#I've been working on it on and off since late September

[jorvikzelda]

Chapters: 6/6 Words: 7,573 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alex Cloudmill/Maya Dew, Anne von Blyssen & Linda Chanda Characters: Alex Cloudmill, Maya Dew, Lisa Peterson, Linda Chanda, Anne von Blyssen, mentioned MC, the Soul Riders' horses and also Misty make minor appearances Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Introspection, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Angst, Open Ending, Hopeful Ending

The August night is dark and the stars bright when five young heroes leave Jorvik’s western shores. Tomorrow, all will be well, but tonight they find themselves in the strange space between the happy ending and the bright, hopeful future.

Or: the night after Garnok, one Soul Rider at a time.

[witchywithwhiskey]

sweet as honeycrisp

pairing: sugar daddy!ari levinson x sugar baby!female reader

summary: your sugar daddy takes you on an autumn-themed date to the apple orchard, and what starts off as a fun and flirty day unfolds into a meaningful turning point in your relationship.

warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), established sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship, smut, unprotected sex, semi-public sex, piv sex, outdoor sex, creampie, oral sex (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), finger sucking, biting, brief cockwarming, exhibitionism, light bdsm, dirty talk, daddy kink, praise kink, very light degradation, lots of teasing, pet names (darling, honey), aftercare, happy ending, so much fluff

word count: 14.5k

a/n: whew i've been working on this for like two weeks now, and i'm so happy to finally be able to post it!!! i was struggling a bit with the emotional throughline of this fic, and i only decided on it very late in the editing game so if some things don't make sense, just ignore it!!! if you can believe it, i originally just wanted to write about a quickie in the apple orchard and it turned into this 🫣 anyway, i hope y'all enjoy!!!

“Kiss.”

The warm, playful voice of your sugar daddy, Ari Levinson, met your ears as you lowered yourself into the passenger seat of his Lexus, greeting you in the way he always did. When you closed the car door behind you, the sounds of the Manhattan street were silenced, leaving you in the relative quiet with Ari.

Eagerly, you twisted on the sumptuous seat of the expensive car to lean over the center console, brushing a teasing kiss to Ari’s scruffy cheek, your lips grazing the edge of his full beard. His skin was warm and inviting, and you lingered for a moment, breathing in the the familiar scent of Ari’s cologne, smelling of vetiver and leather. 

When you pulled back, Ari’s blue eyes were glittering with a hint of mischief that made your heart thump with excitement, a warmth blooming in your core despite the cool air of the car’s air conditioning brushing your legs. It was a warm September day, the last remnants of summer clinging in the air as if it protested giving up its seat to autumn. 

The thought crossed your mind that if any man looked like the embodiment of summer, it was Ari Levinson. His skin was golden with a perpetual tan, and his brown hair had sun-kissed blond highlights that shimmered in the daylight, though they were dimmed a bit in the shadow of his car. 

Still, as he grinned at you, showing off his pearly whites framed by his dark beard, you couldn’t help but feel like the summer sun had taken a liking to you and sat beside you. When he looked at you like that, with that smile and those blue eyes shining like the sun off the ocean waves, you wondered what it would be like to have his attention all the time—to be more than just the sugar baby he took on occasional dates when he wanted to have fun.

Pushing those bothersome romantic notions aside, you raked your eyes down Ari’s form, noticing that he’d dressed down for your date. He wore a soft denim, long-sleeved button-up over a simple white t-shirt and tailored slacks. Casual loafers and sunglasses perched on top of his head completed the look. Even in such a simple outfit, he looked good. 

“Show me.” 

His voice was a deep rumble that pulsed between your thighs, and you flicked your gaze back up to his face, finding heat in his expression, the same mischievousness in his eyes that’d been there since you got in the car. The corner of Ari’s mouth was curved in a smirk, and you felt another throb of warmth in your core.

Your lips curled at the edges, a wicked smile curving your mouth as the energy in the car crackled around you, spurring your heart to beat a little faster. You knew exactly what Ari wanted you to show him, and you knew it was naughty—but that was part of why you liked spending time with your sugar daddy. 

Ari was always urging you to be a little daring, to do something that made your heart race and your breath come a little faster. He didn’t push you, so much as guide you down the path to depravity, and you followed him willingly. You never felt more alive than when you were with Ari.

So while you smiled at him, you spread your legs on the leather seat of his Lexus, the short skirt of your dress falling between your parting thighs. Ari’s smirk deepened with satisfaction as he watched your movements with rapt attention. Your fingers toyed with the edge of your dress, the fabric having ridden up quite high on your thighs. 

But before you could reveal what was beneath your skirt, you looked away from Ari, and it crashed over you that you sat in a car in the middle of a busy Manhattan street surrounded by other people. There were folks driving in their cars just outside your window and others walking by on the sidewalk beside where Ari was parked. There were even people filling up the buildings that overlooked the street. They were everywhere around you.

“Darling, look at me,” Ari murmured, his tone entreating enough to call your attention back to him. 

You noticed his sparkling eyes had lost some of their mischief when you looked back at him. But the steadiness of his gaze had you relaxing when you hadn’t even realized you’d tensed up, and the corners of your mouth flickered in an uncertain smile.

“Do you trust me?” Ari asked simply. His face was open, no hint of pressure in his tone or voice. 

For a brief moment, you considered his question, then you nodded your head. You watched as warmth flooded into his gaze, and it made you feel a little more sure. 

“Lift your skirt for me, darling,” he implored, his eyes dropping to where your thighs were still spread, the flimsy fabric of your dress barely hiding your core. “Show daddy what you have under your pretty little skirt.”

You gathered every ounce of braveness in your body and pulled up the hem of your skirt. There, nestled between your spread thighs, was your bare pussy. The air in the car seemed to heat by a few degrees when you heard Ari suck in a sharp breath.

It had been Ari’s idea for you to go without panties on your date, and you’d agreed, the idea sending excited thrills through your body. Walking through the halls and the lobby of the Manhattan high-rise you called home, you’d felt like you had a secret that only Ari knew, and it gave you a delicious kind of satisfaction showing your sugar daddy how you’d gone without panties, your pussy fully exposed beneath your dress.

“You have such a pretty cunt, darling,” Ari groaned, his hand sliding up your thigh until the tips of his fingers teased the top of your slit. 

You bit back a gasp and squirmed in your seat, trying to hold your hips back from thrusting into his touch. 

“I never get tired of seeing this pussy, and how wet she gets for me.” 

His fingers spread your lower lips and he brushed ever so gently over the tip of your clit, making you twitch in your seat, your legs shaking with the effort it took not to close them on his hand and trap him against your heated core.

“And the way your thighs tremble for me,” Ari rumbled, pulling away from your quickly dampening slit to grope roughly at your plush softness, his grip possessive in a way your sugar daddy rarely was. 

“Ari.” His name was a breathy exhale, an undercurrent of admonishment in your tone as his touches stoked the blazing fire in your core, making you squirm even more on the seat. A sliver of worry wormed into your mind as you remembered the leather you sat on, which would surely stain if he kept touching you, and you gasped, “The seat.”

Ari only chuckled, the sound cavalier in a way that made butterflies take flight in your belly, but before you could chide him again, his hand was slipping back between your thighs. Ari dragged a finger from the bottom of your slit all the way to the top, flicking your clit and wringing a moan from your lips as your thighs trembled on the seat.

Then he was pulling his hand away, leaving you to drop your skirt to cover yourself, and popping his finger into his mouth. Your sugar daddy made a show of savoring the taste of you, and your head fell back against the headrest. You watched him suck your taste from his skin, your breaths heavy in your chest while Ari’s eyes sparkled with mischief. 

“Mm, sweet as apple pie,” he praised, making heat rush to your face while you shook your head and rolled your eyes—even as your chest warmed at the compliment. Ari was grinning shamelessly at you when he grabbed your face gently and pulled you gently across the car toward him. “C’mere, darling, see how sweet you taste,” he murmured against your lips before kissing you.

The musky flavor of your body made you moan into Ari’s mouth, your sugar daddy devouring every little noise you made while he kissed you thoroughly. You sank into him, reveling in the smooth glide of his lips and the possessive exploration of his tongue. Your fingers curled around the collar of his denim shirt and you clung to him, feeling the edge of something more in the way he kissed you. It left you breathless when you finally pulled away.

You fell back into your seat with a soft “oomph,” the breath rushing from your lungs when you looked into Ari’s eyes. His blue gaze was softer than you’d ever seen it, and there was something in depths of his eyes that you couldn’t quite place—affection or fondness maybe. 

A small, uncertain smile curled your lips, your heart thumping in your chest as you wondered if that’s how Ari looked at someone he truly cared about. Someone special to him, who had a more permanent place in his life than the sugar baby he called when he wanted to have some no-strings-attached fun. 

For the briefest of moments, you could pretend Ari was more than your sugar daddy, and you were more than his sugar baby. 

But then the moment ended, and Ari cleared his throat as he looked away, focusing on the wheel and gear shift of his car to put it in drive. A silent sigh of disappointment gusted from you, and you turned toward the passenger side window, intent on watching the city fly by once Ari eased into traffic.

To your surprise, Ari’s hand slipped into one of yours, his palm pressing against yours while he laced your fingers together. Your breath hitched with uncertainty even as the corners of your mouth flickered in a smile. It took you a moment to get used to the feeling of his hand in yours, turning it over to trace the veins on the back gently while he maneuvered his Lexus through the Manhattan streets.

It had only been a few months since you’d started seeing Ari, and while his touches were often greedy when you were fooling around, he hadn’t been prone to physical displays of affection since the first few dates you went on with him. Back then, he’d reached for your hand a few times, but after a point he’d stopped.

Truthfully, it had been a relief. One of your greatest fears was falling for a sugar daddy who didn’t return your feelings, and considering how handsome Ari was, you’d known it was a serious risk getting into a relationship with him. But he’d been so charming and carefree, you didn’t think it would be a problem to keep your heart out of things. He didn’t seem like he was looking for anything serious anyway.

So you’d focused on having fun, and that had been easy. Ari took you to expensive restaurants with delicious food in New York City, or he’d fly you somewhere else if he was itching to get away for a little bit. During meals, you’d chat about trivial things, then fall into bed together as soon as you were back in whatever hotel room Ari had booked for the night. 

You didn’t quite know why your conversations didn’t go deeper than the shallow things you talked about, but you didn’t question it. It made everything so much easier if you didn’t truly know Ari—if he didn’t know you either. So you just stuck to safe topics, like planning dates and having sex. 

Your relationship with Ari was a nice change of pace for you. He was far from your first sugar daddy, and you’d learned some hard lessons in your past relationships. Too often, sugar daddies wanted to know things you weren’t comfortable sharing, but Ari had never pried. He’d set boundaries and didn’t push them. You were grateful for that.

But another part of you, a part that started off small and was growing with every date you went on with Ari, yearned to know more about your sugar daddy. You wanted to know what he liked to do when he wasn’t working or taking you on dates. You wanted to know if he had any family, if he celebrated the holidays with them. You wanted to know if he’d ever had his heart broken. 

Tamping down on those curious thoughts, you focused on the present—the music that was playing gently in the car, and the scenery passing by your window. The skyscrapers and high-rises of Manhattan had given way to the tightly-packed homes of the suburbs. 

Biting your tongue against all the questions you wanted to ask, not even sure how you’d begin to try to get to know your sugar daddy better—let alone whether it was a good idea—you sat in silence with Ari. The suburbs eventually gave way to the lush forests and hilly countryside of the Hudson Valley, giving you something prettier to look at.

It was too early in September for the leaves to be changing yet, but there were glimpses of golden yellows and warm oranges among the green foliage. A hint of what was to come. Autumn was inevitable and you found comfort in the changing seasons. 

Cozy weather was right around the corner, and you couldn’t wait for it. Hot apple cider and pumpkin pie, butterscotch cookies and mulled wine—you were a glutton for all the food and beverages associated with the autumn months. And you liked to make them yourself from scratch whenever possible. 

It was part of the reason you’d wanted Ari to take you apple picking, though he didn’t know that. He’d just accepted the request and planned the date. 

After a little while more of driving, Ari pulled off the paved road and onto a dirt track. There was a sign for Brothers’ Apple Orchard fixed to a worn, wooden fence, though dense trees hid the farm from view. 

A little ways down the dirt road, the trees opened up into a large parking lot that was already packed with families and groups of friends going apple picking on the warm September afternoon. The sight and sounds of all the people had nerves twisting in your stomach, and you wondered if it had been a smart idea to go without panties to a place that was meant for wholesome fun.

You’d long since learned that Ari had an exhibitionist streak, and that day wasn’t the first time he’d told you to show up to one of your dates without panties. You’d always enjoyed the excitement in the inherent risk of wearing a dress without anything underneath, but he’d never taken you somewhere with so many families before. The consequences of getting caught seemed so much worse than they ever had before.

Ari must’ve felt your fingers tense in his because he gave you a comforting squeeze as he pulled his Lexus into an empty space and put the car in park. Once done, he looked to you, his smile faltering when he took in the way your brows were pinched and the corners of your mouth were turned down in an uncertain frown.

“Do you trust me, darling?” Ari asked, cupping your face and leaning across the car’s console to press his forehead to yours. His thumb stroked gently over your cheek, matching the sweeping of his other thumb against the back of your hand. 

You were quiet for a moment, nibbling on your lower lip as you thought about his question—really thought about it.

It weighed on you a little that you didn’t know Ari very well, especially since a part of you desperately wanted to, but that didn’t mean you didn’t know his character. Ari had never pushed you to do something you didn’t want to do, and he always checked in with you when you were together, making sure you were comfortable and having fun. So while you didn’t know his favorite color, you did trust him. 

Exhaling slowly, you nodded, your forehead shifting against Ari’s. “I trust you, Ari,” you said, your voice little more than a whisper, like you were telling him a secret in the privacy afforded by the enclosed space of his car. 

To your surprise, Ari sighed in relief at your words, the exhale so short and quiet, you wondered if you’d heard correctly. But you didn’t have time to analyze it because Ari was pressing a quick kiss to your lips and then pulling back to open his door and step out into the September sunshine.

You watched as Ari rounded the front of the Lexus, a charming grin on his face as he winked at you over the hood of his car. It was only because you were alone that you allowed yourself a silly little giggle, your mouth spreading across your face in a wide smile. He opened your door and offered you a hand to help you out.

“Careful, darling, wouldn’t want to give anyone a free show,” Ari murmured teasingly while you slid your hand into his, feeling the roughness of his palm against the pads of your fingertips. 

A zing of thrill went straight to your core at his words, joining the sparks you felt when you touched him. The fingers of your other hand played with the hem of your dress as you stepped one foot out of the car. You darted a look around, finding you had some relative privacy between Ari’s Lexus and the next car over, and pretended to rearrange your skirt. 

In reality, you flashed your bare slit for your sugar daddy, biting your lip and ducking your head when you heard his sharp inhale. Ari made a low, tortured sound and squeezed your fingers, practically pulling you out of the car before pinning you against the side.

“Naughty girl,” Ari growled in your ear, pressing his big body against yours so you were trapped between his hard muscles and the warm metal of the Lexus at your back. “You’re going to get us in trouble if you keep flashing that pretty pussy at me, darling.” 

A breathless, disbelieving laugh gusted past your lips before you could stop it, even as your head went a little fuzzy from the familiar scent of Ari’s cologne filling your senses. It felt like the vetiver and leather on his skin was embedded in your mind as a reminder of all the pleasure he’d given you, and with his body pressed against yours, it took you a moment to respond.

“You’re the one who told me not to wear panties to our apple picking date, daddy,” you reminded him, gripping the soft cotton of Ari’s t-shirt beneath his denim shirt, your fingers brushing against the sides of his tapered waist. You pushed yourself up onto your tiptoes to whisper in his ear, brushing your body against his firm form enticingly while your lips grazed along his scruffy cheek. “Maybe you shouldn’t have done that if you didn’t want me to show you my achy, needy cunt.”

A low growl rumbled in Ari’s chest and he pressed you harder against the side of his car, his body impossibly warm and hard through the thin fabric of your dress. You could feel every firm line of him against your soft curves, including the thick bulge digging into your stomach. 

Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Ari’s hands skimmed down your sides and dove beneath the hem of your skirt, palming your ass and kneading your soft flesh with firm, possessive fingers.

“Darling, if you keep saying such filthy things, you’re gonna end up in the back of my car with my cock buried in your achy, needy cunt,” he purred, a threat in his tone that he punctuated by nipping at your ear, making you gasp and arch into him, pressing your tits against his solid chest. “You’re gonna get us banned from the orchard because you won’t be able to stop screaming while I pound your pussy—is that what you want?”

It was on the tip of your tongue to say yes. 

In the short time since you’d stepped out of the car, Ari had you feeling wet and aching and empty. Warmth flooded your body that had nothing to do with the sun shining brightly above your heads, and you wanted badly for Ari to free his cock from his slacks and slide it inside you.

But then the shrieking laughter of children punctured the bubble of lust surrounding you, and you remembered exactly where you were. Shaking your head, you dropped your gaze to the edge of Ari’s jaw while you sucked in a deep breath, focusing on the fresh air beyond the scent of your sugar daddy’s cologne. 

Ari’s big body eased back, giving you more room to breathe and you ignored the pang of disappointment at the loss of him. Instead, you let the crisp autumn breeze brushing against your cheeks and dancing between your thighs cool you down. 

