#I already lined a whole piece with the wrong settings too

[sketchy-tour]

Nothing quite like feeling like your brush is just off in some way so you sit there staring at your settings until you give up cause it LOOKS fine only to realize mid lining a piece that your brush density was turned off. :)

I know that I'm probably the only person who will notice the slight difference in the lines. ...But dang it I'm so close to just...relining the whole dang thing!

[girl-next-door-writes]

Criminal

Characters: Steven Grant/Marc Spector x reader

Summary: Heartbreak lingers after Marc Spector shattered your trust. Seeking revenge, you turn to Steven Grant, his softer, kinder counterpart—never expecting to fall for him. But secrets can’t stay hidden for long, and when Marc forces the truth into the light, the lines between love, guilt, and betrayal blur.

Now, caught between two sides of the same fractured man, you must face a question you never anticipated: Are you willing to hurt Steven to get back at Marc, or has your heart already chosen sides?

Word Count: 1672 words

Prompt: Criminal- Fiona Apple

A/N: This is one for the wonderful @caplanbuckybarnes for the decades challenge. I know it’s taken me a while, but I hope it’s worth the wait.

You were a terrible person, you knew this, felt it acutely in your heart as your eyes looked into those rich, earthy ones that were both so familiar and also completely foreign. There was an intensity there that was hard to read. At one point you would have attributed it to passion, but that time had long since passed, hadn’t it?

“Marc…” you managed to whisper, your tone bordering on a whimper as you pressed further back against the wall, trapped between the solid brickwork and his muscular frame.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” He growled. His chest heaved with each labored breath as he pushed closer. Heat radiated from his body, sending a shiver down your spine.

Six months ago, you would have melted into him, given him everything without hesitation. He was right—this was what you had wanted. To make him so jealous he’d claim you as his once more. The man before you had broken your heart, shattered it into a million pieces. And somehow, every piece had still yearned for him.

But now… you weren’t so sure. You’d wanted him to feel the same pain, to be consumed by jealousy, to want you the way you had wanted him. Maybe then, you thought, you’d feel whole again. But things had changed. You’d changed.

A potent wave of guilt washed over you as your gaze fell on his soft, plump lips. You had been careless, reckless even—so focused on hurting Marc that you hadn’t considered the damage you’d do to him. To Steven. The plan had seemed simple enough when all you could see was Marc, when the only goal was to make him jealous enough to take you back.

But now… your eyes flickered back to meet his, and suddenly Marc was gone. All you could see was Steven—gentle, unaware, and so heartbreakingly kind. The heat of Marc’s presence still lingered in your mind, but the memory of Steven’s breath was soft, steady, as if he didn’t know what had passed between you and Marc made the guilt twist even deeper.

You knew it was wrong—had known from the moment you set this in motion. Stephen didn’t deserve to be caught in the fallout of your history with Marc. But you couldn’t stop, could you?

You should have walked away, shouldn’t have ever walked into the museum gift shop that first day, intent on making Steven fall for you. But that was before everything got tangled—before his kindness broke through the cracks in your anger. What had started as a simple plan, a way to hurt Marc like he hurt you, had spun out of your hands. Now, you weren’t sure if you were still trying to get back at Marc, or if it was something else entirely.

It had seemed so clear at the time—make him jealous. Make sure you were still a part of his life in a way he couldn’t remove. But somewhere along the way, you’d lost control of it. Of yourself. Because now, the only thing you couldn’t remove was the guilt. It clung to you like a second skin, pulling tighter with every moment you spent with Steven.

You kept telling yourself you could stop anytime. Walk away before it got too messy. But the truth was, you were in too deep now, and a part of you knew—when it all came crashing down, someone’s heart would be broken. Each day, each moment with Steven, it was as if you were gambling with something too precious, and the stakes kept getting higher.

Steven had been so sweet, so bashful when talking to you, like he hadn’t believed his luck when you gave him your number—despite him knocking over a stand of stuffed dinosaurs in his rush to impress you. There was something endearing about him, something that tugged at you in a way you hadn’t expected. A total contrast to Marc, all of Spector’s hard edges melted away in Stephen’s presence. And that should’ve made this easier, shouldn’t it? But it didn’t. Not anymore.

He hadn’t believed his luck, but the truth was, you hadn’t either. You’d walked into that museum gift shop with a plan, but after, watching his cheeks flush as he stumbled over his words—and those stuffed dinosaurs—you couldn’t help but feel something more, something deeper than you ever intended.

There was something so different about him—a softness that clung to him like warmth, the opposite of Marc’s intensity. Where Marc was composed and calculated, Stephen was unguarded, like he didn’t know how to hide behind walls the way Marc did. And that… that made everything harder.

Marc pressed his body against yours, his hands on either side of your head, trapping you between him and the wall. His breath was ragged, and you could feel the tension radiating off him, like he was barely holding himself together. His chest was hard against you, the heat of his body making it difficult to think straight. Every inch of him felt familiar and dangerous all at once, and the scent of him—clean, with a trace of cologne—made your head spin.

You should have pushed him away. You knew you should. But your body betrayed you, frozen under his touch, your heart pounding in your chest, each beat a reminder of the messy tangle of feelings you still couldn’t untangle.

"Steven," you whispered brokenly, the name slipping from your lips like a lifeline you weren’t ready to let go of. But even as the sound escaped you, Marc pressed his body harder against yours, the rough heat of him a sharp contrast to Stephen’s softness. Your heart stuttered, tangled in a mess of emotions you couldn’t control, couldn’t unravel.

"We both know you don’t want him," Marc growled, his voice thick with possessiveness, as if he could still read every part of you. His breath was hot in your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. "He can’t touch you the way I do. This has always been about us—you and me. It’s always been me."

His words settled over you like a heavy weight, sinking deep into the cracks of your guilt.

You pushed against his chest, and a flash of surprise crossed his face, breaking through the confident mask he had worn since the moment he cornered you. For a moment, his body tensed under your hands, as if bracing for something he hadn’t expected. His breath hitched, and the certainty in his eyes faltered. He had been so convinced—so sure that all it would take was this moment, his hands on you, his body pressing into yours, to prove to Steven that this was all some game.

"I fucked up," you said, the words catching in your throat. Admitting it felt like a weight crashing down on your chest, but you couldn’t keep running from it. "I know I fucked up, but I can’t do this to him."

You frowned, pushing Marc again, harder this time, putting more space between the two of you. His eyes darkened, frustration flickering across his face as he stumbled slightly, his hands dropping to his sides. This wasn’t how he had expected this to go, he’d thought you’d show your true colours and then you would be out of his life, out of Steven’s life.

"You’re right," you continued, forcing yourself to meet his gaze. "I went looking for Steven because I wanted to hurt you. I thought if I could make you jealous, maybe it would make things right. Maybe it would make you feel what I felt. But it’s not right. And it’s not fair to him. I don’t want to hurt him."

The man in front of you changed before your eyes. His shoulders slumped, his entire frame folding in on itself as if he was shrinking under the weight of everything you’d just said. The hardness in his face melted away, replaced by a look so lost, so broken, it made your heart ache. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and retreated until his leg hit the sofa, stumbling slightly as though the ground beneath him wasn’t stable anymore.

"Steven?" you whispered, your voice cracking as you tried to hold back the tears rising in your throat. His wide eyes met yours, filled with confusion, hurt, and something deeper—something you weren’t sure either of you could name.

You swallowed hard, guilt twisting deeper in your chest. You had wanted to hurt Marc, but now, standing here, watching Steven fall apart in front of you, all you wanted to do was take it all back.

He just looked at you, his lips parting as if to say something, but no words came. His breath was uneven, his hand still tangled in his hair, like he was holding on to that single gesture to keep himself from falling apart completely. The room was thick with a fragile kind of quiet, the kind that could shatter with the next word.

"Steven," you said again, softer this time, your heart breaking with every syllable. "I have no defense for what I’ve done. But please, know that what we have… it’s real. It’s always been real." Your voice faltered, the words on the tip of your tongue heavy with meaning. "I—I lo—"

"Don’t." He interrupted, his voice small but steady, the weight of his hurt in every syllable. His eyes dropped to the floor, fists clenching at his sides. The words he had longed to hear from you for so long were hanging in the air between you, bittersweet, poisoned by everything that had led to this moment. He shook his head, stepping back slightly, as if to create some distance from the pain.

"Not like this."

Your breath caught in your chest, the space between you feeling insurmountable now. You could feel the tears rising, but you swallowed them down, knowing he was right. No words could make this better—not yet.

[skrrts]

Home Is ✧ seonghwa version (oneshot)

✧ gn!reader x park seonghwa ✧ genre: non-idol, slice of life, fluff, romance ✧ word count: 1,4k

You have found the love of your life, and now the two of you are ready for the next step in your relationship: moving together. Neither of you can wait to finally be able to spend every day together but it's out of the question ... the whole progress looks a lot more casual and aesthetical on social media than it actually is. Chaos. Why are there so many cups and should you go for the aesthetical or the useful setup2? But wait a moment... did you see seonghwa's most beloved animal crossing lego figures? there is no way you continue unboxing until it's found.

a/n: #1 of my friday oneshot series for September ft. the hyung line. i meant to do them in order but after watching hwa's live stream, i changed my plans. just something short and chaotic for the start of the weekend. also, for some reason, this might be part of the animal crossing proposal universe... they just fit so well together.

Did you always own so many plates? You couldn't stop wondering when you went through three boxes of plates, cups, and other smaller kitchen items. Seonghwa and you both previously lived in very tiny apartments and on all the days you spent at your boyfriend's place, it just never felt like it just was as much. You carefully turned the cups around that very likely were gifts from Hongjoong because they had handpainted little doddles on them.

There was a wild mixture of elegant pieces and a few very silly ones from Animal Crossing to Star Wars you carefully took out of the cardboard box with his name on it. Now, you couldn't part with those, could you? A small sigh followed as you started to make two pills, a keep and one you'd likely donate. Nobody needed that many.

It still felt like a fever dream to realize it really happened, Seonghwa and you made the step of moving together. Now that you finally graduated and picked up a job, it was the logical decision and you managed to find the perfect apartment, it was still small but cozy with a tiny balcony just big enough to put a table and two chairs out. There was a giant old oak tree outside, offering some privacy.

Seonghwa's small noise made you look up. He was about to unbox his selection of Lego figures after you two spent all morning putting together a new shelf dedicated only to them. You placed the cups aside and walked over, finding him going through a box in semi-panic, long hair falling out of his little ponytail.

"I can't find it!" A name was added but you had given up trying to remember all of the little Animal Crossing figures, there just were too many. Your boyfriend looked up, blinking.

"Is one of them missing?" Seonghwa nodded as he went through the other box again: "It's the bunny! The one I used for the special surprise for you! I know I put it in one of the boxes, I was so sure it was with the garden set!"

You rubbed a hand over your cheek before moving over: "Let me help you." After all, there was no way it was gone, so maybe it just slipped into the wrong box. The truth was that just maybe, you were a little distracting when Seonghwa tried to pack but it had been difficult not to, your excitement just had been so high on that day. You might be guilty there.

"Are you sure you put into the bubble wraps? Maybe it stayed in one of the sets," you offered as you checked the ones he already emptied to see if maybe, it got stuck in the additional paper to protect them from being thrown around in the box.

Seonghwa frowned, trying to remember when he really had it for the last time. "I was sure I did put it in here but ... now I am not sure anymore. Let's check those."

He turned around, looking at the remaining two boxes with Lego. "Let's split it up, I will take the upper one and you can take out the other. Then we also just can unwrap everything and see if it is there."

You walked over and took his hand, leaning up to place a gentle kiss on his lips. "It is okay, Hwa. I am sure we will find it," you promised and he sighed, a soft smile spreading on his lips. "You are right. It's just special, you know? Everything that is tied to a memory with you is." His arms wrapped around your waist to pull you a little closer.

Seonghwa always was sentimental, he loved to collect pieces that reminded him of a moment in his life he enjoyed and you always thought just how sweet that was. "You will forever judge me for being unable to remember the name but I know how much it means to us. I am sure it is right there, just teasing us."

He offered a lazy smile: "You are right, considering it is my figure, he likely does." He smiled, seeing you giggle before letting you go, and clapped his hands together the same way he did when he announced he'd clean your messy apartment.

"Let's do this!"

You picked up the other box and very carefully unwrapped all of the small Lego figurines, placing them on the desk before starting to take out the scenery sets. You gifted Seonghwa a few of those last year for his birthday and he treasured them ever since. As you placed it on the table and removed the protective wrap, there it was.

The little bunny figure was napping in the middle of the star death ship or whatever it was called.

"I found the criminal, about to destroy our apartment," you called out, laughing. Seonghwa was over in a second, gasping: "I can't believe this! Such a betrayal! What is your excuse for leaving your fiance alone?!" He scolded the little figure on purpose, making you chuckle. Seonghwa walked over to the shelf with the other Animal Crossing and placed it next to its announced counterpart.

"Now it's where it belongs," he hummed.

You threw the wrapping back in the box, crossing your arms with a smile: "The day has been saved. Such an excitement." No doubt this was much more enjoyable than carrying all of those upstairs, even with the help of seven people and your families.

Seonghwa's gaze softened as he looked at you, walking over. He cupped your chin and lifted your head a little, his thumb brushing over your cheek making your heart jump.

"You know how much I love you? Never judging how silly I am," his voice was soft and full of affection.

"And I love you because you are just like that," you whispered and he leaned in to share a tender kiss, one you wouldn't mind to last forever.

Seonghwa was smiling into it and before you knew it, turned into a teasing grin, and suddenly, the floor underneath your feet was gone and you were lifted up on top of his arms.

"Hwa! What are you doing?" you blushed, looking at his pretty face as he carried you over to the to-be bedroom with little effort. You decided on a new bed, one that only would be delivered in a few days so you set up a mattress in the form of a little semi-blanket castle as the sky above it.

"Placing our world to your feet," he whispered and placed you down carefully before laying down as well, pulling you closer to him.

This was nice, you could smell his perfume and admired how hair framed his face as he undid his ponytail. Soon, you were snuggled against him and you two sighed contently.

"Can't wait to do this for the rest of our lives," he whispered, placing little kisses on top of your hair. You nodded, your fingers brushing over his stomach muscles: "I know... it's strange to think we really no longer have to say any goodbyes. I can't wait, for all the memories we will make living together now."

There was a moment of silence before you two laughed in sync: "We really are sappy, aren't we?" Seonghwa asked and you looked up, grinning: "Mhm, we are hopeless." He smiled, a hand resting against his cheek: "Good, I'd not want it any other way. Now we will make this our own little dream island."

That sounded amazing, really.

"Do we also have to become best friends with the neighbors here?" You asked, winking as you snuggled back against him.

Your boyfriend chuckled as he relaxed back into the pillow: "Well, let's say I'd not be opposed to it but we also won't have to worry. I am quite confident that our friends will come over often enough to make it about the same experience."

Your friends and family, now your worlds really slowly melted into one. "They better bring gifts then;" you teased and closed your eyes.

"I'm sure they will but I'll make sure to take good care of you always," Seonghwa whispered in his gentle voice. You only nodded, yawning as you slowly drifted off.

You once read in some countries, they believed the first dream of a new home would come true. Yours was about a life with Hwa, so you gladly would embrace this. Always.

[eds6ngel]

I just read one Fanfic -And it wasn’t even stranger things- which included a cum filled strap and now my bisexual ass (who also loves your writing) can’t stop thinking about Robin fucking R with one of those. 🫣🤭

She’d be shy at first, unsure what to do and if she’s really into it but -Oh boy- the minute she actually gets to fuck R with it 🫢

firstly, thank you, babes !! second, yes. absolutely yes. from a fellow bisexual, i'm absolutely in love with this idea (and horny af.) <3

warnings: SMUT!! afab!reader. strap-on use. dirty talk. mommy kink. breeding kink. pregnancy kink. orgasms. fake cum. internalised homophobia? (unsure how to label it.) modern!robin. r attracted to multiple genders (including cis men.) [0.9k].

robin would be super shy at first. she had insecurities that you thought she could never compare to a man because of her inability to produce sperm. she had used a strap many times before on you, but was the lack of ejaculation from it a personal problem?

it took a lot of convincing (and even more strap-use) for you to tell her that it wasn't a male-centric thing, it was simply the feeling that got you extremely riled up.

so, robin did tons of research. she spent many days on various different sex toy websites, trying to find the perfect toy for you, as well as how to use the piece of equipment.

and once it arrived, my god were you two excited.

you were both desperately trying to open the cardboard amazon box, getting out the fake bottle of cum and new dildo.

“okay, baby, so… according to this… you open the cap at the top there.”

you point to it, but robin’s hands appeared to be shaking again. she thought she had gotten used to the idea through her research, but seeing everything laid out in front of her… it made her nervous.

“hey, hey,” you cup her face gently, “what’s wrong, baby? talk to me.”

