#SHE WAS MARKETED THE SAME WAY I WAS AND SHE'S MORE POPULAR THAN ME? I'VE GOT MORE PIPES IN MY PINKY FINGER

[triple-7-heaven]

ONCE AGAIN

thank you for waiting for me, readers. i do hope you enjoy it ♡ my first aespa fic, awesome! i've been going through it, thus the lack of content, but things are looking up for me. take care of yourselves, until next time :-) pairing: male reader x winter; words: 6.5k ; categories: aespa, winter, reader insert, smut, slightly storyline heavy

Back in high school, there was a girl who shone above the rest, but wasn’t necessarily popular. A girl who was a member of the math club, the photography club, and the dance team, whose evenings were filled with activities, who made many friends, but wasn’t fawned over by the student body in the way the true popular kids were. 

One evening, you were at school pretty late, tutoring in the library. You were so engrossed in your work that you didn’t notice the time passing, until the janitor came in and told you he’d be needing to clean the library up, so you’d better scram. Backpack full of books, you rushed out of the library, and quickly made your way through the dark hallway. You turned the corner and nearly collided with a small girl, who grabbed onto your arm to steady herself. 

“I-I’m so sorry,” you said, and the girl looked up at you. Oh, perfect… “Minjeong, shit, I’m sorry…” 

“Hosang, what are you doing here so late?” Minjeong asked. 

“Uh, tutoring… You know my name?” you asked incredulously. She smoothed out your sleeve, folded the collar of your shirt down, and tucked her hair behind her ear. 

“You know mine, too,” she quipped and giggled before running to catch up with her dance team friends, leaving you without room to explain yourself. To explain that no, I promise it isn’t weird, everyone knows your name, Minjeong, I’m not a crazy stalker, and I’m not here to spy on you through the gym windows while you dance. But you never got to explain yourself. To be fair, you did admire her from a distance. In the halls, at lunch, you wouldn’t deny that you looked at her with heart-shaped eyes. As pretty as you thought she was, you didn’t ever talk to her, something you would eventually regret. 

Minjeong dropped out, and you didn’t run into her again. After graduation, you headed off to Seoul to learn how to fly, and soon, you realized someone else had come, too. Billboards, advertisements, you name it. For a solid month, wherever you looked, you saw her. 

The same Kim Minjeong who you nearly sacked in the hallway that night, who, instead of yelling or being upset, straightened your clothes and wished you a good night; who knew your name when you were nobody. She was Winter, now, styled with gorgeous long, blonde hair, imposed over ethereal backgrounds and colors. You had to give it to whatever company she was running with, they made that old crush of yours flare right back up again with the way they marketed that girl. Financially stable enough under an air charter company flying small private jets, you decided you’d buy a set of the group’s albums when they debuted. Sitting on the floor of your apartment, pulling the photocards and posters out of those albums, you felt the full force of the regret from your school days: if you’d only talked to her in high school, you could have her number in your phone right this minute… But you were resigned now to being a fan, and a strongly biased one. That’s all you could be. 

-

Charter piloting has benefits. Loads, surely. You’re essentially a glorified taxi driver, charging rich business people and celebrities $20k for a one hour flight from Incheon to Jeju. It’s morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money, right? As good as the pay, benefits, and overall experience are, the clientele… Well. Nothing you hate more than a stuck-up diva, and it’s even worse when you’re trapped in a flying metal tube with them. But you make do; the idol sightings you get on the job make all the asshole corporates worth it. From old school stars your parents might know, to drama actors and actresses, to the newest generation of idols, you welcomed a ton of each aboard, more than you could ever remember if you didn’t write it down. Unforgettable guests come along now and then; a trio of Twice members one weekend, some big-name producers behind insurmountably popular groups for a surfing trip, and the casts of award-winning shows on celebratory benders. Unforgettable loses its meaning when your secretary hands you today’s clipboard. 

“This is mine? Thought it was… Uh…” you trail off and your eyes widen. The secretary laughs behind the desk.

“I knew it! You’re her fan, right? You always talk about Aespa. And I know you have her photocard in your wallet,” she winks at you as your face fills with an embarrassingly deep blush. 

“It’s not just that, Jihye. I knew her in high school,” you say hesitantly. 

“Oh my God, it’s like a reunion!” the girl squeals. “Wait, were you cool in high school?” she laughs. 

“Uh… I don’t-” 

“Yup, I knew it,” she says matter-of-factly. “Let me guess, the lame, nerdy guy had a crush on the cool-chick future idol?”

“No! Well, I don’t know,” you say. Your mind is too busy racing to think properly. The young secretary giggles to herself as you walk to the hangar. Preflight routines are difficult to complete when your mind’s racing faster than a Blackbird. Would she recognize you? Should you say something? Nah… You’re kicking tires pretending to be busy and the door opens. The trail end of a conversation… 

“-ng is going to be your pilot. He’s a great aviator and an even better tour guide, so I’m sure he’ll be happy to show you around the island,” Jihye says. That damn secretary. 

“Hosang? I feel like I’ve known someone with- oh, hi,” Minjeong stops abruptly when Jihye walks her around the aircraft to meet you. Long, wavy, dark hair, with bangs curled and blown out to mathematical perfection. Fair, unlined skin of a small and cute face. A simple and comfortable black sweater, a modest manicure, and plain, natural eye makeup. You bow shyly and wave. 

“All good to go?” Jihye asks with the most annoying smile in the world. 

“Yep,” you answer. Jihye departs and you welcome Minjeong to get comfortable while you finish up. A strange look occupies those perfect features as you give her a quick safety brief, then turn to enter the cockpit. Before the door closes behind you, “if you need anything, let me know.” 

Why are you cold with her? Why are you nervous? You hardly smiled at her or asked what she was traveling for… Pure white clouds roll calmly underneath you. You resolve to be nice to her, even if she doesn’t recognize you, because let’s be real, it’s not her fault for not recognizing you. She meets tons of people. You’re just some not-cool kid from high school who had a crush on the cool-chick future idol. A pilot report over the radio snaps you out of it as you enter Jeju International’s airspace. Gusting winds and vertical movement, it’ll be a bumpy ride down. You reach for the intercom. 

“Hey Minjeong, forgive me if I startled you. Looking at some rough air on the way down, but we’re about 20 minutes out. I’d sit down and belt in if you aren’t already, okay? Call if there’s any issues, and think of what you’d like for dinner.” You toggle off the intercom and wonder where the hell that came from. What, Jihye said you’d be happy to show Minjeong around the island, right? So you’ll show her. Your inner autopilot (funny…) takes over and you idly nudge the yoke for your approach phases. Wheels on the ground, hangar door shut, you stand and exit the cockpit. Minjeong looks up at you sleepily, and you sit across from her on one of the bench-style seats. 

“So… dinner ideas?” you ask. Minjeong stands up and points at you groggily, shuffling towards you until her finger pokes the center of your chest. 

“You. You went to my school, didn’t you?” she says, tiredness dripping from her voice. You nod and meet her eyes. “How come you didn’t say anything?” 

“I didn’t think you’d recognize me…” you say softly, honestly. She moves her hand to your shoulder.

“Well you’re bigger, yeah, but… I recognize you. Bigger and taller. Same face,” she says. The smile can’t be kept off your face, unfortunately, and Minjeong smiles too. 

“You sound really tired. Let’s get going,” you say. After a quick post-flight and signing off with the hangar staff, you face her and say: “Gonna change really quick, then we’ll head to dinner.” You slip into the FBO restroom and drop your duffel, then slip out of your annoyingly stiff white uniform shirt. You stare at yourself in the mirror for a moment, then pull on a plain black t-shirt before swapping your slacks for black jeans. One careful ruffle of the hair later, and you’re leaving the restroom to meet Minjeong in the hallway. 

“Alright, ready.” You carry Minjeong’s luggage and she trails behind you, much like a puppy, on the way to the parking lot. The modest rent car’s parked right where the staff told you, so you open the door for Minjeong and she shoots you a confused smirk. You smile back, and hop into the driver’s seat. 

“So what’s the occasion? Family in Jeju?” you ask. 

“Honestly, I… When I get time off, I run a secret travel blog… So I take vacations, and take pictures and stuff,” she says quietly. “I dunno, it’s kind of silly.” 

“How come it’s silly? Sounds fun to me. We’ll have to go to some really cool places so you can write a good post, huh?” you reply. “Now, dinner?” 

“Mm. I’m too tired to think,” she mumbles. Great, now the pressure’s on you to pick something perfect… 

“How about Black Pork Street? Could make for some good photos, and it’s really as good as people say it is,” you say and put the car in gear. 

“Sounds good…” she trails off. Really, really sleepy. But she makes an effort to talk to you. She makes an effort to keep the focus off of herself, and more on you; she asks you how graduation was, since she didn’t go, and you really had to reach deep into your memory for that one. She asks you about flying, about why you chose it, about your life in Seoul, and about how you never ran into each other in the city. You hold yourself back from saying ‘well no, Minjeong, we haven’t run into each other in a city of 10 million people, with about 9,999,999 of those people being more interesting than me.’ When you arrive, Minjeong is lively and excited, telling you about her camera and asking what’s next after dinner. You kick yourself when you start wishing for a specific sort of dessert. Quit being dirty-minded, idiot… 

“Let’s go! I’m hungry,” Minjeong says, dragging you out of your thoughts. She looks perfect taking photos on the street, pointing her camera at the sky, at signs, storefronts, plants, street cats. The way her eyes light up when she takes a good photo, runs over to show you, insists that you take a few of her; she’s not much different than she was back then, huh? A person with a good heart. A person whose heart you’d like to learn. 

“Is it our honeymoon? First date? Must be a first date, you look nervous,” the dorky waiter says, nodding to you. Minjeong laughs, and you blush; the difference between you. 

“Uh… J-just high school friends,” you manage to say. Minjeong jots notes and snaps photos throughout the meal, and as you’re serving up some pork belly for her, she takes a few photos.

“C’mon, make it look nice,” she whines. 

“You’re serious about this, huh?” you laugh. 

“It’s… It’s my baby. My project. My travel blog is like… I dunno, it’s a way for me to be creative, but not be Winter. It’s a way to just be Minjeong,” she slowly explains. “To have a space that’s all my own. Where I can talk about stuff I like, and not worry about press, or netizens, or fans, or anti-fans.”

“I get it. A space of your own. I should call you Minjeong then, right?” you say, nodding your head a bit too fast and a bit too much. She smiles and nods. But she nods like a regular person, not like you. 

Dinner passes without incident. If we can ignore the waiter thing. Do you look like a couple or something? Maybe you do compliment each other. Maybe you seem like high school sweethearts. Maybe you could be. 

“Hosang?” she says as she leans forward. “You in there? Let’s go to the hotel!” You snap out of it for the second time and hop up to lead the way to the rent car. The paperwork Jihye gave you had most of the information listed for Minjeong’s trip, and the hotel she’d be staying in was, of course, the Lotte City Hotel. No less grandeur for the princess. The GPS gets you there quickly, and you pull up to the front doors, leaving the car on as you grab Minjeong’s suitcase. Just as you’re rounding the front of the car and waving goodnight, she makes a confused face.

“Wait, you’re leaving?” she whines. Minjeong the kid… 

“Oh, uh, yeah. I was gonna head to the motel near the airport, that’s where my room is. Did you need something else?” you say. 

God, why do I sound like a customer service bot? ‘Did you need something else?’ Seriously? 

“I… I dunno, I guess I just wanted someone to hang out with,” she replies.

Oh. To hang out? 

“Oh, of course, Minjeong. Let me park, I’ll meet you,” you say. And she’s waiting for you in the same spot once you return to the front door; she didn’t even go inside. Her long, dark hair’s ruffled by the wind. Cute. 

NO. Not cute. Not cute or pretty or hot. She’s my client, my customer, my responsibility; not my crush, my girlfriend, or my next body. Look at the ground or something, for the love of God, Hosang. 

