#i was feeling really inspired at the time of writing

[cherubkissesx]

only angel

pairing: bau!f reader x spencer reid

summary: in which reader is part of the bau and has to go undercover as an exotic dancer in order to catch the unsub. but the reader has been hiding lots of tattoos underneath her seemingly innocent facade. spencer goes to readers hotel room afterwards after holding in his feelings for so long.

warnings: violence, smut, oral (f receiving) unprotected p in v (wrap it up!!!!)

a/n: hey guys i hope you enjoy this quick little one shot!! this is inspired by the song only angel by harry styles :) also this is my first attempt at writing smut so i hope this good lmao

this is the song i imagined playing in the club lol

you and team gathered into the conference room in the local police station to go over the case you were all assigned to once again. the unsub had been killing exotic dancers and the amount of overkill was increasing with each body that was getting discovered.

“this unsub is progressing at rapid speed, we keep missing him each time we go out into the field. we have no other option but to send someone to go undercover as one of the dancers.” hotch said sighing.

everyone’s heads immediately turned round to you. jj was a mom and couldn’t risk it, emily was deemed “too old” to be a dancer but you were the youngest.

“you’re the only right person for this, y/n.” emily said. “i don’t want to mess it up what if im not convincing enough?” you questioned as you felt your face flush. “you’ll do great!” penelope chimed in.

“if you really don’t feel comfortable we can find someone else.” hotch said not pressuring you. “no.. no it’s fine.” you smiled shakily and he nodded.

****

“i feel so weird.” you said to emily as you looked at your appearance in the mirror. your hair was curled, you felt like you had a ton of makeup on, and you were wearing a shimmery pink bralette and booty shorts your tattoos that you had been hiding on full display.

“you look hot.” emily reassured. “also your tattoos are great, i didn’t know you had all of these.” emily said her eyes trailing up and down your body. you had a tiger tattoo on your stomach and a big flower tattoo down your spine. “thank you” you blushed.

emily had fixed your earpiece for you so your team could hear everything you were saying.

“are you ready?” emily asked and you nodded and walked out. you noticed all your team situated at different points in the bar. you strutted confidently up to the stage.

you weren’t much of a dancer but you thought may aswell give it your all, and thats exactly what you did. you copied all the other dancers and eventually got caught up in doing it and realised how easy it was as your hips swayed to the music. you had taken some pole dancing classes in the past so you decided to get on the pole and try it again and you were surprised when you noticed you hadn’t forgotten the skill.

your eyes darted around the room to look for your team and saw them all staring back at you with wide eyes, you chuckled to yourself.

you scanned the room for the unsub and you finally zeroed in on him. you recognised him immediately from the sketch that a surviving victim had provided. “i see him.” you whispered. your team was about to approach him to arrest him. “hold off. i have a plan” you said again and you saw your team looking confused.

you met your unsubs eyes and you made a motion with your finger indicating for him to follow you.

your set was over so you sauntered off stage to go to the back. “y/n someone wants to see you” the club manager said who was in on your plan to catch the unsub.

you walked to the back to where sure enough the unsub was sitting on a couch waiting for you.

“oh! hey” you smiled sweetly. “hello darling, i saw you dancing up on that stage and had to come meet you personally, you were phenomenal” the unsub said. “thank you” you smiled.

“what’s your name?” he asked. you didn’t want to give him your real name so you gave him a fake one. “angel.” you lied. “very fitting.” he said noticing the angel tattoo on your thigh.

“how much money would it cost me for me to have sex with you?” the unsub said sickly now practically pinning you to the wall. “i’m sorry but i don’t have sex with customers” you said a bit shakily. “what if i beg?” the unsub said now grabbing your hand and pinning it above your head. “i said no!” you said pushing him off you.

“bitch!” the unsub said angrily and he grabbed your hair and bashed your face into the wall. you felt blood trickling down your nose.

“fbi put your hands up!” derek said as him and the rest of the team burst into the room. “are you okay?” spencer said immediately rushing to you as your team arrested the unsub. “i will be” you smiled as you tried to catch your breath.

“i’m taking you to get checked over” spencer said putting his arm around your shoulder towards the ambulance. “spencer im fine” you said trying to reassure him to which he just stared at you disbelievingly. “fine” you chuckled.

“here” spencer said giving you his jacket to put over yourself as it was freezing. “will you stay with me? just until i’m finished being checked over” you asked nervously and you saw spencer’s whole face soften. “of course” he said sitting down next to you.

once you were checked over you and spencer both made your way over to the rest of the team. “everyone great work today, especially you y/n. without you who knows if we would’ve caught this unsub” hotch said. “thank you sir” you blushed.

“since it’s late why don’t we all go back to the hotel room and get some rest and leave in the morning” hotch offered. “agreed” jj said and you and the rest of the team nodded.

“i didn’t know you had tattoos y/n?” derek said when you were all walking up to each of your rooms. “you didn’t ask” you chuckled. “and we all thought you were the innocent one” derek said.

****

you were about to shower when you heard a knock at your hotel door. you looked at the time to see that it was 3 in the morning and wondered who would be calling at this time.

“spencer! hi” you said in shock when you opened the door. “come in” you said stepping to the side to let him in.

“are you alright?” you asked subtly wrapping your arms around yourself when he kept staring at you and not saying anything. “i can’t stop thinking about you” spencer said suddenly which made you stop in your tracks.

you had had the most hopeless crush on spencer since your first day at the bau but never thought those feelings would be reciprocated.

“and it wasn’t just because of today but i’ve liked you for a long time and i think about you all the time. you looked so breathtaking today” spencer said moving closer to you. “those dance moves… fuck it was hot” spencer said his eyes darkening.

“say something y/n” spencer practically demanded. “i feel the same way spencer, and i have for a long time now” you said feeling quite breathless as you stared at his lips.

spencer looked into your eyes for a little while before eventually cupping your face and bringing his lips down onto yours. his lips felt soft and pillowy and you immediately melted into his touch.

“let me make you feel good” spencer begged. “do it” you nodded. “let’s get this off you” spencer said helping you take off your outfit until you were naked and you helped take off spencer’s clothes.

“so fucking beautiful” spencer said taking you all in. “can i?” spencer’s asked as he spread your legs apart to go inbetween them. “please” you sighed.

he dove his head down to your pussy and began eating you out. his tongue hitting your clit just right. “oh fuck!” you screamed out, your hands finding his hair and pulling on it tight.

you felt him smile against your pussy as you tugged his hair tighter. spencer’s tongue now began to move at rapid speed to make you cum. “spencer im gonna cum!” you shouted out. “let go for me baby” spencer reassured and you did.

spencer lapped up your juices onto his tongue. “you taste so sweet baby” spencer said leaning down to kiss you.

spencer kissed your “angel” tattoo and trailed his tongue up your tiger tattoo and the rest of your body making you wriggle until he got to your mouth and kissed you ferociously.

spencer knelt down on his knees and lined himself up with your entrance and pushed in slowly. “is this okay?” he said wanting to make sure he wasn’t hurting you. “you can move” you reassured and spencer began going in and out of you at a steady pace. you grinded up against him to get him to hit deeper. “faster!” you demanded and he obeyed.

“right there” you sighed as he hit your g spot. spencer’s head found its way to rest into the crook of your neck to hit deeper into you. “oh my god” spencer said as you ground yourself up against him.

your nails dug into his back as you trailed your nails up and down. that pain only made spencer go faster and now your head was hitting off of the headboard. spencer leaned down to kiss the top of your head as a form of an apology.

“i’m gonna cum” you shouted out as you dug your fingers into spencer’s curls. “so am i” spencer said out of breath.

you clenched around spencer’s which sent him over the edge as he pounded even faster, the only sound that could be heard in the room was the sound of skin slapping together. spencer felt you let go as he did at the same time and you both rode out your orgasms.

spencer stayed inside you for a little longer and kissed you on the lips tenderly. he pulled out to flop down beside you and you whined at the feeling of him pulling out.

“that was…” spencer said at a lose for words. “out of this world?” you joked. “yeah..” he said rolling over to kiss you again. “been meaning to get that out my system for years” you smiled at him and he agreed.

“sorry about your back that’s going to leave a very big mark….” you apologised as you looked at his back which was covered in deep red scratches. “don’t worry about it, it was worth it” he chuckled.

“i was about to shower before you got here…. do you want to join me?” you asked innocently as you got up from the bed. “yes!” spencer said greedily as you laughed and walked to the bathroom together.

[heechwe]

anything for you | 𝐣𝐰𝐰

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ MY FIC FOR JUPITER'S SECRET CUPID COLLAB

୨୧ pairing: jeon wonwoo x fem!reader ୨୧ word count: 3k ୨୧ genre: slight comedy, fluff, smut ୨୧ tags: best friends to lovers au, drunk confession, dirty talk, breeding kink, unprotected sex, creampie, cum eating ୨୧ synopsis: Wonwoo has been your best friend forever. And maybe something more could be in the cards with a mature, sophisticated confession. Or a lot of alcohol.

