#almost done actually but it’ll still take a while LOL

[bitterpngs]

ur latest posts abt doing ur art has been so relatable i just wanna say i believe in u u can do it !!

the struggles of being an artist 😔💔

tyyyy tho 💖💖💖 i appreciate it hehe

[silksongeveryday]

Drawing Hornet everyday until Silksong comes out - Day 700!

Choosing not to do anything fancy for this milestone since 2 year anniversary is coming up soon anyway and would prefer the big artwork be done then. Also I’m too tired to do one lmao.

Some general updates and announcements below the cut:

Hornet’s Strange Adventures:

While initially my plan was to have the whole base game done by January, life likes to get in the way. I have made zero progress since my last major update about barely getting things into the game engine I chose. Going forward, it’s possible this project will not be done any time soon but it will happen eventually. (I almost sound as bad as team cherry lol). Progress will be a lot slower than I want unfortunately since I’m kinda burned out at this point.

Continuing Hornet Journal Series/changes:

So I’m still technically on this project currently. While at the beginning it was fun and ambitious, I can definitely feel the burnout from it too. I do want to finish this project to the end, but I refuse to make myself post it every day because that’s made me more and more upset about having to just get it done instead of enjoying it. So going forward with this project, I plan to only post Journal Entries about once or twice a week with large batches of entries in one drawing until it’s done. Even if it happens after my two year anniversary. (Though it’s likely it’ll still finish before then I believe.) This is just so I don’t get absolutely exhausted from this again.

General life stuff:

So I meant to mention this on my main but I was too emotionally exhausted to explain it and didn’t feel like to afterward. I member of my close family passed away a few days after christmas. We already knew this was coming so it’s actually why I took a break from my big project with the journal series around that time and haven’t been able to really pick it back up until now. It’s also the reason a lot of general doodles have been posted late and/or are not that high of effort. I’m just tired.

And this kinda leads into my next thing.

Taking an actual break:

1 month left. That’s how long I plan to keep doing daily doodles for. Once my 2 year anniversary hits, I’m no longer planning to post every day. As you can imagine, posting something every day for two years can take a toll and life has changed a lot since two years ago. I really want to move on to bigger things now and keeping this blog running at constant speed hasn’t allowed me to do that. So I’ve made the decision that I’ll be taking a long break from that.

Will I return to daily doodles ever? Yes, technically.

My plan is start daily doodles back up only when a Silksong release date is announced (if it ever is.) Ptherwise my art/doodles will be posted very infrequently, especially at the beginning when taking my break. For sake of mental health and creative burnout with this blog, this is the best decision I could reasonably come too

—

But thank you all for your wonderful and continued support of this blog!! I look forward to the last official month of daily doodles!

[intheemptymirror]

small !

minjae x fem!reader

summary: unfortunately (or maybe not), teasing minjae for his short height (and other such things) has consequences

genre: smut (mdni)

warnings: mean-dom!minjae (honestly he was gonna be meaner but that didn’t end up happening somehow), porn with practically no plot, oral (m. receiving), throat fucking, big dick minjae, rough sex, unprotected sex (do not do this), he grabs the readers face and taps it lightly but it’s not a full on hit or anything, overstimulation, minjae is a bit sensitive about being called small aka: has a man’s ego (but it’s ok because he’s hot), mentions of other people being able to hear y’all goin at it, degradation, praise, minjae calls you good girl + slut + baby + baby girl, maybe slight dub-con?? (mentions of him “making it fit�� pretty much + reader begs minjae to stop but he keeps going), dacryphilia, creampie, reader is suggested to be around the same height as minjae maybe like an inch smaller at most

a/n: guys i’m so sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for like a month 😭 idk what happened also i swear im almost done with that jay fic it’ll come out right after this one i just haven’t been super satisfied with it so ive been putting it off 😖 but it’ll be out soon! also for the people who’ve sent in requests, don’t worry ive gotten them im just taking a while doing them im so sorry 😭 anyways this fic idea has been in my head for like a month and tonight i went a bit crazy and wrote it all lol but i feel like i lowkey rushed it so it’s not as good as it could be either way i hope you guys enjoy it

it was all just meant to be a joke. a meaningless little comment. something you all would laugh about and then move on from.

minjae didn’t seem to share the same sentiment.

it started out as a normal hangout between you and your friends. everybody was having fun, the conversation was entertaining, and it was a good time all around. somehow along the way, the conversation had turned to your guys’ sexual experiences (or lack-there-of for some).when the topic inevitably made it’s way over to minjae, you thought it would be funny to make a comment about his… size.

“i mean, i know those extra inches didn’t go anywhere else.” was all you had said. and it’s not like you actually knew whether he was small or not— you’ve never seen it first hand after all— but the other boys seemed to find it funny nonetheless if the way yechan and seeun nearly fell off the couch was anything to go off of. even minjae laughed! you mean, sure his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes and his tongue poked the inside of his cheek the way it always does when he’s annoyed, but you really thought he wasn’t all that bothered by it!

you thought you’d all be able to move on and that’d be that, but when you announced to the group you had to go to the bathroom a few minutes later you hadn’t expected minjae to be following right behind you.

you padded down the hall to the bathroom and turned to shut the door behind you, but minjae had barged through the open space before you could. you stumbled back in surprise at the sudden intrusion as minjae slammed the door shut and locked it behind him. you were still in shock from his sudden forced entry that all you could do was stand there with wide eyes, an open mouth, and your hands hovering in the air as you watched.

minjae stared intently at the door as if trying to burn through it with his eyes while his shoulders rose and fell with deep breaths he took through his nose as his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his blunt nails digging into his palms. the air was suddenly tense and heavy, anger radiating off of minjae’s body. your mouth opened and closed as you tried to find the words to ask him what in the world he thought he was doing before he slowly turned around to face you. his darkened eyes and tense smirk shut you up real fast.

“what was that?” he spit out.

“w—what was what?” you stuttered out with a nervous laugh; a small attempt at soothing the suddenly thick air. he straightened up at your words, stalking towards you with narrowed eyes and you suddenly felt small and exposed under his intense gaze. you stumble backwards as you try to keep some space between you two until your back hits the bathroom wall. you pat around the wall and glance behind you as if doing so would open up some secret passage way you could use to get away from minjae’s wrath. “you mean the size comment?”

minjae comes to a stop right in front of you, leaning his face towards yours until you can feel his warm breath against your face. “so you do know what i was talking about.”

“i—it was just a joke! you seriously can’t be mad about that can you? maybe you’re just mad because i told the truth!” those last words were out like word vomit, escaping your lips before your brain could keep up and tell you to stop. your eyes widened at your own sentence as you inhaled sharply and shakily, your lips wobbling slightly out of fear before you purse your lips to stop from digging a bigger hole for yourself.

his face fell and minjae didn’t say anything for a moment, his silence being almost scarier than if he did say something. it was silent… and then his lips curled into a smirk as his hand reached out to take your wrist in his hold.

“oh yeah? since i’m so small you shouldn’t have any problems helping me out, hmm?” he tugged on your wrist, stumbling you forward into his body. he pressed your hand onto the very apparent, growing bulge in his jeans, your eyes snapping down to look at it before looking back up at minjae only to find his intense gaze completely locked onto your flustered face. you swallowed harshly as you tried to speak, the only noises coming from your lips being small squeaks and shaky exhales. “hm?” minjae taunted, pressing your hand into his bulge a tad harder, the pressure sending a shudder up his spine as his eyes flutter and a soft moan leaves his lips at the sensation.

your fingers twitch against his length when his moan hits your ears, the noise sending a wave of heat through your lower stomach and has your cunt clenching around nothing. it snaps you right out of your daze as you finally muster up the strength to tug your hand from minjae’s grip and away from his dick. “we shouldn’t— you— the others are still outside, i don’t think—“ as you stutter through half-assed excuses, he steps forward to press you against the wall, trapping you between the wall and his sturdy chest.

“i’m not hearing you say you don’t want it,” he says lowly, his breath fanning against your face as the deep timbre of his voice rumbles through your whole body. “you’re saying the others are outside, you’re saying i shouldn’t, but i’m not hearing you say you don’t want it.” he brings his hand up to brush the back of his fingers against your cheek gently. “tell me you don’t want it and i’ll walk away from you right now.”

your words get caught in your throat, and before you even realize it your eyes are drifting down to minjae’s lips before darting back up to his eyes. minjae takes this as his cue, harshly pressing his lips against yours as he slams you back against the wall, one hand coming to your waist to pin you there while the other comes up to your face to tilt your head up for him. your hands fly up to grip his shoulders and tangle your fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck in an attempt to ground yourself from the sudden and intense attention minjae was giving you.

a soft moan escapes your lips when minjae prods at your tongue with his, the soft noise unlocking something primal from within him as he takes the opportunity to explore your mouth with his tongue while pressing his lips against yours with more fervor. his hand on your waist slides down to slip his hand under the hem of your shirt. his warm fingers sends a chill up your spine, your back arching into his body for more.

“wait, minjae— mph!— the others—“ you try to speak up between kisses but minjae seems hellbent on keeping your mouth shut, practically devouring you as he keeps kissing your lips without a care in the world.

“don���t care.” is all he mumbles when he finally pulls his lips off yours, his eyes half-lidded and lips swollen while his hair is messy and tangled from your hand running through it repeatedly. he looks hot. he doesn’t give you much longer to admire him though before he’s leaning back in, pressing a kiss to the corner of your lips and trailing down your jaw to the soft skin of your neck. “they can watch for all i care. maybe then they won’t find it so funny…” his voice trails off, seemingly still peeved from your comment from earlier.

minjae’s lips start their assault on the previously clean skin of your neck, his teeth joining shortly after. you tense up at the sharp feeling before you relax into it, pleasure seeping into the pain. you grip onto his shoulders and you tilt your head back to give him more access as soft whines leave your lips with every suck and bite to your skin. “that’s it, baby. just let me have you.” he mumbles, his voice vibrating through your skin and sending a shiver up your spine.

“more,” you whine out as he trails his lips across your neck, collarbone, and chest. you start to squirm in his hold as your hips chase after his in an attempt to get some sort of friction to soothe the growing heat in your lower half.

“you want more?” he asks, making you nod eagerly before he’s suddenly pulling off of you completely and taking a step back. “get on your knees.”

you blink at him with blank eyes as your brain tries to catch up with his command along with the sudden absence of his warmth. “…huh?”

minjae rolls his eyes and takes your face between his fingers, squeezing your cheeks to make your lips pout out as he shakes your head around lightly. “are you fucking dumb? i said get on your knees”

you blink at him a few more times in surprise, completely not expecting this type of behavior from minjae. you didn’t think he’d be so… mean. his little curse sent another wave of heat straight through your core and make your thighs clench together. you hold eye contact with him as you slowly slide down to the floor until your knees hit the cold tile. minjae smiles at the sight of your pretty eyes looking up at him through your lashes, his hand loosening from your face before he goes to lightly pat your cheek. “good girl. now go on, help me out.”

you move immediately this time, sitting up and shuffling forward on your knees as you reach out to unbuckle his belt. minjae’s hand reaches up and strokes your head as he watches you as if trying to give you some sort of silent praise. the metal sound of the belt buckle reverberating through the otherwise quiet bathroom makes your face heat up, completely aware of what it is you’re about to do to minjae. or really, what minjae is about to do to you. you swallow harshly and unbutton his pants with shaky hands, glancing up at him one last time for confirmation before he gives you a quick nod.

you pull his jeans down his thighs slowly, now completely face to face with the not so little problem that started this whole ordeal. your tongue comes out to wet your lips at the sight of his cock straining through his gray boxers. why did it suddenly seem bigger now? minjae huffs out a short laugh, the sight of your eyes widening and mouth practically drooling over him amusing him.

minjae opens his mouth to say some snarky comment but you act before he even has the chance to. you don’t know what came over you. you let your eyes flutter shut as you leaned forward and pressed your lips to minjae’s imprint. you press one, two, three soft kisses before you let your tongue loll out and go back in for more, the fabric covering his cock darkening with a mix of your spit and pre-cum that was leaking from his tip. minjae lets out a sharp hiss through his teeth, the hand in your hair clenching and tangling your locks between his fingers harshly.

you continue your ministrations for a few moments more, humming at the subtle taste you could get of him before it suddenly isn’t enough anymore. your fingers hook into the waistband and tug them down gently, minjae’s length springing out and hitting his stomach. you could do nothing but stare at it for a few moments. you already could tell it was big (you felt it with your hand and mouth after all), but feeling it through fabric and seeing it completely out in the open were two completely different things.

minjae seemed to sense your panic, cupping your cheek in his palm to make you look up at him. he offered you a gentle smile; the first genuine one of the night. “a bit intimidating, isn’t it?” you nod. “it’s okay, baby. just take it slow.”

his reassurance makes you nod before looking back at his cock. you wanted to do a good job for him. you tentatively take his length into your hand, wetting your lips before giving his tip a small lick, catching the pre-cum that was previously dripping from him with your tongue. he lets out a small hiss through his teeth as you repeat this action a few times, trying to get a feel of having him near your mouth. finally, you wrap your lips around his pink tip, minjae’s head lolling back as he lets out a throaty groan.

you look up at him as you start to suckle around him, the sight of his exposed neck, furrowed brows, and heaving chest making you drip all over the floor. minjae seems to be having a hard time holding himself back from fucking into your mouth as he pleases, but still lets you take it at your own pace. at first anyways. slowly but surely, you slide your mouth down his length further and further until you finally manage to get his tip to the point it hit the back of your throat. you use your hand to work the rest of him while you get used to the weight of him on your tongue. you try to push forward more, but you gag slightly and pull back instinctively before you’re stopped by minjae’s hands grabbing the sides of your head.

you look up at him in surprise, your brows furrowing as you blink up at him, but all you’re met with is a pitying look from minjae. “i’m sorry, baby girl, but i can’t hold back any longer.” he really does look sorry. well, he does until he pulls his hips back until just the tip of his cock is between your lips, only to push himself back into your mouth again. your eyes widen as you gag around him when his tip hits the back of your mouth once more, the feeling of your throat constricting around him pulling a loud groan from deep in his chest. “fuuuck, baby, just like that.”

tears spring into your eyes and drip down your cheeks with each harsh thrust he delivers to your mouth. your hands come up to grip onto his thighs, the sharp pain of your nails digging into his skin making him hiss through his teeth. you can do nothing but sit there and take it, so you try your best to focus on breathing through your nose. with each push of his hips, he manages to slide his cock deeper and deeper into the warm cavern of your mouth, until eventually your nose is pressed right into the little happy trail on his abdomen leading down to his length.

he holds you there for a moment as he hunches over and seemingly crumbles completely under your touch as his voice grows louder and more high pitched. he looks and sounds so beautiful. you try your best to watch him but the feeling of his thick cock stuffing your mouth full makes your eyes squeeze shut as you choke and sputter around him, tears streaming down your face as you whine. your noises only send shockwaves of pleasure through minjae’s body.

minjae pulls back and gives you a moment to breathe before fucking right back into your mouth again like he’s lost all control. you’re not sure if he can feel the way you’re trying to lick at the vein on the underside of his cock in an attempt to bring him more pleasure, but the way his voice cracks slightly when you do makes you think he can feel it just fine. you both keep up your movements before his hips stutter as he finally spills into your mouth with a loud groan, shallowly thrusting to ride himself through his orgasm.

