#when I am reminded that I am a person with a real corporeal form

[ed-mnsn]

stress management

peter sutherland x female!reader

summary: peter always takes care of you

warnings: smut! 18+ minors dni, unprotected piv (use protection!), oral (f receiving), light choking (if you squint), praise, fluff, very very sweet, banter, 2.6k!

a/n: im literally obsessed with peter sutherland i can’t take it. the lack of fics on here is astonishing so here i am! enjoy!!!

Peter Sutherland is a gentle giant. He’s a true gentleman, always opening car doors and offering his jacket, never failing to treat you as special as you deserve to be. 

He’s a pleaser, and he definitely will have his way with you. The nights you need it most, high-strung and running on empty after work. He always takes care of you. 

Peter gets you under him, and he absolutely doesn’t mind you being a pillow princess at all. He kisses you just right, firmly, not too harsh. He grounds you, leeches the stress right out of your body. You can’t help but writhe under his touch, solid hands running along every inch of skin he can get to. The way he mouths at your neck is criminal, and you curse yourself for being so professional, or else you’d let him mark up every inch of your skin. 

“Pete,” you whisper breathily, not really asking for anything, just saying his name for the sake of it. You feel the curl of his mouth as he smiles where your ear meets your jawbone. 

He makes you giddy, eager, weightless, a reminder that you’re a real person behind the shell of a woman that works a 9-5 corporate desk job. He brings out the best in you, makes you feel like the you that you love. 

Your hands play with the hair at the base of his neck, latching onto the strands when he slips a hand under your shirt. Your body is second nature to him, well-known territory that he never gets sick of exploring. He lightly pinches one of your nipples, making you bite your lip, a warm hum leaving your mouth. 

His hips are slotted over yours, very little left to the imagination with the thin cotton pajama pants he’s wearing, probably nothing underneath knowing him. You can feel him half-hard through the material and your mouth waters at the thought of getting your hands on him. 

Peter really loves on you. Always makes you feel special. His lips meet yours again and you breathe him in. He smells like a fresh shower and after-shave, light and airy and so delectable. You lick into his mouth slightly, needing more. He takes the bait, playfully nipping at your bottom lip, wringing it through his teeth. It makes you keen. 

The way Peter makes you feel is utterly sinful. You want to ravish him, swallow him whole. He’s kissing you like you’re the only thing that matters, a hand sliding down your waist to play with the band of your little silk pajama shorts. He knows you wear them for comfort, but God, he thinks you look so sexy in them. 

You groan into his mouth as he slips a hand into your bottoms, finger tips just grazing over your clit through the fabric of your panties. You buck your hips up into him, but you know he likes to savor you. 

“You’re being a tease,” you say, winded, into his mouth. 

“You new around here or something?” He answers, unable to hide the smirk that’s formed on his lips.

You can’t even manage to respond, because he pulls your thong to the side and runs a finger through your slick. You’re dripping wet and Peter groans, low and rough and doing absolutely nothing to ease the ache at your core.

His pointer finger prods at your hole but doesn’t actually enter. Your hands slide down his neck, landing on his shoulders and gripping hard, surely to leave marks. The vice grip sobers you into realizing he still has his shirt on, and you quickly decide that that needs to change. 

He continues rubbing lazy circles into your clit while you paw as his shirt, grabbing his attention enough to notice that you want it off. You whimper slightly as he leans back onto his knees, swiftly pulling the fabric up and over his shoulders. 

The sight of Peter’s body never gets old. His abs flex as he throws his shirt to the ground and if you weren’t being too careful you might’ve drooled. You reach up to his torso, running a hand over his muscles and fawning, not even remotely trying to hide it. 

Peter blushes, and you love when he gets like this. He looks like he could be on the cover of a swimsuit magazine but he’s oh so bashful when you gawk at him. 

“You’re staring.” He says, eyebrows raised and glint in his eye. 

“Aren’t I allowed?” You question, posh. 

He leans down slipping a finger under the hem of your shorts and panties. 

“I guess I’ll let it slide,” he answers, before pulling both of the garments off at once. 

You squeal, laughing, reaching for him. He grabs one of your ankles as it kicks into the air, kissing your calf sweetly. 

He’s got a full view of your wet cunt and it makes him groan, scanning your body as if he doesn’t already have it committed to memory. 

“You’re staring.” You say mockingly, smirking up at him. 

There’s a brief moment, a pause where he’s just looking at you. 

“I know.” He rasped, leaning in further to kiss just above the inside of your knee. 

Butterflies swarm as he travels down the bed, getting eye level with your heat. 

Here’s a fact about Peter: he eats pussy and he eats it well. 

He eats pussy like it’s his favorite hobby in the world. The way you taste makes him moan, and the way you writhe under him? God, he’d be happy man if he died between your thighs. 

He plants wet kisses to your inner thighs, licking and biting the skin there, knowing you can’t chastise him for it because he’s the only one who gets to see you down there. 

You whine as he presses a kiss to your labia, and you think you might pass out as he licks the excess slick off his lips. He finally indulges you, tongue darting across your clit, your hands quickly making their way to his hair. 

He’s like a man starved, devouring you whole. You cry out as he suctions his lips on your bud, sucking and lapping at your sloppy cunt. It’s wet and loud, and you buck your hips into the air as he curses into you. 

He wraps his arms under your thighs, firm hands planting your hips back down into the mattress. With nowhere else to go but towards him, you grind into his face. It’s frantic, wild, and everything you ever needed. 

His warm tongue dips into your hole, making you keen at the entrance. One hand’s pulling at his hair and the other intertwines with his on top of your hip. His nose prods at your clit as he tongue-fucks you, stimulating every nerve in your body.  

“Pete,” you cry, “Fuck!”

“That’s it babe.” He encourages quickly, before licking a hot flat stripe up your folds. He’s working your clit again, saliva running down his chin. 

You feel the build in your gut, heart racing and heat washing over you. It’s dizzying, all-encompassing. You’re whining, crying out his name, as he pants into your core. The warmth of his breath makes you shudder and it’s not long until your back is arching and you’re coming on his face.

He moans with you, lapping at you until your chest is heaving and you’re licked clean. 

Your hands run gently through his hair, attempting to set it back into place. He crawls back up to you, and the wet spot of precome on the front of his pants doesn’t go unnoticed. 

You can’t help but laugh at the sight of his face hovering over yours. He looks giddy, ecstatic, like he just won the lottery. His lips are red and swollen, spit slick and begging to be kissed. 

You pull him to your lips, tasting yourself on his mouth and humming. 

“Good?” He questions, just barely pulling away from your lips. 

“Eh, you get points for trying.” You chide, unable to hold back your laughter. He laughs with you, unrestrained, quickly moving to play-wrestle you on top of him. 

Straddling him forces you to feel the bulge in his pants, his hard cock pressing into your sensitive cunt. You kiss him fiercely, frenzied, not able to hold back your want for him to be inside you much longer. 

He takes advantage of this position by pulling your shirt up over your head. Your tits fall right in his face, giving him ample access to suck on the flesh there. You moan as he pulls a nipple into his mouth, circling the nub with his tongue, lightly grazing over it with his teeth. 

His head tilts at the perfect angle for you to lap at his neck. You’re suddenly very grateful that he doesn’t bruise easily. Your hips grind into his solid length, and he hisses. 

“Shit,” he breathes heavily. “Need to be inside you.” 

“Please, Peter.” You beg, even though he’d indulge you in absolutely anything. 

He’s turning you back onto the mattress, maneuvering his pants off with the swift skill of a quick-change theater kid. 

You spread your legs for him, cunt aching to be touched again. His cock stand upright, the tip red and leaking. Your mouth waters, and if you both weren’t so eager for him to be inside you, you’d suck him off right then and there. 

You reach for it though, stroking him a few times and he hips naturally gravitate towards you. One of his hands lands on the mattress next to your head, and the other reaches to brush a strand of hair from your forehead. 

Typical of Peter, to be so sweet when you both know he’s about to fuck you so good you won’t be able to walk in the morning. 

“Love you,” he offers, blush creeping down his neck. 

“Love you more,” you answer, kissing him firmly, “now fuck me, please.”

“Yes ma’am,” he murmurs, running the tip of his cock through your folds. 

The slide of his dick into your cunt is something you’ll never get sick of. His eyes are locked with yours as he buries into you, moans easily slipping from both of your mouths. The stretch is heavenly, filling you to the brim. 

He pumps in and out of you a few times, letting you get used to the drag of his cock against your walls. 

You pulls his mouth to yours as he speeds up, but its really no use because you’re a mess of whimpers and moans, all of which he swallows gladly. He pounds into you recklessly, balls slapping against your ass. 

Peter’s hands touch every inch of skin they can, sliding down your waist, brushing over your nipples, fingers wrapping around your throat. Your belly curls in on itself at the firm grip he has on your neck. It’s so fucking hot that you don’t know what to do with yourself, helplessly pawing at his back as he splits you open. 

He’s loud, shattered breath rasping your name repeatedly. He’s swearing himself to you, just as he has a multitude of other times. 

“God, Pete!” You wail, the bucking of his hips sending a jolt up your spine. 

“S’good,” he whispers, “so good for me.” 

He kisses you with his whole being, and even when his lips aren’t on yours, you’re just breathing each other in. Trading exhalations, sharing glances. 

You’re both sweaty, hot, mad with pleasure, when he sits back and clutches your hips, pulling your body even closer to him. The new angle lets his cock hit your g-spot, a strangled moan falling past your lips. 

The feeling is instant, how quickly it makes your spine go hot. Your legs start to shake, stomach clenching, and he knows. 

The pleasure falls over you like a wave, building and building, teetering on the the edge of a crash. His thumb finds it’s way to your clit and suddenly you’re drowning, gasping, begging, uttering his name like they’re the last words that will ever leave your mouth. 

“”M coming, Peter,” you manage to cry, and he’s groaning along with you, balls pulling tight and filling you with his load at the same time you fall over the edge. 

Your head is thrown back into the sheets, back arching pornographically as he clings onto you for dear life. You’re gasping, legs trembling as he hovers down over you, careful not to crush you as he offers the last few remaining pumps into your core. 

The noise is the room is reserved for both of your heavy breaths, foreheads touching, grounding each other. He kisses you and wipes the hair out of your eyes before gently pulling out, your grimace not going unnoticed. 

He pecks your cheek quickly, rolling off the bed. You hear the sink in the bathroom running, and he comes back with a warm washcloth as always. He’s diligent in wiping you down delicately, using only the softest of touches to clean you up. You gladly sit there and watch him, face red and a smile on your lips. You’re happy with this life. 

He throws the towel on the ground (fuck the hardwood floors, right?), and slips back into bed, pulling the covers over both of you. 

It’s hard to keep yourself from kissing him, but you just can’t resist. 

“Satisfactory?” He quips, that bright smile on his face. 

“You know the answer to that, Sutherland.” 

“Do I? I think you should give me an in-depth a highlight reel-” You hit him playfully, cutting him off. 

He counter attacks with a kiss. 

#peter sutherland #the night agent #peter sutherland smut #peter sutherland fluff #peter sutherland x female reader #peter sutherland imagine #peter sutherland x reader #peter sutherland x y/n #the night agent imagine #the night agent x reader #the night agent smut

[fayoftheforest]

i'm gonna be completely honest with you i can't remember if i read the scene in Ship In A Bottle where stan makes kyle swordfight him after finding out his identity. it was just too emotionally devastating for 12/13 year old me. i was already having heart palpitations because that was it. that was gonna be the chapter where kyle's identity was gonna be revealed and i've waited for it all week. i think i went back and skimmed it after reaching the end of the chapter bc i desperately wanted to know what happened but at the same time. attempting to read that scene terrified me. it was so, so very emotionally damaging to me you have no idea

anyways basically Ship In A Bottle made me feel so many things all at once it was truly a once in a lifetime experience 10/10 you will never be fine after reading it

(ask is in reference to this fic. thank you for the message!)

my gut reaction to this message is to be like "wow thank you, that means so much to hear!! ^-^" but I guess getting all flattered about being responsible for causing a young person extreme emotional distress is not a particularly "appropriate reaction." so please allow me to issue my deepest apologies to you and offer financial compensation for any medical issues I may have caused as a result of my messy angsty writing 😔

I've said this before I think but, man, I will never stop being genuinely surprised when people outside of AO3 tell me about their experiences of reading my fanfiction. like, I know there are readers out there because I can see the numbers and such, but like, those are just little internet ghosties, right? they haunt AO3 and have no corporeal form in the real world, right? NO??? oh. 😳. well that's pretty neat then!! I definitely have normal human levels of excitement every time I am reminded of this fact :D

#wip: ship in a bottle #south park #sp style

[nomorerww]

This is another diatribe by an egotistical, condescending male but whenever a new fantasy series is released and BREAKS RECORDS like Hogwarts legacy did It always make me wonder. Why are peoples so drawn to these stories where one person is tasked with "saving" the entire world, where the stakes are unrealistically high. The premise seems more than a little narcissistic. And of course, It is typically a boy that we are focusing on here. One of the writer's arguments is that it is ego that underpins people's eagerness to consume fantasy fiction or to become fervent supporters of a sports team or something -- almost as if they have something to do with a successes of these things, is if they're living vicariously through a random player or the main character in a game.

But is there no ego/lack of impulse control involved in lifestyle choices like constant partying and heavy drinking like one of the author's friends did, supposedly in an attempt to mimic the rock and roll musicians he idolized? It too involves self-indulgence and an immediate dopamine hit.

Those recently entering college will end up partying and drinking to an excess because they want to feel like they belong/they want to feel that high, one wonders what happens when that mindset persiats for decades...

[...]According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American spends a little more than five hours each day watching television.

Moreover, the average American will spend the equivalent of nine years of his or her life watching television. (This figure, of course, does not include the untold hours we spend watching movies -- either at the cinema or online -- or the inordinate amount of time spent surfing the Web.)

It is, thus, reasonable to assume that the public expends an enormous amount of time engaged with mass media instead of with real-life interactions and experiences.

But at what cost?

Given that the overwhelming majority of Hollywood movies, television shows (and pop songs) are basically garbage designed to appeal to the broadest swath of society in order to maximize corporate profits -- the impact of such exposure is extremely corrosive and perhaps incalculable. We are addicted to our TVs, iPads, iTunes, Blackberries, iPhones and the Internet the same way we cannot shed our embrace of drugs, tobacco, alcohol, gambling and other forms of instant gratification.

Almost 30 years ago, a brilliant educator and author named Neil Postman wrote an engrossing book called “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.” Covering a broad array of subjects, Postman proposed the idea that addiction to mass media is essentially tantamount to oppression and slavery, as was once predicted decades before by George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World.”

Thus, mass media serves as a kind of voluntary medication for the masses -- people who are either bored or dissatisfied by their real lives seek to escape into the unreal universe of images on a screen or sounds on a music player, which, in turn, often dictate what they think, how they talk, how they dress and even what they say.

Fantasy and science fiction have become a cold, hard, stark reality.

I am reminded of two former friends of mine who epitomize how mass media has usurped our personal lives and consciousness. One fellow, whom I will call Matt, is obsessed with rock 'n' roll. Now approaching middle age, Matt still wears what’s left of his hair long and frequently dons T-shirts and blue jeans (the standard rock 'n' roll uniform).

Born to a wealthy but broken home to two unloving parents, Matt was a homely and awkward child who grew into a desperately unhappy and lonely adolescent. He sought solace in the world of rock music -- he bought hundreds of records (his collection now runs into the thousands), attended innumerable concerts, devoured all the music magazines and (like too many of his peers who sought to imitate their idols) took drugs, smoked and drank excessively.

This same depressing narrative has been replicated millions of times around the planet by similarly bored and alienated teenagers. But Matt took his obsession several steps beyond.

Despite a definite lack of musical talent, Matt dove so deep into the realm of rock 'n' roll that he has deluded himself into thinking that he, too, is part of the rock music industry. He speaks of famous musicians by the first names (Mick, Jimi, Bob, Bruce, etc.) and acts like they are personal friends of his. When he would attend a concert, he did not simply go as a fan -- rather, he pretended he was actually part of the show (as if he participated in its very production).

And these delusions have only deepened over the past 30-plus years.

Clearly, Matt desperately needed to fill the emptiness in his soul and heart with the accouterments of the pop music industry -- a universe he has no real connection to whatsoever.

For another old friend of mine, whom I will call Dan, the attachment to mass media has taken even more bizarre and pathetic turns.

Dan, who, like Matt, grew up in an affluent, suburban family and developed into a lonely, awkward, sullen teenager, dove headlong into the spheres of television and movies. Nothing unusual about that, but to Dan, the nonexistent lives and worlds of fictitious TV and film characters became real to him -- more real, in fact, than the flesh-and-blood creatures around him.

Unable to formulate his own jokes or monologs, Dan repeatedly plagiarized the words he heard uttered by people on the screen -- he even pretended that they were real people that he knew personally (much like how Matt adopted rock stars as his own friends and peers).

Thus, the plot lines of TV shows became an inseparable part of Dan’s otherwise humdrum real life.

Matt and Dan may serve as extreme cases, but I believe tens of millions of people share this same terrible affliction -- the total immersion and subjugation of one’s ego and individuality into the fantasy lives of people they do not know, have never met, are unlikely to ever meet and may not really even exist.

Ironically, Western democracies purport to celebrate individuality -- yet mass media has completely undermined that noble concept by turning the masses into a mindless herd who blindly follow the activities of an exalted few, who themselves are manufactured by a tiny elite of media lords.

Is this freedom? Is this democracy? Is this healthy?

George Orwell was indeed prescient.

Living vicariously through media-created images also expands to sports. Whenever I see men and women wearing memorabilia of their favorite sports clubs -- whether it be the New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys or Notre Dame football or Manchester United -- I wonder: Are they honoring the team and its players? Or are they vainly glorifying themselves -- that is, deluding themselves into believing they are part of the roster? A combination of both, I suspect.

This phenomenon is particularly acute in the field of science fiction/horror/fantasy films. It seems as though every other year, a new sensation arrives (manufactured and heavily marketed by movie studios) that suddenly attracts millions of movie-goers, turning an otherwise mediocre piece of celluloid into an instant classic while concurrently creating a battalion of fans who dress up like characters in the film.

When I was a boy, a little movie by the name of “Star Wars” was released. I went to see it, liked it and thought it was a reasonably enjoyable adventure story. But I was completely taken aback by the fanaticism it inspired -- indeed, I was puzzled as to why so many fans returned to the theater repeatedly to watch it. (I knew one fellow who watched the film more than 100 times and knew the entire dialog by heart, this being years before the availability of home videos).

George Lucas not only built an enormous empire out of "Star Wars" (and several subsequent sequels and prequels of varying quality), but also a religion of sorts. The film became a kind of Bible to legions of followers -- people of all ages recited bits of dialog like scripture and dressed up like Luke Skywalker or Han Solo or Darth Vader (with, of course, light sabers that didn’t really do anything).

The obsession with "Star Wars" has only intensified after 35 years -- grown adults dress up like characters from the film at various functions. Lucas, who has made more money than he could spend in a millennium, is likely appalled by what he has inadvertently wrought.

Indeed, more than any other film, the huge success of "Star Wars" permanently damaged the integrity and artistry of filmmaking.

[...]

"Star Wars" and "Star Trek" have each become billion-dollar corporate empires that apparently will never disappear (new converts are recruited each year to keep the franchise going).

And they have a lot of company -- in recent decades, "Harry Potter," "Game of Thrones," "Batman" and various others have seized the souls of untold millions of obsessives who spend ungodly amounts of time (and money) on these pointless entertainments.

I have never read a "Harry Potter" book, nor have I ever seen any of the films, but I realize they’re massively popular, particularly with children. While I admire J.K. Rowling for inspiring millions of kids around the world to read books -- I would rather they read "Treasure Island," "Jane Eyre" or "Sherlock Holmes" (rather than a book whose popularity depends upon films, massive marketing/promotion and huge merchandising).

[...]At the root of all of this virtual reality is real greed. ‘The Hobbit’ is a great example of how Hollywood has franchised fantasy and encouraged its fans to run away from real life. ... The goal is to get the audience hooked on the studio’s product -- and some literally become addicted. ... But what is worrying is the cult-like following that the Tolkien films have encouraged. Many of the acolytes seem victims of arrested development -- detaching themselves from the real world with its real people and its real challenges. In the same way that superhero movies actually emasculate the audience by convincing them that their problems are so big that only a man in a cape can solve them, so the fantasy racket returns us to the emotional paralysis of early childhood. ... The true horror comes when someone can no longer tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not and they end up living their lives as dwarves or wizards.”

Amen, Mr. Stanley!

