#first post in nearly two months and this is what I produce

[imintobones]

Do you guys think their periods ever synced up

[dixons-sunshine]

Hiii! First of all i love love love your writing i get so excited every time i see you’ve posted ❤️ i was wondering if i could request a daryl x fem!reader where they’re just chilling out watching a silly cartoon and he’s finally relaxing and happy to be with his girl, maybe it could be young daryl it’s up to you. Thank you for producing such good work for us all to read!!! 🫶

Selfish | Young!Daryl Dixon x Young!Fem!Reader

*GIF isn't mine.*

Summary: When you woke up and walked into the kitchen, you didn't expect to find your mom sitting there with a man you didn't know. And you certainly didn't expect the man to go off on your boyfriend when you didn't even know who he was.

Genre: Fluff, teeny bit of angst.

Era: Pre outbreak.

Part of the Shopping Spree, Hangout Dreams AU.

Warnings: Swearing, suggestive themes.

Word count: 2.7k.

A/n: I hope you don't mind, but I already had an idea for my next installment to this universe, and thought this idea would work well with an idea I already had. To be honest, this isn't my best work and I feel like the plot is all over the place, but I hope you like this nonetheless!

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

The moon was shining brightly in the night sky, surrounded by the twinkling of millions of beautiful stars. Crickets were chirping outside in the grassy areas and owls were hooting from their spots in the trees. All the inhabitants of the trailer park were in their homes, tucked in and ready for a good night's rest.

Everyone except you and Daryl.

“M'tellin' ya, this cartoon ain't all tha'. S's'posed to be 'bout a talkin' dog helpin' reveal the culprits tha' ain't actual ghosts, yet him and tha' green shirt guy still believe in ghosts. Even after all the mysteries they solved, they still believe in 'em. S'fuckin' ridiculous.”

You rolled your eyes at him, crossing your arms over your chest and letting out a huff, albeit a playful one. “So you're telling me, real or not, that if a guy who looked like a ghost was threatening to kill you, you wouldn't run?”

“Nah, I'd run fer the fuckin' hills, I ain't denyin' tha',” Daryl stated, lazily picking at the dead skin on his thumb. “But c'mon, these guys are s'posed to be professionals. They unveil criminals tha' dress up as monsters fer a livin'. Ya can't be a fuckin' pussy durin' somethin' tha's yer job.”

“Okay, then, smartass,” you replied playfully, lightly shoving his shoulder. You giggled when Daryl wrapped his arm around you and pulled you tightly against his side, pressing a soft kiss to your temple. “How about we watch that roadrunner cartoon you like?”

Daryl's eyes lit up. “Yer serious?” he asked, excitement lacing his tone.

You nodded and nuzzled your head into his chest, flicking through the channels with the remote until you found the aforementioned cartoon. Daryl pressed a kiss to the top of your head, before wrapping his arms around you and resting his chin on top of your head. The two of you sat there, cuddled up under the blankets, simply enjoying the serene moment.

Daryl couldn't believe how lucky he got with you. After nearly a year together, the two of you were still going strong. The so-called "honeymoon phase" that people said wore off after a few months into the relationship didn't falter between the two of you. What you and Daryl shared ran much deeper than just a phase. The two of you worked hard at your relationship, making compromises and being open with one another. Daryl wasn't the most open person, but for you, he tried. Likewise, there were things you didn't normally do that you did for Daryl—you weren't the most keen person on catching fish, but you did it for him, just because he liked it. Your love for one another ran deep, so it was unlikely for the happy, giddy feeling to wear off. That spark between the two of you would never burn out.

Your laugh suddenly echoed through the trailer, soon followed by Daryl's own chuckles at a particularly funny scene in the cartoon. Daryl looked down at you in awe, marveling at how beautiful you looked. Your eyes sparkled in the light that the television emitted and your smile was more radiant than anything he's ever seen before.

Yeah, Daryl Dixon knew he was the luckiest guy on the planet.

Before he could fully register what he was doing, Daryl cupped your cheek and turned your head to him, pressing his lips against yours in a firm, passionate kiss. You were surprised at first but ultimately sunk into the feeling of his lips on yours. The kiss soon escalated from loving and sensual to heated and lustful. Daryl picked you up and helped you onto his lap, quietly groaning when you lightly grinded your hips against his, putting a pleasurable amount of pressure against his growing erection.

You pulled away slightly, resting your forehead against his. “Do you want to take this to my room?” you asked in a whisper.

You giggled when he stood up while holding you firmly against him, not saying anything. You wrapped your legs around him, and he walked the short distance to your room, kicking the door shut behind him when he reached it.

The cartoon playing on the television was forgotten of for the rest of the night.

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

Soft, feathery light kisses all over his face, shoulder blade and arm was what Daryl Dixon awoke to the next morning. Blinking away the last remnants of sleep from his mind, he turned over in the bed and locked eyes with you. You looked like a goddess to him at that moment, the sun gleaming through the window giving you a golden-like aura. You were wearing your shorts from the prior night, but you were wearing his shirt instead of your own. However, he didn't complain.

“Good morning, handsome,” you greeted him, giving him a cheerful smile.

Daryl gave you a lopsided smile in return, adjusting his head on the pillow. “Would be a better mornin' if I got a kiss,” he spoke in his raspy morning voice, sending shivers down your spine at the sound.

Complying with his not-so-subtle request, you leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to his lips. You pulled away after a few seconds, bringing your hand up to brush through his hair.

“I'm gonna make us some breakfast. Throw on a pair of pants and come meet me, okay?” you told him, your hand lingering on his cheek for a moment before withdrawing.

Daryl nodded as he watched you stand up, adjusting the sheets around him as he became painfully aware that he was as naked as the day he was born under them. “Alrigh',” he started, his eyes slowly trailing over your form, appreciating the way you looked in his shirt. “Ya look good, sunshine.”

“Thank you,” you replied, sending him a smile, before finally making your way out of your room.

You closed the door behind you and made your way to the kitchen, but stopped in your tracks when you saw your mom sitting at the table with a man you've never seen before in your life. The two were engaged in a heated argument, not even noticing your presence.

“For the love of god, Henry! You can't just come here and demand to see her after seventeen years of nothing! We've been doing just fine without you or your money, so you can leave, just like you did all those fucking years ago!”

“She's my daughter too, Cecilia! I have every right to see her.”

“Mom?” you questioned confusedly, finally making your presence known.

Your mom turned her head to you, her eyes widening in horror. However, before she could say anything, the man called Henry stood up, sending you a strained smile.

“Princess?” he questioned you, taking a step towards you.

You took a step back, unexpectedly making contact with someone behind you. You stumbled but a familiar pair of arms encircled you, steadying you. You turned your head and locked eyes with your boyfriend's beautiful blue ones.

“Wha's goin' on?” he asked you, slightly standing behind you to hide his bare upper body from your mom's and the unknown man's view. He was suddenly painfully aware that his scars were on display to a person who he did not know, and that made him want to shrink into himself and disappear.

Instantly picking up on what he was feeling, you moved to stand in front of him. You eyed the man standing in front of you warily, sending questioning glances to your mom.

“Mom? What's going on?” you asked her, feeling extremely uncomfortable under the man's intense stare. It wasn't uncommon for your mom to see you and Daryl walking out of your room in the morning—she was well aware of why he stayed over most of the time—but it certainly was the first time that she had an unknown man with her in the morning.

“Who's this?” the man asked, a slight bit of anger lacing his tone. “What the fuck are you doing sniffing around my daughter, boy?”

“What?!” you exclaimed in surprise, your eyes widening. “What the actual fuck are you talking about?”

“Sweetheart, please calm down. I can expl—”

“Shut up!” the man cut her off, turning towards you. “I come over to meet my daughter and this is what I walk in on? A fucking orgy? You couldn't even find someone better than some redneck?”

Daryl visibly stiffened. He ducked his head to avoid the man's harsh glare, uncomfortable with the way he dissected him with his eyes. The man had taken one look at Daryl and decided that his worth was nonexistent.

“Leave him out of this,” you warned him, snapping out of your confusion. Nobody had the right to target Daryl, especially not some man who, if he was your father, ran away seventeen years ago. “You don't get a say in who I date or not. And if you really are my father, what the hell makes you think that you can come in here after seventeen years and expect me to welcome you with open arms? What makes you think that you get to come into our home and play the man of the house? I don't know who you are, and after the last few minutes with your behaviour, I have no interest in getting to know you. You can go to hell.”

“Henry,” your mom jumped in, lightly shoving him back. “Get the fuck out of here before I call the cops.”

The man glared at you and your mom, before shifting his attention to Daryl again. “Well,” he started, scoffing and turning around to leave. “Like mother, like daughter. Seems like trying to get knocked up in high school is a hereditary gene.” He paused before turning back to you. “If you're smart, you can come find me at that motel near the bar. I'll be staying there.”

“Get the fuck out!” your mom yelled angrily, pushing him out.

Shutting the door once the bitter man was gone, your mom turned to you and Daryl. She looked at you sheepishly, a deep frown on her face.

“Guys, I'm so sorry,” she apologized sincerely.

“Mom, what was that?” you asked, allowing Daryl to pull you into his side, your boyfriend instantly recognizing your anxiousness. “Was that really—?”

“Your father?” she finished for you. “He is, but I really wish he wasn't.”

Your breath got caught in your throat. Unwillingly, you felt a lump form in your throat, the recent play of events turning your whole world upside down. For years, it had just been you and your mom. Your father was practically a ghost story, only being regarded as your "sperm donor". Yet there he had been mere minutes ago, standing in front of you. You felt overwhelmed, and you could feel your throat constricting.

You had to get out of there.

“I have to go,” you weakly mumbled out, withdrawing from Daryl's hold and pushing past your mom and heading out the door, walking in a familiar direction.

“Sweetheart, wait!” your mom called after you, but to no avail—you were already gone.

Daryl placed a hesitant hand on your mom's shoulder, bringing her attention to him. “I'll get her. I know where she's goin'.”

Your mom offered him a weak smile. “Thank you, Daryl,” she thanked him, vaguely motioning over to the laundry hamper at the other end of the room. “You left one of your shirts here the other day. It's in there.”

Nodding, Daryl walked over and grabbed the shirt, slipping it over his head—he was glad that his scars were once again hidden from plain view. Sparing your mom one last glance, Daryl ran out of the trailer and in the direction where you had disappeared.

A few minutes later, Daryl ended up by the river. There, just as he had predicted, you sat, your knees brought up to your chest, your bare feet resting in the cool water. You were staring straight ahead, clearly deep in thought.

“Figured I'd find ya here,” Daryl spoke softly as he sat down next to you, successfully gaining your attention.

You turned your head to him, tears falling from your eyes. The sight broke Daryl's heart. It was extremely rare to see you crying; you were always so happy and never let anything get you down, so the whole ordeal must've been too much for you.

“I'm sorry,” you brokenly whispered out, wiping the tears from your eyes.

“Fer wha'?”

“For leaving so abruptly,” you explained, tracing mindless shapes and figures into the sand beneath you with your finger. “You were probably so uncomfortable. I know how you feel about people seeing your scars and I just left. I'm really sorry, Daryl.”

It amazed Daryl how, even when it was something that didn't directly affect him and quite obviously took a huge toll on you, you still worried about him more than yourself. You were selfless and hated making just about anything about you, and even though Daryl loved that about you, in that particular moment, he wanted you to be selfish. He wanted you to make this about yourself. He wanted you to cry, to scream, to throw things. He wanted you to be mad at what happened. He didn't want you to worry about him in a moment like that.

Daryl wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into his side. “Dun' worry 'bout me,” Daryl whispered into your ear, pressing a kiss to your temple. “How are ya feelin'? And dun' try and pull tha' "m'alright" shit with me. I know ya better than tha'.”

You inhaled deeply and sniffled. “I just... Never expected to meet my father like that. I've always dreamt of meeting him, y'know? And now that I have, I don't know how to feel. On one hand, he's my father and I wanna get to know him, but on the other hand, he's clearly a fucking dick and he needs to fuck off. And my mom... Oh, god. I left my mom. She probably thinks—”

“S'okay,” Daryl reassured you, wiping away the tears that had fallen from your eyes again. “She ain't mad. She's jus' worried 'bout ya.”

“I'm overreacting,” you mumbled, shaking your head in disappointment at yourself. “A few harsh words with that man and I bolt. It's ridiculous.”

“Listen to me,” Daryl began, pulling back and cupping your face in his hands, gently forcing you to look at him. “Yer not overreacting. Everythin' tha' happened was unexpected fer ya. Ya jus' met yer dad in the worst way possible and ya were overwhelmed. Nobody blames ya fer needin' a moment to process everythin', alrigh'? Ya deserve to take a moment fer yerself, a moment to be selfish. Ya hear me?”

You nodded, allowing the tears to fall freely now. Daryl pulled you into a proper hug, allowing you to sob into his shirt. He didn't care that your tears were soaking his shirt—his only concern was you. He whispered sweet nothings into your ear, rocking you from side to side until you calmed down.

“Thank you,” you whispered after a while, sniffling softly.

“Ya dun' have to thank me,” he told you, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “M'always here fer ya, jus' like ya are fer me.”

“I love you, Dar.”

A beat of silence passed, until Daryl whispered into your ear. “I love ya too, sunshine. I love ya so fuckin' much.”

©dixons-sunshine 2024. I do not give permission for my works to be copied, modified, adapted or translated to any other site or platform without evidence of my given consent.

[ladykailitha]

Not All That Glitters is Gold Part 14

I'm thinking about writing an epilogue/sequel to this because after reading the ending, I feel like I've cheated you out of something special, but the story feels like it should have ended after the rut. So let me know in the comments if you would like see the bonding and birth of their first child.

First of two chapters being posted today.

The after party. Tommy makes an appearance and Chrissy comes to rescue...well so do everyone in Stevie's corner, but especially her.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13

****

The after party was buzzing with the who’s who of the industry. Producers and artists mingled with label execs and the best escorts Starcourt had to offer.

Steve had been invited to a couple of these in his time and always had fun.

Eddie was talking to this beautiful actress in a long purple and black gown. She had song on the soundtrack of her latest movie, surprising a lot of people with her vocal talents in addition to her acting.

Steve gulped down a bit of champagne to chase the bile of jealousy that he had forced back down.

“Well if it isn’t, Steve Harrington,” a cool voice said behind him.

Steve schooled his expression and turned around.

There was Tommy Hagan.

It had been a lovely couple of months where they hadn’t run into each at an event at all.

Steve smiled. “Hey, Tommy, you working a client or just the room tonight?”

When Starcourt supplied omegas to after parties like this one, they were allowed to network to get new clients. So not only were they paid well, they could bring in even more money by picking up new clients.

“He doesn’t love you, you know,” Tommy sneered. “This is all stunt to take the attention off of the fact that he fucked up with two omegas and nearly caused a scandal for the label both times.”

Steve knew that was the reason for the ‘fake dating’ contract. It was his business to know. “What’s the matter, Tommy? Upset that I get to fuck your favorite rockstar? You must have been so livid when you found out that I got invited to their charity gala and you didn’t.”

“You think you’re so special getting a million dollar cherry pop price,” Tommy snapped. “But that just means that you had to stay longer to pay it off, stupid.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yes, and I made that my first year. I didn’t have to stay, but I know my worth, sweetie. And it is a hell of a lot more than a million dollars.”

“You’ve got your claws in him now,” Tommy hissed, “but he’ll figure out that you’re as shallow as your intelligence.”

Steve flushed and Tommy smirked, knowing he hit the mark. The one thing that Steve was always worried about and that was coming across as the dumb bunny.

“I’m not stupid,” he whispered harshly. “Just because I haven’t gone to fancy schools doesn’t mean I’m dumb.”

Tommy laughed cruelly. “Look around you, Steve. This is all you’ll ever have. All you’ll know. You’re only worth is what’s between your legs, not what’s between your ears.”

Tears stung at the corner of Steve’s eyes.

Then there was a warm arm that slid around his waist and Steve leaned into the embrace.

“You okay, baby?” Eddie murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

“Much better now that you’re here,” Steve whispered back, nuzzling the under side of his throat.

“Stevie and I were just having a little chat,” Tommy said all false smiles, “weren’t we?”

Steve pressed further into Eddie’s side.

Eddie scoffed. “I heard what you were saying, it’s why I came over.”

Tommy blanched. “What?”

“And I did not like what you said at all.” He kissed Steve soundly on the lips. “Troy and Robin are waiting for you, babe. They’ll take you somewhere where you can calm down and I’ll be right behind you, okay?”

Steve nodded and went right into the waiting arms of Robin, Troy covering Steve from behind so no one could see how upset he was.

“You’re Tommy Hagan, right?” Eddie asked, low and menacing.

Tommy nodded.

“I’ve been hearing about your supposed rivalry with Steve from a couple different people tonight.” Eddie’s tone grew even darker.

Tommy opened his mouth, but Eddie held up his hand to stop him, “And no, Steve was not one of them. From other handlers and escorts. From what I could gather, you’re pissed because he rose to the top of the company faster than you did. He’s prettier, more charming, and better at his job.”

“Think whatever you like,” Tommy scoffed. But the red flush to his cheeks belied his statement.

“And now he’s dating the lead singer of your favorite band and you are just eaten up with envy and jealousy,” Eddie continued. “So you decided to go after Steve’s intelligence knowing it was a soft spot for him. But there are different kinds of intelligence and Steve’s is all emotional. And that’s what makes him brilliant at what he does.”

“Still makes him as dumb as a rock,” Tommy hissed.

Eddie just shook his head. “I’m making a complaint against you with the agency. This is really bad behavior for a Starcourt omega and doesn’t reflect well on them.”

Then Tommy really did pale. All color drained from his face, leaving his freckles more pronounced in the absence of color on his cheeks.

Eddie just shook his head and went in search of Steve.

Troy spotted him first and waved him over to a small alcove where Robin was rubbing Steve’s back as he struggled to calm down.

Eddie knelt in front of him and began rubbing his arms. “Hey, sweetheart. Do you need to leave?”

Steve took in a deep shuddering breath and held in his a moment. “No. Tommy is an ass but I can handle it.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Eddie murmured, caressing Steve’s cheek with his thumb. “With the horrible questions, the sexist alpha, and now this asshole. You admit it affected you and we can go home.”

Steve’s lip quivered. “But what about you, don’t you have to be here?”

“Sweetheart,” Eddie said, cupping his cheeks, “I have been here. I could duck out. The rest of the band is still here as well as Benny and our producer Alexi. They could hold court if you really needed us to go right now.”

“Tommy’s already been reported to management,” Troy said, cradling his ear. “They still want Eddie to make a formal complaint, but they’re pulling Tommy out and replacing him with Chrissy Cunningham.”

Robin nodded. “Elinor and a couple other omegas who were here with actual clients had run afoul of him as well.”

Steve raised his head. “Wait, really? He’s pissed that he was only here to work the room as opposed to being with a client? Is he stupid?”

Troy raised his hand and rocked his fingers back and forth. “The jury is still out on that one.”

Eddie looked back between Troy and Steve in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“It depends on the client,” Steve said, “but an escort can make $1000-5000 a night. But working a room, you’re paid an five grand plus the chance to pick up future clients. Alphas that aren’t there with anyone who might have an event coming up that would be improved by having an escort. Maybe their rut is coming up soon. Working a room can net an escort closer to ten to fifteen grand.”

Eddie blinked. “Holy shit. Now, I’m wondering how he could be so stupid.”

“I could answer that,” a warm female voice said behind them.

Steve looked up and grinned. “Chrissy!”

Eddie stood up and turned around to see one of the prettiest female omegas he ever seen. Her strawberry blonde hair was artfully pulled back in a wavy bun, highlighting her green eyes and dazzling smile. She wore a pink mermaid tail dress that had feathers on her hips and on the train. She held a matching clutch.

She gave Steve a hug. “I’m sorry Tommy was an douchebag tonight, cher. But I’m here now.”

Steve relaxed, the last bit of tension bleeding from his frame with her casual support.