After giving you a moment, Ari curled a finger beneath your chin and tipped your face up to look at him. His brows were lowered and his eyes looked at you questioningly.

“Do you still want to go apple picking?” he asked softly, planting his other hand on the hood of his car, as if he needed to force himself not to touch you so you could answer his question. The thought made you smile, and his eyes dropped to your lips, his thumb brushing quickly over the bottom one. 

“I do,” you said in a light, breathless voice, a smile teasing around the edges of your mouth. On a whim, you nipped at Ari’s thumb, giving him a smirk when his eyes darkened. “If you think you can keep it in your pants until later, daddy,” you taunted him, pushing your hips forward so his bulge pressed into your belly.

“You’re such fucking trouble,” Ari growled before his mouth captured yours in a searing kiss. One of his hands grabbed your waist, pulling you into him while the other cradled your head gently, holding you exactly where he wanted you while he devoured your mouth, his tongue sweeping possessively past your lips until you were moaning softly into him.

A loud, clearing throat had you finally breaking apart. Both you and Ari turned your heads toward the sound, finding a blonde woman raising an eyebrow at the two of you before cutting her eyes pointedly to the children beside her. Your cheeks heated and you buried your face in Ari’s neck to muffle a cackling laugh. 

“Apologies, ma’am,” Ari called gruffly, raising a hand in a repentant wave. 

The woman huffed and rolled her eyes, which only made you laugh harder, pressing your face deeper into the warm curve of Ari’s shoulder as you tried to stay quiet. When the woman and her family were finally gone, you leaned back, giving Ari a cheeky grin. 

“Think she’s gonna complain about us and get us banned?” you asked teasingly, sliding your hands up Ari’s chest until they rested on his shoulders, trying not to think about how easy it was to touch your sugar daddy so casually. “Tell them we were acting indecently in the parking lot?”

Ari laughed, chucking you under your chin gently before ducking down for a quick kiss. “If she does, I’ll just buy the farm,” Ari murmured against your mouth. “They can’t ban us if I own them.”

Your breath caught in your lungs at Ari’s pronouncement, surprise making your heart leap in your chest. Your sugar daddy had bought you plenty of expensive gifts since you’d started seeing him, but buying a farm so you could go apple picking in peace was on another level entirely. You had to wonder if Ari was serious, but the look in his eye was genuine when he pulled back. 

“Don’t give me that look, darling,” he rumbled, his heated gaze raking over your face, taking in your wide eyes and parted lips. His thumb stroked over your bottom lip, pulling on it ever so slightly to the side, sending a little thrill through your body. “Or we aren’t making it into the orchard.”

You closed your mouth, swallowing thickly and bobbed your head in a nod. Then, you slid away from Ari, slipping from between his big body and the car and taking a deep, steadying breath.

Even with the warm September sun shining down on your shoulders, you felt a little cold without Ari’s heat and shivered. But you told yourself you were being ridiculous, shaking off the shiver and turning back to your sugar daddy.

Ari was standing with both hands planted on the hood of the car, his head hanging between them while he took deep breaths. He must’ve felt your attention on him because he lifted his head and gave you a charming smile. 

“Just gimme a sec, darling,” he said, shooting you a wink before he straightened and dropped his hands to the bulge in his slacks. 

You tried not to ogle your sugar daddy as he adjusted himself to make his hard length less prominent in his pants, but you knew what was hiding beneath his clothes and you knew how good his cock felt sliding inside you.

A sizzling, delicious warmth cascaded through your body, and you let yourself watch Ari’s big hands adjusting his bulge for a moment before tearing your eyes away and taking deep breaths of the fresh air to clear your head as much as possible.

A moment later, Ari slung his arm around your shoulders and together the two of you walked toward the entrance to the orchard.

It took effort, but you managed not to look down at the front of his pants, sure that if you did, neither of you would make it any further. And you did want to go apple picking. You had so many things you wanted to bake with the apples you were going to pick. 

Keeping your chin up and your gaze forward, you and Ari walked to the small, squat red building that served as the entryway to the orchard. One side was for folks heading into the field of apple trees, and you joined the line while scrutinizing the size of baskets and crates you could get for picking. 

Ari let you choose the size, and you picked a decent size wooden basket, thinking that would give you plenty of apples to use for baking. A farm worker explained that your apples would be weighed when you were done, and you paid per pound. Then they handed Ari a map that specified where each apple variety could be found, and the two of you were set free into the orchard. 

“What kind of apples are we picking today?” Ari asked, peering at the paper in his hand while he snagged the basket from you. 

You leaned into his side so you could read the map, and pointed when you found what you wanted. “Honeycrisp, honeycrisp!” you chanted, letting your excitement overtake you. 

Ari chuckled, folding the map and tucking it into his pocket before giving you one of his charming grins. “Honeycrisp it is, honeycrisp,” he teased, smoothing his hand down your arm to lace his fingers with yours before he began walking into the orchard.

A shiver of delight raced down your spine at Ari’s gentle, familiar touch and the sweet new nickname. He’d only ever called you ‘darling’ before, and while you liked the pet name, ‘honeycrisp’ made you feel closer to your sugar daddy because it was meant for only you. It was something people in a real romantic relationship did, wasn’t it?

Your feet stumbled a little before you fell into step beside Ari. Out of the corner of your eye, you looked up at him consideringly, wondering—not for the first time—what he thought of you. If he thought you were someone worth caring about—if he thought of you at all when you weren’t together. 

Your sugar daddy flashed an easy smile at you, and you couldn’t help but return the gesture, even as you thought about how difficult he was to read. He was always charming and easygoing, and it made it hard to figure out what he was really thinking, let alone what he was really feeling.

You did your best to push those pondering thoughts from your mind and simply enjoy the walk through the orchard with Ari. You reminded yourself that he’d made it clear he just wanted to have fun with you, so that’s what you were determined to do: Enjoy the warm day and pick some apples with your handsome sugar daddy.

The honeycrisp section of the orchard ended up being quite busy, with families and groups of friends forming small crowds around all the trees closest to the entrance of the field. You paused for a moment, your face falling in a small frown.

Ari must’ve seen your expression because he tugged on your hand and led you past the crowds, strolling down a long row of apple trees to go deeper into the orchard. The excited chatter of other people faded until you could barely hear them and the farm grew peaceful. Finally, you came to the edge of the orchard, and Ari pulled you to a stop at the end of a row of honeycrisp trees. 

“Wow, that’s a lot of apples,” you said, peering up at the trees around you. They were bigger and taller than the ones you’d passed that were being picked over by the crowds. Their branches were practically bursting with ripe, red apples, the color swirling with yellow and green as it often did with that particular variety. 

It seemed no one else had thought to escape the crowds and venture deeper into the orchard, because you couldn’t hear anyone else around. It was just you, your sugar daddy and the apple trees. 

It was so perfect you couldn’t stifle the beaming grin that spread across your face.

“Should I go back for another basket—or a crate?” Ari asked, a grin in his tone. 

When you finally tore your eyes away from the trees and their bounty, you found him staring at you, something like fondness in his gaze. It struck you that Ari had no idea why you wanted apples—you’d never told him you liked to bake or what you planned to do with the ones you picked—but he’d planned the date and was offering to help you pick as many apples as you wanted. 

A warmth started in your chest, feeling as though it were wrapping around your heart and filling you up with a dizzying amount of sunshine, until your ribs were nearly bursting with it. Your cheeks felt warm, and your face ached a little from how wide you were smiling. 

When you realized that you were staring back at Ari with just as much, if not more, affection than was in his gaze, you tried to tamp it down, forcing yourself to scoff lightly at his question. 

“I think one will be plenty,” you said dryly, turning back to the trees and trying to calculate how many apples would fit into the basket Ari carried. Would it be enough for the apple crisp cheesecake recipe you’d been dying to try? You decided it would have to be. 

“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours, honeycrisp?” Ari asked softly, curling a finger beneath your chin and tipping your face to look up at him. He eased your bodies toward each other and your arms wrapped naturally around his waist. 

It wasn’t until you’d pressed your hands to Ari’s back, your hands settling against the solid muscle of him, that you even realized what you were doing. When you did, you froze, feeling a little spooked by how easy it was becoming to sink into Ari’s casual touches and return them. It felt like there was a growing intimacy between the two of you, and you didn’t know quite yet how you felt about it. 

“Honeycrisp?” you asked, latching on to the one thing you could think to say that would delay you needing to answer Ari’s question. 

He’d never asked you what you were thinking before. When he checked in with you, his questions were always more direct, and more specific about what you were doing. You didn’t know if he really wanted to know, so you hoped a distraction might work.

Ari’s grin turned a little mischievous, like he knew what you were doing, and he wrapped his arms around you, hauling you up against his large, firm body. He ducked his head and nudged your nose with his, tickling your cheek with his beard until you laughed softly into his scruff.

“It fits, doesn’t it?” he asked in a low, rumbly voice that sent warmth dancing through your body. “You’re sweet as honey and as delicious as an apple crisp.” He kissed your lower lip, sucking on its plumpness with a slow, deliberate drag that had you nearly moaning into his mouth.

“Yeah, I like it,” you murmured when he released your lip, your voice obscenely breathy as your eyes fluttered open. You couldn’t remember closing them. Being so close to Ari, having his arms around you and his lips on you, was rattling your brain a little.

“Now, darling honeycrisp, tell daddy what had you thinking so hard about those apples,” Ari rumbled, his voice sweetly coaxing as he brushed butterfly kisses along your jaw. His lips were soft and his beard was coarse, and the contrast of the sensations had you sighing softly and melting further into his arms. “Unless you don’t want to tell me?”

There was a thread of uncertainty in Ari’s tone as he voiced the question, like he wasn’t sure if he was pushing too hard by asking you to tell him what you’d been thinking about. 

It was so different to how other sugar daddies—other men in general—had treated you. They’d always demanded you tell them whatever they wanted to know, as if they had a right to every part of you. 

But Ari wasn’t like that. He’d never been like that, and it didn’t surprise you that the first time he asked something even remotely personal, he was still giving you the opportunity to sidestep the question if you didn’t want to answer. It made you want to tell him all the more.

“I was thinking about what I want to bake with the apples we pick,” you answered, a smile teasing around the edges of your mouth. “And trying to make sure one basket would be enough.”

Ari brushed a kiss to the apple of your cheek, as if thanking you for telling him. Pulling back a bit so he could look at you, he tilted his head to the side in curiosity.

“You like to bake?”

You felt a little shy in the moment, ducking your head under the weight of his sparkling blue eyes, and nodded. “Yeah,” you said shrugging as if it was no big deal. Then, when Ari didn’t reply right away, you went on, filling the silence by answering a question he hadn’t asked. “I don’t usually tell sugar daddies—the one time I did, he got weird.”

Biting your lip to stem the flow of words from your mouth, you winced. You weren’t sure if Ari had known you’d had other sugar daddies before him, but it felt awkward to acknowledge the fact even if you weren’t ashamed of it. Besides, something inside you rebelled against the idea of lumping Ari in with all your other sugar daddies—he truly wasn’t like anyone else you’d been with. 

“Weird how?” Ari asked in a tone gentler than any you’d heard him use before. One of his hands cupped the back of your neck, but he didn’t try to make you look at him, just stroked your skin with his thumb. The gesture was so profoundly comforting that you lay your head on his shoulder and gave a sigh of relief. 

“Once he knew I liked to bake, he expected me to bake for him,” you explained slowly, choosing your words carefully. “But not just bake—he bought me an apron and skimpy little dresses to wear underneath it with these ridiculous heels. He wanted me to bake for him and…service him.” 

You pressed your face into Ari’s shoulder, remembering the experience and cringing over what you’d let that man talk you into. He was a major reason you appreciated Ari’s boundaries so much. You felt safer, like things couldn’t spiral out of your control, with the boundaries your sugar daddy had set in place.

After you’d answered his question, Ari stayed quiet, just holding you, his thumb stroking soothingly over the back of your neck. His big arms felt so steady around you that you couldn’t help but take comfort in them, and you went on, feeling safe enough to tell Ari the rest.

“He took all the joy out of baking,” you said in a small voice. “I stopped seeing him soon after, but he wasn’t happy about it.”

Ari exhaled a sharp breath and he squeezed you in his arms, holding you tight for a long moment before he eased up a little. 

“Thank you for telling me,” he murmured, brushing a kiss to your forehead. “I would love to try your baking, but only if you want—hell, you can come over today and use my kitchen and bake in one of my shirts if you want.”

A relieved laugh gusted out of you, and you were so glad Ari understood that it took you a moment to realize he’d invited you to his apartment. 

You’d never seen where he lived—and even though he paid for it, he’d never been inside your apartment either. Ari had always gotten hotel rooms, even for dates in in the city. 

You hadn’t thought much about it beyond appreciating the fact that Ari didn’t act entitled to be in your space because he paid for it. But now he was inviting you to his apartment, his space, and you didn’t know what to make of it.

Pulling back, you gave him a curious look. 

“Are you sure?”

Ari leveled you with a look of his own, and though his gaze was serious, there was a hint of amusement in the curve of his mouth. “Are you sure?” he countered, his voice going low and rumbly as he went on. “If you start baking in my kitchen wearing only my shirt, there’s a very good chance I’ll eat more of you than whatever you make.” He raised his eyebrows, as if to drive home the lewd insinuation of his statement. 

But despite his dirty warning—or perhaps because of it—you only warmed to the idea of baking in Ari’s apartment. It sounded fun in a way it hadn’t been with your past sugar daddy and you bounced on the balls of your feet as excitement flooded through you. 

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, daddy,” you sassed, shifting your arms to wind around Ari’s neck. You used your hold on him to keep your balance as you pushed up onto your tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his scruffy cheek. “I already know what I want to make.”

Ari chuckled, giving you a quick kiss before pulling out his phone and telling you to pull up the recipe so that he could forward it to his assistant to make sure his apartment had everything you’d need. You did as he asked and handed his phone back to him, watching for his reaction to the recipe you’d chosen.

To your delight, Ari groaned like he was being tortured, his thumb flicking over the screen as he scrolled through the recipe to look at all the pictures.

“You’re gonna make this?” he asked, before reading out the title, “An Apple crisp cheesecake?” He made another agonized sound before looking to you for confirmation.

You couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction, knowing he was excited despite the miserable noises he was making, and nodded eagerly to answer his question.

Ari shook his head with a disbelieving look on his face and tapped out a message on his phone before pocketing it again. Then he grabbed you around the waist and hauled you against him again.

“You’re trouble for my pants, honeycrisp,” he muttered, dropping a too-brief kiss to your lips. “First you make me hard enough I feel like I’m gonna pop my zipper.” He trailed kisses along your jaw and down your neck in between his words, his mouth and beard tickling your skin while you melted into his arms. “Next you’re gonna fill me up with apple crisp cheesecake until my button breaks.” 

You made a sound that was half-laugh, half-moan as you tipped your head to the side, giving him more access to nip and lick at your neck while you clung to his shoulders, your knees going weak from your sugar daddy’s attention. 

“You don’t need to eat that much cheesecake, Ari,” you wheezed in between bouts of laughter, giggling harder when he nipped playfully at your ear.

“If it’s as delicious as you, I don’t know how I’ll be able to stop myself,” he flirted, kissing the spot just beneath your ear that had you shivering in his arms. 

“Ari,” you said his name on a breathy exhale, and it was a good thing his lips captured yours in a searing kiss, because you didn’t have any hope of responding to his compliment. Instead, you showed him how much you appreciated it by kissing him back hard, your fingers tangling in his soft brown hair as you clung to your sugar daddy and made out in the apple orchard.

By the time Ari pulled away to let you get some air, you were breathless and happier than you’d been in a long time. To your own surprise, you felt good about opening up to Ari and telling him about your past bad experience. He’d made you feel heard and cared for, all while giving you reason to believe he’d never do anything like that to you. He made you feel safe in a way you hadn’t with any of your other sugar daddies. 

Because of all that, you were actually excited to finally see his apartment. It felt like an important step, the beginning of something new, perhaps something deeper, and though there was an undercurrent of anxiety in your belly, you were more excited than anything else. 

And if you weren’t mistaken, Ari looked excited, too. His eyes were looking at you with affection in their depths, and his mouth was curved into a genuine smile. 

As he grinned down at you, Ari let his hands slide down from your lower back to your ass, groping you through your dress before swatting the soft cheeks lightly. 

“Alright, honeycrisp, these apples won’t pick themselves,” he teased good-naturedly. “And I’ve got a craving for some apple crisp cheesecake now.” He waggled his eyebrows at you, making you laugh.

But you forced a serious expression onto your face and gave him a mocking salute. “Yes, sir,” you said in a deeper voice, trying to tamp down on the smile that wanted to break free.

You lost the battle when Ari gave a loud laugh, his head tipping back and the sun shining down on his golden face while he gave into your silliness. He recovered quickly, though, looking back down at you fondly as he rumbled, “That’s ‘yes, daddy’, to you, honeycrisp.” Then he slapped your ass a little harder to urge you to get a move on before he finally, reluctantly, pulled away and turned in the direction of the apple trees.

To ease some of the disappointment you both felt, Ari gave you a salacious wink that had your cheeks warming again. You couldn’t even blame the September sun on the heat in your face. Your sugar daddy was just so hot, it was hardly even fair.

To distract yourself from wanting to curl up in Ari’s arms and say to hell with apple picking, you snatched up the basket he’d dropped, arching your back and popping your ass to give him a peek at your pussy, then straightened and skipped to the nearest apple tree to start picking. 