One must also wonder what Tolkien himself would have thought of this monstrous corporate machine he unwittingly created from beyond the grave.

Tolkien’s tales of elves and wizards were largely inspired by the ancient Celtic and Norse legends he was immersed in as a child -- he celebrated the simple, rustic values of a pastoral lifestyle. Indeed, Tolkien was appalled by the modern mechanized world of unrelenting commerce and sought to retreat from such corrosive vulgarities in his own private shire.

Yes, Tolkien sought escape as well, but he created his own dazzling, highly detailed fantasy world; he did not appropriate someone else’s dreams and move into them.

All these 24-7 diversions cannot be good for our society or our souls. To combat this paralyzing disease, we must declare: “May the force be with you.”

#long reads #harry potter #escapism #fantasy film #sociology

[lserver362reviews]

At this point, just shy of reading the play myself, I have consumed most of what I could about this movie before seeing it. I was visiting family in Rhode Island for the New Year and decided I didn't want to wait to see it at the end of the month in Vermont. I wanted to start the year with my Brendan Fraser Film Completionist status in tact. I also wanted to go alone for this viewing. I think that years of Catholicism does a massive brain shaping and it's very apparent in Aronofsky's films. I get the internalized Catholicism that goes into his movies. Maybe there's a connection between this and the attraction to trauma. As prepared as I was, two packs of tissues in hand, there were times during the film when I said, wow, he really did it. Aronofsky has made a film about second hand religious trauma. As much as this film is being talked about in regards to fatphobia, it seems to me the real aim is a discussion of homophobia. I was extremely taken by the character of Allan, his story, his tragedy. My biggest personal gripe about my time in organized religion was the focus on escaping the reality we're in. At 'New England's Largest Christian Music Festival' (Soulfest) I quite literally remember seeing a booth entitled, "Starve the Flesh" and they handed out tattoos that, I'll admit, looked metal af, but they looked like a razor carving and the impact of that still shakes me to this day. American society has a lot of faults, one being the focus on individualism, but also the obsession with the physical self. Fatphobia effects us all, at any size and it is everywhere. Maybe it's because I've not only struggled with my weight, my body image, my sexuality, my self esteem, but I've also just struggled to remain in this body at times, and always been interested in human's relationship to food and addiction, all coupled with the religion my life has been founded on, and so, this movie scratched a particular itch for me. Now, back to Allan's story. This is a gay man, raised in a church (considered cult-like), ostracized by his family, and yet he still had his bible on his bookshelf, annotated no less. He kept a white mug with a blue crucifix on it that Charlie now has kept in Allan's absence. This is a man who never lost his faith. And it ruined him. He starved himself, on a bible verse that pits the soul against the flesh. The ultimate struggle of existence is to balance this idea that we are more than corporeal and to have a relationship with the creator while we're still in this form. Allan's faith rejected him, but he never rejected his faith. I am astounded by that writing and conveyance in this film. Then we have everyone else picking up the pieces of that truth. I had read about reactions to Liz's character, and my expectation was absolutely blasted apart. I see her as a fully justified character. My mom lost her brother due to suicide. I know the way that trauma can make someone over compensate in really perplexed ways, especially when the inverse of someone's demise is someone else's addiction. Anyone who writes Liz off as simply an enabler has a thin understanding of what it is to be in relationship with an addict and/or the impacts of losing someone to suicide. At many times I was reminded that this is a play but that never got in the way of the story that was being told, and I haven't even gotten to Brendan Fraser yet. I watched all of his movies from 2021-2022, and the biggest take away from seeing every role was that, no matter the content, he has a way of infusing a genuine spirit of life into his characters. They're never without authentic life, and that's a bit of weird ask when it comes to acting. I found Charlie to be completely disarming. The little wink he gives to Thomas was perfection. Charlie's bungled in many many ways which I'll get into, but I will say his wit absolutely caught me off guard. He's clever, he's a writer. I wish we knew what his connection to religion was. I sometimes forget how tall Brendan Fraser is, and I had heard complaints of the score, and I'd agree with the overscoring in the first moments we see Charlie stand up, and then at the end (which the final moments I despised). The moments of monologue were exceptional and this movie was absolutely carried by Brendan Fraser. I don't think anyone else could have done it. I don't care if he gets an oscar, or even nominated. I've seen him do this role and that simply speaks for itself. This movie isn't what a lot of people, including myself to an extent, wish it was. I wish we had a movie that opened up how vile and insidious fatphobia is, but this wasn't that. We see Charlie as a happy fat person with Allan in a photo, and when he sees it he is still incredibly hurt by his loss. I don't think movies should undercut, as Sam Hunter has said, "hard-earned hope" and this movie doesn't. I don't think Charlie is a bad character. I think he has developed coping skills, his binge-eating and his positive outlook. In Everything Everywhere All At Once, a multiverse Waymund states, so beautifully, "You tell me that it’s a cruel world, and we’re all just running around in circles. I know that. I’ve been on this earth just as many days as you. When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naïve. It’s strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything. I know you see yourself as a fighter. Well, I see myself as one too. This is how I fight." That's Charlie. He uses hyperbole so often because he so desperately wants to believe it. He wants to say it and make it honest. I love a character this complex. Charlie is running from a past and ending up deluding himself. We see this best with Ellie. I didn't mind Sadie Sink's at times psychotic performance. I think I can empathize with her rage, looking back on my own family's unraveling when I was 15. I do think she's evil, but I think that to pretend that everyone is ultimately good and there isn't deep hurt one can do to their own soul is the kind of dangerous positivity we see in Charlie. I was very struck by Liz's statement that we can't save people. I agree with her but I also see our being here (once again the struggle for the balance) as to care for one another. How do we love when we know we can't save? Maybe salvation requires the love of others, especially to bolster love for ourselves. We can't save, but we can share. Once again, I am left with love for Allan and what he and Charlie shared together. I was reminded this is rural Idaho, especially when Samantha Morton's character came into the story. I felt that Thomas' character was the least interesting and I do not trust his parents one bit, and believe he is ill-fated. Once again, Ellie might be evil. But that is the damage of undealt with trauma. I don't know if I'll ever truly sort out my thoughts on my relationship to food, but I believe that it's morally neutral. Charlie's coping and dealing with his trauma has manifested through binge-eating. I don't need the movie to remind me that this story isn't trying to reach universals of people who are fat. Not everyone who is fat has trauma and that's the A to B, cause and effect. I don't think that this means we shouldn't see body diversity in media. I think this is a first step and was handled pretty well. Now let's truly move away from using massive body suits and get age appropriate and size appropriate casting. To me, this movie is about the religious trauma of a gay person. That needs to be sorted out in this country, not because it led to Charlie being fat which he should be demonized for, but because we never get to meet Allan, just the ones who love him who were left behind.

Freddie Prinze Jr wrote some wonderful words about Fatherhood due to this movie and that should be read: www.interviewmagazine.com/film/brendan-fraser-and-freddie-prinze-jr-on-trauma-and-transformation

#The Whale #Brendan Fraser #darren aronofsky #A24 #Film #movie #cinema #films #movies #movie review #reviews #review #film review #film reviews #move reviews #sadie sink #samantha morton #samuel d hunter #sam hunter #samuel hunter #spoilers #spoilers: the whale #cw: suicide #cw: religious trauma

[aphroditestummyrolls]

😌👍🏻

#when I am reminded that I am a person with a real corporeal form #like a body??? that I currently inhabit??? #I am possessed by a desperate need to do hurt myself #like... I know every single thing that needs to change but I just can’t DO ANYTHING that gives immediate relief #I’m not a person #I can’t be a person until my body is perfect #it’s ELEVEN O CLOCK IN THE FUCKING MORNING #tw eating disorder #tw anorexia #tw body horror

[bitchassbucky]

.zip

Word Count: 2k

Warning/s: toxic/abusive relationship dynamics, gaslighting and manipulation, abduction, injuries were mentioned, stalking, dark!bucky x dark!reader, emotionally/mentally unstable!reader, dismemberment (not gore-y but still), three very special character mentions, shady corporate stuff, career sabotage?, food mention, sedation/drugging, f-words.

A/N: oh my god, this is the final chapter of CTRL. to all who read from the start, thank y'all so fucking much - from the bottom of my big-ass heart, thank you so much for coming along with this journey. this is my first FINISHED series, oh my god. to @babyboibucky (CTRL's number one fan), @sarge-barnes-sir, and @borikenlove thank you so much for indulging my inner degenerate GHJSDFG and for screaming (affectionately) at me when i first let y'all read the finished draft.

BUT THIS IS NOT THE END (just yet), i will be uploading TWO epilogues very soon: the explicit version and the not-so-explicit version. stay tuned!

follow the CTRL series:

i - .exe

ii - .avi

iii - .raw

iv - .png

v - .zip

epilogue:

.eps (explicit)

.eps (cut)

CTRL playlist CTRL moodboard

Your demeanor, character, even tone, changed.

Calculated, cold, unnerving.

But you sat there like a housewife in front of her husband, eating spaghetti and meatballs. Acting all dandy like there isn’t a man strapped onto the chair four feet away from you.

“C’mon, darling, eat! I made your favorite,” your eyes twinkled as Bucky helplessly tugged on his restraints, “oh, sorry, you’re tied up.”

Hm, sick in the head, bad for the heart.

“What do you want?” Oh, wow, even talking hurts for him. His throat is all dried up, he tasted something bitter under his tongue.

You chuckled, moving half a meatball around your mostly empty plate, “for you to stop treating me like I’m stupid.” You spear the meat with your fork, swirling it in the sauce, “I know you’ve been… checking in on me, Bucky.”

Oh, fuck.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I was-- I mean, look at you--” He’s making it worse. You’re mad. You’re angry because he was being a good friend.

He only did that because you were lonely and he’s right: you are lonely.

So lonely that you’re willing to kidnap a grown man to keep you company, “I’m so sad for you.”

“You’re aware you’re the one’s been tied up, right?” You’re curt as you should be, scooting over near Bucky to feed him.

“I can’t eat that—” If he wasn’t sitting down and tied, Bucky would’ve vaulted over you and called the neighbors, she’s fucking crazy!

You giggled, rolling your eyes as if he had the freedom to make a choice right now, “if you’re thinking of screaming… More than half of my neighbors are felons or on parole, I doubt that they’ll call 911.”

Jutting forward the fork, you let the prongs gently touch Bucky’s lips, “now, eat! We have so much to talk about.”

“No. I don’t-- I’m not hungry.” He shakes his head, the fork hitting his chin and clanking down the floor.

“Just eat the fucking food, Steve!”

Bucky flinched at your sudden outburst. The words—the name—seeping in a moment later. Steve? Who the hell is Steve? Was he your husband? Boyfriend? His head throbbed again, his mouth filling with saliva like he’s about to throw up.

You kneel down, pulling a napkin from the table to wipe the meat and the sauce from the floor.

“This better not stain.”

—

He promised thrice.

Once over pasta and meatballs, once over dessert, and once when you were clearing the table.

You relented, of course. Half because you love him and half because it’s getting annoying.

“As long as you don’t leave me, okay?”

“Yes, I promise. I won’t leave you.”

Bucky’s still seating on the dinner chair, slightly slumped without the ropes holding him up, “look, I’m really sorry about the anesthetic, I went overboard with it.” You look over to him—at least he’s regaining his fingers and arms again.

“It’s okay, babe, I wouldn’t trust me either.” If he could stand up, he’d go over and hug you. Helping with the dishes, peppering you with sweet kisses.

A genuine laugh slips out of your lips, “ugh, still… I’m really sorry.”

The last of the plates were neatly stacked, cups and cutleries were placed gently on a drying rack. It was getting late, you could tell.

“I’m not mad, by the way.” You muse, prompting Bucky to lean forward, listening to you.

“What do you mean?” He takes your hand into his, ever so gently.

“You did that,” you squeeze his hand back, gazing into his soulful eyes, “because you love me.”

Did you know that some people could read microexpressions well? Bucky went through a whole lot of them before answering, “of course, I do.”

Contemplating whether you call him out on it or not, you hum, placing a gentle hand on his jaw, “it’s okay, you’ll learn how to love me.”

He has to. He has no other choice.

Bucky clears his throat, “have you seen my phone?” His tone was hopeful, upbeat, maybe he can reach out to someone, anyone, before you can do any more damage.

“Yeah, ‘s on the couch.”

He tried to move, he really did. Bucky’s fairly strong, he can bench an easy 140 on a good day. But even the beefiest motherfuckers have no match for Propofol.

“Don’t worry about your friends, they’re not worried about you, Buck.” The coolness of your tone sends Bucky into a panic—again. “D’you wanna check your messages though? There’s a lot of ‘em.”

Grabbing his phone, you asked Siri to read him his latest notifications.

Urgent: Notice of Immediate Termination

From Joaquin: Where are you, man?

From John W.: Do you have copies?

Urgent: Notice of Immediate Termination

Urgent: Gross Misconduct

From Joaquin: Bucky, what the fuck?

From Samuel Wilson: Pick up the phone, Barnes. You’re fired.

17 missed calls from an unknown number

From John W.: I knew you were a freak but holy shit, dude!

72 text messages from an unknown number

Bucky never really liked horror movies. It made him jumpy and anxious. Too paranoid, even. But now? Now he’s sure that people have never experienced sheer fright before.

His toes cramped inside his boots, his feet were cold, sweating. The little hairs on his legs stood up, goosebumps littering the entirety of his body. If he held his breath, he’s sure he could hear his heart hammering out of his chest. The blood rushes past his ears and onto the base of his skull—he’s gonna be sick.

“What,” he gulped back the saliva pooling in his mouth, “what did you do?”

You’re irritatingly calm, “well, I mean… We’re already together, what do you need those for, right?”

Putting a warm hand over his forehead, you cooed, “poor thing, you look sick.”

—

Bucky thinks it’s well past midnight when the anesthetic wore off.

His limbs were heavy, he had to lean on the wall every couple of steps to regain his balance. Helpless. He’s helpless and you both know it. As if it’s a bear trap, Bucky carefully took his phone from the coffee table.

Why would you leave it unattended?

The screen lights up as soon as he picked up, his lock screen littered with ‘fuck yous’, ‘sicko’, and his personal favorite, ‘motherfucker.’

Ignoring the glaring messages, he went straight for the emergency dialler and—you took out his SIM card, snapping it into two neat pieces, placing it beside the phone.

Bitch.

The golden surface of the card was scratched too, he can’t do anything, use it as a toothpick, maybe? His phone was just as good as a paperweight.

He looks out of the window, limping towards it. Even if he could climb over, it would take him forever to get onto the street. Your neighbors would probably think that he’s just on a bad trip.

“It’s bolted shut. Perks of living alone as a single female.” Your voice made him flinch back, like a kid whose hand was halfway down the cookie jar.

Bucky plays it off with a cough, he can’t be weak now, “no, babe, I was checking out a noise. You ready for bed?”

You smiled softly, taking his hand and draping his arm on your shoulders as you prop him against you, “almost, big guy. Gotta get you settled in bed first. Are you tired?”

Nodding, Bucky kisses your temple, “yeah.” He just needs to play with your sick little games until he regains his strength.

Where would he go? His reputation and his job are besmirched, his apartment is probably crawling with forensics too.

“You fell down and banged your head earlier. Nasty cut on your head too. I told you to not tire yourself much.”

You hit and drugged me but I digress, “Yes, darling. ‘M sorry.”

“You scared me, Buck. I thought you were dead.” Are these tears forming in your eyes?

“I’m not leaving you, not by any chance. I promise.”

He promises a fourth time.

��

Your bedroom was bigger than he thought. But of course, he only saw your desk and your bed through the webcam.

Save from the Ted Bundy-esque corkboard you have in front of your workspace, he feels weirdly at home. You tucked him in, reminding him to wake up every two hours for the painkillers.

“You’re not going to bed?” He muses from behind you, all cocooned in your blankets.

“Just need to take this phone call real quick, babe.” Your back was turned from him as you work on your company laptop. He noticed that the webcam is covered with white tape.

The sound of an incoming call filled the room before you quickly answer it, your voice turning hoarse and raspy as if you’ve been crying.

Hi, Mr. Wilson. I’m so sorry for the late call. Do I- do I need to come in tomorrow? I just... I don’t feel comfortable facing everyone—I used all my home hours this week and—

Miss L/N, I’m glad you reached out to me. Is it okay if I record this call for security purposes? It’s just for you, me, and the HR department.

You turned to Bucky, your face is stone-cold but your voice belonged to someone so utterly helpless.

No, you don’t have to call into work tomorrow… Or any other day.

A dainty gasp and a fucking sob comes out of your mouth, your eyes were telling a different story.

Am I fired?

God, no. Please, Miss L/N, don’t worry about that. We want you with us through this entire debacle. We want you to take some time off—paid. We’ll also grant you… a grievance package.

You could almost hear what he would say next.

As long as you don’t talk to any members of the press or any journalists until our friends in the PR department can clean this up.

A triumphant smile creeps on your bare features, putting a finger in front of your lips, you mimic a ‘shh’ gesture to Bucky.

You round up another mirthless sob as the CEO drones on about the bureaucracy of this whole thing.

He was really nice to me, you know? He took me out on dinners and lunches. He even brought me to his place and I– nothing happened but I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’m really sorry, Miss L/N. I thought he was…

A good guy? I really thought so too.

Please stay offline for a bit, just for the weekend, alright? Someone from the HR department will be in touch with you for the process. We don’t wanna be a hassle more than what Barnes is. On our behalf, please accept our deepest apologies.

Jesus, this guy had the PR department cook up an apology letter.

Thank you—thank you so much, Mr. Wilson. I’ll keep in touch.

You burst out in laughter a second after the call ended. Hearty laughter, the one where you can feel your belly tightening.

“Did you hear how good I was, baby? Oh my god, we had them fooled.”

We? Fuck your ‘we.’

You slide over the covers, propping up yourself with your elbow as you turn to face Bucky, “don’t worry, you don’t need them anymore. You have me, yeah? We have each other.”

—

Out of the most bizarre things that happened to him last week, finding dismembered fingers in the fridge was the least of his concerns.

“Honey!” Bucky calls out, holding the ziplock bag with a pair of tongs.

You bound down the stairs, your laptop in hand as you squint, “what am I looking at?”

Bucky hesitated, maybe he’s going insane too, “fingers. Dismembered fingers—are these yours?”

Setting down the laptop onto the table, you peck him on the cheek, smiling as if him holding a baggie with human remains is just your Sunday normal, “god, I hope not. I need my hands to do things.”

As soon as you look back at him, you dropped the facade: “those are Steve’s. Well, used to be.”

Bucky’s afraid to ask the question where’s the rest of him?

“You know the term pinky promise, right? Well, it has a dark origin.”

Just as fast as a bustling train, Bucky rakes his brain for all the times he promised you something. Hoping that he won’t end up with a stump for a hand.

One vividly bright memory is seared into his brain though, the days blurred together with sharp edges and mismatched colors: we love how we were taught to love.

So, who taught you how to love like this?

#bitchassbucky writes #dark!bucky #dark!bucky barnes #dark!bucky x reader #dark!bucky x reader smut #dark!bucky x reader fluff #dark!bucky x reader angst #dark!bucky barnes x reader #dark!bucky barnes x reader smut #dark!bucky barnes x reader angst #dark!bucky barnes x reader fluff

[djmarinizelablog]

Ultimate Bonding Experience

Summary:

Hange and Moblit follow Levi and Petra on a date. It's a disaster.

Tags:

one-shot, fluff and humor, nonbinary Hange, they/them pronouns for Hange, officemates, best friends forever, friends to lovers, jealous Hange

Notes:

This is for the Levihan Filo Week Day 4 Prompt, Tourist Destinations, featuring Greenbelt, Makati (Yes, the audacity of me.)

—

"You're going out on a date with Petra?” Hange stood up too quickly, knocking down the pen holder on their office desk in process. “As in… Petra Rall? From the Marketing Department? As in, sweet-as-candy, honey-bunny, gorgeous glam girl Petra?”

Levi swiveled his computer chair to face his best friend. "She asked me out."

"Hmm. And you didn't say no?" Hange was absentmindedly tapping the end of the pencil against their lower lip.

He gave a half-shrug. "Wanted to try something new for a change."

This was really new. Hange was incredulous. Levi never went on dates. Levi went on food trips and grocery shopping and karaoke nights (mainly due to Hange’s persistent nagging), but he never agreed to a date. There were always other people around whenever they hung out. The two of them had been best friends since college, and now as colleagues, Hange could tell from the numerous awkward and sort-of romantic encounters with Levi that Petra wasn't exactly his type.

"Is this a joke? Is this for a dare?" Hange kept prodding. They would bombard him with questions nonstop until he gave in. “Did you hit your head somewhere? Are you dying?”