he throbs against your tongue as the last few spurts of his cum drip into your mouth. his breaths are deep and heavy as he tries to come down from his high, his eyes shut as he stays nestled inside the warmth of your mouth. it’s not until you sputter around him, his cum spilling out around his cock and dripping onto the corners of your mouth that he finally pulls out, a string of his release dripping from his slit and connecting to your lips. he brings his thumb down to wipe at the sticky, white substance before pressing the digit against your lips, your lips automatically parting and taking the appendage into your mouth. he uses his other hand to wipe the tears from your cheeks as you clean off his thumb before he pulls it from your mouth with a lewd ‘pop!’.

minjae’s gaze is tender and soft as he looks at you from above before it darkens once more. he pulls his boxers and pants up quickly before grabbing you by the arm and dragging you up onto your legs. you wobble a bit as your legs tingle with pins and needles from being on your knees for so long, but minjae is there to stabilize and drag you out of the bathroom. you yelp as you stumble down the hall before he hisses at you to be quiet and practically tosses you into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

you spin around to ask him what you were doing in his bedroom (you had a good idea of what) before he takes your face between his hands and kisses you. you melt into his mouth as he guides you backwards with a strong hand on the small of your back to keep you steady until your knees hit the edge of his mattress, the both of you falling back onto the bed. minjae slowly slides his hands up the front of your hips and under your shirt, letting his palms feel over the smooth expanse of your torso before gripping the hem of your shirt and pulling it straight over your head aggressively with a sudden sense of urgency. he then tugs his still loosened pants down along with his boxers and tosses them behind him to join your shirt on the floor.

his lips are immediately on you again, his fingers digging into the plush skin of your waist as your fingers come up to cling into his hair. your kisses are desperate and sloppy, your lips a mess of tongue and a little bit of spit as you whine into each others mouths. you can feel him grind down onto your panty-clad core, the friction making you buck your hips up into his for more.

minjae seems to have absolutely no patience in his body left, his hands coming down to hook into the waistband of your underwear and slowly slides it down your legs as he keeps kissing you. he pulls back to push you further up the bed by your waist, a teasing smirk appearing on his face at the soft whine that escapes your throat at the loss of his lips on yours.

he slides his hand down your body before he runs two of his fingers through the folds of your cunt, gathering the wetness on his fingers before bringing them up to his mouth and tasting you on his tongue. you can feel the skin of your cheeks heat up at the action. he licks his lips afterwards and brings his hand back down to your hole, leaning over you as his bangs fall over his eyes. “you taste so good, but that can be saved for next time.”

next time. the thought that he wanted to do this with you again made you swallow harshly and your eyes widen. you don’t have much time to dwell on the thought before he pushes one finger in, the slide made easy from how wet you had gotten. he stays with the one finger anyways, gently fucking it into you until he pushes a second one in next to it.

his fingers were longer and slightly thicker than yours making him able to stretch you out more than you ever were able to. you let out soft pants and quiet moans as your back arched up at his repeated movement. the gentle drag of his fingers against your walls only made you anticipate what the weight of his cock in you would feel like.

minjae pushes a third finger in when he thinks you’ve adjusted to the first two, picking up his pace as he grinds the palm of his hand against your clit. he doesn’t let up until your hips start bucking up into his as your peak starts rising and rising and rising— only for it to suddenly stop.

he pulls his fingers out of you abruptly, making you collapse back into the sheets as you shake from your ruined orgasm.

“minjae—“ you start, but you’re cut off by him shushing you and running his shaft through your soaked folds.

“shhh, baby.” minjae pulls his hips back and forth, his tip catching on your clit everytime he pushes forward. “god, you’re so wet..” he repeats this motion a few times until he’s thoroughly coated himself in your slick before letting his cock rest on your tummy, just to let you both see just how deep he could get.

the lewd sight makes you sigh out and toss your head back into the mattress. you got a bit embarrassed at the fact you could feel yourself getting wetter at the sight but the visual worked minjae up just as much as it had you, a low groan rumbling from deep in his chest.

minjae slid his cock off of your stomach, a few drops of pre-cum dripping onto your skin as he moved to align himself with your entrance. you tensed up at the feeling of him starting to push past your tight rim. your hands immediately fly to press flat against his abdomen, the stretch already making you panic slightly. “w—wait! ‘s not gonna fit!”

minjae pries your hands off his stomach and interlaces his fingers with yours as he pins them on either side of your head. “it’s okay, baby. i’ll make it fit..” his voice trails off at the end when he turns his attention back to his tip breaching your entrance. you try and take deep breaths to get yourself to relax, only to have your breath hitch in your chest and a loud moan gets ripped from your throat as minjae pushes in.

your hands squeeze minjae’s to which he squeezes back to silently reassure you. “s—shit, baby, you gotta relax. can barely move, youre so tight.” you manage to get your limbs to relax, shutting your eyes since you think looking would just make the slight pain worse. you almost wish you hadn’t because when you do the rest of your senses of your senses all go towards feeling minjae slowly push the rest of him in, inch by agonizing inch.

he lets out a soft groan when he finally bottoms out, your jaw dropping as your head lilts back as you relish in the sensation of feeling so full. minjae lets go of your hands to soothingly run his hands up and down your sides, gritting his teeth as he stays still to let you adjust.

the moment your eyes flutter back open and your chest stops heaving as much is when minjae drags his hips back until just his tip is in only to slowly push himself all the way back in again. the action makes you gasp out and clench around him, your walls tightening around him making minjae hiss out through his teeth. minjae screws his eyes shut and keeps his head down as he lets out heavy pants, his bangs covering his face as he tries to keep himself in check so as not to entirely hurt you.

this doesn’t last very long though before minjae adjusts his grip on your waist, his fingers digging into the plush skin hard enough that you’re sure marks will be left in the morning. he drags his hips back until only his tip in just like before, but this time he snaps his hips against yours so harshly it knocks the air right out of your lungs and sends you sliding up the mattress.

his thrusts are so aggressive and hit so deep you’re sure he’s molding your insides into his shape. tears start to spill over your cheeks as you struggle and fail to keep your loud moans at bay. “minjae— haa— please, s—slow down— hng!” you cry out, the feeling of his tip repeatedly hitting that one gummy spot inside you getting to be too much.

“say you’re sorry.” he growls out.

“h—huh?” you blink up at him in surprise, your fuzzy brain taking a minute to keep up with his request.

“i said say you’re fucking sorry.” minjae emphasizes his words with a harsh thrust between each one before he grabs your face between his fingers, puckering your lips out as you wet his hand with your tears. only then is when you understand what it is he wants.

“‘m sorry, ‘m so sorry! i didn’t— hic!— mean what i said, please! please, ‘m sorry!” you babble out, wobbly apologies coming out like word vomit. it doesn’t seem like it’s enough to satisfy minjae though.

“yeah? yeah, you’re sorry? then let them hear how good i’m making you feel then, huh? let them know how good i’m giving it you.” only then is when you remember your other friends currently still waiting in the living room for your return.

‘ah,’ you think. ‘how embarrassing.’ but the thought still makes you clench around him, something minjae catches immediately.

“oh, that shit gets you off? fucking slut..” his degrading words only makes you moan louder just like he previously asked. you can do nothing but scream out his name and apologies repeatedly, practically cock-drunk and empty-headed by now.

you can feel your orgasm start to build and build fast. you could tell minjae was nearing his end too if the way his hips started to stutter against yours was anything to go off of. a few more harsh thrusts delivered to your cunt and you’re tensing up around him, your walls clenching as you throw your head back and arch up into minjae’s body. you shake and sob as minjae keeps fucking you through it, clawing at his skin in an attempt to get him to stop.

minjae only groans at the feeling of your nails scratching and leaving little red marks on his chest. he chases his own high with fervor until his hips stutter as he comes to a complete stop inside of you, whines leaving his lips as he spills into you. he collapses on top of you, his weight feeling strangely soothing on your shaking form.

his hips move shallowly to help him ride through his orgasm, your thighs twitching with each small drag of his cock in you. you can feel his warm breath against your neck, his hair softly tickling the side of your face. you both lay there panting as you come down from your intense highs, your nails gently dragging along minjae’s back as his hands run up and down your sides. it’s silent for a moment until minjae finally speaks up.

“do you think they heard us?” his words are muffled from his face being practically shoved into the skin of your neck. they pull a loud laugh from you, the bright sound making minjae smile as he pulls his face from your neck to look down at you.

“i think it would’ve been a little hard not to.” you respond, making minjae nod as he pouts his lips in thought.

“well at least now they know.” he says. you furrow your brows and pout your bottom lip out in confusion.

“know what?” you ask.

“that it’s not small.” he says as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. you roll your eyes and huff out as you flop back into the mattress.

of course he’s still on that.

[witchysniffles]

new year's eve

A/gathario ft. sick A/gatha being too stubborn for her own good. 8.7k words (💀) There WILL be a part 2 to this at some point, but given how long this took it might be a minute lol.

All of this was inspired by @flutterytickles's tags on this post about the idea of a professor AU and a New Year's Eve party, and when I say I took that and ran with it...😳

I am MORE than happy to yap about this AU forever, but really all you need to know for this is that everyone's teaching at a small, liberal arts college in Boston. A/gatha was hired as an English professor, but now mostly teaches American history through literature and print culture. R/io studied environmental science with a focus in botany and also poetry in school, and she took a pay cut specifically to teach at a school that would let her do both. Other than that, I feel like it's pretty self-explanatory. Enjoy!! <3

Please don't reblog to non-kink blogs! Minors DNI.

“So it’s not going to be a party,” Rio said. “At least not according to Lilia. But Alice and Jen will be there, and a few other faculty members and some of Lilia’s grad students, and Alice assured me there will be good food, lots of drinks, and probably karaoke if they can find a way to hook it up to Lilia’s TV. Sounds like it’ll be a good time.”

“Hmm,” Agatha hummed. Rio had her on speakerphone on her desk while she was tidying up her office, using the time that barely anyone was on campus to prep for the spring semester without anyone commenting on how many empty energy drink cans she was hauling out to the recycling bin.

“Well you know how I feel about karaoke,” Agatha said. Rio thought she heard the sound of her clearing her throat, but she chalked it up to static on the line. “But is Lilia actually inviting me or is this you asking me to come with you?”

“Both,” Rio said. “Lilia doesn’t have your number and she figured you wouldn’t be checking your work email over the holidays, so she asked me to ask you. And I would like it if you came with me.” Rio paused. “You know, if you want to.”

There was another little burst of noise on the line—this time it almost sounded like a sniffle—before Agatha spoke again.

“Well, I promised Nicky I’d take him to the parade and the fireworks at the Common tomorrow, but that’ll be over and done by eight.” Agatha paused and this time Rio was sure she heard a sniffle. “Let me talk to the kid next door, see if he can sit in after I put Nicky down and I’ll…”

Agatha trailed off, and Rio frowned.

“You’ll…?”

“Hh-hold on, I n-need—”

Rio could hear Agatha’s breath stutter, and then before she could even process what was happening, she heard what sounded like a poorly-stifled sneeze from a distance like Agatha was holding the phone away from her face.

“Bless you?” Rio still wasn’t a hundred percent sure she was hearing things right, but she still spoke loud enough for Agatha to hear and—she assumed—roll her eyes at. What she wasn’t expecting, though, was Agatha’s shaky voice when she brought the phone back.

“D-don’t,” she started. “I’m not…n-nah…not…hheh’EHTtschu!”

That was definitely, for sure a sneeze that time, and though Rio couldn’t see it, she could tell by the involuntary little groan that followed that Agatha wasn’t happy about it. Whether it was about sneezing in general or about Rio acknowledging it with another, more enthusiastic “Bless you!” was anyone’s guess.

“Ugh, sorry,” Agatha said after collecting herself again. “You were saying?”

“I think you were saying something about getting a babysitter? But, if you’re not feeling well we don’t have to—”

“I’m fine,” Agatha said firmly. “It’s just some gunk Nicky picked up somewhere. It’s probably just one of those twenty-four hour things, I’m sure I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Rio was pretty sure that wasn’t how colds worked, but Agatha’s tone told her the topic was not up for discussion, and Rio didn’t feel like pressing the issue would be helpful. This was Agatha, after all.

Last spring when they’d first gotten paired up to teach an interdisciplinary studies course on floral symbolism in classic American literature and poetry, Agatha had neglected to inform Rio that she was horribly allergic to about half the flowers they’d be talking about, so Rio hadn’t thought twice about showing up to the very first class with a fresh arrangement of native wildflowers to sit on the podium between them as they took turns going over the syllabus.

Agatha had done an admirable job downplaying her reaction for most of the hour-long class, only stifling the occasional sneeze into near-silence over her shoulder, but the second class was dismissed, she’d dissolved into the single most dramatic, drawn-out fit Rio had ever seen, blushing furiously the whole time and still insisting she was fine when she could gather enough breath to speak.

Rio had run up to her own office to grab her own bottle of Zyrtec, sure the whole time that this was going to get the whole class cancelled, and her partnership with Agatha would be over before it had even properly begun. With the meds in her system, though, Agatha had pulled herself together shockingly quickly to teach her afternoon class, and to Rio’s surprise, not only did their joint class proceed as planned (after a serious, Rio-initiated discussion of what parts of the syllabus Agatha was and wasn’t allergic to—which Agatha was also blushing furiously through—and an Agatha-initiated tacit threat to never speak of the incident again), but Agatha had been grateful enough for Rio’s help to offer to repay the favor by taking her out to dinner.

One thing led to another, and now, nearly a year later, they were dating, all because Agatha was enough of a stubborn bitch about her allergies to not keep antihistamines on her.

Rio had never actually seen Agatha sick before, but she assumed she probably wouldn’t handle that much better.

“Hh-ITSchu!”

Another sneeze from Agatha drew Rio from her thoughts.

“Ble—”

“Not yet, I…he’ETshiu! Ugh, fuck.”

“Salud,” Rio said.

“Shut up,” Agatha grumbled. “I’m fine. Just let me talk to the kid next door. I would never say this to his face, but he’s a total loser, there’s no way he’s got plans. I gotta check if Hanukkah changes anything, but I’ll text you when I know?”

“Sounds good. Love you, and get some rest!”

She could practically hear Agatha roll her eyes before she shot back a, “Love you too,” and ended the call.

Not half an hour later, Rio’s phone lit up with a text from Agatha.

Teen’s free to babysit. Pick me up at 9?

It’s a date, she replied.

~**~

Agatha was already waiting on the front steps when Rio’s overpriced Uber pulled up in front of the elegant Beacon Hill brownstone. Her hair was down, falling in loose waves over her shoulders, and she was wearing lipstick­, which wasn’t unheard of, but the deep raspberry red shade of it made something in Rio’s brain short out, and suddenly her only thought was about how badly she wanted to fuck it up at midnight.

As she drew closer, though, she realized that the lipstick was a distraction—and a damn good one at that—from the subtle little signs of illness on the rest of her face. Her makeup was impeccable, but up close, Rio could see the shadows of dark circles under her eyes, the barely-there pinkish tint at the tip of her nose, the subtle crease in her foundation that showed just how often she'd been—

Right on cue, Agatha scrunched up her nose with a small sniffle, and judging by the way her hands twitched at her sides, she was really fighting the urge not to rub it. Rio would never say it out loud, but she was pretty sure it was one of the cutest things she’d ever seen.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself,” Agatha said. Those raspberry lips twitched upwards, as Rio wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Her skin felt a little warm for someone outside in the middle of winter. Rio couldn’t be confident it was high enough to be a fever, but she filed the thought away for later.

“So…,” Rio started as she pulled out her phone to look up Lilia’s address. “How were the fireworks?”

