#(Hopefully the MASSIVE text walls will do)

[greetings-inferiors]

I moved the character I originally had as Empress to chariot and I’m kinda salty because like yayyy another chariot party member that’s brash and loud and driven and like yeah it fits wayyyy more than Empress like tbh I always thought “yeah she should be chariot” she’s much more similar to chie and ryuji than mitsuru and Haru but like… idk I guess I was literally just “not like the other girls”ing it. What made me commit to the switch was reading that one of the traits was “sexuality and fertility” and as a (in my opinion (author headcanon???)) asexual character who basically becomes like a sister to Kouki and literally becomes roommates with him (and they were roommates but SERIOUSLY OKAY???) and does the waking up with them sleeping on the bed joke (I hate morgana but this random white dude sleeping on your bed was so funny) I want it to be completely platonic and giving her the “sexuality and fertility” arcana would be insinuating the wrong thing. Even then, it just works way less overall, chariot really is a perfect pick. Most of the characters work really well for the arcana I’ve chosen, she was just a weird exception.

[aveloka-draws]

I would like to preface this with an apology for the Asgardian-sized wall of text I want to throw at you. If you've ever seen the movie Hot Fuzz, I just had a massive brain wave in regards to that recent interaction you made between the Lamb and Theon. So here we go, lots to unpack.

What I find very curious about that little interaction was how unintentionally massive its impact was. It was just a short exchange between the two but the ramifications could be severe. Whether the Lamb meant to or not, they might have made the situation for Theon significantly worse or perhaps more accurately, far more unstable and given their own current nature, that is not too surprising. Theon was suspicious that Leshy is hiding something and the Lamb says 'Do you want me to tell you what it is?'. The Lamb just confirmed that Leshy is hiding something. Now in all fairness the Lamb could be lying from Theon's perspective. Getting some kicks out of their followers and seeing the madness unfold is becoming of them. However that likelihood is vastly nill. The Lamb seems to like Theon for starters and thus would not be inclined to lie in the first place. Plus regardless of the Lamb's intents, they are the Leader. So by default, Theon is inclined to believe their word.

Thus with that statement, the situation is already far worse. Now Theon knows Leshy is in fact hiding something, and his brain can start to work the pieces out. He is not a stupid cat by any means, and he can already tell that the area of soreness relies around Darkwood. That is where Leshy seems to clam up. He already suspects they were a disciple and given Theon's nightmares, this narrows his suspicions down. If Theon wished to really investigate this down to its roots, he could go behind the scenes to attempt to acquire a tiny dot of ichor. He wouldn't need much, all he'd need is a single drop to taste. Hopefully in a dose that would not burn his insides like those of the uninitiated. Whether that meant striking a deal with a disciple or through the Lamb, who knows how. But if he tasted it he could compare it against the taste of Leshy's 'odd' blood and tell how similar they tasted. If the taste was close, Theon would have his answer and from there the harrowing realities only close in with two distinct scenarios. Bad case, Leshy was in fact a disciple of the God of Chaos. Worst case, he was that God. Thing is, if Theon was really paying attention he'd have his answer without Leshy saying anything at all.

Whether Leshy realizes it or not, he completely revealed his identity by waiting to tell Theon. Leshy waited this long to tell Theon anything, by this point they have grown extremely close. Had Leshy told Theon who he was, shortly after they met or starting getting close, the impact would be far less significant. Theon would have been shocked, gone through his reactions, and likely distanced himself. However, now they're both madly in love. By waiting this long Leshy has single-handedly sown as much Chaos into Theon's life as he possibly could, thus betraying his efforts and revealing his true nature. Theon has now an impossibly difficult situation to contend with. He has been in love with the very god that he was to be sacrificed for. In all technical details there really is no reason why Theon cannot continue to love him. Leshy would never hurt Theon intentionally nor do something truly egregious against him. However the very fact that Leshy has put Theon in the situation where he has to relive his nightmares everyday is only made worse by the inescapable chaos that surrounds Leshy. Whenever Theon gazes upon him, he knows chaos will follow. Suddenly all of his actions will enter a new light. The five-finger fillet, the midnight hi-jinks, other follows becoming mischievous. It turns from, "Leshy is just a bit out there." to, "He is Chaos incarnate." Theon, should he continue by Leshy's side, would have to live with that everyday for the rest of his life. No matter how much Leshy attempts to change himself it's impossible to escape the chaos, it's akin to commanding a Sunflower to cease being a plant. Chaos is in Leshy's nature. Asking him to subdue the chaos would mean he ceases to be Leshy. It's the classic paradox of the very thing that drew Theon in in the first place is now the most painful reality.

Whether the divorce truly happens or not, as our expectations could be subverted, Theon will never be the same afterward. He will have to find some way to make peace with the nightmares one way or another, and accept that chaos will follow him no matter how good a life he lives. It is quite fascinating too. Leshy is now responsible for damning a second loved one to Hell.

I thank you again for your amazing work and taking the time to read this.

Dont apologize i loved this i agree thank you for the asgardian sized wall of text hshsh

[oxymorayuri]

𝐶𝘩𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝟷𝟿

𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑝 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑟

𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑔𝑎𝑟 𝐷. 𝑊𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟

𝐿𝑎𝑤 ✘ ♀ 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟

𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓: nisir0

Story: The princess of Tanata

[Long Fic]

➽ masterlist

Spoiler: nope

Warnings: nope

slowburn with plot

Wordcount: 3535

Text in italics emphasizes the reader’s thoughts

Bold and italic text emphasizes Law's thoughts *~*

Tagging: @slytherinambitious - @norasincubi - @cottoncandyloverrrr - @one-piece-frvr7 - @hopelesslover06 - @chillerkiller - @sassyyassi

After waking up this morning, you decided against going back to the palace and made the decision to rather conquer the old ruins with Law, which you had talked about the night before.

Strangely enough, you are sure that you will uncover the secrets of this extremely well protected ruin... together with Law.

“Here, take my hand.” With a smile, you accept Law's help and let him pull you onto the stone wall. With the new view in front of you, you both see what kind of complicated structure was hiding behind this wall...

[A/N: Hello my little sweethearts, it's been a long time since I showed any examples of the surroundings. Of course I firmly believe in your imagination, but here is a small example of how I imagine the ruin and the labyrinth. The pictures are made with AI and AI didn't get the labyrinth quite right, but it's better than nothing :D]

“Apparently the labyrinth changes every five minutes.” Analyzes Law. Given the size of the labyrinth, it will be difficult to keep your orientation. Although you can see the end of the labyrinth from where you stand right now, this huge maze separates you from your actual destination...

"Well then, let's go into the maze!" And with that sentence, you jump down to the start, with Law close behind you.

Even if you have no problems solving the puzzles together, you will always find yourself back at the beginning of the labyrinth. No matter how the massive walls move, you can't make any real progress.

Law had the idea that every time your way leads to a dead end, you should place a sign on the wall before you continue, to monitor how far you have come.

Since the maze is constantly moving, the order of the puzzles you have to solve also changes, always sending you through unknown corridors that you have not yet discovered, until you come to an wall blocking your way completely.

To your dismay, you come to the conclusion that you never really get any further… Because the new paths, after a dead end, will always lead you back to the beginning...

On the wall you were standing on before, you look breathlessly at the constantly moving maze. You have tried to speed through the maze, but whenever you faced a new puzzle before you could move further, a new dead end was already waiting around the corner.

Law keeps watching the maze as you recover from the constant running.

"Judging from the layout, we don't seem to have enough time to get to the end. Maybe we need to wait for the right moment to enter the maze?"

At that very moment, the walls are aligned in a way where the signs you placed form a line.

"Do you mean a moment like this?" You look at him excitedly as if you've discovered a clue, hopefully one that will take you further.

Once again, between the massive walls of stone, you make your way past the puzzles until you reach the place where you were expecting a new puzzle, but instead there is just a dead end in front of you...

Exhausted, you sink to the floor. Despite your confidence at the beginning, you now fear that even with the help of Law you won't get to your destination.

You run your hands through your face in distress... none of this makes any sense!

"I don't understand…" you mutter to yourself as you lose all hope.

“WHY CAN'T WE GET THROUGH THIS DAMNED MAZE???!” you scream and your voice echoes into the distance.. Law, visibly confused too, looks at the wall blocking the way in front of you.

“…We're not supposed to get through the maze…” Law speaks as if he has finally understood the mazes concept. He looks around, examining the walls for clues, but apart from the traces of time, there is nothing to be seen.

“What do you mean?” You are exhausted and unable to go any further. All you want is for the puzzles to come to an end. Law turns to you, his hand on his chin and thinking hard.

"I bet that no matter how fast we go, no matter when we enter the maze, we'll never get through it…" - “Huh?! But that's the only way to the ancient ruin…" His words don't seem logical to you and with some struggle you get on to your feet.

Once again, Law places a sign on the wall and after it was time for the maze to move, you both were no longer surprised that the way lead you back to the beginning...

So you go back onto the stone wall, which gives you a perfect overview of the maze and check where your latest sign is.

"Look at the signs Princess-ya…" Your eyes follow the direction Law is pointing at. Right before your eyes, you see the same line created by your signs. But after a closer look, you notice something new.

"The signs we have drawn are now a complete row, that runs horizontally through the entire labyrinth…" You are surprised…

“Not only that... These were the dead ends we were facing, but that row never opens, instead another wall opened which only led us back to the start…" Your eyes watch skeptically as all the walls move except the ones you have marked.

"So you're telling me that we've only been moving in this half of the maze the whole time?" Your finger points to the area in front of the marked row and Law nods at you in agreement. You look at him as if you were going crazy and laugh slightly hysterically.

“If you look closely you will see that the second half isn't even moving…” With this new insight, however, only more questions arise…

“Maybe there's some mechanism that makes the second half of the maze move?” - "Maybe…" He replies. Together you rack your brains, as this appears to be another puzzle you have to solve.

"But looking at the signs, we've been already in front of every dead end and most likely walked every path, but I haven't noticed anything that could be a mechanism…" In fact, Law has a completely different idea and is strongly convinced that you both have to find a hidden path outside of the maze.

“I guess you're right, I didn't notice anything either…” Your eyes roam around. If the labyrinth isn't the path to take, which way should you go? Or maybe you need to create a new path?

"You know Law, all those puzzles had one thing in common... I always had to use my powers…” - “The flowers!” Law blurts out.

He freezes briefly and seems surprised by his own volume. Clearing his throat with reddened cheeks, he tries to distract you from how childishly he has been behaving, but instead of finding it childish, you find yourself liking the otherwise observant Law more and more.

Back at the puzzles, you try to figure out how you can use your powers. Even though the puzzles were quite different, in the end you always had to bring a flower, which was planted on the altar, to blossom.

“… Mhmmhm, okay…! The ruins usually block all devil fruit powers…” You talk to yourself and circle around.

For many years, an unknown force has surrounded the ruins, making it impossible for Devil Fruit users to use their abilities. The knowledge behind these walls is not to be gained through destruction or power. The only way to obtain the island's legacy is through knowledge itself.

Since most of the information is related to the Taimu taimu fruit, you can only use your abilities under certain circumstances, but you cannot use them freely.

“What a hassle. If I could use my powers freely, thousands of ideas would come to my mind, but no, of coooourse I can't use them...” You tousle your hair and have to stop yourself from wanting to pull your hair out in frustration.

Law is watching you, while you're going crazy during your monologue, trying to keep the corners of his mouth down but while you are at your wit's end, swearing at your ancestors, he can't suppress his grin. (You're both such dorks.)

Luckily for him, you're too busy to see that he's having a great time watching you.

“Wait a minute princess-ya… maybe there's some kind of device like the altars in the maze?” You stop in mid stride and look at him with wide eyes.

"Well of course!!!" you literally shout in his face and shake his shoulders. Law, who is obviously surprised by your sudden attack, doesn't flinch. He lets you have your moment and once again catches himself unable to take his eyes off your laughter.

“That's it! Clearly!” You jump around like a bouncy ball, looking for a mechanism that will allow you to create a path into the ruins. Law shakes his head at your behavior and joins the search.

And who would have thought it but the mechanism you were looking for the whole time, was on the same stone wall you were standing on. Together you remove the plants which are hiding a panel, picturing two hands with flowers and without hesitation you place your hands on top of it. Excited you look around to see what happens.

High above the maze, twining vines and blooming flowers grow into a beautiful bridge that starts at your feet and leads all the way to the ruins.

You leap into the air with joy... you have never managed to get through this damn maze and thanks to Law, you now know that this was never the right way anyway... After your little dance, you jump without thinking into Law's arms, who almost falls off the stone wall with you and hug him tightly.

"This is all thanks to you Law!" He awkwardly strokes your back while you thank him over and over again.

After a heartfelt embrace, you rest your forehead against his and close your eyes. Law, on the other hand, is completely unaware of what's going on and a soft pink blush appears on his cheeks.

What the hell is she doing?! Is all he can think of.

While he struggles with himself, trying not to touch you in inappropriate places, goosebumps spread across his back because your delicate hand rests on his neck.

For you, it's just a gesture between loved ones and a demonstration of the respect you have for Law, nothing unusual in your culture... but for him, It's beyond confusion...

“How can I thank you, Law?”

Thank him? He laughs a little nervously. For now, he would be very grateful if you would let go of him so his heart can calm down, but he cannot bring himself to say those words. Rejecting you doesn't feel right and as long as no one sees the two of you, it doesn't really bother him. He thinks.

“Ahhh, it's no big deal. Now let's finally go into this ruin.” He skillfully changes the subject and it works. You are very excited and quickly break away from him and sprint along the long bridge. With Law close behind you, you run along the long flower bridge while it continues to form and flourish in front of you.

You pause before stepping onto the last few stone steps leading to the ruin, your heart pounding with excitement. You carefully enter the sacred site of your ancestors, your heart beating faster, but not out of fear.

You are amazed and overwhelmed by the huge walls that neither time nor the weather has been able to tear down.

You carefully enter a kind of long corridor, your breathing is shallow, and the only sound to be heard is your footsteps echoing along the high stone walls. You can't see a thing in this dark place and you don't know where the path is leading, it's as if the darkness is drawing you in.

Without being able to avoid it, you step on a stone that sinks in a bit and you hear a strange mechanism moving in the walls. You cling to Law's arm in the darkness, feeling scared and insecure. You look around in the dark, but your eyes can't make out anything, nothing at all.

To your surprise, no trap is triggered, instead the long hallway is being lit up, bit by bit.

“Look, Princess-ya.” Law's gaze is fixed ahead and in the distance you can see the end of this hallway. You can make out some kind of hall. You look up at Law, who smiles at you reassuringly, which gives you courage and you nod at him. Together you stride down the hallway.

On the sides are numerous paintings describing stories and legends. With careful fingers, you brush along the wall, trying to understand the stories. Few inscriptions explain in bits and pieces, with each step further, what is protected in this ruin. There are stories you've never heard of, and one thing is repeated over and over again.

“The Eye of Chronos…” your voice barely a whisper. Law, who was just looking at another wall painting, turns to you because of your voice and steps to your side. Curiously, he looks at the mural over your shoulder. He can't read the symbols but he understands the painting.

In the middle is a person portrayed, left and right are doors with different worlds behind them. Both of you look at the picture in confusion. Even after all your guesses about the wall paintings, you are uncertain what to expect. While you memorize every picture on the walls in your mind, you slowly make your way to the end of the hallway.

With every step you take towards the bright room, your heartbeat quickens. You have to narrow your eyes as the oncoming light grows brighter. While you shield your eyes from the harsh light, Law puts his hand on your back and points forward.

“Princess-ya, look over there!” You cautiously peek through your fingers and when you finally see what lies before you behind all the light, your hand drops to your side.

So what could it be? A Poneglyph…

Without further hesitation, you run to the massive cube and decipher the symbols. You translate every single sentence while Law examines the stone with the same curiosity.

“Now I understand, Law…“ Your voice is a bit hesitant at first, but then it fills with clarity. You hastily go to another place where you read a certain line and put your finger on it.

“The Eyes of Chronos is not an object or some kind of device, as I first thought, it is an ability.” You catch sight of Law's face, somewhat taken aback. You are overwhelmed by what this stone wants to teach you here.

“An ability?“ He raises his eyebrow. That makes sense to him, but what exactly does it mean?

“What can the Eyes of Chronos do?” He whispers as if guarding a secret. You go around to the other side of the poneglyph and repeat its words:

“The eyes of Chronos see every place, at every time, and wherever they are…” Your voice echoes through the hall with intensity. Law doesn't understand everything yet, but he senses something. Then you turn to him, which takes his breath away for a brief moment. With a smile on your lips, you look at him full of knowledge.

“The writing says that those who are worthy can gain a special ability, and this huge block behind me is practically a description and instruction of that ability.” You point behind you with your thumb. You take a seat on the floor and lean against the cube.

Law raises his eyebrows, he knows by now that it is a special ability, but what it can do, remains unclear. He waits quietly for you to continue with your speech.

You hold your hand in front of your eyes and tilt your head back. You are actually getting a little emotional from what you have read. You take a deep breath before your lips can even start to tremble…

“With the eyes of Chronos, it is possible for me to see different places and to enter them as well. It is like opening a door in space and time and then… then you are just… there… at the place I visualize.” You are quite stunned.

