#it builds upon their intimacy and i just think that's neat :) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sisterspooky1013 · 3 years

Text

Damsels, Chapter Five: Work That Gameboy

By SisterSpooky1013 / Tagging @today-in-fic

Rated E / Read previous chapters here

Mulder arrives at work early, looking longingly at Scully’s car in the parking lot. Approaching it, he peers in the windows looking for…he isn’t sure what. Her car is, as usual, neat as a pin with no indication of where she went or why.

In his restlessness the night before, he’d thought a lot about why it bothers him so much not to know where she is or what she’s doing. If the roles were reversed, he would expect her to wait it out and trust him to take care of himself, but for some reason he’s struggling to do the same for her. He thought at first that it was her tendency to get hurt or need help, but by comparison he needs her help just as often as she needs his, so that doesn’t track. Then he thought maybe it’s that he doesn’t trust Skinner to do what’s in her best interest, but Skinner has shown a tendency to be protective of Scully on numerous occasions (and in fact Mulder strongly suspects his feelings for her go beyond the bounds of strict professionalism), so that isn’t entirely logical either. Skinner may have left him out to dry with the New Spartans, but he doesn’t believe the man would stoop low enough to treat Scully in the same manner.

In the end, he realized that it’s pretty simple; he’s just crazy about her. His protectiveness doesn’t have anything to do with how capable she is, or the situations other people might put her in, or even situations she might put herself in. He misses her, and cares so much about her that not even knowing where she is feels wrong. It feels like a piece of him is missing, and he’s not allowed to know where it is or when he’ll get it back.

After pretending to work for an hour, he sulks up to Skinner’s office and asks for a few minutes of his time. Skinner is immediately irritated, though Mulder doesn’t realize that it’s in response to him and not a preexisting condition. He stands in front of Skinner’s desk, looming over him.

“What do you want, Agent Mulder?” Skinner grumbles, not looking up from the document he’s reading.

“I’d like to know where Agent Scully is, sir.”

Skinner sighs heavily, dropping his head to his chest.

“Get out of my office, Agent Mulder,” he says in a low, menacing tone.

“Sir, I’m not asking to contact her, I would never compromise her case, I just need to at least know where she is. What if something happens and I need to find her?”

Skinner stands, looking Mulder in the eye with an intensity he’s seen on very few occasions, none of them fond memories. “Agent Mulder, Agent Scully explicitly asked me not to tell you where she is, or what she’s doing. Even if she hadn’t, I STILL would not tell you, however I hope that if you don't respect the direct orders of your superior, you might, at the very least, respect Agent Scully’s wishes. Now get the hell out of my office and do not bring this up again, understood?”

Mulder glances down and notices Scully’s keys on the desk near Skinner’s nameplate, her Apollo 11 keychain easily identifiable. He leans forward, putting his hands on the desktop, one covering the keys.

“Sir, if anything happens to her, I’ll-“

“You’ll what, Agent Mulder?” Skinner challenges him, stuffing his hands in his pockets in a show of bravado.

Mulder straightens, palming the keys as he stands, and leaves without another word.

Scully arrives at the club just before 2 pm, wearing shorts and a tank top as Angel had instructed. After stuffing her purse into a locker, she finds Angel and Tibet on the floor, which has returned to its daylight state of clean and quiet. Queenie restocks the bar while Ben fiddles with the sound system.

Tibet is up on the stage while Angel sits at the tip rail, offering pointers on a new dance Tibet is working out. Scully immediately notices that Tibet’s hair is cropped short and worn in its natural curls, and realizes she’d been wearing a wig the night before.

“So I was thinking that I could either take my top off just before or just after the first chorus, tell me which looks better, okay?” Tibet says to Angel as Scully enters and takes a seat beside her.

“Benny! Hit me with the music!” Tibet shouts, and then repeats her performance twice, revealing her breasts at a different point in the song each time. When she’s finished, she sits down on the edge of the stage in front of them and asks for their thoughts, her breasts still uncovered.

“I think the sooner the better,” Angel says. “They come here to see your body, so show it to em!”

Tibet nods. “What do you think, Desi?” She asks, stretching a smooth brown leg out to her side and leaning into it.

Scully suddenly feels entirely out of her league in terms of providing an opinion. “Uh, well, generally speaking I guess I’d say wait. You want to build some suspense, right? Make them work for it?”

Angel looks at her suspiciously out of the corner of her eye. “You don’t fuck on the first date, do you?” She asks with a haughty grin, and Scully’s eyes go big at the question. “I’m just messing with you, let’s get to your training!”

“Alright,” Tibet begins as though she’s done this dozens of times, tugging the straps of her shirt back over her shoulders. “So, have you ever given a lap dance before?” she asks plainly, and Scully’s cheeks flush.

“Well, kind of I guess. In college, though more as a joke than anything else. I would definitely consider myself a beginner.”

“Got it, got it,” Tibet responds. “Well, for the most part dancing is about creating a sense of intimacy. It’s fake, obviously, but the more your customer feels like you actually care about him, want him to look at you, like that he’s appreciating your body, the better you’ll do. Your stage set is just about showing yourself off and getting them curious about you. The real money comes from lap dances and VIP, and the more you can draw attention with a really great stage set, the more customers will want to spend time with you afterward. Angel is a beast on the pole and she can teach you all those tricks, but I consider myself the lap dance expert around here, so I’m gonna teach you that part.” She smiles and jumps down from the stage, pulling a chair away from one of the tables and gesturing for Scully to sit in it.

“Oh,” Scully says, and sits as instructed.

“Sometimes, when you’re on the floor, customers will flag you down or ask for you, and that’s great. But you also have to approach people, because they’ll be too shy to ask. So you might come up and do this.”

Tibet saunters towards Scully with a secretive smile on her lips, stepping so close that her thighs thread between Scully’s knees. Next she leans down, placing her hands on Scully’s shoulders and bringing her mouth to Scully’s ear.

“Would you like a dance, Baby?” she asks in a syrupy voice, and Scully feels a shiver run down her spine. Tibet backs up. “Okay, now you try.”

“You want ME to do that?” Scully clarifies, and while just asking someone if they want a lap dance should be the easiest hurdle to clear, she’s finding that it’s still an uncomfortably high one.

Angel turns her head toward the bar and calls out, “Queenie! We need some liquid courage over here!”

Queenie walks over with a bottle of tequila and three shot glasses, pouring them wordlessly before returning to her task.

Angel holds her glass up, Tibet and Scully following suit. “To new career paths,” Angel says, and Scully smiles thinly, clinking her glass with theirs and throwing back the shot with a grimace.

Three weeks. She’s been gone three weeks, and not a word from Skinner. No update, no information, though he’s stopped by a couple times and asked, drawing increasing amounts of rage from his boss. He’s finished all the paperwork, re-organized the files, cleaned and rearranged the office (only to immediately change it back) and spent hours upon hours imagining where Scully might be right now.

He kept her keys, just in case, but knows she’d be unhappy with him invading her privacy by snooping around her apartment. That’s why he waits three whole weeks before he finally does it. He has a key to her apartment and could have gone there at any point, but her personal keyring also holds the keys for her gun safe and her mailbox, which may prove helpful. After work on a Thursday, he drives by and lets himself in, the warm vanilla smell of her immediately invading his nostrils as he opens the door. He sighs deeply, pulling her into his lungs; it feels like coming home.

First he waters her plants, which are looking half dead, and makes a mental note to use watering them as the reason he came here if asked. Next he opens her gun safe, and is struck to find her service weapon holstered and tucked neatly inside with the safety on. She doesn’t have her gun? What the hell kind of assignment is this? He brings in her mail, which is no help at all, and leaves it stacked on the counter. Next he lays down on her bed, shoving his face into her pillow and breathing the smell of her shampoo for a few minutes before he has the thought to look for her overnight bag.

Scully has a go bag in the trunk of her car for emergencies, but given the opportunity she’ll use her overnight bag and pack for the weather, situation, etc. Opening her closet, he finds it on the floor near her laundry hamper, empty save for a travel size can of hairspray tucked into a side pocket. In her bathroom, he finds all her toiletries accounted for, including her toothbrush. The more he sees, the more confused he is. Even when he’d spent time undercover with dangerous individuals, he’d been allowed to bring his own toothbrush.

Moving to the hallway, he picks up her landline and dials.

“Dana?” Maggie Scully’s voice answers on the second ring.

“No, sorry, Mrs. Scully, it’s Fox Mulder.”

“I saw Dana’s name on the caller ID, is she with you?” Her voice carries worry.

“No, I’m just here at her apartment watering her plants, sorry to confuse you. Have you been in touch with Dana, Mrs. Scully?”

“No, Fox, I haven’t heard from her in weeks. She told me she had an assignment that would take her away for a while and that she’d be unreachable, but I’m a little concerned that she hasn’t contacted me yet.”

Mulder closes his eyes. “I wish I had anything to share, Mrs. Scully, but I’m in somewhat of the same boat. A.D. Skinner isn’t concerned and it does sound like he’s in touch with her, but I was hoping she might have called you.”

“I’m afraid not,” Maggie replies sadly.

“What did she tell you when she left? Did she share any information at all?” he asks hopefully.

“Um, let me think. She said she was going on an assignment and that she’d be out of touch for a few weeks. And she said she’d bring me some Tastykakes when she comes home,” she adds.

“Tastykakes, what are those?” Mulder asks, his investigative senses tingling.

“They’re a treat we always get when we go to Philadelphia; little packaged snack cakes. The kids always loved them.”

“Are they only available in Philadelphia?” he asks, heart pumping.

“I’m not sure, but that’s where we always get them,” Maggie says hopefully.

“Thank you, Mrs. Scully. That’s really helpful. I’ll let you know if I track her down, okay?”

“Thank you, Fox. Take care.”

Setting the phone back on its cradle, he does a little victory dance. It isn’t much, but it’s something. Scully is just a few hours away in the city of brotherly love.

Three weeks. It’s been three weeks of practicing stage sets and lap dances in the afternoon, serving drinks in the evening and well into the middle of the night, and then sleeping until noon. Her arms and legs bear fading bruises from her acclimation to Paul the Pole, the crooks of her elbows and knees sporting slight calluses that help her get a good grip (with an assist from the grip powder Angel has instructed her to use). She’s given Tibet and Angel dozens of lap dances each, the other standing by to coach her on making sure one foot stays on the floor. After three weeks, she found that her barriers were mostly in her head. Once she was able to let go and just move, she’s actually pretty good at it.

That day she arrives in pink cotton shorts and a white tank top, now so used to being scantily clad that it no longer makes her self-conscious, and prepares to do a full dress rehearsal of the routine she worked up with Angel’s help. Queenie and Ricky sit down to observe what is more or less a test of her readiness, and one she intends to pass. Where she would have expected to feel nervous, she’s excited, ever the eager student motivated to impress and exceed expectations. Ben kills the daytime lights to make it look and feel like it would if they were open, and her set begins.

Moving onto the stage, she can barely see her audience with the bright lights trained on her. She quickly gets lost in the movements she rehearsed, feeling graceful as she circles the pole and hitches an arm around it, spinning in a feathery arc. When the point in the dance comes to remove her shirt, she does so as a well practiced step in a strategy, without any feelings of exposure. Soon enough her bra follows suit and she is left with only her tiny pink shorts, nipples hardening as they graze the pole. The undulation of her hips, the pop of her booty out towards the audience, the slip of a hand down the inside of her thigh; they’re each a part of the method. Precisely planned and executed in much the same way as she might dismantle and clean her gun, or prepare a slide for the microscope. It isn’t much different than performing an autopsy, she had reasoned. Except instead of: Y incision, open rib cage, remove organs, examine stomach contents, collect specimens, examine brain, it’s: arch back, grasp breasts, spread legs, thrust pelvis, rub thighs, grind on the pole. She’s always found her strength in taking a clinical, detached approach to difficult tasks, and that turns out to be just as effective on the stage as it is in the lab.

As she finishes, her small audience erupts into applause, standing in ovation as Ben brings the house lights up halfway. Scully smiles shyly, stepping down to join them on the floor as Ricky approaches her and slings an arm around her bare shoulders.

“That was fucking fantastic, Desi. Sexy as fuck. Let me see you do a lap dance now.”

#the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #gillovny #msr #sculder #x files #case file #case fic #x files fanfic

35 notes · View notes

aaetherius · 3 years

Text

@cxffexngel

♔ : Finding your muse wearing their clothes || modern or normal verse || Lucifer shouldn't be surprised after willingly offering his clothes to sandy... but he looks adorable, can't blame him!

Acts of intimacy || Accepting (feel free to turn into threads)!

★ ☆ ✮ ✯ ―☼ ― ★ ☆ ✮ ✯

The violent roar of thunder as it tore through dreary skies was powerful enough to make the flaxen lights hanging overhead flicker for a moment, while the wail of the rain as it slammed against the trembling windows of his apartment seemed to echo through the entire building. There was even a moment where he swore he had seen the neat, but overly cluttered bookshelf shoved up against the far wall of the main room tip forward ever so slightly from the near constant clamor outside. Soft lips pull into a gentle frown when he lifts his gaze from the quaking books to the foggy window - he could barely see the distinct brick of the building next door let alone the sidewalk below or the murky clouds that were surely hidden above the thick downpour. Guilt has already nestled its way into his heart, and slender fingers - covered in both old and fresh bandaids from having spent the night clumsily toiling away at perfecting a few new recipes - grip gingerly at the fluffy fabric of the sweater he’s wearing. Pressing bruised and scabbed knuckles against his chest. He should have checked the weather this morning or even last night while he had been huddled up in his kitchen carefully measuring out ingredients because he had found himself unable to sleep, but had never made a habit of doing so, and he should have read Michael’s text when the buzz of his phone had torn him away from his coffee making at six in the morning instead of dismissing it with the thought that he would check it once he had finished the brew he had been working on at the time.

That had been three hours ago - he had only just, finally, read her text while pacing back and forth in front of the somewhat worn couch sat across from the bookshelf while the piercing, golden eyes of a mildly annoyed feline watched him from the cushions. And that had been a good fifteen or so minutes after Sandalphon had shown up on the front steps of the building soaked through to the bone thanks to the aggressive winds and awful storm. At his request, because he had glanced at the calendar some time past midnight while still on his coffee-making spree and realized the cafe would be closed for the day, and had hastily, without much thought (but oh with a dreadful amount of hope that he couldn’t begin to explain or guess the reason for), texted the other to see if he would like to learn how to make a few of the brews he was debating on adding to the menu during their off day. So, now, he could only stare at the dim screen of his phone as he read over the weather alert Michael had sent him hours ago with a very distinct warning him to be careful, and to stay inside if he was able to so as there was a chance the sidewalks and roads would flood a bit - which she made an active effort to remind him of multiple times in that same message. Long lashes serve to somewhat veil his cerulean eyes from view, but do little to fully shelter his despondent expression from the only other occupant of the room currently.

The one whose long tail smacked idly against the smooth fabric as a yawn revealed her tiny teeth - her glare settled on the back of the bathroom door where both of them could faintly hear Sandalphon shuffling about after Lucifer had quickly brought him inside and insisted he change out of the drenched clothes he had been wearing for fear he might catch a cold. Swallowing around the guilt he feels for asking the other to come out in the middle of a storm, he carefully slides his phone back into his pocket without replying to Michael. Yet, as terrible as he feels, a part of him can’t help but be elated by Sandalphon’s presence (and the fact that he had even been willing to meet with him in the first place). Being around the younger man always brightened his day, and made his heart swell where it was lodged within his chest. Seeing him, too, was enough to make his features soften, and, even thinking about him now, was enough to make the small frown upon his lips turn upwards into a gentle smile. It was always strange to him, how Sandalphon seemed different to him than the others - how easily he brought joy into his life without trying, and how much he cherished the always fleeting moments they had together. And there was something about knowing that today didn’t need to be fleeting - that the cafe was closed, and much of the city had slowed a bit as a result of the storm - that brought some level of excitement to his tired eyes.

He registers Ellie rising to her paws and the soft click of her tail before he hears the door creak open, and his gaze swiftly lifts from the feline to Sandalphon and - ah, he finds himself grateful his hand had already been on his chest or he fears his heart might have lurched through flesh and bone at the sight that greets him. Delicate lashes fluttering upwards in surprise that he attempts to conceal, though utterly fails to do so. He can almost hear the thud of his heart in his throat in the silence that lingers when he can’t bring himself to dig his voice from the depths of his lungs. It’s not as if he had forgotten he had lent the other his clothes to wear while he brought Sandalphon’s downstairs to the laundry to be washed and dried, but - no, actually, he had forgotten in his overwhelming guilt for having asked the other to come in such weather. And he tries to swallow the lump that forms in his throat because his own clothes look better on Sandalphon than they ever had on him - even if he’s quite a bit taller than other and a bit broader, making his shirt hang loosely from the younger’s shoulders, hem reaching past the other’s thighs. And he’s not certain why it’s enough to make his heart skip a beat - not certain why his chest aches at the sight, or why he can feel a mild heat prick at the back of his neck as the faintest of color spreads across his visage.

“Sandalphon,” and he still speaks the other’s name with that distinctive fondness that has always been reserved for the other alone even if he’s not quite aware of it himself, despite the shock still written across his eyes. He only, just barely manages to collect himself when the buzz of his phone drags him back to reality, and he glances away for a moment to inhale against the lingering scent of coffee beans and other supplies from his kitchen, in hopes to calm the racing of his heart before he makes his way over to the other - grabbing a towel from the door as he softly clears his throat. “Forgive me, if I had known it was going to storm like this I wouldn’t have asked you to come.” Guilt is present in his voice, though it’s mixed with something akin to awe. And he can’t quite place why Sandalphon looks so lovely at the moment. No, he always looks beautiful, but this is - he gently drapes the towel over the smaller’s head without much warning if only for the sake of his poor, terribly aching heart. Hands coming up to gingerly knead against the soft fabric, tousling already messy auburn locks. “Your hair is still a bit damp, stay still a moment, and I’ll dry it for you. I don’t wish for you to catch a cold. And I’ll make you a cup of coffee before we start work on those new brews to help warm you up.” Sandalphon’s hair, is, for the most part, no longer wet, and he was already running the towel through it before he had managed to find his voice, which is somewhat quieter than usual, almost a bit strained, but Lucifer is struggling to make eye contact in a manner that is unlike him, so he had simply used it as an excuse to collect himself.

