#got so into this post that i used tumblr on my laptop for the first time to surpass mobile's image limit

[skrunksthatwunk]

ok so. kiwami 2. rooftop scene. the ending. it's a bit of a clusterfuck but i wanna talk about one detail, a problem they bring to your attention by Fucking. Talking About Her.

haruka is watching all of this unfold.

[this post is like 4.5k words long + pretty critical + has spoilers for kiwami and kiwami 2, and really minor/vague ones for a couple others. they're not that bad though, trust me (and i added a warning in the one place it is major)]

ALSO CONTENT WARNING i'm gonna talk about kiryu's passive suicidality a good amount in this one, so stay away from this if you think that might affect you negatively/you'd be better off skipping it. i'll also make a tl;dr (which i will highlight in red) at the very end if you really wanna know what my point is that will exclude those elements <3. i am also going to use a lot of choice-based language in regards to kiryu's contemplation of suicide because i think it's the lens through which the games treat the topic, but i personally don't find it a productive or realistic way to look at suicide or suicidal ideation at all. someone dying by suicide absolutely does not mean they don't care about their loved ones enough to fight on or whatever. i love you, and proceed with caution on this one.

(also i'm using the kiwamis as my point of reference because i uh. don't have a ps2? those are the games that i played, and though the differences are likely slight, i wanna be clear about that. also,, ignore the watermark on these screenshots,, i didn't notice them and i'm not retaking them. we're all gonna have to settle for youtube cutscene comps for now xoxo)

first, we have to talk about the ending of the first game.

[note: i am Really Really Confident kiryu has a conversation earlier in the game about his going to jail in nishiki's stead being him running away and choosing not to resist his two options (go to jail or let nishiki go to jail) and define his own path, fighting his way against fate to make it happen. part of why i'm so confident it exists is because it made such an impression on me at the time. it's pretty important to my interpretation of things but i also can't find it for the life of me, so uh. sorry ✌️ i really tried. this post's takes/analysis will be dependent on this scene existing, so keep that in mind. if anyone knows where to find the scene/screenshots of it, lmk and i'll add a follow-up with it]

kiwami stuff

so as she's dying, yumi tells haruka this:

that she may be dying (painfully, and right as she's getting everything she wanted), but she doesn't regret it, because at least she did something rather than running away from it all. that you shouldn't run away, ever.

shortly thereafter, when the police find kiryu and haruka, this exchange happens between him and date. here's the play by play:

date tells kiryu he can get him out of trouble with this, and that if he doesn't, he'll get life in prison; kiryu declines his help:

kiryu is so devastated (understandably) by the back to back losses of the three people closest to him that he resigns himself to life in prison, and the death-in-effect that would be. he would prefer to waste away rather than struggle through a life without them. prison was monotonous and isolating, but coming back after a decade was overwhelming, and coming back to everything being so warped and twisted, and then losing the corrupted scraps he had anyway, well. he wants to go back to sleep. he doesn't want to be in a world where everything's the same except he's on his own. better to return to safety, to die slowly in a hell he knows well than weather a new one where he has control and agency, and thus one where he has the ability to fail and to lose anything at any time. he explains to date that that loss is why he can accept his death:

date shakes him and asks him if there's really nothing left for him, no reason to keep living at all:

then echoes yumi's advice to haruka:

which makes an impression on kiryu:

date gives him a reason to live in the form of haruka, saying she'll be on her own again if he goes to jail. he hijacks kiryu's tragic protector complex to keep him alive, because she needs him, and because she's someone precious to him:

after the dust has cleared,

kiryu and date also have this exchange, where date tells him to stay away from the cops (and presumably arrest and a return to prison, the aforementioned fate akin to death), and kiryu cites haruka as his reason to stay away, one he holds to with no uncertainty (showing again that he's accepted date's logic, that his reason to keep living even when it's incredibly difficult is to care for the more vulnerable haruka). given the weight of the consequences, to me, it feels like date's telling him not to be alone with his thoughts or something. it's almost frightening:

so, what's our takeaway from kiwami?

kiryu lost everything and hit rock bottom, but he chose to fight, and to live life on his own terms, even when it got difficult. that's the narrative life lesson he had to learn to avoid repeating the events of 1995. he made that choice for haruka's sake. it's seen as growth.

and without him, haruka would've just returned to the orphanage (assuming she could make it back to sunflower at all) with no one who knew or understood what she had been through, no one to mourn with her, and no one to give her the attention, care, and protection she needs. kiryu knows what it's like to be an orphan with a limited parental figure who only checks in every so often (kazama, "aunt" yumi), and what someone will do for attention/affection from that person (via both himself and nishiki swearing up, climbing the ranks, etc. arguably haruka coming to kamurocho by herself to find "mizuki" is similar), and what it's like to lose them anyway (again, kazama, yumi). their situations parallel each others' somewhat, and that binds them further. and after losing everyone (which he blames himself for to some extent, as one can probably assume from this and 2, and something key to his arc in later games), he chooses to protect her. and this time, he won't fail. at least partially because failing would hurt him, too. he'd have nothing left again.

okay. now we get to kiwami 2.

if you forgot, the context is basically:

everybody's fighting on the roof of a building which i'm sure will not be a running theme or anything as the series goes on

there's a bomb that's about to go off and they don't know how to/can't defuse it

ryuji shot the twist villain to death, but took fatal hits to do so

sayama's like hey!! let's get out of here!!! and kiryu and ryuji are like nooo we have to settle this oughh it's punchin time and they stick her on an elevator and send her down so she doesn't have to watch

ryuji loses. sayama returns, they have a cute sibling heart to heart, and ryuji dies in her arms. sad

kiryu is in rough shape as well, and there's like 2 minutes left on the bomb's timer

here's the scene itself:

sayama tells kiryu they have to run, and kiryu says he can't. the gist is "let's run!" "you go without me" "i'm not leaving you!" "i'm in no condition to run" "i'll carry you then!!" sayama: *sees how fucked up kiryu is, realizes he's Going To Die Anyway* "ok, then i'm staying with you!" and then further bickering about that, before they give up and make out (as one does i guess)

date (he's here now) yells this at them from a helicopter:

before someone else in the helicopter tells date this:

we get this shot of haruka calling out to kiryu as the helicopter swerves away:

and kiryu and sayama have this exchange about haruka where they say they let her down, but that she'll understand:

then they hug and the bomb ticks to zero right when the credits hit. in post credits it's revealed that the twist villain defused the bomb when they weren't looking, betraying his co-villain for reasons i truthfully do not remember and am unwilling to look up. it's not about that right now.

so, how does this scene interact with the ending of the previous game?

the short answer is "badly <3" but here's the long answer:

it's about choices.

the thing about fiction is that anything you want to have happen, as a writer, can happen. it may not be effective, internally consistent, or logical, but you can write it regardless. audiences suspend their disbelief for the sake of engaging fully with your fiction, but everyone has a threshold past which they will stop being engaged in a story and either become uninvested or annoyed. writers usually have lines they're unwilling to cross as well. but in almost every story, there's at least a couple of places where they stretch reality a little to make the narrative they want happen. this is not a bad thing at all. that's how stories get told.

now, i'm gonna be real with you. i don't care about how feasible plots are like 95% of the time. it's not something i think about much, nor is it something i prioritize. i am a very character-centric media consumer, so if world building and/or plot are a bit stale or contrived, that doesn't really bother me much so long as i'm invested in the characters involved. some people can't stand plot holes or the ways musicals burst into song or whatever, and that's fine for them. but it's not something i tend to find that all that important.

this is all to say that i have a sorta affection for rgg's flavor of bullshit pulling. and it is a powerful flavor, maybe even an acquired taste, but i can and do rock with it so long as it doesn't damage the characters too much. this is why i'm not making a lengthy post howling into the void about joji kazama or the second joon-gi han or how many secret relatives there are. those things are silly and endearing and a clumsy yet heartfelt part of a series i care about very deeply. i'll joke about it, but i don't consider it much of a flaw. it's more like personality. flaws are texture, and they help a piece's identity. point is i am very, very willing and able to suspend my disbelief for these games in exchange for a good time, particularly via good characters.

(if you want another example of where i draw the line from within rgg, the answer's the YAKUZA 4 SPOILERS INCOMING rubber bullets twist, because i think 1) it's actively horrifically stupid (especially retconning a scene we SAW HAPPEN. WE SAW BLOOD ON EACH IMPACT, AND RUBBER BULLETS DON'T OFTEN BREAK SKIN THAT DEEPLY (THEIR DAMAGE IS MORE PERCUSSIVE THAN PENETRATIVE). THESE EVENTS HAPPEN IN THE SAME GAME YOU DON'T HAVE TO RETCON IT JUST REWRITE IT. OR DON'T SHOW THE HIT AT ALL SO THERE'S MORE PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. DON'T DO THIS JUST TO HYPE UP YOUR SHITTY VILLAIN NO ONE CARES ABOUT. and 2) (a bit more importantly) i think it actively removes saejima's primary internal conflict for that game, that being his intense guilt over the 18 murders he thinks he committed, one i was invested and interested in. but this isn't a rubber bullets post.)

characters in this series walk off a lot of life threatening injuries. they survive miraculously, they escape in the nick of time, and they pull through in the end. kiryu still somehow hasn't killed anyone. almost every game in his saga ends with an "is kiryu gonna make it out this time?!?" shortly followed by a "yeah lol. lmao" postcredits reveal. kiryu fucking punches a marble statue into dust in the first game. having a story that asks you to suspend your disbelief so much and so often means that when a decision is made, it's not the writers saying, "well, this would have to happen so we are obligated/forced to write it happening" so much as "we wanted this to happen for some reason(s)," because you already know that they're not guided solely by logic. again, this is true of all writers, it's just amplified in stories like these because they've already given you so many hard mode suspension of disbelief moments (they've broken you in like leather, yeah? or like how obvious internet scams allow for self selection by being so obvious that only the most vulnerable people would fall for them. they curate an audience willing to play along with their bullshit flavor so they can tell a story that's more likely to satisfy that audience. in a good way, in a fun way! mass appeal is overrated). there is not much limit to what this series is willing to try and sell you.

so when ryuji takes lethal damage taking out the big bad, that's a choice. when he doesn't die immediately, that's a choice. when ryuji and kiryu send sayama away in the soon-to-be-forgotten elevator so they can settle this like men or whatever despite the literal actual bomb about to go off, that's a choice. when sayama comes back, that's a choice. when ryuji does die, that's a choice. when kiryu determines that he can't escape in time, that's a choice. when sayama is unwilling to leave him, that's a choice. when she says she'll carry him out and there's an elevator right fucking there and then she's like never mind i guess i won't anymore we're dying together right now kiryu like they're not gonna even try?? wouldn't distancing themselves from the blast give themselves a better shot, something that's super possible given the 2 minutes they have with that elevator??? sayama you met him like a week and a half ago why are you ready to die with him that's not a plot hole i just think that's kinda strange whatever anyway, that's a choice. when kiryu stops arguing with her so they can kiss (next to her brother's corpse), that's a choice. when date shows up, that's a choice. when the helicopter can't save them because the bomb was going to go off too soon, that's a choice. when they put haruka in that helicopter and take her away, let her only impact be reminding kiryu and sayama that they can't help her, that's a choice. when they spend their last moments talking as if they're already dead, then simply waiting, that's a choice.

they're all choices that the writers made for the characters, and we are asked to believe them for the sake of achieving the writers' vision, as with any story. the only problem is that the writers' vision here fucking blows.

i'm not saying it would be realistic for kiryu and sayama (and even ryuji) to make it out alive, but it wouldn't be out of character for the series in the slightest. kiryu is suddenly unable to power through here, and that's a choice. so, what is their vision?

put simply, i think they wanted a romantic last stand for kiryu and sayama, a tragic scene of doomed, devoted lovers. and i think they wanted an edge-of-your-seat fake out death. they wanted spectacle.

here's how some specific choices they made undermine all that shit we talked about earlier from the first game.

once again, kiryu is called by date to live, to pick himself up and keep going, no matter how impossible the odds are. he's even reminded by haruka's presence, his one anchor in keeping himself going. the growth he had in the parallel scene in the previous game is challenged, and he fails.

it's not enough this time. and that's a choice.

it's also one i can't think of a good reason for, and that's the real kicker.

characters can have developmental backslide just like people do, and if they're given good reason for it, it can be just as, if not far more compelling that purely linear growth (i am a chimera ant arc enjoyer, and that's all i'll say. sorry if you haven't seen hunter x hunter. uhh. i am also a zuko avatar enjoyer if that helps). but i can't think of anything that happened in that game that would cause this from a character perspective. if anything, kiryu should be less likely to do this intentionally. he's spent around a year raising haruka, and a year has passed since he lost his loved ones. at the very least, the pain should be more dull, though it is established through an early nightmare sequence that his ass is (justifiably) not over it yet. given that their deaths were the initial motivation for his willingness to rot forever, theoretically, he should be more motivated to stay alive than before now that he's got more investment and stability in his life outside of them, particularly when it comes to haruka, his reason for surviving. and if the ongoing nature of the trauma was the motivator for this, then they should've had it affect him more past that nightmare scene (it really serves more as a recap of the last game than anything else) so it didn't come out of nowhere. so the reminder of the lesson that saved his life and then guided it for at least a year afterwards, one that the whole resolution of the previous game relied on heavily falls flat for... some reason.

