#// LONG OVERDUE so i'm posting even though i probably have more to say

[eocentric]

hi i'm pearl ( she/her ) rolling in late with remedy's leader & main vocalist — oh eunseok aka e.o !! please give this a ♡ if you'd like to plot, and i'll come your way.

brief overview .

name　　oh eunseok　　　　stagename　　e.o　　　　birth date & age　　15.06.96 ( 28 yo )　　　　company　　ninety9 creative　　　　position & group　　leader & main vocalist of remedy ( debuted oct 2015 )

in a nutshell .

grows up in a family of four; eunseok is the younger of two sons. his parents are very practical people, though they still show love in their own way. of the two siblings, eunseok’s older brother, eunhyuk is a verified star. super talented, super charismatic. both eunseok’s role model and his closest friend.

long story short, eunhyuk is scouted to be an idol for none other than cjs entertainment ( now known as midas music ): something that everyone saw coming. eunseok, in typical younger sibling behavior, starts to shoot for the same goal. years later, eunseok ends up at a smaller, nugu label and then — finds out the hard way that eunhyuk was cut from cjs years ago and was lying to his family this entire time about still training for debut. he probably was cut from pyro's final lineup. 😭 when his parents find out, they urge eunseok to quit & focus on his studies — and eunseok says no.

to add salt to the wound, the original label that eunseok was under ends up dissolving due to mismanagement and poor financial decisions. eunseok ends up at ninety9 creative at this point, likely due to his singing ability. after six whopping years of trainee hell, he finally debuts with remedy. then he's given the leader position because — six whopping years of trainee hell will prepare you for anything.

i like to think that other trainees looked up to him / respected him somewhat ( he often gave advice to struggling trainees without expecting anything in return, bought people meals, listened to their struggles, was a comforting presence ) — but the korean public didn't know that. now, the boy can sing. but while he was a trainee, he was constantly given the feedback that he had the talent, but not necessarily the star power or the natural charisma that comes with being an idol. especially when remedy debuted, the public didn't know what to make of him. he was a little too stiff, a little too quiet ( in reality, he was more content with letting his members shine more + felt they had "more to say" ). not serious enough to seem like a true artist, yet not silly enough to be a hit at variety. and, of course, remedy went through a rough few years with a crazy amount of backlash — and e.o wasn't immune from that.

but it was through that scandal and after that scandal that he started to gain respect in the public eye, and a large part of that was because of how he handled things. when midas acquired ninety9, they pushed him for a solo career — which was crazy to him because in the past, people have probably told him that he'd be lucky if he'd even debut in a group. and now... he's popular with women now. allegedly.

no more yapping

plot ideas .

trainee friends from way back — though keep in mind that he debuted in fall 2015. maybe they drifted for various reasons ( maybe one debuted first ). maybe they were even from the same nugu company pre-2013 ( before eunseok ended up at ninety9 creative ). maybe they knew his brother ?

nothing too specific ... but i think it'd be fun to give e.o and absolutely pathetic and pitiful love life given his idol reputation of being the heartthrob. he never gets the girl .. someone want to give him a years-long situationship where they both know he'll be pining away with no end in sight because he has no self respect /hj ?? exes in general ?? ex-bffs he's been in love with at one point and then he missed his shot and then the season passed ? give him smth to sing about.

e.o is very skilled as a vocalist. my favorite plots in these kind of settings are like.. rookies who look seasoned idols within the industry. anything from your muse being a remedy stan at one point ( e.o bias ) ? to something where e.o was a role model for them at one point. maybe they just had a positive experience together ( e.o gave your muse some words of encouragement or helped them out with a hard vocal run they were working on ). e.o almost pivoted to becoming a vocal trainer at one point before becoming an idol.

erm. listen come into my dms and we'll come up with smth fun <3

[magicalbats]

Situational Awareness (Dan Heng x reader)

Rating: R-18+

Word Count: 10,928

Warnings: afab!reader, some gendered language, shower sex, intercrural sex, thigh fucking

A/N: I've been working here and there on a few different projects (including my long overdue Kinktober pieces, worry not!) but in terms of standalone fics I figured this one was done so I may as well post it. Am I doing so at six in the morning when no one is awake to see it? Absolutely. lol I'm not a plumber so please don't come at me about the shoddy pipe excuse btw, haha

⭐

The unmistakable evidence of all your fooling around is laying across the floor in the form of hastily dropped, rumpled towels. They’d hit the ground in a disarranged heap after the fall, but were still clean as far as you could tell. Not that you could really ask for more on the off chance that they weren’t considering the fright you’d just given the staff but … 

Hanging your head, you make the conscious effort to draw a deep, calming breath and come down from the strange high you’d slipped into. You were sweating rather profusely, you’re a bit surprised to find. What had gotten into you? Hotel devils? Surely that was about as absurd as someone climbing into an oddly inviting but no less strange closet as if they’d been personally summoned into its dark depths by some higher force, and yet that was exactly what you’d done. There must have been something seriously wrong with you. 

Perhaps it was the Stellaron inside your body causing problems with the electrical signals in its flesh and blood prison. Or maybe you’d hit your head somewhere along the way and the side effects were only now starting to manifest themselves. Your bet was on the tail end of that showdown with the Doomsday Beast back on the space station. 

Either way, you desperately needed to get it together. 

Straightening up, you send a wary look at the closet in question. Its doors were still thrust open from where you’d leaped out of its (frustratingly inviting) maw some moments ago and there was no denying the faint tug of invitation you could feel trying to coax you back inside but you refused to heed its call. This wasn’t the time or even really the place. You’d let it get the better of you once and that was already more than enough. 

“Relax.” You remind yourself as you inch closer to the closet. Resolutely, you reach out and shut the doors. The compulsion slowly fades to nothing and you’re once again left to your own devices. It comes as a great relief. 

A harried sigh escapes you as you bend to retrieve the fallen towels next. Perhaps you should leave a note of apology out for the staff. Who knows what they were saying about you right now, the strange girl who likes to hide in closets and scare the living daylights out of unsuspecting workers. On second thought, though, maybe you should just pretend like nothing at all had even transpired here today. Admitting to your own strange behavior in writing would rob you of any plausible deniability, wouldn’t it?

Turning that over in your head, you carry the small bundle of towels into the attached bathroom. Set them down on the sink and almost walk right back out before realizing that you should probably take a shower before bed. Not only were you covered in a fine sheen of perspiration from your time spent getting all worked up inside the closet but you were also freezing. You hadn’t noticed it when you were still running hot on adrenaline and nerves, but now you were gradually starting to shiver. 

Just how long had you been crouched inside the cramped dark like that? You really had no idea, as if that part of your memory were an empty cavernous void. It could have been only a few short minutes for all you could tell, or it could have been an eternity. It was impossible to say. 

Pivoting, you reach over the tub and wrench the faucet on. The modestly sized room is instantly consumed by the sound of running water as you step back to shrug out of your jacket and take off your gloves. A moment later you test the temperature with your fingers only to snatch them back with a hiss when you find it still ice cold. That certainly wasn’t going to do. 

In total you spend about twenty minutes fiddling with the steel knobs, trying them in this and then that position to no avail. No matter what you did the water never seemed to get any warmer, finally leaving you with no choice but to simply turn the damn thing off. You almost give up right then and there. In fact, you consider it very, very hard. 

But what ultimately stops you from crawling into bed with nary another thought to the matter is the shuddering chill that’s fallen over you without any of the fast pumping excitement to keep it at bay. You weren’t just cold in the way curling up with a thick blanket could help with. It felt like you were right on the verge of slipping into hypothermia. The thought of laying awake all night shivering nonstop did not sound like the best start to this Trailblaze expedition so you decide to try your luck next door with March. 

She opens up on the third knock, wearing her blue bunny pj’s. 

“What are you doing out here at this time of night? I thought you were room service or something!” 

“Sorry.” You offer her a weak smile, fighting to stop your teeth from loudly clattering. “I think there’s something wrong with the tub in my room. All I can get to come out is cold water.” 

March’s brows take an expeditious trip up to her hairline. “No way, you’re having problems too? I thought it was just me but I didn’t want to be a negative Nelly about it!” 

Her arm lashes out like a striking serpent, grabbing you by the wrist and dragging you inside. 

The door bangs shut with a certain amount of indignation as she turns to look at you, worry flashing across her expression when she takes in the faint shudder making your shoulders bunch up. Standing this close to her, you can see that her hair is damp. 

“Were you able to take a shower?” 

“Not a very good one! The hot water only lasted for about fifteen minutes before it started to come out freezing cold!” Huffing, she crosses her arms over her chest. “This place sure does look fancy but I’m so not impressed. What kind of operation do they think they’re running here, huh? Belobog is way too cold for them not to have working hot water tanks!” 

You consider that for a brief moment. “Maybe that’s the problem? If a bunch of people are trying to bathe at the same time and using up all the hot water - -“ 

“Then they should’ve thought of that before they opened up a hotel! I mean, come on. That’s just common sense, right? And more importantly what’s up with you? You’ve been shivering non stop since I opened the door.” 

Don’t tell her about the closet. Don’t tell her about your exploits inside the closet. Whatever you do, do not tell her about that damned closet. 

“I think the chill is just starting to catch up with me.” You tell her, cool as … erm, ice. “I didn’t notice it too much at first but now I can’t stop shaking. I’d really like to take a hot shower.” 

“I bet.” She murmurs. Then, with more enthusiasm, “Come on, let’s see if mine wants to work!”

Taking your hand in hers, March guides you over to her attached bathroom where she flips on the overhead lights. You’re impressed to find it’s an almost identical copy of yours, just mirrored. Actually, they looked like they were directly adjacent to one another and situated along the same wall. But would that in turn mean … they were sharing the same series of pipes? No, that couldn’t be. Such an obvious structural design flaw would have surely raised some questions, wouldn’t it? 

Your attention thoughtfully drifts towards March as she bends over the side of the tub and smacks the faucet on. A  familiar sense of deja vu comes over you when the gurgling sound of running water rushes in to dominate the air but she doesn’t seem to pay it much mind so neither do you. A few seconds pass before she tests the water, clicks her tongue in annoyance and draws her hand back before trying again just another few seconds later. Truthfully March’s impatience had never been quite so glaring as it is right now.  

“Well, isn’t that just ridiculous!” She at last scoffs, evidently deeming the whole endeavor futile and turning the faucet off again. “It wouldn’t be such a big deal if this place wasn’t so cold. How is anyone coming in off the street supposed to get a good night’s rest if they can’t even have a warm shower?” 

You ponder that question with the same weight and consideration as the last one she’d posed. “Maybe they don’t get many visitors? Just think about it. How many times have we heard now that Belobog is the ‘last bastion of humanity’? They probably don’t get much in the way of tourism.” 

Turning, March pins you with an exceedingly strange look. “I don’t think you’re wrong about that but … wouldn’t that mean they’re mostly just keeping this place running for the sake of it? What a waste of resources.” She gives her head a quick shake. “Wait, that’s not important right now. We need to get you warmed up and safely tucked into bed! Do you want me to go down to the lobby with you to check what’s going on?” 

“No, that’s okay.” You quickly wave that off, feeling more than just a little self conscious about causing her any trouble. “It’s already getting late and you need your rest for tomorrow.  It wouldn’t make sense to waste so much time helping me with this when you could be sleeping instead.” 

“Hey, now. The same goes for all three of us. We’re in this together and you’d better not forget that! I don’t mind lending a hand. We are crewmates after all! 

“Thank you, really. But I’m sure I can figure something else out.” 

“Fine, if you’re sure … but at least stop by Dan Heng’s room and see if he’s in the same boat as us. If not, maybe he’ll let you use his shower tonight?” 

“Oh. That’s a good idea.” Consideringly, you start to turn and March follows hot on your heels as you step back out through the doorway. “He went into the room right across from yours, right? Since they’re on opposite sides, maybe I will have better luck.” 

“That’s the spirit! See, you just gotta’ keep your spirits high and everything will work out fine in the end. Isn’t that what they call trusting the process?” 

Pausing in front of the door, you pivot to look back at her. “I don’t think that particular saying applies here.” 

“Oh, whatever. Just go check in with Dan Heng and if he isn’t having any better luck come grab me again, okay? We’ll go down and talk to the receptionist together if we have to!” 

You smile, even though you try very hard not to. “Thanks, March. I really appreciate it.” 

Her voice follows after you as you open the door to see yourself out, a cheerful parting of  ‘good luck!’ following you out into the hall. Of all the warm welcomes you’d been greeted with upon boarding the Express, hers was easily the warmest of them all. You weren’t sure if you’d ever be able to properly repay her for that but you were certainly going to try. 

Out in the long carpeted corridor, you take a measly three steps to cross over to the opposite side and rap at the heavy wooden door. Dan Heng surprises you slightly when he opens up at the very first knock, almost like he’d been waiting just within.  

“Is something the matter?” 

The stark difference in your two companions' greetings makes something warm flicker to life inside your chest. You’d only known them and the rest of the Astral Express crew for a short while now but it was very much in line with what was quickly becoming comforting and familiar to you. March had been proactive and eager to know what you were doing while Dan Heng seemed to have concluded that something must be wrong if you were coming to his room like this. It was oddly reassuring, in a way. 

“This is probably going to sound like a strange question but have you taken a shower yet?” 

A vague look of confusion flashes across his face and then camps there. He was far from the most animated character you’d met on your journey thus far, but there’s no mistaking the look he levels on you now. 

“I haven’t quite gotten around to it yet.” He says slowly. “I was just jotting down some observational notes in my phone to input in the database later. Why?” 

“I don’t have any proof to back it up but I think March may have taken all my hot water. Our bathrooms are right next to each other.” 

Dan Heng’s expression shifts and settles into a perplexed scowl. “Is that why you’re shaking? You’d think a place like this would understand the importance of resource allocation …” Sighing, he steps to the side. “Come in. We can check it together.”

Feeling the pitter patter of hope skip across your ribcage, you step inside with him. He closes the door and turns the lock in place (paranoid or overly cautious?) before leading you over to the bathroom. None of these hotel rooms are particularly big and the two of you are soon crowding around the porcelain tub together. 

A steady turn of his wrist has the water gushing out, the same scene playing out for the third time in a row. Except it doesn’t take long at all for steam to start rising up from the faucet this go around and you feel like you could just collapse in relief. He still had hot water. You weren’t going to freeze to death after all. 

“There,” He murmurs, straightening to his full height again. “Go ahead and take your shower in here. I’ll be in the other room so just give me a shout if you need anything.” 

Dan Heng starts to turn, making your eyes go big and round with surprise. “But what about you? I don’t want to take up all of your hot water.” 

“It’s fine. I can just grab one after you're done.” 

“No, that won’t work.” You insist, reaching over to smack the faucet back off with a little more force than was strictly necessary. “March said she only had about fifteen minutes before the water started coming out cold. I’m not sure how long ago she took hers but when we checked it was still out of hot water.”

“Hmm,” He appears to hesitate at that, his gaze taking on the thoughtfully introspective look you were starting to recognize as the gears in his head turning. “Could it be that they get so few guests staying here that they just closed off some of the hot water pipes to ensure they don’t keep running? It’s not quite cold enough in the city for them to freeze so I don’t think it would hurt anything …” 

“Right?” You lift your brows in emphasis. “If Belobog is the only human settlement on this planet then what’s the point in keeping an entire hotel up and running?” 

“That’s a good point and I wondered about it as well. Unless this hotel was at one time meant to …” Humming softly under his breath, Dan Heng gives his head a slow shake. “No, there isn’t any point in speculating on that right now. We don’t have enough information to start making inferences. Figuring out what we’re going to do about the current problem should be our priority.” 

A quiet beat passes, loud in the absence of running water. 

“We could always shower together.” 

Dan Heng’s head doesn’t so much as move even a fraction of an inch but his gaze snaps up at you lightning fast. The sharp intensity in his eyes immediately makes you regret saying it. Were you being weird again, despite the absence of the closet to facilitate or otherwise encourage your odd behavior? Or was it really the Stellaron mixing up the radio signals in your brain? You weren’t sure what you would do if you managed to scare him off the same way you’d sent the hotel staff running and screaming. 

“Or,” He intones at length. “We could go down to the reception desk and ask them to look into it for us.” 

“March said the same thing.”

“But?” 

You breathe out a quick huff through your nose. “But that sounds like it might take a while. We’d have to explain what’s going on, have someone come take a look at it and then they’d try to fix it. We already agreed that we’ll have a busy day tomorrow so I don’t want to cause any trouble for either of you. Not if I can help it. This would be the faster solution, right?” 

To his credit, Dan Heng’s expression softens in as much as it ever does. Which admittedly isn’t a whole lot, but it’s enough to be noticeable. “You aren’t causing problems for us. Don’t even give it another thought and, please, don’t ever let March hear you say that. I don’t doubt she’d take it upon herself to personally show you just how untrue that really is. That being said though, I can understand the reasoning. Doing it that way would be quicker.” 

“But?” You volley it right back at him. 

“There’s not actually a ‘but’ here. If you’re sure about it then I suppose I don’t mind going about it this way either. It would certainly get both of us into bed far quicker than any other alternative.” 

You don’t exactly understand the eager thump your heart gives at his acquiescence but you allow yourself to smile up at him when the urge suddenly strikes you full force. “Then it’s settled?” 

A curt nod. “Yes, although I do hope you actually know what it is we’ve just agreed to. If you change your mind at any point don’t hesitate to tell me and I’ll get right out.” 

“Don’t be silly.” You assure him, reaching for the hem of your loose fitted shirt. “I'd never kick you out like that, Dan Heng. Both of us deserve to go to bed nice and warm, and clean.”

He starts to open his mouth — to say what, you’re not sure, because it catches in his throat when you unceremoniously tug your shirt up over your head in one smooth motion. You lose sight of him for a brief moment through the soft knit cotton and by the time you get it pulled completely off he’s pointedly looking elsewhere. Anywhere but at you. 

“Is something wrong?” You quietly venture, a soft note of uncertainty creeping into your voice now. 

“No, it’s fine. Just … hurry up and get undressed so we can get this over with.” Decisively turning his back to you, he starts to shrug out of his long jacket. You hesitate, looking from him to the shirt balled up in your hands and then down at your own chest. A mild pang of relief comes over you at finding your plain black sports bra very much where it should have been. 

So you hadn’t forgotten to put it on. Good. That could have been rather embarrassing for you. 

In the same breath you abruptly realize that you were about to take it off and get naked in the same room with Dan Heng who was already working to get all of his clothes pulled off too. He seemed to understand that well enough. Perhaps even more so than you actually did. So why had he reacted like that when you’d taken off your blouse? Surely it wasn’t all that strange for someone to disrobe in front of another … was it? 

Pondering this conundrum, you carefully watch Dan Heng fold and set his garments aside on top of the sink one layer and one deliberate motion at a time. His coat and the bracer worn on his right arm make up the bottom of the pile, followed by the lightweight hip guards worn around his waist along with the belt that secured it all. The second skin of his tight black shirt comes off next, revealing a smooth back that flexes powerfully with the overhead motion he uses to get it peeled away. It doesn’t escape your notice that, through it all, he makes a point of not looking at you. All of his attention remains forward and locked on the task at hand, neither uninhibitedly baring himself at you nor stealing any lingering glances in your direction. 

It was almost as if in despite of the shared nudity that was inherent in an arrangement like this, he still wanted to give you your privacy. Or as much of it as one could possibly have when bathing with another person. 

Was that what it was then? The root cause of his reaction was … reticence on his part? You hadn’t stopped long enough to consider that or any of the other potential implications that came with it but it seemed Dan Heng very much had. If he was behaving this way then you probably should be too. 

