#i feel like my view of their relationship is more slowburn than most | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

awhimproned · 8 months

Text

"you don't actually want the thing you think you want", a nandermo retrospective

In this post of mine deep diving into the decision of guillermo staying human, I said I wanted to make a nandermo analysis at one point. I absolutely have no self-control so I immediately started working on it. So, welcome. This is it.

This post will attempt to analyze in depth two implications of the infamous quote from above by Yana Gorskaya:

It’s shipbaiting and we’ve got a storm coming

It’s slowburn and the importance of recognizing toxic dynamics even when enjoying the drama and the potential

The quote comes from this interview question right here:

It can be interpreted in a lot of ways and directions, the most prominent one being “and they were platonic all along. trust us you dont want them together” — it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth because I can see the showrunners dangling a carrot in front of a target audience until the finish line. Especially when one of the directors herself says and proves outright that nandor and guillermo have been framed romantically on purpose just by having the line “will they won’t they relationship” in the interview.

Keep in mind the admittance of will they won’t they directly out of Yana automatically eliminates the argument that the writers were strictly going for platonic friends. There’s no refusal. No going: yea no we dont know. They wrote nandor and guillermo to be romantic.

From there we have two routes we can take:

1) On the direction that they’re not having nandermo be a thing: This makes everything shipbaiting.

At least it’s not queerbaiting, I hear you say, both characters are queer. I’d argue shipbaiting is worse in this situation, because in this frame, it rather looks like the showrunners are using the certain attachment and sentiments of the audience to string people along:

Both of these characters are people of color, one is plus size, both of them queer. If it’s shipbaiting, this kind of alludes to discrimination, I’m afraid. It does not look good on the showrunners/producers’ part (when Taika’s name is attached, too. This man is literally in OFMD. Help)

And you don’t want to be like Jason Rothenberg; beefing with your own fandom, making writing decisons to spite them, kill a lesbian character after exploiting your sapphic audience and be infamous for the worst case of bury your gays, shipbait for seven seasons to hold the largest fandom in the audience to keep your views up, mistreat your POC cast members... etc. God, yeesh.

It’s almost incriminating in that sense, when they stopped floating around the idea of them and made it canon by dropping the “maybe he has feelings for you as well” line in season 3 and while guillermo was disguised as nandor. And have him be bitchy about gail. Everything about s3 told us that guillermo had a thing for nandor.

If nandor and guillermo were intended strictly as just a couple of pals, they could easily shut down the excitement and expectation for the ship, but instead they did those. It was a confirmation more than anything rather than a rebuttal.

But I guess for the shipbaiting case, the “rebuttal” was s4 when Guillermo was in his healing era, Nandor wanted a wife, and they resetted allathat in s3 to practically nothing.

As much as I’m going to use this as an opposition argument in section two, it also is a potential support for shipbaiting case, and that is the repetition of “friends” for nandor&guillermo that started becoming more of a thing in seasons 4&5. Especially s4.

It saw Guillermo outgrowing Nandor for a potential love interest when s3 had the biggest plot twist in their favor ever, it was going somewhere, and then they immediately established not only Guillermo finding a boyfriend in London, but also him having no hard feelings about Nandor wanting to find a wife when we all know how hard he’d taken Gail — and most important of it all, Nandor just wanting a Freddie of his own. It’s really weirdly romantic drama-centric with each of them getting partners & setting up for jealousy, but the writers subvert every trope, and instead do this weird shit with Nandor’s storyline where it’s purely a horror story from Marwa’s POV and he’s a horrible, selfish monster (and I was flabbergasted at the downward spiral his character took) — yet he’s incredibly “generous” to Guillermo because he chose to make his own Freddie rather than take his and let him go in the end, it’s all so very bizarre.

Which makes the shipbait even more outrageous. Because now it’s personal since it has more shipbait moments inbetween that don’t have heterosexual explanations. KEEP IN MIND THEY’RE STILL FRAMED ROMANTICALLY THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING AND THE WHOLE THING WITH DEREK IS A WHOLE CHEATING METAPHOR.

The equivalent would be that one scene in Sherlock BBC when irene goes “of course you are [in love with him]” to john and how the show keeps bringing up how other characters think they’re in a relationship and saying it. You never want to be like Sherlock, either. Ugh.

I’ve been in through enough queerbaiting&shipbaiting to know that it could definitely turn out this way, and I’m still half-expecting this to be honest. I’m also a big fan of ofmd and go, but they’re exceptions, not the norm, and as much as wwdits is a wildly revolutionarily queer show, there is enough material for it all to turn out to be nothing.

So, in conclusion: shipbaiting turns out to be worse than it is because it’s on purpose and there’s no salvaging it after the “it was friendship all along ❤️” insistence, there’s receipts and the actors are on board with it. And in a situation like things, there is only one thing to say:

At least we have fanfiction and the actors like the pairing.

2) On the direction that nandermo is a thing: “you don’t know what you’re asking for and you won’t like it if we give it to you right now” dilemma, aka “you don’t actually want the thing you think you want” —

which basically rounds up to yana meaning, if nandor and guillermo were to be a thing right now at this point in their relationship, it would be messy, abusive and toxic [and there are still other plots to explore and directions this pairing could/have to be taken before they become canon.]

“Yeah they are messy, toxic characters, we know what we’re asking for,” I hear you saying. And I say to that, no, you really don’t, and you would end up hating what they did with nandor and guillermo if they became canon before they were true equals. One example of this would be people switching on Olicity (Oliver and Felicity from Green Arrow, wildly popular crackship there was no hope and only the teasing of in the fandom before it became a real thing) after the writers rushed to make them canon and did them very wrong afterwards.

The allure of nandermo is guillermo breaking the status quo and catching nandor slipping by establishing himself as his equal, destroying the power imbalance completely, them standing as individuals with equal power if not guillermo flipping the dynamic upside down and asserting dominance over nandor this time when he was a mere familiar nandor couldn’t care less about before.

This process is still in progress as of season 5 and let me tell you this, them becoming canon during Guillermo’s familiar status would have been downright icky.

This show’s only other canon ship ladja is the most healthy, gomez and morticia-esque thing ever, they’re in love, they’re horny all the time, they are queer, they fuck other people all the time and encourage each other, they’re wildly protective of one another, the man steps up to be a single father of a child he isn’t obligated to look after and he doesnt let it derail his wife’s career or force motherhood onto her, like. Do you really expect they wouldn’t let nandermo cook enough before they are on this level of iconic and healthy before they become a thing?

Nandor wasn’t even able to admit that Guillermo was a friend to him (and to Guillermo’s face) up until season 5. In season 1 he was weirded out by even saying it, in season 4 he could only manage to say “best man” and immediately reverse when the word friend was brought up — “closest companion for 13 years” in the market fight & “i may have killed my friend” muttered to himself before guillermo comes bursting out the door, it’s like he didn’t want to admit out loud that Guillermo became very important to him in a very short amount of time. Half of the pairing consisting of a person who is unable to make it clear and known to the other how important and precious he is just doesn’t sit well in the case they are in a relationship.

And the power imbalance is still there even if you don’t see it or think it’s gone, albeit knocked almost even by “I can kill you if I want to but I don’t” assertiveness from Guillermo.

Because even in season 3 and 4 in instances Guillermo was able to best Nandor in power, he’s still inferior to and is in service of him — because he’s working for something he wants from Nandor, which Nandor of course keeps taking advantage of by treating Guillermo like a subservient familiar (although it keeps getting better as things change more and more) even if in name he’s a bodyguard.

Their relationship is that of employment in name, the nature of it is give-and-take, Guillermo says it himself in s3 Nandor is a boss more than a friend and he would still be have to be “friends” with him because he’s his boss. And let’s be honest, before Nandor really became found family to him and he himself realized that over the seasons, Nandor was a means to an end for Guillermo, he’s “Master”, not “Nandor”.

And from Nandor’s perspective, Guillermo is with him because he wants to be a vampire. Simple as that. It’s what allows Nandor to exploit Guillermo.

Imagine a premature romance happening in these circumstances, it’d be absolutely in abuse territory, you don’t make your significant other do the dirty work for you like that. It’s why boss-employee relationships are most of the times, forbidden in the workplace, because the boss holds some power over the employee and can very much have them do things that they don’t want to do.

Nandor would not be able to see Guillermo as an equal even when there are feelings involved, because I have to remind you, Nandor is a cruel bastard, and it would turn into one of those AITA posts real quick between them when Guillermo is fully in service of Nandor still.

And remember how Nandor treated his “love” Marwa, how fast he dropped her from his life once that “phase” was over, all the things he did to her, she was his significant other — yet he never connected with her, not really, she was just an accessory to him and this was supposed to be “love”; and the other side of the coin, how he keeps self-sabotaging and ignoring his real problem by filling the void with what he thinks is the solution, getting in the way of his own happiness.

This can’t be ideal from Guillermo’s perspective when imagining a relationship with him.

And now, change Guillermo’s gender. Imagine it being a woman who’s going through this. It’s putrid toxic when you think about it like that. And to think “she” would receive Nandor’s respect and equal footing once she became a vampire same as him — uhh... No, please, thank you. It’s less fun and more this is problematic when the tables turn, isn’t it?

Not to mention how open the vampires’ relationships and sex lives are, they are not monogamous. Guillermo is a very repressed and private Catholic, he wouldn’t be able to handle Nandor and Laszlo’s trysts. He has his own journey to go through for him to be also into open relationships because Nandor sure as hell won’t turn monogamous for him, this is wwdits.

Which is why the progress of “work relationship” to “official declaration of friendship” over the course of season 4 & 5 is very important in their dynamic, because it takes things into a more attentive, caring and intimate territory in which both openly care for each other beyond being Master and Familiar. They both grew tremendously as individuals. Guillermo admits he loves Nandor the most, Nandor is finally able to say that Guillermo is his friend and openly do acts of service and somewhat redeem his selfish actions in s4 when he was lashing out making dumb decisions and actively self-sabotaging because he was given the power instead of confronting leftover problems he was repressing from s3.

This solidifies their connection, makes it something undeniable that it affects a vampire who immediately is able to move on from another’s death. You’re shown again and again how they react to death and how insignificant it is to them, yet Nandor is close to tears when he thinks Guillermo is dead, falls to his knees even, and is even more disturbed and outraged when he thinks Laszlo is violating his corpse.

For the first time you see that more than an unhealthy codependency or a symbiotic relationship between a vampire and a slayer bodyguard/familiar, Nandor is emotionally attached to Guillermo.

Like, really attached that he will actually be kind and giving and forgiving — not only did he violate a vampire society taboo to kill a fellow vampire, but also overcame the pride and humiliation because he finally realizes Guillermo is much more important to him and that he actually doesn’t want to kill him when the anger lets up enough for him to see that. (Thank you Patton Oswald for your service)

And we don’t stop there. He accepts him as an equal and invites him to live together in the house, which proves that even when he was a slayer bodyguard Nandor didn’t see him as an equal, and after Guillermo is having problems with the killing side of being a vampire, he doesn’t humiliate or shame Guillermo through this. You‘d think he and the vampires would make fun of him endlessly, but they let Nandor organize this intricate ritual so all of them together can allow Guillermo’s decision to be as authentic and without pressure and shame as possible. You’d think that ritual room was prepared by Guillermo but everything is done by Nandor, so he proves he’s not entirely unable to function as a normal being who can live by himself, he’s just dramatic and likes to be pampered.

If you thought The Roast was an incredibly generous nandermo episode for me to think we collectively hallucinated it like a Goncharov moment, this final episode is downright fanfic. Nandor has never been this nice with Guillermo, EVER.

All of this is done right after Nandor’s official admitting that Guillermo is his friend. This is a crucial step in their relationship for Nandor to consider Guillermo to be more, and Guillermo to question just what they are.

And love can only work where there’s mutual affection and respect for one another. And the writers are gradually working up to achieve that while tackling individual character arcs for nandor and guillermo to get there.

The power imbalance I’m talking about is a thing that exists beyond the powers they hold over the other’s head, it is about what they think of each other as. What Nandor is to Guillermo, and what Guillermo is to Nandor.

They could only become canon without it being toxic is when Nandor can look at Guillermo and think — “This is my friend and not my servant” and when the carrot of vampirism isn’t hanging in front of Guillermo and he’s naturally an actual part of the friend group (so that he wouldn’t be mistreated while he’s Nandor’s partner too.)

And I really don’t think nadja out of nowhere saying “my best friend” about laszlo was a coincidental writing choice.

And we’re nearly there at this point. Mister Nandor nobody can betray me and get away with it the Relentless just let Guillermo get away with it, and not only that, he fixed everything for him. Everything. He didn’t even get jealous that Guillermo had a choice in staying human when he obviously would kill to be human in season 3. He just went “I will fix”. It’s the most selfless thing he did in the entire series and he only got competent and smart when it was Guillermo in question — he wanted to fix the friendship.

And in episode 8, he told Baron Afanas — “whatever Guillermo’s flaws may be [...]”

That suggests Nandor doesn’t see any flaw in Guillermo, and is unaware if they do in fact, exist. He genuinely likes Guillermo, enough to cry and mourn when he thinks him dead, enough to snap at the Baron and defend him until the end, enough to clutch his favorite sweater like a shock blanket. It was this episode that cemented Guillermo as indisposable to Nandor, and the season finale to establish how far Nandor would go and soften himself up (change) if it was for Guillermo’s sake, he’s never been that tender and considerate, ever with Guillermo,

and you could say at that point it could be because they were “equals” as vampires but Nandor knew what he would choose — the focus on his hands when he’s personally dressing guillermo (pride and prejudice hand flex, dont @ me). "don't be nervous we've all been through it" (gentle). "nothing you cannot handle" (encouraging). Making up an intricate ritual so that he wouldn’t feel pressured or stressed or shamed. "you wanna be a human, there's no shame in that". (These vampires clown on EVERYONE) "we're gonna make it happen". "you want me to do it?". "I don't know" "I do". Keeping Guillermo's old or spare glasses in his pocket like it was something he came across while he was destroying Guillermo’s things like some lover scorned and he saved it like it was some keepsake. “I'm sorry, Guillermo. That was the only way for you to figure out what you actually wanted”. The hand on his shoulder to comfort him and the patting. “It was a horrible and hard decision. I think you made the right choice.” (Nandor himself would have killed derek in a heartbeat if it was his decision to return to being a human, but he still spared Guillermo’s feelings because he knows how hard it was for Guillermo. Since when is Nandor considerate about another person’s feelings? Guillermo is special.)

He was so very unexpectedly gentle and he’s never ever been that way and I am still in shock about his honesty and the effort he’s put into helping. This was the biggest gift he could have given Guillermo, not the vampirism, but a way out of it when he didnt want it anymore, a choice. And he wouldnt have done that if he didnt deeply care for Guillermo —

And with that, we’re almost out of the toxicity zone into a yet new dynamic with them, one that isn’t about who’s dominant and who’s submissive, but them finally being able to stand on equal ground, if Guillermo isn’t asking for vampirism from Nandor anymore and isn’t implicitly going back to being his familiar.

If they’re going towards a romantic relationship, this was an important border to cross and a topic finally handled the way it needs to be addressed. The one thing that’s causing a chain of command in their relationship is gone. And anything can happen. Anything.

I don’t believe that line about cleaning up Derek’s body was meant to imply Guillermo was back to being a familiar for Nandor and that we are back to square one. His phrasing was extremely polite — “Now if you wouldn’t mind cleaning up Derek’s corpse before sunrise that would be great”. That’s not an order. Derek is Guillermo’s mess, so he has to handle it himself, it’s like saying “I’ve done all this and I even killed him for you, and the rest is yours to deal with,” — it’s like saying “I cooked, you do the dishes”, and Nandor is giving him space to deal with his decision, hell, he didn’t even tell Guillermo to clean everything else like he normally would, now that would suggest back to the status quo.

Season 5 was fucking HUGE for nandermo and all of guillermo’s dynamics with everyone. It still feels like a fever dream to be honest. They really went and got rid of what was clogging up the progress of their relationship. They’re just. Happening naturally. It’s a slowburn if it’s meant to happen eventually and the writers are being really careful with doing things in the right way for it to not become toxic.

You just gotta have some faith in the team and wait for it.

In conclusion: Yes fucked up relationships are fun. until it’s canon and people are making discourse on the internet about how abusive it really is when it could have been handled better. The ross and rachel-ification of nandermo is the last thing we need.

