#REPLYING?? to my post?? not even reblogging it so you're clearly just talking at me??

[pagesofkenna]

In honor of the person who just replied to this saying clearly i never go outside if im not familiar with Stanley brand insulated mugs

THIS IS A CUP

THIS IS AN INSULATED WATER BOTTLE

THIS IS A STANLEY BRAND BOTTLE OR TUMBLER

THIS IS THE STANLEY CUP

you have no idea how confused ive been for the last however many months to hear people casually talking about stanley cups, like as a fad or something? and how people shouldn't have them or something? and this WHOLE time ive kept thinking 'isnt there just the one? dont you have to give it back to the hockey association next year??'

[rhaenyratargcryen]

you're my shotgun lover and i want it all | tyler owens (twisters)

masterlist ❈

summary: Every once in a while, the two of you will get a little too drunk, stay until last call, sneak back to your motel room, and fuck. Nobody knows – at least you don’t think they do – and you never talk about it when you’re sober. Tyler will generally stay until you fall asleep, but he’s always gone when you get up the next day. Only once has he woken up in bed with you the next morning, and you’ve never made that mistake again. There isn’t a name for what you feel for him, you don’t think, and you can’t tell what he thinks of the arrangement. Clearly he likes it, or he wouldn’t be making eyes at you from across three people’s laps as you pull these peanuts from their shells. author's note: i...wrote this...in one.......single......afternoon. my fingers hurt anyway he's so hot i have had a crush on glen powell since 2018 (set it up supremacy) but this movie reawakened something in me. i should probably watch top gun now

pairing: tyler owens x f!reader word count: 9,123 (...oopsie) warnings/tags: pWp (with, y'all!), alternate universe: canon divergence, friends to lovers, friends with benefits

also cross-posted to ao3 okay love you bye xoxo your comments and reblogs are appreciated but not required i will love you all the same i hope u like !!!! <3

all characters are 18+ these are 18+ activities minors pls do not interact my eye is twitching as i write this 

It has been one hell of a week.

The tornadic activity has been off the charts – more storms built up under ideal conditions for weather hell-bent on destruction in a multiple-day stretch than you can remember ever tracking before. Your team had obviously been up for the chase, but now that the storms have passed, and the sun shines on the cleanup efforts, you can’t help but wish you’d chosen a different life path. You love what you do, but God, were you tired. Blisters have formed on the palms of your hands despite the gloves you’d donned. You could practically feel the knots forming in your neck. You shovel one more load of leaf litter before heaving the blade into the ground and leaning against it. Across from you, a backhoe is demolishing and excavating the remains of a house.

You close your eyes and try to just let the sun warm your face, thinking about how fast it can all just be gone. Mother Nature’s a beautiful force, but she can be cruel.

“Hey, don’t be slowin’ down on me,” Tyler jokes, clapping a hand between your shoulder blades. You hadn’t heard him approach, and his voice has startled you, pulling you from your thoughts. “We’re ‘bout halfway done with our part, I think.”

“No,” you reply, swiping the back of your arm across your forehead, trying in vain to clear your bangs from your eyes, but they won’t budge. Tyler reaches up and, almost as if he isn’t even thinking about it, takes the unruly pieces of hair between his thumb and forefinger and tucks it behind your ear, underneath the temple of your sunglasses, to make sure it stays this time. The action is so intimate it sends a flush crawling up your neck. You chance a look around to make sure no one else has seen. “Not slowin’ down, I promise. Just thinking about how lucky we are to be alive. How sad it is that all these people just lost everything.”

You’ve known Tyler since the two of you were in college together, fast friends who’d stuck together through a lot that could've put a strain on any other relationship, although you hadn’t studied meteorology – you’d been in school to be a librarian. 

One night, he’d asked you to stay up and help him with a lab he’d missed for one of his classes, and he loves to say he knew it then – that you were hooked – but you were too far along in your degree to do anything about it now. Switching from an arts degree to one in STEM? You’d have had to start over from scratch. 

Tyler had formed his team while you were in grad school and he was working as a cowboy for the rodeo back home, and you’d dropped out without a second thought when he asked you to be a founding member, to travel the country with him every tornado season. Said he wouldn’t – couldn’t – think about doing it without you. You’ve been riding with him ever since.

The two of you share everything, always have, and sometimes you wonder if it might be too much for the professional relationship you’re supposed to have.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Tyler grins, the hand still glued to your back rubbing gently, sending goosebumps across your skin under your shirt. “To help ‘em feel like their luck is turnin’.”

Always the optimist, Tyler Owens. He clears his throat, the hand on your back pulling away, and steps slightly closer to you.

“One of the folks over there gave these to me,” he says, gesturing to a group of people gathering in front of a house that looks like something had tried to suck it into the ground from dead center. “I saved their cat from their screened-in porch, poor thing had been yowling all night apparently. Know these’re your favorite, so, here you go. I think you earned it.”

You take the tin from him and open it, your mouth instantly watering at the sight of the small, round butter cookies inside. “God,” you groan, picking one up and taking a bite, savoring it over your tongue. You can feel Tyler watching you carefully. “Thank you. You get me.”

“Do we get cookies, Tyler?”

Lily’s voice sounds from your left, and you glance over at her. The shit-eating look on her face tells you she did see Tyler fix your hair for you. Your stomach somersaults.

“If you’re good,” Tyler says, smirking, “after the sun sets, we can head back to the motel, find some shitty bar, and drinks’ll be on me, okay? How’s that sound?”

Lily whoops, turning to Dani, who’d since appeared beside her, and the two snicker and fist bump. 

“You need any help over here?”

You look back at Tyler, cupping one hand above your eyes to shield them from the sunlight. Despite your glasses, it shines bright from directly behind him, and you can hardly stand to look at him. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” you murmur in reply, bending down to toss some siding that had been blown off one of the houses on this street into the wheelbarrow you’ve been using. “You should go see what Boone’s up to – I don’t think anyone has seen him in a minute.”

No doubt Boone was hiding somewhere with one of the breakfast burritos Lily and Dani have been rolling since early that morning, seeing how long he can get away with not doing his part. He’s a good guy, but the manual labor side of the job isn’t really his thing.

“Eh, he’s better off wherever he is,” Tyler laughs, and a small smile takes over your face, too. “Hey, you sure you’re okay? You don’t need a break? You can take a minute to yourself, no one’ll judge. I know how this can all get to you a little more than it gets to everyone else.”

You know him well enough to know he’s not calling you weak-stomached, that he’s genuinely concerned for how you feel, but he’s right. It does all get to you. Settling in to help survivors of these natural disasters is just something that comes with the chasing – there isn’t one without the other for you and the rest of the crew. You nod, glancing back up at him. 

“I’m okay, Tyler. Go off and be the face of the operation – you don’t have to worry about me.”

Tyler’s eyes narrow, his gaze shifting between your eyes, trying to find evidence you’re withholding the truth from him, but he seems to find nothing. With a minute tip of his head, he turns to resume working through a long-term plan for rebuilding the town with the mayor and some other members of the local government. 

This is something else you know he loves to do – shmooze with higher-ups, show off his people skills. Not only are they higher-ups, they’re small-town folk. His kind of people. He knows how to get through to them, how to get them to trust him. You love that about Tyler. He’s never condescending – he always has a genuine desire to help. He’s been through this hundreds of times, and these people may only have been through it this one time. You look around at them, at the people of all ages picking up the pieces that remain of their community, then cross your fingers and send a thought out to anyone listening:

Please let it be the only time.

After a few more hours of genuinely back-breaking work, you hear Tyler’s sharp whistle and know it’s time, meandering over to his truck where it’s been parked for almost eighteen hours. Using your teeth, you pull your gloves from your hands and hiss. They’ve been rubbed raw, the skin blistering where each finger meets the palm. You try to ignore the throbbing sensation, leaning against the passenger side door and closing your eyes. The rest of the crew sidle up to you, taking long drags from water bottles and cigarettes and trying to make peace with how you’re leaving this place tonight.

“Does anyone else want to break off to shower first?”

It seems Dani’s the only one, and they shrug, putting their hand out, palm up, to Dexter, who hands them the keys to the RV.

“Meet y’all there,” they say, stifling a yawn, and you know it’ll be a bit before you see them. The rest of you will have to pile into Tyler’s truck, and before you can object, the other three crawl into the back seat and leave you on the front bench with Tyler. You let yourself in and close the door behind you, buckling and watching as Tyler shakes someone’s hand and hustles to meet the rest of you. His Texans cap hits the bench before he does, between the two of you, and he turns his keys in the ignition, buckling his own seatbelt.

“Where we headin’?”

“There’s a place with a mechanical bull nearby. I vote there.”

“How nearby is ‘nearby,’ Boone?”

“Uh,” he pulls his phone from his pocket, does a quick Google to double-check. “Forty-five minutes?”

Dexter leans over and grips Boone’s phone, reading the screen. “In the opposite direction of the motel, Boone.”

Everyone groans, objecting, and you press your hand against your temple to alleviate the pressure there. The noise, God, the noise.

“Could we go somewhere closer to the motel, maybe?”

“It’s got a mechanical bull,” Boone stresses, and everyone rolls their eyes.

“Boone, you know damn well we’re not making it back to the motel if we go that far away.”

He groans, and you pull your own phone out, checking Maps to see what’s around the motel.

“This one’s three minutes from where we’re stayin’,” you say, showing Tyler your screen, and he nods, shifting into reverse, backing out, and starting down the one lane of the street that’s been cleared of debris. 

“Hey Boone,” you toss over your shoulder as Tyler shifts into second gear. “By the way. Long time no see.”

Lily snorts, smacking you on the shoulder to let you know she thought that was a good one. Boone shakes his head. 

“Hey, just because you didn’t see me all day doesn’t mean I wasn’t out there, too. How do I know you were workin’, weren’t sitting on your ass in the shade somewhere, hm?”

You hold your raw, red palms out for him to inspect and that shuts Boone up quick. Tyler whistles as he gets an eyeful of your skin.

“God damn, girl,” Lily murmurs. “That looks like it hurts. I think I might have Aquaphor in my bag back at the motel if you want some.”

“I’ll be alright,” you reply, knocking your elbow against her knee behind you in thanks. “Appreciate you.”

The rest of the drive is taken mostly in silence, everyone in the backseat trying to rest their eyes, but you stay up, your eyes on the road, so Tyler isn’t the only one making the thirty-ish minute drive back to where you’re staying, where you checked in only after it’d been decided which towns had been hit the worst, so you could reach all of them easily by truck.

“What’s goin’ on in your head? Hm?”

You turn to look at Tyler and he glances at you from out of the corner of his eye, then at your lap, at the fingernails you’ve picked down to the quick. “Real quiet over there.”

“Nothing,” you reply, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Don’t let Boone get to you,” Tyler says, tapping his right fist on your thigh once, twice, then letting it rest there. You brush your knuckles against his and he opens the fist immediately, taking your hand in his but not squeezing, careful not to put pressure on the blisters on your palms.

“It’s not that,” you start, then realize your mistake, your admission. “I really – I think I’m just tired. It’s been a long week.”

You’re acutely aware of your hand in Tyler’s. It’s not like you’ve ever been shy around him – your cheeks flush at the thought – but this is…different. Sweet. More.

“Yeah, that it has,” he sighs, adjusting his left hand on the steering wheel so he can drive a little more comfortably, but his right hand stays in yours. 

You settle back into silence, Tyler seemingly having dropped the subject, and your eyes return to the road, but you feel him looking over at you, checking on you, every once in a while. You try your hardest not to meet his gaze. 

Soon enough, Tyler is putting the truck in park, then shutting the thing off. The noise – or lack thereof, you guess – wakes Dexter in the back, then Lily, who snorts when she sees your hand in Tyler’s. You pull away and unbuckle your seatbelt, watching as Tyler, with a hurt look on his face, wipes his hand on his jeans and swings himself down and out of the truck.

“C’mon, Boone,” he shouts, slapping a hand on the door that Boone has his head resting against, and the man sits up straight, wiping sleep from his eyes. “The sun hasn’t even gone down yet. Drinks on me, pal!”

The motel really is that close to the bar, so you all decide you’ll leave the truck parked there and walk home at the end of the night. The unspoken verdict is that you will all be getting shitfaced tonight.

The lingering smell of cigarettes in the air seems to rejuvenate everyone and Lily pumps a fist when she spots the old-fashioned jukebox across the room, then claps a hand over her mouth when she realizes there’s a TouchTunes sitting right next to it.

“Oh, I am so forcing you fuckers to listen to Chappell Roan all night,” she says gleefully, and you laugh along with her, looping your arm in hers and letting her pull you across the room while the boys settle in at the bar.

“So what was that all about?”

“What was what all about?” You play dumb, shrugging when Lily gives you a hard look and unhooks her arm from yours.

“Girl, seriously,” Lily scoffs, bumping your hip with hers and slipping a twenty dollar bill into the TouchTunes. Evidently she wasn’t joking when she meant you’d be listening to Chappell Roan all night. “I saw that thing earlier, the hair thing, don’t think I didn’t. And y’all holding hands in the truck. What’s going on there?”

You shake your head but she grabs your wrist. “I’m serious, Lil. Nothing’s going on. We’re friends – good friends. He noticed I was having a hard time today, and wanted to make sure I was alright. That’s all.”

You can tell she doesn’t fully believe you, and when she opens her mouth to object, you cut her off.

“I’m gonna run to the bathroom, okay?”

Lily watches you, trying to read the small line between your eyebrows, but eventually she nods and lets go of you, letting you turn away from her. You push through the door to the women’s restroom, your nose wrinkling at the smell, but you ignore it. Standing in front of the sink, you watch yourself, hands shaking. This isn’t you. You’re better than this at shoving these feelings for Tyler down, way down – or, rather, you had been, up until this week broke you, apparently. Turning the knob for the cold water to the left, you let it run over your sore hands, hissing at the feeling. Carefully, you cup your palms and watch them fill, then splash the water onto your face, soothing the flush. There. That should help.

There’s a cold bottle of Coors in front of the seat next to Dexter when you arrive back to the group, “Red Wine Supernova” playing from the speakers. You almost snort at all the old men – regulars, no doubt – groaning out their distaste for whoever chose the music all across the room.

“Thanks,” you toss over your shoulder at Tyler, sitting on the other side of Dexter and Boone. He nods and nurses his own. You frown and settle onto the stool, leaning an elbow on the bartop so you can turn and face your friends. The cold beer against the palms of your hands feels so nice.

What’s wrong with him? He won’t make eye contact with you, and you notice his jaw clicking as he grits his teeth. What’s got his panties in a twist?

As the night unfolds, you find yourself laughing more and more, loosening up, letting the stress of the last week fade into memory. Someone has produced a deck of cards from God knows where and Dani – who did join the group eventually – is showing off card tricks you didn’t even know they knew. You feel a warmth spreading through your body, and you can’t stop thinking about how much you love all of these people. Your friends. Your family. Empty bottles are swiftly replaced with full, cold ones without notice, and everyone is languid, relaxed, unburdened by the work that you’re all doing.

You take a pull from your drink, using the cover of the bottle to risk a glance to Tyler three seats down from you to find that he’s already watching you, and the look in his eye tells you exactly what he’s thinking. That somersault-y feeling is lower than your stomach now. You’re only three beers deep, but the air in your head reminds you that you’ve barely eaten all day, so you’re a little more affected by the alcohol than you’d usually be. Impolitely, you reach across Dexter next to you to grab a handful of peanuts from the basket to his left.

Glancing back up at Tyler, you meet his heady gaze again, and he smirks around the lip of the bottle against his mouth. He knows he’s got you right where he wants you. You swallow nervously around another sip of beer.

Every once in a while, the two of you will get a little too drunk, stay until last call, sneak back to your motel room, and fuck. Nobody knows – at least you don’t think they do – and you never talk about it when you’re sober. Tyler will generally stay until you fall asleep, but he’s always gone when you get up the next day. Only once has he woken up in bed with you the next morning, and you’ve never made that mistake again. There isn’t a name for what you feel for him, you don’t think, and you can’t tell what he thinks of the arrangement. Clearly he likes it, or he wouldn’t be making eyes at you from across three people’s laps as you pull these peanuts from their shells.

“Alright, y’all,” Lily says, slapping a hand on the bar, startling you out of your thoughts. You watch her, popping a nut into your mouth. “Think I’m gonna head out. I suggest you all do, too, fuckers, it’s late.”

Everyone starts to protest, but one glance at the clock tells you you’ve all stayed much longer than you thought – it’s a quarter past midnight, and you’ve got to be up with the daylight. You balk, but if you want to talk to Tyler tonight, you know you’ve got to shoulder your exhaustion and stick it out a little longer.

“I think I might stay for a bit,” you murmur, watching everyone stand and gather their things. You glance over at Tyler, who you can see clearly now that everyone’s out of their seats, and he’s watching you, too. The look on his face reads plain, now – he wants you.

“I’ll stay with her,” he says, eyes on yours. The green in them has disappeared almost completely, you notice, his pupils blown wide. “Walk her back. Y’all head back if you want.”

“I might stay, too –” Boone’s voice cuts off, coughing as Lily elbows him in the stomach, maybe a little too hard. “What the fuck was that for?”

“You’re going to bed, too, Boone,” Dani interrupts, a hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the door. They poke him once when he starts to protest. “C’mon, now.”

Everyone shuffles out the front, Dexter calling good night, and all of the sudden, it’s just you and Tyler. You don’t know why, but your palms begin to sweat at the thought of being alone with him again. He stands, palming his drink, and slides onto the seat next to you, his body angled towards yours.

He’s never made you nervous like this. You don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you.

“So,” Tyler starts, grinning at you. “You come here often?”

You snort, emboldened by the booze, and he chuckles in response. “Idiot.”

“God, but I do love making you laugh.”

You blush under his scrutinous gaze, and take a quick swig of the dregs of your drink, unsure what to say to that. He mirrors you, taking a sip of his own while his eyes bore into yours. Accusatory.

“You don’t do it much anymore, you know that?”

“Do what?”

“Laugh.”

You press your fingertips to your mouth and Tyler’s eyes follow your hand. “I guess I just haven’t had much to laugh about lately,” you start, sighing deeply. “Tornado season’s been hard this year, and you know how much that – it gets to me. As much as I love what we do. You know. Remember that family a couple weeks back whose daughter was stuck under her bunk bed when it pressed on her too long, lost her leg below the knee? That got to me, Tyler. It did.”

“It gets to me, too,” he murmurs, knocking his knee against yours. “I guess I’m just better at hiding how bad it affects me. You can talk to me about it, though. You can talk to any of us.”