When you chanced a glance over your shoulder, you saw Ari’s eyes were heated and staring at the way your skirt fluttered around your ass, his big hand palming his bulge in his pants. You wiggled your ass for him, turning back around to hide your laughter when his long-suffering groan met your ears. 

But you couldn’t keep your eyes off Ari and you turned your head to watch him out of the corner of your eye, catching him swiping a hand down over his face while he shook his head. Something about the gesture sent your heart pitter-pattering in your chest—which only got worse when Ari caught you looking and winked while he adjusted himself in his pants.

You felt giddy as you refocused on the tree in front of you, your breaths coming in soft little gasps as excitement and desire swirled in your core. It took you a long moment to gather your thoughts and remind yourself that you could not jump your sugar daddy in the middle of an apple orchard that was open to the public—no matter how much you desperately wanted to. 

With slightly shaking fingers, you began to pick apples, doing your best to pay attention to what you were doing and make sure you were selecting the best fruit you could find. If Ari was going to try your baking for the first time, you wanted your apple crisp cheesecake to be the best that it could possibly be. 

Ari came to stand beside you, and though you wanted him to put his hands on you, you were happy to see him dedicate himself to the task of picking apples, even reaching up to the branches that were too high for you. In turn, you showed Ari how to check for bruises and other unwanted things in the fruit before adding them to the basket at your feet.

Between the two of you picking apples, it wasn’t long before the basket was nearly overflowing, but you were having so much fun, you didn’t want it to end. So when Ari asked if you still needed more, you gave him a shy smile and said just a few. You didn’t want him to go get another basket—because, really, you didn’t need that many apples—but you didn’t want the apple picking part of your date to end just yet.

Your sugar daddy seemed to understand your desire to linger because he didn’t call you out on the fact that your basket could barely hold any more apples. Instead, he flashed you an indulgent grin and nodded, joining you under the apple tree where you’d been picking. 

But rather than moving beside you, as he’d stood while you’d worked together, he came up behind you so that his chest was brushing against your back. His hands settled lightly on your waist, loosely caging you in beneath the apple tree with your body facing the trunk. 

He ducked down so his scruffy, bearded cheek was pressed to yours and pointed to a cluster of apples just out of your reach. “Why don’t you grab one of those?” he suggested, the practiced innocence in his tone nearly making you snort with laughter. 

You knew Ari was playing a game, you could feel it in the mischievous tension crackling in the air, and you were almost certain it would lead to some sort of naughtiness in the orchard. But your body was wound tight, and you wanted to get up to a little mischief with your sugar daddy, so you decided to play along. 

“I can’t reach, daddy,” you simpered, proving your point by reaching your hand up to show that the apples were too high up, your fingertips only barely grazing the fruit. You used the movement to deliberately push your ass back into Ari’s lap and you had to smother a giggle when you felt the hard ridge of him in his pants.

“Let me help, honeycrisp,” Ari rumbled, and though you couldn’t see his grin, you knew it was there by the warmth in his voice. You bit your lip against your own wide smile.

Ari’s hand slid down your side, all the way to the back of your thigh, before he gently grabbed your leg behind your knee to lift it until your foot was planted on a low branch. Then he guided your hips deeper into his lap, where you could feel the long, stiff length of his cock wedging between your ass cheeks through your thin dress.

“C’mon, honeycrisp, reach a little bit more,” he urged, tilting your hips and bending his knees so that his hard bulge was pressed against your bare slit. Then he surged forward, lifting you just a little off the ground while he dragged the thick length of his cock against your weeping pussy. 

You fell helplessly against the trunk of the tree, the apples forgotten as a low moan slipped past your lips. Ari teased you with his clothed cock, and your spine arched to bare more of yourself to his hard bulge. Craning your neck to catch Ari’s eye over your shoulder, you gave him a desperate, pleading look. 

“Daddy, please,” you begged on a whine, pushing back into his lap and wiggling your ass side to side to try to entice him into giving you something more. You’d been teasing each other all day, and you were hitting a breaking point. You needed him to give you something.

Ari chuckled, burying his face in the side of your neck, his deep laughter rolling deliciously down your spine and settling between your thighs, until you were pulsing with desire. He curled around your body until he was surrounding you, your smaller form fitting perfectly within the cage of his arms. 

He reached above you and easily plucked the apple he’d directed you to pick from the spot you hadn’t been able to reach and presented it to you. At the same time, his other hand began to wander, groping your soft tits until you moaned prettily again for him. 

“Does it pass your inspection, darling?” he asked, urging you to focus on the apple he held in front of you. 

Truthfully, you didn’t care anymore about picking apples—you had plenty of them in the basket at your feet—but you did your best to look it over. You turned it over in your trembling fingers, checking for bruises and bugs. Finding it to be perfect, you nodded. 

“Yes, daddy.”

“Good girl,” Ari murmured, taking the apple from your hands and pulling away to set it on top of the pile in your basket. 

You had to bite back a whine at the loss of him, but he was back against you a moment later, his warmth surrounding you as his arms curled around your body. His hands slid up your sides and cupped your tits, kneading them in his big, strong hands until your head fell back against his shoulder and you let out a soft whimper of need.

“Now is that enough apples, honeycrisp?” he asked, a hint of teasing in his tone.

“Yuh huh,” you mumbled, nodding weakly as you arched your spine and pushed your chest into Ari’s hands. He rewarded you by pinching and plucking your nipples through the soft cotton of your dress, wringing a weak whine from your lips. “Plenty.” 

“Good,” Ari rumbled, pressing his face into the side of your neck, his mouth licking and nipping at your skin like you tasted as sweet as the fruit you’d been picking, his rough beard making you shiver in his hold. “Because if I had to see your pretty pussy winking at me from beneath your skirt one more time while you were bending over or reaching for some apples, it was going to drive me fucking wild.”

A low moan slipped free from your lips while one of Ari’s hands skimmed down your front, sliding under the hem  of your dress and cupping you between your thighs. His big hand covered your entire mound, which was sticky with your juices. 

He growled when he felt just how wet you were, the sound reverberating down your spine and making your pussy spasm, more wetness dripping from your slit and into his palm.

“Fuck,” Ari ground out through gritted teeth, his voice rough with his own barely leashed desire. “You’re soaking wet for me, honeycrisp—I gotta feel you,” he said, an urgency in his voice as he sank two fingers into your drenched hole, pulling another moan from you. His hips were grinding his bulge against your ass so hard, you could feel him throbbing. “Gotta feel this tight warm cunt on my cock, ‘m not gonna make it back to the car—need you now.”

“Ari,” you whispered harshly, trying to sound angry, but the two syllables of his name came out dipped in desire and you felt your sugar daddy shudder against your back, his fingers working harder inside your sopping cunt, his palm making soft slapping sounds every time he bottomed out. “We shouldn’t.” 

Despite your weak protest, you rolled your head to the side on Ari’s shoulder, peering through the branches of the tree toward where you’d left the crowds of other apple pickers. They were still so distant you couldn’t hear them over your soft, gasping breaths, but there was no telling when someone might stray from the others. They could stumble upon you at any moment. 

The only protection you had from wandering eyes were the branches of the apple tree. Thankfully, they were close enough and the leaves dense enough that you couldn’t see much beyond Ari’s big body, but if someone came close enough, they’d no doubt hear you or Ari, and then you’d be caught.

“We’re going to get arrested,” you scolded in a hushed tone before turning your head to bury your face in Ari’s beard and stifle the moan on the tip of your tongue. He hadn’t stopped fucking you with his fingers and your reluctance was ebbing from your body just as surely as your desire was leaking into his hand. 

Instead of responding to your statement with the seriousness you felt it deserved, Ari simply chuckled against your cheek and used his thumb to circle your clit, making your hips jerk into his hand, your body wordlessly begging him for more while you muffled a whine into the underside of his jaw. 

“We’ll be fine, honeycrisp,” Ari soothed in a placating tone that made you growl like a feral kitten into his throat, so he switched tactics, his voice going low and rough. “Don’t you wanna feel me, honey?” He asked, grinding his hard length into your soft ass until you mewled pathetically. “Don’t you wanna drip your sweet juices all over daddy’s cock like a good girl?” 

It was on the tip of your tongue to give in. You knew you shouldn’t. You knew there was a very real possibility that you could get caught, and it was only your fear of the potential consequences that held your words at bay. But Ari was well acquainted with the fear that held you back, and he knew exactly how to help you break through it. 

“Just the tip,” he murmured, his voice so warm you could hear the smile in it. “Just take the tip, and stay quiet, and we’ll be golden.” He nuzzled your face, his beard rasping over your soft skin and sending tingles of delight all through your body. 

You knew it was a ploy. You knew that Ari knew that you’d never be able to settle for just the tip of his cock—after all, you never had before. But it was easier to pretend you could settle for just the tip than to say yes to Ari fucking you in the middle of the apple orchard when there were people not too far away. It was the small step you needed to break free from your fear.

Lifting your head, you looked around. There was nothing to see except dense branches and leaves and endless apples. Ari’s body hid you entirely from sight, and you still couldn’t hear anyone else close by, so if you stayed quiet, you really could get away with a quickie in the orchard. 

A wicked smile spread across your face and you turned your head to catch Ari’s eye over your shoulder.

“Just the tip?” you asked, you voice laced with suggestion. You knew Ari was going to end up sinking much more of his cock into you, but you wanted to play along for a little bit. “Promise, daddy?” Your question was meant to sound innocent, but you couldn’t help the way the corners of your lips wavered in an eager grin.

Ari chuckled and kissed the corner of your mouth, because he knew exactly what you were doing. “I promise, darling…” he said, trailing off as he pulled his fingers from your pussy with an embarrassingly wet sound that made him grin. “Unless, of course, you beg me like a good girl.” 

“Hurry, daddy,” you cooed, wiggling your ass against Ari’s bulge, a teasing smile on your lips as you watched him over your shoulder. 

Ari’s eyes darkened and then he was using his clean hand to fumble with his belt and fly while he swatted your pussy playfully with his drenched fingers. You gasped and twitched, trying to stay quiet and failing miserably as desperate keening sound slipped from your mouth.

At your urging, Ari wasted no time, shoving his pants open and pulling out his cock, pushing your dress up over your ass and rubbing the tip through your drenched folds. Both of you groaned, Ari’s face falling forward against your shoulder while you grabbed onto the trunk of the tree in front of you, trying to stay upright while your knees trembled. 

Then Ari was pushing inside, the head of his cock sinking into the warmth of your pussy. The stretch of him was too delicious, and you moaned louder than was wise, but you couldn’t help yourself. He felt too good. 

“What’d I say about staying quiet?” Ari rumbled in your ear, right before he shoved his fingers in your mouth. The tart taste of your wetness mixed with apples burst on your tongue and you moaned again, licking wildly at his fingers to get as much of it as you could. “Mm, that’s it, clean up your mess, honeycrisp—show daddy what a good girl you can be.”

Ari’s other hand gripped your hip, holding you steady while he fucked you with just the tip of his cock, pushing into your tight hole and pulling free until the tease of it drove you wild. 

“Mm-oah, mm-oah,” you begged around Ari’s fingers, trying to push back on Ari’s stiff length and take more of him, but he held you still, forcing you to take only what he gave you. You bounced impatiently, the foot that was still lifted on one of the branches shaking it so furiously, the leaves rattled and a few apples dropped to the ground.

“Oh, did you want something, honey?” Ari asked, his tone filled with mocking innocence as he pulled his fingers from your mouth. You shot him a half-hearted glare over your shoulder, pouting. 

“I need more, daddy, please,” you begged, giving him your best desperate, pleading look while you pushed back against his hold, reveling in the way he didn’t let you move to take him further. “Please split me open with your thick cock, daddy—I need it.”

Ari blew out a sharp breath. “Fuck, I wanna tease you some more, but I can’t—need you too bad, honey,” Ari rasped, squeezing your hip while his other arm wrapped loosely around the front of your throat, so the bulge of his bicep was just beneath your chin. 

“Remember, stay quiet.” His hushed words were your only warning before Ari slammed into you, shoving every inch of his hard cock into your wet, needy cunt. 

A scream welled up inside your chest, your mouth dropping open as it clawed its way up your throat, but at the last second before it was set free, you managed to bury your face in Ari’s bicep. Your teeth sank into his warm, golden skin and you bit your sugar daddy while you screamed into his arm. 

His tortured groan was loud, but only because it poured directly into your ear, the sound dripping in pleasure as your inner walls squeezed his hard cock and made room for the thick length of him in the depths of your body.

Bliss consumed you, the stinging edge of Ari pushing inside you so fast and stretching you so suddenly making your body burn all the hotter. Already, your cunt was pulsing around Ari’s cock like you wanted him to stay buried inside you for a long time and you sighed happily, pulling your teeth from your sugar daddy’s arm. 

While Ari gave you a moment to adjust, his hand kneading the plush softness of your hip, you kissed and licked at the indents your teeth had left in his skin. He chuckled, brushing a kiss against your temple, an acceptance of your wordless apology. 

“Ready, honey?” Ari asked softly, nuzzling your cheek while he rolled his hips, grinding his cock into you in a way that had you moaning again. “This is gonna be hard and fast. I can’t—I gotta pound your pretty pussy,” he rumbled, his tone almost apologetic with the urgency in it. “Gotta feel you dripping around me, squeezing me, milking me.”

His hand shifted from your hip to slip between your thighs, his fingers finding your slippery clit and rubbing the puffy pearl. He grunted when you clenched around him, his fingers stroking you harder and winding your pleasure higher while he rolled his hips, fucking you in short, sharp thrusts.

“Fuck, honey, fuck,” he bit out, his breaths heavy in between every word. “Tell me you’re ready for me to move.”

“Please, yes, move,” you cried propping your chin on Ari’s bicep while your nails dug into the trunk of the tree in front of you. You used your grip to brace yourself and push back on Ari’s cock, taking him deeper with every thrust. “Need you, daddy, please, please, please,” you babbled, your voice coming out strained with the effort to keep it quiet.

“Fucking right you need me—just like I need you,” Ari growled, pulling his hips back and slamming forward, driving into you with so much force, you could hear the soft sound of your ass slapping against his thighs. “You have the sweetest, tightest pussy I’ve ever had—best fucking pussy in the world. I dream about it when I’m not with you,” he confessed, his words rough like he’d pulled them from the depths of his soul. “Dream about pumping you full of my come until your belly’s bulging with me, honey.”

Your mind reeled at Ari’s confession even as your body sank deeper into his hold. You were still trying to catch up on processing his words but your pussy was clenching around his cock greedily, as if begging for him to come inside you already. 

In that moment, a singular truth crystalized in your mind: You’d been deluding yourself into thinking you didn’t care for Ari—that he didn’t care for you. It was very clear that Ari did care about you, and you cared about him.

All those boundaries in your relationship, you realized you’d been the one creating them, not Ari. Ari had been patient, chipping away at the walls you’d built around yourself until he’d somehow found his way in. He’d dreamed about you, and you’d thought he was just another sugar daddy looking to have some fun. You’d been so wrong about him.

At the weight of your realization, you nearly collapsed against the tree, but managed to hold yourself up, sobbing with pleasure and emotion. Ari seemed to sense the shift in your mood and he slowed his movements, as if he was going to stop, but you shook your head, feeling feral with your need for him. 

“Please, daddy,” you cried softly, your voice hoarse with the flood of affection filling your heart. It was emphasized by the feeling of Ari inside you, surrounding you, your body cradled in his arms while he fuckd you like he wanted you to never forget the feel of him. “Fill me up, make me your perfect little cumslut, daddy, just keep me—keep me.” 

“Always,” he rasped, his lips at your temple. The promise in that single word buried deep in your heart, taking root. 

Something changed between you and Ari, and you knew he felt it too because he started fucking you faster than before, his hips snapping harder against your ass so he could push deep into your cunt with every thrust.

“Fuck, honey, ‘m almost there, are you close?” he rasped, his tone desperate. 

Your head bobbed in a nod. 

“Uh huh, ‘m close, just need a little more…” you trailed off in a whine, trying to push back on his cock and grind your clit against his stroking fingers at the same time.

Thankfully, Ari understood what you were begging for, and he rubbed you harder, his fingers relentless in his pursuit of your pleasure while he rutted into your cunt.

“C’mon, honey, come on daddy’s cock,” he rumbled in your ear, his voice deliciously deep to match his dirty words and push you closer to the edge. “Be a good little cumslut and milk my cock, make me fill your sweet pussy with all my come, honey.” 

You buried your face into Ari’s bicep again, your teeth sinking into his skin as you screamed your release. Wave after wave of pleasure pulsed through your body, until your limbs were trembling and your fingers were shaking against the outside of Ari’s arm, having forgotten when you’d let go of the tree to cling to him.

With a grunt, Ari’s cock twitched inside you, reacting to the sting of your bite and the merciless grasping of your inner walls around his hard length. His hips stuttered, then he started fucking into you wildly, his thrusts falling out of rhythm while he chased his own release. 

“Good girl, honey, so good, feel so fucking good milking daddy’s cock,” he muttered, cutting off on a deep groan while his cock throbbed inside you.

Ari spilled himself deep in your cunt and you moaned weakly, pulling back from his arm and licking his golden skin to sooth the indents your teeth had left behind. He tasted like salty skin and sweet apples and you hummed in pleasure as you rode out the remainder of your release with your bodies writhing together.

