#(since that’s kind of the basis of the second game and all)

[akuzeisms]

   ⬐ @lastsurvivor ⬎

“i’m trying really hard to keep it together.” -Ripley

It was a lot for one person to experience; Kat was no stranger to the kind of thing she’d been through. Whole colonies wiped out, and in some cases… a few that were smart, that hid themselves away, that focused on their own survival over saving others… they managed to make it out alive. What they’d seen on this colony, and the fact that they’d found one person alive had reminded her far too much of Akuze. Far too much about listening to her fellow soldiers scream behind her as all she could think about was running. About saving herself.

She was all too familiar with it.

“I know,” Kat responded, her voice oddly soft for her stern, commanding personality. “I’d say I can’t imagine what it was like for you down there, but… I can.” She wished she couldn’t. She wished all she could do was sympathize, imagine what it was like, but she did so much more than that. She understood. She knew the horrors Ellen had experienced. At least they were gone for now; Kat just wished they’d been able to do something for the rest of her team.

Taking a deep breath, she knelt in front of the woman as the shuttle pulled into the bay on the Normandy, her face deeply serious. “Listen, okay? Listen to me. I know you’re a soldier. I know exactly what our training tells us. And when we’re in the field, we need it. We need that focus. We need that separation. But don’t let yourself bury it outside of that.” Not like I did, she wanted to say. “I know this isn’t exactly the… contingent you probably wanted to save you. Cerberus, I mean. But this is my ship—and I don’t work for Cerberus. Everyone here answers to me. I can’t guarantee we can save your crew, but… we can stop this from happening to anyone else.”

[pitchsidestories]

Pizza girl II Barcelona Femení x Teen!Reader

masterlist I word count: 2180

summary: You were raised through La Masia, but you still feel anxious, before your first game for the Barcelona Femeni A team. Luckily a team bonding evening with your teammates help to ease your anxiety.

a/n: hi, it's inspired by this request here. We really enjoyed writing this. Let us know if you'd read more platonic fanfics from us.

Sometimes you still felt the urge to pinch you. Training with the Barcelona Femeni A Team on a regular basis was like a dream come true for you.

Growing up in the Catalonian hills, Barcelona and the famous team seemed very far away until after a game someone reached out to your parents, telling them that you were a raw diamond which could be polished in La Masia.

It wasn’t easy for them to let you go, but they knew that all you ever wanted to do was to play football and it was a place where great players have started their career.

A few years have passed since the decision was made. You almost didn’t recognize the shy, little girl from her hometown village you were once. A piece of her was still in your sixteen-year-old heart. The anxiousness in your body came from her.

“Y/n.”, Alexia looked at you concerned, putting a hand on your shoulder.

For a second you were confused where you were until you remembered you were sitting on the bench in the changing room.

“Yes?”, you replied, there was a tiredness in your voice which didn’t get unnoticed by your captain.

“Are you okay?”, the midfielder asked worriedly.

“I’m just a little nervous before our match tomorrow.”, you admitted.

“We could tell. So, we have something for you.”, she replied, a warm smile dancing on her lips.

“You did? Wait, for me?”, you nervously ran a hand through your open, damp hair.

“Yes, we’ll meet tonight at my place.”, Alexia told you.

“Uhm, I thought I might do some extra training.”, you tried to brush of her kind offer. Desperate to prove that despite your anxiety you deserved to play the upcoming game.

“Oh, no.”, Salma shook her head.

“No chance, you’ll come with us.”, Vicky who was closest to your age decided grinning devilishly.

“Yes, this will be good for you.”, Esmee smiled encouragingly at you.

“We’ll make pizzas and I know you love them, so you can’t say no.”, Alexia explained the plan for the evening.

“Okay, I’ll come.”, you answered, wondering deep inside if relaxing was a better idea than exercising. On the other hand, maybe seeing your teammates would stop your thoughts from running wild. You knew it was especially bad when you were all alone in your room.

“Great.”, the blonde nodded, visibly satisfied.

“See you tonight, then?”, you looked up to her.

“Yes, we’ll see you later, it’s going to be good.”, she chirmed.

On your way home you realized that the midfielder has send you the time and place for the team bonding night. Your fear to arrive to late made you stand in front of Alexias appartement door five minutes to early, you knocked at the door nervously.

“Hi Ale.”, you greeted her, licking your lips anxiously.  

The older player seemed genuinely happy to see you and immediately pulled you into a quick hug: “Hi y/n. Come on in.“

Politely smiling, she took a step back to let you in.

You held your breath as you took in her modern stylish apartment. “Thanks for the invite.“, you mumbled.

Alexia led you towards the kitchen: “Oh, you’re welcome. It’s always great to see our young talents come through the ranks so we got to make sure to welcome them with open arms.“

“Thats very sweet of you. It’s a dream that I’m able to play in a team with the Alexia Putellas.“, you replied. You wanted to keep your cool but somehow you failed to keep the awe out of your voice.

“Oh please. I once was as young as you are now… Remember, we all start somewhere.“, she said with a dismissive hand gesture.

You could feel the blood rush into your cheeks: “I know but…“

“But?“

“It’s still big.“

“Of course.“

You almost sighed in relief when the door bell rang

“Oh, that’s probably the others.“, Alexia nodded to herself and disappeared to let her guests in.

You bit your lip. Why were you being so awkward?

“Hi, girls!“, you hear her greet them from across the room.

Onas voice replied: “Hi, Ale.“

Lucy was the first one in the kitchen, winking at you to say hello while still talking to the captain: “We brought some toppings for the pizza.“

She put a bag down on the table.

Alexia looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and disgust: “Do you really think I wasn’t prepared for my own pizza night?“

“Yeah, Lucy didn’t trust you with that.“, Ona shrugged, smiling innocently at the midfielder.

Alexia rolled her eyes: “Typical.“

You followed the interaction with amusement until Lucy turned to you: “So we obviously had to make a little stop at the market. Try the tomatoes, y/n. They’re delicious.“

Lucy moved around in Alexias kitchen like it was her own, cutting you a sliece of a juicy red tomato.

You popped it in your mouth. It was sweet and flavourful. “Delicious!“

“Right?“

“Yes, I love them.“, you beamed.

More football player flooded the kitchen. You had not realized that Alexia had left again to let them in.

“Hey, everyone!“, Vicky called excitedly. For a second you felt the slight sting of jealousy. You were almost the same age, but she moved around the team like they have been friends forever. You hoped that it would be like this for you too soon.

She came over to hug you, her curls tickling on your skin and the jealousy was gone: “Vicky, hi.“

“And? Kind of cozy here, right?“, she grinned at you.

You took the scene of Alexias kitchen in. Drinks were on the table while a few players started to prepare the ingredients for the pizza and others were working on the dough.

It was a mess but somehow you felt very at peace. “It’s.“, you smiled.

“I hope you think so.“, Alexia raised an eyebrow at you as she walked past you, always the busy hostess.

While you all were in the process of creating cute and aesthetically pleasing pizzas you took all your courage to ask a question which has been burning on your tongue during the whole evening.

“Girls, how do you handle anxiety before big matches?”

Every player stopped moving around for a moment, thinking about the ask you just dropped. It was clear to them that it came from your heart and was something weighing heavily on your young shoulders.

“I don’t even know what that is.” Lucy joked, she immediately got elbowed by her smaller girlfriend.

“Lucy be honest.”, Ona demanded.

“Yeah, okay. Even us oldies get nervous at times. Right Ale?”, the older defender shrugged before turning around to face the blonde.

“Of course, I was very nervous when I came back from my ACL.”, she admitted earnestly.

“Understandable.”, Ona nodded empathetically.

“Oh yes.”, you whispered.

“Everyone is nervous before their first game for the biggest club in the world.”, Salma agreed solemnly.

 “You all make it look so easy.”, you remarked. Memories from Vicky’s and her breakthrough were playing behind your eyes.

“It’s not.”, Alexia assured you calmly.

“But we’re here for you.”, Aitana promised in an encouragingly tone.  

“Exactly, we’re all supporting you.”, Ona added, giving you a side hug.

“Everyone is so cute here.”, you teared up, their unwavering support made you emotional.

“Oh, we know.”, Salma waved it off nonchalantly.

“Please don’t cry, that floor was expensive.”, Alexia threw in teasingly.

“Oh, sorry.”, you quickly apologized.

“Alexia.”, Olga who came to the kitchen from work scolded her girlfriend.

“Sorry, y/n. But you know that I was only joking, right?”, the captain sheepishly smiled at you. It was always a miracle for you to watch the midfielder’s stern and serious face which she showed in matches and training change in the presence of the woman she loved.

“Typical, Ale.”, Lucy rolled her eyes playfully at her.

“I was suspecting it.”, you muttered.

“I promise you’ll used to her jokes.”, Vicky hugged you from behind, resting her head on your left shoulder.

“I hope so.”, you laughed insecurely.

“Pizzas are ready, we can go to the balcony now.”, Alexia announced. She and Olga took charge of getting everything which was needed at its rightful place. The delicious scent of freshly baked goods filled the room and was still noticeably outside.

For a moment you took everything in, the golden hour had begun and the view of the city from the appartement building was gorgeous.

“Wow, what a great sight.”, you mumbled deeply impressed.

Alexia smiled, clearly enjoying the sight of her beloved city once again: “It’s nice, right?“

“It’s beautiful.“, you agreed, finally tearing your gaze away from the view and looking down at your heart shaped pizza.

“Stop bragging, Putellas!“, Lucy called from the other side of the balcony, rolling her eyes.

“Excuse me? I’m just showing the little one that her future looks golden!“, Alexia played offended as gestured towards the view from her balcony.

Lucy grimaced with a laugh: “If she’ll become La Reina 2.0. The rest of us can’t afford this.“

For a second you wondered how much of this was true but you had no time to think about it as Ona smirked: “Besides, she’s a defender. Just like us.“

“Another Bronze would be a nightmare for this team.“, Alexia grinned directly at the English defender.

Lucy jokingly frowned: “What’s that supposed to mean?“

“You know exactly what I mean.“

“No, I don’t.“

Ona interrupted their bickering with a proud smile: “Y/n is going to be her own version.“

Again, you could feel the heat rush back into your cheeks while Mapi ruffled your hair: “Exactly, no pressure on the little one.“

“She’s already puts enough pressure on herself.“, Esmee agreed.

Alexias eyes softened as she looked at you: “We’re just joking with her.“

“I slowly start to get your humour.“, you smiled back at her.

“That’s good.“

“This could be a wonderful start for you in the team.“, Ingrid said, ignoring Mapi trying to steal a slice of pizza from her plate.

Chewing, her girlfriend nodded: “We’ll make sure of that.“

The next day, you were actually subbed in for the first time. It was five more minutes plus stoppage time to play.

Still, your anxiety was gnawing at you. Your heartbeat was too fast and you felt that sinking feeling in your stomach.

That was until you looked up at your teammates who applauded you. Ona who was subbed off for you, pulled you into a quick hug.

You were still nervous but you were okay with it. Whatever happened, this team had your back.

In the last minute of stoppage time, you made a run towards the goal. Carolines cross from the left came perfectly. You cleanly headed it in.

What had just happened?

Wide-eyed, you turned to your teammates: “Have you seen that?“

“That was insane!“, Alexia cheered.

Ona shouted from the sideline: “Incredible, y/n!“

Lucy patted your head with a little more force than necessary: “We told you!“

“She did it her way though.“, Mapi said, looking like a proud parent.

“Guys…“, you protested. The attention was a bit too much now.

“What?“, Vickys voice asked while she jumped onto your back in celebration.

“Stop.“, you laughed, trying to shake her off.

Once you got rid of her, Esmee scooped you up into her arms and lifted you up: “No, we got to celebrate.“

“What are you doing?“, you giggled. You felt like a trophy being passed around.

“Not impressed by that lift? Oh wow.“, Esmee pouted as she set you back down.

“Thanks.”, you sung relieved before you locked eyes with Alexia who beamed at you.

“I’m proud of you, kid.”, the captain congratulated to, as she put you into a rough hug.

“Thank you, Ale.”, you mouthed forever gratefully to play along side such talented and legendary players, afterwards Alexia released you from her grip with a happy sigh.

“But remember you’re a defender first, y/n.”, Lucy threw in teasingly.

“Coming from you?”, you raised an eyebrow at her.

“Hey, don’t get sassy!”, the English defender yelled. She looked amused by your behaviour, because it reminded her of herself.

“Sorry.”, you apologized only half-serious.

“Come here!”, Lucy commanded while ruffling your hair.

“Stop that!”, you demanded giggling.

“Lucy, stop.”, Ona intervened chuckling.

“Thanks, Oni. Can I go and celebrate with my family now?”, you asked your teammates impatiently.

“Yes, go and celebrate.”, the Spanish defender nodded smiling warmly.

“Thank you, girls. For everything.”, you muttered deeply moved. You loved being a part of this team with every fibre of your being.

“Yeah, yeah, leave, before we all get too emotional.”, Lucy waved it off. But you were able to see through her coolness and pulled her into a big hug too.

“Alright, bye!”, you told them and when you started running to your parents who have made everything possible.

Although deep down you knew know you had a family away from home now in form of your teammates who even made the anxious times pass easier and the glorious moments so much richer.

[2-dsimp]

omg zombie?? Rotting companion when?? I wonder if he's the slow type or the "I may be decomposing but I can sprint at a full 20 km/h" kind of guy

I luv zombiesss

-andwy tiddy hater

Cw: Heavy angst, obsessive/possessive tendencies, your boyfriend turning into a lovelorn zombie.

Synopsis: Soma, your boyfriend, happened to be the number one gamer in the world due to the fact that nobody could beat him at video games. Nobody except for his Lovely player two who he absolutely adores. One day during a zombie mob flash he sacrificed himself and got bitten in your stead so that you may live another day. Now as time passed, he was set to roam the streets as an undead zombie. Waiting to see you again to ensure that he won’t ever let the both of you be separated again. Not over his half dead body.

☆*:.｡..｡.:*☆ ☆*:.｡..｡.:*☆ ☆*:.｡..｡.:

Soma, your boyfriend, is always so eccentric but sweet at the same time. He’d always make sure to mark down your important days on his calendar just to make sure he never misses a moment in his darling’s life. Which is everyday, from the moment you wake up down to the moment you close your eyes goodnight.

The Pro Gamers journal is filled with borderline obsessive scribbles of him recording the way that you sleep. And listing a bunch of observations about how adorable you looked curled up or sprawled out like a starfish. Not only that he takes the time to analyze and document every bit of your habits as if you he’s a biologist and you happened to be his precious specimen.

Either way no matter if you’re asleep or awake his hands won’t grow tired of drawing portraits of you. Within his sketchbook he used as an excuse to highlight gaming mechanics to his team. He’s pretty freighting when it comes to it, if you ask anyone on his team. They’d tell you to not even try and reach out towards it for a better look, since you get an automatic knee to the face.

“Oh my bad didn’t ya say that you wanted a close up of my combo breaker? Hmm? Not in irl? Well you Shoulda been more specific my guy”

Fast forward a few months, It all happened so suddenly when your part of town got hit with an unknown anomaly from a parasitic animal. That escaped from Devildom into the human realm. Successfully kickstarting a disease which made those who aren’t familiar with its origins. To fall into a frenzied state of loss consciousness and inability to control of one’s body.

During the earliest stages of the infection that spreading through your quaint city. Which was thankfully isolated from the rest to prevent even more of an outbreak. You were on a date with your boyfriend who was such a advocate for being spontaneous. Soma loved to surprise you with fun outings like going to amusement parks, para gliding, bungee jumping, kayaking, you name it.

But this time he wanted to give you a breather and take you on a lowkey cute date at a nearby cafe. Soma had an arm around your hip squeezing it lightly while he leaned against you like an over grown puppy.

“Lovie I’m so lucky to have you~ I don’t ever wanna live a day without being able to hold you, love you, kiss you, n fu—“

“Oh we’re here already! You excited to try out those cute menu items you’ve been fangirling about hun?”

Your boyfriend exclaimed giddily oftentimes having a habit of rambling on about how much he adores you on a daily basis. He went to open the door for you right after pressing a hungry kiss to your lips. It was something he always did before he had to leave your side even for just a brief moment.

Since he was paranoid in the fact that anything could happen to his cherished relationship with you. And he’d rather not it happen without him kissing you one last time.

You guys had just entered the door only to be met with a the rabid eyes and foaming mouths of the former patrons that dined there. It wasn’t any help that this cafe was jammed packed due to their popularity so it’d only take a split second for you to get snatched up by one of the infected standing in line.

You could barely register the way you were shoved out of the store by your boyfriend in an attempt to guard you from being taken by the horde. You stumbled outside the glass doors eyes wide with shock as you witnessed. A different side of Soma that you’ve never seen before, one that had him going batshit crazy.

Seeing how those filthy hands tried to take you away from him. Had him going off on a tangent about how he’d kill them twice over, for even trying to touch a single hair on your head. Claiming how you were his and his only and that nothing on heaven nor earth would change it.

Despite being outnumbered he put up one hell of a fight knocking the parasites down one by one into eventually one of them took a chance to bit his fist that he used to sucker punch their teeth out.

“Man you guys sure are tenacious for a bunch of deadweight…Shit just my luck”

Soma sighed, as if it was only a minor convenience that he’d gotten bitten. But nonetheless he kept letting his fist and legs fly not stopping until every single undead bastard was on the ground. Thanks to his self defense classes in karate.

It was only a matter of time before they got back up again so he turned around to give you a relaxed expression. A bright loving grin on his face as he asked you a simple question. While his veins became more prominent on his skin appearing in an abnormal pigment.

“Would you still love me as a zombie babes?”

You could only sob saying yes frantically as you watched your loved one turn into a different being. At your answer he let out a flippant sigh of relief before continuing to lock himself inside the restaurant. Using the key that was hanging off the hip of an employee he stunned.

“Good, then you’d better watch your back since whether im dead or alive I’d still be crazy in love with you baby.”

The gamer said in a soft tone that had a darkened edge to it, almost as if he wasn’t just trying to lighten up the mood with one of his lighthearted quips. But was issuing you an actual warning to beware of if you ever came across him while he wasn’t in control of himself.

Now go, your eyes should see only good things. And I’m afraid it’s gonna be ugly for me, Ah wait! Before you go…Give me kiss?”

Soma asked with a boyish grin pressing his face against the glass door with his lips puckered. As he waggled his eyebrows at you. It made you pissed off to say the least at how he was treating this a some kind of joke.

But you couldn’t help but notice his body twitching sporadically which was a telltale sign of how anxious he was. How scared he was of losing you. And how terrifying he’d be once he turned knowing that there’d be nothing to hold him back from showing his purest form of love for you.