“I know I can,” you breathe, trying to keep your hands from shaking. “I know. Sometimes I don’t know what to say, though, you know, what is there to say? It’s not fair to complain about how sad it makes me to watch these people lose everything.”

“You’re allowed to feel sad. And to feel frustrated. It’s not fair, you’re right, but we’re doing good work, yeah? Fighting the good fight. Figuring out what makes these things tick, how to warn people when they’re in the path, get them outta the way and safe. Maybe they lose their house, their car, but they won’t lose themselves, or each other. That’s what matters most. Just remember that.”

You look up at him, set your elbow on the bartop, and prop your chin on your open palm. Your hands don’t hurt so bad anymore, you notice. “Thanks, Tyler.”

“Anytime,” he smiles, but you shake your head. 

“Seriously. You always know what to say.”

A look crosses his face then, too quick for you to read, and he sets his drink down, flagging the bartender over to close out the team’s tab. You frown, wondering if you’d, ironically, said the wrong thing.

“What’s up?”

Tyler looks back to you, and this time, the look in his eyes is unmistakable. It burns. “Taking you home, sweetheart.”

The walk back to your motel is done in silence. Tyler’s hand swings next to yours, and you feel it searching for yours more than once, but you don’t take it. You climb the stairs together, slowly, and he walks you to your door. His room is one more floor up.

You can tell he thinks you won’t invite him in, that you’ve changed your mind – or maybe that you never made it up. He hadn’t, after all, told you plainly that that was why he’d stayed with you at the bar. You unlock the room with your key card and step inside, opening the door only far enough for you to fit through it. You turn back to look at him, his face awash in the street lights shining into the hallway. You flip the lightswitch on next to you, illuminating the room behind you, too.

“Well,” he murmurs, making to head back down the stairs. “Good night.”

“Tyler?”

His head turns back to look at you, watching as you hold out one hand and he takes it, letting you pull him closer to you. You press yourself into him, push your whole face against his chest, your hip keeping the door from closing on the two of you. You inhale deeply, the smell of him overtaking your senses. His cologne, yes, but underneath that, the smell of dirt, earth. Home.

You feel his arms wrap around your back and you turn your head to the side, press your ear to his heartbeat. Your hands come up to scratch down his back and you feel it when he shudders.

“Stay?”

You hear his breath hitch in his chest, then the deep rumble of his voice as he says, “Alright, baby.”

With a short inhale, your eyes flutter, nearly closing at the term of endearment. You step back, pulling him with you, and as you close the door behind you, he pushes one hand up into your hair and pulls your head toward his.

“I, uh,” you whisper against his lips when they get close enough to yours, “I think I might shower first, if that’s okay with you?”

“Alright,” he murmurs, unlacing his hand from the strands of your hair before toeing his boots off and carefully setting them under the chair next to the front door. “You want company?”

You swallow. You’ve never done anything like that before. It’s always been quick. When you do this with him, you hardly ever have time for a chat before he’s got your shirt over your head and his mouth on your skin.

“Sure,” you reply. You feel him watch as you turn around and pull your shirt off, reaching back to unclasp your bra. The modesty feels redundant, but you can’t help it.

“Not gettin’ shy on me now, are you? S’not like I haven’t seen you naked before,” he chuckles, and you throw a look at him over your shoulder just as he’s pulling his own shirt over his head. He left his hat at the bar, you think. You’ll have to go back in for it when you pick up the truck.

“Tyler,” you scold, and he laughs at you, steps across the room to wrap an arm around your torso and press a kiss to where your neck meets your shoulder. The place he knows makes you melt. You sigh and push back against him, the feeling of his hard chest against your bare back a welcome one. This feels more like what you know, what you’re used to.

“Shower,” you remind him, and he nods, his forehead pressed into that spot now, and he pushes his fingers underneath the waistband of your jeans, running them along the bit of skin there around to the front, where the fabric splits at the button. He pops it undone, then uses his thumb and forefinger to grip the zipper and slowly – so slowly – pulls that down. He can’t help himself, you know that, and so you hold your breath and wait for him to push his hand into your panties. Ever a predictable man, he does just that, and you gasp at the feeling of his warm hand against you.

“Are you sure?” Tyler’s breath against your neck makes you shiver, and you press your ear to the side of his chin. He runs his fingers along the seam of you, finding first your clit, your legs twitching at the sudden rush of pleasure when he brushes his hand against it, then pushing down to find you wet and wanting. You cry out softly. “You don’t sound sure. You don’t feel sure.”

You hum, your neck stretching back until your head is pressed to his chest, and he pulls his hand back up to start working small circles on your clit, your wetness on his fingers allowing for smooth movement, with just enough friction to have you panting for more. 

“Sounds more to me like you kinda want me to fuck you with my fingers.”

“Tyler,” you whimper, telling him with just his name that you are getting close. He smiles against the side of your neck, pulling his hand away and shoving your jeans and underwear down just enough that his hand has room to smack your clit lightly. You squeal, right leg kicking out at the feeling, and he continues moving his hand in circles to soothe the hurt.

Your breath is coming out of you in short huffs, and before you can come, Tyler takes his hand off of you and wraps it around your stomach to join the other. You pant and whine, rubbing your thighs together to chase the feeling he’d had you practically pressed up against, now ebbing with the loss of his fingers.

“You said you wanted to shower,” he whispers in your ear, pulling your panties back up, and you scowl, pushing away from him. He laughs and holds his hands up in defense as you pick your t-shirt up off your bed and crack it at him like a whip. “Let’s shower, baby.”

“I might kick you out right now, Owens,” you snark, but the small smile on your face gives you away, and Tyler unbuttons his own jeans, leaving them in a pile on the floor at the end of the bed. Your jeans join his, and you’re both left in your underwear.

“You wouldn’t,” he replies, pulling his briefs off slowly, biting his bottom lip as you watch him. “You like this cock too much.”

You can’t help laughing at him, but the sight of him bare in front of you does have you biting your lip. You step forward to cup his growing length in your hand. Before you can move it, Tyler puts a hand on your wrist.

“How’s your hand?” He makes to pull it away, presumably to turn it over and appraise your blisters, but you shake your head.

“S’fine,” you whisper, tightening your grip. You tug once, twice, and press a kiss to his bare chest, then tip your head back to search out his lips. He leans down to oblige you, his lips parting against your mouth as you twist your fist. You love these moments you share with him, when you’re both bare, physically, emotionally, away from the real world, and you can pretend this is an everyday thing. When you’re not trying to tell yourself you feel nothing for him. Like this is just how it is between you.

Tyler groans when you pull your hand away from him and you click your tongue, press that same hand against his bicep.

“Doesn’t feel so good, now does it?”

Before you even know what’s happening, Tyler is picking you up, one arm underneath your back and the other around the backs of your knees. You look up at his face and laugh. “Put me down, Owens!”

He grins and carries you the few paces into the bathroom, placing you on your feet in front of the tub. Tyler leans down and pushes his thumbs underneath the waistband of your panties, waiting for you to put your hands on his shoulders and step out of them.

He lets you pull away from him to turn the hot water on, adjusting the cold side until the temperature is perfect, before pulling you against his chest once again. This time, you can feel his hard cock pressed against your backside, and you hum appraisingly. You reach behind you to fist him again, but he shakes his head – you feel his chin brush against the top of your head – and he groans out, “Mm-mm.”

“What?”

“We’re gonna shower, baby, c’mon.”

You glance back towards him and watch as he flicks the overhead light on. “So we don’t slip and die,” he says, and you laugh, pushing the shower curtain to the side. Holding Tyler’s hand, you step over the lip of the tub and under the steady stream of warm water, inhaling deeply when it hits the sore muscles in your shoulders and back. Tyler groans at the feeling, too, when he steps in behind you.

“Here, switch with me,” he murmurs, guiding you by your waist until you’re the one underneath the water. You let it fall onto the top of your head, over your face and down the back of your hair, for a moment, eyes closed, relishing the feeling. Tyler reaches both hands up and brushes the water out of your eyes, runs his hand over the top of your head. 

“Shampoo?”

You open one eye, the other shut against the water, and nod. You gaze up at him, heart squeezing at the way he’s watching you. His smile widens and he takes the tiny bottle in his hand – it looks even more comically small now – and dumps the product into his other palm, setting the bottle down onto the edge of the tub and rubbing his hands together.

“Turn around.”

You do as he asks, inhaling sharply through your nose when you feel his hands run through the hair at the crown of your head. Your stomach aches with longing as you register how unnaturally intimate this is. His fingers feel so good against your scalp, which is slightly sunburnt, you’re now realizing. He massages the shampoo further into your hair, running his fingers down the back of your neck and across the tops of your shoulders. When he’s satisfied with his shampoo job, he steers you by your arms to face him again, then carefully helps you tilt your head back and rinses it all from your hair.

You watch him pick up the other small bottle from the shelf, warm water still running down the back of your head. 

“I’ll do my conditioner,” you murmur, taking the bottle gently from his hands. “It’s a – it’s a science.”

“I am very good at science, if you can recall.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “It’s something I’ve gotten perfectly right. It’ll take just a sec.”

So you work the conditioner through the ends of your hair, avoiding his gaze as he watches your hands first coat your hair in the product, then rinse it out. He reaches forward to run his own fingers across it, as gently as he can.

“Hm,” he makes the noise in the back of his throat, pulling his hand away. “Soft.”

You can hardly look at him, the twisting feeling in your stomach shifting to something warmer, something further from apprehension, something that feels a lot like want. “You?”

Tyler shakes his head. “I’m good. Here,” he says, rubbing his hands across the plane of your upper back. “You’re tense. You worked hard today. Let me help.”

You weren’t going to protest, but before you can, Tyler guides you forward and out of the direct spray of the shower, then presses his thumbs into your muscle. You groan, your head falling forward onto his chest at the feeling, and he chuckles at you, continuing with his hands. “Feel good?”

“So good,” you whimper, and you feel his cock twitch against your stomach.

“You fucking dog,” you joke, and Tyler laughs against you, pushing your hair off the back of your neck and pressing his thumbs in there, too.

“Hey, what can I say? I like making my girl feel good.”

You freeze. His girl? His girl. He hasn’t noticed your reaction, and he keeps pressing his fingers into your sore muscles, pulling one hand away briefly to push the showerhead down and away from the two of you. You glance up, already missing its warmth, but you find that the steam rising around you is doing a good enough job at that.

“Here, baby,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your forehead and guiding you to press your hands against the tiled wall to your left, running his hands down your back.

“What are you –”

Before you can finish the thought, you feel Tyler’s fingers parting the seam of your cunt from – from behind, and you groan at the feeling of his middle finger slipping inside of you.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he groans, his knees hitting the floor behind you. You toss a glance at him over your shoulder and your own knees nearly buckle at the way he’s looking up at you – with hunger, and with reverence, and with something else entirely unrecognizable. He looks wild. He looks in love.

One of Tyler’s hands clamps down around your hips and he leans forward, pressing a kiss to the back of your thigh as his finger starts to shift in and out of you. You shiver and push your face into the cool tile, groaning softly when he finds that rough bit of flesh inside of you, the one that makes you come undone if he works it long enough.

“Yeah?” Tyler sounds fucked out already, his voice breathy against your skin, and you can picture the look on his face, the concentrated expression he gets when he’s trying to make you come. You try to focus on the feeling of the shower’s spray where it hits the edge of your foot rather than how good his finger feels inside you because if you think too closely about how good it feels, you’ll get lightheaded. And nobody wants that.

“Yeah,” you reply weakly, and for a few minutes it’s just like that, the only sound in the bathroom the shower, your panting moans, and the noise your pussy makes as he pulls his finger in and out.

“Sound so good for me, baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to the back of your thigh again, and you whine, trying to protest when he slips his finger from you. He laughs deep in his chest and lightly smacks the swell of your ass.

“Don’t complain when I’m doin’ somethin’ nice for you,” he jok, and you can feel then that he’s shifting himself around. You want to look over your shoulder, want to see for yourself what he’s doing, but freeze when you feel his palms cupping your ass, his nose pressing against the inside of your thighs.

Your mouth forms the word oh, but no sound comes out until you feel his mouth press against your cunt, tongue pushing inside of you, and then you cry out, chest heaving, when he presses a sloppy, wet kiss to your clit. You pull your face from where it’s still resting against the tile and look down at Tyler to find he’s already looking right up at you. His grip on your ass tightens when you make eye contact with him, and he spreads you open wider for him, eyes narrowing as his tongue flicks again, and again, and again.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he moans against you, the vibrations causing your legs to twitch. You already thought you were going to burst, the steam from the shower, the way he’d washed your hair, the fact that he was in your room at all – it all made you feel slightly insane. To add insult to injury, he’s just pushed two fingers inside of you and immediately found the spot that takes you out, and you start to shake a little.

“Tyler,” you whine, pushing one hand down to grip his hair. He groans when you tighten your hold on it, fucking into you a little faster. “Tyler, fuck, gonna come.”

“So come, baby,” comes his reply, and you do, you come so hard that the toes on your right foot curl until you’re on tiptoe and Tyler has to reach up and grip your waist to steady you. You feel it crest, and peak, then subside, but he keeps working you through it, his mouth moving against you still, and a second, smaller – though still good – orgasm wracks your body right after the first.

You breathe through it, push your foot down so you’re standing flat on the surface of the tub again, and wait for Tyler to pull his fingers out of you. 

“Baby,” Tyler groans, squeezing your hips, his fingernails biting slightly into your skin. “You gotta let go’a me, if you want me to get up.”

His voice, fuck, his voice, you think, releasing your grip on his hair and turning to watch him rise from his knees, the tile cold against your back. You surge forward to kiss him square on the mouth and he catches you, smiles against you when you part your lips to taste yourself on his tongue.

“Was that good?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, pressing one, two, three more quick kisses to his mouth, before he reaches behind you to turn off the water. “So fucking good.”

Neither of you bother with a towel, instead opting to stumble toward the queen bed in the middle of the room and climb right underneath the covers.

“Hi,” you whisper when you’re settled in, the duvet pulled up under your chin. Your eyes rove over his face, then glance over to the alarm clock behind him. 1:56 in the morning. “You still wanna fuck?”

Tyler snorts, reaching over to poke you in the side, gripping the skin there until you start to laugh. “You still wanna fuck?”

“Yeah,” you reply, grinning, when you catch your breath. “Wanna?”

He’s quiet for a second, watching the duvet rise and fall with each breath you take, before he peels it off of you, using his elbow to push himself up until he’s leaning over you. There’s a rosy flush on your chest, your breasts heaving and it’s all he can do not to lean down and take one of your nipples in his mouth, the one closest to him. Instead, he runs the back of his other hand across your chest, catching against the hard peak, and watches your breath stick to the inside of your throat. You feel yourself subconsciously leaning toward him as his face comes toward you. You want him to kiss you, but instead, he angles his mouth to kiss the skin below your chin.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes against your neck, pressing his open mouth to you there, and you gasp at the feeling – of his mouth against you, and of his praise. It all feels so nice. He just made you come in the shower, and now he’s going to make you come in this bed, hopefully more than once. 

You wrap your hands around his back and pull him toward you, watch as he settles in between your thighs. You can feel his thick cock, heavy, insistent, where it presses against you, and you want to take him into your hands, but he has other plans. 

With one hand pressed into the pillow on either side of your head, Tyler uses his knees to knock your legs out further, sitting back against his heels when he’s satisfied. He wraps his big hands around your thighs and pulls you closer, smiling down at you. “You’re so beautiful.”

You blush when he repeats himself, suddenly feeling very bare. He’s just as naked as you are, but you can’t help but feel like he’s seen your whole hand, meanwhile you hardly have any idea what cards he might hold. In the dim light from the lamp beside your head, you notice that you can see the green of his irises again. It seems like the shower sobered the two of you up very quickly.

His gaze locked on yours, Tyler takes himself into his hand, groaning at the pressure of his grip after neglecting his own want for so long, but he suddenly curses, pausing just as he’s about to press inside of you.

“What?”

“I don’t have a condom,” he breathes, sitting back again. He runs one hand through his hair, visibly weighing the options.

“It’s okay, Tyler,” you murmur, leaning up onto your elbows. “It’s okay. I have an IUD, and I got screened after the last time I was with someone. I’m good. I’m good if you’re good.”

Tyler heaves a heavy sigh, running his hands up your thighs. “You’re sure? I’m clean, too, cross my heart. But only if you’re sure.”

You nod. “My head is clear. I think I shook off my drunk an orgasm or two ago.”

A grin crosses his face, and you roll your eyes at him before he even opens his mouth. Two? he mouths, then whistles lowly. You smack his stomach, and he grabs your wrist in his hand, lightning quick, pressing a kiss to the pulse point there. Your jaw falls slack, and you go all soft and pliant, letting him pin your hands above your head. His body comes down over yours, and his mouth presses to your cheek, then your forehead, and when your eyes flutter shut, the ghost of a kiss crosses them, too.

“I’m gonna fuck you so good,” he murmurs, and normally if a man were to say that to you, you would immediately regret letting him into your bed. But for some reason, when Tyler says it, it sends that familiar warmth spiraling down into your gut. You know he means it.

Slowly – too slowly – he guides himself back to your entrance, shifting his hips so they’re resting comfortably against yours, and he presses himself inside of you. You hiss; the girth of him, although a welcome stretch, is also a bit of an uncomfortable one. He leans down to kiss you, working you through it with a thumb pressing circles into your clit, sliding himself in bit by bit until he’s fully seated. 

A groan pushes out of him when you clench around him, testing the waters.

“Careful,” he murmurs, easing his hips back. “I’d like it if this lasted longer than ten seconds, please.”

You laugh against the side of his head, pull your hands down from where he’d left them above you and wrap yourself around his shoulders, pulling him flush against you. Tyler grips your thighs and starts to work himself in and out of you, carefully, gently, but you squeeze his waist with your knees. Encouraging him. Asking him to pick it up. You can handle it.

His hips start to pull back and snap against yours quicker and quicker, Tyler panting in your ear, lifting up onto his palms and pushing himself off of you. He sits up onto his knees and tilts your hips up for a different angle, one that sets sparks dancing in front of your eyes. You groan, head tossed back, and dig your nails into his thighs as his pace picks up.

“Fuck, yeah, that it, baby? I can feel you – fuck, feel you squeezin’ me.”

You hardly have a voice with the rate he’s slipping in and out of you, barely enough to squeak out, “Fuck,” before your cunt has him in a vice grip, working through another orgasm.