But looking at the ground can’t keep her legs from your peripheral view. She walks through the sliding doors and you follow behind with her suitcase in your hand, and your duffel on your shoulder. Long, slender, perfect legs, and you’re looking right at them. You snap your gaze to the windows and pretend to be looking at the skyline through the windows while Minjeong checks in. After a moment, she turns to you and smiles. 

“Do you have a swimsuit?” she asks. You shake your head. “There’s shops on the bottom floors, go and find one, okay? Meet me on the sixth floor. There’s a pool! The pictures are gonna be perfect!” 

She shoves a room key into your hand and takes the bags from you. You’re left in the lobby, dumbfounded, wondering how you should navigate this. A bellhop whistles at you.

“First night with her? Sheesh,” the young man says. “Score!”

“Weird situation, man. Weird as hell,” you trail off as you walk away, still shaking your head, more so to yourself now. Okay, shops. Swimsuit. You begin to feel insecurity nagging at you. You’re lean, sure, but not perfect. Not as perfect as… Well, nevermind. Quickly, you make your way through the shops, and find a pair of rather plain, mid-length black trunks at a duty free shop, changing into them in the restroom and leaving your shirt on. The elevator ride lasts forever. And ever. And ever. Until the robotic voice announces,

Sixth floor. 

The doors open and you walk quietly out to the open area of the pool. You see one figure in the water already. She’s facing the city, hugging the edge of the pool and gazing at the skyline. The water laps at her back, just below her shoulder blades, and the silky smooth skin of her back is laid out for you, with only thin bikini straps to cover it. Her arms and shoulders are small, toned, but soft. Fancams and jacket shoots could never do justice to the sculpted angel right in front of your face. 

“How’s the temperature?” you say. She turns around. Her top is composed of white strings and back fabric; conservative, but form-fitting to her chest, that Goldilocks chest, the perfect balance of size and shape. Her collarbones are distinct, curved, beautiful. Hell, every curve you can see is perfect, from the angle of her jaw to the base of her neck to the gentle taper of her arms. 

“It’s heated,” she giggles. “Come on!” Insecurity. Nagging. Loudly. 

“Are you sure? I can just hang out and take pictures for you up here, it’s not-”

“Come onnn,” she pleads. You turn away from her and slowly drag your shirt off, then kick your shoes and socks off near where Minjeong left hers. The water is slightly warmer than room temperature, and a welcome change from the chilly air. You sit yourself down on a ledge in the pool, and Minjeong swims to your side, sitting right next to you. Not close enough to touch. 

“See? Isn’t it nice up here?” she says.

“It is. Ever been to Jeju before?” you ask.

“Nope. I think it’s even nicer with a good tour guide.” 

“Ah, come on. I’m not all that.” 

“You’re…” she trails off and sighs. Her hair tickles your shoulder when she leans into you. “I wish I’d talked to you more back then.”

“Hmm? Don’t worry about it, that’s way past us,” you mumble.

“So… If I said I wanted to make up for lost time… What would you say?” she says and you feel her fingertips smoothly run over your leg under the water. 

“I think I’d ask where that idea came from,” you say breathlessly. She moves her hand to your waist, arm around your front. 

“I always liked you. I just didn’t think you liked me, you were always so quiet,” she says. Your hand, now, meets her waist, and your eyes meet hers. 

“Is this okay? I mean… Can you do stuff like this? Now that you’re all famous and everything,” you say, struggling to form any words at all, overwhelmed by the electric sensations of skin on skin underwater. She cups your cheek with a wet hand and nods to the camera bag. 

“Can I get some pictures for the blog? Before… Before I forget,” she finishes cautiously.

Before you forget, huh… Gonna make me take an impromptu bikini shoot of one of the most beautiful women ever. No big deal. 

Minjeong disentangles from you; she tosses you a towel and you dry your hands, then power on the camera. Eyes fixed on the camera’s display screen, you start shooting. She moves through pose after pose, and you can feel yourself hardening. How could you not? A perfect, slim, pale Minjeong, body covered with water droplets, her skin shining in the flash of the camera. 

“Would you check and see if those ones are any good?” she calls to you. You begin scrolling through the photos, and sure, they’re great. It would be hard to take a bad photo of her. 

“Yeah, these are good,” you say. 

“Let’s take a few more, then we can relax a bit,” she says. The camera display switches back to photo mode, and you look through; this time, your heart stops. The screen shows you that Minjeong has shed her top, and now, the camera focuses on her bare breasts, nipples erect in the cold air, water streaming down her chest. Her hourglass shape is all the more prominent now, and you wonder how it would feel to run your hands all over her wet body. You begin to lower the camera, but she shakes her head. “These are just for me. Please?” 

“J-just for you?” you mumble, mostly to yourself. Her poses grow more erotic. She squeezes her breasts together with her arms, grabs them with her hands, and leans over for you to capture a shot of her from the side with her back arched. Now you’re definitely hard, no question about it, but at least now there’s no way she could be mad at you for it. It’s her fault. She moves towards you, and you set the camera on the ground next to the pool. 

“How’d they turn out?” she asks. Her arms reach around the back of your neck, and yours wrap around her waist. 

“You’re evil,” you say into her neck before planting a few kisses there. 

“Oh, how could you say that? It seems like you had a good time,” she says. Her hips grind forward against your cock; she wants you to know that she knows how hard she’s gotten you. “You know, to be really honest, Hosang, you’re the first guy I ever thought about while touching myself.” 

Really? 

“Why?” 

“You’re an idiot- Oh, God,” she’s interrupted by moans as you kiss further down her neck. “I just like you, okay? 

“Well I just like you, too. Always did,” you say. 

“I hope so. Otherwise this could be kind of awkward,” she giggles. You withdraw from her neck to place a kiss on her temple, and finally, on her lips. She tastes so sweet, lips so soft, tongue so aggressive. Her hand grabs onto your hair and she forces your head to turn so she can deepen the kiss. Minjeong seems hungry, desperate. You sit back on the ledge with your high school crush in your lap, her legs around your waist. She’s got both hands on your face, and she observes you like some sort of specimen. 

“What’s, uh, what’s up?” you say, eyebrows raised.

“Your face… As different as it is, it almost looks exactly the same as the face I fell for back then. And I think I’m falling for it again,” she says. You begin to speak, but she places a finger over your lips. “I know what you’re gonna say. Just don’t think about it right now. Don’t. Think. About anything.”

Between her words, she’s taking your hands in hers, and moving them to her bare chest. You swallow. Hard. She’s right. If only for tonight, for this weekend, for a week, you have to just let it go. Her breasts are soft, and she whimpers when you squeeze them. She giggles and moans through a toothy smile when you roll her nipples between your fingers. Minjeong is clay in your hands, melting under every single touch, and it’s your job to make this trip unforgettable for her, to mold her into shapes of pleasure she’s never felt before. 

“You know there’s a sauna,” she whispers through gasps.

“Good idea,” you reply. Water falls from both of your bodies when you stand up with her still wrapped around you, clinging to you like a koala bear to a tree. A quick jog from the pool to the sauna, but the wind still manages to chill you both to the bone. The sauna, though, is comfortably warm. Minjeong in your lap again, you sit on the wooden bench and she devours your neck. Her tongue and breath are hot against your skin and the steam begins to make you sweat already. She stands and takes hold of your hand, beckoning you to follow suit; you stand close to her and she looks up to meet your eyes. Small hands make their way to your waistband. 

“Can I?” she asks softly. You help her slide the trunks down your legs, and your cock springs out, painfully hard, smacking your stomach. Her hand wraps around it immediately, and she moves in to kiss you again. She moves her tongue slowly against yours and her hand works your length all the while; her delicate fingers find the precum dripping from your tip and spread it generously. Delicately, she kneels; cautiously, she licks your cock from the base to the tip before latching onto the head and giving gentle suction. She looks up at you with her deep brown eyes and you place your hands on her head. You’re gentle with her. Your fingers make their way through her hair, and you keep your hips as still as you can, so as not to overwhelm her. You feel the back of her throat suddenly, and a moan escapes your mouth briefly, before you slap your hand over it. Minjeong backs off and strokes you with her hand.

“Don’t… I want to hear you,” she says. You feel your cock twitch, and you let out a sigh. A soft moan when her strokes speed up. “Good…” 

“What if someone-”

“If someone hears? They’ll leave. Don’t worry,” she says. She gives you a few more seconds of suction, tongue massaging your head, then stands back up. You switch places with her, only now, she casually strips her bottoms off and sits on the wooden bench. Her toned thighs spread apart slowly while you stand back to take her all in. 

After all these years, there she is; imagine telling high school Hosang what’s happening right now. Forget moaning her name while I jerk off… She’s right there. 

Beads of sweat roll down your face and body. Minjeong, too; she’s covered in dewdrops of her own. Somehow you think they must look better on her than they do on you. A deep breath, and you step towards her. Her chest rises and falls rapidly under your hands when you give her pert breasts some more attention. You’re on your knees, now, watching her face contort and listening to her voice catch in her throat. If she never wore a bra again, you’d surely be happy. Kisses planted down her body, from her sternum down her stomach, halting at her hipline. You take a moment to stroke her thighs softly with your fingertips, and they shudder. More kisses for her legs, from her ankles up her calves to her inner thighs. Her sweat is salty and sweet. How will the rest of her taste? You look at her again.

"What do you like?" you ask. 

"I… I don't know."

"When you touch yourself, how do you do it?"

"That's embarrassing…"

"When you're using your hands, imagining they're mine, what do you do?"

"..." 

"Show me, so I can do it for you." Minjeong’s eyes are half-lidded, lust-laden. When you look down at her perfect, trimmed pussy, it’s dripping; your words got to her. She takes hold of your right wrist and places your hand on her stomach, thumb on her clit. 

“Slowly,” she whispers. You oblige, and slowly make circles on her clit, spreading her wetness over the sensitive nub. Her next move brings your left hand to her mouth. She sucks on your two middle fingers, taking them deeply into her mouth. Wet enough now, she moves your hand, palm up, near her pussy, and nods. “Inside.” The walls of her pussy are so hot, so scorching hot, inch after inch engulfing your fingers. One curl of your fingers and she’s cursing, moaning, bucking her hips. Poor girl must be starving. 

“Is that good for you, Minjeong?” you say. Your voice seems like it’s dropped an octave and slowed down about half a measure. It doesn’t matter; she can’t answer you, anyway. She’s busy stuttering out your name. Temptation gets the best of you and you move your thumb away. Minjeong whines, but it’s soon replaced by a near scream when your thumb is replaced by your tongue. As expected, she tastes incredible, some remnants of salt water from the pool, but overwhelmingly sweet underneath. She clenches around your fingers a bit.

“F- Oh my fucking-” Minjeong stutters. Her eyes roll back in her head. Her delicate fingers grip your hair, not so delicately. Rapid, shuddering breaths cause her toned stomach to rise and fall quickly, her arms and legs jerk, and the salty and sweet flavor floods your tongue. Unlatched from your hair, Minjeong’s hands grab your face and yank you up towards her face; as you stand, the tip of your cock grazes over her clit. 

“Whoops,” she whispers. Her lips are warm and smooth when they lock onto yours. And you feel her hand creep down your abdomen. Your attempt to break the kiss is foiled with Minjeong’s arm around the back of your head, and her other hand moves up and down your shaft. She’s devious, smiling into the kiss as you fill her mouth with moans, tightly gripping your cock and twisting her hand with her up and down motions. 

Kim Minjeong from high school is jerking me off. Kim Winter from Aespa is jerking me off. 

It’s a mindfuck. She kneads the back of your neck and sucks on your tongue. You can’t fuck her in a public sauna… Can you? 

“Minjeong…” you whisper against her cheek. She looks at you innocently. Like someone who isn’t driving you crazy. 

“What?” she giggles. 