Your boyfriend was already internally battling the urge to pull you against him. So you’d never leave his sight, that you two would be together forever regardless of death since nothing could ever change the way his heart beats purely for you. So just one more kiss, no matter if There’s a thin glass barrier, he just wants to be close to you, to somewhat feel you before his body shuts down on him.

You scrambled to press yourself against the door your palm on top of his. You gave him one last longing gaze, beforehand pressing your lips against the glass. Not noticing how he was just unblinkingly staring at your reflection. Burning the image of you so deeply into his mind that even if his critical thinking perished he’d never ever forget you even in death.

You were hesitant to leave him wanting to stay until his final hours but he childishly shooed you away. Claiming that he doesn’t want you to see him become an uggo version of himself. Since glowing down in front of his beau would be immensely embarrassing. He couldn’t help but feel a cruel twist of satisfaction seeing your reluctance to leave his side and those pretty eyes of yours welling up with tears meant only for him.

“We’ll meet again soon Lovie, mark my words, if you think I’d ever leave you alone then you’ve got another thing coming… So make sure to do your best until I come to make you mine once more permanently”

A few days later, the infection took hold of him but not in a way he was expecting. Sure he may have lost some of his humanity, but for a strange reason. The pro gamer still retained some fragments of his consciousness. His head was pounding from your name, invading his headspace. With every pulse of his brain that was fried at the moment.

Soma chuffed with a crooked grin, as he suspected not even death would take away his inherent need for you. Nor could it ever make it cease to be. He had to find you, sure it was selfish but he can’t stop from obsessing over your very being ingrained in his hazy memory. Where only the images of you were clear as can be.

Breaking the lock with his newly found inhuman strength, he became a half mindless zombie. Who actively searches for his you like a moth to a flame. Tearing everything and anything apart that stands in his way.

☆*:.｡..｡.:*☆ ☆*:.｡..｡.:*☆ ☆*:.｡..｡.:

A/n: if you want to see more of your undead boyfriend feel free to send in an ask 👀

[acourtofwhatthefuck]

Loose Lips — Part Two (Eris Vanserra x Reader)

Finally got round to writing a part two to this after a sudden burst of inspiration. Here is Part One if you missed it.

This isn't proofread, so sorry if it's a pile of dicks. Enjoy!

Warnings: smuttysmutsmut 🌶️

✧: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･

The forest was undoubtedly beautiful. A place of sure serenity. Somewhere you’d always found peace.

Right now, you felt like nothing short of a thunderbolt in its flawless midst.

You shifted on your feet for what felt like the millionth time, pressing your back against a tree and crossing your arms over your chest. You wouldn’t be able to relax until this meeting was over with.

Rhysand’s violet eyes flicked over you, and he frowned. “Are you alright? Why are you so restless?”

Because we’re here to meet with Eris and the last time I did that I somehow, kind of, maybe ended up fucking him—

“Fine.” You quickly answered. “Pain. My cycle is coming.”

Rhys’s eyes softened. “We’ll make this as quick as possible. Once the prick actually deigns to show up.”

You didn’t have a shred of doubt that Eris’s tardiness was deliberate — a power play. And he could play all the games he liked, so long as he kept his damn mouth shut.

As if you’d summoned him with a thought, the Autumn male appeared out of a chill-kissed breeze, his crackling-fire-and-cinnamon scent enveloping you. You tried desperately to block it out — and the sinful thoughts that accompanied it. Of bare skin. Panting breaths. Moans—

“Afternoon.” Eris smirked, sliding his hands into his pockets. He offered Rhysand a cursory glance before turning his attention on you. “You’re looking radiant today, Y/N.”

You pursed your lips. Kept your mouth shut. You weren’t getting into it with him — weren’t giving him any ammunition to spill the truth of what had transpired a month earlier.

His lips twitched as he studied you. “What, no smartass response?”

“Cut the shit, Eris.” Rhys rolled his eyes. “Share your information so we can get out of here. We don’t wish to be subjected to your tedious company for any longer than is necessary.”

He cocked his head, and you hated that you noticed he’d cut his hair since you’d last seen him. “Do you not like my company?”

You knew his words were directed at you. He’d come here to play games, and you were having none of it. He allowed his gaze to linger on you for a second longer before turning to your High Lord.

“Well?” Rhys cocked an eyebrow.

Eris folded his arms. “The King of Hybern…”

You didn’t allow yourself to hear the rest of his sentence. For the first time in your career as Rhysand’s courtier, you tuned out, taking in none of the information that was being given. You didn’t hear a word of their discussion as you stared fiercely at a fallen leaf on the ground. You couldn’t.

Because it tortured you on a daily basis that you knew what the redhead’s voice sounded like when he was falling off that precipice into blissful release. The way it had hitched when he’d groaned deeply and spilled into you. It was all you could think about, and you couldn’t bear it.

Guilt had eaten away at you ever since. Guilt and regret. You should never have given yourself to Eris fucking Vanserra.

You only felt safe enough to tune back in when Rhys turned his gaze on you. He gave a subtle dip of his chin, and you returned it — the signal the two of you shared when you’d gleaned useful information to tuck away.

Never mind the fact that you didn’t have a single clue what that information may be.

“Alright, then.” Rhys spoke tersely to the Autumn lord. “Keep me updated. I’ll be in touch when I next need to meet with you.”

“Will it be you, High Lord?” Eris’s lips turned up. He glanced at you. “Or her? I must say, I find her far more appealing to look at.”

“I’ll keep it a surprise. Something to look forward to in your sad little life.” Rhys turned to you, holding out a hand. “Ready?”

You shook your head. “You go. I promised Madja I’d collect some herbs for her while I’m here.”

A small, pathetic part of you wanted to beg Rhys to stay; to keep you company and not leave you alone with Eris. But he was a busy male — far too busy for the drama you’d created for yourself. You plastered a smile on your face.

“I’ll see you at home, then.” He smiled. And without a goodbye to your tentative ally, he disappeared before your eyes.

Eris smirked as he turned to you. “And then there were two.”

“Leave me alone.” You pulled your foraging knife out, turning on your feet. You didn’t look back as you began to kick through leaves and twigs.

But, of course, he was hot on your trail. “That’s not a very nice thing to say to somebody who made you cum not once, not twice, but three times.”

You clenched your jaw, ignoring him as you knelt down in front of a cluster of plants. You would do better this time. You wouldn’t allow your mouth to run you down a path you couldn’t come back from.

He didn’t make it easy, though. Not as you tried to focus yourself solely on gathering the herbs Madja had listed. Despite the lack of conversation — or even acknowledgement of him — Eris pressed himself against a tree and watched you, absentmindedly cleaning his nails with the point of a dagger.

How could you ever have fallen into bed with him? You were such a damn idiot, risking everything for a few fleeting moments of passion. You tucked the herbs neatly away, pushing to your feet and brushing dirt and leaves from your breeches. You turned—

And stopped as Eris appeared in front of you. He smirked. “I’m still waiting, Y/N.”

You cocked an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For you to thank me for not spilling your dirty little secret.”

Prick. You shoved past him, ignoring his warmth, his scent.

He was at your side in seconds. “Aren’t you so relieved that I didn’t slip up and tell Rhysand about your little ride? I still could.”

Every last drop of your sensibility fizzled out. You couldn’t stop yourself from rounding on him. “Are you truly in a position to be threatening me? Both of us fucked up that night. What do you think Beron would have to say if he found out you’d bedded someone from the Night Court, of all places?”

“My father doesn’t care who I bed. I’m free to do whatever I please, so long as it doesn’t distract me from the ultimate goal.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

His amber gaze glittered, catching the sun. “World domination.”

You rolled your eyes. “How very cliche.”

You made to push past him again, to get the fuck out of there, but his hand was suddenly gripping onto yours. In seconds, he had you pressed against the body of a tree.

You clenched your jaw. “Get. The hell. Away from—”

The remainder of the sentence didn’t have a chance to so much as form as Eris’s mouth found yours.

The press of his kiss was hot and needy, and as his lips moulded with yours, he groaned.

It was that action that made you realise just how little space existed between your bodies. His hips were pinned to yours, keeping you in place, and the warmth of him seeped into you as your breasts brushed his chest. Within seconds — mere seconds of him kissing you — you felt him harden in his breeches. His groan seemed to vibrate through every part of him and into you.

And then he was tearing his lips from yours. Staring down at you. “Fuck, you taste amazing. I’ve thought about nothing but this,” he rolled his hips against you, making sure your attention went exactly where he wanted it, “for over a month, now. Tell me you’ve been just as crazed.”

You had been. Perhaps more so. But you swallowed. “I can’t.”

That didn’t deter Eris from slanting his lips over yours again. His tongue swiped out, brushing against the seam of your lips, and you were powerless against your need as you opened your mouth and allowed him to dip in.

You gasped at the first taste of him; something cool and crisp and smoky. And you knew you were done fighting, telling yourself you didn’t want this, as you grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and hauled him more firmly against you.

He grunted as the hard evidence of his arousal pressed against your stomach. His lips slid from yours, dragging slowly over your cheek, and then the cut of your jaw, down to your neck.

“You’ll be the death of me.” He panted, pressing quick, chaste kisses to the hollow of your throat. “Tell me to stop.”

You swallowed, knowing there was no chance in hell of that. “No.”

And that single word — as much as it pained you to say it — dragged such a delicious, guttural noise from him, that you forgot entirely about who you were and why this was wrong. Nothing else mattered in that moment other than what Eris was doing.

Your mouth went so very, very dry as he pulled away to meet your gaze. And then lowered himself to his knees before you.

He was utterly uncaring of the dirt and leaves that stuck to his breeches as he clasped your legs. And the hard press of his hands felt scorching through your own pants. You wouldn’t be surprised to find that he’d turned the clothing to mere ash he dragged his palms up the backs of your legs and cupped your ass.

“You’re fucking mouthwatering.” He dipped in, pressing a kiss to your stomach through your shirt. “I need to taste you.”

“Holy gods.” You cursed, your head falling back against the tree. “Do it, then.”

Like a male entirely starved and desperate, his nimble fingers moved to the buttons on your breeches, making quick work of getting them undone. The second they were loosened enough, he yanked them down with a feral command that had heat rushing between your legs.

And he could scent that. You knew it. He inhaled deeply, and his responding moan was sinful.

“This is wrong.” Your voice was weak, useless, as your head fell back.

“So wrong.” Eris hooked his fingers into the thin waistband of your undergarments. Tugged them down..

You made no move to stop him. “And stupid. And selfish. And—”

Your words turned into a moan as he dipped in and dragged his tongue up the very centre of you.

A satisfied grunt left him, and he lifted your leg, hoisting it over his shoulder. It had you at a better angle, closer to him, so he could feast on you.

And feast, he did.

His mouth and tongue were renowned for wielding wicked, barbed words, but this was a different language entirely. His fingers dug into your legs as he buried himself between your thighs, licking and lapping and fucking devouring. He made his way up, scraping teeth over your clit, the sensation both pleasant and unpleasant. Before you had a chance to react, he soothed over the area with the pad of his tongue, and a bolt of white-hot pleasure surged through you.

“Oh, gods.” Breathy words escaped your lips. Thank the Mother above for the mammoth tree at your back that gave you the support to move as you wished to move, undulating your hips, grinding against Eris’s face.

And from the way he growled and feasted on you harder, you knew he liked it. He was becoming coated in you, painting himself with your wetness. With the roll of your hips picking up pace, he didn’t falter once.

“Look at you.” He breathed, eyes flicking up to drink you in. “You’re a fucking vision.”

“Stop talking and make me—oh.”

Your hips bucked as he slid a finger into you, the friction of his callused skin like a sinful bite you wanted more of. You didn’t know if you vocalised that, or if Eris simply read you well, but he quickly added a second finger, pumping them in and out.

“Just as you felt around my cock that night.” He panted. “Squeezing me like that.”

You threaded your fingers through his hair, needing to just…to just grab onto something. He seemed to like it as you pulled, and he thrust his fingers faster in return.

“I’m going to make you come on my fingers.” His tongue stroked at you. “And again on my cock.”

Somewhere, some steeled part of you wanted to give a smartass retort. But you were far too gone, splintering into tiny shards of pleasure against that tree. There was nothing, in that moment, besides the sensations Eris Vanserra dragged from between your thighs. No long-lived feuds or tentative alliances or right or wrong.

It was just him. His fingers. His tongue.

And it sent you hurtling right off that blissful cliff edge into release.

As you came, you thought you maybe shouted loud enough to frighten the birds from the trees. Your pleasure was a fearsome force as it stormed your body, your mind, your soul, until you weren’t sure who you’d be without it. How you could survive not experiencing this weightlessness again.

And Eris…he seemed to enjoy your pleasure as much as you did. Even though his cock strained through his breeches, touched by nothing but torturous fabric, his tongue and fingers continued to guide you through your climax, and he peppered in filthy, scandalous words that you were far too fractured to make sense of.

Until he pulled back to look up at you again. “I’ve wanted you since the second I first saw you.” He said.

You weren’t sure you could deny, any longer, that this truly had been going on for that long. It didn’t start with that one night of bad decisions driving you into bed with him. It had been years and years of thinly-veiled threats and barbed words and insults and vitriol soaked in lust.

Every bit of hatred you’d ever directed at each other had been to try and avoid this — giving in to a carnal need that had existed between you since the first ever time your eyes had met.

You knew you didn’t have that strength, that resolve, anymore.

“I need you inside me.” Your voice was rough, raw. You reached down, shamelessly yanking Eris to his feet by the fabric of his jacket, not caring that your desperation showed. “Fuck me.”

You wanted it — him — hot and hard and fast and certainly not gentle. You wanted the bark of the tree biting into you as he pounded you from behind. You wanted him roaring as unguarded as you had.

“You’re a little brat.” Was all he responded. And then he was kissing you again.

You allowed him the control of your lips as your fingers tore at the front buttons on his breeches. Nothing was moving fast enough, and you were hot all over, desperate to feel him pulsing deep inside you—

Y/N. I need you back here.

Rhysand’s voice in your head was akin to be plunged in ice-cold water. Damn daemati. You froze in place, your hands falling still.

Eris didn’t seem to notice as he kissed his way along your jaw.

Y/N. Rhys spoke into your mind again. Get back as soon as you can. Need to discuss Azriel’s report.

You sucked in a breath, planting your hands on Eris’s arms. You pushed him off you. “I have to leave.”

He paused, surprise crossing his face. “What?”

“I can’t — I’m needed back home.” Clarity was dawning on you more and more, paired with guilt. You’d fucked up again. You tried to shake the feeling off as you yanked your underwear and breeches up in one go. “I can’t do this.”

“Seriously?” Eris cocked an eyebrow. “You’re leaving now?”

It was an effort not to glance down at the very unsatisfied bulge still pressing through his breeches. “Rhys just spoke into my thoughts. He needs me back.”

“How convenient.”

Of course he didn’t believe you. You had to admit, it didn’t look great — getting an earth-shattering orgasm out of him and then leaving.

But perhaps it was a blessing from the Mother. Perhaps she was stopping you taking it too far a second time.

“Believe what you want.” You pushed past Eris, buttoning your breeches up. “I answer to my High Lord first and foremost.”

“Go running back to him then.” Eris shrugged. And if you weren’t mistaken, you thought that a strange quality lay in his tone. Perhaps hurt, or…or jealousy. “He says jump and you say how high, right?”

“You have your High Lord, Eris,”  you smoothed over the wrinkles in your clothes, “and I have mine.”

He pressed his back against the tree, watching with an unreadable expression as you checked yourself over.

And then the corner of his mouth tipped up. “You’ll be back, sweetheart.”

You shot him a glance over your shoulder. “That is a very, very bad idea.”

You winnowed out of there before he could respond.

[turcott3]

angel

matt rempe x fem! reader

warnings?: switches from third to second pov a few times, cursing, talks of fighting, talks of smut, crying, alcohol

loosely based on black mirror episode ‘arkangel’

(third person will be written in italics)

masterlist

-

2011

you found your way to the open pavement as the final school bell rang. the basketball court and black top was where everyone hung out that didn’t ride the bus, which was honestly a good chunk of people.

you found your way to your everyday meeting spot, and sat down on the large rock. the same rock where you met up with your sister everyday. you noticed the trouble maker kid outside as well.

his name was matthew. he was in the third grade, you in first.

you tend to watch him from afar, listening in on his conversations. something about him drew you in. you were so intrigued by his presence. recently, you’d discovered that he plays hockey, and now he was getting deeper into it

hockey this, hockey that. that’s all he talked about now.

all his friends were called over by their parents one by one and soon he was left alone, drawing his attention to you. he walks quickly over to you.

the two of you knew each other vaguely, you were at least on a first name basis given you’d been outside together many times before your sister graced you with her presence.

“so you play hockey?” you ask.

“yeah, how’d you know?” he asks, tilting his head to the side slightly.

“well i just heard you talking.” you replied.

“oh so you were snooping?” he retorts.

“well no i-“

“you wanna learn about it?” he offers and you nod.

“i think i should tell you about my favorite part.” he smirks.

he begins rambling on vaguely about the sport but focusing on his alleged favorite part.

fighting.

“and then he takes his fist and he-“

“matthew stop it!” your sister shouts, speed walking into frame.

“what?” he asks.

“stopping scaring my sister. you’re freaking her out with all your scary, violent stuff.”

“i haven’t even told her anything about it yet.” he spat his words out strongly at her.

“whatever. she’s 6, she doesn’t need to know about that stuff.” your sister says clenching your shoulder one last time.

“you can tell me another time.” you whisper to him, guarding your mouth from her view.

“i heard that y/n. and no, he won’t tell you another time. come on, mom is waiting.” she says tugging your sleeve. you couldn’t help but keep your eyes locked on his frame as he directed his story elsewhere. silly, frantic punching motions coming from the boy.

-

2013

you sat alone on the ground as you watched all the kids run around at recess.

more specifically, matt playing football with his friends.

you sighed as you picked the small weed flowers, stuffing the pretty ones in your pocket for later. you hear yells from the group of boys playing football and look up, seeing matthew slow to a stop, his eyes on you.

“hey guys uh, ill be back in a few.” he shouts, jogging in your direction. you felt a lump in your throat as he approached.

“hey y/n.”

“hi.”

“what’s wrong? everything okay?” he asks, genuine concern lining his tone.

“yeah, my friend is sick today so, i don’t have anyone to play with.”

“i’m sorry, here,” he pauses sitting down next to you, “now you have someone.”

you smile at the gesture. as much of a bad, misbehaved kid he was, he was always so kind to you, and you never knew why.

“so you play football now?” you ask, looking at the flowers you picked.

“nah, just here. can’t play hockey at recess can i?” he asks leaning closer, nudging your shoulder.

“yeah i guess you’re right.” you giggle.