With that decided, you turn away from him and mimic his actions of neatly folding your top. You don’t have anywhere else to put it though so you have to make do with setting it on top of the toilet lid. The following silence is surprisingly rife with some unnamed tension, interspersed only by the near constant rustle of clothes being removed. Your boots, socks, skirt and underwear are all soon discarded, and you have to try very hard not to look when you hear him shuffle towards the tub again. 

“Ready? I’m going to turn the water back on.” 

“Go ahead.” 

The spout turns with a soft creak and the faucet roars to life, loudly spewing water into the basin. Same as before, and much to your relief, it only takes a few moments for steam to begin wafting up from the noisy deluge and start creeping into your periphery. He quickly smacks the plunger down to redirect the stream to the shower head and the bathroom is suddenly at least two octaves quieter than it was before. You could hear yourself think again. Thank goodness for that. 

Silently, Dan Heng steps in first and you quickly scuttle after him. You weren’t keen on losing out on even a single drop of hot water but your refusal to look up from the floor makes actually getting into the shower a bit of an awkward process. You have to feel around with your foot to figure out how close you are and your big toe hits the side of the porcelain a bit too hard, making you hiss through your teeth. Quickly shaking it off though, you lift your leg and blindly step over the rim. 

Only to slip when you come down wrong on the other side, the slick surface ripping you off balance with a gut wrenching lurch. You collapse forward, arms flailing, but Dan Heng is quick to grab hold of you before you can hit the floor. Once all I said done, the only thing you’ve succeeded in doing is smacking your knee into the wall. 

“Owww …”

“What in the world do you think you’re doing? You could have seriously hurt yourself or broken your neck.” He snaps at you, his tone still as mild as it ever is but there’s no mistaking the sharp bite of reprimand lurking just below the surface. You feel vaguely like a troublesome toddler he’s been tasked with babysitting as he hauls you further into the safety of the tub before reaching up to pull the screen closed with a sound click of his tongue. “I was wondering what was taking you so long to get in but I didn’t expect you to jump without even looking first.” 

“I’m sorry,” You murmur, still trying to keep your eyes averted as you carefully work to get your feet situated under you. “I just — I didn’t want to invade your privacy.”

“My privacy?” He echos you, incredulous. “You should have considered that before you suggested us taking a shower together. It’s a little late for it, don’t you think?”

Cautiously slow, you bring your hands up to brace them across his damp chest and gently push. Dan Heng’s hold on you hesitates and then relaxes, letting you pull free so you can take a step back. That his fingers linger at your forearms as if to steady you, or perhaps catch you should you slip and fall again, does not escape your notice, but you decide not to comment on that just yet. Or maybe ever, depending on how the next few minutes played out. 

“Sorry.” It’s all you can think to say now. 

“There’s nothing to apologize for. While I do appreciate the consideration, there’s no getting around the fact we’re going to see each other naked in a situation like this. It’s okay to look.” 

“But?” You whisper into the steady stream of water coming down at his back. 

“No ‘but’s. I’d much rather you look than hurt yourself.” His hands shift, adjusting to loosely grasp your elbows. When he gently tugs you in closer to him, you acquiesce without a fuss. You hadn’t noticed how big they were until now and that makes for an unexpectedly convincing argument to encourage your compliance. “Here, get under the shower head. We should make sure you warm up enough before we run out of hot water.” 

You can’t exactly argue with that when the rising steam only seems to further highlight just how chilled your skin actually is so you let him get you spun around, trading spots. The steady, hammering rush of warmth hits you all at once as you’re directed into the spray and a violent shudder instantly races up your spine. Whimpering softly, you curl in on yourself as you bring your arms up to wrap them around your upper body. The resulting nudge against painfully hard nipples almost steals the air from your lungs but if Dan Heng notices the way you subtly jolt at the contact he doesn’t show it. 

Evidently oblivious, he reaches up to almost casually palm the top of your head. At first you think he’s merely petting you in an uncharacteristic show of doting affection but you quickly realize he’s helping to work the water into your hair, ensuring it’s thoroughly sodden. Still uncharacteristic, or perhaps unprecedented was the better word, but decidedly nice. 

Very nice, actually. 

“I didn’t take you for the shy sort.” He eventually murmurs, more to himself than to you. No way were you about to pretend you hadn’t heard him though. 

“Funny. I was thinking the exact same thing.” 

“Me?” His blunt fingers pause in your hair. You can feel him peering down at you through the steamy gloom that encompasses the cramped tub but you were still hesitant to lift your eyes and look. There was no telling what you might accidentally catch a glimpse of. 

You really had no idea, truth be told, but given his earlier reaction it seemed like one’s body wasn’t meant to be ogled or stared at. He’d looked away from you for a reason. It only seemed fair if you gave him the same courtesy. 

A terse, silent moment passes. 

Evidently realizing he wouldn’t be getting any further explanation, Dan Heng exhales a quiet sigh into the thickened air before directing his hands down to your shoulders. “Turn around. I’ll wash your hair for you.” 

Not only did that sound like a rare, once in a blue moon offer you were sure to never hear again, it also seemed way safer than facing him the whole time. You were already having trouble keeping your eyes from wandering from the single strip of his bare arm you’d settled on, having had no other choice when you were standing so close to each other. 

So you gratefully pivot, giving him your back. Your shoulders start to relax from their defensive hunch now that the warm water is running down your front and slowly seeping into your skin. It seems to feed into the internal temperature of your core as he shifts behind you, reaching around for something out of sight. The next time his hands come up to touch your hair, it’s with a healthy dollop of shampoo coating his palms and fingers. 

A soft sigh of contentment slips out of you as he starts to work it into a nice lather over your scalp, keeping your neck tipped back so he could still work without having to deny yourself the comfort of the shower head. He’s as diligent with this as he is everything else, yet so incredibly gentle about it that you almost start to doze right there on your feet. It felt beyond good. It was amazing. 

“Gotta’ say I didn’t expect this Trailblaze mission to turn out like this.” He says at length, just when you’re starting to really drift off to la-la land. 

Blinking yourself awake, you fix your attention on the ceiling. “Neither did I.” 

“And to think, it’s only just started. You’ll have to forgive me if being I’m too rough by the way. I don’t often groom anyone else’s hair besides my own.” 

“No, it’s perfect.” 

He huffs a quiet laugh but refrains from saying anything further until another minute or two has gone by, and a nice, thick lather has accumulated over the circumference of your skull. “There, that should do it. Turn around again but keep your head tipped back so you don’t get suds in your eyes.” 

Obediently, you move to spin around but you seem to have forgotten something rather important in your drowsy state. Namely your close proximity to one another, how very near you were standing to him. But it’s too late by the time you realize your mistake though, and your tits wetly swipe across the lower half of his chest with a sharp burst of fleshy friction. Both of you draw a quick inhale in near perfect unison at the contact and your eyes pop open where they’d started to slide shut again, suddenly wide awake. 

For the first time since you’d stepped foot inside the shower, you find yourself looking directly up at Dan Heng. His startled expression must surely mirror yours because for a long time the two of you just stare at one another in mute silence. You aren’t sure what to make of this. Not the situation itself or the twisting knot low in your gut. 

You think you should probably take a step back and put some much needed space between the two of you but you don’t get the chance. Unable (or perhaps unwilling?) to find the presence of mind to make your legs move before he reaches up to touch your hair again, you soon find yourself trapped between his arms. He’s got you caged in like this while he dutifully scrubs the shampoo away, evidently too committed to the task at hand to stand down even when a distant note of unmistakable fluster has settled across his normally stoic expression. 

And as if Pandora’s Box had been effectively ripped open, like you couldn’t stop yourself now that you’d already looked once, your eyes start to wander. You take in his usually fluffy hair, now waterlogged and heavy across his brow, and the concentrated set of his mouth. Glancing lower, you can make out how well defined his chest and arms are, much more packed with muscle than one would expect from someone who, according to March, spent so much of his time in the databank room aboard the Express. You’d already seen him in action a handful of times though so it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. He was strong and his firm physique showed that. And even lower than that … 

Your eyes widen at the sight of your breasts squished up against him. No wonder you’d felt that brush of skin on skin in such stunning high definition, even for as brief as it had been. What strikes you more than anything though is how soft and pliable your flesh looks shoved up against his. Where Dan Heng was hard with muscle and unrelenting, your chest was soft and invitingly malleable. A distant part of you innately understood that this was the physical difference between man and woman, the biological indicators of sex. It sparks something in the back of your mind and you fumble to grab hold of it, to comprehend what it means. 

Your frantic internal grasping is interrupted when Dan Heng roughly clears his throat, prompting you to snap your attention up with a little jolt. 

“Just what are you looking at?” 

“N - nothing.” You stammer, suddenly embarrassed. You’re not entirely sure why you should feel hot with shame and something else you can’t quite put your finger on but there’s no denying it’s there. You couldn’t tell if you were about to wilt and wither, or bonelessly melt into him. 

“I think I may have to take back what I said earlier.” He grumbles. “It might be preferable if you don’t look.” 

“Wha - -“

You feel it then. A soft nudge against your lower belly that sends your heartbeat lurching into overdrive and your legs instantly turn limp like overcooked noodles. It’s an entirely instinctive reaction, one you don’t understand anymore than all of the other confusing happenings that have taken place in this hotel bathroom, but when you try to pull away to get a look at what’s tickling your bellybutton, he just clutches at you tighter to keep you in place. 

“Please,” His voice is barely more than a hoarse whisper as he bends his head close, wincing even while he presses his damp forehead against yours. “Don’t move. Just … stay there until it goes away.” 

His expression is wretched. Dark brows knitted to create a deep wrinkle between them, his eyes so pinched you could barely see the dull blue of his irises through thick lashes. It almost scares you. Almost makes you second guess the wisdom in sharing a shower with someone else. No, that wasn’t quite right. 

It was a man you were bathing with and you were … a woman. That was what made this dangerous and ill advised. That was why he’d reacted the way he had at the start of all this. Oh, how terribly you had miscalculated the full scope of the situation. 

It’s a struggle to swallow down your jittery nerves and find your voice but you finally manage, somehow. “Does it hurt, Dan Heng?” 

“No.” He hisses, contradicting himself and what your eyes were clearly telling you. “This isn’t your fault or your problem. I should have been more cautious, that’s all. It’ll go away in time.” 

You don’t think you very much like the sound of that. “But why? Why does it have to just go away if it’s making you uncomfortable? I can help you.” 

Dan Heng sucks in such a sharp breath you can feel it rattling around inside his chest where you’re pressed right up against him. “Don’t say that.” He croaks. “You don’t know what it is you’re saying.”

“I can learn. You could teach me.” 

“Dammit …!” 

He stiffly shifts his weight then, redistributing his balance to the full center of his body. You got the distinct feeling he was trying to angle his pelvis away from you, to pull it out of reach where he could flag and soften without the close proximity of your body heat there to entice him. You rock with the motion though, follow the movement. Stay pressed against him and reach down with one hand to blindly feel for what was causing him such obvious distress. 

Your wrist bumps against the stiff flesh jutting out from his body, making him groan very low in his throat. It’s easy to find now that you have a general idea and you carefully wrap your fingers around the width of him, surprised yet delighted to find the skin silky soft and smooth. He twitches in your hold and swells, getting harder. Rapidly filling the rest of the way out while Dan Heng holds himself so tightly that you think he might just shatter and break right before your very eyes. You can’t help it though. Not only was curiosity a very compelling factor here but you also cared about him a great deal. The thought of watching your friend and fellow crewmate suffer in silence right in front of you wrenches at your very heart and makes it hard to think rationally. 

And it must be the same for Dan Heng too, because his fingers stay frozen in place as you feel along him. They remain buried in your hair, fervently clutching at your skull, as if you could be the lifeline that would save him but he continues to hold himself back for some reason. It’s hard to say if he’s scared of letting you go for fear of what he himself would do or because he feared what you might do to him with that freedom. He doesn’t try to stop you or pull away though. Just quietly seethes into the scant space separating you as you locate the bulbous head and give it a brief squeeze. That makes a tense shudder work through him, starting in the general vicinity of his hips before racing up to the rest of him. Distantly, you realize that he wants to roll his pelvis forward into the touch, to seek out more and bask in it, but he won’t. 

“Why do you fight it, Dan Heng?” 

He manages to choke out a mirthless laugh, though not without a good deal of effort. “We only just met not that long ago, for starters. It seems rude to act on such impulses given our brief rapport with one another.” 

“I don’t mind.” 

“Maybe I do.” 

You don’t think you believe that. If he really meant it he would have put an end to it by now, or at least made a greater effort to do so. But he just stands there, softly panting while you follow the length of him down to the base where a thick patch of curls brushes against your knuckles. The weight of him in your hand is surprisingly satisfying and you just can’t seem to stop yourself from exploring him. 

Twisting your hand downward, you find even more satiny soft skin waiting just below and you eagerly curl your fingers around that too. It’s incredibly pliant but he sucks in a sharp, gasping breath in response to being handled and your pulse erratically jumps with a start. 

“Gentle. Those are — sensitive.” 

“I’m sorry.” You murmur softly. “I could be a lot more careful if I could actually see what I was doing though.” 

A low rumble starts up in his chest, so faint you almost miss it under the constant spray from the shower head. Your whole body flushes, warming to the point of real discomfort but he doesn’t give you enough time to fully process any of it. Not the unexpected noise or the curling tendril of wanting low in your stomach. Not even the fact that you were currently holding the full weight of his manhood in the palm of your hand. 

To your genuine surprise, he starts to pull back. Extricates himself from you with exceedingly stiff motions that leave you fumbling for something to say. Another apology or perhaps a plea. You don’t know which and you never find out, because he grabs you by the shoulders and spins you around. You have no choice but to comply as he guides you forward, pushing you almost right up against the interior wall of the shower and totally disregarding your mouse squeak protests while he does it.

“Stop hogging all the water.” 

You open your mouth to snap back in response but all that comes out is a tiny little squawk of surprise when he pulls you back against him, moulding your wet back to the firm planes of his front. His hands drop to your waist then, taking bruising hold of your hips to press your lower body equally flush with his. There’s no mistaking the press of him now, the way it digs up into your lower back and slides into place along the middle seam of your backside like it naturally belonged there. It's as if you’ve suddenly forgotten how to breathe when he stiffly rolls his pelvis and grinds into you, somehow hesitant yet eager at the same time, before forcing himself to go still again. 

“Sorry,” He says right into your ear, low and hushed, as the warm spray washes over both of you now. “I thought I could control myself better than this …” 

“It’s okay.” 

“It's not. You only just joined the Astral Express, not to mention you — the way we found you … it feels like I’m taking advantage of the situation but that was never my intention. I swear it.”  

You understood what he meant even if he was reluctant to say it in quite so many words. There was a Stellaron inside of you but beyond that your identity was a complete unknown to everyone around you. Even you couldn’t say for sure who you were or who you’d once been, if you’d ever been anyone at all. That didn’t mean you were without your faculties though. You could still make decisions for yourself and take control of your own life. If that weren’t true then Himeko never would have given you the choice to join everyone on board the Express. This you knew to be true. 

So you pointedly push back on him, meeting his next stiltedly reluctant thrust. Dan Heng’s fingers bite into the meat of your hips in return, clutching at you so desperately you half expect to find bruises blooming in the same spots later on. That doesn’t really matter right now though. What’s most important is not only helping him, alleviating the discomfort that so obviously pains him, but also proving your own autonomy. To him as much as to yourself. 

“It’s okay, Dan Heng. You don’t have to hold back.” 

Groaning softly in what you think must be relief, he huddles close and curls in tight against you. Nuzzles at your temple in a coaxing manner that makes you tip your head back towards him. Water runs down your face in heavy rivulets, matting your eyelashes together, but you pay it little mind. You’re much more interested in the way Dan Heng angles his mouth down and slots it against yours in a kiss that is equal parts tentative and demanding. The heightened state of his emotions is blatant in the hard press of his lips, the hungry pull that makes you want to submit and give him everything he could ever need or want. There’s a distant note of domination lurking under the surface of that heated exchange though, like he was innately drawn to claiming what he wanted for himself, but his level headed manners were still keeping him in check. That wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all. 

You quickly make your choice and bring your hands up to take firm hold of his blocky wrists, making sure he doesn’t try to escape. Not that you actually thought he would when both of you were already in this deep, haltingly moving in tandem against one another, but you didn’t want his polite niceties to get the better of him. He either doesn’t suspect a thing or he simply doesn’t care though, because he just keeps kissing you even when you go up on your tiptoes to make his cock drag down your ass. The height difference makes it a bit awkward, a bit unrefined, but you manage to successfully raise up enough to leave him nudging at the space between your legs. 

And when you come down again, trapping him in the soft squeeze of your thighs, he gasps like you’d just electrocuted him. The sound rattles inside his chest where it’s pressed into your back but, still, he doesn’t fight it. He doesn’t tell you to stop. Rather, he drags his palms lower to grab two big handfuls of your upper legs and press them more tightly together around him. You nearly lose balance and tip over in this unnatural stance but a quick hand slapped against the damp wall steadies you. 

“Careful. If you continue to push this much further …” 

The warning in his voice is clear as day but you don’t really care. Not when you could feel the faint pulse of him between your thighs and he was lined up so perfectly with the seam of your cunt that you could feel your own internal pressure ratcheting up another notch. This wasn’t exactly familiar territory, this pulse pounding excitement that makes you dizzy with a need you don’t fully understand, but the instinctive urge to nudge your hips back and forth feels much too natural for you to truly question it. So you just do it. 

And oh, how you’re rewarded by the simple slide of him along your slit. Hot, blinding sparks flash behind your eyes and you almost swoon right there in his arms, but you know you have to keep moving. Need to chase that pinprick ember of satisfaction just as much as he does, and Dan Heng only reinforces that when he pulls you back to meet the next enthusiastic thrust of his hips. 

A gasp catches in your throat at the wet, meaty smack and lodges there as you tip your face down to look at yourself. Some of your hair slips forward with the motion, wet and clinging, but you hardly even notice it with so much of your attention focused on your own body. Your nudity hadn’t felt so stark before, when you were simply focused on bathing and occupying space with him wherein the two of you just so happened to be naked together. It’s so different now looking at it through the hazy lens of intimacy though, the sight of your tits bare and wet stoking the flames within you to even greater heights. Beyond that, over the soft curve of your stomach and lower still, you can just make out the thatch of hair covering the cradle of your pelvis. And beneath that his cock head nudges out from between your legs, blooming for but a brief moment before retreating back into the tight squeeze. 

It was enough to nearly make your knees buckle and give out. 

“Oohhn,” You hiss into the constant spray, swaying in his hold. “Dan Heng … that feels - -“

“Incredible.” 

You let out a soft moan in agreement, rocking in time with his steady thrusts. The height difference was a good thing, actually. It ensured he stayed pressed up tight against you, constantly knocking your cunt with a fleshy jostle whether he was pulling out or pushing in. It was a continuous cycle of pleasurable shockwaves that quickly leaves you panting just as heavily as he is, and you eagerly writhe against him when the pressure just continues to build and build. You felt like you were going to implode in the most literal sense. What exactly had he done to you? 

Had he even done anything at all, or was this just a natural result of your own needs mingling with his and feeding into one another? You couldn’t be sure. It was impossible to think straight when your cotton stuffed head was starting to spin alarmingly fast, but you decide that it doesn’t really matter either way. The drag of him against your cunt was enough. His possessive grip on your body was enough. There would be time to figure everything out later, after you’d properly taken care of each other, and you let yourself rock back into him with an accompanying groan that subtly rises in pitch at the tail end, basking in the litany of sensations.

