#is it obvious that i like getting bullied by these two

[nereidprinc3ss]

slumber party

in which there's only one bed. fem bau!reader x spencer reid

fluff! warnings/tags: dark humor, (the word molest is used jokingly once but in my defense your honor its completely on brand for early seasons cm humor, if u cancel me u have to cancel the whole cast those are the rules, its just a joke cause reader always flirts w him aggressively, pls don't come for me i have a wife and children and three boyfriends to take care of,) mutual pining, bullying and death threats as flirting, they love each other so much and bicker like children, glasses spencer, (moans), emily and rossi are mentioned bc canon means fuck all to me, i think thats it but this is my most out of pocket duo so if i'm wrong lmk a/n: just a silly little thing that i cooked up, not a masterpiece but i think its cute!! I hope u enjoy!! lmk what you think!! looooveee youuuu

“Oh, there is no way.”

Your duffel bag hits the dingy carpet as Spencer is still closing the door behind you. 

“What? Is it—”

You give him a look over your shoulder, eyebrows raised as if to say, what are you going to do about this?

But he only manages to meet your eyes for a split second before they’re back to the singular queen bed, darting over the white sheets and pillows like he might find another mattress if he looks hard enough. 

Sharing a room with Spencer, you can handle. You've done it before. Whenever the team has to pair up at a hotel, you two are an obvious choice. And while you occasionally butt heads, mostly you adore each other and it's great.

But sharing a bed is a whole other situation.

One you were not prepared for. And evidently, neither is he.

Watching his big anxious eyes flit around the room nervously, you feel sort of bad for your reaction. You know you can be a bit… abrasive, sometimes. 

“It’s fine, I’ll just—I’ll see if I can share a bed with Emily or JJ in their room—”

Just then there’s a knock at the door. Spencer looks relieved to have something else to focus on, turning back around and quickly undoing the latch again before opening the door to reveal your favorite raven-haired SSA. Emily leans past the doorjamb, eyes immediately honing in on the awkward sleeping arrangement. 

“Oh my god! You guys too?”

“What?” You and Spencer ask at the same time. Emily raises her eyebrows at this and glances between you, but otherwise doesn’t comment. 

“Me and JJ only have the one bed. I thought it might just have been us.”

You frown. There goes your plan of sharing a room with them. 

“What about Morgan and Garcia?”

Spencer snorts.

“Something tells me Penelope wouldn’t be too torn up about it if that's the case.”

“Hotch and Rossi?”

The room goes quiet and a little chilly as the thought disturbs everyone equally. Emily frowns deeply.

“I don’t even… I can’t picture that.”

“Can we please not try to picture it?”

“Great. Okay, well. I just wanted to make sure everyone is suffering equally. Good luck, champs.”

“Thanks,” Spencer mutters dryly. Emily smiles, eyes darting between the two of you for just a moment too long, before pushing off the door frame and disappearing from sight. Once the door is closed again, a heavy silence ensues. “I’ll… I can take the floor—”

“It’s fine, Spencer. I’m not going to make you sleep on the floor. We’re both grown-ups. Besides, we like each other, right? It’ll be like a slumber party.”

“I’ve never had one,” he admits. His glasses slip further down his nose as he frowns. Your fingers itch to push them back up. 

“Then I’m happy to be your first,” you tease, facing him fully with your hand on your hip and barely resisting the urge to add, I’ll be gentle. “Do you want the shower first or can I?”

Spencer has a habit of looking you up and down like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. Some might find it odd, but his utter lack of social graces is, lucky for him, incredibly endearing to you. 

“You can have it first,” he says, meeting your eyes again. “Just don’t do that thing where you get the entire bathroom soaking wet.”

“Aw. But I love doing that. It’s my favorite part,” you tease, scooping up your bag once more.

Twenty minutes later you’re emerging from the bathroom with damp hair, clad in loose shorts and a college hoodie. 

“Nice outfit,” Spencer says from the spinny-chair at the desk, examining your outfit choice with a scrutiny you wish you’d been prepared for. Really, you wish you’d known ahead of time you’d have a roommate and brought some alternate sleeping clothes. “I had no idea you felt so passionately about… Scooby Doo?”

“Shut up right now,” you grit, tossing your bag into the corner of the room and tugging your hoodie down over your cartoon-patterned shorts as far as you can. 

“What?” He’s laughing as he brushes past you on his way into the bathroom, bearing his own bag. “It’s a good look for you.”

Your face is burning as you choose the side of the bed furthest from the door. Springs creak underneath your weight as you sink down, sitting with your legs hanging off the side for a moment before swinging them up onto the mattress, leaning against the headboard and side-eyeing the empty space next to you. There’s really not very much of it. The bed feels even smaller than it looks. 

From the bathroom you hear the sound of the shower squeaking and starting up again—a cacophony of droplets against tile on the other side of the wall. You try not to be nervous as you imagine Spencer filling the space beside you in just a few minutes, hair wet and in pajamas. And yet you spend each second wondering if he’s almost done, wondering if the shower will finally sputter to a halt, and once it does, wondering how long it’ll be before he’s out again. It’s ridiculous how impatient you're getting—and by the time you finally watch the door knob twist you feel crazy. 

“I think that was your longest shower yet, Dr. Reid.”

The teasing affords you a moment to ogle him head to toe, taking in his choice of pajamas—tonight, familiar plaid pants and an MIT crewneck—as well as his hair which has already begun to dry. Briefly you wonder if he does that thing guys do, where they lean down and haphazardly dry their hair with a towel because they have no concern for its texture whatsoever. But you kind of doubt it, because his hair always looks so soft. 

“You were sitting here waiting for me?” He chuckles, and honestly you’d been expecting a shyer response. But you adapt quickly. 

“Maybe I was. Big spoon or little spoon?”

“Ha-ha.” He opens a drawer in the dresser and begins unpacking his clothes into it. It's a funny habit of his. You never unpack your duffel. “You took the better side of the bed.”

“Uh, yeah. I’m the woman. I get to do that.”

“Well you should know that if an intruder breaks in, I’m not fighting him off. You’d probably have a better chance than me.”

“And my chances will be even better if he’s distracted with you first.”

“So I’m just bait?” He scoffs, looking back at you. Strands of wet hair hang so prettily around his face, like the perfect frame around a work of art. You smile sweetly from your spot on the bed before playfully biting at the air in his direction. The message goes unspoken but reads loud and clear. Of course you are. You make such good bait. 

That gets a blush out of him and he has nothing else to say as he turns back to his drawer. Happily you lean back against the headboard, stretching your legs out and bouncing slightly in place. Beneath you the mattress springs groan and squeak in protest. 

“I hope you're not going to be this irritating all night.”

It's clearly lighthearted, but you promptly stop and frown at his back. 

“Call me irritating again and see where you end up sleeping tonight.”

“I just don’t see how you’re even more hyperactive than usual right now. Has anybody ever told you that you’re crepuscular?” Spencer asks, finally sliding the drawer shut and going to shut the overhead light off. Your eyes narrow. 

“Obviously nobody has told me that.”

“It means y—”

“I’m most energetic within the few hours around dusk and dawn. Contrary to your belief, Dr. Reid, other people are also capable of looking up words in a dictionary and remembering what they mean. Are you going to stand in the corner all night or are you gonna come to bed?”

“I am,” he scoffs, clearly embarrassed and shy and embarrassed of being shy. “I’m just… you look like you kick in your sleep. And hog the blankets.”

You shrug, folding your knees to your chest and hugging them quaintly. 

“I’ve never had any complaints. In fact, you should be so lucky to share a bed with me. All five star reviews, baby.” 

You toss a suggestive wink in at the end, which seems garish enough to break the tension so that Spencer can stop lingering in the corner like a sleep-paralysis demon and move to carefully take his place next to you. He almost mirrors your position, but his legs are too long to quite manage your level of compactness and so they simply fold underneath him. A few silent moments go by, in which you have the dumbest smile on your face and you keep glancing over to the side, waiting for him to be looking back at you. 

“This is already the least relaxed I have ever been in a bed.”

“Good thing we’re not going to sleep yet.”

Finally he looks at you, a casual mix of hesitance, concern, and moderate curiosity coloring his features. 

“We’re not?”

“Oh, my god, Spencer,” you snort. “I’m not gonna molest you. We have to do slumber party stuff, remember?”

He flushes again, glancing at the digital clock in his bedside table. 

“But it’s late. We should go to sleep.”

“At slumber parties you have to stay up until you literally can’t keep your eyes open anymore. Those are the rules. I don’t make them.”

Still, your insistence that you follow the international code of sleepover law goes unabided by Spencer. He simply leans over to flick off his lamp, bathing the room in darkness. 

“I appreciate the effort,” he says, and your eyes haven’t adjusted but you can hear the rustle of sheets and blankets as he gets under them, “but unfortunately we have to be awake and alert in five hours.”

“You’re no fun,” you huff, but climb under your own side of the cover and scoot down until you’re flat on your back, covered in blanket and hands folded on your sternum. 

Spencer doesn’t respond. 

It’s silent for maybe five minutes, during which your brain doesn’t slow down at all. Maybe you are crepuscular. Or slightly nocturnal. You have nothing but energy. 

In an attempt to get comfortable, you try adjusting your position.

The mattress squeaks. 

You do it again. 

Another squeak. 

A second goes by, and now you’re intentionally jostling about, squeaking the mattress as much as you can. 

“Would you stop that?” Spencer says, voice already gravelly with sleep. You manage, but you’re already devolving into a fit of giggles. “I’m going to smother you with this pillow,” he threatens, but you hear the disgruntled smile curling his words. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just not in the mood to rest.”

Another moment passes. He sighs deeply. You smile into the dark. 

“What are you in the mood for?” He asks flatly, and you’ve won. 

“Tell me a secret,” you immediately demand in a hushed tone, flipping on your side to face his back. “Something you’ve never told anyone else.”

“I don’t—”

“Shh! You have to whisper it. Those are the slumber party rules.”

“I don’t have any secrets,” he whispers, clearly flustered, and to your delight, rolling to face the ceiling. “None that you’d want to hear.”

“Oh, now that’s just not true. You’re an enigma, Spencer Reid. You fascinate me.”

You’re only sort of kidding. 

“I… fascinate you?”

“Completely. You know, ever since you moved your desk across from mine I get distracted just staring at you and wondering what you’re thinking about. But you’re very… hard to read, sometimes. I think it’s because you’re a Scorpio.”

“The position of the stars at the time I was born has no bearing on my personality.”

“Fine,” you concede, still in a glorified stage whisper. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t display the archetypal Scorpio traits. You’re all brooding, mysterious. Kinda, I don't know... intense and sexy and unknowable…”

“Sexy?” He laughs, breaking the whisper rule. You grin and let it slide. You’d hoped he would catch that one. 

“Hey,” you snap, losing the smile immediately and lightly shoving against what you hope is his shoulder. “You’re supposed to be telling me a secret, damnit. I won’t let your wiles and charm distract me from getting what I want.”

“When have you ever let anything stop you from getting what you want?”

Truly, your cheeks are going to start aching with this constant back and forth between poker-faced and huge Cheshire smile. 

“Stop flirting and answer my question, Reid.”

With the amount of times you’ve made him sigh tonight he must be dizzy. You chew your lip apprehensively in the silence, picking a loose thread on your pillow. It’s so pitch black in the room, you can’t see him where he lies only a few meager inches from you. But you can feel his presence. You can feel the unexpected bass to his voice when he’s tired and speaking this lowly, which you’ve never heard before.

“All the secrets I’ve never told anyone are just… depressing.”

Your heart sinks a little at the way he swallows between words, like that in and of itself was hard to admit. Unthinkingly your hand slides into the small gap of white cotton between the two of you. 

“Not very good slumber party material, I think,” he laughs self-consciously. 

“You’d be surprised.” 

The sentiment comes quieter and more serious than you’ve been all night. If only you had the words to tell him that he can tell you anything. That you want to hold his secrets for him under lock and key. That you would never, ever do anything less than offer him kindness and support—even if it doesn’t always seem that way when you’re teasing him. 

“Do you have any secrets you’ve never told anyone else?” He murmurs eventually, so soft it could kill you. 

And you do. There are plenty of dark ones, probably not all dissimilar from those he’d elected not to share only a moment ago. 

But you don’t bring those up. 

Instead, you decide to admit to something silly. Still, it makes you nervous as you feel it coming loose in your chest. You’ve really never told anyone this, and it’s perhaps more vulnerable than you’d realized before the words were already leaving your mouth. 

“I, have…” You pause to laugh at yourself, and continue on. “I have a stuffed dragon that I take with me on every single case.”

“You do?” Spencer laughs, so loud and unexpected it almost hurts your ears, angling his head toward you. Blood rushes to your face. 

“Yes. He usually sleeps in bed with me. He’s an excellent listener and has been the origin of several of my most genius breakthroughs. You remember Gibson Cooper?”

“Family annihilator from Houston?” 

“Correct. He’s in prison because Oscar helped me make the Cook Creek Campground connection between the O’Hara and Diangelo families.”

“You have a stuffed profiler dragon named Oscar? Is he here?”

“He’s—I mean, I wasn’t expecting to share a room with someone.”

“So he’s in your bag.”

“Yes,” you seethe, “and I will not be introducing you to him. He doesn’t do well with men.”

“You are genuinely psychotic.”

You huff.

“Fine. I’m sorry I told you anything.”

You’re about to roll over onto your other side—but Spencer surprises you by catching the hand that had been outstretched in his direction. He carefully intertwines your fingers and squeezes gently. 

“You’re right. That was mean. Thank you for telling me about Oscar.” His tone is surprisingly teasing, and you’re so uncharacteristically flustered by this rare show of physicality and affection that you can’t muster an adequate comeback. Spencer doesn’t seem to mind filling your silence, though, sounding a little more solemn now. “I’m sorry I don’t have any secrets for you.”

The way his voice gets all thin and scratchy sometimes—it’s like the earnest sincerity just pours out of him. He can’t control it. He can’t be anyone other than who he is. Maybe that’s a part of why you love him so much. You wonder if he knows how much you love him. It’s not exactly a secret—anyone on the team would be able to tell as much. You’ve been relentlessly teased for the way you are with him. For your batting lashes and your lingering touches and your unabashed flirting. But beneath it all is true affection, and nobody doubts that. 

“It’s okay,” you decide with a squeeze of your own, after a moment of deliberation. “You’ll think of something. ’Cause, y’know—you’re stuck with me for at least a few more days.”

“Oh, god,” he laughs, and releases your hand, rolling over to face away from you. But you don’t mind. You’ll get lots more time to invade his personal space over the coming week or so. “Goodnight.”

“Sweet dreams,” you sing-song, turning away to face the wall with what is perhaps your biggest, stupidest smile yet.

#spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x you #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic #criminal minds imagine

[rebelfell]

urgent.

eddie munson x fem!reader

"I want it to be urgent. Like you can't keep your hands off me."

Smut blurb featuring no *actual* smut, in which Eddie is doing his best to help you get over your ex. Cause that's what friends are for. Right? cw: drinking/smoking, references to sex acts.

18+ MDNI 2.8k

“Alright, that’s it. I need another.”

The cushions of Eddie’s well-worn sofa bounced beneath you as he stood, sighing as he headed to the kitchen. His shaggy hair flew up as he glanced back at you with a playful twinkle in his eye that fully betrayed his attempt to sound irate.

“Can’t believe you talked me into watching this shit,” he added with a scoff, indicating the movie flickering on his television screen.

With a quiet giggle, you tucked your legs further up underneath you and squished deeper into your seat. The smile on your face only widened when he returned carrying two new bottles, one of which he passed into your waiting hand.

He’d successfully bribed you into coming over for a long overdue movie night by texting a picture of his fridge that was almost barren except a case of your favorite beer and a couple boxes of day-old pizza captioned, “how can you resist???”

Evidently, you couldn’t. Hence your arrival at his door not even an hour later, swathed in baggy sweats and a giant hoodie without a speck of make-up on your face. Your uniform of late.