There’s definitely things I’ve missed because im purely making this post on mobile and it’s not as coherent as I’d like it to be, if I have, please don’t hesitate to tell me.

#nandermo #guillermo de la cruz #nandor the relentless #wwdits meta #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #wwdits s5 #wwdits spoilers #wwdits season 5

109 notes · View notes

im-abanana · 9 months

Text

Good omens 2 SPOILERS BELOW!

Let's start off by saying that I never, EVER expected that we would get canon Ineffable Bureaucracy, but here we are, and I'm so happy about it. 🥹

Most importantly, I'd never expected Gabriel and Beelzebub to be a mirror of Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship.

In season 1, Gabriel was the absolute fucking worst.

Self-centered, lacking emphaty, superb, following Heaven's rules to the letter, without a single question, and putting his job as an Archangel (or well, the Supreme Archangel, as we've learned this season) above all else, not really thinking much about Earth, humanity or the opposition's point of view/emotions.

Not only that, but he stubbornly refused to enjoy the life Earth- or anything/anyplace else but Heaven, really- could offer him, in the material (food, music, material objects, ecc...) and emotional sense of the term too, depriving himself of real friendship and love.

Then, he meets Beelzebub in the pub and, for the first time, he feels understood. After 6000 years of bearing the sense of loneliness authority and responsibility imply, and being stuck in his own, bigoted head, he finally finds someone who gets him.

On the other hand, Aziraphale has always been a... peculiar angel, to say the least. He has learned to perfectly blend in with the humans, enjoy their creations and Earth's delicacies, such as food, good music, books, magic tricks, etc... not only that, he "associated" with Crowley, a demon/sworn enemy, since the very beginning!

In season 1, Aziraphale defied God's plan, prevented the Armageddon and disobeyed the Archangels' orders just to keep living on Earth and keep seeing Crowley. Albeit he refuses to acknowledge it, he is a rebel, way more than Gabriel's ever been in 6000 years.

And yet, which one of the two decided not to take Heaven's crap anymore?

Who said "You're casting me down to Hell? Fine, I accept my fate" peacefully, almost happily, knowing they'd finally be with their loved one?

Who ran off to Alpha Centauri?

Who gave up everything they've worked for, everything they've ever known, everything they've believed in?

Gabriel.

And Beelzebub, of course.

To say I did NOT see this coming at all is an understatement.

Gabriel, the one filled with so much prejudice, ignorance and selfishness- his royal smugness, Crowley's words- chose Beelzebub and their happiness over everything, over God, only truly knowing them for like... what, 4-5 years (which is the timeskip between season 1 and 2)?

Aziraphale, as heartwrenching as it was to see, chose Heaven over Crowley (FOR NOW). After a 6000 years-old friendship/relationship!

Perhaps, having been so "distant" from Heaven itself, Aziraphale still sees it as something that can be "fixed" if led by the right person/angel (while Gabriel, being so involved in Heaven's management for millennia, probably knows better in that regard, and basically said "fuck it"- I mean, we've seen Metatron and God's behaviour, eesh), plus he's plagued by the guilt and fear of being a bad angel, and risk to Fall.

I believe Aziraphale still sees being a demon as a bad thing, he has this internalized idea he has yet to let go of. And I hope season 3 (hopefully, we'll get it!) will cover that.

Long story short, I loved this season, and I loved how they incorporated Gabriel and Beelzebub in the story.

Some might say their romance was "too quick", and while I would've loved to see more flashbacks, I think it fits.

The Ineffable Husbands are a slow, slow slowburn, and Aziraphale truly needs a wake-up call, to see Heaven for what it truly is: toxic and rotten, as Crowley said.

On the other hand, I liked that Ineffable Bureaucracy happened so "fast"- it's a nice parallel. Gabriel and Beelzebub- people who could be so fierce, cold, nasty and closed-minded in the past- immediately saw the love they had for each other, accepted it and let it change them completely.

Let them both become so affectionate with each other, too. Like, "my sweet", "wherever Beelzebub is, is my Heaven", "where Gabriel is, is forever my Hell", "I was coming to you", "silly angel", are NOT something I thought I'd hear 'em say 😂

Nor I thought "Everyday" would be their song.

#good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 spoilers #spoilers #ineffable husbands #ineffable bureaucracy #aziraphale #crowley #beelzebub #archangel gabriel #go spoilers

97 notes · View notes

fanfictilltheend · 6 months

Text

@bobgirllll asked for another snippet of my VERY DARK (not an understatement -- the entire story explores violence, cycles of abuse, trauma, murder, daddy issues, family issues, domestic violence, child abuse) Stepdad!Mechanic!Ex-Convict!Joel no outbreak, slowburn story.

First part of the story

Basically for context: this is backstory to joel and Y/N's relationship and second part of the story. He knows her for most of her childhood but NOTHING unsavory happens until she is of age!!!!!!! This is how he meets her.

Warnings: Abusive sibling, kids fighting roughly, implied past domestic abuse from a parent, a kid screaming curse words, sarah mentions, afab!you, small amount of blood from injuries, me just writing a self-indulgent intense family drama!!

IF ANY OF THIS make you UNCOMFORTABLE, please click AWAY! YOU are the CURATOR of your ONLINE EXPERIENCE ❤️

It’s Joel’s day off and he’s sitting on the couch in his new home. His back hurts, but that’s nothing new. He’s got an excellent view of their nice, big backyard with a wooden fence. The kind of home he would have liked to have given Sarah. He sighs. Technically, nothing is wrong.

Then he sees it. It takes him a second to realize what is going on. It’s a whirlwind. He sees the back gate open and two tumbling forms fall over the threshold onto the manicured grass. One form is bigger, a boy of about twelve or thirteen beating the shit out of a much smaller form, fists flying. The other form is a little girl, no more than eight, defending herself like her life depends on it. Perhaps it does with the way he’s going at her.

This must be the son, Aiden, and the daughter, Y/N.

He’s a good boy, really, but he has anger issues sometimes. He’s been through a lot. That’s what Erica said, but Joel does not see a good boy. He sees a bully. A disproportionately violent one at that. Nothing that tiny girl could have possibly done could warrant the brutality he sees before him.

Anger is something else Joel knows intimately, and that is what he greets when he runs outside to end the fray.

“Stop that!” he roars, pulling Aiden off of Y/N.

“Who the fuck are you!?” the boy screams, fury and hatred radiating off of his entire being.

He continues thrashing and punching at nothing as Joel restrains him.

“I’m gonna kill her!” he screams, his eyes bulging.

“What the hell happened?” Joel growls, still holding onto the livid boy–verging on young man.

“She ripped up my paper!” he bellows. “For no fucking reason! I worked hard on it!”

“It was a lie,” she says with so much conviction Joel almost flinches.

He looks down at the little girl, her nose bleeding, her right eye turning purple. She has tears streaked down her face, but she is not crying. Her shirt is ripped. The first thing he thinks of when he sees her is Sarah. Of course it’s Sarah, how could he not think of her? But this little girl is different, has a different look in her eye. This look is much harder and feels like she’s lived a thousand lifetimes. He thanks god Sarah never looked that way, but somehow he wants to hear about everything this little girl has experienced. Something twangs in Joel’s chest that he has not felt in what feels like an eternity.

“It was not a lie, you stupid bitch whore!” Aiden shouts angrily, still fighting back against Joel’s unrelenting grip. “Take that back!”

“No, you take it back! Dad is not a hero. You could’ve picked anyone to write about and you choose him? After everything he’s done?” she screams herself.

The sound of her voice is powerful but desperate. Joel feels himself needing to know more and bury himself deep inside her experiences.

“SHUT UP!” Aiden yells, finally ceasing his movements. A tear falls from his cheek.

“If I let you go, will you stop whooping your sister?” Joel snaps firmly.

“Get away from me, you stupid cuck!” Aiden curses, turning his energy to Joel. “Who the hell are you to me? Fuck you! I’m out of here!”

He wriggles out of Joel’s grasp and Joel lets him go and Aiden storms back out the rear gate, slamming it behind him.

“You alright?” he asks Y/N.

Joel crawls over on his knees, still upright, closer to her.

“Had worse,” she shrugs, running a hand through her messed-up hair.

She wipes the tears and blood from her cheeks.

Joel shudders to imagine what she means.

“He always like that?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “So you Mom’s new boyfriend?”

“Something like that,” he nods back.”’M Joel. Joel Miller.”

“I’m Y/N,” she says a bit mournfully. “Here,” she continues suddenly, reaching out a small hand to his cheek. She wipes blood (hers) gently off his stubbly face. “Didn’t mean to get ya dirty.”

Joel is nothing short of touched. He wasn’t even aware he could still have such a feeling. His cheeks go rosy pink. His heart pulses. He stares at her delicate hands and notices a long, thin scar on her left middle finger.

“‘S no trouble, sweetheart,” he hears himself reassuring her. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Could even mend your shirt if ya want. Know how to sew and all.”

He reaches out a large hand, but she flinches at the sudden movement. A dull ache wells up in Joel’s chest.

“Not gonna hurt you, honey. Swear it.”

He wants with every fiber of his being for her to believe him, for it to be true.

She takes his hand.

Comments/thoughts/likes/reblogs welcome!!!

37 notes · View notes

39oa · 7 months

Note

f1 fics u wish existed, go <3

oh anon... you are so kind for indulging me!!!

i feel like i'm going to sound insane for half of these but here are some ideas i've been floating around in my head that i would love to simply stumble upon fully realized :3c

first of all i desperately need engineer!oscar content in my life (whether that be the fanart i say i'll draw and then never do or 40k landoscar slowburn longfic)... unfortunately though i have no idea what the plot would be. then some other concepts i've always wanted to read for them include umm 1) alternate reality wherein drivers are basically contractually obligated to mind-bond with their teammates (for the ~feedback~ and track strategy) + lando being oscar's first bondmate because it's not a thing in f2 and the tension that arises from unstoppable force vs immovable object... bonus points for mark having weird toxic self-preservative views on bonding that he tries to project onto oscar from his time with seb and oscar being like ? mate what. unfortunately i love my f1 fanfiction vaguely dystopian and rife with uncomfortable labor ethics... also 2) jendo may or may not be my favorite lando ship so i would happily eat unrequited jendo where oscar becomes lando's Convenience Relationship and then all the weird complicated emotions of being dependent on someone who inherently pities you :/

also i always want more domestic jondo bantz 😔

ok i feel like this answer is already way longer than it should be so apologies but ANOTHER f1 au i've always wanted to read is any kind of severance au !!!!! 😭 i was obsessed with the concept last year but the problem i encountered is that i think mxl or brocedes are the most suitable ships and i don't really feel that strongly about either... i think you could do soooo much with severance universe + fia regulations though for example one idea i had was that different constructors follow different policies and of course severance in sports is like a hotly contested issue and red bull either 1) universally make their drivers undergo severance which max somehow avoids by pretending to be severed his whole career or 2) make all the 2nd drivers undergo it but max is so good at ~compartmentalization~ that he's internally spared... and obviously this would majorly frame the tragedy of their relationship and dr's career trajectory but well. i had more notes on this but i don't even really ship them so i'll stop!!!

#a #final answer is that i love all mixed media and epistolary elements so any of that for any ship ever tbh!!

14 notes · View notes

characterevaluationcuzwhynot · 3 months

Text

Ross Geller and What Would've Made Him A Better Character

This post is more a note to myself in order to understand my own thoughts and I am in no way stating I’m correct or have the ‘right’ views.

I love Ross in friends don’t get me wrong I thought he was funny and I enjoyed him a lot whenever he was on screen. This is also not in any ways hate on David schwimmer his portrayal of the character was phenomenal however I do have some grievances with the writing of Ross’s character as a whole.

Ross whilst a great character has always felt a bit lackluster to me, a little less authentic than the rest of the friends. It took a while but I realised the reason I didn’t enjoy him as much as the other characters and truly empathise with him was down to three main factors:

Love

Backstory

Jealousy (MARK)

Love: I really do like ross and rachel as much hate as ross and their relationship gets I feel them as endgame was the correct choice, I just don’t like how the writers went about portraying their story on a whole. I also don’t like the way ANY of Ross’s other relationships were portrayed either. I found that most of the time we saw Ross or had a Ross centered episode/moment that wasn’t funny it almost always had to do with his current romantic relationships and it bugged me.

I felt that it was almost lazy writing and we never really got many substantial moments with Ross’s character and didn’t get much growth with him on a whole. I also found most of his relationships aside from romantic love needed a lot more nuance which I will now list some of (ROMANTIC INCLUDED):

Carol - I wish she had more screen time personally even if a new actor was necessary as I think she should’ve played a lot more vital of a role in Ross’s story. In season 1 I wish that instead of shying away from her character and constantly making lesbian jokes we got to see more of her as an honest and kind hearted woman who truly didn’t want to hurt ross but couldn’t hide how she felt anymore. I wish we could’ve seen as Ross grew to understand and accept Carol as well as Susan.

Rachel - A lot of rachel and ross will be in the last section so bare with me. I for starters think the writers had their relationship flipped in the way they made it progress, I would’ve preferred a slowburn to start with instead of to end with. I think a lot of stuff that happened in their relationship to hurt it was Ross’s fault and it upsets me that the writers never capitalised on this and helped Ross grow and instead focused more on Rachel whilst Ross fond another partner a few episodes later.

Pheobe - I think he should’ve had a lot more solo time with phoebe in ways that didn’t involve her helping him with his romance. Pheobe challenges Ross in every single way right down to his beliefs and I feel she could’ve played a vital role in his growth.

Ben - Even if again a new actor was needed I feel Ben should’ve been a major part of Ross’s storyline, Ben was a character that could’ve helped Ross deepen his understanding of his own emotions by simply existing and learning to be a human. I feel if Ross and Ben had been focused on we could’ve got to see a completely new Ross as the innocent questions of his child about life could’ve had him reflect on his own and make changes to stop some of his worst habits.

Backstory: This one probably won’t make sense to other people but oh well. I think we should’ve spent more time on Ross’s backstory and his relationship with his mother. Whilst Monica definitley needed that focus I wish we had more nuance to Ross’s relationship with his parents, I feel a lot was left unanswered their. Is Ross guilty about Monica? Does Ross feel overwhelmed by his mother? Does Ross struggle with being the centre of attention? Does he feel pressure to be perfect? Is he constantly keeping an act with them to be their golden child?

So many questions that I don’t know the answer to. Ross’s backstory just feels shallow in comparison to the others, the writers made Ross out to be spoiled and gave off the impression he liked that Monica was in his shadow. It all just felt way too boney there was no fleshing out of the backstory whatsoever.

Jealousy: This is by far the biggest gripe I have with Ross’s character is his unwavering Jealousy, the first time it was present in a very bad way was with Mark in my opinion, the way he acted was completely unreasonable and I hate that the writers made it so his actions were founded cuz ‘ah see he does like her’ it completely ruined the experience for me. Ross being a jealous character is okay, characters need flaws especially at the start of shows. My issue is that this flaw of his in particular was never expanded on, he simply just was jealous It was this that ruined the ending of the show for me when Ross and Rachel got together because he was still a jealous person that hadn’t changed and it annoyed me, a lot of Ross and Rachel’s problems stemmed from jealousy especially on Ross’s side and I feel we should’ve been given growth with that.

It could’ve happened progressively with the ten billion relationships he had in the show. It could’ve happened with monica in order to flesh out their sibling bond even more, hell it could’ve even happened with his son or daughter and how parenthood effected his ways and made him feel the need to grow up a bit.

It annoys me because I feel the character would’ve been ten times better if we got to see him work through his Jealousy as the show went on, their would’ve been set backs and it would’ve been gradual but I would’ve loved it.

Overall I think Ross is an unfinished character who would’ve been so much more reccepted by the audience with changes made in these categories.

#friends #ross geller #monica geller #friendship #joey tribbiani #f.r.i.e.n.d.s #rachel green #character traits

2 notes · View notes

unladielike · 1 year

Text

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐈 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐌𝐘 𝐑𝐏 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖.