“Does that mean you can travel anywhere, no matter how far?” He is noticeably shocked. That's an amazing ability. You nod at him while continuing to hide your face.

Law crouches down next to you and puts a hand on your knee. You were so brave and eager to learn just a short time ago, and now you seem so quiet?

“That's it, Law…” You can't avoid the tremor in your voice anymore, but there's a smile on your lips. Because you're happy.

“This is what I was looking for. I knew it wasn't just a stupid fairy tale!” You lower your hand and look into Law's eyes.

“My mother used to read me a fairy tale in which the hero could travel to different places… Stories about him being on an island, high in the clouds with real angels… Or a city under water with creatures that resemble humans but can live underwater like fish… There were countless places he went and as a child I always wished I could visit those places too.” While you dwell in your memories, Law's eyes widen. The places you are talking about are more than familiar to him…

“y/n-ya…“ He addresses you by name. Unused to hearing your name from someone who isn't a member of your family, you look up at him.

“These places, they really exist.” Your eyes widen in wonder. If places like this await you outside, even if they're only remotely as described in your books, then you have to see them!

“Law, with this ability, I'm one step closer to leaving this island!“ Your grin makes him feel a sudden tug in his chest. In his opinion, it would be better if you stayed protected. But why?... Surely because your abilities would be dangerous in the wrong hands.

“What do you mean, you're one step closer? What else?” He studies your sad face, isn't it enough just to keep coming back here for the ritual?

“I couldn't forgive myself if something happened to my people. I have to protect them, you know?” Your eyes gaze deeply into his. He knows exactly what it feels like, to make it your duty to protect your loved ones, remembering his crew and how often he left them behind to avoid getting them into trouble.

“I see. So you still have to find a way to keep your island safe...” He leans back and gets up. Perhaps he will be lucky and you won't find a way to leave the island, but who is he to entertain such thoughts?

“I'll definitely come up with something!” You jump up and clench your fist in victory.

“However, I first have to learn this ability…“ You walk around the cube and try to figure out how to control the Eyes of Chronos.

“Didn't it say that you have to prove yourself worthy?” Law asks, still standing in the same place and thinking. That's right, but you thought you were already worthy of the knowledge… after all, you made it into this ruin…

“Hey Law, come and lend me a hand.” With his help, you climb onto the cube and, as you had expected, there is a small altar here too. Once again, there are these moulds in which you can place your hands.

You move your hands carefully. What will happen if I am not worthy of such power?

As your hands touch the stone, you are overcome with an oppressive feeling. It's as if all your strength is being sucked out of you. Your entire life passes before your eyes, with both beautiful and memorable moments, as well as tragic ones.

Long forgotten and suppressed memories emerge before your eyes. For the first time, you see the moment when your parents died.. with your very own eyes.

All of a sudden, your eyes can see everything.

Exhausted, you break away from the stone as it seemed that it was over. Your ears are ringing and your vision is blurred, the only thing you can hear is your heartbeat. Suddenly, Law comes into your view. He grabs you by the shoulders, worried, but you can only see him as a blur...

After this state subsides and your breathing normalizes, Law quickly examines your body for signs of impending unconsciousness, but you seem to be fine again.

“Law, I think I passed the test...” You ignore how he examines your eyes, checks your pulse and body temperature. He puts his hands on his thighs and looks at your face with a concerned expression.

“You think so?” You nod weakly at him and get up. You're a bit shaky on your feet, so Law supports you and you raise a hand.

“Yes, I do… and now we'll find out.”

You swing your hand and a kind of shiny crack forms in the air. Bits and pieces of fragments come off, showing you more of what is behind it and what you can see resembles your room in the castle. Full of amazement, Law looks at this unusual phenomenon.

He walks behind the crack and looks around to see what is there, but even behind it, all he can see is your room. A little tired, you reach your hand out to him.

“Let's go home, Law…” He hurries back to you before you collapse into his arms. Exhausted, and together you walk through the crack and end up in your room…

Ohoho, it's getting exciting and I'm looking forward to write the next chapters. Get ready for innocent romance and upcoming danger...

Kiss kiss, your yuri

➽ Next chapter (Not available yet)

[boltedfruit]

Read on AO3 or below the cut!

Steve's attempt at a record-breaking gangbang ends up with him flying back to Hawkins to track down number one-ninety-eight. The mystery man who left an impression. - A thumb swipes his lower lip. Breath ghosts along the bite mark on his shoulder. It stings. Steve hopes he drew blood. “I’ll remember this forever, sweetheart.”

Thank you to @cowboythighs for giving me permission to write this fic based on their super fun prompt, which you can read here~

Read the full fic below:

What’s in his fridge?

There’s at least one bag of broccoli, half a container left of that nice parmesan he splurged on…maybe the chicken wings in his freezer are still okay. Hopefully? He still has some of that decadent hickory barbeque sauce. There’s no reason he can’t cover a bit of freezer burn with a healthy dousing of the stuff. He didn’t do the dishes last night, but that’s fine. Has time to run the dishwasher before–

Something vibrates. Loudly.

Someone’s phone is going off in the middle of the shoot.

Steve lifts his head, annoyed that the director hasn’t called cut yet. The man on top of him is dripping sweat, a bead of which narrowly misses landing in his eye. Steve casts a look sideways, hoping to catch the director raising his walkie.

Nope. Still posted up behind his wall of cameras. Stoic as ever, the man watches Steve work.

Steve lets the moment drag, his expectant silence punctuated only by the grunting and groaning of the muscled man pumping away between his spread legs.

More loud vibrations.

He cranes his neck to see over the man’s shoulder, sees the clock over the huddled producers and decides himself it’s time for a break.

Steve presses a hand against the massive chest above him and pushes lightly. The man’s movement falters, stops. Steve meets his eyes with an easy air of I’m the star, get off me, and it does the trick. The behemoth withdraws from Steve’s body with a mutter and wipes the sweat from his red brow as Steve swings his legs over the platform and sits up. He tests his weight, but finds he can still place pressure where he needs to without any pain.

The director shouts something Steve doesn’t hear. Calls back, “Somebody’s phone is going off! It’s ruining the vibe.”

“What phone? I don’t hear a phone,” the director says in his heavy German accent, shrugging in a way that rankles Steve. “We’re almost at two-hundred, surely it can—”

“No, it can’t wait. I need five anyway.” His own assistant appears by his side with a robe.

Steve shrugs it on and heads toward the source of the vibrations. Around him, production comes to a standstill while fluffers and PAs run around tending to the talent.

Steve tracks the phone down in a bag near craft services, but a producer beats him to it. She sheepishly digs out her phone and shuts it off, muttering an apology.

Steve sighs, grabs another cracker and decides to take a much needed bathroom break. On his way, he grabs his own phone and sees a text from Robin.

still good for eight?

I’m only at 197, might be closer to 9 or 10.

big ew, but congrats. should I pick up dessert?

Coffee double dutch choco cake pls?

obvi, my very spoiled friend. have fun you little award winning superslut!

Thx, lov u!

Robin sends back a string of emojis. He finishes up in the bathroom, thinking of all the times he’s been nominated for an AVN but never won. And it’s not like it’s terribly hard. He chooses interesting projects. He works with skilled teams. He stays clear of scandals and keeps his nose figuratively and literally clean of all the seedy underground bullshit that comes with the job.

But best actor still eludes him.

It grinds his gears, or at least the ones he used to have back in high school. The ones driving him to be a better player than everyone else at basketball practice, the ones that pushed him to state championship games three of his four years at Hawkins High. The ones that crowned him prom king and made him a bullshit name for a bullshit time in his life.

It’s his inner machinery, and even though he’s grown up a lot in the last five years, he’s still yet to replace some old rusted parts.

As he returns to set, Steve runs his hands through his hair, pinches both cheeks a little to bring a fresh blush back to the surface. His assistant applies lip gloss as he situates himself back on the black and white platform where he’s been fucked for the last three hours by one-hundred-and-ninety-six men.

He’s aiming for three hundred before dinner. Three-fifty if more than a good chunk of the men left are two-pump chumps. It’s about scheduling.

Steve shifts his weight from one asscheek to another, feels a brief twinge in his lower back. He flips over, stomach pressing against the slim pleather cushion.

It’s almost five.

The director claps his hands, and once Steve is in position, everyone resumes their roles. He gets comfortable on his elbows, cock limp between his legs and showing for the camera. He hears the next guy shuffle up behind him, can hear the shaky breath leave him.

Everyone knows their part to play in this circus, and Steve knows his best of all. He’s front and center, surrounded by a seemingly endless line of men of all ages, shapes and sizes. He’s taken more dick and strap today alone than he probably has in the last few years combined.

He’s going to win best actor, and he’s going to win best gangbang.

The thing about sex work is that it’s like any other job, really. There are good days, long days, fun days, days that drive him up the fucking wall. There are times he’s excited, nervous, bored out of his skull. Most shoots he books last a day or two, and hardly ever does one last more than a week, tops. This isn’t his first gangbang scene, but it is a record breaker for him, and several others in the industry as far as he’s researched.

But so far it’s been a lot of the same. Almost two hundred men and he hasn’t held a steady erection since an hour in and now he’s been daydreaming while giving tried and true sultry looks to the camera, fake moans of practiced pleasure leaving his throat.

Steve’s good at his job.

He’s been doing it since his parents cut him off and kicked him out at eighteen. He moved to LA and lived in his car until Robin graduated and followed him to the big city. It was exhilarating at first, fun. These days, at twenty-three, he’s mostly just bored.

And he knows better than to ignore an ache. If he holds one position for too long, he’ll be wrecked for a week. He’s big enough of a name now he can negotiate a lot of his contracts, and so he always gets control over how he’s positioned. The cameras can figure it out from there.

“And…action!”

Steve pouts for the camera in front of him, parts his freshly glossed lips and crosses his eyes a little. He never got the cross-eyed thing, but it’s apparently a huge kink for some.

Fingertips tickle over his ass, lead to palms lightly petting his hips. Steve wiggles for the man he can’t see, encouraging and coaxing as he goes to his knees and leans back. Wants to be grabbed, manhandled. Add the potential for a little healthy bruising and the audience eats it up.

But that doesn’t happen. Instead, he hears a breathy sigh from behind him, and then the sound of spit a second before he feels it hitting his hole. It drips down slowly, painting him wet, and Steve keens for the lens trained on his face.

The thing about this shoot is that it’s been a nightmare to plan. A year to put together a schedule, another six months to find the talent. There’s been cancellations, reschedules, a few deaths even, more casting, issues with health insurance and testing dates. Steve’s been along for it all, because this is his project. His idea, his brainchild.

All for one day.

One day to break some records. Prove to himself he can do this. That what he does can win awards and not only nominations.

After that he can take a very, very long break.

The hand rubs up and down his spine, firm and sure. Applies a little pressure at the lumbar and Steve actually lets out a small moan. It’s nice. He might set up a massage for tomorrow.

The camera swings wide, leaves Steve’s face and gives him some breathing room. The hand on his back remains while the other presses two fingers to his hole. He’s stretched, lubed beyond the meaning of the word even before the spit. There’s no need to finger him open.

But he receives a gentle probing with two fingers, a few deep, slow strokes that press in search with what seems to be a practiced touch. Steve rolls his hips back. Takes a few tries, but when the extra finds his prostate, he gasps, drives back to meet that zing of electricity again and again.

“God, just look at you,” the extra whispers. “Can’t wait to feel you. I’m so lucky.”

Steve moans. Not so fake this time. He drops his head, catches sight of lightly haired thighs covered in scribbly tattoos. He doesn’t even take into account the size of the man behind him, too focused on his own swiftly filling erection.

Huh.

It’s not like it’s a requirement or anything, by contract or personal preference of his scene partners. A lot of the time the bottom isn’t hard. Not exactly fair, but a limp bottom does not a film break, or whatever. More than a few of the men who have been inside him today have paid him plenty of attention, even tried for longer than Steve felt necessary. But they were all here to do a job, and that was to film a gangbang scene with Steve as the gangbangee. Hard or limp, he just wanted them to finish in him so they could get the shot and all go home to a nice hot shower.

“You’re gorgeous, y’know that?”

Though dirty talk was common, it wasn’t in the script for this shoot. And it wasn’t the usual lead-in of fuck yeah, look at your puffy hole, you take it so well, you’re like a bitch in heat, take that shit, take it like a whore.

“That’s it, baby, relax for me.”

It’s sweet…it’s kind. Things a lover would say.

Another strike of lightning burns him from the inside out, and Steve lets out a breath he’d been holding.

The hand at his back glides down, calloused fingers smoothing over his skin, until the director calls for penetration.

Steve wants to snap at him to shut the hell up. This is fine. More than fine, even. His prostate hasn’t exactly been the star of the show today, and a little pleasure makes his job that more enjoyable.

The fingers leave, and in their place frustration grows. That is, until the blunt head of another cock is pressing against him–no, dragging. The man is rubbing himself over Steve’s hole. Isn’t shoving in and taking like all the others.

More spit hits his rim , makes him startle. The hand on his back draws circles to settle him like a spooked horse.

This isn’t lovemaking. This is a scene. Steve huffs at himself, thinks just stick it in already, dude.

The extra’s hands slide from his back to his hip, his other hand joining in and pulling Steve’s weight, using Steve’s own body to slide inside. Steve groans. The guy’s big, thick. Should have paid better attention while he had his head down.

“Knew you could take it, Harrington,” he says softly, and Steve almost misses it when the man whines as he bottoms out. Fingers dig into his sides, tight but not bruising. “Pictured it a little different, but a guy can’t complain.”

So the guy’s got a fantasy, that’s fine. A lot of the talent cast for this production expressed a desire to work with Steve. Came with the territory, and the long filmography.

But something about this man hits him a little different. His words have him melting enough to feel warmth build, begin to spread.

His legs are tingling, insides burning with the stretch and latent pleasure. He wants more.

He grinds his hips back, trying to put his weight into it. The man moans low and finally, finally, starts moving his hips. Drags Steve back on every thrust.

“Jesus, you’re so–so–” Another drawn-out moan and the man collapses along Steve’s back. He’s slim, but his arms are strong as they wind around Steve’s waist. More tattoos. Bats in flight, stretched faces with sharp teeth. Long hair tickles over his shoulder as the man noses along the back of his neck “You feel like a dream.”

It’s quiet. Quiet enough Steve knows the cameras won’t pick it up. It’s just for Steve, and that sends his blood rushing, dick kicking as tension builds in his belly.

“Shit,” he grinds out, feels drool slip from his open mouth to pool on the black pleather underneath. “Oh, God.”

“That’s it. Wanna make you feel good, sweetheart. Come on. You deserve to feel good.”

He’s so hard he’s aching. Feels the weight of himself slap his stomach on each ever harder, deeper thrust.

Steve’s going to come. He’s actually going to come.

“Just knew you’d be so good for me. Could tell the first day I ever saw you. Wanted you forever. And look what you’ve accomplished,” he babbles, Steve’s heart growing three sizes, “You’ve changed the industry. You showed LA who’s king.” A particularly deep thrust has his elbows giving out. The man effortlessly braces his abrupt fall, a calloused hand snaking up to pillow his jaw. Steve is vaguely aware of the camera in front of them both, but he couldn’t care less if he tried right now. It feels too good. Feels better than anything all day, all month, all year. To the cameras, it must look like Steve’s being choked, but it’s the farthest thing from it. He’s being held, kept safe. “Always knew you’d go places. Get everything you wanted and more. I was actually jealous, and look at us now. Can’t believe how lucky I am.”

Steve’s cursing, praying, something as he’s pressed into the pleather. Now, his cock is trapped, facing backward so every time the man draws out and pushes back in, their cocks drag for a brief moment of bliss. The cherry on top. Neat trick.

“Never thought I–never even dreamed–”

A gasp, a flash of teeth in skin and Steve is coming with a shout, flexing his ass to get more, more.

He feels warmth spread hot and wet inside him and knows this will only last another moment or two. He needs to turn around. To see the man that just took him apart without touching his cock. Needs to–

A thumb swipes his lower lip. Breath ghosts along the bite mark on his shoulder. It stings.

Steve hopes he drew blood.

“I’ll remember this forever, sweetheart.”

The director shouts something Steve doesn’t hear. Can’t comprehend past the pleasant hum buzzing inside him.

But then the weight on his back is gone, the cock inside him slips free and with it a spurt of come. Cameras circle back around to catch the aftermath, hears a muttered nice from some crewmember when they see the twin puddle beneath himself.

He rolls his eyes, safe to do with no coverage on his face.

He feels so empty. Cold begins to creep in.

Steve blinks quickly. Why is his throat suddenly so tight?

Then another man approaches, is lifting his hips up, is pushing in with absolutely zero patience or attention paid to Steve at all. And that’s fine. It is.

They’re on a schedule, after all.

-

“Yippee!” Steve claps when Robin sets the plate of cake before him.

She joins him on the couch, a forkful of her own piece of cake already in her mouth. “I don’t know how you’re even sitting right now.”

“It’s honestly not that bad.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Look who’s literally talking.”

Robin pulls her own fork free and sticks her tongue out. “Seriously though, you sure you don’t need anything? A heating pad? Ointment? Therapy?”

“Ha ha. I already took care of what I needed to–stop making that face, oh my God. I’m just dandy, Robs, don’t worry. I want to veg out and watch tv for the next six months and gain like twenty pounds.”

