly out of spite. sorry ashe.)
Edelgard
bald eagle
she was the very first character I figured out the species for, way back in 2019 when I first played. this was before I knew Why she had white hair, but whatever, it still works.
she gets off easy in this because white is a perfectly natural color on a bald eagle, so no one really questions it. of course, they changed colors way earlier than most, but not many people know that. 
Hubert
crested caracara
you guys have no idea how it felt to be looking at birds and going “holy SHIT that’s a Hubert”
apparently, when caracaras are with their mates, they’ll sometimes throw their heads back and just... cackle. take that as you will.
crested caracaras have a lot of exposed orange skin on their faces, and I swear to you that I tried to make it work, and it just... wouldn’t. so please ignore that discrepancy.
I was debating giving him a browner head and only making it black after the timeskip, since juvenile caracaras are brown instead of black. but he’s already, like, 20, so his adult plumage probably would’ve come in by now anyway.
Linhardt
arfak catbird
coming up with his species took the longest. unfortunately for me, birds aren’t a fan of sleeping, so I couldn’t even google “birds that sleep all day” for an easy choice. but cats sleep a lot, right? bird? catbird? good enough.
catbirds meow. that’s not relevant to anything I just think it’s funny.
Bernadetta
gambel’s quail
yeah I don’t really have anything to say about her.
Petra
indian peafowl
honestly, her design infuriates me a little because peacocks are blue, not magenta. but Petra’s hair is magenta, and it doesn’t have to be completely biologically accurate... I’ll learn to live with it.
Petra braids her tail, just like her hair, because otherwise it would drag for like, four feet behind her. using Tangled strats.
“I thought only male peafowl had the fancy tails” that’s what we call the trans of gender baby!!
her tail was a bitch to color. it was hard to get across the splendor of “HOLY SHIT A PEACOCK” while also being easy to draw. so now it’s cotton candy.
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burnedbyshoto · 4 years
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— Honestly, what could go wrong when you’re lusting over your close friend and you’re locked in a box with only one way to get out? Well, not a lot, honestly.
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pairing: kaibara sen x fem!reader
warnings: smut, 18+, gloryhole, dirty talk, praise, fingering, sexual tension, reader is a pervert, quirk use during sex (spinning cock lol)
word count: 2,695
a/n: this is the second gloryhole fic ive written, but its completely different from the last time because its like not a cult fic LMAO!!! anyways, I think yall basic shouto and bakugou stans could do well to stan this class 1-b man because when I tell you he is another deviation of the two of them personality wise.... I mean it! 
day 5 main kink: gloryhole
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If you had known precisely what you had just gotten yourself into right now three hours ago, you would have laughed at yourself. Without a doubt, there was no questioning that the predicament you had concealed yourself in was one that would bring you great shame once this wall was gone, but for now, you would deal with it.
At the bitter age of twenty, having graduated from the hero department over in Shiketsu High, you had been almost shocked when you were reached out upon by the graduating class over at Yuuei, to come and join their agency. You had accepted it with caution, unsure if you could live a life paycheck to paycheck that was as new as they come. But, it was a decision you would come to never regret.
Or at least, not until right now. 
You had been on patrol with your coworker turned friend, Kaibara Sen, hero name: Spiral.
His quirk was an interesting one. A quirk that allowed him to gyrate -- spin -- every limb and ligament on his body. It caused some pretty asshole moves in close combat that not only stung with the piercing metal on his gloves but also sent you flying away. Countless amounts of times, you had pinned him only to spun around like a spinning top and slammed back into the practice mats.
You hated it.
Or well, you hated his quirk in a sensical way (note: do not attempt to beat him through a crowd, he always wins). In the nonsensical, coming of age brain of yours that had been for the most part silenced due to Shiketsu’s no-dating-policy, but as you grew fond of your coworker, frequent workout buddy and sparring partner, you couldn’t help but wonder just if… well… if he could spin his cock.