Agatha sighed heavily. “We didn’t end up staying. Nicky didn’t sleep well last night, which meant I didn’t sleep well last night, and we only made it halfway through the parade before he decided he wanted to go home.” Agatha sniffled and scrunched up her nose again. “Poor kid was practically falling asleep on his dino nuggets. I put him to bed and hh’he was out like a li-ihh­-light.”

The slight hitch of her breath drew Rio’s gaze upwards, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Agatha scratching the bottom of her nose with her thumbnail.

“Oh poor thing,” Rio said, definitely not talking about Agatha; that would be ridiculous. “And how are you feeling? You sure you’re up for a wild party?”

Agatha rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “I think I can hiih-handle whatever Lilia’s got planned.”

“You sure?” Rio lowered her phone and met Agatha’s eyes. “Because we can just stay in, especially if you didn’t get much sleep last night. I hear they’re letting Andy and Anderson drink on CNN again this year, and we could do those Lego flowers from Christmas and just take it easy.”

Yeah, Rio thought to herself; that was a safe angle to approach it from. Asking outright if she was under the weather was a surefire way to get her to dig her heels in deeper, and while Rio was pretty sure that was going to happen anyway, she wanted to make sure Agatha knew she had an out if she wanted it.

As Rio had predicted though, Agatha shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I’m fine. I already missed the baby fireworks, and I don’t even remember the last time I got to go out for New Year’s, so I’m not missing this.” She punctuated her statement by audibly clearing her throat, and she glared at Rio for noticing. “And I feel fine,” she snapped. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Ok,” Rio raised one hand in a mock surrender. “In that case, it looks like we have a choice between a pretty straightforward thirty minute walk, or we can take an Uber that’ll shave a whole five minutes off that time for…” she refreshed her app and her eyes widened in shock as she wordlessly showed Agatha the inflated price on the screen. “Suddenly I’m thinking it’s a great night for a walk. What about you?”

When she didn’t get an answer right away, Rio glanced up from her phone and took in the dazed look that had settled over Agatha’s features, the way those raspberry lips parted, one hand hovering in front of her mouth as her she scrunched up her nose once more in vain before—“hiET’SHhiew—‘ITSHhyu!” She aimed both sneezes into her elbow at the last second and then sniffled wetly as she rummaged around in her purse for…who the fuck still carried handkerchiefs in the twenty-first century?

“Bless you, bless you,” Rio said lightly, as Agatha blew her nose once, dabbing lightly at her nostrils to keep from completely destroying her foundation. Rio couldn’t help but notice that once she was done, she shoved the handkerchief in her pocket instead of putting it back in her purse.

 “Thanks,” Agatha muttered. “How long did you say the walk was?”

“Google says thirty minutes.”

Agatha gave a haughty sniff as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Closer to twenty if you walk like you live here,” she said. “I vote we do that.”

There was a part of Rio that thought about protesting further, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good, and besides that, Agatha was a grown woman who could listen to her own body. If she wanted to push herself for the sake of a stupid work party then who was Rio to stop her? And also, Rio selfishly really did want to mess up that lipstick against a backdrop of fireworks.

“Alright,” she sighed. “In that case, vámanos.”

With a swish of her long coat, Agatha set off down the block at such a pace that Rio had to jog to catch up.

~**~

Lilia lived on the top floor of a refurbished tenement building in the North End that was all decorative brick work and copper patina on the outside, with an interior that looked authentically pre-war. Which war exactly was anyone’s guess, but Rio was putting money on Civil.

The chilly night air had made both of their noses run, and they paused in front of the elevator to collect themselves. Rio pulled the sleeve of her sweater over her hand and swiped briefly at her nose. Agatha, on the other hand, took a bit longer to recover.

She’d been mostly alright on the walk over as far as Rio could tell—the fresh air really had seemed to be a good move—but now that they were back inside the dry heat of the building, it was clearly taking Agatha a second to gather herself. She had her handkerchief out and was running it on one finger under her eyes and around her nostrils, but her nose, it seemed had other ideas.

Her breath hitched once, twice, and she tipped her head back, her mouth just open enough that Rio could see she was pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth to try to hold it back. It wasn’t enough, though, and Agatha let out a particularly vocal gasp right before she pitched forward with an itchy-sounding “hiih’IIShu!”

“Bless you,” Rio said.

“Ugh, thanks,” Agatha grumbled. “Must be the temperature change. I’m fine.”

She at least had the decency to flush as Rio eyed her skeptically, but before Rio could say anything else, Agatha was slipping the handkerchief back in her pocket, sliding open the metal grille in front of the elevator, and waving Rio inside.

“Can you just promise me something?” Rio asked as the elevator groaned and shuddered its way upwards. Agatha didn’t say anything, but she side-eyed Rio curiously. Rio took a deep breath and flexed her fingers at her sides as she said, “Promise me if you reach a point where you want to leave tonight for any reason you’ll tell me?”

“I’m—”

“I know you’re fine,” Rio said. “And I’ll let you be the judge of your own body. I’m just telling you that if you want an out you’ve got one, no questions asked.”

Agatha considered her words for a moment. Her lips were pressed in a thin line as she ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek, and then she sighed.

“Alright,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Any time.”

The elevator jolted to a stop and they stepped out into a long hallway. There was music and laughter and a scent that Rio could only identify as ‘miscellaneous party food’ wafting from their left.

“I’m gonna take a wild guess that Lilia’s that way,” she said. She glanced over at Agatha who just tossed her hair over her shoulder, cleared her throat, and sniffed once more before nodding in the direction of the sound.

“Shall we?”

Rio hesitated for just a moment, captivated by the way Agatha’s mask slid so smoothly into place. She had hardly realized just how much she got to see when they were alone until suddenly she was faced with the Agatha that was ready to actually walk into the party.

The little signs were still there: the way that her foundation was starting to separate and smudge around the tip of her nose, the way her lips parted ever so slightly so that she could breathe without the air catching audibly on the building congestion in her sinuses.  It was an impressive performance. Frankly if Rio hadn’t seen evidence to the contrary, she might have even believed Agatha’s little act.

Of course, the fact that she had gotten to see that evidence to the contrary at all—even if Agatha was denying it the whole time—was also not lost on Rio. It made her stupid, lovesick heart flutter in her chest just realizing that Agatha trusted her that much. It was also mildly annoying knowing that it would be that much harder to tell if Agatha reached her limit tonight, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.

She must have lingered a bit too long, though, because Agatha noticed she wasn’t following and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, looking pointedly at Rio’s hands.

Rio hadn’t even noticed that she was fluttering her fingers at her sides, but the sudden awareness made her stop and flex her hands.

“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

Rio reached the door at the end of the hall first and knocked right below the brass 4F affixed to it. When no one answered right away, Agatha tried the knob and found that it was already unlocked. She glanced at Rio with a shrug before pushing it all the way open and leading the way inside. 

Rio's first impression upon stepping into Lilia's space was that it perfectly answered the question, "What if an eccentric gender studies professor with a fortune-telling side hustle had lived in the same rent-controlled apartment since the 70s?" which wasn't a question Rio had been asking, but it was nice to have an answer nonetheless. The entry way led into a spacious living room filled with squashy, mismatched furniture. Decorative lamps on various surfaces gave the room a soft, warm glow, and there were tapestries and artwork covering nearly inch of exposed wall. It was inviting and a little overwhelming in the same way that Lilia herself could be and Rio found that she kind of liked it.

Her second impression was that she and Lilia definitely had different ideas of what "not a party" meant. There were far more people than she had expected here. She vaguely recognized some other faculty members and a few of Lilia’s grad students and TAs who hung out around her office a lot, but she was only halfway through her second year of teaching, so there were still more unfamiliar faces than familiar ones.

"Soo…," Agatha started, leaning close to Rio's ear as she slipped out of her coat, "Are we sure that Lilia understands what a party is?”

Rio bit back a laugh as the hostess in question rounded the corner. “Did I hear a knock? I thought I—oh, Rio, you came!”

Before Rio could react, Lilia swept forward and enveloped her in a brief, but warm hug that had Agatha pressing herself flat against the wall to stay out of the way.

“Oh, I’m so glad you were able to make it,” Lilia said. It wasn’t until she stepped back that she seemed to notice Agatha. Something flickered behind her eyes for a fraction of a second before her wide smile was back in place. “Agatha, it’s nice to finally see you outside of the office for a change. Did you two come together?”

“Sort of,” Agatha said at the same instant Rio said, “Kind of.”

Lilia raised an eyebrow, and Rio glanced over at Agatha who was starting to get a sort of dazed look in her eyes, so Rio quickly took over.

“We split an Uber,” she said. “Those holiday prices are crazy, but if the alternative is the green line on New Year’s…” she trailed off with a shrug and an eye roll, and that seemed to be good enough for Lilia. Or at least, if she had further suspicions, she was good enough not to voice them.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rio could see Agatha bring her hand in front of her mouth in a loose fist, her thumb resting along her jaw and her first finger pressed against the bottom of her nose. It wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary—one thing about Agatha, the woman was always touching her face—but Rio guessed from the way Agatha scrunched up her nose that it was a little more practical at the moment.

Rio was about to come up with some excuse to try to shoo Lilia away, when someone else called her name from elsewhere in the apartment. Lilia glanced in the direction of the voice and sighed.

“I suppose I should go see what all the fuss is about,” she said. "You two feel free to make yourselves at home. There's food in the dining room, drinks in the kitchen, and I think someone brought some..." she mimed smoking a joint as she trailed off, and Agatha snorted. "If you want to do that, though, just do me a favor and take it outside or on the fire escape. The scent lingers in here like nothing else.”

“Understood,” Rio said.

Lilia gave a satisfied nod before turning on her heel and disappearing back into the festivities.

Rio turned towards Agatha just in time to see her shove her face into her bunched up coat and muffle a forceful sneeze into it. She came up for air with a slightly dazed look on her face, her mouth still open in preparation, but after a long moment of anticipation, nothing else happened. Agatha exhaled with an angry huff and hung her coat up on an empty hanger.

Rio did the same after her, except she nearly dropped the hanger when Agatha suddenly swore behind her. Rio whirled around just in time to see Agatha crush her nose between her thumb and forefinger as she pitched forward with a pair of stifled sneezes that were nearly silent save for a soft, choked off little gasp.

 Rio almost felt a little guilty for it, but she couldn’t help noticing just how different these cold sneezes were from Agatha’s allergic fits. It was a strange thing to think about, but with her allergies, Agatha seemed to have some semblance of control, at least at the start. The tickle tended to be a slower, more torturous build that Agatha was shockingly good at hiding, and the sneezes themselves started off as soft, tickly little things that she was scary-good at keeping quiet. This cold, by contrast, seemed to keep her on her toes, sneaking up on her and then backing off just to come back with a vengeance, and Agatha was clearly already getting frustrated.

Agatha released her nose with a heavy sigh and a wet sniffle, and when she noticed Rio looking at her, she frowned.

“What?” she snapped.

“Nothing,” Rio said. “Bless you.”

That seemed to soften Agatha around the edges for a moment, and she muttered a quiet, “Thanks,” before she brushed past Rio into rest of the apartment. “Let’s find the kitchen,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.”

Rio rolled her eyes, but followed along anyway. It was less than two and a half hours to New Year’s, but she had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

~**~

When Lilia had said there were drinks in the kitchen, Rio had expected champagne, some prosecco, maybe some kind of fancy Italian wines and some seltzers in the fridge for the grad students. What she hadn’t expected was a downright undergrad-rager amount of boxed wine and a rainbow of Jell-O shots, but now that she was looking at the spread, she realized that yeah, actually, this kind of tracked.

There was indeed an array of random seltzers and cheap beer in the fridge along with a couple of bottles of something bubbly with sticky notes on them warning that they were not to be touched until midnight. Rio grabbed a mango White Claw and turned around to see Agatha debating between the wine and the shots like it was a matter of life and death. After a moment, she reached a compromise with herself in the form of downing a purple Jell-O shot and then immediately grabbing a plastic cup to fill with room-temperature Franzia, because sure, why not?

“Hey, Rio, you made it!”

Rio spun around to see Alice approaching with a beer in hand and a bright smile on her face.

“Of course,” Rio said. “I wouldn’t miss it!” She took a sip of her seltzer and surveyed the room. “Although there are a lot more people than I expected when Lilia told me specifically that this wasn’t a party.”

“That’s Lilia for you,” Alice said. “Anything less than a full-on rager doesn’t count as a party to her. But for what it’s worth, it’ll probably start to clear out by 11:30ish. Most people just use this as a rest stop for a bit and then walk to the waterfront to catch the fireworks. But they’re missing out because that’s usually about when Lilia gets stoned enough to break out the oracle cards and that’s worth sticking around for.”

“Sounds like fun.” Rio hadn’t even heard Agatha come up behind her, but there she was eyeing Alice over the rim of her plastic cup of cheap wine. “When do we break out the Ouija board and start telling ghost stories?”

“Oh hey, Agatha,” Alice said. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she glanced from Rio to Agatha and back again like she was trying to connect some invisible dots. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Yeah, good to see you too,” Agatha said flatly. She took a long sip of her wine, and she held her cup in front of her face a second longer than strictly necessary to block her nose from view as it twitched just the slightest bit. A tense moment passed where Rio couldn’t tell if Agatha was actually going to sneeze or not, but she recovered quickly, lowering her cup and shouldering past Rio towards the dining room. “I’m gonna get some food.”

“Ok, bye, Agatha,” Alice said drily. She shot Rio a look. “I didn’t know you two…”

She trailed off, and the implied ellipsis hanging off Alice’s words felt like a set trap for Rio to walk into. She’d had the feeling that her officemates were starting to suspect something for a while—from the sounds of it there was even a betting pool now—but Rio wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that easily.

It wasn’t so much that they were trying to keep it a secret—sneaking around like teenagers wasn’t really all it cracked up to be when they were both parties involved were closer to fifty than fifteen—but with a kid in the mix, and Rio being so new, and Agatha’s…well, being Agatha, they just…never really cared to make a grand announcement to their colleagues. At some point it would come out, that much they both knew, but for now it was still sort of thrilling to have such a secret that was theirs and theirs alone.

So it was with all of that in mind, that Rio managed to say, “Lilia’s the one who invited her.” She took a swig of her seltzer and wished she had grabbed something harder. “We just split an Uber here.”

“Ah, sure,” Alice said. “It’s just funny; Lilia’s been trying to get her to come to stuff for years now, but this is the first time she’s actually shown. I wonder what changed.”

“Yeah,” Rio mused as she watched Agatha disappear around a corner. “I wonder.”

“Ok, well…” Alice bounced on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands together as she took a slow step back. “I need to track down an HDMI cord to try to set up karaoke, but I’ll be around.”

“I’ll see you,” Rio said.

She gave Alice a half-hearted wave and then followed Agatha’s trail into the cramped dining room where she found Agatha trapped in conversation with a short woman with a neat blonde bob who Rio vaguely recognized from the…admissions office? Student life? Something like that.

Whatever they were talking about, Agatha hardly seemed to be in the mood for it, but the woman clearly wasn’t taking the hint. Agatha had her hand in front of her face again, the knuckle of her first finger moving slowly back and forth under her nose as she nodded absently, her attention clearly more on her nose than her conversation partner.

If Rio had felt a little guilty about watching before, she felt downright voyeuristic now. From the corner of the doorway, Rio had a perfect view of Agatha’s profile, and she watched with rapt attention as Agatha managed to wrestle the tickle back long enough to interject.