“Ohhh, that’s it, huh, that’s it.” His mouth is going a mile a minute, neither of you really paying much attention to anything he’s actually saying. You’re both focused on his own mounting orgasm – you don’t feel like your body is capable of much more than that – and you weakly clamp down around him once more. His eyes squeeze shut, his hips stutter, and he grits out, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck,” before he slots against you and you feel him filling you. You run a hand down his back, soothing him as he comes, biting your lip at the feeling, foreign but enjoyable.

Tyler groans and glances down to where his cock is softening inside of you. He eases his hips back, cupping your face and pressing a kiss to your forehead as he does. “Shit, I’m sorry, are you okay?”

You nod meagerly, pressing the back of your hand against your warm cheek. He watches you and, assured that you’re not going to pass out on him or anything, stands and hobbles into the bathroom. The sink turns on out of sight, and you close your eyes, listening to the water run. Tyler returns with a warm, wet towel and wipes the inside of your thighs, swiping gently across your cunt, before folding the towel and letting it fall to the floor at your bedside.

You feel loose, calm. Safe. You hardly notice him turn the light off, but you do feel the bed dip beside you as he rejoins you under the covers and pulls you into his arms. You melt against his sturdy chest, his heartbeat under your face a comfort, the rhythmic tick tick tick of it lulling you to sleep. But there’s still one thing you have to know before you can relax completely.

His breathing has started to even out, but he hasn’t snored yet, so you know he’ll still hear you when you ask, “Are you gonna leave?”

He grunts an acknowledgement of your question, nuzzling down into the top of your head.

“Do you want me to stay?”

You know your answer, but you still bite your lip, considering the question. You hadn’t thought before that maybe he left after every night you spent together because he thought you didn’t want to wake up with him. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he murmurs against your hair, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Then I’ll stay.”

If he’s at all worried about what will happen when you wake up tomorrow, he doesn’t show it, but anxiety courses through you at the thought of anyone finding out. Does he want the others to know? Because that’s what it feels like.

“Stop thinking about it,” he whispers, like he can hear your thoughts racing. “It’ll be fine. Just go to sleep.”

Easy for him to say. He’s out like a light. And you’re left alone with your thoughts until you fall into fitful, dissatisfying sleep sometime around when the world outside starts to turn blue.

A pounding on your door wakes you from deep sleep – the deepest you’d gotten all night, at least – and you try to sit up but find there’s a heavy weight on your chest blocking you. You rub the sleep from your eyes, glancing down at the sleeping body next to you. It takes a second for it to register: Tyler’s here. 

Tyler’s here. Sidled up against you, arm thrown over your stomach like this is where he belongs. He didn’t leave. He stayed, like he said he would. His face looks so peaceful – so beautiful – you almost hate to wake him.

“Come on, sleepyhead! Time to get a move on!”

Almost. You scramble to push Tyler off of you, ignoring his noises of protest, jumping out from under the covers and grabbing various articles of clothing off the floor to pull over your naked form. You plop back down on the bed, this time on his side, right next to where he’s starting to wake.

“Dude, get up, they’re gonna know you’re not in your room. They’re gonna know you’re in here.”

“So what,” he grumbles, rolling over as you push him and settling deeper into the bed. “Let ‘em.”

You sit up straight, one hand on his arm. “You mean that?”

He hums and turns his neck to glance at you over his shoulder. “Yeah, ‘course I do. You’re my girl.”

Your face flushes a deep pink and Tyler grins, reaching over to wrap an arm around you and drag you back down into the bed, pinning you under him and peppering an assault of open-mouthed kisses all over your face. You grin, thinking that you could get used to this – just not right now.

“Seriously, Tyler,” you laugh, pushing a hand against the side of his face. He squeezes your hip. “We have to get up. We gotta get back out there.”

Tyler sighs, loosening his grip on your body and kneeling over you. “Yeah, you’re right. Alright, alright.”

He stands and takes the top sheet with him, wrapped around his waist, and heads to the bathroom. To brush his teeth, you hope. God.

“You know,” he says, head popping back out into the room, mouth full of toothpaste. “Yesterday. I wanted them to see us holding hands.”

You watch as he smiles at you and disappears back into the bathroom, then fall back onto the bed, hands pressed over your eyes. 

Fifteen minutes later, the two of you are dressed, teeth brushed, hair taken care of, day packs slung over your shoulder, and you’re pulling the door closed behind you when you hear a whistle that pulls your attention to the parking lot.

“Damn, Owens!”

The voice makes you jump, and you groan. You thought you were going to get away with the sneaking around, but the rest of your team is watching from next to the RV as the two of you descend the stairs together.

Lily and Dani turn to Boone with smug looks on both their faces, and he rolls his eyes and pulls his wallet from his back pocket. They hold their hands out for him to slap two twenty dollar bills down into.

“What’s that?” You ask when you get close enough to them.

“We had a bet that you and Owens would come out of that room together. Well, that one or his. Didn’t matter which.”

“A bet I just lost,” Boone groans, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I thought for sure…”

The rest of the crew snickers, including Tyler, who won’t look at you. You poke a finger into his chest.

“Did you know about this?”

“No, I swear,” he says, hands up, and you don’t know why, but you believe him. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t drunkenly confess to Lily weeks ago that sometimes we, you know…”

You scoff, almost mad, but then Boone shouts and the scoff turns into a snicker because, hey, you love him, but you can’t help but relish in his defeat.

“So they knew?! That’s cheating!”

He storms off while the rest of you laugh, Dani clutching their side and following him around the side of the building to try to make amends, trailing off, “If it makes you feel any better…”

Lily looks over at you, then at Tyler, a grin swallowing her face. “So, are you guys, like, together now? Or something?”

You look up at Tyler, who’s smiling softly at you, clearly deferring to you to answer that question. You feel a surge of affection for him swell in your chest. Clearing your throat, you turn to Lily.

“Or something.”

[yooglefics]

Reveal — Part three: celebrating

Pairing: Yoongi x fem!reader ( camboy!yoongi x camgirl!reader )  Wordcount: 4,513 words Genre: 18+ / smut. mdni! remember to not use fics as your only source of sex ed.  Summary: Your birthday celebration takes a turn when Jungkook forgets to uninvite a particular guest. Part 3 of Recording & Editing. Read it in that order for context. More warnings under read more.

Includes: 3k words of just smut. Mentions of posting / selling sex content. Dirty talk. Use of pet names ( baby, doll, good girl? ). Fingering ( f ), Oral sex ( f and m ). Frottage. Cum play? A bit of overstimulation? Possessive Yoongi because Reveal!Yoongi is just like that and I can't do anything about it. It's true, I tried.  Author's note: Okay, I think this is actually the last one for this. A trilogy is fine, right? But also don't quote me on that because clearly I can't seem to know how to stop writing this pair and I'm watching Jungkook from a distance like 👀 but shhh Which speaking of, I was thinking and if you want to know more about the characters in this verse specifically, you can send an ask with “( reveal!verse )” at the beginning, maybe specify if you want it to be answered ic with “( @ reveal!theirname )” , and a question or whatever you want to say. Idk, thought it could be fun~ Also, I made a post with different options for tag lists in case anyone is interested. You know, for future projects and stuff. But don't feel preassure to request it, and thank you for following this mini series. Anyway. I hope you like this and if you do please remember to comment, reblog, ask, follow, and whatnot. And again, thank you for reading <3

“You know, you could reply instead of just staring at it,” Jungkook says, over your shoulder.

You're sitting in your living room, phone in your hand with the audio post on screen. There was no way of denying you were caught, you had already embarrassed yourself by acting like a schoolgirl when telling him about SugaD leaving a comment.

“But what if I say something dumb and he deletes it?”

“Why would he do that? He thinks you're cute,” he teases.

“The cutest,” you correct, silly smile on your face once again. 

“See. You should shoot your shot and talk to him, he clearly is interested in you too,” he winks, finally walking around the couch to sit at your side, fresh bowl of popcorn on his lap.

“But it's all so crazy. I don't even know how he found my page, he only follows big creators.”

“Well, he asked me.”

“What?”

“He asked who you were,” his Bambi eyes blink at you, fear creeping on his soft expression, “I… don't kill me, please.” He moves away from you and that makes you turn to him, leg over the couch and phone forgotten.

“Jungkook? What did you do?” All the scenarios go through your mind, imagining the worst. He told him you kind of have a big old crush on him even if you have never seen his face? Did he tell him about the joke of suing him because he is so—

“And I was busy so I thought, you know, he works with music and edits his own content and it seemed like a good idea,” he is talking so fast and you realize you missed the beginning of it, but before you can ask him to start over he just burst it, “so he edited it.”

“He what?”

“The audio. Your audio. He edited it.”

“My… audio.” The audio you're sure included the start of his video.

Fuck.

Shit.

That's so much worse.

You should delete your account. Delete yourself. You want to move to another country and change your name. 

“Fuck.”

“I'm sorry. I should have asked you, but I figured…” he trails off, coming closer again. “I just… I didn't think it was a big deal because… well, I didn't know he was gonna subscribe to you. He only subscribes to people he is friends with and I know he doesn't even watch their stuff.”

You can tell he is trying to make you feel better, and although you appreciate the effort, everything is confusing. Does that mean he wants to be friends? But he doesn't watch his friends's content so… no friends?

“Fuck.” You murmur again.

“Are you mad at me?” Jungkook asks softly, worrying the ring on his bottom lip. 

“I… don't know.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“No. Let's finish the movie.”

But you can concentrate for the rest of it, and know that you'd have to watch it again another time in case your friend brings up something important about the plot. But now, the only thing in your head is theories about what you're going to do about that one particular comment and, again, you consider just deleting the whole thing.

Jungkook invites you the next weekend to the restaurant, it's his free day but he tells you he can get you the birthday special even if it’s one day early and he can even sing for you. You tell him you are only going if he doesn't make a whole thing out of it. You'd wear the birthday hat and blow out the candles, but if he dares to bring more attention to you, you actually will kill him.

He believes you. 

And so, here you are. Sitting in a booth in front of Jungkook and Hanna, your best friend. Big chocolate cake in front of you that they insisted on getting because “you can have it for dessert for the next week and think about how much we love you”, and also because you love chocolate.

“Sorry. Am I late?” A voice behind you interrupts the end of the birthday song, your smile falling because you could recognize it anywhere, and the fact that he is here makes you panic.

“Oh, shit… ah…” Jungkook stumbles over his words, even comes close to knocking his drink. “Sorry. Hi.” He greets the guy and throws an apologetic look your way. “This is my friend Yoongi.”

“Oh, hi. I'm Hanna and didn't know we were waiting for someone, but good thing we got a big cake, uh?” she jokes and looks at you. She does that whenever you're around people and you don't talk, her way of making you feel included. 

But right now you want to disappear. Birthday crown and all. Maybe take the cake too.

“Hi,” you say timidly, eyes on Jungkook instead.

“I…” he starts, remorseful look on his face as he explains, “invited Yoongi last week, didn't want to third wheel with you two.”

“Oh, that's fun! Well, you want to sit there or should I move?” Hanna proposes and you're about to say she should come to your side even if that means Jungkook has to stand up too, but Sug— Yoongi speaks faster.

“I’ll sit here. Is that okay?” 

You only nod, scooting to your right to make space for him. To not be so close he notices how nervous he makes you just with his presence.

He smells nice. Fresh and woody at the same time, and is only overwhelming because is him. Because a lot of things about him are a mystery still and you are about to unlock them all right now.

“Those are cute,” Hanna says.

“Ah, yes. I… these are for you,” a bouquet is presented on your line of vision. Is not big nor too much, the perfect size to be a nice present and it lets you admire the flowers’ beauty. “Happy birthday.”

“You didn't have to.”

“You don't like it?” If you weren't so focused on your own nerves you'd have noticed the ones on his voice.

“I do.” You quickly say. It's cute. The lavender mixed with two types of white flowers you don't recognize but you love the look of, mostly the one that looks like little stars. “Is really pretty. Thank you.”

“I'll bring you a drink,” Jungkook says, and looking at him you know he needs one himself. You could actually kill him after this.

“Wait, where is the restroom?” Asks Hanna and your eyes lift from your present so fast your neck almost hurts, but she is quickly disappearing in the direction Jungkook points her to.

And that's what you get for keeping everything a secret from your best friend. Karma as its finest.

“Pff,” you breathe, sinking into your seat. 

“I can go if you want me to,” Yoongi says softly at your side.

“What? No, no is—” you try to explain is not him. Nothing is wrong actually. Everything is perfect and you're totally not freaking out.

“You haven't looked my way,” does he sounds hurt? “Is alright. I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything, I just thought… I don't know. JK invited me weeks ago and then I found out who you were,” you cringe at that, knowing he most likely means when he listened to your audio. “I figured I'd take the chance and meet you.”

“Why? I mean. Don't you feel uncomfortable because of the…” finishing your sentence feels unnecessary and saying it at loud is embarrassing.

“The fact that you watch my videos?”

“I swear I only watched like three and I don't do that with all of them is just— Are you laughing?” Finally you turn to him, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Sorry, sorry. But is that supposed to make me feel better?” 

You don't answer. 

“Of course I don't mind.” He leans in, "If you sound that cute, I'll let you watch all of them for free.”

Breath caughts on your throat, looking at him with big round eyes. His face is right there and you try to take it all in. Clean shaved, jawline not too harsh and with soft features, crested moon shaped brown eyes, pink lips, and the way they curve up when he catches you staring at them.

“I don't want to go, but if you want me to, I'll do it.” he backs out, and somehow you can tell he is genuine.

“Stay.”

After dinner and some chatting, Jungkook offers to drive Hanna home and Yoongi takes you to his place. It’s fancy, looks like taken out of a magazine and you tell him exactly that. He asks you if you want to judge his room too and with a laugh you tell him yes, because honestly, you're curious now.

You tell him it doesn't look too cozy and suggest investing in a nice blanket, he raises an eyebrow at you and finally you confess you're an interior designer by day. He tells you he is a music producer. And then you talk about how and why each of you decided to join OF and what kind of things you have discovered you like during that journey.

“Interesting,” he says when you confess you started following him because of a hand picture you saw somewhere else. He has been playing with your fingers while you lay on his bed, is relaxing and you don’t mind at all. “You said you were going to sue me, should I even be this close?” 

“Oh my—” you pull away, covering your face. And he laughs. “Go away.”

“No, c'mon. It's cute.” He tries to turn your body to its side, but you don't give in. “Look at me, please.”

“No. I can't.”

“Why?”

“Because no.”

He laughs again, hand on your hip, “Baby, please?” Head shake is your answer, “I'm sorry. Should I confess something too?” 

“Yes.”

“Let's see,” he props himself on his elbow, looking at you even if you are still covered. “I knew about you before the audio.”

“You did?”

“Well, Jungkook talks about you all the time and I was curious. I think it was the third time you guys collabed that I saw a picture and he mentioned your name on his page.”

“Which picture?” You ask, uncovering half your face to look at him, he smiles.

“The one with the books. You were holding one in front of you.”

You remember that. Like all your pictures with Jungkook, it was suggestive more than anything and in that one the pose made it look like you were touching yourself.

“And now I know what you sound like doing that,” he teases, “wonder if I'd be lucky enough to see it someday.”

“You've to stay subscribed and see,” is your turn to have fun.

“Should I make another instruction video for you?” or maybe not. And before you cover yourself again, he holds your wrist, bracelet digging a little on your skin but not enough to actually hurt. “Don't. Let me see you.”

“Yoongi…”

“Fuck. Don't say my name like that,” is only half joking, but he knows you can tell he wants you just as much. “Can I kiss you?” 

You nod and his lips touch yours in a millisecond. They are soft, but his movements are quick, and soon his tongue is asking for permission to enter your mouth. With a moan, you granted happily and hungry to taste him. 

His hand goes back to your waist, only resting before squishing it gently. Your own hand traveling to his nape and bringing him closer, your chests touching.

In need of air you break the kiss, and instead of stopping, his mouth keeps working down your jaw and neck, “ohh…” you try to breathe, throwing your head back just enough to give him space. It feels so good you don't want to stop.

And he doesn't. He continues until he reaches the fabric of your dress, covering your chest. He imagines your little gold collar he saw in some pictures. He thinks about buying you one on silver to match his own jewelry or buying a chain for himself the color of yours. Anything would do, he just wants you to be his and for people to know.

“W-wait,” your voice brings him back, and he stops immediately, “don't leave marks. At least not visible.”

“Okay, I can get creative.” A wink seals his promise and his hand moves to the buttons in the front of your dress, his lips following soon behind to attach themselves to the exposed skin. To your breast. He licks and kisses and when he reaches your nipple he flicks his tongue a few times. 

That gets a good reaction from you, but he still asks “You like that?” because it does good to his ego and the mid-erection on his pants.

You nod between whimpers and can feel his laugh through his chest resting on your stomach, “is that enough?” You look at him, the lust on his eyes and his stupid smirk on his lips when he frees your abused skin from his mouth, leaving a bruise on your breast. “Is my tongue enough to make you cum, doll?” 

And your pussy answers for herself. Legs impossibly close in search of some friction and, of course, Yoongi noticed.

“You need something?”

“P-please…”

“Tell me. I'll give you anything, baby.” His voice is raspy like on the videos you watch alone at night. Except is not through a screen and is actually directed to you. Is everything you wanted while touching yourself and for a second you wonder if it's really happening.

Running your hand through his hair you look at him, now lower on the bed and playing with the bottom of your dress while he waits for a sign between your folded legs, cheek against your thigh, letting you catch your breath. 

“Yoongi?” 

“Hmm?” his hand stops on your leg, heavy and warm.

“Touch me, please.”

And you don't have to tell him twice. His hands roam your body, while he leaves kisses here and there. Too desperate to finish unbuttoning it, the bottom of your dress gets pooled at your waist, revealing the lilac lingerie he saw a picture of the other day. 

“So pretty,” he whispers, fingertips traising the embroidered details. It makes you shiver. “Fuck, I can see how wet you are.” His movements travel south to the patch over your entrance, and you respond just as he expects, moaning.

And before you can get used to that, his tongue is on you, flat over the wet and thin fabric. “Can't wait to taste you properly,” sounds a lot like a promise.

Biting your lip, you contemplate asking him to hurry, to give you anything. To get rid of all of your clothes yourself.

But he knows exactly how to drive you crazy. 

Moving your panties to the side with the help of his left hand, the fingers on his right one make an appearance again. Collecting your wetness and using it to rub over your pussy, only applying little pressure at first. Moans echo throughout his room once again, louder and this time in the company of a couple groans from him when he finally pushes in. 

“O-oh… oh my,”

“That's it. Let me hear your pretty sounds,” he encourages, letting you get used to the sensation before adding another one, his eyes on you the whole time. In the way you lick your lips before moaning, the way your hips move towards his hand asking to be fucked, the way your pussy wraps around his fingers. 

