#Now to be playing a woman who is the antithesis

[beenbaanbuun]

best girl - yunho & mingi

words - 8.8k

genre - smut/fluff/angst if you squint

warnings - sub!reader, dom!yunho, dom!switch!mingi, chubby!reader, insecure!reader, mentions of mxm, oral (f!recieving), brief anal play, no protection, fingering, big dick!yunho, brief exhibitionism, making out, spanking, biting, light degradation (if you squint), praise, pet names (pipsqueek, sugarplum, darling, baby, puppy, our girl, best girl, pretty girl, a lot of variations on the word girl) cum eating, finger sucking (mxm), aftercare, discussions of feelings, everyone is an idiot, mingi and yunho are hopelessly in love, reader is too

You rolled your eyes and leaned over until your head was pressed against the damp wood of the table in the dark corner of the bar. They told you they were going to get drinks, Mingi pressing a quick kiss to your temple as he promised they’d be back in a minute. You checked your phone; it had been 15.

As you sat and watched them fawn over the girl in between them, you couldn’t help but feel resentment bubbling up inside of you. Resentment towards yourself for even agreeing to the night out, even though you desperately needed it. Resentment towards the gorgeous woman who was taking up all of your friends’ attention, disliking her despite her clearly deserving their attention more than you. Most importantly, though, resentment towards your friends; the two men who had looked at you with pity in their eyes when you showed up at their doorstep with tears in your eyes after yet another tinder date never showed up. It was their idea to come out and let your hair down a little and yet it was also them who had abandoned you to flirt with someone who was the antithesis of you.

Your eyes flashed over her body, causing your unwarranted hatred to flare up even more. Her green dress wasn’t too dissimilar to yours, except the way it clung to her body was tasteful and didn’t make her look the same way you felt you did. Her hair was scraped back into a high pony so elegantly that you were positive that she’d spent hours placing each individual hair in its exact position, whereas yours lay messily upon your shoulders. Her toned thighs were crossed, letting her dress ride up just the right amount so that she showed just enough for it it still be classed as ‘lady-like’, whatever the fuck that meant. You glanced down at your own thighs that had flattened against the leather of the booth you’d secluded yourself in. You poked one of them, making the flesh jiggle a little. You bet her legs didn’t jiggle like that…

You couldn’t even rip your eyes away from your legs as Yunho's comforting voice rang through your brain. “Looking at it like that won’t change anything,” he’d told you when he caught yourself staring at your body in his bedroom mirror one time, “in fact, nothing is going to change until you learn to love yourself for who you are. i’ve told you that a million times, pipsqueek, yet you never listen.” You remembered the way he wrapped his arms around you in a warm back hug before telling you just how much he loved how ‘soft’ you were.

He can’t have loved it that much if the girl he was chasing now looked like you but in a smaller size. You bet she wasn’t ‘soft’.

“Someone’s deep in thought,” a familiar deep voice said, stopping your spiral from going any further. You never took your eyes away from your thighs as he unceremoniously sat down on the plush seat beside you. You felt your stomach churn as the motion made the skin on your thighs ripple. “Something interesting down there?” He added as he leaned and followed your gaze.

The only thing that made you feel more sick than you seeing your thighs right now was Mingi seeing them. the way the skin was pulled taught, stretched and contorted as it tried to hold all of your flesh inside of it. Usually you wouldn’t mind but tonight?

Tonight you couldn’t bear it.

“Go back to your little girlfriend over there,” you muttered as you pulled your dress further down your legs to hide your shame, “I'm fine on my own.”

Mingi made a sound of disagreement as he placed a large hand over your own, stopping you from gripping at your hemline like a Victorian woman trying to keep her decency. He leaned in close, dropping his head onto your shoulder like he so often had in the past. most of the time it was when he needed comfort, but right now you suspected that he knew it was the opposite.

“And leave you here to have a meltdown on your own?” he shook his head, his short, spiked-up hair tickling your neck, “no shot, sugarplum. I'm staying here until you tell me exactly why you were trying to make your thighs explode with your mind.

The joke would’ve usually gotten a laugh out of you, but your silence was just further confirmation that you were completely out of it. Mingi didn’t like that.

“Besides, she’s cool but she’s nothing compared to you, huh?” he poked your side with the hand he didn’t have laced with your own. Again, it was an action that should’ve had you giggling and playfully pushing him away, but all he was met with was yet another worrying silence.

Fuck, Mingi was bad at stuff like this. Always had been, really. Of course he was always there when you needed a shoulder to cry on, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t secretly messaging Yunho behind your back for advice. The older of the two always knew what to say, whereas all Mingi ever had to offer was a pat on the head and a quiet mutter of ‘shh, it’ll be okay’. It was good enough to calm you down for a while, but Yunho was the one with the magic words that could pull you out of whatever headspace you’d found yourself in.

In fact, it was Yunho that had noticed you from the other side of the bar. The dim lights concealed your facial expression, but he didn’t need to see your face to know that you weren’t okay. Your sunken shoulders paired with your head that was hanging low did a good enough job of letting him know you needed them. Clearly, you were zoned out, which was never good, and Yunho couldn’t help but feel his heart stop for half a second when he saw you move your hand to harshly poke at something under the table.

Poor Mingi was mid-conversation with Jemma when Yunho thwacked his shoulder and gestured over to you with his head. The blonde’s words were cut short when he shifted his gaze over to where Yunho was looking, a worried pout forming on his plush lips. his eyes flickered between you and Yunho in a silent conversation, quietly deciding on the best course of action. Only seconds passed before Mingi was nodding and placing his glass down on the bar. He shot a quick wink at Jemma before taking a few steps towards you.

“See you another time,” he shouted over the music, “I think we left our girl on her own for too long.” He gestured at you before giving Jemma a look that was filled with nothing but sympathy for you. The woman simply nodded, sharing a pretty smile with him.

“Go make her feel loved, pretty boy,” she giggled, “you really shouldn’t be leaving such a gorgeous girl unattended, y’know!”

Mingi just laughed before spinning round and going to sit by your side.

Yunho didn’t keep the conversation with Jemma going, which she didn’t seem to mind. She watched him with a soft smile for a few seconds, taking note of the worry etched onto his expression as he stared you down from his seat. His jaw was tightly clenched, the muscles flexing every so often as he studied what was happening in front of him. When Jemma said goodbye, he barely even responded, simply nodding and wishing her a good night before returning full focus back to you.

You didn’t realise Yunho had seen the way you tried to pull your skirt down, only for Mingi to stop you, or the way you flinched when Mingi tried to cheer you up by tickling your side. It didn’t even cross your mind that he might have noticed the way you looked like you were about to throw up when Mingi threw his gangly arm around your middle to tug you closer to him. If you did, perhaps you would’ve made more of an effort to hide how you were feeling. Maybe if you did, there wouldn’t currently be a soft hand grazing against your chin, finally lifting your gaze up from where it rested upon your thighs.

It guided your eyes up until they landed on Yunho's face, jaw set in stone and eyes equal parts worried and upset. his fluffy brown hair rested gently upon his forehead, which you could tell was creased with concern despite it being hidden. You gulped as he held your gaze for what felt like hours, although it was probably only seconds, his hand never leaving your chin once.

“I think you’re ready to go,” he said firmly. there was no room to argue, although Yunho knew you too well to assume that you wouldn’t at least try and get a word in.

“What about your lady friend?” your voice was barely audible above the bass that was buzzing through the air, “aren’t you taking her home?”

Yunho shook his head.

“We’re taking you home, instead.”

Gentle patterns were traced along your jawline by his thumb, the appendage dancing along your soft skin in an attempt to distract your mind from whatever it was distracted by. It only partially worked. The other half of your brain was desperate to remind you that you did not, in fact, have a jawline to trace. Your face was just as ‘soft’ as the rest of you.

“You know what I mean, Yunho,” you mutter, finally breaking eye contact with him, eyes moving down to his chest. It was as low as they could go with his fingers still wrapped around your jaw. He simply squeezed tighter, giving your face a quick jolt, and your eyes were back on his.

“So do you, pipsqueek,” he leaned in close, not even breaking eye contact with you as he gestured for Mingi to stand up and grab your things. Your breath hitched as he shifted his hand slightly to let his finger play with your bottom lip. “Don’t think I don't know what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours. Clearly, someone hasn’t been listening to me all those times I told you you were beautiful.” He sighed, as though he was disappointed. “Guess we'll just have to prove it to you, hm?”

There was no reply from you, not that there needed to be. There really was nothing to be said this time. No room to bite back or cause trouble. Yunho clearly understood that you had nothing more to say, a smirk resting on his lips.

“Come on then, my gorgeous girl,” he whispered as he guided you up and out of the seat using nothing more than the grip he had on your face, “let me and Mingi take care of you, huh? Let us show you just how pretty we think you are. Because we really, really do… don’t we Mingi?”

“Of course, we do,” Mingi’s deep voice responded, his warm hand landing on the small of your back, “I don’t know about Yunho, but I think you’re the prettiest creature to walk this earth…”

Yunho finally let go of your jaw, letting you lift your hand to massage the sore muscles. Your delicate fingers prodded at your plush cheeks, which felt a thousand degrees hotter than what should’ve been normal, as you watched Yunho pull out his phone to order an Uber to their apartment. Somewhere that you frequented regularly, and yet for the first time like this.

That's when it really sunk in that tonight you weren’t just their best friend, but their girl of choice. Of course, you’d heard many tales about the girls they’d take back to their apartment and share between them. They’d carefully select them before buttering them up with their silver tongues until finally, they’d take her back to the ‘chad pad’, as Mingi had cheesily nicknamed it, and giving her the night of her life. Time after time you'd been told about their escapades, and time after time you wished someone would take care of you in a similar way.

Scenes played over in the back of your mind. Yunho teasing Mingi for his ‘love of being suffocated’, although you couldn’t quite work out what that meant. Mingi giggling as he jokingly scolded Yunho for being ‘too bossy’. You gulped nervously at the prospect.

But the longer you pondered your situation, the more you couldn’t help but feel bad for the other girl. They were clearly getting somewhere with her, yet they threw it all away in seconds, and for what? To comfort you? With Yunho’s eyes scanning you like you were a priceless diamond, and Mingi’s hand rubbing circles on your back, only to dip down and cop a feel every few seconds, you’d be stupid to think that was the only thing on their mind. Maybe they lost their chance with the pretty one when they left her so they could look after you. Maybe they just realised they were missing out so they were settling for second best.

Yeah, that must be it.

Second best…

“You’re thinking,” Mingi grumbled in your ear before placing a quick kiss to your cheek, “stop it.”

“I can't not think, mingi,” you muttered back. Although you were trying desperately to look anywhere but them, there was no way you could miss the way Yunho cocked a brow at you.

“Then think about all the things we’re going to make you feel when we get back to ours,” he said, bringing up a finger to tap at your forehead, “rather than thinking about whatever useless thing it is that has your face all screwed up like that.”

“It's not useless.”

“It must be if it has you as tense as this, sugarplum,” Mingi pressed a quick kiss to your head, as his hand gave a firm squeeze to your ass. It was a warning. “I know yunho has talked to you about not listening to your brain, so you’d better switch it off, okay? Whatever you’re telling yourself is wrong.”

You opened your mouth to argue, but a simple look from Yunho, and a light swat to the ass from Mingi shut you up.

“Good girl,” Yunho smiled at you. It was too sweet, too Yunho, for you to do anything but preen. Even without the tension that was rising between you, you’d always loved to be praised by him. “Uber's almost here, Mingi. Stop groping our girl before you can’t stop. I know how you get and I don't want to make yet another uber driver uncomfortable.”

You giggled at that, getting another soft smile from Yunho in return. It was nice. Familiar. It reminded you that even behind the bedroom eyes, your best friend was still there to keep you safe and happy. And although Mingi was behind you, barely managing to peel himself away from you, you knew he was the same old mingi too. The way that he smiled against your neck, just like he did when you were protecting him from your other friend, Wooyoung’s, bullying told you that much.

“You try tearing yourself away from our girl, Yunho,” Mingi gave your ass another hard squeeze before letting his hand come down on it harshly. You gasped, squeezing your eyes shut as he began to massage it again. “Its so fucking difficult, dude.” Mingu pressed his face into your neck and inhaled your scent with a groan, “you smell like home, babe,” he kissed the soft skin, “fucking hell, i can’t believe we’ve waited this long.”

A big hand carded through your hair as Yunho moved it to give Mingi better access to your neck. His fingers gently massaged your scalp as Mingi practically made out with your neck. The slurping sounds he was making just below your ear were obscene, but it was offset by the familiarly loving look that Yunho was giving you.

“I know, mingi,” he said, never once breaking eye contact with you, “Too long if you ask me. Our girl doesn’t realise just how beautiful we think she is, huh? Well just you wait, darling. The moment we step through our front door, we’re going to make sure you never forget again.”

And with that, he tugged you away from Mingi, who let out the most pathetic whine you think you’d ever heard, and guided you to the exit where the car was waiting. You checked behind you to see if Mingi was following. He winked at you in return.