“Can I —“ He suddenly blurts, choking on it. His fingers sink into your flesh so hard it starts to hurt and you let out a faint whimper while he struggles to reorient himself. “Can I … touch you?” 

“Nnghn, ah - aren’t you already touching me?” 

“More. I’d like to touch more of you, if you’ll permit it.” 

You screw your eyes shut, trying to focus on your breathing. He certainly wasn’t making it easy. “Ooh … please, please touch me, Dan Heng. I feel … I feel like I’m - -“ 

His hands immediately fly up off your hips and greedily latch onto your breasts instead, lifting the weight of them in his palms. You suck in such a haggard breath you feel like you just might pass out on the spot as you arch against him, throwing your head back into his shoulder. Water from the shower head mercilessly pelts against your face now but you can’t be bothered to lobby any complaints about it when he’s cupping your tits as if they were meant to fit right there in his hold. It’s perfect and sublime, and it just ratchets your own excitement up another notch, making you impotently shudder. 

This pulse pounding feeling of cresting pleasure may have been foreign to you, but you could already see yourself becoming irreversibly addicted to it. Perhaps this was even more dangerous than you’d first realized. 

“Oh! If you do that …” 

“Does it hurt?” 

“I — I don’t know.” 

He noises a faint sound of confusion at your quiet whimper, his hands loosening around your chest. You’re acutely aware of the odd little look he gives you through the swirling steam but can’t quite bring yourself to turn your face away. Whatever this was, whatever it meant in the long run, you wanted more of it. Needed more of him. 

“Don’t stop. Please.” 

A small frown graces his lips. “But you just said - -“

“I know. But I don’t want you to stop.” Carefully, you lift your hand — the one not currently braced against the wall — and cover one set of Dan Heng’s knuckles with your fingers. They seem dainty resting against his like this. “It feels kind of funny but I don’t think it’s bad. I don’t really understand what it means but … I want you to keep doing it. Please?” 

Groaning like you’d just sucker punched him right in the gut, Dan Heng leans further into you until his weight presses you down into a half stooped position. His skin sticks to your back and clings but this too feels good. His body heat bleeds into you, warming you up far more than the shower ever could have, and you eagerly squeeze the muscles in your legs to keep them locked in place. This time when he kneads your breasts it’s much more tentative and slow. He takes his time with it, just savoring the fleshy give, and you keen very softly when he at last nudges one index finger up to brush it over your nipple. 

You can feel yourself sinking deeper into that hazy fog as he starts to move again. The restrained power behind his thrusts sends fresh bursts of static energy coursing through your system, further highlighting the sensitivity of your aching teats as you rock with him, luxuriating in the fleshy drag of his stiff length against your cunt. 

Pap. Pap. Pap. 

He keeps the rhythm slow and even, but so vigorous that it pushes you forward and makes your tits bounce in his hold. You experience everything in stunning high definition from the slick dampness that oozes out of you to smooth the glide of him between your legs right down to the simple sensation of water running across your skin. It’s overwhelming and somehow still not enough. You couldn’t even think straight let alone formulate a semi coherent sentence, your tongue lolling heavily inside your mouth as you shudderingly rear back into him just to feel that delicious friction again. And he takes it in stride, never faltering no matter how wild you get or how hard you shake as the tumultuous waves crest a little bit higher each time. The firm, unyielding planes of his pelvis meeting with your backside, harder, faster. The distant tickle of coarse pubic hair digging into the vulnerably soft flesh of your ass. Even the low, guttural sounds he makes against the side of your face. You were so close to drowning in all of it. 

His thick, callous worn fingers curling up to finally pinch at your nipples is what really sends you over the edge though. The sudden jolt of pleasure so intense it rides the line of being painful almost makes you collapse right then and there, and you throw yourself back into him with mindless desperation. Your hips seem to move on their own even as you cry out for him, judderingly grinding yourself down on that rock hard length pressed up into you. 

“Ooh, Dan Heng!” 

“Please don’t say my name like that.” He quietly wheezes under his breath, still pinching at your breasts. Still pulling and tweaking, using his thumb to brush over them and flick the tightly coiled peaks back and forth. Your body was a livewire just waiting to detonate, and it doesn’t seem to escape his notice. It’s apparent in the way he’s so insistent with his ministrations, encouraging you to keep moving your cunt back and forth, back and forth against him with nothing more than the attention he gives your tits. He takes his time rolling them between the two pads to reward you for your efforts and he gives them a slow, encouraging tug any time your pace falters and you start to slow down. 

It’s a vicious cycle that perfectly feeds into itself a hundred times over and keeps you balanced right on the precipice of some great, harrowing free fall. The world could have come to a sudden, fiery end at that very moment and you never would have noticed. All of your attention, your entire being, was for Dan Heng and only Dan Heng in that moment. His hands, his lips brushing your neck and your cheek when he nuzzles into you. The constant motion of his thighs flexing behind you, driving himself unendingly into the hot, damp spot between your legs. His taller, wider frame trembling against yours with all the pent up tension running through it that so perfectly mirrors your own. 

You’d never felt anything like it before, and a very small voice in the back of your mind wonders if you’ll ever feel it again. Was this a once in a lifetime experience? A fleeting mercurial high that would disappear in a flash bang of white noise the second you tipped over into the awaiting abyss below? 

If that was the case, if you were destined to bask in this dwindling euphoria once and only once in your lifetime, then you were determined to milk every last drop of enjoyment out of it while you could. 

So you drop your hands and reach back, grabbing two biting fistfuls of Dan Heng’s narrow hips. Use the leverage to draw him in against you at a quicker pace, forcing him to snap his pelvis into your backside with greater ferocity. He issues a wounded, faltering grunt into the air but he doesn’t fight it. He hasn’t truly fought anything you’ve offered up to him on a silver platter, not once telling you ‘no’ since you first stepped foot into this bathroom together, and that knowledge sparks a simmering ember deep within your gut. It’s the taste of victory. Of conquest and self assured confidence that can only be achieved through the meeting of two compatible bodies. 

You’re sure of it. Innately, or perhaps intrinsically, you just know that’s what it is. 

“Oh, gods,” He rattles out, gritting through tightly clenched teeth while he fucks himself between your thighs, pistoning in and out of the tight squeeze like a jackhammer. “I’m so close — so close, I - I can’t hold it back anymore.” 

You would’ve voiced your agreement if only you’d had the ability to do so. The breakneck speed at which he ruts into you effectively steals the air from your lungs though and it’s all you can do just to hold on, clutching at his powerfully flexing hips to ground yourself rather than to encourage him. He didn’t need more encouragement anyway. That one little nudge from you was more than enough and now he couldn’t quite seem to remember to be polite and gentle with you. 

The wet smack of his pelvis slamming into your ass is now loud, almost defeaning, and it comes in rapid fire succession to damn near down out even the constant spray of the shower head. It just amplifies the already searing friction against your cunt until it seems to blur into a single, persistent tingle that just grows and grows to the point of delirium. He can’t help himself and neither can you. Not anymore. 

“Dan Heng - -“ 

A truly bestial snarl snakes out of him. His fingers falter, slipping and sliding against your wet teats before adjusting to latch onto the bouncing meat of your breasts instead. What little bit of control he’d still been clinging to dissipates like dust in the wind, and he clings to you so hard it brings tears to your eyes. The demanding press of his fingers sinking into your flesh sends you over the edge with a sudden, lurching jolt as your pussy clenches up and squeezes uncontrollably against his length. Even when you wail out in high strung relief, trembling violently in the throes of your release, he just keeps humping into you like he’d die if he doesn’t chase his own pleasure quickly enough. That continuous drag over your slit just draws out your own involuntary spasms and you can’t help but cry out in oversensitized bliss even as you somewhat awkwardly twist in his arms to look down at yourself. 

Numbly, you watch his flushed glans appear between the fleshy press of your legs, quickly disappear and then immediately reappear again just a split second later. He’s pounding into you so fast and so hard that the resulting shockwaves make your thighs jiggle slightly under the force. It’s incredibly fascinating to witness though and you stare at it in a trancelike stupor, barely even registering the pitchy moan he lets out right against your temple. 

The next time his cock appears it’s with an eruption of creamy white discharge that shoots out to splatter across the floor and the wall, some of it smearing over the skin where the two of you are connected. Hissing like his soul is actively trying to leave his body, Dan Heng haltingly slows to a stiff roll of his hips that makes his length nudge back and forth just enough to drain the rest of his explosive release. Another healthy spurt rushes out of him and then a savory dribble quickly follows, thickly oozing from the tip to drip onto the floor between your feet. It’s over, just like that, and you blink rather owlishly down at the evidence of your illicit encounter as he heaves a deeply satisfied sigh of pleasure. 

It’s a little hard to wrap your mind around what had just transpired, especially when you were still floating in the afterglow and well satiated, but you snap back into the moment when he carefully starts to straighten up. You hadn’t even realized he’d dropped into a partial crouch to better accommodate the height difference, and you turn in his hold to look back at him. 

“Dan Heng … are you - -“

“We need to get out.” He cuts across you, back to being the same mild and polite Dan Heng you were used to, but at the questioning lift of your brows he sheepishly glances away. “The water is beginning to turn cold so we need to get out before you start shivering again. Otherwise that would completely defeat the purpose of doing this in the first place.” 

Oh. You hadn’t even noticed, truth be told, but you shift to the side when he reaches around you to smack the faucet off. The room goes suddenly quiet, save the dull drip of water droplets running from the spout and two sets of deep breaths coming from you and him. You’d been so caught up in the moment that you hadn’t noticed that either but your heart was indeed pounding a wild rhythm against your chest, and you reach up to idly touch over your pulse. Wild and erratic, just like you’d felt leading up to that mind numbing crescendo. 

What the hell had all that been? 

“Let me get you a towel.” You hear him say, and you bring your head up in time to watch him flick the screen open with a sluggish motion. 

“What about you? You didn’t even get to wash your hair.” 

Dan Heng looses a soft bark of laughter as he steps out onto the waiting mat, giving you your first real look at his nude body. He’s all lean and svelte with a perfectly tapered waist and broad shoulders, and — he abruptly turns to face you without warning. You’re suddenly looking right at him. The cut lines of his pelvis and the perfect little bellybutton stamped right in the center of it; the damp mess of dark, dark hair crowning his softened cock and the unmistakable weight of it … 

Blood rushes to your face so fast you feel vaguely faint even as you smack a hand up to your mouth and quickly look away in embarrassment. You’d never seen one before. Or at least, you’re pretty sure you haven’t. That doesn’t exactly stop your body from reacting to it though and your knees turn instantly wobbly again to accompany the instinctive urge to touch him, taste him. To feel him moving inside of you with the same keen ferocity he’d shown your thighs. Gods, you were like some kind of pervert! 

“After all that you’re finally getting shy?” He laughs, bemused, but you can’t quite bring yourself to lift your gaze again. The risk of jumping his bones seemed far too great for you to take that chance right now. But luckily for you, Dan Heng is much too conscientious to hold it over your head and you soon catch the sound of him shuffling for a towel just another moment later. “I’ll cover up if that will make you feel better but don’t think you’re going to get out of this without having a talk with me first. I meant it when I said I had no intention of taking advantage of you. This isn’t something we can just pretend never happened, you know.” 

Cautiously slow, you peek over at him from the corner of your eye just in time to get one last good look at his tight backside before a towel slides into place around his waist. You may not have been able to see it anymore but that certainly wasn’t going to stop you from thinking about it well into the foreseeable future. Curse him and his gorgeous body. “Are you … upset that we did that?” 

“Not at all. I only want to check in with you and find out what you want.” 

Now that manages to throw you for a loop. “What do you mean? I wasn’t expecting anything in return.” 

Sighing softly, Dan Heng pivots back around to face you again. “That’s precisely why. You obviously have no expectations in place and some men would probably try to take advantage of that to use you for sex. I’m not like that though. If you want to do this the right way then I would likewise be amenable to that possibility. If you want to keep things casual that’s fine too. And if you never want to see my face again … well, I couldn’t exactly blame you for that I suppose.” 

Confusion marches rampant through your mind until the lightbulb abruptly clicks on. He was talking about taking responsibility for his actions. Of giving you the proper respect and courtesy of having a choice. Dan Heng clearly had no desire to withhold an actual relationship from you if that was what you wanted but he also wasn’t going to force it on you either. How interesting. How very — chivalrous of him. 

Your heart gives a tiny little thump against your ribcage, and you smile over at him. Eager and pleased by this revelation, but a bit nervous too. Whoever would’ve thought something as benign as sharing a shower together out of necessity would end with talks of a potential future together. 

“Is everyone on the Express as old fashioned as you are?” 

He smiles back, gracing you with a small but no less frustratingly charming grin. “In this aspect, I’m afraid it’s just me. Think you're up for it?” 

“Yeah, I think I might be.” 

⭐

Crossposted: here

[thorias]

SEASON 2 WISH LIST:

-Madelyne is resurrected as a Horseman along with Gambit: I think there's a better story to tell with Madelyne being brought back (at least temporarily) than staying dead. The X-men having to fight her too would give Cyclops and Cable a more personal stake in this Apocalypse storyline, not that they really needed one, but still...

I said in another post that I wouldn't want to dilute the "Saving Gambit" story by making a bunch of other X-men Horsemen as well, but if it's just Madelyne, then I think it's okay. And I wouldn't expect Madelyne to survive this story anyway, since, aside from tying up a couple loose threads with the Summers family, her arc is basically finished now.

Plus, I just kind of like the idea of giving Deathbit a buddy in the spurned lover department; that could be fun.

-----

-Sabretooth returns. Logan (sans adamantium) has to fight him... and loses: I've always liked the idea that Sabretooth would probably beat Wolverine in a fair fight, (dude is like 3x Logan's size after all) but it's never been a fair fight since the adamantium basically made Logan unstoppable. But take the adamantium away and suddenly Wolverine is the underdog for a change, which makes the match-up a lot more interesting. And what's even the point of doing the bone claws story if it's not to see how Logan deals with being in a weakened state like this?

Granted, I want to see this for selfish reasons since Sabretooth is one of my favorite villains, but come on! Victor is long overdue for a W against Wolverine, and if he can't get it now, then I'm calling BS lol.

-----

-Mystique returns, working for Apocalypse: I think Demayo shot down the Val-Cooper-is-Mystique-in-disguise theory, (correct me if I'm wrong about that) but it would be pretty ridiculous if we didn't see her in season 2 since she worked with Apocalypse in XTAS on multiple occasions.

Plus, there's a ready-made story there with her and Rogue. In the 90s cartoon, Mystique wanted to get Rogue back as her daughter so badly that she was even willing to turn Rogue into a Horseman to do it. So just imagine if Mystique had a hand in convincing Apocalypse to resurrect Remy as Deathbit, or at least helped him pull it off, because she saw this as a way to get back into Rogue's good graces. That would add some really interesting pathos to a story that's already super emotionally charged.

-----

-Costume changes: I get that Marvel has toys to sell, but the different suits the team got in season 1 ain't it. Sorry, they're just not. The only one who pulled it off was Storm. Everyone else got a serious glow down. I actually felt low key embarrassed for Scott and Jean trying to make those retro costumes from the 60s/80s eras work; there's a reason those designs stayed in the past, you guys.

And I even like Rogue's green & white suit in the comics, but in the show it just looked awkward with the gloves being a different shade of green than the rest of it. I'd take just about any of her other costumes over this one.

Either change the suits again or go back to the old versions because I'm not feeling these current ones at all.

-----

-Magneto has a reunion with his kids... and it doesn't go the way he wants: We saw in the season 1 finale that Mags' separation from his children is something that's at least been bothering him, (though not enough for him to lift a finger to save them from being killed along with everyone else on Earth if he succeeded in destroying the planet's electromagnetic field, but I guess we're blaming that on bad writing) so I want him to meet his kids in season 2... only for it to go as horribly as it possibly could.

It would be both ironic and hilarious if Magneto is hoping to patch things up with his kids, only for Pietro and Lorna to try to fight and arrest him the instant they see him (X-Factor doesn't seem to be a thing anymore, but let's say they're still government employees and have the authority to arrest criminals/terrorists) because he did after all murder millions of innocent people with that EMP AND try to murder every other living thing on the planet, including them.

I mean, let's not kid ourselves, there's no way this family reunion is going to be a happy one after what he did. SOMEBODY has to hold Magneto accountable for that, and his own children doing it is about the most fitting thing that I can think of.

-----

-A big story arc for Gambit: Romy fans got gipped in season 1, and even if you're just a Gambit fan, you still had to settle for scraps with him only playing a major role in one episode, which coincidentally was the one where he got killed off. Yes, the stage is set for Deathbit to have a really compelling story in season 2, but that's going to depend on how it's done and frankly, after I got burned so many times in the first season, I'm skeptical that the writers will give this the care and attention it deserves.

Demayo said it was "key" that Remy died thinking he didn't deserve to be a hero and that Rogue had chosen Magneto instead of him. These things have gone unaddressed in the show since then, so I'm going to assume they're being saved for the Deathbit story and THE PAYOFF FOR THIS BETTER BE DAMN GOOD.

I want to see all of Remy's low self-esteem, self-loathing and resentment over the Rogneto debacle get twisted into a dark rage that Deathbit throws back in everyone's faces. AJ himself said that Remy didn't feel valued by the X-men or Rogue when he died, so use that! Make it part of the story! Make them own up to it. Force Rogue to confront her own feelings about how she handled that situation, (so far, she's been avoiding doing this) so it can factor into how they bring him back.

I know a lot of us assume that freeing Remy from Apocalypse's influence is going to come down to Rogue finally telling him that she loves him. And, yeah, that should be a big part of it, but it shouldn't be the only part. That's fine as far as Rogue is concerned, but Remy needs an arc too, and I just want it to be worth the wait after they put us through all this.

-----

-Deathbit vs Magneto: This needs to happen. Aside from the fact that Romy fans will have been clamoring for it for a long time, frankly, both characters are going to want it too. Mags will no doubt view Deathbit as the reason why he can't get Rogue back, and Deathbit... well, we all know what his reasons are; he'll likely want to take Magneto apart just for the pure satisfaction of it.

Now since Magneto's so OP, Gambit wouldn't stand much of a chance in a straight fight under normal conditions, but we know Apocalypse evolves/enhances mutants' powers when they become Horsemen, so imagine if he unlocked Gambit's Omega potential, so Remy has his New Son powers now, or at least a heightened version of what he had before. So Magneto goes in brimming with confidence that he's going to wipe the floor with his rival for Rogue's affections, but then in a shocking twist, Deathbit breaks out his newly enhanced power set and turns the tables on him.

Do I really want to see Mags get taken down a peg and humbled by Gambit? Sure. But narratively, this makes a ton of sense to do. Since Demayo loves Magneto so much, I highly doubt it will happen, (certainly not with this outcome at least) but I think it would be super satisfying for fans.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Hi BPP,

You don't wind any bows around your opinions. Can't say I hate that even if I myself would never dare be so self assured.

The way you answered this ask:

https://www.tumblr.com/beautifulpersonpeach/769438426516815872/bpp-i-was-having-a-conversation-with-a-friend-the?source=share

Please. You cannot say Namjoon's weakness is being 'morally gray' and just bolt. I need more because I am intrigued what you mean by this, how you came to hold this opinion. I hope you get a chance to see his RPWP film because it might aid your assessment.

Also, Yoongi big dick? Metaphorically, you mean, right?

*

Ask 2:

You're back!!! I was already worried you might have left tumblr, I'm glad you didn't. I always appreciate your take on different matters even though I do not always agree with you.

