#but this situation can be written in the proper genre too

[eri-pl]

Interesting timing

So, on the reread I noticed that just after the Moon and Sun are mede, there's a speculation that Morgoth went to find the newly-awaken Men to talk with them*, and left the war efforts to Sauron.

Which means, something like this very likely happenned:

Day 1. Morgoth leaves and Sauron starts organizing the war, optimizing the strategies and what not.

Day 2. Maedhros is gone from Thrangorodrim and nobody in whole Angband knows what hapnned.

All the following days until Morgoth's return: Sauron is trying to find a way to explain it. Everyone else is as quiet as they can be. (Also, there is a siege now.)

* i have no idea how to describe it in short, because it's one of the parts where Tolkien's intent and his execution don't really match that well for me, so I have a hard time talking about it witout making it sound funny, but also it's on top of my "what Melkor did wrong" list, so. Let's just call it "talk to them" and assume the readers know the lore. Or at least can imagine what type of talks he is interested oin having. I think you would imagine it better than the [semi-]canon manages to.

[changbunnies]

Scent Of You (18+)

♡ Pairing: Wolf Hybrid!Bang Chan x Fem Bunny Hybrid!Reader x Wolf Hybrid!Changbin

♡ Genre: dubcon, little red riding hood au, fantasy/supernatural au, hybrid au, vague allusions to omegaverse dynamics, porn with plot

♡ Word Count: 7.8k (oops)

♡ Summary: In which a sweet, naive bunny hybrid nicknamed 'little red' becomes lost in the forest at night, and finds herself face to face with the big, bad wolves her grandmother always warned her about.

♡ Warnings: uses the little red riding hood fairytale as a base for inspiration before it devolves into smut, words like "alpha" and other omegaverse terms aren't used but the vibes are There lol

♡ Smut Warnings (contains spoilers): dubcon, pet names (though mostly as a title- such as bunny, little red, and sweetheart), the word slut is used a few times, gendered language such as "dirty girl", scent stuff lol, dom/sub dynamics (dom!chan, sub!reader, allusions to switch!bin), a lot of kissing, size difference, size kink (i'm sorry if you're tall just pretend ur small and they're huge because ur a rabbit and they're a wolf fsdgsdf), oral (m + f rec), spitroasting, some manhandling, some banter and mild rivalry between bin and chan, unprotected piv, dacryphilia, multiple orgasms and multiple creampies

♡ Notes: so i intended to take a small break from writing after finishing crave but inspo struck me as i was trying to fall asleep and i NEEDED to write it so i literally shot up and wrote all of this in one sitting in a cold sweat fsdgdsf so here we are, one last surprise upload before my break <3 it's easily the most self indulgent fic i've written to date dfdgh bunny is my fave petname and this is basically just my excuse to be called bunny in a wolf binchan sandwich lmao this is not as proofread as my other stuff given how quickly i wrote it, and it's my first time writing a threesome, but i hope you enjoy! edit: there is now a sequel you can read here !

♡ Disclaimer: please read responsibly, and remember that this work is fiction and meant strictly for imaginative fun. the idols used in fics are more accurately faceclaims and personality outlines for imaginary characters, and should not be interpreted as factual representations of existing people.

"Please, take care sweetheart. Don't stay out too long," your grandmother warns with a tender kiss to your forehead as you prepare to head out for the day, pulling the hood of your long, red cape up over your head, tucking in your hair and covering your lopped ears.

"I know, grandmother, I know! I'll be back before you know it, I promise," you assure her with a smile, hooking your twine basket into your arm, empty and ready to be filled with treats of the forest.

Your grandmother heaves a soft sigh, as she falls back against the bed, and you give her hand a reassuring squeeze and a soft goodbye before you make your way out of your quaint cottage, a long line of intimidating, tall standing trees before you. Grandmother always worries for your safety, as the woods aren't entirely safe for a rabbit like yourself, but so long as the sun hangs bright in the sky, you'd be perfectly fine.

Really, it's only at night that the woods near your home become truly dangerous, as all manner of nocturnal predators leave their dens in search of their next meal. For a rabbit such as yourself, lingering in the woods at night is assuredly a death sentence; your diminutive stature and weak limbs would cause you to easily fall victim to the beasts that stalk through the forest with the moon's aid. 

The only thing on your side would be your speed, but even then it's no guarantee of safety once a predator has you in their sights. And so your grandmother always instilled a proper fear of the dark within you, in the hope that you'd never find yourself in a situation in which you'd have to flee in the first place.

Entering the forest brings with it countless anxieties for your species, but it's not like you can simply not go. The gifts of nature are what sustains you, and you have to enter the woods, even live near them, if you want to have food in your tummy and herbal medicines on your shelves. 

As such, you are always very conscious of the amount of time you spend in the forest, only ever entering when the sun is brightly illuminating your surroundings, always careful and alert as you gather what you need. You observe the sun's position in the sky, use it to determine how much time you have left before it begins to set, always heading back well before it starts to sink behind the trees.

And you'd never stay longer than necessary, especially not when you have grandmother waiting at home praying for your safe return! But well.. grandmother is quite ill these days, and you spent more time than you usually would gathering the berries and leaves you’ll need to make her sweet, healing brews of tea.

Soon enough, winter's chill would cause all the greenery to frost and wither, and you wanted to stock up now to ensure you had enough to last 'til the end of the season. It was for grandmother's health! Surely she'd understand and forgive you if you stayed out just a little longer than usual. 

But as dusk started to settle over the trees, and you realized how precious few moments of sunlight you had left to make it home with, panic began to accumulate in the pit of your stomach. You tried your best to take deep breaths, to not allow your heart to race– as long as you remained calm, you could get back before dark, you were sure of it. 

The more the sun sank however, the more you lost your clarity; you found yourself stumbling in circles, the encroaching dark causing the forest to become unrecognizable, leading you blindly in circles. You'd long since lost sight of the path you always followed home, and the moon and stars, which were normally such a beautiful sight, now came with a sense of foreboding.

It was dark, you were lost, and grandmother was now all alone, probably worrying herself half to death wondering where you could be and if you're even still alive. You continue blindly weaving your way through the trees, just praying that you're moving in the direction of home; you can't afford to hide away and wait until morning, not when a beast could be around any corner.

Using your speed to your advantage, you dart past a near endless sea of trees, praying, praying, and praying the clearing will come into view and you’ll see your cottage in the middle, with orange light from the fire peeking through the windows and smoke billowing from the chimney. 

Suddenly you stop, entire body freezing as your hair stands on end, nose twitching as an unfamiliar scent fills your nostrils; someone is near– someone that you should avoid at all costs. It’s so heavy, overwhelming beyond comprehension– the scent of the forest itself is still identifiable, but mixed now with something akin to leather, black coffee, and hot iron.

The scent is actually quite pleasant, so that's not what causes you to freeze; it’s the unfamiliarity that is the true root of the problem, evoking a deep rooted, innate fear response. You know all the “safe” smells– that of other prey animals such as yourself, for instance, are recognizable, comforting, and bring about a sense of calm.

To be met with the unfamiliar is to be met with danger; it means that whatever is near is something you’ve never encountered during your safe treks through the forest, it means that a predator likely has you in their sights. And as grandmother has told you, if you smell them it’s already too late– they’ve found you. 

“Now, now, what do we have here?” A deep voice calls, hidden from your sight. Your heart erupts in an erratic rhythm, a chill running down your spine as your eyes desperately search the darkness for the source of the voice. And there, you finally see it– or rather, him. A man, standing much, much taller and bulkier than you, sharp fangs exposed with his smile, fangs that you are sure will be used to rip you apart. 

You see pointed ears and dusky blue-silver fur, a long tail that swishes with intrigue and delight, a fur coat with the arms cut off, an exposed chest laden with scars both fresh and faded. He’s a wolf, you realize with dread, the thing you were taught to fear most of all.

You unconsciously take a step back as he approaches, the moonlight illuminating him in a way that evokes both fear and reverence; as beautiful as he is dangerous. “What’s a little thing like you doing in the forest at night, hmm? Don’t you know it isn’t safe, little red?” he says with a sickeningly sweet smile, referencing the caped hood you’re wearing, a gift from your grandmother meant to keep you safe from men like him.  

You clutch your basket tighter as your legs begin to tremble, lowering your head and pulling your hood down further, trying your best to ensure your ears and other features are completely covered. He probably knows by smell alone you’re a prey animal, but you vainly hope he’ll let you go if he doesn’t realize you’re a rabbit– a stupid hope, but it’s the only one you have.

“Poor thing, don’t be scared. You got lost, didn’t you, little red?” With each step towards you he takes, you take another step back, until your back meets that of a thick tree, the erratic rhythm of your heart building to a speed you thought otherwise impossible. 

“Tell me– where did you come from?” The wolf asks with an intimidating smile full of fang, “I recognize you from somewhere. Where was it I’ve smelled you before..?”

With nowhere to go, caged against the tree as the wolf closes in, all you can do is tremble as you watch him sniff the air, licking his lips as if tasting your scent. Most prey animals are generally the same, but there’s only one place he’s gotten the scent of sugar and cream from.. 

“Ah, I know,” he says suddenly, smile growing wider as he speaks, “That little cottage in the clearing– that’s it, isn’t it? That’s your home?” You swallow as you timidly nod, your nerves much too frayed to attempt to lie– you’ve never been a good liar anyways, your grandmother having raised you to be honest and good.

“You’re quite far from home, little red. But I can help you,” he offers, but you know better than to trust a wolf– they’re liars, all of them. “N-No, I.. I can get there by myself,” you say, finally finding your voice (shaky and timid though it may be.)

The man hums, seemingly amused by your brave display; he knows how scared you are, can quite literally taste it, but he has to commend you for trying, at least. “I’m not sure that’s true. Do you know which way home is?” 

“W-Well, uhm, I.. I– I, I don’t–” you stutter and fumble, and he chuckles, a smug look of “thought-so” clear on his face as he grins at you. His hand finds your cheek, and you look up at him with glassy, teary eyes, heart thumping out of control as he strokes your skin with his thumb.

He smiles sweetly, almost boyishly– a look that would be endearing if he wasn’t a wolf, and you weren’t afraid for your life. His clawed hand travels from your cheek to the top of your hood, and you quickly reach your hands up to clutch the fabric, keeping it fully tugged down in a vain attempt to continue to hide your identity.

The wolf laughs, clearly amused at your reaction. “Come now, little red, show me what sort of ears you’re hiding under there,” he coos and you shake your head, eyes squeezing shut and knuckles turning white as you desperately cling to your hood. 

At this point it probably no longer matters what you are exactly– no matter the answer, it’s clear the wolf before your eyes has plans for you that won’t go unfulfilled. But still, your survival instincts are in overdrive, and you can’t help but try your best to protect yourself, even if the endeavor proves to be worthless.

He tugs at your hood, not yet trying to fully pull it off, but rather playing with you– he could easily pull it off in one quick swipe, his claws could tear the fabric to ribbons, but he chooses to instead have his fun, watch you panic and struggle with the hood in your tiny hands. 

You look at him, unfallen tears blurring your vision; you don’t know what else to do. Grandmother always said if you found yourself cornered by wolves, your only option would be to run and pray for the best, but is that really the best you can do? And while you’re fast, wolves are faster– you’re sure the man would be able to catch up with you easily, especially given that the moon is his ally and he is likely extremely familiar with the deep woods.

Further still, he clearly stated he knows your home; even if you escape, he knows exactly where to go to find you. It fills you with dread, knowing that even if you do make it home, your grandmother would be there too; and you’d never forgive yourself if something bad happened to her because of you.

It’s an impossible choice you are being dealt– surrender to your fate now, or try your best to flee and risk dragging your precious grandmother down with you. But as he finally tugs down your hood, your white, snow-like lopped ears are fully exposed, and the wolf’s fangs shine as he gleefully smiles, you find yourself unconsciously making a choice– you run, as fast as your legs will carry you.

The cape gets caught and snags on stray branches from the myriad trees, tearing as you continue to run, adrenaline coursing through your veins, chest aching from the erratic, forcefully thumping of your heart, breath coming out quick and harsh. 

You barely make it 10 feet ahead through the trees before you’re crashing into something, the sudden impact causing you to let out an involuntary shout as you stumble back and fall ungracefully on your backside. Looking up, tears fall from your eyes when you realize it’s another wolf– shorter than the one who’d cornered you previously, but bulkier, with fur as dark as obsidian and a scent that matches it.

You suspect that he was there the entire time, and you just didn’t notice due to the panicked focus you held on getting away from the blue-silver wolf. “Where do you think you're going, little red?” the new wolf speaks, affirming your fears; he was there for the entire exchange, witness to the moniker you’d been given and now using it for himself.

“Oh Changbin, you caught her,” you hear the previous wolf say from somewhere behind you, leaves and twigs snapping beneath his feet as he approaches your spot on the ground. “Course,” the dark wolf evidently named Changbin speaks, kneeling down to look directly in your teary eyes, “I’d never let such a sweet little thing get away from us.” 

He reaches to the side of your body, where your twine basket has fallen from your arms and spilled its contents, all the berries and leaves you gathered now decorating the dirt. “Hmm, most of these are herbal. What a sweet girl you are, gathering until late into the night! Your grandmother must be proud of you, hmm?” Changbin smiles, looking up to the previous wolf once he stands again, your basket in his hands, “Don’t you think so, Chan-hyung?” 

The blue-silver wolf that the dark wolf calls Chan hums in agreement, once again calling you a “sweet thing.” Chan offers you a hand to help you stand, and you hesitate, swallowing as your eyes dart nervously between them. Their eyes on you make you nervous beyond just the predator-prey relationship you share; they’re both so impossibly ethereal in the light of the moon, and it makes you wonder if all wolves are such divine creatures. 

Maybe that’s why the rest of the forest view them reverently; beautiful, powerful, utterly intimidating in all aspects– they offer no choice from a rabbit such as yourself but submission simply from presence alone. “What’s your name, little red?” is Chan’s next question, and again, you find yourself unable to lie; against your own sense of self-preservation, you tell him your name.

He hums, repeating your name as if testing the way it falls from his tongue before diverting back to his nickname for you. “Let’s make a deal, little red,” the wolf says, still holding out his hand, waiting for you to take it. You finally do so cautiously, letting Chan help you to your feet, your legs still trembling but not yet buckling in the face of fear.

“W-What kind of deal?” you ask hesitantly, looking between the two wolves who smile and lick their lips, tongues ghosting over their fangs as they do. Beautiful, powerful, intimidating, your mind repeats.

“We want to play with you,” Chan says smoothly, the answer coming natural to him, “play with us for a little while, and then we’ll take you home. We promise.” You look at the other, younger wolf who nods, backing the sentiment of his superior.

Here you are, confronted in the deepest reaches of the forest by two wolves, and instead of devouring you they just want to “play”..? What does playing entail with them? You’re not sure how much you truly want to know, but the promise of home dangling in front of you makes you consider their offer despite how foolish it may be.

“You’re not.. tricking me, are you?” you ask, voice small, full of naivety and hope. “Of course not, sweetheart, we would never,” Changbin affirms, even going so far as to pick up the spilled contents of your basket and nestle them carefully back inside– a promise that by the time you’re done “playing”, you’ll be reunited with your sickly grandmother and able to care for her again.