Once you’d reached the car, Yunho held the door open for you. “Ladies first,” he gestured for you to get in, to which you rolled your eyes before sliding onto the leather seats. You were about to scoot all the way across, expecting one of them to get in the front like usual, but Yunho just shook his head, “in the middle, darling. Leave some space for the rest of us, huh?”

He slid in himself, closing his door as the one to the other side of you opened. Mingi dropped into the car and shut the door himself, quickly making himself comfortable with a hand high up your thigh. Yunho gave a disapproving tut to him, before doing the exact same himself.

The way the warmth of their hands spread over your soft skin made your heart skip a beat. The gentle kneading of Mingi’s palm compared to the sturdy grasp of Yunho’s was enough to send your brain into a dizzy haze, only made worse when Mingi began to pull your thigh closer to his.

The cold aircon blasting out of the central fan hit the wet patch on your panties directly, forcing you to suck in a sharp breath. Yunho chuckled to the right of you, copying mingi and making your legs spread even wider. Your dress was pushed up by your thighs, now resting at the point where the fleshy limbs joined your hips. You prayed to anything that would listen that the driver wouldn’t look back and see you in this state; sat between your two best friends, legs spread wide open, white underwear almost made see through with your sticky desire. The thought alone had your eyes rolling into the back of your head.

“You okay, baby?” Mingi asked, shifting his hand so that his pinky was just barely brushing against your panties, “you don’t look so good.”

God you wanted to wipe that smirk off of his face.

“Yeah, pipsqueek,” Yunho added as he slipped your panties to the side, dipping the tip of his finger into the gooey mess that was currently your pussy. There was a moan on the tip of your tongue as his finger penetrated your hole, but he quickly removed it and let your panties fall back into place, “Wait, I think you have something on your lip. Hold on a second~”

Before you could register his words, a wet finger was tracing your bottom lip, smearing your own juices across your mouth.

“That's funny, it looks like cream,” Mingi snickered, “lick it up, baby.”

You did as he said, pushing your tongue out and collecting your wetness from your bottom lip. You shuddered at the filth of it all.

“Does it taste sweet, darling?” Yunho fluttered his eyelashes, trying his hardest to resemble the picture of innocence.

“I bet it does,” Mingi replied, “bet it tastes so fucking delicious, huh? Wish i could just stick my face right in there, baby, slurp up all that cream that’s just… spilling out.”

You were thankful when the Uber swiftly came to a stop at the side of the road, practically bending over yunho yourself to grab at the handle. He chuckled, petting your hair with his still soiled fingers as he thanked the driver. Mingi said much of the same as he got out his own side and made his way round to yours. He watched with intense eyes as you stumbled onto the pavement, gripping onto Yunho for balance.

Your face made you look like a deer caught in headlights, and Yunho couldn’t help but lean down to steal a kiss. You were almost taken aback for a second, remembering how Yunho and Mingi would express that they didn’t like to kiss the women that they took home. “Too romantic,” Mingi had explained one time, “they come to us for a good time, not for the whole ‘love’ experience, y’know?” At the time you’d understood, just as you thought you’d understood what tonight was. As your best friend licked into your mouth, you realised that maybe you were mistaken.

You pushed at his chest, and he stopped within an instant. There were words on your tongue, but when you lay eyes on him, they disappeared. Flushed cheeks, plump lips and eyes that looked like they were 90% pupil. That's all it took for you to leap right in with both feet. Fuck it, you decided as you wrapped your arms around his neck, if love is what they want, then love is what they’d get. It's not like you hadn’t been shamefully dreaming about it for years. kissing them, holding them, fucking them.

Of course there was the part of your brain that told you to stop before you went head first into something you weren’t quite sure you understood.

You laughed against Yunho's mouth as you told the voice to shut up.

“What?” He mumbled, barely pulling away before going back in for more. It was a couple more seconds before you pulled away yourself.

“I just can’t believe I'm listening to mingi for once,” you replied. There was a scoff from behind you as the short haired main placed himself at your rear once more. A hot tongue licked a stripe up your neck.

“What's that supposed to mean, brat?” mingi nipped at your earlobe.

You gasped into the kiss, briefly pulling away once more.

“M’turning my brain off,” you giggle into the cold night air, “whatever happens, happens, right?”

You delved right back into the kiss, opening your mouth to allow Yunho's prying tongue acces. He explored your cavern, licking at everything he could reach before letting his tongue clash with yours. Your wet muscles tangled with one another, dancing an intricate jive between your lips, all whilst Mingi’s was tracing patterns upon your collarbones.

“But I know what’s going to happen, sugarplum,” he whispered against your skin, “we’re going to take you upstairs,” he bit into your shoulder making you squeal into the kiss you were still sharing with Yunho, “we’re going to make you feel every bit as beautiful as we know you are,” he sucked at the very same bit of skin his teeth had just abused, releasing it a second later with a ‘pop’, “and then, my pretty little thing, we’re going to make you our girl… not that you haven’t always been,” he pressed a gentle kiss to the same spot.

“And to think, we’ve been fucking all these other girls knowing that nothing would be as good as you, baby. They were all pretty, of course, but none of them even got close to you. None of them made me as hard as you do, or made my heart beat as quickly,” another kiss, “and Yunho would never even dream of kissing anyone that isn’t you, baby. You're special to us, hm? One of a kind,” he laced his fingers through your hair and tugged, pulling you away from the kiss. A string of spit connected your mouth with Yunho’s, neither of you making a move to break it.

“Do you feel the same?” Yunho panted out, “Do you want us just as much as we want you, darling? Do you want to be our special girl, huh? Ours to have and hold and love as we please?” you nodded as well as you could with mingi gripping your hair. He gripped it tighter for a moment or two, stilling your movements.

“Words, baby.”

“Yes,” you whimpered.

“Good,” Mingi let go and used the same hand to go fishing in the pocket of his trousers. You heard the jingling of keys as he pulled them out and passed them over to Yunho with a smile. “You've had your fun, dude,” he smirked as he placed his hand on your ass once again, “I want to play.”

“So immature,” Yunho rolled his eyes before leading the two of you inside the building and to the elevator, “seriously, I can't make out with my darling for five minutes without you getting jealous and needing to feel her up,” the elevator dinged and the doors opened. the three of you stepped inside. “you know her ass will still be there if you let go of it for two seconds, right?”

Mingi squeezed it in his huge palm.

“I don't want to let go long enough to find out,” he smacked it softly, grunting as your flesh jiggled against his already throbbing dick. “Just feels like it belongs in my hands, y’know? Like my own personal stress ball.”

Yunho sighed as the elevator stopped. He was the first out, going immediately to unlock the door and let the two of you tumble inside. Mingi guided you straight to his bedroom, Yunho following moments after, getting there just in time to see Mingi fall into the bed and position himself with his head resting on his pillow.

He looked like a god lying there in that stupid fucking compression shirt that made you stare, and a pair of beige cargo pants that did nothing to disguise the sheer size of his bulge. The cocky smirk he wore as he watched you scan him up and down was almost insufferably hot. You wanted him to make you his in every way that mattered. You wanted him to throw you around and take you however he wanted. Judging by Yunho's penchant for bossing you around, though, you guessed that was more his thing in the bedroom. Mingi just seemed to want one thing and one thing only: his hands on your ass and his face in your pussy.

“Don’t keep him waiting, darling,” Yunho said as he strolled past you towards the chair that sat facing the bed. He dropped down onto it, legs spread as he let himself fully relax. “Don’t you think he’s been patient enough? I know it might not seem like it, but you have no idea how much restraint hes had tonight,” Yunho smirked, “if he had it his way, you never would’ve left our apartment in that tight fucking dress. He would’ve been face deep in your cunt the moment you showed up at our doorstep, darling. I'm almost surprised he wasn’t…”

Mingi just chuckled from his spot on the bed before holding a hand out to you. You took it, not expecting to be yanked towards him the next second. The moment you were close enough, his big hands were everywhere, pulling you in every direction until seconds later, you too were on the bed, sitting on his chest with your knees either side of his head. You couldn’t hide the look of surprise when he hooked a finger into the crotch of your panties, tugging it to the side so he could get a full viewing of your wet pussy. He groaned at the sight, tossing his head back in pleasure as if the sight of it alone could make him cum.

“God,” he grunted, slipping a finger inside before pulling it out and popping it into his mouth, “fuck, baby. going to eat you until I'm full, okay? Going to devour you like a fucking michelin star meal, and then when Yunho’s had his turn with you, I’m going to go back for seconds.”

Yunho let out a hearty chuckle as he watched his best friend struggle to contain himself. It seemed to be having an effect on you too. Yunho wasn’t sure whether or not you’d even noticed your hips gently rocking against Mingi's chest. He assumed not.

“Baby, take your dress off,'' Mingi grunted, watching as you complied right away, ripping the soft material over your head. There was no time to feel self conscious, both men letting out a guttural groan at the sight of you, reveling in the fact that they finally had you to themselves, naked and ready for them to take care of. The cold air of the room made your nipples perk up, Mingo briefly lifting a hand up to brush against your sensitive nub, “and panties too, okay? Don’t want anything in between me and my dinner, y’know?”

You giggled but did as he said, slipping off of him for just a second or two so you could pull them off completely. You placed them into his waiting palm, only for him to screw them up and chuck them at Yunho. The man in the chair caught them with ease, something that was so incredibly hot to you, before lifting them up to his nose and taking a long, dragged-out sniff. Your jaw dropped in shock, but you didn’t have long to dwell on what had just happened. Not when mingi was pawing at your thigh, trying to get you back into position.

You slid back to where you were previously, bare leaking pussy looking him dead in the eyes. He had a grin like a shark about to go in for the kill, but his eyes were glazed over with something that could only be described as pure joy.

“Sit,” he commanded.

You did, lowering yourself gently onto his chest, thighs aching as you used them to hold the majority of your weight.

“No,” he responded, “on my fucking face, baby.”

You blushed, shifting a little so you were hovering with your core just a few inches above his face.

“Baby, if I have to tell you again I won’t be very happy,” his hands landed on your hips, “fucking,” he tugged you down sharply until your clit was brushing against his nose gently, “sit.”

He pulled you down again onto his open mouth, his tongue immediately probing your hole and making you let out what could only be described as a pornographic moan. His nose was now firmly pressed against your clit, prodding it at a new angle every time he shifted his head.

He moaned, the action sending shivers down your spine and your hand shot down to grip at his hair. Your fingers tugged at his bleached hair, pulling a prolonged groan from his plush lips as his tongue played with your dripping hole. You could feel the vibrations deep within you, causing a shiver to run freely down your spine. It felt perfect, the way he mouthed at you like you were the best meal he was ever going to have. The way he tasted you, alternating from forcing his tongue deep inside of your hole to slurping up your juices and making the most obscene, filthy sounds you think you'd ever heard. Add that to the fact that you could feel Yunho’s eyes running up and down your naked body, and you were almost ready to cum within 20 seconds of taking your seat.

“How’s she taste, Mingi?” the brunette asked from his seat, “as good as you’d been hoping? Or better?” You could hear the laughter in his voice as he quizzed your best friend. Part of you was expecting Mingi to pull away to answer, but instead he just mumbled a few incoherent words directly into your pussy before shifting his face slightly to allow his tongue to play with your clit. Yunho chuckled as you gasped at the new sensation. “Dude, you really need to learn to stop talking with your mouth full.”

But Mingi didn't pull away to repeat himself, simply letting himself indulge in his meal. In you. Lips wrapping around your clit, suckling at the bud harshly until you were letting out sharp little gasps and holding onto his hair for dear life. Sometimes he’d let his teeth scrape against you, making you whine over and over again. Then he’d circle the delicate bud with his tongue, soothing it briefly before starting the process all over again.

Suck, nip, soothe, repeat.

It was all getting to be too much. You hadn't even noticed when Yunho stood from the seat and made the short walk over to the bed. You hadn't noticed him shedding his loose white shirt, nor had you noticed him taking a seat next to you on the bed. The sound of him spitting onto his hand never registered, nor did the deep hum of satisfaction when he noticed that you were starting to grind slightly against Mingi’s face. In fact, it wasn’t until a wet digit began to circle your puckered hole that you even realised just how much had happened whilst you lost yourself in a dizzy haze of pleasure.

You cried out when you felt the digit pressing into you, pushing past the resisting ring of muscle and delving deep inside of you. That alone was enough to make you topple forwards, Mingi’s hands catching you before you could completely collapse against him. His tongue worked you through the orgasm, somehow working in perfect sync with Yunho’s finger. If you werent already feeling so fucked out, you probably wouldve marvelled at just how well practiced they seemed working as one unit. That was a thought for when you were fully lucid, though. Not for when you were cumming on your best friends tongue whilst your other best friend played with your tight asshole like it was nothing.

