#and whatever else fictional couple I said we were before

[inky-toons]

The comically sappy urge to randomly reach out to him and ask to fall asleep on call again cos even tho that stuff scares me it's soothing when it's with him

Idk I used to have a very specific way of seeing things until he pranced along omfg..HE MADE ME LIKE CHRISTMAS he already knows I kinda like Christmas but I liked it even more after last Christmas. I was making a gingerbread house and he INSISTED on seeing it but I wanted it to be just right and at that time I wos with my mum and she bought SOME SHITTY BRAND AND IT ALL FELL APART SO I THREW IT OUT AND HE STILL WONT LET IT GO?? He also used to make daily hot chocolates and he'd show me like. That's now a holiday I look forward to. Wtf. It's also foreign for me to like certain things about myself but he makes me genuinely like myself and love myself onfg. I sent him a picture of the day I got my bass and I was holding it AND ACCORDING TO HIM HE FOUND IT CUTE HOW I "Stood there like I wasn't trying to look proud but I definetly was" HOW DO YOU TELL THAT FROM A PICTURE I NEED HIM DEAD. I was proud though that bass is my life

Idk we've had our ups and downs and I can tell it's all true love cos we always come back with a strong I love you.

Shakes my head..only thing is im not actually dating him, not rn anyway cos my mental health is wavered with where I'm living so now I have to wait for college and really jump in and woo him. I'm gonna adjust to college, figure out some life stuff then try and ask him out TWHEHEH 😝‼️ He'll say yes cos we're both in love so I'm just...heh...that good..

[xo-adeline]

hello i have a bllk request!

so uh today i got hit in the face during PE with a football (we were playing football for PE and i was daydreaming about bllk boys 💀) and i wasn’t paying attention and got hit in the face and got a small cut on my nose 💀.

yet all i could think about was how my favourite characters would be laughing their asses off at me/judging me and the amount that would genuinely be concerned was a bit tragic. 💀

which led me to think of this potential fic idea. inexperienced reader who has probably touched a ball less than 10 times in her life, whose class is required to do football for PE (as much as i love bllk, i could never enjoy playing football myself.)

so anyways, her bf (chigiri, rin, nagi, bachira, isagi, reo, and sae) sees her get hit in the face and is ready to laugh at her, but starts lagging when they see blood. (sweet infirmary scene maybe 😍😍)

reader is absolute dog shit at football due to a lack of experience, compared to him, who’s on the mf school team. (hence why they were in different teams.)

overall i’m just feeling a little mortified over the little accident and i think it’s gonna scar 💀 but watching other ppl, even fictional, suffer with me just makes me feel better lmao. it’s fine if you don’t wanna take this request or shorten the list of characters tho 🫶🫶

(my injured nose hurts as i’m typing this 😭😭)

OMG It’s been a couple days so I hope your nose starts feeling better!! But you're so iconic for thinking about Bllk boys when you’re supposed to be doing something else- Also Anon if you want me to go more into detail about some of the like infirmary and nurse scenes just lmk and I can totally make a part 2 and go into more detail!

Chigiri Hyoma -> Sadly this man did actually laugh at you, but then when he came over to check on you and realized there was actually blood he got a little nervous and did actually take you over to the nurse/infirmary/whatever else people call it -> Though when he brought you and the nurse said he was fine to go back he almost fought the person working in the nurse's office and they let him stay and keep you company -> He stayed by your side almost the whole time and did make fun of you a little bit, I mean it was a little stupid (HIS WORDS NOT MINE, I've had the same thing happen just with no blood) though he does kinda feel bad that it was somebody on his team that did it, though he won't ever tell you that -> He does eventually, after you stop bleeding, scold you a little for not paying attention, even though you don't know how to play you should at least be paying attention, though if you ask ever so nicely (aka he also hits too it) he'll at least teach you how to defend yourself from being in a situation like that again (It's his way of showing that he cares and doesn't want you getting hurt again<3) Rin Itoshi -> He will rush over immediately, I mean as much as he likes to win he doesn't wanna see you get hurt in the process, he could clearly tell the way the teams were set up was quite unfair, having the good players on one side and the bad ones on the other -> Checks around for injuries, all while grumbling that you should have been paying attention and not off in whatever world you were in -> When he realizes that you're bleeding though he stands you up, not too fast just in case, and takes you over to a teacher, letting them know that he's taking you over to the nurse/infirmary/whatever else, and then makes sure you get there safe before heading back -> Only goes back because the person working there said it was fine if he did and not because he wanted too, in all honesty he wanted to stay with you to make sure you were okay, as much as he didn't sound or look like it -> tries to take his mind off it by going back and playing more, but going against a team of lukewarm nobodies doesn't quite hit the spot for him so he just ends up worrying even more Nagi Seishiro -> The second that he saw you get hit he waited for a second and when he saw that you didn't bounce back like the people on his team normally did he made a slight effort to move a little faster to go make sure that you were alive still -> When he walked over and saw you were bleeding, he got up and let one of the teachers know, since he wasn't exactly sure what to do. They ended up making him help you to get to the nurse/infirmary/ whatever else, and when get got there he just kinda sat on the chair next to you, even when they told him he should go back to class -> He was kinda over football right then anyway, and he would have much rather stayed with you, way less of a hassle for him away, he would have also had to walk all the way back to the class and that's way to much work -> So instead he just stayed in there with you, and like everybody else kinda scolded you, or more in his case, lazily warned you about not paying attention when football are being passed around Bachira Meguru -> As soon as he witnessed you getting hit in the face with a ball, he laughed. No questions asked. -> Though as he was laughing he came over to check on you, at least to make sure that you were already and when he realized you weren't he quickly stopped laughing and tried to find somebody to get tissues or like really anything -> Gladly took you to the nurse/infirmary/whatever else you wanna call it when the teacher ask him to walk you down/over/up there. He def giggled about you getting hit in the face and was so curious about what you were thinking about before it happened -> Another man who is staying with you, Manz is not leaving until you leave, no matter what person tries to send him back to class -> Also, he's never gonna let you live it down Isagi Yoichi

-> This sweetheart! The second you got hit, he was right by your side (now if this was a match in Blue Lock, eh things would be different, but since he most likely wasn't trying all that hard since it was like people who actually knew how to play vs people that didn't he didn't wanna destroy anybody)

-> He helped you up and grabbed tissues and the whole nine yards, made sure to get you some water and everything like that, even volunteered to take you down to the nurse/infirmary/whatever else you wanna call it to make sure that you got there safe, and got some water on the way

-> When he got there, def was such a sweetheart to the people who were working and how concerned he looked for you, they didn't even ask him to go back to class, they just let him sit next to you and hold your hand and even almost all let out an "aww" when he would ask how you were every few minutes

-> Though once you started feeling better he would try to explain that you really have to be paying attention when you play, but also give you some help in learning ways to defend yourself against said flying footballs Reo Mikage

-> Another sweetheart, while he did slightly chuckle at you at first, when he jogged over and realized that you were bleeding he started worrying, asking people to grab him basically anything, which knowing Reo's popularity at school everybody scattered to grab something

-> Walked you up/down/over to the nurse/infirmary/whatever else you wanna call it, and while he did also laugh on the way, teasing you slightly about if you were thinking about him, he was still pretty worried for your safety

-> Would sit in the infirmary/nurses office/whatever else with you the whole time, making sure that either the bleeding spotted or their wasn't any bruising or anything along those lines

-> Another one who would wait to scold you, he needs to make sure you're okay first, and he will tease you the whole time about getting hit in the face with a ball, and you'll never live it down

Sae Itoshi

-> Brother Like Brother

-> Will wait for a couple seconds just to see if you can take care of yourself, but when he realizes you're bleeding he walks over pretty fast, pushing anybody out of the way

-> Gets somebody to grab some tissues or something, or just anything to stop the bleeding as he takes you down to the nurse/infirmary/whatever else you wanna call it

-> Unlike his brother, he will stay, even if people tell him to head back. Why would he, it's not like lukewarm players will actually change anything for him

-> The staff might be a little pissed off at him later about his mean comments, but that's an issue for later.

-> He'll also ask every couple minutes if you're okay and if you need anything, but he won't sound as nice as Isagi when saying it. He will also call you dumb for not paying attention and getting hit in the face (but later on he'll also smile and chuckle at the thought)

[emmaiscool22]

Love Isn't Easy

Eustass Kid x female strawhat!reader

Warnings: angst to a teeny tiny amount of fluff, tipsy reader?, minor cussing, SOFT!KID (that's a warning itself lol), mention of a girl's night

this takes's place after wano (so minor wano spoilers!!!!) purely fictional and noncanon!!!

word count: 2328

I sit on a barrel watching Brook play his violin. Despite the cheerful atmosphere, I couldn’t help but feel the dread in my stomach. I take my eyes off Brook and to the shoreline of the island we stopped at. As soon as we ran into the Kid Pirates, Luffy declared that we were throwing a party despite Kid disagreeing. How he ended up getting Kid to agree, I have no idea. 

“Are you alright, Y/N?” 

I jump, surprised at the voice. I crane my neck to look behind me, the stress leaving my shoulders when I realize who it is. 

“I am not sure if I am being honest, Robin,” I answer. 

She nods, sitting next to me. I move my eyes from her to the redhead across the ship, his laugh booming across the lively atmosphere. I move to take another sip of my drink, the burn doing nothing to settle the uneasiness in my belly. 

“You should talk to him.” 

“He already said what he wanted to,” I sigh, remembering his words on Wano.

Robin looks towards him and back at me, “What about you? Did you say what you wanted?”

Robin glances at Kid, noticing his eyes following me while my attention is focused on Brook. I take a big gulp of my drink, emptying it. I set it down next to me and grab another one, popping off the lid. I don't want to be here, I am in no mood for partying. 

“Whatever I do, I can’t get my mind off of Kid. It’s ruining me, Robin,” I let my feelings out for the first time, “I can’t sleep, his words just repeat in my head.”

“I never loved you. I will never love you.”

I stand up, moving forward, stumbling slightly. “I am headed to bed.” 

Before Robin can say anything, I head towards the girl’s quarters. In the middle of my journey there, I am stopped by someone voicing my name. I know that voice. I wordlessly shake my head and continue, needing to get off the deck. He says my name again, closer this time. I need to get off this ship, I think. My march to the girl’s quarters changes directions to the beach. The laughter and music fade into the background the farther I get from the ship. I stop when I feel far enough away without losing sight of the ship. I nestle into the sand, hoping to stake a claim here for the rest of the night. My heartbeat slows as the sea breeze and the tide calm me down. 

“Why did you leave?” 

I stiffen. 

“I wanted some fresh air,” I mutter. 

He chuckles, “That’s a lie.” 

I didn’t say anything else. I want to scream at him, tell him everything that has been consuming me for the months since Wano. But I can’t. 

Kid plops down right next to me in the sand. “I might not like him, but Strawhat sure knows how to throw a party,” Kid gulps his drink, throwing the empty bottle in the sand.

I still say nothing. 

“So we not talkin’ or somethin’?” He asks, turning his body towards me.

I try to find the courage to say something, anything, but alas, nothing comes to mind.

He stares at me trying to catch my eyes that are firmly set on the rolling tide. After a couple of minutes, he speaks again

“You know,” he starts, “Heat and Wire miss your presence on the ship. Said that something is missing… I don’t know. I told them we knew you were only stayin' for 2 years but they got attached to you.”  

I couldn’t help but scoff and mumble, “All I did on your ship was complain about you and missing my friends.” 

“She speaks!” He shouts and laughs. 

I stare at him. I forgot how his smile covered his whole face, or how he would whip his arms around when he got excited. The muscles flex as his flesh arm waves around in the air. No. I can’t think about him, not like this. Not when he broke my heart. I move to stand up and wipe the sand off my legs. My feet taking me towards the ship once more. I didn’t want to be alone with him. Suddenly a hand grabs mine, pulling me back. 

“Leaving me so soon?”

I shiver at his words. I can feel tears beginning to slide down my face. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. Kid pulls at my hand once more to get me to turn around. He says something, but all I can hear is my heart trying to tear itself out of my chest. Suddenly, someone starts calling my name from the ship, pulling me out of my thoughts. 

“I have to go back,” I whisper, tugging my hand harshly out of his grip. 

I sway towards the calling voice, the alcohol still moving about my system. I can see Sanji leaning over the edge of the ship, looking down at the shoreline for me. A couple heads peek next to him, Robin, Chopper, and Luffy. I remember Robin's words from before: 

“What about you? Did you say what you wanted?”

I do have things I want to say. I spin around, catching Kid off guard. He looks at me with surprise at my sudden actions. “What are you doing?” he demands. 

“I don’t want to love you anymore.” I blurt out. 

His eyes widen. 

“I don’t want to love you, but for some reason I do, even though you hurt me. I fell in love with you during the two years I was on your ship, and I felt like you loved me. We spent every day training together, and hanging out, and I felt like we got close. I wish I was the one you thought about before you went to bed, or the one you wanted to spend your days with. But in Wano you told me the opposite after I confessed my love for you... Why won’t you love me back?”

It takes him a moment to speak, “let’s get you back,” he grumbles, “you’re drunk Y/N.” 

At his words, I cry harder and drop to my knees, his flesh hand grabs my shoulder, “Don’t touch me!” I sob. He tries to say something but his mouth just opens and closes. His metal hand comes to my other shoulder to hoist me up, but my words have him stumbling back. 

“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!”

My hand grabs at the sand and chucks it towards him. My sobs ring out into the open air along with the faint sound of music and laughter. 

“I would listen to Y/N, Eustass,” a voice commands.

My eyes stay on the sand, while Kid’s head snaps towards the voice. A gentle hand rests on the shoulder in the place of Kid’s. A soft voice whispers, “You are okay Y/N, we are here for you.”