⟢ AUTHOR'S NOTE: Inspired by LANY's song "anything 4 u"! Big thanks to my betas for this fic Tiya (@gyubakeries), Honey (@heesuncore), and Mitchie (@seokgyuu)! I love you all so much. And this fic is for my Secret Cupid Ally (@lovetaroandtaemin)!! I love you loads and you're an incredible friend. I'm so glad I got you so I could share a small token of appreciation for our friendship. I hope you love this story as much as I did writing it! ♥︎

Valentine’s Day weekend. The one weekend you have to suffer through everything being doused in red, pink, and white decorations. It’s everywhere: across your work office, all around the city you live in, and even plastered around the hole-in-the-wall bar that all of your friends are drinking in now. 

It’s not one of your least favorite holidays, per se. But the intensity of it can be incredibly draining. The constant declarations of affection, the emotionally gooey visual representations of one’s desire for another person, it’s too much even for some of your own friends who are coupled up. 

The reality of your loneliness pushes your mood down just enough that staring down your third bottle of beer makes you yearn for another, despite your alcohol tolerance being less than stellar. And to make matters worse, it sucks to be surrounded by others’ happiness when you’re so alone in love and in love with someone too enmeshed in your life as a friend, rather than a person of romantic interest.

Wonwoo sits with Vernon and Soonyoung at the high-top bar, nursing tequila shots and Coronas without bothering to look back at the rest of your table of friends. Yes, you were all celebrating Soonyoung’s new promotion and Vernon finally nabbing a girlfriend in time for Valentine’s this year, and they only stalked off a few minutes ago to share a few drinks on their own, but you wish Wonwoo was sitting next to you again. 

You always mocked him for telling you to slow down. To drink water to avoid dehydration or to eat something to offset your alcohol intake. With all of his parroted wisdom that drives some of his closest friends crazy, you love him for it. You love him for a lot of reasons, really.

“Maybe you should just tell him, you know?” Seokmin says across from you, looking over at you from the rim of his Whiskey Sunrise. It’s a sickly shade of red, grenadine mixed in with the other ingredients to commemorate the holiday season. You wonder if it tastes like cough syrup, because it sure looks like it.

“You think I haven’t thought of that?” You ask with a slur, licking the remaining beer on your lips. “It’s not that easy to destroy seven years of friendship.”

“Come on. You act like nobody else has noticed when it’s plain as day, babe,” Seungkwan pipes up next to you, elbowing you softly in the ribs with an accompanying waggle of his eyebrows.

“And what is your best course of action, Dum and Dee?” You split your stare between both of your friends, your irritation peaking. “I just go over to that bar and confess everything to him. Then he’ll say he’s felt the same this entire time and we ride off into the sunset together?”

“One, you don’t need to be rude,” Seokmin responds. “Two, you don’t have to make it so dramatic. Get him alone tomorrow, maybe. Talk it out, see where it goes.”

“Exactly,” Seungkwan says. “It doesn’t need to be this big movie scene thing.”

“What movie?” Soonyoung asks, sitting back down next to Seungkwan and in front of his empty bowl of ramen. The other boys follow suit, Vernon alongside Seokmin and Wonwoo next to you once again.

It feels like torture and sanctuary in the same moment, so close but so far from what you wish the two of you could be.

“Nothing, just this documentary we all saw the other night,” you respond. You press your lips to your bottle again, pouting when the last droplets hit your tongue. “I’m gonna get another,” you say to nobody in particular. Wonwoo perks up once he notices you stumbling to get out of your chair.

“Not so fast,” Wonwoo says as you fall back into his arms. “I think I should get you home.”

“No, the night’s still young!” You whine into his jacket, your hair ruffling the skin on his neck. His chest rumbles with laughter, but nothing at the moment is funny to you. You don’t want to leave just yet, and he doesn’t need to treat you like a baby. “We still haven't even gone to karaoke.”

“Another night. Go sleep it off!” Vernon calls from behind you.

“You kids have fun!” Seokmin says with a conspiratory wink. You and Wonwoo walk towards the entrance of the bar, and you want to throw something at Seokmin to make your idiot best friend’s dumb smirk and even more ridiculous idea of confessing your feelings to your mutual friend blip out of existence.

Wonwoo has seen you at your lowest. He consoled you after you ran your car into a parked motorcycle when you were sixteen, your humiliation palpable the whole three hours you both waited for the police to show up. He’s held you in his arms after every failed romantic relationship, telling you it was always them and never you when it ended poorly. There’s nothing the two of you haven’t been there for each other for, no experience too vulnerable to share and overcome together.

But Wonwoo holding your hair in a makeshift ponytail as you throw up may just be the all-time low of your embarrassing moments. He whispers in your ear that you’re okay and rubs your back with a soft hand, and you feel all the worse for it. How could he ever love someone this prone to disaster, this cringeworthy?

“You should go home,” you cry into the toilet bowl. “I’m disgusting.”

Wonwoo says your name in a mocking tone, pretending to be serious but in no way critical of you or the situation. He takes off his plaid button up and throws it in some random corner of your bathroom, free to hold you as close as possible as you continue dry-heaving. “You’re not disgusting.”

“Of course you’d say that, you’re you.”

He laughs again, tucking what hair he can from your face so you can lift your head off of the toilet. “And what’s that?”

You look at him with puffy, half-open eyes. “Perfect.”

He helps you up from the tile floor and moves you to your bedroom on your weak legs. He sheds off your overshirt as you kick off your denim jeans. Your mind rumbles with a whirlpool of thoughts as his brain ruminates on the word you used when comparing himself to you.

“I’m in no way perfect, kid,” he whispers. The nickname he’s used on you forever feels like a backhand, a copious amount of salt in a wound you know will never heal. He’ll always see you at a distance from him, his feelings leagues away from yours.

“Don’t call me that,” you cry into your pillow, resting your cheek deep into the material to muffle the quiet sobs in your throat. He can’t be serious, talking to you so tenderly when you’re falling apart.

“Hey, can you look at me?” You shake your head and settle deeper into the pile of comforters and throw pillows. Wonwoo suddenly feels his gut turn into a dozen knots. He doesn’t know what’s wrong, how to fix it, or what to say to make things better, and it kills him. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Because you’re too perfect to love someone like me. But I love you so much, and it fucking sucks,” you hiccup, the darkness of your bed making you believe he’s not there, this isn’t real, and it’s okay to release all the words in your heart into the dark. “And every time I see those damn red and pink hearts all over the place, I think of you and I want to die.”

The force of your confession almost knocks Wonwoo on his ass. At the very least, he settles onto the desk chair near your bed and hears your whimpers give way to light snores.

He runs his hands through your hair again and tucks the covers up to your chin. He holds himself back from pressing a kiss to your forehead, the one thing he’s always done when you’ve passed out countless times before in his presence, but never recalled the next morning. This time, though, he prays you’ll remember your drunken admission.

“I hope you meant everything you said,” he whispers before retreating to your couch to fall asleep to the sounds of the cityscape below.

You wake up to low jazz playing from your living room TV and the smell of sizzling eggs. Each limb aches from the heavy sleep you fell under last night. You quietly pad out of your room to find Wonwoo cooking what looks to be the perfect mix of breakfast and hangover food. A makeshift Bloody Mary sits on the counter next to him, waiting for you.

Wonwoo turns when he senses you behind him, and he grins. “Hey, you’re awake. I was worried you’d be passed out until the afternoon. I wouldn’t blame you, though.”

You blush a shade deeper, still sporting your tank top and clad in a pair of boy shorts. You forgot you had taken your pants off before slipping into bed the night prior, but it isn’t the first time Wonwoo’s seen you half-clothed. You drink half of the concoction and set it down, your headache throbbing a little less. “How bad was I last night?”

He smirks. “Bad enough to throw up another three times.”

You groan into the back of your hand and hitch yourself up on the counter across from Wonwoo, his focus still on the over-medium eggs in the pan. “I’m sorry you had to take care of me again.”

“I wanted to,” he says without looking up at you. “I always want to be here when you need me.”

“I know, I know, it’s your job to say that,” you joke.

He drops the metal spatula next to him on the stove, and you jump up at the sound. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t say a word for a moment, and you’re unsure if he’s even breathing when you ask him if he’s okay. “So, you don’t remember then?” His question comes out almost like a statement, but the wavered edge of it proves he is concerned with whatever has slipped your mind.

“Woo, you’re freaking me out.”

He turns the stove to a low, simmering heat before facing you. His eyes look sad but expectant, waiting for the inevitable to come to you. “You really have no idea what I’m talking about?”

You tuck your hair behind your ear, and in that instant, you recall that last hour before you fell asleep. Wonwoo helping you into bed. Crying in your bed. And all the words that followed.

The memories bring tears to your eyes and your hands to your face. “Oh my god—”

Wonwoo takes your palms away and holds them to his mouth. “Stop running from me.”

“Don’t make me say it again, Woo, please.” Your bottom lip trembles. You fight every instinct to run from the kitchen and out of the apartment altogether, wanting to accept the continuous pain of hiding your feelings than the truth that this could be the end of the both of you as you know it, for better or worse.

