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gold-rhine · 1 year

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Afab! Scaramouche x GN! Dom reader first time

A\N: I guess technically it’s hurt\comfort. sigh. I don’t like to center my writing of trans characters on negative emotions, if you’ve read my previous stuff, you know when I write afab! male characters it’s like. Just guys, who happen to have pussies, having sex. And that’s how I initially started to write Scara’s afab first time prompt, but his canon storyline is so overtly about struggle of dysphoria, anxiety and self-hatred that it felt wrong to not incorporate it into my explicitly trans fic. So I had to rewrite it completely and I’m taking his part out of the compilation so ppl who want to avoid heavy topics and just have a good time reading smut can skip it. Otherwise, give it a try if you like complicated brats, I think it’s one of my good pieces and it has a happy ending.

Warnings: not sfw. graphic descriptions of dysphoria, anxiety attack, dissociation, angst, self-hatred, allusion to self-harm. Fingering, edging, overstim, spanking, oral (character receiving), vaginal sex. Cock stands for strap too, as usual.

Wordcount: 2k

You try to start slow and gentle with him, but he huffs mockingly.

“How long are you going to be wasting my time?”

“This is literally your first time, you little git.”

“Maybe you mortals need to be coddled, but I’m not a weakling.”

But despite his bravado, he’s tense when you kiss him, he doesn’t know how to properly kiss you back and what to do with his hands, so they just limply hang down. When you start opening his clothes to reveal his chest, he’s becoming more and more wooden. You try kissing him, his cheek, his neck, but it doesn’t relax him and he refuses to meet your eyes, still painfully clenched up, jaw locked tightly, like he’s preparing for something bad that he needs to just get through. He is not out publicly yet, still clinging to the belief that if he conforms to her expectations well enough, his mother will accept him. He’s so critical of himself all the time, especially of his body, which is just horrible and wrong, he hates seeing it himself and hates even more the thought of someone else seeing him naked.

“Hey, are you okay?” you ask quietly. “We can stop.”

“No!” he snaps. “I’m great. I don’t need to stop, are you stupid?!”

He wants you, is the thing. He wanted you for some time, got butterflies in his stomach, fantasized about you at nights. He wanted you more than anyone else in his life. So if he can’t bear even for you to see him, to have sex with him, then obviously something is deeply, fundamentally broken in him, no hope for him at all.

So desperately, he tries to find a roundabout solution. He’s still wearing a skirt, which he normally hates, but now it’s convenient, you could fuck him without taking it off.

“We don’t have to take off my clothes. There’s nothing good to see anyway. ”

He sounds frantic and frustrated, eyes alight with anger, and this does not look like a good situation to continue to you.

“It’s not a big deal, we can do it some other time when…”

“It’s just a cunt, you don’t need to see it!” He finally meets your eyes and you realize the brightness in them is not from anger, it’s from held back tears, because he believes you are rejecting him no matter what you say, “Why wouldn’t you just fuck it?!”

He hates his body and he doesn’t even want to have a pussy, but somehow subconsciously he feels like the one he has is also wrong, not even good enough for fucking, that whoever sees it will also recoil in disgust, as he does when he sees himself in the mirror. It’s ridiculous and he knows it, but he can’t help feeling like this, and he hates himself even more for this idiotic, nonsensical weakness, so this spirals into this vicious, unending cycle of self-disgust that he can’t see a way out of. What the fuck is so wrong with him that he can have a person he wants so much touching him and still be petrified, when it’s so easy for everyone else, and when…

You scoop him into your arms, turn him around so he doesn’t have to face you and hug him close to your chest. When he gasps and tries to protest, you clasp your hand over his mouth, kiss his ear.

“Don’t worry baby, I won’t look. But you need to calm the fuck down.”

He wants to struggle, but he’s so touch starved that when you embrace him, your warm breath on his skin makes him melt, especially combined with the wave of relief from your promise. He stops fighting you, curls up into a little ball in your arms, hiding his blushing face in a pillow, humiliated by how good it feels to be held, how little it takes.

“You don’t want me,” he says, miserable, but stubbornly proud, when you let go of his mouth. “You just pity me. I don’t want you to be here just because you feel bad for me.”

“I want you. I just wouldn’t want to fuck someone while they’re having a nervous breakdown. You or anyone else, for that matter.”

“It’s fine,” he says firmly. “I’m fine. I will be fine. Just do what you want to me, ignore my reactions, and soon I won’t even feel anything. It’s okay. I’m a puppet.”

It’s the conviction in his voice, the absolute certainty that there’s no better option that breaks your heart a little.

“Fucking hell, do you even hear yourself?”

“Why?” he says, face pressed against pillow, but calm, limp in your arms, a puppet with cut strings, and you hate it. ”It’s true, I am not like normal humans. You don’t have to treat me as one. It’ll be easier for the both of us, in the end.”

Maybe I just want you to feel good, baby.”

“Pffft,” he snorts like it’s ridiculous, like you’re naive and this option is not even on the agenda, and also so stupid he doesn’t even want to argue about it. “Even for humans, first time is supposed to be painful.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No, everyone knows it, and…”

You clasp your hand over his mouth again and he starts squirming, noises muffled by your palm, but his protests die down as soon as your other hand starts siding down his body.

“You’re so bossy for a little brat, aren’t you?”

You flip up his skirt and slap his ass, and he jolts up in your arms, gasps against your skin. You stroke the affected skin first gently, then with more and more pressure, until groping it, fingers digging into his tender flesh. “Maybe be a good doll and let me handle this for you.”

He didn’t know it could feel like this, not even when he came thinking of you before, so good, like he’s safe, being taken care of, but also so sweetly helpless, unable to resist. His head is light and dizzy with desire when you caress his thighs, nervously and instinctively clenched up, and he can’t remember his millions of concerns when you whisper “Open up for me, baby.”

He lets your hand between his legs, you slide into his panties and find him already wet, but when you stroke his clit and quietly tell him “Good boy,” it runs through him like lightning, eyes opening wide, moan escaping from his lips, his entire body arching up against you.

“Yeah, that’s right, baby,” you keep caressing his clit, and he writhes more and more against you. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

His hand grips abruptly at your wrist, his slender fingers digging deep, and for a moment you think he’ll try to tear you off him, but then you realize that instead, he presses you closer to himself. You smile against his neck, the hand that kept at his mouth slides down, stroking his throat and down to his chest. At the same time, you slide your other hand deeper in between his legs, find his wet, pulsing entrance. You push two fingers into him, and he shudders against you, his fingers clenching at your wrist, but his cunt is wet and ready for you, stretching sweetly and leaking, his hips bucking against you. His breath is quick and frantic, heart beating rapidly, and then his fingers find your hand that isn’t buried inside of his pussy, leads it down his chest and then under the clothes, under the bra, to find and caress his small tits, and he whines sweetly, arches up, hard nipples poking at your palm. But when you take your fingers out of his pussy and press the head of your cock against his entrance, he tenses up again, his muscles spasming.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Just do it! It’s supposed to feel good for you when it's tight, isn’t it? So just fuck it, I can take it!”

He shuts up with a tiny gasp when you press your teeth into the side of his neck, which lets you keep groping his tits.

“I’ve never met someone, for whom a ballgag is so obviously needed for survival before. It’s going to be okay, baby, relax.”

You stroke his clit and massage his breasts, cutting his protests short, his hands clutching helplessly at yours, not trying to stop you, but just trying to be grounded.

“What if it’s not going to be okay?” he asks quietly, his face buried in a pillow. “What if I’m just built wrong, if it’s just always going to hurt when you try to fuck me?”

“Then we’ll figure out something to do that doesn’t involve penetrating your pussy. It’s not that hard, baby.”

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course, don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to leave you just because I can’t fuck your cunt.”

“Really?” he asks, choked, trying for sarcasm, but failing badly, a raw edge in his voice.

you would just switch to eating him out, but he seems pretty hung up on the inability to take you in, but from how easy it was to fit your fingers into him, how he seemed to enjoy it, you’re pretty sure the issue is psychological. So you stroke his clit, squeeze his breasts and kiss at the side of his jaw. You can feel his entrance involuntarily pulsing open and you push the head of your cock into him, feeling him stretching wider. He turns his head to you in alarm, but you catch his mouth in a kiss, keep caressing his body and slowly moving deeper into him. His fingers move from your wrists to intertwine with your hands, and when you squeeze back, he comes so quickly in your arms, before your cock is even fully sheathed inside of him.

You hold him through the orgasm, then slide out of him, but then he turns in your arms, until he’s under you, he’s looking up at you, instead of being held.

“I want more,” he breathes out, hot and heavy, and before you can think of the answer, he pulls his clothes open, opening his bra and revealing his chest, and then tugs his skirt and soaked panties down. He lies under you, both trembling and determined, his breath fast and nervous for exposing himself to you after trusting you won’t be disgusted with him, that you’’ll *want him*.

“You’re so beautiful,” you run your eyes over him and kiss him, hard, and he presses himself against you, kisses you back with desperate abandon, but still when you break away from each other, he asks, his voice small. “Really?”

In response, you pepper him with hungry kisses, from the neck down the chest, ribs, stomach until you cover his swollen pink pussy with your mouth, while he’s leaking sweetly under your lips. When he comes, and he comes quickly, moaning loudly, you pull him close and kiss his lips with the taste of his own arousal.

“Really,” you tell him softly, while he’s blushing, soft and squirming against you. He shoots you a wry little look that you already came to associate with trouble coming, and says, trying to sound superior, but failing because of mischievous little smiles breaking his act

“So you like this body? That’s so degenerate of you, who would even like something so ugly and…”

He yelps and shuts up when you forcefully turn him over to lay on his stomach and slap his ass, but he looks pleased afterwards.

“There are much better ways to get spanked, you little brat.”

He arches his back, popping up his ass and spreading his thighs to show off his wet flushed pussy, entrance pulsing up open for you. Then he looks at you over the shoulder, eyes glinting in excitement, and sticks out his pink little tongue at you.

“Oh really?”

#rhine writes #rhine writes filth #sub genshin #genshin smut #genshin impact smut #sub scaramouche #sub wanderer #scaramouche

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bingoboingobongo · 1 year

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the right thing to do (i)

Pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley (Call of Duty) x Reader

Type: Fluff

Summary: You’ve become a distraction to Ghost, and so he’s started keeping his distance for the sake of the team. But when a mission goes awry, he finds himself stuck with you.

Word Count: 7.3k

Warnings: explicit language, mentions of/allusions to sex, brief mention of dacryphilia, brief mention of blowjobs, canon-typical violence, mentions of injury, forced proximity, pining

A/N: hiii, ngl i’m actually really proud of this fic, like deadass this shit had me giggling and kicking my feet in the middle of starbucks. anyways i was thinking of including smut in this but changed my mind bc that shit’s hard to write so it’s pretty pg-13. i plan on making this a bit of a series (with smut hopefully) so while this chapter is gender neutral now (i think, don’t quote me tho) in the future the reader will be written as a girl. as always, likes/reblogs and constructive criticism are always appreciated, enjoy :)

Masterlist | Series Masterlist | Part 2

It wasn’t right for Ghost to be paying you as much attention as he was. It felt right, and he wanted it to be right, but that didn’t mean it was. What was right was what kept the most people safe. What was right was what kept the most people alive. Usually that was what Ghost did. Ghost did what kept most people safe. He did what kept the most people alive. The problem, however, was that doing the right thing and indulging in his feelings for you were two diametrically opposing things. Indulging in his feelings — indulging in you — was wrong.

It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with you; there could never be anything wrong with you in his eyes. How could there be, when he was seeing you through rose colored glasses? Although in his case, he supposed, they were more dark red than rose. Trivialities aside though, the real problem wasn’t anything that you were doing, it was what he wasn’t doing.

He wasn’t peering around every corner anymore. He wasn’t focusing on covering his tracks as well as he should. He wasn’t triple checking every piece of intel the task force got their hands on. He tried to, he really did, but with a thousand thoughts running at a hundred miles per hour — and a large majority of them having to do with you — it was only expected that a few things slip through the cracks.

For the most part, nothing too bad had happened as a result of his carelessness. A few scrapes and maybe one-too-many close calls, but nothing that would have gotten anyone in trouble. Maybe, if he weren’t a lieutenant or if he were in a completely different field, he would’ve been content to let it slide. But as corny as it sounded, he was part of a team, and he wasn’t going to let more people get hurt on his watch. Not again.

So for the safety of the team, Ghost started avoiding you. It always hurt him to push past you in the hallways, ignoring your little attempts at small talk; or to use Gaz as an example for takedown demonstrations, when in reality all he wanted was to be able to savor the warmth of your skin, even if it was with you pinned under him. Although, if he were being honest, he wasn’t opposed to pinning you down in other contexts. But as much as he hurt, he knew he had to do it. It wasn’t fair to you or the rest of the team if he wasn’t at his full capacity at all times.

He had made that decision two weeks ago, and it was already starting to get to him. Sleep was harder to get by, he was snapping at his teammates more, and when he rubbed the eyeblack off, it was only replaced by the sunken shadows under his eyes. He missed you too. Missed the way you would always offer him a bite of your food during dinner even though he would never eat it; missed the way you would always shoulder him to get his attention while you were walking to the training room, your hands in your pockets as you began telling him about something you had read the night before; missed the way you would grip onto his arm and try to goad him into taking off the mask or telling you what he looked like. Always the utilitarian though, he shouldered the problems in stride. They were nothing, he told himself, he had been through worse and he would go through worse. That was just how it was in the military. Besides, Laswell had just told them about a new mission, and a new mission meant new problems and new distractions.

It had gone fine in the beginning, but after a certain point everything started going to shit. On paper, their mission was simple; extract Krasimir Zhelyazkov, an arms and ammunition dealer with the Bulgarian mob who had allegedly dealt with one of Makarov’s right hand men, Demyan Solovev. Zhelyazkov would take them to Solovev, and Solovev would take them to Makarov. Simple. Of course, nothing was ever that simple when it came to war.

For one, Bulgaria in the middle of winter was cold, and with cold came snow and ice and wind. And of course, with snow and ice and wind came slippage and extra gear and low visibility. Ghost had been worried about the weather going into it; while all the members of the 141 had training in multiple environments, it was never easy going into a fight with snowfall as thick as blanks in a lottery.

The other problem was Zhelyazkov. While Ghost and Laswell both confirmed the validity of the intel they had received, there was no guarantee that Zhelyazkov would turn. Makarov was an intimidating man, and the stories of what he did to snitches were not pleasant. Either way, Zhelyazkov was unlikely to make it out alive, Ghost just had to make sure he got the information out of him before he died.

And of course, the other problem — which Ghost admitted was not unique to this mission but was still a problem just the same — was you. Even though he had tried to put distance between the two of you, he couldn’t help himself from stealing a glance in your direction every once in a while, just to admire the way your breath condensed in the frigid air or how you scrunched up your nose as if to make sure it was still there.

Ghost knew about these problems before they happened, and so he prepared for them. Worried about slipping on the snow covered ground? Request boots with better traction. Worried about Zhelyazkov not snitching? Get his family involved; it was unethical, yes, but if it was what it took to get the information then so be it. And you. Ghost knew he couldn’t afford spending anymore time eyeing you in the field, so he only increased the distance between the two of you.

Typically, if a target heard that someone was coming for them, they tucked their tail into their legs and ran — usually to a foreign country or some sort of island. But with Zhelyazkov, there was nothing to tip the 141 that anything was amiss; no sudden airplane rides, no sudden stoppage of shipments, nothing. Zhelyazkov kept living and doing business as he always had, seemingly unaware of the intel the 141 had on him.

Which is why when they approached Zhelyazkov’s compound, they expected it to be an easy takedown. In order to save personnel and to preserve stealth, the task force only sent one team out. For this particular mission, the team included Ghost, Soap, Price, Gaz, and of course, you. Ghost was conflicted about your inclusion on the team; on one hand, you were a valuable asset to the mission, but on the other hand, seeing the way you rubbed your hands together for heat in the cabin of the helicopter filled him with an aching urge to reach out for you and was an obvious distraction that impacted his ability to protect his team. In the end though, he couldn’t hold his inability to focus over you and besides, you had experience from your time before the 141 working in similar conditions, not to mention the general tactical expertise you brought to the table.

The mission had started like any other routine extraction would. A chopper flew the five of you to a forest on the edge of the compound, the thick snowfall helping to cover you. Once on the ground, Price did a quick headcount to make sure everyone had landed alright, before readjusting his rifle and leading the group forward. The five of you traveled in a line, with Price at the head and Ghost at the rear. You were positioned behind Price, but even with Soap and Gaz in front of him, Ghost was still acutely aware of every step you took.

At the moment, it seemed as if there was nothing to worry about. The snowfall was heavy of course, but not too heavy that it hampered the team and besides, it covered their tracks and kept them hidden. At least it should have.

The sudden shower of gunfire actually wasn’t the first thing that tipped Ghost off that something was wrong. It had been their radios. Laswell had told them she would be checking in on them after they landed, but five minutes had already passed with no sign of communication. At this point, they had left the forest and Ghost tried calling in, but to no avail. His radio provided nothing but crackly static, buzzing and impatient. He knew something was wrong and he tried to call for Price, but that was when hell started raining down on them.