“You are too skinny.”

“My point exactly.”

“But, still like. Wow.”

“I know.”

“Three-hundred sixty-eight guys. Whole ass men were inside you today. That has to be a health issue for the community or something, right? How are your insides not melting out of you right now? I should have laid down a towel to protect your precious piece of shit couch.”

“You’re so funny, and it’s our precious piece of shit couch.” But even so, Steve preens a little. He did it. He broke his goal and then some. “I’m gonna win that goddamn award if it kills me.”

He looks over when she doesn’t answer. Robin is looking down at her plate.

They’ve had this argument before.

“I’m taking a break,” he says, reaching for her hand. She squeezes, and he squeezes back. “Promise.”

Robin nods. “So,” she says, shaking herself from the momentary tension, “you mentioned one guy was unique. I’m almost afraid to ask.”

He snorts. “Why?”

“I mean, was he like eighty or something? Was he dressed all in latex with one of those gas masks? Did he have two dicks or what?”

Steve laughs, drops her hand to grab a pillow, and throws it at her instead.

Then he tells her.

In as much detail as she can handle, anyway.

“Did you get his number?” Robin asks, and frowns when Steve shakes his head no. “What about a name?”

“It was kind of a rush, an in the moment kind of thing. Wasn’t really time for a lot of talking.”

“Oh my God, Steve.”

And then, his best friend in the entire world has an absolutely batshit idea.

-

He gets the call sheet from his favorite producer, an easy going older man with decades of experience in the industry. He doesn’t ask questions.

Three days later, Steve's got a list of three-hundred-and-sixty-eight names, including himself and the crew. Beneath the call sheet is a packet of numbers and addresses.

It might be a crazy idea…but Steve’s one of the world’s leading gay adult film stars. He can afford to be a little crazy.

So when his sabbatical officially begins, Steve starts calling.

-

The first thing he tries is going down to number one-ninety-eight. That makes sense, and even Robin had agreed.

But the man who answered was a fifty with a slightly higher voice than he remembers. He quickly thanked Steve for the experience, and the paycheck, but explained he didn’t have any tattoos. He was afraid of needles.

Steve huffs, crossing the name and number off.

His guy was definitely younger than that, had a deep, smooth voice. Had ink that looked homemade from a glance.

The list he has is in no discernible order. It’s neither numerical nor alphabetical. He checks the first few addresses and finds it has nothing to do with location, either.

So he calls each and every single person. Actually blocks out time to do it around breaks and lunch, time spent with Robin which they both agree is long overdue.

After a week and a half of calls, Robin drags him to the beach for an afternoon of sunbathing and people watching.

“I don’t know, Robin. I already crossed off the guys I know, the ones I’ve seen in other projects. But I’ve still got over a hundred people left.”

“Says the guy who wanted to bang over three hundred guys. This is your own fault.”

“I know,” he agrees, swirling his fingers through the sand. “I’m just…I don’t know. Worried, I guess.”

“Why?”

“What if he thinks I’m a freak for tracking him down? What if he wants nothing to do with me?”

Robin snorts. He looks her way, sees her nose and cheeks are red from the sun despite her large sunhat. Her toes are dug into the sand, and the book she’d been reading lays forgotten on her stomach.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Steve. From what you told me, it sounded like he had a little crush.”

“Yeah, but that could have been my filmography talking. Lot of guys say I’m on their shortlist of dream lays. It’s like a fantasy thing for them.”

“Disgusting. Absolutely abhorrent,” she says easily. “But you said your guy was different. You think it was just an act?”

“I couldn’t tell. He seemed…sweet. If that makes sense?” Steve shrugs, hands her the bottle of sunscreen. “You need another layer. You’re turning into a tomato, birdie.”

She cups her hands, and he squeezes a dollop out. As she rubs the lotion into her skin, she seems to consider what he’s said.

“How sweet can an actor in a gangbang be?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Then you have to keep at it. You have to keep calling until you find him. You may strike out more often than not when it comes to dating, but you have, like, a good good people radar.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean, you naturally attract decent people,” Robin says, smiling. “Take me, for example! I’m the best person you know.”

Heat climbs his face, settling at the tips of his ears. He sinks further into the beach foldout, embarrassed for a reason he can’t name. Robin’s smile turns knowing before softening into something closer to friendly pity.

Robin drops her book in the sand and stands, grabs Steve’s hand and starts pulling him toward the water’s edge.

“Come on, sourpuss, let’s go swim!”

-

He’s down to five people.

The phone numbers they gave were either disconnected or, more likely, fake. So he has no choice, really.

He decides to fully embrace his apparent new level of creepy stalker and physically visits their listed address.

The first three people are surprised but happy to see him, and he ends up sharing beers with two of them, but all three are very clearly not the person he’s looking for. The fourth is nice enough, if wary, but is in his forties and is trans. Is all too happy to show Steve the strap he used on the day. So that rules him out.

There’s one address left, and honestly Steve had been hoping it was a fluke. A mistake.

Because the address is in Hawkins, Indiana. His hometown.

He never chose a stage name, a mistake that many a producer and actor used to lecture him on in the first couple of years he was in the business. But he made it his own. It worked. His parents haven’t contacted him since he was kicked out, so if they know about his career choice, Steve isn’t aware. He prefers it that way.

He always imagined he’d send them a photo of him smiling with his AVN award when he finally won. A final, brief fuck you and career announcement all in one.

Needless to say he hasn’t been back to Hawkins once since he moved to LA. And though he isn’t shy about his legal name, Steve has never discussed his past, his childhood. Nobody in the industry that is legally allowed to discuss his association with Hawkins never has, because they simply don’t know.

Steve’s honestly a bit surprised nobody he used to know has reached out in the last five years. He knows Tommy at least frequented the sites his agency posts to. Nowadays, gay and straight films can be found in the same tags, same pages. Even if someone didn’t go looking for gay porn, they still might have come across Steve in something. An ad, even.

But no, nothing.

He’s not ashamed of what he does. He hasn’t actively avoided his past or anything. If anything, he’s simply strived to not care about it. It doesn’t matter. He hasn’t seen a Hawkins address in years.

Until now.

It’s weird. Could be some kind of underhanded prank. Maybe he should call his lawyer and tell him to expect some sort of blackmail soon.

The last four have led him to the neighboring cities around Los Angeles, but he’s not had to leave California yet. And being back in Indiana has him off his feet. Wrongfooted in some small way that leaves him feeling like a stranger. An impersonator.

He left small town life behind and made it big in a way that would have had every gossiping homebody’s heads turning if they knew.

Half expects to burst into flame the second he steps foot within city bounds.

But nothing happens. His rental car keeps driving. The turn off the highway is familiar, second nature.

He pulls into Hawkins and follows the directions parroted to him by his GPS. He notices several new fast-food places, the old mall has been redone, some houses seem bigger–but it’s still the same small, old town.

He comes to a crossroads. Left to Forest Hills Trailer Park where he’s never been, or right to what would eventually lead to Loch Nora and his childhood home.

He takes a left.

The trailer park isn’t huge, but each home has a small yard. He drives through a winding road that’s half gravel until he finds number fifty-three.

He parks, gets out and stands. Butterflies swarm his stomach, his palms sweating.

Steve gives himself a silent pep talk and walks up the short drive to the front door.

He knocks twice and waits.

It’s getting colder in Indiana. A few more weeks and there might be the first fall of snow. Back in California it was eighty-six degrees when he boarded the plane. He shivers.

Steve jumps a little when the door opens, the screen between him and an older man who frowns down at him.

“And who are you?”

“Hi! Hello. My name is Steve. I, um. Is there a Wayne Munson here by any chance?”

Steve steadies himself, tries to calm his rising nerves. He steps back to make room as the man opens the screen door and steps out into the early afternoon light.

“That would be me, son. Can I help you? You look a little lost.”

It’s not him.

Not his guy.

Steve’s stomach drops. Feels a little sick to his stomach.

The voice isn’t the same. It’s low, sure, but rougher with age. And Steve remembers the tickle of long hair along his skin. This man, Wayne Munson, is balding.

Unless he wore a wig…then, maybe…

He rechecks that this trailer is indeed number fifty-three.

“No, I uh. This is the place. This is going to sound strange, but I don’t suppose you have any tattoos?”

Wayne huffs. He pulls up his sleeve and shows Steve a faded old tattoo, a blue cross with blown out edges.

“Just the one.”

Steve nods, disheartened. “I see. Okay. I, uh, thanks for your time. I’ll just go–”

He turns, feeling foolish.

“Kid, wait a minute. Come on inside and warm up. You drink coffee?”

Steve debates. He’s cold, sure, but that’s an issue fixed by turning around and driving back to the airport to hop on a plane back to California.

Staying could turn out badly. Hawkins was never friendly to outsiders, and the rumor mill sprinted when it came to talk of things like sin and violating the good word of the Lord.

Steve’s pretty sure being a porn star is hidden somewhere in there.

And it was never a secret in backwoods like these people tended to dole out their own justice. Some kids were killed in Indy for being gay and working corners. Why not here, in the home of a man Steve doesn’t know?

He puts on his best smile. “That would be great, sir.”

The man drops his eyes to the ground, waves a hand at him. “Please, enough of that. I’m just Wayne. Always have been, always will be. Come on in, it’s not getting any warmer out here.”

Steve shuffles inside, thanking him. “Looks ready to snow soon.”

“Ah, another week or two I think. You from around here?”

“Used to be,” Steve says as Wayne gestures for him to sit on a stool at the kitchen counter. “I moved to California a few years back.”

“Hm.” Wayne starts a fresh pot of coffee, old-fashioned kettle on the stove. Steve’s grown used to his Keurig. “Big place compared to here. How d’you like it?”

“It’s busy. I’ve gotten used to it.”

“I imagine there’s always something for doing.”

Steve nods. “You’re right.”

“What d’you do for work out there? I’ve heard it’s all tech companies and wannabe actors.”

Steve runs a hand through his hair. “Well, actually…I’m an actor.”

“Ah, geez. Don’t mind me, it’s the stereotype.”

“No offense taken,” Steve says. “It’s kind of the reason I’m here.”

“Do tell.”

“It’s kind of embarrassing. I had this big, uh. Film. Scene. A big scene. It required a lot of background actors. Extras, you know?” Wayne nods. Steve is flubbing this big time, Christ. “I kind of hit it off with one of the–one of them. Fell a little in love if I’m being honest. My best friend, she had this crazy idea to get the call sheet and go down the list to see if I could find him.”

Wayne’s eyes go a little wide and it’s only when the kettle starts whistling that Steve realizes his slip up.

But Wayne beats him to it. He takes the kettle off the burner and starts fixing two cups of coffee. Says, “Young love’s hard to come by, kid. I’ve been telling my boy for years now, if ya find somebody worth chasing, you run. Doesn’t matter the obstacles, if they’re a boy or girl. Just run to em.”

“That’s…that’s really good advice,” Steve mutters, surprised and relieved when Wayne doesn’t seem to have a problem with him. “Means a lot, being from here.”

“Me, I’m from back south, but Hawkins is home. Strange as it is to hear, this town’s actually progressive compared to where I grew up. But there’s still work to do, that’s for damn sure.”

Wayne reaches into a cabinet and brings down a bottle of liquor Steve recognizes all too well. Good quality bourbon. Steve doesn’t miss the healthy pour that goes into each mug.

“Good for warmin’ up,” Wayne says as he passes one mug to Steve. He goes for the fridge next and pulls out a half eaten chocolate cake. “You fancy a piece? My boy whipped it up, but I told him like hell he expects me to finish it on my own.”

“Oh, I don’t want to take up your time–”

“You’d be doing me a favor,” Wayne cuts in, smiling in a way his parents never did. Kind, warm. Real.

Steve relaxes the rest of the way, the tension leaving him all at once. Wayne Munson’s a good guy.

“I’d love one.”

-

“...and I told my boy, I said, if music is what you wanna do, you go and do it. Convinced him to get his GED and get out of dodge. School was never much of a Munson family pastime, anyway.”

“God, yeah. I hated school. I barely graduated, and that was still a few months after I got kicked out.”

Wayne shakes his head, takes a sip of his beer. They’re sitting on the front porch, watching the sun begin its slow descent. Steve almost forgot how pretty Indiana skies could be.

“I knew your folks, y’know. Back in high school. Forgive me for saying it, but your father was a real piece of work.”

Steve can’t help the bitter sound that leaves him. “Trust me, I know.”

“Can’t stand a parent dumping their kid on the world like that. More like dumping the world on their kid. Real life is tough shit. If you love your children, you don’t just abandon them to figure it out for themselves.”

Steve hums. Takes a chance. “It sounds like you’re talking from experience?”

Wayne scowls out into the distance. “It was just me and Al for a long time. Our parents weren’t around much, and when they were they weren’t the best. We all did what we could.” He shakes his head again, meets Steve’s eyes. “Just a shame Al turned out exactly like our old man. Couldn’t spot respectable if it bit him on the balls.”

Steve laughs again.

Wayne lifts his beer and points out to the gravel road. “‘Bout time!”

Steve looks out and watches an old beat-up van wind down the road, music getting louder the closer it gets.

“You’ve got company! You should have said. You’ve been so kind, I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Wayne tells him good-naturedly. “That’s just my boy. Owes me dinner since I’ve cooked the last few.” Adds when the van is parking behind Steve’s rental, “You should stick around for supper. He makes a mean lasagna.”

“I really should…”

Then Steve sees him.

Wayne’s boy, who he’d assumed at first was his son but learned was the nephew he took in after his brother fucked up somewhere along the way.

Steve’s throat goes dry.

The music cuts off as the van door opens and out hops a man with wild black curls tied up into a mess of a bun. He’s not even looking their way as he hip checks the door closed and walks back to the double doors. He swings them open, grabs a duffle, many bags of groceries baring the local Krogers logo, and a large glass casserole dish that looks far too fragile to be balancing the way it is. Before he closes the doors again, a large orange tabby hops out and winds around his legs, rubbing and trotting after its owner as he heads up the drive.

“Sorry I’m late, old man. Store was packed, and then Garfield here didn’t want to…Oh.”

He slows when he sees his uncle has company. Stops completely when his eyes land on Steve.

The guy’s young, could be a few years on either side of Steve’s age. He’s wearing all black denim, complete with chains and large belt buckle. His knuckles are tattooed and Steve wonders where else he has them.

And he’s familiar is the thing.

And isn’t that funny?

Because back in school. Steve would play reckless and brash. He’d skip school, get in plenty of fights he always lost. Made friends with the wrong crowd and got into enough trouble. And he would wonder, in the way only a closeted bisexual boy could in the Midwestern US, what it would be like to run away with someone a little older, a little rougher, a little more mean. Someone who knew more about the world. Who didn’t give a shit about kid stuff like Steve used to, like reputation and dating and getting into girls’ pants as much as possible. On being the best all-American athlete he could so others would think, wow, that Steve Harrington sure is going places.

He would wonder, in profound secrecy and silence and repression, what it would be like to kiss someone like the man stood before him under the shade of a tall tree in the woods behind his house. What it might be like to touch another boy and not have to be afraid to death of the idea.

The large cat, Garfield, rubs up along Steve’s legs then. Walks a figure eight between them and yowls to be paid attention to. Steve reaches down to pet between his ears, is vaguely aware of the two other men talking to one another, of Wayne explaining why Steve is here, who Steve even is.

And Steve knows this guy. He does.

He’s got long hair. Tattoos, maybe more hidden away. Has plush lips and flushed cheeks from standing in the cold with arms weighed down by too many things, and, and–

“You’re–”

“I’m Steve,” Steve says, straightens back up and holds out his hand. “Steve Harrington.”

The other man gawks. A bag slips from his fingers and a tub of cream cheese goes rolling right back down the small incline.

“Jesus, boy,” Wayne’s muttering, walking down to help with the groceries. He grabs the serving dish first, then heads for the runaway cream cheese. “Where’d your manners go? Introduce yourself!”

Wayne grumbles as he heads after the thing.

Steve’s hand is grasped, shaken, held. Steve smiles. Wants to roll up the long sleeves to see if he’s covered in the bats he saw during filming.

“I’m Eddie,” Eddie says, breathes really.

And oh wow. Wow.

Steve doesn’t let go, and neither does Eddie.

“I heard you make a mean lasagna.”

A smile splits Eddie’s pretty mouth. “That so? I wonder who said that.”

“Somebody who loves his nephew a whole lot.”

“Huh, no idea. Could you clue me in?”

Steve steps closer. “Think a little harder? Maybe you forgot.”

“Maybe,” Eddie says, and though it’s soft, it’s undeniable. “Always forgetting things, that’s me.”

It’s him.

Wayne passes them by again, taking another bag from Eddie’s hands. Eddie sets the rest down at their feet, sparkling, dark eyes never leaving Steve’s.

“Steve here’s an actor. Eddie, weren’t you telling me you had a gig down in LA with the band a few weeks back? What a coincidence, that.” He keeps walking.

Steve watches him go inside, Garfield hopping happily after him.

When he turns back around, Eddie’s close enough he can feel his breath.

Steve glances at his lips. Sees them bend with amusement.

“It’s funny.”

“What is?”

“King Steve, here in my uncle’s humble abode. What a surprise.”