You said in one of your answers you see Namjoon as morally grey and that being on of his weaknesses. Would you mind elaborating why you see him like that and why you think it's a weakness? I think it's a very interesting way to perceive him.

*

Ask 3:

Hi happy new year Peach!

I was going through your recent posts and saw you said Rm's weakness is morally grey. That intrigued me. Isn't Rm your bias? Why do you think he's not a good person?

Can you explain this pls?

Thx!

***

Hi Anon(s),

Your link, Anon in ask 1.

Yeah, I don't think Namjoon is a good person. He's my bias and I like him but I thought this was obvious.

Granted, I don't think he's a bad or evil person either. 'Good or bad' aren't typically how I think about people anyway since most of us have had to make difficult choices at some point and generally act in our own self interest pondering moral considerations only after the fact. Joon appears to be self-aware that he's sometimes the asshole with the capacity to be much worse and that he's primarily motivated by his own personal objectives, rather than any clear creed or theology on right and wrong.

And let's be real, nobody gets to the top of an industry as morally bankrupt as the k-pop industry without being a bit of a freak. Namjoon is the leader of BTS and by virtue of his position has the closest working and personal relationship with Bang Sihyuk. K-pop is a blood sport especially at the highest levels, the men at the helm of this machine maintain a system that is sadistic, unrelenting, inhumane, absolutely ruthless - and it takes a certain kind of disposition to stick your hands into this dogfight pit of madness and take away only the things that serve you.

That's who Kim Namjoon is. In my opinion.

I'm probably telling on myself a bit here, but to be morally grey isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact I see it as a strength for some kinds of people. The reason I see Joon's moral ambiguity as a weakness is perhaps ironically, because of the power and influence he wields as RM of BTS.

Because it shows the gap between his ability and his ambition.

Because the fact is he could be, should be, wrecking more havoc on this mad house. It's not like he gives a fuck about the old cronies skimming the cream off the top or about the junior nugu idols who are trying out this industry as one of several potential career paths or about the lunatics who call themselves k-pop stans. Namjoon is one of the few idols who commands outsized power in an industry that is long overdue for cataclysmic disruption. Unlike Yoongi who frequently (but privately) grapples with the existential implications for not just himself/BTS but also for random idols as a result of his actions, Joon has no such constraints. Not to say Namjoon never reflects on the moral implications of his actions or considers what happens to other people, but that it's not a preoccupation for him. At least not to the degree it appears to be for Yoongi. Again in my opinion. His nature, as I see it, is one that allows for him to fuck it all up if he actually wants to, the moral fallout be damned.

He chooses not to because doing that doesn't particularly benefit him at this time. Rather, he's put no effort into seeing how it would benefit him.

And that's a damn shame.

[thegirlwhowrites642]

Ahh, finally used expelliarmus on you-know-who? Well 👏🏼 done 👏🏼. It was long overdue 😂 💕

Bloody hell guys.

I woke up, did my things, then I checked Tumblr and there were messages like this one, people writing in my DMs that you-know-who (for lack of better terms) is attacking me...

Like, wtf?

I feel trapped in a mystery novel where I witnessed a crime, tried to do something about it, and somehow ended up as the prime suspect for the crime.

Yes, I know, you people told me to block him ages ago, I'm an idiot, you were completely right.

Mea culpa

There, I said it.

Also, because I'm curious af, I can't help it, I went to see what the hell he wrote and what he's claiming he said it's not even what he really wrote under the post and it's completely decontextualised. Is this how someone feels when they get trapped in a conspiracy?

I'll start from the beginning so everyone can understand.

I published a post where I fundamentally celebrated some of my favourite female characters.

One of those was Ginny. And of course, every time I say anything remotely positive about Ginny (who is probably the main topic of this blog) he had something negative to say in return instead of just... I don't know... stop following me????? Like every decent reasonable human being?????

One of the things I said was:

And also breaks that idiotic pattern of the hero ending up with the helper. Ginny is truly a character who deserves her own saga.

So, of course, under a post that celebrates female characters, in a blog that is very Ginny-centered, he felt the need to comment that Ginny for him was a helper even if not as close as Ron and Hermione.

Now, of course, I was supremely annoyed by that comment, and I had three options here:

Leave it there

Answer it disagreeing with it

Erase the comment

I didn't want to leave it there because well, first of all, it annoyed me and this is my blog but also because I don't want my posts used to spread ideas with which I disagree. You are free to do that with your posts, but not with mine (also, he could have easily just reblogged it and said what he apparently absolutely needed to say).

So I could answer the comment, I already did it plenty of times, but I exactly because I already did it plenty of times with this specific person, I knew it would have been pointless as usual.

So I erased the comment. Seemed a reasonable solution. It's an option I have, a boundary that I'm absolutely free to set.

He re-wrote the comment under the post.

I know, nuts.

Maybe he thought it got cancelled as a mistake? Possible, I re-erased the comment.

He re-wrote it.

This happened like four times.

Every single time I checked Tumblr he had re-written the comment. I went to sleep with the comment erased, I woke up with the comment there again, I erased it, and five minutes after the comment was there again. Surpassing by a long mile a boundary I had every right to set for myself: not having comments under my post that annoy the fuck out of me, written by someone who takes as a personal insult every post I make about a character I love (because obviously the fact that this was the 50000th post in which this subtle bashing happened played a huge factor, a behaviour displayed in such a way that lead multiple people multiple times to tell me to block him).

So I just decided to block him. Seemed the reasonable route at this point.

I don't want to be followed by someone who can't take a hint and can't respect other people's boundaries.

Turns out I wasn't exaggerating considering that he started leaving that comment under my fanfictions on ao3.

I wish I was joking but it's totally true. And now I'm wishing I hadn't erased them so you could all see the absolutely psychotic behaviour.

And now, apparently, he is writing posts on Tumblr about me.

Anyway, if this to you sounds like something normal to do, please stop following me.

I'm in no way against people disagreeing with what I say and telling me (I would prefer the asks box for that though), I'm against people who do it with no valid argumentation and more importantly obsessively.

[cadybear420]

ILITW End of Book Questions

From here for @choicesbookclub

If you could change one thing about ILITW, would you? If so, what would it be?

Honestly, most of the problems I have with ILITW are minor nitpicky things. But if I had to change something... I'd probably add more nerve score concequences? While I generally prefer ILITW, one area where ILB definitely has a major leg up over it is that its nerve score system is more complex. There were more consequences to low nerve in the second act of the story than just the moment-of-truth fate trials in the final chapter.

If your MC survived, what are they like 5 years from now? 10? 25? What about the rest of the friends group?

I feel like ILITW, as well as ILB, and ILW canon, covered their futures pretty well. Ava continues the work of Cora, Lucas becomes an environmental scientist and advocate, Lily becomes a video game developer, Dan becomes a therapist. Not quite sure about Stacy and Andy, I don't fully remember their futures in ILB and ILW.

I haven't figured out much of Jo's future yet. But here's what I got so far.

Jo spends the next 4 years staying at home, taking it easy (but also helping Noah/Redfield). I'm still undecided as to whether she'll go to college or not, and what type of profession she might have.

Jo enters a poly relationship with Andy and Lucas during winter break of senior year, and at least 4 years later the three of them get married.

The three of them have agreed to an open relationship when they first became official– Jo has platonic-sexual relationships with Connor and Dan (and Noah, since he gets resurrected in ILW canon), and continues to have one-night stands with a fair amount of other guys.

After graduation, Jo becomes much closer with Andy, while they also maintain a long-distance relationship with Lucas. Jo would sometimes gets very nervous about maintaining this relationship and the possibility of them growing apart.

At some point between high school graduation and the events of ILB/ILW, Jo and Andy get gender-affirming surgeries. Top surgery for Andy, bottom surgery/phalloplasty for Jo. They're very supportive of each other for each of these. Jo and Andy also wear "bottom" and "top" shirts respectively after this, to confuse their friends ("Wait wait wait, Jo you can't bottom to save your life, what does this mean!??!")

Does MC and/or the friends visit Noah (if he is the monster)?

Going by ILB, and ILW's canon, MC and Connor frequently visit Noah to sort of take care of him and keep him from becoming twisted. This is something I can definitely see Jo doing, given she often feels fairly guilty about her choice.

If MC is the monster, what is "life" like? Does anyone visit?

Jo did not become the monster. But let's say there is an AU where she chooses to become the monster. I definitely feel like the friend group (sans Noah, the rest of them would be pissed at him) would frequently go to visit Jo and check up on her.

Any last thoughts about the books? your MC? the rest of the characters?

My review is here. I'm also making a couple of other posts to expand on certain points.

In this playthrough, I definitely enjoyed being able to flesh out Jo a lot more. Back in January/February this year, I did do a playthrough officially using my character of Jo and I did come up with certain ideas for her character and arc. This time, I got to expand on those more. She's even more of a mess than how I originally interpreted her.

That being said, I'm long since overdue for a deliberate failthrough like I did with my first every playthrough. I'm tempted to quickly import my data to ILB and then just do a ILITW failthrough right now, but I also kinda wanna give it some time first. I'll probably be making a new MC for it too. Though I would like to also try a failthrough AU for Jo.

[colossal-red]

Where I've been

Okay, so this post is probably long overdue.

But, better late than never hehe...

So, ayup y'all, I'm Red, Colossal Red, if you remember...

As of recent, I've taken a step back from my writing, and my blog here simultaneously.

I always promised myself that when I found the time and motivation, I'd write.

But... I need to face the facts, there's simply too much going on with me.

As of now, I am officially going on my first ever...

✨Hiatus✨

What are the specifics? I'm not gonna put every little thing here, but I will say that... falling in love tends to take up a lot of your time XD

I hope y'all will understand why I'm peacing out, the good news though is that this isn't indefinite.

As long as I still have some desire to come back here, I'll always have the potential to end this hiatus =w=

I do apologize for not completing even just one of my AU's...

SRBF, TIT, The Mark... TinyHunt especially...

Maybe someone'll make their own au based off of them, dunno if I have enough writers in my followers for someone to do that though hehe...

Welp, I've spent enough time writing this, I've been putting this off for a while you see hehe...

It is time for me to, as Wilby Scoot said in Technoblade's Gravity mod video, to bid y'all, the fondest of the dues.

Tips my metaphorical hat to whoever cares enough to read this, and leaves through an exit door... not knowing when I'll come back through it.

I'd peek my head in just one more time.

By the way, I might still reblog things when I have time... thanks for reading my stories, see ya next time- :D

And with that... I'm gone like a drop of soda spilled from an overflowing cup.

[hyunsuks-beanie]

Come With Me

Culinary major! Soobin x food vlogger! reader; just some teeth rotting fluff

Word Count: 3.35k words

Mellow speaks: So I finally completed this long overdue and super fun request!!! Honestly, writing this was just so amazing, and I kinda drew Y/N based on my own self, so I hope you enjoy reading it!!

Rushing into his apartment, Soobin didn't waste a single minute in discarding his bag on the floor, rushing towards his laptop and turning it on. As the screen booted, the final-year culinary major prayed to the gods for the livestream to not have started yet. The winner of the contest from last month was to be announced at the beginning of the stream, and even though Soobin didn't have any hopes of him winning, he couldn't help the tiny voice at the back of his head saying, "What if?."

He was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard a voice, sweet and velvety as always. There you were, on his screen, the biggest of smiles plastered on your face, making him feel warm all over. Y/N L/N, his favorite food vlogger in the world, ready to start another livestream. Soobin had always been more of a silent supporter, his introverted self being too shy to even post a comment under any of your videos, partly because you had a habit of replying to as many of those comments as possible, and he knew for a fact that he would combust on the spot if you were to ever reply to his praises of you.

You see, he greatly admired your love for food and your wanderlust. He was also a great fan of the way you spoke, and the way you articulated your ideas and thoughts. Truth be told, he genuinely liked you, and not just your voyager self. Watching your videos over the years, he had found himself developing a small crush on you, knowing full well that it was probably just him being starstruck. So, gathering all the bravery he had, the boy had finally pressed "Send" on the application form for the competition on the last day, after contemplating it for God knows how long.

There had been only one question on the form, asking respondents to describe what food meant to them. A smile had graced Soobin's lips as you answered it, pouring in his most sincere thoughts on everything culinary. What had pushed him to participate, you ask? It had been the prize, of course. A chance to hang out with none other than you yourself, through a one-on-one video call. He had always wanted to see you in person, to tell you how much your vlogs meant to him. How they had helped discover his own love for food, had helped him find his happiness in the kitchen.

And that had brought him to right now, biting on his fingernails as he listened to your regular introduction, one that he knew by heart and repeated after you, subconsciously. "Hey my food-holics! How are all of you doing today? Hale and hearty, I hope!," you said, following up quickly with a brief overview of the contest, before announcing the winner, as Soobin waited with bated breath. "All your answers were amazing, and I could relate to so many of them! It really sucks that we can only have one winner, since you're all winners to me!," you smiled, and he caught himself copying your expression. "So now, the winner of the contest, and the person who gets to be my new friend, is @aglio_olive!!," you exclaimed, clapping your hands as your eyes crinkled up in joy.

The fact that you had just announced him as the winner of registered belatedly, as Soobin was busy gushing over how adorable you had looked while clapping. He felt his mouth drop open, finding it hard to focus on what you said next. "I'll be contacting you via email shortly," you had said, and that was all it took for the rest of the livestream to go by in a blur for him, as he waited for your mail, checking and re-checking his inbox every two minutes. But it wasn't until the next day that he finally received what he had been peeling his eyes out for. An email from your official account (or that's what he figured), informing him that the meeting would take place on the coming Saturday, at 6:00 pm. Now all he had to do was wait three days, but it was easier said than done.

By the time Saturday rolled around, Soobin was equal parts bubbling with excitement and panicking with nerves. Reluctant to trust his own fashion choices, he had called over his best friend, Yeonjun, hoping to get some much needed guidance. "Should I wear this suit? Or will simple tracks be better?," he had asked, making the older boy shake his head as he patted him on the back. "My friend, Y/N's neither your professor, nor your friend. You're meeting them for the first time, so why don't you just wear something comfortable, that would make them feel at ease too?," he smirks, throwing a plain blue hoodie his way.

As the clock struck 6:00, Soobin found himself seated at his study table, ready to start the meeting. He had even prepared cue cards to help him if he got stuck, and they were propped conveniently next to the laptop. He reached out for them, but just at that moment, his screen came alive with someone waving at him with a smile on their face. Awestruck, he simply waved back, too tongue-tied to say anything. "Wow," he thought to himself, "They look so much better without makeup." A couple seconds later, a new kind of panic set in. "Am I staring too hard? Is it creepy? Should I look down? No but I need to keep eye contact!"

Little did he know, you were having similar, if not identical thoughts. "Wow, no one told me he was gonna be this cute. Blue suits him so well! I'm no staring, am I? Should I speak first? Or should I wait for him to say something?" This finally resulted in the both of you speaking at the same time, something you would later smile about. Because saying "How are you? I'm Soobin," and "I'm Y/N! How are you?," helped you crack into laughter, breaking the ice and easing the awkwardness. Once you had gotten past the niceties, it was time to get to know each other better. The cue cards lay unused, as Soobin just spoke about whatever came to mind, praising your vlogs and thanking you for teaching him more about cuisines. You, on the other hand, took the time to get to know him better, asking him questions about what it was like to study culinary science, something you had never gotten the chance to do.

The hour-long virtual meeting flew by in the blink of an eye, or so it seemed to the both of you. Talking to you, Soobin didn't once feel that you were a stranger or that he was just a fan. You seemed like a genuine and warm person to him that he couldn't help but admire you even more than he did before. To him, somewhere during the meeting, you stopped seeming like a famous vlogger anymore, and instead, all he saw you as was a friend. You, on the other hand, had made up your mind about him being the most interesting person you had ever met, and couldn't stop a sad sigh from escaping your lips as you looked at the time. "Well, Soobin. It's been a pleasure meeting you," you had said, making him smile wistfully.

The moment he had logged out of the meeting, he found himself missing you. He thought back on how nice you had been, smiling when he pictured your face, your hair slightly messy but not too unkempt, an oversized hoodie thrown over your body. To him, it had honestly felt like he was conversing with a friend, and he couldn't bring himself to let such an amazing person walk out of his life. So, without thinking, he began typing out an email to your account, his finger hovering just above the "Send" button. He stopped short though, realizing that your official account wasn't meant for personal mails, and realizing that he had no other means to contact you. Pouting, he fell face-first onto the bed, his energy going down all of a sudden.

He woke up to a "ping," indicating an email on his phone. Unlocking it, he noticed a mail from an account he had never contacted before. Clueless, he clicked on it, the phone nearly falling out of his hand as he read through it. It had been you, after all, reaching out to him through your personal account, and telling him that you had loved talking to him, and would like to be his friend. And thus began the most beautiful friendship either of you had ever forged, full of memories even though you hadn't met each other.

Late night video chats and good morning calls became a ritual, and Soobin found himself busily typing away on his phone every free second he got. You told him all about your escapades and trips, sending him photos and urging him to try cooking whatever you ate and whatever you liked. He, on the other hand, would teach you to cook, sending you tips and giving you suggestions on what to eat. Food was an intergalactic part of the relation you shared, but it was far from being the only thing.

When things got hard for him, you were there to push him towards his dream, reminding him day in and day out that he would have to give in his all to achieve it. "You'll be the greatest chef one day, Soob," you'd giggle, causing him to let out a whine as he said, "How would you know? You haven't even tasted my cooking yet!" He too, was there to provide you a taste of what it felt like to be grounded to one place, to have everything you wanted right next to you. He was there for you to cry to when someone posted a nasty comment under you video, and he was there to virtually feed you when you missed a home-cooked meal. Inside jokes became a thing, as did bitching about classmates and complaining about managers.

Over time, your friendship started blossoming into something more, as Soobin found himself catching feelings, real feelings, for you. The way you smiled, the way you would bite your nails just like him as you went through what people had to say about your videos, the way you cracked stupid jokes and laughed at them alone, he found himself loving them all. He had given his heart out to you, and he didn't want to take it back. You, meanwhile, had been a bit more careful of your feelings, wary of harboring any hopes for a long-distance relationship. But over time, you too, found yourself drowning into the oceans that were his eyes, watching the way his lips moved through the screen, imagining them on yours. Over time, you too, felt your feelings grow, but being your stubborn self, you didn't act on them.

Days turned into months, and soon enough, you were keeping Soobin company through his late night study sessions, talking to him in the hopes of keeping him awake. Helping him prepare flashcards, and letting him teach you a full four-course meal so that he could practice for his practical exams. "What are you gonna do once you graduate?," became a regular question you posed towards him, and every time, it was the same reply. "I don't know yet, Y/N. I want to do something like you. I want to travel the world and learn about different cuisines first-hand."

As Soobin's exams drew nearer, you found yourself bring just as worried as he was, worried about how he'd fare in the examinations, worried about what he'll do when he gets his degree. But keeping your concerns aside, you did your best to push him to do his best, study that last chapter, practice that last technique, memorize that last recipe. "I just wanna sleep, Y/N," he'd whine, only to have you let out a giggle at how adorable he looked. "It's for your own good, bub," you'd reply, your smile somehow managing to give him the strength to put in just a little extra effort.

Seeing him work so hard, you couldn't help but want to give him a surprise by congratulating him in person when he graduated. So, you decided to plan a trip to Seoul, shooting a film vlog just an excuse to finally meet your closest friend, and the person you had a crush on. You had initially wanred to keep the plan a secret, but soon realized what a waste it would be to not use it to your advantage. And so started your ingenious way of getting Soobin to hit the books. "I'm coming to Seoul after your exams, but I'll meet you only if you put in all your effort," you'd tell him, repeating it like a mantra day in and day out.