“...more.” Is barely a whisper but he hears it, smiling at you.

“Want more? Is not enough?”

“Need you, please” 

And how can he say no to you when you look at him that way. Like he is the only one that can give you what you need, how you want. 

His head disappears between your legs, mouth watering at the thought. He can't even deny he was waiting for you to ask him to eat you out, he would do it in a second, whenever you want, because “oh, god, you taste so sweet.” 

Feeling your legs closing he holds them back, pushing them against your torso with his free hand and squishing your soft skin just as tight as you are doing to his fingers. Thinking about how much force he would need to apply to leave a mark.

“F-fu… fuck. It, it feels so good, please.”

He is proud, lips curving lightly but without wanting to pull away to smile properly. His tongue laps at your entrance alongside his fingers, moving faster and faster, against that spot that makes your body tremble and makes the knot at the bottom of your abdomen want to scream.

“Please, please, please…” 

And he knows what that means. Knows you're close and just need a little push, and he gives it to you in the form of a “Cum for me, baby.”

And you do. Head back and pussy tight around him, legs closing and hand pushing him away when his tongue keeps working, overstimulating and catching all that you give him.

“Oh… my…” you breath. Legs still shaking but feet finally on the mattress again. 

He is standing at the end of his bed, one hand pushing his long hair back and the other unbuckling his belt, eyes on you while he takes you in. “Was that good?” He asks, you nod and he smiles matching yours. “Great. You deserve it.” 

“You want some help with that?” 

“What do you want?” Yoongi throws back, “You’re the birthday girl, after all.”

Worrying your bottom lip between your teeth, thoughts filled with ideas of the things you had wished to be able to do before, you watch him get rid of his jeans and boxers, his dick on full view for you. Only you. “Can I suck you off?”

Obviously, he can't say no, so he nods and you are quick to stand up, legs still feeling a bit weak after your orgasm, but it isn't a problem because as quick as your dress falls completely to the floor, you're kneeling in front of him, between his legs and hands on his tights.

You watch him stroke himself a couple times through gritted teeth, his other hand coming to cup your cheek as you get closer to his length. Saying you had been waiting for this wouldn't be an exaggeration, and without breaking eye contact you stick your tongue out, touching the blush tip slowly. 

He sighed, as if he was, too, relieved at the contact. “So pretty.” 

You push his hand away, taking his hardened length into your hand, only realizing then how big he actually is.

Tapping his dick on your tongue gets you a groan from him and you hum as you wrap your lips around the head, circling your tongue around it inside your mouth before letting go. He smiles at you, his chest moving fast as his breathing increases and his eyes are filled with lust. Your hand moves up and down when your mouth is not working, still wanting him to feel good.

Preparing yourself, you get closer again, taking more in and closing your eyes, adjusting to the girth. 

“Fuck,” he moans, thumb softly stroking your face as his hand moves to the back of your neck when you imitate the previous movements of your hand, going up and down, taking more and more into your mouth. “Y-yeah, just like that.”

The encouragement helps the feeling on your lower abdomen to build in again, pussy squeezing around nothing and moaning around his dick, making Yoongi clench his jaw, bucking his hip up, and letting his grip go only at the last second. He wants to fuck your mouth so bad. Only watching your lips around him is driving him crazy and you feel oh, so warm. 

“So pretty, doll,” he compliments as you try to keep your eyes on him as much as possible, only closing them when he hits the back of your throat. 

You come up, catching your breath as you let your hand do some more work. Collecting your spit and rubbing your thumb on his sensitive tip. He reacts just as you expect, groans and head tilted back slightly, with his hands on either side gripping the black sheets. And that gives you an idea. 

“Can you…” eyes are on you immediately, but you wish they weren't because that makes you shy and is even more difficult to ask.

“Tell me, baby.” He pleads, “I'll give you anything, just ask.”

But is easier to show than tell, and your fingers grab around one of his wrists, positioning his hand on the back of your head. “Just… hold it.” 

“Fuck.” He has to inhale quickly before nodding, are you reading his mind? “tap my thigh if it gets too much, okay?”

A nod of your own, licking your lips before taking his dick in your mouth once again, the simple weight of his hand being enough to encourage you to take more in and staying there a bit longer before bobbing your head.

Yoongi alternates between letting you follow your own peace and holding you down for a few more seconds every once in a while, finally letting himself slam his hips more harshly against your mouth and the back of your throat. His moans fill the air as he pushes into you. “feels amazing… you take my cock so well.” You hum, making his hips fuck into you at the vibration, increasing the tension on his lower abdomen. “Such a good girl.”

“I could fuck your pretty mouth all night,” he goes on, looking down at you and all the mess you've created between his legs. “Oh f-fuck. What a beautiful sight.” opening your eyes makes the view even better, and he holds your head down, making you gag around his dick, “ah… ah…” he lets go, not wanting to come just yet.

And it might be the first time you see him and his beautiful dick in person, but SugaD’s last video is fresh on your mind, —how could it not after the anxiety of him finding out— so you remember he likes to hold back. And is hot. But he is right, is your birthday celebration and you don't want to play by his rules.

“Are you close?” the hoarseness in your voice is surprising for a second, but you don't have time to think about how it's most likely going to hurt tomorrow because he is fixing your hair behind your ears with a devious smile on his beautiful face.

“Want me to come in your pretty mouth?”

“No.” He raises an eyebrow at the quickness of your answer. “I have an idea.”

Standing up, your knees thank you, only realizing then you'll also have to deal with that later, being so in your head while giving head, the weight of having him in your mouth a priority, that you didn't even care until then. 

You're back laying on his bed, pulling Yoongi to be in front of you, between your legs. “Is going to be embarrassingly fast if you ask me to fuck you right now.”

And for a second you consider it. Because he is not saying no and because he looks so good like this, hands reaching down to hold your waist and bring you closer to him down the bed. But you shake your head no. “You ruined my plans today,” feeling the need to justify your pervy desires you explain, “I was supposed to take pics today for my birthday post, so now you have to help.”

“You want me to take pictures of you?” also not saying no, just clarifying, and you can see in the lust of his gaze he likes the idea.

“I want you to do something first,” shyness invades again but looking down at his hardened length is enough to deliver the message, “and then take a picture. If you want.”

Yoongi is close to you again, bending down to kiss you with a “fuck yes, I want to.” His dick is resting over your pelvis, and you can't help the involuntary thrust your own body does. It feels heavy, and warm, and just so perfect. And when he thrust his hips, frotting against yours, you can't take it.

“Y-yoongi,” and he does it again and again, and soon you're cumming by just the feeling and the thought of how would it be to be actually fucked by him, how much would he reach inside you, making you feel so full and “Ohhh… oh”

He holds you and kisses down your neck as you come down your high a second time, before kneeling once more at the end of the bed. “You look so fucking precious, baby,” he notes, hand wrapping around his dick once more.

“You look great too,” you offer, biting your lip before letting honesty take over shyness, “I finally get to see you.”

“You been thinking about it?” He knows exactly what you mean. The reason he cuts it off his videos isn't just for privacy, is to give people something to wish for, to yearn.

You nod.

“Baby wants to see me cum?” Another nod, lost for words, but he is not having it. “Tell me.”

“Yoongi…”

“C'mon, baby. Tell me,” he taps his dick over your clothed pussy. Once, twice. Making your body jump at each touch. He teases the tip over your over-sensitive area and then taps again. Honestly, is hard to tell if he is teasing you or himself, but either works.

“I-I want to see you, please.”

His wrist moves in a faster rhythm, his other hand resting on your leg because he just needs to touch you. “Yeah? I'm going to cum,” he pants, “and you're going to show people how gorgeous you look covered on it.” 

You really don't know how much he loves the idea of that, how much he wants to show the world you let him ruin you, how you whisper “please, please,” as he finishes, head thrown back and your name escaping his lips on a moan, shooting white over your naked stomach.

But you can imagine, his victory smile gives him away. And the way he keeps complimenting you all the while grabbing his phone and snapping picture after picture just confirms it.

But you can judge Yoongi too harshly, it does something to you as well. It helps your confidence and a proud smile matches his as he tells you people are going to hate him if you really post this on your page. And that newfound confidence tells you is going to be the first time you click upload without second-guessing yourself.

[     afterhours(y/n):     Thank you for the birthday wishes!     I indeed got a nice present, don't you think?            [ picture ]                                                                          ]

[    SugaD:     Unbelievable 😻     Can we do something for my birthday too?                                                                                                                   ]

♡ Tag list: @m00njinnie , @sexytholland , @seoullove96 , @thelilbutifulthings , @disneyprincessshuri , @yoongibaybee ,

Thank you so much guys for your interest and support on this little series, I appreciate you 🥺💙

➪ Part one. | ➪ Part two | ➪ Updates for this verse | ➪ Ko-fi

➪ Main masterlist. | ➪ Updates in general | ➪ Request & chats ♡

[saintslewis]

“𝐂𝐔𝐅𝐅 𝐈𝐓”

𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 — 𝐋𝐇𝟒𝟒

˖ ࣪⭑ pairing: sir lewis hamilton x fem!oc

˖ ࣪⭑ summary: didn’t lewis say he’s a professional dancer? let’s test it out!

˖ ࣪⭑ warnings: cussing, outfit descriptions (the norm), links to posts, typos

˖ ࣪⭑ wc: 4.7k

˖ ࣪⭑ saint’s team radio!: hi babies….SORRY Y’ALL LMAO. i clearly skipped the 10 day mark but that’s okay! that’s why i made it longer for y’all to enjoy! I hope you enjoy and once again, tags are down below and let me know if you want to be tagged! and pls do click on the links to see the visuals, it’s important! (you can do it after)

pls like, comment and reblog!

renaissance:the series masterlist • previous chapter

general masterlist

-

The FaceTime ring chimed as Nadia adjusted her phone on the dashboard of her car, her cradled body in the driver's seat as she sniffled and wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

"Yo. What's-" Lewis made sure to look at his phone correctly to see the sight before him. "Nads? Are you okay? Where are you?" Lewis asked, slowing the car down a bit.

"I'm in the school parking lot with some pastries next to me." She sniffed again before continuing. "Like I don't know if I can even go in there after our posts because those kids are ruthless and also these pastries are so good and this car is giving me so much stress and you're so pretty and i can't get raye tickets and this wig didn't wanna lay this morning and jeez, it's just so much and i'm just a girl." Nadia rambled as she hid her face in her hands, not even looking at her phone.

"Sorry to call you so early but I had no one else to call so I just decided to call my husband. Do you wanna see the pastries? This girl gave them to me for free in the bakery." She spoke, tucking her hair behind her ear and grabbing the pink box to show Lewis, not missing how big his smile was.

"What?"

"Nads, do you wanna talk about it? There's a lot to unpack." He asked, his face holding a smug expression as he watched her place the box down and give him a look.

"No thanks, we can keep everything in the bag. Anyways, I'm the only one in the parking lot and I've got a class in 25 minutes but I don't wanna see my colleagues." She said, looking out of her window to see if anyone was lurking around. "Where you headed?" She snapped her attention back to him.

"Brackley. Got a meeting with the team for upgrades." He said, eventually speeding up the car and she nodded. "Okay don't go quiet on me. Have you checked your socials yet?" Lewis asked the girl. "Nope, I muted the app after Rihanna called me sexy." She replied with a big smile on her face, making him jokingly roll his eyes. "I'm assuming you did the same?" She asked and it was his turn to nod.

"So just to make you aware, I'm free on Wednesday after 12 so if your friends are available maybe we can meet them then?" Nadia suggested, packing her stuff up as she sat properly in the car seat. "Uh I'm sure they'll be cool with that. We can have a thing at my place, like a game night or something. Also why are you leaving work early that day?" He asked, stopping at a red light and put all his attention on her.

"School's are closing for like two weeks." She answered.

"Well then, have you ever been to Miami?"

"No..." she gave him a side eye as he continued to drive, the engine roaring.

"Well, we're going there next week for the Grand Prix so do you want to go? Then afterwards we leave for Malibu."

"But what if I wanted to watch Love Island during that weekend?" She muttered, making the man giggle.

"You can watch Love Island in Miami." He smiled, seeing her jokingly roll her eyes. "Fine. But wait, who do I need to speak to for like flight tickets and race stuff?" She mentioned.

"Tia'll have everything ready." He assured her, kind of surprised at how willingly she agreed to his proposal, something he had been nervously thinking about the whole morning.

"Alright then, pookie bear. Talk later, I have to face those ruthless critics i call my kids." She picked up her phone and did a little pose, to which Lewis didn't hesitate to take a Facetime photo of. They both waved at each other cutely before hanging up.

"You're the flyest babe on the planet, you can do this." Nadia hyped herself as she gathered her things and got out of her car.

The hallways were empty, the silence gnawing at her as she glanced through some doors to see students either sleeping on their desks or actually focused on what the teacher was saying.

Continuously taking deep breaths as she got closer and closer to her designated classroom, she could hear her Year 12 students talking about whatever gossip was going around the school. Goosebumps slightly covered her skin as she held her arm out to touch the door handle, her conscience screaming at her to turn around and drive home just to stress about this very situation.

Eventually gaining the confidence, she opened the door and it was as if the world stood still. All her students turned around to look at their frightened yet fashionable teacher slowly walk to her desk as she tried her hardest to not make any eye contact with their smug faces.

Placing her things down onto her little shelf next to her organised desk, she flipped her hair a little and walked to the front of her desk, leaning her whole body weight against it.

"Now before you lot start with your questions, just know I wasn't ready to be out there yet and truly, I wanted to tell you guys a while ago but now was a good time for the..launch." She announced and watched as her students continued to smirk at her, her heartbeat rising as the silence grew more and more.

"Can we see the ring?" A student, Daniela, asked loudly as she walked closer to her teacher. The minute Nadia extended her shaky hand out, they all came flocking to get a closer look at the diamond ring.

Eventually settling the class down with the fear that the Headmaster could just pop in, everyone was seated as Nadia was racking her brain on how she could sell this marriage to teenagers who could definitely see right through her.

"So how did you two meet then? You mentioned that you were from Stevenage like a while back." Vicky, the class leader, asked sitting in the front row and maintained eye contact with Nadia the whole time.

"Well it was our parents actually. They're all really close but Lewis and I never built that bond for all these years. It took a dinner invite from his parents for us to really fancy each other. We properly met the year I started teaching here." Nadia was cheesing, proud of the story she came up with that was half-true.

She could tell that their gears were turning in their heads, making comments to each other as if they were judges on a panel. Nadia hadn't expected the silence that would follow after each of her answers but it was quite unsettling.

"Since you said you weren't seeing anybody and you weren't the least bit interested in Formula one, how'd you end up with thee Sir Lewis Hamilton?" One of her male students asked from the back, Nathan. "I'm still very clueless about that sport and that's why I wanted you guys to teach me today. Can I count on you guys to help?" Nadia asked, pulling her chair closer to her desk as she clasped her hands together to look around her classroom to capture all the excited faces.

"James, where's the slideshow?!" "Ha! Give me my money." "We used to pray for times like this!" "Wait till Miss hears about brocedes!"

Those were amongst the shouts from her students, reminding her that she couldn't leave them alone even if she wanted.

Interrupting her train of thought as her students scrambled around the classroom, her phone buzzed with two notifications following each other. Opening her phone and heading for iMessages, she audibly gasped when she saw what Lewis had just sent her.

"What are you blushing at, Miss?" A kid pointed out, Nadia not even realising she was smiling quite hard at her phone.

"Do you want to teach me about F1 or should we go back to the French Revolution?" She sassed, making the class groan as they all somewhat surrounded a desk and whiteboard for her F1 lesson.

-

WEDNESDAY.

Holding the tub of cookies close to her, she thought back to the previous days and what her students informed her about the sport. As much as she can admit that she had forgotten most things they told her, a few thoughts lingered in her mind throughout the days, her emotions were on all time high for the man she married. Not wanting to come to one sided conclusions, Nadia decided to address these issues with Lewis when the time was right.

It doesn't help that she, once again, went down a rabbit hole of Lewis to see what his fans were like and how they thought of him from their perspective.

A knock from her front door snapping her out of her head, standing to open it up. Lewis stood there dressed ever so casually with a graphic tee and shorts paired with high top Jordans. Nadia would never say it out loud but seeing him wearing a cap, be it in a picture or right in front of her, brought slight butterflies to her stomach.

"The person who handles security downstairs is really looking out for you. Also, hello Nads." He smiled as he brought his hands forward to show a pink box with croissants inside, Nadia's heart melting, he remembered that she said she likes this specific bakery when they first met.

"Lewis, you didn't have to. Thank you." She said patting him on his exposed arm, wanting to keep her hand there for a little longer. "Hello to you too. Why do you say that about the guards?" She asked, taking the box of pastries from his hand and cradling it close to her, walking into her small kitchen to place them next to the flowers from the weekend.

"Well, when I drove in, he warned me about all the people who came to the entrance overnight. Apparently, they would go from building to building looking...for you." He said, slowly closing the front door as he walked into her home.

The goosebumps were very evident, her tattoos eerily coming to life with fear. "O-oh. Tia did warn me about this, just never expected this so early on." Nadia nervously smiled, the multiple locks on her door not enough to make her feel safe. "Hey hey, it's okay. I know this is overwhelming. Would you be more comfortable with a few of my security guys to be around until you make your moving decisions?" He asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. Seeing how scared she was and how she seemed to be overthinking it, he desperately wanted to change the subject.

Choosing to not answer verbally, she nodded and gave the man a small smile as she lifted herself off her kitchen counter. "Let's get the negatives out," Nadia sighed out. "Let me get my shoes and phone then we can get to your place in time. You can wait on the couch for now." She turned around, looking straight  ahead as she headed for her bedroom.

Taking the invitation, Lewis made his way to the comfortable looking grey couch. Beneath his feet sat a custom carpet in the shape of the infamous Murakami flower logo, a small smile etched on his face. The living room filled with all types of scented candles and incense sticks, two plants on either side of the tv stand. A full length mirror hung on the wall right in between the kitchen and living room, the arch of it filled with star stickers. A few vinyls were plastered onto the wall behind him with something written underneath each one and a custom piece of art sat in between the black discs, a painted picture of two people hugging with matching NY caps on. The little signature at the bottom spelling out 'Rea' and tiny initials signing 'R + N'.

Oh, the guilt sunk in quite quickly in those few moments as he observed a small part of her home. That's exactly what it was to Nadia, her home. Purely hers. Everything in his sight clearly held a special significance to the woman and because of his situations, he was taking that away from her. Her 'best teacher' pillows sat neatly on the couch, definitely gifted to her by her students that she loved. The picture frames and polaroids sat nicely on the side table, Nadia's smile wide and bright as she had stood with family and posed wildly with her friends.