i think this is a good time to mention that, generally speaking, you don't write arbitrary choices into characters. sure, people in real life are often sporadic, but when analyzing fictional characters, every choice is filed into a portfolio of characterization that can and should be analyzed. going for pure realism can obfuscate their development, motivations, themes, etc. their choices and reactions may be unorthodox, but they must be internally consistent. this is very related to how i view plot contrivance as well. characters drive the plot, not the other way around. stories are about the ways characters affect their worlds/lives and vice versa, and they're the human face to the themes and ideas the writers are trying to explore and express. maybe my stance on this seems hypocritical. i don't know if it is. but to me, plot issues are usually a matter of engagement and investment, while character issues are a matter of substance.

i hope this doesn't feel patronizing explaining all of this, but i want you guys to know where i'm coming from in my analysis. starting at my base philosophy on writing is the easiest way to do that, i feel. defining the terms of the debate, and all that. anyway

and i mean, look. they survive because "it was defused the whole time we just didn't see it happen", so it's not like narrative tension or realism or whatever was THAT big of a priority overall. if it was gonna be a cop-out anyway, they should'nt have ruined kiryu's development too, yeah?. and sayama fucks off to america after this game anyway, so it's not like the doomed lovers thing had much payoff or meaning after this one (though you could argue that's more an issue with yakuza 3 than yk2, which has some merit to it). which means that they chose to sacrifice kiryu's prior development and internal logic for the sake of cheap tension for their finale that was both kinda illogical in and of itself (the elevator!! the elevator!!!) and a romantic climax that neither required nor really benefitted from this staging. (like. you coulda had them make out and then get saved by date, or kiss on the elevator in a "it's moving, but will we make it in time??" way or whatever. look i'm not saying those are great options either but they're SOMETHING okay. it would remove/reduce the amount of time wasted on characters sitting around with their thumbs up their asses for no reason in this finale).

instead the message of this finale is that, actually, sometimes it is impossible to change your circumstances and fight for your own way out of an awful situation. and what should you do about this unfortunate truth? uh. die! i guess. it's the exact opposite of the encouraging, optimistic message of the last game. zetsubou chou pride my ass.

note: i feel i should mention that when suicidality is brought up within the series (particularly in substories), it is always something someone has to overcome themselves through wanting it badly enough. they simply need the inspiration and the motivation to keep going. it's arguably treated as a moral obligation. frankly, the series is broadly very meritocratic (<- bad) when it comes to this topic (and others, but that's a Whole Other Thing. see akiyama's weird loan shark tests as well). sheer will and resolve is enough to conquer any problem, be it physical or mental/emotional, and it's irresponsible to act/feel otherwise. this is the logic the games operating under, and kiryu is often the mouthpiece for this bootstrap-pulling "tough love" sentiment. so when kiryu "chooses" to die, yet faces no emotional fallout from date, haruka, or anyone else, it feels very out of place. it's not just an odd choice; it's specifically, once again, an odd choice to make in context of the game/series/character it appears in.

kiryu's just like eh, haruka'll watch her only family die right as she gets some sense of tentative stability and lets her guard down after a devastating month the year prior (and a relatively dismal upbringing before that) that we trauma bonded over. sure, she likely came to view me as the one who would stay no matter what, who was too strong to be taken out, who she could always rely on, and so i know that dying would hurt her immensely, but she's smart enough to know it'd happen eventually. her eventual recovery means it's okay for me to do this (somehow, in a way it wasn't in the first game). it's an excuse within the narrative's logic, and one it is uncritical of simply because it's kiryu. he gets a pass.

and i think with the previously mentioned passive suicidality and general series-long mental health issues kiryu displays (i mean. yakuza 5's literally his depression arc), this could be retroactively seen as an interesting choice, like a piece in that particular narrative. i don't even dislike that viewing, especially in terms of fan approach. but (assuming this went down the same in yakuza 2), they likely didn't have that in mind. all they had then was the first game and the movie. and they took the first game's Entire Message and contradicted it for nothing but a scene they wanted to have happen because it'd be suspenseful and/or emotional (without actually doing the work to earn it). and they're not fans trying to analyze his character, they're the ones making choices for him. and they chose to massacre my boy. and if the subject of kiryu's mental health was a priority of theirs, why didn't they explore that? haruka and date's feelings on him not resisting and their words not being enough (whether that blame is justified by the narrative or not (it shouldn't be btw)), the uncomfortable drifting that resigning yourself to death and living afterwards anyway often brings, literally any conversation about it besides the minimal shit we get post credits of date being like "did you know about the bomb not having a fuse?" which like. bad answer either way (which is why they weren't straightforward about it, the cowards). you can't just be like "oh uh. idk he just gave up this time. yeah he was gonna die on purpose for some reason. good thing the bomb was fake lol" and then pack up and go home!! that's stupid!! any merit the idea of kiryu dying by suicide in this scene and in this way could have had from a character-based perspective loses its weight because 1. it didn't happen (for kinda stupid reasons), which makes it fall flat and 2. no one is really affected by the fact that it almost did, including him. they sacrificed his ass and replaced it with nothing, even when there could have been interesting outcomes to it.

so the narrative effectively chose to kill him by making the situation impossible, and this impossibility is ultimately arbitrary, given the series' usual approach to miraculous, illogical escapes. that, or the choice to stay was up to kiryu and sayama, one that 1. doesn't make sense and is actively regressive in context of kiryu's arc in the only other game in the series (as well as his whole saga in retrospect) and 2. one that contradicts how the series sees/treats resignation to death/death by suicide in all other contexts without being addressed, challenged, or condemned in ways it would in all other contexts. because they don't want you to think about it like that. they want you to think he (and the narrative) had no choice, that it made sense to do that. but it didn't. it doesn't.

and look, honestly? if i was bleeding out and had like 2 minutes to live, there's a non zero chance i'd say fuck it and kiss a girl too. i get it. but i am (and this is crucial) not a fucking yakuza character. and i'm certainly not kiryu kazuma.

tl;dr (basically just rephrasing the second to last main paragraph)

there are not sufficient character reasons for kiryu and sayama not trying to escape. additionally, because the narrative regularly facilitates even less likely escapes, it's not so constrained to logic and reality that it couldn't pull this one off. the choice to let their situation be impossible this one time was a cheap and arbitrary way of forcing a scene they thought would be cool and dramatic, and in doing so they chose to cannibalize a key emotional note of the previous finale (namely kiryu's mission to dedicate his life to protecting haruka) for hollow last minute stakes-upping in this one. it is then completely disregarded anyway. god damn.

[rosicheeks]

🫶

[tinyglitterrose]

HEY EVERYONE!

big announcement 😍🥰🖤🖤❤️❤️💙🖤👀

well, not that big maybe, but it's really exciting to me cuz i love this one! I POSTED A NEW STORY ON AO3! more rambling in the tags, here's the link to read it! ❤️

[b4kuch1n]

!! transcript now available on my drive (linked above) !!

crumbs in your bed

transcript

[saintrosalyn]

BIRD DOG - JAILBIRD PART TWO

Part One

Description: Simon’s determined to retrieve his jailbird.

Word count: 4.5k

TW: Parolee! Reader (guys we’ve graduated to parole), stalking, reader is kept as vague as possible, sexual favors in exchange for money, groping, Ghost is a creep (graduated from perv lmao), p in v, oral (m! receiving), p in v, mention of breeding kink, creampie, possessiveness, dub-con, somewhat edited.

Notes: It’s finally done! This took longer than I anticipated since I deviated from the OG plan and was a bit of a stinker to write but it's done. I hope everyone enjoys it! I’ve absolutely loved reading all the comments, asks, and reblogs. Such positive feedback is what led me to posting part two honestly. I'm currently working on the last part of JB so expect that soon💖. Feedback is always appreciated but never expected. Let me know if I missed any tags. Enjoy :)

Also I've never done a tag list before so apologies if it didn't work or I missed anyone😭. Please let me know if the link to part one doesn't work either, this is the first time I'm using Tumblr on my laptop I usually use my phone.

You got used to the slight tremor in your hands, the parting kiss alcoholism left with you, but the violent shaking as you attempted to click the lock of the hotel door closed was difficult for even you to handle. You longed to feel that familiar burn of self-destruction but the only place that would have you end up is back in prison. Parole violation. It was too soon to resort to such dramatic measures, instead you quietly paced your small room, double checking that you clicked the deadbolt shut, closing the curtains as tight as they could go, anything to try and soothe your rising anxiety.

Talking yourself away from the edge again and again until you could finally sit down on the stiff mattress. Every time you managed to calm your heart you blinked and saw that room again. You saw those pictures again.

He-Simon.

You swallowed, forcing yourself to take deep, slow, breaths. 

After sleeping together, after discovering the skeleton in his closet, you swallowed the bile in your throat and kissed his jaw. He made dinner which you smiled over and forced into your mouth, every bite downed with a sip of water. The two of you went to bed, your eyes darting to that door, now left open enough you could see a glimpse of his homemade wallpaper. He kept an arm draped over you and fell asleep. 

Then you left.

Barefoot, not knowing where your shoes had been placed in your need to-

Jesus Christ you had slept with the man.

You barely made it to the bathroom, puking mostly water and yellowed acid up. It made your eyes water and nose run, blowing it in a piece of toilet paper, flushing it down. There was little comfort to be found in the distance you put between you and him. 

Going on foot wasn’t the brightest idea, but risking stealing Simon’s car and having him call the cops on you was foolish even for you. That and you didn’t want the man any angrier at you than you expected he was going to be. You only got so far before you found yourself on the wrong side of town. You had never been in the area before, but you knew the type. Women posted on every corner, bars on the windows, broken glass and sticky residue staining the sidewalks. It didn’t take you long to find the kind of man you needed. Trading a handjob for a bus fare, a blowjob for a new pair of shoes, and a pitiful two minutes of dry thrusting for a hotel room. 

Back to your ways. Different city, different time, same person. A bird incapable of changing its tune.

You needed a real job. A record stood in your way of that, but surely there had to be something, anything, that would pay enough for you to keep a roof over your head without having to sell more of yourself. 

You needed a job, but you needed space more. As much as you could get. Immigration was out, no one wanted to host a felon, and you were limited to a certain area before your parole officer got testy with you. Fuck. A big cage, that’s what you were trapped in. One you could never get free from.

Your family. Your past. Your cell. Your city. Your whole fucking life, one cage after another. Freedom a concept rather than a reality. Simon could use it against you. He knew of your limits, hell, you fucking told him yourself over a phone call before you got released. Outlined every fucking sentence of where you could and couldn’t go. He knew all of it.

Taking another deep breath you forced your body to lie on the bed, you needed to calm down. You needed to think clearly and come up with a plan. Simon was still asleep in bed, he didn’t know where you were, you were fine. 

You were fine.

A good night’s sleep. That’s what you needed. Not likely with how wound tight you were. But you had to try. Anything to escape the panic squeezing your lungs.

___

It took four hours of staring blankly at a dark ceiling, on the edge of a panic attack the entire time, before your body gave in and let you sleep. It was light, but it was enough of a break in your consciousness. The sun was what woke you, shining on your eyes and causing you to squint. Your anxiety a gentle heart palpitation rather than the full blown panic it was last night, exhaustion dulling its edge. 

The first thing you did was go business to business looking for a place that was hiring. Most required a resume, those you didn’t even give a second glance (as they no doubt did background checks). It took all of the day before you found a shitty pub that only asked if you were old enough to drink. With a nod of your head an apron was shoved into your hands, and you were bussing for your first shift. 

The owner, a balding man who smelled like cigarettes and wore a sweat-stained wife beater, paid you cash. Enough that you were able to buy another night to cover your hotel room and not much else. You walked back to your temporary home, eyes darting to every tall man who crossed the street. For once, you were grateful Simon was such a large man. It would make him easier to spot in a crowd, the orange of a tiger’s fur stark against a green jungle.

When you returned back to your room, it was easy to explain the movement of your things. Hotels had housekeepers. You wouldn’t have even noticed it if it weren’t for your paranoid state. It wasn’t until you went to the bathroom, eager to wash away the grease and grime of the pub, that you noticed a small picture sitting face-down on the bathroom counter. Flipping it over revealed you. You, asleep in your shitty hotel bed, close-up, taken from inside. 

You were barely able to flip the toilet lid up before you lost your stomach contents. Vile burning the back of your throat was nothing in comparison to the panic that burned through your veins.

He was inside your hotel room. He was inside your hotel room last night with you. 

You barely managed to stand, legs shaking, leaving the bathroom you noticed other signs of his arrival. Dirty tracks that were much too large. The blinds wide-open even though you were sure you closed them before you went to sleep. A single dog tag resting underneath your pillow. It’s owner’s name mocking you.

Riley.

___

He left you more presents. Vestiges of him ever present in your life. It didn’t matter where you went, how many hotels you hopped, how many jobs you changed, he always found you. Truthfully, the both of you knew this song and dance could only go on for so long. You were low on cash and stuck orbiting around the same small area. Days bled into weeks bled into months. Fear gave way to anger. Anger that he wouldn’t leave you alone. Anger that he wouldn’t let you delude yourself into thinking you had found a safe space that he could not intrude on.

On your nth hotel, you decided you were staying. Simon be damned. He obviously had no intentions of killing you just yet, content in tormentation. That and there were only so many jobs willing to pay under-the-table. You needed to save up enough cash to prove that you had a steady place to live, a recommendation from your parole officer. This flightiness made the law suspicious at best and nervous at worst. 