After a few long moments basking in the glorious afterglow of coming together, Ari took a deep breath and shifted his arm, chuckling lowly when you whimpered at the loss of his bicep to lick and kiss. He made it up to you by turning your head and capturing your lips in a sweet kiss, pouring all the affection you finally knew he felt for you into the way his mouth moved against yours. 

When he pulled away, leaving you slightly breathless, Ari leveled you with a serious look. 

“You know you’re special to me, don’t you, honey?” he asked, using the new pet name that you knew was shortened from ‘honeycrisp’. 

You’d been too wrapped up in your own head to notice the way it rolled off his tongue—it was an endearment for someone Ari cared about, someone who was special to him, as he said.

Biting your kiss-swollen lower lip, feeling a little abashed that it had taken you so long to realize what Ari felt for you, you nodded. You could feel your cheeks warming, and tried to duck your head, but Ari only chuckled and caught your lips in another kiss, though it was briefer.

When he’d kissed away your anxiety, Ari set about extricating himself from you, pulling free from your body and helping you down from the tree. He quickly stuffed his softening cock back into his pants and then helped smooth your dress back over your hips before doing up his slacks. You turned to him, brushing his hair back from his face and warming at the way he was smiling down at you. 

Ari had an infectious grin on his face, and you couldn’t help but return it, your heart feeling warm and cozy in your chest. 

The two of you smiled goofily as you helped right each other’s appearances. Once you’d fixed yourselves as much as possible, Ari stooped down to pick up the basket of apples you’d picked, then grabbed your hand, lacing your fingers together and planting a kiss on the back of your palm before heading off back to the farm stand.

As you walked past all the crowds of people, you were certain everyone knew what you and Ari had gotten up to in the orchard, but no one stopped or stared or said anything. They were all too focused on their own friends and families and the task of apple picking to notice you and Ari, or your big, silly smiles.

At the farm stand, Ari paid for the apples, then loaded them into his Lexus before helping you into the passenger seat. He dropped a kiss to your forehead, then rounded the front of the car and slid into his own seat.

You were quiet on the drive back to the city, your mind ruminating over the beginning of your relationship with Ari. When you thought back to your first few dates, you realized you’d been the one who was hesitant to answer any personal questions from your sugar daddy—and you’d never asked any of him. You’d also been the one to balk at the idea of either going back to his place or your apartment, leading him to get hotel rooms. 

Ari had been the one to respect your boundaries, even as he’d tried to get to know you better. He’d tried to ask you questions you felt comfortable answering—it was how he’d found out you liked apple picking, because you’d chosen it as a fall-themed date. He’d been so careful with you, it made your heart hurt a little that you’d kept him at arm’s length for so long.

Turning from the scenery of the foliage fading into the cityscape of New York, you ran your eyes over Ari’s profile. His expression was easy, relaxed and open, the hint of a smile on his face. You’d thought he just always looked like that, but you realized it was because he was with you. 

Reaching across the center console, you scooped up Ari’s hand and laced your fingers through his before settling your joined hands on your thigh. He glanced at you, shooting you a quick smile and squeezing your fingers, before turning back to the road.

By the time the car pulled into the underground parking garage of the high-rise on the Upper West Side where Ari lived, you were resolved to try to let your guard down a little more around him. Ari had shown you he could be trusted with your heart just as much as your body, and you were determined to show him you trusted him with all of you. 

Still, it was a little intimidating walking into his apartment for the first time, the anxiety that he was only bringing you there because he wanted something from you—something you didn’t want to give—was a knot in your stomach. But then you looked at Ari and you realized he’d never do that to you. He was bringing you to his home because he wanted to, not because he wanted something from you. 

Ari’s penthouse was warm and cozy, decorated in dark brown wood and warm golden tones, with hints of blue that reminded you of the ocean. You realized you knew Ari was a fan of the beach, because so many of the trips he’d taken you on had been close to the water. Walking into his home felt like walking into a reflection of his heart, and you didn’t take that for granted.

After setting down the apples on a table next to the door and stepping out of your shoes, Ari took you on a tour of his apartment, both the upstairs and the downstairs (because it was big enough to have two floors!). He showed you every room, including his bedroom and his study, tugging you into each by your joined hands when you seemed hesitant to enter his spaces.

Ari left the kitchen for last, but the two of you lingered in the living room, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Central Park. Ari wrapped his arms around you from behind, swaying you lightly from side to side, almost like you were dancing. 

“You have a beautiful home, Ari,” you said, looking out over the city and appreciating the way the buildings and treetops were cast in the warm, yellow glow of afternoon sunshine. An errant thought crossed your mind, that you could get used to the view from Ari’s apartment. It was stunning.

“Thank you, honey,” Ari murmured, dropping a kiss to the base of your throat while his arms squeezed you tighter. He buried his face in your neck, so his words were a little muffled when he said, “I always hoped you’d like it enough to want to come over again and… again.”

You could hear in the pause of his words where he’d stopped himself from saying something different, and you wondered over it. But you knew yourself well enough not to ask. If just walking into his apartment felt like a big step, you knew asking him what he’d meant to say might spook you a bit too much, and you didn’t want that. So you just hummed in response.

Ari chuckled, like he somehow knew it was taking effort for you to be in his apartment, and he thought it was cute how difficult it was for you. His mouth trailed up your neck, effectively distracting you from your thoughts, before nipping at the edge of your jaw. 

“Want to see the kitchen now?” 

Nodding so eagerly, you nearly head-butted him, you turned in his hold and looked up at him with expectant eyes. Ari gave you an affectionate smile, then grabbed your hand and led the way to the kitchen.

He’d saved it for last, and when you stepped inside, you understood why. A gasp slipped from your lips as you took in the beautiful space. The color scheme of the apartment carried over to the kitchen, with dark brown cabinets and lighter wood countertops. There was a pop of blue in the backsplash, and all kinds of expensive gadgetry. 

You were so busy taking everything in, it took you a moment to spot the brand-new stand mixer sitting on the counter in a color that matched the rest of the room. Beside it were some of the ingredients you’d need for the apple crisp cheesecake you’d told Ari you wanted to make and you realized his assistant must’ve already come and gone. 

Walking over and running your fingers over the sleek mixer, tears welled up in your eyes. It took effort to blink them away, and you shook your head slightly at yourself. It seemed silly to be crying over a stand mixer, but it felt bigger than that, like it was a sign of Ari making room in his life for you. He wanted you there, he wanted to keep you, like you’d begged him to. 

“Everything ok, honey?” Ari asked, coming to stand behind you, but not touching you, giving you some space while you processed everything you’d realized that day.

“Yeah,” you said, your voice thick, no doubt giving away the emotion you were feeling. Before you could overthink it, you spun around and threw your arms around Ari’s shoulders, launching yourself at him for a tight hug. “You bought a mixer,” you stated, as if that was explanation enough. 

A soft laugh rumbled in Ari’s chest and he swept a hand down your spine, comforting you while a few tears leaked down your cheeks and into the collar of his denim shirt.

“Well, yeah,” he responded good-naturedly, a smile in his voice. “I did say I wanted you to want to come back, didn’t I?” 

“Uh huh,” you mumbled, laughing a little at his comment. Then you murmured, in a small voice, “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Ari said, sounding genuine. 

For a long moment, you hugged him, and then you pulled away, swiping at your cheeks to clear away any tears or makeup. 

“Is the offer still open to bake while wearing only your shirt?” you asked, tipping your head back to smile shyly at Ari while your fingers played with the collar of his button-up.  

A grin spread across his face while shrugged out of the denim shirt. Then, to your surprise, he yanked his t-shirt off over his head, asking you which one you wanted. 

You took the denim one with fumbling fingers, your eyes raking over his bare chest while warmth bloomed deep in your core. It wasn’t the first time you’d seen Ari shirtless, of course, but you never got tired of looking at the expanse of his golden skin, dusted with dark brown hair that you wanted to rake your nails through. 

Ari let you look for a moment, using your distraction to help you slip out of your dress. Then he eased your arms into the denim shirt and buttoned it up, his big hands pausing briefly to grope your soft body every few moments. 

There was a glimmer of deep satisfaction in his blue eyes when he stepped back to look at you in his shirt. 

“Mm, you look so pretty, honey,” he rasped, taking one last look before crowding you into the counter at your back. His gaze darkened as he stared down at you, his grin turning wolfish when he rumbled, “I think I need a snack before you start baking.”

That was your only warning. You shrieked with surprised laughter when Ari hauled you back into the living room and tossed you down on one of his leather couches. Your giggles cut off abruptly in a moan when Ari descended on you, burying his face between your thighs and feasting on you like he was starving.

Your fingers twisted in Ari’s brown hair while he ate your pussy, encouraging you to scream your pleasure in the comfort of his home while he made you come against his mouth. You shattered apart with a loud cry while he fucked you with his tongue, his mouth greedily devouring your release, and the come he’d buried inside you earlier, like he hadn’t eaten in days. 

When he finally pulled away, Ari’s beard was soaked in your juices and he grinned up your body while you lay limply on the couch, your chest heaving as you caught your breath. Chuckling at the sight of you sprawled out on his couch, Ari pressed wet kisses to the inside of your thighs, licking the traces of your release from your skin.

“Fuck, honey, I can’t get enough of you,” he rumbled, his big hands kneading your plush thighs and hips, proving his point since it seemed like he couldn’t stop touching you. The blatant need and desire in his voice sent a shiver racing down your spine.

“If you keep going, I won’t have the strength to bake,” you warned him in a breathless voice, managing to lift your head enough to give him a stern look. 

Ari laughed into your thigh, pressing one last kiss to your skin before he raised up and gave you a wink. “Can’t have that,” he quipped, grabbing your hands and helping you up off the couch. You stumbled a little, your legs weak from your orgasm, but Ari caught you easily, wrapping his arm around your waist while he led you into the kitchen. 

Once you were propped up against the counter near the stand mixer, Ari left to retrieve the apples from the entryway. When he returned, you noticed he carried a pair of slippers that matched the ones he’d put on. Without saying a word, he set them on the floor next to your bare feet and carried on to start washing the fruit in the sink. 

You stepped into the slippers, your heart warming when you realized they were a perfect fit. For a long moment, you stared at Ari’s bare shoulders and broad back, wondering how you’d ever kept such a thoughtful man at arm’s length. Well, you decided, once again, you wouldn’t be doing that anymore. 

Turning back to the stand mixer and the ingredients, you organized everything on the counter, going to the fridge to pull out everything else you’d need. 

To your surprise, you and Ari worked well together in the kitchen. Once he was done cleaning all the apples you’d picked, he asked what he could do next, and you put him to work peeling and coring the fruit while you worked on the other elements of the cheesecake. 

When it came time to bake, Ari took the pan from your hands and popped it into the oven while you set a timer. Tension crackled between the two of you after the oven had snapped closed, and you came together in a flurry of limbs. Ari guided you back into the living room while he kissed you, his hands making quick work of removing all your remaining clothes.

You rode Ari to another orgasm while the sweet treat baked, the golden glow of the New York City sunset keeping the apartment awash in warm hues that made you feel cozy—like you were home. 

Once you were both sated, you collapsed on top of Ari’s chest, burying your face in his neck and nuzzling into his beard. You inhaled the familiar scent of his cologne, vetiver and leather, with a little bit of cinnamon from baking, and melted against him. You wanted to breathe in nothing but that scent for the rest of your life—and you refused to let that thought scare you.

Ari pulled a flannel blanket off of the back of his couch and wrapped it around you both, your pussy keeping his cock warm while you cuddled together until the timer went off. 

You couldn’t help but laugh as you watched Ari take the baking pan out of the oven wearing only an oven mitt on his hand. You, meanwhile, stood off to the side with the flannel blanket wrapped around your shoulders. He’d told you the blanket was highly flammable and insisted you stay clear of the oven with a stern look that made your insides go all gooey.

The two of you made out in the kitchen and made dinner while the cheesecake cooled. All the while, you kept thinking how easy it was to be with Ari, how you could see what your life would be like together. And you liked how it looked. You liked kissing him whenever you wanted and asking him about what movies he liked and what was the last book he read.

After dinner, you ate a slice of cheesecake together, and you couldn’t keep your eyes off of Ari’s face, enjoying every little groan and expression of pleasure he made. It was erotic enough that you left the last bite for him, getting to your feet to walk around the table and straddle his lap. 

He fucked you to another, blisteringly hot orgasm, and laughed only a little when you fell against his chest with an exhausted, but satisfied, sigh. 

In a soft voice, Ari asked if you’d stay the night, and the hope in his tone made your heart warm enough that you ignored the brief flicker of anxiety the question prompted. You shushed the worry inside you and said yes. 

Together, you cleaned up the kitchen and then Ari led you upstairs to the bedroom, pausing every few minutes to kiss you, like he wanted to remind himself you were still there. 

He gave you some of his clothes to wear to bed and showed you where everything was in his bathroom. You couldn’t help but notice that he had all of your favorite products, and a spare toothbrush for you. You smiled as you got ready for bed and slipped under the covers with him.

“Did you have a good day, honey?” Ari asked, pulling you into his body and wrapping you up in his arms. You were wearing one of his t-shirts—a clean one—while he had on a pair of boxer briefs. You hummed happily when your legs tangled together, enjoying the feel of his warm skin and tickling hair against you. 

“Mm, I had the best day, Ari,” you murmured sleepily, the comfort and warmth of his bed making it easy to let your exhaustion creep in. “Kiss,” you said, turning your head and repeating the greeting Ari had given you when he’d picked you up.

Your sugar daddy chuckled, the sound rumbling down your spine and making your heart flutter with delight. Your eyes were already closed, but you could feel his smile when he pressed a sweet, lingering kiss to your lips. 

“Don’t worry, honey, I’ll still be here in the morning,” he promised, his words assuaging a fear you hadn’t realized you’d felt, and you sighed in contentment.

Everything had changed between you and Ari, and you couldn’t help but think it was for the better. You were still a little anxious about opening yourself up to someone, especially a sugar daddy, but Ari had shown you that you could trust him—really trust him, with all your heart—and you were determined to do just that.

“G’night, Ari,” you whispered into the pillow that smelled like him, a hint of a smile in the curve of your mouth as sleep claimed you. 

“Good night, honey,” Ari crooned in your ear, his voice gentle and soft and oh so affectionate. “My sweet, sweet honeycrisp.”

[nhularin]

you got me looking for attention

PAIRING riki x reader GENRE highschool AU, best friends to lovers, she fell first but he fell harder type of dynamic, fluff WARNINGS none i think? not my best work LOLLL not proofread WC 0.6k ANNOUNCEMENT the nwjns series will be updated daily since i literally have nothing to do durinf summer break

❕series masterlist

September 30, 1998

"i like you, riki"

your head was rested against his forearm, with the voice of your homeroom teacher muffled in the background. there they go again niki chuckled to himself, finding your words strangely amusing

in a seemingly endless loop, you poured out your heart, to niki time and time again. at his house, on your (platonic!) walks at night and now in class. each time, he responded with a laugh, a sparkle in his eyes, and a lighthearted remark that danced in the air. with each passing moment spent together, your infatuation for him grew, intensifying the butterflies that fluttered wildly in your stomach.

at first, you found comfort in his laughter, feeling proud of yourself for being the reason of his momentary happiness.

but as the confessions persisted, doubts began to sneak in. "am I bothering him?" you wondered , guilt and doubt creeping into you.

days turned into weeks, and you found yourself growing even more weary of pouring your heart out to someone who seemed uninterested. with a heavy heart, you resolved to stop with the confessions, fearing you were only annoying niki, a playful game that he enjoyed. you longed for a connection that went beyond friendship, but jeopardizing what you both had right now is far from what you wanted

eyes wide you picked up what the hell does he want at 2 am? not that youre complaining of course, you would sacrifice your favorite snacks just to hear his voice.

"hello?"

"ah, yn" you heard him whisper from the other side, his voice deep and raspy "i didnt think you'd pick up"

"whats so important that you have to call me so late at night, mr ' i-am-an athlete-and-need-my-beauty-sleep' ?" you joked, knowing that the boy will scold you for keeping him up so late later at school

"shut up" a smiled etched on your face and light laughter tickled your ear "i know its not the best thing to do over call but its about your confessions" your heart raced. is this it? is he going to reject you like you've always dreaded?

"You know... all those times you confessed, I laughed it off not because I wasn't interested," he confessed, his voice laced with a mix of nervousness and sincerity "but because I couldn't believe someone like you could ever like me. i mean, you are you and i am me"

silence filled the air

"ah.... im sorry for calling, but i've been tossing and turning thinking about.. you. youre a real headache y'know"

your eyes widened, unable to process what niki said. your heart leaped with a mix of surprise, relief, and a newfound hope. this is it. this is it.

"youre such a jerk" you laugh playfully, the past doubt and insecurities washing away at his words "you got me looking for attention while leaving me question everything"

in that moment, nikis laughter transformed into something deeper, his confession reaching across the wall that had kept them apart.

and with a smile illuminating both of your faces, you bid your goodbyes, promising that you will talk at school the following morning and knowing that from that day forward, your laughter would ring with a newfound meaning.

two souls, once blind and in denial to each other's affections, now found comfort in the affection they shared.

[mt-oe]

I’ve just been highly obsessed over modern Mizu. So I’m just asking for that, modern Mizu meets reader at uni or something like that! I love LOVE your writing!! 💖💖

✧��⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Hey dear!