His scandalous decisions had roped in a woman who looked like she had finally found her own way in life and he was taking that away from her. Everything she had worked for would be reduced to just being known as his wife. The thought making him cringe as he could picture the headlines.

Nadia fixed her shoelaces quickly as she found Lewis sitting on her couch staring at nothing, his arm sat high on the edge of the couch. "Lew? Are you okay?" The woman's soft voice went into his ear, his head turning to see her ready to go. The Barcelona jersey untucked, her jean shorts displaying the very few tattoos she had on her legs and the gold anklet contrasting with the stark white appearance of her Air forces.

"I know we're about to leave but do you mind if we talk a bit?" He asked, sitting on the edge of the couch and clasping his hands together. "What? You about to divorce me already?" Nadia joked but seeing him give the smallest smile only for it to fade away slightly scared her. Going to sit next to him, she sat one of her pillows over her lap and leaned on her elbows to hear what he had to say.

"Are you truly sure about this marriage? I feel like everything's just hitting you all at once and I feel bad. It feels as if I'm taking away your independence all because of stupid things people have said about me. I looked around and you already made a life for yourself and I don't want to do anything to hurt you." Lewis confessed, hands constantly fidgeting with the rings he had on. He was so sure that he would see her agree with him but seeing her downward smile surprised him.

"We already signed the papers, Lew, and it's going to sting you like a bee if we even think of letting this go. From my perspective, we're two people who are building a friendship who just happen to be married. I still am anxious about leaving my life behind but one thing I won't allow for myself is to be deduced to be someone's wife, no offence." She stated, seeing him nod.

Breathing in a little before continuing, she sat a bit comfortably on the couch facing him. "This is a very weird situation, one that not a lot of people go through but we're learning and that's the cool part. You and I have lived incredibly different lives and there's a reason why our lives are intertwining so much. I just ask for some time to figure out how to live in the limelight, right now I'm grateful for the journey. Except for the ysl heels, those bitches are uncomfortable." Nadia laughed a little, ending her sentence with a joke. He giggled along, his eyes crinkling with the left eye closing a bit more than the other. It was such an adorable sight to see.

"I appericiate the honesty, Nads. It's something that's been on my mind for quite some time and to hear you voice it out lifts some weight off my shoulders." Lewis chuckled, the sight of her smile was one he wanted to keep in his mind forever.

"Glad I could help, pookie bear. Tell me, do your friends like cookies? I made a bunch yesterday because I was stress baking." She asked, standing up and walking towards the kitchen. The nickname clearly sticking to him but he didn't mind, it was special.

"It would be weird if they did not like cookies. They smell good too." He complimented, unconsciously jingling the car keys in his hands. "Thank you, also made them vegan friendly." Nadia smiled, picking up the plastic tub and headed for the front door. Lewis couldn't control his eyes as they fell to her retreating figure, little peaks of more tattoos showed under the hems of her shorts. Taking a breath in, he walked towards her as she fiddled with her keys with the front door open.

-

"Oh my god, Tia sent a list of people she picked out for my team." Nadia gasped, tugging on the red seatbelt of the Range Rover a bit while going through her texts with Tia to see random faces with all their details laid on text.

"Really? That was fast." He said, one hand on the steering wheel with the other resting on his leg. He turned into an avenue, the car's engine roaring through the quiet street as they passed by homes that were hidden behind large gates and trees.

The pair spent the whole 35 minute journey just jamming out to their scarily similar music taste and getting a few snacks for the game night that'll be held, Nadia not realising that she's actually becoming famous because multiple people recognised her and asked for pictures. Once she got back into the SUV, she laughed about the situation until tears came out.

"They all look around my age or a bit younger, oh this is some scary shit." She joked as she looked through everyone's photos, to which Tia then said that Nadia will meet everyone in Miami before Lewis' media duties.

"And when are you meeting them?" Lewis asked, slowing the car down and turning into a driveway before stopping in front of the large gate. "Miami" She muttered. Pressing a button somewhere, the gates opened to quite the driveway with the motor court right in front of the large modern home. The beat of the song completely changed as the house came into view, Nadia taken aback at the visuals in front of her and she completely understood why the trees were hiding such a masterpiece behind them.

In the motor court, there stood a black Mercedes Benz amg gle coupe and an arctic grey Porsche 992 Turbo S outside of the garage looking fresh out the dealership. "My God..." Nadia muttered as she covered her mouth at everything she was seeing. Lewis definitely loved seeing Nadia astonished and excited at everything he's shown her so far.

Parking the Range Rover next to the Porsche, the two got out of the car and grabbed their belongings along with the snacks they bought earlier. "Is anyone else here yet?" She asked, only carrying her tub of cookies whilst Lewis carried everything else.

"Nope, just us. Was thinking of showing you around the house, just to get used to it." He smiled and slightly giggled at the side eye she gave him. "Now now, pookie bear. I still have to decide. But let's put the stuff inside." She smiled at him and watched as he opened the door with his fingerprint.

The moment she entered the massive house, her breath was taken away by the beauty of the foyer alone.

"So which floor do you wanna start with?" He asked, leading her into the living area, the kitchen space looking like it came out straight from the magazine. Looking to her left, she looked at the abnormally large garden with so many chill spots and what looked to be a tennis court.

"And this is all yours?" Nadia was stunned to say the least. The amount of luxury surrounding her was staggering and she wanted to hide within herself, scared to even comment until Lewis answered her question.

"Well, it's ours now that we signed on the dotted line."

And it's safe to say that the cookies surprisingly weren't dropped onto the floor.

-

Walking outside the home to marvel at the creation before her, Lewis followed right behind and watched her take it all in. "Are you able to take one more surprise? I think the closet did it for you." He grinned. His hands were behind his back as always and she looked back at him with a smile.

"You've done so much for me already, Lew. What could possibly top the Harrods trip." She asked, hands on hips while slightly joking. His smile grew even more as the butterflies in his stomach reacted to the nickname.

"How about a car? Would that be better than Harrods?" He asked, mischievously putting his finger on his chin as if he's thinking. Nadia's eyes widened for the upteenth time, her hands flying to cover her mouth.

"Are you fucking with me right now? Lewis, I swear if you're joking, I'm going to kick you in the ass." She exclaimed as the man held out different keys in his hand, the smile never leaving his face.

"Lewis whatever your middle name is Hamilton, are you serious? I'm going to fucking cry, oh my god." Nadia's voice was already quivering but she refused for her tears to fall.

"Wait no don't, you said that they would ruin your lashes." Lewis genuinely wanted to laugh at her reaction but he felt so happy that he could do this for her and hopefully get her used to it.

"First it was the Raye tickets then the croissants then an entire car? Not to mention the new shit I got. Oh this is gonna be so fun." Finally uncovering her mouth, they both smiled at each other then laughed. "Let's go look at it, Nads, before everyone gets here." He suggested and like lightning, the girl was already standing next to the car and was eagerly waiting for it to open.

-

"My God, Lewis! You didn't tell me she was so beautiful. Like crazy beautiful." Currently, Nadia was being cradled in the arms of one of Lewis' closest friends, Amara.

Standing in the entryway of the house, everyone exchanged greetings and hugs as the friend group hadn't seen each other in a long time. Moments before, the pair watched as cars rolled in the motor way as each of his friends climbed out of their cars hyped as ever, carrying different things in their hands.

" 'Mara, if i could kindly have Nads back, I can finally introduce you guys." Lewis jokingly rolled his eyes at his friend who didn't want to let go but eventually did.

"Guys, this is Nadia. Nads, this is my crew. We've got Miles," He pointed at the tall man with the brightest smile she's ever seen. "Amara, who's cradled you just now," The woman waved to Nads who definitely returned the energy.

"Charlotte, who threatened to sue if she didn't meet you," Lewis then pointed to the woman standing next to Amara, she was as stunning as ever. "Daniel or 'Spinz' if you will." Another man smiled at her, tilting his cap like a cowboy. "Andrew, and right next to him is Natalia." He ended off by pointing at the two right next to Daniel.

"Nice to meet you all, I'm Nadia as you know." She shyly greeted back, never the one to introduce herself as much. Everyone spoke at the time, patching the words together to say that they're delighted to meet her.

"Uh, we've got snacks in the kitchen and the games are set up in the living room already." Nadia suggested as she pointed behind her, not even realising that Lewis' arm was around her shoulders the whole time.

"Oh please lead the way." Natalia piped up as walked over to hold Nadia's hand and walk to the kitchen, the rest of the woman following suit and immediately started complimenting the woman.

Deciding that they would tell their friend groups the truth about their marriage, Nadia and Lewis happily agreed to their plan and it most definitely seemed to work.

"God damn, your parents chose good, man. The Barcelona jersey and she's just a teacher? Can your parents hook me up because damn." Daniel spoke up, shocked at Nadia's appearance knowing that his friend barely explained how she looks.

"And don't even get me started on the tattoos, Spinz. I'll call my dad for you though!" Lewis laughed as he walked away, the rest of his mates laughing, walking towards the living area.

An hour into the game night, Nadia and Lewis had won both boards games, celebrating as if their favourite team won the league. The atmosphere was light, conversations flowing as music played in the background, well that was until 'Love Is Wicked' by Brick and Lace started playing and that's when the nostalgia hit.

It was as if everyone lost their minds, immediately clearing the space to dance. Somehow, Lewis and Nadia found sunglasses and started dancing together. Amara being the friend who films everything, filmed the two having the time of their lives. Lewis trying to copy her dance moves whilst they both sung incoherent lyrics to the song, laughter spreading while the songs played out loud.

The song switched to 'Work' by Rihanna and the girls went crazy. Moving the party to the outside porch for fresh air and more space, the well light outside lights lit quite well. The girls were moving the hips to the beat, shaking ass nah chance they get. Nadia being the dancer here, just wowed the girls even more, hyping her up so much that the boys included themselves in the dance and they eventually created an unforgettable night hanging out and laughing until the moon rose.

"So, how was it?" Lewis asked, laying next to Nadia on a blanket on the grass. The rest of the crew were laying on the other blankets across the large backyard, resting after an intense game of hide n seek. "I haven't had this much fun in quite a while. It felt nice to feel like kids, just having a good time. Once again, thank you. For this, the Porsche that i still can't believe is mine, even the ring that I stare at all day." Nadia expressed, lifting her hand to look at the ring once more.

"If you need or want anything, don't hesitate to let me know and I'm very serious, Nadia." Lewis said, turning his head to see her staring up at the night sky.

"You're bluffing." She scoffed until she turned to see his face, a raised eyebrow as he stared at her. "Anything?" She asked.

"Anything." He scrunched his nose a little, the diamond studs glistening under the moonlight.

"New wig? With a new bracelet?" She turned her entire body to face him, leaning her head in her hand.

"Done." He smiled. "Although that was severely underwhelming, bruv." He said, turning on his back once.

The two shared a loud laugh afterwards, their laughs travelling to the moon that watch over them.

-

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dividers by: @cafekitsune

pics: pinterest and ig

Nadia’s fc: @/unclewaffles on ig!

[verycharismaticdragon]

Okay, so I went a lil overboard with a reply to LBH criticism over at @controversial-blorbo-bracket, and I figure 4.5K words that probably should be put under a community label are a bit too much for a reblog, so I'm posting it separately.

CW for general discussion of sex, and for rape mention (assumption of rape is discussed and rebutted).

------

You know what, I was going to reply to this the usual way, you know, 'oh look at that, another person with surface level reading who hates binghe!' because fr every single binghe disliker has the same talking points - which, you know, individually were long discussed (and disproved) by ppl in fandom - but then I was suddenly hit with a spoon beam so now I'm writing a long-ass answer.

Starting with the most glaring, this sentence:

Their dynamic ended up coming off more as SQQ tolerating this unmanageable man-baby and letting him fuck (and hurt him in the process, and then cry about that, more than SQQ himself did) him just to get him to shut the fuck up sometimes, like giving a toddler a biscuit to appease them.

has clued me in to the largest thing anon has missed. Remember how I said "surface-level reading"? Let me explain. There are great many avenues for analyzing a book, especially one as crunchy on a meta-level as svsss (you'll see what I mean by that later).

But the most basic thing - the LVL1 if you will - is asking yourself the following questions: (1) whose POV is the book written from? (2) is that POV omniscient or limited? (2.1) are there cases where the POV character doesn't know something we, the reader, have inferred? (3) if it's limited, how reliable is their narration? (3.1) are there cases of their actions not aligning with their narration? (3.2) are there reasons for them to lie to themselves and/or the reader?

For SVSSS, the answers are: (1) mostly Shen Qingqiu's POV; (2) limited; (2.1) e.g. he doesn't know what's going on in Luo Binghe's head (we'll get back to this more in-depth later), most notably not realizing Luo Binghe is in love with him for good 2/3rds of the book; (3) unreliable; (3.1) think him insisting he is fine when he's clearly grieving post-Abyss - which we can see both from other characters' reactions, and from stray thoughts that he himself has and then dismisses (eng.edition chapter 4: "No! Bah! Shen Qingqiu mentally slapped himself. Who are you calling a grieving widow?! Whose husband died?! That's not something you should just say--you're really getting worse by the day.") (3.2) off the top of my head: the trauma SQQ is going through, with his two coping mechanisms being 'not thinking about it' and 'making light of the situation'; internalized toxic masculinity - as in, the idea that it's shameful for a man to have emotions; internalized homophobia - as in, being unable to examine his attraction to men (evident from very early on, actually) without having a knee-jerk 'it's wrong!' reaction.

To sum it up: Shen Qingqiu's POV is limited and his narration is unreliable. What does this tell us? That we should take what he says in the narrative voice with the grain (or like, a spoonful) of salt, and that it's worth to close-read him. Don't just believe him when he says something; look for evidence!

Going back to anon's words, saying that SQQ appears to just 'tolerate' Luo Binghe tells me that you have not caught SQQ's lies at all.

(cont. under cut)

SQQ is, pardon my language, fucking obsessed with Luo Binghe - just in a different way than Luo Binghe is with him. He is constantly thinking about Luo Binghe even when the latter is not around! (Contrast it to how he thinks about his family from his og world like, 3 times over the course of the book, despite loving them.) And when LBH is around, SQQ can't go a page without mentioning how incredibly beautiful he is! (And then blames it on Luo Binghe being a protagonist, like, of course the protagonist is the most beautiful person in the world, that's natural!.. We later get the POV of a literal author of the world, btw, and he says he wrote LBH as a conventionally beautiful prettyboy type, and his own ideal man is completely different. Which is how we know that SQQ going on about LBH's radiant showstopping obvious-to-anyone beauty is really only his own opinion that he's trying to sell to us as a universal truth.)

And, speaking of LBH's crimes anon mentions (I will not be calling them 'warcrimes', sorry, none of the very few less-than-moral things he does can be classified as that) - you may notice that, for both actual things LBH did and for things SQQ attributed to him mistakenly, those never changed the way SQQ feels about Binghe. He thinks LBH killed his kinda-friend and still jumps in to sacrifice himself to save LBH's life. He sees the guy LBH mutilated, and is disturbed by that... but still continues to protect LBH. Gives him a lil forehead kiss like 20 minutes later.

Oh, and let's not forget the scene where SQQ is punished with a hyper-realistic dream of original LBH tearing off his limbs, and his reaction to that is "I need to see my Binghe asap immediately like rn, I need my cute version of Binghe to feel better about this."

This all is to point out that SQQ continuously fails to be normal about LBH. That's a feature! That's what makes their relationship fun! "Clearly you are perfect for each other pls dont involve anyone else in whatever the fuck is wrong with you" kinda situation.

But you must look through the cover of SQQ's misdirections for it - like again, trauma! toxic masculinity! internalized homophobia! It's difficult for him to admit his feelings even in his head, but he is getting better about that. In Mei vs Ge extra, SQQ admits he wanted LBH to push a little more about them sharing a bed and that he would have agreed. And is kinda put out that LBH simply accepted his refusal. Then in Deep Dream extra, SQQ is literally the one to jump LBH. And in Wedding extra, he almost manages to look directly at the fact that he's very happy that LBH is proposing to him! So yeah, he is getting better at admitting it too. But honestly, his feelings about LBH were always really intense. In different ways over the course of the novel, but he adored LBH from before he transmigrated, and that adoration never lessened, despite everything that happened between them. You just gotta look at his actions and not his 24/7 mental stand-up routine.

All right, next, in the same paragraph the previous thing came from, I'll abridge and highlight for relevancy:

Their dynamic ended up coming off more as SQQ tolerating this unmanageable man-baby and letting him fuck [...] him just to get him to shut the fuck up sometimes, like giving a toddler a biscuit to appease them. And it came off very gross, especially in the epilogue, when Luo Binghe was blatantly manipulative about that, pushing and cornering Shen Qingqiu into doing more than he already was, and using his tears to his advantage, in a way that was clearly in the text not unintentional.

...Listen, for someone claiming to hate how one-dimensional LBH ended up, I'm seeing a distinct lack of effort at actually understanding the character. Luo Binghe's teary act (in the moments when it is an act, because there are also many moments when his tears are genuine, we'll get to that later) is, first and foremost, for Shen Qingqiu's benefit.

Shen Qingqiu admits it himself that he finds it easier to be "frank" with Luo Binghe who is "willing to cling to his legs and throw a tantrum to seek comfort" (Return to Childhood extra). It's the internalized toxic masculinity and homophobia thing again. It's actually pretty interesting how he rewires his brain from its knee-jerk reaction of "homosexuality wrong" by mentally comparing Luo Binghe to a girl - like calling him Bing-mei, thinking he's acting "like a lovesick maiden", etc. God I want to study this man like a bug. Anyway, yeah, the point is that LBH acting cute and whiny helps SQQ be more comfortable with giving affection to a man, something that he struggles with because of his personal issues.

And Luo Binghe, while not aware of the exact nature of SQQ's issues (having grown up in a world where homophobia doesn't seem to exist), does understand this - that Shen Qingqiu’s thin face and pride make it difficult for him to show emotions. And it's not something LBH intrinsically knows either; he has to figure it out (not without help, everybody say thank you papa Airplane), confirm it for himself (the "But other than hearing Shizun crying..." - "Who was crying?" - "Other than hearing someone crying, [...]" scene comes to mind), and then accept it as truth (which he doesn't seem to fully do until at least the Maigu Ridge, and Shen Qingqiu outright saying "I do it for you and only you!" - if not even later.) It takes him time to learn how to work with this knowledge too...

And, to be brutally honest, how blatant and over the top he gets with the act is entirely due to how SQQ keeps rewarding the behavior.