“i mean…” she hesitates. she couldn’t shake the feeling off that this felt too male-centric to her, despite you saying otherwise.

she already had worries the first time you had asked to use a strap. but, she quickly realised that she was indeed turned on by that and now couldn’t wait for the times you both wanted to use it.

but, a cum-filled one? that was a whole different level. you wanted a dick that filled you with cum, something she couldn’t physically give you.

“i’m just scared that you actually just want the real thing. like… this isn’t gonna feel like how it does with a man—”

you quickly shut her up with a kiss, whispering in a sultry tone, “i don’t wanna be cummed in by a man, i wanna be cummed in by you.”

and soon enough, the dildo was set up in the next ten minutes.

robin did her usual routine, fingering and eating you out like a woman starved, making you squirm and cry from her incredible actions.

she slotted the new toy into the harness, testing that it was a good fit, before demanding you to get on all fours for her, to which you obeyed immediately.

she lines up to your entrance, using your slick to lube up the dildo before slowly pushing in.

she let you get used to the new toy. it was your normal six inches, but just by the look of it, you both knew it was gonna feel different. she also had to remember not to push in to the hilt like she normally did, the ejaculation button sitting right at the top of the dildo. that would be a disaster if she miscalculated that and the tightness of your walls gliding over activated the squirting.

she felt her normal level of horniness at first, which was already extremely high because it was you after all. who wouldn’t be this turned on by the mere sight of you?

but, once the dirty talk kicked in? that is when she realised that she would need regular stock-ups of the fake cum.

hands gripping tightly into the flesh of your skin, the continuous slapping of her cock echoing off the four walls of your bedroom, you were screaming and yelling, “g-getting close, mommy. need your c-cum. need it so fucking bad.”

robin was gonna end up cumming to the mere sound of your words, letting go in sync with the toy, as if she was actually filling you up with her spunk.

“n-need you to breed me, mommy. need your babies.”

god, if she had an actual dick, she would be doing that every chance she got. the amount of mini buckley’s running around the house would be insane.

“yeah?” robin pants in your ear, leaning over your body, now thrusting directly into your cervix, “gonna let go for me? gonna let go so mommy can breed this pussy for you? make you all nice ‘n full?”

“y-yes! yes! oh my god! oh my god! i-i’m gonna—”

and by the intense grip on the bedsheets, to your eyes squeezed shut and your mouth hung open, violent noises escaping your throat, robin knew from memory that your orgasm had hit you like a freight train.

she waited for your orgasm to die down, before pushing in as far as she could go and pressing the button.

the fake cum squirted fiercely into your cervix, a long stream entering you, once, twice, three times as robin kept pushing the button over and over again.

she kept pressing and pressing until your legs started shaking, giving out underneath you as robin had to use her arm to catch your weight.

as you both recovered from the intense pleasure, robin silently pleaded to whatever power was out there that one day, there would be a way to make that stick.

and if she wasn’t already turned on enough, the sight of the cum dripping out of your pussy after she had pulled out was something to send her brain spiralling once again.

as she collected the spunk and shoved it forcefully back into your vagina, all she knew was that she needed to make another order of that substance. and she needed to make it soon.

a/n: please let me know if any of this came across as homophobic/lesbophobic/etc etc. i did double check with a queer woman i know who is in a wlw relationship, but she does not identify as a lesbian, so lesbians and other sapphics, correct me!! i'm open to learning more!!

taglist: @agxxb @robinsno1lesbian @agenderrat

[whatsthelimitoncharacters]

So, in my opinion, Athena is probably dead. I think that it’s dumb and doesn’t make sense but the listening party animatic definitely implies she’s dead

Here we have some before and after pictures. When I first saw the livestream, I assumed that she was just gonna pass out and that people were overreacting. However, the glow fading really implies that she is in fact dead.

Shortly before the earlier images, we see Athena kind of holding onto life with her glow flickering. We can assume she is almost dead because Ares asks if she’s even alive(I will return to this). All this considered, despite the fact she isn’t glowing in a lot of scenes in this song(such as Odysseus showing her Telemachus), her glow fading really does show that she is probably dead.

If you need some evidence from the songs, we can also get some without looking at the animatics. First and most importantly, Ares asks if Athena is dead. While Ares isn’t the most respected god and many would label him as kind of dumb, he would probably know that gods can’t die if that’s the case. Him asking this does show that a god can, in theory, die. If you want mythological precedence, you can look at how Pan died(I know that there’s a bit of debate to that but idc). Another piece of evidence is actually Calypso saying “Last i checked, goddesses can’t die.” Many people take this as proof that Athena is incapable of death but it’s already been established by major gods that a god/goddess could die and there’s a mythological precedent, so calypso may be lying. In honesty, she isn’t being entirely untruthful in saying that she can’t die. Odysseus is just a half dead mortal king and Zeus is the single most powerful god. Odysseus can’t kill calypso while Zeus could kill Athena. This segues very well into how this line fits into the larger saga. Instead of this line acting as foreshadowing for Athena’s survival, it instead acts as tragic irony for Odysseus. Athena is Odysseus’ only chance at leaving and she dies. The irony comes because Odysseus’ problem could be solved if only a different goddess had died. The wrong goddess died and now it’s up to Zeus to decide whether Odysseus should be set free.

Now, if I’m correct, then I have a lot of feelings about this. If I’m wrong I have slightly less. If I’m right, you can see my previous post for a lot of my reasons why I think athena dying is a bad decision, but I’ll give one here. Gods don’t die. Pan is the only death I can think of (not counting stuff like Helios disappearing over time) and the phrasing of pans death could also be interpreted as the cult of Tammuz praising him for his one myth. Even characters that are treated as mortal like Medea (both her parents are minor gods so she probably should be too) don’t get myths where they die. Medea just runs off to a far away land. Kronos is sliced to bits. Typhon is sealed under Mount Etna. Kronos’ children are swallowed whole. ATHENA’S MOTHER GAVE BIRTH IN ZEUS’ HEAD. IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE THAT ATHENA COULD DIE. If she isn’t dead, why is the animatic like that? Jorge had to have commissioned it. I doubt the animator would have added that in on their own. Why would it be framed so much like she’s dead if she wasn’t.

[bullet-prooflove]

The Wrong One: Dean Archer x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @mandy426 @chicagotrio101 @mysticcandymiracle @sweetdaytimedreams

Companion piece to The Study:

Part One: Courting Disaster - Dean realises Jack is courting you.

Part Two: Distance - Dean tries to discuss the distance between the two of you.

Part Three: Deserving - Jack tries to show you, you deserve better.

Part Four: Navy Shirt - You and Dean don't keep secrets.

Part Five: A Punch In The Face - Dean reacts badly to the news about Jack Dayton.

Part Six: Blow After Blow - Dean doesn't know how much more you can take

Part Seven: Cutting - Dean's surprised when Jack Dayton turns up on his doorstep.

You won’t speak to Dean, you can’t even look him. The silence hangs in the air as you stare out of the passenger window. Dean tries to ignore it, focusing his attention on the road instead but already he can feel the distance between the two of you growing the longer he doesn’t address the elephant in the car.   

“I can’t do it.” He says finally, his gaze on the light as it turns to red. “I can’t take Sean’s kidney.”

Out the corner of his eye he sees your hands clench into tiny fists, the fabric of your dress bunching between them, creasing it.

“You made that very clear at dinner.” You say in tone that’s so devoid of emotion it makes his eyes sting.

It had been a shock for the both of you to discover that Sean’s awareness of Dean’s condition. You had no idea that Jack Dayton had gone behind your back and informed  Sean that his father needed a transplant. Where you had felt hope at Sean’s offer, Dean could only feel this immense sense of guilt. He’s just started to repair the relationship between them, and this, this is far too much to ask.

“You don’t understand…” He tries to explain. “He’s just getting back on his feet, he doesn’t need this burden…”

His main concern is that the transplant will set Sean back in his recovery, that his son won’t be prepared for the physical, psychological or emotional ramifications of undertaking something this serious. He doesn’t want to be the reason his son’s life falls apart all over again.

“He wants to help.” You remind him forcefully, your knuckles turning white.

“Isobel…” He says softly. “I can’t let him do this, not after everything that’s happened between the two of us, he deserves more from me than that.”

You don’t understand what it’s like to fail someone the way that he failed Sean. He gave up on his son, abandoned him when he needed him the most.  He doesn’t get to come back after fifteen years apart and ask for something that has the potential to derail his whole life again. He will not do that.

“And I don’t?” You snap and he can hear the frustration in your voice as you look at him with glossy eyes. “I don’t deserve more time with my husband? Sean doesn’t deserve more time with this father? You just make a decision and we’re both supposed to fall in line and accept it?”

“Yes.” He says tersely, staring straight ahead at the traffic light. “Because it is my body and my choice.”

“Right.” You say unfastening your seatbelt. “Well you can take your choice and shove it up your…”

He doesn’t get to hear the rest of it because you’re already shoving the car door open and stepping out into the night. The light in front of him switches to amber as he calls out your name but you’re already slamming the car door in his face.

He panics then because the last thing he wants is you wandering the streets of Chicago at eleven o’clock at night. A car horn sounds from behind him because the light has turned green and he pulls over into a side street before he launches himself out of the car and around the corner to follow of you. His heart pounds because there’s no sign of you in the pavement or anywhere else.

He spends the next hour driving around trying to find you before he heads back home, hoping you’ve cooled down. You aren’t in the apartment, the lights are still off. He checks his phone and there’s no calls or messages. To say he’s getting worried is an understatement. He tries calling again but it goes straight to voicemail. Vaguely he wonders if this is your way of teaching him a lesson but he knows you’re not like that, you don’t play games, you aren’t spiteful the way Leann was.

This tonight, it comes from a place of hurt, from desperation because your husband he’s dying and he isn’t doing a damn thing to save himself. He hasn’t been thinking really about the effect this all has on you. He’s been too busy trying to manage his life now that he’s on dialysis. The medication, the appointments, the dietary requirements, all of it is exhausting and you’ve been there every step of the way, smoothing over his rough edges, finding ways to make his life easier. He can’t imagine the emotional toll that must take on a person, how hopeless you must have felt when he refused Sean’s kidney.

It’s an hour later he gets the text telling him that you’re safe and you’re not coming home tonight. It feels like someone’s plunged a scalpel into his chest and cut out his heart because Dean can’t remember the last time the two of you spent the night apart.

When he goes to bed, he lies awake staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the dialysis machine as it withdraws the toxins from his kidneys. Usually on the evenings he has to use the machine, you curl up against him, with your head on his chest telling him stories about your day. He falls asleep listening to the sound of your voice.

I don’t deserve more time with my husband? Sean doesn’t deserve more time with this father?

Your words come back to haunt him as his palm comes to rest in the vacant space beside him because that’s all he wants, more time with you, more time with Sean. He can already feel it running out, ebbing away from him every day.

It’s my body and my choice, he had told you.

It’s only now as he lies there alone that Dean realises maybe he’s making the wrong one.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[utilitycaster]

Hi! Because I genuinely do love your take on things and every time I read through them, a new perspective that I had never even considered before makes itself known to me. So, I wanted to ask! Since Twitter (unsurprisingly) already got its hands on this discussion:

What are your feelings on the Mighty Nein being the ones to handle the Weave Mind over Bells Hells? Because for me, I always sort of knew that BH were going to be the ones to defeat Ludinus no matter what. It’s what they’ve been building up for.

However, some people say the M9 aren’t deserving of handling the Weave Mind because that was an antagonist made specifically for the Bells Hells. So, I was interested in seeing your thoughts about this (strange) discussion.

Hi anon, thanks!

I think it's great to have the Nein go after the Weave Mind, and I think, like most takes from the Twitter CR fandom, this is fucking stupid.

Given that Matt is the DM, and he's like "hey, I'm going to have a Trusted NPC call in the Mighty Nein to deal with the Weave Mind" I think the argument that the Weave Mind was made specifically for Bells Hells is not, in fact, true. The Weave Mind is an antagonist who was introduced with Bells Hells' campaign, rather like how Ludinus Da'leth is an antagonist who was introduced with the Mighty Nein's campaign and who has been the nemesis of Beau and Caleb in particular, and yet Bells Hells will be going after him in this scenario (and, to be clear, I think this is fine; I've expected Bells Hells to face off against Ludinus in the end).

I would be interested in understanding if the motivation here is "I wish the Nein were going after Ludinus and Bells Hells were going after the Weave Mind" which I think is far less interesting given that Ludinus has been such a consistent enemy of Bells Hells as well but at least I can puzzle out a not terribly intelligent but consistent sort of logic in it; or if this is a "I wish the past two parties weren't involved in this campaign at all" argument in which case, far too late for that; or if this is someone who specifically doesn't like the Mighty Nein throwing yet another tiresome and embarrassing temper tantrum on Twitter. But my opinion doesn't change; I think it's far more satisfying to see Bells Hells take on Ludinus than the Weave Mind, whom half of them haven't even met.

More generally, the idea of "doesn't deserve to fight the Weave Mind" is stupid on another level. I understand why people talk about which actual play character they wish to get the final blow on a particular enemy, even though dice will ultimately decide this. When it lines up - Vax with Thordak, Yasha with Obann - it's immensely satisfying. But you do not need to be the most wronged person to make meaning of a How Do You Want To Do This (FCG and Otohan being an obvious case here). Technically, the Volition deserves to fight the Weave Mind more! Half of Bells Hells hasn't even encountered the Weave Mind in any capacity! Braius and Dorian haven't been to the moon! Sometimes, you're fighting because it's part of, for example, a three-pronged plan that needs three separate simultaneous strike forces. Bells Hells can't do all three at once despite having claims to each of the targets unless they split up. Would you rather the parties split up in a mix of each? Because I'm not opposed per se but that could get pretty confusing all around. And if we're going to step out of the Watsonian argument that in-world, they can't do all three at once, see my next paragraph to address the Doylist "but Matt didn't need to set it up this way" one.

I am on the record as loathing the whole "it's their table and you can't criticize it because it's their game" bullshit. You can do so. You can do so even if there are very good reasons for their choices. You're always entitled to your own opinion and as long as you're not harassing people, it is morally neutral to say "this piece of fiction/art/whatever didn't do it for me," end of sentence. With that said. It's fine if people wish Campaign 3, like Campaigns 1 and 2, were more exclusively focused on one party's adventures rather than the all-hands-on-deck story that it is. But it is that story, and pretending this wasn't the result of a number of intentional choices by Matt and the cast and various collaborators is profoundly stupid at this point. I had my complaints as well, early on, but the time to get over this was episode 1, when Orym and Fearne and Dorian and Bertrand showed up with their ties to EXU and C1. Or it was episode 6, when Laudna revealed her connection to Delilah. Or episode 35, when that connection to Keyleth was leveraged. Or episode 50, when Beau and Caleb appeared; or Episode 51, when multiple past PCs were present at the solstice; or Episode 66, when we further met with Keyleth; or Episode 86, when Sending came back on and both Caleb and Jester spoke to the party; or Episode 92, when we cut back to the Crown Keepers; or Episode 94, when Essek showed up; or Episode 99, when Downfall began. If you're still holding on hope now in the endgame, I think it's too late. That's not the campaign this is, and it never was, and you can wish that you had something more self-contained like Campaign 1 or 2 but with Bells Hells, but that's all it is - a wish, unfulfilled.

[tobifuyu]

Shopping with the Haitani Ran goes wrong!

RAN HAITANI x f!reader

Ran thinks you're too cute to be dressing this badly. He takes you shopping, finally gives in to his own desires and touches you in the dressing room. Chaos ensues.

cw: nsfw, mdni, smut, vaginal fingering, orgasm denial.

words count: 5,398

a/n: this is actually my first time writing smut, or anything at all, so bear with me. the one shot is part of a longer fic that I will start posting pretty soon, set in the Bonten timeline, I just wanted to put out something in the meantime, mostly as practice. english is not my first language! enjoy.

If you think shopping with a man such as Haitani Ran would be an enjoyment of sorts, well, you’d be wrong.

If your damnation could be encased in a day it would be today out of all of them.

Haitani Ran is already a handful as it is, put him in a store-filled street, already dressed to the nines and parading around like he owns the motherfucking moon and stars and what comes out is a big ass headache and a lot of self-deprecation.

In theory, the idea was not half bad. Ran knows a lot about this kind of stuff: fashion, styling, brands… at least more than you do, no matter how much you’d like to keep up. And the amount of money in his bank account is – well, still a mystery to you – you can only imagine a lot, considering what he is wearing and the place he’s dragging you to with a big hand wrapped around your wrist.

So in theory him helping you pick out a few pieces of clothing you could buy with your weekly allowance didn’t sound too bad. Considering how extravagant he and his brother are, you were expecting to head over to Harajuku, and maybe try to dig out something he could style for you from a cool vintage store.

You didn’t think he would bring you to a mall.

You don’t even think you’d be allowed in such a place, normally, not in the way you’re dressed anyway.