“That sounds great, Sharon, but you see, the problem is that I don’t want to, so…” she trailed off with a contemptuous, open-handed shrug, and the woman—Sharon, apparently—just laughed.

“Oh, I’ll get you one of these days!” She wagged a finger playfully in Agatha’s direction before glancing down at her empty cup. “I’m gonna get some more wine, but I’ll email you once we get back on campus!”

“I’ll delete it,” Agatha called after her in a mocking tone.

She waited until Sharon was safely out of the room before whirling around and coughing into her elbow. She recovered quickly enough, but kept her arm in front of her face for a moment too long. Rio could see her shoulders tense and then release as she smothered a trio of sneezes against her sleeve, each tripping over the next like they had taken umbrage at being held back for so long. “Hiih’TSHh!-h’TSHh-TCHhu!”

“Bless you,” Rio said.

Agatha startled at the sound of her voice and spun around to glare at her.

“I’m fine,” Agatha said through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t even ask.”

“Well you were thinking it and that’s bad enough,” Agatha snapped.

Her voice was starting to take on a more noticeably-congested edge, and Rio found herself wondering if she’d have to put her foot down at some point. Either Agatha was a better liar than Rio had thought if she had been feeling this bad this whole time, or she was going downhill faster than Rio had assumed she would, and frankly Rio wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Is this where the…oh. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Rio and Agatha both spun around to find Jennifer Kale smirking at them from the doorway like she very much hoped she was, in fact, interrupting something.

“You wish,” Agatha growled. “What do you want, Jen?”

“Maybe to socialize?” Jen said slowly like she was trying to explain the concept to a child. “At a social event? Although I can’t imagine you have much experience with those.”

“Can it, Kale,” Agatha snapped. She took a long sip of her wine and shouldered past Jen on her way back into the kitchen. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Nice to see you too, Agatha!” Jen called after her. She turned back to Rio and rolled her eyes. “You really can’t take her anywhere, can you?”

The question felt equal parts loaded and rhetorical, and given Jen’s…history with Agatha, Rio figured her safest option was to plead the fifth. She ignored Jen’s pointed smirk and took another long drink of her seltzer.

“Well, forget her,” Jen said. “I was actually hoping to run into you here. I heard back from my mother about those old Home Garden magazines we were talking about? She found some of my grandmother’s old issues, and she said she’ll send them out to me next week. I can bring them into the office when they get here if you want to go through them.”

“Oh, sweet!”  Rio had been working for most of the fall on a proposal for a class on Victory Gardens and the development of urban home gardening, and some of the earliest primary sources had proven to be a bit of a bitch to track down. “Yeah, I’ll be in and out of the office the next few weeks before the semester starts, but I’d love to get my hands on anything you’ve got.”

“Cool,” Jen said. “I’ll keep you posted.” She gave Rio a soft smile and looked like she was about to say something else, but Rio took the pause as an excuse to slip away.

“I’m gonna go mingle a bit more. You know, network or whatever, but I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” Jen said. “Yeah, I’ll see you.”

Rio grabbed a star-shaped sugar cookie off a platter at the end of the dining table and popped it into her mouth as she slipped out into the living room before Jen could say anything else.

Agatha was across the room, in another tense conversation with a woman Rio definitely recognized from the library, but she couldn’t quite place the name. Dottie? Sarah, maybe? Either way, Agatha saw Rio looking and shot her a sharp glare. Rio took the hint and headed over to where Alice was fussing with Lilia’s ancient CRT TV.

It turned out it didn’t even have an HDMI port, which meant the karaoke idea was getting nixed, but after a little bit of snooping in the cabinet underneath, Rio found a dusty plug-and-play joystick with a collection of old arcade games that was still in working order, and it only took a few rounds of Frogger before a full-on tournament broke out.

Rio lost sight of Agatha as a small crowd started to gather around the TV, but despite that, if she was being honest, she was kind of actually starting to have a good time. As the clock ticked ever closer to midnight, the crowd did in fact start to thin out, and those who were left were mostly reaching a pleasant state of being under their influence of choice. Conversation and laughter flowed easily, and Rio found herself suitably distracted from worrying about Agatha.

That was, at least, until she caught sight of Agatha slipping away from the rest of the party, making a beeline for the bathroom down the hall with her hand against her face.

That got Rio distracted enough that she ran Ms. Pacman straight into a pixelated ghost to a collective groan from her audience, but Rio found herself not really caring. She passed the joystick off to Alice who was going for the high score on Galaga, and picked her way out of the crowd.

“You good?” Jen asked.

“Yeah,” Rio said. “I’m just gonna grab another drink.”

She headed into the kitchen and grabbed another seltzer—a wild berry Truly this time—and made a pit stop in the dining room to grab a couple of those sugar cookies in a napkin before following Agatha’s path down the hall towards the bathroom. She was barely halfway to the door when she heard the unmistakable sounds of Agatha…well, struggling.

“Hih-TSSHhiu! Heihh-hhETshiw!” Rio heard what she assumed was a hand slamming down hard on the edge of the sink, followed by harsh fit of coughing that only seemed to feed back into the cycle as Agatha paused just long to inhale sharply before—“HHET’Sshiu! Motherfucker!”

“Agatha?” Rio knocked lightly on the door with her knuckle. “It’s just me. You ok?”

“F-fuck off,” Agatha growled. Her voice was really starting to go now—it sounded low and scratchy, cracking between syllables—and though she made a point of turning on the water in the sink, Rio could still hear her sniffling miserably.

“Agatha, come on, don’t do this to yourself.”

She got no response to that, presumably because Agatha knew that her voice wasn’t helping her case at this point. Rio checked the time on her phone; it was after eleven now. If she’d known a few hours ago that this was where they were going to end up, she’d have put her foot down at the start. She should have pushed harder when Agatha was still malleable. Now it felt like she was talking to a brick wall. Or a closed wooden door, she supposed.

Just as she was about to get up to go back to the party, she heard Agatha clear her throat.

“If I’b bothering you so mbuch you can just fucki’g leave,” she snapped.

“Agatha, that’s not…” Rio trailed off as Agatha’s words actually hit her.

Oh.

So that’s what this was all about.

“Listen,” Rio said. “I’m not leaving you. Not because of the party and definitely not because you’re sick. You’re kind of fucking stuck with me whether you like it or not, and I’ll give you space, but I’m not leaving you. Take as much time as you need. I’m heading back out to the living room, but I’ll be here for you whenever you’re ready.”

The water stopped running and Rio could hear Agatha sniffle again. She didn’t say anything, but then again, she didn’t really have to. It was enough just for Rio to know she was actually listening. As she started to turn away, she suddenly remembered the cookies in her hand.

“Oh, and I brought you a little something to eat. They’re right out here if you want them.”

There was a narrow little table with a collection of candles and crystals next to the bathroom door, and Rio set the napkin-wrapped cookies on edge before she headed back down the hallway. When she reached the end, she heard the bathroom door open and shut, and when she turned around, the cookies were gone.

~**~

By 11:30, the party was smaller, but rowdier than ever. Lilia, who had been out on the fire escape more than once, was giggling her way through a tarot reading for Jen over the arm of the other couch. There was music blasting from someone’s phone, and a cheer went up as Alice finally broke her high score. Everyone that was left was talking or laughing, and it was easy enough for Rio to slip back into the fray and plop herself on an overstuffed couch cushion without so much as a glance her way.

The minutes seemed to drag by impossibly slow. 11:45 turned to :50, turned to :55, and Rio was starting to think she might have to press her luck and check on Agatha again when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and speak of the devil, there she was. Her hair obscured most of her face so Rio couldn’t get a great look at her, but she tapped Rio’s shoulder and nodded towards the fire escape, and that was all Rio needed to scramble to her feet and follow her.

There was no one out there at this time of night; everyone left was inside, watching reluctantlyas Alice unplugged the game and tuned the TV in to the Times Square ball drop. Agatha slipped out the open window onto the metal platform, and before Rio could even process what they were doing, Agatha grabbed the railing of the narrow stairs leading up towards the roof and started to climb.

“Ok, not that I’m not glad you’re out here again, but what are the fuck are you doing?” Rio asked, trying not to notice just how high above the city streets they were.

Agatha paused and looked back at her. “I wa’t to watch the fireworks.”

She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, like it had been her plan this whole time, and though Rio hated the thought of setting foot on those narrow, creaking stairs, she had to admit that, yeah, she very much did want to watch the fireworks too.

She followed Agatha, and they both scrambled over the lip at the top. After the hazy warmth of Lilia’s apartment, the chill breeze was a welcome change, and Rio had to admit, the view was nice from up here. Rio checked the time on her phone. Two minutes to midnight, and she swore could feel it in the air.

“You don’t have to kiss mbe or adythi’g,” Agatha said. “I just thought this mbight be dice.”

Ninety seconds to midnight.

“Would you stop me if I did?” Rio asked.

Agatha scoffed. “You’d really risk catchi’g this?”

“What can I say?” Rio shrugged. “I’m feeling lucky this year.”

“But I’b gross.”

Rio pressed her cold hand against Agatha’s fever-warm cheek—oh yeah, she was definitely going downhill—and guided her gaze up so she could take her first good look at Agatha’s face in the moonlight.

Agatha’s bright blue eyes were watering so badly it looked like she was crying, and though her mascara had held up valiantly for the last few hours, it was starting to smudge in earnest now. The makeup around her nose was a patchy mess, clinging to the dry, reddened skin where it hadn’t been rubbed off entirely. Her lipstick had honestly held up surprisingly well, although the edges were starting to get fuzzy. All of that coupled with her irritated frown as she sniffled and wrinkled her nose again made her look so pathetically adorable that Rio could almost melt.

“See that’s the funny thing,” Rio said. “You’re saying gross, but all I’m seeing is the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Agatha blushed furiously, but she let Rio pull her closer.

Ten seconds to midnight.

The air was humming with electric energy. Rio was sure there was nowhere else on earth she’d rather be.

Five!

They could hear the countdown from all directions.

Four!

Agatha swore as her nose twitched and she aimed a loud “Hh-ITShoo!” into her shoulder.

Three!

Agatha sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Two!

“Last cha’dce to back out.”

One!

Rio smirked. “Not on your life.”

Happy New Year!

All at once, the city erupted around them, but Rio hardly paid it any mind as her lips met Agatha’s, waiting and eager, and for a moment, they were the only two people in the world. Rio could taste the artificial vanilla of Agatha’s lipstick, could feel Agatha’s poor, abused nose against her cheek as she tangled her fingers in Agatha’s hair and savored absolutely everything about the moment.

Agatha was the first to turn away, gasping for breath that couldn’t break through the wall of congestion in her nose, but she didn’t pull away from Rio’s arms.

They stayed like that for a long moment, foreheads pressed together as the fireworks over the water lit up the night sky around them.

“Rio?” Agatha finally croaked.

“Yeah, love?”

 “I dod’t feel very well,” Agatha said. She let her shoulders drop and rested her head on Rio’s shoulder so that her next words came out even softer. “I thigk I’b ready to leave ndow.”

“Oh, you are, huh?”

Agatha nodded weakly against Rio’s neck. Rio bit back a chuckle and carded her fingers through Agatha’s hair, which just made Agatha press closer. She was for sure running a fever now, but Rio didn’t think she needed to say that part out loud.

The fireworks were starting to die down now. The city that slept by 10pm was already quieting again, and a cool breeze blew across the rooftop, making them both shiver. That was enough to finally spur Rio into action. Despite Agatha’s low whine of protest, Rio took a step back, and reached into Agatha’s pocket to find her crumpled handkerchief. She offered it to Agatha who rolled her rheumy eyes, but accepted it gratefully and set about wiping away the tear tracks and the smudged eye makeup. There wasn’t much she could do for her foundation at this point, but after a moment she managed to pull herself back to some semblance of her usual self.

“Ready?”

“H-hold on.” Agatha held up one finger as she inhaled a shaky breath. Her eyes fluttered shut, her lips parted, and she stayed like that for a long moment, before—

Fuck, I lost it.” Agatha scrubbed at her nose with the crumpled handkerchief in frustration before flipping her hair over her shoulder and following Rio to the edge of the roof to step gingerly back onto the fire escape.

The party was well and truly winding down now, but those that were left seemed occupied with champagne and company, so no one seemed to notice when Rio and Agatha slipped back inside. For a second, Rio almost thought they could make a clean break for it. They’d grab their coats and slip outside, and Rio would text Lilia a brief goodbye once they were in the Uber back to Agatha’s place.

That kind of luck didn’t seem to be on their side, though, because Lilia caught them as they passed the kitchen doorway.

“Oh, Rio, are you leaving?”

Rio stopped dead in her tracks like she’d been caught sneaking in after curfew. She could feel Agatha stiffen and clear her throat next to her.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Rio said with a nervous glance at Agatha. “It’s getting late and—”

“I have to let the babysitter go,” Agatha chimed in. “Rio offered to split a car.”

Her voice was fading in earnest now, but Rio noticed how carefully she was choosing her words so at least she didn’t sound too congested on top of it. Her explanation seemed to be enough for Lilia, who smiled at them both.

“Well, get home safe,” she said. “Happy New Year! And Agatha, I hope you feel better soon!”

Agatha’s jaw dropped and she looked like she was contemplating homicide or suicide or both, but Rio just gave her a shove in the direction of the door and gave Lilia a soft “Happy New Year,” and a shy wave in return.

She grabbed both of their coats out of the closet with one hand while she pulled up Uber on her phone with the other. No way they were doing that walk again tonight.

“Ok, driver’ll be here in three minutes,” Rio said.

When Agatha didn’t respond right away, Rio looked up to see her frozen in pre-sneeze torture, her lips parted, eyelashes fluttering, brows knitting together as she took a breath in, and then—

“Oh fuck mbe!” Agatha scowled and pinched the bridge of her nose hard.

“Oh, pobrecita,” Rio breathed. “Let’s get you home.”

Agatha rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything, the lost sneeze snuck back up on her with a vengeance just as Jen and Alice passed by on their way to the kitchen.

“HHT’SCHiu!”

“Bless you, Agatha!”

“Fuck off, Jen!” Agatha called back.

With that, she flipped her hair over her shoulder, held her flaming cheeks high, and stalked out of Lilia’s apartment, leaving Rio to call out a soft, “Happy New Year, guys!” before jogging to catch up.

~**~

The ride back to Agatha’s place was short and quiet, and even though she hadn’t strictly been invited, Rio followed Agatha inside where Agatha paid the babysitter, kicked off her shoes, and tossed her coat in the vague direction of the coatrack before throwing herself down onto the couch in the parlor.

Rio had been in Agatha’s house more than a few times, but this—Agatha being this miserable in her own home—was new enough territory that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. She shed her own coat and shoes, and picked up Agatha’s so at least they wouldn’t be a tripping hazard later, and returned to stand behind the couch.

Agatha had one hand dangling towards the floor and the other over her eyes like if she blocked her vision, she could pretend the night had gone differently.

“So,” Rio started carefully. “What are you thinking? Do you want me to stay?”

Agatha moved the hand over her face and looked up at Rio with red, watery, exhausted eyes.

“I cad take care of byself,” she said.

“I know you can. That’s not what I’m asking.” Rio leaned over the back of the couch and reached one hand down to brush a lock of hair out of Agatha’s face, curling it gently around her finger. “Do you want me to stay?”

“You’ll get sick,” Agatha whined.

“Again, not what I’m asking. And for what it’s worth, you did have your tongue in my mouth less than an hour ago, so I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed.”