The hand begins to gently stroke my hair. I look up and lock eyes with Nami. 

“Can you stand up?” She asks. 

I nod my head slowly, planting my hands on the ground to push my body up. She wraps an arm around me and leads me towards the ship. 

“Y/N-” Kid starts but is cut off by Robin.

“You hurt her enough, don’t make it worse.” 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - -- - - - - - - - - -

“He’s an idiot, Y/N,” Nami states while she brushes my hair. 

“I’m sorry I ruined your night,” I sigh, “I could see you and Killer getting along.”

Nami laughs, “Oh Y/N, he couldn’t handle me.”

We both laugh, warmth coming to my chest as I smile. The silence that follows is comfortable, basking in each other's presence. A soft knock comes from the door, the door squeaking open, revealing Robin, smiling slightly. After a few moments of chit-chatting, Nami stands up.

“Let’s have a girl’s night,” Nami shouts, “I will ask Sanji to make us some snacks! We can do our nails and have a good time together!” 

I smile and nod, and Robin voices her agreement. Nami skips out of the room to find Sanji while Robin and I get out all of the nail polish. Once we settle onto the floor, I take a moment to look at her and gather up the courage to ask her the question I have been dying to know the answer to since the beach. Reading my mind, she states, “He didn’t hurt me,” she smiles, “After you walked away, he asked me to grab Killer and that was it.” 

I nod slowly as Nami bursts back into the room along with Sanji, who is holding out drinks and our favorite snacks. “Y/N-swannnnnn, Robin-swannn!” He guides the tray to us, “Here you are, my lovely ladies!” 

He hands us our drinks and snacks, and leaves the room, letting us know that he can make us anything else we want. For the next couple of hours, we pamper ourselves, doing our nails, and hair, and talking about our most recent adventures. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - -- - -- - - -- - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - --

I toss and turn in bed, shoving the blankets off my legs. Laying there for a few moments, I cover back up, uncomfortably cold. Groaning, I decide to get up and make some tea, hoping it will help me sleep. I slip my sandals on, glancing at Nami and Robin to make sure I haven’t woken them. I slip out into the hallway, no one in sight. The Kid Pirates must have gone back to their ship at some point, I think. I make my way to the kitchen only to be stopped by the sight of a shadow by the head of the Sunny, “Luffy?” I whisper confused about why he was out here this late, moving my way toward the dark figure. 

“Sorry sweet cheeks,” Kid mutters, “I am not Strawhat.” 

I take a step back, startled by his presence, “K-kid, what are you doing here?” 

“I was thinking about you if I am being honest.”

I take another step back, the idea of tea lost in my mind, just hoping to escape to the solace of my bedroom.

“I am sorry for what happened on the beach,” Kid apologizes.

This stops me from moving. Kid apologizing? 

I find my voice, “Killer tell you to say that?”

“No,” Kid snarls, “I wanted to fucking apologize myself.” 

I take a deep breath and I dare myself to be bold, “What are you doing here?”

“I was practicing…” he trails off.

“Practicing?”

“I need to practice without Killer shoving words down my throat.”

“I don’t understand.”

He doesn’t respond and just looks at me. I suddenly feel self-conscious at his scrutinizing. We stand in the darkness for a few minutes, before he breaks the silence.

“You asked me why I didn’t love you back earlier.” He pauses before he continutes, “Umm, Killer told me I needed to sort out my thoughts and feelings before I talked to you again. But I hate the idea of not talking to you. When you confessed to me after I ran into you after escaping Udon, I was surprised. I couldn’t believe it. Why would you love me? I said the things I did to hurt you, I can’t have you loving me. I am incredibly selfish. As soon as you said it, I wanted to take you away. I wanted- I want you all to myself. But I hurt you instead of telling you the truth.”

Kid takes a deep breath, and grabs my hand. 

“The truth is, I realized that I have developed strong feelings for you. It started as a simple admiration, but over time, it has grown into something deeper. The way you make me laugh, the way you care for others, the way you fight, and the way you light up a room with your presence... it all captivates me. When you found me after Kuma separated your crew, I knew I was fucked. The look on your face when you asked if you could stay on the Victoria, I couldn’t say no. I knew I loved you the minute you told Heat off for stealing food from your plate one night at dinner. I am selfish for telling you this all now but -” 

I cut him off, “You love me?” 

He nods, “Yes.”

“And you’re not just saying it to say it 'cause it's what I want to hear?”

“I love you Y/N.”

“It would have saved me a whole lot of tears and heartache if you just told me.”

Kid nods again, “I know.”

“You hurt me.”

“I know.”

I take a bold step forward towards him and wrap my arms around him. His arms slowly wrap around my body, his warmth seeping into me. 

“It’s going to take me a while to forgive you, but thank you for telling me how you feel.”

“I understand,” Kid says, “but can I ask you something?���

I pull back from his embrace, enough to see his face staring down at me, “what is it?” 

“Can I kiss you?”

My heart hammers in shock. But slowly, I nod my head, not trusting my words. His flesh hand moves to cup my cheek while his metal one lays across the small of my back. He leans in halfway, his eyes searching mine for any sign of wariness. When he finds none, he closes the gap, his lips hovering over mine. I can feel the warmth of his breath and the slight tickle of his lips ghosting mine. I push my toes into the ground, leaning up to press my lips against his. His chapped lips move in sync with mine, but before either one of us can deepen the kiss, Kid pulls away, his forehead against mine. “I am sorry again for how I acted, I am going to try and make it up to you before our crew departs.” Kid mumbles. 

I don’t say anything, just take him in. I couldn’t forgive him just yet but I knew that I would love him forever. 

[pensat-i-fet]

Not a crush (Pedri x Reader)

**I got this request and thought it could be cute and fun. It’s true that the Spanish press has been talking about this arms situation a lot, so it’s a good blend of fiction and reality. But then it turned into one of those writing projects that changed 7 times before its final form. For a second I even thought about turning this into a series. My brain! Anyways, enjoy reading! ❤️**

ETA: I ended up writing a series based on this imagine that you can read here!

Word count: 2685

Masterlist

Wattpad

“All those years in uni to end up doing this”, you muttered. “I’m never going to be taken seriously”.

“What are you talking about?”

“This article I have to do”.

Your colleague Jordi moved his chair closer to yours to peek at your computer screen.

“You know that we can’t use the computers for personal stuff, right?”

You put your head on the table. Really, no one was going to take you seriously.

“Huh?”

“Why are you looking at photos of shirtless Pedri? Got a crush?”

“Shut up! I have to do an article about the evolution of his body in the last couple of years”.

“That’s cool”.

“It’s stupid!”

“I’ve done worse when I was an intern. Don’t be so negative”.

You guessed he was right. It could be a lot worse. And you didn’t have a crush but…there were worse ways to spend a Tuesday afternoon than looking at photos of a cute player. And being given an excuse to stare at his body, which had definitely changed in the last couple of years. You didn’t visit the gym much but liked it when others did. Especially if that was the result of their gym sessions.

Writing the article actually took a good chunk of your day. Between getting the right photos and videos for it and asking for permission to use them, the actual writing and your colleagues' stupid comments about it, it wasn't as easy as you thought it would be at first. But it was a good article. And once the editor saw it and was happy with it, it was posted on the newspaper's website.

The following day you posted a link to it on your social media accounts and a little later you started to go through the comments. So many of them talked about how you were only picked to do that article because it was about a man's body and you were a woman. Right…nothing new on Twitter.

“Stop replying to hate comments”.

“It’s therapeutical”.

"It's pointless".

Just one more…

                                      **

It wasn't just the press or people on social media talking about Pedri's muscles. His teammates loved to tease him joking about that too.

"Here comes the Spanish Lewandowski", laughed Eric.

"So funny".

"Please don't be mad at me. I'm afraid you'll use those big strong muscles to punish me".

Pedri did use his muscles to push his friend and get him out of the way. He knew it was just banter but it all got boring after a few days.

"There needs to be a big signing or something so your arms stop being the topic of the week", told him Ferrán, who was looking at his phone.

“Yeah, I saw Barça posting about it on social media too. People are so overdramatic”.

“Totally, but I didn't mean that. I meant the new article”.

"What new article?"

Ferrán showed him your article and Pedri sat down to read it properly. It was a great article. You took the time to analyze the way his game could be influenced by this body change and picked different photos than the ones used by everyone else. He guessed there were still proper journalists out there. What a plot twist.

"It's a good article", he said, giving the phone back to his friend.

"The internet seems to disagree".

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know if they disagree but the girl who wrote it was getting a lot of shit on social media".

"Why?", Pedri couldn't hide his frown.

"I didn't look much into it but I saw people saying nasty things to her and then they found some old tweets and …seems like she used to have a crush on you and now she writes about your muscles or whatever and people on Twitter are the way they always are".

"Right", he murmured. He had listened to everything his friend said but also got stuck on how you used to have a crush on him. And he didn't even know who you were but footballers…they just loved being loved.

                                     **

"No point in deleting them now", said Jordi.

"I wasn't going to…".

People had too much time on their hands. That was the conclusion of the day. Somehow, just because of your article, someone decided to check your entire Twitter history to see if there was anything they could accuse you of. They probably were mad to find no offensive tweets but they found two where you retweeted a Barça fan page and wrote about liking Pedri.

The funniest thing was you barely remembered those tweets. You saw him, thought he was cute and posted that. Then you moved on. There were many players you found cute but had no time for crushes. Pedri got a mention purely for the fact that he signed for your team.

But now this was being used against you. So childish.

"Are you busy next week?"

You looked up to see your boss talking to you. He never talked to you.

"I guess. I mean, I'll be here working. So…".

"Do you have a passport?"

"Yes".

"Your English was good, right?"

"Pretty good, yeah".

He only had to look at your CV to see all the qualifications you had, including all the diplomas that proved your English was more than good but…no one cared that much about an intern.

"You're going on the US tour", he said and left. How could he drop that bomb and leave?

Your jaw was on the floor and Jordi was staring at you with a similar expression.

"Wait!", you said, finally able to get up and follow your boss. "What do you mean I'm going on the US tour? There is a group of people chosen for that already. It was decided months ago".

"I know", he said casually. "But one of them can't go and you'll take his spot".

"But I'm just an intern".

"Do you not want to go?"

"I do! Of course I do!", you said quickly. "But it doesn't make sense".

"Look. You're doing really well here. And you've gotten people to visit our website more than ever with just one article so…you earned it".

You had heard about all the visits to the website after the Pedri article was posted. But the way your boss was avoiding holding eye contact told you everything you needed to know.

"Am I just going because people think I have a crush on one of the players that'll be there?"

"If you weren't a good journalist, that wouldn't be enough for me to send you with that team. But it doesn't hurt".

"Ok, I'll start packing".

This was a great opportunity and you weren't going to reject it just because of some of the reasons surrounding it. But the excitement you felt when you first heard about the trip completely vanished.

And when you checked your Instagram and saw a certain player was looking at your stories…it was even worse.

No one took you seriously but you'd prove them wrong.

                                     **

The pre-season was both loved and hated by players. Pedri didn't really have strong feelings about it. It was just part of the job and they got to visit some different places so there were positives to take from these couple of weeks.

Another positive was having you around. After finding out about your article and your past crush on him, he checked your social media accounts. There wasn't much on any of them, since they were professional accounts. But there were a couple of photos of you and your dog.

Stories were something you also used to mostly promote your work and it was while checking those he found out you were going to the US too. He was hoping you'd meet at some point but didn't expect you'd be the one to interview him.

"Hi, nice to meet you", you said, extending your hand for him to shake. So professional.

"Nice meeting you too. I really liked your article about me".

Something changed in your expression and he couldn't understand what it was but you quickly got back to professional mode.

"Thank you. Let's get this done quickly. I was told we only have 15 minutes".

The interview was pretty uneventful. You asked good questions and Pedri gave you good answers in return. But you were so serious. He didn't know you personally, so maybe that was how you always were. But Pedri had a feeling there was more to it.

"Was that good?"

"The interview? Yes, thank you for your answers. They were really good".

"Easy when the questions are good too".

You nodded, quickly looking away.

"Are you ok?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because it seems like you would want to be anywhere but here".

You closed your eyes and sighed.

"Is it because of what people said about you?"

His words made you open your eyes and you finally looked at him. Instead of answering, you simply nodded.

"Don't pay attention to them".

"Easier said than done. Especially when they are the reason I'm here".

"The reason…".

"I'm not here because I'm good at my job. But because people thinking I have a crush on you got us a lot of attention. And now this interview will get more attention. So I'm basically just a pawn and I guess so are you".

"I'm sorry".

"It's not your fault".

Picking up your things, you got ready to leave but Pedri stopped you.

"I don't read what people write about me but my parents do. They like to keep the articles and print the photos and all that. Things parents do, I guess", he shrugged. "I read your article because Ferrán showed it to me and thought it was great. And then my parents told me about it, praising your writing multiple times. Your newspaper might be using you but you're good. You showed it to me in this interview too so don't feel sad".

"I don't have a crush on you".

"What?", but then he realised what you meant. "I didn't praise you because of that. God, you really need to get out of that mindset".

When Pedri started to laugh, you were more confused than ever.

"It's not you against the world. And people will praise you just because they genuinely want to…but now I'll be the one who's sad".

"Why?"

"I liked thinking you had a crush on me".

Now you were laughing too. Finally, he got to see the smile he had seen in those photos.

"Thank you for your words. I needed them. And you must go to train. I'll see you around".

"Yes".

The interview was posted just a couple of hours later. And even if Pedri's words helped, the comments you got still hurt.

Got what she wanted. To meet him.

"Yes, that's all I wanted in life. I can retire now".

"Why are you looking at your phone like it offended you?", asked one of your colleagues.