It felt good. Fuck, it felt damn near perfect, but you were quickly moving into the territory of overstimulation. Yunho seemed to notice, the keen eye he always kept on you working to his advantage yet again as he let his finger slide out of you and he pulled you off of Mingi’s mouth with a pop. The blonde let out a whine of complaint that was quickly silenced when he saw the blissed out look on your face as Yunho placed you gently down beside Mingi on the mattress. His sorrowful pout quickly turned into a smirk as he realised that he was the one to put you in such a state.

“One orgasm and she’s already gone dumb,” Yunho chuckled as he stood once more, unbuckling his belt and letting his pants drop to the floor. Again, a more lucid you would’ve balked at his lack of boxers, but instead all you could do was whimper as you saw the sheer size of him. It was easily the biggest dick you’d ever seen, let alone had anywhere close to you. The smug look on Yunho’s face let you know that he was aware of that fact though. “Got to be a record, right?”

“It definitely is,” Mingi’s lips were wet as he spoke, but he never bothered to wipe it away. You blushed at the thought of him wearing you on his face. He smiled, brushing a finger up against your heated cheek. “I think it's a sign.”

“A sign of what?” Yunho crawled back onto the bed, letting himself sit back on his ankles as he just stared. Eyes scanned you up and down, just as they were when he watched you ride Mingi’s face, mapping every single detail of your body. You wondered whether he did that to every girl they brought into their beds, or just you. Perhaps you were just delusional, but you couldn't help that your mind settled on the latter.

“That she’s made for us,” Mingi answered, sounding as though he was more sure of that fact than anything else in the world, “I mean come on, dude, look at her! Have you ever seen a more perfect sight?”

Yunho hummed in contemplation, acting as though he was thinking deeply about the matter of whether you were ‘made for them’ or not. As he considered, his hands joined his eyes in mapping out your body, trailing their way lightly from your ankles to your calves, stopping briefly at your thighs to massage them back to life, and then moving on to your hips. His fingertips sank into the plush flesh and he couldn’t help but let his usual warm smile make its way onto his face.

“I think you’re right, Mingi,” he said as he rubbed gentle circles into your skin, “I don't think I’ve ever seen a sight as beautiful as this one. Our little pipsqueak, lay out on your bed just for us. It just feels right.”

“I’ve lay here plenty of times,” you muttered, breaking up the conversation they were having over your head. Your brain was starting to fight through the fog that Mingi’s tongue and Yunho’s finger had somehow managed to bring upon it. Almost coherent thoughts were fighting their way to the forefront of your brain, although you had no doubt Yunho would fuck them away again in just a moments time. “And I’m pretty sure I've been naked in this bed too…”

Both men laughed wholeheartedly at the memory. You, passed out drunk in Mingi’s bed as the two men tried to get you changed into something better to sleep in. Stripping you had been the easy part. For some reason - one that you never planned on sharing - you’d been more than willing to take off each and every item of clothing once the two of you had dragged you away from the festivities in their living room. The two were more than respectful of your nude form, only sneaking glances every once in a while as they practically fought you to get you dressed into something suitable to sleep in. Apparently, not that you could remember it all too well, you’d been adamant on remaining naked and it was only when Mingi offered to buy you that pretty skirt you’d been eyeing up for weeks that you agreed to wear the boxers and the sweater that were being offered to you.

“This is different, baby,” Mingi whispered as he traced your lips with his fingers, “you were drunk then. Our priority was taking care of you and making sure that our best friend was okay. Tonight, our priority is fucking you into this mattress and making sure that our girl can’t walk straight tomorrow. It's all about context, baby.”

“So you’re saying you didn't find me hot?”

Both of them chuckled.

“You were downright adorable, but as for hot? We wouldn’t know, darling,” Yunho began to move his hands again, bringing them up to your breasts to massage them gently in his hands, “our priority was making sure you didn't throw up onto Mingi’s bed. We took a little bit of a break from fantasizing about fucking your brains out.”

“And that's all it was,” Mingi’s hand joined Yunho’s in caressing your body. Although his moved straight down to your core, dipping a finger into the wet mess he’d left there. He chuckled at the way your jaw dropped slightly, breath hitching as he let one of his long fingers slip inside of you. It curled against your velvety walls, stroking them gently. “I promise that the moment you woke up in the morning with your pouty lips and your messy hair, I went straight back to wanting you.”

“S-straight back?” You stuttered as he slipped another finger in. “I doubt that.”

Yunho flicked their thumbs over your pebbled nipples, grinning at the way you arched your back a little.

“Of course, baby! Are you kidding?” The fingers inside you picked up their pace, scissoring slightly to stretch you out. “Morning sex with you would be so fucking hot. You’re so soft and pliant when you first wake up. I just know you’d be whimpering so sweet while we manhandle you and take you apart piece by piece.”

“She’s soft and pliant all the time, Mingi. One compliment and she’s practically a fucking lap dog” Yunho took his hands away from your tits. A pathetic - even by your own admission - whine forced its way up your throat, to which Yungho replied with a chuckle. “She even cries like one.”

A third finger was pressed to your entrance, slipping inside of you with a pleasant stretch. It felt like almost too much, but one look at Yunho’s member that rested heavy between his legs had you swallowing any complaints you had. If you were going to take him like you so desperately wanted to, you'd need the prep. You’d need to be stretched out by Mingi’s fingers. As daunting as the prospect of it all was, you were a big girl.

You could take it.

You lay there, bones melting to nothing as you tried your hardest to relax into the stretch. Even if Mingi’s fingers weren’t particularly thick, they were long, and the way he was spreading them within you, pushing at your gummy walls, had you seeing stars. You gripped his wrist as he ground the heel of his hand into you, bringing you hurtling towards your second orgasm as if you hadn’t come down from your first just minutes before.

“Fuck, Mingi,” you gasped, “going to make me cum again.”

Your thighs were desperately trying to close around Mingi’s hand, but Yunho seemed to have other ideas. He grasped at them, pushing them even further apart and leaning down so his face was directly across from where Mingi was knuckle deep within you. He groaned at the sight, cock jumping slightly in anticipation. God, he wanted to be inside of you so bad.

The sound you made as you came was something you'd never heard from your own mouth before. It was loud and long and had the two boys practically drooling over you as you writhed around under their large hands and sultry gazes. Yunho's hands stopped you from wriggling away from them as Mingi once again pushed you to the brink of overstimulation before drawing his hand back and lazily licking his fingers clean.

It was quite possibly the filthiest thing you’d ever seen. you couldn’t tear your eyes away. His thick tongue darted out of his mouth to lap at the sticky substance that coated his digits before drawing back into his mouth with a thick string of arousal still connected. He groaned, eyes flickering shut as if it was the best fucking meal he’d ever tasted. You couldn’t tear your eyes away.

“Give me a taste,'' Yunho brought your attention back to him within seconds. His hands let go of your thighs, moving until they were either side of your head and his toned chest lay just above your head. You briefly admired his pecs until a moan drew your gaze back up to his mouth. his own lips were wrapped around Mingi’s middle and ring finger, cheeks hollowed out as he sucked your juices from them. Your jaw dropped as you watched him give a pretty convincing blowjob to the fingers that were plunged deep into his mouth. he pulled back, breathing heavily. “Holy fuck, puppy. What do you eat to make your pussy taste so sweet, huh?”

The fact that he’d called you puppy didn’t go unnoticed, but you were too dazed to comment. Panting like a bitch in heat as he grinned down at you, a new sheen over his lips to match mingi’s. It suited him just as much, you realised.

“Do you think you’ll taste just as sweet when we’re mixed together?” he asked as he lined himself up with your hole. He thrusted into you just a little, enough to make your eyes roll into the back of your head, before slowly drawing out again and repeating the process. “I think you will, but we’ll have to wait for Mingi to give the final verdict, yeah? he’s really into the clean up process, puppy.”

You were too fucked out to work out what Yunho meant, although you had a feeling it had to do with the blonde's seemingly voracious appetite.

Mingi tugged his finger out of his mouth with a pop.

“Nothing could tarnish the way she tastes,” he groaned as Yunho continued to thrust into you, gradually getting deeper and deeper each time he pushed into you, “even with your gross seed dripping out of her.”

Yunho rolled his eyes at Mingi as he bottomed out. you couldn’t help but tense up at the sensation of being so overwhelmingly full. It felt silly, but you were shocked at just how much bigger he was than the three fingers you came around moments prior. The tip of his cock kissed your cervix as his pelvis came to a stop against yours. He was still for a few seconds, eyes carefully studying your screwed up face for a sigh that he could begin. It took a few seconds for the crinkles in your forehead to flatten out, but once they did, he drew his hips back in one long stroke and began to thrust.

“You fucking love sucking me off,” Yunho spat back as his hips rocked into you at a harsh pace. Sharp slaps echoed around the room each time his hips came into contact with yours. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head as your body went completely limp against the wrinkled-up sheets.

“I have an oral fixation, dude,” Mingi shuffled closer so he could study your face a little closer. The way your lips parted, tiny gasps coming out with each thrust. The way your eyes were spaced out, staring into thin air as you tried desperately to hang on to reality. He smirked as you whined when Yunho thrusted into you particularly hard, “me sucking you off every once in a blue moon has nothing to do with whether I like the taste of your cum or not.”

And with that, he put his lips against yours, tongue immediately taking the opportunity to explore your open mouth. Your fingers, which were desperately grasping at the sheets, flew up to the back of his head. They tangled themselves in his short locks, holding him tightly against you as he spread the taste of yourself against your mouth.

It was messy, all tongue and teeth, but you expected nothing else from Mingi. He licked at your mouth the same way he did your pussy, seeming to gather your spit onto his tongue, devouring each and every drop he could gather. You couldn’t help but let your jaw go slack, allowing him full access to your mouth. Something that had him letting out a low moan of his own.

“You’re so fucking perfect, baby,” he mumbled as he pulled away for a second, almost immediately diving back in for more. You had no time to bask in the praise before you felt a thumb pressing against your already abused clit. You gasped into Mingi’s mouth and he smiled against your open mouth. “Such a perfect girl, huh? So reactive for us.”

“Damn right she is,” Yunho continued with the same punishing pace, although his movements were getting a little sloppy. You could tell he was close, and as he circled your overstimulated clit, you could tell that you were too. Three was a lot for you, but with your two boys, it felt so natural. They pulled them out of you with ease, sending you to an unfamiliar headspace with each one. “She's our perfect girl. always fucking has been.”

“Of course she has been,” Mingi licked a stripe up your neck, loving the way it made you squirm, “our gorgeous, clueless girl. No idea just how perfect her pretty little body is.”

“Fucking shame that you are so clueless, puppy,” Yunho leant down, breathing heavy in your ears as he pushed you closer and closer to the edge. The shapes he was rubbing into your clit were desperate as he tried to pull your orgasm out of you before he spilled himself inside of you, “you had no clue that your two big, bad best friends wanted nothing more than to love you, did you?”

You whined as Mingi bit into the flesh of your shoulder. It was the final push you needed to tip you over the edge. Your head was spinning as Yunho worked you through it, hips coming to a stop as he filled you up with his cum.

“Fucking perfect,” he muttered, voice barely audible over the blood rushing in your ears.

You didn’t notice when he pulled out, sucking in a sharp breath as he washed his cum flow out of your sopping hole. Just like you didn’t notice when Mingi let out a sad whine at the sight of you being too fucked out for him to ‘clean you up’ in his own special sense of the word. Nor did you notice when Yunho went searching through Mingi’s drawers to find a pack of baby wipes.

You did notice when the cold, wet tissue first made contact with your hot skin. You whined, writhing around in discomfort as Mingi shushed you and pressed a kiss to your temple. Yunho's movements were gentle as he wiped the layer of sweat away before getting out a fresh wipe and focussing on your core. It was sensitive down there, but Mingi’s gentle comfort made it so Yunho could do his job without much upset. That didn't mean that whenever he went within a centimeter of your swollen bud you wouldn’t let out a quiet whimper. Mingi just smiled and kissed your pouted lips to distract from the overstimulation of Yunho wiping a mixture of spit and cum away from your clit.

“We really should get you up, pipsqueek,” the brunette muttered as he flopped back onto the bed, tossing an arm over your waist so naturally that it was like he hadn’t been balls deep in you minutes before, “you always complain about how you’re always too lazy to pee after sex and how you always end up with a UTI.”

“i don’t think i can bear another trip to the store to stock up on cranberry juice,” Mingi giggled in such a Mingi-ish way that the idea of his tongue pressed deep in your pussy felt like little more than one of your many daydreams about him, “it was so embarrassing when we had girls over only to offer them a drink and open the fridge to 4 bottles of cran…”

Yunho laughed wholeheartedly.

“Well I guess we don’t have to worry about that anymore,” he kissed your cheek gently, “not when we have the perfect girl right here.”

“Does this mean no more pretending I'm not jealous when you two are talking about your sexcapades?” you mutter, still only half of your brain working at full speed.

“Only if it means we dont have to hear about any more tinder hook-ups,” mingi responded, “god i fucking hated all of those men who got to touch you before i did.”

You rolled your eyes.

“You guys only have yourselves to blame. I never would’ve gone near those guys had you two not started collecting women like fucking Pokemon first!”