“Fine, you don’t have to.” Wonwoo’s lips curl into that grin you’ve adored for almost a decade. “I’ll say what I need to first, then.”

He takes a deep breath and sets his jaw. “I’ve been in love with you since the minute you threw your ice-cream at that biker who almost clipped me in the foot on the way to school. Remember? I may have loved you long before that, but that’s the moment I realized.

“And I don’t want to lose you. I want to be more than just the guy you call your best friend. I want to be the only friend that matters, the friend that kisses you goodnight and tells you how beautiful you are because there’s no other way to describe you. I love you, too, kid, whether you realized it or not.”

A breathy yelp leaves your mouth before you kiss Wonwoo on the mouth. It’s a hard one, a clash of teeth and a bit of tongue, but you didn’t expect less from such an unexpected and perfect confession. Maybe this was the way you rode off into the sunset together. Sure, there was the smell of burning eggs instead of the sounds of a white stallion gallivanting off to the unforeseeable future, but it’s perfect. It’s yours.

Wonwoo shuts the burner off entirely before he takes you by the hand into your bedroom. When your bed is in full view, he kisses you long and slow. It’s nothing like the first kisses you shared a second ago, but it’s earth-shattering all the same.

You moan into his mouth when he presses a free hand to your breast, teasing the skin above your shirt until your nipple pebbles.

“Is this too fast?” He asks in a gruff voice. “We don’t have to do anything if you’re not comfortable, I just—”

You press a finger to his lips, effectively shutting him up. “If you do not take my clothes off right now and fuck me, I will never speak to you again.”

Wonwoo smirks and kisses you once more, only stopping to pull your tank top over your head and rip your underwear off of your legs. His fingers delve between your folds, and you shudder in his hold but refuse to let him take his hand away.

“You like this,” he whispers, the statement thick with his lust.

“Yes, it feels so good,” you whimper. You gasp when two of his fingers curl inside of you, his thumb still nestled on top of your clit to swirl around with the pad. The amount of pleasure he’s already given you is indescribable, and he hasn’t even truly done much yet.

You whine when he takes his hand away, but it’s to discard his own clothes and sit at the edge of your bed. He beckons for you to sit on top of him, and he doesn’t think twice about swirling himself between your essence and lining the head of his dick with your entrance. His tip is so swollen and covered in pre-cum, there’s no problem sinking it inside of your heat.

You share a mutual curse of pleasure when he bottoms out, his pelvic bone meeting your skin. You stay like that for a moment. You’re so full and unable to move from the size of him filling every empty space inside of you, you think this has to be a dream. Last night has not given way to day yet, and now is just a conjuring of your cruel mind. 

You get lost in your thoughts for so long Wonwoo brings his hand to your face and traces his fingers over your cheek, staring at you lovingly. “Where’d you go?”

You smile shyly and kiss his nose. “I just can’t believe this is happening.”

“I guess I’ll just have to remind you it’s real.”

He takes your ass between his hands and spreads you out before thrusting up inside of you, making you gasp hard. He moves long and slow underneath you, almost taking his cock out of your pussy completely before delving back into you.

“I want to give you everything,” he pants. “All that I have—will have—is for you. You know that, right?”

“Yes, fuck,” you whisper, meeting his hips with yours as you try to set your own pace, sinking down onto him with every thrust where your skin meets with loud smacks.

“I love you so much,” he says into your neck before biting down on your soft skin. You moan loudly and press yourself deeper and harder against him. His cock hits you at the perfect angle as you straddle him, and you feel the start of your climax deep in your stomach.

Seven years of missed opportunities. More than too many chances for days and nights like this spent together so intimately gone to the wind. It’s easy to be regretful for all the time that you’ve wasted without each other, but you realize it’s not wasted at all.

Every step, every thread of fate that tied you two together, brought you here. Whatever comes of today is just an extension of what has already existed in your hearts. So what more is there to ask for?

“Fuck, I’m so close,” he growls in your ear. His balls smack against your skin as he continues to slam into you. Tears spring in your eyes as he moves even harder, trying to take you both to your peaks together. “Where can I come, baby?”

“Inside of me. I want all of it, all of you. Please,” you beg. You bounce harder on top of him, circling your clit with your fingers to fall off the precipice with Wonwoo by your side.

“You want to feel all of me, yeah? So full of my cum it’s all you’ll think about?” He smirks and replaces the fingers on your clit with his own. “Maybe I’ll fuck a baby into you with how much cum I give you. Would you like that?”

You see stars behind your eyelids as you listen to the beautiful, dirty words on his lips. You nod vigorously, wanting nothing more than for him to claim you in this way. It’s all you’ve thought about for years, truthfully.

“God, I’m coming,” you say into his neck, thighs quivering as the rest of your body goes slack from the pleasure. Wonwoo grunts into the shell of your ear as he orgasms himself, his seed spilling into you so deep you think there’s no way any remnant of him will slip out.

When he takes himself out of you, he swirls the mixture of both of your releases on his fingers before you take those fingers into your mouth, sucking them dry.

Wonwoo chuckles and kisses you deeply, the taste of the two of you on both of your tongues. “That’s one way to end Valentine’s weekend, don’t you think?”

You giggle and kiss him on both cheeks, too eager to see the rest of your future together. “You could say that.”

@gyubakeries @loserlvrss @okiedokrie-main @brownbunnyb

𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 ౨ৎ˚₊

@kstrucknet @k-films @kvanity-main @lapydiaries @moadiarynet @/sweetvenomnet @onedoornet @deoboyznet @violetanet @whipped-kpop-creators

[sabrinahawthorne]

Let’s Grow the RPG Hobby

Inspired by this post and the conversation surrounding it.

So the RPG world is facing a multitude of interconnected problems. Let’s talk about them, shall we?

---

1: The Problem(s)

Writing this, I find it hard to pinpoint a way to frame the subject of this post as a single thing. But it’s also impossible to treat it as it it’s a collection of separate problems. In reality, the issues facing the indie RPG world are A Hydra; a many-headed conglomeration of related issues, which each require organized, dedicated work to solve. A few examples:

The Normie-Indie Divide

A problem close to my heart, The Normie-Indie Divide describes the gradient between the mainstream of an artistic hobby and the really independent stuff. I compare this to movies a lot, but the more apt analogy is video games. The N-I-D in the videogame industry is so small as to be virtually nonexistent.

We can see this via a number of factors – one example being that the same outlets which cover massive blockbusters & sequels like Assassin’s Creed and God of War, also cover popular indie titles like Celeste and Hollow Knight. Then, freelance journalists who write for those publications (Jacob Geller is an example) go on to cover much smaller games on their own time, and so on. There’s a smooth gradient between the media coverage of the huge stuff, all the way down to a thriving (if still underserved) super-independant industry.

The N-I-D in RPGs feels uncrossable. The most well known RPG is so big it’s currenly riding the high of its second major hollywood adaptation in 20 years, and the second most popular – Vampire the Masquerade – is an unknown even to some indie RPG fans.* This hobby is shockingly impenetrable, even to those of us who spend our days swimming in the deepest end of the pool.

The Supply & Demand Problem

This one’s simple: People are pumping out RPGs by the truckload, and there are just too many! Not only does this make it hard to sift through everything to find the thing you want to read, play, or review, it also makes it nearly impossible to get anyone’s eyeballs on the cool thing you just released!

As others have pointed out, this problem is exacerbated by the fact that relative to some other art media, it’s pretty quick and painless to whip up your own zine or one-pager and publish it on itch. This disincentivises even the most invested of us from looking at a ton of new games, and means that sharing your work can feel like you’re being ignored by a huge crowd.

A Road To Solutions

If all of that is making you feel pretty bad for the future of this medium, you’re not alone. It can feel pretty hopeless facing all of these problems as an indie designer when all the tools you have at your disposal are a tumblr account and a few indie friends to complain to.

But the truth is, I think that this Hydra is eminently slayable. I just don’t think we can do it alone. That in mind, I’ve spent a large portion of my day putting together…

The Call to Action

I think there needs to be organized, persistent effort put into the future of this hobby and this industry, and I think it needs to start the way all good movements do: with a lot of petty, semantic argumentation over definitions and implementation. And to kick things off, here’s my step zero: If you’re reading this post because I’ve tagged you in it (or because I’ve sent you a link to it), my Dms are open. I want to put together a discord group chat† of my peers within RPG tumblr who are invested in tackling The Hydra, such that we can start brainstorming plans of attack to disseminate into the wider community.

The issues I wish to address are these:

The Normie-Indie Divide: How do we go about cultivating a casual audience of indie RPG fans who can bring sustainability and longevity to the industry?

The Supply & Demand Problem: How do we minimize the cognitive load of sorting through the huge volume of work extant in this medium, and more generally encourage peer-to-peer interaction within the community, like news coverage, reviews, and marketing?