“well since my sisters in middle school now, you can finally tell me about hockey. i just don’t wanna stop your game over there.” you continue.

“they can play without me.” he simply replies.

“oh…. okay.”

“so you wanna hear about it now aye?” he teases.

“yeah.” you reply shyly. he goes on to tell you about the new rules he was learning, obviously building up to his favorite part.

the fighting. again.

“i’m a lot bigger than the other guys so, it’s easy for me to beat them up.” he says.

“really?”

“yeah, i think i’ve broken a few noses. you should look on youtube when you get home. just look up hockey fights. they’re awesome.” he tells you finally as your teacher called out for you to come back inside.

“thank you for sitting with me matthew.”

“yeah you’re welcome, oh, and you can call me matt by the way.” he replies as you nod and walk away from him. growing more and more curious about him by the day.

-

2017

you were a month into your seventh grade year, freshly 13 years old. matt had moved on up to highschool. it made you a little sad not seeing him in the halls during school but since you rode with your sister, who was now a junior, you saw him sitting outside once school got out.

you sighed as you walked past him at a distance. swarmed by girls he seemed mildly interested in.

“ooo shiny new hockey player. kiss my ass.” you mumble to yourself, keeping your head pointed to the ground as you walked to your sisters car. you heard matt’s voice in the distance telling the girls he’d catch them later.

“y/n, wait up.” he calls to you, jogging to catch up to you.

“hey matt.” you smile lightly, blushing at him ditching all those girls to see you.

“how’s big ol’ seventh grade going for ya?” he asks as you continue walking.

“oh it’s good. kinda boring. middle school is dumb.”

“yeah well, i miss seeing you in the halls. highschool better come quick. i’ll catch you later y/n, my moms here.” he nudges your arm as you wave bye to him.

“was that matt?” your sister asks as you approach the car.

“yeah it was.”

“what did he want?” she scoffs as you both shut your car doors.

“he’s not some evil, disgusting monster you know? we’re friends, kinda.” you reply.

“i just don’t want him to be a bad influence on you.”

“you don’t see me fighting people at school do you?”

“well no-“

“then there you go. he’s not.”

“okay y/n.” she replies, pulling out into the road and driving home.

you had no idea why she had formed this resentment for him. he hadn’t done anything to her, she just took what she heard of him and ran with it.

the rest of the drive home was quiet, she made you mad and you were done. defending matt against your sister wasn’t on the books today, but you were sure to get an earful from your mother later.

-

2018

you walked with your friend away from the buses and to the side entrance of the school, seeing matt leaned up against his brand new range rover, girls and his friends swarmed in a small group around him.

“look at that, matt’s sick new ride.”

“yeah.”

“let’s go see it.” she says grabbing your hand and dragging you in his direction.

“y/n.” he shouts, everyone’s attention directing to you.

“nice new wheels.” your friend says, staring into his soul, but him still having eyes on you.

“how you been, haven’t seen you around much this summer.” he asks you honestly.

“oh i’m good thanks matt. and yeah, nice car.” you blush.

“thanks. bells ringing soon. we should get going yeah?” he says leaning up off his car leaving his crew behind, slinging an arm over your shoulder as eyes hit you like daggers.

“can’t let you get lost on your first day.” he says and you giggle.

“matt.” you mumble and he stops outside your classroom, your friend waving as she turns off down another hall.

“what’s up?” he replies.

“everyone’s staring at me.” you say, escaping his grip.

“it’s just because of my new car, trust me, they don’t actually want me…. i think.” he doubts his words looking around.

“matt you know that’s not true.”

“okay whatever it doesn’t matter, i don’t give two shits about people. they stare, they stare. that doesn’t change me walking you to class.” he says.

“well you need to get to yours before you’re late.”

“yeah yeah i know, meet me after school today though, ill give you a ride home.” he he says as nudges your shoulder.

“okay, bye.” you wave as he walks off.

“meet me after school.” you whisper to yourself and scoff.

you sat with an old friend in class and she mentions the homecoming dance coming early. something you’d totally forgotten about.

“oh shit you’re right. i gotta start looking.” you giggle as the teacher begins the lecture.

hours later you found yourself walking to matt’s car, where he once again stood leaned against it. once you were close he climbed in, you shortly behind.

“why are you taking me home?”

“felt like being nice.”

“oh, okay.”

“so what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” you asked interrupting the silence.

“i just wanted to ask if you’d go to homecoming with me? i know it’s early so i figured i should get ahead.” he says turning his head to you, a blush spreading across your face.

-

“no way, no. you’re not going with him.” your mom says as you sat at the counter.

“mom, why not.” you groan.

“because, that kid is bad news y/n. i don’t trust him.”

“he’s not though, he’s perfectly fine.”

“and i don’t believe you. you can go with your friends, no means no.” she says, setting your plate down on the counter.

“whatever.” you reply, knowing you’re gonna have to text him the news within the next hour.

a short month later you found yourself all ready for the dance.

“you look beautiful.�� your mom smiles as you walk down the stairs. you were meeting your friends for dinner, and still going to the dance with matt. behind her back of course, you didn’t want to tell him no.

you spent a while at the dance before you left with matt and a few friends for a bonfire by the lake, wrapped in matt’s blazer.

“can you pass me that?” he says lowly next to you as his friend tosses him a beer.

“matt, you drove.”

“i know, this is for you to drink.” he smiles.

“what?”

“come on y/n. you know you’re safe with me.” he says unscrewing the cap and handing it to you. you couldn’t find it in yourself to deny him.

you’d never drank before and considering you were 15, you were a light weight. matt being 16 you expected the same but were surprised that he decided to only have one, which hardly gave him a buzz. next thing you knew you were sat in his lap on the log, hug him onto him. things around the fire had gotten awkward with all the couples making out.

“can we go sit in your car?” you whisper to him and he agrees, helping you off his lap and holding your hand all the way to the car, knowing uneven ground and heels were a recipe for disaster.

“i brought some stuff in case of something like this.” he says opening the back doors and revealing a few blankets and pillows. you looked up at him with a hazy smile as he tossed them in the trunk and pushed the seats down, the two of you climbing in and setting up camp.

you shed the blazer, tossing it in the front seat as you laid in a comfortable silence, the two front windows cracked for airflow.

“so.” matt says, leaning up on an elbow.

“so?”

“how’s the night been?”

“oh it’s been good.” you reply, turning your head to him and smiling to see his eyes locked on your lips, you quickly turning away.

“don’t get all shy on me y/n.” he giggles, pulling you closer to him.

“sorry, you just look really good right now.” you reply.

“and you look even better.” he mumbles before attaching your lips.

the night continued in full physical contact. he learned every curve and crevice of her body carefully, paying attention to every detail. making note of what she liked and disliked. teaching her the right ways to everything. his hands held her carefully as he worshipped her under his breath, quiet whimpers and curses leaving her lips every few moments, before it all came crashing down after a long few minutes.

“you know, you didn’t have to say those things.” he giggles to you.

“well those are things i learned while i’m watching porn on my phone at night, i- i didn’t know what to do. was it bad? i’m sorry.”

“no no, my love, you were amazing. you were perfect.” he says cupping your jaw and dipping down to kiss you one more time. moments later, they’re interrupted by loud bangs on the window.

“you’re so fucking busted. it’s almost two in the morning y/n. i had to come track you down.” you hear your sisters stern voice outside the car window.

“fuck oh my god, what the hell.” you scramble, making sure your dress was on straight.

“it’s not what it looks like.” you express leaping out of the car.

“yes the fuck it is.”

“please don’t tell mom. please i’m begging you.”

“no, i’m telling her you were with him after she explicitly told you not to.”

“hey that’s no-“ he starts and is quickly cut off.

“and you kissed him, and god knows what else. god just get in the car.” she sighs, pointing to her car up the hill.

“matt im sorry, i really am.” you sigh and he nods.

“it’s okay, i didn’t know they felt this way about me.”

“you don’t exactly have good rep, rempe.” you sister spits, shoving you along. immediately you text him apologizing profusely.

your sister knew he just took your virginity. it was no mystery, the windows were fogged and dripping, your hair came undone, his buttons were crooked. she swore not to tell all the details, but in no way were you ever gonna be able to go near him again. except for in the hallways at school.

“you know he’s trouble y/n. you let him get in your pants?”

“yeah i did, and he’s not as much trouble as you think he is. he’s very nice to me.”

“it doesn’t matter. you’re not seeing him again, you hear me?” she says sternly and you sigh, resting your head against the window.

“yeah.” you reply, a tear falling down your cheek as he texted back, repeating that everything was fine.

-

“what were you thinking young lady.” your mom startles you awake.

“what?”

“you were kissing matthew in his car at the bonfire? really?” she says standing at the foot of your bed with her arms crossed.

“i’m sorry.” you sigh, tears threatening to spill again.

“what did i tell you about being around him?”

“i know mom i’m sorry, i really like him okay? he’s not how you think he is.” you reply wiping the tears that started to fall.

“yeah well, i really just don’t believe you. he’s not a good influence y/n. it’s just a warning this time, you will not see him again.” she finishes and you nod.

“you know i love you.” she says walking toward your door.

“i know, even if that’s a tough thing to believe.” you reply and she chuckles exiting you room.

and that you didn’t. you didn’t hang out outside of the school halls. all you did was text. every. single. day.

-

2022

matt knocked on the door and anxiously rocked back and forth on his heels. he knew that her sister and her mom weren’t his biggest fans. hell, you could say they hate his guts, but he knew he had to make it right.

“we don- matt? what do you want?” her mom sighs opening the door.

“i’m taking your daughter to prom.” he says firmly, a light smile on his face.

“she has a boyfriend?” her sister interjects walking up to the door.

he sighs as he looks down at the flowers.

“listen, i know you guys aren’t my biggest fans,” he starts.

“yeah, you could say that.” her sister mumbles.

“but i know this isn’t my news to air but, he broke up with her this morning. we’ve been friends for years, texting for years, whatever. she was so excited for this dance and i- i really fucking, sorry, i really care about her. i really want her to have a good night, i’d do anything to make sure she’s happy and i’d do anything to make things right with you guys.” he states heartfully.

“well.” her mom sighs, her heart seemingly growing larger for the boy that stood in front of her with a large, fresh bouquet of flowers and a nice ironed tux.

“and she doesn’t know, i wanted to surprise her, if that’s okay?”

“yeah it is. thank you matthew. we had no idea, we only saw her this morning.”

“yeah that’s about when it happened.” he replies scratching the back of his head as her mom shuts the door behind her.

“her rooms up there on the right.” she smiles lightly.

“thank you mrs. y/l/n. i really do appreciate it.” he replies making his way up the stairs, knocking lightly on the door.

“are you ready?” he says through the door.

“what?” you call back.

“can i come in?” he asks, you not recognizing the voice. you sat at your vanity with curlers in your hair and your makeup half done. you couldn’t stop crying.

“yes?”

“hey.” you see matt’s face peek through the door before stepping in, fully dressed in a tux, with a large, lush bouquet and a sweet smile.

“matt?” you say, putting down your brush, immediately standing up from your chair and walking over to him.

“i got these for you, i tried my best to match your dress.” he says looking over at the dress that hung from your closet door.

“matt.” you frown sweetly. for the first time since your freshman year, you hugged onto him, tightly. you feel him freeze for a moment before tossing the flowers onto your bed and wrapping his arms around you, picking you briefly up off the ground.

“thank you for this.” you say sweetly as you pull away, his hands still placed on your waist.

“you know i’ll always come around. anything for you.”

“really?”

“yeah, really.” he smiles, pressing a short peck to the top of your head.

“hey, we got reservations in an hour, chop chop pretty girl.” he giggles into your hair.

“i’ll be done, just give me like 30 minutes.” you reply, picking up the flowers and inspecting them.

“of course, no rush. it’s close by. i’ll be downstairs okay?”

“okay.” you smile lightly as he exits your room, your heart pounding in your chest as you got ready quickly. you zipped up your dress and grabbed the flowers, looking in the mirror at the perfect match he’d picked. you sighed in relief knowing the boy you’d been longing since you were a little girl surprised you and is waiting downstairs for you.

you breathe out as you open the door and turn the corner, walking down the stairs where matt and your mom were waiting, his eyes following you every step down.

“you look beautiful honey.” your mom sighs, looking at the gorgeous dress you’d picked out a few months ago.

“absolutely stunning.” matt says, eyes still locked on you.

“thank you guys.” you blush.

“let me get a picture of you two, uh, y/n stand on the second step, i want the full dress in without having to cut this giant’s head off.” she laughs stepping back with her camera and snapping a few photos.

“thank you for doing this for her matthew, i really appreciate it.”

“of course, anytime truly. your daughter is incredible.” he smiles at your mom, her eyes growing into hearts in an instant.

“you two have fun and be safe please.” she says, opening the front door for the two of you.

sis: use a condom, left some in your wallet ;)

you read the text aloud to matt when you got in the car, laughing at your sisters sudden approval.

“she gave you some? hell i already have some.” he laughs, backing out of your driveway.

“you know to this day, you’re the first of only three bodies that i have.”

“was i the best?”

“well i guess yeah?”

“what do you mean you guess?”

“i mean you were really the only one that paid any attention to my needs.”

“well of course, that’s extremely important to me.”

“then not i guess, you definitely were the best.”

“not were, are.” he winks, intertwining his fingers with yours in your lap.

the night was incredible. after the dance, your mom let matt come and stay over at your house, and you couldn’t believe it. he’d truly won your family over. you spent the whole night laid up in bed, kissing and touching and loving on each other for the first time since you were fifteen. everything felt the same, yet different. a mature kind of passion injected into the kisses you shared and the touches he laid on you. you would never trade his intimacy for the world. when you were with him, it’s like the world stopped spinning, and you were the last two people alive. he made your heart jump in the blink of an eye. you wanted him all along, even against your mothers wishes, and that’s something you’d never change.

“can i ask you something?” matt says as you laid contently on his bare chest.

“yes.” you reply leaning up to lock eyes with him.

“listen i know this is really really fast after this morning, and you can say no and i will understand either way but um, would you be my girlfriend?” he asks nervously and you giggle, locking your lips on his.

“yes, a million times.” you smile, speaking on his lips, reconnecting them after your brief words.

“you have no clue how long i’ve been trying to get to this point. it was hard with your mom and sister hating my guts. and you just got broken up with this morning.” he giggles.

“yeah well, i was gonna start hanging out with you again behind their backs if they didn’t start liking you. and, i’ve been wanting to be with you for years matt, nothing is too quick when it comes to you. nothing.”

-

2024

“matt.” you call out from the couch, adjusting your position trying to get comfy.

“yes my love.” he says running and sliding across the wood floor of his apartment.

“can you PLEASE get the pizza off the counter and bring it over here.” you beg.

“of course, you wanna watch a movie or something? maybe not do a whole lot of watching.” he says with a smug look on his face as he rounds the end of the couch, placing the box on the coffee table.

“how about we finish this box first and then we can talk….. or not talk.” you reply teasingly.

“i love you so much.” he smirks.

“i love you, matt.” you reply with a scrunched nose, pressing a short kiss to his lips as he got settled on the couch next to you.

over the course of the last 2 years, you’d grown inseparable, falling in love in a matter of weeks. he was there for everything. graduation and all. you hadn’t left his side since the night of your senior prom, and you fully planned on starting a life with him. which unbeknownst to him, this life you’d talked about had already begun.

“hey so, i actually had some news.” you start, finishing your slice.

“go on?” he mutters, shutting the box.

“well, fuck i wanted to make this like a big deal but i’m telling you before we fuck.” you sigh, realizing you should wait.

“no no, what is it, it’s okay baby.” he perks up, taking your hand in his.

“matt im pregnant.” you spit out, gritting your teeth waiting for a response.

“are you for real?” he says, his eyes widening, a quick nod following as a response. a huge smile grows on his cheeks as he practically jumps on you, squeezing you so tight you can hardly breathe.

“you’re carrying our baby. like our baby. wow. i can’t believe it. oh my god, i’m so lucky, i’m so excited wow. i love you so much y/n, you’re gonna be the best mom. i’ll make sure you have everything you need and so much more.” he says, his hands placed on your cheeks.

“thank you handsome, i’m glad you reacted well to that, i was nervous. thank you, i love you.” you reply hugging him back.

you were anxious to start this life with him, but you knew from the start all those years ago that you were taken care of.

ever since the day he approached you on the playground in third grade you knew he was never gonna leave you. never in a million years.

-

[beepboopkek]

— Strip Starchess with Jing Yuan (Female Reader)

Including: Jing Yuan cw: afab!reader, pwp but barely, slight mention of reader having a size kink, unprotected p in v, first time writing a proper fic, first time writing smut (please send help), reader is a little bashful, overall its kind of a self-projection I guess. Jing Yuan is a little bastard (affectionate), stripping (who would've guessed), grammatical errors(I tried), Jing Yuan calls you pet names (dear, love), no use of y/n, light bondage ( reader gets their hands tied with a t-shirt nothing too bad), safe sane and consensual w/c: 3941 (might be a little off since I made a few edits in this post) a/n: I am so sorry for this I am going to die of cringe later but I needed this out of my brain so I made my best attempt at writing. There is a lot of stuff that is bad but I do not have the energy or patience to do it so, you have been warned, this is a first-time smut from an inexperienced writer whose first language isn't english :3 hope someone out there likes this

You were bored.

Extremely bored.

Jing Yuan had promised you he’d come home on time so that the two of you could enjoy dinner together. You had something fun planned for the evening for the two of you. Something you were excited to try out.

One problem though, there were still no signs of your boyfriend’s arrival.

You sent him a few messages asking him where he was but to no avail, you knew for a fact he wouldn’t be able to respond anyway.

The sound of a door opening broke you out of your thoughts as you turned around and were met with an apologetic soft smile on Jing Yuan’s face.

“Yu.”

“My Love.”

You huffed at him in annoyance, realising what he was trying to do. He always knew how to soften you up.

“You’re late.” You said as you watched him unstrap his boots and place them near the shoe rack before he turned to look at you.

“I apologize, I overslept in the afternoon and had to compensate as a result.” Jing Yuan gave you a pitiful look.

“Regardless, I am here now,” He walked over to where you were seated and leaned down to place a chaste kiss on your head. “And I’d love to eat what my dear has cooked for me.”

You rolled your eyes at him a little and turned towards the table again as he took his seat opposite to you. You began eating in silence while Jing Yuan served himself some of the food you’d made.

“C’mon, don’t be like that.” He spoke suddenly as you focused on eating and ignoring him.

“Be like what? I didn’t do anything.” You huffed back to him again while continuing to look at your food when you suddenly heard the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor, you looked up, only to be met with your boyfriend’s amber eyes boring into yours.