"No, I just told you, Four-Eyes, I wanted to try something new.” Levi returned to his work and continued typing on his computer. “She said she already has planned something for tomorrow."

"This isn't you, Levi. You don't like itineraries," Hange said, sitting down to compose themself, gripping the pencil in their hand and holding it too tightly against the notepad.

"Maybe it's about time I do."

“So you’re choosing her over me?” Hange was already upset. Their hand was already shaking at this point, the tip of their pencil threatening to break. Levi would usually hang out with them to binge-watch a show or series on Saturdays over pizza and cheap beer, which reminded her, “What about our UBE?”

“Our—what?” He looked over his shoulder, confused.

Hange gave him a hopeful smile, hand still resting on the paper. “Our Ultimate Bonding... Experience?”

Levi glued his eyes to his computer screen once more. “You can Netflix and chill on your own for one night.”

The pencil snapped in half.

—

It was only 6 pm and Hange had already downed half a bucket of beers this Friday evening. Tomorrow morning, Levi would meet up with Petra somewhere for their date, maybe have lunch, a movie, some hand-holding and kissing, and then the two would possibly end it up with a bang. Something was really boiling deep inside Hange as these imagined scenes flashed through their mind.

And Erwin had to bear with them for tonight.

"I just don't understand, 'Win," Hange started, "Why would he do this? Why would he trade our pizza night for a girl he can't even relate to?"

Erwin was Hange and Levi's colleague in the same department before he got promoted to an executive position in corporate. Times like this, he would lend an ear to his friends' complaints and act as some sort of a part-time counselor, part-time therapist, and full-time drinking buddy.

Hange should be thankful Erwin had never charged them for these sessions before, but now with all of their whining, he was probably regretting that he gave them for free.

"Last I checked, you guys are just best buddies," Erwin commented. "Have you ever told him how much he means to you?"

Hange pouted.

"I'll take that as a no," Erwin said.

Their friend had a point.

"I can imagine it already, " Hange mused, eyes already watery, "I can imagine him walking down the aisle with pretty-face Petra and making babies with her, while I end up becoming that unknown relative who sends them presents for Christmas every year."

"Ah, I can imagine all the regrets you'll be having for the rest of your life."

Hange grabbed a fistful of hair in both hands. "What do I do now? I want Levi to be happy, I really do. I want to see him be happy, even if it's not with me. But why am I getting all riled up about this?"

"Then follow him," Erwin simply said as he wiped the beer of his mouth with his sleeve. "Follow him to the ends of the earth. Maybe you'll see for yourself."

Erwin had meant it as a figurative speech. When he said follow, he meant Hange supporting Levi all the way through. He never meant Hange stalking their best friend on his date.

Obviously, Hange had gotten it all wrong, because now they just blinked once, twice, a grin forming on their face. As if an epiphany had appeared before them. "Hmm. You're right."

Follow him.

This could be the greatest thing that Erwin Smith had ever come up with. Brilliant idea. Superb, even. One-of-a-kind strategy by none other than the genius Erwin Smith—oh, yes, yes, yes.

Erwin was still finishing up his beer when Hange tackled him into a hug out of gratitude, their smile wider than before. "You really are the best of the best, you know that?" They told him. This could work, Hange thought.

The plan was to follow Levi, literally.

—

"Boss, why did you pay me a hundred bucks to follow them?"

Hange was wringing their hands together. "We’re doing this together, Moblit! I wanna see how Levi acts around this girl."

"That's it?" Poor Moblit couldn't believe what he's hearing.

"I just wanna make sure he's making a good impression!"

They’re both sitting in a cafe right across Levi’s apartment. He and Hange were dressed up in plain clothes with matching sunglasses and baseball caps. Moblit had no choice; Hange was going to strangle his neck if he declined.

Moblit rested his head against his palm. "Aren't you jealous?"

"Pffft, me? Jealous?" The sour look on Hange's face was enough to tell Moblit that they weren't fooling anybody. It was just Levi’s attitude towards the entire ordeal that was tearing Hange apart. “I’m sure I’m not being rude.”

Moblit scratched his head and sighed. Hange as a boss could be really demanding at times, but the two of them were also friends in real life, which is why he agreed to this. "I thought Petra was head over heels for Oluo?"

"I thought so, too."

"He's dense, though," Moblit said. "Maybe this was just a ruse to get Oluo to confess?"

But Hange was already distracted by the sight of Levi coming out of the building.

"Ooh, he's leaving." Hange pointed towards the familiar figure. They then put their shades on as part of their undercover mission. "Let's go."

The two of them hid behind the fast food mascot of the big fat stupid ugly bee. Levi really knew how to dress up, Hange had noticed. He was wearing a plain button-up with dark pants, his hair neatly trimmed and his face cleanly shaven. He never dressed up like this whenever they hung out. It hurt Hange to see him this handsome. Levi then headed straight for the nearest station and waited for the next train to arrive. Hange and Moblit then took the same train but stayed on the other rail cart, catching a glimpse of Levi every now and then to make sure that he hadn't alighted by then.

“What would you do if they do end up together, Boss?” Moblit had to ask.

“I'd sign my life away as a single person for the rest of my years. Be an old cat person, maybe.”

The skyscrapers of Makati were passing them by, huge billboards left and right of commercial ads and government campaigns looming over them. If they looked far enough, they could see shanties and informal settlers nested in small alleys here and there. Hange had been seeing this for the past few years of their lives; Metro Manila could be daunting, but they wished they could spend away from the noisiness and busyness of the capital.

“He's getting out at Ayala Station, Boss!" Moblit pointed out. "They’re probably meeting somewhere in Greenbelt.”

“Ah, fancy-schmancy. Who could have known?”

Makati was the place only for the very rich, or for the very poor. There was no in between. Nobody dared to bat an eyelash at the rickety houses behind the skyscrapers. The shopping district and the high-end restaurants where affluent people would gather: celebrities, business executives, expatriates, anyone who could call themselves rich, rich, rich. Hange was none of those. Levi wasn't either, but he could easily pass off as one if he wanted to.

When they got off at the station, Hange and Moblit crouched behind the dumpster, craning their necks enough to get a glimpse of Levi coming up to Petra who stood waiting in front of the fountain.

“Ah, I’m so glad you’re here,” Petra said, her smile warm and happy as Levi walked alongside her. “Shall we?”

Petra was effortlessly gorgeous. She had her hair clipped into place, her slender figure matching the nice summer dress that she wore. She had also put on some light makeup, but even without it, Hange could tell that Petra would still be as breathtaking.

There really wasn't anything that Hange could hate about Petra Rall. Petra was attractive and alluring, sweet and shy, probably the ultimate dream girl of every person in their office. Hange would date Petra if she were even into them, provided the two of them had a spark.

But Hange's attention was all for Levi. Always had been. Always will be.

"Shall we, Boss?" Moblit interrupted Hange's train of thought.

"Right."

Tonight they felt that they had to accept the possibility of Levi ending up with someone else. Regardless of how this would end, Hange had decided they'd be there for him.

—

They didn't really blend in with this fancy-schmancy place. This was one of the most expensive fashion malls in the area; the price tags made broke people cry, and the restaurants were considered artisan for their taste. People were dressed up in crisp polos and cocktail dresses, the faint smell of perfume wafting here and there. The gardens had a beautiful landscape, stoned paths paving the way, and the lights were carefully draped on the trees around them, glowing like stars. It was a romantic setup for lovers.

Petra was pointing out all the different sights around the area, holding onto Levi's arm. Levi remained stiff all throughout their date, not even shedding a single ounce of emotion when Petra popped a joke. It ended up being a lousy one, though, since Levi didn't even scoff. Hange felt smug after that; their own jokes were terrible as well, but at least Levi would call them out for that.

"I think it's going well, don't you, Boss?" Hange's assistant teased.

“Oh, yeah, perfect, I can see how compatible they are.” Hange was being sarcastic.

Petra had chosen a place called People's Palace. It had a five-star rating on the internet, and even the cheapest item on the menu could break a whole in someone's wallet. There was no way they could eat there. Levi didn't even protest, though. He must have been saving up for this all along. Thankfully, the restaurant's walls were a solid transparent glass, and Hange could see the two of them from afar without having to go in.

Petra was saying something in a hushed tone when Levi came over to her side. He then put a hand on her face, tenderly brushing her cheek, as if he were about to go in for a kiss.

The moment Levi held Petra that close, Hange had to stifle their gasp which ended up like a strangled cry.

The sound made Levi look over his shoulder. Moblit had to cup his hand over Hange's mouth to shush them up, pulling them down behind the huge pots of plants.

"You alright?" Petra asked him, craning her neck towards the source of the sound as well. "What was that?"

Levi clicked his tongue. "Probably some lost bird. Well, more like a dying one."

The two went back to their meals and didn't bother to check if they were being followed. Moblit then let go of Hange and sighed in relief. They were safe, for now.

Everyone in the restaurant looked classy and elegant, soft lights all over the room. After Levi had paid for the meal (he didn't look too happy when he saw the check), he and Petra stood up and exited through the other door on the farthest end. Hange had forgotten about that. The People's Palace had an entryway connecting to the indoor gardens. They would have to enter the premise in order to follow Levi and Petra.

Without any further thought, Hange immediately stood up to barge into the restaurant, urging their assistant to follow. "They're probably confessing to each other in the gardens!" Hange was already right through the entrance. "Moblit, hurry up, I need to—"

"Boss, watch out!"

The warning came in too late. Hange had already knocked down a drink from the waiter's tray right behind them, the liquid spilling all onto the customer sitting nearest to where they were. The huge beefy man was furious, the steam already coming out of his reddened ears.

"Why, you, son-of-a-gun—"

Hange held up both hands in front of their face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!"

"Do you even belong here, you prick?" The stranger grabbed the front of Hange's oversized shirt. There were gasps from other customers, and one of the servers left to call the manager.

"Please, don't!"

The man started shaking Hange. "Filthy, pathetic, piece of—"

Somebody grabbed his wrist before he could even do anything else. "Let go."

It was Levi.

"And who the fuck are you?"

He was small, but his presence was intimidating, firm. "My friend already apologized. Isn't that enough?"

The stranger released his hold of Hange and held out the stained fabric. "Fucking pay for this shirt, asshole!"

Hange was mouthing 'sorry, sorry, sorry,' to him, their eyes filled with apology. Levi didn't bat an eyelash. Instead, he quickly took out twenty bucks from his wallet and shoved it into the huge man's hand. He then grabbed his friend by the elbow. "Hange, come on."

"Hey, this isn't enough, shortstack," the stranger grumbled, crumpling the bill. He gestured once more to his stained shirt. "Do you know how much I bought this for?"

"You could buy a similar one from one of the thrift stores downtown for less than half the price. I doubt anybody would notice." He tugged at Hange again and headed for the exit.

"What did you say, you little—"

They were out of the restaurant before the man could even finish. The manager had kept the customer in his seat, trying to console him with a discounted coupon.

Outside was a breath of fresh air, the coolness of it enough to clear their minds.

“You alright?”

Hange was still trembling. Their lips quivered, too. They had never been roughly-held like that before. Levi calmed them down by rubbing their back, urging them to take slow, steady breaths.

"Levi?" Petra called after the two of them. "Are we still heading to the movie?"

Hange had feared this all along. They didn't want to ruin his date with Petra; they merely wanted to see Levi, and now they had done it. Hange held their own face in both hands. Levi saw it and knew what he had to do.

“I’m sorry, Petra, but we should probably call it off at this point.”

"Should we re-sched?"

Levi paused before responding. "I had a good time tonight, Petra. But I think... once is enough.

“Oh. Okay.” Petra stood still for a moment, disappointed. They expected her to cause a scene, to thrash at him or at Hange, and then complain about her evening. But to Petra's credit, she merely broke into a smile and said, "Thanks for giving me a chance, Levi. I had a good time, too. You guys enjoy the rest of the night."

The huge beefy man suddenly burst out of the glass door, the restaurant manager no longer able to hold him back. "You fucking punks, I'm going to call the police—"

Hange hid behind Levi out of instinct, which didn't make any sense, considering that he was a couple inches shorter than them. "What now?" Their hand was still in his.

"Go ahead, Petra's safe with me," Moblit assured them. "I'll text you guys once we get home safely."

Levi nodded and took off with Hange.

They ran past the gardens, past the expensive shops, past the fountains and the bright lights. Everything seemed like a blur. Hange's senses had overloaded their brain at this point, especially since Levi's hand was still holding on to theirs. It was warm. They never expected any of these to happen. Levi would look over his shoulder once in a while to see if Hange could still keep up. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them, and with every tug of their hand, Hange felt like they were living in a dream. The two of them had already reached the station, heavily panting as they clutched their chest.

"So much for trailing me all this time, Four-Eyes," Levi heaved. He knew.

Hange was beyond apologetic. "I'm sorry, okay! I just wanted to see how you'd act around someone while on a date."

Levi made another scoffing sound. For a minute, Hange thought he was mad. But the intensity in his eyes was full of longing, like somehow, he did want Hange to follow him. And then Levi sighed. "Erwin told me you might be spying; my suspicions were confirmed when I saw you hiding behind the plants."

“Oh.” Hange had nothing else to say. “Well, then, I, uhm, I should probably head home. Sorry for ruining your date."

They were about to leave when Levi held their hand once again, stopping Hange in their tracks. "Where do you want to go?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"You already ruined my date, so you might as well hang out with me for the rest of the night."

Hange couldn't believe what they were hearing. It was almost too good to be true. But the reality dawned upon them; they were still in Makati, and they couldn’t really afford any of these places. "Uh… well, I don't really have any money, and I'm not really sure I want to dine here…"

"It's fine,” Levi said. “I know a place to go."

-------

Part 2 coming up soon!

#levihan #aot #snk #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #levi ackerman #captain levi #levi attack on titan #hange zoe #hanji zoe #fanfic #fanfiction #greenbelt makati #mine #writing #djmarinizela

[yesttoheaven]

AMOR FATI

pairing – neil x female!reader

wc – 3.8k

warnings – mention of death, self-blame, anxious/intrusive thoughts, questioning reality, refusal of help, guns, stalking, but I swear there's a light at the end of the tunnel haha

a/n – The last time I suffered so hard for the death of a character, was when Newt died (Maze Runner) and now Neil has captured all my attention and his death has hit me in the same way 😩 I needed a happy ending so I decided to write this!

The Eternal Return and Amor Fati mentioned in this fic are one of the main ideas of Nietzsche's philosophy.

English is not my first language. I am getting help from google translator and he is not always a good ally, so I apologize for any typos or grammar errors.

Y/N – your name

She approached the painting hanging on the wall, watching the details closely. Ouroboros. A serpent eating its own tail. Months ago, when Y/N was visiting an antique store in Mumbai, she saw that same symbol. The owner of the establishment approached when she realized her interest in the piece and explained that Ouroboros represents the ideas of movement, continuity and, in consequence, Eternal Return. A concept that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space.

"Max finally fell asleep." Kat returned to the living room, attracting Y/N's attention.

She walked away from the painting, taking back her seat on the sofa and asked:

"How is he after everything that happened?"

For a moment, Kat looked at the painting on the wall and then at the friend she won in the midst of confusion over the Algorithm. At that time, despite being fighting on the front lines to prevent a possible Third World War, Y/N seems complete. Happy. Today that happiness no longer exists in her eyes.

Letting out a sigh, the woman sat next to her, answering:

"Sator was never a present father. He was always busy... now i can see the kind of work he was involved in. Anyway, Max just got used to his absence."

"It's notable that he's happier at your side. When we first met Max was a bit of an introvert, but today he is radiant." Y/N confessed, showing a small smile and the blonde shook her head, agreeing with her words. "How's everything?"

"Perfectly well. It's weird sometimes... After years of being stuck in a failed relationship, freedom is good."

"It seems like life is good for one of us." The woman let out a bitter laugh, putting the latest events on a scale, but she didn’t want her friend to think she wasn’t happy for her. She really was. "I'm sorry, I just..." The words remain stuck in her throat, while she covers her face with her hands. In addition to physical and mental fatigue, Y/N tried to hide her grief.

Kat touched her shoulder, showing that she was here.

"I know you're hurt, but it's been three months and you never talked about what happened that day... This is not good for you."

"What do I have to say, Kat? The guy I fell in love with was a fucking time traveler! And now he's dead and I don't know what to do. My life just... stopped without him."

"I can imagine how difficult it's for you to cross that line without Neil at your side, but giving up is not an option. Grief is consuming you little by little and you are just accepting it..."

"We are trained to contain our emotions and deal with death in the best possible way. It used to be easy for me, but then he came and turned my life upside down." Y/N put her hands on her knees and stood up, walking without an exact destination. "Neil was always one step ahead of us all..." She stepped forward too and found the painting again, but her mind was lost in thoughts about him. Neil knew her so well. And he had a charming smile, but completely arrogant at the same time. "I was sent to Mumbai to help two agents and when I arrived at Priya's penthouse that night, there he was. When he saw me, that was the first and only time that he let his guard down. I'll never forget how he looked at me, it was one of those breathtaking moments... Completely cliché, I know."

On the sofa, Kat was impressed. When Y/N turned towards her, there was a bright smile on her face. The simple memory brought her a breath of happiness and Kat enjoyed seeing her friend like that, but unfortunately that moment did not last long. Memories aren't enough. Neil is dead and nothing can change that.

"I miss him so much, Kat." The smile disappeared as soon as tears appeared in her eyes, cascading down her cheeks.

"My dear..." Worried about her, the woman got up quickly and approached Y/N, wrapping her in a tight hug. "I'm really sorry."

"I spent the last three months locked up in my a-apartment because I thought I could handle this situation on my own. At times I b-believed it was just a fever dream... Maybe I was losing my mind, but this is proof that everything was real." Through tears blurring her vision, she looked at the watch on her wrist, remembering that night.

Y/N was in a private cabin on the ship. The others were with Ives and Wheeler, going over the mission in search of any loose ends. A standard procedure. Y/N knew she should be with them, but she needed a moment alone to organize her thoughts. And that moment is now. The past few weeks had been a real mess. The inversion was difficult to explain and mainly to understand. She was used to field missions, but being an inverted soldier on the battlefield was not in her plans. Either way, she agreed to be a part of it and running away with biased assumptions was not going to help. Humanity depends on them.

Three knocking on the door caught Y/N's attention, but she remained silent, waiting for the person to give up and leave, but when it didn't, she just murmured 'Come in'.

"So, here you are." The man used a surprised tone of voice and closed the door behind him. "What will our superior think when he learns that you are running away from the briefing?"

She let out a laugh before answering in the same mood:

"Don't worry, I know this mission like the back of my hand. I just needed a moment."

"There's something wrong? Are you ok?" Neil spilled the questions quickly, visibly concerned for her.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Neil." Y/N smiled at him, but looked away just seconds later, confessing: "Maybe I'm a little surprised by the situation. I have spent years dealing with terrorists, but the inversion is really not my point."

"I'm not good with advice, but someone once said to me: Don't try to understand. Certain things in the world do not need an explanation."

"It's wise advice, but I'm a methodical person. Logic has always been my ally in missions."

"A methodical person, huh?" He asked with an arrogant smile playing on his lips and she just rolled her eyes. "I know how worried you were when Sator shot Kat, but we are using the inversion to save the world and you're one of the most brilliant agents I have ever seen. Everything will be fine."

"Are you praising me?"

"What's that? Can't I praise my partner's talent?" Neil pulled up a chair to sit across from her, crossing his arms.

"In that case, thank you. Remind me to put this on my resume." Those words made him laugh and that sound could easily be compared to music in her ears.

Touching her knee, Neil added:

"We are very confident with the mission. You don't need to worry."

"Are you sure?"

"I cannot say that unforeseen events do not happen, but we are prepared for that." Y/N knew he was right, but this mission is the biggest one so far. It's not about saving a country. It's about saving the entire world. This was arousing insecurities in her and it was like walking in a minefield. Ironically, she was familiar with this, but not in such catastrophic proportions. "I want you to have this." The man took his watch off his wrist and handed it to her.

"What’s that supposed to mean?" The question came out as a whisper from between her lips.

It didn't make sense. Why does everything in this conversation look like a farewell?

"We will be on opposite sides tomorrow, but i want you to know... I will always be with you, Y/N."

"I saw the way he looked at you... That's how I used to look at Sator before he became a monster in my life." Kat started, running a hand through Y/N's hair. "When I was lying on that stretcher and partially drugged with the medicines, I saw him beside you... watching you sleep. There was so much love in his eyes. Love for a lifetime, Y/N. So don't do this to yourself. The way he left hurt us all, but there was nothing you or any other agent could do to change what happened at Stalask-12. Neil saved the world. This gave us a second chance. You cannot give up now. This organization needs you. And keeping your mind busy at that moment is the first step towards a fresh start."