“You just smell so sweet,” Chan says, his clawed fingers once again tracing over your cheek, “and we’ve always wanted to play with a sweet little bunny like you.” You nervously exhale the breath you unconsciously held when his hand traced your skin, searching his eyes for any sort of deceit.

If you’re being honest, you’re not entirely confident in your ability to tell if the wolves are lying to you– they’re masters of manipulation, after all; lying is second nature to them. Still, you want to trust them– trust that after you play with them for a little while, they’ll keep their promise of taking you home with your basket in your arms and everything you need to get through the winter.

“If you really promise, then.. I’ll play with you,” you answer, and the wolves both smile eagerly, with the elder wolf taking you in his arms, swiftly lifting you up off your feet. You squeak in surprise, instinctively clutching tightly to his fur coat, scared of being dropped. 

“Let’s go have some fun then,” Chan grins at you, making sure his hold on you is secure before he starts to move, “but not here. The floor here’s too dirty for you, isn’t it?” It’s a rhetorical question in which he expects no answer; instead he starts winding through the trees quickly, a destination clearly in mind.

You vaguely see the other wolf trailing behind before you squeeze your eyes shut, the blur of trees and wind whipping through your hair and past your ears making you dizzy as you’re carried further and further into the forest, likely towards its center. It takes you a few moments to open your eyes once you’ve realized you’re no longer moving at high speeds; Chan, who still has you in his arms, is now walking at a leisurely place through what you assume is his den.

The smell of other wolves is distinct but distant– evidently, the three of you are the only ones home for the night. It makes you breathe a small sigh of relief to know the rest of his pack is absent, attending to their own matters. It makes you feel safer, somehow; as if you’re not literally inside a wolf's den, at the mercy of whatever it is the two before you want with you. 

Eventually you are carried into a bedroom– one that smells more of Chan than the other wolf, which leads you to believe this is his room specifically. Changbin doesn’t seem to mind that the “playing” will take place here, a smile still clear on his face as he shuts the door behind himself, locking the door behind him as Chan sets you on his rather large bed. 

Your ears lie flat against your head, your nerves eating away at you as you fiddle with your hands. You watch them both carefully, taking note of where Changbin sets down your basket before he meets you and Chan at the bed.

The two of them standing over you makes you feel impossibly small, affirms how much better they are than you in every evolutionary aspect; speed, strength, size– they have it all. And you, one measly little rabbit with no significant qualities in comparison to them, who has no choice but to put her life in their hands if she wants to survive. How unfair. 

“Tell me, little red,” Chan starts as he sits next to you on his bed, one large hand enough to cup your entire face and direct your complete attention towards him, “are bunnies as slutty as they say?” Your eyes widen as you gulp in shock, having not expected such a forward, explicit question.

“Yeah, I’m curious,” Changbin follows up, sitting firmly on your other side, caging you in between the both of them, “they don’t say ‘fucking like rabbits’ for no reason, right? So what are you? A slut?” 

“I-I’m not!” you sputter out; it’s true that rabbits have a reputation for promiscuity but you live a rather sheltered life with your grandmother– you hardly even know other rabbits your age, much less male rabbits. That being said, you have been a little.. intense during your heats– but you rode those out with toys, not with the help of men.

And you don’t think there’s any shame in promiscuity, but that’s simply not the life you lead; you live modestly, simply taking care of your grandmother to the best of your ability. You barely even have time to masturbate these days– fucking is entirely out of the realm of possibility, as busy as you are. 

“But you’ve taken cock before?” Changbin asks from behind you rather shamelessly, and Chan looks at you expectantly, waiting for your answer with a cocked brow. “W-Well, yes, but–” you start and Chan is smiling again, another happy hum leaving his lips. ..Does your virginity status really matter here..?

Your eyes widen again when the reality of what you’ve agreed to clicks, and Chan chuckles at your delayed reaction. “You’re not very smart, are you, bunny? But that’s okay– you don’t need to be smart to have fun, isn’t that right?”

Changbin is the next to speak, his hot breath coming out against one of your lopped ears, his hands tracing your hips, “Mhm, sweet, dumb bunnies are cute, don’t you think? I bet they have lots of fun,”

It’s vaguely condescending, how they speak of you– sweet and dumb, as if your intelligence pales next to theirs, as if you are an object designed for their pleasure and no other. And somehow, it adds to the tremble in your legs, your breath hitching when Chan squeezes your cheeks between his fingers and thumb, forcing your mouth to open. 

You overtly whine, the wolf’s obscenely long tongue sliding into your mouth, exploring with another eager hum, his fangs catching on your lip with each kiss. As he kisses you, his fingers tug at the knot of your caped hood, leaving the task of discarding it to the other wolf once the knot is undone.

Goosebumps once again rise on your skin, with Changbin kissing and licking your neck after your cape has been tossed aside, deeply inhaling your scent as Chan continues to abuse your lips with his tongue and teeth. “Chan-hyung wasn’t kidding when he said you smell so sweet,” he whispers against your skin as he continues to trail his kisses down towards your shoulder, “it’s intoxicating.”

It’s shameless and almost embarrassing, the way arousal pools in your underwear despite all preconceived notions of how a rabbit should behave in the face of a predatory animal; but the more they kiss and lick, the more fear ebbs away, and becomes replaced by pleasure and yearning.

It’s been so long since you last felt the touch of someone else, having been stricken to solitary heats since becoming your grandmother’s carer. It almost humiliates you to admit how good their touch feels on your burning skin. 

They can quite literally feel your body release its tension, Changbin’s strong arms being the ones to hold you up as you melt into their touch, and the smell of your leaking arousal obviously doesn’t go undetected by either of their noses. Chan pulls away from your lips, a smirk visible on his features when you open your eyes to look at him. “What a dirty girl you are, excited already,” he says, another whine escaping you not only from his words, but from the feeling of Changbin’s teeth grazing your neck.

Chan, who could quite easily rip your dress from your body, instead opts to tug the fabric away much more carefully than you’d have anticipated– perhaps they really mean to return you home after this? Changbin, whose torso was substantially more covered than his elder’s, removes his top, leaving you to feel his bare, muscular chest against your now exposed back.

He wastes no time in latching back to your neck, licking, sucking, teeth grazing the skin, but not biting down– whether to spare you the shame of returning home with the clear mark of a predator, or because he doesn’t have permission from lead of the pack however, is unclear.

Your breasts, which you’ve always considered quite full despite your diminutive frame, easily fit within Chan’s large palms. Their ability to not only make you feel, but look small leaves you dizzy. You should be afraid of how they eclipse your frame with their size, but instead you find it exciting, your brain unraveling everything you’ve been taught about self-preservation in favor of experiencing utmost pleasure from two hulking wolves. 

Shame, it seems, has entirely left you, as slick leaks from you easily, drenching your underwear with each touch from their rough hands. Chan’s fingers play with your sensitive nipples, pulling and tugging until you’re writhing against Changbin’s body, who has his own hands tracing your hips and thighs, pressing lingering kisses to any patch of skin he can reach.

Chan lowers himself to take one of your hardened nipples into his mouth, tongue swirling around it as his hand continues to play with the other. Meanwhile, Changbin’s hand slinks around, brushing over your stomach before his hand dips between your legs, rubbing your heat over your soaked underwear. 

“Fuck, this messy for us already? You have to feel her, hyung, touch her pussy,” Changbin speaking such filthy words right next to your ear makes you shudder, a whimper leaving from deep in your throat when Chan obliges, his hand quick to replace the younger wolf’s.

Instead of touching you over your clothes however, he opts to completely tear them from your body, in stark contrast to how he treated your dress– you suppose the underwear is less important to remain intact, or maybe he just can’t help it after having gotten this far? 

“Oh, look at that Binnie, you’re right,” Chan grins as his fingers rub along your folds, spreading the slick around to create even more of a mess between your legs, “You’re such a dirty bunny underneath, hmm?”

Your face burns red, another whine escaping as shame finally returns to you, your hands reaching to cover your face. The pair of them coo, finding the display cute, whilst simultaneously making their cocks throb– what a treat, to have found a bunny that is both incredibly sweet and effortlessly sexy all at once. 

Chan pushes Changbin’s hands away from your body, and quickly turns you around. Your back is now against Chan, and he hooks your legs over his knees, spreading you open for the younger wolf to see. “Let’s give Binnie a look at your dripping pussy, don’t you think he deserves it after being so sweet to you?” More slick dribbles its way out of you, soaking the mattress beneath, a treat for Changbin’s eager eyes. 

Peeking between your fingers, you see his dark tail swishing behind him in delight, very clearly excited by the sight he’s met with. “Can I taste her, hyung? I want to so bad,” he asks, licking his lips, his eager, sparkling eyes not leaving you for even a second. “Mm, what do you think, little red? Should we let him have a taste?” Chan asks, and though you can’t see him anymore, you can practically hear the smile in his voice– playful and fun. 

You nod quickly, though Chan doesn’t seem content with that response– he tsks, once again grabbing your face and making you twist your neck to look at him. “You gotta use your words, sweetheart, you understand?” You start to simply nod again, but then quickly follow up with a small “yes”, to which the wolf smiles. He diverts your gaze back to Changbin, forcing you to hold the darker wolf’s gaze. “Good bunny, go ahead and tell him, then. Tell him you want him to eat you.” 

He can feel your face burn beneath his fingers, and though you can’t see it you’re sure there’s a smug smile gracing his perfect face as he waits for you to properly address Changbin. “I-I.. I want you to eat me, please,” you force yourself to mumble out, not missing the way Changbin’s cock throbs in his torn shorts. With one last lick of his lips, he’s diving between your thighs, looking up at you with a grin, “I’ll devour you, sweetheart.” 

You gasp when his tongue licks between your folds, a loud moan unintentionally falling from your lips as he eagerly laps away at you. You can’t help but squirm in Chan’s hold, his legs continuing to hold yours open and preventing them from closing around Changbin’s head.

Changbin moans as he licks and sucks on your clit, as if the act is more pleasurable for him than you; and eventually he alternates between giving his undivided attention to your clit, to sliding his tongue as deep into your hole as it’ll go, letting his nose bump your clit instead. 

Chan’s erection digs into your back, sometimes groaning when your squirming and twitching causes friction; but he’s not content to just sit behind you and watch– he wants to add to the fun. So his hands come up to the soft base of your ears, expecting it to be as erogenous of a zone for you as it is for them– and by your reaction, he can tell it is.

Your head falls back against him, and he can just catch a glimpse of your eyes rolling to the back of your skull, mouth hanging open as more moans and desperate whimpers leave you. “You getting close, sweet bunny? You wanna cum?” Chan asks, grinning when you once again quickly nod your head, a near endless stream of whimpery moans leaving you as your high approaches.

“Answer properly,” he reminds you, though his tone isn’t as strict as before– it’s almost playful, amused; he’s having fun. “W-Wanna cum, please, please let– hah– please let me cum,” you beg between harsh breaths, your entire body feeling like a wire on the verge of snapping.

“You heard her Bin, make her cum,” you hear Chan say as he becomes harsher with your ears, his calloused fingers now rubbing in rough circles. Your entire body jolts and convulses as the wire finally snaps, cry after cry of white pleasure spilling from your lips as you release on Changbin’s waiting tongue. He hums as he licks up all you offer him, not separating himself from his spot between your legs until he’s sure he’s got it all and you’re shuddering from the overstimulation. 

Changbin takes your face in his hands, pulling you just slightly away from Chan as he drags you into a kiss, his tongue shoving its way into your mouth. Your taste is all over his tongue, his mouth stealing away all the breath you’ve just barely managed to breathe into your lungs after the intensity of your orgasm. Your eyes are hazy when he pulls away, fogged over by lust and needs for the wolves you are sandwiched between. 

You just barely register Changbin looking past you to Chan, as if asking what to do next; though the exchange is silent, it seems like Changbin knows exactly where to go from here after receiving a certain look– have they done this before, you wonder?

Changbin scoots back just a bit before grabbing your legs, unhooking them from Chan’s knees before he’s pulling you down, closer to him. You gasp, your head falling straight onto Chan’s lap– well, more accurately to one of his thighs, before he’s closing his legs to act as a pillow for you. 

His cock, though still obscured by the fabric of his shorts, is right next to your face and impressive in its size, just as Changbin’s is. The two of them, in almost practiced unison, pull down their shorts, though the task is harder for Chan, who has your head resting on his lap. He still manages well enough, and you’re met with the sight of his hard, leaking cock right in front of your eyes, almost close enough to touch your cheek. 

You look up at Chan, who looks down to meet your gaze with a grin. “Hope you’re ready, bunny,” is all the warning you get before you’re flipped around to your front, another squeak of surprise as you’re manhandled to your knees, bent to where Changbin wants you, with your face still squarely in Chan’s lap.

One of Chan’s hands holds his cock at the base while the other reaches under your chin, lifting your face up to look directly at him. “Show me what you can do while you’re taking cock,” he instructs, your body trembling as you feel Changbin’s cock rub between your folds, slicking himself up. 

You whine when his cock presses against your hole, Changbin’s hands holding your hips up while Chan’s guide you to take his leaking cock into your mouth. You never imagined you’d be in a scenario where you’re taking in the cocks of two wolves at once, but you welcome the challenge.

Changbin enters you first, the stretch the most intense you’ve ever taken– you can’t help but gasp, the sting pricking up every inch of your body. Chan, thankfully, doesn’t force you to take him entirely into your mouth in this state– he lets you instead kiss and lick the tip, recognizing your need to adjust to a size you’re entirely unused to taking. 

They both praise you, though Changbin’s voice is significantly more strained and breathy as he continues his slow push inside your tight heat. Your nails dig into Chan’s thighs for support, and he doesn’t scold you for taking pauses in giving him attention, instead just watching as you squeeze your eyes shut and do your best to control your heavy breathing.

“Big stretch, isn’t it bun?” Chan ends up asking, which causes you to nod with teary eyes. “‘s so big,” you exhale, and Changbin whines from behind you– you wonder if he likes hearing how big he is? You can also hear the loud swishing of his tail, almost like a whip with how quick it snaps from side to side; it’s an undeniable truth that Changbin has been very, very excited to play with you the entire night.

Changbin hisses once he’s fully aside, while Chan takes this time to rub your back in a soothing gesture you wouldn’t typically expect from a wolf. You look up at him, eyes full of equal parts gratitude and lust, and he simply smiles, hunching his back down to meet your lips in a kiss. 

“Not fair, I wanna kiss her too–” Changbin protests from behind you and Chan scoffs when he pulls away from your lips. “Your dick is literally inside her Bin, shut the fuck up,” he says and to your surprise, you giggle– Changbin is kind of cute, isn’t he? At least, in a weird, wolfy sort of way.

“Are you laughing at me?” he asks, and you can almost hear the playful sort of pout in his voice. “S-Sorry, didn’t mean to,” you mumble, hoping you didn’t offend him. You take a cautious peek at him from over your shoulder, relieved to find that he’s actually smiling once he stops his dramatic pouting. Cute, you think again, but he doesn’t let you feel that way for long.

He pulls out to the tip and presses back inside in one, swift motion, causing a moan to erupt from you as your nails once again dig into Chan’s skin. “Won’t be laughing by the time I’m done with you, bunny,” Changbin says as he repeats the motion, and it takes everything in you to not utterly collapse onto Chan’s lap. 