Thank you so much for the request! I hope you don't mind if I add a bit more to this <3 I've been wanting to write modern au Mizu hcs and your request really granted me the opportunity to do so.

Also, I'm so sorry for being so slow on the requests. I've been so eepy lately for some reason and I can't fight against it, like I tried but failed so many times ;; I am a slave to my own body

Anyways, I hope you enjoy! Mwa mwa :*

warning/s: not proofread, she/her for mizu, implied afab reader, game reference (league of legends)

general headcanons

✦ This woman would either overload or underload her units like crazy. She'd either be busy with her academics and work 6 days a week, even sending a letter to the admin so she can go past the mandated maximum amount of units in one semester or doing absolutely nothing while the rest of her friends are going apeshit on their finals. There's no in between.

She would plan it like an absolute psychopath too. Nothing special foreseeably happening in the next semester? She's going above and beyond. A convention she wants to go to on September? Signing up for the bare minimum amount of allowed units just for one event.

Her friends are either concerned for her and losing contact for a whole semester, or are pissed off that she's playing some kind of gacha game on her phone while they're losing their minds on their finals.

✦ Would be the type to be so pissed off by slow walkers in the hallway. The hatred she has for people who walk so fucking slow in the hallway is unbridled. Though she's not the type to pick fights, she'd be the type to sigh loudly, making you feel her anger, before overtaking and wouldn't be afraid to bump against the person if needed. Her hatred goes deep enough to the point where she even remembers people JUST because they walk slow.

✦ The type of friend who would walk to everything. Sure she has her motorbike, but if she can walk to it, you bet she's going to walk. She even knows different shortcuts to different buildings on campus.

"This looks like a good place," Akemi tells them, showing her phone. For once, their vacant hours finally aligned and they've been trying to find a good place to eat since the lunch hall food was getting repetitive and they could feel their taste buds dulling over time. Akemi, being the 'what do you guys want to eat?' friend, and the other three, being the 'I don't know' or the 'I'm fine with whatever' friends, is left to search for a new place.

They took a look at the place and shrugged in agreement, making her roll her eyes at their lack of opinion. "Okay but how are we going to go there?" Taigen asks. Mizu takes Akemi's phone and looks up the map to the place. The distance itself was enough to tell a person that they should take the bus. Hell, it was on the other side of town almost.

"We can walk. It's not that far," she says, closing the map and handing Akemi her phone back. They trusted Mizu. It couldn't be that bad.

Right?

By the time they arrived at the restaurant, they were already sweating, ready to give up, tired out of their wits. The food wasn't even worth it anymore.

"It's not that far" my ass.

Even Taigen, her fellow gym rat and workout buddy, was fucking exhausted. And this bitch (affectionately), has the audacity to stand there, crossing her arms with the most unamused expression on her face as if it was their fault for being so exhausted. If she tells you its walking distance, it is NOT within walking distance.

✦ She's a jack-of-all trades type of person, but she'd have the fattest fucking talent crush on anyone who can express themselves through art. The talents and skills she gathered were purely out of necessity. Fixing and modifying bikes was the only thing she was truly passionate about but it's hard to be expressive through repairing motorbikes, right?

She has always been so amazed by stories of painters, sculptors, singers, and writers who have deep backstories and can reflect it through their art. She would be the type to read the whole description in art museums just because she's so amazed by them.

Deep inside her, she wished she could do that too. To express herself through a medium. Like what do you mean you wrote this poem because you're sad your cat died? Or what do you mean you took this professional-looking picture just because you had the best picnic date with your friends? How can someone write a song about casual sapphic sex? She can't even vocalize her feelings, how much more in art? Whenever she sees someone writing their English essay so well or drawing randomly, she'd secretly be so interested.

✦ Mizu would have social media accounts but would use it bare minimum. She'd be that type of classmate that you're not sure if it's really her because she doesn't have a profile picture you can check or if she does, it's like a picture of an item instead of her face.

Her friends would be so happy whenever Mizu posts an IG story even if it's just a picture of where they were eating or even if their face is barely in the picture.

"Aww you posted us!" and they're like little ants with how small they were in the picture.

Or

"Do you want to eat at that place again?" and she'd be like 'what? why?' but they'd know she actually enjoyed the food because she bothered posting a picture of the place.

Deep inside her, Mizu wants to keep up with whatever trends her friends are into but she's very lowkey about it. The tough love friend who secretly really enjoys being friends, y'know? She'd search about it and try to figure it out. Everyone's surprised by her internet knowledge since she always acts like she wouldn't give a shit whatever new trend is on.

✦ This sounds so corny and stereotypical, but Taigen and her would be those gym rats who solve everything by working out. It didn't matter if it was a weekday, a weekend, a holiday, or whatever weather condition was going on outside, they are going.

They failed a test? Gym. Hungover? Gym. Too much homework? Gym.

When Megan Thee Stallion said she'll go to the gym two times a day, they go three. When she said the results are resulting? The body is bodying? These two are taking it seriously.

Taigen would focus on biceps, chest, and lats, cutting down on fat so his body would look more lean. He'd hate leg day but would do it anyway just to balance out his physique.

Meanwhile, Mizu would have a 'sleeper-type' build and her routine would be more well-rounded and would even include calisthenics on her free time. They'd try to beat each other's PR but it really ain't a competition when Mizu is always winning.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

how did you two meet?

Stupid shitty project.

Stupid fucking publisher gatekeeping the fucking article.

Stupid bitch ass school wifi keeps disconnecting.

Mizu resisted the urge to slam her laptop shut as her device disconnected from the wifi for the nth time. She was stuck in the library trying to finish her midterm project for building design system and holy shit was she frustrated.

She needed to create a specific building design that was supposed to be environmentally friendly, using what was considered as 'green materials' and had minimally destructive designs. It wouldn't be so bad if this fucking publisher just had to put a price on the article she needed. Wasn't education supposed to be free or whatever?

Her friends tried to help her, telling her to use the library computers, but none of them were working or free at the moment. That leaves her to use her laptop in the library. Usually, that wouldn't be a problem but due to the recent rains, the school wifi has been pretty shitty.

After a few more tries, she decided that this wasn't worth the frustration and trouble, and decided to collect her things to get ready to leave. Just as she was about to zip up her bag, a tap on the shoulder stopped her. She turned around to look at who was trying to get her attention, ready to tell them off. But upon turning around, her heart skipped a beat.

There you stood.

In your oh-so fancy sweatpants and college logo hoodie (whose logo wasn't even the university's). Your hair was ruffled and messy, eyes tired and more exhausted than her's. Understandably so though. It was hell week and everyone was tired, but somehow, your tired looked so pretty.

Her eyes continued to stare at you. Like the world stopped moving and it was just you and her in the room.

"Umm...there's a free computer over there if you still need it," you said shyly but in a straightforward manner. A small tired smile on your lips, trying to appear as friendly as possible. Mizu snapped out of her trance and nodded, slinging her bag over her shoulder to move to the said computer.

Maybe she'll stay for a bit. To finish her midterm project.

Definitely not for the pretty lady.

No, of course not.

Upon sitting down, she couldn't help but sneak glances at you, looking back down at the screen when you looked in her direction. She felt stupid, like a lovestruck fool. Borderline, like a child getting their first actual crush.

In her mind, she was already planning how to approach you without making it awkward. Maybe she'll try to strike up a conversation? But how? Hmmm..

It definitely took a while, being distracted and all, but she was finally able to finish her report. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself mentally to talk to you. She stood up and stretched after logging herself out, pretending to look around the room but in reality she was looking for you.

Much to her dismay, you were no where to be found. A small "fuck" left her lips as she sighed, picking her bag up. The universe must hate her. Giving her an opportunity to see the most beautiful person she's ever seen only for them to leave early? Fuck.

Her thoughts continued to plague her for the rest of the day, even until the next morning. It sounded so silly and so stupid for her to be this bothered, but she really just couldn't forget you. She sighed once again as she stared at the lecture hall walls, face hidden against her palms.

"Excuse me. Do you have an extra pencil?" a voice asked as she felt a tap on her shoulder. Looking up grouchily, her eyes widened immediately.

It was you.

And this time, she wasn't going to let this opportunity pass.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

but what now? (girlfriend headcanons)

✦ Mizu would absolutely remember EVERYTHING about you. Your birthday, MBTI score, favorites, dislikes, and even the silliest things such as what makes you sneeze.

She has a second brain for these, an internal SSD in her brain just for you. You won't even have to remind her about anything, because she already planned it out before you remember.

It's especially great for errands since you don't have to give her a list, she already has a list in her brain. Sometimes, you'd think she forgot because she's so quiet about it but she always finds a way to prove you wrong. If she says she forgot something about you, it's a lie. She never forgets, especially when it comes to her girlfriend.

✦ Would pretend to not understand or know how to do something just so you could teach or show her. Mizu definitely has a lot of skill up her sleeves, but whenever you asked if she knew something that she knew you were good at, she'd pretend not to.

"So I just click like this?" she asked you through the call, clicking on a minion. You had enthusiastically called her, asking if she wanted to learn how to play League of Legends. Unknown to you, your girlfriend already knew how to play and was quite good at it (that's a lie, she's beyond good).

She couldn't help but smile slightly as she watched you nod enthusiastically. The thought of you being so eager to spend time with her was heart-warming. She even made a dummy account just to make her beginner act look believable. "Yeah, you just need to keep this up. So should we queue together?" you asked, sounding really excited.

Mizu chuckled and nodded. "Don't get mad at me, okay?" she joked lightly, accepting your invite. "I won't. I'll be the ADC so you can play support until you get the hang of it, okay?" you said, checking which ADR champions you had cool skins of. Your girlfriend let out a small laugh at your enthusiasm, signaling you to start the queue.

The game went really well. Extremely well.

To your surprise, Mizu was quite a good support. Never accidentally stealing your CS, always being there during a clash, skill shots always hitting, knowing who to focus on. "It's because you're good at teaching people," she said.

But really, you wonder how she knew which items to build when you never even taught her.

✦ Would do the most random or the smallest things for you. She's not good at expressing her feelings so she makes up for it through acts of service and gift giving. Mizu tries her best to be as loving as she can without overwhelming you.

Can you even remember the last time you tied your own shoelaces? You can't. Can you?

Sometimes, you'll be surprised to arrive home with the fridge already stocked even though you had told her that you'll do the groceries on your next day off. The only response you'll get is a shake of her head and a random thing you mentioned you wanted to buy.

Sometimes, she's a bit silly though. Putting in the effort to remove her jacket to shield you from the rain even though you had an umbrella, removing the buckle of your helmet so she'd be the one to put it on you, gifting you random goofy greeting cards.

It's both endearing and a bit funny.

✦ Secretly loves it when you put makeup on her or if you let her do your makeup. Her amazement and fascination skyrockets whenever she watched you put make up on. It was a line of femininity that she was never taught to cross. She'd watch you with deep interest, observing how carefully you did it, how purposeful each step you did was.

"So why do you put it on?" she asks. You hum in thought before shrugging. "It just...makes me feel pretty."

What do you mean it makes you feel pretty?

You were already pretty.

You can't help but laugh at her and her curiosity. "It just does. It feels therapeutic to put on and I like how I look after, it's like expressing myself or something. Like painting but on your face," you explained to her, making her raise an eyebrow.

"But what if you don't like the way it looks?" she asked, picking up your eyeshadow palette and swatching a color on her hand curiously. "I can always take it off," you answered, blending the blush on your cheeks.

She stayed silent for a moment, continuing to swatch the colors on her hand. Her mind still couldn't wrap around the fact that this could make you feel better. Its just color and chemicals, and it washes off too.

Your eyes scanned her face before a soft laugh left your lips. "Here. Want to try?" you offered. Your girlfriend looked a bit hesitant but she wanted to understand.

Was this really fun?

After a few minutes, some struggles and squirming, you finally finished putting some make up on her. You tried your best to make it look as natural and as light as possible, knowing that she wouldn't appreciate the texture of heavy makeup immediately.

Blue eyes scanned over her own face on the mirror. She didn't say anything, but the slight twitch of her lips and the shine in her eyes spoke thousands.

"I want to do it on you too," she said quietly. "At least one thing. Let me try to do it for you."

You heart melted at her excitement. How could you refuse her when she finally finds something she likes? You handed her your eyeliner and sat down. "Here, follow my instructions.."

Mizu actually ended up liking it. Although she enjoyed putting it on you more, she still enjoyed it nonetheless. The amount of practice she put in made you wonder if she was actually better than you now. Somehow, she felt a bit of relief and a bit happy that she finally found something she could do that was considered as 'artistic'.

What started off as a simple "let me try" ended up being part of your routine. This woman never stopped practicing different eyeliner looks and now she just sits on your bed, waiting for you to finish your routine so she can put it on you. Sometimes she'd do a more creative graphic liner look, but on days you had to go to uni or work, she'd do the usual. She could probably do it with her eyes closed.

And the results?

SHARP.

Capital S H A R P.

[stormyjisung]

"So when did you know it was love?"

Members. Skz hyung line (+hyunjin)

Synopsis. Asking them about the time when they'd fallen for you entirely

A/n. I woke up missing ji and decided to write something for skiz, it's been a long time since I've written for them anyway. I was watching a movie yesterday (more like analysing the poster) and the tagline said, 'so when do you know it's love?' And my writer brain went wee woo 🚨.

Bang chan

"so when did you know it was love?"

The question caught chan off guard, eyes shifting from his phone to your face, eyebrows quirked up in amusement, "where's this coming from?"

Rolling onto your stomach you groaned, "I don't know, chan, it just randomly popped up"

A bubble of laughter left his lips, "well to answer your question, I think it was our last semester at uni? I don't really remember the setting love, but I do remember that I was having a bad day. That paired with a raging downpour pushed me over the edge and I called you, crying, definitely not one of my best moments" chan paused to shake his head, "you helped calm me down and said, 'I'll be right there' and before I could ask what you meant you hung up"

"And before I knew it, you turned up at the library soaked to the bone. You handed me my umbrella and gave me the biggest, warmest hug someone had ever given me, despite the fact that you were freezing,

We'd already been dating for a few months, and you'd stolen my heart countless amount of times but it was at that moment I knew you'd stolen my heart from me forever"

Your cheeks felt hot, chan had always been a man of many words but to hear him voice out the moment he fell in love with you word by word felt nothing short of ethereal.

"But I do wonder, why did you turn up looking like a wet dog when you had an umbrella with you?"

Shrieks of embarrassment and laughter filled the atmosphere, love seeping into your bones even deeper.

Minho

"when did you know it was love?"

You saw minho's hand pause midway while petting dori, "is this one of those tiktok thingies where go around asking your partner if they'd love you if you were a worm?"

"What- no! I was genuinely curious" you whined as minho let dori down, placing a finger on his chin he pondered.

"Honestly?"

"Yeah!" You leaned forward excitedly.

"It was that time when you messed up a party's dress code and showed up wearing a chicken onesie."

"Fuck off" you replied, kicking a pillow at his face as he cackled, "No but how does one mess up that bad?"

Faux disappointment seeped into your features causing minho to break, "okay fine. But you dare not make fun of me or I'll set birds loose on you"

"You wouldn't dare" you gasped, "try me" Came his reply.

"It was late September, when we'd just been dating for a few months and when my self confidence was at an all time low. I remember you'd been begging me to show you one of my choreos until I finally agreed."

"Oh! I do remember it, and when the day arrived you made every excuse under the sun to not show me the choreography!"

"Yeah, because I've always been a little bit of a workaholic and a perfectionist and all the girls I've dated before would ask me to stop working or 'take a break',

nothing wrong with their concern but it just got tiring since I geninunely loved dancing, but then that day when I showed you my choreography, you sat there starry eyed; watching my moves like a hawk and your mouth left partially open as if me dancing was the single most enchanting thing you'd ever seen."

"It was!" you replied in a heartbeat, not missing the way his ears turned red instantaneously, "-anyway, then I told you I wanted to work some more on the choreography before I could come home and you said 'well, let's work together!' And started giving me all these ideas even when you had two left feet yourself"

You would've retorted with a 'hey!' Had it not been the soft gaze in his eyes. You knew minho loved you, it showed in the way he'd tone down his teasing once in a while and remind you that he still loved you.

But after this, you doubt any insecurity would ever cross your mind.

Changbin

"when did you know it was love, bin?"

Changbin almost dropped the plate he was holding, caught utterly off guard by a question he most certainly had the answer to yet didn't trust his words enough, "what do you mean, babe?"

"When did you realize that you were in love with me?"

"I fall for you every day." He deadpanned

"Yeah- but, like, when was the first time?" you asked flustered by his prompt reply.

"You're cute" He giggled, ruffling your hair as his eyes shone with admiration, "I think it was when we had our first serious disagreement? The first time the rose colored glasses shattered and we could see ourselves for who we truly were"

"You said something along the lines of, 'I'd understand if you left right now' and it was the first time in my twenty one years of life that I'd experienced true heartbreak. And it was also the moment when I realized no matter how many fights we had or will inevitably have in the future, I'd never want to walk out on you or us"

He ended his little monologue by peppering sweet butterfly kisses on your forehead, "I'll always love you" He whispered between the kisses.

The orange hues of the setting sun illuminated the two soul mates in that room who failed to realize that their souls were always meant to love each other, maybe the setting sun knew their story for it smiled as it set across the horizon.

