#You don't make an incredibly weird show and don't attract incredibly weird people

[skinnypaleangryperson]

As someone who is on mental meth 24/7 imagination wise and is extremely neurodivergent so much to the point that I've even been called too weird for people on here, I really appreciate how insane wacky and extremely disgusting the show is

[ismastfs]

Something About Him

There's always been something about Ryan. At least, Liam used to think so.

He never knew if it was his bright and fun personality, his gorgeous face or his top-notch body. I mean, really. Almost 6'2, with arms the side of his own head, pecs that hung out of his chest like tits, rock-hard abs, thighs that could crush a skull with ease and an ass that could put any of the Kardashians to shame. There wasn't anything else to expect, really. Ryan was one of the main jocks on campus.

And to be honest, almost everyone had a crush on Ryan. Even those who weren't really attracted to men, and the guy truly knew it. He was a total show off, parading himself around the halls in the shortest shorts possible, and when he wasn't wearing tight tank tops or compression shirts, he went shirtless, leaving his incredible physique on display all the time.

Still, it was weird for Liam to have a crush on him. He'd never been attracted to jocks or really built guys. His type was people like him; skinny, nerdy and shy guys. He found jocks and gymbros kind of annoying. They were always loud, smelly, dumb as bricks and with egos the size of a planet.

But even with all of that, he could never shake the feeling he would get every time Ryan would walk by him. He was so drawn to him. Always wanting to be near him, look at him. And very recently, he actually wanted to try hanging out with him, which was a crazy thing to think about. A little nerdy nobody hanging out with one of the most popular jocks? Complete and utter madness. However, he overheard a conversation between Ryan and one of his 'bros'. Ryan needed help with a literature essay. And now Liam was walking directly to his direction to offer him exactly what he needed.

"H-hi" Blurted out Liam awkardly, cursing to himself for sounding so embarassing. "Uhh, do I know you, bro?" Ryan looked away from his phone to look at the scrawny kid talking to him. "No you d-don't know me, but I was sitting by you in literature when I heard you say you needed help with your essay. I can help you if you'd like it" He said, starting to get that feeling again, like being close to him was making him lose his mind. "Really, bro? That would be so nice of you, what was your name, bro?" Ryan's eyes lit up. "It's Liam, nice to meet you" He extended his hand to Ryan without thinking, regretting it immediately after.

Ryan grabbed his hand and in a swift motion, he pulled him into a bro-hug. When he touched him, his mind went wild with desire. His skin seemed to burn with every second it touched Ryan's. He felt himself getting hard. Embarrassed, when Ryan let go of him, he covered himself with his bag, and sat down next to him to talk about the essay, trying to get his mind off of his unusual thoughts.

They agreed on meeting up in Ryan's dorm after classes so Liam could tutor him, or end up writing the essay for him, he wouldn't mind. As long as he could get to hang out with him, he could write essays for him for the rest of his life. He would give everything to be close to Ryan. And that wish, as he would soon find out, would be granted.

Liam was restless the whole day, counting every second of every minute of every hour until he could see Ryan again. When the day was finally over, he ran to his own dorm to clean himself up and grab some stuff that he needed for the essay. He ran to Ryan's dorm as fast as he could, wanting to spend the longest amount of time with him as possible.

When he arrived and knocked on the door, the door opened almost immediately after he knocked, almost like Ryan was also eager to see him. He was shirtless, wearing only some short shorts that left little to the imagination. Liam couldn't help but stare for just a second, just enough for Ryan to notice.

"You don't mind me being shirtless, do you bro?" Liam just stood there stunned, not knowing exactly how to answer, opting for an awkard "N-no, not at all. If you're comfortable like that, I don't mind" Ryan smiled with a faint malice, one that Liam didn't pick up on. "Come on in, bro. Mi casa es su casa or however it goes".

When he walked in to the jock's dorm, he saw the absolute mess that the guy lived in. Clothes hanging around everywhere, none of them looked particularly clean. His kitchen sink was filled with dirty dishes, and the kitchen itself was a mess of various stains, presumably from meal prep and even more dishes. After a second of taking what would be his work environment in, he started getting that weird feeling again. His mind started racing and going places he really shouldn't right now.

"So, should we start with that essay of yours? The faster we finish the earlier you can send it in, right?" He hurriedly asked to try and get those thoughts away as fast as he could. "Uhh, sure bro. We could work on it on the couch, it's the most comfortable place to work, I think" Ryan answered, sitting down and signaling for Liam to sit down right by him.

The nerd's heart skip a beat, the idea of being so close to the Adonis of a man in front of him making him go wild with joy. He sat down right there next to him and pulled his laptop out of the bag he brought with him and started talking to Ryan about the assignment and what exactly he needed to write about.

They (actually, mostly Liam) got to work on the essay. With the jock just watching Liam write down idea after idea in the form of fancy and long words. Honestly, the work would have been much easier for the nerd if the beautiful man in front of him would stop being so attractive for a second. He would get distracted from time to time looking at the guy's incredible body. And his mind could not stop thinking about him in every inappropriate way possible, and Ryan noticed this, knowing soon would be the time to strike.

Almost two hours went by when Liam announced that the essay was done. "You're done already, bro? It would've taken me weeks to write that on my own, huhu" Ryan chuckled dumbly, turning around to face the guy who just gave him an A+ and lifting his arm up to reveal a jungle of wiry dark hairs in his pits. Liam immediately locked eyes on the jock's pits and felt his mind go absolutely crazy with want, desire and need. "It really was n-no problem at all" He stumbled on his words, trying to hide the thoughts he was having.

Ryan smiled maliciously, knowing exactly what was going in the nerd's mind. "You're tripping over your words, is everything okay, bro?" He lifted his arm further, scratching his back. "Y-yeah, I'm fine. I s-swear" Liam's eyes were glued to the dark and damp paradise that was just in front of him. That's when he noticed the smell: sweet and appealing, yet kind of musky and salty. The same smell that, unaware of it, he'd been inhaling since the first time he came close to Ryan.

"You finally figured it out, didn't you bro?" Liam was startled, but still unable of doing anything but stare at the jock's pits "W-what? What do you m-mean?" Ryan just chuckled dumbly again "That little feeling you've been having all day? That would be my smell, bro. It has a special effect on everyone around me, it makes me completely irresistible to those who inhale it" The nerd's mind was steadily fogging up, leaving him confused about everything he was saying to him.

"You can't even think anymore, dude!" Ryan cackled loudly "It normally just makes you attracted to me for a couple minutes, maybe hours. But you've been taking it in for more than two hours, that's where the other part of it comes by. Your intellect is melting totally, bro!" Liam could barely understand anything the jock was saying to him, his mind focused totally on his pits.

"I think it's time for you to take it straight from the source. Come here, bro!" Ryan grabbed the back of Liam's head and pushed it towards his pit, successfully drowning the latter in his scent. In his dazed state, Liam could do nothing to stop him, he just inhaled every bit of the man's smell. His mind melting totally into a sea of pure want and desire for him, leaving no room for any other thought other than pleasing the jock.

His body started heating up, continuing the process further. "Woah! Already at the physical changes then?" He felt hot all over, like in an oven. Suddenly, a pressure appeared on his entire body, pushing it outwards like a balloon getting inflated. Only he was being filled with pure meat and muscle all around. His arms grew, filling up nicely with hard muscle to impress anyone he wanted to. His pits became sweaty and hairy like Ryan's, producing his own musky scent. His hands became big and callused from his time at the gym, veins spreading from them out to his upper arms.

His chest grew heavy with soft muscle that would work like pillows for anyone who layed on them. His nipples growing sensitive and perky, perfect for playing with. Ryan took a handful of the muscle-tits he just gave him, getting a nice moan out of the former-nerd that got muffled by his pits still covering his face. His core grew strong and wide, abs popping into existence until he had a nice and hard six-pack to show off.

Above, his face reshaped to that of a hot jock, becoming sharp and beautiful. His hair grew messy and fluffy. Like the one you would see in a popular influencer, perfect for grabbing attention everywhere and from anyone.

Below, his legs grew into tree trunks ready to pull, carry or push any weight necessary. His thighs turning into the ones of a guy who never skipped leg day: wide, strong and incredibly sensual. His ass started inflating with soft muscle that lifted him up of his seat, making the task of getting as much of Ryan's scent easier. His calves looked like the ones you would see in a football player, and his feet grew into size 13 soles to match the size of his new body.

Finally, his junk grew to incredible sizes. His balls filling with powerful seed worthy of a jock, and his cock grew harder and harder until it started growing longer and wider. He reached a nice 9 inch monster the width coming close to that of a beer can. Ryan grabbed onto his cock and drew another moan muffled in the jungle of his pits. He started stroking it, coming close to the climax of Liam's transformation.

Memories of straight A's and studying were replaced by evenings in the gym, making his body as desirable as possible. Nerdy friends and interests became nights drinking with his bros, watching sports and talking about their recent conquests and affairs. And finally, any attraction he had towards any skinny guys disappeared, turning into desire for other big guys like himself. Specially for his lover, Ryan. Who he'd met in the beginning of college and with whom he had hit it off right away.

He spent every moment of every day possible with him. Going to the gym with him, sharing classes with him. Practicing football with him and enjoying themselves in the showers after evey game and every practice. Actually, enjoying themselves at every opportunity they could, in the car when they went out to eat. In the college's bathrooms, in their dorm every night after a long day of getting buff for his man. Leaving messes everywhere they were, none of them cared enough for cleanliness or being proper. He was absolutely devoted to him, caring only for what Ryan thought of him and needing to please him in every way possible.

The thoughts of pleasing him made him tip over the edge, finally coming in his new jockstrap and gym shorts. The remainder of his old clothes torn and destroyed around him. Finally lifting his head up from Ryan's pit, to look directly in his eyes and smiling dumbly. "Had fun, dummy?" Ryan spoke first, giving his jock a loving and mischievous look. "Well what do you think?" Liam signaled to the mess in his jockstrap, getting a laugh out of his boyfriend.

"I could still do one more round, though" The former-nerd said, getting up from the couch and walking towards their room, letting his laptop fall to the ground. He was shortly followed by his boyfriend in a fit of dumb giggles and chuckles. He's sure now that there's something about him, and it's everything about him.

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Hello hello! this is my very first story, i've been lurking in the shadows in the community but never dared to get into writing myself until now. I don't know if i'm going to upload regularly or if i'm even going to continue posting, but I wanted to at least give it a shot.

All constructive feedback is appreciated, if I do continue writing I want it to be as good as possible. Hope you enjoyed!

[lizardsfromspace]

Do you ever get kind of interested in a subject where nothing weird has happened yet but you know something weird is going to happen?

Anyway, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It was originally a upscale resort community, and also still is: it's where rich people from Chicago kept their lake houses, and maybe still do. Its heyday was in the early to mid 20th century, where its status as a vacation destination was so set that Hugh Hefner even put the first ever "Playboy Resort" there. I haven't been there myself, so I may be wrong, but it doesn't give me, like, Pigeon Forge or Niagara Falls energy. The list of attractions online seems to be spas and parks and a few theaters.

But Lake Geneva is more famous now for its most famous son, Gary Gygax. Over the course frigid Wisconsin winters, he and several wargaming friends who didn't become famous developed tactical wargaming into the game Dungeons & Dragons in the early 1970s. He also began hosting a small gaming meetup in Lake Geneva, later called Gen Con, which outgrew the town by the late 1970s.

As I understand it, Lake Geneva didn't really embrace its status as the Birthplace of Dungeons and Dragons. When Gygax died, there were fan-funded tributes here and there, and fans created a new convention in his honor called Gary Con where they played games from his time at TSR, but D&D was still a niche hobby and not the thing you define a rich people resort town around.

Then, whoops, shows like Critical Role turned D&D into one of the most popular entertainment properties in the world! Now there's D&D-themed events popping up all over the place. Some of this is normal, like efforts to fund a more prominent memorial for Gary Gygax, and a Dragon Days Fantasy Festival. But some are going further. Because there are now at least two proposals to create immersive, D&D-themed LARP experiences in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, population 8,227

One is a large themed restaurant/bar/wedding venue (?) called the Griffin and Gargoyle, which is supposedly opening in 2024, though all the art is concept art and they're still looking for investors.

The other one is Giantlands, the proposed theme park where the tickets will be NFTs, based on a game no one's heard of developed by the son of Gary Gygax by a company that legally can't call itself TSR anymore, but tried anyway before rebranding as Wonderfilled, and who also tried to make old Gygax games even more racist? I can't even begin to explain this. I think they got dunked on years ago but they were still hyping up its Lake Geneva theme park that's definitely going to exist this week (this is from August 11th)

What's incredible to me here is that they're boasting that their LARP theme park will be from the makers of Evermore Park. Nothing says quality in immersive fantasy roleplaying parks like someone whose main claim to fame is making that other one that failed. Wonder how many real tombstones and haunted dolls they'll buy this time. And this one appears to have fighting arena

I seriously doubt these are the only two pitches. Everyone with too much money and a love for theme parks feels the little voice in their head saying they can do the Star Wars Hotel right. I think what gets me here is, nobody would put anything like this in Lake Geneva otherwise. It's small, it's located in Wisconsin so it'd have to be seasonal, and it's less than two hours away from Wisconsin Dells - an entire town of kitschy roadside attractions - and even closer to Chicago, which is Chicago. Its tourism niche is beaches and homes around a scenic lake. The only reason to place anything there would be to honor Gary Gygax, and uh, I don't think the younger people who got into D&D with 5E really care about him, or even necessarily know who he is. Gary Con and most Gygax-themed events are for old-school gamers, not the Critical Role crowd. And they especially don't care about whatever Giantlands is. Giantlands as a game is so old-school there isn't even a PDF of the book, it's physical only. They want to build a full theme park around a game you can't even buy on DrivethruRPG. Anyway I hope all this open bc it would be funny

[sunayyyy]

Worst fandom mischaracterisation/headcanon of each bat-associated character, in my opinion (these are in no particular order) :

1. Duke Thomas is the sane, rational, "normal" one.

Have you ever read the We Are Robin arc? Duke is fucking unhinged, his introduction was him jumping off a bridge to escape cops. This is a kid whose father is immortal and is the first metahuman in the batfam. He lost his parents in the most horrendous way possible (joker venom. They're still alive, but it's horrifying) and organised a whole gang as a child. He threw down with a green lantern and 2 shot his ass. Hopefully, this headcanon is just a product of people not really knowing the character and goes away soon once people find out more about him, when he isn't just the token black guy in a fic or a background character in batfam drama.

2. Stephanie Brown is quirky and sassy, and ONLY quirky and sassy. She's over her trauma with Black Mask and Cluemaster!!

Stephanie Brown is a very interesting character, with an origin story that is very similar to jason todd. She's been through hell, yet she constantly gets infantalised by the fandom, which gets kind of ignored in favour of talking shit about how people infantilse tim (super valid and I'll come back to it later on in this post). You most commonly see this in timsteph stories where they show her as the immature first love, and how as tim grows up, he needs to date more "serious" people, as if tim wasn't the main reason their relationship never worked. This is also common in stephcass fics, although on a smaller level. Writers tend to make stephanie the bubbly outgoing girl that balances out all of cass' angst (some of those fics are really good, but they mould steph in a specific shape so she can be a prop for cass to heal). On an even smaller scale, I've seen both romantic and platonic jaysteph stories where stephanie appears as the "good" victim who let go of her animosity to black mask and cluemaster, and so now, she can help jason let go of what happened with the joker, and bruce's abuse. Obviously, this is a disservice to both of these characters, but people tend to focus on how it's more of a disservice to jason instead of steph. Let my girl express her trauma and heal, and stop using her as a prop for other characters! She wasn't just cutesy as robin, she threw the fuck down. Her introduction included hitting tim in the head with a brick!

3. Slut/himbo Dick Grayson is reductive of his abilities as a leader, and is not only offensive to real survivors of SA, but incredibly racist towards Romani people.

Do I really need to explain this one? Dick Grayson is a symbol of hope that bruce wishes batman could be. This man is a natural born leader and has stepped up to the plate multiple times, both during his time with the titans and as batman. He's charismatic and lovable and a genuinely intelligent man, but for some reason, he gets depicted as a dumbass who has to deffer to bruce or tim or babs any time he has an issue with detective work. Yes, you can delegate. Of course, you can delegate, but going straight to tim and rattling off the case you JUST accepted doesn't make sense, ESPECIALLY if you're on seperate cases and tim or bruce have to postpone their work just to solve it for you. As for the other part, Dick has been heavily implied to be demisexual, given that he only has sex with people he has genuine feelings for. He wouldn't just sleep with any random woman who compliments his ass enough. Also, having an SA victim be characterised as a slut is both reductive of their trauma and a weird way that some authors justify how he's "over it." Really doesn't help that he was slut shamed (canonically!! why is this canon??) by the rest of the titans after sleeping with mirage, who pretended to be kori. Additionally, it's really weird if the first thing you think of when you see an attractive romani man just sleeps around. People don't say that about other conventionally attractive characters, even ones who HAVE slept around. The only character i can think of that gets characterised like this is bruce, but that's an image that he cultivated to keep batman hidden.

4. Jason Todd was always doomed by the narrative. He would have died if bruce hadn't intervened. Also, pit rage.

The tragedy of jason todd was, and always has been, that he was doomed by the AUDIENCE. He wasn't just an angry, reckless child, and calling him the angry robin is stupid and reductive. Was he angry? of course he was, but so was dick, and so was damian. Using a single word to describe a person is never going to be enough. Jason was notoriously compassionate to victims, especially women and children, and sex abuse victims. He got pissed when the system he was asked to believe in was shown to be ineffective, to the point where bruce believed he killed a man over it. The kid had a bright future ahead and loved school, modt of robin!jason's shitty qualities came from bruce and alfred compartmentaling his image and shitting on him to ease their guilt over his death. Pit rage is also a cheap way to take away his autonomy, an easy pass to explain the shitty things he's done. I like it when the pit has side effects like glowing eyes or increased healing or something, but pit rage is stupid. It's either used to force characters to forgive jason since he wasn't himself or as an angst prompt for jason, another testament to how he came back wrong, or a way to have him hurt a character to further up THEIR angst (*cough* titans tower AU fics*cough*). Yes, he did shitty things. Let him do shitty things without giving him an easy out. Otherwise, your story isn't compelling at all.

5. Feral Damian Wayne is just straight-up racist, no?

I love damian. I think that, for the most part, he's been written pretty well. However, damian suffers from the fact that he's an arab character in a post 9/11 comic, and thus there is bound to be some casual racism, both in comics (like when tim assumed he was too uncivilised to know what a handshake is) and fandom. Has damian wayne done a lot of shitty things, especially to tim? Yes, absolutely. But that doesn't make him feral. He was raised by assassins as the heir to the throne and to the greatest hero in the world, raised to think that blood relations are the only ones that matter, so of course he's dismissive of tim. He's also a prince who was raised in luxury, who was born as royalty and has experienced more opulence during his birth thsn most peoole do in a lifetime, although this opulence is extremely conditional, with horrifying requirements (the story with damian having a metal spine as a child is insane). Does it make what he did to tim right? Definitely not. Does it excuse his actions? Also no. But it does explain them, it tells us where it came from. Being traumatised and having extremely high expectations of both sides of your family doesn't make you feral.