You found your way back to the pub, who upgraded you to server. On the wrong side of town its patrons weren’t the best. But they tipped decent enough and if they got too handsy the owner always stepped in. A few pinches on the ass were worth a steady income. You’ve given a lot more of yourself for less.

Perhaps, that was your mistake, you got too comfortable with a wild animal. So sure that your exotic pet would not bite.

The first time you saw him, you thought it was a mistake. Despite his size Simon was able to go about your life as he pleased without you catching even a glimpse of him. Hell, you knew he could stalk you without you being aware of him at all (your prison stint was proof enough of that), he just chose not to. You shouldn’t have been surprised that his behavior would escalate. 

You were standing, dead on your feet after your shift working on three hours of sleep, waiting for the bus. And there he was. Across the street, large frame leaning against a wall, arms crossed. When you did a double glance, you were able to make out the tell-tale scars across his face. Then the bus came. It was a coin toss, boarding the bus. A part of you wanted to flee, figuring he could easily cross the street and board the same bus as you, but the alternative was worse. Let it pass and walk home alone. In the dark. With a predator at your heels. 

No.

Better to have people around you. Safety in numbers and all that.

The next day, he did it again. And again. And again. Each time coming closer and closer. Until one day you saw his large frame coming up the steps of the bus. You practically vibrated from anxiety in your seat, unshed tears blurring your vision as you stared straight ahead. The black blur of his jacket, the soft squeak of his boots as he moved closer and closer, until he took the seat right behind you.

You didn’t move. Frozen. Fight or flight. Fight or flight. Fight or flight. Or,

Fright.

Fright.

Fright. 

Until the bus moved and the decision was made for you. Only you couldn’t convince your muscles to move, stuck staring dead ahead. Willing the bus driving to glance in the mirror back at you. Willing the other passengers to notice how close the man behind you was sitting (close enough to feel his breath against your ear, close enough to smell the tobacco on his breath). But this was the last bus and everyone was too tired to notice. A herd of diurnal prey vs a nocturnal predator. It was clear who had the advantage.

You missed your stop. And the one after that. It wasn’t until you felt a violent shake on your shoulder that you jolted out of your trance, eyes darting up… to the bus driver. 

“Las’ stop miss. Gotta’ get off.” His voice firm. How long had he been calling out to you?

Giving a jerky nod you looked behind you, but Simon was gone.

___

It didn't stop there. Not that you expected it would, but fucking forgive you for having a little hope in life. Simon took to following a few steps behind you wherever you went. Sitting behind you on the bus. Sitting in the back of the pub, nursing beer after beer. Sometimes he had another man with him. But mostly he was alone. His eyes never left you. For weeks it went on. For weeks you felt his constant presence. 

The presents never stopped either. Photos of you, gifts for you (lingerie and cigarettes, the same shade of nail polish he gave you while you were in prison), things of his. He never relented. You never shook that feeling of being watched. You never could get rid of that pit of anxiety in your stomach. Exhaustion was starting to settle heavy in your bones. Give up. Give in. Give yourself to him. 

The temptation was intense. You just wanted to be done with it all. Let him do what he wanted with you. At this point, even death would be better than another day of constant anxiety. (Pursuit predator exhausting his prey, closing in). 

And then he was gone.

His absence was glaringly obvious on the first day, enough so that you thought for sure that you were going to die soon. Simon had reached some kind of breaking point. But you didn’t. And you didn’t see Simon.

There were no presents left for you. No signs of his stalking. No evidence that he was ever in your life at all. It was such a sudden and stark change that if it weren’t for his dog tag you would have thought you dreamed the whole thing. But he was gone. 

A day passed.

Then another.

And another.

The knot in your stomach slowly unworked itself. The tension ever present in your shoulders finally loosened. Weeks passed by. Then months. A part of you still worried. In prison there were times where Simon would go silent for months, but he always came back. And he always made sure to make up for lost times. More gifts, more phone calls, longer visits. It seemed that your anxiety was slowly chipped away, yet it was also slowly building itself back up again. 

But Simon stayed gone. More importantly, a date had been set for you to become a truly free woman. No parole. No restrictions. A chance to leave the country. A chance to truly be free.

A chance to slip away from Simon.

___

When a police officer knocked on your door, you had to fight back the panic.

You haven’t done anything wrong. 

It wasn’t until you were sitting across from your lawyer did you truly began to realize the situation you were in. His words sounded so far away, so garbled. As if you were trapped underwater, in a fishbowl, letting the world happen around you as you tapped at the glass.

“...Do you understand the situation you’re in?...Enough drugs to get an intent to distribute…a passport…tickets to another country…”

How did you get here?

“Are you listening to me?”

You snapped back to reality, the familiar cold cuffs biting into your wrists.

“Do they have to keep these on me?”

Your lawyer let out a sigh. “Don’t worry about the damn cuffs right now.”

Easy for him to say, he wasn’t the one wearing the damn cuffs.

“They’re distracting.” 

He ignored you. “They have you on video buying a plane ticket out of the country.”

You nodded. He didn’t mention the fact that your parole would’ve been up by then. Nothing wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong.

“They found enough cocaine in your hotel room to get intent to sell. With the plane ticket, and your erratic behavior after you got out of prison, things don’t look good for you.”

“It’s not mine I-” Your voice cracked and you cleared your throat, talking so quietly, trying to hold back tears. “I swear.”

Your lawyer didn’t look convinced. “That defense won’t hold up in court.”

He ran his hands through his hair. “Look, I was able to cut a deal for you. It’s better than prison. They’ll tag you-”

Dog tags flickered in your mind. “Huh?”

“House arrest.”

“Oh.”

“You won’t be able to use a hotel, you’ll have to go back to the original residence you reported when you got out of prison.”

"What?” Alarm bells rang through your sluggish thoughts.

Your lawyer sick of you interrupting him, bulldozed on. “Listen to me. I don’t know why they’re offering this to you, but you won’t get a second chance at this. Confess your crime. They’ll confine you to your house for three years and serve parole in tandem. You’ll only serve a year of parole once you’re out.”

Three years. Three years stuck at Simon’s house. Three years with Simon.

“What happens if I don’t take it.”

“You’ll go back to prison. Given you’ve already been, they'll try for maximum. You could be looking at twenty years, ten if you’re lucky. Life on parole.”

Walk into the tiger’s den or let him continue the chase.

How did you get here?

___

They put the ankle monitor on at Simon’s house, now your house you suppose. A part of you had wanted to tell them to take you back to prison instead. But you knew the reality of your situation. Simon would just do the same thing he did before. Get videos of you, pictures of you, he could still watch you in your cell. He would still visit you. And that’s just what he would do while you were in prison, what would happen when you were released again? You were never going to be able to escape him. At least this way you would be more comfortable.

A gilded cage.

Simon talked to the officers, but he seemed to make even them nervous, as they all but ran out of the house. You watched as they shut the door behind them, alone in a room with Simon for the first time in a long time.

How did you get here?

Simon put his hand on the back of your neck, before gliding it upwards jerking your head back. Your eyes met his, and he was smiling.

“Hello, bird.”

“Simon.”

He shuddered when you called his name.

“Missed you.”

“Don’t know how, you never left me.”

He grinned, boyish and proud of himself, “Never.”

Simon kissed you then, feeling far more familiar than he should’ve for a man you’ve only had sex with once. You turned, hoping to relieve some of the pressure in your neck, Simon’s hand stayed instead wrapping around your throat. He gave an experimental squeeze, making you whimper, before he released you.

“Gonna’ be good’ fer me?” He rasped.

You thought about it for a moment, and he let you, time frozen mid-air. But you had been running for so long. And you were so tired. Fight or flight. Fight or flight. Fight or flight. Or,

Surrender.

You had to stand on the tips of your toes to press your lips against his, white flag given. That’s all it took for the dam to break. Simon let out a growl and slammed you into the nearest wall, cradling your head so it didn’t bang against the wall with the force. His body caged you in as he deepened the kiss. You had forgotten just how intense it was to be so close to Simon.

He filled your senses. You breathed him in, you tasted him, you heard his soft grunts against your lips, felt the rough edge of his jeans as he ground himself against you, watched as his blonde eyelashes fluttered open until he was staring at you. Always watching. Even in these moments. 

Simon’s hand gripped your ass, grinding you harder against him, moaning from the friction.

“You owe’ me somethin’ birdie. Made your fiance wait so long. Such a fuckin’ tease.” He growled in your ear before fisting your shirt in two hands, ripping it with ease. Hands squeezing your bare tits so tight you expected to find bruises tomorrow.

Confusion knitted your brows together before he shoved you to your knees and you came face to face with his crotch.

How did you get here?

Your hands shook as you undid the button on his jeans, the zipper loud in between Simon and your panting. He helped you pull his jeans down his thighs, his cock dropping out, hard and angry.

Fuck.

You had forgotten just how big the man was down below. Time distorting the memory enough you had convinced yourself that he was average and you were just desperate that night. You were wrong of course. The man was hung as a fucking horse.

It had been awhile since you gave a blowjob. The steady pay the pub provided, the tips you made, pawning a few of Simon’s gifts and you had earned enough to not necessitate them. Not that it would help in this situation. Simon was big enough that all your previous tricks were rather useless. You weren’t even sure if you could open your mouth wide enough to take him, let alone take him down your throat. Your poor poor throat.

Tentatively, you leaned forward and gave the head a gentle kiss, glancing up and meeting Simon’s eyes. Your gaze left his, feeling suddenly shy despite the situation you were in. Pre dribbled and you used the chance to rub it along his sensitive head with your thumb. You gathered as much spit on your tongue licking the underside of his cock, pushing it all the way up until it pressed against his stomach. He groaned, hand resting on the back of your head. 

With his dick out of the way, you used your other hand to caress his balls before pressing soft kisses to them. You replaced your hand with your mouth, sucking and swirling your tongue, using your hands to work his cock while you gave your attention elsewhere. His balls were much easier to fit in your mouth, but you could only delay the inevitable so long.

You pulled away fully, his cock falling under the weight of itself. The easy part done, now it was time for the hard part. Your gag reflex was not going to be happy. Bracing your hands against his thick thighs, feeling his muscles flex underneath your fingertips, you pressed your lips against the tip of his cock again, parting the seam of your mouth and letting him slowly slip in. Your tongue lying flat as he invaded your mouth.

Inch by overwhelming inch.

Before you had thought he was overwhelming, it was nowhere near as overwhelming as having his dick in your mouth. Gone were the lingering scents of tobacco and liquor. The outside world stripped away until just the man was left. Until only Simon’s musk filled your nose, wrinkling it as you took him a little deeper. Your jaw already ached from how wide you were stretching it.

Tired of your pace, Simon began to use your head as leverage as he pushed you further down, nails pressing crescents into his skin as you forced your body to relax. You quickly moved your hands back to the base of his length, stopping him from pushing you any further. Twisting your wrists to placate him enough to let you keep them there. Sucking to increase the pressure.

Simon moaned, hands going from gripping your head, to resting. Letting you work.

You took a deep breath through your nose as you began to work him in earnest. Swirling your tongue over the head of his cocked you began to bob faster and faster, unable to stop the lewd gurgling noises as the back of him hit your throat. His hands were at your head again, pushing himself further down your throat and back again. Setting his pace.

This wasn’t a blowjob he was fucking your throat. Using you. His dick twitched in his mouth before he pulled out, as you took in huge gulps of breath. Body hunching in on itself. You felt vulnerable like this. Kneeling in front of him, the top half of you completely nude.

You didn’t get much time to collect yourself before you were pulled to your feet, turned so that your back was pressed against his front, hands bracing against the wall. 

Simon kissed your neck, hooking his hands on your pants and jerking them down. They caught on your ankle monitor but he just tore them off, seams ripping. Your underwear was torn with a satisfying rip, before you felt the tip of his bare cock pressing against your hole. He thrusted against your slit, gathering your own slick before he reached a hand down, dragging his dick back before it caught on your hole.

You couldn’t help but whine at the stretch of him, un-prepped. He didn’t stop until his hips met yours, large hands bruising. He paused, leaning his weight onto you, sighing. As if being buried to the hilt in your cunt was the reprieve he had been looking for all his life.

“Missed her’ too. Did she mis’ me?” His voice was hoarse against your ear.

“Huh?”

He removed one hand from your hip bringing it to your clit, brushing one large knuckle against it, causing your knees to buckle. Simon chuckled, easily holding your weight against him.

“Don’ worry, won’ ever leave you for this long again Birdie.”

Simon licked your cheek causing you to try and jerk away from him, before the rough pad of his finger began to circle your clit, your pussy clenching around him almost painfully, grinding his hips into yours as if trying to fuck you deeper somehow. He pulled out before snapping into you. Again and again, hand never leaving your clit.

“Simon! Simon please! Don’t stop!” You couldn’t help but cry, bucking back against him as you felt an orgasm build quickly, faster than one had ever built before.

He growled into your ear. “Ain’t ever gonna run again Bird.”

You nodded your head, trying to do everything in your power to appease him to keep doing what he was doing. To keep thrusting. To keep his hand on your clit. To lick you again. Anything. Everything. You wanted him to consume you wholly.

“Ain’t gonna run no’ more. Ain’t gonna leave the house till everyon’ knows you’re mine.”