King Steve is as close a moniker he’s ever received working in the industry. An irony that’s followed him from high school into adulthood, even though the two weren’t connected.

And something inside Steve breaks apart, blooms, shines.

It’s him.

Eddie reaches up, traces a thumb along his bottom lip.

“I think we’ve met.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Care to stay for some homemade cooking, your liege? I think we have a lot to talk about.”

The thumb at his lip dips, goes inside his mouth, briefly makes contact with Steve’s tongue. He wants to suck on it, wants to do a whole lot more.

“We definitely do.”

Eddie’s hand falls away. He picks up a few bags and lets Steve take the others.

And as Steve follows Eddie Munson, his mystery guy, inside it hits him all at once. A punch to the solar plexus.

Just knew you’d be so good for me. Could tell the first day I ever saw you.

He knows him.

You showed LA who’s king.

Not just from the shoot.

“Oh my God, I know you! We know each other!”

Eddie Munson, the guy who walked over lunch tables and caused a scene. The guy Tommy shoved into lockers. The guy who dealt at every party. The guy who wore denim and leather and was in a band. The guy Steve watched, who watched him right back.

Wanted you forever.

I was actually jealous, and look at us now.

Can’t believe how lucky I am.

I’ll remember this forever, sweetheart.

And Steve hurries in after him as Eddie’s knowing, familiar laughter leads the way.

[queenoftheworldisdead]

Off Schedule

Chapter 8

Note: knocking the rust of my writing. send me a note if something is weird. i dont bite

Summary: Your boss is going through a divorce, but it seems you are the last to know. Emotions flare between you, your boss and his business partner. What will you do?

Warning: 18 + only, slow burn, fluff, balance of power dynamic

Brad Pitt x Reader, Keanu Reeves x Reader

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7

💐

Jen looked gorgeous. Her baby bump fully present almost stealing the show while the happy couple took their vows.

Despite the joyous atmosphere you sat uncomfortably in the wedding venue, but hopefully hid it well. It was hard to forget consequences of your action, especially when facing the ex-wife, surrounded by her loves. You felt like an interloper, you shouldn’t be here. You were more surprised you hadn’t burst into flames in the pew.

Brad wasn’t here thank god. You hadn’t seen him since that night and thanks to your hiatus from work you wouldn’t be forced to.

“You may now kiss the bride,” the officiant announced proudly as the attendees erupted in cheers and applause. You joined in the pageantry as guilt continued to eat-away at you. Only a few more hours of this before you were free to go home a wallow in the shame of your mistakes.

💐

The short walk to the reception was magical. Behind the venue guests were led down a dirt path. White flower pillars wrapped in fairy lights highlighted the trail leading to a white massive outdoor tent.

The strong scent of flowers wafted out from the opening of the tent. The inside was just a gorgeous as the outside. Flowers draped the ceiling and walls while large center pieces overflowed with blush grapes and pale flowers.

The room boomed with music while the liquor flowed freely. You would be abstaining too scared to make another drunken mistake.

There were too many tables, finding your seat was becoming a challenge. The place cards written in golden calligraphy were beautiful, but hard to read off the stark white background. You squinted, leaning toward each card trying to make out the characters.

“Do you need any help?”

You felt the gentle touch on your shoulder before his soft words hit your ears. Keanu hid his chuckle from the sight of your startled face.

“Oh hi… I didn’t know you were coming. I didn’t see you during the ceremony.”

“I just got back, I tried getting a hold of you, but never got an answer.” He explained.

You frowned in confusion. You hadn’t had any messages from him. Your phone was working you were sure. Sarah and Zoe both had texted you just yesterday.

“Something must be wrong with my phone… I never-,“ You tried to explain as you dug out your phone and quickly scan through your messages. Nothing.

Not even older messages from him. Weird.

He stands beside you watching over your shoulder as you tried to figure this out. You search his name in your contacts and its there, but when you click on it your stunned to find out that he is blocked.

“I don’t know how this happened. I swear I didn’t.” You plead your innocence with wide eyes. The way he looked at you somehow you knew he believed you to your relief.

“No worries these phones are always doing something crazy, it might have to do with a software update.” He suggested. That had to be the case. You’d seen notifications to update before, but always ignored them so that might be why.

“Weird. Of all people. I would’ve preferred if it blocked my mom instead.” You joked.

“That’s a relief I thought you might be avoiding me.”

💐

Keanu led and you followed as he helped you find your seat. He was the only face you recognized and you hoped that his placement was close to your own.

“I think this is us.” He proclaimed picking up two placards holding them side by side. You could kiss Jen for this.

“So how are things at the office?” You enquired as he pulled out your seat.

“It’s been busy, but your absence has been felt. Do you miss it?”

“I'm actually thinking about quitting.” You confessed sheepishly.

“Really?" Surprise and confusion riddled his face. You felt bad, but it was a thought that had been plaguing you for a while. Things at Terrilum were overly messy and you weren’t sure how much worse it was going to get. You needed peace and stability and you were sure you wouldn’t find it there.

“Yeah I’ve just been there for so long and I think its time.” You squirmed a little in your seat. You avoided his looks of concern and focused on the happy people dancing on the dance floor. Your mood was coming down just thinking the of bizarre soap opera you found yourself in and you wished desperately to escape that.

“Well I’m sorry to see you go. If you need a reference I would be happy to help.” Keanu offered. He still looked a bit disappointed, but he wasn’t going to press it seemed. You were thankful for that.

“Thanks, I’ll most definitely take you up on that.”

“Um-mm well while I have you here..” Keanu started but hesitated. You felt the familiar bundle of nerves tightening you belly as you wait in anticipation.

“I hope you don’t mind, but since you were unable to read my messages before, I was wondering if I could ask you in person again.”

“Ask me what?” You asked on the edge of your seat.

“If you wouldn’t mind... I'd like to take you on a date? A real one this time.”

💐

You blinked dumbly at him. For how long you weren’t sure. The question had caught you off guard.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable…Umm I’m sorry I just thought.” He hurried to apologize, but you were quick to stop him.

“Wait! Wait!” You blurted out excitedly, holding your hands up haltingly. “Sorry,” you began lowering your hands and your voice in an attempt to sound more demur. “I’m mean I would love to.”

“That’s a relief.” He said with a grin, clearly entertained by your theatrics. “I’m ashamed to admit I’ve had a bit of a crush on you for a while, but never really had the courage to speak up.”

“Really?”

The news was unbelievable. It felt like you were in a dream that you didn’t want to wake up from.

The joy was short lived though. Your smile faded slowly when you spot a dark cloud in the horizon. The sight of him melts away the new found happiness and slamed you back down to the cold reality.

Brad. You thought he wasn’t coming. You hadn’t seen him during the ceremony either. Keanu followed your line of sight to find his friend and business partner.

Brad hadn’t spotted you both yet, that was good at least. Too busy congratulating the happy couple. Keanu waved over his buddy to your horror. An overwhelming urge to escape on coming doom enveloped your body. You needed to get out of here and fast.

“Um. Sorry… I just realized it’s getting late.” You lied, fumbling through your bag blindly, desperate to find your phone. You needed to order a hire car and get out of here.

“They haven’t cut the cake yet. Stay for a bit and I’ll take you home.” Keanu offered as he turned his attention back to you. Warmth bloomed on your exposed leg when he touched you there. His touch was comforting and you wanted to soak in it.

He was sweet, but you couldn’t take the chance of facing them both.

You smiled tightly disguising your discomfort the best you can. By the look on his face you could tell he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

You sneak a glance in Brad’s direction. He seemed to be getting closer. Damn it. You felt trapped and needed to escape.

“Um ok you’re right, but um I’m gonna go to the ladies I’ll be right back.” You lied pointing a thumb in the direction of your escape. He didn’t get up when you shot to your feet. Keanu just nodded in understanding and you’re grateful when he wouldn't follow suit.

You didn’t look back. There were no bathrooms in the direction you were headed, only catering. The only restrooms were back at the main venue, and to go there you would have to pass by you know who.

Clumsily you slip through the catering door. The faint scent of cigarette smoke caught your nose and you followed it. If they are smoking then there is a back door somewhere.

The staff looked at you confused, but say nothing. Ignoring the stares you ordered the fastest option for hire car despite the price.

Damn it. The next ride was twenty minutes away.

💐💐💐💐💐

[renxholics]

❝ 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒 ! ❞

ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ❝ 𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆 ! ❞

﹟scarabia, pomefiore, ignihyde : x gn!reader. no cw/tw. although the holiday known as “christmas” does not exist in twisted wonderland, you decide to take matters into your own hands and have some holiday fun with your friends before winter break. platonic ortho. part i. ii. iii.

༘˚₊➳❥ 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐀 ＋ 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐌𝐄𝐍

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ after such an eventful evening, you find yourself well rested and prepared for the next list of things to do for today. grabbing carrots from the fridge, scarves and buttons, you look at the text you received on your phone. perfect, your scarabia friends were here on time just as you instructed. time for snowmen!

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Kalim was nearly bouncing off the walls with excitement as he hovered over jamil’s bed at seven in the morning. he spent a good half hour annoying his vice dorm leader with how hyper he was while getting ready and even two scarves did not prevent his ramblings from escaping. by the time he arrives at Ramshackle, he tackles you in a hug with his smile beaming ear to ear. he’s so happy you wanted to spend time with him, not just that, but you wish to build snowmen because you thought he may even it since he’s from the Scalding Sands. when he finally gets off you and calms down, which takes a bit, he’s laughing and trying to build a massive snowman with with you. it gets so big to the point you’re both struggling to roll the snow anymore, having to lift the pieces together with magic. he joins you in making miny snowmen friends for him, giving snowman kalim his gloves. he’s sad to leave, but agrees when you promise to send photos of them to him later.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Jamil is the voice of reason and looks unimpressed by your excitement to build snowmen together, but inwardly is freaking out. he’s a bit too used to fretting over Kalim that’s all, he’s not going out of his way to make sure you ate that morning with some leftovers he made for breakfast, whether you’re cold and warming your hands in his, or fixing your scarf each time you mess it up. excluding all of this, he rather enjoys seeing you happy and is happy himself that you wanted to spend time together before they returned for winter break. he’s the one that does the magic lifting, being the most proficient, and is oddly proud of this weird huge snowman you four had built. ah, and don’t forget, he’s also not blushing over how you placed your little snowman next to his smiling up at him from your crouched positions as you say that they were sharing some carrots between each other. when it comes time to drag Kalim away, he waves you off and tells you to text him over break if you need anything.

༘˚₊➳❥ 𝐏𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐅𝐈𝐎𝐑𝐄＋𝐅𝐈𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐊𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ after all your fun, you said your goodbyes at the mirror room as Jamil dragged Kalim back to their dorm. snuggling Grim, you head over to pomefiore, greeting the most fashionable figure skaters in twisted wonderland, hopefully they skated as good as they looked!

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Vil rejected the idea of playing in the snow almost immediately until he listened to your explanation and he also saw your sad puppy eyes. everyone would want to spend time with the Vil Schoenheit, he’s very busy especially preparing for break, but he could spare a few humble hours for you so long as he’s not actually touching the dirty snow, only skating in it. his makeup is done for a perfect winter look and he had custom skating costumes designed not only for him, Rook, and Epel, but also for you to change into. he can’t let you look bad while standing next to him, so make sure to take good care of what he got for you, prefect. his every movement on the ice is graceful as well, it were a piece of cake for him. if you’re still struggling to keep up with him, he wouldn’t mind giving you a little lesson if you ask really nicely. by the end of your little hangout he’s already bringing you back inside pomefiore for a little spa session, making you take a warm bath, fixing your clothes and makeup. don’t go getting a cold on him while he’s gone, alright?

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Rook jumped from a tree and spoke French about your wonderful idea when you first proposed it, delighted his dorm leader gave you his approval. he’s there from the mirror entrance to take you to the skating area, dressed all pretty with sparkling eye shadow, singing praise in your direction about your own attire and skating skills no matter the level. he had never skated, so he claims, but perfects it almost instantly within a few minutes, at some point taking your hand and twirling you around on the ice for a little bit, preferring to watch you skate instead. he also might of let it slip on “accident”, not an actual accident, that Vil had gone out of his way to use his magic to make the skating area, and did his makeup specifically today to catch someone’s eye. by the end session he’s drying Grim off with a suspicious glint in his eyes before turning back to you, ready to take you to your next destination like the gentleman he is.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Epel liked the idea of spending time with you, but would of preferred it to be one on one rather than with his fellow dorm members. he’s excited to do something with you regarding snow since his home town is full of it, he might be able to impress you in a snowball fight, but you had to pick something he had no idea about, figure skating. he’s gagging internally when he wears his outfit that he does look good in, and he’s slipping and falling on the ice as Vil looks at him with utter disappointment, he knows he’s not the favorite as both him and Grim struggle off to the side as you get private lessons. he’s frown changes to a smile in a heartbeat, however, the second you skate up to him and begin skating with him as you both tumble a little bit, him gripping you each time he’s about to fall. despite probably looking like a fool compared to his dormmates, he’s ecstatic to have you laughing and playing with him until it’s time for you to shower up and leave, waving a shy and polite goodbye to you under Vil’s watchful eye. if you want, he’d be happy to take you back home during the break! his granny does love you.

༘˚₊➳❥ 𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐈𝐇𝐘𝐃𝐄 ＋𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐘 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐒

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ waving off your favorite hunter, you make your way to Ignihyde all fluffy and ready to cuddle. as you approach the technology dorm, ignihyde,you are found by Ortho and are immediately taken to Idia’s room. lights dim as ever, full screen, and plenty of blankets and pillows thrown on his bed! it’s finally time for cheesy movies.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Idia freaked out the second he heard his phone ding with a notification, displaying it was a text, an actual text from a living person and not about takeout, you. he panics as he reads your message asking to if you could set up a time to watch some movies with him and Ortho for a tradition in your world, making a few typos as he responds quickly that he would, then panicking that he may sound too obsessive, which he is. in the lead up to your arrival, he’s gone and looked up all sorts of reviews for your “cheesy movies”. excessive power of friendship, too much family love, gross and too cute romance, and more. purposefully bad ratings like you asked for! he’d normally never watched these and he’s internally cringing the entire time while watching when he’s no longer conscious of your every move, sitting on his bed cuddling up into him using his blanket while you’re dressed up so nice, however just once he made an exception for his favorite normie. when it comes to the end he sends his tablet to walk you home, face planting into his bed as he blushes like a school girl having her first crush. you’re really too cruel to play with his heart like that, prefect.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Ortho was super happy to be included! unlike his brother who was freaking out the entire time, he scanned the internet for movies with your interests you sent, cuddling into the other side of his brother as the three of you watch the movies together. he’s making little comments about how terrible the movie plot is, but is relatively interested along with you, happy to you seem to be happy, along with his older brother! him and quite a few ignihyde members have been waiting for you two to grow closer, he even leaves you two alone for awhile to fetch some drinks and snacks, watching as you cuddle into Idia a bit more, mission success. truly, he’s the best brother in this school. after all the fun has ended, he walks you to your dorm with a bright smile asking to do it again in the future, and to enjoy your winter break. when he returns, he’s cleaning up and consoling his beet red brother.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ how time flies when in the company of friends, well, it’s time to say goodbye! thanking Ortho and Idia’s tablet at the door, you and Grim plop straight into bed. comfy and cozy, you find yourself drifting off into sleep. rest well, prefect dearest. tomorrow will be even busier, a day of giving and receiving… with many different surprising faces.

following channels [tag list] : @h0n3ysgh0st : i have been listening to renai circulation on loop. nothing to do with the fic but just thought it was necessary to share. i also have no bias for pomefiore in case anyone assumes. also reached over a hundred followers in exactly two weeks, thank you! pretty sure that’s my quickest record.

[thelostgirl21]

Alright, I might need your help / input on this one...

As some of you know, at some point over the summer, I'd noticed that:

a) Jaskier's LGBTQ+ wiki page was empty (a page had been made, but without any content yet),

b) that Radovid's page wasn't there,

c) that Radskier didn't have any page on the shipping wiki, either;

d) and that the Netflix versions of the characters of Radovid and Vespula were both missing from The Witcher's wiki, also.

Thus, I took the liberty to start filling those pages, doing my best to interpret and make sense of all the information I'd gathered throughout interviews, news articles, etc.

And, as I've explained here, I made one massive mistake of interpretation, that I then attempted to fix by rephrasing things in that manner:

I gave the moderator the explanation in yellow (i.e. the one at the bottom), and they reverted it back exactly to the way it was.

Therefore, I've now, at the very least, attempted to remove one paragraph, and given them the other explanation in yellow (the one at the top), hoping it would at the very least be kept off the wiki.

Because this is the huge mistake I made I was talking about, that was utterly and completely wrong:

Hopefully, they'll keep that paragraph off the page. It if comes back, just know that I no longer agree, at all, with what I'd previously written (yeah, I'll probably never let myself live that one down).

Where I need some input, is to see if you have some ideas on how Jaskier's sapiosexuality might have been supported by the show's narrative, to have it recognized as a valid sexual orientation for the character on the wiki?

Okay, first of all, I probably should say that the moderator appears to have a very strict "to be accepted on the LGBTQ+ wiki, a sexuality must both be shown on screen (through either text or queer subtext), and identified as such by someone working on the show," policy.

At least, that's how I've interpreted it, based on the answers they've given to other people's questions on their wall.