“What can I do to make it up to you?”

You grumbled something with your mouth full.

“I didn’t catch that, love.”

You gulped down your food, 

“I said, play Starchess with me”

“Do we not play Starchess on a regular basis already?”

“We do, yes, but I found a new variation of the game that I thought would be fun to try out. Only if youre up for it, though.” You made eye contact with him again as his eyebrow shot up in surprise.

He leaned in on the table and rested his head on the palm of his hand as he tilted his head lazily.

“Go on.”

Your confidence and annoyance all but vanished this exact second, you really hadn’t expected him to be this interested and knowing him , he probably already has an idea simply based off of the tone of your voice.

“...Nevermind.” You looked away, blushing as Jing Yuan continued to watch in lazed amusement.

“Is it-”

“Yes it’s Strip Starchess, okay? I thought it would be fun to play.” You blurted out as your ears turned a light shade of red.

“I was going to say Blitz Starchess.”

Your eyes widened in horror as you turned back to look at Jing Yuan who was now miserably failing at holding back his laughter as his shoulders shook silently and he pressed his lips together.

“I hate you.”

Jing Yuan laughed and you pouted.

“I didn’t do anything, though?”

“You know exactly what you're doing, Yu.”

Jing Yuan smiled apologetically once again as you pouted while avoiding eye contact with him. He sighed fondly and picked up his chopsticks again.

“Strip Starchess, hm? Let’s finish dinner and begin.”

You huffed again and turned back to your food and soon enough, Jing Yuan started some casual conversation and the whole ordeal was pushed to the back of your mind.

. . .That was until after you both finished eating and cleaning up.

Shit.

You suddenly had very important things to do in your library so you quietly started walking towards it, hoping Jing Yuan had all but forgotten about your earlier conversation. Just as you were about to open the door, a familiar voice called out from behind you,

"Dear?" 

You slowly turned around, trying not to look like you were caught committing a crime.

"...Yes?"

"Where would you like to play? I think the living room would be best since it is rather spacious. We can close the curtains but,"

Jing Yuan paused as he looked towards the box in his hands and back to you,

"I'm saying that while assuming that we will be taking off our clothes sooner or later. Am I wrong?" 

He smiled innocently. This bastard knew exactly what he was doing.

"... Fine, let's go to the living room then, I'll explain the rules to you." 

Jing Yuan hummed pleasantly as he walked behind you, setting the board down onto the hard wooden flooring as the both of you sat down facing each other. 

He opened up the box and set up the game and looked at you expectantly.

There was no backing out now, so you might as well give it your best.

"It's in the name, you strip when you lose a pawn." 

"Strip entirely? Or just an article of clothing?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

You gave an exasperated sigh as you stared at him with the grumpiest expression you could muster.

"I'm afraid I don't, love."

He gave you a cat-like smile as he patiently waited for you to explain.

"...Only a piece of clothing. The one who has the most clothes off at the end of the game is the loser,"

You made yourself comfortable, you need your initial confidence back desperately.

"We'll play 3 games and see who wins. I won't be going easy on you."

You smiled at him mischievously as he chuckled and re-adjusted his seating position before looking right into your eyes.

"Very well then, let the games begin." 

You focused your eyes on the board and played your first move, positioning the soldier pawn in front of your king 2 steps ahead.

Jing Yuan’s eyes lit up as he countered it by moving the same piece on his side. He knew exactly how you were going to play and he was going to ensure he won.

The game progressed and you eventually lost your first pawn, you sighed in annoyance at the realization as you looked up to see your boyfriend with his cat-like smile and of course, he had the most innocent look on his face.

Damnit.

You sighed reluctantly as you cursed him under your breath and removed your jacket.

“Happy?” You deadpanned at him.

“Very much so. Don’t be upset, you still have a chance to win.” He smirked lazily as he waited for you to play your turn

You were more cautious now, not letting him take any of your pawns when you realized you had a safe opening to take his pawn!

You took the chance and took his soldier with your bishop. Looking up at him in triumph.

He smiled back at you casually as he raised his hands in surrender,

“You got me there,”

You watchedn him in anticipation as your mouth watered a little, sure you’d been living together for a few months now but, nothing beat seeing Jing Yuan’s body.

He place his hand on his shoulder guard and removed it before smiling at you pleasantly again.

You blinked once.

Twice.

Scanning him to see if he removed anything else while you were day-dreaming.

Nope, nothing.

"I said one piece of clothing, your shoulder brace doesn't count as one." 

"You never specified if accessories were also counted."

You huffed at him, "You never asked!" 

"I don't recall having to ask, I gave you the chance to explain everything to me." He smiled innocently again.

He was right. 

He knew he was and continued to play his next move.

Bastard.

Suddenly, it dawned on you that he was still in his armor and work uniform, meaning it would take at least 15 individual games of Starchess to get even the first layer off of him. Your eyes widened in realization as he looked at you and stifled his laughter.

Well, you certainly weren't in your work clothes and barely had anything on in the first place but you might have a few accessories on your person if you looked hard enough.

Two can play that game.

The game continued as you tried your best to defend your pieces from his attacks but he was too good… much to your displeasure.

By the end of the first game, Jing Yuan barely looked any different from how he was when he entered your shared home while you had to remove your own rings and piercings, putting them away in a corner neatly as to not lose them.

Jing Yuan won the first game by the rules of normal Starchess and the two of began your second round.

You were determined, but so was he.

Time passed rather quickly as you watched your boyfriend remove more accessories and you really wondered how he was able to walk or even fight with that much on his body.

You shook your head. Now's not the time for distractions.

The game progressed as you watched your pawns get taken one by one.

Rook, Bishop, a couple of soldiers and the list went on.

…You realized very late that you were going to lose.

You've never beat him in a game of starches, partially because he sneaks away your pieces but also because he's genuinely skilled at playing the game.

You were down to your last game, Jing Yuan in his shirt and pants along with some random trinkets of his uniform that you didn't even know the purpose of, you, however, were a different story.

You'd managed to get down just to your t-shirt and panties, shivering a little in both anticipation and the chill of the night.

“Do you need a blanket? You won't have anything to cover you soon enough, I'd hate to get you sick, dear.” Jing Yuan looked at you lazily.

Bastard.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

“I'm good. This is the last game and by the look of it, you've lost more pieces than I have.”

He made a content noise in the back of his throat as if agreeing with you before looking down at the board and smiling.

“I'm afraid you are correct, I admire your confidence in the face of calamity. However,”

He moved his bishop in line with your king.

“Checkmate.” 

You glanced around the board, trying to find an escape route but there were none. 

There was no denying it, you had lost the third game as well.

But the rules were about clothes, you looked up at him and back at yourself.

“. . . Fuck.”

You sighed, reluctantly admitting defeat.

“Alright , alright. You win the 3 games and the whole game considering you have more layers on you than I do.” 

Jing Yuan smiled in amusement as he crossed his arms and tilted his head slightly,

“So, what's my reward for winning?” 

You were already packing up the board as you looked at him with a huff and stood up.

“I'll let you nap in the afternoon more tomorrow, that's your reward.” 

But before you could move your half naked self away, Jing Yuan moved closer and swiftly knocked your knees back so you toppled down onto him.

“Jing Yuan! I almost knocked the board on your head!”

You had wrapped your arms around his neck, scared to lose balance and plop onto the floor if he were to drop you.

“I'm interested in another reward.”

“What?”

“I'm the winner so isn't it natural I get to pick my reward? Besides, no proper terms were set for it when you explained the rules to me.”

“You little shit, you knew this was going to happen.”

“Dear, I am the divine foresight for a reason.” 

He chuckled as his hands slowly moved down your torso and to the hem of your t-shirt. 

He grasped the hem as he leaned into your body and spoke lowly in your ear

“Of course, if you don't want this, we could just revert to my original reward.” 

His hold on you was firm but gentle, indicating that he'd let you go if you wanted him to.

“But, something about the way you're trembling in my hold tells me you don't want to stop, do you?” 

Your breath was coming out in shaky puffs now. You simply looked away in embarrassment before he pressed himself closer to you, you could feel the warmth of his body through the clothes he was wearing.

“Answer me.” 

“. . . I don't want you to stop” 

He smiled against your ears and you swear if he had a tail it would be swishing around in excitement by now.

“That wasn't so hard, was it?” 

Kissing the red shell of your ear he moved your face towards him and kissed you deeply before pressing his forehead to yours.

“Now, allow me to claim my reward.”

He peppered kisses along your jaw as his hands finally, finally took your t-shirt up to your neck as you raised your arms to help him get it off.

You were down to your panties and bra now, coincidentally, you were wearing one of his favourite sets’.

His kisses continued downward, unbuckling your bra with one hand while the other appreciatively squeezed around your body.

He leaned down on your chest, taking a nipple into his mouth as his other hand tweaked with the other and you gasped, sparks of pleasure shooting up your spine.

Your hands immediately found purchase in his soft hair as you closed your eyes and whispered his name.

Jing Yuan always , always made sure to lather extra attention to your chest, you never understood why but it had now become a sensitive spot for you.

He kissed and licked around your nipples, leaving little bites in between so that he can see them in the morning and fuck you all over again.

Deciding he'd done enough to your chest (for now) he moved his attention downwards, chuckling breathlessly at the small wet patch on your panties.

His large hand slid down as he started moving his finger up and down on your panties, making the wet patch grow bigger.

“You call me a bastard and yet have the nerve to be this wet for me, hm?” 

“S-Shut up.” 

You panted as your brain became fuzzy and warm, not being able to think of anything else except Jing Yuan touching you.

He smirked as he added pressure with his finger on exactly where your clit is and you gasped loudly. The fabric of your panties providing a weird but not unwelcome feeling.

“Do you think you can cum just from this alone?”

“I don't k-”

You cut yourself off with a loud moan as he pinched your clit and rubbed it.

“You don't know? Well, that's too bad. We'll just have to find out it seems, hm?”

You were gasping for air and moaning loudly at this point, thrashing and tugging at Jing Yuan’s hair like your life depended on it.

“I'm feeling nicer today, let's take this off, dear.” 

He tugged at your panties and your hazy mind cleared for a second 

“Jing Yuan! Don't I-”

A loud ripping sound echoed through the room as you stared in horror at the shredded remains of your panties but before you could utter a word, Jing Yuan kissed you and simultaneously continued to make circles around your clit.

You weakly slammed your fisted hands onto the hard planes of his chest but to no avail, he wasn't going to let up.

He continued flicking your clit at a faster pace before speaking into your ear.

“Be a good girl and cum for me”

You moaned as you clenched his (now crumpled) white shirt in your hands as your eyes rolled back and your orgasm flooded over your body in waves.

The general continued to make slow and gentle circles on your clit as you got down from your high, peppering your body with kisses and bites everywhere.

You were still breathing heavily when you regained your senses again.

“So, my hypothesis was correct.” 

“You're gonna pay for that, Yu.”.

You said, not sure if youre referring to the torn panties or the fact that him massaging your clit was enough to get you to cum.

“Of course I will, and any other matching set you like so I can rip them all off of your body.” 

His voice was so calm while speaking you'd almost think he was unaffected by the situation but that was far from the truth, sitting on his lap gave away that he was extremely hard underneath you.

He kissed you again, gently this time as he pulled back and bore his eye into yours.

“Do you want to continue?” 

You didn't respond, only leaning in to kiss him before bringing your hands to the collar of his shirt and unbuttoning it.

“I'm not the only one that's going to be naked here.” 

He helped you take off his whole shirt, watching you as you admired his sculpted and scarred torso. 

“Turn around for me, love.”

You did as you were told, sitting in his lap with your back against his chest.

His hands suddenly came up on you again, going downwards to your pussy as he outlined your lips. Pressing gently on the soft flesh.

Your hands immediately found purchase on top of his much bigger ones, your breathing picking up again.

He inserted two fingers in you, pushing them in and out and curling them in just the right spot, hitting your already frayed nerves and stretching you open for him. Keeping the rhythm of his fingers up, slowly getting you towards the edge again when suddenly,

You were left empty as Jing Yuan retracted his hand and wiped it onto his pants as he unzipped them, before hooking both his hands under your plush thighs and lifting your slit above his cock.

“Tell me if you need a break.”

Before you could respond, he was already impaling you on his cock, pushing you down slowly as you reached back with your hands and grabbed his neck while arching your back.

“F-Fuck- too much-”

“You can take it, I know you can.”

He whispered breathlessly as he continued pushing you down until you met the base of his cock.

“There we go.”

Jing Yuan waited for you to adjust while rubbing gentle circles on your clit, watching intently as you fought to gain back your breath.

You were struggling at this point, mind in a haze at the feeling of being so full. Not knowing where to place your hands you blurted our the first coherent thought that came to your mind.

“. . .Tie my hands, please.”

Now it was the general’s turn to be surprised, you were not one to beg usually. He smiled coyly as he grabbed your discarded t-shirt and rolled it up to form a makeshift knot.

“If i was aware we were going to this tonight, I wouldve prepared more.”

You pushed your hands out together in front of you impatiently, just wanting to move but not trusting your shaking legs to carry through.

Jing Yuan kissed around your ears again started working on binding your hands immediately. Securing it as tight as he could, he tugged on it before pecking you on the cheek.

“There. Is that better?”

“Yes.”

You were fully panting now, subtly grinding yourself on his cock.

Jing yuan took it as his cue to move and hooked his hands under your thighs again before lifting you off his cock.

The split second where you were left empty was enough for you to whine. He wasn’t a cruel lover, though, he thrusted back in, filling you instantly.

He kept the tempo of fast but deep strokes and before long you could feel your second orgasm approaching.

Suddenly, there was a change as he pushed you down onto the wooden floor face first and ass up, the angle making him reach in different areas.

Your tied hands were above your head as you got rubbed on the floor like a mop cloth from his powerful thrusts. Jing Yuan bent over and draped his larger frame over your back, holding down your shaking hands with one of his own and thrusting faster.

“Come on, come for me.”

He whispered into your ear, again, reaching his other hand down to play with your clit.

And that's all it took for you to orgasm, releasing over his cock as he kept his pace.

For a few seconds, you blanked out completely, caught up in the haze of your orgasm that you didn't even notice Jing Yuan continuing,

That was until you were brought back to reality by a hit of overstimulation, tears already collecting at your lashes as the pleasure soared through your entire body.

“Y-Yu-”

“Just a little more.”

He continued rubbing fast circles over your clit and you could feel the tendrils of your third orgasm creeping up on you as you clenched around him hard.

It pierced through you just as your boyfriend finally released inside you, hot liquid filling you up and you felt so full.

Jing Yuan panted as he rested some of his body weight on you, essentially pinning you in place and having no way to move. Just the way you like it.

He grabbed your hips with both his hands as he gently thrusted a few times to get the last few seconds of pleasure in, wrecking your already overstimulated pussy.

“. . . I think my reward is incomplete.” He said after a few beats of silence.

“Absolutely not.” 

Jing Yuan laughed breathlessly as he pulled you back onto his lap and rested himself against the sofa, wrapping his hands around your waist and putting his head on your shoulder.

The both of you relished in the afterglow for a bit with him still stuffed inside you, just enjoying and soaking each other’s presence, you were the first to speak.

“Horny bastard, you really piledrived me on the floor of our living room.” You laughed while pecking at his cheeks.

“Me? I’m the horny one now? You were the one that suggested this game in the first place!”

Jing Yuan feigned hurt as he tightened his hold on you, eyeing you cheekily as your ears turned red.

“I didn’t proposition sex! It was a game to-”

“To what? Play house with each other?” Jing Yuan asked in an amused tone before continuing,

“You wanted it to end like this, didn’t you?”

“Not on the goddamn floor! I’m gonna have bruises from this tomorrow, I hope you're happy.”

You pouted and held your (still bound) hands close to your chest, hearing Jing Yuan snicker and feeling his chest shake.

“I’ll give you a massage right now, on the bed this time, to make up for it”

“And then what? Escalate it into having sex again? I need to walk tomorrow, Yu.”

“You know me too well.”

You looked at him into his eyes and he simply gave you a crooked smile

“Untie my hands, we need to clean up and get to bed”

“Hmm… How about I let you go now and you let me enjoy my reward in the shower again?”

You sighed before nodding in acceptance, you weren’t going to feel your legs tomorrow.

This is the price you pay for provoking the sleeping lion.

“Horny bastard.”

[oklotea]

I was rewatching eah season one, and I got to the Maddie-in-chief episode. And OH MY GOD did this single episode hold so much potential as a full-fledged special.

Just imagine with me for a second, before EAH asks huge questions about autonomy, the true reality of Ever Afterian society, or what secrets lie in Milton Grimm's head, they make a point to truly bring your attention to the underlying classism and favoritism in ever after.

It could have been the first crack that would eventually lead to them questioning Milton Grimm even further, and finding Giles, and eventually finding out the storybook of legends had been a fake.

AND OTHER SUCH IDEAS, I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!

We could have gotten the chance to develop Maddie's character further. They had strongly implied that Maddie was much more smarter than what you may first assume, what is it with that? How do those skills properly show themselves? Not just in debate, but on a daily basis? How is Maddie intellectual in a way only the wonderlandians can see? And better yet, how has the people in ever after high chose to neglect her and her skills?

THIS HYPOTHETICAL SPECIAL COULD HAVE BEEN AN AMAZING TIME TO ESTABLISH THE WONDERLAND CURSE AND HOW KITTY, MADDIE, AND LIZZIE HAVE BEEN DISPLACED FOR A GOOD HALF OF THEIR LIFE!!!!!!!

It could have been such a great moment to make the audience care about Maddie, and possibly the wonderlandians, even further.

We could have gotten Apple's first bit of character development, found in her earnestly looking at the non-royal characters as people equal to her, because let's be real, if we looked at the way she saw non-royals/commoners in the first book as something to build off of, it obviously comes off as disingenuous.

Maybe at the first half of the story, Apple is very sweetly and discreetly underestimating Maddie. Maybe going on behind her back about how, even though she admires Maddie's bravery, she doubts there'll even be any competition.

Only for as the special goes on, Apple watches how Maddie is actually a very talented, formidable and driven opponent

How will they show this?????? UHHHHH I HAVEN'T FIGURED THAT OUT YET

BUT COMPETENT, AND GENUINELY DEPENDABLE STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT CANDIDATE MADDIE IS A CONCEPT THAT COULD BE SOOOO SO JUICY

Like.... She's the kind of person who could be handed over an entire pile of student council work, the likes of which even sends a shiver down Apple White's spine, but thanks to the effects of wonderland, and wonderlandian photographic memory (I have no idea if that's a thing that only Lizzie has in wonderlandiful world but...... BUT LET ME COOK!!!! AGRHEGRGSVD) MADDIE IS DEPENDABLE, SHE HAS SKILLS THAT SHOW HER POTENTIAL AS A STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT!!!!! And not only that, she's got a big heart, and she cares about her friends and fellow non-royals very deeply, and just, having a non-royal as a student council president would be a huge step forward before all the crazy shit that would eventually happen in the future webisodes and specials.

EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE OG WEBISODE WOULD HAPPEN ONLY WITH THE STAKES MUCH MORE HIGHER, AND A MUCH MORE SERIOUS TONE

And Maddie decides herself that she wants to work alongside Apple, because she can see just how genuinely dedicated and talented Apple is, and with that, Apple's character development for the special is wrapped into a neat bow, and from then on her and Maddie being student council presidents is an IMPORTANT THING that gets BROUGHT UP

Like in Dragon Games, we could have hypothetically gotten Maddie walking up to Apple, sadly asking her how she could allow the dragon games to happen, and better yet how her mom can allow the evil queen to walk free!

Maddie requests that, since she doesn't have as much leverage over Snow White, how about Apple takes some action to stop the games and convince her mom to take the evil queen hostage once again?

Only for Apple to visibly be racking her brain, and snapping at Maddie, telling her she can't do that, and the games must go on.

It would have really sucked and it would have hurt and it would have been amazing.

That's just ONE example I've got on Apple and Maddie being co-presidents being acknowledged.

Apple and Maddie could have had a more defined dynamic.... It would have been interesting seeing two characters who are so drastically different in how they function being in such close proximity to one another, and having to work closely with each other!

Alright, my final point in proving to you maddie-in-chief should have been it's own special issss.......

JUST IMAGINE THE DOLLS

Here's what I have in mind,

Pin striped suit Madeline Hatter

Pillbox hat, pencil skirt Apple White

VERY MUCH PRESIDENT ELECTION CODED

I jotted down some scrappy sketches to show you what I mean

It's not the best, I spent like, 5 minutes on it, but YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYINH

YOU DO

I TRUST THAT YOU DO

THEY'RE BOTH WEARING SASHES THAT HAVE EACH OF THEIR SLOGANS ON

Maddie obviously wearing a sash that says, "Hats over Crowns" Cause that's iconic

And Apple wears something more, idk royally conservative???!???? Something with the sentiment that, the Royal way is the better way, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. YOU GET IT.

And we're not stopping with just Maddie and Apple! Even though they are both the crown jewels of this student council president election doll line (someone come up with a better name, god bless), the rest of the line consists of a handful of Apple supporters, and a hatful of Maddie supporters. Their groupies, per se.

All of them in dresses or suits, whatever it is, very much business formal, or business casual, they all look quite prim!

That's all I got so far on the maddie-in-chief special concepts.

If anyone wants to build upon them, by all means do so!!!! I would love to see what you people come up with!!! :D

Alrighth, take care everyone. Thanks for making it this far

[floret-affini-research]

RESEARCH LOG 007

RESEARCHER M. Florez

AUDIO FILE DETECTED, LOADING TRANSCRIPT...

"Well, let's see if this thing will really work. This is Maria Florez, researcher on the relationships between the Affini and the Terrans they keep as pets. I am here interviewing an Affini on how they treat their florets, difficulties in ensuring sophont safety, and the daily life they lead together. I know I asked you before I began recording, but I need to make sure I get formal consent to record. Do I have consent to record you and include you in my research? This will include giving the details of your name and the names of the florets you have dominion over."

Oh but of course cutie. This is all so very exciting.

"Yes, quite so. In that case, please state your name for the record as well as the names of your florets."

Well, my name is Tritoma Iberis, Fifth Bloom, and these are my darling little pets Coralline Iberis, First Floret, and Blair Iberis, Second Floret.

"Hi! You're really really pretty!"

"I would prefer they not interrupt the interview if possible, I must get all this data collected properly."

I understand completely. Go along now my darlings, have some fun playing with each other~

"Hehe, ok Mistress! C'mon! Let's play some games!"

"Thank you. Now, I would like to start by asking you about what a typical day is like for you with your florets. Don't need too much detail, just wanna get a basis for understanding."

Well, on a normal day, my Florets will ask me to cuddle with them, to have my vines all over them as they squirm and moan~ They're so very cute when they do that~ I like to administer a Class-M for each of them so I can make them my cute little dolls~ Just thinking about it now makes me wish they could be here so I could give you a proper demonstrat-

"That is quite enough please. You have made it clear it is enjoyable for you, but do they truly find it as wonderful as you describe?"

Oh but of course! I would never do anything to harm them or do anything they wouldn't wish for~

"I see. Well, that is rather reassuring for my research then. Now, I'd like to move onto talking abo-

Are you sure it's just your research you're reassured about?~

"I'm unsure what you mean."

You weren't worried that if you decided to give into those wonderful little thoughts of yours that you would be at the complete mercy of a beautiful Affini like Ms. Verdianthos?~

"Wh-what kind of terran do you take me for!? I am here strictly on research, not to end up as some mindless dumbass pet to a damn we-"

What did you just say about my Florets?

"...s-sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I just don't want to talk about Verdia- Ms. Ve- the other Affini right now. I'm stressed about it and I don't want to think about her right now."

...I see. I apologize for my outburst, but I do not take kindly to anyone insulting my darling florets. You may continue with your questions.

"Thank you. Only got one question left anyway since I now know how you treat your florets. What can you tell me about the difficulties that come with ensuring a sophont is truly safe and taken care of?"

Well, we first evaluate the risks that the sophonts are in. We check for any dangers they can put themselves in and do our best to remove that risk as soon as possible. We then take the sophonts with us. For them to come willingly is preferable, but as you have seen, there are many instances where we have to use xenodrugs to ensure their safety.

"I see. What about once you have captured them? Is there anything that is normally done to keep them in check then? I can't imagine most are happy after being knocked out cold and waking up somewhere strange."

After they have had a chance to acclimate to their new environment, we simply take care of them with a combination of xenodrugs, our biorhythms, and all the love and affection we can give~

"This is very fascina- Wait, I'm sorry, I don't think I've heard that term before. You said biorhythms?"

Why yes! All Affini produce biorhythms that we follow. I have also heard that they are rather hypnotic to sophonts, particularly to Terrans. It helps in the domestication process and allows our darling Florets know we are always with them~

"...oh. Oh no. No no no no, this can't be it, right? I-it has to be some kinda joke or something."

Are you alright? You seem to be getting rather anxious darling, perhaps I could help you rela-

"Shut up! I can't be here any longer! If what you're saying is true, then I really can't stay anywhere near here any longer. I have to go, I have to- ow!"

Oh my, are you alright? Please, allow me to help you back u-

"Please! I'm fine, just tripped. I need to go, this has given me too much to think about. Take care Ms. Tritoma Iberis, and let your Florets know that I have taken my leave. Terminate audio recording."

[maxwell-grant]

Thoughts on the master of fear, Scarecrow? Also, fave design, he has so many good ones (second BTAS, his trading card one, mistress of fear, Gaslight,, fear for sale, the Arkham Games etc)?

Hey so, do any of you remember Batman Live? It was this really fun, extravagant stage show that touched on a lot of Batman hallmarks and was generally a really fun time as far as I recall. I went to the São Paulo premiere with my family, and I was a little too young to really recall most of it now, but some things I definitely remember like the huge Joker hot air balloon made of performers in bodypaint, or the comedy sequences in the Iceberg Lounge. The one thing that stuck with me the most was when the Scarecrow showed up. Batman goes to Arkham Asylum and the entire comedy camp tone drops dead, as he walks in and finds all these bodies in straightjackets hanging from chains, and the doors open as The Scarecrow walks towards him in stilts, summoning loud smoke eruptions that are poisoning and weakening Batman as he leers over him. That part actually did scare me as a kid, and it was probably the first time I had any kind of feelings on Scarecrow imprinted in me.

I was introduced to The Scarecrow as this uniquely horrifying villain who could terrify through presentation alone. I didn't particularly understand what the fear gas was, I was too taken with that ungainly thing up there with the stilts and all those people turned into cadaverous decorations, lurking from the endless halls of the asylum, who towered over everyone and placed Batman into a writhing breakdown with a few gestures, and never appeared again until the cast roll, completely absent from the rogues gatherings after. Granted, of course that's because the stilts prevented him from joining the fight scenes, but that helped to reinforce his mystery. He wasn't someone Batman was going to punch back, no no, the Scarecrow simply vanished as soon as he was done with disarming Batman, and you'd just have to pray for that unfathomable creep to never show up again.

And I'd say this might be part of why I've never been too big on the fear gas, in part because I was first enraptured by a version of The Scarecrow who clearly didn't need it that much, or at least, could do much more besides it. The Scarecrow is, I'd say actually one of my top 10 DC characters, half of that on the basis of his designs, but he's a character who tends to really, really struggle under a lack of cohesion and being subordinate to his gimmick, much more so than the other rogues. The fear gas is a good gimmick, but it is just that, a gimmick, and one that's usually reliant on how far can the story push the horror and the visuals to at least make it effectively scary for us, otherwise it gets incredibly boring very fast, and it's not even a gimmick exclusive to him since so many other characters have similar mind control/illusion abilities/gadgetry at hand (and to say nothing of Hugo Strange, who first used fear gas and who quite frankly kicks the Scarecrow's ass in terms of quality storylines, although Hugo does that to most of the other Batman villains too)

The Scarecrow has become the go-to character for hallucination sequences / revisiting character traumas, which frequently makes him less of a character and more so a convenient plot device, a problem heightened by the larger issue here that is his inconsistent motivation, or lack thereof. He lacks the kind of "breakout" stories that his fellow major Batman villains have had that usually cement an ongoing characterization, and his most famous/celebrated appearences in mass media don't really do much to combat the assertion that he is shallow and weak and whose only asset is the gas (namely, his boss fights in Arkham Asylum, which are all about the fear gas hallucination scares, and his role in Nolan's Batman, which is very fun, but also purposefully plays him up for ridicule and lack of depth next to the other villains)

These days, the Scarecrow is a tedious pip-squeak. His schemes lack verve, his cruelties stir little in the way of frissons. Haunted by cliché to an even greater extent than the other rogues, he’s often brought low with a single sock to the jaw delivered by Batman, or by finding himself on the receiving end of his own fear-inducing concoctions. He often acts as a pawn in the hands of bigger, badder third parties. He’s ostensibly a stand-in for the figure of the reductive, smug and hypocritical psychologist, nicely bundled up for the audience to humiliate in effigy - TheMindlessOnes's rogue review for Scarecrow

In "Nothing to Fear" it is explained that Jonathan Crane has always had this "thing" for scaring people. (Just as Snidely Whiplash had his "thing" for tying women to railroad tracks, I suppose.) But this is a wan kind of motive. One senses sadly that the real motive for the Scarecrow's behavior lies in the writer's need for someone to do something reprehensible. At the root of the matter may be a difficulty in sorting out the Scarecrow's ends from his means, with a consequent confusion between the goals the Scarecrow intends to reach and the tactics he employs in reaching them.

As a psychologist specializing in phobic disorders, Crane knows how to induce fear and trembling in his victims. But this tells us nothing about what the Scarecrow wants to accomplish. And without a sense or statement of what those goals are, the writer will be tempted to substitute means for end and make the Scarecrow's goal simply the scaring of people. Usually his actions are woefully underexplained - Dreams in Darkness' review by Toonzone

You might think that I'd be advocating for the Scarecrow, then, to disregard a need for a motivation and become as unknowable and horrific as possible, to recapture the awe I felt at his Batman Live self, but no, not at all. For one, I don't think the best version of anything is necessarily the one that made the most impact on me as a kid. Two, there have been some attempts over the years to remove Scarecrow from the toxin or seriously amp him up as a threat, and frankly, most of those have only made the character dramatically worse and more boring (I don't remember the name, but there was a Batman story a while ago where he goes on a big scary killing spree with no toxin just to prove he can and it was fucking terrible). Three, and the big one here, is that this pretty much forces you to get rid of Dr. Jonathan Crane, and I think that does a disservice to the character's potential. I think that's giving up on trying to make him work as a character and I don't think you have to do that.

My preferred characterization for Crane is one that emphasizes his nature as a scholar turned supervillain. The cold and misanthropic and neurotic nerd professor who spent most of his salary on books and took to terrorizing the city as a costumed criminal in part because he wanted money to buy more books. Who takes off the costume mid-crime spree to school his henchmen on specifics of brain chemistry, who gets revenge on those that wrong his students or even employs them as henchmen, still the same guy who thinks there's nothing wrong with firing a loaded gun in a packed classroom as a demonstration. Far less interested in human connections than he is in human reactions, things that can surprise him or that he can catalogue or research or write about. Someone who's not a sadist for sadism's sake, but who doesn't really see you as a person so much as he sees a test subject. I like Crane as a snarky humorous heel who thinks of himself as amoral and mature while doing horribly immoral and childish things, the Herbert West or Rusty Venture of Batman villains (James Urbaniak is definitely the voice I'd pick for him).

My preferred kind of motivation for him is something along the lines of how he's portrayed in most of Kings of Fear, where he puts Batman through the wringer in part as an attempt to get to him and cure him once and for all, or issues #4-5 of The Batman Adventures where he induces city-wide illiteracy in part as a protest against the city's failing education. In Gothtopia he makes all of Gotham hallucinate their perfect ideal lives, eliminating the crime rate but causing the suicide rate to spike up in return, and yes it does turn out to be the set-up for a really generic "fear gas everyone with blimps and make everyone twice as scared" pay off when his involvement is revealed, but I always thought Scarecrow being able and willing to do that, to create these huge and even benevolent-seeming social experiments, as an idea with legs. Fear State was frustratingly halfway there, with the initial set-up of Scarecrow pursuing a theory for fear-based social upheaval, but on top of not being very good, it also wound up that he was just doing the same old thing again and had Batman call him out as someone who just wanted to gas the city and make everyone scared again and never changes and does anything different, which seemed like Tynion defeating his own purpose of trying to make a defining Scarecrow story and address his lack of one, completely failing to address the why the character has that kind of problem and upending itself for meta commentary before doing anything interesting.

Even Kings of Fear, easily the best Scarecrow story of the past decades if not outright ever, kinda ends in a bit of a cop-out where The Scarecrow has to be wrong ("Even when he's telling the truth, he's lying, and even when he's right, he's wrong", Gordon tells Batman to reassure him, to nullify the past 5 issues criticizing and tearing into Batman from every angle imaginable), and he has to be a sadist who just wanted to fuck with Batman and uncover his worst fears because it's what he does. Why does Scarecrow want to unravel people and wrench their worst fears into the surface? Because he's a sadist who gets off on it? I guess that's the canon answer most of the time, but it's such a boring, weak one. Because he wants revenge on the world / bullies? Still weak, done better by other villains even. Because of an unspeakably traumatic childhood that taught him the world was ruled by fear and therefore driving him to become it's master? Okay, but it still doesn't actually answer what he wants to get out of doing what he does.

We know that Jonathan Crane was a fragile youth routinely terrorized and abused by others and plainly traumatized by his experiences. We know that he is learned and brilliant and given to introspection and fantasy.

From this base it is not hard to imagine Crane turning into a man fiercely devoted to solitude and study and capable of a murderous rage when his privacy is violated. It is possible, in other words, to imagine him as a reactive force, in the mold of Freeze, systematically terrorizing and destroying anyone who crosses him but rarely wanting to start trouble himself.

Or we can imagine him as a mercenary, a specialist hired by others for nefarious purposes, but who is not himself strongly motivated by particular rages or desires.

But if the Scarecrow is going to remain a sadist and a sadist only—if he is going to be moved only by the psychotic desire to harm others—we ought to be made to feel the seductive power that sadism has over its practitioners; we should be made to feel and appreciate the hot and sour joy that comes from the purposeful humiliation of another - Dreams in Darkness review by Toonzone

It's kind of a frustrating pattern in a lot of his stories where he gives a reason for doing something, and it turns out to be a cover for yet another sadistic fear gas attack, but his cover reason was a more interesting motivation for him than what he actually was going for. A villain who mainly just gets a kick out of hurting people and concocts bullshit excuses and reasons to justify said hurting? The Joker does that already, but the Joker always clearly states what he wants and has all those ways to make cruelty for cruelty's sake entertaining. If that's all The Scarecrow is also, no wonder he's going to be so incredibly lacking most of the time (nevermind the fact that he's never going to be the guy most infamous for gassing Gotham City).

Yes, he may be sadistic and cruel, he may enjoy what he does too much, and maybe there really isn't any kind of realistic explanation as to why a man would dress up as a scarecrow to commit terrorism and spray innocent people with chemicals to make them terrified, but refer to the guy he's fighting. "Realistic" is the wrong term. The issue here is less "why" the Scarecrow does what he does, and more what is he hoping to get out of it. Granted, this is less of a concern if you're playing The Scarecrow as a figure of horror, someone who's not even really human underneath that outfit. But I think that locks away much of his versatility. The Scarecrow needs Jonathan Crane, and I think there's good stuff to like about that awful man.

I like Jonathan Crane the sardonic pragmatic scientist who still embraces his hopelessly ridiculous life, a guy who's not nearly as above it all as he'd like to be and has wants and needs moreso than he really likes to admit. I like him as a book lover, as a fan of horror, I like him as the kind of guy who'd send fan mail to Elvira and break out of Arkham just to catch a Halloween parade and guest star in a Scooby-Doo movie for a change. I like him as someone who'd have a decent working relationship with the other rogues and pal with the Legion of Doom and get into a physical spat with Riddler over a chess game. Someone who custom-makes his own outfits and equipment, who makes scythes out of animal bones to fight Batman with, who picked the scarecrow motif in part because it was a term of derision his colleagues used on him.

Who pours himself over his research as he records his theories in a tape recorder, the kind of guy who grouses at having to clean another cell because he's getting annoyed at his test subjects killing themselves, seriously guys the cleaning supplies for this batch were as fresh as they could be, and the iguana amygdalas I used should be stopping your neocortexes from overreacting this strongly. Subject #3 over there got over his fear of centipedes yesterday and he hasn't screamed all morning, I'm gonna need the rest of you to stop being such babies, okay?

It must be terribly liberating for Crane, to transcend mere ugliness and become inhuman. Of all the rogues, he’s easily the one who takes Batman’s “I need a disguise; I shall become a beast of the night” schtick and runs with it the farthest - TheMindlessOnes's rogue review for Scarecrow

And that's for Jonathan Crane, man of science. The Scarecrow, however, is not science, he is unreason incarnate, and to me what most makes The Scarecrow work as a Batman villain has nothing to do with "they both use fear as a weapon", I always thought that was a bit shallow of an angle to pursue (most, if not all, the villains rely on fear, it comes with the whole "crime" thing). The two have a stronger connection via the costume, the theatricality, the becoming a creature of the night angle. None of the other major Batman villains are going into their costumes the way The Scarecrow is. They have their personas and varying degrees of division between them and their "real selves", but few of them are wearing outright identity-separating Halloween Monster Costumes with separate names and personalities they can dip in and out of at their convenience.