He hits your spot every time, and you swear you can feel it all the way in your stomach– but Chan doesn’t let you stay idle in your pleasure for very long. “C’mon, sweet bunny, you know what to do,” he says, his hand under your chin directing you back to his own neglected length.

Unable to control yourself much after Changbin starts picking up his pace, you simply open your mouth and stick out your tongue, allowing Chan to enter your mouth however much he wishes to, completely handing your control to him. Changbin’s thrusts cause you to take more of Chan into your mouth than you’d initially take all at once, and it causes Chan to curse, his cock hitting the back of your throat within seconds of entering your mouth.

It doesn’t take long for your eyes to well with tears, and then for those tears to cascade down your cheeks, trying your best not to choke and gag as Changbin, voluntarily or otherwise, forces you to take more and more of Chan’s cock down your throat. You can hardly even breathe between the pleasure of Changbin drilling you from behind and Chan’s cock obstructing your primary airway, but it makes you dizzy in the best way possible.

You feel floaty, every cell in your body knowing nothing but intense pleasure. Chan strokes your head, sometimes petting your ears for that extra burst of pleasure that makes you clench tighter and causes Changbin to curse from behind you each and every time. 

Changbin, who is observing the way his cock looks sliding in and out of your tiny hole, gets a flash of inspiration when he looks at your cute, fluffy cottontail. Experimentally, he takes it into his hands, rubbing your tail between his fingers, and you keen, a shiver traveling throughout your entire body.

“Oh, you like that?” he asks, a bit smug as he continues to rub and gently tug at your tail, a loud whine escaping you that is muffled only by the cock lodged in your mouth. Chan can see your eyes rolling back, and decides to double the pleasure, not letting his hands leave your ears for even a second.

Your noises tumble freely now, quick and constant, rising in volume despite how muffled they are. It’s overwhelming being played with like this, but it feels so fucking good you’d never think to complain– you may become addicted to this sensation when it’s all said and done.

You’re so wet and warm, and now squeezing impossibly tight– Changbin isn’t going to last, and you can feel him throbbing and twitching as his pace begins to stutter. “Shit- fuck, ‘m gonna cum,” he whines, letting go of your hip with his other hand to reach under you and find your clit with his fingers. “Cum with me, pretty bunny, c’mon, I know you’re close too,” he says, quickly rubbing your clit between two of his fingers. 

Chan guides your head off of him, letting you suck in the breath you desperately need before he’s lifting you up just enough to meet his lips, capturing your moans with his mouth. You cum again with a succession of loud whimpers, your hands squeezing at Chan’s body desperately. “Oh my god, yes, ‘m cumming, c-cumming–” Changbin gasps, his cum shooting inside you in quick spurts, his bottom lip tucked between his sharp teeth as he groans. 

Chan lets you fall back to his lap, breathless and almost entirely spent, with Changbin breathing heavily behind you. He pulls out when he finally starts to soften, and you glance behind you the best you can to see him pouting at his elder again.

“You did that to make me jealous!” he accuses Chan in reference to kissing you, and the other wolf simply shrugs with a smirk. “I can kiss you too, Binnie,” you mumble, just loud enough for the two of them to hear. 

He whines again, and you realize it’s the first time you’re actually using one of their names. “You should’ve said my name while cumming, bunny,” he grunts as he scoops you up, pulling you back to his chest. “I don’t think she could’ve–” Chan starts to interject, laughing when Changbin glares at him, capturing your lips in a possessive kiss. 

They’re not actually fighting over you, but you find the dynamic fun– maybe that’s why they like to share; and you don’t think you’ve ever felt this desired before. Changbin’s tail is swishing again as he kisses you, and you giggle when you hear it– he’s like a puppy, you think; eager, and easily excitable, with a hint of jealousy that makes him fun to tease.

When he pulls away, he looks at Chan and then back at you, “Can you handle one more, sweetheart? Channie-hyung still needs a turn with you.” 

“I can take it, I’m a good bunny,” you affirm and they both grin, Chan reaching out to you and pulling you away from Changbin’s arms, into his own. “Such a good girl,” he hums as he lays you down on the mattress, taking his place between your legs while Changbin lays down next to you, rubbing his hand over your soft tummy.

Changbin’s cum is leaking steadily out of you, but Chan doesn’t seem to mind the mess it’s making on his mattress– you've made your own mess of his bed too, after all. He instead uses his fingers to gather up what has leaked and spread it over his own length, using it as lubrication for his own push inside of you.

Changbin presses kisses to your heated cheeks, licking away the tears that fall as Chan starts to push his cock inside you. Chan, who has been entirely composed up to this point, finally breaks just a bit– enough for his breath to start coming out harsher as you feel him twitch and throb inside you. 

His tail doesn’t swish as fast and erratically as Changbin’s but it is nonetheless moving happily side to side, a clear indicator that you’re actually affecting him, and he’s not all confidence and smug charisma. “Can I play with you while Channie-hyung fucks you, bunny?” Changbin asks, his hand creeping up to your chest, smiling when you quickly nod at him. 

Chan should scold you for not answering properly, but he’s focusing on his own pleasure now– taking your legs into his hands and holding them open while he fucks in and out of you. Changbin plays with your nipples, his hand taking turns between them while the other is used to keep himself propped up to watch.

“You’re making him feel good, can you tell?” he asks, and you look at Chan, who has sweat trailing down his brow and his plump bottom lip sucked between his teeth, face scrunched in pleasure. It makes butterflies erupt in your stomach, and you turn back to Changbin, a small pout on your lips.

“I-I wish I–” a deep breathy moan interrupts your dialogue as Chan hits your spot, but you continue, “I wish I could’ve s-seen you too.” You bet he looked absolutely divine, just as Chan does. Changbin groans, your sentiment evidently having an affect on him. 

“God, you’re the fucking sweetest, bunny,” he tells you, leaning forward to kiss you some more, his tongue once again shoving it’s way into your mouth. You tangle your fingers in Changbin’s curly hair as he kisses you, and he whines when you unintentionally tug during a particularly harsh thrust from Chan. 

Changbin simply watches your face in awe for a moment when you pull away to breathe and let yourself fall back against the mattress, finding you incredibly cute, beautiful even, even with your hair a mess and drenched in sweat. “B-Binnie, Channie, think ‘m gonna cum again–” you whine, eyes rolling back once more when it causes Chan’s thrusts to become harsher.

“Yeah? Gonna cum again, slutty bunny?” Changbin smiles, egging you on with his voice. You nod quickly, pleas starting to fall from your lips effortlessly, “I-I can, right? Been a good girl, a good bunny? Good bunnies can cum?”

They both smile, endless encouragement leaving them such as “yes pretty, go ahead and cum for us,” and “good bunny, good girl, cum sweetheat.” Changbin pulls you back to his lips as you cum, wanting to kiss you as you cum since he missed the chance earlier, and he eagerly swallows your noises, his fingers finding your clit once more to drag out your orgasm. 

Chan as well starts to become louder, his grunts becoming more successive with each thrust, not losing speed even as his hips start to lose their rhythm. He grabs your face and tears you away from Changbin, kissing you in a display that is either meant to make Changbin jealous again, or is simply for his own pleasure.

Or maybe it serves both purposes at once, because as Changbin whines in protest, you can feel Chan smirk against your lips before he’s losing himself again. His groans are muffled against you as his hips stutter once, twice more before he’s spilling inside you, ropes and ropes of cum filling you to the brim. 

You reach out to Changbin’s hand, squeezing it in a gesture that is meant to stop his jealousy, and he smiles at you, calling you a “sweet little thing” once more, giving you a peck to your forehead. Your eyes close, not opening even as Chan softens and slips out of you, exhaustion having clearly seeped into every molecule of your body.

“Poor thing’s tired,” you vaguely hear Changbin say as he wipes the sweat off your brow. Chan responds, though it’s hard to make out what he says as you unconsciously slip into sleep, unable to prevent it with how heavy your entire body has become, rest quickly claiming you. 

The sound of birds loudly chirping wakes you, and you blink slowly awake, eyes straining as you realize you’re in the sunlight. You sit up quickly, looking down at yourself and then your surroundings; you’re out of the forest proper, in the clearing where your home sits quaintly in the middle. You're dressed back in your prior clothing and with your hood over your ears– barring the underwear you lost. 

You’d think last night was a dream if it wasn’t for the fact that you could feel yourself bare underneath your dress; so they really upheld their promise and brought you back home..? You see your basket, sitting neatly in arm’s reach, a small note resting atop the berries and leaves you gathered yesterday that simply reads, “Last night was fun, wasn’t it, little red? Come play with us again sometime,” with a cutely drawn heart at the end, signed ‘Binnie and Channie.’

[inkchwe]

three men & a crib | 𝖕𝖘𝖍

୨୧ pairing: park sunghoon x fem!reader ୨୧ word count: 1.2k ୨୧ genre: fluff, comedy ୨୧ tags: established relationship, soontobedad!sunghoon, married!au, pregnant!reader. ୨୧ synopsis: Sunghoon is wasting time not building the furniture in the nursery, mainly the terrifyingly intricate crib his pregnant wife ordered. What else can he do besides call Jake and Jay to help him?

How did he end up in this situation? Sunghoon is staring down the cardboard box in his living room, armed with a handful of tools and an instruction manual that might as well have been written in an alien language.

“I can do it when I get home from the shower,” you told him two hours ago, pouting at the fact the crib still had yet to be constructed. The baby would be arriving in less than three months and there was still so much of the nursery that needed to be completed. The main piece being the place your child was meant to sleep.

Sunghoon shrugged off the idea. No way were you going to try building furniture when you should be focusing solely on relaxing. Your belly was too swollen at this point for Sunghoon to let you even carry in a heavy bag of groceries without assistance. What kind of husband would he be if he let you do manual labor in your condition?

“No, baby,” he said, kissing your forehead with reassurance. “I promise to finish it. Just focus on having fun today and when you get home it’ll all be done, you’ll see.”

With a sigh and a kiss to his lips, you were off with your mother to your baby shower. Heeseung’s wife Yunjin organized the entire day for you, and Sunghoon wouldn’t let something as simple as a piece of infant furniture get in the way of your good time.

But now, staring down the dismantled pieces of the crib, he’s starting to grow anxious at the thought of you coming home to his empty promises and utter disappointment. He reads over the first step of the instructions again, and the words practically bleed over and into each other on the page. Admittedly, Sunghoon was not well-versed in carpentry, but surely it shouldn’t be this hard to understand.

Whatever he has to do to figure it out, he won’t let you down. And he won’t look like an incompetent father because of some measly, complex instructions.

So, he does the next best thing he can: he calls in backup.

Jake and Jay sit next to Sunghoon on the living room floor, looking over the parts of the crib that they’ve agreed go together first and have to be constructed in the proper order. 

After forty-five minutes of assembly, the three men feel an acceptable amount of confidence they completed the crib.

Except for the fact there’s a random piece of wood sticking out in the center of the crib itself.

“I’m telling you the directions said that that was supposed to go there,” Jay insists, skimming the manual.

Sunghoon groans. “Tell me exactly Jay what the fuck that is supposed to do.” He emphasizes his argument by pointing directly at the block of wood in the middle of the crib.

“I don’t know, man, to keep the baby from moving?” Jay retorts.

“Okay, let’s just start over,” Jake says to both men, tired of their bickering already.

Just when the men think they’re getting somewhere, they read the next line of instructions and feel like idiots for putting this piece of wood with that screw.

“This might as well have been written in ancient Egyptian, man. Why did she have to buy the most annoying crib in existence?” Jay grumbles and flips through the manual again.

“She said it comes with a lot of safety features,” Sunghoon answers, taking apart the two pieces of wood that Jake put together initially. Sunghoon wishes he could go back in time and stop you from buying it in the first place. Of course he also wanted the best for your child, but did the damn bed need to come with so many bells and whistles for all of this hassle?

By the time Sunghoon dismantles the pieces and puts them back in an organized pile on the floor, Jake looks ready to give up and raid the fridge.

“We could just find the model online and order it assembled,” Jake suggests. A yawn leaves his lips, already fatigued at the minimal effort he put in.

“And say what to my wife?” Sunghoon asks with a scoff. “That I was too stupid to make it without help?”

Jay and Jake look at Sunghoon without a word, their stares saying enough.

“You know what I mean, assholes.” Sunghoon looks at the instructions over Jay’s shoulder again and grunts. “We are three strong and capable men. We can do this!”

Less than an hour later, Jake is on the manufacturer’s website. Thankfully, the model number was written in bold font on the front of the manual. And even better, crib assembly and one-day delivery is only an extra hundred dollars.

“I’ll name the next kid after you, man.” Sunghoon pats Jake on the back as the older one puts his card information into the order.

“Whatever. Just don’t expect me to not spill the beans if your wife asks me about this.”

Jay chuckles and helps Sunghoon put the pieces of the original crib back in the cardboard packaging.

Three hours later, two delivery guys come up the elevator with the crib to bring into Sunghoon’s apartment. It fits with the rest of the nursery, the color of the wood matching well with the decorations you had already put up for the baby’s arrival.

You walk into the apartment later in the day to find Sunghoon sitting at the couch waiting for you. You smile at him and immediately snuggle in close to his chest.

“How was the shower?” Sunghoon kisses the crown of your head as his hand runs across the center of your stomach. His warmth immediately calms you after the long day of greeting family and friends.

“Fun, but a lot. By the third hour I was over talking about breastfeeding.”

Sunghoon chuckles and kisses your cheek. Even now, after four years of marriage and a baby on the way, he still managed to make you feel like the same lovesick teenager you were when you first met. The feeling sank deep into your bones and made you even more sure that you picked the right person to spend forever with.

“Thank you for putting the crib together,” you say. You squeeze the hand that’s on your stomach with your own. “We appreciate you so much.”

Sunghoon smiles earnestly and kisses you on the lips. “And I appreciate you. None of this would be possible without you, you know.”

You grin. “Likewise.”

When you wake in the middle of the night later on, waddling to the nursery and admiring the quality of the crib, you chuckle quietly to yourself.

Sunghoon was completely unaware of how cute he looked in the Ring camera helping the delivery guys bring in the assembled crib. He also had no idea that you had watched from the comfort of Heeseung’s couch as the gentlemen, with Jake and Jay in tow, all shuffled into the apartment hours ago with the second crib.

Maybe the biggest lesson of parenthood was that sometimes it was better to work smarter and not harder. And regardless, Sunghoon would do anything to make sure you and your child were happy. What more could you ask for?

[wilteddreamsofbaldursgate]

12. How to Tag 

You put so much work into your fic, so it’s only natural that you want it to reach lots of people—that’s why we tag! Generally, you want to tag your post with proper tags, say: the actual content of your fic. That should include: fandom, characters, pairing, genre, “fanfic”, possibly. content warning (you’ve already given your warnings in your post, but it doesn’t hurt to put it in the tags too). Additionally, it makes sense for you to come up with your individual tags like “[your username] writing”—that’s for your personal blog housekeeping, or so people can find all your writing in one place. If you’re unsure how to tag your post, take a quick look at what other fic writers do, you’ll see that, depending on the fandom/character/topic, they’re probably using a similar arrangement of tags. It makes sense to use different variations of the same tags.