For example, an actor could not be officially claiming that a character is bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, or polysexual if there's been no evidence, in the show (or the movie, videogame, etc.) that they have the potential to have sex with more than a single gender.

Therefore, I was able to get pansexuality accepted as part of Jaskier's sexual identity in the table, because Vespula tells Jaskier: "I’ve cursed you for chasing tails of every kind. Men, women, dwarves, elves, polymorphous…  […] But never have I ever seen you have a crush,” and there was an article stating that Jaskier was a panromantic or pansexual character.

And they've accepted sapioromantism for similar reasons, likely because "crush" is a-spec slang for romantic attraction.

For your personal information, the main ones I personally know and remember are:

Romantic attraction = crush.

Platonic attraction = squish.

Alterous attraction = mesh.

Sensual attraction = lush.

Sexual attraction = smush.

Aesthetic attraction = swish.

So, the whole scene is layered with heavy aromantic subtext, making the claim from Joey Batey that they'd built something very special for their audience - a sapioromantic and sapiosexual connection - be something very tangible on the show.

As someone that watched season 3 having already read that article before, and being overexcited to discover how they'd handled showing the character as being a sapioromantic on screen, I felt like Batey and the writers fully delivered on their promise, and wrote the queer scenes with a queer audience in mind.

But the moderator has refused to accept "panromantic" under Jaskier's romantic identity.

And my guess is that, by having Vespula tell Jaskier that she's never ever seen him have a crush before, then the show only lists the different people that Jaskier has been with sexually.

Reading into the a-spec subtext, we are more or less told that what Jaskier is experiencing for Radovid is a crush (romantic attraction), seemingly based on the way that Jaskier appears to be fascinated by and connecting with Radovid's intelligence and insightfulness (sapio).

Jaskier insists that he doesn't have crushes (aro), thus implying that either it's never happened before, or he's never fully been aware of it happening before.

So, I'm guessing they are saying "Well, the show has failed to show us that he's been romantically involved with people regardless of gender, since they only explicitly identified a single crush that Jaskier has been experiencing on the show, and it's with Radovid (a man).

There's no suggestion, in the narrative itself, that Jaskier could find himself experiencing a crush regardless of a partner gender. We've only seen him crushing on a man."

Therefore the moderator only considers sapioromantic as being a romantic orientation that's been named and that is being backed by the show's narrative, but not panromantic.

At least, that's my theory as to why "panromantic" keeps being refused whenever I've tried putting it in the table, regardless of what Joey Batey himself said in interviews.

Did I ask them why they were refusing panromantic? Yes, I did. But they didn't answer. So, I am left with trying to understand why they've accepted sapioromantic and pansexual, but refused sapiosexual and panromantic, based on the answers that they've provided to other people that appeared to be facing similar issues I had.

Which bring us to the whole "sapiosexual" fiasco.

Sadly, I can't demonstrate that Jaskier is sapiosexual based on the show's narrative alone.

He's seen as being instantly interested in having sex with people's he's just met, and as constantly craving sexual contact to the point where it gets him into trouble.

Hence why even I managed to missed it. I've been so used to read into character behavior as proof of attraction that I totally fell headfirst into that trap!

To the point where, at some point, I was literally thinking that maybe the words that Joey Batey used were

"[We] ensured that these romances are told truthfully — and sensitively and carefully, without resorting to stereotypes… Hopefully we’ve created something that is special, a sapioromantic and sexual [connection] that is as flawed as any other relationship in this show.”

And it was reported as "sapioromantic" and "sapiosexual" by the person writing the article, rather than sapioromantic and sexual (because no official source had confirmed the pairing would be a same gender one back then, and therefore Joey wouldn't have been able to label any gendered aspect of the queer relationship with Radovid yet when the article came out).

But sexual activity can be enjoyed with people for reasons that have nothing to do with finding a partner sexually attractive, and it's not something that can easily be shown on screen, even through the use of asexual subtext.

Unless Jaskier suddenly launches into some kind of educational presentation on what asexuality is, the different types of physical attraction asexual typically experience (aesthetic, sensual...), the different types of asexuals (sex-favorable, sex-neutral, sex-repulsed...) and how each of them might choose to express their sexuality, "canon sapiosexuality" is virtually impossible to clearly represent on screen!

To have any hope of being represented by characters in the field of TV, movie, and videogame entertainment, some sexualities have little to no choice but to rely almost exclusively on what the actors and the writers (or other people involved in the creation of the narrative) of the show are saying their intention was for the character.

I understand the whole concept behind the "death of the author", I do.

I'm 100% fine with people claiming that Poe Dameron being romantically attracted towards Finn is canon based on the queer subtext the actor used in his acting and him saying that he was playing a romance despite the studios disagreeing with that interpretation.

Why? Because the performance was queer coded, the studio knew it, they still released it, and if you queer-bait your audience, you better believe they have every right to claim a character as theirs.

But in the context where we're talking about the intent of the writers and the actor of portraying such a little known and represented romantic and sexual orientation that is part of the aromantic and asexual spectrum, I'm extremely saddened at the thought of people going "Well, we'll just ignore that the character was ever intended to be sapioromantic or sapiosexual, and only give validity to what's explicitly shown on screen!"

Look Lucifer has been seen as being sexually involved with people of any gender identity on the show, but he's never once announced "I'm a bisexual devil!"

It's the actors and the writers that confirmed it.

On the show, we can only interpret his behavior as being compatible with the label bisexuality. But his sexuality was still only explicitly named off screen.

Same with Kaidan Alenko in the videogame Mass Effect, and I *think* Magnus Bane in Shadowhunters.

We interpret bisexual behavior as proof enough of bisexuality, and trust the writers and the actors' words.

But what is "sapioromantic behavior" or "sapiosexual behavior". How can one objectively differentiate it from alloromantic and allosexual behavior, by solely showing it.

If we don't require onscreen bisexual representation to use the label to trust that the people working on the show are using the right label...

...why is it so important to have people say "I'm sapioromantic" or "I'm sapiosexual" before it can be considered canon.

Jaskier was labelled as sharing a sapioromantic and sapiosexual relationship with Radovid off screen. And the show's narrative is 100% compatible with real life sapioromantic and sapiosexual behavior.

So, I personally find it extremely unfair for us to be expected to go one step further, by explicitly finding ways to prove that Jaskier can only be sexually attracted towards people that he establishes an intellectual connection with on screen through the show's narrative itself.

It also makes "allosexuality" the default sexuality, where everyone having sex with a partner can be assumed to be sexually attracted to them unless they find a way to explicitly prove otherwise.

And it requires that the representation of the characters on the asexual spectrum be explicit to the point of needing to name the label, when we virtually never require any gay, bisexual, or even pansexual (has Deadpool ever explicitly stated he was pansexual without breaking the fourth wall? I'd have to check!) to explicitly state their label, just be shown as having sex with more than a single gender identity.

i.e. Engaging in a behavior that is compatible with their sexual orientation.

Jaskier's behavior is compatible with a sapiosexual orientation.

So yes, the idea that you must both have people working on the show naming the character's sexuality, and that it must be explicitly shown on top of it in the show's narrative, rings a bit problematic to me in the context of harder to demonstrate sexualities.

When you're tackling representation for rarer and more specific sexualities, I believe you should trust the writers and actors reporting what the intended labels for the character are, and only require that the narrative doesn't contradict it, not explicitly proves it.

Any bisexual behavior seen on screen can be used as proof of either bisexuality, pansexuality, or omnisexuality (or in some case polysexuality) as soon as someone officially working on the show names the character's sexuality.

It's extremely easily identifiable and simple to show (and even there, some idiots will try to say that anything non-monosexual doesn't exist).

But there's no such thing as widely recognized and easily identifiable "asexual behavior" per say.

And the difference between a queerplatonic relationship and a romantic relationship, for example, can be so subtle that they will present on screen as being exactly the same.

So, asking for explicit representation, and having it 100% confirmed on screen, is a bit much.

Jaskier never explicitly told Vespula: "I am confused over my feelings for Radovid, because I don't think I've ever experienced that type of specific attraction before. This is different. The way I feel about Radovid is different."

And Vespula didn't then say to him: "That's because I think you are romantically attracted to him."

And Jaskier didn't then answer: "What?! But I don't get romantically attracted to people! I love them platonically or alterously! I desire them sexually! I have world ending, heart wrenching affairs! I do enjoy getting involved in romances for the excitement it provides, the love, and the kinship I share with all my partners, but I don't desire my lovers romantically! I have also finally found my chosen family - a family that I share with my very best friend in the whole wide world and the second most important person in my life (since Joey said the first was Ciri)! I thought I was 100% aromantic until today! Why would I suddenly experience romantic attraction NOW, when I finally have the family I've been looking for, and it turns out they are what pleases me?"

Vespula didn't then answer: "Well, you were specifically swooning over Radovid's intelligence and insightfulness, so maybe you're sapioromantic?"

Instead, we've got Jaskier swooning over how intelligent and insightful Radovid is, while saying "the problem is different, the solution must be different, and Radovid... is different", seemingly confused and intrigued by what he's going through emotionally.

Vespula saying "You like him."

Jaskier thinking that she's talking about his feelings for Geralt, and clarifying that they are of a platonic nature.

Followed by her specifying that she was referring to Radovid, and that, despite Jaskier having been sexually involved with a bunch of different people before, never has she ever seen him have a "crush" (aro/ace slang for "romantic attraction") on any of them.

Then, Jaskier's reaction being to deny that "crushes" (again aro/ace slang for "romantic attraction") are something that he experiences and has the known capacity for, while insisting that he only has world ending, heart-wrenching affairs!

It's aromantic subtext. And yes, I'm happy and feel we're lucky that the queer subtext has been recognized as being enough to back up Joey Batey's claims that the character was sapioromantic.

My problem, is that asexual subtext is even much, much harder to portray and describe.

I would not expect Vespula to tell Jaskier "I've seen you lush and swish over so many men, women, dwarves, etc., before; but I think it's the first time I've ever seen you smush after someone!"

Expecting queer people to pick on the differences between a crush and squish? Reasonable. If you tell them "look for the sapioromantic representation" while watching the show by telling them before hand in an article, they'll go in paying attention to it and they'll likely see it.

But trying to differentiate between someone wanting to have sex with a partner because they find them aesthetically and sensually attractive, and they can enjoy sex for the sex itself without being sexually attracted to them (for example)...

...and someone wanting to have sex with a partner because they are feeling specifically sexually attracted to them?

Good luck!

The only way I could *perhaps* see how the sapiosexual attraction between Jaskier and Radovid might have been shown by the writers and the actors on the show, would be by comparing the way that Jaskier seems usually quite playful, casual, and fully in control of his body's responses whenever he's talking about sex, interacting with others in a sexually charged context, and talking about how he might be into certain things sexually.

When he was saying that he wasn't not, not into it while looking at Senchai sharing his own appearance, it was said with an almost detached (if a bit freaked out) sense of fascination and curiosity, I think.

Otherwise, he's often seen enjoying himself and being appreciative of other people's beauty, and curious about all the things they could be sexually doing together. Sex with a wide variety of people is amazing, and he regrets nothing!

It's very loving, and affectionate, too.

But it's true that he's not necessarily intensely vibrating with need or desire for his partner in those moment.

And then, there's the way he's physically and emotionally responding to Radovid in this scene...

So that could, perhaps, subjectively show a difference between "enjoying sex with someone you love" and "being sexually attracted to a partner".

With what triggered Jaskier's sudden need to "pounce" on Radovid to kiss him and potentially initiate the sexual activity being the way Radovid's brain works, and how he chose to express his feelings for Jaskier by learning his song (sort of connecting with Jaskier using his own language).

But it's so, so, so, so extremely subjective... that I'm really not sure how I can build a case for it!

And besides, even when you do feel sexually attracted to a partner, you're not constantly sexually attracted or aroused by them. It comes and goes. Sometimes you are in that more playful and detached mood. At least, I think...

I mean, my allosexual partner is much easier to get in that very aroused, very sexually receptive mood than I am, if I'm being honest.

But if he's being a complete geek about something I'll eventually get there. At the most unpractical and inopportune moments, too.

So asexuality is very complex and there's no way to clearly show it, just basically state it.

So, if any of you have any clue on how I could make a solid case for it, and get it approved on the wiki (because I do believe that sapiosexual representation matters), I'm all ears!

And look, I'm not blaming the moderator, either. That's not the point of that post.

Am I frustrated? Yes.

But I understand the need for a clear system to accept or refuse submissions, and I'm guessing that, with the number of pages they must go through and analyze every day, at some point, some nuances get lost; and they, too, miss that maybe applying the same rules for every single sexual and romantic identities, without analyzing how it puts some identities at a clear disadvantage given the complexities of translating attraction into easily identifiable behavior, is asking a lot.

We're all doing the best we can with the knowledge and abilities that we have.

But yeah, what a mess still...

[divinemissem13]

Flyin' Solo

Every Woman Exchange 2024 Fandom: The Closer Character: Brenda Leigh Johnson Additional characters: Fritz Howard, Sharon Raydor, Martin Evans Word Count: 1,202 Rating: T

Brenda always gets her confession, no matter what. (A deep dive into what goes on in Brenda's head when she faces off with Martin Evans in the season 7 episode "Silent Partner")

Full text under the cut!

Brenda shoots Captain Raydor a look as the elevator doors close. She hopes they've worked together long enough that the captain can read everything Brenda couldn't put into words: I have to do this. It's the only way. I won't be alone but it has to look that way. Mostly, she just hopes that the woman doesn't follow her.

Of all of the people who work at the LAPD, Brenda probably trusts Raydor the most. But that's not saying much at this moment. Maybe she's just being paranoid (or maybe after months of being in denial about the mole she's finally being realistic), but Brenda cannot — will not — speak a word of her plan out loud within these walls.

Truth be told, she doesn't completely trust the FBI either. But she trusts Fritz. So if he hand picked the agents involved, Brenda supposes she'll trust them too. Not that she has another choice. It's too late now: the plan is already in motion, the bugs planted, her squad sent away on a wild goose chase.

Brenda gnaws her way through a whole package of Twizzlers on the short drive to Evans' condo building. That was a poor decision — hopefully the only one she makes today. The sugar rush has only exacerbated her nervousness and now she's also worried that her teeth are red from the licorice. Chocolate would have been a better choice, but the chewiness of the Twizzlers keeps her from grinding her teeth and besides they last longer than a chocolate bar.

She's usually so much more confident in these types of situations. But then she usually has back-up that she can trust. This time, she'll be all alone. Except Fritzi she has to keep reminding herself. Somehow that doesn't feel like enough.

Brenda's nerves only get worse when she runs into Marvin Evans walking his dogs outside of the building. She supposes she should have worked out some sort of signal with Fritz but it's too late now for 'should haves.'

Because here he is on the sidewalk and already her plan is going off the rails and also he seems taller than Brenda remembers. Or maybe it's the two massive dogs that make him seem to take up more space than before.

"They must smell my cat," she offers with a forced aura of nonchalance.

"Or your gun," he responds pointedly.

Brenda doesn't even try to argue. What would be the point? Of course she has a gun, she's a cop.

"I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time?" she asks instead, trying to keep her voice and her expression steely in a poor imitation of Darth Raydor, honestly, and Brenda wonders if maybe she should have had the woman join her after all. Just more 'should haves': too little too late.

She is worried that they will have to do this right there in the street, where she has no bugs planted and no FBI back-up hiding around the corner. Of course, Evans is smarter than to air out his dirty laundry in the street so he forcefully 'invites' Brenda inside and she breaths a shaky sigh of relief.

The condo is beautiful, with a view of the entire city. Brenda can see the PAB from here and as much as she dislikes that dumb fancy building, the visual confirmation that it is nearby has a calming effect. Her confidence returns as Evans makes small talk about the condo, offers her a drink, but then he grabs her by the arm and anxiety threatens to take over again.

His touch is soft, almost sensual in a sick sort of way, as he checks her earrings, her buttons, feels along her back and stomach for any sign of a bug or a wire. He is close enough that Brenda can smell his cologne — something overpoweringly musky that makes her want to gag but she will not give him the satisfaction.

He slides her purse off of her shoulder and walks away and Brenda can breathe again but only for a moment because he pulls her gun out of her purse and begins to gesture with it as casually as if it were a cigarette. She sits on the edge of the chair he indicates and reminds herself that her gun is loaded with blanks for just this reason. She's not there to shoot him. If anyone is going to shoot Evans, it'll be the FBI and she sure as hell isn't about to be taken down by her own gun.

"Are you an idiot or does your accent just make you sound like one?" he taunts, as he sits down casually in the chair across from Brenda's.

Brenda says nothing, but internally she smiles. The tides are turning and she's got him where she wants him now: holding a gun with no bullets and underestimating her. She stays timid, demure, but it's more of an act now than it was a few moments ago. It's how she will get him to confess — how she always gets them to confess.

She gets him talking about Charlie Niles and it even brings tears to his eyes. Brenda might feel sorry for him, if he weren't using his tears to justify multiple homicides. He gives her names and details, and even if he doesn't come right out and confess to pulling the trigger, Brenda is sure that the boys attached to those names will fill in the gaps.

She knows better than to push Martin Evans now for a more complete confession, even if she does have a hoard of FBI agents waiting in the hallway. She can take another run at him tomorrow, when he's handcuffed and his attack dogs aren't nearby.