Agatha started to laugh, but it quickly turned into a cough that only seemed to irritate her nose as she quickly brought her hands up to cover an itchy sneeze. “hH-IItschu!”

“Salud, baby.”

“Thagks,” Agatha grumbled. She sniffled wetly and wiped her nose roughly on her sleeve. “Ugh, feel gross! I hate bei’g sick.”

Rio bit back a laugh. “I don’t think most people really enjoy it.” She had moved from playing with Agatha’s hair to scratching lightly at her scalp. Agatha’s eyes fell closed and she moaned into Rio’s touch.

“Let me ask a different way,” Rio said. “Do you want me to leave?”

Agatha’s eyes opened again, and when she looked up at Rio with her flushed cheeks and her sniffly nose, Rio felt like she could melt into a puddle on the spot. The flush in Agatha’s cheeks deepened as she slowly shook her head no.

“Ok,” Rio said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Shut up,” Agatha muttered without any bite.

“Ignoring that because you’re sick,” Rio said.  “Now what do you say we get you somewhere more comfortable than the couch so you can get some actual rest, hm?”

It took a few more minutes of gentle prodding from Rio to get Agatha to her feet and up the stairs, but once she was moving, she seemed to be able to handle herself. She poked her head into Nicky’s room before heading to her own room to change while Rio busied herself digging around in the bathroom medicine cabinet.

All Agatha seemed to have was a bottle of Advil, a box of Zyrtec, and a mostly-empty bottle of grape-flavored children’s cold medicine that was missing the measuring cup. Rio vowed to make a supply run in the morning, but for now, the Advil was probably better than nothing. She filled a glass with water from the sink, and then grabbed the allergy meds for good measure and headed for Agatha’s bedroom.

Agatha had already changed into an oversized t-shirt with an ambiguous number three on it, and a pair of worn flannel shorts that were practically indecent. She’d pulled her hair into a loose bun, and she was just finishing wiping off the last of her makeup with a wipe that she tossed carelessly in the direction of the trash can. It missed by a long shot, but Rio thought it was cute that she’d tried.

“Here,” Rio said, holding out the water and two ibuprofen tablets. “You didn’t have much, but this should help keep your fever down.” Agatha took the meds and washed them down without protest, and Rio offered her the box of allergy meds. “I don’t know if these’ll do much, but they might at least take the edge off until I can run out to the store tomorrow.”

Agatha’s cheeks flushed a deeper pink. “About that…”

“What are you…?” Rio trailed off as she pulled the blister pack out of the box and found it completely empty. “Why was this still in the cabinet if you knew it was empty?”

“To remind myself to buy more,” Agatha said like it was completely obvious and not actually one of the most ridiculous things Rio had ever heard.

“Ok, scratch that then.” Rio tossed the empty package into the trash can. “Do you want anything else?”

Agatha shook her head as she set her water on the nightstand.

“Just hurry up and c’mere,” she said, making grabby hands in Rio’s general direction. It was quite possibly the cutest thing Rio had ever seen, and she wiggled out of her nice jeans and into a spare set of pajamas as fast as she could so she could crawl under the covers with Agatha, who immediately attached herself to Rio’s side.

“I’b sorry I was a bitch earlier,” Agatha mumbled.

Rio chuckled as she leaned her cheek against the top of Agatha’s head. “Lucky for you, I kind of like it when you’re a bitch, because I know you don’t mean it.” Agatha grumbled something unintelligible against her neck, but Rio continued, “And because the sooner you get being a bitch out of your system, the sooner we get to do this.”

“Love you,” Agatha mumbled sleepily.

“Y yo a ti, mi amor,” Rio said. She reached back to turn off the lamp on the bedside table and then pressed her lips against Agatha’s warm forehead as she settled back down.

Agatha was already out, her breathing coming in congested little snores that made Rio’s lips twitch into a smile as she felt her own eyes growing heavy. Her last conscious thought before she slipped into sleep herself was that there was nowhere else on earth she’d rather be starting the new year.

[babygirlmurdock]

Unexpected Connection

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader

Summary: Your friend convinces you to go to a singles event only for you to meet Hell’s Kitchen infamous lawyer.

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: mild swearing, alcohol

a/n: heyyy lol so this is my First piece of fiction. i’m trying to get better at writing fiction and this actually came to me when something like this was actually brought up to me recently lol so i thought hey why not try to write something about it?

——————————————————————————

You’ve been single for quite some time now. Your last breakup was nasty, left your heart shredded; you weren’t too sure when you’d be truly ready to date again. Your friends have been helpful, pushing you to get out there and meet new people. Get your mind off your ex, y’know?

Swipe after swipe. Messages that are painfully one sided. Or men that just want to hook up or want something casual.

“Ooh, I just got this advertised to me on Instagram,” Jill says to you. Jill is a coworker turned friend. You perk up from your desk to see what she was talking about, “a meet and mingle this Saturday at the Refinary rooftop. We should definitely go!”

“Ugh, I just don’t know Jill. All men have done is just disappoint me and nothing has compared to Jam— ”,

“James. I know. But maybe the guy that is way better than James will be there. Your soulmate could be here and you would never know! C’mon it’ll be fun, I think. Plus meeting people in person is way better than on the apps,” she leans up against your desk. You worked as an editor at the New York Bulletin. It was an internship turned full time position after you graduated college. You dreamed of New York one day, and it still feels surreal that this is your reality.

You are sure your friends were tired of you sulking about James. It’s been well over 6 months and he’s probably already moved on while you’re stuck in this trench of dating.

“Okay. Fine. I hope there’s good drinks because Lord knows I’ll need that liquid confidence.” You scrubbed your face.

Jill squeals, “I’m so excited!! It starts at 7.”

——————————————————————————-

“Matt! It would be so fun, talking to beautiful women all night and who knows, maybe take one home!” Foggy hints to Matt about this meet and mingle.

“I’m really not in the cards to be dating right now, Foggy,” Matt says, shuffling through some papers. The mid-afternoon sun beamed through Matt’s office as Foggy stood in his doorway. Matt was trying to get through the last of this litigation before the end of the week and Foggy was not making this easier.

“This might be the opportunity that you meet someone who is actually normal! Not some psycho chick that almost got your ass expelled back in law school. That’s how long it’s been, Matt! Do you know how long ago law school was?” Matt lets out a small laugh at Foggy.

“Yes, Foggy. I was there, I know how long ago it was.”

He never understood why Foggy was so adamant on him meeting someone. Now that the firm is getting some business and he’s gone out more times than he can count as Daredevil, he just doesn’t have the time to commit.

“I’ll go only for an hour,” Matt sighs and Foggy lets out a cheer.

“You’re not gonna regret this, Murdock!”

————————————————————————

Saturday night rolls around. You and Jill are about to head to the singles event.

“I hope I meet someone rich,” Jill says, applying her lipstick. “I just don’t want to work again, y’know?”

“Tell me about it. I just hope nobody is too much of an asshole. I don’t know if I can take another person mansplaining what investing is and why I should do it,” You shouted from the bathroom, spraying some hairspray in your hair. You came out of the bathroom wearing jeans and a plain black t-shirt.

“Whoa girl, what are you wearing? You can’t wear that!” Jill said from your living room.

You eye yourself in the mirror, “what is so wrong with jeans and a t-shirt?”

Jill says your name sternly, “everything? You might meet the love of your life! Show some more!”

“You’re ridiculous. You’re lucky I’m going to this in the first place! Would it make you happier if I changed my top?” You say, taking off your shirt to dig for something she deems more appropriate.

“Atta girl, show the goodies,” Jill says, shimmying her chest. “Uber is downstairs, let’s get going.”

——————————————————————————

You arrive at the venue and make your way upstairs to the roof. It was decorated with greenery and twinkle lights. The place was lit just enough to make it romantic but not where you couldn’t see anyone. Not even 15 minutes into the event, you lose Jill in the crowd already talking to people. You make your way to the bar to order yourself a drink.

“Dirty martini, gin, please. Thanks,” you stand at the bar while you wait for your drink and hear a smooth voice next to you.

“Whiskey, neat, please. Thank you,” you peer over and your eyes meet a beautiful man wearing red glasses. You take a moment to read him a little bit. Gorgeous side profile. Your eyes make their way down to his hands, and meet with a cane. Blind?

“Dirty martini & a whiskey neat.”

“Thank you,” you both say in unison. “I suppose we should cheers?” The man says to you.

“Oh, uh sure, cheers,” You clink your glass against his and a smile breaks out on his face as the glass meets his lips. God damn, this guy looks like the next coming of Christ. He was so unreal looking. He had the jaw sculpted by God himself, decorated with just the right amount of stubble, and his lips. They were so pink and full. The thoughts of kissing him already danced in your head. The faint smell of his cologne twirled around in your nostrils.

“So let me guess,” you take a sip from your drink, “your friend basically dragged you here too against your will even though you told them you were over dating?”

“Wow,” his eyebrows perked up as he took another sip, “how did you guess?” he says, sarcastically.

“Well, considering you look like that,” your hand vaguely gestured to his body, “and women aren’t at your beck and call, I had to assume.”

“Look like what? Oh God, did I forget to put on my pants? You’d tell me that I’m pant less right?” He says frantically, trying to hide his laughter.

“Ha ha, very funny. But was I right?” You raise an eyebrow at him.

“You’re not too far off. It’s hard to do modern dating when everything is on dating apps and eyesight helps that. Phones can only be so accessible. I’m Matt by the way, Matt Murdock.” He sticks his hand out for you to grab. You give him your name as you shake his hand. You notice some bruising on the knuckles and wonder what that could be about.

“Wait like, the lawyer?”

Matt sheepishly nodded in agreement, “that would be me.”

“Where were you when I told a cop to fuck off because I didn’t like how he was speaking to my friend?” You take a big swig of your martini hoping the alcohol would hit you sooner rather than later.

“My law partner must’ve missed the call from the woman brave enough to tell a cop to fuck off,” Matt smirks at you. Butterflies erupt inside you and your heart beat jumps.

————————————————————————

As the night goes on, and after a couple more drinks, conversation between you and Matt flows effortlessly. You two made your way over to a couch to sit and talk. The crowd ebbed and flowed throughout the night. People left, more people showed up, but it never got too crowded. It honestly felt like you and Matt were alone, like the world stood still.

“So you mean to tell me he took your furniture outside?” You laugh at the thought of his college roommate moving all of Matt’s furniture outside.

“Yeah, it was kind of rude of him to do that to a blind guy. He thought it was hilarious though,” Matt smiles at you.

“You guys seemed wild in law school. I bet campus police weren't too thrilled with your shenanigans,” you rest your chin on your hand as you lean a bit closer to Matt.

“Foggy actually got into some trouble with them because he was breaking the school's disability rules. Nothing too major, he just had to volunteer as a part of campus police to pay his dues.”

You laugh at Matt, and briefly look around and notice you and Matt seemed to be two of the other five couples that are still there.

“So, I have a question for you…” you trail off, debating on asking this question.

“No, I haven’t been blind my whole life,” Matt states.

“How did you know I was going to ask that?” your voice has an edge of surprise to it.

“It came in the pamphlet when I lost my vision. Don’t worry about it though, it doesn’t bother me when people ask,” Matt reassures you. “It’s been 20 years at this point.”

“Oh wow, so you had to adapt and relearn the world without your eyes. That’s insane, it must have been tough for you,” you rest your hand on Matt’s bicep. What business does he have to have this much of a defined arm?

“It took some adjusting but my other senses were…” Matt stops mid sentence before realizing what he was about to say.

“What? Like sensitive? I’m sure your other senses had to compensate now that your eyes were out of commission.”

“Yeah, you can say sensitive in a way,” Matt sighs. Silence falls between you both. You fiddle with your glass for a moment until he speaks up, “what do you say we get out of here?”

“Oh, um,” you look around in hopes of finding your friend because you’re still nervous about potentially going home with somebody new. No matter how gorgeous the man is. “I–“ you stammer.

“I don’t want to give the wrong intentions. What I mean is maybe go to another bar. There’s a place two blocks over that we can go to. If you’re up for it,” Matt gave you a small smile of reassurance.

You think for a moment, staring at his face while your heart feels like it’s going to leap out of your body. What the hell, why not? “Sure, I’d like that,” you smile and get up. You let Matt grab onto your forearm for guidance as you walk to the bar to close out. After he graciously also paid for your tab, you walked with him to the elevator.

“What’s this place called? How do I know you’re not going to murder me? You are still a stranger by the way,” you ramble on. Matt laughs at your nervousness.

“It’s called Josie’s. I’ve been going here since I was in law school. And if I were going to murder you, I would have done it already,” Matt leans into you playfully.

“Ah yeah that makes me feel so much better, thank you, Matt,” you joke.

—————————————————————————

The walk to Josie’s is mostly silent, but not awkward. You feel at ease around Matt. His energy is soothing, it feels like you’ve known him for ages. He asked about your upbringing, what brought you to New York. Your typical “getting to know someone” questions.

As you approach the bar, your nerves dissipate as you recognize this is a dive bar. “You seem less tense,” Matt said to you, his hand lightly placed on the pulse point of your wrist.

“Yeah, I love a good dive bar. It’s charming in a way,” you breathe out, leading the way into the bar. You find a seat at the bar for you and Matt to sit. You look around the bar, and notice the pool table in the back. There were old beer signs all over the walls. The lighting was dim and moody. Classic rock was playing over the speakers. Matt must’ve waved down a bartender while you were distracted because two beers are placed in front of you as you sat down next to him.

“I love how you assumed I liked beer,” you tease, taking a sip from your bottle.

“I can order something else if you’d like me to,” Matt's voice breaks a bit.

“I like beer, don’t worry,” you reassured him, “so what are the odds a blind man knows how to play pool?”

“I’ve played. I can’t promise I’ll be any good.”

Your drinks start to hit you more as you speak, “Do you want to make a bet?”

“Betting against a blind man? Low blow,” Matt sucks his teeth teasing you a bit. You giggle, “Fair point, Matthew. Fair point. C’mon, do you need guidance to the table?”

“No thank you, I know this place like it’s my own home,” Matt smiled at you as you both made your way over to the pool table.

You rack up the balls and Matt grabs some cues. “Do you want to break the triangle?” Matt asks.

“Sure, why not,” You bend over, lining up the cue ball with the tip of the triangle. Your heartbeat quickens as you feel Matt’s gaze upon you. You know, for someone who is blind, you sure can feel like his eyes were all over your body. The loud crack of the ball break snaps you out of your train of thought. “Do you, um, do you need help lining up the cue?”

“Actually yes, that’d be helpful.”

You make your way to Matt’s side, telling him solids were his and what balls were lined up with which ones. To your shock, he nails two solids into the sink holes. “I’ll be damned. Blind man is good at pool.”

Matt’s voice is low and husky when he says, “there’s a lot of secrets about me,” which gives you full body chills.

“Well, okay then, I—” you stammer trying to collect your tipsy self. You take your shot and, “God damn it, missed. You’re not hustling me, are you? You said you weren’t good!” you protest.

“Ehh, lucky shot, I guess,” Matt laughs, taking a swig of his beer.

The round of pool goes at a good pace, flirty innuendos fly off the walls. At this point, Matt’s jacket is off and the sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up showing his forearms. Every passing hour, you feel more and more attracted to him. And you only hope he feels the same.

“Alright, 8 ball is up. Absolutely no fucking way I’m about to lose a game of pool to a guy who can’t see,” you said competitively.

“Well to be fair, you have been helping me line the cues up, you could’ve hustled me and lined up with your balls.” He suggests with a shrug.