I mean, you did try your hardest to look somewhat presentable, knowing you’d be running around with the Haitani Ran, but with your laughable budget and a very confused sense of style, you look like Ran had just picked you up from the sidewalk like one of those lone puppies you’d see in a sad movie and brought you around to keep him company while squatting at his feet and wiggling your tail.

You’ve just always liked too many trendy styles, buying a few pieces here and there and leaving you with no basics and nothing to match them with, and so y ou look out of place, walking into a brand store practically hand in hand with one of the most handsome guys those judgy store clerks have probably ever seen, with a timeless and classy outfit that makes him look like he belongs there.

And most importantly, that he can afford it.

Maybe the only thing that makes up for it is his crazy two-toned braids. Doesn’t make him look nearly as bad as you, but at least you know how to use a toner.

He spends some time looking around the racks after shooing the shopping assistant who tried to approach the two of you away, and you trail behind him like – yeah, you guessed it – a lost puppy with eyes cast down, as if trying to disappear, maybe then they’d stop staring holes through your bland white cardigan that’s a little too big for your frame since you eyeballed its size and then found it too comfy to size down.

And that’s because you and fitting rooms just don’t click. You find the whole process a little too tiring, both mentally and physically.

Who enjoys spending that much time undressing yourself to wear clothes that have been worn by god knows how many others and have yet to see a washing machine, just to cry the moment you get them on because fast fashion sizes don’t fit people but want people to fit in them? Also having to recollect yourself and patch up your makeup while redressing as quickly as possible cause a line has already formed outside the door, you can hear them, and you can already feel their judging stares the moment you are gonna leave all the clothes you tried on with the clerk, nonetheless, cause everything looked like absolute shit on you–

Draining, that’s what it is.

But it’s dread that you feel creeping up on you while approaching the said fitting rooms with one of Ran’s arms now circling your waist, the other doing the most to hold up a bunch of clothes that you can barely make out but you know he has picked out, just for you.

“We can skip this part.”

You had tried reasoning, just to get hit with a “Skip this part my ass, there’s no buying clothes without trying them on. That’s how you end up with that cardigan. And I’m paying for this shit, so we’ll do as I say, princess.”

Ouch, what a little bitch.

Maybe you shouldn’t be feeling remorse, after he’s reminded you so kindly of why he’s decided to do this in the first place, knowing he wants to pull out his wallet to soothe his pretty eyes from having to see you dressed like a mess all the time.

But you’re better than this, so you decide you’ll only pick something you can afford.

He’s nothing to you but a new acquaintance, after all.

A means to an end, you like to remind yourself. You’re not using him, not a hundred percent at least, cause he’s getting your shining company in return. But yeah… you just need him to get to Manjirou. Nothing more. Nothing fun… you swear to yourself.

You’re doing Toman a favor, continuing Draken’s underground work now that he’s gone. You know Takemichi and sweet Chifuyu don’t add up to much when it comes to planning.

You’ve heard about Ran’s little fixation on you from the grapevine. His own brother had admitted to him relentlessly talking about you. And now, with Kantou Manji looming over the future of you all, you knew you had to get involved.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Ran’s lazy lavender eyes have had you in a chokehold from the very first time the two of you met, years ago.

He and Rindou wanting to fight you and your brother – only the latter, really – just to find out that you don’t back down from a challenge.

(From that day onward, if you were to ask Rindou, he would say that’s when his brother started talking about you.)

So you let him lock you in the fitting room, one of those cool ones with mirrors and lights all around you but, most importantly, a sturdy door.

One you know, in a store this expensive, no one will start knocking on if you take too long squeezing into one of those tiny dresses.

Not that it does anything to stop Ran once you’ve declared you’ve tried on the first one.

A pretty lilac piece, that would complement him and his eyes more – you mentally decide you’d like to see that – but you would look pretty (for once) standing at his side.

If it weren’t for the fact that it’s a tad too little on your frame, as expected, squeezing all the wrong places, skin spilling over and all that (you can’t possibly know he’s picked it a size or two too small on purpose).

Especially your cleavage, meaning this is all but a dress you could just wear to parade around the streets with a gang member. It would send the wrong message. And god knows what would happen if that message were to reach someone from Toman. A blond-haired guy in particular.

Shame on you.

But you can’t dwell on it too much, with Ran bursting through the door, then closing it behind his frame with all the nonchalance in the world, as if it isn’t quite scandalous the way you’re half clad and enclosed in a tight space with a man older than you (not by much, but still), in a luxury store, with clerks circling the both of you like hawks.

He approaches your body, and you can tell he’s making a decision his head while scrutinizing the dress, or rather you, from over your shoulder.

You’re facing forward and can feel the heat of his body approaching way before you feel his front touch your back, his hands momentarily settling at your hips.

They then move lower, trying to smooth the fabric of the dress as if it would make it fit better, and you feel a shiver run through your spine at the contact.

The tips of his fingers are cold where they brush your naked thighs, so you blame it on that.

“Looks perfect on you.” his warm breath hits your neck as he speaks with that low voice of his.

Focus, goddamnit.

“I hope you’re joking. I can barely breathe, and I think my ass might be hanging out.”

You can feel his body shake with giggles, and you know he’s trying to contain them for your sake, even though he’s never been the one to shy away from public shaming, especially when it comes to you. Sigh.

“Mh, I don’t know about that, but the front looks good.” His hands make a b-line for your waist, squeezing the fat there before moving upwards to rest a breath away from your tits. The dress is so tight you didn’t need to wear a bra with that. “Gosh, would you look at that? Fucking perfect.”

“Ran,” you warn him, you know he’s just teasing you again, or rather, testing you.

You meet his eyes in the reflection of the mirror, and you don’t want him to win one of the many little challenges he poses you with daily, so you hold his gaze, leaning the back of your head against his left shoulder.

He’s sure you’re the one tempting him at this point, deciding to play along in his little game that’s gonna ruin the both of you sooner or later, cause with that movement alone you’ve exposed your neck and cleavage like a white canvas, only his to paint.

“Fuck baby,” he groans and you feel yourself shivering once again, “You have no idea what you’re doing to me, do you? Or maybe you do, you little vixen.”

You laugh, “Is that all it takes to bring down the Haitani Ran? A dress that’s a little too small?” you want to hit his ego back, at least, for the way he’s making you feel.

So exposed and vulnerable.

And little, which you’re very much not, but the way he’s encasing you with his bigger body is making you look ridiculously tiny.

“Paired with these tits and hips yeah, might just be the one thing that’s gonna put an end to the Haitani’s reign.”

It’s mesmerizing, his tone of voice, the deep baritone laced with a hint of teasing and sass that drips from his lips like honey straight to your pliant ears and reverberates through your even more pliant body.

One of his fingers creeps up to the neckline of the dress and drags over its seams with such a delicately that you wouldn’t even have caught it if you weren’t so busy trying to follow his every move and breath, leaving the haze of his purple eyes that split second enough to record the very movement.

“Ran, I don’t think this is appropriate.” You try to hide your smirk as you say that, knowing that is not gonna stop him but rather rile him up.

He smirks back, grabbing you by the chin with his free hand so he can turn your head to face him. “Since when have you become such a prude, uh?”

“I have always been, you’re the one trying to taint my innocence, remember?”

You’re not completely joking at this point, he’s been trying to get a reaction out of you since you’ve started hanging out more frequently.

He knows you shouldn’t, but he’s adamant in getting you to admit he can rile you up just as easily.

A dark set of lashes shade his lavender hues as he stares down at you, pondering over what to do next without scaring you too badly.

“Can I kiss you?” There he goes, he just couldn’t resist himself, could he?

You just look so good, dressed in something he picked for you, standing in this tiny space with him draped around you. He wants to eat you up.

“No.”

Ouch. That hurts. How could you say no to him? Look at me, he thinks, and as if you can read his twisted mind, you do just that.

He is so irresistible, with one of his long braids slipping past your shoulder, hair tickling your skin the same way his hand is still doing over the hem of the dress. Pink full lips shaped in a pout you think he’s sporting more to get pity out of you rather than because he cares. But you’re a woman of great self-control.

Or so you thought.

“Just– you can touch me. To fix the dress.”

You two are so close, practically glued to each other, it’s not the first time it’s happened but your body still reacts like it’s being shocked every time he touches you.

And Ran thinks it’s more than he thought you’d allow yourself to go, so he does just that, to fix the dress, that is.

It’s to fix the dress that he grasps the fullness of both your tits in his big palms, no need to use one hand to hold your face to him anymore as you instantly rotate towards his frame to hide your face in the curve of his neck, soft lips pushed against his pale skin to muffle the sighs that you’re letting out at his bold move.

He doesn’t hesitate to squeeze them, pushing them up to prop the fat against the hem of the dress as if to make it fit properly, or as properly as the set image he has in his head, which is everything but proper.

“Fuck, you have such pretty tits.” He’s groaning in your ear at this point, enjoying the way you’re letting him touch you a little too much if the way he starts rubbing against you from behind is of any indication.

You can’t help your body from trying to mold to his touch, back arching and pushing against the hands caressing you over the skimpy fabric of the dress.

One of them is heading lower, running over the hills of your torso and hip before grabbing onto the flesh of your right thigh. The other keeps teasing you with precision and reaches over the hem to pull it down and expose your skin to the cold of the fitting room.

A perked nipple is encased by his long fingers, nails scraping over the bud to tease a soft moan out of your mouth. You grab onto one of his braids, slightly pulling before blindly looking for the hair tie. It’s removed with swift hands that you then run along its length to free it from the twists, so you can bury a hand at the back of his nape, pulling him towards you – as if he could get any closer – scratching the skin there as payback.

“R-Ran” your body is starting to heat up, the cold air surrounding the two of you doing nothing to cool you down. “‘Need more, please.”

“Since you asked so nicely…” At that the hand that has been massaging the fat of your thigh creeps under the bottom of the infamous dress, making you unable to see his next move even from the reflation of the mirror.

But you can feel him skimming over your panties with his fingertips, pressing against the wet patch that has formed there.

“You got wet just from this? Must be really desperate, uh. ‘ve barely touched you.”

What a piece of shit, you think.

But your body likes this side of his, the degrading and teasing, and it especially likes the way the pad of his finger is now pressing against your clit, unexpectedly making you let out a moan that you didn’t think you’d be capable of. Always the quiet one.

“Shh, you wouldn’t want them to hear us, now, would you?” He’s rubbing circles against the bundle of nerves, touching it just right, just like you would, alone in your room (while thinking about him, probably), making it hard to think or even remotely feel shame. “Maybe you’d like that? Mh? Want them to know making you feel good, right, pretty girl?”

When you don’t care enough to answer he pinches your clit over the wet fabric of your underwear, the whimpering noise you let out like music to his ears.

You just really want to feel his skin on yours, but too shy to ask for it you decide to do the next best thing. With the hand that is not too busy pulling the back of his head, you reach between your legs and push the fabric of your panties aside, exposing your pussy to the air without a care in the world.

If desperation had a face, at this point, it would most definitely look like yours.

“Ah shit, pretty-“

“Touch me, Ran.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He finds your clit once again, not before running through the dripping folds and collecting the wetness with the pad of his fingers, just to rub it over your soft spot with careful precision.

His hand gives one final flick to your nipple before joining the other between your thighs, raising the lower hem of the dress to fully expose your wetness under the bright lights of the fitting room, just so he can take a good look in the reflection of the mirror.

You’re no saint, but also no one has ever touched you like this before, and the pleasure is pushing you to do things you probably would never even think of when the two of you are apart (but maybe you will, from this day forward).

That is why you reach down to grasp the wrist of his other hand, redirecting him to where you want to feel his touch, before slipping your fingers through his as if to show him what to do to you.

You feel his lips move against your ear before you register him talking, “Princess, you want my fingers? Hm?”

At that, you couldn’t nod faster, waiting for his touch to finally skim your opening, and once it does, you know he understands how much you need him, cause you see him raise his fingers as if to take a double look at the viscous liquid now wetting his skin. He rubs it over you then, spreading it on top of your clit to make his other hand work smoothly.

He stops right before he could slip in, making you whine in disagreement. “Need to hear you say it, baby.”

All these pet names are new to you, he usually sticks to one a day, trying them out on his tongue before throwing the chosen one at you with the most annoying tone he could muster to, simply put, annoy the fuck out of you, as he does with pretty much everything else.

But the way he’s saying them now, between rushed breaths and a voice so strained that nearly makes you believe he’s the one being played with, does unspeakable things to you.

So you give in like you’ve learned to do with him lately. “R-rannie, please, want you… to touch me.”

“What do you need me to do, pretty? Speak up, use your big girl’s words.”

“Need your fingers. Inside me.” You feel like the air in the dressing room is thinning out, and you need to get this done as fast as possible.

That’s until his pointer slips past your hole. The moment his other fingers resume their rubbing over your bundle of nerves, while he’s opening you up, that’s when you actually start praying for time to stop.

Maybe if his hands were to leave your frame now you would crumble to the ground and die. That’s a new fear you have just unlocked because you don’t think you could ever go back to how life was before he made you feel what you’re feeling right now.

Alive.

Like every nerve ending is tingling and responding to the sweet sounds he’s making, or maybe the ones he’s pulling out of you. You don’t know what makes you more turned on, the effect you have on him, or the grip he has on you.

He starts moving his lone finger in and out, gently, testing out how far he can reach before you clench around him in pain.

He rubs over the ridges of your walls looking for something, trying out different patterns, and bumping against the outside of your hole with the palm of his hand to stimulate all of you once he slips completely inside, reaching as deep as his long digit permits.

At first, it doesn’t feel like much, you can tell he’s an expert but he’s just getting to know you. You think the feeling of fullness alone is enough to get a kick out of you, as long as he keeps massaging your clit in a, now, slower motion, as if he has nothing to rush about, not one care in the world. But it creeps up on you when you least expect it.

You thought he oversold himself with that oozing confidence that he sports 24/7, but as he starts laying open-mouthed kisses over your neck, running up its column, until he finds your sweet spot nested just below your ear and right by your clenching jaw, so does his finger.

“Fuuck. Oh my fucking god.” you heave.

Yeah, his lips are a godsend, but the way he’s bumping against that one spot inside of you with the tip of his digit just now is downright delicious.

He builds up a rhythm then. Fucking into you with more force and confidence, not forgetting to hit that patch of skin even for a single time.

“You like that, uh?” he asks like he doesn’t know, pressing his mouth against the underside of your jaw to drag his tongue along your salty skin, moaning at the taste. He asks as if you’re not clenching around his finger like your life depends on it, as if you want to capture it and hold him inside you to never feel empty again.

He realizes you need more, and he wants to give you his cock. Wants to stuff you full to the brim, cause he can feel how greedy your cunt is, so he knows you would eventually take him all inside, no matter how big.

You’re thinking the same, imagining how good it would feel to have him fuck you against the mirror that’s fogging up in front of you. You’re seeing the moon and the fucking stars with the tip of his finger alone. You wonder if his cock is big enough to kiss that little spot just right with his leaky tip.

He leaves you little to wonder, with the way his hips are bumping against you from behind. You can clearly make out the size of his length, now fully erected, as it rubs against your ass.

“Ran, fuck, I need more!”

And you both know that, but he also knows how ridiculously tight you are, how much he would have to open you up to take his cock, how he might need to spend hours with his head between your legs, fasting on your wet cunt just to make you loosen up. He’d do that gladly, but not now, in this fitting room.

So he just joins his pointer with his middle finger, carefully trying to fit in a second one through your squeezing muscles.

“No, Ran-“ you’re ready to beg, get on the ground on your knees, and plead him to have his way with you.

This is so not like you.

Or maybe it was, all along. You just needed someone to free you at last.

“You’re not ready to take my cock yet.” His tone is firm like he’s trying to convince himself more than you. “I can barely fit two fingers in, pretty. You need to let me in, gonna make you cream around them, ‘kay?”

You swear the way he’s looking at you through the mirror alone is your undoing. You see his eyes running back and forth to your half-open ones, so you follow the gaze rolling over your exposed tits, heaving with your labored breaths, until reaching the apex of your thighs.

Two of his fingers are now plunging into your wet opening, the squelching sound being so loud to tint both of your cheeks red, and a ring of white collecting around the circumference of his digits, before dripping down your parted legs at the force of his thrusts. Your clit is still being rubbed raw, the intensity increasing with every passing minute, making you twitch in his firm grasp.

The whole picture is insanely erotic, something you haven’t even experienced in your fantasies yet.

It’s so intense that you feel your cheeks get wet from the unexpected tears now streaming down your face.

You’re a cryer, he’s elated.

You’re trying hard to muffle a scream, but Ran has you blocked in his grasp with both of his arms running over yours, so you have to turn and bite at the skin of his collarbone to do so, as you grip over his forearms, leaving behind the half-moon indentation of your nails.