"N-No, I can't..." She broke the hug, shaking her head in denial. "I left the organization."

"What? Don't you work for Tenet anymore? But when we first met you told me that you can't imagine working in another area... And that this is your life's work."

"Being an agent is my life's work. I was in Yemen when Tenet found me and assigned me to this mission. My only job is to make this world a less hostile place, but the motto of this organization is not what I believe, Kat. What's happened's happened. Really? It doesn't work for me." Y/N ended the sentence with drops of anger in her voice and Kat did not say a single word.

Through the newspapers, Max's mother followed what was happening in Yemen over the years – a real endless war – and knowing that Y/N was in the middle of it, makes the situation unquestionable. People died in front of her eyes. Friends of the corporation. And then some time later, Tenet arrived with a fresh start, but in the end everything remained the same. She lost Neil. It is as if her life's work never had a happy ending because the world will never stop being a hostile place.

"He knows?" It was easy for Y/N to identify who she was talking about. The Protagonist. Or just TP.

"Here's another problem. I worked with him and indirectly worked for him at the same time! God, that man created this organization! And his name remains a mystery to us all!" She pinched the tip of her nose, feeling frustrated with all the secrets that haunt this organization. "And answering your question, yes, he knows, but he did not argue about it. I was a complete mess and he was not doing very well either... He stayed in my apartment for the first month, probably to make sure I didn't do anything stupid." And Y/N would be forever grateful for that. She likes him. Just as friends, of course. TP was a reserved man, but it was he who held her when everything was falling apart. "But we've had a fight. I blamed him for what happened at Stalask-12 and since then we haven't spoken anymore."

It was easy to see that they carried more pain than they could actually bear. Y/N lost her great love and the man lost his best friend. The situation just turned into a conflict between them and that was the result.

Realizing the sadness reflected in Y/N's eyes, Kat decided to change the subject of the conversation. Keeping that thought, she smiled and pointed to the painting on the wall. Maybe that could help.

"You seemed interested in this one."

"Oh yes, in my spare time I am a lover of art and its meanings. It is really attractive the way Ouroboros is connected to the Eternal Return..."

"And Amor Fati too." Kat completed, piquing Y/N's curiosity. This part was new to her. "It's impossible to affirm the Eternal Return without loving life. We need to learn that things happen as they do. Sometimes seemingly good. Sometimes seemingly bad. We don’t always get it our way... Unless we choose that whatever way it is, is our way. When we choose to Amor Fati, to love everything that happens, to love our fate, then we will always get it our way. Because the way it is, is the way it is. Unchangable. And therefore it must be good, even if it sucks."

These words touched Y/N's heart. This was a contradiction to what she is experiencing right now. Love your fate. She would like to understand and accept what happened, she really wanted, but why is it so difficult to move on?

Because Neil is dead.

That was the only explanation for her. The end of a relationship would be more acceptable. If he were alive, things would be completely different now. However, grief is overwhelming. How could she just accept what happened?

"I... I gotta go." That was all she managed to say before picking up her bag and leave the penthouse, ignoring Kat's protests.

When the elevator doors closed, an exhausted sigh left her mouth and the instant she saw her reflection in the mirror, Y/N wanted to cry again. After three months alone, she thought visiting her friend would be a good idea. Kat was willing to help, but the problem was that Y/N is not allowing herself to be helped. As soon as the doors opened, she left the metal box and found the hotel lobby partially empty. Her watch showed it was 3:13 AM, this explains the absence of people on the street as well. In front of her car, she searched the bag for the key and coincidentally her cell phone started to vibrate. Probably the text messages were from Kat, but confusion hit Y/N the instant she looked at the identifier and saw that the messages did not belong to any of her contacts.

Stay away from the car

They put a bomb

I'm on my way

Her first reaction was to take a few steps back and look around, trying to understand what’s going on and find the person responsible for these texts, but Y/N was alone in the dark street. When she thought it might be an unnecessary prank, a black SUV approached at high speed. The car stopped just a few meters away from where she was, but that was enough to make her body freeze.

"Y/N, come on!" The man exclaimed, the urgency in his voice would have made her run immediately, but she didn't move. Her feet had frozen on the floor. This cannot be real. "Come on, get in the car! We don't have much time!" He tried again, it was possible to hear the sound of the other cars approaching.

Y/N watched in slow motion the moment he left the car and ran towards her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"How is this possible?" She asked in a whisper, completely lost in his blue eyes.

"It's good to see you too." Neil admitted, feeling his heart race. She looked so fragile in his arms. Very different from the last time he saw her. "We have to go." He accompanied her to the car and as soon as Y/N took the passenger seat, he returned to his seat.

For her this moment was like a fever dream, so she just looked down and started counting her fingers. One, two, three, four, five... Neil noticed, but said nothing, just kept driving. The cars were fast approaching, but he would do everything possible and impossible to get Y/N away from these people.

"Give me your cell phone." He looked at her for a brief moment, but when Y/N didn’t react, he wasn't sure if she heard it, so he just took the phone from her hand and threw it out the window. That was enough to get her out of the numbness:

"What the fuck, Neil?!"

Despite the adrenaline rushing through his body, the man laughed.

"If I found you because of your cell phone, they can too." After that, he crossed the red light and made a risky turn, trying to end this chase. "Before you ask, no, this is not a dream. Unfortunately this is very real..." Neil didn't like what he saw when he adjusted the rearview mirror. "And now they are getting ready to shoot us."

That observation put Y/N on alert and she looked back, seeing a man with an AKS-74U and another with a Beretta M12.

"If you knew it wasn't a dream, why didn't you bring an armored car?" She ran her tongue between her lips, smiling at the man beside her. Neil tried to argue, but she just took off her seat belt and picked up the Glock 19 stuck in the vest he was wearing.

Y/N crawled out of the car and sat at the window opening. This encouraged the men in the two cars to start shooting, trying desperately to hit her. Neil shouted something that she couldn't understand and then she felt one of his hands on her thigh, giving her stability to continue with the plan. With her arm resting on the roof of the vehicle, Y/N aimed the gun at the car that was closest to them. Her intention was not to start a firefight in the middle of one of the main avenues in the city, but she had no other option. Holding her breath, she fired the first shot and the bullet hit the tire, taking the car out of circulation. Y/N celebrated while preparing for the second car, but dealing with this one was not an easy task. Now they were in a tunnel and, consequently, losing speed because of the other cars that came along the way. Neil left two pats on her leg, indicating that she had better get back in the car and that is what she did. Screams, honks and gunshots echoed through the tunnel, turning the place into a war zone. Whoever these men were, Y/N knew they weren't going to give up.

Tired of playing cat and mouse, she went to the back seat, getting on her knees. Through the broken glass above the trunk, Y/N adjusted the aim of her gun, ignoring the sniper and focusing on the driver. With another accurate shot, the bullet hit the man's chest and he lost control of the vehicle. The car overturned for a while, streaking the asphalt, but no other car was involved in the accident. Y/N sighed in relief and looked for another possible threat, just checking, but when she realized that the area was clean, she returned to the passenger seat, leaving the gun on the dashboard in front of her.

"Next time I'm going to get an armored car." Neil comments, stepping on the gas. "Nice shot, by the way."

"Anytime." Y/N smiled, trying to control her breathing.

With the adrenaline disappearing from her body, it was hard for her to believe that this was really happening. For many nights she cried, wondering what it would be like if Neil just came back to her, but now she was afraid to wake up and realize that it was just another vivid dream.

The sun was rising when they arrived in a shed away from the city. Seen from the outside, the place was a little scary, but the interior wasn't that bad. There was some equipment like trackers, walkie-talkie, bulletproof vests, weapons, ammunition; a table with a mess of papers and on the other side two beds and something that Y/N supposed to be a private bathroom.

"Where we are?"

We. That simple word echoed in her mind. Y/N thought that "we" didn't exist anymore.

"For now in a safe place. It's dangerous for you out there." He answered the question and took a bottle of water, handing it to her after taking a generous sip.

"Who are these people, Neil?" She wanted answers, lots of answers, and that frustrated the british spy because for the first time he didn't know what could happen.

Neil had a mission and that mission ended with him dying in Stalask-12, but after what TP did, everything changed.

"We have a name..." He wanted to say more, he wanted to reassure her, but that was all he had at the moment.

Y/N drank some water and left the bottle on the table, looking at some reports and photos. All photos were of the same man.

Lenard Vaher

"But apparently they don't just want you..."

It took a few seconds and when the realization hit Y/N, concern appeared on her face.

No, not him.

"Where's TP? He's safe, right?"

"He was going to see you when Lenard's men kidnapped him. This happened three weeks ago." And considering the anger in Neil's voice, finding TP was proving an almost impossible task, but in the midst of so much concern, one point attracted Y/N's attention.

"You said he was going to see me..."

"There was something he needed to tell you." Neil sighed, resting his hands on the table. A few strands of blond hair fell over his forehead, but he quickly shook his head back, as he always did. "He returned to Stalask-12, Y/N."

After that statement, the only sound that could be heard was Neil's footsteps closing the distance between them and the first thing she did was put her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. Neil smiled. And that was not one of his famous smiles. That was a shy smile. His heart was beating like a drum and it was all because of her. Loving Y/N was something so special and pure, that Neil accepted his fate without a second thought. Saving the world, he was giving her a second chance to live, but now he is the one who received a second chance.

"I missed you every day." Before she could begin to consider the meaning behind his words, he settled his mouth upon hers, robbing her of thought.

She closed her eyes and melted against him, flattening her hands on his arms. Neil caught her bottom lip in his teeth, nibbling and licking at it until she thought she might perish from the intensity of the feeling. She whimpered at the sensation, and he rewarded the sound by deepening the kiss, giving her everything she desired. His tongue stroked hers, slow and insistent. A lush, decadent pleasure unfolded within them, snaking through their veins as though it had lain coiled in anticipation for years.

Just waiting for this moment.

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a/n – really hope you enjoy it and thank you soooo much for reading ;)

#neil tenet x reader #neil x reader #neil tenet #neil #robert pattinson #robert pattinson x reader #robert pattinson imagine #tenet fanfic #tenet imagine #ives tenet #tenet #neil tenet one shot #neil tenet imagine #robert pattinson one shot #neil tenet x y/n #x y/n #amor fati #eternal return

[thesquishyrogue]

Rogue's relationships with the rest of the mercs

Scout:

Almost like a brother-sister relationship. They're always goofing off together, joking around, getting on Spy's nerves. Just being the chaotic force of the team. Scout constantly convinces Rogue to play baseball with him, especially after seeing that they both use bats as a weapon (albeit Rogue's has nails driven through it).

Scout: "Aw man, sick bat! Say, you ever actually played baseball? If not I could teach ya. Though, you should probably use a different bat. I'll let ya borrow one of mine!"

Soldier:

He's definitely sort of a weird uncle figure to her. She's always giggling at his ridiculous antics, and he's surprisingly protective of her. Although at the same time he's always impressed by her ability to fend for herself, and fight off men larger than her despite her size.

Soldier: "Hell yeah, look at her go! Kicking ass just like a true American! She makes me proud!"

Pyro:

Oh my goodness. These two. Rogue almost always puts on a tough attitude, especially around the other guys. But around Pyro? They're probably the only person Rogue will be a softie towards. They're constantly seen platonically hugging and cuddling, and Pyro loves when Rogue covers their mask in stickers. They always return the favor by covering her face. Once they come off she treasures them. The others will always comment on how adorable the two are, usually followed by Rogue telling them to fuck off.

Rogue: "If anything were to ever happen to Pyro, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself."

Pyro: (灬º‿º灬)

Demoman:

Their relationship is quite explosive, to say the least. When Demo isn't trying to get Rogue to try some of his alcohol (which always results in Rogue gagging and choking from the bitterness) they're always assisting each other on the battlefield. Mostly in the form of Rogue catapultng Demo's bombs at enemies with her slingshot. They always share a laugh when a BLU team member is blown to bits.

Demoman: "Boom, right in the head! Look at all that blood! Yer aim is getting better and better, lassie!"

Heavy:

Just looking at these two stand next to each other is almost laughable. With Heavy being incredibly larger than everyone and Rogue being incredibly smaller, he practically dwarfs her. He's extremely gentle with her though, and takes care of her in sort of a protective big brother kind of way. Whenever the team is lounging around, she's often either cuddled into him or resting her legs in his lap. He doesn't mind it. He's also let her beat him in arm wrestling numerous times. She knows he lets her win, but she still take the opportunity to boast to the other mercs about it.

Heavy: "Little girl is so strong. You've beaten me again."

Rogue: 😏😏😏

Engineer:

He's also like an uncle figure to her. But unlike Soldier, he's more of the chill laid-back uncle that she can go to for advice. And she often does. Sometimes when she's bored she'll go into his workshop and talk with him as he plays his guitar or she helps out with whatever he's working on. Even if that help is something as simple as just handing him tools, he appreciates it. He appreciates the company too.

Engie: "Alright darlin', can you hand me the screwdriver?"

Rogue: "Uh... which one?"

Engie: "The Phillips."

Rogue: "Uh..."

Engie: "The pointy one."

Rogue: "Oh! Yeah sure I knew that."

Medic:

Like with Engie, Rogue will often go into the infirmary to talk with Medic as he works (she also makes sure he takes a break once in a while and doesn't overwork himself). He also does what he can to help with her depression once that's out in the open, prescribing her any antidepressants he can get his hands on. Though when she first joined the team and he gave her her first annual exam, he was astounded by how many fractures and injuries he'd found that were just left to sloppily heal on their own. The sadistic doctor was actually kind of worried for her, though honestly impressed by her high pain tolerance.

Medic: "Goodness fräulein, this is the fifth fracture I've found! How are you even walking?"

Rogue: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sniper:

Despite having quite good aim from using a slingshot for years, Rogue was quite inexperienced with guns (not including when she killed her old caretaker at the end of her fighting days). So naturally, Sniper took it upon himself to teach her. He educates her on different types of guns in order to find what works best for her, and the two partake in target practice together. Of course, the two end up bonding during the lessons. She tells him all about her life in the ring, and he tells her about what life was like back in Australia. One thing that Rogue wasn't anticipating, however, was how strong the recoil of a gun can be. She was so unprepared she was thrown right onto her ass in shock.

Sniper: "Crikey! You alright there, mate?"

Rogue: "Yeah I'm fine... fuck, what was that?!"

Sniper: "Recoil, love. Did you not know guns did that?"

Rogue: "...no..."

Spy:

Although she and Spy certainly took the longest to warm up to each other, the two are as close as can be now. Once they finally accepted each other, Spy took her under his wing as his apprentice. He helps her perfect her thieving skills and educates her on how to take tough situations in stride. She really looks up to him, and they almost have a father-daughter relationship. And of course, when her depression comes to light, he's her biggest means of support. He's always available when she needs him and he does whatever he can for her.

Spy: "You make me so proud, mon cheri. You've captured the intel once again, our training has really paid off. Great job."

Rogue: "Thanks dad."

Spy: "Excuse me, what was that?"

Rogue: "....nothing."

Bonus!

Miss Pauling:

Miss Pauling is literally the first woman Rogue has ever been close to in her life. Throughout her entire childhood she's been surrounded by creepy older men, and even though things are different now with the mercs... they're still men. There are just some things Rogue isn't quite comfortable talking to them about. But with Miss Pauling, going to her for help with things like clothes shopping and feminine problems almost feels natural. Hell, there were so many things Rogue didn't even know about periods until Miss Pauling explained them to her. And of course Miss Pauling takes the time out of her busy work day as often as she can to make sure Rogue is stocked up on sanitary items, and whatever else she needs. Rogue is always extremely greatful for it. And while part of her sees Miss Pauling as sort of a mother figure...another part sort of has a crush on her. Yeah, Miss Pauling was pretty much Rogue's bisexual awakening. But she hasn't said anything about it, one because it would just be awkward and two because she knows Scout also likes her, and she doesn't wanna stand in his way (but little does either of them know, Miss Pauling is a lesbian 👀)

Miss Pauling: "Rogue, honey, you don't even know what a pad is? Or a tampon??? What- what do you do when you get your period?"

Rogue: "What, you mean that weird time of the month that I start bleeding? I just... live with it I guess? Maybe put toilet paper in my panties if it gets too messy-"

Miss Pauling: "Rogue. Come with me, I'll get you stocked up on the things you need. And we'll get you some new panties too."

Rogue: "But don't you have things to do?"

Miss Pauling: "This is more important. You shouldn't have to suffer every month just because no one ever properly taught you about periods. I'll help you out."

Saxton Hale:

Rogue thought he was obnoxious upon first meeting him. Called him a "corporate clown" to the other mercs. But, she had to  earn his approval in order to join the team, so Miss Pauling insisted that she be on her best behavior around him. But, even when on her best behavior her spunkiness still shined through, and Saxton noticed it real quick. However, that spunkiness only raised his interest. He commented on how he, "Hadn't met such a scrappy sheila in a long time." Truth be told, she reminded him a lot of Maggie, but he wasn't about to mention it. During their one on one meeting, he demanded that she punch him in the face to test her strength. After a short hesitation, she did so. Saxton was impressed that she actually hit him hard enough to dislocate his jaw and bust his lip, and gave her the job on the spot with the promise that she keep up that energy (and learn to use some weapons, of course). Miss Pauling and the mercs were shocked to see the two of them come back with Saxton's arm slung around Rogue's shoulders and his face dripping with blood, and the two of them laughing with each other. She took back what she said about him being a corporate clown. Although, the only thing she still doesn't like about him is how he treats Miss Pauling, considering how close she is with her. She has a mind to call him out on it, but Miss Pauling begs her not to.

Saxton: "Let's see just how strong a little gal like you can really be. Go on, hit me RIGHT here! Hard as ya can!"

Rogue: "Uh...Mr. Hale, I really don't-"

Saxton: "Oh don't wuss out on me girly, you want this job or not?!"

Crack.

Rogue: "Oh my god- Mr. Hale! I am so-"

Saxton: "Now that's what I'm talking about! You pack a hard punch for such a cute little thing!"

Rogue: "You're bleeding..."

Saxton: "Consider yourself hired!"

Administrator:

Doesn't trust her. Not one bit. She only respects her because she has to, and even then her "respect" is so shallow that anyone could see right through it. She hates the way she berates, overworks, and oftentimes gaslights Miss Pauling, and the fact that even all the other mercs seem to be intimidated by her concerns her greatly. She knows something's going on with her behind the scenes, and she's determined to figure out what. In the few times she actually saw her in person, Rogue definitely smarted off to her more than once, despite Miss Pauling practically begging her to watch it. The Administrator, however, almost finds it adorable. Almost. She kind of views Rogue as a bratty child. A bratty child with skill and talent that is essential for her team. And for that, she lets the sassiness slide...for now. Luckily these two don't butt heads often though, considering the Administrator is rarely seen.

Administrator, over the loud loudspeaker: "Well done, let's see some more."

Rogue, mumbling: "Bite me..."

#tw period mention #tw depression mention #tw medication mention #team fortress 2 #tf2 #tf2 oc #10th class oc #tf2 rogue #red rogue #tf2 scout #tf2 soldier #tf2 pyro #tf2 demoman #tf2 heavy #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic #tf2 sniper #tf2 spy #miss pauling #saxton hale #tf2 administrator #i hope this all makes sense this story is kind of a jumbled mess #also you don't fuck with miss pauling when rogue's around #she and scout are basically the miss pauling protection squad #well honestly the whole red team is but especially those two

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Larries are havind a field day about the supposed Harry watching the HLD IG story. They are comparing it with Eroda tweets and with that day that Harry followed a bunch of Larries. And I'm over here thinking "Can't they see they are being played?". This isn't Harry. This is his team knowing exactly what they need to do to keep everyone happy.

I’ve been in this fandom for years, which means that I’ve watched people change, both fans and the boys.

Everyone has become more cynical, secretive. Everyone knows what their stakes are in the game.

As a mutual said to me,

I went to [a Larrie’s blog] to see what they had to say about what Harry said the other day re WS and while they're perhaps the most reasonable Larrie out there, it just struck me as ABSURD that they're still discussing whether or not and to what degree H is gay, but they don't discuss what a shitty person he is, or how he's been treating Louis publicly. I just don't get it. How can his sexuality still be the most controversial thing about him when he's put out Covid merch and datamined his fans and hyperlinked a BLM protest and hired people who talk shit about Louis etc. How?? Then there was a tag on a Larry pic post with pics from 2010 to 2015 saying "larry then and now". Like ??? It’s 2021? Actually, some Larrie blogs criticize H and think he's at least partly in control of his image, but they never go so far as to draw any real conclusions. They can’t. They will always come short of the motivation of money and fame. The business trail will always stop cold.