The Cognitive Frontload Problem: How do we make it easier to actually engage with a given RPG, considering the amount of cognitive & temporal investment needed? Further, how do we make RPGs, both general and specific, more accessible to readers with a wide variety of abilities, preferences, and available time?

The Insular Community Problem: How do we better connect this hobby with itself, such that it feels a little less like several dozen cliques across 4-6 platforms, and more like the growing, evolving single hobbyist community that it is? Further, how do we make this hobby more accessible to newbies outside the influence of The Hegemons of the Coast?

And more. I’m positive I haven’t thought of everything, and that’s exactly why this needs to be a group effort.

As a last note: Please tag other people! The folks I’ve mentioned here are just those who I personally feel I know well enough to tag; let’s get the rest of the community involved! If you know someone who would be interested who isn’t on tumblr, they can email me: sabrinahawthornegames@proton.me.

*I’m not kidding. Multiple times within the last four months, I’ve introduced VtM to people who I would consider pretty in the sauce of RPGs. I’m talking folks who’ve played Heart: The City Beneath or Wanderhome. It’s bizarre.

†I need to stress that this is only a start. I’m not looking to start a big public discord unless that’s what a group of folks decide is the right call. By “group chat,” I mean “a chat which exists for long enough to hold 1-3 group voice calls to discuss and hash things out, before it’s dissolved in favor of the execution of whatever plans we devise.”

@theresattrpgforthat; @omophagic-beast; @ladytabletop; @rowansender; @monsterfactoryfanfic; @arsene-inc; @toyourstations

[kianamaiart]

Not an ask more a vent, sorry, feel free to ignore. Love your work and PPPIDWTBAMG looks wonderful, am looking forward to the pilot and wish you all the success

sometimes... Being a creative person, hurts. Hurts in ways I still don't come to expect despite being in my 30s. I love seeing people succeed and I love being inspired to make more things myself. But some times, I just kind of, end up with some one thing creative, that I really love and have nowhere to put it... and I just keep getting reminded that I don't. The idea still, gives me joy, but it also, hurts. Like holding, desperately, onto a piece of coal that refuses to cool. And I'm reminded of that idea a lot, looking at idwtbamg. and I hate that it hurts, and I hate that I associate that hurt with your wonderful idea, and I want your idea to succeed. and so I hold the idea tighter... and it hurts, and it brightens my day, and I look forward to your amazing work, and all the fan works born from it.

i understand the feeling for sure

sorry if this is unsolicited advice (i don't want it to come off as toxic positivity or too sunshiny either) but i don't think you should get hung up on the "nowhere to put it" part. the thing about the internet is that, for better or worse lol, you can put anything on it!

make your project! write it out, draw it out, act it out, sing it out. then post it! this project as well as a lot of indie projects is in response to networks not picking up a lot of animated shows these days so people are taking their ideas into their own hands and sharing it with the world in different ways

doesn't hurt to try~

[shokopan]

HAIKYUU BOYS AS COLLEGE CRUSHES | R. SUNA

⤷ inspired by my hq boys as high school crushes post i wrote a looong time ago but this time i'm writing longer ish drabbles :D // kuroo vers!

“hey,” an unfamiliar voice startles you momentarily before you glance up and see the cute guy on your floor peaking a little too conspicuously at your phone, “i like that band too,”

you’ve seen him around pretty frequently, almost guaranteed 2-3 times daily, whether it be going to and from classes, at the dining hall, at the campus library, or just on the floor of your dorm. you want to say that it’s his height and the fact that you guys seem to have the same routines and class schedules that makes him so recognizable, but it’s actually mostly because he’s an objectively good looking guy. the guy’s got slightly longer, tousled dark hair and sleepy eyes, and such a casual and relaxed style of dressing that almost irritates you because he looks so damn good with no effort. 

“no way! are you going to their concert next week?” your eyes light up, pausing your music and taking out your earbuds.

he shrugs, “i want to, but going alone sounds kind of boring,”

“same, i’ve been wanting to get tickets but i’d rather not have to get back alone at night, you know?” you hum, mirroring his shrug as the elevator you’d both been waiting for arrives.

“i mean,” suna starts as the two of you step inside, hesitating for a moment and scrunching his eyebrows together, “we could go together then? i mean we bump into each other all over campus enough that seeing each other at a concert seems pretty normal,”

“damn take me out to dinner first or something,” you joke, cracking a smile as your hand hovers over the rows of elevator buttons, “but yea i’d be pretty down, what floor?”

“first floor please, but oh thank god, i was panicking for a minute  thinking that asking you was fucking weird,” he sigh, “i’m suna rintarou by the way,”

“we see each other so many times a day, so in a way it’s like we’re not total strangers and don’t even stress, i’d probably have asked if you didn’t beat me too it,” you smile reassuringly, “and i’m l/n y/n!”

“nice to finally put a name to the person i’m haunted by,” suna grins, shrugging when you shoot him an unimpressed look. 

“i think you mean blessed, actually,” you roll your eyes as the two of you step out of the elevator when the doors open to the first floor, “anyways, are you headed to the dining hall?”

“yup,” suna nods pumping his fist unenthusiastically, “i’m starving for some mediocre slightly inedible food,”

“same,” you lament, “want to eat together?”

suna smiles and nods, not wanting to let on how long he’s been waiting for an excuse to talk to you and get to know their little campus crush, “yeah i guess, if you really insist,”

“i’m not,” you reply dryly

“i’m kidding let’s go, i want to get to know you after having seen you around everywhere and not knowing anything about you” suna chuckles, feeling a strange giddiness forming in his chest as he glances down at you/

“fine, fine, because you want to get dinner with me so badly,” you sing, smiling as you walk towards the dining hall with suna by your side, “anyways, have you ever done that 21 questions thing to get to know someone?”

[kermdoeswriting]

This was supposed to be a one-off thing but these reblogs inspired more so...

Also to answer ur question Roni would absolutely be petty enough to pull out a file to shut up her less than savory and judgmental co-workers. The kids are always put first regardless of background.

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

Roni got her answer on the bet about two weeks later. After her initial home visit to see how the twins were doing in Wayne Manor.

Even if it was never outright said aloud, just watching the way the family interacted with Ellie and Danny told her enough. Though the solo interviews with each kid did solidify it.

"So Danny," Roni watched as Danny nervously taped the side of his knee, half interested in what Roni had to say and half interested in the doorway that Ellie and the Wayne siblings had just exited through. "Before we start, I just have to make you aware that nobody is allowed to listen into this conversation and that whatever you say is completely protected between you and me."

Danny just nodded along to Roni's word, eyes still on the doorway before breaking off to look at her fully.

"Got it. Hit me with the questions, Roni."

Roni let out a small smile, shaking her head at him before flipping through her notebook to an empty page.

"How has it been living in the Wayne manor so far? Has Bruce been treating you nicely?"

Danny only shrugs as if that was his final answer. "He and Alfred have been kind. A little too Richie Rich if you ask me but other than that they treat Ellie nicely and that's all I care about honestly"

Roni feels her sympathy for the boy (and her own hesitance) return as she writes his answer within her notes but it escapes out of her like an amused snort.

"They tend to come off that way most times. Between you and me though?" She leaned a bit more to whisper. "I think Bruce just likes to spoil his kids with his riches to impress them and it just rubbed off with each one he adopted afterwards."

Danny snorted at that, eyes twinkling in his own amusement as he nodded along with her theory.

"Anyways, How about the Wayne Kids? Have they come around to introduce themselves to you two yet?"

"Some of them have, like Damian. He came home from summer camp earlier in the week. He's pretty cool, sarcastic to all hell, but cool." Roni hums and bites her cheek at the mention of the smallest Wayne. When she had first placed Duke into the Wayne's care, she had her doubts on how Damian would react since Gotham knew he had a short-temper with most things.

But now the two were packed together like a pack of sardines any time she saw them, so she wasn't too surprised Damian got along with the twins. It was probably the feral behavior the twins displayed that made them click.

"I also got to meet Cass, Dick, and Jason yesterday. Dick kept teasing us 4 for being like double twins. Calling us the quadruplets or something, Jason just smacked the back of his head and called him an asshole."

She couldn't help but smile at the mention of her past foster cases. Roni tended to try and remember every single kid that went through her care and office, so it wasn't hard to picture the three doing something like that around new company.

Although she would have to remind Bruce about excessive language amongst the kids, even if they were 13 respectively the law didn't really see it as appropriate behavior to show around fosters.

From there, the interviews went smoothly with them both and Roni honestly had nothing new to report for their files except for excellent care as it usual was. And, just as she guessed, a request towards looking into possible adoption within the Wayne household for both Phantoms.

Bruce had been quick to pull her side before she left to make the request, eyes looking fondly towards the twins play fighting with Jason, Tim and Stephanie (from what Roni remembered for the last one). Ellie sassing them as Jason cackled on the sidelines and Danny snorting in amusement, arms crossed.

When Roni looked back into Bruce Wayne's pleading eyes, begging her to look into starting the adoption process she just sighed fondly and nodded. Who was she to deny the richest man in Gotham's adoption addiction?