Here’s an example for Astarion x AFAB, fem!Tav/2nd person smut fanfic tags I tend to use:

But, well…there is some discourse about proper tagging, especially in the BG3 fandom. Everybody has their own preferences and some users are very adamant about filtering specific tags—they might complain that you didn’t tag something properly, at least not in their opinion. In my humble opinion, however, that’s their problem, not yours. As long as you tag the fandom you’re writing for, the characters appearing in your fic, topics, whether it’s NSFW, gave the proper warnings in your post and your tags, etc.—you will be fine; you can’t please everyone. As a writer, you’re responsible for giving proper indications of content, but a reader is responsible to make sure to heed those warnings and decide whether that’s for them or not. That counts for both tags and in-post warnings.

Of course, it’s not OK to tag something that is not happening in your fic, or not indicate something that is part of it. Please give proper warnings and tag to the best of your abilities! If you’re unsure how to tag, ask someone.

Within the BG3 fandom, the biggest tagging issue seems to be the “Tav/you/reader” situation. “Tav” isn’t as clean cut as some people claim it to be, at least not in my personal opinion. Tav is not just an avatar but a customizable concept. Tav can be a stand-in for your OC; Tav can be a generic Tav. Tav can be you, especially since the game is narrating for you. 

For some people, there is a very clean-cut difference between “x/tav” and “x/reader” and “x/you”. I’m not saying that this view doesn’t have merit, but it comes down to interpretation. 

Generally, I would say that “x/tav” is most generic. Personally, I use this tag for everything that indicates that an Origin Character or NPC is in a relationship with Tav. Tav can be the screenshot of your playable character—your avatar. Tav can be a fanart of your original character—a Tav you gave a name and lore to. Tav can be the character in a fic that I want to keep anonymous or so generic that any reader can insert their own Tav or themselves into it, regardless of whether it’s written in 2nd or 3rd person. Tav is just Tav, doing their Tav things. 

“x/reader” means that you, the reader, are in a relationship with x. In a fic, the reader is addressed as “you” or “y(our)/n(ame)”. Usually, there’s no indication of “your” appearance or personality (gender or  traits might be specified). I think this definition makes more sense outside of the BG3 fandom, though—there’s no grounds for discussion who the reader is, since they’re not a stand-in for a specific character from the same universe as X. But…

…in the BG3 fandom, “x/you” can potentially do the same thing as “x/reader”. “You” can be anonymous, but “you” can also have green hair and be a tiefling or the Dark Urge getting railed by Halsin in bear-form. In BG3, the concept of “Tav” is “you”, so why can’t “you”, the player, be “reader”, especially when “you” are not specified in the fic?

Honestly, you could write a paper on this, but let’s assume not all of us have dabbled in game or literary studies.

Long story short: I suggest you tag any fic that includes a (named) OC/Tav, the character that is journeying with the BG3 companions, “x/tav” and “x/oc”. If you’ve written your story in 2nd person, add “x/you”. It’s up to you to decide whether “x/reader” is a suitable tag for your fic or not, though it might be when you Personally, I take the liberty to tag my gen.Tav/ 2nd person fics as “x/reader” and haven’t gotten any negative feedback so far. I wouldn’t do so with a named character, though.

Next: Words for the Road

Masterlist

[ndnaw]

The Problem Of DARK ROMANCE- Love over Lust (Booktoks problem in the books they recommend)

Caution: Spoilers of Mention Books. If this is too much for you to take in; cut and swallow because I am not giving you any water to make it go down easier. I am not taking back what I said. Thank you.

Numerous hot topic books that have an active following along with a high rating; often do not deserve their popularity.

Ultimately, the books that have come to my attention are books that when mentioned will be easily recognizable by most romance readers, as well as those who familiarly visit 'booktok'. Books such as; Punk 57, Icebreaker, Haunting Adeline, and Hunting Adeline. In the upcoming rage of discovery, it seems that SMUT has become the most intriguing genres to people all around.

Now there is nothing fundamentally wrong with SMUT or the writers of such books but at some point, we, as readers and consumers of literature should assess the quality and substance of the books being read. It is questionable and overall absurd that books such as The Price of Honor by Richard Fierce go unnoticed due to the popularity of books that center around sex, sex, sex, and sex. If that is what you are interested in as the world you need to escape into the maybe there is something you need to take up with a psychiatrist.

A book (without fantasy elements), nonetheless, should be able to capture a story that not only takes readers into a world they have never been in to help them to proper experience these situations. As well as, to be able to comfort or bring attention to the lives of either customary or diverse populations. Books such as Charming As A Verb, The Withering, and Love Hypothesis (it has smut but it isn't heavily implicated, I got to know the characters not their genitalia) were able to do these things amazingly, while also maintaining a positive ranking with readers. Which leads me to question the popularity of books like Haunting Adeline and Punk 57; not every book needs to be new and exciting but certain things that would be distasteful and unrealistic should be assessed in reading.

Let's dive into the rationale of Haunting Adeline (I have not read the complete book, I dropped it rather quickly because of the 'message'):

Haunting Adeline, with its premise, could be a unique Thriller story- the romance aspect should definitely be questioned on whether it should be removed. Now if anyone who has read Haunting Adeline AND likes the book, please give your remarks and opinions on the claimed romance. Dark romances can definitely be accepted in CERTAIN situations but there is a line that crosses from ROMANCE BOOKS and into PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER. Most of the actions in Haunting Adeline and Hunting Adeline are beyond diabolical- the female lead has to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Haunting Adeline overall essentially has the operation of sex trafficking, this would have been a good place to stop and the DARK in Romance would have already been completed. It would have also been able to offer a story to those who have been sex trafficked, instead of romanticizing and sexualizing a victim of sex trafficking by a mentally unstable male lead. Of course, the disgusting aspect does not stop it from being a good book because ultimately there are women and men who suffer from the effects of Sexual Trafficking and victims who develop Stockholm Syndrome from abusers.

I am unsure on whether the writer themselves had written the book in hopes of communicating the devastating and revolting topics to bring awareness but the conclusion gathered by readers of Booktok have been the opposite. The normalization of PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER as DARK ROMANCE need to be looked into by a professional.

A lot of people may say that the point of dark romance is TRAUMA, TOXIC LOVE, and occasionally ABUSE. That is the essence of it all. Though the problem is DARK ROMANCE varies from PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER. Example A: In Book One, you can get kidnapped because you were in the wrong side of the neighborhood and end up being beaten by a gang member because of this but after seeing that you were a victim and not from the rival gang as they first assumed, they decide to make peace. A lot of things can happen that do not need the female or male lead to mentally submit to the 'love interest'. Aspects such as an arranged marriage in a gang, drug addicts, sadists and masochists, vampires and hunters, even a ghost and a human- that can go so far if put into the hands of a writer who can draw a line between clear one-sided abuse and mistreatment. DARK ROMANCE is not TOXIC LOVE and TRAUMA done by A onto B, that causes B to submit out of fear. It's the push and pull of adrenaline between two people who damage each other or potentially do so, who both find their peace in destroying each other or fixing up the broken pieces. A vampire and a hunter are both out to kill each other, none are trembling out of fear because daddy vampire will hurt them so they just HAVE to sleep with them.

Now PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER; there is nothing morally wrong about reading them. It opens up a door to understanding and possibly a world that you have never been in. (or have, all things considered. I apologize if you have been exposed to situations such as those.) Though, there is something morally wrong with sexualizing the supposed 'romance' in psychological thrillers. It is not 'hot' when you have to cry and plead to your significant other to stop, unless it is under terms of agreement like, sadists and masochists, and even they have limits, I think. (I don't participate in those subjects)

I believe the problem behind Haunting Adeline is the glazing over of real life struggles and readers filling their minds with delusion. It makes me question if anyone who actively supports the relationship between the characters have put themselves in Adeline's shoes. I have seen countless readers or fans of the book, say "He got better." That is wonderful, but did he get better or did she just accept her fate and stop trying to fight back?

At some point you'd stop too if the 6'4, early thirties man, kept telling you he was obsessed with you after assaulted you multiple times on top of the numerous times you were assaulted by other persons.

However if you still believe this book is a DARK ROMANCE and not a PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER, please do see the fact that the consumption, enjoyment from sexualization that you get out of this book, and promoting it as romance other than psychological thriller can be detrimental. As the lines of romantization that readers have created are shocking. Remember this is not just a fictional, hot, steamy book and can very well be someone's reality.

Put yourself in just one of the scenes that you so find hot, if you think you would like it being done onto you, seek professional help or find someone that matches your kinks before you harass someone in the streets. No sane person wants a gun in their body.

Concluding, promote books that have substance to their genre and actually properly portray the topics of the genre. Seek help if you enjoy the 'romance' in the book. If you like the portrayed psychological thriller, that's cool.

NB: If you would like to know the things I found distasteful in the other book listed, please let me know, because there are a few reasons.

NNB: In placing the tags for the note-worthy books below, I found that there was no community/following for the books, though all the questionable ones did. Except for Love Hypothesis cause her gooch bussed open.

[emeritus-fuckers]

Hiii, I'd like to request a match up !!

First of all, sorry if it's written weird, English is not my first language and I'm in need of a few days of sleep lmao :') also this is very long because I have no idea how to write concisely to save my life, so, sorry for your eyes? brain? Idk but sorry

1 - I'm AFAB genderqueer, might be a demigirl ? idk gender is confusing. anyways, I use any pronouns because I'm extra like that lmao, and I prefer my sexuality to stay unlabelled for now

2 - Papas !! (they're so silly I love them)

3 - I'm rather small (163cm/5'4") and kinda pudgy. I would not say I'm plus size but I'm definitely thicker than average, especially around my hips and thighs (stretch marks n cellulite gang WYA). I used to be very insecure about it but thankfully I got better at loving myself (still working on it but I'll get there eventually). I'm also getting a tattoo on my upper left arm very soon (inspired by Kafka's Metamorphosis because yes) and hopefully some more piercings (I only have triple lobe for now). my hair's light brown and very short, I buzzed it back in August and I'm growing it out. Yes, I do have a terrible case of bed head. I also trim my eyebrows to be very short, makes it easier to do my makeup. Almost forgot to talk about my eyes, but basically they're blue-ish green and usually overshadowed by the huge dark circles I have. I don't dress according to one particular style, although I enjoy being in full goth fashion, makeup and all. I would probably describe my style by 'satanic grandma' because as much as I love my band shirts and inverted crosses, I also cannot live without my extensive collection of grandpa sweaters and ugly ties.

4 - I'm an introvert - and an awkward anxious ball of nerves at that, but I don't mind stepping up to the task in social situations if the people I'm with are not comfortable ordering food/asking a question. I usually am very cautious of how I act with new people I meet as I am autistic and don't want to 'scare them off' or make them uncomfortable. However, if we vibe, you get to know the still anxious but also very silly me. I especially love coming across other people that are on the spectrum, because we usually have a certain understanding of each other's way of acting and just be silly together. Speaking from experience with my closest friends, at least (not generalizing autistic people !!).

5 - I've been hyperfixating on Ghost for a good while now, but apart from that I'm very much interested in art. Learning about it of course, but also making it (I'm in art prep class rn and it's kicking my ass, send help). Drawing, writing, taking photos, making zines and stuff... hopefully after prep class I can get into a proper art school and study illustration, and maybe look into becoming a graphic novel author. My favorite artists would probably be Dora Maar, Gustave Doré and Gustav Klimt tbh. I also have an interest in geopolitics and history, especially in the Middle Ages' witch hunts and black death, but also in more recent topics such as the satanic panic. Basically all things occult and satanic. I also love internet horror media such as ARGs, like My house.wad or the Hypnagogic Archive. Music taste wise, I listen to everything, but my favorite genres are hard rock and metal. I'd say my all time fav artists are Ghost, Slayer (South of Heaven walked so that Year Zero could run, change my mind), Iron Maiden, SOAD, Twin Temple, Radiohead, alex g and Mitski.

6 - I'm a huge cat person but I also very much love crows and rats and reptiles and overall all the animals that would seem weird to keep as pets. Also I love love LOVE having deep conversations about complicated philosophical topics at night in a calm spot at a party or smth, specifically while drinking off-brand soda. Idk why I included this, I just thought of it and I'm too tired to question how my sleep deprived brain thinks right now.

Sorry again for the huge wall of text, y'all are the best !

Have a good day/night !!

This post is part of the 1000 followers match up event. Entries for the event are now closed.

Your match is...Copia

He's all for helping you love yourself, he'll kiss any part of your body you are insecure about and everyday he tells you how amazing you look. The thing that really makes it work is that he means it, you can see the sincerity in his expression.

He can also be an awkward anxious bundle of nerves. But what is so cute is that both of you try and step up for the other in social situations. You see Papa Emeritus IV come out a lot at those times.

You vibed immediatly with him it was just an instant connection. He just got you, and you him. He treasures that so much.

He will help all he can with your art class prep. Like whatever you need. If you want him to just keep you company he's there, if you need models he'll get his rats to pose with him (it's just adorable). Or if you need to work super hard he'll bring you food and drinks to keep you going.

Sometimes he joins you but drawing isn't his strongest skill so it's a good giggle, he can laugh at his mistakes and he enjoys seeing you smile at them. Other times he'll sit and write songs as you work, he wrote one about you just the other day.

He got so excited when he found out you had an interest in the middle ages, witch hunts and black death. He literally squeaked with joy and you discussed it long into the night, while drinking lots of off-brand soda.

He also finds some really cool books for you to read from the clergy library, occult, satanic panic and so on, it's all there.

~

Written by Nyx

[isfjmel-phleg]

I have further context now for the YJ boys' "bummed because our comic books got canceled" conversation, and it really is a shame. Because most of them didn't even get to end with full closure.

(Young Justice 1998 #49)

Bart's book ended with him moving to Denver to live with the Garricks. The concluding narration emphasizes his character development since #1, and he seems happy with his new family and situation, but Max, who was his father figure for so long, is still lost to him, and that's never resolved.

Kon's book ended with Clark finally doing what he should have a long time ago--bringing Kon to live with his parents, where he can have a normal, stable family life. But there are a lot of loose threads left surrounding his supporting cast (we know Dubbilex joins a Buddhist monastery, but what happened to Serling? Roxy? Krypto? Guardian? The Newsboy Legion? etc.) and how he himself is handling things after going through 100+ issues of trauma.

Ray's book ended with much-needed answers about his convoluted family situation and a proper reunion with a family member whom he's been trying to reconnect with for a long time. But it just sort of...ends there. What are the Terrills going to do now that they're reunited and have a lot of issues to sort through? What's Ray going to do now that he's left his lucrative but corrupting job and is now likely to be on the bad side of his supervillain former boss? Is he back in the awful studio apartment and will he ever be able to get a refrigerator for it? As far as I can tell, his family (besides his father) doesn't really come up again in subsequent appearances.

And Grant isn't in on this conversation (although he shows up in this issue and the next few as part of the crowd of heroes who come to Anita's aid), but he could probably commiserate too. His book ended so up in the air that its conclusion gets completely ignored by everyone who's ever written about him since.

Which is a difficulty of this genre. Telling a cohesive, complete, narratively satisfying tale is often impossible to do when a book is at the mercy of outside forces who can cancel at will. These writers seem to have done the best they could with what they were working with, but for everything else, the reader's imagination must fill in the blanks.

[delusionaid]

🌿 Author portrait. Get to know the author behind the blog! repost, do not reblog.

Basics.