“God damn it, you’re so right. Holy shit why didn’t I think of that?!” You line the cue up to the ball and take your shot...and miss. You let out a gasp as you just lost this game of pool.

“That didn’t sound like a good gasp,” Matt teased.

“You’d be correct. Good game, Matt.”

“Good game,” he said your name back to you.

You looked at your watch and realized it was almost midnight. “It’s getting late, I think we should head out. That sound okay to you?” you say, even though you secretly don’t want this night to end.

“Yeah, do you want me to walk you home?” Matt asks you, with a shy smile secretly hoping you’d say yes.

“That’d be really lovely, thank you. I’m just 5 blocks up actually.”

————————————————————————

“Alright, this is me,” you halt in front of your building’s entrance.

“Are you sure it’s not up one more block?” He flashes you a cheeky smile.

“Unfortunately, it is not. I had a really good time tonight, Matt,” you step closer to him, inches away from his body.

“I had a really nice time tonight, too,” Matt’s voice just above a whisper. God, that register in his voice practically made you fall to your knees.

You and Matt are still standing dangerously close to each other as both of your body’s heats mingled together, practically begging for some physical touch. “I should, uh, get upstairs. Goodnight, Matt.” As you are about to turn away, Matt pulls you in closer as your chests nearly touch. Lips hovering over one another as your breath intertwines with his. Your brain is barely forming coherent thoughts, until you whisper, “I think this is the part where you kiss me.”

“I was waiting for the words,” Matt’s hand snakes up to gently rest on your jawbone as he tilts your head up. His lips meet yours with the tenderness and sweetness that you crave so desperately. He pulls away and you both sigh. “That was—”

“Really nice. You’re an excellent kisser by the way,” you let your inside thoughts exist on the outside now. “That was meant to stay inside my brain, oh my god….” You buried your face in your hands as you pulled away from his embrace.

Matt laughs, “I appreciate the compliment, thank you.”

“Let’s do this again, next week? You owe me a rematch in pool.”

“Next week sounds fantastic. If the pool game went anything like it did tonight, it won’t be much of a rematch,” Matt banters with you. You gasp at his remark which makes him laugh. “I’ll call you sometime this week to set something up, okay?”

“Do you mind if I put my number in your phone? I figure that’d be easiest maybe,” You suggest.

“Oh yeah, that’d be great,” Matt said pulling out his phone. You grabbed it and put your name and number in there and handed it back to him.

“Okay,” you smile at him, “I’ll be anticipating your call.”

“Goodnight,” Matt whispers your name, dripping from his lips like honey. You kiss his cheek and head upstairs. As you close the door, you squeal in excitement.

Matt stood outside your building for a moment, listening to it shut to ensure you made it in okay. As he was about to step away, he heard you squeal to yourself in excitement, which made him laugh to himself.

[vodika-vibes]

Please Forgive Me

Summary: Jaster has been your best friend for the majority of your life; you legitimately can’t remember a time he wasn’t by your side. But since meeting your new boyfriend, he’s been extremely foul-tempered, and you’re fed up with it.

Characters: Jaster Mereel, F! Reader, Arla Fett, Jango Fett

Word Count: 1761

Warnings: Jaster is a dick in this story, sorry. Mentions of injuries

A/N: So, this was supposed to be a cute story, but it turned into something else, lol

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You’ve always had a quick temper.

When you were a kid, people thought it was adorable. Your little face would scrunch up and you’d stomp your foot, and your buir’e would laugh and call you adorable.

As you grew older, you never managed to outgrow your temper. Though you no longer get mad about silly things, like having a set bedtime or needing to drink milk with dinner, your temper still has a hair trigger.

Especially if something seems unfair.

Thankfully, you did manage to grow out of stomping your foot when you’re mad. Well, mostly. When you get really upset, you might stomp your foot to try and make a point, but you’re trying to stop.

Mostly because Jaster says that you’re adorable when you do that, and grown women aren’t supposed to be called adorable. 

A scowl crosses your face at the thought of your best friend.

Jaster has been a dick to your new boyfriend, well, now ex-boyfriend, and you, for the last month. In fact, Jaster had been so mean to you the other day that he actually made you cry.

Not that he knows that. 

Your helmet is good for more than protecting your head while in combat, after all. 

In any event, you’re done with it. 

He is going to explain himself. And if he doesn’t, then this 20-year friendship ends today. And if that means that you have to leave Mandalore, then so be it.

You don’t think it’ll come to that, Jaster’s not the type to use his position as Mand’alor as a weapon against you. But, then, you never thought that Jaster would imply that you’re a worthless whore either, so maybe you don’t know him as well as you thought you did.

You push your way into Jaster’s office, tug your helmet off, and drop it on an open chair. Then you pin Montross with an acidic glare, “You, get out.”

Montross looks to argue with you for a moment, then he takes a good look at your face, decides that discretion is the better part of valor, and stands, “Yes ma’am.”

As soon as Montross is gone, you focus your glare on Jaster, who has the grace to look slightly uncomfortable.

Good.

“Sarad,” He beams at you, as though he hasn’t been a relentless dick to you for the last four weeks, “You could have called to let me know you were coming, I would have had caf brought for you—”

“Jaster, stop.” You press a hand to the side of your head and take a deep breath. Calm. You have to stay calm. Losing your shit at Jaster isn’t going to help.

But, now that you’re standing in his office, the speech that you spent the last week preparing, the speech that you memorized, flies out of your head as though it had never been there to begin with.

“Sarad,” Jaster frowns at you, “You seem upset, is everything alright.”

And that, that simple sentence, is enough to spark your temper. You stalk towards his desk and slam your hands on the edge, “No, Jaster! Everything is not alright!”

“Okay,” He stands and circles his desk to place his hands on your shoulders, “Okay, so talk it out with me. We can work it out.”

Impatiently, you smack his hands away from your shoulders, “You damn well better hope we can work it out,” You bite out as you glare at him.

“Did your boyfriend do something? I can have him sent somewhere else—” He almost sounds pleased at the idea, and you want to hit him.

“Stop!”

Jaster stops midsentence and stares at you, seemingly startled.

“I deserve an explanation, and you are going to give me one.” You say, your hands are shaking and there are tears pricking the corner of your eyes, and you hate it. How dare you be so weak in front of him?

“I’m going to need some clarification, Sarad.”

“He broke up with me,” You’re not imagining it, the second you say that something smug and pleased crosses his face. “He broke up with me because of you.”

Jaster looks genuinely confused, “I didn’t tell him to break up with you, I wouldn’t do that.”

You glare at him, “As it happens, when your best friend of over 20 years, who also happens to be the Mand’alor, implies that he thinks you’re a “worthless whore” the people who hear it tend to believe him.”

“I never said that!”

You stare at him, and all of the fight leaves you. It feels an awful lot like defeat. “Fine. Whatever. If that’s the story you want to stick to.”

“Sarad?”

“Would you prefer that I return my Beskar to the armorer to be melted down, Mand’alor? I won’t be needing it once I leave.”

Panic slides across his face, “Wait, you’re leaving? You can’t leave!”

“You, apparently, think I’m both worthless and a whore.” You try to spark some of the anger that you’re best known for, but you just feel cold and tired, “Why should I stay, sir?”

“No.” He reaches out and his hand lightly brushes against your cheek, “I…I was drunk and I was angry and I wanted to hurt you. It’s not an excuse, what I said is inexcusable—”

“You wanted to hurt me? Well, congrats. You managed it.” You pull your head away from his hand, “Please stop touching me.”

“I was jealous,” Jaster admits, “You looked at him the way that I wished you would look at me, and—”

“So what?” He falters, and you continue, “People don’t say stuff like that to people they like, Jaster. People don’t want to hurt the people they care about.”

“...you’re right.” He exhales slowly, “You’re right. And I’m sorry. But, please don’t leave.”

You fold your arms, “I don’t want to be on Mandalore right now.”

He looks crushed at your admission, but he turns and pulls a datapad off his desk, “A mission then? A family on Concord Dawn says their daughter has been kidnapped.”

You take the datapad and scan it, “The Fett family?”

“Yeah, they’re farmers. Death Watch has been seen in the area, so…” He trails off, “Will you come back?”

“When I’m ready, and not a second sooner.”

“Can I comm you?”

You press your lips into a thin line, “You can write unless you have something that needs to be said to me as Mand’alor.”

“Alright,” He says through an exhale, “Alright. Sarad, I am sorry.” And, for the first time this whole conversation, he sounds it.

“Yeah. I know.” You pause, “I’m going now, Jaster. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

Three months later, you find yourself on a tiny moon just barely in Mandalorian space, with a traumatized 10-year-old girl cowering behind you, and an equally traumatized 8-year-old boy clinging to her, as you try to think of a way out of this situation.

Arla Fett, the little girl who was kidnapped by Death Watch, is covered in blood, a mix of her own and yours. You did your best to bandage her left eye before you were injured. While Jango is largely clean, save for some blood transfer from his sister’s clothes.

You should have called Jaster when it became obvious that Death Watch was a lot more active than either of you expected. But sent the message too late, and now you’re missing an arm.

Odds are that your leg is going to need to be amputated, assuming you survive this, and one of your eyes is going to need to be removed. You didn’t even know that the visor on your helmet could shatter like it did.

Stupid slugthrowers. Who even uses those against people who aren’t Jedi anyway?

Arla releases a shaky breath, “They’re getting closer.”

Your head bumps against the stone behind you, you’ve long since removed your helmet, and you stare at the kids with your remaining eyes.

Foundlings are the future.

Slowly, you pull a pair of blasters out of the holsters, and hand one to each child. “My ship is on the other side of that ridge over there. I’m going to buy you some time, as soon as they’re distracted the both of you are to run to my ship.”

“But—” Jango stares at you wide-eyed.

You smile at him, as reassuringly as you can, “You don’t stop for anyone, do you understand me?”

Arla looks defeated for a moment, but then her expression steels and she nods, “Where should we go?”

Good girl, she has a spine made of beskar. “Mandalore. The autopilot will handle everything as soon as you put in the destination.” You look between the children, “Arla, take care of your brother.”

“Always. He’s my responsibility.” She takes Jango’s hand.

“Good girl.” You pull a grenade out of a pocket, “Get ready to run.” Arla drags Jango away from you, and you take a deep breath before you activate the explosive in your hand and throw it towards the assholes trying to kill you.

You’ve got about a dozen of these on your person, and a pair of foundlings you need to protect. Those assholes don’t stand a chance.

The fight, if you can even call it that, only lasted 10 minutes before a massive group of Jaster’s super-commandos arrived to deal with the situation. You’re grateful for their timely arrival.

You’re slightly less grateful that Jaster decided to personally lead the charge.

You’re still mad at him.

However, even that has taken a backseat due to the pair of children clinging to you like they’re afraid that you’re about to vanish on them. They’ve both been cleaned and fed, and neither seems all that willing to go somewhere else.

It’s fine. Your parents will be thrilled to become grandparents.

Arla has already announced that she’ll only accept you adopting her, and not anyone else. Jango, it seems, is happy to follow his sister’s lead in all things. You just need to heal enough to actually adopt them.

For now, though, they’re asleep in your medical bed. Both of them tucked against you comfortably. 

You glance up to see Jaster standing in the doorway, a look of relief on his tired face. But he doesn’t enter the room, instead, he just offers you a tiny smile, and then he leaves.

You’re still mad at him. But, you’re less mad now than you were three months ago. So you guess, someday, you might be able to forgive him. He’s still got a lot of groveling to do, though.

@imabeautifulbutterfly

@n0vqni

@bad4amficideas

@justiceandwar98

@mira-loves-star-wars

@tiredbi-peach

@dukeoftheblackstar

@trixie2023

@kimiheartblade

@padawancat97

@falconfeather23435

@etod

@bb8-99

@kiss-anon

@continous-mistakes

@yoitsjay

@liz-stat

@cc--2224

@adriennelenoir

@cdblake1565

@sweater-sloot

@heidnspeak

@wax-birds

@silly-starfish

@lonewolflupe

@maniacalbooper

@rebell-ious

[staawberru]

my childhood friend wrote a gay omegaverse faction about me! Chapter 4

An sorry for all the time skips😭😭 just wanted to get this chapter done

chapter one | next chapter | last chapter | masterlist

Your pov

   As soon as you got home you texted Lily back. 

Lily :P: ‘I saw your profile pic!!! I luv luv luv opm and saw king as your pfp I knew you’d be cool>:3’ 

You: ‘Um I’ve never watched that shi’ 

Lily :P: ‘Oh um then why do you have him as your profile..?’

You: ‘I jst thought he look cool ig’

Lily :P: ‘lol understandable so I saw you lived in [town name] I live there too!’ 

You: ‘oh really? What high school u go to?’ 

Lily :P: ‘long house high’

You: ‘oh I go to [high school name]’ 

Lily :P: ‘aw :(‘

   God she was cute, the little faces she made were just adorable. It was a shame you didn’t go to the same school. You see the phone ping again and you go back to texting her 

Lily :P: ‘So what do you like to do?’ 

You: ‘play video games mostly wbu’

Lily :P: ’the same actually I like playing stardew valley what bout yuu??’

Lily :P: ’you**’ 

You: ’cod mostly’

You: ’my friend has stardew valley we can play sometime?’ 

  You know you're rushing it but, you don’t really mind, you like her. You said you're not going to fall under pretty girls' curses, and you haven’t, she’s different. And jobie isn’t going to judge me for playing stardew valley, or tell anyone at that, if he did you’d just ignore him for a while. You’ve learned that’s the most effective punishment for him. 

Lily :P: ‘omg that would be so fun!’

You: ‘how about we play tmr? I can probably convince him to let me play’

Lily :P: ‘it’s a date !!!’

   A date. Wow. You don’t remember the last time you were on a date, always busy with school or practice, so you never really got time to actually date. Now, you're not delusional, you know she probably doesn’t mean it like that, but you're still hanging out with a girl, even if it is unfortunately under the watchful eye of Jobie, but oh well, can’t have everything. Speaking of Jobie, you still have to convince him. It’ll be easiest if you wait until tomorrow to talk to him. You don’t have his phone number, well, you do, but it’s lost in the sea of numbers that are unnamed. So you’ll wait to ask him at school. For now, all you have to do is play games until you pass out. You’ll worry about all that tomorrow.

                                                           -

The bus ride was quiet, you were too tired to talk to Jobie, so you rested your head on the bus window, trying your best to not mind the constant shaking. You tried to go to sleep, but Jobie was typing away on his phone and you could hear the click clack on his phone. It was annoying, very, very annoying. You scowled. He was probably texting his boyfriend, you don’t know why but that irked you. Maybe it was the thought of him gossiping to his little booboo bear about makeup or some shit. But it wasn’t like you cared or anything. Maybe you want to take a little peek, but that’s doesn’t mean anything. Going in to the temptation, you do peek. It looked like he was writing something you can’t see very well, his screen brightness lowered all the way. Squinting, you can definitely make out your name. Why would he write your name? Instead of dodging the question and being a pussy, you decided to ask him.

    “What are you doing?” You whisper. Okay, so maybe you lied, you are going to slightly dodge the question. Jobie immediately got red in the face and he hid his phone.

      “Oh, uh, I’m making a story,” he stuttered slightly, looking around the bus.

       “What is it about?” You asked, glancing at his phone again. What was he hiding? He was so obvious about it too, his face getting even redder than you thought possible.

    “I’ll tell you about it later...” His voice getting weak and trailing off. “We’re almost at school.”