“How about we go to your room? Could be bad if, you know, someone sees us,” you mumble. 

“How about once here, and a few more times there?” she says with a wink. “It’s late, baby… No one will come up.” 

‘Baby.’ 

Minjeong guides you towards her pussy with the hand that had never left your cock. Her legs rest on your shoulders, and you grip her pillowy soft thighs to brace yourself for impact, for entry. Her heat begins to swallow your length, quite easily due to how wet and aroused she is, and she makes the hottest noise she’s made the whole night. And now you’re hilted in Kim Minjeong in a hotel sauna with an unlocked door. Her nails scratch at your chest and shoulders frantically. 

“God, so full…” she moans. 

“You want me to fuck you now?” you put the sultry voice back on. She nods. “When you’re using your toys, imagining they’re me…” 

“Please, Hosang, just fuck me,” she pleads. “However you want. However you need.” It’s all you need to hear, certainly. You pull out nearly all the way, and watch your cock disappear inside of her with a grunt. Your thumbs nearly touch as you wrap your hands around her small waist to pull her down around your shaft with every thrust. All inhibitions are gone, any restraints have been lifted; you’re slamming into her hard, and the both of you moan loudly enough for the reception desk to hear. Minjeong’s tight abs contract and relax under your hands, you look at her face to see her drooling with her eyes rolled back. Like, actually, really drooling. 

“Fuck, babe… You’re really enjoying this, huh?” you say gruffly. You swipe your thumb over her chin and she leans down to suck on it instead. Lustful eyes meet your gaze and your thumb pops out of her lips. 

“I’ve been waiting so long,” she says. A quick sigh to punctuate her sentence. “So many years…” 

“Well-” you try to speak, but she clenches herself around you. “Fuck. I don’t think I can wait any longer than I already have-”

“Pull out baby,” she sighs. “I want to swallow you.” 

Regretfully, you withdraw from Minjeong’s tight hole, but the steam keeps your cock rather warm while she kneels down. After a lick from the base to the tip, she takes you all the way into her throat. She takes your hands and places them on her head, looking up at you sinfully. With fistfuls of her dark hair, you pull back, and thrust in again. She gags and coughs, but she never gives up, and soon, you’re shooting rope after rope, nearly convulsing in pleasure. She strokes you into her open mouth, wringing every drop out of your spent cock. When she’s satisfied, she swallows and stands up to kiss your neck and chest. 

“How about… How about we go to the room?” she says. 

“You want me to stay with you tonight?” you ask. She laughs a bit. Her laugh is fluttering and adorable, a sharp contrast with the noises she was making moments earlier.

“Of course.” 

-

After getting dressed and gathering Minjeong’s things, you head upstairs. In the elevator, you stand behind her; she grinds back onto your groin and brings your hands to her chest. Floors fly by and the number on the small screen goes up as you massage her chest and her delicate moans get you painfully hard once again. She rushes in front of you to the room, giving you another view of those creamy, toned legs, and you do your best to catch up. Once inside, she sits on the bed in front of you and waits. Her hands travel slowly from her hips to her knees, and even slower she parts them with her hands to reveal the glistening skin peeking out from her bikini. Her breath hitches when you step forward and gaze down at her. 

“I showed you what to do last time,” Minjeong whispers. “I want to see what you’ll do on your own.” 

“No pressure, right?” you joke, and she smiles. Her thighs are soft and malleable in your hands, and her neck softer under your lips. You untie the bikini top and cast it to the side, then kiss further and further down her neck. Kisses travel down her neck, over her collarbones, down to her sternum. There’s still salt from the pool on her skin, and you lick towards her nipple before giving it a bite. Minjeong jumps slightly and closes her fists in your hair. Your mouth works on one nipple and your hand kneads the other breast, perfectly sized for your hand. After switching sides once or twice, you kiss her stomach. Her hands move to your shoulders as you kneel on the floor in front of her.

Minjeong’s legs are wide open. You slide your fingers into the waistband of the swimsuit and slowly drag the bottoms down. More kisses travel from her knees across her inner thighs and up to her hip bones. She’s still dripping for you and you drag your tongue upwards over her pussy slowly to savor her. You spit on your fingers and slip them inside of her easily. 

“Ohhh my God-” she whispers and bucks her hips. “Go faster…” 

“Mm, so impatient, Minjeong,” you reply. Your tongue returns to her clit and makes smooth circles. She tenses around your fingers when you curl them back towards you, her moans growing louder, grip on your hair growing stronger. Taking her by surprise, you withdraw your fingers and stand up. While her hands work automatically on pulling your swim trunks down, you take a moment to just gaze at her. Her ruffled, semi-wet hair, strands sticking to her forehead and swaying wildly as she kisses up your thighs. Her flushed, glistening skin, cheeks inflating and deflating with the waves of pleasure coursing up your torso as your length disappears into her mouth again. Her pretty shoulders and arms. Her nose buried in your stomach.

Fuck. 

“You’re really good at that,” you moan. With a yelp Minjeong is scooped up into your arms and tossed, more or less, onto the pristine hotel bed. She pats the bed beside her, and you get the message. You lie back and let her mount you. She guides your tip to her entrance, and once in line, she slams her hips down aggressively. You’re content to let her ride. Her body moves in mesmerizing ways as she grinds on you, seeking the best angle for your cock to rub against all the right places. Just as soon as you begin thrusting into her, your phone starts ringing. 

“Dammit, sorry, Minjeong,” you curse and remove the girl from your lap. Fucking spam call? Really? With the phone silenced, you turn around to see her lying back on the pillows. 

Like an animal, you crawl towards her; you feel like one at least, with the way your cock is throbbing. She pulls her legs up for you, and you guide your tip towards her dripping center. The warm feeling envelops you again and you sigh, eyes closed. Your hands find her waist and keep her torso still while you begin to drive into her. You almost can’t even hear her whines anymore, her voice punctuated by each thrust, curses and iterations of your name following every other sound.

“-nside me,” Minjeong’s voice fades in as your stupor breaks a bit. You lean forward and make a confused expression. “Cum inside me. I want to feel you fill me…” 

And something about the way she says it just obliterates any second thoughts you may or may not have had. Her high, airy voice, begging for such an impure action, intensifies the warm, wet pleasure surrounding your cock. It only gets warmer and wetter as your cum dumps into Minjeong, deeper and deeper inside of her, coating your shaft, dribbling out onto the sheets. Your thrusts slow down, but your dick stays inside; you’re tired. You wrap your arms around her waist, and lie down gently on top of her with your face in her neck. She administers gentle scratches to your scalp. 

“You came so much, Hosang,” she whispers. Her legs settle around your back. 

“Drained all my energy,” you laugh weakly. 

“You’re heavy. Can we switch?” she says. So you do; you roll onto your back. Your cock slips out in the meantime, and you both laugh about it. She fits in your arms like she was made for them.

For a long while you lie there. The cold air condition and the crisp sheets are a welcome contrast to your steaming hot skin and the panting, sweating furnace lying on top of you. Minjeong painstakingly brings her hand to your cheek and kisses the other with soft lips. A slow blink. A thought in your mind. 

Is this what it feels like?

“What are you thinking about?” she asks. She knows. 

“How do you feel about me?” you reply. Her expression is mixed.

“How do I feel… I feel like there’s a reason we ended up on this trip together,” she answers. Her body rises as you take a deep breath. “I mean I feel like something brought us together.” 

“What do you want to do about it?” you ask. 

“I want to find out why. There must be a reason this happened, you know?” she says. A small yawn. “Like… There must be something waiting at the end of a journey we can take together to find out. Or something.” 

Together? A journey? 

“Think it might be time for you to go to sleep,” you whisper. Her baby hairs stick to your face when you kiss her temple. The sheets are smooth and cool when you pull them up over Minjeong’s body and yours. She falls asleep quickly. You don’t. You’re thinking about IFR plans and what to say to her in the morning. Your fingers trace along the smooth skin of her hips and lower back for a while. The softness is comforting. And you fall asleep. 

Is this part gonna go in the blog post? 

[peach-fiz]

I actually didn't even bother watching the second season of Loki because of the cheap marketing and inconsistent storytelling.

It just felt like the plot was lifted off somewhere it would have made sense, and a character with a similar ego was replaced with Loki and goes through an arc that might have made sense for a blank slate character, but not someone who already has a backstory.

Loki doesn't even feel like Loki after three episodes in S1. The whole point of having a show like that just seems to be about the TVA and Sylvie.

Also the whole genderfluid thing. They 'confirmed' it in the promo and had a line in the script that went completely against anything they just said.

I knew at once that the writers, directors and other parts of production were really just pulling it in different directions and it would probably sound like a jazz trumpeter and a metal guitarist trying to improvise after knowing each other for 15 minutes.

I've been meaning to watch it just so I can have educated opinions on all of it but it's just,, so hard to get into. I definitely agree the marketing was cheap, they did with the 80s McDonald's like they did DB Cooper!Loki and made it centric to the advertising because McDonalds was also getting something out of it which is kinda ass seeing as realistically Loki Laufeyson would burn 6 of them down before he ate in one 😭

I personally don't like either of the major ships in the show but the forced Sylki shit in season 1 really got to me. Like not only did she completely replace him as the main character in HIS show, she's also a variant of him who he wants to make out with and overall it just reads as lazy writing and it's extremely disappointing that Mike Waldron has been put in charge of Multiverse of Madness and The Kang Dynasty since, due to the popularity of the Loki TV show. I was talking to my boyfriend about this last night but it kinda reminds me of the complaints people had ab the last Indiana Jones movie but opposite? Like everyone complained his best friend's daughter was gonna replace him bc she's a Mary Sue and she rlly isnt, she's more reminiscent of Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark she just doesn't wanna fuck him. But the difference is Indy is a character who's majorly blank for little boys to project themselves onto. Which is great!! It works for those kind of movies, but they're not character development centric like the individual mcu movies tend to be. Loki is characterized in a way that he's drowning in identity issues and family problems and he experiences growth in every installment whether it be positive or negative. It doesn't make sense to take the formula of an Indidna Jones movie where he meets up with a woman who's typically a love interest and has her own issues that are only slightly touched on because that's not the focus, and they go do the plot.

Sylvie is not an Indy Girl, they straight up are trying to replace Loki with Sylvie. And you can tell the character wasn't supposed to have as much importance as she does in the show bc the character was worked on more after the actress they chose was buddies with a producer ( and this is no hate to the actress I'm sure she's delightful everything I've seen her in in terms of interviews has been lovely ).

I also absolutely agree they should've just made a tva mini series to introduce the tva rather than bringing back a dead character who soon will not make much sense anyway because Tom Hiddleston is getting older (and also he deserves to branch out in his career).

The genderfluid thing was a cash grab and it sucks ass, they just want money for acknowledging things already canon in the comics, same with confirming him as bisexual.

My boyfriend is actually writing a fic on ao3 called Find Me that's rlly good if you want Loki content that isn't related to the show.

(YES this is shameless promotion sshhhhshshsh) but fr the loki TV show makes me more confident in my screenwriting bc t h a t got put on disney plus. I'm also working on a Loki show rewrite in my spare time!!

[fromtenthousandfeet]

https://x.com/97901_sue/status/1837382052729311473?t=AkNYU_IdWzar_rrDeie5Ew&s=19

Idk if he's achieved the money they were hoping his album would bring but he definitely got more fans than any other members. The songs that were chosen were of general public taste more than any other members'. Of course we know the Maknae line is already more Famous than others but he definitely gained a lot more fans like at least they succeeded in this. There's always some idols or other celebrities mentioning his songs and it's not just seven or not they do mention the b-sides as well. One thing i can say is that if currently there's one idol who's most popular then that's definitely him in general not talking about specific parts. The songs from Golden are known. I know the company pushing him helped A LOT but it's still about his vocal ability that i think attracts more ppl plus the choreo for those songs were also something that gp would love not too complicated not too easy. He Especially gained a lot more in sk cause so many idols mention him.