“She lives!”

He bellowed in his mad scientist best, practically dragging you through the door to wrap you up in a hug so tight it threatened to crack your bones and made your lungs ache as they attempted to draw air—as if he thought he could wring the sadness out of you like a sponge.

Admittedly, it had been too long since you’d seen him. And not just him, but any of your friends.

For weeks now, you’d been using excuses of work and needing to catch up on laundry or cleaning to avoid facing them. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to see people. You just knew any attempt to hang out would only lead to questions about your recent break-up.

Questions you didn’t have the answers to, nor the mental capacity to tackle.

Eddie was a safe bet in that regard.

He’d always had what you could only call a morbid curiosity about your love life. If he asked about it, he did so in such a way that it made you feel like he was sort of dreading the answer? Like checking under a shoe to make sure a spider was really dead. You had figured that he of all people wouldn’t press you for too many details.

It was as close to a perfect evening as possible.

The remaining half of the joint you shared still sat smoldering in the ashtray on the coffee table. The two of you basked in the rosy glow of Christmas lights strung up on the walls he had yet to take down even as summer rapidly approached.

Beer and pizza sat in your belly, it and the weed only making the travesty of a bad movie you had basically bullied him into watching all the funnier.

You’d almost, almost, forgotten about your current tragic circumstances. And then…

“We can talk about it, you know,” Eddie said during a quiet stretch of the movie.

He instantly clocked the stiffening of your spine and the tensing of your shoulders he knew had nothing to do with the appearance of the killer following a side character down an alley.

“We don’t have to,” he went on, forcibly keeping his eyes forward like he was talking to the guy on screen now getting gutted, “I’m just saying if you wanted to, we could. Or we can just keep drinking and watching this garbage.”

With a laugh, he indicated the screen again.

The killer completed his deed and the wide shot revealed a painfully obvious dummy version of his victim lying on the ground beneath him. You were also pretty sure a boom mic dipped into frame.

It made you chuckle along with him and you turned your head, finding his doe eyes shining in that annoyingly endearing way of his that never failed to soften you to his whims.

“It wasn’t anything bad-bad,” you muttered, half talking to yourself. “He was just sort of…selfish.”

“Selfish how?” Eddie asked, brow knitting in confusion. “Like he hogged the covers? What?”

“No, like…”

Your cheeks burned as you stared at your hands in your lap, your thumbnail scraping against the pulpy label of your beer bottle that had begun to sweat profusely the longer it went un-drunk.

“Like in bed,” you said at last. “He didn’t ever go down on me, or do much of anything other than jump straight to fucking. And it was always over very…quick. Once he came, it was right back to business as usual. He wouldn’t check in with me or even me ask what I—”

Your voice wavered slightly and you clamped your mouth closed, forcing back the bitter taste suddenly filling your mouth. With a deep and steadying breath, you finished your thought.

“I just didn’t feel like a priority.”

The detached tone was one you’d been working on for weeks. You knew eventually you’d have to crawl out of the hole you’d banished yourself into and when you did, you would have to sound okay with the fact that you’d been burned yet again by another guy you foolishly got your hopes up for.

Eddie leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together. He shook his head, baffled by what he was hearing.

“Did he ever give a reason? I mean, did he…”

Eddie trailed off, not sure what he was getting at.

Because what kind of person had to be told to make their partner a priority? To make them feel important? Beyond just pleasure, beyond just making them come. How could anyone be lucky enough to land you and not do anything and everything they could to make it work?

His eyes bored into the coffee table, unable to lift his head to look you in the eye. It was hard for you to read the expression on his face. It looked like a cocktail of all the different things you had felt during your isolation. Anger. Sadness. Disappointment. Disgust. Pity.

“We talked about it.” I talked about it, you wanted to say. “But he wasn’t interested in changing, so I said we should end it. And we did.”

Your words seemed to hang in the air after you said them. Eddie stayed silent a few moments longer, seemingly deep in thought. The movie played on, but the words and pictures both sort of blurred into static neither of you were paying much attention to anymore.

“That’s awful,” he said at last. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”

Your eyes darted up, surprised by the softness in his voice. The soothing, calming reassurance thing was much more Nancy’s speed. You knew Eddie could be sweet, but it was always buried under a million layers of sarcasm the same way he hid himself behind the armor of his leather jacket and denim vest. By the look on his face, he’d surprised himself as well.

“He’s a fuckin’ loser,” he grumbled, almost angry. “You were right to dump him.”

“Maybe,” you sighed back, staring down at your lap again. The swishing of Eddie’s curls told you he was shaking his head emphatically.

“There’s no maybe about it,” he insisted, tipping his beer back to take a long swig. “If he doesn’t appreciate someone like you he doesn’t deserve to be with anyone, s’far as I’m concerned.”

The tiniest smile emerged on your lips when you heard the little southern drawl that crept into his voice whenever he got a bit worked up. It makes him sound like his uncle Wayne grumbling about the noisy neighborhood kids or “those damn bureaucrats with their burea-crock-a-shits.”

“Thanks,” you said, nodding weakly. “I know it was the right decision and all, I just…it all feels so fucking hopeless. Even if I find another guy who seems nice, who knows if he’ll stay that way? I don’t want to just fuck a bunch of frogs on the off-chance one of them is a prince.”

Eddie snorted, nearly spraying the sip of beer he’d just taken out of his nose as you went on.

“The worst part is I’m so, like…”

You shook your head as you laughed in disbelief, hiding your face with your hand as it flushed with heat at what you had almost blurted out. Were you really about to say this?

His brown eyes danced under arched brows. He smirked, daring you to say it. Fuck it.

“I’m so pent up, my vibrator is gonna file a complaint for hazardous working conditions.”

“Maybe you need a new vibrator,” Eddie suggested. Or someone new behind the wheel.

You shoved his shoulder playfully, wide smiles spreading across both your faces. He grabbed at your wrist, wrestling your hand away and bringing it towards his mouth, feigning like he was going to bite. Squealing giggles erupted out of you as you pulled it back and he gnashed at the air.

Breathless from laughing, you settled back into your seat and inhaled deeply a few times trying to catch your breath. Eddie brought his hands back to his lap and looked down, allowing a small smile at seeing your face light up like it just had.

He’d do anything to see you like that.

“I will say,” you started, absently drawing circles on the arm of the couch, avoiding his gaze as his eyes jumped to your face, “It would be so great to get, like…one good night. You know, just scratch the itch so I can think clearly for once.”

Eddie paused, mulling again.

What he meant to say was…what if it was with someone you knew? Someone familiar you were comfortable with? Someone you knew you could trust to take care of you? What if it was someone you had known a long time, who cared about you and would put you first the way you deserved?

But the words that actually came out were—

“I could do it.”

“You…what?”

He knows that sound. That nervous, breathy little exhale that just came out of you. You blinked at him, stunned into silence as you tried to figure out if he was being serious. Eddie shrugged.

“I’m just saying, you don’t want to fuck a stranger. And I’m certainly not a stranger, so…”

He gestured vaguely at himself with his hands, a goofy little movement that had you rolling your eyes and tssing at him through your teeth.

“Eddie, don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not being stupid!” he exclaimed, only to stop and reconsider. “Okay, fine, maybe I am. But I'm also being serious. You’re my friend and I wanna help you out. However I can.”

“You seriously think…” You shook your head. “I mean, are you even attracted to me?”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he groaned, “is that even a question?”

“No, Ed, I’m serious. Really think about it.”

So, Eddie thought about it.

He thought about that two-piece you wore that one sticky-hot summer day when you all piled into he and Argyle’s vans and drove out to Lover’s Lake to swim. He thought about how he had to keep reminding himself not to stare and how his shorts got so uncomfortably tight until he had to fuck off into the trees for ten minutes to take care of himself. And how when he got back, he had endured everyone’s teasing about taking a shit in the woods—because he would much rather they thought that was what he was doing instead of jerking off in front of some voyeuristic squirrel.

He thought about the way your lips wrapped around the end of every joint he’d ever shared with you and how his heart would race when you asked him for a shotgun. He thought about that one time he was sick as shit and had that fever dream about you in a nurses outfit he’d torn off you piece by piece, kissing you all over your body until you were writhing underneath him crying out his name until he woke with a violent jolt and had to throw his sheets in the wash at 4am.

And now not only was he extremely sure he was attracted to you, he also had a significant piece of evidence to back up his claim.

“I think it’s safe to say I am,” he chuckled, shifting in his seat.

Your eyes flitted down to his lap and you inhaled sharply at the sight of his growing bulge and the piss-poor job his thin sweats did of concealing it. Your cheeks burned just thinking about it and you simply had to laugh at the absurdity. If only it hadn’t come out so breathy and nervous…

“What about you?” he asked, his voice lowering to a suggestive timbre as he scooted in closer. “Are you attracted to me? Really think about it.”

Your pulse thrummed as your eyes scanned him, taking in every detail. Cutoff sleeves that showed off his taught arms, inked all over with scratcher tattoos. Narrow hips sort of mesmerizing in the way they swiveled whenever he played guitar on stage. Fingers that moved dazzlingly fast over the strings and had made you wonder on more than one occasion what it might feel like for him to play Master of Puppets on your pussy.

It made your mouth flood with saliva, and other wetness gush between your legs.

“What if…we kissed?” he asked slowly, his eyes locked so intently on your lips you could almost feel the heat of his gaze on them. “Just to see? Just in case?”

In case of what?

You wanted to ask, but the words didn’t come. You were too breathless as he drew you in.

You’ve seen Eddie kiss girls before.

Whether it was out at a random dive bar after his band played, or some house party in a house you didn’t recognize. You’ve seen how he cups their faces in his hands, large grasp nearly engulfing their entire head. You’ve seen the way his eyes hooded and how that insufferably smug, knowing smile of his turns up the corners of his mouth as he goes in for the kill. You’ve seen how his fingers spread wide to cradle their heads as they gave into him and felt the way it made something stir, however briefly, deep in the pit of your belly.

But you’ve never been that girl. It’s never been your face in his hands or your lips parting, waiting for the touch of his. And now that it’s happening…you don’t have any idea why you waited so long.

His mouth is gentler than you thought it would be, his lips soft and smooth as two pink petals of some flower you can’t name. You can feel the distinctness of their shape moving against your own and can still taste the malt of your favorite beer in his mouth, but the combination makes it into something new—something unlike anything you’ve ever tasted before.

You can just barely feel the tip of his tongue swiping at the entrance of your lips and it’s purely instinctual the way you open up for him to grant him access. He moans softly into your mouth, a plaintive little noise that sets your blood on fire. Suddenly, you’re possessed. Fisting his shirt in your grasp, dragging him with you as you lean backwards and sink deep into the cushions.

“I take it we’ve got the green light?” he asks in a throaty chuckle.

You answer by pulling him into another kiss, tangling your fingers in the hairs that run along the nape of his neck, twisting his curls in your grasp as you tug him back onto your mouth.

His hand wandered downwards, dipping into your sweats to cup your heat over your panties, his two middle fingers stroking at the arousal gathering there. His touch is teasingly light and yet he has you held firmly in his grasp, just enough to have you mewling into his mouth seeking more.

“Tell me exactly how you want it,” he groaned as he peppered hot kisses along the column of your throat, his voice soft but solid. “I want it to be just what you need. Just how you like it.”

You swallowed hard, struggling to form coherent thoughts with his teeth nipping so sweetly at your neck, and all the rings on his fingers pressing into your skin as he squeezed the curve of your waist. And through the haze his touch and teeth and lips created in your head, you managed an answer.

“I…I want it to be urgent. Like you can’t keep your hands off of me,” you sucked in another breath, “Like I’m all you’ve ever wanted.”

Eddie’s head lifted and you tensed just slightly under his reverent gaze. His eyes drifted across your face, all round and glassy and searching, as if he was trying to memorize every inch.

And then, as immediately as he’d paused, he was burying his face in your neck again, body grinding into yours with a newfound sense of desperation as he growled out a single word,

“Done.”

thank you for reading :) love you, mean it!

#eddie munson #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie stranger things #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson blurb #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson smut

[moodymisty]

I have another new idea for Cato Sicarius, so we’ve been talking about how Cato Sicarius bullies the reader and sends a truckload of mixed signals with each of their interactions. Now, Sicarius can afford to take this long and painful approach to ‘romancing?’ the reader because he’s doesn’t seem to have any active competition. But what if this wasn’t the case?

Just imagine it, Cato Sicarius sulking and stewing in a corner in rage, watching as another space marine compliments the baseline human and gets her blushing. Now because Sicarius is incapable of basic emotional awareness, he can’t understand that the reason he’s furious, is not because the human woman is wasting his time with frivolously bantering with another marine, but because this space marine is flirting with his human

Now as for the other space marine in this scenario, the obvious choice would be Titus. Because of his natural charisma and being quality husband material. However, you could also have it be a space marine from another legion, someone who’s on Ultramar to meet with Guilliman. Someone who would feasibly come across Guilliman’s favourite cute diplomat. A White Scar who being fun and flirty with the lovely human he just met. Or an Imperial Fist who’s genuinely impressed by the reader’s accomplishments and makes their interest known. Basically Sicarius looks on in envy as he cucked by his cousins

I love this lmao, any opportunity to make Sicarius cope and seethe is good in my books. I wrote this at like 4 in the morning while playing WUWA and keeping an eye on a very sick bird, so forgive any errors.

Warnings: Sicarius’ shitty attitude and being jealous, a dtf Astartes gets all flirty with you, the implication that Sicarius thinks you’re a little harlot for Astartes and really is he wrong?

The Ultramarine couldn’t stop his brother fast enough, speaking to Captain Sicarius through the vox channel connecting their helmets.

“This is going quite well.”

Both Ultramarines then suddenly freeze under the deathly stare of their captain, and they see his heartrates steadily rise in their helmet HUDs.

Higher and higher and higher it goes, as Sicarius’ helmet turns from them back to the scene in front of them. They’ve been tasked to stand guard for you as you greeted the guests aboard the ship, and stand in silence. At least the younger two marines do, the way Sicarius is boiling in his armor is anything but silent.

“Well little one, if you ever find yourself on Fenris, you’re in welcome company.”

A Space Wolf captain gives a wide, toothy smirk at you, and Sicarius turns up his nose at the nonstandard protocol on display at the marine’s red mane of hair. A mess waiting to happen- braids getting caught in armor, something to be grabbed.

“I’m glad to hear that!”

You smile back at him, completely wooed by the Wolf’s obnoxious boisterousness. He’s also massive; Sicarius can see plates of terminator armor blended in with the standard make Astartes armor. The three Space Wolves behind him are smaller, around his size.

The youngest Ultramarine that had nievely commented is visibly confused by his captain’s behavior, while the others, though also confused, have dealt with it for longer and stand in silence. None of them have the command to doubt Sicarius unless there are concerns of him breaching Ultramarine protocol or committing some form of heresy, and so they keep their mouths shut.

“Ahh, but we never realized that the Ultramarines kept such funny little maidens on their ships. Maybe they aren’t as stuck up as we all thought.”

Sicarius seethes; The disrespect on display against the Ultramarines, their primarch, and you! They didn’t even say your proper title, how dare they-

You laugh more, crossing your arms and conveniently accentuating your chest. Sicarius nearly fogs his visor from the heat of his breath. You smile, and the disgusting things that enter his mind at the thought of you and this Space Wolf sicken him. You’ve never displayed the female proclivity for idle chatter so much, he thinks.

Do you, like them? You never act like this in his company. Unless it’s Titus.

“They aren’t as bad as they seem I assure you, they just are very by the rules.” The massive Space Wolf chuckles, before tapping against the bottom of your chin with a knuckle. Sicarius’ heartrate makes a jump, watching you give the wolf a smile with gentle, lazy eyes. He would call them wanton.

Are there no Astartes safe from you? Titus, Helix, half of his men, and now this Space Wolf. He would utter what he thinks you are if he wasn’t dedicated to standing here in silence.