“So why would d-bag want a client over working the room if the gains are greater working the room?” Eddie asked, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets.

He had changed, too. The tuxedo pants had been replaced by leather ones, and he wore a band tee under a leather jacket. His knee high boots gave him a little extra height on Steve even in his own heels.

Chrissy smiled up at him. “Because if you’re working the room, that means you weren’t good enough to get a client going to the Grammy’s. It’s about the prestige of being with a big name artist. And that clout can’t be bought. Steve here is going to get more requests being at Eddie’s side, then I will from working the room.”

Robin snorted. “Only because Steve’s that hot.”

Steve ducked his head to hide his blush. He really did have the best of friends.

Chrissy giggled. “There’s a little bit to that, sure. But the salient point is that Tommy is jealous because he knows that even with Eddie courting Steve, Steve is going to make a hell of a lot more money than Tommy could hope to dream of in just this year.”

“He was trying to upset the escorts on jobs so that they would leave,” Troy said, “which would free up the clients for those only working the room.”

Steve and Chrissy gave Troy an appraising eyebrow, impressed.

“Sounds about right,” Steve said. “Which means leaving would be giving in to his schemes. Plus, Chrissy is here now. That makes the party way more fun.”

Eddie held out his hand and helped Steve to his feet. “Whatever you want, princess. I am but yours to command.”

Steve wagged his eyebrows. “Something I’ll consider for tonight.”

Robin and Chrissy wolf whistled.

Troy just shook his head. With Robin in tow, Troy melded back into the crowds to keep an eye on Steve from a distance.

Chrissy was introduced to the band. Jeff was immediately smitten by her charms.

He was falling over his feet to impress her.

“Jeffy here writes our music,” Eddie told her and Steve. “I write the lyrics and he turns them into songs. Really I have the easy part. He does all the heavy lifting.”

Gareth, immediately picking up on where Eddie was going with this followed that up with, “Yeah. Which considering he boxes to stay in shape it’s really easy for him.”

“You box?” Chrissy asked, all interest. “Do you actually get in the ring or do you just go up against punching bags to prevent ruining the prettiest face of the band?”

Steve hissed at her, “You take that back! Eddie is the hottest member of the band.”

“Hottest guitarist, maybe,” Elinor huffed. “Hottest member is clearly Gareth.”

The three alphas were starting to growl when Brian stepped in. “Guys, guys. You’re all very pretty. The prettiest. Now can we move on?”

Just when everyone had calmed down, he said, “Besides we all know the best looking one in the band is me!”

His friends dogpiled him and wrestled him to the ground.

Chrissy leaned over to Steve as the four of the tussled. “Do they do this often?”

Steve just shrugged. He hadn’t had the chance to hang out with band yet.

Elinor rolled her eyes. “They are like this all the time. In a minute or so, they’ll get tired, give up and move on like nothing has happened. They’ll straighten their clothes and hair, all the better for it.”

Sure enough they did just that.

Brian looked the worst for wear considering he had been the one under attack, but nothing was torn or out of place and quite quickly they were looking like nothing had happened.

“I love these dorks,” Eddie murmured. “So, so much.”

Steve kissed his cheek. “That’s good, because I think you’re stuck with them, being in a band and all.”

Jeff giggled. “Is he stuck in here with us, or are we stuck in here with him?”

Steve tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Oh, definitely the latter.”

“Hey!” Eddie protested.

Gareth shook his head. “No, no. I’m with Steve on this one. We are definitely stuck in here with you.”

“Traitors,” he muttered darkly.

Steve nuzzled his scent gland and Eddie’s alpha purred. It took every ounce of Steve’s professionalism he had to keep the replying chirp quiet enough that only Eddie could hear.

Eddie grinned. “Just let me make the rounds one more time and then you and I will get out of here.”

Steve nodded and then watched him go. He grabbed another glass of champagne from a passing waiter and downed in one gulp.

Chrissy’s eyes went wide and she slipped her arm through his and murmured, “Come on, cher. Let’s talk, you look like you need it.”

Steve nodded and followed her outside to get some fresh air. Once there he told her all about his night and not just the Tommy fuckery.

“I was standing there already feeling jealous about the gorgeous female omega actress that he was talking to and then Tommy came in and poked at my other biggest insecurity and I just crumpled...”

Chrissy put her arm around his shoulder and laid her head on his chest.

“You’re going to have to decide if that side of his job is going to be worth it, because if you’re freaking out over him just talking to an actress,” she said gently, “how are you going to fare when he goes on tour?”

Steve sighed. It was one of the reasons that Neil never requested to court him. Being on tour all the time, the constantly being away from Steve who was very much of fixture of LA.

“I don’t know,” he admitted softly. “But he stirs something inside me that I have never felt before and it’s addicting. It feels like flying and I worry that I’ll fly too close to the sun and fall.”

“Soar anyway, Steve,” she advised him. “It’s scary and it’s new. But soar anyway. You deserve a chance at happiness, just be sure to tell Eddie when you feel this way. Because he’s not a mind reader. He can’t see what’s happening behind his back.”

Steve frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Eddie was told Tommy was harassing you,” Chrissy said. She held up her hand before Steve could say anything. “Now before you get all in your head thinking that he had to be told to come to your rescue, we both know that’s not true. But he had to be told you were in danger. Because it was happening where he couldn’t see. So you have to tell him when you’re feeling left out or jealous, because if it’s happening where he can’t see, he can’t fix it.”

Steve let out a long sigh. “Yeah, I see what you mean. If I had been more honest about the actress, Eddie would have already been by my side and maybe Tommy would have still approached or not, but probably not.”

She nodded. She turned around and saw Eddie looking for Steve. She spun Steve around and pushed him toward Eddie.

“Now go get your man.”

Steve stumbled into the venue and began moving quickly so he could reach Eddie faster.

Suddenly Eddie had an armful of soft omega.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmured into Steve’s ear, wrapping his arms tightly around his waist. “You ready to go home?”

“Yeah,” Steve said softly. “Take me home, Eds.”

****

Part 15 Part 16 Part 17

The confrontation with Tommy had been stewing in my head since I first starting writing the story, originally it was going to be with the Nancy and Billy at New Yorker party but there was already too much going on in that chapter so it got moved here.

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archive link - a victim of the Seoul National University men’s “deepfake porn” chatrooms posted about here previously shares her statement to the court. this article is originally in english, coming from the Hankyoreh english version news site

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An SNU graduate victimized by malicious, sexually explicit deepfakes of her made by classmates appeals to the court to hold those responsible for the torment of her and women like her for the pain they have inflicted

In a Telegram channel with around 1,300 members, there are individual chat rooms for 70 colleges and universities across the country. The bolded text are names of universities. (captures from Telegram)

“We’re not whores or sluts; we don’t exist to satisfy somebody’s sexual urges. We’re dignified human beings, each with our own careers and dreams.”

That’s part of the statement that Ruma (a pseudonym) intends to submit to a Korean court. Ruma is one of several graduates of Seoul National University whose faces appeared on sexually explicit deepfakes that were produced and distributed by men they had studied with at university.

In July 2021, Ruma was sent pornographic deepfakes displaying her face by an anonymous individual on Telegram. In May 2024, three years after Ruma first learned about the crime, two perpetrators, both graduates of her university, were arrested. The perpetrators are currently on trial, charged with violating the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes.

Ruma first reported the crime to the police in July 2021, but for nearly two years, four separate police stations that looked into the case were unable to catch the perpetrators.

Nevertheless, Ruma didn’t give up. Instead, she teamed up with other victims to track down the criminals. “I was just hoping that nobody else would have to deal with this kind of pain,” she explained.

There have been several reports about the illegal distribution of pornographic deepfakes in certain university communities. The typical pattern of behavior goes like this: Pornographic deepfakes are created using photographs of “friends” or “acquaintances” at school or in the community, distributed on Telegram and shared with the victims as a form of bullying.

These victims are not to blame for what are obviously sex crimes. Nevertheless, they often feel unable to talk about the grievous harm they have suffered from people they know from their schools, jobs and local communities.

There seems to be a lack of awareness in Korean society about the pain suffered by individuals whose photographs have been manipulated to create these sexually explicit images. That is why we are sharing with our readers the statement that Ruma will be submitting to the Seoul Central District Court.   Ruma’s statement to the court

Your Honors,

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for allowing me to share my story as a victim before the court. While preparing my statement, I reflected on the three years and one month that have passed from the time I was first harmed until the present.

That was when dozens of pornographic images digitally altered to include my face and videos of men masturbating to them were dropped in my lap by an anonymous account, when I saw multiple perpetrators insulting and mocking me in a chatroom where my photographs and personal information had been shared, and when, not long after that, I came to realize that all this had been perpetrated by people I’d studied with at university.

It turned out that while I’d been working on my doctorate overseas with the hope of shedding light on the lives and language of the underprivileged and helping to improve our schools and other institutions, my own university acquaintances had been calling me a “cum bucket,” “whore” and “slave” behind my back. Confronted with that fact, the world I thought I’d known came crashing down around me.

It was a nightmare having to face people whenever I woke up in the morning. For the first time since I was born, I found myself thinking I didn’t want to live in this world any longer. There’s a single reason I have nevertheless persevered in tracking down these criminals and bringing them to justice: Nobody should have to suffer as I have. Nobody should be objectified simply for being a woman. And nobody should be treated as a tool for soothing the inferiority complex of people such as the defendants in this case.

We’re not whores or sluts; we don’t exist to satisfy somebody’s sexual urges. We’re dignified human beings, each with our own careers and dreams. We must no longer remain silent when people, having forgotten those facts, eagerly commit wicked crimes that they attempt to justify by being online, in the arrogant assumption they will not be caught, and with contempt for the judicial system. We must not condone such people because they undermine trust in our society and devastate the lives of their victims.

Your Honors, if I may speak as the individual who has suffered more than anyone else because of this incident, undoing that harm could take years — indeed, it may take the rest of my life. My personal information and photographs, along with the deepfakes based on them, have already been distributed to any number of random people, and I’ve been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder for more than three years now. In addition, I’ll have to spend the rest of my life in fear and anxiety that numerous people who were involved in the crime but have not been apprehended may still be out there somewhere, still making use of the deepfakes of me.

For those reasons, it is urgent that these two defendants serve a prison sentence that fits their crime and that measures be taken to ensure that even after their release, they will live responsibly without harming other people. That’s the only way I will be able to regain faith in society and recover the strength to go on living. Your Honors, the judgment you render will be the first critical step in that process of recovery.

In consideration of the immense harm this incident has caused me and the dozens of other victims, the many people in our circles of friends and family members, and beyond that, our society as a whole, I earnestly petition you to give the defendants the most severe punishment available, without any clemency.

By Park Hyun-jung, staff reporter

[thetravelerwrites]

What is Expected, What is Understood (The Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts) Part 1

Rating: Explicit Fandoms: Niehime to Kemono no Ou | Sacrificial Princess & the King of Beasts Relationships: Sariphi & Leonhart, Amit & Jormungand Additional Tags: Loss of Virginity, Blood Mention, Discussion of Conception, Discussion of Pregnancy, Discussions of Oral Sex, Detailed Descriptions of Sex, Discussion of Menstruation, Breeding, Post-Canon, Canon Compliant, Extension of Canon Words: 4929

It's been four years since their wedding and, for one reason or another, Sariphi and Leonhart still have not consummated their union. Under the constant pressure to produce an heir, and after a disastrous first attempt, they realize they are unprepared and decide to hire a midwife.

This one has been up on my Ao3 for a while, but I decided to bring it to tumblr. Please reblog and leave feedback!

Four years had passed so quickly since the wedding that it felt to Sariphi like it had been no time at all. Even still, she often struggled to believe it was real and not some fanciful fever dream she had conjured up as a coping mechanism as she waited in passive acceptance for the day of sacrifice to arrive. 

Now nineteen, Sariphi was a little less impulsive than she had been when she first came to the kingdom, making a conscious effort to conduct herself with more dignity and grace now that she was queen, but she was no less enthusiastic and eager. Her influence was felt in every corner of the palace, like a breath of fresh air. Staff who had been working in the palace since the time of the previous king could feel a dramatic difference in the atmosphere: the palace had been tense and darkly oppressive during the reign of the former king, while it was silently somber and cold after His Majesty had ascended the throne. Sariphi’s presence had made the palace warmer, lighter, and more brilliantly bright in comparison. 

After many, many intensive lessons, Sariphi had finally taken on some of the administrative work from Anubis within the last few months, with Amit as her assistant. The work was hard but rewarding, and Sariphi was simply happy to be helpful. Even so, it was still two months before Anubis would let her do any of the work on her own without hovering over her shoulder, watching for mistakes.

“Should this document be filed under regional, capitol, or national?” Sariphi asked Amit one afternoon while working. “It’s an assistance request for the outer ring of the capital city, but that falls on the border with the nearby province of Reiza.”

“Hmm,” Amit said, looking over it. “Who sent the request?”

“Both the governor of Reiza and the alderman of that district of the city. It’s a joint request.”

“Ah. Perhaps make copies of it and file it under all three. That way, there would be a record of the request for every category. For reference.” 

“I see.” 

Before being sent as a bridal candidate and eventually becoming Sariphi’s official companion and lady-in-waiting, Amit had been thoroughly educated in administration, so her help was invaluable to Sariphi, who’d had none of that training before ascending the throne. Although it would have been expected of her to take on the administration work immediately after becoming queen if she had been a beast princess, she had been far too busy learning history, etiquette, language, and politics in the first year to even begin administration.

“We’ve been at this for hours,” Amit said, sighing. “Why don’t we take a break? I have tea and snacks I made myself. Everything was checked before I used it.” 

“Who checked it?” Sariphi asked suspiciously. 

“It wasn’t me!” Amit insisted. “The ingredients were tested by the imperial alchemist, I swear!”

“Hmm,” Sariphi said, taking a biscuit. “If you say so.”

Sariphi had nearly fallen victim to a couple of assassination attempts in recent years perpetrated by anti-human militants that had infiltrated the palace staff, those who still resented the king for his lineage and her for her mere existence. As a result, every bit of food and drink that was placed before her for the last year had to be tested and monitored closely from kitchen to table. Amit had tried to appoint herself Sariphi’s poison tester, but Sariphi had quashed that idea immediately. As had Jormungand.

Sariphi yawned as she accepted a cup of tea. 

“Are you tired today?” Amit asked. 

“Yeah,” Sariphi admitted. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” 

“Oh? Why is that?” 

“Well… I heard the maids talking. They seem to feel like an heir should have been conceived by now.” 

“Are you bothered by that?” 

“A little.” 

“You shouldn’t take it to heart, Sari,” Amit said, patting her shoulder. “They’re just worried about you.”

“It’s not just them. The royal council has been putting pressure on His Majesty about it since the wedding. Anubis has been dropping suggestions in that roundabout way he does, too. His Majesty is sick of hearing about it.”

Amit laughed. “You don’t need to worry too much about it,” She said. “You and His Majesty love each other so much that I’m sure you’ll hear good news very soon.” 

Sariphi blushed and looked away. “I don’t think that’s true.” 

“Why not?” 

“Well… we’d have to… He’d need to… we haven’t…” Sariphi stuttered to a stop and hid behind her hair, embarrassed. 

Amit gasped. “You haven’t…” She squeaked and blushed as well. “Consummated your nuptials yet? Anyone against your union could use that as ammunition to force you to annul the marriage if they found out! They could use that to make His Majesty take a concubine! It’s been four years!” 

“I know!” Sariphi exclaimed, and then lowered her voice. She was glad Cy and Clops weren’t there in her office at the time and that Bennu was fast asleep in his gilded cage. “But he’s never touched me and I’ve been too nervous to make a move on him. I know he’s worried about hurting me, but… I’ve also wondered… if he wasn’t interested in me like that.”

“But he loves you!” Amit said.

“I know he loves me, I’ve never doubted that he loves me, but romantic love and sexual love don’t always go hand-in-hand.”

“Have you talked to him about it?” 

“I’ve only brought it up once recently. He told me that I’m still young and we have lots of time and not to worry about it. I’m nervous that if I bring it up too much, he’ll shut me out. He has a bad habit of keeping his worries to himself.”

“He’s not alone in that,” Amit said shrewdly, and then covered her mouth with her hands at her own boldness.

Sariphi sighed. “I know. It’s not just about having heirs. I… I want to be more intimate with him. I want to be his wife in every possible way.”

“Have you told him that?” 

“No. I guess my mistake was assuming he would already know that. I forgot that he can be hesitant when it comes to personal relationships, even when he really cares for someone. After hiding his true self for so long and only existing for the sake of the kingdom, he’s still learning to voice his desires. He doesn’t know how to be selfish or ask for things he wants for himself.”

“You should talk to him again and tell him how you feel. I really envy that you and His Majesty can talk to each other so openly. I hope Captain Jormungand and I can have that kind of relationship once we marry.”

Jormungand and Amit had been engaged for nearly half a year and their wedding was planned for spring. Sariphi was so excited to be the Matron of Honor for her, since none of Amit’s family would be attending to stand with her. Though Jormungand may have the Captain of the Imperial Guard and a talented man with many accomplishments and accolades, the royals of Murga were still affronted by the fact that Amit would be marrying a commoner. According to Amit, being shunned by her family was nothing new, since she had no value to them as the fifth princess, and although she tried to behave unperturbed, Sariphi knew she was sad about it. 

Amit was acutely aware that it was a serious breach of etiquette to even ask the queen to participate in the wedding of a commoner, and though she knew Sariphi would be overjoyed to accept, she couldn’t bring herself to ask. It was Jormungand, not Amit, who asked Sariphi to be Amit’s Matron of Honor in her stead. Jormungand, who had no family, was quite unhappy that Amit’s family had snubbed her due to her marriage to him, though he knew their relationship had always been strained. He decided there was no higher honor, nor greater satisfaction, than having the queen of the realm standing in their place, especially considering the king himself would be standing for Jormungand. Sariphi agreed wholeheartedly and accepted with delight.

“You’re right,” Sariphi said. “I’ll talk to him tonight.” 

Sariphi was nervous all through the dinner banquet and avoided His Majesty’s eye out of embarrassment. She could feel him staring at her, though he said nothing to her and the evening passed without fuss.

That night, after they retired for the evening, had their baths, and returned to their chambers, he caught her by the waist and easily lifted her onto his shoulder, which he was still prone to doing when they were alone. After climbing into the bed, he sat her atop his lap and caged her in his embrace. 

“Out with it,” He said without preamble. “Why have you been avoiding my gaze all evening?” 

“Why do you have to be so inconveniently perceptive?” Sariphi sighed exasperatedly.

“Anyone with eyes could have observed your odd behavior,” He retorted. “My queen is many things, but subtle she is not.” 

“Something Anubis will probably scold me for later, I’m sure,” Sariphi agreed. “As he always says, ‘Tact and decorum is the benchmark of every great queen’.”

“Do not change the subject,” Leonhart said, squishing her face in his claws. “What troubles you?”

Sariphi sighed. “I was thinking about the heirs thing again.” 

Leonhart sighed in turn. “We have discussed this. There is an abundance of time to worry about that. It is not something that requires your concern at present.” 

“When should I be concerned?”

“Never. It is not worth your energy.”

“Amit said that if anyone finds out that we haven’t consummated our marriage, they could lawfully force you to take a concubine or make us get an annulment.” 

“Which is why it shall not be discovered.” 

“Leo… It’s not just that,” Sariphi replied. “Talking to Amit today made me realize… the reason why it bothers me isn’t just the need for an heir.” 

“What is the reason, then?” 

Sariphi flushed and picked at a single strand of his mane rather than looking him in the face. 

“I… We… We’ve been married for four years now… and we haven’t… been intimate… and I wondered if you weren’t interested in such things.”

Leonhart was silent and Sariphi, feeling anxious, began rambling very fast.