“I guess so,” Yunho muttered, pressing a light kiss to your temple, “but you need to know that none of them were really ours. We just didn't know we were allowed the real thing, so we had to settle.”

You scoffed.

“Real feminist of you, Yunho,” you lightly slapped his chest. Mingi laughed.

“Sorry, darling,” he apologised, “forgot that you're all for the ‘women support women’ thing, even when you're so clearly jealous.”

A comfortable silence fell over the three of you as you held one another. You in the middle with Yunho to your front and Mingi pressed to your back. You didn't miss the way their fingers tangled with one another's atop your hip. You could've mentioned it, but that was for another time.

“What made you flip tonight?” You finally asked, the all-important question dangling for a moment or two like bait. You bit, waiting patiently for the boys to give you the answer.

“You made Yunho mad,” Mingi was the first to speak, “thinking bad about yourself and your body, as if he hasn't spent years trying to talk you out of that sort of behaviour.”

You hummed in response.

“Needed to prove how beautiful we think you are, baby,” Yunho picked up where Mingi left off. “Making you ours in the process was just an added bonus.”

“So you really want me?”

“Always have, baby.”

“Always will.”

[sugar-grigri]

Miri does the chair as much as Denji

The chapter confirms the suffering of the hybrids who turn out to be the "weapons" (thank you Fujimoto for confirming at least one of my theories).

But let's go into a bit more detail in this chapter, which only talks about alienation and never about freedom.

What better title than 'A Chair's Feelings', which is a perfect antithesis.

I have the feeling that something specific has happened, let me explain.

Firstly, Fumiko Mifune plays her role as Denji's guard perfectly. She's not protecting him as a person but as the property of the public hunters.

How does she do this? Firstly because she sticks to Denji, but more importantly she seriously disrupts the discussion between Denji and Sugo.

Every time Miri puts an advantage on the table, she questions it. A high position in the church? Chainsaw Man deserves to be guru.

Steak every day? We're getting tired of it, other dishes would be preferable.

The public hunters represent the opressor who uses Denji as a tool. In other words, the entity that Miri is trying to remove Denji from.

But what's particularly interesting is that Miri doesn't demonstrate free will and spits out someone else's arguments.

What's even more fascinating is that Miri thinks he's going to convince Denji with his own arguments, which turns out to be in vain.

Miri seems like someone who operates on principle and has taken on board concepts such as dignity and freedom, which he now intends to protect. Denji doesn't think like that; he needs concrete arguments to engage him.

For example, Miri presents Denji as his liberator. This has no effect on him, as he was unaware of it because it was Pochita who was fighting. Once again, we're projecting onto the figure of Chainsaw Man the image we'd like him to represent here: the first weapon to free himself from the oppressor that was Makima.

But Miri is far from imagining that not only was Denji not conscious, but that he consciously 'saved' Makima by allowing her to become a new version of herself who would be cherished and loved. Because Makima was never the oppressor, she was merely the object of the Japanese government, which surely also used a few weapons.

That's why I think Miri's way of presenting himself is a step backwards. I don't know if it's intentional, but the way his name appears in the dialogue bubbles and the suspension points…… The syntax is important. Miri knows that his name is just a number given to him by his former oppressor.

In fact, that's why he calls Fumiko "sushi-woman" or refers to the students as rubbish; he doesn't think of them as they never thought of him.

Sugo has no intention of forming a relationship with the humans, whom he seems to reject, which clearly shows that weapons are used by humans, not demons.

But Denji grimaces when he sees that he is so easily popular and integrated, and that he would prefer to be rejected.

Miri rejects humans, wanting only to make friends with weapons, while Denji continues to define himself only by humans. One holds a grudge and wants revenge, while the other still prefers integration. Which already demonstrates a fundamental difference.

Swordman's arguments move from the abstract to the concrete. He starts by talking about abstract concepts such as gratitude (Denji saved him), freedom and having a community, and then starts to integrate the concrete.

He already includes food by using the precise line that Denji had used, namely steaks.

Miri isn't interested in the debate about food, deploring Denji's interest in it, and reiterates in a cruder and more brutal form what he was saying before, "being used by bastards", instead of talking about instrumentalisation and freedom. And again, he has to push Denji to confirm this.

It's obvious that Miri, who presents himself as the messenger of the church, either sent by someone or is carrying out someone's order, is contradicting himself and is not yet free. As Fumiko points out.

When Miri confronts Denji, who is still in the chair position, Denji has a more interesting response than it seems: being a chair suits him because he can feel buttocks against his back.

Being a chair means contact, and physical contact with girls. Even if it's a rather perverse line (and far from the most poetic), it shows that Denji is once again interested in being a chair if it allows him to make contact with his own kind. That he has no abstract concept built in like self-esteem or claiming his dignity.

Even becoming a friend is too abstract for Denji, who doesn't react. He will only react when new physical contact is mentioned, reacting unusually comically.

Miri mentions this last argument as a last resort, leaving as if he was already sure it would be pointless. It's as if someone had told him to mention low, childish things like steak and sex because they were the only things that would convince Denji.

There's a clear dichotomy in Miri's speech between the arguments that convinced him (surely used by the church to hire him) and the other kinds of arguments that would convince Denji, whispered to him by someone in the church who knows Denji.

Who knows Denji? No hybrids, they don't have any memories, so surely not Reze.

I like to imagine that it's Kishibe, since the steak and sex with several girls are explicit things that Denji mentioned in front of him when he proclaimed his dream.

He was also the only one to observe the fight between Pochita and Makima. So he's the only one who can tell us about the hybrids' past. If we support his link with the hybrids through Quanxi...

It all ties together!

If we go back to the title... A Chair Feelings. It takes on a whole new meaning.

Note the use of the indefinite article "a" and not "the" when only Denji is doing the chair? Wouldn't a chair be a broader metaphor and category? The chair would be the form of alienation accepted by the weapons. Still not freedom.

In short, Fujimoto questions one thing: is the man who claims to be free so far removed from the man who makes the chair ?

[rutilation]

I sincerely doubt I'm the first person to have noticed this, but I'm currently riding the high of having just connected some dots, so I'm going to jot down my thought process regardless.

Because I am the sort of person who reads dictionaries for fun, one of the first things I did after being introduced to this game last month was look into the etymologies of various characters’ names. We play as an android named magpie?  What a cute little reference to our gameplay loop of exploring and picking up stuff.  We’re looking for a girl named Alina Ariane?  That’s pretty juicy as well.  Ariane, and variations thereupon, are derived from the Greek Ariadne, which is the name of the woman who lead Theseus through the labyrinth with her ball of yarn—a fitting metaphor for Ariane’s role as the beacon guiding Elster through this surreal narrative.

Anyway, a little while ago, I found myself watching this playthrough of the game, and it was quite helpful because the person playing can read Chinese, and I myself am pretty helpless when it comes to characters that I can’t easily copy-paste into a dictionary.  Leng means 'cold,' you say?  Well, I'm happy to finally learn that!  A ways into the playthrough, she points out that one of the hanzi in the red desert sequence is likely to be Ariane’s last name.  Intrigued, I looked it up, and found out it means poplar.

That made me wonder if there was some rationale behind choosing that surname in particular.  After all, if the first half of Ariane's name was so obviously symbolic, why wouldn’t the second half also be so?  I ask myself: what do trees have to do with her?  My brain answers: “Die Toteninsel, obviously.”

The trees in that painting are cypress, though.  I start wondering: okay, if you’re going to name this character after a tree, why not name her after the tree that holds significance to the story—to her story?  Moreover, what do poplars even look like? I’m not an arborist…

They’re not cypress, but what I saw in google images looked like they could be mistaken for them at a distance. Their lenticular shape, at least, was reminiscent of the trees in Die Toteninsel. A new hypothesis starts germinating in my head at this point. Suppose the hanzi for ‘cypress,’ whatever that may be, isn’t in use as a surname.  If so, perhaps the devs had to work their way down the line, and pick out a tree that they could use as a last name, one that at least looked like the tree they had in mind, so that they could still evoke the image of the painting through Ariane’s name.

Obviously, I had to return to my precious dictionaries, and test this hypothesis.  It failed immediately.  柏 means cypress, and it is indeed used as a surname.  Now back to square one, my initial question becomes even more pressing.  Why did the devs name Ariane ‘poplar’ instead of ‘cypress?’  If the more meaningful option was already right there in front of them, why didn't they take it?

It was at this point my brain cells finally deigned to rub together, and the answer smacked me across the face.  There’s another painting I hadn’t been taking into account, and I’d already seen the shape and form of a poplar, even before I pulled up my search results.

The tall green trees on the left side of the Die Lebensinsel are unmistakably poplars.  My earlier observation that poplars and cypresses had similar silhouettes possibly had some merit after all—that may have been what was going through Böcklin’s mind as he worked on this painting which was the intentional antithesis to Die Toteninsel.

(I say “unmistakably,” but, again, I’m no arborist.  While some cursory googling didn’t reveal a gloss for the flora in this painting, someone on r/whatisthisplant also thought that these seem to be poplars, for what it’s worth.)

So, Ariane is named not after the isle of the dead, but the isle of life.  My reward for answering my initial question is, of course, more questions.  Why have Ariane’s name hearken to this painting? I haven't figured that out, but I do think that in order to answer that question, one first has to ask what Die Lebensinsel means to Signalis in the first place, and my thoughts are a little more substantial in that regard.  Substantial, but also pretty subjective. Everything prior to this point is trivia dug up by a dictionary-enjoyer, and everything past this point is me free-associating my way through confusing imagery, like our overlord, the big red eye, intended.

As for me, I associate Die Lebensinsel with the artifact ending.  Not so much because of how happy it is per se, (highly debatable,) but because of how both the ending and the painting are obfuscated by the game.  In Signalis, you can't get away from the other two paintings.  They dominate the red desert sequence, they're found decorating the occasional wall in overworld, and you even walk across the shore of oblivion yourself.  Die Lebensinsel, on the other hand, is never as tangible as the other two, only ever flitting across the screen for a single frame at a time.  It's almost completely imperceptible in the moment; you have to already know to look for it to glimpse it, or else discover it by playing back the red desert cutscene frame-by-frame.  All this mirrors how the artifact ending is integrated into the story. The keys to it are right in your face—the safe, the code, a strange signal on your radio, the lilies interspersed throughout game—but it's nigh impossible to grasp any of those things without hindsight, without picking it apart after the fact. You have to really look to find Die Lebensinsel, and you have to really look to find the artifact ending.

There’s also the subject matter of the paintings to consider.  Die Toteninsel depicts a psychopomp ferrying a soul to the eponymous isle of the dead, and the story of Signlais is about trying help Ariane die, with the normal endings representing all the ways Elster succeeds and fails in doing so.  In the artifact ending, however, we are not trying to put anyone out of their misery.  We’re beseeching the King in Yellow, or the Almighty Red Hexagon, or the Music of the Universe, or whoever the fuck, to grant us our own little pocket-dream-dimension where we never have to die and can dance with our wife forever, amidst the decay of a solar system which has just contracted cancer.  We’ve already cast off from the shore of oblivion by this point, but the island we’ve landed on in this ending can’t really be considered the isle of the dead. We're dancing, after all, so this must be the isle of life.

This interpretation of Die Lebensinsel having crystallized in my mind, I circled back around to my most recent question: why is Ariane named after the artifact ending?  I still wasn’t sure.  But, as I ruminated on it, I realized that you can also draw a direct line from Elster’s name to the artifact ending.  After all, Elster=Lilith, and Lilith=lilies, and lilies=the artifact ending. 

To surmise, my question has gone from “Why is Ariane named after poplar?” to "Why isn't Ariane named after cypress?" to “Why is Ariane named after Die Lebensinsel?” to “Why is Ariane named after the artifact ending?” to “Why are Elster and Ariane both named after the artifact ending?”  What could it all mean?  Maybe in a few weeks/months/years, I’ll come upon an answer I’m satisfied with.

[prongsiess]

I think we don’t pay enough attention to the tragedy of the Black sisters. So, here’s my take on their relationship and how it soured with time. For context, I hc Bella as being born November 1952 (a sagittarius), Andy as being born is February 1954 (an aquarius), and Cissa as being born in March 1956 (a pisces). This puts Bella and Andy roughly 1 1/2 years apart, and Andy and Cissa roughly 2 years apart, with Bella and Cissa being 3 1/2 years apart. So when Cissa was in 1st year, Andy was in 3rd year, and Bella was in 5th year.

Bella and Andy were always too close in age and too different to agree on anything. They were both stubborn, independent free-spirits in an incompatible way. Andy wanted a big sister who didn't make her feel second best for being foolish and childish. Bella always felt resentful for being a little girl meant to fill shoes designed for a male heir, never quite being good enough, and felt suffocated by her family and jealous of Andy, who never had that imposed on her. They were so similar, and it made them polar opposites in all the worst ways, and their temper and opposing political stances were the eventual downfall of their sisterhood. Andy was in 5th year, in love with a muggle-born, living authentically for the first time, refuting her family values and burning bridges to gain freedom from her parents and their twisted customs. Bella was in 7th year, in the midst of a toxic on-again-off-again affair with Rita and being promised off to Rodolphus Lestrange, leaning further into the Black family legacy to fit in and be seen as an adult and become the perfect heir she always wanted to be and get out from under her parent's thumb. They were chasing the same goal, but taking different paths, and it ruined their relationship.