"It's the people inside it that offend me".

"Are there people living inside your phone?"

You half laughed at his bad joke.

"I know what you need to cheer up".

"Really?"

"Yes. Thoughts on karaoke?"

That made you laugh. You were such a terrible singer. "I like it. People don't like hearing me sing, though".

"I want to hear you sing so you're coming with us tonight".

                                   **

One of the easiest ways to get in trouble during pre-season was to go out and wake up to paparazzi photos of the party. But when it was the coach that took you out…then it was fine?

Pedri wasn't really into parties anyways but he thought karaoke night could be fun. He wasn't planning on signing but knew which teammates would. His phone was going to record all of it to tease them in the future.

"It started already", said Xavi, who was the first one to get inside the bar.

And he was right. There was someone leaving the stage while they found their tables. And someone else took the previous person's place immediately. Pedri wasn't interested in the random people who were going to sign but still looked up to see who was talking to the guy that controlled the machine.

And it was you who was on the stage.

"Well, that's a surprise", he said, almost to himself.

"What is?", Ferrán was now looking at the stage too. "Who is she? She's hot".

"The journalist who wrote about my muscles".

"The one that doesn't have a crush on you?", he laughed. "That's funnier now that I know she's pretty".

Pedri rolled his eyes and continued staring at you. He could see you were giggling and it was such a change from the super serious woman he met for the interview.

You picked a Franz Ferdinand song. They were one of your favourite bands when you were a teen and after seeing them live at the FIB, you were back to listening to all their songs on repeat.

Oh, when I woke up tonight, I said I’m

Going to make somebody love me

I’m going to make somebody love me

And now I know, now I know, now I know

I know that it’s you

You’re lucky, lucky, you’re so lucky

Your voice wasn’t great but who cared about that on karaoke night? Pedri didn’t. He just stared at you. You looked so relaxed. Just having fun instead of the worried version of you he got for his interview.

“Whoever she chooses would be lucky. She isn’t lying”.

Ferrán’s words took Pedri out of his daydreams. “What do you mean?”

“The song”.

“I’m not really paying attention to the lyrics. What do they mean?”

His teammate explained the meaning of the lyrics quickly and Pedri had to agree. Whoever you chose would be very lucky.

“I wouldn’t mind being the chosen one but you saw her first. Shame she doesn’t have a crush on you anymore, Pedrito”.

Yeah, it was a shame.

When you finished your song, you felt so much better. This had been the right plan to improve your mood. None of your colleagues wanted a drink, so you went to the bar to get one. It was needed after all that singing.

“I didn’t know you were a singer too?”

You turned to face Pedri and snorted. “Yes, it was my plan b if journalism didn’t work out”.

“There is always autotune to help”.

Pedri was pleased to see you laughing at his words. It was the second time in just one day he had achieved that.

“Do you want a drink too?”, you asked him when the bartender was taking your order.

“Just water, please”.

Once you got your drinks, none of you moved from the bar to go back to your friends. You just kept chatting.

“I mean, who knew writing about someone’s arms could lead to so much drama”.

Pedri followed your eyes which were now staring at his biceps. “Want to touch them?”

Yes. “No”.

“After reading the article I wondered if you knew more about my body than I do, you know? So it’s ok, you can touch”.

You bit your lip, trying not to blush. "I know you hear every day about how good you are at everything and that makes you overly confident but you aren’t as great at flirting as you might think".

"I heard about how great I am from you too. So you're at fault".

"I've barely written about you apart from that article".

"Yeah, but the old tweets…".

"I told you I don’t have a crush on you”.

“And the way you’re blushing says something different”.

When he leaned closer, you noticed how your knees were touching beneath the bar. They had been touching for a couple of minutes and you hadn’t even noticed. Nor did you feel the need to move.

“Not here”, you said.

“What?”

“Not where people can see us”.

“I thought you didn’t…”.

“I just want to test a theory”.

“What theory?”, he asked, smirking at you.

“If the crush I had on you two years ago is still there”.

[kwanisms]

Kinkuary 09 Beomgyu — pet play & breeding

➥ owner!Beomgyu × kitten!Reader

summary: Beomgyu has always had a fantasy of being the owner in a pet play scenario and gets his wish when Y/N agrees to be his kitten.

wc: 3.7k

warnings: afab reader, adult dialogue, established relationship, sexual content (minors dni!): dom!Beomgyu, sub!Reader, oral (m receiving), unprotected sex (use protection pls), breeding kink, use of pet names (baby, kitten, kitty, etc), mild pet play (reader wears cat ears, collar, cat tail, etc), use of toys (one tail buttplug), I think that's all of them, let me know if I missed any!

a/n: I never have any excuses for the way I write Beomgyu. I just think he's very versatile when it comes to writing for him and he fits into a lot of different scenarios. That being said, breeding is one of my biggest kinks and being able to put my favorite kink with one of my favorite kpop boys is just *chef's kiss* I love it. As always, this is a work of fiction and all characters are not reflective of their respective irl counterparts. for entertainment purposes only. banner made by me. I do not allow reposts or translations of my works. All my works are ©️ kwanisms.

Permanent taglist: @yoonguurt @candidupped @dejavernon

Kinkuary full taglist: @baldi-2 @wonderfulshinee @lacie220900 @sup-dallyboy @drunk-on-dk @violagoth @mixling-blog

Txt taglist: @niktwazny303 @rapmonie2047 @rdiamond2727 @cixrosie

MINORS WILL BE BLACKLISTED & BLOCKED.

Join the taglist!

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"It sounds simple enough," you said as you looked up from the screen in front of you to your boyfriend's anxious expression.

"So you'd be up for it?" he asked softly. You nodded, sliding his phone back to him. "Yeah. I'm down to try," you replied. "It seems interesting." You could see Beomgyu's shoulders visibly relax.

He must have felt very tense and nervous about bringing this to your attention and you could understand why. It wasn't exactly a conventional conversation to have. After all, not everyone was into pet play or breeding.

You'd never experimented with either before but since Beomgyu had given some of your kinks a try, you saw no harm in returning the favor and who knows, you might find something new to like.

"So, how are we gonna do this?" you asked, leaning forward, and giving Beomgyu a grin, a mischievous glint in your eye.

You were surprised by how much thought he'd put into this and impressed at the amount of research he'd done previously. The first thing was to set boundaries. Things that you were both comfortable doing and things that were totally off limits.

"No cages or kennels," you said quickly, watching Beomgyu as he started a list on his phone, thumbs tapping quickly across the screen as he typed.

"Got it," he answered. "Collar?" he asked, glancing up at you through his lashes. You nodded. "Collars are fine. Leashes too," you answered. He typed your response down and paused. "Ears and tail?" he asked, looking up at you again. You thought for a moment.

"Only cat ears and tail," you finally replied. "And if you want to get one of those tail plugs, I'm fine with that."

Beomgyu's eyes widened but he quickly added your answer.

"What can I call you?" he inquired, setting his phone on the table you both sat at. "Kitten and kitty are fine. What you normally call me is fine, too," you said, shrugging at the end.

Beomgyu nodded slowly. "Anything else you aren't comfortable with?" he said, his gaze meeting yours. You pondered for a moment, trying to think of something. "No meowing? I guess I can do everything except for the extreme stuff," you answered.

"Extreme stuff?"

"Yeah, like kennels, crates, cages, meowing, eating out of pet dishes, those kinds of things."

Beomgyu's eyes widened, clearly impressed that you'd done your own research when he first mentioned this to you a couple days ago. You wanted to be as prepared as possible.

"The ears, the tails, hell, a collar and even a leash is acceptable. I'll even wear whatever lingerie you pick. Just please don't actually make me act like a cat," you explained.

Beomgyu's expression softened and he nodded to show he understood. "Of course, babe," he replied. "None of that."

"And one more thing," you added, drawing his attention.

"Let's go over these breeding boundaries," you replied.

After a long in depth discussion, you both agreed to forego the use of condoms since you were on birth control. The idea of letting your boyfriend cum inside you was exciting and you were actually looking forward to the act.

You also sat down later that night to peruse a couple of sites, looking for a play set you both liked. Finally, you settled on a pair of pink and black ears with a matching tail plug as well as a pink collar and matching leash.

True to your word, you let Beomgyu pick out a lingerie set and protested when he purchased everything himself.

"It should be here next week," he said as he put his card back in his wallet and tucked it away.

Suddenly you were very anxious and excited. Next week couldn't come fast enough.

"Babe!" Beomgyu's voice called through the apartment. You were in the middle of washing the dishes when he came home, a few packages balanced precariously in his arms.

"What are those?" You asked as you rinsed your hands and shut the water off, grabbing a towel to dry yourself.

"They're our packages?" he answered, cocking an eyebrow at your confused expression.

It took a moment but then you remembered last week when you'd sat down to look at pet play stuff.

"It's here already?" you asked nervously as Beomgyu moved to the couch, sitting down and setting the packages on the coffee table.

"Yes!" he said excitedly as he patted the spot next to him on the couch. You took a seat and watched nervously as he started to open the first package which turned out to be the collar and leash set. Your eyes widened as he removed the plastic surrounding it.

It was much prettier in person than you expected. The leash wasn't too long but it wasn't exceptionally short either. The outside of the collar was pink faux leather but the inside had a nice soft lining so it wouldn't irritate. Fixed to a small d-ring in the center of the collar was a tiny pink bell that jingles with every movement.

The next package were the ears and tail which were also breathtakingly beautiful. Beomgyu had made sure to order the tail with a smaller plug as neither of you were particularly experienced when it came to anal sex. The plug itself was made of smooth, shiny titanium.

The ears came on a thin clear headband and were slider adjustable along the sides. You watched as Beomgyu removed the ears from the pillow and turned to you. "May I?" He asked softly.

You nodded and your eyes followed his movements but you kept your head still as he placed the headband on and you could see the sparkle in his eyes. He was absolutely enamored.

"We'll try the tail later," he said softly, pulling his attention away to open the last few packages.

The next was a pair of stockings. They were black thigh highs and you wondered what was so special about them. You had plenty of black stockings already but your curiosity was satiated when Beomgyu showed you the bottom of the foot part.

"They have paw pads!" he said, resisting the urge to coo and awe over them. You had to admit, they were pretty darn cute.

"What's in there," you asked, nodding towards the smallest package. Beomgyu set the stockings aside and grabbed the little package, carefully opening it and pulling out two small wrist cuffs.

Black, furry wrist cuffs.

"I thought the paw gloves were too much but I felt these would be kinda cute and they would look nice on you," he said in a soft voice.

You couldn't help but smile at your boyfriend's gentle nature. With his friends, he was a chaotic ball of energy but not with you.

"And I'm guessing that's the lingerie you picked?" you whispered, eyes landing on the last parcel. Beomgyu nodded, setting the cuffs down with the stockings. "It is," he answered, grabbing it.

"It took me a lot of thinking to pick this out so I hope you like it," he added as he opened the package and pulled out the contents.

Just like the other accessories which were black and pink, the set before you was also black with pink details. It was a two piece set, the top was a typical tube style top with thin straps that tied at the top. There was a cat head shaped cut out on the front of the top, outlined in the same pink embroidery.

The bottoms that matched tied on the sides with little strings that ended in tiny little paws with pink embroidered paw pads. On the front of the panties were two tiny triangles sewn on to look like ears and on the back was a large printed pink paw print.

Everything was beautiful and well crafted and you felt your heart tug at the care that Beomgyu put into buying you such beautiful gifts.

'This had better be worth it,' you told yourself, hoping you ended up enjoying this as much as you knew he would.

Later that night, after an early dinner, you decided to take a quick shower and get changed, making Beomgyu wait in the bedroom while you pulled on the lingerie, stockings, cuffs and ears. The tail you would need his help with and the collar was something you agreed to let him do as your "owner" for the night.

You chose not to look at your reflection too much but happened to catch a glimpse of yourself and felt your cheeks burn at the sight.

It was much better than you anticipated.

Gathering your courage, you finally pulled open the door leading into the bedroom where Beomgyu glanced up from where he sat, his phone in his hand.

As soon as his eyes landed on you, they widened, his jaw dropping as he took in the sight before him.

"Holy shit," he breathed, heart racing, trying to ignore the way he felt his cock twitch in his sweats. He'd imagined this many times but the reality was always better than his imagination.

The way the lingerie set he'd chosen fit you was perfect, like it was made for your body. The black stockings were an exact match in shade to the set and the fur of the black cuffs matched the ears.

"Where's your tail?" he asked softly as you walked over to him, hands behind your back. His eyes left your face as you held it up.

"I need some help with it," you said in a soft, slightly shy voice.

Beomgyu's lips pulled into a smile and he set his phone aside, reaching out to take your hand and pulling you into the bed in front of him. "I'd be happy to help you, baby," he replied softly.

"Here," he said, taking the tail from you gently and making you turn to face away. "Bend over," he instructed, with one hand, pushing your shoulder slightly, urging you to bend over while his other hand pulled open the bedside table drawer and grabbed the small bottle of lube you kept there for emergencies.

This wasn't an emergency per se, but it was needed nonetheless.

"I need you to relax for me, Y/N," he said as he grabbed the plug, pushing the fur away and squeezing a couple drops of the clear gel onto the metal. He snapped the lid shut and set the bottle aside before turning his attention back to you.

"Can you pull these down for me, baby?" he asked, running his hand over your ass, fingers skimming the material.

Obediently, you reached back to your hips and tugged the panties down past your ass to your thighs, exposing your ass to him.

"Good girl," he cooed, scooting closer and placing one hand on your hip as he pressed the cool metal against your tight hole.

Your body jolted at the sensation of the cold metal and the cool lubricant but Beomgyu reassured you with a light squeeze to your hip. "It's okay," he whispered. "Take a deep breath."