I like to be called: Livi, but I don’t mind any other nicknames used for me!

one thing you should know about me: Despite being a queue-based blog, I tend to be very fast with replies if only because I just generally don’t have a lot on my plate, meaning I very often have nothing I owe even after reblogging memes or posting open starters... to the point where it’s quite common my replies would either post later on today or tomorrow. That, though, is no fault of my mutuals! I just happen to have abysmal luck when it comes to posting at a time where my stuff isn’t easily drowned out by more active folks or when more of my partners are active. However, to prevent burn out, I’m more than happy to slow down my reply speed for those who might already be overwhelmed and would appreciate a longer turn about time when it comes to threads! I’m unable to take hints, though, so unless you request me to withhold replies, chances are high I will keep replying very fast without really knowing you’re overwhelmed by my speediness.

thing you should know about rping with my character(s): Vivian isn’t very easy to ship with. Granted, as long as she happens to like a muse platonically, chances are high she would agree to date them (especially when it comes to her default modern verse where she’s 20-22), but her actually being happy in that relationship would be another story altogether, so there’s a chance she would grow to resent your muse for trapping her in a monogamous relationship she can’t escape from.

And even in the event she does fall in love with your muse, Vivian is still a very obsessive/destructive person, so unless they happen to be fem-aligned, she will attempt to push boundaries and do very questionable/inappropriate things (like tattooing their name somewhere on her body, stealing their underwear, etc), to the point where your muse would potentially have trouble staying in love with her.

Fem-aligned muses have it way better, though, because she generally tends to be less sexually attracted towards them compared to masc-aligned muses, but her having compulsive sexual behaviour means she still might send them inappropriate texts when they’re out with friends or say very questionable things to them (ie: ‘You know, your clothes would look much better on the floor’) very impulsively.

In her older modern verse (where she’s 24+), however, Vivian is more likely to turn others down/enforce boundaries, especially since I default her to have gotten out of an abusive relationship with her ex-girlfriend and ended up having these sorts of thoughts when it comes to love; therefore, she’s less receptive to the idea of commitment/being in a relationship overall. Either way, she’s very much a slowburn oriented muse and will probably spend a long time, remaining oblivious to the fact your muse views her in a romantic light.

joy to work with: ...Gosh, that is certainly an open-ended question. Of course, those I have actually gotten around to writing with (and who I have not unfollowed/blocked at some point) are all genuine gems to me, but as of now, the ones I talk most with are @spiritpyro and @eliteimperialism, if only because I’ve known them the longest and find myself being the most comfortable around them. Then again, even though I have no qualms really communicating with others, I’m also not exactly much of a talker, so my social circle on Discord happens to be very small; therefore, I’ll sometimes end up feeling very lonely/inept due to this.

It also doesn’t help that I have more creative energy than social energy, meaning I often spend a long while, typing and re-reading what I wrote like a paranoid autistic bean because I’m terrified of accidentally offending someone... that trying to maintain conversations with others is very draining for me. In short, I suck at befriending most of my partners without writing with them/feeling them out for a while.

first language: Cantonese, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve lost most of my ability to actually speak it, OTL.

age range: under 13 | 14–17 | 18–22 | 23–25 | 26–29 | 30+ | 40+ | 70+

am I okay with nsfw?: yes | no | some nsfw (While I don’t mind NSFW themes, I’m very picky with who I actually write smut with.)

this rp blog: does contain ooc posts | doesn’t contain ooc posts | occasionally contains ooc

TAGGED BY: Nobody. I ended up stealing this from Rae!

TAGGING: Anyone who is currently wearing socks, i guess.

#⸾ ❖︎ ⸾ ( DASH GAMES ) ⤹ •• 𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕤.#⸾ ❖︎ ⸾ ( QUEUED ) ⤹ •• 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕝𝕚𝕓𝕣𝕒𝕣𝕪.#[ OOF... i ended up rambling again ]#[ BUT IF YOU ENDED UP READING THROUGH ALL OF THIS DESPITE IT BEING LONG AF you deserve a cookie! ]#[ and yeah i should probably talk to more people but me being an anxious introvert kinda makes that difficult otl ]#[ I SWEAR I'M TRYING MY BEST TO BRANCH OUT THOUGH ]

4 notes · View notes

inner-sakura · 2 years

Text

Hypothetically Ever After

[childhood friends AU, adrienette, slowburn, fake/pretend relationship]

With only two weeks of summer vacation to spare, Marinette enlists Adrien’s help with a task of utmost importance.

“I need you to help me seduce your brother.”

Quite predictably, nothing goes according to plan.

a fic inspired by jennifer echols’s the boys next door, and starrycove’s Brothers AU (where PV Félix is Adrien’s older brother) because both of them have lived in my head and my heart for many years.

read the rest: AO3 | ff.net

chapter thirty-four

At some point over the course of the evening, Marinette managed to acquire a drink—a can of some kind of beverage she hadn’t bothered to read the label of. All she had cared about at the time was that it was unopened and blissfully cold. It served as a welcome relief from the heat, and had the added bonus of occupying her hands.

The can was sweating in her palm, condensation dripping down between the cracks of her fingers; a wet and unpleasant reminder of how sticky the air was, even though the air-conditioning was blasting in the house.

There were so many people crammed into every room that the A/C wasn’t doing much, helpless to combat the heat produced by that many bodies pressed together, drinking and laughing and generally having a good time.

Although Marinette was admittedly doing very little of any of those things at the moment.

Apart from the former... She contemplated the soda in her hand, standing alone in the far corner of the dining room. She didn’t particularly have the stomach for anything stronger, what with the heavy weight that had been sitting in her abdomen since her run-in with Adrien.

Marinette knew she should be doing something—checking on Félix, perhaps. Or maybe attempting to reconcile with Adrien, if that was still a possibility. Hell, even the idea of giving up and heading home with her tail between her legs sounded better than several more hours of standing in plain view, waiting for someone to take pity and talk to her.

A droplet of water rolled down her pinky, landing on her foot with a cold plop.

God, I have never felt like more of a loser.

Yet, instead of cutting her losses and running, Marinette remained rooted in place; just another decorative fixture against the wall, observing the party as it continued on without her.

She was in the middle of feeling particularly invisible and sorry for herself when she began to pick up snippets of the conversation happening to her right.

There was a group of about five or six teens seated around the dining room table, most of whom had been there since she’d wandered in. She hadn’t really paid them any mind at the time—too caught up in her brooding to register what they were talking about. They were loud, she’d noticed, and a bit obnoxious, but then again the ear-splitting volume of the music certainly wasn’t conducive to intimate, toned-down conversation.

Although she’d be willing to wager that the assorted bottles of liquor scattered around them weren’t helping matters either.

It was then, as she was surveying their makeshift graveyard of recyclable materials, that one of the teens leaned back, propping his feet up on the smooth, polished surface of the stately dining table. Marinette felt her soul leave her body.

What is this guy, some kind of barn animal? She recoiled, filled with horror at the sight. She had half a mind to march over and tell him to put his nasty feet back on the floor where they belonged, regardless of whether she lived there or not.

She stepped forward, only to freeze at the last second when the topic of their conversation finally registered.

“So anyway, I said to him, I was like ‘there’s no way you can do it, bro,' cause he’s such a wimp when it comes to heights. Then he tried to argue with me, getting all pissy about it. But in the end, he still wouldn’t go unless I did it first!” The guy with his feet up on the table threw his head back and laughed loudly, his perfectly straight pearly white teeth flashing against the deep golden colour of his skin. Marinette supposed that by most definitions he might be considered handsome, at least for those that were into that sort of Ken doll, Country Club aesthetic. In fact, everything about their crowd kept with the sort of meticulously groomed, manufactured attractiveness she had come to expect from the people in Adrien and Chloe’s social circles. Human flaws and physical imperfections were weaknesses that people with money simply did not possess.

“Was it scary?” The girl beside him asked breathlessly, blinking her wide doe-eyes at him. He preened under her attention, puffing out his chest as he tried to play it cool.

“It was no big deal. I’ve done it plenty of times,” he sat up, leaning towards her as his tone of voice dipped into something more provocative. “We could do it together sometime... I’ll even let you hold my hand the entire time, if you want.”

The girl tittered, twirling a strand of blonde hair around her finger and shrugging her shoulders in a way that drew attention to certain of her… god-given attributes. His gaze fell, abandoning her face entirely in favour of her not inconsiderable bosom.

Marinette looked away, staring hard at the wall across from her, trying desperately to prevent her nose from wrinkling with disgust.

Please lord, end my suffering.

“I don’t know… It seems kind of dangerous, don’t you think?” Marinette couldn’t tell if this coquettish routine was actually part of some elaborate courtship display, or whether the blonde had genuine compunctions about whatever activity they were discussing. Either way, the dark-haired guy she was talking to clearly had hopes for the former, judging by the way he was looming almost aggressively into her space now.

“It’s a total adrenaline rush, unlike anything else. Better than getting high. Almost better than sex,” here he threw the girl a wink that in his mind was probably the epitome of seduction. Marinette wanted to gag.

What a sleazeball.

Eyeing the doorway nearest to her, Marinette debated whether it might be better to retreat before tongues and hands started wandering to dangerous places. The couple closest to her and the rest of their friends clearly hadn’t noticed her lurking in the corner, but if she were to leave now, they might think she’d been deliberately standing there, eavesdropping on their conversation. Which… technically she had been. But that was more a result of necessity, rather than any genuine desire on her part. She hadn’t actually wanted to sit in on their swaggering and posturing and horny teenage mating rituals—she’d been backed into a corner.

Both figuratively and literally speaking.

Although truth be told, it wasn't like she really had anything better to do or anyone else to hang out with. She grimaced, the image of Adrien’s back disappearing in the crowd flashing through her mind unbidden, accompanied by a sharp pain.

“Make sure you put on a good show.”

Marinette shook her head, a vain attempt at dislodging the grip those words still had on her. That was not a path she could afford to wander down at the moment.

Desperate for a distraction, she tuned back into the conversation just in time to catch the tail end of whatever His Royal Sliminess had been saying.

“—it’s just bridge jumping, love. You’ll be totally fine.”

Oh my god, of course they were talking about bridge jumping, Marinette fought the urge to roll her eyes. Or burst out laughing. They fit the exact demographic of people she had come to associate with the activity. Young, dumb, and full of more hormones than common sense.

It made perfect sense, actually. In an idiotic, brain-dead sort of way.

How fucking dumb do you have to be? She wondered silently.

It was only when heads began to turn towards her that Marinette realized, with a rising sort of dread, that she might not have been so silent after all.

-x-

Surprisingly enough, the blonde was the first to find her voice.

“Excuse me?” She asked, her brows arching in disbelief. The wide-eyed ditzy look she’d been wearing moments earlier had vanished, melting into something harsher and meaner. Less doe-like, Marinette noted from a distant corner of her brain—one that wasn’t busy screaming bloody murder—and perhaps something with more teeth. And sharp claws.

“What did you just say?”

Marinette’s mouth went dry.

Both the blonde and her dark-haired companion were turned fully to face her, their expressions flat and unfriendly. With her chances of escape reduced to little more than a pipe-dream, Marinette cursed her big, fat mouth and its tendency to land her in hot water.

She swallowed thickly. There was no way back now, which meant the only way out of this hell was to go through it.

“I said that it’s dumb. Do you have any idea how dangerous bridge jumping is?” When her voice came out steadily and without the slightest hint of a waver, Marinette sent up a silent prayer of thanks to every named and unnamed god in the known universe.

She went on, gaining confidence. “Not only is it impossible to predict what might be in the water below, but you have to factor in passing boats and other watercraft—”

“Oh please,” the other girl scoffed derisively, rolling her eyes. The guy beside her glowered, his arms crossed over his chest as he tried to stare Marinette down.

“Have you ever even tried it?” The blonde asked pointedly, as though she already knew the answer. The people at the other end of the table were starting to look over now, clearly scenting the blood in the water.

“No.” Marinette gritted out reluctantly. I also don’t need to stick a fork in a light socket to know it’s a terrible idea. Some things just go without saying.

One of the other girls at the table leaned over, whispering in the blonde’s ear. Her eyes lit up.

“Of course, you haven’t!” She giggled. It was not a friendly sound. “The Agrestes have their lapdog so well-trained she probably doesn’t do anything without being told to first.”

They were all laughing now, a herd of jeering hyenas taunting their prey. Marinette felt her face flood with colour, a wave of humiliated anger crashing over her.

Tossing her blonde hair with what appeared to be long-practiced skill, the other girl looked around mockingly. “It seems like they’ve gotten tired of you, though. They upgrade to a newer, less dumpy pet already?”

Marinette stiffened, her mouth moving before her brain could catch up with what she was saying.

“I could jump off the bridge if I wanted to.”

The instant the words left her lips, she wanted to take them and shove them back down her throat. Especially when she saw the gleeful looks being exchanged around the table.

Oh, this is not good.

“Is that a bet?” The first guy asked, smirking at her as he took a swig of beer. Everything about his posture oozed condescension; his belief that she would back out and flee with her tail between her legs apparent.

This—this buttheaded little shit! Marinette clenched her jaw, irritated that she was even entertaining their nonsense in the first place. Anyone in their right mind would have laughed in their insufferably smug, made-to-order faces and told them exactly where they could shove their challenge. Or they would have kept their wits about them and just walked away like a sensible, rational human being.

In the end, there were several reasonable courses of action available to her, none of which involved standing before a den of wolves, frozen in deliberation.

Because as much as she might want to deny it, Marinette couldn’t help but wonder whether a part of her had walked into this conversation itching for a fight—rubbed raw and confrontational after the last few hours of turmoil.

She was desperate for anything that might distract her from the fact that everything was falling apart, Adrien wasn’t speaking to her, and all of her best-laid plans and good intentions hadn’t done a particularly good job of paving the way to hell.

You don’t want to do this, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Adrien’s whispered.

Her resolve hardened.

You don’t get to tell me what I do and don’t want anymore.

“It’s a bet,” Marinette said, reaching out to shake hands with the devil.

-x-

Naturally, it didn’t take long for everything to catch up with her.

“Of all the stupid no-good decisions I have ever made, this one might take the cake,” Marinette slapped at a tree branch, cursing when it rebounded and whipped her across the side of the head.

Screw stupid teenagers and their stupid challenges. She could be at home right now, curled up in front of the TV in her pyjamas, drowning her sorrows in a pint of ice cream. Or whatever it was that people were supposed to do when they’d had their heart broken for the first time.

Instead, she was traipsing through the woods at sunset, wondering how in the hell things had managed to go tits up quite so spectacularly.

Continuing along the forest path, Marinette focused on putting one foot in front of the other, her thoughts rapidly cycling between stewing over what had just happened and berating herself for rising to the bait in the first place.

If she had any modicum of intelligence, she would turn around on the spot and head straight home. To hell with bridge jumping, and her pride, and every single extenuating circumstance that had led her up to this moment.

And yet, a small, unwelcome voice pointed out, it will probably make for a good show...

Before the thought had even finished forming, Marinette was shaking her head in disgust. She ruthlessly tamped down on the voice, annoyed with her brain for having considered the notion in the first place.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted Félix’s attention anymore, let alone badly enough to risk life and limb for it.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID!” She growled, clomping through the underbrush, angrily swatting branches away and fuming all the while.

If anything, her ire served as a welcome distraction from the dread that was dragging at her heels, each step that drew her closer to her destination falling heavier than the last. She was beginning to catch glimpses of the bridge now, brief flashes of metal and water peeking through the leaves.

Her stomach clenched.

If she wasn’t so busy seething, Marinette probably would have had the common sense to be terrified of what she was about to do. Realistically, she knew that people had been bridge jumping all summer, and no reports of injuries or accidental maiming had reached her ears.

Still, that didn’t make the sight of the old metal rail bridge looming above her any less daunting.

She gulped, her throat going dry as she came to a break in the trees.

It was too late to turn back now. Her pride was on the line.

Besides, even if she didn’t care about getting with Félix anymore, doing this might be the only way to get Adrien’s attention long enough for him to actually speak to her again.

It was stupid, and foolhardy, and unbelievably reckless.

And yet, as she toed her sandals off on the shore, Marinette understood with a startling sort of clarity—the kind that only came in the wake of a sudden rush of adrenaline—that it was absolutely, one hundred percent going to happen.

The distance doesn’t look that far from here anyway. I’m sure it’ll be fine...

A trickle of sweat traced the curve of her spine, settling at the small of her back.

Probably.

She shivered at the unpleasant sensation, stripping out of her clothes and down to her bathing suit as quickly as possible, not wanting to linger any longer than she had to.

It was obvious that people had been in the area recently. The path up to the top of the bridge was clear and surprisingly easy to navigate, even in her bare feet.

It’ll be fine, I can do this. Marinette repeated the words like a mantra as she climbed, willing her racing heart to slow.

Her determination had all but crumbled to ash by the time she made it onto the body of the bridge, however.