Hyunjin

"when did you know it was love?" You asked hyunjin as he raked his fingers through your hair gently, a low hum escaping him

"When did I know I'd fallen for you entirely?" He confirmed to which you gently nodded your head, the serene atmosphere felt unreal with you laying on his chest and him alternating between patting your head and softly brushing your hair

"That's a question that doesn't really have a definite answer, love"

You allowed a beat of silence to pass by before you spoke up, "what do you mean?"

"Falling in love with you wasn't a spur of the moment... it was rather an entire journey.

From the moment we met to right now, it's been one hell of a ride. We've seen seasons, weather and people change. We've seen each other change for the better, I've see you through your good, your bad and your ugly" He paused to let his eyes roam all over your face as if memorizing every miniscule detail

"But despite all of that, I wanted you. I wanted you every waking moment of my life, I wanted you on the days you were too sad to even get up, I wanted you on the days you were cranky and moody, I wanted you on the days you'd blow up on me, I wanted you, I want you.

And when you want someone like that, above their flaws, imperfections and blemishes I think it's fair enough to declare it as love"

Hyunjin was always a romantic, never failing to make you feel loved and cherished and even after years of dating him, he still managed to take your breath away. He talked about loving you as if it was the most natural thing for him to do, as if loving you was easy.

And that terrified you because hyunjin was just as easy to fall for, if not more.

Reblog to show your appreciation !

I love how I post once a week but am chronically online, tee hee.

[scuderiasundays]

time after time

summary: years of yearning ending in a fiery release 🧨 written with lennon stella's cover of "time after time" (one of my all-time favorites) on repeat!

words: 1315

a/n: those b/w milan photos gave me the final push i needed to get this out into the world! the first time i've written anything this long so i would appreciate any and all feedback 🫶🏼

September 2012

"I bet you could convince my mom to let me go." It was a picturesque night in Madrid as the words slipped out of his mouth. Gathered around a table adorned with colorful tapas, Carlos and his friends celebrated his and Y/N’s birthdays over Gambas al Ajillo and pints of Estrella Galicia. Sat across from Carlos was Y/N, his best friend who he had grown up alongside. The aspiring Formula 1 driver had been away for months, leaving behind his beloved hometown. Tonight, their tight-knit group had unanimously agreed to refrain from discussing anything related to motorsport, but Carlos couldn't help but come up with hypothetical situations that ended in successfully persuading his mother to allow him to race in Macau, a city an astonishing 10,497 kilometers away.

Would Y/N ever gather the strength to say no to those velvety brown eyes? The evening had quickly gone by, and Carlos and Y/N bid farewell to their friends, commencing their walk back to the Sainz residence. “Mama, look who I’ve brought home.” Reyes’ face lit up upon Y/N’s arrival at the front door. If ever a motherly instinct surged within Reyes, it was when she witnessed the two little ones growing up, sensing deep down they were destined to end up together. Reyes had been like a second mother to Y/N and had always gotten her a birthday gift of her choosing. “So, what shall it be this year?” Reyes beamed. “I want to use this year’s wish for Carlos, if that’s alright. He’s worked tirelessly this season and it would kill me if he didn’t get to race in Macau.”

“Carlitos put you up to this, no?” Reyes chuckled. Drawing Y/N into a warm embrace, she assured Y/N that Carlos could race at the Macau Grand Prix, so long as he stopped pressuring his best friend to speak on his behalf. To make up for her son’s foolishness, Reyes allowed Y/N to blow out the candles on the birthday cake she’d made for Carlos since she had virtually used up her birthday wish on him. Y/N closed her eyes, silently praying that this would be the year Carlos would come to his senses and realize she’s been madly in love with him this whole time.

July 2020

"You're not coming to Mallorca this summer?" Y/N could sense Carlos’ frustration seeping through the phone. It wasn't that she didn't want to go, of course she did. Summers in Mallorca were pure bliss. The refreshing gazpacho Reyes prepared, the laughter-filled board game sessions with Carlos' grandfather, and the exhilarating late-night padel matches with Carlos, Ana, and Blanca. There was cause for additional celebration this summer as Carlos had made it through the treacherous F1 silly season unscathed, securing a seat at McLaren. However, a mixture of the demands of residency and an unspoken truth kept Y/N from wanting to spend even a single moment with the man she had termed “Summer Carlos.”

Summer Carlos was carefree, bronzed, and exuded warmth. Summer Carlos was the Carlos who had drunkenly kissed her three summers ago, leaving her heartbroken when he acted as though nothing had happened the following day. The memory still stung, and Y/N wasn't sure if she was ready to face those emotions once again.

July 2022

Caco, Carlos' older cousin, had graciously invited Y/N to join them at the Silverstone Grand Prix. After managing to secure a weekend off from work, Y/N was euphoric escaping the sterile confines of the hospital. As she walked into the motorhome, a mix of emotions swirled within her. It had been months since she had last seen her best friend. Her job kept her tethered to the emergency room, while Formula 1 had taken Carlos across the globe.

The initial words that escaped Carlos' lips were, "You look pale, like you could use some Mallorcan sun." Y/N couldn't decipher whether he genuinely wanted her there or not. The uncertainty lingered, leaving her unsure of where they stood after all this time apart.

Eager to avoid being in anyone's way, especially Carlos', Y/N decided to take a stroll around the paddock. Lost in her thoughts, she ran into Lando, Carlos' former teammate, who recognized her immediately and approached with a friendly smile. "How've you been, Y/N? We miss you over at McLaren.” Y/N had tended to Lando after his Eau Rouge crash during qualifying in 2021, forging a close bond between them.

A faint smile appeared on Y/N's face as she replied, "Maybe I'll seek refuge at McLaren's hospitality this weekend since it seems like Carlos doesn't want me here." Lando chuckled in his characteristic way, the sound putting Y/N at ease. "You and I both know the man is terrible at expressing his feelings. He's probably just yearning for you because you've been too busy saving lives. Trust me," Lando reassured her. "I'm running late for a meeting, but I'll catch up with you later, okay?"

Y/N's mind was filled with curiosity, trying to make sense of Lando's words. Carlos pining for her? It seemed impossible, given their history and the distance that had grown between them. Yet, a flicker of hope ignited within her, and she couldn't help but wonder if there was more to Carlos' aloofness than she had initially assumed.

Y/N's phone buzzed, and her heart skipped a beat as she read Carlos' message: "You and me in my driver's room now." Her hands shook as she knocked on the door, waiting for his response. "Come in," he replied, and as she entered, she couldn't help but notice how he made the fiery Ferrari red his own.

"You can't just waltz back into my life whenever you feel like it, Y/N. Race weekends are sacred to me, and you showing up out of nowhere is a distraction. It's not like you even care about me or my career anyways. When was the last time you watched a race, hmm? Dr. Y/N is always too busy at the hospital."

Y/N wouldn't allow Carlos to lash out at her like this, not after all the sacrifices she had made. Countless sleepless nights on call, choosing to stay awake to watch Carlos race in distant cities. Collecting every article featuring him since his karting days, carefully preserving them in a special scrapbook. Being there for him in his darkest moments, answering late-night calls when the pressure almost crushed him.

"You can't push me away that easily. We both know I've always been there for you, to the point where I didn’t even know who I truly was when you reached Formula 1 and left Madrid," Y/N said. "I only bury myself in my work to avoid facing the emptiness that hangs over the city when you’re not around."

Carlos felt a pang of pain as he witnessed his best friend break down in front of his eyes. Had he truly misunderstood everything all along? Y/N's words pierced through his heart. "I’m all yours. I always have been," she said, her tears dampening her sleeves.

In an attempt to console her, Carlos whispered softly, "Don't cry, princesa. Mama will kill me if she finds out I made you so upset."

Y/N couldn’t help but giggle through her tears. “Well, go out and win this race for me, and I'll promise not to snitch.”

“For you, anything,” he said.

“And for the first time in Formula 1, Carlos Sainz is victorious! He wins the British Grand Prix!” The electrifying announcement filled the air as Y/N ran from the garage to the podium. As Carlos emerged from the car, his eyes searched for one face in particular. With both hands, he gently caressed Y/N's face. Without hesitation, he pressed his lips against hers, years of longing exploding in a passionate release. The two of them radiated a golden glow, as if destiny herself had brought them together, time after time.

[justarandompersononthehellsite]

So... @muffinlance wrote a really awesome story. I read a post from a point in time, though I truly do not remember when since it seems like I've been working on this project forever, saying that she gives blanket permission for people to print and bind the story into a book (I think there was an also addendum saying that they do not give permission to be sold, since selling fic is illegal). This fic has had total control over my whole brain since it was sent to me (@creatorofthemind I believe it was you, so thank you forever for tuning me into it) back during the days of like chapter six or seven.

So here I am now, sharing this amazing journey of my first ever bookbinding adventure. Further reading below.

So to give you an idea of what's going on, this is a fanfiction about Zuko (Avatar the Last Airbender) (animated show version, the LA show did not exist yet and we do not speak of the movie) being adopted by Hakoda, Father of Katara and Zuko. (This might have also been what kicked off the Give Zuko A Parent craze, but don't fact check me.)

Overall, the characters from the show stick very well to the cannon versions, but where MuffinLance really shines is in the rich backstories and fleshed out feeling of all the non cannon elements. Especially the background characters. I would argue that the writing in this peice of fanwork could easily rival the cannon show at many points of comparison.

Now that you have context, we can get into the actual process.

To start, I used this guide to figure out where to even begin, and fount the included resource list to also be quite helpful. I cannot for the LIFE OF ME figure out where I found the template I used for the front matter and such, but it must be somewhere and I will link to it when I inevitably come across it again.

Then I began to typeset. This step took... a long time. I worked in chunks from about September of 2022 to late March of 2024. I would get a big section done, sometimes even the entire thing, but then find I hated the way I had done it and give up for months at a time. Such is the life of ADHD and flitting interest in projects I suppose.

And then finally, step one was done, and I was left with pages on a word document that look like this. (And do please let me know if you want the link to the document. It was so much work, and I would love to not be the only one to use it.)

Next step was printing out this beast. Ended up being about eight pages of front matter, and about 630 pages of body text.

That I printed wrong.

Twice.

Before finally getting it right. And then not getting a picture of it, because I finished at 4 am and had work at 7, and am also an idiot.

Then I simply stitched along, putting everything together into a beautiful text block.

And came up with a design for the cover.

Yes the glue did end up lumpy. Ignore it.

Yes I did have to sketch out the design onto a scraped page several times before I figured out what I was doing. Ignore that too.

The cover design does wrap around the entire cover. No I did not get a picture before I glued the thing down. See again: I'm an idiot. And just... massively impatient.

Finally, we get to the stage of gluing. Behold, my bookpress.

Of course, topped with Madam MuffinLances own actual professional-people book, Fox's Tounge and Kirin's Bone. It is Excelent. Here is the LINK so you can go and support this amazing author with the real-monies as well as the internet-kudos.

Then, once everything is glued together, one must give the book its "gilt" edges.

[thepariahcontinuum]

MARZ Rising - Chapter 170: The End (Epilogue)

Okay, I've been holding off on getting emotional with my goodbye to this story and this extended AU but now's the time, so here it is:

I Started writing this story in March 2021, the fifth installment of a project which has been ongoing ever since I began posting The Downward Spiral in September of 2016…. Almost eight years of coming to a close here and I can only hope that I've done myself justice.

By coincidence it also transpired that I wrote this epilogue in the same week that the end of Rooster Teeth after twenty-one years was announced, something which made me want to work harder because this is now no longer just my send-off to the Spiral-Verse but also, as things stand to RWBY and Rooster Teeth as a whole. RWBY has been a big part of my life for these last eight years, it's the show that made me a writer and I can honestly say that my life would not look the same at all without it.

I also want to take a moment to thank every single reader who has enjoyed these stories, especially those who have left reviews and especially those few of you who have been here since the beginning.

There's also a very special thank you and goodbye I need to say here, it wouldn't feel right if I didn't: That is to the user @thesumosnipe who was the driving force to continue the Spiral-Verse beyond its' third installment, this story would literally not exist without him however he unfortunately passed away in 2022….Wish you could have been here for this.

This marks the end of an era, I'm at a point now where I want to move away from Fanfiction and begin posting my own original writing. Ideas are in place and will be taking shape in the near future.

I wish you all well now and in the future and as the late, great Monty Oum said "Keep moving forward"

FF Net

Ao3

[utilitycaster]

@notstinglesstoo replied to your post “The thing is, and I haven't gotten a chance to...”:

I saw someone not long ago say cr has always felt like a product to them vs D20 feeling organic and I protected my peace but I did want to ask them if they were brain dead

​Oh man I wanted to address this at length because I feel this. My posts have been centered, again, specifically on published journalists picking Daggerheart aprt critically and applauding themselves for doing so despite it being within a couple of hours of its release and therefore any analysis is necessarily going to be based on at best, a skim, when they just as frequently will claim D20 seasons/Kollok are flawless works of genius based on only a partial read, but man D20's got a fandom problem too. (and all of the following comes with the caveat of "I really enjoy D20, and Dropout, and while we're at it WBN and NADDPod which both are half D20 Intrepid Heroes cast, and think Brennan is a particularly brilliant GM, and also it's obvious that the D20 and CR casts are on great terms, and wish the fandom for D20 were more welcoming and enjoyable because I feel it wasn't like this when I first started watching, as a CR fan, in late 2019 and has since curdled into something really weird and bad.")

The first point is the obvious one: technically speaking these are both products. These are performers doing an art form; it is also a portion of how they make their money with which they can buy goods and services. Believing that art is inauthentic when the artist gets paid and acknowledges that is a thing that happens is a fucking libertarian position at best. Like cool, you think only people who are independently wealthy by other means can make art, because it's not real labor, my kid could paint that, etc etc.

The second point is also pretty obvious. I have pushed back pretty hard on the "uwu CR is just watching friends! it's like we're in their living room" mentality among the fandom, which has decreased, thankfully, but like...it did in fact start organically as a private home game, and they decided, when invited, to make it A Show For An Audience. D20 was created on purpose as a show for an audience. This doesn't make it bad or fake - reread the previous paragraph - but in terms of "this is an group of people who really played D&D in this world together even before the cameras were rolling," Critical Role literally is that, and D20 is not.

I think beyond that...my biggest issues with the D20 fandom are first, the level of discourse is abominable. The tag is almost always just shrieking praise and the most surface-level readings possible. I keep bringing up the "Capitalism is the BBEG" mug but it genuinely sums up so much of how I feel; people who want their existing beliefs fed to them as surface-level no-nuance takes. I mean capitalism is fucking terrible but I do not need every work I watch to have a character turn to the camera and say "capitalism is bad" to enjoy myself, and indeed it makes it harder due to the lack of subtlety and grace. For all D20 fans complain about how unhealthily parasocial CR fans can be (and some can be), I find that a lot of the most unhealthily parasocial "how dare they BETRAY my TRUST by having a ship I don't like or not speaking up about every single societal ill" ex-CR fans move over to D20 and then pull the exact same shit; it simply doesn't get called out. Every time D20 fans are like "we don't want to become the CR fandom" it's like "your toxic positivity and unhealthy parasocial behavior exceeds the HEIGHT of what I've seen in CR; the main difference is that CR started in 2015 when D&D was still shaking off the raging bigot dudebros and so in the early days it acquired more of those fans, whereas by the time D20 came around the landscape of who played D&D and watched Actual Play had shifted wildly, and you need to judge September 2018 D20 fans in parallel to September 2018 CR fans, not September 2015 CR fans."

I also feel, and I alluded to this in the post about journalism, and other people have said this better than I have, but the pedestal people have put D20 on does feel like a single...not even misstep, but just, difficult choice that doesn't capitulate to the loudest fans will bring a good chunk of that fandom crashing to the ground. And that includes the journalists. For all the fans of CR can still be obsessed with the cast to an unhealthy degree? The cast and company have put up pretty strong boundaries and have not budged. D20 hasn't, and I think the second they do - and I think it will be for their benefit as a company and a channel - a big chunk of their most vitriolic CR-hating portion of the fandom will viciously turn on them.

[kaypeace21]

[The future of this BLOG]: SHOWS I'm planning on analyzing here & on YouTube

Interview with the vampire

Invincible

House of the dragon

The boys

Umbrella acadamy

Bridgerton probably (still haven't had time to watch part 2 yet)

stranger things: I have mixed feelings about reviewing it given what certain staff has said and done. I oscilate between wanting to review the final season or wanting to boycott it (especially as someone who has been part of the BDS movement for 1/2 her life). But, on one hand, It's not the fault of the underpaid (and talented) writers and staff who don't have these views. And I do believe some of the writing staff may have good intentions and want to give us a positive and powerful message to the audience about healing from childhood tr*uma. However, other members of the writing staff may just want to go down the stereotypical and popular-easy route. We'll just have to wait and see what happens in the last season. If I hear the ending isn't simply another re-hashing of prior seasons and it's more like s1-2 (without the cliches of s3-4). I'd be more inclined to review it by *cough* and watching it elsewhere. Once I was logged back on to tumblr: I did have a whole draft saved about my politics since I was a kid and why I still feel so strongly about such conflicts, today . But, I shouldn't make the topic about me- and I'm not sure anyone wants to hear my life story XD. So, the big point (to my followers) is regardless of whether I chose to watch it or boycot it-

I'm not deleting the old ST content: so do what you want with it (like, reblog, add details to reblogs I didn't notice). Have fun :D !

