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rainybubbles · 1 year

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How do COD men confess to you ?

Ghost, Soap, Price, Gaz, Alejandro

If you want more context here the part 1, and 2

G H O S T :

-At the end of your shift, he was waiting for you.

-And Max.

-Because Max was a cute puppy who stole his heart, but he would never tell a soul.

So yeah every day he wasn't on mission. He knew that at 10 pm, he will be at this little pet shop.

-Because he loved how your smile was appearing when you recognized him.

-He loved how you still joked about the ropes he bought or even how when he walked you back home, you were trying to go out of your way to make this walk longer by taking him to the little restaurant.

-This little restaurant, that you chose on purpose, because it has 4 fire escapes, and a perfect view on the outside.

-You knew him.

-And you didn't step back.

-Well in fact you didn't step back when he was just a creepy man who bought ropes at 3 AM, so he -sincerely doubts about your survival instinct.

-So yeah...

-But how did he confess, you're asking me ?

-Well, he didn't.

-Ghost has too many issues to open his heart like this.

-So you decided to make a moove.

-A classic move with a little declaration and a gift.

-Yeah.

-So you bought rope.

-Yeah.

-I know this doesn't sound good.

-It sounds even like the beginning of a horror story but wait.

-You decided to send him a package.

-And in this package you will put a rope tied in a heart form with a letter.

-Telling he took you heart in hostage and you would like him to keep it.

-...

-Seems weird, but it kinda fit your meeting, so it seems like a cute idea.

-Until three months passed and you had no news.

-Not even a letter.

-You didn't panic because sometimes his job was like this, he told you.

-But the problem was you had to move out.

-And even if he had your number, Ghost changed his phone regularly to prevent from some undercover shit.

-Besides your job at the pet shop, he couldn't contact you.

-So you tried to ignore your removal.

-But at the end of the fourth month, you had to admit this relationship will never had an end.

-And you mooved out of the country.

-A bittersweet ending.

-You felt like you were reading a fluff story but forgot to read the tag "hurt/no comfort".

-Shit.

-Maybe next time you should read the tag of your fucking love life.

-Like "a rope man will steal your heart" "angst" "sad ending" "slow burn" "fucking weird story" "not a happy fidelity card guy" "maybe he was into bondage but guess what ? We will never know lol"

-Maybe you were crying when you saw a rope in a DIY shop after this.

-Or not.

-Your dignity and ego will never recover from this memory. (neither did the sales assistant who was just here trying to help you)

-So you tried watching around, maybe the destiny would help you.

-Maybe a tall masked man will appear at your door at 2 PM, under the rain saying he has always loved you and....

-And you don't open the door for your own mom because you're too scared that she could be someone pretending she's your mom so you hoped he wouldn't do this.

-Yet two months after your removal, you had a call from your previous boss.

-You usually avoid calls, but you knew he wouldn't call you if it wasn't important.

-So you answered and...

-He was telling you a package with your name was delivered to him.

-And when you asked what was in it.

-He answered.

-"A fidelity card for rope, with a yes on it."

-You never smiled that hard.

-(Ghost found your new contacts thanks to Lasswell later, to confirm you both confessed to each other.)

S O A P :

-You had kept in touch.

-Through letters and some texts, when Soap was allowed to send them, you started to have a great friendship.

-But lately in the memes that Soap sent to you, you found a lot of references to the French girls in general.

-Firstly you didn't pay attention.

-Until that night.

-When you saw Titanic again with your parents.

-And it clicked.

-The French girls scene !

-By you stopped.

-Why would Soap make implicit reference to this ?

-Then again you remembered his drawings.

-He sent you some of them in his letters.

-When you get back to your home, you gathered them, looking if maybe he had made a portrait of you or had made a joke that you didn't see.

-But it was just random sketches.

-You stared at Ghost sketch eating an ice cream when you noticed something on his mask.

-He had a "W" on it.

-You searched through the sketches and...

-"U to the mow, I go you will" you said out loud after collecting the letters and tried to figure out what he wanted to say.

-And you tried to understand it.

-But except this fucking "mow" and "will"

-You didn't find any coherence in it.

-Did he want to ask you to mow his lawn in his garden ?

-But he didn't have a garden.

-And why a "U" and then a "You".

-Why, why Soap would even do this ?

-He was not the kinda guy that do this.

-"...I think I'm too stupid to find out this shit." you admitted.

-Well maybe your French girls scenes will not be romantic.

-So you texted him saying, you understood he sent you a message.

-But you didn't find how to translate it.

-And he texted you the answer.

-"Will you go out with me ?"

-...

-"Did Price give you the idea Soap ?" you answered.

-"Wait, you didn't answer."

-"Did Price give you the idea ?"

-"You think I couldn't be a romantic, love ?"

-"I think we're both too stupid to create a thing like this, love."

-"... it was L.T"

-"he...Ghost ?"

-"Yes."

-"...did he love titanic ?"

-"he had a collection about it."

-"...wow."

-"yeah."

-"To answer, yes, I would love too. But never ask again advice from Ghost, I don't want to end on an iceberg."

-"Yes, love."

P R I C E :

-Soap and Gaz with a broken arm led to your confession.

-They were both drunk and knew their captain had a thing for you, and it was reciprocated.

-Especially after Price offered you some chocolates to make clear he was interested in you.

-But nothing was happening.

-So with some scotch, and very bad ideas, Gaz and Soap decided that their time to shine had coming.

-They were the Cupids of the base.

-And what had Cupid ?

-Wings.

-If they used their wings to bring you from your office to Price at the bar, then he would be happy and more relaxed in this context, and maybe he will confess.

-Yes.

-Except.

-They didn't have wings.

-So when they jumped out from the roof.

-Their arms broke.

-And who was the doctor at the base ?

-You.

-You didn't go out because you were busy to treat their arms.

-"Maybe we need some bows next time." Soap whispered but it was more like he shouted in Gaz's ears.

-"And some white underwears! Cupid has that. I'm sure if we wore this, it will work for sure." Gaz answered.

-"And what about not jumping from the roof and not drinking that much, hmm ?" you asked.

-"Sssshhhh, we're in a confession plan right now. You can't stop us." Gaz said trying to put his finger on your mouth but ended up to do it on the wall next to you.

-"I'm calling Price to take you back to your bed, you're both too heavy for me."

-"We could walk."

-"It's not walking the problem Soap. It's where you could go."

-"hmm."

-So you called Price.

-The problem was he asked you why.

-Why did the boys jump out from the roof ?

-You blinked.

-He would know when he would come here.

-So you decided to gather some courage and-

-"They try to make us confess by bringing me to the bar with you. But they believe they were angels and could fly."

-The silence was so loud.

-He hung up.

-You sighed.

-Well at least, you said it.

-You didn't expect a yes, but at least an answer would be the minimum.

-When later, you heard a knock, you didn't make the effort to look up.

-You heard Price taking the boys to their beds and the door closing.

-But few minutes later, you heard a knock.

-Surprised, you stood up.

-Maybe someone else has drunk too much and-

-"John." You said surprised.

-"I intend to ask you out with some roses, and tomorrow but I guess two drunk soldiers with broken arms beat me."

-"The experienced strategist beat up ?" you joked.

-"I guess so. I'm sorry it was done like this, love."

-"I don't care honestly. As long as it's you asking me."

-He smiled and took your hand slowly.

-"Well, I can't wait for our first date, then."

-"'Hope Soap and Gaz will not be there."

-He laughed.

-"I can't promise that." he smiled.

G A Z :

-A meme.

-He sent you a meme.

-To confess.

-But you never answered him.

-And when he saw you, you never talked about it.

-So...he understood he was rejected.

-And he was okay with that, hell it was normal.

-He just thought it was reciprocated because you had what seems like dates with him.

-Maybe he mixed up signals.

-So he just never talked about it again, because he didn't want to make you feel awkward.

-But one day during lunch, he heard Soap talking with you.

-"So you got a new one, uh ?" Soap asked.

-"I didn't have the choice. His ass fucking destroyed the previous one."

-Gaz stared at the floor.

-He didn't know you had someone.

-Maybe that was because you never-

-"L.T has a cake, that's for sure." Soap joked.

-Gaz suffocated.

-You-

-And Ghost-

-And Ghost's ass-

-"That's not funny Soap. He fucking destroyed my phone just by sitting on it. It's not a cake. It's a fucking breeze block at this point."

-Your...

-Oh.

-oh.

-FUCK.

-He realized.

-You didn't ignore him.

-You hadn't see his message.

-"How does it happen ?" he asked to be sure of his conclusion.

-"I just let my phone on a bench, and he sat without looking, that's it. But because his ass is apparently more solid that my relationship with my father, or even the fucking Vivelle dop gel, he broke it."

-"Fuckin' hell". Gaz said

-"You can say that again. Why are you asking, by the way ?"

-"I sent you a text and you never answer, so I was wondering why."

-"Now you know. But I will answer, I manage to transfer my data and texts on my new phone."

-Gaz didn't feel well now.

-Soap was here.

-And your phone in your hand.

-Meaning he will see your reaction in live and with a public.

-Like he was on the set of a TV show. But here he could gain your heart and not $100,000.

-But you didn't say anything, neither did open it.

-You just sit and talked with him and Soap like it was not important.

-Because of course you couldn't know what was his text.

-So he waited.

-All the day, for you to open this fucking meme.

-To see it.

-And at midnight.

-He received a Mister Worlwide saying yes.

-Never he was so happy to see this bald head

A L E J A N D R O :

-He had everything planned.

-The moment, the place.

-It was going to be a big thing.

-He talked Rudy about it and even the 1-4-1 during a mission.

-Because Soap teased him about you.

-So he explained how he was going to ask you out and-

-Laswell stopped him.

-Their communications were not over.

-She heard everything

-And when Laswell ordered you to tell the location to Price

-He understood you were on their mission as a technician, and you heard all of it.

-The only thing that could kill Alejandro is Alejandro after all, right ?

-Even when it was dying of embarrassment.

-He mumbled some insults in Spanish and tried to hold his head high.

-He had everything planned, and just a microphone ruined this ?

-No,no, no, no he refused.

-He met you because of those mics, how they dare to betray him like that ?

-He ignored this and finished the mission.

-But on the way back, he heard your voice.

-"Good job guys. By the way I would love going on a date with you, Ale. If you needed to know after...this."

-You know the smile he did, when they interrogate Valeria ?

-It was one hundred brighter right now in the car.

-Soap even wore sunglasses to protect his eyes.

-Alejandro was so fucking happy.

-Maybe he did not hate the mics.

-Even though he's persuaded that someone hacked them this particular day.

___

If you want more : here.

I'm sorry that it took so long to post this part, but when I posted another COD about how you meet Farah, Alex and Konig I had a comment saying it was shit.

And I know my English sucks, so I deleted it and hesitated to write again..

Maybe I need some readers to help me, or maybe this comment was just hateful, I don't know.

In any case, sorry for the mistakes, English is not my first language !

#call of duty x reader #ghost x reader #captain price x reader #alejandro vargas x reader #gaz x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #soap x reader #cod x reader

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ofsappho · 1 year

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Heartless, Chapter 5

🔞 Simon “Ghost” Riley x reader 🔞

Fake marriage/marriage of convenience, SMUT

You get into trouble and Ghost disciplines you for it.

CHECK TRIGGER WARNINGS/TAGS UNDER READ MORE

TRIGGER WARNINGS: in the first part of this chapter, homophobic slurs (fag, faggot) and insults are tossed around. From an inconsequential side character towards Soap. I want to note that I myself am queer/nonbinary, and I have been harassed/attacked/bullied for being queer. Additionally, this scene is directly inspired by real events. A friend of mine, who is queer + nb AND is a veteran, got into a fight during their service with another Marine on their base for saying vile homophobic shit. My friend dropped the guy in an instant. My friend knows I am interpreting their story in this chapter, and they approve.

SMUT TAGS: degradation (a lot of it), humiliation, spanking, bondage, dumbification, edging, spit kink, dacryphilia, bratting/brat taming, choking, face slapping, praise kink, overstimulation, squirting, care taking (tbc next chapter!). Knife kink. All consensual. By degradation, I mean degradation in the context of the smut.

Everything goes wrong like this:

You’re out with Ghost and Johnny to explore the base.

They show you the fields where people like to play soccer. “It’s football,” your friend insists in his thick Scottish brogue. Ghost agrees with a grunt like the traitor he is.

Your heavy, exasperated sigh draws out chuckles from them both. “I’ll stop calling it soccer on the day you beat us at football.” And you don’t even like football. But fuck the British if they think they can get one over you. Well, the British and Scottish. Whatever.

The two of them start chattering- correction, Johnny chatters, and Ghost genuinely listens, you can tell, about sports and teams, and you regret bringing up the topic at all because you can barely follow.

What’s the difference between Manchester City and Manchester United? Isn’t that, like, the same thing?

As your husband discusses a recent game, a few guys kick around a ball, and some people smoke a few feet outside the designated smoking area. You watch a guy stub out his cigarette on the sign that says not to smoke elsewhere.

You’ve gotten too comfortable referring to Ghost as ‘your husband.’ Hm. You should check that impulse before it spirals into something that might validate Alejandro and Gaz’s conspiracy theories about love at first sight. Gross.

Do you know what else isn’t helping? Ghost’s refusal to let you be alone with them again. He doesn’t try to stop you or interfere, but you can’t ignore him lurking in the background like a little stalker whenever you socialize.

It’s… kind of cute.

Oh, and you finally encountered Roach in the wild. You spotted him in the mess a couple of days back, collecting the randomest assortment of snacks (Cool Ranch Doritos, a pre-workout drink for balance, you guess, a chocolate milk, and three lemon sugar cookie flavored energy bars).

He had on some interesting cat ear headphones, so you just waved and wordlessly gestured that you liked his headgear. He waved back, then shot you a thumbs up.

You tap back into your surroundings. Ghost has wandered into the smoking area to light up, and you might as well join him.

When you stretch out your hand, he plucks a smoke from his pack and places it delicately in your palm. He even lights it for you from a Zippo engraved with skulls, with one scarred hand cupped around the flame to keep it steady.

Johnny wrinkles his nose. “That’s gonna kill you in five years, you ken?” He stands on the other side of the painted smoking area line to hang while letting his disapproval be known.

You take a drag instead of laughing in his face. After all, he was the one who charmed every convenience store clerk at the young age of 17 into buying what he wanted without getting carded, smokes included.

“Since when have you been so health conscious?” You say as you blow the smoke away from Soap’s face.

Ghost does the same without thinking - like he’s stood somewhere and smoked while chatting with Soap enough times to make it a routine.

You envy the easy way they complement each other. You used to be like that with Johnny, and you wish… you want your own routines with your new husband, to know that he goes out into the world and does something different for the rest of his life because of you.

Distance is only natural, you tell yourself. You’re new to their friendship.

But Soap has been one of yours for so long, and Ghost is becoming yours faster than you thought possible. Like a rapacious strangler vine or fungal colony occupying a rotted tree, you find that you’re plotting all the ways you can twist yourself around and into Ghost.

Soap laughs. “Aye, well. You try getting shot a couple o’ times. Am not goin’ down over one of them cancer sticks.”

You hear it just as you tap some of the ash off the end of your cigarette.