The old steel was warm under her feet. Luckily the platform wasn’t facing the direction of the setting sun, otherwise it would have been burning hot to the touch. Although even the thought of scalding the soles off of her feet seemed like a more appealing alternative to her current reality.

She risked a glance down, taking in the seemingly never-ending drop to the water.

Marinette wavered, nearly paralyzed by fear as she stood on the small platform, suspended on an ancient rail bridge some ungodly distance in the air.

Thankfully there was no one around to hear the sound of the great, heaving breaths she was taking.

“Okay—this—isn’t—so bad.” She managed to choke out, cursing her feeble lungs and the gods that had burdened her with them. “It’ll be f-fine. I can—I can DO THIS.”

Clenching her hands into fists, she tried to imagine balling up all of her fear and anxiety into one solid mass the size of a baseball. Then, she pictured herself biffing it across the lake, far into the mountains beyond. It didn’t really help.

The wind pulled at her hair, its inquisitive hands coiling around her ankles and stirring up the water below.

The shakiness in her knees began to travel up her legs, jangling all the way to the bone.

Marinette let out a strangled gasp, quickly turning her gaze to the shoreline, desperate to find some kind of anchor point.

From her position, she had a perfect view of the Agrestes’ backyard, and the party that appeared to be gaining, rather than losing steam. In fact, there were far more people outside than she’d expect to see; droves of them floating across the lawn and patio like brightly coloured bugs.

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Word had obviously gotten around about what she intended to do, judging by the turnout.

“Great,” she muttered. “One order of public humiliation, coming right up.”

Marinette scanned the groups dotting the backyard, searching for any familiar silhouettes. It proved to be somewhat of an exercise in futility though; the distance too great for her to pick out people’s features with any accuracy.

Even still, she couldn’t help but keep an eye out for any flashes of blonde among the crowd.

After several moments, she shifted her focus from any tall blonde-haired figures that may or may not appear, choosing instead to gaze off in the direction of the sleepy blue mountains bracketing the lake.

“How the hell did I end up here?” She asked them, letting out a somewhat hysterical laugh when the reality of her situation began to sink in. Her current physical predicament was the stuff of her literal nightmares, and yet it might actually be the least of her worries at the moment. Because the stretch of air below her feet was infinitely less terrifying than the possibility that she might very well be on the verge of losing Adrien for good.

Marinette choked back a sob, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth as she blinked the sudden onslaught of tears from her eyes.

I just want things to make sense again.

She wanted to go back to when things were more straightforward; back when she’d had feelings for Félix and not Adrien, and her mind had been consumed by thoughts of how handsome Félix was, instead of thinking about how much she wanted to hold Adrien’s hand, and how good it felt to kiss him, and how desperately she hoped she’d be able to find a way to fix things between them.

“What am I doing?” Her eyes fell to the lake below, as though it held all the answers she sought.

But it remained murky and vague; its waters entirely uninviting.

This whole situation was so stupid. She needed to return to the party, find Adrien, and tell him exactly how she felt. Even if he didn’t feel the same way about her, she needed to get it off her chest. She’d deal with the potential awkwardness and the heartbreak and all the other side-effects that came with an unrequited love later.

Because Marinette now knew, with absolute certainty, that the thought of losing Adrien Agreste was worse than confronting even her worst of worst fears. She would rather face down a thousand-metre freefall than the possibility of an entire lifetime without him in it.

Not having Adrien in her life in some way was simply not an option, she decided.

Emboldened by her newfound clarity, Marinette turned, intent on making her way back down to solid ground.

Only to be met by the wall of black clouds that was rapidly descending over the lake, hazy with rain and flickering with lightning.

Her eyes widened.

“Oh fuck.”

-x-

#ml fanfic #miraculous ladybug #adrienette #marinette dupain-cheng #adrien agreste #adrinette #ml fic #miraculous fanfic #ml fic recs #no miraculous au #ml fanworks #ml brothers au #childhood friends au #ongoing fic #hypothetically ever after

11 notes · View notes

sylverfaeland · 8 months

Text

Thank you for tagging me, @rey-jake-therapist! This is so fun, I'm so glad you did!

I had a real existential crisis when I discovered tropes and noticed I could not escape them when writing, so participating in this game now is very funny to me!

Rules: How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic?

• -10 -> very dissuaded

• 0 - don't care either way

• 10 -> very enticed

• nope -> if it's a hard no and you'd never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you'd insta click out of the fic if it wasn't tagged

Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it's conditional.

Age Gap: -8

This one is something I find incredibly disgusting in real life and in most stories, too. If the age gap is huge and one of them is below the age of 25. But if the age gap exists because one is a human and the other is an entity or supernatural being, I'm totally in favour.

Codependency: 10

I know this is a polemic one, but I don't agree with how most people view codependency. In my opinion, as someone who believes in soulmates and romantic love being the greatest thing a living being could ever experience, codependency seems like a natural part of it to me. Dependency is very toxic when one-sided, but when it is mutual, it makes a lot of sense. To me at least! How could one survive without their soulmate? There is no life without them. That's exactly how I feel about mine.

Enemies to lovers: -9

I find this one irritating at best and borderline toxic at worst. There are some rare stories where it works (Dramione and Tomione, for example, love those), but I dislike it very strongly overall.

Enemies With Benefits: nope

I'm demisexual, so nope. It makes no sense to me. Sex is the greatest connection a human can have with another; it is magical. I don't understand how one could ever do it with someone they do not love, let alone hate. I can't even read this one. It's a real nope.

Fake Dating/Relationship: -5

I wouldn't read anything with this trope because I only read what I love, but I've watched a few silly movies with it. I didn't have to really use my brain; it was fine. It's a silly and unrealistic trope, but it's not bad or anything.

Found Family: 10

Love it. As someone who is strongly against the idea that blood equals family, this one makes me super happy!

Friends to Lovers: 5

This one depends. I really dislike the childhood friends who've never been interested in one another and suddenly fall in love. It makes no sense. Or when one of them has had a crush on the other since childhood and it's completely one-sided, but they end up together anyways because the writer is incompetent, especially if there was a better option for one of them or both. *cough* Barchie *cough*

But, if done right, this trope can be quite beautiful.

Friends with Benefits: nope

Again, sex is love. In my opinion. So nope.

Hurt/Comfort: 10

This is one of my favourites. All stories need at least a little bit of it to be good. I love it!

Love Triangle: nope

C'mon, I believe in soulmates. Loving two people at the same time makes no sense to me. And this one is horribly executed most of the time, too.

Mistaken/Hidden Identity: -5

This one paired with slowburn is the recipe for driving me insane. I'm so sorry for all the Ladybug fans. I could never. I'm too impatient.

Monster Fu... Relationship: 10

I don't know what the 'Fu' stands for, so I hope I'm understanding this correctly. But I love monsters. Especially as romantic interests. And even more so if they're incredibly powerful and ancient. Vampires, to be more exact. I love vampires. I don't know if entities and gods are included in this, though, but I love those even more than vampires. I don't like werewolves, zombies, or Frankenstein-like monsters, though.

Obsession, Possessiveness, etc: nope/10

I have two different ratings for this one because if obsession and possessiveness come with control and abuse, I hate it. It's disgusting and a nope. But if it's more of an "I love you so much I want to crawl beneath your skin", or a possessiveness that expresses itself in protectiveness and needing to keep the one you love safe, then I love it, and it is a 10.

Opposites (like grumpy x sunshine, etc): 2

This one can be really cliche, but it's cute. It doesn't annoy or bother me, but I'm not a fan of it either. It's whatever.

Poly: nope

Respect it. But it's a nope for me.

Pregnancy: nope/10

Another one with two, opposite ratings.

If it includes any type of misogyny, it's a nope. Like Bella almost dying in Twilight in order to give birth to Renaissance instead of getting rid of her. Like? If my life is at stake, I choose me. And so should all women. We should never sacrifice ourselves for our children or prioritise them above ourselves. That is a concept created by the patriarchy. It is misogyny. And it makes me really fucking mad. So if it involves any type of misogyny, I give it the most negative rating I could ever give to any trope. It's the one I hate the most.

But if the pregnancy comes as the fruit of an unconditional, epic love while the woman remains a free and independent character with a personality and a life outside of the child, then I do love it. Especially if both parents remain in love and prioritise each other first while being amazing parents to their children. It's a 10. All the precious and fragile things'verse (Morpheus x OC) is a perfect example of this.

Second Chance: 8

I love angst and tragedy with a happy ending, so a second chance is mandatory. But if cheating or betrayal of any kind is involved, it's a nope. One of the biggest nopes, in fact.

Sex to Feelings: 0

I can tolerate it if the romance builds beautifully afterwards, but I prefer feelings to sex.

Slowburn: 0

There are some I have loved. Percy and Annabeth were one of my first OTPs, but the slowburn almost made me lose my mind. I'm not patient enough for this one. I admire people who are, though. It can be beautiful, but to me, it is maddening.

Soulmates: 10

MY FAVOURITE ONE. I've been obsessed with the concept of soulmates my whole life. Need I say more?

This is the end. I don't have anyone to tag, so goodbye! This was fun!

#trope tag game #tropes #writing trope #trope talk

1 note · View note

practically-an-x-man · 8 months

Note

for the couples ask game #s 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 18, 24, 25, & 26 :)

thank you so much!!! can't tell you how excited I am to give these questions a spin :)

answers under the cut since there are a lot of them:

3. Have you ever written a soulmate AU? If you haven't, why would/wouldn't you write one?

Hm... sort of. I have an idea for a Witcher fic with a soulmate arc, though I haven't had time to actually write it yet. And there are elements of Heartstrings (my AHS Coven fic) that are similar to a soulmate plotline, though I've been trying to keep that one a little more "up in the air". I have complicated views on soulmate AUs and "fate" in general, so I tend to fiddle with the trope a bit when I do write it.

4. What's the fastest you've reached a romantic couple's first kiss (in words/scenes/chapters)? First "I love you"? Other landmarks?

Heartstrings has definitely been the fastest-evolving of all my fics, since we get an official first date in Chapter 3 and a slipped "I love you" in Chapter 8. However, I do think A Love Once New moves faster in terms of word count, since Heartstrings has longer chapters overall.

6. Have you ever started to write a relationship and had it develop differently than you expected? How so?

I was expecting Heartstrings to be more of a slowburn, and... well, as you can see from the previous question, it really didn't go that way.

7. Have you written any romantic couples that you think would be better off as friends? Or even enemies?

Not really? I have a lot of romantic couples that are also friends, because I love those sorts of relationships, but I think the romance there is also well-fitted.

10. [Couple] has just been struck by a magic spell, and now they're mortal enemies! What happens now?

Okay, you didn't specify so I'm just gonna pick one at random.... Ophelia and Peter. I feel like Peter would be less susceptible to the spell, since Ophelia's fairly morally-gray already, and he'd be the one to try and break the spell. And I feel like he'd succeed, though he'd have to survive Ophelia first - she's dangerous, and he couldn't stand to hurt her.

11. [Couple] has just stumbled into a fairy ring, and they've forgotten they ever knew each other! What happens now?

I'll do this one for Madison and Alex since I feel like that would be the most interesting. Neither of them are particularly emotional people, so it wouldn't be some "I've got a gaping hole in my heart and I don't know why" sort of melodrama, but I can't help but think that they'd start drifting back towards each other over time. Or hell, it's just as likely that the other X-Men would see what happened and try to mend things themselves, since they were so good for each other before.

12. [Couple] has just found an interdimensional portal, and one of them just walked in! Does the other go after them?

I don't think I even need to specify a couple for this one, the answer will always be yes XD

Strategies, now, that would vary. Some would plan, some would just dive in. Some would go immediately and some would waffle about the danger. But they'd always go after their loved one.

18. Pick a few characters you've written for (or, for a fun twist, asker chooses). Tell me about their relationship in three sentences or less.

Hm... I'll go with Quinn and Billy for this one. Their relationship is... really something.

Longtime friendship that was always a little more than a friendship. Power couple, but morality's still on the fence. They tease each other so much they almost don't seem like a couple... but nobody would ever doubt they're a couple.

24. When you write, do you focus more on the romantic relationships or the non-romantic ones?

I try to include a mix of both. In the nature of fanfic, there's a good amount of focus on the romantic couples in the story, but I do make it a point to build other connections between the characters. I actually put a lot of effort into making sure the romantic relationship is not the only relationship in the story - every character has family, friends, other connections outside their romance.

25. How important to you is the inclusion of sex in writing a romantic couple? Do you have any asexual characters?

So, I don't write smut. It makes me uncomfortable, and I just can't figure out how to make it sexy and not cringey. So that's the first thing - any spicy scenes I write are either implied or kinda dodge around the actual smut. Secondly, I feel like a good romantic relationship doesn't require sex at all. If it's well-written, the chemistry should speak for itself. Spicy scenes can be fun, but shouldn't be required for the relationship.

However, there are a few relationships where I don't want to leave it up to audience interpretation. This is generally in relation to my trans/queer couples, where I don't want anyone to willfully misinterpret their relationship. When I write those, I tend to be a little more candid about intimacy in their relationship, just because I don't want it to get written off or dismissed for not being cishet.

In terms of ace characters, my protagonist in Who Waits Forever Anyway?, Katherine, is outwardly asexual, as well as the character Adrianna in Heartstrings, Rae's sister Ginny in A Love Once New, Lita in Bolts and Blasters, and probably a whole host of other characters I'm forgetting.

26. Do you have any characters that are arospec or otherwise wouldn't enter a romantic relationship? How do they interact with the story?

Most of the works I write are romantic in nature, so at the moment I don't have any primary OCs that are on the aro spectrum, but Adrianna (one of Jasper's friends/derby sisters) in Heartstrings is aroace. In turn, she really values the friendships she's made in roller derby and view those as her most important relationships, though she's not above teasing her derby siblings for their romantic relationships. It's fun, right?

#my friends!!!#answered asks #ask game #my writing #my ocs #fanfic #fanfic author

1 note · View note

bigskydreaming · 3 years

Text

Brain topic du jour is reflecting on the frankly weird as fuck pattern in Dick’s life where....he barely ever experiences losses one at a time. Most of the loss he’s experienced in his life is compounded by him losing multiple people and other elements of stability all at the exact same time.

1) When his parents died, in some continuities this is coupled with him losing his extended family of his aunt and cousin as well, with his uncle left comatose and on life support for years before he eventually died as well. Even in continuities without Richard, Karla and John, the loss of Dick’s parents is compounded by the additional loss of his circus family in the sense that he was taken away from them by the state and their constant reassuring presences in his life were no longer comforts he was able to rely on.

2) When Jason died, Dick didn’t just lose his brother, as the tragedy was compounded by Bruce’s reaction. I’ll never be able to gloss over the effects of NTT #55, personally, because I think its too key to Dick’s entire characterization and the specific direction his character took in the years that followed this, to like....disregard that Bruce however unintentionally, while lost in his own grief, added to Dick’s own sense of loss for Jason in probably the worst way possible. As by kicking Dick out and telling him to leave his keys, Dick - having no way to know or guess that they’d ever reconcile, just like he never actually went back to the circus being a regular presence for him - to Dick, this was in essence the equivalent of his childhood tragedy all over again. Losing not just one family member, but his whole family in one sweep, and all the comforts and stability offered by a home he was forced to leave. Even Dick’s contact with Alfred was minimal for awhile, because why would the guy who basically JUST saw history repeat itself and was like, well I know how THIS tends to play out.....why would he think that if Alfred felt forced to actually choose between his loyalties to Bruce and Dick respectively, that Alfred would pick Dick over the man he’d known and raised from childhood himself?

3) Titans Hunt. I know I harp on this one a lot, but you can’t deny that it fits the pattern. Dick didn’t just lose one friend and teammate.....he lost Joey, he lost a good four or five lesser known Titans who nevertheless were people he viewed as directly HIS responsibility to keep safe. With these tragedies compounded by the fact that though comics played out a lot more slowburn and extended stories over years back then, like.....the aftermath of Titans Hunt was still everpresent and directly died into Dick’s reactions and emotions during the Mirage storyline and everything that happened with the failed wedding and his breakup with Kory AND the fact that he was literally forced off the team he’d basically founded, by the government agency that took over the team and appointed Roy as its leader in his stead.

3) Graduation Day. The second time the Titans disbanded it was again not due to a singular loss, because Dick didn’t just lose Donna at this point, but also Lilith died in the exact same story and though Lilith is criminally underused, like, she’s also one of Dick’s oldest friends. She was literally the first Titan to join after the original five. This then led into the Outsiders era, where Dick was shown to still be reeling from the losses of this story for an extended period of time, and in a fun parallel to the Titans Hunt aftermath, Dick was also ousted from his leadership of THIS team by essentially a vote of no confidence by his teammates (and uh, Bruce too, literally).