You would be lying if you said you had never imagined what it could feel like. You wondered if his cock was curved, or if it was straight. Would the veins be prominent? Too many times, when watching quirk-plot porn videos, you found your mind lingering onto his ability, which leads you to scream into a pillow, your hormones both skyrocketing and plummeting in your horror. 
You weren’t a perv, you like to remind yourself as you changed into your hero costume. It was merely a rational, human thought! Humans were curious beings, after all! Sure, Kaibara was attractive, and his voice was… so low, deep, and raspy that sometimes you would try to – NOPE NOT A PERV!
Blazing hot cheeks drummed in time with your hammering heart as you finished dressing, hoping to get out and clear your mind with helping out the community as a hero! You were a hero!
Not a perv!
Nodding to yourself in the mirror located in your designated locker, you slammed it close and left.
Unfortunately for you, or fortunately, Kaibara was already dressed in his costume and waved at you in greeting as you approached him.
“Afternoon.”
“Yeah, yeah, shut up!” you flustered, your back stiffening as you continued to stomp ahead, readying to leave the stupid agency and get your afternoon rounds done. 
You weren’t a pervert!
With three years since graduating from high school, three years of this agency having been founded, and three years of becoming friends with the esteemed and infamous class 1-A and 1-B from Yuuei, you had learned one thing for sure. This group of Yuuei students seemed to attract the worse kind of trouble like a moth to a lamp.
Without a doubt, you knew that was the reason why you had Kaibara somehow ended up in this horrible, ridiculous quirk from a child that just so happened to manifest their quirk out in the open. And of course, it would be the most humiliating shit to ever happen in the entire world of quirk apparitions.
“Uh, the mother said it’s probably the father’s quirk!” came the apologetic, nearing frantic voice of Deku from outside the steel box both you and Kaibara were trapped in. 
You couldn’t even see Kaibara’s face, and the perv in you screamed over the lack of even having his body pressed against yours! No! Nothing! As a matter of fact, there was a divider between you and Kaibara, a giant wall with a hole near your crotch area.
“I can’t believe you idiots got yourselves trapped in this!” came the amused, annoyed, and somehow antagonizing voice of Ground Zero. 
“Shut up!” you screamed back. “They looked at us, and it happened! It’s not like we touched the kid!”
“Y/h/n,” Kaibara’s voice sighed, and you felt your face ignite at the sighful tone on his raspy, deep voice. You pouted at the slight scold in his manner and felt yourself looking down in shame as he continued. “Don’t argue with Ground Zero. Hey, Deku, how we get out of this?”
The both of you were silent for some time, the outside world quiet as you waited for an answer.
“Oh, um, I don’t think you’re going to like it…” Deku’s voice laughed awkwardly from outside the box, and you frowned.
“Just tell us.”
“I-It’s uh… it’s a quirk called Gloryhole!” Deku squeaked, and just as you knew the successful and well-recognized pro hero outside of this box was undoubtedly red in the face, you felt your already warm face turn into an inferno. “I-I-It’s exactly… ohmygod!”
“The shitnerd is apparently a fucking perv and can’t finish his stupid sentence. Anyways, this quirk only works on shits like you with unresolved sexual tension and only removes after you use it,” Ground Zero’s voice barked from outside the walls.
“KACCHAN!”
“Shut up, Deku!” Ground Zero fired right back, and you could feel your body trembling at the news. Oh no, your perverted mind finally caught up to you in the worst of ways?! Although he did say unresolved sexual tension, that could totally be onesided, right? “We’ll be back in an hour, get it done, or fucking else.”
They left you, and you realized that despite your panicking pitched breathes, there was no noise coming from Kaibara’s side.
Oh no, this was all your fault! 
Oh no, oh no, oh no!
“You, uh,” Kaibara spoke softly, and you felt your hands clutch onto the fabric above your breasts. “You have unresolved sexual tension with me?”