6. Tim Drake is just a small little baby who can't function without his coffee.

Let me preface this by saying that i don't like tim drake. At all. As a huge fan of the al ghuls it was a real kick in the balls having Ra's be reduced to a creepy pedophile who wanted tim as an heir, and sent a woman to rape tim in order to carry his child. Also, I hate how DC decided to prop him up by shitting on jason todd. However, this doesn't mean that I don't enjoy his YJ run and that I don't enjoy some of his comics/fics. That being said, nothing on this earth pisses me off more than tim stans. You know the ones, the people who want damian hanged, who want dick and jason and bruce to fall to their knees and beg for forgiveness. Tim has been through an insane amount of trauma, and that's understandable, but please, for the love of god, don't create more whump for tim at the cost of other characters. You can hate damian, I wouldn't blame you, but remember that he's like 10 and tim put him on a hit list. Dick never wanted to put tim in arkham, and he didn't have time to support tim when it came to an honestly insane (although ultimately correct) conclusion. Also damian as robin was alfred's idea, and damian was the one that put on the costume preemptively, dick got pissed at damian for that. When it comes to jason, I'd say it's complicated. While titans tower was fucked up, it wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. My first introduction to the fandom was through jason todd since he was my favourite robin, and then i learned they brought him back to life when i played injustice. The number of fics and posts that mention that jason went to the tower specifically to kill tim is insane. When i got into comics, it was like whiplash; it wasn't a one-sided beatdown, tim was conscious until the end, the goofy ass robin suit jason had on, jason never slitting tim's throat (that happens in hush, and even then i don't think he really slit his throat, since the art shows that the skin was kinda nicked), all of that was wild to me. BftC is one of the shittiest comjc book runs when it comes to characterisation in general, and I've already discussed dick and tim, so it's only fair to talk about jason and tim. There's no justification here, honestly, other than shitty writing i guess. The other side of the coin is enemies to caretaker jason and tim, which is so fucking wild?? they're like 2 years apart, and tim is extremely competent, he wouldn't pass out mid patrol because he forgot his coffee.

7. Bruce Wayne doesn't believe people can change and doesn't care about Crime Alley.

For the first one, please fucking read a single comic book. Just one. Better yet, maybe research why batman doesn't kill. You know, the most popular thing about him? As for the second, it's mostly just a way to show how jason is better than bruce and how he's right to take over the alley since no one cares about it. Now I LOVE jason todd. He's my favourite comic book character of all time tied with gambit and Dr. Strange. But I hate it when you create angst or comeuppance by blatantly ignoring the chatacter and their motives. Bruce became batman so that what happened to his parents can never happen again, and this includes helping the poor people in crime alley either through patrolling there or by setting up countless charities to improve life there. You can make the case that batman avoided crime alley after jason died. It's not canon, but it would make sense. However, I dont see him ever giving up on the alley, both to prevent what happened to his parents, and to help people like his dead son. I fucking hate bruce, he's done a lot of shitty things, but making shit up just to make him worse is getting old.

8. Misc

There aren't really enough mischaracterisations about cass and babs to warrant separate paragraphs, so I'll just reiterate the infantalisation of cass and babs having no qualities outside of oracle, master hacker, and dick grayson's on and off lover.

[maxphilippa]

i find it genuinely sad that people only talk about misogyny on the ii fandom when it comes to defending taco but no one goes over the way people treats most of the female characters which is like ACTUALLY misogynistic and the actual issue. i went over taco's thing a lot of times already but i'll also cover it here. like lets see how people treat women on ii briefly.

like have you seen how people treat suitcase. how she's often treated as a kid/constantly forgotten as a person outside of using her as a weapon to villainize a guy that does want to fix things with her. have you seen how little care people put on her. have you seen how they only remember that she exists for suitloon or barely even have anything to comment on her

have you seen people talking about candle outside of her being hot or outside of silvercandle? have you seen how people LITERALLY villainized her because she wanted to take care of herself? have you seen anyone say anything about her on a deep way? have you ever seen people focus on the way working with silver affected her outside of "silver doesn't deserve her"?

have you seen how GENUINELY HORRID people were about cabby winning s3? how they still SOMEHOW made it about silver? how people were incredibly ableist towards her? how they still kept going on how cabby wasn't an actual good person? on how she didn't deserve the win?

have you seen how mic, the character that genuinely has the best writting in the whole show, only gets talked about to completely miss the point of her arc AND ONLY for shipping, completely disregarding her growth as a person? completely forgetting that her story is one of growth and healing?

have you seen how people sexualized test tube to the point where she's only seen as a hot scientist or as a weird gal who's a freak instead of focusing on the fact that she's someone who heavily struggles with mental health and making connections? like people simped a lotttttt for her when she was having a whole breakdown because she was going to lose her friend, and no one really focused fully on those aspects of test tube's character.

have you seen the overall way people treat lightbulb? she's just a shell of her character for the fandom. she's genuinely so so deep and interesting but she got fully downgraded to just nonsense on fanon takes.

have you seen how people treat taco? have you seen someone even focus on her as a character outside of her being a "hot villain"? have you seen anyone actually get what she's going through? have you seen anyone wanting her to get better but also not forgetting what she has done? have you seen anyone actually understand why she can't get a redemption arc on the traditional sense? have you seen anyone not immediately go to defend her when taco herself does not want to be excused, nor does she think she should be? have you seen anyone getting that she's a complex character and that they can still enjoy her without having to excuse her actions? have you seen anyone ACTUALLY getting why taco needs to let go of ii and not make up with the people she hurted? have you seen anyone treating taco on a reasonable way? have you seen anyone treating her as fully capable of doing bad things but also capable of getting better if she really does try? have you seen SOMEONE that actually CARES about taco outside of her being attractive?

my point is. the ii fandom is rooted in misogyny, yes. but it is not because of people preferring other characters or what not. sure there MIGHT be some cases in which that's the thing, but most of times it isn't. the fandom is genuinely overall horrid about women and don't actually focus on them outside of being hot either. like i have once seen someone who genuinely hated candle but simped for her because her violence was hot in ep 17 and like. that's Not Really Good.

and most of the fem characters that aren't deemed hot or don't have anything to hate them for get often ignored (ex. pepper, soap, clover, etc). also don't get me started on how MOST OF THE TIMES THEY JUST HAVE TO give women a familiar relationship with a male character to which they happen to have a positive relationship with on hcs (ex. Candle and Yinyang being hced as mother/sons, Cabby and Yinyang is the same case) which uh. you know. it doesn't really sit right with me

you can think a woman character is hot/attractive and also care about her. you can like a fucked up woman as well while also not justifying her actions, it won't make you a bad person. like personally i really really love microphone and find her attractive but at the same time i genuinely care about her story and how much she's a story about growth and finding yourself, alongside with other people. a lot of the stories of the women charas are ultimately about growth and finding themselves on ii. and i think all of you should be focusing on the depth of a character instead on whether a character is hot or not therefore we can define if they deserve to be treated with decency, like that's ever done anything positive anyway

!! THIS POST IS NOT LOOKING TO CAUSE TACO RELATED DISCOURSE. KEEP THAT SHIT TO YOURSELF. THIS POST WAS MADE AS A FORM OF CRITICISM ON HOW LITTLE PEOPLE ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT FEM CHARACTERS ON II WHILE ACCUSING OTHERS OF MISOGYNY SO DELIBERATELY. IF YOU GET OUT OF TOPIC I'LL BITE YOUR HEAD OFF (NOT A SERIOUS THREAT BUT BY GOD BE DECENT) !!

[sissytobitch10seconds]

Number Five is such a weird choice to make asexual and aromantic, when you really look at his character.

Ignoring the Fivela stuff from the last season, since so many people hate it and it would distract from my point, we see Five instigating a lot of sexual advances towards people. In the comics he was the classic old man that was hitting on much younger girls, played as a joke because he's visibly childlike. In the show, we see Five hitting on Delores and making references to their sexual exploits ("You remember that wine cellar? Where we... yeah, [laughter]). He's also very much in love and very much involved with Delores, she's his wife in the romantic sense and he loves her. He made her up in his mind and if he had just wanted a companion, he would have made her such instead of making her into his wife. He also goes to kiss her when Jayme creates the illusion of her in his mind instead of just hugging her.

Viktor, on the other hand, is a very good choice to make aroace.

As an aroace person myself, I believed that I had to have romantic and sexual attraction for a long while because it was all society let me to believe that life was about. I tricked myself into thinking that because I was romantically involved with someone or thought that they were pretty, I had to be sexually attracted to them as well. I also believed that I was romantically interested in people after they had shown that attraction to me or when someone else gave me the suggestion.

Viktor is much the same way. In season one, he's absolutely starved for affection and that's why he falls into Leanord/Harold's hold so easily. He isn't attracted to him, we don't get any blushing or looking him up and down. He seems pretty put off and uncomfortable by Harold when they first meet, but slowly he gets wrapped up in his web because Harold is giving him the approval and praise that he's longed for his entire life and he's associating going off his meds with being around this new person he's just met. Sissy is a harder argument, but they're raising a child together and she's the only person being consistently nice to him (and ends up coming on to him later which never helps when you're struggling with figuring out if you're aroace). It's possible that Viktor is having another deep connection with someone and mistaking it for romantic or sexual attraction. My biggest point to him being aroace is the fact that he has incredible failures with all of his relationships in the gap between the end of s3 and beginning of s4. Especially with him being called childish, that could just be him not knowing how to navigate romantic relationships because he doesn't feel that kind of love.

[ot7stan4life]

It’s Not Wrong

Dreamcatcher (OT7) x Female Reader

(1 part - ongoing ⚠️)

Word Count: 8,980

Summary: As the 8th member of Dreamcatcher, you struggle with your growing attraction towards your members, because, in your mind, loving seven different people isn’t natural and couldn’t possibly be considered acceptable by any normal human being… so why would they be okay with it?

“It- it’s wrong.”

“You love us, how is there anything wrong with that?”

Warnings: angst, brief mentions of homophobia, mild sexual content

The audience's excited screams echoed around the arena as we all waved our goodbyes, fading only when the lift lowered us beneath the stage, yet never leaving my mind completely. Even when our managers herded us into two separate black vans that would be taking us to a nearby hotel, the adrenaline pumping through my veins and the dull roar of what sounded like waves rushing in my ears from a night of being stimulated by loud music were permanent reminders of the performance we had just put on.

Kcon LA. It was a big deal for a group of our scale. And, after singing in front of a crowd of that size (one bigger than we had ever seen before), I could tell the members were feeling as elated as I was. If the way Bora pulled me down the hall when we arrived at the hotel and shoved me into our shared room with Minji and Siyeon following closely behind was anything to go off of, I'd guess I was about to experience what being on the receiving end of the dancer's excited energy entailed. I didn't know whether to be excited myself or utterly terrified.

Luckily I was able to convince them to let me have the first shower—which they only agreed upon under the promise that I would stay up to entertain them (not sure what that meant exactly, but I was honestly too afraid to ask)—and immediately took the first chance I got to slip into the bathroom before any chaos ensued. Just fifteen minutes later, my sore muscles had been soothed by the warm water and I was drying off, finally allowing myself to wind down for the night. My conflicting feelings for the members had really been getting to me lately, but I was thankful our busy schedule helped keep my mind off of it.

Though, I had a feeling those emotions would become unavoidable sooner rather than later when I realized I forgot to grab a change of clothes from my suitcase. Even more unfortunately, the only towels in the bathroom were borderline too small to cover all of my... assets.

Fantastic.

Wrapping the towel around me as best as I could, I crossed my fingers hoping the members occupying the hotel room had left to get some food or weren't paying attention before I opened the door. Though, my luck ran short not even two steps out of the bathroom when Siyeon began cat-calling me.

"Yah, sexy," she shouted. I froze, looking over at her timidly. "Come over here. Don't be shy." The singer was clearly joking around, but that didn't stop me from blushing at her words.

"What?" Bora laughed at Siyeon's weird behavior. Seconds later, her curious head popped out from behind the wall where she had been sitting to see what the older woman was looking at. I wanted to strangle Siyeon the moment Bora's eyes widened at the sight of me. "Ooooh," she exclaimed, her eyes shamelessly raking over the bare skin my towel failed to cover while a smirk creeped onto her lips.

Attempting to ignore them, I walked further into the room in search of my suitcase. That only made things worse when Minji was finally able to see me and they all started making shocked and impressed noises. "Ooh, so sexy," Minji doted. My cheeks burned being the center of attention and feeling incredibly exposed.

"Omo, jagi," Bora started, "did you come to give us a show?"

My heart skipped a beat.

"Yah!" I shouted in surprise, stopping to look back at her. Actually seeing all of their eyes on me, confirming that they really had been staring this whole time, made my knees go weak. "I forgot to grab a change of clothes, alright?" My voice came out angry, but they caught the hint of a smile on my lips before I could hide it.

Bora started giggling. "Look at how embarrassed she is." Her finger pointed up at me as if they weren't all already looking.

Siyeon laughed, but Minji scolded, "Yah, leave her alone." I nearly fell for how caring the leader sounded, but then I noticed her eyes lingering for a second too long on my bare thighs. She was just as bad as them.

"Oh c'mon, you like it too, unnie," Siyeon said, "don't kill the fun."

"Yeah, the best part's just starting," Bora scooted to the edge of the bed. "I haven't even gotten to touch her yet." My eyes blew wide and I only had a split second to guard myself before the small woman launched from the bed and ran over to start groping me.

"Don't touch me!" I yelled. With one hand holding up my towel, I only had one left to try and block her attacks. This allowed the main dancer to get a few quick squeezes of my thighs and one of my ass over the towel before I ran to the other side of the room, out of her reach. "Stop it," I squealed as she chased after me.

Bora was all giggles while I was full on panicking—for several reasons. Before I could seek safety in the bathroom, the small woman stopped me halfway with a shove. Minji was yelling at us to not get hurt and Siyeon was just laughing as they watched the whole thing pan out. The atmosphere changed quickly though when Bora pinned me against the wall. Even with her being a head shorter than me, I still felt trapped. My pulse throbbed in my ears as I breathed heavily from both the running and the way Bora's small hands had felt against my bare skin.

Miraculously, I had managed to keep the towel on with one hand while the other held cautiously onto Bora as she stood on her tippy toes so that we were nearly face-to-face. Her hands were not as innocent, one at the base of my neck, teasingly traveling downwards while the other lay flat against my stomach, pushing my back into the wall. We were so close that her nose nearly brushed mine when she looked down, not-so-subtly admiring the curve of my breasts revealed by the towel. Her other hand traveled lower, getting a feel for the skin on the back of my thigh.

"You're not even going to give me a little peek?" She whispered just for us to hear, her fingertips dragging closer to what she really wanted to feel. I found my mind fixated on that word: me. It was no longer an us. She didn't care about playing it up for the others. No, it was just her who wanted it now.

Her eyes flicked up to mine, showing me the want deep within them as her fingers gripped the curve if my butt. "Unnie," I gasped, feeling at a loss for words. She had done this stuff plenty of times. The teasing, the flirting, even the ass-grabbing. She was Kim Bora after all. It was to be expected. What was not expected though was the hint of desperation I caught from her in that moment. If she happened to be feeling any fraction of what I had felt for her in the past two years, I knew she was searching for any sort of confirmation or reciprocation of her own feelings from me. And this felt like a confession.

I found myself involuntarily glancing down at her lips. So many countless nights I had spent imagining what they might feel like against mine, overwhelmed by an excited thrill wondering if she'd be just as aggressive in intimate moments as she was normally or if she'd break character, acting more calm and submissive. All these possibilities made my stomach burn and I knew I should stop before my arousal became evident on my thighs, but it was so hard to when she was looking at me like that.

The fact that her and I were not alone was a rude awakening the moment Minji appeared next to us, pulling Bora away just before either of us could lean in and do something we might regret later. Had I not known any better, I might've considered Minji's stern gaze and cocked jaw a sign of jealousy as she berated the younger member for touching me in such a way. But I did know better, brushing it off as merely her protectiveness required as our leader. With no shortage of fussing, the dancer eventually let in, giving me one final once-over before allowing me to grab my clothes and retreat to the bathroom.

When I was successfully clothed, I returned to the room to find the unnie line carrying on as if nothing had ever happened. It had me debating if it was all a dream, but the sting of Bora's firm grip on my sensitive skin still lingered, evidence enough of the encounter. After something like that, they normally wouldn't shut up about it, finding joy in teasing me for days on end. The unusual silence seemed strange. Still, it meant less embarrassment for me, so I gladly ignored it, settling down on the bed Bora was currently on the edge of.

About half an hour of casual conversation had passed between the four of us without anything eventful occurring. It wasn't until Bora started getting loopy from her increasing tiredness that things began to ramp up once more. I made the mistake of joking about her loud voice surely sending everyone in the audience home with hearing problems, resulting in her initiating a wrestling match between us on the bed. She griped at me for being such a 'brat,' grabbing and violently shaking any body part of mine that she could get ahold of.

I couldn't help but giggle uncontrollably at the sensation of her tiny hands pinching at my skin and how easy she was to offend, and now I was beginning to understand why Yoohyeon found it so fun to toy with her. Well, that is... until Bora landed on top of me, straddling my hips with a suddenly very different goal in mind. The abrupt change in mood had my body stilling completely under her. When I dared to meet her stare, I caught a glint of mischief in it that surely couldn't be leading anywhere good.

Like before, her hands pressed down on my stomach to keep my back flat against the bed. Tilting her head to the side, she looked down at me, raising her eyebrows up once before lowering them again. "Your move," she smirked, already conducting another one of her games that would surely end in chaos.

Looking to my left, I noticed Minji and Siyeon watching us with cautious eyes. There was this sort of rush it gave me, just like the concert, that dared me to continue. They had so often tested the boundaries of our relationships, so why couldn't I do the same? Knowing that it would surprise them made it seem that much more tempting. Now that I wasn't exposed and had been handed back the control, I wanted to give them a show.

So, without even considering the repercussions of my actions, I grabbed Bora's hips and pushed her over. She squealed in shock when I ended up on top of her, my body resting between her legs. "Your move." A satisfied smile formed on my lips when I heard the other two members let out mumbles of surprise. Bora didn't allow me to bask in my victory much longer, always insistent on one-uping me. She liked when I got like this more than she'd ever care to admit and was eager to take it a step further.

Her arms previously resting on my shoulders slithered up to my neck and with one firm tug, I was leaning over her, so close that I could feel her breath on my lips. Now I knew I was in over my head. Her beautiful features and her fingers intertwined around the back of my neck locking me into place made it difficult to breathe. Every spark, every chill, every heart flutter that she had ever made me feel resurfaced all at once and seared itself permanently into my chest. There was never any denying that I was attracted to her—I mean, look at her. Who wouldn't be?—but now, as I lost myself in the inescapable pull of her soft, brown eyes, there was absolutely no denying that I was in love with her.

"Your move," she whispered the softest whisper I had ever heard leave her mouth, never once looking away. Her eyes seemed to be communicating in ways that her words couldn't and the expectant, even hopeful look in them had me convinced this is exactly what she wanted.

So, I gave it to her.

The moment my lips met hers, time seemed to stand still. I felt her inhale, forcing her to press further up into me as her fingers tightened at the nape of my neck. My mind went completely blank finally feeling how silky and warm her lips were against mine. They were impossibly softer and her kiss gentler than I could've ever imagined. And I certainly wasn't counting on the fact that she wouldn't want to pull away, holding me there a few precious seconds longer than what I assumed normal.

After what felt like hours, she loosened her grip on my neck, letting me release her lips slowly. The loss of pressure elicited the sound of a light smack, sending an unexpected sensation of pleasure through my body. Her eyes fluttered open to meet mine, appearing dazed and intoxicated by the kiss. Within those few seconds, she granted me a look at the real Bora: the one beyond all the playful, unserious facades she put up. The one that was really as soft and vulnerable and desperate for love as the rest of us were. And knowing that she trusted me enough to give me a glimpse into her heart had me bearing my own for her to take claim of.

However, doubt was quick to take hold of my thoughts when Bora's eyes widened, concealing her initial reaction with an over-dramatic expression of shock. As she laughed incredulously before glancing to her left, I became all too aware of my surroundings. "Jinjja," she yelled, a smile of disbelief painting her lips. I followed her eyes, spotting Minji and Siyeon both mirroring her surprise, mouths drawn open and eyes blown wide.

The weight of my actions came crashing down, suffocating me with unavoidable feelings of regret and embarrassment. How did I really expect this to turn out anyways? Desperate to find an escape from their stares, I hid my face in Bora's neck, clutching her sides as if I could disappear into her.

"Can you believe her?" Bora played it up, pretending like she didn't kiss me back with just as much—if not more—conviction.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled ashamedly, but her neck muffled my voice. God, why didn't I think this through? Reluctantly pushing myself up, I looked down at her shyly. "I'm sorry," I repeated.