“...can’t believe they let those fuckin’ fags…”

You bring the smoke to your mouth to conceal your grimace before turning ever-so-slowly. You’ve learned this lesson many times over; gathering further context is important— no need to bring a knife to a situation that does not call for knives.

The same guy you heard before continues with his little rant.

He’s a miserable-looking dude with a pasty milk face, no defined chin, a bad haircut, and a shitty name tag on his shitty uniform that says ‘Pvt. Langford.’

But somehow, despite lacking any discernible charisma, he holds rapt court with a bunch of other similarly-miserable peeons. “They’re a bunch of pussies, like, it’s pathetic, bro. Gonna give me fuckin’ AIDS or some shit if I gotta be in the same room. Criminal.” By now, he’s seen you watching him.

The corner of his thin-lipped mouth lifts as if he’s said something funny.

Eh. He’s maybe got half of a foot on you. At most. There are worse odds.

Then he slides his smarmy, revolting gaze from you to just over your shoulder, and his smirk grows. He’s looking at Soap.

You’ve seen this exact look before. You know what it means, what nerves motherfucking Langford is trying to trample on.

Before anyone can stop you, you’re across the smoking area and in Pvt. Langford’s face in about five seconds.

Soap thinks he’s about as level-headed and reasonable as the average man, but Langford has been getting on his nerves for way too fuckin’ long. For the whole time they’ve been stationed at this base, so, weeks.

Everyone knows Langford is a little shit. Everyone hates him and his bitch boys.

You’re just the first person willing to do something about it.

So while Johnny has never felt the urge to personally handle the Private’s homophobia because swatting flies is beneath him, he’s content to sit back and watch the show.

Naturally, Ghost tries to follow you. You’ve got the poor fellow whipped and wrapped firmly around your little finger.

He supposes he shouldn’t have expected any less.

Soap holds your husband back with an outstretched arm. “Let the lass do her thing,” He advises. You won’t appreciate it, and Soap has no intention of being on the receiving end of your wrath.

Ghost rolls his shoulders back. “Not gonna stop her?”

The Lt. doesn’t know, does he? “D’ya really think ya can?” Even more reason to let you go off. This will be fun and, frankly, a necessary introduction.

Ghost stills. “…” Not so new, then.

What a bloody buzzkill. Now look who’s fussing and clucking? Like a rooster.

Soap watches his teammate flex and crack his knuckles and decides that you owe him for what he’s about to say. “If she needs it, we’ll grab her before it goes too far,” He reassures Ghost before leaning against the ‘Smoking Area’ sign.

It’ll work out one way or another. No big deal.

The scowl on your face as you stare down Langford is somethin’ real ferocious. “What the fuck did you just say?” You demand, voice low and proud and loud enough to catch the attention of everyone in a ten-foot radius.

Langford laughs and tries to play it off. “That’s classified.” Oh, haha. Real fuckin’ original. Like half the girls in town haven’t heard soldiers try that line a million times.

The Army sure didn’t take Private Langford for his brain cells.

Next to him, Riley shifts from foot to foot. “She always like this?” He asks as if the words are throwing themselves against his mask and demanding to be let out.

“Mmm. Since we were wee mates.” From here, Soap can see how viciously you throw your cigarette to the ground and grind out the lit ember with your heel like the poor thing did something to you.

“No. Say it again,” You snap, cracking the sentiment over Langford’s thick head like you’re breaking a chalkboard in two.

Ghost stiffens up even further, and behind the mask, his eyes glint in the sunlight like that flame you just put out.

Is it possible that he’s… impressed by you? “Go on. I just want to make sure that I heard you correctly. That we all heard you correctly,” You say icily.

Global warming would be solved in a day if they could translate your tone into real ice.

Watching Langford take a small step back without realizing it is funny as hell. Even his minions have backed away as your aura of menace sets off their self-preservation instincts with the subtlety of a pulled fire alarm.

Lt. Riley’s eyes narrow as he memorizes your scowl and how you crowd Langford forward without letting up. “Spitfire.” Damn. That’s some bloody high praise coming from him.

Heh.

Riley’s hood can’t hide the shadowy hickies on his throat; one would think that Ghost has realized it by now.

Are those teeth marks he spots? “You sound surprised. Figured she was teachin’ ya that already,” Johnny leers.

Ah, the expression he can make out under the skull mask. He wishes he had a camera so he could show you later.

Ghost closes his eyes for a long moment. “Shut your face.”

Across the way, Langford musters up a little courage. “Aw, are you mad? Did I make you mad ‘cause I spoke the truth, snowflake? Did those faggots get to you already?”

In the aftermath, even the birds stop chirping.

“Fighting words. Surprised you’re not out there with her,” Ghost says.

Only a fool would think the Lieutenant is relaxed right now; Johnny can tell that his breathing has slowed, that he’s holding perfectly still with an unbreaking focus on his prey.

That’s part of how Ghost manages to disappear in broad daylight. When those subtle signs of life go away, it’s easy to overlook him, unsubtle mask and all.

He’d best save it for the field, but that’s none of Johnny’s business.

You two are so well-suited. “That’s the thing. About bein’ her friend. That bird- that bird’s a psycho.” If your marriage outlasts the bets everyone’s placed on an irrevocable breakdown, Soap figures he could make a killing on a matchmaking side hustle.

You take a deep breath. “I didn’t hear the truth. I heard a bunch of yapping from a little boy who a recruiter conned into signing his life away to lick the boots of his COs because he was a complete waste of resources otherwise.”

Yikes.

Occasionally, Johnny regrets quitting. He regrets quitting now, specifically; he could use the calming rush of nicotine. You’ve never ended fights in a good way, but this will end… spectacularly badly. He can see it already.

Ghost lets out a low whistle. “Jesus fucking Christ.” Then the Lieutenant looks around, and Soap realizes he’s checking for their Captain or any other superior officer.

Soap was planning on doing that anyway, and your new husband wins another point of approval in his book for thinking of it on his own.

“Pretty nice though, canny lie. Who else d’ya know that would fuck up a man for you without hesitatin’?” He says as he watches you open your mouth again.

“How does it feel to know you’re just that worthless?” Your voice rises and rises, acrid enough to melt paint, and it keeps Langford frozen in place.

“How long have you known her?” Lt. Riley asks.

“Eh… give or take sum’ ten years, prolly.”

“She like this the whole time?”

You go in for another round. “Thank God you’re not deployed anywhere important. It would be like the Bay of fucking Pigs all over again.” You’re close enough to spit on the Private, right fuckin’ close to his sallow face, and as your lip curls up, Johnny knows you’re definitely considering it.

Anger thrums in the air as bitter as gunpowder; it’s infecting Lt. Riley, churning in his posture, and it’s (unfortunately) starting to break through Langford’s shock.

“Aye. Never seen a law, or a rule, or a fuckin’ polis stop her. It’s nice not to fight alone, an’ if she had her way, I wouldn’t have lifted a finger in school.” He pauses, then looks at Ghost.

Johnny picks his following words with care. “Bet that one could carry the world on her shoulders if we’d let her. You know that she’s taken to you right quick?”

And then…

“Shut the fuck up, you dumb whore. Who even are you? Some slut whose only accomplishment is spreading your legs for a uniform? I’m not afraid to hit a little girl.”

Fucking Langford. Way to ruin a moment between mates, when Soap was just trying to help you.

God knows you need it; Lt. Riley is a piece of work.

The other man puts out his cigarette.

Now Soap has to think about how many soldiers he needs to threaten into silence after Ghost is through and how Soap will hide Langford’s body once he gets the final hit. “Lieutenant-“

They start moving in tandem, trying to get to you as fast as possible, like sharks circling after tasting blood in the water.

“Yeah, well, that’s funny ‘cause ‘little girl’ is what your mom calls me when we fuck,” You jeer before raising your hand.

Johnny loves you a lot, but man, do you make stupid choices sometimes.

Private Langford stumbles to the ground like a little bitch.

Damn. You didn’t backhand him that hard, and you’re not wearing any rings.

You can take a slap way better.

You stand over him as he clutches his face, practically cowering on the ground, and your knuckles are stinging, and all you feel is the adrenaline flash-flooding through your veins like cocaine or a really good fuck.

And then- strong, immovable arms clasp around your waist and yank you away.

Your hair’s in your eyes, and you can’t tell who’s holding you back, but whoever they are… you’re gonna make them regret it.

“Fuck you!” You howl at Langford, kicking and thrashing against the stranger’s grip.

You try to get an elbow in the side of whoever it is, but they evade it with ease. “Let go of me! I’m going to fucking kill you, you inbred motherfucker!” You scream as Langford gets to his feet.

The stranger carries you a few steps back and eliminates your chances of getting your nails in Langford’s face.

You redouble your efforts to free yourself. “Let me go! Let me at him! I’ll rip his fucking head off!”

The person shakes you like a rag doll. “Calm down. Calm the fuck down, lass. It’s me, Johnny. Stop your fucking fighting,” Soap hisses.

Oops. You stop moving all at once, causing Soap to almost drop you.

The adrenaline levels off, leaving you empty, and you drag breath after breath into your lungs to make up for it.

You shove your hair behind your ears just in time to watch Ghost put Langford in a headlock with beautiful, immaculate, careless ease.

It’s the first time you’ve ever seen him take anyone down, and it takes away the breath you just found. Like, your mouth goes dry, and you forget Soap is restraining you.

Just… holy shit. He moves like the hand of God, eyes flashing and skull mask fierce.

Langford blacks out the same second Ghost gets his arm around the other man’s neck, crumpling to the ground like a chewed-up paper doll.

Oh. Oh no.

Now you understand why Soap keeps you in place because Ghost tosses Langford’s unconscious body to the side without blinking twice and then beelines straight. towards. you.

Your hands push and hit Johnny’s arms. You need to- you need to run this time, get away, and get out of Ghost’s path.

Flee. You need to flee before he unpicks you with his teeth and eats your fucking bones like a fairy tale monster.

God fucking damn it, why won’t Soap let you go?

A rush, you can’t breathe, oof, your stomach hurts, have you been swept onto Ghost’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes?

The upside-down sight of his very well-formed ass in his jeans tells you that, yes, you are hanging from his shoulder as he takes you to a secondary location.

All the blood in your body surges to your head. “Ghost. Ghost, let me down,” You tell him, voice jostling with each step he takes.

No reaction.

If you could just breathe, an action obstructed by his stupid shoulder jabbing into your stomach, and clear the fuzz from your mind (thanks hanging upside down!), you’d make him regret this.

“Put me the fuck down. I’m not fucking kidding.” Again, nothing.

If anything, Ghost actually tightens the hold he has on your hips, accurately predicting that you’re seconds away from kicking him.

Fuuuuuck this. “PUT ME DOWN, YOU OAF. I AM YOUR WIFE, YOU CAN’T JUST-“ You try to be as loud as possible, so maybe someone will hear and save you? Or irritating enough to make him set you on the ground?

Ghost keeps walking. “No,” He tells you before digging fingers into the back of your thigh. It’s painful, and you inadvertently shut your mouth, teeth grinding together. For now.

“I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON’T SET ME DOWN THIS INSTANT-“

Once Ghost unlocks your front door, he shoves it open viciously with his boot and locks it behind you without letting you go.

You fully expect him to unceremoniously drop you on the bed, but he- he doesn’t.

He pulls you into his arms like a husband carries his wife on their wedding night and lays you down gently.

Then he backs away as if burned by your skin, backs all the way to the other side of the room.

Shit. Shit. You’re in trouble. You’re in so much trouble, Ghost leans against the wall and crosses his arms, and you can’t meet his gaze; you can only look at his shoes.

He sighs. “You know what’s gonna happen next. Nod if you know.”

You nod, still looking at the ground, and feel the humiliation and anticipation trying to strangle each other in your stomach.

“If you don’t want it, you need to get the fuck outta my sight. Right now. I can’t look at you,” Ghost tells you.

You’re not sure how to find the right words. Do you want to beg? Resist? Ask him if he’s proud of you? You end up shaking your head in a negative and propping yourself up on elbows planted firmly in the bed.

He doesn’t say or do anything for a few minutes. You know he can see you squirm, how your fingers flex and feet tap the ground.

You pick yourself off the bed and walk towards him like a moth drawn to a flame.

Ghost moves as soon as you cave. He plants his large hands on your shoulders and pushes you back, back, back, until your back slams into the wall with his body boxing you in.

Before your head can hit the wall, he slides his palm around the back of your skull to cushion you.

He braces that same arm on the wall as he speaks. “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen some stupid shit.” You’re not really listening because his flexed bicep is right there, above your head, and he has to tap your cheek to get you to focus.

You look up into Ghost’s mask and his eyes- his eyes burn, greedily eating up your blush and your throat bobbing as you swallow your nerves.

His other hand trails along your neck and then wraps around it. “Thought you were s’posed to be smart. My smart, clever girl,” Ghost croons, all condescending like he’s talking to a misbehaving animal.

Then his voice deepens to a sound that’s just a touch inhuman. “You could’ve gotten hurt. That fuckin’ wanker almost laid a finger on you.”

Your heartbeat pounds fast, screaming in your chest. “I got him first,” You point out.

Ghost’s eyes crinkle at the ends. “That you did. You were brilliant there, love, won’t deny it.” Here’s where your flush brightens, where the praise makes you look away. “I see that went straight to your pretty little head.”

He falls silent when your tongue darts out to wet your lips.

“But oh my fuckin’ god. You can’t go ‘round gettin’ into fights like that.”

“It was for Johnny,” You protest weakly. You don’t regret a single thing, but you find yourself caving at the slightest pressure.

The hand on your throat tightens, not tight enough to do anything other than remind you that you’re his. “I don’t bloody care if it was for Jesus Christ himself. Nothing is more important than you. Than your safety,” Ghost amends.

But you heard him. Nothing is more important than you, he says.

Why does he care?

Ghost sees the fight flare up in your face. “Listen to me. Nothing. Not Soap, not me. You- you are…” He’s supposed to be scaring you right now. He’s meant to be reading you the Riot Act, and the part you play is the frightened doe he teaches a lesson to.

You’re scared for a whole different reason.

Ghost is looking at you, looking through you, and it’s like you’re a little girl again, learning that the only time people give a fuck is when you do something for them.

‘Nothing is more important than you’ plays over and over in your mind.

He lets go of your throat to grab your hand, the one you hit Langford with, and his gaze drops to your reddened, bruised knuckles.

When he talks, his voice sounds odd, like he’s shaking the rust off his vocal cords. “Fuck. I was so-“ Ghost cuts himself off.

His fingers are gentle with your fingers. He turns them over, runs his thumb along your palm. You’re not used to people touching you like that.

You find your words as fast as you can. “What? You were so what?” You challenge him.

You feel him drop your hand in favor of digging his fingers into your jaw. “You’ve talked a lot today, doll. The next thing you say better be a fuckin’ apology.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s how you wanna play this?” Ghost asks, eyes flat and unreadable.

You let him apply more pressure so your mouth lolls open, you let him think he’s got you. “Yep.” Then you poke your tongue out and lick the side of the finger pressed into the corner of your lips.

“Another stupid choice,” He tells you before letting go.

He wears holsters strapped on his back and jeans, and for the first time, you’ll get to meet what he keeps in them. “See, I was gonna be nice. Was gonna… fuckin’, I dunno, say some sappy shit, be real sweet, make sure you were okay…” Ghost says matter-of-factly as he finds a single-edged switchblade that is definitely illegal for civilian carry.