4) The Blockbuster arc. Where Dick’s emotional state was due to a continued string of multiple losses. He lost his apartment building and almost every one of the neighbors he’d built a community out of, as we’d been shown him actively involving himself in their lives and vice versa for YEARS before this point. Then he lost his circus, his childhood home, burned to the ground and with dozens of deaths - both spectators and actual performers Dick had known and loved as a child. Then he lost his relationship with Barbara, his sense of self-security and autonomy to Tarantula, he lost another teen vigilante who died in his colors, the mantle HE’D created, when Stephanie was believed dead in War Games, and it all culminated in losing the city he’d invested himself in as his CHOSEN home, the place he dedicated himself to protecting, when Chemo blew it up.

Oh just for the record - my nonexistent passport to the magical kingdom of Narnia for a fic that raises the point when bringing up Tim’s losses in the Red Robin era, that like.....ALL of the above happened at literally the EXACT SAME TIME as all Tim’s referenced losses occurred. Obviously Steph meant more to Tim than Dick on a personal level, but I also included her largely as an anchor point to the timeline, to show how that death, and not long after that Jack Drake’s and then Superboy’s.... occurred right smack in the middle of one of the absolute WORST periods of Dick’s life. To be clear, I don’t intend this to suggest that no actually, Dick had it harder than Tim - nah.

No thank you. Hard pass. I hate that sort of thing even in support of my own faves over other characters. No, instead the thing I’d love to see explored more is just in light of the SPECIFIC angle fics take here - that Dick’s actions while Bruce was lost in time showed an obliviousness to everything Tim had lost lately - for literally ANYONE to bring up or introduce into the timeline here an awareness of everything Dick had lost AT THE EXACT SAME TIME PERIOD. To establish that actually, Dick didn’t just ‘not understand what it was like’ - rather, its more accurate to say that nobody in universe around this time ever shows an awareness of Dick’s own losses and says oh wait, that doesn’t track then.

Because obviously, with this stuff put in proper perspective, Dick understands VERY VERY WELL the exact thing we’re accusing him of not understanding by being oblivious to Tim’s losses that he’s not actually oblivious to because he tries to talk to Tim about them all the time, while meanwhile its everyone else who has absolutely mum to say about the fact that Dick’s emotional state is compromised to hell and back at this point, not JUST because of losing Bruce, but also because *gestures wildly* literally ALL OF THE ABOVE in the exact same time frame Tim’s extended losses happened in.

And okay I am going to indulge in slight tiny itty bitty pettiness and point out my ire that so many fics set during this time tend to recite listicles of Tim’s losses, with Steph, Kon and Jack Drake at the very top of said list....while paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that STEPH WAS LITERALLY BACK BY THE TIME THE RED ROBIN SERIES HAPPENED. She’s LITERALLY a person Dick sends to check up on Tim after Tim turns Dick away when he tries himself. How are you gonna stress the impact Steph’s loss has on Tim when you’re not even acknowledging STEPH’S RIGHT HERE IN THE EXACT SPECIFIC CANON STORY YOU’RE CITING??? I just. afhioskhflafhlafhklfahlfa.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but you know who ELSE was also back at the same time? CONNOR. Superboy LITERALLY was already back to life by the time the Red Robin series even began. Like, the issue where a resurrected Kon and Cassie (Wonder Girl) have a heart to heart about the fact that Tim and Cassie ‘connected’ during his absence and Connor stresses that this doesn’t bother him or make him feel negatively towards either of them at all, because hello, he was literally dead at the time, why would he mind that two of the people he loves most in the world sought comfort in each other? Yeah, that issue? Literally came out BEFORE Tim even became Red Robin.

I MEAN. I’m just saying, when people constantly take shots at Dick’s choices during this period because of how much Tim had lost before Bruce already, in order to shift focus away from the fact that Dick lost Bruce every bit as much as Tim did......and you repeatedly emphasize the SAME three names as the focal point of Tim’s losses while paying no acknowledgment whatsoever to everything Dick lost at the exact same time Tim lost these three.....it quickly becomes kiiiiiiinda relevant in my opinion THAT TWO OF THE THREE NAMES CONSTANTLY MENTIONED AS BEING TIM’S LOSSES ARE NO LONGER EVEN LOST BY THE TIME THE SUBJECT COMES UP. Again, I’m just saying! Pettily, mind you! I am aware of the pettiness, I just beg awareness of like *again gesticulates wildly at all of the above* ALL THAT!

LOL.

But I digress.

5) When Bruce was believed dead while he was lost in the timestream. Again, Dick didn’t just lose the father who had been the only parent in his life for almost TWICE as long as his first parents......this was coupled with the loss of numerous other sources of stability in Dick’s life. There’s the matter of his personal sense of identity and self-expression....Dick FOUGHT against becoming Batman, trying to handle Gotham in Bruce’s absence as Nightwing for as long as he could, because he knew being Batman was very much NOT going to be good for him. He put so much of himself into building his identity as Nightwing, establishing himself in that role, that self-image, that yes, I maintain it was an actual LOSS for Dick, to feel like he had no choice but to give that up and everything it meant to him and his own life, in order to essentially live Bruce’s life for him in his absence.

Because it wasn’t just being Batman that Dick was struggling with at this time....he also had to act as the patriarch to the Wayne family, essentially raise Bruce’s ten year old son, step into Bruce’s old role in Wayne Enterprises, all while getting no acknowledgment for any of this, for literally LIVING his father’s life instead of the life Dick had worked so hard to build for HIMSELF....because of course Dick’s actions and struggles couldn’t even be advertised beyond the family and close friends, because the whole point of him doing all this was so that nobody else even realized that Bruce wasn’t really there anymore. Dick didn’t just assume Bruce’s responsibilities. Dick assumed Bruce’s life, so thoroughly that most people didn’t even put together that Bruce was ‘dead,’ between Dick handling Bruce’s actual roles and responsibilities while Hush made public appearances as him.

Like, when you’re living someone else’s life so completely that nobody can tell they’re even gone....how on earth does that leave any time or space for you to have ANY kind of life of your OWN, y’know? Not to mention the fact that like in so many times previously....all this meant that Dick couldn’t even afford to let his grief for his own losses show, because he wasn’t supposed to be grieving any losses in the first place, that was the whole point of the con!

Additionally, couple this with the fact that throughout this time period, Dick didn’t have Tim to lean on at all, because it was never that Dick kicked Tim out or neglected him or didn’t care....he’d actively stressed how much he needed Tim, because the partner Tim was convinced Dick chose ‘over’ him - Dick was the first one to admit back then that he DIDN’T trust Damian yet, couldn’t afford to, because he was all too aware that Damian didn’t give a fuck about him yet and couldn’t be guaranteed to step in to have Dick’s back - because that required mutual trust that Dick literally just hadn’t had time to build yet. And add to THAT the fact that during this time, Jason was actively antagonizing the family and Dick in particular at every turn, trying to bring them all down and basically write over what all of them saw as Bruce’s legacy with Jason’s own version of what he thought that should look like.

Also also, take into account that unlike how often we see fanon depict Dick as just too stubborn or proud to ask for help, there’s the fact that he actually had very few avenues TO ask for help! As already established, he DID ask Tim for help. Not like Jason was an option at this time, and Dick’s friends weren’t actually just sitting waiting in the wings and groaning about the fact that Dick was trying to do all of this solo....nah, they kinda had their own problems, which Dick was all too aware of?

Like the fact that in the wake of Final Crisis, it wasn’t just Bruce that was believed lost. Many other key Leaguers like Martian Manhunter were dead or lost, with others struggling to fill the gaps left in their absence. Cry For Justice happened right after Final Crisis too....that story where Lian was murdered? So it wasn’t like Dick was remotely going to try leaning on Roy when Roy had just lost his freaking DAUGHTER and very much wasn’t handling it well (and not to overshadow Roy’s loss at ALL, but please let’s not act like Dick - who had literally been the person to put a baby Lian in Roy’s arms for the first time and had known that girl for pretty much her entire life - like, it shouldn’t be used to detract from Roy’s loss at all, but it shouldn’t have to, to just acknowledge that Lian’s loss right at this exact time was painful as fuck to Dick, who’d loved his niece like crazy.)

The pattern of compounding, concurrent losses in Dick’s life. I’m just saying. Its there.

And it extends into the New 52 as well, where Forever Evil came right on the heels of Dick losing his circus in THIS continuity to the Joker, just as a way to hurt him in Death of A Family. And with the aftermath of Forever Evil and Dick’s own literal death, being like....the complete loss of Dick’s entire life, even though he was revived quickly. That didn’t mean he got to live HIS life though, since Dick Grayson was believed dead and he was told had to remain so, so its like fuck whatever he actually wanted to do as he went about on the Spyral mission aka something that pinched his own sense of morality and personal agenda at every turn and was kinda the last thing a therapist would recommend for a trauma recovery period, lol. And like, for all the focus that was paid to how Dick’s family were hurt because they believed they’d lost him when he was actually alive, let’s not forget that for all intents and purposes, Dick DID lose his family in the wake of his resurrection because he was flat out told over and over that due to what ‘he’d LET happen to him’ he was an ACTIVE danger to them, and thus wasn’t allowed by Bruce to contact any of them or lean on them to any degree, until Bruce got amnesia and stopped blocking Dick’s pleas to return home by just not being there to pick up the secret phone line at all.

(And omg, the obliviousness that just EMANATES off the hot takes that Dick had a ‘choice’ in all this and he still CHOSE to do what Bruce told him....like. LOLOL, stop being pissy about me bringing up the term abuse apologism when its literal victim blaming to paint the guy who had to be beaten into ‘agreeing’ to the Spyral mission in the immediate wake of the trauma of DYING, all while his father vocally blamed him for his own suffering and the ‘threat’ he now posed to his family, keying directly into the guilt complex Bruce knows damn well is at the core of most of Dick’s motivations.....fucking please. There’s no choice in all that. That’s active emotional, mental and physical abuse aimed at directly manipulating Dick’s actions, delivered by the guy who knows Dick best in the world and whose approval - particularly when Dick is at absolute rock bottom aka Current Location - matters more to Dick than just about anything because his sense of self-worth has more in common with dog shit than actual dog shit does. Or something. Idk. That analogy got away from me. But like. You get it.)

BUT. I. DIE. GRESS. (I guess).

Aaaaaaanyway, so yeah! That repeating pattern throughout Dick’s life of ‘loss? What loss (singular)? My losses only come in groups, lolol, fuuuuuun’ - mmmm. Yeah. So that’s what’s on MY brain right now. Thoughts?

203 notes · View notes

lovely-necromancy · 3 years

Text

A Cure for Insomnia CH 1.

This is a reader insert I originally started posting on AO3. I’m cross posting here because I know some of the fandom still lives here.

Quick Disclaimer:

This is a fic I'm writing for my own comfort.

I was inspired by RaeBees (you can check out their works over on Quotev and AO3), and how they characterize the "proxies". Having always seen the characters different than most of the fandom I've interacted with I never really shared my thoughts until now. This work is only placed in the Creepypasta tag so it reaches its demographic. However, I am fully aware of the fact that no main character is considered a Pasta.

It may also appear to lean more Toby X Protag in the beginning but end goal is protag with all three, and Brian and Tim already in a relationship. How I picture it now is a slowburn but Toby and Protag will be in a friends with benefits relationship before either has any feelings, so I think that counts. Some may be confused by the asexual protag tag but it'll be explained in story, as an Ace myself I get frustrated with media that only show one version and say it goes for us all. That being said I don't represent the whole Ace community but I hope to provide a bit more representation for some others out there.

Protag will be depicted as agender, and will have a few tics that stem from their Autism. Again I don't speak for any others with Autism but I hope to provide some representation for those in similar positions.

Tags will be updated as the story progresses. Canon-Typical violence and mental health issues are to be expected if you feel uncomfortable with those aspects I advise you to not engage. This story will also have a lot of NSFW themes and scenes so I highly discourage anyone under the age of 18 from viewing this work. You will get warnings on chapters with NSFW and I will make it skippable as well.

I'm also very nitpicky and gave the main characters birthdays just because it irritates me when it gets mentioned once and you have to do the math or imagine your own conversation when a birthday was too close to a character's.

Tim January 1st, home state Alabama

Toby April 28th, home state Virginia (saw this years ago no clue if it's accurate)

Protag May 13th, home state Virginia

Brian May 23rd, home state Alabama

Connor the service dog July 18th, home state Kentucky

I've referred to Protag as Protag here but in story they're referred to as YN.

Everything felt impossibly dull; your senses, the dark room you're currently in, the noise coming from the fan just to the left of the bed on which you laid. Turning to the window beside your head you stare out into that weird midnight summer sky. More of a gray than a true dark blue night, cast in an orange glow that made the night seem closer to day than it truly was. While the time was just half past twelve, you felt it may have been more accurate to say it was closer to four in the morning.

You're exhausted but that true sort of exhaustion where whatever energy you have left buzzes all around. It consumes your entire being, dances between being deafeningly loud in your ears to giving you twitches in your legs. You'd laid down hours ago thinking you'd be tired enough to sleep once your tics started to spasm in closer intervals, but to no avail were you able to rest. That buzzing preventing you from dreamland. Maybe the hum of your body was right, you didn't really need to sleep, you just wanted it to feel normal.

Knowing the battle had already been lost you push yourself off the bed and grab a pair of shorts off the floor. Slipping them on you contemplate your options for the night. Going into town was out since it was Sunday...well Monday now, but there would be nothing but bars open and you were never one for drinking. And as fun as a drive sounds right now, you feel the buzzing in your bones grow stronger, you need to move. A late night hike should keep you occupied, with it being so quiet and the middle of the night you wouldn't even have to take your headphones to cancel out the sounds of other people, you aren't likely to run into many people tonight.

Deciding on a hike you grab a mask and car keys and make your way to your yellow Kia Soul. A going away present from your parents that they gave you the moment you got your driver's license after your 24th birthday. Having anxiety throughout your life you'd never been in the head space to start driving till later on, and while you still don't enjoy driving you are pretty good at it even with your “late” start. Surfing through radio stations as you let the car warm up you find your latest obsession, it's a conspiracy theory podcast that someone in Kepler managed to blast through the limited air ways of the town. Impressive considering Kepler was in a radio quiet zone and even cell phones couldn't work in the small town, luckily you lived just outside of the zone so you could send texts and call your parents every weekend.

It seemed today's episode was a rerun, Mothman: Murderer, Man, or Myth. It was actually one of your favorites, the paranormal stories tended to be more entertaining than hearing about how a man could murder sixteen people while working as a cop ruining evidence to lead the others off his trail. Humans could be more vial and cruel than any little gray alien from the future or tall Fresno Nightcrawler could ever be. And they weren't as entertaining to hear about, nor were their exploits as impressive. You could always see patterns, either connecting clues first or finding connections no one else saw, it was never hard to tell where a certain case would lead so you'd always end up disappointed in humanity when they overlooked such obvious clues. Though that often led you down a path of deep diving for information to see just how obvious it was, more often than not you'd find that the most logical conclusion was shady public officers. After investigating so many cold cases you're sure if you're ever in trouble you'll never involve the police, in the end they'd probably just ignore you and rule your case closed if anything ever did happen to you.

'I'd haunt them if they did.' You decide and you shift gears and begin driving to the Monongahela National Forest, as the timeline of Mothman sightings and events play out before for your ears.

Instead of going through town and possibly loosing the signal of the show, you drive on the old dirt road that runs along the very edge of the town, partially covered in trees. This over grown road is the main reason Kepler doesn't see many visitors, the second someone makes their way onto it coming off the interstate they floor it until they see civilization. Over the few months you've been here you've nearly been run right off the road by spooked tourists, trying to escape whatever ghouls their wild imaginations created. The only real thing on this road was a mini mart gas station, and even though it was shady as hell the cashier didn't bug you too much when you came in in the dead of night. Plus they had a cat, how could you not stop in and say hi to little ole Magnolia?