Bora paused, her smile faltering as she took in my humiliated expression. I almost thought she was going to reassure me, until a look of uncertainty crossed her own eyes. "Yah," she covered it up, her smile only growing, "look at how red her face is." She raised her hand to point a finger at me like she had done before and laughed. Though she didn't have much room to talk, a pink blush tinting her own cheeks.

"Unnie," I whined, rolling off of her to lay on my back and hide my face in my hands. When would this night ever end?

Following a few more jokes, Bora eventually stopped pestering me about it for the moment. Still, I couldn't ignore the knot that settled in my stomach with the uneasiness lingering in the air between us. Their reaction had been both expected and unexpected. Obviously I knew they'd be shocked, but the three oldest members struck me as the type that would encourage this sort of behavior. In the past I even caught myself wondering if any of them had shared a kiss in the privacy of the dorms out of genuine physical attraction or just pure curiosity. In my mind, it seemed more than probable given the fact that pursuing romantic relationships outside of the group wasn't exactly allowed as well as the inkling I had about at least a couple of the members having a preference for women. Yet, now with all of them appearing avoidant and standoffish after the kiss, I wasn't so sure.

Did I read them all wrong? Did I completely fabricate the concept of them being accepting of that sort of thing because of their touchy and flirtatious tendencies? Most of all though, did I entirely misjudge Bora's reactions to the entire thing?

After all this, I was beginning to think I didn't know anything at all.

—

It was just a few days after we'd traveled back to Korea and I couldn't seem to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, my mind replayed the kiss with Bora over and over again, encouraging me to over-analyze every single little detail. The prospect that I had crossed a major line was stressing me out, to say the least. Strangely, the whole thing also made me feel sad. That part confused me the most. Maybe I wanted her to tell me it was okay. Or maybe I wanted her to even admit that she liked it. But really, what could I expect her to say with the other two members watching? I wasn't completely oblivious to the fact that she wanted it, but even then, how could I be sure that it meant anything real to her? That it wasn't just playful?

Deciding that overthinking was doing me no good, I left my room and went into the kitchen. It was dark and quiet, the other members having gone to bed a couple hours ago. The dim lights on the bottom of the cabinets illuminated the area enough for me to find the handle of the fridge. When I opened it, bright, blue, artificial light came pouring out, forcing my eyes to squint as they adjusted. I wasn't feeling particularly hungry, but I needed something to satiate my mind. A bottle of water would surely suffice.

As I reached out for one, I felt a whoosh of air and the sensation of hands sliding across my hips from behind. My entire body went rigid as my mind instantly assumed the worst. Even though I had slowly grown used to the abundance of physical affection my members gave me, the timing and scenario had me in a momentary panic.

Before I was able to do anything drastic, arms snaked all the way around my waist and I felt a warm, feminine figure press against my back. "It's just me," the familiar voice of our group's main vocalist said softly near my ear as she rested her chin on my shoulder. I let out a breath of relief, resting my hands on top of hers that had found their way beneath the hem of my t-shirt. Though, it was less calming and more nerve-wracking given my growing attraction to the older woman.

Having her this close allowed more opportunities for embarrassment, or, in her case, teasing. Though, the feeling of her lips pressing gently to my cheek elicited less of a flustered feeling and more of a depressed one. The memory of Bora's response to my kiss suspended permanently in the forefront of my mind, preventing me the luxury of indulging in the idea that little touches like these were glimpses into a deeper truth.

I should've known all along that I'd never be able to have what I truly wanted—never be able to fulfill my heart's deepest desire—but that reality hurt too much now that it had finally revealed itself. Obviously I knew I couldn't have all of them. Giving your heart to two different people with the promise of sharing it equally was arguably unrealistic, so offering it up to seven with that same promise was absolutely absurd. Still, I tried to hold out hope for as long as possible. And the way they all seemed to reinforce their feelings for me on a daily basis only made that hope grow at an alarming rate. How was I supposed to stop my wishful thinking when every thing they did confirmed that it could be a possibility?

"Couldn't sleep?" Siyeon asked, grounding me.

I sighed, feeling exhausted by my emotions, and finally allowed myself to lean back into her welcoming embrace, ignoring the way my heart fluttered at her warmth. "Yeah."

Siyeon unraveled one of her arms from around me to close the fridge door. Missing my opportunity to grab a water didn't bother me as much as it might've had I not gotten a little nauseous from the sickening pain my thoughts brought on. Even though she seemed to be enjoying this quiet moment between us, Siyeon slowly spun me around in her arms. I didn't meet her eyes, anticipating the questioning that would surely follow my admission.

"Jagi," her fingers reached up to brush a hair out of my eyes. "What's wrong?" she said in such a way that had me believing for a split second that she might know what I was going through, but the thought fleeted almost instantly. There's no way she could've.

"Nothing," I replied simply, though even I knew it didn't sound convincing. Clearly it wasn't nothing, but I had already made up my mind that talking to her about it (or any of them, for that matter) would do no good. It's not like she could fix everything and magically make the members fall for me like I'd fallen for them.

Her hand rested on my cheek and she spoke carefully, "I can tell it's not nothing." The tone of her voice compelled me to finally glance up at her.

The look in her eyes was all-too-familiar to me. She worried for her members, sometimes too much, because she cared for us so deeply. And this look told me she knew something was wrong and wouldn't be leaving until it was made right again. It truly was one of the things I loved most about her—her undying protectiveness for her loved ones—but now I was growing to dread it. Fear it, even. Because she had me dangling off the edge of admitting it all to her right there, one slip away from slinging my arms over her shoulders and letting her hold me as I shed every last tear I had stored inside of me.

"It's nothing serious, really." I looked down with a forced smile, hoping she'd just let it go. Though, deep down, there was this desperate cry inside of me, begging for her to continue prodding until I had no other option but to spill everything. All I needed was that one final shove off the cliff to get these unbearable secrets off my chest.

"Y/NN," she said sadly, rubbing her thumb across my cheek. "Is this about the kiss?" Her question made my heart grow ten times heavier in my chest and my eyes darted up to meet hers in surprise. How did she know?

"What, no! Of course not," I rushed out, feeling much too exposed for my own liking. If anything, I was preparing to explain the entire situation to her myself—if I did end up caving. I never could've expected her to know precisely what was bothering me. It made me feel ridiculous. Did I really make it that obvious? But Siyeon wasn't looking at me in a degrading or amused way. In fact, the look in her eyes was so frighteningly sympathetic and understanding that I was almost totally convinced she might even be struggling with the same sort of dilemma. At the thought that I wasn't alone in my suffering, my nose started burning, warning of oncoming tears threatening to fall and expose everything I've tried so tirelessly to conceal. Did she really understand?

"Oh, jagi," Siyeon frowned when she noticed my eyes turn glassy and my bottom lip quiver. The reality that the kiss I was crying over probably meant nothing to anyone else but me made me feel pathetic, yet Siyeon never once seemed to judge me. "Come here," she said, giving me no possible option to refuse her offer of consolation. I obeyed anyways as she gently guided me over to the couch, losing all strength to refuse once the onset of my breakdown approached.

The back of my thighs barely touched the cushions before the older member was pulling me into her chest. That was enough to crack through the dam stifling my endless pool of tears, and now there was nothing to keep them from flowing freely. "It's okay," Siyeon cooed softly, rubbing my back in soothing circles as I cried into her shirt. "I know. It's okay," she reassured and repeated the same phrase over again for the next few minutes, allowing me plenty of time to get everything out.

When the tears began to subside, sobs dwelling to quiet sniffles, Siyeon turned to grab something. I sat up and watched as she pulled a tissue from a box on the coffee table. Without saying anything, she turned to hold my chin and started wiping the tears off my cheeks. As I watched her face, the noticeable shiny glint in her eyes and the way her jaw clenched while she took in my (probably pitiful) appearance hinted that she was likely fighting back tears of her own. Guilt twisted in my gut knowing that I was being selfish burdening her with my pain and not even considering the hurt it might have caused her to see me in such a state.

"I'm sorry," I croaked out, grabbing her wrist.

Siyeon halted her actions, eyes flicking up to mine. "Don't apologize." Her voice was firm, but not angry. "Especially for this."

I shook my head. Why did she have to be so selfless? "You should be sleeping right now, not having to deal with this," I motioned to myself.

She put the tissue down and grabbed my hands, pulling me closer to her. "If you really think I could sleep peacefully right now knowing how you feel, then you must not know me that well." A gentle smile pulled at her lips and her voice softened, "I'd do this every night in a heartbeat if that's what you needed." The sincerity in her words had me on the brink of tears once more. There was no doubt in my mind that she meant every word she said.

I pouted. "Quit it," I mumbled, letting go of her hand to shove her shoulder. "You're gonna make me cry again." My words had her laughing. Feeling a bit more relieved after shedding some of the tears I had bottled up, I was able to laugh with her.

As our laughter died down, Siyeon leaned into me, showing off her beautiful smile. I admired it, feeling a swell of pride in my heart knowing I was the cause of it. It was honestly kind of unbelievable. Here I was, interrupting her sleep and ruining her shirt, yet I was also somehow the one making her laugh and bringing her joy. How could I be so lucky to find myself on the receiving end of such unconditional love? And how could I possibly consider myself deserving after feeling like such a burden?

Siyeon's forehead met mine, drawing me from my thoughts. As if the contact allowed her to hear my thoughts, she caressed my cheek and washed my worries away with three simple words. "I love you." It came out as a whisper, almost like she was telling me a secret. That stubborn spark of hope that I had tried so hard to stomp out the past few days ignited while we shared a moment staring into each other's eyes. The absolute last thing I needed right now was another intimate moment that I'd spend hours on end reading too much into—considering how that ended up with the whole Bora thing—but I could already feel my heart clutching onto those words and savoring the loving look in her eyes as if they were the blood that kept it pumping.

A breath unevenly slipped past my lips when Siyeon finally pulled away, giving me space. I relaxed back into the couch, straightening myself out and staring down at my hands in my lap to avoid her gaze. She shifted, angling her body and propping her head up with her elbow on the back of the couch to look at me.

"So," she trailed off, "do you want to talk about it?" Her voice was delicate, like she was afraid she'd speak too loud or say the wrong thing that would send me into another breakdown or scare me off entirely.

I hummed in indecision while I distracted myself, playing with the two adjustable strings dangling from the waistband of my sweatpants. The longer I debated it, the more I started to doubt how Siyeon would actually react. What if she just assumed I liked Bora? Or what if she doesn't think it's that at all? How would she really feel if I told her I was in love with seven different people? Any normal person would think I was insane.

Her right hand cut my thoughts short, laying on top of both of mine to stop my fidgeting. "What if I start?" she offered when I made eye contact with her.

I couldn't be sure what she possibly had to say, but, in my mind, it seemed like a better option than going first. So I agreed. "Okay," I swallowed thickly, suddenly feeling the nerves creeping back in. Now I was regretting not grabbing that bottle of water.

Siyeon released her head from her left hand and sat up straight, using both hands to grab one of mine and started softly pinching the back of it. I just hoped she didn't notice how cold my fingertips had gotten or the goosebumps that riddled my skin. "I think I have an idea of what you're going through, and I don't ever want you to feel like you have to hide this from us."

The words hit me all at once and the racing thoughts that followed were overwhelming. I was so busy trying to figure out what she thought she knew, I couldn't even appreciate how sweet her words were. She seemed to hit the nail on the head, but what she said could've applied to almost anything. There was still no way she could've known I was in love with all of them, let alone one of them.

I found myself struggling to respond. "But, this is..." my eyebrows furrowed as I focused my attention on the couch under us, face flushing at the idea of giving away too much. "This is different."

"I know," she responded immediately, as if she expected that exact reply out of me, drawing my eyes up to her. "I see the way you look at us," her voice was cautious but it didn't stop my pulse from racing, "and how you react when we touch you." Oh god, I was so obvious.

I couldn't help but feel embarrassed and panicked all at the same time. "Unnie-"

"It's okay," she cut me off, placing her hand on my waistband. "You don't have to be shy," she whispered, scooting closer. The proximity had me burning up. I had to turn my head away from her in order to focus my thoughts.

Alarm bells were ringing in my mind, alerting me that my secret had been found out. But which one? She couldn't know the whole truth, could she? No. She had to be talking about my attraction to women. "It's-" I hesitated. Was I really ready to tell her? "It's not just that." An unsteady breath left my mouth.

"Jagi, I know. We know," she emphasized. "Maybe the younger members haven't made it as obvious, but surely you've seen the way we look at you, too."

...there's no way. I must've misheard...

"I thought our flirting made it pretty obvious," Siyeon said lowly, slipping her hand under my shirt to rub her fingers against my stomach, but I was unable to react to any of it.

"You flirt with everyone," I mumbled subconsciously, my brain slowly breaking down in its spastic attempt to process everything hitting me at once. She knew.

Her warm laugh filled the room, momentarily startling me out of my mental breakdown, "okay, fair point." Right about now, I was ready to wake up in bed and realize this entire thing was a dream. It even felt like one when I started to get lightheaded. Siyeon leaned in even closer, fingers dipping dangerously below my waistband, inches away from turning this moment into something exponentially more intimate. "But it's different with you," she whispered, making the skin under her hand burn as a fire began to flare up between my legs.

My mind wouldn't give in, refusing to let me accept this as reality and bask in it like I'd wanted to for so long. It all felt wrong. She shouldn't even know, let alone be okay with it, let alone confirm my delusions??? This wasn't right. Where was the lack of acceptance, the judgement, the disgust? No normal person reacted this way. She couldn't actually mean it.

I tilted my head up, searching her eyes frantically for any sign of dishonesty. "How are you so okay with this?" I asked in disbelief. "It's unnatural. Y-you should be freaked out by it!" I stuttered as I felt the emotion choking me up again.

"It's not unnatural at all," Siyeon said, voice laced with sadness once she started to realize how I felt. "And why would I be freaked out by it?" How could you not be? How is it not unnatural?

How could you be so accepting of something that I've hated myself for feeling for the last two years?

"It- it's wrong, Siyeon," I whispered, a single tear sliding down my cheek.

In the blink of an eye, she was grabbing my chin and wiping the sadness away. "You love us," she emphasized softly, staring into my eyes, "how is there anything wrong with that?"

Those words made my heart clench painfully in my chest. They were ones that I needed to hear all along, ones that I should've been telling myself this whole time, but they were also ones that my mind still rejected, over and over again. I looked down. "But what would someone think if they found out?"

"No one has to know except for us. And it wouldn't matter anyways." Siyeon shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment as if looking for the right words to say. When she opened them again, I saw a universe of stars in them as specs of light bounced off their now teary exterior and I felt an equally limitless amount of love radiating from them. "All that matters is that you're happy. That we're happy. And I won’t let anything get in the way of that."

I stayed silent, really, truly allowing myself to soak in her words. She was right. Even my mind couldn't argue with that one. The ultimate goal was to be happy. To make them happy. Why would I possibly refuse when that happiness was right at the tip of my fingers?

Choking back my tears, I tried to keep my hopes low and remain realistic. "How do you even know it's really what the other members want?" I whispered weakly, no longer caring if I sounded insecure. All my cards were out on the table now, there was no point in trying to hide from her any longer.

"Honestly, I don't for sure. That's something you'll have to figure out on your own." She frowned sympathetically. Regret was already starting to sneak in and the idea of being rejected or having to choose between any of them had my heart aching. "But, you know, Bora hasn't stopped talking about you since that night," Siyeon's lips turned up in amusement.

"What?" I blurted out.

"She's been acting like it didn't affect her, but I know it did. She just won't admit it out loud." Everything that came out of her mouth was sounding less and less believable by the second. Had Bora really been thinking about the kiss as much as I had? "And Minji," Siyeon let out a short chuckle, "Minji is so clearly jealous. It's funny how they try to act indifferent. It's pointless, really. They're so painfully obvious." Minji... was actually jealous?

For the sake of my rapidly and unrightfully inflating ego, I hoped Siyeon wasn't making all of this up. Although, the thought of Bora and Minji fighting over me had me feeling overwhelmingly hot and I was beginning to think this was gonna be way more than I could actually handle. I never prepared for this, because it so surely seemed like a massively far-fetched fantasy... yet here it was, very quickly becoming a reality.

Even faster than I realized when I dared to ask, "And you?"

"Me?" Siyeon smiled, leaning in again. I kept eye contact, heart beating unusually fast as her finger traced my jawline. "Honestly, I'm a little disappointed you gave Bora your first kiss." Her low tone of voice left me feeling dizzy. I couldn't even say anything, frozen like a deer in headlights. Taking advantage of my stillness, she scooted even closer, making it hard to breathe. "Mm," she hummed, her lips ghosting over mine, "you really do get nervous around me, don't you?" She smirked and I subconsciously squeezed my thighs together, clenching my jaw in an attempt to distract my mind from the way she was making me feel.

My silence was enough confirmation for her, giving her the last final push to lean in. All the oxygen was sucked out of my lungs at the sensation of her lips meeting mine. I had been waiting for this moment for so long and somehow I still wasn't prepared for it to actually happened. With Bora, it was short-lived and I had been the one to initiate it. But with Siyeon, her own control and choices were variables that I could've never even considered. And the concept that she started this and that she was kissing me out of her own want made this feel so much better than I ever thought it could. The way she kissed me slowly, savoring every single second, and cherishing the taste and feeling of my lips against hers.

I could tell she was feeling the same when I backed away for a second to catch my breath and she was quick to chase my lips. I held onto her shirt as her hands clutched the sides of my face possessively, her thumbs resting on my jawline. I could feel her staggered breathing against my skin—telling me her heart was racing—while her lips captured mine over and over again in a mind-numbing rhythm. Now I was beginning to think her description of Minji more accurately suited herself. It seemed like Siyeon was jealous of Bora and couldn't wait until she finally got her turn to claim me as her own.

Eventually though, air became a problem, causing her to release my lips. I grabbed her hands that were holding my face while we both fought to catch our breath. She looked down at me, instantly smiling when she saw how affected I was. I felt shy under her gaze and released her hands to plunge into her embrace. She held me tightly as I clutched the back of her shirt, laying my head on her shoulder. A small laugh escaped her mouth, "you're cute."

I whined into her shoulder, "I'm not cute."

"Oh, really?" She teased, the hint of a smile still evident in her voice.

I lifted my head to look at her, hoping it was dark enough so that she couldn't see the blush on my face. "Yeah really," I reciprocated her smile, staring her down and probably failing miserably at looking intimidating.

I watched as she dropped her hands to my waist and moved to rest mine around her neck. "Then prove it," she whispered, cocking her eyebrow in the most attractive way possible.

My stomach bubbled with nervous-excitement once I realized where this was probably leading. Trying to fight a smile, I bit my lip as my eyes darted down to her mouth. From my actions, her tongue swiped out over her own lips to wet them. Before she ever even gave me a chance to act, she was pushing me down onto the couch and taking her place on top of me. Her hand reached out to grab my chin and her thumb moved my bottom lip from my teeth.

"Don't do that," she said lowly in a way that made the pit of my stomach burn. "Unless you want me to do this." One of her hands made its way to the inside of my thigh and she squeezed down, making me gasp in surprise. She seized her opportunity to lean in and slip her tongue past my parted lips. The sensation of it swiping boldly across my own tongue had me clutching her neck for support, feeling myself growing slick just inches above where her hand was placed. I was so shocked that I couldn't do anything in return. I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do anyways.

She could probably feel my hesitance because she finished with a kiss and pulled back to look at me. I immediately felt the need to explain my tenseness, "I'm sorry, I don't know what to-"

"It's okay," she let out a small laugh and smiled at me. I avoided her eyes, a bit ashamed by my inexperience since she clearly seemed to know what she was doing. "Hey," she whispered gently, releasing my thigh and using her hand to turn my head to face her, "there's no reason to be embarrassed." Her eyes looked so caring in that moment and I wondered how someone could be so perfect.

I smiled, feeling more shy by the second. "I know, I've just never done this before and you clearly have, so I felt the need to-"

She cut off my rambling, "Hey, hey. I know, it's okay," she laughed, finding my nervousness endearing. Her hand started combing through my hair while she waited for me to relax again. "I have to admit, I'm regretting dating that girl in high school right now because the idea of experiencing all of your firsts with you sounds really fucking romantic," she let out a laugh again, and I couldn't stop the massive grin on my face. Now I was convinced she was actually perfect... or a mind-reader, because she knew exactly what to say to make me fall even harder for her. Before she could continue, I pulled her down to steal a kiss. That seemed like a better way to express how I felt about what she said anyways. Plus, it made her laugh happily and steal another kiss back.