The thing about gunfire is that you could actually see the shot happen before you heard it. It had always been an odd phenomenon to Ghost, the slight delay between sight and audio. For a brief moment, Ghost watched the snowy skies in front of him become aglow with a barrage of flashing lights. In a weird sense, it was dreamlike. Mesmerizing. And then the sound hit him. Even with earmuffs on, the gunfire was deafeningly loud. It was like watching a fireworks display, except the pops were louder, harsher, and there would be no delighted children looking up at the air in awe.

He tried screaming at the others to take cover, but the combination of winter winds and cracking bullets was hard to cut through. Somewhere to his right, he heard Price yelling, but his words were constantly interrupted by the enemy’s fire. Ghost tried looking for the others, but suddenly the snow was too thick, the bullets too loud, his teammates too far away. He did the only thing he could: run to the treeline for cover.

Between the sheer magnitude of bullets being aimed at them, the time Ghost spent looking for his team, and the time it took him to get to the treeline, Ghost had taken more than a few hits. Nothing detrimental, thankfully, but he could feel the familiar sting of a bullet that brushed him a little too close than he would have liked. He keeled over against a tree, listening as bullets flew past his face or struck the thick wood behind him. He tried using his radio again but it was no use; he couldn’t get a signal.

He tried to turn around, but the gunfire was too constant. He couldn’t get a clear look. He swallowed down an unceremonious groan as he considered the situation. Returning fire was an option, of course, but not a smart one. Considering his lack of a decent vantage point and the fact that he couldn’t even clearly see where the shots were coming from, even the best sniper on the force — which was him — wouldn’t be able to get a clear shot. Besides, he only had so much ammo on him, and if the attack was coming from Zhelyazkov, which he assumed it was, then he was seriously outmatched in terms of equipment. The man was an ammunition dealer, for Christ’s sake, if he couldn’t shoot Ghost, he could certainly keep him waiting long enough for hypothermia to set in.

“Shit, Ghost!” he heard from his right. He turned to look, and there you were, sitting with your back against a tree and your rifle in your hands. He was overwhelmed with relief at the sight of you, before cursing himself under his breath. He was in the middle of being fired at, why was he letting you distract him? “Where’s everyone else?” you cried, your voice barely carrying over the roar of bullets.

“Safe, hopefully,” he yelled, “I didn’t see where they went.” He watched you shake your head, you were probably cursing to yourself right now.

“Did you see who was with Zhelyazkov?”

“There was someone with Zhelyazkov?”

“Not just someone,” you yelled, looking at him grimly, “Fishers.”

Ghost turned away from you, leaning his head against the tree. “Fucking hell,” he muttered to himself, before turning to look at you again. “You sure?”

You didn’t say anything in response, only giving him a grave nod.

“God damn it,” he muttered. “Well, we don’t have time to worry about that, understand? Right now we just have to get somewhere safe.”

You nodded again, turning back to look at the source of the fire. “Most of the fire is coming from an MG3,” you called out, “they’ll have to change the barrel soon, we can move then.”

Ghost nodded at you, briefly looking back as well. It wasn’t long before the gunfire began to die down and the two of you moved from your positions in the trees, running further into the forest. But whoever was operating the gun was well-trained, and it didn’t take long for them to replace the barrel of the gun and restart the fire. Ghost ducked behind another tree, his eyes watching you do the same as he took a breath.

That was the only way the two of you could move for a long time. Waiting for what felt like painstakingly long minutes for the barrel to have to be changed, just to be able to run maybe a few yards before the spray of bullets picked up again and you had to take cover. It was a painstakingly slow process, and throughout all of it, Ghost couldn’t help but worry that you wouldn’t get to cover in time, and he would have to watch as you died in front of him. He also couldn’t stop worrying about the rest of the team. It concerned him that you were here but Price, Gaz, and Soap weren’t. If they had died when the gunfire started he would have been able to see their blood in the snow, he supposed, as if that thought was supposed to comfort him. It didn’t do much, and he could only hope that the three of them had at least found each other.

Finally though, the deafening roar of gunfire began to quiet down, either due to distance or to lack of ammunition, and Ghost felt like he could breathe again. “Are you alright?” he called out to you, quickly scanning over your body.

You nodded, your chest heaving as you gulped in the freezing air. “You?” He nodded. You sighed, rubbing your hand over your face. “What the hell happened back there?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed, stomping to you through the thick snow. “You get hit anywhere?” he asked, his hand reaching tentatively for a scrape on your face.

You reached for your own face, freezing his hand in its tracks. He might have been a weathered war veteran, but even he got nervous in front of people he liked. He watched you wipe the blood off your face and stare at it, “It’s fine,” you told him, “it’s just a scrape. Motherfucker must have clipped me.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t scar.”

“I don’t know, I think I’m pretty enough to pull off a face scar. What do you think?” you asked, the minx-like grin on your face providing a sharp contrast to the sheer gravity of the situation the two of you were in. That was another thing you did that distracted him. Those snarky quips and sly suggestions that made Ghosts stomach flip and his cheeks heat up.

“Stop worrying about appearances,” he chastised, trying to regain his focus, “we don’t have time.”

“You were the one that brought it up!” you cried, throwing your hands up.

“Quiet,” he said, “just because they stopped firing doesn’t mean we’re safe. For all we know they could have men on the ground looking for us.”

You dropped your hands to your side, “So now what do we do?”

He pursed his lips, surveying their surroundings. “We make our way to the secondary location as planned. Look at the tree branches,” he said, gesturing above him, “trees will grow their branches towards the direction that gets the most sun: south. The secondary location was north of the drop site and we’ve been traveling in a relatively straight line. If we keep moving in this direction we should come across it in an hour or so.”

You chewed on your lip, “Do we even know if it’s safe? Fishers was with Zhelyazkov, for all we know we could be walking straight into an ambush.”

“You sure it was Fishers?”

“Yes, it couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“Are you one hundred percent sure?” Ghost asked again, “the snow was thick, I couldn’t even see anything besides Gaz and Johnny.”

“I’m sure,” you insisted, “Me and Price were at the front, we saw the wall of Zhelyazkov’s compound. One of his cronies was up there with Fishers. He was standing next to an MG3 and pointing at us, I know it. I would recognize that stupid cowlick anywhere.”

Ghost groaned. Fishers wasn’t someone Ghost had known very well, so at the very least he was spared the painful feeling of being betrayed by someone he cared about — not that his feelings mattered. The traitor, Colten Fishers, was an American soldier. A veteran to military service, no doubt, but still considered a rookie in special operations. The official report would probably say that Fishers turned in exchange for some quick cash, that he was a cowardly traitor who betrayed them, but that answer didn’t satisfy Ghost.

Honestly, Ghost wasn’t even sure how Fishers had gotten onto the task force in the first place. Compared to the rest of the people on the team, Fishers’ resume was weak, his experience was subpar and his track record was a little too spotty for his liking. The fact that Fishers’ was even in a place to betray them worried him, almost more than the actual betrayal, because if Fishers was able to get on the task force with his lackluster résumé then that meant he had bad friends in high places.

“God damn it,” he muttered, “you have a point, but there’s not much else we can do. The more time we spend out here the more likely we are to get shot.”

“Or get hypothermia,” you said.

“Or get hypothermia,” he added. He reached for his radio, clicking it on only to be met with static again. “Bravo team, this is Bravo 0-7, do you copy?” No response.

“They probably set up signal blockers,” you pointed out, “either that or the storm is so bad it’s messing with our signal.”

He groaned, “Does yours work?” he asked.

“No,” you said, gesturing lamely at the damaged radio next to your chest, “motherfuckers clipped it while I was looking for Price. Scared the shit out of me too, thought they had gotten me right in the chest for a second.”

He walked up to you, bending down as he inspected the broken radio. He could feel you suck in a breath, and for a moment he let himself wonder if he gave you butterflies the same way you did to him. “Yeah,” he said, looking up at you, his mask inches away from your face, “this thing’s been shot to hell, there’s no way it’s gonna get a signal, even without a storm.” He lingered for a split second, captivated by the way your eyes stared up at him, large and round like a marble, before pulling back.

“Let’s get a move on,” he said, adjusting his rifle. “We can’t afford to be stuck out here when night falls.”

Walking in the snow was hard, walking in the snow and feeling you glance over at him every other minute was even harder. He didn’t want to look at you, well that was a lie, he did want to look at you, but he knew he shouldn’t look at you. He needed to put on a brave face, that was his job as a lieutenant. He needed to be serious, to have a plan, to not get hung up on distractions, and he couldn’t do that when he was watching you.

Instead, he tried to think about everything that could go wrong from this point. It seemed pessimistic, he knew, but he needed to be prepared. You had a point about the second location. While Fishers hadn’t been told everything about the mission, he knew enough to severely compromise them. Besides, if he did have one of the higher-ups on his side, there was no telling how much he knew. The secondary location had once been a logger’s cabin; it was small, kitted with only the bare necessities. A bathroom, a small kitchenette, and an empty bedroom they had planned to keep Zhelyazkov in. In other words, it wasn’t an easy place to set up an ambush. But they could’ve rigged the outside, set up tripwires connected to shotguns or planted mines along the perimeter. The forest around it was dense, which once would’ve been helpful to keep them hidden but now only provided a wide array of hiding spots for Zhelyazkov’s men to hide in.

Additionally, there was no telling how many men Zhelyazkov would have waiting for them. Even by himself, Ghost could hold his own and with you, their chances only increased. But Zhelyazkov practically had an army, and it would only take one well-aimed shot before it was all over. Granted, some of his men would likely be looking for the others, and if they also went to the cabin, the five of them could probably hold their own.

But there was no guaranteeing the others were heading to the cabin, let alone breathing. For all Ghost knew, their team of five could’ve been cut down to two long ago. “What are you thinking about?” you asked, pulling Ghost out of his thoughts.

He turned to look at you for the first time since you had started walking. There were snowflakes on your eyelashes and your face was tinged red from the cold. He wanted to be able to cradle your jaw, to warm you up until your face was flushed from something other than the cold weather. He wanted to tell you that he wasn’t going to let anything happen to you, that you would always be safe when you were with him, that he would kill anyone who tried to touch you and would do anything for a chance to hold you. “Just thinking about what you said earlier,” he said instead, “about Zhelyazkov ambushing us.”

You hummed, “Me too. I don’t know how likely that is anymore though.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I mean think about it,” you said, “we flew over the cabin on our way here and everything looked fine, no footprints or anything. And by the time we did that and the time they started shooting, maybe ten minutes had passed. That would mean Zhelyazkov had ten minutes to get his men there, and they wouldn’t have been able to take a direct route or else they would’ve ran into us. Besides, why waste his manpower by setting up an ambush we might not even show up for? I mean, the plan was probably to kill us all right from the beginning, so why plan for us showing up at the cabin if we’re not even supposed to be alive? I mean, who in their right mind would do that?”

“Let’s not assume Zhelyazkov is in his right mind. It’s thinking like that that gets people killed,” he said, harsher than he intended. “Not that you don’t have a point,” he added when he saw you look down in embarrassment. He didn’t mean to hurt you, but he had fallen into that mindset before and he knew how dangerous it was. “For Zhelyazkov to waste his manpower on an ambush would be tactically unwise, you’re right, but we don’t want to go in expecting an empty house and get caught off guard.”

“So then what? We go in expecting to get immediately gunned down by another machine gun? How is that any better? It’s not like there’s anything we can do to prepare for that.”

Ghost grimaced, once again, you had a point. “Still, it’s better to be prepared,” was all he could say. You looked at him as if you wanted to say more, but your mouth stayed shut and your eyes turned to focus ahead of you once again.

The two of you walked in silence, with nothing but the sound of crunching snow to indicate that anyone was even in the forest at all. After what felt like ages, Ghost paused, holding out a hand to stop you too. He felt you looking at him, but he didn’t respond. He was studying your surroundings, scrutinizing the snow on the ground before searching the skies.

“What is it?” you finally asked in a hushed whisper.

“Checking for traps,” he said, his gravelly voice so quiet he could barely hear himself. “The cabin should be just beyond that treeline,” he whispered, pointing. You followed his hand, but you couldn’t see anything behind the dense wall of tree trunks. “Let’s go,” he said, “get your gun out.” You complied, mirroring him as he unshouldered his rifle and held it against his chest. He turned to look at you, your lips pursed into a tight line and your hair sprinkled with snowflakes. He wished you weren’t at risk of walking into an ambush, that way he could capture the way you looked with a camera.

He began slowly stalking towards the cabin, cursing to himself at the snow crunching under his feet. He arrived at the edge of the treeline, coming onto an open clearing with the small wood cabin at the very center. His head swiveled around, constantly checking for the familiar glint of gunmetal hiding in the trees. He turned back to you, “Let’s split up,” he said quietly, his voice muffled by his mask. “I’ll go left, you go right. Meet in the back and then sweep the house.” He watched you nod, and his eyes followed you briefly as you began to move in the opposite direction before he returned his focus to the task at hand.

The perimeter of the clearing wasn’t necessarily large, but it still took him a painfully long time to reach the back. “You see anything?” he asked when you arrived. You shook your head, and he cocked his head towards the cabin. “Let’s go,” he said, turning back to check on you as the two of you made your way towards the front of the house.

There was a small porch on the front, with a pair of steps leading up to it. Ghost skipped them, choosing to step over them and go straight to the porch. You weren’t so smart, and when you put your weight on the first step, it squealed and groaned. Ghost whipped around at the sound, and you rolled your eyes back and cringed, “Shit,” you muttered quietly.

The two of you were frozen for a second, you with your foot still on the step and Ghost with his eyes trained on the door. When nothing happened, you lifted your foot and stepped over the stairs, copying Ghost like you should have before. When you were both on the porch, Ghost gestured for you to open the door. You reached for the doorknob, turning it slowly before swinging it open.

Ghost walked in, his rifle swiveling as he made his way to the bathroom. He could hear you following behind him, the snow on your boots crunching slightly as you went to the bedroom. He swung open the door of the bathroom, only to be met with his own reflection in the mirror above the sink. His helmet was covered in snow, only accentuating the darkness of his eyes. When he had confirmed that the room was empty, he exited, watching as you came out from the bathroom.

“It’s clear,” you said, before he could ask.

“That’s a relief,” he said, letting out a sigh, but he didn’t lower his rifle.

“You think the others will be coming here too?” you asked, looking around the tiny house.

He wanted to say yes, but honestly he had no clue. The forest was huge, and he had no idea where the others might have been. They could be looking for the cabin as well, but there was no guarantee they’d find it.

He took off his helmet and cracked his neck. “Night’s about to fall, get some rest. I’ll take the first watch,” he said instead, reaching into his pack and tossing you a bedroll.

You caught it easily, but made no move to set it down. “It’s fine,” you told him, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep, you deserve the rest.”

“That wasn’t a request,” he said sternly, causing you to roll your eyes.

“Yeah, yeah it’s an order, isn’t it? Geez, you sound like Price.”

“Price is right. You need your sleep, a sniper could spot your eyebags from a mile away.”

“Rude,” you shot back, “and by that logic, wouldn’t a sniper be able to see you from, like, two miles away from all of your eyeblack?

“If they see me, they’re already dead.”

“Wow,” you said, rolling your eyes, “I’m so scared.”

“You should be.”

“Whatever,” you sighed, “I’m gonna take a shower then, you got any soap?”

He threw you a small plastic container, “Suave three-in-one? What are you, a high school boy?” you asked, shooting him an incredulous look.

This time it was his turn to roll his eyes, “Beggars can’t be choosers, darling, you want luxury toiletries bring them yourself.”

You were silent for a moment, and Ghost started to feel worry bubble up in his chest. He didn’t mean to say that nickname out loud, it just happened. He was exhausted and paranoid and hungry and he was stuck in a room he could cross in about ten steps and it just slipped out. And if this was how it ended, in this stupid, tiny, suffocating house that could have gone in so many other directions; if he ruined everything because he couldn’t control himself, he would have never forgiven himself.

“You think I’m darling?” you asked with a grin, and Ghost could practically feel a weight being lifted off his shoulders.

“Just go take your shower,” he said, but even he could hear the smile in his voice.

“You sure you don’t want to join me?” you asked, pulling out a towel from your bag. Ghost stilled. He could tell you were just joking, you had to be. But there had to be at least some truth in it, otherwise you wouldn’t have even thought to say that right? Suddenly the house felt uncomfortably warm. It was too small, too cramped, too stuffy. He thought the house’s lack of heating would have been a problem, but for some reason it felt like there were a thousand heaters in this tiny room.

“Geez, Ghost,” you said, giggling, “I was just messing with you. Dang, is it really that easy to get you speechless? Guess I have a new party trick to show the others when we get back.”

He stared at you, trying to come up with something to say. “I’m gonna set up outside,” he said finally, changing the topic, “leave the soap in the shower, will you?”