Speaking of which you should probably get a drink for your hike, you could already feel your throat drying out. Turning into the parking lot you're happy to see no other cars around, putting your face mask on you make your way inside. As usual the store is dead at this time, and Ronnie is manning the desk. What's unusual is the man also behind the counter, he has dark brown hair that he's tied into a small and low ponytail, thick sideburns frame his face. You immediately take note of the slight imperfections of his face, most would see the slit in his eyebrow as following the current trend or even just a genetic thing, but you can see the slightly off color of a healed scar that starts just above his eyebrow and ends mid eyelid, he has a few smaller discolorations on his crooked nose, you'd guess he's had it broken at least twice.

Briefly taking a glance to his brown eyes before looking away, today is not an eye contact day. Nodding in their directions, the best acknowledgment you can give right now, you make your way to the freezers. From the freezer section you can hear Ronnie “explain” you.

“That's YN, a regular mainly at night though. A bit skittish and rarely ever says more than 'thanks have a nice day'” Even though she's whispering you can hear everything. Including the high octave her voice takes to mimic you, it feels more like mocking.

If being mocked hadn't already put you on edge the eyes boring into you have. The eyes may not be roaming over your body but the icky crawling of your skin sure makes it feel that way. The feeling of being put under a microscope has always made you sick, the stares, the leers and sneers, and the judgment just makes you want to implode on the spot. Cease existence, be swallowed into the abyss. You're about to set yourself into an anxiety attack with all these thoughts.

'Mask, mask, mask' you repeat over and over in your head, it's the only thing you can focus on. You are wearing a mask, there is one thing they can't perceive, the face is the most important for humans to perceive, your mask protects you.

Without looking you pull a water bottle from the cooler. You don't think you like this brand but the sports mouth makes up for it, and you can't focus enough to grab another. As the imaginary spiders crawl their way under your skin and your breath hitches you make your way over to the counter head down, never looking up at the employees beyond the counter. Your vision is blurring in time with the beating of your heart, you can't tell if it's due to nerves or from being up for five days in a row.

“Hey YN, how're you?” Ronnie asks, her tone is different from the past times you've been in. It's higher and has a lilt in it that you'd expect from a teasing friend. But Ronnie isn't a friend and has never spoken to you like this, you hate it. You nod to politely move on with the process, between the crawling of your skin and the buzzing underneath it you feel sick. And you're now very aware of the existence of your eyelids, you try to focus on ignoring that awareness. You need to move.

“Hmm, that's good. Anyway this is Tim! He's just started so go easy on him.” you hear the sound of a hand hitting fabric and assume she's patted Tim's shoulder as she introduced Tim to you. Why was she doing this, what purpose could introducing you two have? You nod again, was anyone going to ring you out?

“Hi, this all?” a deep voice asked, it isn't extremely deep more of a standard baritone that has a slight raspy quality, probably a reformed smoker. You don't smell cigarettes currently so he could've quit after years. Unfortunately despite your efforts to stave them off your blinking tics emerge. Making it difficult to keep your eyes open for longer than a nano second.

Startled and ticcing you look up and catch his eyes, you see pity in them, before casting your glance back to the counter. You can never tell what's worse people seeing you as weird or seeing you as something needing to be fixed. Nodding again, Tim tells you the total; a dollar fifty eight, and you hand him two dollars from your wallet.

Tim doesn't ask if you want the receipt or a bag, he prints out the receipt and hands you your change. The change goes immediately into the cat food fund for Magnolia. She got diagnosed with diabetes about a month ago and having worked in shelters and pet stores you know just how expensive her prescription food is. After folding the receipt into your wallet, Tim gently slides the water bottle over to you.

“Have a good night.” he says it so low and gentle, as if he thinks you'll shatter in front of him. As kind as the gesture seems, you aren't that fragile...or maybe you are if you have to keep repeating 'mask' over and over in your head to ground yourself. With a final nod you turn and make your way to the door, and just as you open it you hear Ronnie call out.

“Awwww, c'mon YN at least say 'Hi' to Tim.” You really don't like how she squeaked out 'hi'.

Taking a deep breath you prepare yourself, you'll show them both you can do this simple task. Even if you can't stop blinking long enough to see straight. Once you've steadied yourself you turn and look at Tim. He's sending you a look that says 'You don't have to' all that's missing is a slow head shake to complete his unease with this “peer pressure”.

But you can do this you can say 'Hi, Tim.' Two words super simple, nothing complex like 'Hi, Tim, nice to meet you.' and so much better than the option of your next meeting saying 'Hi, Tim. Sorry for spazzing out the other night.'. Yup you can do this just breathe, you open your mouth and...and you've forgotten what to say. Looking like a deer in headlights, well at least the tics stopped, you say the first thing that pops in.

“Mask.” You've said it loud and clear both cashiers heard you.

Tim stares with wide eyes and you see Ronnie failing to hide her laughter. Out of all the ways this could've gone this was probably the best outcome for her. The blinking has started up again, this time growing more frequent. You can't even hold your eyes open, to the two cashiers it must look like you're in pain or crying. And while you want to die of embarrassment, crying is a bit of an extreme for you.

So with red face and the inability to see you leave through the door, and try to make your way back to your car. Once in you lock the doors, switch the car on, and rest your head on the steering wheel. Out of every way this stop could've gone, being perceived by a new comer and Ronnie was not what you expected. While this hadn't been the worst five minutes or so of your life, it definitely would be another thing keeping you up at night for the next twenty years.

Calming down in the cool quiet dark of your car your slowly brought back to the world by the beginning of a new episode. This one talking about the Tailypo legend. A favorite story of yours from when you were a kid living on the coast of Virginia. So with yet another deep breath and the wave of nostalgia, you pull out of the parking lot and slowly coast down the old dirt road. Heading yet again for the Monongahela forest.

It's nearly two in the morning when you roll up to see an RV parked by the forgotten entrance of the park. It isn't surprising at all to find an RV out here since the Monongahela Forest is one of the most beautiful parks you've ever been to. You also don't think anything of them being parked by this unused entrance because you use it all the time since finding it accidentally. Figuring they just wanted to camp and be left to their own devices rather than use the RV sites and be bothered with other campers here for the summer.

Climbing out of your car you notice the RV isn't new by any means but it isn't a total rust bucket either, looks like it's been passed around throughout the years. There isn't anything to suggest it's been here a while, nothing left set up outside, must have just gotten into town then. You do happen to notice dog tracks around the sandy dirt you've parked in, good to know they have a dog before you slammed your car door. Closing the door gently behind you so you don't startle a pup and wake up it's owner or owners, you make your way through the woods. No real direction in mind, with no real thought in your head. Just the thought of moving and to keep on moving.

You could walk the same path every time you came through and always find something different. In fact that's exactly what happens, you're almost positive that you've deepened the imprint of the path just from walking through several times a week. Following the same winding path you usually do, climbing over the fallen tree, and through a scattering of blueberry thicket's you find yourself on the edge of one of the forest's many streams. It's your favorite spot in the forest so far, and about as far as you've gotten considering these hikes of yours take place during the dead of night.

The wind picks up and sends a chill through you, taking that as a sign you slide down to sit by the stream. Vans placed to your side as you sink your feet into the cool water. It's peaceful out here, so cool, and quiet, save for the slight noises the stream makes, various bubbling and drips. You try to think on things like your recent move, your job, the embarrassing 'mask' incident, just life in general. But you can't seem to form a single thought, this happens a lot, you've recently been conscious of the fact that you've been running on auto pilot for the past two months, hell a lot longer than that. You think everyone must get like this from time to time, but you think you've always been this way. Keen to dissociating and slipping in and out of existence.

It's quite nice really, except for the times like right now where you'd love to figure out why the silence in your head is so painfully loud. The more you think on it the louder it gets and the stronger the buzzing under your skin feels. And right now the static in your mind has been getting louder and louder for the past few minutes. You feel your head jerk to the right of it's own accord, moving back in place it happens for a second time, and then a third, then jerks up, before jerking a forth time to the right effectively cracking you neck.

“There we go.” you mumble, you can relax a bit as the verbal tic indicates the end of this round of tics.

Sighing you look at the sky...that can't be right. The sky has been painted it's fresh baby blues for the day, but again that can't be right. You just got to the stream, that path is a thirty minute walk meaning it should be just about two thirty in the morning, but the sky suggests it's five or six at the latest. Reaching for your water bottle you find it empty next to you. You didn't fall asleep you know that much, perhaps you did dissociate tonight. Well this hike was disappointing if you knew you were going to dissociate you'd have saved yourself that embarrassment and stayed home. Maybe done some painting or tidied up.

Sighing you push yourself off the ground, collecting you vans you're about to put them on when you notice a figure off in the distance. You freeze out of shock and stare at the figure, it stares back. The figure is about ten yards away, god your near sighted ass should really remember to not leave your glasses in the car when hiking. The figure starts to make it's way to you and after a few steps you realize it hasn't moved from it's spot. Rolling your eyes you ignore the hallucination.

You'd really needed to get sleep last night, today is day six of no sleep and though you haven't had many episodes these past few days, you have a feeling they'll start to get more prominent today. Hopefully tonight you can manage to get some rest, the longer you go without sleep the more realistic the hallucinations become. But for today you're content with the knowledge that it's just shadow like beings that you'll be seeing.

After putting on your shoes you start the thirty minute hike back to your car. You're thankful for the weather in Kepler, nothing like back on the coast. Here you can go for a morning hike through the forest while a gentle breeze passes by and the sun starts to give the area a pleasant warmth. Back on the coast you couldn't run and grab the mail without getting drenched in moisture from either sweat, humidity, or a mixture of both. The coast sucks, hell Virginia sucks altogether, you're glad to be in Kepler.

“I want to go home, home.” you say out of nowhere.

Before you reach the entrance you hear barking, oh the RV campers must be up. Should you be careful not to scare them, or just walk normally and say 'Good morning' in passing, maybe just nod your head in greeting. Oh and you've stopped just beside the entrance as you got lost in your rambling. You didn't mean to come to a stop here, and as you try to move you notice how silent it's gotten. Did the dog go inside, maybe they've already passed...no it's too quiet for that. No the silence is oppressive like the one you deal with nightly, there's a reason for the silence. The situation's making you feel uneasy, but that could be the sleep deprivation talking.

You're about to brush it off and move when you hear a whispered, “Seriously man, I don't think anyone's out there. Let's get inside.”

There's a noise of agreement before you hear shuffling. Oh no, you zoned out and now you look like a weirdo stalker. Just perfect, maybe if you wait around a little more you'll seem more normal or at least feel normal. Not knowing how long to wait you walk along the tree line for a bit, looking at the ground as you do making sure you won't step on any snakes. In you quest to not step on any snakes you spot something suspiciously off white. It seems purposefully buried under a dead blueberry bush and some fallen branches.

Having listened to too many true crime shows, you know better than to implicate yourself in a murder. Grabbing a stick off the ground you gently brush the foliage away from the supposed corpse. No way, you can't believe your luck, it's an actual fucking skull. An intact skull of a deer! That is so cool, you've only seen taxidermists on TikTok getting so lucky and finding these dudes. Since the jaw bone is connected by tissue it of course isn't with the skull but maybe it's close by? Clearly this got planted or hidden by someone, maybe they were planning on pranking a friend by 'uncovering' a skull later. Oh well, finders keepers and all that, you have way better plans for this guy, hopefully you can find that jaw bone.

You set off searching through the foliage and near by bushes with the branch while holding the skull in your other arm. After searching about three feet around and finding no more bones you decide that this is the only part of the deer's skeleton in this area. A little disappointed but still thrilled with your find, you decide it must be a good time to go back to your car.

Surely you won't look weird now. You a little forager with their treasure in hand. Looks like you'll be busy cleaning, then bleaching, and cleaning these bones today. Is that the order to treat found bones? You aren't sure but you can look into that later. Placing the skull in the trunk so it doesn't roll about and get damaged you make sure it's secure before closing the trunk and getting into your car and locking the doors.

Not once did you notice the pairs of eyes that had been watching you. One watching as you found the deer skull, and the other set seeing you place bones into your car. They kept watching as you fiddled with the radio while the car was starting up. They watched as you pulled out of the sandy dirt lot and drove back down the old road a little faster than before now that you could clearly see.

#creepypasta fanfic #ticci tobyx reader #brain thomas x reader #timothy wright x reader #masky x reader #hoodie x reader #reader insert #no clue if I'm reaching a wider audience than AO3 but I'll try this out #Crossposted #as of now 13 chapters are over on AO3 if you wanted to read #other wise I'll post a chapter every 3 days on here until I catch up with AO3 #Ao3 has priority #A cure for insomnia

60 notes · View notes

puffedcheeksx · 3 years

Text

a personal essay on why i love Dr Romantic 2

Dr. Romantic 2 was the kdrama that found me at my darkest. You see, I ended 2019 leaving from what I once thought was my dream job. Hoping to start 2020 anew, I've been in search for some sort of inspiration and in those attempts, trying to fill that void through kdramas. I never even meant to watch DR2, even if at that time it was already trending on my personal twitter feed (also, it was the last week of cloy and i was determined to catch up to it). And I believe it was the universe itself sending to me a Viu app reccomendation and this youtube video below of Cha Eunjae and Seo Woojin meeting again at Doldam.

youtube

It wasn't even a fluffy scene for that matter (and tbh I didn't even know it was Ahn Hyoseop who was the ML, I thought it was Dr Bae from this clip i'm sorry *cries*) but I found myself intrigued with how Woojin looked at Eunjae that I decided to give this series a try.

And man, was I goner within the first five minutes. It surprised me how much I enjoyed watching this, when a medical drama wasn't my go-to genre.

As someone who hasn't watched the first season prior, it was a journey for me to discover Master Kim's personality along with Seo Woojin and Cha Eunjae. And just like the great surgeon Master Kim was, he was able to cut right through my heart saying the things I needed to hear. In a way, Master Kim helped me to stitch myself up that I found myself praying to have a mentor like him each time after finishing an episode.

I also enjoyed watching how they explored each of the characters as well. I found my younger self in Yoon Ahreum, innocent and curious, joining the Doldam team in hopes to be as accomplished and bright as the rest. I found my college self in Park Euntak in his seemingly blind faith towards Master Kim and later second guessing his decisions later in the series. I also found myself in Dr Park's legalistic views, and wondering wasn't it best to play the safe side but also secretly envious of Master Kim's bravery. I loved Nurse Oh's voice of reason. I loved how broken Seo Woojin was, and how he never let his past define his present, striving to live a good life.

But mostly, I fell in love and found myself most in Cha Eunjae and cried buckets with her. Cha Eunjae and I were similar in a lot of ways : spoiled, sheltered, would make lots of excuses and obsessing about being good enough. While Cha Eunjae was initially presented as a weak character, I liked how she didn't pity herself. She was a fast learner, picking herself up growing little by little throughout the episodes with hits and misses along the way. I loved how Cha Eunjae owned up to her own life. Technically, coming from a well-off, doctor affiliated family she could easily pull-off some strings right from ep 1 when she was sent off to Doldam Hospital. But she faced the consequences of her actions head on and allowed herself to be of service during her time there.

Just like Cha Eunjae I also had my share of situation based anxiety attacks in a weirdly ironic case as well. I understood where she came from, Cha Eunjae knew what she had to do and that she was capable, but there was so many background noise that would make her doubt and blank out the last minute. Watching Cha Eunjae grow became a vision for me to what I would like to become.

I cried with her when Master Kim told her off saying she should quit becoming a doctor, as it was a scene that hit close to home. And I cried all the more when she firmly said no when Master Kim said "If I told you to quit would you really do it?"

And of course there was the Seo Woojin and Cha Eunjae love line. I am always a fan of the slowburn trope but I believe that it is quite tricky to present a slowburn love story-- too slow and it might feel dragged on, too quick and it may lose its essense. And Ahn Hyoseop and Lee Sungkyung, with all the minimum scenes & skinships that they have, delivered it with pure magic. I loved, loved how their love story was more-than-it-meets-the-eye kind of thing. There was meaning behind the things they said, and didn't say. Their push-and-pull was satisfyingly good, that whenever Woojin makes an indirect confession I felt as breathless as Cha Eunjae was. Being deprived from the typical lovey-dovey scenes, their latter scenes then became so much sweeter especially with those little caressing Woojin did. *blushing intensifies*

Most of all, I loved how Seo Woojin wasn't some kind of hero/prince charming for Cha Eunjae and how Cha Eunjae wasn't the catalyst for Seo Woojin's character growth. Rather, Doldam hospital gave them the tools to grow, and they picked themselves on their own, with each of them occasionally offering each other support when needed to. They were truly relationship goals!