You did as he said, inhaling slowly and closing your eyes as you felt him swirl the tip of the plug around your asshole, spreading the lube and testing your reaction as he ever so slightly pushed the very end of the pointed tip into your hole.

You let out a gasp at the intrusion but Beomgyu was quick to calm you. "Relax, kitten," he said in a low tone. "I need you to relax. You're doing so well for me."

You took another deep breath and exhaled, relaxing your muscles and allowing Beomgyu to slip the rest of the plug in. It wasn't a huge toy but you weren't accustomed to having more than a finger or thumb in there.

"You're such a good little kitty," Beomgyu said, pressing a kiss to your back as he pulled your panties back up, positioning the toy to peek out one side of your panties.

"Come here," he cooed, turning you to face him and pulling you onto his lap as he leaned back against the pillows, propped up against the headboard. "You did so well," he praised, keeping one arm around your waist while the other petted your head slowly.

"Such a good girl."

You laid your head on his chest, eyes sliding shut as he continued to stroke your hair. You had to admit, you were liking this very much so far. The praise, petting, and even the use of kitten and kitty was starting to work you up.

"I got something for you," he said suddenly, making you open your eyes. You watched as he pulled open the second drawer on the bedside table and pulled out the collar.

"I figured well forego the leash tonight," he added as you sat up, watching him fiddle with the buckle on the collar. "May I?" he asked, looking at you and waiting for permission.

You nodded wordlessly and watched as his hands moved, place the collar around your neck and fastening the buckle. "It's not too tight, is it?" He asked as he slipped two fingers under the leather.

You shook your head. "No," you answered. "It's perfect."

Smiling, Beomgyu grabbed his phone from the bed and unlocked the screen. He checked to make sure your eyes were still closed before he opened an app on his phone and tapped the on switch.

Immediately, you let out a gasping moan as the plug inside you sprang to life, buzzing at a low frequency. You glanced up at Beomgyu who pressed a kiss to your forehead. "Surprise," he said with a smirk. 'Oh that cheeky bastard.'

"Beomgyu!" You whined, burying your face in his chest. You felt the vibration stop and relaxed, looking up into your boyfriend's face. "Sorry, babe," he said softly, pressing a quick kiss to your lips.

"I couldn't resist." He set his phone aside and sat up, forcing you to sit up as well. "You look so pretty," he whispered, bringing his hand up to cup your cheek, thumb stroking your skin softly. "I can't wait to fill you up." Your lips parted as his thumb brushed over them a small gasp escaping you as Beomgyu pushed the tip of his thumb past your lips and onto your tongue.

Without being told to, you wrapped your lips around his thumb and sucked, making him groan at the sight. "You seem to know exactly what I want you to do," he said, pulling his thumb from your mouth. You watched as he rested back against the headboard and gave you a sly grin.

He looked down towards his crotch and back up. “Well, get to it, kitten.”

Your fingers skimmed up his thighs, dragging painfully slowly across the fabric of his pants as you neared the tie of his sweats. Beomgyu grabbed your hands, halting your movements. “Don’t play with me,” he said in a stern voice.

You muttered an apology and waited for him to release you.

When your hands were back under your control, you quickly untied his drawstring, keeping your eyes lowered.

Beomgyu lifted his hips as you tugged his pants and underwear down, freeing his hard cock.

Without another word, you took him in your hand, admiring the size and weight in your hand as you always did.

Glancing up at his face, your eyes met and you leaned in, giving the head of his cock a light lick, smirking to yourself when he let out a hiss.

“I told you not to play with me,” he growled, fingers tangling in your hair and pulling your head down, forcing more of his cock into your mouth. “Be a good kitty and take all of it.”

You whined at the effect his words had on you, your thighs clenching together as the head of his cock hit the back of your throat.

“That’s much better,” he said softly, holding your head in place. “I knew you could take more. I’ve fucked that pretty mouth of yours before.”

You waited for him to release you, hands resting on his thighs as your lungs burned. you tried to pull away but Beomgyu’s grip on you was stronger. “I didn’t say you could move, kitten.”

You felt the corner of your eyes burn, tapping against him quickly.

Finally, he released you, allowing you to sit up and cough as air filled your lungs again.

“Turn around,” he ordered, moving to pull his pants off the rest of the way, discarding his underwear along with them as you slowly turned around to face away from him.

Feeling him lean over your back, chills ran up your spine as he whispered in your ear.

“Are you okay, baby?”

You nodded, pushing your ass back against his erection. “Mhm,” you answered.

Beomgyu let out a groan, hands moving to your shoulders and pushing your chest down onto the bed, keeping your ass in the air. “Stay down,” he demanded, his hands sliding down your back to your ass, squeezing the flesh and slowly pulling the panties he’d bought for you down.

Once the fabric was bunched around your knees, you felt him spread your cheeks, getting a good look at your glistening cunt. “I can’t wait to fill you up,” he said more to himself than to you. you waited patiently as he removed his shirt, tossing it aside and guided the tip of his length to your entrance.

Rather than entering, he slowly rubbed against you, eliciting a moan from you.

“God I love the sounds you make.”

Your lips parted to answer him but a moan left your mouth instead as he pushed into you, gliding in easily and bottoming out. Your walls welcomed him, squeezing around him and it took all his willpower to resist slamming into you. “Fuck, you feel so good, kitten,” he groaned, taking hold of your waist, pulling out slightly and glancing down as he thrust into you.

This was always one of his favorite things about this position. He got to watch his cock disappear into you over and over again.

“Beommie,” you whimpered as he set a slow, steady pace. He didn’t want to wear himself out too quickly.

“Beommie? That’s cute,” he cooed, giving you a harsh thrust and making you cry out.

“But you’re even cuter when you’re screaming.”

You glanced back at him, meeting his gaze. “Then make me scream.”

Whatever willpower he had left his body in an instant and the next second, he had you pinned to the mattress as he pounded into you.

You shouldn’t have said anything but you couldn’t help it. You liked it when he went rough on you. You liked it when he lost control and embraced his more… animalistic side.

“Keep screaming for me, like a good kitty,” he moaned. “‘M gonna fill this pretty little pussy until you can’t take anymore of my cum.”

A loud moan sounded from the back of your throat as you clenched around him. “Gonna fill you up so much," Beomgyu grunted, his hips moving faster despite how tightly your walls squeezed his cock.

"Do you want that, kitten? Want me to fill you up and breed you?"

You let out a whine, pushing back to meet his thrusts. You'd never given much thought to a breeding kink before but you could see how much Beomgyu liked the idea and you'd be lying if you said the idea wasn't turning you on even more. Maybe it had more to do with it being your loving boyfriend than the actual act itself.

Either way, you wanted him to fill you up. You wanted him to pump you full of his cum. You wanted to be so full of it that it spilled out of you for him to see.

"Yes," you rasped, barely managing to lift your head enough so your voice wasn't muffled. "Yes please, Beommie. Fill me up,"

The sound Beomgyu let out was a mix between a growl and a moan. His grip tightened on your waist, hips thrusting as your words drove him closer and closer to the edge. "I knew you'd want that. Looking like this, begging me to fuck you. Of course you'd want me to cum inside you, fill you up until it spills out. What a dirty little kitty you are," he chuckled. "Beomgyu please," you mewled.

"Please what?" he asked breathlessly. "What do you want, baby?"

"G-give me your cum," you answered, stammering slightly and feeling your cheeks burn at your request.

"If that's what you want," Beomgyu replied. "I'm happy to oblige."

You let out a cry as he moved impossibly faster, your ass bouncing against him with each harsh thrust, his cock hitting deeper and making your eyes roll back. "Fuck," you cursed, crying out when you felt a sharp smack to your ass. "Language, kitten," Beomgyu hissed. "Watch your mouth."

You felt your climax approaching, muscles tensing as your walls convulsed around your boyfriend's cock until he finally came with a deep moan, painting your insides with his hot load.

The sensation of him coming inside you pushed you over the edge and you came, your boyfriend's name leaving your lips in a breathless chant.

Beomgyu's hips finally stopped, his cock still buried inside your tight walls. Neither one of you spoke for a moment, just basking in your post sex euphoria.

Finally you felt Beomgyu's hands move, caressing your skin gently.

"Are you okay, baby?" he asked softly. You nodded in response. "Yeah," you panted. "I'm okay."

Beomgyu glanced down where his body met yours and let out a 'tsk.'

"What's wrong?" you asked, pushing yourself up and looking over your shoulder at him. "I said I'd fill you up until you couldn't take anymore," he reminded you, looking up to meet your gaze.

It was at that moment you realized he was still hard inside you.

"Beomgyu what are you- AH!" You cried out in shock as Beomgyu pushed your chest back down to meet the mattress, hips beginning to move again as he fucked his cum deeper into you.

"I said I would breed you," he added, giving you slow but hard measured thrusts. "And that's exactly what I'm gonna do."

You let out a whine as he continued.

"Hold on tight, kitten. You're in for a really long ride."

[sewersewersewercouch]

A macro post for a Micro-phone!

To those of you I’ve been threatening with this post for god knows how long–yes, I’m finally doing it. I’m writing the goddamn Microphone meta, because I have SO MANY THOUGHTS on this silly little sentient microphone. (She’s not even my favorite character, she’s my second favorite. My favorite is Cabby, but Cabby makes me go into such a feral state that I can barely form words about her other than writing copious amounts of fanfiction. I digress.) Before I get into it, though, I have some general “please be normal on my post” housekeeping I want to start with.

Firstly, this post is about Microphone. Specifically, about Microphone and the themes of choice and morality as they appear in her arc. This post is NOT meant to comment on the morality or choices of any other character. Specifically, by the nature of Mic’s story in the majority of the show, Taco will probably come up a lot because she’s there for a lot of it, but in a weird way, a lot of this post is kind of about how Mic’s arc doesn’t revolve around Taco as much as it’s often believed to? I don’t know, hopefully it’ll make more sense when you read it, but whatever, this post is not about my views on Taco.

To add on–THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT SHIPPING. I don’t want to hear about how much you like or dislike XYZ ship in the comments or reblogs of this post. Make your own damn post. If you want to know how I feel about a certain ship, you can always feel free to ask, just…like, not here. 

Also, I will admit, part of the reason I started making this post is because there were certain interpretations of Microphone in this fandom that bothered me, but I don’t want that to be the vibe of this post as a whole. I do the “I’m always right about this character and nobody else gets them” bit as much as the next guy, but when it extends beyond being a bit, that’s when you start to be kind of an asshole who refuses to so much as listen to views different from their own. I don’t want to be that. I know I’m not incapable of being wrong, and I also know there’s a lot of this that’s subjective, because it’s a fictional story written by people whose minds I cannot read. I don’t want to make this post to hate on others’ opinions, I want to make this post to love Mic! We are all love Mic!

Lastly, I started drafting (read: rotating in my brain and vaguely mentioning it to friends) this post pre-II16, and as I’m writing this now I’m just after act 1. So this may have spoilers for act 1, but also some of this I came up with before that even existed and had to kind of adjust in order to account for that. Obviously Mic wasn’t in there much, but there are a few small adjustments so I will say here there be spoilers. I also have so much ADHD (so does Mic, but that’s a different meta that I mayhaps will write if this goes over well) and I am allergic to being concise or staying on topic. The title does not fuck around, it really is quite a macro post. Sorry in advance.

That said, it’s Microphone time!

Ok so there are a couple quotes from a Brian livestream that I really appreciated because they kinda summed up the general thesis statement of this post, if you will? So I’m gonna put those here and then refer back to them as needed:

“What I find most interesting is how you would think when [Taco] comes back in season 2, and she’s like, ‘oh, I’m gonna make a deal with Microphone’, that she is going to manipulate Microphone, she is going to be the one in control, the one in power, the one, you know, leading the more ignorant and innocent Microphone, but Microphone at a point is like, ‘I’m done,’ and cuts Taco off.”

“I think Microphone was completely justified to leave [Taco] in Hatching the Plan. Perhaps would have even been justified to do so sooner than that. But, you know, it’s really up to what she wants and what she’s comfortable with, and she set a boundary, and we stan.”

“I really enjoyed the subversion of expectation with [Microphone], that she was not a victim, played an active role, and when a line was crossed, she was like, ‘I’m done, I’m out.’ And you really gotta respect the integrity of that, I certainly do.”

Okay, remember those? Good. We’re going to get back to them in a while, because we’re going through this shit episode by episode.

So, for the first…quite a while, actually, Mic doesn’t really do a whole lot. Like, we see that she’s generally pretty friendly but with a rather short temper, and her main schtick is that 1) she’s loud, 2) this causes her to screw challenges up, and 3) this in term makes most of her team not like her and behave quite rudely towards her. That’s kinda all we got. 

Oh, and she seems to be being stalked by some kind of mysterious entity, but whatever, that’s a later problem.

One of the earlier on scenes I’d like to draw your attention to is in Theft and Battery, where Cheesy walks up to Mic and, apropos of nothing, says, “Mic! I've just experienced the most horrible thing! It was a monstrosity! Your personality! Get it? Because everyone thinks you're annoying!” Which, like, I know I said I wasn’t commenting on the morality of other characters, but I will take this moment to say, fucking asshole. I don’t usually dislike Cheesy but I would have decked him for this one. Mic went so easy on him.

But I digress (I do that a lot! You’re going to find that out over the course of this post!) We see Mic blow up like she usually does at comments like this, but before that, we see inside her head for a second—she imagines being surrounded by Cheesys, all laughing at her expense.

This is the first time we truly see how much all those remarks from her teammates actually affect her. It’s not just a split-second flash of anger—all those things are really, truly, hurting her.