“Alas we should return to our ship. Fenris calls. But we’ll owe you and your Ultramarines a good deal for this assistance. We will not forget this, should you ever call on us for aid.”

Your Ultramarines?

Sicarius swallows a knot in his throat. You do not own him; If anything, Primarch Guilliman owns you, though Sicarius doesn’t understand still why his primarch deems it so valuable. Have you wooed him all the same?

No; His primarch would never fall for such a cheap display of whorish charm. Never. He will not falter either, unlike Titus.

You smile warmly again, face warm at the wolf’s tender touch.

“Then we wish you all safe travels on your return to Fenris.” The space wolves leave, and you turn around to face them all, including Sicarius. You’re much more composed now, smile much smaller and contained. Proper and respectful, unlike moments before.

“That went well. I should report all of this to Guilliman.”

Sicarius doesn’t say anything more than an irritated grunt, turning away.

#reply #Getting bullied by Cato Sicarius timeline #Misty’s book club #Cato Sicarius x reader #space marine x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #reader insert #reader #mywriting

[biolumien]

Hi!! Your rooftop smoke fic with Hoshina was just superb. 😭💖

Was wondering If could request a scenario where they had been mutually pining for one another. And they'd, on more than one occasion catch each other's eyes across the room. And a handful of people from the Defense Force notices. Cause could they be more obvious?

Whether that would end up angsty or with a happy ending is up to you! I love the way you write for Hoshina. You capture him pretty perfectly haha

Stay safe and healthy!!

notes: omg... thank you for your compliments... it means smsm! uhh... well. this kinda took on a life of its own, i'm sorry. i hope you don't mind ;-;;

say it! come on, say it!

soshiro hoshina x gn!reader alternatively: romcom except then i smacked it so hard with angst at the end. sorry. word count: 2400

“you need to close your mouth when you’re staring.” you feel the ice-cold touch of a can press against your cheek, and you shriek as you stare up at–

“ah, fuck. i’m not staring, narumi,” you mutter, taking the soda can from him. narumi seemed less than convinced, his eyes barely visible from underneath his bangs. 

“o-kay. and you’re totally not ogling hoshina with googly eyes.” narumi cracks open his own soda, taking a long sip from the can. “why don’t you just date already? i’m gonna be honest, i’m sick of you looking at him like that. it’s boring, bland, predictable… fuckin’ hate that will they won’t they bullshit.” 

“i can’t,” you complain dramatically. 

hoshina, from the other side of the room, was talking to captain ashiro while examining some paperwork. occasionally, okonogi would come over, point out some new development, and there’d seem to be another heated debate between the three. you always liked seeing hoshina in his element—whether it be instructing other officers, training with his blades, or awkwardly not making eye contact with him when he spoke to you. 

“like hell you can’t!” narumi hissed, reaching out to put you in a headlock. “stop looking at him like that!” 

“like hell what? who’s looking at who?” 

hoshina had come over, staring at the two of you, right as narumi’s arm was beginning to wrap around your neck. narumi immediately flew back from you as you laughed nervously. 

“uhh, like hell i, umm…” you fumbled for an answer, staring up at hoshina nervously. why had he just come over? why was he looking at you like that? your lips quiver for a moment.

“oh, relax!” hoshina clapped you across the back, laughing. “you look so nervous! like you’ve just confessed you had some very, very personal feelings or something! that’s adorable…” 

let me die, you think furtively as hoshina’s hand brushes your shoulder. narumi’s face was pinched. 

“don’t let narumi bully you too much; he’s just a little lowlife, after all,” hoshina said with teasing venom in his voice. 

“you bitch,” narumi growled. “i have no idea how they see anything in y—” his face paled as the words left his lips, and you think you almost see god for a minute. you hide your face with your hands, waiting for hoshina’s verdict, and you swear that the next moment you get, you were going to make narumi very sorry for spilling your metaphorical, hell, call them literal at this point, guts out in the open. 

“hmm?” hoshina hums. the world fell silent—at least silent to you, in any case, your eardrums pounding in time with your heartbeat. “well—”

“vice captain hoshina!” mina ashiro’s voice was sharp and piercing. “time to go.” 

“huh?” hoshina cocks his head. “ah, of course, captain. be right there!” 

he turned to you and narumi with a small smile, one of his fangs peeking out for a moment before waving his fingers. 

“see you.” he nods his head to you specifically before he turns away. 

you wait until you are absolutely, absolutely sure he’s out of earshot before turning on narumi, throwing your soda can at his head. 

“fuck!” narumi swore. “what the fuck was that for?” 

“you idiot! why did you basically confess to him for me?!” you hiss. “i’m trying to count on you to not run your damn mouth!” 

“hoshina’s an idiot,” narumi says sullenly. “i bet he didn’t even notice.” 

[…]

the walk through the hallway was silent, up until—

“you’re red,” mina says, her hand reaching for her skirt pocket to pull out her phone. 

“stop,” hoshina’s voice is strangled, far more strangled than he’d like it to be. “no, i’m serious. no photos. you’ll need to talk to my PR agent about that.” hoshina’s ears were tinged pink, and he raised his hands to try and hide the flush. 

“hoshina,” okonogi sounded disapproving, “why don’t you just confess already? i’m getting tired watching you get so concerned over them…” 

“ha! confess,” hoshina laughs. “and what good would that do? i’m not exactly peak romance material, you know this…” 

“the only one not noticing that is you, hoshina,” mina mutters. “you get all sullen when they leave and happy when they come back, but you have to act like a… hmm… what does he act like, okonogi?” 

hoshina’s eyes went wide as okonogi hummed. 

“a cat!” okonogi declares emphatically. 

“yes. you’re right,” mina says decisively. “that’s a good fit. you act like a cat about it. you try to—”

“stop. stop it, stop it, i don’t want to hear it. stop analyzing my personality. this isn’t some kind of joke,” hoshina says, his voice sounding more flustered as he went on. “they’re never gonna say yes. it’s stupid. confessing like this… it would only be a burden on all of us.” 

mina and okonogi exchanged a look.

“besides, i’m a bad boyfriend. remember that last girl, from operations,” hoshina laughed. “broke her heart in three seconds flat.” 

“… if i remember correctly, you liked her quite a lot, though,” okonogi said hesitantly. 

“ha! so what if i did?” hoshina asked. “she only just left when i… hm.” his smile seemed to falter somewhat, but he laughed. “it’s fine. it’s fine. i’m fine.” 

behind his back, mina and okonogi exchanged another look. 

but his mind flickered back to his hand on your back, and wondered if you leaning into his touch was a fluke. 

[…]

you stare at hoshina from across the room. he’s eating by himself, half a piece of melon bread in his mouth as he stared down at some papers in his hand. you’d have asked to sit next to him, if only you were braver. but you were a coward, so here you were. you stare down at your own food, tearing off a corner of the red bean bun you were eating, popping it in your mouth. 

your crush on hoshina was about as subtle as a freight train. which is to say, you felt it coming on, and then by the time you’d fully reconciled it, you were already being run over repeatedly. it was just grappling, mostly, with how cool he was, endlessly. 

you wondered what it would be like to live under the intensity of his stare, as it enveloped you whole. 

would it be like a benevolent fire? or would he raze you so wholly that there’d be nothing left? 

you wanted to find out. you wanted to find out, but you were so scared he’d burn you before you could even get close. but what was important was that hoshina, for sure, didn’t even bother to reciprocate your feelings. that’s what you were so sure of—because why would someone like him give you the pleasure of his time? surely his time was more valuable than wasting it on a nobody like you. 

his intensity, sharpened to a fine point, was better spent figuring out how to permanently eradicate the kaiju threat altogether. 

right?

you sighed miserably. 

“now that sounds like a miserable sound to me,” hoshina’s voice rang out right next to your ear. 

you nearly jumped out of your skin as soon as you heard his voice, too focused for a second on the soft, tickling sensation of his breath against the shell of your ear. your face bloomed bright red, and you immediately backed away from him, your heart pounding loudly in your chest. 

“hoshina!” you stammer. “what—what are you doing?” 

“eating?” hoshina raises his eyebrow, a teasing smirk on his lips. “noticed you were staring. take a picture, by the way, if you want. they do last longer than the momentary glances.” he sat down next to you, continuing to eat.

so he had noticed you staring. 

“s-sorry. for staring,” you say. 

“huh? why are you sorry?” hoshina asks, cocking his head at you, one of his eyes opening a bit wider. “i don’t mind. if i minded, i woulda said something.” your face flushed a little more at his words, and you looked away as he laughed. 

“you really are cute,” he says fondly, reaching out a hand to pat your head.

… huh?

“what?” you ask weakly. 

“huh? did i say something weird?” hoshina asks, the picture perfect image of innocence—or so you’d say, if his eyes weren’t narrowed at you, and the smile on his face a little too much like a smirk, waiting for how you’d react. 

“no…? i guess? it’s just not something i thought you’d say. to me,” you say falteringly, looking away for a moment. 

“mm. i guess i should make a habit of saying it more, huh?” hoshina teases, removing his hand from your head. 

and as you fluster a little more, you curse god for your crush on soshiro hoshina. 

[…]

“you need to quit fucking around,” narumi says, pointing a dumbbell at hoshina in the training room. 

“fucking around? i’m doing nothing of the sort,” hoshina says, that mask of innocence still on his face. narumi’s brow furrows. 

“sure, and you don’t also ogle… you need to get your shit together and confess, or swear to god, i’ll kill one of you. or, hell, why don’t we just kill both of you so i don’t have to fucking look at you?” narumi scoffs, anger spiking in his voice. 

“ha, yeah, maybe if you do that i’ll finally be free from hearing your annoying, grating voice,” hoshina says, prodding narumi in the chest.

“yeah, but then you won’t confess your feelings and then i’ll have to die knowing i broke up a couple that hadn’t even gotten together,” narumi grumbles. “i’m not a monster.”

“huh?” hoshina asks.

narumi looked like he was about to blow a gasket.

“wait, so you didn’t know they reciprocate?”

“i–well, i… hoped?” hoshina says, realizing how stupid he must sound. his mind flit back to your reactions the past few days–hell, the past few weeks? maybe the past few months? “oh. shit.”

“oh. shit. indeed,” narumi mocks. “so, are you going to tell them?”

“i…” hoshina suddenly realized how terrified he was. his face paled, his hand coming up to his mouth. “i… shit. wait. this is–fuck. i…” he ran a hand through his hair, pushing his bangs up past his face, a shaking sigh passing his lips. “no. this is… how would i even begin to explain it? i’m not… i can’t. i’m not–i can’t be a good partner. not in this line of work. my judgement could be compromised! that wouldn’t–”

“your judgement is already compromised,” narumi says, a bared snarl-turned-smile on his lips. “you know, hoshina. this is probably the most interesting you’ve ever been. you’re always facades, niceties. pretended you were untouchable, swimming in that sea of self-loathing and ineptitude. but maybe you’re beginning to live a little, aren’t you?”

hoshina’s eyes widened.

living?

[...]

it’d always come to the worst, you thought. you coughed up a mouthful of blood as another round of rubble began to creak overhead. you tried to force your body to move, and your suit pulsed in response to your movements, attempting to close the bloody gashes across your body from the kaiju attack. 

“command, come in,” you gasped out, holding up a shaking hand to your in-ear. you winced as there was only a clicking static in response–was no one coming? were you all alone? were you going to die like this, your limbs barely even able to hold up their own weight even with most of your combat power unleashed? is this all you were good for? your knees buckled as you collapsed onto the ground, coughing out a mouthful of blood.

were you going to die like this?

you couldn’t.

you didn’t want to.

your vision swam a bit as you coughed out another mouthful of blood, your mind lingering.

hoshina had touched your back right before you’d left, a small smile crossing his face.

“don’t die,” he’d said. 

and here you were, stumbling through the rubble, hurting so badly that you might as well be dead. 

it was utterly and painfully cliche to think about letting hoshina down. you didn’t want to, and yet there was a horrifying possibility that you would. and as you buckled again, collapsing onto your knees, you coughed out another mouthful of blood.

fuck.

“command,” you repeated, in a weaker voice. “please. if someone–if anyone can hear me–i need help. suit damage is–” you cough again, wiping blood from your mouth. “--critical. please.” 

and as your vision swam, you felt a hand press against your shoulder.

“there you are.”

you blinked hard, staring up at the face of soshiro hoshina, who’d pulled his mask off, leaning down to pull you into his arms.

“hoshina,” you whisper. “i’m sorry–i shouldn’t have… i got…”

“why are you apologizing?” hoshina asks, his voice sounding more choked than you’d like it to be.

“i didn’t mean to–i didn’t mean for this to happen.” you think you’re bleeding across hoshina’s suit, across his gloves as you press your head against his shoulder. 

hoshina laughs desperately, wetly.

“you didn’t mean to–of course you didn’t mean to!” hoshina protests. “the attack was more than any of us could have predicted–of course you didn’t mean for any of this happen–i don’t want you to apologize for that.” his hand reaches up to swipe some blood away from your brow. “come on, love. i have to tell you how i feel–that bastard was right, after all. my judgement was compromised from the beginning, around you.” 

“that bastard? narumi?” you ask, coughing a bit. why did it feel so cold? your eyes fluttered for a moment,  “what does he have to do with any of this–”

“i love you,” hoshina says. “i’m sorry it took me this long to tell you. and i’m selfish, for waiting until you’re bloodied, like this, to tell you.” you didn’t like the desperate look in his eyes like he was convinced you were going to die. you leaned up, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“you bastard,” you muttered. “couldn’t you have thought up a better time and place for all of this?” 

“no,” hoshina admits. “because i’m selfish, after all.” he smiles at you, the corner of his mouth twitching ever so slightly. “come on. let’s get you to the medbay. i’m not letting you die on me yet.”

“okay,” you whispered weakly. “okay.”

#kaiju no 8 #soshiro hoshina #soshiro hoshina x reader #hoshina soshiro x reader #kaiju no 8 x reader #x reader #kn8 x reader #my secret weapon... hoshina blast #i hope that narumi was written okay. i like writing dialogue banter. idk if u can tell. rolls my eyes

[twinsarekeepers]

do you genuinely think people who draw/write book annabeth are racist?

This could be a disingenuous ask but okay, I’ll bite and answer honestly.

First of all, “book” Annabeth can be black. That is how I see her and have seen her even before the show casting was announced. A lot of people reading the books now see Annabeth as Leah. Everyone has a different interpretation of Annabeth’s physical characteristics in the books and to try and say “book” Annabeth is synonymous with “white” Annabeth is wrong.

(And no you cannot use the book description or official art as an excuse. Rick is awful with consistent physical descriptions. Multiple characters have changed hair color and eye color throughout the series. The official art has literally been changed twice. The recent book had no physical descriptions of the characters and was literally dedicated to Walker, Leah, and Aryan. Rick has also said that when writing the characters now, he sees those three kids as them. This is not me defending Rick, because he’s still a coward that plays both sides of this, but if you want to say the book character is white then that is simply wrong now. She, at the very least, is ambiguous enough for everyone to choose what she looks like. There is no definitive “book” Annabeth now.)

“Book” Annabeth and “TV” Annabeth are the same character. There are no significant personality or backstory changes between the book and the show character that can justify separating the two of them like that. The only reason people are separating them is because they want to hold onto to the white version of the character. (I know there’s going to be stupid people with no media literacy who don’t know how adaptations work in my mentions “explaining” the differences, but no. The show has done a very good job at taking the character on the page and finding ways that are suitable for the screen to depict the same characteristics).

Before y’all say that people do this with TV Percy and book Percy too: it did not start that way. “Book” and “TV” Annabeth began when the show was in production, before anyone could even see how the show would handle Annabeth’s character. When some of us pointed that out, people started trying to separate “book” Percy and “TV” Percy. It was literally a tactic to hide their racist intentions. (And again, there are not enough differences between the book and tv show character to justify this separation, especially when this started happening BEFORE the show even released to the public).