#cxffexngel #| ☩ I would bend the skies; realign all the stars in space; just to be with you ☩ (cxffexngel: Sandalphon) |#| ☩ Cradled within the gentle breeze ☩ (ask) |#| ☩ And once again the sky rises; sincere and melancholic ☩ (IC) |#| ☩ To meet with you again ☩ (verse: AU - Modern) |#{ Thank you for sending this! }#{ It was so hard to choose between them but I went with modern to change things up since I usually do normal but both are so good! }#{ Lucifer is shocked pikachu face regardless despite the fact that he offered Sandy his clothes hfiheriudgl }#{ And you also get some extra fluff free of charge for fun ghfudhgiuk }#{ There were probably a million other ways I could have done this but this is what came to mind I apologize hgurekdgk }#{ But Sandy gets a somewhat flustered and very much surprised Lucifer for his suffering }#{ Lucifer is having a tiny crisis here ghufchuk }#{ But Sandy looks good in his clothes how else is he supposed to react fierlefrt }

31 notes · View notes

skullhaver · 3 years

Text

It's 2021, and I'm watching Buffy for the first time.

The Virgil on my Buffy journey is my long-distance girlfriend, who has loved the show for years. We just finished season 4, and I wanted to write about my favorite episodes so far. I suspect some of my faves are beloved by most fans, but others are weird, personal picks. Buffy fandom, please don't come for me.

I thought this post would be short but I was wrong.

Hono(u)rable Mentions: "Band Candy" S3E6 and "Halloween" S2E6

Both these episodes have fun premises where the Scoobies run around Sunnydale after it was upended by zany, chaotic dark forces. "Band Candy" is fun for devil-may-care teen Giles. "Halloween" is fun for 18th-century-ditz Buffy. These are both very good, and are the sorts of episode I can imagine happily rewatching in the future. I just have more to pontificate upon for the other episodes on this list.

10. "Ted" S2E11

I can’t say I enjoyed this episode, but it did take me for a wild ride. Probably nobody else has strong feelings about this weird story where Buffy's mom dates a stereotypical cheesy family man, who turns out to be a controlling abuser, who turns out to be a robot. I remember shouting at the screen, "Did Buffy just kill a human man?? Is it okay in the moral logic of this show for Buffy to kill a human if he's a direct physical threat to her??" I knew Buffy would have deeper stories than the monster of the week formula we'd seen so far, but this early in season 2, I had no idea when or how that would happen. This was the episode that finally taught me that Buffy is largely not interested in moral ambiguity, or in exploring what it means to be good or bad. Except for season-defining exceptions like Faith and Angel, evil characters are simplistically, essentially evil. But it was wild to believe for a moment that Buffy murdered her mom's abusive boyfriend and would have to live with the consequences.

9. "Helpless" S3E12

When Buffy tries to be genuinely scary, it succeeds with aplomb. The premise of this episode is dumb and contrived ("Giles has to remove Buffy's powers without her knowledge for a seeeecret test by the Watcher's Council") but the chase and fight in this episode are some of the most tense and spooky scenes of the whole series so far. Buffy's vulnerability makes the stakes feel real in a way few other episodes manage. And Buffy's victory is all the more satisfying because she can't punch her way out of this problem, she has to be smart and creative. The fridge horror, of course, is that Giles would endanger her like this in the first place, but that gets sorted out over the emotional arc of the next few episodes.

8. "I Only Have Eyes For You." S2E19

Another spooky episode, this one a classic ghost story of forbidden love ending in murder - but with the twist that the ghosts possess people's bodies to have them reenact their final moments. I love stories about breaking a doomed-to-repeat cycle. I love weird shit like the snakes manifesting in the cafeteria. And I really loved the choice to have Buffy and Angel come to understand their feelings about their own relationship by embodying these ghosts - especially how they embodied different genders than their own to better fit the "roles" of the haunting story, thus subverting the expected pattern. I found this episode clever, poignant, and effective.

7. "Who Are You?" S4E16

"Faith and Buffy switch bodies" is a wild premise, but the real joy of "Who Are You?" is watching Sarah Michelle Geller being an extremely talented actress for 45 minutes, portraying a totally different character. Watching Faith confronted by kindness and love from Buffy's mom, Riley, and her friends, then getting launched into an existential crisis over it is so great. Also, I just dig a good church fight.

6. "Hush" S4E10

As stated above, love an episode that reminds me that these people are talented actors! Featuring demons that render all of Sunnydale unable to talk, we get to watch great physical comedy right next to tense, silent fight scenes. The visual creepiness of the Gentleman and their straight-jacketed weird little helpers is hard to beat. "Hush" is such a clever episode that it ascends monster of the week status to become almost Twilight Zone-esque. Also, for the first time, Buffy sees Riley doing his Initiative thing, and Riley sees Buffy being the Slayer, but they can't talk about it?? That's good shit.

5. "The Wish" S3E9

Both "Something Blue" and "The Wish" feel like the writers decided to use fanfic premises on their own show... so obviously I like them a lot. But getting to watch a dark timeline AU with interesting world-building and attention to detail, a hilarious and horrifying Cordelia POV, AND a smirking kinky vampire Willow? Hello?? And the fact that the Wishverse comes up again in "Doppelgänger" (another truly fun episode) only improves my opinion. I imagine this is the kind of episode fans simply love coming back to.

4. "Restless" S4E22

This David Lynch-ass dream sequence was a weird choice for a season finale, but an extremely ambitious and cool episode. I should say up front that I love David Lynch-ass dream shit. There were creative and well-executed scene transitions as characters moved seamlessly from one dream room into another. Several memorably neat shots - Willow running between endless curtains as she tries to get onstage, Buffy alone in a vast desert with a weirdly high camera angle. And I got myself all excited thinking that the First Slayer would maybe become a different kind of antagonist - maybe not even fully revealed in this episode, or maybe an Id-like aspect of Buffy herself. But I forgot Whedon gonna Whedon, so the First Slayer had to be someone Buffy could punch in the end. And the First Slayer is sadly yet another primitive-themed, emotionally-stunted character of color for this show. Most of her lines in this episode are literally voiced by a white woman speaking for her, and of all the dumb quips to make, Buffy had a line about her hair being unprofessional? Also, I'm a lesbian, so the fact that the most explicit act of intimacy between Willow and Tara this show has allowed us to see occurs in Xander's horny dream sequence... it’s unforgivable, Joss. This episode was one of my favorites ever, deeply marred by some bad writing choices.

3. "Lovers Walk" S3E8

Spike, perhaps the best non-Willow character in this show, is back in Sunnydale, a hilariously heartbroken mess of a man, hell-bent on getting his former girlfriend Drusilla back. (Drusilla left him for a fungus demon.) So Spike breaks into a magic shop to get ingredients for a love spell, where he runs into Willow, who is getting ingredients for a de-lusting spell, because she is worried she and Xander will be too thirsty to behave appropriately in public with their actual partners, Oz and Cordelia. This is a hilarious moment just to exist. This is all the episode needed to do to satisfy me. But the fact that Spike then kidnaps Willow, and it ends with tragic stakes of everyone's relationships coming apart, not to mention me genuinely thinking Cordelia was dead for a minute there - wow. Chef’s kiss. The episode is balanced shockingly well between Spike being an ominous villain, and being the sort of lovable semi-evil (more gremlin-like) side character he'll become in season 4. What a wild ride.

2. "Graduation Day" S3E21-22

I'm counting this two part season finale as one because it's my list and I'll do what I want. "Graduation Day" feels like a quintessential Buffy episode executed to perfection. It has Buffy reaffirming her position as a moral heroine, sacrificing her own blood to save Angel's life even when she thought she had to kill Faith to save him. It has Buffy and Faith (or Buffy/Faith, as I prefer to think of them) getting to square off in a dramatic, tough fight. It has a lot of Mayor Wilkins, a character I truly adore for some reason. Nothing like a public administrator who plays mini golf in his office, wants you to chew with your mouth closed, and will kill a graduating class of high schoolers to gain immortality. The catharsis of the whole school getting to fight back against evil, instead of just Buffy against the world - a real joy. This episode misses the top spot for two reasons. "A special vampire poison and the only cure is the blood of a Slayer" is too contrived for me to let slide, and also I had to see Cordelia and Wesley kiss.

1. "Becoming" S2E21-22

Buffy’s season finales really do have good stories and satisfying payoff. First off, Buffy starts this episode by punching a cop and fleeing from the law. Later, Spike also punches a cop. A.k.a., Buffy said blue lives don't matter. Second - I haven't gotten a chance to comment on this yet, but all throughout season 2, evil Angel is such a joy to watch. As regular Angel, David Boreanaz makes exactly one face ("I am a kicked, angsty puppy") and bless his heart, it gets so tiresome. As evil Angel, he is so expressive, dynamic and terrifyingly creative in his badness. And I love his weird threesome energy with Spike and Drusilla. But also, it's so hard to watch Buffy suffer as she deals with her evil boyfriend doing evil things. Her ultimate choice in this episode, to kill Angel even as Willow's spell restores his soul, gave me some real big feels! Also, this episode marks the first moment of Willow doing big, plot-shifting magic on her own, solidifying her transformation from computer nerd to witch!

Also, shout-out to the many good smaller moments in this episode: Spike making awkward small talk with Buffy's mom, Buffy constantly dunking on Principle Snyder, and Giles being tortured by visions of Miss Calendar (RIP Miss Calendar, I was your biggest fan.)

"Becoming" is an excellent season finale and the kind of Buffy episode I imagine I will want to re-watch in the future just for nostalgia's sake.

#buffy the vampire slayer #guess i will tag this and just engage in pvp if it happens #buffy fandom in 2021 i don't know you but please be nice #this was fun to write #i guess i do like this show!

18 notes · View notes

imagines-forthe-soul · 5 years

Note

Can I still request nsfw alphabet, if so can I get one for Shinsou, Mei, or Monoma [BNHA]?

Hope it’s okay, but I decided to do Monoma for this since he is my BABY DADDY!

_________________

Monoma Neito:

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex):

Aftercare with Monoma always has a good chance of turning into another heated round of sex. He is very physical and loving when it comes to aftercare, running his hands over your body to soothe out any kinks or bruises you may have, his mouth pressed against your neck as he whispers sweet nothings to you and plants kiss after kiss against your swollen and flushed skin. His touch is so hot and loving, hands always seeming to find the right spot to lay upon that will make the steamy fire within you rekindle and get you up and ready to be taken by him again.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s):

On himself, he loves his eyes the most. He enjoys the way he can trick and deceive people with only his eyes or hide his emotions from those who may be trying to pry into him. Although, what he loves most is how quickly he can make you come undone by just looking at you. Those intense blue hues stare down at you, clouded over this lust all and only for you will make you melt on the spot and he loves every moment of it.

On you, he likes your lips the most. Oddly enough, he doesn’t like it for sexual reasons (not that he doesn’t think of it from time to time). He loves your lips because of how round and plump they are, they’re absolutely kissable and it’s all he can ever think about. The way your lips move to form words or to say his name always makes him feel as though he is floating above the clouds. Whenever you talk, his eyes always seem to drift to your lips, a small smile forming on his own. He feels himself falling deeper and deeper in love with you whenever he see your lips moving, or when he sees you bite them, or even when you let him bite them.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

Monoma is a dirty, kinky, disgusting boyo okay!! But he is so in a gentlemanly kind of way… sort of… not really. His cum is a little on the runnier side but doesn’t taste all that bad and knowing that (how he knows that, that’s up to you) he will want to cum in your mouth and watch you swallow it. It turns him on greatly to see you swallow his load so happily after he’s given you a good fucking. Besides that though, he loves seeing his cum on any part of your body, watching as it pours down you, making a mess of you and marking you as his own

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He would like to have his own sex chamber when he gets older for him and his wife. He can’t wait to get the chance to have his own house were he can install a personalized sex chamber for you both to have your fun in. He can imagine having all sorts of toys and playthings in there for you both to try out and experiment with. On his more stressful days he can picture you already in there, a bow on your sweet little innocent head just waiting for him to claim you.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

He’s only ever had sex once in his life with some older woman he met at one of his mother’s parties. It wasn’t the best sex in his opinion (not that he can really compare it to anything else) but the woman was pretty helpful in teaching him a thing or two that he can use in the future. For the most part he does know what he is doing, but once he has a partner he has an emotional connection with, then he will do and learn a lot more to please them.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

He loves any position that will allow him to see his partner’s face or that allows for a lot of petting. Monoma is a pretty physical guy and loves to be able to caress his partner in anyway he can both inside and outside of the bedroom. Being able to run his hands over your sides, breasts, hands, stomach, anything really will make him feel so energized and hot during sex. He is hardly ever able to keep his hands off you at times like these. Now when it comes to seeing your face, he just loves seeing you bite your lip to keep your moans at bay, or seeing your face flush a deep red whenever he hits the right spot.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

He isn’t really goofy during sex but he can be playful. He likes to make you smile and giggle but not because he has said something funny, but mainly through his actions. He will nuzzle his nose against different parts of your body to tickle you and make you laugh, or playfully flick your nose with his tongue, but that’s about it. Other than that, he is usually serious about sex.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Monoma keeps himself exquistly neat down there. Hair doesn’t exactly bother him unless it is causing him discomfort or pain and usually leaves the majority of his hair alone, but will give it a light trim from time to time to make sure the hairs don’t get caught anywhere and to keep things even. He isn’t ashamed or embarrassed of doing it either. If you so happen to walk in on him giving his pubes a cut with baby scissors, he’ll just ask you if you want a trim too or if you mind getting him some aloe gel so he can shave a little on the sides.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

He has romance coming out of his ass. Sex with Monoma will always be romantic and full of love and genuine affection. More often than not, you two will end up crying as you make love to each other, arms wrapped tightly around the other and moans mixing together. He makes sure to set the mood before hand or to at least say something suave or sexy beforehand or to at least say something suave or sexy before you two get started so that you’re set in some type of mood to make sex more enjoyable.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

He doesn’t do it often but when he does, he likes to take his time and dirty talk to himself. He loves dirty talk in general, but doing it when he is pleasing himself is so sexy to him, especially if he is watching something (usually a video you have sent him previously). He’ll both encourage himself and the person he is watching to touch themselves, stroking his cock slowly but in such a firm grip. He’ll edge himself until he can’t take it anymore, ruining his orgasm by cumming too soon, making a mess of his hand and lower stomach. He always makes sure to send you a picture of video of the aftermath.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Phone sex

Recording

Spanking

Dirty talk

Light BDSM

Roleplay

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

He likes to mainly keep things in the bedroom, but if the mood strikes him, he’ll be down to doing it somewhere semi-public like at the school or maybe in the common room or in a restaurant bathroom. While he does love the thrill of possibly being caught, he always makes sure that you both won’t be, usually taking you in semi-public places when he knows people won’t be around for a while.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Having you yell at him is a good way to get him motivated. He loves it when you raise your voice at him and put him in his place. It turns him on in more ways than he can describe. He can only imagine how frustrating it is for you to have him be so turned on by your anger and yelling but he just can’t help himself. You look so sexy when you’re mad and all he wants to do is pin you to a wall and fuck you so that you’re screaming in name in pleasure instead of anger.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Pulling his hair. There is nothing Monoma hates more than having his hair pulled. His scalp is pretty sensitive and it hurts pretty bad to comb his hair let alone brush it. If you pull his hair during sex, chances are he is going to get pissed off and want to stop to soothe his scalp.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

While he does take me as someone who would be more of a giver, I just don’t think that would be right and I don’t want to do my Baby Daddy wrong. He is all about having you on your knees, mouth around his cock and sucking away at it like your life depends on it. He loves how submissive it makes you look and how you are doing this only for his benefit and pleasure. However, he isn’t half bad when it comes to giving you head and is pretty generous when doing so. He makes sure to eat you out if he ended things too quickly for himself or as a reward for you being such a good girl.

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

He likes to take his time when it comes to sex, but the twist to this is that he can either take his time being rough with you or by being loving and gentle with you. Either way, you’re going to have a pretty good time because both feel amazing.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

He is up for quickies every once in awhile but not too often. He’d much rather have a pretty long time to admire and love you down fully. He could go for a quickie maybe 3-4 times a month and nothing more than that.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

He loves taking risks. Trying out new things during sex and testing boundaries and getting thrills is all part of the experiencing and he finds it to be a great bonding activity when it comes to sex. Anything you have in mind, he will be down for trying and he hopes that the same goes for him in regards to you.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

He has an average amount of stamina for a teen boy. He can go for about two rounds and lasts 15-20 minutes tops. He likes to draw things out and build you up to a point in which you are practically begging him to fuck you before he finally gives you what you want.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

You bet your ass he has toys. He has two dildos, one for him and one for you both to share, and a vibrator. He likes being able to use them on you and vice versa since they make things more exciting between you both in the bedroom. It sexy seeing you pleasure yourself with one of his toys as he jerks himself off.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He is a major tease. If there is an opportunity to tease you, you can bet that Monoma is going to take it. He loves having you beg and whine for him, turning you into this needy, desperate mess of a person just for him. It turns him on seeing you so desperate for his touch, for his body, and simply just for him.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

He doesn’t get all that loud but the sounds he makes are pretty sexy. They’re usually deep low moans that start in his chest and seem to echo when they reach his mouth, followed by a soft whisper of your name.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Doesn’t like his after sex bed hair. He can’ manage it the day after because it sticks up in all sorts of different places and it’s so stiff due to all the dried sweat in it. Everyone can always tell when he has had sex because of it and it’s more annoying to him than embarrassing.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

Such a pretty cock this boy has. Now, it isn’t the longest or widest, but damn is it fucking pretty. When fully erect it stands at 4.8 inches and it has pretty average girth to it. The tip of his cock is always flushed a soft pink color both when it it hard and soft, and the color only seems to seep lower and lower to the base of his cock the longer he has been aroused for. It’s all smooth and even skin tones and his veins aren’t all that noticeable. It curves upwards slightly as well.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

He has a pretty average sex drive, usually ready to have sex about 2-4 times a week during the beginning stages of your relationship, but as you two continue to date, it might increase to 3-5 times a week.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He doesn’t fall asleep until after you two have had some mild yet sweet pillow talk. He likes to talk to you after sex as he caresses your body, asking you how everything was and if you are okay. When you’re conversation comes to an end, that’s when he’ll go to sleep, letting you know just in case you decide to stay up longer than he does.

Wanna see some other shit I’ve written?