In response, the boy would pout and whine about how he "hated" you, but started putting in double the effort, just to make you proud. Your tactic seemed to work, but Soobin was still nervous. Nor about the theory, but about the practical exams. "What if I don't do well on the exam? It happens all the time on Masterchef," he said one day, looking into your eyes as you attempted to calm him down. "I know you'll nail it, Binnie," you replied, smiling at him through the screen. "Just think about what makes you happy while you cook, and you'll be good to go." As if on a whim, Soobin muttered out a soft, "You," causing your breath to hitch as you asked him to repeat. "You make me happy," he said again, looking down as he felt his cheeks growing warm. You couldn't help but smile at his sudden confession, sending a virtual kiss his way. "Now go study, you idiot," you giggled, proceeding to tell him about your day as he pored over his books.

The day of his practical exam rolled by, and as you had said, Soobin decided to cook while thinking of something that made him happy. He thought back on the day when you had told him about a delicacy from a city you had visited, and had convinced him to teach you how to make it. The memory alone made a smile appear on his lips, reminding him of how happy the two of you were. And so, that's what he cooked, passing his exam with flying colors. He was so happy he could have kissed you if you were there, and he told you that, causing a laugh to escape your lips. "I'll be there soon," was all you said, fighting to control your excitement.

Soobin passed with flying colors, earning his degree fair and square. And the one person he wanted to thank for it, was you. As you had promised him, a week later found you roaming the streets of Seoul, as you hurriedly made your way towards his college, ready to finally meet him at his convocation. Climbing up the stage to accept his degree, his eyes were busy scanning the crowds, eager to see your face. When he couldn't find you, however, he felt his smile falter, as he took in a gulp.

"Where are you Y/N?," he thought to himself, hand itching to check his phone that was lying in his back pocket. You had told him you'd be here on time, so then, where were you? Just as he feels himself falling deeper into his thoughts, he (like everyone else in the hall) hears footsteps running down the corridor, finally revealing you standing at the entrance, out of breath and with a huge smile stretching across your face. "You're here," he mouthed, his smile matching yours, as you replied with a simple nod and a "Congratulations," your eyes brimming with tears of joy for the boy.

Accepting his degree, Soobin walked off the stage to sit with his classmates, eyes meeting yours every so often as he tried to fight the urge to rush to you and hug you. Once the ceremony ended, neither of you wasted a second in finding each other, throwing yourselves into a hug long overdue. It didn't feel weird as you snuggled your face into his convocation robe, and it didn't feel weird as he did the same into your hair. Pulling away, you just couldn't hide the smiles that threatened to take over your entire face, taking each other's hand as Soobin left you to his parents. "Mom, Dad, this is my friend Y/N," he introduced, and his mom didn't miss the spark in her son's eyes as he looked at you.

Once you were done with the niceties, the two of you made your way out into the city once Soobin had handed his robe over to his mom. Walking the streets with him, with you cracking jokes and him pointing out tourist sights to you, you felt something you had never felt, no matter how many cities you visited. A sense of comfort, a sense of belonging. You felt like you were home for the first time in ages, and it was all because of the guy walking next to you. As if on a whim, you whipped out your video-camera, switching it on and turning it to yourself. Soobin belatedly realized what you were doing, when he heard you recite you introduction. Looking at you in shock, he felt his mouth fall open as he heard you say the words, "Friend," "Soobin," "Featuring," "Guide," in quick succession, piecing the sentence together in his brain.

"Y/N! What are you doing??," he whined, looking down to hide his face. "Awww Soobinnie is shy!!! Sorry guys, it's his first time," you cooed, a giggle escaping your lips as you turned your camera off, trying to convince him to feature in your vlog. "But I won't know what to say!!," he retorted, making you snicker. "Just take me out to eat somewhere tell, and tell the camera why you like the place you like and the food you like. It's not that hard!," you replied, and after much convincing (and some borderline begging), he finally agreed.

He showed you all his favorite eateries and restaurants, gawking at the insane discounts you got him, and just enjoying watching you eat in person, sharing his food. By the time evening rolled out, the two of you were full to your throats, looking out over the river from the bridge. "Thank you Y/N," Soobin said, turning to look at you. "For today, and for everyday. For being there for me, and for being the best friend I have ever had, and more." "Thank you too, Soob," you replied, your eyes stinging as you looked up at him. "Thank you for making me feel at home. Thank you for becoming my home." You hadn't noticed just how close your faces had become, both of you having leaned in subconsciously. Finally, Soobin closed the gap, your lips meeting his in a kiss that's full of the pent-up love and emotions.

His lips were soft against yours, molding with yours like two pieces of the same puzzle. Pulling away, a smile graced your lips as you looked up at him shyly, whispering an "I like you," causing him to repeat your words and adding a "too," cheeks rising up in a smile. Biting you bottom lip, you say, "Come with me," making him tilt his head in confusion. "You said you wanted to be like me. To learn about cuisines first-hand. Then come with me. I don't want to be away from you, I want to be with you 24/7, and not virtually. I want to talk to you in person, to hug you, to kiss you." You notice his smile growing wider, and so you ask, "So, what do you say?," as he replies by placing his lips back on yours.

[fictionadventurer]

I had the (probably cringe) idea to write a yearly wrap-up of my blog in the form of a Christmas letter, but going back through the archive made me realize that there's a lot of memories that I want to address, so I'll casually take this month by month and talk about the things that seem interesting.

First up:

January

The year started off with an ask game where I recommended a book I read last year and an unread book on my shelves. It was tons of fun (and I'm considering doing it next year), though unfortunately it did not have the intended effect of getting me to read the unread books on my shelf. Of the books I recommended, I only read one (though I did read pieces of others and donated others unread when I decided I just wasn't interested enough.)

@magpie-trove started an ask game where mutuals played fairy godmother and chose ballgowns for people. I got several and they were lovely.

I watched the first couple of episodes of the new Around the World in 80 Days. I liked some parts, even though it was wildly different from the book, but I stopped watching when all of the character changes opted for the most cliche melodramatic backstory for every character.

I posted the first part of the Glorya M. Hayers Christmas mystery "The Christmas Card Caper", thanks to an interlibrary loan from @isfjmel-phleg. Unfortunately, distractions kept me from posting the rest, and it became less of a priority once the Christmas season passed. I would very much like to see if I can find where I stashed the rest of the transcription and post the remainder for this year's holiday season, but with my switch to a new computer, there's no guarantee I'll find it.

@freenarnian's Light in the Dark Academia trend swept through the circle of mutuals, leading to some beautiful moodboards. Jumping on the bandwagon taught me how to make moodboards, so I made several in January and used others for various projects throughout the year.

I finished off the first round of Imaginary Book Recs, and then archived them in a post that also provided Real Book Recs for the people who had requested them.

I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Its weirdness baffled and delighted me.

I reread Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South for the first time (via audiobook) and adored it much more than I did on first read. The book became a very important part of my mental landscape this year.

@brown-little-robin inspired a challenge for people to write poems in response to Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay". I caved to temptation and wrote my first poem in years. I had all but forgotten I'd written it, so it was an unexpected delight to remember that I wrote a poem this year, even if it's aggressively mediocre.

I posted the complete story of "Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and the Frog Prince", which gives a Wodehouse spin on the fairy tale that provides an origin story for the hero of this particular universe.

I posted my long-overdue essay defending concise writing techniques from those who say they're only meant to keep you from using too many words by arguing it's meant to teach you when to use words for the best effect.

There were a surprising number of posts where we discussed the difference between lyric-forward and music-forward songs, and songs that are meant to be listened to versus sung-along with.

I finished off a few posts discussing characters from my Jane Austen with Superpowers Powers and Prejudice universe, which I proceeded to ignore until July, when I overhauled the universe.

[astrojoy]

Hello! 🥳 Let's clear up some things 🔆

Warning - There is topics related to violence and basically real stuff. I didn't sugarcoat this post and don't plan on changing it. I will be discussing a harsh reality as well as giving some informative tips to who I am and what has been falsely assumed

Again, for the people in the back

I'm here to discuss some recent accusation about me and also to explain some much needed things that have been long overdue or weren't taken seriously

1 ) Next time if any negative anons has anything to say about me, I'm here. My asks are open. Don't come to someone else's blog creating burdens for them just because you don't like me or are unhappy with my own blog

2 ) The fact that you had the audacity to go to another blog, while also covering your self up as anonymous baffles me. The amount of shame you must have felt to have the thought to make sure you weren't recognized and people didn't know your blog

3 ) A helpful tip for you from me, be careful who you go after because I promise you you're just racking up more trouble for yourself on your shelf for the future. If you don't understand this, then just heed my advice. Stranger to stranger

4 ) I have said this before and I will say it again. I'm on here to help spread what I've learned over the years as well as give advice. I have no need to chase fame or clout if I'm already happy with my own company. The fact that so many people in this age do though should tell you to probably take a step back and learn the lesson of cherishing yourself over trying to gain happiness by others feelings over you

5 ) Fake niceness, heh 😃 Apparently you've met too many fake people in life to trust someone who actually cares about humans and I'm sorry you've had to go through that, I'm sure you will be meet better people love 🫂 I've been through a lot of hell in my life and seen a lot of shit, from being neglected, and people who are narcissists, animal abusers, verbal abusers, alcoholics, someone with anger issues, manipulaters, depression and suicidal thoughts, bullies, demons, being poor, seclusion, hoarders, even family I cared about being ill, all starting from the moment I was born and had to witness it. Do you think that would shape me into a bad person? Or do you think id understand that people have feelings and Id rather make myself into a better person by spreading happiness as I wasn't lucky enough to see it as I'm growing up

6 ) I'm about to explain to you what loyalty is You think I'm just nice to be nice right? Haha 😃 let me waste my time and effort in my work and toy with peoples emotions when I know what it feels like. Why don't we contradict ourselves here, yes? No. now why would I say no? Because it doesn't make sense now does it? Listen, many people in my lifetime have told me secrets, many people have told me things that they were so embarrassed to say to anyone else that they have cried right after, now how do you think they would have trusted me if they didn't have a reason to? I have many ex friends and even an ex bf who changed friend groups because they went to a different crowd. Funny enough those same people accused me of things that were actually all lies. Cussed me out to either seem cool and fit in or because they were jealous and later told me so. Do you know what I did? Nothing. Because I'm a good person. If I make a promise with someone and their secret, it's with me forever because I respect people unlike some others. Of course why would you believe that, right? 🙃 why would I be a nice person anyways?

7 ) Do you feel entitled? Have I been too nice? Do I not have a personal life? Do you think I'm on here all the time? I don't even ask for gratitude like some people after I answer an ask, I'm just lucky there's nice people who genuinely are thankful for the time. You expect me to answer all my asks like your my boss and when I don't you think I'm lazy? Lazy? Have you seen how much work I put into posts? Do you think that takes only a brief second? How much time it takes to find observations and make my own analysis on topics so I can share them with others? It takes hours sometimes. Because I actually care and enjoy astrology. But besides that, What happened to my life? Try taking care of a hateful person 24/7 who gets drunk from around 11 am all the way to 1 am or when they finally go to bed, having to stay in your room and stress about certain things for the future, or whether you'll graduate from school, whether your mom is feeling ok because shes sick, your parents are about to divorce and that will take a whole visit to the court and also not wanting to leave your room because someone's yelling around the house and slamming things all the time. Oh and who do you think cooks and does chores like a normal existing being? I even had to go to 2 funerals somewhat recently with one of them being someone I have been alive with for most of my life. But wait, nono, because I'm apparently not aloud to delete my asks due to everything that's going on in my life, nono instead I should ignore my emotions, my life, my health and to sit and try to answer all these asks to the best of my capability. Do you think I'm always happy or something? I get sad just like you, yet you don't see me burdening you all with my problems online 24/7, why? Because I care. I don't look for attention like you think 🙁

I don't need to explain to anyone why I don't answer asks. Or why I don't have time. Funnily enough I catch myself doing it lightly though just so no one thinks I'm flipping them off and saying "no" without reason. But of course, you expect more don't you. Or you think they are white lies because I'm lazy. Nice to know you don't think about what's going on in anyone else's life but rather you think about yourself. 1 ask can take me up to 20 minutes because of me explaining and answering and trying to formulate an understandable answer and also because I work a bit slower than some people, 25-30 minutes if it's a tarot ask because I go in depth. Now add 80 asks up and we have hours of work. When I especially get drained from tarot asks too

Next ����🔆

Oh look at that, I've already explained this one, not that I should have to 🙁

Next 🙁

I'm not gonna lie, this one got me. This one hurt. Good job coward anon, you did your job by making someone feel like garbage for no reason, do you feel happy? 🥰 how is it going for you? How will it go for you?

Right here, this one. Let's cut to the chase because I'm pissed now

8 ) To think of someone as a snake without proper evidence or intent makes you a snake. Plain and simple. The intent here was to be hateful ☺ I have actually been called this in real life before. My best friend called me fake for being "too nice" all the time and "too understanding" as if there's something wrong with me. So what? I'm a monster now for being genuinely kind? Is it that rare to see? Is the world that far gone? Funnily enough she was the same person who got exposed for cussing me out when I wasnt around 😃 and why? What would such a reason be for? Oh I must have done something terribly bad! That has to be it, right? Well, me being nice, I gave her space for a month and later walked up to her in person and said my apologies for coming off in such a way and before I could ask why she acted like she did to me she flung her arms around me to hug and started crying. She told me she envied me for my appearance straight up and that she missed me because I accepted her for who she was when some others didn't. No lies. But you kind of reminded me of this situation. As it's the reason I brought it up. You come at me with hate, go to another persons blog to vent, turn yourself to anonymous yet think I'm the snake here? I'm the person to not trust in this situation?

You have the audacity to tell me. Oh oh wait, not even me, a warmhearted person, on their blog that I don't care about them? Who hurt you?

Darling do me a nice gesture in return and don't fuck with my friends and dare to even speak my name as though I don't give a shit about them with all your false accusations

Take a step down from whatever superiority complex you hold where you are clouded by your own thoughts on what you think is correct

I can tell you right now your intuition needs some practice and I don't need to feel your energy I can just see it

As someone who genuinely cares, I ask you to please care about others as well, so far it doesn't seem to be looking as though you do. Don't go into people's blogs spreading negativity. You are the reason why I'm so nice, to fog out what we are going to forget (negative people/negative anons)

It's funny how besides being "lazy" the only other negative comment was about being "too nice" man you guys will find anything to leech onto don't you?

Sorry for this long post. Also I was mad on the last one so please understand that I will sound mad. But of course, what do I know, I'm too nice to be mad apparently

[comic-the-adventurer]

Meet Mist-Jun's Cinderace, nicknamed Scorbunny!

(Using this picture cuz it's the only coloured drawing of Scorbunny I've& ever made, even though it doesn't represent Scorbunny well.)

OKAY, THIS POST WAS LONG OVERDUE. But, to be completely honest, I'm& still working on my& brazen self-confidence so I& didn't feel comfortable posting about my& au until recently. (God, I& had to delete a few disclaimers just after writing that… I'm& trying my& best.)

OKAY, LET'S START.

So Mist-Jun pokémon premise is that he is from our world (as in, Mist is from real life) and they've somehow found themself in the pokemon universe (specifically Galar) with their trusty bestie, Cosmicco. Got it?

So Mist-Jun and Cosmicco were offered starter pokemon by either Leon, Professor Dan, or Champion Justin - undecided but probably Dan and Justin. (If this goes over well, I& will ramble about Professor Dan but y'all have to give (positive) feedback! U-U) The choices were the classic g8 starter set: Grookey, Scorbunny, and Sobble. Mist-Jun immediately fell in love with Scorbunny and literally shoved Cosmicco aside to get the first pick.

When Mist and Cosmicco were told Scorbunny is a fire type, Cosmicco freaked out and insisted Mist could not choose the fire type because yk, she's a reactive elemental and something as reactive as fire can make her literally implode. (Okay yeah, so Mist and Cosmicco aren't really from our universe but a universe close enough I& could make that comparison for simplicity xD)

Anyway, Mist insisted he was choosing the fire type and Cosmicco choose the "puppy," grookey. Yeah, she was informed grookey was a monkey but she is too stubborn to agree xD.

AND HERE IS WHERE SWSH PLAYS OUT! Or well, excluding the zaican and zamazenta stuff… and the Team Yell stuff… and the chairman-Rose-is-evil stuff… uh, actually, this actually all takes place years after the events of swsh... so ig it's just a galarian gym challenge, coming to think of it. xD

(Um, okay, I& will be honest. There is another crisis in exchange for the zaican and zamazenta stuff but… again, I& am really trying to improve my& brazen confidence and im& already sharing everything about Scorbunny so… if y'all would be interested in hearing this entire new plot, you must let me& know or I& won't be sharing it anytime soon.)

Anyway, this is about Scorbunny and not Mist-Jun so I'll& skip to the important parts and, if you wanna hear about Mist's and Cosmicco's adventures in more detail, let me& know!

So yk how Scorbunny's shiny colouring is very similar to its non-shiny colouring? Mist-Jun did not know his Scorbunny was shiny (plus, Mist and Co obviously wouldn't even know about shinies xD) but you know who did? Team Rocket! (So this is the part where I& am really hesitant about sharing because it probably sounds cringy and doesn't even make sense because TR is a Kanto organization and… so please, just push past if you think I'm& being cringe…)

So Team Rocket wants Scorbunny because he is shiny, right? Well, obviously Mist, Co, Scorbunny, and Grookey don't want Scorbunny to be taken! So throughout their gym challenge, they have to keep kicking TR's butts.

Oh, right! And did I& mention Scorbunny is basically the Let's Go partner? Grookey too, except Grookey is (significantly) less powerful. For example, Scorbunny somehow learned Pyro Ball just before the opening ceremony. You know, Cinderace's signature move? Even Hop was taken aback xD.

When Mist and Co got to motostoke for the opening ceremony, Scorbunny and Grookey ran off into one of the shops so Mist and Co naturally chased after them and found their pokemon looking at everstones! So that's how Scorbunny and Grookey got everstones :D. Alternatively, Scorbunny gave Mist-Jun this little charade about how he didn't want to evolve but Mist-Jun just could not understand what Scorbunny was trying to say. (that said, as time went on, Mist grew to understand Scorbunny better.). Funny thing is, Cosmicco knew exactly what Scorbunny was trying to say but just… didn't care enough to tell Mist xD.

Anyway, at some point in Mist's and Cosmicco's badge-collecting, Mist-Jun and Scorbunny were alone for some reason and saw a Team Rocket member (okay, okay. It was James; don't make fun of me&, he's literally just one of few TR members we know about.) on the beach desperately looking for something.

Against Mist's and Scorbunny's better judgement, they decided to find out what James was looking for. James said he wanted to surprise Meowth with an everstone but couldn't find any. (Let's just… pretend everstones can apparently be found on beaches. Also, don't ask why James doesn't just go steal one. Idk either-)

So Mist reluctantly agreed to help, despite Scorbunny's complaints. (Remember, Team Rocket was/is trying to steal Scorbunny!) But alas, in the end, neither James nor Mist could find an everstone. However, long story short, Mist agreed to trade James Scorbunny's everstone for an item that let a three-stage-evolution pokemon skip its second stage. (Yeah, it's not a real item in pokemon but like… None of this follows canon. Still haven't decided what the item should be called; any ideas?) Also, this makes Mist-Jun sound like a jerk but I& assure you, that was not my& intention xD.