On the flip side, they were both very close with Cissa. In Bella’s case, the 3 1/2 year age gap between her and Cissa made Bella lean more into the nurturing older sister role. Cissa was the antithesis of Andy and Bella. She was soft and agreeable, and Bella always thought she was too delicate for their family and kept a very close tab on her as a kid. When Bella left for Hogwarts, Cissa grew up, but never in her mind. She always stayed that delicate little flower who needed protecting. Bella was almost like a tiny mother to Cissa. Her sister was the one to read her bedtime stories and braid her hair. She was just a little girl when she saw her strong and protective sister become a shell of herself, suffocated by their family, chasing the next high. So, Cissa became small and agreeable. Because if she didn’t dispute her parent’s expectations, she could keep that spark safe and hidden within herself. By the time she got to Hogwarts, Bella was already in 5th year and falling into the wrong crowd, chasing ruthless power, filthy glory, and all the things a Black woman was not to chase but a Black heir must possess. Cissa was the one who saw Bella drunk and stumbling to her room, murmuring something about just wanting to be loved without sacrificing anything in return. As Cissa grew up, she became a formidable woman, all without upsetting her family and the expectations placed upon her, learning how to play the game and thread that fine line where she got to have her cake and eat it too. In 7th year, Lucius courted her, so she did all the right things at the right time. At 18, she was married. By 26, she had a baby boy, a lavish home and a new identity, far removed from her parent’s grasp. But Bella, who still kept a close tab on her baby sister, never missed the tensed shoulders and impassive look of rehearsed indifference that appeared on Cissa’s face when someone mentioned that one Gryffindor prefect who was in her year in school, Alice Fortescue. It was the same look she saw in the mirror every time Rita Skeeter, now a dirty journalist, was brought up. So Bella, broken and sloppily glued back together by her own drunken hands, stayed close to Cissa, just in case her baby sister would someday slip up, and that delicate flower of a child would show up again. On Cissa’s end, she was now an adult and saw the price Bella paid for freedom and her poorly curated facade of strength and prowess. Cissa saw her sister’s power and glory, loveless marriage, lack of an heir, and how her determination to gain freedom drove her into another prison cell. And then, she couldn’t help but feel like the mother, as Bella, always looming around Malfoy Manor, fell into her guest room bed, where she braided her older sister’s hair and listened to her sleepily and drunkenly slur about how she’d make it, someday, somehow, she’d make it out. In those moments, Cissa couldn’t help but feel like she was the mother now. So she kept Bella close in case she needed a pair of arms to fall into after another night out, masquerading as a fearsome man while wearing a sequin gown with blood-red lips.

Andy and Cissa’s relationship was wildly different from their relationship with Bella. Andy had roughly the same age gap with Bella as with Cissa, but without the burden of fulfilling familial duties, they simply enjoyed being girls together. Andy was always a bit loud, boisterous and opinionated. Since she rarely received positive attention from her parents, she acted out, hoping this would make her parents pay attention to her. Andy was always making a mess and prancing around, with Cissa close on her heels, walking cautiously behind. When they were behind closed doors, Andy had no one to perform to, and Cissa had no one to hide from, so they were just two little girls playing pirates and fairies and imagining their life in far-off gardens where they were the rulers of their own life. When Bella went to Hogwarts, they grew even closer. Since Andy had no one to feel constantly compared to, she grew tamer and calmer in front of peering eyes and kept all that energy and rowdiness for the back of the garden and closed doors where she and Cissa went off into far-off lands. When Andy went to Hogwarts, it broke Cissa’s heart to see her sister share that wonder and adventure with others, something meant to be theirs alone. Andy grew popular, brave, strong, and loving and finally got to experience unconditional love and the feeling of not being afraid of her own shadow. She let her free spirit roam, grow, and flourish, and when Cissa finally came to Hogwarts, she wanted Cissa to follow in her footsteps and realize they were free at Hogwarts. But Cissa, who had been home alone for two years with mostly her parents for company, knew Hogwarts was not the haven her sister thought it to be. Every time Andy got detention, talked to a muggle-born or laughed too loudly in the halls, her wrongdoings made their way to their parents' ears. So she pushed away Andy’s hand, asking her to join her adventures and free-spiritedness, and she kept that side of herself hidden, but this time from everyone, including Andy. Andy tried reaching out and relating to her sister and meeting her halfway, but Cissa firmly refused to be associated with her anywhere they could be seen together. She knew her family’s opinion of Andy and feared her parents' wrath if she followed her sister’s path. Because her parents may be able to erase one daughter, but they weren’t as eager to erase 2 of them. So they grew apart. Andy left home, married a muggle-born, and had a beautiful daughter in a quaint, loving home. It broke Cissa’s heart to watch from afar, but at this point, she had already cemented herself in high society, with a wealthy family, good prospects and a lavish home. She couldn’t justify risking her son’s future to reconnect with her sister. It almost killed Andy to leave, but she couldn’t keep trudging alone, so she found herself a place where she could roam and raise her daughter where adventure and wonder didn’t have to stay behind closed doors. She watched Cissa from afar, seeing her portray the image of the picture-perfect Black daughter with straight shoulders and neat hair, and, at some point, she stopped peering at her sister’s life through keyholes. If she couldn’t have Cissa as her sister today, she could keep those memories of their closeness and sisterhood close to her heart, hidden away, where no one can ruin them.

[jeonqkooks]

isn't it romantic? | myg (prologue)

⟶ SERIES MASTERPOST

Many things in life have a polar opposite: left and right, night and day, yin and yang, you and Min Yoongi... Hopeless romantic meets gloomy cynic. The only thing you seem to share is a magazine column but even then, you still can’t seem to understand how Yoongi can be called ‘The Love Doctor’ when he is the antithesis of everything love represents. 

pairing: yoongi x f!reader; past taehyung x f!reader

rating: 18+ (minors dni)

genre/warnings: coworkers to lovers, fluff, angst, eventual smut; crying, central themes of cheating, that's pretty much it for the prologue

word count: 777

note: the yoongi brainrot is real y'all. he's really wreaking havoc on my life and forcing me to drop everything to focus on him when i have no much other shit to write 😩 but anyhow, this is exciting !! my first yoongi fic aaaa !! please show her some love y'all cuz this may or may not be a deeply personal story to me 💕 i wanted to say more but i forgot just as i sat down to write this a/n lmao. ANYWAY, massive thanks to @daechwitatamic and @luaspersona for beta'ing this for me on such short notice (and jo for telling that there's stuff in here that i should go to jail for bc that's always the best thing to hear 😌) y'all are awesome and i love you <3 and @jeonwiixard for being hurt by this 😚

— as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

You are 7, and life is good, as life should be for all children.

You have two parents who adore you, and a sister with whom you constantly bicker but that’s okay, because it’s how siblings love each other. You have constellations hanging from your bedroom ceiling, someone to read your bedtime stories every night, hot meals on the table every day. Every summer, your family takes a trip somewhere beautiful and a week feels like forever when it's just the four of you together, surrounded with only warmth and laughter. You don’t know any other way to live life.

Love is abundant, because that’s what love is supposed to be.

You are 7, and you don’t know how to accept that everything can be different in just a blink of an eye.

When your father comes back from a business trip, the first thing you do is dig through his bag in search of his phone, to look for that video game that you don’t understand but love playing so much. What you find instead, is a picture he took with a strange woman, on a beach somewhere, wearing straw hats and tacky shirts and bright smiles. You show it to your mother, and life forever changes.

Children can be nosy sometimes. It’s inherent to being kids.

You don't know what it means. It's just a picture. You just want your game.

You are 7, and how is a child supposed to react when their world is turned upside down?

No one reads you bedtime stories anymore. Your mother rarely goes out of her room. Your sister has to grow into an adult when she herself is still a teenager, to take care of you, to make sure that you’re fed and clothed and have all of your books when you go to school.

You don’t know that people can be sad even as they’re smiling and laughing. People can be sad even as they’re telling you that they aren’t, and that everything is just fine. People can be sad even when they’re happy.

Your mother doesn’t have that same light in her anymore. You can’t tell if she’s just tired, or if there’s something else bothering her, a secret gnawing at the back of her mind that she doesn’t let you in on.

Answers to simple questions like “When is dad coming home?” used to be “In an hour,” or “He’ll be back to read to you before bed.” Now, she answers you with tears in her eyes before she turns away, and you have yet to discover that words have the power to hurt, and hearts are things that can break even when they're healthy and beating.

Your sister learns to be more careful with her words because she knows things that you don’t, things that you’re too young to understand. She knows of burdens that you have yet to bear but will inevitably have to.

You are 7, and your parents aren’t holding up the sky anymore. Occasional late nights at the office turned into a constant absence at the dinner table. Laughter has since dulled into taut silence that never relents, only stretches on and on and on, until it forces you to adapt to the absence of joy in your home.

If someone were to ask you what envy was, you wouldn’t be able to tell them the definition, but you can describe to them what it’s like. It’s a foreign concept, yet so familiar at the same time. Before, you used to feel envious when you see another kid holding a cooler toy or wearing a prettier dress. Now, you’re envious when the other children at school have parents waiting to take them home after a long day. You don’t want your sister to be the only one who shows up. You want love to be abundant again.

You are 7, and you haven’t yet learned how to hold back tears. You miss your father because he rarely comes home anymore. When he does, your parents would argue. Yell at each other. Sob until screams turn into hiccups. Slam doors. You cry because the house feels like it’s going to collapse. 

You still remember the picture on your dad’s phone, or at least, you remember the color of the water. It was blue, like the color of the sky on a beautiful sunny day. Blue, like the cover of your favorite fairy tale, splattered with golden sparkles. Blue, like the walls of your parents’ bedroom. Blue, like the feeling that no child should experience. Blue, because that’s all you have to remember your stolen childhood by.

You are 7.

— all rights reserved © jeonqkooks. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted 24.04.2023]

[lakeofsilverpike]

There’s something about seeing Moiraine in Cairhien that makes it feel so much more beautiful that she created two deeply intimate and profoundly honest relationship (ok, ok, the Mo and Lan situation went a little off the rails recently).

Watching Moiraine with her sister, there are these tiny moments where Moiraine almost seems to want to be open and honest, but then she remembers where she is, and how everything is a game. And she looks so tired of it. Just about to fall apart. And desperate for someone she can be honest with.

Because she’s lived what, seventy years now, having someone always by her side that she is completely honest with. Fifty years in the White Tower with Siuan. Twenty years after that still completely open with Siuan every chance they can be together. Twenty years with Lan in her mind, completely open and vulnerable with him.

How freeing must it have felt to leave the Sun Court, having never been allowed to be truly honest, never able to stop playing games, holding back her feelings, trying to maneuver everyone, fully trusting no one. How freeing to arrive at the White Tower and fall in love with a woman who speaks her mind, who swears, and speaks plainly. How freeing to laugh openly with Siuan, to play pranks and giggle, and slowly, I’m sure, painfully slowly, learn how to be honest, learn how to trust.

What an act of bravery. What an act of defiance against the way Moiraine was raised, against being taught that love means nothing, that power is all that matters (the way Moiraine smiles at Barthanes and tells him she hopes his marriage is a happy match, and Anvaere looks at Moiraine like she’s completely forgotten how to exist in Caihien, because what fool thinks about love instead of Daes Dae’mar?).

What a gift to fall in love with someone who doesn’t lie, who gets into trouble constantly for speaking her mind, who is honest with Moiraine, who shows Moiraine that honesty and openness can feel safe. So incredibly safe that fifty years later, Moiraine is open to bonding Lan. Think of the vulnerability. That girl from Cairhien knew only masks and being as hard as she needed to be (always so so hard, always ice to everyone but Siuan and Lan). But fifty years of being loved and loving honestly, of sharing herself completely, has changed Moiraine. And so she can do something that is the antithesis of what she was raised to do. She can tie her soul to Lan’s, she can be completely open and vulnerable to him.

She’s changed so much, is able to trust by then. But how radical and healing must it still be to let someone into her soul and find he doesn’t betray her. How incredibly healing must it have been to fall in love with Siuan? To be a young woman learning to let someone see her for the first time in her life. How healing must loving Siuan have felt? How healing to love two people without lies or masks after being raised to believe that sharing yourself and being honest is a weakness.

[dross-the-fish]

SELMA WAS THE ONE WHO HELPED HYDE OUT IN HIS HEALING JOURNEY??? THATS ADORABLE. I LOVE THEM!!!