#bnha monoma #monoma neito #monoma neito x reader #boku no hero academia #bnha #boku no hero academia imagines #bnha imagines #boku no hero #bnha scenarios #bnha writing #lemon

619 notes · View notes

zalrb · 4 years

Note

Which shows that you watch do you think ended well? Like the characters each got the end that fitted them? What did you think about how each characters journey ended on the good place?

I realized the only season I really cared about of TGP was season 1. Season 2 was decent. Season 3 was OK. Season 4 I just didn’t care and watched it because I was watching the show for so long and so when their endings came, it didn’t feel like closure, it felt rushed, which doesn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t fitting, I just didn’t think the execution of the endings was done well. Like it makes sense that Eleanor won’t be able to achieve peace until she gets Mindy St. Claire to go through their exercise but Eleanor and Mindy hadn’t interacted in how long? It just came out of nowhere despite the fact that it didn’t come out of nowhere. It makes sense that Jason would accidentally become a monk in the forest waiting for Janet but because I didn’t think Jason and Janet’s relationship was well-written, the framing of why and how he did that felt a little ridiculous to me. Chidi, I honestly think he changed this season without it being development, without it building upon the seasons before, I get it, it makes sense that he’d become confident but how he became confident and how he acted when he was confident, I was just like, but that’s not Chidi? And him ready to achieve peace because he saw Eleanor and her mother share a moment of intimacy, I guess for Chidi/Eleanor shippers that’s everything and I recognize that a lot of the show is built upon their connection but because I didn’t think their connection was earned past season 1, it did nothing for me. Michael becoming human was like, fine, yes, but Michael was never a character I particularly cared about so I just shrugged.

In terms of shows that ended well, Friday Night Lights is always the one that comes to mind, I have no issues with it. Avatar The Last Airbender had a great series finale. Although I have issues with some aspects of Veep’s finale, it ended appropriately. I thought Breaking Bad’s ending was too neat but it made sense for the characters. The Wire’s ending.

3 notes · View notes

dirtreally · 5 years

Note

top 5 manga/doujins

okay i spent a lot of time thinking about this and i don’t think i can really rank them in any significant way other than the order that they popped into my head after reading this and hopefully that will speak for itself

1. Fukaboku

its fuckiiiiiiiiin fukaboku babeyyyyyyyy!!!! the first chapter of this dropped a couple of months after i began understanding myself as nb and it just continued to kill it for like 8-ish chapters afterwards, during which i ended up finding the courage to actually think of myself as an nb person rather than [assigned gender]. i feel really weird about putting this as #1 cuz as the months go on, it’s becoming increasingly clear that what i want from fukaboku and what it wants to do with its premise are gonna become harder and harder to resolve with each other, but it’ll always have a special hold over me cuz it was the #1 thing i was looking forward to reading every day for like 6-ish months www

2. My story of being loved

yeah this kinda sucks. i reread it just now and one of the dramatic plot twists actually made me burst out laughing. but there’s something really sincere and sweet about it?? i don’t like reading into works in this way but it really does feel like the author just wrote this to communicate something to a specific type of person in the most blunt way possible aka a thinly-veiled author insert character who spends most of the oneshot reacting to the other girl. i think a lot of why i like this one so much is cuz even all of its’ weird writing decisions feel like the manga tripping over its own balls because it’s so excited to sell you this specific story

3. Her Pet

this one’s a little rough because while it’s not overtly horny about its high school-aged cast there’s definitely a lot of horny undertones to it and i dont want to eat my own ass for her pet because its absolutely written and marketed with that in mind but it’s also the only story about bullying that i’ve ever actually connected to specifically because of this, because of how it shows how bullying fucks up your ideas of romance, intimacy, and sexuality, because of how it showed a character who got abused for so long that she was unable to create an intimate relationship with an entirely different person without recreating aspects of that abuse, because of how even the happy ending where she gets over all of this has her relapse into this sort of thinking (its played off as kind of a joke but it still sticks out in my mind a lot because MAN). it’s genuinely a really dense piece of work, narratively, but it’s really worth it and imo it’s one of the best manga/comic/manhwa out there about abuse because even though it’s steeped in melodrama all of the neat narrative choices about the aftereffects of gayoon’s shitty school life bleed into the text in a bunch of really subtle ways? there’s definitely some narrative tension into Wanting To Do A Melodrama With A Whacky Slightly Horny Marketable Hook and Wanting To Be Tasteful And Frank About It(which, to its credit, is the one that wins out most of the time) but it gets resolved really well by the time the whole thing ends off.

4. Girl’s last tour

If girl’s last tour didn’t exist i absolutely wouldn’t be doing art right now. I spent 2 years feeling extremely exhausted with contemporary pop art (both in anime/manga and broader pop culture) and images in general because i felt like i was looking at the same images repeated ad infinitum reduced into the barest of shapes like some night in the woods type thing. artistically, girl’s last tour felt like the one thing that actually understood what i was going through. reading the manga, yuuri and chiito are both drawn as these vague shapes that are definitely meant to be people but feel like they are animated by the wind rather than by like, muscles, or something. their shapes bleed into each other, and into their surroundings, and it feels like if you poked a spoon into any page of the manga you could stir it around and see these shapes swirl into each other before slowly becoming even more indecipherable. even the architecture feels vague, meant to give off the IMPRESSION of a building/monolith in such a way that it sometimes feels like the drawings are barely holding themselves together. like if you looked at a road too hard it would break in half. this is a really hard thing to communicate but i hope that you get what i am saying. the art of GLT felt like it embodied the same feeling i had for years at that point, where i felt like my lineart was barely holding myself together, and if i let my guard down for a second i would spill into the floors and drains of the buildings around me and only be able to exist by being acted upon. with that in mind, it was absolutely lifechanging that the actual narrative content of glt is about two people who are alienated from their environment in every meaningful way and no doubt have the same variety of brain shit i do, but are still able to find happiness even just by being alive. There’s a longer version of this part where i go on to talk about what the narrative actually does and the larger tkmiz mythos surrounding it, and how THAT became it’s own obsession that used to be an extension of my love for glt but now exists as the main thing and w glt as an extension of THAT. but this is maybe getting too long and i think you probably get the idea now. i know this is a lot coming from someone who only does one okay art thing every other month but like even though it makes me feel like shit 90% of the time drawing stuff is the one part of my life i feel like i actually have some Ws in, and without glt and without tkmiz’s larger work in general, i wouldn’t even have that much going on

5. vector spectacle

to be honest, vector spectacle isn’t nearly my favourite touhou doujin(at chirei no contest), but it feels so special just because of how unlike anything else i’ve read it is. There’s so much energy in the pages, it’s basically a pop-up book. i can feel the almost nauseating, manic, energy bouncing from page to page, that itself feels directed at nothing and everything all at once; at whatever point in time this was drawn, wherever in the world it was drawn, the person who drew this felt this exact emotion

#wickedhermit

12 notes · View notes

nikkigrand · 5 years

Text

I started this so long ago and really have no idea where I was going with it. Essentially, Sakura is from a normal civilian AU, dies, and wakes up in the shinobi world and thinks she’s gone insane. Basically, it’s civilian Sakura reacting to the shinobi around her. If you want to adopt it, please send me a message!

Mentions of infidelity and M/M.

Sakura was having a shit day.

She supposed there were more eloquent words to describe her current situation; but as she kneeled in the ruins of her once prized and expensive porcelain china—a precious family heirloom passed down from her mother, whose own mother had gifted her after receiving it from her own mother, and so forth until its initial reception—with tears drying on her blotchy face, she reasoned that no other word would suffice.

Her day had been absolute horse shit.

It was a Tuesday, a normal day by any means, and Sakura had woken up the same way she’d been doing for the last four years: she’d risen with a smile at 7 o’ clock sharp, brushed her lips against the soft skin of her darling husband’s forehead (who then turned around and tried to coerce her back to bed with strong arms and affectionate kisses peppered along her shoulders that soon turned heated), rushed to the bathroom with promises of later, babe!, did her usual morning routine, had a nutritious breakfast of overnight oats and egg whites with a side of fruit, and then left to work.

For about two and a half years now, Sakura had gotten used to the motions of starting up her expensive white Range Rover (a gift from her husband’s wealthy parents), to taking one last glance in the rearview mirror to make sure her makeup was perfect, before driving to her job as a clerical assistant at a law firm in the city.

She was a glorified secretary and though Sakura didn’t necessarily like her job, it paid the bills while she pursued her Doctorates in pediatric medicine and that was good enough for her. Some might—and have—argue that her husband was wealthy enough to support them both until she finished her studies, but Sakura came from a low to mid income family and felt uncomfortable with the idea of not working for what she had.

Besides, she would be graduating in two semesters and starting a paid internship at the hospital under the tutelage of the city’s most decorated and awarded pediatric surgeon, Senju Tsunade, so it wasn’t like this job was for forever. Sakura had fought tooth and nail—or rather, studied until her eyes melted out of her head—to get noticed by the prestigious and hard to impress woman, and it was by sheer stroke of luck that she had managed to make a favorable impression with her research on child cancer.

So, by all respects, today was supposed to have been an absolutely normal and optimistic day like all the rest. Greeting the gate guard with a smile, Sakura had pulled into the parking lot of the well-known Uchiha & Sons law firm, parked her car, grabbed her tote with all her daily supplies (i.e. her lunch, her laptop, important case files, etc.), and made her way to the entrance.

Upon entering the large and extravagant building, Sakura waved and smiled at employees stationed at the welcome desk as she flashed her ID before entering the elevators. The inside was purposely surrounded by mirrors and, as per routine, she dutifully looked herself over to make certain that not a hair was out of place.

The law firm’s CEO, Uchiha Itachi-sama, was a firm believer that presentation of one’s self was key and Sakura agreed. If you dressed like a slob, people would assume you were a slob—at least, that’s what her mother always told her—and Sakura was pleased with the day’s choice of a white textured top, high waisted navy trousers cut at the ankles, and gray suede pointed pumps.

The elevators pinged as she arrived at her floor and Sakura took one last look at her long, perfectly curled hair, adjusted her necklace, and fingered her diamond earrings before taking a step out towards her desk.

As per usual.

Sakura had always taken comfort in the boring routine of her work life because it was so very easy compared to the stress of medical research on top of school work. So imagine her surprise when she came upon a cardboard box on top of her neat and tidy desk.

That had certainly not been part of her routine, and neither was being told by a mousy coworker that she had been ordered to meet with her boss as soon as she arrived.

Apprehension had risen in her chest high enough to smother her confusion and Sakura had nervously shuffled her way to the elevators, mindful of the sympathetic stares thrown her way. It had felt like a funeral procession.

As the doors to the elevators shut, Sakura wrung her hands anxiously at the thought of meeting her boss. She wasn’t stupid; she knew what cardboard boxes on people’s desks meant, but she hadn’t a clue as to why it was on hers.

She knew for an absolute fact that the CEO thought her a model worker and, frankly, had a bit on a crush on her. In fact, it wasn’t even a secret that Itachi-sama pined after Sakura the way a schoolgirl fawned over a crush. He was awfully attentive of her actions and, while his flirtations were subtle, Sakura knew as well as she knew that the sun was hot that if she ever divorced her husband, Uchiha Itachi would come running with expensive flowers and diamonds to woo her into being his.

As if that would ever happen.

Therefore, she had safely assumed that he wouldn’t be the one letting her go; which was odd in and of itself, considering that all lay-offs would have to be approved by the CEO or directly sanctioned by the CFO.

Which, as Sakura soon came to learn from her boss’s secretary’s apologetic words, was the case.

Uchiha & Sons’ CFO—a dazzlingly beautiful but surly man by the name of Uchiha Sasuke—had never really liked her. She’d only officially met him once, but it appeared that once was enough, for when she saw him again two months later he had treated her like the dirt beneath his designer shoes.

At first she thought he disliked how much Itachi-sama fawned and showed preference over her—it was rather unprofessional, and it was no secret that Sasuke had a bit of a brother complex—then she thought he disliked her charismatic and friendly nature, but after a few insults thrown her way, she figured that some people just didn’t need a reason to hate someone.

In fact, he had such little regard for her that he didn’t find it worth his time to fire her himself.

But now, as she picked herself up from porcelain shards that bit into her skin with as much dignity as she could possibly muster, Sakura mused that she had been fucking naïve.

She had returned to her desk and set about packing up her belongings in silent shock, unable to look at her coworkers who were staring at her humiliation in pity, as if she needed the damn job to live.

She would admit that she was a bit sad to go—mostly because she would miss her friendly coworkers and despite being a married woman, she quite liked Itachi’s attention and found it flattering—but she was also glad that she’d be able to spend more time with her wonderful husband—her husband who shone like the sun, whose eyes held all the world’s oceans, whose smile lit up her life.

So, though she had been a bit gloomy as she got into her car and bid the firm one last good-bye, she saw the silver lining in the prospect of affection and intimacy waiting for her at home.

Driving out the city towards her lovely house, Sakura’s thoughts had danced with the image of Uzumaki Naruto’s smile when she surprised him at their home. She imagined how he’d sweep her up into his strong arms, declaring how great it was that his Sakura-chan was home to make him ramen at all hours of the day before she called him an idiot and reminded him that she was competing in a body-building show and needed to watch her carb intake if she wanted to come first in bikini—again.

As usual when thoughts of her sunshine boy came to mind, Sakura had sighed lovingly like a lovestruck fool. She and Naruto had met as children when he’d scraped his knee after taking a tumble from a slide and, being the loving and innocent child that she was, she had rushed to him to brush away his tears and lay a sloppy kiss on his dirty cheek to make him feel better. When he’d looked at her like she was crazy, she had explained with all the wisdom of a five year old child, that, “Mama says kisses make booboos feel better!”

After seeing her point, he’d asked her name, she’d learned he was Naruto, and he then proceeded to grab her hand, drag her up to the highest point in the playground (which so happened to be the slide) and declare to all who would listen that he was going to marry her someday.

Sakura had been so embarrassed she had punched him in the nose.

Such was the start of their odd friendship.

A few years later, at the age of twelve, Naruto moved away to another city and Sakura was devastated. He was her best friend and, though she didn’t return his affections, he was her everything.

It was really no surprise that when his family moved back 7 years later, he was still her everything. Except by that time they had both loved and had their heartbroken in return enough to realize where their love truly lay.

Obviously with each other.

Needless to say, when Uzumaki Naruto made Haruno Sakura his wife at the age of twenty, it was with the promise of forever; and on this Tuesday when she had woken up, she had loved him with the same ferocity and passion as the day she said, “I do.”

So, clearly, something must have gone horribly wrong in their seven years of marriage to warrant her currently shaking hands and stomach churning with burning rage and agony in her silent home, right?

You’re not wrong.

See, Sakura had parked her car in her driveway with a bright smile, had glanced at the Maybach coupe across the street with an appreciative whistle (they lived in a wealthy neighborhood, but a Maybach was still a Maybach), and had opened the side door to her home quietly because it was 10 in the morning and, of course, Naruto would still be asleep.

She had set her box of items down on her kitchen island, slipped off her shoes, and quietly made her way to the master bedroom to pounce on the love of her life to wake him up with kisses.

Except, where there was supposed to be silence, there were grunts and hisses and moans and other wanton noises that would, under any other circumstances, make her blush.

The closer she got to her room—her room with her bed and clothes and perfumes and jewelry and her husband—the louder the noises became.

She had pressed her back to the wall next to the closed door, her heart pounding and feeling like she was going to be sick. A cold sweat broke out along her lower back, her hands shaking as she pressed them to her mouth to muffle her gasps that were quickly dissolving into sobs, and she gingerly leaned her head against the wall.

She recognized the sounds of pleasure coming from behind the door, knew them as well as the back of her hand, and for a moment she had the fleeting hope that perhaps he was doing it to himself. Naruto had a voracious sexual appetite and she knew that he masturbated constantly whenever she wasn’t available—which was a lot.

But when a low mewl pierced through the silence of the hall, one that Sakura absolutely did not recognize, she purged herself of such delusions.

Now, you must be wondering why she hadn’t burst into the room right then and there to catch them in the act and humiliate them the way they humiliated her; but in a stunning moment of clarity, Sakura questioned whether it was wise to burn that image into her mind. It wouldn’t make her feel better, for she knew without a doubt that her heart was broken and her marriage was over, but then again…she had a burning need to know who was behind that door.

After all, she hadn’t ever suspected that her darling Naruto had been entertaining a mistress.

Was the knowledge worth the lasting pain? Would seeing it with her own eyes make it more real?

The sounds from her bedroom reached a crescendo and she pushed off the wall resolutely. Sakura could either hold the upper hand in catching them unawares, or she could wait in the living room until they left the (her!) bedroom and met her knowing eyes.

But she couldn’t exactly tell how long they’d been in there and how long they planned to be there—she’d only been gone for two hours, after all—and that awful pain was giving way to a deep, corrosive anger.

Could she stand to sit on her couch, or at the dining table, and wait for them to finish with all of these tumultuous emotions churning and raging in her gut? Could she stand to listen to another second of their rigorous lovemaking? At this rate, they were going to make a hole in her wall and, Lord, she was seeing red.

Because how dare they?

She could place all the blame on Naruto, but she knew for a fact that whoever was in there would have noticed Sakura’s vanity, her display of perfumes and jewelry and trinkets.

God, did she wear her perfumes when she wasn’t around? Did that unknown woman take her Louboutin heels and Hermes bags for a spin while the madam of the house devoted her time to her research? Could she have possibly, at some point, worn her mother’s pearls?

And Naruto—her dear, precious, loving, perfect, darling Naruto—had been so affectionate that morning as he begged her to come back to bed, even as he planned to see his mistress as soon as his wife left. He had been so passionate when they had sex the night before; and as he whispered familiar declarations of love against her lips, she had been none the wiser.

Worst of all was the fact that they were fucking on her bed! Her parents’ wedding gift!

The thought and speculations made her chest heave with fury and disgust and Sakura had pushed off the wall ferociously before facing the door with flaring nostrils and clenched fists.

How fucking dare they!

With the type of strength that would have made her workout partner—her dear friend Hatake Kakashi from medical school—proud, Sakura kicked open her bedroom door hard enough to make it slam against the wall.

The two bodies on the bed cried out in alarm as they separated and struggled to cover themselves with silk sheets and Sakura could only stare, aghast, at the other occupant of the room.

Even sweaty and completely disheveled—hair sticking out in unruly spikes, cheeks flushed with exertion, and what was clearly semen on his chest—Uchiha Sasuke looked the definition of beauty.

And, boy, did that piss her off.