Name/nickname: Min(a) Age: 32 Pronouns: She/her Years of writing: I've been writing little stories and fantasy things and scenes from books I liked as long as I remember.. As for RP and fanfic.. I think it's been around 18 years?

Reflection.

Why did you pick up writing? Because I wanted more of the stories and the characters I enjoyed and very often I also wanted different things than canon was presenting to me - e.g. a dead favorite surviving the plot, a world in which a villain wins, a crossover between two worlds, a ship that wasn't canon. There was no more canon (because the book ended) or canon left me wanting something I didn't get, so I started reading fanfic and at some point realized - hey, I can also just write my own versions / stories :)

Do you have any writing routines? First, I cry and bemoan that I picked this as a hobby. Then, I often actually lie/sit down on my couch or something and picture the scene in my head in detail (including dialogue - think of it like "trying out the script), and then once I feel like I know where I want it to go, I sit down at my PC and start writing a rough draft in note form. Final step I write it out in proper sentences. Depending on the mood (of the post) I also listen to instrumental / classical / film music or ambient sounds (e.g. forest noises). I can't listen to anything with lyrics, that distracts me too much. In between all those stages I get distracted 48472 times, which is why it takes me so long to reply to anything.

What's your favorite part about writing? Creating things that I want to see/read but that aren't there yet (/will never be in canon). It also brings me joy to simply try my best at understanding a character and trying to recreate his mannerisms/attitudes/personality in new situations. And of course bringing joy to someone else - and I think that's my actual favorite part. Yes, I write for myself = because I want to do it; but if I didn't also majorly enjoy the feeling of writing something for someone else that excites them or makes them happy, then I wouldn't be RPing or publishing fics.

Three things you like about your writing.

One. I can "recreate" canon characters in new settings / new scenes to an extent that I am content with. Like most people I have certain muse types, but I think I can somewhat successfully mimic a lot of different muses, at least enough to be happy with it.

Two. I can create some variation when I want to. In RP you usually will see me write in my go-to way (choice of tense, narrator, focalizer, etc) but I do switch it up sometimes for narrative effect and I have written some pieces in the past that I thought worked out pretty well in that aspect.

Three. I can make people yell, cry or laugh with it. It may not be perfect but if I can make someone feel something with it, that's good enough for me.

A question for the next person.

Write a question for the next person to answer. Once you've answered it, leave a new question for someone else to answer.

When life throws you lemons, and gets you down, does writing become something that you're drawn to as to get you through it, or do you feel like it does the opposite?

I can't write when I feel really bad, I don't have the focus or the energy. But the stories are still in my head and the stories are always what my mind goes to. When I was younger and struggling with things I actually imagined characters that I wrote in my situation to somehow process it better, because it was easier to think about them and how they'd react than knowing that for myself. Writing/creating never does the opposite (aka make me feel worse in any way) but the actual act of sitting down and creating a good piece of writing usually is too difficult when I am in a bad state. That said, sometimes it can be helpful to write something that matches my mood - e.g. something sad or angry.

New question: Do you have a favorite genre to write (e.g. horror, romance, action, angst), and if so what is it and why? If you have more than one favorite, what are your top 3 and why?

Tagged by: @araneitela Tagging: @dhabibi @immobiliter @wishkept @helbroth

[afrobeatsindacity]

ASAKE - WORK OF ART REVIEW

“But una know I no dey waste time” is Asake's pre-written answer to questions bordering around why his sophomore album is out barely 9 months after his scintillating debut. Not that anyone is less than thrilled to see him back so soon, mind, but we are all too familiar with the  compromises to the production process that may aid an artist to achieve these hurried release schedules. Asake, however, does not sacrifice quality on the altar of speed, so that what is traditionally a sticky point for establishing artists—the second album slump—is turned into a flamboyant, braggadocious display of his extent of pliability of his Fuji-Amapiano creation, and then some.

Doubts have persisted for nearly as long as he has been mainstream of his ability and/or willingness (or lack thereof) to explore music styles outside his patented scope, but Asake does not intend Work Of Art to be a definitive end to this conversation. So while he does push even further from the conventional in a bid to conquer sonic territory, he plants his base firmly in the music that has brought him thus far—the rhythmic familiarity of log drums and shakers, the ethereal resonance of crowd backup vocals and his own euphonic, Fuji-recalling delivery.

For “Yoga”, his 2023 opener which now closes the album, he sets himself sonically somewhere between Indigenous Egun music of Badagry, Lagos and the Sega genre of Mauritius, weaving together diverse cultures. His message here is clear; he is in his own lane and it would be pointless to try and catch him—but this time he goes for sombre self-identity over overarching superiority. Not to say he does not have some of the latter in his toolbox. On “Lonely At The Top”, the track from which this article’s opening quote was carved, he may appear to get ahead of himself—this is, afterall, only the second year since his proper breakout single, and there are others who have secured and maintained a top-flight status for much longer—but Asake’s time has always run a little faster. 

That is the reason why, still struggling to find a footing in music and life in general, he announced himself “Mr Money” in his 2020 single of the same name. On Work Of Art, boastful predictions for his future can carry the extra backing of his conquests from last year, and he knows it. On “I believe”, the optimistically upbeat joint which Magicsticks reworks from Amapiano’s log drums, Asake proclaims “Nitty-gritty of ‘22, I’m the one”, casting back to a year ago when he thrilled the country with a conveyor belt of hit singles before his debut album landed the final blow. He rewords and translates this on “Awodi”, stating “2022 mo gbe wan trabaye”, another claim that can be self-promoting without being exaggerative. On this chiefly Yoruba song, his honours Pasuma both in words and in the Fuji-ogling framework the track is crafted on.

Whether Asake’s outsized self-image is primarily a function of belief in himself or trust in a higher power is debatable, but it certainly is some combination of both. He definitely has the spiritual strength to justify the latter, as he embraces, in the popular Yoruba polytheist ideology, both Christianity and Islam, and delves into African Traditional Religion when the situation requires it, when there is need to tie ese ile bo. But where Mr. Money With The Vibe regarded these religions, like most people do, as a means of covering all bases in the search for material upliftment, Work Of Art has Asake transcend beyond this and ponder on the afterlife. 

He weighs in turn a Christian (“Mr. Money with the vibe ‘til the devil say my name”) and then a Muslim (“Koni wa le lai lai till we reach Al Jannah”) aftermath, but reaches a consensus in either case that he will live to the full until that moment arrives. And while these musings might seem somewhat premature for a 28 year old man in apparent robust health, Asake has never faltered in his preference of an impactful existence over a lengthy one. So today he will drown in a variety of substances from alcohol to colorado, before burying his head in the thighs of the woman he loves. “Let’s stay all night looking as the star shines/ Make love till the sunrise” he sings on the now-decadent, now-affecting “Mogbe”. 

Romance flickers brightly in other corners, even if it is a rare sight on the album and is often easily contorted into lust. “Remember” has a chorus that wants to negotiate affection with money, not an uncommon love language in a country with so little of it. “I wanna love you forever, baby o/ I just want to spend all my chеddar on you”, he says at first, but what comes next unmasks his carnal intentions. “Sunshine” shares all of this blissful radiance, but, without its romantic overtones, Asake intends it to be a pat on the back to the weary soul, equal parts motivating and reassuring. “Sun’s gon’ shine on everything you do”, he says, and if those words appear familiar it is because they were borrowed from Lighthouse Family’s “Ocean Drive” of 1995, and Asake transports this iconic line across time and genre without losing any bit of its eupeptic essence.

Asake uses himself and his incredible journey, as successful people often do, as a guiding light to those still stuck on the lowest rungs of the ladder, but material success is only a small contributor to his euphoria. For Asake, the process is just as important as the result, and like every true artist he prides himself even more in the art that has brought him thus far. 

“Basquiat” throws down the gauntlet with the arrogance of a man that knows it won’t be taken up, and while he is aware of similarly sounding artists that the media will try to force into comparisons with him,— “Studying me is an honour jeun lor/ I get many pages like songs of Solomon”—he will superciliously point out the futility in reading a master’s textbook to try and be better than him. “What's the chances, what's the probability/ To see a bеtter version of me with agility”, he asks on the spunky Blaisebeatz-produced “2:30”, but it is only rhetorical. He has his answer.

If he is any worried about deposition, he hardly shows it, and more importantly, he will not let it bog down his brilliant new creation. “Basquiat” is also the closest thing to a titular track on the album, whose cover art is depiction of Jean-Michel Basquiat by Nigerian artist, Ayanfe Olarinde. While Asake sees similarities between himself and the talented, troubled, visual artist, he has long established to have no greater weapon in his arsenal than his individuality and sense of self. A few fans may clamour to see him try on new trends and sounds, but Asake insists that he is the template, the “work of art” that should be studied. And he probably is right. Supreme ability and a unshaking confidence in it are always a devastating match, and his blend of indigenous cultures from fifty years ago and trendsetting house music of the future makes him one of the easiest bets for the next great Nigerian star.    

This article was written by Afrobeats City Contributor Ezema Patrick - @ezemapatrick (Twitter)

Afrobeats City doesn’t own the right to the images - image source: Instagram - @Asakemusic

[silkendandelion]

Two Drow From Sembia

A Baldur's Gate 3 fanfiction, a story of two Tavs (ongoing, series), ao3 link

Pairings (Eventual): Tav Dayedan x Astarion (M/M), Tav Badril x Shadowheart (M/F) Genre: Fantasy, adventure, humor, drama, eventual fluff and romance Words: 3.2k

Rating Teen and Up Audiences for graphic descriptions of violence, mild blood and gore, mature language. Rating subject to change, published per chapter.

Summary: For the last 50 years, Dayedan Vernal, an Eladrin artificer from Sembia, has traveled Faerun looking for unique materials. The last 10 of those years have been beside his hired bodyguard, Badril Lightward: a drow with sun-kissed skin and black hands, who introduced himself as the Chosen of Lathander. After months of walking and multiple dead-end leads, they had only been in Baldur’s Gate for less than a day when the Nautiloid attacked.

AN:. The title is a joke from the groupchat, Day is constantly mistaken for a drow and he's quite chuffed about it

Likes and reblogs are, as always, welcome and please enjoy 💙

Chapter 1 (below)

~*~

Journal Updated: The Sembian Artificer

Muffled, incoherent shouting rouses the elf, barely, unable to be understood beyond the cotton in his ears. He manages to push beyond the ice-pick ache threatening to split his skull, enough to open his eyes and see Badril on the other side of the greasy, smeared glass of the mindflayer pod.

The drow’s angular face is stricken, white ponytail falling off his crown, and panic written in the pull of his frown after hours of fruitless searching for his friend. Black hands, dark and smooth as obsidian glass, swipe the sides of the pod, seeking a switch or lever.

“He—help… Badril,” Dayedan called weakly, hands pawing the glass in response. His bag is gone, he can only feel himself inside the humid, sweltering pod when Badril’s shape disappears. The beginnings of dread rise in him, bile creeping up his throat, ready to spew the next time he tried to shout. For 10 years, the darkness had kept quiet, banished by the dawn’s favorite, who was just here—

“Don’t leave me!” His fists bang on the glass, again, again, lungs wrested for breath, when—CRACK—he screams, terrified enough to halt his panting when black hands slam into the glass. Clawed, un-bloodied fingers punched clean through in ten jagged holes.

Those monstrous hands are too familiar, the pride of a warrior monk, soot-black nearly up to the elbow, so prone to be found spinning a cooking spit or picking his lute that Dayedan often forgets their divine purpose is to kill. They are the hands of his most trusted bodyguard and friend, who with frightening ease flays the entire front off the pod in one screeching, fleshy rip.

He falls with no more support into Badril’s arms and the drow grabs his jaw, turning his face back and forth to better examine his fragile state.

“Are you all right? Does your head hurt?”

“Bloody pounding,” he huffed. “How did you know?”

Badril tilted him, one thick arm tight around his waist until he could stand proper. “Then they’ve infected you already... I’m sorry, my friend.”

“Did they get you too?”

“No.”

“Then, how did you—”

He held up a wet hand—soaked with gore, Dayedan relays to his queasy stomach—silencing him before the artificer could spiral, as he was prone to do, or worse: over-analyze their situation into a stupor that neither healed him nor helped them both to escape.

“Hear me now: you were grabbed because you wandered off,” he chided with emphasis and Dayedan’s ears wilted, shoulders flinching.

“In order to follow you, I allowed myself to be captured. They could not get me into a pod.”

Dayedan watched him flick the blood off his hands, silvery and congealing as it joined the streaks running from the nearby door. Mind you, a door that hung savaged and drooping from the rest of the wall, as mangled as his pod. He recalled Badril’s words from their travels, how Lathander’s most faithful are sworn enemies of the evil, undead and soulless... Suddenly, he had only one more question.

“Are you going to put me down?”

“No,” was his simple reply.

“But I’m going to become a monster,” Dayedan insisted, yet Badril ushered him to get moving, one hand on his arm and the other pointing towards the door (the flesh ribbons), their only exit.

“You are not a monster yet, so until then you are my friend.”

As Dayedan’s headache persisted, the acuate pain flaring from what he deduced was the tadpole making itself bloody comfortable against his frontal lobe, an ache only negligibly reduced by the adrenaline of waking up on an actual, real, stinking, fucking Mindflayer ship—he had no mind to argue.

“Let’s get the hells out of here.”

~*~

“Where is it? Where IS it?” Dayedan picked through the belongings of other kidnapped victims, tossing away things he decided to be useless and absently slipping loose gold coins in his pockets.

“Don’t make so much noise,” Badril replied from where he observed the pod at the center of the room, and the transformed body inside.

“I’m allowed to panic, I think, that bag is the most valuable thing I own.”

“Your soul?” The drow said while studying the runes across the attached control panel. Surely, he wondered, one of them must be able to kill the thing. The soulless, tentacled monster scratching clawed hands down the glass, who moments ago was a human woman, and even fewer moments ago had her screams mangled as the bones in her neck twisted, tongue useless as her teeth fell from her jaw down to the feet of her coffin.

His metacarpals ached with the restraint to not rip the pod open and perform his best imitation of the transformation on the finished creature, piece by piece.

“It’s not here, come on. What are you staring at—egh.” Dayedan appeared beside his shoulder, recoiling. “Kill the thing, already.”

“To release it is a danger to you, even for a moment.”

“Then—scoot over.” He elbowed Badril but the enormous drow didn’t move until he meant to, staying close while Dayedan pulled his goggles down off his black, wavy hair. The multiple lenses lay stacked, flush in various colors of rainbow glass until he flipped them into the proper orientation with a practiced flick of his fingertips.

‘Identify,’ was the key word as he hovered his hands above the console.

“The thing about scientists is: we’re predictable. Our needs our simple, complex only to those who don’t know us, and we cannot continue our work if we are dead. Therefore, everything dangerous we make needs the capacity to be destroyed.”

His analysis allowed him to decipher the functions of the buttons on the console, a cruel smirk sliding over his lips when his hand depressed a command for ‘annihilate’, and the console hummed to life. The decontamination took mere seconds, unmaking the Mindflayer in a wash of goo that only didn’t slide out over the floor because of the pod’s tight seal. Nearby tubing glugged, slurping the remains to wherever the unlucky went. Or lucky, depending on who was asked.

“I’m sure that’s not what they intended that button for.”

“Doesn’t change how good it felt, or—ah!” Dayedan cried out, brought down by a sudden wound to his ankle, forced to lean on the console.