There are rules for that sort of thing. The blade is an inch too long, and that popping mechanism was outlawed in 1958.

You know that he keeps bigger knives on him, ones that look like they violate the Geneva Convention. In comparison, this is small fry.

Ghost deliberately pinches the collar of your shirt between his fingers. “But you’re gonna be a bitch about this, aren’t you? I’m gonna have to get it through your thick fuckin’ skull?” He asks, moving far slower than he’s capable of, slow enough that you can stop him if you want to.

You hear yourself pant desperately, you look at him with wide, vulnerable eyes, then hold perfectly still so that he won’t nick you.

The tip of the sharpened knife pokes a tiny hole in the fabric. “Hope you’re not too attached to these, doll,” Ghost tells you before slicing a clean line down the middle.

It’s cold in your bedroom, you had the air conditioner running earlier, and you blame your instinctual shivers on that instead of the need brewing under your skin (and between your legs).

When he pulls the tattered remnants of your shirt from your shoulders, you let him.

Your bra goes next. A swift rip and then your tits hang free and bare, nipples already beginning to harden.

He makes sure to click the blade back into the handle before reaching out to caress the heavy swell of your breasts, unable to resist stroking your soft skin even when he’s mad.

You picked a good day to wear a skirt that falls just past your ass with a hemline that dances teasingly around your thighs. To be clear, it’s not a good day for your skirt itself.

When the blade comes out again, Ghost cuts your skirt with steady fingers that brush your curved stomach.

Then he slips the knife between your underwear and your skin, carefully aiming the sharpened edge out so you feel the cool metal press into your heated skin without risking an accidental cut.

He doesn’t react to how your panties stick to your cunt when he takes them off you, most likely to deprive you of the satisfaction of any reaction at all.

You see part of his balaclava twitch, and after a moment, you realize he’s raising an eyebrow.

Right. Shoes. You kick them off with far too much eagerness.

He returns the closed knife to its designated holster. It’s very safe of him, very proper.

“I won’t go easily,” You remind Ghost.

He answers by covering your eyes with his hand and kissing you, his mask bunched over his nose and pressing awkwardly into your skin.

Each kiss makes you dizzier, hazier, you forget why you’re fighting, he ravages your mouth with his, and when you moan, it makes him even more feral.

He sinks his teeth into your bottom lip, and you shout at the pain and try to curl away. But the hand over your eyes keeps you in place, and you shudder against him, naked and helpless.

The webbed straps of his chest holster grind into your breasts and leave rough streaks of chafe wherever they touch your skin.

His tongue slips against yours, Ghost tastes like smoke and something uniquely him, it feels like he’s pouring nicotine into your synapses, and your spine relaxes, your muscles soft and compliant.

When you try to bite his lip back, he pulls away without acknowledging your unhappy whine.

“Open your fucking mouth,” Ghost snaps.

You do that and even stick your tongue out for good measure. You might not be able to see him, but he can see the little tease of how good you can be.

You hear him spit before you feel the glob of his saliva land messy and hot on your outstretched tongue. Your legs shift, and you press them together, anything to help with the pressure beginning to build in your core and the arousal trickling down your thigh.

Cloth rustles, and then Ghost removes the hand covering your eyes. His mask is back in place like he never lifted it at all. “Step away. Hands behind your back.”

You turn around on unsteady legs, then put your wrists together behind your back as ordered.

Something unclicks behind you, and then he pulls it off his… pants? His belt - he’s cuffing you with his belt, deftly weaving the nylon strap between your wrists and securing it into place.

As you test the strength and make sure he’s restrained your hands in a way that doesn’t cut off circulation, Ghost gathers your hair and drapes it neatly over one shoulder so it won’t bother you.

He touches your back and neck with an almost unbearable fondness. Fuck.

You feel him kiss your shoulder through the mask, closed-mouthed and chaste. “This isn’t coming off until you’re ready to behave,” He murmurs into your skin before sliding an arm around your waist, pulling the mask down, and biting the place he just kissed.

You struggle and twist in his grasp, but he holds fast, and you slump into him with a pained moan. Is he trying to fucking brand you? It sure feels like it.

When Ghost releases you, he turns you around with a hand on your bound wrists and then walks backward faster than you can keep up.

Then he sits on the bed as proudly as a king on a throne and beckons for you.

Without your arms free to help you balance, you stumble a few times, and Ghost watches you with a pleased glint in his gaze. That may be the point.

By the time you get to him, you’re thoroughly unbalanced. “Come on. Yeah, over my lap.” You kneel without complaint, too busy avoiding eating shit to consider resisting.

He helps you lower your torso with an arm placed below your collarbones and a hand flat on your stomach so you don’t face plant into the sheets.

“Are you going to-“ You feel him guide your hips up, encouraging you to place most of your weight on your face and shoulders.

Conveniently leaving your ass exposed. And- and he can see your dripping folds, see proof that you crave him.

He goes on as casually as if he were describing the weather. “Spank you? Yes, I am. A slag like you can’t see reason, obviously. Got to train it in ya.” You practically jump out of your skin when you feel him drag a finger along the inside of your thigh, tracing the rivulets of slick trickling from your pussy.

You feel like a thing, like putty in his hands that he can bat about and talk to like you’re not even there.

“Don’t act like you don’t fucking get off on this. Be honest. Or are you too stupid to do that?” Ghost asks as if he’s just remembered that you can answer questions.

You clench around nothing and desperately wish he’d take that finger playing with the sensitive skin of your thighs, and do something useful with it. “…I do.”

“There’s my needy girl.” He neatly fists a hand in your hair, somehow mindful that you won’t appreciate losing a few strands without you telling him.

His free hand caresses your ass, then up and down the backs of your thighs. You feel him grab one cheek tightly, grinding down with his fingers so he can see red marks bloom under his touch.

You jerk forward with a cry when he hits you the first time, though the hand in your hair keeps you from going very far. Ghost doesn’t spank you hard, more of a warning tap than anything.

The shock smarts more than the blow did. But you’re determined to show that you can, in fact, take a hit better than Langford, so you dig your knees in and psych yourself up for the next spank.

“Fuck is wrong with you?” His voice cracks like thunder, then he follows it with another spank.

This one hurts. Hot, hot pain radiates from the spot he hit, but your body wrenches with a different sensation as your body processes that pain as… well… pleasure.

When he spanks you again, he takes the time to force your head further down into the blankets. “Hm? Running your dumb fucking mouth, talkin’ all that big shit?” Ghost snaps at you.

Each time he spanks you, you cry out, your eyes roll back, and it hurts, and he keeps hitting the same spots, so even when he isn’t touching you, you’re sore.

Another set of blows, each one harder than the last.

You gotta- you gotta tell him- you push back against his grip, and he lets you lift your head. “God, Ghost, please-“ Your voice is choked-up and pleading, mirroring your thighs trembling with want and your aroused, needy core that he’s fucking ignoring.

He slaps your ass again, this time right where your ass cheek meets your thigh, close but not close enough.

“Please, what? Please, what, doll? Come on. Dumb little doll doesn’t know how to talk?”

Your breaths are ragged, labored, you’re shivering and there’s so much pain that you can’t tell where it stops and where the want begins.

“Harder-“ You cut yourself off with a gasp when he does just that.

That one burns. That one feels like an open flame, like Ghost’s touch is burrowing into your muscles, down down down, like it will leave a lingering mark that you don’t want to fade.

He rubs over your heated skin, massaging away the worst of the soreness. “You’re welcome. Now listen to me,” Ghost speaks in a low, reassuring tone like he’s gentling a startled animal.

He notices the exact moment you get lost in the feeling, when you push back and fucking present yourself in the hopes that he’ll give you more.

Then he cracks his hand against your ass; the sound is louder than your answering shriek. “Listen. You are going to apologize for almost getting hurt. You’re going to mean it. You’re going to swear you’ll never get into a fight again.” Ghost tightens his hold on your hair and twists his wrist to push your face back into the bed, taking back the advantage he granted.

“Or what?” You won’t be able to sit comfortably for a week at least, the ache and the bruises forming have you strung out for the tiniest scrap of pleasure… but you did tell him you wouldn’t go easily.

“Or…” Ghost trails off slowly. Your scalp begins to tingle as his grip grows even tighter.

It’s so painful that you almost miss the two thick fingers he slips into your pussy. Almost.

“Fuck!” You keen, your mouth open as your nails dig into your palms.

He thrusts them into you slowly, lazily, totally unsympathetic to your pleading noises and your muscles quivering around his fingers as he drags them in and out of you.

Your cunt has to stretch to accommodate them, and he grinds into you each time he gets knuckle-deep. And then he holds your head down like you don’t get the privilege of looking at him… Your pussy clenches around him at the thought.

Eventually, Ghost stops moving at all, but you’re gone, you’ve been gone, and when you start fucking yourself on his hand, he lets you.

You can tell he’s rock hard, you can feel his dick through his jeans, but he has far more willpower than you could even imagine, and brushing up against it does nothing. “Oh- oh my god, fuck, that feels…” You pant as you chase the sweetness, chase the tension twisting up your guts that’s so close to boiling over, so close.

Your clit is aching, screaming for pressure, for stimulation, but he doesn’t grant it to you. You can only work your hips against his hand, over and over.

Your eyes close as you speed up, you’re whining, you’re gonna come any second, your cunt can’t stop twitching. “I’m so close, wait what-“

Ghost pulls his fingers out before you tip over the edge.

“Or you’re not coming tonight,” He informs you, and you can hear the stupid fucking grin in his stupid fucking voice.

When you try to protest, to get up and fucking bite him or some shit because that’s not fair, Ghost spanks you with the hand you soaked.

You’re sort of blissed-out, sort of pissed, and a lot horny. “I’m sorry-“ You start in the hopes that Ghost will fold and give you what you fucking want.

His mask rustles as he shakes his head. “I don’t believe you.”

Then he slides you off his lap like you weigh nothing so he can stand.

Ghost keeps you in the same position, head down, ass up, and nudges your thighs open a bit wider.

You can’t see him through any of this. That seems to be something he’s taking full advantage of. You can’t touch him, you have no idea what’s happening next.

The only clue you have that he’s taken his mask off again is when he puts his tongue on your sensitive, aroused clit.

(He really should just take the damn thing off more regularly. This is inconvenient, and it’s not like there’s anything under there that could make him less attractive.)

He laps at your swollen folds with his hands on your hips to steady you, and the thoughts melt straight out of your head and drool from the corner of your mouth.

You struggle against the belt in earnest this time, maybe you can loosen it enough to slip your hands out and get away from Ghost and his planned torment. As much as your body pleads to stay put, as much as you want to push yourself back and let him consume you, let him fuck you stupid with his tongue, you know it will end soon.

And he’s going to be fucking mean about it.

Ghost takes his breathing break as an opportunity to taunt you. “You’re not goin’ anywhere,” He promises, leaving handprint bruises on your thighs.

Your stomach churns as he sucks on your clit, like there’s a knife slicing through you, and it’s the hot, burning pleasure pulsing through your body.

You’re not sure you can hold yourself up any longer, your knees waver like you’re a baby deer, and oh God, you’re going to come again, you can feel the spasms in your cunt grow stronger and stronger.

The beginnings of your orgasm tremble through your muscles, so close that you can taste it, you feel it throbbing with every beat of your heart.

He keeps sucking, his wet mouth relentless and dragging you painfully to the edge of the cliff. “Ghost, please, please let me- Fuck!” You wail as he backs off.

Tears well in your eyes as the tremors fade into nothing.

You get yourself upright before he can stop you. “Why are you being such a dick?” You blurt out, lurching forward on your knees like if you can get to him, you can do… something. You’re not sure what, other than that you want to kill him.

Ghost blinks a couple of times.

In the silence that follows, the deadly, threatening silence, you realize your mistake. “Just- just let me come, I’ll be good. I promise. Just wanna come.” You beg, you sit down and tilt your head up like a dog doing a trick, and you pray he gives you grace.

He gets his hand around your throat faster than a snake striking its prey. This time, Ghost squeezes the sides hard enough to make you see white lights. “I am being a dick,” He agrees congenially. “But that’s not what you need to say, is it?”

“…no,” You mumble.

The next thing you feel after he releases you is his palm meeting your cheek. Hard.

“Have I spoiled you that much? You think you can fuckin’ ignore me?” Ghost sounds so calm, so authoritative.

After the ringing in your ears clears, you’re proud to see that you’re still upright. “No, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” You stretch your jaw a few times to release the ache from his slap.

He hunches over, puts his hands on his knees, and gets right in your face. “Oh, but you did,” Ghost whispers.

There’s something about the fogginess clinging to your eyelashes and the inside of your ears and the folds of your brain that makes his skull mask seem more than real.

A hovering specter of exposed bone, hollow eye sockets with no end, and a gaping, horrifying maw.

You’re starting to understand why people call him Ghost and mean it.

Your mouth goes dry. “Please, I’m begging you,” You whimper, eyes round with awe and flustered blood rising in your cheeks.

He nods, and you swear there must be hearts in your eyes at his approval. “Mm. I like that. Beg again.”

“Ghost. Husband. I’ll be so good. Anything. I’ll do anything. I can’t take it, I need to come so badly.” You lean forward to touch your forehead to his, making yourself as obedient as possible. For the most part.

“That’s not an apology.” Then he sighs, long and drawn-out and aggravated. “Anything, you say?” Ghost asks.

“Y-yeah.”

“Alright. You can come…. When you promise not to fight. And you’re gonna wait until you do,” He tells you as he slips his hand between your slick thighs.

“No…” You moan. He’s doing it again, torturing you again, you just want to give up, you feel him play with your throbbing clit, and it hurts so good.

Ghost clamps a hand on your shoulder, forcing you to roll your hips against his hand. “Sounds like you weren’t listening. Now that makes me think you don’t care.” Shit. Shiiiiit. He pushes a single finger into you, and you collapse into him as you start to ride it, hips jerking unconsciously.

He laughs when he hears you squeal. “You’re just a mindless whore who’d let half the fuckin’ base run through you, aren’t ya?” He’s found your g-spot, he rubs the patch of ridged flesh inside your cunt over and over.

Sweat beads on the back of your neck and drips down your spine, your fucked-out gaze can hardly focus on him, you feel like you’re burning alive in your skin.

“Don’t even need me at this point…” He circles your clit one more time and your mouth hangs open and you want to beg, but you can’t focus-

Tears fall down your cheeks when he wipes his fingers on your heaving breasts.

“No, no, no, Ghost, I need you. I want you. No-nobody else. I do care, please, you’re the only one,” You sob into his chest, pushing your nose into the fabric of his hoodie because it’s soft and smells like him, warm and like home.

“Yeah?”

You feel him rub your back, then slip a few fingers between the belt and your wrists to test your comfort.

You nod without lifting your head. “I- I was- I’m listening, promise, I can’t- you gotta make me come, don’t want anybody else.” You’re so tired, so worn out. There’s a patch of dampness on his jacket from your weeping, and you let out little high-pitched whimpers like a neglected kitten.

He frees your hands in an instant. “If I gotta repeat myself, I’m gonna leave you here,” Ghost tells you, though his voice isn’t as mean as before.

Your arms cling to his neck as you nuzzle your face into the space below his sharp jaw. “Ghost. Don’t go.” The edge of his balaclava muffles your words, but you don’t have the strength to say them to him straight.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being so stupid,” You sniffle before bringing a hand to your nose to wipe a little snot.