You hummed, slinging the towel over your back. He watched you step into the bathroom, his eyes lingering on the door as it shut behind you. He could hear the shower turn on, but he made himself leave before he could hear your clothes come off.

The crisp, winter air provided a sharp contrast to the tense atmosphere of the house. The frigid winds nipped at his eyes and he could feel a shiver rack through his chest but he didn’t mind it. It was refreshing, feeling the freezing air fill his lungs and watching his breath condense in front of him. He sat down on the porch steps and reached for his rifle, checking the magazine. He picked out one of the bullets, thumbing it thoughtfully as he stared at the snowstorm in front of him. He put the bullet back and looked back at the house, making sure that you weren’t around before he pulled off his mask. He let out a sigh, thumbing the hard plastic skull in his hands and letting the frosty air kiss at his exposed skin before pulling the soft, black, skull-marked balaclava he wore normally out of his bag and over his face.

Ghost wasn’t the kind of person to let his mind wander. He knew a lot of people did, Soap did, Gaz did, even Price did, but not him. It was just easier that way, he never really had a good place for his mind to wander to anyways. His mind had a tendency to lurk around dark places, and it always left him worse than he started. Once, he had tried to speak to someone about it, and that had only ended up with another dead body to his name. Instead, he distracted himself by focusing on the task in front of him: watching the treeline for enemy soldiers.

Somehow though, you started to linger around the edge of his thoughts, and he didn’t push you away. He kept staring ahead at the snow-covered trees, but in his mind he was seeing you. He was seeing your stupid teasing grin, your fidgeting fingers that never stayed still, that smooth skin on the junction of your neck and your shoulder that he wanted to kiss and lick and bite. He could almost see your lust-drunk face in front of him, starry-eyed and teary, your lips swollen and red from how hard he would kiss you. He could practically hear you under him, all breathy and pitchy, your voice raw from how much he would make you beg for him. God, he knew he needed to stop these thoughts but he needed you more. He needed you pressed against him, your skin warm and soft and supple, he needed to feel you on top of him, to be inside you. He needed to know how it would feel to have your mouth around him, your eyes lidded as you stared up at—

“Hey,” you said, tiredness leaking through your voice. Ghost suppressed the urge to jump, turning to look at you. “You see anything interesting?” you asked, taking a seat beside you.

“Nothing,” he said, hoping you wouldn’t notice the way he had to slightly readjust his pants. You didn’t, thank god, for a special forces operator you surely weren’t the most observant, but he wasn’t complaining. You weren’t wearing much, only a pair of thin pajama pants, a tank top, and a hoodie. He was surprised you weren’t shivering.

He could feel you staring at him, partly because of the way your warm breath fanned over him and partly because you stared at him like he was the most interesting thing in the world. He had to fight the urge to look back at you because he knew if he did, you would be able to see the star-struck in his eyes. “You need something?” he asked, trying to fill the silence.

You turned away from him, your eyes scanning the treeline. “Not really,” you hummed, “but it’s lonely inside, can’t sleep.”

“Lonely?”

“Well— Not lonely, but— I don’t know. It’s just… unsettling, I guess.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” he said, with a slight chuckle.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you snorted.

“It means I’ve seen you do things that would make a grown man cry and you're scared of sleeping alone.”

“Uh, that is not it,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes. “I’m not scared, I’d just rather stay out here. Besides, it’s easier to fall asleep in the cold.”

“Is it really?” he asked teasingly, “or do you just like me that much?”

You yawned, letting your head rest on his shoulder. He tensed up at first, but when he realized how nice it was to feel you against him, he relaxed. “You got me pegged, Ghost,” you said tiredly. He had to suppress a groan when he saw the way you looked up at him. Your eyes were large and slightly damp from the yawn, and he could see the smallest speckle of teardrops on your eyelids. Everything about you was just so damn intoxicating, and for what? It wasn’t like he could act on it like he wanted to. He couldn’t push your slightly damp hair out of your face like he wanted to, he couldn’t run his hands up your body and squeeze you in all the right spots like he wanted to, he couldn’t push you down against a table and fuck you until you cried out for him like he wanted to. He wanted to do so much to you and he just couldn’t.

“What are you thinking about?” you asked, your voice sweet and tired.

He stared at you, it’s not like he could tell the truth but it hurt him so bad to lie to your face. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re interesting,” you said simply.

“Am I?”

“Mhm,” you hummed, staring back at him, “are you gonna give me an answer?”

“Not tonight. You gonna sleep out here?” he asked, watching as you let out a yawn.

“Do you want me to?” you asked, picking your head up off his shoulder and staring up at him.

Ghost was silent for a moment, “I don’t have a problem with it,” he said finally. You gave him a sleepy smile which made his heart melt before resting your head against his shoulder again. “Aren’t you cold? You’re barely wearing anything and your hair is still wet, you’re gonna catch a cold.”

You groaned, burying your face into his shoulder, “Now you really sound like Price,” you mumbled, voice muffled by his jacket.

“And Price is right, again. You’re gonna get sick or catch hypothermia, go get a blanket,” he said, nudging you off of his shoulder gently. He didn’t want to have to push you away, especially since you looked so comfortable, but he was worried for your health. In this weather and in this line of work, catching a cold could have unforeseen effects, and god forbid you get hypothermia. Slowly, you pulled yourself off of Ghost, shooting him a pointed look as you turned back into the house. He turned back to the treeline, trying to remember the way your head leaned against his shoulder. He could still feel the shadow of your touch against him, the warmth and the weight of it. He wanted it back again, regretting sending you off.

It wasn’t long until you returned though, carrying a large wool blanket. “Happy now?” you asked, quirking your brow up at him as you returned to your spot beside him. “I stole it from the bedroom, figured nobody else would be using it.” You wrapped the blanket around your shoulders, pulling your knees in so you could cover them too. You let your head fall back on his shoulder again. “The stars are beautiful, aren’t they?” you asked, your eyes fixed on the sky.

He looked up, he hadn’t paid much attention to them, but you had a point. The sky was a dark sapphire blue, punctuated by a canyon of stars down the center. Even with the snow falling, the beauty of the stars shone through, their light bright and blinding. He let his eyes wander down to you for a moment, and he could see the night sky reflected in your glassy eyes. Your eyes flickered to his and you grinned, “Like what you see, L.T.?” you asked.

Ghost looked away, “Go to sleep,” he said, missing the way you scrunched your nose in annoyance at him.

Although he wasn’t looking directly at you, he could still see you in his periphery. He could feel you too. Feel the way you nuzzled into his shoulder, one of your arms snaking up to wrap around his like you were a koala clinging onto a branch. Feel the way your chest rose and fell against him as you breathed, small puffs of air condensing in front of you. He could feel the soft flutter of your eyelids on his arm as you buried your face into his shoulder, trying to shield your face from the cold. It wasn’t long before your breaths began to even out next to him, the puffs of condensed air arriving slower and more evenly.

He turned to look at you again, his eyes raking over your body. The blanket pulled tightly around you, your hair which fell slightly in front of your face, your lips which he swore were pulled in the smallest smile, the bridge of your nose, the ends of your eyelashes, that little scrunch in between your eyebrows. You were the most beautiful thing in that moment, stars be damned. He would’ve given anything to be able to snap a photo of you right now, but he couldn’t, so he resorted to tattooing the image of you into his brain. Not that it was hard, looking at you, admiring you, treasuring you, it was the easiest thing he would ever do.

Ghost shouldn’t have been paying so much attention to you, not here, not when you were so vulnerable and he was supposed to be keeping watch, to be protecting you. It wasn’t right. But wasn’t it? Couldn’t it be? It felt right, and he wanted it to be right. He needed it to be right. He had spent so much time focusing on everyone else; what was safe for everyone else, what was healthy for everyone else, what was right for everyone else. But now, just now, couldn’t he just focus on himself for once? Couldn’t he just be selfish for once, to savor and relish in this moment? You were here and you were safe, and he was here and he was safe, and wasn’t that all that mattered in this tiny moment devoid of reason or time or outsiders? This had to be right. This was right. You were right. You always were.

He looked back at the stars again, taking in a deep breath as he savored the smell of you. You smelled like gunmetal and cheap soap. You smelled like him. He let your fragrance continue to fill his nose as he stared up at the sky. He watched in awe as a streak of bright light arced across the vast canvas of dark blue sky: a shooting star. He thought back to what his mother used to tell him in the backyard of their old flat in Manchester. “Look Simon,” she would say, tracing the path of the star’s tail with her finger, “that’s a shooting star. You make a wish, and you don’t tell anyone, and then it comes true.” Back then, he used to wish for allowance, new toys, a pot roast for dinner, one time for his dad to go away. They never came true, and he knew it was because he always told his mom what he wished for.

This time though, this time would be different. He would keep it a secret until the day he died. Another weight for him to carry, but one that would be worth it if it came true. He wouldn’t tell anyone what he wished for that night, with your sleeping form against him, soft and warm and comforting. He wouldn’t tell anyone that he wished you would love him like he loved you.

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carlyraejepsans · 3 months

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Hey, if you don’t mind the question. What’s your opinion on Undertale Yellow?

8/10 game. pretty good at being a game, not so much at being an undertale story. the gameplay itself was fun, the area/puzzle designs too, the soundtrack was untouchable it literally gave me the same rush i felt hearing sburb initiation for the first time. minor NPCs designs were fun but the primary cast was too monotonous, tbh. (all the main characters have tall gangly very detailed designs save for like, axis). its attempts at landing Undertale's humor were quite often successful, but it held back on exaggeration and caricaturing its original characters which took away that oomph from the canon game. the character writing was... lacking. which is a pity.

i love fucked up women so i was really disappointed that every single one of ceroba's actions/ideas/influences on the story were nothing but an extension of her dead husband. when you take chujin away she's just... A Good Wife and Mother. or starlo's past love interest ig. i mean both dalv and martlet's backstory were tied to her family and we never see them interact at all. but they do have an established dynamic.... with the dead husband. again. UGH. she's just really wasted as a character (she and chujin should've BOTH been scientists and she should've continued the project AGAINST his wishes after he died. she's the main cast character, she should be the driving force in the narrative, not him—even if chujin sets the plot in montion by inventing the serum first).

I'm not a huge asgore fan—not that i dislike him, he's just not a character i care about all that much—so congrats to this game for making me say "he would NOT fucking say that". the "fuck the royals" subplot thing was really unnecessary. actually, that was a bit of a recurring thing in the game. suddenly introducing these Huge Social Dilemmas like labor exploitation, anti-monarchic sentiments, misogyny (bro who on earth "needs to take a wife" this is Undertale) everyone realizing that clover is a child, over exaggerating the violence at stake... while also attempting to maintain Undertale's careless, bouncy treatment of the situation. that's... not how things work. undertale is able to maintain its light tone BECAUSE it doesn't let you take those topics seriously, they're not meant to be. the fairytale-like king, the battles, the child protagonist, they're all set dressings for the REAL story and REAL power imbalance it wants to highlight: that between player and game characters. everything is in function of that. you take that layer of separation and make everyone aware that theyre violently attacking and killing a literal child... that's not. a good thing dude. if it's not gonna impact the tone of the story, why acknowledge it in the first place? it's just unnecessary

anyway flowey neutral run was really, really fun. his dialogue writing all throughout the game was very solid and i had a blast having him around. however, they shouldn't have tried to anticipate his character development. this game is a prequel, you can't do that without undermining his arc in the canon events. pacifist should've had him doubling down on his frustration from the neutral ending. i do all this work for you keeping you alive and you make the same mistake i did sacrifice yourself for them??? are you BRAINDEAD???? what I'm saying is he basically should've thrown the biggest tantrum of his LIFE. oh and in the NM run he should've been terrified when he lost control of the SAVE file. this is the first time it's ever happened to him and now he's gonna die for good. he wouldn't have gloated like he did.

if you want to hear more criticism along the lines of what i said then this post by the fantastic @andreabandrea covers a lot of what i also felt during the game. i know this might sound like a lot of negativity, but the fact remains that UTY was an absolutely phenomenal work of fan creativity the likes of which we have never seen before in the fandom. considering the quality and polish, i thought it only fair to approach it as the piece of art it is and give it my genuine thoughts on the matter.

overall, still a really fun way to spend the afternoon with a pal. so. thumbs up

#it's just that. it is a product of fandom. with a lot of fandom shortcomings too #and seeing people praise it so wholeheartedly that they insinuate it surpasses the original #just reminds me once again that the majority of people have absolutely zero idea about what makes undertale 1) good 2) what it is #lol #answered asks #no word on the music i have the tag blacklisted because I'm tired of seeing it everywhere but not the music brother #i am listening to that shit 24/7 #turn it UP

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seikkoi · 5 months

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ꜱᴜɢᴀʀ | dom!tony stark x sugarbaby!reader ( ᴄʀɪᴍᴇ!ᴀᴜ )

ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴛᴡᴏ [1, 3] | ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴏɴ ᴀᴏ3

There was nothing that could keep Tony from having exactly what he wanted—and he deserved a little sweetness in his life. All he had to do was keep from ruining you in the process.

content/warnings: 18+ minors do not interact. non-canon, non-superhero au, sub/dom undertones, slight emotional/verbal manipulation, obsessive + possessive behavior, age gap (reader described as mid-twenties, t.s as mid-forties), mildly dubious consensual situations, explicit mentions of alcohol and drug use, generally not for the light of heart, rough sexual content, reader described as petite word count: 13k for parts 1+2 a/n: two weeks of brainrot later

L.A ended up as sun-kissed and vibrant as rumored, teeming with that felt like three times the people as New York. The plane ride went over smoothly, despite your nerves, although you can’t help criticizing Tony for his carbon footprint. You’re fortunate that the planning aspect is entirely in his hands, from the flight to the hotel. You knew what time to get ready and your destination, and that kept miles of stress away.

Upon reaching the hotel, a grand stone structure adorned with decorative pillars, the potential arrangements for sleeping arrangements loomed over you. The forgotten vulnerability returned, and you walked beside Tony with uneasy legs, hoping your worry was unnecessary.

To your relief, your accommodations are separate. You’re given peace of mind, chastising yourself for thinking the worst as you make the ascent in the elevator. Tony passes you cursory looks, reassuring you and assuming your nerves were travel-related.

In the hallway, Tony excuses himself to attend to some last-minute problems, apologizing and disappearing into his room. You followed suit, groaning against your wooden door as it creaked shut.

No matter how happy you were with Tony, the same thoughts resurfaced time and time again. The whispers in your head that told you the facade would melt away- warning of impending implosion. The memories of the look on his face weeks ago that brought you nearly to tears. To spare yourself the rabbit hole thinking about it would send you in, you decided to sleep it away. The event wasn’t until tomorrow anyway, and your body ached for rest.

You don’t wake till the sun’s long gone, hearing Tony’s knock at your door. A sleepy greeting slips from lips, clad in pajama shorts and tank top. Time and exhaustion fast-tracked your comfort around him, to the point that you don’t think to change when you answer.

Even though you know he’s spent the night running computations and phone calls or whatever it is he does, he looks as refreshed as ever. His three piece suit diminished to just one in that time, leaving him in just a dark button-up and pants—the most unpolished version of Tony you've witnessed you’ve seen, an amusing sight that you commit to memory.

“Hey, sleeping beauty. What do you say to dinner?” His gaze seems to fall anywhere on your petite form but your face for a moment, leaning against the door frame.

“I think everything’s closed by now.” You yawn, already thinking about crawling back into bed. The rumble in your stomach could wait, right?

Behind Tony’s back emerges a shiny bottle of whiskey accompanied by a plastic take-out bag.

“Good thing Cafe Stark is open 24 hours.”

Eventually, you’ll have to build your resolve against his infectious smile, but when combined with the mouth-watering aroma wafting from the bag, the game feels rigged from the start.

You and Tony share a relatively silent meal for once, the small rosewood table in the corner of your room serving as a makeshift dining spot. Mostly because a thousand-year nap still sounded beneficial, speaking through heavy-lidded eyes. Tony, abnormally preoccupied, seldom sets his phone down for more than five minutes at a time. As usual, you don’t truly mind it. Without fail, though, that incessant voice comes back, telling you all sorts of theories.

At some point as you're gathering the empty boxes to toss in the trash, Tony hums in approval before abandoning his phone on the dresser. Before you can ask, the whiskey is brandished by Tony.

You can see past the sunny smile for a moment, catching a glint of worry on his face.

“Everything okay?” The short glasses you bring over make a sharp clink on the aged wood.

Dark amber liquid fills his glass, sliding down his throat in one go. He chuckles at your question, finding it your concern sweet.

“Don’t start worrying about me.” He halts the protest forming on your lips with a kiss, leaning across the table and taking your hands in his.

It’s a potent amnestic, and you forget about all the alarm bells ringing in your ears.

Drunken stories and laughter fill the room for the rest of the night. You both remark here and there that sleep would be wise, yet the hours tick on.

A lull of silence falls between you after Tony finishes roaring at a joke you make about your roommate’s parents. In the hotel’s dim glow, Tony’s eyes look golden. You get lost in them for a time, lying beside him on the cotton sheets.