Once she was satisfied, she released my lips to finish what she wanted to say. "But now I'm starting to think the idea of me teaching you is way hotter," she said seriously. I laughed lightly, grateful she could so easily make my nerves go away.

"You want to be my teacher?" I teased, raising my hand to brush my thumb against her thick, bottom lip. She leaned into my touch, her lips parting and her nose grazing mine as she struggled to restrain herself. My throat went dry when an intimidating look flashed across her eyes. It was way more satisfying than I expected seeing her have such a visceral reaction to me. Now I was beginning to understand exactly why they enjoyed teasing me so much. If I knew Siyeon was really this affected by every little thing I did to her, I would've been doing it for years.

"Yes," she breathed out against my lips with such desperation that I couldn't help but smirk. "You have no idea how much I want you."

With no time to even process what she just said, her lips crashed back into mine. Now I knew I was reaping the rewards for my teasing when her kisses were no longer slow and gentle. My hands threaded through her hair while she made out with me, and her own found their way under my shirt. With the stimulating feeling of her fingers traveling teasingly up my abs, I made the mistake of parting my lips once more, granting Siyeon's tongue access to my mouth. Still not knowing what to do, I instinctively pushed her away.

"Unnie-" I mumbled.

"It's okay, baby," she said, breathless, "just relax and follow my lead, okay?"

She kissed me again before letting me reply, "Okay." And then she was back at it, swiping her tongue across my bottom lip, silently asking me for permission. So I let her have it and gripped her neck tightly at the way her warm, slick tongue was making all the blood in my body rush to my core.

She kept going, her tongue exploring a different part of my mouth every time it entered before retreating out to be replaced by her lips. After just a couple times, I felt more comfortable, and allowed my tongue to meet hers. Siyeon rewarded me with a hum of pleasure and handed off the control. She let me experiment, practicing exactly what she did to me on her. I quickly learned that the addicting sensation of my tongue inside of her mouth gave me a sickeningly intense feeling of power and had me turned on to such a degree that it was borderline embarrassing. After that, getting to be the one in charge evolved from really terrifying to way too enjoyable. Something about someone as experienced as Siyeon letting me do whatever I wanted to her was so undeniably hot.

When I finally seemed to get the hang of it, we both pulled back, panting heavily. Though, Siyeon wasn't quite finished yet, trading my lips for my jawline. She slowly planted kisses from the edge of my chin all the way to my ear and I could feel her sporadic breaths bouncing off my skin the entire way. It was like she wasn't satisfied unless her lips were on me. She couldn't get enough of me and it had me wondering if she had imagined this moment a million times before just like I had.

"You're being such a good girl for me," she praised suddenly, sending a shockwave of pleasure through my body.

"Fuck, Siyeon," I whimpered quietly out of instinct, though I knew there was no way she wasn't going to hear it with my mouth just a few inches away from her ear.

"Mm, you like when I call you that, baby?" Her voice came out husky as she gripped my thigh, biting down on my earlobe.

I inhaled sharply, instinctively arching my back off the couch, pressing our chests together. "Oh my god," I breathed out, dripping with arousal.

Siyeon groaned quietly at my reaction. "You sound so fucking sexy, babygirl," she mumbled against my skin.

"This can't be real," I said, making Siyeon chuckle lowly as she started kissing down my neck. "I have to be dreaming right now."

She finally stopped what she was doing and leaned back over my face, "Are you saying you often dream of me doing things like this to you?" The smirk on her face made my stomach twist.

"Unnie, please," I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to calm my heartbeat. If I ever wanted it to resume it's normal rhythm, there's no way I could look at Siyeon's face ever again after hearing those words leave her lips.

She laughed lightly, "you're overwhelmed."

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious," I replied uneasily, only making Siyeon let out a few more quiet laughs before running her fingers through my hair again and kissing my cheek, probably hoping it might help calm me down. "How are you not?" I tried to open my eyes but the second I saw her unrealistically attractive features, I had to close them again. "God, this is way too fucking much for any normal human being to handle."

"I think this is the most I've heard you curse in your entire life," she laughed. I just pulled her down into me, wrapping my legs around her waist. She adjusted her head to answer my question. "And I am overwhelmed, my reaction is just less in the form of almost passing out and more in the form of wanting to kiss you." That finally made me laugh and I turned my head to rest it on hers.

It was quiet for a moment while we stayed locked in each other's embrace and I was sure she could feel my heart pounding like a sledgehammer against my rib cage. Her hands now at the small of my back felt like fire against my skin and I remembered back to what she said a few seconds ago.

"Yes," I answered out of the blue.

She tilted her head back to look at me, "what?"

I finally opened my eyes and scooted to the side so that I could turn my head to look at her face-to-face. The image of her in that moment almost made me turn away. Somehow her slightly messy hair and flushed face made her look a million times sexier than I ever thought possible. It definitely didn't help when I remembered everything she had previously whispered in my ear. I took a deep breath, focusing on my fingers resting against her jawline rather than her eyes so I wouldn't forget how to speak. "You asked if that meant I often dream of you doing things like this to me... and the answer is yes," I explained, the nerves now more evident in my voice.

Without even looking at her entire face, the pull of a smile on her cheek reassured me that I hadn't admitted too much. "Good to know I'm not the only one," she mumbled, pulling my gaze to her eyes. She didn't appear to be lying, maybe a bit timid, but definitely not untruthful. Her eyes stayed on mine as we both started to realize how real this was. It was a relief finally knowing I wasn't completely crazy for feeling the way that I did and that she felt the same. Although, the thought of her picturing me in certain situations suddenly hit me and I felt incredibly shy again, reaching out to grab the collar of her shirt so I could pull her into me.

"What?" She giggled as I hid my face in her neck.

"You're going to be the death of me, Lee Siyeon," I groaned.

"Man, and you haven't even made it to the other six yet," she said seriously.

"Jesus Christ," I spoke in English, eliciting the loudest laugh from Siyeon yet.

The concept of having to go through all of this again with six other members was driving me insane. In that moment, I nearly concluded that it'd be better for my sanity if I just stuck with Siyeon (even though that alone was still detrimental to my sanity).

"Come here," she grabbed my neck loosely and gently pushed me back. "You know, you never said it back to me," she pouted. It took me a minute to understand what she meant, but I eventually remembered.

I looked deep into her eyes, finally letting all of the feelings soak in. And, after tonight, there was no doubt in my mind that my next statement was true, "I love you."

Siyeon beamed, looking over at me like I was the most precious thing in the world to her, and pulled me in for another kiss. This one was unlike the others. It was delicate and sweet and I knew it meant so much more than just a kiss. It conveyed everything she was feeling for me in ways that words couldn't. So I cherished it as if it were my last.

The sentimental moment didn't last long though, a less shocked and more disappointed voice breaking through the silence, "I should've known this is what you were up to." We drew apart, both looking up in surprise, unable to conceal our obvious guilt, finding Minji standing a few feet away with her hands on her hips. Even with the lack of lighting in the room, I could make out the expression of disapproval on the leader's face, like a mother who just caught her teenage daughter in bed with a boy. Realizing her eyes were on Siyeon, I felt somewhat relieved that I wasn't the victim of her scolding... until her gaze shifted to me and hardened in a way that sent chills up my spine.

She really was jealous and I had a good feeling I was just seconds away from reaping the consequences of making out with someone who wasn't her.

—

A/N: I might post more parts to this with the other members eventually if I ever find the time to write for it.

**This oneshot was transferred over from my Wattpad account OT5Stan4Life**

[rhiezus]

“ you… don’t like me very much, do you? ” // woori x taehun pera ai mandei errado mas vale duas tb !

of all the people in the world to be on a date with, woori never imagined she would end up with taehun. she was eager to meet him ever since she knew she could and she planned the words on her mind a few times, a casual encounter like one they both never knew that could happen. instead it was a little bit orchestrated by her and his very own ex. but it definitely wasn't suppose to go like that, none of it was, this had to be the worst first date ever. she was already embarrassed enough about it, did he even had to call it out loud? woori didn't knew if he gained points for reading her mind or if he lost it for the very same reason, regardless she wanted to go home and yell at nicky on the phone for ever convincing this was a good idea in the first place.

it all started when nicky and woori met at 1night a few months ago, the connection was instant. woori always dreamed of making nicky her friend because she really admired her ever since she saw her on television for the first time, she started following her on instagram and then just waited for the perfect opportunity to introduce herself, turns out that wasn't even needed because apparently nicky also followed her so it was destined to be. she might already be drunk when she mentioned how much she loved her relationship with taehun, they laughed a lot that day and she doesn't even remember why. the important thing to notice it's that the conversation didn't stop there, they continued to talk and meet often for drinks, gossip and shopping. they even got clicked having lunch which made people question if woori was gay, to which both of them a laugh. but that very same rumor was the one that set woori on the path that she founds herself now. after nicky questioned why she wasn't dating anyone to which woori replayed that it was hard to find someone like taehun just laying around, making her friend say something like "well, then have the only taehun that exists.".

conversation comes and goes now she is here, fumbling her first date ever. like ever. not only with taehun. she didn't want to sound like a loser by saying that through a text so she never said at all, worst come to it she just thought they might met for sex and that's it. but no, he actually wanted to get to know her and that came as a surprise, so much so that she started acting weird which might have gave him the impression that she wasn't attracted to him. how could she even let that happen? she once dreamed about his shirtless scene on the tv show he met nicky. now they were walking back to his car on silence, she kept looking through the bushes and buildings, thinking someone might capture a picture of them even though they were walking a bit apart from each other. still, that was enough to make an article about how she was a homewrecker, going after her friend ex's. was that was she was worried about? well, she was twenty, famous and never had a boyfriend, she was worried about many things.

"look... let's get back into your car." she avoided the question for a few minutes, until they finally crawled into his car. thankfully he was parked in a private place so there was not the possibility of undesirable viewers in sight. now finally sited, woori took a chance to look at taehun behind the wheel. that's when her anxious mind started racing, as soon as he came to pick her up, looking incredibly dashing driving his fancy sports car. making her doubt if she was ever enough to his standards. now, thinking about it, she didn't know how could she be so stupid in the first place. she was way more famous than him and way hotter, she had the upper hand from the start. the very thought made woori laugh, hard and loud. well, to him if she wasn't weird enough before now she was not only weird but also crazy. "oh my god! i don't know why i'm laughing. i'm an idiot and i'm sorry." she fumbled through her words, looking at his worried face made her want to act. when she finally controlled her laugh, her body half jumped from her seat and her head found his, close enough now to taste his breath with a smile still on her face. "i do like you." then her lips met his in quick peck, she didn't want to open her eyes again so she kissed him again, for real this time. the kiss a little rushed but it was a damn good one, he was just great at it was she imagined he would be and afterwards they were both hot and messy. "do you believe me now?"

[intoanotherworld23]

The Neighbor II

Pairing: Reader x Chris Evans

Warnings: NSFW 18+ ONLY DNI, no sex in this but there is loads of fingering, sexual tension, mentions of sex, swear words, drinking

Summary: Your incredibly handsome new neighbor Chris Evans moves in across the street, and he’s holding a secret that he doesn’t know if you’ll be able to handle

Part 1

Check out my other works on my Hall Of Hunks

"Bitch you really need to calm down." Pacing the room as you took a big swig of your drink. "It's not even nine yet."

"I don't know why I'm freaking out." Exclaiming feeling like an idiot for getting this worked up.

"He's an incredibly attractive guy and you were wishful thinking there would be a connection." She told you which wasn't far from the truth.

"It's just he could have said he couldn't make it instead of making me think he's going to come." At this point you were just ranting at his lack of appearance.

"Well you need to at least look like your enjoying yourself people are starting to notice." Taking a quick glance to see people side eyeing you with a weird look.

Telling yourself over and over again that he wasn't going to come, and you just wasted good makeup. Constantly glancing at your phone every five seconds, and looking over the fence to see if you could see him walking over. For some reason you were nervous, and felt like your heart was racing so fast.

For making up a pool party at last minute she was able to scrounge up a lot of people. You'd never even seen half of these people, and yet here they were. Watching as some couples danced provocatively, and some others were making out in the pool.

"This bikini keeps riding up the ass." You tried to whisper in her ear and she just laughed at you. "My ass is practically hanging out."

"That's kind of the point." Shaking her head at you as she watched you struggle to adjust the flimsy material.

"He probably doesn't even like women who dress like this." The feeling of insecurity washing over you thinking about his reaction to what you were wearing.

"Please he's a guy he'll be drooling over you once he sees you." Cocking her head at you in bewilderment. "He'll wanna rip that thing off you with his teeth."

"There's so much prettier girls here than me." Looking around taking notes of all types of skin being shown, and bodies being shown off.

"Now you and I both know that's not even true." Looking straight into your eyes with a serious look. She hated when you talked down on yourself like this.

"And slow down on the tequila you know what it does to you." She warned as she watched you pouring yourself some more liquid courage. Completely loosing track of how many cups you've had.

"I'm partying aren't I?" You sarcastically sneered at her taking another big gulp. You couldn't even feel the burning down your throat as much.

"That's now what I meant Jose Quervo." She joked as she grabbed your arm and pulled you inside.

"I don't think he's coming." You drunkenly confessed to her feeling sad now. Hating when you drank and let your emotions take control.

"He'll be here he probably just got busy and lost track of time." She was trying to make you feel better, and it really wasn't making a difference. "Or he's probably nervous just like you."

"Nobody could get more nervous than me." You scoffed as you started munching on chips and dip. "I'm pathetic."

"Bitch now is not the time to be moping over someone you just met." Sitting down next to you as she placed a hand on your knee. "If he doesn't show then oh well you were too good for him anyway."

"Now he probably won't ever talk to me again." From now on you'd probably have to watch him from out of your window. Looking like some kind of heart broken, scorned ex.

"I swear to god if you don't stop whining I'm gonna have Josh and Steven throw you in the pool." She wasn't kidding either her tone was somewhat threatening.

Turning your head to look out the glass doors you noticed a very familiar face. Straightening yourself up as your eyes went wide with excitement feeling so giddy to see the one person you were literally just about to bawl your eyes out over. Your friend noticing your change in body language and looked out the doors as well.

"Ah see Bitch I knew he was going to show." She lightly shoved your shoulder. God he looked really good too.

"What should I do? Should I go out there and talk to him?" Firing question and question as you stood up and looked into a mirror to make sure you didn't look too much of a mess.

"Actually why don't you hang in here and make him look for you." She smirked to herself at her genius idea.

"Oh you're right that's a good idea make him come to me." Nodding your head as you grinned to yourself. "Can you stay with me?"

"This isn't middle school you don't need a chaperone." Her words making you sigh loudly knowing she was right. "I'll just be right outside."

"Fine." Groaning as you stood by the kitchen counter fiddling with your fingers.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do." She winked as she walked out the door back to all the party goers.

Trying to avoid looking outside and giving Chris the impression you're basically stalking him. You wanted him to think you could really care less about his attention. Repeating in your head to make him come to you, and fight for your attention.

Placing the cup on your lips getting a whiff of the strong liquor then putting it down. The last thing you wanted was to get too drunk, and throw up all over him or something. You at least wanted to be alert when you were talking with him. Blinking your eyes rapidly hoping it wouldn't make you look as drunk.

Your back facing the door now as you heard it slide open. Closing your eyes for a brief moment as you let out a big exhale. The room was silent as you stood there, and you heard footsteps quickly approaching you. Even though you couldn't see you knew exactly who it was.

"There she is." Chris spoke hearing the amusement in his voice. Turning around to face him taking note he was shirtless.

"Here I am you caught me." Waving your hand by you making him chuckle.

"Sorry I'm a little late I got caught up in something." He apologized which made your heart warm up. "I wasn't going to miss this."

"I'm glad that you could come I was getting nervous you wouldn't show." You admitted to him mentally smacking yourself for saying that out loud.

"Don't be nervous sweetheart." Feeling yourself melting at pet name. "I said I would try to make an appearance and I'm a man of my word."

"This party was starting to get a little boring anyway." It was kind of a true statement you were just glad to see him.

"It doesn't look that boring to me." He chuckled referencing to the couples making out and grinding all over each other.

"Did you want something to eat or drink?" Breaking the silence of you two just staring at each other.

"Oh no I'm good." He waved off your offer as he stepped closer to you. "Your bikini though."

"Does it look bad?" Looking down at yourself wanting to cover yourself up with your hands now.

"Absolutely not you look incredibly ravishing and sexy." You could feel your ears burning at his choice words. "Thank god to whoever made that bikini."

"It's not mine anyway it's my friends." You really needed to stop opening your mouth and saying the first thing on your mind.

"Well I'll have to thank her for being a good friend." Chris smirked as his eyes slowly roamed your body taking every inch of you trying to take mental pictures.

"Oh yeah she's something." You joked making him laugh. He could note the sarcasm in the tone of your voice.

"So a beautiful woman like you has to have a boyfriend." It came out more as a statement than a question. Blinking at him as you thought about what he said.

"Nope no boyfriend." Shaking your head back and forth watching as he was stepping closer to you. "No guys want me."

"Bullshit I bet you've got a line of guys just waiting to get with you." He scoffed playfully not believing what he was hearing. "I know if you were mine I'd be fighting guys everyday."

If you didn't know any better you would say this man was flirting with you. The way he was looking at you had you feeling a little flustered and overwhelmed. He was holding himself back as best he could not wanting to scare you off or something. It was getting hard for him though not to bend you over the counter.

The room was starting to become thick with tension that it was getting harder to breathe. The way Chris was hovering over you now felt like a lion having caught his prey, and was waiting to devour it. You could feel sweat forming on your back, and you needed to freshen yourself up a little bit.

"I'll be right back." Lifting up your finger to him as you turned around and headed to your room. Feeling his eyes watching you swaying your hips a little bit just to entice him.

Practically sprinting to the bathroom once you knew you were out of view. Splashing some cold water on your neck to help cool yourself down. Inhaling and exhaling to calm your nerves a little bit. Staring up at yourself as you prayed you weren't about to do anything stupid. The last thing you wanted was to embarrass yourself in front of him.

Grabbing your favorite body lotion lathering your arms and legs in it. Wanting your skin to be smooth if someone's hands were to touch it. Fixing your makeup a little so it didn't look as smudged. Applying your favorite glass to your lips to give them a little shimmer. Who knows maybe you two might end up kissing, and you at least want your lips to look and taste good.

"Come on you can do this." Whispering to yourself as you paced back and forth in your room. "He's clearly interested in you."

"What if he's just being nice though?" You thought immediately your worst kind of fear coming to light. "Or he's just looking for a hook up."

Not that there would be anything wrong with sleeping with the man. It's just you didn't want to be another woman in his books. You wanted there to be something between you two. Wanting to get to know each other and form a relationship together. You weren't really into flings or one night stands.

This was the kind of man that could get any girl that he wanted to. He probably had no trouble in the bedroom or finding someone to entertain him for the night. He was oozing with confidence and sex. Lord knows he's probably had more experience than you've had.

"Just go out there and have a good time." Ending your little self pep talk as you opened your bedroom door only to be blocked by a massive body.

"Thought I lost you for a minute." Chris spoke as you stared at him wide eyed. Hoping he didn't hear you talking to yourself.

"Nope not lost." Was all you could say as he moved towards you and you automatically moved backwards. He was pushing you in the room without even touching you.

"Was starting to get nervous you had abandoned me." Repeating your words from earlier with a knowing smirk.

"I wouldn't do that to you." Responding back your voice a little louder not wanting him to get the impression you weren't interested. Which you so very clearly obviously were interested.

"Do I make you nervous?" He asked as you gulped standing there frozen now.

"No." Shaking your head slightly your voice just barely above a whisper.

"Really?" His chest almost touching yours as he bowed his head down so his lips were directly in front of yours. "Cause I think I do."