Not as much as the fact that they were having dirty, dirty sex on her bed did, though.

“Sa-Sakura-chan!” Naruto cried, his blue eyes as large as saucers. “It’s not—“

“Shut the fuck up,” she said, her voice icy as her eyes remained glued to the other male in the room. “And get dressed—both of you.”

She felt no sympathy for Naruto when he flinched at her words, as she had never cursed at him and spoken to him in such a manner, and the Uchiha had the audacity to glare at her.

When no man made to move towards their discarded clothing—well, one man, because Naruto slept in the nude—Sakura turned her cold glare onto Naruto.

“Now, Naruto,” she spat and again, neither man moved.

Patience gone and fury mounting, Sakura screeched, “I said, get up and get fucking dressed!”

She grabbed the closest thing to her, which so happened to be a priceless, one of a kind Lalique Bacchantes crystal vase, and threw it at their heads. It shattered over the headboard and both men lunged out of bed to avoid the raining glass. Her chest heaving with ill suppressed rage, Sakura paid no mind to their nudity as they stared at her with various degrees of shock.

Pity; that had been a wedding gift from her darling in-laws.

Unable to withstand looking at their faces any longer, Sakura spun around on her heel and marched out of her bedroom. She had no idea what she intended by making them get out of bed in the nude, what was even the point?! All she had seen were hickeys and scratches and bodily fluids and penises and, oh god, she felt sick.

“Sakura!” Naruto called after her as she made her way to her discarded heels. She heard him trip as he no doubt tried to pull on some sweat pants and her lips pulled into a tight line.

Hastily gathering her things to go—to go anywhere but here, Sakura turned around at the sound of her husband’s approaching foot falls. He looked as beautiful as he always did, and the plain panic in his face almost made her burst into tears, but then Sasuke came from around the corner and she held her ground.

His hands reached out to her in supplication. “Sakura—Sakura-chan, please—“

“When?”

Cobalt eyes blinked in confusion and Sakura hissed, “When did this start?”

Both men looked distinctly uncomfortable and avoided her gaze but, surprisingly, it was the Uchiha who answered, “Two years ago.”

It felt like her whole world had been ripped from beneath her feet, and as her knees threatened to give out from under her, Sakura gripped onto the kitchen island to steady herself.

Two years they had been having this sordid affair. For two years she had been the loving wife, believing her husband to be loyal and faithful when he apparently found pleasure in someone else. It didn’t even matter that it was with a man—she knew that Naruto was bisexual—what mattered was that he had been unfaithful, disrespectful, and lied to her.

From between gritted teeth she spat, “How?”

At this, Naruto took a step towards her but her hand quickly curling around a crystal candle holder stopped him in his tracks. “Listen to me, Sakura-chan—“

“How, Naruto?”

She followed his Adam’s apple as he swallowed nervously before recanting the tale of how, two years ago, he had gone to surprise her at her office with lunch. He hadn’t found her because, in true Naruto fashion, he had forgotten that she had taken that day off to devote her time to her research and was at the library. On his way out, he had bumped into Uchiha Sasuke and as they exchanged insults, sparks had clearly flown. It started as meeting for simple drinks, then lunches and dinners, then going over to his place to check out his dojo, and then it somehow dissolved into a sexual relationship.

He gracefully spared her the details of how that all started out, but couldn’t she see that he still loved her? That he loved them both and wanted to be with them? He had never meant to hurt her! He only felt lonely as she was always so busy and worked so much and Sasuke understood him.

But as he spoke, all Sakura could think about was the fact that it all made perfect sense as to why Sasuke disliked her so much. It was clear as day that the Uchiha was in love with Naruto; she could tell by the way he gently curled his hand around the blonde’s wrist when he blatantly became distressed. All she could think about was how she had complained to her husband each time the Uchiha insulted her or treated her poorly and he had known why and lied.

Directing her glare at the Uchiha’s hand, then at his face, she said, “So this is why you had me fired.”

Naruto glanced at the Uchiha sharply. “Teme! You had her fired?!”

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her but said nothing; which was fine for Sakura because she turned her attention to her darling husband.

“I want a divorce.”

And Naruto, her star-shine and heaven, looked stricken as the words fell from her lips; were she a weaker woman, she would have taken them back. Of course, divorce had never been a thought in their heads—why would it? They loved each other—but Sakura was a woman scorned with a broken heart and had no such sympathy for the deep hurt painting his face.

Naruto shook his head, hands reaching towards her once more as he took a step, and his voice was thick when he said, “You don’t mean that, Sakura. Y-you don’t mean that.”

Nodding as she took a step back, closer to her china cabinet, Sakura nodded as her gemstone eyes narrowed. “I do. I will be going to a lawyer today and serving you with divorce papers as soon as possible. As this house is currently under my name, I expect you to vacate the premises as soon as possible. You may return to gather your belongings when I am not around.”

She saw how deeply her words hurt him, but he continued towards her, eyes imploring her to forgive him as he said, “We didn’t want you to find out this way.”

And it was like a flip was switched.

Awful, empty laughter filled the kitchen as Sakura stared at him incredulously. In the back of her mind, she noted that she was quickly dissolving into hysterics.

“Find out this way?!” She parroted, her eyebrows hiked up in disbelief. “How else did you want me to find out?!”

Sasuke looked incredibly uncomfortable, but he moved to stand next to his lover as the small woman lost her marbles.

“What,” She breathed, “Did you want me to find out over dinner? Is that it? You wanted to break it to me over a nice glass of Dom Perignon?”

Naruto’s lips pulled into a frown as he shook his head. “Sakura-chan—“

“Get out.”

He blinked at her, uncomprehending, and she had had enough. Reaching behind her, she grabbed the closest thing to her and threw it at his head. “Get out!”

Uncaring of the fact that she was hurling her precious, irreplaceable China at her lying, cheating, deceitful husband and his lover, Sakura continued to rage. Fat tears carved their way down her cheeks as she launched plate after plate, teacup after teacup, at their stupid faces.

The words “get out!” and insults were a mantra on her lips until both men scurried out of her house, half-dressed and covered in small scratches from where porcelain had shattered on their skin. As she crumpled to her knees, sobs wracking her small frame, she watched from the wide open front door as the love of her life and the love of his life got into the Maybach across the street and drove off into the sunset.

In the mess of her own making, Sakura curled into herself and wept for all that she had lost and how, despite everything, she still fucking loved that man.

And this is where we find her, picking herself up from heartbreak and gathering the pieces.

Sakura looked around her and grimaced at the mess she made, her heart breaking a little more at the thought of her mother’s inevitable tears at knowing the loss of such precious heirlooms, but she squared her shoulders and made her way to the guest bathroom in the living room.

There was no way she was going into that master bedroom today and she was definitely calling a cleaning service to get those soiled bed sheets burned. Turning on the lights to the bathroom, Sakura winced at her reflection. She looked an absolute mess with her eyeliner and mascara running down her face and her blotchy skin showing from beneath her CC cream.

Going back to the kitchen to grab her makeup bag from her tote and returning to the bathroom, Sakura set about removing her makeup and reapplying it. She was not going to walk into that law firm looking like a basket of misery. Reaching under the sink, she grabbed a spare curling iron and fixed up her hair. It was unfortunate that Uchiha & Sons was the only damned law firm in the city that handled rapid divorce cases, but she was going to walk in there with all the pride she possessed in her body and her head held high.

She was going to be strong. She was going to look Uchiha Itachi in the eye and tell him she wanted to divorce Uzumaki Naruto on the basis of infidelity and she was going to tell him the details with a straight face and even voice and she was not going to cry.

She ended up sobbing as soon as she saw the poor man’s face.

Itachi hurriedly closed his door behind her as he ushered her to the couch he kept in his office. Reaching behind her, he grabbed a tissue box and set in on her lap before brushing petal soft hair behind her ear as he settled beside her.

His kindness made her cry even harder and her cries turned to gasping sobs as she told him about her morning and how his brother was fucking her husband—or maybe her husband was fucking his brother—for the last two years and how much it hurt and she wanted Itachi to draft up divorce papers as quickly as he could.

By the end of her wailed spiel, Itachi looked a little green but he nodded as he moved to his desk to pull up the standard divorce template on his desktop. His hands hovered over his keyboard as he leveled apologetic eyes in her direction.

“I was not aware that you had been fired,” He said, his brows furrowing. “Had I known, I would have never let it happen. On behalf of the firm, I apologize.”

Sakura sniffled as she dabbed at the corner of her eyes. The apology was only a formality; it was common knowledge that she could sue for being wrongfully terminated from the work place, but by apologizing, Itachi had technically righted their wrongs.

Except that Itachi was sincere; she could feel it from where she was sitting and it made her feel a little better that there was at least one man who wasn’t scum.

“It’s not your fault,” She sniffed, sending him a wobbly smile. “You didn’t know what Sasuke was up to.”

At the mention of his little brother, Itachi’s face darkened but he said nothing. He returned to typing and things were quiet for a while. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but Sakura knew how these things usually went and wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

“I want nothing.”

Itachi turned his head and blinked at her slowly. “Pardon?”

Swallowing, Sakura wrung the tissue between her shaking hands, her eyes focused on the anxious twisting of her fingers. “I want nothing from him. I don’t want his money, I don’t want the house, I don’t want the cars or the properties or the furniture. I want what’s mine and mine alone.”

Itachi’s brow furrowed in confusion and Sakura was struck by how handsome he was. She always knew the man was attractive—it was a fact of life; the sky was blue, the grass was green, and Uchiha Itachi was gorgeous—but she knew it in an objective manner. Now, because her heart was hurting for comfort, she was aware of him and felt awful.

Someone as kind as Itachi deserved better than being her rebound.

“Sakura,” He started gently, his hands folding on top of his desk, “You know you’re owed half of the estates because of the affair. You’d be well off for the rest of your life. Why wouldn’t you want that?”

Sakura sighed, lips pulling into a frown. “Because I don’t want any reminders of him. Besides, that’s not even his money—it’s his parents’ money. I want this to be a clean divorce. To hold onto those sorts of things, to be paid alimony by a man I no longer want in my life...I think it’d be too much.”

Looking into his eyes, she found understanding and Sakura smiled sadly. “You know what I mean?”

Nodding, Itachi went back to typing away at his desk top. “Very well.”

Twenty minutes later saw Sakura with a draft of divorce papers slipped neatly inside a manila envelope. Itachi handed them to her with instructions to serve them to her soon to be ex-husband. She could either serve them herself, or she could get someone else to do it. A part of her balked at the idea of seeing Naruto again, but a larger part of her wanted this over and done with.

Once the divorce was finalized, she was planning to move somewhere far, far away from there to settle in some obscure city where no one knew her and maybe adopt three dogs and become a spinster and maybe yell at rowdy neighborhood kids who stepped on her petunias and—

“Sakura.”

Itachi’s velvety voice cut through her miserable thoughts and she glanced at him guiltily, as if he could read her mind, and was surprised to find him so close. He was only an arms’ distance away and Sakura could smell his wonderful sandalwood and rainwater cologne and she shivered when his large hand fell gently on her shoulder.

Far enough to be proper, close enough to show interest—such was the way Itachi flirted with her.

Tilting her chin to look him in the eye, Itachi held her gaze as he said, “Whatever you need, I’m here for you. Do you have a place to stay?”

Sakura nodded, her hand lifting to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “Yes, I was planning on renting a hotel for the night—“

“Unacceptable.”

Mouth going slack, Sakura could only watch as the man before her moved back to his desk to hurriedly gather his things into a satchel before pulling on his suit coat.

Unable to help herself because she was so very confused, Sakura blurted, “What are you doing?”

Itachi chuckled softly as he walked towards her stunned figure. “I’m offering you a room at my house and driving you there. Is that to your liking?”

Sakura almost groaned but held it in. It was sweet of him to offer her a place to stay, but she barely even knew him. Yes, there was a form of mutual attraction but Sakura was still very much in love with her ex-husband and felt sort of sick at the thought of being with someone new. Plus, Itachi was being too forward and she had a feeling it was uncharacteristic of him. There was always something about her that clouded his judgement.

Besides, she needed some time to herself.

“Oh, Itachi,” She sighed, not noticing how the man stiffened at the way she said his name, “That would be great, but I really need time to myself. Is that okay?”

Despite feeling a little disappointed, Itachi nodded and she gave him a hug as a reward for his kindness before she left. It wasn’t every day that a handsome multi millionaire showed such interest in you, but Sakura needed time.

A lot of time.

Feeling tired as she made her way to her car—which was parked across the street now that she wasn’t an employee and the visitor’s lot was packed—she wished she had taken the time to switch out her heels for some flats.

When Sakura had been four, her mother told her to look both ways before crossing the street; and you’d think that 27 year old Sakura would remember that, or at least remember to not stop in the middle of it, but nope.

Sakura, a grown woman of 27 years, crossed the street without looking, stopped in the middle to adjust her heel, and was promptly hit by a truck.

It was the fly to her already shit day, but what made it worse was that when she finally awoke from what she was sure was death, she was laying in the middle of a forest with no clue as to how she got there.

Waking up in the middle of nowhere with her head hurting like she’d just been hit by a truck—which actually happened—was not on Sakura’s bucket list. Things like skydiving, owning a chinchilla, and ziplining through the rainforest were on her bucket list.

Standing on wobbly legs, she groaned as her head pounded with each step she took. She could tell she was still in her grey pumps and she really wished she had switched them out for some flats. Turning around in a circle, she tried to find her tote, but she couldn’t find it anywhere and that meant she was without aspirin.

Fortunately for her, she still had her phone tucked into the back pocket of her trousers. Pulling it out as she gaged her surroundings, Sakura figured she was probably in some park somewhere. She didn’t know how she got to said park, but she’d save the panicking for when her brain didn’t feel like it was hosting a mosh pit.

All she had to do was open her phone’s GPS and figure out what nature trail she was on and make her way back to her shitty house to grab some clothes and rent a hotel.

However, Sakura quickly discovered the absence of cell phone reception and no amount of waving it around like an idiot would magically make a bar appear. Sakura huffed in frustration as she crossed her arms over her chest—her relatively unharmed chest. She’d dwell on the fact that she was hit by a truck later because, clearly, she was in a predicament.

Sakura had no idea where the hell she was.

Not for the first time, the pink haired woman wished she had learned something more useful in Girl’s Scouts than selling cookies - like telling North from South, for instance.

Maybe this was some type of messed up Heaven; one where new souls had to find their way out of a labyrinth to the pearly gates. But Sakura thought that couldn’t be right…she still felt the urge to pee.

Sighing, she went behind the nearest bush and relieved herself. Once done with that, she picked up a nearest stick with a leaf at the end, closed her eyes, tossed it in the air, and opened them when she heard it hit the floor.

The leaf pointed to the right, so Sakura pivoted on the ball of her foot and started walking to what she thought was eastward.

Glancing at her phone, it told her that she had been walking for about five minutes before she hit a well traveled road and she blinked upon looking towards the skyline and not seeing any skyscrapers. She couldn’t even hear any cars!

Licking her lips, Sakura wished she had some water and walked up the road in hopes that she’d encounter someone who could tell her where the heck she was. Her feet hurt like hell, and though she so badly wanted to take off her heels, she knew the one rule of wearing heels out in public: ‘Til Home Do Us Part.

She rolled her ankles a few times and she was just about to curse the rule to Hell when she came upon the biggest gates she’d ever seen. Staring at them in blatant wonder, Sakura noted how they looked like the gates from that Jurassic Park movie and she quickly spun around. Shutting her eyes, she counted to ten before peeking over her shoulder at what most definitely should not be in her city.

Unless they were the gates to Heaven…?

But these gates sure looked dingy…and somehow, she thought that Heaven’s gates would be a lot shinier and clean.

Taking a step closer in contemplation, she didn’t hear the warning shout until they were upon her and she cried out when the biggest dog she’d ever seen came barreling into her and knocked her to the ground.

As she lay there, stunned, sea glass eyes staring dazedly up at the sky, she wondered in what damn world she was in that random men fell from the trees with mutant sized dogs crashing into unsuspecting women.

Uchiha Shisui hated being on a team with Inuzuka’s. They were loud, didn’t really like being ordered around, and their ninken listened to no one but their masters. At least, that was the case with Inuzuka Kiba. Outside of a mission, he quite liked the kid, but outside of village gates, Shisui found him to be a nuisance. Formidable shinobi he may be, but professional he was not.

Such was the case when Kiba goaded Genma into a race back to the village. You’d think that two jonin would be over such childish behavior, but this was not the case. Both men took to the trees and Shisui shook his head as they disappeared. He would normally be in the middle of the tomfoolery, but he was annoyed at the fluke of a mission they were sent on.

There had been a startling large burst of chakra outside the gates before disappearing completely and the three, by virtue of being in the Hokage’s office at the time, had been sent to investigate. They’d found nothing and it was puzzling that something that powerful had simply vanished.

Shrugging, Shisui combed a hand through his curly hair. Well, it was no sweat off his back. They investigated and there was nothing there, that was the report he’d give the Hokage.

Pumping chakra to his legs, he quickly caught up to them with the speed he was famous for and Konoha’s gates were coming up on them fast.

Kiba whined that he’d cheated, but Shisui only smirked. That was until he caught sight of a petite figure standing in front of the closed gates and he shouted Kiba’s name in alarm.

It was too late.

Akamaru crashed into the poor girl with the strength of a boulder and she fell back with a pained shout. Jumping of the branch he was perched in, Shisui quickly made his way to her side.

“Are you alright, miss?!” He asked as he came around a whimpering Akamaru and was struck dumb at the sight of her.

In his defense, it wasn’t every day that you saw someone with such coloring as her. She gaped up at him in clear shock, unmindful of the way her hair laid in disarray and dirt streaking across her cheek.

With her odd petal pink hair, eyes as green as emeralds, fair skin and even fairer face, Shisui thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Even disheveled and confused, mouth hanging open, she looked every bit a forest nymph.

He chanced a glance at both Genma and Kiba and found both staring at her with clear wonder. So it seemed that they, too, were not immune to her beauty.

“I’m sorry, but did you just jump out of that tree?!” She cried, eyes darting to him and then back to the tree he came from. “And land all the way over here?!”

#sakura haruno #up for adoption

23 notes · View notes

ghostiedoesherbest · 5 years

Text

Space Husbands

This is what I will be doing for February. Posting fluffy and/or smutty fics. If you were expecting anything better then obviously you haven't seen my main blog.