It's been over a year now simping over this kdrama (and a year since I joined kdrama stan twitter because of said drama), and I hope that we wouldn't wait too long for season 3 ❤️

#Dr Romantic 2 #Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim 2 #AhnLee #kdrama review #lee sung kyung #ahn hyo seop #cha eun jae #seo woo jin #kdrama recommendations

70 notes · View notes

zigtheeortega · 3 years

Text

come back to me

pairing | colt x mc

word count | 5.3k

warnings | blood, guns, bullets, wounds, and a mention of death. there’s a section of the fic where mc gets shot when a job goes awry – it’s used in a hurt/comfort scenario, but be warned that it’s in there! lmk if i need to use any other tags!

tags | @raleighcarrera, @pixeljazzy, @senatorraines, @jaxmatsuo, @rodappreciationweek

author’s note | i’ve never written a colt fic before, so i wanted to take a crack at a slowburn colt au – this fic takes place over the span of about ten-ish years (fifteen-ish total since the events of book one). i’m not the biggest colt expert so i hope i did him justice!

•─────────────────•

“If you ever ask me to do this much ass kissing again, I’m divorcing you.”

Colt flung himself onto the bed, still fully clothed, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Oh, stop being dramatic,” Raquel laughed, reaching back to unzip herself, the soft fabric of her sundress sliding down her body and onto the floor.

He hummed from his place on the bed, neck craning to watch her as she changed into her pajamas.

“Stop distracting me from being annoyed,” he grumbled, letting his head fall back, his gaze trained on the ceiling.

“Are you actually mad at me or are you just complaining to hear yourself talk?” She asked, but before he could respond she’d climbed on top of him, wrapping him in a koala hug, nestling her head under his chin.

Naturally, he hugged her back, his arms snaking around her waist.

He shrugged. “I’m not mad at you.”

She giggled into his chest, sending tremors up his body, the warmest kind. “You’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why you married me,” he kissed the top of her head. “You’re too good for me.”

Raquel pushed herself up till they were nose to nose, giving him a pointed look. “I haven’t been too good for anyone since we were kids.” She pressed a quick kiss on his lips, intending to pull away, but he gripped her chin before she could, kissing her deeply.

He’d never get tired of that… and he’d never get tired of her.

For the longest time, he thought it was too far-fetched to expect he’d find someone willing to stick around through all of his bullshit, much less someone who’d legally binded herself to him.

He was still in awe with how it played out.

He’d returned to Los Angeles dangerously too soon after their run in with The Brotherhood. Incidentally enough, he was laying low on high alert for so long… but nothing came of it.

Maybe they’d been arrested, maybe they’d gotten justice, or maybe they just moved on to terrorize another city. He’d always assumed it was the latter.

Rebuilding his father’s autoshop was painful, no matter how deep he tried to shove those feelings down.

Colt’s vision for his father’s crumbling empire wasn’t one that came into focus for him for years.

Five years after The Brotherhood incident, all he had to show for it was a struggling auto shop with a few criminal employees who barely knew how to hotwire a car.

It seemed like there were no hills in sight, only cavernous valleys.

Five years after The Brotherhood incident, the death of his father, and the end of the Mercy Park Crew, she came into focus.

Raquel stepped into the garage, heels clacking against the dirty concrete, her gait determined.

He watched her from his tiny office, peering through the blinds as she glided confidently across the auto shop and up to his door.

She rapped her knuckles against it a few times, a little too heavy handedly.

There’s no way she’s really here, he thought, shaking his head. No fucking way.

He debated whether or not to let her in – the last time a Kaneko opened their doors to her, they nearly ruined her life.

He twisted the knob and yanked it open anyways, an insult bubbling up his throat. After all these years, he figured he’d be relieved to see her, but the tiny sliver of relief was easily overshadowed by his knee jerk reaction of annoyance and shock.

There was a small part of him that was excited, but not enough to warrant being nice to her.

When he came face to face with her for the first time, she spoke first. “Hi, Mr. Kaneko. I’d like to apply for a bookkeeping job.”

He blinked when she shoved a thick manila folder in his hands. “I think my qualifications speak for themselves.”

He thumbs the edges of the papers, flipping through her resume and the thick Master’s thesis. She’s too fucking smart to be back here.

Before anyone in the shop could see, he tugged her arm till she was inside, all but slamming the door behind her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

She ripped her arm from his grasp, brows furrowed. “I’m here to work.”

“Don’t you get how dangerous it is for you to be here or are you just stupid?” He all but spat, slapping the folder onto his desk.

“If I’m stupid that makes you just as much of an idiot as me,” she countered, crossing her arms firmly. “I know the risks.”

“You can’t be dumb enough to think I’d take that risk, though,” he rolled his eyes, plopping into the chair at his desk.

She laughed – actually laughed – at him, covering her mouth. “Forgive me for that.”

He cocked a brow at her, waiting for her to continue.

“I went to school with pretentious male academics for five years, Colt. Whatever you’re gonna say to me has already been said, and it won’t hurt my feelings.”

He leans forward, flipping to her resume, tearing it off the top. “Let’s see, here. Langston college, yeah, I remember that. Graduated with honors? Predictable to do that three times in a row, don’t you think?”

She laughed again. “That’s a new one. I’ll have to log that under my favorite insults.”

“Well, I have loads. You’re giving me lots of material, Miss Olvera,” he mocked her, going back to skimming her resume.

Truthfully, he was trying to scare her away by being mean, and it wasn’t working. He didn’t want to dig too deep, though, because he wasn’t that evil.

He liked the girl – hell, if he didn’t like her, would he be bending over backwards to make her hate him purely for her safety?

“I can’t pay you well. I’m still rebuilding, and we’re barely breaking even. We’ve been sticking to straight work till I can manage to rebuild our reputation and relationships with buyers.”

She nodded. “I completely understand, and I don’t mind.”

“What, are you gonna ask me for a place to stay next?” He grumbled, rolling his eyes.

He was lying if he didn’t feel a little something stir in his stomach at the possibility of her staying in his apartment above the shop.

“No, I’m alright.”

“You came back to L.A. and you immediately have a place to stay? You’re lying.”

Her lips pressed into a firm line, she shook her head. “I’m back at my dad’s house.”

“What? There’s no fucking way I’m letting you work here if you’re living with a cop –”

“He passed away last year,” she chewed her lip, trying to keep her face neutral. “He had a heart attack in the middle of the night. Couldn’t get to the phone in time.

“Thankfully, he had a will set in place soon after mom died,” she shrugged. “I got the house, so I’m good.”

His fists clenched at his side. He’d already taken it too far without even meaning to.

“Sorry to hear that.”

She scoffed, a single forced laugh bursting from her lips. “You don’t have to respect him in front of me to save face or whatever. Your feelings about my dad don’t affect me.”

He nodded once, and the room descended into silence. He took the time to actually read her resume that time around, finding himself genuinely impressed with what she’d accomplished.

What he wanted to ask was “Why the fuck did you come back here?” but instead, what came out was, “You’re sure you can handle this?”

“I’m sure.”

She said those words with such conviction that he never had to ask again.

Raquel cuddled up to him, her breathing evening out. He hadn’t realized they’d gone that long without speaking.

He didn’t mind it though. He didn’t care as long as she was with him.

She stirred in her sleep, nearly rolling off of him, so he took that as his cue to tuck her in.

When she was settled under the covers, he pressed a kiss to her forehead and stepped out onto the deck.

The beach house they’d rented was a hundred feet from the shore, the waves grating against the sand creating the perfect white noise.

Perfect for sleeping, he mused, thinking about how quickly Raquel fell asleep in his arms, watching the water crash and retreat, push and pull over and over.

That same back and forth was what eventually brought him and Raquel together. They butted heads constantly, but had the same view on lots of decisions. They’d finish each other’s sentences and the crew would give each other knowing looks that he ignored.

A year in, she finally broke down. Not purposefully, and certainly not with the intent of him finding her curled into a sobbing mess outside of the garage.

“Hey what the hell, Raquel? It’s dangerous out here,” he called as he jogged up to her crumpled form.

He didn’t notice she was crying until he’d crouched down to check the injuries he thought she’d have.

She shielded her face with one hand and used the other to wave him away. “Just go.”

“I’m not leaving until you’re safe.”

It wasn’t even meant to be romantic. He’d do it for the rest of his crew since they’d grown so close.

There wasn’t a possibility of anything happening between them, or so he thought at the time. And what she admitted to him that night sealed their fate for years.

He’d managed to help her inside to his office, pulling back his worn office chair for her to collapse into.

A short “You okay?” Was all he could manage. He was new to this wellness check stuff and it didn’t come naturally to him.

But he knew as a leader, he had to do a lot more than just telling people what to do. Even if they split without a word in a week’s time, they were still a working machine that needed a little elbow grease every once in a while.

Even in the dim lamp light he could tell her eyes were red rimmed.

“I don’t think you want to hear my explanation as to why I’m not,” she laughed humorlessly, using the sleeve of her shirt to scrub the streak of makeup under her eye.

“I’m not good at this comforting shit, but I’ve got ears and I’ve gotten pretty good at using them,” he joked, sliding into the rickety folding chair in front of the desk.

She shrugged, flinging her hands up. “You’re gonna make fun of me –”

“– I won’t –”

“– You will, Colt. I know you and you’re gonna scoff the minute I take a breath.”

He couldn’t hold back the small smile at that.

“Well, yeah, but you don’t have to take it to heart.”

She sniffled, laughing. “You’re hard to ignore.”

“So are you, hard ass. Tell me what’s wrong.”

The sigh that came from her was labored, struggled, like she was about to drop heavy weights onto the floor of the office.

“Today’s the one year anniversary since I started working for you.”

He cocked a brow. “That’s it?”

“If you’d just let me explain then you’d know,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re already sucking at being a good listener.”

He held his hands up in surrender, leaning back into his chair. “Sorry.”

“My whole game plan was to figure out how to make myself useful. It’s why I got my Masters in accounting in the first place. I wanted to have my solid place in the crew, you know? Like I earned my spot.”

He nodded, waiting for her to continue.

“I just had this stupid fairytale idea in my head about coming back to L.A. and none of that’s come true.”

“Well, what was it? Anything I can do?” He asked.

Raquel sank her teeth into her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. She shook her head in response, taking a few deep breaths till she could finish.

“I wanted our old crew back. I… thought Logan would be back here by now, or looking for me at the very least,” she rubbed her temples, closing her eyes. “I waited five years to come back here and I’ve barely lasted one year in L.A. without him.”

He couldn’t help but flex his hand in and out of a fist a couple times as she spoke.

Yeah, it was true he didn’t care for Logan that much, but she liked him. Loved him, even.

If she was this dedicated to him six years later and he still hadn’t tried finding her, he didn’t deserve her.

“So it’s about Logan?” He asked with zero judgement, and she could tell.

She nodded, sniffling again. “Maybe I’ve just deluded myself into thinking we meant more to each other, but I’m still in love with him and I don’t know when that’s going to end for me.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he did what he thought was best.

He stood up, taking a couple steps till he was close enough to lay his palm on her shoulder, rubbing his thumb gently across the fabric.

She laid her hand on his thumb, holding it in place, as the sobs shook her body.

After that, he tried his hardest to keep her from crying. Which entailed leaving Logan’s name out of things.

Colt abandoned his shirt and shoes at the back door and hopped off the deck, landing softly on the sand. He took his time walking towards the water, gaze transfixed on the moon, which was at its peak in the sky.

He always thought the fact that the sea and moon were interlinked was kind of peculiar. The moon, thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away, had just enough power to pull the waves in the right direction.

He thought of Raquel like his moon far too often. The minute he was in her gravitational pull, he found himself wanting to follow her – to let her take the reins – and that was rare.

The first time he knew it was the beginning of the end with her was when a job went south.

Three years after she broke down about wanting the old crew back, they got a taste of the old violence.

One of their crew members, Isaac, had said for weeks that he had a weird gut feeling about that job in particular. Colt waved him off, reminding him that he’d value proof over superstition anyday.

In short, they were ambushed – nothing out of the ordinary in terms of their day to day risk.

What Colt wasn’t expecting, however, was for Raquel to be the one who got hurt.

They were cornered by the masked group, and before their crewmember Aly could grab her gun and shoot, one of them fired, the cracking sound of the gunshot echoing off the concrete flooring of the rundown parking garage.

Raquel’s pained groan followed immediately after.

Colt’s heart stopped when he saw the fabric of her jeans turning a deep deep maroon, the blood spreading faster than he could process what’d happened.

Her eyes fluttered and she stumbled to her knees, crying out as she knelt, bending her legs, one of which had been freshly torn through with a bullet.

“Don’t let them get away –” he shouted, flinging his arm in the direction of the fleeing criminals. He knelt down to scoop Raquel’s crumpled form into his arms. “Isaac, stay here.”

Isaac froze, nodding. “Anything you need, boss.”

“Drop me off at the shop so I can patch her up. I have to stop the bleeding.”

Colt’s voice was calm and even, but inside he was at his breaking point. He sat in the backseat of the car with Raquel strewn across his lap, the color draining from her face with each passing minute.

His palm was firmly pressed against her calf to halt the bleeding. He was thankful that the adrenaline was numbing the pain till they could make it to the shop.

She’d wince every time he adjusted his slippery grip, instinctively turning her head into the crook of his neck. That didn’t cross his mind till much later.

When she attempted talking once or twice, he furiously shushed her each time. “Save your energy. You’ll need it.”

When Isaac skidded to a stop in the garage, Colt tossed his keys Isaac’s way. “Take my car and get out of the city for a few days. Lay low. I’ll clean this one up and it’ll be good as new when you come back.”

Isaac nodded, brows furrowed. “I should’ve… I knew it was gonna go south but I should’ve tried to convince you again –”

Colt held up a hand. “You were right, and I should’ve trusted your gut instinct, and I will from now on. This is solely on me. Don’t blame yourself.”

He nodded, hopping out of the car, sliding into Colt’s convertible, and disappearing into the night.

He’d managed to get Raquel into the apartment and onto the worn leather couch in the office – she was pale and clammy, flitting in and out of being fully aware of what was going on.

“Colt… I can clean up my leg, just… just give me a second to catch my breath,” she said, her eyes drooping closed.

“Absolutely not. Give me a second. I’m trying to find the goddamn gauze but I don’t see it anywhere –”

He was glad his back was turned, because he was shaking in terror and rage in a way he hadn’t in a long time.

The first aid kit clattered out of his hands and onto the desk, and he cursed, gripping the side of the desk till his knuckles were bright white and screaming at him to let go.

“Colt…” she whispered. “I’ll be fine. I’m just hurting.”

He dragged a chair to her side, propping her ankle up against his knee before getting to work cutting a thin line up the outer seam of her jeans. The blood trickled onto his own leg, saturating the denim of his pant leg immediately.

“Are you gonna ignore me the whole time you work on my leg?” She joked, wincing. “Fuck –”

The scissors were close to the wound, and he tried his best to stretch it away from it before cutting further.

“Sorry,” he murmured, grabbing two rags and dousing it in hydrogen peroxide. He rolled up the second one, handing it to Raquel.

She sighed shakily before stuffing it into her mouth, digging her fingers into the cracked leather of the couch.

She nodded once, giving him the sign to get it over with.

The second the damp rag touched her bloodied skin, she panted through her nose, eyes screwed shut.

“I’m sorry, I know it hurts.” He grunted, grimacing as her thigh bucked against his hand, despite him trying to hold her in place.

When he touched the wound, she screamed, devolving into choked, muffled sobs.

He’d made a vow to make sure she never cried over Logan again, and instead he’d broken his promise by putting her in direct danger over and over and over again.

There was no reason for her to accompany them on jobs – she knew the risk, and didn’t care, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t stop her from coming.

No matter how hard he tried, he was always the reason she was getting hurt.

“This is all my fault,” he said, when he’d finished cleaning her wound. “I should’ve never let you come along to our trades.”

She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, a couple stray tears still glistening across her temples. “I wanted to be a part of this. Like you said to Isaac, you can’t blame yourself for this.”

“I don’t care what you say, alright? It was my fucking fault and you should’ve never been a part of this life.”

“Colt.”

He glanced up, barely able to meet her gaze.

“Whether you want to admit it or not, I’ve been a part of this life for nearly ten years now. I’m almost thirty. You’re closer to thirty than me. I know what I’ve gotten myself into, and I’m sticking by you regardless of the risk on my life.”

She slipped a clammy hand over his, which still held her thigh firmly in place. “If I lose my life on a job, I don’t regret it at all. I’d never regret meeting you.”