A few strands of perfectly coiffed hair have fallen out of place, matching his recently wrinkled button-up. There’s never a time you aren’t totally smitten with him, but the whiskey twists into want easily.

“Mind if I ask you something?” Tony looks down at you, leaning back against the headboard with warm and amused eyes.

“Sure, shoot.”

Anything to keep him looking at you like that.

“Your parents, you never talk about them, why?”

Anything but that.

Truthfully, Tony already knew the answer. The first night after he ended up in the bar, he might have done a bit of a background check on you, mostly for his own safety. But also to see what leads a girl like you to a job like that. He wanted to hear it from you, though, and knew by now that nudging you in the right direction worked well enough.

“Not much to talk about really.” The bedsheet drags against your skin when you shift awkwardly. You’re used to this question, and the hate for it only grows with each recurrence.

“Is that so?” He mutters absently, reaching down to twist a strand of your hair between his fingers.

“They died when I was young. Car accident, not much of a story.” You break away from his heated gaze, choosing instead to lay your head against the pillows. At this point, you expect the usual pitiful platitudes people say, something along the lines of I’m so sorry or that’s awful .

“I get it. Mine too. Not that young, though.” Tony adds sympathetically, sliding down onto his side next to you. He’s close enough that you smell the whiskey on his breath, tickling your nose.

“How old were you?” You can’t stop yourself from asking, as Tony seldom shared details about his family. You knew the business he ran was his father’s, and his mother’s name, and that was pretty much it. Most things he seemed to keep private, but you hoped the whiskey would help get you somewhere.

“Twenty-one, while I was in college.” There doesn’t seem to be any hesitancy in his answer, so you feel confident enough to push your luck.

“What were they like?”

“Eh, my father was kind-of an ass, wasn’t much of a loss to the world.” He says it too nonchalantly, throwing you off. You attribute it to the empty bottle.

“I don’t know if I should say sorry or congrats.”

”Either works for me.” Tony laughs, resting an arm on your side. His thumb finds the small patch of exposed skin from your shirt riding up, grazing absentmindedly. It’s distracting as ever, pulling you away from the conversation to focus on his touch.

“At least I had other people, sounds like you’ve just been alone.” He breaks you out of the daydreams you're lost in.

“Wasn’t terrible.” you respond gently, fiddling with a button on his shirt.

“Still, you deserve better.” He watches your eyes drift to the small button, searching for his own resolve. It drove him nearly mad to see you in the exorbitant dresses he buys, but lately something about you dressed down, relaxed, nearly killed him. You look angelic next to him, staring through heavy eyes, clearly in your own little world.

“‘Think I’m doing just fine.” you laugh.

“Hm, maybe.”

He doesn’t disagree completely, but knew you were built for bigger things. A good chunk of his attraction came from knowing how hard you’d worked, a quality he recognized and respected.

Contrary to what news articles say, his intellect and success didn’t come naturally. It was deliberate, hard work to do what he did. Countless hours of studying, research, testing— all to try to mimic a fraction of what his father could do. Since he was a child, Tony was dead set on proving to his father that he could run Stark Industries.

Yet, Howard was never persuaded, and planned on leaving the corporation to one of his lead engineers.

In the end, it didn’t matter anyways. He died before he could sign the paperwork.

Tony saw that same drive and ambition in you, you just needed a little help. And he would make sure it was his.

“Maybe?” you feign offense. The warm hand gracing your side loops to the small of your back.

“Think you just need someone to take care of you.”

“I might be a little too old for that.”

“Not what I meant.”

That pulls you away from his shirt for a moment, meeting his eyes with raised eyebrows.

“What do you mean then?”

The meaning takes too long to dawn on you, and Tony’s resolve feels weaker than ever. Instead of answering you, he goes to kiss you, pulling you close with the hand on your back.

There’s no doubt in his mind that he shouldn’t do this, fearing an inability to be satisfied with just that. That voice is too quiet to pay any attention to, turning the kiss long and passionate. His teeth scrape against your lip, sighing into you when he feels your body relax.

For the first time, he doesn’t wait for your reaction, pushing you onto your back. You feel his hand tighten around your thigh, wrapping your leg to his waist. You’re a worked up mess beneath him soon enough, grabbing at his side to pull him closer. His large biceps rests on either side of your head, fingers entangled in your hair.

Shaky hands reach for the belt on his waist, only to cause Tony to pull away from you completely. He holds both your hands in his, equally dazed and panting. He appears lost in thought for a moment, and you start to worry you made the wrong move.

You don’t have to worry for long, as Tony moves to the end of the bed, pulling you with him and kneeling before you quickly. Hungry lips on your bare thighs leave your head light, fingers already hooked around your shorts.

“Tony, what are you-”

“Taking care of you.” he murmurs as they slip past your ankles.

The hungry gaze washes over your center, catching your breath in your throat. You don’t get the chance to respond—a heavy tongue gracing your folds. Tony moans at the taste of you, reverberating up your spine. He hates that he made himself wait for this—every sound from your mouth worsening the strain in his pants.

Your tensing legs are tossed haphazardly over his shoulders. You expected the same tenderness he always granted to you, but this is entirely different. He grips your hips rigidly, wrapping his lips around your clit and pulling you as close as he could.

His ears focus on each moan, how the pitch in your whines heightened when he sucks hard on the aching bundle of nerves. A large, flat hand across your stomach gets you to lie back, hands flying to the dark locks tickling your thighs.

He’s obviously making up for a perceived loss of time, increasing intensity with every swipe of his tongue, your arousal coating his mouth. It sends your body into overdrive, hands reaching for him, searching for any kind of reprieve.

Tony knows he’ll never get enough when your breath turns low and stuttery, fingers digging into the back of his nape and the hand bruising your hip. You lose sense of what sounds are coming from Tony and which are coming from the mess between your thighs, mixing into a symphony of ecstasy in your ears.

He unlocks a new melody, the addictive sound of your broken, pleading cries calling out his name. He wants to tell you how fucking incredible you sound, but that would require stopping and there’s no chance he was doing that.

You try to tell him to slow down, the arousal in your stomach building faster than you have time to process. It’s a wasted effort, having any attempts at forming full sentences ruined by the tongue lapping at your entrance.

You feel an approving moan shake through your core, thighs growing stickier. He could feel how close you were, hips shuddering in his grasp. He only grips harder in response, holding you still as you jerk against his tongue. Without warning, the tight bundle in your gut reaches its crest, and Tony gets lost in the river of filth that leaves your mouth.

You’re foolish for thinking he’d stop there, but instead his lips return to suck gently on your clit, moaning into you. Just when you think you might pass out from the overstimulation, he pulls away to grace your inner thigh with light kisses.

Tony reclines, captivated by the dazed look on your face and the soft panting of your lips.

You sit up to face him on unsteady arms, your hazy eyes revealing that there's only one thought on your mind— him , just how he needed it.

The earlier worries become ironically useless, as you sleep beside Tony that night.

The next evening’s celebration unfolds on a quiet street, a hidden gem thankfully only hosting around twenty or thirty people. The ambient lights of the quaint club aren’t dim enough for you to ignore how underdressed you are. Envisioning a more formal dinner, you dressed simply in flowy olive dress, while other attendees exuded glamor in fancy suits. Tony of course being no exception, donning a dark gray suit and black shirt. Tony seemed unphased by the music and dancing, walking in and greeting people without pause.

On this particular night, Tony has a singular mission — to keep you in his sight at all times. More accurately, to prevent you from engaging conversation with a select few individuals without his presence. It's not just about showcasing you; it's mostly protective, an attempt to mitigate the risks involved in intertwining you with this side of his life.

Nearly anything seemed worth having you by his side. It’s a good weakness to have, he thinks. He swears it’s because you make him a better person, and though you always laugh it off and tell him he was already great, it’s another thing that gnaws at the back of your mind.

You're introduced to several of the guests, some names vaguely familiar, others entirely new. Natasha Romanoff stands out, her presence seeming to be the most grounded in reality. It becomes apparent that she is another member in this new endeavor of Tony’s. When you ask what she does for a living, she responds with business, and nothing more. Worse, when you ask about the other members, Natasha shoots a cautionary glance at Tony and smoothly redirects the conversation, leaving a sour taste in your mouth.

For the most part afterwards, Tony’s mission is a success. He does his best to stay tethered to you, dodging boring conversation after boring conversation. Despite his vigilance, the forces of nature are ineffable, leading you to the bathroom after a few champagne shoots.

He’d only looked away for one second , he swears, but all it took was a moment to lose track of you.

Upon your exit from the restroom, you decide to get ahead of your hangover. You catch the bartender’s attention at the bar instead of finding Tony. As you wait for the glass of water, your eyes scan the room to find him. Instead, a tall rugged blonde man takes over your view, sliding into the seat next to you. You pay him little mind, still scanning for Tony. Piercing blue eyes won’t leave you though, even as you thank the bartender and continue to search for the billionaire.

“What’s a pretty young thing like you doing with an old bastard like Stark?”

His words stop you in place, turning on your heel.

“I’m sorry?”

The smirk on his face is cold, unnerving. You don’t recall meeting him earlier in the night, and you're certain you wouldn’t have forgotten. He shifts in the barstool, facing you as he sips from his glass before laughing dryly.

“Forgive me, you just don’t like the kind of girl Tony normally parades around. Unless merchants of death are your kind of thing. And you’re definitely not the escort type.”

“Excuse me?”

This only humors the man more, and worsens your thoughts.

“What,” he continues once he’s done laughing at the look on your face. “It’s a compliment, really. Tony’s girls normally overdo it with the makeup, it’s a dead giveaway—”

“No, what do you mean ‘merchant of death’?”

“Oh, come on, you—” he responds patronizingly, “Shoot, is this your first night? He might not have told you yet—”

“Told me what ?” You don’t have the energy to explain to this guy that you aren’t getting an hourly pay for this.

There’s too much fun in it for him to drag this out, even though he knows his time alone with you is both costly and limited. He makes the decision to laugh again and down the rest of his glass before answering you.

“Don’t tell me he picked a dumb one. At least Pepper had a brain between her ears?”

“Who’s Pepper?”

The stars are aligning perfectly for him.

“His wife?” he fakes a puzzled expression, making you feel oblivious for not knowing.

As you stand there shocked and confused, your eyes catch Tony walking steadfast towards the bar.

“See, they do this thing, ‘fight, cheat, threaten divorce, make up, repeat’ cycle. It’s amusing most of the time, just shocked to see someone like you in it.”

Across the room, Tony’s blood starts to boil.

He’d caught the look you gave him, a confusion-ridden disgust that he couldn’t place until he saw who you were with. He left whatever suit was yapping his ear off, pushing through the small, crowded space. He can’t do anything but curse himself for being so careless—unfortunately, he’s not fast enough, watching Steve’s mouth open like a floodgate.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Rogers.” He speaks through gritted teeth, fists balled at his sides. He takes over the small space between you two, and over his shoulder you see the blonde man lean back in apparent satisfaction. There’s no point in asking what was said, Tony can guess well enough.

“ What ?” Steve responds, a dramatic shrug of the shoulders follows.

Steve's cold smirk adds insult to injury, leaving Tony torn between the desire to break Steve's jaw and the fear of you never seeing him the same.

The carefully, thoughtful plan he had for you is in disarray, thanks to Steve. You weren’t supposed to know about Pepper for another month, maximum. He planned on taking you to the gallery and telling you, but that chance was robbed from him.

It felt entirely unfair to him, having his dirty laundry thrown at you without any context. To prevent creating a bigger hole, though, he turns back to you. You’d spent the last minute wrapping your head around everything said. You felt almost physically sick, but mostly stupid for ignoring everything sooner. All that security you felt last night? Gone in a flash.

“You have to let me explain this—”

“I want to leave.”

Tony sighs, figuring it wasn’t the worst you could have said, but hates hearing the tone in your voice nonetheless. So, stubbornly and more than pissed, he leads you away from Rogers to the exit, and tries not to think about how you recoil away when his hand graces your back.

He tries speaking to you in the car, to no avail. You're too busy beating yourself up for being so stupid. You had fallen for it, the charm, the gifts, the mystery— it worked brilliantly and earned you nothing but hurt in the end. Just like you feared it would.

A second attempt in the elevator wins him no prizes either.

There’s a third attempt brewing when you reach your floor. You had barely looked at him, and each time it felt like being stabbed. You didn’t see a point in talking about anything, making a beeline for your door. You imagined yourself packing, leaving in the morning and never seeing him again. Go back to the life you were supposed to be living, not this fantasy with him.

It’s not a plan of action you accept happily, and either way you don’t get the chance. The expectant sound of your hotel room door shutting behind you never comes, stopped by Tony’s leather shoe in the wooden frame. There wasn’t a chance in hell he was letting you shut him out. He could read your face the entire way back, seeing your full intent to leave without another word.

“Just go away.” You want to sound angrier, but defeat is the only emotion you muster.

“You’re overreacting.” He declares, voice bouncing in the empty hall.

“Really? Am I?”

You’re shocked when the door is pushed open fully. The space you try to take back by stepping away is overtaken. Tony shuts the door behind him, harsh enough to make you jump a bit.

“You are.” Tony’s hands disappear into his gray suit pockets, looking down at your alarmed frame.

“And you’re married.” Another step back, only for Tony to step forward again.

“Do you see a ring on my finger, hm?”

“That’s not the fucking point.” One more step back, in vain. The feeling of being trapped screams at you, but doesn’t move your body. “What else have you lied about?”

“I have never lied to you.”

That seemed more believable than anything else. The small breadth of space you gain is taken once more. You don’t move again, knowing the wall wasn’t far behind you. It pissed you off even more to see his jaw clenched, staring at you as if you were having some tantrum and not rightfully upset.

“Then who’s Pepper? How many other women are you toying with like little playthings? You’re an arrogant, asshole, liar -” you spat, letting your anger surpass his own.

Tony moves closer, and you end up against the wall regardless of your efforts. You start to tell him off again, a rant cut short by a hand grasping your face, and another pining your wrist to the wall. Your heart quickens, squirming against him.

“You’re starting to offend me, honey.” he says lowly, the warmth of his breath spreading across your face. His dark eyes don’t leave you, and you have a sense this is worse than throwing a drink in someone’s face. He was growing tired of this recurrent debate from you. Many adjectives could be used to describe him—arrogant, hot-headed, selfish, but disloyal wasn’t one— and he considered it a disrespectful thing to insinuate.

“You,” he trails off, thumb shifting down to your throat. “—are the only one. Pepper and I have been done for a long time. Steve knows that.”

“Did she leave after she got tired of you sleeping around?”

‘ Did Steve care to mention how Pepper cheated first? How she threatened to sell me out if I left her? Of course not ’, Tony thinks.

More panicked, harsh words of doubt and inquiry leave you, but they’re quickly shushed by Tony. You know you shouldn’t but you feel a familiar guilt for the disapproval clouding his face. You don’t have the foresight to see that you were right for making them.

“You wanna call me a liar? What exactly have I been dishonest about, huh?” The question is clearly extremely rhetorical.

“If you were just some ‘ plaything ’ to me,” he mocks, the hands on the side of your face tightening, electrifying your skin—not enough to hurt, just enough to keep your eyes on him. “We wouldn’t be here, you should know that.”

“Then why keep it from me?”

You don’t even know how to ask what Steve meant by ‘merchant of death’, and honestly, you don’t think it’s worth making things worse. You hate that it’s this easy for him, hate the conflicting feelings—his touch melting your anger. It’s no help that you didn’t want any of it to be true anyway.

“If I decide you don’t need to know something, you don’t. Simple as that.”

In Tony’s mind, this was for your benefit in the long run, and he doesn’t see a need to explain that. You should just trust him, or atleast you did before Rogers’ opened his big fucking mouth. His anger is mostly placed with the blonde man, but he still expects better from you. He couldn’t have you believing others over him. You’d already expressed doubts about his loyalty before, and he spent a lot of time repairing that.

Leave it to Blondie to ruin it all.

To his dismay, you remain silent. He pictures the inner-workings of your mind, doubting everything he’s done to win your trust. The hand against your throat and arm keeping you in place might not be helping his case, but still they remain. He can’t fathom letting go, not if there’s even a slightest chance you’ll leave.

“That’s applied to almost everything in your life so far.” There’s fear in poking the proverbial bear, yet you do it anyway. There’s too many thoughts battling in your mind, causing the words to nearly catch in your throat.

“What is it you need to believe me—to know that you’re mine?” His voice shifts, remaining stern but turning heavier. He releases your arm, moving to grasp the green fabric at your side.

There was obvious disdain between Tony and the man at the bar, giving you deniability to add to his claims. You started to think it was more likely he knew which buttons to push, to put you at odds with each other. Maybe you were getting entangled in corporate politics you didn’t understand without Tony. This was your mistake, just like before.

The words overheat in your mind, warming your skin and wreaking havoc on your thoughts. Some tell you nothing would change it, that you wanted to give up on this. Others, louder, tell you anything would win you over, that you were looking for any reason not to. The mental gymnastics start anew, but end with the same conclusion.