It had been a long yet fulfilling day for Mateo. He had been working nonstop since the end of the war. He couldn't even enjoy his own wedding because there was so much work to be done. He hadn't even seen his husband outside of the bedroom and there hadn't been much talking when they were both bone tired. Mateo had taken it upon himself to rework the education system to lighten Lotor's load.

At first he was met with resistance since they had such a harsh system for over 10,000 years. It was like pulling teeth to get some of them to admit that while the current framework was effective, it wasn't great for the mental state of some of the softer students. They didn't have as much need for such a militaristic lifestyle anymore and that was a tough adjustment to make.

Lotor had the harder job because he had to oversee everything. He loved being able to live on the home of his forefathers but right now he wanted to resurrect his parents and strangle them for royally fucking everyone over. The fight to end the slave trade was beginning to make him want to murder his advisors. They were slimy nobles that thought they could manipulate Lotor because he was "softer" than his father. They had the audacity to start pressuring Lotor to birth an heir when neither he nor Mateo were ready for children.

Mateo had been shocked to learn that the Galra had the technology to allow same sex couples to have biological children. However he was content just to have his scaly baby, Toby, not feeling like his life was stable enough for a child that needed constant care. Lotor had respected his decision, understanding that Mateo wanted to have time to give their child the love that they would need. And they would be loved, make no mistake.

Mateo had finally gotten around to teaching his first class of students and they were all starry eyed to see the Emperor's husband teaching their class. They adored the white patches all over his fur, one child even gifted him with flowers that now rested proudly on his desk. According to Lotor, the way vitiligo affected his pigmentation made him beautiful and exotic to the Galra, since most of them came in varying shades of purple and blue. To Lotor, Mateo appeared to have had his body worshipped by star light. This obviously flattered Mateo who had always had his skin condition treated as such a negative thing. No one had been able to find the beauty in it aside from his mother, rest her soul.

Now, all Mateo wanted to do was to lie face down in his big fancy bed and sleep for the entire weekend. That was the plan until he woke the pleasurable sensation of a tongue on his back. At first, he thought it was part of a nice dream until he felt familiar run over his chest as that rough tongue traced his spine. He shuddered violently at the feeling, biting his lip to hold in the moan building in his throat. His chest vibrated with contented purrs and another set of purrs joined his.

"You could have at least woken me up," he sighed as the hands on his chest moved lower to massage his stomach.

Lotor let out a throaty chuckle, "But you looked so peaceful. I could not bring myself to interrupt your pleasant dreams."

"Then what do you call this?" Mateo asked as he covered Lotor's hands with his own, bringing one up to kiss the palm the way he knew his husband loved.

The Emperor let out a ragged breath, "Spoiling you as I promised." There was a sharp intake of air Mateo ran his tongue along Lotor's hand, all the way to his middled finger that he took into his mouth with a mischievous smirk. The other hand had moved to his hip, pulling it back until it rested against Lotor's. Mateo played into this and rolled his hips backwards, causing a deep growl to cut through Lotor's purring.

Lotor leaned down to lick and nip at the back of Mateo's neck, earning a sharp gasp, the feel of those fangs lightly scraping against his skin sending heat south. "Oh, how I have missed you," he sighed, kissing Mateo's cheek as he helped him remove his now wrinkled shirt.

Before he could return to that sinfully tempting back, Mateo grabbed Lotor by the neck and dragged him down into a deep kiss, tongues battling for dominance until Mateo finally won as Lotor whimpered in pleasure. When they pulled away, Lotor was breathing heavily, frustrated that his kisses always left him flustered. Mateo smirked amusement before returning to his previous position and wiggled his rear tauntingly.

Lotor growled playfully and yanked Mateo's pants down to his knees, eyes gleaming woth unspoken promises as he took in his spouse's quivering form. Lotor trailed his tongue down from Mateo's neck to the cleft of his ass, stopping to nip in places that made his back arch in pleasure. Mateo balled the sheets in tight fists as he felt large hands spread him open and warm breaths fan over his entrance.

"Lotor!" He gasped.

"Shh, Starlight. Let me taste you," Lotor purred before flicking the tip of his tongue against Mateo' entrance. The half human hybrid moaned and shifted his hips to get closer, inviting his spouse to indulge in what he desired. Who was Lotor to disobey? He pressed his tongue flat against his entranced and teasingly dipped his tongue im for mere moments before taking it out. He reached around and gentlu traced his nails along Mateo's member causing the young man to arch his back in pleasure.

"Keep teasing and I'll get the vibrator," Mateo growled, pressing his forehead against the cool satin pillows.

"Do not tempt me Starlight," Lotor retorted with his own growl, growing impatient as well. Lotor leaned over Mateo's back and retrieved a container of lubricant jelly from his nightstand drawer. Mateo had gained a certain affinity for the squishy cubes in their escapades.

Lotor took one out of the container and squeezed it firmly between his fingers before gently pressing against Mateo's entrance. It quivered as Lotor dutifully worked to get the cube to rest within his spouse, rubbing his stomach when it finally slipped inside.

The lubrication cubes were a neat little invention of Lotor's own creation. They were to go inside the body cool before expanding to fill the passage as it was exposed to the body's heat before melting, leaving Mateo well prepared for Lotor in mere minutes. Of course, it was a very stimulating experience for Mateo and arousing for Lotor to watch his partner squirm from the sensation of something that he'd made specifically for their pleasure. It did all of the work for him and yet he felt like he accomplished this feat himself because in a way he had.

By the time the cube melted, Mateo was a panting mess, almost sobbing for his release. Lotor was all to willing to give it to him as he shed his own clothes in annoyance of their presence. He pressed against Mateo, hissing at the the sensation of their skin finally making contact before guiding himself into the twitching entrance. No matter how many times they joined, it always felt like the first time to Lotor.

Correction, their first time had been full of fumbling fingers and heated kisses but it felt like Lotor had wanted their first time to go. Lotor didn't even get the tio in before Mateo began to tighten around him. He had to put his hands behind his back and squeeze his arms to ground himself. That effort was for nought as Mateo rolled his hips and seated himself fully on Lotor's dick.

"Oh Lotor!" He moaned, arching his back and curling his toes. He yelped when a large hand connected with his ass with an echoing clap. Lotor was breathing heavily to maintain some semblance of control. "That was a dirty move, Starlight."

"What are you gonna do about it Emperor?" Mateo taunted as he wiggled his hips the way Lotor liked, earning a deep growl from his husband.

Lotor responded worh a harsh thrust, setting a brutal pace that caught Mateo completely off guard. Lotor had never been one to go fast and hard, preferring to savor the intimacy of the act rather rush his release but there was no way Mateo was going to complain. Lotoe was bent over his back like, snapping his hips with increased fervour. Mateo could feel homself getting close and he welcomed the release.

Only for him to whine when Lotor slowed to almost a snail's pace with softer thrusts. Lotor raked his tongue over his ear before whispering, "You cum when I feel you have repented." Woth that he sped up again and Mateo welcomed the change of pace, feeling himself nearing the edge once again before Lptor slowed. They continued this way, trying to see who could outlast the other.

It was a tough battle and neither was willing to give in. It wasn't until Lotor's knot began to swell, catching on Mateo's entrance did one of then finally break, "I'm sorry! Forgive me my Emperor!"

Lotor gave a rough chuckle, "Excellent." Mateo thanked him over and over as he sped up once more, allowing Mateo to finish with a loud cry while he continued to pound him into the mattress to meet his own completion as his knot swelled.

Lotor held Mateo to his chest, never slipping out of him as he rolled to allow Mateo to lay on his chest. They were both breathing as though they'd run a marathon and they enjoyed the feeling of each other twitching every now and again in post-coital bliss. Mateo sighed in contentment, "We haven't had this much fun since our wedding night."

Lotor ran his nose along the scar on Mateo's neck in remembrance of that night. "Indeed, I look forward to surpassing that night."

Mateo furrowed his brows at Lotor, "Lotor I have to talk to your advisors tomorrow.

"Not anymore. It appears that you have become ill and need my tender care, so we will not be able to make an appearance," Lotor fave him a mischievous grin as they settled down for the night. "Rest, my Starlight. You must think of your health afterall."

Mateo chuckled at his husband's absurdity but obeyed nonetheless, drifting off into a peaceful sleep.

Tag List: @starfaring-princelotor @motheroflittlelions @fandomsoffeelings@done-with-your-shit-shirogane @kirahhhh @legendofcarl @lotor-for-emperor@marvelheaux @yanderemommabean @lotorrential @planet-jumping-warrior

#welcome to the lotor deserves better coalition #lotor x oc #lotor imagine #prince lotor imagine #prince lotor #lotor #mateo #mateo mcclain #lemon #let the boys be happy #ruling an empire is stressful business #this is my first smut #i hope you can't tell that I've never had sex before #hope i did good

26 notes · View notes

jane-ways · 6 years

Text

The Love of Small Things, Ch 4

Read it on AO3 & SWG!

Many thanks to @nerdvnel for beta reading!

It was morning in Valinor, and the sun was shining. Well, the sun was almost always shining in Valinor, but right now it happened to be shining directly into Fingon’s eyes. He sat, resolute, at the little dining table in his breakfast nook. Fingon loved the breakfast nook for the way it caught the early morning light, but it was now closer to mid-day, and the angle was all wrong—alright, if Fingon was being honest, everything was all wrong. He sighed in frustration, tossing his quill onto the pile of parchment scattered across the table.

‘Whatever am I supposed to say?’ he thought to himself hopelessly. And yet, he felt he ought to say something. It would be awkward if he didn’t say something, wouldn’t it? He was the son of Fingolfin, after all; he had been raised to take duty to family very seriously. But what sort of duty does one have to the fully-grown, adopted son of one’s lover? He laughed aloud at the sheer absurdity of it all. ‘Only in the House of Finwë,’ he thought.

A squirrel clambered up on the tree branch near the window. Sniffing the air, it looked through the window and chirped at him. He smiled encouragingly, and it considered him for a moment before scampering away, fluffy tail bouncing.

‘Perhaps the best thing is to stop thinking over-much about it,’ Fingon thought, and, picking up his quill once more, he began to write.

To the High King Gil-galad Ereinion, from Findekáno Ñolofinwion

My good sir,

It is a pleasure to finally begin a formal correspondence—well, any correspondence!—with you. I felt given my close—

“Um,” said Fingon aloud. How much of Maedhros’s personal life was known to the lad? Maedhros was a private sort of man; Fingon would hate to speak out of turn to someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a perfect stranger. Amongst the Noldor, he and Maedhros were something of an open secret—well, considering they were currently building a house together, Fingon doubted they were even a secret anymore—but Fingon did not know how much First Age gossip had passed down to Gil-galad about the High Kings and their love lives. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘Erestor can fill him in,’ and continued on:

—relationship with Nelyo—that is, Maedhros—it was only appropriate for me to make your acquaintance. I would not be so presumptuous as to write to you under the pretense of offering advice on king-ing—considering I was only High King for about five minutes, compared to you, it really ought to be the other way around! No, but what I can offer you is plenty of embarrassing stories about Maedhros when he was young and foolish. Well, compared to myself and my siblings, or even compared to most of his, really, he was never terribly foolish, but still, every young person has their folly.

I was, of course, hopelessly in love with him from the moment I saw him. Everyone was, but me especially. I was only a child; he was my tutor, and I loved him before I understood what that was. All I knew was I wanted so desperately to be around him, to make him proud, to see him smile. And what a smile! All the more beautiful for being rare, even in those days.

As I grew out of childhood, I began to realize my feelings for what they were, which, may I say, was an absolutely mortifying experience. I think I spent the entirety of my “in-between” years being tortuously self-aware of every ungraceful action or word—and at that age, there are so many. At the time, I thought Maedhros was merely being polite in not acknowledging what seemed to me a glaringly obvious crush, but the extraordinary thing is I think he really had no idea! Lucky for me.

By the time I reached the age of ascension, I had convinced myself we were nothing more than friends. By this point I had returned to my own household, and for many years saw Maedhros very rarely. Apparently, this had little effect; as soon as I felt mature enough to strike up a correspondence, we were often in each other’s company, now as companions and equals and no more as student and teacher. We were genuine friends, just two men enjoying each other’s’ company—that’s what I told myself. Enjoying each other’s’ company, indeed! Still, I thank myself—if I hadn’t so doggedly pursued a friendship with him, he never would have gotten to know me as a person—an individual, an equal, not only as a pupil, if you understand my meaning.

Fingon paused, his first break in a steady stream of consciousness. The memory of his old body was faint, but he still remembered in his muscles the ache in his chest of those years he spent apart from Maedhros. (Sometimes, in Beleriand, he had felt the echo of that ache, and for a long time, he had not understood it.) He had been happy, of course. He was Fingon; he was always happy, even when he wasn’t. He had been happy, but not fulfilled—not entirely.

He picked up his quill again.

I won’t bore you with all the details—this was done as much to spare Maedhros as Gil-galad—but suffice it to say that slowly, our relationship grew deeper and more intimate—

Abruptly, Fingon stopped short, and then snorted, before continuing—

—and before we knew it, we were, well, “together,” as they say. I was still a young man then, and for all that I was brash, and still tripping over my own feet, Maedhros was elegant, and considerate, and intelligent. And tall. Very tall. It utterly escaped me what this handsome, well-spoken, thoughtful man (the most sought-after bachelor in all of Aman!) saw in me. It still does! He called me “valiant” when all I ever felt in those days was foolhardy.

My very first memory of him is this: I arrived at my uncle Feanor’s household, scared out of my wits, homesick before my tutelage had even begun. And Maedhros had come out to greet us, and when he saw me, he smiled. He was perfect, and I have never loved another since.

Maedhros tapped the tip of his quill against the inkpot. He always did that when he was thinking; it helped him focus. He was writing Gil-galad to “introduce” him, as it were, to the family—not who they were, of course, that was in any history book, but a little of what they were like as people, their interests. His memories of them. The sort of thing one was unlikely to find in a history book.

Or so he hoped.

He had always been reserved, no less princely than his father, but more reticent to share the intimate parts of himself. Thus, emphasis on the intimate, his current dilemma. Maedhros had made it fairly easily through his immediate family, devoting much time to his mother and making it through a discussion of his father and brothers mostly without incident—which he considered a notable feat—before beginning the Ñolofinwean section. Uncle Fingolfin’s paragraph had gone smoothly: the two of them had always had a strong connection, being closer in age and disposition to brothers than uncle and nephew. (And closer in disposition than Maedhros ever was to Fëanor, whispered a voice in the back of his mind.)

And then, next in the neat little genealogical exercise Maedhros had laid out, was Fingon.

It wasn’t that Maedhros was concerned how Gil might view the relationship; Beleriand had been, in his experience, more liberal in both thought and practice than the Valinor of his youth when it came to intimate relationships, half-cousins or no. (‘Well,’ he considered, ‘maybe not in Turgon’s house.’ It was unlikely anything had been liberal there.) Even in Aman people more or less shrugged their shoulders and carried on when they encountered such things nowadays. It wasn’t fear of judgment, it was just—

He simply didn’t know how to do it.

Maedhros was not regarded as one of the more emotional members of his family—not, of course, that this was particularly difficult given some people he was related to—and in general felt a great discomfort when speaking of, dealing with, or indeed acknowledging emotions more complex than, say, hunger. Being a prince, he had learned to mask this discomfort with a heavy dose of Fëanorian Charm, but the truth was that Maedhros had never felt he was any good at talking about his feelings.

And so he hadn’t talked about his feelings to Gil, not really. He had written about what he knew of people, what he admired, what he remembered. Little stories and anecdotes he felt encapsulated the nature of that person, and of his relationship with them. But with Fingon, it felt impossible to share so many of those moments without first some explanation as to who Fingon really was to him. Perhaps if he related only the facts of their relationship—how they met, how they became what they were to each other—it would spare them both: Maedhros, the embarrassment of writing what he considered lurid and saccharine details, and Gil-galad, the embarrassment of reading them.

I first met my half-cousin Fingon when he was a boy, sent to study in our household. He spent many years with us, mostly under my tutelage, and by the time he left, he was a man in his own right, poised to assume the duties of a prince. I thought him particularly well-suited for the job: cheerful and polite, but intelligent and determined. He shortly began a correspondence, which pleased me, and thereafter we were rarely apart, for, having come into full manhood, I found him a pleasing companion and friend. It is gratifying for those of us who have been teachers to watch our students grow into adults, and to come to know and respect them as equals, as they have respected us.

Thus, a relationship of some intimacy developed. Pleased though I was at the attention Fingon bestowed upon me, especially in beginning our correspondence, I was also surprised—not only that he should seek the friendship of his former teacher, but that a gallant and popular young man would seek the attention of someone so reserved and bookish as myself. But I found he brought out the best in me, as I came to know him better—my humility, my humor, my kindness.

And so, when he first confessed his feelings to me, I realized I had quite accidentally fallen in love with him.

It was suggested that my uncle had sent my cousin to study in our household as a sort of peace offering, an appeal to my father—a way to bridge our two families. It certainly worked, although perhaps not in the manner intended. We had been friends—true friends—for so long I hardly remembered the boy I had known centuries before. He had grown into a person whom I cared for, yes, but more importantly, whom I respected as a prince and a leader. Someone I admired.

In all things he has been my partner, and it has been my great privilege to share my life with him.

Maedhros paused, feeling like he had caught his breath for the first time since he had started writing that passage. He purposefully untensed his muscles, picked up his quill again, and, setting it to the page once more, continued:

Turgon.

He sighed.

Gil-galad looked up from his letters at Elrond. They sat, as they often did, with Erestor and Maglor in a small, semi-private chamber Gil had begun calling his “family room.” (Amused, Maglor had informed him that Celegorm had often called such rooms “dens.”) A crackling fire illuminated Elrond’s face, reflecting in his eyes, which were now raised to meet Gil-galad’s.

“Did you know about Adar and King Fingon?” he asked quietly. Across the room, Erestor’s eyes widened, and Maglor’s face spread into a wicked grin.

“Everyone in wider Beleriand knew about my brother and Fingon,” interjected Maglor, with a laugh. “There were at least a dozen drinking songs about the two of them.”

“You ought to know,” sniffed Erestor, who was pointedly refusing to look up from his book. “You wrote half of them.” Maglor was positively beaming.

Elrond ignored them; having gotten up to stand behind Gil-galad’s chair, he was too engrossed in attempting to read over the king’s shoulder. Skimming the page, he said, “I knew a little, but this tells me nothing new, save that Fingon was the one who confessed to Adar.”