His attacker, an intellect devourer, stood a pace away, clicking angrily and swiping the air with it’s claws (a warning—shouldn’t warnings be given first?), feelers spread wide to give the illusion of a greater height and weight.

“You little—” Dayedan raised his foot to stomp the creature flat before Badril grabbed his good ankle and flung him away, landing on his back with a dull ‘thud’.

“Don’t hurt them!”

“EXCUSE me?” He coughed at how hard he twisted his vocal cords for that one. Nothing could have prepared him to be literally thrown by his bodyguard, or for the excuse to be Dayedan had tried to swiftly—but violently—squish the creature that bled him.

“You frightened them, I think. Using the machine, possessing a tadpole. They don’t understand you didn’t mean to attack me next.”

“Why are we psychoanalyzing the bloody thing?! I’m bleeding, that shit hurt!”

“I am sorry. I will heal you, but I couldn’t allow you to hurt my friend.”

That’s it. He must have actually died in the pod, and this was his asinine excuse for an afterlife: attempting to escape the situation that felled him, complete with Badril saying the most outrageous things with a straight face. Then again, he’s always done so—but not about aberrations, that one was new.

“Am I high? Or did you really say it’s your friend?” Dayedan said from where he lay, leaning up to watch the little brain scuttle behind Badril’s leg, nails clicking on the metal floor—and did the thing just hiss at him?

“I freed them from a damaged skull. They are grateful.” Badril knelt beside them, the tiny creature, and offered his finger for a bit of affection. The brain quivered, seemingly in delight, one of it’s feelers reaching up to coil around his first knuckle. A handshake, maybe? Or perhaps it was better to be interpreted the way a cat undulates against the ankles of a person it trusts.

‘You are our friend—you saved Us. That is our name.’

“He can’t hear you, brain. He doesn’t have a wriggler.” Dayedan tapped the side of his head.

“They can speak to you? Through the parasite?” Badril said as he reached to stroke the creature’s damp cerebellum, watching it shiver, feet tip-tapping happily, likely as close to feline excitement as they were capable.

Dayedan pulled his lips in an off-kilter pout, displeased he was beginning to find the fleshy, pointy, slimy creature adorable. Those weren’t deal-breakers, not at all, he was actually partial to less-than-fluffy and off-putting beasts with propensities for a good pet—but the only other intellect devourers on this ship had all tried to kill him. Some suspicion was warranted.

“They want to be called Us.”

“Us? So it shall be, little friend. Us.”

“Hm.” Dayedan huffed, nose in the air. “Let’s keep moving, we must be getting close to—something. Some way to drive this thing? Hopefully it has enough power to get us back to Baldur’s Gate.”

The moment Dayedan showed them his back, he allowed himself an almost-smile, hearing Badril’s encouraging “Let’s go, Us”, and the happy skittering of claws.

~*~

They didn’t have to wander far along the ship’s halls before they came to open air, with nearly one entire room of the ship eviscerated and gaping strips of fragmented flesh. Their lungs stung, suddenly smothered with the hot belches of sulfur-tinged ash rising from the Blood War beneath them.

Gods, they were in Avernus.

“Perhaps I was being optimistic,” said Dayedan.

“You?”

His tadpole twinged when he tried to roll his eyes. “We have to hope this ship can get us back to Toril in the state it’s in.”

But Badril didn’t answer him, dashing forward to meet a blur of chartreuse and the screech of the woman’s silver sword as it was blocked by the flat of his hand.

“A Githyanki? This really just gets worse.” Dayedan blanched, reflexively fingering the golden cuff on his left arm.

“You recognize the instrument of your demise? More than I should ask for—unh,” the woman staggered back, struck by the hammer in her skull of her tadpole communing with Dayedan. Memories rush passed, shared but hardly understood, except that the men before her were not actually thralls.

Yet she did not holster her sword, the arms barring her like unwavering mountain rock when she surged forward again. “I will not concede, so long as your friend remains in his stance.”

Dayedan waited behind him, ready and hardly willing to move or dim the spell circle in his palm. “You first, Githyanki warrior.”

“Dayedan, do not be obstinate,” Badril scolded him.

“He does not appear to take orders from you.” A cruel smirk slid over her speckled cheeks, teeth bared as she pushed—faltering when he did not move.

“His safety is my responsibility. Think about what that means for you.”

The streak of a red dragon near the broken maw of the ship shook the soft, unsteady floor beneath them, whipping the air into a hurricane. Their stalemate was broken by Lae’zel losing her footing, and Badril’s wide palm shooting out to protect her from toppling over the jagged edge.

“I don’t have a tadpole, so I don’t know what either of you saw, but I know we are more likely to survive together.”

Lae’zel swatted his hand away, leaving the hand un-perforated in her version of gratitude, though to her horror the drow seemed gently amused at her batting him. “On that, we agree… If your magical charge is willing to cooperate.”

“The magical charge just wants to find his bag and hopefully survive this ordeal. I care little about how we get there.” Dayedan crossed his arms.

“I’ve never fought alongside a Githyanki,” Badril smiled. Even standing in Avernus on a Nautiloid could not hinder his personality, and Lae’zel made a mortifying grunt—one she would never admit to—when his big paw shot out to shake her hand. She considered stabbing his palm anyway, her grace could only persist so long under a steadily shrinking measure of tolerance.

“Do try not to be—too pathetic about it, and don’t fall behind!” She stammered while yanking her hand back, not completely unlike a cat’s paw stuck on a bit of flannel.

“Get moving,” she huffed at both of them.

~*~

“The helm should not be far,” Lae’zel surveyed the next room for an exit, refusing to regard the pods dotted around the room with more than indifference.

“Wait.” Badril held up his palm. “Listen.”

Dayedan’s ears perked up to focus his hearing, before pointing to the pod along the wall. “There.”

“We don’t have time for stragglers—” Both elves shushed her, to her chagrin that was beginning to nudge up alongside homicidal rage.

‘Get me out of this damn thing! Please!’ A woman’s voice shouted quietly, muffled by the thick glass of the container, her fists barely making quiet thumps as she pounded with what looked like all her strength.

“I can get this open, it’ll only take a moment—” Dayedan pulled down his goggles just to be outmaneuvered by the splintering snap of glass shattering, of flesh ripped apart as Badril shredded the front of the pod off.

“Or he can do that.”

The woman inside fell into Badril’s arms, too exhausted to protest until her bearings came back to her. She stared up at him, the white hair falling free from his hair leather, the dusky brown of his skin what spoke of an under-dweller touched by the sun.

“You’re—a drow?” She smothered her embarrassment with a pissy frown, pushing at his chest to both be released and dust off the links of her armor. Dayedan appeared by Badril’s head.

“Two drow?” She scoffed, and spied Lae’zel standing off to the side, arms crossed and wearing a much pissier frown.

“A… peculiar little company,” she decided, with all the barest restraint to not say “horrendous” instead.

“Hang on, I’m not a drow!”, declared Dayedan. “Lae’zel was right, we have no time for stragglers.”

“Don’t mind those two. Are you hurt?” said Badril, faithfully sitting by her side.

“I’m all right, nothing a little healing spell can’t—” She tried to flinch away as his obsidian hands began to glow, ghosting over her knuckles until the bones stopped aching and the cuts sealed, dried blood beginning to fleck away.

“A cleric? As am I: Shadowheart.”

“Badril. Don’t mind them, really. Lae’zel and Dayedan. They’re both terrible at meeting people, even if we’ve already had this talk about needing allies to leave this realm.”

His tone spoke of scolding, as did his hard golden eyes, but both companions only gave their own “tch” and “chk” to express their reluctant acquiescence.

“Oh, and that’s Us.” He pointed to the Intellect Devourer following them, sniffing (did they have noses?) at Shadowheart’s boot, and not deterred at all by her startled gasp.

“… A most peculiar company, indeed.” She winced, wondering if perhaps being rescued had been a mistake.

~*~

Us bounced on their little clawed feet, feelers waving wildly as they shouted into the telepathic connection. ‘The helm, the helm! In here!’

“The helm is beyond that door,” Shadowheart translated.

“Then be prepared for a fight,” said Badril, more ominously than he meant to when his words were punctuated by the cracks of his knuckles in his fists.

“Oh Gods, I don’t want to fight,” Dayedan groaned, his long ears pinning back in moderate annoyance.

“By all means,” Shadowheart raised her eyebrow at him. “Do let them know, so we can sit down to tea and sandwiches instead.”

“You little—” Their imminent volatile clash became a near-miss when Badril grabbed Dayedan’s face, specifically ignoring his yelp of panic when he realized those hands had yet to be washed free of Mindflayer ooze.

“Think clearly, you foolish scientist. Your bag could be in there.”

Dayedan blinked at him. “… Oh,” he said, the wires visibly connecting in his eyes, amber bulbs on strings behind his lenses spelling “Motivation Acquired” with all the fanfare of an oath renewed.

“I’m ready.”

~*~

On the far side of the helm’s chamber, a set of controls, mounted to both the ceiling and floor, waved where the tendrils to determine their destination and speed flung about, unattached.

A lone Mindflayer noticed their entry, though they could hardly turn his back from the cambion general swinging his burning sword with the intent to cleave them in two.

“You: thralls. Leave the devil to me. Connect the transponder, so we may leave this realm.”

Lae’zel spoke to their entire little group. “Do as it says. We can deal with the ghaik once we have escaped.”

But of course, Dayedan didn’t have his ears on, instead consumed wholly by a table halfway across the room, loosely populated by various runes, a few brain jars—and his bag of holding. Badril knew to act fast, even if the ladies were unfamiliar with the peculiarities of their temporary companions.

‘Patience,’ came his ringing voice, and a single rune on his cuff began to glow, the same white glow that slid around his thumb and into his palm, materializing into a golden revolver with a silver hammer, it’s long barrel and wide grip carved with the forests of the Feywild in chased murals.

“Dayedan, don’t—” Shadowheart’s protest was cut off by Badril bodily snatching her up to dash away, only moment’s before the artificer flicked back the hammer, the pistol glowing momentarily before it fired off a volatile, exploding shot in the cambion’s face. Two more shots, two more tiny, powerful blasts, and Lae’zel was at Badril’s side to complain.

“Is he insane?!”

“No, he’s just—he’s REALLY protective of his bag, here—take her.” Badril handed off Shadowheart and the two woman scowled at each other before scrambling wide steps apart, wiping their hands on their armor.

“You idiots, do you have any idea how many man hours went into this bag? You—” Dayedan fired off one more shot, downing a stray imp as he walked over to the table to snatch his property and arrange it safely over his shoulder.

“Enough!” Badril waved to him. “We need to—” The ship lurched to one side, threatening to knock them off their feet. From across the control room, Badril could see Lae’zel on the controls, clearly unimpressed with their tactical priorities, and Shadowheart taking out her flustered frustration at being carried like a princess out on the intellect devourer beneath her boot.

The second jerk of the ship was hard enough to send them all flying to one side of the control room, and Badril reached out to snatch Dayedan to him by the strap on his precious bag.

He shouted over the alarms and crashing of the cambions into various equipment, the rest of the imps clinging their feet to the walls of the ship. “Don’t tense—!”

“Are we going to die?!” Dayedan shouted back.

He clamped a big hand over his mouth. “We’re going to crash! Don’t tense your body!”

“Mmfrr!!” He heard the artificer cry against his hand as he tucked him under his chin.

Alas, blackness and silence would come before any impact they might have expected. Soft and beguiling, like the double-edged reward of divine intervention.

[taste-in-music]

taste-in-music’s top 30 songs of 2022

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my annual countdown of my 30 favorite songs of the year. 2022 had a lot of great music releases, and I’m so excited to recount the songs I replayed throughout the year. Now, on with the list!

This year was so jam-packed I have ten honorable mentions to share before we get to the list proper: tears in the club by FKA Twigs ft. The Weeknd, Destination l’amour by Pi Ja Ma, Little Freak by Harry Styles, Fast Times by Sabrina Carpenter, EMPATHY 4 BETHANY by Saya Gray, Be Cool by Maggie Rogers, This Hell by Rina Sawayama, Heavy Heart by Bartees Strange, Karma by Taylor Swift, and Shotgun by Soccer Mommy

F2F by SZA: “F2F” was a fast favorite that came late in the year, mostly for how pleasantly surprising it was. The 2000s pop-punk revival has been percolating for the past few years, and SZA’s entry into the genre suits her frighteningly well. She’s written on the complications of revenge sex and missing an ex before, but the area-ready bombast of the guitar-driven instrumental elevates it to the next level. It may have looked to the past for sonic inspiration, but it feels fresh.

君に夢中 (Kimini Muchuu) by Hikaru Utada: I didn’t know what to expect when I clicked play on J-pop icon Hikaru Utada’s new album on a whim, but when I heard “君に夢中,” which translates to “crazy about you” in English, I was immediately struck by a feeling of familiarity. It may be because the opening synth riff reminds me of “Boys Of Summer,” it may be Utada’s impassioned delivery, it may be the rattling hi-hats that instate an undeniable groove on the song’s back end. Whatever it is, Utada managed to capture something ethereal on this track, and I can’t wait to explore more of her catalogue in the future.  

Flower (In Full Bloom) by Luna Li ft. Dreamer Isioma: Romantic angst never sounded so damn dreamy. On “Flower (In Full Bloom),” Luna Li pleads with a lover that refuses to put in the effort in a relationship, while Dreamer Isioma provides the opposing perspective speaking about how the spark has already died. As the song progresses, the cushy soundscape of twinkling keys escalates to a bitching guitar solo that makes for one hell of a final moment.

Kissing Lessons by Lucy Dacus: If nothing else, “Kissing Lessons” is a marvel of concision. Each detail Dacus compiles, bracelet charms, hair tosses, dreams of buying a three-story house, all come together to form a rich vignette about a young girl’s budding sexuality and growing inculcation into gender roles in just under two minutes. Place those details over a rollicking rock instrumental and you’ve got on special sucker punch of a song that gives you just enough to want to know more. The only choice, then, is to hit repeat.

It’s Raining by Superorganism ft. Dylan Cartlidge and Stephen Malkmus: For Superorganism, there is no sample too silly, no instrumental flourish too strange to throw into their melting pot. Describing “It’s Raining” from their sophomore album World Wide Pop means describing the barrage of baffling moments it throws at warp speed. Frontwoman Orono Noguchi sings about a “cyborg grilled-cheese-sandwich machine” over thunderclaps. English rapper Dylan Cartlidge spits bars about Elon Musk over a backing chorus of what sounds like demented Muppets. Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus’s lyrics about riding a horse-drawn carriage are ushered in with clip-clopping hooves and a sample of a neigh. These moments come together to form a loopy, loping confection that’s as absurd as it is addictive.

Superfan by Chelsea Jade: On “Superfan,” Chelsea Jade navigates the blurred lines of talking to a crush, a situation where you’re trading adversarial jabs and confrontational quips and you can never tell if you’re flirting or fighting. Ultimately, Jade reveals the obsession lying beneath the surface, identifying herself as a “superfan” trying to play it cool. Driving home the playful awkwardness is Jade’s use of vocal samples throughout, whether they’re narrating along to her conversation or splicing through the chorus with hiccup-y clips of harmonization. It’s a song that cuts through the guise to reveal the vulnerability at its core.