Now... you might consider this a conjecture, given how we only get the tiniest glimpses into Luo Binghe's mind - in the rare moments the author shifts out of the primary POV. But fortunately, one of those moments can be used to prove that Luo Binghe is not, in fact, "pushing and cornering" Shen Qingqiu into doing things Shen Qingqiu doesn't want to do.

The moment I'm talking about is in the Mei vs Ge extra: Shen Qingqiu, having agreed to "do some exploring together", sees LBH's giant 🐓, goes "absolutely not" out loud, and attempts to give him a handjob instead — which also doesn't go too well. Bringing us to (LBH's POV emphasized):

No matter how calm Shen Qingqiu kept himself, he couldn’t stop his expression from twisting. Luo Binghe had secretly been paying attention to his face the entire time. At this moment, he carefully said, “Then, Shizun, how about… you do it?”

LBH is attentively watching SQQ's reactions to figure out what he's thinking and feeling. The moment Binghe comes to the conclusion that SQQ is uncomfortable with bottoming, he offers to let him top. Notice how he doesn't start crying or whining to get his way, when it's something that might be a genuine hard line for SQQ?

And it's actually the same in the Regret of Chunshan extra: when SQQ shot LBH's idea down, LBH "looked a bit disappointed, but didn't push the issue". Yes, later SQQ will say LBH was "putting on a pitiful act"; but if you read the scene carefully, LBH did not do anything but look a bit disappointed - and SQQ just walked himself into feeling bad about refusing completely on his own.

Now, when does Luo Binghe use crocodile tears then? Well, the answer seems to be: when it's about small things. Like wanting to do it face to face (after they've already agreed on both sex in general and on who will top), or begging SQQ to call him 'husband' (after they have gotten married). Ultimately inconsequential things, and, likely, things that he suspects SQQ is avoiding only because of embarrassment and not anything more serious.

So, to sum up this section: Luo Binghe's crybaby act is for Shen Qingqiu's peace of mind first and foremost, and Luo Binghe does not actually use it to coerce Shen Qingqiu into anything he wouldn't be willing to do. LBH is not responsible for the fact that Shen Qingqiu has no bottom line when it comes to him and can't handle seeing him even minorly disappointed, let's be real.

Okay, last thing from that paragraph (yes there's another thing):

and letting him fuck (and hurt him in the process, and then cry about that, more than SQQ himself did)

See, with the way anon describes it here, I can't even tell which scene this references, but luckily I have a rebuttal for both options.

Like, is this about the Maigu Ridge? Aka the scene where LBH is not in his right mind (literally hallucinating, among other things) - and then comes back to consciousness to see that he, by all appearances, had brutally raped the person he loves with all his heart? No fucking wonder he starts crying?!.. And to clarify, he did not rape SQQ, because SQQ had given informed consent here. If anything, there was nobody in that scene less consenting than Luo Binghe himself.

Or is this about the scene in Mei vs Ge. Which is like. Entirely on SQQ, who decided to keep quiet instead of telling LBH that it hurts. Like, whatever that was about! It's only, oh, one of the major themes of the novel that hiding your feelings and struggles is bad, and will hurt not only you but people who care about you.

...Btw, if someone not in fandom is reading this with increased befuddlement for why those two are having so much painful sex. Well, aside from the scene where LBH is tripping balls because of a cursed sword, and the situation is forced by the literal will of the narrative (more on this later), our couple are two adult virgins with no sex-ed, and one of them is in possession of (canonically) the biggest dick in the world. Given those factors, it would be weirder if they were able to have flawless sex right away. (And it's a meta-commentary, something we'll also get to later.)

Speaking of the cursed sword, it's somewhat amazing that anon says all this

Why did they make him become this? I understand what he went through, I'm not asking about cause and effect, I'm saying the effect could have been so much better and more realistically (in my opinion and from my personal experience with trauma) written. I'm not saying he couldn't be burnt or bitter or jaded, nor that he couldn't be clingy or overly emotional or manipulative, I just think it could have been done better, and I HATE what his character became for the second half (realistically, most) of the story.

and completely fails to mention that between LBH's return from the Abyss and the end of the main story, LBH's actions are severely affected by a cursed sword that amps up his emotions with the express purpose of destroying his mind. Seems somewhat relevant to why his behavior isn't written as a realistic trauma response? And instead as a trauma response amped up to eleven and set on fire? And that's without even getting into LBH giving himself supernatural brain damage as a form of self-harm. Which uh. doesnt simply map onto any irl concept really.

Continuing from this, I think it's time for me to expand on one of the points from earlier: about how Shen Qingqiu doesn't know what's going on in Luo Binghe's head for most of the novel. It will be tied to this particular bit of criticism on anon's part:

I feel like the author utterly assassinated his character in the 2nd half of the novel (ever since he came back from the abyss) and turned him into a one dimensional caricature of himself, and I HATED IT.

What I want to suggest here is tied, once again, to how Shen Qingqiu’s POV is limited and unreliable. So, a new batch of questions: (4) is our understanding of other characters' actions affected by the limited POV? (5) is there a particular reason for the author to keep other characters' motivations opaque to the POV character? (6) can anything be gleaned by reconstructing other characters' perspectives?

The answer to (4) is a yes so resounding the POV character himself admits it: "First, he'd thought Luo Binghe was unbelievably cruel and evil, then he'd thought Luo Binghe was unspeakably strong and bright." (ch.21) Shen Qingqiu has the very same problem as anon does: he sees Luo Binghe as one-dimensional, making assumptions about how he's supposed to act - instead of trying to understand what's there.

Which leads us neatly into the answer to (5): people making assumptions about what's best for the other person instead of asking them what they need, and hurting them as a result, is also a major theme, present in many relationships throughout the novel! And that's only half of the answer.

The other half will require us to go a little meta. You see, BingQiu's relationship, among other things, are meant to echo the relationship between the reader and the character. The reader loves the character, but they are also the reason for their suffering - as for the story to go on, the character must continuously face more and more difficult obstacles. Shen Qingqiu both loving Luo Binghe and causing him unspeakable amount of trauma is meant to mirror that. Shen Qingqiu's expectations for how Luo Binghe should act, and attempts to fit him into one or the other archetype, are also, yknow, reader behavior.

And... are we not also readers? Are we not expecting Luo Binghe to act a certain way (for example, when I first read the novel, I fully expected him to keep being a classic ML: to swallow all his grievances and keep being unquestioningly and ardently devoted to MC. Which, once articulated, is such an unfair expectation!), and feel it's "character assassination" - to borrow anon's words - when he does not adhere to the role he's supposed to inhabit, based on our idea of his personality and place in the story?

So: is there a reason the author seems to deliberately make Luo Binghe hard to understand, irrational, or one-note, to both Shen Qingqiu and us? Making it harder to sympathize with him? For example, can it be commentary on oversimplifying complex characters to just their role, or just one aspect of their personality...

As for the answer to (6), I ultimately want to leave it for you to try it out and decide. I'm literally the person who wrote a 90k character study fic to try and figure out the minutiae of Luo Binghe's post-Abyss mental state, so my answer is I think obvious. He has a lot going on!

Which kind of brings me to another of anon's gripes:

And actually that made me really sad because I wanted to enjoy it so much, because I LOVED the beginning, and I love Shen Qingqiu, but the evolution of Luo Binghe and the refusal to let him KEEP evolving inescapably ruined the story for me. He was insufferable, and I kept hoping he would grow and get better, but he just never did.

Look, I simply cannot agree that Luo Binghe did not grow and get better; it just largely happens at the very end of the main story and in the extras. I know anon has missed that, since they missed the more obvious things like Shen Qingqiu being obsessed with Binghe right back and Binghe using the pathetic act to help Shen Qingqiu feel more at ease, so I'll get to that in a bit. But first, I want to make sure we are on the same page about everything before that.

The part of Luo Binghe's arc between the Abyss and the Maigu Ridge is a downward spiral. He's going through the corruption arc, just as the original version of him did; the narrative demands it.

And it's not like 'the narrative' is a nebulous force here; there are literal actors of its will in the story, the System and Xin Mo sword. Like, in particular, the Maigu Ridge sex scene is a perfect example of how those two actors push Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu. The System literally withholds a key item that can help Luo Binghe regain his conscious mind until Shen Qingqiu has sex with him - you know, until the demands of the narrative of a romance story are fulfilled. And Xin Mo literally corrodes Luo Binghe's mind so that he acts like the original version from PIDW, because the truth is, SVSSS Luo Binghe would rather die than actually force himself on Shen Qingqiu. (Binghe's first reaction to seeing what he'd done is to ask "Why didn't you kill me?" and like. understandable. im crying also)

Oh, right, I promised to explain how bad sex is meta, this is a good spot for that. You see, it's a commentary on the 'flawless first time' trope, and also 'sex is a cure' trope. The author posits that two virgins having sex would naturally be awkward and not magically good. And that having sex in a highly stressful situation where one of the parties is not in control of their faculties would naturally be really fucking bad, and also not magically good.

But back to narrative demands. The point is, Luo Binghe simply cannot get better until "the story" ends. He can't heal while the world around him is literally deadset on dragging him down to become a bloodthirsty, sex-obsessed tyrant. The only thing that saves him is Shen Qingqiu managing to get them into the happily ever after zone by the skin of his teeth. There's a reason the main story of the book ends with: "The story circulating through the world might already have ended. But the story between you and me has only just began". 'The story circulating through the world' is the narrative the characters were trapped in; only once it has ended can Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe be allowed to go free, to actually live their lives and be happy. (This novel is very meta, I'm telling you.)

All right, now, back to how Luo Binghe actually did grow and get better! We're almost to the end! I fear to see how long this post is, at this point!

Now, I could be pointing out specific details, like Luo Binghe letting SQQ be brought back to Cang Qiong because he thinks that's what SQQ would want - when his whole breakdown before was about how he couldn't keep SQQ with him. Or I could be reminding you of the second section of this post, and saying that Luo Binghe learning to bypass SQQ's embarrassment by playing cute is actually also character development, even if you didn't like it.

But I think we should go for the heart of the issue. You see, yet another prominent theme in SVSSS is toxic masculinity. It's baked into the setting, with the "original" book our MC transmigrated into being a heterostraight harem novel; it's something our MC struggles with, when his learned toxic behaviors screw over both himself and the person he loves; and - most important to our current topic - it's the chief source of tension within Luo Binghe's character.

Literally, there are even names for two polar axes of his personality in the story: Bing-ge (ge=big brother), coined by in-story fandom to describe original Luo Binghe of PIDW, and Bing-mei (mei=little sister), the nickname SQQ comes up with specifically for "lovesick maiden"-acting Binghe.

"Bing-ge" side, of course, represents toxic masculinity. Extremely obviously in OG!LBH's case, what with him being the protagonist of 'male wish fulfillment and misogyny: the novel', but if you think about it, SV!LBH also demonstrates toxic masc behaviors, starting post-Abyss and up to Maigu Ridge. Noticeably, exactly when he had Xin Mo fucking him up - Xin Mo in general is symbolic of the "original" narrative, pushing SV!LBH to replicate the OG's behavior. And also it's a sword. The symbol of toxic masc version of the narrative is. A sword. RIP Freud you would've loved Scum Villain.

But what does "Bing-mei" stand for, if we detangle it from SQQ's 5D chess with his own sexuality? We know Bing-mei cooks and cleans and gives waist massages. We also know Bing-mei shows affection freely, and isn't embarrassed to cry, and has a sensitive heart. A man who is caring instead of controlling, a man who is not afraid to be vulnerable and emotional... Bing-mei side is meant to represent the healthy / soft masculinity.

And Luo Binghe's arc is rooted in the struggle between healthy and toxic sides of masculinity. What I think is tripping up a lot of people is that he starts at the healthy place, in his "white lotus" days. He is caring, he is affectionate, he shows the full range of emotion.

Then, the world comes for him, and he falls (or, yknow, is pushed) into toxic patterns of behavior. He hides his vulnerability, the only show of emotion he allows himself are outbursts of anger, he tries to control the person he loves... and thus hurts people around him and himself. His breakdown at Maigu Ridge is about thinking he can never be good enough, no matter what he does - see, the very idea that there's some level of achievement that can make a person unequivocally lovable is a toxic masc mindset!..

But the thing is, him breaking down here - admitting that he can't "win", showing the messy, undesirable, emotional side of himself - demonstrating that he can't be the Bing-ge version - is what opens up a path for him to communicate with Shen Qingqiu. Giving him the genuine connection he needed, that Bing-ge could never have. And thus allowing him to destroy the toxic-masculinity-representing sword.

So, the evolution path the author charts out for Luo Binghe from there on is him growing into the healthy masculinity patterns. Starting with, again, putting caring about his partner above controlling him and letting SQQ be brought back to Cang Qiong. Which SQQ didn't actually want, but we've already covered that he's his own kind of freak(affectionate). And continuing to try to do better by SQQ and listen to him (eg the whole SQQ refusing to share a bed and LBH acceding so easily SQQ was left reeling, because he was planning to agree once LBH pushed). And learning that he can show emotion and be validated for it (see Return to Childhood extra with its "if you are unhappy, say so"). And accepting that he doesn't need to be perfect to be loved (the guy faceplanted trying to propose and still got his man...). And, hell - count 'doing his best to learn how to pleasure his partner in bed' with this as well!

So, once again, as a closing note: I simply can't agree that Luo Binghe doesn't grow and evolve. You just have to let go of your preconceived notions of what his character should be like, and learn to see, understand, and appreciate what's there. The same arc Shen Qingqiu, his most faithful reader, goes through.

For a book as meta as SVSSS, that's obviously no coincidence.

[explosion-island]

ON COMMISSIONS and GUIDELINES for use of my work:

1. Consent! Ask for it. 💥

Ask for my consent beforehand if unsure. I am very quick to reply in Messages section and love to talk to you guys. Yes, you have a consent from me to reblog, download, get inspired and use my artwork as part of your own as long as it’s not used for profit, posted in sites, that includes sexual/harassing/violent/racist/sexist and overall negative content or has any aggressive/political intent. My artwork can be printed out, made into a gift/non-profit wall-art etc. Ask me privately, if you're still unsure about anything.

Some of the characters are underage and I would like to keep them out of reposting/using for smut/fluff/sexual/violent content. If the character is an adult version of themselves you will know it from me clearly (it will be mentioned in the original post or in case of a canon character fan art you know it yourself from the original creator). If you find yourself in a "grey zone" or really think that your post could benefit from use of my artwork: reach out to me and we can discuss it all.

2. Leave my signature be! 💥

I will have my signature on the drawings (both on regular posts and commissions) as I have on all of them. Leave it there, don't remove it or hide it. It's my trademark and helps me keep track of my artwork as well as get recognition.

3. Tag me as @explosion-island 💥

I would like to be credited as @explosion-island when any of my work is used here or elsewhere, for example, for your background banners, profile pictures, as inspiration, part of your own creative work etc. Hopefully you have reached out to me about it beforehand as well, as I mentioned before in section 1. It helps me a lot to grow as an artist and I get to see what awesome stuff you guys come up with and read your comments! :)

4. I am open for commissions! 💥

Feel free to message me privately and we can open up a conversation about your ideas and work out how we could collaborate! I truly enjoy working on commissioned artwork/fan art or whatever your hearts desires may be. Same rules I mentioned in the previous points apply to commissioned art as well. I do not accept commissions with overly sexual/violent content. In case of a fanart requests I do not ship anything that is not canon by the original artist themselves. Sorry, but that’s how it is. I can provide you with artwork that can incline/suggest/highlight certain aspects of relationships between the canon characters, but I like to stay true to their original story. The rest (OCs/OCs and canon characters etc.) can be put up to a discussion. I am fairly easy to communicate with and it makes it easier for both of us if we keep it professional and respectful. Commissioned work involves a lot of mutual understanding and trust and I take my job as an artist seriously. Hope we get to work together, please don't hesitate to shoot me a message, even if it's just a quick and kind-hearted banter about the art!

Prices will vary for each individual commission: ask for more information in the Messages section. In general they are between £25 to £75. I don't usually ever charge more than that as this is still just my hobby and I am by no means a professional artist.

5. Thank You for liking and reblogging my posts!

It truly means a lot to me to see how many people enjoy my work. I am humbled to see it resonates with so many of you. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! 💥✨💫

[the-vicious-guardian-incarnate]

Don't worry, your safety as my client will be guaranteed until the job is done.

Currently on hiatus due to health (I’ll live, it’s just inconvenient!)

Blog Rules

Nothing outright sexual: suggestive is fine. I just don’t want to be searching for everyone’s age before engaging in a scenario!

If something needs a specific warning tag, please ask

Interactions welcome; OCs included. I reserve the right to deny or end an interaction! If you think I did so unfairly, please contact me so we can talk about it!

You are welcome to DM me. This means to plan, to ask mod questions, or anything else out-of-character! Private roleplay is not currently on offer.

Suggestions of ask memes and similar are allowed (encouraged!); link these in an ask or DM and they will reblogged (please do not also send a related ask in the same ask as the link/s, send it separately)

Unless stated otherwise in the tags, you are always welcome to continue a meme/prompt as long as it’s stated which one you’re referencing. Please make sure to state clearly which you are referring to (even if it’s just the post’s link number) as anonymous asks do not allow for direct link sharing!

Replies may take a while for various reasons; I have a life outside of the internet, and might not have time to get to things within the day! If I (somehow) get popular, posts will be put into the queue, unless they're time-sensitive.

Find an expanded and more detailed list of rules (and sign-offs) here

Tag List

#paying customers -> other WuWa characters/blogs

#mysterious benefactors -> general and anonymous interactions

#ghost hound with a blog -> in-character blogging

#involved interrogations -> ask memes, starter prompts, etc.

#dog tag with a story -> anything containing headcanons

#an odd clause -> reblogs (other blog promos, etc!)

#specs says [☆] -> OOC (all OOC will be marked [☆]!)

#what a wuwarp week -> "drama" tag (feel free to block this one, hopefully I won't need to use it more!)

OOC information can be found here, if you're curious!

[drop-dead-dropout]

NEW USERNAME local-queer-disappointment -> drop-dead-dropout

unpinning my other post because i want to talk a little about me and this space that i've created! hi i'm alex and i dropped out of high school twice lol

i think a dni is stupid because people never listen anyways, which is why i haven't had one, but i still see the value in at least telling people who this little corner is for.

also YELL AT ME ON DISCORD I'M woahits_alex.mp3 IF U ASK ME ABOUT FIC RECS FOR MY FANDOMS I'LL CRY WITH HAPPINESS

anyways opinion stuff under the cut. you don't have to read it, and you don't even have to listen if you do, but i might argue with you (<- serial arguer) so if you want to avoid the Discourse here ya go.

you are welcome here:

- ALL queers. trans men, trans women, nonbinary, intersex, poc queers, xenogender, "contradictory" labels like mspec gays/lesbians lesboys/turigirls/sapphileans (omg it's me!!), slur reclaims, detransitioners (who are not transphobic), mspec lesbians, aro/ace and all variations thereupon, unlabeled, questioning, etc. i love all of you. i love the community that we share. we are family, whether or not some of us want to be, and exclusionism is Not Funky Fresh!!