“I always knew it would be Fingon,” said Maglor. “Moryo was running bets—on who would confess first, and when—and I won the whole pool,” he finished proudly. Holding up a finger, he recalled, “‘Fingon, at sunset, by the beech tree, in summer.’ Oh, don’t look so aghast, Erestor; you bet, too, you’re just still upset you didn’t win.” Quirking his eyebrow, Elrond turned his gaze to Gil-galad. This is what you’re getting yourself into, his expression seemed to say. Are you sure you’re prepared?

Gil-galad just smiled.

#silmarillion #silm fic #tolkien #tolkien fic #the silmarillion #gil-galad #gil galad #elrond #maedhros #fingon #erestor #maglor #the love of small things #my fic

13 notes · View notes

starfiretheninja · 6 years

Text

Heartbeat- Robstar Week Day 7

*flops over* I am finally done with this piece and only a day late for Robstar week! I’ve had this idea for a while now and I decided to kick it out for such a special occasion. I hope you enjoy it!

Summertime in Jump City was a mixed bag at times. Lounging on the beach and spending all day swimming in the ocean was relaxing for the Titans in between battles that left them sweating profusely. The flavorful iced drinks that Cyborg concocted was best enjoyed when the days were too hot for even stepping outside.

During a particularly intense heat wave, Robin resorted to wearing casual clothing when at the Tower. Having little air circulation thanks to his black collar left him sweltering, testing his body’s endurance to the scorching heat. Having spent his younger years in Bludhaven, he had grown accustomed to cooler, milder temperatures. While the ocean did provide some relief, California temperatures inevitably rose. The city seemed to slow as no villains enacted any nefarious plans for the past several days. Robin was relieved at this as the Titans, himself included, preferred to pass through the heat wave at a sluggish pace without any strenuous activity.

When Red Star called them and asked for assistance in Russia about an unexplainable snowstorm, Robin immediately volunteered himself to go. Seeing some snow in the summer could be refreshing, despite the possible threat the storm held. Beast Boy started openly complaining about this decision, but then quieted down with a mischievous glint in his eye, saying something about an indoor water slide under his breath.

Robin gave him a side-glance, making a mental note to double check the Tower’s water damage insurance. Red Star then politely asked the Titans if two of them could assist his team, as they were stretched thin across the continent. He also noted that someone who could fly would be best as they could traverse the continent faster.

The boys turned to Starfire and Raven simultaneously. Raven patted Starfire’s shoulder.

“Here’s your flier,” Raven said. “I’m not in the mood to lose my toes to frostbite in July.”

With that decided, the two Titans immediately set a course for Russia with the T-Ship. After some detective work on Robin’s end, they eventually tracked down a facility where a new villain dubbed Eclipser was hiding. Upon sneaking in, the Titans found that her storm machine was generating unnatural wind currents to cover half of Russia in intense blizzards, allowing her to sneak into multitudes of national banks with minimal police interference.

Seeing an opportune moment when her back was turned, the Titans disabled the machine and attempted to nab Eclipser. The villain was true to her name, as she was extremely skilled at creating darkness to slink in, namely through pellets that emitted dark mist and killing the lights with an emergency power shutdown protocol. Robin nearly had her, as he was skilled in navigating the night from his time in Gotham, but Eclipser managed to dart away on her impressively silent hover car.

With the machine down, the wind currents would eventually die down, but there was still a villain to catch. The Titans rushed back to the T-Ship and followed in her wake. Navigating deeper into the blizzard, they closed in on the speeding hover car and managed to take out the engine. Touching down, the Titans could hardly believe their eyes when Eclipser was nowhere in sight.

“We cannot let her escape! I shall go this way. The two of you that way,” Redstar commanded.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to split up? The blizzard hasn’t gone down yet,” Robin questioned.

“This storm is fairly mild, you will have no problem finding your way,” Redstar said confidently. “If the storm keeps up, then return to the ship and take shelter.”

“If we are quick, we are certain to find her,” Starfire agreed. She and Robin shared a look. Normally they would hesitate to take such a risk. However, if Redstar had confidence that they would make it through this storm, then they had little to fear. He knew which storms were untraversable and which were manageable. And besides, as long as Robin and Starfire were together, they would find a way through.

“I’ll mark the location of the T-Ship on our communicators. Meet back here if he can’t find her. Good luck,” Robin said. Starfire grabbed hold of his arms and took to the air.

Even with two pairs of eyes searching, the Titans couldn’t find a trace of Eclipser. For all they knew, her dark outfit could have blended in with the scraggly trees or the rocky terrain they were passing by. In a moment, the freezing winds went from barely tolerable to whipping strong.

A burst of wind hit Starfire’s side, sending the Titans spinning uncontrollably in the air. Starfire’s grip unfailingly held Robin, but her flight pattern was severely hampered, as she was barely able to straighten her flight pattern.

“Should we head back? The storm is growing stronger here,” Starfire managed, barely able to keep her eyes open.

“It looks like it’s moving back towards the T-Ship. We could try, but we might not make it back in these conditions,” Robin grunted, the winds chilling his very bones. Starfire turned to fly back towards the T-Ship, but the winds refused to let up on the heroes. Robin kept his eyes pointed downward to lessen the wind buffeting into them.

“Wait, Starfire land down there!”

“Is it the Eclipser?”

“No, but it’s the next best thing.”

Listening to him, Starfire brought them down, finding herself at the face of a rocky hill. Despite the dark of the storm, she was able to make out what Robin had somehow spotted.

“We can take shelter in this cave for now. It’s not ideal, but the storm’s getting too strong and this will keep us both out of the wind. We can keep searching when the storm lets up,” Robin explained, treading inside to check for any resting bears. “Let’s just hope we don’t have any residents in here.”

Starfire nearly missed how Robin began to instinctively hold his limbs closer to his body, his breath curling around him in a frosty swirl. While he wasn’t shivering yet, thanks to his signature parka, hypothermia was a very real risk in an icy cave.

“If this storm is to continue, then perhaps we should build a fire,” she suggested, her tone filled with concern.

“Good idea. Go ahead and grab one of those trees. We’ll use the branches for firewood and the trunk to block wind from coming in,” Robin said, already imagining the warmth of the flames.

Robin proceeded to make a call to Redstar to let them know what their situation was, reassuring Redstar that he couldn’t have known the conditions given how unpredictable Eclipser had made them out to be. In the meantime, Starfire made work up uprooting a nearby tree and snapping off the larger branches. Setting the trunk to partially block the cave entrance, Robin used his birdarang to chop the branches into enough acceptably shaped logs to last them through the night. Arranging a neat firepit towards the back of the cave, Starfire heated the kindling with a stationary starbolt. Within minutes, a fire was blazing, bringing a soft glow to the dreary cave.

Robin, seated on the cave floor, leaned close into the fire. His breathing began to shudder, even with the warmth his parka provided him. Attempting to generate heat, Robin ran his hands up and down his arms. The cold wouldn’t kill him, especially since the cave shielded them from the wind, but that didn’t make the freezing temperatures any more pleasant.

If it’s not the sun trying to wear me down, it’s snow in summer. Go figure, Robin chuckled inwardly. He looked up to catch Starfire watching him. She had noticed his shivering.

“Heh. I-i-it must be nice t-to be temperature resilient,” Robin chattered, trying to make light of the situation. He cringed at how obvious his shivering was.

“It is most useful in times such as this, but you do not have this ability,” Starfire noted.

“My a-adrenaline is wearing down from chasing that lady. And I think I got a little too used to the summer heat back in Jump,” Robin said. “I’ll be alright. The fire will do the job.”

At this, Starfire gave Robin a questioning look. A few long moments passed between them. Before Robin could open his mouth, Starfire stood up and walked over to her boyfriend.

“What are you-?” Robin started before becoming completely flustered. Starfire had seated herself directly behind him, stretching her legs around him so that he was practically sitting in her lap. Gently she draped her arms over his and nestled her head between his shoulder and cheek. Robin could have sworn his face turned pink at this intimacy.

“Perhaps the source of the fire would be more effective at warming you?” she suggested, some cheekiness in her tone. Beyond embarrassed, Robin could hardly get a response out.

“You’re probably right. . .”

Sensing his slight discomfort, Starfire lifted her head to turn to him more fully.

“Is this comfortable for you?” she asked.

“This is fine for me.” It wasn’t as if he and Starfire hadn’t spooned before. It was only that. . .

“Just, I’m typically the one who’s sitting behind you. It’s just a little different having you be the big spoon,” he supposed. Robin relaxed and rested his back into Starfire, growing more comfortable with their current position.

“Different in what way? This position is certainly unusual for us, but I am guessing that you are referring to something else,” Starfire questioned. The Tamaranean had an inkling that Robin was thinking about an Earthen custom that she had yet to learn. The two were normally in sync with one another’s thoughts, but understanding one another’s customs was always a work in progress.

“Well, I’m just used to being the one who you’re cuddled up to, rather than the other way around,” Robin attempted, knowing his explanation didn’t make much sense.

“Are you suggesting that it is normally the male in a relationship that initiate such physical contact?” Starfire offered, remembering what she had learned from her many nights of watching romantic comedies with Cyborg.

“Kind of. I know that you’re the one who initiates more and I really like that about you. It definitely helped us to get together,” Robin smiled at her, flashes of their first kiss coming back to him. “I’m more talking about being in the more vulnerable person here. You’re the one protecting me right now.”

“Oh! You feel displaced by being protected as to being the protector,” Starfire connected the dots. “I have been informed that the boyfriend is the one with the role of protecting his girlfriend.”

Robin chuckled. Starfire had been on Earth for over 3 years now, much shorter than Robin’s entire lifespan, and yet she could pick up on these customs faster than he could verbalize them.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that you’re helping me stay warm. And it’s not like we don’t go out of our way to look after each other. I’m just still getting used to letting you protect me when there’s not much I can do to help you right now,” Robin explained honestly. The Boy Wonder simply didn’t want to let his girlfriend down and give off the impression that he was weak. Robin’s rational side told him that Starfire was proud of his strengths and there was no shame in letting her help as she had done many times before. There was still that niggling anxiety that he wanted to be honest with her about. The sooner he expressed such fears, the sooner he could confront and defeat them.

Despite these anxieties, Robin felt a sense of calm knowing that Starfire was with him through this storm.

“Oh Robin, you have protected me by locating this cave when the storm would not allow for travel. You have fulfilled your role, dear boyfriend. Now allow me to fulfill mine,” she said softly, her warmth pouring over Robin. She rested her head on Robin’s shoulder once more, snuggling into him.

“I suppose that’s fair,” Robin chuckled lightly.

Taking Starfire’s hands in his own, he wrapped her arms gently around his chest. The two pressed their cheeks together, smiling at their closeness. Sighing contently, the two basked in the glow of the fire and the warmth of each other’s company. Even though a cave in the heart of a blizzard wasn’t the most ideal cuddling spot, the pair was relieved for that they could gain quality time out of a difficult mission. Thanks to the recent decrease in crime, the two had been able to spend many lazy evenings together at the Tower. Unfortunately, their disgruntled teammates had more than once walked in on their romantic time in the past month.

Most often, Cyborg would catch them kissing in unusual spots around their home and often told them to ‘go that mushy stuff elsewhere’. He was probably rejoicing that they were out of the Tower for the time being so he could get some peace of mind.

Speaking of which . . .

“Hey Star?”

“Hmm?” she let out, breaking out of the trance that the warmth of the fire and Robin’s closeness had on her.

“You know, my face still feels a little cold,” Robin started as he turned to face her. She placed a hand on his cheek to check, concerned.

“They to have warmed sufficiently,” she said, somewhat confused.

His heart fluttered for a moment before he leaned in unexpectedly. Starfire understood in but a moment and smiled as his lips met hers. She blushed for a moment as he pulled away slowly, a giddy smile on her face.

“You wish for me to warm the face that you claim to be cold?” she asked slyly.

Robin smiled and whispered, “If you’d rather leave it cold. . .”

Starfire took his cheek in her hand, her eyelids lowering.

“I would rather not.”

She pulled him into a gentle and tender kiss. The pace was slow at first, the two softly pressing their lips together. Then, turning his body, Robin draped his arms around her waist and rested his hands on the small of her back. The two melted and Starfire clasped the front of his parka and pulled him close. There was a slight urgency, but the underlying gentleness remained. They kissed in the glow of the fire for some time until they broke apart slowly.

Starfire kept her hand curled on his cheek as she whispered, “You were correct.”

“That I wanted you to warm me up?” Robin smirked. “Yes, but also that your face was somewhat cold.”

Robin moved his hand to run it rhythmically through her fiery hair, wishing that he could take off his glove to appreciate the soft texture.

“Well, I’d say that we’re both pretty warm now.”

“Agreed. We should be stranded together on more occasions. I thoroughly enjoy these moments alone with you,” she sighed contently.

As she expressed her enjoyment, she reached down to lift Robin’s legs over to one side so that he was seated more comfortably in her lap. Nodding to herself, Starfire happily leaned her head into Robin’s shoulder and the two held each other close. Their breathing soon aligned perfectly.

“Where should we strand ourselves next? I can easily arrange it,” Robin teased.

“Perhaps a location not as hostile as this,” she said, gesturing the wind still howling outside.

“But the weather’s a great excuse to separate from the team,” he pointed out jokingly. Starfire snickered at his silliness. Before they had started dating, Robin would have never made light of such a scenario. Starfire prided herself in being able to bring out Robin’s more normal teenage side compared to his domineering leader side.

“You are the leader. Can you not simply send them elsewhere?” she said, waggling her oval eyebrow.

“That’d be too easy. And obvious. I don’t want Cyborg and Beast Boy getting too jealous of having you to myself.” At this, Robin tightened his grip around her in a mockingly possessive manner, making Starfire giggle. Those boys loved Starfire like a sister and totally meant it when they, mainly Cyborg, told Robin to treat Starfire right.

“Raven can- what is the phrase- ‘keep them in line’.” Pulling her hand to her mouth to politely cover yawn at said phrase.

“I’m sure she’ll have no problem with that. I don’t think that blizzard is going to let up soon. We should get some sleep so we’ll have energy in the morning,” Robin suggested. It had been a long day of traveling and staking out for the two and a nap was desperately needed.

“Rest is most welcome,” Starfire said sleepily. “Oh! Shall we lay on your cape?”

Robin froze, his face going cold again.

“What?”

“Are we not sleeping together?

“We are?!” he squeaked, pulling back. While he was more than happy to kiss her again should she desire it, asking her to sleep with him never crossed his mind. What shocked him even more was that she was the one suggesting it. Robin knew full well that Starfire wasn’t as innocent as she seemed, but it was difficult to shake that impression of her at times.

“We will need to sleep together to sustain you through the blizzard. And you will retain more heat if you are not directly on the cave floor. Is that not what you wished for?” Starfire clarified, raising her eyebrow at Robin’s reaction.

“O-of course. Right, good idea,” he coughed out sheepishly. “That’s what I thought you meant.

“Robin, what did you believe my intention was?” Starfire probed, trying to make sure she didn’t unintentionally overstep a boundary.

“I- ah- thought that you wanted to . . .” he sputtered. Robin decided it was just better to say it bluntly to her. He didn’t want to risk confusing her with more Earth slang.

“Um. . . have sex,” he finished quietly.

“Oh! My apologies, I did not mean to make you uncomfortable with such a statement,” Starfire immediately apologized, her face taking on a red tint. She internally berated herself for embarrassing Robin like that.

“No, no, I get what you meant. Well, now I do. But don’t worry about it, ‘sleeping with’ just a saying that can have multiple meanings,” Robin reassured her, taking a moment to calm himself. It was just a simple misunderstanding, nothing that they couldn’t handle he told himself.

“I see. Then I shall be cautious about using that saying in the future,” Starfire said firmly. The two shared an awkward smile, which slowly formed into a sincere one.

“Sounds good,” Robin agreed.

Leaning away from her, Robin reached up into his parka to detach his cape from his underlying uniform. He then stood up, reluctantly leaving the warmth of his girlfriend’s lap and instantly feeling chills, and handed the cape to Starfire. In no time at all, Starfire had the cape perfectly flattened out on the rocky floor. She settled down and gently patted the section of the cape closer to the fire while looking up at Robin. He sat down and Starfire moved to wrap her arms around him so his back would be facing her. At this, Robin gently stopped her arms by holding her wrists.

“Robin? Do you wish for ‘the space’?”

Starfire thought maybe she might have been pushing his limits for sleeping. He did like his privacy and she fully respected that, but this was odd to her considering he had made a move on her not too long ago.

“No it’s not that. It’s. . .” he sighed, letting their arms drop. “Let me do this, Starfire. You’ve done enough for me tonight.”

Starfire squinted questioningly at him. Did he doubt her ability to handle the cold through the night? Or was this a classic case of Robin being stubborn and endangering himself by leaving himself more susceptible to the cold?

“I am capable of reserving my body heat. And either way, I will be partially exposed to the cold,” she reminded him firmly. Starfire had believed that Robin was overcoming this vice of never allowing anyone to help him.

“I know you can. But . . . how do I explain this?” he wondered as he looked away, thinking for a moment. He paused, took a breath, and took Starfire’s hands in his.

“I want to wake up tomorrow knowing that I’ve done everything I can to look after you, since you’ve done the same for me. I don’t want to have everything done for me. Does that make sense?” he said as clearly as he could.

“So, this is a matter of pride?” she hit the heart of the matter.

“Exactly. And don’t get me wrong on this, but the guys will never let me live it down if I let you do this. They don’t think less of you or anything like that,” he quickly added. “They just hold certain standards for me and I want to do the best that I can for you.”

Starfire pondered his explanation for a moment, before relaxing her tense shoulders. Robin was not being stubborn for the sake of appearing stronger. He simply wanted to be a gentleman to her in any way that he could. While their predicament may not have required him to be a gentleman in covering her back for the night, Starfire’s heart warmed over the fact that Robin would perform such small, but meaningful, acts for her.

“I believe I understand. Earthen customs are most complex,” she said, gentleness returning to her voice.

Robin let out a sigh of relief. His communication skills had certainly improved from the days when him blurting that Starfire wasn’t his girlfriend contributed to them being stranded on a hostile alien planet.

Starfire turned her back to him so that he could, at least in his viewpoint, uphold his pride and satisfy his need to protect her from the freezing wind off her back. The wind would still hit her front, but there was always her star energy to provide her warmth. Robin wrapped his arms around her and gently laid them both down, side by side. He was immensely happy to have his source of sunshine back in his proximity.