She called it 3 weeks ago anyways when she dropped them off. And heaven knows that twice the amount for the bet would do nicely towards a new car battery.

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

As Roni got back into her office that night later than she had even planned to be, she was pleasantly surprised to find a few things inside that hadn't been there before she'd left to check in on each of her fosters.

One of them was Red Hood, who was awkwardly standing there staring at her through his red helmet with a handful of familiar looking stickers in hand. Both of them were silent for a moment before Roni decided to save him the embarrassment and simply back out of the office room to allow him a graceful escape.

She did not get paid enough to deal with that situation. Not in Gotham anyways.

When she re-entered the room, Red Hood having disappeared silently, Danny and Ellie's files sat right at the top of her desk first and foremost.

A few different stickers greeted her this time.

Robin and Co. stickers, Red-Hoods stuck out like a sore thumb as it covered over Nightwing's at least half way as some sort of petty move, and one largely placed Batman one were now on the outside of both files, to let her know they were now watching over the kids and were Robin approved.

That alone put her at ease.

To know that the Bat was taking some time to look into the sketchy meta-trafficking ring the twins were found at was like getting an early Christmas present.

They would be even safer now beyond being in Bruce's care and she knew that even if Bruce never did end up adopting the twins (which she doubted heavily) they were at the very least a good influence on them from what she'd seen today.

That and the twins would probably never be able to really get rid of the Wayne's. Not really, anyways.

Most Robin approved files didn't really leave the Manor without getting adopted into it first.

Bruce Wayne's a Foster Parent. Also he avoids death a lot so a dead person can usually tell if a humans meant to have died but didn't.

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

"Bruce you know I wouldn't ask this of you if I didn't have to but-"

Bruce just sighed from his side of the phone, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Nobody ever really expects to get a phone call nearing 3 am but exceptions had to be made when you were a legal foster parent and also a part-time secret super hero. If it wasn't one thing calling for him it was the other.

On the other side of the phone, Bruce heard the caseworker, Roni, chuckle.

"It's just for 3 nights and half of the day after, but I need you to be prepared for something before I can pass them off to you."

Bruce sat upright now on his bed, attentively listening to her words. Usually the kids didn't really come with any pre-warnings from the Caseworker themselves, letting anything about each Foster kid be said inside of their personal files that got sent along with them.

But when she gave out this information it was usually important. The last time Bruce had gotten a warning like this it was for Jason which was ages ago it feels at this point.

"What is it?"

"The kids are-" Her voice trailed off, like as if she was still searching for the right words to say. "They've been through what I can honestly only describe as the equivalent to a meta-kid trafficking lab"

Bruce shifted as he heard the driving continue on the other side of the phone.

"They're very guarded because of what they went through and they might display.. unusual behavior. More unusual then a meta-kids behavior after such a situation would be, but don't let it fool you! The kids are really sweet beyond being afraid."

Bruce frowns at the descriptions before replying to her, mentally trying to prepare himself for the idea of these kids and what they might have went through.

"I'll make a note of it then. Thank you, Roni"

"No, thank you, Bruce. I really appreciate this last minute placement. We'll be by really soon"

He was left with a click as he removed himself off his bed and threw the covers to the side of him. Alfred would want to know that they would have 2 new guests in the manor, at the very least to greet them and have rooms prepared even if they didn't need to have them prepared further then what they already were.

It was less then 5 minutes later that Bruce found himself, with Alfred, greeting the temporary fosters at the front door. Roni looked tiredly at them as she pushed the kids front and center.

Bruce could relate heavily.

"Hello Danny, Ellie. It's nice to meet you both, I'm Bruce Wayne."

Danny just stared at the mans outstretched hand for a second before he turned to look up at him, a pinched look on his face. Ellie matched his expression, although being a bit more subtle about it as she looked over Bruce as a whole.

Eerily, Bruce felt like his very soul was being judge the longer the kids stared at him. He also felt a sense of familiarity with these two kids the longer this continued.

They seemed detached rather than afraid like their caseworker had explained earlier, more so viewing the world as if they were outside of it rather then in it in any way.

Danny was quick to glare at him after another moment, "You're a fruit-loop, aren't you?"

Ellie broke from her own scanning almost immediately when she heard Danny's comment, cackling beside him before shoving him off with her arm. The action made Bruce smile as he took his arm back and placed it by his side.

Alfred also looked amused between the pair of siblings before turning attention to the task at hand again. Bruce just smiled at his pseudo-fathers usual fondness over children, knowing he was being reminded of his own grandchildren.

"This is Alfred. He's going to be the one to show you over to your rooms for the next few nights." Alfred greeted the kids in the same polite way he usually greeted all guests before he leaned down and extended his hands towards their belongings. He didn't grab their belongings just remained leaning over them before questioning the kids if they would like help to take their stuff to their rooms.

Bruce only really saw it faintly and if it were any other moment he might have ignored it as a sleepless hallucination, but for some reason he noticed the change immediately. The twins eyes go from a darker blue to a flashing bright green.

As if alarmed by the sudden movement towards their belongings.

Danny was quick to catch his own staring as well, eyes flashing back to blue for only a second before reverting back to green. Almost as if to give off some kind of warning.

Ellie noticed his staring immediately and shoved Danny again, this time more forceful for his attention before turning to whisper something to him when she had him back.

Bruce felt his skin crawl before turning away to face their caseworker, not really understanding anything they were saying beyond hearing a few words and feeling their eyes look between each other and his back.

Death Touched was an especially new description, and one that stuck in his head the second he heard it.

Bruce waited until the kids were guided away by Alfred before talking to their caseworker officially and waking her up from her half delirious tired drop-off.

"Hey Roni? Is there any chance we can extend the Fenton kids stay?"

There was something going on here with these kids and he was going to get to the bottom of it. One way or another.

[celerydays]

long time no see…

Hey, hi, hello~

I don't know if anyone is still around this little blog o' mine or if I'm just showing up suddenly on the dash and whoever is seeing this might not recall ever even following me lol.

But – whether you remember me or not – I'm just dropping by to say that...I've missed you and that I truly hope you're doing well 🫂💗

I...have not been doing so well. But I've been working on it.

In a way, it's been healing to reshape my approach to things like journaling and capturing photos. I've been taking the time to develop a practice in documenting daily life – the people I care about, the places we visit, and all the random little moments in between – with more intentionality and care than I have in recent years.

(tw: grief and loss/death under cut)

We lost my mother very suddenly last November – and things have been unbearably hard the last few months.

In a lot of ways, 2024 was one of the best years: my partner and I traveled to Japan for the first time ever, my family had a small reunion in our hometown to watch the total solar eclipse together, my best friends got married, and we went on so many amazing trips and had the type of outings that made me so inspired, optimistic, and excited about life and the future.

But in so many other ways, it was also one of the worst years I've had in a long time: starting with a hard-learned (but perhaps overdue) firsthand lesson and reminder on how scary and mean the internet can be, followed by losing both my grandfather in the spring and then my mother just before the winter holidays.

I'm not particularly good when it comes to emotions– forget about even processing grief or putting into any sort of meaningful words how it all feels. But I guess all of this has made me shift my mindset when it comes to wanting to just...remember. To not forget.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

On documenting life through journaling...

I had always journaled in some way or another all my life, but I only really started considering it a serious practice and hobby sometime around 2020. But I had lost my way with it in recent years, treating it solely as some kind of aesthetic-only venture, and only dedicating the time if I knew that I could make it "pretty" and "palatable for sharing".

And so, many entries were missed; days and weeks lost to fuzzy recollection, months bled into each other, and little moments only existed as vague and passing snapshots on my phone gallery (if I even remembered to take a photo).

But I now wish I had just written it down; whatever it was – big, small, angry, funny, sad, happy – just wrote it all down. It didn't have to be an aesthetically collaged spread or artful doodle or drawing. I wish I had documented some of the last times I had seen or spoken with my mother; what she had said, did, or how she reacted to silly news or quips I told her. I barely remember anything even just from the last year.

So now I write it all down, day after day: I'll write what's on my mind, what we did before, what I'm doing currently, what I'm planning to do. If someone calls or my partner walks in to my studio while I'm working and tells me something that has me reacting in the moment I'll jot down a little "omg!!" or "lol" or "holy shit" next to whatever they said or did.

If I get little scraps from the day – receipts, tags, tickets, wrappers – I'll paste it in wherever it happens to fit in my journal, with a little note of the date or what the outing was. And every so often, I'll print out photos to paste in with notes relating back to past entries or junk journal spreads.

Is always pretty? No, but it's pretty in its chaos. Is it always even chronological? Not at all. Does it always make sense? Not really. But I love every page so, so much more than anything I had carefully curated before in my previous journals.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

On documenting life through photos...

I had once carried a camera with me everywhere before phone cameras became decent enough that I didn't feel the need to have a dedicated tool for just taking pictures anymore.

It wasn't until we were all looking through our collective family photos to use for my mother's memorial service and headstone that it hit me that I just don't take as many pictures as I used to– and even when I did, they just don't compare to the ones that I took years ago when I did carry a camera with me on every outing and trip.