Despite this, later in Mist's and Co's adventure, bam, bam, bam, something bad is happening and it is affecting Scorbunny. I& can't decide whether this "bad thing" has anything to do with Team Rocket, or if the gang just assumes it is TR's doing, or there's a third-party (which would be foreshadowing if I& decide it is) that's causing it and Mist is fed up, or w h a t but the bottom line is: Scorbunny very clearly isn't safe with Mist at all and has to move on.

So Mist-Jun sadly releases Scorbunny into the wild. (well, in a cave with a bunch of other Scorbunnies. Was this relevant to mention?)

Now, this part… is really hard to explain without giving a lot of premise and insight into Mist’s and Cosmicco’s gym challenge plot thingy. So… I’m& just going to break it down to what’s important. If yall want me& to share the rest of the au, tell me&. But I’ve& been rambling for ages and I& doubt anyone will even read this so…

Anyway. Basically, days/weeks/months after Mist released Scorbunny, Mist-Jun is about to get dramatically killed by some kind of ball of evil matter or smeth. But, oh look, Scorbunny soccer-style hit it back cuz he’s a soccer player who somehow mastered Pyro Ball as a kitten (did you know baby bunnies are called kittens?) and evolved into Cinderace in the progress *surprised pikachu face*. (Look, it’s late at night and I’ve& been writing this for h o u r s. I& don’t have the energy to write this properly, k?)

Oh right! I& drew something relating to this part a while ago!

Um, so yeahh, that’s the end! I& don’t think there’s anything else to say about Scorbunny… oh right! Mist-Jun never stopped referring to “Scorbunny” as Scorbunny because why would he change what he has been referring to Scorbunny the entire time? Yk? If that makes sense? I’m& just tired, okay? Er, like I& said, tell me& if you’re willing to listening to my& rambles about my& au! But you’ve gotta mean it :/.

I& have to say: I’m& proud of myself for sharing this! :D Brazen self-confidence! Feel free to ask about anything! (No really, please do; it makes me& happy to know people are interested--)

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 26

first time reader click here

TWs/SUMMARY: Drunken love confessions and other emotional constipation. A threesome between two awesome facial hair bros and reader. I'm absolutely unhappy with how this turned out because a certain sorcerer insisted on being super soft in this one. But at least there's porn...

On the same note, how do we feel about introducing more m/m action? I am a total slut for bisexual boys. I can't help the gay it just comes out...

I danced with Tony briefly as the drinks finally caught up to him. The ex-playboy certainly defended his title: he had impeccable sense of rhythm and we swayed on the floor in tandem, bothering very little with hiding how hot we were for each other. Grinding our hips together, my ass on his dick, Tony was half-hard and I felt it all through the layers of tulle of my skirt and leather of his pants. Now and then his hands wandered, shamelessly squeezing my breasts and my ass, his mouth leaving a blazing hot trail on my neck and my shoulders.

I wasn't far behind. Tony's hair was all kinds of messed up thanks to my own hands and his ass found itself in the very same palms far more than once. "It's a shame Bruce doesn't dance," I pouted drunkenly, receiving an equally intoxicated noise of vague approval. "The three of us are perfect," I stated something that had been boiling over in my head quite a bit.

Tony nodded again. "Yeah," He was far more touchy than usual; his lips landed in my hair right next to my ear. "Bet we can get Merlin, though. I saw him with Natasha earlier," Tony went in to kiss my cheek and missed again, sloppily smooching my temple.

"He has no business being that fuckin' hot," I spit out petulantly without a second thought.

"You're fuckin' right and you should say it," Tony agreed instantly, both of us wearing almost identical, indignant expressions. We paused for a moment, looking deeply into each other's eyes - or, well, we tried to. Drinks and drugs tended to make focusing quite hard. "So we're doing this?" Tony squinted questioningly.

"What about Bruce?" I immediately replied, mind going back to the way my sciency boyfriend was smirking at my and Tony's reaction to Stephen's grand entrance.

"He's okayed any and all our ventures provided we tell him about it," Tony said after a moment of stunned silence.

I chewed on my lip in muted amusement. "What's, he's got, like, a kink?" I tried to articulate my confusion. "And we somehow ended up, I mean all three of us - without talking?" I voiced my concerns. This conversation was really overdue and I'll be damned if that weren't the drugs making me talk. I would probably regret it in the morning...

Tony's eyes softened immediately, a palm raising to trace the side of my face lovingly and gently. "Me and Bruce had a conversation about... You. We both liked you, it's fucking impossible to dislike you, have you seen you? We had decided to let you choose at first, woved for it to not get in the way of our friendship..." He trailed off, looking sheepish and slurring his words slightly. The alcohol had loosened his lips too. I felt only the thump of the bassline, music fading away into the background, my ears hearing only the words leaving Tony's mouth. "I doubt it would have worked out anyways. But you..." He cupped my face. "You gave us everything."

I would have cried if not for the chemicals in my system. My mouth formed a smile on it's own accord and I reached closer to slot it over Tony's shaky grin, bringing us into a slow and sloppy kiss that lasted what felt like years. "I love you, okay? You and Bruce," I spit out the words I desperately wanted to say for so long. Nothing really mattered in the moment, it was just me and Tony and our shared feelings. It wasn't bizarre anymore, loving someone and being loved back.

"Me too, Princess, me too," Tony whispered, hiding his face in the crook of my neck. One of the many advantages of having a boyfriend that wasn't a six-foot tall muscle-bound fricking bastard.

"We have a mission," I reminded him after another song slowly transitioned into a different one. "But I'm also craving a cigarette."

Tony's hand encompassesed mine as he led the way to the patio where the smokers area was located. Bucky's shiny metal arm stood out amongst the partygoers and we made a beeline for him. I bummed a cigarette off him despite Steve's prominent frown and Bucky was even gentleman enough to light it up for me.

We needn't have looked for Strange, it was a few minutes after I'd taken my first drag that he appeared, spouting like a mushroom right after a rainfall. He was frowning. "Caught some douchebag trying to roofie a girl," He explained. Barnes gave him a cigarette without question, trading a dark look with Steve. "Natasha and Loki are taking care of it," Strange supplied, jerking a hand towards the back of the room.

Barnes eyed Tony until the latter gave a short, resigned nod. "Just don't do anything that will land me in the papers," The billionaire sighed before speaking several short commands into a bracelet that served as a direct communication device with Friday. "I raised the security monitors for any suspicious activity too. Put in an earpiece and Friday will notify you if someone else tries to act funny," Tony finished darkly, eyeing Stephen's shaking hands.

I choose to stay silent throughout the interaction, letting the pissed off men to blow off some steam before approaching them. Barnes' cigs migrated into my hands and I watched the tense, retreating backs of the super-soldiers until only the three of us were left in a comfortable silence. I waited until the man was done with his cancer stick and promptly grabbed his hands, gently but firmly stroking the scarred skin.

Tony leaned on the railing, watching us with open interest.

Strange cocked a curious eyebrow but didn't retract his hands, releasing a quiet sigh when my movements successfully calmed the tremors. "Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of being... Nice," He spoke after a moment.

"I know," I replied dryly. "But being nice all the time is boring."

"A day with you is never boring," Tony winked at us teasingly, noticing me step further into the sorcerer's personal space. His eyes were still glowing and whatever spell he had put on himself was still working, attracting me to him like a magnet.

Stephen looked to the side, at Tony, then at me, before gently pulling out a single hand and making an elaborate gesture that made his skin briefly shimmer. The unnatural pull disappeared - me and Tony both exhaled heavily - yet the appreciation for Stephen's lithe, agile form remained. He was a beautifully made man.

Tony made his own move, a signature of his, placing a steady palm on the taller man's back and looking up at Stephen through his eyelashes. The fresh air had sobered both of us up by quite a bit and our coordination returned.

Stephen smirked slightly, running his eyes over the crowd of partygoers gathered around us. Nobody was paying any particular attention to the three of us yet all of us were acutely aware how much damage could be done by a stray snapshot, an accidental Snapchat feature, or something drunkenly posted on public social media by an absolute stranger. Tony and Strange threw each other a secretive, heated glance while I pressed myself closer to Tony, still caressing one of Stephen's hands. To the public, it was nothing more than a friendly gesture to help out a close friend out of his discomfort.

"Your place? I'm afraid mine's a mess," Stephen asked, uncharacteristically dorky and overused pick-up line.

"Lead the way," Tony smirked, both of us sharing a muted giggle at the doctor's antics. In response, Stephen extracted his other hand from my grasp and waved them about in the familiar gesture of creating a portal. On the other side of the circle was the familiar scenery of Tony's penthouse bedroom, sheets, as always, unmade and my fluffy socks hanging half-way off the comforter.

I pulled both men into the circle by their forearms, making quick in hopes everybody around us was too drunk to take note of the surroundings on the other side of the portal. An obscenely large bed in plain view didn't leave much space for speculation.

I sat down on it, taking my time to observe the curious interaction between two men in front of me. The sexual tension between them was undeniable, it crackled in the space between their bodies, lit an unholy fire in their eyes. If I was completely honest with myself - Stephen was hot, but Stephen and Tony together, it was out of this world and I would have been very content to just hang back and watch the two of them going at it.

Untying and toeing off my shoes had me distracted for a brief moment - evidently enough for Stephen to lose his pretense and roughly grab Tony by his face, smashing their lips together gracelessly. Tony's hands grasped the expensive fabric of Stephen's blazer with a force that was equal to the one gathering in the low of my belly. The dress I wore was now carefully thrown over a nearby lounge chair, leaving me in a set of golden bra and tiny panties. It was a gift from Tony: he loved when I wore his colors.

My almost bare body got their attention: panting, they broke apart to stare at me, their gazes hungry enough to make me shiver and feel like prey. Tony's arms sandwiched me between them, letting Stephen's lips to taste mine for the first time. The sorcerer did not hesitate, he plunged his tongue into my mouth and immediately seized command of the kiss. He kissed like he fought, sharply, with precision and demand.

I popped the buttons on his shirt as he explored my mouth, finding the skin of his chest taut and textured with a multitude of smaller, thinner scars. He was built like a runner, or a swimmer, all lean muscle and sculpted hipbones and neatly stacked ribs. His shirt suffered a haste demise.

The thuds and jingles accompanied by quiet cursing behind my back alerted me to Tony's struggle with his intricately made costume. "Can you boom-boom-whoosh it away?" I asked Stephen.

He pulled away with an amused smirk, waving his glowing hands about. "Do what now?"

"It's what the internet calls your voodoo shit, don't quote me," Tony snarked, suddenly finding himself wearing only his boxers. I was promptly pulled to his chest, in what I knew was a defensive gesture - he hated showing off the scarred area around his arc reactor. He used to hide it from me, too.

Stephen hummed, once again waving his hands about in a surprisingly complicated set of motions. I was mesmerised by his hands - even despite the injuries, they remained as skilled and perplexing. Once Stephen was left in his underwear, I wasted no time in detaching from Tony and steering the sorcerer to fall freely into the large bed.

"You need to stop being so smug," I stated, climbing on top of Stephen and claiming his lips for myself. "It's bound to get you in trouble."

"Is that so?" And still, the man looked as satisfied as the cat who ate the canary. That just won't do.

"Tones, help me out, I'm trying to see smtn'," I asked, feeling the man settle in next to me and trace a gentle hand down my side, over my breast and down to the flat of Stephen's belly. The man under me shivered, face slowly heating up.

"Yes, dear?" My engineer supplied helpfully.

"Off," With a sudden change of pace, I snapped the elastic of Stephen's boxers, causing the man to jump and the very sizeable bulge in them twitch. Tony obediently pulled down the offending piece of clothing, causing Stephen to groan as the cool air hit the heated flesh of his most sensitive spots.

I settled between his thighs, spitting in my palm and giving his long cock a few solid strokes, enjoying the way his hips seemed to involuntarily follow the movement of my slick palm.

"I'd brace myself if I were you," Tony remarked teasingly, bending down to kiss the sorcerer again. Between my and Tony's mouths, Steph really didn't stand a chance.

The obscenely long moan that left his mouth was swallowed by Tony as my lips and tongue made to wrap around the very tip of Stephen's cock. I tasted the musk and the salt of him as I made down his long cock, taking extra time to warm up my throat for the incoming intrusion. And when I finally swallowed him, to the hilt, I swear I felt the way his body shook.

There was a lot more noise coming from the two men - I briefly lifted my eyes to see Stephen sucking a hickey onto the side of Tony's neck with a vigour, Tony's hand holding onto Stephen's hair as the taller man palmed the shorter man's bulge through his boxers.

I was pretty sure my juices were flowing down my thighs. The two men were a Sight; the drugs and booze in my system had me reaching new levels of arousal, levels I previously didn't even know existed. A needy noise left my lips, muffled by the delicious cock stretching them and I knew it was time to grant myself the thing I had been craving for so long.

Swiftly, I pulled off Stephen's cock and sat down into his lap, grinding my panty-covered mound atop his erection that laid on his belly, twitching and leaking. "You want a condom? We're clean and I'm on birth control," I offered.

"I'm clean, feel free to..." Stephen detached his mouth from Tony just long enough to mutter consent, immediately going back to taste the engineer's skin and mark it with his lips and teeth. By the time I she'd my underwear and slid down on his sizeable cock, I had noticed the necklace of blues and reds decorating Tony's neck and clavicles.

"Fuck, yessss..." I hissed, the emptiness within me finally fed. Experimentally raising my hips up and down a few times, I quickly found a rhythm that made for sinful noises to fall from both of our lips. Tony was whining, too, in impatience. "Tony, wanna try something?"

That piqued his interest. He looked at me, eyes unfocused and blown with lust. "Hm?" As Steph continued satiating his hunger for Tony's skin.

I carefully considered it before speaking. "Get behind me," I ordered breathily, slowing my pace just enough to keep me tethering on the brink of release.

"We need lube," He mumbled immediately, catching my drift - well, not quite.

"Nope, we don't. I can take both of you," I stated, bending over and spreading my legs a little wider. With Tony and Bruce, it would have been impossible considering the fact that Bruce's cock was as thick as a fuckin' coke can, but with Stephen being a little more reasonably sized... I must admit, I was curious. It certainly looked interesting enough in porn. Plus, it would allow the two men to feel each other-

"Fuckin' hell," Stephen groaned, one hand gripping my hip to steady himself. So that was a definite yes. "Princess, you're killing me here."

Tony took all of a whole second to get in position and spit in his hand, adding extra lubrication just in case. Thoughtful Tony. He needn't have worried, however - every inch from my thighs to Steph's balls was covered in my juices. To say that I was turned on would have been a massive fuckin' understatement.

"Fu-uck, you're so good, baby," Tony groaned. I felt the tip of his cock breach and stretch my entrance, finding the sting not painful but rather pleasurable. Inch by inch, I felt myself open up. The sensations were incredibly powerful, my release approaching even despite the steady slow movements that Tony was making.

"Harder," I begged, feeling my release approach with the force of a freight train. Both men complied, falling into a careful but powerful rhythm, shaking me to the core with each precise thrust. It didn't take long for me to clench and spasm around the cocks, making both men pick up the pace, their movements turning sloppy. My own imagination supplied the extra mile, figuring their cocks rubbing against each other inside my sloppy wet hole made it feel twice as intense.

Tony wrapped his forearm around my throat, putting a healthy arch to my back - I didn't know whose cock was hitting just the right spot and I didn't care. My eyes met Stephen's - he was watching me come undone, worrying his lip between his teeth, his own eyes darting between my and Tony's face. In a split second decision, I took hold of one of his hands and popped the index and middle fingers into my mouth, softly sucking on them, covering the digits in my little gasps and moans

Stephen's back arched and Tony groaned, stuttering his hips in response. As soon as the little crease between the sorcerer's eyebrows made a humble appearance, he was coming. "Fuck!" He yelped hoarsely, painting my insides and Tony's cock white. The engineer dropped his head onto my shoulders, panting, getting a few stuttered thrusts and he was coming, too, jerking almost violently behind me.

Him shoving his cock as deeply as possible within me triggered another wave of bliss for me. I followed the two men, gasping around the fingers in my mouth and behind the unyielding strength of Tony's arm. I felt wrung out, like a paper bag scrunched up and used...

In the best way. It was incredibly hot. The realisation that I had been marked by two glorious men from the inside out made me shiver and the men in question twitch in response to the involuntary flutter my pussy had done from my thoughts.

"Woah," Tony mumbled, gently pulling out of my sore and sloppy hole.

"Yeah," Stephen was finally speechless and tranquil. A picture of serendipity, really, with his arm thrown comfortably over his head and a sated little smirk on his face.

I couldn't resist pecking him on the lips as I slid off his body to nest myself between him and Tony who still seemed to be catching his breath. "You should be like this more often," I stated, feeling myself slip into drowsiness.

"Gimme a reason," Stephen mumbled, barely a trace of his usual sarcasm.

"Oh we will," Tony finished darkly, throwing a sheet over the three of us and settling a comfortable arm across my waist, palm flat on Stephen's tummy. Last thing I heard before I fell into a deep sleep was Stephen's blunt nails scratching softly along Tony's scalp.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit ​ @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​ @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie @mikariell95

[quillsink]

Hi Ink!

So I have a couple questions-advice-thingies I want to ask you, if that's okay.

You said you were under 17, right? So I'm assuming you're still at school. How do you balance your blog with your schoolwork, if you have any? I also have an amrev blog and I've been struggling a lot with it. I get distracted by tumblr a lot and I have too much overdue work. I'm wondering how you get it done.

And you write fanfiction too, right? How do you find the time to have a (really funny, may I add) blog, do your schoolwork, and write great fics like that????? like I'm seriously wondering how you manage??

and if you don't go to school and/or you also have hw problems, then lmao ignore this

Hey anon!

Yeah, I‘m always open for questions! I won’t respond if it’s too personal, but my inbox is always open!

Yeah, I’m under the age of seventeen, and dragging myself through high school (ugh). I do have a lot of schoolwork! For the past few weeks, I’ve been on holiday, so I’ve been more active. When school restarts in the next few days I probably won’t be online as much.

Ahhh yes the ol’ I get distracted by tumblr. My tip for this is — make your friends your alarm. I’ll say on the server “yall if you see me online in the next one hour bonk me on the head i need to study.” This way, if they see me on tumblr or discord they’re like INK GO THE FUCK BACK TO YOUR TEXTBOOK.

Another tip is to take away your devices while studying. Take your ipad or phone or laptop and put it away in a corner of your room. What I do is I set a timer for one hour, and I keep that tab open, while I walk up and down in my room and study. The times reminds me “hey you go to another tab youre being unproductive” and the deadline pressures me into studying.

Another tip for not getting distracted is to not follow too many people! The less chaotic your dash is, the less you’ll want to check it. Try to limit your follows to people whose content you think is something you’ll want to see 99% of the time. My rule is, you look at someone’s blog, at least half of their listed fandoms you have to be in, and the 5 most recent posts on their blog have to be something you’d like to see. I often go through my followers and unfollow some people, and I’m also not joining any more discord servers—two is enough for me.

So yeah, set limits for yourself!

See anon the answer is I have no friends-

No actually it’s quarantine and it’s currently holidays, so I have the time to do all I want. Back in April when I was still in online school, I would generally do homework during class, so I would finish all my homework and classwork in the first part of the day when the teachers were rambling about nonsense (I multitask aight lmaoo) and by the second half of the day I could chat on discord and check tumblr, then after school I’d study for a few hours, then check social media, etc. Most of my fic writing is done on the weekends or a spare half an hour on weekdays. I’m churning out fics pretty fast now cuz holidays, but during school I’d write maybe 1-2k words every weekend.