His hand left your clit, causing you to whine in protest, cradling your stomach. 

“Say it. Tell the whole fuckin’ world who you belong too.”

“You Simon! YoU! Simon! Simon please…plea-” You were babbling, until finally his hand went back to your clit.

“Don’t forget it.”

You came, cunt desperately clutching his cock, squealing as Simon didn’t even slow his thrusts. He pushed you through one orgasm onto the edge of overstimulation as he finally came with a grunt inside of you. He didn’t pull out, keeping his seed nuzzled safely near your womb.

You slumped against his arms, panting softly as the reality of your situation began to wash over you, naked except for the ankle monitor.

How did you get here?

It didn’t matter, because all roads lead to Simon.

Tag list: @Sweetlike-sugarplum, @thatpersonamedrook, @aphinthestars, @misscaller06, @shushyoudontknowme, @youknowits-derea, @succubusvalentine, @sundaescreamcheese

[velvetsainz]

summary: [ cl16 x fem!reader ] charles is away in baku and you remind him of what he's missing. part two.

word count: 1.3k

content warnings: smut under the cut (minors dni pls!), pwp, use of explicit language, phone sex, masturbation, google-translated french (lmao), a dash of fluff, i like em dashes too much

a/n: baby's first smutlet! i've been writing for like twelve years but i've never posted to tumblr, so here's to first times! there'll def be at least a part ii to this, but i'm also hoping to write for other drivers soon(ish). also giant mega thank you to @multiseb21 + @lecrep for your support—y'all have been so incredibly sweet & i am so thankful for you!! anyways, i hope y'all like this! enjoy, loves! xx

“Chérie,” his voice crooned over the line, a soft laugh leaving your lips. “Don’t tease, mon ange—it’s already hard enough being away from you for so long.”

“Weren’t you the one who said he’d be fine just a month ago?,” you retorted, voice low.  The cards were in your hands now, and Charles was desperate.  He was a nomad lost in the desert and you were his oasis on the horizon, just the sound of your voice enough to slake his thirst.

“Yes, but then you sent me that picture and—” You hear him curse again under his breath, his fist acting as a poor substitute for the velvet heat of your walls. He swore he wasn’t going to let you leave that bed once he got his hands on you again.

Charles wasn’t entirely wrong: you were the biggest fucking tease known to mankind.  Earlier that evening you sent him a semi-absentminded photo of you fresh from the shower, steam still obscuring the best parts of the photo with a fresh white towel around your hips and one gathering your hair on top of your head.  He’d always had something about you fresh from the shower—every time he’d nearly pounce as soon as you’d pad back into the bedroom from the steamy confines of the bathroom, hair wrapped on top of your head just as it was now.  (Part of you thought it was something primal in him: you’d washed away his scent on your skin and he needed to make his territory known again, that horn dog.)  Still, he was ever the gentleman and would make the endeavor more than worth your while.

“Yeah, that was pretty bad of me, wasn’t it?,” you ceded with a knowing smirk on your lips as you sat back from your desk, closing your laptop slowly.  You’d wanted to get a little more work done after your shower, but the Monégasque wasn’t keen to let sleeping dogs lie and needed to hear your voice for himself.

“So bad, chérie,” he agreed with tone of exasperation, a heavy sigh passing through the phone, “And you’re not even here to help a–”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t help in other ways,” you were quick to remind him, the words coming from your mouth quicker than your shame would force you to bottle them up.  Heat was creeping to your cheeks, and you could feel the familiar coil of desire tightening deep in the pit of your belly.

“Are you—?”

“That’s why you called, isn’t it, baby?,” you asked only to get a stifled groan from the other side. “You wanted me to tell you how I’ve been thinking about you all day,” you continued, “how I miss your hands on my hips, your cock so deep—”

“Fucking hell,” Charles practically whines as you push yourself away from the desk now, allowing yourself to relax into the seat of the chair and your hips to ease apart despite every part of you wanting to grind them together to relieve the dull ache that rested between them.

“What would you do if I was there now, Cha?,” you asked softly, hand splayed out over the plush of your thigh, eyes glazing over as you pictured him there with you.  You wanted his hands everywhere; you couldn’t decide where you truly needed him most. Fingers curling against that hidden spot in your tight cunt, threaded through your hair and pulling your head back to rest on his shoulder, gripping your thighs so tight they’d leave bruises that he’d fuss over later—it all sounded like heaven compared to the lonely hell of your shared Monte Carlo flat.

“I want to taste you, mon cœur,” he replied shakily as his breath came faster, the sound of him fisting his cock becoming more and more prominent as time passed; he wasn’t going to last long like this, but you both already knew that—it wasn’t the point of this exercise.  “I’d have you coming on my tongue, let you taste yourself when I kiss you—putain,” the driver cursed once more as his brow furrowed.  He was leaking precum over his ironclad grip and all he wanted was to slide his fingers past your plump lips to feel the wet heat of your tongue take care of the mess.

You let out a tremulous breath over the line, one you hadn’t known you’d been holding onto so tightly until your head started swimming with need.  Your hand had drifted from its origin, rubbing lazy circles over the cotton of the panties you’d slipped into after the inciting picture.  On your top half was a worn, faded shirt of Charles that you’d taken a liking to as a nightshirt—especially when you were missing him as you were so desperately now.

“Need you in me,” you begged, the emptiness you felt so acutely coming to the forefront of your senses, “You always do such a good job filling me—my fingers don’t do you justice.”

You hear a groan on the other side of the line, the man now sitting on the edge of the bed as he tries to keep himself in check.  He wasn’t ready for this to be over so soon; you had him feeling like a teenager again, ready to spill at a moment’s notice. Granted, this wasn't anything new: there's something so intoxicating about you that destroyed whatever semblance of restraint, of control he had over his lust.

“Want you in my mouth, give me something better to do than tease you like this,” to which you received a choked merde, the man hanging on your every word as the hand between your legs abandoned its objective���you could take care of that later.  You were too caught in every little sound that passed his plush lips, listening for every little cue his body so willingly gave you.

“Want your hands in my hair, guiding me up and down your cock,” you keened for him on a whine, his breathing heavy and labored.  He was running at full speed to the cliff's edge, and you were there watching, waiting in the grass. “Want your cum on my tongue, baby,” you whined.

“Promise not to waste any, minette?,” he grunted, gritting his teeth as you hummed your assurances.  “Such a good girl f’me, yes–”

With a strained hiss and a groan he came sloppily over his hand, thankful enough that he wasn’t home in Monaco so he didn’t have to worry about cleaning up the mess he’d made. “Fuck,” he croaked, breathing heavy as he came down from the blinding high your words had catapulted him through.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t been taking care of business when duty called, but something about your voice, the thought of you there…it clutched everything into a higher gear.

“Better?,” you asked, sly smile audible to the Ferrari driver; he didn’t need to see you to know the shit-eating, satisfied smile that took over your lips.

With a tired laugh he nodded, slumping back onto the cool rumpled sheets of the hotel bed as he stared absently at the dark ceiling.  It was three in the morning in Baku, and he couldn’t sleep—the thoughts your cheeky picture had invited wouldn’t let him.

“Get some rest, tiger,” you teased him, knowing he’d have to be awake in a few short hours. You debated sending him another picture in the morning as motivation, tiding him over until you’d join him later that weekend.

“Que ferais-je sans toi, mon amour?,” he asked, sleep heavy in his voice as he rolled the right way onto the bed and running a hand through his hair.  He’d deal with the mess he’d made in the morning along with the flowers he’d send you—he really didn’t know what he’d do without you.

“I guess we’ll never know, hm?,” you replied gently, smile melting into something softer as you fiddled with the gleaming ring on your left hand.

[dropthedemiurge]

Let Free The Curse of Taekwondo: Things you didn't notice #1

Isn't this another K-BL where I'm internally squealing because of every single detail? You bet it is. You can read my other meta/cultural detail/Korean language posts for Love for Love's Sake, Time of Fever, Grey Shelter and Boys be Brave on my pinned post or hashtags^^ (I really need to organize it under one singly hashtag tho...)

I already talked about how impressed I am with the fact that this series has done their preparation job well, with props, settings, language, history etc.

It is about a countryside/small town in Southern province of Korea - because a lot of characters use satoori (southern dialect), almost all of them except for the main two guys. There is also a distinct contrast/conflict between 'fancy Seoul rich guys' looking down on 'Southern town'. Juyoung even was surprised Dohoi doesn't use satoori.

To which, he responded with 'You'll be uncomfortable if I use it". And Juyoung said there are plenty other uncomfortable things around here, beside understanding/listening to everyone using other accent xD Confusing Gaga translation errors, we meet again!

Actually, it's interesting because Dohoi's name is written 이도회 in Korean, which typically would be written as 'Dohoi' but pronounced as 'Dohwe' (think of surname Choi that is actually pronounced as Chwe), yet in the first episode I clearly heard them actually say 'Dohoi', letter by letter. Now I wonder if it's also related to satoori... I wish I could speak it, it sounds so cool tbh.

He actually said 'I'm not in a good condition', meaning his physical form. What do you mean, mood, when was that ever an excuse in sports..?xD

By the way, what is it with boys trying to get closer to other boys by buying them unusual ice cream?:') Okay, garlic sounds more weird than red bean one :D

Also, I tried to find the Hasong town they talked about but failed - maybe because of incorrect transcription or maybe they made up this town based on Uiseong - a small town close to Daegu which is famous for being the most famous garlic town, they produce a lot of it and garlic fame would be seen everywhere - so who knows, I bet they allude to this when Juyoung said 'why can't there be a vanilla garlic ice cream? It's like a collaboration!'

Another thing, I thought the time of this series was somewhere around 1990s-2000s (because I watched a movie in similar setting that was called 1997 year but they still used pagers, now that I think about it). It was also still the time where teachers could use physical punishment on their students, it's heavily highlighted but I don't actually know around what time they stopped... Probably in Seoul, they already were getting rid of it but in small towns it was old-school teaching, which is again why Dohoi tried to tell Joyoung out of it.

I'm not familiar when small laptops and phones appeared in Seoul but I think the series is actually somewhere around 2005-2010! Which would make sense, Juyoung got the 'cool' flip-phone and a laptop with Windows XP (released in 2001) but small town is still far from that, as they use landline house phones to make a call.

He also has mp3 player and as other tumblr folks figured out, he was listening and dancing to Jewelry song released in 2005 :)

And another thing that convinced me about the time era... the final scene!

Do you want to know why at the end of Ep 1 Dohoi smiled and laughed and ran to Juyoung even after so many exhausting days and neverending small miseries and a new loud housemate?

Because Juyoung not only came to pick him up with an umbrella in the acid rain, he also reenacted the famous umbrella scene from the classic romantic K-drama called "Temptation of Wolves" (늑대의 유혹) which was released in 2004! To make Dohoi laugh.

(Yes, when Juyoung intentionally put the umbrella down and the camera cut the shot to the framing when the umbrella slowly lifts up, showing smiling Juyoung, I was like 'you did nooooooot' xD)

(last screenshots taken from @heretherebedork post, I'm sorry I am very lazy and cannot take a good screenshot for life :'))

So that was already our very first romantic teasing-implication!

Another cute thing: optimistic Joyoung wrote a diary entry into the fake old Korean "Facebook" (they had Cyworld instead) to share his first selfie with Dohoi:

"[Excited Shin Jjuyoung]" (typing in a popular back then teenage style) "I miss you guys... But here it's nice too hehe ^___^ Come to play with me!! Together with my friend Dohoi too~~!"

Aren't they the cuteestttttt? I mean, this dynamic is not new but I love how unique the setting is. And I can't wait to watch the second episode, I'm waiting and savoring the first one for now but I'm going to make notes about other episodes as well so stay tuned! If you reply/comment in tags, I will put you in my tag list^^

Tag list: @benkaben @pickletrip @troubled-mind

[cowgirlfawn]

FREAK SHOW 🩰

^ྀི plot: your best friend finds your tumblr where you’ve been posting…questionable things about him

^ྀི warnings: fem!reader, she’s like just weird and sensitive ??, smut, friends to lovers, oral (r!receiving), reader posts about wanting to be used by suguru, no use of y/n .