And I'm gonna interrupt myself to answer your second question. I couldn't pick just one design, so counting the Batman Live one above, I picked 10. These are not in order and they're not necessarily how I'd design him, I'd say my actual favorite Scarecrow designs are fan-made, but if I was going to pick out of "official" material these are the ones I'd go for. It's time for:

(Left-to-right: George Pratt's Scarecrow pin-up, Phil Jimenez's Scarecrow design, Ed Natividad's concept art for Suicide Squad)

(Left-to-right: His TNBA design by Bruce Timm as drawn by Luciano Vecchio, Alex Ross's design for Justice, and Tim Sale's Scarecrow)

(Left-to-right: Kelley Jones' design for Kings of Fear, Jeremy Raapack's design for Legends of the Dark Knight #25, Scarecrow's design in Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!)

*cough*, anyway: Most of the other rogues with their signature suits or masks or body distortions don't tend to have closets full of different variant Batsuits and scarecrow costumes to choose and devote to their cause and ideal, that they sit at night tailoring on how to make scarier or more loaded with weapons, that they might even have conversations with, things that sit in their closets waiting because both of these brilliant men, men who have (or at least had) different civilian lives, men who could stop doing this at any time, who both decided that becoming a Halloween monster prowling the streets to inflict terror is a necessary, even productive use of their time.

And I think that's the key word I want to end here, productive. I think The Scarecrow needs to be more productive. Because even if he's not aware of it, he is achieving progress via his research, and there is one way he's proved his ideas: Batman walks out of every fight they have stronger. Every encounter they have is a test that Batman resists and walks out of more able to cope with his own traumas, or at least, better able to resist them being weaponized against him. I always wanted to explore the idea that Crane is genuinely convinced he's doing people a favor or at least achieving something via all these horrible Scarecrow campaigns, and one thing he has achieved is that Batman is never not prepared for chemical attacks or assaults on his mind, Batman resists ungodly trials of willpower and determination and courage, in part because he has to deal with the Scarecrow pumping terror juice in his brain semi-regularly.

The fact that Crane loses and gets beaten up and has to retry schemes again and again and kill people and join the costume parade just to lure Batman is fairly inconsequential to him, so long as it gets results. He's not interested in dissecting Batman's brain or being more like Batman, that's Hugo Strange's thing. Hugo Strange needs Batman to be fearless, allmighty and perfect, where as Jonathan Crane wants nothing more than to unearth and study the fears and kinks in the armor, the dead last thing he wants is a perfect man. Hugo Strange wants to crawl naked into the mask of the great and terrible fascist and never come out, where as The Scarecrow wants to crack open all the masks in the world and feast luridly on whatever seeps out.

Batman isn't just the ultimate trial against his fear-ruled worldview (or even affirmation), and he isn't just a breakthrough waiting to happen: he might be his greatest success as of yet. A case study on the success of exposure therapy, proof of potential medicinal applications for his formula, the greatest guinea pig of all time because he won't die no matter what you pump into him, you name it. So what if all those other people couldn't stomach the procedure, so what if those precious innocents are too weak and stupid and useless to not get in the way of research, it's clearly worked wonders for those who could take it.

And if the future belongs to men like Batman, if all of these superheroes and supervillains are the way things are going to be like forever, if the future is Bat-shaped and as vast and uncertain and horrible as the forces shaping it, the future needs to be prepared. The future needs to grapple with it's past and face it's greatest horrors and become stronger for it. There is no such thing as overcoming fear, there is only living with it, embracing it, bowing to the primordial instinct that knows the answer before you do. Mankind grew and developed it's intelligence and tools out of fear, fear of the bigger predators out there, fear of the other cavemen, fear of starvation and death and everything they couldn't understand and master until they learned to fear it. What better knowledge to pass along than fear? And who is better qualified to teach about fear?

Maybe Crane isn't just another monster with a grudge, maybe he isn't another costumed revenge killer, maybe he isn't just a power-tripping sadist bully out to torment others because he can, and maybe he isn't a hopeless traumatized madman who destroyed his professional and personal life in a monstrous quest to satisfy an obsession ruling his soul.

Maybe he is a sane response to an insane situation. Ever heard that one before?

[riacte]

Big Terracotta and the "Let's overthrow Rendog" storyline

My knee jerk reaction to Ren saying they would be making minigames to fight over the permits because they wanted the plot to progress was "oh no NOT again". I initially thought of the minigames in the King Ren arc finale but I suppose it's also similar to the Mycelium War finale. I love minigames, but it's like another Ren vs Scar plot, which might very well (but not necessarily) extend into Neighbourhood vs Mountain plot (and I guess the Redditors will cry about a "civil war" because they've been anticipating it since the season began).

First of all: Big T is basically Ministry rebranded. It doesn't contain everyone from the Neighbourhood, but it's inherently linked. From what I remember of that stream from months ago, Ren's idea was for the Neighbourhood (at the time the Ministers) to band together and sell terracotta. To me, the Neighbourhood feels like it's become a conglomerate of its own: they live next to each other, they collab together, build farms and minigames together, and they have storylines together. The Ministry storyline pretty obviously formed the basis and set the tone. False's rivers permeate through the entire neighbourhood. They have a meeting spot and maps and roads and villager set ups and the bank of Iskall. It's not just "people conveniently live close to each other"— it's "people whose individual storylines intertwine". We got invested in the Ministry storyline. The minister roles felt fairly early season to me, so no surprise that it ended. Now we get Big T, which seems like an optimistic look forward with the idea of a "permanent" branded group because it's about selling a highly wanted commodity.

But what if it's not.... permanent? What if Short-T gets the permits? What then? Another rebrand? I have absolutely no doubts that the Neighbourhood, broadly speaking, will continue to hang out as a neighbourhood. At least until they run out of space / ideas in there. So it's not like they'll stop interacting if Big T ceases to become a thing, but that's exactly what it is— Big T gives them something to do. A common storyline. A collab opportunity.

Back to the Ministry storyline. It's a typical "Rendog seizes power" arc that we've seen before, prominently in S9 King Ren arc. But the thing is, it kind of fails at sculpting Ren as this awful leader who needs to be overthrown. (Partially due to Cleo's mic not working when they suggested overthrowing Ren, and there were also talks of people doing a coup, but in the end Ren decided to take the matters in his own hands.) Ren tries to be incompetent and bossy but they all end up indulging him. Because, despite everything, Ren is good at bringing people together, both in and outside of the game. He organises stream weekends (the others were thanking Ren on his shift during the last stream weekend, a while ago on another stream weekend Scar made Ren tear up with his heartfelt words). He "annoys" people into following him, and then he gets scared of the power, "annoys" people into overthrowing him, and BOOM Rendog kickstarts another plotline by playing the villain (again. And again).

(Arguably, Third Life also kinda followed this formula. I had a feeling Ren was trying to make the Red King unlikable by barging into people's houses and demanding them join the Red Army, and Martyn did "claim" he had "planned" to "betray Ren" from day one (looking at the camera with knowing but non-judgmental stare) but didn't do it.)

Point is, Ren has the personal charisma and thick enough skin to start groups and wrangle people into joining them. He's silly and the hermits love him, so they kind of bemusedly smile and let Ren drag them along. That's his first way of uniting people. Ren's second way of uniting people is by playing the villain, which he often employs and tries pushing it into this direction. In the Ministry plotline, the first way worked, but nobody cared enough to overthrow Ren (lol) so the second way didn't work that well.

... And I feel like Ren doesn't trust himself to play the role of a good leader. He has to be evil. Because he likes dramatics and being publicly humiliated (side glance) and killed. And also because he doesn't like playing the role of a good leader despite having clear visions of infrastructure / change he wants to achieve (S10 roads, S9 Hermit Quests). If anyone's dreaming big about community storylines and banding together to work on something, it's Ren.

So my fear for the Big T storyline is that Ren will seize power again and turn evil so they can overthrow him and Ren volunteers to be the villain for plot progression. I like seeing Ren being in the leader role. But to see him be overthrown again feels a little sad considering what they all went through so far. I don't want more self sabotage. I don't want Ren to go "yeah it's fine you can have it". I don't want Big T to lose the permits and disband. Obviously Big T isn't just Ren, but Ren is the main guy who does story and roleplay.

Good news: Big T contains competitive people who will no doubt enjoy defeating Scar and Bdubs. Bad news: those are the exact same type of people who like trapping Ren in pits. Even if Big T as a whole pulls through, I hope Ren doesn't do something stupid on purpose to set himself up. I want the power of friendship and neighbourhood solidarity to win. It's such a good overarching storyline and content.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for kicking someone from my server and not explaining why?

(emojis so I can find later: 🪨🪨🪨)

[This happened a few years ago, but I’ll write the ages as they were at the time.]

I (14M) made a server for a fandom I was in. It was a small fandom (I was mutuals with every single fan on tumblr) so I thought it’d be nice to have a place we can all talk other than the tumblr dashboard. This was also not my first server — I had 2 or 3 years of experience running them (having run a server with 100ish members a year or two beforehand) so I was fully confident in my ability to run a server with less than 20 people, especially since everyone knew each other and was friends already.

Now, there was this person in the server, we’ll call her B (16F). I wasn’t super close with her, but ofc I was friends with her through the fandom. We didn’t talk much — the only time I can recall us speaking outside of discord was to send fandom art requests to each other. Obviously I didn’t have a problem with her coming in, but as she spoke more in my server, I started to question whether she was somebody I wanted hanging around.

I won’t go into full depth of things she said or did (both for privacy’s sake and to keep things brief), but I’ll explain my biggest reasons for kicking her.

First, she vented a lot, which typically I wouldn’t judge, but I really didn’t want a fandom server associated with so much negativity — and not only that, but the way she vented was very… I mean, we would be telling her things she did wrong in general channels, and then she would go to the vent channel and say things like “I’m sorry I’m so stupid and such a bad person I didn’t know what I was doing wrong.” and then we’d (well, everybody else — I don’t play these games with people) all have to console her. Not only that, but she’d vent about shit like — “I’m such a bad person because I’m cis. I’m sorry for being cis.” In a server full of trans people.

Second was her ableism towards autistic people, in a server also full of autistic people (This is honestly the biggest thing I had against her). Since most of us were autistic, we headcanoned most (if not all) of the characters in the series as autistic, usually with little basis in canon. One person specifically said “I think X character is autistic” and most people agreed, until she came along and said “No, they’re too normal.” We were all kind of like “???” until somebody said “Autistic people are normal” and she said “No, they’re all learning disabled” and some other stuff I don’t remember off the top of my head. (Obviously nothing wrong with having learning disabilities and many autistic people do have them etc, it’s just the way she went about saying what she said — and also disagreeing with a harmless headcanon because a character was too “normal” to be autistic). Again, most of us are autistic and were offended by what she said.

These were the two biggest contributors as to why I kicked her from my server — there were more (usually smaller) things she did that made people uncomfortable or pissed me off, but again, I’m not going to mention everything.

So, I silently kicked her, not wanting to cause too much drama, but also fed up with her behavior. I think I also softblocked her on tumblr, not wanting us to be mutuals or friends anymore but also not seeing a block as necessary (I didn’t mind if she saw my fandom posts in the tag, for example). However, she ended up following me back and sent me an ask asking why she was kicked from the server. I believe I told her “I don’t owe you an explanation, I just didn’t want you there anymore”. I didn’t want to say “you did this, this, and this” and just have her say “I didn’t do that/That wasn’t a big deal” and turn it into an entire argument, you know? I also just didn’t want to talk to her at all. So after answering, I softblocked her again and she sent me a long rant calling me a bitch, to which I simply hardblocked her.

I’m pretty sure I was justified in kicking her from my server, but I’m not sure if I’m justified in not telling her why — I understand being confused and demanding an answer but I also know she’d been told off multiple times — and I still don’t think she’s owed a response. Maybe if we were closer friends, I would have explained why. But I don’t know. Am I the asshole?

What are these acronyms?

[eoieopda]

meet me at the bar: epilogue

pairing: kim seokjin x reader type: drabble — meet me at the bar’s epilogue au: law school/bar exam, est. relationship word count: 1.2k rating: pg13 genre: fluff summary: as it turns out, there is life after the bar exam. a/n: i suppose this does make sense outside the context of the one-shot, but i def recommend reading that first ✨ like the OG, this epilogue is dedicated to mj (@yoongiphoria), who army (get it? 👀) crawled through the ringer and lived to tell the tale! so excited to eventually welcome you to the profession, bb 💕 🔞 MINORS WHO INTERACT WITH ME AND/OR MY CONTENT WILL BE BLOCKED, WHETHER OR NOT THE CONTENT IS NSFW. I’M AN ADULT WRITING EXCLUSIVELY FOR OTHER ADULTS.

Seokjin sits at a small cafe table. In front of him sit two things: one he’s sure of and one he’s not.

“This is barbaric,” you mutter under your breath. 

You hit the refresh button on your browser again, the same way you have — on a second-by-second basis — since you both sat down. Crazed, your eyes flick up to Seokjin. You repeat yourself emphatically, “Barbarism, Seokjin. Do you hear me?”

He tries his best to keep a straight face, so he pulls his coffee mug to his lips and hides his smile behind the rim. You look back down again before you can even see him nod in agreement. Of course, you go right back to assaulting the touchpad of your laptop.

You’re not wrong, not in the slightest. The Office of Bar Admissions just put you through the most treacherous experience of your academic and professional lives, and it wasn’t done fucking with you. Now that you’d survived the exam itself, you had to sit and wait — not just for your results, but for potential public humiliation.

Everyone who has a stake in this exam — test takers and prospective employers — and anyone who doesn’t — friends, relatives, professors, underclassmen, sundry assholes, etc. — can log onto this extremely public, government website at eight o’clock this morning. If they do, they’ll see a list of names: every single person that passed this exam and would be admitted to the practice of law.

Likewise, anyone can easily find out whose names are missing. Broadcasted at lightning speed, your business becomes everyone else’s. Whether you want to or not, you have to share your greatest success — or biggest disappointment — with whoever the fuck might want to look for it.

Scrubbing your anxious hands over your face, you sigh, “I think I��d rather stand naked in the middle of Lotte World. I mean it; that would be infinitely less horrifying than this.”

“For you, maybe.” 

Seokjin grins, sets his mug down, and nudges your untouched plate closer to you. On any other morning, you would’ve inhaled that breakfast sandwich by now. Today, however, you’re on a self-imposed hunger strike until you have answers.

“For the unsuspecting onlookers, I think that would be a criminal offense.”

You roll your eyes, but when you reset them, you’re looking straight at him.

It’s the way anyone would dream of being looked at, he thinks. Like every annoying thing about him is still somehow endearing, worth loving — and that little smile of yours is all for him. Just like that, he’s blushing in the middle of a café, not giving a shit who sees.

Crashing through his thoughts, the alarm you set goes off with a wail, like you’re being summoned to an air-raid shelter rather than notified of the time. You scurry to grab it. Fumbling to turn that siren off, you cast panicked glances around the room to find anyone you might owe an apology for startling. As usual, it’s just the two of you.

You spit it all out so fast that Seokjin can hardly keep up.

“Will you still love me if I shit myself in the café? Because I fucking might, and I need to know if a break-up is going to be added to my list of rejections this morning.” 

There are nervous talkers, and then there’s you. You worry in X-Games mode like it’s nobody’s business — and honestly, it’s kind of impressive.

“My whole family is going to know before I can even disclose failure myself and I —”

Seokjin doesn’t know if anything he might say would comfort you, but he’s at least slightly worried that you’ll anxiety-barf onto your laptop. To minimize the collateral damage, he reaches across the table, picks it up, and pulls it over to his side. 

As if he just pulled the plug on your life-support machines, you slump down into your chair. There, your head droops against the metal back with a small thud. You then stare up at the ceiling like you’re actively watching your soul leave your body.

“No matter what happens, we’ll be okay.” He assures you while refreshing the browser. “I promise.”

Funnily enough, trying to keep you calm has made him feel the most stable he ever has. One of you has to keep your collective shit together; and it’s clearly not going to be you, so he’s committed to remaining zipped on your behalf. His fingers don’t even shake as he scrolls down that godforsaken list, scanning with narrowed eyes.

“Well?” You urge.

After a few seconds of listening to your knee bouncing underneath the table, Seokjin closes your laptop and sets it down slowly. He takes a deep, measured breath before he finally looks back up at you. With how unabashedly freaked out you are, it’s a miracle that he can’t feel your pulse from the other side of the table.

“So, I have bad news —” He starts with a sigh.

You freeze.

“— We can’t add esquire to our email signatures until after we’re sworn in, which will apparently be two weeks from now.”

The last thought Seokjin has before being tackled to the ground is that he’s thankful nobody else came in for coffee this morning. 

The first thought he has when he reopens his eyes, now flat on his back, and sees that insane look on your face — a mix of terror, annoyance, disbelief, and excitement — is that he was right when he decided never to doubt you. More importantly, he was right that you truly are capable of anything.

Up to and including public displays of aggression.

Damn does he love you.

You sit back on your heels but you don’t make any moves to get off of him. With a shaky laugh, you say, “I think I have to kill you for that.”

“Understandable,” he demurs, shrugging. Then, he reaches up to swipe a tear off your cheek with the pad of his thumb, smiling sweetly. “Just don’t represent yourself at trial over it, okay?”

Playfully, you swat at his chest before clambering off of him. Once you make it steadily to your feet, the same hand that smacked him is held out to help him up. He takes it without hesitation.

Back at his full height, he accepts the arms you lace around his neck, swoons just a little when you push up on tiptoe. You kiss him softly, but it hits hard. That gentle brush of your lips makes his knees so weak that he fears he’ll end up on the ground again. 

You pull away breathy. Though your eyes are a little bit misty, you grin like you can’t help it. For the record, he can’t, either. You sigh, “I genuinely cannot believe that I survived this bullshit.”

“Really?” Seokjin asks, eyebrows raised.

His arms wrap around your waist to hold you closer, allowing you to nestle your face into his sweatshirt. He means it, so he says it with his whole chest and hopes you hear it: “I was sure you would.”

“Don’t think I would’ve been able to do it without you,” you mumble into the fabric.

“You could have,” he murmurs. Leaning down, he kisses the top of your head before continuing, “But you didn’t have to.”

The two of you stand like that for a while — wholly entangled in the middle of a café, in broad ass daylight — without speaking. It helps him try to wrap his brain around it all. After all, the landscape is different now than it was an hour ago; and unless he’s fully lost it, Seokjin swears that the grass really is greener.