“No,” you denied immediately, your forehead crashing against the barrier between you and Kaibara at the blatant, stupid lie. “Yes. Ugh, I do, but that wasn’t something I was planning on telling you!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s embarrassing? What was I supposed to say when you pin me against mats during sparring sessions? ‘Hey, Kaibara, does your cock also spin? If so, can you fuck me with it?’”
You slap your hand across your mouth, eyes going wide in your panicked embarrassment. That mouth of yours was genuinely going to get your tongue cut off or lips sewn together one day.
It’s silent for a bit, but there’s a sound of clothes ruffling. The rate of your heartbeat seemed to increase exponentially as you saw something shift from the view you had of the Gloryhole. “Well, if you want to find out, I’ll be more than willing to give you a demonstration.”
The pervert you may or not be did not hesitate to respond back.
“Please?”
And you watched as his shadowed figure approached the hole, and a pink-headed cock pushed through the hole into your side. You watched with a gaping jaw at the still-growing cock before you. Without a doubt, it was more than seven inches and was glorious, gravity defyingly curved upwards. It was proud as it was thick, and you watched as the underneath of his cock scraped across the bottom.
A soft grunt strangled in his throat at the cold, rough sensation, and you watched a small, glistening bead of pre-cum appear from the slit on his head. You’re not sure how quickly you dropped to your knees, but you did know that your mouth took him on completely. Within the first drop of your mouth on his cock, you enveloped at least half of his cock in your mouth. A loud bang hit the wall, and you felt a warmth in your chest, knowing that you had already affected him.
Your lips and mouth glided against his length, your tongue pressing and lapping at the underneath of the head of his cock, trying to cock to become as hard as it could be, because it was still growing. A particular needy, near sloppy suck of yours, sent a loud, dizzying guttural noise from Kaibara’s side. A noise that sent liquid heat spilling into your cunt as your hand gripped the base of his cock, bobbing your head slowly, as leisurely as you would allow yourself.
His taste was indescribable, faint yet had you licking his length for more, trying to cover your tongue in his pre-cum. 
But the issue with a proud curving upwards cock, was that you found it awkward to choke yourself down his impossibly stubborn curve as he began to thrust his hips to meet your mouth and travel into your throat. Grunt, gasps, and growls seemed to be growing in volume and repetition on his side of the wall as you relaxed your throat, chokes, and gags sounding wet and sloppy on your side. 
“Fuck, just like that, wait up,” Kaibara moaned, a thud coming straight above your own head, letting you know that he had pressed his head against the wall. The thumping of his hips on the wall was slowly becoming musical, white noise as you bobbed your head further along his length, throat vibrating with your need to make him feel good. And the weirdest, most surprised splutter came from your throat as his cock spun in direction.
Once curved upwards, making it nearly impossible in the space to take his cock all the way down your throat, was now downcurved. It stretched your jaw out entirely as he didn’t bother to pull away to do it, and your throat stretched out in a way you had never experienced before as you coughed and staggered against his length. But, it was a pain that made your clit throb and allowed his cock to go even further down your throat.
You did what you could only do once your throat stopped hurting, and the sheer pleasure of having your throat stretched out in a more desirably wait set in: you moaned.
It was a long, pitchy noise that you swore you could feel against the steel wall that your free hand supported you against. Your toes curled at the way his intensely thrusting hips faltered for a moment, undoubtedly turned on by your noise if the twitch in his cock said anything about it. You moaned again, and again, and again. You continued to do so against his snapping hips until Kaibara was practically snarling your name with the intention and muttered promises of what he would do to you once the barrier was gone. 
Your mind was gone at the point, the promises of fucking you against the window of his apartment that overlooked the Tokyo skyline had you shoving the pants off your hero costume down. Your hand on his cock tightening in its grip, but the one manipulating your pants off, sunk into your cunt, thumb on your clit. 