She took a labored breath, laying back against the armrest. “That took a lot out of me.”

Colt shook his head. “Stop talking. You need your energy.”

Raquel rolled her eyes. “I try being nice to you and you ignore it every time.”

“I just don’t know what the fuck to say to that. What the fuck am I supposed to say to that, huh?” He asked incredulously.

She blinked, her eyes narrowing. “I just got fucking shot, and you’re cursing at me while asking me to be your therapist? Am I hearing that right?”

He picked up his bloodied hands from her leg and threw them up in the air. “I have a lot going on in my head right now, and I’m not trying to fight you or get you to be my fuckin’ therapist, alright? I’m just confused.” He was barely below a shout, his chest heaving when he was done.

“I can’t read your mind, Colt. I’m kind of delirious with blood loss right now, so the least you can do is not yell at me and ask me politely to slate this conversation for later,” she said firmly, wincing while she shifted on the couch.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” he panted, shrugging his stained black thermal off. He tossed it to the side, revealing his equally as bloodied white tee.

He slipped that shirt off, too, tearing the shirt into long strips.

Raquel watched him, her brown eyed gaze one of both confusion and something more he couldn’t place and didn’t care to think about.

Wordlessly, he plopped back down, tying the shredded strips above the wound on her calf, fingertips grazing her skin as delicately as he could manage.

He let his hands linger for a bit too long, staring at the open wound on her leg.

Daring a look her way, Colt caught her watching him with a soft gaze, one that he hadn’t earned.

“You’re not mad at me for being there tonight… you’re mad at yourself for not protecting me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

He nodded once.

“You’re hoping that this makes me want to leave, because you won’t ask me yourself. You don’t want me to leave.”

He nodded again, glancing away from her.

After a long silence and avoidance of turning her way, she spoke first.

“You’re worried I don’t feel the same.”

He froze, dropping his hands from her leg. She was right, but if he admitted to it and she still didn’t feel the same, then what was he risking all this shit for?

Why was he still clinging onto the hope that she’d feel the same if nine years of pining was seconds away from being thrown out the window?

Mustering up his remaining courage, he nodded one last time.

And when he looked at her that time, she was beaming. Through the excruciating pain, she was smiling.

He broke first, scooting to the edge of his chair to get as close as he could. “What?”

“It’s funny that you were worried we weren’t on the same page. I think we might’ve been for a long time,” she laughed, hoarse and weak, but it was still her laugh that he loved so much.

“What do you mean?”

And then she said the words that he’d desperately needed to hear for nearly a decade.

“I came for Logan but I stayed for you.”

Once Raquel admitted that to him, he was all in. Completely committed, never faltering.

Their first kiss was anything but, the sensation one of nine years of pent up feelings from Colt’s end, and years of her own. Their first kiss was more of a sealant of their future (and their fate).

Their first kiss was everything Colt had dreamed of.

He kissed her like she was air and he was drowning and she was filling his lungs to the brim, her warmth spreading from his insides out.

She didn’t pull away after the first one, and neither did he.

For who knew how long, he was on his knees next to the bloodied couch, cupping her face with his palms, and kissing her like he had a decade of missed opportunities to make up for.

After that, they were inseparable.

And he never doubted her devotion to him again.

They fell into a routine of working at the shop together during the day and into the late hours of the night after everyone had left, before stumbling upstairs into Colt’s apartment, lips locked, hands roaming.

And she drove him to every job from then on, easily evading cops and maneuvering the underbelly of L.A. like it was second nature.

Colt waded into the warm water, barely feeling it as it lapped at his ankles, calves, thighs.

When he was waist deep, he opted to float on his back, using the opportunity to revel in the star littered sky. One he didn’t get to see too often in the heavily light polluted sky of Los Angeles. Was this really the same sky he’d lived under all these years?

He didn’t really plan on marrying Raquel.

It was never in the sleazy way where he was going to leave her the second he got what he wanted – he was content being with her. Living with her. Kissing her. Loving her.

But he didn’t think he needed to go through the motions because that’s supposedly what people in love did. He figured it was enough to spend his life with her without doing all the extra shit.

She brought it up first, nearly four years later.

At that point, he moved into her father’s house with her – they’d crash in Colt’s old apartment above the shop if they were too tired to drive home.

They were curled up on the old futon in his room, huddling under the blankets, and she was curled against his side, drawing circles through his short tuft of chest hair.

“We should get married.”

“Hmm?” He asked, in a haze, nearly drifting off to sleep before she’d spoken.

“You heard me.”

“You really wanna?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve always wanted to get married, even when I was a little girl.”

He kissed the top of her head, squeezing her closer.

“You’ve always been a daydreamer then,” he chuckled.

“Yeah, I used to dig up my old Easter dresses and strut into the living room asking my Dad to walk me down the aisle.”

“And did he?”

She laughed, lifting her head to get a good look at him. “Yep. Walked me right down the hallway and back to my room to change me out of my clothes.”

Her face fell a bit despite the fond memory. “I think I care more about it now because I know my parents won’t be there. It feels like if I don’t get married, I’m breaking a promise, as dumb as that sounds.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t sound dumb at all, sweetheart. I don’t care what we do as long as it makes you happy.”

She smiled, leaning in to press a soft kiss on his lips. “I love you.”

Wrapping her up in a hug, he kisses her back with fervor, echoing her sentiment in the form of mumbling against her lips. I love you.

Roughly a year later, they opted for a quick courthouse wedding and a honeymoon that consisted of staying in bed all day and ordering food to build back the calories they’d burned.

Around that time, Raquel reconnected with some of her only living relatives on her Dad’s side. She’d gotten close to a few of her distant cousins, and they convinced her to have a small ceremony for their family in Belize.

And fifteen years after he’d met Raquel, on the cusp of spring and summer, he married her again in front of an intimate crowd and kissed her like it was their first time.

He’d complained about having to ass kiss her judgemental old relatives, but he didn’t really mind. Seeing her in a white dress, beaming like it was the best day of her life, was enough to make any issue nothing but a minor annoyance.

“Hey!”

Colt swirled his arms in the water till he was upright again, grinning when he noticed the bright red lines on her face – she’d clearly just woken up.

“Hey, sweetheart. You sleep okay?”

“Come back to bed,” she asked, pointing at the back door of their beach house.

He tipped his chin at her. “You come out here.”

She rolled her eyes, before tearing off her nightgown, running towards the water at full speed, no hesitation.

He caught her in his arms, letting her wrap her legs comfortably around his waist while he waded out to deeper waters.

“Ugh. I was having a good dream, too, until I realized the bed was empty,” she grumbled, looping her arms tighter around his neck.

“Sorry about that. I promise next time I’ll wake you up before I head out.”

She nodded, content with his answer.

They were both chest deep in the water, faces close, the soft rays from the moon the only light they had.

“Why’d you bring me out here, Colt?” She murmured, eyes flitting to his lips, which were upturned in a soft smile.

“I was just thinking. This spring makes fifteen years since I met you.”

She hugged him, pressing a kiss on his cheek. “And only, like, six years since we came to our senses.”

He laughed heartily, squeezing her tighter around the waist. “You’re right.”

“Remember when we jumped off the cliff together?” He asked.

“Yeah, of course. It was the first time I ever felt a spark with you,” she grinned. “Took a long time for it to turn into a flame, though.”

“That was the first time I knew I loved you,” he admitted. “I wanted to kiss you so badly and I kicked myself in the ass for years for not trying –”

She cut him off with a passionate kiss, her tongue slipping into his mouth almost as soon as his mouth moved in tandem with hers. It was the sloppy, unplanned kiss he’d envisioned for that day.

“I think everything worked out for the better. I’m not sure we were ready for each other back then,” she said honestly, her forehead pressed against his.

“We needed to grow a little bit before falling in love, huh? You’re so smart,” he said, voice low, pressing another kiss to her lips.

“Yeah, and now we’ve got the rest of our lives.”

She was right (like she always was), and he couldn’t help but feel a twinge in his chest like he’d felt many times before.

He’d waited that damn long for her, so he was going to savor the rest of their life together as much as he could.

#playchoices #choices rod #rodaw #rodtimecapsule #colt kaneko #colt kaneko x mc #jade writes choices fics #cw: injury #cw: guns #cw: blood #tw wounds #tw injury

39 notes · View notes

divinefireangel · 3 years

Text

The Way You Love

SF9 Youngbin x F! Reader Imagine.

He's so precious I WANNA PROTEC

Disclaimer: This is just a work of fiction. If this piece of fan fiction is offensive to any celebrity, fandom or culture please let me know so I can take it down. Also note that this is my version of a character or celeb, which will vary from person to person.

Author's Note: Got the idea at literally 3am. And I cried a lil while writing this. I do recommend reading this when you have a bad day. Because I have to say it is cute.

Copyright: Please note that this is my work and if you want to publish this on any other platform, take my permission before doing so. Taking an author's work and posting it somewhere else without any intimation is just disrespectful. I readily welcome suggestions and criticisms. That being said, Happy reading! 🤍

Warnings: All ages and written with she/her pronouns but everyone can read it. (nothing specified with respect to anatomy, appearance, etc of reader). Nothing really. Just pure fluff. Slowburn and crappy ending because I went blank 😂💀

Summary/Pre-Requisite: Youngbin and Y/N are in a well established relationship. But it isn't enough.

1.6k words

Youngbin smiled at the small box in his hand. He can't believe he is actually going to do this. How can something as little as this be the source of so much joy, he didn't know. Maybe it was her. Or the fact that it was for her, from him. An eternal promise to love her till his last day, last hour, last minute and final breath. Well there is still much time to worry about that now though.

Loving Y/N is definitely the best decision he took without having to take it. Loving her, was as easy as breathing the fresh morning air. Listening to her talk was his favourite sound in the entire universe. Watching her dance goofily is his ideal view, other than when she's paying attention to something. Her face looks so cute when she's concentrating, he almost feels like he can cry over her adorableness.

Watching her from across the room, her movements, the way she smiles and makes everyone around her laugh with her silly jokes only adds to one of the many reasons why he loves her. She is the brightest light in his life, illuminating his existence with unfiltered joy and eternal love and affection.

He loves it when she snuggles up to him, wrapping her small arms around his torso and asks him what he's doing with her honey sweet voice, never fails to make his heart melt and burst with adoration. He loves it when she sleepily moves closer to him, like a pair of magnets, because she feels cold and knows that she can always rely on him to keep her warm.

He loves it when she bonds with his members and treat them and scold them like they are her children. Although he loves it more when she becomes a source of reassurance not only to him but also to his little brothers. He loves it when she helps them with anything, no matter how small the help may be. Since he is treated like the Dad of the group, Y/N automatically became the Mom and he couldn't wish for someone more perfect then her for that role.

He loves her understanding nature, her positive spirit, her overly motivating presence, her genuine compliments and concern. He loves the way she looks at him, like he's the only man in a room full of people. Her eyes reflecting the same twinkles of his eyes, with just as much love when he looks at her.

He loves when she slightly shuts her eyes when he moves her hair out of her face. He loves it when her small frame hugs him so tight he can barely stand still. He loves it when she plays with his hair when he takes a nap on her chest. He loves how her hand fits into his perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle.

If there was one thing he could do again, it would be to go back in time and fall in love with her all over again for the first time. Everyday, she gives him something new to love about her. Whether it be her shy smile, her blushy flustered face or the way she gets excited when she sees something cute, the way she coos his puppy to sleep, the way she always makes him feel better on a bad day and so many more things that may seem insignificant to her, but are never to him, makes him fall for her harder and deeper in love than he ever thought possible.

"Hyung! HYUNG!!! "

Snapping back to reality, Youngbin sees a wide eyes Chani looking at him with a questioning expression.

"What? "

"Were you daydreaming about Noona again? Why are you so distracted today? "

"It's nothing Chani-ya. She just makes me happy. That's all. Did you tell the camera crew that I need them this evening? "

"Yes I did Hyung. That's what I was telling you as you were zoned out. I don't even want to imagine what it's going to be like when you get married. We probably won't get anything done at all since you will be distracted all the time. " Chani said in a factual manner.

"Okay that's a bit excessive. And you haven't found someone whom you love as much right now. You will understand better when you do. Till then I can't really explain this." The older said smiling lighty as she took over his thoughts again. Rolling his eyes, Chani patted his leader and left wordlessly.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

"This is nice. The air isn't as humid as I thought it would be. " Y/N said as she walked next to her lover, fingers intertwined, arms swaying back and forth as they moved forward. Stopping still he twirled her around till she faced the railing covering the boundary of the lake. Giggling she wrapped his arms around her so he could hug her, keep her warm, even though she wasn't as cold yet.

Resting his chin on her head, he sighed heavily, feeling content with his beloved in his embrace. Oh how he could stay like this forever and never leave. Hmm. She's right. The air is just perfect. Like her. And it is definitely the perfect weather, to take the next step most relationships do.

Looking up at the sky, the stars shine bright, twinkling and shimmering beautifully. Taking this as a positive sign from the universe, Youngbin hugged Y/N tighter, knowing that it's now or,well later but now is nice. Turning her head to her lover, Y/N stands on her tippy toes to kiss him.

Breathing out the two lovebirds stared up at the star filled night sky. The soft wind getting stronger with time, but not too strong to have any effect yet. Just a light breeze that can be felt. Like the love that's surrounding them, keeping them warm from the exterior and from within.

"Oh! Did you see that! That star is shining the brightest." Youngbin said pointing at a distant star.

" Which one? " Y/N stepped forward by one step, trying to see the star he pointed out.

" That one? " She asked again, this time she was the one pointing.

" No. The one standing in front of me right now. "

Drawing her hand back to her body, her heart thumping strongly in her chest. Now, what had happened when they hugged is that Y/N had felt a small poke on the side of her thigh, where Youngbin's jacket was over on her. So being the smart young lady she is, Y/N knew. She knew what was happening. And it wasn't just feeling the poke, she's been feeling like this for some days now. And she knows that he has too.

Slowly turning around, Y/N was faced with her lover, who was down on one knee, holding a small box with the cutest ring she had ever seen. To say that Y/N.exe had stopped working was an understatement. She stood there, as though she was frozen. Looking up at her, Youngbin breathed heavily and started.

" When I met you for the first time, I never thought that you will love someone like me. So I was happy to settle being just your friend. But we both started liking each other at the same time. I asked you out and you agreed to date me. I never thought that you would actually date me for a long time because I've, well I was thinking that you deserve better. But you told me and made me belive different. And I am really really grateful that you did. And as time progressed, we both grew to love each other so much. You know all of this already, but saying this out loud, makes me sure that I want more. You, have helped me grow into a better person, over the time that we have dated. You, motivate me and drive me to do better, because even if no one did, you knew my limit and my capabilities. You, make me the happiest I've ever been. So will you please make me a little bit more happier by becoming my fiancee and the happiest, in the near future, when you become my wife? Will you marry me? "

Y/N stares at him, while breathing through her mouth. The only sound that's heard is the soft wind.

" Yes. "

Y/N gets down on her knees, in front of her lover, sweet tears of shock and joy streaming down her face.

" Yes. I will marry you Kim Youngbin. "

" Hyung!!! Congratulations!!!!!! "

Breaking his face into a grin, Youngbin removes the lovely and intricately detailed ring and puts it on Y/N's finger delicately. Kissing her left knuckle, Youngbin realises he is crying as well. Sobbing out loud Y/N throws her arms around him, making him tumble backwards a little. Laughing a little, Youngbin slowly wraps his arms around her, caressing the back of her head as he looked up at the sky, trying to stop the tears from falling down his cheek.

Hugging each other tight for what seemed like forever, they move away from each other's embrace upon hearing clapping sounds and cheers from the young men and their team who have now approached them.

Standing up Y/N couldn't help but hide her face in her lover's chest. Kissing her forehead, Youngbin thanked everyone.

" Let's all celebrate! Dinner is on us. " Youngbin stated looking you. Smiling you nodded you head in agreement as everyone around you cheered and wiped their tears away.

It all felt like a dream. But it wasn't. It was reality. A reality that she was so thankful to have. Smiling till their cheeks hurt, Youngbin and Y/N not couldn't wait till they were married and called as Husband and Wife.

#sf9 #kim youngbin #youngbin #youngbin fluff #kim youngbin x reader #kim youngbin fluff #youngbin x reader #sf9 fluff #sf9 imagines #sf9 scenarios #sf9 youngbin #sf9 x reader fluff #sf9 x reader

74 notes · View notes