Okay this was very long lmao, but I hope you find it helpful!

(And yes even though I don’t listen in class I still pass, the teachers are shit and they can’t teach, I’ve learned more from the textbook than their incoherent rambling. My teacher once taught us an entire concept, then told us “lol i was wrong” and didn’t reteach it, so i just don’t listen to them any more and learn from the textbooks, khan academy and crash course) 

[natromanxoff]

Queen live at Capital Centre in Landover, MD, USA - November 29, 1977

(x)

A fan filmed the first couple minutes of the show on a silent Super 8 camera, but he was caught by a security guard and the film was confiscated.

Another fan recalls the band took a 30 minute break in the middle of the show, and started the second half of the show with Tie Your Mother Down. He also says they performed both Spread Your Wings and It's Late.

Here is a review of the show from the next day's Washington Post. It reveals that the band have swapped Keep Yourself Alive with Now I'm Here. The former now follows Bohemian Rhapsody in the setlist, as it had earlier in the year.

There is a great story on Brian May's website by Tracy Chevalier, who attended the show as a youngster:

It started with a champagne toast and ended with a limo pulling away into the night. In between these two gestures symbolising glamour and sophistication, I lost my virginity. Not in the technical sense (that would take another few years), but in other ways. At my first ever rock concert — going with four friends to see Queen at the Capital Centre in November 1977 — I got an eye-opening peek at elements of the adult world, with its power and its limitations, its glittering artifice and dirty reality, and it demonstrated how little I knew and how much I had yet to learn about life.

I was ripe for it; overdue, really. I had turned 15 the month before the concert, and though people thought I looked older than I was, I was remarkably naive and unworldly at that age. Despite a few character-building events in my childhood — the death of my mother when I was almost 8, the experience of being a minority in DC public schools — I was so unsophisticated, so unaware of the world, that I didn’t even realise Queen was an English band until the lead singer Freddie Mercury appeared in a tight white catsuit on stage at the Capital Centre, raised a glass of champagne at 18,000 screaming fans, and toasted us with “Good evening, Washington” in a fruity English accent. I was stunned. Then I started screaming.

I had been a Queen fan for a couple of years by then. A Night at the Opera was the first LP I bought, and I could sing every word of every song. I don’t remember how I was introduced to Queen — though I do remember hearing their biggest hit, Bohemian Rhapsody, on the radio and being impressed by its audacity. It sure beat the hell out of the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, which had been my older sister’s staple music diet. By 14, I was writing Queen lyrics on the desk where I sat for algebra class, swapping them back and forth with a boy I had a crush on, and daydreaming of guitarist Brian May kissing me.

The concert was part of Queen’s News of the World tour. While not a great album, especially after the double whammy of A Night at the Opera and its follow-up, A Day at the Races, it did produce two of their best-known songs, We Will Rock You and We are the Champions, which drop-kicked them firmly into stadium anthem territory. Appropriately, the concert began with the lights going down and the primitive, effective, impossible-not-to-join-in-with BOOM- BOOM-CHI, BOOM-BOOM-CHI, BOOM-BOOM-CHI intro to We Will Rock You rolling over the audience. Everyone immediately jumped up out of their seats and began to stomp and clap along. I, too, stood and stomped and clapped, watching in awe as people began flicking their Bic lighters, a gesture I had never seen before. What, were they going to set light to something? I had tried not to act surprised earlier when people nearby started smoking grass in public, but now was there going to be a riot? What other illegal things would go on that night? Then a spotlight picked out Freddie Mercury, who began to sing, “Buddy you’re a boy, make a big noise, playin’ in the street, gonna be a big man someday . . .” and I thought, “Jesus H. Christ, that is the loudest noise I’ve ever heard! Is that legal?” The wall of sound terrified me, and I wanted to cover my ears, but I didn’t dare, as it would have been a very uncool thing to do. I think I looked around for the exit, wondering how many people I would have to climb over to escape the sound. It was just so goddamned loud — exhilarating, yes, but painful, too, dangerous and overwhelming. I wavered between loving it and hating it, but knew it would be uncool to hate it, so I’d better try to love it.

Towards the end of the song the single note of an electric guitar began to hum louder and louder under the chorus we were all singing and shouting, and Brian May stepped into the light to add his distinctive sound, ending We Will Rock You with low, long-sustain, three-part harmony chords, overlaid with a high melody he made fuzzy and metallic by using a coin as a guitar pick. I adored Brian May. He was the reserved, straight guy (literally) to Freddie Mercury’s camp high jinks — tall, dark, good-looking, with long curly hair and a melancholy pensiveness that made every teenage girl want to comfort him. At this concert he was wearing a silvery white jacket with long, pleated wing sleeves; that combined with his mop of curls should have made him look effeminate, but instead he was deeply sexy.

I loved Freddie, too, for his outrageous antics, his riskiness, his joy at performing and glorious indifference to how ridiculous he looked wearing glittery leotard jumpsuits, eyeliner and a mullet, prancing and strutting and posing, twitching his hips, smacking his lips and otherwise hamming it up. But even without being conscious of Freddie’s sexual preference — I hadn’t yet met anyone who was openly gay — I instinctively sensed he was not to be lusted after. For all his extrovert, welcoming stage presence, he was clearly playing a part, which served to hold us at arm’s length; whereas Brian May’s taciturn moodiness was clearly himself served up raw.

Thank God for Freddie, though. Without him, no one would have moved on stage: Brian May was not a dancer, John Deacon, in time-honoured bassist tradition, stood solidly in one place throughout, and Roger Taylor was trapped by his drum kit.

To set us at our ease, after We Will Rock You Freddie toasted us with a glass of champagne — “Moët et Chandon, of course,” after the reference in the hit Killer Queen. My friends and I heard this and screamed and clutched one another. He mentioned Moët et Chandon! That was our champagne! He was acknowledging us! I swear he made eye contact with me, 200 yards away and over the heads of thousands.

For we had done what we thought was the most original and extravagant gesture (for 15-year-olds) a fan could make: we had sent a bottle of champagne backstage. We’d pooled our money and gotten an older sister to buy it for us — the same sister who had been obliged to drive us all the way to the Capital Centre, smirking at our overexcited fandom. We’d even made our way to the stage door down a loading dock at the back of the arena and reluctantly handed over the precious bottle to a bored roadie, who said he would take it to the band. We’d had our doubts about his reliability, and his jadedness had dampened our enthusiasm a bit: had we really blown all that money — $20, which in those days meant 20 hours of babysitting — to have some unshaven jerk with a beer belly swill the precious liquid? But clearly the roadie had pulled through for us, for there was our champagne in Freddie Mercury’s hand, and he was referring to Moët et Chandon in his pretty cabinet, the lyrics we had so cleverly quoted in the note we sent along with the bottle. We were sure we — among the many thousands — had managed to get through to the band.

If we had bothered to look around rather than feast our eyes on Brian and Freddie (I’m afraid John Deacon and Roger Taylor never got a look-in from me), we probably would have seen other clusters of fans also screaming and clutching one another during Freddie’s toast. But we didn’t look around or harbour doubts, or we ignored them. It was only much later that I allowed myself to consider the veritable champagne lake that must have existed backstage at every Queen concert. Tip to rock stars: want a free truckload of champagne wherever you go? Sing a song that mentions some — preferably name-checking a more expensive brand to ensure better quality — and watch it pour in backstage every night from adoring fans. There must have been a hundred bottles from fans back there, not counting the stash the band may well have brought with them in case Portland or Houston or Detroit weren’t so generous. No wonder that roadie looked so bored — he’d probably been put on champagne duty that night.

Freddie’s toast worked its magic, though, giving me the connection I needed to negotiate a place within the strangeness of the concertgoing experience itself: the weird, scary power of a crowd; the mixture of exhilaration and embarrassment at collective participation; the physical discomfort of standing for two hours when there’s a perfectly comfortable seat behind you. It is one of those tricky, unresolved tensions at concerts: are we there to listen to the music or actively respond to it, participate as a group or answer our needs as individuals? It’s an issue I’ve never entirely resolved — from Queen onwards I have spent concerts going in and out of myself, losing myself to the music and spectacle one minute, the next minute overly conscious of myself clapping or singing or screaming, and wondering why concerts have to be such an uncomfortable physical ordeal.

I was taken aback by the sound of Queen’s music live: not just the volume, but the familiarity and also the strange rawness of the songs. Studio albums have all the mistakes airbrushed out, the layers added in, the balance between players carefully calibrated, like clever dialogue in a play without the awkward pauses and unfinished conversations you get in real life. Queen albums were highly produced, multi-layered affairs. Live, the music was necessarily stripped of a lot of the choral mixing, more raucous, simpler and much messier.

The band wisely didn’t dare attempt to reproduce in its entirety the long, baroque confection that is Bohemian Rhapsody. For the infamous operatic middle section, the band members left the stage as the studio recording played. Freddie and Brian then changed costume, and, at the word “Beelzebub”, all four men popped out of a door in the stage floor and joined live again for the heavy metal section, fireworks going off, dry ice pouring out, everyone going berserk, me in tears of excitement. It was one of the best live moments I’ve ever witnessed. Indeed, I was spoiled by seeing Queen play live before anyone else; for sheer exuberant theatricality, no one else has come close.

The concert ended with an instrumental version of God Save the Queen and once more the flicking of the Bics, which, no longer the virgin concertgoer, I understood now as a gesture of tribute. My friends and I weren’t finished, though. Emboldened by Freddie’s toast, we decided to go to the stage entrance again and say hello. I still choke with embarrassment when I think of it. When we got there, a black limousine was pulling away, our heroes and their entourage inside, and we were left with the detritus: older, dolled-up, hard-bitten groupies who had followed the band around and not made this night’s cut. I stared at one, at her long, bleach-blond hair, her miniskirt, her bright red lipstick. She glared at me briefly; then her face went slack as she dismissed the idea of me being any sort of competition. In fact, I had not really taken in that there was a competition, that the girls (and I?) were here to spread our wares and catch the attention of one of the men, and then . . . And then? I hadn’t thought it through at all. I wouldn’t have known what to do with such a man as Brian May if he even so much as looked at me. All I knew was that I was way, way out of my depth, that even if I had eluded the roadie minding the door, there was no way I was ever going to get past a woman like this.

The contrast between the sparkling theatricality of the concert and the gritty reality of the backstage, with its dirty concrete, anonymous faces and unfulfilled dreams turned my stomach, and almost ruined the night. I wished I hadn’t seen it, because it reminded me that the show was a fantasy, while it was my aching feet and the roadies’ boredom and the groupies’ hard desperation that constituted real life. As I stood watching the limo pull away and the unsexy women stand about, licking their wounds, looking for a ride to the next city and another chance, I felt as if a door had been kicked open a crack on to a world I knew nothing about: the seamy underbelly of the concertgoing experience, a mix of sex and power and exploitation, of cigarettes and poorly applied make-up and long, cold nights waiting to be noticed and defining yourself by someone else’s attention. If that was grown-up life, I didn’t want to know about it. I wanted the champagne toast, but not the limo. Not yet.

Fan Stories

“I had just turned 16 a few weeks earlier. I was absolutely 100% in love with Queen (since age 13 when first hearing Killer Queen on the radio) and therefore could hardly believe my sister's friend, who worked with her at the Roy Rogers restaurant at the mall, who said she knew Freddie Mercury's girlfriend, Mary, and that she was going to get a backstage pass and would try to get one for us as well. Well, just before the concert she met my sister at a pre-arranged point (inside the venue) and said that she was unable to get us the backstage passes. You can imagine my disappointment and my thinking at this point that this girl was not telling the truth about knowing Freddie's girlfriend (it seemed too good to be true to me to begin with). Then after the concert, which was great of course, we were depressed (my sister and I - but especially me) at not getting to meet them, so we decided to wait for their limo to come out of the underground parking area at the Capital Centre. When it emerged we got so excited we decided to sprint to our big blue station wagon and follow them. With my learner's permit only, I followed them at probably over 80 miles per hour - I remember it being the fastest I had ever driven but I was determined not to lose them - to a restaurant somewhere in DC. At that age, I didn't have my bearings around the city. We didn't want to freak them out so I think we just watched them go inside from our car. Then we ended up waiting outside in the cold air for I think around 2 hours - anyway - enough to turn my nose red and make my lips and toes numb. We weren't allowed in the restaurant - and there was a bouncer from Liverpool out front that prevented us from even going in the lobby to warm up. At one point Roger came down the stairs into the lobby and I smiled at him and he smiled back and started over to the door - but was stopped by another man who grabbed his arm. So then he just continued downstairs to the bathroom, and ignored us when he went back up the stairs. When they finally emerged from the restaurant, I was frozen in more ways than just the temp. Brian said, "It's a bit cold out here". One of them (I don't know who because I think I was in shock) said, "So, were you at the concert?" And we said yes. My friend who was hardly a Queen fan grabbed the attention for herself by shouting "That was the best concert I've ever seen!" or some such thing. I was so embarrassed not being able to think of anything to say in my stunned condition. Freddie looked at me briefly then looked over at my sister. He nodded at my sister but he never stopped walking to the limo. Brian walked over to me and said something like, "Did you enjoy the concert?" and I think I mumbled something like, "Yes. It was fantastic." Then all I could think to say was "Can I have your autograph?" He said "Sure" and ended up giving me the autograph and his pen. So I had to tap him on the arm to get his attention to give him his pen back. "Here's your pen." Can you imagine - here I am meeting my idols and all I can say is this? This all happened within about 20 or 30 seconds it seemed, and they all got into the limo quickly - they seemed pretty tired. I can't remember if they had one or two limos. All four of the members were there and I think a couple of other men - probably manager and driver(s). Freddie didn't say anything, just acknowledged us without a smile and got into the limo. John did the same. I remember thinking Brian was pretty tall. I stood very close to him. I am almost 5 foot 9 and he towered above me it seemed. Of course the hair probably added several inches! The best part of the story I guess is that my sister's friend, the one who knew Mary, said that when the band got back to the hotel they said there were some "nice working girls" waiting outside the restaurant. I guess they thought we were older - we were only 16 and 17 and still in high school of course. We were dressed very conservatively and with long coats.

My sister's co-worker said that she was good friends with Mary, because their families had been neighbors, and so was happy to get to visit with her. Also she said she thought that Freddie was the nicest member of the group, but very shy.” - Donna13

[airis-paris14]

Starlight 2

Summary: Amani is an orphaned heiress who’s spent most of her life raising her younger sister. T’Challa is a widowed King and Father. Neither of them is expecting much from their night at the Lotus. But the coming months have many milestones in store for these young adults. Will becoming a family be one of them?

A/N: This is long overdue. I’m applying to school to continue my education, so life is a little crazy. Hopefully after November everything will slow down and I can update more regularly. A new chapter of this story is half done, as well as a chapter of Redemption and Dress Up. They should be out in the next few weeks, probably after November 15. Keep me in your prayers, I’m slowly losing my mind y’all. 

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Amani rolled over yawning as the sun streamed through her window. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and walked into the bathroom. She shot her sister a good morning text and hopped in the shower. After she brushed her teeth and washed her face, Amani threw on a sundress and some sandals. 

She grabbed an apple from the kitchen and skipped out to sit on the porch. Amani sighed watching the sun creep up over the buildings.The young woman bit into her apple and watched traffic build up in front of Atlantic station. She noticed a limousine cruise through the traffic light and grinned. She tossed the apple core,washed her hands, and grabbed her small purse off of the couch. After grabbing her camera off of the kitchen counter she hurried back to the porch.

The untimely death of her parents gave her and her sister a lifetime of financial security. Faced with this reality Amani decided to give YouTube a chance. She started a vlogging channel a few years back and had a significant following. She had quickly discovered her passion for content creating. Checks from YouTube and waitressing were her means of income for shopping and travel. She double checked all of her necessities once more as the limo pulled silently to the curb. Amani forced herself not to run down the porch stairs, stopping herself halfway when the front door of the car opened. A woman in all black stepped out, opened the backdoor, and out bounded a very energetic Ada. The young princess ran across the yard into Amani's arms. "Hello to you too," Amani laughed as she hugged the little girl back.

Amani looked up to find T'Challa grinning and stepping out of the car. "Hello" he greeted. 

"Hi," the young vlogger breathed, before coming back to her senses. Ada pulled her over to the car. "Let's go Amani," Ada bounced as the woman in black opened the door. Amani laughed and followed the princess into the car. T'Challa filed in next to her. The two smiled at each other before looking away.

"Where are we off to first?" Amani asked the little princess, as the car pulled onto the highway. "Baba reserved the aquarium since they have the most visitors," the little girl explained as she looked at the buildings. "Look Baba, That building looks like a pink piano!" Ada exclaimed as she jumped up excitedly.

"I see princess, but what did we talk about ?" He gently reminded her. The little girl's mouth formed an “o” as she settled in her seat. "Sorry Baba,"She said, still looking out of the window. T'Challa smiled,"no need to apologize."

“Tell me about Wakanda.” Amani propositioned the king beside her. The father watching as his daughter eagerly stared at all of the buildings. “What would you like to know?” he turned to face her. “What do you want me to know?”

“It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. We have the best sunsets, and at night, you can see the stars like a blanket above you. There is so much to say that words can’t express it all,” T’Challa stared off outside the window.

The young vlogger grinned. "Well you'll have to show me around one day. A city tour for a city tour" she joked as they pulled up to the aquarium.

They stepped out of the limousine and the woman in black escorted them inside. The building was empty as the unofficial family wandered through together. “Baba! Baba! Look! Over here! Look!” Ada’s squeals tickled Amani. The young woman snickered as the four year-old dragged her father over to a tank. Amani wandered close by before settling on a bench. A smile spread on her face as T’Challa bent over the tank to pet stingrays with his daughter.

"You look beautiful by the way,"T'Challa said as he sat next to Amani on the bench a little while later. 

"Thank you," Amani blushed as T'Challa grabbed the camera."What’s this for? You haven't taken any pictures today." The handsome man looked at Amani expectantly.

“I'm a vlogger on YouTube. I make videos about my day to day life for a week, then I edit and post them." Amani explained. "Would you mind if I take some video?"

"Sure,” he stood up offering her a hand. "Everything will have to be approved by the public relations team in Wakanda before you could post it though." The couple stood up and followed Ada into the sea walk.

 Fish, sharks, and stingrays of all sizes swam the glass tunnel around them. The little girl ran from side to side pointing at fish as each new one swam by. Amani laughed and ran up to Ada, “Look princess,” Amani lifted her up so that she could reach for the ceiling. Her eyes growing huge as a whale swam directly by her hand. Amani placed  Ada back down as they moved further into the exhibit. The glass walkway opened into a large glass exhibit hall. Ada ran down to the front row. Her face pressed to the glass. She squealed excitedly as the animals swam by. Amani and T’Challa took a seat on one of the carpet terraces. 

“The video approval is fine. The approval by the relations team I mean,” The vlogger smiled, finishing the conversation from earlier. “I guess I should make sure I only get your good side huh?” 

“Every side is my good side,” the king teased.

"That’s the truth,” Amani muttered.

“Why thank you Ms. Okeke.” 

 Amani's face flushed red as she realized what she said. "You’re welcome," the young woman shrugged fumbling with her camera. She began recording the different fish and Ada, who was still running all around the aquarium exhibit. Amani and T’Challa followed along together in silence. The two stole glances at each other in between Amani recording, and T’Challa responding to his daughter. 

“How does she have so much energy in that tiny body,” Amani laughed. She waved back at the little princess as she watched the fish in the tank across from them.