“I know we had discussed having kids before and I know you don’t want to hurt me, but you had mentioned that you wanted to have at least two, but we need to be intimate for that to happen, but you’ve never made a move, so I thought you didn’t want to, but I–” 

“Sariphi, stop,” Leonhart said, taking her chin and making her look at him. “You do not need to explain yourself, I understand what you are saying. To tell the truth… you are correct. I have been hesitant to attempt intimacy with you because I do not wish to hurt you. The difference in our size obviously means that the act would cause you immense discomfort. You did not seem to show much interest in it, either, so I assumed until now that you were satisfied to wait.” 

“So… you do want to? Be intimate with me, I mean?” 

“I do wish for that, yes,” Leonhart said. “Of course I do. Truthfully… I have thought of it quite often as of late, especially now that you have grown taller and gained weight. It is hard not to notice how… lovely you look, and your warm body lying next to me every night is often difficult to ignore. But as I said… I worry about hurting you.” 

“Perhaps it won’t hurt,” Sariphi said optimistically. “We’ll never know until we try, right?”

“I suppose you have a point,” Leonhart agreed, though he looked skeptical. “You also truly wish to be intimate with me?”

“Yes, I do,” She said earnestly. “I’m your wife and I love you. I want to do all the things husbands and wives do.” 

“I see,” He said slowly. “Do you… wish to try tonight?” 

Sariphi gulped but nodded. “No time like the present. Honestly, I’ve been ready for a long time, I just didn’t know how to tell you.” 

“I see.” Leonhart took a deep breath. “I fear I have no experience with this. I am unsure how to begin.” 

Sariphi moved off of Leonhart’s lap. Kneeling next to him and plucking up her courage, she carefully drew her nightgown over her head and off of her body, then removed her undergarments, fully exposing herself to him for the very first time. His eyes widened and his breathing sped up slightly. Rolling onto his knees as well, he reached out to touch her but stopped short, seeming unsure, looking at his large claws in dismay.

“It’s okay, Leo,” Sariphi said, moving forward to press her breast to his palm. “You can touch me. You won’t hurt me. It’s okay.”

As much as she tried to reassure him, he was still intensely cognizant that his claws could wrap around her entire body with room to spare, claws that were strong enough to rend solid stone, and his need to be careful was obvious. Instead, he turned his hand and caressed one of her nipples with the back of the claw on his first finger. She inhaled sharply and made a slight sound, biting her lip. She looked anxious, but she gazed at his face with open trust. 

Leonhart leaned forward and pressed his nose to the hollow of her neck, breathing in deeply. She reached up and raked her fingers through the fur of his neck. His arms encircled her, and he pulled her bare body against his own clothed chest. He felt himself stir below, and shrugged his arms out of their sleeves. He pulled her toward him and lay her down on the bed under him, stripping off the drape around his waist and letting it fall heavily to the floor. Her beautiful body lay open to him, her silver-white hair spread out around her head like a glowing halo, and she reached for him.

Carefully lowering his body over hers, he kissed her. She moaned softly and moved underneath him, stroking his chest. He pressed his hardness to her entrance, pausing for a moment to observe her face before attempting to enter her slowly. She seemed fine at first, but as he pushed harder, her brow furrowed and her breath stuttered. 

“Are you alright?” He asked. 

She didn’t speak, but nodded. He continued, but stopped when she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, holding her breath. 

“Are you sure I should carry on?” 

“Yes,” She said, her voice strained. “It’s okay.” 

He had barely moved an inch when he noticed tears gathering in her eyes, and the moment he caught the scent of blood, he removed himself and climbed off of her. Sure enough, there was blood on the sheets under her. It wasn’t a lot, but it was more than enough to ruin his mood.

“Why did you stop?” Sariphi asked, wiping her eyes. 

“I have hurt you, just as I feared I would,” He said, putting his clothing back on and stooping to gather up her clothes as well. 

“I’ve heard it’s normal to bleed the first time,” She insisted. “Many women do.” 

“It is not just that,” He said. “I could see on your face that you were in pain.” 

“It wasn’t that bad, I swear!” She said, holding her nightgown to her chest. “I can do it! Even if it’s painful, I can handle it! I still have to bear your successor regardless! Everyone expects it of us!”

“As loath as I am to hurt you for my own satisfaction, I am even less inclined to do so to suit the wishes of others,” Leonhart said. “We will try again another day, when you have healed. I refuse to injure you further.”

“But–” 

“No,” He said, his voice leaving no room for argument. “Not tonight. It is not as though I am suggesting we never consummate, but it seems we are not ready for this yet.”

“Leo, it’s been four years.”

“I am well aware of that, Sariphi. Neither of us know much about this subject. We need… help. Advice.”

“Advice from whom?” 

“I am unsure,” Leonhart admitted.

"Are there books we could read?"

"Oh, I am certain there are, but I do not even know where to begin looking, nor do I wish to ask. All I am certain of is that I do not wish to cause you further pain. There must be something we can do to make this… process… easier.” He took her nightgown out of her hands and pulled it back over her head. “I’m far more concerned with the well-being of the woman I love than I am for any amorphous children who are yet to exist. Whatever our responsibilities may be, you are my wife before you are the queen.”

“Shouldn’t it be the other way ‘round?” Sariphi asked, reluctantly pulling on her undergarments. “The queen exists for the country, so her discomfort is not important if it’s for the good of the people, right?”

“Perhaps,” He said. “But I care not. If it would cause you harm, it is not worth doing.” 

“Do you not want to be intimate anymore?” 

“No, I still wish for that,” He replied. “But only if it is good for us to do so. For both of us.” He pulled her back into his lap and embraced her once more. “Do not misunderstand, Sariphi. I love and desire you. That has not changed, nor will it ever. Be assured of that fact and do not fret.” 

“Okay,” She said, cuddling into his chest. Though he was not one for words, he seemed to always know what she needed to hear. They lay down together and tried to sleep, but neither found much rest that night.

The next morning, His Majesty insisted that Sariphi stay in their chambers and rest for the day, calling Amit to keep her company. Sariphi had to admit, she was a little bit sore, and gratefully accepted. 

“How did it go?” Amit asked once they were alone. “I heard the maids say there was blood on the sheets.”

Sariphi shook her head. “We tried, but he stopped almost immediately when I started bleeding. He says he won’t try again until we get some sort of help.” 

“What sort of help?” 

“I don’t know,” Sariphi admitted. “I don’t know who we could possibly ask about this.”

Amit sat quietly in deep thought. “What about a midwife?” 

“Midwife?” 

“Certainly,” Amit said. “A midwife could solve this problem, wouldn’t you think? Conception, pregnancy, and childbirth are the sole scope of their expertise, is it not?” 

“Well, sure,” Sariphi agreed. “But is there one in the palace?” 

“Oh,” Amit said contemplatively. “I’m not sure. Anubis would know. Hiring staff who work directly with the royal family is one of his many duties.” 

Sariphi blushed. “I couldn’t possibly ask Anubis about this.” 

“Then mention it to His Majesty and have him pass on the message to Anubis. If the palace doesn’t have a midwife, then they can find one.”

The next day, after Sariphi told His Majesty about it the night before, His Majesty sat in his office, pouring over paperwork, when he finally broached the subject with Anubis. 

“Anubis.” 

Anubis looked up from his own work. “Yes, Sire?”

“Does the palace have an imperial midwife at present?”

“A midwife?” Anubis echoed in surprise. “Could Her Majesty be…?”

“No,” His Majesty replied, looking into the far distance out of the closest window in an effort to appear magnanimous rather than embarrassed. “Not as of yet. It is for that reason we require such a person to seek their advice on the matter. It seems Her Majesty has been quite worried about the constant prattling on the subject of an heir, despite the fact that the queen is still quite young and we have only been married a short time.”

“Four years is plenty of time to conceive an heir, Sire,” Anubis pointed out.

His Majesty glared at him.

“I-I see,” Anubis replied hastily. “The palace has not had an imperial midwife since the passing of the previous queen. By rights, a new imperial midwife should have been appointed upon the queen’s ascension, but in the aftermath of the attempted insurrection prior to the sovereign marriage rites, and then the peace talks with Yoana directly after, it appears that the appointment was overlooked.” 

“Very well. Hire one immediately.” 

“Of course, sire,” Anubis said, but he paused. “Although… I am concerned that there may not be any midwife in Ozmargo willing to take the position.” 

“Because the queen is human?” 

“Well, yes,” Anubis said delicately. 

His Majesty sighed. “I had believed this sort of discrimination would have been much reduced by now, though I suppose it is to be expected.” 

“I didn’t mean necessarily in terms of discrimination. More to the point, I doubt that there are any of beastkind in the kingdom who would know how to treat a human.” 

“Ah,” His Majesty said. Anubis was correct, of course. “Could we not call one from Yoana?” 

“I suppose we could,” Anubis said. “But what woman in her right mind would make that journey? The way between the kingdoms is still treacherous and full of peril. Even with guaranteed security, there may not be any who would agree to such a dangerous undertaking.” 

“Post a job notice regardless, in both Ozmargo and Yoana. If even one person were to answer, that would be enough to begin moving forward.” 

“As you wish, Sire,” Anubis said. He bowed and excused himself.

It took more than two months to finally get a response to the job posting. An old, bent woman of the pangolin tribe, leaning on a walking stick, ambled up to the palace after sending a notice that she would take on the position. The scales of her tail rasped across the marble floor as she walked, making something like a soft rattlesnake sound. Her eyes were bleary and brown in color with blue along the edges of the iris. She looked around the palace as if unimpressed. 

Anubis, having been notified of her arrival, met her at the large double doors of the throne room. 

“I understand you are the one who responded to the request for an imperial midwife?” Anubis asked without pleasantries. 

“Yessir,” The old woman said, her voice cracking with age. 

“Your name, so I may announce you to His Majesty?” 

“Coral will do.” 

“I see. Follow me.” 

Anubis turned at the guardsmen manning the doors and nodded. The doors swung open, and sitting there were both His and Her Majesties. His Majesty’s throne sat center stage on the raised dais with Her Majesty’s smaller throne to his immediate right, turned slightly to face him. Sariphi wasn’t used to receiving guests while sitting on her throne yet, so she often stayed silent unless directly spoken to. His Majesty had told her she didn’t need to receive the guests if she didn’t want to, but Sariphi had insisted she wanted to take her role as queen seriously, and that included being a welcoming host.

“Your Majesties,” Anubis said, coming up and bowing. “I present Coral, the woman who has answered the request for an imperial midwife.” 

“Very well,” His Majesty said, waving his hand. Anubis bowed again and stepped to the side, allowing the old woman to stagger toward the dais. “We welcome you, Coral. Before your official appointment, you must prove yourself capable of the duties you will be assigned. We have the documentation and testimonials you sent us beforehand, but that will be useless to us if you are deemed unfit for the position.” 

“Seems fine,” Coral said amiably. “Although it seems like you’ve not got much choice, elseways, as I'm the only one who showed up.” 

“Mind your tongue!” Anubis hissed. “You are in the presence of Their Majesties, if you’ve forgotten! Be respectful!” 

“Hush up, pup,” She said, flapping her hand at him dismissively. Anubis seethed, but His Majesty waved him down “I’m as old as dirt and twice as bitter, so I ain’t all that keen on niceties. If you want to get all bent out of shape ‘cause I’m not standin’ on ceremony, you go right ahead, but I reckon I was called here for a reason, and that ain’t it.”

Sariphi hid a giggle. Coral reminded her of Bennu and she instantly felt affection for the old woman.

“Indeed,” His Majesty said, nonplussed. “Are you confident you can treat a human?” 

“Sure, sure,” Coral said with a shrug. “I’ve been a midwife for nearly a century now, and I’ve helped all manner of child into the world. Humans are mammals, as I understand, and the basics of mammals are reasonably similar; the bits are usually in the same place and work just the same. Usually. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“We understand,” His Majesty said, standing. “What do you need to begin?” 

“Well, to start, I need to examine the girlie here,” Coral said, nodding at Sariphi.  “She’s the one I’ll be lookin’ after, I figure.” 

His Majesty glanced at Sariphi, who nodded and stood up. 

“You are permitted to conduct an examination,” He said. “Though you will not do so alone. Princess Amit will be present for the examination, and Captain Lantevelt will stand guard outside of the door.” 

His Majesty motioned for the edge of the dais, where Amit and Jormungand stood. Amit stepped forward while Jormungand stepped back. He also motioned near the other side of the dais, where Lantevelt was standing. He joined Amit and waited for Sariphi to step down. 

“There is a dedicated room for you in which you may work,” Anubis told Coral. “And your sleeping accommodations are also located there. Princess Amit knows where it is and will lead you there. If you pass the trial period and are hired, you will report directly to Their Majesties or to myself. Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes, you’re very important, I get it.”

Anubis growled in agitation. 

“You will relay your findings to us when you have finished,” His Majesty said. “Afterward, we wish to speak to you privately.”

“You got it, boss,” Coral said, not waiting to be dismissed and waving her stick at Amit. “Lead on, missy.”

“Yes,” Amit said, bowing. “Follow me, please.” 

Sariphi patted His Majesty’s hand briefly before following Amit, Lantevelt, and Coral. His Majesty watched the group walk out of the throne room and sat back on his throne. 

“You seem worried, Sire,” Jormungand told him. “Her Majesty is well, I trust?”

“She is as robust as she has ever been, yes,” His Majesty replied. “It is not out of fear for her health that I do this.”

“I do not presume to know what troubles you, Sire,” Jormungand said. “But as a soon-to-be husband myself, I can imagine I may face similar tribulations in the future. You have my sympathies.” 

“Hmm,” His Majesty said, standing. “Your concern is appreciated, Captain.”

Anubis sniffed in discomfort. “As I have nothing to contribute to this conversation, I will carry on with my duties. If you will excuse me.” He bowed and left. 

Jormungand laughed. “As cold as ever, Abi.” He turned back to His Majesty. “I shall also take my leave, Sire.” 

“You may do so,” His Majesty said. As Jormungand bowed and made to depart, His Majesty called suddenly. “Jormungand.”

Jormungand halted and turned on his heel. “Yes, Sire?”

“We must imagine Anubis would find discussing domestic troubles quite… distasteful,” He began slowly. “Would we be correct in assuming you would be… more receptive to such things?” 

Jormungand tilted his head. “That may be. Certainly more so than Abi.” 

“In the future…” His Majesty said, but then stopped himself. 

Jormungand realized what His Majesty was trying to ask and chuckled. 

“If ever you need an ear, Your Majesty, I’m more than willing to lend you both of mine. Feel free to call me Jor when we are alone. If it suits you, of course.” 

His Majesty showed a hint of a smile, since no one else besides himself and Jormungand was there to see it. “We are… I am grateful. Jor. Thank you.” 

Jormungand gave him a good-natured laugh.

“What are friends for, Your Majesty?”

With that, Jormungand bowed again and excused himself.

Friends. For many years, His Majesty had debated whether it was appropriate or even possible for a king to have friends. His father… well, his uncle, the previous king, certainly had no one that could be considered a friend. The closest would have been the previous Anubis, the current Anubis’s father, though the previous king barely batted an eyelash when his most loyal vassal had died right in front of him. 

When he first became king, His Majesty had emulated the previous king in behavior, since he had no other example to follow. Now, after having met Sariphi, he had come to realize that the previous king’s life was rather… empty. Hollow. As such, His Majesty decided that he didn’t wish to live the same way. Granted, having friends would require him to be more open, which he still found difficult, but he believed it would be worth it in the end. 

He’d had only one friend since he was a boy. Now... he had two. His Majesty smiled to himself and went back to his office.

Please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

[sugar-omi]

Sending more Rockstar!Cove love! Need some spicy stuff in here though.

Please knock before entering his dressing room or trailer. Everyone knows that by now. Barging in there will cause you to see stuff you do not want to see.

He's not afraid to post more private stuff about his love life on his socials. Do you think he's going to just stop what he's doing because someone "urgently" needed him?

(He's about to be late and has absolutely no sense of time at all anymore.)

-🎸

YES! YES YES YES!!!! everyone sees the shit he posts of you/your relationship online. everything from romantic to more or less erotic.

so really, the staff on the set should know not to be careless when you're on the set as well. because cove is diligent and kind when he's working. he loves what he does, and he's not the typical big headed rockstar he presents as.

he's serious, dedicated to his craft.. a little rough, sure, very reserved and otherwise quiet unless he's commanding the scene.

but he's also dedicated to you. the whole world is convinced that he would drop music if you asked him to, that's how much he loves you.

really, the amount of times someone on set has walked in on cove going down on you is insane.

he does his due diligence by closing the door or finding a "secluded" place. they just need to do their part by not busting in, walking by, or opening the wrong curtain, is that so hard?

his manager can lecture him all he wants about public indecency. I mean, was it really indecent though? he was in his dressing room when he had you bent over the vanity, not the public bathroom. it's not his fault the mua's new assistant walked in for... whatever her reason was again.

and when he has to record a new song, his fans eagerly waiting the tease of a new album, well he has to take care of his beloved first.

making sure you're fat n happy is his number one priority. always making sure your material needs are met, your necessities. you have more cars and houses in your name than the two of you will ever need, and more money in your account than you could spend even if you used it to blow your nose.

and with all that met... that just leaves cove to love you up, kiss you and hold you, and spoil you with his time, affection, and gifts. and sexually.

he's been so busy preparing for the new album, he hasn't had nearly enough time to spend with you. and you're so needy today, your body pressed against his, gently waking him up from his sleep by rubbing on his body, kissing him gentle and whispering in his ear pleads to wake up and fuck you...

so yeah, when he picks up the phone, of course the producer is gonna hear the bed creak, and of course, he can hear the breathlessness and the gravel in cove's voice as he fucks you through the alaskan king mattress.

and of course, he hands up on him! the song can wait. it's been written for months, so instead of breathing down his neck, why don't they fix the tempo like he told them to, and he'll be in as soon as you cum around his dick two or three more times, maybe even more if anyone else blows up his phone.

so okay. maybe cove does tap into the typical rockstar assholery, but it's not his fault. his baby needs to be pleased whenever they want, and he certainly can't keep his hands off you as it is, let alone when he's been busy with work.

he'll try to keep the indecency down to a reasonable level (his manager screamed at that), but only if everyone remembers to be a little mindful of their ears and eyes if they don't want to see or hear you two reach heaven together.~

[verpineshatterrifle]

okay so your post abt alpha-17 and the other alpha arcs got me thinking (and im sorry for using you as sw google but in my mind you're Alpha Legends Lore mutual) who ARE the oldest clones? I feel like everything got... really confusing with a bunch of super secret REAL first clones getting shuffled into the order. is boba the oldest? in my mind it goes 1 boba 2 nulls 3 alphas 4 the rest of the initial clones that obi-wan saw in aotc but I have no bloody clue 😭

I AM HONORED TO BE YOUR LEGENDS LORE GOOGLE MUTUAL

ok so. sources probably conflict bc this is star wars, of course they do. what i care about is repcomm so we're just gonna go with that as our primary source with wookieepedia as secondary sources

first we gotta get some dates. unfortunately star wars doesnt really give months for most dates but years is still a starting place. these dates are all pulled from wookieepedia, legends page when applicable/different

also we're using geonosis as our date reference point since the timeline is honestly so hard to work with

order 66 happens 19 bby

1st battle of geonosis, 22 bby, the clone wars are 3 years long

boba fett's birth date is listed as 32 bby, meaning he was 10 at geonosis. cody, rex, ordo, fi, spar, and sull are all also listed with a birth date of 32 bby, so we're down to a difference of months here. essentially they're all the same age though- boba himself, troopers, nulls, commandos, and alphas

I REPEAT. ALPHA IS NOT SIGNIFICANTLY OLDER THAN THE CORE OF THE GAR. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. HE ISNT THE ONLY ALPHA EITHER.

but who's actually oldest? and is wookieepedia entirely correct? this is the part where i open repcomm and ignore everything else. i don't even know if anything else contradicts because i'm not checking

chapter 1 of triple zero, kal has just arrived on kamino. it's eight years before geonosis, and 2 years into the cloning program