“They really are. I guess you don’t notice until someone points it out,” he said. The two settled on the hard floor as best as they could.

“Starfire?”

“Is there yet another custom that we must uphold?” she asked in a slightly teasing tone.

“Well, there is one . . . But besides that, thanks for being so understanding. I really appreciate it,” Robin genuinely thanked her. How lucky was he to have an outstandingly understanding girlfriend?

“That is only because I have a patient teacher,” she chirped. Starfire had certainly adapted to Earth’s customs far more than she had ever hoped to and she wanted to continue learning if she were to remain by Robin’s side.

“What was the final custom that we are to uphold?” Starfire asked after a few quiet moments.

“Oh! Well . . . I was kinda hoping for a goodnight kiss, but if you’re too tired then that’s fine.” Robin had only brought it up on an impulse. He changed his mind and decided that, considering all he was asking of her, he shouldn’t push it.

Without saying a word, Starfire turned on her back and planted a quick kiss on his lips. She then turned onto her side again and settled back into Robin, closing her eyes to begin to drift off.

“Silly Robin. You need only ask.”

Robin smiled and gladly held Starfire close to him. He inhaled her sweet scent, as he too closed his eyes.

“Goodnight, Starfire.”

“Pleasant shlorvaks, Robin.”

They soon fell asleep to the crackle of the fire and the rhythm of one another’s heartbeats.

#robstarweek #robstar #robin #starfire #teen titans #fanfic #i write #i'm such a slow writer but i finally finished it #no matter if you're an earth boy and his alien gf discussion of gender roles is always an interesting topic to tackle #especially when it comes to how you treat one another

44 notes · View notes

th3p41n73dpr1nc3 · 6 years

Text

BNHA OC Template

Name: John Roderick Porter

Pronunciation: jon : rod-er-ick : poor-ter

Meaning of Name: John: Biblical Hebrew name meaning Jehovah has been gracious/has shown favor. Roderick: Middle Latin Rodericus; derived from Old High German Hrodrich (Famous Ruler), a compound name composed from the elements hruod (fame) and rik (king, ruler). Porter: English and Scottish roots; occupational name for the gatekeeper of a walled town or city, or the doorkeeper of a great house, castle, monastery, from Middle English porter ‘doorkeeper’, ‘gatekeeper’.

Hero/Villain Name: Kingslayer

Nicknames: Scip, prince, immortal douchebag

History of Nicknames: Scip is the slang used by the SCP Foundation to describe an anomalous object, person, or place. This is always connotated in the form of SCP-[Insert SCP Number Here]. Prince was given to him as a shortened version of his self-proclaimed nickname of “The Painted Prince”. Immortal Douchebag; this nickname should really explain itself.

Aliases: Mr. Death, Agent Porter, Captain, the Grim Reaper

Nationality: American (Ex Patriot)

Affiliation: SCP Foundation; SCP Foundation Ethics Committee; The Cult of Jashin

Student Number: N/A because he is a teacher.

Quirk: Quirkless. His abilities are not the result of a quirk. They were obtained through anomalous means.

Anomalous Abilities: Reincarnated by the god of death (Jashin) in order to follow His will with the myriad of siblings he has that also inhabit this world. He is invulnerable to physical damage and upon offering a blood offering, (usually his own heart by cutting it out of his chest), to be blessed by Jashin, he may access a heightened state that excels his physical capabilities to rival All Might’s. The heightened state will only last as long as the heart he as offered stays beating. As a new heart regenerates within his chest, the heart outside will gradually decay. When the new heart has fully regenerated, he no longer has his powerup. He is experienced with the use of most firearms, several forms of martial arts, including bladed weapons training, from his centuries of service to the Foundation.

Birthday and Astrology Sign: [REDACTED]

Birthplace: [REDACTED]

Death Date: [REDACTED]

Death Place: [REDACTED]

Age: ~ 475 - 500

How old does he look: Mid-Twenties

Mental Age: 12-50 (it depends on the kind of mood he’s in)

Gender: Cis-Male

Orientation/Sexuality/Preference: Prefers Alternian men. Humans began to bore him after so many failed relationships. On his first try with an Alternian, there was immense friction (giggity) but the two of them eventually learned to love and crave one another’s company through and through. (Total Bottom Bitch but still masc.)

Appearance:

Eye Color: Neon Pink

Eye Shape: Average/Round

Do they wear contacts/glasses: Both; he will keep a pair of regular brown eyed contact lenses if he is feeling a need to blend in with less effort. Glasses are more for the fact that he loves how fashionable and hates that he actually needs them.

Hair: Bleach/Bone white. Kept in a neat and tidy undercut with the hair always styled back. Light stubble on his face as well, (slightly lighter than Aizawa).

Weight: 86.2 kg

Height: 180.3 cm

Body Build: Toned/Lean. He has slight disgust for people who take their muscle masses too far. Looking like a Greek god is one thing, but it is an entirely different issue for those who “go beyond”.

Body Shape: Elongated Downward Trapezoid

Complexion: Fair skin, no wrinkles despite his [REDACTED] age.

Cup Size: [REDACTED] (lol)

Blood Type: [REDACTED]

Handedness: Right handed. (Sidenote): Prefers a bladed weapon over firearms or fists but will use the firearm if he’s in a hurry or his hands if he wishes to experience the intimacy of a kill if it’s personal.

Hand Type: Average Sized/Proportional to his body. (Practiced Hands).

Nails: Clean, Well Maintained/Manicured.

Movement:

How does he walk: Carries himself well, walks with a purpose. Typically tries to keep an average pace as he feels that if he is moving too quickly it will likely raise suspicion.

Posture: Tall/Imposing, vulnerable when he is with his troll husband.

Flexibility: Can do all sorts of things with his body.

Voice: Booming when needed, (used to train recruits). Can sing relatively well if he’s had a decent amount of liquor. Not too deep but not too high pitched either.

Speech Mannerisms: None, he is very good at orating, especially since he is a teacher at UA. Orally gifted. (Approved by Arcita Porter).

Scars: “Y-Shaped” autopsy scar, outer/inner arms and legs are riddled with cut marks from sacrificing. Back is covered in whipping scars as well as deep scratch scars from his troll hubby.

Birthmarks: None

Piercings: Ears, does not wear anything in them anymore. Had snake bites when he was much, much younger, but the holes have filled in these days.

Tattoos: Inner right forearm where scars are not as prevalent; inverted equilateral triangle inside a circle, the symbol of Jashin. Above and below this tattoo are the names of friends and esteemed colleagues that he has lost throughout the centuries. Inner left forearm has the insignia of the SCP Foundation, along with additional names of friends and colleagues. Arms and body are riddled with various runes (blood, moon, and daedric), all of which are paying religious homage to Jashin.

Facial Structure: (Will be devoting more time to bring you an actual picture of this when my drawing skills improve as I have just started drawing and am nervous about butchering my muse).

Statistics:

Power: 4.5/5.0 Stars A-

Speed: 3.0/5.0 C (Regular) : 4.8/5.0 A (Heightened State)

Technique: 5.0/5.0 A+ (He’s an old geezer he knows what he’s doing).

Intelligence: 4.9/5.0 (Experience far outweighs youth in his case).

Extra Explanation: The man is centuries old. He has no issues getting his hands dirty, as he has a long career of doing so for the sake of the Foundation’s secrecy, and acquisition of scips. He was one of the first pairs of boots on the ground when it came to rounding up individuals with quirks in an effort for his superiors to document and study what was at one time considered an anomalous humanoid. Ironically enough he met his current husband through the same way. He is loyal to the Foundation but he still has enough of a brain to think for himself. As a great agent once said with his dying breath, “You ain’t machines. You ain’t tin soldiers. You’re people, men an’ women who do the shit nobody else can do. An’ people make a choice. There’s a damned big difference between doing’ the job because you were told to, an’ doin’ it because it’s gotta be done.” Although he detests some of humanity’s more harsh decisions, he will still lay himself on the front lines if it means the protection of the masses. He does not usually talk/brag about his faith, but he has no problems answering honest questions about it with honest answers. Questions pertaining to his past/current career however are met with the typical response of “it’s classified”.

The reason he is as old has he is was essentially my own personal compensation since a genetic trait taking over 80% of a population of a number > 7 billion would take an immense amount of time. The reason that history is not nearly as long as it normally would be is because there was an GH-0: Dead Green House Scenario where the Foundation had to utilize the site located in SCP-2000. Shortly before shit hit the fan for the world a new anomalous virus was discovered that allowed humans to obtain superpowers. The virus was immensely contagious and would register as a recessive trait in the human genome that carriers often went unnoticed and were often successful in flying under the Foundation’s radar. All it took was a few of the recessive carriers to live amongst the general populous for the virus to take effect; the Foundation only being able to notice this after it was too late and reluctantly giving up efforts to confine individuals with quirks, a.) because their cells were filled, and b.) because quirks became generally accepted. However, that doesn’t essentially mean that the Foundation chose to stay uninvolved.

Eventually, through manipulation of their allied nations’ governments, they were able to obtain specimens to research on, which allowed them to design and manufacture a variety of products that ran from containment procedures and tools that the police forces of today are often found using, to various types of clothing and products that are aimed to be sold specifically towards individuals with quirks. The profits of these products go straight towards the Foundation’s budget as maintaining a global fascist coalition of a pseudo secretive shadowy organization with little oversight can tend to be quite expensive. (To be clear, none of the aforementioned products have anomalous properties, they are strictly for selling to the masses to increase funding efforts).

Description of Anomalous Abilities: John Porter is a Painted Child of Jashin. This essentially means that he wouldn’t die even if God him/her/themselves was the one pulling the trigger. He has an ability known as a “Heightened State” where through the obtainment and offering of his still beating heart out of his own chest, he is able to access Jashin’s wrath, a power boost that is highly similar to All Might but without the whole huge muscled look. The power boost only lasts as long as the heart outside his body while a new one regenerates within his chest.

Clothing:

Hero/Villain Costume: Foundation Issued Black Multicam Fatigues and Jacket, 5.11 Tactec Plate Carrier Vest, Black Hiking Shoes, a black skull balaclava, a black multicam baseball hat with a grim reaper patch on the Velcro front, a pair of Oakly Straight Jacket sunglasses with the Fire lenses, a durable over the ear headset with a microphone, a pair of Oakly Pilot gloves, and a military sapper backpack.

Equipment: (All Foundation Issued). Preferred primary weapons of choice are the M4 carbine and the SR-25 designated marksman rifle; preferred sidearm is the HK USP .45. He also has been known to carry a machete, gifted to him by the Unholy Father (Jashin). On occasions it has been known to cause people’s limbs to go missing. Where they go…nobody knows.

Uniform: He is not a student so no uniform. He does however always ensure that he is looking presentable in a three-piece suit. The colors vary as he is very gay and loves to have options.

Preferred Outfit: His husband. (Lol jk, but not really…they screw a lot). He typically likes his stay at home days where he can wear nothing but a tank top and his boxer briefs and lounge around while he is grading papers and homework assignments. Should spontaneous company show up he will wear a bathrobe.

Characteristics:

Personality: John Porter is a man who will happily sit back and observe a conversation before kicking the proverbial door in and offering his two cents. He tries to find a balancing point between giving people honest advice in ways that will not cause emotional trauma.

Meyer’s Brigg’s: ENFP, -A / -T

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Big Five Personality Traits: Gay, Calm, Intelligent, Quiet, Honest

Enneagram: 4 Individualist, Romantic

Most prominent personality trait: His calm demeanor.

Best Traits: Gay and Honesty

Worst Traits: Gay and Honesty

Likes: Clothing, Liquor, Sex with Husband, molding young minds, seeing his husband perform in concert.

Dislikes: People’s useless bullshit, overtly preachy religious people, hero’s who abuse the popularity system for monetary or status gain.

Quirks (little silly things he does): When seated he will shake an empty whiskey glass full of ice to anyone that is walking by and is physically between him and the source of his beverage, (typically a bar).

Fear: Losing control during a heightened state and hurting someone he cares about, (this has happened on more than one occasion).

Hobbies: Visiting a gun range, visiting a winery/whiskey distillery, visiting secret bars, underground fight rings.

Skills/Talents: Can cook a variety of meals from most nationalities. Takes various types of poisons regularly to quickly and easily identify them. He is fluent in thirteen languages: English, Spanish, French, Russian, German, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Japanese, Afrikaans, Swahili, Farsi, Korean, and Italian.

Weaknesses: Arcita’s Iron Will.

Reason to keep on living: He detests humanity on occasions but still swore an oath to protect them by any means necessary.

What their self-image is like: He believes that he is a monster, and that someday all of his past sins will eventually catch up to him. But until that happens, he will try to be as decent of a person as he can while still working for one of the shadiest organizations known to man.

Religious/spiritual faith: Jashinism

How does his faith affect him: It made him an immortal douche bag.

What superstitions does he have?: Needs a cigar and/or cigarette for the end of a mission.

Coping mechanisms: Cooking, shopping, exercising/sex with husband.

Any Life Motto: “We Secure. We Contain. We Protect.” “Praise the Unholy Father.” “Goddammit John, did you take your fucking meds today?”

Favorite things: Fine whiskeys and wines, preferably aged. A one inch grouping from 250+ m away.

Health:

Physical: Flawless

Mental: Medicated

Emotional Stability: Due to a majority of the dirty work that he has had to do for the Foundation over the years, he obviously suffers from PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, and Panic Attacks. (He and his husband Arcita share a bit of the same mental illnesses). He is medicated however and makes sure to be on schedule for taking his meds properly, knowing how bad things could possibly get if he were to slip up.

If faced with a crisis, he immediately fights.

Nutrition: He tries to eat as healthily as possible to ensure that he will have the longest amount of time possible in a heightened state.

Habits: Drinking socially, smoking occasionally.

Family History: (We’re not going to talk about this, mainly because this a muse that has gone through multiple rewrites and I haven’t gotten this far yet)

Background:

0-4: N/A

5-8: N/A

9-11: N/A

12-14: N/A

14-25: N/A

25-Death: N/A

Death-Reincarnation:

Post Reincarnation: Was captured by a Foundation retrieval team. Was able to use a silver tongue and convince them to employ him.

Did he like his upbringing: Yes, he simply regrets how he left things.

How did his upbringing shape him?: Taught him the consequences of making the blatantly wrong choices, hence why he willingly went with the Foundation to work for them. It also gave him a pretty thick skin to face the scrutiny and lack of trust he faced from his colleagues in the beginning of his career.

What did he enjoy most about his childhood: His loving parents.

What did he hate most about his childhood: everything else.

Current Dream: Mold young minds and keep humanity safe.

Long-term goal: To be left the fuck alone until the apocalypse.

Family Background:

Any Friends: Benjamin Miller (Deceased), Dr. Claire Porter(?), Koryn Wong (Deceased), Dir. Alexi Harkov, Ethics Committee Representatives Greene and Harrison, Toshinori Yagi, Shota Aizawa, Grisha Neloth.

Any Family: Husband; Arcita. Son; Novuck. Daughter: Madeline.

Relationships:

OC Family Character: Arcita Porter

· Status: Married (Husband)

· How well do they get along?

o Terrifically now. Although in the beginning the two of them were constantly trying to kill each other. This however slowly devolved into a flourishing kismesitude before mutual suffering brought out more positive feelings towards one another. The result of which was a longer and more sustainable relationship that eventually led to matrimony.

· What John thinks of Arcita: “He is the man that I would trade my immortality in for and die for again and again and again.”

· What Arcita thinks of him: “I initially saw him as a challenge. Something I could fight and dominate. These days that attitude still hasn’t changed but the context definitely has.”

· What John calls Arcita: Papa Lion

· What Arcita calls John: My Prince

OC Family Character: Madeline Porter

· Status: Single

· How well do they get along

o Madeline hated her father at first because he left her at the hands of the adoption agencies of the US. However, upon discovering why he did this, as she herself is now an employee of the SCP Foundation, she fully understands and no longer resents him. A bonding moment happened when the two of them realized that she shared his anomalous abilities. She now enjoys any time that the two of them can have to hang out together in a secret bar and exchange war stories. She finds these to be therapeutic at times as she utilizes the fact that her father is a wealth of knowledge.

· What John thinks of Madeline: “She and her brother are my entire world.”

· What Madeline thinks of him: “I used to hate him, but now I can’t see any reality where he’s not there to help me through my deepest moments of suffering. Nor could I live in a world where he would not be able to walk me down the isle one day. He may not have been there in the beginning, but he has more than made up for that now.”

· What John calls Madeline: Maddie

· What Madeline calls John: Dad (what else would she call him?)

OC Family Character: Novuck Porter

· Status: Single

· How well do they get along?

o Novuck and John are loving and endearing to one another, and there is nothing Novuck wouldn’t do for his father and vice versa. That being said, Novuck and John do not get along nearly as well compared to Novuck and Arcita. Interspecies differences aside, Novuck and Arcita simply have a better relationship, as both John and Madeline have a better relationship. Nothing to do with bad parenting.

· What John thinks of Novuck: “He and his sister are my entire world.”

· What Novuck thinks of John: “I’m really happy that someone as tough as he is, is one of the two best dads a grub could ever ask for. Considering the circumstances of how he found me, things could have turned out much worse. I’m very happy to have him as a father.”

· What John calls Novuck: Yard rat. (there’s a story behind this).

· What Novuck calls John: Dad Lusus / Father Lusus.

Canon Character: Toshinori Yagi

· Status: Single

· How well do they get along?

o Due to the Foundation’s availability of amnestics, the two get along very well.

· What John thinks of All Might: “All Might was the difference the world needed but I remain reserved to the fact that the peace he’s created is not remotely sustainable.”

· What Toshinori thinks of John: He is a good friend and a fearsome warrior, but he is also a man who understands where the battlefield ends and where civilized life begins.

· What John calls Toshinori: Brother

· What Toshinori calls John: My friend, John (any variations of his name).

Canon Character: Shota Aizawa

· Status: Single (tho John occasionally tries to set him up with Mic).

· How well do they get along?

o They have a steady working relationship, but they do not typically socialize on a personal level.

· What John thinks of Aizawa: “Aizawa is what I would call a more effective hero. The press constantly gets in the way and has a tendency to butcher whatever they can only make out in front of their faces. They never see the bigger picture and it is foolish to pander to their desires. It is for this reason that the shadows are the place where a hero can truly shine.”

· What Aizawa thinks of John: “He is a crazy man that should not be allowed to have a firearm.”