So that’s a little context to how this separation even started. I know what y’all are going to say. “But just because it started as racist, doesn’t mean it’s racist now!” And to that I say, sure, but that’s not the case here.

White Annabeth fanart has been consistently used to hate on Leah, a real girl. We all know how much Leah has been getting harassed and bullied for her role as Annabeth and when her casting was announced, people used fanart to discredit her. Artists who continued to draw white Annabeth refused to monitor their comments and they were filled with people hating on Leah’s casting. Not only that, but artists who started drawing Annabeth as black would get hateful messages and comments as well. Accounts were going as far to take fanart of Leah’s Annabeth and whitewashing it (and then putting it in the leahisourannabeth tag). This is still happening today. You can find comments under fanart of Walker and Leah’s percabeth saying “I prefer the originals” or “the originals are better”. That’s very obviously racism.

For this reason, we started saying to stop drawing and writing white Annabeth. It’s being used in a direct and tangible way to harass a real young girl. If enough people in the fandom refuse to engage with white Annabeth then the hate will significantly decrease. There are the obvious excuses to this: “people will be racist no matter what so what’s the point of even trying?” That’s not true. Racists are cowards, especially people who harass children. They are emboldened only by others. If they see people continuing to support the separation between the book and show characters, and drawing white Annabeth fanart, they’re going to DO racist things like get Leah’s account banned on tiktok.

And this is where the active racism occurs. People know that this harassment is happening and that the fanart that they produce is going to be used to harass Leah. Instead of deciding that they’ll do their part to lessen that harassment, no matter how small that is, they decide that engaging with white Annabeth fanart is more important. They can say that they condemn what’s happening to Leah and that it’s not their responsibility what people do with their fanart, but that still makes the action racist.

Y’all say that you condemn what’s happening to Leah, but then when given the tools to help lessen it, you refuse to do it. All because you want to hold on to a white version of a character. You spend more time defending that choice than going into your own mentions and deleting any and every comment that may become hostile to the kids, especially Leah. That is racism.

#percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo #pjotv #pjo tv show #percabeth #annabeth chase #leah sava jeffries #walker scobell #aryan simhadri #leah is our annabeth #leah is the only annabeth #protect black girls #my asks

[lilies-and-forget-me-nots]

👀 , 🍓 ,💧 <33

muse talking about the mun!

👀 Do the mun and you get along? 

“Of course we do!”

“I think she’s sweet, but she has a very… strange obsession with Vampires. Scratch that, any kind of demon as long as they have fangs and a taste for human blood.”

admin: bitey sexy

“Hah… I wonder if you’ll change your mind if something actually bites you one day. I hope nothing does.”

admin: i like vampires

“Of course you do, Yna. Of course you do.”

“She certainly likes drawing me. I can’t say we get along personality-wise, however.”

admin: you’re sexy but you’re a freak good thing i’m into that tho

“Right. How about you show them the mountains upon mountains of ‘doodles’ you made of me and let them judge who’s the real freak between us?”

admin: okay listen

🍓 What is something you and the mun disagree on? 

“There’s not a lot we disagree on… but recently she’s been having this, well, quote-on-quote ‘Rukimania’. I don’t get it. We used to mutually dislike the guy, but you’re suddenly kicking your feet every time you think of him!”

admin: hear me out,

“No, I’d rather not. That guy is nuts! I don’t want to say it’s something wrong with your own taste in men, but… there's definitely something wrong with your taste in men."

admin: hear me out,

“I think I’m very straightforward to write.”

admin: no u are not

“Is it because our personalities are vastly different? Relatability shouldn’t factor into good writing… you must be an ineffectual writer, then. Why give yourself the mountainous task of writing me when you don’t have the ability to do so? In fact, the fact that you think I'm hard to write compared to miss goody-two-shoes coward over there says a lot about you."

("Why am I getting dragged into this??")

admin: wfkjfhshdfdf

“Wha— are you really enjoying this? You really are a huge weirdo."

💧 How often do you annoy the mun? And with what? 

“I can’t say it ‘annoys’ her, but apparently she always gets secondhand embarrassment when she’s writing me. I don’t get it, what’s so embarrassing about me?”

admin: would you like to read about your first day at the sakamaki manor again

“You wouldn’t fare much better. I was panicking!”

admin: i would simply throw myself into shuu’s arms and call it a day.

“I— you would not get the reaction you’re hoping for if you did that.”

admin: i can fix them

“You know what? I think she annoys me more than I annoy her at times.”

admin: :(

“Wait, are you really getting dejected over that? Um... I don’t really mean it. You’re like my favorite annoying fly!”

admin: ok ill take it

“I would say that my favorite hobby is annoying her—it is, but it’s always a coin toss whether she’d actually get annoyed or find it hot. I’m a little concerned if that’s really her taste.”

admin: i wud not be writing u if i wasn’t enjoying it at least a little

“I can say the worst things about her and she’d just giggle about it. Look: you’re way too plain and unhealthy for vampires to enjoy drinking your blood. Do you really think someone who inhales milk tea like it’s air and rots in bed every time she has free time would be appetizing to vampires? You'd give that little purple freak a run for his money in terms of blood sugar levels. Let’s not get started on your personality. Do you think you’d survive a day with those kinds of men? I bet you’d either lose your mind in less than 24 hours or get yourself killed driving them crazy.”

admin: tell me something new babygrill

“Hm... I think I'm beginning to figure something out. Also, Shuu is the most boring one out of all of them and you’re delusional for thinking that he’s anything more than a good-for-nothing who only gets by because he’s the pretty tortured boy archetype.”

admin: bitch get back here

“Oh, finally. I was beginning to think you actually lost it.”

#ask #ask game #kindan-no-kanojo #bullying simulator | mun and muse interaction #is it obvious that i like getting bullied by these two #its only been a month since i made those sprites and i already hate them get ready for a revamp in t-minus 2 hours

[designernishiki]

it’s so weird to think that ryuji was only a major character in one canon game. like he’s such a strong character with such a strong personality it doesn’t feel like he was only prominent in one canon game at ALL. he feels almost as ever-present and beloved as someone like daigo and yet he’s basically never even mentioned after kiwami 2. that’s so crazy to me.

#am I saying bring ryuji back? yes. end of statement #same goes for mine to a slightly lesser degree. and somehow yokoyama agrees with me on both of these I think #I am biased in a way because I am one of the few who has been lucky enough to play dead souls but. yeah #those two are also just good examples of antagonists that are almost comically malicious but still somehow have depth under the surface #and redeemability. in a way. not saying mine bulldozing an orphanage is Forgivable im saying he Did start to have a change of heart at the #end of y3 so he’s Capable of change and whatnot. and ryuji’s just a bully who takes his feelings out on other people usually physically #like he’s very much a teenage bully in the body of a gigantic adult man. #cause he never had to grow out of that. no one challenged him/his views/etc enough to do so. until the end of yk2 #AND IN DEAD SOULS ITS JUST A FACT THAT HES GROWN AS A PERSON AND MATURED. #it’s somehow a DRASTIC difference in personality from him in yk2 and yet still believable because of how much in his life had to change #and because he is like. the adult version of the previous ryuji. I know ryuji was already 30 in yk2 but you get my point. he wasn’t grown up #not really. (same goes for daigo- they’re such obvious foils for one another it’s so interesting and I wish it was explored more but ANYWAY) #ryuji #yk2 #rambling

[katyspersonal]

#/vent #personal #internets #like you can see the attempts to not vent and focus on the positive availed me nothing #this is just really annoying how people are outright not seeing the hypocricy of the whole thing #i perpetually feel like i've finished a quest people normally take years on early and now i just... wait here. all alone. #for other people to catch up with seeing the Whole Thing. #unfortunately you only really GET this when either you face this attitude or someone you know does #there is just an illusion that if you sit quietly and nod along the witch-hunters will not touch you #but honestly the only way to really be safe is to become just like them #because again autonomy is a reason to lose interest in being your friend at least and reason to shun you at most #ugh... i really really REALLY do not know what to search for to make me focus on GOOD things #it boils down to bugging my friends to send me good drawings or funny memes to reblog #or to urgently shutting internet down because over two vents per day is kind of an overkill #i just do not understand why the hypocricy of the witch hunters is not painfully obvious #how much more obviously bad things can get than the pure desperation to remove the person for merely the failure to control them? #the silver lining i guess is that trying so hard means i really get on their nerves. #i am just frustrated #how many years should pass until people come to me and say 'hey you was right and btw they bullied me too xD' #like they kept coming to Mico after having previously tossed him away too #they always come back but it is always too late and always at the expense of them facing the witch hunt too! #what it takes a mf to learn from mistakes of others and not their own? #i will just... stay here. and wait. until people realise the corruption of the Whole Thing. #sometimes i wish i myself had more time to be naive

[snekdood]

I give too much advice to adults who are dedicated to acting like children and not wanting to understand ppl theyve decided to hate for no reason.

#like why do i extend my arm when you're just a bully with a woke coat of paint to justify your actions lol #like plenty of the posts i reblog say- just bc you dont like something or in this case SOMEONE. doesnt mean you have to find a secret #reason theyre somehow problematic to justify your dislike of them. sometimes you can just dislike ppl for dumb petty reasons even #id rather you just be honest that thats the reason instead of being a manipulative fuck making me think theres some secret other reason im #doing what im doing and if i dont listen to you then it means i dont actually want to be progressive or whatever. bc we both know thats not #the reason you're doing this. we both know you're just doing this bc you like to be a bully and found a woke way to do so. #we both know you dont actually care about me changing bc if i do listen to you and change. there will be a new expectation that i didnt #successfuly fill. thats just how ppl like yall work #thats just how bullies who like to see themselves as progressive are #i say like to see themselves as bc i see bullying as inherently a rightwing thing. and obviously if you're not being a disingenuous fuck rn #you know i mean genuine bullying when yoy bat someone around like a cat for not living up to your expectations #not calling ppl out for their genuine obvious shitty behavior #these are two different things and ik manipulative bullies who larp as progressive ppl know that but seems they wanna convince us theyre #the same so they can keep batting people around. please get a hobby. please find a new way to entertain yourself #oh and please for the love of fuck go to therapy bc no one does that shit other than when they feel inadequate themselves. #idk if you've noticed but i like never feel the need to bully people. idk why but i think its bc i love myself and i love being weird and #eccentric and not fitting anyones specific standards. idk. its more freeing to mot give a fuck what other ppl are like #and trying to change their behavior somehow someway to be more palatable to what youd like. #and maybe bullying isnt right wing but its definitely not progressive. sorry for not having the perfect phrasing ik its horrible #im just so terrible for not phrasing things the way you want i know. #ik a lot of the stuff about narcissists and bs but the shit about communal narcissists is what ppl like this remind me of #purely in it for the aesthetic. to look progressive and cool and diverting from the norm. but shits on anyone who might threaten their role #even if theyre just imagining theyd someone how threaten their role in this. oh and of course they only give af about shit to look good #which is why when you do something that doesnt fit the Aesthetic Of Progressivism then automatically you're kicked out and not progressive. #bc ppl who are 'communal narcissists' for lack of a better term. have set the standard that its how leftist you *appear* than what you do #or what you believe. #i wish we had a better term for this bc i think this a useful observation. i jst dont wanna throw ppl w personality disorders under the bus

[seveneyesoup]

the thing about nbc hannibal was that hannibal lecter himself was such a like. bad person that it made it really obviously completely clear whenever anyone’s hate for characters on the show was just bigotry

#like #most characters on the show do one or two things that are. Not Great #i’m specifically thinking about the people who HATED jack crawford bc he pressured will into staying w the fbi when he was getting sicker #but DIDNT hate hannibal for intentionally making will’s sickness worse #like! jack doing that was kinda shitty! but he himself would power through difficulty to get these sorts of results #and he’s asking will to do the same! he’s trying to save lives and catch murderers #(which is totally made up for tv arrests rarely equal safety for the non-arrested but within the show it does so) #but like. one jack didn’t know how bad it was bc will didn’t and hannibal wasn’t telling him #two HANNIBAL WAS ACTIVELY MAKING WILL WORSE AND KEEPING HIM FROM TREATMENT!!!!!!!!! THATS LIKE!!!!!! REALLY BAD!!!!!!! #and we hate JACK in this situation?????? you’re just racist #it’s So Clearly Obvious why they let one of these guys off the hook and not the other #and same for the alana bloom or freddie lounds haters #couldn’t be me i don’t like alana but i Will defend her #i do like freddie lounds though she’s funny and i support womens wrongs #anyway #sorry to hannibalpost unprompted like this but it. was on my mind #and like. to be clear i think it’s good that everyone on the show makes bad choices this is compelling #and hannibal lecter is compelling! but he’s completely 100% unequivocally A Bad Fucking Dude #he kills people! to eat them! like! it Could Not Be More Obvious #was gonna say i’m not a hannibal hater. i am. i bully him for being pretentious. but i hate him in a silly way not a like. despise him way #you know?

[fairy-angel222]

Gojo getting jealous of your attraction towards actor! Choso

The two of you laid together on the couch. His chest pressed into your back as you snuggled under a thick white blanket. A pack of gummy bears in your hand as a smile graced your face when Rin, played by your favorite actor Choso appeared on the screen.

Gojo raised a brow, his brow raising while his chin still rested on your head, looking down at your curled lips in question. “What are you smiling so hard about?” he chuckled.

“Oh nothing, Choso Kamo is just one of the hottest men ever created.” You sighed, biting down on the chewy snack while Gojo sat up behind you.

“What did you just say?” he scoffed. Offense clear on his features as he eyed the man on your screen.

“Choso Kamo is one of the most attractive men ever? I mean.. have you seen the guy.” You replied with a giggle like it was the most obvious thing in the world, Gojo’s eye twitching lightly as his jaw clenched. “Is that so?”

“Mhm, he’s just so.. perfect. It’s a shame he’s married.” You rambled enthusiastically, eyes fixated on a man who wasn’t your boyfriend. “Not as perfect as you baby but you get what i mean.” Pressing a short kiss to his cheek before focusing your attention back onto the show.

Your attention was pulled away when Gojo roughly turned you onto your back, his knees on either side of your hips as he straddled you. His hand coming up around your neck with the tilt of his head followed by a dark grin. “So you’re attracted to other men now?”

You whimpered when his grip tightened, “Have all this to yourself yet you’re smiling over some guy on your screen.” He laughed to himself, leaning down so that his lips ghosted over your ear. His breath hot on your skin as he whispered. “Let me show you what these dumb actors you like could never do, i mean.. not like you’d ever meet him anyway.”

Hurriedly stripping you out of your clothes, “How they could never make you feel.”

You shuddered when Gojo ran his fingers between your already wet folds, running them along your slit before circling them around your clit. Your back arched as you moaned softly. “See that? Barely even touched you and you’re already soaked f’me. Pussy knows who she belongs too.”

Dipping his finger into you with a smirk. “Can this Kamo guy physically touch you like this?” You moaned once more, Gojo’s tongue running up your neck and over your ear. “Even if you got to meet him baby, no one could take you away from me.” He breathed.

Large hands on your waist flipping you onto him. Sitting up with you on his lap facing the still playing show. Sinking you down on his cock with one arm around your hips while the other snaked around your neck.

You mewled as you felt his cock pierce deeper and deeper, your ass flush onto his thighs with your head falling back onto his shoulders. “Satoruu.”

Gojo groaned, fucking up roughly into you as you moaned adorably. Thick cock hammering up into your g spot as you cried out loudly. Your stomach tightening with heat as your pussy spasmed, breathing speeding up with a string of loud mewls when Gojo quickened his pace.

“Satoruu— fuck,” you clenched down on him, lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin filling your ears along with the sticky squelch of your sopping pussy on his thighs. Gojo grinned as he forced you to look up at the screen. “Fucking look at him. This is who ya want over me? Someone who doesn’t even want ya?” he gritted, not giving you a chance to answer before he continued, “Well guess what baby, i’m the only one who could fuck you this good regardless. So even if you did meet him, you bet your ass you’d come running back to me.”