(ALSO ITS SO FUCKING GREAT THAT THIS IS KAL'S INTRODUCTORY LINE LMAOOO <3)

he does see a lot of clone babies in gestation vats, just like we see in attack of the clones as well as cadets of varying ages- the kaminoans continue producing troopers through the entire ten years of the cloning program, so yes, the 'first generation' (clones deployed at geonosis) ARE older than a lot of later clones. but we dont really have a lot of those later clones as named characters as far as i know

anyways

the nulls appear to kal to be 4 or 5 (also peep jango apparently being legitimately shocked by them)

chronologically the nulls are NEARLY two, which probably means like 1 year and 11 months or something

(pause for me to cry about this entire scene, 'kal was instantly proud of all of them,' 'how would you like to be called ordo, he was a mandalorian warrior,' kal teaching them to embrace their fear as a mechanism their body uses to help protect them, but this is gonna be long enough as it is)

and then we have jango showing up with boba. no real indication of if boba or the nulls are actually older, but it's implied that they're very very close in actual age, if not the same age. we also get mention of the commandos and the alphas.

now, this is now just down to what i think and what makes sense to me. the whole point of the nulls is that they were experimental units- the kaminoans wanted to see if tinkering with the genome would be worth it, and ultimately decided it wasn't. it would actually make sense to me if the nulls were at least a year or two older than the rest of the clones- the kaminoans need time to see if their experiment panned out, don't they? but the nulls are also 10 at geonosis

while the nulls have been flash-trained and put through some trial runs at this point, it's indicated that the alphas and commandos aren't quite ready for training yet. this could be because the alphas and commandos are just a bit too young yet, it could be that the kaminoans put the nulls through training at a younger age than they're doing for non-experimental units. not totally clear

this is another point that is important to me: multiple times the nulls pass for clone troopers. i keep seeing headcanons of them being noticeably taller/bigger than other clones and while it is true that they're canonically slightly heavier, i think the difference is probably like 10-20 pounds, most people cannot easily tell the difference. ordo puts on corr's armor and just notes that it's slightly tighter than he's used to. mereel infiltrated kamino in trooper armor unnoticed, even while directly speaking to a kaminoan

here is my opinion on it: -the nulls and boba are basically the same age -the alphas were created next, but a few months after. by this point the kaminoans had decided (possibly because of the nulls' high mortality rate in gestation) that the alphas would be fully unaltered aside from the accelerated aging. the nulls' behavior 'issues' proved to the kaminoans that this was the right call -the commandos were created at the same time or shortly after the alphas. we're talking within weeks if not days. they have minor genetic changes to work better as a team but that's about it. -the troopers then begin production, now that the kaminoans have lots of practice altering jango's genome. heavy alteration for better social cooperation and obedience. -we're talking a span on like 4 months for all of this

you could say that ordo's gray hairs support the nulls being maybe 4-6 months older than everybody else, but i really think he is just that stressy, and there's also book evidence for clones actually aging at variable rates depending on how much stress they're under

quick note for omega: i think her existence is just insane and she's only here because disney was making a children's show and needed a child character (and girl so they can get inclusivity points), but i could see her being made anywhere from at the same time as boba to up to 3 years later. her wookieepedia page doesn't say, because the bad batch never bothered to give us any concrete information on... anything.

WE ARENT EVEN TOUCHING ON EMERIE. WHAT THE FUCK

[indestructibleheart]

Hi, fam! Okay, so I'm going to be out at an appointment tomorrow morning, so I'm kicking this off a little bit early. It's technically Wednesday in several timezones and very nearly Wednesday in mine. I'm... also a bit eager to share this, ngl.

I know that I've shared a lot of angst lately, but I swear that's not all I'm doing. 😅 In fact, the actor/playwright AU decided to wallop me in the face out of nowhere after sitting in my WIP folder for months. I'm really excited about it, so I'm gonna share the first scene!

(Also, those of you who have been to New York with me will recognize my favorite brunch spot in this scene lmao.)

---

You probably didn't even know I was in the room, but I noticed you straight away. You were talking with your friends, happy and animated and fully alive—a person living in dimensions I couldn’t access—and so beautiful. Your hair was longer then. You were the center of attention, but you weren’t afraid. You had a yellow ipê-amarelo in your pocket. I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen; I'd better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire.

INT. MOM'S KITCHEN & BAR - HELL'S KITCHEN - LATE MORNING

"I'm telling y'all," Alex is saying, punctuating with dangerously large bites of his pancake burrito. "The dude's a dick." 

It's been two hours since the nightmare audition, but Alex has been on this tirade since June and Nora first slid into the retro diner chairs across from him (at least forty-five minutes ago).

They're at Mom's: a restaurant-bar in midtown that can only be described as millennial nostalgia incarnate. The trio fell in love with it two years back—post-karaoke, stumbling in right before closing—when Alex saw God in their Fruity Pebble pancakes.  Since then, it's been his favorite place to eat his feelings.

Mom's is just really fucking comforting in general, honestly; whether it's the televisions cycling through episodes of 'Rugrats,' 'Dexter's Laboratory,' and 'Hey, Arnold!' or  the rainbow straws and Lisa-Frank-looking menus, Alex can't be sure. It doesn't hurt that they've made friends with several of the waitstaff, including an eccentric bartender, Pez, whose pink hair and painted nails fit right in with the decor. 

Today, it's the combination of breakfast sausage, bacon, eggs and cheese wrapped up in a syrup-soaked pancake that's really doing something for him. It could also be the margarita the size of his face, which Pez placed in front of him before making himself uncharacteristically scarce. But it's fine. He's probably just busy.

Alex won't admit it out loud, but what really helps is having June and Nora here to talk to… even though Nora is scrolling on her phone.

"I'm sorry," June says. She pokes an ice cube with her straw, and Alex watches as it bobs around her mimosa like a buoy. "That sounds like it sucked, but if he's really that rude… maybe you didn't want to work with him anyway."

Nora doesn't look up as she pops a home fry into her mouth. 

"Several sources say he's difficult to work with," she adds, evidently reading about Henry on the internet. "Though, in his defense, his dad did just die, like, three years ago… and there was that whole thing when he came out after. Remember?"

Alex does remember. Henry's grandmother, Mary Mountchristen, runs a pretty major company that used to own half the theatres on the West End. When Henry came out last year, she tried blacklisting his shows from her properties to punish him—which totally backfired when it got around. At least a dozen other queer writers and producers started talking about how they were also denied the space, and Mary was stoned on the streets of the theatre district. Like, metaphorically. 

Alex, Nora, and June had just moved to New York, but between June's position at Newsday and both Alex and Nora on the audition circuit, it was all anyone in their new circles could talk about. They were some of the first to know when the Mountchristens were bought out of their properties and Henry moved to the States.

This show is the first of Henry's being produced here—and it's autobiographical, which Alex has to admit is pretty fucking baller. So, yeah, Nora's not wrong. He has reason to be standoffish. Still, it doesn't explain why Alex was only halfway through his audition monologue when Henry abruptly stood up and exited stage left as if pursued by a bear.

He shoves another forkful into his mouth. "It's just, like, they're the only people who let me into the room," he says, barely finishing chewing. "Nobody wants to take me seriously, and I really thought this was my shot, you know?"

June and Nora both know Alex is having a hard time landing serious roles after growing up on a sitcom—Nora more than most, as his former co-star. What they don't know is that losing this role, specifically, feels like a kick to the stomach. From the moment Alex saw the script, he wanted to be a part of it. He can't even explain why, and now he'll never figure it out. Henry wouldn't give him a chance.

"It wasn't your only shot, and you know it." Nora fixes him with a look. "Seriously, I get it—I do—but it's just one play, buddy."

June nods. "Something will happen for you, baby brother."

At that, Alex finally groans. "Okay, calling me baby brother doesn't help me feel better about the entertainment industry infantili—"

"—itty bitty, teeny weeny—"

Alex throws a home fry at her face. 

It bounces off her forehead and into the giant gauntlet holding her mimosa with a very unappetizing splash. Just as Alex throws his hands into the air with a victorious whoop, his phone buzzes on the table. 

A glance is all it takes for him to see that it's his agent, Zahra.

"Damn," he says, deflating. There goes that upswing. "You answer it."

June balks. "Me?"

"I don't need to hear how fucking badly it went. Trust me, I got the message." Alex blinks innocently, like he's six years old again, asking her to lie to their mom about that broken vase. "Please, Bug? Besides, Zahra actually likes you."

"Everyone likes me." June rolls her eyes, but she caves—answering the phone with a haughty, "Alex Claremont-Diaz's office," before breaking into a smile. "Yeah, Z. It's me… No, Alex is feeling a little sensitive today."

(He throws another home fry at her. This one misses.)

To her credit, June's face remains totally blank as Zahra no doubt tells her how Alex insulted Henry Fox's name and all of his inbred ancestors just by showing up, or whatever—which is extremely annoying and unhelpful—but, once she says goodbye and sets the phone back down on the table, her face breaks out into a grin.

"Guess you didn't suck too bad," she says. "They want you for the part."

He doesn't know if it's Nora throwing herself at him or the shock that knocks him onto the floor.

Tagging some lovelies. If you haven't been tagged and you want to be, consider this your tag!

@anchoredarchangel, @barbiediaz, @cha-melodius, @cricketnationrise, @guillermosfamiliar, @hgejfmw-hgejhsf, @hippolotamus, @inexplicablymine, @jettestar, @junebugclaremontdiaz, @kiwiana-writes, @lizzie-bennetdarcy, @missgeevious, @mulderscully, @myheartalivewrites, @ninzied, @nontoxic-writes, @notspecialbabe, @priincebutt, @rmd-writes, @rosedavid, @three-drink-amy, @treluna4, @vanillahigh00, @welcometololaland, @orchidscript, @ships-to-sail, @stereopticons

[baddiewiththebook]

showmance

“contestants who hook up during the show for the sake of good television” -urban dictionary

I’ve been having this idea swirl in my brain for so long, and I had to write it down as a little drabble. I’m obsessed with the idea of modern!Eddie going on a reality competition (ex. Big Brother) and meeting you. Anyway, lmk if I need to write a full prompt, or if there are other reality shows we could see Eddie on that he meets the love of his life. This was so much fun to scribble down. Sorry for any typos - I was too excited to post!

-baddie

-> <-

Being on television has always been your dream. You love reality television, especially the competition of some of these shows. It just so happens an opportunity unfolds when your agent contacts you about your favorite show being interested in you.

After months of screen tests, evaluations and the production team talking crap about you in front of your face, you’re on your way through the doors of the house you’ll be living in with your fellow contestants.

Engulfed in warm hugs that only last mere moments of excitement, you’re only focused on the one that matters. He smells of an ash tray, bitter and eye-watering. The persona screams hard rock-star. He tells you his name is Eddie, and unbeknownst to you, he’s memorizing the notes of your perfume.

When the producers take him in to do a video diary confessional, he admits to being swept of his feet by your beauty. You’re the most gorgeous person on this planet. He’s sure you’d make stars jealous of how brightly you shine.

As you explore the house, you find your bed with a group of people about your age. Already, they want to stick together to beat out the other contestants. You agree with them just to keep a low profile.

It’s time for the first of many competitions, and you’re face to face with the boy who took your breath away. You offer him safety into the next week, and he responds “sweetheart, for you, I’ll do anything.”

It’s a corny line meant to throw you off balance, but you stay steady and watch him tumble dramatically to the ground. You cheer victoriously making yourself double competition for the rest of the game.

Weeks will go by where what you don’t know is the cameras pacing back and forth between you and Eddie. The viewers are on the edge of their seats waiting for the moment they’ve been waiting for.

You’re lounging for the moment when Eddie slams his weight into the empty space on the bed with you. Laying with his face down on the pillow, you touch his hair. It’s become normal now for you two to be friendly like this.

“I’m so sore,” Eddie groans.

You swipe gentle hands across his shoulders, “I’m exhausted.”

“Can I sleep with you in here tonight?” He asks.

You nod.

It’s not unusual. Bed swapping happens naturally between housemates. What is unusual is how long you’ll stare at him for. He snorts, and asks you why you’re looking at him like that.

Scooting down to his level, your noses are basically touching. His eyes have turned to one big blob.

“Is it comfy like this?” You giggle.

Eddie laughs along with you, “not really.”

Before you find yourself wound in bed together, you and he join each other in the shared bathroom. Brushing your teeth in near silence, while exchanging longing glances, neither of you is willing to spill their true feelings for each other just yet.

It’s all so competitive in the house, if anyone knew about you and Eddie, they’d surely put a target on your back. It’s a problem when both of you are strong competitors though. No one is willing to strike you down.

But, eventually you’ll make enemies and have to plead your case to stay in the house with the other competitors. This is when Eddie nearly breaks down in the confessional about how lonely he’d be here without you.

You remain in the house with a sigh of relief. Saying goodbye to another roommate is tough though, and you give her a long hug with a promise of sticking through this for her.

Joining Eddie in your room, he lets you cry into his chest. This is the toughest elimination as the numbers of people dwindle down.

Eddie stays with you that night, and for the first time he plants a kiss to your head after he thinks you’re asleep. You lift your head to meet his, and through slow motions your lips meet his. Sinking below the blankets, you share soft touches and sneak kisses between each other.

Eddie becomes a favorite after this. Viewers love seeing his soft side with you, and acting child-like and rambunctious with the other members of the house. He’s got allegiance with some of the boys that like to pick on each other for laughs. But, really his allegiance lies with you. That’s proven after the boys want to swoop you under the rug and sneak you out of the house. He’ll convince them to let you stay, but by then the target swaps to him.

It’s tough being up for elimination, but it’s worse when you’re up there with him.

Crying yourself to sleep at night, Eddie’s been eliminated and you’re ready to call it quits. But, you promised him you’d stay. You swore you’d win for him.

And when the end of the competition comes, you do lose. But, you lose with pride. As a surprise on your way out, Eddie’s there waiting for you. And that’s the best prize you could have asked for.

[transformers-mosaic]

Beast Wars: Second Chances - The Covers

Originally posted on February 2nd, 2011

Cover A - Daniel Olsén Covers B & C - Seb Quickstrike - Ed Pirrie Depth Charge - Loke Mei Yin Snarl vs Terrorsaur - James Ferrand Waspinator - Jeremy Tiongson Dinobot sketch - Matt Frank

deviantART

wada sez: Okay, this one was as much a surprise to me as it is to you. Prolific Mosaic contributor Mike Priest asked me if I had any plans to archive Beast Wars: Second Chances, a full-length comic he originally pitched in a similar vein to War Journal and Spotlight: Stunticons. As nearly all the writers and artists who worked on this one were also Mosaic contributors, and I’ve always felt like there weren’t enough Beast Wars strips in Mosaic, and because Mike asked nicely, I couldn’t say no! Thanks to Mike’s involvement, I’ve got the original scripts and his original story treatment, titled Beast Wars: Beyond, which you can read below—although the final story ended up wildly different, if you want to read along without any spoilers whatsoever, I’d recommend coming back to this post later! It seems that Matt Frank was originally tapped for the project, as he produced a sketch of Dinobot which you can see below, but no further contributions from him ever surfaced.

Okay, this is my initial rough pitch for the story.

Again, anything and everything here is mutable and subject to tweaking and whatever, or downright ignoring and trashing.  I won’t cry.

We start roughly a month or two Earth-time after Primal’s crew left.  The first page should explain this and whatever, and then something akin to “BUT SOMETHING STILL STIRS on this planet!”  Cut to Depthcharge dragging himself out of the surf.

(I’m trying to work AROUND the Mosaic “Eternal”, making it more retroactively tied-in.)

We establish Waspinator as leader of the proto-human tribe, out on a hunt or something with some other humans.  Perhaps some brief proto-human comedy before we hit the nitty-gritty.

We establish Depthcharge wandering around, arguing with himself, totally nuts, screaming at no one in-particular (He’s arguing with Rampage, who only responds through text boxes, so to anyone else, DC looks like a nut).

Waspinator encounters Depthcharge, is initially scared and confused, but decides, what the hey, see what’s up with fishie-bot.  Waspinator honestly is curious/wants to help.

Depthcharge, in a confused, blind rage, grabs Waspinator and viciously beats him near to death.  And not in a funny, usual-Waspinator way.  He’s pleading, BEGGING for Depthcharge to stop.  I’m talking the reader needs to actually feel really bad for Waspinator; he is an endearing character and kind of our “hero” for this story.

Only when some of Waspinator’s human tribe start hitting Depthcharge with rocks and spears does he snap out of it, and is literally horrified at what’s he done to poor Waspinator. (Rampage is in ecstasy though; this is exactly what he wants to turn Depthcharge into; a killer like Rampage himself).

Depthcharge retreats, transforms to jet mode and flies off, horrified at what he’s become.

The proto-humans can’t do anything to help the dying, whimpering Waspinator.  So they make a stretcher and begin carrying him home.

Only they don’t make it.  Something attacks and kills them; Waspinator is too weak to help them.  And it takes Waspinator’s remains.  (Hints of a giant metal spider, perhaps in this sequence)

We establish Tarantulas.  Or rather an AI program that approximates Tarantulas’ personality and goals.  It is housed in a sub-level of Tarantulas’ former lair.  He “lives” through his Steel Tech proxy body, the (black and grey Transmetal Tarantulas), but he cannot particularly control it too well/or it really is just a poor substitute for a sparked body.

Tarantulas has a blank stasis pod that was affected by the Quantum Surge.  He plugs Waspinator’s spark into it.  And Transmetal Waspinator is born.  Waspinator comes back online strapped to a table, with the Steel Tech drone working on him (And Tarantulas’ face on a computer screen, establishing that he really is housed in his lair’s “hard drive”)

Tarantulas explains that he still has to accomplish the Tripredacus Council’s goals, even after death, and Waspinator is one of his new tools.

Faux-Tarantulas ALSO reveals that he has the bodies of Scorponok and Terrorsaur (both Transmetalized), which he recovered from the lava pit.  (TM Terrorsaur’s fine, but a new design for Transmetal Scorponok is essential.  NOT the McDonald’s toy design.  Make him larger and bulkier and his third mode should have flight capability- this is important for later)  

Fitting all three with “neural implants” that ensure obedience, Tarantulas explains he will use them to breach the Ark and carry out its destruction (His Steel Tech drone isn’t dexterous or durable enough to fight through the Ark’s automated defenses).

And Waspinator is a test subject.  Tarantulas releases him from his bonds and orders him to obey.  The neural implant holds, and Tarantulas decides to send Waspinator for a test-drive.  Waspinator speeds out of the lair in his new jet mode.

As he travels over the landscape, he is watched by someone new on the ground.  We don’t find out who it is YET.  Just a close up of a wide, toothy grin and an “Interesting”.

Meanwhile Depthcharge is having a nervous breakdown.  Rampage is slowly driving him insane, and Depthcharge starts repeatedly trying to kill himself.  It is MESSED UP, including Depthcharge throwing himself on his own sword, tearing bits off, and such.  But all the damage heals.  Exhausted and pained, Depthcharge suddenly becomes aware of a visitor watching him.

Cue DINOBOT II, standing arrogantly and grinning down on Depthcharge, telling him it won’t work.

Both Depthcharge and Rampage are surprised to see him.  Rampage particularly.

Meanwhile, Waspinator’s test-drive includes going back to his proto-human village and is ordered to raze it to the ground by Tarantulas.  But Waspy surprises Tarantulas (and the audience) by fighting the neural implant and eventually succeeding in burning it out, overcoming Tarantulas’ will by plumbing that can-do never-give-up Waspinator spirit and his genuine affection for the proto-humans.   Tarantulas is surprised by this, but notes he has back-ups anyway, activating Scorponok and Terrorsaur.

Back with Depthcharge and Dinobot, who, of note, acts somewhat uncharacteristically, giving half-answers and grinning a lot.  Rampage begins to suspect something is different or wrong with Dinobot.

Meanwhile, Scorponok and Terrorsaur are both activated and forced into line by the neural implants.  Terrorsaur is still his arrogant self, but Scorponok is more quiet and almost more professional (It’ll be seen/developed that he’s a bit disillusioned that Megatron never saw fit to recover him from the lava pit).  Anyway, as neither of them have any particular strong will to oppose the neural implant, they go to carry out Tarantulas’ orders to attack the Ark.