You want to chastise yourself for how willfully you fell back into his eyes, angry and want-ridden. The confidence you had earlier about leaving becomes a difficult feat to manage, overtaken by every screaming aspect of you that urges you to stay. Tony didn’t know it then, but he got what he wanted regardless of the wrench thrown by Steve— you, right in the palm of his hand.

He expects a genuine answer, one you don’t have. So, in typical fashion, he decides for you.

Tony considers it your fault for what he’s about to do, staring back at him with doe-eyes and flushed skin. Plans are built to be changed anyways—and he clearly needed to send a stronger message.

Without warning, you’re pulled by shoulder the short distance from the wall to the nearby chaise, resting in front of a high mirror. You question Tony, to no reprieve, pushed forward onto your knees. In the reflection, you watch his arm snake around your body, returning a rough hand to your throat, bringing your back flush with his chest- his other hand tight on your hip.

“ Relax ,” he whispers against your ear, and chills run up your spine.

“Tony-” you start, trying to twist in your position to look back at him. It’s a useless effort, large arms easily keeping you place.

“Eyes up,” he instructs, and your attention is directed forwards, meeting his eyes in the reflection.

The olive dress is bunched to your waist, witnessing his hand teasingly graze along your thigh before disappearing under the cascading fabric. It stops there a moment, fingers dancing at the hem of your panties. Desire stirs in you with little prompting, Tony’s lips trailing down your neck nipping gently.

“Don’t you see what I see—how pretty you look, doll?” he stays locked onto you, holding you steady when you jerk against his hand folding behind your underwear. Soft fingers draw slow circles on your clit, pulling a gasp from your mouth. “—why would I need anyone else.”

It’s pure filth, watching your own body react to every movement in the shadowy room, every bite against your heated neck. Tony’s quiet declarations only dampen your mind.

“You’re perfect, ” His voice drops lower, increasing his pace as the hand on your neck grows firm. “—just for me.”

There’s static in the air, surrounding your limbs. The obscene picture in front of him sets every nerve on fire, watching your hands reach for his arm, watching you try so hard to not fall into the obscenity in your ear.

Gravity is indiscriminate, so you fall nonetheless. The heavy fingers tease your wet entrance, only to retract and circle your clit before returning for more. It’s all soft and light, barely as much as you need. You turn desperate before you know it, focused on the flex of his bicep in the mirror with every stroke.

Unfortunately for you, this wasn’t really about pleasure. This was about trust. He needed that, for you to know how consumed he was by you. He’s certain you can feel his hard member pressing into the back of your thighs, a heated, heavy reminder that you were all he wanted. You must know— based on the wetness pooling in his hand and your eyes centered on him.

“All mine .”

You cry out when a finger surpasses your entrance. You watch it be cut off by the hand at your throat, gripping harder to keep your noises at a minimum. There’s no resistance, wet and desperate enough to suck him in completely. The hand bruising your hip rocks you back onto his fingers.

All those questions you had, about Pepper, his work, Steve—they’re gone. Disintegrated in the same heat that coils your stomach. Moving away from Tony’s sickeningly slow ministrations isn’t an option, trapped between his body and his tight hold.

“I should put that rude little mouth to better use.” Tony whispers, free of any reason to hold himself back. You felt undervalued, fine. He’d see to it that’d never happen again. He’d let you hear just how badly he wanted you. He needed that same look in your eye from last night. The one that shined for him and only him.

He doesn’t take the stutter of your frame as a reason to slow down, only a reason to push you over the edge. The finger inside you is joined by a second, curving into you. The lace of panties is soaked through, a dark patch spreading to your thighs. You can’t focus on the mirror any longer, shutting your eyes tightly as you reach your peak—softly rushing through you as Tony’s praises flood into your ear.

He doesn’t let go—large arms wrapping around you until your breath returns to normal. You open your eyes to meet Tony’s lustful eyes reflected back to you.

“Still having doubts?”

Tony’s patience was completely run through, the short fuse sparked to unrepairable levels. Again, he thinks it’s mostly your fault. He had no issue treating you like gold, but he only thought it right that you at least trusted him.

You give a quick shake of the head, panting and watching the hands around you leave. You turn and sit in the chaise facing him, his jaw still clenched.

“Good.” he responds slowly. Eyes rake over you beneath him, with Tony imagining a hundred more ways to have you moaning his name. He finds the willpower not to act on them, instead turning for the door.

“You should rest.” He says before you can find the right words to say, door shutting behind him.

Sleeping proves difficult—thoughts overwhelmed with Tony being a room away. There’s also Pepper and Steve floating around your mind, though never for long. Before you can give way to thinking about it, you inevitably end up catching a glimpse of the mirror in the corner—and everything Tony said plays in vivid sound. Then, an unbearable warmth pools in between your thighs, causing your thoughts to be consumed by him again.

The frustrating cycle repeats for hours.

Finally, you decide you’ve had enough, leaving your suite and winding up in front of Tony’s door. He answers on the third tap of your fingers, clad in tight black briefs. You have enough clarity to keep your eyes from focusing on that, or the exposed sculpted chest.

“Can I come in?” You feel pathetic for the way you ask, but it’s worth it, because he steps aside for you to enter.

You walk across the large room, sitting on the end of the unmade bed. Tony stays in the middle of the room, arms crossed in front of his body, waiting.

“You said I don’t need to know everything but,” you start, only growing more anxious when Tony raises an impatient eyebrow. “Pepper, what happened there? Why have I never heard of her before? At least tell me that.”

Tony sighs, contemplating if the distrust in your eye is worth possibly pushing you away for good. You’d see through any bullshit he tried to sell, not that he would make something up anyway. But, it’s for that reason that he knows he won’t get away with telling a half truth. He decides to take it as a sign that you’re still here, in his room, and that you still didn’t leave.

“We were married, she cheated.” He decides to omit his own revenge cheating. He considered their relationship done at that point anyway, just took him too long to realize.

“So, you’re divorced?”

“Not exactly, it’s complicated.” He sighs again. “But we are not together—in any capacity.”

You want to ask what exactly is complicated about signing a piece of paper, but you leave well enough alone.

“Then why not tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d stay if you knew. Couldn’t risk it.” It’s mostly true.

It comes out soft and heartfelt enough for you to believe it. Besides, so many parts of you didn’t want to be upset with him, for any reason. You didn’t have the will to end things, and you didn’t want to find it either. You stare at the floor, trying to process this new aspect of him. His shadow moves across the floor, coming before you to caress your face.

“You don’t need to worry, doll. “ Tony murmurs, trying to get that last little drop of doubt out of your mind. “You’ll always be mine, and I’ll always take care of you.”

part three

#mcu fanfiction #tony stark x reader #tony stark #avengers fanfiction #seikkoiwrites #tony stark smut #marvel fanfiction #tony stark x you #tw dubious consent #tw dubcon

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1moreff-creator · 8 months

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How the LGI MV proves MonoTVid is both canon and a doomed ship

In this totally serious analysis post, I will show you, with 100% irrefutable evidence, that MonoTVid (the common ship name for MonoTV x David) is destined to be both canon and a doomed ship. This is in honor of them recently winning that one poll in The Website Formerly Known As Twitter, a poll which I do not entirely understand but one which I will respect regardless.

I will not accept any criticism on this post. I am objectively correct. If you find mistakes in this post, then what you’ve found is a mistake in your brain.

Obviously a TV, Obviously a Ship

Observe.

Now, do you understand?

If you don’t, let me spell it out for you. We have what is “obviously a TV” with terrorist iconography, which obviously represents MonoTV, nearby several elements which clearly represent David. The hair clips, the megaphone, the dummy. You’ll see “dummies” is plural, because David is a dummy. This is the first clue to the tsundenderish nature of David, as he is literally calling himself a “baka”, perhaps even of the sussy variety. If he calls himself “baka”, could he use the same word to describe someone else?

But the true indication of this ship is the lemon on top of the TV. See, the lemon in the story “Lemon” by the man who wrote the story “Lemon”, whoever he was, is a lemon which represents, despite being a lemon, a person’s will to live. If you want further context on this lemon, read the background text near the lemon when the lyric “make a lemon bomb” shows up on screen, near the lemon. You think I’m gonna post an image of the lemon text near the lemon? No. You should know the lemon text near the lemon by heart.

Anyways, this lemon is obviously on top of the TV to represent that MonoTV is David’s reason to live. There are no other possible interpretations.

But you may also see those dandelions, labeled “weeds”. Weed is what I’m taking to make this post. Not cannabis, I am sniffing dandelions. This is besides the point.

Now, you’ll realize that since dandelions represent happiness, and even hope, the point the video tries to make with them is that David sees these things as annoying weeds. This shows MonoTV and David both hate hope. They are clearly lovers.

But what you didn’t notice, and I know you didn’t notice for I am in your walls, is footnote 18: “A/N: soz not very good at drawing flowers lol!!!”. See, David is the author of these notes, which is obvious from things like footnote 11, the “I am an only child” one. What this footnote means is that David gave these flowers to MonoTV, but he’s embarrassed about it, because he doesn’t think any gift can match the divine splendor of MonoTV. David is just that sweet. That much of a cinnamon roll who can do no wrong. A skrunkly. A blorbo. What other words can I use to brainwash Tumblr users.

Now, look at these.

Look at the balloon and the Monokuma plushie. Does my inconsistent coloring of “the” bother you? I am very evil. You’ll see the balloon is labeled “stupid kid’s toy”, while the plushie is “a popular toy”.

Now, you might think this is another indication that David sees anything related to hope, like balloons, as inherently childish and stupid. Meanwhile, he sees anything related to despair, like Monokuma, as more grounded.

You are wrong.

You seem, MonoTV has stated Monokuma is its dad. So this being in the video means that MonoTV is David’s daddy and his toy. I’ll explain when you’re older. Just kidding, I won’t. Fuck that.

Not convinced?

Why? I am always right, so you shouldn’t doubt me.

But okay, I guess:

I Will Bring Up Color Theory For The Thousandth Post In A Row

I am not linking the accirax post for the fiftieth time. Look it up yourself.

Look:

Yellow for David, cyan for MonoTV. Many have tried to come up with an answer for what “original” means, but it’s actually really simple.

See, David has an I. You wanna know who else has an I? Dark blue, which may be J. And J is the mastermind. Here’s the source for that, it’s somewhere in that video, you just have to find it.

So, J, who is the mastermind and thus essentially MonoTV, has the same letter as David. This clearly shows David and MonoTV are lovers.

Here’s another case of a cyan I.

Boom. Theorizing’s easy.

Then, look.

David has game in yellow, then MonoTV has game in cyan. They’re lovers. Do you find another explanation? No, no you don’t. You will not think critically about this post. You are not immune to MonoTVid propaganda.

But, alas, the ship is not to last.

David is a Cat

At the beginning of the video:

David calls himself a cat, then MonoTV shows up to remind us it’s a dog. You might think it doesn’t mean much, but there actually is meaning behind David being a cat. See, it’s related to the archaic Japanese pronoun “wagahai”, referenced-

Nah, you don’t care about that. David’s a cat, source just trust me bro.

That’s what the black and white cat sitting next to David actually represents: David, tied by color scheme to MonoTV. I’m writing this on my phone and don’t feel like waiting to get to a computer to get past the 10 image limit, so we’re out of visuals.

Why is this important? Well, if you take into account the Romeo and Juliet quote that footnote 8 is attached to (here’s a screenshot), it’s clear the MV is trying to convey a story of two people in love separated by fate. This is clearly about David and MonoTV, which is further represented by David being represented by a cat when MonoTV is obviously a dog. Truly sad. Can I get an amen?

Are you not convinced yet? Crazy. Well, one last thing then.

It’s All Democratic

“To be or not to be? Who knows? Let’s decide! Democratic-ly”

You see how the rules for class trials are on the same image as democratic-ly? Well, this is a clear reference to the poll on The Website Formerly Known As Twitter. Since MonoTVid was chosen as the winner of said poll, it was chosen “democratically”, and will thus become a canon doomed ship. You might wonder if this means the dev has the ability to see the future. But we are not to speculate on the dev’s identity, so while we can’t theorize they are clairvoyant, we also can’t speculate they aren’t. Checkmate.

In fact, The Website Formerly Known As Twitter is now sometimes referred to as “X”, an obvious reference to the X on this screen. Because surely no one would be so absolutely idiotic as to just name the website “X” for no reason.

But hold on, isn’t this X actually Roman numeral 10 for Min?

Well, obviously. We never saw Min’s corpse in her execution, which means she survived and is the second mastermind alongside J. Min is still alive. Min is still alive. Min is still alive. Min is still-

Am I a Whit Young kinnie, but specifically for Min? No, obviously. Because Min isn’t like Whit’s mom, because Min is still alive.

The point is, Min is related back to MonoTV through her mastermind-y nature, and MonoTV to MonoTVid, I’m too lazy to actually continue writing this post.

—————————————————————————

Did you actually read this all the way to end? Are you okay? Do you need a hug? Because this is insane. I don’t know why I made this. Take care!

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #david chiem #monotv #monotvid #i went insane from reading too much #actually what the fuck am i doing #shitpost

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remus-poopin · 6 months

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Hi! Sorry to bother you but I’m looking for specific pieces of HP meta and I’m kinda lost.

Do you have any reading recommendations about homosexuality in the Harry Potter world? I’m trying to decide a couple of things about the world-building for a fic and I’d love to read about other takes on the topic.

Hi! It's not a bother at all I love this stuff! I have my own thoughts about this too and this is a question I often think about and I was planning on writing something about this eventually anyways so I'm glad I got this ask because now I have a excuse to! (And I can talk about some gripes I have with the author as well so yay)

CW: Homophobia and misogyny

Here is a meta by @thecarnivorousmuffinmeta on homophobia in the wizarding world.

Here is @hchollym's take on gay marriage in the WW

The books give no mention of homosexuality explicitly, but the author has slightly expanded on the topic at later times in interviews and tweets. In 2007 she confirmed that Dumbledore was gay and later she gives us more details about his sexlife. She then said this in 2007 about homosexuality and homophobia in the wizarding world:

"MA: 'We wanna talk about Dumbledore so bad. We know that you've created worldwide intrigue when you said that he is gay. But I wanted to ask you about homosexuality in the Wizarding World in general. Is it a taboo?' JKR: 'Now, that's something I never thought of. I would think that that would be-- it would be exactly what it is in the Muggle World. But the greatest taboo in the Wizarding World is, well, for some wizards... I mean if we're talking about prejudiced people within the Wizarding World, what they care most about is your blood status. So I think you could be, um, gay, pure-blood, and totally without any kind of criticism from the Lucius Malfoys of the world. I don't think that would be something that would interest him in the slightest. But, you know, I can't answer for all witches and wizards because I think in matters of the heart, it would be directly parallel to our world.'"

She also says this in a tweet about homophobia in 2014:

“Only by ludicrous Muggles. The wizards don't give a damn - it's all about the magic for them.”

Now whether or not you take this to be canon is up to you. What I think is interesting here is I feel as though we are made to think that homosexuality is a non issue in the wizarding world and not a point of prejudice by the second statement. From her first statement she says that its “something she never thought of” and I'm guessing her second statement is contradictory because she wanted to appease LGBT+ fans and reassure them that Hogwarts is a safe space (for some, lets not ask her about the other letters in the acronym).

This is a pattern I've noticed JKR exhibiting in a lot of her post book words in which she is trying to communicate how egalitarian the world she created is through her new information, while the text does not reflect this worldview. I think a good example of this is how when she listed the ministers of magic she included several women, going back as far as the 1700s to try to show there are not as many barriers to entry for women in the WW. Yet we see many instances of sexism throughout the series from the characters. I think what she was trying to do is have her world primarily focus on blood purity, and creature rights and have the issues we face either go to the backburner or not be present at all. Now I understand this choice, (though I really don’t think it's necessary, more interesting or remotely realistic) but I also think her execution is pretty awful because you can (and I'm about to) make an argument that these issues are still very present in the wizarding world. I think the biggest issue here is that she doesn't understand the structures and systems of oppression that she handwaved to the side to truly write a world where they would not be a real problem. To me, given what we've seen of the wizarding world, homophobia would still very much be an issue.

So I think if we're going to talk about what homosexuality looks like in the wizarding world we would also need to talk about what homophobia would look like in the wizarding world. Homophobia has many factors contributing and working with it to make it function as prejudice and a system. If I had to break it down to its biggest parts I would say our big three is: religious fears, rigid gender norms, and disgust. Those often play off each other to create an effective tool for upholding a power structure in society by subjugating certain members. Let's examine these in the context of Harry Potter.

Religious fears:

Religious fears resulting in homophobia is very common in the real world but for this factor to apply to the WW I think we would need to determine whether or not the wizarding world is even religious. We have examples of christianity showing up across the books in casual ways, Harry has a Godfather, he was christened as a baby, and Lily and James have a quote from the bible on their tombstone. From this we can at least make the assumption that the Potter family is religious to some capacity. We also see that one of the Hogwarts ghosts is called “The Fat Friar’. But to my knowledge this is where the references end. If the wizarding world is religious, or at least wizarding Britain, they seem to be casually so. So I don't see this being a huge driving factor in any homophobia we would see in that universe.