You moaned shakily, wanting to tell him that he was right. Choso was just a stupid actor crush, which meant he had nothing to be worried about. But he was fucking into you so good, so deep, thrusts mean and quick to bully your tight pussy open. Stretching you out to take all of him.

Gojo grunted deeply, letting out a low curse as your pussy messily drenching his thighs. “I’m the only one who’ll ever get to see this messy pussy.” His slender fingers rubbing harsh circles onto your sensitive clit, pulling a loud cry past your lips at the increased stimulation.

“Satoruu— nngh, ‘m cumming,” you cried with a whimper, your toes curling with the violent shake of your body as your head grew foggy. Gojo never slowing the movement of his hips as he fucked through the clear streams leaking out of your pretty pussy.

“Yeah baby? Gon’ cum for me? Or to the sight of that fucker in front of you?” he growled out, choking you even harder as he neared his release.

You let out a choked mewl, “You. Gonna cum f’ you.” Your chest rising and falling as your eyes got watery, your nails digging into his arms as you were brought closer to your orgasm.

“Sure about that?”

“Mhm- you, just you. Choso… nngh— Choso doesn’t come close,” your eyes closing as your back arched, feeling yourself at the edge of letting go. “Oh f-fuckk— you’re the one f-fucking me so good. The only one i need.” you added on with another tearful cry.

“There ya go, that’s a good fucking girl- speaking my language now. Go on baby, cum f’ me.” Watching as you fell apart on his cock with his name heavy on the tip of your tongue. Your legs trembling as your orgasm raked through your body, vision blurred as you squirted with a short scream.

Gojo whistled, “Know for sure that no one else can make ya do that.” His thrusts getting sloppy before he was burying himself inside you with a moan of his own, cock twitching as he began to pump you full of his cum. “Fuck baby, pussy’s so damn tight. The only one who can breed ya full is me.” Stilling his movements completely as spurts of the sticky substance spilled into you. “Now would you look at that.”

Your eyes peeled open to a close up shot of Rin staring sadly into the distance. The image slowly zooming in closer and closer to his face. Gojo laughed loudly, “Seems like someone’s not too happy with what he sees.” He joked, his palm randomly landing onto your puffy cunt to see you jerk with a whine. “‘S too bad for you that he’s not here to do something about it.”

You rolled your eyes tiredly with a small smile. Gojo Satoru was truly a strange man.

#jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gojo smut #gojo x reader #gojo x reader smut #gojo satoru #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru x reader #jjk x reader smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader smut #satoru gojo #divider by fairytopea

[supercutszns]

Luke x reader where a girl, daughter of Aphrodite, flirts with him and insults the reader, causing her to avoid Luke, but later he manages to find her and confesses that he actually likes them... I don't know if they should already be together or not, but I believe in you!!! you write very well :ooo

Sorry if the idea is bad or you wouldn't want to write something like that, if that's the case please pretend you never read this 🤡🤡🫶

true colours; luke castellan

wc + pairing: 3.6k, luke castellan x child of iris! reader

synopsis: everyone wants luke castellan, including you. curse your mother for getting your hopes up.

warnings: friends to lovers, reader is very insecure, bullying, lee fletcher & will solace cameo!! some angst with a fluffy ending

notes: thank you for the request!! as always this is longer than i anticipated but hope you like it :) i also combined it with another request for a child of iris reader (i also identify as a child of iris sometimes so i lovee writing for them) also i’m pretty sure lee + a lot of parts of this are ooc sorry but i havent read the books in about a year so hopefully everything’s fairly accurate!🌈

You knew this summer would be different because your mother sent her wishes twice as much. On the first day of July, when children flood into Camp Half-Blood like a hive of wild bees, a rainbow always lights up the sky. 

This year, there were two. 

As a child of Iris you’re technically supposed to be in the Hermes cabin. But your love for art, for music, for fun, has made you a particular favourite of the Apollo cabin. Most of your friends are there. They tolerate you singing in your soft, often unsure voice. They love when you catch sunlight and filter it into prisms of colour on their cabin walls. 

You’d probably move in there permanently if it weren’t for Hermes. Or rather, his son.

Over the last few months, in the sticky summer heat, your mother knew you would fall in love. 

It's not any surprise you love Luke. Everyone loves Luke. A fact that's becoming more obvious every passing day. 

It used to bother you less. You’ve always been his meagre, hopeless friend, never any real competition to these girls. You’d basically taken yourself out of the running and instead decided to pine after him in the very back of your mind. A safe, deluded fantasy that would never happen. 

Until recently, where it seems less like a fantasy and more like a terrifying possibility. 

Over the past few weeks Luke has gone out of his way to be sweet to you. Or at least you think so. He’s spent extra time talking to you at lunch, laughing at your half-formed jokes almost in earnest. At bonfires he saves you a seat, grabs you a marshmallow on occasion. You even made him a friendship bracelet of sorts—admittedly a little ugly—but he’s never taken it off. Not since the day you gave it to him. 

Not to mention helping you last week before the archery competition. His hands lingering over yours as he steadied your bow, the curls of his breath on the back of your neck when he stood behind you. 

“Don’t be nervous,” he says, a tinge of mirth in his voice. “You just steady your aim and first is as good as yours.”

(You came in fifteenth.)

You don’t want to say that it’s him weakening your aim, making your pulse beat out of your neck. His nose brushes against the back of your jaw as he leans forward and you smell the pine on his skin. Is this friendly? Is he this close on purpose? Are you delusional?

It’s all you’ve been thinking about these past few days. So when Luke Castellan’s endless admirers come to the forefront of your mind, you feel like all those moments of potential buildup have been ripped away. 

“You alright there, sunshine?” 

He takes you out of your spiral with a teasing lilt you love. When you look at him, his face is a shimmering warmth, complete with boyish smile. 

“Yep,” you reply, trying to ignore the nickname making your insides flutter even though you know he’s saying it ironically.

You’ve always had a gift for identifying colour. It’s the thing you pay attention to most. Something inherited from your mother, you suppose. So you’ve memorized the way Luke’s eyes melt in the sunlight. How his scar blends with his pinking cheeks when it’s hot outside. You never told him, and you probably never will, but you’ve painted him from memory quite a few times in the Apollo cabin—always with the excuse that you were practicing. It's so blatantly obvious you're in love with him there's no point in your friends bringing it up.  

The two of you are meandering around camp before dinner, a tradition Luke started early on in the summer. You talk about high points of your day (mostly you) or share nuggets of gossip you’ve heard around camp (mostly him). It's the thing you looked forward to every morning. A time when his words are just for you. 

Idle chatter flows as you keep walking. Sometimes your arm brushes his and you have the embarrassing urge to tug yours away. You do your best not to stare at him too long or laugh too loud at his jokes. 

“Hey, Castellan!” Someone calls. 

Luke’s head turns. Your heart plummets. A beautiful girl, Aphrodite cabin, you think, is heading towards you. She’s all honey-spun hair and dazzling pink lips, and it’s obvious she knows it. You don’t know her name. But Luke does. 

They fall into conversation the second she arrives. It’s just greetings, pleasantries, but there’s a coy smile on the girl’s face that betrays any sense of disinterest. “Heard you’re not too keen on pairing up with us for the Chariot Race next week. What gives?” Her tone is pouty and playful as she taps Luke’s shoulder. She side-eyes you, lips curling imperceptibly. “I’m sure you’ll have a better chance with us.”

He lets out a strained chuckle. “Dunno, just thought it was fine to switch it up.”

Just like that, you’re out of the loop again. More of her friends flock after her, and soon Luke is tangled in a whole other world. They’re all glowing with a kind of righteousness you only get when you’re popular. You know Luke has friends, tons of them. He's the leader of the cabin with the most campers. Not to mention assertive and gorgeous. His presence is so inviting it’s a challenge not to fall in love with him. 

So you can’t blame this girl, the one that keeps touching his arm and giggling. It’s not like you’ve staked your claim on Luke—no one even knows you exist. As much as you want him to be yours, you know you’ll never stop someone from taking him first. It’s your fatal flaw, you think. Cowardice. 

You end up sidelined completely. Watching him swathed in people more charismatic than you plants an ache deep inside you. All your wishful thinking feels sour now, a pipe dream, a bedtime story to help you sleep better. Somehow it hurts more knowing that it’s nobody’s fault but yours. These people can’t be doing this on purpose. It’s just who they are. It’s who you are—always a step behind, always daydreaming. You are your mother’s daughter, after all. Just a prism reflecting everyone around you. 

Eventually, one of the boys in the group takes notice of you. He’s not nearly as captivating as Luke is—you don’t find the colours of his eyes hold as much depth. There’s also a haughtiness when he looks at you. He sneers, “What the hell do you have on your face?”

It draws the attention of others in the group. You feel like a naked sculpture in an art gallery. “Uh, what?” You stammer. 

Some of them purse their lips. The girl with Luke lets a laugh slip. You’re pretty sure you look like an idiot, waiting there with your brows wrinkled in a daze. Their gazes keep flicking over to your cheek, so your hand flies up there before you can delay any more. When you press your fingers to the side of your face, they come away tacky and pink. Mortification constricts you.

Paint. It’s leftover, half-dried paint. The colour of Luke’s cheeks in the sun. 

“Oh,” you say dumbly. It’s drowned by snickers. All you can do is find Luke, the only face you know, and ask, “Why didn’t you tell me?” without sounding too hurt. 

You know you failed when your voice comes out wrong and his ebony brows push together. “I thought it looked—”

He never gets to finish because the golden girl laughs a little louder, the pink tones in her face a little darker. “Oh my Gods, you’re that Iris kid that’s always singing, right?” She giggles sharply, cornflower eyes darting between her friends. There’s something in there you can’t quite pick up on, until it flushes the pupils of all her friends, and they all grin with a secret knowledge they want you to see. “You’re, like, really good!” The girl simpers, but her bottom lip pulls between her teeth to soften another laugh. 

“Oh, so good!” Another friend piles on. 

Their passive-aggressive chuckles start to sound like hail on a window. You shift further away from them. Dirt slides beneath your shoe, and you long to kick up more of it, displace yourself, disappear. 

You don’t look at Luke. The giggly, flaxen girl has already turned back to him, and you’re sure he’s enthralled once more. You try to stir up the image of Luke’s closeness during archery practice, the lilac bruise on his knuckles when he angled your bow, but it doesn’t take. Now, it feels like you’ve dreamed it. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Luke leaning down to catch a whisper from the Aphrodite girl’s ear. The boy that first commented on your cheek leans closer to you again. He’s suffocatingly smug when he grins, “Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you go … wash that off? You don’t want to look like that at dinner.” He snorts. “For an Iris kid, you really aren’t good at taking a message.” 

If you were a more confident person, maybe you’d point out how that didn’t really make sense, or how stupid it sounded coming out of his mouth. But the sentiment of it wounds you, and you’re weak enough as is. 

"Guess you're right," you mumble. You wipe your face of paint as you leave. The memory of Luke’s skin stains you until you wash your hands off in the sink. 

You haven’t talked to him since. 

It’s been a few days of you avoiding him, and it’s hard to explain to anyone why you’ve been doing it. How do you tell the truth? Luke Castellan is a work of art and you are … a weird doodle, or something. Despite your adoration, you know there’s no reason he should feel the same for you. Everyone loves him for a reason. Everyone must ignore you for one, too. 

“Why haven’t you been talking to Luke?”

The question breaks your concentrated silence in the Apollo cabin. You’ve been sitting here for a while now, humming to yourself over a mostly blank canvas. The cabin is dusted with a lilac haze, thanks to your manipulation of the light streaming through the windows. Helps you feel less like you’re at camp and more like you’re in a fairytale. 

“Helloooo, lady, I asked you a question.”

You begrudgingly look up. Lee Fletcher, head of the Apollo cabin, is at the mouth of the cabin, gazing at all your supplies strewn about the floor like they’re a bunch of unsavoury substances. “It looks like a hurricane came in here. Now why aren’t you talking to Luke?”

“How do you know I’m not talking to him?” You mutter as Lee sits beside you. 

“Uh, because you’ve been sleeping here multiple nights in a row and you never do that. And you don’t sit with him at dinner. And whenever we see him you drag me in the other direction—”

“Lee!”

“I’m just saying, you should probably talk about it. My beautiful voice can heal wounds, yes, but not of the heart.” He splays a hand across his chest in mock theatrics.

You don’t say anything. The familiar weight of the brush against your fingertips is far more comforting than trying to talk, so you busy yourself with your canvas again. “He waits for you, you know,” Lee continues, quieter. “In the morning. And before dinner. He always asks if you’re here.”

“Oh,” you say, and your wavering voice betrays your expression. But you think of everyone else at camp, their gleaming smiles and their celebrated parents, their own cabins and friends and dreams, how you don’t seem to have any of those. You think of the girl whispering in Luke’s ear. All her shades of beauty. You know it’s wrong to compare yourself, to be jealous. You’re just … sad.

The cabin darkens from a lilac to an imperceptibly gloomier shade. A blue sort of longing gets caught in your throat, blurring the colours on your canvas. But you keep your brush steady, focused on the scratch of its bristles so you don’t have to hear what you say next. 

“I think I love him, Lee.” And then, “But I don’t think he loves me.”

There’s no sound except the scraping of your brush when it’s run out of paint, and a sniffle when a tear rolls down your cheek. 

“Oh,” Lee fills the silence the way you did just moments before. Then he says your name, laced with pity, and hugs you on the floor of his lavender cabin. 

“You want to help me lead the bonfire song tonight?” He asks after a minute. “Or at least … come to the bonfire song?” 

“No to the first, yes to the second.”

You wish you said no to both. 

The spot you choose after dinner is right next to the fire so you can distract yourself with the golden flecks of flame. Fire is so fluid, so complex, from a colour perspective. But no matter how close you get, the searing warmth can’t hide Luke’s gaze peering over the embers. 

He will not. Stop. Looking at you. 

The singing from the Apollo kids usually soothes you but tonight it’s just making you anxious. All this attention so close to you. Will Solace has been sitting next to you this whole time, your unofficial assigned companion for the night thanks to Lee. One of his siblings beckons him over, and he shoots you an apologetic look, hesitating. "Just go," you wave off kindly. "It's all good." He's not entirely convinced, and you aren't either, but he squeezes your shoulder with thanks and leaves you anyway.

Now you’re acutely aware the space next to you is wide open. And so is Luke, it seems. There’s an awkward moment where your gazes slide over each other and he weaves out of his current crowd towards you. So you do the most mature, sound thing you could possibly do in this situation:

You say you have to go to the bathroom to no one in particular and get out of there. 

It’s dark, but you’ve got sharper eyes than most. Soon the noise of the campfire is behind you. You traipse through the camp towards the bathroom,but you don’t get far before you hear something that makes your stomach drop in the worst and best way. 

Luke, calling your name. 

At first you think you can get away with not hearing him. Then he calls a second, a third, a fourth time, punctuated with, “Come on, I know you can hear me, can you just turn around?”

He’s got longer legs than you so the next time he speaks it’s practically in your ear. “Hey, just look at me. Please. I want to talk to you.”

There’s something so tender in his voice that it makes you cave immediately. But you already feel so fragile, you can feel the tears behind your eyes. You know you won’t have the strength to talk to him. 

His hand curls gently around your wrist and it sends warmth all the way up your arm. He says your name again, softer, and you love the way it sounds. You can’t meet his eyes, but you already know what he looks like. Even in the dark you picture him crystal clear. 

“Look at me,” he repeats. “I just—I need to know what I did wrong.”

His dark eyes are full and apprehensive when you heed him. You notice how much you’ve missed studying his face—the slight bunch of his brows, the tensing in his jaw. And you almost delude yourself that he’s missed you just as much, the way he squeezes your wrist and rakes over your expression.