Glancing briefly down at his lips then back up at his eyes. He caught your look his lip twitching up in a smile. His eyes doing the same thing as both of you waited for the other to make a move first. You could smell the mint on his breath, and you just hoped your breath didn't reek of tequila.

His lips softly pressing against yours putting more pressure once he noted you weren't backing away. Your hands reaching up to wrap around his neck as his hands gripped your hips. Pulling you flush against his body as his kisses became more hungry.

This is not at all how you pictured your night to go. You figured you and Chris would flirt a little bit, and that would be it. Now here you were making out with the sexiest man you have ever met in your bedroom while there was a party going on outside.

Your lips moving along with his loving how well meshed your mouths were together. Feeling his hands moving around to your backside gripping your cheeks giving them a quick squeeze. Squealing into his mouth as his sudden action taking that opportunity to push his tongue inside your mouth.

You've never been told if you were a good kisser before, and judging by his groans he was enjoying this so much more than you thought. Feeling your skin under his fingertips was driving him crazy, and he needed more. He wanted to feel more, but didn't want to push you into something you didn't want.

Moving you backwards until the back of your legs bumped into the bed. Leaning a hand back as you slowly sat down so neither you or Chris had to remove your lips from each other. It was like you two were glued together, and you couldn't find it in yourself to remove him from you.

"I've been wanting to do that all day." He confessed as you smiled against his lips. Pressing your chest forward so your breasts were sticking out.

You knew this was going to become more than just making out. The way that your bodies responded to each other, and how your skin tingled with every touch. If it wasn't for the tequila you'd been drinking you wouldn't be acting like this.

"I need to feel you so badly." Mumbling against your lips as he felt his erection painfully pressing against his trunks. "Can I?"

Staring up at him as he looked all over your face for consent. He could tell you were nervous, and didn't know what to say. Hoping you would say yes since he's been driving himself mad since he spotted you in your bikini. There was something about you that had him wanting to peel back your layers.

"I don't know." Leaning back on your palms wondering if he was trying to have sex with you.

"How about I just use my fingers?" Leaning his body back as his hands were soothingly running across your thighs.

"Okay." Soon as you gave him the green light he practically growled leaning forward pushing your body fully back attaching his lips to yours again.

His body was pressed up against yours gently rocking himself back and forth. Just enough to where you could feel him over your bikini bottom. A wet spot forming on the inside of the material that he was soon to discover. It amazed you how quickly you became horny for this man you just met.

His hands moving up your body to the edge of your bikini. Pressing his fingers under the material as he slid them inside. The tips of his fingers applying pressure to your core making you moan. Cupping you with his hand as his lips moved down your cheek and to your neck.

Chris taking his middle and ring finger and slowly pushing them inside of you. Hands reaching out to grab onto his arm gripping it as he thick fingers stayed still inside of you. Opening your mouth wide as you tried to steady your breathing.

"Got a tight little pussy for me huh?" He mocked you as his fingers pulled back only to push back in. "And so fucking wet."

All you could do was just whimper and moan unable to find the words to say anything. His fingers were starting to pick up pace and rhythm. Leaning your head back as his mouth was devouring your neck and collarbone. Lifting your hips up so he could get a better angle. Chris smirking against your skin when he knew what you were doing.

"That's it pretty girl." He whispered praise in your ear as you started to grind your hips up and down with the motion of his fingers. "Such a good girl for me."

The feeling of Chris's scruff brushing against your skin had a shiver running up your spine. You were having sensory overload, and you didn't want it to stop. This man knew exactly what he was going, and knew which buttons to press. It's like he knew your body better than you do.

"Oh god." Crying out when you felt him curl his fingers up deep inside of you moving them back and forth.

"Just wait till you feel my cock." Rolling your eyes in the back of your head hearing him speak.

Lifting his head up so he could watch your facial expressions. His mouth parted slightly when he saw the absolute bliss and pleasure you were feeling. Looking down to your chest lifting your top up completely exposing your breasts to his hungry eyes.

His mouth attaching to a nipple sucking on the bud till it was erect and hard. Moving his tongue in circles as you felt his teeth bite down making you squeal. His eyes glancing up at you sensing you were getting close.

"Fuck you've got me so hard right now watching you." The palm of his hand rubbing against your incredibly sensitive clit causing your back to arch.

His free hand gripping your leg to keep them pushed apart when he felt them squeezing around him. Your mouth wide open as little whimpers and moans left your lips. It was like music to his ears and he wanted to hear more. Thrusting his fingers harder your body rocking back and forth.

"Shit right there." Screaming when he starting poking your sweet spot.

"That's it sweetheart just feel my fingers." He encouraged when he felt you squeezing your core around his fingers. "Clench that little pussy around my fingers."

Chris was straining himself so hard to not pull his trunks down and rip your bottoms off and push his cock inside you. He could tell you were a shy type of woman, and didn't want to pressure you. Judging by how you were reacting to his fingers he knew no man has ever put your pleasure first.

"You look so god damn sexy right now." Your hair and makeup probably a mess as you laid underneath him covered in sweat, but to him you couldn't look more tantalizing.

Your entire body was on fire as you felt that familiar feeling boiling in the pit of your stomach.  Leaning your head back as Chris didn't let up his thrusting keeping his eyes on you. It was the hottest thing he's watched in a long time, and he felt he might cum just from watching you.

"Shit cum for me baby." Leaning forward attaching his lips to yours as your orgasm rocked your entire body.

His lips silencing the scream that left your mouth as you released all over his fingers as they slowly pushed in and out of you coaxing you through your orgasm. Comforting you as your body shook and your legs trembled. You couldn't believe that you just let Chris finger you in your bed while tons of people were just outside.

That was the best you've ever felt, and you didn't even notice how much you needed that. The man only used his fingers and he had you panting like a dog in heat. Not only was this man painstakingly attractive but he knew his way with a woman's body.

"Shhh sweetheart just relax." His tone gentle and soft as he talked you through your euphoric state. "There you go baby."

"Holy shit that was amazing." You spoke your mouth completely dry Chris just laughed at your response.

"Like I said just wait till you have my cock inside you." Opening your eyes at him as he winked your cheeks burning up.

Pulling your bikini top down now feeling the sting from his bites. Sitting up straight as he sat next to you waiting until you got comfortable and were able to wrap your head around everything that just took place.

"Nobody's ever done that to me." You confessed looking down at your hands in your lap. You've been fingered before but not good enough to have you cumming in minutes.

"Not until now." He said proudly as you shook your head a smile on your face.

"You sound very sure of yourself." You teased back as you nudged his shoulder.

"Sweetheart it was written all across your face." He argued back playfully damn well knowing he was right.

"I guess your right." You tsked at him trying to be nonchalant but he would see right through you. Right now you needed to change the subject before more things ensued. "I wanted to ask what do you do?"

"Oh ummm." His response was weird and awkward almost like he didn't want to answer it, and he had this uncomfortable expression on his face. "I'm an inspiring actor."

"No way that's so cool." You exclaimed wondering why he seemed almost ashamed. "Ever been in anything I've ever seen?"

"Nah I haven't had any luck landing anything yet." He looked away from you and down at the ground.

"Well I'm sure you'll be in something soon." Giving him a warm and comforting smile as he returned yours with a weak smile.

"Yeah." He chuckled awkwardly as he scratched the back of his neck looking down at the floor.

There was something off about him now. Almost kind of like he was upset and or worried. Maybe you were just reading too much into it, but he definitely didn't like telling you what he did. Maybe it was a sensitive subject that he didn't like to talk about.

"I should probably head out." He stood up you following suit now wondering if you said something wrong. "Thanks for inviting me."

"Your welcome." Following him out of your room as he headed towards the front door. Awkwardly standing behind him like a lost puppy dog. "I'll talk to you later."

"Could I have your number so we could hang out some more?" His request had you beaming with hope and optimism.

"Yeah of course." Chris handing you his phone as you typed it in them handing it back to him.

"Perfect I'll call you." He smiled as he waved goodbye and shut the door behind him. Watching as he walked across the street back to his house.

Well this night turned out way better and different than you expected. Now you were kind of glad your friend invited Chris to your last minute pool party. Otherwise you wouldn't have gotten to be fingered by him, and then end it with giving him your number. Smiling to yourself at the thought of where your relationship with each other would go.

"What in the hell happened with you two?" Your friends screeching voice startling you as you turned to face her. Here we go.

[crimeronan]

I feel like Luz “Separation Anxiety” Noceda would be a bit dismayed upon learning that Vee and her friends are going to graduate and go to college at the end of the school year (presuming that Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior are Human Realm Exclusive Terms)

Like “oh my entire social life actually revolves around you and your friends because I’m too awkward and different to know how to approach people and am too nice and accommodating to any and everyone because of The Horrors to tell anybody to back off if they get too nosy so truly I cannot fathom how I’m going to function in a school setting without you but it’s Fine :) I’m really happy for you and not at all going to cry about this :)))”

Maybe she’ll join the school band to try and become socially independent and then just get really sad cause she misses Raine :(((

baby girl :(

i think she'd have a kind of tough time in a school environment to begin with, honestly. i made a post to that effect earlier but decided it was too depressing and deleted it.... but! since i ended up thinking a LOT about how her school experience would be handled. the gist was:

she'd have a really good 504 plan in place -- 504 plans are written plans that help students with disabilities stay in a normal classroom. it would have accommodations like her getting pre-written notes about what they'd discuss in class, a slightly separate desk to avoid being unexpectedly touched by other students, blanket permission to step out into the hallway if she gets nervous, extra time on tests, etc.

she'd purposefully be matched with the friendliest teachers and the easiest graders, people who are Very willing to talk with her about her needs. and also to say "i'm not upset with you." probably the really relaxed english teacher from TTT is one of them. this occasionally does remind her of raine and make her feel incredibly guilty/sad :(

and i think she'd have a one-on-one aide assigned to sit with her and show her what she's supposed to do in a classroom and help her navigate between classes. most likely this person is with her all day except for during lunch periods, when she takes her break....

this definitely marks luz Other by the student body (as having a paraprofessional does for every kid in a mainstream classroom) but she actually does not mind it! it feels like being guarded & she's grateful to have someone telling her what to do.

(in my head the aide's name is miss delilah and she's an OC who exists purely to be really kind and understanding. because please god give luz this.)

even with all of this, though....

classrooms are not Easy for luz. in the canon, she has CRIPPLINGLY hyperactive ADHD and can't focus on anything going on. she's weird and offputting and exuberant and causes ten million problems.

here, she has a LOT of baggage from belos. not just the physical trauma, but also everything she's internalized about How To Behave. she's learned a lot about how not to annoy him. and school is a public-facing event, which means she's in full Gracious Princess Mode. trying to make herself as small and unobtrusive as possible

so all of her concentration goes into Sitting Still and Being Quiet. she can't anxiously stim without disrupting the classroom, she can't chatter without annoying people, she can't chew through pencils or rip up paper without attracting Concern.

this is. incredibly stressful!! for her!!

stressful enough that she can't really retain anything the teacher says in classes. her homework is always done and her notes are always neat, but her quiz and test scores are Abysmal. because she either can't process the questions or can't remember the answers. because being in the classroom is Hard

which just adds another layer of stress. luz is like. PLEASE don't tell my mom. please please please please please don't tell my mom :(

vee doesn't really understand this -- she Loves the classroom. loves to sit at a desk and participate in discussion. loves to do worksheets. loves to get good grades and be a pleasure to have in class. Behaving Normally is a lot less stressful for vee than it is for luz.

which makes luz even clingier, when she can have lunch with vee or see her between classes. she's microdosing on being in the company of someone who feels Normal And Fine. and who has friends who clearly feel Normal And Fine. and who don't mind if luz is weird around them

luz being like oh!! you're going away. i see :) um. congratulations!! i'll be right back. i need to lock myself in the shower and cry so hard i throw up.

[gloriousmonsters]

God I LOVE the way you write the vees especially Velvette

Do you have any more poly vees headcanons

ty!!! and i absolutely do they just all tend to leave my head when I'm asked about them lol. I mostly remembered mothdoll focused ones but there's some others too :P

Valentino and Velvette are both bored by basic porn and reality TV content after seeing it created all the time and will mainly watch Hell bootlegs/remakes of things that fall on the spectrum of 'excessive violence, depressing' and 'weird and fucked up in a sexual manner'. they will both check their phones and talk through the entire film but get incredibly annoyed if Vox asks them if they want to maybe switch off Oldboy because they've been debating whether Zestial and Carmilla Carmine are fucking for twenty minutes. they're paying attention on levels you can't even comprehend. neither of them remember what the movies were about afterward except in the vaguest terms

Velvette had Valentino on a livestream to promote the launch of Love Potion (it's a perfume and you shouldn't ingest it wink wink its slight sexy influential qualities grow 100x more strong when mixed with liquid wink wink) and their chemistry worked so well onscreen that she's invited him to a few since then, mostly just to build parasociality with their audience hang out

Velvette will let Valentino do her makeup + hair sometimes because it's one of the things he can't really play with himself (his features/skin don't lend themselves to makeup and. no hair 😔) so it lets him live vicariously. Plus it functions as one of the only bits of (mostly) nonsexual intimacy they have.

aside from 'darling' and 'V', Velvette will occasionally call Vox 'prince charming', which has to be used sparingly because it puts his ego at dangerous levels for the rest of the day. Val gets 'handsome', 'pretty boy', and 'perv' or 'lech' (affectionate).

Vox and Valentino - Val especially - mostly don't get genuinely angry at Velvette, but one of the most aggravating things she does is follow them around at a slight distance with her phone out and ready to film like she's trying to catch a cat doing something funny on-camera

Velvette and Vox's monetary relationship swings back and forth between sugar daddy from Vox's end and findom from Velvette's end (Val is envious and confused about the fact that Velvette can somehow always make Vox hand over the money she wants until he figures out it's a kinky thing and it all makes sense).

this will be the focus of a fic but Vox essentially had another sexuality crisis around Velvette showing up because he'd lowkey considered himself gay despite being in denial about it because the only people he'd been genuinely interested in and the most enjoyable sex he'd had was with men so encountering a woman he was attracted to as a person took some mental adjustment

Velvette was an invaluable addition to the team but sometimes when Vox catches her and Valentino making some kind of significant eye contact when he says something 'very white', apparently, for the fiftieth time, he maybe regrets allowing this dynamic to form just a little

[suzukiblu]

One last excerpt from the next chapter of "think pink".

"You're a brat and a bastard," Tim growls. Kon bites his lip and presses in closer to him, and Bernard steps around his back and presses up close to him, covering Tim's hands with his own where they're gripping Kon's hips. 

Kon is perfectly aware that he likes to be sandwiched between attractive people, that fact about himself is in no way new knowledge, but fuck, he really likes that. 

A lot.

"Uh–one more thing, real quick. Can I use my TTK for this or should I like . . . keep a lid on that kinda thing?" he asks quickly before his fucking useless brain can actually melt out his ears, trying not to make the question sound as vulnerable as it feels. It's not that he minds not using his TTK, just . . . it's a little weird, sometimes. Makes him feel like he's not all there and not fully safe. Makes it hard to . . . relax. 

To let go. 

"The TTK's fine by me, yeah," Tim says, and Kon relaxes a little. Okay. That'll help, even if Bernard's not cool with it touching him. 

"TTK? What's that involve?" Bernard asks curiously. His fingers lace through Tim's and brush Kon's hips. They are incredibly, incredibly distracting fingers. 

"Oh, uh, it's tactile telekinesis," Kon says. "So it's like . . . a contact-based telekinetic field that I can manipulate with my mind, basically. People usually tell me it feels like there's a real heavy coat around them. So it can get a little suffocating, I guess?" 

". . . like how heavy a coat are we talking here?" Bernard asks, frowning consideringly. 

"Uh," Kon says. "Honestly, I have no idea, my concept of 'heavy' is seriously not universal. I could show you?" 

"Yeah, okay," Bernard says. 

"Okay," Kon says, and very carefully wraps him up in it. Bernard . . . blinks. 

Tilts his head. 

Blinks again. 

"Too weird?" Kon asks, repressing a reflexive wince, and Bernard just makes a strange little noise and then absolutely fucking melts against his back. 

"Just follow me around and do this for the literal rest of my fucking life, please," he groans feelingly, and Tim laughs. 

"Bernard has a bit of a thing for weighted blankets," he says with barely repressed amusement. "A big thing. So you're probably good to go, Kon." 

"I think this is actually heavier than my good blanket," Bernard says, squeezing Tim's hands and by default Kon's hips in an impressively flustering way. "Like way heavier, oh my god. Man, you and your TTK thing had better be cuddlers once it's afterglow time or I'm gonna fucking sulk." 

"We could possibly be persuaded," Kon gets out just a touch hoarsely, feeling a little weird and heated over the idea that Bernard is not only cool with the TTK but actually, like, likes it. Bernard trails his impressively flustering fingers down over the backs of Tim's knuckles; down lower over Kon's hips. Kon tries not to press into the point of contact quite that easily, but absolutely does. 

Bernard pauses, then tilts his head again. 

"Wait," he says, pressing his fingers in a little tighter against Kon's hips. "Is this like a sexy invitation thing or do you seriously just not wear underwear under your superhero suit?" 

"No?" Kon says, glancing back over his shoulder at him. "Panty lines are a thing, dude." 

". . . Kon, have you literally never worn underwear in the entire time I've known you, aside from during the jeans phase?" Tim asks in a weird voice. 

"I mean . . . pretty much, yeah?" Kon says, flicking his eyes back to him. He'd kinda assumed that was a thing Tim had already noticed. World's second-greatest detective and all. "Usually didn't even then, I didn't really have any and I just kept forgetting to buy it. And like, I'm invulnerable, so chafing isn't really a thing, you know?" 

"Don't you even wear a cup, though?" Bernard asks incredulously. 

"Invulnerable," Kon reminds him. 

"NGH," Tim says. 

"You keep making that noise," Kon observes. 

"Bed," Tim grits out tightly. 

"Bed," Bernard agrees fervently. 

Well, Kon's not gonna argue.

[foggyfanfic]

Did you guys hear Disneyland Cast Members voted to strike?

It was nearly unanimous too, 99% of the unionized cast members voted in favor of the strike. This doesn't necessarily mean they will strike, more that when the union rep shows up to the negotiation table on Monday they'll have that extra bit of leverage. Hopefully that'll be enough to win them living wages and such. I don't have anything intelligent to say, I just feel a kind of way about this subject, I'm going to put my opinions under the cut.

Ok, look, I love Disneyland. Love it with a passion. You know what reminded me this was happening and prompted me to look up the story? I was thinking of updating this card I made for one of the many games I've come up with to play in Disneyland because I have a weird variety of hyper-fixation when it comes to that park specifically.

So I am not speaking an ounce of hyperbole when I say Disneyland is my favorite place in the world.

But! Whoever the hell is making the big decisions around there needs to get their head out of their ass. I don't know if I should be blaming Bob Iger or Josh D'Amaro for the way the parks have been since the pandemic, but I'm going to blame both. I can deal with them experimenting with Genie Plus (I hate it but I'm used to capitalism), and I can sort of deal with the prices (I can't afford them easily but I'm saving up), but Disneyland has very clearly been trying to cut labor costs for a while now and it's incredibly baffling to watch. It feels like the parks are being run by somebody with a business degree from a sketchy "college" and zero experience with the real world.

They're cutting back on shows, overworking their existing staff, and skipping regular maintenance so they can operate the park with a smaller maintenance team. Overall it results in a worse experience for the customer, making it less likely that they'll convert new guests into returning fans like myself. While Disney World is a major tourist attraction that most people consider a once in a life time experience, Disneyland has always had a steady revenue from local Californians that return again and again. If you frequent forums about the parks you hear all about folks who live in SoCal that buy their annual pass (I know that's not what it's currently called, but that's what it is) and use it to get into the parks just to have dinner or rove around and maybe grab a churro. They might not be paying for Iger's next yacht, but those folks are providing a reliable revenue stream, and they go back again and again because for decades Disneyland has maintained a "magical" atmosphere.

And I feel like it's fairly obvious that the front line workers are the ones that make Disneyland what it is. Right? Like I'm not crazy, we all agree Disneyland would be nothing without the hard work of these cast members, right?