A mewl left your lips as you began to play with your wet heat, and you drove your mouth and head closer to the hole, enthusiastically taking him in further and further. 
“Imma fuck you so good when we get fucking out of here,” Kaibara promised, teeth undoubtedly pulled into a snarl, his thrusting in bizarre speeds as you tried to keep some piece of sanity as you continued to finger fuck yourself, all too pleased with him absolutely using your mouth. But, you registered his words just well enough to respond back, choking an agreeing noise as you bobbed your head enthusiastically. “Had I known you just wanted that slutty pussy of yours to be fucked, I would’ve done this with you ages ago. Would’ve pinned you down on that mat, and claimed your cunt as my prize.” Your eyes rolling back in your hormone-induced euphoria, your own dirty fantasies having played that scene in your mind countless times. “I want to hear you choke on my cock more, I want to hear the saliva and drool leaving your mouth. I know you’re fucking your cunt, so do it well enough you’re moaning like a paid prostitute. I promise you, I’ll make sure you never want to see another cock again that isn’t mine!”
A choking, hiccuped, and wet breath expelled from your mouth, and you hadn’t even realized you were crying at the moment. But, you agreed, head bobbing in your agreement.
And so, it continued. 
You pushed forward, his length reaching new depths of your throat until you had your nose smashed against the metal, cold wall. Your throat manipulatively squeezing and milking his throbbing cock, tongue, and teeth rubbing against his protruding veins until Kaibara was stuttering out your broken first name. 
The wet noises of his saliva drenched cock meeting your drooling throat and mouth grew louder with every slap, and you wanted more. You needed more.
“Fuck, y/n, you take me s-so fucking good. I think you have me entirely in your mouth like the fucking little pervert you are,” Kaibara hotly laughed, a soft thudding from near your chin sending your mind in a feral daze of how it was probably his balls. “Doing so well with my directions, you really do deserve to be fucked properly after this.”
A low, lewd whine strangled from your throat, your hot, swollen lips sucking harshly against the base of his cock as he continues drilling, and the melodic moans from his mouth made it all worth the fact your lips and nose are starting to tingle from the sufficient lack of oxygen. But it’s also your curling, pumping fingers in your cunt that add onto the headrush you get, the slick and essence coating and dripping from your pounding fingers send you into a series of keen and mewls against his cock. And you can perfectly find each sweet little pleasure spot. 
You were close, and by the consistent twitching and throbbing of his cock and the thick coating of precum on your tongue, Kaibara was too.
With your impending orgasm, you felt your body begin to tense up, shaking, and moaning with the tipping sensation you loved. And Kaibara, entirely lost in his own passionate, horny endeavors, shook as he slammed into you again, again, and again.
With a fiery determination, your cheeks hollowed out on his length as he pulled out, a resonating “fuck!” screamed from his lips as your tongue swiped at the salty silt on his cock, and it was all over.
You came on your fingers with a loud, pitchy scream, and thick, hot ropes of cum spurted from his cock onto your awaiting mouth, dirtying your face slightly in his heavy ejaculation. Swallowing the cum, a shiver ran down your spine as you quickly cleaned the remaining cum on his cock. Slowly, you removed the fingers in your cunt, and you shuddered at the pulsating heat form your core as you dropped to the floor as his soft cock disappeared from the hole. 
Laughing softly, you looked up at the ceiling of the box that was slowly disappearing, allowing fresh air to enter the sex smelling box.
“So, how about dinner?” Kaibara asked, and you chuckled, running a hand through your abused face.
“I don’t think I’m hungry.”
“No?”
“You might’ve proved you can spiral your cock,” you began, turning your head to look at Kaibara, who was collapsed on the floor, barely put together as the two of you locked eyes. “But I still would like to try it out for real while you properly fuck me. After that, if I’m hungry for food, I’d love to go for dinner.”
He laughed, his hand running through his sweaty locks.
“Sounds like a deal to me.”
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