“Why are you ignoring me?” He asks. 

“I’m not—”

“You are. I know you. Just tell me why.” 

He looks so sweet, so earnest, and it kills you. You think of the way he looked when all his friends made fun of you. It all comes up before you can help it. 

“Do you always let me walk around looking like an idiot?” You ask bitingly, staring at the floor. “The thing, with the paint on my cheek—why didn’t you tell me? I looked so stupid and all your friends just laughed at me!” 

His face falls. “I tried to tell you, I thought—”

“It’s okay to say you don’t like me, or that you’re embarrassed, or whatever, but I …” You swallow, tears thick on your lower lashes. “Everyone makes fun of me. I don’t know why you don’t.”

“Because I do like you,” he states, hand moving up to your forearm. 

“Don’t say that,” you whisper. “You’re so much … better, you know you are, and I don’t want your pity, or your spare time. I just—I made something up in my head that wasn’t there and I only noticed it the other day after you talked to that girl and that guy made fun of me and I’m really, really sorry—”

“It looked cute. I was trying to say I didn’t tell you about the paint because I thought it was cute.”

There’s a lull.

“What?” You blink stupidly. 

“I know I should’ve told you about it, but I swear I was going to before dinner, I didn’t think we’d run into anyone before then.” His cheeks tinge red. “I had this whole dumb thing planned out where I’d wipe it off your cheek and tell you how cute it was once you got embarassed. I was waiting to tell you. I was thinking about it the whole time.”

His hand on your arm is a frighteningly grounding thing. You're dumbstruck by that alone. Your lips part, but all that comes out is, “Why?”

A gentle laugh tumbles out of his throat. “Why do you think?”

His other hand comes up to brush your cheekbone, where the paint had been, and you can imagine him doing it to you on that day. How you'd probably react just the way he said you would, the way you are now. A warm orange glow blooming in your chest. “But the girl—”

“She tried whispering to me how much she liked my bracelet,” he smiles fondly. “Told her you made it for me. It shut her up. I don’t know what that guy said to you but I chewed ‘em all out the second you left. They knew I wasn’t happy. I tried looking for you but you were gone. I don't like them, you know."

You don’t know what to say. It’s too difficult, too uncertain for you to jump the gun on this. So you just stare at all the shifting colours on his face as he moves closer to you. All this time going over his every detail, and there's still more to be enthralled by.

“I found the paintings,” he says, voice so close you can feel it brushing your skin. “The ones of me. I was looking for you in the Apollo cabin a week ago and you left one out. I knew it was yours because ... I mean, there’s no one in the world that can make me look that … beautiful.” 

The last word is apprehensive but it’s spoken with an unimaginable tenderness. He looks a little teary himself. You think you’re dreaming. “I knew I had to tell you after that. I’ve been trying to tell you. But you started pulling away from me so I thought I was making it all up.”

“Tell me what?” It’s a ghost of a question between you, an impossible thing, but the hand on your arm slips around to your back and he presses it there with such certainty. 

“You’re really gonna make me say it?” He cocks his head, but you nod. “I’m in love with you, I think.”

The words cascade over you in ribbons of warmth. Your brain feels fuzzy, seperate from the rest of your body. Your mouth opens multiple times but you can’t seem to control what comes out. “Luke, are you joking?”

“Not even a little.”

“But you’ve got so many other—”

“I want you.”

“I am literally the most incompetent person alive; I can’t sing, I can’t talk to people, I have a weird knee—”

"Your knee is fine!"

"I'm just saying, this makes no sense from an outsider perspective, it's—"

“Okay, clearly the telling thing isn’t working so I guess I’m just gonna have to kiss you.”

It happens so quickly you don’t have any time to think (probably for the better). You let out a surprised “oh” before his mouth silences you, stopping every other thought. He’s gentle, thumb still rubbing your cheekbone, other hand still firm at your waist. You want to panic—where should you put your hands? How do you know you’re doing this right? But he steadies you, the way he always does, and you give in. 

He starts to smile against your lips. You’re almost positive the intensity of your heartbeat could summon a storm. When he pulls away, he kisses the corners of your mouth and you think you’re going to evaporate. “I don’t think I’m very good at this,” you whisper.

“You’re perfect.” He grins a little when your hands tentatively tug at a curl on the nape of his neck. “And none of that stuff you say is true. I mean, you’re definitely a better singer than me.”

Leaning close to your ear, he warbles out a song you know but gets the words horribly wrong anyways. You can’t help but laugh. “Okay, maybe you have a point.”

He hums and chuckles with you. You swear the moon gets brighter when he wraps his arms around your waist to kiss the side of your face. “Next time you paint me, I want to be there when you do it.”

You blush harder than you ever have in your life. “Only if you try painting me,” you say quietly.

“Of course. You’re very pretty, so I’m sure my horrible artistic skills won’t even make you look bad.”

Luke lets you press your face into the crook of his neck. You soak it up for all it’s worth. 

In the morning, you wake up in the same position. Your nose tucked against his collarbone, the shade of pink you love freckled across his cheeks. You can't wait to paint him again.

When you look out the window, you say a silent, grateful prayer to your mother.

She's given you two more rainbows.

#perrie’s fics #luke castellan x reader #luke castellan #charlie bushnell #perrie's requests #pjo #pjo x reader #pjo fic #luke castellan fic #luke castellan imagine #luke castellan fluff #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo tv show #heroes of olympus #percy jackson

[hotyanderedaddies]

The School Bully Loves You, Pt. 1:

Yandere Bully Forces Nerdy You to be His

[I hope you all enjoy my first semi-series on here!]

[Yandere! Bully x GN Nerd! Reader]

·゜·:.。..。.:·☆·゜·:.。..。.:·☆

Everyone at your high school knew that it was best to avoid Blake.

The upperclassman was a bully, plain and simple. He had a habit of beating people down if they dared get in his way, or even if they just looked at him in a manner he didn't appreciate.

You were on the complete opposite of the spectrum: a grade-A nerd. You were a goody two-shoes to boot, always volunteering after school and helping your fellow classmates study whenever they struggled with a subject. The captain of the Mathletes team and one of the star columnists in the school newspaper, you were the epitome of nerd.

However, even with your good nature, you avoided Blake as best as you could, fearful that you'd face his wrath and have him beat your face into a pulp. You'd heard the stories, and you'd seen enough teen movies to know that bullies and nerds do not mix, at all.

Unfortunately, one Friday morning, you walked out of the front door to your house to head towards the bus stop-- but you immediately froze when Blake was in your driveway, leaning casually against his car.

"Bl-Blake?" you coughed out in surprise. "What are you doing--"

Blake just grunted and opened up the passenger side door, gesturing at it. When you didn't make a move, his frown deepened on his face.

"Get in!" he barked, the forcefulness of his deep voice making you jump.

Afraid of making the bully even angrier, you scurried over towards the car and practically leapt inside. "Um, wh-where are we going?" you trembled as soon as Blake got in and started to drive off down the street.

Blake cocked his eyebrow at you in confusion. "School," he scoffed, as if it should've been obvious.

You wanted to ask why the school bully was driving you to school, but you were too concerned with how he placed his arm over your small shoulders in the tight confines of the car.

You were stunned silent at first, but then something popped into your head that you couldn't ignore.

"How did you know where I live?" you asked Blake, your voice small and barely audible over the loud music playing over the speakers.

"Huh?" Blake asked, turning the volume down a bit before shaking his head. "Don't worry about it."

"B-but..."

Blake turned the volume back up, effectively silencing you. You kept your lips pursed for the rest of the drive to school, anxiety seeping out of your every pore. When Blake finally parked in the parking lot, you thought about bolting as fast as you could, but your legs were like jelly.

You nearly crawled out of the car and cautiously began to walk towards the entrance when a tight visegrip swallowed your hand.

Blake interlocked his fingers with yours, giving you a sneer when you attempted to pull away. He was much stronger than you, and when you kept trying, he leaned down closer to your ear.

Thanks to his proximity, a lot of the other students began to gawk at the two of you, their eyes widening and many of them murmuring to another as they saw the school bully holding hands with the nerdiest person in class.

"You're smart," Blake smirked as he whispered in your ear, "so I need you to comprehend this: You're mine."

A cold shiver traveled down your spine, and you tried to pull away once more; but Blake was much stronger than you, and he gave you a rough tug, making you topple into him.

"That's one," Blake sneered, even holding up one of his fingers to count. "When I get to three, I'll have to punish you. So make sure you behave and be my sweet little angel, got it?"

Swallowing hard, you nodded, fearful of what was in store for you.

To be continued...

#yandere boyfriend #yandere boy #yandere daddy #yandere x reader #yandere x you #obsessive love #possessive boyfriend #yandere bully #yandere bad boy #bad boy #bad boy x nerd #nerd you #Blake #my oc #Blake the Bully

[ghostfacd]

I BET ON LOSING DOGS.

pairing: young!coriolanus snow x fem!reader

PART TWO

summary: you were the epitome of sunshine, and coriolanus? he was like the storm, the rain, and the everything in between.

warnings: SPOILERS from the movie & book, SMUT (protected cause we wrap it before we tap it! p in v), losing virginities to each other, snow (cause he himself needs a warning), toxic relationship, coriolanus is only in it for himself, mentions of losing virginity, you practically giving everything to snow and getting zero in return

author’s note: erm this is kinda long idek where tf i was going with this, first time writing smut on this account LOL so it might be bad. also this isn’t proofread so there might be mistakes, just ignore! as always, reblogs and comments are so greatly appreciated, enjoy reading + kisses 💓

You were the epitome of the sun itself, the sparkle, the light, and most importantly, the brightness. Despite being filthy rich, you were still that sweet sunshine Y/N everyone grown to love, the heir to the Cicero family.

Coriolanus Snow hated that about you. Not only were you everything he was not, but you lived such a lavish and easy lifestyle that it made him sick. Why was he stuck eating cabbage while you were off eating the finest thin slices of meat in the Capitol made by your chefs? It wasn’t fair, it just simply wasn’t.

“Well, Coryo!” Your sickeningly sweet voice fills his ears like a mantra.

He turns around, a smirk plays on his face. “My Y/N.”

Hearing him call you his made your heart flutter. You loop your arm through his, passing through the other academy students who were engrossed in their conversations

“Finally the star pupil.” Arachne Crane says, a glass of posca in her hand. “Lovely shirt you’ve got there. What are these cunning buttons? Tesserae?”

He looked at the shirt, shrugging. “Hm? Are they? Must’ve why they reminded me of the maid’s bathroom.”

You held his hands in yours. You knew of Coriolanus’s home life, how he wasn’t so lucky like you to have a gigantic home filled with lovable parents. His mom had died during childbirth, Coryo mentioning to you once how he was supposed to have a little sister. His father—died in the hands of rebels.

“Have you tried this lamb? It's scandalous.” Felix suddenly spoke up, taking a bite of the food that was currently on his plate.

“Didn’t daddy teach you table manners?.” Festus sneered, watching the other boy in disgust.

“Maybe he would have if he wasn’t so busy running the country.” Felix snapped back

Coriolanus took a deep breath in, already feeling overwhelmed by his classmates arguing.

After the announcement of the assigning of mentor to tributes, you could tell Coriolanus was upset. Although he wouldn’t let anyone see, he was visibly anxious and quite frankly, annoyed.

“I mean, cmon, how could it that I got the worst district?” Coriolanus says, head in his hands. “He hates me. He really does.”

“Who hates you Coryo?”

“Dean Highbottom! Isn’t it obvious?” He cries out, hands flinging into the air. You slightly flinch back, never seeing your boyfriend in such state. “He hates me Y/N. He adores you.”

“He doesn’t adore me,” you say, feeling like you were stepping around eggshells talking to Coriolanus.

“He does!” Coriolanus screams in anger, getting up in a hurry.

“Wait, no Coryo, I’m sorry.”

But your words aren’t enough, they’ll never be for Coriolanus Snow, so he walks out without a second thought.

- - -

The next day, Coriolanus apologizes. It’s a breathy, quick 5 second apology, but you being so you—accepted it without a second thought.

You loved Coriolanus, so it didn’t matter how much he hurt you.

“I’ll make it up to you tonight,” he says, placing a soft kiss on your lips.

You felt quite excited, you and your boyfriend hadn’t exactly gotten to that stage in your relationship, so thinking about sharing an intimate moment with him filled you with giddiness.

His tip had entered carefully through your folds, making you slightly wince as it bullied its way to your walls.

“Coryo..” you breathe out hazily, doe eyes coming to meet his. He sucked in his breath at the sight, never has he felt anything as good as this.

He tries so hard convincing himself he doesn’t love you. That this—it meant nothing to him. He was just here for your money, your possessions as the only daughter of Cryon and Hermione Cicero. But as he felt your nails claw its way into his back, he lets out a slip, a tiny whimper that makes your head foggy.

He spilled into the condom, pulling out with a hiss. Although you told him you were clean, and it was fine if he didn’t wear one, he simply couldn’t risk it. He wasn’t going to accidentally bring in a child into the world, having no intentions of taking care of anyone besides himself—maybe Tigris, and his Grandma’am.

“I love you,” you say quietly as you sat up, watching him discard the plastic into your trash bin.

“I’m hungry, aren’t you?” He says, putting his shirt on. It kinds of pains you at his total ignorance of the intimate words you just shared, but you nod your head.

“I could use some food,” is all you say, putting on your pajamas from earlier. “What’re hungry for Coryo? I’ll ask the chef.”

- - -

Dr. Gaul and Dean Highbottom had allowed all the mentors and their tributes roam the arena for about 15 minutes, letting them think of ways to win the game.

You were talking to Bobbin, a boy from District 7 whom you’ve had become closer with these past few days.

Suddenly, the loud scream of Felix catches your attention and before you knew it, loud bombs filled the air as tall lights fell to the ground near you.

“CORYO!” You scream, coughing loudly at the dust filling your lungs.

“Quick Y/N, we don’t have time!” Sejanus screams, grabbing ahold of your hand.

“But Coryo—”

Meanwhile, a tall pole had crushed Coriolanus’s arms.

Well, he thought, this was it.

This was how he was going to die. His girlfriend and best friend hand in hand as they ran out of the arena, the sickening feeling of betrayal filled his guts.

“What’re you doing?!” One of the tributes screamed at Lucy Gray, who was struggling to get the giant metal off Coriolanus’s arm. “Run while you can you idiot!”

But she doesn’t bother, only focusing on getting Coriolanus out. And she does, successfully, before all went black.

- - -

“Coryo? Oh Coryo!” You say, hugging him softly to ensure you weren’t hurting him.

You had felt so guilty after everything had happened. You should’ve never ran off with Sejanus, Coriolanus was your boyfriend, you should’ve saved him.

“Is Lucy Gray okay?” Is the first thing he croaks out, which makes your heart slightly crack.

“She’s—she’s okay Coryo.” You say, brushing a few blonde curls out of his eyes.

“And where were you?” He says, gaze slowly turning into anger. “I was going to die, Y/N.”

“I know! I was going to—”

He cut you off. “But you didn’t, now did you?”

His bitterness towards you makes you want to cry, tears already forming at your lash line.

“Oh now you’re crying?” It seemed like everything you did seemed of inconvenience to Coriolanus, but he opens his arms, letting you reside in them as you let out a few tears. “Always the crybaby, Y/N.” He says, hand holding your head as you buried your face into his chest.

- - -

Coriolanus Snow never believed in love. Not when he used to look at his mother and father when they were still alive, and not when he found himself a girlfriend, you.

Your relationship was merely another step stone towards success, Coriolanus viewed it. You were the heir of your family, you had countless amounts of money, and you were easily fooled by his advances. To Coriolanus, he had hit the jackpot, regardless of loving you or not.

So why did he feel so weird watching you interact with Sejanus? Sure, he considered the former district 2 boy his best friend, but it was only because Clemensia had been spending time at the hospital. The flu, Dr. Gaul described it; but Snow knew better. He was there when she had gotten bit by the snakes, and to be completely honest, if she hadn’t, he’d probably have dated her instead of you.