We ended up choosing a photo of her that I had taken on my once-beloved dSLR camera I used to haul around with me almost 10 years ago; she was smiling, strong, radiant, beautiful– and it was just a random moment I took my camera out in a Taiwan hair salon while she was waiting for me and my sister to get our hair done for our cousin's wedding.

A bit indescribable – and not even something I realized was missing – but there's something about having an actual camera on hand that pushes me to take more photos, and somehow better and more mindful photos at that.

And so I made the decision to invest in a new camera. An absolute necessity to take photos? No, of course not; I do still have my phone camera after all. But they say (apparently) that "the best camera is the one that you actually use"– and I was most definitely not using my phone as much as I could have been.

This new camera though? Only time will truly tell, but the past has shown that I've worked better with a dedicated camera on hand and already I can't begin to explain the difference it's made in the last week alone since I picked up the habit of carrying a camera around with me again.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

This was a crazy long post that sort of got away from me. Not sure where I want to go from here – I guess I just want to say that if you ever felt called to document your life in some way, it's never too late to start; you'll only wish that you had begun sooner.

If you're still here– I love you. I hope you're taking care of yourself.

And thank you for reading along with my incredibly longwinded life update of what was essentially just "I'm grieving so I started journaling more and also bought a camera" lol.

💗

[themultifanshipper]

omg I love Nico Rosberg please do!!

here's a little idea that's been running trough my head maybe it inspires you.

it's 2016, the worst of the worst of brocedes and nico goes out drinking and runs into Lewis's ex (reader) (maybe she's a journalist idk) one thing leads to another and they have nasty nasty sex in Nico's room, which just so happens to share a wall with Lewis's.

absolutely no pressure to write this tho

Sure Lewis had won the race, but you weren't expecting to see Nico drinking alone in a random bar. 

You had an idea that would definitely lift his spirits. 

Warnings: smut, masturbation, cum, filming (hear me out), rancid vibes, basically 2016 brocedes being petty, reader is a journalist and lewis' ex, I'm a lil' mean to lewlew but he deserves it

“Oh, Hello” he said relatively cheerfully when you popped up next to him at the bar. 

Nico had always liked you. You were a breath of fresh air whenever you'd show up at races. 

You worked part-time for Sky Sports and it was always a pleasure being interviewed by you. 

You'd been Lewis' girlfriend for years though, so you were firmly off limits to everyone in the paddock.  

Nico never did figure out why you and Lewis broke up. It's not like Lewis would talk to him about it, so he was left to speculate. 

“How have things… been?” he tried, earning a laugh from you. 

Of course you could tell he was fishing for information. 

“I'm not here to talk about Lewis, Nico”  

You leaned on the bar, pushing your chest against the polished wood, and Nico couldn't help glancing down quickly. 

“Actually, that's not strictly true” you corrected with a smile. “I wanted to see if there was anything I could do after your crushing defeat today” you emphasised the word, to see if he would react. 

He raised an eyebrow at you, smug smirk playing at his lips. 

“Are you trying to provoke me, my dear?” 

“Maybe…” you bit your lip, trying to conceal your glee. 

The truth was you and Lewis hadn't been on the best of terms after your rather public breakup. He'd become an egotistical monster, and you were only trying to weigh him down, or so he said. 

But even while you were together, you'd always found Nico intriguing. You couldn't deny the attraction you felt towards him, and now that you were free to do whatever the fuck you wanted, well… now seemed like a good opportunity. 

“Keep it up, maybe you'll manage to get a reaction out of me” he purred, setting his glass down and turning his barstool towards you. 

You wrapped your fingers around his glass, and his eyes followed the movement of your thumb tracing up the side, drawing patterns in the condensation. 

“I'm not trying to do anything…” you glanced at him and noted how enraptured he was in the sight of your delicate fingers barely reaching all the way around the small-ish glass. “I'm just confused how a driver of your caliber just let Lewis pass you like that” 

His gaze snapped back to you “I did not let him pass, my car was…” 

He trailed off when he noticed your expression, throwing his head back in exasperation with a chuckle. 

“Okay, I see what you are doing. It's not going to work on me” 

“Really?” you pouted “You sure I can't get you even a little bit riled up?” 

He huffed out a laugh. “The things you could do to rile me up are illegal in public places” 

Your breath hitched at his tone, there was an underlying challenge in there somewhere. 

“In that case… I have a proposition for you” 

His pupils expanded as soon as you put your hand on his thigh to lean in seductively. 

“We could put our combined talent for pettiness to good use…” 

Your lips barely brushed his ear as you spoke, but he could already feel his pants tightening at your close proximity. 

“What are you suggesting?” his voice was tight with desire. 

“Your room is next to Lewis'… I think we could easily find a way to rile him up” 

Nico's eyes widened, that was the best idea he'd ever heard. 

You leaned back against the bar and took his glass, bringing it to your lips to take a sip. 

“Jesus!” you spluttered “That's straight tequila, Nico!” you gazed at him in awe. 

He laughed, sliding a hand around your waist to pull you in closer.  

“I think we're going to have a lot of fun together” he mumbled. 

You let him drag you closer, standing in between his legs as his greedy hands felt you up. 

“And Lewis is going to regret ever breaking up with you”  ...

◇

Lewis could hear most of what was going on in Nico's room. 

He had a girl over, how adorable. Whatever he needed to make himself feel better about losing, he supposed. Lewis was planning on winning every race if it meant destroying Nico. 

He actually took some kind of twisted pleasure in listening to his pathetic attempt to get back at him. As if it made them even. You got this trophy, but at least I’m getting my dick wet.  

Lewis laughed derisively at the thought. No woman was going to make up for the big shiny trophy he was going to get at the end of the season. 

His attitude quickly changed however, when he suddenly heard the woman's voice louder and clearer than before. 

“Nico!” 

It sounded much too familiar. 

It couldn't be… 

He dropped his phone onto the bed he was lying on and turned around to face the wall. 

“Fuck- aaah… oh my god, Nico!”  

His jaw dropped. He'd recognise those moans anywhere. 

“Nico, please!” 

He put his hand against the wall, as if he'd be able to feel you against the cool plaster. 

“Please! Please, oh my god, please!” 

He refused to acknowledge the twitch in his pants. His blood was boiling with thinly veiled jealousy. 

But the final offense came in the form of Nico's voice. 

“Hear that, asshole?!” he was yelling at him through the wall. “She's begging for me now!” 

You whined as Nico sped up his hips, hitting deep inside you while you imagined Lewis on the other side, fuming at what he was hearing. 

♤

Nico had you facing the wall, your hands clutching the headboard for dear life while he pounded into you from behind. 

You’d really been missing out, it turned out. 

One of his hands was on your hip, arching your back obscenely for him, and the other one was next to your head, flat on the wall to hold his weight. 

You cheek was pressed against the wall, ensuring your voice would be as audible as possible through it. 

“Say my name, darling” he groaned, you cunt was like a vice around him and he was barely holding on to his sanity by this point. 

“Nico!” you cried, you were rapidly approaching your high. 

“Louder, baby. I want him to hear you” 

He slithered a hand around your body and started tapping out a soft rhythm against your clit, the barely-there stimulation making your legs tremble. 

“Fuck- aaah! Oh my god, Nico!” 

“I said louder. You're not coming until I know he's heard you” 

“Nico, please!” 

He chuckled meanly at your writhing figure, the pressure just wasn't quite enough to get you over the edge you were gasping for. 

“Please! Please, oh my god! Please!” 

Nico groaned, you were begging so prettily and politely for him, he could hardly refuse. 

“Hear that, asshole?!” he yelled “She's begging for me now!” 

He increased the pressure on your clit, rubbing wet circles over it that made your eyes roll back into your skull and let out the most pitiful wail as you came all over his cock and fingers. 

You slumped against the headboard, no longer able to hold yourself up, and slid down until your face hit the pillows with your ass up in the air, and you groaned while you rode out the waves of your high, through which Nico was still fucking you. 

He quickly grabbed his phone.  

He knew just how to put the final nail in Lewis' proverbial coffin. 

He turned the camera on, just managing to catch the moment when he came inside you, cunt stretched beautifully around his cock, then pulled out to let his cum dribble out of you and down your thighs. 

They hadn't blocked each other’s numbers. That would be petty... 

♧

So he sent Lewis the short video and threw his phone to the side. 

He gently turned you over, thumbing at the obscene mixture clinging to your folds, and spreading it around. 

He was transfixed, and you let out a small giggle at his expression. 

He raised an eyebrow cockily, bringing his cum covered fingers up to your mouth. 

Much to his delight, you sucked them eagerly, moaning at the taste as your tongue traced every knuckle, every crevice until he was clean. 

His gaze was dark as he watched you work, and once his hand was clean he wrapped it around your neck and squeezed possessively. 

Your confused wide eyes made him chuckle, along with the way your thighs twitched. 

“I had a feeling you would be into that” 

He leaned over you and crashed his lips to yours in a searing kiss, the faint taste of your mixed juices driving him wild with need. 