Ghost gently knocks your fingers away and replaces them with the edge of his sleeve, delicately cleaning the mucus from your upper lip.

Next, he dries your cheeks with the shadow-black fabric.

You protest when he unhooks your arms from his neck, and your hands scrabble for purchase in the hood of his jacket.

One soft look, his fingers brush your chafed wrists, and you let him lay you down. “Took you long enough,” Ghost quips as he unbuttons his pants and pulls out his dick, mouthwateringly hard and long. He pumps his cock a few times.

You’re in a daze, hovering in that raw space on the other side of crying but wanting him anyways, needing him more than anything.

“Spread your legs, love.”

Ghost leans in like he’s about to kiss you. Then he remembers his mask and changes his mind, having lifted it enough today.

He taps your sensitive clit with the fat head of his cock, and you suppress your shudders, how your legs automatically try to close and get away from the feeling. “I won’t do it again,” You tell him, voice breathless and sweet.

Once he’s coated in enough of your arousal, he keeps one hand flat on your pelvis as he pushes in. “Fuck- fuck, I…” You groan. There’s never any room in your body left for air when he fucks you. Never.

He’s so large that it hurts a little when he’s bottomed out, you can hardly twitch or clamp down like you desperately want because of how fucking full you are.

You can feel every inch of him, you’re on the brink of crying again because all of those denied orgasms are tearing at your insides, and your painfully aroused cunt screams that you can’t take it, that it’s too much, too good, he’s too big.

You have to be good. “Uh, I won’t fight, aah-“ That’s the only thing that gets you to say the words he wants through numb lips, especially when Ghost starts to thrust, and your pussy convulses around him each time.

He moves slowly, really slowly, shallow at first, your tits bouncing in time, and you’re crying out underneath him, so used to all that edging that you subdue your pleasure on instinct.

The slick sounds of his cock sliding in and out are loud and profane, filling the room more than your weak, almost pathetic whines do.

The solid, imposing weight of his body settles you down so you can enjoy his faster, harder pace, and his balls slap against your ass as he fucks you open. “Promise?” Ghost pants, his hands pressing your knees almost to your chest.

He’s looking for something. He moves your legs every few thrusts, opens you up a little more, tilts your pelvis up and-

When his dick catches on your g-spot, your tears cover your cheeks and trickle into your hair in earnest. “Yes, yes, shit, hngh- I promise…” You’re so wet that you can feel it dripping down to the bed and pooling under you, you feel that familiar pressure building, except this time it’s stronger, it’s got a stranglehold on you.

Every time the fly of his pants brushes your engorged clit, your eyes go large and you hiccup, unable to moan properly because it’s like electricity is coursing down your spine.

He kisses the side of your face before nailing that sensitive spot with terrifying, mind-breaking accuracy.

“Come on. You can do it,” Ghost groans, cursing under his breath when you squeeze him so tightly that he almost loses his grip on your thighs.

Oh. Oh. He wants- he’s trying to make you…

“I can’t, I don’t know how, I, I-“ You sob, the pleasure is so intense that you feel nauseous, he’s rutting into your body furiously, and you’re stuck on a horrible knife’s edge of needing to come or you’ll die, but it’s not happening.

He nudges your knee until you wrap one leg around his hips. “It’s alright, love. Let me help you. That’s it, that’s a good girl,” Ghost shushes you before slowing down so he can place his hand on your throat and restrict the blood rushing to your head.

Everything goes sweet and hazy, and you give him a cock-drunk smile in return, eyes rolling back and drool stuck to the corner of your lips.

Once you’re suitably pliant, he slides that hand between you and finds your aching clit. “Just focus on me.” He’s pressing his forehead to yours, you look into his dark, fathomless eyes ringed with pale lashes.

The coil tightens, and you arch into him, gasping and biting down on your lip so hard that you draw blood.

“Ghost, fuck, can I-“ You beg, voice choked and strung out as his fingers move faster on your clit, circling it in tandem with his cock pounding you so deep that it feels like he never ends.

“Go on. Come for me. I know you can.” Ghost pinches your clit, and you come with a wail, thighs shaking, your cunt seizing and it fucking gushes out of you, you soak his jeans, you clamp down so tightly that he slips out.

He replaces his dick with three fingers slotted right on your g-spot, moving in quick, jerky thrusts to see you through it. “Holy fuck. Did you just…” He mutters as your eyes screw shut, and your nails snag his shoulders.

You feel like you’re dying, you can’t stop fucking squirting, the waves grow and grow-

Your hips jerk for the last time, and you’re left a whimpering, quivering mess of oversensitive nerves, the last of the aftershocks still simmering in your muscles.

Ghost kisses your forehead as he carefully withdraws his fingers. “You’re too good to me,” He tells you with something like awe in his rough voice.

You slump to the bed, boneless and empty, not even giving a fuck that the sheets are all messy with sweat and… squirt?

That’s new, you think blearily. That kind of shit only happens in porn? Right?

Your head lolls to the side so you can watch him through lidded eyes.

He moves you out of the wet patch with one arm under your back and the other under your knees, then tucks himself back into his boxers.

“Wait… you didn’t- you didn’t come…” Your voice is fucked up and hoarse, and maybe you should give in to the overwhelming urge to sleep, but…

Did he not want to? You did everything he asked.

He shakes his head. “Nah. Don’t need to. You were perfect, you learned your lesson.” He splays a hand out on your stomach, luxuriating in your squishiness.

Your brow furrows. “Ghost…” Then you rub the sweat and crusted tears from your eyes and set your mouth in a mulish, determined line.

He watches you like a hawk. “Yeah?”

“Please? Fuck me?” You ask as you touch his forearm with a weak hand.

A beat passes. “You’re crying. And you drenched me, the bed too,” He tries to reason with you. You see him swallow harshly, you know he’s shifting where he sits because he’s given himself blue balls.

Your eyes flutter when the exhaustion almost gets you, but you power through it. “It’s okay. I- I’m tough. I want you to come.”

“Yeah. Alright… Tough girl.” Then Ghost reaches for your hips with all kinds of enthusiasm that tells you the truth.

It was sweet of him to try and be gallant. You’d rather he break you open and fill you up.

To be extra nice, you even hold your knees apart so he can push back in.

You’re not going to come again, you’re too fried for that, but it still feels… incredible. You’re glad for all the extra lubrication and that you can make him feel good.

Ghost fucks you with abandon, and deep, animalistic groans echo from his throat. “Shit- I could fuck you forever, you’re squeezin’ me so tight, fuckin-“ He grunts, head tilted back the tiniest bit and composure gone.

Breathe, you tell yourself, breathe. Do it for him.

“God, you’re beautiful.” Your swollen pussy spasms from the praise, constricting him so tight that he cries out. You just can’t help yourself when he says shit like that, especially when he’s making you ache in such an addictive way.

His hips move faster. “You like that? You like it when I tell you how good this fuckin’ pussy feels?” Yeah. Yeah, you do.

“Fuck, fuck fuck-“ You feel him orgasm, he paints your walls with his cum, then grinds those last few thrusts so deep that you cry out.

His pelvis bumps the backs of your thighs like he’s trying fuck his cum in as deep as it will go.

Ghost catches his breath as he softens inside you, panting as raggedly as you are.

He pulls out before dropping his chest harness to the side and unzipping his hoodie so he can clean you up.

You can’t stand the thought of anything touching anywhere near your beat the fuck up pussy right now, so you shove his hands away and drag Ghost down to snuggle.

Of course, he obliges you and helps you rest your head on his shoulder as you curl into his muscular frame like a little bug.

“What happens if the fight comes to me?” You ask.

He’s running a hand up and down your spine, soft touches to bring you back to earth in a gentle, comforting way.

His hand stops until you kick his shin, gently, then he starts up again. “You run,” Ghost says.

“What happens if I can’t run?” You press your cheek into his t-shirt, so close that you can feel the heat of his skin through it. And a little rhythm that must be his heartbeat.

Next, Ghost threads his fingers through your sweaty, messy hair and attentively smooths it away from your face. “You call me. I’ll come get you. Every time.”

Hope y'all liked this one! Next chapter will be super soft/sweet/fluffy with lots of caretaking, I promise.

Tagging:

@abbiesxox @thedevillovesflowers @poohkie90 @averyyreads @lialacleaf @backupgal @kitty-satan1 @androgynoushellscape @555ilovecats @pinkwigonmytv @almightywdm @discowizard88 @castielsangelsx @jaymicrosoft @rengokulover96 @copiasratscheese @fluffysmiko @d3athtr4psworld @idesofarch @teenagegever2k22 @badame0224 @toilet-paper-headbands @itsrosebabe @bangirl134 @silverianni @nezukos-number1fan @deadpoetsandhoney @crowsjourney @vanevafu @xxghostyx @rafaelacallinybbay @akaotv @chibijusstuff @wasteland-babe @anubiseqq @lilpothoscuttings @soapyghost @maliceex59 @valdemarismynonbinarylove

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katyspersonal · 7 days

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Hello Katya, do you have any ideas about Simple Gratia?

....

Yes, my girl!! I have some observations AND ideas! I remember that back when I checked, a fan Wiki incorrectly said that she is wearing Yharnam Hunter set. I do not know whether they've fixed that since then or not, but I know it confused a few artists. Gratia, in reality, is wearing an Old Hunter set but slightly altered:

(Close images of her model are from this ( x ) page, datamined by AstralLace!) This is what an Old Hunter set looks like, for a reminder:

Gratia is an Old Hunter: the type that started under Gehrman like Maria, Vitus, Henryk, Djura, Bestial Hunter, all that. I think that she knew all these characters and more, and with Maria she was a lot like an older sister that Maria never had! But I think she would be genuinely annoyed by Djura's complex inventions and at times not be able to hide her disdain, right in the middle of Djura ranting about them! That'd spark stupid, petty arguments about what kind of weapon is "better" which their friends laugh at in the corner like hyenas until Gehrman or Maria separate them XD

In comparison with the generic set, she is missing the long flowing cape, as well as the glove on her left hand. Her weapon, a chunk of metal, also goes in the left hand. I think she is missing the glove to have a stronger grip on the metal, so it would not slip away! I wondered what her right hand weapon would be before, but I think she doesn't need one in the end! I imagine her staggering the beast with her Iron Fist and then TEARING THEIR HEAD OFF WITH HER FREE HAND DFJHFSHSD .....but, you know, a hammer or a mace would also be nice yeah sure

In Bloodborne setting, red hair is also highlighted as a trait of Cainhurst nobles, that isn't really seen in any other NPC. Edgar may be also a ginger but much brighter kind, certainly not a REDhead!

This makes me think: what if Gratia's red hair is not just a random design choice, but a hint? And even if it isn't, it can still be used for a headcanon! Cainhurst nobles descend from Pthumeru Ihyll and have some Pthumerian heritage (just in case here ( x ) is the post with evidences of it) 🤔 At the same time, Pthumerians have gigantic variants, that seem to be more slow and dim than 'regular' ones. And interestingly, Gratia is abnormally big AND stated to have some intellectual drawbacks:

So, she has 1) otherwise Cainhurst-exclusive hair color 2) a size abnormally large for a human and 3) correlation between inability to use guns and being 'dim'! This gave me a headcanon that she was born in the Cainhurst walls, but shown Pthumerian genes that were "undesired" in the eyes of snobbish nobles and thus, abandoned at birth. She never knew of her origins, but was adopted by a kind man! Yeah, in this context, Maria and Gratia feeling family-like bond almost from the start in kind of fateful!

^ I often draw her with the same body pattern that shows on the skin of Snatchers, and that is exactly what kind of descendant she is!

I also always liked the idea that Gratia, Simon and Yamamura were the 'detective friends' up to uncover the Healing Church's secrets! Later, I decided the Yahar'gul Hunter we find in the prison under Grand Cathedral should also be a part of the squad! I did not know that Simon interestingly had Fist of Gratia as a part of his equipment back then and only judged from their location, but that made me feel validated with that headcanon! xD

Gratia is, of course, more of a 'power' of the team! She might be not very smart, but she has her heart in a good place and can understand the concept of shady bad business that should be stopped. She is easy to deceive in terms of pranks and other remotely innocent things, but when someone lying to her or trying to use her is malicious she will sense it. Pair that with her being very brave and blunt, and you really don't want to mess with her! The girl could grab Laurence and slam him against the wall accusing him of being "full of shit" if he attempted to deceive her, ffs! And not even his friends would defend him because it IS his fault for playing with this tigress x)

Needless to mention that she is protective over her friends! Not a kind of a protective friend that will mindlessly jump into fighting the other guy, but someone that will walk in and give them a fair warning to get lost first. She has threatening aura and usually just that is enough to scare away a person that means no good to someone she cares about. But, when she is powerless to do anything against some prick in power or likewise, she will express her frustration by breaking a property on her way out xd

Also she gives me this vibe:

Thank you for an ask! :D She has a very vivid and fleshed out image in my mind! Funny enough, this makes describing her harder because she feels so self-explanatory for me!

#bloodborne #simple gratia #bloodborne headcanons #bloodborne observation

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coldresolve · 23 days

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Hi, I'm Elias, I'm a 26yo trans guy from Denmark. I write shit, I draw shit, and I get into unneccesarily tedious arguments with anons about torture apologia in fiction. I think that sums up my vibe

I've made a few posts about this already, but tl;dr: the Danish NHS has been refusing to treat me for gender dysphoria for the better part of a year now because they've deemed me "unstable." Unstable how, you ask?

I have depression.

No, that is quite literally it. Full context under the readmore.

Fighting to be heard and having the door repeatedly slammed in your face sucks peak ass, and I'm done now. The NHS is so lackluster when it comes to trans people, all of a sudden, it makes perfect sense to me why 31% of transgender Danes get HRT outside of the NHS.

And I'd rather not have to turn to the black market, so rn I'm hoping to get a prescription with GenderGP. The issue is, I'm poor as fuck and can't afford the start-up fees for the forseeable future - unless I do something like this. I hate asking others for money, and I hate it even more if I'm not in a place where I can give anything in return. But I also recognize I'm in over my head with this, so. If you've got a cent or two to spare, I'd be grateful as hell.

I've mathed it out, and my best estimate is that I need around 3500,- DKK / $500 USD. Again, this is just to cover the initial subscription as well as mandatory consultations/blood tests. I should be able to cover the prescriptions on my own, as well as further tests/consultations down the line, so I'm hoping this is a one-and-done sort of thing.

paypal: [email protected]

Also, important note. We're in a global cost of living/housing crisis and this isn't a strict life-or-death situation. If you're in a tough spot right now, don't send me anything, that'd just make me feel worse about asking. I appreciate the thought but you gotta take care of your own needs first. Peace and take care ✌️

So I've been dealing with major depressive disorder since I was 11. It runs in my family, and as you might imagine, after 15 years of living with this thing, I've learned how to manage it pretty well by now. I know what it's like to genuinely be unstable - and if I were in a place like that, no problem, I'd be open about that. I wouldn't be making decisions like this. I know myself. You kind of have to when you're dealing with a chronic mental illness.