And i really hope someone won't say that I'm a jjk in disguise cause I'm not. Just saying what i saw. Would have said the same if it was any other member instead of him.

I'm really not convinced Jungkook picked up a ton of fans due to SEVEN or his album. Don't confuse successful marketing with actual committed fans.

Marketing exists for a reason - because it works! HYBE spent an INSANE amount of money marketing SEVEN, and Golden to a lesser extent. SEVEN was basically unavoidable if you were on TikTok. And if you weren't on that platform, you got hit by auto play on Spotify, or forced ads on YouTube. Hearing something enough times makes it familiar. Recognizing a song is kind of comforting. You may sing along even if you don't really love the song.

I get so many asks about Jungkook. Why me??? Stop, I beg you!

Here are my honest opinions about JK:

He's overhyped. At the end of the day, he's just a typical Gen Z dude in an extraordinary situation.

The songs I've heard from Golden sound dated and dull.

His voice is nothing special. I don't care how much training he's had. It's nasal and devoid of emotion. He sounds better when he sings in his lower register, but that doesn't work well in pop music, where almost all the male singers are tenors. His falsetto is unlistenable.

He's a mockingbird. He can mimic famous singers, but he himself has no signature sound or artistic point of view.

I'm not a fan of Taylor Swift. I don't hate her, but I don't actively search out her music. I'm fine listening to her songs when I hear them in public or on the radio. I think it's great that she's so successful. I'm totally fine with her enormous fandom. This is where I'm trying to get with Jungkook. It would be easy to feel indifferent to him and his potential success if all members of BTS were given equal treatment by the company. I would simply say, "congratulations on your success as a solo artist and good luck in your future endeavors." The problem, of course, is the fact that BigHit/HYBE openly sabotages Jimin, copies Jimin, and gives him the bare minimum of tools for success. They aren't really doing any favors for the remaining five members, either.

Jimin has something Jungkook doesn't have, and that's the most dedicated global fandom imaginable. It's an organized fandom who keep him on the charts despite the odds. Jungkook just has lots of tools, including basic pop songs specifically written for a western audience, infinite versions, covers, and remixes, and an unfathomable marketing budget, all of which almost guarantee his success. You just can't compare the two.

Yikes. I'm long winded as usual, but here's what I'd like to end with. I hope Jimin will continue to write his own music. I hope he will continue to dazzle us with his own style of dance, incorporating contemporary and street style. I hope he pushes boundaries. Jungkook can have the huge global pop star title. I am in no way obligated to consume his music or content. Equally, I won't mind if others do.

[presiding]

What is your favourite thing about Billie Lurk?

(Answers are obvious possibly but i love when people talk about her👍)

thanks for the ask!! YEAH ME TOO I love when people talk about Billie! I can't say I have a favourite thing specifically, but I can explain why she's my fav. apologies for not taking this qn literally, but -

short answer: she’s really cool

& you can stop reading there, or, for the maybe 2 mutuals who might have time to read this my thoughts on her as a character, her meta, and her character as raw potential...

long answer:

i considered making this entire thing a gush so you could read a gush about Billie. but, part of what draws me to her is that she’s not always well written, and in fandom she’s underrated for a literal protagonist.

since you ask...

billie is a cool character

when I played Dh2 (hadn't played Dh1), I was excited to see a black woman with disabilities who was captaining a massive ship by herself. wow.

then I discovered Billie’s backstory with Deirdre, the way she responded to that, then having to survive while living on the run, and her bisexuality. as well as her history with daud & delilah. fascinating!

she’s an outsider who has so much to lose, and knows what it's like to lose everything - having lost everything not once but three times - but nevertheless speaks truth to power. she's so brave! she went and helped Emily & Corvo and she must have known they might kill her! plus, she’s smart, she’s funny, she gets shit done, she’s gorgeous.

but... the meta

mild critique of fandom & arkane incoming.

skip this bit if you want - you've been warned twice now - jump to tired Hayao Miyazaki and read from there if you'd like my thoughts on writing her.

i thought Death of the Outsider was going to be amazing and then... well. *sad trombone* i've written about that before so i won't keep banging on. i figured others must be disappointed too, so I joined a few fandom spaces in hopes of finding camaraderie.

most people with complaints about DotO didn’t like how the Outsider and Daud were handled. which is valid & I agree. but it seemed like most paid no attention to Billie; when people talk about her it’s with respect to Daud, as opposed to in her own right. you could argue for fandom misogyny because people don’t talk about adult Emily Kaldwin that much either, but in Billie's case, it’s misogynoir (compare & contrast with the popularity of thomas, particularly the popularity of thomas portrayed as a white man for no particular reason that i've been able to discern - i keep asking around, is it in the books???).

i think this is a LOT better now than it used to be, which is fantastic. or perhaps i have found the correct echo-chamber? ha.

ultimately, The Fandom is a fraction of the entire picture, and not even the important bit since The Fandom is not who these games are made for. you can't make money relying on only your hardcore fans even if all of them spent a fortune on merch, this is true for any AAA game.

while it's true that Billie is underrated from a fandom perspective - but Billie as an underwritten protagonist is squarely Arkane’s fault.

it was reasonable when she was a side character - the lack of info in Dh2 makes perfect sense (if anything there was more lore in Dh2 which is kind of wild)-

- but as a protagonist in Death of the Outsider?

.... there’s lousy writing, and there’s whatever is going on with Billie Lurk, a black woman who mostly exists as a foil or saviour for light-skinned characters. In her own game there’s barely any of her own lore except where it's relevant to saving two dudes.

lore hints at, but barely touches on what race means in the Dh universe (xenophobia is stronger in Dh1; separate essay i guess), but Arkane has patted themselves on the back for portraying non-white characters, which feels like the same thing as the aesthetic of diversity we're seeing in advertising currently because it’s in marketing trend guides. it's self-congratulatory and it's a missed opportunity for deeper storytelling.

you can see an example of diversity at its most shallow in the way that Billie’s written: there’s little engagement with her as an entire person with history & wants & preferences, and the world she walks through in that game feels like it has nothing to do with her. you could make a case for alienation as a theme, but then, how do you handle the titular premise of 'Dishonored' without ever letting Billie make changes in an environment without a chaos system? it's disappointing from that angle too.

in my opinion, whatever it's worth, it was an accident Arkane created such an awesome character - they needed someone to betray daud. congrats billie.

all this said, it makes her an underdog as far as characters to enjoy & create art & stories for. it's nice to find so many like-minded, switched on people! <3

billie's character potential

she’s got a wealth of unexplored lore, being deeply intertwined with both Karnaca & Dunwall’s fates & criminal underbellies, as well as her connections to the witches & whalers, and three Empresses.

she’s lived a few distinct lifetimes and in the games we get to meet her at two peaks (KoD & DotO) & a low (Dh2 as Meagan).

her voice is very distinct, her dry & often dark humour is entertaining & fun to write. her perspective is really interesting - she’s had the widest variety of void-powers of anyone canonically, and she’s also lived through the highest highs and lowest lows.

she's got everything going for her :) i couldn't really pick a fav thing!

[richmond-rex]

Hi! I'm trying to read up on the York princesses' early lives and I can find frustratingly few details on the same. I was specifically curious about their various childhood betrothals that ultimately never came into fruition due to the death of their father, but I can barely find anything online beyond the bare basics (essentially: the names of the people they were betrothed to). I was wondering of any specific details of all their individual betrothals survived, and if they changed across the years of their father's reign?

And in Bridget of York's case - since she's more elusive to find than her sisters - was she destined for a church path since birth? I've seen some sites claim that her grandmother Cecily Neville named her with no actual evidence beyond her piety, but I always assumed it was her parents who was more likely to have done so? Both Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV were connected to St. Bridget and Elizabeth was also very pious.

You know a lot about this era so I hope it's okay to ask, sorry if the question seems out of the blue!

Hello! Sorry for taking so long to reply, I had to sit down and look up some things because the story of the betrothal of Edward IV's daughters is quite murky. I will talk about the betrothals that were done during Edward IV's reign because after that it's another thing entirely.

Let's talk about Bridget first. Was she destined for a church path since birth? There's no way of actually knowing this, but it's entirely possible she was. On a practical level, as the king's fifth surviving daughter, a competitive dowry to be used in a foreign marriage alliance would be hard to achieve (more about Edward IV and dowries in a second). More concrete evidence though does come from her name. I haven't found many noblewomen named Bridget in late medieval England but the one I did find, Bridget Holland (daughter of Thomas Holland 2nd Earl of Kent, Richard II's half-brother), indeed became a nun. Like Bridget of York, she seems to have been the youngest of 5-6 sisters.

Saint Bridget of Sweden was a very popular saint in England and she was especially revered by the English royal family (who since Henry V's time were patrons of a Bridgettine monastery at Sheen, Syon Abbey). Elizabeth of York and Margaret Beaufort would go on to commission the printing of a list of prayers popularly thought to have been written by St Bridget. For the Yorkists, however, St Bridget held particular importance because one of her prophecies had been used to justify Edward IV's right to rule. Cecily Neville in particular owned a copy of St Bridget's revelations which she later bequeathed to her granddaughter Anne de la Pole who not only also became a nun, but rose to the highest rank of prioress at Syon.

Cecily Neville was Bridget of York's godmother. Traditionally, godparents were the ones to name ('christen') the child at their baptism. Of course, most time the parents had their input too before the child was brought to the baptismal font. Elizabeth Woodville was also devoted to St Bridget. Interestingly, Cecily left her religious books to the two granddaughters who became nuns: Anne de la Pole, which I commented on above, and Bridget. Bridget received Cecily's Legenda Aurea (a collection of saints' lives), a book about St Katherine and another one about St Matilde.

To me, it seems entirely possible that Cecily Neville might have planned Bridget's career as a nun from the very beginning. It's quite likely that Edward IV and his wife Elizabeth vouched for the idea too, considering how important St Bridget's prophecy had been for Edward's legitimisation as king, they might have made a promise/vow to dedicate one of their children's lives to the Church as many catholic people still do today. I've seen the speculation that Bridget was sickly/had some kind of impairment from birth that would make her less desirable in the marriage market but I don't think we need that as a reason for her going into a convent.

Now going into the other princesses. We already know about Elizabeth of York, right? First, she was betrothed to Warwick's nephew and heir, George Neville, as a way to appease him in 1469. Then she was offered to Prince Edward of Lancaster but Margaret of Anjou went on to choose Anne Neville which was probably for the best, as Edward IV's suggestion, at a time when Edward V was about to be born, was probably just a ruse. Elizabeth's hand was also used as bait to bring back Henry Tudor to England in 1476. And again, it most certainly was a ruse as by that time she had just recently been betrothed to the Dauphin of France. She would be known as Madame la Dauphine until France called off the betrothal in late 1482.

Mary of York occupied 'the rather unfortunate position' as Ross describes it, of being her sister's replacement in the marriage alliance with France in case Elizabeth of York died before the wedding took place. It would not be until 1481, by then a time when many doubted the French marriage would even go through, that Mary was betrothed to King Frederick I of Denmark. She would die the next year in 1482.

Anne of York was first suggested to marry Philip, the future Duke of Burgundy, in 1480 as a part of a tentative Anglo-Burgundian alliance against France that Burgundy desperately wanted but that Edward IV only toyed with to pressure France into honouring their marriage alliance and wed Elizabeth of York and the Dauphin Charles. In the words of Charles Ross, Edward IV's biographer:

Edward quite ruthlessly exploited the duke’s desperate need of English support to get Anne’s marriage on the cheap. Maximilian had wanted a dowry of 200,000 crowns with Anne; Edward, on the other hand, regarded paying no dowry as part of the price of signing an alliance with Burgundy. When Maximilian argued that it was quite unreasonable for the bride of one of the wealthiest heirs in Europe to have no dowry at all, he still had small success in persuading her father to release the purse-strings. The original marriage treaty, signed on 5 August 1480, was modified by supplementary agreements on 14 and 21 August, which effectively released Edward from paying any dowry on condition of releasing to the duke the first year’s instalment of the pension of 50,000 crowns which he was demanding from Burgundy.