In the next episode, Rain On Your Charade, we see the first time she has an actually good interaction with another Grand Slam, this being Soap. Mic and Soap seem to bounce off each other pretty well—Mic’s impulsivity is a good counter for Soap’s much more rigid way of thinking. They give each other advice on their respective problems and comfort one another. For once in her life (literally in her life thus far, given you-know-what!) we can see Mic having a healthy interaction where she is clearly valued and supportive. Someone who encourages her to listen to her heart—as we see, this is gonna be a theme.

So, of course, it’s just Mic’s luck that Soap gets immediately eliminated.

And now Mic is stuck alone on a team that hates her—that makes disparaging remarks about her every move, and that is doing an absolute number on her mental health. She refers to herself, in her own diary, as annoying, harmful, random, useless, insignificant, a loser. And now she has absolutely nobody in her corner.

Enter Taco, with a cup of tea and a deal to make. 

Okay, the first thing I want to address is the way that Microphone reacts to seeing Taco. Well, I mean, first, she reacts with, “AAAAAA,” as I’m sure many of us would if a British woman jumped out of a bush at us. But after she’s done doing that, she says, “What are you doing here, Taco?” And it makes me sound really silly to say “how’d she know her name?” because, uh, duh, genius, it’s an object show, she’s a taco, but like…you get what I mean, right? She addresses Taco like she knows who she is. Which makes me wonder, did she see season 1? (Did she even exist when season 1 would have been airing?) But she can’t have done, or she would have heard about all the Pickle stuff. The most likely option in my opinion would be that she heard the season 1 contestants talking about it, I guess? But either way, she seems to know that Taco has done bad things in the past, and instinctively doesn’t trust her. (I mean, also she has been actively stalking her, which maybe doesn’t help. Whatever.)

I don’t have too much to say about the rest of this interaction—Taco offers to guide Microphone through the game in exchange for a fifty percent cut of her winnings, Microphone declines, Taco tells her to think about it.

Next episode—Mazed and Confused! As usual, the Grand Slams immediately ditch Mic, and she winds up getting kinda pulled into the Bright Lights group. And there’s some interesting Mic dialogue—featuring the II-typical move of characters not discussing their issues outright but rather showing them via thinly veiled projection. And I will fully admit that I love this. Every time I see it I go nuts for it. Firstly, Marshmallow is talking about Apple using her, to which Mic says, “Maybe it's not so bad if someone uses you, if- if it benefits you as well, right?” Then she has this interaction with Fan:

Fan: B-but in that song, the vocalist lovingly chronicles how they couldn't deal with themselves until they gain the companion they need! It's pure poetry!

Microphone: So, everything he does is decided by someone else? Nice message…

Fan: Well, Microphone, what gives you the right to have an "interpretation"? When's the last time you gained something of value from true art such as this?

Microphone: Ugh... certain people always tell me I have so much to gain.

So, obviously, “certain people” is Taco, and we can see how conflicted Microphone is about the whole situation. On the one hand, she doesn’t like the idea of blindly following someone else’s directions without making any of her own decisions, but also, even if she’s concerned that she’s being used, she does see how it could benefit her. (Also, this is far from the last time we’re going to see Microphone flimsily attempting to justify something going on with her.)

Well, apparently she comes to a decision, because she runs off to get help from Taco. With Taco’s guidance, Mic makes it through the maze, and Baseball even compliments her. We see a clear example of how she could potentially benefit from this partnership. (Well, until she accidentally gives away the position of the exit to Test Tube, but I digress.)

As we get into “Kick the Bucket,” it seems like Mic’s pretty all-in on working with Taco. However, right off the bat, we see a moment where Mic outright gives Taco a hard no on one of her directions, that being, using her temporary paralyzer. (Side note: it absolutely cracks me up how she goes “you don’t do that!” like she’s telling off a small child for stealing candy or something. Never change, Mic.)

We see a couple of things here—one, that Microphone has no reservations of telling Taco she won’t do something where she crosses a certain line. And secondly, with some other evidence, we can figure out where that line is. She refuses to use the temporary paralyzer, she freaks out about Lightbulb and Test Tube being sent back in time, she stops Taco from letting Knife’s minecart go over a drop, she makes her promise “no violence” before they go on the Shimmers’ ship. 

And yet, look at the scene after this, with Balloon. She purposely tries to get in his head to make him feel anxious and afraid that he’s at risk of being eliminated, and then later makes fun of him to her other teammates in order to cast doubt on him. And she came up with this plan against Taco’s advice—although it does end up impressing Taco, that’s not why she does this, it’s pure Microphone. So it isn’t hurting others that she draws the line—one could clearly argue that her messing with Balloon like that is pretty hurtful. It’s specifically physical violence that bothers her, which is kind of an interesting place to draw the line in a world where dead contestants can be revived, but emotions are forever.

Hell, Mic says it outright in the next episode, Alternate Reality Show–”You say that like we didn’t do our share of permanent damage.” She’s aware what she did was “permanent damage,” and Taco didn’t even tell her to do it, and yet, she did. This is where we first start to see the cognitive dissonance that Mic is dealing with here—she has a strong sense of morals, seeing as she’s giving back the temporary paralyzer explicitly against Taco’s wishes, because “it’s the right thing to do.” And yet, she’s actively making choices that go against that sense, and she doesn’t know how to feel about that.

Next up, we’re looking at Mine Your Own Business, AKA one of Mic’s best episodes. Her and Taco’s plan in this episode is to try to get Knife on their side because he’s seen that they’re working together. This goes…not as planned, starting from the moment they blow their cover by getting into an argument about whether you should say “excuse me” when you sneeze, while invisible behind him. (We didn’t get enough of them as a comedic duo, by the way. They crack me up so bad in this episode.) Anyways, Mic tries valiantly to bring Knife in with a very convincing, “Join us…yeah!” When Taco and Knife inevitably begin arguing, however, Mic says “We just wanna help!” Which…do you? Yeah, okay girl, keep telling yourself that.

There’s also the little scene where Mic is trying to get Taco to open up about why she was reaching for the portal. This is one of the first interactions we see them have that isn’t about the game. Microphone just…genuinely wants to know what was distressing Taco so much. You know, like you might with a friend. And that’s one thing that interests me about this—Microphone thinking of Taco like a friend isn’t something that Taco did on purpose to gain her trust, and in fact, she seems rather resistant to it. It’s entirely Microphone initiating these friendly interactions. (Even though soon after she does imply she doesn’t feel she really knows the real Taco.)

Then we see the bit where Knife is about to go off a cliff, Taco gives a thumbs up, but Mic doesn’t approve and manages to get Knife into their minecart. I touched on this above, but this is another example of Mic’s resistance to physically harming others.

The next time we see this terrific trio, Taco apologizes to Mic for not being open with her, and I kid you not, Mic responds with, “aww, Taco!” (I reiterate: Never change, Mic.) And, even when Knife explains what happened with Pickle, Mic still comes to Taco’s defense. Some of this is because of the fact that Mic is beginning to truly see Taco as a friend, yes, but I think another part of it is that previously mentioned cognitive dissonance. She wants to believe she’s doing the right thing, and not just aiding and abetting someone who hurts others, so of course she’s going to want to defend Taco–because if Taco is a bad person, and she’s purposefully helping her achieve her ends just for the sake of winning a game show, what does that make her?

On to Hatching the Plan! (We’re in the home stretch, I promise!) We see Mic joking about the idea of what happened to Pickle happening to her—”At least, until you inevitably ‘drop me too,’ or whatever.” Clearly, she didn’t take too much stock in Knife’s words, and she’s pretty convinced she’s safe from a similar fate. (Which she is! Because Pickle was being unknowingly strung along, and Mic is willingly helping Taco reach her goal. But that’s a later problem.)

Now we see Knife confronting Microphone and trying to convince her to, “stop, idiot, have some dignity?” To which Mic tells him that she “has a voice” (as Taco, in the background, turns off MePad’s volume), “no one’s shutting [her] down” (as Taco powers MePad off) and she’s “not just being dragged along” (as Taco literally drags MePad along.) And the thing is, obviously there’s the ironic juxtaposition of what Mic is saying and what Taco is doing, but Mic also…isn’t entirely wrong?

Remember those Brian quotes from earlier? Here’s where we start using them!

Because here’s the thing—like he said, you would totally expect Taco to be playing Microphone the entire time, to be the one in power and manipulating her, because that’s what happened to Pickle. But that’s…not what’s happening. Rather, Taco has been pretty upfront about what she expects of Mic and what both of them have to…well, for a lack of a better word, gain. And it’s not like Mic has no choice in this matter! She has repeatedly shown that she is willing to say no to Taco when she crosses a line, and as Brian said, she would be totally justified to have noped out way earlier than she ends up doing. But…she doesn’t. She’s making her choices, and then bending over to justify them, because as I said, Mic has a strong sense of morals and knows there’s something that’s off, but she doesn’t want to admit she knows that and has continued to do what she’s doing.

So anywho. Taco and Mic use MePad’s teleportation to go after Fan and Test Tube on the ship, but not before Mic tries to make Taco promise no violence. Taco does not promise this, and of course, immediately kills Fan and Test Tube upon arriving.

This is where Mic’s cognitive dissonance runneth over, and she makes the executive decision to ditch Taco’s ass and leave the game.

I’m going to put Mic’s whole little speech here, because I really like it and it’s kind of the culmination of all the points I’m making: “I haven't been... listening to my heart. Instead, I've been listening to... this... well... It was a voice in my head! And it would tell me how to... go further. Further than I was willing to go. I heard it so often that I never... I never heard myself. So... what's the point?” And also, “I didn't make the best choices. So now... I'm making my first good one. This is what I want.”

Because that’s kind of the thing, right? Deep down, Microphone always knew cheating and messing with people was wrong. But she was, by choice, not listening to that instinct, because what Taco was promising seemed so attractive. Getting the prize, yes, but she also just fucking wants friends. And when she does well in the game, her teammates want to be friendlier to her. And also, as I said she came to see Taco as a friend, and she didn’t want to lose that either.

But…okay, here’s where I complain about a take I don’t like, and I’m sorry about that. I find it to be an oversimplification that Mic left Taco because “Taco hurt her.” Because, honestly, she didn’t really directly? What drove Mic to leave was seeing Taco hurt other people, and that by proxy, Microphone was…not even a bystander to these things, but kind of an active participant. Morally speaking, she couldn’t sit with that. So she decided that the prize and the recognition weren’t worth it, and boom, she was done.

I don’t really have much to say on the following episodes that are already out, because Mic has  barely in here. But I do have a hot take on what might potentially come next for Mic I’d like to share.

I don’t really…care whether Mic and Taco end up on good terms.

Okay, maybe that’s not the best way to say it—rather, I think there are ways to do either way well, and ways to do either way wrong, and what I care more is about whether Mic’s story is well-written than which direction it actually goes.

Quick disclaimer that I drafted this section pre-II16, and at the point we’re at now, I’m operating under the assumption that the deleted contestants aren’t actually going to be dead forever and we will have Pickle again. (If this turns out not to be the case please don’t make fun of me.)

I’ve seen a lot of discourse around the fandom about whether Microphone and Pickle will forgive Taco, and the first problem comes right there with aggregating them into one MicrophoneandPickle entity. Microphone and Pickle are two different people who had very different relationships with Taco. As I’ve said earlier, the Pickle that Taco knew was entirely a facade, whereas with Mic…well I don’t want to say she was entirely honest about who she was, because I don’t think she’s entirely honest about who she is with herself, so let’s just say as honest as she’s capable of being. Pre-II16, my suspicion was that they were going to split the difference and have one end up on good terms with Taco and the other not. Like, I think in terms of the message that the show is trying to give, this would be a good one—if someone has wronged you and tries to make amends, you can choose to accept that or you can choose to walk away, and neither is a morally wrong choice. Post-The Reality of the Situation, I’m going to say that if this does happen, it’s going to be Mic the former and Pickle the latter, just having seen how Taco’s apology went over with Pickle. And that’s the thing—Pickle had no choice in what happened to him. Mic had agency over her situation, and went along with it in full knowledge of what that entailed. The Taco that Pickle had a relationship doesn’t exist, but in Mic’s case, she does. And most importantly—Pickle’s qualm with Taco is that she hurt him, but Mic’s was her actions towards other people, not Mic herself. If it’s proven that Taco has changed and doesn’t want to hurt others anymore…I think it’s not impossible that Mic could be lenient.

But either way—whether Mic ends on good or bad terms with Taco—what would make it satisfying to me is if it’s not framed about whether Taco “deserves” or “doesn’t deserve” her forgiveness, but rather whether Mic chooses to forgive her. Like Brian said—it’s up to what she wants and what she’s comfortable with. Choice has been such a major theme for Mic, and I think she deserves to have her agency at the forefront.

Anyways, it is literally after two in the morning and I wrote this entire thing in a fit of hyperfocus, god help me. Again, if this does well and anyone wants to see a “why Microphone II has ADHD real and canon” post I will absolutely do that.

[wanderingmoonmen]

Hi! I just wanted to come here and gush about how much I love your half doomed and semi sweet series real quick! I binged it all in two days and you guys have done such a good work on it. I honestly think the first installment is probably one of my favorite pieces of fanfic ever just due to how great the mix of character interaction and action is within the fic. I also just adore how Mary is handled with James and how he realizes that Mary wouldn’t say a lot of the stuff his hallucinations are saying but also it’s still overwhelming and hurts despite this! I’ve also been enjoying the lot more day to day ness of the sequel fic too, where issues still come up but it’s also not, running from monsters all the time (unless those monsters are silent hill remnants/bad thoughts, sorry James!).

I don’t know if it’s ever detailed anywhere, but what exactly inspired you to write the sequel fic if you don’t mind me asking?

aaaaa this has been sitting in my inbox for a bit because I saw the nice words and it makes me melt into a puddle and I want to take time to properly answer your question. Thank you ❤️

I ended up writing way too much in my answer so the tldr; I have way too many thoughts and ideas and with @fly-rye 's encouragement and participation we're now in a place where there's a whole timeline and already drafted events still out there to do.