    “Mm, yeah. Oh, that reminds me,” you say, him looking up at you. “Can I come over to your house today?”

    “Oh, yeah, of course!” He answered quickly. Too quickly. It only made you more suspicious. You roll your eyes, what could he possibly do? Especially to you.

                                                          -

      The day went as fast as a boring school day could, but now it was finally time to play with Lily. Finally, The bus ride was short and pretty good, Jobie was too focused on his story he barely noticed you, which was completely fine with you. You decided to text Lily a simple ‘Almost at the house wbu’, and as predicted she answered you right away. ‘Oh yay!!!!! I’m sick so I’ve be at home all day｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡’. You noticed you're finally at Jobie’s bus stop, so turn your phone off.

   “Hey Jobie we’re here,” you say. He looks at you, ew, but still, you power through and the both of you get off the bus and start on the track to his house.

                                                          -

     When you get there, the first thing you do is text Lily. She shows you how to best boot up the game and join her world. It’s confusing at first, you’ve never really played a peaceful game before. It got quite repetitive after a while, just planting parsnips and talking to the villagers. But she introduced you to the glorious mines. You spent most of your time in the mines and every time you came back to sleep the farm got prettier and prettier. You originally thought this game was going to be horrible, but Lily had changed your mind. You couldn’t help but smile and laugh at the most stupid of things, she was a joy to be around and she made your day ten times better. And Jobie could tell, Jobie was furious. But you didn’t know, you didn’t realize Jobie was in the same room as you. You assumed he went out to the living room. You assumed because you were ignoring him he was ignoring you. You didn’t realize that he was glaring at you, that all he wanted to do was to pull you off that damn computer and force you to pay attention to him. So that’s what he did.

[grumpybunny-edith]

Gwen's Bunny HRT - Month 1 (Part 1)

I look at my reflection for what feels like the hundredth time today, waffling on how to do it. All the other girls have already gone through all this, and compared to their one-month photos, I feel... Behind. Delilah had already started growing fur in some places, and Edith already had a little bit of tail growing in. Sure, it looked a little weird without any fur on it, but... I’ve got nothing there but soreness. Is it even worth celebrating? Like, “oh yay, my ears look longer if you squint and my teeth look a little sillier”.  

I take a deep breath and dig my toes into my carpet, feeling pain flare up in them. It just started a couple days ago — maybe it would be better to wait until something came of it? Until walking on my toes didn’t hurt so bad, or even felt better than walking on my heels? 

I feel a tiny impulse at the small of my back, my spine apparently doing its best to wiggle at its base. Am I... unconsciously wagging my tail? The soreness that comes with it matches what the other girls had talked about. I smile, showing my reflection my weird teeth and the pain subsides a little. 

“Bunnies wag their tails when they’re upset,” Edith had told me once. It’s warming to feel how right she is, to feel like I actually belong, even for a second. It’s not that the other girls haven’t done a good job of making me think so; it’s just hard to see all of them so far along and then to look at myself. 

I set my phone down and stare at myself for a while. I imagine the fur suddenly sprouting up all across my body, shiny and soft. I imagine my ears getting so tall they graze the doorway. I imagine my tail, tiny and fluffy, poking out just about the hem of my sweatpants. It makes me smile and laugh at myself, and I feel a bit of pride in my teeth. They’ll look better coupled with everything else, I think. 

I hear my phone buzz, trying to avoid convincing myself it’s because my hearing has spontaneously improved. I laugh it off and check what it was. 

raeraebun: Hey girl!! Today’s one month, right?? Where’s the update??

I smile and blush instinctively. Rae and I don’t chat that much, but every time we do it lifts my whole mood. She’s also dropped by my place a couple times because she “made too many brownies and just had to make a delivery”. 

wen-kutesuli: Hey! Idk if I’m gonna do it today honestly lol 

raeraebun: Aww, why not? i mean like do whatever you want obvi but. you okay?

I sigh. I know I can probably tell her, it’ll almost definitely be fine, and she probably has something great to say. But it doesn’t make it any easier to say it. I’m almost embarrassed to still feel the way that I do even after her and Edith’s constant preaching of “loving yourself wherever you are”. 

wen-kutesuli: Yeah I’m okay lol. Just kinda 

wen-kutesuli: Wish I had more to show, I guess? 

Rae’s response comes quite literally instantly. 

raeraebun: GWENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

raeraebun: okay 

raeraebun: lemme show you something 

When Rae comes back after a couple minutes of digging, she sends me a picture of some random girl with hair like her own, followed by five closeups of a pretty standard human ear. 

raeraebun: so like

raeraebun: this was from january last year 

raeraebun: Id been on hrt for like. a month and a half to the day

raeraebun: I had taken a picture of myself every day since starting my regimen

raeraebun: and didnt see anything until that picture when FINALLY 

raeraebun: my ears had grown the tiniest little bit. 

raeraebun: I didnt stop screaming about it all day lol ashley got so sick of it 

raeraebun: and yk what happened next?

raeraebun: they stayed just like that for three more weeks LMAO

Rae has this way of making people smile and cry their eyes out at the same time. 

raeraebun: so... be nice to yourself? its not gonna happen all at once, and thats ok. every little bit is worth, like

raeraebun: I dunno 

raeraebun: a thousand parties

wen-kutesuli: That’s a lot of parties 

raeraebun: and you earn every single one of them :) 

I sit in stunned silence so pleased I don’t know what to do with myself. My body wants some kind of release, and I let it have one, laying face down and kicking my feet so quickly and so hard into the floor it probably upset the people below me. 

raeraebun: you dont have to, but we all wanna celebrate with you :D 

wen-kutesuli: Thank you 🩵 Maybe I’ll do it 

raeraebun: YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

raeraebun: GO GWENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

---

Thank you to @flightlessbirdgirl for helping me decide on Gwen's username and for letting me bounce ideas off it!

Next

[deforest]

@uptownlowdown coming right up, queen!!!! 😇 so my coach has my intake at 2100 calories and 137g protein. i hit 2100 almost exactly with these (plus 3x day coffee creamer at 125 calories) and end up with around 147g protein daily. i’m not a salad girl and i put my greens in my smoothie cuz i literally don’t have time to eat like that lmao

for breakfast i have 2 slices of Dave’s Killer Bread brand whole wheat toast with 2 tbsp (33g) Jif Natural peanut butter on each. i weigh it out to be precise for protein calculating.

and then i have a little baggie of Drizzilicious mini rice/quinoa/flax cake snacks, Birthday Cake flavor 😍 literally tastes like pastry. insane.

all together this is a 23g protein breakfast with enough carbs and fat to fuel my day. and my vegan creamer in coffee accounts for the aforementioned 125 calories that i have 3x a day that i refuse to give up lol

lunch is:

a protein shake using one scoop of True Nutrition CranPlus Protein Powder in the Cookies & Cream flavor, my fave company for protein powder. it’s so cheap and customizable compared to everything else out there. CranPlus has 25g complete protein on its own from pea protein and a bit of cranberry protein. i add it to 8oz unsweetened soy milk and 8oz water, add 1 cup frozen blueberries, 1 tbsp Monkfruit brown sugar sweetener, and 1 cup of baby spinach OR a scoop of greens powder depending on what i’ve got on hand.

and second part of lunch is my favorite go-to tofu recipe from @plantpoweredcoach_ on instagram (amazing account for recipes, literally the best i’ve found yet), to which i add 2 tbsp of nutritional yeast and a half extra tbsp of cornstarch:

this i eat w ketchup but imo it’s perfect to be used with dipping sauces! and if you don’t have an air fryer literally just bake it in an oven at like 425 for 15-20 min, it’ll still be amazing and so ridiculously simple and takes 2 min to prep. i divide mine into 6 servings so that’s actually 237 calories for 25g protein rather than what he has. i use super firm tofu for higher protein

and dinner is my favorite seitan recipe from the same guy! i don’t add anything extra here. it’s perfect as is and i also eat dis w ketchup :3

aaaaand my own black bean recipe which i make in the instant pot:

1 32oz bag of dried black beans

1 16oz bag of dried black beans

1 32oz carton of vegan chik’n broth (i use Imagine’s brand of low sodium) or 32oz worth of prepared chik’n bouillon OR vegetable broth or vegetable bouillon

4 tbsp vegan butter (divided into 2 tbsp portions)

1/2 large onion of choice, i always use yellow

6-8 cloves of garlic, minced

1-2 tsp gravy master or browning sauce

5 squirts of liquid smoke

smoked paprika

ground black pepper

salt

oregano

parsley

badia poultry seasoning

about 16+ oz extra water

1. Put the black beans in the instant pot, fill with cold water until about 3-4 inches of water tops the beans

2. close lids and cook on high manual for 30 min. let naturally release for 20 minutes (50 total minutes). dump beans into colander and rinse them thoroughly and then put them back in the instant pot.

3. chop onion and garlic and put into pan. slightly salt and pepper. add 2 tbsp of vegan butter and cook on medium or high to desired texture and doneness.

4. while onion and garlic cook, add broth and all other ingredients, including the remaining 2tbsp vegan butter, to the instant pot. eyeball all of the spices—you can add more to them as you taste and go.

5. add onion and garlic to instant pot.

6. add additional water to desired thickness.

7. set instant pot to saute on high for about 10 minutes, add glass lid, and boil to let the flavors cook together.

8. taste as you go. add additional spices or veggies or tofu.

9. let cool completely and have a large tupperware ready to put the beans into.

AND if you don’t have an instant pot, literally just cook in a huge pot on a stovetop until done according to the beans’ bag instructions. beans really are foolproof

it makes a ton of servings lol. i weigh out 350g portions for dinner which is 315 calories, 35g protein, and a lottttt of fiber.

i always make sure i can eat at least 1 cup of beans per day somehow no matter what bc i refuse to get colon cancer and i WILL achieve Blue Zone longevity lmao

anyway yeah! those are my meals. they’re extremely filling and v high protein and ridiculously easy to make bc i have almost NO time to cook or meal prep so i made sure to find thee lowest effort, highest protein recipes i could to eat on repeat and have ready to go

my coach has me have one “refeed” meal each week so that’s my date night where i go out with bf and eat lots of vegan desserts and reset

and that’s about it!

(and if i ever want variety to swap out a recipe for something different, truly, that @plantpoweredcoach_ guy on insta has some of the simplest recipes ever for extremely high protein to calorie ratios with comfort food feel. it’s crazy how good and simple they are. the guy’s a godsend)

EDIT: i add 2 cups of Anthony’s brand of textured vegetable protein to my beans for extra protein! easiest hack ever.

[shylyobscene]

Quick message for the people who are following my fics about updates, what i’m working on next, etc ❤️

just so u guys know updates from me are gonna be slowing down a bit! i have plans/trips over the next couple months that are gonna be splitting my time :) i don’t have a strict uploading schedule anyway and i will still be updating my works over this period, i just can’t promise it’ll be every couple weeks like i had been doing lol

On butterfly caught:

next update from me will likely be a butterfly caught chapter. hoping to have it up and running soon! part of the reason it’s taking so long is because i actually ended up scrapping almost the entire outline i had for the second chapter lol. it wasn’t BAD, but it was mostly just set up for porn…except i ended up deciding that i actually wanted quite a bit of plot too. unfortunately my previous outline didn’t leave me a lot of wiggle room for character development or conflict 😭 needless to say, it took some time for me to figure out an entirely new direction for the fic while trying to write myself out of the hole i put myself in lol.

the very, VERY good news is that i think i succeeded!the outline for the next chapter of butterfly caught is, imo, 10x more engaging and 10x more sexy and 10x more true to the tone of the first chapter. and i am very excited about it!!

the other news is that i don’t know that it’ll necessary be done in just two chapters anymore lmao. i’m probably going to have to split it up. won’t be as long as ioft and i can’t say exactly how many more chapters it’ll be (maybe 3 or 4 total?? no clue), but uh….she’s gonna be a little longer than either of us anticipated, because i’m incapable of keeping things succinct.

planning to read through ch1 and edit it a bit (shouldn’t be anything that warrants a reread but i’ll lyk if that changes) then on to the next chapter ✨✨ sooo excited to get that out into the world!

On If Only for Tonight:

i just hit 100 kudos for this fic on ao3 🥹❤️ THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!! that is such a huge number considering how niche my subject of choice is (lol) and the fact that it has only been 2 months since i started uploading for that fic.

when i started posting a couple months ago i thought no one would be interesting in any of my stuff. i’ve been reading fics for so long and this is my first serious go at writing anything. all the kindness and support i’ve received means the world 🥹

don’t know when i’ll have the next chapter for ioft ready since i’m working on my other fic a little BUT we’re starting to get to the chapters i am really really excited about hehe.

hoping to be able to upload at least monthly for ioft, if not more often because i just personally love this fic lol.

final thoughts:

just so you guys know, i’ve got like a million different ideas knocking around in my head. so so excited to reveal all of the juicy little morsels i’ve got cooking up in my head 😈 im trying to get butterfly caught finished (or close to finished) before i start working on anything else though, since i anticipate it’ll be the shorter of my two works…and so that i don’t end up drowning myself in wips lol.

anywho thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has left me comments and kudos and who has taken the time to read my fics :’) i adore all of you and want to put you all in my pocket and carry you around with me forever ugh!!

[symphony-tv]

bingo card DONE!!

explanations below the cut

Mario kart 9 details: this is a pretty obvious one, we already know it exists from the teaser trailer so it’s almost guaranteed to make an appearance

New 3D Mario game: it’s a new console, they will have a 3D Mario game.

HD Zelda remake: i’m not sure if they’ll reveal a brand-new game since TOTK came out fairly recently, so i’m predicting it’s something like an HD Twilight Princess remake

Metroid Prime 4 news: i feel like it’s been enough time since that first trailer, we’re probably gonna get more news (this was apparently confirmed in a leak?)

FE4 remake: do i even need to explain?

Tomodachi Life 2: i don’t care how unlikely it is, i will never stop waiting. it’d be a pretty good launch title too

Wii (Switch?) Sports, miis are relevant again: we had that Nintendo Switch Sports thing a while back and i remember people getting pretty heated over the miis taking a backseat, so i feel they’ll probably change course and bring them back for this one. if there’s actually a trailer there’s 100% gonna be a shot of Matt somewhere to really hype people up

Port of an AAA game that wasn’t on switch (think FF7R, RDR2, etc.): this one’s pretty self-explanatory. apparently the Switch 2 has similar power to a PS4 so the odds are pretty high we’ll see one of those or like Fallout 4 being announced as ports

Farming Sim: this one’s a given, there’s always gotta be a farming sim in a Nintendo direct lol

3rd party JRPG: same as above

New Smash Bros. Game: it’s been a solid 7 years since SSBU came out, i feel like it’s time. also a solid launch title

Pokemon game ported (either a complete edition of S/V or just Legends ZA): they’re obviously not announcing gen 10 this soon but i can’t see them not having something on the switch 2. S/V apparently were the best-selling games so i could see them re-releasing it and advertising slightly updated graphics + coming with all the DLC, or just having Legends ZA be a dual release for both the switch and switch 2

P3R port: the switch 2 would be powerful enough to handle it, so i could see Atlus taking the opportunity to have something at launch

Splatoon news: splatoon 2 came out the same year the switch was released, so splatoon 4 could theoretically get a teaser here. it’s either this or a new animal crossing since i’ve heard they’re by the same developers

Silksong news: look, it’s not a nintendo direct bingo card without Silksong

Sonic game: tbh just any sonic news, like it could be a trailer for that Sonic Rumble thing, sonic x shadow generations being brought over, etc etc

GameCube games on NSO: apparently they’re keeping nintendo switch online on the switch 2, so with the added power i think it’s not too much of a stretch to say they’ll add gamecube games next

New Animal Crossing game: like i mentioned in the splatoon section, it’s either splatoon 4 or this. i’m leaning more towards a new AC tbh since they kinda seem to alternate between the two franchises (splat2 -> ACNH -> splat3 -> ?)