Why are they-? You need front line workers, why wouldn't you-? Do they not have years of research and experience backing up how beneficial a well paid staff is? I love the Incredicoaster but if all I wanted was thrill rides, Six Flags is an hour closer and a whole lot cheaper. I'm going for the complicated rides that require their own pit crew like Mickey's Runaway Railroad. Why are we even still having this conversation? I get that people like Bob Iger are a bit insulated from the rest of us, but the relationship between a happy staff and profit is well documented. Why wouldn't they just...? In the Disneyland subreddit a retired cast member post the Benefits Binder he got back when he worked for Disneyland and this thing was thick, it included health, retirement, and stock options. Somebody somewhere must have known that whittling down benefits while stagnating pay was not sustainable. Right?!

Like I said, I don't have anything intelligent to add to this conversation, but to be honest, I think everything intelligent to add has already been added. I'm just annoyed for my own sake and downright pissed for the sake of the cast members. I hope they get everything they ask for on Monday, and if they don't, I hope the strike knocks some sense into everybody it needs to.

[ckret2]

Does bill have "a type"? Since you said he only dates every millennium, what kinds of stuff would catch this lunatic's eye? What would motivate him?

You're getting a read more because I listed every single blessed thing I could think of. The tl;dr:

artists (who depict him)

hot eyeballs (subjective)

no head

bright natural coloration

emotional doormats

party animals

nerds, provided they're also attractive other ways

worshipers

things that can injure him

getting gifts

someone who expresses interest first but lets him take the lead

really tacky expensive displays of wasting wealth

someone he thinks is similar enough to "understand" him

This is the first point because it's the answer he'd give: if you ASK him, he'll say he's "a complete sucker for those deep, brooding artist types." He'll say this like it's his biggest weakness. He says it like it's a charming little character flaw. This is the narrative he tells himself. What he ACTUALLY means is if you hit on him, and if you have created art of him (visual art, sculpture, music, poetry), the odds that he'll return the interest go up by 1000%. He is incredibly vain, he loves art of himself, and "willing to give Bill art of himself" is an insanely attractive trait.

Some species have sexy eyeballs. Other species don't. It just so happens that Earth, as a whole, has evolved an array of eyeballs that are by and large pretty sexy when compared to the multiversal baseline. Those little, like, thready filament things in the irises? Mesmerizing. Visible veins?? Drive him crazy. Bloodshot eyes? Gonna be haunting his fantasies for weeks. Top tier is those frog eyes with multiple colors or crazy crackly-looking patterns.

He's not a fan of heads. Like, when a species puts a face on a little bobbly looking thing separated from the rest of the body, rather than right on the torso where it belongs? Looks weird. It's not a dealbreaker but he's definitely more attracted to species that put their faces where they belong. Similarly, a mouth without an eye in it looks weird.

Big fan of bright colors. You know what's attractive? Looking like Lisa Frank colored you. Wearing bright colors isn't as good as being bright colors, but he still finds wearing bright colors to be an attractive trait.

If you combine the last three points, I think that I accidentally made Bill's ideal lover a poison dart frog.

Usually at some point pretty early in the dating process he's gonna say something like "Just so you know—really, I'm not as bad as all the rumors and gossip and ancient legends and globally-broadcasted warning PSAs make me sound. But: I am totally crazy. You wanna stick with me, you've gotta be cool with crazy." What he's looking for is someone who says "oh I am SO cool with crazy, I am the MOST cool with crazy, crazy is GREAT." When he says this, he's not saying "I'm actually mentally ill and need someone who's supportive and understanding." He's also not saying "I'm a wild crazy fun party guy and I want a partner who can keep up with that lifestyle." What he's saying is "I am an inconsistent and inconsiderate asshole who will show no regard for you, and in a year when you're complaining about the selfish harmful things I'm doing, I'll get to roll my eye and go 'I THOUGHT you SAID you were COOL with crazy. Are you NOT cool with crazy??' And then I'll complain about you to my friends." So: he'll focus on naive emotional doormats he can push around. He'll probably draw back from someone who stands up to him, unless he got seriously interested in them before they grew a spine.

But that said, he is also more likely to show interest in people who can keep up with his lifestyle. He parties with apocalypse machines. If he sees an alien at a party where three absolutely wasted demigods started mixing sink chemicals and accidentally set off a big bang that took out half the neighborhood, and the next weekend he sees that alien at another party? That means they party hard, they don't scare easy, they don't die easy, and they avoided the cops. That's somebody he wants to spend time with. If they're not lover material, they might be Henchmaniac material. Similar opinions on substance use and mass destruction a plus.

He's kinda into nerds. Not in and of themselves, but if they already hit other traits he likes, that's a plus. If he has a choice between two identical people and one's dumb as a rock, he prefers the one who knows lots of things and likes to share facts and trivia. Bill goes for long, long stretches without feeling curiosity, and those stretches typically coincide with when he feels most depressed; someone who can drive him to think a little bit is a godsend.

If someone literally worships him, like as a god, he's into that. It's not partner material but he'll put a star next to their name in his booty call list.

Any novel Extreme Sensations, he likes. Particularly pain. Not a lot of stuff can hurt him in his true form. If someone can make him feel pain, that's interesting to him. Not even necessarily in a BDSM way. If holding someone's hand feels like being electrocuted, or they give off a gas that makes everything too loud and makes him see weird colors? That's someone he wants to touch.

I think I've just added another trait to the "poison dart frog" column.

His love language is gifts & favors, both giving and receiving. If somebody gives him a gift, he'll remember them positively. Even if it's a kinda lame gift. It makes him feel liked. Roses & chocolates would work on him.

He's not liable to be the first to express interest, because he finds being rejected utterly devastating. On the other hand, he prefers to take the lead/call the shots in a relationship. So if somebody lets it be known that they're interested in him, but then hangs back to allow him to make the first move? Appealing.

He's a sucker for gold and tacky displays of wealth. Like he's sort of disgusted by wealthy people, but he's very into wealth. If you're rich have fun with it. If you're not ordering a $900 sundae coated with gold leaf just because you can then what's the POINT. Also, Bill is tacky. If some multidimensional billionaire decides to show an interest in him by gifting him an extremely ugly diamond-covered top hat, he'd probably let them do things to him that he wouldn't even confess to his doctor. (He doesn't have a doctor but.) I think what this boils down to is that he's only into rich people who are living like they want to go broke as soon as possible.

He goes through most of his existence feeling like Nobody Understands Him. Part of this is because he's bad at communicating his sincere feelings & emotional needs and even worse at relating to or caring about other people; but part of it is just because there's not a whole lot of people who can directly relate to "my ambition drove me to destroy my entire universe and ever since then I've been grappling with the paralyzing guilt while struggling to find a new universe." So when he DOES meet somebody who he believes can really, truly understand him the way most people can't? He emotionally latches onto them HARD. Not necessarily romantically, but it easily could be. This is last on the list but probably the most important point to getting a genuine emotional connection rather than fleeting physical attraction from him.

Example that hits multiple of the above points: one of his longest & most emotionally meaningful relationships was with a sentient black hole who—quite literally—destroys anyone who gets too close to her, and is constantly wracked with chronic pain due to being a fucking black hole. She did poetry at open mic nights. She'd go up to a mic and say something like "this poem is called The Taste Of Unwillingly Consuming The Solar System You Called Your Home" and then scream into the microphone for five minutes without pause. Bill was like "she's the only one in the multiverse who Gets It." He is a sucker for brooding artists. She let him get away with unspeakable things because he's one of the only entities powerful enough to get physically close to her and survive. Which was incredibly painful, but hey, he was into that too.

Maybe they'd still be together if she looked like a frog.

[le-fruit-de-la-passion]

Two Hours - Chapter 2 - Shigaraki x Reader

After a little over three months, you had gathered a significant amount of information on Tomura Shigaraki.

He was smart, incredibly so, and an absolute genius with computers. He was probably the most hardcore gamer you had ever met and simply refused to lose a single match of any game. And, most importantly, he was kind of an asshole.

"Seriously? That's all the content you prepped for today? What am I even paying you for?"

He toyed with the greyed-out strings of his hoodie in boredom. "They were basically the same as the ones from two weeks ago," he grumbled.

"Well," you said as calmly as you could, "I could have prepared more if you actually did the lectures I asked you to do last week."

"They were useless."

"How could you know that if you didn't read them ?"

"I don't need to do something useless to be able to tell it's useless."

So maybe the jawline he hid under his layers of oversized black clothing was as sharp as it was delicate. Anyone could recognize an attractive jawline without making it weird. You certainly could.

"The idea is that we both work to help you, Tomura," you replied with much less bite than you would have liked. The look of superior smugness on his face didn't disappear.

Maybe the little mole under his lip looked lonely there. Like it needed to be kissed. That was a totally normal, platonic thought to have about someone you saw once a week and who did nothing but complain.

"I don't know," he grinned in a mocking sing-song tone, "I think you like helping me."

Ever since the afternoon you had spent playing video games with him, something had changed in your perspective of him. And he certainly wasn't the one who had changed: he was still very much a pain in the ass to work with.

No, the change was from you.

You couldn't remember the last time you had let anyone take a peek under your prime scholar's persona, much less someone who enjoyed it as much as he did. When was the last time you had gamed with someone? Told them about all your nerdy little interests without feeling rejected? Joked about something other than your thesis topic?

Poetry wrote itself in your mind every time you'd think of him. His skin was like cracked porcelain, pale and white, the marks marking his face doing nothing to dampen his beauty. If anything, it only made him more interesting, more enticing, and you wanted to trace each of his scars with the tip of your fingers.

You were going insane for a guy who had visibly never kissed anyone in the 3D realm, and you couldn't even find the will to care about it.

He stretched lazily, a sliver of skin showing an impressively toned stomach before it was covered back with black fabric. What else was he hiding under there?

Obviously, you hadn't gotten laid in too long. There was no other explanation as to why you'd feel so attracted to him. You tried to shake off the thought, reminding yourself that it was just a momentary lapse in judgment. But everything about him seemed to pull you in, a magnetic force you couldn't resist. Did you even truly want to?

"You know," Tomura said, his voice low and casual, "if you keep staring at me like that, people might start to think you're into me."

You blinked, snapping back to reality, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "What? No! I was just... thinking about your midterm paper. That's coming soon, isn't it ?"

He sighed loudly, slouching back in his chair, giving you the perfect opportunity to at least try to regain your composure.

"I don't know what I'm even supposed to write about. The teacher is so bad at his fucking job half the time I wonder if he's not some homeless guy the university pays to stand around and do nothing," he complained, and you couldn't help but let out a small laugh. After a second, like he had hesitated before saying it, he casually added: "You'd be way better at teaching the class."

You tried to hide your surprise at the unexpected compliment, failing miserably the moment you heard your voice come out as a shaky squeak: "Well, um, thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

"I don't say things to be nice. I say them because they're true," he retorted bluntly.

Damn it, you thought as you felt another pleased smile tug on your lips. Damn it all to hell. You couldn't let him dig his way deeper into your stupid little heart.

"You know," you said, desperately wanting to change the topic, "I could pull out my own paper I wrote back in the day for the class. I'm sure I have it somewhere back at the dorm. Maybe that could give you some inspiration!"

"Sure, just text me some pictures later," he replied, seemingly uninterested.

"Or we could go get it at my dorm now, and look at it together."

The weight of your words seemingly hit you both all at once like a 20,000-pound truck.

"Me," he stated, his thin eyebrows shot up in surprise. "At... your dorm?"

You had fucked up. You had fucked up so badly that perhaps your only choice now was to run out of the library, change your name, and leave the country.

If you took it back, and laughed it off as a stupid slip of the tongue, Tomura would no doubt take it badly. Very badly. And he was not the kind of person you wanted on your bad side.

If you rolled with it, pretended you had actually meant to invite him to a place with a conveniently lockable door and a soft pillowy bed, he might catch on as to the very bothersome feelings that you held for him. That wasn't a very good option either, but the lesser of the two evils was obvious.

"Well, guys aren't usually allowed in, b-but the security guy will let you through if I tell him you're with me !" you explained quickly, trying to sound confident.

The embarrassing truth was, you had never brought a guy back to your dorm. Fool around at some dude's apartment or in the back of his car, sure, but never inside your own private little space.

Tomura, on his end, looked like you had just asked him to go into an active war zone. "I-I don't know..." He hesitated, glancing around at every item in the library to avoid looking you in the eye. "Maybe just like five minutes? I have shit to do after, so..."

"Don't worry, we'll be in and out," you reassured yourself more than him, eager to be done with the entire situation, "It'll be fine."

---

It was definitely not fine.

The game was called Kira Kira~☆! Stories of Dormitory Love, which was a stupid name for an equally stupid game. Tomura was fifteen and he had discreetly bought it online using Kurogiri's credit card, because he had learned the hard way Sensei checked his account statements. If Kurogiri had noticed, he never said anything about it.

The synopsis of the game, if anyone could really call it a synopsis, was that you, the protagonist, were called to do repairs in an all-female dormitory. You'd go about screwing all the girls one by one as they'd throw themselves at your feet, begging to be taken with their round tits and perfect asses. Tomura spent that entire summer locked in his room playing it over and over again.

As it turned out, that scenario was much less pleasant in real life.

He felt the eyes of every girl they passed, judgmental and disgusted at the mere sight of him there. They huddled in little groups like scared chickens, muttering between themselves as they threw him worried looks. He glared right back at them, and one of them let out a small gasp like she would faint out of fear. Good. He hated it, he hated them. But to some extent, he couldn't fully blame them; he didn't belong here in the slightest.

Tomura's fingers held onto his neck protectively, his uneven nails digging as deep as they could into the skin. The pain didn't help; he was still definitely there.

And you.

You made it all so much worse with how nice you were to him, and how you laughed at every dumb thing he'd say, and how you licked your lower lip in focus every time you'd try to explain something-

He hated you for it.

"If you want, when we're done looking over my paper, we can play some Plus Ultra 2 on my computer," you smiled hesitantly at him, completely oblivious to how badly you were messing him up.

"I don't really feel like gaming anyway," he muttered between his teeth. It was a lie, an absolute fucking lie: he never felt like not gaming.

From the moment you had told him to fuck off under the rain, he had liked you. But you weren't any different from any of the dumb pretty girls he'd jack off to at night; at least not at first. You glared at him with fear and disgust, like you knew he'd spend the rest of the afternoon picturing you pinned under him and choking on his cock. And why wouldn’t you? No woman in her right mind would look at him and think he was anything other than a creep.

Until you did exactly the opposite.

You started smiling when you'd see him walk into the library. You'd laugh at his dry sarcasm and bad attempts at humour. You'd hang on to his every word when he explained the secret behind mastering a peculiarly hard combo, eyes filled with wonder. You'd look at him with pride and genuine joy when he finished all the lectures you had given him.

And suddenly, it wasn't just about how tight all your shirts looked on your chest, or how well your ass would fit against the palms of his hands. It was about everything else, all the cheesy shit he never understood and skipped in dating sims to get to the sex scenes. He despised how easily you had gotten him under your thumb, ready to do anything for you without even realizing it. He wanted you to think of him as much as he thought of you, more, even. You were an obsession he couldn't get rid of, and it itched, it itched, it itched- but not at his skin, no, much deeper, into the depths of his entrails and in a heart he didn't even realize he still had.

You turned back to look at him as if you felt his inner turmoil, a small pout tugging at your lips. He wanted to rip it off you with his teeth.

"C'mon, just one game? Last time you said you’d teach me how to triple combo with Present Mic."

"Whatever," he said instead, staring holes into the floor. Why was the floor so goddamn clean? Did girls clean their floors every day? Why was everything about you so picture-perfect?

Fuck you, he thought.

"Oh hey, Neijire!"

His head snapped back up. Oh no.

A few girls were sitting on an assortment of couches, watching some kind of stupid TV show. One of them replied to your greeting with a smile so bright it hurt his eyes. He wondered if all pretty girls gravitated around each other naturally.

The girl he could only assume was Neijire excitedly jumped off the couch, tightly wrapping her arms around your body. His lips tightened at the sudden sting of jealousy, at the fact that she could so easily touch you while the idea of holding your hand made him delirious.

"Hey, oh my gosh, you're here!" the overly energetic girl squealed. "Wanna watch some Love and War? We just started season 2 and the plot is so crazy-"

Then, she noticed him, and her bright demeanour fell slightly.

"Oh, is he... is he with you ?" she gently asked you, like she wasn't sure if it was safe to address him directly.

"Yeah, this is Tomura, one of the guys I tutor !" you replied.

'One of the guys ?' Tomura bitterly thought. Was he nothing more to you than one of the other NPCs you tutored? Did you bring the others to your dormitory too?

If you noticed how quickly his mood had soured, you didn't show it: "Maybe we could borrow the common room for a couple of minutes? I just need to go over some material with him really quickly!"

Neijire turned around to look at the other girls, the unspoken hesitation written all over their faces as they glanced at him.

"I don't know," Neijire softly started, "we just started watching TV. Maybe another time, if he comes back ?"

Please don't come back, was the implicit message under that sentence.

"No worries! We'll just go in my room," you said, and he noticed the worried fidgeting of your hands. There was no way you could feel as stressed as he did going into your room. You probably had guys in there every week, hell, every day for all he knew. What did you have to be nervous about?

As you both headed up a flight of stairs toward the second floor, Tomura couldn't help but feel some excitement in between the overwhelming sense of dread. Being in such close proximity to you, entering your personal space, stirred something within him that he couldn't quite comprehend. He had never, in his entire life, even gotten close to the inside of a girl's room.

'Toga doesn't count', his mind supplied unhelpfully. 'Toga would let a raccoon inside her room if she could.'

The moment you opened the door, it was dizzying: the flowery smell, the pastel pink walls, the books neatly organized together in shelves worthy of a magazine spread. It left a sickly sweet taste in the back of his mouth, and he tried to nonchalantly observe the room to savour every inch of it. It was probably the closest he'd ever get to tasting you.

The room was small, much smaller than his own back at the bar. A simple bed, a drawer, a suspended shelf, and a work desk with a foldable chair were the only furniture of note. As simple and boring as one could do.

But then as he walked in, Tomura noticed a few things much less visible from the doorway. Various trinkets laid around the room; a bag of takeout was haphazardly thrown into a small trashcan; a pair of mismatched socks were left on the windowsill, seemingly forgotten. On the furthest wall, there was a small but obviously cared-for poster of All Might, half of his classic I AM HERE catchphrase hidden by a laundry basket.

It was like all the girl's bedrooms he'd imagined but... different. Like someone actually lived there.

"Let me try and find that paper," you hopped away to the suspended shelf, taking out various coloured folders filled to the brim with papers. You clearly weren't kidding when you told him you saved every single one of your essays.

"You can just sit anywhere while I find it," you said without looking back at him, and his thoughts immediately went to the bed. The bed that you had slept in. The bed that you were sleeping in every night. The bed that you probably touched yourself in, and that he could justifiably sit in without looking like a creep.

He was going to go insane.

"I-I should probably just wait downstairs," he managed to stutter out. He could feel his face heating up; he had to get out of the room, and fast, or you would definitely notice.

"No no, wait, I found it !" you triumphantly exclaimed as you pulled out a stapled document from one of the many files. "There's not a lot of space on my desk, so we can just... sit next to each other on the bed and look it over?"

You smiled brightly at him, a tinge of red on your cheeks, unaware of the nuclear bomb you had just sent off in his brain. He had to say something to get out of there. Anything.

"People are going to think we're having sex," he blurted out.

Fuck.

That was unequivocally the dumbest thing he had said in his entire life. He was going to dump university and never leave his room again. He'd live as a hermit and survive off Mountain Dew and Lays chips until the ends of time. It didn't sound too bad, actually; at least that way, he wouldn't have to see your face ever again.

The look on your face stayed blank for a few horrifyingly heavy seconds. The silence felt deafening, ringing in his ears like the "GAME OVER" theme in an RPG.

And then, you laughed.

You fucking laughed at him.

Anger bubbled up inside him faster than he could control it. It itched. Everything itched.