He groans, letting his head lol back as you lick over the bruise; the skin has torn and you can taste the blood. As he speeds up the fingers that are massaging your clit, you realize that both of you might enjoy a little pain mixed with pleasure.

The overstimulation is so overbearing that you know you should’ve come long ago, but he’s taking you to such heights that you just can’t seem to let yourself go when alone in your bed you would have long given up and just taken a shitty orgasm as a win before retiring to sleep.

“Feel so- god, it’s so fucking good, Ran. Don’t stop, please please-“You don’t stop begging and he doesn’t stop thrusting, both his fingers and his hips behind your frame, chasing his orgasm against the plush of your ass.

He wants to pull his cock out of his pants and rub it against your skin. The dress has raised over the globes of your behind, he wishes he could just come all over it.

But he has no intention of ever slowing down his hands, not with the way you’re trembling against him, and not until you come, completely undone and fucked up from just two of his fingers.

You look so beautiful like this, with tears streaming down your reddening face, lips bitten, unfortunately not by him, and your cunt taking his fingers so well. Like the good girl he knows you are under all that sass.

He glances down at the scene one more time.

Your pussy is so pretty, glistening wet, he could finish right here and then.

He wants you to fucking come while screaming his name, no one else’s. He doesn’t care if they hear, he wants them to.

Ran wishes for more than just the clerks hearing you come undone for him.

At that thought something snaps inside of him.

“Who’s making you feel this good? Fucking tell me.” You snap out of the blubbering mess you’ve become, not because of the inexplicably angry tone of his request, but because he’s slowing down his movements and you were not expecting that.

Does he not know by now that you like his roughness? You need to come so badly.

“Please fuck don’t stop, please-“

“I said who’s making you feel this fucking good.” Ran doesn’t like to think he’s a jealous guy.

He’s The Haitani Ran, after all. There has never been any need for him to be.

But now that he has tasted heaven, here in this tiny dressing room with you, he doesn’t think he can stop.

He wants to make you his, and if that means he has to deprive you of your very first orgasm given by someone else so that you can come back running for more, so be it.

“You, Ran! Fuck it’s all you! You make me feel so go-” The slap that resonates in the small space it’s the thing that stops you from completing your praise.

Ran’s fingers have stopped moving inside of you completely, and his other hand has raised to slap your spasming cunt.

A scream of his name finally does rip out of your parted lips. There’s no way you could’ve avoided that.

And the new canting of your hips that are raising to chase a ruined orgasm is to little avail, you just don’t seem to reach the promised land.

Against all odds, Ran doesn’t resume touching you, even his hips are now resting firmly some inches away from yours, not even letting you feel him anymore.

He presses father light kisses from the column of your neck up to the side of your jaw, retracing the path he had run with languish before, until he can sweetly kiss your burning cheek as if to gently bring you down from the orgasm that never happened while he removes his fingers from inside of you, leaving you eerily empty.

“I- I didn’t come.” you’re still trembling at this point, but for a different reason. You think he might have mistaken any of your reactions for you reaching your long-awaited end.

You’ve heard some stories, you know some guys can’t even tell right from left when it comes to a woman's body.

But you’re wrong about him. “I know.”

More kisses are left on the side of your face, you’d think the gesture sweet if it weren’t for the ever-present grin you can feel against your skin.

“What- why?” the way you’re asking nearly breaks his heart, you sound so confused, broken. But that’s exactly what he needs, right? He needs to be the one to guide you.

“Because I’m not letting you come. You’re not my girl.” Your eyes are big like saucers, and you’ve turned your head to stare at him, he thinks this situation is so fun he could giggle.

“But I thought-“

“Just leave him, pretty girl. You’ve already forgotten about him, haven’t you? It was my name you were screaming, it was my cock you were begging for. Leave him, and come back crawling to me. Maybe then, I’ll think about letting you come.”

He takes some steps further away from you then, cold but still careful enough to make sure you won’t fall the moment he lets you on your own, bringing his soiled fingers up to his mouth. You watch in silence as he licks them clean. He’s making a show of it, engulfing the digits in his mouth and sucking around them as he moans. You’re so turned on you could die right there and then.

He then hits you with a “Fuck, you taste like heaven, he doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

Before diving right back in, licking the skin one last time for safekeeping.

And now, you don’t know what’s worse: the cheshire grin stretching the pinkish of Ran’s lips while he’s downright degrading you after depriving you of an orgasm and, honestly, your self-respect;

Maybe it’s the fact that sweet Chifuyu’s face had only flashed behind your eyelids at his mention, after you’ve probably done one of the worst things you could ever do to him, or in your life, really;

… or the fact that you had to walk out of there, and wait for Ran to pay for the stained dress, cause he wouldn’t let you leave without making a scene. Knowing damn well that everyone in the shop had heard the two of you and is now looking with a mix of: reverence towards Ran, and hatred for you, by all women and men who rightfully wished to be in your stand.

At the end of the day, you were right. Fitting rooms would ever only leave you a crying mess, with clothes too little to fit; and shopping with Ran Haitani was hell made on earth.

At least you were convinced this was gonna be the last time you would ever accompany him – anywhere, really – or so you thought…

[ominouspuff]

Last Line Challenge

Rules: In a new post, show your latest line (artwork or written), and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you feel like)!

Tagged by @rooksunday (well you know what this one is going to be)

This time you caught me writing a fic snippet for the RepGA AU to feel out characterization. I’m sharing the whole snippet though for fun, not just one line.

———————————

“Everything is normal.

It is grating against his skin and lighting up his veins in red-hot acid. He is choked by it, throat clotted and breath thin. Betrayal stings in his chest — directionless and worthless and misguided, because he cannot truly fault his shaking legs when he doesn’t know what’s wrong with them.

It is weakness, and it is getting worse.

“Yes, Senator,” He manages, and is grimly relieved that the man does not look askance at Fox — does not seem to notice the tremor in his voice at all. The words come mechanically, his inflection seven levels from perfection, which is six too many to forgive.

“Make sure they are your best,” The Senator is saying, not unkindly but blindly, focus tighter than a pinprick, for which Fox is grateful. “We cannot tolerate abuse on the delegation, not even a whisper of it. I have tried to reason with them, but the students are young and their professors passionate — they are so set on fighting to be heard, with an unfortunate emphasis on the physicality of that action…”

Fox nods. “Well,” He says, as if perturbed and accepting all at once — but can afford no more. He might be sick if he opens his mouth too far.

“Well, indeed.” The man nods, wrinkles scrunching, eyes fogged by inward thought. He sucks his sharp teeth. “Well. I must regroup with Senator Organa I fear, I expect your units will be timely?”

“Yes.” Fox confirms and denies all at once — because his ‘units’ are always timely, even when they’re bleeding, and having those expectations is no business of the Senator’s. It is a Guard matter.

There are many Guard matters. One of them is Thorn, lost in the seventh level as of fifteen minutes before Fox inclined his helmet to a Senator, answering the summon. Thorn, with his two faithful CTs and orders from a sectorial mayor. Thorn, who looked at Fox before he left and did not point out his shaking fingers, only nodded with sharp eyes and a tight mouth and trust bleeding out of him in streams.

“It’s normal, Fox. Don’t stress it.”

The Senator leaves, satisfied and indulging his perturbation over the youth, as is typical of the man lately. Fox stiffly reverses his direction, marching to the nearest service stairwell. He wrenches it open, but does not let the door bang. It takes excruciating effort to close it still more gently behind him, to step without staggering or tightening his aching fists.

He runs, already flipping on his comm. Voices answer, their pitch perfect, their diction flawless, their sound near identical, and Fox’s pride is a balm against the cold that perpetually tightens his chest and throws his stride off beat.

He uses numbers, not their names — never their names, on the comm. Directives come quick, but not smooth. There is a breath of hesitation that betrays how far he has fallen, that they notice even here, before all chorus affirmatives and sign off. A ping comes from Thire, inquisitive and absurd. Fox pings back once, raising the urgency, and Thire duly does not repeat himself.

They cannot afford to discuss that Fox can barely breathe — and Thire would do worse, asking why.

By the time he reaches his office, he is in agony. Thire is waiting there, according to his orders. He knows better than to speak — not here, not now — but his eyes are glittering wetly with concern and uncertainty, and Fox is a shriveled, rotting thing that cannot open his ironbound teeth in the face of it. They strip to blacks, swapping armor with the seamless efficiency of frequent practice. Once Fox has put on every piece of Thire’s armor, he puts on the rest — Thire’s loose hands, Thire’s tilting head, Thire’s light steps. It takes too long. It comes like bits of flesh slotted into gaping holes, alien and painful.

Thire is already standing like a rigid statue by the time Fox has finished, head tilted down slightly, every inch of him looking like Fox’s mirror does.

“8 hours. Meet me back here.” Fox repeats from their talk over comms., shoulders sliding back, and Thire nods solemnly.

Fox leaves the office, stride ever so slightly trembling with the new bounce in his step. He heads for the elevators, the exits, the city outside, the underground that leads down and down and down. His pistol sits heavy on his belt, and Fox’s loose fingers twitch with something feverish that’s settled in his very bones.

Everything is normal, and Fox refuses to let it kill him.”

—————————

Tagging: Reverse-uno, @rooksunday , and anyone else who wants to! (@frostbitebakery and @chiliger , I simply must.)

[bobohu4eva]

Ecstasy

Part 5 - Psycho

Characters: Reader x Baekhyun Feat. Chanyeol

Genre: Soloist AU, smut, angst, fluff

WC: 5.4k

Tag List: @nana-banana @xzyxbbh @iluvybs @greasywall @endzii23 @scopoliax @silent-potato23-blog @baekyeonoreo

Warnings for this chapter: explicit smut, fuckin while on drugs (LSD), drug use and its consequences

A/N: In case everyone hasn't already forgotten about this series because I suck horrendously at updating! Sorry! This is also most definitely the most intense thing I have ever written! There's a reason it took me so goddamn long lol hopefully I can be a little more consistent from now on

Masterlist

Addiction (noun): Disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences

“When’s your next day off?” 

He sent her the text a few days after their last night together, a whole day already planned for them in his mind. He just had to figure out how he’d make it happen.

She eagerly let him know, and he told her he’d be picking her up that morning, surprisingly early, but she didn’t question it, she was getting to see him, after all. And from what it sounded like, she’d get him all to herself, all day, at his lavish penthouse. 

Baekhyun once again insisted on keeping his plans for them secret, so when that morning arrived and he picked her up, she had no idea what she was in store for. However the last time he’d refused to tell her his plans they ended up getting high, and she had a hunch that it might be something similar. 

“Are you finally gonna tell me what we’re doing today?” She asked him once he’d started driving, this time showing up in a different car, a silver convertible Porsche. 

‘Hmmm.. No, but I’ll show you once we get to my place. The last surprise was fun though, wasn't it?” 

He took his eyes off the road for a second to look over at her, his taunting smile daring her to disagree with him, but knowing she wouldn’t dare. 

“So more drugs?” 

He grimaced, “sounds bad when you say it like that.” 

“Am I wrong though?” 

“If I tell you that would ruin the surprise.” 

She just laughed and rolled her eyes, deciding to wait until she had more details to really judge. 

“You’ve been working all week right? Any more run-ins with Mr Kim?” 

As soon as he said it, her eyes went to his arm. Now that he was wearing a t-shirt, she could clearly make out the mark from the cigarette, the burn still not completely healed, and even then, it looked like it might scar. 

“I should be the one asking you that, you know.” 

She saw him glance down at his arm too. “You didn’t answer the question.” 

“No, I likely won’t see him again for a while, thank god.” She frowned, still disappointed that he was so reluctant to talk about it. “What about you though? Do you work with him a lot?” 

“Unfortunately, yeah.” He still looked uncomfortably serious, but he perked up in less than a second as he pulled into the garage of his building. “But that’s just showbiz baby.” 

He was so nonchalant about it, and left no room for her to protest, so she simply allowed him to lead her up to his beautiful apartment once again. 

She hadn’t given too much thought as to what drugs Baekhyun had planned for them to take that day, pretty much assuming that it would be mushrooms again, or maybe some weed or molly. But after digging around a bit in one of his kitchen drawers, he pulled out an envelope containing a small piece of colorful paper, with perforated lines criss-crossing it, dividing it into smaller pieces still. She’s never seen it in person before, but quickly recognized it as LSD. 

Just like the time before, he saw the hesitance on her face. 

“Hey, what’s wrong? Last time everything ended up fine, and we had a great time, didn’t we?” 

“I know we did, but this is different isn’t it? I really don’t want it to be too much or something and start freaking out.” 

He sighed, setting the envelope back down on the counter and coming to her, leaning in for a quick kiss. “It’s just the two of us here, no interruptions, no obligations, just you, and me. I won’t let anything bad happen. If you start to feel overwhelmed, just tell me and I’ll do whatever it is you need me to to help you calm back down. That day at Chanyeol's house was the most… at peace, I’ve felt in a long time. I’ve been thinking a lot about that day, and what we talked about, that’s why I want to try this with you.” 

“You haven’t done this before either?”

“No, I have, but it’s been a while, I don’t remember much of it.” 

“Why don’t you remember it?” 

“It's a long story, but I don’t remember much from that time of my life in general.” 

As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he’d said the wrong thing, she looked uncomfortable again. 

“Y/n, sweetheart.” He cooed, and her eyes met his, feeling his warm hands intertwining with her own. “You don’t have to do anything, and I don’t want to pressure you, this is just something I’ve had on my mind lately. I still want to get to know you better.” 

“Is it not possible to do that without getting high?” 

“Of course it is, but you know what I mean.” 

She thought back to the day they'd had out at Chanyeol’s house, and she understood what he was saying. “Okay maybe.” 

“So what do you say, hm?” His hands ran down her shoulders, then her arms, eyes never leaving hers. The slight tilt of his head and the way he looked at her with his best puppy eyes ruined any ability she might’ve had to reason with herself.

“Alright, if you’re sure it’s a good idea.” 

He grinned, and finally he was kissing her, really kissing her, not like the little peck from earlier. His tongue slipped past her lips, and his hand held her face to his own. It didn’t take long for her to start feeling weak in the knees. 

As he pulled away he turned to the counter, grabbing the envelope again. He tore off two of the little squares of paper, placing one on his own tongue, and the other on hers. 

“What now?”

He shrugged, “It'll start to kick in in about an hour, have you eaten? I can order us something, or see what I have here.” 

They ended up making breakfast together, and she was surprised by how sweet he was being to her, even more so than usual. It didn't just feel like the usual flirtation that went on with him. Despite not being much of a cook himself, he did his best to help out, and the way he rested his chin on her shoulder, singing softly in her ear as she stood in front of the stove, made her heart flutter. When she was done he thanked her, and told her time and time again how great the meal was. 

By the time they were done eating, she realized she was starting to feel the effects of the drug. Colors were becoming more vibrant, and patterns would start to move if she looked at them for long enough. It wasn't entirely dissimilar from the mushrooms, but it was definitely still different, especially the way her body felt. 

Baekhyun must've noticed the way she was staring off at things, or just the unusually large size of her pupils, since he asked, “how are you feeling?” 

“I'm not sure.. kind of weird.” 

“Come here.” 

He led her to the big cozy looking couch in his living room, facing the windows overlooking the river. He sat down, and she followed suit, resting between his spread legs, leaning her head back on his chest. Some music began to play, and even though they were just sitting there, she felt like her mind was going into overdrive. 

If the mushrooms made her feel heavy, more in touch with nature, LSD was the opposite. She was buzzing, electric, almost. It wasn't unpleasant, but she didn't exactly enjoy it either. 

“Are you okay? Your heart is racing.” 

She wouldn't have even realized it if he hadn't brought it up, but he was right. 

“I.. don't know.” 

“Y/n, baby.” 

She turned around, until she was basically laying on top of him on the couch, facing him. 

His pupils somehow grew even larger when her eyes met his, and for a good minute, neither of them could look away. The rest of his face looked just as inviting. His skin smooth and sunkissed, pretty features in perfect harmony. And then there were his lips. Soft, pink, asking to be kissed. Eventually she gave into the temptation, and their lips collided. 

That was a feeling she had not been prepared for, even in the slightest. 

It was like the excitement of kissing him for the very first time, that night at the club, had come rushing back tenfold.

It was he who eventually pulled away, still looking at her with a bit of concern. “You're shaking.” 

He took one of her hands that had been resting on his chest into his own, further confirming his previous words. 

“Did that not feel crazy for you too?” 

The way she looked at him, eyes wide, panting and shaking at the intensity of it, made his chest swell with pride. Any concern he showed quickly melted away as he grinned back at her. “Kiss me again.”

He didn't have to ask twice. She pressed her lips to his without hesitation, moaning into the feeling as waves of euphoria washed over her. 

Baekhyun, too, could feel how much more intense it was, kissing her and touching her with the added excitement the drug offered. The MDMA as well as the mushrooms had given a similar effect, but not nearly to the same degree. 