We establish the VOK, who realize the danger to the time stream is not yet over.  The two that “killed” Tarantulas decide to intervene.  They go to where Tigerhawk died and begin pulling his shattered pieces together with their powers.  (Tigerhawk would be dead, just a zombie shell animated by these Vok and while his body is whole, it is in horrendous shape, missing an optic, generally looking like a terrifying zombie).

Meanwhile Waspinator is speeding along, knowing somehow he has to go back and stop Tarantulas, when he sees Scorponok and Terrorsaur in their new Transmetal vehicle modes, headed in the Ark’s direction, along with Tarantulas‘ Steel Tech proxy body.  Waspinator isn’t particularly positive he can take both of them, even with his new body, so he decides to go look for “crazy fishie-bot” and hopes Depthcharge is somewhat more lucid now.

Back with Depthcharge and Dinobot, Rampage suddenly senses a familiarity between his own spark and Dinobot and realizes Dinobot’s shell is now possessed by STARSCREAM!

Guilty as charged, Dino-Scream shrugs.  He’s been stuck in this time zone for a while and returned to the planet, but everyone’s left now.  So he looked for the Nemesis (Hoping to find something there he can possess without damaging history) and found Dinobot II’s ravaged, sparkless shell.  Possessing that and healing its injuries, Starscream set out for the Ark next.

Before anything can be done, Waspinator finds them, telling them (as best as he can) about Tarantulas’ plan to destroy the Ark and what not.

Depthcharge and Starscream don’t want to be erased from history, so they agree to help (Rampage even finds it interesting).

Faux-Tarantulas, Scorponok and Terrorsaur arrive at the Ark, and the latter two fight their way through Teletraan-1’s automated defenses (which come out of “sleep mode”).  Faux-Tarantulas hangs back.

But by the time they make it through, Waspinator, Dino-Scream, and Depthcharge/Rampage arrive.

We have a three-on-three battle.  Scorponok fights Depthcharge/Rampage (Scorpy’s new Transmetal body is bigger than his old one and almost a match for Depthcharge, even with the new ferocity that Rampage’s presence in his mind gives him).  Scorponok angsts over his abandonment by Megatron while they fight.  Terrorsaur fights the groundbound Starscream/Dinobot II (Starscream grumbles that this body sucks cuz it can’t fly) and manages to actually hold it off, as Starscream is unaccustomed to fighting like this.

Waspinator faces off against the Steel Tech Drone, and despite some initial trepidation, realizes he’s far more powerful now than any drone and takes the faux-Tarantulas down easily once his confidence is up.

Meanwhile, the zombie Vok-possessed Tigerhawk arrives at Tarantulas’s lair, runs roughshod over the meager defenses, and destroys the Tarantulas’ hard drive/AI for good.

This causes the neural implants in Scorponok and Terrorsaur to fail, and they stop fighting now that they are no longer under Tarantulas’ will.

Confused at what is going on, everyone leaves the Ark.  The Vok-possessed zombie Tigerhawk arrives.

First order of business is noticing Dinobot II.  The Vok declare (The Transmetal II clone body) an “abomination” and perversion of their technology. (Starscream’s like “Whoa, wait a minute!”)

The Vok incinerate Dinobot II’s shell in a blast of lightning from Tigerhawk.  We don’t see what happens to Starscream’s spark.

The Vok explain that the constant interference with the timeline has TO STOP, and tells everyone to get the hell off the planet.

Of course, everyone is like “uh, HOW?”

The Vok tells everyone to go into Earth orbit.  They will self-destruct Tigerhawk’s remains, with the release of alien energies ripping a Transwarp wormhole that’ll send everyone back to the right era.

Everyone of course is like “But…how do we get home from the middle of space?”

And the Vok of course are like “We don’t care, you’re going back to your rightful place in history or we’ll just kill you here and dump you there”

So everyone engages flight modes and follows Zombie-Tigerhawk up into space.  They stand back and the Vok do as they promised, detonating Tigerhawk’s shell and making a wormhole.  Everyone flies through in a flash, the Vok take their leave with some end dialogue about cleaning up some more small glitches or whatever.

Everyone arrives in the middle of space, nowheresville.  Depthcharge isn’t hanging with these “Preds” anymore and “Besides, I’ve got enough company as it is”.  He flies off into the nothingness of space, deciding to either find a way to deal with living with Rampage…or destroying them both.

Waspinator and Scorponok get into an argument about which direction Cybertron is, which ends in Waspinator engaging his jet mode and flying off alone.  Scorponok sighs and goes in the opposite direction, asking if Terrorsaur is coming.

Terrorsaur (who hasn’t said a word since they left Earth) just widely grins and unseen to Scorponok, we see the ghost of Starscream possessing Terrorsaur’s frame.  “Sure thing, pal.”  He follows Scorponok.

END.

Notes-

*Inferno and Quickstrike…well, seeing as Quickstrike’s head was hollowed out and made into a mask, I think they’re a little harder to swallow as still alive.

*I kinda tried to do the exact opposite of what the Botcon comics did…bring Tigerhawk back (albeit a Vok-possessed zombie) instead of Tigatron and Airazor.

*When the zombie Tigerhawk destroys the Tarantulas AI core, depending on preference, we can have him say “You last bit of Unicron” or some such, depending if everyone agrees on Tarantulas’s origins.

*I have Starscream possessing Dinobot’s shell and later Terrorsaur, trying to avoid the clichéd possessing of Transmetal Waspinator.

[orchid-mantis-petals]

WHEN HOME BECOMES YOU CHAPTER 7

/ Hey!! Hello!! a little later than intended but here she is Chapter 7

/ As always a thank you to @maximumkillshot and @taeminsung not only my muses but my spirit guides as I write this story.

/ In the next coming weeks I am going to try and officially build a schedule to follow and post to. That is all the news for now. ONWARD!!

/ Genre: angst, fluff, comfort, a little bit of crack

/ Warnings: talks of sleep, anxiety, ptsd, insomnia, fear, sadness, Swearing

/ Summary:

“What about family??”

“I haven’t heard from them in nearly five years,” a gasp left him, his plump lips sucked into his own teeth. “Chan don’t fret over them, they weren’t kind to me. I chose to leave them behind. My friends, my true family knew that leaving America was the right choice for me. My fresh start,”

“We could be your family,” it was such a simple thing for him to say, but you knew deep in his heart he meant it. Every word of it. 

When morning came it was the first thing you noticed was your sleep had been dreamless. Not a thought behind your eyes, as you opened them to the renewed space that you had been given. The silk sheets slid against your skin cool to the touch. It was refreshing against your body. When you finally slipped out of the bed you stretched high and long, the bright morning light that cast over the city calmed your soul. It was as though Felix and Han had come to grace you even though he wasn’t there. You took a picture of the sunrise, and sent it to him and Han with a message attached.

‘Thank you for the sunshine boys,’

Their responses back quick and sweet as you readied for the day. The gym was your first goal, with a smoothie in hand you made your way to the JYP building. On your way out you spied the extra helmet at your door. There was no rhyme or reason for it but you took it with you. At the building you got in your scheduled time for your gym session. There hadn’t been time to have long planned workouts, Stray Kids’ long winded, fully filled schedules made sure of that. You still found time, whether it be in your hotel room or in the sparse hour or so of free time they had. You liked to dedicate that time to keeping your body in shape for your work. Afterward you looked at your phone. In your month with the boys you had found it easier to just sync your calendar to Chan’s. But as you scrolled through your phone there were no events scheduled. Which was odd, you always had their schedule. Aside from a few meetings in the later afternoon you didn’t have much to do. So after your shower you wandered up to Chan’s studio. With a gentle knock you waited for him to let you in. His voice was distant beyond the door but he beckoned you to come inside. Your eyes cast still down, cast to your phone screen.

“Chan, did you add me to the current calendar?? It isn’t showing up on my phone,” when you looked up you finally took stock of him.

“Shi, I forgot, hold on,” the shadows under his eyes seemed darker, a deeper color to the skin around his lids. You saw his shoulders sagged, his hoodie heavy against his body. As though the entirety of it was a weight that dragged against him. There was a hunch to his back as he leaned over to grab his phone from his bag on the floor. Once retrieved, your phone dinged as he added you to the calendar events for the next two months. Your eyes flashed over the prior days schedule, on it you saw 3Racha had been scheduled for NIZI. A current production of the company that featured the producing team of Stray Kids as judges for future JYP groups. By now it had a few seasons, the original purpose was to have various idol coach trainees. There wasn’t much to Chan you knew, not yet anyway. But it was clear in your eyes that he was exhausted. Beyond that, sleep seemed to evade him. You could see that in every part of his body.

“Are you alright??” You knew the answer, no, but would he say so?? Or would he lie to you.

“I-I don’t know. I am exhausted,”

“How much sleep have you gotten??”

“When??” there was a shrug, that shifted the weight of his hoodie back more. You would reprimand him, would have, had you not known the struggle he had with insomnia. How it affected his daily life, the entity that shrouded over him.

“Tell me about it,” your body settled on the studio couch at the back of the room. It was a staple to their videos, well known and well loved. His eyes roamed over you, the light of the room cast a gold glow over his irises. A hidden color in the deep brown pools. There was a wobble to his lip, a fight he couldn’t keep up due to the tiredness that ebbed off him.

“We had to, we, there was,” he couldn’t gather his thoughts, too many of them all at once. You watched as his eyes darted around the room, as he tried to find the thoughts that plagued him. Slowly you reached across the room your hand slid into his, a squeeze to assure him that you were there.

“Take your time,”

“I-It is really hard to work on this NIZI project. While I enjoy having the time and ability to cultivate the young minds of the new Idol generation. It is also hard to see myself within them,” from what little you know of him, the years he had spent as a trainee. Some of the younger members often remarked on how many years it had been, how he was the longest trainee in the company's current history. You didn’t speak, not until he had finished, his thoughts gathered more before he stood to pace the room. “I worry for them, for those who don’t make it. I know the strength of this industry, like the back of my hand. They would not survive it if we let them Debut. But it guts me to have to let them go. To see their faces as I crush their dreams, their hopes. I remember when I was there, when I felt that,” you reached out to him. You dragged him to the couch beside you, with a pat on the middle seat you turned to look at him.

“I may not know the reasons, the whys of it all. There are experiences of yours that I may not understand. But I can say this, those trainees are safer with you there to guide them. Because you know, you know what it is like to hit those points in life. How hard it is to be in that darkness, there is no one more qualified to know if these boys can or will make it in this career,” his head tipped back with a deep sigh, you watched his anxiety float off of him. His hoodie became a comfort rather than a weight against him. Beside him you felt safe, all of these boys had this effect on you.

“Y/N, tell me how did you know??” your lip tucked into your teeth as you pulled your knees up to your chest.

“Because, Chan. I know what it is like to feel so hopeless. As though the entire world had turned on you. When this job was offered to me I didn’t hesitate to take it. There was nothing left for me in America. Few people to love, and those who I do wanted me to chase this dream,”

“What about family??”

“I haven’t heard from them in nearly five years,” a gasp left him, his plump lips sucked into his own teeth. “Chan don’t fret over them, they weren’t kind to me. I chose to leave them behind. My friends, my true family knew that leaving America was the right choice for me. My fresh start,”

“We could be your family,” it was such a simple thing for him to say, but you knew deep in his heart he meant it. Every word of it.

“I think I would like that very much,” you smiled at him, the soft pull of your lips mirrored on his as he watched you. Whatever work the two of you had forgotten in the deep conversations you engaged in. Soon enough silence followed your voice. As your head turned to look at him, eyebrows raised in a quizzical manner. Chan was passed out against the back of the couch. His neck cocked at an odd angle as his breath came out in soft huffs. You laughed softly as you moved to pull him down away from the couch back. Your own body moved so you could continue work as he slept. After your laptop was set up on the coffee table, earbuds on and in you moved Chan. His head came to rest on your thighs. With slow and careful movements you adjusted him into a comfortable position on your lap. When he didn’t stir at all you knew he was exhausted. His body was a heavy weight next to and against you. It was all worth the ache that would come later, to see him so relaxed with you, next to you.

An hour and a half passed, three of your meetings finished by the time the door opened. Changbin emerged from the other side. Your hand stilled in Chan's hair as you raised your index finger to your lips. An ask to be quiet as he putted about the room. Soon he joined you. He chose the free office chair, his own laptop beside yours as he worked. A few minutes later he was deep into his work, his head bopped to whatever beat that had been stuck in his head now out for the universe to see and hear. Eventually he passed the headphones to you, a silent offer to listen. You wanted to, but the man in your lap prevented you from moving. Changbin nodded, he moved around the table. Settled the headphones over your head before he moved back to play the beat he just created. Chan stirred beneath you a shiver wracked his spine, his hoodie abandoned on the chair Chanbin sat in. Before you listened to the beat you reached back behind the couch. A random spotify blanket that was haphazardly draped over the couch. You settled it over him, softly tucked the back of it to his body. A small cocoon is what he became. As the blanket settled over him you and Changbin watched as he tucked his nose under the soft fabric, a soft sigh escaped him as he nuzzled into your thigh and the blanket. The beat all but abandoned as Changbin stood, hand over his mouth to muffle the scream that was locked in his chest. You watched as he slipped away into the recording booth. A sound proof space you noticed as he let his hand drop to let out the scream. After a few moments he returned phone in hand to snap a picture of Chan asleep in your lap. Happily you let him.

“Thank you,” he mouthed as he returned to his seat to play the beat he’d created. When it started you listened intently, your own head moved to the intricate sound he created in mere minutes. When it was finished you removed the headphones and let Changbin take them back from you. He waited patiently for your feedback.

“It was good,” you whispered as you settled your fingers across your keys to finish out some paperwork for a couple staff transfers. The tranquil silence that was created between the three of you was broken when the door swung open once more. This time Han entered the room, at the sight of you he squealed. His voice was loud as he rushed over to you for a hug. The movements jostled Chan in your lap effectively waking the poor man.

“Hannie, you need to look around first,” Changbin scolded as he pulled the younger man away from you. He worried he squashed Chan in his effort to hug you.

“I am so sorry Chan,” your fingers carded into the dark haired man's locks in your lap in hopes you would ease the startled feeling he must have from being woken up so abruptly. There was a heavy sigh before he forced himself upright with a groan.

“It’s alright Sungie, we need to work anyway,” his eyes met yours with a silent thank you for the kindness you had offered him today. You just smiled at him and stood as you collected your belongings.

“Well I will let you three get to it. Can’t keep the geniuses from marking their art,” you made sure to give Han a proper hug before you left them for the rest of the day. Han protested a small bit before Chan dragged him to the recording booth.

“We need to make guides Han,”

**** **** **** ****

Work that afternoon had become hard for him. It wasn’t the usual back and forth banter he’d have with Chan or the constant nag from Han to change something that kept him distracted. No it was you, Changbin was utterly entrapped by the presence you had created in his life. In the lives of his small family. His Whimsy, the kind soul that remained a mystery.

“What do you think of this Changbin??” He wasn’t paying attention, not in the slightest. His mind elsewhere, to the place you sat on that couch. Your nimble fingers tapped lightly away at your keyboard, movements small to keep Chan from waking in your lap below you. There was kindness in every action you took toward them. How he longed to be the person to rest his head over your plush thighs, to be given the permission to exist like that with you. He was not jealous of Chan, not in the slightest. Rather he was so happy to have found his leader passed out, you had guided him to sleep. Changbin was thankful you had gifted the older man the short nap he was given. “Bin,” his head finally turned to meet Chan, eyebrows raised as he hummed in return.

“Mm what??”

“Channie-Hyung, hes lovestruck,” Han sing-songed as he spun in his chair before he returned to the main desk. Changbin felt his hands wrap around his shoulders as he giggled. “I don’t blame you she's pretty,”

“It’s not just that Hannie,” his hands raked over his face as an exasperated sigh left his lips. “She's gorgeous, stunning. But it, it’s not just that. There is this kindness to her. She works so hard to protect us. I want to hear her voice everyday, listen to her speak to me. Around me, her existence in its own right is exquisite,” his mouth moved before he even had time to stop it. The words tumbled out of him, the experience not far off from when he created lyrics. All of it spilled out of him, heart bare and open for his members to see.

“Ask her on a date,” Chan remarked, his fingers typed away at the computer as he arranged the music again. It didn’t fit, not yet. Changbin groaned, unable to now form words for the pure discontentment he had with the idea. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to ask you out. It was that he wasn’t sure how. Or even where to begin. “Just simply ask her out to dinner,”

“I can’t,” he groaned as his head came to thump against the desk effectively rattling the contents that lay strewn about it.

“You can just simply say ‘hey Y/N let's go get dinner.’ Easy as pie,” was it really?? It didn’t feel that way not to him. Chan sighed this time his eyes glanced over the clock on his computer before he moved back with a stretch. “Well speaking of dinner, since we can’t seem to focus we might as well head to the dorms for a break,” Changbin hadn’t planned to protest, not when he truly couldn’t focus on the task at hand. Not when you caused a welcome plague over his mind.

When the car was called they ventured down to the garage that they were always picked up and dropped off from. There not far off he spied your motorcycle, you too were still here. That fact alone made his heart race, there was a chance to see you one more time for the day. Maybe, hopefully. Not long after the three settled outside the elevator to wait for the car did the familiar ding of the metal doors opening draw their attention to behind them. There you stood phone in hand as you stepped out to join them. When you glanced up you smiled at them. He couldn’t help but smile back. Changbin was starstruck by your existence alone. How could he not smile when his whimsy smiled at him?? Before he knew it the words fell from his lips just as fast as he thought of them.

“Dinner, you and me. Together, please,” well that was one way to ask. He heard snickers behind him before his fellow members decided to speak their mind.

“Well that’s one way to do it,”

“He got the words right. Delivery needed work,” he looked back to find Han leaning over Chan with his usual cheeky smile. He was sure to flip them off for their unnecessary commentary to his embarrassment. You however laughed, your soft airy laugh he loved to hear.

“Yes, let’s,”

“When??” He found his chance. He wouldn’t lose it now.

“Now, my place,” something cold and hard pressed to his abdomen. When he looked down he found a helmet had been pressed to his stomach. A helmet, its colors matched yours perfectly. Though the blue and pink tones were in reverse. When his hands clasped over it you dropped the full weight of it to be held by him. “Come on lover boy,” you turned on your heels and walked toward your bike. It was a view he could watch all day. Sure it made him feel not far off form a teenage boy as he RESPECTFULLY eyed your body as it walked away from him. How could he not when you wore your gear. The pants alone were criminal. A deep purple followed the inner and outer seam of your body drew further attention to your ass. The jacket that matched fit snug against your shoulders, and chest. He watched as you turned to look at him, your hands slowly pulled the zipper up up and up over your neck. It was Chan that pushed him into action, the older took his gym bag and nudged him to follow you. He did with careful steps he joined you beside the bike, helmet still lazily clasped in his hands. Your brown eyes glanced up at him, a smile on your lips before you reached into your bag for your own helmet. “Don’t be shy,”

“It’s hard not to be, when you look at me like that,” curse his mouth. Curse his brain for having let that slip out. Your laugh met his ears once more like a song he didn’t know he needed to hear. By now he knew his ears were tinted red. To hide he slipped his head into the helmet his cheeks squished some with all the heavy padding. It felt odd, tight, and strikingly comforting to have the helmet over his head.