Here's where I am right now: I've got no suicidal ideation, been clean from self harm for four years, no psychosis, no inpatient admissions for the last five years. I live on my own, take my meds, and I'm keeping my life in order. Depressed, yes, but about as stable as someone with my history can get, and ask anyone who knows me, me wanting to get on HRT isn't some spur of the moment decision. I've done a fucking decade of soul searching, and a few years ago, I finally (duh) reached the conclusion that living as a woman isn't something I can even fake being content with - believe me, I've tried. I'm well aware of the scope of medical transition, but I'm settled in who I am. And I just want to live like me now. That's the only thing I want.

If it counts for anything, my partner and family have supported me through this, which has been priceless obviously, but it also goes to show that me saying "I'm capable of making medical decisions" isn't purely a personal assessment. I'm pretty sure they'd speak up if they thought I was being unstable about it or whatever

But the CPH clinic for sexology, who have consistently refused to listen to me telling them all this, have somehow magically aquired divine knowledge on my capacity to make adult decisions about my own body, and on the basis that I have MDD, they're refusing to even set me up for a preliminary interview - one that would preceed a 6 month full-team psych evaluation before the prospect of HRT would even come up. They said in their latest refusal that they wont accept another referral from me until a year after my last in-clinic conversation with them, which happened on October 24th, 2023 - meaning that with the NHS, if they accepted my referral come October (which I don't have much faith they will), the earliest I could possibly get on HRT is April 2025. Arguing for my own sanity would've sucked enough as is, but it's made harder by the fact that they won't even talk to me. You're a trans guy who would like healthcare, but you have a mental illness? Good luck, you're on your own. Long live the Danish bureaucracy.

Dysphoria makes me fucking miserable. I'd rather not have to write a sob story here, and tumblr is like 80% trans people so I guess a good portion of you can imagine why waiting another year for the possibility of maybe-perhaps-if-all-goes-well getting on HRT would not actually make me less miserable about it.

So. I'm sitting down next week along with my mom to file a formal complaint with the patient's rights committee. I don't know what to call this other than some form of discrimination on the basis of mental illness, because nothing in my current situation would prohibit me from making medical decisions for myself. And I honestly don't think that a complaint is going to do much, but I intend to make it obnoxiously long, because by law, a specialized doctor and an attorney have to read through the whole thing. If you can't beat 'em, make 'em read 50 pages of you going into detail about why you think they suck, right

And yeah, like I said, in the meantime, I'm trying to go via GenderGP. It'd be nice if my poor ass could get HRT via the NHS instead of having to pay out of pocket, but apparently the bar for entry requires that you 1) have gender dysphoria to the point where it impedes normal function and 2) somehow aren't mentally ill. Who wrote these rules? Some 60yo cis guy in a suit in Christiansborg, I imagine.

Feel free ask about anything relating to this whole situation, I'll be as open as I can about it, cause I understand that if you're going to give money to someone, you want to know what it's going to. Though I hope you understand I'm not going to doxx myself more than I already have now, or give you my entire medical history - only what's relevant to my current situation.

I know Denmark is a welfare state and on a global scale we're doing alright, but I hope you don't mind if I say this: This shouldn't be happening as often as it does. Fuck the Danish NHS.

#other #slight self doxx ig #idec ill post my bare ass for testosterone #do rb if u want but also no pressure. i want this whole thing to be on a want-to only basis alright

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booksandpaperss · 1 year

Text

I was asked to explain what I meant when I said that Stranger Things season 4 was meant to mimic Act 4 of a Shakespeare tragedy, and I said I was too tired to explain but then I of course immediately listed out the reasons, so here’s a watered down version of what I mean by this bc I am a high school senior struggling mentally but I’m also a Shakespeare nerd:

General goalposts that tell you you’re in Act 4 of a Shakespeare Tragedy:

-it becomes apparent that the previous 3 Acts were only a slow buildup filled with clues and that things hadn’t actually started to “get real” until now

-more characters start dying

-the true purpose of a main character’s arc is revealed

-endgame is set up and foreshadowed

-something goes horribly wrong and shit starts hitting the fan. Things haven’t gone completely off the rails yet, but you can tell they’re going to

-the main character’s plans take a huge a left turn

-it becomes a apparent that the true end result tragedy of it all has not been what you as the reader had been previously lead to believe in the first 3 acts

-absolutely nothing is resolved. Maybe some questions are answered, but more are created because of them, and it’s clear things are only going to get worse before any resolution is reached

Any of this sound extremely familiar? Bc if you were paying attention to the season like most of you claim, then all of it should. Season 4 was, essentially, meant to be like a tragedy. To quote the duffers, it was their “Empire Strikes Back season” (which fyi Star Wars also draws a lot of inspo from the Shakespearean Tragedy structure, like most popular media. This is far from unusual). The main characters were supposed to screw up big time and make detrimental mistakes, and character arcs were never supposed to be resolved in the slightest. It wasn’t meant to be like the previous seasons where everything at the end stayed relatively rounded out and contained. If season 4 is like Act 4 of a Shakespeare Tragedy, then season 1-3 are like Acts 1-3. A steady build with clues layed out for the finale, but nothing explodes in the characters faces yet.

Now, do I think this intention for season 4 could’ve been carried out better? Absolutely. Volume 1 was well done, but with volume 2 it feels like the duffers took the aspects I just listed out and pasted them into their story with Elmer’s glue. This is probably because they wrote volume 2 without the rest of the writers room, and don’t get me wrong I don’t think it’s bad, I just think it could’ve been less clunky, but I’m getting into a different conversation now.

The point here is that once you understand the intent that the writers and the duffers had with season 4 in this context, the writing choices themselves make a lot more sense, and you should be able to see and understand how season 4 set up season 5 with the potential to be an absolutely amazing finale with a good payoff to what we’ve now established was the literal Tragedy of season 4.

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wanderingxiao · 7 months

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Thirst post~ What If you’re in class with Wanderer and he gets super needy? Mmm~ yes baby! Wanderer is addressed as “Scara” ;)

Suggestive Themes, 18+ only plz~ 💜

✨Wanderer’s Teasing Touches✨

“I swear if you get any closer, Scara. I’m really going to punch you.”

“Heh, you don’t have the courage to do such a thing in class. It’s rather pathetic seeing you so worked up over a few innocent touches. You’re just that needy for me aren’t you?”

God sometimes you really hated this prick. The shit-eating grin on his face was enough to make your blood boil and your fists shake with anger. How did you even begin dating the Wanderer in the first place? It was probably his undeniable attractive features. He was Ill-mannered the first day you met him and he still was, how did you find his personality bearable enough to continue seeing him? You knew that answer. You loved him. Even his stupid condescending words, annoyed and often times judgmental looks, all of it you had grown to love. That doesn’t mean he still didn’t annoy the hell out of you. Just like he is now. His cold hand is rested on your thigh, rubbing light circles. Seems romantic right? Wrong. Not when you’re in class at the Akademiya trying to focus on class when his hand keeps inching closer and closer to your heat.

“Let’s undo these, they’re in my way.” His slender fingers began to stealthily work your pants undone, pushing the silver button through the sewed hole and grasping the golden zipper. Your hand reaches under the table, swatting his hand away as best you can in order to be discreet, but his stealthy fingers get your pants unzipped and down before you can stop him. “Ah, ah, focus on the lecture. Or else you’ll make a failing grade on this next exam. Wouldn’t that be a shame for the straight A goody too shoes to get a bad grade?” His condescending words did nothing to sway your focus on the professor and the exam material. He was really testing the restraint you had not to strangle him at that moment. “I promise we can do it later, just please not here.”

“Tsk, but I want you now. And I take what I want, when I want it. Especially things that are mine.” His slender fingers padded a damp area building in your panties, rubbing slow and antagonizing circles against your core. His touch was cool yet burning all in the same instance. Your body stiffened, legs trying to close on his hand to stop his movements, but you should’ve known that wasn’t going to work. He was unrelenting. “Would you look at that? Already so wet from some simple touches. You might hold yourself on a pedal stool, but face it. We both know you’re just a dirty, perverted, slut.” God you loved it when he called you such degrading and dirty things. You knew he didn’t actual mean his words In the full context, but the fact was that you were a slut for him and him alone. “Your body is more honest than you are. It’s pathetic how weak you are to a man’s touch… you let other men touch you like this?”

“N-No… only you-“ a hand went to your mouth quickly, trying to stifle your own shuddering moan when he started to press harder against your core, moving tantalizingly slow towards a puffy bundle of nerves that rocked your world. A low and teasing chuckle bubbles from his chest, low enough not to draw attention to you both. Your eyes honed in on the professor, shaky to continue focusing on the lecture. “That’s right. You only submit to me like this. You submit only to me, your world, your god.” Your body betrayed you, slowly bucking your hips into his hand, desperate for more of his sensationally electric touch. His voice dropped with sedative seduction, pushing you closer and closer to succumbing to his demands for your body. “Scara… please…”

“You’re getting weak on me now? Before you wanted me not to touch you at all and now you’re sitting here, hot and flustered from this? I should punish you for being such a fucking whore.” His tongue was deathly sharp, pointed edges sticking to every little syllable that fell from his oh so soft lips. You could feel your legs shaking, utterly humiliated by how his lewd and degrading words turned you on. Your hand rested on his thigh under the table, making him stop his movements and come closer to your ear. His large hat covered your head, slightly covering your flushed face. “When did I give you permission to touch me with your filthy dirty hands?” His voice was dark yet so sexy. Suddenly, he plunged two finger deep inside you, letting out a husky and blissful breath against your ear. You quickly closed your mouth and clenched your jaw tightly not to make a sound, your hands leaving him to clench his wrists shakily as a means of support for yourself. “Don’t fucking touch me without my permission first. Is that understood?”

You couldn’t respond, your mouth pretty much sewn shut in order not to let out a loud moan in front of the entire class. His fingertips wiggled slightly before pulling out slightly to ram his fingers back inside, making a small lewdly wet sound. “I said… is that understood?” You nodded your head quickly, removing your death grip on him slowly, letting him have his way with you. He chuckled and gave a small hum into your ear, his tongue coming out to lick the shell of your ear, his large hat covering the sexual scenes from anyone that dared to look. “Good girl. Now spread your legs more for me.” You did as he said, now completely abandoned your earlier protests. He was just too good, it’s impossible to deny him anymore. You wanted to kiss him, you wanted to hug him, touch him, you wanted him to be inside of you. Your eyelashes fluttered as your kids covered your needy eyes, finally nearing your limit. “Scara-“

“I’ll stop there today, see you next class.” Your eyes opened quickly. Everyone was getting up and packing their things to leave the classroom. “Awe, too bad for you.” Wanderer pulled his fingers out and wiped them rudely on your clothes before he gathered his own things and stood. Your hands fumbled with the zipper and button of your pants before you stood with him, eyes narrowing with disappointment. “You better finish what you started… asshole.” A chuckle sounded from the indigo haired man, his dark lavender eyes turning back to stare at you with amusement. “Hah? Since when are you the one to order me around?” You pouted and grabbed your books, holding them tightly against your chest trying to rid yourself of the feeling of your ruined orgasm. He rolled his eyes at your pouting face before breathing out a sexy laugh. “Awe, don’t worry your pretty little head. Just wait till we get home…”

“…I’ll ravage you until you break.”

Got a thirst? Lemme know! I love imagining Scara/Wanderer in sexy situations~ hehe, fluff is always welcome too. Dis man is gonna be the death of me one day I swear 😍💜

-WX

#scarabae #scaranation #genshin impact wanderer #wanderer smut #wanderer as a scholar #genshin smut #genshin wanderer #scaramouche #wanderer x reader #adventures with Scaramouche and Wanderer

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saintsenara · 3 months

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sirius black/severus snape explicit read from the beginning here masterpost | chapter summary | moodboard

chapter one: enif

in this chapter, despite everything in his body telling him that he should, sirius black does not go to the department of mysteries.

this decision will, unsurprisingly, have consequences.

more notes under the cut

i was asked by @ashesandhackles about all the blood in this chapter, so that seems like a very good place to start.

blood is - on the one hand - a metaphor for the social context sirius has always existed in. the wizarding world is obsessed with class, heredity, and lineage; sirius spent his youth trying to escape those forces but now finds himself shoved back into his childhood home, made to confront the fact that half of his blood relatives are on the opposing side and compelled to endure his mother’s portrait constantly reminding him that she considers his decision to turn his back on her and his father’s blood-supremacy to be an aberration against nature.

but the blood also serves a more literal role in this story - it shows that sirius’ body is a wreck.

both the canon text and many fan-fiction portrayals of sirius deal sensitively with his mental state during order of the phoenix - with his obvious depression, with his alcohol abuse, with the trauma he carries from azkaban, and so on - but it seems, in my experience, that far less space has been given to thinking about the ruinous physical trauma he must live with after twelve years in prison. all too often, sirius is written as someone who's struggling profoundly mentally, but is still healthy [and really, really hot] while he does it.

partially, i think this can be explained by the fact that the series generally doesn’t care very much about physical illness or disability - all injuries are easily healed; all damage or disability is rendered obsolete by magic. it prefers to focus on the impact of injury or illness on cognitive function - which it understands to connect to magical ability - and it sets up azkaban as something which primarily impacts the cognitive state of its inmates, rendering them unable to exist as functioning witches and wizards because their thoughts are so disturbed, as sirius himself tells us in goblet of fire:

‘He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though… they all went quiet in the end… except when they shrieked in their sleep.’

but the prison is also located in the middle of a freezing ocean and canonically poorly maintained. the prisoners are clearly starved - both sirius and bellatrix are described as “gaunt” after their escape - and can be presumed to be sleep-deprived, denied access to healthcare, and plausibly subject to violence and mistreatment at the hands of the prison’s staff [both dementor and human]. these experiences have an undeniable impact on the mental state, but they also have a physical one - and the fact that sirius can be meaningfully described as chronically ill following his captivity [and how much he loathes being thought of as an invalid and why] is one of the key themes of this story.

although what, exactly, is wrong with his leg remains to be seen…

thinking about sirius’ body leads into another theme which will be important throughout the war of the roses: the twin states of beauty and disgust. sirius’ internal voice in this chapter focuses a lot on the aspects of embodiment which many people consider distasteful - shit, piss, blood, sweat - and which he connects mentally with the loss of the great physical beauty which made life so easy for him in his youth [something which even harry, who’s otherwise ready to go with a powerpoint presentation on how fit sirius is at any given moment, concedes during the series].

this symbiotic loss is present in other aspects of his life - grimmauld place is now filthy, bloody, and decaying, where it was once opulent - but one thing which i really wanted to draw out when writing this chapter was the fact that sirius becoming less physically beautiful transforms his relationship with snape. i see a lot in fan-fiction portrayals of snape the idea that he isn’t actually anywhere near as ugly as harry canonically claims - and i think that’s completely plausible; harry’s a bitchy teen boy after all - but i wanted to play with reversing this trope: snape’s just as ugly as harry thinks he is, but sirius is ugly too...

and so to our main lads, our central pairing - sirius and snape. this opening chapter was a great chance for me to indulge one of my favourite things about snape and sirius’ canon characterisation: that they’re absolutely fucking obsessed with each other. their mutual childish sniping throughout order of the phoenix [snape going out of his way to mock sirius about cleaning the house! literally everything which happens in that occlumency scene!] gives me energy, and clearly reflects the continuation of a dynamic they’ve had since childhood [sirius seems to do an awful lot of noticing snape in the flashbacks we see of them as teens].