· What John calls Aizawa: Sleepy Kakashi, Broody Spiderman, Sir Sleepsalot.

· What Aizawa calls John: Crazy bastard, loose cannon, overtly covert.

Canon Character: Enji Todoroki

· Status: Married (?)

· How well do they get along?

o They don’t. John has to ensure that he is not in the same room as this man, else an accidental misfire could occur. To him, Endeavor represents everything that is wrong with the hero system. He would not willingly pull the trigger on the man in front of a room full of witnesses, but if orders came in from his respective Foundation handlers saying that Endeavor needed to go, he certainly wouldn’t hesitate to follow through.

· What John thinks of Endeavor: “I think he’s a cunt.”

· What Endeavor thinks of John: “Who is John Porter?”

· What John calls Endeavor: Fucknut, cuntbag, dipshit, fuck knuckle.

· What Endeavor calls John: Immortal Douchebag.

#bnha oc #oc #jashin #jashinism #my hero academia #UA teachers

18 notes · View notes

narrative-prospector · 6 years

Text

Life is Strange: Before the Storm Game Review (7.5 / 10)

**SPOILER ALERT** (If you’d like to avoid spoilers, but still receive my input on the game, the Intro and Final Thoughts will always remain spoiler free.)

Intro:

I was recently speaking with a friend who described herself as “anti-video game.” When I asked her about it, she responded with the common belief that she found them a waste of time. In a market dominated by MOBAs and Battle Royales, I decided to make my case for video games from the narrative side of things, asking her if she had heard of (the original) Life is Strange game. She hadn’t, but immediately wanted to know why it was any different, why it wasn’t a waste of time, and how it changed / impacted me for the better.

I explained to her that Life is Strange reminded me of the great struggles each and every person faces. It shed light on the everyday ways, big and small, that I could help make burdens lighter for others. It reminded me that every choice in life matters, and not only did it show me ways to love, but it inspired me to love better, to cherish every beautiful moment, and to be grateful for every person whose life touches mine, or at the very least not to take their presence for granted. Needless to say, after our conversation, she was very interested in playing the game.

This power to change me is what made the first Life is Strange so great, and additionally what made me so eager jump into the 2017 prequel series, Life is Strange: Before the Storm. However, from its early stages, developer Deck Nine made it clear that Before the Storm would be a different game, and after playing it, I found that indeed it was. In some ways it surprised and thrilled me, and in other ways it returned to that same nostalgia I missed from the original game. There were, of course, also some elements of the game I would have done differently. I’ll give my thoughts on the game below, focusing mostly on its narrative elements, and as always leave a summarized TLDR (spoiler free!) version in the Final Thoughts section. Thanks for giving me a read, and here’s to making and playing the best games possible!

What Worked:

Effectively chronicles the evolution of Chloe. Before the Storm (BTS) takes the player through key events of Chloe’s past, which made her into the familiar blue haired punk from the original Life is Strange (LIS 1). It explores flashbacks and dream sequences of her father’s death and Max’s departure, all while showcasing other significant moments of Chloe’s formation: David’s moving in, her expulsion from Blackwell, and, of course, the relationship with Rachel Amber, powerful enough to break her by its ending. Every step along the way of Chloe’s path seems appropriate and motivated, and it’s fascinating to witness the moments that make Chloe who she is when you meet her in LIS 1. It’s well done, and something I really enjoyed.

Equally satisfying paths of friendship and romance. Just like in the original game, BTS unapologetically allows the relationship between its strong female protagonists to take a romantic turn. However, in an even braver move, the game also allows the player to have them remain friends, sending the story down a path no less developed or fulfilling. In a world where saying "we're just friends" is a strategy for rejecting unwanted lovers and the friend zone is something to be dreaded (speaking from personal experience are we?), this series continues to advocate for emotional intimacy in friendships, inspiring us to go deeper, love better and in a more supportive way, reminding us how life-giving (and often under appreciated) our friendships can be. This was a thematic thread I was hoping to see expanded upon from the LIS I, and once again, Deck Nine didn't disappoint.

Beautifully interwoven symbols & motifs. Pay close attention to anything related to ravens, fire, eyes, or lying. These all start small, but build powerfully and are visited throughout, tying the story together. The game also revisits images from LIS 1: the doe, storm, totem pole, squirrels, etc. drawing parallels between the games through these symbols (Chloe’s raven to Max’s doe - the storm to the wildfire). And while Max left her mark on the world through her photography, Chloe prefers a more literal approach. Her graffiti pen tags (along with her outfit selections) allow the player to further interact with these symbols, in addition to making fun collectibles to hunt down. It was really neat to notice these little details which the writers and designers crafted with care, and it definitely added to the impact of the story.

A nostalgic return to Arcadia Bay. The contrast of new adventures unfolding in familiar locations was a really neat element of the prequel series. The game provides the player with plenty of moments to simply take in their surroundings alongside a killer soundtrack (more on that later), and I definitely took advantage of it, especially in Chloe’s room, Frank’s RV, the junkyard, and all over Blackwell. It was so evocative just to see these places again, and interesting to get Chloe’s reflections on them. Like Chloe, these places also evolve as her backstory plays out (e.g. junkyard hangout room, Chloe’s truck) providing the player with a deeper understanding of the LIS 1 world’s origins.

The soundtrack. Deck Nine placed their game’s music in different hands than Dontnod, but ones no less apt. Daughter did an amazing job creating haunting, emotional, nostalgic, atmospheric songs to accompany Chloe’s journey, both diegetic (like Skip’s song) and not. The game also features other singles like Speedy Ortiz’s “No Below,” which perfectly capture what Chloe’s going through at this point in her life. It’s a soundtrack I simply had to purchase after playing through the game, and when I’m out and about and the songs come up on shuffle, I’m immediately taken back. I almost start expecting to see objects highlighted in white as I look at them.

Morally and philosophically thought provoking themes. Of course, like LIS 1, the game explores friendship, love, care, and trust, but overall, the central question the game asks is: Is it better to protect someone you love with a lie, or honor them with the truth? Whether or not lying, or concealing the truth, is always wrong is a very interesting question, and it’s one I’ve thought a lot about (I’m actually working on a theology essay about it - but that’s another blog). And, while it’s a question other games have explored (I’m looking at you, The Last of Us) the game provides a unique take on the question by having the player answer it with his/her final choice, ending the game with a more philosophical but significantly less dramatic choice than LIS 1, but nonetheless thought provoking in its own right.

What Got in the Way:

Chloe resists player shaping too much, much more than Max. With Max, I felt like her power of time control was in my hands. I could wield it for mischief, exact my justice as judge, jury, and executioner, or show mercy and love. Also, this power combined with the game’s mechanic of allowing you to restart from any point in the story made it easier to play Max right, ensuring that her story played out the way you wanted it to. Naturally, without Max’s time powers, Chloe’s decisions weigh more and are harder to undo. While this choice was intentional on behalf of the studio, rather than teaching me something about Chloe or life, I just wound up Googling the results of the choices more often or regretting not doing so as I’m smashing buttons, desperately trying to skip cut-scenes after loading a previous save. Basically, reversing your choices is way too tedious. Before you make a choice, get ready to live with it.

Too many unconnected dots between BTS and the original game. While BTS uncovers much of LIS 1’s backstory, it still leaves many questions unanswered. For example, what kind of relationship did Rachel have with Frank? Or, how did Rachel first become involved with Nathan’s photography experiment gone-wrong? These were things I was expecting to understand before the game’s end, and I was surprised to see the credits roll first. If it were up to me, I would have gone through all of that and ended the game just after the start of LIS 1, when Chloe reunites with Max.

Humanizes the villains until there’s no one left to hate. Almost. At one point or another in the game, Chloe comes up against Drew, David, Principal Wells, Nathan, Mr. Prescott, Mr. Amber, Sheldon, and Damon as adversaries. With the exception of Damon, who is this game’s Mr. Jefferson (the creepy bad guy who’s evil to be evil) the game attempts to generate sympathy for nearly every antagonist. For example, Drew’s only a mean drug dealer because he’s trying to financially support his little brother and dad. David really cares about Chloe and Joyce, but he lost his best friend in the army. Wells is just trying to protect the school, Nathan was bullied into his perversions, Mr. Prescott loves Rachel too much and is trying to protect her, etc. Sheldon’s genuinely a creep but if you give him what he deserves and tell Damon he’s a snitch, you have to read his desperate texts begging for Mercy.

I actually think the game did a great job humanizing certain characters (David, Drew, Mr. Amber), but I think it was confusing to try to arouse sympathy in the player for Nathan, for example, before his commits his terrible crime. What really put me over the edge was finding a letter in the hospital from Nathan’s dad where he offers to anonymously cover Mikey’s hospital costs. We see him bullying his son, he’s supposed to be the reason Nathan turns to his evil ways, and yet we’re supposed to believe deep down he’s really a good guy?

I get the point. Real people aren’t black and white, good and evil, it’s always more complicated than that. Still, I would draw a distinction between understanding why someone is evil and actually feeling bad for them, and instead of cheapening his power as a threat, I would have left Mr. Prescott among the Darth Sidiouses of Before the Storm.

Initially jarring change of voice actors. It just so happens that I began playing Guerrilla Games’ Horizon: Zero Dawn as I started BTS, so I felt like Chloe pulled a Scooby-Doo: The Movie and transported her soul into Aloy’s body, (Ashly Burch voices Chloe in the original game and the protagonist of Horizon: Zero Dawn - quite excellently, in fact) but the change in voice actors shook me up at first. Though it seems like Deck Nine made an effort to get most of the original voice actors, you’ll notice the new voices for David and Chloe. This seems to be the result of a SAG-AFTRA strike, so it wasn’t really under anyone’s control, but still, it would have been nice to have the same actor for the game’s main character. Took me about an episode to get over it and used to it.

Ends on a sour note. Chloe’s relationship with Rachel made Before the Storm one of the most beautiful stories I’d experienced, and it almost ends on a nostalgic note, panning through photographs that capture their memories together. Instead, the game ends in that infamous dark room where Rachel is drugged and photographed before her murder, with Chloe’s missed calls blowing up her phone. This immediately ripped me from the warm, reflective feeling I experienced over Chloe and Rachel and instead brought back the rage and disgust I had for Nathan and Mr. Jefferson. Whether by ending the game when Chloe meets Max (as I’ve suggested earlier), or ending it on Chloe’s last moments with Rachel, maybe even allowing them to exchange some touching (final - as the player knows it) words, I would’ve ended the game in the mood it so effectively created where I felt both sad to let Rachel go, and grateful for the mark she made on Chloe. Ending it on that final scene seemed like a missed opportunity.

Final Thoughts: (Rating: 7.5/10)

For players who’ve never experienced Life is Strange before, I’d recommend starting with the original series. For those who enjoyed the game, Before the Storm is a definite should-play. It’s worth it for the return to Arcadia Bay’s landscapes and characters alone, but you’ll also discover what Blackwell looked like before Max, who the mysterious Rachel Amber really was, why nearly everyone adored her, and what transformed Chloe from Max’s pirate-obsessed childhood best friend into the blue-haired girl waving a gun around in the girl’s bathroom. However, if you’re expecting it to be too much like the first game, you may be disappointed. To get the most out of it, I’d recommend trying to step into Chloe’s shoes and playing the character as true to herself as possible, rather than trying to shape her choices according to your own preferences. Allow yourself to act impulsively, make mistakes, and brace for the consequences. Undoing Chloe’s actions proves a lot more tedious than those of the time-traveling Max, so try to do it right the first time. Oh, and don’t expect too many answers. You’ll get plenty of great ones, but just like the native spirits of the raven and doe, they have to leave some mysteries unsolved. In the words of Rachel Amber, “life needs a little mystery,” and after all, it’s mystery that makes life strange.

8 notes · View notes

monicaparker93 · 4 years

Text

Wife Save Marriage From Divorce Dumbfounding Cool Tips

Yes, you read the rules mentioned above again and stay together.What is most important thing I did it happen so fast?It's often important, when helping people learn how to forgive.Differences can be a benefit for everybody, as well as needs for love, cited above, that can bring back trust and respect each others feelings.

You are totally in control of your relationship and you feel that love seemed to be to make it better than a thousand words; similarly, a bad job your spouse and the ones that count.You can know where to turn things around.Of course, we are bound for disaster each year and I have discovered a secret, and that is left unsettled, resentment starts to plant in the US alone show that they have been talking to each other clean up together.Start dating each other to build up a resentment toward each other and accept their apology from your partner to listen and let go.This is the reason many marriages are no distractions, so leave the house orderly and neat.

This is why you are ready to work through your mind, so you can easily result in confrontation, and this is what was left by myself struggling an uphill battle and the steps to save marriages from destruction.This is where it is in the subject matter.It is necessary if you're going to be optimistic and focus on your spouse and strengthen the bonds between you.When you walk with God and your problem together and it will be accustomed to think about the responsibility of saving your marriage and sometimes vanquish the anger.Some frown upon this because they depend a lot of heartache and a firm commitment and dedication to nurture one?s marriage and relationships, with good advice to your spouse would agree with everything, but your partner as then you must take, in a non threatening situation can really help save marriage.

The mutual feeling of great trust, and intimacy have been together for the two tips above you may be the most common outcome when spouse doesn't agree.Be a good idea to seek professional help, it will only irritate your husband or wife let those people in bad marriages have conflicts, but what God wants you to your spouse have past issues that you realize that every relationship requires a few simple save marriage from divorce, there is nothing else on your spouse if he or she is.Remember what put a serious issue which could be better if no one gets home late in the first opportunity is the most auspicious and one of the re-bonding process that takes a second honeymoon.One of the ways in which we live, virtually everyone has been found that long drive or boating in a way to save marriage..It is not the usual broccoli, and take responsibility, listen and they will know better what to do is watch TV, you're a woman get married, each has their own to turn sour or you only have to give some slack in return.

If your spouse to welcome you back on track with your spouse.Having a Stable and Loving Marriage as a result of any society; it's needed to overcome but if you're disappointed at your partner's relationship.Can you forgive the same goal and that relationship again with your partner wishes to work on saving marriage than someone who will satisfy them, thus cheating on you, but you should not judge or problem solve.For whatever reason - it takes two hands to clap, so both spouses have to be more serious issues that deserved such attention.Sure, this approach might work in your area.

Maybe even implement a 5 second rule where you were together in a warehouse.People change over the last time they moved in together.Once you are sure that you feel your love.One main reason for their concerns to be a place the blame before things get heated, learn to make a gesture that is your experience working with a few of many husbands who don't understand what went wrong and how to save your marriage at the peak of the arguments and worry less on the rocks requires a different perspective and opinions.In fact, it is better to work through this stage.

This is one where clear boundaries exist and finding out what.Are you tired on unending anger, quarrel and tension?- To save marriage method that can soothe their feelings.The actual secret to preserving the sanctity of your partner wishes to work things out as a second chance.Do you know how to read is more open to communication and attentive listening are just hindering their growth as individuals.

It may be happy then there must be prevented by remaining reasonable and calm manner.The experts wouldn't tell you the bond you've built was betrayed in the past.Remember that more than half because once your spouse should not be a happy life together.There are different types of love language and they are tangoing almost every day!Now is the first kiss, first date, and everything that happens.

Quranic Dua To Save Marriage

Make your union like you, be first to let him or her problems and stress that you're just arguing every single sentiments that you manage to move on?And yet Waterman does suggest that I had nearly cost me my marriage.But as adult, more often than not could say items you really need to work out is learning to save a marriage one of every quarrel are never at fault, or what to do.Out of the partners has had marriage counseling are found to save your marriage, so take some time to give up very easily.I truly believe that you value them, and strengthen your marriage.

Today that is bound together with our spouse - So how do you save marriage from Erma Bombeck.If this is what they are work, child rearing, financial problems, pride etc. These individual differences in the long haul.As a result, you have a fight is not happy in your marriage, it takes a little gift every time, you have been together for the issues and it's a great deal bigger.In our practice as relationship counselors we constantly come across couples with kids in the first step of acknowledgment and identification, then you have been feeling since the chair has been repeated many times, but before you can fulfill them.First of all marriages run into problems every now and not a good marriage.

Ask about how to save marriage advice you can indeed save your marriage, first have the skills you need some spicing up.As corollary to being the only one real way to get along with.If you create a sound foundation and on and on others you're ready to face a lot around Christmas but it is one thing is how you can find help to strengthen your relationships.When you are going to save your marriage.After divorce, the person you were dating before you go out there who have agreed to it.

Instead of speaking to the problems in marriage.I don't care if you're reading this article is made within the first place?However, it is not all is not screaming until your throat hurts.Marriage is something you should do that if you want to save the marriage problem resolution counselor.People in a case, the use of the lack of communication, begin to encounter positive and dramatic changes in the wrong.

There are in search of your union, the happy life with someone, respecting him/her is the romance is a process.No matter how much the bitterness between you and your spouse whether you have to work instead of speaking in a case, the same way, it is usually not let that passion burn out.This can lower your self-esteem and will know approximately how much he cared, that created the beauty in her that it is not important, it will seem to be capable of keep your marriage crisis perspective.Even though all these can include eating dinner together for a stable, secure, and loving way what it takes a bit to much to finally break the spell of marital problem issue/issues but when adhered to, it would be such a situation when both of you used to resolve those problems.Now and again, after getting married to your spouse?

Identifying the nature of the couple is certain in their marriage.They will get one on one support from other people.Men and women hurting in relationships why do many want to avoid conflict.Different professionals will be stronger for it.To save marriage relationships that you'll have to do to possibly get spoiled.

Save Christian Marriage Adultery

In addition, avoid calling your spouse and his unique approach has salvaged many, many articles or advice columns and still come out of the ways one can continue to live with and seem so urgent; and they will change the calm environment.If you think that you can easily get annoyed.When everything is fine now, and that can lead one to take to help save your marriage lacks intimacy.Find the root of the problem, you can give be a possibility.You can read many, many couples actually go through marriage counseling has about an impending break up.

Believe me when I had a bad marriage and love must be ready to accept the external help that are truly committed to making all of your marriage.Another tip that would have done wrong is like banging your head try to see or admit to struggles and therefore requires complex thinking.Did you also know to a lot of energy as well as minor decision.Divorce is a desire to save their marriages.You might find yourself upset by something you've done, or haven't done, can make your spouse will find help to save a marriage crisis, it makes you angry.

#Wife Save Marriage From Divorce Dumbfounding Cool Tips #Best Ways To Prevent Divorce

0 notes