- pro Palestine!! i don't always rb posts as much as i used to (i am scared of spreading misinformation) but i think i'll start doing that again! (don't forget your daily click guys)

- jewish people. i am specifically adding this one to say that because of the shitty Everything, i've seen a lot of concerning antisemitic stuff recently so i'm just, yk, putting this out there.

- disabilities/cluster b disorders/systems/AAC users. i am not any of these things so if i say/do something out of line please tell me! but i love you guys and you're absolutely welcome here.

- proshippers (if this bothers you block and move on)

- furries. not personally one of y'all but i think you're neat and you make cool art :]

- literally, like, anyone, as long as you're not a dick

you are not welcome here:

- terfs, transphobes, exclusionists, anti-mspec, anti-lesboy, and people who think transandrophobia is "fake" or whatever. go away i don't like you (or at least be prepared to be blocked or yelled at)

- similarly to last, anyone who starts queer infighting or hates on less visible queers/strangers who don't "look" queer, the whole "bi girl's straight bf" nonsense (i don't care if you think someone is cishet. you have no way of knowing that. let's stop hating people for immutable characteristics and start having thoughtful criticisms of people's actions thanks)

- ZIONISTS. BYE BYE

- (but also antisemites because come on now let's notttt. judiasm ≠ zionism)

- ableists, fatphobia, racists/bigots, general dickheads

- antishippers (again, you can either leave now or expect to be argued with)

other general stuff:

- i accept anonymous asks! and also non anonymous ones. ask me shit idk

- i am autistic and VERY gullible. if i reblog a "bait" post, or something that's clearly fake or a joke with a genuine reaction, i'm probably not playing some 5d irony chess i'm probably just stupid. sorry y'all i'm trying :\

- i don't rb nsfw. not as, like, a rule, i just don't see the value in doing so lol. if i ever did i'd tag it and probably update this

UPDATE: thought i should clarify, i don't rb nsfw but i do rb nsfw humor, like dick jokes and stuff. hope there's no confusion

- i argue with people!! i enjoy arguing with people!! usually it's in replies and not reblogs but still. if you are allergic to stuff like that maybe don't follow me? i also rb "discourse" posts, mostly transmasc support stuff and callouts of transandrophobia, general solidarity stuff with the trans community or lgbt community as a whole, proship stuff, politics, current events, that kinda thing.

- this is, shockingly, supposed to be a fandom blog! (i got carried away; i always do.) current fandoms include: ace attorney (the one this blog was supposed to be about), doctor who (childhood hyperfixation come back to bite my ass), and splatoon (no excuse). also mha is basically my abusive boyfriend stockholm syndroming me to stay at this point but i'm trying to get better (not). you can find the records of my failing recovery at @alex-is-losing-sleep-over-krbk /hj (i also sometimes shamelessly rb this blog's posts over there lol)

and i guess since i'm mentioning fandoms, here are my fav ships: wrightworth, klapollo, franmaya, thoschei, pearlina, agent 24, & cuttletavio.

anyways, that's about it. love you all :]

[iguessitsjustme]

*flips hair* I have never blocked anyone because I'm nosy, but I want to know #4!

What was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

I am also nosy...to my detriment sometimes. Which is why it takes me so long to actually block people that I should probably have blocked a lot sooner. But I do have a story.

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

I've kind of vaguely mentioned this when asked before but I'll talk a tiny bit more specifically here. Not too specific because I'm not trying to start shit buuuuut....also they are definitely not the only person I've blocked but I think they might be the most recent one? I don't know.

About a year(?) ago I had to block a couple of people because they were starting to make me uncomfortable. I was being tagged in all sorts of posts (and to be clear the posts weren't bad, they were even positive! kind posts even) and something about what was happening was rubbing me the wrong way.

Actually before I keep talking about this, I feel like I need to talk a tiny bit about myself because it's important context. This also might surprise people considering how much I overshare on here, but I am, at my core, an extremely private person. I do not like attention. I get anxiety when my follower count goes up here (genuinely love all of my followers and this is definitely a me problem). I live in fear of being secretly recording for some stranger's tiktoks. I don't want my face seen by people. I do not wish to be perceived. It is 100% a trauma response and I am aware of all of this. And this is extremely important to why I blocked these people.

It is slightly easier for me on tumblr than it is in real life, but this is quite literally my safe space that I have built for myself. It's why I'm comfortable sharing things here. I have no issue being tagged in posts. I have no issue with people wanting to talk about things I've said or if they tag me because they want me to see something. So getting tagged in seemingly genuinely kind and positive posts should be fine, right?

Well, yes and no. The posts I was being tagged in felt...hollow to me. Like I was being tagged in an attempt to build a platform instead of because they actually wanted to tag me. I was being tagged in posts thanking me for participating in a fandom which kind of made it seem like the reason I was posting about anything was for accolades and that...is simply not why I'm here. I am not here to gain a following. I am not here to build a platform or to help others build a platform. I am here to post silly little posts about my shows and my life and also now keep track of character's glasses. If I wanted to build a platform, tumblr is not what I would be using (and honestly if I wanted to, I genuinely think I could be pretty successful at building a platform and gaining followers and other platforms. I would consider myself highly marketable if I wanted to go into that industry).

But the last straw for me? What finally did it? Why I finally blocked the people whose vibes have felt off for me and clearly did not know me well enough to know that doing what they were doing was quite literally the opposite of something I am comfortable with? It was when someone (again not naming names because I don't think they had bad intentions but were just so horrendously misguided as to allow themselves to ignorantly do this) who did not follow me, did not reblog any of my posts, did not like any of my posts, had never replied to any of my posts, nor had they ever interacted with my blog or with me in any type of way (I checked because I'm nosy enough and petty enough to have checked that) tagged me in a post. To thank me. For participating in a fandom. And I am not saying anyone has to do any of those things. But if you're gonna tag me to thank me for participating...perhaps maybe at least like one of my posts about the thing you're thanking me for?

To be clear, this was a show that a lot of people were talking about at the time. I was not the only person tagged in these posts. I was for sure not the only person talking about the show. In fact, I probably posted a tenth of what other people posted. If that. And my posts, honestly, weren't very well thought out or coherent. They were my typical little silly posts. And I know people like those. But they weren't the same as what other people were posting. And to be tagged by someone that seemed to only care when it was something that could gain them notes and followers instead of someone who actually enjoyed what I was saying? Felt strange to me. And rather than start beef with a stranger on the internet I blocked them.

Blocking them solved the issue that was making me uncomfortable as peacefully as I felt I could. They no longer had the ability to tag me in strangely performative posts and I didn't start yelling at a stranger and potentially ruin their day. Or start drama that no one else needed to be involved in. I did make a small post about it at the time mostly because I felt so weirded out and I did feel a little bit bad about blocking them. But it was such a quiet thing that no one noticed and everyone moved on with their lives. Made things happier. For me at least. Probably happier for them too.

Choose Violence Ask Game

[fatphobiabusters]

So cool of you to try to publicly shame someone who is themselves obese for not being sure if they agree with calling the term "obese" a slur. Great look. Definitely makes me agree with you. If this was a personal blog I'd be like "yeah you know what that's on me" but you literally are purporting to be a blog trying to shed light on fatphobia and that is, by its nature, going to involve an amount of education, unless you're just in it to yell at people. :)

Your tags were specifically screenshot without your url for a reason.

If you were that concerned, you could have deleted your reblog with your tags. Because your url was not shown, deleting your reblog would have deleted any trace back to you.

You revealed you are the person who wrote those tags by sending this ask.

Your tags were extremely rude, taking a post about the tragic death of a fat woman due to fatphobia and using that as a chance to claim it's "childish" to consider the incredibly harmful term "ob*se" a slur. I gave you more courtesy than you deserved by leaving out your url.

The mods of this blog have explained why the word "ob*se" is a slur over and over and over again. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were dealing with a bunch of people just like you who were making fun of the idea of "ob*se" being a slur despite the fact that it completely meets the qualifications to be considered a slur. You even mentioned yourself that the word is harmful, and yet you still called it "childish" to not accept the usage of that bigoted term.

You're even still now using that term in your ask despite my explanation to you of how that term causes the abuse and deaths of fat people around the world.

This blog receives harassment all the time. Fatphobes love to harass fat liberation blogs, including this one. Because of that, I have no tolerance for your types of comments anymore. If someone writes a reply, reblog, or tag trying to dismiss fatphobia or literally call fat activism "childish," I don't really give those people the benefit of the doubt at this point. It's kind of hard to after hearing for years from fatphobic trolls about how fat people apparently should just die, how we're a blight on the human population, and how we're subhuman and deserve the extreme abuse we receive.

Yes, this does involve an amount of education—education that we have already clearly given. I shouldn't have to link to an explanation of why the word "ob*se" is a slur for every post the mods here write just because people like you will scoff at the "audacity" of us deeming a "medical term" a slur. If you thought it was so childish, you could have easily looked at this blog for posts about the term or even just searched Google about this topic. But you didn't care. You just wanted a chance to use your internalized fatphobia as an excuse to downplay a post you pretended to support.

I have no desire to talk to you any longer and suggest you stop interacting with this blog further. I am not going to put up with any other ridiculous rhetoric, not even by a fellow "ob*se" person.

-Mod Worthy

[sleepy-shutin]

@avianadonis sorry, for whatever reason i can't reblog and reply to your post directly even though i'm fairly sure you don't have me blocked, so i'll just screenshot and put it here. if you DO have me blocked, feel free to ignore. if you don't, here's a fair warning: this is kind of long.

for context: this was avianadonis's reply to my post criticizing two of sophie's biggest talking points in a recent post where an anon in an ask criticized her for moving goalposts on discussion of tulpamancy, and refusing to listen to tibetan people when they spoke out on the discussion of tulpamancy and cultural appropriation. i don't agree with everything anon said because some things were wrong, like the location of tibet, but i like that they actually bothered to criticize her for these things.

and well, i'm pretty sure i clearly outlined all of the problems i have with her arguments in the original post i made, which would qualify as my arguments against hers, but sure, i have the day off so i will elaborate further.

my arguments against hers are the following:

a) she's speaking for tibetan people when she doesn't live in tibet or understand the political climate of tibet and what activists in tibet are doing to try and liberate themselves--it's more than likely there are tibetan activists in and out of tibet fighting against the CCP because where there is oppression and propaganda, there are people fighting back against it with everything they've got, even in small and non-violent ways; such as referring to the chinese takeover of tibet not as "the peaceful liberation of tibet" as the CCP refers to it, but rather as "the chinese invasion of tibet". this shows you plain as day how tibetan diaspora view and understand the situation.

you're telling me that she can't listen to tibetan diaspora, (in this incredibly niche discourse, where it may be difficult to find many tibetan buddhists or tibetan people/diaspora on tumblr getting into this discourse, mind you), on how their culture is treated by westerners? all while she's continuously citing a book written by a white woman in the 19-fucking-30s.

she is speaking as a white person, presumably in the west, and speaking for tibetan people, and saying that she can't even trust them on their own issues because of the CCP propaganda.

and yet she, in spite of all this, believes that she has any authority to be speaking for a group of people currently under chinese control against their will, and their diaspora.

that is white saviorism at its finest.

i'm not going to pretend to be an expert on tibet because i'm not. i did a rough wikipedia page read on a couple of things related to tibet and the chinese takeover and went from there.

but what sophie is doing, and i know this because it takes an ignorant person to know an ignorant person, is outright pretending she has more knowledge and understanding than she actually does on the situation, and has decided that the tibetan people, living in tibet or not, are not reliable on what does and doesn't harm them and their culture because of CCP propaganda and because she disagrees with them, then used a vague quote from the dalai lama to justify taking aspects of tibetan buddhism, where she truly has little understanding of the actual practice it comes from.

at this point, i care less about the discussion of the word tulpa itself and more about the racism and white saviorism and pseudo-intellectualism that sophie uses to justify using the word and what that says about the people that follow and agree with her. because jesus fuck, it's kind of horrifying.

and every time a tibetan buddhist comes in and criticizes her, she ignores them because they're anti-endo, or because she assumes they are and labels them as anti-endo regardless of if they are or not.

and b) she's openly admitting to refusing criticism for citing papers that don't support her arguments. at all. be it because they are assuming tulpas/non-dissociative systems exist in the first place without proving it, because they're clearly about complex dissociative disorders and not endogenic systems (and by clearly, i mean outright referring to trauma an dissociation), because they're outright trying to disprove the existence of complex dissociative disorders with the fantasy model, or because they're about psychotic people hearing voices, and the alternative treatments outside of medications to treat the voices, (not herbal remedies; talk therapy and engaging with the voice(s) with a trained professional).

this is all part of a larger pattern with sophie. she bullshits, she pretends to know more than she actually does on these subjects, and acts like she has any ground on which to stand and call herself an authority, and when people have genuine criticism that she can't bullshit against and twist to make herself look smart to her followers, she ignores it. and people eat it up because she seems nice and polite and seems educated, even when responding to horrific vitriol.

nobody bothers to read the papers she cites, nobody bothers to check her sources, they assume that she will do all those things for them and that she is a trusted source without looking into it themselves. i know this because i have had people cite to me papers that are not valid evidence for endogenics existing, (such as the survey that finds people with tulpas have better mental health than they did before, without proving they exist and even outright stating that this survey can't prove they exist), and a friend recently had someone in a discord server openly admit to citing a paper without reading it first. there are carrds compiling "evidence" that endogenic systems exist where the people openly admit to not reading the papers, and very even if they did, they obviously aren't being critical about it because they're acting like a survey that doesn't attempt to prove the existence of endogenic systems somehow proves the existence of endogenic systems.

i can't remember if she still has this paper on her list or not, but someone emailed the author of it and said that not only was her paper not about endogenic systems, she didn't approve of her work being used in this manner because it was about functional multiplicity as a valid healing option for DID alongside final fusion. not endogenic systems.

look, i don't hate endogenic systems. because of the fact that there's a lack of research into whether or not endogenic systems exist and because i choose to believe in the ideology of live and let live, i mostly don't care what endogenics are doing with themselves as long as they're not actually hurting anyone, and while many people have varying definitions of what that means, i personally don't find the existence of endogenic and nondissociative systems to in and of themselves be harmful. i just hate that so many of them are so desperate to prove themselves against the hate that they're becoming ignorant in the face of how science actually works in order to do it.

leaving everything up to one person that they uncritically follow.

many of them are buying into the pattern that sophie has consistently been putting out for a couple of years now, and i find it so disgustingly disingenuous because she's giving many endogenic and nondissociative systems a false sense of hope to prove themselves when that's not what's actually happening; from repeating debunked arguments to citing papers that actively go against what she's saying, to consistently, time and time again, showing us that she has not read a lick of literature on complex dissociative disorders. all the while, ignoring any and all criticism that she can't twist to make herself look good.

all this to say that sophie has a long pattern of pseudointellectualism--pretending to know what she's talking about when she doesn't, and bullshitting herself every which way to make herself sound smart and educated. then, most infuriatingly, refusing to respond to valid criticism that actually bothers to bring her claims into question, and referring to all of her critics as anti-endos whether they actually believe in endogenic systems or not.

so, do you actually have an argument as to why she's correct or are you another uncritical follower of everything she says, who never bothers to bring any of her claims into question?

[mneiai]

READ THIS FIRST: Quick About Blog and Fics I'm Working On

I accept asks from anyone, you don't have to be a mutual.

You can also reply to my posts or whatever and talk to me if you're not a mutual (that might be how we become mutuals even).

I do not accept unsolicited fanfic prompts (I will ask for them if I want them), but I will discuss my fics, ships, etc.

Do not ask about whether a fic is still being worked on/is abandoned, that is literally answered in the stuff below this.

I'm in my 30s, non-binary, and disabled. I move back and forth between fandoms often, I very clearly write fics with incest and dark themes, I don't generally post NSFW but may reblog some (but always tagged so it can be filtered). If any of this makes you uncomfortable, it's your responsibility not to follow me.

This is a multi-fandom personal blog that therefore sometimes has non-fandom topics (medical related posts, anti-bigotry posts, anti-capitalism posts, etc).

Fic stuff:

Sorry, I've been depressed as fuck these last few months and so slid into a much less dramatic hyperfixation for a bit and wasn't writing much/at all.

Reminder that fics not posted on here are not abandoned, they just aren't at the forefront of my mind right now. If a fic is truly and fully abandoned, I will actually mark it as such. I have updated multiple fics after years of not doing so before and will surely keep doing that.

New fics I'm working on right now and planning on posting something for in the next month or so (all Dragon Age fics for now):

Untitled DA2/DAI AU (working title "Mercy")

Cullen joins the Seekers after they remove Meredith from power, but finds out a horrible truth that has him running to the one place they can't reach: Tevinter, where the Imperial Divine, no stranger to Seekers, quickly "recruits" him. He thinks he'll be a novelty that quickly wears off, but is, of course, so very wrong. Will be Fenris/Cullen as main ship with some platonic Urian & Cullen and Dorian & Felix & Cullen.

Untitled DAI Time Travel AU

At the end of the world, the Inquisitor and his remaining allies made a desperate deal with Razikale who sent them back in time to try again. But the Old God of Mystery doesn't do anything in a straightforward way and the group find more about themselves changed than they thought possible. Most likely Inquisitor/Merrill and Solas/Cullen with some Hawke/Cullen for main ships.

Untitled DA2/No-DAI AU

Having never been warned about a possible Exalted March, Hawke comfortably (or, as comfortably as he could) took the position of Viscount of Kirkwall and set about rebuilding the city-state with his friends and allies as the world around them collapsed into war, ironically creating a symbol of stability. Main ships probably Hawke/Varric, Fenris/Cullen, and Bethany/Merrill. Past Hawke/Anders and Sebastian/Cullen.

For older fics that I'm still poking at, I swear, really!, they're mostly the ones listed on this prior post, so it's actually just easier to link it:

[matan4il]

It's been a month since the lives of every Jew around the world was changed and I know that I for one will never fully recover from this. I'm sending you and everyone I know in Israel so much love and support because I know that at least I can live relatively untouched by what's happening.