^ྀི wc: 1.2k

^ྀི notes: this one is for the sensitive chronic tumblr posting girlies!

you’re tumblr was your safe space, you could post whatever you wanted there without anyone knowing . you posted your outfits and your random thoughts . it was truly a place where you could be yourself, all your mutuals were just as raw as you

your best friend, suguru, was oblivious to it . he had no idea you even had tumblr . even though you two were as close as can be you really couldn’t show him your tumblr, why? because over the past couple months you’d been posting rather questioning things, thoughts but they were—sexual, and to be specific they were about him

you would rather die then let suguru know you had a raging crush on him

it was a quiet tuesday, suguru was hanging out on your couch with you, your head rested on his shoulder as you scrolled on your phone, his arm around your shoulder . you opened tumblr and suguru noticed, to your knowledge he had no idea you had tumblr, but turns out you were wrong . he knew and he was determined to get your user, he needed to know what you were posting

he paid attention to your profile, he saw your theme, god it was so you . he tilted his head and finally got your username, now he had something to do tonight . you noticed his eyes glued to your phone, “hey! are you spying on me?!” you lifted your head to look at him . “no!” he raised his hands in defence

“you were! what did you see?” he shook his head at your question, “i saw nothing! i swear!” you narrowed your eyes at him . “fine, i believe you” he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair . the rest of the night was peaceful, suguru went home and practically jumped to his laptop . he sat down on his couch and typed in “tumblr.com” in google

he singed in and now he could finally see what you were posting, he put in your username and found you, ha! you used a fake name so no one would find you . yet he did . he stared at your page for a while, looking at your intro and your theme . everything was really like your personality, he scrolled down and the first post was just you talking about new clothes

as deeper he scrolled he got to the darker stuff, well maybe now dark but the…horny stuff . whining about being sexually frustrated or in your words “needing dick”, specifically your best friend's, but he hadn’t gotten to that yet! it looked like your posted a lot so it took him a while to scroll down to when he finally saw the first hint of who you liked

“i want him so bad”

was all it said, who? who did you want? and why did he feel a bit jealous . as he scrolled he saw more and more about “him”, one post caught his eye “i wish my best friend would just use me:<“ something he never would have expected from you . he scrolled a little more before accidentally liking a post from months ago, panic set in and he immediately took the like off

you got the notification that “sugu00” liked your post and you knew it was him, then you received a text from him

sugu🫶

“sorry”

fuck . you were in deep shit

the next couple of days there was no interaction between the two of you, he didn’t text you and you didn’t text him . he kept stalking your blog, he even had your notifications on . he noticed that you posted less, but you still made sure to rant at least two times a day . he watched you change your theme to something slightly different almost twice a day . his blog was blank, he didn’t have “time” nor the will to change it

everything was going well till suguru suddenly got the urge to talk to you, not text you, but to talk to you . so he made his way to your apartment, he had a spare key so he just unlocked the door and stepped inside . he shut the door behind him, he immediately noticed his dimly lit your house was and how your door was closed . he called out your name once . then twice . he heard shuffling from behind your bedroom door and it clicked open

he stood in front of you . your hair was dripping wet from your recent shower, you pjs sticking to your damp skin . “hey” he coughed out, “hi” you said in a weak tone, as if you didn’t want to talk to him . “i saw your post about…me” your breath hitched, “oh…i figured” you cleared your throat, “can i come inside your room?” you nodded and stepped aside

he walked in and noticed the only thing on was a couple lamps, your room like the rest of the house was not very bright . had you just been sulking these days? he sat down on your bed, “so...” he trailed off . “i’m sorry you had to see those posts” your voice cracked mid sentence as you felt tears well in your eyes . his head perked up, “hey don’t worry, i knew that you—had feelings for me, i just didn’t know they were so…extreme”

you started to sob, your freshly done makeup going to waste, “i’m sorry” you chanted, he walked over to you and brought you into a hug . “you want me to make you feel better? to make it all go away?” you looked up at him and nodded

he brought you to your bed and laid you down, he tugged on your pj shorts, “can I?” you just nodded, “words, baby” he taunted, “yes, you can” he pulled them down and your lacy panties with a little bow on them caught his eyes, “awh” he looked up at your embarrassed face, “oh c’mon, i think it’s cute” he placed a kiss on your clothed cunt, the feeling earring a whimper from you

“so sensitive” he teased, he oh so slowly pulled your panties down, your dripping pussy coming into sight, “there we go” he licked a stipe from the bottom of your slit to your clit, “ngh!” you moaned out, “sugu don’t tease me!” you whined and he chuckled . “you ever had someone fuck you?” you shook your head, he nodded in an understanding manner

“can i be your first?” you giggled, “yes, please” you practically begged . he kissed your clit before attaching his mouth to it, sucking on it harshly . your head flew back and you moaned, “sugu!” his fingers made they’re way to your hole, he slipped one the two in . your warm gummy walls wrapped tightly around them, he curled them as his tongue flicked your clit . he pumped his fingers in and out of you, with every movement a small noise escaped your throat

you felt a feeling bubble up in your stomach, “so close” you mumbled, he continued his pace, flicking his tongue . you felt yourself clench around his digits and cum, your eyes shut tight and your bottom lip tucked between your teeth . “that’s it” he praised, your legs shook as you came down from your high . you felt tears sting in your eyes and suguru put your clothes back on

“what’s wrong?” he whispered as he cuddled up against you, holding you tight . “i love you”

you confessed, “like a lot” you sobbed into the sleeve of his sweater . “hey it’s okay, i love you too” he placed gentle kisses on your head as your crying slowly stopped and was replaced with a light snore

[catt-nuevenor]

The Future

Time to establish what's going to happen from this point forwards.

The vast majority of you have been exceptionally patient this last year, and for that you have my deepest thanks. You've given me the time to not only write a book, but edit it, and send it off to literary agents, something I would have long given up on doing without the continued support of those who enjoy my writing.

Now that the book is off doing the rounds independently, it's time I got back to Myrk Mire.

Originally Myrk Mire was built in ChoiceScript, a scripting language created by the Choice of Games company. Choice of Games control what is done with their script, understandably, they own it. This does pose some restrictions. I can't, for example, release any paid material built using ChoiceScript unless it is directly through their publishing label. If I do publish under their label, I maintain IP or Intellectual Property Rights, however I also grant them the exclusive rights under perpetual license to publish the multiple choice game 'electronically'.

Source: Choice of Games.com

As you can see from the outline above, they do make exceptions for stories published in non-competing formats, and for sequels, prequels, and spin-offs. However, traditional publishing houses might require stricter control over IP, distribution, and exclusivity. It will only become more and more complicated as things progress, and being locked into a perpetual license agreement of any nature is not a decision to make lightly.

As some of you may be sensing from the tone of all this so far, I'm going to be moving Myrk Mire away from Choice of Games and ChoiceScript, and into a new medium/format.

After tinkering, and trialling with a few alternatives, I've decided to go with Renpy. Renpy, while largely used for visual novel style games and stories, provides a very workable framework for interactive fiction, and is an Open Source script, it isn't beholden to publishing contracts, licence cost, or exclusivity.

I'm not going to be diving into transferring Myrk Mire right away, it's a huge piece of writing, in an entirely different scripting language, and as previously stated, there are a lot of changes I want to implement with the cast. Instead, I'm creating a trial story: One Háḟest Day. My Patrons have been aware of all this for about a month or so, and have already seen some previews.

One Háḟest Day takes place in Aldmirham before the events of Myrk Mire, around the time the Main Character and the Wanderers first arrived in town. The reader will have the choice to follow one of the romanceable characters through a single day, with opportunities to explore their lives and relationships before the Main Character and Child come along. I hope it will provide a proving ground for the changes that previously caused debate, and an opportunity for people to try out the new format and interface.

My plan is to distribute One Háḟest Day through Itch.io, working with their early access framework and voluntary payments for such as soon as one of the character routes is ready to play from beginning to end, updating regularly with the other characters as they too are completed, and with additional features as required. Once the full game is complete, I will release a separate full build with a set minimum price that can be discussed with the community as we move forwards.

At the second, I'm aiming for a web hosted format and a desktop/laptop downloadable format, with phone compatibility to come later down the line once things are stable.

I will post production updates and info when I can to tumblr, though a lot of what I'm doing now is very python coding heavy, so perhaps not that interesting?

I've included some screenshots below of very early development, featuring a Character Log and Word Log that I hope will allow readers to more easily navigate the story. I'm toying with the idea of having a Mysteries Log as well that will keep track of snippets of information gleaned from each character's route, but that can be a tinkering feature for now.

Let me know your thoughts, concerns, or excitement, though do keep all messages objective and polite.

[anantaru]

You think rape is funny? Maybe once you fucking experience it you won’t. Fucking cunt.

hello. so I'll just jump right into this. tw. discourse tw. mentioning r*pe.

@saetoru made this claim about me:

saetoru, could you add proof at least? i can not remember a time where i would repost a joke like that so i'd love for you to show me proof please, this is all I'm asking.

also how was it on your dash, on your own dash and @dottores dash, when you have never followed me? + but maybe it was the for you feature that was the same for the both of you.

accusing someone without proof is not okay, again, i can not remember doing this so if you have a screenshot add it so i can remember and apologize, but i can't do anything because i don't remember saying a joke with SA in mind.

before that i just want to mention: i don't think r*pe is funny, i'm not a dark content blog either so i do not really reblog dark content things because i'm sure most of my readers don't want that + I'm just not into that as well. the only joke i was "called out" for once is when i used a "i want xyz character to smack their laptop on my face or tits" which i got from an andrew garfield interview where he read his thirst tweets out loud, at that time i just deleted it because it's alright.

dottores, your mutuals, two of them to be exact, have sent me multiple of your personal blog hate posts about me and not once, have you made one where you talked about me saying an SA joke. you have only claimed that i am a cunt and that i am a gatekeeping bitch hence why i believed this must be the reason why you would suddenly hate me despite the fact we never interacted.

now, I want to address this next, this is from @dottores post which when i got it sent to me, i would've wished she just tagged me right away and said it with her chest, more so not let saetoru talk about her experience but just handle this with me.

^ this is cat @dottores saying i got it wrong.

^ this is why i believed she meant it just like i said it, why do you go through blogs that grow really fast's notes in the first place? where do you take the right to police other blogs like that when i'm sure your blogs aren't empty of blank blogs either. it is hard to get rid of all of them but i'm sure we all try at least, we don't need you to make us feel bad or come off as belittling, if you have found out a way to get rid of every blank blog, do enlighten us please.

+ at that time of this reblog icks?? post that saetoru added, my blog was blowing up so when a moot of mine (which was also theirs at a time) saw this, they had sent it to me.

"creators that grow really fast" and nowhere has she mentioned she only went through only her own moots notes, aside from that apologies but i still find this weird, i don't think you should invest so much time in other people's blog but this is my opinion.

this is the next thing she said:

i don't know if dottores meant me there but i have never once harassed you nor sent you hate anywhere, again you cannot just accuse me of stuff like that when you have also never reached out to me. The things i claimed about you guys in your callout, i have text messages of the person (your moot) who sent it to me.

but back again, the only thing i did do was block dottores on tumblr and then later ao3 when i saw you in tags, which you made fun of me for later:

also i got this ask that time:

"who blocks on ao3?" i do, ao3 is the platform i use the most so why is it funny when i use the block button? + i just like to point something out here, "they must've clicked to read and realize it was me" you can think that if you want i don't mind, but let me ask you this: i have seen you in tags hence why i was able to block you, but how did you notice i did? you can't see me in tags so surely you didnt click on my work, so you must've searched up my user for whatever reason?

and i know this is about me because she added the "this person called me chronically online" i couldn't find the post but what she was talking about is me calling other writers who reblogged that one "ick post" with not needed things such as "when writers cant characterize a character" or "when they only write headcanons", i have plenty of screenshots of that post but since i don't want to use up all my space here, i don't see why i should show their reblogs from this.

there were plenty of people like that, which reblogged horrible things there so i called everyone under that post chronically online, not just you dottores.

yeah :) like people making fun of someone for blocking them for their own comfort. i just don't want to see you, that's all, but i have never send you hate asks nor harassed you, the only thing i did was block the blogs your own mutuals exposed to me.

next:

^ this is after i felt bad for you after the callout.

this is coming from your own mutuals, i have never alone claimed you guys are jealous of me nor is there anything to be jealous about. i am just a blog, this here is not being popular, no one knows who i am and i do not need to pride myself in having a big blog on tumblr.com, and my readers know that. we are all the same here.

next:

i didn't mean you here saetoru but i understand that it sounded that way, the phrasing was a little off, for that i apologise that i made you upset with this, english is not my first language, i'm french, and when it comes to this callout post i was so fed up with it that i just posted it without looking for grammar mistakes etc. + this is about one of your friends who deleted their personal the second i announced i got their user, that was something with kaeya, when they sent me a hate ask. i won't expose it here but that person was also the one who blacklisted a friend of mine for liking itto.

i think there is a lot more but i will stop it there, this could've ended differently and i'm sad that it ended this way. I wish you all the best and i mean it, i hope we all can learn from this and move on, write on tumblr for our favorite characters because it's fun and stay away from drama. If you made it this far thank you 💓 — yoru

[dodgesgirl]

how do you get your text that soft pink shade? tutorial?