While the mushrooms had made him sentimental, wanting to hold her, feel the way her chest rose and fell in sync with his own, the LSD made him ravenous. Sex, while high on mushrooms, didn't even seem possible. The overall heaviness of the body high simply didn't feel sexy, but now he could think of nothing else. 

But Baekhyun knew that they had all day, and was in no rush. For what could've been anything from several minutes to a few hours, the drug blurring time into irrelevance, they simply laid there, lips pressing together again and again, until he pushed his tongue past her lips, smiling into it when she once again moaned at the newfound depth of the kiss. With both hands on her waist he felt the way she continued to shake, overwhelmed by the new sensations. 

Not wanting to overwhelm her too much, and still enjoying the onset of the drug, Baekhyun eventually pulled away, standing up from the couch, with her following. 

He leaned in, forehead resting against hers with a wide grin on his pretty face. “Wanna dance?” 

She smiled back at him and nodded, and soon the room was full of music, something sexy that would make them want to move.

With one hand in his own he twirled her around, placing himself behind her, hands on her hips as they both swayed to the beat. The heat of his chest pressed to her back and his words in her ear as he sang along further heightened how intoxicated she already was. The room around her appeared to melt and shift in a colorful whirlwind, though she didn’t mind it, still more focused on the man behind her than anything else. With the music pulsating through her, his body pressed to hers, she gave into it, even tearing up a little as she kept moving her body. This was the definition of euphoria, she thought. It simply couldn’t get any better than this, the rush of it all so overwhelming that it moved her to tears.

When she spun around in his arms, attaching her lips to his own, she saw fireworks behind her  eyelids, colorful bursts filling her vision even as her eyes were closed. Every touch of his hands brought waves of delight that surged through her without even an ounce of reluctance. Baekhyun noticed her tears, but he could feel it too, not questioning even for a second if they came from anything but pure happiness. 

She let out a yelp when he momentarily broke away before scooping her up in his arms, and carrying her into the bedroom. 

Baekhyun, too, felt the burning need for more, seeming almost frantic in the way he laid her down, wasting not a single second before slotting himself between her legs. 

He was on fire, his tongue in her mouth, dancing with her own as he tugged on her clothes with a kind of impatience she’d never seen before. He thought he would be able to stay patient, savor the feeling and enjoy her with some restraint, but he now saw how wrong he’d been. With the high at it’s full intensity, he was insatiable, he wanted every piece of her, the craving for more so intense even he began to lose it, hands shaking as he got the clothes off her body. First her shirt, then her pants, and eventually her bra, all thrown haphazardly across the room, no care for anything but the need for more skin. 

She arched into him, pushing her hands past his shirt, her touch against his bare abdomen bringing a gasp from him. After one more heated kiss he sat up, pulling the fabric over his head and fussing with his belt, finally getting that off as well. When he leaned back in, he didn’t kiss her, instead, he found himself taking her face in his hand, staring. 

“So beautiful… You make me feel so fucking crazy, you have no idea.” 

His eyes kept scanning her face, taking her in all he could, the way his words made her lip quiver, the blush on her cheeks, it was all perfection, the high adding an aura of effervescence. To him, she was glimmering, sparkling. 

“You’ve been making me crazy ever since I met you.” She answered, knowing she was just as insane for him. 

His lips pressed themselves to hers, this time though, something felt different to him. He felt himself almost start to tear up, though he fought it off, not wanting her to see the way it all overwhelmed him, too. The emotions roared to a new peak, making him sentimental, kissing her deeper, in love with the way her hands on his back pressed him further into her, never wanting her warmth to leave him, not then, not ever, as far as he was concerned. 

“You’re mine, baby, mine.” 

The words were pressed into the side of her neck between kisses, and when her voice failed her, all she could do was nod. 

“I want to hear you say it.” 

She tried to get it out, she really did, but when his fingers briefly met the waistband of her underwear the words got caught somewhere between a gasp and a moan. 

He moved slowly, hungry lips making their way down her neck, spending some time nipping at the sensitive area near her collarbone, before finally giving attention to her bare chest. His hands too squeezed and pinched at the sensitive skin where his lips couldn’t reach, and the sounds she made were music to his ears, though he still wanted to hear those words more than anything else. 

“Fuck, say it, please.” 

“I’m yours.” 

By that point the onslaught of emotion had completely overpowered her, simply giving into the way he touched her, too far gone to even think, making it near impossible to form words. It was all like a dream, his touch combined with the high whisking her away to another plane of existence, one where she could do little more than lay back, shaking, gasping, taking in the waves of pleasure that came her way. The weight of him between her thighs and his mouth and fingers as they teased her nipples felt like heaven and hell all at once, both divine and almost frighteningly tempting. He could see it in the way she looked up at him, eyes glazed over, nothing behind them but desire, a deep yearning for more, even if she couldn’t express it, the intensity rendering her speechless. 

In the back of her mind she realized the staggering difference between how he acted then compared to every other time they'd been in bed together. She felt the urgency in the way he touched her, hands that were usually so steady, so confident, now shaking, along with his unsteady breaths. Never before had he voiced such possessiveness either, though it didn't feel out of place in the slightest. She knew she belonged to him, no other man would ever be able to compare. He was so exhilarating, she felt that the piece of paper she'd had was nothing, the real drug was him. 

She was already out of her mind, and his hand had yet to venture between her legs. With his mouth still on her chest, kissing and nibbling and sucking at the soft curves, he slowly began to venture south, each kiss on her stomach adding more fuel to the fire within her. When his fingers finally hooked themselves into the waistband, slowly pulling the last piece of clothing off her body, a loud moan fell from her lips. She lay there underneath him, panting, mind in a whirlwind, completely exposed, waiting for more. 

Baekhyun was eager to deliver. His mouth went straight in, licking up the wetness he’d coaxed from her thus far, the feeling of his tongue incessantly flicking her clit making her hips push against his face, pleading with him for more. The taste made him groan, vibrations coursing through her, his lips and tongue bringing her close to release quicker than she knew possible. From the very first touch she’s already lost control, twitching and nearly screaming at the strength of her own desire. It was all too much, the tension leaving her helpless to his touch, fingers in his hair as she came on his tongue in mere minutes. 

The orgasm washed over her like a rushing waterfall, knocking any rational thought from her mind as she shook and gasped. It was a new experience completely, the added rush of her high bending her mind into an unfamiliar torrent of pleasure. Finally prying her eyes open to look down at him between her legs, the smirk present on his wet lips was pure eroticism, his handsome face a work of art. The onslaught of her high had been so paralyzing she hadn’t even noticed the substantial volume of her moans, not until Baekhyun commented, 

“My baby can’t help being loud for me, hm?” 

A whine escaped her, anticipation building even further as Baekhyun stripped off the last of his clothes. He reclaimed his place between her thighs, looking down at her flushed face, basking in the warmth of the moment as they both stared, entranced. The beads of sweat on his face appeared more like precious pearls, lips a soft pink pillow, eyes of deep chocolate brown, baiting her to get lost. Even with the way the drug made everything shift and twist about, he stayed still, shining, glowing, illuminating her entire world. 

He leaned in, kissing her with an unexpected tenderness, soft lips moving with hers gently, almost carefully. When he pulled back his forehead rested against her own, eyes fixed on hers. 

“Do you want more?”

She nodded without any hesitation, and the smile on his handsome face was enough for more butterflies to erupt within her. By that point she was dripping, throbbing, wanting nothing more than to finally feel him inside. 

“Can you say it for me?” 

“Please, Baekhyun. I want - I need- more. Fuck, please.” 

Her eyes were filled with greed and impatience as she watched him grab the packet from the nightstand and roll a condom onto himself, wondering how he was still able to keep it together enough to even consider such a thing. The room continued to dance and shift about in a dream like kaleidoscope as he moved himself over her again, both an anchor and a source of even greater insanity to her. 

When she felt him finally push inside, it was like she was experiencing it for the very first time. Now chest to chest, fully flush, surrounded by him completely, she felt herself break. The tears were back, and with every push of his hips into her, sparks filled her distorted vision. She tried to look up at him, but her eyes felt heavy, unable to concentrate on anything but the feeling of him above her, and inside her. 

Baekhyun was no better off. The drug amplified everything to such a degree that he too found himself letting go of any restraint, letting the high take him wherever it so pleased. His moans, and the ever increasing cadence of his thrusts told her just how affected he was, too. She began to move with him, rolling her body into his more or less involuntarily, just wanting to feel more of him, and he did all he could to deliver. 

When his eyes finally met hers again, his thumb moved to wipe away the tears, though they only communicated to him her immense and paralyzing delight. The way she looked up at him encouraged him further, his hips hitting her more deeply, savoring the feeling every time he entered her, again and again. 

The drug had overpowered her senses so entirely, that the lines, the boundary between herself and him began to fade into obscurity, she was a part of him, and he, a part of her. She sensed his pleasure, and felt it in her own body, the same way she knew he felt her, too. They melted together, the high and the closeness of being so intimately connected merging them into one. 

Every time he filled her, she felt him brush against that delicious spot deep inside that made her tremble. He was perfection, beyond perfection, even. Having him there with her, enjoying her as she enjoyed him, whisked them away to a different form of reality. Their shared altered consciousness made it all so much heavier, more real than any sexual experience they could have while sober. This was how it was always supposed to be, they were both sure of it. 

His hand clutching her face brought her eyes back to his, whimpering at his intense gaze. 

“Who do you belong to, baby?” 

“You.” She replied weakly, barely able to get the word out. 

“Say it again.”

“You- Baekhyun, oh my god.” 

Her words stirred up a whirlwind inside him, his lips latching themselves onto the spot on her neck that made her weakest. The pace of his thrusts picked up even more, and she felt her whole body start to tingle, starting from the tips of her toes moving up her body in waves, until she was consumed by it, and again, she fell. 

This orgasm was somehow even better than the last, leaving her shaking, gasping, seemingly tearing apart every atom in her body, and then putting her back together again. Her vision went white, arching, twitching, moaning and completely out of her damn mind as he kept fucking her through it, until he too reached his peak. 

When it happened for him, he kissed her with such force, such passion, that she couldn’t breathe, though she didn’t feel she needed to anyway. His affection felt more crucial than oxygen, happily accepting his lips as she floated slowly back to her altered state of reality. 

They both lay in the aftermath of the near religious experience they just shared, sweating, panting, still pressed to each other as they recovered from the profoundly overpowering encounter that the drug turned their passion into.

Even after several minutes had passed, she was still dizzy, still unable to come to terms with how incredible Baekhyun had just made her feel. 

“I love you.” She whispered, thoughtless, the otherworldly memory of it all and his possessive words drifting through her mind. For a while, he didn’t respond, and she didn’t expect him to. It didn’t feel like some sort of big confession, just what the drug and the height of the moment naturally pulled from her lips. 

“I..” he paused, becoming tense, eyes digging into her own. “What?” 

The harsh change in his tone snapped her back to reality, and she realized her mistake. 

“No- shit, I didn’t mean that-”

“What the fuck did you just say?” He said, sitting up, eyes squeezed shut with a pained expression now on his face. 

“I’m sorry, it just slipped out in the moment.” She looked at him, worry turning to panic as the look on his face slowly turned into one of anger. 

“Get out.” 

“What?” 

“Get out.” He said again, this time raising his voice, eyes still shut, refusing to look at her. 

She started to sit up, tears welling in her eyes, though this time they didn’t come from a good place at all. 

“But, you said you wouldn’t let anything bad happen, I’m sorry, I just- I-” 

When he finally did meet her eyes, they were hard and mean, not softening at all even at the sight of her tears. 

“You can’t be here anymore. Get your shit and get the fuck out.” 

“Baekhyun, please, I can't just leave, I'm sorry, really. Please.” She begged, but he wasn't having any of it.

“I said get the fuck out of my apartment. Right fucking now.” 

She'd never seen that look on his face before, her shock and upset morphing into fear. 

With that she got up, stumbling as she gathered her clothes, leaving his room in a disoriented haze as she got herself dressed, crying harder and harder as the seconds ticked by. The bright colors had turned dark and dull and the patterns that before swirled around so beautifully turned sharp, frightening in their unpredictability. She was delirious as she passed the threshold to his apartment, the hallway seeming to close in on her as she struggled toward the elevator. Luckily nobody saw her as she left the building, eventually collapsing onto a nearby bench under the midday sun, surrounded by the bustling city. 

As her eyes squeezed shut she only saw his face, twisted in anger as he told her to leave. It haunted her, though she didn’t want to face the city either, the cacophony of cars and other people entirely too much to handle. She had to get home, and with no other real option, she pulled out her phone, struggling with it for a minute before finally managing to call her best friend. 

“Suhyun?” 

“Hi! I thought you were gonna be with Baekhyun all day, is everything all right?” 

“No…” she said, voice shaking, and even from over the phone Suhyun could tell that something was very wrong. 

“Are you okay? Where are you? What happened?” 

“I- I don't know, I need you to come get me.” 

“Where are you?” 

“I don't know, I'm sitting in front of his building, he kicked me out.” 

“He did what? You sound weird, what's going on?” 

“He gave me drugs, I don't know what to do, I can barely use my phone, I can't take the subway, you have to come get me.” 

Suhyun had known her friend long enough to know that something awful had happened, and needed to get there as soon as possible. 

“Okay, just stay where you are, I can check your location and come to you, I'll be there as soon as I can.” 

She nodded, and her friend on the phone grew even more worried. 

“Y/n?” 

“Yes! I'm on a bench. I won't move. Please hurry.” Her voice unsteady with the onslaught of tears still pouring out of her. 

To make sure her friend was safe, Suhyun stayed on the phone with her until she pulled up, pulling her into the car before making her way towards her friend's apartment. 

She was crying quietly to herself in the passenger seat, trying to focus on what was going on outside the window, but still ending up squeezing her eyes shut again and again, seeing his face glaring back at her, making her heart sting every time. 

“Can you tell me what happened?” 

Finally she looked over at Suhyun, and she saw in her eyes that she wasn't in her normal state of mind, growing more and more worried by the minute. 

She just shook her head, too overwhelmed to get a word out as the sobs ran through her. 

The day had been so perfect, and because of a few little words he'd seemingly snapped, becoming a completely different person. The harshness with which he'd told her to get out kept replaying, she couldn't escape no matter how hard she tried. His face and his words had etched themselves into her mind, the drug making it all so much more horrible.  

They eventually reached her apartment, and Suhyun tucked her into bed, holding her, asking once again, “what happened?” 

“He wanted to do LSD together,” she eventually choked out “and we- we had sex, and I felt so insane after, I said I love you to him, just because of how crazy it all felt, and he lost it, and yelled at me that I had to get out.”

“He kicked you out of his apartment knowing you were on drugs?” 

She nodded. 

“Are you still really high? How bad is it? ”

“I could barely work my phone to call you. All I can see when I close my eyes is his face when he yelled at me to get out but when they're open everything is moving and looks like it's about to attack me. It's awful, I just want this to stop already.” 

Suhyun stroked her hair as she cried, comforting her, but was growing more and more angry as well. She decided it would be best to take her phone for a while, worried Baekhyun would try to contact her and make things even worse. She took it from where her friend had discarded it on the bed, sliding it into her pocket. 

She stayed like that for hours, just keeping her friend company, talking to her, doing her best to reassure her, seeing the way pain and fear consumed her. When she felt the phone start to vibrate she made an excuse to leave the room, and sure enough, it was him. 

“Y/n, I'm so-”

“This is her friend. She can't talk to you right now.” 

“I need to talk to her, give her her phone back.” She could hear the desperation in his voice, but she didn't care.

“No. She's fucking wrecked because of you. You threw her out onto the street while she was high out of her goddamn mind. She could've gotten arrested for Christ's sake, all because of your selfish bullshit. If you care about her even in the slightest, and genuinely want what's best for her, you're going to leave her alone. For good. She doesn't need you to fuck up her life even more.” 

“Please-” 

“Goodbye.”

Suhyun ended the call, cutting him off. When he called again and again, she put the phone on mute, deleting every trace of his trying to contact her. The last thing her friend needed was more of him. 

At home in his apartment, Baekhyun cursed himself, nearly throwing the phone into a wall. Unbeknownst to both of the girls, he wasn’t much better off. 

Those three words had set something off inside him. His high took an awful turn as he watched her leave the apartment, overcome with anger, but mostly, fear. When he called and couldn’t get through to her, it got even worse. Suhyun’s warning to stay away frustrated him beyond belief, but as much as he wanted to talk to her, he had no clue what he would even say, he couldn’t even understand his own feelings. 

The guilt and confusion turned the rest of his day into a living nightmare, hoping that he’d somehow still be able to win her back. However as the hours passed, he did come to a realization. 

It wasn’t her words that had caused him to suddenly become so agitated, it was the fact that he’d almost said it back.