“Wait you’re missing something,” you laughed as you reached around and grabbed something from your bag. He couldn’t see what it was, you had moved too quick for him to see what you had put whatever it was on his helmet. Your cheeky smile was reward enough for him though. “A photo, for the boys,” you said as you slipped your own helmet on and turned to take a selfie with him. In the view of the camera he could see you had put magnetic bunny ears on his helmet. Like yours one flopped down the other upright. In the opposite direction of yours. He smiled for the photo. Though his mouth couldn’t be seen he was sure his eyes gave away his glee. Afterward you handed him your backpack to wear while the two of you rode. He watched beneath the visor as you settled over the bike. Your soft thighs pooled some to accommodate the metal and plastic underneath you. When you settled he moved to sit behind you. His own thighs moved to mold into the seat of the bike. He tried to find purchase in anything other than you. Don't get him wrong, he wanted to touch you. Reach his arms around your torso splay his wide palms over your stomach. But he wouldn’t, not at least until you said so. “Changbin, you’ll fall off if you sit like that,” your arms reached back, your fingers threaded into his as you pulled his arms around your torso. There you settled them over your stomach..dreams really do come true. Changbin willed himself to NOT pop a boner while he sat with your back to him like this.

“Okay,” he nodded, helmet bonked against yours in the effort. It made you both laugh. Though yours was so much prettier than his. When his hands settled over you he felt you twist some as the bike roared to life. If Changbin had to describe the feeling of the engine beneath him he’d say it was similar, not far off from the feeling he got when he growled. The deep rumble from the pit of his stomach rolled through his chest and throat. Until he unleashed all the power he had in his voice out his lips. Your motorcycle was the same, except that slow rumble started from the balls of his feet, up his thighs. It settled there before it ricocheted up his spine and stayed in his shoulders only to go back down, then back up once more. It was unfamiliar, new, he gripped you tighter as your own feet lifted off the concrete and the bike moved forward. He leaned over you as you pressed forward, his body molded into yours with the effort to not fall off. The fading sunlight hit you both the moment that you had left the garage. The tired screeched some with the effort to get onto the main streets of the city. He’d seen this city before, it has been his home for many years now. But under the tinted visor it was different.

“It’s my favorite view,” your voice came clear through his ear. It startled him some but he relaxed when he realized he was connected to your helmet through a Bluetooth device.

“I can see why,” he sighed as he leaned back some, as he dared to look around the city he knew so well. He loved it, every second of it. As the two of you zipped through the busy streets he laughed. The sun cast shadows over you both as you took them over the Han bridge. The gold light cast over the water made it shimmer. It was so bright Changbin knew if his visor wasn’t down he'd be blinded. But with it down he could see the full beauty of the water that was below you both. With one last look he settled back with his head over your shoulder to watch the streets in front of you. The music you were playing was funny, American. He couldn’t catch the lyrics but he’d have to ask you for it later to translate the meaning behind it.

The ride wasn’t long enough in his opinion, your apartment was tucked neatly away just outside the heart of the city. When you parked he waited for your signal to get down. When you tapped his arms he let go of the grip he had on you and slipped off the bike. Not long after you slipped off it your legs were far steadier than his as you stood on the concrete floor. “You’ll have to teach me how to drive,”

“Gladly. Though Felix asked first,” you waved him to follow you, and he did. Like a lost puppy he followed you into the building helmet in his hands as he walked behind you. The concierge waved to you before he looked at Changbin. “Good evening. I’ll have some more guests later I’ll page them up,”

“I can make badges for them if you would like to miss,” there was a thought behind your eyes before you nodded.

“Will you make two please??” When the man at the desk nodded you began the walk toward the elevator once more. The small fob on your keys opened the doors. It allowed you further access to the building. Changbin looked around, the place was high class. The security was immaculate, almost better than his own place. He didn’t even want to know the cost of living in a place like this. With your salary he was sure you could afford it. Still it was a mystery to him. Eight floors up and he followed you off the elevator straight into your front door. Then into your home. “Make yourself at home,” you said as you slipped into your house slippers shoes neatly left at the door. “I’m just going to change really quick,”

“O-okay,” he stepped into the spare slippers as he wandered into the small space you called home. The design of it all gave him more of who you were. What you liked. The neon signs and soft plush couch drew his attention. “So you’re having more company later??” He called out as he looked over the art hung on your walls. Some small photos clipped into magnetic frames tacked neatly on the wall. Your life in another country. A life he didn’t know.

“Yes, the rest of the boys are coming later for a movie. Hyunjin insisted on it as a housewarming sort of thing,” he laughed. It made sense. Ever since Felix and Hyunjin had taken you out shopping he’d heard nothing but all the things Hyunjin did to make you happy. “So that also means you’re invited for movie night,”

“Well I guess it won’t be a hassle since I’m already here,” you laughed, his heart thundered in his chest. When he looked back he saw you tiptoe down the steps of your loft space he felt his cheeks burn at the sight of you. Sure it wasn’t much, you weren’t dressed up like you were at the after party. But any sighting of you in clothes that aren’t your work attire was a blessing to him.

“How does Spaghetti sound??”

“Italian is the way to my heart,” truth be told, any food was. But he was a sucker for Italian.

“Wonderful. My MeeMaw made a mean spaghetti recipe,” while you took up residence in the kitchen he sat at the small island bar to watch you work. “If you sit there I’ll give you something to do,”

“Please, I hate just sitting here,” the two of you laughed softly and soon he was given a task to do. Onions to cut, among other small veggies while you prepared the meat and noodles. “Was your grandmother Italian??”

“No, far from it actually, but she had an affinity for Italian food,” your smile warmed his heart. He’d never heard you speak of your family but it was good to hear someone within your life loved you. Enough to gift you a smile when you spoke of them. The conversations between the two of you became endless. One subject filtered into another with ease, there was no awkward pause or silence to fill. He loved every second. And soon enough you joined him, with two plates in hand you gave him one as you sat beside him at the counter. “Hyunjin said a dining room table wasn’t practical for my small space so he didn’t end up getting me one,”

“Yes he told me all about your shopping adventure when he and Felix got to practice last night,” he dipped his fork into his meal and began to twirl it until he had a decent bite of the spaghetti on it. The flavor was unlike anything he’s had before. It was spaghetti, yes, but there was something different. The sauce was rich, thick, but not so much it made a weight in your stomach. Whatever your MeeMaw had in her recipe was divine. A hearty groan escaped his throat as he savored the flavors in his mouth. When he turned to look at you, your eyes were already on him. He lit up knowing you had waited to see how he felt about this meal. “Y/N. Make me this again,”

“If you react like that everytime I do then yes. I will gladly,”

“The boys are going to be so jealous,”

“Let them. They didn’t ask me to dinner. You did,” oh..was there another one of his members you wished to go out with. Had he read the flirtatious banter between you two wrong?? “Get out of your head Seo Changbin. Dinner with you is exactly what I wanted,” he lit up with your reassurances and continued to eat beside you. As you talked he learned you were close with your maternal grandparents, but the rest of your family remained a mystery. You refused to speak of them. He didn’t pry, you’d come to him when you’re ready. He was sad to find the only relatives you adored had passed.

“Is it hard to be here in Korea when you can’t visit their graves??”

“No, I have them with me always,” you shifted to move your pant leg up. It felt scandalous to Changbin to watch you pull the stretchy fabric up up and up to your thigh. But there he saw it. A beautiful floral and star design littered your skin. It was wrapped higher than your pants allowed. The delicate ink took over the entire expanse of your left leg. He’d seen the edges of it on your ankle but to see it in its near full glory was marvelous. “My artist put their ashes in the ink. So they are with me forever,”

“Wow, it's beautiful. Suits you well,” he watched your skin disappear beneath your pants once more as you turned to finish your meal.

“They were everything to me. It feels good to know even with them gone I still have a part of them with me,” he smiled as he listened. There was so much more he wanted to know about you. So much he wished you’d tell him. He wished this dinner would last eternity. But..it couldn’t. With both your plates clear Changbin insisted he do the dishes. After all the effort you took in cooking he made sure you had the chance to relax some before 7 other people invaded your space. After he finished he found you at the wall with the framed photos. The ones that felt a touch out of place. Yet they belonged so well. More parts of you he didn’t know.

“The tall beefy one is Axel,” he listened, you had willingly offered some more of your life. He didn’t want to stop you. “He is my best friend. He urged me to take this opportunity. The night I met you Changbin. If he hadn’t dragged me out to work. I would have missed the opportunity to work abroad. Axel is a huge reason why I’m here, why I’m with you in this moment,”

“I will have to thank him for bringing my Whimsy to me,”

“What??”

“I-I I am so sorry that wasn’t meant to be said..it’s what I call you in my head. W-Whimsy. The woman with the most Wh-Whimsical smile,” his cheeks felt as though they were on fire he couldn’t even believe himself for saying it aloud. Now he stuttered with embarrassment as he tried to explain himself. “You hate it..I’ll stop,” your hand came to rest on his chest in a gentle motion that told him to shut up. When his eyes met yours he melted your cheeks dusted in his favorite pink. A pink that brought out your freckles.

“No, I like it. Please call me that,” he nodded slowly, he didn’t want to stop looking at you. Never. Soon his hand moved, he wanted to join yours. He was sure you could feel his heart as it ricocheted in his chest. But before his hand came to rest over yours the door buzzer went off. He groaned..of course..the guys were here. And this moment between you two had to end. You laughed when his groan became outward. But you did slip away. You allowed the boys entry. You told them to stop at the front counter to pick up the two fobs you had made then returned to his side. Changbin hadn’t moved from his spot. Eyes still glued to the photos on the wall. To you, and the others caught within them.

“The boys have good timing,”

“Something like that,” he huffed lightly before he wandered over to the couch and sank into the plush cushions with a soft groan.

“It just means you and I will have to do this again,”

“You want that??”

“Of course I want that Changbin,” he smiled at the thought of being able to have time like this with you again. He wanted it too, so very much. Soon the front door burst open Felix and Hyunjin first in the door, their arms wrapped tight around you.

“Not fair!! Changbin I wanted to taste Starlight's cooking first!!”

“Yah!! Changbin you’re so unfair!!”

“Guess it just means she likes me more than the two of you,” he sat back into the couch to watch the chaos he had unfolded. Chan and you both gave him pointed looks of disdain as the wailing from the younger two became louder. Eventually they all settled down for the movie.

**** **** **** ****

Your night went perfectly. The dinner you had with Changbin was pleasant. You had learned so much about him. His life here in Korea. It was nice to just have calm chatter with someone. It helped that said someone was so incredibly handsome. Sure he was more than that. But his looks helped factor in your admiration for him. When the movie started you managed to squeeze yourself between Changbin and Felix. Hyunjin and Han fought for a spot between your legs on the floor. In the end it was Han who won though from the other side of the couch you could see Lee Know was keeping a close eye on you. Sure, you had won him over a little at the airport but it was easy to see he still didn’t trust you entirely. Chan had later explained to you how protective Lee Know was over Han and why. You understood it and did your best to show the older male you weren’t a threat to Han or the rest of the boys. The movie went smoothly.

Eventually Han vacated the space at your feet to snuggle up against Lee Know. Hyunjin and Felix were squished together beside them, also fast asleep. It left you, Chan, Changbin and Lee Know to watch over the others. By the time the movie ended you had to help usher out the four sleepy boys. They reminded you of toddlers as they waddled through your home fists rubbing the sleep from their eyes. You bid them goodnight from the door. There was a soft rattle once it closed. The walls of your apartment echoed the sound. From within you heard further proof of things having shifted in your home. When you turned on the light you noticed one of your forgotten boxes had toppled over. Most of its contents had stayed inside the box, yet a few feet away you noticed the broken photo frame. It was a miracle the glass hadn’t shattered further.

You hated that photo, but part of you still struggled to get rid of it. You had yet to find peace with all that happened. Slowly you reached down to pick it up. As the frame came to rest in your fingers you heard your phone go off. You wondered if maybe one of the boys had forgotten something. Yet when you lifted your abandoned device from the couch it was Axel’s contact you faced. You were quick to answer.

“Hey dude you’re calling at a strange time,” there was a small pause before Ivory’s voice filtered in from the other side.

“Y/N, Axel is in the hospital,”

“He..What happened??”

“Logan, he showed up at his place. He demanded to know where you were,”

“Axel is bigger than him how..” your voice tapered off as it began to shake. Fear riddled you immobile. No matter where you went your past would still come to haunt you. He would still come to haunt you.

“He broke Axel’s leg at the knee with a bat before Axel could stop him,” your eyes watered with the thought of your best friend injured with just the idea to protect you. Nothing made sense, the world faded away from you. Slowly you sank to the floor, phone dropped to the hardwood before you even had the chance to stop it. Not like you could, his voice filtered into your head.

“I will find you Dovey,”

“You can never escape me,”

“Just watch my love, you belong to me,”

“Dovey, dovey, dovey,”

You felt nothing, the photo in your hands slipped into your blurry view. The “happy” faces that lay in the cracked frame evident of the truth behind the people in it. Your scream desperate as you threw the frame away from you. Its near perfectness finally shattered all over the floor. Its glass scattered everywhere. Your hands shook as you reached down to pick it up. To pick up the broken bits of your heart as it lay bare on your floor. You didn’t care if the glass cut you. His voice called to you more and more as you sobbed. “I’ll be good..please..please leave them alone,” a line you’ve said a thousand times with his fist inches from your face. You’d take it all to protect them.

“Dovey, here I come,”

TAG LIST:

@taeminsung @maximumkillshot @feybin @alex--awesome--22 @liknws @palindrome969 @newbbystay @highlydestiny

[dirtysvthoughts]

𝓟 𝓡 𝓘 𝓥 𝓐 𝓣 𝓔 𝓓 𝓐 𝓝 𝓒 𝓔 𝓡 - CHAPTER FOUR

pairing: rapper! seungcheol x stripper! reader

word count: 3.2k (longest for this series so far!)

general tags/warnings: smut, pwp, female! reader, dom! seungcheol, deep voice cheol, dirty talk, giving cheol head, reader gets partially nude, mentions of d*ugs, pet names, grinding on the d w/o a condom (please protect yourselves tho, always), seungcheol’s fave body part on you is your ass (he is an ass man, i’m not fighting people on this, it’s a fact)

notes: after about a nearly two month break we’re back! sorry y’all i know the momentum has kinda died out a bit, but between coming back to the states after a month long trip and returning to my normal routines and going back to work and some family stuff, it was hard to find the energy to write. but we’re back nonetheless! thank you for sticking by if you’re still here!

playlist songs: money showers - fat joe, remy ma, ty dolla sign, hey daddy (daddy’s home) - usher, another nasty song - latto

taglist: @im-gemmy @enhacolor @hooniewnderland @svtup @kawaiikels @weeevrse @diorsfxck @kyexvly @woozarts @ifuckcheol @marsstarxhwa @haoxiaoba (if your user is crossed out that means i cant tag you)

the smell of weed is strong enough to take over the small studio space, it slightly crowded with the amount of people in the room. a few producers sit in their chairs, altering the sound board controls every and now and then, a heavy bass booming through the system.

behind the door and in the booth is seungcheol, or s.coups (his stage name), spitting fire into the mic as he records the final tracks for an upcoming, anticipated mixtape. he had a pretty decent following after posting some songs on soundcloud for the fun of it, and it continued to grow when he released his first mixtape a few months ago. now pretty much everyone knew his name and it wouldn’t be long before he caught the attention of a mainstream, viral artist.

as he says his last words, the volume goes down and a voice fills the booth, “yeah man, that was great as fuck!” seungcheol smiles as he puts up his headphones and exits the room, dapping up all the producers to thank them for their hard work.

“this mixtape is gonna be so fire, cheol, you’re really out there now!”

“yeah, soon you’re not even gonna need us anymore, working with all those big time producers,” someone chimes in and seungcheol immediately frowns.

“hey man, don’t even say that. you guys were the first people to give me a chance, i’m never gonna forget my brothers,” he nudges them in their shoulder, and they respond by rolling their eyes.

“well that was the last track we had to do for today, what are you guys’s plans for tonight?” someone asks, but before he can even answer, seungcheol hears his phone ring with a text message alert.

princess: hey cheollie, just making sure you’re still on for tonight at illusion! i have a vip room ready and waiting just for you baby ❤️

he can’t help it, but his dick twitches at the last sentence you typed out. he was intoxicated just by the thought of you.

seungcheol has been one of your few regulars ever since he showed up to the club one night two years ago, celebrating the release of his first mixtape. the night in it of itself was a movie, expensive bottles everywhere, music blasting, and girls half-naked dancing on the tables and couches. cheol’s section was upstairs and it was where the party was really at. word got around quickly through the dressing room that cheol was there, and most of the dancers were hanging out with him and his entourage, trying to be the one girl to get him all to themselves. who wouldn’t want him all his glory to be honest?

you however, not exactly enticed by the rowdiness, took your spot at one of the available poles on the main floor. “just another one of those wannabe rappers,” you thought. not too far from his section, you went into one of your routines once a new song started playing. while spinning and inverting, enjoying the high the pole gave you, you didn’t even notice that seungcheol’s attention somehow made its way towards you.

to say the least, he was astounded. not only were you gorgeous in every way possible, you danced like you were on air, as if gravity meant nothing to you. as one of the bottle girls walked through to deliver another round of shots, she calls out to him, waking up from his trance when one of his friends shakes his shoulder.

“coups, are we getting more shots or what? stop daydreaming, it’s way too lit in here for that,” he grabs the ass of the dancer that was currently grinding onto him, matching his body to her energy to mimic riding her.

“y-yeah, sorry, we’ll have more shots,” seungcheol stutters as the server puts down the tray. before she can leave though, he taps her hand.

“do you know all of the dancers here?”

“yeah..” she responds in a slightly confused tone. “why are you asking?”

cheol then points to you, thanking the gods that you didn’t disappear from his line of sight. cash now lined your pole’s platform as your hips rolled to the beat, and then dropped down into a surprise split, patrons tossing even more bills at you.

“who’s she? she’s so fucking sexy,” he sighs sweetly, wanting to leave the table and everyone else just to have even a moment with you.

“oh, that’s sage - she’s one of our main dancers. if you wanna see her dance for you though, you better ask fast. there’s a reason why she’s so popular,” she says as she walks away carrying the empty tray under her arms.

without a second thought, he gets up from the table and goes down the stairs, his friends groaning in disappointment that seungcheol was leaving them. “this is all for you and you’re leaving the fun?” someone calls out behind him.

“i’ll be back in a bit!” he waved his hand, motioning to shoo them away. “there’s something i wanna do first.” with his friends out of the way, now he could focus on what he really wanted - you.

little did the both of you know that you would meeting sooner than you thought. you needed to make your way to the dressing room to grab something, but you got so caught up in your drive that you didn’t even notice another body heading directly towards you. you and cheol then accidentally bump into each other, and luckily you’re able to regain your balance in your heels just in time.

“whoa, i’m so sorry, i didn’t see you ther-” seungcheol freezes mid-sentence when he realizes it was you he bumped into. “holy shit,” he thought to himself. you looked gorgeous from afar, but right in front of him? it was taking everything in him not to have his hard-on show.

“no, it was my bad, i wasn’t paying attention,” you respond, your voice flowing sweet like honey to him. you try to continue walking but cheol reaches out and grabs your hand. you look at him funny as he doesn’t say anything at first.

“is there something else you need?” you ask, a bit confused, wanting to hurry up and go to the dressing room.

“yeah, you,” he thinks to himself again, trying to keep his eyes on yours and not at how your boobs were almost spilling out of your olive green two-piece.

he gathers his thoughts and takes a mental sigh. “there is actually,” he smirks as he pulls you closer to his body, his hands on your waist. he whispers in your ear and it sends shivers down your spine and your core.

“lemme take you to a room, princess. i saw you dancing over there and i wanna have you all to myself.” you bit your lip hard at the proposal. while he may have awkwardly grabbed your hand and you questioned his actions for a second, you could see why practically everyone was trying to be in his section. he’s handsome as fuck, his dark hair slightly hanging over his eyes, and his black shirt and jeans defining his built body. and to top it off, he had a voice that melted you like chocolate fondue.

“how will i know that it’ll be worth it? you’re clearly not the first guy i’ve taken to a room and you definitely won’t be the last. how will you make it worth my while?” you tease him, twirling your hair in between your fingers.

he chuckles and runs his hand through his hair. “why tell you and waste time when we can just get to it now, princess?”

yup, just your style.