i know that many fans have strong feelings - in either direction - when it comes to how snape’s treatment at the marauders’ hands should be understood. but something i think is worth noting is that snape canonically appears to be considerably less distressed by the memory of his teenage relationship with sirius than he does with the memory of either lupin or james. indeed, while he seems to be genuinely afraid of lupin - and to do as much as he can to avoid being alone with him - snape goes out of his way to antagonise sirius, in ways which suggest that he derives some sort of satisfaction out of getting his attention, even if that attention is negative.

no wonder, then, that the two of them fighting is so sexually charged…

i also wanted to set out another theme which will play a big part in how sirius and snape’s relationship will be written in this story: that the two of them are willing to speak the truth about each other.

when i re-read order of the phoenix in advance of writing this story, i was really struck by sirius complaining to harry that snape needles him about being under house arrest:

‘Oh yeah,’ said Sirius sarcastically. ‘Listening to Snape’s reports, having to take all his snide hints that he’s out there risking his life while I’m sat on my backside here having a nice comfortable time… asking me how the cleaning’s going -’

which harry later uses as a way to blame snape for sirius’ death when shouting at dumbledore.

but the thing that stands out to me is that snape… is right. sirius is useless to the reformed order [in fact, his membership of the group does nothing but make kingsley’s high-value position as a ministry-based spy all the more dangerous - although i love him misleading the investigation into sirius’ whereabouts in transparently ridiculous ways], but snape - and fred weasley - are the only people who are willing to confront that reality [dumbledore’s refusal to acknowledge sirius’ feelings of redundancy is something we will get into]. while neither of them are capable of communicating this effectively [yet!], i do think it’s important that snape’s refusal to pretend that sirius is doing something significant for the order is something sirius respects. deep down at least.

and i also think it’s important that snape is one of the only people - apart from harry and, it seems, voldemort - who understands that sirius’ sense of uselessness has the potential to boil over into pure recklessness [voldemort must select sirius as the star of his false vision not only because he knows that harry would risk everything to get him to safety, but because he also knows that harry would see sirius tied up in the department of mysteries and think ‘yep. he’s left the house and been captured. that’s plausible.’]. i wanted snape to be genuinely surprised to arrive in grimmauld place and discover that sirius hasn’t gone to the ministry, and for this to be the trigger for him snapping when sirius does try to run into battle with the rest of the order and telling him to stay put for harry’s own good.

this is the part of this author’s note where i reveal that this is not going to be a story which accepts uncritically that sirius is a good godfather to harry. i completely understand why the trope of sirius being the model of a father-figure is compelling to fans - and i have no interest at all in the nIcE oNe JaMeS manchild characterisation of sirius in the films [although i do of course think that sirius fails to appreciate that harry is rather less bullish about what he’s facing than james] - but i think that writing sirius as someone who’s fanatically devoted to harry’s welfare, always makes the most parenting-expert-approved decision in any situation, and is demonstrably the adult in their interactions is… kind of uninteresting.

after all, even though he suggests that maybe they should, sirius doesn’t actually tell harry about the prophecy once his fellow order members overrule him. sirius clearly accepts dumbledore’s explanation for why harry needs to stay at the dursleys’, and recognises that harry miserable experience there - particularly the summer after voldemort’s return, when he’s subjected to an information blackout by the order - is [if you’ll pardon the expression] for the greater good. sirius is remarkably dismissive of harry’s fear that he’s being possessed by voldemort after he witnesses nagini attack arthur weasley. and sirius clearly regards harry’s attempts to protect him as patronising, rather than recognising that his godson would prefer him to remain alive rather than get up to hijinks.

in fact, it’s very striking in canon that sirius’ clear self-destructive streak is a major barrier to his relationship with harry, especially in order of the phoenix. this is the cause of the belief he expresses in this chapter that his purpose as an order member is to die for harry - and, indeed, that this is something explicitly requested of him by james. one of the lines which i think about all the time - a line which will become a key theme in this story - is sirius to wormtail in prisoner of azkaban:

‘Then you should have died! ... Died rather than betray your friends, as we would have done for you!’

because, on the one hand, sirius is completely right. but, on the other, there is a rigidity to him - a belief that dying nobly for a cause is the only reasonable course of action. snape says the quiet part out loud in this chapter - that sirius cannot simultaneously believe that his only concern is protecting harry and refuse to recognise that protecting harry means getting this reckless streak under control; and that sirius has seen before that acting first and asking questions later results in a potter he loves dying.

although, this being said, snape also just wanted to have a fight, partially because it’s hot to punch your rival in the face, but also because his defaulting to physical violence is another manifestation of the fundamental honesty which defines his character. in canon, magical violence is notable for how hands-off it largely is - it requires emotional heft, but no apparent physical power; the vast majority of curses we meet appear to leave no physical traces - and for how it therefore allows the perpetrator to distance themselves from the reality of their violence. there are some exceptions - above all sectumsempra, which clearly requires the perpetrator to feel profound rage [for enemies] but which actually registers that rage on the body.

the same effect can be achieved by snape decking sirius.

alongside the humans of this story, in this chapter we meet a bricks-and-mortar character who will play a big role as the war of the roses continues: number twelve grimmauld place. canonically, this is ten different gothic literature tropes in a trenchcoat, but one which has a huge fanon presence is the idea that the house is literally sentient. i don’t love this - mostly because it’s usually accompanied by lots of pro-aristocracy nonsense - but i do like the house being perceived as sentient by sirius' disturbed mind.

i also like the canonical portrayal of grimmauld place as a metaphor for azkaban - untouched by the happiness of the muggles in the outside world, freezing despite the hot weather; a place in which - as harry says - sirius is literally locked up against his will.

but i also like the fact that, canonically, grimmauld place is a domestic space as well. the order live and eat and hang out together in a quasi-familial way, and the contrast between sirius’ experience of this rag-tag found family and his experience of eating with his actual family will come up again…

this chapter also hints at some of the relationships which will be explored in more detail as this story continues. some of these are from sirius’ past - his relationship with his parents, with regulus, with bellatrix, with kreacher, with the malfoys and lestranges - and some are from his present - his relationship with lupin; his relationship with wormtail, who has escaped him; his relationship with moody, with kingsley, with tonks, with the weasleys, with ron and hermione, and so on.

but one relationship i want to mention now is sirius and buckbeak - i just love these two comrades-in-arms! i love in canon that buckbeak is the first creature harry feels able to uncomplicatedly confess to missing sirius to! i love that sirius’ care for buckbeak contributes to his death in canon, and to his survival here! i love how he spends so much time with buckbeak in order of the phoenix, as his depression worsens, and clearly finds comfort with him; and i like the idea that buckbeak would shed his wildness and dangerousness when around sirius in recognition of sirius’ love for him.

my heart!

#asenora fics #starprince #snirius #sirius black #severus snape #the war of the roses #twotr author's notes

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asideoftrashplease · 1 year

Text

Detangling JC, his motivations, & his feelings on WWX (i)

JC and WWX have a very fraught history, and while WWX’s role as the narrator makes it very clear what his feelings towards JC are, JC’s feelings towards WWX and motivations seem a lot murkier. He goes from treating WWX as a brother, to mounting a siege in a concerted attempt to take his life. His actions and motivations in the aftermath of WWX’s resurrection are also subject to interpretation. This meta provides argument for my interpretation of his feelings and motivations throughout these events.

LOVE AND BROTHERHOOD

It is clear from the outset that JC cared deeply about WWX (I wish I did not have to make a case for this because it should be obvious, but there are some who believe that JC did not love WWX). Although he holds bitterness and resentment towards WWX due to his family situation and their rivalry, he cares about WWX and is protective of him. This shines through especially in times of mortal peril.

When WWX was trapped in the Xuanwu cave, he travelled without stopping to find people to rescue WWX. The trip should have taken 10 days, but because he drove himself to exhaustion in his desperation to save WWX, he only took 7 days.

When WWX is in danger of being discovered by the Wens after the burning of Lotus Pier, he uses himself as bait to draw them away from WWX despite the risk to his own life, which eventually leads to his capture and the loss of his core.

SO WHERE DID THINGS GO WRONG

Things started to take a turn after the Sunshot Campaign. I believe a few key events caused resentment and confusion to build and grow in JC over time:

WWX’s refusal to carry his sword, which put political pressure on YMJ

His decision to break out the Wen Remnants, without consulting or informing JC, with put more pressure on YMJ

His decision to defect from YMJ, effectively (in JC’s mind) picking the Wens over YMJ and his brotherhood with JC

His actions at Qiongqi Path which killed JZX — while we know from WWX’s POV what happened, JC and JYL have no idea what went down except from the claims of the surviving Jin cultivators

His attack on the 4000 cultivators at the Nightless City, which ultimately cost JYL’s life

It’s evident that JC is increasingly bewildered, angered, and hurt by WWX’s actions. It’s clear that he’s confused, and just CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY WWX IS ACTING THIS WAY. All the while, resentment is building in him that he has to clean up WWX’s messes, all while WWX’s actions undermine him as a leader and brings up childhood insecurities and jealousies. But his love for WWX drives him to continually stand by WWX and believe in him — even grudgingly, complainingly, and with growing resentment. Even up to the attack at the Nightless City, even after JZX’s death, he still seems to believe in WWX.

This last event, the attack at the Nightless City, seems to be the turning point where he stops believing in WWX, so I want to cover this particular event in more detail:

A “pledge conference” is being attended by QHN, GSL, LLJ, and YMJ. This conference is a ceremonial affair, centered around their pledge to eradicate WWX and the Wen remnants. It begins with them honoring the fallen with a toast, but while the other three sect leaders make the toasts, JC goes through the motions of the toast with visible unhappiness, and then conspicuously says nothing to honor the dead.

I feel this action needs to be understood in the context of the ceremony. They are standing in the Nightless City, where their comrades died in the final battle to take down QSW, a battle which WWX contributed to greatly. They are pouring the wine on the ground where the bodies lie to honor the fallen: “Here we honor our fallen. Rest in peace.” (Uncontroversial) “Now in the name of our fallen, we will eliminate the Wens who killed them — and the Yiling Patriarch!” (Controversial because WWX was brother in arms to these soldiers, and JGS is stirring shit because he wants the Yin Tiger Seal.)

JC knows the controversial bit is coming, so while the other sect leaders one by one say things like “rest in peace” and “may they live on” he dumps the wine on the ground and refuses to say anything. He is the only one, of the four with cups, who does not speak.

When WWX appears, the others all draw their weapons, but JC reaction is different: “JC’s pupils shrunk. Blue veins lined the back of his hand.” From this sentence alone, it may not seem clear what he’s feeling, but based on the rest of his actions in this scene, I would guess that he’s shocked and appalled that WWX would dare to appear before such a large and hostile mob, A MOB THAT IS CURRENTLY PLEDGING TO KILL HIM AND SCATTER HIS ASHES, thus recklessly and what seems like arrogantly endangering his own life.

After an increasingly hostile exchange between WWX and the mob, JGS calls for everyone to set up the battle arrays to seal WWX in, with the intention of killing him there. But when WWX calls up the corpses buried under them to defend himself, it’s stated that all the sects were in disarray, except for YMJ, which seems to indicate that WWX’s corpses were not attacking the YMJ delegation — and the YMJ cultivators were not fighting the corpses either.

This all seems to indicate that despite JZX’s death, despite the fact that JC has NO FUCKING CLUE what the hell happened at Qiongqi Path, despite the fact that he’s no doubt been fed lies and biased reports from the surviving Jin cultivators, and despite the fact that WWX is currently unleashing an undead army on all of them — he still believes that there’s another side of the story. He doesn’t even know WHAT that story is, but he believes in WWX— grudgingly, and with growing disbelief, confusion, and incredulity— he still believes, BLINDLY, in WWX.

THE TURNING POINT

In the ensuing chaos, JYL is killed, and WWX finally snaps in his grief, unleashing a hellish and completely uncontrolled bloodbath upon the assembled cultivators. It is estimated that this killed three thousand people, severely decimating the cultivation world’s population.

The siege begins after this attack, and we know from the prologue that the siege was headed by JC, and that he was the one behind key tactical maneuvers (designed using his intimate knowledge of WWX’s weaknesses) that allowed them to eventually sack the Burial Mounds. In the aftermath, he was the main person credited by the cultivation world for the defeat of the Yiling Patriarch. When WWX meets JL at Dafan, he corroborates this by revealing, through the narration, that JGS was the second-biggest contributor to the siege — after JC, who was the biggest contributor.

I know that there are other popular interpretations of JC’s motivations here. I will name two:

He participated in the siege only due to political pressure — after what WWX did at the Nightless City, he couldn’t NOT condemn him or the cultivation world would have turned on YMJ too

He participated in the siege hoping to take WWX alive and bring him back home to discipline privately

But I don’t subscribe to either of these interpretations. I believe he FULLY intended to kill WWX. Firstly, if he was only participating in the siege due to political pressure, why contribute so vitally to the siege, why take a leading role and design tactical maneuvers to bring WWX down? He could have just done as he’d done previously, which was to participate perfunctorily in “opposition” against WWX, but contributing as little as possible, or nothing at all.

Secondly, some may argue that he was trying to capture WWX alive. But before this, he had always given the impression of being extremely cautious, to the point of inaction when maybe action would have been better. JC is VERY risk-averse. His characterization before the siege is that he’d rather do nothing than do something even potentially risky. The intention of everyone else was to kill WWX, NOT to capture him. As such, the risk that WWX would be killed in battle is extremely high. Even if by some miracle, he managed to capture WWX alive despite the best efforts of everyone else to murder him, it would be really difficult to stop the other sects from executing him, and getting permission to take him home and keep him under house arrest. It would be a safer bet to try to sabotage the siege from the inside, which is not what he did. In fact, he did the opposite. He was leading the siege viciously and with intent.

So I believe that he fully intended to kill WWX, which means the turning point was JYL’s death. Up to her death, JC still believed in WWX. After her death, however, the very last we see of him is him clutching JYL’s body, completely in shock, having not yet processed her death. I believe his last words to WWX should hint to us what caused the snap from blind faith to blind hatred. These words were: “Didn’t you say you could control it?! Didn’t you say it would be fine?!” To which WWX (who is having 99 fucking breakdowns all at once) finally admits that he was wrong, and that he can’t actually control it.

My belief is that this incident made JC realize that JYL’s death (and JZX’s as well) was largely caused by WWX’s loss of control over his demonic cultivation, and IMPORTANTLY, JC’s inaction re: WWX’s method of cultivation and his seeming descent into violent radicalism. Despite all the warning signs, the growing escalations, the increasingly violent confrontations with increasingly large death tolls— he continued to believe in WWX, even when he could no longer understand or predict WWX’s actions. Everyone told him “you need to reign him in” “he’s going off the rails” “he’s a danger to us all” and JC didn’t take them seriously because he BELIEVED IN and TRUSTED WWX.

And now his sister is dead, his month-old nephew is an orphan, and WWX has massacred three thousand people in a single night, likely including members of YMJ, in a total loss of control and conscience. I think that was the turning point, the crux of the betrayal.

I believed in you. I defended you. I stuck my neck out for you. But you scorned my help. You rejected and discarded me. You betrayed my trust.

You don’t give a shit about me.

You don’t give a shit about anyone else.

I BELIEVED in you, and YOU BETRAYED ME.