[keepmycandleburning]

I just wrote a post that I think is too much to post due to length and because I don't want anyone to get mad at me but do any of you guys also feel like a lot of people will say things along the lines of 'the narrative says ___' or 'the author wants us to think ___' and it just doesn't add up to you. I rarely think that these things are proper interpretations of the text. Does a 3rd person limited POV narrative not belong to that character? Not the writer. If someone were to interpret my writing in some of the ways I see people interpret HP, and see my POV character's narrative as my message with my real beliefs, they would be mistaken. Because I'm pretending to be someone else, with a whole set of moral philosophies I have created for them. And then secondly the similar idea that characters' actions or beliefs (or, the way the fictional world is set up) are things the writer endorses or believes are proper. Surely not? And then along with that the idea that what happens to a character is what the author thinks is right. Anyway, I've said before this is something that makes me apprehensive to write about certain themes, lest they somehow be interpreted as me endorsing them.

World-building and other base-level problems are clearly the author's problems: the goblins, the house-elves liking being slaves. But then other things are ambiguous whether they're Harry or Rowling. Before I started writing fiction, I would've interpreted a lot more as being the author, but now I interpret most things as belonging to the POV character.

For example, when Ginny does the hoof noise to scare Umbridge, I think people would say that the narrative finds this acceptable and funny. But is the person who finds this acceptable Harry or Rowling? Is the person who's giving all these weird descriptions of fat people Harry or Rowling? If it's Rowling, this is clearly bad, no confusion. But what if it's Harry (I highly doubt this particular thing is true but I'm just posing the question)? What are the acceptable bounds of a main character being immoral? What if it's unclear?

What if I were to write a character doing something bad and the POV character thinks it's good, and they're wrong, and the reader has to discern it (like Harry thinking Ginny's joke is funny)? How clear do I have to make this? What if I don't want to insert myself into the narrative at all, and have the entire narrative belong to my POV character, and therefore nothing condemns it? What causes this to then turn into 'the author wants us to think what this character did was good'? Is this the fault of the writer or reader? I don't even know. What if I don't make my narrative condemn things in a perfect moral way? What if the message of the piece of writing, because of its belonging to my main character, is not my message? What if it were to be something evil? What if I'm writing from the point of view of Peter Pettigrew, and he's so wrong that it's lowkey evil? I'm not worried about this being misinterpreted because you already know who Peter is. But it's just interesting in general

[melodianaartist]

I’m so tired and a bit sick anf I am thinking about how the new wicked movie is presenting nessa as good representation and her actor is saying she is so grateful for the chance and I just looking at it in absolute concern. Because like..either they’re going to change her character or this is just sad.

I‘m not opposed to changes. The whole tragically beautiful oh no the chair is so horrible thing is not the best representation from the reading on disability rep that I’ve done. (Though feel free to correct me if I am wrong please) and what happens in the second arc is even more iffy. Nessarose as is is not the best representation. However it’s a sensitive thing to handle because in wicked the musical the plot is very much rushing. Everything is connected and we have rather little time. It’s usually 1 plot point per scene and it works as well as it does because everything is connected. Nessa is a part of that so changing a connecting piece can be to the overall detriment of the story. If the overall story should take precident over representation could be argued, but I’m gonna be honest if the movie isn’t enjoyable the representation no matter how good it is will suffer too.

Not to mention that I don’t really know the director’s work and idk how they would handle this.

I think the thing I would like to see most of all is just to spend time with Nessa. In the og musical we only hear like 1 minute of a song and a few lines from her perspective in act 1. Everything else is everyone remarking how tragic she is. The wicked movie adaptation will encompass two parts. The straight up musical already has enough time to fill two movies but I’m hoping that maybe we can get a bit more time with everyone but especially nessa. I can’t think of any big changes I would do off the top of my head to remedy this but still keep the story mostly the same but at least let the audience understand her more. Let her speak. Let us understand l the conclusion she is bound to come to. We know how Elphaba is the way she is but maybe show us nessa’s perspective of her household. Does she blame herself too and that is the source of some insecurity? Is she sick of beeing just seen as a tragedy? Does she not see the meaner version of her father? Is she sick of the coddling? Whats her opinion on glinda at the start before the set up? What kind of music does she like? Is she good in school? I don’t think I’ve seen her attend with elphaba in the musical. Where is she all this time? Does elphaba tell her about the lion?

[aclowntiny]

Task Failed Successfully- Hyunjin x GN!Reader

Word Count: 2.6K | Friends to Lovers, College AU | Warnings: none really, very slight alcohol mentions but Reader doesn’t explicitly drink, one small swear

In all honesty, you were thankful for that tiny little art class with that temporary professor who moved universities the following semester. You were thankful even though you felt like those new brush types you were made to use irreversibly brought down the quality of the one portrait you painted- paint was a difficult, sometimes fickle medium anyway. Even though sometimes it felt like that class so few people had heard of was but a fever dream, it was more than worth it to you since you wouldn’t have met Hyunjin otherwise.

Your tablemate was a gifted painter, humble as he was toward every compliment paid him. The joke you two shared was that he could have taught the class, but art was Hyunjin’s major and he was truly eager to soak up every piece of knowledge his seniors had for him- even if he disregarded it sometimes to prove a point. Art types, you know. You remained more of a rule-follower, but you guys shared one of your famous stingingly enthusiastic high-fives for it. High-fives came so naturally to you two, neither of you had to look anymore. Hence why Hyunjin’s friend Minho described you two’s ‘creepy eye contact’.

Hyunjin was what you called a hopeless romantic. Many of the gorgeous children of his brush were roses, couples from movies that had become his muses. You teased him, called him the type of guy who must have had a ring already in his nightstand just waiting.

“Easy,” he shot back, “or are you trying so hard to get rid of me?”

“No, of course not,” you shook your head and mirrored his grin, “who’s going to buy my drinks at the campus café if I marry you off too soon?”

“Oh,” he elbowed you, “so that’s why you keep me around, huh? Bold of you to assume I’m going with you.”

Giggling, you shouldered your backpack and kept on down the posh brick walkway that marked the campus rose garden. Hyunjin kept by your side the whole walk past the waving blooms and right to the student center where the little restaurants and cafés were.

“Alright, fine, but only if you take bowling with me next semester.”

Your campus had a bowling alley and its own ‘sports’ course set there, a class that filled up quickly with students eager to get credits for fun, even if they sucked, because how do you fail bowling?

“Oh, no,” you placed your hand over your heart, eyes rolling away from him dramatically, “truly a fate worse than death.”

“You’re welcome.”

~

“What’s that supposed to be?”

Hyunjin was peering at your canvas, tracing the latest line you’d smeared across it with his head tilted and eyes darting. He looked like a curious cat.

“Why, what does it look like?”

“Oh, no,” he shook his tilted head, “this is the ultimate trap. I say the wrong thing and it looks terrible. Not falling for that one bit.” He punctuated his statement with an enunciated pronouncement of your name and a finger booping your nose.

“Well, I’ll give you a hint, it’s going to be a landscape.”

“Ooh! The beach! It’s the beach, huh? I should have known you were painting the sea again!” Straightening up, he clapped and pointed in excitement, having gone from cat to puppy in three seconds flat. That was one of your favorite things about him.

“Guess I’m predictable,” you replied jokingly, giving him a smile, “it is the beach. Well, sort of. At my family’s little spot there was this pier that would silhouette perfectly in the sunset, the water trapped on the sand reflecting it as an inverse on the ground. All the orange melting into blue- the sky geld more colors than the sea! It was like setting foot into another world.”

“Wow,” Hyunjin breathed, “and you say you’re not much of an artist. If I had half the way with words you do, it’d be over for everyone.”

“Well, then we’ll have to take over the world together.”

“Sounds good to me. Dictatorships sound lonely anyway.”

~

With that nature of his, it was only a matter of time. Hyunjin’s art spoke volumes about his subconscious, so it was no surprise when he started telling you about a blind date a friend of his was setting him up on.

“So I guess he sits by her in his fashion design class…”

“Ooh,” you muse. Sounds up his alley.

“And she’s been looking for a date for a while, so he told her ‘I have this art major friend’ and the rest was history.”

How was it so easy for some people? Though then again, volunteering your friends was a considerably different task than asking someone out, especially if your friends were as hot as Hyunjin. Not that you thought about that often. It was just a sort of objective appreciation thing, like straight guys talking about Ryan Reynolds. Yeah.

“So besides being single and taking a fashion design class with Felix, what’s her deal? Did he give you any detail?”

“She’s twenty-one. A bit of a partier, but sounds like nothing I can’t handle.”

At that, you suppressed a snort. Hyunjin was an E type, but the last thing he was was a partier. Getting a few drinks with his eight-person friend group or attending a wine and paint night was as crazy as he ever got. For being such an amazing dancer, he never hit the club and you were fine with that. All the noise and crowds could be sort of anxiety-inducing. Call you a child after heart, but you’d take the nights you two had painted the arcade red over going out dancing with strangers.

Enough about that, though. Pulling your jacket a bit tighter about your chest, you shook your head as if to dissipate a cartoon thought cloud. “So, where are you taking her, then?”

Hyunjin smiled, a bit…nervously? “We’re just meeting at the bar-and-grill across the way here, nothing fancy.”

“Hiding that side until a few nights in, huh?” You nudged him, chest feeling like it expanded at the way his smile opened up, relaxed.

“She’s a fashion major, she’s going to be way more pretentious than me.”

“I dunno, Mr. Windows to the Soul,” you kept teasing, this time with the name of his last assignment sketch of a pair of eyes.

“Not my last minute title,” he waved a hand before playfully grabbing yours and swinging it back to your side, “next time I’ll just use a drama quote like you did. Really show how serious I take the assignment.”

“Hey!” You protested, shoving his hand away in mock offense.

“Gotcha,” he grinned.

Hopefully Miss Fashion could handle him as well as you could.

~

Forwarding a picture of your pet that your parents had sent you earlier in the day, you texted Hyunjin ‘Good luck!’. Too robotic? You hoped not, because by whatever cosmic dice roll the vibes had just been off all day, clouds rolling across the atmosphere of your mind and obscuring any small good that came your way. If you seemed off, he would worry, and he didn’t need to carry anything unnecessary into his evening.

Hyunjin 🐹: Thank you 👍🏻 heading to the bar now! Hope we both have a fun evening 😁

You shook your head as your phone’s backlight illuminated your face an artificial blue-white. Hyunjin was too sweet for his own good.

Me: I’m just having a night in lol so have fun for both of us!

Squirreling your phone back into your hoodie’s front pocket, you wiggled a bit deeper into the garment and sighed. It wasn’t that you wanted his blind date to go badly or anything…so why weren’t you feeling the excitement you led on in your text?

~

It was about forty minutes later, just about seven-thirty, when your phone buzzed again. Reaching into your pocket with one hand, you paused the video you’d been watching with the other. The first word you registered was Hyunjin’s name, the little hamster emoji you’d given his contact because they didn’t make a ferret for some reason.

Hyunjin 🐹: She never showed.

Just three words, but that message alone was enough to have you kicking your blankets off and feeling your hand curl into a fist. You barely bothered beyond a perfunctory check and touch-up of yourself in the mirror before you had your keys in your hand, all but stomping out the door of your dorm suite.

How dare she! How dare Whatever-Her-Name stand him up! Guys like Hyunjin didn’t grow on trees, and whatever planet she was on where she thought she could do better than your friend, it wasn’t much like Earth. Had Felix’s words been cause of any caution, set forth any reservation? It sure hadn’t sounded like it from Hyunjin’s recounting.

Me: Stay there, I’m coming to get you.

Hyunjin 🐹: You don’t have to do that. She just forgot, apparently. She was already out with friends when I texted a follow-up thirty minutes into sitting here.

Swallowing down some very uncouth nicknames, you sent one more message before starting your car.

Me: I know I don’t have to, but I want to. Not cool 😕

Metaphorical red clouded your vision, forcing reminders from the greatly-diminished level fraction of your brain to slow down, keep a vigilant eye upon the dim road still. This was the kind of thing you read about in ridiculous website articles about ‘Top Ten Dating Nightmares’ or saw on a corny sitcom, not a real-life thing. Petty, sure, but you wondered how many assignments Party Girl had ‘forgotten’ in her college career.

After what felt like much longer than a twelve-minute drive you were pulling into the bar-and-grill, where a serendipitous front-row parking space was just opening up. Swiping the black SUV’s former resting place, you parked and took a short, forceful walk through the doors. It didn’t take long to find Hyunjin as he sat blank-faced in a red leather stool beneath the bar’s wine-tinted neon, chin in his hand and cocktail in front of him. The lights splashing the place perfectly mirrored the literary light of your fervor, spurring you on… and inspiring your next piece for class, but that was beside the point.

“Hey,” Hyunjin greeted you in a deadpan, giving you a halfhearted wave.

“I- I- I cannot believe her!” You spluttered, forgetting yourself as you grabbed Hyunjin’s hand and practically yanked him out of his seat. “But it doesn’t matter- we are not giving her the power to ruin our evening.”

When it became ‘our’ evening who knew, but such did not even occur to you until much later. Only one thing was on your mind, after all.

“Come on. Let’s forget all about that and have some fun at least.”

No resistance from Hyunjin- he simply followed you out the door, chuckling and sarcastically thanking you for making sure he’d paid for his drink.

Stopping right before the doors, you cocked a brow. “Had you?”

“Yes.”

“Look at you- picture of integrity,” you remarked, disappearing back out from the reddish glow into cool night air, the feeling of your friend’s hand in yours a warm tether.

~

Soon the two of you were bathed in a much different light, the brighter-and much cheerier in your opinion-blinking of the arcade. Your spot. Fiddling sheepishly with your hoodie strings, you bid Hyunjin pick a game since you’d paid.

He chose air hockey. Good man. Whirs and rampant clicks drowned out the echoing thoughts you both were surely having, brought forth shaky, then stronger and stronger smiles. He won. You pretended to be upset before relenting with an infamous no-look high-five, secretly happy he got the victory.

“You paid and you lost!” Hyunjin urged, waving a hand as if to usher you deeper into the colorful madness. “Pick the next one!”

“Alright, basketball!” You agreed, following the wave down to the hoop-shooting game.

With a swipe of your card, you were off, tossing with the best of your aim and protesting the snickering at your side when you proverbially ate it. Like a Jedi sense, you leaned to the left right as Hyunjin made to nudge you, something he’d done on your last trip too, and vowed your revenge.

In a way, you got it, because you won that game. Playing clean, you reminded him.

Neither of you brought up the evening’s previous half for several games, truly successful in your endeavor of distracting yourselves. It rose to your mind a few times, mostly when the sight of his smile drew one from you. No longer were your eyes framed crimson, though- rather all you felt was gladness at your move, satisfaction like the last piece had tumbled into a puzzle.

It was after the roulette spin that the subject of your un-ruined evening was broached. Your head had swiveled in search of the next expense of credits when his voice at your side had you turning back.

“Hey,” he’d said, and when you faced him again he tugged at the hem of his jean jacket and glanced up to your eyes and back down, “this means a lot to me.”

Your gaze softened into his, chest leapt at the sudden heartfelt words. “Of course. I told you, no reason to let the evening be ruined.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, scratching sheepishly at the back of his neck, “but I guess what I really mean is I realized something when we came here. When Felix told me about the blind date, I just jumped at the chance without thinking. Well, we see where that got me.” He gave a short, sardonic chuckle. “Now, though, I’ve been thinking. Everything just feels right like this with you and I. You’re the one I’d rather be with.”

You gaped. “Like, date?”

“What happened to inverse worlds reflected on sand?” Hyunjin teased, giving you one of those infamous smirks of his.

“I wasn’t exactly surprised out of my mind talking about the old bay pier,” you shot back, though your expression was anything but intimidating, a smile no part of you could fight spreading across it in place of any pout or death glare you normally would have attempted.

And there he was, smiling back with a hopeful look in his eyes that had your heartbeat stuttering. “So, we going to unpack ‘surprised out of my mind’ or nah?”

“Nah,” you shook your head beneath the whirlwind of thoughts and thrumming of heartbeats, all your vision’s red faded to the rosy glow of something you never thought you would let yourself give into, “I’m just going to surprise you out of your mind.”

Ryan Reynolds, your ass. It blew your mind someone could pass over a person as amazing as your classmate, someone who could translate their heart into the most amazing things and feel like home in physical presence too. An open conduit for all the teasing banter that never went too far. Well, no matter- the floodgates had been opened, and with no further warning you surged forward to shut out every centimeter of air between Hyunjin’s lips and yours, smiling and resisting the urge to shake your head at- well, everything. Your arcade light fireworks lighting up the insides of your fluttering eyelids, the way his fingers found the curves of your cheekbones, tracing them like he was plotting his next painting.

Maybe both of you were hopeless romantics.

[bekkachaos]

BRIDGERTON THOUGHTS PRT 2 !

Send help it's literally more Polin I can't help it!

Once again, spoilers ahead for S3 part 2 so keep scrolling if you don't want em! This is my part 1.