I just don't get it. is it about how much they've invested? All those years? Admitting that they were wrong, and they got played?

Like @lapelosa (Angela) left when it became clear she'd been used. She could've said, hey, they played me. But instead she went silent, and left the damage unexplained.

Worse, Larries who went quiet and then came back, like Cris who ran @business-direction and was always pro-Azoff, now sell the theory that Louis is sacrificing his career so only one of them— Harry, who has the magnetism and the star quality— can succeed. Many Big Larries quietly push this narrative.

What I’m saying is that all of us “fandom veterans” are experienced. We’ve had eleven years of videos and real life experience to see how fame and money change people, corporate tactics adapt to fandom as technology advanced. We’re all cynical and knowledgeable.

So if someone tells you that they know Harry and Louis are definitely in love, but at the same time they don’t know anything about what happened bts in industry, when the business data have been writ large for ten years and everything about the romance has been monitored, tweaked, and scripted for years, ask yourself why. Ask yourself whom their fandom energy is really invested in.

Ask yourself why they tag things the way they do, why they form groupchats the way they do, why they are so invested in using closeting to turn Harry into the world’s biggest victim, and whom this benefits.

Addendum: Reading this post back, I am reminded that @lapelosa’s blog was heavily astroturfed by “insider“ anons toward the end of the band, the same way that certain Larrie blogs today publish “anon receipts.” Angela (@lapelosa) may have been innocently baited, but the current Larries’ hands are knowingly guilty. They aren’t publishing these anons with hope or innocence, and their role in bringing down Louis’ solo fandom is very intentional.

Hence the hatred toward solo Louies (the moniker “Rads”), and their embrace of the solo Harry fandom (notice in the tags I screenshotted that whatever their rhetoric, big Larries reblog from solo Harries).

#Larries #louis tomlinson #harry styles

[zotlel]

Fall Into You (M) - 01

pairing: jaebeom x you 

genre: romance, angst, series, eventual smut

synopsis: Your love life has been filled with nothing but bad experiences. Determined to give up on the idea of finding the one you meet a man who is desperate to change your mind and have you see him as more.

word count: 5.0k

This was it, you thought. It was something you had feared for months, something you wanted so desperately to not be true. You felt empty, dead, barren, all the things you told yourself you would never be, yet here you were.

The thought had finally occurred to you as you felt your recent Tinder meetup thrust inside of you. His name was Xavier, a Spanish entrepreneur in his mid-20’s who just so happened to be in town testing a study group on his latest business venture. Yet the only thing this man had come close to doing all night was testing your patience. From his sleaze-ball attitude to the way he aggressively attempted to fuck you. Let’s just say you were grateful he couldn’t see your distasteful facial expression as he took you from behind. 

You were depleted of all emotions in this moment as the man attempted to make love to your empty womb. You didn’t even feel anger or sadness at this point, your body felt like some sort of abandoned amusement park. The rides and attractions were there for everyone to see, they were just void of life. You feared that eventually, a dead body would feel warm compared to yours. The fear for you was so real, so scary, to think that you were just some damaged goods.

You started to feel suffocated from the motel’s disgustingly tacky red satin bed sheets that your head was currently being shoved deeper and deeper into. So you decided to end this God-awful encounter early. Sitting your body up causes the poor Xavier to lose his rhythm effectively allowing you to overtake power and position his dumbfounded body beneath you. Luckily the man lasted about as long as you had the capacity for, he gripped your hips tightly, possibly leaving a bruise, causing you to at least enjoy one sensation that night. 

Once the man had finished he attempted to grab your naked form in one could only assume to be a cuddle, you had absolutely no capacity to even humor the idea. Feigning an early morning you quickly gathered your things and headed directly for the door, not so much as even pretending to want to see him ever again. 

The walk of shame. 3 AM, unknown neighborhoods, brisk weather, and a clearer state of mind all accompanied you on your walk home. You officially felt at a total loss with yourself. You had tried the relationship thing, the casual dating, and now here you were attempting one-night-stands, and yet nothing helped you feel complete.

“If only he could see me now,” you say quietly to no one in particular.

Morning light hits you like a bucket of cold water. Apparently in your self-loathing state last night you completely neglected to change out of your cocktail dress and close your blinds. You groan audibly pulling your plush pillow to cover your head from the obscene light. The damage had already been done, you were now officially awake and forced to begin your day.

Dragging yourself to your bathroom you start by turning the shower to the hottest temperature possible and begin to strip from your attire. The woman staring back at you in the mirror is one that you had unfortunately been well acquainted with recently. With the smudged raccoon eyes and red nose that had broken through last night’s foundation, she was an absolute mess.

You scrub and scrub your body under the hot water as if it were some kind of remedy for the way you felt inside. No matter how raw you made your skin you still couldn’t erase the emptiness you felt throughout your core.

That is enough, you think to yourself. Enough of this vile attitude that you had towards yourself. Did you really need to remind yourself daily about what an amazing life you had? A great job, amazing friends, and a beautiful apartment in which you shared rent with a great roommate. Had you really stooped low enough in your womanhood that you would consider yourself empty just because you lacked the place of a man? Your mother would be so disappointed if she could see you now.

You had grown so tired of these men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close to you, their breaths thick with alcohol. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left you alone on Christmas. Men who slammed their bedroom doors, who made you love them then changed their minds. You decided you would no longer let this gender be oppressive, you were a warrior.

“Well someone got in late last night,” your roommate, Sofie, called to you over her morning coffee. You had just made your way down to the kitchen in need of caffeine to help break through your early morning fog.

“Please don’t remind me,” you say to her as you begin searching for a clean mug.

“What? Did you not like this guy? Was he not good in be-”

You cut her off promptly by slamming the cabinet door, yourself being surprised by your own actions you turn to face her. 

“I’m sorry I just really don’t feel like talking about it.”

Sofie nods her head in understanding instantly making a pool of guilt form in your stomach from the way you acted. This aggression was a new thing of yours that you had yet to get used to. Rage had begun to take a grip on your life, and on your friendships. You never wanted to be this way. It sickened you to imagine you would have ever become a person to hurt a close friend of yours because you couldn’t contain the fire that you felt inside.

“I’m really sorry Sofie I didn’t mean to snap it’s just-” your words stop as Sofie patiently waits. 

“Last night was hard because it made me realize,” you take a big breath, “I am broken.”

“Sweetie you are not broken! You have just been burned, badly might I add, and you are having a hard time coming to terms with it that’s all.”

Is that all? Could Sofie finally have cracked the code that all of this just so happened to stem from one incident? There was no way you could allow this to be true. You were not just a victim who gets to bear her scar for the rest of the world to see. Your story would not end like that.

“No Sofie, you don’t get it, when I say that I am broken I am really not looking for sympathy,” her back straightens at your serious expression. “I just mean that I am giving up on relationships, all kinds of relationships with men, for now.”

“So no more dating?” You shake your head to confirm. “No more hookups?”

“When I say no more. I mean it,” you say with an icy tone.

“I don’t think that is such a bad idea,” Sofie begins. “I think you may just need to take some time before you go out again, learn about yourself, love yourself. Y’know all that shit that Teen Vogue used to tell us.”

You laugh at this, your roommate was a sweet girl, older than you but innocent enough. You envied her star glazed eyes when she talked about love and romance. Her heart was so pure and untainted, you hoped that she would never change, you prayed that she would never know. 

“I think you may be right Sof.”

“Right about what?” 

In the most perfect of moments Sofie’s boyfriend, Jake, comes down the stairs to join in on your impromptu counseling session. Jake and Sofie were long-time boyfriend and girlfriend since your guys’ days in college. They were each other’s first everything's, love, relationship, they had even lost their virginities to one another. The first day the two of them had met during your study session you could see it happen, the sparks. And throughout the years you were able to watch their love bloom and unfold.

“Oh you know the usual, my life is fucked,” you joke responding to Jake’s question.

“What fucking men with no feelings is finally getting old?” Jake says.

“Ouch, you don’t have to be so harsh,” you respond back to him in which he just shrugs you off. 

Sometimes you wondered how a person as blunt as Jake managed to win over the tender-hearted Sofie. Jake reaches above Sofie’s head to grab his own mug for coffee while pressing a kiss to her forehead causing her face to flush with joy. Some couples just couldn’t be scrutinized, Jake and Sofie just worked.

“Hey, you’re still gonna come with us to Dominic’s New Year’s party on Friday, right?” Sofie asks you.

“That depends, will Dom stay far away from me for the entirety of the night?” you respond back.

“Oh come on, he’s really not all that bad!” Sofie says making your eyebrows go up in disbelief. “And if I recall correctly you hooked up with him a couple of months ago so you obviously don’t hate him that much.”

“First off, I was drunk,” you begin to feel yourself getting worked up. “Secondly, my heart was just broken, if you haven’t forgotten, so let’s just say my judgment was a little fucked.”

Sofie takes a long sip of her coffee and avoids eye-contact. You turn your body from her and breathe deeply from your nose in order to regain your composure.

“Okay, ladies let’s take it down a notch,” Jake effectively breaks the tension. “Y/N, I would love it if you came to celebrate with all of us. And I promise I will be keeping Dom busy so you don’t have to worry about him.”

“Fine, I’ve never been one to say no to free drinks anyways,” Sofie perks up at your response and excitedly hugs you causing you to smile.

Your workweek drags on leaving you anxious to get absolutely trashed at the upcoming party. You’ve had enough corporate bullshit to make certain that when Friday came no one would even be able to recognize that you played as a stock manager by day. One last sweep of your ruby red lipstick against your lips and your look is complete. Despite the bitter winter air you opted to show skin tonight in your tight black body-con dress. You knew that this look would attract lots of attention, but you didn’t care. You would relish in the way men would stare at you, and then doing something you have become unfamiliar with, you would deny each and every one of them. 

You, Jake, and Sofie all share the same Uber from your apartment to Dominic’s swanky new penthouse. The four of you had all met in college, each of you finding different paths in life yet always keeping in touch. Back then Dominic was a promising young student swiftly on his way to becoming an engineer. Until suddenly he decided to leave school and follow his true passion for cuisine. Now he was one of the most successful restaurant moguls in the city. 

His hard work truly paid off, you thought to yourself as the three of you entered his pristine penthouse suite already packed with people ready to celebrate the new year. The ceilings were high and the interior design was entirely bachelor-esque, true to his lavish lifestyle. Waiters attended to people throughout the room holding silver platters of champagne and the occasional finger-food. The scent in the air was lofty with alcohol and the various types of cologne worn by desperate men looking for a lay. 

“You guys made it!” 

Speak of the devil. Dominic makes his way through the crowd to greet his old friends. The four of you exchange hugs and hello’s but you were more than ready to end the interaction with him as quickly as possible. You look around the room until your eyes land on the small minibar across the living room.

“I need to be drunk,” you yell in Sofie’s ear causing her to giggle and excusing the two of you to the bar being worked by a dashing young bartender. It was a bit of a challenge to remember why exactly you weren’t going to be hooking up with anyone tonight. Until the young Colgate smirk shot you a knowing look. It all came rushing back, you fucking hated men.

Quickly you order a shot for both you and Sofie which she reluctantly agrees to, what a great friend, you think. The burn of tequila crawls its way to your stomach lighting a pleasant fire. You settle on champagne to sip on the rest of the night after taking the beverage from the bartender to promptly end his suffocating stare on you. 

“I’m gonna go find Jake, are you okay here?” Sofie asks you.

“Yes of course I’ll be fine as long as the bartender can keep it in his pants.”

Sofie laughs and hits your arm for speaking so loudly, but you truly didn’t care. You begin to move away from the bar towards the floor-to-ceiling windows exposing the city life below. Upon approaching you can’t help but ogle at the beautiful scenery. The life of the city could be seen even from fifty floors up. The hustle and bustle of people eager to celebrate the new year had mesmerized you along with the mass of skyscrapers glittering against the deep purple horizon.

Once you and Sofie had left to find the bar, Jake and Dominic were across the room talking of old times while Dominic showcased his new apartment. Jake could tell that Dominic was proud in the development of his empire, it was obvious in the way he had to mention price tags on every item in his home. Just when Dominic was about to go on and on about a particular piece of art a man whom Jake had not met before interrupts their conversation by placing a hand on Dominic’s shoulder.

“Jaebeom you made it!” Dominic says to the man while pulling him in for a hug. Dominic, as anyone could tell, had a bit too much to drink tonight, hence the sudden affection.

Jaebeom didn’t seem to mind Dominic, perhaps already familiar with this behavior, he pulls back from the brief embrace and gives Dominic a tight smile. Jaebeom had dark hair that was tucked neatly behind each ear. His ears were littered with silver jewelry while his nose also adorned a single stud. His eyes were set deep giving him a mysterious aura.

“Jaebeom this is my good buddy from college Jake,” Dominic introduces the two while both the men shake their hands in a greeting. “Jaebeom is a photographer, he did all the shots for my new restaurant.”

“No kidding, that’s really awesome man,” Jake says trying to make conversation with the stranger.

“Thanks for saying so, I really appreciate it,” Jaebeom says.

A silence fills the space before Dominic asks, “So did Claire come with you tonight?”

Claire, from what Jake had heard, was Dominic’s newest conquest. She was a hostess at one of Dominic’s restaurants and apparently good friends with Jaebeom. Jake found it odd that Dominic could not work up the courage himself to ask out a girl instead of having someone he hired to be his wingman.

“Unfortunately she wasn’t able to swing her shift,” Jaebeom tells Dominic to which he shrugs in an attempt to seem unaffected. Jaebeom then suddenly turns to Jake.

“I’m sorry if this comes off as too forward, but I couldn’t help but notice the girl you came in with earlier.”

Jake laughs, this wouldn’t be the first time that he had to break it to some poor bastard that Sofie was his girlfriend. She was absolutely gorgeous and he knows that his girlfriend Sofie does garner lots of attention. Not that he feels jealous, he just hates having to break it to these dudes that they stand no chance.

“That would be my girlfriend actually,” Jake says.

“Both of them?” Jaebeom raises his eyebrow quizzically causing Jake to facepalm at the way he is handling this interaction.

“Oh no sorry,” Jake searches the room to see Sofie and you leaning against the bar on the other side of the room. “My girlfriend is the one in the white dress over there by the bar.”

Jake points out the two of you and watches Jaebeom’s eyes follow.

“Oh I see, I was actually going to ask you about her friend.”

Jake sputters the champagne he is sipping feeling caught off guard at the question. If Jake remembers correctly you had completely sworn off men not too long ago. Then again, Jaebeom does look like a nice guy and seems genuinely interested in you. As your friend, Jake feels at a standstill with what to do. Although Jake was harsh in words when it came to you, he always had a soft spot for you. And he knows when you put your mind to something, you do not tolerate when people disregard you. But before Jake can say anything, Dominic beats him to the punch.

“Are you kidding? Y/N is practically fucking anyone that even looks her way these days.”

Now Jake remembers just why Dominic and you never got along. He was a complete asshole to you.

“Hey dude come on, don’t say that shit about her,” Jake comes to your defense.

Dominic raises his hands in surrender while wearing that typical shit-eating grin, “I just call it as I see it.”

Jake begins to become increasingly frustrated with the way that his best friend was being talked about, but he is even more afraid of your image being potentially slandered in front of a total stranger. And perhaps a potential match.

“You know better than anyone that she is going through a lot right now. Besides just the other day she said she had absolutely no interest in dating anymore,” Jake internally cringes at himself for potentially scaring Jaebeom away with that last point, but he really couldn’t let Dominic continue to trash you.

“Oh, Jesus don’t give me that. Ever since she got dumped she has been acting like a complete who-”

“Alright I think that’s enough,” surprisingly Jaebeom beats Jake in coming to your defense by putting an end to Dominic’s drunken rant. 

While listening to Dominic trash you and Jake attempting to defend you, Jaebeom was continually getting more and more upset. It was bad enough that Dominic has just shown himself to be a terrible friend, but now he was going to stoop as low as calling his friend such a derogatory term? 

He thought again about the girl that caught his attention. His eyes were on you the moment you walked through the door. Even with the masses of people in the penthouse, he felt like he was on another world with you, floating distantly away in a turquoise sea. To your beautiful skin, gorgeous locks of hair, and even just the way you carried yourself. Jaebeom had found himself completely enraptured with this complete stranger. And he was not going to let one of your supposed “friends” go on ruining your image.

“It’s not very cool to talk about someone like that when they’re not here to defend themselves. Especially to someone whom they have never even met,” Jaebeom told Dominic with a stern tone.

If Jake was impressed before by this man, his respect for Jaebeom increased even more. If only you were willing to put yourself out there again, he thinks Jaebeom might be a really good change for you. He clearly was a person who stood for what they believed in, and Jake knows how much a person like that could have such a great impact on you.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Jake waves to Jaebeom too stunned to even say anything as he walks off.

“What the hell is his problem?” Dominic starts as Jaebeom leaves, “Does he think that Y/N will blow him with that bullshit Mr. Nice Guy act?”

“You are such a prick, you know that?” Dominic just shrugs off Jake taking a large gulp of his beer.

While roaming throughout the penthouse you would stop occasionally to scope out the room around you. The people, the music, even the drinks were just so mind numbingly dull to you. You thought to yourself either you were truly broken like you thought so earlier that week or you were perhaps just a narcissist. Neither of those options made you feel particularly good about yourself, but if you weren’t going to be the one to say it, who would?

“Are you enjoying yourself so far?”

Over the loud bass of the music somehow you were able to hear the question coming from the man who had just approached you. You turn towards him slightly startled. Only once you turned to the voice you felt your breath leave your lungs. He was handsome, no beyond that, you had seen handsome men before, fucked handsome men, he was something else. There was no word in the English language to describe his looks.

His cheeks were set high on his face along with his straight nose. The dark locks of hair that framed his face rested softly on his moonlit skin. The way he held your eyes with his stare had you almost in a panic until you remembered, you had lost all your patience for men. 

Still, there was no harm in just conversing, your drunken state thought.

“I’m going to have to say no to that one,” you reply back honestly while setting your empty champagne glass on a waiter’s tray. Had it not been for the few drinks you had already you would not have even spared this man a second glance, right?

“Can’t say I blame you,” the man says. “I am Jaebeom by the way.”

He flashes you a tender smile with his perfectly straightened teeth, you quickly tell him your own name hoping to God this conversation could die. Your resolve while standing next to Jaebeom was slowly dwindling. You need to leave his side. Continuing this conversation leads to dangerous territory that not you nor your heart was ready for.

“I’m sorry, will you excuse me? I need to find my friends, I haven’t seen them all night,” you inwardly cringe at your lame excuse. Yet Jaebeom seems completely unaffected, holding his arm out to his side to allow your departure. A man that doesn’t get angry when you deprive him of attention, that was new.

Somewhere amongst the sea of people Sofie appears at Jake’s side effectively easing the growing anger Jake felt towards Dominic’s drunken antics. 

“What were you two boys talking about,” Sofie says sweetly while looping her arm around Jake. Jake knows that if Sofie were to hear the things Dominic had been saying about her best friend, she would have an absolute fit. So he thought it best she didn’t know.

“Oh you know just guy talk,” Jake says smiling.

“My photographer has the hots for Y/N,” Dominic slurs while it takes everything in Jake not to strangle his friend.

“Your photographer? Who is that? I want to see what he looks like,” Sofie replies sounding interested, to which Dominic scans the room before landing his finger on Jaebeom talking with some other guests.

“What really? He is so perfect I have to go tell her,” Sofie tries to walk away until Jake pulls her back.

“Okay first of all, ouch, I am your boyfriend. How can you say a guy is perfect while I’m right here?” Sofie rolls her eyes but let’s Jake continue. “Secondly, wasn’t it just a couple days ago that she mentioned never wanting to date again?”

“Oh come on you know she doesn’t mean that, and besides that guy is so her type. The second she sees him she will forget her hatred of men altogether,” Sofie says.

Jake sighs but lets Sofie go over and tell you about your secret admirer. He didn't appreciate the way people took your words so lightly. Was he the only one listening to you for the past couple months to know that you needed time to heal? Then again Sofie was your closest friend and perhaps she knew what was best for you.

“Okay you are never going to believe this,” Sofie approaches you from behind as you finish off your third glass of champagne.

“Tell me quickly I can feel the alcohol beginning to fog my brain.”

“Literally the hottest guy here asked Jake and Dom about you, they say he is interested in you!”

Through your slightly buzzed state you can still feel the burst of annoyance come over you. You have to breathe deeply through your nose in order to not completely go off on your sweet enthusiastic friend. Did your words a couple days ago mean nothing to her?