Clemensia Dovecote was way more smart, and he knew he wouldn’t fall inlove because they were both after the same thing. Power.

But with you, you were head over heels for Coriolanus. It almost made him sick, if it weren’t for your family name.

He clenched his jaw as he saw you throw your head back, hitting Sejanus’s shoulder as you hysterically laughed at something he had said.

What was so funny? Nothing was funny in the Capitol, not now. Maybe he was bitter, he should’ve never cheated in the games. It was stupid, and now he was getting the punishment of getting sent to 12 as a peacekeeper for 20 years.

Fuck, he really shouldn’t have cheated. And now he couldn’t even use his girlfriend’s family name as a way out.

He really should’ve known better. He knew you loved him, but he didn’t think you’d love him so much so that you begged your father to let you stay in 12 for a while to be with Coriolanus.

If there’s one thing about you—it’s that you’re a Daddy’s girl by heart, and of course, your father had once again served your request with a silver spoon. He hated that about you. He hated it. You got things too damn easily.

“Hi Coryo!” You say, making your way to him. Your beautiful sundress made him gulp, and he wanted nothing more but to snatch you away, pulling it off so he could get inside of you. But he couldn’t—he was in 12, much to his dismay.

“Y/N,” he says, placing his peacekeeper gun to the back. “Talking to the scums?”

“They’re just people from the district,” you say, frowning at his rudeness. “They’re nice, Coryo. Real nice, you’d like some of them.”

Coriolanus scoffs at that. How oblivious and stupid you were. Him, Coriolanus Snow, liking some of the district 12 citizens? What a fucking joke.

“Go along now Y/N, I’ll see you later.”

You nod, giving him a sloppy kiss on the cheek before you left, leaving the other peacekeepers to whistle at Coriolanus who only responds with an eye roll.

When later eventually comes, he was packing away the Jabberjays in their metal cages, Sejanus being right next to him.

“I saw you earlier,” Coriolanus says nonchalantly, “talking to that woman in the window. What are you playing at Sejanus?”

Sejanus scoffs, shaking his head. “They’re gonna escape Corio. Leave the districts. And I’ll be helping them.”

Coriolanus sucks in a breath, “is Y/N all in this too?”

God, he hoped Sejanus said no. But then again, it’d give him an advantage if he had said yes.

“She is,” Sejanus says, continuing to tell Coriolanus of the plan.

Without Sejanus knowing, Coriolanus had tuned the jabberjay so it could record back the whole conversation. When Sejanus finally leaves, Coriolanus sneaks to where the train bringing the birds back to the Capitol stood, placing the jabberjay in it to send it to Dr. Gaul.

If anything, Sejanus was a blocking point in Coriolanus’s way, and getting rid of him and you were like killing two birds with one stone.

- - -

The next day came and you were peacefully talking to one of the younger girls in the district when you’re suddenly pulled away along with Sejanus.

“Hey! What the hell!” You scream, thrashing in the unfamiliar peacekeeper’s hold. “Get off me!”

You and Sejanus struggle, and Coriolanus almost wants to step in and get you out of his fellow peacekeeper’s arms. Almost.

“Coryo! Tell them they’ve been mistaken!” You cry out, locking eyes with your so called lover.

“You two have been charged with treason towards the Capitol.” The peacekeeper says, his cold gaze and strong hold on you makes you let out a whimper.

“Treason?” You say, “there has to be a mistake! Call my father! Call my father!”

“I’m afraid your father can’t get you out of this one, Miss. Cicero.”

He drags you and Sejanus up the main stage of the district. “Everyone! Pay attention! This is what will happen if you are disloyal to the Capitol!”

Another peacekeeper points a gun behind Sejanus’s back as the peacekeeper who was holding you earlier pokes your back with the cold metal. You felt terrified gazes of the citizens of District 12, including Lucy Gray, stare at you.

“CORYO! TELL THEM!” You scream, begging with your eyes. “Coryo, please. Please.”

But Coriolanus Snow stands still in his spot, not budging a thing.

You thought he had loved you—or at least, cared for you. You gave him shelter when he was at his worst, you gave him your virginity, you held him when he cried about how unfair Dean Highbottom was, you let him into your home, and you always were there for him. You practically did everything for Coriolanus Snow. And what did you get? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“Your Coryo won’t save you.” The peacekeeper snarls, before firing the gun.

Two gunshots go off, and the body of yours and Sejanus fall to the ground in an instant.

Coriolanus Snow almost wants to barf, his eyes closed for a minute before reopening them again.

Had it really been worth it? Ratting you and Sejanus out so he could get home to the Capitol faster?

He thinks so when your family and the Plinths give him their fortune as a thank you for being such a good boyfriend and friend towards their son and daughter.

If only they knew, though. But Coriolanus would never let that happen, because no matter what, Snow lands on top.

And this? It was just the beginning.

#coriolanus is so mitski coded if he wasn’t a launtic #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus snow #hunger games x reader #the hunger games x reader #ballad of songbirds and snakes #coriolanus snow fanfiction #coriolanus snow imagine

[thelikesoffinn]

„Astarion ending as the Vampire Ascendant is the correct ending for him, because it is what he wants.”

That is a claim I’ve been seeing pop up more and more often these days. And I think it’s both a very bold and a very odd claim to make.

But first things first: Hello, I’m a licensed social worker! So far, I’ve worked with children, refugees and youths with behavioural issues stemming from bullying and or abuse.

Please be aware that I will be mentioning different kinds of abuse, coping mechanisms, and victim/abuser relationships. If any of this is difficult for you, don’t force yourself through it. My jabbering about a traumatised vampire is not worth your wellbeing, not ever.

I will, however try to stick to Astarion and not use other examples. If, in any case, I do use a non-Astarion example, I’ll add a warning beforehand so that you can skip the part. And I’ll make it clear what will be discussed in the next bit, so that you have a chance to skip it entirely.

This is an effort to make this as accessible as possible for everyone that wants to indulge on a mad woman’s rambling – and I know there’s a few people that like this sort of stuff!

And, uh, there's obviously spoilers for all three acts. Serious spoilers, even.

Before I can get into the whole ‘why Astarion didn’t really want to ascend,’ we need to understand him a little more. And to understand this pretty boy’s brain, we first need to understand the gist of what we’re talking about when we throw around the word ‘abuse.’

“Abuse” is when someone is treated with cruelty, violence, or neglect – often to bad effect – on a regular basis. Repetitively. Check’s out for Astarion, I’d say, but we all knew that already. I mean, if one thing was obvious, it was this.

1. Astarions Abuse

Next we need to look at what kind of abuse Astarion faced over his long years of torment, seeing as different types of abuse will have different effects on the victim.

Not that that is anything we have to worry about with him – Astarion won the abuse lottery, to put it bluntly. In a horrible game of fate, he got everything. He himself indirectly mentions all the types of abuse he faced, albeit never using the correct terms.

The first we properly notice – fitting, seeing as it is often the most obvious form of abuse – is the physical abuse. Astarions scars are probably the biggest tell Larian could shove down our throats, only underlined by Astarion’s tale about the night itself. About how Cazador ‘misspelled something’ every time he flinched or screamed and had to do ‘many corrections. On top of this, Cazador locked Astarion up for months on end and tortured him – or had him tortured – on a regular basis both as a rite and as a punishment.

Next up, we have the fact that Astarion was forced to basically prostitute himself repeatedly. This is what we call sexual exploitation.

“I spent two hundred years using my body to lure pretty things back for my Master.” – Act 2

Two hundred years is a long time, filled with great many people. Now, we don’t know how many of those people actually tapped into the sexual exploitation and how many he could just lure back with other means, but the fact that it happened a lot is undeniable.

Next we have a form of abuse that we often disregard in adults: Neglect. It sounds odd, I know, saying that a fully grown adult was neglected. They can care for themselves, can they not?

Well. Yes and no.

Adult neglect is proceeded by the condition that one adult has to lean on another adult to fulfil their needs for whatever reason. This could be anything, from disability to income-based issues.  

Seeing as Astarion had absolutely nothing, while Cazador had everything, we can assume this was the case. Cazador had the house, the money, the power. Astarion owns but one pair of clothes, assumedly, that he has fixes over and over again. Fair to say, that’s pretty neglectful. (And it’s one more reason to shower the guy in pretty armour and camp clothes. Go ham, people.)

Last we have the form of abuse we actually get to witness later in the game – emotional abuse.

Once again, it’s undeniable that this happened. Especially since we’re all seeing it in the flesh upon meeting Cazador in his crypt.

“Have you no respect for yourself?”

“I strove for perfection in all things. Even those as imperfect as you.”

“A pity you amounted to so little, despite my efforts.”

“A pathetic little boy who never amounted to anything.”

All Act 3, Crypt

Here we have just a few examples of things Cazador throws in his face. It’s like reading a textbook on emotional abuse, this one (and it’s definitely a reason to throw hands).

Blaming the victim, keeping their sense of self and their self-worth as tiny as possible to make them cower and flee. A true classic.

This pretty much shows that Astarion suffered all forms of abuse we commonly see and it is implied – once again by Astarion himself – that at least a few of those instances were ritualistic.

Now, what does that mean exactly? Well, I fear I need to use a real example here, so please skip the next paragraph.

Ritualistic doesn’t refer to a proper ritual – it can, but that’s mostly a thing for those in a cult. So, we’re not necessarily talking about a ‘Vampire Ascendent Ritual’. A husband, beating his wife every evening after his third bottle of beer is also called ritual abuse. It happens regularly. It is part of a routine. Both parties know what will happen.

I can’t find the exact quote, so I’m working of my memory here, but at one point he said that when Cazador invited him to eat and he said yes, he would be served a putrid rat. If he said no, he’d be beaten.

The way it was phrased made it clear that it happened more than once and that Astarion clearly knew what would happen. So, this can be classified as ritualistic abuse.

2. A Note on Conditioning and Compliance

By default, abuse victims are conditioned to behave a certain way or in a certain fashion. This is a natural response to avoid further abuse.

In Astarion, the thing we see most often is his inherent need to please. Not literally, he doesn’t mind being an arsehole. But he initially feels the need to follow Tav’s orders, even if they go against his own wishes.

This can be clearly seen in the conversation with Araj Oblodra. Astarion very clearly doesn’t want to bite her. He doesn’t. But he will do so, if Tav tells him to. This behaviour is not conscious – he doesn’t know why he does it, he just does – and it is to be expected. This is how he kept himself save for two centuries, so of course he will fall back into his usual pattern when the pressure is high.

This goes hand in hand with the fact that most abuse victims don’t fight. Maybe initially, but not after long term abuse. Especially not after two fucking centuries.

This is true in Astarion – offered by his ‘siblings’ during act 3 and unhappily acquiesced by the man himself. Astarion stopped fighting and, once again implied, cowered, and did as he was told in order to survive.

3. The Astarion we know and love

Obviously, all that abuse does have an impact on our vampire boyfriend. He shows various common signs of abuse and just like with the forms of abuse, Astarion raked every coping mechanism he could find. (Not really, but it feels like it.) It’s also important to note that nearly all of the following things happen inwardly. Astarion is not one of the victims, that tries to rationalise and minimise the actions of his abuser. Quite the opposite, actually.

I’ll note from the beginning, that rationalisation will not be covered in this bit, as most examples will be important later on. But he definitely does it.

One of his biggest skills is to hide every ounce of fear or hurt behind sarcasm and snarky theatrics. He doesn’t seem to hide his anger much, though, so that’s something! Our boy is cool with anger, not so much with being afraid.

“Ahahaha, now that you mention it….I might have done…that.” – Act 3, regarding the Gur children

“The thing that will decide my fate forever more? Yeees, it’s been on my miiiind. Why?” – Act 2, regarding the Ritual

And there’s many more instances that prove this. Honestly, half his dialogue is sarcasm, so it would really be too long to get into and we all know what I mean, right? We have alltalked to the guy before. It’s obvious that he’s sarcastic to a fault.

This goes hand in hand with his penchant for defensiveness. I would personally state that he’s simply not really good with guilt. When talking about fear, he usually just opts for sarcasm or avoids the topic completely, but guilt especially has his defences going up. This is also when he’s most likely to shove all the blame off to Cazador.

“Don’t look at me like that. Cazadors orders.” – Act 3, Crypt

“I just did what I had to!” – Act 3, Crypt

And don’t get me wrong, he does that anyway. And with good reason. Astarion didn’t have a choice for the most part, but he’s still easy to shove things off.

This kind of connects to his penchant for denial.

Astarion doesn’t really like to talk about most things. He firmly believes he is an ‘action’ sort of person that just does instead of plans, which invertedly just means he’s great at pushing the thinking stuff away. He also likes to get rid of stuff, so that he doesn’t need to face it ever again.

“I never want to see these little scraps of misery again. The world doesn’t need to know my shame.” – Act 3, about the children

And yes, this partly rings true. He’s probably ashamed and doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s done. But it’s also very clear that he himself simply doesn’t want to face his own actions, something that is just  underlined by his extreme willingness to red rid of the other spawn.

As mentioned by Astarion himself, he’s big on manipulation. I mean, I don’t think there is much explaining necessary. The guy is willing to do a whole lot in order to get what he desires – which mostly revolves around safety and survival, to be honest – and he’s not really shy about it either. And that’s despite the fact that he doesn’t really like intimacy – especially in form of sex.

It’s not a secret that Astarion is not big on sex and anything surrounding it. This goes far enough for people to consider him either ace or ace coded.

A claim that, personally, I’m not super in line with.

Now, it’s not entirely wrong and if this is your head cannon I’m surely not going to stand in your way – but on a larger spectrum, I think he’s more traumatised than ace. And while those go hand in hand sometimes, it’s a bit difficult for the ace community if you attach traumatised characters to them because it can fuel a whole lot of stigma that is honestly neither needed nor wanted. But I digress!

If it comes to his own behaviour, he’s great at minimising his mistakes. Honestly, he’s a master of minimisation. A very obvious and famous example would be:

“’Killed’ feels like a…strong word. Not many corpses have your vigour.” – Act 1, after killing Tav

Astarion. You literally sucked poor Tav dry and left them flopping around, cold, and dead. Killed is exactly the right word and we all know it.

“Quite the deviation from my usual routine. Capture, not lure. I didn’t bring them in with sweet rolls or anything.” – Act 3, Gur Children

This is another attempt at minimising what he did, if a bit less obvious because at this point there isn’t much he can say. But at least he didn’t sexualise the gur children, right? They’re still spawn but whoo, at least that didn’t happen.  

The next point would be dissociation, which is extremely common in abuse victims – of all forms of abuse.

Astarion himself mentioned certain moments that could be classified as dissociation over course of the story, which is probably the coping mechanism I personally expected the most.

The pale elf has a penchant for violence, but he’s not entirely shameless or abhorrently vile, which gets clearer the more the story progresses. So, two hundred years of forced prostitution, torture and doing whatever other horrible things? Yeah, I’d be more surprised if he didn’t dissociate.

Examples of that would be:

“A moment of disgust to push myself through and then I could’ve carried on, just like before.” – Act 2, after Araj

“I felt nothing the moment I handed them over.” – Act 3, Gur Children

“Did you enjoy it? It felt like you weren’t fully there.” – Act 1, Tav after Sex

The latter is generally more of an assumption than actual prove, but with context it does make sense.

The last common sign of abuse we find in our boyfriend would be his low self-worth. It’s a consistent trait that stays over the course of all three acts, noticeable in many different conversations.

We can see it in his reaction to wanting to break up before finishing his story. We can see it in his genuine surprise when Tav picks him over any of the other characters. We see it in his insecurity whenever Tav asks to sleep with another character. He’s fine with it, but he still worries their decision to sleep with someone else is based on something he did.

It eases up ever so slightly after Cazador is dead, but even then he’s still struggling which is once again perfectly illustrated if you try to break up with him.