It might be an unpopular opinion, but there was too much angst for me. Colin was too angsty for too long, and I know it was only really an episode and a half, But I felt like we got too much of book Colin's bad side and not enough understanding. Like I very much get it and he had a very valid reason for being hurt, but it was dragged almost to the very end of the last episode and I just wish there would have been a little less.

The constant asking if she was going to give up Whistledown kind of annoyed me and how cold he was every time they had that conversation just broke my heart a little bit for Penelope.

I know so much has been changed from books to show, but it's strange that in the book he knows about Whistledown before anything really happens, I mean they have that first kiss where she asks him to but everything else happens after he already knows. So for him to be so cold. Just made me feel sad. I understand it in the context of the show but still.

And something I really disliked was when they're in the room where they're going to have their wedding breakfast and Penelope asks something along the lines of "if you still want to marry me" and he says "I'm a man of honour and we were intimate", I really hate that it came to suggesting he would marry her out of obligation, It just really rubbed me the wrong way. And I wish it had been something along the lines of. "I love you Penelope and I want to marry you. I just don't know if I can forgive you for this", which he'd already said, but I would way rather that have been put out there than to ever even imply that he could marry her out of obligation. I know he was mad and betrayed and jealous, But that one line really bothers me. I've made a whole post basically saying this word for word but that's how strongly I feel about it! Like I get it from Colin's perspective and how he's grappling with it, I do, I just didn't like it.

Also, Colin never actually said sorry? For treating her like shit after he found out. Like I do think his feelings were valid and that he deserved to be upset, but he never said sorry for some of the stuff he said and for being cold even though Penelope apologised so many times.

Luke's emotion though when Colin found out and in the conversations after was incredible, when the tear fell at the end of ep 6 my heart stopped and then broke into tiny pieces!

Something about their pairing that I really like though is that they both feel inherently unlovable for one reason or another (Penelope has always felt completely unloved and overlooked, and Colin has always felt people showed him affections for shallow reasons and not actually for who he is), but both of them prove to each other over and over again how much they love the other and know the other and see them in a way no-one else does.

HOWEVER, I'm not sure they did a good enough job portraying Colin's side of this (I'll update on my rewatch send help). Not sure his coldness and hesitation was addressed enough as jealousy as it could have been. The scene where Penelope says "just love me and hold me and kiss me, what holds you back" and he says "I don't know" like was that just a little abrupt or was that just me? Because from the book I could follow that it's the jealousy of how accomplished she is but not sure the general audience picks up on that.

AND ANOTHER THING, there was absolutely not enough making up after everything was resolved with Whistledown, I needed more love and kisses and softness after the ball!

I know there were things being added to set up for the next season, but damn it was already 70 minutes long, what's 5 more of sweet and in love Polin??

Gotta say though, all of them with their babies in the end was adorable, and you can't deny the last shot kissing in the sunlight of the drawing room (where Penelope spent so much time staring out the window pining after Colin) was so fucking romantic! And the shot with their little baby boy, love!

One last thing, did they spend an exorbitant amount of time dancing or is that just me? Almost as much time as they all spent drinking lemonade in eps 1-4

Overall I loved their story, it's been my favourite pairing so far. Not sure any of the others will top it for me, but time will tell! Episodes 4-5 were definitely my favourites by a long shot!

Okay okay imma do part 3 with my thoughts on everything else 😂

[into-september]

"Destruction" is the worst episode of Miraculous Ladybug

Oh hey guys, remember way back in April or something when I said I was doing this? Well, the one year anniversary of its premiere is a suitable time to post this, particularly since yesterday saw the airing of the last piece of canon to come out in a while, which happened to be set immediately after these events.

With the always obligatory reminder in place that I generally think that “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir” is in fact a good TV show whose appeal potentially reaches beyond its merchandise-mandated target group, it has an unflattering pattern of introducing the juiciest story threads and then just… do nothing about them.

The topic of today’s sermon isn't in isolation the worst offender. But it is thanks to this that the worst offender happens at all, so I'm not gonna be nice about it.

Scroll past to skip the negativity.

So, “Destruction”, possibly the most eagerly awaited episodes of out S5 if you don’t count all the false advertisement that was “Revelation”. I remember finding this episode uncharacteristically charmless for this show when I first watched it. They've been onto heavy topics before, but those episodes still had that je ne sais quoi that gives this show such heart. But re-watching "Destruction" I found it lacking already from the first scene, and felt it only in glimpses. It's just not fun.

The episode is also poorly paced, no way around it. It is inexplicably a flashback to two episodes ago which is not evident from the start. More than half the runtime technically consists of Marinette and Alya having a sleepover. The battle and its game-changing outcome is over at 12 minutes into the episode, which is barely past the halfway point. After that, we spend five minutes - a quarter of the episode's full runtime - on a flashback re-playing the same battle but now with verbal exposition explaining Marinette's clever plan. Mind that the confrontation between Marinette and Gabriel lasts for all of seven minutes, meaning that the flashback is nearing the length of the battle itself.

To top it of, it's bogged down with lengthy exchange between Gabriel and the kwamis just to make clear that the haters on the twitter were totally wrong when they bitched about Orikko being OP because actually its powers were something else than we established last season. Here's a bonus plot hole which has nothing to do with everything else I'm going to nag about: Orikko allegedly can't give out the powers of time-travel because no kwami can replicate another kwami's powers. Except for Nooroo and Duusu, I guess, who have done so on several occasions. One of the more remarkable being the episode which first heralded the event that "Destruction" set in motion: "Timetagger".

And who can forget that this was the second time in three episodes where Ladybug and Cat Noir had Monarch at their mercy but spent so much time giving triumphant speeches that he gets away.

Or that that in fact was the second time on the same night.

But while those things certainly make the episode poor, they are not what makes it the worst.

What makes this episode the worst isn't its technical failures, but about the way it leaves its feces all over the themes and the character arcs it seemed like the show had been building up until this point. Moreover: in the role it plays in S5 and the Agreste storyline, and how the show's refusal to touch it again creates a black hole in the season at large, and arguably in the show as a whole.

I. THE INESCAPABLE CONTEXT OF WHAT CAME BEFORE IT

The art of telling a story is the art of highlighting what matters and leaving out what doesn’t. In a well-crafted story, no matter the medium, no detail is insignificant. Every word is carefully chosen, every line or hue made with intention. The curtains aren’t blue just because, and Miraculous Ladybug has made too many meta jokes to hide behind the claim that it’s just a silly rom-com for kids. It has trained its older audience into looking for context and connections; after “Mr. Pigeon 72”, you can’t insist that nothing that happened earlier in this show matters for what happens later. Titles matter a lot in a show where episodes are titled after the villain-of-the-week who usually is the thematic mirror to what our heroes are going through.

“Destruction” is the fourth episode somehow named after Adrien, and the third somehow named after Plagg. You bet this matters.

As some might know, "Kuro Neko" is not my favourite episode. That's not to say I don't like it! It's cute! It's playing a really interesting scenario! We get Plagg hanging out at chez Marinette! But to enjoy it, I have to willfully ignore the storytelling incompetence it flagrantly displays. Because the moment you peek beneath the surface of the events happening to consider theme, motifs, and narrative parallels, it's just

"Kuro Neko" is the second episode that is named after Cat Noir. The first one was "Cat Blanc". There is a thematic connection between the two; not a very clear one and probably not an intentional one, but all the same: both episodes are about an alternative to Cat Noir. One is the result of his father's violence; the other is Adrien's own attempt to become more like the person he presents around his father. They also both show us Plagg and Adrien negotiation Adrien's relationship to Ladybug, and how Ladybug and Cat Noir negotiate that same thing.

"Cat Blanc", for all its apocalyptic visions, starts and ends with hope. It starts with Marinette’s hope at confessing to Adrien, to Adrien’s hope in finally knowing Ladybug’s identity and knowing her like he’s yearned for for three seasons. Those hopes lead to disaster, but the episode ends with Ladybug finding Cat Noir on the Montparnasse Tower, where he is singing his lullaby about the kitty being "all alone without his Lady". As is fitting, Marinette breaks the pattern: after having just witnessed a world turned to destruction because the two of them loved each other, she leans her head on his shoulder in perhaps the most romantic gesture she's ever given him.

"Kuro Neko", in contrast, starts with Adrien resigning the job when he realises that Ladybug no longer needs him and that makes him feel bad. It ends with him coming back and verbally accepting that Ladybug doesn't owe him any exclusive treatment; he isn't her unique partner, just one of many. Where the final scene of "Cat Blanc" seemed to confirm that Ladybug is indeed the answer to Adrien's solitude, the final scene of "Kuro Neko" and its continuation in the first scene in "Risk" both make clear that the opposite is now status: Adrien has to accept the painful fact that as much as Ladybug might be the most important person in his life, Cat Noir does not hold a similar space in Ladybug's.

(The end of “Strike Back” of course claims to remedy this, but those words don’t ring very true when to Marinette’s knowledge, nothing of what went wrong today had anything to do with her keeping secrets from Cat Noir. More damning: Marinette never follows up on her purported regret. In all of S5, she never once sits down to share all those secrets with Cat Noir. Status from "Kuro Neko" still stands, and Adrien is fine with that now. This has nothing to do with the many problems “Destruction” creates, but talking about “Kuro Neko” by necessity means talking about how it wasn’t fixed even if they put the words in Marinette’s mouth. And now back to our scheduled programming)

"Cat Blanc" and "Kuro Neko" by their very existence bring up a thorny topic: That Adrien being Cat Noir isn't wholly unproblematic, and that both Adrien as an individual and Ladybug as the Guardian might have legitimate reasons to question that choice. This has always been obvious to the viewer who knows Hawkmoth’s identity, but the show itself eventually starts calling attention to that from an entirely different angle - namely that of his powers.

Lest we forget: The first episode of S4 that aired wasn't the first episode chronologically: It was "Furious Fu", wherein we learn that The Order of the Guardians has it out for Plagg specifically, and where Ladybug's status as The Guardian is almost revoked on the grounds that she's letting him run around unsupervised. This question of Plagg's whereabouts comes up again in the only episode that is named after Adrien sans Plagg: "Ephemeral", a re-play of “Cat Blanc” except not good. This whole subplot is quickly forgotten, though it being the only one of Su-Han's complaints that weren't about him being a boomer, it's also worth remember that "Destruction" technically happens a couple of hours after he made his last appearance. One might expect that his one consistent lesson would be important enough to echo a bit in the episode where it’s proven to be justified.

"Destruction", as not only one very early episode of the season promising to finally bring about some significant and not the least permanent changes to their lives, but indeed an episode happening on the same night as Ladybug's declaration of regret and Cat Noir's renewed declaration to be her partner, would by its title and its topic seem like the obvious place to finally resolve what "Cat Blanc" and "Kuro Neko" both asked us to question: The existential terror of Plagg's powers, why it is that Adrien is uniquely chosen to temper them at Ladybug’s side, and how Adrien feels about being the one to carry that responsibility.

Yeah. Well.

II. ADRIEN'S PRESENCE IN "DESTRUCTION"

Where "Kuro Neko" and "Cat Blanc" place significant focus on Adrien Agreste in his civillian life, in "Destruction" he appears on screen for a total of 25 seconds - most of which are another flashback to a previous episode, and whose purpose is to highlight Gabriel's hurt from the cataclysm, not Adrien's thoughts about what is happening.

Cat Noir's presence is also marginal. Three minutes of screentime pass from his first appearance until the battle is over. Said battle is the turning point in the war between the heroes and Monarch, thanks to neither Ladybug's powers nor Monarch and all the kwamis, but Monarch using Cat Noir's powers for an impulsive act of self-mutilation. Cat Noir is distraught over this, turning desperate when Monarch first start toying with the idea and being near tears after he carries it out.

I'll get back to the impact of this event, but for now I'll point out that the aftermath is brief: After Monarch escapes, our heroes have this exchange:

LB: We had him, we almost had him! The kwamis were safe, they were right here! CN: I cataclysmed him! I can't believe this, I just cataclysmed someone! Granted it was Monarch, but - there was a real person behind that mask, and it must have hurt him terribly! Milady, you gotta fix this! LB: Cat Noir, Monarch just ran away with my lucky charm! Without it, I can't fix anything. I can't call on my powers and undo the effect of the cataclysm. There's nothing I can do...

We then cut to the slumber party, where Marinette tells Alya that she and Cat Noir "split up" immediately after, and Alya comforts her. From this point in the episode, Cat Noir and Adrien only appear in flashbacks. First a fifty-second flashback wherein Marinette sets up her convoluted plans, then a few seconds of him moving his statue in the wax museum before Monarch appears.

In the episode that more than anything should thematise Adrien, Plagg's powers, and his relationship to his father, Adrien is on screen for a whooping four minutes and twenty seconds.

And because I am that devoted to proving my point, I went and timed all of Alya's on-and-off appearances, which clocked in at a total of five minutes and six seconds.

Alya is of course core to the slumber party which frames the setting of the entire episodes. Moreover, it is with Alya that the emotional arc of the episode ends: it starts with Marinette tormenting hersef watching a Ladyblog report about Monarch's recent win, for which Alya chastises her. The last scene (before Gabriel pulverises the miraculous) has Alya reassure Marinette that she will get the kwamis back. When she regrets her lack of superpowers, Marinette in turn reassures her that Alyas true superpower is being her friend. The journey of the episode was for Marinette to stop blaming herself for messing up, and learning to rely on Alya's support in the new turn the war has taken.

...

IN THE EPISODE WHERE ADRIEN KILLS HIS FATHER.

III. SIR NOT-APPEARING-IN-THIS-FILM

In the episode where Gabriel commits suicide on his son's miraculous, here are some things that got more screentime than the son forced into using his only source of liberation to kill his father:

Flashbacks to past events (four minutes and fourty-five seconds)

Alya (five minutes six seconds)

The kwamis (six minutes and nine seconds)

Bet you can't guess which one is the only kwami who doesn't appear in this episode!

...okay, and Duusu, but you get the point. In the episode detonating the nuke that is the gruesome potential of Plagg's powers, and the potential damage Adrien might deal with them, Plagg never appears on screen.

In the episode highlighting the presence of the kwamis and their importance to their holders, the kwami whose presence is the most thematically tied to his holder's character arc is completely absent.

In the episode irreparably going into the only kwami whose powers is straight up murder, the kwami who The Guardians have singled out specifically as particularly dangerous, the kwami whose irresponsible nature has previously caused problems both to Adrien privately and Cat Noir professionally, said kwami is never even mentioned.

It's almost as if we're not supposed to remember that it is because of his presence that this whole tragedy was possible.

IV. THE EXISTENCE-DEFINING HORROR OF A CATACLYSM GONE WRONG

And ain’t that a funny one, when the gruesome potential in Plagg’s powers was the driving factor in Adrien’s first true crisis as a hero?

Marinette faced her moment in "Origins", where she gave up on her miraculous after the first disastrous attempt. She knows that she is the only one who can do something about the situation, but refuses out of her own lacking courage. She only becomes Ladybug of her own choice when she realises that she can save Alya's life. After this, Marinette never again questioned her place. She would grieve the burden on occasion, but she never once thought anyone else could do better.

Adrien, as we all know, was the polar opposite: he jumped right into it without reading the manual, had to have Ladybug pick up the pieces after a rash cataclysm, and never doubted his calling again until he realised what Plagg’s powers could do when used on a living being.

The NYC special has Adrien quit for reasons that had nothing to do with being unsatisfied with Ladybug's HR policies. It is in part because he effed up his duty as Paris' substitute guardian, but it's certainly also because of the recent horror he just witnessed: his hand forced by someone else nearly killed Ladybug, and killed Uncanny Valley instead as she stepped between them. Adrien just saw a mother weeping over her daughter's corpse, and how only the lucky presence of Ladybug's powers could undo the damage caused by his, unintentional thought it might have been. Adrien would of course never kill anyone on purpose, but Uncanny Valley’s temporary malfunction was a brutal display of what would happen if he stumbled the wrong direction with the gun loaded. Ladybug might have the duty to protect Paris, but Cat Noir has the duty to not to disintegrate people on touch.

The show never before discussed the weight of this burden in Adrien’s presence. “Cat Blanc” did it from Marinette’s side, but this never was a consistent story thread, only briefly brought up as her remembering why his knowing her identity is a bad idea. The sabbatical in “Kuro Neko” has nothing to do with Plagg or with Adrien’s sense of duty, and where you’d think this would be where Marinette finally brings up the issue bridging the NYC special and “Cat Blanc”, neither of the two are as much as alluded to. That Adrien has the power of murder has yet to be explicitly discussed in the show proper, but in combination with his personal relationship to Hawkmoth being a ticking irony bomb, the question of can he even bear it is inevitable.