She didn't help him in a direct way. You really can't help Edward in a direct way, he resents that, but over time as he grew to care for her he did come to the conclusion that he wanted to be a little better for her, much like he did for Alice. Selma didn't try to fix him or judge him, she has seen worse things and worked with people who were more evil just due to the nature of her job as a monster hunter. Putting aside biases and morals for the greater good is a thing she can and has done and her own view of morality is a bit skewed. When she left the states it was under the understanding that she wasn't going to come back. Dracula had already killed Quincey Morris (Selma's uncle and the man Quincey Harker is named for) and Selma's family held a small funeral for her before she left to say good by. She knew this was a one-way trip. Then she got to the UK and people weren't particularly friendly to a mixed race American woman, it was a lonely experience.

But then there was this horrible little Scotsman who was the antithesis of everything proper and English and she kind of clung to him. He was terrible, he was mean, he could drink her under the table, he made her forget everything that was going on and overtime they got close. Edward, despite being awful, loves good people. He loves people for whom goodness is genuine, who aren't acting or being good out of a sense of moral expectation. He loves and resents those people, like Utterson, and Alice and now Selma. In some way having Selma was one of the things that contributed to Edward finding it in him to want to be Henry again. She didn't "Fix" him but she did play a part in him wanting to fix himself and embracing the better aspects of his nature.

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Hate Fucked - A Fenriz/Reader One Shot Story.

We all know baby boi is a sweet little puppy, but here I wrote him as the antithesis of that. Slight dom!Gylve leaning. He's giving me killer brain rot right now. Enjoy!

Words - 1,260

Warnings - Smut below the cut, minors DNI!

He always knows it, when you’re at the mercy of ovulation. You become needy, especially for him, wanting little more to be pinned beneath him and fucked until you scream your voice hoarse. And if you irritate him enough, he’s rarely gentle with you. It goes in stark contrast to his usual geniality, the affectionate lover who is much softer than most would think.  

When you’re becoming a tightly wound mess of a woman, though, you neither desire or require soft. You know he’ll figure you out, too, he always knows when you’re pushing his buttons. He shouldn’t rise to your bait, but oh, how good it feels to snap his teeth when you’re deliberately serving up provocation. 

“Gylve,” you whine, reaching for his arm and stroking. “Please hurry. It’s only coffee, you don’t need to spend this long making a decision.” 

He doesn’t look away from the shelves before him, cradling his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I do. They don’t have my usual brand. I have to contemplate.”  

He doesn’t. Anything strong will do, he is not that fussy an individual. He’s playing along, though, pushing back. “But I want to go home.” 

Your hand begins to creep up beneath his t shirt, fingernails pattering his spine until he reaches to remove it, tutting. “Stop it.” 

“Don’t want to.” Your pout finally earns his observance, turning to you with a slight frown. 

“Behave.”  

Leaning to him, you drop a kiss to his upper arm. “Don’t want to.”  

No, you truly don’t. You want to be punished, so that’s what he does. His eyes flit back to the shelf, continuing to study the bags of ground coffee, pushing you gently from his side whenever you attempt to wrap around him. You whine more, but he ignores it, pays you not one bit of the attention you’re craving, continuing along the aisle in slow tour, placing items into the basket you carry.  

You’re incandescent by the time the items are being rung through, looking at him from beneath your lashes as you pack the few groceries, sulking with indignance. He pays the cashier, taking the bag from you and holding out his hand.  

“Come on.” 

You fix yourself to the spot, lips pursed. He rolls his eyes with a sigh. “Stop being a brat. Come on.” 

You count to five slowly before wrapping your hand around his, fingers tightening as he pulls you to walk in step beside him, eyes fixed ahead. It’s a short walk home, and he’s silent with every step, your mouth curling into a grin to know it’s worked.  

“Wouldn’t be smiling if I were you,” he mutters. “You’re in trouble.” 

And how it fizzes caustically through your blood.  

Climbing the stairs to your apartment, he releases your hand, unclipping his keys and unlocking the front door, taking the groceries through to the kitchen while you loiter in the hallway. With nothing perishable that needs putting away, the bag is left on the counter, Gylve turning back to stare at you as he lifts his chin. Your look of matching defiance makes a spark flare into life within him, walking to you, not stopping, giving you no choice to begin pacing backwards when his chest hits yours, backing you against the smooth plaster of the hallway wall.  

Grasping your wrists, he lifts them above your head, one hand closing around them both as he presses himself against you. “Is this what you wanted?” You drop your gaze, his other hand lifting your chin. “Answer me.”  

Your silence earns a soft slap to your cheek, his hand then grasping your jaw tightly. “I said answer me.” 

“Yeah, it is.” You touch your tongue against your top lip, your teeth grazing a bite upon the lower, blinking slowly, your cheeks flushing, breath hitching when you feel his cock pressing hard against you. “And I know I’ve been bad; I know I’ve been a whiny brat. It's only because I want you so much, though. And I know you love me regardless, but I want you to fuck me like you don’t.” 

He closes his eyes, just for a second as the fire of what your words invoked lick against his insides, his gaze falling to watch you clenching your thighs, knowing that his pinning you against the wall has probably got you just as wet as it did get him hard. It derails him, and he hates you a little bit for it, his plan to hold your neck while he fucked your mouth knocked into the shade by the escalation of his want.  

It happens quickly, your body turned and pushed flat against the wall, the sound of him unfastening his jeans making heat crackle beneath your skin. He pulls your skirt until it puddles at your ankles, his thigh forcing between yours to widen your legs, the action making your pulse quicken rapidly. The desire in you coils in your belly like a serpent, feeling him bend at the knees a little behind you, yanking your underwear to the side before his cock pushes all the way up into you, knocking the breath from your lungs with a gasp. 

Releasing the grip around your wrists, his hand moves to your hair, fingers grasping at the roots and tensing, the little slither of pain magmatic as he pulls your head back, teeth laying a sharp bite to your neck. There’s no build to it, he’s brutal with you, cock daggering the soaked plush of your cunt with rapid thrusts. It’s frenzied and unrelenting, exactly how you desired, and even though he’s the one in control you both know it is purely driven by being a slave to your demands. 

And you demanded to be hate fucked, right there against the hallway wall. 

He groans in your ear, a low, barbarous rumble, and it sets your blood to blaze, your slick muscles yielded around the spear of him as they begin to flutter, everything winding tight. A crush of teeth sends pain shooting through your earlobe, his free hand gripping your hip, nails imbedding red crescents before he suddenly slips from you. You’re turned, underwear ripped from you before you’re lifted by strong arms, dropped back down again on his cock, his hands clutching hard beneath your thighs as he rails you against the wall, pleasure skittering up your spine.  

There’s no mercy in him whatsoever, and you asked for this, every last drop of aggression he pounds into your wailing, shaking body, the lewd squelch of his cock cutting through your slick cunt filling the space, adding to the filthy sounds of your pants and moans.  

"You're a whiny little brat, and you piss me off, but fuck, I love you," he groans, biting your lower lip so hard, the copper tang of blood fills your mouth, his kisses all embers and sin. 

"Just as long as you keep fucking me like you don't, baby." And god, how he does, until it hurts, until your release pours golden and molten over your bones as your thighs clench around the rapid buck of his hips. The bliss of his release swims bright in his eyes, catching his breath, kissing you with heat, and finally, just a little touch of softness.

“Bad fucking girl,” he chuckles, moving you away from the wall, still fused, his hand smacking your bum hard.  

You grin, all delight and triumph. “But you love me for it.” 

“Mm.”  

You know that he does. Even if you do drive him crazy half the time.  

[ecargmura]

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Episode 21 Review - Clash Between Geriatrics

What’s a better way to end the first part of the exam than with an epic magic showdown between two geriatrics? Unfortunately for Denken, the geriatric woman much older than him defeats him. He did put up a good fight, though. And speaking of old people, we also get an introduction to Serie, Flamme’s elf master, meaning she’s an elf much smarter and much older than Frieren. This should be interesting.

The battle between Frieren and Denken was great. It shows off how strong these two are as mages, but even if Denken has been around for a long time, Frieren has been around longer. Despite that, these two may have been fighting as enemies, but it looks more like a rivalry as both are mages who enjoy the fun of searching and discovering magic rather than having it handed to them. Because Frieren and Fern’s spells are a bit basic, it’s finally nice to see a mage with some fancy spells. The way Denken used that fire magic was gorgeously animated. His sparkly light spell was great too. Despite that, Frieren shows why she’s stronger; in fact, that old trinket she carries around is proof that she is the last Great Mage. Yep, she’s basically Saitama in this universe. I also like the scene where Frieren breaks the barrier to give Kanne the advantage against Richter. I do like that she’s watching over her teammates like they’re her granddaughters and that she wanted to give Serie a big middle finger after she had recalled her encounter with her. The way it was animated was great.

The battle with Kanne and Lawine against Richter was also quite nice. It’s like watching an Earthbender against two water benders but one only uses ice while the other is lacking natural water and is just defending. Though, I do wonder why Kanne couldn’t just use her sweat. I do like that despite having the advantage, Richter’s main flaw was that he was looking down on his opponents. They were kids, so he was holding back in a way? Once Frieren broke the barrier, Kanne used a powerful water spell and destroyed Richter; no deaths here, by the way. Also, I’m sorry to all the Avatar: The Last Airbender fans because you guys do not deserve to have the magnificent show get butchered by Netflix.

Now that I’m done talking about the battles, I want to talk about two major characters. The first I’ll be talking about is Serie. She’s an elf who was Flamme’s master. Because of her long live, she has accumulated and learned practically every spell in existence. So, she can give spells to mages too. She’s like a mother computer of spells in a way. From her screen time here, she’s easily the opposite of Frieren in every aspect; she’s like an antithesis of her of sorts. Serie has stayed in one place, gathered knowledge and doesn’t seem to care about people outside of mages. Frieren was once like that, but meeting Himmel, Heiter and Eisen changed all that. Realizing how much of an impact Himmel had left on her, she seeks to collect magic but also make connections with people. That’s how she managed to be where she is now because of her desire to connect. Other than that, not much else is known about Serie. Her voice is very deep. She’s voiced by Mariya Ise, who you might know to be the voice of Killua from Hunter x Hunter and Ray from The Promised Neverland. Ise is excellent with voicing boys and girls; she has distinct voices she use for the characters she plays. The voice that she uses for Serie is normally the one she uses when voicing boys, but Serie is a girl. I was surprised to see her use her young boy voice for this character. I like it though. It gives the impression that she’s the opposite of Frieren who has a soft voice.

The next character and the last major thing I want to talk about for the review is Denken. He’s surprisingly an intriguing character. I never knew someone could write this guy so cleverly. Props to the authors. At first, he may seem like the typical old guy, but he shows off rationality, wisdom and logic in his scenes. I like him a lot now that he had a lot of screen time in this episode. He knows when to back down, but he knows when to charge in. I like how he grabbed Richter with his legs to save him from being washed away by Kanne’s magic. My favorite scene with him was when he decided to throw hands against a team that had a Stille but lost a teammate. He had run out of mana due to his fight with Frieren, but that didn’t mean he lacked options. I never expected the old man of all people to settle things with an old-fashioned beat down; he won too given that his team passed!

There’s also a scene with Stark at the very end where he’s sort of enjoying the days without Fern and Frieren, but he also kind of misses them. Stark feels like a husband who’s wife and mother-in-law went on a business trip, so he has to fend for himself for a few days. Maybe I just see it like that because I ship Fern and Stark together.

Now that the first day of the exam ended, what will the second day be about? I’m a bit excited as the next round, no one is teamed up anymore. They’re all on their own. Maybe we can see Lawine and Kanne fight? Frieren and Fern fight? If anything, I’d like to see a rematch between Wirbel and Ubel with them going all out now. What do you want to see in the next round?

[superfanficnatural]

The Son: Chapter 3

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Male!Reader (The Son)

Summary: You’ve finally broken free of the forces controlling you at a great cost, though the cost of doing so was even greater than you thought. Now, you fight for the antithesis of what you had been representing, and have to grapple with finding your own place in the galaxy while grappling with the person trying to find their way into your heart. Will The Son choose the light? Or the dark? Whatever the answer may be, may the force be with us.

A/N: Chapter 3 is here everyone! I really hope you’re enjoying this series so far as I am loving writing it. As always, I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Mentions of Suicide, none others.

Word Count: 2,291

Italics are your thoughts

Masterpost

As your ship came out of hyperspace, you came face to face with a planet the navigation console called Yavin 4. As soon as you dropped out, you felt her presence. She was incredibly powerful and had a deep connection with the force, you could almost feel that the midi-chlorians loved her. You were appreciative of this presence as it allowed you to understand which part of the planet to pilot down to. As you were just entering the atmosphere, your center console began beeping and you realized that you had an incoming communication. Reaching over, you pushed the button that opened the communications channel. 

“Unidentified ship, identify yourself and state your purpose,” you heard a voice play overhead in the bridge.

“My name is Y/N Y/L/N, and I come looking for a woman named Leia Skywalker,” you responded swiftly. 

There was a slight pause on the other end, “What do you want with- You are not cleared for landing, turn your ship around and leave immediately or be blown out of the sky.”