Analyzing ST certainly helped me improve in terms of media literacy (and it'll be beneficial for the future content I make). So even if it sometimes got messy here, I do appreciate all the positives the ST blog and followers brought to me.The kind words meant a lot. For those who want to unfollow me for my political beliefs , that's totally fine. That's your prerogative. For those who want to unfollow cause again ST was pretty much my whole blog: again I TOTALLY understand and I wish you the best :). I'm not going to judge, take away, or guilt anyone, for their choice of media they like. Enjoy it (I truly mean that).

For those who continue to follow my blog . I appreciate you SO MUCH! I've been gone from this blog for such a long time cause of school (and I appreciate those who stayed and were excited to see me again). The positive words meant a lot over the years. Everyone have a lovely day. Take care of yourselves.

Sincerely, Kay

ps: I'm open to other media suggestions too so you can drop them in my message box (recent films/ shows, mini/limited series, animation, heck i'm open to comedies and foreign media too).But, analyzing them will most likely be after the shows listed above .Right now I'm focusing on my national exam and my mental health. My first video will probably be in late August or early September. My test is August 20th. Hope everyone is doing well .I'm feeling much better mentally. Hope everyone is feeling the same way :)

for my 1st video I’ll just post it to youtube . But for other videos I may make a early access patreon (like a week before the next video comes out free on youtube). Have to google how all that works (or if there's better alternatives) . Totally fine if you can't afford it (you'll get to see it for free on youtube regardless :D) . I'll be honest . I'm primarily thinking of doing it cause I need to pay off those student loans and I'm trying to hopefully move out of state in a few years. Plus, I love analyzing media anyways (so making it a part time job would be a dream come true .

[bitesizedpoetry]

Writer's Block: Sylvia Plath

Excerpts from "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath", 1950-1962

Bills come. I write nothing. The novel, or rather, the 3-page a day stint, is atrocious. I can't get at it. I am writing with a blunt pencil tied on a mile-long stick, at something far off over the horizon line. Will I break through someday? At least if I get 300 pages written by the end of May, I'll have the creaking, gushing skeleton plot of the whole thing. Then I can write slowly, re-writing each chapter, carefully with a subtle structured style. If I can ever find a subtle structured style. (04 March 1957)

A whole week, and I haven't written here, nor picked up the book. For good reason. For the first time a lapse of writing here spells writing. I was taken by a frenzy a week ago Thursday, my first real day of vacation, and the frenzy has continued ever since: writing and writing: I wrote eight poems in the last eight days, long poems, lyrical poems, and thunderous poems: poems breaking open my real experience of life in the last five years: life which has been shut up, untouchable, in a rococo crystal cage, not to be touched. I feel these are the best poems I have ever done. Occasionally I lifted my head, ached, felt exhausted. Saturday I groaned, took pellets of bufferin, stitched in the worst cramps and faintness for months, which no pills dulled, and wrote nothing. (28 March 1958)

Looked at the two pages of my Pillars story I wrote yesterday and felt disgust at the thinness of them. The glaze again. Prohibiting the density of feeling getting in. I must be so overconscious of markets and places to send things that I can write nothing honest and really satisfying. My feverish dreams are mere figments; I neither write nor work nor study. Of course I depend on the mirror of the world. I have one poem I am sure of, the snake one. Other than that, no subjects. The world is a blank page. I don't even know the names of the pine trees, and, worse, make no real effort to learn. Or the stars. Or the flowers. (29 September 1959)

My absolute lack of judgment when I've written something: whether it's trash or genius....Exhausted today after several late nights. Fit to write nothing. (14 November 1959)

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Musings - Tentative Timeline (Pt1: 1940 - 1948)

I've been struggling with this for a while, cuz this ish just don't make sense, AMC. (I fully expect S3 to gotcha/retcon/fix stuff, esp. since who knows what Armand's tinkered around with in Louis' head.) I split this timeline in 2 parts: Pt1 has everything from 2x1 - 2x6ish; and then ofc Pt2 will cover as much as I can understand from the Trial's shenanigans.

(I'm just one person tryna figure out wtf is going on, so if y'all have any insights, please share!)

1940 - 1945

Claudia & Louis cross Eastern Europe (2x1)

pre-February 6, 1940: Mardi Gras, NOLA.

1x7 diary entry (x x): "Dear Diary, I've been planning the trip out in my head. When we get to Europe, we aren't going to look at any of the touristy sights. We are instead going straight to the Black Sea and then on to the Carpathian Mountains. Those are the places I've been reading about in the books I've brought with me. We had to learn so much…." (Carpathian countries inc. Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovak Republic, and Ukraine.)

Roget (2x2): "We have not heard from Monsieur de Lioncourt since February 1940, when we processed several wires for him, for a party he was throwing."

September 8, 1941: 1x4 diary entry, Ploiesti, Romania: "The POWs are malnourished, nothing but bone and sinew. Their blood is bitter. It almost makes you feel sick to drink it. Catch 'em as they trudge from their work in the oil fields every night. They don't have much strength to fight..." (Ploiesti bombed for its oil from 1941-1944.)

1944: Madeleine's head is shaved during Paris' épuration légale along with the other Nazi collaborators. (An IRL photo from June 21, 1944.) France's Nazi occupied Vichy regime: July 10, 1940 - August 9, 1944. [see De Gaulle below]

Pre-1945: Cross from Ukraine into Nazi Romania (again). Claudia is speaking German to the Nazi at the checkpoint, who says "Black Ukranian? Waffen-SS, Checkpoint 30317."

DREAMSTAT: "Four years of grim wayfaring, and still no sight of the benevolent vampire."

April 30, 1945: "In Germany, Herr Hitler had popped a pill in his bunker, and Europe celebrated."

1944 / 1945: "But in Romania, the champagne fizzled and went flat. Soviets replaced Nazis.... War became occupation." (Soviet occupation of Romania lasted from 1944 - 1958.) Stopped by the racist Soviets in Emilia's town.

Post-April 30, 1945: 2x1 radio announcement: "The triumph over Hitler's evil can be felt throughout France, and in no more fantastic an example than the priceless works of art being bundled up in the countryside, lifted on to trucks and returned to their rightful place in Paris. And we of the BBC World Service, speaking for the rest of the western world, send a most grateful thank you to our allies in France with one of your very own. ['Y'a Pas D'Printemps' by Edith Piaf plays]."

1944 / 1945: "There is No Spring” by Edith Piaf is recorded July 4, 1944.

Late June, 1945: Louis & Claudia leave Romania (after Emilia & Daciana died); near the 1-year anniversary of There is No Spring; right before Venus de Milo was about to head to Paris along with the rest of the "priceless works of art being bundled up."

July 2, 1945: Venus de Milo officially returns to the Louvre. Louis & Claudia arrived in Paris with it. (August 1945: Louvre reopened.) "Claudia was entirely broken. She had left a part of herself in Romania. I knew I had to steer her far away from it. I chose the city that called to us on the radio. To the mother of New Orleans.... The war had turned off the lights, stripped its streets of their beauty, sent its avant-garde into exile. But now, the whole world was ready to return, to remake their lives. Pilgrims on their hopeful way."

1945

Claudia & Louis in Post-War Paris (2x2)

1944 - 1946: Charles De Gaulle chairs the Provisional Government of the French Republic June 3, 1944 - January 26, 1946. "De Gaulle's Paris had me etherized. If Claudia and I were looking over our shoulder at all, it was in astonishment our skin did not attract the same attention it did in America."

May 8, 1945: France's Sétif and Guelma Massacre of Algierian citizens (Franco-Algerian relations evaporated). DANIEL: "Right, because there wasn't any racism in mid-20th century France. I think your Algerian inferiors of the time might disagree." LOUIS: "But I wasn't an Algerian. I was an American, and if there was an assumption that I'd arrived to blow a trumpet or sing for my supper, it did not register as a slight in those days. I was just grateful knowing no one wanted to lynch me, or direct me to the far end of the café counter!"

1944 - 1949: Black markets & rationing chokehold over Paris.

LOUIS: "We hid ourselves away in an inconspicuous apartment in Le Neuvieme, passing ourselves off as moneyed Americans, over-spending for black market baguettes. It was the perfect cover."

ARMAND: "The estate of the family De LaCroix. Whilst their countrymen clutch ration cards, they've made quite a killing manipulating the black markets."

1945 - 1950: Paris' economy impoverished. "No salt, no butter. Can't have milk unless you got a newborn. And read here, 'Hospitals running low on Plaster-of-Paris for a record number of broken bones due to decalcification and undernourishment.' You want francs in pockets? These people are broke! I saw a woman tonight in a patchy five-year-old dress putting on a brand new lipstick.... Paris is on her way back. Give her a little time, is all."

LOUIS: "Five months of anxiety-producing choices, and not one 'bonjour,' or 'prépare-toi à mourir'?!"

ARMAND: "Five months removed from their velvet-heeled arrival, the Americans were finally coming to Pigalle."

SANTIAGO: "Five months of nights. Five insolent months of nights, waiting for you to humble us with your appearance. I ask you, Maitre, was it worth the wait?"

November 1945: Armand confronts Louis; invites Louis & Claudia to the Theatre des Vampires. (June to November is 5 months.) (ARMAND: "I had lost patience. I was convinced we were being toyed with and I could hold back the coven only so long. I knew the park well myself, knew what went on in the rambles there, so I was not surprised to find him without the girl. I would confront the elder, and make him aware of the ways rogue vampires were dealt with in Paris.")

LOUIS: Armand knows all about Lestat. CLAUDIA: How long's he known?! LOUIS: The whole time. Read our minds, first night at the theater.

November 14, 1945: 1x4 diary entry: "We've arrived in Paris, what a relief! My whole dead self feels revitalized head to toe. We might be outsiders to both human and Parisian life, but I do appreciate both now with such fervor! Granted, I've never hated my body [more]...." This also matches with Claudia meeting Madeleine and wanting clothes tailored to her size. And also with Louis remarking that it was only at the Theatre that "Claudia absolutely loved them. And it was the first time in Paris I had seen a smile or a laugh come out of her that wasn't for my benefit." By mid-November, Claudia's unhappy mood had vastly improved.

mid-December 1945: The coven hunt at Chateau de la Croix. "Claudia had attended a month of performances and the coven felt she had proven herself sincere." (Mid-December means this was likely a Christmas party the coven crashed! 😂🤣) Armand warns Louis to stop visiting Roget, and stop lying to the coven about Lestat/"Bruce."

1946

Claudia's coven initiation period; Loumand's courtship

Spring 1946:

Estelle sneezes during No Pain: "It's hay season!" This makes no effing sense for vampires to have allergies, but whatever, it was funny.

Louis keeps cruising gay parks. "There was a park I'd heard about. I would go to this park often. I was an armored thing that spring, someone steady on his feet, but… With a history of chasing the wrong kind of love." It is impossible for Louis to mean Spring of 1945, cuz that's when Hitler died, and that's before Venus de Milo arrived in Paris. This also makes no sense, if we accept that Armand met Louis in Nov. 1945, five months after their arrival.

Loumand starts courting. (LOUIS: "I walk a new part of the city every night. I try to get lost. Somehow I always end up back by the river [Seine]." ARMAND: "I started spending less time at the theater and more nights strolling the boulevards with Louis.")

Claudia is initiated in the coven; she doesn't sleep in the apartment anymore. (2x4, "What the f**k's gone on without me here?!")

Spring - Summer 1946: Baby LouLou starts performing [See Sept. '47 below.]

1946: Jean-Paul Sartre: "Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract what is concrete," (2x3). A wildly popular quote, which no one ever cites. I can only assume it's an English translation of something Sartre originally said in French. All I could find that came remotely close is his Oct 1945 - Dec 1946 speech(es) L'existentialisme est un humanisme: "If values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust in our instincts." IDFK, I'm not into all that confusing philosophical blahblah.

1946 - 1949: Loumand's sexcapades, Louis' photography. (RASHID: "The Paris Albums, 1946-1949." LOUIS: "Those were our young friends. Humans. Guys." ARMAND: "Some are very old now, most are dead. And some we simply drained for sport. Well… generally me! Louis has his ways.")

1947

Spring - Summer 1947: Louis starts art dealing.

LOUIS: I bought a Fougeron from you early in the year. I was a little short of asking, so I threw in that watch I was wearing. ALOIS: Ah, yes, yes, a good watch. Where did you hang the Fougeron? LOUIS: Over my bed all spring. Then I sold it to Germain Seligman in summer.

Fall 1947: Claudia's sick & tired of Baby LouLou

LOUIS: "By the 500th performance, Claudia was beyond bored."

ARMAND: "So explain to the company why the 500th performance of 'My Baby Loves Windows' felt more like a slog than a celebration?"

500 nights = 16 months, or 1.3 years, assuming Claudia did 1 performance every single night. In 2x4 Armand said: "Fifteen minutes a night to pretend."

CELESTE: Maitre might not have noticed as he has been nomadically attending the Theatre Des Vampires. SANTIAGO: And the infection spread what, year and a half ago? CELESTE: When a certain vampire was granted dispensation from coven membership.

September 1947: Boris Vian/Vernon Sullivan's Les morts ont tous la meme peau published. If we take Louis reading Vian's book the month it came out, in September, and 16 months of Baby LouLou performances, Claudia would've had to have started performing around June/Summer of 1946, give/take a few months, depending on when Louis got the book, and how regularly Claudia performed.

Fall 1947: Louis discusses R-26, where he's been visiting in 2x4.

ALOIS: So, you've been showing your work at the Perriers' salon? LOUIS: Always something interesting happening there. ALOIS: Maybe before the war more than now. But then I'm rarely out of my gallery.

Late 1947 - Early 1948

(There's A LOT that happens from 2x4 - 2x6 that I'm really unsure of. The ONLY diehard dates I have are for Louis' Wols painting, and Sam's Godot play. So I have to assume everything below happens within that timeframe.)

Celeste, Estelle & Santiago investigate Lestat at Roget's.

Armand lies about the Maitre coup: "In retrospect, the buffoon was in the audience, oblivious to the conspiracy uniting around him."

Madeleine almost gang-raped; Claudia reveals her vampirism

Claudia's final diary entry "Diaries are friends of last resort. I have found one not made of paper and glue. F**k these vampires."

Louis buys the Wols / Let's Go Sunning plays on the radio(?)

Louis meets Madeleine; Armand meets Madeleine

Sam's Godot play

Late 1947 - Early 1948: Santiago's Maitre coup starts; steals Claudia's diaries. Louis dumps DreamStat; Loumand's Arun/Maitre roleplay starts. (Because of the rain & lack of snow, I wonder if this is Fall 1987 / Spring 1948?)

Late 1947 - Early 1948: Sam starts writing several scripts:

Whatever play Santiago was rehearsing for, in 2x6's title "Like the light by which God made the world, before He made light." Meanwhile, the coven is passing around Claudia's diaries.

Waiting for Godot

The Trial script(?)

Late 1947 - Early 1948: Celeste, Estelle & Santiago investigate Lestat at Roget's.

Late 1947 - Early 1948: Louis buys a Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze), It's All Over The City (1947).

(Question: Is Jack Shaindlin's Let's Go Sunning (which plays as Santiago eavesdrops on Loumand banging) anachronistic, or does AMC know something I don't--more than likely--cuz Google keeps telling me it was first used in 1954 in the film Garden of Eden?)

Late 1947 - Early 1948: Louis meets Madeleine; Armand meets Madeleine (the same night, since they're all in the same clothes).

1948

HUGE timeskip. The ONLY definite timeframe I have is Godot.

October 9 1948 - January 29 1949: Waiting for Godot, by The Vampire Samuel Barclay / IRL Samuel Barclay Beckett.

Right after this scene, they cut to Dubai!Louis describing IRL events from 1949. So I'm cutting this post off here, to put all of that in context wrt the Trial, that also happened in 1949.

[py-dreamer]

Ooop- so it's almost mid september...

Y'know what that means?

Yea so we have a return of the stickers!!!

Well less stickers and kinda whatever this is Ig

Don't get me wrong I'm still super proud of it! I suppose it was meant to be like stickers from last year but it kinda escalated and sort off got a wee bit out of hand...

...just a tad bit...

Woooh! So anyone who's in the KNY hotpot might recognize this style and yes I did basically use the KNY birthday art format but COME ON!!!

IT'S SO CUTE!!!

LOOK AT MAH BOIII SITTING ON THAT CAKE!!!

I JUST WANNA NOM BIG BITE!!!

(If you can't tell I do really like this cake art)

I promise this time it is really 10 days till my actual birthday unlike the whoopsie 11 I did last year -_-'

And I know it's not Mk's birthday even though it looks like it is, I know. But it's the bloody format of the art and Idk how else to change it. Besides I think they slay in those birthday outfits.

And it was fun to do my sticker style in a bigger thing!

But Idk if it's cause I haven't touched my bloody stylus in ages or I've been swimming in the KNY hotpot for too long BUT WHY WAS MK'S FACE SO HARD TO DRAW FROM THE FRONT VIEW!!!

I HAD TO COMPROMISE, MANS LOOKING TOWARDS THE SIDE!!!! LIKE XIAOTIAN I LOVE YOU AND WANT TO SQUEEZE THEM CUTE LIL CHEEKS OF YOURS BUT WHY ARE YOU SO HARD TO DRAW FROM THE FRONT!??!?