That Adrien’s post as Cat Noir wasn’t as given as Marinette’s as Ladybug is echoed in the amount of times that Adrien has either quit or at least contemplated doing so (“Syren”, NYC special, “Wishmaker”, “Kuro Neko”). He likes being Cat Noir more than Marinette likes being Ladybug, but he lacks her iron certainty in the role. It is notable, then, that THE ONE TIME where Marinette questions her part, it is after Cat Noir has quit. She says this, out loud, in words. When Cat Noir’s powers become too heavy for Adrien to carry, then Ladybug, too, disappears.

So surely "Destruction" must be the point where this is finally comes together - where Adrien's history of quitting meets his ultimate crisis, where his powers abused on a human being of flesh and blood forces him into confronting the potential cost of being this particular hero, which will foreshadow the ultimate choice he’ll have to take: between being Cat Noir and being his father’s son. And where his choice, in turn, will define whether Ladybug can exist.

Or not.

Maybe we'll never again have Adrien think about how he probably murdered a man. Maybe we'll just - oh I don't know.

Have him start trying to cataclysm people?

Repeatedly?

While showing none of the horror at himself which he clearly had in the aftermath of accidentally cataclysming the villain responsible for his later victims’ possession?

And in the end, after never calling attention to Adrien’s new and trigger happy ways, we’ll have him give in to his fear, claim that he isn’t strong enough to responsibly use Plagg’s powers, and send his miraculous away for Ladybug to use alone, because it turns out that “Kuro Neko” was right and the NYC special was wrong: she can be Ladybug without him.

Growth, amirite.

V. IN THIS HOUSE WE DON’T TALK ABOUT PATRICIDE

Dramatic irony was the main engine driving "Miraculous Ladybug" from the start, and it was Adrien who bore the brunt of it. Not only did he spend four and a half seasons in unrequited love with a girl who rejected him for himself; he spent five seasons doing weekly battle against his own father.

The superpower war between father and son isn't just a source of story tension, however: it is inextricably mirrored in their relationship as family, where the father is openly abusive and the son is magically incapable of protesting. The show repeatedly makes A Point about how the freedom Adrien so wants, is one that he only gets through being Cat Noir, and the only way Adrien is capable of fighting his father - albeit ignorant of it - is with Plagg's powers.

Cat Noir defeating Hawkmoth was necessary not just for his story as a superhero, but as his character arc as a normal boy.

And in "Destruction", this is exactly what happens. Thanks to Plagg's powers, the path to Adrien's freedom is finally paved, in the most gruesome and unwanted manner possible. Adrien might not get the big cathartic show-down with his evil father, but technically he was the one to bring him down.

But we don't talk about that. Except for his one (1) line after Monarch escapes with Ladybug's lucky charm, Adrien never again brings up the fact that his being careless with a cataclysm certainly maimed a man, by precedent (Aeon) possibly killed him. Rather than a story arc about Adrien being afraid of his own powers, it’s only now that he starts aiming it at people when he’s under emotional duress. This could of course have been one hell of a story point if it was intentional, but by all accounts, it wasn’t. When Adrien never again reflects on his having probably murdered a man, or reasons that Monarch is probably fine since he’s clearly still around so maybe a cataclysm isn’t so bad, and he never dwells on his nearly murdering two of his friends, there can’t have been any connection intended here. Moreover: when Adrien is scared of his miraculous towards the end, it’s not about its capacity for normal murder when he’s having a bad day, but its capacity of ending the world if he happens to be akumatised.

Gabriel is likewise disinterested in the cause of his impending disintegration. You’d think the man would feel some kind of special resentment towards Cat Noir and his powers, you could think this was where he’d get to re-thinking his relationship to the two people who are sitting on the keys to solving all his problems. Maybe he’d start doubting himself now, bearing the ultimate testament to his magical hubris. But no. The cataclysm wound is there and it’s a problem, but the reason it happened is completely irrelevant to the man who did this to himself and unknowingly, to his son.

That is almost as mind-blowing as the fact that they really had a straight up patricide happen on screen. Sure, death was never the intention of either of the two parties, and Adrien certainly holds no blame for what happened. But Gabriel must have at least known what he was risking, and even if the soft-hearted Adrien would somehow reason away the gravity, Plagg would certainly now. By its very nature, this one cataclysm drags out and distils a plethora of questions about both Adrien’s role as Cat Noir, about Gabriel’s vision of himself and his goals, and about their relationship not as father and son, but as villain and hero. The gruesome narrative irony looming over all this is in that regard just the icing on the cake.

There is certainly an Oedipal layer to the drama of Gabriel and Adrien, though the often more scandalous incestuous angle is considerably downplayed here. Even so: By the denouement of S5, Adrien has successfully killed his father and set up a home with his mother. That really happened, but we’re sure not going to investigate how this influenced the relationship between two nemesis, between father and son, between Adrien and his kwami.

The cataclysm in “Destruction” turned Adrien from anguished shoujo love interest to the hero of a greek tragedy, but the show is dead set on pretending that it didn’t.

VI. SO THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT

In isolation, "Destruction" comes across as weird more than anything. It's named after Adrien's kwami, it spends an inordinate amount of screentime on Adrien's father, it reaches back to Adrien's perhaps most defining moment as Cat Noir as it fundamentally changes the game between our heroes and our villains as one of them is finally dealt a damaging blow - which in turn sets Adrien's life down a path towards tragedy that must be interfered with for him to have a happy ending by the end of the season.

And yet, Adrien is a peripheral presence in it. Marinette and Gabriel dominate the screentime, Alya and the kwamis are consistently present as the thematic chorus at their respective sides throughout, the episode plays its events twice in order to make it clear that Ladybug is too clever for Monarch's miraculous, the emotional arcs that are followed are the follow-up on where Marinette and Alya stand after the disaster in "Strike Back" as well as Gabriel's renewed vigour. Adrien's only contribution to the episode is to follow Ladybug's instructions and to make clear that his relationship with his father is still awkward. The episode depicts probably THE most important event of the show, but this event is treated almost as an afterthought, and the horrors of it are confined to one (1) line of dialogue from Cat Noir.

The only thing in “Destruction” that is brought up in later episodes is that Gabriel is now actively dying. If they wanted for Gabriel to live on a countdown for his date with the grim reaper, there were countless other ways about it: Have it be his use of too many miraculous which backfires, have him having used the peacock before it was fixed, have it be too much evil on the hands of Nooroo, have him get a serious call from his doctor, have him screw up Tomoe's machinery, have him develop a drug problem. This is a fictional narrative; its twists and turns are absolutely in the hands of the writers, teenage girls being irredeemable or not. It was never vital that this happened by cataclysm specifically.

So what was the point, then? Did we truly turn our magical girl show into a Greek tragedy for the shocked pikachu faces only?

The one thing I somehow haven't seen people bring up, is that "Destruction" makes it impossible for Adrien to learn Monarch's identity. According to the writers themselves, the reason lies in two of the other episodes named after him: "Cat Blanc" and "Ephemeral", wherein he learns his father's identity and is promptly akumatised. This is of course bullshit: both these cases relied not on Adrien learning his father's identity, but on Gabriel specifically scheming to traumatise Adrien with both the Hawkmoth reveal AND the fact that he's been living in the same house as his mother's dead body for the last year or two (timeline here is spectacularly contradictory). There was anothing inevitable about this. You're the writers. You could've set up a scenario where Adrien didn't learn about his father's crimes as an act of psychological warfare, and where he'd have the time to absorb it, to grieve and to find support by the time he'd confront him with it. Having every person close to Adrien keep life-defining secrets from him “for his own good” is, by god, not a good look on anyone involved here. Still it’s understanable, at least for those who aren't either adults or gods of destruction.

"Destruction", however, serves as an explanation for the gaping plot hole in the epilogue: Marinette tells Alya, she tells Su-Han. The one she doesn't tell, though?

The partner who was at her side before Alya or Su-Han ever appeared, and stood by her in far worse storms. Because telling Cat Noir the truth would mean telling Cat Noir that he dealt Gabriel Agreste the killing blow, and ain't that a nifty way to ensure that Marinette won't. Because if Adrien does learn Monarch's identity and the truth about his fall in future seasons, Emilie better hide those garment pins.

The truly damning part of "Destruction" isn't so much what the episode itself does. It's what it doesn't do. It's the storylines it cuts short and leaves behind, and it is the storyline it by its very existence introduces, but which the show refuses to touch.

Per title and content both, "Destruction" should be the culmination of thematic storylines from "Cat Blanc", the NYC special and "Kuro Neko". It’s not; it’s not even about Adrien, and Plagg isn’t even present in it. Moreover: its lacking presence on future episodes make it painfully evident that ambitions, there were none. Those storylines were either aborted like Adrien picking up Felix's spyglass in the S4 finale, or the show never did mean for there to be such a thing as "layers" to this story about a boy who becomes a hero to unknowingly break free from his superhero father.

The real reason why "Destruction" is the worst episode of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is that it obliterates the most cohesive character arc this show had going for it, and that this was done on purpose.

[fictional-teakettle]

Waiting for the Cocoa to Cool ☕

In which Gus gets angsty about the whole becoming-a-villain thing, and Pen makes him cocoa. She also makes him laugh himself silly.

⚠️ This is a ticklefic! If that ain't your thing, kindly move along ⚠️

🫂 Pairing: Lee!Gus, Ler!Pen (100% platonic, 200% consensual, sfw)

‼️CW/TW: Gus curses like a sailor, you have been warned 😂 If there are any trigger warnings you'd like me to add (to this piece any/or any work in the future), please let me know!

While I adore both, I'm much more comfy with writing as a medium than drawing. So I thought I'd write a quick lil ticklefic to introduce Gus a bit more organically than my typical habit of infodumping. 😅 This fic ended up being much longer than I anticipated, but hey - what's wrong with extra tickles? Nothing I can think of.

Hope you enjoy! -🐧

"You want some cocoa, hun?"

I don't wait for an answer - I've already made two mugs. Gus will never refuse cocoa (not my cocoa, anyway).

Besides, he's staring out at the rain, which means he's too lost in thought to register anything I say anyway. His reverie only breaks when I set his mug beside him on the end table, directly in his line of vision, and plop myself down on the sofa beside him.

"Did you tell them about me?"

Look at that. Bailey owes me five bucks. He thought it'd take Gus a couple minutes before he started fretting about my new project.

"I gave them a little introduction." I pat his hand. "There's an awful lot to know about you, hun."

"Right, but did you tell them about... you know..."

How 'bout that! Bailey owes me ten.

"Vaguely." I set my mug down on the coffee table. "I said you went off the deep end for a bit."

Gus manages a mirthless little scoff of a chuckle. "There's an understatement."

"I mean, that's what happened," I shrug. "You just... lost your head for a while."

"I dunno, Pen. I think there was a little more to it than that."

"Mm. That's a topic for future posts."

Gus looks away.

He's right, of course - there's a lot more to it. Just... not a lot that matters to us now, in my cozy living room, listening to the rain patter on the window. The only problem is that Gus can't stay present to save his life.

But that's why I made the cocoa. Nothing heals like cocoa, in my humble opinion (especially my cocoa).

Unfortunately it's still too hot to drink. I gotta think of some other way to distract him before he starts ruminating on-

"Are you sure you don't wanna start with Hazel?"

I stifle a sigh. "Gus, love, we talked about this, remember?"

"I'm just saying, the villain isn't the one who deserves a-"

"You're not the villain."

"Well, I was sure acting like one!"

"Because you were high as a kite on Dr. Jekyll's axe-crazy-monster juice."

"That I made myself!"

"You didn't intend to drink it." I lean back. "You just needed it for... you know. Vengeance..."

Gus throws me a flat look. He's right, this conversation isn't really going a productive direction.

"Look," I try again, " You're not in that story anymore. You were never even supposed to be in that story in the first place. If anyone deserves a soft epilogue, in a new place, it's you."

"But so do you." Gus meets my gaze for the first time in the whole conversation. "Your life got fucked up, too. If you're gonna go to all this trouble, you deserve to focus on your own epilogue."

"Why do you think you're sitting in my living room?" I squeeze his hand. "You're my comfort character, Gus. We're in this together."

"What's that?"

"Comfort character? It means you make me feel safe."

He blinks. "...Oh."

"You're my comfiest comfort character." I scoot closer and rest my head on his shoulder.

I can feel a bit of the tension in his muscles ease at the cuddle. "You're makin' me sound like a stuffed animal," he mutters good-naturedly.

"Mm."

"I think Hazel's a lot better at comforting that I am though, personally..."

This man. Cannot. Let anything go.

Which means it's time to switch tactics.

"Hey, you know what I forgot to tell them about you?"

"I mean, Hazel's a fairy godmother." He's no longer listening. "Comfort is her whole-" At least he isn't until right about here, when he freezes mid-phrase.

He hadn't even noticed me slip my arm behind his back, but he's definitely noticed that I'm now walking the fingers of both hands up his sides.

"Don't let me interrupt you, hun..."

"Ohhh no, you don't!"

"You were saying...?"

"Pen, cheheh- cut that out!"

"No, no, continue, I insist!"

"Pen!" His voice cracks even on this one syllable.

"I'm just demonstrating a little detail I forgot to mention to our readers."

Finally, twisting to face me, he manages to snag both my wrists and hold them still. "Wh-What do they need to know that for?!"

"What do they need to know what for?" I smile sweetly.

"That I'm-" He's so flustered he just barely catches himself.

I flash him a wide grin. "You wanna tell 'em, honey?"

He just squirms - struggling with an uncharacteristically silly grin of his own that he doesn't entirely seem to realize he's making. "Over my cold, dead-"

Mm, I don't need to hear the end of that threat. I easily break my wrists from his grasp and set to work on his adorable little belly.

The detail I forgot to tell you is that Gus is devastatingly ticklish.

"WaitwaitWAIT Pehehen, staHAhp!!"

Gus isn't a loud guy. Even his full-out cackling barely makes it above most folks' normal speaking voice. But what he lacks in volume he makes up for in intensity - he's got the most contagious, helpless laughter I've ever heard in my life. The best I can describe it is quietly maniacal.

"Stopstopstopit-getOFFmehehe!!" He also has an adorable tendency to babble incoherently when he gets nervous - or flustered, in this case. Especially if I get 'im right up under his ribs...

"ACK! Pehehen! Penstop I cahan't- Ihi-"

The nice thing about this spot is that I can wiggle my fingers right up under his diaphragm, so his own giggling starts to tickle.

"I can't st-stop! AHahaha- plehehehease!!"

It's definitely a spot to use sparingly, else he'll run out of air. I give him another few tweaks before sitting back, beaming as he catches his breath.

"This is... heh... c-completely unnecessary," he mutters, his hands wavering defensively over his midsection.

"If only there was something you could say to make me stop," I sigh, throwing a sorrowful glance to the ceiling. In reply I receive his best attempt at a scowl (which, since he's still grinning like an idiot, isn't a very convincing attempt).

Gus is so sensitive - both physically and emotionally - that I'd never dare touch him if we didn't have a safeword. But I've never in our entire friendship heard him use it. This boy soaks up physical affection like a ticklish little sponge.

And right now, in my expert opinion, he could use a little more of it.

I can't help but coo over the way his tummy deflates in anticipation as I hover one hand over his waist. All I have to do is rest my fingertips against the soft fabric of his sweater, and he collapses into helpless giggles.

It occurs to me, I don't think I've mentioned Gus' accent yet either. It's little more than a slight lilt most of the time, but when he's flustered like this becomes much more pronounced.

I'm not quite sure what it's supposed to be, exactly - technically it's Drearish, the regional dialect from the fictional village where he grew up. Whoever directed the movie he came from seemed to be going for some vague German-Slavic-Transylvanian hodgepodge.

Regardless, it's cute as heck. Especially when he's so overwhelmed that he starts trying to curse me out in Drearish.

Not that he doesn't have a perfectly sufficient vocabulary of English curse words to throw at me...

"I svehehear to - shihit, fuck! - I vill breheak your FUHUCKING - heheheh! - your fingers!! Your... dammit, getoffme!!"

...But the trick is to sneak my hands under his sweater and start scribbling directly against the soft pudge of his lower tummy. That really does him in.

"What did you just call me?!"

"I saheheh-" [incomprehensible] "you fuhuckin'-" [unintelligible] "if you don't-" [...frankly this could be English or Drearish, it's so garbled by laughter I can't tell].

"Sorry, didn't catch that," I tease.

He lapses into silent laughter for a few seconds. "Okay, okahahay, enough! Enough!"

Enough isn't our safeword (that would be nightshade) but it's kind of an informal one since he doesn't use it very often. It's become a code for I'm getting tired.

So I withdraw my hands from beneath his sweater, and start rubbing slow circles on his tummy. Even this still tickles him, but only enough to elicit soft little breathless chuckles. I'm mostly doing it because his tummy is just so irresistibly soft and warm... but also my hand is trapped so tightly beneath both his arms that I'm starting to lose feeling in my fingers.

Our cocoa has gone cold by the time we return to our mugs. Neither of us mind very much.