“Her mother was the same way. Always lighting up the room when she walked in.”

“Will you tell me about her?” Amani turned off her camera. She studied T’Challa’s face as he watched Ada convince Ayo to watch the penguins with her. Her four year old body trying to drag the warrior with her. “We had known each other since high school. We dated in college, and then we married young. We were so happy, so in love. Then she became pregnant, and I was over the moon. We spent months taking birthing classes. I cleared my schedule to go shopping for the baby. As she got further along in the pregnancy I would stay up with her talking about baby names until we both fell asleep. She gave me my Ada, and I love her for it.” T’Challa sighed, twisting a ring around his left ring finger.

“She sounds wonderful,” the waitress smiled sadly. 

“Thank you, for doing this for Ada, I know she misses her mother when we go on these long trips.” T’Challa smiled, squeezing Amani’s hand. “Baba!” Ada ran up to the couple. “They have a penguin show! We have to go, they said I could meet the penguins” The little girl jumped up and down, pulling her father along behind her. 

Amani sighed, pulled out her camera, and trekked along behind the two into the auditorium. Guilt, jealousy, and hurt flooded her system and she watched father and daughter. She knew that she shouldn’t get attached. He just seemed too good to be true. He seemed to be a good father. He was royalty and he was charming. Him being single was just too much to ask of the universe. This day was for Ada and then they’d both go home to another woman. His wife, and Ada’s mother. Though, Amani knew she was already in too deep. She wouldn’t be able to stop her growing attachment now. 

The rest of the afternoon she kept her distance, stayed mostly with Ada and avoided T’Challa’s gaze. That afternoon Amani found herself and Ada leading the way to the ice cream shop. “Which flavor are you gonna get princess?” Amani twirled the little girl as they walked down the street. 

“I don’t know. I’ve only had chocolate. It was my mama and baba’s favorite. It’s the only thing he buys.” Ada hopped over a crack in the sidewalk. “Then we’ll have to get a bunch of samples.”

“Not too many,” T’Challa walked up to the duo. “Of course your majesty.” Amani replied, winking at the young princess when her father wasn’t looking. 

Ten samples and a double scoop deconstructed waffle sundae comprise later, T’Challa watched as his daughter and Amani split the warm fluffy waffle covered in ice cream, syrup, whipped cream, and toppings. People milled around the open air mall as the incognito king and princess enjoyed their Saturday. It wasn’t hard for him to notice the distance Amani had created after talking about Nakia. He mentally kicked himself for possibly ruining it. It wasn’t hard to see that Amani had effortlessly melted into his little family. She and Ada were a joy to watch together and her smile lit up the room. He knew he wanted to cultivate a relationship, even if only a friendship. 

“Who’s up for pizza?” T’Challa grinned. Amani and Ada frowned at him. “What? I’m still hungry.” T’ Challa insisted as he cleared their double scoop waffle sundae from the table.

 “How about we get some pizza to-go and we can walk over to my house. It’s just a few streets over. By then Ada and I will have worked off our sundae. Just in time for pizza.” Amani suggested. T’Challa shrugged.  

“Is that a yes?” Amani frowned. “Please Baba, please?” Ada pouted. 

“I never said it was a no.” the king smiled, helping Ada down from her stool. He and Amani reached for her purse at the same time. The waitress grabbed her purse and quickly avoided his hand. T’Challa sighed as she sent him a soft smile and grabbed Ada’s hand. After a slightly amusing debate between Amani and Ada about pizza toppings the small band, pizza in hand, started the walk to Amani’s house.  T’Challa watched as Amani tried to lift an extremely sleepy Ada. 

“Trade you,” the king chuckled, handing the woman the pizza. Amani  grabbed the warm cardboard box and watched as T’Challa pulled Ada into his arms. The princess snuggled into her father’s neck and drifted off to sleep. Awkward silence filled the space around them. 

T’Challa cleared his throat, “Today was fun.”

“It was, thank you for inviting me along,” Amani replied. The two walked up the stairs to Amani’s house. As she fished for her keys, T’Challa grabbed the pizza box with his free arm. “Thanks, the waitress sighed using both hands to unlock the door. “No problem,” the king followed her into the townhome. Amani grabbed the box and pointed T’Challa towards the spare room, “You can lay her in there. There should be a blanket at the bottom of the bed, it can get a little chilly in there.”

“Thank you.” 

Amani nodded as she washed her hands and grabbed three plates and some cups. With T’Challa’s retreating footsteps Amani took her first deep breath of the day. “Get it together sis,” Amani mumbled. “ What am I saying?” Amani grabbed a plate from the stack.

“Do you often talk to yourself?”

Amani cursed as she dropped the plate back on to the counter. The porcelain shattered into a million pieces. “I did not mean to scare you,” the king chuckled, walking over to help Amani gather the pieces.

“Haha.” Amani hurried to grab the pieces. “Be careful. I would not want you to cut your hand.” T’Challa reached out to pull Amani’s hand back. “I got it,” she jerked away, consequently slicing her hand. “Frick,” she muttered tears brewing in her eyes. She pulled her hand closer to her chest, trying to stop the incessant shaking. 

“May I see?”

Amani nodded, biting her lip to keep from crying. The king wet a paper towel and began to wrap her hand. “Are you okay,” he looked up from wrapping to search for her eyes. He felt her tense as his finger traced the planes of her hand. 

“I will be,” Amani pulled her hand away, purposefully avoiding T’Challa’s eyes. “Amani just let me help you,” the king insisted. “The pizza might be cold before I get back. Feel free to eat as much as you want. There is lemonade in the fridge.” She hurried away as T’Challa called out to her. 

Amani took the time to gather her thoughts as she wrapped her hand. She sighed once the cut was cleaned, medicated, and bandaged. With nothing left to escape reality she walked back into the living room. The king was still sitting at the counter. The pizza was untouched. He looked up at her approach. “I cleaned up the rest of the pieces for you. And I took the pizza out of the box and put it in the oven to stay warm.”

“You didn’t have to wait on me to eat. I would have been fine using the micro-”

“I wanted to wait on you Amani.” the king silenced her. Her mouth formed an ‘o’ as she settled across from him at the sink. 

“How is your hand?”

“It’s all good. I took some pain medication too.” she raised the now gauze wrapped hand into view. 

“Good. I’ll take out the pizza.”

“Cool… Umm. It’s getting kind of late, you and Ada are more than welcome to crash here. Spend the night that is. I can put her in my sister’s room and you can have the guest room.”

“We would not want to inconvenience you.” T’Challa raised the pizza from the oven. “It’s not an inconvenience. Think of it as a thank you,” the woman shrugged. 

“Well, then who am I to say no eh?” the king smiled, reaching over Amani to grab her a plate. She backed away from his arm. 

“Did I do something wrong Amani?”

“No,psht, why would you think that?”

“You are a horrible liar,” the king sighed, placing the plate in front of her. He quickly made his own plate and went back to his seat. The two ate in silence. “I wanted to explain about earlier.”

“There’s nothing to explain. I understand-“ 

“Please Amani let me finish!” The king roared. Amani jumped slightly in her seat. “I am sorry I did not mean to-“ T’Challa started to apologize. 

“I think that we should wake Ada up now-“ Amani started, trying to shuffle away from the counter. 

“Amani-“ the king reached out to grab her hand. Amani practically leaped away from his touch. She hurried down the hall into Ada’s room. T’Challa sighed, his face falling into his hands. 

Amani listened silently as Ada rambled on with her father. She moved her pizza crust around on her plate before getting up to throw it away. “Amani?” Ada’s tony voice pulled Anahi out of her head. 

“Yes princess?” 

“Why are you sad?” She tilted her head to the side. Amani’s lip trembled and spread into a small smile. “I just miss my little sister,” Amani bluffed. “It always helps me and my dad to talk about mama when we are sad.” 

“Ada-“ T’Challa warned. 

“She is fine,” Amani stopped him, “Maybe tomorrow princess,” Amani watched as the little girl hopped down and ran to hug her legs. “Thank you princess, I really needed that.”  Amani picked her up and held the child close before letting her go. She grabbed her hand and began to lead her to Amare’s bedroom. “I got it,” T’Challa stepped in grabbing his daughter's hand. 

“Oh okay. Bedroom is upstairs, the second door on the left. There’s a bathroom in there, and some towels in the closet. I’ll bring a t-shirt for her to sleep in.” 

T’Challa nodded and led his daughter up the stairs. 

Amani sighed and grabbed the pizza box to throw away. She flipped off all of the downstairs lights and pulled out a pair of her father’s old pajamas for T’Challa to wear. She chose a set of towels from the linen closet and placed them on the guest bed. She trudged upstairs into her bedroom and grabbed a t-shirt for Ada to wear after her bath. She tiptoed down the hall to drop Ada’s shirt off. She smiled to herself hearing the child and her father singing a song together she listened for a few more moments before slipping back out into her room. She took a quick shower and pulled on pajamas and a bonnet. She sat down at her computer to edit. 

A few minutes into editing footsteps echoed outside of her door before T’Challa knocked. “Come in,” Amani’s heart pounded when the king walked into her room. “I just wanted to thank you for everything. You’ve been more than amazing and Ada adores you. Which is rare cause she’s always weary around strangers. She associates strangers with her mother being gone.”

Amani beamed, then let it fall at his last sentence. She swallowed. “I live having her around too. She’s so sweet.”

“Just like someone else I know,” T’Challa smiled leaning against the door frame. “Yeah you told me your wife used to light up the room like that,”Anani forced a smile. “Yes. But I was talking about a certain YouTuber whom I’d like to take out sometime.” 

“What would your wife think?”

“I think after four years she would  want me to meet someone new.”

“She left you?” 

“Amani, Nakia is dead.”

Amani’s eyes widened. “I…” she gaped at T’Challa. “That’s what I was trying to explain earlier in the kitchen.”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier at the aquarium?” 

“It did not seem relevant to the question.” 

“I asked about your wife?”

“Yes you asked about Nakia. She is more than just a dead princess. She was a friend and a mother.”

“I understand. That doesn’t make it right though. You don’t think you should’ve clarified that before asking me out on a date?” 

“I know and I apologize for making you uncomfortable,” T’Challa moved out of the door frame and into Amani’s bedroom. “I noticed that you avoided me for the rest of our day out with Ada.”

“I didn’t feel right flirting with a married man in front of his daughter.” 

“So now that neither of us is married..” T’Challa moves to sit on the bed. Amani stood up. “I think that we should call it a night. There are towels, toiletries, and pajamas on your bed downstairs.” 

T’Challa sighed and walked back towards the door. “Goodnight Amani,” he bowed. 

“Goodnight,” Amani responded facing the wall by her desk. Only turning to look once she heard T’Challa’s footsteps leave the room. 

She fell on to the bed and sighed before sitting up, “Shit. He’s single.”

 Taglist: @sarahboseman @waitingonafriend @thiccdaddy-mbaku @sarcastic-sunshines @ororowrites @derangedcupcake @mzbritt @leahnicole1219 @dramaqueeenamby @marvelheaux @skysynclair19 @halfrican-heat @kaciidubs @queertrex @kumkaniudaku @purple-apricots @autumn242 @thedelightfulone @90sinspiredgirl @royallyprincesslilly @wikiwakanda @chaneajoyyy @sisterwifeudaku @sarahboseman @tchoking @almostpurelysmut

[edwardslostalchemy]

the thing that kills me about bakugou is when the plf go "having a powerful quirk means i'm better than you"and basically advocate for eugenics, it's horrible and corrupt, but when bakugou does it, it's lol funny and 'oh that gremlin.' in a recent chapter he made fun of the past OFA holders for having 'weak' quirks and dying and he said these things in front of Toshi, who has himself given so much. just...what was the point of him knowing about OFA if he was just going to be a disrespectful ass?

I have no idea why it was necessary for him to know, tbh. I think it was a waste of an opportunity to give him growth by NOT telling him. And honestly, I agree that k*tsuki and the plf have similar ideals because they’re elitists. :/ They think they’re better than others. Unironically, the lov wanting k*tsuki on their side would have been like, them all sharing this same thought. Idk, I just don’t like him. The things he says and does are played off as comedic relief now and it’s honestly so annoying. He needs to be brought down from his pedestal. 

(I have multiple messages so I am putting them all in one post under a read more, I hope it works, but if somehow it doesn’t, I’m really sorry. My computer says it works, but mobile doesn’t show it. This will be a long post.)

Anonymous said:

You know... I wouldn’t mind Bakugou winning vs Ochako so much if his blast had simply redirected enough rubble for him to make it though the pelting, and the fight had ended with an actual visible inflicted injury on his part, like a cut on his face, that stuck around for the rest of the tournament. Make the close call have more concrete, visible consequences for him then his arms aching a bit.

I agree with this completely. That thing about his arms aching doesn’t show much of the consequences at all. And he gets over it rather quickly. I hate that he has so much plot armor.

Anonymous said:

Ngl i dont ship Todo/deku (dont really ship Izuku with anyone lol) but its such a nice ship like?? People can ship what they want but why ship Baku/deku when Tododeku is RIGHT THERE. I would rather have todo/deku be the twin stars like.. Todoroki having to overcome his fathers legacy and be a better hero then his father ever could be while Izuku perpetuates all mights legacy and carries the legacy of One For All?? Poetic cinema

+ I SENT AN ASK ABOUT PREFERRING TODO/DEKU TO BAKU/DEKU AND I WANTED TO ADD SOMETHING SKSKS. we could totally have an "its your power" moment. Izuku getting Todo to accept his left side and Todo getting Izuku to remember that OFA is his power now.

Todo/deku is really the poetic cinema we need and deserve. Idk why people like b*kud*ku, that’s what they prefer, but the ship itself is not healthy in the slightest and I find it pretty disturbing. I agree with you, nony. Everything you said is correct.

Anonymous said:

If I'm gonna be honest the whole "he was raised in a household of screaming and abuse" isn't a good enough reason as to why Bakugo has no chill. Like we've seen people like Todoroki raised in a household much worst but he didn't come out as a jerk or bully. I'd like to see more of Bakugo's interactions with his parents but for the most part the dad seems like a pushover and his mom is just loud at times. But no where close to Endeavor. So yeah Bakugo shut up challenge

Yeah, idk how their dynamic works, it’s just mitsuki screaming at k*tsuki while his dad tries to intervene, but doesn’t do a good job about it. I don’t like that she smacked his head. But I think people really stretch it to give him a tragic backstory when in reality, he doesn’t have one. He is a spoiled brat. Shouto has proven how to be a better person. He’s just a better character in general.

Anonymous said:

This might be long but I want to get something off my chest and I love your blog so I used to like bk//dk. If you asked me why. It's because I was enamored by the fanon ver of this pair with a better bkg and the whole appeal of childhood 'friends'/reconciliation trope it had going on and some fans have convinced me that their relationship wasn't as bad as it's portrayed before UA and that bkg was only like that because of society and thinking Izuku was "looking down" at him. 1/3

Thinking about it. it's really stupid and the verge of victim blaming but anyways. What stopped me from liking it and instead hating the pair is that after dk vs kc 2 I was expecting the improvement in their relationship, for a moment I thought we got it. But in reality it's just bc we haven't seen them interact much after the overhaul arc and before the joint training arc.Then the joint arc came and the 2nd internship arc came and whoo boy, I feel like I was cheated on. 2/3

Rather than making bkg's behavior improve towards Izuku, He's still as much of an asshole who belittles him, mocks him ,acts like he can't stand him but less threats of killing him combined with Izuku who just takes it because he's a nice person. But the narrative acts like their good friends now and I have been feeling so frustrated with this, I wanted a mutual relationship with mutual respect on both sides and bk//dk hasn't reached that part and it shouldn't take this long for it to be. 3/3

Thank you for sharing this with me, nony!! I appreciate it. It’s really sad that their relationship hasn’t improved at all. It’s so long overdue and now things are played as comedic relief like him hurting Izuku with his spike and also being extremely disrespectful during the ofa meetings. Their relationship isn’t healthy and it isn’t friendly, no matter how canon wants to paint it that way.

Anonymous said:

the only reason bkg gets to know OFA is because he guilted Izu into telling him a half truth in S1 then guilted AM and Izu with his tantrum in S3 He also had the privilege to know Izu since childhood and saw AFO so he had the advantage Izuku would have never told him otherwise. Same time Izuku's friends don't "deserve" to know about OFA, rather, Izuku deciding to tell them himself will make the revelation to them more special since its Izu deciding to tell a piece of himself than being forced to

HOT TAKE

@havocsss said:

i just wanted to say i appreciate your opinion on bnha about bakugo (bc someone finally said it 👀) and you put into words for me how i feel abt that character - and that's partly why i just can't watch it. he's the bully that everyone idolises and gets let away with murder and naaaah mate that's not how it works

Thank you, I’m glad to hear it. I don’t like that he, a literal bully who has suicide baited Izuku and has hurt him with his explosion quirk, is the fandom’s favorite and the most popular character. Literally any other character would have been better to stan than him. He’s everywhere and I can’t enjoy part of the series because of him always being there. It’s so annoying. I will continue to yell about why he is not a good character until horikoshi gives us the development he desperately needs AND an apology to Izuku for being so abusive to him. And yes, bullying is abuse.

Anonymous said:

I know that feeling. I also greatly dislike Bakugou. He almost ruins the manga for me at times. I can't even think of a plot with Izuku where Hori won't try to include him in some way. I tried reading metas abt him, tried to look at him in a different light but I realised that I really hate his personality, combined with his overhyped popularity just makes me can't stand him. I wish I could even just be neutral for him but that's being a challenge.

Yeah, he’s not a good character. Very infuriating and annoying. We do not stan him in this house.

Anonymous said:

I feel like if Aizawa actually knew that Bakugou used to bully Izuku he'd probably whoop Bakugou's ass

OOF I’d like to see him expel him.

Anonymous said:

I like how it's framed like I'm supposed to feel sorry for Bakugou because he feels manpain for not being the strongest in the class. Like the dude went from a regular school to the best of the best and he still expected to be the strongest person there is with no challenge?

Awww, is the spoiled brat sad? Good. He can die mad about it.

Anonymous said:

If Aizawa did the combat training instead of All Might he would've stopped Bakugou the first time he used his gauntlets and automatically failed him and I really wish that would've been the outcome

Tbh he should have been expelled for trying to kill a classmate.

Anonymous said:

Oh yeah I remember that character entrance when he just basically I insults his partner for training. Look I love the kid but if I was a teacher I would've flamed him so hard like there could've been a hostage, that weapon could have went off, his partner could've been captured. That's how you ended up failing the license exam

OOF. When will he learn.

Anonymous said:

Um excuse the ever living fuck out of me but I just saw a fic that was bakugou/consequences where Izuku attempted suicide and you know what the ship was?? My pure green son who deserves the world and his literal bully/abuser are you SHITTING ME???? I try very hard not to hate ships I do really try but I just CAN'T with this ship it disgusts me

It's not a healthy ship. I am disturbed by this fic and I don’t even know what it’s called and I don’t want to know. Eww.

Anonymous said:

I see myself as Izuku cause I relate to him a lot and I just read something where Bakugou does what my abuser did to me to Izuku and now I'm having a very hard time stomaching the thought of him and like I really loved kiri/baku too but now I can't even think about it cause someone who shipped my notp thought it would be a good idea to make Bakugou an abuser and give Izuku Stockholm syndrome ☹

Oh nony…I’m so sorry to hear about that. That really sounds rough and I hope you’re feeling better. That sounds awful. I’m just…I’m appalled. Also giving Izuku Stockholm syndrome with this ship is just. Wow.