My ramblings and more detailed explanation under the cut

I think in the preface to Promise, or somewhere, I've said that literally all of this started as a joke. I'm also going to keep to my guns of coming up with it back in 2018 (albeit a joke that I kept to myself lmao). I had sort of kept my 'joke' meeting in some sort of filing cabinet in my mind. And honestly if @fly-rye wasn't a super cool and amazing friend and didn't indulge my bullshit we wouldn't be here (also I'm pretty sure that DBD audio of Leon sounding very......... y'know affected it too. I also started a playthrough of RE4 on Oculus at the same time. Also also this literally started I swear a couple months before remakes were formally announced.) ANYWAY this isn't an answer to your question, I just like rambling.

Now that sort of plays into what inspired the sequel, I think I am a 'too many thoughts head full' type of person and just have too much to say sometimes (and perhaps also too much imagination). I also like trying to explain things so the in-fiction lore makes sense (like... extensively thinking about how to actually for real explain how James got to Spain or What Is The Scientific Explanation For Silent Hill etc etc. I just like to make things Work in my head, idk how to explain it).

When Promise turned into a project, there was more serious thought into how their relationship worked and how to explain Leon's character changes in future media. Then it was a thought of 'how could things be better for the both of them?' Or 'what if they were allowed to heal and grow as people' and whatever else that can be narratively satisfying about seeing hurt people finding each other and helping each other.

Then that turns into 'let's put that thing into a situation.'

Which, of course, there are A Lot Of Situations considering Leon has... 4 movies and 1 game he's in after RE4.

There's also the interest of exploring the mechanics of Silent Hill and exploring how SH3/SH4 can become entangled with the mess.

There's then the flip side of the domestic life and living as """""normal"""""" people.

So to fill the gaps between Situations we've brainstormed a Lot of timeline stuff and certain relationship beats that should occur (yknow like their gay wedding, spoilers). I'm also trying to show how James integrates with the rest of the RE crew and with Harry and Heather.

So... Basically I've thought... a lot about how to make their ship and this universe integrate into all the canon events and have some random drafts for it (of course much credit goes to @fly-rye to a) indulging me b) getting sucked into this c) being super supportive d) brainstorming the Situations with me) because there's just so much potential!!

Now, this is kinda where I get stuck and why there hasn't been more posted, if you're wondering

I like to be thorough and in my head I think I need to explain and show character development in detail because, again, in my head, I think it'll then be viewed as 'bad' or idk, 'not well written' or 'not making sense' (as if any of this makes sense). So I feel like I need to show how these relationships develop so it's more convincing or whatever. I think about how some media is panned or criticized for bad relationship writing, ie 'we've been best friends for 10 years and he really helped me out, right bob?" Like who says that.

So in starting PE I wanted to try and thoroughly and logically explain how we get to the current point.

Obviously this is also literally fanfic and [insert meme here] it's my AU and I can do what I want [just tell you This Is How It Is]

But... I'm not great at writing fluff or character interaction stuff just for the sole purpose of development. I thrive on hurt/comfort and angst stuff (if that wasn't obvious) whereas trying to come up with story beats for a beach trip or something is much more difficult for me. So I've struggled to move forward because it's just not my forte and it takes practice and patience...

Unfortunately, I can be rather impatient.

It's really annoying when you're trying to be thorough! So even when I've got a plan, I just get annoyed with my writing because I just wanna get to the good stuff!!! Why can't I write this out faster!!!! I need to beam my thoughts into a document!!!

I keep on feeling like I'm making empty promises, but I do really wanna keep writing and posting. I am trying and I think about sitting down and writing a lot, but between all those other hangups and not having time, I just haven't.

I know a lot of this isn't exactly what you asked, but I hope it answers your question and then some. Thank you again for reaching out it means a lot to hear from readers!!!

[skaruresonic]

Remember me? To start off: I'm sorry about triggering some terrible and mentally painful memories when I went off about how I felt about the state of Flynn criticism. I never intended that. I wasn't defending or, heck, even trying to invite discussion about Flynn's rabid fanatics anyway. I could've chosen my words better, but aside from the detractors' mentalities, I meant to focus on Flynn ONLY. And I have nothing against your or their fan fictions. I do fan fiction, too. I just noticed what seemed like extreme shilling surrounding their exposure. I don't aim (and never did) to change minds about the dude, but I find the constructiveness of the critical discourse has been long lost.

Fitting that I received your ask on the first-year anniversary of my visual novel.

And I have nothing against your or their fan fictions. I do fan fiction, too.

Then why bring it up? What does "and your fics aren't even that good" add to the conversation about another writer's work?

I just noticed what seemed like extreme shilling surrounding their exposure.

Ah. There it is.

Look, I'm going to be brutally honest with you. But before I do, I want you to know I'm not angry with you, just annoyed - and perhaps angry in general at the overall situation we're in.

Honestly, the current climate is reminding me of the time antis gentrified Half-Life and caused the old guard to disperse. Everyone in our mutual circle is drifting away from Sonic in some form or another because it's such a toxic cesspit, and what's worse, they blame us for it. Would you want to stay in a situation like that?

Anyway, I have no patience for "you keep shilling your work" anymore because that standard only seems to apply to us. If we held everyone else to that standard, this entire Chili's would be revealed as hypocrites in an instant.

The fic mocking is not an isolated event. I've seen it happen over and over again, for years. Folks mocked Crusher's fic and OCs on TV Tropes. Folks mocked Darklight's OCs on Twitter. Folks sneered that we were too stupid to comprehend storytelling, and once someone said "none of them can even draw."

They can never leave it at "their criticisms suck." No, they have to make things so much more personal than they need to be. In the absence of an actual argument, they call you names, say you deserve all kinds of punishment, including but not limited to death and rape. Crusher had to delete hundreds of threats from his inbox. So please forgive me if my patience has waned paper-thin.

Folks feel the need to knock us down a peg because they think it's "warranted" on the basis of "we have egos." Which is a riot when, again, everyone on social media shills their work. That's what fandom does. You cannot throw a rock in here without hitting someone who thinks their AU improves on the games. I don't know why IDW is so sacrosanct that saying "I could probably do better" is considered blasphemy.

Whether or not my friends shill their own work as being "better" than IDW or whatever else is irrelevant. IDW staff are professionals (or should be, anyway); what do they care if some rando thinks they can do better? Besides, have you heard Flynn's recent grumblings about how he's tired of having the same conversations about his work since he was in high school? Why does he keep answering questions he doesn't want to dignify with a response? Why does he sound so miserable for someone who essentially Won the Game(tm)?

People telling you your work sucks a couple of times, yeah, maybe you can chalk that up to trolling. But when damn near everyone takes the excuse to hit below the belt, you start to feel less like "don't feed the trolls" and more like you're deliberately being targeted as a punching bag.

And I'm sorry, but I have no patience for that stuff. Take whatever umbrage you want with the state of criticism these days, but leave the fic out of it. That's all I ask.

[saturnaftertaste]

what if hiram and archie but they're both girls

what if we were hiram and archie . and we were both girls

interesting premise, anon! it could go lots of different ways imo. really depends on the configuration. see one of the things that really creates the unique dynamic of hiram/archie is the fact that it’s built on the very patriarchal patterns of father-son relationships and ALSO the mafia/mob/cartel whatever (crime rings, essentially, are a male business.)

(there is also the question of race, but.)

hiram is brought into the mob the same way that archie is turned into a capo in season 2. i think before anything else, that is what shapes their dynamic that hiram does Wrong and archie Tries to Do Right. that’s the thing that shapes the entirety of season 2, right? archie wants to Do Right (protect fred) -> hiram offers him a way to do that by Doing Wrong (suggesting he start a vigilante group). archie then gets sucked into hiram’s world, with the lure of what i would call very male narrative motivations (this doesn’t mean these apply to men alone, but in fiction, are often seen as inherent traits for a male character to have) such protectiveness - over fred and veronica, power - over those who would seek to hurt fred and veronica. there was a point somewhere in the thousands of meta posts i’ve devoured in the last two days that fred getting shot makes him weak in archie’s eyes, and that hiram’s traditionally “powerful” persona becomes very attractive to him in the time following the fred incident.

have you ever heard of the theory of homosociality, anon?

the thing about the mafia, like i said before, is that it is a predominantly male business. the women, like hermione often cites in s2 to veronica, are supposed to stand behind their man as he makes his moves. the issue with hiram is the same issue that logan roy had in succession, which is that he had no acceptable male heir, so he does, again, what logan roy did: used his idiot son-in-law as a conduit for power. (idiot here used affectionately for archie, derogatory for tom wambsgans) what’s interesting to me is that hiram obviously prides himself on veronica having turned out to be such a cunning, self-sufficient young woman - and while this frustrates him as well, i have to believe that as some point he must’ve considered handing his empire over to her. but the fact remains that ultimately the mafia is a male business, and archie-and-veronica would’ve been a really odd, controlling couple because veronica would be running everything from behind archie’s stature. she does so, even, with nick st. clair and the speakeasy/casino side hustle in s2. she still has to rely on a man to pull the strings.

you know the riverdale genre theory? because of the way that hiram’s entire character is constructed around the mafia, and by extension, so is veronica’s relationship with archie, i think a lot of archie and hiram’s relationship has to specifically with their gender. think about it - none of the women on riverdale have such an intense relationship with the girls on the show who aren’t their daughters. even though alice HATES hermione and veronica, she doesn’t do anything more than forbid betty from being friends with veronica. mary doesn’t really interact with veronica the same way that hiram does with archie. gladys never even comes into meaningful contact with betty - for that matter, neither does hermione. all the girls have very complex minefield-esque relationships with their mothers, but none of the rivermoms ever reach out to the other daughters.

i would say on some level archie and hiram’s relationship cannot be replicated if they were female; say, for example, that hiram were to be woman, and still married to hermione; a lesbian mob boss would always be fighting her way into again, what is predominantly a male space. i don’t think she would’ve had the time to groom female!archie the same way into becoming her capo, because it wouldn’t supplement her position in the mafia to have more female capos. i believe if hiram were female, also, and veronica was still her daughter, there would be no focus on female archie (veronica’s gf in this scenario) and instead, veronica would have a very fraught, tense relationship with hiram instead, because hiram would be actively trying to groom her to take over the empire (?) instead of spoiling her and treating her as someone who would eventually marry into a different position of power. veronica would then fight hiram on all these things, because her girlfriend archie would be protesting against all the evil things that fem!hiram is doing, because fem!archie would be able to see it from the outside of the relationship. riverdale loves a mother-daughter struggle.

if, say, instead, this was a genderswap situation, where hermione is male and hiram is female, and veronica is male and archie is female, i believe nothing would really come of it either. again, fem!archie would be trying to convince veronica that male!hermione is evil, but male veronica would’ve been indoctrinated a long time ago. hiram being female and archie being female completely sap all the tension from their relationship, because all of a sudden fem!hiram would be using her cunning to ensure male!hermione stayed on top of everything, and fem!archie would be busy trying to ensure male!veronica wouldn’t succumb to the dark side. they would simply never interact! riverdale wouldn’t put them in the same room, even. it is possible i just lack imagination; but i just think the layers of repression and violence that form archie and hiram just don’t click in the same way if they were women. i don’t know.

(i do think, though, that fem!hiram would be a very possessive boymom over male!veronica. perhaps there’s something there? fem!hiram beefing with fem!archie over male!veronica’s attention? even so, riverdale, for all its female characters, doesn’t really do non-familial intergenerational interactions all that much. i have a jughead-meta reason for why this is, but that’s a story for a different time.)

[kpopsexstories]

Kissing Booth Ep. 3 – Chenle & Jisung have sex outdoors while NCT Dream are playing nearby

‘Kissing Booth’ is a fictional podcast hosted by boyfriends Chenle and Jisung. In it they discuss love, sex and relationships. This Kissing Booth Tumblr series is excerpts from the couple's most sexual conversations on the show.

EPISODE 3: THE WALL

Chenle: My favorite sex with you was when we filmed that music video in a garden… Do you know what I'm talking about?

Jisung: Yeah! We'll get in trouble for sharing this though. I don't think the others know…

Chenle: Oh they know. They must know. There's no way they don't. We'd already been together for a while by then…

Jisung: But everyone was just goofing around. I remember we had a water fight, and we kept playing in between filming. It was such a fun day, sunny, hanging out with friends, it didn't feel like work at all. But you really think they noticed anything?

Chenle: Well, we just suddenly left. We snuck away behind a wall and you pretended to have a phone call.

Jisung: No, you pretended to have a phone call. And I went with you.

Chenle: I'm pretty sure it was you. I remember because I was wearing swim shorts for the shoot and didn't have my phone on me, but you did.

Jisung: Whatever. We got away that's what matters. And they didn't suspect a thing, I'm sure of it.

Chenle: You're an idiot. Of course they suspected.

Jisung: I guess we'll have to ask them. They'll listen to this, so now they'll definitely know.

Chenle: Yeah. I'm okay with that, they'll laugh about it.

Jisung: So you pretended to take a phone call and we went behind the wall. Then what did we do? Go on, tell the listeners.

Chenle: Should we really? This might be too much. The company will cancel 'Kissing Booth' for good.

Jisung: Nah, this is great marketing for them. We got over a million listeners last week. Come on, tell the world, what did we do?

Chenle: We made out.

Jisung: Yeah… It was so hot, the others were right there. But what else?

Chenle: So hot! You were horny before we even got behind cover.

Jisung: So were you! Don't try to pin this on me.

Chenle: *Winks* I'm always horny for you.