BABY PINK TEXT TUTORIAL !

hi babe!! here's a short and hopefully easy to understand tutorial for the text i use in my posts ᥫ᭡

also, just a little disclaimer: the images on this post might not be visible because they exceed the limit of 10 images per post on mobile app. should be fine on a laptop or pc though!!

okay firstly, make sure you're using a laptop and open your post in one tab and in a seperate tab open jsfiddle.

you should be able to see this coding somewhere on your screen:

you're gonna replace the two hex-codes (highlighted text) with whichever colours you'd like. to do a gradient, like this, the two codes will be different, but i like to do a solid colour like this so my codes will be the same.

the hex code i use for the baby pink is D2A3BE, or you can use your own. if you don't have a hex code you like yet, you can use the colour picker on this site to find one!

just copy and paste the hex codes into the code so it looks like this:

make sure it looks exactly like this. you still need all the spaces, quotations and other code. only change the hex codes.

in the top left of your screen, there should be a "run" button, and when you press it, the colours in the bottom right should change from the default ones to the ones you chose.

next, you're going to open your tumblr post in your first tab.

your post will start like this. you'll go to the settings button in the top right (circled) and change the post from rich text to HTML

this will enable coding on the post. you'll still have 'preview' where it will look normal and you can still type and edit the post as you usually would.

once you've typed something it will show it in the HTML option just in a different way:

you want to go to the preview page and make sure you've got the text looking exactly as you want it (bold, italic, small, etc.). also note that colours look especially good and show up well when the text is bold. i set mine to bold as an example.

when you switch to HTML it will look something like it does above.

next, you'll copy the text between all the coding prompts (e.g. <p><b> and <b><p>). only copy the text you want to be pink or another colour!! don't highlight any of the coding. then paste it this top box on jsfiddle so it looks like this:

press "run" on the right, and it will spit out a line of code in the second box that will look something like this:

you're gonna copy that line of code and switch over to your tumblr tab. on your HTML version of your post, find the text you're changing and highlight it. then paste the code into that spot. make sure not to highlight any of the surrounding code - only the text you've written and want to change.

it will look super weird and long because it's colouring each symbol and letter, if you look closely, each letter of "example text" is separated and surrounded by code. when you switch to preview it will look like this:

for gradient, the process is the exact same, but on jsfiddle, when you're replacing the default hex codes with yours, the second hex code you plug in will be different to the one you start with. for example:

this second colour is C45494 btw!!

to do specific text in a paragraph as if bolding it (which i do in a lot of my posts), you just want to find that text in your HTML post, and copy and paste the specific word/s into your top box on jsfiddle, and then proceed as normal. example:

hopefully this helped!! let me know if you have any questions or need me to go over anything ( ˘³˘)

[skibeegames]

Sul Sul <3

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

Hi, my name is Skye (She/her) and I am new to posting on Simblr but have been on Simblr quite a while and have been on Tumblr for a decade.

I recently turned 23 and am from the UK, I started playing the sims when I was a little kid and my love started with the Sims 2. I have been playing Sims 4 on and off since it came out but have been playing more consistently since 2021 when I got my first gaming laptop and started cozy gaming.

Here is my Simself:

I now play on PC so I have a very heavily edited game. I love taking screenshots of my sims and using different reshade presets to give off different vibes, so I am very excited to share those pictures.

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

In terms of myself I like cottagecore and grandmacore things a lot and I like everything cosy obviously. I am also a content creator and I post cosy gaming content but it is predominantly Sims and Disney Dreamlight Valley but I like other games such as Palia and Coral Island and Animal Crossing. In my free time I also like games like Fortnite and horror/survival games.

Here is my Simself youtube video, if you're interested:

Like stated in my bio, I will predominantly be posting storytelling for my legacy families, building (which I love doing the most) and CAS.

I would very much appreciate any reblogs or likes and I can't wait to find mutuals on here and to see everyone's pretty posts . I hope you enjoy my future Simblr posts. I will be aiming to post at least once or twice a day.

You can mainly find me on tiktok, youtube and instagram and pinterest, any other socials are on my blog but all under the name @ skibeegames <3

♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧

[otomiyaa]

nice.png

(literally how I named the image, couldn't think of something else)

Hi guys :') To my followers and tumblr friends, I'm really sorry if my sudden disappearance scared or upset you. It wasn't quite... planned. And today was a busy day and I needed some time to consider what I wanted to do.

Short version of the story:

My tumblr account got terminated for copyright infringement. A certain Mr. Green got me in unlucky trouble (ref 1, 2).

I won't get it back, or try to get it back. It's gone.

Needed a moment to consider 2 options: ask Mia to extend my dramatic farewell letter and stay gone, or make a new blog.

Not planning to post new writing here. I won't be using words like 'never' or 'forever' because I'm a known clown with things like this, but the intention is to no longer post fics. I will finish Tickletober on AO3 and then take a break from writing. So yes, I cancel the swiftscribbles event too, sorry!

When I opened my laptop, I could see my old blog in its final hour lmao (I found out about the loss on my phone). So that's what the snap is from on a fitting grave. It was fun while it lasted!

Long version of the story:

Losing my blog(s): My Tumblr account with main blog + sideblogs got terminated overnight, it was quite the surprise! I've either been reported or tracked by bots. The posts are a bunch of numbered URLs I can't open, but the message is clear: for including anime content, genshin impact or media from other sources (whether it's videos, screenshots, official art, gifs or even fanwork) you technically can get a strike. Upon googling the claimer I quickly found this first, and knew it was a lost cause. Although it feels shitty and unlucky, I am in no place to appeal. It's like when I used to make AMVs in the past, you never knew whether a song or even anime footage was going to give your YT account a copyright strike or even a ban, it was a gamble. I have lost YT accounts before, and now I lost the Tumblr one. With 7+ years of tickle trash content and a bunch of sideblogs. But oh well, moving on!

Starting a new blog: It was a serious consideration whether this was my ultimate chance to do what I've always said I wanted to do eventually - quit my blog. My first thought was to ask Mia to share my explanation and literal goodbye with you guys, and stick to my chaos of a Twitter account to indulge in fandom stuff. But then I thought of how happy Tumblr made me, even without the fic writing, but just.. reblogging things, getting random asks, shouting about life and of course, about tickles. I decided to make a new blog after all, but also decided the following:

The 7K+ milestone swiftscribbles event is cancelled, for which I apologize! The follower milestone, together with the motivation to write the fics, and even the asks with the requests I got, all died with my former blog.

I will see how long I can survive without posting a new fic or drabble. A loose headcanon or two might fly around sometime. And if necessary, a link to a new fic on AO3.

Tickletober? Hell yes I'll finish it, I would cringe in bed for 49 days at least if I would stop. I just won't post the fics here, but on AO3.

Reposting/reblogging my old works? Undecided at the moment but I'm tired and lazy. I don't feel too upset since most of my fics are still on AO3 at least and not completely gone.

Anyways, I'll see what happens and how long I can enjoy this nerfed version of blogging.

Surprisingly I'm not upset about losing my other blog, there were a lot of memories but it was also very cringe. I'm gonna be just as cringe here, but at least I feel cleansed.

For those who choose to follow me again, thank you, but please know that there won't be much original content coming from me, for now!:)

[imyourbratzdoll]

𝒏𝒐 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒏 𝑰 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒂𝒎

part 3 of 💔broken family💔

summary - your life has gone downhill so fast, having drowned your emotions in alcohol, you're met with your ex-husband dropping your son off.

warning - angst, alcohol abuse, self-doubt, thoughts of disappearing, flashbacks, sad moments, crying, swearing, mentions of not taking care of themselves.

the gif I use isn't mine, headers by me.

part 1 - part 2 - part 4

Warnings and Reminders - Please do not plagiarise, copy, repost/republish, adapt, or translate any of my work on any social media platforms, apps, or third-party sites. The only platforms I post my work on are: Tumblr and Wattpad. I do not own any character of any franchise (Marvel etc.) All my works are fiction and may be dark or triggering content: READ ALL WARNINGS BEFORE PROCEEDING.

You didn’t know how long it had been since you last saw Ari and Jason. You didn’t bother to check your phone or take good care of yourself. You hadn’t left the house, and it had gotten worse than when your son was living here, sure. He didn’t love you, but at least someone was there to bring you out of the dark. The bottles piled up in the corner, and bags had gathered under your eyes. You had showered, unable to live with the smell that would occur if you didn’t, but you barely ate. You couldn’t stomach it. The food had slowly gone off, and you relied on the alcohol between your hands to bring you back to those happy dreams, the world you would rather be in than this one. 

You had probably lost your job, but you had already lost everything else in life that you didn’t care anymore. You took another swig, more tears flowing down your face as the memories kept replaying over and over. You stared at the blank tv, remembering when you had first met Ari. 

You were in your twenties, wearing the prettiest light pink sundress and standing in line to get your favourite coffee. You hadn’t noticed the hunk watching you from a table. His laptop opened in front of him as you caught his eye. You were naive but not stupid. He had seen you come in every day, always ordering the same thing and always wearing a different colour sundress. Your head turned, and your eyes connected, causing a spark to flow through the two of you, and you gave him a soft smile, your cheek heating up as he returned it. You remember some asshole bumping into you just as you went to take a sip of your drink, causing the liquid to splash out and stain your dress. Ari had shot up, moving toward you so quickly, making sure you were okay, and giving the man hell before he went and ordered you a new one. You remember sitting down with him, feeling so shy, in the presence of someone so handsome. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He sat down next to you, handing you napkins and putting a large hand on your back as he stared at you with those beautiful blue eyes. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, crap. I forgot to introduce myself.” You swear your heart stopped as he chuckled. The smile on his face and the sound that escaped him was so… So perfect. His eyes connected with yours again, “I’m Ari. What’s your name, gorgeous?” Oh, at that moment, you wished your name was gorgeous. Your heart was beating so fast you thought it would beat out of your chest. 

“I’m Y/n.” His warm hand encased yours, giving it a soft squeeze, and the rest was history. You had fallen in love, got engaged a year after meeting, and then had Jason two years after getting married. You went so perfectly together, you were happy, and it was as if you were two pieces of a puzzle that fit together, but then everything changed. 

You blink, coming out of the memory, gulping down some more of your drink. You are startled as there is a knock at the door. Not knowing that you were supposed to be expecting someone, you got up and headed over to the door, slowly opening it and sighing as you came face to face with Ari, his eyes moving up and down your body, and you just sipped the wine out of the glass in your hand. “Did you need something?” 

“I’m here to drop Jason off.” You raise a brow, wondering why he is dropping your son off, thinking that maybe he has another date with the unknown woman. “Are you up for taking care of him?” You roll your eyes, placing the now empty glass down.

“Of course, I’m up for taking care of my own son. I’m his mother.” Ari nods and lets you know that he will go and get Jason, and you sit back on the couch. When your eyes land on him, you try and smile. “Hey, baby. I missed you. Did you have fun at your dad’s?” He stays between your ex-husband's legs, clinging to him as if you’d steal him away. “I got some new toys for you?” You could feel this draining you further, bringing you deeper into the darkness. 

Jason’s ears perk up at the sound of new toys, causing him to run to his room. “I can take to daddy’s!” You hold back the tears, not wanting Ari to see you so weak as you realise your son still doesn’t want to be around you. How could you fail as a mother? You watch as he comes back with the new toys, holding them in his tiny arms as he heads back over to his father, you try and smile at them, but this is breaking you too much. 

As they leave, you place your head in your hands and burst into tears, screaming and crying. Why was this happening to you? All you wanted to do was hold your son in your arms and tell him you love him. All you wanted was for Ari never to have stopped loving you. The tears kept flowing, and you whimpered into your hands, feeling your heart squeeze inside your chest. Everything had become too much, and you didn’t think you could go any longer like this. You were so lost in your mind that you didn’t notice Ari walking back into the house, his heart breaking as he heard your screams. He had rushed over, kneeling on the ground and bringing you into a hug, his hands gripping the back of your head as your fingers curled into his shirt, sobbing into him, finally letting go of all the pain. 

“Shh, shh. It’s okay, honey. I’m here. It’s okay.” He whispered, but his words were no comfort, not when you knew he wasn’t really here. He would never be here for you. Why would he? He left. Ari held you closer as you shook your head.

“You’re not, and it’s not.” You pull away, staring at him with tear-filled eyes. “I don’t have anyone anymore, Ari. You left. I lost the love of my life because you stopped loving me! I’ve even lost my son because he blames me!” You slam your fists into his chest, more tears flowing down as your heart keeps breaking. “Why are you even here!? Why are you acting as if you care?!” You bite your bottom lip, whimpering and sobbing, staring into the love of your life's eyes, thinking that the hurt look you see is all in your head. You push away, curling into the couch and turning your head. “Just go… It’s what you do best, Ari. You never even gave me a reason…..” You look at him. “Was I that hard to love?” You watch the many emotions go through him, but your eyes slip closed as you lean back into the chair. “You can go now… Looking at you hurts too much.” 

Ari nods, leaning forward and placing a soft kiss on your forehead before he walks out of your house. Your tears continue to flow because again. You are truly alone. Your eyes open in shock when tiny arms wrap around you, hugging your body. “I sorry, mummy! I wuv you!” You stare at your son before your eyes move up and lock with Ari’s. Your arms slowly wrap around Jason’s, and you rest your head on top of his head as your eyes slip back closed, smelling his sweet scent, having missed him. “I stay?” You pull back and look at his wide blue eyes.

“Do you want to, baby?” He nods, nuzzling his head into your chest. You look back up to Ari, and he gives you a nod and soft smile before looking back down at your son, holding him closer to you. It felt like you finally got to feel your baby in your arms again before everything went wrong. But you couldn’t get your hopes up because it would break you if he turned around and did what he did before. “Thank you… I’ll drop him off tomorrow.” He waves you off before leaving. “Baby, what do you want to do today?” 

“Food and movies?” He stares up at you with wide eyes, and you nod, excusing yourself first to brush your teeth, change and wash your face, needing to get the scent of alcohol off of you before heading back into the room, noticing him nuzzled into the pillow. When Jason’s eyes meet yours, he gives a little smile. “Mummy!” You smile and head over, sitting down and breathing in as he nuzzles into your side, holding onto you for dear life. You grab your phone and scroll through take-out options.

“Did you want pizza for dinner, baby?” He replies with a little yes, and you nod before standing, his little hands going up as he signals he wants to come with you. You pick him up, place him on your hip and make your way to the kitchen, setting him down on the counter as you prepare the snacks for the movie as you both wait for the pizza. “Have you been enjoying staying at your father’s, baby?” 