Rigid gender norms:

I think if you take away any religious influences you're still going to see homophobia even in its most violent forms and this has a lot to do with rigid gender norms. If gender norms are established to sustain a power structure that a society relies on to maintain a certain order, any breaking of those norms will be met with punishment (socially or physically). In a heteronormative culture, homosexuality can be seen as a breaking of these norms.

First off, Pureblood culture seems to be obsessed with lineage and creating heirs, In one of the meta I linked it talks about how homosexuality would be a threat to that. At least in pureblood society, your job as a man is to make pureblooded babies and your job as a woman would be to give birth to them, anything else would be looked down upon.

If we step outside of pureblood society, we can see that the general wizarding population also seems to have strict ways in which men and women should act.

So what are the gender roles the wizarding world has? Well there are the clothing, all wizards wear robes, but dresses are traditionally for women and any robe that looks a little to dress-like for a man could be seen as embarrassing:

“'What is that supposed to be?' He was holding up something that looked to Harry like a long maroon velvet dress. It had moldy-looking lace frills at the collar and matching lace cuffs. - ‘Mum, you've given me Ginny's new dress,’ said Ron, holding it out to her. ‘Of course I haven't,’ said Mrs Weasley. ‘Thats for you, dress robes’.- “You've got to be kidding’ said Ron in disbelief ‘Im not wearing that, no way!' - In some trepidation Harry opened the last parcel on his camp bed. It wasn't as bad as he expected, however. His dress robes didn't have any lace on them at all - in fact they were more or less the same as his school ones, except they were bottle green except black” (GOF, pg 155 and 156)

“Harry, Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville changed into their dress robes up in their dormitory, all looking very self conscious, but none as much as Ron who surveyed himself in the long mirror in the corner with an appalled look on his face. There was no getting around the fact that his robes looked more like a dress than anything. In a desperate attempt to make them more manly he used a severing charm on the ruffs and cuffs." (GOF, pg 411)

There are cultural roles:

“‘Come on, Ginny's not bad,’ said George fairly sitting down next to Fred. ‘Actually , I dunno how she got so good, seeing how we never let her play with us…’ ‘she's been breaking into your broom shed in the garden since the age of six and taking each of your brooms out in turn when you weren't looking’ (OOTP, pg 574)

There is no ostensible reason for Ginny not to be able to play Quidditch with her older brothers, even if she was too young at one point, very soon after she should have been able to, considering Ron was only a year older. From this we can assume that wizards, or at least the Weasleys, have a view of femininity as more fragile, or weaker than masculinity. This idea is reinforced through the founders of Hogwarts making separate dorm rooms for girls and boys where boys cannot enter the girls dorm but girls can enter the boys, this also positions men as aggressors in a sexual sense.

There are sexual roles, any time there is slutshaming in the series a women is at the end of it. Hermione is seen as a “scarlet women” for appearing to toy with Harry's heart:

“I told you not to annoy Rita Skeeter! She's made you out to be some sort of - scarlet women!’ Hermione stopped looking astonished and snorted with laughter. ‘Scarlet women?’ - ‘It's what my mum calls them’ Ron muttered." (GOF, pg 513)

Ginny is constantly facing accusations of behaving a little too promiscuously by her family.

“'Let's get this straight once and for all. It is none of your business who I go out with or what I do with them, Ron -' ‘Yeah it is!’ Said Ron just as angrily. ‘D’you think I want people saying my sister’s a-’ (HBP, pg 287)

"'my tiara sets the whole thing nicely, said Aunt Muriel in a rather carrying whisper, 'but I must say, Ginevra's dress is far too low cut.'" (DH, pg 145)

Merope Riddle is called a slut for running off with Tom Riddle Sr.

"'dishonored us, she did, that little slut!'" (HBP, pg 365)

All of these instances are made to seem as negative and as a breaking of the societal norms. The norm being women as chaste, demure figures of virtue.

We've established these gender roles, and we've seen there are consequences when you fall out of line. So, what if the gender role calls for you to be masculine as a man and then defines that masculinity in part with obtaining women and sexual prowess? Homosexuality would be in direct conflict with that. And with that lets tie it into disgust.

Disgust:

The disgust that a homophobe feels can be stemming from a couple different places. Maybe it's religious fears like we talked about or maybe it's because of gender norms. But that disgust is only taking place because they perceive something they hold to be pure being tainted and violated; the word of god, the sanctity of masculinity, or hegemonic gender roles. In a society where these beliefs are upheld and treated as sacred, any conflict with that will be met with judgment at best and violence at worse.

I don't see the wizarding world as a progressive space where homosexuality or anything LGBT+ would be considered a non issue because the text does not reflect that. The text shows the same misogyny, the same disdain for femininity, and the same reverence for masculinity that we see in everyday life and because of that I feel it only makes sense to see the wizarding world just as bigoted as ours.

Ok so what does homosexuality look like in the wizarding world then?

Well if we've established the wizarding world as a society that would be hostile (in any way) to gay people I think its easier to move forward on how to imagine how they fit into that society since we have ours for reference. However, Its important to remember that our oppression doesn't define us and its not the only thing to consider while writing. Think about what the fashion would look like, what the music would sound like, what the spaces would be like and just generally what the culture would be. Have fun with it!

Hope this helped a little!

#what does homosexuality look like in the wizarding world? short anwser: Sirius Black #also sorry i took so long to anwser this i was busy failing my exams #hp meta #harry potter meta #harry potter #hp #ginny weasley #the weasleys #james potter #lily evans #molly weasley #albus dumbledore

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devine-fem · 1 month

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TWITTER LURKERS DNI!!

Whew, It’s late as fuck and I’m tired as hell but I’m still gonna write this Jon and Damian shipping post because I’m tired of people not getting it like at all.

Firstly, I’m mentioning all of this as in before the age up because before the age up is where they had a dynamic. Right now, they are just friends who know each other.

Before the age up - Jon was established as ten in Super Sons and Damian was thirteen.

Let’s talk about that first; Jon was just created - Jon did not exist for that long since he was conceived in Thomas Wayne’s Batcave. He has barely any writing under his belt.

Their dynamic is not “Oh, Damian is the mature one who knows everything and Jon is stupid and is to be taught everything-“ No. Damian is NOT as mature as everyone makes him out to be and people only take his maturity away to make him an “Uwu adorkable cat boy-“ which is frankly annoying.

Any of these fan depictions are fine in purely fanon contexts where for fan reasons they want to mold the characters in different ways because that’s the fun of it but I’m talking entirely in a canon sense.

Anyway, Damian is someone who’s established himself as a hero, he’s come into himself and he has associates and a path he’s paving for himself. He’s supposedly to be someone that teaches Jon how to do that, he’s supposed to be someone that grows alongside Damian and with Damian and in turn Jon is supposed to be someone who teaches Damian how to be a kid.

Damian teaches Jon to be a hero - Jon teaches Damian how to be a kid.

Jon is not an idiot, he has the obvious limitations due to his age but besides that, he’s not the immature one, he’s not the sunshine one, he’s not the devoted one, he’s none of these things.

I’m so tired of these characters being watered down like this.

Jon is emotional, he’s headstrong, he’s articulate and has a level head.

If Damian is as mature as people make him out to be THEY WOULDN’T HAVE BUMPED HEADS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Jon and Damian didn’t meet and were like oh, friends at first glance. NO, THEY HATED EACH OTHER.

More so because Jon wanted to be Damian’s friend and Damian didn’t understand how friends were supposed to work till Jon coupled with the fact that they are both kids and extremely immature.

Adventures of Super Sons

Super Sons

I have never in any fandom seen people put so much emphasis on an age gap before this one. I’ve seen fandoms enjoy age gaps - if you read any sort of romantic material then you’d know that an age gap will supply a certain dynamic between two characters, it can be an extra set of maturity but that isn’t really the case here.

Their age gap is just barely big enough.

Their AGE GAP IS ENTIRELY NESSACERY to their relationship with each other. It doesn’t supply much besides an opening opportunity later in the comics to make Jon feel like he needs to chase after Damian when it comes to being a hero which we will never get to see.

Jon doesn’t have friends outside of Damian besides Kathy, no because he just was established as a character.

I would also like to add that Jon doesn’t have an established birthday, I still don’t recall that he does to this day. It could be a lot smaller than we think it is and it probably is. Although, I’ve seen people call two-year age gaps weird as well which I really don’t understand because I personally have never heard that in my entire life.

Rather or not an age gap is inappropriate really differs from person to person - if you ask one person what is wrong will differ entirely from what another person thinks. It will also span from culture to culture and region to region. It’s never really been a tangible thing - I mean, ask your parents it's likely they are much more than three or four years older than the other.

Anyway, whether or not someone is being taken advantage of in a romantic relationship doesn’t hinge entirely on the age gap between them anyway but that’s another conversation.

My next point is, that no one, I mean no one should critically consider these two characters engaging in a romantic relationship while they are young - with the way that they are I sincerely doubt that they would be able to hold a romantic relationship to the other.

They would have to find each other again when they are older, and that is what literally every shipper I’ve interacted with ever has told me.

Jon and Damian may get drawn in shippy art while they are young now but it’s entirely innocent (depending on what you think is innocent again) I do indeed indulge in reblogging this art because I think it’s cute personally and harmless but it’s just art. It’s also where their relationship peaked and where Jon was actually interesting so obviously people would rather draw that instead.

Shipping these two does not inherently mean that you don’t read comics and aging up characters is not inherently problematic - which I’ve heard as well…

If I didn’t read comics then how would I know that these characters have always been aged up repeatedly through depictions?

Dceased - which they share no age gap. Here they are the same age.

Wonder Woman - where they are in their 20s and up.

And Super Sons in the first place where they are literally in their 80s.

Or the movie where they’re the same age.

Mind you, Jon is sometimes written to be eleven when Damian is either thirteen or fourteen but double mind you, Damian and Jon have not known each other for a full 365 days before the age up. They are best friends but by default because neither of them has a lot of other friends.

We are not getting into how wonky ages are for Robins since Tim Drake and how writers sometimes refuse to allow characters to age…

Ugh, none of this even matters anyway because most people don’t and shouldn’t ship under the ideation that two characters should be canon anyway, I don’t personally because DC can’t even handle Damian and Jon being friends - their is no WAY they could handle a romantic relationship.

I get that we may have bad experiences with people who ship this ship like people who demonize Flatline and are idiots in general… like twitter damijon stans as well as antis are literally the most heinous people I’ve seen interact.

For example, RedeemedRobin is a psycho that doesn’t care about anyone or anything that isn’t Damijon…

But Damijon isn’t like comprised of adults who want to prey on young characters, no, I actually struggle to have a genuine conversation with someone who likes Damijon because they are mostly kids who don’t UNDERSTAND HOW THE SHIP WORKS and are super cringe which is literally the reason I’m making this post anyway. It’s so, so annoying not being able to have a genuine conversation about these characters with other shippers. I don’t know why people like to throw around ideas of how shipping spaces are WHEN THEY ARE NOT IN THOSE SPACES THEMSELVES?

Besides, comics are old and if you are an adult who enjoys damijon then it’s probably because you grew up with the characters if that’s not obvious enough I mean these comics are like almost seven years old?

Anyway, in conclusion, stop watering down these characters, stop demonizing the ship and shippers, and just stop being an idiot on the internet in general like it really shouldn’t be that hard to use your brain.

If you opened your brain half as much as you opened your mouth than we could both be much happier…

If you feel the same way as I do then please be mutuals with me, I need to free myself from this curse…

#super sons #supersons #damian wayne #jon kent #jonathan kent #rant

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poorlittleyaoyao · 10 months

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NIE LORE THAT I HAD ASSUMED WAS CANON BASED ON TUMBLR POSTS THAT I HAVE NOW REALIZED IS NOT ACTUALLY TRUE:

1.) Papa Nie’s murder: This one is partly the drama’s fault, since the timeline there has Qishan and Qinghe in conflict since well before Sunshot, but since it’s so often repeated that Wen Ruohan Murdered Papa Nie, I always assumed that Papa Nie had been captured in a skirmish, brought to Nightless City, and his saber was shattered in front of him as he was tortured to death. It’s directly Wen Ruohan’s doing, and it makes Meng Yao gloating about Papa Nie’s death during Nie Mingjue’s own capture all the more traumatic—“haha, your father was stronger than you and even HE snapped in this situation, so what do you think you’re going to do?” Instead it’s the saber equivalent of taking the bullets out of someone’s gun before a mission or swapping someone’s medicine with sugar pills. Papa Nie’s death is for sure Wen Ruohan’s fault, but in a much more indirect way; after all, who’s to say he wouldn’t have ended up injured in that night hunt regardless? It’s a clear parallel to Nie Mingjue’s own death via Turmoil; after all, who’s to say he wouldn’t have qi deviated anyway?

2.) Nie Huaisang’s flop motives. Okay, this one IS definitely Tumblr’s fault, because I have seen sooooo many posts about how Huaisang avoids his saber because he knows how destructive saber cultivation is and is unwilling to engage with the practice that doomed all his ancestors to early deaths. Except! No he doesn’t!

In the novel, he’s really just out here going “I simply do not vibe with saber or responsibilities” with no deeper motives! Mingjue at no point has sat him down and gone “listen, you’re gonna end up as sect leader, because I have no wife or heir since women don’t exist in this universe and the saber spirit is very much killing me and I need you to take this seriously.” This is frustrating; you can’t blame Huaisang for being a flake if he’s never experienced a real consequence prior to his stuff being abruptly destroyed, and he may have behaved differently had he known the situation. It is also very sad. Welcome to the Withholding Critical Info From My Sibling For Their Own Good Club, da-ge! I’m sure it’ll go great, just like it always does.

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the-stress-express · 21 days

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Attention Hazbin Hotel Fanfiction Enjoyers!!

I have a snack for y’all!!

I’m in the process of writing the first chapter of my new Hazbin fic and I wanted to give you, my Lovelies, a sneak peek of the dialogue. (Although, it looks more like a script at the moment). Eh, whatevs.

——————

It’s going to be mostly centred around Lucifer, Michael, Sera, and Emily (although, other Hazbin characters, both canon and non-canon, will be in it as well).

For example, I will be including God in this fic. And I will say right now that my characterization and representation of God is NOT meant to be taken as religiously accurate or anything like that. You don’t have to like it, but I do ask that you please remain respectful in voicing your opinions.

Anyway…

Once I have most of it (or at least a few chapters) finished, I will be posting it on Archive Of Our Own (Ao3). I may also post it here for those who don’t use Ao3.

But without further ado, you can find my sneak peak under the cut. It’s a bit long but I hope you guys like it.

Enjoy, Lovelies!

START OF PEEK

Sera: Come now, Michael, pick up the pace. We mustn’t be late.

Michael: *Groans and yawns* Sera, where are we going again? Why are we going anywhere so EARLY? Heaven’s not even awake yet.

Sera: *Sighs quietly* I told you five minutes ago, Michael. This is the third time you’ve asked me now. *slighty raises an eyebrow with a frown*

Michael: Oh… right. *Looks down at the ground, looking a bit crestfallen*

*Sera turns back away from Michael as they continue walking, seemingly oblivious to his saddened state.*

Sera: Michael, this behaviour cannot continue. You must improve your listening. As Father’s Angel of Justice, one of His most important angels, someday you will be part of the Heavenly Council, the ones who are responsible for keeping Heaven safe and balanced. So, you need to take your role seriously. You should know that by now.

Michael: *frowns and stops walking, feeling embarrassed* I was listening. I just… kept forgetting. I’m sorry. *tears form in his eyes as he fiddles with his sleeves* I-I do take my role seriously, Sera. I r-really do.

*Sera’s eyes widen as she realizes what she said to him. She had forgotten how sensitive he could be when it came to criticism and how much he often took things to heart. How could she be so blunt? Yes, he would need to learn to take criticism, but was still just a young child.*

*But most of all, how could she forget? She knows what Michael is like. Other than God, she’s been the one mostly raising him.*

*A couple tears begin to trail down Michael’s cheeks as he looks to the ground in shame. A frown washes over Sera’s face as she kneels down in front of Michael.*

*She sure feels guilty now. She made him cry. How dare she.*

Sera: Oh, Michael. Please don’t cry.

*She cups his face in her hands and wipes away his tears with her thumbs.*

Sera: Shh, it’s okay, honey. It’s okay. I’m sorry for getting upset at you. I didn’t mean to be so harsh. I just want you to be prepared to help govern Heaven in the future.

Michael: *sniffles* I know…

Sera: *Sighs* But even so, that is no excuse for accusing you of not listening and being careless on purpose.

Michael: *sighs and sniffles as he looks at the ground* I try act mature like you and the other angels. I try to listen when you all tell me things. I want to listen, but… I’m just too stupid.

Sera: *Gasps quietly* Oh… no, Michael… Michael look at me. Please. *He looks at her* Don’t say or even think anything like that ever again. That train of thought stops this instant. You are not stupid. You are smart, determined, and caring.