“Sofie, like I told you, I am not at all interested,” you tell her causing her excitement to dwindle. “So you can pass along that message to this mystery man too.”

“Oh come on! At least let me show you who it is, you will just die,” Sofie says causing your eyes to roll.

You decide to play along, “Fine show me.”

Sofie excitedly turns both your bodies to the crowd of people, she scans for a minute until she finds the said man, excitedly pointing him out to you. Jaebeom was in the middle of a conversation. The man who was interested in you was him? The guy you completely blew off just moments ago? 

You could feel yourself start to become overwhelmed. First when you started to talk to Jaebeom you began to have these feelings that you had never felt before. The fact that you couldn’t identify them frustrated you and made you want to leave this party. Now come to find out the whole reason he approached you was because he was interested? For reasons unexplained you began to feel the anger turn in your stomach again.

Who did this guy think he was? Was he just someone who felt he was so charming that just a simple greeting would have you spreading your legs for him? You felt so angry with yourself for even faltering for a moment on the resolution you made with yourself. This just proved your theory that all men want the same things from you. How could you be so stupid to think differently? Your head was turning into a swirl of red, clouding your judgement, perhaps the cheap booze was stronger than you anticipated.

It wasn’t until Jaebeom turned his body towards you, locking his eyes on yours. You expected to see the smirk, the smirk that all the men wear on their faces when they just want their dick wet. Instead, he smiled. Not a forced smile, it was genuine, you could feel the warmth of it from across the room. His smile had you faltering. You’ve been with so many men these past few months that you thought you had them all figured out. So why was he so unpredictable? 

For this, the rage overcame you.

With all your might you are able to look away from him and down at the floor. Your chest felt tight, all the air around you had been sucked away as you struggled to get a grip on where you were. Breathing exercises were not going to help you at this point.

“Hey, are you okay?” Sofie looks down at your shaken figure.

“No, I’m not, I think I’m going to leave. I really don’t feel well,” you say as you begin to make your way through people not wanting to let anyone submit to your anger.

Sofie grabs your arm, “It’s almost midnight you can’t leave now!”

“Sofie please, I am being very serious right now. Let me go,” your tone is icy as Sofie draws her hand back in fear.

Taking the opportunity you start your journey towards the exit needing so desperately to get out of the sea of people. Your chest began to heave as you felt the world closing in on you. Tears prodded in your eyes as you clenched your fists. The crowd was suffocating, you felt like you were about to burst, until finally you made your way to the door. You hurried down the hallway to the elevator practically throwing a punch at the call button.

Jaebeom was across the room when he had seen the entire exchange. He noticed your change in expression and then proceeded to watch you suddenly turn to leave the party. Jaebeom had a hard time understanding why, but he felt worried for you. Suddenly he begins to weave in and out of the drunken mass as the countdown from ten begins to be shouted out. He sees only a glimpse of you as you finally slip your way out the front door.

He reaches the door, opening it to find there is no one in the hall, he looks down and sees the elevator doors slowly closing with you inside. He tries to make a run for it, what will he even say when he reaches you? He doesn’t care at this moment, all Jaebeom knows is that he doesn't want you to be alone. 

Running fast towards the titanium doors you look up and catch his eye. Tears can be seen falling down your flushed cheeks. Your eyes were wild and bright as you stared through Jaebeom, making his steps come to a halt. He was shaken by the look in your eyes, so much so that he lets the elevator doors stop him from reaching you.

FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

He hears the party happening behind him. The cheering and laughing as people celebrate with their friends and loved ones. Yet the noise is completely drawn out as Jaebeom thinks of you.

This girl he had only just met, yet he longed for so desperately so.

#got7 fanfic #jaebeom fanfic #got7 smut #jaebeom smut #Im Jaebeom #got7 scenarios #got7 imagines #fanfic #got7 #jb smut #got7 jb #jb fanfic

[jade-marie]

Heyyy. With all this supposed romantic jealousy and like you said ‘dick measuring’ game that Nick and Rio are playing, I think about the scene in the car after Beth got Rio arrested and Nick got him out. Rio said: “so what do you want to do about [Beth?] and Nick said “not what you want to do.” This scene makes it seem like they have a plan that they’re BOTH in on to deal with Beth. I’m at first I thought they were playing good cop/bad cop (I still think they are) but now Rio is clearly uncomfortable with Nick’s plan. What the fuck is going on because I am confused?

Also do you think the dynamic between Nick and Rio will become clearer by the finale? They seem to have a very complex relationship and wow, who would have thought utilising one of your best and most underused character that LITERALLY DRIVES THE WHOLE MAIN PLOT would make the show interesting again 🤔

Hi, doll! Ok, you’re gonna have to bear with me because my brain is messy at the best of times and I’ve had a non stop headache since yesterday morning, so making sense of my thoughts is hella difficult right now lol. I’m just gonna break this up into sections to help me keep track of everything!

P.s. I’m sorry this got long 🥴

Rio and Nick’s dynamic

So, from what we’ve seen so far, Nick is extremely narcissistic, manipulative, and selfish. In my opinion, he doesn’t really seem to have a very strong sense of self or morality, he just becomes whoever he needs to, in order to achieve the goal at hand. Whether it’s kissing ass at the golf club, playing politics, or having Rio thrown in jail/beaten with a stool. He’s always thinking about the long game, always about the bigger picture, he likes to use every situation/person to his advantage. He seems to have some sort of resentment and/or jealousy towards Rio and that comes out a lot in his desire to take from Rio. He took his dreams of being a boxing a boxer, his freedom, trivial stuff like the burger and the basketball. I also think he wants to take Beth but they’ve not made it clear in what capacity he wants to take her. Whether it’s because he’s clocked that Rio has/had genuine feelings for her, or because he thinks Beth is a business asset. Either way, he sees that Beth is a sore spot and he’s going to keep pushing as a way to exert power and feel like a man.

Rio, on the other hand, likes to see immediate results, and he can be pretty impulsive. He’s also very self-assured, he is who he is and he doesn’t change that for anyone. He literally has a giant tattoo across his throat which he displays proudly because he doesn’t care how anyone else sees him. But he has a natural charm and charisma that he can use when he needs it, without having to become a completely different person. I think he’s a very emotional person, regardless of how much he tries to hide it, which can make him pretty reactive to situations – see: basically every interaction with Beth.

They’re wildly different people and this would cause conflict in itself because they immediately want to handle situations differently, like with Annie being kidnapped. The girls owed him money, Rio was mad about it, and he wanted an immediate resolution to that problem, whereas Nick didn’t care so much about the short-term financial issues, in comparison to the long-term benefit to him of keeping Beth onside. Within their organisation, the structure is still kinda murky because he doesn’t seem to be the boss, but then he does and ehhh. Supposedly Rio handles all the illicit stuff and then Nick pushes through city contracts to shell corporations he owns and also makes money from that, as well as keeping Rio out of jail. The actual power imbalance between them still irks me because Nick is literally a councilman. He has no real clout. There’s no reason for him to have such a hold over Rio, especially when Rio knows exactly what Nick is and he also knows that Nick wouldn’t have dick without him. But I digress.

The conversation in the car

I definitely think that conversation is very relevant to what’s happening with Beth right now. In that moment, I think Rio wanted revenge, plain and simple but he was also thinking long term. I don’t think he was planning on going out to kill her, but that’s where Nick’s mind went because he severely underestimates how much of a “big picture guy” Rio can be hence telling Rio, “not what you want to do”. Presumably, there would’ve been a discussion between them off screen where Nick decided exactly what was going to happen and how they were going to use her. My guess is that going forward they were basically going to play a game of ‘good cop bad cop’. Nick offers himself up as the friendly local councilman, shows concern for Beth, helps her etc, while Rio is more menacing than ever. Rio is reluctantly going along with this plan because of the stupid power imbalance, but I think he’s got something up his sleeve. I think the discomfort we’re seeing from Rio stems from their difference in opinion on how to handle Beth, Rio chafing under Nick’s control and also the resentment Rio holds because of Nick’s constant routine of taking what’s his. I kinda spoke about it in this post.

Last time Beth got Rio arrested, he shot Dean - he’s not shy when it comes to payback. Typically, he’s always quite reactive to situations and that can (has) come to bite him in the ass but he knows this. He was there. He knows that every time he pushes Beth, she pushes back with equal force, so he needs to immobilise her. While Nick just wants to use Beth to benefit himself financially, by using her to push through contracts for shell corporations etc, I think Rio wanted to kill two birds with one stone. He can use Beth as a shield for his business and make money off her, then later on, I think he probably wants to use her to get rid of Nick and potentially let Beth go down with him as payback for her betrayal (at least, I think that was his original plan but he may soften to her and end up forming an alliance once Nick is out of the picture).

Romantic Jealousy?

As for the jealousy, it’s still not the word I’d choose to describe Rio. It probably fits, to a degree, but I always associate it with pettiness and wanting stuff you don’t have - i.e. Nick. With Rio, it feels more possessive over what he already has because he knows Nick wants to take it. This now extends to Beth because she was and is his, at least in a business sense. I don’t think he’s ever been particularly jealous of her in their personal relationship because neither of them ever truly gave into whatever it was. In business, she worked for him, she answered to him, if she needed help – she came to him, and he’s created that dynamic with Beth by keeping her isolated from his wider organisation. He was effectively trying to mentor her and make her in his image. Now, Nick comes along and suddenly Beth’s going to Nick for help, Beth’s doing what Nick says, and she’s looking to Nick as a mentor. So, once again, Nick is taking what belongs to Rio. That’s why I think he reacted the way he did in the strip club. He realised that he was about to lose to Nick again, and he wasn’t willing to let that happen, so he pulled out the ol’ carrot and stick. He took her money away as a punishment, made her think on her feet, and then rewarded her for a job well done. He showed her that she doesn’t need Nick because then Nick has no hold over her. He’s showing Beth that she can get shit done on her own, but also reminding her that he essentially made her what she is. He taught her. He believed in her. He asked her what she gained from being on the city council and doing what Nick tells her, knowing full well she gets fuck all out of it because he knows Nick. Then he gave her a reward to make ‘team Rio’ all the more appealing. Yes, there could well be some romantic feelings under that but I don’t think that’s what’s driving Rio right now. I think this is firmly about him and Nick, while Beth has become another toy for them to fight over.

#rio x nick #good girls nbc #rio good girls #nbc good girls #beth boland #brio #gg season 4 #rio x beth

[ex-silent-reader]

Happy Holidays fic recs

Happy Holidays everybody!  I haven’t been commenting on posts individually like i normally like to so it’s kind of backed up a bit. I still really want to thank all the authors who have been sharing their stories with us and leave a lil itty bitty comment before I can expand on them for their own post so here’s that! Also I’ve seen a lot of undeserved negativity being spread to a lot of authors and I just want to thank you all for sharing your work on this platform FOR FREE and remind you that you literally owe us nothing and I’m super grateful that you continue to share with us. These are just some stories that I’ve read this week, i’d def like to do another of these soon :)

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own any of these stories, each story is owned by the author tagged next to the title and the summary is pulled verbatim from their page, in quotation marks. The only thing I own is gratitude towards these authors for sharing their work with us.

Also all stories are rated M 

Also, a loooot of stories have come out lately and I haven’t had a chance to get to a lot of them yet but i hope to soon so I’ll hopefully make another one of these soon, but yea pls know that I’m not purposefully ignoring or excluding anything or anyone.

Jin;

last christmas | ksj x reader - @xjoonchildx

“ summary: it was bound to happen, eventually. after months of near misses at barbecues and birthdays, there’s no avoiding your ex-husband at hoseok’s annual christmas bash. but it’s fine, totally fine, because you’re both adults – and you’ve both brought dates and booze. what could go wrong? “

This story was amazing! First of all, I love the comedy surrounding the entire situation, Hobi with his 8 trees and instigator Yoongi who also wants them to get their shit together for Hobi’s sake. I love all au’s but sometimes exes to lovers is difficult for me to side with because I don’t see how people can bounce back from so much hurt but in this story it felt very natural how they were able to find their way back together and I really enjoyed the insight to their relationship, especially near the end.

Yoongi;

CREAM & SUGA -  @snackhobi

“summary: yoongi is your favourite regular. he’s patient, polite, and predictable, a-large-black-coffee-to-go-please, no cream, no sugar, thank you. rinse and repeat. the seasons might change, but yoongi’s order stays the same.

and then one fateful day in winter, yoongi asks about the weekly specials, orders a cup of christmas and sugary sweetness, and everything starts changing.”

Ya’ll. Yoongi fics just truly hit different. The plot of this was so adorable and him going out of his way like that to keep her engaged was so cute and just very Yoongi like. I also just really loved the descriptions in this, like how oc described making the drinks, it just made everything seem so real.

universe | myg drabble - @personasintro

                           “❥𝒔𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔; you’re his whole universe, you just don’t know it yet – or him” 

ASDFGHJKL! Like, I really have no words for the way this made me feel. Like, ik it’s not a super healthy dynamic but the thought of a fixated Yoongi is.. I loved reading Yoongi being so fixated with oc and doing everything i his capability to meet her. I also was v interested in the part where he bumped into her and she didn’t react the way he expected because it made me think about how he (or any character’s with his mindset) cope when the fantast and reality don’t match.

Hobi;

 A Holly, Jolly Crisis (M) -  @kpopfanfictrash

* Blog doesn’t allow copy/paste and I wanted to respect that*

This story made me feel so many things. Like there’s so many layers to it and both of their hurt, her visiting him and feeling betrayed while he felt pushed aside. This story was so complex and both characters had so many layers to them, but it’s still sooo well written and I was invested the entire time. Like, I genuinely can’t get my feelings out in a brief way so I’m looking forward to screaming about this in it’s own post.

Joonie;

 my only wish - knj | m - @ppersonna

“✹ summary- There are few things you hate most in this world. Hornets, unnecessary fruit pieces in otherwise perfectly good jello, certain shades of orange… But nothing takes the cake more than two simple things. Christmas. And Kim Namjoon. So why did you agree to pretend to be Kim Namjoon’s girlfriend at his family Christmas party? Bah-Humbug. “

UM! Absolutely adored this story, of course it would be a fellow cream suit enthusiast who can bring so much justice to dreamy Joon. I loved how he was portrayed here and getting insight to both his and oc’s feelings made me root for them soooo hard.

new parent syndrome - @1kook

“ SUMMARY You love Namjoon, honest. But you love your daughter Hyejoo even more— it’s not a controversial sentiment when you know he’s the same way! —and going back to a regular adult life sans kids absolutely sucks. (Or so you thought.)”

The tag “dreamy husband joon” is extremelyyyy accurate. This story was just so cute and their relationship truly felt so intimate and lovely. Her being on the phone with Jimin while Joon was smash SENT me but it was also so hot like ASDFGHJKL that man can do no wrong tbh.

  laundry day - @snackhobi

“summary: You’ve been letting your laundry pile up for a little too long. Fortunately, your neighbour Namjoon is there to lend you a hand. “

Pls this was so hot. Like, I’ve made it very clear thus far that I’m a total simp for Joon, the thought of that man going strawberry picking and thinking to grab some for oc genuinely makes me SWOON. He’s an actual heartthrob.

   The Sweet in Sweet Potato - @sahmfanficbts

“ Summary: You’ve been roommates for years. Now that you’re catching feelings, it’s time to run away. “

This entire series has had me so invested but this chapter!!! I’m always a sucker for Joon but the way he was so clearly in her feels (for OC) but wanting to respect her need for distance, what a man. And I was so happy to see oc working through her feeling towards Joon.

Last Christmas (M) - @jjungkookislife

* Blog doesn’t allow copy/paste and I wanted to respect that*

Damn, I really love when a misunderstanding is such a big catalyst for a bunch of drama/angst. It just really ups the tension for me because as the reader I know it was a misunderstanding but clearly the character’s don’t, so it just makes me really eager to see how they make amends. I really enjoyed seeing them slowly make amends and grow. Also the buildup to them deciding to give the relationship another go made the ending soooo satisfying.

Jimin;

 picking petals｜pjm - @taestybae

“ summary ↣ you asked for a baby, so a baby is what you’re going to get. “

I really have no words for this, like it was so asaifgjhhkc. First of all, I really enjoyed that it was through his pov, i don’t typically read stories like that (I just don’t often come across them) but this still felt so natural that I didn’t even realize until right now, writing this comment. Also, the imagery was so well described and the anticipation built made this story so enjoyable.

Taehyung;

 Deepest Indulgence  - @scribblemetae

“ Description/Summary: The world is a mess, gangs, violence and rates of poverty are at an all time high since corporations took over everything. You built your Sex house to be a safe place and a sanctuary for those in need, promising to protect anybody who needs it. What happens when an extremely attractive and very rich man walks through the door begging for a job at Deepest Indulgence? The one sex house that wasn’t meant for men like himself. “

I AM SO EAGER FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER TO COME OUT. Like, idk how I can even describe this correctly but this just feel so much like Tae...???? Like idk if that makes sense but just Tae being this v sensual man, but there still being more to him than that, just makes so much sense and even the word “indulgence” is just so sensual and reminiscent of him. Also, the storyline so far is something I’ve personally never seen before and I’m super invested in this world and story already. Very eager to see how their relationship progresses.

 let it snow | kth - @suga-kookiemonster

* Blog doesn’t allow copy/paste and I wanted to respect that*

It’s the way I read this last night, it took me exactly an hour (3am to 4 am cause I’m a CLOWN), and I was so invested that I kept putting off sleep to finish it. Man, i’m a simp for this Tae (just like he is for oc lmao). I really enjoyed reading it and the mention of Jisoo earlier in the story had me on the edge of my seat the whole time wondering when things were gonna blow up. Everything was just so sweet and fluffy, and the confession really made me feel so soft for them both cause they both were so in their own heads and feelings they couldn’t see what was in front of them so I really enjoyed the confessions.

Jungkook;

Thank you, baby - @scribblemetae

“ Turns out the boy whos been stalking you for years has decided its about time he shows his face in the form of a picture, and decides its time to talk to you for real, in the form of a phone call. “

I genuinely don’t know how I can simp over this story in a short way but I’ll try my best. The characters are so complex and the storyline is twisted so many ways that make this so interesting to read and easy to become invested in. The way Jk is written, I understand why OC is lost on how to feel for him. Like, his actions are wrong, but actually meeting him and even seeing his though process, it’s hard to make him out to be the villian that his actions have categorized him as. I can’t wait to continue reading and write a full length comment about this!

FEED ME, FIGHT ME.  @yeojaa

“ What do you get when you mix a pissed off girlfriend with a neglectful boyfriend?  (Aside from trouble, that is.) “

I really enjoyed this, I love how aware of Jk and his boundaries the oc is and how she is cautious to walk the line and not push him too far while also letting him know how his actions make her feel. This just genuinely felt like a glimpse into a very real, very intimate relationship/moment and I loved that. I also just really love how this is written and I think you have a beautiful way with words. 

Chapstick - @softyoongiionly

“based on the time Jungkook said he needed someone to scold him so he’d remember to put lip balm on. Or Jungkook’s had a really long day and the only that can make it better, is seeing you. “

Idk if I’ve ever said it before, but I just love how you write relationships. Like, I can feel how comfortable they are with each other and how natural being together is for them. With your stories generally it just never feels forced and I really love that. I also really liked that we got Jk’s pov in the beginning, getting to see how tense he was really made me eager for their interactions and for him to feel comfortable and calm with her. Their interactions just felt so cute and natural and the end, assdjfhi, jk really deserves to be cherished and I loved seeing oc get him to the point of relaxation.

#bts fic #jin #kim seokjin x reader #yoongi #min yoongi x reader #hobi #jung hoseok x reader #joonie #kim namjoon x reader #jimin #park jimin x reader #tae #kim taehyung x reader #jk #jeon jungkook x reader #fic #Idk how to format these sorry #also i hope the tags are working #these are just ones i've recently read more #I plan to do another one once I read some more #This took an embarrasingly long time to do #embarassingly #can anybody guess who my bias is

[nightswithkookmin]

Hello fellow Jikooker and a brave one i must mention. I am proud of u and any other Jikooker like u if they exist. I like how u handle hate asks and not take it personally. I know it can be hard sometimes but keep doing what u doing and people will eventually may be learn to f..k off

Now for my ask Do u think people are taking cultural context to another level just to cancel some Jikook moments because i am also Asian (not from Korea) and i understand their culture as its somewhat similar to mine and may be men here are not like in western countries and express themselves freely even though physical touches but we should remember that regardless even men here will not suck on each others ears. Korean culture is Conservative culture so it has limits forsure. If we compare physical language of men of korea to that of any western counrty it will be different but its not like men in korea or in Asia go on sucking each other ears. Slapping butt, holding hands, sitting on each others laps, or touching genital area jokingly can be seen and let me remind u even men in western countries do this but may be not in a shopping mall or at a wedding party lol but if its a friends gathering everyone does stupid things and i have witnessed it with my own eyes.. i live in US so i can kind of differentiate in this aspect. I just want to say Jikook is real and people will be regretting so much when or if they ever come out. But take my word for it. Being a part if both worlds i can see it.. what do u think about this whole situation ?