Here we must remember that Edward IV wanted to marry Elizabeth of York without paying any dowry at all. On the contrary, France was to pay for Elizabeth's upkeeping until she was married to the Dauphin. Edward IV, whilst dealing with Brittany to marry his son Edward to Anne of Brittany, heiress to her father's duchy, established that if the Duke of Brittany had a son before their children married, one of his daughters was to marry the duke's new son, and that Brittany—not him—were to provide his daughter's dowry. Ross cites a Breton scholar that snarkily remarked that ‘to marry his daughters without dowries was the objective which this miser [Edward IV] set before himself in the last years of his life’. Harsh.

However, Edward IV did agree to pay Cecily's dowry! Although admittedly it was much cheaper (20,000 crowns) than Edward IV himself was asking for Anne of Brittany's hand in marriage to his son (100,000 crowns as the heiress of Brittany, 200,000 in case her father had a son). Cecily of York was first betrothed to James III's heir, the future James IV, in 1473 as part of a truce between England and Scotland that allowed Edward IV to go to war against France in 1475. The truce with Scotland fell through by 1480 and by 1481 Edward IV was committed to a war against James. The next year Edward was willing to back James III's brother Alexander against him, with the condition that Alexander was to marry Cecily ‘if the said Alexander can make hymself clere fro all other Women, according to the Lawes of Christian Chyrche’.

Alexander backed down after the English invasion of Scotland, and James III once again suggested Cecily marry his son and heir as part of the peace terms but Edward IV called off the betrothal for good later that year and demanded the repayment of the dowry portion he had already paid to Scotland. It seems Edward had decided to renew the war against Scotland by that time (November 1482) and back Alexander as king again. Amazingly, Alexander would go on to make peace with his brother yet again in early 1483. So by the time Edward IV died, Cecily's betrothal to Scotland's heir was cancelled for good. Richard III would wed her to Ralph Scrope, Baron Scrope's second son and a man that was part of Richard III's northern affinity.

I haven't found anything about Katherine of York's betrothal during her father's reign. She was probably too young, being born in 1479. EDIT: There was a plan for Katherine to marry Isabella of Castille's heir Juan as proposed in 1482. See reblog in the notes.

And that's it! Basically, Louis XI's peace treaty with Burgundy in December 1482 frustrated at least two of Edward IV's marriage plans. The Dauphin of France would marry Margaret of Austria (Mary of Burgundy's daughter) instead of Elizabeth of York. On the other hand, Burgundy, no longer in need of Edward IV's help, was under no obligation to go through with the marriage of Anne of York and the young Philip of Burgundy. Edward IV's falling out with Scotland also meant Cecily's betrothal was called out.

By the time Edward IV died the only betrothal that was likely to go through was Prince Edward's with Anne of Brittany, so whenever I see people saying that if it wasn't for Edward's death Elizabeth of York would be queen of France, Cecily queen of Scotland, Anne duchess of Burgundy etc I can only assume the person saying that doesn't know much about the upheavals of the 1480s — or Edward IV's own disinclination to pay dowries for the marriages of his daughters.

I hope this answer was of some help, and once again, sorry for taking so long to reply.

[nadiegesabate1990]

But, before all that, I did the opposite!

In the beginning, my songs had catchy melodies, and I created a very simple sample structure and continued to record with guitar sound.

However, due to money and health problems, this guitarist Nadiege and under the influence of alcohol consumption, I matured and both my songs and instrumentation gained complexity. In fact, it was all I needed to create my classic songs.

The fusion point is to create a song and with it create another. We call them variations. Learn this technique by listening to classical music.

Shortly after, I decided that I wasn't going to give concerts. (I'm still deciding). And even though my career began with frivolous performances, I was also thinking about dance and electronic music from small nightclubs in Europe.

At that time, as the percussionist, I still had no idea that I was a percussionist, I created songs with a lot of rhythm and a great explosion of anger because sometimes the notes didn't come out perfectly or how I wanted them.

I want to pursue a solo career, I'm an individual and, although I've achieved some 'cool metal', I'm managing to repeat my success as a composer.

I stopped for a while to dedicate myself to games, and created some games, including some animations.

And I thought and began to wonder; What is the music world like?

You see many artists are acclaimed by children and young people. And when they appear, it is full of unprecedented enthusiasm, and at the same time they suffer rejection from adults.

And some say I'm a 34-year-old grown woman and I'm moving away from American singers? No! I've always listened to classical electronic dance music and if I hadn't heard it, I wouldn't have been inspired to write lyrics. But the problem is the composer.

I listened to the songs, lyrics by British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber in the voice of singer Madonna only on the first album. There's no one who can make me like Madonna. What I know about his life is, he came from a family that worked in classical music. Lloyd Weber's songs are full of feeling and the melodies are beautiful, some of which are classical music.

And we have the extraordinary international success achieved by this girl Taylor who contributed decisively to the popularization of modern pop country music. Thanks to the composers, and professional marketing, Taylor's first album has been selling and I hope it will reach more than 1 billion copies. For years she dominated the charts like no other woman in the musical world. She has succeeded so far; the top 7 places on the North American list are occupied by 6 of her songs.

And Taylor is really cool, just like Ariana Grande Iggy Azalea Miley Cyrus RITA ORA Selena Gomez.

But over time they see disenchantment. And we create a new way of experiencing life. And survivors like me Nadiege won't stop recording songs, composing for myself and making new versions of many more of my songs.

[tenrousei-kuroi]

Well, I’m not surprised it’s Sirius/Regulus. I should’ve seen this coming🤣

I’ve asked about incest shipping because I see different reasons out there. Some people just like it for the forbidden love/taboo aspect, some have bad real life experiences, and it has always intrigued me how common it is to like stories that are “morally wrong” (dark romances are very popular, for example) and not see fiction tied to real life morality but drawing the line at this theme, not only for personal taste but also imputing a moral obligation to depict it as wrong. 

My first incest ship was accidental. It was Yuki/Kaname from a series called Vampire Knight. We only discover they’re siblings at certain point in the story, and even after people were condemning them together I just didn't care and still rooted for the author not to separate them (which was in vain 😅). Eventually I came across Siri/Reggie and from then on there was no going back. I think it particularly struck me because, specially for older works, there was this flowery and tragic aspect to many – if not most – stories shipping them, a fleeting happiness that frequently wouldn’t last long.

Similarly to what you said, I have a pretty normal and stable life and darker themes have always caught my attention. Strangely, I love sad and bittersweet endings, even if I’m attached to the character and actually feel bad for them – tragedy is just so much more intense than any portrait of happiness I’ve ever seen. I had access to pretty much anything I wanted to read or watch growing up. Mostly because I’m a naturally private person and the ‘smart, well-behaved daughter’, my parents never used to question me much, but to this day this aspect of my life is pretty much my dirty little secret (that I don’t even think it’s dirty, but I assume peoplesurrounding me wouldn't think the same).

Anyway, I wish I could personally thank Ann for getting you hooked on Sirius/Regulus and creating so much good content for the fandom (btw, could I get a link to Palimpsest? Sounds like it’s really good).

Oooo I remember Vampire Knight! It used to come serialized in ShojoBeat, a manga magazine I got back in middle school. I admit I didn't finish the series but I did get to the incest reveal. I have some pretty vivid memories of a hilarious "argument" my friend and I had in gym class over it (she's cool, she was just very easily embarrassed, so it was funny to tease her with her ship turning out to be incestuous).

I didn't have much of a reaction to the plot turn that they were siblings because I was too busy picturing Mr. Kaname getting it on with Zero ;)

Angel Sanctuary was another early incest story I came across. If it wasn't clear by my profile pictures literally everywhere online I've a bit of a fancy for Kaori Yuki's work.

A Cruel God Reigns by Moto Hagio is another good manga rec if you're looking for something a bit more...I dunno', classy? Award-worthy? "Serious"? Whatever you want to call it, if you haven't read it, you should check it out. It's scanlation only, though, unless you can read Japanese, because I don't think it was ever officially localized in the English market.

Here's a link to Palimpsest. I'd recommend downloading a copy quick now, because that's a web archive and who knows how long it'll be up. Actually all of the author's previous HP stuff is up on that archive page and it's all good.

(Can you tell I'm typing on my computer instead of my phone this time? Suddenly my punctuation and formatting are semi-competent.)

And speaking of everyone's favorite incestuous Black brothers, I've got to get myself in gear--I'm super behind. I've got like three fests I need to finish up! ...plus a whole lot of WIP's that I swear I am working on. They'll all be finished...one day.

Sirius/Regulus is so much more popular now than it was when I was a teen. Easier to find too. And James/Regulus has blown up in an almost unrecognizable way. I swear I don't even know who the characters are in half the Jegulus fics I read.

I wonder how long the inertia will last? I guess no matter what, I was there writing my pretentious nonsense long before that stuff got popular and I'll still be here long after everyone else gets bored and moves on <3

Ao3 could blow up tomorrow, and I'd probably just set up a Sirius/Regulus mailing list.

[ourimpavidheroine]

My oldest friend (45 years and counting) is a successful indie author, and is currently attending the Content Entrepreneur Expo 2024 in Cleveland. She's an incredibly smart, savvy businesswoman, and I've been following what she's been learning at the Expo with interest.

One of the things she's relaying is how indie authors need to stop thinking about themselves as "authors" and rather think of themselves as "content creators". And she has a lot to say about marketing and newsletters and social media, etc. Obviously, one of the big things that all content creators have to do is put their finger on the pulse of what their potential consumers actually want, and then provide that. In that way, she says, indie authors need to get with the times and do the same.

She's been trying for years to get me to sell my writing. (I blog outside of Tumblr, most of which is non-fictional and autobiographical.) But the thing is, I'm not a content creator. I'm no good at self-promotion and marketing, and I have things to say, whether I'm writing fiction or non-fiction. Things that are important to me, as a person, and especially as an author. These things are meaningful, to many people. But they are not necessarily well-suited for content creation.

Last summer I was at a con and sat in on a reading by two (traditionally) published authors. One of them was in her 50's, an award winner in the sci-fi and fantasy genres, who has been writing for over 30 years. The other was in her 20's and had just gotten her first book published.

The younger author stated, during the Q&A, that part of her traditional publishing contract was that she was required to not only have an active social media presence on certain platforms (including keeping up her own website) but that she was to be available for certain tours/speaking dates. She said, with a laugh that sounded a little desperate, that she was having a hard time actually sitting down and writing her second book with all of the marketing requirements that her contract specified. She stated that her publisher doesn't market her writing very much at all since her contract specifies that she will be doing that.

The older author said that she'd been on a few book tours (including showing up to our con) but that self-marketing wasn't a part of her contract at all and never had been. In fact, while she does have a few of the usual social media accounts (Instagram and Bluesky) they are only updated once a month or so, and she usually blogs sporadically on Dreamwidth, which she's been on since LiveJournal imploded. (Dreamwidth is not exactly known as a social media trend.) Her website is pretty bare bones and is updated only when she publishes something new. She doesn't have a newsletter. Someone from the audience asked her about TikTok and she just waved her hand and laughed and said it wasn't for her. She said that her publisher had always used their own marketing team for her and that it worked for her.

I've reblogged before what others have said about tropes being more important to (younger) fanfic readers than the take on the original works - and I do agree with that. But I think it goes further. Popular fanfic today is content creation. It is written to appeal to a broad audience, and it is marketed via social media.