*Sera sighs slightly shamefully and closes her eyes*

Sera: You are also quite mature for your age, and I sometimes forget how young you are. That as much as you’ve grown, you are still a young fledgling.

Michael: *eyes widened* You forget things, too?

*Sera opens her eyes again and looks at Michael with a small, reassuring smile.*

Sera: Of course. Angels are some of Father’s greatest creations… but even we are not flawless. As much as we may try to avoid it, we will make mistakes. That’s just how it is. However, what’s important is being able to admit to our mistakes and to do our best to fix them. That is true divinity.

*Sera takes Michael’s hands in hers.*

Sera: So, again, I’m sorry for what I said and for getting upset. It was not your fault and it was not kind or fair of me to be hard on you and make you feel less than. You’re a child. You deserve to be treated with patience and dignity and shouldn’t be expected to behave as if you were an adult.

*A smile quickly spreads across Michael’s face as he finishes drying his face with his sleeve.*

Michael: That’s okay, Sera. I forgive you. *Jumps into Sera’s arms for a hug*

Sera: *smiles* Thank you, Michael.

*Sera hugs him back.*

Michael: Thanks, too. I’ll do my best to make Heaven proud.

Sera: You’re welcome, my little angel. I know you will bring honour to us all.

*More hug I guess lmao*

Michael: I love you, Sera.

Sera: I love you too, Michael. *breaks the hug with a smile and strokes his cheek lovingly before standing up* Now, come along. Father is waiting for us.

*Sera holds out her hand, offering it for Michael to take, which he quickly does. Realization then dawns on his face as his wings flap excitedly a couple times.*

Michael: Oh, yeah, that’s where we’re going. Father wants to show us something, right?

*Sera looks down at Michael with an endearing smile and nods.*

Sera: That’s right.

END OF PEEK

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onlyhereforangst · 18 days

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I don’t go here but you’ve mentioned chenford isn’t great. Do I know what Chenford is? No. Do I still know they broke up? Yes.

Pls share the fandom lore and ur thots 🎤

ok so.

chenford, or lucy chen & tim bradford- former rookie & training officer, respectively. the actual characters have been written so fucking phenomenally i barely have words (she says as if she isn’t about to just. go off). they have managed to truly incorporate authentic human flaws and emotions and decision-making into these characters which have, across six seasons, played out for gorgeous individual & paired character arcs. like they are GREAT are they in a great spot? no. but they are FANTASTIC.

now.

if you were to ask the fandom that same question. excuse me while i die laughing 💀 unfortunately the strikes really helped a large majority of the chenford fandom to twist canon into barely recognizable fanon and now that canon is back and progressing as it absolutely narratively should people are losing their gd minds. deactivating accounts, claiming their done with the show, touting that they’ve been manipulated a bold face lie if you have critical thinking skills but i digress. there’s a select few of us having the time of our damn lives, feeling blessed to have such good writing on a procedural????? of all things. unheard of. truly.

so yeah the fandom is Something because who doesn't enjoy a feast of delicious angst? i mean lucy cannot stop inserting herself into every situation, even her boyfriend who has repeatedly asked her to not because he is trying to protect her (this is it's own separate problem) but literally flinging yourself around outright screaming at your significant other is just. not it. i speak from experience 💀 this is not how you get someone to healthily tell you what's bothering them to the point of tears multiple times. its like if lucy isn't the default hero she just cannot handle? its insane and beautiful because its her tragic flaw coming to a glorious, screeching climax. AND meanwhile??? so is tim's!!!! his loyalty to a tragic fault got him in a bind and he doesn't know what to do and can't handle and thinks protecting the one he loves by shutting her out is the way to be most loyal to HER because suddenly he doesn't feel he deserves her so he's going to break his own heart since lucy was too polite to do it.

anyways this storyline has been blessedly built up with undertones and crumbs since literally the end of season 4 and the fandom acts like it was a total blindside. lmao honeys. have you watched the show??? plus its been teased in interviews for over a year i can't 😭

both characters have a LOT of growing and self-discovery to happen individually before they can even begin to consider being in a relationship. not when that relationship had been built on a foundation of subordinate-superior. that *shockingly* doesn't equate to a romantic relationship of equals and guess what?! it had its ramifications!!! miscommunication trope my beloved you slayed.

ok that was surely more than you wanted seek but a million voice notes to the like 2 people that have been calling this storyline with me since the beginning and the vibrating still isn't out of my system!!! cheers to the hate anons i'm sure to get if anyone takes the time to read this 🍻

#ask #seek--rest #chenford #the rookie #the rookie spoilers #i am thriving living my best life skin hasn't been more clear

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eobarried · 10 months

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ok let’s talk about miguel o’hara because it needs to be done. i want to clarify that this is not a hate post or anti-miguel in any sense, but it is a critical analysis of his character and role in the spiderverse. if you don’t feel like you can read this right now, i suggest you like it/save it for later and read it when you feel like you can with an open mind

especially for anyone who’s a miguel enjoyer (i consider myself one as well) because if you really love his character, it’s important to understand why his character was created and what a great narrative tool it is! anyway-

miguel o’hara is, allegorically, a bigot.

now - let’s unpack and clarify that. miguel is allegorically a bigot - his character is used to represent a certain, specific type of bigotry we see in real life. notice how i’m saying “bigot” and not “racist” - because despite the memes, i don’t think miguel’s hatred of miles is rooted in antiblackness. i think it’s rooted in something a little more complicated, which is why i’m using the term bigotry. but this can be a little confusing, so let’s start from the beginning. or, at least, the most important part.

the canon.

i want you to really think about the word used here - canon. hearing that word should break the fourth wall for you, just like hearing “he’s got hammerspace!” should have earlier in the movie - or discussions different characters have surrounding their distinct art styles. it’s meant to break the fourth wall and draw attention to itself. specifically, the use of the word canon here is meant for us to take a step back from the in-universe events (treating the characters as “real” people and looking at events logically) and instead think of the spiderman story and mythos.

spiderman, as a story, has been told over and over again. we, as an audience, are deeply familiar with this story, as we’ve seen it as a live-action blockbuster in no less than three separate franchises. that’s not even mentioning all the cartoon adaptations, and of course the comic runs. adhering to a specific formula surrounding the story makes sense. when someone walks into a spiderman movie, they have certain... expectations. that no matter what version of spiderman this is, that they follow certain story beats and adhere to certain rules as they follow along in their journey. miguel, when explaining this to miles, focuses on said story beats (which i’ll get to in a second), but there’s something that’s way more important than specific plot points that we need to address here.

and that’s theme.

theme (if you’re not an english literature person), is basically something you take away from the story. it’s usually a moral, idea, or concept that can be applied to the world around you, and helps you learn more about yourself, society, culture, or history. all stories have themes - usually they have multiple. so let’s get into it.

the original spiderman comic was notable in several ways. the thing that made spiderman so popular and successful is that he was the first (notable) teenage superhero that wasn’t a part of a greater team. spiderman wasn’t a sidekick that was written in to appeal to an audience of children. he was a teenager himself - but he was no less competent or strong than the (mostly adult) villains he fought.

and not only was spiderman a kid - he was the kid. he was a nerd. he was an older white teen, yes - but he represented the type of person who would go out and buy a comic book more than any other hero at the time. before he became spiderman, peter parker was just kind of a geek. at the time (the 60s) this still identified him as an outcast. peter was socially awkward, not good with girls, he didn’t have many friends, and he was bullied consistently. the only thing he was good at was science, basically. we can connect peter’s original portrayal to many legitimately marginalized groups - specifically those that might be autistic and impacted by ableism. to those kids reading that comic, they saw a hero that represented them.

and how does peter represent them? what does spiderman teach these children by reading these comics? the original spiderman is the story of a man who, by chance, was granted the opportunity for greatness - to become an integral part of his community. spiderman uses his skills (both those granted to him by the spider, but also those that he inherently has, such as his skills with science and engineering), in order to prove his worth and merit. it’s lonely, the road he has to walk - he can’t tell his friends and family who he is, lest they become victims like uncle ben - or lest they betray him. he can only rely on himself and his own knowledge in order to protect his community. the themes we draw from spiderman are this: luck can strike at any time, but you need to use your own strength and intelligence to pull yourself up afterwards, no matter how hard things get. no matter how many people you lose.

that’s what miguel believes spiderman is about. this original spiderman story is that of the american dream. of a youth who is ostracized by society (for whatever reason), but is still able to use their own merit to overcome the obstacles placed in front of them and the grief and pain they face on their path to greatness. it’s a hard and lonely path, but miguel values anyone who has the bravery to face it.

so why does he hate miles?

because he didn’t do it alone. because miles doesn’t believe in the traditional american dream.

if you want to read more about that, check out my analysis comparing spider-society and visions academy over here (it’s not as in-depth as i would like it to be, but it gets the job done) but basically: miles believes that every person deserves greatness. he states it very clearly when talking to his dad about how he won the lottery to go to visions: he just got lucky. he feels as if he took an opportunity away from someone else. why is it just given to him, when anyone else at brooklyn middle is just as deserving of an amazing education? when these resources should be put to use to uplift his whole community, not just miles alone?

miles brings that same energy as a spider-person. he’s not just an anomaly because his spider was from a different dimension. he’s an anomaly because he had a mentor. not only a mentor - he had a whole clan of spider-people there for him. while peter b parker and the crew weren’t always very good allies for miles, they still wanted him to succeed. each spider-person was an outcast - not in the same way as miles, but they were eager to describe what miles needed to master in order to keep himself safe as a crime-fighter. although they weren’t always supportive, it wasn’t because they were “gatekeeping” - it’s because they were worried miles might hurt himself. to them, he hadn’t put in the work on his own, and because he hadn’t proven himself as a spider-person in isolation, they thought there was no way he could be successful as a spider-person during a very high-risk mission.

however, miles proves them wrong. it’s true that miles has to pull upon his own inner strength, but he also pulls on wisdom from those that mentored him - his father, his uncle aaron, peter parker, and peter b parker. as well as love and support from his community. miles became spiderman - but not in isolation. he had help, and support, and love - always - that helped him succeed.

because spiderman - in all universes - represents success in america. in the original comics, spiderman is able to overcome his status as an outcast in order to help his city. he now has great power - a potential allegory related to wealth and social or political status. he uses that power in order to protect the community he loves (nyc) as they can’t all protect themselves.

now let’s bring it back. miguel. right.

miguel has already made his mark as a spiderman. although we know he broke canon, it wasn’t related to him becoming spiderman. we can assume that miguel still went through serious struggle and trauma to get to where he’s at. and now, through thematic analysis, we know that becoming spiderman represents success in america.

so, miguel’s dislike of miles, thematically, connects to how older generations may believe that younger generations “have it too easy” or “don’t put in the same effort.” it’s the (mainly capitalistic) ideal that in order to succeed, it has to be in isolation, without outside help. we can infer that miguel is not only upset that miles didn’t do things “canonically” - but that he is afforded success that miguel doesn’t think he deserves. miguel believes that in order to succeed in america, one needs to do it on their own, and suffer in order to succeed. no “hand-outs,” no support, no community outreach. it’s a very rigid capitalistic standard - which is why i called it “bigoted.” miguel is still a marginalized figure - and it’s important that miguel is the one stating the viewpoint, not a white spiderman. because this isn’t a white vs black storyline. miguel’s dislike of miles is specifically a sort of generational, inter-community bigotry.

for someone who hasn’t experienced it - think of it like hazing. you join a new sports team. the senior players say “you carry the equipment out and clean everything after the game.” you ask “why? can’t we all just do it together? aren’t we supposed to be a team?” and they say “no. you’re the new guys. hard work builds character. deal with it.”

alright. so we took a look at canon through a meta-story lens. now let’s pull it back even further.

so, miguel’s ideology. he adheres firmly to canon, a series of events that cannot (or, should not), change. if we apply that to our lives, that sounds a lot like predestination. destiny. fate. let’s call it predestination for now - you’ll see why in a minute.

now, a belief in predestination makes sense. it can bring a lot of people comfort, thinking that horrible events are out of their hands, and often times it can be harmless to believe in predestination in these instances. for example: someone who blames themselves for not being able to say goodbye to a loved one who died suddenly. if this person believes in predestination, it might ease some of their pain and guilt to know that there was nothing they could do - that it was the will of some higher power that their loved one is gone, and that there was nothing they could do to prevent it. some individuals might find comfort in knowing that they are not to blame for the work of the universe.

however, predestination can also be malicious. thinking that things are the will of the universe, or the will of god... that’s been used for some pretty fucked up stuff in the past. in a more moderate (and topical) example - royalty. many kings used the concept of predestination to explain why they deserved the crown. their bloodline was chosen by god himself - that’s why they’re powerful (compare to spider-people and their success. if they are also predestined for their spider-bite, doesn’t that make them akin to monarchs?)

in more nefarious examples, predestination can be used to subjugate and oppress others. predestination was used in ancient indian society in order to justify the caste system - utilizing the hindu concept of karma to justify why certain members of society were mistreated and oppressed. in a more american sense, predestination was often used as a way to justify both slavery and segregation. originally, slavers tried to justify that god wanted black individuals to serve as slaves because it was his will. later, when divine intervention fell out of fashion, they attempted to use eugenics to justify that black individuals were simply born inferior - that it was just science, and that there was nothing they could do about it.

that’s the other reason it’s called canon. the original usage of the word was to refer to the books of the bible that the church recognized as legitimate. it ties back to faith and religion.

now, religion, faith, and even the belief in fate itself - are not inherently bad. miguel’s belief in predestination doesn’t make him a bad or bigoted person inherently. however, the way he forces other to believe and adhere to it is. it’s very likely that miguel became so attached to the canon in order to justify why his wife and daughter died - in order to remove his own accountability for their passing and instead place the blame on some higher power. this belief snowballed out of control, however - and now influences his jealousy and distaste for miles and his way of life.

because forcing a canon - a story - on miles, is wrong. when miguel tells miles that his father must die, that he has to adhere to canon - that’s a horrible thing to say to a young black boy. to tell him that in order to be successful as a marginalized individual (to be spiderman) that he has to lose the last black male role model he has? it’s heinous! it’s akin to telling miles that in order to succeed, he has to cut ties with part of his culture. which does happen to young marginalized people in america. they are told that in order to be successful, they have to leave their culture, community, and support system behind.

it’s especially sinister when looking at it from the point of view of storytelling. when looking at it from that angle, miguel is basically telling miles that in order for his story - the story of a young black boy - to be profitable, he has to go through even more trauma and loss. it’s similar to what his guidance counselor mentions when discussing how miles should write his college entrance essay - that he should lie, and emphasize that he struggles while growing up, and that his support system was unstable. it’s the traditional story of a struggling black boy - which i discuss more here when talking about earth 42 miles and his inclusion in the spiderverse.

miguel’s bigotry is centrally tried to his idea of what american society expects of marginalized individuals who were able to achieve their dreams despite it all. a story of pain and struggle. one where they were able to - only through their own strength and intelligence, and maybe with a little bit of luck - pull themselves up, and quietly work towards their own success.

miguel’s belief in the american dream and predestination not only influences his treatment of miles, but also his creation of spider-society. now, let me be frank: miguel, in this franchise, is not supposed to represent someone who created systematic oppression. he’s simply one of the people who believed in bigoted ideals and allowed those ideals to influence his decisions. because when miguel created spider-society, it basically became an elitist isolation chamber. spider-society is located in a huge tower on miguela’s earth. the tower is so tall and imposing on the utopian landscape, there’s no way that miguel is able to properly support his own community as spiderman - he’s not worried about what happens to his own community. especially once we learn that a good portion of them live underground, where miguel can’t even see them. even if he wasn’t occupied with anomalies at all times, there’s no way he could even connect with nueva york around him.

the same can be said of all the spider-people in headquarters. they’re not even in their home dimensions. how can they possibly support their communities when they have isolated themselves as far away as they could literally be? it parallels how successful individuals often treat their communities in reality - what do wealthy people usually do at the first sign of their wealth? they build a huge mansion to get away from it all. many times in our capitalist society, wealthy and successful people abandon the communities they should be supporting.

miguel represents that. he is a successful, powerful person, who decided to focus only on other successful, powerful people like him. marginalized people who achieved the american dream on their own. people who, instead of uplifting others, instead tear down those who don’t fit into their “mold.” who are successful in their own right, but don’t hold the same ideals and values that they do. who aren’t the model example of marginalized success in the eyes of the (white) american “audience.”

miguel is a product of a great problem within society. while he partakes and perpetuates bigotry, that doesn’t mean that he’s irredeemable. the narrative shows that miguel is a broken man. if we think about to the end credits scene from itsv, where he calls his dimensional travel bracelet a “goober” - he wasn’t always so hateful. he wasn’t always like this. he can un-learn his bigotry and he isn’t completely lost. the way that he discusses his ideas - it’s clear that he knows that there are flaws in them, just as other spider-people consistently point out. he can be changed and improved - just like our real leaders and role models can be changed and improved. miguel is not without saving - but it’s important to remember that he does need to be saved.