“wait by the bar for me?” you wink at him as you go to the dressing room, purposefully walking slower to make sure got a full view of back of your body, admiring how good your ass looked even from afar.

he couldn’t help but smile to himself as he walked to the bar, in awe at the fact that he was so damn lucky today. a successful mixtape release, a great party, and now the most gorgeous woman he ever laid eyes on was about to be in his sole presence. nothing could get better than this.

or so he thought, because later than night. things definitely got way better when you finally took him to a vip room. after you danced for him on the pole, it lead to one of the hottest lap dances you’ve ever given, which subsequently lead to seungcheol taking you down on the couch, having you scream and moan his name until you came not once, not twice, but three times in the span you two were together.

ever since then, seungcheol came to see you nearly every single week, providing you with stacks of cash, phenomenal sex, a good conversation, and sometimes even all three. you also quickly realized that cheol definitely was not one of those “wannabe soundcloud rappers.” he had the talent, charisma, and passion for the industry, and you hoped that someone would recognize him for his gifts very soon.

going back to the present, cheol speaks up getting the attention of his audience. “well sage is working tonight, and today’s the usual day i go see her, so if anyone wants to hit up club illusion with me, we’ll roll right now,” he looks down at his silver audemars piguet watch, the hands pointing very close to the 10. a few people agree to go with him, others saying that they weren’t in the mood for a strip club or they had other places to be at.

cheollie: i’ll be there soon, i just wrapped up another studio session. can’t wait to see you princess, been on my mind all day

after getting some food and chilling out, the group finally makes its way to the club, the line pretty much nonexistent at this time for a thursday night. he and his crew stick together, some of the dancers approaching them.

“hey coups,” one of the girls flirts with him, biting her lip. another dancer next to her waves her hand, flipping her hair back to show off her decorated neck, inviting seungcheol to come touch her. he nods and smiles at the both of them, but he was only interested in just one person.

“coups!” you call out for him, spotting him from a distance. you walk down from the platform - your lemon-colored sequin bikini set tracing every beautiful curve on your body, the yellow heels you wore matching perfectly. as you walk down to meet him, you can’t help but admire how sexy he looks. his blonde hair, his white shirt encapsulating his muscles, his expensive sunglasses on his forehead. seungcheol quickly embraces you when you take your last step off the stairs, hands on your waist and both your lips locking immediately. it quickly escalates, moaning into his mouth when you feel his tongue roaming yours.

his friends groan behind of him when they see how intimate you two become, seungcheol’s hands starting to palm your ass. he turns his head, chuckling at their reactions, “like what you see?” he winks at them and goes back to kissing you, hands now moving their way across your chest.

they mumble to each other and leave the two of you alone, making their way to the main floor to find a table. once you know they’re out of sight, you grab his chin, causing seungcheol to stop and look at you. “finally,” you sigh happily, kissing the inside of his neck. “i’ve been waiting for you baby.”

he caresses your cheek, “didn’t you say you had a room for me too? c’mon princess, let’s go somewhere a lot less crowded.” you take his hand and lead him to the hall of private rooms downstairs, opening the second to last one, revealing a soft, golden lit room - the furniture basked in a champagne hue, and the stage decorated in a chrome, slick black.

“welcome to the champagne room, seungcheol!” you exclaim walking him in, cheol making sure the door was closed behind you. he whistles in amazement - the two of you have been in a share of private rooms in illusion, but this is the first time he’s been in a room as decorated as this.

“a change of pace i see,” he says walking towards the center chair, taking a seat on the cushions. “why the new setting princess?” he asks, running his hand behind his hair, unintentionally making you clench with how his muscles flexed.

you sultrily saunter toward him, making sure he could see all of you, making him crave for more of you. without another word, you gingerly sit on his lap, lacing your arm around his neck. “i actually wanna try something new with you, cheol,” you sheepishly smile, looking down at his chest, fingers starting to play with the necklace he was wearing.

“we’ve done so many things in these four walls, but the one thing i haven’t done yet is give you head in the private rooms.. which is crazy now that i’ve think about it,” you let out a small laugh, mind wandering to all of the dirty things you two have done, from cheol fucking you against the wall, handcuffed to nearly having a threesome. but one of the simplest things you could’ve ever done with cheol - neither of you had acted upon it yet.

“whaddaya say? can i go down on you seungcheol?” you whisper the last few words in his ear, and he groans as he reaches for his pants and his belt, loosening it up without hesitation.

“i’m all yours baby,” he tilts your chin up to look at you. “get this dick wet like only you can.”

——

is this the first time you’ve given head at a strip club? of course not, but it’s never felt as good as tonight. you’ve seen and felt seungcheol’s dick several times, knowing he was big. but you still weren’t prepared for the feeling of bliss having him deep inside your throat.

“that’s it baby, take some more in,” he guides your head, bobbing it up and down his length, making sure your pacing wasn’t going too fast. he wanted to savor you for as long as he could.

the tip of his dick was hitting the back of your throat, and it felt so good that you felt tears might prick your eyes. you moan around him, taking it a bit faster, and he groans loudly, head tilting backward, hands roaming your hair.

“fuck.. baby, keep taking me… mmm, just like that,” he breathlessly smiles at you and you feel you immediately clench, your panties getting even wetter. you speed up your pace for the final time, and not even a minute later, he cums into your mouth, and you don’t hesitate to swallow everything he gives you.

you lick your lips and open your mouth to let him know you’ve finished, and he kisses you again, your tongue fighting for dominance as you stand up and sit in his lap. he undoes your bra as it falls onto his lap and you begin to feel his length on your panty covered crotch.

“mmm, you just can’t enough of me, can’t you cheol?” you giggle, maneuvering your fingers to pull your panties to the side. “got you so rock hard that the only thing you can think of is me, huh? you’re so down bad,” you fully sink down on him and you both moan out loud, adoring the way how both of you feel on each other.

he grabs a handful of your ass and starts groping at the skin, to which you respond by grinding down on cheol, tits slowly beginning to bounce as you established a rhythm.

“okay, so i am down bad, but what about you princess? i bet your panties got wet the second you laid eyes on me tonight,” he says planting a smack on your ass, not too hard, but definitely not soft either. “but then again, when do you not get wet when you’re around me? always so needy for me, my baby. but you’re so patient and so ready,” he begins to kiss down your chest, reaching your breasts.

“fuck- don’t stop talking, please keep going!” you moan again as you both start to speed up the pace. “i-i don’t think i’ve told you this but, i love your voice, cheol.. it melts me like butter, ah!” you exclaim as he envelops one of your nipples in his mouth, pushing his head in further so he could take more of you.

at this point, you were now fully bouncing in his lap, his hands bringing you in closer, making sure you both were body to body, as close as you could be.

“feels so good my princess, fuck yeah, keep bouncing on me like that. doing such a good job for me, pretty girl,” he can’t help but revel in your glow, the faces you’re making, and how you're riding him - he knew you weren’t too far off, and he was getting close too.

as you keep grinding down on him the coil in your belly continues to tighten, and when you finally feel it break, you can’t even give seungcheol so much as a warning when you come all over the lower half of his body.

“holy shit,” you breathe out, trying to compose yourself after the amazing orgasm you just experienced. “cheol, holy shit, you’re amazing,” you chuckle at him and smiles back at you, giving you little pecks around your face.

“nah, that’s all you, princess, no one can do me the way you do.” he stares at you lovingly and you try not to let the blush creep up your face.

——

after a few minutes go by, you both begin to put your clothes back on and you across the room for your bra top. as you bend over to get it, cheol whistles, mentally groaning at how full and pretty your ass looks from far.

“damn princess, have you been working out?” he asks coming closer, giving another smack to your cheek one more time, then putting a few bills in between the strings. you put on your bra, making sure it was decently tight.

“a little bit… you like?”

“like? more so love,” he grabs you by the waist, back flush against his body. his hands stay there, going up and down to every inch of skin. you start to sway your hips, seeing if you could get him hard again.

“ah ah,” he whispers in your ear, licking your earlobe. “don’t start anything you cant finish, sweetheart.”

“i could say the same for you, cheol,” you snake your hands up to caress his face. “but don’t you love that about me baby? when i get started, it’ll be an experience you’ll never ever forget.”

and he’ll admit it - you were right. you are addicting, irresistible, a flame that continues to burn in his heart - his forever pole princess.

[wildwoodsgames]

Design Diary: Heaven in the Dust (Revised) - Playbooks

So here's the thing—Heaven in the Dust was the first Belonging Outside Belonging game I ever wrote.

It was published way back in January 2019 for the Record Collection jam into a largely-unexplored design space. Sleepaway wouldn't crowdfund until the end of that year. The design jam that produced Our Haunt was three months away. You could count the BOB games in existence without running out of fingers.

As a result of that, the ideas are strong but the execution is somewhat naive. See for yourself with Hades:

Looking back on this today, what do I see?

The picklists are perfunctory—often only one unique prompt per archetype—and pedestrian. The prompts themselves are uninflected (Wanderhome hasn't reshaped the possibility space yet).

There's too much focus on aesthetic, and not enough on narrative prompts. There only unique prompt focuses on the factory rather than on Hades. This needn't be a bad thing, as characterising him mainly through the business he runs could be interesting, but right now the factory prompt is surface-level—anything broader it says is up to the player.

The birthrights need to be punchier and snappier, and you're currently making a choice without context (the rules for them are at the bottom of the next column over).

In general there's good ideas in a lot of these picklists, but not some too-obvious ideas as well.

So then, a revised edition. Meet Hades, new and improved:

To start, we have a new picklist in a new format. This solves a couple of problems.

It explicitly states what was implicit in the original version: archetypes bring certain things with them. Hades has a factory, Persephone has a garden, Hephaestus has a strike, etc.

It lets the player assert some truths: about that thing, about their archetype, about the broader setting, about what has come before, about a sliver of hope that this might not be a tragedy after all.

It gives me room to assert some crucial details about that thing—Hades is not running an artisanal workshop, or a worker-owned collective, or a functional business. They're running a Gothic caricature of an industrial factory that is certainly fucked up somehow.

Next, a familiar picklist but with a crucial recasting in the prompt: products and byproducts. The difference between a factory churning out propaganda and a munitions manufacturer that incidentally produces propaganda is vast, and the prompt now invites you to play with that difference.

Another new picklist! This one characterises Hades both indirectly (as a boss, through what they forbid) and directly (as a person, through their mode of self-denial), which is a nice change from the blank slate of the previous version.

Aesthetics have been combined and condensed, nearly thirty prompts distilled down to a razor-sharp set of eleven. Narrowing it down to just three distinctive features (though I'm not a cop, choose as many as you like in play) invites people to make bolder and more evocative choices, and lean into them harder.

Relationship questions are sharper, punchier, and there's more of them. There's also explicit permission to keep asking questions after the initial two (which I may yet keep the "ask one left and one right" wording for), something that I've certainly seen players do in playtests.

Finally the birthright picklist now tells you what it's about before you choose. More than that, each archetype locks in a core birthright, which is a snappy way to communicate what the game's take on that mythological figure is, and the possible birthrights have been edited to be more distinct and evocative.

And that's Hades, before and after!

The same thought process has been applied to all the other archetypes, in addition to the new one I'm adding for the revised edition, and there've been additional changes to lures, failings, moves, etc that I might talk about in a future post.

I'm hopeful the revised edition will be playtest-ready by the end of September, and released by the end of the year.

My inbox is open if you're curious about the game or have any questions about the approach outlined in this post. Cheers!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Life update, and unlike some of them, this one is positive, so does feel like horrible oversharing that I feel bad for posting and will delete within a day (I mean, it's still technically oversharing, but it's not complaining about my life this time, just describing it). I performed comedy last night, I had a good time, here's the story of that if anyone wants to know about it.

I performed stand-up last night for the first time in months. I know exactly how long it's been, because the last time I performed was on Valentine's Day. A show that I didn't realize until I got there would be Valentine's Day themed until I got there, and everyone before me did romance-based jokes, and I didn't have any of those, so I did an awkward little speech about how I won't be doing any jokes about my love life because I've not been performing for long so I don't have a big enough joke repertoire to be able to pick some out based on a theme and also because I don't have a love life, which got too big a laugh, to be honest, for such a cheap joke. I was slightly annoyed with myself for getting a laugh at that; jokes based on "Being single is terrible, let me be self-deprecating about how little sex I have" annoy me because I think not having sex is fine, so I didn't love that I accidentally made one of those while simply reporting an accurate fact about my life. But I did know when I said it that it would get a laugh because those "Isn't it terrible being single?" jokes always get a laugh, and it always annoys me.

Anyway. What was I talking about again? Not that weird set I did on Valentine's Day, this post wasn't meant to be about that. The guy who runs a different night saw me on that show and told me I was good and gave me a spot on his night a few weeks later, but I had to pull out because I got severe stomach flu, and then I just didn't sign up for any more. I got stressed at work, I got busy. I had to listen to a lot of white men talk to each other in British radio studios in 2014, okay? There was a lot going on.

Around July I started going out to watch local comedy a bunch of times again, didn't put my name in to perform, just wanted to get re-used to it. I went to the UK for a couple of weeks, and last week, when I was back, I went to watch this local night again. Got asked every time if I want to put my name in - they have this system where 6 or 7 comics will be booked beforehand to perform in a certain order, but there will be 1 or 2 spots left blank for anyone who wants to turn up and put their name in a draw for a chance to perform. Last year I performed a few times on those blank spots (I have a remarkably good track record with getting my name picked nearly every time I put it in the draw, even when there are a bunch of names in there), and a few times when I was actually booked, based on requesting spots and having those spots granted by producers who saw and liked me on those other performances. "Producers" is definitely too strong a word, they're just people who weekly or monthly run open mic nights at local pubs where 8 or 9 comedians do 6-minute spots and no one pays to see it and no one gets paid to do it and they run it all from a Facebook group.

We do have a few actual comedy clubs in the city too, I performed at the amateur night of one of them exactly once, it went very well but was also terrifying and I've not tried again. I've been to them as an audience member lots during the past 15 years or so (my brother's been performing stand-up since we were teenagers and I used to go watch him a lot), but not much in recent years, because why would I pay to see comics do the same material that they work out at open mic nights for free? Except when John Hastings was in town earlier this summer and I went to see him headline a club two weekends in a row, and he was great. The local club that he headlined is one that he called, on the ComCom podcast, "The Jongleurs of Canada" - he didn't mean it as a compliment. Hearing John Hastings call it that immediately made me understand 1) exactly what comedians mean when they refer to "Jongleurs" as a shorthand for a certain type of comedy, and 2) how comedians from outside our local scene would see that particular club, which isn't particularly different from the other two clubs in our city, which tells you something about our local comedy in general.

Anyway. I also did not mean for this post to be about John Hastings' ComCom interviews, even though there are two of those and they're both interesting. I think I went so long without trying to perform again because I got nervous about the fact that I'm supposed to be developing my set. The first time I ever performed, about 13 months ago now, I was absolutely terrified and expected zero laughs, so when I got some laughs, I was delighted. Then I refined a few things, and performed the same material but put together better, and it worked again. I did that a couple more times, and one time it didn't really work, and I figured I'm supposed to be adding stuff. That initial set was basically one story that I told across six minutes, and there was a bunch of padding to get to the six minutes - I didn't add much filler on purpose, but there were definitely lines that didn't need to be there. I know it would be shocking to anyone who reads my blog that sometimes I'm not all that concise.

So I edited it down, pulled the punchlines closer together, took out the bits that didn't get laughs, and got my 6-minute story down to about 3.5. And then I decided to take the massive step of adding: a second bit. And I'm joking when I call that a massive step, but it actually scared the hell out of me at the time, because I knew my one story was funny, but maybe I just happen to only know one funny story, and if I try anything else it'll be terrible. But I tried it, doing a 2.5-minute thing before going into my now-3.5-minute original story, and they both worked! In fact, my 2.5-minute new routine got an even better reaction than the original story. Success! This was all last fall across a few open mic pub nights, I then signed up for the comedy club amateur night in November, performed my two-routine set there, and actually got the best reaction yet. I had a great time.

Then I didn't perform for about 4 months, because I got anxious about where to go with it from there. I went out to watch a few nights, including that weird Valentine's Day where I put my name in for a blank spot, got picked from the draw and called up, did the awkward love life joke before stumbling through my regular set and messing it up a bit as I'd not really prepared, but still apparently did well enough for the producer to book me on another night. Which I was excited about, getting back into it, but then I threw up for about 36 hours straight and cancelled and didn't go back for months.

Again, I knew I should try something at least slightly different when I go back, but was scared of adding something completely new. So what I was suddenly inspired to do this week was re-write my original story in a way that it could be a, as I think they might say in showbusiness, "tight six". I added several new bits to that same story, ones that added some new jokes while also, I hoped, clarifying some parts of the story that I thought didn't fully make sense. That story that was originally 6 minutes with filler, then I cut the filler to make it 3.5, I had it back up to 6 with, I hoped, better stuff and not filler. I left out my second bit entirely.

But that new version of the story does sort of open it up a bit, so if I had more time, I could probably fit my "second bit" into the middle of it, rather than awkwardly doing one routine and then transitioning to a completely separate one. I can see a way I could do that, make everything I've said before all part of one cohesive thing. So I think, at this point, I probably have ten minutes of material that are sort of tested and sort of all right. I might be able to fill a ten-minute spot, if I tried for one of those sometime, after getting more experience at the much more common and easier to get 6-minute ones.

Last night I turned up at my favourite of the local open mic pub nights. It's the first one I went to, last spring, when I decided it's silly that I'm such a huge comedy fan and there is comedy in my own city (which I know full well, as my brother performs professionally) and I never go see it. It's conveniently about a 20-minute walk from my house, it's run by two guys whom I like and who seem to like me, and it regularly gets a small crowd, but a crowd of people who aren't just other comedians, so that's nice.

I got there last night, half an hour before start time as usual, and was surprised to see the whole room full of audience members, aside from a few tables that were reserved. Normally the place is nearly empty at that time. I awkwardly looked around and nearly left, but one of the guys who runs it told me to just hang out in the "comedian holding pen" at the back, so I did that, and felt fairly cool. I normally sit in the audience for any show where I'm not booked, even if I've put my name in the draw, and hang out in the holding pen only if my name is actually on the bill. Lots of comedians hang out in the holding pen even when they're not performing that night, but I'm not really a comedian, just someone who's done a few open spots, and I'm not actually friends with the comedians, so I feel weird about doing that. However, I did feel fairly cool and like an actual comic when the guy told me to just hang out with the comedians since the audience area was full.

I put my name in for the blank spot, because I had finally done all this re-writing to add some stuff to my story, and I'd spent time rehearsing it to make sure I could remember the thing I hadn't performed in months, and I felt fairly prepared. There were about eight names in the draw for two spots, but I still spent the whole evening reading my notes and rehearsing in my head and getting anxious as though I would definitely be performing, because, like I said, I have a weirdly good track record of getting in nearly every time I try for that. And, unsurprisingly, my name got drawn for the second blank spot.

And oh my God, guys, it went so well! I mean, I'm not saying, like, "I completely killed it". But it was quite good. The things that got laughs last year, got laughs again. And the new things also got laughs. There wasn't a single point when I said something that I'd thought of as a punchline, or a point that might be funny, and it didn't get at least a little chuckle. A few points got a smaller laugh than I'd thought they might, but those were outnumbered by the parts that got a notably bigger laugh than I was expecting. I did overrun slightly, came in at 6 minutes and 22 seconds, largely because when I timed it to 6 minutes at home, I factored in shorter pauses for laughter than what I ended up getting. But I think it's all right, I'm pretty sure an overrun by under 30 seconds isn't a huge deal. I'd still love to try ten minutes someday, add my "second bit" into that and be able to take my time more. There were a few points where I think I could have made it funnier by pausing a bit, but I didn't because I was worried about overrunning. But there were also some bits where I stumbled or repeated myself necessarily because I hadn't performed in a while, and being better rehearsed could clean that up and cut the time down a little bit.