You sighed, “Please, I am not with the First Order, I come in peace. I need to see Leia Skywalker.”

Your scanners picked up four other ships in formation behind you.

“This is your last- what?” you heard a slight commotion on the other end before they spoke up once more, “You are clear for landing, land at these coordinates.”

Your console beeped with the incoming coordinates which you promptly entered into your navigation computer and eventually set down your ship at. Exiting the ship, you were immediately met with a welcoming party, four soldiers with blasters at the ready, two people who looked like they worked communications, and Leia.

“I heard you were looking for me?” she asked as you descended the ramp.

“Indeed, you were the source of the light in this galaxy, and I knew that I had to come,” you responded as you walked up to her, keeping a slight distance so as to not alarm the guards.

She looked at you inquisitively, “You’re a Jedi? I can... feel your energy, it’s strong.”

You decided to spare her the details, at least for now, “Not quite, but... becoming. I have my crystals but no sabers.”

“Have you come to join the Resistance?” 

You thought to yourself for a moment, “I believe so. Though I must first speak with you, privately.”

“And why is that?” one of the guards asked.

You didn’t remove eye contact with her as you tried to convey your intentions to her. It seemed to work as she waved her hand at the guards, “It’s alright. Mr. Y/L/N and I have things to discuss.”

She turned and headed towards the main building, her entourage following as you caught up with them. After a series of hallways and a few people walking past your group, you ended up in a large room with a circular technological table at the center. Walking up to it, the group dissolved around the table and Leia guided you further across the room to a door, a smaller adjoined room behind it. 

Once the two of you entered, she walked up to her desk and turned to you, “What is it that you need to tell me?”

“It’s more of what I require of you, but I can also give you answers to questions you might have,” you responded.

“Who are you?” she questioned.

“I knew you would start with that, it’s my energy right?”

She nodded, “I can sense that you’re extremely powerful yet... it’s like I can’t sense anything at all at the same time.”

You sighed, “You are correct. I am currently suppressing my force energy as I fear if I unleash it all it could throw the galaxy into chaos.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she solidified.

You looked her straight in the eyes, “I was once known as ‘The Son,’ a cosmic being and emblem of the dark side of the force.”

You were expecting her to have a reaction at what you had said but she stood unmoving, intently listening to what you had to say.

“My sister, she was known as ‘The Daughter,’ she was the emblem of the light side. My father, he was known as ‘The Father,’ and he was the one who held control over me and my sister, and by extension, the light and dark sides of the force.”

Leia made no moves to interrupt you and her aura was warm and inviting, allowing you to speak freely without judgment.

NEXT PARAGRAPH IS POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING (SEE WARNINGS)

“When I was,” your throat began to swell as the memories of what you had done had returned. “When I was the emblem of the dark side, I was a slave. I had no control over myself as I had no sense of myself. In my anger I killed my sister and nearly killed my father. Though, he ended up doing it himself,” you had to stop yourself from speaking as your words began to turn to whispers, your throat tightened as you tried not to cry. After a moment and a deep breath, you gathered yourself, “After my father died, his powers transferred into me, and with the help of... your father, I put myself into a slumber to ensure the balance would stay stable in the galaxy. I was only to awaken once a nexus event in the force occurs. Though I’ve come to find out that I am to assist this nexus event to occur instead, it should be sometime within the next two years.”

She responded immediately as she had intently listened the entire time, “My father? What do you mean?”

“Anakin Skywalker, my father had invited him to the palace for him to take over as the controller over my sister and I, as he was getting old and was going to pass away soon. We might have had immortality, but our father didn’t. That is when all of the events I told you about conspired. I swore him and his companions to secrecy, which I assume he kept, even though he turned to the dark side.”

“And now with your fathers powers, you’re able to feel both sides? Have control over them? Is that why you’re now able to control your own thoughts and actions?”

“Very astute, Leia. That is precisely my situation,” you responded with a smile, happy someone like this was in the galaxy. 

“You asked to speak to me privately,” she turned and began to walk the room, “which means that you don’t want anyone else to know about this.”

You nodded, “That is correct, as far as anyone else is concerned, I am a force sensitive pilot who has little knowledge about the mundane and wants to fight against the First Order.”

“Little knowledge about the mundane?” Leia turned to you.

“I’m afraid that I am unfamiliar with the rituals that humans go through on a day to day basis, and usually find myself befuddled at situations I haven’t been in... which is just about anything outside of a tropical climate or random acts and things I’ve seen through the force. Once I pick something up, I can see its history and its inner workings, but I have to do that for just about everything because I know nothing,” you tried to explain as best as you could. As you were speaking, a piece of your grown out hair fell into your face and you pushed it away, “I’ve never had hair before to shape, nor a beard to groom.” You also took a look at the large glass pane that let you see into the other room to look into your reflection, dirt all over your face from Utapau, “I’ve also never gotten... unclean to need cleaning.”

Leia sighed and closed her eyes, “So you’re a newborn baby aside from your emotional and mental maturity?”

You squinted your eyes and raised your eyebrows, “...yes? Though I am also fairly new to emotions outside of the scope of the dark side.”

She gave you a once over, “Well, no offense, but your appearance corroborates so I believe you. Now, what do you want from me?”

You straightened, “Information really. I don’t know much about what’s going on currently in the galaxy other than the control of the First Order. I need information on how things work, processes, the day to day in the life of a Rebel. I assume you are in charge which is why you are the best source of information to get this from.”

“That sounds like it will... take a while, I’m not sure I can accommodate you.”

You took a step forward, “I agree, while spoken word is the most comfortable way to convey information, there is an alternative.”

She looked at you questionably, “What is the alternative?”

You smiled lightly, “It’s nothing to fear, it’s simply a bit invasive as it requires me to search your memories and acquire the information that way.”

“You mean look into my mind? My memories?” she responded.

“Precisely. It will almost be like I would live through the events myself, it is the easiest way for me to acquire the information I need,” you stated.

“Why couldn’t you do this with anyone else? Why me?”

“Good question. Your connection with the force makes it easier for me to reach into your mind than most others. Additionally, while I enter your memories, I become vulnerable to influence from the person I do it to. I know that you do not have any ill intentions. To add to all of that, your memory will be the most educational,” you explained.

She thought to herself for a moment, “How is it that you are able to do this?”

“To be honest,” you rubbed the back of your neck, “I haven’t fully figured out how either. I was able to show people events of the future and even see it myself but I lost that ability after my fathers power entered into me. Now, I can only see flashes, nothing solid to make out. I suspect that the dark side of me has yet to fully accept me after turning from slave to master, or perhaps there is an individual who is blocking me.”

“Is there someone powerful enough to do that? Based on your story, you should be one of the strongest force users to ever live. I can feel it coming off of you,” she retorted. 

You sucked in a breath, “I’ve been suppressing myself in order to keep the balance of the galaxy. I suspect I will only be able to wield my true power at the time of the nexus event. Though what or when that is, I currently have no idea. Until then, I’m afraid I only have about the same level of power as your father, though with a few more... tricks for simplicity's sake.”

She pushed a button on the table which clouded the glass in the wall, visually cutting the room off from anyone else, “Very well, let’s just get this over with.”

“I appreciate your trust in me, you truly are filled with light, Leia Skywalker,” you said as you approached her.

“Enough with the formalities, I can sense your intentions as well, I know that you’re here to help us,” she finished.

“Apologies, I am unfamiliar with a more... lax way of speaking, your father had warned me of it before but it seems I must work on it,” you said as you reached your hands up to her head and closed your eyes.

As you reached out to her mind, you gave the force a command, let me live through her.

To the outside world, only mere moments had passed, though, you had lived years of memories through her. You maintained her privacy and only lived through events that had multiple people in it, the events of the war she took place in against the Empire, growing up with her family on Alderaan, the recent events of the war against the First Order. After you had seen what you deemed necessary, you released yourself from her mind and took a step back.

“I felt you inside... it was like reliving all of that once more,” she commented as she regained her bearings.

“I apologize if I submitted you to any past traumas, that was not my intention,” you apologized.

She shook her head, “Not at all, a fresh reminder was nice actually. Have you learned everything you’ve needed?” You nodded, “I should have enough information to go off of to live and fight.”

As you responded, your stomach growled and you realized the dull pain you were feeling was from your stomach.

“Hunger, something new?” she asked, understanding what was going on.

“I... think so, if this is any indication,” you chuckled nervously.

She gave you a kind smile, “I’ll set you up in some quarters and get you some food. Though, I’m afraid I cannot lie to my own people about your identity.”

You sighed defeatedly but she kept going before you could respond, “I will keep the personal details personal, but they have to know that you are a Jedi, and that you’re here to support the Resistance.”

“That’s acceptable, but please, no one can know my status as ‘The Son,’ I do not wish to sow dissent or create any kinds of issues, Leia,” you conceded.

“I can agree to those terms, and by the way, it’s Leia Organa, but you’ll be calling me General Leia,” she corrected.

You smiled, “Apologies, I only learned of that after I saw your memories.”

She smiled in kind and walked over to open the door, “Welcome to the Resistance, Y/N.”

Next Chapter

Forevers Tag List: @magssteenkamp @shadowsinger11 @donnaintx @flamencodiva @impalawrites-blog @talesmaniac89 @malfoysqueen54 @writercole @hintsofhoney @lassie-bird @never--doubt

Male Reader Tag List: @myybebe @denim-devil @spnfanboy777

The Son Tag List: @brymalibu

[petitsdieu]

FIVE SONGS for your muse.

I have a semi-recent (seven) song list from another tagged meme thing here.

FIVE QUOTES for your muse.

((I don't have source material like movie or book quotes but I do have amazing writing partners (current or not ) that treat my muse like a canon and give me the most lovely written excerpts that could have been ripped right out of a book. If I searched more, I could have probably found more. But here are some of my favs. God bless you all.))

i.     (See the lamb’s flush betide her face; a bruise of muffled wanting.) (Behind Hara’s ear, hidden in her crown, is a softness kin to lambswool. She would hide it — bury it under garb and seam.) — written by @nightmarefuele

ii.   ( i hate how fuckin stubborn you are. it’s 5 am and i cant sleep and i’ll probably never send this but...) (...i think it’s because you’re scared. you’re fucking scared of someone knowing you so you go for the ones who just see you as a play thing and don’t want to know you and then you sit there with your fuck me eyes and act like none of us can see straight through your act. well i see you, hara ora, bright as fuckin day. you don’t fool me) — written by @drugstoreglitter

iii.     She was the damn antithesis of everything that he was: gentle, soft, good, perfect—he ought to have some guilt for wanting her this way, for knowing he was taking something far too fucking virtuous for a being such a malicious son of a bitch.  But he doesn’t care. That’s the problem. He wants her. Selfishly, without regret, and with absolute no remorse. It should be a blaring red alarm for her to be signaled to stay the hell away from him. Whether she’s naive, or hopeful, or misguided on who he is… he cannot bring himself to care. She accepts him. And for that, he would devour her.  — written by @godstrayed

iv.     "You’ve never been so lost, Hara. Have you? Ah, but you have. Only now you feel its full brunt, that it spreads over your mouth like the weeds — and in so suffocating, you turn to an inexplicable oppressor. To me. You’re not sure which I am: vulgar, or obscure. And that beguiles you. Revives you. You’ve been dead, ogled inside an old king’s birdcage, for so long…" — written by @nightmarefuele

v.   ...because it’s the energy she gives off, isn’t it, that, fuck me on speed kawaii angelic something that makes her head go all fucking spun, and yeah maybe hara’s less pastel pink and neon orange, but her existence looks streaked in glitter and glory and temporary flings and love and the way that something quick and easy can leave you feeling as if you were choking on the aftereffects of it, oh - it’s a hell of a lot, isn’t it. — written by @redemptioninterlude

vi.   Wants to feel his hands all over her ; wants to find salvation in the sweet flavour of her sugared lips . Would pull the wings off angels just to pull moans from the depths of her core . Almost forgot how pleasantly overwhelming it is to make love to her. — written by an old rp partner that's no longer around / blog gone.

vii.   Hara was obsessed with the idea of closing doors, of protecting what little she had of herself, for herself. And that was all fine and charming when you were on the outside, clamouring for an idea, a taste, of just what made that magic woman come to life. But in the reality, it was mud and sticks and stones that bore her, and inside, she sensed a deep emptiness… the way that she pushed people away, and howled at the proverbial moon, all the messages that she’d ever need to know just how fucked up she was. — written by @redemptioninterlude

viii.   One, two … four. He counts drops as they wet Hara’s skin. Shimmering, like honey. Five. Would they taste like the buttery warmth of her lotion? He might run his tongue along the lattice of her veins. Lace himself inside her salt and skin. — written by @nightmarefuele

tagged by: the ever talented @corruptedforce tagging: @nightmarefuele @redemptioninterlude @v1ctimplagued @ofdrivensnow @fawnworked @everyoneismytoy @cava1ier @cnlyluck @luckhissoul @bakerscars @triicksters @unwaivering + ANYONE AND EVERYONE THIS IS A GOOD GOOD ONE. <3

[you-know-i-get-itt]

favorite Shakespeare comedy + fav quote from it <3

much ado about nothing!!

okay this was difficult but i have settled on the “O that I were a man!” speech because aaaaahhh???? like 1) the commentary of gender roles with shakespeare playing with his “unsex me now” narrative (lady macbeth!) again; 2) i would eat his heart in the marketplace?????? i know everyone and their mother has talked about how absolutely fucking incredible this line is but like the graphic, visceral imagery being juxtaposed with firstly someone who society tries (and fails) to force to be gentle and secondly with a mundane thing like a marketplace—claudio matters so little that she doesn’t care where she tears him apart (interestingly, i see this as a direct antithesis to laertes’ “[i would] cut his throat in the church”); 3) the rage that bleeds through this monologue??? the raw anger????? this is a woman who’s SISTER has been WRONGED and everyone should be goddamned terrified of her (can you tell i adore beatrice so so so much); 4) the desperation. because she is brimming with rage and she is burning with the injustice of it all but there is nothing she can do. 5) i think i can hear her voice break at “I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.”

and i think my second favorite quote is very very different: “Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.” (act V scene ii) they’re so!!!!!!!!! i love beatrice and benedick so much oh my god. i’m just a little insane about the way they respect each other okay. and “I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?” AAAAAHH!!!! the way he just! said that!!!!! and that entire conversation!!!!!!! i love them so muchhh

[macbeth-n-cheese]

Something I've been thinking about

As the end-of-semester stress amounts, the student focuses on whatever random crap she thinks of instead of studying

I was looking at this exact gif on a post I've made a while ago, and the picture of "Mr. Mustache" caught my attention. Not the picture itself, but the nuances of it, its very existence in this specific shot.