Of course you laughed. You didn't like him, and you never had. You probably laughed at his jokes to get him to shut up. You brought him to your room out of pity, to mock him. All the girls downstairs were probably on it too, cackling in laughter at how stupid he was for thinking you saw something more than a scared-up freak when you looked at him.

"I'm fucking out of here," he spat out, storming around to open the door. The feeling was crawling up his arms, up his neck. It itched.

"Wait, Tomura!"

You grabbed his arm and he roughly shoved it away, almost making you fall down. Your eyes were blown in surprise, and perhaps, a little fear. Good. You should fear him. He'd never make the mistake of trusting anyone again. How had he even let himself trust you?

"I get it, I'm the joke. Ha, ha, you bring up the freak to your room, make him think he has a chance with you, and laugh in his face, everyone claps," he jeered.

"That's not what I meant, I-" you started.

"Is the idea of being with me that disgusting to you ?" he harshly cut you off. It came out sounding more hurt than furious. I'm so pathetic.

"Shigaraki. That's not what I meant," you said softly, as if trying to calm a wild animal. He wasn't having any of it.

"So now, you're back to calling me Shigaraki," he bit back bitterly. "The whole buddy-buddy thing was an act too, huh."

"Tomura, stop."

He looked at you now, properly looked at you, fury burning in his eyes, and you flinched.

You didn't look like you were having fun.

You looked... hurt.

"Tomura, I brought you here because I like you. As in, I really like you."

You were trying to bait him again. You wouldn't fool him twice.

"Yeah, sure," he snorted, voice dripping with irony. "That's why you laughed, right ?"

"I laughed because I was stressed out, I-I didn't know if it was appropriate to bring you here, because I'm tutoring you, and I didn't know if you actually liked me-" you rambled like a deer caught in headlights.

"You seriously expect me to believe that? That you were worried I liked you?"

"I laughed because I've been thinking about nothing but having sex with you for the last month and you're worried about people thinking we're having sex!"

The blunt admission caught him off guard. His breath hitched in his throat, his mind struggling to process your words.

"So you... think about me," he rasped out, a glimmer of vulnerability in his tone.

The weight of what you had just said seemed the catch up to you. Your cheeks tinted a deeper shade of pink, and you made an expression you had never made before in front of him. You were embarrassed. Genuinely, honestly embarrassed.

"And? So what if I do?" you mumbled, desperate to avoid his gaze.

"What do you think about me doing to you?" Tomura insisted. He was pushing his luck, he knew he was. But he had to know. He had to know if this was real.

Your lack of answer frustrated him, and he tsked in disappointment.

"C'mon," he taunted. "Where's the girl who told me to fuck off when we first met? Was that all an act too?"

Silence. I knew it, he thought bitterly.

Then, in a moment that defied all logic and expectations, you closed the distance between you both, and you kissed him.

---

It was messy, full of wet tongue and clashing teeth; it wasn't hard to guess it was the first time he'd ever kissed someone. But what he lacked in experience and technique, he made up in sheer passion, his body holding your own so tightly you felt like he wanted to swallow you whole.

You gasped for air when he pulled away, a single thread of saliva connecting your mouth to his. His eyes were blown wide, pale cheeks a deep crimson, mouth agape as if he had just witnessed an otherworldly miracle. Had anyone ever looked at you that way, so desperately raw and honest?

"Again," he let out a low, broken whisper, "do that again."

You couldn't tell if it was a request or a command, and it frankly didn’t seem like he knew either, but you immediately complied, pulling him back against you.

You guided his mouth to your bottom lip with your tongue, hoping he'd get the message. With precision, he copied the movement, watching you carefully for any reaction. You let out an approving moan and he seemed emboldened by it, deepening the kiss and wrapping his body over yours, trapping you against the wall.

When had his hand found its way under your shirt? You felt rough fingers drag along your skin, curious and possessive, grabbing at the flesh like he wanted to take parts of you back with him, like he wasn't sure this was real.

Knock knock.

"Anyone home?"

You both froze. Shigaraki looked at you like an animal caught in a trap, eyes wide and mouth still slightly agape.

"Move, move!" you hissed at him, pushing him off you. "Just a second!" you shouted at the door.

Shigaraki was still looking at you with the face of a confused child left alone in a supermarket. He wasn't going to be any help. You straightened your shirt and quickly combed your fingers through your hair before opening the door.

"Ah, Miss Kayama!" you smiled tightly at the dorm's resident advisor. "I'm sorry, is the TV too loud? I can lower the volume,"

"No, no, the TV is fine," she replied, peeking through your doorway. "In fact, I don't think your TV is even on."

You could have died right on the spot.

Miss Kayama tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, straining her glasses. "I was just made aware you brought a guest over, so I came to remind everyone that there are no visitations allowed after seven."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was seven already !" you stammered hurriedly. "I was just telling Tomura he should pack up." You turned around to give the man a look: "Right, Tomura ?"

Tomura was still standing against the wall, as unmoving as a rock. He looked as though he had been frozen in time after the kiss, like his mind had short-circuited trying to process it.

"Tomura," you repeated more pressingly.

The sound of your voice seemingly pulled him from his trance, and he nodded slowly, walking towards the door like an automaton. He bumped against Miss Kayama's shoulder, and disappeared without a word down the wooden stairs.

"I'll see you next week," you weakly called out.

He didn't answer.

Miss Kayama slowly closed to door behind her, her usually delicate features were scrunched in worry. "Sweetheart, what you girls do in your dorm rooms isn't my business, as long as you're being safe about it. But who you bring here is important to me," she added, her tone more serious than you had ever heard before. "Make sure you don't mingle with the wrong kinds of people."

You opened your mouth to answer, then closed it.

Was there anything you could even reply to that?

---

The next few days were not fun ones.

[You: Hey, sorry about the whole kicking you out thing, Ms. Kayama really means well but sometimes she's strict with the rules]

There was still no answer three hours after you sent the text, which did not bode well at all. Any time Tomura's hands weren’t on any kind of gaming console, they were on his phone. He didn’t go anywhere without it, and you'd gotten used to getting replies to your messages within mere seconds. You sent a second attempt:

[You: My TV excuse was pretty lame right]

You laid on your stomach as you kicked your legs against the bed, glaring holes through the phone. Maybe your Wi-Fi was unstable?

[You: We actually call her Midnight in the dorm, cause she gets REALLY cranky when anyone has lights on after that]

Still no answer. You felt absolutely ridiculous, a lovesick teenager waiting for her crush to give her any attention. He had kissed you. Or rather, you had kissed him, and he hadn’t exactly pushed you away. That had to count for something.

You sighed, turning off your phone before huddling in your covers and closing your eyes. He'd definitely answer by tomorrow morning.

But when you woke up, there wasn't a single new message from Tomura Shigaraki.

[You: Hey, I sent you pictures of the paper I told you about, hope it helps with your assignment!]

[You: Sent 4 images]

The day passed as it usually would. You washed your face and brushed your teeth, got dressed, grabbed a quick breakfast, and made your way to your morning lecture. The hours seemed to drag on as the teacher talked, his words going through one ear and out the other. And still, no text from Tomura.

The next day had come and gone without any more communications. Your messages sat alone in your discussion, unread. Soon, the weekend passed too, and still, no word from Tomura.

[You: Are we still on for tutoring on Wednesday? I can move it if you need me to]

To say you had been freaking out would have been an understatement. For as much as you tried to control it, you felt like a mess, barely able to go fifteen minutes without checking your phone for messages. Was he that mad you had to kick him out? Did he still think the kiss wasn't genuine? Did he leave the country to join a pro gamer team, just to get as far away from you as he could?

The questions ran through your mind like an endlessly spinning record.

[You: Just tell me whenever you can!]

Would he even show up on Wednesday? Would it be like the first time you had met him, waiting hours for him to come, except this time, he never would?

You grabbed your face between your hands. Enough. You couldn't let one kiss send you through a never-ending spiral of doubt. If he was there on Wednesday, then great, you would talk. If he wasn’t, well, you'd deal with your feelings then and ask the faculty for someone else to tutor him.

And if you left the volume for your notifications on at maximum for the next few days, well, that was nothing more than a coincidence.

---

"Hey."

The familiar yet unexpected raspy voice almost made you fall out of the library chair, the sound of your book dropping on the table echoing through the building. The librarian threw you a dark look you barely registered, your mind focused on the tall man with dark red eyes standing next to you.

"Hey," you hesitantly said, awkwardly fidgeting with your hands. When had you gotten so self-conscious? "I wasn’t sure if you would come."

He answered with a small grunt, still not sitting down next to you. Deep, dark circles sagged under his eyes, and you wondered if he had also spent his week barely sleeping every night.

"Well," you said in the happiest tone you could muster, "we can start by checking your draft for the midterm, and seeing what we can add-"

"I already finished the midterm," he interrupted drily. "I sent it in last night."

"Oh," you swallowed slowly. Your throat was starting to feel itchy. "I guess we can... start looking at your next lectures then."

"I don't want to," he objected. "Let's just go somewhere instead."

Out of everything he could have said, that was one of the sentences you least expected.

"Tomura," you answered with uncertainty, "I'm still supposed to be tutoring you."

"And I'll tell the advisor you're the best fucking tutor there ever was and this session was great, now, will you just shut up and follow me ?" he groaned impatiently, his right hand wrapping around his neck and scratching at the fragile skin. He was anxious.

"Alright," you said softly, gathering your things before getting up and silently following the man out of the library.

The walk there was not the comfortable, calming silence you had gotten used to around him. It felt clunky, awkward, the unspoken weight of last week's kiss like a dark cloud above your heads, ready to erupt in thunder at any moment.

Once again, he led you off the beaten path and into alleyways you had never taken before. What did you truly know about him, after all? There had been so many unanswered questions about who he was outside of university. What insurance did you have that he wasn't leading you to an abandoned lot to snap your throat and sell your organs off to the highest bidder?

He stopped walking so abruptly that you bumped into his back, immediately backing away in fear of angering him. But he said nothing, staring blankly at the sign above the building, the neon light of the word "ARCADE" turned off. A huge padlock rested heavily against doors that had once been painted into bright, colourful motifs that had faded into an unreadable mess over time.

"Tomura, it looks closed," you remarked slowly.

"That's because it is," he answered drily, pulling out what looked like a bent paper clip from one of his pockets, hands instinctively going for the lock. After a few seconds of fidgeting, you heard a distinctive click, and the lock fell to the ground with a sharp metallic sound.

He smirked at your obvious surprise, welcoming you in with a flourish on his hand:

"Come on in."

You followed him in with as much confidence as you could project, which was not much considering the probability of him murdering you in an abandoned building had just significantly gone up.

The arcade was much larger than it had seemed from the outside, and had clearly been marked by the passage of time. Though there was no light on or a single window, you could make out the shapes of turned-off gaming arcades placed haphazardly throughout the room, as if the owner hadn’t been sure where to put them. The walls were covered with wallpaper that had seen been days in the eighties, old water marks deforming the large flower pattern.

Suddenly, your foot caught into something, and you yelped in surprise as you felt yourself lose balance. A surprisingly strong hand caught your arm, steadying you back on your feet. You stared at Tomura with your eyes wide, heart skipping a beat when you realized he was still holding onto you.

"Thank you," you said gently, and he let go instantly, like the touch had burnt him.

"Be more careful," he mumbled under his breath, quickly putting his hands back into his pockets. "I can't always be there to save you if you're that clumsy."

Suddenly, somewhere in the darkness, a man's angry voice rang through the arcade:

"If you goddamn kids are trying to break in again, I swear to God-"

You froze in fear as a large figure emerged, dressed in a bright purple suit and holding what looks like a metal pipe in his hand. You screamed, paralyzed into place, but as soon as the man saw Tomura, he lowered the makeshift weapon, squinting as he adjusted the small round glasses on his nose.

"Oh, it's you," he said with disinterest. You tensed as he dropped the pipe to the floor to take a puff of his cigarette, the metallic sound confirming just how heavy the thing was. "The usual?"

"Yeah," Tomura confirmed, impatiently putting his arms on the admission counter. "Hurry it up."

The older man hummed, unperturbed, like he hadn't just almost killed you for breaking in. He walked to a larger machine in the corner of the room, and inputted a few numbers on the keypad. Suddenly, the lights turned on, their artificial glow blinding. Heavy wiring sounds echoed through the room as the arcades individually powered up, chirpy 8-bit music starting to pour out of various sound systems. The whole room had suddenly taken life, like an old beast waking up from a thousand-year slumber.

The man reached into one of his deep suit pockets, pulling out two dozen shiny silver tokens before slowly counting them, cigarette still tucked between his lips. He handed them to Tomura who immediately pocketed them, not throwing a single glance at the man in the suit. The man sighed, blowing another puff of smoke, before seemingly noticing you for the first time. His lips widened into a mellow smile, revealing a missing front tooth.

"Why, Shigaraki," he purred, running a hand through his short gray hair, "you've never brought company here before. Will you introduce me to the lovely lady ?"

"Keep it in your pants, Giran," Tomura grumbled, the warning clear in his tone. "Leave us alone."

The man sighed in disapproval: "Snappy today, aren’t we? Then again, when aren't you..."

Tomura went past him without a word, and you hesitantly followed, throwing an unsure look at the older man.

"Well, I'll be in the back if you need me, don’t forget to close up when you're done," he called out, picking up the metal pipe from where he had left it on the floor.

"Yeah, whatever," Tomura replied without looking back.

You followed him through the strange maze of glowing screens and bright cabinets as he moved forward with a clear goal in mind.

"So, um, who was that ?" you asked with uncertainty.

"Some guy I know," Tomura replied. "He owes me one, so he lets me play in here for free when the arcade is closed."

That answered absolutely none of your questions. If anything, it added more. Why would this shady-looking man in this barely still standing arcade let him roam around and do as he pleased, with nothing in exchange? What kind of weight did Tomura have in these backstreet alleyways?

"Oh... alright," you replied miserably, not wanting to press the subject harder.

"Stop thinking so hard, I can hear it all the way from here," he complained.

"Sorry," you almost whispered, feeling the embarrassment creeping in. Had you always been so easy to read, or was he just that good at seeing right through you?

"Whatever," he replied with disinterest, "look at this instead."

He had stopped in front of a peculiarly large machine, in a significantly better state than anything else in the arcade. The bright yellow of the cabinet, the familiar little tune that rang from the vintage loudspeakers unmistakable.

"No way," you gasped, in awe of the inconceivable treasure that stood in front of you, "that's an original 1991 Plus Ultra arcade cabinet..."

"With the original paint job and controllers," Tomura completed, absolutely glowing with pride.

You approached the cabinet slowly, admiring it like an ancient artifact from a museum. It might as well could be one: out of a hundred produced, only three were known to still be up and running around the entire globe. It was the stuff of legends, the kind of priceless gem most people would have to settle with only ever seeing in the confines of a laptop screen.

"That's so cool," you whispered, running your fingers over the worn-out buttons with reverence, feeling the age and wear of the machine. What was it even doing in this dump?

"You haven't seen shit yet," Tomura said with a mischievous grin. "Wanna take her for a spin?"

If you could have kissed him right then and there without making things more awkward between the two of you, you would have.

---

Unsurprisingly, Tomura was good at every game he touched: from shooting games to rhythm ones, it was like he understood the secret behind every machine, long fingers nimbly moving at the speed of light. He took great pride in every win, grinning smugly for each ass-kicking he handed you. And yet, you couldn't resent him for it; you were having the most fun you had in years.

It wasn’t just the games, either. It was him. It was the way his eyebrows furrowed in concentration when he shot 2D zombies, the way he'd mock you for getting a low score at the racing simulator yet always took the time to show you how to ace all the difficult maneuvers, the way he made your heart bump increasingly against your chest every time his arm brushed yours. It was all maddening, and yet you would have exchanged it for nothing else.

"Ah, shit, it's already eight," he said, bringing you out of your reverie. You looked in the same direction as he did, surprised to find a working clock suspended on the dilapidated walls. How had time passed so fast? "We gotta go," he added.

You couldn't help but let the disappointment slip through your voice.

"Oh, alright..."

Tomura didn't answer, long legs already heading towards the exit. You followed him like a lost puppy, looking around for the man in the suit you had met earlier.

"Shouldn’t we thank the owner for letting us play ?" you asked.

Tomura looked at you with confusion, seemingly perplexed at the very concept.

"Why? I told you, he owes me."

Without another word, he walked out the door, leaving you alone in the derelict yet brightly lit arcade. You couldn't help but yell out a "Thank you!" towards nowhere in particular, hoping your words would reach the elusive man. When no one answered, you walked out to join Tomura, throwing one last look at the strange room before the door closed behind you.

"Took you long enough," Tomura mumbled, putting the forgotten padlock back into place and snapping it shut. Just like that, it was back to being an abandoned building like any other, none of the lights or sounds escaping through the thick doors. There was something nostalgic about it, as if the arcade existed somewhere outside of time and space.

"Thank you for today," you said genuinely, locking your eyes into his. He obviously hadn't expected your earnestness, his pale skin quickly turning red as pointedly stared at the floor. "I had a lot of fun."

"Whatever," he replied in a way that made it painfully clear it was not whatever, and that was quite pleased with himself. "We need to hurry up, we're already late."

Late?

"Late to what ?" you asked.

"Stop asking so many questions all the goddamn time. You'll see when we get there."

"You're just bitter because I kicked your ass on the last round."

"I went easy on you because you're not used to arcade controls. Don't let it get to your head."

You could add ‘sore loser’ to the list of things you knew about him, you thought with a smile.

Whatever awkwardness had been there earlier had completely vanished, and you felt at ease walking next to him and letting your fingers brush against his. Of course, the kiss hadn't fully left your mind, but you felt like you could breathe around him again, like he had brought you both back to the way things were before the dorm incident. Maybe a friendship wasn't exactly what you wanted, but if it was what he wanted, you could respect that.

"It's here," he said, interrupting your reverie.

Much like when he had brought you to the arcade, at first, you thought there had been a mistake. This time however, it wasn't because it looked like an abandoned warehouse.

It was because it was the exact opposite of an abandoned warehouse.

The building was positively lavish, decorated from top to bottom with delicate mouldings and golden ornaments. The red marquis at the door shone with bright, warm lights, the entryway surrounded by a perfectly cut hedge and vases filled to the brim with red roses.

It screamed of luxury, opulence, and most of all, money.

"Tomura,” you started uncertainly, feeling fidgety at the idea of even standing in a 10-mile radius of something so expensive, “I can't afford this."

"Me neither," he shrugged, seemingly totally unbothered by the situation, "but I'm not paying."

He walked in and you had no choice but to follow, feeling somehow more nervous than when you had both broken into a building barely a few hours earlier.

If the outside of the restaurant had seemed overly extravagant, the inside was unfortunately much worse. The walls were all covered with those abstract paintings that cost an arm and a leg; the floors seemed to be made out of real marble, the kind with delicate gray veins and a pearly shimmer; in the middle of the room stood a large chandelier, from which dangled hundreds and hundreds of tiny diamonds. It was out of a fairy tale.

"Reservation ?" the maitre d'hotel asked, cocking an uncertain eyebrow at your duo.

Embarrassment shot back up into you as you realized what you both looked like. You weren't wearing anything peculiarly provocative, per se, but you looked so out of place when put next to the sea of suits and sparkling dresses that you might as well have been wearing a full clown get-up.

"Shigaraki," Tomura said plainly, like he was annoyed the man would even ask him that question. You were surprised a security guard hadn't kicked you both out yet.

The man's eyes widened. He muttered a few words of apology before turning around and almost running into the backroom. From the oval windows on the doors, you could see him hurriedly grab another man by the shoulders and ask him something. After a few seconds of back and forth, the man came back out, looking slightly nauseous.

"Of course, my deepest apologies for the wait," he stammered with a deep bow before motioning you towards the dining room. "Please, follow me."

The table he brought you to had obviously been carefully selected. The glass wall it was next to gave a beautiful view of the outside street and the setting sun. It was close to the live musicians, without being too close, and a little further away from other diners, like it was its own little world. It was impossibly… romantic.

The maitre d'hote pulled your chair for you to sit; you felt like royalty, if royalty wore shoes that had been 60% on discount during last year's spring sale.