It's why so many of the canon characters are so completely out of character and why the worldbuilding is so often ignored. In content creation, those things aren't what matters. They don't matter to the writers, and even more importantly, they don't matter to the readers. What matters is the hype. Many of these readers have no idea how to use the search function on AO3, and furthermore, they don't care. They want their reading curated for them, and fanfic has the distinct advantage that it is free. If they can go on TikTok or Twitter/X or even here on Tumblr and be told by someone else to read such and such fic because it has these tropes, then that's what they are going to read. And since those fics were written with content creation in mind, it's going to cover whatever is currently popular at the time. Is the fic meaningful to them? Does it make them think? Does it take the canon characters on thoughtful journeys or improve upon the worldbuilding? Sure, maybe some of them do. But for the most part, they are easily consumed so that the readers can move on to the next fic on the curated list.

I remember some X-Files fanfic I read 30 years ago that still haunts me. Fiction that was beautifully written, that explored the worldbuilding and the characters in ways that the confines of TV broadcasting and the showrunners was never going to accomplish. In fact, I have a collection of fic I really loved that went from floppy to hard disk to CD to USB to the cloud. I still read them, all these years later. My very favorite fic, the one I read aloud on cassette tapes and then sent to my (then) girlfriend across the world, I had printed and bound into hardback format and gave it to her as a wedding present. I keep it on my bookshelf, nearly 9 years after her death. I put a handwritten quote from it into her coffin. That's the kind of impact that fanfic had on me.

I wanted, when I wrote my own fanfic, to create stories that would not only capture the canon characters and worldbuilding but would expand on them. I wanted them to be meaningful. I wanted to make my readers think, I wanted to make them feel, I hoped that my work would do for them what some of that X-Files fic did for me. My fic took a long time for me to write, and I did drafts and revision. I was really invested in it, and I wanted it to be good, not popular. It was the process that gave me a lot of personal satisfaction as an author.

Am I capable of writing content creation? I don't know. Not for my current fandoms, for sure. I care far too much to just write whatever would be popular for the sake of being popular. Could I do it for a fandom I didn't care about, or could I write something original, like other indie authors? My oldest friend keeps encouraging (sometimes it's less encouragement and more bullying) me to do it, but I genuinely don't know if I can. It's a different skill set to do content creation. And let me be clear here - I do, in fact, think content creation is a skill. Absolutely it is. Curating an online experience is hard work, I am in no way denying it. Really popular TikTokers and Instagrammers have talked about how it takes over their lives, how they have to constantly be on top of every trend, how they have to adapt to survive. And that's not even including how they are expected to interact with their fans as if their fans are actual friends of theirs instead of strangers on the internet. It is a skill and it is work.

But it's not a skill that I have. As an Autistic, it's probably not a skill I would be able to pick up, even if I wanted. My particular brain does not adapt well to constant change and constant input. In fact, my brain shuts right down when confronted with too much change and input. It is what it is.

I had a reader chastise me once for not doing a better job tagging my fanfic. Not because I wasn't tagging for trigger warnings - I do give trigger warnings. However, my tags are pretty minimal. The reader told me that if I did a better job tagging my fanfics with all the various tropes and if I wrote a summary that summarized the whole fic, I'd get more readers. And you know, they were absolutely right. No doubt about it. But see, I want readers to go into my fic and have the story unfold as they go. I want them, the first time they read it, to enjoy where the story is going - and for them to experience the surprise of a twist as well as the delight in guessing the twists ahead of time. I want, if readers read it again, for them to find more surprises. I want them to find all of the foreshadowing, all of the little easter eggs I've inserted here and there. I want them to come back a few years later, read it again, and due to their own life changes, get something new and different out of the story. It's what makes writing fanfic my particular joy. It's why I write. My stingy use of tags comes out of this desire on my part. It's not laziness or incompetency or even an older generational thing on my part. It's deliberate.

Do I think everyone needs to write for the same reasons I do? No. Not even close, not at all. I want writers to write for their own reasons. I have enjoyed fanfic for many different reasons, and not all of them are because the writing makes me think. (Sometimes I also just want to read some really delicious smut.)

But content creation fanfic isn't something I'm interested in at all. Not writing it, not reading it. It's just my thing, I have no expectation that everyone else has to think the way I do. However, as much as my old friend keeps trying to get me to write as content creation - she keeps enticing me with how much money I can make, which is certainly a selling point for her - I just don't think I have it in me.

It is a bummer on the financial front. I could use some extra income, like most of us. If I could throw together some urban fantasy Omegaverse, slap it up on Amazon and market the hell out of it on social media maybe I could afford to do a lot of things I'd like to do. (My oldest friend has a lifestyle I very much envy, including financial freedom and stability, plenty of travel, and she's even founded her own magazine, which is quickly becoming an industry standard.) But I love writing too much. I'm invested in writing, not content creation. In today's world that's a problem, not a positive. Passion has given way to marketing. Just a sign of the times, I guess.

[munsons-maiden]

I'm so scared that now that we get the book Eddie really won't be back and all the hints and teases were bc of the book bc Joe is on board with that and what if he meant that? 😭

I see where this is coming from but I absolutely don't think that the book means Eddie won't return

Look at the other characters who got books so far (novels, not graphic novels):

Suspicious Minds - Dr Brenner

Darkness On The Edge Of Town - El and Hopper

Runaway Max - Max

Rebel Robin - Robin

Lucas On The Line - Lucas

There's a very clear pattern here: every single one of these characters is an important recurring character who's been in at least 2 seasons.

And all of these books, including Eddie's, feature said recurring character's backstory. Even if we ignore the first two books and only focus on Runaway Max, Rebel Robin and Lucas On The Line, it's clear that these books offer a deep-dive into each of these main characters' pasts.

Which places Eddie once more on the same level as the recurring main characters of the season.

I've always said that Eddie is a main character based on this post by @strangerthings4theories which perfectly sums up the differences between main characters and supporting characters and from which we can clearly see that Eddie is the new main character introduced this season (and not Argyle or Dmitri etc) PLUS by the level of marketing and promo Eddie got before and after the season aired (Netflix even comissioning an artist to create an "Alive in the Upside Down poster" and so so SO much more) and the way Joe was doing more promo than the actors playing recurring characters combined.

If anything, this book is another big reason to believe that Eddie will return.

Which brings me to my second point.

2. Eddie is not just a fan favorite; he's THE fan favorite. Which makes him Netflix's personal favorite, I suppose. An Eddie novel will bring a lot of money - and imagine how much more money he'll bring them if he returns on screen, which yeah a book is nice but we want him back on screen. Alive and thriving. And they know that, Shawn Levi has said so himself (remember that "We know you love him, so do we, we know you want him back, we heard you"-interview on that red carpet).

Which means that:

3. They KNOW what they have with him, and they've been relentlessly showing us that with said promo, special comissioned posters, etc. They've been doing that looong after Vol 2 had aired: Oh and remember that crop circle?

What I'm trying to say is, even if Joe's winks and I-know-something-you-don't-know smirks were because he already knew there'd be a novel and that he'd be involved in that novel (btw he's the only actor involved in the creation of his character's novel) that still doesn't mean he doesn't know more (he said himself that he knew stuff about ST5 in that interview with Jamie, which in itself is super sus because actors leaving huge popular shows like ST usually don't know what'll happen in the next season if they're not part of it anymore. To put it in relation - Jenna Ortega, who played a fan favorite on Netflix's You for two seasons wasn't even told how the season would end beforehand so she wouldn't be able to spoil anything, and You isn't as big as ST.)

And all that Eddie promo Netflix dropped...for a novel? I don't think that makes sense, considering the novels are a nice little treat on the side but the actual business is the season, the things on screen, not on a printed page.

4. The book's release date is set nicely right between seasons. Screams "hey remember that guy, hm? Hm? ;)" for the general public. Means, keeping the hype going for the general public.

5. The author of the book is Caitlin Schneiderhan, who's one of the writers of ST4. No other ST novel has been written by a ST writer. My thoughts on the matter are summarized here.

6. And finally, the topic of the book will make neither his return nor a spin-off for him redundant because we learn about his past but only some of it (it'll be set in his first senior year in 1984 and likely explain what happened for him to be held back the first time).

So in conclusion,

Eddie will be back and him getting his own novel is only further reason to believe it.

[pmatga]

Just found your blog and I really like it ❤️ so if it's not too much trouble more head cannons about your OC please

you didn't specify which oc you meant so fuck it. you get Multiple

blair spellman

idk if i've ever mentioned it before (i probably have and i just forgot lol) but she has fire powers like her dad! they aren't as strong as his are though bc she's still alive and fleshy and made up of water. she really doesn't use her powers for anything more than lighting a cigarette when she can't find her lighter, however; that's bc she can't control them all that well. like she's not accidentally setting shit on fire left and right (not since puberty at least), but if she has a great emotional outburst (especially an angry outburst), Bad Shit might happen. thankfully blair didn't really inherit their father's temper so Bad Shit doesn't really happen all that often. don't get me wrong, they Do have issues with anger but that's more due to trauma than anything related to bets (plus she deals with her anger issues in a different, yet still unhealthy way)

is the type to wear axe body spray in lieu of Actually showering because "it’s basically the same thing, right?"

prefers nightclubs to house parties.

another thing that i don't remember if i've ever mentioned before: they were on the track team back in high school. their coach once told them that if they worked hard enough, they could really go places (funny how that worked out). she's not nearly as good of a runner than she used to be, but she can still, say, outrun a swarm of ghosts if she tries hard enough (adrenaline is crazy man)

their last name, spellman, is a surname they decided for themself. and even after reconnecting with their mom's side of their bio family, they still keep their last name as spellman. it's Important to them.

has little to no social media presence. like they have accounts but they never post, they mostly just lurk

she accidentally burned down the last place she worked at (a 7/11). an argument between her and a coworker got heated (pun only slightly intended) and…well. i'm sure you can guess. thankfully no else aside from blair & her coworker were there and they got out more or less fine, so she didn't kill or seriously injure anyone (and she's lucky she didn't). and bc they could never really prove it was her---everything pointed to an electrical fire, even if they could never figure out how the fire got started so quickly nor why it didn't spread beyond the store---she never got in trouble for it nor did she have to pay for it. it scared the shit out of her though, and ever since she tends to stay away from the vicinity.

robert jadeite

if he were in the show, there'd be a running joke abt him having Just So Many shitty jobs. does he just quit/get fired a lot, or does he actually have 15+ jobs? we will never know. for example: waiter, late night gas station attendant, cashier at pacmart (walmart), working the drive-thru at pacdonalds (mcdonalds), pacbucks barista (or maybe starpacs? idk), the guy at a water park who tells you when you can go down the slide, etc. he has so many jobs and he hates every single one of them.

has a semi-popular youtube (pactube?) channel. all his videos are either "sitting in my car or on my kitchen/bathroom floor" style rant vids or 1-3 hour long vids on a hyperfixation-induced rabbit hole he'd gone down.

prefers house parties to nightclubs.

has pretty bad insomnia. he's lucky if he gets 4-5 hours of sleep a night.

he's a college dropout (mental health reasons + mid-semester identity crisis) and was majoring in marketing prior to that. he currently doesn't know what he wants to do with his life and doesn't like thinking abt it bc thinking abt the future scares him.

orbitalia spheros

she’s betrayus & stratos’ half-sister and her bio dad is japanese (or pac-japanese? since tokyo is called pac-tokyo). she didn't meet her bio dad until later in life, as rotunda never told him abt orbitalia's existence. things were shaky between the two of them at first (orbie & her dad i mean) but they're more or less alright now

sunny and orbitalia were best friends back in high school. they drifted apart some in college but they were still very close. orbie & zac were Also friends but weren't As close as she and sunny were.

she Does Not have a good relationship with either of her brothers; she's never really been close with either of them tbh. it's mostly why she almost never comes down to pacopolis except to pick up elliptica whenever she visits.