Jason nods, “Is good. But at night is sad. Like here.” You tilt your head, stopping what you are doing and wiping your hands onto a teatowel. You slowly move over to him and cup his cheeks.

“What do you mean sad, baby?” You stroke his cheek, staring down worriedly at him. “Baby, what happens at night at daddy’s house?” 

He sniffles, pouting as he looks up at you. “At nigh’, daddy cries. Is like here when you cry, he tries to be quiet, but I hear him.” Jason leans into your hand. “Is sad.” He pats your hands, “I in trouble?” 

You shake your head, “No, baby. You aren’t in trouble. Do you know why he’s always crying?” You continue to stroke his cheek.

Jason shrugs. “All hear is I sowwy.” You nod, pressing a kiss on his head.

“Okay, baby. Don’t worry. Nothing is your fault, okay?” He nods, sucking on his thumb as you go back to the food, your mind now filled with why Ari was crying and who he was apologising to. You knew Ari was one to cry when something really hurt him. It was another one of the reasons you fell in love with him. He would let his feelings out, you had thought you found the perfect guy when he chose to communicate through problems instead of leaving, but you guess you were wrong with your judgement. “Alright, baby. The snacks are ready, and pizza is on its way. Do you want to help mummy carry the snacks to the loungeroom?” Jason nods, grabbing some of the food as you pick him up and grab the remaining. Once you’ve sat down and placed the snacks on the coffee table before you, you turn toward your son. “What do you want to watch, baby?” 

“Avengers!” He giggles, punching the air. You shake your head, smiling before putting the Avengers on, “Captin!” Your son squeals, seeing his favourite superhero on the screen. “Pow! Pow!” You smile, sinking into the couch and holding your son close, your heart finally feeling warm after feeling so cold for so long. “Mumma! Wook! Cap ‘Merica!” Jason’s head moves from you to the screen, staring wide-eyed at the blue, white and red man. “Look like daddy?” 

When those words slip from his lips, you stare at the screen, seeing the resemblance of the man you love. Your eyes move down his body and back to his face, those pretty blue eyes. You blink and shake your head. It’s your mind, and it’s playing tricks on you, making you see him because you miss him. You feel a finger poke your cheek. You look down and see your son staring at you with furrowed brows. “Yeah, baby. He looks like daddy.” You lean forward, pressing a soft kiss on his forehead, smiling as he bursts into giggles. 

“Mumma?” 

“Yeah, baby?” 

“You still wuv me?” He pats his chest, pouting.

“Oh, baby. Of course, I still love you and will never stop loving you.” You place him onto your lap, “Why do you think otherwise?” 

You stroke his sides as he pouts at you. “Just tought… I, bad boy, tought you stopped wuving me.” He sniffles, fat tears brimming in his eyes. 

Tears fill your eyes, bringing your son closer to you as you place a kiss on his head, pulling him into you. “I will always love you, baby. Even when you hate me, I’ll still love you.”

Jason shakes his head into your chest, “I don’ hate you! I wuv you mummy!” Hearing those words felt good... But no one would ever know how broken you really are.

thank you for reading!

feedback and reblogs are greatly appreciated.

[copperbadge]

Well, Still Salty.

I was cranky yesterday and I thought a good night's sleep would provide some adjustment in perspective, but unfortunately "spending yesterday not on tumblr" also offered perspective and got there first.

Up front: feel free to comment or reblog on this post (replies may be heavily delayed) but if you feel the urge to Like, I'm going to ask you to take one more step and go to https://www.tumblr.com/support, select "feedback" as the category, and enter a line or two about the new dash. It can be as simple as "Your new dash design is difficult to use and is driving people off the site". I'm not asking everyone to do it, but if you're going to Like this post, that would be a helpful action in addition. You can delete any response they send; no reason to expose yourself to the unique combination of incompetence and condescension with which they handle feedback generally.

Also up front: yeah, if I find somewhere else to go and go there, I will certainly let you guys know beforehand, I'm not going to just evaporate. I'll be broadcasting about Tumblr's replacement on Tumblr very heavily. But I can't deny that it is now an active goal of mine to find a viable replacement for this site. (More on this in a moment.) You will always be able to find me on AO3 as copperbadge, or via copperbadge@gmail.com. (More on this in a moment also.)

This kind of thing is why I refuse to fuck with staff now or ever; I don't trust them and I never will. Watching @wip respond to almost every complaint or suggestion with "but that would be really hard" is telling. Whoever is pushing blocks around at Tumblr wants a lucrative site that's easy to code, but lucrative is hostile to community and code is difficult by nature, and when the architecture of the meeting hall is hostile and cheap, people don't stick around.

I've been watching the site as every change made it incrementally worse, from a buggy post window that doesn't allow ease of editing to the new dash (which is the reason I'm writing this in a text window off Tumblr). I genuinely do not think I can use desktop Tumblr like this unless I can install something that will put it back the way it was, and roughly 40% of the content you guys get HAS to come through desktop. It's impossible to do on a phone or so time-consuming it's not worth it. I cannot code Radio Free Monday on a phone; it's a struggle to code it on a single-monitor laptop (I usually write it on my work computer, where I have two monitors). Even writing image IDs on the phone is difficult and something I rarely do. Tumblr is becoming an actively difficult place for me to make content, introducing friction left and right.

But where does one go? I've tried other platforms and they're either worse to use or they don't have the constituency. The problem with a lot of discourse around internet addiction is that it often points out how glued people are to their phones without asking what it is they're doing on those phones. I'm not addicted to social media; I don't doomscroll, I don't care what celebrities have to say, I don't find 140 characters useful or interesting, I don’t find most “funny” videos very interesting. I create a lot of original content for public consumption, significantly more than many social media users, and if that becomes difficult, then the site suffers more than I do. But it's undeniable that social media, and this social media in specific, is where my people are, and yeah, I like seeing you all every day. It makes it difficult to leave even when Tumblr is the best of a bad set of options.

It seems like a lot of the internet, lately, is the best of a bad set of options.

All that said, Tumblr forced a sudden, unwanted, and unchangeable reskin on me a day after I listened to a two-hour podcast about addiction while working on building a newsletter system for my author site. I spent the evening before this happened in contemplation of my relationship to social media and to my readership and how I might alter it to my benefit regardless of whether that's also to Tumblr's detriment. Their poor timing, I suppose. A lot of the theories advanced on the podcast were, to put it kindly, bunk, but one of the suggestions for people questioning their relationship to an activity was a dopamine fast -- removing something in your life that gives you quick but unsustained dopamine hits, so that you can take some time to level out and examine your behaviors. On the one hand, that's not at all how dopamine works; from the jump it's a bad theory. But on the other, pulling back from something you think may be causing you difficulty is generally speaking a good tactic.

Removing myself from Tumblr yesterday was an active process: because I have ADHD and often will forget something exists if I don't systematize my engagement with it, Tumblr is normally pinned to my browser, with the app on my phone's top screen. Removing the app and closing the window meant that while I occasionally reached for Tumblr, it was less frequently than I expected, and the lack of access reminded me why I wasn't there. I missed you guys, but I didn't miss getting distracted from work by my dash, or the pressure to respond to the volume of communication I receive through the site daily. I don't think my use of tumblr as my sole social media has been unhealthy, per se, but certainly yesterday felt both quieter and calmer after I walked away.

But that's a temporary relief, because you are my community, and not only do I not want to leave my community, it's a resource for me. One of the reasons I do things like Radio Free Monday and the weekly Hug on Saturdays is that I try to make sure that resource is reciprocal. Leadership involves service. Leaving would be easy in the short term, but in the long term, leaving my community without having another place to meet it, or another community to go to, would be harmful to both of us. I'm already someone who isolates, and while I have a strong brickspace circle of friends, they fulfill sometimes different needs.

Though I do appreciate the wild vote of confidence from the comments to my last post telling me people would come with me where I went. That means a lot to me. I will attempt to make it either unnecessary or as painless as possible. Just know, I see your faith and friendship and I appreciate it.

Sometimes at my old job I'd be in very tumultuous meetings where a lot was discussed and not much agreed on, and the most useful thing to me was always to say, "What are our next steps? What would you like me to do because of this meeting?" So what are next steps, all this being the case?

First, I'm going to be off Tumblr, mostly, for another couple of days, because clearly I need the break and a few days won't matter too much. Again, I will be back either to continue on the site or to let you guys know, at length and volume, where I'm headed. The former is much more likely.

Second, I'm going to be actively looking for both a widget I can install to reset the dash (recommendations welcome, I currently don't even use xkit) and a wholly new platform that's a realistically viable alternative. Even if the dash gets reset, the shitty post editor is here for good. Attempts to source alternative platforms in the past have taught me that it needs to have a mobile-friendly site or an app, a similar structure to tumblr, and a reasonable chance of actually attracting users. That's a heavy venn diagram unlikely to be fulfilled anytime soon, but I'm now invested in finding it, instead of just passively waiting for it to happen to me (as Tumblr did when it pulled me off LJ).

Third, I do have an email newsletter in the works! I'm just wrestling currently with setting up how people sign up for it. This wasn't meant to be "my main broadcast platform"; it's meant to be a once-monthly email to share book news, targeted at people who aren't on socials or who just really love content from me, I guess. :D The plan was for me to assure Tumblr users that it was not extra content, just select content repackaged into a digest. But it will be one way to ensure that if I'm moving around outside of Tumblr, you'll know about it. I hope to have a link to a signup page soon. (I'm....dealing with some code issues.)

Fourth, I'm going to be combing through the last ten years I've spent here and pulling anything I think is of value into an archive. For now everything will remain here as well, and I'll let you guys know if I think that's going to change, but it's clear that this space is moving only one direction, towards a place I can't exist, and when/if it crumbles I want to have already evacuated what's important.

So there you go. I'll possibly be posting sporadically (the Saturday Hugs are queued six months in advance so that'll happen) but if nothing else and if not sooner, I'll be back full-time next week starting with Radio Free Monday. I appreciate your patience and your kindness in the meantime!

[werepuppy-steve]

january fic rec

so i figured that instead of waiting until december to make a big long post of all the fics i read throughout the year, i'd break it down into monthly recs instead. i barely read anything at all last year, and it makes me feel awful every time i think about it, so hopefully this method keeps me on track so i can make some headway on the hoard of fics i have saved.

this also helps to boost fics that might've been missed or overlooked in the chaos and carnage brought by the passage of time.

these will include tumblr fics as well as ao3 fics!

general warning: smut will be included in these so please read at your own discretion and heed any warnings and tags!

▸ january fic rec - b sides

break the ice (i can't take anymore) - T, 2.2k, complete @matchingbatbites

tags: hockey au, established relationship, shower sex, secret relationship

“I’m surprised you’re still here,” Steve says as he leans into Eddie’s creeping touch, the little bit of contact more of a tease than anything. “Thought you’d be back at the hotel by now.” Eddie grins up at Steve and tugs him closer. “And miss the chance to congratulate you properly? To show you how proud I am of you?” Steve full on shudders at that, his mouth drops in a soft gasp and his hands push up into Eddie’s hair. “Eddie…” “I am, Stevie. So proud of you, my baby.” He leans in and presses a kiss to Steve’s jersey-covered sternum. “Tell me what you want, princess. Anything, and it’s yours.”

what's mine is yours (to leave or take) - M, 8.2k, complete @thefreakandthehair | througheden

tags: modern au, baker eddie, nurse steve, waitress-inspired, getting together

Eddie's an amateur baker who desperately needs a healthy dose of hope. He finds it in the bottom of a pie dish and the hands of Steve Harrington.

Tax Time - T, 922, complete @simplebtromance

tags: modern au, established relationship, domestic fluff, competence kink, appalachian eddie

Eddie throwing his hair back into a hair clip he stole from Chrissy, face determined as he opened up his laptop on their coffee table, that used to be his Memaw's, and got the binder of bills and receipts out to do his and Steve's taxes. (He still feels gooey and not very metal when he sees Steve Munson on any paperwork or mail, they've been married for over 3 years now and he doesn't think it's gonna stop any time soon)

group hangout - E, 3.3k, complete plutorose

tags: modern au, college au, dom/sub, first time

When Steve and Eddie start seeing each other, Robin meets Eddie's roommate for the first time.

A Little Show - E, 4.1k, complete ItCanBePalped

tags: exhibitionism, pre-threesome, dom/sub

Chrissy and Robin can't wait to get their hands on each other. Unfortunately, the room they find is already occupied. Or maybe that's "fortunately".

BABY SAID - E, 3.8k, complete dartlekey

tags: t4t steddie, transmasc eddie, transmasc steve, college au, bathtub sex, scissoring

Drenched by a sudden downpour and locked out of the youth hostel they were supposed to be staying at, university students Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson find themselves unwittingly and very much against their will trapped in night-time Rome together, and sharing a cramped hotel room. And a bathtub. Things kind of escalate from there.