Psst. Cultural context my ass!

That's some gay for your ass. Right there in 4k! Right infront of cultural context's salad.

It's 2021. Cultural shock won't cut it. They need to hang it up. FLAT SCREEN!

Fact of the matter is, there are rainbows in South Korea in spite of their conservative culture. In spite of their skinship and fanservice culture. In spite of it all!

Dismissing Jikook on the grounds of culture just doesn't cut it anymore. Their culture does not bar them from being gay.

How can people view BigHit as an unorthodox, unconventional company distinct from corporate Korea in that they have a tendency to pander to the west and acknowledge that their modules and methods fundamentally deviate from traditional Korean business modules; but then in the same breath fail to see how this same company and its entities within it, in order to be part of the international community, allows themselves to be influenced and socialized by international culture in one form or the other.

I mean it's subtle but it's there. It's in the donations to Black Lives matter, declaring a stan on it, apologizing for the cultural and racial insensitivities, apologizing for sampling Jim Jones, delivering key notes at the UN, pushing for recognition and inclusivity in the US music industry and awards, the English in their songs, the English subtitles, overtly participating in international culture- but then suddenly when it comes to LGBTQ plus issues people think BigHit and BTS are deaf, blind, retrogressive, socially unwoke or unaware of it, conservative about it in the way most Kpop companies are, and a bit blind to the fact they hold so much influence and political power social wise and merely appropriate queer culture and draw on queer aesthetics to depoliticize queerness and marginalize a huge fraction of their fanbase.

So which is it? Is BigHit woke or not? Are they international or not? Are they tailoring themselves to fit into the international community through awareness or not?

It's really discombobulating. I swear to God.

I think people need to pay attention to what is going into BigHit and BTS's socialization.

Besides, love is a universal language. It transcends race. It transcends culture and language. It transcends people and systems. If Jikook are in love with eachother what has their culture got to do with it?

A Korean couple in America will still be acknowledged and viewed as a couple based on their behavior alone in spite of their culture or knowledge of it.

Why can't a gay couple be recognized outside of their culture?

Closeted gay couples living in South Korea claim they live in constant fear that people may recognize them as a couple when they walk down the street. I'm sorry, but why would they harbor such fears if their culture excuses gayism? If it's skinship is a normal thing to do in south Korea?

They fake injuries and slip their hands in each other's pockets so people will not notice them holding hands- if it's normal for men to hold hands why would people think these men are gay just by them holding hands?

Why at all did Tae and JK think Jimin was gay in their early days?

I get that cultural differences can act as a barrier sometimes especially to new fans and people who aren't oriented with Kpop culture or cultures outside of their own but education bridges that gap. It's been 7 years of Bangtan, ignorance of their culture is no longer an excuse.

Their President and Culture ministry isn't applauding them because they are stifling awareness to their culture. If anything they are spreading the Korean culture, inviting the world to participate in their culture through experience and education. They are teaching, explaining, and propagating their culture through their music.

Thats the socialization I mentioned earlier. It goes both ways for BTS and for Army- it's ridiculous then for people to now turn around and scream 'y'all just don't understand their culture.'

Rhetorics like these go against the facts, the statistics, the testaments to BTS's influence on trends and culture and negates the hegemonic power of Kpop or BTS and by extension Kculture.

I mean if you don't know about their culture, learn. You got no excuse not to learn about their culture. But I find the weaponization of the cultural differences that exist between BTS and their international fans, in this context, bonkers. People just like to project their inadequacies onto others. That's what it is.

How can we say Kpop or even the Korean culture is taking over world trends and in the same breath claim people are ignorant of that culture?

There is skinship culture prevalent in South Korea, yes but there is an equally prevalent culture in S.K which is Couple culture.

Skinship does not imply a couple. I keep saying skinship is not the reason Jikook is real. Acting like a couple in love with eachother is why Jikook is real.

I keep saying no one should come at me with the 'they held hands ergo they are a couple' 'they hugged ergo they are a couple.'

If Jikook are not acting like a couple by their culture's definition of 'couple' gay or straight, then they are not a couple. It's as simple as that.

If any member sits on another member's lap, kisses their calf but don't act like a couple outside of this, they are not a couple.

Jikook are queer by every standard.

About that Rosebowl moment, there is some I want to say about it but I'm afraid it's going to disillusion a lot of Jokers and give the Tuktukkers lurking around my blogs ammunition. I'll rather not say.

But that moment right there... peak love for me. PEAK LOVE. JK loves Jimin. Whether people think it's platonic or romantic really doesn't matter to me. He loves Jimin and Jimin loves him back. Very much.

That's what I celebrate.

JIKOOK IS REAL

Signed,

GOLDY

[boxoftheskyking]

Pick Up Every Piece, Part Five

In which we have a scene at the bar

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

--

Early November 2000

When Jiang Cheng comes to the bar on his own, he lets Wei Ying watch his back. Which is to say, he sits at the bar and doesn’t spend the whole time half-turned to keep an eye on the door. When Jin Zixuan joins them, he hangs by the corner of the bar by the weird old poker machine that hasn’t worked in years, and he mostly avoids eye contact.

“Hey Zixuan,” Wei Ying says, grinning. “How’s your cousin?”

“Hm?” He’s so polite, always, in a snobby kind of way. Like he knows he’s better than you, but he’s far too well-bred to admit it. Wei Ying sometimes wonders if he got that from his mother. Wei Ying has never really spoken to Mrs. Jin outside of an awkward few minutes at the wedding, but what he knows of the rest of the family is far more in the “knows they’re better than you and will tell you to your face” camp.

“Your cousin, you know.” He winks at Jiang Cheng. “It’s the liiiiiife of the Jin!”

Jiang Cheng joins in, “What’s going down in Lanling—”

“Cut it out!” Zixuan reaches out like he’s going to cover Jiang Cheng’s mouth, but he doesn’t. 

“It’s catchy!” Jiang Cheng giggles. It’s a gratifying sight.

“That show should be outlawed,” Zixuan says darkly.

“It’s genius,” Wei Ying argues, drinking in the two of them there, together. “Nie Huaisang is a visionary.”

“I’m going to have him imprisoned. He’s a curse.”

“He’s a genius. It’s a totally new art form.”

Jiang Cheng snorts. “Art form. It’s boring. I like seeing Jin Zixun humiliated as much as anyone, but it’s just rich people sitting around being stupid and rich.”

“It’s reality, but also pure escapism. It’s brilliant.”

“It’s a threat to national security,” Zixuan says. Wei Ying cackles.

Jiang Cheng makes a face. “There’s no story! There’s no, like, script.”

“There is a story! It’s all how Huaisang edits it.” Wei Ying hasn’t actually talked to Nie Huaisang in years, so he’s not that personally invested, but he can’t resist the chance to disagree with both Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan at the same time.

Zixuan slides his glass over for a refill. “Zixun is never going to get a real job. He has no skills, he can’t do anything useful, so he sits around and has cameras follow him? It’s a disgrace.”

“It’s the most watched show in the country. I watch it every week.”

Jiang Cheng intercepts Zixuan’s glass to steal a sip. “That’s because you also don’t have a real job.”

“Serve yourself then, asshole.”

“We don’t watch reality TV, we work. We’re civil servants.”

“I’ve written six columns on The Life of Jin, I’ll have you know. So it is my job. And I’m more of a civil servant than you, I barely make any money.” It earns him a pair of eyerolls, but they won’t insult the paper to his face. Not anymore. “I can’t believe they made you both work today.” It’s the wrong thing to say, and Wei Ying covers his wince to fill a row of pints.

“Yeah, well.” Zixuan scratches the back of his neck. He keeps his hair a bit long, like Jiang Cheng does, but on him it feels like a memorial. “Five years. I guess I can’t keep getting time off forever.”

Jiang Cheng is drumming his fingers on the bar, looking away.

“Five years to the day, though,” Wei Ying offers. He leans in, almost wanting to touch . . . something, then twirls away to ring someone up. He feels like a bird, a swallow, dipping and soaring and coming in close for a moment before getting scared back up to a tree top.

When he comes back the tension has receded.

“Dad wants me to move over to the business side of things,” Zixuan is saying.

“Leave intelligence?” Jiang Cheng’s brow furrows, clearly already imagining following his brother-in-law over to the corporate hellhole of Jin Industries.

“Yeah. He keeps talking about the CEO gig, as if I’m qualified.”

“No offense,” Wei Ying says, “but your dad has never been big on qualified.”

“What about Guangyao?” Jiang Cheng asks.

“He’s not the face Dad wants for the company. I don’t know, it’s like during the war, he’s staying back in his lab and his back office, tinkering with stuff. Dad wants a stupid— A face. You know, dynasty bullshit.”

“Like those propaganda posters.” Wei Ying grins at him. “That noble profile. I had one on my bedroom wall.”

“Don’t be creepy.” Jiang Cheng goes to smack him, but he ducks away. “You did not.”

“It wasn’t propaganda.” Zixuan sighs, having lost this argument before.

“It was good propaganda,” Jiang Cheng argues.

Wei Ying keeps his thoughts to himself, for once. He doesn’t comment on Jin Guangyao, either, though he could. A drunk girl yells at him from the other side of the bar, which helps.

“But like—” Zixuan takes a long gulp, spinning his fingers in frustration, looking for the words. “This is what I trained for. I joined the army at eighteen. I was in the army when it was just prison security and diplomatic escorts. My degree is decoration, and he knows that. It’s an art piece on the office wall, it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know how I’m supposed to just become this business guy. It’s like— He doesn’t actually know me, who I am, what I’m good at. He just expects me to work wherever he plugs me in, to just be the best at whatever he thinks I should be the best at. I’m already the best at something. Right? I’m too old to be the best at something else.”

Wei Ying shrugs in sympathy. “Welcome to your thirties, eh?”

Jiang Cheng drains his glass, his third already. “He wants you to be a liquid.”

“What?”

“He thinks you’re a liquid. Your dad. Fit the shape of your container.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m not a fucking liquid.”

Jiang Cheng points at him. “That’s right. You’re not a fucking liquid.”

“I’m a solid.”

“You’re solid as shit, man.” Jiang Cheng pounds on Zixuan’s chest, and he winces slightly.

It’s nine o’clock, so Wei Ying decides he gets to pour himself a whiskey. He puts an orange slice in it, for vitamins.

Jin Zixuan looks into his own glass, thoughtfully. “Although, I mean. What’s a liquid without a container? Just a puddle, right?”

“Or a river,” Jiang Cheng says. They pause to contemplate rivers.

“What kind of liquid would you be?” Wei Ying asks, watching the gold of his liquor swirl around the melting ice cubes and the orange peel.

Zixuan huffs a laugh. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Vegetable soup,” Wei Ying says, then winces again.

“Soup,” Jiang Cheng agrees, quietly.

“Yeah,” Zixuan says. “Soup.”

They stare down into their glasses, drink.

“That reminds me,” Zixuan says, rallying after a long moment and pulling his fancy silver business card holder out of his breast pocket. “I got a new number.”

He hands Wei Ying a classy white card. It’s not his government one, just his phone number and his new email. Of course Jin Zixuan would have a personal business card, printed up by a printing company somewhere.

“Did you get rid of the old phone?” Wei Ying asks, carefully. Jiang Cheng looks between them, also careful, saying nothing.

“No, I just had to— I moved it to the basement. I can’t keep . . . The answering machine is still hooked up to the old one. I’ll still wipe the tape, so you can call—”

“Thanks.” We don’t talk about it. Let’s keep not talking about it. Wei Ying rinses a glass that’s already clean.

“If you want. It’s not a problem. I just can’t keep—”

“Yeah.” He wipes the glass, too quickly, the damp microfiber squeaks a little.

“A-Ling gets confused. He hears you say her name, you say ‘Jiejie,’ and he—”

“Yeah, I get it, no problem.” Wei Ying rinses the glass again.

“You can call me, though.” Jin Zixuan is looking at him, which he rarely actually does right in the face, horribly earnest. “You know that. You can call the new number and talk to him, or to me.”

“I know. I will.” He probably won’t. He looks over at Jiang Cheng, who’s chewing on his lip. Yanli would scold him for that, say that’s why it keeps chapping, worse now that it’s getting colder. He doesn’t leave her messages, Wei Ying doesn’t think. He doesn’t need crutches like that, he straps the anger onto himself like steel braces and gets on with things, limping.

Wei Ying would like to be angry, especially today on the five year anniversary. Five full years without her. That would be a comfort, such a relief, to be angry. But he doesn’t get to be angry when Jiang Cheng is around.

Jiang Cheng clears his throat. “I can’t believe your dad allows Zixun to do that show.”

Zixuan draws himself up, sucking in a breath like he’s coming out of water. “He must get something from it. Like some kind of PR or something.”

Wei Ying goes into the back and carries out a case of wine and a case of cider, loads them into the cooler. It takes a while, he has to pull things out so the warm bottles go in the back. He can vaguely hear his brothers insulting Jin Zixun and the state of modern television, keeping it light. He stares at the label on a bottle of cider—it’s an apple with a face, one of those unnerving cartoon faces where all the teeth are the same size and shape. No one’s teeth look like that.

He shuts the cooler and returns.

“If Zixun looks like a fool,” Wei Ying says thoughtfully, interrupting them like he’s supposed to, “then he’s mostly harmless. He’s a goofball. It must be useful for the great and powerful Jin to have a goofball side. It makes you look less, I don’t know . . .” He could say a lot of things. He could say things like tyrannical or despotic or calculating or morally questionable. He doesn’t say any of it, just waves his hands around.

Zixuan looks like he hears the words anyway, and as usual, he stares out across the bar. “He’s a sacrifice, I suppose. Zixun. He’s always been the spare.”

“Do you think he knows he’s being played?” Jiang Cheng asks. “Would he keep doing it if he knew?”

“My dad,” Zixuan says slowly. “Doesn’t play Go. Metaphorically speaking. Not like A-Yao does. But he does play poker. Zixun—” he spins the glass between his hands. “Zixun plays hopscotch. Badly.”

Wei Ying snorts, and it feels nice.

“I guess I don’t like the show so much anymore,” he says, pouting.

“Good,” Jiang Cheng reaches out and flicks his ear. Wei Ying lets him.

“Why does everything have to be nefarious?” Wei Ying whines, meaning reality TV but also Jiang Cheng and his mean fingers “Can’t we have something that’s just dumb? Aren’t we there, as a country, where we can just have stupid shit that’s stupid and doesn’t mean anything?”

“You mean besides you, and also your face?” Jiang Cheng asks. Zixuan sighs at them in a judgmental way.

Wei Ying taps his chin. “Although, there’s a column there. The insidious political machinations of so-called reality.” He hits the button to roll out some receipt paper and makes a few notes.

“I just don’t get why he does it,” Jiang Cheng muses. “He has to know he looks bad. Right? Like, he has to.” As if everyone is as pathologically obsessed with their public appearance as you are, which is something Wei Ying does not say. “It’s not like he needs the money.”

As always, that’s its own flavor of uncomfortable. Zixuan makes more money than Jiang Cheng, and has a trust fund on top of it. He keeps trying to make it up by buying expensive presents and starting a tab wherever they go, but Jiang Cheng won’t take it. He used to, back when Zixuan was just their shitty rich brother-in-law, or Yanli’s shitty rich boyfriend. He used to call it “Yanli’s dowry” when he’d leave his birthday dinner with a new stereo or a nice watch. Now that they’re friends, though, he gets pissed off. He’ll get mad if Zixuan buys him a hardcover instead of a paperback, now that they’re friends. He’s a complicated man. So is Zixuan, in his way.

That’s probably why they get along so well, and why Wei Ying is always a half a step off of their weird masculine choreography. Wei Ying fancies himself a complicated man, but it’s different. He’s in control in a way they don’t seem to be, not of his life but of his face and his voice and his sentence structure. It makes him a good reporter.

They, on the other hand, have always been good soldiers.

Wei Ying had cried when Jiang Cheng enlisted, mid-’93. 

“You watch too many war movies,” he’d said, looking down at this lap, twisting his hands together, face hot and heart racing. “It won’t be like that, A-Cheng, there’s not any glory in it, it’ll just be horrible—”

“It’s the right thing to do.” Jiang Cheng had been stubborn as always, chin jutting out. “Wen Chao’s last attack—I can’t just sit here.”

Yanli hadn’t cried at all, she’d just looked between them, silent.

“Why don’t you come too?”Jian Cheng had asked him, eyes like a six-year-old. “You’d be good at it. We could do it together.”

“No, I gotta— Someone’s gotta report on all your heroics, right?” Wei Ying had been sweating, panicked, chills running down his arms, blowing his nose again and again. “Maybe I’ll get an assignment so I can follow you around and sing about your adventures. Like something out of those ancient poems, right?”

He’d been wrong about his role in the war, but more right than he’d be able to guess about ancient poetry. Because cultivation was real. Magic was real, and his brother was somehow mixed up in it.

He got drunk with Yanli the week after the first cultivator battle. The first battle with the new cultivator corps. Zixuan, Jiang Cheng, Lan Zhan, Mianmian, and the others.

“You husband is a wizard,” Wei Ying had said, slurring.

“Your brother is a wizard.” Yanli had flicked a sunflower seed into his lap. 

That was her secret: when Yanli got drunk she could go through two bags of sunflower seeds by herself. She got the cheap ones from the gas station on the corner and split them with her teeth, scattering shells everywhere like a little disaster zone. She’d clean up all the evidence in the morning, before anyone woke up. She was almost never hungover. 

Wei Ying loved that about her, the evidence she left, her secret messiness. He’d catch a stray shell in the corner, behind a potted plant or caught in the fringe of an area rug, and he’d get so rocked with love—violent, breathless love for her—that his vision would go spotty. 

Or maybe that’s just how he remembers it, now that she’s gone.

“Actually, he’s your brother too,” Wei Ying had said at the time, poking her nose. “Your husband and your brother are both wizards. So what does that make you?”

“Well, there’s Lan Zhan. You’re blushing, see, you’re blushing. And Mianmian. They’re your—”

“Friends.”

“Yeah, but you kissed both of them.”

Wei Ying had stuck out his tongue at her, or done something equally childish.

She’d cracked a sunflower seed and popped it into her mouth. “We could be wizards if we wanted to.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely”

“We just aren’t.”

“We’re busy.”

“We are busy people.”

Wei Ying is shaken out of the memory by a pint glass slamming down on the bar, just missing Jiang Cheng’s elbow. It’s Li Wangcheng, youngest son of his usual source, Li Riseung.

“Fill ‘er up, asshole,” Li Wangcheng says, listing into his buddies on either side. Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan are both looking at him with equally disdainful nose wrinkles. “Chop chop.”

Wei Ying sighs. “Sorry, Wangcheng, you’re cut off. I already over-served you, and I promised your dad and your brother I wouldn’t.”

“Fuck you.”

“Your liver can’t take it. Here, have some water and go sit down.”

“Fuck you, Wei Ying. Fuck you.” He’s pushing off his friends, leaning over the bar with his tobacco-stained teeth and his mix-of-alcohol breath.

“Yeah, yeah,” Wei Ying moves away, wiping down the counter, and Wangcheng follows.

“I’ll fucking kill you. You watch your back, bitch, I’ll fucking find you, and I’ll kill you.”

Wei Ying puts up his hands. “Okay, man, take it easy.”

“I know where you live. I know where you park your bike. Your stupid little fucking— Your stupid bike.”

His two biggest friends start pulling at his elbow, pulling him away. He shakes them off.

“Don’t think I won’t. Don’t think I won’t find you, motherfucker.”

Jiang Cheng is off his stool, now, and Zixuan is moving around behind him, coming in to engage. Wei Ying waves them off, desperately. Wen Ning is leaving his spot by the door.

“When you leave tonight, you better—”

“The fuck did you say?” Jiang Cheng is up in his face, now, and Wei Ying has to come out from behind the bar. He hates leaving the bar, it’s his comfortable place to be.

“Leave it. A-Cheng, A-Xuan, leave it, leave it.” He gets himself between them all, holding his brother back. Wen Ning has a good hold on Wangcheng’s shoulders.

“Fuck you.” That sprays a bit in his face, the plosive. “Everything was fine before you came here. Yiling was fine before you came here, and then everything went to shit.”

“That’s not—” Jiang Cheng tries to butt in, but Wei Ying sticks an elbow in his gut.