Holding Back by BANKS: In the years since her debut, BANKS has become my go-to artist for electropop bangers that conjure emotional vulnerability and goddess-level confidence alike. “Holding Back” may be an outpouring of memories in the wake of a doomed relationship, but the hard-hitting electronic groove and boosted bass breathe new life into a familiar concept. As BANKS switches between vulnerable coos and full-chested belts, she unleashes the innermost desire for her care to be reciprocated. “I wrote you a melody,” she sings in the chorus, “can’t you see that?”

Whatever Fits Together by Skullcrusher: Skullcrusher has perfected the art of weaving immersive tapestries from whispy sonic fragments, a strummed guitar here, a gossamer synthesizer there, a lyrical fragment about leaving home to tie it all into a single package. “Whatever Fits Together” pulls disparate pieces from their distinct places in the ether to form something transient and melancholy, the mournful tone of Helen Ballentine’s voice balanced by a sunny tambourine. It’s ephemeral, it’s beautiful, it all fits together perfectly.

Another Man’s Jeans by Ashe: Ashe may have broken onto the pop scene with brokenhearted ballads, but there’s always been a confidence and cleverness to her delivery that’s made her stand out. On her comeback single “Another Man’s Jeans,” she douses her witty songwriting with pure funk concentrate and struts through a kiss-off to a situationship with more swagger than she’s ever showcased on tape before. It makes for one of the most fun party jams of the year.

girlfriend by hemlocke springs: I first encountered hemlocke springs via an Instagram Reel where she posted a video propositioning “do u wanna hear the weirdest bridge you’ll ever hear in ur entire life?” The subsequent bridge shows springs hurling her voice up and down the scale with reckless abandon over a spritely synth groove, and wile it might not be the “weirdest bridge” I’ve ever heard, it certainly was one of the most memorable the year had to offer. The rest of the song, a blasé kiss-off to a potential suitor, pulls of the rare achievement for a viral song and lives up to the catchiness of the initial clip.

Spitting Off the Edge of the World by Yeah Yeah Yeahs ft. Perfume Genius: “Spitting Off The Edge of the World” is awesome in the archaic sense, encapsulating the simultaneous awe and terror that comes from facing something so much bigger than yourself. It’s a song that earns it galactic sense of scope from the quiet moments it provides to contrast it, as Karen O and Perfume Genius trade demure, flitting verses before the chorus kicks in on the heels of a larger-than-life barrage synths and guitars. It’s titanic, it’s triumphant, it’s just awesome, (in that it’s also just damn great.)

The Loneliest Time by Carly Rae Jepsen ft. Rufus Wainwright: I remember when this song was released just ahead of The Loneliest Time album and questioning how this collaboration could possibly work. As soon as I heard it, the answer was clear: never question Carly Rae Jepsen. At this point, Jepsen has boiled pop music down to a science, but that doesn’t mean it’s sterile or forced. The string-adorned, disco-inflected groove on “The Loneliest Time” is the perfect landscape for Jepsen and Wainwright to trade verses about giving an old flame a second chance. It all culminates in that excellent bridge where Jepsen enthusiastically declares “I’m coming back for you baby / I’m coming back for you!” I, too, will continue coming back to this song, and Jepsen’s catalogue as a whole, when I need a pick up from my own personal loneliest times.  

fairy song by beabadoobee: Throughout her second album Beatopia, beabadoobee’s jaunty melodies and sugar-sweet vocals just barely cover a greater desperation for care and connection percolating beneath the surface. The best demonstration of this is “fairy song,” where a running list of self-care tasks atop perky pianos slowly cracks apart until it fully breaks into a buzzy whirlwind of distortion and beabadoobee’ screams just barely audible in the background. Then, just as the pandemonium reaches its peak, the song pulls itself back together and returns to the chipper atmosphere it began with. Ignoring one’s distress will only take you so far before the weight becomes too much to bear. Sometimes, drinking water and going outside isn’t enough. Letting the mess fly free every so often might just be the key to moving forward.

Cardigan by Sophie Cates: “Cardigan” is my silly pop song of the year, the track I turned to when I needed an instant sugar rush of endorphins. Sure, Sophie Cates rhymes “again” with “again” with “cardigan” with “again” again on the hook, but when it's set against the most instantly catchy melody of 2022, I hardly even notice. That’s not a slight against Cates’s writing though, the other choice details she employs throughout the song paint a vivid picture of a romance that’s lost its sparkle, and the wistful desire for the magic to return. It’s that undercurrent of longing that elevates “Cardigan” from being just a silly pop song to a great silly pop song, one that sticks around long after the initial rush has passed. 

Bump by Dora Jar: Dora Jar’s music captures the dark whimsy of a fairy tale, but the real fairy tales where the pixie dust and glass slippers come with a hungry wolf or vengeful witch lurking in the shadows. It’s a musical world that’s a little spooky, rife with curiosity, and lit up with a flicker of excitement. “Bump” is one of the best demonstrations of this quality, with Dora Jar describing the wonder of a chance encounter that may escalate into something more. The song is accented with astonished gaps, a swampy chorus of backing vocals, and an air-tight beat. It’s sweet and wondrous and a little claustrophobic, sonically capturing that tight-throated, heart-hammering anticipation to see what comes next.

In The Eyes Of Our Love by Yumi Zouma: “In The Eyes Of Our Love” is good in a way that just feels obvious, providing a breezy yet danceable energy that’s poised to play out the romantic climax of a teen movie from the 90s. Beneath its cheery surface, though, is a tremor of anxiety. Lead vocalist Christie Simpson signs of crumbling walls, splitting lips, and looming storms, worries that accelerate and melt away over the song's duration. Every great pop song grows all the greater with a sense of urgency, and “In The Eyes Of Our Love” threads that needle effortlessly while still being danceable as hell. What more could you want?

Part Of The Band by The 1975: Over the past few years, The 1975 have twisted the anthemic pop-rock that put them on the map to reveal the absurdity and anxiety at the heart of modern life. On “Part Of The Band,” the band’s first single off their 2022 album Being Funny In A Foreign Language, frontman Matty Healy’s musings on social upheaval are equal parts hilarious and insightful. After stuffing the song full of dizzying rhymes, (“vaccinista tote bag-chic baristas” with “communista keisters” especially comes to mind,) Healy finishes on a searing moment of self-reflection: “am I just some post-coke, average, skinny bloke / calling his ego imagination?” With a twitchily elegant backdrop crafted from plucky string swells, chopped-up vocal samples, and quivering synths, it’s a song whose catchiness, cleverness, and creativity lives up to the critiques on display.

ALIEN SUPERSTAR by Beyoncé: It was difficult to pick a favorite track from RENAISSANCE, an album so consistently excellent in its delivery of dancefloor euphoria. In the end, I had to go with the self-love celebration “ALIEN SUPERSTAR.” Every element of this song oozes self-assurance, from the spacy disco instrumental to Beyoncé’s vocals, which switch from sensual cooing to a British accent-inflected declarations to braggadocious belting at the drop of a hat. The result is a track poised to dominate dancefloors across the galaxy for years to come, and who’s surprised? She’s one of one. She’s number one. She’s the only one.

Nothing Gives Me Pleasure by Girlpool: I clicked play on Girlpool’s fifth album Forgiveness without any clear expectations. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be blasted with a wave of distorted synths followed by the most memorable opening line of the year: “Do you even want me if I even have to ask? / Break it to me gently with your fingers up my ass.” It’s an unforgettable one-two punch that immediately establishes the core themes of the album, trying to reconcile the desire for emotional and physical intimacy, and how those desires often conflict with and contradict one another. “Nothing Gives Me Pleasure” walks the power balance in a relationship built on mismatched expectations, trying to sate yourself with sex and coming up short. The soundscape skitters and heaves, the distortion ratcheting up as Harmony Tividad reiterates the title line over and over: “Nothing gives me pleasure like the words I know you won’t say.” 

cool by Uffie: Uffie made a name for herself in the bloghouse scene of the early 2010s, a musical moment defined by glitchy earworms, a punkish dedication to keeping the party going as long as possible, and lots and lots of glitter. For her 2021 comeback single with Company Records, “cool,” Uffie evolves the quirky maximalism of her past into something slick, modern, and effortlessly, well, cool. On “cool,” Uffie digs for gold in moments of stillness amidst chaos, chronicling moments of reprieve during a night out: sleepy Uber rides, poolside kisses, eating cereal with her partner. The best demonstration of this comes when, at the precipice of each chorus, all the music cuts out for a moment before Uffie ushers in the razor-sharp groove with a simple utterance of the song’s title, delivered with a blasé surety of someone who’s seen it all. As she sings in the song’s third verse, she’s “got nothing left to prove.” 

HENTAI by ROSALÍA: Amidst the raucous genreclash that makes up the rest of the MOTOMAMI tracklist, the gentle pianos of “HENTAI” may initially feel a bit out of place. But if you listen closely, there’s much to discover beneath its deceptively simple surface. First off, the lyrics are filthy as hell, (I know, big surprise for a song literally called “HENTAI,”) but the cheeky references to bike riding and tape making are balanced out by a tender backdrop that knows when to up the bombast. Whether it be the barely-there string flourishes, fluttering vocal runs, or the skittering blast of drums that drives the song’s closing moments home, “HENTAI” provides just enough off-kilter details that make the song transcend from mere sexy piano ballad into only “La ROSALÍA” could provide.

Simulation Swarm by Big Thief: Despite Big Thief’s fifth album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You dropping all the way back in February, I found “Simulation Swarm” shamefully late in the year. But as soon as I heard it, I knew it would be on this list, and pretty high up too. Adrianne Lenker crafts songs that are immediately familiar, like I must have been listening to them from childhood. The details she employs throughout "Simulation Swarm” balance beauty and malice, painting the dark fairy tale and casual terror of modern life “crystal blood like a dream true,” “swallows in the windless field,” “river of light who I love / That I sing to in the belly of the empty night.” Set against a locomotive folk instrumental, “Simulation Swarm” feels like a gentle hug from the abyss, voicing the ability to face danger and walk forward with hope. 

Till We Run Out Of Air by Hatchie: I thought I knew what to expect going into Hatchie’s sophomore album Giving The World Away. Early singles like “Quicksand” and “This Enchanted” delivered another helping of the joyful shoegaze pop she’s been delivering for years. It’s a sound I’m always willing to gobble up, but there was an echo of something greater hovering right beneath the surface. With the final song on the album, Hatchie delivered a falcon punch of a finale that transforms that spark into a fireworks show. With its susurrus of swirling, watery synths and arena-ready chorus, “Till We Run Out Of Air” plows right through me with each repeated spin. It’s a song enraptured in the fine line between destruction and exhilaration, tracing the final moments in a romance with larger-than-life bombast. Perhaps the best encapsulation of this euphoria comes at the precipice of the chorus. “Open the curtains and let in the light,” Hatchie sings, before a glowing blossom of synths barrels the listener right into the song’s most anthemic refrain. It’s like the light at the end of the tunnel finally breaking through the darkness at just the right moment.

doomsday by Lizzie McAlpine: On her second album five seconds flat, Lizzy McAlpine elevated her personal songwriting with a cinematic scope. This approach is immediately introduced on the album’s opening “doomsday,” a slow-burning ballad chronicling a breakup though the lens of hindsight. McAlpine circles through deathly metaphors throughout the song: pulling the plug, violent ends, her partner as a “murderer” initiating their split on Halloween, the sample of a bone being split in half. This ghoulish gravitas of is backed up by an orchestral swell that makes the melodrama feel earned. These compounding elements build up the song’s momentum until McAlpine’s final revelation slams into you at full force: “I would’ve married you / If you’d stuck around / I feel more free than I have in years / Six feet in the ground.” The relationship may be dead and gone, but McAlpine makes it clear that she’s only getting started.

Lullabye by Grace Ives: Throughout Janky Star, Grace Ives concocts idea-stuffed soundscapes that vacillate between the anxieties and thrills of young adulthood. The earworms come so casually that they even materialize in the album’s moments of brevity. “Lullabye” is a perfect example of this. As the album’s closer, it shows the chaos winding down, giving way to moments of reflection. Ives’s breathily narrates the “lovely mess” of her life: watching movies on repeat, casually attempting gymnastics moves in the kitchen, and swapping confessions with a loved one late into the night. Set against gauzy landscape of synths, skittering drums, and chirpy backing vocals, I turned to the casual wisdom of “Lullabye” all the times this year when life got overwhelming. “No it’s nothing to be sad about,” Ives sings in the song’s closing moments, “It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.” It’s a welcome reminder of the power ruminating on small joys can hold.

Say It by SASAMI: On her latest album Squeeze, SASAMI took to flipping white male-dominated genres like punk and metal to articulate her own rage. One of the best examples of this is “Say It,” an unapologetic frenzy of glitchy rock scuzz. In an Apple Music interview, SASAMI stated that the song was “about the pain of someone not communicating with you,” carried out as she trades places with a bassy, distorted mirror of her own voice. Situated atop a strutting groove concocted of squealing guitars, grumbling bass, and booming drums, it all comes together to form something equal parts cathartic and terrifying. “Say It” might be one of the best rock songs the year had to offer, but amidst the ruckus, it’s first and foremost a call to throw your repentance to the wind and speak your mind. 

Yuck by Charli XCX: If you’ve been on TikTok for the past year or so, odds are you’ve come across the idea of “the ick,” the moment in a romantic relationship where something as simple as watching your beau chase a ping-pong ball across the floor flips your feelings of adoration into disgust. It only makes sense that one of pop’s most forward–thinking artists would capture this cultural phenomenon with masterful specificity and simplicity. Over a bouncy synth-heavy beat, Charli XCX lays out the moment when her love interest’s gooey romantic devotion starts to drive her away. Throughout “Yuck,” she takes romantic tropes like puppy dog eyes and bouquets of roses and flips them on their head. The result is the definitive song to throw on when the candy hearts get cloying. After spending the last few years of her career pushing pop to its very limits, her latest album Crash was a welcome reminder that even without all the hyperpop flourishes, she can still write damn good and effortless catchy bangers like this.

Free by Florence + The Machine: How do you persevere in the face of suffering? seems to be the question Florence Welch fixates on most throughout her projects with Florence + The Machine. She’s turned to several places in the past: making a break for freedom on her breakout hit “Dog Days Are Over,” self-destructive love on rock bangers like “Ship To Wreck” and “Shake It Out,” and reconciliation on her previous album, High As Hope. While the definite answer for such a question may never materialize, Welch has recognized how music can be one of the most potent salves for such woes. Her 2022 album Dance Fever provides several welcome additions to Welch’s growing catalog of musical catharsis, but it was “Free,” a free-spirited banger co-written by Jack Antonoff, that ended up hitting me the hardest. “Free” taps into something primal yet graceful, a raucous recognition that sometimes, the most inspiring feelings of freedom come hand in hand with singing at the top of your lungs. “For a moment, when I'm dancing,” Welch declares with titanic vocals over a propulsive drum beat and glittering keys, “I am free.” This relief may be temporary, but for the moment, it’s nothing short of magical.