The man left with another curt bow, and you attempted to open your mouth to ask Shigaraki just what exactly was happening. But seemingly out of thin air, another well-dressed man appeared, holding a large bottle of wine.

"You should have told me we were going somewhere like this," you whispered as the waiter poured you two glasses from the bottle, which, upon closer inspection, looked to be worth about your entire college tuition. "I feel… underdressed."

And entirely out of place.

Tomura seemed unimpressed, shrugging in disinterest as his lithe fingers toyed with the perfectly folded mouchoir on his plate, effectively ruining its shape. "You look fine. Who cares what some random NPCs think?"

"Still, this is...", you hesitated, glancing at the seemingly unending parade of crystals from the chandelier on the ceiling. Was that an indoor water fountain in the middle of the room? "...A lot," you concluded.

"You don't like it," he flatly stated.

"No, that's not what I'm saying !" you hurriedly answered. "It’s gorgeous, it's just... I didn't expect this for a… first date?"

A moment of silence passed, crimson eyes observing you with an unreadable expression, before Tomura said:

"Who said anything about a date ?"

Your heart dropped.

You swallowed with difficulty, finding that all your saliva had mysteriously vanished from your mouth. "It’s... not?" you hesitantly asked.

"I mean, it's not like it isn’t, but it's not a date either," he explained vaguely, looking away from your face, "it's just us, going out somewhere. To do a thing. Like the arcade. There's no need to make it weird."

"Ok," you replied, trying to hide your disappointment and the bundle of conflicting emotions this night had built up in you. One thing at a time. "Well, I like this... thing. Even though that glass of wine probably costs more than my entire salary as your tutor," you commented with the most honest smile you could try to muster.

Thankfully, the playful, snarky expression was back on the man's face: "All the more reason for you to drink it, then."

There was something pompous yet bored in the way he drank, like he had been raised on some sort of wine etiquette and still unconsciously followed its rules. You sipped the wine politely, afraid of angering some sort of wine diety by not properly appreciating what was clearly a great vintage.

"So, what made you choose this place ?", you inquired. "It's not exactly the type of place I expected you to frequent a lot."

"I asked a friend," he replied with little interest. "He said girls like that type of shit.” He licked a few drops of his lips, and you couldn't help but immediately remember the feel of them against yours in your bedroom.

Focus, you scolded yourself.

“Was it the guy from the bar? Dabi?" you asked, remembering the encounter with the ominous-looking man.

"Hell no, I wouldn't ask that guy for advice if my life depended on it," he scoffed. "He's some guy I know online. We play League together sometimes. He's alright."

"So, you asked a random guy online where to take girls on... things that aren't dates ?" You raised an eyebrow, feeling a smile tug at your lips.

"Stop saying it like that, and no, Spinner isn’t some random guy, I know him," he clarified defensively.

You couldn't help but let out a laugh: "His name is Spinner ?"

"His gaming handle is Spinner, just-" he interrupted himself, lips thinning into an accusatory pout. "You're doing this on purpose, aren’t you."

"Yeah, kind of," you admitted.

His lips stretched into a small smile, like he couldn't make himself stay mad at you for more than a few seconds.

“I can play that game too,” he replied with a half a grin.

Before you could say anything, a hand made its way to your thigh, and your leg bumped against the table in surprise. His palm was cold, refreshing against your skin which felt like it was warming up by the second. You barely managed to suppress a squeal when he squeezed his fingers into your flesh.

"Tomura..." you whispered, a mix of desire and apprehension in your voice.

The look on his face had gotten more smug, his eyes dark, cleared emboldened by your reaction.

“Relax, you're moving around too much. They'll notice,” he admonished you in a falsely sweet tone. His hand went up a few inches higher, sliding closer towards the inside of your thighs.

The chatter and music inside the restaurant had turned to pure white noise. His nails dug gently but firmly into your skin, his long fingers massaging the meat of your thigh. It was like you were back with him in your dorm room, your body burning like wildfire with the way he seemed to revere touching you. Time stood still for a moment, and you let yourself drunkenly sink into the feeling.

A foreign voice broke you out of your stupor and of the moment you were sharing, alarm bells going off in your head at the idea that someone had noticed you both. Tomura very reluctantly moved his hand away from its dangerous position, staring daggers at the intruder.

“Sir, Madam, would you like me to introduce tonight's menu?” the unsuspecting waiter asked, totally obvious as to what he had just interrupted.

“No,” Tomura replied, cold as ice. The waiter's eyes widened slightly; was it out of surprise, or fear? “Can't you see we're busy?”

“Of course, of course,” the waiter apologized hurriedly, taking a step back, and now, you knew for sure the man was scared. His body was rigid, holding onto the printed menus for dear life. You could fully understand someone being nervous when faced with a disgruntled Tomura, especially if they didn't know him, but this was something else. The man was scared shitless.

“My most sincere apologies. I-I would never have interrupted if I had known- Please do tell your father that-”

“Leave.”

You knew that tone. It was the one he had used when talking to Dabi the day you had met him. It was like the growl of an animal warning its prey of the incoming attack, giving it one last chance to run before it would pounce.

The waiter swallowed with difficulty, his terrified gaze stuck on the floor, and after muttering something that sounded like five different apologies strung together, he left the table so fast he might as well have vanished out of thin air.

The tension could be cut with a knife. Tomura's pale brows were furrowed in displeasure, the hand that had so fervently caressed you now wrapped around his neck. He scratched at his skin, rough and unforgiving, and you noticed you hadn't seen him bruise himself that way in quite a while, now.

You cleared your throat.

“So, your father-”

“Don't.”

His lips had thinned into a line, his crimson gaze lost somewhere beyond the window you sat next to. The scratching continued, practiced and mechanical, and you could see his pale skin turning an angry red under the pressure of his nails.

“Tomura…” you sighed. “I'm just trying to get to know you. I don't understand what you want from me.”

His eyes flickered back to you.

“One minute I'm kissing you,” you explained, “and you're kissing me back, but then you don't answer my messages for a week. And then you bring me to the arcade, and to the fanciest fucking restaurant I've ever been to, but you won't say it's a date, and when I ask anything to know you more you shut me down!”

You hadn't realized you had raised your voice before you finished your rant. You realized with embarrassment the two tables closest to you had paused their conversation to look at you. You could have dug a hole into the ground to bury yourself if you could. Why did you always end up feeling that way around him?

Tomura stayed silent.

Now, you were starting to get a bit more than frustrated. His eyes were fixated on your face, like he was trying to gauge something, but he still said nothing. You had poured, shouted your feelings out, and they had fallen on deaf ears.

Before you could gather the shreds of dignity you had left to get up and leave, Tomura finally spoke, voice raspy and deep.

“You want to know me?”

You could have thrown your hands in the air in exasperation.

“Yeah, I thought I made that pretty obvious,” you replied drily.

“Fine, then,” he said, leaning forward. “See the water fountain in the corner?”

You turned your head to face the direction he was looking towards, easily spotting the imposing water feature.

“There's some restrooms right behind that. The men's are fine, but the women's are better. Cleaner. More space.”

You wanted to ask how he knew that the women's bathroom was better than the men's, but you had more pressing questions.

“I don't get where you're going with this.”

He grabbed his glass of wine, finishing what little liquid had been left before shrugging, the hint of a smile dancing on his lips.

“Haven't seen anyone walk in there since we got here. I think it's empty.”

Why would it matter if the bathroom was-

Oh.

Oh.

"Tomura, we can’t," you protested immediately, thoughts in your mind racing.

"You do what you want," he replied dismissively as he got up, his eyes never looking away from yours. Why was his stare always so intense, so enticing? "I'm heading over there. You can decide if you want to come or not."

Without leaving you time to say another word, or even formulate another thought, he was walking away, disappearing out of sight behind the fountain.

You couldn't tell if you were mad, confused, frustrated, or horny.

Tomura Shigaraki was a roller-coaster, and you didn't know how to get off it.

He was so profoundly different from anyone you had met, let alone romanced before. He was unpredictable, his mood swings constantly keeping you on your toes, but there was undeniably something you liked about that. About how unapologetic he was to be himself.

But you? You had spent your entire life building a fortress of perfection to hide behind. You got As on every assignment you were given. You finished on top of your class, in every class. You graduated with honours and three scholarships to boot. But was that you, or the person you wanted everyone to believe you were? When was the last time you did something stupid, for the hell of it? When had you been to an arcade with a friend and fooled around for hours without worrying about anyone else's thoughts?

You glanced back at the bathroom at the far end of the restaurant; no sign of Tomura. You knew he wasn't coming back.

You looked at your table, staring at your half-empty glass of wine, the liquid the same colour as his eyes. He was brash, and impulsive, and never let you catch a break. You thought back to Ms Kayama's words, back at your dorm. Everything about him screamed ‘bad idea’.

The choice became clear.

You chugged the remains of your glass, and, lightheaded but not hesitant anymore, you made your way to the bathroom.

—-

It took a grand total of three steps inside the women's restrooms before you were unceremoniously whisked away into one of the stalls, two hands crashing on the wall on both sides of your face.

"Knew it," he smirked wickedly, "you're a pervert like me."

For as much as he made himself look unbothered, you could see clear relief in his features. He was scared you wouldn't follow him.

"It's not like you gave me many options,” complained mockingly, his crooked smile contagious. “What was I gonna do, get up and pay the wine myself? I would be in debt for the next forty years."

"You always talk too fucking much. You need to learn to shut up.”

Dry yet increasingly familiar lips crashing into yours, closing the gap between your bodies. He was already a much better kisser than he had been a week prior: he was making full use of his tongue and teeth, tasting every inch of your mouth and possessively biting on your lips. You responded in favour, wrapping your arms around his shoulders to bring him closer. The ends of his hair tickled your fingers, soft and curly. When you pulled away to catch your breath, his pupils were blown wide, a drop of saliva making its way down his chin.

Beautiful, your brain supplied. The word you're looking for is beautiful.

"Can I…" he hesitantly started, and he was back to being the lost little boy who ran away from your room without a word, like he fully expected you to reject him. How could one man go so fast from self-confident and controlling to awkward and unsure?

"Tomura," you said, pressing yourself ever closer to him. His eyes darted to your cleavage pushing against his chest, and right back up, as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed to stare. The temperature in the room had gotten so warm it was dizzying, but you wanted to be closer, always closer. "I would not be in a restaurant bathroom stall if I didn’t like you.”

He swallowed with difficulty, one hand hesitantly gliding down your shoulder and stopping at your collarbone.

"I'm not going to warn you again, alright?" he muttered. "You can't just back out after this."

You grabbed his arm, firmly laying his hand on one of your breasts, before kissing him deeply. He let out a small sound of surprise, frozen in place. Then, it was as if he had awakened all at once, his fingers grabbing all they could hold onto. You moaned encouragingly in his mouth as the digits got rougher, possessively latching onto the supple flesh with the desperation of a starved man. When you pulled away for air, his grip on your chest did not lessen, instead being joined by his other hand. You muffled out a moan as he sharply massaged your breasts, the slight pain of his forcefulness unbelievably intoxicating.

"Fuck, your tits are so soft. I could shove my face in there," he rasped out. He was drunk off the feeling, off his own words, and you couldn't blame him, because you weren't faring much better. “No wonder that fucking waiter couldn't stop staring at them."

He pinched your nipples with the tip of his fingers, and you moaned. He looked positively delighted by your reaction.

"The waiter wasn’t staring," you protested weakly.

"Of course he was," he dismissed, twisting your hardened buds again to watch you squirm under him, "but it's too bad for him. I'm the one who gets to touch you today."

He pulled off your top so fast you wondered if he had ripped it. Nimble fingers took off your bra in a single try, and if you hadn't known better you could have believed he had had practice with this. You thought back to your afternoon at the arcade, how agile he was with his hands. How good they would feel grabbing your body instead of a controller…

Tomura watched the jiggle of your freed breasts with so much intensity and reverence you covered them with unexpected shyness, feeling your cheeks redden.

He frowned, grabbing both your wrists.

“Don't fucking do that.”

You let him guide your hands back around his neck as he bends down, and without warning, he wrapped his mouth around one of your tits.

"How are you so warm…" he mumbled against your skin, more to himself than you.

Through the thick fabric of his sweatpants, you could feel his erection rubbing against your leg. He was as hard as a rock, rutting more and more rapidly, and you wondered if he would cum untouched. While there was certainly something very flattering about that idea, that wasn't the way you wanted your first time to go with him. You wanted to show him you cared. You wanted to show him just how much you wanted him.

You pushed him gently, and he looked at you with dazed confusion, and a little annoyance, like an animal whose bowl of food had been taken away.

You gave him a small kiss on the top of his head to appease him before bending down and falling to your knees. You gently pushed his pants down, exposing boxers with a large stain of precum, the outline of his dick pressing against the material with desperation.

"Hey, wait, what are you..."

"Shh," you smiled up at him, "you talk too much."

If the restaurant patrons hadn't heard your hushed and whispered moans, there was absolutely no way they hadn't heard the ungodly sound that came out of Tomura's mouth when you wrapped your mouth around his length.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck-"

The taste wasn't as bad as you would have expected for someone who changed clothing as little as he did. The smell of musk and sweat wasn't pleasing, and neither was the lemon-scented cleaning product they seemed to have scrubbed the entire bathroom floor with, but god, was it worth it for that face. The skin down to his collarbone was bright red, his eyes rolling into the back of his skull, his lips opened into the first syllable of a curse he couldn't manage to push out.

His thighs started shaking uncontrollably, and even if you were certain this was the first time someone touched him this way, you couldn't help but feel some sort of pride at the idea of unravelling him so quickly. Unintelligible strings of words were the only thing that escaped his lips between raspy breaths, and he let out a deep groan when you licked across the thick vein on the side of his cock.

"H-how many times have you done that before, shit-"

You could already taste fresh precum on your tongue, and you doubled your efforts, determined to make him see stars.

"I'm gonna cum," he barely panted out, grabbing the back of your head savagely, "don't you dare fucking move away."

He was in too deep, the rapid movement of his hips making you gag, but before you could pull away he came, the warm liquid filling your mouth. You coughed, ready to spit it out, but he put his hand on your mouth, his eyes glowing under the fluorescent light of the bathroom stall.

"Swallow" he simply said.

He watched the movement of your throat with utter fascination as you obeyed him, the salty taste burning. He was already getting hard again, the idea of holding so much power over you clearly arousing.

He fell to his knees and kissed you deep, his hands back all over your skin, flickering his tongue against yours as if chasing the taste of his cum in your mouth. Maybe he was right calling himself a pervert. But then, you were also one for liking it.

“Can we… do that again?” he mumbled after a few minutes against your lips, voice strained. Strands of white hair had stuck to the sweat on his forehead, and you pushed them gently to the side. You wanted to say yes. You wanted to stay here forever.

But as the fog of sex dissipated from your mind, you were starting to remember where exactly ‘here’ was.

And exactly how loud you had just both been.

"Tomura…" you swallowed with difficulty, putting a hand on his chest to put some distance between the two of you, "there’s absolutely no way the entire restaurant didn't just hear that. We're in huge trouble. They're going to kick us out as soon as we step out of here."

Oh, God, forget kick you out, what if they were calling the police? Could you get arrested for having sex in a restaurant bathroom? Surely a place like this one had connections all over the city, hell, all over the country! What if they kicked you out of school? What if-

"They can't kick us out if we're gone" Tomura interrupted your rapidly derailing train of thought with a smirk.

"What?", you replied, stunned.

Wordlessly, he pushed the bathroom stall open and headed towards the furthest wall, bare except for a few ornate mirrors and one small window. In one surprisingly agile jump, he grabbed the ledge of the window, pulling it open enough for his body to slide through. He looked back at you from outside, a smug expression on his face.

"We can't just leave without paying for the wine !" you hissed, looking behind you in fear someone had heard the sound of his acrobatics and opened the bathroom door. But there was no one.

"Let them worry about that," he shrugged, "the reservation isn't under my name anyway. At least, not exactly."

"But-" you protested.

"Trust me."

It wasn't a question, but a statement. And deep inside your heart, no matter all the warning flags and unanswered questions, the abandoned arcades and fancy restaurant bathrooms, you knew it was true.

You took his hand.

[madamegemknight]

How about MOTU hot takes? From any iteration (the 80s cartoon, the comics, the cgi reboot, the other serious reboot)

rubs my hands together maniacally. boy oh boy crispy you are ENABLING me here we go >:3

The 1987 movie really isn't as bad as people make it out to be. It's not great, don't get me wrong, but the people who made it were clearly passionate about what they were doing and it's a fun (if somewhat aggravating at points) ride. Dolph Lundgren is a good He-Man who understands that the character is just as much about his heart as he is his muscles, the way it and the Power Tour serve as sister experiences to each other with their incorporation of music and Earth storylines is fascinating to examine, and while Julie's subplot about her dead parents is utterly pointless, I think Kevin and Julie are two genuinely likable characters who deserve a second chance in the grander scheme of things.

The Greatest Show on Eternia is the worst episode of the Filmation series and should have never been made, but the way Masters of The Multiverse chose to "address" it was immature, childish, and nearly tipped the comic into edgelord territory for me. If something is bad, you should take the time to figure out what went wrong, then try and fix it - you shouldn't murder the only tolerable character in that episode and then have an aside about how the Eternian Circus is being thrown into chaos because of that murder that does nothing to progress the overall plot!!! wadda heck!!!!

CGI!Krass did literally nothing wrong. She was a deeply traumatized kid who was absolutely correct regarding pretty much everything (especially wanting to guard the Tiger Tribe instead of running off and ignoring it forever like Adam did, considering the later reveal that the Dark Masters kidnapped Justine), and the fact that the show is more willing to blame her flawed behavior on "evil rock that makes you evil in her helmet" than acknowledge she watched her parents die and literally cannot be in enclosed spaces without Adam as a result is legitimately disgusting. CGI tries so hard to have their cake and eat it too that they end up portraying Krass as in the wrong for wanting things to stay the same with Adam while ALSO establishing in one of the tie-in books that if she'd never met Adam she would have never even partially recovered from her trauma.

Speaking of which, considering that this IS apparently a hot take outside of my own little circle of incredibly cool and correct mutuals: CGI Season 3 is bad. It is so bad it makes the flaws of the previous two seasons, which I could mostly ignore up until that point, painfully obvious. It is genuinely upsetting to me that a series where the SOLE SURVIVOR OF A GENOCIDE BRAINWASHED INTO BELIEVING THE PROPAGANDA HE WAS FED ABOUT THE COLONIZATION OF HIS PEOPLE is made into a villain will be some kid's introduction to MOTU, ESPECIALLY considering how tolerant and accepting the Filmation series was.

Orko is a good character and plays a vital role in the franchise overall! Wow yeah it's weird to remember how that used to be a hot take in any non-tumblr MOTU fan community until like...2021. Crazy that huh.

Maybe not a hot take per se, but I don't personally think that Trollans have that different of a lifespan/age rage from Eternians. As far as I'm aware, the only implication of that being true is from the UK comics, and even there it's said that "it has been suggested" that Orko is over 500, not that he is - and this is also the same comic that said that nobody knows what Trolla is like, something that is patently not true, so I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that maybe the UK comics have some slightly incorrect information and possibly shouldn't be blindly trusted when determining major factors about a character! There are several times in the Filmation series that he either flirts with or shows a very clear attraction to adult Eternians (something that would be Weird if he was aging at a different rate than an Eternian), and while he does call Adam "kid" when they first meet, that's just how Orko talks - he says "atta boy" unironically for crying out loud. I have always envisioned Orko being around the same age as Adam, if a little bit younger, and while Trollans probably do age at a different rate on account of being a different species, it's probably not to that extreme of a difference otherwise it would have been mentioned elsewhere.

Netflix She-Ra is not special for having Adora start out as a brainwashed soldier who has a crisis over realizing she's been fed imperialist/fascist propaganda her entire life. That is literally the plot of The Secret of The Sword, which was released in 1985. I love Netflix She-Ra dearly and always will, as without it I would have never become a fan of MOTU in the first place, but head in my hands if someone calls it bold and innovative for doing things that the OG series did back in the 80s one more time, I am gonna wind up on the evening news 🙃