It was just such a relief to do it again, be reminded that it does work, and try some stuff I'd not said before and have that work too, as further proof that I can keep coming up with new ideas and sometimes they'll be funny. I mean, it was still all part of the same story. I can't help but want to format things that way. The comedians here don't usually do that, stay on one topic for more than a couple of minutes. But I like to. I've been brought to comedy via too many Edinburgh hours, I can't help but envision my set, in my mind, as a mini one of those. I haven't got a themed, structured hour, but I can do a themed, structured six minutes. I think I could do a fairly well-structured ten, if I got the opportunity. My new lines even added what I think is a pretty decent callback, for a six-minute set. Not sure you can call it much of a callback when the whole thing is only six minutes, but I liked it.

After the show, a woman in the comedian's holding pen told me she'd liked my set a lot. She's performed earlier on the bill, and I told her I liked her a lot too, which was mostly true. In that I'd quite liked what I'd heard of her set, which wasn't all that much, because I was busy reading my own notes and rehearsing my own set in my head. But I liked her jokes. I'd never seen her before, and I do remember at some point being surprised at how good her material was, for some I didn't recognize, so she was presumably new.

We got talking, and she told me she was new to comedy but had been doing theatre professionally for years, and recently got into comedy because she was at the Edinburgh Festival last year and saw how comedy there can be a vehicle for cool theatre-like performances, so she wanted to try that out too. Which immediately explained why I'd never seen her before, and yet she seemed quite good at it. Like when someone you've never heard of shows up to a wrestling tournament and is very good, and you don't know why until you find out they were a champion in judo or some other martial art, and they're new to wrestling but all the skills transfer. I realize I used the proverbial "you" a lot in that sentence, for something so entirely unrelatable to almost the entire population. But it's like that.

Anyway, she was so cool and I kind of want to be her new friend. I told her I just go back from the Edinburgh Festival, she said she couldn't go this year but loved that I went, we talked for a bit about how fucking cool it is to just walk around Edinburgh and see all the posters and all the different stuff going on. We talked about the way they do comedy at the Edinburgh Festival, the way comedy there gets reviewed not just on jokes but on structure and coherence and message, and you don't see any of that here, and she told me that stuff is why she liked my set so much, that it reminded her of that other model, which is pretty much the highest compliment I could possibly get.

She also told me that she's close friends with, and used to live with in Edinburgh, a UK-based comedian whose Edinburgh hour I watched just a few days ago, as it streamed on NextUp. I also described that comedy hour in a Tumblr post, in which I opened the description with "I hated this" and then went on for a few sentences elaborating on why I hated it so much, which I now feel slightly guitly about. I mean, it was genuinely one of the very worst stand-up comedy hours I've ever seen, but I was pretty careful not to mention that when talking to her good friend, and that was a reminder that these are real people. I usually don't even do that - normally, if I hear a stand-up hour I don't like, I just don't mention it on Tumblr. I made an exception for that one, and now I feel bad, because her friend was so nice. Also, that's still pretty cool. It doesn't matter how much I disliked the comedy, I was still pretty impressed to realize I was chatting with someone who used to live with a comedian I just watched stream her Edinburgh hour on NextUp.

So that was great, we had a good time and then added each other on Facebook. While we were chatting, a few audience members stopped on their way out to tell me I was funny, and one even asked if she can add me on Instagram to follow more of my comedy. I said I don't have Instagram, and that was the first time in my life that I've ever had the thought, however brief - "Should I get Instagram?" No, obviously I should not get Instagram. Aside from anything else, I do not perform comedy nearly enough to have things to put on Instagram. But I have to admit I quite liked hearing that someone thought I was enough of a comedian to do that.

On the way out, while I was waiting to pay, an older guy came in to talk to the guy who produces the show. We were both standing and awkwardly waiting together, while the last audience member left, and told me on her way by that she'd liked my set. The older guy asked me if I'm a comedian and I said "sort of", and the guy who produces the show said yes I am a comedian. I happen to like that producer guy a lot but had not really talked to him before (besides brief "hellos"), so I was very pleased about that. The producer guy then told me that my set was great tonight and I really have potential, and that was so cool. And then, high on the adrenaline of all that, I stopped before leaving to very awkwardly tell him "I have hugely enjoyed every time I've seen you perform, often more than anyone else on the bill, and thought the set you did tonight was the best I'd seen you do, you are very good at this." A thing I had been thinking for about a year, but not previously said, because I don't know him, and you know, social anxiety. But he seemed pleased, if somewhat surprised at my sudden directness, so that's nice, and I'm glad he likes me because he runs my favourite open mic night that I'm hoping will give me spots if I start requesting them again, rather than just turning up and putting my name in draws. But that's not why I said it; I genuinely think he's good at comedy, better than most people here.

So that is the story, in probably far too much detail, of what I did last night. I then went home and hung out with my roommate, and it was really good. I wrote a now-deleted fairly bleak post the other week about how that was going badly, how it was like we had nothing to say to each other now that we're not running a sports team together and he's not interested in any other stuff I do, but he and I had some talks about that this week (I did, amazingly, manage to actually communicate with the people closest to me about this problem, rather than just complain on Tumblr), and he pointed out that I usually assume he won't be interested in the stuff I do so I don't open up about it, which is fair. So last night I got home and told him all about my evening and he was happy for me, and then I told him a few things about how comedy works, and I somehow ended up showing him a Dan Rath clip on YouTube to explain the story of how I got caught up in crowd work when I saw him in Edinburgh and told that guy, truthfully, that my job is "autism therapist" (a moment that is only funny if you've seen his comedy, which is why I had to show my roommate bits of it, and I recommend that anyone reading this also go watch the clip I showed my roommate, so you too can understand how funny it is that guy asked me what I do for a living and I said "autism therapist").

Anyway, it was just nice. I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about how everything felt horribly bleak and I didn't feel socially connected to anyone, and last night things seemed pretty good, on that metric. Also I have today off work because my client's gone out of town, and it's the Friday before a long weekend so that means I get a 4-day weekend, and August is ending and the heat is finally breaking, it's still going to be hot off and on for a bit but at least we're getting into more bearable temperatures and it'll only get better from here, and honestly, after months of inescapable summer (unless you go up to Edinburgh, that was a lovely 5-day escape from the heat), I tend to forget just how much worse I feel about everything when I'm miserable due to heat, and how much better everything gets when that stops. The trade-off is that the end of unbearable heat comes at the same time as my allergies that get really bad in late summer/early fall, but even those have been fairly manageable so far. I feel pretty good right now.

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

might be a bit of a boring question but how do you feel about the Mazda b series? and if you have nothing to say about that one then I'd love to hear your thoughts on the tacoma

So thoughtful of you to give me a backup question, but worry not! If I've got nothing to say about a car, I will find it, goddamnit, if it'll take me two months! Which it very nearly did. Sorry. Anyhow! In reverse order of generations:

1. 5th

it would take state-backed effort to get me to care for -hell, care about- this last one, which did not excel in looks nor performance nor, from what I can tell, reliability nor comfort. It feels like it would be a very complex thought experiment to come up with the buyer this would be the best choice for, even in its time. (However, while the enthusiasts' metric of evaluation is competition, the owners' metric is their own expectations, so it is certain and valid and good that millions of owners were chuffed about their purchase and I love that for them and do not whatsoever seek to rain on their parade.)

2. 4th

Neat! Even beyond the spectacular decals, I just love Japanese pickups of this era (the ones yankees call "small pickups" and we call "pickups" because we don't have those useless fuck-off-gargantuan shit yankees love to pretend has any use). So much so that I want two of them. Neither are this (they're the Toyota Hilux and the Nissan D21), but objectively they're all about the same and my preferences are purely based on aesthetic minutiae.

3. 3rd

First I see of it! The front is kind of unfortunate, but it reminds me of the Yugo so it's on my good side. The rear taillights also have a kind of Soviet quality to them, I'm sure there's some -az car with rear lights just like those.

4. 2nd

HELL FUCKING YEAH *checks pronouns* SISTER! I love this thing. Especially the REPU, where PU stands for Pick Up and RE stands for...

Yep :D, this was the time when Mazda was shoving rotaries left and right into applications they were comically unsuited for absolutely no discernible reason, and we're all glad that they did, because Lord knows no one else had the lack of sense to do it.

Yes the ROTARY POWER* on the back of it is factory! *BITCHES

5. 1st

Yeah, this is at the edge of car period that excites me. Not that I think it looks bad or is bad or anything, it just starts to feel too... historic for me to connect to? I guess a Mazda pickup from the early '60s is just not for me.

It seems I guessed wrong.

This Ghibli-esque little thing is the 1959 Mazda K360, being a kei truck with the then maximum of 360cc of engine. It was a popular taxi (taxi!) in Myanmar...

...where it kept being produced until the early '70s, when it got replaced by the other other truck Mazda was making by the early '60s, the B360.

Wow I really was wrong there huh.

These were probably a sort of "Eastern Europe getting Fiat's scraps" kind of deal, since while these were manufactured in Myanmar from '72 to the mid-90s (mid-90s!), by 1972 Japan had already long been getting the B360's replacement i.e. the Mazda Porter, which OOOO0000°°°°°ººººº⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰ my GOOOOOODDDD

OMGOMGOMG THIS IS THE CUTEST THING IN THE WORLD

I don't even want to own one of these, I want to cuddle it. I want to protect it.

OMG THIS ONE HAS TINY LITTLE HAYASHIS WITH TINY LITTLE LETTERING ON ITS TINY LITTLE TIRES

*faints* *a feeble, wiggly speech bubble appears from below the table* Tacoma's good btw. Best of segment by miles.

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question: if you liked this post, you might like those - or the blog’s Discord server, linked in the pinned post!

[everythingbap]

🎤 allkpop: [INTERVIEW] Former B.A.P members BANG&JUNG&YOO&MOON on reuniting after 7 years and growth: "The timing was right for us this time"

Nearly seven years after concluding their activities as one of the renowned groups that rocked their generation, B.A.P is back in the game, now as BANG&JUNG&YOO&MOON, hoping to put a "good closure" for the band's chapter.

Reuniting together several years after parting ways with each other is not an easy feat. Members BANG YONGGUK, JUNG DAE HYUN, YOO YOUNGJAE, and MOON JONG UP have gone their own ways, dropping solo activities here and there. Despite the members' busy schedules, they were able to get back together to work on their long-awaited group record, titled ‘CURTAIN CALL,’ released on August 8th.

This reunion came to fruition thanks to the boys' unwavering enthusiasm, they were able to create this one chance to get back again. During the interview with allkpop, YONGGUK acknowledged the difficulty faced by many idols who used to be in a group but now couldn’t do activities with their fellow members post-disbandment. He hopes that this BANG&JUNG&YOO&MOON return can serve as an inspiration and hope to those idols in a way, too.

Two months before the album's release, the former B.A.P members unveiled a teaser for their ‘Man on the moon’ documentary, igniting excitement among the fans and the general public alike. The five-episode (as of writing) documentary showed how YONGGUK, DAE HYUN, YOUNGJAE, and JONG UP were very much hands-on in crafting the album.

“Our last album [‘EGO’] was a bit fizzled out,” JONG UP expressed in the first episode. Now that they're back with ‘CURTAIN CALL,’ DAE HYUN wants to “share this last time with the fans in a really happy and beautiful way.” He said, “We don't know if there's another chance of us being together again, but we hope you will still support us.”

The mini-album boasts 5 tracks, “Love,” “Farewell,” “Gone,” “Stand it all,” and “Way Back,” all of which YONGGUK took part in crafting, from penning to producing them. YOUNGJAE also contributed lyrics to the concluding track, “Way Back.”

They are also set to hold the “last fan-con Asia tour,” which will commence with the two-day fan concert in Seoul on August 17 and 18, followed by their shows in Tokyo, Taipei, and Hong Kong.

To commemorate the group's highly-anticipated comeback, we sat down with BANG&JUNG&YOO&MOON to chat about ‘CURTAIN CALL’ and the process behind it, their growth, and more. Check out our exclusive interview with them below!

Shout-out to allkpop:

[Note: YOO YOUNGJAE wasn't able to participate in the interview due to his conflicting schedule. However, he sent a message for allkpop readers and the fans over email.]

You might want to check out our previous exclusive interviews with BANG YONGGUK (2023)(2024) and Moon Jong Up as well.

First of all, congratulations on your long-awaited comeback! What does it mean for you to finally reunite with your fellow B.A.P members? How did you come up and talk amongst yourselves coming back? Was there a little bit of awkwardness when you got to work together after 7 years or did it feel the same?

Jong Up: First of all, we made this comeback for the first time in seven years, so I think that’s why it’s heart fluttering and we’re so excited about it. During those seven years, we had actually been talking about getting together at any time. We asked questions like, “When will we do this again?” “When will we be having a reunion?” I think the timing was right for us this time and we thought that we were finally ready to do something we had been preparing for for a long time.

DAE HYUN: In the process of reuniting, of course, it would be nice to have a lot of laughs and smiles. As we shared our opinions, I think there were definitely some things that became sensitive. I think the reason why that happened is because we had a lot of personal growth as individuals. So, we needed a lot of time to bring those things back together. I think those were the moments that got us talking a lot.

What do you feel about closing this chapter? What have been your favorite moments from that journey? I feel like there’s a little bit of sadness because I know your group was once a big part of your idol life, but I also feel like you are rather happier because you get to be together again. It’s not that every group gets to be reunited after disbanding.

DAE HYUN: We mentioned that we have kind of ended our chapter as B.A.P, but we also want to tell you about another beginning. We’re going to go on our own journey are also looking forward to our future individual endeavors. We don’t know if there’s another chance of us being together again, but we hope that you will like our return with ‘CURTAIN CALL’ and that you will still support us. I want to share this last time with the fans in a really happy and beautiful way. We hope that this album is a good closure for this chapter.

Jong Up: Actually, when I think about the moments that have gone by since we started and now that we’re back together after seven years, I think I always remember a lot of things that I was disappointed with. I wonder if it would have been better if we had done something more like this. These regrettable moments were very memorable, but the reason why I think that we are so lucky to have the opportunity to get together again is that I don't know what to say about those regrettable moments. I feel like I'm actually getting a chance to challenge those things again, so I think I'm blessed to have those moments.

Tell us more about the album ‘CURTAIN CALL.’ What aspects of the album do you think “fill your fans with nostalgia”? In what ways do you think were you able to “showcase your chemistry”?

YONGGUK, you’ve been putting out solo releases and you have also been producing songs for other idols. How does it feel to be able to do that for your group after years?

YONGGUK: I feel like rather than making my own solo album or giving songs to other artist friends, it’s the most enjoyable for me to do work for my group. It’s because I’ve known the members for the longest time. It was easy to understand what each of us could do well. I think making music for our group is the easiest and happiest time to work.

Let’s talk about the songs. How did you find the album preparation, music video shooting, song recording, and all? Was there something that you found hard during the process?

DAE HYUN: First of all, I think it took us quite a long time to decide on the songs, including our title song. The company also edited a lot of songs, and YONGGUK continued to work on them. Ultimately, after a lot of time, the album was filled with such solid songs. I think there are people who probably struggled and went through a lot of hard work in that area. This was especially true for YONGGUK. The recording itself was organized a little quickly. YONGGUK was the one who directed us, he knew our points well, so the recording went very smoothly.

From each of you, I want to hear which track is your personal favorite and why?

DAE HYUN: I like the song called “Love” because it fits my sensibilities so well.

Jong Up: My favorite is the title track “Gone.” The reason is that I think it's the song that best represents us right now and I think it's worthy of the title. That's why I like it.

YONGGUK: For me, I like every single song. I kind of think of every song as a title track.

I watched your documentary on YouTube and you always said that the members hope that this album is something that you can be proud of. So I wanted to ask you that: Are you proud of how it came about? Are you satisfied with the outcome?

DAE HYUN: It’s an album that I’m very proud of, and that’s because it’s produced by YONGGUK. We also had a lot of input and participated with a lot of opinions from the members. And the company also put a lot of effort into making an album of better quality.

Jong Up: It’s an album that we’re proud of, not just because of the quality of the record itself, but also because we've had so many things going on and just the fact that it’s tuned out the way we know it’s going to turn out, I think that’s a testament to a lot of things, that itself proves a lot about ourselves. I think our fans are going to love it as well. I’m very proud of it and I can’t wait to show it to my parents. I feel like they’re going to be proud of it too.

(members laugh)

YONGGUK: You haven't got them to hear it?

Jong Up: Not yet. (laughs)

You said in our interview from 12 years ago that the reason why your fans are attracted to you is because you show a different image compared to other groups. Could you describe to us how unique and different this album and this new era are to you? What do you think still stands out within your group even today?

YONGGUK: I know that there are many idols like us who used to be active in their groups but are now unable to do group activities for some reason. I hope this album will be an album that has some meaning to them as well. And rather than showing or making a new trend, the album is a reflection of our past times. I hope people will listen to it a lot because I think it will be an album they can reminisce about.

Since it’s been over a decade since your debut, how would you describe your growth as an artist? If you have free time, do you look back on your old music, stage performances, videos, and photos, and think to yourself, “Oh, I’ve grown a lot. I’ve matured a lot”?

DAE HYUN: I think the concept of growing up has completely changed since I turned 30. I think in my 20s, I was making myself used to the songs. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to get that into my body and I'm going to get that into my ears. I'm going to grow that way.” But now that I'm in my 30s, I feel like I'm on a journey to find my true self. I think I've tried to create something of my own within myself.

Jong Up: In my case, in the past, I thought, researched, and worried a lot about how I wanted to show myself. But now, I think a little more about what is unique about me and want to show my true self, so that I can be seen better. I think there are things I try to do to show myself in a better light. So, in the past, I worked hard to show what I wanted to show, but now I just show what I can do, the next thing that I can do. I think I've matured a bit in that difference, in putting in effort to show that side of me well.

YONGGUK: I’ve matured a lot. Now, what I want and try to do is to do a lot of meaningful things in my life. I’m so happy that this album is exactly that.

In this album, you also talk about the challenges you faced in the past and express your hope for the future. What in that journey you remember in particular made you the artist and person you are today? What were your biggest takeaways and realizations from that journey?

DAE HYUN: I think I've been able to grow as an artist faster through my members because we're all really hard workers and we're still working hard until now. But I think I've always had a platform or a stepping stone to grow as a musical artist through the members closest to me. And now that I'm around a lot of people, I think I've learned a lot about trust, rhythm, friendship, love, and things like that because there are so many people around me.

YONGGUK: Same for me!

Jong Up: Same!

Following the album release, you’re going to hold two-day shows in Seoul. Congratulations on that! How are you preparing for this? What are you most excited about, and what should fans look forward to this special reunion?

DAE HYUN: It’s the live performance. I think our color as a group is really good, and that’s why many of our existing dans have trusted us and liked our group’s live performances. We will practice focusing on those points when performing live and also while hanging out with the fans at the concert. So, we are practicing as hard as we can every day.

Jong Up: There is a lot of cute and diverse merchandise, and this time, the t-shirts came out so pretty. The designs are really pretty and detailed. I think there will be a lot to enjoy in the concert itself. And the most important thing, as you said, is the performance we put together for the first time in seven years. I wonder if there will be more of our own mood, something a little different now. Actually, I'm looking forward to that too. I don't know how it will turn out... so, shall we have fun together?

We’re looking forward to those! What kind of comments or words would you like to see and hear from your fans after the album release?

YONGGUK: Music now gives us a certain amount of joy when we listen to it, and I hope that this album will be one of those albums that when people listen to it, they will be able to remember something from their childhood and be reminded of how we were when we were young and that they can look back through that.

DAE HYUN: Same!

Jong Up: I love you!

(members laugh)

Do you have anything else to say to allkpop readers and your fans who have long waited for your comeback?

DAE HYUN: First of all, thank you to allkpop who has interviewed us a lot since our debut era. We remember that we did a lot of interviews with allkpop as well before. I hope our fans support us and give us a lot of love especially thank you to all the B.A.B.Yz all over the world and I hope you guys enjoy the album

YOUNGJAE: To all the fans who have waited for a long time, I hope you enjoy what we’ve prepared for you and cherish this time spent together. Thank you and I love you.