has made a few attempts to get back into the dating scene over the years, but each and every time these relationships end up dissolving bc her heart's just...not into it (and also bc well. never receiving closure on whatever happened to her husband kinda makes it hard for her to properly grieve which makes it hard to Actually move on). she's still friends with most of her exes though.

akahiro murasaki

was Not A Fan of his in-laws. this is mostly for two reasons: 1.) if there is one thing that both of the spheros brothers are equally good at, it’s at testing the patience of everyone forced by social convention to interact with them, and 2.) orbitalia told akahiro Some Really Concerning Shit abt growing up with rotunda as a mother and stratos & betrayus as brothers. y'know that thing where you're telling someone what you think is a funny story only for them to look at you in horror bc it was actually traumatic? yeah. so while he was willing to be civil for orbitalia's (and later elliptica's) sake, he didn't really go out of his way to be overly friendly to them.

is a transhet man (he/him), he & orbitalia were t4t

liked wearing boots with slight heels (much like his brother-in-laws ironically enough). not really so he'd seem taller (he was 5'9" and was perfectly content with that) but bc they looked good and that's it

was quietly self-confident. he looked good, he was good at what he did, he knew it, and he didn't necessarily feel the need to flaunt it (those kind of ppl annoyed the hell out of him tbh).

that being said he Did have some insecurities, mostly abt whether or not he was actually a good husband and (later on) a good father. as i've said before, he wasn't the most emotionally demonstrative person in the world and he worried abt whether or not orbitalia & elliptica knew that he loved them. orbitalia did (even if she did occasionally have her doubts bc anxiety be like that) and elliptica did too (at the time, at least. nowadays elli's not entirely sure)

gwendolyn hollow

her voiceclaim is sally from the nightmare before christmas

you know how i once mentioned that she uses secret tape recorders to record things? yeah. she does that so 1.) she doesn't have to just rely on her poor memory, 2.) she can decipher anything she doesn't understand later, and 3.) as a sort of audio diary.

is an appreciator of small things, like buttons and strings of ribbon, rocks, animal bones, and such. sometimes she will stare at little things that interest her for so long that griffin or even the good doctor pacenstein himself have to tell her to “move along, girl.”

slightly related to the above hc: pacenstein & griffin call her "girl" a lot. keep in mind she's at least 20 years old.

her middle name, elizabeth, is derived from pacenstein's ex-fiancée elizabeth from way back in the 1800s. and yes it's fucking weird that a.) griffin let his great+ uncle name his first and only child and b.) pacenstein named his grand niece after his ex. like sure it's just her middle name but still. weird shit.

isn't allowed to interact or even show her face to any visitors to pacenstein manor. this is bc the last time she interacted with a visitor (it was literally just to take their coat), they took one look at her, got freaked out, and made an excuse to leave. she was never really told Why but was led to believe it was bc she resembles her great-uncle. it's not.

genuinely doesn't know Jack Shit abt almost anything that's happened outside the castle and what little she Has learned has been history from like...200 years ago, so nothing recent. a whole fucking WAR happened within her lifetime and she's completely unaware of any of it.

griffin hollow

as the caretaker of pacenstein manor and the only one who can/is allowed to leave the castle, he’s usually the one who takes care of dr. pacenstein’s personal affairs---gathering supplies and equipment for them both (yes sometimes this includes Literal Graverobbing), arranging meetings with potential clients, and finding out any recent developments in pacworld (never hurts to keep informed!).

is really fucking cowardly and tends to bend towards dr. pacenstein's will, especially where gwen is concerned. he is Far Too Willing to throw her under the bus if it means getting his great+ uncle's approval.

much like his great-uncle (and much like most of his contemporaries tbh), he believes that his intelligence is far superior to most people’s and that others should be grateful to bask in his presence. unlike his great-uncle (and most of his contemporaries), however, he also knows that this isn’t a stance that endears him to others, so he usually shuts up abt it.

he doesn't express anger in the traditional sense. like he won’t yell (most of the time), get physically violent (again most of the time), or even directly tell someone he’s angry. instead, he chooses to express anger by doing this…passive-aggressive, just downright weird shit whenever he's mad abt something. like "accidentally" locking someone in a room/out of the house, hiding things (usually sentimental possessions or necessary items like keys), turning off the heating/air conditioner with no warning, etc..

[imightgetbetter]

this will probably be quite long-winded so i'm going to put it under a read more. this has nothing to do with matty or the band, it's my other favorite artists, but i just can't talk about this on my main blog because i fear the people i am talking about will find it and harass me and talk shit about me for weeks again (this happened after an anon mistake and a bit of an impulse decision back a few years ago and i hated my life and almost deleted my blog because of it) so i trust that this will stay between us (as much as it can on the internet)

so my main blog is a primarily harry styles/niall horan blog with a whole bunch of my shitty diary posts and things i think are silly. it started with niall and harry writing and then when niall went on hiatus after his last album it became a primarily harry blog because i wrote my biggest story in the height of the pandemic and it gained a lot of traction during quarantine. in that height, someone started talking shit about niall and i went to his defence as any lonesome teenager does and it backfired on me gravely and this group of harry styles blogs that think they're very popular and cool harassed me about it. it was awful for weeks. i basically couldn't go online without having a panic attack. anyways, it's that same group.

all they do is talk about how much they think niall is a copy and paste of harry or that he isn't marketable or that he can't pick singles or that he pushes his streams and charts too much. all while claiming they don't care about him and hate him or whatever. they say all these things that simply aren't true. harry didn't "create" marketing campaigns on websites, neither did niall! however, niall's last album was marketed through a website and videos everyday and all this. harry isn't original in his techniques, the difference is that his following is so insane that they will do every single marketing thing for him. he doesn't need a team of people to do it. these fans are so insane that they are doing a job that people get paid to do. niall does his job! that's why he's telling people to stream and whatnot.

niall's songwriting is miles and miles better than harry's, but because of the way they think harry is the best at everything, they don't recognize that. niall started working with amy allen (a writer harry worked with on his last album) nearly six years ago, maybe even seven. she co-wrote my favorite niall horan song, to this day. like, they saw amy allen and tobias jesso jr and freaked out that niall was copying harry, as if niall isn't also a songwriter in the industry. like .. i genuinely am so sick of this conversation! (i also would compare niall's songwriting in depth and meaning to matty's, which is why i love it so much)

it's also very fucking annoying that harry stans have created this whole culture around going to concerts and liking artists that is so toxic and annoying that i can't stand it. like, half of the people at niall's pop up shop today weren't even singing his songs, they were singing the harry songs that were on the playlist. or the way all these harry stans are suddenly talking about niall on tiktok to get clout or merch or whatever it is. i've literally been a niall fan or whatever since the very beginning of one direction, i followed him on tour way back when, he's the reason i love live music and want to work in touring. i love harry, i do, i've gone to his shows plenty of times and talk about him and have a blog and a story, i'm not saying anything bad really about him, but it's so frustrating to see how people treat other artists just compared to harry styles and i literally am getting so annoyed every day.

okay i think i'm done. like i said .. this is between you and me and god.

[quinloki]

i so greatly appreciate all your kink content (esp. the kink headcanons). fics are fantasy of course, but as someone who indulges in kink irl, it concerns me how much misinformation about bdsm/kink there is in popular media and fanfic. fic certainly shouidn't be an educational tool for learning how to do kink safely, but if anyone IS going to replicate what they read (thinking of every woman i knew who suddenly wanted to be kinky after 50 shades with absolutely no concept of what that meant and no desire to do even a cursory google... >_<), they should be reading about safe/sane/consensual practices. TL;DR: thanks for presenting kink in a sexy AND educational way!

Oh gods, yeah - 50 shades of oh I can't believe she wrote that. [insert weary face]. This got long, so it's going below a cut XD.

I have a personal disdain for what that book did to real life kink, but! it's important to, to reach out to people like that and sit them down and talk. It's a lot of extra work for the "old guard" as it is, but better to have people coming in safely than being left to poor devices.

And also, like, thanks I guess, for making more of a market for kink gear, so you don't have to get it ALL custom made, but at the same time some of it just plain isn't safe - or even well constructed and it causes it's own problems.

Okay - personal mini-rant off - I do love fantasy and fics for the capacity to do and explore things that aren't strictly safe in reality (I also love not necessarily having to worry about who remembered to buy condoms).

But I've spent years dealing with people's misconceptions, so that's a large part of why I write the way I do. Sure I cut loose and have fun plenty of times - okay, I mean, for me I'm having fun the ENTIRE time, but I'm also passionate about BDSM and Kink and I *want* to be able to help educate people.

I would rather people write kinky smut wrong than not at all.

I just want people to practice kink and bdsm outside of fiction safely, and Fifty Shades of Yanderian Grey gave a whole rush of people uncomfortable misconceptions - that they didn't consider correcting.

Want some quick and dirty safety? Know where your scissors are, and HAVE them if you're using rope. Make sure your cuff keys are easily accessible. If you're stepping out, the sub should be able to free themselves, no exceptions. Safe words are absolute. You do not anchor any weight on someone's neck. DO NOT YANK ON A LEASH. for the love of the gods yank on someone's hair. Throats are fragile. Use rope harnesses, or body harnesses if you want to tug or have a lead. Bolt cutters keep the locksmith from seeing your pet in a cage. buy them.

I could go on xD but I'm not trying to turn an ask into an educational tirade.

One thing I will say, is knowing the limits and safety requirements of BDSM and Kink make it easier to push past those limits in writing. At least in my opinion. it's just like with drawing and animating - you learn the rules, and then you learn how to break them.

That's how you become a better creator.

(I'm not saying you have to have kinky sex, but there's some educational seminars out there that might be more help than you expect.) In the end though, write messy sex, clean sex, vanilla sex, spicy sex, monster sex, toxic sex, bad sex - have fun. Writing is about poking all the corners we don't want to - or can't - poke in reality ♥

[topconfessions]

I’m not even a bp fan but i’m on kpop twt and it just always bugs me seeing tweets/ppl in general painting this image that J is a social climber and being all misogynistic just bc she dates men that are literally on the same level as her. I completely agree with everything you just said except for the fact that GD was a win for her, yes maybe he introduced her to important figures fashion wise (chanel to be specific) but that was literally it. She was held back during their whole dating time frame, the only time she was publicly seen was with blackpink and even then, L was the one who was pushed the most. Bey started dating Jay Z when she was literally nothing so you cannot compare her situation to the bp girls, yes L doesnt have that big of an impact in fashion either but she still could pull another respective brand on her own without that man (that doesn’t mean shes not using him to get even higher lmao) the same way jisoo pulled cartier (bc of BP’s name). J was just as big & maybe even bigger than GD when they started dating and with his group image being ruined & him being 8 years older than her it affected her career negatively and there’s no way she needed him at that point, i truly believed she only dated him just to live the fantasy of dating your idol.

Bey was already from a popular girl group. She was not nothing. If this was Ashanti I'd agree with you as she was highly pushed by the labels to be aaliyahs replacement but held in there thanks to her own sound.

You must be new cause I've clearly handed bigbangs ass to them and if anything I am now a former fan of theirs and GD was never my bias or idol, in or out of the group. So unless you're speaking in a broad spectrum on the last sentence of "dating your idol" i.e upsetting fangitls everywhere, you're inaccurate and sorely mistaken if this affects me or I personally care about Jiyong like that. He's a fucking twig compared to me in real life, that's someone I could never date even if I was interested and had access to him cause we're so physically and emotionally different.

That is opinion based. You're allowed to feel that way and "truly believe" that but that's asinine and goofy, you know it is. You think this successful girl now woman only dated GD to upset a nation of kids and others for an ego boost? In the real world they vibes, had some things in common and grew close naturally like all couples do, Maybe attraction too. The only person in Korea we know of that literally fucked or dated someone to piss fans off living the "fantasy" is seo hee who messed with top, she said it out of her own mouth.

So we can say what we think but let's not put what we think as facts.