Right now, she has loftier goals. Like getting out of here alive. "All this killing. Is that what Charlie would have wanted?" she asks sincerely, hoping to push Evans just enough that he'll kick her out and not enough that he'll try to shoot her.

He cocks the gun and Brenda flinches because even though that gun doesn't have any bullets, it can still do some real damage if he gets too close.

"Stand up," he demands. "You're leaving."

The muzzle of the gun is pressed to the small of her back as he leads her to the door, but Brenda is less frightened than she was when it was aimed at her head. As long as she does what he asks (which, incidentally is also what she wants to be doing), he's not gonna shoot her now when they are so close to the end.

He stops at the door and takes the clip out of the gun before dropping it back in her purse and handing it to her. As long as the FBI is really on the other side of that door, Brenda is home free.

"Don't come back," Evans sneers as he opens the door.

From this angle, Brenda can see what Evans can't: Fritz and the other agents in the hallway, waiting with guns drawn. For the first time, Brenda looks Evans right in the eye without an ounce of fear.

"Don't worry," she smirks at him. "I won't."

[shinymisty-blog]

The Triplets (Sonic, Sonia, and Manic)

When I first took the journey back in early 2023, I was expecting I wouldn’t like two-thirds of the trio. But, after the journey, I only disliked ONE-THIRD of the trio! But they are all the main characters, even if one has more plot armor than the others.

Disclaimers and notes for this particular post: •Be warned: These posts are often just MASSIVE walls of text! I have the "Keep Reading" tab there for a reason! •While there is no real order to these, I’ll try and keep things in order of relevance. •There will be times when I'll reference something that involves things that would be more relevant after the 40 episodes. During these headcanons, I'll place a nice little ✨ to indicate that it is one of those headcanons. (Everything mentioned will have some sort of explanation if needed). Think of it as a sneak peek at the story I am working on. •If I happen to update anything within this post, I’ll reblog it with the tag #Sonic Underground Project Update, along with a note on which information was updated. 

Links: Master Post | The Origin’s Arc 

·.¸¸.·♩♪♫ The Trio Together ♫♪♩·.¸¸.·

Together, the trio seem tightly knitted and FEEL like siblings. I love that about them. As the youngest sister of three, I get the dynamic, even if we aren’t twins. I want these three to be happy. I want to see them succeed. I want them to reunite with their mother. 

Although, ironically, I also kind of wish we had more with them separated, or mingling with other characters. But, ah well. That’s what writers are for. 

•♫•♬• Headcanons •♬•♫•.

➣The triplets are 15 in the Origin Arc, Wedding Bell Blues, and To Catch a Queen. They turn 16 in Mobodoon. Normally, I’d wait till Mobodoon to put this down but I feel it is too important not to have it right at the start. This makes plot points in other episodes (and wikis) a lot smoother. And it is all thanks to Sonia. 

➣Originally the siblings would take turns keeping a lookout while the others slept, they realized quickly that the van worked as their lookout, as it would let out an alarm if someone attempted to enter. Manic still sleeps pretty loosely, however. 

➣They also take turns being in charge of driving, though Sonic is least willing to do so.

·.¸¸.·♩♪♫ Sonic ♫♪♩·.¸¸.·

Did you guess that Sonic was the one I didn’t like from the three? Congratulations, that’s exactly right! He was also one of the two I didn’t think I’d enjoy going into the journey. So I was 50% right. 

Yeah. I felt Sonic was bland. Although, it could be my foggy brain playing tricks on me, covering up all of Sonic’s development and character…but I doubt it. All I remember from him being impatient, obsessed with chili dogs to an alarming degree, and seemingly being the leader of the trio. (His name is in the name of their band, you cannot tell me he wasn’t the leader).

HOPEFULLY, things will change as I add more information here throughout the series, I’ll be pleasantly surprised with what I come out with. Here’s hoping. 

•♫•♬• Headcanons •♬•♫•.

➣Sonic was born first out of the three. (I believe this is canon, but I’m putting it here anyway)

➣Though this is technically canon, Sonic’s eye color is green, parallel to Manic’s fur color.

➣Sonic is the unannounced leader of the group. He didn’t want this, it just kind of happened. 

·.¸¸.·♩♪♫ Sonia ♫♪♩·.¸¸.·

Did you guess that Sonia was one of the two I felt like I wouldn’t like going into the journey? Congratulation! I was surprisingly shocked by how much I fell in love with Sonia throughout the journey. 

I feared I’d grow very tired of Sonia’s “rich” and “the girl” characteristics…and I did, but her growing up within the highest class also helped give her so much character. She had lost so much and had the hardest adjusting to this new life. It helps that I came in already liking Bartleby, the character that is closely linked to Sonia. 

Her voice is the most annoying of the three. I can’t blame Jaleel White, though. Wasn’t his fault.

•♫•♬• Headcanons •♬•♫•

➣Sonia was born second out of the three. (I believe this is canon, but I’m putting it here anyway)

➣Sonia’s eyes are blue, parallel to Sonic’s fur color.  

➣Out of the three, Sonia is the only one who has a driver's license. While she is originally greatly upset over learning her brothers were driving without one. She quickly realized that having a license for anything was expensive, which made it impossible for any normal mobian to get one, and quickly dropped her judgment. In their spare time, she teaches her brothers the things they still need to learn to help prep them for their eventual driver's test. 

➣A young Sonia often went out to do self-defense training, much to Lady Windermere’s dismay. Unbinounced to her, Sonia encountered Dingo when they were both kids during one of these outings, mistakenly kicking him.

➣She and Bartleby grew up together. The duo would get into trouble that kids would usually get into. 

·.¸¸.·♩♪♫ Manic ♫♪♩·.¸¸.·

…I like Manic… I knew jumping into the project that, even if I didn’t like his siblings, I’d like Manic. And I was right. Out of the three, Manic was always my favorite by just what little I knew before the journey, and he is still my favorite by the end of the journey. Nothing has changed. 

I genuinely believe Manic was the character with the most development out of the trio and took second for the most development out of ALL characters in the series. Even if he often falls back to his character tropes, I still feel that he grew as a character by the end of the series. He came from living the worst out of the trio to realizing he was taken away from a luxurious life at birth. This boy needs therapy after this is done.

•♫•♬• Headcanons •♬•♫•

➣Manic was born last out of the three. (I believe this is canon, but I’m putting it here anyway)

➣Manic’s eyes are Fuchsia, parallel to Sonia’s fur color. 

➣He doesn’t let it show, but Manic holds slight resentment over Aleena and how she handled splitting him and his siblings up, thinking that they could have all stayed in Mobodoon together.

➣While Farrell tried to teach Manic that he should have some trust in others, an encounter with a shady mobian made him question if he could trust strangers or not. Encounters with mobians like Stripes and Luke didn’t help with his lack of trust. 

[lexart-io]

Hello! I am a traditional and digital artist, and I see you post a lot of images and works that have been generated through ai, and consider yourself a part of the art community here on the internet.

--Prefacing with the fact that I dont want to debate and am not here with the purpose of gatekeeping the art community. This is purely for my own curiosity, and understanding all sides of the Ai argument.--

I mean nothing judgemental or malicious by asking, although I do acknowledge it may sound that way by the nature of my asking. As someone who plans to pursue my own artworks made traditionally and digitally on software (like procreate) for a living, the questions I have to ask are:

- What do you gain or learn from creating images with Ai? what do you take away from it?

- What meaning do you find in creating those images? What do you want to say with it?

- In what way do you find yourself an artist? What are the unique skills that you have because of this method of image creation?

Thanks for your time and consideration in this, and Thank you for sticking around to read all of that. (I acknowledge that its a bit of a wall of text)

hello! no worries, i don't think your questions come off as judgmental or malicious at all, and i'm always more than happy to offer my thoughts / perspective on this topic to anyone who inquires. i think there's A LOT to be said on it, so hopefully my own incoming massive wall of text isn't too much haha.

i'm going to answer your questions in a slightly different order than you asked because i think it will help the overall flow of my explanations:

In what way do you find yourself an artist? i have a lifelong background in art. in high school and college, acrylic paint on canvas was my primary medium. also, i first downloaded Photoshop when i was 13 years old and started teaching myself to use it so i could create forum "signatures" for people on a gaming forum that i frequented at the time haha. in high school, i nearly maxed out the number of art classes i took and won a Scholastic Gold Key art award (the highest regional award) for a digital piece i made in one of my art classes. the other form of "art" that i've always been passionate about is computer programming. i started when i was 12 years old (with Visual Basic 3, which i taught myself) and continue to take on programming projects as a hobby to this day. currently i have over 10 years of (ongoing) professional graphic design experience, both freelance and in marketing director roles.

What do you gain or learn from creating images with Ai? what do you take away from it? my interest with AI began not from an artistic motivation, but rather from a nerdy computer programming motivation. working with AI is wildly fascinating and fun. it's an odd mix of creative outlets (visual, verbal, programming), which exercises a creative spot within my brain that i never even knew existed. click here to check out my previous post where i describe my workflow with ai. i'm not just typing prompts into a box and hitting generate. to me, that isn't creative enough and i don't really find the results to be all that interesting (though there are a few prompt-artists whom i find their work to be extraordinary, for the most part that whole direction is kinda boring in my opinion). i train ai models myself, often on really obscure or abstracted ideas / concepts / aesthetics. then i use those models to combine these unrelated concepts, rendering a batch of images which i use as a dataset to train a new model, which i then use to repeat this process ad infinitum (so my work is a constant evolution built upon everything preceding it). the work that i post here are my daily experiments, as i test out models and combine ideas. so what i gain from this is a deeper understanding of how machine learning tech works, a means of keeping up with generative ai technology as it continues to quickly advance, how to visually train ai models on concepts that are increasingly detached from visual reality, and (most importantly) a creative workflow that really, truly vibes with my soul's deepest passions. it's hard to really describe that last one... but you know that feeling you get as you're actively exercising your creative impulses on a medium that really connects with you on a deeper level? training ai, as nerdy as this sounds, is that for me. the "art" is not necessarily in the images themselves, but in the act of training ai models (because the process of training ai is not a standardized thing whatsoever, there are hundreds of settings and variables at play and every single person has their own methods which generally evolve with experience) and how you interact with these models on a verbal level (through text prompting) to render your imagination.

What meaning do you find in creating those images? What do you want to say with it? honestly, i think a lot of the "ai art" scene is made up of "delusional artists" who think whatever they generate from a basic text prompt is somehow deep and meaningful art haha. but that said, i do stand firm in my belief that even THAT is by definition still "art". there is human creative impulse behind it. ai is the tool and the human is the user of said tool. this particular tool can make creating things very easy, but at the end of the day it does still require some level of creative human input to do anything. as with any artistic tool or medium, i think that what you get out of it depends entirely upon what you put into it. more effort and time = more quality and meaning. text prompting for ai generated images is sort of the most "superficial" layer of the "ai art" scene. the phenomenon of delusional artists exists across ALL forms of art, so it's not just unique to ai. it seems like there is a large percentage of the population who, upon starting to learn a new creative outlet, have an overly grandiose view of their own work after they first start making things. they're so proud of what they created that it blinds them from seeing it for what it really is. they'll gloat about it online, they'll try to sell it for outrageous prices, etc and look super cringy in the process. some people eventually grow out of that and suddenly gain the self-awareness that "oh shit actually that art kinda sucked and i looked super inexperienced", but other times they never realize that and stay cringy. because ai art is so new and so many folks are just now jumping on, i think we're seeing a much higher percentage of this delusional artist phenomenon within this field at the moment, where everyone is so proud of what they're making and not realizing how lame it actually looks to people who know what they're doing. and, again for the record, i do still consider that stuff to be art (and so i mean no offense to anyone when i say these things). it's just really basic art, and i think most people will either grow past this phase (and learn to take these tools a lot deeper) or lose interest in it altogether - just as they do with other artistic endeavors like painting, ceramics, using Photoshop, making music in Ableton, etc, etc. i would classify 99% of my work as under the "concept art" category. it exists as a result of my daily experiments as i learn / discover my way deeper and deeper into machine learning technology. it generally explores scifi themes (robotics in particular) because i find that to be most creatively titillating, but it is not necessarily meant to convey any deeper meaning beyond purely imaginative visual pursuits that look toward the future. which is also why i don't sell my work or push the idea of it being profound in anyway. it's just daily exercise, but i absolutely love that so many other people enjoy looking at it (i'm somehow up to nearly 9000 followers here, which is kinda mind-blowing to me). i've been putting nearly every single spare hour of every single day for the last several years into this so it really means a lot to not only see my skillset improving over time, but to also gain such an audience for it in the process too. 🙏😭

What are the unique skills that you have because of this method of image creation? for me, the WHOLE point of all of this is knowledge and experience working with generative ai tools. this technology exists now and it won't be going away. the genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. i think absolutely any artist (but digital artists in particular) would only be doing themselves a tremendous disservice by not learning to use this tool immediately. being a stick in the mud about it is not going to stop this technology, nor will it save you in 10 years from getting let go at your job and replaced by some younger artist who learned this technology while getting a degree in graphic design and can pump out quality assets 100x faster than you ever could. don't wait until then to start learning this stuff because you will already be sooo far behind at that point. get involved right now, right this second; you will be on the ground floor of an incredible technology and able to keep up with the advancements as they happen, putting you in a much stronger position in the future. don't take it too seriously, just do it for fun and then thank yourself in 10 years when you're 100x more experienced than the younger artist who recently graduated with a graphic design degree. i recently met a graphic designer who somehow never learned to use Photoshop. they do everything the "old school" way - literally cutting, pasting, and drawing things by hand. that was fine 30+ years ago, but now they cannot get hired anywhere. they put off learning Photoshop for so long because they assumed that their excellent skills and truly beautiful eye for design would be enough to carry their career forward forever, without needing to keep up with the technical advancements. but in the modern world, no business wants a designer like that anymore; having strong Photoshop experience is a bare minimum. old school designers who did not keep up were ultimately pushed out entirely. in 10, 20, or even 30 years from now, you don't want to be that old person taking night classes at the local university to try to save your career. get ahead of it, jump on board and invest in your future! i truly believe that you will start to discover creative new ways to integrate it into your current workflow and you will become a stronger (and more marketable) artist in the process. :)

sorry for the huge post and hopefully everything makes sense lmao. feel free to reach out with more questions any time. particularly if you want help getting started in the realm of ai-assisted art and design. i'm always more than happy to help!

[vinniehorrible]

I have a new sona OC!

I know I technically posted this guy here before, but I kept making changes and adding stuff, so I just thought I'd better post it here properly, rather than just keeping a 2am post around.

I really hope the text can be read, or at least zoomed in to.

What can I say? I love dragons, and have had them as a part of my online persona for ages, but things change, and one night, I just had a revelation. What if I just made my sona a dragon or at least a dragonborn-like creature? And well, here we are.

The guy is inspired by all sorts of IRL stuff. He's clumsy and injury-prone like me, a healer/wizard, which are classes I most often play in RPGs, and he's green, which is my favourite colour (If that wasn't obvious ^^; ). He also has a lot of clothes inspired by what I wear, just turned more fantasy-esque.

There is SO much lore and magic stuff around him. I mean, duh, he's a wizard. It's quite funny though, because most of this lore was added by my friends throughout the many years that we've known each other. Guess that explains why it's such a massive wall of text.

I also added shield magic, since protection and healing go kinda hand in hand.

And to make him seem a lot less like a Mary Sue type of character, I gave him some weaknesses as well. Most inspired by real stuff as well. Flashing colours can get him easily distracted, as do things like nasty smells and loud noises or music. These things overwhelm me a lot too and just take my attention away. That's why I don't go to bars.

He can also get easily tired, which we also share. I have a terrible stamina.

And then some magical weaknesses as well, to not make him sound like a perfect healer.

Overall, for a character born out of a 2am thought and ideas, he doesn't look half bad. I kinda like how the design turned out. Hopefully so do you.

Thank you so much if you've read it this far. <3 Hope you'll have a lovely day. ;)

(And if anyone would have asks about this or any of my characters, you'd have my massive gratitude 💚 )

[gunkreads]

Making a post for my full-series thoughts about The Expanse and how it wrapped up, good and bad.

Caveat lector (I looked up the latin word for "reader" just for this joke): when I have negative thoughts about something in a book, I force myself to pick them apart down to the most minute details. This generates massive walls of text. These text walls don't mean I truly loathe the thing; they mean I'm doing my absolute best to not be a Hater, but rather to analyze my feelings so that you can read something more constructive and interesting than "X was dumb and didn't work".

I want to break this down into six parts: one for each of the main characters (Holden, Naomi, Amos, and Alex), one for the plot, and one for the world (it'll make sense when I get to it, hopefully). This may not be as long as it sounds like it'll be, but it's still long as fuck.

Bear in mind that I read this series very slowly, over about three months, so some of the early-series details are hazy and my opinions on them should be taken with the assumption that I've forgotten some stuff.

On Holden, I can be brief:

His arc was almost a full 180. Call it a 173, give or take 5 degrees. Holden starts the series with the stalwart belief that "if you give everyone all the information available, they'll make the right choice". Eventually, during the Free Navy arc, he moves to "If you give everyone all the information available, they'll eventually make the right choice". During his Laconian imprisonment, he moves to "If you give the right person the right information, they'll make the right choice" (this is the biggest jump we see). That part was fun because he'd just almost turned into Miller. Fucking excellent.