For the first time ever, he doesn’t feel the weight of the dreaded unknown pushing down on his shoulders. He just feels you leaning against him and an unfamiliar sense of peace. All of that gratification he’s delayed his whole life, too, as it falls right into his hands.

But Seokjin’s not great with that whole thoughtful silence thing, so he smirks, “Gonna call me counselor in bed now, jagi?”

Your head snaps back so quickly, you could’ve decapitated yourself. Incredulous, your eyes narrow as your mouth pops open. Instantly, the look on your face pulls that windshield wiper laugh out of him; so, he slaps his hand over his mouth to keep quiet.

You challenge him with eyebrows raised sky-high. “Gonna make me file a cease and desist letter?”

[ggreactionsandscenarios]

Twice Reactions

Requested by : @valeria5uwu

You suddenly doing aegyo in front of them

Nayeon

She was disgusted like really she screamed as the baby voice escaped your mouth, covering her ears at the same time. She'll tell you it was scary and that you were like Annabelle. Yes it wasn't nice but when you frown at the doll's name she added that you were way more cute than her though. Which seemed like a backhanded compliment but it didn't matter.

Jungyeon

Jungyeon will 100% act disgusted but you'd catch her trying to mimick your expressions later on in front of the mirror. She'll say it was to make fun of you but you'll know that she's just mad that she can't do it as well as you. You'll end up teaching her and it will turn against you whenever she'll want you to buy her food.

Sana

She bursted out laughing at your cute aegyo, she pinched your cheeks and gave you a small peck before going to her members to tell them what cute actions you just did. She'll be all happy and bubbly for the rest of the day. It really just boosted her happiness. If she ever felt down she'll ask you for aegyo from now on.

Momo

Momo literally gagged seeing you try to act cute, of course she loves you but she hates how people define cuteness. She likes more unusual things, she doesn't care about baby voice or cute actions. You'll have to find what makes her heart flutter if you want to gain anything from your aegyo.

Jihyo

She was extremely surprised when you suddenly called her unnie in a baby voice. You never did that kind of stuff in front of her, in front of anybody actually. It was just so out of character for you that she couldn't believe her ears.

"What did you say ?"

Since it slipped out of your mouth without noticing you'll turn red from embarrassment pretty fast and try to brush it off but she'll never forget.

Mina

Mina didn't say it but she finds it cute, she wouldn't be as excited as some but it would still bring a smile on her face. After all you being cute was her weakness, she'll try to hide it though. She wouldn't want you to use it against her because if you did you clearly could get anything you want from her.

Dahyun

She literally died right there, her soul leaving her body and all of that. She could die for a good aegyo and you just did one in front of her. She'll request an encore once she'll regain her composure, only to be defeated by your second attempt. It'll become a game between the two of you, she'll ask you to talk in a baby and would pretend to die hearing it every time.

Chaeyoung

Chaeyoung looked at you with wide eyes. Yet when you thought she hated it, she suddenly got super excited about it and would ask you to do it again so she can take a video. If you refuse she'll be so sad, you have to do it again if you don't want the biggest smile you ever saw on her face to disappear.

Tzuyu

Tzuyu hates aegyo on a regular basis but there was something about you doing it that'd make her weak. As much as she tries to keep a straight face and pretend she hates it, it's just not true. She'd turn her face the other way to hide her smile and you'll be able tease her with it for hours.

It's been 3 years but here is your request, hope you like it ❤️ -Ael

[kishiar-la-orr]

in defense of first game kishiar,

turning is a finely crafted story. kuyu makes sure to ground every single one of their characters to the world that they live in, the world the story happens in.

today (as always) i am gonna talk about kishiar, but more specifically kishiar and his relationship to mortality, recontextualizing the things he did in the first game and all. super special humongous gigantic thanks to @kouraissant for helping me with this and bearing with my nonstop kishiar and mortality thoughts!

a lot of the things i'll be talking about also involves a degree of personal experiences and maybe a healthy dash of self-projection. as a disclaimer, you don't have to agree with me on anything and everything, but i'd rather some of the more personal parts to not be responded to rudely or unkindly. i will not tolerate that, sorry.

usual kishiar & mortality tw: canonical suicide attempt discussion, canonical self-harm, canonical death. be wary of spoilers.

1TL = first game/pre-regression/first timeline 2TL = second game/post-regression/second timeline

kishiar is a really fascinating character and his relationship with mortality moreso. a lot of the things that kishiar does, in my opinion, is very much colored by his circumstances growing up, specifically being born with the knowledge that second, third, etc. imperial children tend to be die young as if having 'major defects' be it physical or mental (ch 109) and ended up having no power, remaining unmarried and bowing their heads their whole lives (ch 14).

that is to say, all his life, he surely knows he can die quickly and easily, almost anytime. it's true that for everyone, death does come suddenly, but in kishiar la orr's life, death is like a childhood friend you don't like but are forced to get along with. again, this colors his whole life. this is the kind of circumstances that forces you to mature really quickly, to learn to be expressive and speak your thoughts like it's your last day, but to also learn to hold your tongue and bow down your head because you're a prince and your words still have consequences beyond normal children's would. you're forced to accept that this is the kind of life you will live and the kind of death you'll be documented as. by all accounts, i think that the current kishiar is really good at managing social situations however tricky they are, the fact that he's a rizzmaster, part of all those also comes from being used to having to process things quickly because you don't have the time to even live, being used to having to be expressive because god knows when your last day will be.

given all that as a background information, let's reexamine the conditions of 1TL.

i'd like to first point out that in 1TL, the very health and life expectancy that he used to not have pre-awakening was already given to kishiar during the awakening. i'm not too privy yet with the circumstances during the two years since the fall of the red stone to the cavalry recruitment in early canon, unfortunately, but i'll assume it was also time spent preparing and not just in silence, maybe even preparing for the cavalry to be created or searching for a cure for keilusa as well (though this is just personal theory). even so, two years really isn't that much time? soon after his awakening and tasting good health and better life expectancy the first time in his life, 1TL red stone retrieval mission happened, which forced kishiar to withdraw the divine sword without him meaning to and regained him the same vessel issues he's always experienced his whole life, basically bringing him back to square one after giving him the one thing he's always wanted his whole life. it's like the universe telling him: "look at everything you could have once had. endless possibilities. none of them are yours. not anymore."

to me, after at least 600+ chapters of reading, kishiar's character's basis is his loved ones. almost all of his actions can be traced back to him doing it in alignment with the position he has (being a prince and a duke) and out of the love he has for nathan, keilusa, and other people in his life. to be brought back to square one, struggling once again with the same old vessel issues, except worse this time, because many of the past imperial children didn't even make it to age thirty (ch 109) while he was already 29 and he almost died once already because of this very same thing.

expanding on his past experience with vessel issues and his response to it, from chapter 602 and chapter 160, likely kishiar's condition was so bad he might as well be almost dead before the timely awakening happened and immediately was followed by his second gender manifestation. he probably thought it was for real his death happening, not a surprise. he cleared off everyone and attempted suicide by touching the divine sword. that he cleared off everyone can also be argued as a selfless action, wanting to keep the smallest person possible to witness his impending doom, in order to save his loved ones from the heartache of seeing him suffer, try to kill himself and/or die.

it can also however be seen as selfish. after all, who is it that loves you and wants you to kill yourself?

this is where we will have to reiterate some points: kishiar is someone who's good at processing and expressing emotions. he's also good at knowing how to hold back and when to hold back from expressing said emotions. he's also someone who is logical and reasonable. and i also want to introduce some new points, that is: the universal fact that a lot of mental strain and generally bad mental health often cause irrationality in people, even someone who's perceived as reasonable or someone who's good at emotions. spiralling is called spiralling for a reason.

from the point of view of reason, leaving your cavalry commander mantle to the hyper-competent guy you happen to love to death, watching him get inaugurated, constantly visiting him, and of course, the pethuamet fight (which yuder 2TL classified as kishiar self-harming) are all illogical. kishiar's 1TL actions cannot be called reasonable or logical because they aren't. they are irrational the same way you and i get irrational when we're in extreme emotional duress. can anyone really claim to be logical when the threat of death looms so closely you can't even see it clearly anymore?

let's talk about some more things, like how the commander uniform he personally tailored for yuder (ch 625) is seen as yuder as unnecessary. logistically speaking, it really is unnecessary, it's not like yuder needed a new uniform when he can just wear kishiar's old ones and it'd probably just need some adjusting to fit better? but then it is explicitly stated by 2TL kishiar as 'hoping the person will wear them and think about the person who made it.' (ch 626)

also on the same conversation, 2TL kishiar stated that the strongest fear he has ever felt was during the late emperor's funeral, the feeling of being powerless, how frightening it was to look at the reality in front of him while he could only imagine what would happen to him, keilusa and the country in the future (ch 625). and in chapter further back, he also stated that in the tactical game, in the event that his special piece is almost caught by the enemy before he can use it, he would 'take the initiative and put it out as a bait in front of the enemy' (ch 105).

it paints a picture of this: it's not that he wants to do all these things, it's that who knows how to deal with death and the mental strain that comes with it when there are no actionable steps you can take, nothing under your control? he has a history of harming himself too, as i said, with the suicide attempt. in kishiar's case, the self-harm and the manifestation/post-awakening incident when he tried to kill himself, everything feels a bit more like struggling to feel a semblance of control in a world that is out of his control, when even his body feels out of his control all his life.

really, all of the things that can be deemed illogical, like ruining his relationships with everyone just so they feel less pain when he dies or like selfishly leaving yuder a legacy to care for or constantly visiting yuder even after his retirement, it stems from the selfish and very human desires of wanting to keep the loved ones near while he has time, trying to wrestle for a semblance of control, trying to leave anything useful at all that is within his capacity to give towards his loved ones for when after he's gone, grappling with all of the complicated emotions and love and care he has that he can't even act on. it's made even more complicated when you remember that kishiar isn't even suicidal originally. he's like this because of the circumstances thrusted upon his hands, he's only driven to that point because maybe he too doesn't want to die a dogshit death.

the upside is just because it's illogical doesn't mean it's treated callously or looked down upon. 1TL kishiar's actions are written beautifully by kuyu and never in a negative light. yuder himself has gripes about 1TL kishiar, but never outright insulted or downplayed his influences. if anything, the way yuder thinks of 1TL kishiar's actions, especially after knowing the imperial family's vessel issues, is very sympathetic (ch 293). in the words of our friend baby potat aloo,

like: look at this man trying to wrangle with his own tragic fate as best as he can while people he cares about most and people who care about him are unfortunately subjected to the pain of passively spectating his self-destructive ways of trying to gain some semblance of control (thinking of nathan and uuder) and/or secretive plans that seem like the 'best' choice in his opinion. nonetheless it's still about love.

that has been a long discussion over kishiar and mortality, kishiar and his loved ones as the basis of his motivation for every action. but let's not forget to talk about yuder, the one he has an almost-electric connection, deep and soulful, to. in a way, chapter 291's kishiar dialogue line "i feel like i can live now" can be seen as something he says out of love for yuder, because yuder is one of his loved ones, one of the ones he treasures the most. but also you can see it as another control thing. he's there out of his own accord, he came there through the window without being seen out of his own choice and yuder always 'tolerated' the situation, never reporting it. we can argue these are games and rendezvous they both consented to.

next, let's discuss: this is what he said in chapter 46, right before his death:

"...I wonder where it all went wrong. Thinking about it, it seems like it was when we retrieved the Red Stone." "..." "Yes... That's right. It must have been then that everything started going wrong. But even knowing that, I couldn't stop it. Because I had no other choice."

it rings so much of hopelessness, of someone who can't do anything but imagine a universe where the only thing he wanted in life was ripped away from him the moment it was bestowed. and then immediately dismissing it because it doesn't matter when it's already happened and the only thing he can do now is, just like the dukes before him, bow down his head and await for his death.

in later chapters, we also come to know that he cleared off the entire building and it was nearing his birthday when the assassination took place. we can also argue that this is euthanasia or assisted suicide, the executioner and helper is the one kishiar loves the most, who doesn't even really want to kill him. rather than a dogshit death he didn't choose, 1TL kishiar arranged it so that he dies in yuder's hands, knowing that it'd change his relationship with someone he loved so much, to die like a euthanised dog, spared the pain of unattainable hopes. in a way, it's a curse on yuder's memories, good or bad, of him, in a way, it's an act of making yourself an open wound. this too isn't rational, similarly to the way he leaves a personalized clothing for yuder's inauguration and new status as the cavalry commander or the way he gave him a name, this is a way of leaving behind a legacy, a desperate act of wanting to be remembered by his loved ones.

so, what's the point of all of this? nothing, i'm just a kishiar shooter. but also, everything. because the miscommunication in 1TL isn't one that can be so easily solved by speaking up. it's something that's integral to the story plotline, caused by the story circumstances, it's a testament too to how good kuyu's writing is and the complexity of kishiar as a character. it is, unfortunately, not as simple as just say you love him before you die. that is my conclusion.

some more unrelated, but perhaps also fun points:

i truly think, like a true self sabotage, kishiar's actions as an attempt to feel some semblance of control only works against him, making him feel more powerless and out of control

also this is for sure why he's so invested in healing keilusa

to another degree, cavalry in 2TL becomes his purpose and one of the major factors of his identity (the way it was to yuder 1TL, which is a discussion for another time), so in 1TL, stepping down could arguably also be seen as a loss of both authority/power and responsibility, leading to an even more 'out of control' feeling, even if he was indeed the one to step down out of his own accord, like no one forced him

1TL yuder was looked down on as a male omega leader, not man nor woman, commonborn cavalry commander who slept his way up. a lot of the things he did, even down to his fighting style, was also, to a certain point, a way of fighting for power, to look powerful and gain authority and be feared, if not respected. at the same time, kishiar didn't die instantly. he committed a lot of actions (as said earlier) that felt more like a grappling with control, which is just another form of power/authority. in a way, you can see these two foiling each other at the moment, struggling with power over how ppl perceive you (yuder) vs struggling with power over how you perceive yourself (kishiar). which is also funny because turning is also a story about power to me, what-with the catalyst to all of canon's plot being the red stone, which granted power to the people living in turning's canon universe

thanks for reading!

[senka-mesecine]

Please. Barnes is jealous that the reader is talking to another soldier. (sorry if my english is wrong)

I Oughta Be God.

Robert Barnes x Reader.

-

wonderful gif by @woman-with-no-name

-

-"You done waxin' poetic with that boy?"-

-"Sir?"-

-"Waxin' poetic. You just about done?"-

Sergeant Barnes's voice halts you mid stride and you stop to look at him, unable to immediately process what it was he meant only for it to hit you like a stray bullet; You did the unthinkable and supposedly broke all conduct protocol. You took the effort to show some human empathy towards one of the short timers whose toes literally threatened to decay inside of his own boots due to the long marches and the potent cocktail of near constant humidity. One thing these men needed was some kindness and you intended to show it to them to maintain some vestige of humanity among the ranks, wanting to lead by quiet day-to-day example, deciding to stand your ground on the matter. This was a question of morale. -"Tropical ulcer. Jungle rot."- You explain matter-of-factly, hugging your equipment close to your chest almost as a shield of sorts, introspective enough to confess to yourself that the man frightened you even while he was there indulging in the seemingly unassuming hobby of sitting down, playing cards with a couple of his eerily silent men, heads kept down, like he slightly frightened them too. -"I have to talk to him about it, sir. I'm sorry. The nature of it is purely informative."- You add, portraying the blunt banality of the topic. People around here needed to understand the illnesses they suffered from and how to prevent them from happening again in the future. It was literally your job, outside of helping them, to explain deterrent measures.

Sergeant Barnes didn't seem to agree.

-"Y'need to be treatin' him and makin' sure his toes don't go fallin' off and stickin' to his goddamn boots like paste. Not talkin'. Ain' no talkin' gonna fix him now."-

His heavy drawl is there laced with ample sarcasm dripping through like poison almost like he intended to imply your patient was done for, long since dead already, written off and that there was no helping him; now that --- it pushes your buttons hard and even though you knew he cared for his men in his own strange way, the callous way he talked about potential harm reeked of unnecessary cruelty. You tended to let a great many wry remarks around camp go in through one ear and out the other, but however calm you intended to be, you decide to cut the crap for lack of a better word. -"I didn't realize speaking to the men on base is against regulations or forbidden, sir, all due respect."- You retort, calmly --- as calmly and as kindly as you could so the point would be more poignant, not blurred by a freakout. Barnes gives you a look. Strange and half lidded that could almost be translated as sure is if I say it is. A deck of playing cards still in his hands, you gulp, feeling the need to clarify yourself once he says nothing more, minding his game instead, for the moment anyway. His sudden silences tended to make you nervous. Was impossible to know what he was thinking. -"I'm talking to you right now, sir, aren't I?"- You ask, trying to alleviate the tension; if the rules were the same for everyone technically you were wasting valuable time going back and forth that you could've been spent preparing Morepenicillin, Metronidazole and a general cocktail of anti-fungal antibiotics for that poor private's foot.

-"I own your ass out here. You belong to me, beaut."-

He shoots back suddenly, focusing his gaze back at you.

Your breath hitches.

Was nothing new, Barnes telling people he owns them, flat out.

He did it on a near daily basis, in fact.

When he says it to you, though ---

Beaut. The general scrambled nature of your brain right about now allows you to process that he's called you beaut ten seconds later than the actual moniker was uttered, leaving your mind in chaos as you tried to quickly deduce and decide if he was mocking you, being sarcastic again, trying to put you down or ---

The men seated around him around him are as silent as the grave. No snickering.

They weren't even looking at you, hyperfocused on their respective stacks instead.

-"I'm the only one y'all should be talkin' to and that includes you more than anyone."-

Barnes assesses himself and for some reason you find yourself tongue tied, unsure what to say to that without directly arguing with your superior, your better instinct overshadowed by some chemical in your brain that irrationally made you weigh the idea. Resent it yet weigh it. The idea of only ever talking to Barnes. You legs cannot move from where you were standing. You felt that you could only really move if he told you. He tilts his head, lips pressed into a hard line, setting down his cards on the table from the box he was seated on. Full House. Suddenly, the load of medications, needles and syringes you were carrying, having felt weightless a moment ago feels as heavy as a boulder in your arms now. What was this conversation even? -"I oughta be God to you."- He looks straight at you then and you could swear your legs were on the verge of crumbling from underneath you. The company of men around him falling into such a deep state of general quietude you could practically hear them all breathe around a makeshift table of beer cans, ashtrays and cigarette buds. Unwittingly and intrusively you imagine Barnes as a shadow looming over the jungle perimeters like God himself, swallowing you whole, finding a rare mercy when he nods his head wordlessly, giving you dismissal. Only then do you feel your legs move. Once he allows them to. His command that you spare your words only for him seemed non-enforceable but he nonetheless gives the order with such quiet gravitas you believe it to be.