—

NOTE: Right now this meta is getting a little long, so I think this is a good place to maybe cut it in thirds? Part II should cover the siege, WWX’s death, and the 13 years in between, and Part III should cover JC’s actions and motivations after WWX’s resurrection. As the next parts have not been written, I can’t link it! But when Part II is done, I will edit the post to include a link below the cut:

[Part 2 is still in progress!]

#canon jiang cheng #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #yunmeng shuangjie #twin prides of yunmeng #mdzs #meta #man this is fucking depressing #this is written from jc's perspective but i will NEVER stop being sad about WWX #i will never stop thinking about how he was driven to this point #initially you might attribute some of his downfall to hubris #hubris that he thought he could control this dark power #when it was stated no one ever succeeded #but the core reveal subverts this #it makes you realize that maybe the hubris #was tinged with no small amount of desperation #i think he never expected how difficult it would be to LIVE through the sacrifice #to lose his cultivation #he fucking brutalized himself out of love for jc #and he has to live with the trauma of that brutalization #when he happened upon this power #he was desperate to believe that he could keep it #and in the end #demonic cultivation took away EVERYTHING he cared about #it destroyed him and his life completely #and he died alone #in a terribly violent and horrific way

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conkorse · 1 month

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Can I ask how you pick your colors? I'm very fascinated by it and how well it works with your style

sure i will try my best 2 explain !!! >_<

typically i start drawing my main subjects on a grey colored background. this makes it so my color range is alot larger than if i sketched and colored on a white/lighter background because the colors that surround your piece will affect how they are perceived. i will attach an example below:

as you can see the drawing on the left (which is a wip i havent posted this drawing yet lulz) heavys skintone changes to match the context of the colors in the background which when you compare that bg to the bg on the right it is much darker in comparison. i also simply wanted to play around with colors coz i try not to restrict myself in any capacity. coloring is the most fun part of drawing to me and part of that fun comes from imposing zero limitations on myself which is why alot of my art has the most stupid ass color combinations u will eva see #live #laf #lov

this is what my drawings typically look like once i finish the actual main subject of the piece as you can see scout n pyro are in a grey void gidbles them. i typically do backgrounds last (which is something i should prbably change up sometime soon) because i tend to create them around the main drawing and it makes it easier for me to make everything more cohesive in the end because i can make the background however i want to fit the main drawing. i do not recommend doing this 24/7 becoz then u will struggle with environmental backgrounds/perspective shit and other stuff which is something i want to get better at but struggle with alot hashtag supaaa mega sad hashtag noob lyfeee

as for coloring itself and choosing colors its really just a combination of experimentation (and by that i mean i go through so much of the color wheel before i decide on something) and intuition. i already have an idea of what looks good together well in mind because well ive spent quite alot of time fine tuning ermmm idk what 2 call it i guess my color sense ??? hallppp but anyways i really recommend not just using bright/neon colors exclusively! the best way to make colors pop is to couple them with more muted ones so the contrast is better evident btwn the two. OH ANDD i tend to try not to use straight up black and white/grey to portray those colors. for example if a character has ermm lets say a white shirt i wont use white or grey colors to depict it but rather maybe a light cyan orrr yellowy green :p

i also overuse textured brushes and patterns in my art alortttt (see abovee) HALP so maybe try that??? i use clip studio paint and there are so many rly awesome textured brushes that i overuse coz they r SUPAAAA epik. IDK im just rambling but your biggest take away from this should be to GO EXPERIMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!! and have fun anddddd mix "ugly" colors 2gether coz u just can never know what will and wont work unless u try :33

ALSO I ALMOST FORGOT play around with this feature in csp if u have it coz its another way i create textures (my heavy mii shown as an example) and here is a link to a tumblr post where i link all of the brushes i use in csp 0 .o I HOPE THIS HELPS SOMEWHAT!!!!!!!!! SOZZZ I AM NOT THE BEST AT EXPLANING >_<

#conk talk #if theres grammar errors PLZ ignore them EEEKK!!!! ill fix it l8rrrr

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soyouareandrewdobson · 5 months

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Nintendo-vember Level 3: Dobson and his Toxic Nintendo Nostalgia

Nostalgia can be toxic. Now bear in mind, I did not say that it IS toxic, but that it can be toxic. This assumption that because we have pleasant memories of something, that it was always good all the time. A desire to get that back, ignores all the good that’s come since then. As well as all the bad stuff that was there too. And it poisons you. Making you more suggestible to deception and your own greed. Who is to say that your own past is more important than someone else’s future? And because you want something that may not have been real at all, the farther the goal post gets. Because you can’t really reclaim it. So it just gets worse and worse and you get greedier and more desperate for it, because what you really want is never going to come. Until in the very end, you become the thing you hated in the first place. Lewis Lovhaug – March 2018, Infinite Crisis

Everything I did for this month so far, was going to lead directly into today’s , actually long in the works, post. Cause today we go over the comic, that as far as I see it, may actually be Dobson’s most (in)famous one out there. The one that painted the public’s opinion of him more so than anything he would ever do when starting to draw “political comics” under Trump. The one that defined him for all of deviantart and kiwifarms from 2010 onward. A comic that will always show up, whenever someone online even remotely talks about him. The one that I have seen more times than any other being used for threads on /co/ for Dobson. A comic that is neither about politics, feminism or even part of any of his comic series. A comic that is truly centered around the concept of toxic nostalgia, rather than whatever Andrew Dobson was going for and that fits perfectly to the theme of this month.

Ladies, gentlemen and inbetween… I give you, the Localization one.

Released in 2010, a time when Dobson was still trying (and failing) to sell himself more on the image of just being a quirky nerd and Nintendo fanboy whose work you should support because he only wants to make others happy, this became a comic that genuinely cemented further in the eyes of others, how much of a self-indulgent and extremely manchildish prick with dumb taste he really was.

How, some here may ask who are a bit too young? Well, let me give you context…

For starters, by the time Dobson released the comic, he had already quite a bit of a reputation online for being a prick to other nerds. His infamous “West vs East” comic which he created “as a joke” to vent about the popularity of anime in the mid to late 2000s had been published three years prior and had, in combination with a lot of derogative journal entries and posts on deviantart and other pages, earned him the ire of many people. In addition, his failed or outright aborted “original” content had painted him as a quitter, who despite wanting all the fame someone could muster online, was not willing to put the necessary work in it.

Dobson was, for a lack of a better word, a bully among nerds who tried to use his platform to shame people for being “nerdier” than him or enjoying stuff he didn’t, while also playing the victim card for people not interested in purchasing his product or calling him out on his hypocrisies and flaws in opinions.

In that regard, Dobson was pretty much ahead of the curve to some “woke” companies. Insulting your customer and then being surprised when no one wants to buy your shit.

The other thing to be aware of, has to do with the history and popularity of Nintendo characters at least pre-1995 in America.

For the few not quite aware and as a quick reminder to everyone: Videogames back in the 80s and very early 90s (like 1990-92) did on average not necessarily have what we can call “complex” lore when it came to videogame stories and characters. At least not to a degree as we would get later in the mid-90s and onwards. Aside of (J)RPGs most games were simply focused on moving a character from one end of a level to the next and the story as to why we even bothered for Megaman to fight the Robo Masters and who the heck Dr. Wily was, was printed in the manual on a small page.

And Mario and Link were no exception to that. Mostly because they also had only very few genuine main titles under their name. By 1989, The Legend of Zelda had only two NES titles under its name, while Mario had (if we don’t account for non-jump n’run games in which he was shoved into because of his status as Nintendo’s mascot) the three main Mario Bros games for the NES, one game for the Game Boy, Mario Bros and the two Donkey Kong titles.

Lacking quite a bit in characterization game wise, Nintendo of America in order to sell the stuff had to partly make the characters appeal to the audience via localization done through merchandise and non-game related products. And early fans of these characters would obviously crave for it.

Enter The Super Mario Bros Super Show, a cartoon series produced on order of Nintendo of America by Haim Saban and DIC Enterprises (the same ones who would give us “The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog”, “Captain N” and “Inspector Gadget”) that ran from September 1989 till December of 1989. Using the first two Mario Bros games for the NES as basis for the character design of the show, the show itself had otherwise little to do with the games. Ignoring the live action segments, the actual animated episodes would have plots in which Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach (the later going by the then American official name of Princess Toadstool) traveled into whatever territory and had to deal with Bowser (or King Koopa as he was known) in a plot that had elements of some book, movie or anything else to parody.

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In addition the show would later have Legend of Zelda based animated segments, of which 13 were produced. Those featured Link living in Hyrule castle with a more active “power woman” Princess Zelda and a fairy companion named Sprite and the two having to deal with Ganon, who was more of a dark wizard than a warrior based demon.

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Overall, the shows were not really all that great compared to other stuff that existed cartoon wise, with some aspects of the characters feeling jarring nowadays. But honestly, for the sake of this article, I watched some of them and frankly they were not that terrible. They were typical 80s cartoon fanfare, which among other things included some animation errors and dumb slapstick. Especially the Mario segments were very slapstick heavy and Mario and Luigi were mostly characterized by Luigi being a bit of a scaredy cat even before the games did show him like that, Mario being rougher than you would think and dumb jokes about Luigi and Mario loving pasta and other Italian dishes. Because you know, Italians are only known for their cuisine!

The Zelda segments also had a bit of an “odd” character dynamic imagined for Zelda and Link. Zelda was a bit of a jerkass commanding bitch and Link could be a horndog trying to always flirt with her or trying to get a kiss.

There is one moment in an episode for example, where Zelda sits on Links bed after just having stopped some condor from stealing a piece of the Triforce guarded in Link’s room. Right then Link enters the room, sees the Princess sitting there and immediately says “smooching time” and tries to jump her to make out.

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Minute 3:15 – 3:20 more or less Yeah, I think Pepe le Hyrulian would not really sell well with more modern audiences and sensitivities.

All that said, I can understand people having a soft spot for the show and enjoying it unironically. It is just that I think most of them would also be intelligent and understanding enough to see, that these shows did NOT give the ultimate interpretation of who or what these characters and their games were. Truth be told, even back then those things weren’t really acknowledged by Nintendo. Sure, Nintendo of America may have given the okay to do those things. But in Japan, global headquarters gave more or less a rat’s ass about it. They were busy making the NES and Gameboy profitable and worked on Mario Bros 3.

Truth be told, the most “characterization” Mario even got in Japan at the time was as followed: Shigeru Miyamoto thought he should be Italian and from New York. The former because he “looked” Italian to him (as a result of the mustache), the later because Donkey Kong, the game Mario originated from, was inspired in part by King Kong and King Kong is set in New York. Mario didn’t even have a name originally, having been known by Jumpman once. The origin of his Mario name is, that after Minoru Arakawa (president of Nintendo of America at the time) got into an argument with a real estate developer named Mario Segale, who Arakawa owned rent money, the game developers decided to name the character Mario. Which may or may not have been meant as a “take that” against Mr. Segale. But if so, it’s one that backfired.

But I digress. Point of that entire elongated history lesson is, that Mario and Link were in terms of characterization mostly defined to some 80s kids, by their depiction in the American cartoon, which had however very little in common with what the games were about. It was e.g. the cartoon who popularized heavily the entire idea of the brothers being from Brooklyn and having been transported via a magic pipe into the Mushroom Kingdom, while in the actual games, such a backstory was never really given. As evident by even the actual American instruction manuals for Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 I checked out online for this. Look them up.

And again, most people, even the kids, could accept that the animated show and what the games were, differed.

Then came the 90s, and with more titles under their belt, Nintendo of Japan decided to flesh out their mascots more to increase their popularity, resulting in Mario, Link and others getting “official” personalities as shown by their behavior in games and not just the inofficial ones via non-canon foreign material. And again, most kids and people were okay with that. After all, the games were what really mattered to them in the long run. Plus I think that as long as the games would simply “capture” the spirit of whatever they liked in the characters iand games n the first place, they would be okay with it.

But not Andrew Dobson.

Born in 1981 and likely not owning a NES up until the cartoon aired, he jumped onto the show as an eight year old and became a fan of it. In fact he enjoyed the Zelda cartoon so much, even as an adult he would draw fanart about it

Nothing at all wrong with that in my opinion. You like something, you have the ability to create fan content for it, go for it.

But as we more or less already established via the Howard and Nester comic, Dobson was as a person dead set that only the thing he liked or was first exposed to counts and not whatever others thought. Something that supposedly may explain why he genuine hates Bowser Jr and Yoshi, as evident by these tweets made a few years after the Localization comic was made.

And yeah sorry, but how can one hate Yoshi? Yoshi is an adorable pet dinosaur you can ride. You know how many kids would have loved someone like that in their life? Gues if Yoshi was less into vore and more into inflation, Dobson would have liked him more.

Speaking of the comic -and to finally get back to it- even Dobson admitted years later that the entire point of it is to simply piss all over Nintendo and that he was annoyed that his “beloved” American continuity got erased in favor of the “dirty Japanese” one. Despite the fact that the Japanese one is, as he himself admits, official.

And boy does he take the piss on it. To the point I want to call him R. Kelly.

So lets dissect how his stand is just the typicla strawman affair, unfunny and at times quite frankly outright homophobic, sexist, hypocritical and racist.

First, the art. As always, it is just “great” to see the degree in animation being fully utilized here. No background but skyblue, everyone looking more like a doodle, the use of the fillbucket, the director having 5 fingers on his hand in the second panel, but four in the fifth, getting the numbers of fingers on Mario completely wrong, missing out on Peach in the last panel and so on… brilliant! How come Disney would not hire someone who could draw like that! Oh right, because standards. Though those have gotten quite low over the years

Every single person working on this needs to be blacklisted.

But of course, the true brilliance comes through the writing. Starting with the strawman executive coming off as if what he does is something new. That he is the “evil soulless corporation” who doesn’t care for his employees and creations true personality and forces them to fit into some mold for the audience to enjoy. The “audience” and consumers also being more or less indirectly insulted by the way Dobson presents the entire affair, as he seemingly wants to blame “those damn kids” for ruining his favorite childhood characters.

But Dobson, I thought you loved corporations hating on fans.

Then we come to what the characters are supposedly changed into.

(warning, upload of the comic for the third time, so you cna always see what I refer to)

First, Mario being no longer from Brooklyn and that he is supposedly an Italian stereotype. As a non American, I have to ask: Why is it so important that Mario has to be from Brooklyn? I get the feeling the only reason people like Dobson or Moviebob care about it, is because they want to deep down culturally appropriate the character. Assure he is in some way of American culture and doesn’t belong to some “dirty, foreign country”, even if they have to go for a compromise and make him a dirty half blood Wop. I mean, I will say this: Yes, Mario has an accent that is stereotypical. And? I take a stereotypical accent and being otherwise a determined but friendly everyday hero over him being stereotypically obsessed with pasta and no personality conveyed through his actions aside of being a bit mean and bossy to his brother, as was the case in that dang cartoon.