“Give me a minute, I'm definitely not done with you” 

Lewis didn't care about his pride anymore, the sounds you were making on the other side of the wall were sending him insane. 

♡

He shoved his shorts down and wrapped a hand around himself. The relief was instant. 

He could almost picture you, bent over and begging. He'd witnessed it enough times. 

All that was missing was- 

The buzz of his phone caught his attention from where it was laying next to his knee. 

A text from Nico. 

“Enjoy the crumb” 

And attached was a video of Nico pounding into you once, twice, and then… 

Lewis gasped and the hand around his cock sped up at the sight of your beautiful tight hole dripping with his rival's cum. 

He didn't realise he was coming until it was too late and his pillow was soiled and covered in his spend. 

“Fuck's sake!” he cursed, throwing his phone across the room in anger. 

He ended up seeing a lot more of you after that.  

But you were now Nico's fucking girlfriend, and his ex-best frien would constantly send him dirty grins, reminding him of that damn video. 

And every single night, without fail, he'd pull the video up and get off to it. 

He'd hesitated a couple of times to send it to the papers. But no matter how bitter he was, he couldn't bring himself to do it. 

It was almost as if he took pleasure in knowing that only him and Nico had it. Like a shared dirty secret. 

Nico was going to regret everything anyway. He may have won you, but Lewis was going to win the whole damn championship. 

[honeysorwell]

a ring and the (Super Bowl's) ring

pairing: Restaurant!AU Melissa Schemmenti x fem!Reader

Super Bowl's prompt by anon + Valentine's Day idea by me.

Synopsis: When the chef and owner of the traditional Italian Restaurant Schemmenti’s Cucina says that she will never get married again, few people really understand and respect her. Y/N is not only one of the people who understands her, but she is also the one who matters the most to Melissa. And the ring she gave the redhead on Valentine’s Day is just a bonus.

Tag list: @janeyseymour @italianaidiota @chloeelou02x (I tagged you all because you are all on my tag list for my other Melissa's fanfic, so since this is also a fanfic for Mel here you are!) (and if you want to be tagged too just let me know.)

Warning (for Melissa mainly): marriage proposal!!!

Words: 2,3k

Synopsis of the story + Chapter 1 + Chapter 2

Link on AO3

The inspiration for this is also the fact that: no one writes AUs for Melissa even tho our lady has a lot of potential for AUs thanks to how many interests she genuinely has; the fact that she thought Gary was buying her a replica of a Super Bowl ring; no one writes fanfics about Melissa finding someone who genuinely accepts that she doesn't want to get married at all and is happy with her just like that; and Valentine's Day is just around the corner;

and yes! part two will be posted tomorrow, because I wrote two parts (one where the Eagles win and one where they lose) so just stay tuned for the game hahaha… (I won't be tho, and that's why I'll only post this part two tomorrow.)

Enjoy!

“Chef! Chef!”, the young waiter called loudly as he entered the kitchen looking for the red-haired woman, keeping a smart distance from Melissa when he found her amidst the chaos of the pens in the hot stove where she was browning some onions.

The kitchen that the redhead had dedicated her time, heart, and soul to, and that until seconds ago was vibrating with the nervous energy of the orders in her restaurant but that now stopped completely, was just taken over by the nervousness that transformed the energy there into a pressure cooker ready to explode.

Although she was in her element, Melissa found it strange that her waiter had called her directly, and her restless feeling was, justifiably, mirrored by all her workers. Some dish was wrong? Was the poor waiter there to inform her of a client's complaint?

"Yes, kid?"

“The table reserved for a party of 20 in the center of the restaurant! They’re here and they’re asking for you.”, the waiter, whose name she refuses to remember since they always give up, smiles at her as he explains, so the redhead imagines that no one was exactly asking to talk to her because of a bad thing, “Oh... And the guy with the mustache told you to take off your apron before talking to them.”

It wasn’t common for Melissa Schemmenti (the talented chef and owner of the traditional Italian Restaurant Schemmenti’s Cucina, who delighted the clientele with her dishes every day) to leave the kitchen to greet ordinary customers. Only the most famous, or food critics, or those really kind people who waited until the restaurant closed had the privilege of meeting her, but when she looked out the kitchen window in search of who was sitting at that prominent table in the middle of the restaurant, a sweet smile painted her lips when she saw all those sitting there.

Her family is there.

At least a good part of it.

Her mother, Marie, Mary Camille, Maria Cristina, boy Tony and John Anthony are all looking at her expectantly as she goes out of the kitchen to stand next to Gary. It's rare to see her siblings looking at her with such happiness, and for just a second Melissa wonders if she's forgotten something important.

Looking closer, the redhead notices that even two of her cousins ​​are there. Rocco, with his wife and two children, and Annette with her husband. Wow.

But, some part of the table was empty and the redhead couldn't be more confused to notice that three of her siblings are not there – Seamus, Toni and Kristen Marie – but as she approached the table in question, the thought just slipped from her mind. After all, not even she knew why they were there so maybe it wasn't that important.

"You know you don't have to book a table when you come here, right? Especially when all these parasites are here almost daily.” Greetings and complaints begin to sound throughout the table instigated by her arrival, but the talented chef of Schemmenti’s Cucina just ignores everyone’s words with a smile, placing a loving kiss on her boyfriend’s lips before reprimanding him affectionately, “You just need to show up here and we’ll find a table for you, Gary.”

“I know.”, the man in question says, delighted with the fact that even on a busy Tuesday night for the restaurant, Melissa still looked as beautiful as on her days off, “But I wanted this one today.”

Before the redhead has time to question him why, Gary stands up from their table with a nervous smile, gently tapping the inside pocket of his leather jacket that held a small velvet box, not wanting to draw Melissa’s attention to it after all, he was just checking to see if the precious thing he handpicked himself was still there.

Leaving behind a distraught redhead with her hip propped against the wooden table, Gary made his way to the restaurant's small stage, where musicians played softly in the background. All the customers' eyes turned to him curiously as the man positioned himself under the soft light. And there, Melissa panicked.

Neither of them could say whose heart was beating faster.

"Sorry to interrupt," Gary began speaking into the available microphone with a shaky voice, "I just want to say a few words about the wonderful person who graces not only our stomach but also our sight tonight."

When he looked at Melissa, and although her eyes were already glued to his, the head chef's mind could not be further away.

Her mind was in denial, working hard to remember if that day was their anniversary, or perhaps the day they shared their first kiss, unable to accept the need to realize the trap that was unfolding dramatically in front of her.

The tension in the air was palpable, but with a gentle and loving gesture, Gary asked for Melissa to come closer.

Confused, she looked back at her family, just lost and confused, but the eyes of those who shared her surname shone amidst smiling faces, and there, as she walked carefully toward her boyfriend, her heart raced, not with happiness, but with apprehension.

He wouldn't do this.

He can't.

Right?

“Melissa,” Gary said, taking her hand and finally kneeling down, to Melissa's desperation, “You are the reason I wake up every day with a smile on my face. You bring color to my life and I can't imagine a future without you. I know you told me you don't intend to get married again but I just need to know if you would do me the honor of being my wife?” His words echoed through the space, full of love and hope as a deep silence momentarily settled in, where everyone there awaited the chef's answer.

But Melissa, with her hand being gently caressed by her boyfriend, for the first time in his own restaurant, felt like she was going to vomit.

The desire and expectation in his eyes were palpable, but she had been clear so many times.

She didn't want this. Not again.

She didn't want marriage or the commitments that it entailed.

And he knew it.

She made that clear to Gary again and again. And he knew how painful her divorce had been. The redhead remembered nights when painful memories would eat away at her mind until she shared them with him. How could he have the courage to ignore her feelings so easily? In the midst of her clients? In her restaurant? And invite her family to watch?

But then, only then, she recognized the looks in their eyes.

They knew. Her family knew.

The same ones who had heard her say over and over again how much she didn't want to get married again.

Ever.

The feeling of being disregarded took over her. A weight that made her wish, even if just for a second, that she had burned herself in the kitchen the day before so she could have stayed home instead of going through that.

She was so embarrassed.

Her boyfriend didn't listen to her. Her family didn't listen to her. No one listened to her.

When Melissa opened her mouth to respond, her words failed to come out. She fixed her gaze on Gary's anxious, hopeful smile, trying to find a way to express the turmoil that was forming inside her. But she knew that only one word would be enough.

“No.”, and when she finally said it, her voice cracked.

She knew that her answer had hit him like a crash.

The murmur of the audience grew around them, mixing disapproval and empathy. Gary stood still for a moment, the ring box slipping from his hand as he searched for some light in the eyes of the woman he loved. And Melissa was also on fire, but with pain and guilt for disappointing him.

“I understand,” he finally murmured after a while, forcing a smile that definitely didn’t reach his eyes. “I just wanted you to know how I feel… And maybe you…”

“I understand. But I can’t. I’m so sorry. It’s better if we end it here,” she interrupted, her voice firm, despite the pain.