I desperately want to talk to my non-jewish friends about what's going on but I honestly still have no idea how to do so because the situation is so unbelievably horrific that without having actual family and friends involved (or living in Israel), I don't think it's possible for anyone to appreciate how fucking terrifying everything is.

The news broke today of an American Jew dying after being attacked at a pro-palestine rally and there has been zero coverage of this outside of Jewish circles. I still check behind me when I commute because I'm afraid someone is gonna push me under a train because I am Jewish.

I joked, in the dark way that a lot of us do, that would I have to die for the gentiles to take the Jews' fears seriously and now someone has, it's clear that is being murdered in broad daylight (and not ok Israel because apparently it's clear that being in Israel invalidates your right to life in a lot of people's eyes) isn't enough to even get people to listen to us.

I just don't know what to do anymore.

Hi, love! Sorry it took me a moment. I'm doing my best, but I hope you know that my heart is always with you!

I feel exactly the same. My life will never be the same. Everything feels different. And we will heal, but scars this deep, they don't disappear. They will always be there. We have been forever changed. And I think that's... I think that's a Jewish experience that many former generations had, and we fooled ourselves to think the generation of the Holocaust would be the last one to go through this.

IDK what advice to give you on talking to your non-Jewish friends. I can tell you I've had many who reached out to me, and it's been so heartwarming. I've had three that I reached out to, but pretty much because I saw them spreading hate filled posts, and I thought they could, and would want, to do better. That didn't really work out, but then I guess if they were extreme enough that I felt compelled to reach out to them, maybe this attempt never really stood a chance. All I know is that I do feel better for having tried. But if you have friends who are not that far gone, yet they haven't been talking to you about this, then maybe an option would be to tell them that you need to share your feelings and thoughts. People often shy away from politics, but if they're really your friends, then they would listen to you sharing these more personal aspects of what's been going on.

Yes, the news about Paul Kessler's homicide were horrifying. A 69 years old man shouldn't have to be scared to go out expressing what he thinks in a free, democratic society. Please, do be careful! What this world should be, it clearly isn't.

I'm gonna be honest, after everything our people had gone through, I'd rather Jews be alive and hated, than spoken of compassionately, but dead. If the world had shown full empathy for every single one of the massacre's victims, I would still give all of that empathy away to have our people back, alive and well, unharmed. What's insane is that even dead Jews no longer get any empathy, not in Israel, and not outside it, as you've pointed out. So many people who claim to be reblogging anti-Israel posts, because they value human life, have failed to reblog anything condemning the massacre, or the rise in antisemitism, or mourn Paul.

IDK what we can do other than be there for each other, and speak up as much as we can, and where and when it's safe for us. I am sending you so much love, and the softest of hugs, okay? Please do let me know how you're doing, if you feel like it. xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[hyukalyptus]

i feel like younger fandom writers on tumblr are starting to feel like they have to be sort of ""influencers"" and respond to every single bit of feedback and get as many reblogs as possible but that's never been what tumblr has been about and it's sad because i've seen this idea people give themselves drive writers off the website in newer, younger fandoms. if i'm in your inbox, even if it's some big idea i'm putting down, you can just reply like a conversation. i'm not expecting a piece of writing, i really just want to tell someone and have them respond "OH MY GOD I'M FOAMING AT THE MOUTH" and maybe even "thats so hot and he'd do this too" but i feel like writers are putting a lot of pressure on themselves lately, or maybe it's just this fandom idk, to write a fic for every single idea that comes into their mailbox because they feel like "that's what writers do" or something and it's like??? you don't have to be a Public Figure here. it's just a fuckign social media website and the weirdest most fucked up one. i'm sure you get asks like "hey why didn't you write such and such" but like. you're just here to converse and share the things you make this isn't your fucking job so ignore that shit and do what feels comfortable to you. idk if this sounds harsh or not but really the point is just do whatever the fuck you want

hello!

idk if this is a rant specifically toward me or if it’s supposed to be a suggestion for others..but i feel like i have a pretty clear boundary and that is stated clearly in my guidelines. i do understand that this is something silly and meant to be fun and i treat it that way.

i’ve never felt pressured to do something i didn’t want to do. i know i posted a “i have a full time job and i go to school!” post yesterday but that’s because i have drawn that boundary and i do understand that this is a low priority and it’s for fun. if i don’t like an ask, i delete it! which i do so often tbh. i don’t rly advertise that bc i want ppl to feel like they can inbox me.

and again, i’m not sure if this is directed at me fully, but i have never said anything along the lines of “because that’s what writers do.” as i’ve said in my guidelines, i understand i am not here for you or any other reader. and i am fully comfortable deleting any ask and blocking whoever tf i want.

perhaps this in response to saying something like “this didn’t get a whole lotta notes :(“ or something? and if it’s that, that’s not meant to be taken too seriously! it’s more of a “omg why doesn’t anyone else wanna giggle about kai with me rn?” just like irl if i’m w a group of ppl and i’m sharing something i rly like and that i created and i get very little response i’ll be slightly :/ but i’m not taking it personally. i’m sorry if it came across as pressuring others to provide feedback.

perhaps this is in response to my poll i have up rn. i’m doing this because many readers have suggested us writers interact back with them. and they’ve requested that from multiple writers. which i see as a fair request to be completely honest. however, i don’t feel pressured into doing that. i want to show appreciation to my readers that leave feedback and idk maybe it’s because i’m autistic, maybe it’s because i’m old and don’t do social media well, but it can be very difficult for me to talk to people in any form (online or offline) so i wanted to know what form would be best received.

but at the end of the day- i definitely do not see myself as an “influencer”—that is actually my worst nightmare. i have never felt pressured to write a response to anything, i’ve never felt pressured to respond within a certain time frame, a certain length, or anything. i still haven’t posted half my kinktober shit! i’ve never prioritized this over work or school. i do write whatever the fuck i want or i wouldn’t write about “unpopular” things like kai smut (bc let’s face it, they’re always super unpopular), chubby!reader, or other kinks. and i make that clear in my guidelines!

and yep, i see this as something silly that i do as a hobby but that isn’t my place to dictate how other writers should feel about their blog. if they want to take it seriously bc they view as their art, that’s fine with me. if they wanna write for validation or for as many notes as possible, that’s fine w me because they’re doing whatever the fuck they want.

writers: i do encourage you to not feel pressured to write to things you don’t want to, but i don’t feel like many of you do that anyway. this is meant to be something fun and if you’re not having fun, don’t do it! but i’m still having fun with this so i’m gonna do it. and i’m sure y’all are having fun too. i ofc hope my moots stick around, but i would of course understand if you decided to never log back in again someday.

[beautifulhigh]

I have a question for you that I really hope you'll answer. But if you think it might start discourse you'd rather avoid, I understand if you ignore this.

So I love both OG and LS and I follow a bunch of popular blogs in both fandoms. but so many of those folks watch only one of the two shows and are pretty rude about the other one, by insulting cast members and making fun of even the popular well-received storylines. often they don't tag such posts in any particular way so there's no way to filter those out. I sent a few of them asks requesting if they'd tag such posts. Some agreed to but they haven't actually done it. I've seen you interact in a pretty friendly way with some of those accounts and I'm wondering, how do you do it? Everyone always says to unfollow but I genuinely don't want to miss out on the other posts these ppl share. I enjoy those other posts. It's just these particular posts that diss the shows that I want to avoid but can't. I've tried ignoring it, I've tried laughing it off, but I don't think I'm very good at managing my emotions because I always still end up feeling low and negative when I see such posts. How do you manage to interact with people with opinions you clearly don't share? I'd really appreciate any tips. I really don't want to withdraw from these two fandoms but I don't know how to remain while also maintaining a healthy emotional state.

Firstly, I'm sorry this has happened to you. I really am. And I want to stress that this reply is 100% around my experience and the way I have curated my fandom experience, and YMMV. I hope that it doesn't vary too much but this is how I deal with it. I'm going to tag a few people in this, people who I have on my dash, purely to illustrate the diversity and how you can approach things.

I'm also going to pre-empt things and say that if you read a line and you get mad at me for that one line, I want you to do two things. Firstly, I want you to go outside and touch grass. Secondly, I want you to maybe read the full thing and engage some level of critical thinking before you start yelling at me that I'm being inconsiderate because you have a grass allergy so how DARE I tell you to go touch grass?

Also, because I want this to have a bit of a reach and I know people do curate their dashes, I'm going to be a bit sneaky with how I refer to things to actively circumvent any filters. Should make sense what I'm actually referring to but if you're not sure then please ask.

Step one

Curate your experience. I mean this. One of the few joys of this hellsite is that you are in control over your dash. You can't control who people on your dash reblog but you can start with who is on your dash. If you don't want to block anyone then you can filter by blog names and install add ons like Tumblr Savior.

Step two

Remember why you're on this hellsite in the first place. Chances are it's for fandom purposes. And, given the premise of your ask, I'm going to focus on the TV element of it. So you're here because you like one or both of the weewoo shows and you want to share thoughts and ideas and reblogs of gif sets of people who are WAY too pretty to just be out there like normal people. And because we're hardwired that way, we want to seek connections with people. So we follow blogs and we talk to people and we have our mutuals and we message then and chat with them and we develop relationships with them because we all watch the same TV show.

But – and this is the point that I think a lot of fandom forgets. It's a fucking TV show. That's it. A silly little show which is 99% designed for entertainment and distraction. I am not ignoring the fact that there will be parts of both shows which have impact above and beyond the show, but Ryan Murphy et al did not set out to make shows with the primary goals of changing people's lives.

It is a TV show. It isn't actually life or death. So the first thing you need to ask yourself I have represented in a nice little flow chart with ALT text:

Negative and hateful ideas

Yes, it's a TV show. But that doesn't stop shitty people saying shitty things. I love that both OG and LS have a diverse cast. I love that both of them explore difficult issues such as addiction and a sense of self-worth. I love that both of them have characters who are tragedy magnets and are both dealing with an entire back story of guilt and grief and a sense of failure and so we are rooting for them to find the self-worth that we know they deserve. Is this Evan? Tyler Kennedy? Both of them? Maybe Eduado, or Carlos? Both captains have their tragedy stories.

But what I'm talking about here is people making comments that are, no matter your views or stances, way out of line. Be them about the characters or the actors, you know exactly the kind that I mean. Commenting on the ethnicity, gender, sexuality of characters/actors. Making statements about race or religion. The Big Stuff that most of us know is way out of line.

So if someone is hating on "Buddy" because one of them is of Latinex descent? Screw you, step on a Lego. If you're hating on "Tarlus" because both of the actors are queer? You can fuck right off now. If you dislike Hen's storylines because she's a proud, queer black woman? Sit on a spike. If you want Paul to shut up and go away because he's trans? Walk off a short pier.

If you wish Owen had less seggsy and screen time? You'll find friends in both camps! But that's about the character and the storytelling.

A good rule of thumb is: can it be changed? If no, don't be a bitch about it. Oliver can't change his birthmark, Alisha can't change her skin colour, Rafael can't change his sexuality, Brian can't change his gender identity.

But they could write "Buddy" as queer. They could write Owen not drooling over some woman. And so we are going to have and express opinions over this.

We know where those lines are and those are the ones we have to draw. We have to shut down those voices and make it clear that they are not welcome because a) we need to make sure there are more safe spaces than there aren't, and b) we need to send the message that this kind of hate isn't OK.

Now where fandom seems to have an issue is where it comes to different opinions. This is because we equate what we like with who we are, and for many people fandom is a part of their identity as a person. There are so many reasons for this – good and otherwise. You see yourself represented in the show, the characters. The storylines resonate with you. It got you through the worst time in your life. You met amazing people because of it. Fandom is a good thing, it truly is, and it exists BECAUSE people take shows and characters and storylines to heart.

So if you come at the fandom then it feels like you're under attack. But you're not. Have another flow chart, also with alt text.

And I'm going to tag my wonderful friend @capseycartwright in this because she hates LS with a passion. I would go so far as to say it's probably visceral? Still follow her, still love her, and I still read her "Buddy" fics because she's an amazing writer. And the reason for this is because there isn't a single comment she makes about LS that is personal or hateful or spiteful. She just doesn't like it.

Now even if she did make a post saying "anyone who watches LS is dumb" I'll still follow her. Because if I follow my flow chart, even though I would call her a friend and maybe say I know her? She's not someone I'm related to and I don't have to deal with her on the day to day. Also she's not saying "Jen is dumb for liking LS". Even if she was, still not related so whatevs.

I'm also going to tag @paperstorm who isn't an OG fan, doesn't watch it at all, isn't at all shy in expressing her opinions on anything. If OG stuff crosses her dash she doesn’t engage. [Edited to clarify]

Now when @capseycartwright makes a post about LS, one of two things happen. Most of the time I just keep on scrolling. She's expressing her opinion about a show she doesn't watch, doesn't like, and has picked up on something that she's commenting on. She's not saying anything awful that would be picked up on the first flow chart so why do I care? I'm not going to get her to change her mind and honestly? It doesn't matter if she does or she doesn't.

I may comment – like I did on her wedding post – if I feel I can offer something to help explain something. She posted about "Tarlus" not cancelling the wedding so, as someone who has watched the episodes and had the information, I pointed out that they were absolutely going to do that but even the grieving widow was all for them having it go ahead.

The trick here is to be respectful. If I come at her with "well ACTUALLY" then it's not going to work. I just dropped in, said my bit, then left. People are still going to think the wedding shouldn't have happened - hell, there's people in the LS fandom who feel like that.

Could it have been written differently? Yes. So opinions get to be had and respected so long as they're respectful, as per the first flow chart.

We can debate if they should have gotten married in the episode. I'm not debating their right to get married.

When @paperstorm responds to an OG ask about something, same principle. Is she being hateful? No. Can I add anything to help explain/clarify? If yes, do it then move on. [Edited for clarity]

Be the change etc etc

If I wanted to start a fight, I could drop into the tags "OMG Buddy/Tarlus is awful and the characters deserve so much better". And people who have made fandom a huge part of who they are will take that a lot more to heart than people who haven't. Only you know where you fall on that spectrum.

Most people are not going to change their minds. I'm not going to be able to convince @capseycartwright that Tarlus are endgame and get her signed up to the "Peaches and Cherries" crew. I'm not going to convince @paperstorm that the OG crew are a wonderful example of how the love of your found family can help you rebuild and find strength with your blood family. And neither of them are going to convince me to bail on the other show!

Fandom doesn't recruit through arguments. Fandom recruits through gif sets and fics and metas and all of the good stuff that comes out of enjoying a show. Fandom grows through people sharing their love of a show and the characters involved in it. It doesn't recruit and it doesn't grow through arguments.

So if people are saying stuff you don't agree with, so long as they are not hurting anyone? Let them. Why are you ruining your peace and your enjoyment yelling into the wind? If you don't follow them and you're only coming across them because they are tagging their hate so it shows in the tags, then realise they're doing it to get the reaction from you. I'm not letting that petty win so I will keep on scrolling. And if it's on my dash? Well then I will just check that they've not decided to indulge in some -ism statements, and then I will keep on scrolling.

Because fandom is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be uplifting. And there is enough shit out there in the world right now without yucking someone else's yum. Even if you don't understand it. (I don't understand how anyone can eat mushrooms, but I'm not running around a restaurant knocking them off people's plates.)

We like different things. We like what others dislike. And there are so many ways for you to find room and balance those things in your life if you want to. If they don't want to then that's their issue, not yours. Think about the friends you have IRL – do you share every single interest with them? Some of my closest friends are huge Drag Race fans, but not once have I had an issue with them discussing it in our group chat or making plans which exclude me for them to go and see shows.

I don't care that @capseycartwright is a huge Buddy fan. She loves them, it brings her joy, and so I love that for her. I love that she has something in this world which brings her enjoyment, even if I don't share it.

I don't care that @paperstorm doesn't like OG, and I'm pretty certain she doesn't care that I do.

What I do care about is whether it matters in the grand scheme of things. And honestly? More of fandom doesn't matter in the Big Picture than does. It matters when we use it to do great things. It matters when it helps people feel seen and heard and represented. It doesn't matter when your ship isn't canon/gets married.

tl;dr – if people are being deliberately shitty then the block button is your friend. Otherwise, why does it matter if someone has a different opinion to you?

I know this has gotten stupid long, but I wanted to do it justice because you seem to be struggling with it. And if you ever want to talk to me off anon then please do.

[aseriesofunfortunatejan]

I've been meaning to mention this for a while, but I do believe that it is bad etiquette to comment on a post that was clearly written for people who already understand a definition by questioning said definition because you're not familiar with it.

I'll use asexuality as an example because it makes for a realistic example, but I think my followers are familiar with it enough to understand what I mean: the post says something like "Some of you seem to forget that you can identify as asexual despite having had sex before." You don't know what "asexual" means so you reply to the post (or, the horror! Reblog it with your comment) something like "asexual? Does that mean you don't want sex???" or "doesn't that just mean you're a late bloomer?"

Being ignorant is not a crime. Neither is asking a genuine question. However, in a context like this one, I strongly believe it to be a faux-pas: the original poster was not talking to you. The original poster was trying to have a different conversation (within their possibly small community), and you're deviating from it. The original poster was implicitly agreeing to talking about the specificities of asexual definitions to fellow asexuals, not to define what asexuality means to someone who doesn't know the first thing about it. (They might in fact feel negatively about having to do that if they had negative experiences with coming out.) And if the post was reblogged on your dash, the person who reblogged it probably did so because they felt involved in that conversation, not expecting one of their followers to reveal they don't understand them.

To me this is about time and place. There is a time and a place to learn about the basics. There are people offering to teach you the basics. I think you can find those without interrupting conversations from people who have no choice but to be involved in the nitty gritty.

And what I want to clarify most, regarding said time and place, is this: as far as I'm concerned, the time and place can be now, in my ask box! If you're a follower of mine and I reblogged a post about a topic that you don't understand, I'm letting you know that I consent to you asking for clarification in my ask box. While I believe interrupting the people who are talking about their experience can be a faux-pas, turning around to ask me if I know more about it is fine.

Of course, I'm not consenting to verbal abuse: don't be rude. To continue using the example of asexuality, since I myself am asexual, I'm not consenting to you asking me "what's that bullshit asexuality thing even mean anyway?" that is rude and you're not presenting yourself as someone who's actually looking to learn. But let's say I reblogged a post defending a demisexual individual and you don't know what that word means, I'm okay with you asking me. If you don't want to ask me, you can try to check if the original poster is also okay with it. As far as I'm concerned "you can always ask me for clarification" and "sometimes it's not the right time (and your interruption could cause problems for the people talking)" can both be true.

I'll tl;dr in the next post to make sure my message gets across even to people who skip long posts.