The thing here is, Dobson was genuinely convinced that Mario’s portrayal as given by Charles Martinet, Mario’s VA from the early 90s up until August of 2023, wasn’t just stereotypical, but also racist, harmful and culturally insensitive. Something he believed even back in 2017 and resulted in a minor twitter meltdown

Look, I will say this here: Yes, Martinet’s voice for Mario is kinda stereotypical. And I did my research. Unlike Martinet, Lou Albano, the original voice of Mario in the Mario Bros Super Show, was actually of Italian heritage. Born in 1933 in Rome, having immigrated to the USA shortly after he got baptized in the Vatican (you can’t get more Italian than that!), he certainly was more authentically Italian than Martinet, who was born in California. Heck, Martinet’s father is actually French and he spend more time in France in his youth than in America or Italy. The story of how Martinet got his gig as Mario is also well known and painted by a rather stereotypical joke involving Italian food.

But to paraphrase the twitter user Dobson argued with, I think that all things considered, Martinet gave Mario and all the other characters he voiced over the years just a certain warmth and fun to their personality with the way he delivered his lines, that he managed to convey and define the cartoonish true nature of Mario and Co for many generations to come. And even now that he has been retired from the role, he is still a name recognized for the character. A character no one, not even freaking nationalistic Italians, seem to have a problem with. So, mangia un cazzo, Dobson. You sound just like the assholes who tried to get rid of Speedy Gonzales and in doing so pissed off all of Mexico.

Next the way he talks about Peach. Okay first, the Popeye arms are again just something from the cartoons. Or at least he believes it cause…. Well

Does that look like Popeye arms?

Second, he is essentially saying that Princess Peach, unlike the cartoon version, is a bimbo. Why, because she is blonde and you have some sort of deep seated hatred for blond people? Also, Peach hasn’t fought with Mario together in really any NES videogame either, Dobson. Oh what, Mario Bros 2? Aka the reskinned version of Doki Doki Panic? The way he talks here about Princess Peach is just utterly sexist, as he essentially devalues Peach as a character, just because she plays a damsel in distress often times. Which doesn’t even necessarily mean, that she isn’t a badass in her own way, even in that role. I mean, she is still the sovereign ruler of an entire nation and in Super Princess Peach -which seems to be the game he references when it comes to her being “over emotionally”- she saves the day all on her own. Sure, she is emotional in the game, but the entire premise of the game is centered around everyone’s emotions going haywire along Vibe Island, including the villains. Bet Dobson hasn’t even played the game back in 2006 and just went off on some shitty rumor. Not to forget that this statement is utterly false. Peach has also been a great supporting character and fighter in games such as Super Mario RPG and Super Paper Mario, which were released BEFORE that comic. And nowadays she is also known as a great character in stuff like the Mario + Rabbids games plus she will get her own upcoming Princess Peach: Showtime game for the Switch. Lastly, let us not forget every game where, even if she played a damsel, was still important to the plot by defying the villain as best as she could. Not to forget the current movie, in which she still kicked ass while going out all in pink.

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So, after he has been racist towards Italians indirectly as well as sexist towards women embracing their brand feminity (boy, don’t want to know how 2011 Dobson would have then reacted to the Barbie movie of 2023), let Dobson be judgmental about anime fangirls and also rather homophobic, by the way how he tries to tear down “modern” Link.

There are four things I hate the most about the Link panel, which make it frankly in my eyes the one where Dobson’s hatred and own nastiness really shine through.

First, the accusation that the “changes” to Link’s design past “Link’s Awakening” can be attributed to anime fangirls. Showing both his true hatred for women when they don’t fall in line with his views and his stuck up shitty opinion about anime fans and combining it with latent misogyny. Look, I have seen thirst anime fangirls myself a lot over my lifetime. But they were not the demographic to “ruin” Link. If anything, I think that the popularity of Cloud Strife in general with others may have slightly influenced Link’s design for Ocarina of Time. Which in itself also had been in development at least since spring of 1996, till its release in November of 1998. And even then, that is a stretch I came up with, cause in my opinion someone in the development team likely just thought “Hey, what if we move on from the more cartoony look of the late 80s and early 90s and try some “darker” fantasy elements, without going full Berserk?” And that is how we got Link in that game. Because of some developers trying to appeal design wise to a general audience, not just a random group of made up strawmen. You want to see games pandering to actual Yaoi fangirls aesthetically? Play Enzai or Twisted Wonderland.

Second, again his hatred towards blond people. I really would like to know where that comes from, because I doubt it was only related to some random bully in school being blond.

Third, the way he uses the word effeminate and describes post Ocarina of Time Link essentially as “nonthreatening”.

For starters, considering Link rams his sword into Ganon’s skull in Ocarina of Time and slashes away at many of his enemies, which is way more threatening and violent than just poking them with a stick in 2D overhead view, I wouldn’t really consider him “non threatening”. I like to call him and many of his future incarnations, badass as fuck. Even the cartoonish, childlike Link from the Wind Waker continuity, who didn’t just stab Ganon in the head, but put his sword in there for good. It also is kinda laughable how Dobson uses the word “non threatening” in a negative manner, seeing how over the years ever since he sucked off Steven Universe, he would whine on twitter and other social plattforms again and again how males in media are always resolving conflict only via violence and are not in tune with their emotions. In other words, he once considered being more or less pacifistic a negative trait.

Also, “effeminate”? Okay first, Link looks like this in Ocarina of Time…

What exactly looks “effeminate” about male Link here, or at least let’s say more “effeminate” than for example in a character like this?

Second, we all know that if Link all off sudden looked more like Guts from Berserk or the protagonist of DarkSoul (you know, more “manly”), Dobson would throw enough of a hissy fit, he would likely come back from his sabbath and whine how Nintendo is embracing toxic masculine traits in his characters. All while also blaming PS3 games for some reason for that.

Third, how exactly would Dobson define effeminate here? I mean, the term is already defined as being derogatory, the most common definition I found by Merriam-Webter online being as followed

Effeminate: having feminine qualities untypical of a man : not manly in appearance or manner

Effeminate: marked by an unbecoming delicacy or overrefinement

So, Andrew “I hate all men” Dobson, has a problem with a character not being “typical” or stereotypical manly male? The same guy who praised the She-Ra reboot for its portrayal of Bow and fucking worships that fat fuck below as one of the best protagonists in a cartoon of the last decade…

Has actually deep down a problem with people embracing more female interests, qualities or just looking more feminine in appearance, even though the later may not be by choice but rather genetics? All while also having the audacity to say then this years later?

I find this just genuinely hate- and hurtful. Not just a simple complaint about a design choice regarding his supposed favorite fantasy game hero, but a “deep cut” towards people who just enjoy things not considered “stereotypically manly” or may feel not comfortable falling in line with gender expectations. I mean, what? Is a man now supposedly not manly in Dobson’s eyes because they like musicals, sweets are capable of showing empathy and other emotions or like to dress up in certain ways or take care of their appearance?

It is just disgusting to me, because I know people, both male and female, who had to deal with bullying and name calling a lot simple because they didn’t quite fall in line with expectations by others or struggle with their own identity partly because of expectations vs reality. And as evident by THIS comment TheHypocrisyofAndrewDobson received once it isn’t just “a joke” to people genuinely affected by that sort of mentality. And again, this derogatory use of the world and complaint towards “modern” Link comes from someone who years later would whine about toxic masculinity, put women on pedestals even if they are abusive, likely jerked it off to Link in Gerudo gear following Breath of the Wild and in the biggest ironic “twist”, loves the cartoon incarnation of Link, whose catchphrase is “Excuse me, Princess” and needs a restraining order as much as Warner Bros gave Pepe lePew.

And to finish this panel off (yes, we are still not at Samus), of course the next complain is how Zelda and Link are “no longer love interests” … now I apologize in advance towards any moderate shipper out here, but I am going full snarker mode now for this part. Okay?

Dobson… the fact that you cared so much about shipping two fictional characters in a series of children games, for a console primarily played by kids, while you were being in your 20s and above is pathetic as shit. I know that you have no one in life who genuinely loves you, because among other things you are incapable of either feeling or identifying true love while also being a selfish little shit, but to be so thirsty for affection that you project that need on some pieces of data or lines of color, makes you a bigger loser in my book than any republican who lost the primary against Donald Trump in 2015. The fact that you look at a piece of fiction and your immediate thought is “oohh, these two characters together would look very cute hugging, kissing and doing things I touch myself to at night”, while things such as plot progression and character development likely play second, third or fourth fiddle, only confirms to me that shippers (at least the once acting like you in that regard and other fields) are a fucking blight on any fandom and the world at large.

Now with that shit vented, I once again apologize for going that far, even for “comedic purpose” towards the people who actually can recognize when they go just a bit too far with shipping. But this isn’t just annoying in regard to this comic, it is annoying with Dobson in general. If you are even remotely aware of how he treats the LGBT subject for real as well as what he truly enjoys about Legend of Korra and Miraculous Ladybug, you know he is thirstier than someone stranded in the Gobi desert. Just look at his pic of Zelda and Linkle he made in honour of Hyrule Warriors.

I can kinda taste his urge to touch himself there.

To me it is just dumb to define any story out there and the characters in it by simply “are they getting together or not” because romance to me in storytelling is an additional flavor, not the main ingredient. It is one reason I really do not like Miraculous Ladybug for example. And the fact that Dobson seems to define Legend of Zelda a lot as a franchise by the “shipping potential” of Link and Zelda as implied by that panel, irks me in all the wrong ways.

I mean, for the most part the appeal of the Zelda games isn’t the “romance” between the two, it is traversing the land of Hyrule and saving it from evil while going on a big adventure. And let us be real here, Link and Zelda weren’t really an item pre-Ocarina of Time either. In the NES and SNES games they were essentially strangers to each other, with one filling the role of damsel in distress even a bit harder than Peach did. After all, Peach may be a princess, but she actually rules her kingdom. Zelda on the other hand is daddy’s little girl in those and other games post 1998. And the relationship they had in the cartoon, the one Dobson likes to call a “may they, won’t they” thing is in my opinion not cute, but toxic. She is a demanding bitch that calls him names at times, he is a horndog who needs a lecture by Sexual Harassment Panda and none of them improves character wise over the show.

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What a misogynistic piece of shit

There is a reason I consider Tetra, Zelda from Skyward Sword and the “Wild” Zelda the better interests, because not only do Link and Zelda here have better chemistry and are both nicer and more respectful to each other in a manner, they also support each other in very heroic ways. I mean, Zelda in Tears of the Kingdom willingly sacrificed her own conscious just so Link can have a shot at defeating Ganon and saving Hyrule in the future, while Link wants to do everything to save his friend. If that isn’t impactful, tragic and has so much romantic potential, I don’t know what else would count.

But hey, supposedly the cartoon is better. And the 365 Days Trilogy is a great love story with no unfortunate implications involving sexual relationships and abuse. *snark*

And then it is Samus turn. And I really have to wonder, if Dobson ever even played a Metroid Game before Other M anyway, as he hates games with scary elements and FPS.

Aside of once again whining about changing the hair color (Dobson seems to be something of a reverse Aryan enthusiast), he acts as if the addition of the Zero Suit in Metroid was a cardinal sin and “sexist crap”, to entice more men to playing her game.

Okay… for starters, the Metroid games were already enjoyed by a huge male demographic long before that or before even Metroid Prime. Samus wasn’t a “played by females thirsty for representation” only character, as that comic seems to imply. She was considered a female badass hero from the moment she first appeared and her design is deliberately inspired by Ripley from Alien. And skimpy? Again, Dobson doesn’t seem to know what certain words mean. Skimpy would be when the outfit would show more off her skin or was barely there. This is a skintight jumpsuit, that also has a function in the game as a less movement restricting suit compared to Samus armor. Heck, just watch this video, that guy gives some decent explanation on the suit itself.

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And yeah, I can agree that in certain cutscenes more so than the actual game, it does put quite a bit of emphasize on Samus “attributes” so to speak. But are we really trying to insinuate that the Zero Jumpsuit is more sexist than the character stripping off to her underwear as was the bonus ending content of the initial Metroid games?

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And if the issue is that the skinsuit makes Samus more “sexy” and that Dobson does not want to see sexy characters in Nintendo games…

He should reevaluate the fact that he enjoyed the above later.

There is also this little tweet I found after the fact, Dosbon would make later in 2015, where he actually more or less confirms the idea, that he thinks the Japanese only care for Samus in a “sexy skintight” manner, by making this dumbass “joke” comparison

Ignoring the fact btw, that the pic on the left was drawn by Samus original designer Hiroji Kiyotake. Again, Dobson trying to discredit the Japanese. And don't get me even started that he enjoys Other M or takes more offense to the shoedesign of Samus in Smash Bros than anything

Finally, and to wrap this thing up, we reach the final panel, showing the executive declaring that the “old” stuff shall from now on be brushed off like Dobson tried to brush off his fetish artist days, all while the “new and improved, but truly despicable” pretenders of his favorite childhood heroes are behind him. Mario lobotomized to say MAMA MIA while his eyes look like he is possessed by the retardation of Talus, Link being a “silly girl who makes silly movements with her hands and likely just wants to hang out with cute boys”, while Samus looks pissed and just wishes she was in something less degrading for her than this comic. Like Other M.

Honestly, this comic just stinks of loser entitlement and as stated prior, toxic nostalgia. Dobson has never really been a creator of decent stuff, only a consumer who demands the next product as soon as he hungers for it and will be utterly judgemental to petty and spiteful degrees, when he doesn’t get what he wants or suddenly thinks he sees something “problematic” to it. And to him, already the fact that stylistic choices and aesthetics changed over time, a natural progression of things if you ask me, is “problematic” in his eyes. Dobson would have rather had for Zelda, Link, Mario, Samus and Co to be undefined postholders he could have projected himself on, or outdated 80s stereotypes and toxic men, because that is the first thing he was ever exposed to when it came to those characters. Why not go even further, Dobson? Erase the Switch, the Wii and any other game console post 1989 from history, so that gaming itself never evolves past the 8-Bit era. Let’s destroy Pokemon, God of War, Kirby, Sonic and many other franchises and characters, because they are not the “true heroes of the Golden Age of gaming”. Let’s see how you will like that, when they come for your beloved Skyrim.

Bottom line, Dobson is a nostalgic pig, stuck in a past he looks at through rose tainted, grease covered glasses and this comic more than anything written before and after that embodies the mentality quite as well. And even though he tried to play it off as a joke, anyone with half a brain saw through what it was really about. And they made Dobson know, partly through less words than I used here, why they thought his opinion and by extension he, sucked.

Dobson wasn’t just playing the overzealous Nintendo fan for shit and giggles. He was, this overzealous, almost destructive and utterly disrespectful fan, who believed in the superiority of his favorite childhood toy over the consoles of others, even if that included pissing off his own “kin” or accussing Nintendo of being problematic dirty foreigners. Just look at anything he would type in regard of Super Smash Bros for the Switch, like how pissed he was at the fact he had to put effort into getting his favorite character to play as. Essentially insinuating, the game and people enjoying it were crap, just because he was biased towards fighting games to begin with. And look, being critical of aspects of a game, is one thing. But some of the things Dobson found to complain about? Pathetic, childish and utterly irrelevant in the bigger picture of anything

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I want to punch him in the throat for this voice alone...

And if you think Dobson being an opinionated Nintendo fanboy is cringe, wait till we get to him being an opinionated PS3 hater.

But before that, I want to tear at least one of his shitty Zelda opinions a new one…

#andrew dobson #syac #so you are a cartoonist #tom preston #adobsonartwork #webcomic #youtube #adobsoncomic #nintendo #super mario #legend of zelda #link #samus aran #metroid #nintendo vember #Youtube

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