Love from the other side - M, 6.2k, complete @sidekick-hero

tags: modern au, nurse steve, vampire eddie

In his mind Steve goes over the things he knows. Eddie is a vampire. A vampire who killed another vampire to save Steve’s life. To save Chrissy’s life. Eddie is dying. He may already be dead, but it looks like vampires can die again. Permanently. Eddie wants his blood.

the devil's water, it ain't so sweet - E, WIP hesjustlikemefr

tags: modern au, sugar daddy eddie, sugar baby steve, transmasc steve, slowburn, age difference

After Steve's parents cut him off financially, Robin comes up with a brilliant plan for Steve to be able to pay his bills. SweetShoppe, the most professional sugaring app on the market. Steve is skeptical, until he comes across the profile of Eddie Munson, a music producer and the hottest guy Steve has ever seen. Maybe this wasn't the worst idea after all…

like rabbits - E, WIP crybaby

tags: alpha eddie, omega steve, daddy kink, dom/sub, established relationship, pussy drunk eddie

Steve shaves his pussy and dresses up as a Playboy Bunny. Eddie handles it well.

usa hockey is do or die - E, 4k, complete @steddieas-shegoes

tags: hockey au, dom/sub, established relationship

“Everyone expects a lot from Team USA captain Steve Harrington and his first alternate, Tommy Hagan, but everyone’s a bit shocked at the choice for second alternate. What do you have to say about Eddie Munson being the pick, Jack?” Steve already felt anger bubbling under his skin, the annoyance of the last few weeks finally reaching a boiling point. “Well, we all know he’s one of the best goalies out there, but it’s rare to see a goalie with an A or C. I’ll be honest, I was surprised he was chosen over Gareth Emerson, who showed us three shutouts in the last month at Boston University. Eddie’s been proving himself in the AHL, but I don’t think he’s got what it takes to get the boys to gold. I hope I’m proven wrong, but his careless attitude makes me think he isn’t leading these boys to a victory they want.” The tv in the hotel room snapped off and Steve stood up, pacing the carpeted floors with his fists clenched at his sides and a scowl.

driver roll up the partition please - E, 4.5k, complete @steddieas-shegoes

tags: modern au, rockstar eddie, bartender steve, semi-public sex, light dom/sub

The bow tie around Steve’s neck was choking him. It had to be made for children, but when he’d asked one of the waiters before they went on the floor, he shrugged and said they all were like that. But the lack of oxygen to his brain didn’t excuse the way he nearly dropped a glass of a half-shaken, half-stirred -yes, really- martini when the hottest man he’d ever seen walked up to the bar. He was chatting with a few people, smiling at them like he was truly happy to see them even though he was dressed like someone who was crashing the party. Steve had done a few events like this before and was never disappointed with the eye candy, but this guy was something else. His curls were perfectly maintained, falling just right along his shoulders. Did they say the hair was the curtain to the soul or was he just that enamored?

steve tells eddie about his fight with billy - T, 4.6k, complete @solarmorrigan

tags: post-s2, canon racism and violence, mentions of drug use

“Motherfucker,” he hisses, shaking his hand out, because it had hurt, and then he winds up to do it again, to make it hurt more, because at least he’s in control of that much, at least it’s anything but what he’s feeling right now. “That’s a good way to break your hand, y’know,” a voice comes from the doorway, startling Steve into pivoting and aiming his fist at whoever is coming after him now.

doesn't have to be anything, but i could be everything - E, 4.1k, complete | part 2 @steddieas-shegoes

tags: camboy steve, rockstar eddie, modern au, daddy kink, dom/sub

Steve being a content creator ( cosplay, streamer, YouTuber, onlyfans, webcam boy, illustrator anything in that ballpark) that keeps on getting these messages and blocks them only to be accosted at a convention by this person and Eddie being a low key fan or what ever randomly stepping up to help out

first kiss - T, complete @mcdynamite

tags: first kiss, pet names, getting together, fluff

Kissing has never done all that much for Steve, if he’s honest. It’s just not really something he’s ever given much thought to before - the way someone kisses - despite the fact that he’s locked lips with plenty of people. For him, kissing has always been something nice, but not particularly special. It’s never been earth-shattering. Never taken his breath away, the way people talk about in movies and books. It’s just a way to be closer to someone, and it’s nice, but it’s never anything more than that. Then, Steve kisses Eddie for the first time, and suddenly he gets it.

Good Morning, Daddy - E, 906, complete unholy_forest

tags: dom/sub, morning sex, daddy kink

A short and sweet oneshot of loving, sleepy morning sex between Steve and Eddie.

girls of your dreams (you know what i mean) - E, 2/2, complete @maxineholtzmann

tags: figure skating au, hockey au, threesome, established ronance

The two of them continued, kissing quietly. Chrissy wondered how far she could let this go before they realized she was awake. She ached to touch herself, listening to the panting and low moans now coming from the other bed. Fuck it. Chrissy rolled onto her back and Robin and Nancy froze. She looked over at them, Robin on top of Nancy, pinning her hands above her head. The kissing sounds Chrissy had heard were clearly actually Robin working on Nancy’s nipples with her mouth–both of the cups of the negligee had been pulled down leaving breasts exposed. Chrissy sighed. Slowly moving her hand down her body between her legs she said, “You don’t have to stop as long as I don’t have to stop.” Chrissy started circling her clit with her fingers, arching her back. “Are you sure?” Nancy asked, still panting. “Does it look like I’m not sure?” Chrissy said, using her other hand to fling the blankets back, spreading her legs and making sure Robin and Nancy could see where her hand had traveled.

Your Love Calls Me Home - T, 1.8k, complete @simplebtromance

tags: modern au, long distance relationship, online dating

Steve and Eddie have been in a long distance relationship for three years, and they're finally meeting.

Buckingham revenge program™ - E, series, WIP thequeermoon

tags: oral sex, strap-on sex, dirty talk, semi-public sex

It was all murmurs and unsteady breaths between them, and they barely touched. Outside the door the group laughed suddenly, startling the both of them. Just then they realized how close they were. Just a little step and their bodies would've touched. "Right, okay… " Robin coughed a bit, going slightly backwards. " …do you want to-" She didn’t get to finish that sentence. Chrissy, in full panic of losing the only chance she might have, threw herself at her lips, kissing her. It lasted so little that Robin had no chance to answer it, but it felt like eons. Chrissy opened her eyes, watching at her. Her cold hands on her face, her lips red, slightly parted to show these little teeth Robin thought were so endearing.

Swift Wings and a Brave Heart - T, WIP @paperbackribs

tags: werewolf steve, bat eddie, shapeshifting, found family

The beast stops, gaze narrowing at the pulse pounding in Eddie’s neck, and he quickly slaps a hand over it, trying to limit the temptation of the tasty-blood slash fresh-meat vibe he must be giving off. Robin scowls at Eddie, stepping forward to bury her hand comfortingly into the plush of its furry neck. “Don’t listen to him, Steve. He’s just being a big baby." Eddie has never been a normal type of guy, but he's owned it: he's a gay metalhead in the heart of small-town America and nothing's going to phase him. Nothing except being told that his recent demo-bat injuries might turn him into a shapeshifter like Steve Harrington.

safe and warm - E, 958, complete @steddieas-shegoes

tags: dom/sub, cock warming, pet names, coming untouched

Steve on his knees was a sight he would never get tired of. Something about the way his eyes closed, a rare sign of relaxation spreading over him, made Eddie wish he could be like this all the time, that they could always be like this.

new year's kiss - G, complete @steddieas-shegoes

tags: new year's eve kiss, getting together, pining

He hides in the bathroom, looks at his reflection in the mirror and tries to smile. He used to be so confident, used to be able to tell himself to make a move and make it successfully. But it used to not matter, not like this does. No one has ever mattered the way Eddie does.

first choice - G, complete @steddiealltheway

tags: nye, getting together, pining

Steve runs a hand through his hair and turns back to his abandoned stack of tapes only to turn back around as soon as the bell above the door rings. He turns around with a heavy sigh as soon as he realizes who it is. "Great to see you too," Eddie says with a humorless laugh. Robin cuts in before Steve can. "Don't take it personally. He's just unsuccessful in his mission to woo a lady and get a New Year's kiss." "Really?" Eddie asks, leaning across the counter. "I think I'm coming across as desperate." "Because you are," Robin adds unhelpfully.

holes on the house - M, 404, complete @cranberrymoons

tags: modern au, meet cute, food truck owner steve

There it is: a bright pink truck with an open side, glittering under the streetlight with a loose line of people waiting to order, The Hole printed on the side in white stylized script.

alpha/omega true mates - G, complete @stevieschrodinger

tags: omegaverse, alpha eddie, omega steve, true mates, canon divergence

Eddie, fucking excited as all hell to meet his Omega finally, opens his envelope to find Steve Harrington's name starring back at him and Eddie just. He just can't. Steve's one of the biggest bitches at Hawkins high. And even if Eddie can, sort of, get past that, Steve's a snob. He lives in a fucking mansion and has a nice car and preppy clothes and yeah...Eddie is going to get rejected stone cold and that would be fair because he doesn't have a single thing to offer and Omega like Harrington. Eddie burns the envelope.

henderfam - G, complete @loveinhawkins

tags: canon divergence, eddie lives, steve and dustin behaving like brothers, pre-steddie

God, I love you, Eddie thinks. Maybe some would say that’s too big a declaration to have even in his own head for a mundane, sleep deprived afternoon in hospital. He doesn’t care.

play nice - M, 387, complete @wormdebut

tags: daddy kink, dom/sub, possessive eddie

Eddie has died and gone to Heaven. (If that Heaven is covered in leather and latex…that’s his business.) This is the only explanation, he thinks, as he stares at his boyfriend. His very hot, very muscular, very unclothed boyfriend. Decked out in only a strappy harness and the sluttiest little leather shorts Eddie has ever seen.

need - E, 404, complete @wormdebut

tags: dom/sub, anal fingering, hot boys whimpering

His eyes flick all over Steve’s perfect fucking body, stopping to admire that beautiful cock. “Christ—I’m gonna tear you apart.” His eyes snap up to look into Steve’s perfect blown out ones. He’s perfect, Eddie’s boy.

bake off - G, complete @hairmetal666

tags: gbbo au, baker steve, rockstar eddie, tv host eddie

Steve who goes on a Bake Off type show after Robin, Dustin, and Max set him up as a contestant. He doesn't want to, doesn't think baking or cooking should be stressful, but he's been wallowing since his knee surgery took him out of work and basketball, since his divorce. His first day on set, he's totally gobsmacked by the sexy host with all the tattoos and long, curly hair. Just, cannot take his eyes off the guy, blushing and stammering whenever he comes around to do interviews, obviously can't stop starring.

talk it through - G, complete @strangersteddierthings

tags: established relationship, insecurities, future fic

“I think we should break up,” is what Eddie blurts the moment Steve opens the front door to reveal him. Steve’s first reaction is anger -how dare he?- but he doesn’t do anything with that anger. Instead, he takes a deep breath through his nose, crosses his arms, and looks Eddie over. He’s breathing heavily yet his van is parked along the curb. He didn’t run here. His hair, while never tame, looks rougher. He is fidgeting but in a nervous way, not his usual too much energy way. His eyes are wide and scared. It’s the last bit there that drains Steve’s anger. Something’s happened. He drops his arms and says, “well, you’re not dumping me on my porch. Get in here.”

frat steve - G, complete @strangersatellites

tags: college au, established relationship, frat steve

when he gets there he’s met with two guys, freshman surely. letters emblazoned across their cutoff muscle tees and hats turned backwards and perched, very stupidly if eddie shares his piece, atop their heads. they stop him with a hand up and friendly smiles and mock bravado “three actives,” bro number one states. eddie barely holds back an incredulous laugh. “you cannot be serious.”

flirting - T, complete @jewishrat420

tags: pining, pet names, flirting, "first of all my name is baby so jot that down"

"Don't call me that." He chances a look over at Eddie, at the risk of appearing as vulnerable as he feels, and to his distress, he can't get a read on the man. His dark eyebrows furrow, brown eyes squinting slightly, and his lips part like he wants to speak. He licks them. Steve's eyes follow the motion unintentionally. "Call you what?" Eddie says on an exhale. "A brat?" Steve shakes his head. "Harrington. Don't like it when you call me that."

kink discovery - M, complete @eddywoww

tags: hair pulling, dom/sub, getting together

He touches him the second time. When they’re all hanging out and the lights are low and Steve does it again and Robin only halfway gives him a weird look. It doesn’t stop Steve form blinking tired eyes up at Eddie, watching the way he gulps and hovers a hand over Steve’s face. “I like when people pet my hair,” He says unhelpfully, so high he can barely concentrate. Eddie makes a soft noise and blinks down at him. “You should- you should do that.”

cherry - M, complete @eddywoww

tags: omegaverse, tattoo artist eddie, alpha eddie, omega steve, age difference

And then he gets into Eddie’s studio and like- okay, Steve has always had a type. Older men, men who wore suits, men who worked with his father. Unattainable, already mated. Steve sort of assumes this guy is mated too. He looks like it, has a bite that’s weirdly faded on his neck. But Steve can’t smell an Omega on him. Or a Beta or an Alpha. No one. So sue him if he gets a little flirty. It fuels his self esteem, knowing they can look but he won’t let them touch.

eddie lives - T, complete @bonitabreezy

tags: canon divergence, steve carries eddie out of the upside down, eddie lives (but not without consequence)

Any part of him that had leaned into the idea that it was over and that they were safe was immediately washed away at the sound. His blood started to zing with adrenaline once more and he became hyper aware of everything around them, scanning the trees for danger. “Was that--” Nancy started, her shoulders a hard line, her hands no longer shaking. “Dustin,” Steve said, and he took off running.

4+1 - G, complete @steddieas-shegoes

tags: 5+1, steve carries eddie, eddie carries steve, eddie recovering from the bites

four times eddie gets carried and one time he does the carrying

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