First you have Mustache, looking to the side with an elegant getup, neck straight, symbolising the Empire and all it stands for. When you see him, it's easy to picture lines of marching soldiers in perfect sync, the violent punishment of whoever fell outside their boundaries, and the narrow-mindedness of men who had too much power in their hands. He is strict, "correct" (in his own perspective), stiff and final.

And in front of him you have Klaus Jäger, a decorated Standartenführer from the most elite organisation in the Empire, the absolute crème de la crème... and he has his tunic unbuttoned, his undershirt showing through, that little smirk and laid-back posture with a glass of booze in his hand as he tries to socialise with a captured enemy. Klaus in this scene is the perfect antithesis of Mustache: carefree, relaxed, accessible, open-minded and approachable. His own man.

Speaking from a military perspective, you don't go around with your uniform like that if you aren't in the locker room. Klaus was on duty, with a picture of his boss looking over his shoulder, and yet he chose to be this informal. He chose to appear careless and rebellious, just like he chose Nikolai for his task.

Now, this divides into two main ideas in my mind:

Jäger knows exactly what he does, and isn't afraid to cross some lines in order to achieve his goals. He picked a friendly, almost rebellious approach to get Nikolai's guard down, and make him see the German as an ally of sorts, someone that disregards the rules of the group he belongs to and can be trusted. He asks for Nikolai's name —asks how his friends call him iirc— and offers his own, putting them in equal terms and reinforcing it by the extremely cute and baby equivalence he makes with their names. He purposefully wants to put Nikolai at ease and get him to cooperate, setting himself as and playing the part of an outlier. To him, Nikolai is an asset and a target for revenge, and Jäger is the cold and calculating villain.

Or he genuinely is like that.

(the way he goes "omg, same name bros!" ;--;)

Klaus is intelligent, stubborn and proud, and he knows how to navigate his circles and balance his doubtful loyalty to the cause with good behaviour and excellent performance. He honestly and genuinely is his own man and works according to his own goals and his sense of duty (he's a soldier, not a partisan). His interest in Nikolai is personal, as a rival and someone on par with his own abilities, and someone he has a personal score to settle. In this approach, his friendliness would be genuine, and so would the contrast between him and the photo. I like this, if only because it shows a simplicity we don't see much in an antagonist.

(A German officer in WW2 that isn't one of those is also a rare treat, that I appreciate with all of my heart lol. Yes, he had a big bold "windmill of death" flag on his tank, but that was literally the symbol of the country.)

In the end, though, I think Klaus has elements of both versions, and that's what makes him such a good character to me. He has some dimension, some subjectiveness that I really enjoy. Jäger is both the "scary German enemy" and "cool friendly guy whose hand shaked like gelatine when he had to threaten an innocent woman because he just isn't like that (and that's why I think he's both a bad and a great liar depending on the subject matter. If he feels any guilt/remorse/thinks it's unjustified, the farce is done)."

Idk man I just think he's neat :")

[aliencatwafers]

Wafers, my phone has been blowing up with hardenshipping this morning /pos

With your recent liking towards Metadedede and now Hardenshipping resurfacing I think the people gotta know: Do you enjoy some good old man yaoi? >:3

hell yeah! I’m glad you noticed and asked me what’s up :3

My gf was playing Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and really loves Team Aqua, and I went on Tumblr to look at Hardenshipping. It got me more into the ship. As for Metadede, I don’t know how that happened or why I developed a recent hyperfixation on Kirby. I’m guessing the music and then it led to lore videos and seeing Kirby Fighter’s 2 and Tumblr go wild. Basically if I see a ship over and over I start liking it sometimes lol, but not all the time. Also I’m a lover of goofy extroverted man who has trauma but needs someone to recognize it since despite all the people who know him, few truly know him AND silent introverted man who is also traumatized but doesn’t let people in easily except for who you would think would be the complete ANTITHESIS to the silent introverted man but it works somehow.

I love some old man yaoi! It’s nice to see old men in love. I lean more towards wholesome and romantic for old man yaoi since I see too many toxic and rough couples lol, it’s nice to switch it up with something soft. With how few queer stories there are compared to how many straight stories there are, and in many queer stories it focuses on young queer people in love, it can leave the impression that there’s no future for old queer people; that queer people are doomed to die young. Old man yaoi and old woman yuri are nice ways to counteract the narrative that queer people don’t get to live long. And even so, not realizing one is queer when young shouldn’t doom someone that they can’t find love if they want it. There’s many people who don’t realize they’re queer until late in life and that’s okay. Plus if one doesn’t find the love of their life young, they can still have just as fulfilling a relationship when older or old. It’s reassuring to know that no matter the baggage, how many ex’s you have, or how many kids you have, you can still find love but with someone who will love you back. You’ve let go of the restricting life of heteronormativity to find a life that you build yourself. It’s reassuring to know that no matter how painful or restrictive your childhood was, it’s not the end of you. Your past doesn’t define you. It may define the parameters of what you know or start with, but you can change for the better. Your youth gives you a blueprint but you can try to break free and become the person you wanted to be rather than what the people who hurt you said you are. No matter how many times it takes to learn, no matter how many fuck ups you do (excluding rape, murder, pedo, racism, etc), you will still be loved and find love. Just because your childhood or youth or midlife wasn’t the best doesn’t mean your aging years and near end of life won’t be the worst.

The short answer is that I love old man yaoi :3

[fancy-a-dance-brigadier]

First Sentence Tag Game

Rules: Share the first lines of your ten most recent fics and tag ten people.

Thank you so much for tagging me @nostalgia-tblr ! I think I played this tag game a wee while ago, and I’ve only published a handful of new fics since then. So, to spice things up, I’ll include two unpublished WIPs that I do 100% intend to publish in the foreseeable future! Just so there’s a bit of variety from the last time I played it <3

“Kira Nerys watched the wind caress the grass with the same fingers that brushed her greying hair.” (The Witness, DS9, Siskoshir drabble)

“‘I’m sorry, Ben, but this just isn’t going to work.’” (Say You’ll Stay With Me, DS9, Siskoshir Pretty Woman AU)

“Gentle hands brushed against the tender, bruised skin of Martok’s aching face, reigniting recent pains but never intensifying them.” (Brave Little Fool, DS9, Julian/Martok)

“Somehow, she knows she ought to be dead.” (Three Hearts Beat As One, DS9, Jennifer Sisko survives AU)

“Julian can remember when his vision began to degrade.” (Just Another Diamond Day, DS9, post-canon Siskoshir)

“Benjamin Sisko had always been the very antithesis of loneliness, so warm and welcoming to anyone who ever crossed his path, pulling them into the warm embrace of his friendship and taking care of them with such vigour.” (A Thousand Summers, DS9, post-canon Siskoshir)

“The Arthur Trill building was tall - taller than it had the right to be, taller than any building had the right to be.” (Springtime on Jupiter, DS9, FBTS Garashir AU)

“There was a cavity in Benjamin’s heart where the light ought to be, an abyss opened up in his soul.” (Stop All the Clocks, DS9, Siskoshir)

And now for the WIPs!

“She would wade through the mires of thought and feeling for all her endless days, her mind an abyss into which all others could fall into and ensure the comfort of a listening ear and a gentle heart.” (Resting Place, TNG, Troisha)

“She had first felt it long ago, in the dark, in the nighttime, when she had woken from a nightmare to the sense of a soothing energy coursing through the air and stroking her cheek and drying her infantile tears.” (Untitled retelling of The Phantom Menace, Star Wars, Jedi Padmé AU)

Thanks again for tagging me, this was really fun! I’ll tag: @nerdy-flower @nebulouscoffee @irresistible-revolution @enterprisery @cordrazine-official @stopthatbluecat @anatahia @thegreatbajoranschismof2369 and anyone else who feels like playing! No pressure as always

[understandingbimbos]

I was going to wait to expand my thoughts on that last post but now I'm motivated, let's talk about disgust.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend a week ago, who's an outsider to all this bimbo fetish stuff, and they said this, which struck a chord with me immediately.

As much commentary there is about unrealistic and artificial beauty standards being pushed and average women (average people, really) being made to feel insecure, the reality is that most people will prefer "natural" beauty and what they consider sincere -- real. It's an extension of the Madonna-whore complex and goes back what I said about respectability. The ideal woman, to a lot of men, is a woman who would make a good wife and homemaker. In the long-term they want a woman who's proper, that they can view as a human being. This is not a new idea, not remotely. Think of Super Freak,

She's a very kinky girl The kind you don't take home to mother

Legally Blonde, The Girl Can't Help It. There's the woman you (men) see as a sex object and the woman you (men) see as a partner. Take Legally Blonde for example, Elle Woods is far from a bimbo but she's treated as one because she doesn't have the "right" look or attitude for a political career. Despite being smart, capable, and not slutty at all she's still too feminine to be taken seriously by Warner, she's an embarrassment.

In The Girl Can't Help It (1956) you have an inversion of that. Jerri Jordan is a Madonna (loves cooking, cleaning, wants to have several children) but her gangster boyfriend wants her to act like the whore, which she very much looks like, being played by Jayne Mansfield.

And there's so many more examples I can bring up (like Drake's entire career), but I think I've got my point across. Or have I? My point is that, historically, men don't really like women who look or act sexy. Or at least don't respect them. And part of that is tied to the look. It's actually not the norm or even that popular to like women who are very "done-up" and fake-looking, or women who are sexy of their own volition, despite what porn has told you. I CONSTANTLY see men talk about pornstars have "ruined" themselves by getting plastic surgery. But it's usually the "ruination" that attracted me to that pornstar, model, actress, or whatever in the first place.

There's also the botched surgery subreddit. On more than one occasion I've seen women I follow because I think they're very hot reposted there to be gawked at and called gross, sad, and disgusting by thousands of men and women. Same pattern on Twitter. A repost of a sex worker I follow will go viral with a caption like "surgeries are getting out of hand." Millions of disgusted gawkers and commentators.

Personally, I never got the memo. And my admitted unasthamed attraction to these women who look and act the whore was seen by my peers as an indication of desperation rather than a preference or I guess more accurately, a fetish.

Some people think bimbos should be cute or traditionally attractive, I don't. I think it's hot when a woman acts obnoxious and looks sloppy and ridiculous, like a parody of a woman. Or a bastardization of the human form itself.

I knew there was a disconnect when the last season of a Euphoria aired and people were mocking Chloe Cherry for her lips and saying she looked weird while referring to Sydney Sweeney as a bimbo.

To me, the bimbo exists in obscenity. She openly expresses her own sexuality, primps and preens herself to a vulgar degree, and is dumb as fuck. It's like if you took the stereotypical whore, of the Madonna-whore dichotomy, and turned her up to the nth degree. Like a whore monster. Not only is she the opposite of what men respect, to the point she becomes unattractive to most, but also an affront to public decency. And in that way, like my friend said, the performance of femininity becomes masculine. In expressing what she does the way she does the bimbo becomes both the embodiment and antithesis of male desire. For most men she's just... too much. Too dumb, too sexy, too fake, too confident, too over-the-top.

As @severedsheriff put it, the attraction is the taboo. The appeal can be found in the lack of appeal. I suppose a woman being dumb, plastic, and provocative is a bit more accepted now than it was in the early 2000s, but just barely.