“I said, leave it.”

“Fucking worthless,” Wangcheng spits at him, and Wen Ning and his friends haul him back towards the door. “Fucking demon. You’re a fucking demon, Wei Ying! Fucking cursed!”

Wen Ning throws them out, and the silence following is awkward, no one looking at each other. Wei Ying wipes his face, straightens Jiang Cheng’s shirt collar, and goes back to work. There’s a short woman standing there, frozen, holding out her empty glass. He gets her another gin and cranberry, pleased that he remembered, and she gives him a pitying kind of smile. He hides his hands down by his sides, but he knows she’s seen them. Everyone can see them; he doesn’t cover them.

“Holy shit,” Jiang Cheng says, still staring back at the door.

“Yeah. Never mind.” Wei Ying readjusts his t-shirt.

“Never mind? That was a death threat. For what, cutting him off?”

“Forget about it.”

“For cutting him off? What the fuck?”

“A-Cheng, forget it.”

“I’m not gonna forget it, that guy knows where you live.”

“It’s fine, it happens. Leave it. Please? Leave it.”

Jiang Cheng sits down. Zixuan says nothing, looking between Jaing Cheng and the door.

“Does it happen a lot?” Jiang Cheng is interrogating, intelligence-mode.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Wei Ying, does it happen a lot?”

“I mean, a bit. Okay?”

“For cutting—?”

“It’s not about cutting him off. It’s not about that. It’s not about me. Calm down.”

“Sure sounded like it’s about you. ‘Demon,’ really—”

“If it wasn’t me it would be someone else. Wen Ning. His friends. His dad.” Wei Ying chops more limes than he needs to, calmed by the sharpness of the knife. “He’s dying. Actually dying, everyone knows it. His liver is shot. He’s been laid off for months, and he can’t pay for any more treatment. His dad’s broke, mom died in the war. He’s lashing out.”

“But that’s not your—”

“You can’t swing at the clouds forever. Right? He’s not the only one. People feel good here, they feel comfortable here, and so they can hit someone here if they need to. You get beaten down and beaten down for year after year, eventually you have to fight back. Right? Otherwise what are you?” What am I? he doesn’t ask.

Zixuan clears his throat, still not looking at him. “What’s the use of fighting you? You’re not—”

Wei Ying laughs at him, mean. “What’s he gonna do, fight your dad? The whole fucking government? Who can he hit? After a while, you have to hit something or you’ll go mad. You have to make contact. Right?” He chops another lime. “You have to have an effect on something. You have to hit someone and see the bruise, or yell at someone and see them flinch. Otherwise it’s like you don’t exist at all. You’re already dead.”

“Wei Ying,” Zixuan says it, which is a surprise. He almost never says his name.

“Somewhere like this, somewhere like Yiling, all you can reach is the guy next to you. Once they put the crabs in the bucket, they put the lid on.”

The chatter in the bar is back, which is nice since there’s an awkward silence between the three of them. Wei Ying puts the chopped limes into the cooler and washes the cutting board, washes the knife. He replaces a drink at the other end of the bar earlier than he normally would—the guy is only halfway through, but he nods a thanks.

“What about—” Zixuan starts, hesitant. “Wei Ying, what about police?”

“Ha!” Wei Ying snaps it at him, not a laugh, not at all. “Don’t you— You don’t come here, into my bar, talking about police.”

“I didn’t come in talking about police, I’m just saying—”

“No cops in Yiling.” He shuts a cooler with his heel, a satisfying slam. “Cops are military, and the military hates Yiling.”

Zixuan bristles. “No, we don’t.”

He always does this. It’s one of the things Wei Ying can’t process about him, and one of the reasons they’ve never been close and probably never will be. It’s always “we.” The Jins, the government, the military. Wei Ying can like him if he doesn’t see Jin Guangshan, if he doesn’t see Jin Guangyao, if he doesn’t see the war when he looks at him. But then he comes in with the “we.”

It’s probably sad, actually, how long he’s been a soldier. How much of him is wrapped up in being his dad’s perfect soldier.

Wei Ying bites his tongue, takes a breath. “Of course you do. Everyone in charge hates Yiling.”

“I don’t hate Yiling.” Zixuan is getting stubborn. He looks like A-Ling, almost a pout. “It’s where you live, and you’re my family.”

Wei Ying blinks at him. “I don’t know how to talk to you when you get like this.”

“Like what?”

“Sincere. All, you know—” he waves an empty bottle around in Zixuan’s face. “Sincere.”

The pout becomes more of a pout. “I’m always sincere.

“Yeah, that’s why we don’t talk.”

Jiang Cheng leans across the bar and snags the rail whiskey bottle to top off his own glass.

“I can beat you up later, if you like,” Zixuan offers.

“Yeah.” Wei Ying doesn’t want to smile, but he does anyway. “Maybe.”

The silence isn’t awkward this time. Wei Ying takes the whiskey bottle back from Jiang Cheng and makes a show of wiping it off with the bleach rag. Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.

After a while, Jiang Cheng asks, “Is there something happening here this month? For the five years? Like a memorial or something?” He’s looking away, all careful again.

“Is Lanling doing something?” They look at Zixuan, only slightly accusing on Wei Ying’s part.

“No. I mean December 3 there will be a whole . . . Armistice anniversary.”

“But nothing for Sunshot. Nothing for the massacre I mean,” Wei Ying says.

“I mean, not specifically.” Zixuan licks his lips. “I’m sure it’ll be mentioned.”

“Nothing here, though?” Jiang Cheng asks again.

“Trust me, people around here aren’t the ones that need reminding what you’re— what Lanling is capable of.” 

“That’s not fair,” Zixuan says.

Wei Ying looks down at his hands, the mottled brown of them. Flies, flies and dirt and flies and chemicals and flies. “Don’t talk about fair. Not about this.”

Zixuan opens his mouth, but Jiang Cheng shakes his head, violently.

“A-Cheng, it’s not—”

“Stop it.” Jiang Cheng is glaring at him now, the kind of look Wei Ying gets all the time, but Zixuan doesn’t see so much. It makes him stop.

Wei Ying goes to the back and grabs the broom. Jiang Cheng reaches over for the gin bottle and tops off Zixuan’s glass. Wei Ying pretends he doesn’t see it and starts at the far end of the bar. It’s getting slower, people heading out for the night to more exciting places.

A song comes on, something from his college days. He remembers recording it onto a cassette tape from the radio, keeping it in his backpack. Lan Zhan didn’t really like it, but he let Wei Ying play it all the time on his cheap little dorm room stereo.

Wei Ying sings along under his breath as he sweeps. “And if I lied, would you forgive me. Whoa-oh-oh. Fit to be tied, but you still live with me. Oh, whoa-oh-oh.”

“This song,” Zixuan says, smiling a little. “We used to— We used to fight a lot. A-Li and I. Stupid stuff. I was late for dinner. My mom would get so overbearing and we’d fight about that. Her mom would— Well, you know. We’d fight about that. Baby stuff. We didn’t know what to do about baby stuff, so she bought out the whole section of the book store and said we’d divide and conquer. But every book was different, so we’d argue. Dr. Po says this. Well, Dr. Wen says that. She could be so— You’re all so stubborn. Stupid stuff. And we’d be so pissed off we stopped speaking to each other. But I bought her this CD once, not for a birthday or anything, just because. She loved them from way back. And she’d put it on, and we’d dance, and we wouldn’t be mad anymore.”

“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng said, clearing his throat. “She liked that sappy shit.”

“Do you play it for A-Ling?” Wei Ying asks.

Zixuan shakes his head. “It makes me sad to hear it. I spend most of my time trying not to be sad around A-Ling.”

Jiang Cheng moves like he’s going to touch him, his arm, his shoulder. He aborts the move and grabs his glass instead, slides it over to tap against Zixuan’s. 

“You’re doing good,” he says.

Zixuan looks down, blinking seriously.

“You are,” Wei Ying agrees. “You’re doing good. And you know it pains me to say it.”

Zixuan gives him an echo of a laugh.

“A-Ling is lucky.”

“He’d be luckier if his uncles would visit. Both of them.”

“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying say in unison.

“You want me to change the song?” Wei Ying asks.

“No, leave it. It’s good. It’s a nice song.”

An old woman leans on the bar—she’s familiar but Wei Ying can’t remember her name. “Hey, hey, Wei Ying!”

“Yeah, auntie?” he smiles charmingly at her.

“You know my daughter’s coming home soon. December 21.”

“Cheers to that!” he gives her a half-salute.

“I’ll set you up, once she’s home. Just you wait, she’s the prettiest, even now.”

“I’m sure she is.”

“She makes that jumpsuit look like runway fashion. Still has her figure, even with the prison food.”

“Can’t wait,” Wei Ying says politely.

“December 21,” the old woman waves her finger at him and heads for the door. 

“Invite me to the wedding,” Jiang Cheng teases.

“December 21,” Wei Ying rolls it around in his mouth. “The Wens are coming home.”

Zixuan straightens up. “Really?”

“That’s what we’re celebrating. We don’t celebrate the Massacre, but innocent people coming home? That’s worth it.”

“Innocent is—”

“Zixuan, think about where you are.”

Zixuan nods.

All of the Wens who’d been scooped up post-Sunshot, post-war, those related to rebels or in the wrong place at the wrong time, they’d all been sentenced to five years in prison. “Just to be safe.” The majority came from Yiling, Dafan, other small towns in the West. People who couldn’t afford to run to Lanling, to Gusu, somewhere safe during the worst of the fighting. People who wouldn’t turn their backs on brothers and aunts and cousins in Nightless City. 

But five years have almost passed, and the Wens are coming home.

“It’ll be weird, won’t it?” Jiang Cheng asks, diplomatic in his insensitivity.

“A hundred and forty-three people,” Wei Ying says. “At least, that’s how many went in. I’m sure a couple fucked up inside, got their sentences extended.”

“But still.”

“But still,” he agrees.

“Are you going to do something for it? In December?” Jiang Cheng asks him.

“Dunno. I should stock up though, shouldn’t I? I’ll make a note.”

Later, after Jiang Cheng and Zixuan leave for Jiang Cheng’s Yiling sublet—a two bedroom so Zixuan doesn’t have to get his own place in town—Wei Ying sweeps up while Wen Ning flips chairs up on the tables.  

“Have you ever gotten over something?” Wei Ying asks him.

“Like what?” Wen Ning stops working and looks at him. He always does that—Wei Ying has always wondered if he had hearing loss as a kid. If he’s talking to you, he always has to stop whatever he’s doing and look at you right in the face.

“I don’t know. But have you ever stood there a second and realized you were over something? Or through something. You know, on the other side?”

Wen Ning thinks for a while, and Wei Ying sweeps around his feet. “School, I guess.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

“What about you?”

Wei Ying leans down with the dust pan. “I don’t think I’ve ever come out the other side of anything. I think maybe if you stay in something long enough you adapt. Grow gills or whatever, so you can breathe. So you can survive when the world turns unlivable around you. And maybe you aren’t living at all, maybe you’re a stone, or you’re a dead fish with rotten eyes, washed up on the bank of a river that dried up years and years ago.” 

Wen Ning still looks at him, eyebrows furrowed, but he doesn’t ask Wei Ying to make sense. It’s what Wei Ying appreciates the most about him. 

“So maybe you’re dead, or maybe you’re evolving. Like, maybe that’s just what the world is now, and what you would have previously defined as dead, what you’d look at ten years ago and say that’s a dead thing, maybe that’s just what life looks like now. Evolution.” 

Wen Ning nods and picks up a chair. “I think . . . I might be remembering wrong, but I think evolution takes a long time. Like many generations. So maybe you should look at the kids.”

“The kids?” 

“Yeah, see if the kids have gills. Or whatever. Whatever you said.”

Wei Ying leans his chin on his broom and watches Wen Ning go table by table, strong and methodical. He sets the chairs so gently on the tabletops that it doesn’t make any noise. He flips them with complete control and lines up the seats.

“Maybe,” Wei Ying says. He goes back behind the bar and turns up the music. There’s work to do before heading home

#assorted writings #pick up every piece #the untamed #cql #mo dao zu shi

[mittensmorgul]

Hi, I have a question, and I hope it would be interesting for you too... Could we talk about angel's wings and feathers?..

I always thought that angel's wings were a part of their true form, a kind of energy which we can only see as a shadows or electric sparks or ash or something like this.

And I didn't think that it could be a real wings with feathers as bird's. Until, while rewatch, I've noticed that angel's feather were mentioned in SPN at least twice (maybe you've noticed more?):

1) In 8.12 when Henry Winchester time travels he uses an angel feather in spell. And then Dean tells that Henry stole an angel feather from the trunk of the Impala. So feathers are reall??? Why did the Winchestets keep the feather in the trunk of the Impala and where they get it? (ok, maybe they found it in the bunker)

2) In 12.13 Sam uses a white feather in spell returning Gavin back in time (we know this spell needs an angel feather)

So now we can see how the real angel feather looks like???

Does that mean that the angel's wings can be presented in physical world like a real wings with feathers and this is not fanfiction? I like this idea so much.

I think that the creators of the show didn't let us to see it, as many other great things, that is sad...

I would really like to know your thoughts about this.

(Sorry for my bad english, it is not my native language...)

Hi there! First off, your English is fine! (lol it’s my native language, and I just typed it “Inglish” by accident, so you’re already doing better than I am :’D)

ETA: DON’T REBLOGGY THIS YET. I forgotted something that @thayerkerbasy just reminded me of, and I’m editing this post... brb... okay NOW YOU CAN REBLOGGY!)

As far as I know, those are the only times in canon we ever see or hear mention of an angel feather, and both times it’s for the same exact spell. They reference that it’s Henry’s spell when they use it again in 12.13, but make no mention in dialogue of it being an angel feather. Yet Sam had a whole jar of fluffy little pin feathers, so the assumption is that they’d been collecting them for a while (unless those were either found in the Men of Letters’ spell ingredient stockpile when they moved into the bunker, or otherwise given to them by Cas at some point).

It’s weird, because they seem like a very limited commodity, especially after the angels fell and their wings all burned up. Even after Cas got his original grace back, his wings never seemingly recovered. When we did finally see his wing prints in 12.23, they were still... not healthy... So my thinking is that any spell that would require them will become impossible to cast when their current supply runs out. All the other angels-- at the end of the series-- were either dead or locked in Heaven with their broken wings. We never learned any of their fates. Maybe they were all rendered obsolete under the Heaven Remodel?

A little behind the scenes from the early days of SPN as a bonus, since it’s tangentially relevant:

When they were filming the very early episodes of SPN, they had a lot of choices to make about what to show us based on what their budget would allow them to portray. Think of an episode like Wendigo, 1.02. One thing I see people say often was that it was a shame we didn’t see more of the monster, but only saw like... bushes shaking, or a vague form moving through the underbrush, or a blur. They made a stylistic choice right there to keep it within budget.

The options they faced were showing us a “dude in a rubber mask” type monster and showing it more, versus one really terrifying shot of a Proper Monster™ dying in spectacular fashion. Rather than go full-on cheesemonster, they chose to leave most of it up to our imaginations, giving us glimpses or hints of the monster.

They went back and forth on this a bit over the years, attempting to show us more on occasion, but most of those times the audience reaction has been varying degrees of wtf... Think about some of the scenes where they attempted to give us more than a glimpse at the supernatural, or a blood splatter, or whatever. It didn’t always work well. Think: the wire fight from 13.23...

I mean, it took us until 11.14 to ever see an angel “flap away,” when we saw Casifer zap Dean off the exploding submarine.

For the most part, I appreciate the fact that they understood the limitations of their own budget and didn’t give angels cheap little wings just to be able to show them on camera. Over time, only being able to see them as shadows, or as char after the angel died, became part of the lore of the show.

I blame Adam Glass for writing that spell, because he probably thought it sounded cool or whatever, that it was effectively a throwaway line because no other spell they’ve ever used has required an angel feather as an ingredient, and in story it was only linked into this larger Men of Letters Legacy plot that in retrospect feels like Chuck tying up loose ends and putting previously “deactivated” plotlines back into play.

I do find it kind of interesting that both iterations of this spell (the second resurrected by Bucklemming) were both tied to Abaddon. Henry’s spell in 8.12 brought her into the story from the past, she eventually travelled to the much further distant past to bring Gavin into the present (presumably with her own power alone, no angel feather required), and then after she was killed, they used the spell to return Gavin to his own time. So in a a way, the spell was part of a closed narrative loop, never to be referred to again.

Kinda wild that we’d never heard of angel feathers being a thing for spells until we learn that Dean apparently had some just stashed in the trunk, though... :’D

As for how corporeal angel feathers are/were, they exist in the earthly plane enough to leave char marks when they burn, when an angel is killed, so they must always have had the potential to manifest physically. I can’t imagine they ever would’ve had a budget to show us anything more than what we usually saw, though. It did give them a LOT of flexibility over how exactly they presented them to us when they DID show us. And I can’t even imagine the suffering Misha would’ve endured as an actor spending all those years wearing some weird wing harness rig. It would’ve been... impractical. And the CGI the show could’ve afforded-- especially in earlier days-- would’ve been... bad...

But what they were able to show us? Was often awesome. Remember when Raphael showed off his wings in 5.03? LIGHTNING!

And when we finally did see actual corporeal-appearing wings in 8.23... it was Dramatique™

And for More CGI Is Sometimes A Bad Thing Science, please have the attempt at Michael’s “true form” from 14.01:

It’s kinda a super-letdown after AU!Michael’s previous shadow wing displays from 13.01, but more specifically from 13.22:

those... were... badass... 

Even the pre-wire-fight wing shadows on Dean were badass:

But if they’d tried to show us more of them, to make them move through action scenes for example, it would’ve been... bad...

So what we’re left with is the knowledge that there is some sort of corporeal element to wings that we simply can’t see most of the time, but clearly angels have the ability to show or hide them at will, even from other angels. Could it be an act of will on the part of the angel that manifests a bit of their grace in the form of a physical feather? Honestly, that’s the theory I’ve personally adopted toward canon. In fanfic, I’ve read tons of various headcanons about what angel wings are and how they function-- everything from “a manifestation of their true form” to “angels share a lot of traits with birds” to “an extension of their grace,” and everything in between.

I personally, in canon, like to think of it as akin to how they’ve used angel grace for other spells. I mean, when we recall that angels haven’t been on Earth much for the last few thousand years (aside from at least a couple of known incidents where angels interfered with humanity, like Ishim and Company in 12.10, for example, and the presumptive extension that the Men of Letters knew of the existence of angels and likely summoned one up a time or two the same way Lily Sunder had, giving one explanation for how Henry Winchester knew of this spell and had an angel feather to use for it, but also recontextualized when Lily Sunder taught us that humans can use their own souls to power spells in the same way angels used their grace... which sort of makes the notion of needing an angel feather AND his own soul to charge that particular spell in 8.12 a bit redundant unless Lily’s knowledge of angelic magic was more advanced than Henry’s... hrmpf.... so much tangent... back to the point)...

We did eventually learn of other spells that required an angel’s actual grace, not concentrated in the form of a feather. The Angel Fall Spell in 8.23 being the prime example. Metatron took ALL of Cas’s grace for that one, even if he didn’t use all of it for the spell and left a “fragment” (Metatron described it as “not a lot, but enough.”). 

ETA: HECK. I have 9.03 on the tv right now and it’s distractedly made me disgusted enough to have forgotten something that Thayer just reminded me of: Lucifer’s “fossilized feather” in 12.07. It held enough grace to restore and heal him after Rowena’s spell in 12.03 had degraded him. Which really only adds to the theory that “feathers” are simply bits of grace that have been rendered solid somehow, but that can be transformed back into grace as needed.

And then there was the Rift Spell for travelling to alternate universes that required archangel grace, as well as the time travel/ward breaking spell that Sam found in 11.14 that ALSO required archangel grace specifically. Would these spells have worked with an archangel “feather?” Possibly, if material feathers are somehow just crystalized bits of grace, but since we never got a full explanation in canon, and never even really saw corporeal feathery wings that dropped feathers or could be plucked, and never even had mention of corporeal feathers outside of their use in this single spell, it’s really up to our own interpretation. And I kind of like it that way, because that way we get to have fun little discussions like this one. :D

I know this isn’t a definitive answer, but it’s how it all makes sense to me, in the hand-wavey sort of way that all of canon works. :’D

#spn 8.12 #spn 12.13 #spn 8.23 #on the nature of angel grace #angels and souls #sigils and symbols #heck i know i used to have a spells tag... #spn 11.14 #spn 5.03 #spn 12.10 #spn 13.23 #spn 13.22 #spn 13.01 #spn 14.01 #Anonymous #spn 12.07