This isn't a comparison it's an analogy and reference point, I stand on what I said and I can compare the two if I want to. If anything bey needed Jay more than Jennie ever needed GD. Also speaking on Jennies "level" is literally subjective cause she scored and was always secured in ways her other female peers older and the same age as her wasn't in other agencies cause she was / under YG. I'd say HyunA in my opinion is objectively more on GDs "level" than Jennie could ever be. Having access and sharing the same space as well as work place as someone with means doesn't make that person on your level. Never forget that truly where truly created, Blackpink, to give why a pretty feminine easily marketable and more youthful girlgroup that he lacked the entire time that could go up against the likes other SM and others. He wanted something completely different from 2NE1 and so anyone in her position would been where she is now had she not made the cut for the line up.

Where would Beyonce ever be today if she didn't have Jay showing her the ropes and turning onto the game of the industry? There is a lot of dirt and stories the average doesn't know or concern themselves about bey and them.

Anyways, the point still remains. There is nothing wrong hypergamy, social climbing ir just dating men at the same ranks as you or in the same circles. That's life. It's to he expected but it's becoming highly apparent that any responses about this is primarily based on favoritism or being interested in Jennie as a fan and liking her. I need to hear this same sentiment you're responding with as if you don't know who Jennie is and only gave passively watched her career - I need something objective.

this is also why kpop is considered a shit hole these days outside of us, the fans who love it and understand it, cause you can't say anything objective or negative about groups like bts or BP without arguments or heavy debates. We had fun here talking about Jennies path in dating and now its turned into a "she's not a gold digger social climber" resistance. It makes me no difference how she lives because I am not Jennie and don't aspire to have a career in entertainment.

As for GD? he is a win just like Jennie was a win for him in many aspects. How you take that is on you. Also this is Tumblr. Kpop twitter is its own separate entity. We're here. Not there. I don't care about what's going on there unless legit dirt is leaked there. So let's not bring kpop twt into this to transfer it into this convo as if me or anyone else here frequents that shit hole in the first place.

At the end of the day it's not serious for any of us and if you're defending Jennie for how many perceive her, you need to take a hard look at why this is in the first place. 7 Years from now she won't matter as much and she's be looked at the way 2ne1 and hopefully wnwd is looked at currently.

Kpop is microwavable and I can name 15 groups that were IT back in the day nobody talks about or cares about anymore cause they aged out and their fans are old & mature now. You won't gain anything from this just like I won't.

[smallerplaces]

Bye bye, Barn Buddies Eva!

When I dealt with my mother's collection of roughly 1000 dolls, I did a final weed-down of dolls I was keeping (some from my own much smaller collection). The "final" result was 19 fashion dolls of characters with canonical ages from late childhood to adulthood, plus a few 4" small girls. And the deal was that while 20 was not a firm limit, it's a good estimate on how many dolls I'm able to manage happily, so anyone coming in means evaluating whether someone should go out.

Well. I bought two fashion dolls at Family Dollar last week, both of them massively on-target for my interests. (These will be unboxed in a later post.) These are the first dolls I've bought since late 2019, so it's not like I'm bingeing, but it meant someone marginal needs to go.

When I'd done the final cut, I'd thought "wow, a 1:9 articulated doll, I remember when ToyBoxPhilosopher featured a couple and they seemed so cool." My mother was obsessed by TBP and kind of hated her by the time TBP took her break from blogging, so of course when TBP talked about this size, Mom had to buy one (probably around 2017).

Having a ton of points of articulation in a 1:9 doll is genuinely cool. In the late 2010s, there was a period after the first enthusiasm for Barbie Fashionista and before the introduction of Made to Move Barbie when getting articulation in a fashion doll meant you were either (a) collecting Monster High [which was at its peak of cleverness and popularity] or (b) going on a treasure hunt for wild and varied alternatives.

This doll has extraordinary amounts of articulation, especially for her size. She's got wrists and ankles! She's got thigh rotation!

As a result, she can not only sort of touch her head, as the top pic shows: she can sit and kneel with stability.

At this point, I was still assuming she was a Breyer riding doll, because I remembered TBP reviewing the "Let's Go Riding Western" set in 2014. But no! There was, around the same time, a review of Paradise Horse's "Barn Buddies," and that's what Mom bought.

That makes a substantial difference in resale value, as there's a secondary market for Breyer riding dolls in good condition, but sales of Paradise riding dolls on eBay are sparse.

I even waffled a little, as 1:9 dollhouse furniture finds often entice me, but those can be used as standalone display pieces for Skipper and Stacie, or as Barbie furniture if we're not too picky. But... I don't want a second one of these, and in posing her for pics, I realized I just wasn't that into her.

She's an awkward size for making friends. Although she's only a little taller than Stacie, she's clearly meant to be more mature. (Yes, Skipper is going through an awkward period. I need to sew her some outfits.)

Eva is way too big to party with the taller dollhouse dolls, Britney and Unidentified Tenant of Britney. (Yes, that's a Britney Spears 7" doll, another of Mom's finds. I do love this one. She lives in a mansard mansion with a rental unit on the top floor. More on that later.)

I was going to list Eva for $5.99 on eBay and see what happened, but while taking her tasteful nude shots, I discovered that her arm joints are so loose that she can't hold a pose. On a super-rare antique doll, you can risk selling that way with a lot of disclaimers, but on a low-cost play doll, that is standing in the middle of the highway and asking to get negged. So into the donation bag she goes, since the condition is acceptable for a $2 play doll.

Goodbye Eva. Trust your rebel heart, take the road less traveled.

[carriewilde]

Worldbuilding: Pàro

Since I've officially made my latest story available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle, I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk a little bit about my world-building in the setting where it takes place.

In "Taken by the Pirate Captain," Talyn visits a busy harbor which is part of a larger island nation called Pàro. As an elven aristocrat, she is still dependent on her parents long after reaching adulthood, so she's very sheltered. The mainly orcish residents of Pàro are an exotic mystery to her, but they don't have to be unknown to you!

The nation of Pàro is made up of three large islands surrounded by a little more than a dozen smaller islands, and most of these are inhabited by fishers and sailors, as well as some merchants and even pirates. Everyone who lives in Pàro makes a living off the sea in some way or another. While it was originally settled by orcs, a fair number of humans and even some elves have since come to live on the islands, too. Other races like dwarves and halflings are less common but not unheard-of. The island is mountainous, with rocky coastlines, high cliffs, and treacherous passages where inexperienced crews can easily run aground or crash into underwater rocks and reefs. Fortunately for those who know the region well, lots of caves and small lagoons around the islands are perfect places to set up a home port far from prying eyes.

As a tropical island, Pàro sees plenty of warm, sunny days, but it receives its fair share of storms and typhoons, too. Some of the larger islands do a brisk trade in popular exports like sugar cane, sweet potatoes, pineapple, and other tropical fruits. Spices and textiles are found in markets throughout the islands, too, and fishing is always a bustling industry, especially on some of the smaller islands. Every island has a marketplace of some kind, from small village squares where the locals trade amongst themselves to sprawling bazaars where merchants and ship captains haggle over whole shiploads of cargo, trading with locals or from ship to ship.

Of course, piracy is a lucrative trade, as well. It is not officially endorsed by Pàroin government, but it still remains common enough in the waters on this side of the world - and many of the local authorities are easily persuaded to look the other way. Lots of pirates have their hideouts on the smaller islands, but the boldest crews are not afraid to dock their ships and even set up homes on the larger islands, as well.

While those main ports on the larger islands are usually safe, they are also more expensive with heftier docking fees and taxes. Honest captains looking to save coin on those fees can certainly take a gamble at the smaller ports, but they run a much higher risk of encountering outlaws whenever they do so. It is usually recommended to stick to the larger, more expensive ports - as they're generally much safer overall. At least, as long as you don't do anything too foolish while you're there.

Overall, Pàro is a bustling island nation with ample opportunities for merchants and captains to make their fortunes - as long as they don't mind risking the pirates. Fortunately, the locals will tell you that for every pirate crew to pass through their harbors, dozens more honest merchants have taken the same passage, so your odds of running into trouble are fairly low - but never zero.

Moodboards were made using Adobe Express, with stock photos from pexels and pixabay. For links to the photo listings or questions, please feel free to message me and I'll happily provide the information you're looking for!

[sky-limits]

[twwm] danse: change - polaris

The next room of this eternally silent place laid silent and flooded, filled with cracked pillars that floated their way around the room. An empty balustrade floated above everything else, dripping water from a small stream down its sides. I looked around more, and the walls - though almost drowned and choked in ivy - were still clearly that sweet cherry wood, dark and worn.

I close my eyes, and while no sounds passes, it feels as if an exhale does. I am comfortable; I am safe. The horsehair bow playing my soul has settled into a saccharine melody; the beginnings of Mozart. I step further into the room, winding my way around pillars anchored into the ground, pools of still still water sitting at their bases. Light is coming from above, and somewhere I imagine that I can hear other esks, singing in the treetops while their light dapples down.

I pass my reflection many times in the puddles of water as I explore - this room goes on for a long time. I finally find a corner where the light is less, but I can still see the white mask of my face, purple eyes taking myself in. Whiskers twitch on my muzzle without a mouth, and I begin to melt away into the background.

The song I've been hearing has changed, sped up. I recognize it as it fills my body, reflecting my trembles in the water. It's a popular song from my before, and it plays back in the mirror pool before me.

Two women dance, skipping around in a circle, their hands and feet a blur. Tens of other couples are around them, all doing the same dance. The music changes, and they trade partners, clasping hands in a slow waltz that speeds up, throwing person to person throughout its course.

I am entranced - I remember this night, the warmth of the summer and the heat of the salted ocean, even though the pool of water distorts it. It melts like my face had done, and I am watching two women - myself and my wife - shopping.

We laugh, she laughs, and it strikes a chord, and I finally remember her name. I have changed and her name is Skiá. I say it, in my discordant, aching voice, I say it. "Skiá, Skiá, Skiá!" That is her name, that is my wife, and I watch the rest of the scene, crying again. My tears play the scene too.

Skiá holds my hand and with the other, picks out tomatoes and onions, garlic and rye. She was planning to make a soup, I remember that. She always sang when she cooked, simple little melodies I'd never heard before. We had an old cast-iron pot that she had brought home when we had spent a year in each other’s company. Her hands were so small compared to mine, and my form feels more ephemeral than ever before. I have spent my days and hours forgetting her and searching for her in equal measure, my Skiá.

I left her behind when I passed in my rocking chair, so steadfast on the hope of seeing her again that I didn’t consider I wouldn’t. I held onto the hope like wheat stalks with a grip that turned me white-knuckled and sad. I have given up everything - watching the scene where I could’ve had anything - and the realization hits me harder than I thought it would’ve.

My transformation caused me to ever give up on finding someone to love again, someone who would love me like Skiá had. I searched for her, when I knew deep down I would never find her again. The women in the scene walk together through the market as the sun falls down, and small clouds gather in the sky. Their arms are full of groceries, their hearts full of love.

I watch with a lighter heart as they walk into the sunset, back to the little cottage I know waits for them over the hills, through forests that will lead them back to a comfort I will never get to know again. It ends, and I look away from the pool, back to the ivy and ferns floating along the walls of this Conservatory room. I will never know Skiá again. I will never have my life before back. These are facts I have known since I died - and that cold, bruising moonlight fell on me like a calling to another world. This knowledge used to make me melancholic, horribly down-trodded. I saw the world as nothing but a shell to house my depression, and I filled everything around me with it.

The walls watch me knowingly, and I realize the change to myself is larger than I thought it would be. These things, the parts and locks and chains of my past, are no longer holding me down. I will never have these things again, but that does not mean they have to haunt me anymore. That does not mean these things have to weigh me down and make me suffer. I can live a new life without forgetting Skiá, and without letting go of the happy life I lived before.

I will form something new, I decide. Surround myself with others I love, and love those around me. This will be my change.