HE LOOKED LIKE A BLOODY CAT WITH SLIT EYES Y'ALL!!!

Oml...regardless, I did have a lot of fun with this and had lots of fun with the decorations and such. If you were here last year, your keen memory and astute eye might notice that the cake is the same cake I used in the 'shenanigans in space' birthday stickers I did last year!

@leesbian42, @cats-and-confusion remember that lol?

So the tiny memory flower thing and star candies are an homage to that :)

(btw, pssttt @emerialyncodevenice I know we haven't talked in a while but you mentioned that you liked the bloomin cake and was thinking of using it. Feel free to use this if you like, Idk how just credit me m'kay?)

But anyways, if y'all wanna use this pic, again. Pls credit me.

AND NO REPOSTING PLEASE!!!

The decorations are meant to be sugar cookies and idk what the icing is. Since I'm thinking more of an east asian fruit cake (those really really soft fluffy spongy ones) I was thinking more like light yellow dyed whipping cream and less buttercream.

Maybe even some kinda custard Idk...(does custard go well with cake?)

The orange chunks are meant to be like mango balls or chunks and hopefully the red thingys in the middle read across as strawberries

I had to include the Monkey king plush, he's just so little!

I was tempted to draw in the other characters as plushies since they are as important to MK probably but it's getting late and I'd already been working on this baby for like 3 hours already.

All in all, I do really like this and ngl, pray this doesn't flop.

I know my single stickers don't always do well but pls y'all I like this very much...

It is nice to compare this year's work and last year and I am proud to say I have improved at least somewhat

And as for why I rarely post, well I've gotten back from my holiday but sadly I'm at that age where work and stuff will be my main focus for the time being.

Got a lot of assignments and tests y'know...

(hell I have one due the 17th and tests to do tomorrow and here I am faffing on about legos on tumblr)

And like I said, I have been blipping and dabbing in demon slayer, read a lot more KNY fics lately (I actually have a mini sketch of kamaboko squad as hashiras, heavily inspired off of other designs but even so-, if I'm in the mood I might post that!)

But enough yapping, I'll try my best to keep up this 10 days thing

(if you don't know up till my birthday for 10 days I try to post a sticker or thingy like this one)

no promises since I am busier this year but this was a lot of fun so you'll definitely see some stuff.

(I just realized I have to keep up this level of detail in my other stuff T^T save meeeeeee plsssss)

[iam93percentstardust]

It's not just the commodification of fandom. It's not just the disinterest in wips in favor of completed stories. It's not just the unwillingness to take chances on new writers.

It's the demand for instant gratification too.

I'm posting a "wip" right now. It's actually a fully completed story, and I stated that in the A/N when I started posting it a few weeks ago. I finished writing it early in December. It's not going to be abandoned and discontinued. Short of a tragic accident, it will 100% be posted in its entirety before the end of January.

It's also almost 60k words long. Each chapter is approximately 14k words. That's a lot to expect people to read quickly, so I made the decision to post weekly instead of dumping it all at once. I don't normally do that for wips. I normally post bimonthly to give myself time to write the next chapter. But in concession to the fact that this one is already finished, I decided to post once a week. Could I have posted it all at once or even once a day? Sure, but again, I have more than a few close friends who are slow readers, and I thought it was better to give people the time to read each chapter and let it digest before dumping another one on them instead of making them feel like they have to read it immediately so they don't miss the next update.

This, apparently, was a mistake.

I've been very open about working on this fic since I started it in September. People told me they were excited to get the chance to read it every time I posted an update about where I was in the writing process. When I announced that I was posting it, they told me that they couldn't wait to read it. It's not like I was expecting massive numbers of kudos and comments; this fandom has shrunk in size and engagement, I'm not the most popular writer in it, and I try not to feel entitled to engagement, but considering all the people telling me they were excited for it, I was expecting something.

Instead it was crickets. All those people who were so excited and told me they couldn't wait to get home to read it? That was the last I heard from them, unless it was to express outright incredulity that I expected them to read a work in progress. "It's not a work in progress!" I protested. "I'm just taking a little longer to post it!" Yeah, but it's not posted all in one go, so why should we bother to read it? We'll just wait until the end of January once it's finished. "Will I hear from you then? Will I get any indication at all that you liked it?" Eh, maybe. If we feel like it. But it'll only be one comment at the very end. If that.

This keeps happening. If it's not an already completed chaptered fic that I'm posting over time instead of immediately, then it's an idea that I had first talked about a while ago but took a couple months to write only to be met with silence once I start posting because everyone moved on and forgot about it. If it's not ready to go right now in all its fully finished glory and all 60k words posted immediately after I first spoke about it, then why am I talking about it at all? Why should I expect people to be waiting in anticipatory eagerness?

I remember when I posted my first Christmas event fic in 2020. It was already finished too when I started posting it. I'd been talking about it all year. People had seemed really excited for it when I first mentioned it, but then interest seemed to die out somewhere around August. By the time I started posting it in late November, I was fully convinced that no one was going to read it. I actually posted the first chapter and then immediately turned my computer off and didn't let myself turn it back on until the next day.

I was shocked by the number of readers I had. The number of comments. The sheer amount of people telling me they'd been waiting on tenterhooks for me to post that first chapter. And it kept coming. People were talking and theorizing and marking their conversations with spoiler bars for anyone who hadn't read the latest chapter. People timed when I posted the first few chapters so they could be waiting by their computer for when I dropped the next one. I was randomly gifted art. It was really an event, and I'll always be grateful for the support and community I was given for that month.

I never believed I'd ever be able to capture that kind of readership again, and I was right, and that's okay. But when I posted last year's Christmas event fic, for the first time since I started doing this in 2020, someone asked me why I bothered to space it out over a month instead of just posting the entire thing in one go on Christmas Day and how could I possibly expect them to be that invested for an entire month instead of just waiting until it was finished. I didn't know how to tell them that only three years prior, that's not only exactly what people did but they were excited for it to be like that.

If I'm not going to post my already completed fic in one lump sum right now, then the audience for it is nonexistent. And the audience won't grow once it's finished. It's like I have one opportunity to capture the readers and if they weren't willing to take the chance on the first chapter, then they'll never come back. It's disheartening, to say the least. Only six months ago, I was telling a friend that I thought this was my forever pairing, that I'd still be writing for this ship when I was old and grey. And now I'm going through my ideas folder, wondering what can be repurposed for other ships, because I increasingly feel not just that I'm shouting into a void but that the void is actively ignoring me.

I can't post wips because what if I abandon them or take too long to update? I can't post a chaptered fic in one go because that's too many words to expect people to read. But I can't space out posting completed chaptered fics either because everyone wants the instant gratification of the full fic right now. So what am I supposed to do?

I miss December 2020, but it's not the random art that I miss or the kudos or the number of comments. It was the community that built up around this fic. It was knowing that it was okay to space out the chapters because everyone was still right there with me, talking and theorizing and using their spoiler bars. It was my audience trusting me enough to come along with me for the ride instead of waiting for me to be done. I was so scared back then that the full year between me first talking about the idea and posting the first chapter had lost me my audience, scared that they'd all forgotten about me and moved on to other authors who were quicker to post, but I wish I'd known that three years later, it would only take four months for people to lose interest in an idea.

I'd have treated December 2020 like it was way more special than I did.

[skunkes]

OK sharing my surgery healing update fotos now that its been one month! Was nervous abt posting but I consider it an important part of detailing the process which I've been trying to commit to especially since I myself was looking for every post about the experience and aftermath that I could find, in preparation ^_^

Warning for of course exposed stomach and day-of-surgery incisions (they are not gruesome but it is reddened, irritated, raised skin)

First photo taken approximately 12 hours (7 pm) after first incision (7 am) on August 7th. This is a photo taken through the mirror.

Second photo taken September 8th ^_^ this is a photo taken directly with camera.

(I was gonna include a photo from late august of the midway point but it just seemed really gross to post the flaking peeling surgical glue 😭)

speaking of which the majority of it was removed at my August 27th post op appointment (doctor was very excited to peel and yank that shit off of me. Thank god bc i was scared LOL) and it took a bit more gentle scrubbing after every shower but the rest of the glue was rubbed off/removed by the beginning of September! ^_^

(I am still working on fully removing the belly button incision glue but that's because I hate touching that area. Like just in general. i hate belly button i hate it so much 😭)

1 month later there's not any active consistent pain, though sometimes I do feel random aches over the incisions, and last week I accidentally jabbed a thumb directly into one while adjusting my pants at a store and had to double over for a bit. LOL

Also still itches sometimes, but its a regular "i forgot thats where my scars are" itch and not the "i have to tear myself open to scratch the inside" itch i felt during some days of recovery

-

Adding this part for informational purposes also because I was worried about this when I was doing my research:

My first period after the surgery arrived on time, didn't feel any more painful than usual (though I did feel additional pain at the incision sites), and lasted the same amount of time. Although within those parameters there still was some unexpected variation I had to work around (as in: thinking it was dwindling down and then it Suddenly Coming Back.)

Idk that this is the Norm as I'd see people say that theirs was delayed post surgery, or hurt more, or hurt less, or Lasted longer, was shorter, more bleeding, less bleeding etc but this is what happened to me, so far at least ^_^ perhaps I'll shoot for a hysterectomy next. LOL

[freshbakedbreadstick]

No. 1 Party Anthem - Mikey Berzatto x F!Reader - Prologue

Past!Mikey Berzatto x F!Reader

Carmy Berzatto x F!Platonic!Reader

Richie Herimovich x F!Platonic!Reader

Summary: After running for so long, it was time to come home

Warnings: All my fics are 18+ regardless of the content. Heavy spoilers and angst. Mentions of death, mental health issues, and toxic relationships. It’s not graphic or detailed in this one but I just want to warn you now that this series will deal with extremely heavy topics as it goes on (similar to the show).

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: Hey bestiesssssssssss!!! This is my first ever series and actually first ever written work that I'm posting lol and I'm so excited for it!!! I'm starting off with a series because i had this really good and angsty idea while reading ANOTHER fantastic piece of work and was like “fine…….. I'll do it myself” so i'm here now writing it lmao anyways i'm starting off posting my fanfics with Mikey and Carmy because i've been a little too focused on The Bear lately n love them so much. Chapter one of this series should be coming up this time next week so dw abt waiting so long for an update!! Anyways i hope you all enjoyyyy <3

MASTERLIST

The cool Chicago night air nips at you as it blows by, rolling along the exposed skin of your arms. It was 3 in the morning and the street where The Original Beef of Chicagoland stood was empty and silent.

The building stood before you, quiet and lifeless. It was odd seeing it so silent and it almost seemed… peaceful. But one glance at the rusting sign that seemed to be barely hanging onto the building made the façade of tranquility fall.

The knot in your stomach grew as your eyes traced over the rusted sign and then onto the walls that showed cracks and age. The sidewalk wasn’t any better with uneven cement and haphazard patching. Just then, a piece of trash rolled by the curb, coming from the alley right next to The Beef. 

It was just like how you remembered it. 

The wear and tear was what originally made you appreciate it. It showed use and love, the same way that laugh lines around a person’s mouth showed you that they lived a life full of smiles and laughter. The walls were in use as hundreds filed in and out of the building for their favorites, every week. The floor was worn away underneath the soles of families, drunk friends, older couples, working folk, and more. The ungentrified building made the whole thing feel nostalgic, despite not being a building you were around as a child. It had felt… familiar in a both comforting and melancholic way. 

But now, seeing the building, especially with its marks of age, made your blood run like ice through your veins. It made you shiver, despite it being September in Chicago. 

What once was a warm and inviting place felt cold and even scary. 

It had been months since you spoke to the Berzattos. Actually, it had been months since you were in Chicago at all. About 8 months, that is. You left in February after… everything and never looked back. The east felt too familiar at that point, so you traveled west.

You chased the highs and avoided the lows, moving from one place to another until you settled in a quiet town where you felt loved. But that love didn’t come without its challenges and when it got hard, you did what you knew best and that was leaving. 

So you left with no clue as to where you were going, too proud but mainly too afraid to reach out to the family you had in Chicago. You drove with a car full of junk you couldn't even stand looking at anymore for all the memories of the past couple of months attached to them made your stomach churn. With no place to go, you found yourself, 5 days after leaving and living in your car, sitting on the hood of your 2002 Chevy Impala, stopped and watched the sunset of the west for the last time at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere with your head hurting and eyes puffy. It was then when your phone buzzed. 

The cracked screen blinked brightly as you glanced over at it.

‘Please come home, we miss you - Nat’

Your mouth dried as you read the message. Your heart pounded in your ears as your eyes raced over the words over and over and over.

‘Please come home, we miss you’

‘Please come home, we miss you’

‘Please come home, we miss you’

‘Please come home, we miss you’

‘Please come home, we miss you’

‘Please come home, we miss-

Another message popped up then, interrupting your reading and making you jump. 

‘I promise it’s okay’

Your hands trembled. How Sugar got your number after you changed it twice to avoid your ex from the west was a mystery but it almost felt like divine intervention as you read it under the glow of the cotton candy clouds in the sky. 

‘Come home’

So you made the decision to go back. 

To go home. 

But this decision didn’t mean that you were leaving right away; for two months you practically lived in motel rooms and in your car, pacing back and forth for hours in parking lots, empty hallways, and tiny motel rooms at the thought of facing everyone again. Would they be upset? Angry? Sad? Would they hate you? Welcome you with open arms? Especially after abandoning them the way you did? 

Some nights were spent breathing deeply and slowly, desperately trying to get your heart to beat at a reasonable pace and other nights were spent with tears streaming down your cheeks. You almost even decided to just not come home at all; it felt like moving out of the country and assuming a new identity would be easier to deal with than going home.

But you got yourself together and after pawning everything you didn’t mind parting with for cash, you drove with a lighter trunk and a lighter heart across the country and eastward toward Illinois. 

Before you knew it, the giant ‘WELCOME TO ILLINOIS, THE LAND OF LINCOLN’ sign had appeared in your vision. It greeted you like an old friend, making your eyes sting and your chest tighten as your car zoomed by it. 

Two hours away from Chicago, your stomach would not stop growling so you decided to stop and grab a bite to eat. After settling your car at a nearby park next to an empty bench, you got off and focused a bit too much on grabbing your belongings to notice what your surroundings looked like. 

It wasn’t until you had sat down and ripped the bag of food open, when the smell of a salami and mozzarella sub wafted in the air, perking you up and prompting you to smile softly, that you glanced up. Over the dark green shrubs and still water of Peoria Lake were cotton candy clouds, nearly identical to the ones that you had seen while sitting on the hood of your car, terrified and hoping for a sign, any sign, that what you were doing was the right thing. 

Five minutes later, your car was back on the highway and speeding towards Chicago.

You stayed over at your parents’ house that night. They were overjoyed to see their child. Your mother cried, holding onto you as your father rubbed your back, comfortingly. Part of you wanted to, so badly, melt into their arms, but another part of you reminded you of the last time you were here. Despite the furniture being different and the decorations being rearranged, your body twitched as it remembered the exact emotions and position you were in when you got the news. 

The news that your boyfriend, Michael Berzatto, was found dead.

You couldn’t sleep that night, nor the next, or even the one after that. You got a combined total of about 15 hours of sleep in the past 72 hours, making you look and feel exhausted. But your mind was the only thing that wasn’t exhausted from replaying the memory over and over and over. 

About 5 days after you arrived, you got another message from Sugar. This time, a pit formed in your stomach as you read it.

‘Hey, it’s me again! Can you swing by The Beef tomorrow? I'm working there now and would love to see you. I’m sorry this is on such short notice but I've been crazy busy and I heard you were in town. I really want to see you and if you can’t do tomorrow, let me know so we can plan another day.

We really do miss you.’

You rock your jaw and put your phone down on the edge of the twin mattress you sat on, in your childhood bedroom. Right then, your mom gently knocks on your bedroom door before pushing it open.

“Have you talked to Natalie at all yet?” she said softly, clasping her hands together and leaning against the door frame.

You huffed and smiled weakly, of course your mom would mention something to her, that’s how she knew you were here. While your mom respected you doing things on your own time, she also knew that you needed a little push to make that connection. 

“Uhm… yea she just texted me. I uh, i might see her tomorrow at The Beef,” you murmured with a shaky breath. 

Thank god Sugar ended up being the one to text you instead of you texting her. 

Your mom smiled sweetly, “I think you should go, sweetheart. I know it seems scary but… I think it’s time you saw them…” 

Nodding, you turn and crawl up to the pillows of your bed. With a sigh, you lay down and close your eyes, exhausted. 

From your door frame, your mom quietly watched you and sighs softly. She slowly grabs your door and closes it behind her as she leaves. The hallway light goes off, leaving you and your thoughts alone in the pitch black dark.  

And here you were, a couple hours after you read her message, standing across The Beef on a cool Chicago night with the air nipping at your exposed skin as it blows by. You left in such a rush that you forgot to bring a hoodie and didn’t even bother to change from your thin pajama pants and loose old t-shirt. All you did was throw on your shoes and climb out your window, car keys clutched in your sweaty palm, like you used to do in high school to sneak off with Mikey. 

But those days seemed so far away now the same way that The Beef seemed so far away. It felt as if the trek across the street actually spanned thousands of miles and not a minute walk. 

So you sighed and turned around, walking down the sidewalk and back to your car. Who knew what time it was anymore, but you knew that you really needed to get rest tonight… you had a big day tomorrow.