Mario Movie 2 news: this was announced a while ago and we still haven’t seen anything i think?? so we might get a VA announcement for Yoshi or something

Anime fighting game: basically anything like the Naruto games or the Dragonball games, would be pretty easy to bring one over to the switch 2

Themes return: i remember a lot of people being sad about them not being on the switch, so nintendo might listen and bring them back?

Tech demo (think 1-2-switch): essentially a game designed to show off the switch 2’s features, maybe it’ll be bundled with every console, maybe it’ll be like 40$, idk

Streaming service: there’s gotta be an announcement of like Netflix or Disney+ being on the switch 2, they’re on basically every console already

New Kid Icarus game: it’s been over a decade since the last one, if they’re gonna announce another it’s gonna be now i think

[silksongeveryday]

Drawing Hornet everyday until Silksong comes out - Day 600!

Here’s a quick 30 min doodle to celebrate! :D

Man time really flies huh

Thank you guys for 3.1k btw!!!

And big thank you to those who have joined me in this wild journey of daily doodles no matter how long you’ve been here. Truly did not expect what started as a joke to make it this far lol

(more stuff I wanted to talk about under the cut)

-A few updates-

General Stuff:

Well, life has been generally pretty busy. And while that’s made it a little more challenging to do daily doodles as of late, it’s been alright for the most part. Some of you may have noticed though that a lot of my daily posts have been showing up as much as 1-2 hours later than the regular time. Unfortunately with all the stuff I’ve been taking care of lately, putting a daily doodle/drawing on top of the pile means it’ll be late very often. I kind of have an unofficial job irl now so this stuffs hard to juggle sometimes.

Hornet’s Strange Adventures:

Initially I was hoping to get a lot of stuff done for this game during October but some recent job stuff is making that pretty hard to do. I probably won’t be able to make any significant progress on this game until very late October and into November. So if you were looking forward to big updates on progress, it sadly won’t be for a while, sorry. Outside of that though, I can at least say that all the routes have been thoroughly planned out from start to finish including the secret route. This includes rewriting some choices that have already been seen during the game’s time on ssed.

About Doodle Requests

I haven’t had them open for a while anyway, but I’ve finally come to the decision that I will no longer be taking doodle requests through tumblr asks/inbox. As fun as it was in the beginning, I often found myself trying to fulfill requests on the daily and that was stressful. That being said, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m stopping requests entirely. I just don’t really want to do them for free anymore. Since I’m on Hornet Journal Series still, it’s a long way away before anything happens, but there’s a likely chance I’ll only do commissioned doodle requests whenever they re-open. We’ll see as it gets closer though.

Thoughts on taking an actual break:

I’ve mentioned this a lot in the past both here on ssed and on my main blog, but I’ve been seriously considering taking a break. Like a real one. Not just a “I’m gonna stockpile a bunch of doodles and pick it back up when I run out” kind of break. Especially with the way life has been going lately (mostly positive at least), I feel as though I may have to retire from daily doodles somewhat soon if there is no official news by the time this blog hits its 2 year mark. Don’t get me wrong I’ve loved doing this for the almost two years that it’s been going but at some point I’ll have to move on from this whether I like it or not. Does this mean that activity on this blog stops altogether? No. I just won’t be doing daily doodles anymore. There’s a more likely chance it would end up being weekly, or possibly monthly. Just not daily anymore.

Whatever the case, that decision will be considered more when 2 years gets closer. Until then just enjoy daily doodles while they’re still here!

—————————————————-

I think that’s all I can think of to say right now. Might post more thoughts on my main maybe?? We’ll see

Thank you again to all the lovely people that have been here during this crazy journey, you guys are awesome :D

[userlando]

Thinking about bff!lando

He and you would’ve had feelings for each other for years but both been in denial about it, especially on his part.

And through the years the sexual tension has done nothing but grow. But Lando refuses to deal with his feelings head on, always always turning the other way, taking of quicker than a racing car could.

So when you one day joke about you two dating, in that casual flirty tone, that you and Lando has developed with each other through all the longing stares and lingering touches, Lando unexpectedly shoots it down. In the same “joking-but-actually-serious-manner” he tells you that your friendship as it is perfect, that gambling with your dynamic isn’t an option.

This continues to happen the next time the you get a bit too flirty. And then again, despite Lando himself activity participating in you guy’s banter. And you become more and more heartbroken. How could he be so against you as a girlfriend? “What would even change in your dynamic, to everyone around you it seems like you’re dating.” All this of course you don’t say, instead you just listen to the hurtful remarks from him about how silly you would be as a couple.

And then one night after a race and many wild hours with champagne and celebration, you stumble onto Carlos on a balcony. You’ve always been friends. Of course not as close as you and Lando, no one is as close as you and Lando. But still, you know each other pretty well.

And then all of a sudden Carlos kisses you. You’re taken aback for a second, and before you even comprehend it you’re asking “Carlos what about our friendship” and he looks at you while grinning across his entire face and says: “What the hell let’s just ruin it” And that’s all it takes for you to fall right back into his arms, and later all the way into his hotel room. After finally having heard those words, even though it wasn’t from who you had dreamed.

You don’t tell Lando the next day. Actually Lando doesn’t see you for almost two days, which is ridiculously rare and drives him nuts. He knows something is up. There are many clues but what really gets his brain turning is the extremely informationless responds he gets on his text “lost you at the party last night, how did you end up finding your way home? know u get lost every place u go hahaha”.

But of course Lando finds out, it takes him three days, but still, he finds out. And his world comes crashing down. He’s furious, he feels completely betrayed by both you and Carlos, he wants to cry and destroy his hotel room, and lock you away somewhere so that you’ll never look at Carlos’s stupid face again, and only see Lando’s own.

And then he realizes that he fucked up, bad. He suddenly sees how holding on to your guys friendship so tight that it would never change, so that he would always have you at least from a far, actually did change everything. And now when he looks at you it’ll still be from a far but it will probably also be with your hand intertwined with Carlos’s and not his.

— hi lol, I’m sorry this was so ridiculously long. I just haven’t been able to get it out of my head, and then I thought why not share :) especially since I adore your writing and I am living for all the Lando brain rot.

OH NO 😭 I didn’t expect that angsty ending, my heartttt!! he’d be absolutely ruined that he managed to push you into his best friends arms. I love this so much <3

[booasaur]

Did you finish Night Country? If so what did you think of it? I loved Navarro—Kali Reis absolutely sells that stately sense capability and strength and hotness lol—and think Jodie/Kali really sold their relationship being the core of the show I also mostly loved how things played out (didn’t see the ending coming at all) but I wish the show had been given more episodes to flesh certain plots and characters out because some things felt a little superficial (it’s interesting to me that so many people were lost because I thought the show made a lot really obvious and could’ve actually used some more mystique) and enhancing them would’ve made things that much better and cohesive. But trying to find balanced criticism or commentary about this show is hard because everyone defaults to racist, misogynistic, no nuance takes on how it’ll never compare to s1 and just refuses to even see a little bit of the good. Idk I feel like you can dislike it and want better and still recognize the good aspects of this season and the value of telling indigenous stories. At this point I almost wish the showrunner had been able to make a new series like she wanted to, instead of having to be tied to the true detective name because maybe people would approach this with more honestly and openness

Hey, sorry for the late reply. Well, I know I've replied a LOT later before and mostly decided to stop saying sorry because I'd have to say every time, but at the moment, I'm having more difficulty than I used to in remembering how I felt when I finished the ep, so I wish I'd just responded at the time.

Let me see... First, I did laugh like an idiot when they took turns falling down the ice caves like idiots, especially Danvers.

Other than that, I liked the ending but it felt a bit too neat... I think if they'd changed around some stuff, it might have offered a bit more tension because, well, at that point, it seemed they'd let more killers go than caught them. Honestly that and all the quibbles I had, where I wish we'd seen some stuff seeded better and elaborated on more at the end, like you said, that all could have been helped with just giving them the two extra eps they should have gotten. I was thinking that too, at the time, lol, I remember now, when I read your ask, I went on this whole rant (to myself, in my head) about those two eps could have done so much, how the streaming model had killed TV, how these shortened seasons were basically like individual movies with an occasional sequel. I know this is an anthology miniseries and the story finished, but still! Too much is suffering for the same reason. I haven't really been able to get into a single new Trek, it's just a different form of storytelling. What can you do in 10 eps every once in a long while, with a full ensemble cast.

I literally looked up how many eps Discovery ends at and it's 65. Compare that to my home Trek, Voyager, where it flourished with new life when Seven appears. Guess when that happens. Ep 68! I literally had to chart the two shows:

Look at those huuuuge Discovery breaks.. It's not just that shows used to be given so much screentime, we just got so much so quickly. I absolutely forget what's going on in between seasons of most shows now. In terms of actual amount of time, Discovery actually lasts longer! But I barely know the characters or their stories. I can't say much different for Picard or SNW (barring what I brought in from before). There's only so much character growth and relationship evolution. How am I supposed to love them? Know them?

Maybe that's why I'm gravitating so much to soaps lately...

Anyway, it's more capitalism than just streaming, of course, which also speaks to your other point; I didn't know Issa Lopez just wanted to make a new show and they put it under the True Detective name?? But isn't that just so typical of all these issues! Like, the fact that they're making an NCIS spin-off with Tony and Ziva? They're retreating to the safest, most conservative ideas they can think of. It's happening with everything, companies dropping DEI initiatives, politics returning to big money white guys. Sticking this female-led extremely Indigenous-sympathetic premise with this particular franchise with its defensive white dudebro fanbase.

I wonder how much that's related to the obligatory bigoted backlash to any media perceived as "woke" now. It's all feeding each other, right, bad actors in each space taking advantage and fanning the flames, but it's beyond annoying now to have watched a normal show and go online and see this rabid overreaction to stuff that isn't even on the screen.

The worst part is, as you said, there's no room for the middle ground. I myself don't want to go into detail about the issues I had because there's so much unfair criticism. Like, if I thought it was a little unsubtle in its messaging at times, how can I say that when these fiends are tearing it apart for daring to even have the message. I'm just glad that Foster and Reis were so good and the show so well received that the fanboys can keep crying to each other about s1.

I will say, a huge part of that ending landing was Diane E. Benson as the older Indigenous Alaskan lady being cool as hell. She was so nonchalant and mischievous and angry as hell underneath it all! That's why I wished there was just a bit more tension, a bit more to that scene in terms of its place in the ep, rather than just its place in the story where it provided a reveal.

The handling of the killer reveal was what I found a bit pat, just being like, well, that happened, okay, bye, but the reveal itself? Freaking loved it. Those men deserved what they got and more. :<

Some things I'm glad they didn't go into more, the accident in the past, and what exactly happened to Navarro. Let me imagine she and Danvers are off together in some liminal space. :P

Anyway...I guess I did remember a lot, lol. And now we have a season 5 ahead. :)

[colesabi]

So I’ve been thinking about what I want to tackle once the morgue fic is done and I’m leaning towards two options:

Continuation of Leon Catholic Guilt/Religious Trauma (sequel to Therapy one-shot)

Chreon Bodyguard AU

Both of them I have a rough (ish) outline of what I want to do with them and while I have more for the bodyguard AU, I’m leaning towards the Catholic Guilt piece because, ugh… the pull to make Leon’s trauma even worse is just so, so addicting.

I just have to figure out how I want to do it because I’m thinking about doing it in an almost therapy session format with either flashbacks or maybe hypnotherapy (lol, Leon would never) but have to figure out how I could make that work. Also don’t know if it’ll be another one-shot or multi-chapter. And, while I’m not Catholic, I still want to do the piece justice by being as realistic as possible so research is going to be heavier than normal which means, it might be delayed but it’s the one WIP I’m most interested in currently.

I’d already thought I would take a break after completing the morgue fic so this might actually benefit me. We’ll see. I’m so indecisive.

[astrobei]

This is kind of an odd question, but since you seem to have done it very successfully and I have no clue: How do you make friends online?

I always see people on here talking about their mutuals and about their online friends, and some of that’s def survivorship bias, but I’m guessing I’m not alone in having no clue how to get from recognizing someone’s username to having them be a person I would talk to about a bad day?

Anyway, this continues to be a weird ask so answer it any way you want and no worries if it takes a while, but yeah, with all the posts about you and haven meeting up I am just looking for advice on *how*

Ty so much!

hi hi hi hello!! i’ve actually gotten asks like this before and i’m so sorry 2 everyone who’s sent one bc i’m afraid i don’t have a super concise or helpful way to answer this,,, (but i’ll still try lol)

to be so so honest with you, i got super lucky because i was introduced to a lot of my friends in this fandom through group chats or mutuals’ discord servers that other people have added me to, which i know is kind of a lame answer because being added to gcs/others’ servers is not exactly something u can control … but you are so right in saying that you’re not alone in feeling like this !! i know so many people feel intimidated by the idea of making friends on here especially since there Are so many users i associate as groups and it seems like everyone has Those Friends (me included, i’ll admit) and it’s probably easier said than done because i did get lucky enough to meet a lot of my now-close friends rn through ao3/comments/writers’ gcs way back in the summer or fall 😗 it also definitely takes time to get close to someone in this way, and these friendships are not something that happened overnight, even for me !! i feel like it’s easy to get stressed out by the potential of every new mutual/friend you make being The Friend and that can put a lot of pressure on both you and the other person to be super compatible right off the bat, so on and so forth, which isn’t fair and will probably lead to more disappointment than anything, so i think it’s important to remember that (almost?) no solid friendship goes from 0-100 overnight and it takes time to build trust and emotional connection with anyone!

so i would say . basically . if you’ve stayed this long and all of this rambling that my biggest pieces of advice would be:

1. fr and honestly just go for it. like you said, i know so many people feel the exact same way as you do, so send that mutual you admire an ask or a dm!! every friendship has got to start somewhere so if you see them rb an ask game maybe send something nice or maybe if you see a post that reminds u of them send it to them ! i’ve made a couple of my closest friends because we sent each other asks a lot before moving to dms -> other platforms, or people have just dm’d me directly out of the blue and i was surprised by how well we clicked !! these are maybe lame examples but. u get the idea lol. Just Do It i believe in u 🥳

2. be patient !! i know i already said it before but close friendships, like the ones you’re talking about, rarely happen overnight. even with people i’ve felt a connection with immediately, it’s taken some time for us to really get comfortable with each other and past that awkward stage so it’ll likely take some dedication and commitment to communication on both your parts! something i would like to emphasize: don’t make friends purely out of strong expectations of being Best Friends because, again, this could lead to a lot of disappointment when someone doesn’t live up to expectations you’ve created In Your Head. find people you really click with and genuinely enjoy talking to, and maybe see eventually if they’d want to move from talking through asks to dms to discord/text!

ummmm. i think that’s all i have to say on the topic, hopefully this wasn’t too disappointing to read because again, i’m not too sure how to organize my thoughts on the subject LOL but i’m wishing you all the best and i’m promising u that almost everyone in this community feels the same way !! make the first move/respond when someone maybe makes the first move to you + take it slow + be kind and patient and you will have friends lining up in ur dms to talk to u 🫡much much love !! 🫶🏽