He ends on "I have all the information and I have no idea what the right choice is, but I have to act." This is the very last thing he does: make a snap decision with all the information in the world, fully accepting that he might be wrong. The meat of this final decision is to take the stars away. Holden says "It doesn't matter if we deserve this, it doesn't matter if we'll earn it or conquer it eventually; we're dying now," and makes the decision for all of humanity that he's going to destroy the ring gates.

This could have felt cheap because of the way it completely absolves him of the responsibility for his decision, but it feels fully earned because this type of decision is his ENTIRE CHARACTER. The point of James Holden is that he takes hard choices away from people and makes them himself! He's already taken responsibility for dozens of these types of decisions before. He says there's no choice here; I'm going off to die. He survives this a hundred times, then finally dies from it. This makes it a beautiful ending for him. I loved it. He's such a profoundly simple character throughout a series with fairly complex characters, and that makes him feel truly special rather than lazy writing.

On Naomi... I have mixed feelings.

I feel that her lack of "epilogue" (not the literal epilogue, just a conclusive send-off for her character) made her ending less weighty than it could have been. If I had to point to a specific line that felt like her full-series character arc's climax, it would be Alex's "It would have worked beautifully" in reference to Naomi's program to monitor Ring gate traffic. Naomi's character is marked by decades of desperate cries for people to fucking listen to her, for them to believe her, that she wants everyone to live! She has the plan, she's objectively a logistical genius, and if you just tell her what's happening, she can save all of you fucking idiots! Alex's line there broke my heart clean in half. She won the wrong fight. She scored the season-winning goal the moment after the league was dismantled.

Naomi is a character about the frustration of having an answer but no voice with which to share it. This really comes to a head in Act 3, when she's coordinating the resistance (as well as anyone possibly could!) with the most janky, fucked-up communication system anyone could possibly design. If I consider that line of Alex's to be Naomi's legacy in the series, which I do, I'm very happy with her arc overall, but...

I don't really like the way she seemed to just drop off the map at the end of the last book. She has her little moment where she's pre-mourning Holden after he's revealed that he's injected himself with more protomolecule, but after that? She seems to just be... kind of moving forward. She's just working, nothing more--strategically, what she does in the series' climax is no more difficult than anything she's done before; it just has higher stakes and she's clearly drowning her grief in work. The thing that feels weird to me is that, while she gets the last line in the book (pre-epilogue), and her series-long arc closes out very neatly, it feels like her little mini-arc of the moment of that final climax never settles out properly. She gets cut off at the 80% mark and just... disappears.

I like to assume that she fully retired after getting back through to Sol. She deleted all those incoming messages and dropped herself fully off the map, feeling like it was finally time to give up after saving the entire universe. The simple act of her deleting the messages would've given me that closure, but as it was, there's just this little nag at the back of my mind that her arc in the book ended like five seconds too early.

It's a minor nitpick! I loved the way the climax wrapped around and had her basically leading humanity for a few beautiful moments, with all her hard work almost paying off before the game changed.

Amos? I fucking love Amos.

I loved him before, I loved him during, and I love him after. Everyone loves Amos. I'm not special. He really was the last man standing, after all. Fucking beautiful. Perfection. A simple arc, a simple conclusion, and a simple message for a simple character. His only real change in the series was during Persepolis Rising, when he had to deal with Clarissa's slow death, and while that was excellent, it was really more of an arc for Bobbie.

Alex... is the character whose ending I cared about the least.

I don't dislike it; it's fully above that margin, and on a surface level, I think ending his whole character arc on his answer to the family problem he's struggled with his whole life is a good choice.

It was interesting that they had his presence end before we'd confirmed he was safe, and with a slight hint that he might not make it to Nieuwestad. I didn't like that at first glance, but after further thought, I enjoy it as a way for the authors to say "the journey and destination don't matter; the conclusion of Alex's story was when he truly chose to step in this direction."

But overall, I don't know if I have much to say about Alex. He's a very sparse character who has less overt reason to be simple than Holden or Amos do; the latter two both have something deeply, deeply wrong with them that makes them really fucking wacko in a specific way, but Alex is just... kind of a regular deadbeat dad? He's just really into flying ships? That's kind of it. I know they explore that in Cibola Burn, but I didn't feel like Alex had that much presence in the whole story as a character, so I found the simple, vague ending they gave him satisfying enough through my general apathy.

For the plot!

The big stuff, the shape of the story. I still have a huge complaint about it: the Free Navy arc felt way too long and way too much of a sidetrack. It functioned as setup for Laconia, yes; it also had literally nothing to do with the overarching story. It felt like a side mission blown out of proportion, which is weirdly appropriate for a story that started out as a TTRPG setting.

On the above? I am one HUNDRED percent willing to be proven wrong. Please, please, please talk me out of my position here. I am currently at one end of the spectrum, where I actively see disconnections from the Free Navy arc and the main plot; I'd love to be pulled to the other end, where I can see how it all ties in. The problem is that I can see the cause-and-effect tie-ins: I get that Earth needed to be destroyed to truly push people through the gates, I get that the huge catastrophe needed to happen to distract from Laconia's growth, I get that it was an end to the concept of a unified Belt/OPA, and I get that it was an immensely well-done arc for Naomi's character, but... I feel like it's a puzzle piece that just fits in a little loosely.

Moving on. I think the wrapup of the whole protomolecule makers/dark gods lore discovery (via Elvi at the BFE) was quite well done, especially given that it was done in such a dispersed way. I felt like I never got a "sit down, here's the deal" exposition dump of like... generally what the nature of all this stuff was. I was just expected to read the "The Dreamer" chapters very carefully, remember the "The Investigator" chapters pretty well, pay attention to how the ring entities worked, and put together the cleanly laid-out pieces myself. I feel I succeeded at this, given that reading through the wiki pages for the ring builders and the smoke things doesn't really reveal anything new to me.

That said, I was... kind of too in-the-moment to process how insane the implication of the final reveal was: that this whole thing was a hidden metaphor for colonialism all along, and that these dark smoke entities are justifiably fighting back against a wound in (sub)reality that the protomolecule builders created. The road to heaven is paved in metaphysical blood, I guess? The protomolecule builders weren't willing to be as decisive as Holden, weren't willing to sacrifice all they'd built, and consequently left their problems for another generation of beings when they died; Holden managed to have the magical willpower to say "Fuck this, I'm shutting it down, even though it'll kill millions and change humanity forever." It was kind of cool that he got that send-off, performing a profound act of healing in this sub-universe by deleting the ring space. Maybe I'm leaning too heavily on my interpretation of this theme, but it feels fairly clear-cut to me, honestly, so I'd love to hear other interpretations.

Regarding the world.

This section is kind of a subsection of the plot, but I feel like "where does the series leave humanity?" is a question that falls more under "worldbuilding" than "story" in this specific series.

These books had so much fucking philosophy in them and it felt like none of it really mattered much. Most of that philosophy stopped at a very broad-spectrum level of analysis, which is the series' greatest... not weakness, necessarily, but missed potential: no philosophical conundrum is ever interrogated beyond the immediate scenario or vague hypotheticals. The authors clearly have a very specific set of ideas about human nature that all felt very generic to me when put into practice; I felt that humanity through their lens was a fairly predictable beast, which only sort of worked.

I understand that The Expanse is, at its core, a character series. More than anything, it's about the people in it; its plot is a vehicle for characters, not the other way around. In that sense, it ended in an overall great way, as discussed above. Because of that, when I judge the story on what it tried to achieve, I think it succeeded.

But when I broaden my approach a little and look at what the authors suggested to me that they could do, I feel like there's more to say. The end of the story, I need not remind you, is effectively a soft reset for humanity. There's no more interstellar travel until they figure it out for real this time, with no cheats--and per the epilogue, they do just that. The core message behind this is that humanity's tenacity will always push them in the same direction: outward. The problem with this, in my opinion, was that the authors chose to express this throughout the series in a very obtuse way: by making "everyone else" a character.

The following is specifically regarding Act 3 (Persepolis Rising on):

So the series is about its characters, and "everyone else" is a character. By having the scope of the story affect all of humanity, all of humanity must necessarily be involved. As far as Act 3 is concerned, this means that the gears of industry never stop turning, people never stop hating and loving, and all apocalyptic danger is effectively ignored to those ends. This made our perspective characters part of a small, exclusive group of people who were actually worried about the universe ending. Everyone else seemed to... not really care. They were scared, sure, but they didn't stop shipping stuff through the ring gates! It was fundamentally stupid, and as far as the authors seem to believe, fundamentally human.

My problem is that the story puts "all of humanity" into the same framework it puts its individual characters. As Act 3 hits, basically everyone not involved in direct on-page conflict is treated as one single character. This is fucking monumentally ironic, given the way the story ends and the whole hive-mind thing. I get how you might not see what I'm seeing here, but consider this: the story feeds us information about what "everyone else" is doing almost exclusively via Naomi. She's the traffic controller; that's her main job for the last two books. In her mind, the character named Everybody Else (Mx. Else, for brevity) is just... doing stuff she can't control. Mx. Else is upping traffic through the ring gates; Mx. Else is a threat to the underground's security; Mx. Else is blowing up the communications relays; Mx. Else is yadda yadda yadda.

It's not about whether Mx. Else is actually supposed to be a homogeneous entity (again, lol @ the irony); it's about the fact that we, the readers, only see Mx. Else as a single huge force. The way the authors write it through Naomi's eyes, "The UNN", "The MCRN", "The OPA", "The Free Navy", "Laconia", "Avasarala", "Saba", "Duarte", and most incongruously but importantly "humanity" are all the same type of entity. Groups and people get lumped together as characters, sure, and that works--but not when you expand the group to be everyone.

What would I have done? Simple. Shut the fuck up and write my own book, if I'm so smart Retain some semblance of different human groups in Act 3 besides "Laconia" and "the underground". Why don't Auberon or Bara Gaon have communities with specific interests? Why does Naomi not have to juggle the desires of different planets, all of whom are still doing shit the whole time, and OBVIOUSLY have interests beyond "just truckin' along"?

Here's my thesis: when there were 3 factions (UN, MCR, OPA) this worked fine. When the authors made some big "nature of humanity" statement, it tracked, because they were making that statement as a blanket over multiple opposing groups, which made it feel more potent--all these people who want to kill each other have this in common. Later in the series, when they're making the same type of statement, it doesn't track as well because most of humanity is all in one group; it's not a statement that unites any opposing groups, really, since Laconia and the underground aren't really included in it.

You know what? I kind of wish I could put all this under another, smaller cut, because it's really rambly and it's not reflective of my overall thoughts on the series.

To sum up, I feel that the series' philosophy and commentary on human nature was simplified more than it needed to be from a practical standpoint, and instead turned to a big old "oh well, nothing we can do about Mx. Else" that the characters could point to when it was appropriate.

To conclude (nine pages later and you're still here, so this one's for you):

:)

[spark-is-silly]

get to know me!!

you can call me Spark or Jasper

I go by she/her and I'm trans!!

I was born Aug 29th 2006

I have ADHD, autism, and dyslexia (NOT SELF DIAGNOSED [gotta make that clear because people on tiktok were incredibly rude about that]) so please try to bear with me

I love lots of things, but I'll list a few of the bands, games, movies, and shows I enjoy at the time of writing

games: pokemon, paper mario (mostly ttyd and super paper mario), mario kart, mario and luigi (superstar saga my fav <3), the legend of zelds (OoT, LttP, links awakening, and windwaker my favs), super metroid, quake 2, dead space (1 and 2), dusk, ultrakill, FAITH, halo reach, luigis mansion (2 is my fav) and a ton more

TV/movies: star wars, early MCU, the first 3 spider man films, the boys, invincible, adventure time, teen titans, batman beyond, smiling friends, home movies, alien (2 and 3 my favs), friday the 13th (2009 reboot was my fav), red vs blue, and a lot more!!

music ganres!! (was gonna do bands but theres WAY too many): folk punk, egg punk, weirdcore, indie rock, slowcore, midwest emo, acoustic stuff like dead calm and Elliott Smith (idk that ganres name), dariacore, a bit of hyperpop, grindcore, threash metal, sledge metal, and a lot more, I'll listen to most things, but I like some more then others

if you're still here, thank you so much for your time and for reading this massive text wall, hopefully we can be friends or something :3

even if not, HAVE AN AWESOME DAY/NIGHT!!

[headstrongblake]

❛  you're all mine to use, aren't you?  ❜ / kassy & nick / @thewholecrew

it's relentless. & if he didn't know any better, he'd swear kassy was trying to kill him. and she just might, he thinks as another pictures comes through his phone, grip tightening around the device. nick can do nothing more but shake his head, attempting to force his attention back on the bank manager as they wade through paperwork for the nightclub and warehouses. he releases a controlled breath but god if she keeps this up he doesn't know how he'll manage to wait until the new years eve party tonight to see her. this'll be the last time he mentions to her what a hectic schedule he has for the day.

the day passes painfully slow for nick. he tried throughout the day to shift his focus to his work from kassy. there's a massive event tonight at the nightclub and nick does his best to ensure they're all prepared. more bouncers on for the night. more bartenders and servers & there's even a famous DJ that's flown in from LA though he's pretty sure that connection is due to chase' guilt over the summer and exactly why they haven't seen the musician around who left for a tour. he needs his focus here and not on the way kassy's fingers feel trailing down his chest, or the softness of her skin as his lips graze his favourite spot. he needs to focus on work, but every text that comes through causes him to strain against his jeans. she's fucking gorgeous, can anyone blame him?

by the time he spots both destruction and trouble getting their hand stamp at the door, crystal eyes dart around the room for anyone else octavia could occupy her time with. he has to be alone with kassy. just has to. it's no longer a want or a thought, but an overwhelming painful need to get his hands on kassy. another calculated breath comes forth as the two girls find there way to him but like he has all day, he does his best to stiffle the desire to have kassy. she makes it very clear that she's in control and if he were to do something about it tonight after she's spent all day toying with him, he doesn't know how long she'd continue to relentlessly tease him.

"and now the party can really begin." nick offered a smirk towards the pair of them, his breath hitching in his throat as kassy comes to stand in front of him, with her back pressed against him. thank god for the lighting in this place because even he can't blink away the lust that swirls in his eyes. his hand comes to rest on kassy's waist while octavia chatters on about how incredible the place looks and how much fun they're going to have tonight. but as kassy leans back against him ever so slightly his fingers tighten against kassy's waist, desire rushing through him. octavia glanced around, hopefully looking for grant or anyone else, and nick lowered his head, "you're a devil." he murmured against kassy's ear.

kassy's delicate touch reaches in between them covered by the darkness of the club and nick has no choice but to bite down on his bottom lip as her finger dances dangerously close to his zipper. "yeah...yeah, i'll be around." nick answered octavia, tripping over his words as he did so. teeth clench together as octavia disappeared into the sea of people and before nick has the chance to move his hand from kassy's waist to her wrist, she quickly catches his wrist instead, tugging him along to upstairs. he has to admit, putting in the private rooms upstairs was the best decision yet.

"do you know how much i've needed you all day?" he asked finally once they're alone. but the cheshire cat smile she gives him with a tilt of her head as she nears him tells him she absolutely does. fuck, he's in for a great deal of trouble with this one. it takes all his willpower not to flip them so she's pressed between the wall and himself, leaving bruising kisses along her skin and instead, he patiently threads his fingers into her hair, crystal hues swimming with desire. his lip part to whispers all the things he's thought about all day, but as her lips near his, he quickly chases her kiss. it's too short. too teasing as, "you're all mine to use, aren't you?" vibrates against his lips. he groans to her triumphant smirk, his body tensing as her hand slips into his jeans. "fuck," he breathes out, lashes fluttering as his head tilted against the back wall, "yes." he answered finally, god yes, he's hers to do whatever she wants with. "all yours to use." he repeated her words with a hungry moan.

[ghostofaboy]

Rock Bottom - Filled And Fulfilled

Summary: Frankie is spiraling after Tom’s death. Drugs lead to some unhealthy friendships, and too ashamed to reach out to his former teammates for help, Frankie is drawn into a world he’s afraid he can’t get out of.

Frankie continues his first day with Tilly up in the bedroom.

Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morale/Original Male Characters Rating: Explicit. Serious over 18s only Word count: 2474 Chapter: 19/?

Warnings: implied/referenced drug use, drug addiction, self-esteem issues, angst, Frankie not coping, dubious consent, prostitution, mentions of group sex, rimming, anal sex, dirty talk,

Note: This has not been beta read, so apologies for any mistakes. This is a fic with gay and bi characters. Please make sure you read the tags/warnings. Header by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

Part 18 / Part 1 / Masterpost

Frankie was a prostitute now. The thought came to him suddenly as he looked down at his naked body spattered with the evidence. It was strange. He thought he’d feel different, but he oddly felt the same. A peculiar calm washed over Frankie as he realized this was his new reality. He worked for Tilly now. Tilly would use him, and then he’d be sat around waiting for the next time Tilly wanted him. And he was ok with that.

Tilly had fingered him on the lawn, and all Frankie could think about was how much more he needed. Leaning back, the cool leather of the sofa caused goosebumps to dance across his skin as he gazed lazily around the sitting room. His soft cock resting between his legs stirred slightly as his mind drifted back to Tilly.