Almost like a sort of magic.

-"Understood, sir."-

You mutter, getting the hell on out of his presence as fast as you could.

Fearing you could get burned if you stayed.

W --- what was that?

Did he really give you a direct order to never speak to anyone but him ever again?

[beepboopkek]

— Strip Starchess with Jing Yuan (Male Reader)

Including: Jing Yuan cw: !! NSFW !!, amab!reader, pwp but barely, n1pple play, slight mention of reader having a size kink, unprotected p in a??, first time writing a proper fic, first time writing smut (please send help), reader is a little bashful, overall its kind of a self-projection I guess. Jing Yuan is a little bastard (affectionate), stripping (who would've guessed), grammatical errors(I tried), Jing Yuan calls you pet names (dear, love), no use of y/n / m/n , light bondage ( reader gets their hands tied with a t-shirt nothing too bad), safe sane and consensual w/c: 3914 (might be a little off since I made a few edits in this post) a/n: the same as the fem reader one, it's just poor writing to let my demons out, this was originally planned as an m!reader fic but I changed it to f!reader but now I'm back here again haha.. anywyas I hope someone out there likes this !!

You were bored. Extremely bored.

Jing Yuan had promised you he’d come home on time so that the two of you could enjoy dinner together. You had something fun planned for the evening for the two of you. Something you were excited to try out. One problem though, there were still no signs of your boyfriend’s arrival.

You sent him a few messages asking him where he was but to no avail, you knew for a fact he wouldn’t be able to respond anyway.

The sound of a door opening broke you out of your thoughts as you turned around and were met with an apologetic soft smile on Jing Yuan’s face. “Yu.” “My Love.” You huffed at him in annoyance, realising what he was trying to do. He always knew how to soften you up. “You’re late.” You said as you watched him unstrap his boots and place them near the shoe rack before he turned to look at you. “I apologize, I overslept in the afternoon and had to compensate as a result.” Jing Yuan gave you a pitiful look. “Regardless, I am here now,” He walked over to where you were seated and leaned down to place a chaste kiss on your head. “And I’d love to eat what my dear has cooked for me.”

You rolled your eyes at him a little and turned towards the table again as he took his seat opposite to you. You began eating in silence while Jing Yuan served himself some of the food you’d made.

“C’mon, don’t be like that.” He spoke suddenly as you focused on eating and ignoring him. “Be like what? I didn’t do anything.” You huffed back to him again while continuing to look at your food when you suddenly heard the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor, you looked up, only to be met with your boyfriend’s amber eyes boring into yours. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

You grumbled something with your mouth full. “I didn’t catch that, love.”

You gulped down your food, 

“I said, play Starchess with me” “Do we not play Starchess on a regular basis already?”

“We do, yes, but I found a new variation of the game that I thought would be fun to try out. Only if youre up for it, though.” You made eye contact with him again as his eyebrow shot up in surprise.

He leaned in on the table and rested his head on the palm of his hand as he tilted his head lazily. “Go on.” Your confidence and annoyance all but vanished this exact second, you really hadn’t expected him to be this interested and knowing him , he probably already has an idea simply based off of the tone of your voice.

“...Nevermind.” You looked away, blushing as Jing Yuan continued to watch in lazed amusement. “Is it-” “Yes it’s Strip Starchess, okay? I thought it would be fun to play.” You blurted out as your ears turned a light shade of red. “I was going to say Blitz Starchess.” Your eyes widened in horror as you turned back to look at Jing Yuan who was now miserably failing at holding back his laughter as his shoulders shook silently and he pressed his lips together. “I hate you.” Jing Yuan laughed and you pouted. “I didn’t do anything, though?” “You know exactly what you're doing, Yu.” Jing Yuan smiled apologetically once again as you pouted while avoiding eye contact with him. He sighed fondly and picked up his chopsticks again. “Strip Starchess, hm? Let’s finish dinner and begin.” You huffed again and turned back to your food and soon enough, Jing Yuan started some casual conversation and the whole ordeal was pushed to the back of your mind.

. . .That was until after you both finished eating and cleaning up.

Shit.

You suddenly had very important things to do in your library so you quietly started walking towards it, hoping Jing Yuan had all but forgotten about your earlier conversation. Just as you were about to open the door, a familiar voice called out from behind you,

"Dear?" 

You slowly turned around, trying not to look like you were caught committing a crime.

"...Yes?"

"Where would you like to play? I think the living room would be best since it is rather spacious. We can close the curtains but,"

Jing Yuan paused as he looked towards the box in his hands and back to you,

"I'm saying that while assuming that we will be taking off our clothes sooner or later. Am I wrong?" 

He smiled innocently. This bastard knew exactly what he was doing.

"... Fine, let's go to the living room then, I'll explain the rules to you." 

Jing Yuan hummed pleasantly as he walked behind you, setting the board down onto the hard wooden flooring as the both of you sat down facing each other. 

He opened up the box and set up the game and looked at you expectantly.

There was no backing out now, so you might as well give it your best.

"It's in the name, you strip when you lose a pawn." 

"Strip entirely? Or just an article of clothing?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

You gave an exasperated sigh as you stared at him with the grumpiest expression you could muster.

"I'm afraid I don't, love."

He gave you a cat-like smile as he patiently waited for you to explain.

"...Only a piece of clothing. The one who has the most clothes off at the end of the game is the loser,"

You made yourself comfortable, you need your initial confidence back desperately.

"We'll play 3 games and see who wins. I won't be going easy on you."

You smiled at him mischievously as he chuckled and re-adjusted his seating position before looking right into your eyes.

"Very well then, let the games begin." 

You focused your eyes on the board and played your first move, positioning the soldier pawn in front of your king 2 steps ahead. Jing Yuan’s eyes lit up as he countered it by moving the same piece on his side. He knew exactly how you were going to play and he was going to ensure he won. The game progressed and you eventually lost your first pawn, you sighed in annoyance at the realization as you looked up to see your boyfriend with his cat-like smile and of course, he had the most innocent look on his face. Damnit. You sighed reluctantly as you cursed him under your breath and removed your jacket. “Happy?” You deadpanned at him.

“Very much so. Don’t be upset, you still have a chance to win.” He smirked lazily as he waited for you to play your turn You were more cautious now, not letting him take any of your pawns when you realized you had a safe opening to take his pawn! You took the chance and took his soldier with your bishop. Looking up at him in triumph. He smiled back at you casually as he raised his hands in surrender, “You got me there,” You watched him in anticipation as your mouth watered a little, sure you’d been living together for a few months now but, nothing beat seeing Jing Yuan’s body. He place his hand on his shoulder guard and removed it before smiling at you pleasantly again. You blinked once.

Twice.

Scanning him to see if he removed anything else while you were day-dreaming. Nope, nothing.

"I said one piece of clothing, your shoulder brace doesn't count as one." 

"You never specified if accessories were also counted."

You huffed at him, "You never asked!" 

"I don't recall having to ask, I gave you the chance to explain everything to me." He smiled innocently again.

He was right. 

He knew he was and continued to play his next move.

Bastard.

Suddenly, it dawned on you that he was still in his armor and work uniform, meaning it would take at least 15 individual games of Starchess to get even the first layer off of him. Your eyes widened in realization as he looked at you and stifled his laughter.

Well, you certainly weren't in your work clothes and barely had anything on in the first place but you might have a few accessories on your person if you looked hard enough.

Two can play that game.

The game continued as you tried your best to defend your pieces from his attacks but he was too good… much to your displeasure.

By the end of the first game, Jing Yuan barely looked any different from how he was when he entered your shared home while you had to remove your own rings and piercings, putting them away in a corner neatly as to not lose them.

Jing Yuan won the first game by the rules of normal Starchess and the two of began your second round.

You were determined, but so was he.

Time passed rather quickly as you watched your boyfriend remove more accessories and you really wondered how he was able to walk or even fight with that much on his body.

You shook your head. Now's not the time for distractions.

The game progressed as you watched your pawns get taken one by one.

Rook, Bishop, a couple of soldiers and the list went on.

…You realized very late that you were going to lose.

You've never beat him in a game of starches, partially because he sneaks away your pieces but also because he's genuinely skilled at playing the game.

You were down to your last game, Jing Yuan in his shirt and pants along with some random trinkets of his uniform that you didn't even know the purpose of, you, however, were a different story.

You'd managed to get down just to your t-shirt and boxers, shivering a little in both anticipation and the chill of the night.

“Do you need a blanket? You won't have anything to cover you soon enough, I'd hate to get you sick, dear.” Jing Yuan looked at you lazily.

Bastard.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

“I'm good. This is the last game and by the look of it, you've lost more pieces than I have.”

He made a content noise in the back of his throat as if agreeing with you before looking down at the board and smiling.

“I'm afraid you are correct, I admire your confidence in the face of calamity. However,”

He moved his bishop in line with your king.

“Checkmate.” 

You glanced around the board, trying to find an escape route but there were none. 

There was no denying it, you had lost the third game as well.

But the rules were about clothes, you looked up at him and back at yourself.

“. . . Fuck.”

You sighed, reluctantly admitting defeat.

“Alright , alright. You win the three games and the whole game considering you have more layers on you than I do.” 

Jing Yuan smiled in amusement as he crossed his arms and tilted his head slightly,

“So, what's my reward for winning?” 

You were already packing up the board as you looked at him with a huff and stood up.

“I'll let you nap in the afternoon more tomorrow, that's your reward.” 

But before you could move your half naked self away, Jing Yuan moved closer and swiftly knocked your knees back so you toppled down onto him.

“Jing Yuan! I almost knocked the board on your head!”

You had wrapped your arms around his neck, scared to lose balance and plop onto the floor if he were to drop you.

“I'm interested in another reward.”

“What?”

“I'm the winner so isn't it natural I get to pick my reward? Besides, no proper terms were set for it when you explained the rules to me.”

“You little shit, you knew this was going to happen.”

“Dear, I am the divine foresight for a reason.” 

He chuckled as his hands slowly moved down your torso and to the hem of your t-shirt. 

He grasped the hem as he leaned into your body and spoke lowly in your ear

“Of course, if you don't want this, we could just revert to my original reward.” 

His hold on you was firm but gentle, indicating that he'd let you go if you wanted him to.

“But, something about the way you're trembling in my hold tells me you don't want to stop, do you?” 

Your breath was coming out in shaky puffs now. You simply looked away in embarrassment before he pressed himself closer to you, you could feel the warmth of his body through the clothes he was wearing.

“Answer me.” 

“. . . I don't want you to stop” 

He smiled against your ears and you swear if he had a tail it would be swishing around in excitement by now.

“That wasn't so hard, was it?” 

Kissing the red shell of your ear he moved your face towards him and kissed you deeply before pressing his forehead to yours.

“Now, allow me to claim my reward.”

He peppered kisses along your jaw as his hands finally, finally took your t-shirt up to your neck as you raised your arms to help him get it off.

You were down to just your boxers now while Jing Yuan remained fully clothed. Bastard. Your naked chest heaved as Jing Yuan continued to feel around your body, his kisses continuing downward and his large palms squeezing around your body.

He leaned down on your chest, taking a nipple into his mouth as his other hand tweaked with the other and you gasped, sparks of pleasure shooting up your spine.

Your hands immediately found purchase in his soft hair as you closed your eyes and whispered his name.

Jing Yuan always , always made sure to lather extra attention to your chest, you never understood why but it had now become a sensitive spot for you.

He kissed and licked around your nipples, leaving little bites in between so that he can see them in the morning and fuck you all over again.

Deciding he'd done enough to your chest (for now) he moved his attention downwards, chuckling breathlessly at the small wet patch on your boxers.

His large hand slid down as he started moving his finger up and down on your boxers, making the wet patch grow bigger.

“You call me a bastard and yet have the nerve to be this turned on for me, hm?” 

“S-Shut up.” 

You panted as your brain became fuzzy and warm, not being able to think of anything else except Jing Yuan touching you.

He smirked as he added pressure with his finger on exactly where the head of your cock is and you gasped loudly. The fabric of your boxers providing a weird but not unwelcome feeling.

“Do you think you can cum just from this alone? My hands rubbing your nipples?”

“I don't k-”

You cut yourself off with a loud moan as he gently squeezed your pecs.

“You don't know? Well, that's too bad. We'll just have to find out it seems, hm?”

You were gasping for air and moaning loudly at this point, thrashing and tugging at Jing Yuan’s hair like your life depended on it.

Jing Yuan kissed you and simultaneously continued to rub circles around your perked up nipples.

You weakly slammed your fisted hands onto the hard planes of his chest but to no avail, he wasn't going to let up.

He continued flicking your nipples before speaking into your ear.

“Be a good boy and cum for me”

You moaned as you clenched his (now crumpled) white shirt in your hands as your eyes rolled back and your orgasm flooded over your body in waves.

The general continued to bite and mark your chest as you got down from your high, peppering your body with kisses.

You were still breathing heavily when you regained your senses again.

“So, my hypothesis was correct. You can come untouched, hm?” 

“You're gonna pay for that, Yu.”.

“Do your worst, dear.” He smiled coyly at you,

His voice was so calm while speaking you'd almost think he was unaffected by the situation but that was far from the truth, sitting on his lap gave away that he was extremely hard underneath you.

He kissed you again, gently this time as he pulled back and bore his eye into yours.

“Do you want to continue?” 

You didn't respond, only leaning in to kiss him before bringing your hands to the collar of his shirt and unbuttoning it.

“I'm not the only one that's going to be naked here.” 

He helped you take off his whole shirt, watching you as you admired his sculpted and scarred torso. While he helped you step out of your boxers.

“Turn around for me, love.”

You did as you were told, sitting in his lap with your back against his chest.

His hands suddenly came up on you again, going downwards to your cock as he gently wrapped a single hand around it while his other hand moved down to finger your asshole. “Wait! We need lube, let me go get it-” “Always two steps ahead of you, love.” Jing Yuan smiled at you pleasantly like he didnt have stark naked splayed out on his lap. “When did you-? Nevermind, I’m not going to ask.”

Your hands immediately found purchase on top of his much bigger ones, your breathing picking up again.

He inserted two fingers in you, pushing them in and out and curling them in just the right spot, hitting your already frayed nerves and stretching you open for him. Keeping the rhythm of his fingers up, slowly getting you towards the edge again when suddenly,

You were left empty as Jing Yuan retracted his hand and wiped it onto his pants as he unzipped them, before hooking both his hands under your plush thighs and lifting your asshole above his cock. “Tell me if you need a break.” Before you could respond, he was already impaling you on his cock, pushing you down slowly as you reached back with your hands and grabbed his neck while arching your back. “F-Fuck- too much-” “You can take it, I know you can.” He whispered breathlessly as he continued pushing you down until you met the base of his cock. “There we go.” Jing Yuan waited for you to adjust, his head directly hitting your prostate, watching intently as you fought to gain back your breath. You were struggling at this point, mind in a haze at the feeling of being so full. Not knowing where to place your hands you blurted our the first coherent thought that came to your mind.

“. . .Tie my hands, please.” Now it was the general’s turn to be surprised, you were not one to beg usually. He smiled coyly as he grabbed your discarded t-shirt and rolled it up to form a makeshift knot. “If i was aware we were going to do this tonight, I wouldve prepared more.” You pushed your hands out together in front of you impatiently, just wanting to move but not trusting your shaking legs to carry through. Jing Yuan kissed around your ears again started working on binding your hands immediately. Securing it as tight as he could, he tugged on it before pecking you on the cheek. “There. Is that better?” “Yes.” You were fully panting now, subtly grinding yourself on his cock. Jing yuan took it as his cue to move and hooked his hands under your thighs again before lifting you off his cock. The split second where you were left empty was enough for you to whine. He wasn’t a cruel lover, though, he thrusted back in, filling you instantly. He kept the tempo of fast but deep strokes and before long you could feel your second orgasm approaching. Suddenly, there was a change as he pushed you down onto the wooden floor face first and ass up, the angle making him reach in different areas. Your tied hands were above your head as you got rubbed on the floor like a mop cloth from his powerful thrusts. Jing Yuan bent over and draped his larger frame over your back, holding down your shaking hands with one of his own and thrusting faster. “Come on, come for me.” He whispered into your ear, again, reaching his other hand down to stroke your hard cock. And that's all it took for you to orgasm, releasing over your abdomen as he continued his thrusts. For a few seconds, you blanked out completely, caught up in the haze of your orgasm that you didn't even notice Jing Yuan continuing, That was until you were brought back to reality by a hit of overstimulation, tears already collecting at your lashes as the pleasure soared through your entire body. “Y-Yu-” “Just a little more.” He continued rubbing your dick and you could feel the tendrils of your third orgasm creeping up on you as you clenched around him hard. It pierced through you just as your boyfriend finally released inside you, hot liquid filling you up and you felt so full. Jing Yuan panted as he rested some of his body weight on you, essentially pinning you in place and having no way to move. Just the way you like it.

He grabbed your hips with both his hands as he gently thrusted a few times to get the last few seconds of pleasure in, wrecking your already overstimulated body..

“. . . I think my reward is incomplete.” He said after a few beats of silence.

“Absolutely not.”  Jing Yuan laughed breathlessly as he pulled you back onto his lap and rested himself against the sofa, wrapping his hands around your waist and putting his head on your shoulder.

The both of you relished in the afterglow for a bit with him still stuffed inside you, just enjoying and soaking each other’s presence, you were the first to speak.

“Horny bastard, you really piledrived me on the floor of our living room.” You laughed while pecking at his cheeks.

“Me? I’m the horny one now? You were the one that suggested this game in the first place!”

Jing Yuan feigned hurt as he tightend his hold on you, eyeing you cheekily as your ears turned red.

“I didn’t proposition sex! It was a game to-”

“To what? Play house with each other?” Jing Yuan asked in an amused tone before continuing,

“You wanted it to end like this, didn’t you?”

“Not on the goddamn floor! I’m gonna have bruises from this tomorrow, I hope youre happy.”

You pouted and held your (still bound) hands close to your chest, hearing Jing Yuan snicker and feeling his chest shake.

“I’ll give you a massage right now, on the bed this time, to make up for it”

“And then what? Escalate it into having sex again? I need to walk tomorrow, Yu.”

“You know me too well.”

You looked at him into his eyes at this and he gave you a crooked smile

“Untie my hands, we need to clean up and get to bed”

“Hmm… How about I let you go now and you let me enjoy my reward in the shower again?”

You sighed before nodding in acceptance, you weren’t going to feel your legs tomorrow.

This is the price you pay for provoking the sleeping lion.

“Horny bastard.”