“Oh shit. I- Did I do something wrong?”

That is the first thing he asks and I think it speaks for itself. He genuinely doesn’t believe he has much to offer and for Astarion, it’s likely that Astarion will always be the problem.

4. "Oh, I tried them all none of them answered.”

Another big thing that’s important to note, is that Astarion was never saved. No one came to save him from Cazador. There was no darling boy on a white steed riding into that castle to rescue him and princess carry him away. Not even the gods answered his desperate calls.

So, he never received any kindness or luck. To him, the world seems as cruel and horrid as before because he didn’t have the chance to experience goodness in two centuries.

But worse than that, he didn’t even get to save himself. Astarion didn’t stand up to Cazador, he didn’t run out of his own might.

He was beaten to near death and ‘saved’ by Cazador, who would become his abuser.

He tried to save someone and, in turn, was locked up and starved for an entire year.

He was abducted by mind flayers, i.e., saved from Cazador, only to end up tadpoled and on the cusp of getting a fancy, squiddy beard.

Anything that’s good, any kindness, any selfless action…it all came with a ginormous price tag.

5. Over the Course of the Story

Astarions behaviour changes a whole lot over the course of three acts – which is important once we talk about his quests climax – so let’s review what we’re working with!

Act 1 Astarion is guarded as fuck. The man has walls around him that are so high, even the gods can touch them.

A lot of his behaviour in act 1 revolves around staying save and staying liked. He lies, manipulates, and flutters his lashes in order to get what he wants and needs. Instead of asking, like Wyll, Karlach and Gale do, Astarion uses all he has to offer to get by. He is still very much in survival mode and tries to weasel his way through an unfamiliar situation with familiar methods.

On top of that, and most notably, he’s absolutely not fond of kindness or selflessness.

#I saved a child and now my boyfriend is mad

Here, we are most likely to gain disapproval for doing the decent thing – unless you sent him outside for a minute whenever you’re being a good person.

And I’d assume that this is because of two things.

First: The very traditional ‘Why not me?’

As I mentioned before, Astarion wasn’t saved. He hasn’t experienced kindness in a very long time so seeing that the world is literally filled with kind people is hurtful. Why didn’t anyone save him? Why was he left to his own devices for so long? Why should he care about others when it’s so clear that no one ever cared about him? No, dead to all of them. If he didn’t get it, neither will they.

“And what am I owed? What about the injustices I suffered? Am I not entitled to anything?” – Act 3, Crypt

“I was in the prime of my life when I was turned. Everything was taken from me too.” – Act 3, Crypt

And secondly is the fact that, as I mentioned, goodness always has a price. And it’s one most people won’t be willing to pay. That’s how his life has been, so why would theirs be different?

This is precisely why Astarion may disapprove of kind actions, but he mostly neither approves nor disapproves if Tav asks for payment. That’s just how the world works.

Once you venture out into act 2, after getting to know him a whole lot more, he starts to mellow a bit – if only towards Tav.

“He’s afraid, so afraid, of everyone but you, who she should fear the most.” – Sceleritas about Astarion

His approval is a lot easier to gain – or at least keep! – and he tends to approve of some more proper actions. He doesn’t throw a fit if you promise to find Mol, he approves of Tav being kind to His Majesty, of saving Aylin and he even approves of Durge apologising to Isobel after threatening to rip her to pieces.

He's slowly starting to open up, allowing Tav to see some parts of him he previously kept hidden. He accepts their offer to help, if hesitantly and, by god, the man starts experimenting with boundaries.

The social worker in me is shedding tears at this. It’s my favourite thing to see in my clients and it’s no different here. Yay to saying no!

Of course, it’s still a bit hit or miss. If Tav urges him to bite Araj, for example, he will only to later notice that he didn’t fucking have to. He recognises this on his own and he calls Tav out on it. Just like he calls them out on not helping him with his Orthon quest.

Good job, chap. Good fucking job.

And the growth-train won’t stop going even as we reach act 3.

In act 3, there’s not many things he disapproves as of right now – those he does, mostly have to do with how Tav treats him and not with anyone else. In fact, he’s more likely to approve good behaviour now, like giving Yenna food or money.

And yes, we need to consider that this could simply be because he gets used to Tav’s behaviour and just learns to roll with it. But it’s also highly likely that he notices that there’s truly good people around. At least one person. And that person is not only good, no, they’re in the process of helping him break free once and for all.

They’re helping him save himself.

By act 3, he has learned that he can absolutely say his piece where Tav is concerned and he’s more likely to disagree with them on certain things. It’s seen during a lot of small dialogue that he’s no longer terribly afraid to be honest with them, willing to listen and talk and he’ll ask for help if he needs it.

“I can do this. But I need your help.” – Act 3, Crypt

Something that can be viewed both positively and negatively is that he’s definitely loyal to a fault. He will stick by Tav’s side, no matter what.

“I really hoped we could avoid being pawns for a dark god, but here we are, I suppose. I’m with you, my dear, wherever this might lead.” – Act 3, After Jaheira confronts durge

As I said, this can be both positive and negative. On one count, it’s a recipe for disaster, seeing as he could be waltzing into a really bad situation for Tav alone.

But on the other side…this is a man who only cared about himself because that is the only person he could afford to care about. He needed to survive. He now has enough room to breathe and the capacity to care for someone else and I’d be inclined to count that as a good thing.

6. The Crypt

All the progress he made in act 2 and 3 is nearly tossed into the wind as soon as the crew enters Cazadors castle.

It’s not an immediate thing, of course.

At first, Astarion tries to stay light and simple and he hides behind flippant tones and relaxed faces. The way he recounts this is almost comically disinterested and the façade is actually quite good.

It’s start’s cracking after we meet Godie, one of the people who tortured him on more than one account, but he mostly manages to remain as upbeat as one can honestly expect for the first half of the journey.

All that, however, is done for the very moment we meet Sebastian. His mask not only slips, no, it full on shatters and there’s none of his apparent lightness left.

Which, of course it does.

The man is suddenly faced with years and years and years of victims. Innocent, unlucky people he lured back to his master over two centuries. People he liked, people he pitied.

“It’s sickening, seeing them again.”

It’s basically a room filled with guilt, exclusively for Astarion. And, as we mentioned before…Astarion is not great with guilt.

The guilt, however, is not where it ends.

No, he’s also faced with reflections of his own past. The spawn pose as reminders of what he did, sure, but also as reminders of what he was.

Weak, desperate, hungry.

There’s an abundance of images of his worst moments, reflected back at him in the thousands. It’s probably like staring into a funhouse mirror, but instead of seeing yourself in a funky way he just sees everything he so desperately doesn’t want to be.

“It should be [who I am]! I don’t want to be like them. They’re pathetic, horrible…”

He’s forcefully made aware of how darn weak he can be, which claws at all the wounds he’s barely had time to close. Something, he of course won’t admit if asked.

“THEY DO NOT [remind me of myself]. That weakness in me is dead, IT’S DEAD. I have a higher purpose.”

The high pressure of the moment brings out all of his act 1 traits in but a few moments. You can pretty much watch how he starts to shut down mid conversation, one of his old walls snapping back into place to remove himself from the situation.

Thing is though, walls usually become a bit brittle after disuse. Especially when talking to a person you don’t usually want to wall out.

Or, in his case, when talking to Tav.

After meeting Sebastian, Astarion shows extreme reactions to Tav nudging any of his weak spots. His reaction varies on whatever choice you make, but it ranges from aggression to defensiveness, to denial and even to downright begging Tav.

“Don’t hate me. I just did what I had to. I swear I did what I had to.”

This probably the most shocking out of all of them, since that is not something we got to witness before. The begging is likely a mixture of intense fear of losing Tav, his low self-esteem and pre-Tav behaviour, since we can assume that Cazador made him beg more than once.

Another old coat he puts back on would also be the least surprising of them all.

Manipulation.

He falls right back into it, using Tav’s affection to get what he want if we trigger the right action.

“If they die and I ascend, I won't have to rely on the parasite to walk in the sun. I'll be free. Truly completely free. Isn't that what you want?”

This, to me, was probably the biggest tell that Astarion was back in survival mode. He’s panicking, for fucks sake, and who can blame the guy? He’s back. He’s about to face down his abuser.

Of course he’s fucking panicking.

Panic leads to an increased craving for safety and, in his case, power. This is why he clings to Tav, why he begs them to love him still. And this is why he jumps head first into the rationalisation pool.

“I will need to sacrifice them all if I want to perform the ritual. - [You can save them.] – What’s the point? They're as good as dead! I thought they were dead. If they are unleashed, they will cause incredible carnage. […] They must die. Better they serve a purpose.”

Another textbook example.

They must die anyway. They’re basically dead. No need to save them now. They’re dangerous, I’m doing the right thing by sacrificing them. I already thought they were dead, so it’s not changing anything for me. They’re a lost cause and I deserve  all this power. I deserve it, because I suffered and nothing will change if they die.

So, seeing as we already spoke about his usual behaviour in act 3 – behaviour he showed after we allowed him to breathe and be himself for a while – I think we can fairly easily conclude he’s not thinking straight.

Astarion is right back in survival mode, where all that matters is he himself. If it weren’t for the seven thousand spawns, he might have moved through this more gracefully, but seeing those tipped the scales and Astarion is absolutely losing it.

Remember that for the last section, per favore.

7. The Ascension

“Astarion wants to ascend and Tav manipulates him into doing what they want.”

That is basically the essence of what people often claim and I can’t help but shake my head at such a blatant disregard of everything he has become. This is completely ignoring the change and growth he has gone through over the course of their journey.

Astarion wants to be free. He wants to be safe. That does not mean he wants to ascend.

And the claim that Tav manipulates him into doing anything is even more baffling. We are all aware that Tav is not manipulative by nature, yes? That is entirely on you. You decide who your Tav is.

And then let’s remember: Astarion is panicked. He’s afraid and he’s not thinking straight. His abuser is on his knees before him and he still feels so weak. And there’s seven thousand spawns that need handling.

Astarion is very much not okay right now.

In fact, reading his thoughts just proves this theory.

“You can see the fear in his eyes but also the hunger. The thick smell of blood in the air and the promise of power being so close is intoxicating to him. All he can see is the power of the ritual and the freedom that power brings. The freedom to do anything. To be anything.”

Tav, however, has none of those problems. They can actually see beyond the current situation and they are fully aware what the consequences are. Astarion is not. As we previously established, Astarion is a doer. Not a thinker. He didn’t think this through, not at all.

The only thing Tav is doing – the persuasion roll – is reminding him of the very real consequences he is facing. The consequences he hasn’t thought about before.

"I know you think this will set you free, but it won't. This power will trap you, just like it trapped Cazador."

And that is the kindest thing Tav could do in this situation. They’re not bodily dragging him away from Cazador. They’re not even telling him to not do it. They’re just offering him the truth. He can do with that information whatever he desires.

“Astarion cries when he doesn’t ascend, that just shows that it was the wrong choice.”

A hare-brained point that I thankfully have only seen once so far.

That crying? That is healthy crying.

That is him, crumbling under the stress that suddenly dissipates. That is him mourning two hundred years of torment. That’s him letting out feelings he hasn’t been able to for centuries.

And, for the love of god, try to put yourself in his shoes.

Two hundred years of torment, ended in but a moment.

Astarion was abused and tortured for so long, afraid for so long only to see his tormentor die just like that.

Cazador died within a moment and all Astarion needed was a darn blade. Of course he fucking cries.

Seeing how pathetic a being the very core of your life’s misery actually is hurts. It hurts like hell because not only are you finally free – free! – no, you’re faced with the fact that this pile of nothing, the thing that’s bleeding out right in front of you…this was what tortured for so long.

This thing hurt you so much. That guy took everything from you, everything you once were, and broke it again and again and again over years.

You were so scared of this thing.

And yet he has the gall and the gumption to die just like that.

It was so easy.

And yet you suffered for so long.

8. Evil Playthrough?

An evil playthrough is really a different setting altogether.

All of this, as you can probably tell, is really only applicable on a good playthrough. Realistically speaking. I’m not sure how the game mechanics handle it.

On an evil path, Astarion never really gets to experience kindness and goodness. Evil Tav will just prove him right in his believe that the world is a vile and cold place, meaning that he realistically would be more inclined to actually want to ascend.

9. Final Conclusion

I think all of this should be enough to make it clear that no, ascended Astarion is not the best ending for the guy. In fact, it is probably the worst. Because it’s just him, running away. He’s running into a lonely and cold state of being, where cruelty and power lord over everything else and he’s running because he’s terrified of being hurt again. He’s running despite desperately wanting to stop running.

“I'll spend the rest of my life running watching the shadows, never feeling safe…no, this has to happen. Here and now.”

And, the worst part is: Nothing about Astarion is left after he ascends. Even his tone of speaking gradually changes, his theatrics fading. He’s slowly losing himself, until there’s nothing but an evil caricature left.

So, in the end, ascension will have proven him right.

That version of him is dead.

#baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate #baldurs gate #bg3 #astarion #the dark urge #tav #astarion romance #astarion ancunin #astarion and tav #bg3 act 1 #bg3 act 2 #bg3 act 3 #act 3 #act 2 #act 1 #araj oblodra

[crazy-pages]

I'm going to throw my two cents in to the conversation about why James Somerton didn't get caught earlier. Part of the answer is of course that he did get caught, he just bullied and lied to get away with it for a while, but I know a lot of people still express confusion. And of course he went out of his way to make sure his audience didn't know about other queer history sources other than himself. But still. How could he have so many viewers of his videos and none of them had seen X source material?

Well. To be blunt, most of his videos were pretty basic. He tended to copy the highlights of what he was plagiarizing, not the really advanced stuff. And insofar as he copied the advanced stuff, he had a tendency to chop it up and serve it out of context alongside other plagiarized work. The material he was presenting was revolutionary to an audience unfamiliar with queer history, but like. I'm guessing 'Disney villains are queer coded' is not exactly a new concept to the kind of people who read multiple books about queer coding in film.

Now I'm not a film studies person, I'm a physicist. But you know what I do when I get a video in my YouTube recommendations about some fairly basic physics concept?

I skip it. No shade to the creator, but like. I hit that topic a decade ago and I've added literally thousands of hours of studying and research to my brain since. I'm just going to give it a pass, all right?

These kinds of videos self-select for an audience which isn't going to be familiar with the source material. The people who know it are unlikely to keep listening after the first minute or so.

And you've got to remember how much of this content the experts have consumed! With very few exceptions for weird little things that stuck in my head after all these years, I would probably not notice a physics explanation plagiarized from one of my textbooks! Not because I wasn't intimately acquainted with the textbook, but because I was intimately acquainted with many such textbooks. Spend enough time learning this stuff and it all blurs together a little bit. Does this explanation sound familiar because you've heard it before, or because you've just read books which cover this specific topic seven different times? And does that wording or that example ring a bell because it's plagiarized, or because it's common to the field?

Catching this kind of plagiarism requires having the kind of people who are already familiar with these sources, and therefore uninterested in video summaries on the topic, to watch the video. And among those people who do, it requires them to match Somerton's words to one specific source on the topic out of many, that they probably read quite some time ago. And then you have the filter of how many of those subject matter experts have the source on hand to check, to turn a vague "...hmm" into something solid.

If you know enough about queer history to say that some of his plagiarism was obvious, now that you've watched the video, then you should remember that there is a reason you probably weren't one of the people watching his videos! And because YouTube promotes videos through algorithmic engagement, none of this stuff has to pass the sniff test for any other expert in the field before it gets released. No experts have to like it for it to get published or for it to get good reviews or for it to get a recommendation in, I don't know, the New York Times.

The only people who have to like the videos for them to get traction are people who are just trying to learn introductory queer history and film theory. The exact people who aren't going to notice this. And for those of you who to whom it is obvious, ask yourself. When was the last time you watched a basic level queer history introduction on YouTube?

#hbomberguy #james somerton