American Teenager by Ethel Cain: On her debut album Preacher’s Daughter, Ethel Cain chronicles a journey of adolescent ennui and religious turmoil through sprawling, atmospheric ballads. Before she gets into all that, she also proves that she can write a teen pop anthem for the ages. “American Teenager” is the first official song on the album, and while it may be shorter and more immediate than its predecessors, it’s no less deftly crafted. Cain harnesses the larger-than-life, anthemic synth pop of the 80s, accenting the soundscape with shining synths, booming drums, and a bright saxophone solo. While the song relishes in altruistic Americana imagery of crying on the bleachers and whiskey-fueled rebellion, Cain also acknowledges the darkness lurking beneath the jubilation on the surface. The opening verse describes her neighbor’s brother being shipped home in a coffin, “another red heart taken by the American dream.” Still, despite this darkness, there’s a hope at the core of “American Teenager” that catapults it into the stratosphere, that suggests that maybe someday, those promises might come to fruition.

touch tank by quinine: I first came across “touch tank” as a fragment on TikTok, a looping clip of quinnie lip synching along to the first few lines of the chorus: “He’s so pretty / when he goes down on me.” And what an attention-grabbing set of lines they are, it’s not everyday that you stumble across a sweet, unassuming bedroom pop song explicitly discussing cunnilingus. But it isn’t just the refreshingly matter-of-fact  references to sex that make “touch tank” stick in the memory, it’s the atmosphere of intimacy quinnie builds around those lines. In its final form, “touch tank” builds an aqueous wonderland of small yet palpably intimate moments, freshly laundered t-shirts, discovering new tattoos, choosing to be gentle. “touch tank” is a tribute to those early stages in a relationship where you’re poking and prodding with care, trying to reach tender places without drawing blood. Rounded out with warm guitars, cooing flutes, and just a twinge of vocal distortion, it’s a song that feels lived in, welcoming, drawing you deeper into its depths with each repeated spin. 

What were your favorite songs from this year? Did I miss anything? Leave a comment or tag some in the reblogs and let me know.

This year has been an absolute whirlwind, and I hope you all have some good memories from it. Here’s to a safe, healthy 2023! 

[chireikiden]

Going on places like r/touhou and JP message boards, it seems like more and more people have been turning on FDS lately and actively complaining about it. Why do you think that is? Because the reaction is a lot more hostile than is the norm for ZUN's work.

I mean. I and my ask box have been complaining about it more or less since the start, although I've had a good time with it (as both reader and translator) regardless. Maybe that is a weird atmosphere I've created on my own end, though I wouldn't think my influence ranges very wide. I don't go on reddit or message boards.

While I don't know whether and why there's some recent spike in complainers, I think there's absolutely no disputing that the story is far more of a mess to untangle than any other official Touhou work. Usually I've thought ZUN's main problem with the various manga etc. was making the "wider plot" wrap up in a satisfying manner, and even that was mostly stuff like WaHH's ending or the "Hell arc" seemingly teased across multiple media that kinda fizzled out for now; on a chapter-to-chapter level, he's had his quirks, but not that notable problems. CDS is messy in ways that cannot be explained by just saying he struggles with a continuous story. Almost makes you feel there's some fundamental communication breakdown in how the audience expects and everything about it suggests a "mystery" or "thriller", even if not a proper detective story, but what's written is more of a funny-slash-melodramatic romp from situation to situation where anything can be brushed aside as soon as it's off-screen. But that genre, too, would be even more unusual for him.

Comparing Ginmokusei and Akimaki's chapters makes it extremely apparent just how much the artist can influence the tone and style of the story besides just the art, making me wonder how much of the weirdness could be attributed to them as well; however, I'm not gonna default to diverting the trolley their way just to protect ZUN's pedestal.

[i-revolve-around-you]

I think it's about time I wrote a proper introduction post

Hey y'all, welcome to my blog! I'm a tumblr veteran but decided to start over on a new account recently. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

🎵 the basics 🎵

nick ~ 28 ~ he/him ~ bi ~ white author ~ musician ~ gamer ~ nerd multi-fandom/shitposting this blog will be (mostly) SFW, but i still would rather not have minors following me. i just prefer interacting with adults, sorry. it's not personal. my likes, however, will be N/SFW, so be warned

my messages and ask box are always open! feel free to hit me up!

more info (including other links, and a list of fandoms/things i like) under the cut

tags: my ramblings | my face

🤩 a bit more about me 🤩

heya! the name's nick. i've been on tumblr since like...2011 or so? i was really big into it in my college years (2012-2017) but after The Great Tumblr Porn Ban of 2017 I've sorta been drifting in an out. When The Great Twitter Debacle of 2022 happened, I decided to migrate back on a new account so I could start fresh.

this account was immediately suspended because of my side-blog. which was a bit too unsafe for work for tumblr's guidelines ig 🙄 not mentioning that they had just recently updated their policy and everything i was posting was PERFECTLY FINE under them but w/e

so i started another one lmao and that's the one that you're looking at right now! my other account has since been restored but at that point I was already situated over here so like. whatever i guess. lol

i'm currently 28, and bisexual. semi-recently out of the closed as bi, actually. for years i identified as gay, but over time i started realizing "actually...i do kinda like girls?" i still identified as "gay" cuz it was easier than saying "so like i'm bi-sexual but mostly homo-romantic but also maybe potentially demi-sexual but only when it comes to real people?" then around 2020 it just kinda clicked with me, and the label of "bisexual" just felt right

anywho you didn't come here for my full life story. here's just a little bit more about me:

i'm a total nerd. i love video games, playing Yugioh, DND (just starting to get into that one), etc. i'm a writer. i've written several fanfics (some of which i'm really proud of, some of which i'm...less), and have a goal of one day publishing a novel (my main genre is YA contemporary with queer themes and characters). i'm a musician. i actually got my bachelor's degree in music (BA in Music). my main instrument is drums/percussion, but i'm learning a bit of guitar and can play a little bit of piano. i'm also a composer/songwriter, though haven't been writing as much these days. if i write anything cool i'll be sure to post it here!

🎭 the artist formerly known as 🎭

previous account: @excuuuseme-princess other previous urls: musicdork, sincerely-whelmed, futuremehatesme, @nickplayswhat, @spearfeld, among others, probably

🔍 other places to find me 🔎

tumblr sideblog (N/SFW, seriously be warned): @fadingfast1 twitter: @libromancerfire n/sfw twitter (again...be warned): @whatifitspriv tiktok: @libromancer_fireburst ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkjaden825698

⚔ fandoms/things i like ⚔

Books 📚

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Orphan X series by Gregg Hurwitz

Darius the Great is Not Okay / Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram

TV shows 📺

Arrowverse (especially Legend of Tomorrow [r.i.p. 😢])

Doctor Who

Travelers

Manifest

Movies 📽

Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse

Love, Simon

Cartoons/Anime 🍞

Yu-Gi-Oh! (DM, GX, 5Ds, ZeXal, Arc-V, currently watching VRAINS and Sevens, have yet to start Go-Rush)

Code Lyoko*

Video Games 🎮

Resident Evil (played all mainline games, some spinoffs, faves are RE2make, Village, and Revelations 2, Ethan Winters is my husband)

Horizon (Zero Dawn, Forbidden West)

Persona (mostly 3 and 5, still need to finish 4, but Kanji is bae)

Fire Emblem (have played all except FE1, 2, 3, and about halfway through 5 but keep losing interest, Engage was FANTASTIC, but Ike is my favorite character)

Zero Escape (999, VLR, ZTD, Sigma Klim is my husband)

Life is Strange (particularly LiS2, but I love them all)

The Legend of Zelda

Golden Sun*

Music Artists 🎼

Paramore

Neck Deep

The Wonder Years*

Other

Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG

*fandoms/media I was once very involved in, but not as much anymore, still enjoy though fandoms/media i consider to be some of my faves/am very active in will (try and remember to) update as new things become relevant to me lmfaoo

[maskedinstructor]

The Adventures of David Dashiki-Stories of an African American Hero- Year of the Black Man 2024

Glad To Be Back at You

What makes me extremely happy in this year of the Black Man is we do not need anyone's permission to continue what Marcus Garvey has started. Daddy Dashiki says it is the proper thing to do and he is a man of honor and integrity. I grant the remainder of my speaking time to my father, the most intelligent man I know. I am certain that he will never lead us down the wrong path. Here again is my Dad.

Daddy Dashiki: Thank you, David. I'll start right in. People we do not need any one's permission to want to improve themselves. In fact, in America that initiative is highly respected. What is beneficial to the Black male is wonderful for America. I have had small meetings with some of you because of the fear that this declaration that 2024 is the Year of the Black Man appears to be too frightening for America to swallow all at once. Gentlemen, No one asked for special permission to suppress our vote, send us to inferior underachieving schools and even deny us jobs when we were even more qualified than the applicant selected. We, brothers, seek not conflict or confusion, trouble or terrorism. Rather, we honor our Constitution and pursue the opportunity to better our situation and condition in our country We discussed the methods we might use to inspire and motivate our children to read more and that we as Black men have the responsibility and duty to develop strategies to assist our young men to desire and expect more of themselves. We made it abundantly clear that we are the creators of our children. We demand more of ourselves and them. We will never again shrink from the role of parent and first teacher. We don't have to explain the reason for any action we take. The Constitution, written by leaders of the country, to which we both swear allegiance requires that we start our project with a fight against ignorance. An uniformed electorate is a malignant cancer, stage 4. It , ignorance, has divided us, It has created in us the fear to act even as we witness our children fail in school through no fault of their own, are subjected to a lack of scholarly instruction and are consistently relegated to life in special education classes throughout America. Our children suffer these mis-adventures daily. It is time for a change. It is time that we relieve the pain of learning from our young people. We need to increase their opportunities for happiness and success. This is our responsibility. We choose this year 2024, to fulfill our obligations.

Thus, it begins, the struggle for equality. We start as we promised we would, with a war on ignorance. It is all about READING. The foundational literature comes from the writings of Marcus Garvey. It was he who began the first movement of Black folks with his UNIA: Our primer is Selected Writings and Speeches of MARCUS GARVEY.

Reading is the most powerful tool WE can possess in the war against ignorance, illiteracy. In this 2024, the Year of the Black Man, we shall explore as many genres or pieces of literature and we deem necessary to declare our children independent, liberated, fluent and competent. Some of you might not even consider our choices literature. However, if our young Black males must read it to gain some valuable information, then we explore it/them:

Literature: The Classics, Comic Books, Music Lyrics, Rap, Peoery, Menus, Showbills, History, Resumes...

The skills to be acquired: Types of Reading: Skimming, Scanning, Intensive, Speed Reading 4 C's of Reading: Connections, Challenges, Concepts, Changes 5 Basic Reading Skills: Phonics, Phonemic Awareness, Vocabulary, Fluency, Comprehension.

Let the serious work begin. Time for discussion and approval has ended...Hallelujah!!!!

[coolbeansbuddyofmine]

ro I know we rarely interact but curious about ✨ and adding the 🌈 for funsies <3

HI SEL!! i've been so ia for the longest time and im still in the middle of a lot of work but i have the time to take a breath it feels like

also yay thank u for ur ask!!

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

so, as per usual, i'm not a concise person so i'll give two varieties of answers for this between my finished fics and my to-be-completed ones (bc i will finish all my fics one day---they're incomplete not abandoned)

so finished fics:

so my contenders are between both of these because they were really specific ideas that either i had (in the case of the lawschool fic) or that were sent to me (the f4 fic) and i had a lot of fun writing it. the general speed of the actual writing was very very fast because i was so invested and i knew what i would write too.

of course, my popular fics like the famous aus in vincenzo fandom and the countless f4 fics were very very fun too, but they get their due credit. i think these are some of my (if i can say this even) more "underrated" fics so to speak. people do like them and all, but i think i like it much more than people do, if that makes sense.

i want to have the same energy as a writer bc i find myself lacking it that i had when i was writing this approximately a year before, and the same strength of my brainrot ideas that motivate me to write.

for my unfinished fics:

so the fiery priest fic was the product of a fever dream at night that i spent furiously writing down in a notebook as soon as i woke up, and i think it's one of my best works personally. if you've watched the show, i highly encourage you to read this fic of mine. i think it deals with the emotional genres of second chance romance, enemies to lovers, angst that i think are my strengths. so yes, if the fandom were more popular, i think (hope) it'd get the due credit it deserves.

the vincenzo fic is really a labour of love (as are all my fics, but this one a bit more so). i love intolerable cruelty the movie, and i think men who think of themselves as tough pining for the strong as needles unbreakable woman is beautiful trope and i believed it'd translate well to the show. i just enjoyed writing it so much, and i'm so cognizant of all my unfinished fics that i know exactly what i need to finish, my ideas that i had because my entire ao3 page is a labour of love for me in between a hectic college and work live juggling school and 5 jobs and extracurriculars. so, yeah, i hope my vincenzo mutuals show this fic the love i have for it.

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

i think the easy answer to this one is:

so, this ended my two-ish month hiatus and i've not published anything since though i've written a lot of fanfic and other creative works as well. long story short, this was a very difficult and heartfelt piece for me that was less a fanfic and more a personal, third-person essay towards my mental state at the time after a very painful breakup with my longterm partner and then a subsequent short-lived fling/situationship that went from 5 to 90 in very little time and also ended badly. i've since been just healing from that sort of, and this particular piece was the rawest i'd felt right after both instances and i was very emotionally spent and used and unstable.

(i'm much better now! if any of y'all were wondering <3)

the better, proper answer(s) as a writer would be:

so, the nevertheless fic, as a character study was honestly an ugly exploration into myself because i relate to bitna as a person painfully so. i've been her (pretty recently too) and while our situations are/were different, i think the emotional resonance within us is strong and so while it started off as something fun, it became a challenging exploration of the self disguised as a character study. (i realize this is a similar answer to the previous fic but idc)

for the lawschool fic, i love hanahaki and i love angst. like i'll read and angst and i'll cry and i'll enjoy that sweet sweet pain and emotional catharsis and there's an alternate ending version to this in my drafts somewhere that made me ugly-cry claire danes circa romeo and juliet style and i think grief and unrequited love is so deeply personal to me as a theme i fucking love it.

thanks sel for your ask!! as per usual, i wasnt concise at all but i did say i wouldnt be in the beginning.

love,

coolbeans (ro)

link to the original post if anyone else wants to ask me more! i'm finally back (proper) for the better i think <3 ask me more things im currently accepting prompts <3 !!!

[fictionpad01]

All you need to know about the concept of the literary fiction

The literary fiction is a kind of book, which is also very commonly referred to as a novel in the general public. Basically novel is the very common word which is being used by the people all across the globe and literally friction is the high school English kind of word for the same.

Literery fiction is a different kind of book which does not fit in the list of genres such as romantic, adventurous, thriller, comedy, drama, horror, or even any of the other types of genre. Basically there are so many different types of topics on which a book is being written but this particular book of literery fiction is not any one of the particular type. It is a completely different and unique kind of book, which is too cool to read.

Basically in this particular book the form of writing is considered to be very precious and also very wonderful because it shows the proper and deep kind of feelings of the person in a very detailed manner. So that the other person reading this particular book will enjoy each and every single sentence of the book and can understand all the characters of the books in a very deep sense.

Why should the literary fiction books be considered above all?

This is a very wonderful kind of concept for writing any book. Each and every single person should read this. Plus in addition to the same we can also say that the concept of literary friction books are known to be majorly fiction stories so basically this is not the thing that is being happened in actual life but it is a thing which has been prepared in the mind of the author.

Basically this particular book of literary fiction is known to have majorly focused more on the situation of the person as well as the human being rather than the actual character which is the major part of writing any kind of this particular book.