Jisung: I know, I have that effect on you.

Chenle: Yeah, and I don't mind it. But you're the one who started taking your clothes off…

Jisung: It was like 35 degrees out!

Chenle: Suuure, that's why…

Jisung: …and your cute little butt was right there. How could I resist?

Chenle: Are we seriously going to tell this story?

Jisung: You brought it up…

Chenle: Fair enough. To be fair, we knew we'd have sex even when you faked that phone call.

Jisung: We did. That's why you faked it. You were so fucking hard throughout the whole shoot! Couldn't even hide that boner in your swim shorts.

Chenle: Whatever dude.

Jisung: But I fucked you good didn't I?

Chenle: You did. You swung me around and pushed me against that wall.

Jisung: Fuck, it turns me on just thinking about it. Seeing your long back stretch out like that…

Chenle: Yeah, it was so hot! I could see the others while you fucked me.

Jisung: I still can't believe they didn't spot our heads.

Chenle: Your head was in my ass, how could they see?

Jisung: That was a terrible joke. You're so immature!

Chenle: But damn it was thrilling. I was holding my breath the whole time.

Jisung: Nu-uh you weren't. I remember you moaning, like, really moaning. Fine, maybe you're right. They do know what we did. They probably both saw and heard us.

Chenle: Yeah, you squeezed my hips and fucked me so good I think my mind went blank. I don't really remember. But they know.

Jisung: Like I said, we have to ask them. All I can really remember though is your back in the sun, your skin was so warm, and how I kept staring at the others thinking we should duck if someone ever looked over.

Chenle: Did they? I wasn't paying attention.

Jisung: Not that I saw. And I really don't know if they heard us. They were too loud goofing around. The sprinkler was on the whole time. I always figured they never had a clue what went on just a stone throw away.

Chenle: Now that I think about it, they would probably have said something if they suspected.

Jisung: We would never have heard the end of it.

Chenle: But the main thing is, you were the horniest. You couldn't keep your hands off me and you spun me around and shoved your cock in me so fast it hurt. I do remember that. So don't try to tell people I faked the phone call to have sex with you. It was your idea all along.

Jisung: Whatever dude. It was great sex.

Chenle: Yes it was. You can fuck me against any wall you like. Fuck, I'm so horny right now just talking about this.

Jisung: Me too. How about a wall in this room?

Chenle: …

Jisung: …

Chenle: Turn the mic off.

[aib-detectives]

Fragments Pt. 2

We now return you to your regularly scheduled-ish postings. Tyrus has a lot to sort through.

Arcane Invesitations is written by @girlsbyte and @gigabytecat.

Any resemblance to other works of fiction, people living and/or dead, places etc is purely coincidental. Story starts after the jump

He had several books in his bag right now, and a good deal of packets of information from the librarian to take home and keep. He’d be dropping by his ranch, where he worked on his more volatile school work, to keep the books and pamphlets there, where his family almost never went.

Frowning, Catherine motioned for Tyrus to take a seat in the chair. She stood up to close the door behind him. “Well, from what I’ve heard, the Cahokia’s librarians aren’t wrong.” She said as she returned to her seat, and met his eyes again, worried.

“Are you okay, though? That’s a lot,” Catherine asked him. Adoption wasn’t uncommon in the Unseen. It was rare that kids were ever homeless, or without a family. If extended family didn’t take a child in, a friend of the parents often would, and if that didn’t happen, werewolf packs adored children and big families, and would happily take in complete strangers, regardless of age.

“I’ve never heard of them being wrong once.” Tyrus agreed and tugged on his braid again. “I’ll probably head to my ranch for a bit after this case to decompress some, but I can make it through the case… and I’m not okay, but I think I will be. It’s not like I didn’t know I was adopted of a sort, though. I just knew I was some sort of brown, and it’s not like I’d ever get to learn the specifics.”

Catherine grimaced, knowing that the Unseen wouldn’t let a child go to the vampire courts willingly, especially not to the couple that led one of the most influential courts in the New World. Tyrus sighed.

“I’m not going to look into it. If I look into things, it’s been made clear that my birth parents would pay the price.” The vampire courts were like that, and it was an open secret. But the council had needed to give the vampires concessions, in order to convince them to keep the secret as well. One of them was autonomy from many of the laws the Council was supposed to enforce. 

The Sun Court was not known for being subtle or kind about its desires. Keeping the parents alive to hold them against Tyrus’ behavior wasn’t unexpected, though she wondered if they had been left alone when he had run far from his family.

“That’s disturbing and concerning.” She commented. “If you need to take time, I understand. I’m sure we’ll be able to function well enough. James should be back to 100% soon enough.” The team was still incredibly short handed, but Tyrus was there as a contractor. A member of the team would have to sign off on his work, anyway.

“After this case.” He said firmly. “I can hold it together that long. Besides, you’ll need some sort of bait, won’t you? Why not the man who matches the victim profile so closely? I’m an alcoholic and I know it, after all.” He was the best choice of the team members, and they both knew it. "I’m a functional alcoholic and can fake being a good deal drunker than I usually am. Dump some beer down my front as well, and even if I’ve only had a few sips, I’ll reek of more." He suggested. The team also didn’t have any other male team members that could dodge anything right now.

“I want you to tell me the moment you can’t, because we don’t need that.” Catherine said. It would add fuel to whatever fire had been lit under Klein to assemble this fucked up team. Government politics at its finest, as usual.

“And yes, we need bait, but I never would have suggested you.” She then lied. Tyrus fit the profile perfectly, and no one else on the team did at all. Bringing in a straight up civilian would have been a terrible idea. Tyrus came with the complication of the Sun Court breathing down their necks if anything went wrong, but that wasn’t something Catherine hadn’t faced before. “Also, isn’t that suicidal? I’ve known you to lack impulse control, but this is a bit much.”

At that, Tyrus grinned widely, clearly pleased with himself. "I’ve thought about that. There’s this spell used to keep anyone from touching you." His parents had used it on him as a child when he misbehaved in their eyes. "I thought I could have, say, a one foot distance on it, to account for feather length. It’s a pretty rare spell, and it takes a chunk of power for it, but I’ve got the power easily."

He didn’t address the suicidal comment.

"I’ll be about as safe as I can be as bait." He declared.

Catherine sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This was looking like Huntsville all over again. “Of course you know a spell.” She grumbled, half under her breath. "Just don’t go off on your own half-baked again, please?" Huntsville had been a bit of a disaster for everyone involved. Necromancers with child victims always were.

"I know a lot of spells. All that education has to be good for something, after all." Tyrus was more than a little over-educated, and had been the youngest qualifier for the title of Mage in recorded history. He would absolutely preen like a peacock if that was brought up, too. He had busted his ass to get the qualifications. "Besides, if I don’t know a spell, creating one isn’t overly difficult, though, given the stakes, I would prefer to avoid it here."

Catherine frowned darkly. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to those stakes,” she said bluntly. High stakes cases were not something either of them wanted to be as intimately familiar with as they were. But this had been one since the beginning, given they had lost an entire team to the creature, even as short staffed as they were now. “Because creating magic out of whole cloth is dangerous business.”

No one needed to risk themselves like that. They often never came back.

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #292

The beginning of today was kinda rough, but overall, I feel like I'm doing a little better.

That being said, though, my motivation to do anything at all was pretty much at zero or less all day today. So for the most part, I did absolutely nothing.

I have a bit more appetite than I have in recent days, though. J made me some soft rice "pancakes" with cheese, and also an egg:

I also had some yogurt mixed with applesauce. I imagine the probiotics in the yogurt will be good for me; I was given amoxicillin as a means of preventing infection while the extraction sites close. I don't wanna think too hard about what it's probably doing to my gut flora. The important thing is that it'll prevent strep or whatever else from taking root in vulnerable places.

Sephiroth... I hope with all my heart that you'll never have to get teeth pulled out. I understand that your jaw, unlike mine, is structurally sound and that the arrangement of your teeth in your face is likely healthy. But still, make sure you're brushing and flossing and rinsing regularly. It's important stuff. Don't neglect yourself, okay? You don't wanna pay the price for it later. I certainly didn't wanna pay the price for my parents' failure to get me palate expanders while they still would have been useful. But... well... here we are. The only way out is through, and the only way that going through becomes easier is by actually doing it and getting it done.

I made some improvements to the cat-proofing of our backyard area yesterday, and J fixed a hole that Arremo found in the netting. Today, we were able to leave the screen door open, and our two resident escape artists - Arremo and Mogwai - weren't able to breach the perimeter this time.

And that's a good thing; our area has a lot of dangers, from cars to pesticides and herbicides, to foxes, coyotes, and owls, and from ticks to other humans. Our furry children, similarly, present a danger to the local wildlife. It's not safe for anyone to let them roam freely outdoors. But we do like them to have access to fresh air and sunshine; it's important. So we built a system of netting to prevent the cats from hopping the fence of our tiny backyard area.

Today, I sat nearby with the cats for a while. It was a warm day, and the breeze smelled like crunchy leaves and fresh promises. I took pictures:

I took a peaceful video, too; come sit with me here for a while if you wanna:

After I wrote yesterday's letter, I felt well enough to go out and get pictures of the sunset. I snapped a couple good ones, I thought. Here:

Oh!! Speaking of skies and whatnot: I did get in contact with the animal hospital about our pigeon friend! And I have some good news!

As it turns out, it looked kinda haggard because that's just how juvenile pigeons look. And the same goes for its voice; they don't go "coo" in the normal way until they're adults. The one we found was close to being an adult, but not quite there yet. It must have fallen from the nest that exists in the roof above the space in which I picked it up.

It was otherwise healthy, so it was since transferred to a wildlife rehabilitator, where it will be looked after until it's old enough to live on its own. Yay!

I saw a beautiful picture of a group of pigeons fairly recently; one of the pigeons in that photo was a beautiful piebald brown and white one. it was such a nice photo that I left a short little comment on it. I'll take it as a sign that maybe our little pigeon friend will successfully reach adulthood. I'll hope for good things!

Well. I think that's pretty much all I've got for today. The pain of the tooth extraction still gets pretty bad at night, so I'll wrap it up here before it becomes too difficult to think.

I love you and I'm always thinking about you. If you saw the poems I shared earlier today, I hope you liked them.

Please stay safe. I'll write to you again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

[melodytaylorauthor]

My struggle with plot structure

And struggle I have.

I feel like it’s not an unusual struggle.

When a person first starts writing, there’s a ton of information out there on how to make your sentences work, how to create characters that aren’t wooden, grammar, spelling, the art of fiction, putting your soul into it and not boring your reader, how to create a habit of sitting down and putting words on the page. All of that. Everywhere, for the choosing.

And then, once you’re no longer a beginner, all the information pretty much dries up.

You hear words bandied about like “3-act structure” and “theme” and “arc,” but what those things are and if you need them (you do!) never seems to come up. Or if they do come up, they’re very nebulous and it’s hard to get a great feel for them.

Last year, I realized I didn’t actually understand or know jack about plot, beyond the nebulous “arc is what your character goes through,” etc., so I figured I’d better get on that. “Trying to be professional” and all that jazz. It only took me four books to figure that out!

So first off, a Google search led me to a lot of articles about how many acts a plot should have. Apparently, there are a lot of choices. Every article I came across essentially said the same thing: “Shakespeare used 5-act structure, The Hero's Journey uses 7 acts, and Hollywood uses 3-act structure. Do whatever you want!”

Great. Not helpful. What IS an act? What goes into it? How does one know when one has a complete act? What’s the DIFFERENCE between the different numbers of acts in a story? If I can use anywhere from three to seven acts, why should I choose one over another?? I think the number six is pretty, should I use six acts?

So I tried Googling “what is 3-act plot structure.” I found a LOT of articles that stated “Three act structure is simple! The first act is your story’s opening. The last act is the story’s climax and end. And the middle act is everything else!”

Say what? Easy?? How is that easy? Why does so much advice on story telling have to be so damn vague? Is it because so many authors actually have no idea what they’re doing? It is, isn’t it. Ah, damn.

Interestingly, there were a LOT of articles that discussed authors complaining about the “soggy middle” of their story. Well, yeah, if they know how the story starts, they know how they want it to end, but the middle is “everything else,” what the hell is a person supposed to WRITE?? “Everything else” is not a direction! Are the characters supposed to sit around and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and discuss the meaning of human existence? Hibernate? Run around screaming? What, what, what??

Well, silly, they’re supposed to arc. You know, what happens to your character through the course of the book.

Oh, yes, okay. Got it, got it.

(For the curious, a character arc is the world view/state of being a character starts out with, and how that shifts to something different for better or for worse through the course of the story. Usually better, but dark stories will sometimes have the main character lose all hope or something like that.)

I did manage to stumble across a couple actual books about plot. I bought them. One of them was very helpful. One of them was most certainly not. And I found one — count it — ONE article that broke plot structure down into FOUR acts AND explained WHY the authors of the article liked four acts and WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN in each act. HOLY SHIT!! That article has since been removed from the website where I found it. Good thing I copied and pasted it to my own computer before it vanished!

(For the curious: Act 1, we meet the MC, they are invited to adventure, they almost certainly refuse, and then they are forced into it somehow. Act 2, they strike out in a new world, making friends and enemies as they go, learning about how things work in this new place and gaining confidence until it’s shattered by something crazy happening. Act 3, they have to maneuver in a new way, figure out what they were doing wrong before and deal with the crazy thing that happened at the end of act 2, they will come face-to-face with the main baddie and they will lose. Act 4, everything has come to a head, the MC is trapped, on the run, pushed to the brink, with the baddie right on their heels, and when it finally looks like all is lost, the main thing they need to face or learn about suddenly becomes crazy clear, and they are able to defeat the baddie/situation using their new knowledge/skill/emotion.)