After finishing off Frankie and helping him up, Tilly’s phone had begun to ring. Frowning, he had apologized to Frankie, saying he had to take the call, and hurried back inside. Now Frankie could hear the muffled one-sided conversation coming from Tilly’s home office as he sat next to his clothes on the sofa. 

Frankie had thought about getting dressed, but there was really no point. He’d be naked again as soon as Tilly returned. And besides, he had cum on his stomach that he really didn’t want to get on his t-shirt.

Reaching over to his jeans, Frankie pulled out his own phone, breathing a sigh of relief as he saw he had no new messages. Hopefully, Tyler would be too busy with his friends to think of Frankie today. It was a long shot as Tyler had gotten into the habit of texting Frankie at least once a day to check on how his withdrawal was going and offer support. Tyler was a naturally kind soul, and Frankie knew he didn’t deserve him.

Putting his phone back into his jeans pocket and standing up, Frankie headed up the stairs toward the main bathroom. He may as well wash this cum off himself before Tilly returned, and some was already starting to dry in his mustache. Filling the sink up, Frankie tidied himself up before drying off.

Opening the bathroom door, Frankie almost jumped out of his skin to find Tilly waiting outside the room. The other man jumped, too, with his hand reaching out for the door handle. Meeting Tilly’s eyes, Frankie let out a soft laugh. 

“Everything ok?”

“My son.” Tilly smiled, running a hand over Frankie’s clean torso. “He’s had a falling out with his friend, so he’s coming home.”

“Oh.” Frankie frowned, feeling actual disappointment at the thought of being sent home early. “Do, do you want me to go?”

“No.” Tilly shook his head, pulling Frankie towards the master bedroom. “He won’t be home for a couple of hours yet, and besides, it’s not like he doesn’t know you’ll be here.”

“You’ve told him?” Frankie stepped into the minimally decorated master suite. The large room was dominated by a huge bed with two nightstands on either side. The far wall was a single massive window overlooking the garden, while the wall next to the door was lined with two large closet doors. Opposite the bed was more closet space and a door, no doubt leading to the master bathroom. 

“Didn’t need to.” Tilly steered Frankie over to the bed. “How do you think I found out about Gavin’s little scheme with you?”

“What?” Frankie’s heart faltered as he spun to face Tilly. “Your… son? He…?”

“He and two friends rented you from Gavin,” Tilly replied nonchalantly, reaching into the side table to pull out a bottle of lube. “The three of them made a rather filthy video of themselves with you, which they planned to put online. I found it when checking Jason’s computer. Don’t worry, I stopped them.”

Frankie sat on the bed, processing what he’d just learned. Brushing over why Tilly would be checking his son’s computer, Frankie’s stomach lurched at the discovery of yet more footage of sex he didn’t remember. What if Tilly hadn’t found it? Would it have ended up online? Could you see his face in it?

“Frankie.” Tilly lifted Frankie’s face up to look at him, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Don’t worry. I have the video now.”

“How old is your son?” The question left his lips before Frankie’s brain had a chance to react. Shit. Why would he ask that? Did it even matter now? 

“18.” Tilly answered simply. “Old enough to fuck who he wants and old enough to know I do the same. You didn’t remember, did you?”

Frankie shook his head. “There’s a lot I don’t remember, and this is the second video I’ve found out about.”

“What was the first?”

“Gavin has at least one on his phone.” Frankie sighed. “There are probably more.”

“Leave it with me.” Tilly gently kissed Frankie’s forehead. “Let me deal with young Mr Ross. Now, relax. Jason will be home in a couple of hours. So why don’t we try to gross him out as much as possible by being as loud as we can?”

Frankie laughed softly as Tilly kissed the top of his head again. Reaching out, he began to pull down Tilly’s sweatpants, his eyes widening as he noticed that Tilly’s cock was still impressively thick, even when soft. Tilly yanked off his t-shit, throwing it to the floor before stepping out of his sweatpants. 

“Up on the bed on your knees.” He ordered, motioning to Frankie. “Face down, ass up.”

Frankie did as he was told, positioning himself on the bed with his ass towards Tilly, who offered him a pillow. Tucking it under his chest Frankie pushed his ass up, feeling the air against his skin.

“Knees a little wider.” Tilly helped spread Frankie’s legs slightly more and lifted his ass further into the air until his entrance was displayed how he wanted. “Perfect. You have a perfect ass, you know that?”

Frankie didn’t answer as Tilly gently ran a finger around the ring of muscle, sending shivers up Frankie’s spine. He could feel Tilly’s warm breath on his ass and couldn’t stop himself from letting out a small whimper as Tilly’s hot tongue nudged against his entrance.

“From the moment I saw this ass, I needed to have it.” Tilly murmured into Frankie’s ass, his tongue lapping around the twitching opening. “So fucking perfect. Love watching it swallowing a cock.”

Tilly continued to kiss and lick at Frankie's hole, drawing gasps and moans from him. Burying his face in Frankie's ass, holding his cheeks as wide as they would go with both hands, Tilly flicked his tongue against the entrance before slowly pushing it passed the rim. Frankie writhed as Tilly set about ravishing his ass, sloppily fucking Frankie on his tongue before returning to the rim to suck and tease.

"Fuck, fuck, ah..." Frankie's thighs quivered as Tilly's relentless attention continued. He could feel his cock stirring, it wasn’t hardening just yet, but Frankie knew it soon would. It hadn’t been that long since he’d come in the garden, and he wasn’t as young as he used to be. But that fire in his stomach was returning, urging his cock to recover faster, making his body shudder. 

The sound of lube being pumped caught Frankie’s attention, and he turned his head just enough to see Tilly pushing both his thumbs deep into Frankie’s waiting hole. Gripping his ass cheeks with his fingers, Tilly began to pull, using his thumbs to gently open Frankie’s ass before spitting into it. 

Frankie moaned loudly as he felt the hot wet saliva trickle inside him, with a small amount escaping to drip down onto his balls. Another glob of spit hit him, accompanied by a further pull of Tilly’s thumbs to open his gaping hole.

“Gonna make you nice and sloppy,” Tilly growled, licking a stripe from Frankie’s balls up and over his open entrance. “Gonna leave you gaping by Monday.”

Frankie let out another wanton moan, his heart racing at Tilly's words. His cock was throbbing again; although still flaccid, it twitched as Frankie gripped the bed sheets. He could feel Tilly's grip release him, the thumbs slipping from his ass, leaving him feeling empty and cold. 

Biting his lip, Frankie looked over his shoulder to see Tilly stand up straight, grinning at him. His heavy cock already standing proudly against his stomach. Locking eyes with Frankie, Tilly gripped the base of his shaft, slapping it down against Frankie's waiting hole a few times, pulling further groans and whimpers from him.

"Please... please," Frankie pleaded, adjusting slightly to force his legs wider still, bearing his entrance for Tilly.

“No need to beg, baby.” Tilly chuckled, applying a few squirts of lube to the bulbous head of his cock. “I have plans for this ass, starting with filling you full of cum.”

Frankie panted as Tilly began to ease his length carefully into Frankie’s ass. Despite knowing that Tilly had fucked him before, Frankie felt as though he was being split in two. The stretch was intense, bordering on painful, as Tilly’s girth filled him entirely. It took almost a full minute for Tilly to sink himself fully into Frankie, hissing and adjusting with more lube as needed.

“Good boy.” Tilly purred, pausing to give Frankie a chance to adjust to his size. “You can take it. I know you can. Just breathe.” 

Reaching around to Frankie’s cock, Tilly tenderly stroked Frankie’s half-hard shaft, fully awakening it as Frankie focused on his breathing. Finally, the pain ebbed away, although Frankie still felt stuffed. 

“I’m good.”

“I know you are.” Tilly cooed, letting go of his cock and gently stroking down Frankie’s thigh. “You’re doing great. It’s been a while since we’ve done this, and you’re usually much more relaxed.”

“High.” Frankie corrected.

“Yes.” Tilly began to rock into Frankie slowly. “But we’re not doing that anymore. This way takes longer, but it’s better.”

Frankie nodded in agreement, feeling Tilly pull slowly out before lazily burying himself to the hilt again. Placing his hands on Frankie’s hips, Tilly began to move. His pace was slow, tender almost, as he pumped into Frankie, rolling his hips with every other thrust. 

Frankie moaned softly, burning his face into the mattress, his head emptying of everything except for the pressure building in his groin. He felt full, his skin prickling with every roll of Tilly’s hips. His ball swung heavily, already needing release again, as Frankie was overcome with a hazy feeling, almost like being drunk.

“So good.” Tilly steadily poured praise onto Frankie as he continued his languid pace. “You feel so good, nice and relaxed now, baby.” Tilly began to up the tempo as his words coached Frankie to the next stage. “That’s right. This is what you’re here for. Your ass was made for cock. Look at you taking it so well. Such a good little slut.”

Tilly snapped his hips forward, striking them against Frankie’s ass, sending jolts of electricity straight to his cock. Upping the tempo further, Tilly set a new brutal pace as he pounded into Frankie’s gaping hole. The sound of smacking flesh filled the space as Frankie pushed his ass back to meet Tilly’s thrusts. Arching his back, Frankie could feel Tilly digging his nails into his hips as he frantically slammed into Frankie.

"Take it,” Tilly grunted with each snap of his hips. “Take. It. This ass was made for this. Fucking take it like the slut you are."

Frankie's face burned as sweat dripped from him, rolling down his face and pooling near his cheek pressed into the mattress. He panted, feeling his dripping cock swinging between his legs, the tip brushing against the bed beneath him. It wasn’t quite giving enough friction to push him closer to the edge but mixing and merging with the sensation inside from Tilly hitting his prostate, making Frankie whine and huff out the occasional “Fuck.”

Eventually, Tilly’s pace began to falter, his hips stuttering, jerking forward to push deep into Frankie. Then with a strangled cry, Frankie felt Tilly buck into him harshly and flood his ass. 

“Oh fuck, Frankie, fuck.” Tilly rasped. “Come on, baby, come for me. I need to feel you come. Nice and loud. Scream for me, Frankie.”

Still huffing with exhaustion, Tilly resumed thrusting, fucking Frankie over the edge until all Frankie could see were stars as his orgasm hit him like a truck. His muscles tensed, clenching down and gripping Tilly's cock, as static filled his head. Frankie trembled, letting out a final long, loud moan before collapsing beneath Tilly. 

As the cock slipped out of his ass, Frankie let himself fall onto his side, feeling some of the cum dribble out onto the bed. He was vaguely aware of Tilly leaving to head into the master bathroom, hearing the faucet run and the gush of water. 

He left lighter. Better perhaps. Tilly had known precisely how to touch him, how to fuck him, to make the voices stop. To make the clouds of darkness part, if only for a moment. Fucking Tilly had made him dizzy, light-headed, and utterly amazing. Like being drunk. Like being high. Some part of him screamed to stop, yelled loudly that this was a bad idea. But the other part, the bigger part, was in bliss. It wanted more. Needed more. 

“Here.” Tilly returned with a washcloth, gently wiping Frankie down. “You were fantastic. Forgot how much you come thought.” Tilly laughed, and Frankie followed his gaze to the puddle of cum on the bed sheets. Frankie let out a tired huff of laughter. 

“Might need to shower,” Frankie murmured. Tilly laughed again, nodding.

“Definitely need a shower.” Tilly gently opened Frankie’s ass cheeks to look lustfully at his cum filled hole. “Can you keep that in while we take a breather?”

Frankie shook his head. Tilly nodded, opening the side table and pulling out a thick red plug. Frankie lifted a shaking leg, wincing as Tilly pushed the plug into place before dropping his leg back down. Tilly slumped down next to him, breathing heavily with a wide grin. 

“Food?” Tilly reached over to brush Frankie’s sweaty, matted hair out of his face. “Come on. Let's go grab a snack, get our second wind, then we’ll clean up properly.” 

Groaning as he stood back up, Tilly began pulling Frankie off the bed despite his protests. Rolling his eyes, Frankie allowed himself a small smile as he followed Tilly back downstairs, the plug firmly in place, rubbing that sweet spot. Passing through the sitting room on the way to the kitchen, Frankie was almost sure he heard his phone’s message alert before shaking his head to help Tilly prepare food for them.

[mickmundy]

okay so i half-answered this on cc itself, but i wanted to further elaborate and upload pictures to talk about what i mean and to give more of an "in depth" answer/advice so here i am! gonna stick this under a cut since it's a little lengthy BUT i hope this helps! ;__;!! also obvious and necessary but irritating disclaimer i'm not a professional writer (or even among the best out there lol) so this is just what works for me and how i write and how i Enjoy writing (as opposed to it feeling like you're "hitting a wall")!

my writing style is just writing the way I would want to read a fic, if that makes sense? i wanted to read a bushmed fic that read more like a novel and less like a movie or a comic book script (if that makes sense!) that focuses on symbolism, setting and the character progression of each person involved (in this case, medic and sniper) as well as their progression as a couple. i think ship stuff often suffers greatly because one character often ends up diluted down to “Love Interest For Character A” and not portrayed as someone who is Also an important part of the series as, you know, the second main character!

that’s not to say my writing Flawlessly Executes This (or even does it at all! but i hope it does sobs) but that’s a huge goal of my own personal writing. i want medic and sniper to feel "Strong" on their own (because they are!), but not without their own sets of flaws and vulnerabilities that are talked about and dealt with as they fall in love and "become a couple" (... hopefully! >:) heh!). i think doing "character studies" for the characters you want to write about is really helpful! for me, that encompasses a LOT of things so if you were curious about that too, just lmk and i'll happily make that a separate post! ^u^

for Structuring fics themselves and delving into "actual writing advice", i'm someone who LOVES making really formal "essay-like" outlines/charts/etc for my fics, but it's ultimately not something i do until much later as a post-writing notation function (Remembering important plot points/devices as opposed to Fleshing Them Out).

idk if literally anyone else does it this way but i have a discord channel in which i just ramble (to myself and my gf if she wants to weigh in!) and blab just to Chunk Stuff Out. i'll be using some examples from the planning of my completed fic Malus as examples! while Sometimes i can just "sit down and write" my fics (as in just hopping into the doc and Writing Very Formally), a lot of my fic's Key Moments (except for the apricot dream in Fever. that i wrote in under an hour almost exactly as you read it on ao3!) are done very casually! this is quite literally how i plan/"write" my fics:

like just a fucking. MASSIVE series of run on sentences (often because im just Literally typing what my mind is thinking), emoji use and just. as fucking sloppity slapdash as you can possibly imagine. and that's alright! it's the first draft after all! what's most important is that you're getting your thoughts down. so you can read (and be appalled SDFKSFD) at this Extremely Massive wall of text, but i will let you into the Enigma That Is My Mind (that one patrick meme but its a picture of medic and sniper kissing in the thought bubble):

first of all the most essential part of my writing process is having a beautiful femme wife who gives commentary and encourages you to write the butchfemme bushmed romance of your dreams ☝️u__u! so i recommend beautiful crazy-enthusiastic femmes to inspire you as they have inspired Me (both bee and medic of course)! HEHEH

but also, i've notated some parts of that run on mess that Sticks Out (without getting wrapped up in bullet notes, highlighting etc which can feel a bit Too analytical for your first draft imo!):

in red, i'm conveying the "tone" or "emotional pull" i want to have in this scene and in yellow i'm just Notating things that are Significant to the series. the flour print on sniper that medic would eventually catch sight of at the end of the fic and envy, how medic and sniper See and Observe each other, which is obviously important to how i write them because my fics put emphasis on how they see each other and their respective differences (imagined or real)!

so then i usually take these Massive Walls Of Text (this is a short one! LOL) and dissect them and space them out, get a better visual on what i'm trying to say, and then fill things in accordingly. i find it works a lot better than trying to "bullet point" them since i just write how i think, and that's a lot less "stuffy" than trying to work off of a really Formal/"Academic-feeling" outline.

i think it's important to play around with different styles and what kind of method makes sense for you personally and to spend time honing that! even if i just write run on stuff like this ^ it helps get my brain in an easy, "rolling out writing" mode that thoughts just kinda come more naturally!

i also heavily advocate for how i post my fics (ie writing them to completion and treating them as "seasons"/parts and posting one chapter per week) becuase it allows you SOO much time to continue to write and to continue your story while preventing burnout! again i can elaborate on this in a whole other post if you wanted, but i've already prattled on so much i don't want to Ramble! ;-;

as far as keeping writing fun (or keeping it from feeling miserable at least), i sincerely advise just writing about what you like. put aspects of yourself or things you like into the characters you're writing, make your story interesting to YOU! would You want to read your own writing? i think you should!! ^v^ write the writing you want to read, and skill and technique and everything/anything else will come.

in the wake of people literally feeding fics to those stupid chatbots i emphasize even more to please put your heart into what you write and it will show and be wonderful, whether its Epic Novelizations or One Shot Smut or Whatever... it was made by you! and that's awesome! i'm so happy you're here and writing and posting, it's very brave!! <333

I LOVE YOUUUU YOU ARE EPIC AND I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!! I know what you write will be amazing and i really appreciate you asking me something like this, i hope i can hear from you (anonymously or not!) sometime soon and that this might have been at least a little helpful? ;_; ILYYYYY <3333