#Spiderverse #across the spiderverse #across the spider-verse spoilers #into the spider verse #miguel o'hara #meta analysis

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dulcewrites · 10 months

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I know the creators probably did not mean to do it when they made the Velaryons black (more than likely went over their heads tbh), and I do agree with certain criticisms/concerns people had about how black characters are treated in hotd. But I do think in theory, making the Velaryons, specifically Corlys, black was an interesting choice.

I think having a black man, in particular, chasing the Westeros equivalent of ‘the American dream’ and it leading to the eventual hinderess of his house is fascinating. Downfall in the sense that House Velaryon never reaches the heights they had pre dance. Corlys is playing a political game, as someone who is far more suited as a warrior/sailor than anything else, with people that keep him at arm’s length. He can not maneuver the way they do successfully despite the money and connection to dragon riders. But he continues to push for that status symbol…for that recognition and acceptance.

I will be mixing a bit of F&b lore as well as the show so just.. stay with me on this lmao.

When we are first introduced to the corlys/the velaryons, we get this air of ‘new money’ (gag I do hate that term but let’s go with it), though the Velaryons are a house that survived the doom. Corlys has essentially single handedly elevated his house through seafarer. He is described as someone that, despite the wealth and power being Lord of the Tides has brought, is seldom satisfied. Hence why once his own path towards being king consort/having his blood on throne is dashed after the great council of 101, he more than likely gets in his head that he must take steps to right that wrong.

Like many men in this story, if not all, corlys views the people around him - His wife, daughter, son, granddaughters and even Rhaenyra to a certain extent - as extensions of the himself and the pawns in his plan.

Now, this will probably be an unpopular opinion, though I don’t think it should be, but I’m of the belief Corlys cared little about how his family faired because of his ambition. Namely his wife, Rhaenys (who if we go by book canon he married when she was a teen then cheated on her with another teen). I think he sees her as another status symbol. He’s married to a dragon riding princess. I sense a lot of people get blinded by the shiny varnish their relationship has on the show, especially compared to the outwardly hellish relationships in book/show. He constantly undermines her. Though I personally don’t believe Rhaenys when she says she’s over not being queen, I do agree with her when she says corlys is doing all of this more for himself and his house than her. Despite the quippy lines they give Rhaenys, she too is a victim of patriarchy and by extension of that a backseat passenger in her own family. She too follows her husband’s orders even to the detriment of others. She may be able to voice her concerns, but they fall on deaf ears.

Corlys uses his 12 year old daughter as a bargaining chip. And let me tell you, I get so annoyed when people use the argument of ‘well rhaenys and corlys were upfront about pimping out their tween daughter while otto sent Alicent in secret’. They all will be sharing the same room in hell with viserys regardlesss babes. Or the argument that the dance wouldn’t have happened if Viserys married laena. The dance, or some sort of infighting, was set in stone the moment viserys decided to not only remarry but have kids. Weakening Rhaenyra’s already flimsy claim. It was set the moment the Targaryens followed the same male primogeniture many in Westeros do. Corlys would have been right at the ‘patriarchy rocks’ party if laena married viserys and managed to produce a male heir.

Rhaenys expresses wanting the driftmark line to pass through Laena’s daughters. Mind you, Laena is older anyway. If corlys wanted his eldest child to have it.. he could’ve changed that from jumped since he’s so team feminism lmao. Corlys quickly says no because he knows taking that from Lucerys means disenfranchising Rhaenyra’s claim. In turn, laenor will not be king consort and their blood will not be on the throne.

Except… he knows those boys are not of Velaryon blood. The same way he knew laenor, his gay son, would be in harm’s way marrying Rhaenyra. To him, his family name being written in books is more important than empowering his granddaughters, despite tooting the horn he is doing this because his wife was robbed because she is a woman. To him, his family name being written in books is more important than the safety of his kids. He actually mirrors viserys post laenor’s ‘death’ and shuts down. But the point of running away. Leaving his wife to rule without him. All because his own choices and guilt are probably eating him alive.

It’s why I was actually quite taken when in ep 10, it is corlys that finally says enough is enough. But I actually like the choice. By now he has lost his daughter, his brother (I have a lot of feelings/thoughts on how vaemond wants power like corlys but it manifests vastly differently in terms of their house), and he thinks his son as well. Him realizing that his ‘keeping up with the joneses’ phase has done nothing but have the Stranger follow their family is harrowing. He wants to go home; he is ready to be rid of this. And yet it is Rhaenys, his dragon riding princess, telling him they must keep fighting for Rhaenyra. Quickly reminding him that their family is binded to the Targaryens regardless, and because of his choices; through having Lucerys still be heir to driftmark and the farce that jace as a bastard will take the throne with little strife. As well as because of the agreement that their granddaughters, not good enough claimants to driftmark themselves according to corlys, will be married to the strong boys.

His house will not prevail and flourish in the wake of this, which I think is an interesting contrast to say someone like Otto. I don’t think Corlys is a second son in the literal sense but he feels as one because he has had to fight for what he has. In ep 2, he compared himself to daemon, an actual second son, because of this fact. Otto is the same, a second son turned hand of kings. They scheme the same way, and have very similar ambitions. They hurt people in the process, especially those they are meant to protect. Regardless of who sits on the throne or how the war panned out, House Hightower continues to be a relatively wealthy, respected house. Versus what happens to House Velaryon… a now black house in show canon. These men played the same game and only one, in terms of the things he wanted, ‘won’.

That’s such a damning insight on how power corrupts the same way regardless of race, but the repercussions of it are different for everyone. Like I said, I know the writers did not think this far ahead or take this into account. But it’s something I picked up on as black woman myself.

It all comes back to Corlys’ choices. He will soon be adding his wife to the list of people the Stranger takes.

He must take his own advice sail through the storm…

#I hope this makes sense #it’s kind of a ramble #once again don’t know how to tag this lmao #anti corlys velaryon #maybe #anti team black #though this is really my beef with him #but I’ll put #anti rhaenys targaryen #just in case

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knowlesian · 2 years

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i was chatting about this over messages and hadn't seen anyone else post about it, so i figured what the hell: why my fourth favorite joke might be izzy’s pissy little ‘i do this, i do that, you're so erratic’ rant, and the subversion/setup/foreshadowing it provides.

(third: montezuma’s revenge joke via izzy the metaphor colonizer. e5 setup, e9 punchline. now that’s some next level comedy writing.)

anyway! let’s take it line by line.

For years, I’ve followed your every whim. I’ve managed your increasingly erratic moods, I’ve massaged this crew when they were worried about your judgment.

Mmm. Sounds stressful, Izzy.

so! it would be very easy to just take izzy at his word and create scenarios to suit, where izzy is a reliable narrator and actually doing all these things.

(and just as a structure nerd note while i’m at it, since i think that term gets used colloquially so often that much like filler, it needs clarifying sometimes: unreliable narrator doesn't mean never right or always lying. it just means unreliable, and their ultimate narrative purpose is to force an audience to think critically and examine the text as a whole to try to find what is empirical reality and what is not, instead of sorting them into liar or honest and leaving it there, thanks for coming to my tedtalk & etc)

izzy himself is urging an audience to fill in those gaps, to create pre-canon scenarios that support izzy and silence ed. to make us imagine an ed who is out of control and in need of a constant exasperated minder; to implicitly and thematically render him a violent, angry child and not a full man in his own right. an ed who cannot face the world or make his own choices, unless izzy is there to guide him and set boundaries so he does not ruin his own life.

and izzy feels so, so burdened by this. he tells us so!

hmmm. a burdened white man... which would make ed a white man’s burden.

now, where have i heard that before? it’s on the tip of my racist system of genocidal white people of all classes rolling up into places where people are living and dying and making good choices and bad choices alike all on their own just fine thanks and saying, party’s over kids. daddy’s home now, and you better listen up because father knows best tongue.

that’s izzy’s purpose in the narrative, at least when it comes to the specific angle of implicit bias and the stressful and constant unavoidable racial power dynamics that come into all our social interactions whether we like it or not. because if we are honest and genuinely want to dismantle white supremacy, we need to name the beast so we can fight it. that means admitting even when class is figured into the matter, white men of a certain age who act like izzy acts and say the things he says are unconsciously processed as being logical and in control no matter what, and people who are not white get the exact opposite treatment.

it’s the rule of who would the cops believe. (or, in this case, his majesty’s royal navy.)

izzy holds social power ed does not, alongside institutionalized power. this show is playing out very modern racial dynamics with izzy, so he’s blind to this power— we as an audience can’t be, or we’re... izzy.

and to be very blunt, because i feel i need to be: if you think being izzy is a good thing, then oh boy. time to think about why a white man who makes the black crew members do hard labor and none of the white ones is someone you are cool making excuses for.

i do not believe izzy cannot change his ways; i do believe he very, very much needs to change them.

which brings me to the undercover joke.

so, the first line is doing a lot, right out the gate: izzy says he's followed ed’s every whim.

first layer: izzy, hon, this is ed’s ship. he’s captain. his whims are what you literally signed up to follow. if you don’t want to follow them... go find a different captain, or be your own captain! these are very, very easy things to do, especially as the things canon backs izzy up on is that he’s a competent sailor and a fantastic fighter, when he's fighting people who actually play by traditional rules and not stede and his hijinks-heavy style of fighting.

(and just to say it: izzy losing to stede does not make him a bad fighter. it makes him an inflexible one, who is not good at improv’ing solutions outside blunt force ‘uhhhh we could kill things about it????’ type answers, and one who didn't see that cherrywood mast coming when he popped stede’s getting stabbed cherry. skilled people fuck up sometimes even before you get to not being able to predict new factors in situations you think you have thoroughly prepared for; it’s not impossible to lose, even when you are very very good at something and you prepared as well as anybody could. even serena williams has off days, and izzy hands you are no serena.)

second layer: uhhhh, do you follow his whims iz? because we see you push back, all the time forever, several times to the point of just saying fuck you, i won't let you make this choice and i am gonna make it for you.

third layer, crunchiest of all? actually, ed ends up where he's at by the end of the finale because he decides to follow izzy’s whims, and just give that sad little man the blackbeard he asked for: a cartoon legend who cuts off toes for a laugh.

then we get to the next claim: he's managed ed’s ‘increasingly erratic moods’.

now, don't get me wrong— we see ed respond to bad situations with sometimes outsized despondency, he gets real mad at racists and yells at nature/snakes, and when specifically triggered by very literally his worst memory that was also the moment that convinced him he's a bad person he cries in a bathtub and decides he’d rather not repeat that action, especially not when this time he’d be directly killing a man he's starting to love.

so i’m not like, ah yes. edward teach: famously always on an even keel and doing just fine.

but what's actually erratic about those things? erratic means unpredictable, not dramatic. he’s responding to bad situations in ways that indicate he's nearing the end of his desire to keep juggling all the plates he’s got in the air and that weariness combined with a certain amount of arrogance is making him stop double-checking for mistakes, but we see nothing that says he’s losing the ability.

only izzy tells us that. izzy, who is constantly being managed by ed throughout the run of the series. izzy, who seems to exhibit somewhat erratic behavior and mood swings of his own; izzy, who calls down the royal navy upon them all because he's butthurt and jealous and all his cds are in the car, regardless of what he tells himself about protecting ed from ruin.

izzy is shocked ed would sign the act of grace, but if he actually knew ed that would be a somewhat predictable action; anybody can see that ed really fuckin’ likes stede. he tried to stop izzy from the duel, and then when stede won he stuck to his guns and kicked izzy off the ship. ‘i wonder if he’ll just give up on this guy if i track down his crafty frat boy ex and get him to do a reverse parent trap’ is sort of a stupid plan, unless you’re assuming ed is genuinely just longing to go back to the old days and need to be shocked back into reality.

you know what i’d argue is actually fairly erratic, because erratic actually means unpredictable? that fucking plan of his.

how on earth would anyone be like, ah yes. jack was sent by izzy to break them up and lure ed off the ship so the royal navy can come crashing down on all their heads. nobody could have immediately predicted that, right after the sandwich bonked izzy on the noggin.

because izzy expresses horror that ed would lick the king’s boots: the unspoken there is there would be no boots to lick if izzy had not gone and fetched said jackboots and licked them to a shiny gleam first himself.

so when izzy is like, ewwww ed. you'd work with the KING??? we as an audience need to remember: izzy is a textual hypocrite. izzy still has the taste of bootleather on his tongue, and he’s got the gall to get all snotty at ed about the act of grace— a choice ed makes under duress with a literal gun to stede’s head, where izzy made a choice of his own free will out of misplaced emotions and a condescending colonizer mindset that tells him he has the fucking right to look at ed and see a burden to be shouldered and a man who is half-insane, not a fucking genius at the top of his game who keeps telling izzy to please just knock it off and stop being so fuckin rigid.

which brings us to the third part, and the text’s subtle confirmation that everything izzy says he does for ed in that speech, ed actually does for izzy.

he’s massaging the crew when they doubt ed’s judgement, izzy says.

we know that’s not true. fang and ivan don’t respect him for a myriad of reasons, and anytime ed is gone and they can express it they do.

then, once they think ed is gone for good— it's curtains for ol’ izzy. fang and ivan would rather sail under the leadership of one oluwande boodhari, Genuinely Good Captain Material than spend one single more second dealing with izzy’s version of the same.

what saves izzy from meeting the devil at the bottom of the deep blue sea?

ed’s arrival, and ed’s desire to have a familiar face bring him tea. because he'd rather it be stede, but he doesn’t want to be alone; and izzy is still there while stede is gone, potentially forever as far as ed knows.

so, the text tells us: if there was any massaging of the crew going on, it was ed’s legend and the idea of what ed would do if he woke up and somebody had shoved his purse dog overboard keeping izzy afloat.

we know that, because they showed us.

so what the text shows us is ed, keeping him around even though nobody else has faith in him, managing izzy and knowing his mind well enough to do so successfully. we see ed ask izzy for tea once; to make up scenarios where izzy did that for so long he’s just tired of taking care of ed at long last is to ignore what we see, and just listen to what izzy tells us.

because what does ed say? that sounds stressful, izzy. sounds; not is.

i just wanna TALK to these writers, you know? jesus fuck.

he’s mocking izzy, because ed knows what the fuck is going on. he knows everything izzy claims to do and wants to take credit for, ed is actually doing and deserves the credit for. this is what it is, to exist in the world and look like ed: there is always, always a white person ready to take credit for your labor while they devalue you and say it's for your own good.

heartbreaking part loud: most of the time, they fucking believe it is. racism is also an unconscious reflex action, floating along in the cultural bloodstream, popping up in ways people don't often see in themselves, or care to investigate at all when someone points it out to them.

to wit: we know ed asked izzy to bring him lucius. he did not want izzy for comfort; we do not see izzy witness him cry, not once. pointedly: ed cries alone, once lucius is gone.

to ignore that and to assume izzy has been watching that happen, over and over and over because ed is erratic and lacks control and surely could not hide things from izzy, World’s Least Emotionally Intelligent Man, is to ignore ed’s version of events— and the version of events we see play out in front of our eyes— because we heard izzy’s point of view before we got the truth of the matter.

to take izzy at his word at first is understandable; he literally spoke first, and the action then showed his version of history to be untrue afterwards, episode by episode. these are careful writers and subtle ones to boot, so it’s easy to forget this is not a show where the curtains are just blue, leave the matter there and then filter all future action through what izzy told us to see.

and beyond that, we are all trained to see men like izzy as reliable sources and arbiters of empirical reality and history via the dominant culture set by those who most benefit from these assumptions. sadly, most media has at best a surface desire to break that narrative pattern. i very much know that in most shows, izzy would be reliable and ed would be erratic, and it would be a pattern repeated on accident without malicious will or conscious intent ever entering the chat— that’s what makes defeating it so hard to do. people genuinely do not mean to do these things, so they tell themselves they could not be doing it at all.

antonio espera (aka, poke) gives a whole speech about this in generation kill, another piece of media that considers these issues and (due to the subject matter and the real men it portrays) has the approach of presenting us a rainbow of izzys to understand, see them as fellow complicated humans worth empathy who have a specific history that made them what they are, then hold them to narrative account for the horrible things they do, anyway.

white man’s gotta rule the world, says the conventional wisdom via a us marine who combines dark humor and honesty when discussing his lack of ability to be a powerful white man and his job enforcing a broken fucked up power system for them. it’s just a job; and that’s just destiny.

on ofmd, they’re far more interested in building a world where none of that is the case at all.

#our flag means death #i want to be super measured and understanding on this one #but people who take izzy at his word and defend him and ignore canon to create a world where ed is literally a white man's burden?#it's just Not It #and i love the text in part for knowing that #seeing so much of fandom ignore it lowkey breaks my heart #also makes it an unfriendly space for poc fans #which ...sucks! very much sucks #this show is the rare show that knows implicit bias exists in the everyday #and not just in huge outsized monsters #they are engaging with racism and the toll it takes to deal with white people who mean well but don't get it yet #i really wish fandom could do more of the same #my ofmd meta

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