My favorite book on plot I found was “The Story Grid, what good editors know.” It’s not a book on act structure as much as what scenes need to do and how a book needs to flow. But man, is it helpful and insightful! It breaks writing a book down into concrete steps that you can check and follow, rather than all this woo-woo business with “the middle is everything else” and “arc is what happens to your characters.”

Armed with this new knowledge, I set about dissecting some of my favorite books and movies.

Man, four act structure and the mechanics of making a scene work is totally IT! Every book I re-read, every movie I re-watched, the acts lined up and made sense, the scenes turned and kept the plot moving, it all flowed. It all WORKED!

I feel so satisfied when someone who knows what they’re talking about can point out how things work. I hate when people offer squishy advice that doesn’t actually make any sense or that you just have to “feel.” Either it’s real and you can damn well put it into words, or it’s fake and you’re making it up. JEEZ.

I used my new knowledge to edit “The Winding Road Between,” and am very satisfied with how it shook out. I’m working on a new book called “Night Falls,” and it is coming together just slick. I’m super happy with the 4-act structure and even more happy with the leeway and wiggle room I’ve found inside of it. It’s far less rigid than it first appears, while offering a scaffolding to hang the scenes of my story on so it all makes sense. As long as it goes 1-2-3-4, and each act is roughly the same length-ish, it all comes out in the end.

I love it when a plot comes together!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

JR: I want to start with kindness. So much of your writing is centered around it, including how many of us struggle with it. Why is kindness important to you?

GS: One of the first images I received of Jesus was this idea of somebody who was so aware of where he was and so selfless that he could intuit what was needed in a given situation to make it better. When I was younger, it hit me that that would be a superpower if I could do that.

Then I got drafted into doing my daughter's sixth grade graduation speech. And I thought, Well, what do I really know as an old fart? It was not much, actually. Except when I scanned back over my life, I had a couple of regrets. They almost all had to do with not being kind enough, which for me often meant being preoccupied with something else or being anxious or being too insecure to step up and do what somewhere in my body I knew was right.

I shared that with the sixth graders, and a few years later gave a version of that to the Syracuse group. At that point, I wouldn't have said that I was that interested in kindness. But you make a speech like that and it gets attention. Suddenly you're The Kindness Person.

For me, it's the practice of trying to believe that the person on the other side is just as real as you are. You happen to be seeing things through these eyes. But theoretically, you could flip around and see them through the other person's eyes, and it would be the same universe.

That has a lot of moral implications, but it also has aesthetic implications. Meaning that story is like a snow globe that you can walk around and go, “Oh, if I imagined these events from this point of view, it would look like this. If I change the perspective, it looks like that.” In the end, the holographic view of the story would be infused with total compassion because you'd know every angle and they would all seem completely reasonable.

JR: Speaking of the snow globe: So many of your characters are trying to be and do good. And it’s really complicated. What feels like doing good in one moment can change in the next based on something as simple as the character walks into a different room. Or we move into another character’s equally convincing POV that opposes or contradicts the one we were just immersed in. Is good something concrete and definable? Is there an Ultimate Truth to life?

GS: When you say, “Here's the situation,” and the reader goes, “Oh, yeah, I get it.” And then you switch, whether it's in that perspective or in another one, there's that moment of disorientation where the reader goes, “Okay, I thought there was just one truth. Now there's at least two. Might there be even more?” This is something I really love about Chekhov: you keep waiting for him to weigh in, to put his finger on the scales, but he doesn't. He's really good at making eight or four or whatever different equally weighted scales.

The ultimate moral work of fiction is to show us how quickly and facilely we judge. Then, if it's a good one, the story teaches you that you can keep several ideas going at once. You can even have several simultaneous moral judgments going at once. To me, that's the highest form of it....

GS:

Kindness doesn't mean niceness. Ultimately, I think it means realism. I always use the example of somebody goes into a coffee shop, and the barista has been crying. Okay, what's the kind thing to do? Well, we don't actually know, because I didn't give you enough information. Even when you're standing there, you don't have enough information. Then it becomes a referendum on how might one decide? And that has something to do with what's going on in your mind before you walk into a coffee shop. If you're thinking I'm such a great, generous teacher of kindness, and then that person is the crying, you’re going to leap in whether you should or not.

I think there's a natural beneficence that rises in us, but the problem is, we don't always know the truth of that situation. A lot of what we think is the truth is our mind supplying some bullshit and we react to that rather than the actual situation. So to be kind might be exactly equal to being so quiet minded that you see clearly, and then your natural goodness will just rise up. But that's all theory.

JR: So beautifully put. One of the biggest complications is that one crying barista might want her tears acknowledged, and the other one might want them ignored.

GS: That’s exactly right. I was walking through O'Hare a couple months ago, and I saw a young woman coming the other way just weeping. I thought, I could either be the obnoxious old guy interfering in a private moment. Or she might be on the very edge where somebody's got to say something to her. I couldn't tell.

That’s where I think it’s good to look at your preset. Why do I want to rush over to her and reassure her? We each have a sort of ambient preset – for me, it’s a mild saviour complex – that might interfere with what the actual moment is telling us. In other words, I was in a particular place when I saw her. And maybe that was a good impulse. Or maybe it wasn't. It’s literally that beautiful phrase, my heart went out to her. So that's an ongoing truth--and that's just somebody walking by in an airport. But what to DO about it? That’s the question. So this leads us to the question of awareness, and of how fully the dataset that is “this moment” is coming through to us.

https://janeratcliffe.substack.com/.../the-kindness...

[thanks Rebecca Solnit]

[agirlwithbigdreamsforher]

THE KEY

THE KEY

Pairing: Andy Barber x Annie Johnson (OFC)

Summary: Andy has a present for Annie.

Warnings: none.

A/N: This is set right after DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME ON JEALOUSY. English is not my first language, any mistakes are my own.

Word count: 1184

Disclaimer: I do not give permission for any of my works to be copied, used, translated nor reposted anywhere else but here on this blog. Do not steal what you didn’t work for. Minors and ageless blank blogs don’t interact with me or my works. Reblogs and likes are always welcome. Thank you for reading this work of fiction.

GIF not mine. you can find the credits underneath it :)

                                     ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Andy was coming down the stairs after taking Jake to his room. Poor little guy fell asleep halfway through the movie. Annie was still sitting at her spot, her gaze fixed on the TV.

“Really, The Kardashians?” Andy said as he sat next to her.

“Hehehe, sorry, guilty pleasure. You can change the channel.”

“Thank you” Andy took the remote and changed the channel into the news.

“Boring.”

“So,” Andy began, “How are you feeling?” her turned to see Annie.

“I am well. Just like I told you earlier today.” She giggled a bit, “Thanks for asking.”

“How are the bruises?” Andy took her hand and caressed the back of it.

“They are still green.” She was about to pull down the zipper of her hoodie. “They still hurt of course, it’s just been a couple of days.”

“You don’t need to show me, honey.”

“I don’t want Jake to see them. I know he will ask why I’m hurt and I don’t want to tell him.”

“He already asked.” Andy sighed.

“What?”

“Honey, you have a busted lip and a bruise on your cheek, did you really think he wouldn’t notice?”

“Did you tell him what happen?”

“No, I told him you were sad because you were having some grown up troubles. In the case of the bruises, I told him you fell on the stairs of your building, and that we were going to take care of you. He wasn’t so sure of my answer but I think he bought it.”

They stayed in silence for a moment, Andy turned his attention to the TV, but never let go of her hand, his thumb kept caressing her and Annie didn’t say a thing, she felt safe and wasn’t scare of Andy’s actions.

“I like when you are not wearing a suit.” Andy turned to see her, “I like your flannel shirt and your baseball cap. They make your look normal.”

“I am normal!”

“I mean you don’t look so stiff.”

“I am not stiff!”

“Well, you certainty look the part when you wear a suit for the office. But right now you look just like an average dad. It suits you.”

“Thanks! I like this flannel shirt too.” He smiled proudly. “I have more.”

“Andy, I promise I will find a place.” She said changing the subject, “By the time the next semester starts I will be out of your house. I’ve already send a mail to the school to know if they have any dorms available for me.”

“Hey, I told you, you don’t need to find a place, we are happy to have you.”

“I know but,”

“You don’t like your room?”

“No, it’s not that. I love the room is really cozy. But,”

“No buts, you are staying here.”

“Andy, I want to see my options. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

“You are not. I’ve already told you, I need help with Jake, he is on vacations too.” Annie just stared at him, “Think about it this way, now you will be a live-in nanny. And you already paid the first month of your rent.” He laughed at that last part, remembering how she gave him a dollar the day before for her room.

“Can I just see my options?”

“Sure! Although Jake will be sad if you leave.”

“Andy, that’s not fair, don’t use Jake to convince me to do something.” She crossed her arms.

“I know is working.” He laughed. “Do whatever you feel is right, honey. We will support you.”

“Thank you.”

“You know if you stay, you will see all of my non-working clothes, I could show you all my flannels!” Annie laughed and shook her head. “And my Patriots and Red Sox wear.”

“Don’t temp me. I could stole the sweatshirts, and I promise you I won’t give them back.” Andy laughed this time.

“Before I forget I have something for you.” Andy stood and went out of the house. Annie could see him opening the car, get inside, and come back a few moments later. He sat back down next to her and gave her a small black box with a silver bow. “Here.”

“You bought me something?”

“Not quite. Open it.”

Inside the box there was a gold key with her name engraved on it.

“The key of the house.”

“Oh, baby! Don’t you think we are going too fast? At least invite me a coffee first.” She said with a mocking tone.

“Good to know you haven’t lost your sense of humor. You need that, I can’t leave the house and leave you guys on lock.”

“Thank you. I’ll need it for tomorrow, still have to pick up the car.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea, honey. I can have someone pick it up for you.”

“I’ll be fine. Jake will be with me and Daniel will be a school.”

“You sure about that? Last Friday you thought the exact same thing and look what happened.” Annie looked at the ground, “Shit, I’m sorry.” Andy tried to reach for her arm but she flinched.

“You think it was my fault?” her voice broke.

“No! Honey, it was not your fault. But I will feel better if you let me handle the car situation. You said you don’t want to see Daniel again.” She nodded, “Then let me help you, I can go and pick the car myself if you want.”

“Yeah, ok” She sniffed and nodded.

“Perfect, your car will be here tomorrow.”

“I think I’m going to bed.”

“Yeah, me too. Have to get up early.”

They both stood and walked to the stairs and towards their bedrooms.

“Hey, Andy?”

“Yes?”

“How do you know who the Kardashians are?”

“Oh god, you got that, right?” Annie nodded, “Fuck! Can’t believe I’m admitting this.” Annie laughed, “Don’t tell anyone, ok? There was one time I couldn’t sleep and I was not in the mood of watching a movie or doing anything for that matter, so I was just changing channels, and then they were on screen, I notice I was invested in the show after 3 hours!”

“You’re secret is safe with me Mr. Barber.” They stopped at the door of her room, “This is me. Good night, Andy.”

“Good night, honey.”                                                                                                                  

Annie stood in her tip toes and kissed his cheek. She opened the door and went inside.

Annie stayed against the door of her bedroom, her heart beating fast. It wasn’t possible she could feel this way, not right now. Not after what she had been through. Her fingers touched her lips, the heat of the kiss remained.

Andy was still standing in front of the door, hoping she would open it and let him in. He wanted so badly for her to know how he felt. He wanted to tell her how much he love her, he wanted her to know he will always be here for her, but of course nothing happen. The door was will close.

“Fuck, I’m so screwed.” Andy whispered, shook his head and went to his room.

[auraphoenix1500]

Somehow this popped up on my dash (after I saw it on reddit like a day ago. Is it psychic or something?), so I want to go ahead and say this (I'd like to believe that we've grown as people since this was posted, but JUST IN CASE):

It is fine to be horny. It is fine to make them tiddies jiggle wildly all over the place. It's objectively pretty funny.

I'm going to paste something I saw on the reddit post that had this on it:

"The “we meant the mod creator” is particularly bullshit.

OOP downloaded the mod, played with it, thought it was funny, and posted the results. It wasn’t a critical “look at this outrage” post, just comedy. So what possible reason is there for saying “oh the creator of that is awful, but we didn’t mean to criticize you!”

Except, of course, the obvious one - OOP was bad too until they posted a selfie, and then the standards changed to whatever exempted them."

Do I think these people were actively malicious? No, I think they were just being stupid on the internet, or venting anger they've bottled up for a while. We've all done it before.

But just to reiterate, being horny is not a crime. Wanting big ol' dobonhonkeros in your games is not a crime. These are fictional characters.

It is 100% possible, and in fact, very easy, to both be horny and not objectify real women.

In fact, let's get something straight (hah) here: The "male gaze" does not mean "sexy women" or "women's proportions exaggerated heavily beyond recognition or reality." It was an academic term used in media criticism, for works that assumed that the default and primary audience of media were men, and approached their writing from that assumption. It has been reduced to only referring to any depiction of women in a sexual light, even if said depiction is empowering or feminist in nature.

Now that that's cleared up (and it's fine if you didn't know this, I only learned it a couple of days ago myself), I want to pose a question:

Even if OP was a straight guy, does that really matter? Who would OP be hurting, really? I mean, I'd much rather see people expressing their sexuality in healthy, harmless ways like this than...well, anything else, really.

I don't like getting too political on this blog, so I'm going to end this here. Just remember:

Being horny is not a crime.

Being horny is okay.

Expressing horniness online in ways that don't harm real people is, in fact, a very healthy way to go about it.

Humungous hungolomghnonoloughongouses are objectively hilarious and more people need to recognize their comedic potential. Gandalf's big naturals are two hefty steps in the right direction.

Good night, y'all!

chaos reigns