The thick tears began to slide down his face, and Melissa felt her heart break inside her chest, but she knew there was no going back.

It was necessary, she knew it was. And she also knew she would cry herself to sleep that night.

Looking around the restaurant, feeling the eyes of her customers burning her back as some of them left their tables, overwhelmed by the weight of the scene they had witnessed that night, she wanted to disappear.

But instead, even when she heard her name being called by her entire family, especially her mother whose voice sounded more enthusiastic than all the others, Melissa silently returned to the kitchen. After all, she still had a kitchen to run.

Only after the end of the workday, when everyone had left and the redhead was drinking a worrying amount of wine in the closed kitchen of her restaurant, footsteps were heard by the redhead in the dining room.

Melissa had made it clear to everyone in the restaurant how much she didn't want to see anyone. But maybe her words also didn't mean anything to her employees too.

"Does everything I say just turned meaningless now?" she shouts towards the dining room, but when her eyes find the three people who were missing earlier today, her voice softens even amidst the confusion of alcohol, "How did you all get in here?"

Seamus, Toni, and Kristen Marie are moving too fast for the redhead to see with the amount of alcohol she consumed, and if Melissa were a little more sober she would notice how all three of them are looking at her with a huge amount of sadness. So maybe it was for the best.

“You’re almost cute when you think a few well-done locks can stop a Schemmenti. Imagine three!”, Toni says softly with a sweet smile as she approaches the redhead, gently placing a kiss on the chef’s forehead and looking for a clean, dry glass to fill with water and force her sister to drink.

Irritated by the unsolicited contact, Melissa thinks about greeting her by calling the owner of the brown eyes Antoinette, but oddly enough, the touch of the younger sister caresses not only her temple but also her soul.

“Hey Mel.”, Seamus says, but he doesn’t lean in for a proper greeting. The middle brother of all the women, whose existence was discovered only after everyone was adults just approaches his older sister to confuse her. The man's clumsy approach makes the redhead focus on the tall, blonde figure who is now once again trying to put the hairpins she used to break down the back door of her sister's restaurant back in place. Knowing that the mere sight of Kriste Marie being the one responsible for invading her property would cause enough distraction, Seamus takes both the bottle and the glass of wine away from his older sister while Toni replaces it with water without her noticing. At least not now.

"Kristen Marie.", is said with as much disdain as affection, which makes the blonde one let out a small smile at her older sister before responding with the same intonation:

"Melissa Ann."

The three Schemmentis who have just arrived gently sit down next to the redhead, who strokes the rim of the glass of water in front of her with the tip of her index finger after rejecting it.

"You're late for the shit show, ya know? It was during dinner.”, she says stammeringly but is quickly cut off by her brother.

“I guess we arrived just in time then.”, he says softly before directing a particularly disappointed look at Kristen Marie when he sees that the blonde one has taken the glass that used to belong to her sister and is now drinking the wine left there by her.

“I knew you would say no! We all knew!”, Kristen says angrily, as if ripping off a particularly stuck band-aid on the redhead’s skin, but one that everyone there knew needed to be changed.

“He warned us a month ago, sent a message in a group with all of us and asked us to be here for the proposal.”

“I said it wouldn’t work out, which obviously started a fight with Ma. Antoinette agreed with me and Seamus here said he would let you know.”, Kristin says again, monopolizing everyone’s attention for a few seconds, but as soon as she finishes, Melissa can see out of the corner of her eye that Seamus lowers his head in shame.

“Mom got really furious, she said we were rooting against your happiness.”, Toni says in a soft voice, but the redhead knows better.

She knows that “we” is not really “we”, but it is Seamus. Ma probably told Seamus that he was rooting against her happiness, and that’s probably why he didn’t tell her, and when she realizes it, the head chef gently stretches her right hand toward her brother.

He, in turn, gently kisses her fingers, still in silence.

“As if Kristen wouldn’t love to see you get engaged just to plan which white dress she’ll wear to your wedding.”, Toni tries to make a joke with a nervous smile, but she quickly regrets it when she sees the tear that runs down her older sister’s right cheek.

“What if… if…”

What if no one wants me?

What if no one accepts me on that condition?

What if I’m alone forever?

“No.”, Kristen interrupts Melissa almost like a growl, as if she can understand all the horrible questions that are going through her sister’s head right now, “Eventually they will understand this too. All of them.”

“Promise?”

“We promise.”, is said in unison by all three siblings, and this sound alone is capable of softening the redhead’s mind and heart.

[pwurrz]

writing off nukani as “just porn” is really watering down what a wonderful, lovely, inspired and heartfelt piece of media it truly is. i honest to god have not seen another bl quite like it.

each of the characters are complex and unique, with their own backstories and goals and personalities and traumas, including our lovely protagonist. and the relationships each of the clan members have with eiden feels so realistic and natural. it’s not immediately love at first sight for all of them. their relationships grow and evolve over time, you can see their connection becoming stronger as the years go by.

it’s a very.. mature game, and i’m not talking about the sexual content. i mean the writing is very mature, the dev team has been able to handle sensitive subject matter in a way that doesn’t feel reductive or dismissive. so much love and care went into every aspect of this game, from the lore to the artwork to the music to the characters we all love and adore so much. its so much more than “just porn”.

but, on the topic of porn.. that’s also very good!!!! the lack of stereotypes is huge, and the amount of diversity between characters and even rooms is amazing, but i personally love how the sex scenes feel like an important part of each character’s story. it’s hardly ever just about sex. it’s about love, about trust, about embracing the parts of yourself you’re most ashamed of, it’s about loving wholeheartedly and unconditionally, about unlearning guilt and shame and examining why we have those things in the first place, it’s about allowing yourself to be cared for, it’s about letting go and having fun.

i know i like to joke about how nu carnival is a silly yaoi gacha porn game but… this silly yaoi gacha porn game has made me cry on several occasions. this game feels like a love letter to my soul and i’m extremely grateful i get to be alive at the same time as this wonderful game.

[imliterallyf7ckin9crazy]

꧁✬⋆°◦. 𝓢𝓺𝓾𝓲𝓭 𝓖𝓪𝓶𝓮 𝓗𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓒𝓪𝓷𝓷𝓸𝓷𝓼 ⋆°◦✬꧂

Gi hun if you died

Characters: gi hun (player 456)

Warnings: angst obvi, death and canon violence,descriptions of dead people and blood, mental breakdowns, typical things that happens when someone close to someone else dies tragically idk. Also not edited we ball

A/N: these are kinda short but I’m deciding to write for evil and make something sad.

———-

ᏢᏝᎯᎽᎬᏒ 456

- you already know he would be hysterical. Did you see him with sae byeok, sang woo and jung bae?

- doesn’t matter if you knew him outside the games or met inside, I feel like if he cared about you he’d be heart broken

- if you knew him on the outside he would have at the start vowed within himself to get you out. He would also tell you to stay close to him like he did Jung bae. He’d constantly have a look out for you and insist you stay in his team.

- gi hun after everything isn’t the type for grand gestures or anything but his care for you is clear. He will definitely share his food, tell you to sleep in his proximity, constantly checking in. He’s 100% worried all the time and all the more determined to you out (along with the others ofc)

- he’d be giving you advice, comforting you, watching over you at night. He’s your rock in the games and even if you don’t know it your his rock too

- you are kinda the thing he clings to. Not physically, but emotionally. He needs to see that you’re ok all the time and that he can get to you if you need saving. He talks to the other players about teamwork and looking out for each other and he does believe that but he’s also trying to cement people to look after you if he dies.

- you trusted him and always believed what he told you. You and the few people in his trusted circle know he isn’t crazy and know he really has played before. One of them particularly so.

- after the successful over take of the guards after lights out you had helped everyone prepare to invade. You were very anxious to let your precious gi hun run a war with no were to escape from. But he told you he could never live with himself if he didn’t do EVERYTHING he could to get you out, even if it meant sacrificing himself to do it.

- you noticed friend young il always seemed to be a step ahead. Constantly hanging around gi hun and by proxy you. To you it almost seemed like he saw something no one else could. He had a confidence no normal person would have in a death game. It’s not even artificial like thanos’ drug induced euphoria.

- you and Jung bae have discussed young il before and how for some reason you both couldn’t shake that something about him was wrong. You had no proof between the both of you but vibes, but it felt very comforting to know someone understood what you were talking about. Gi hun never picked up on any of it

- eventually you let them go to their battle in the fun house like room everyone had to go though to get to the actual game rooms. You gave him a hug and made him promise to come back. With teary eyes you said good luck to Jung bae, that you were rooting for dae ho, and that Hyun-ju was one of the most inspirational women you’ve ever met (bc she is :3).

- you said something to young il as well. You said “please stay safe, young il. I hope to see you soon” because although you thought he was odd you didn’t want him dead. But all he did was smile in a way you haven’t seen him yet. Like you said something amusing but he couldn’t say what it was or laugh yet. with that 120 led everyone out into the battle field.

- you had to stay in the dorms with everyone who stayed behind and waited for the battle team to return. There was an odd silence among everyone. You would have thought fights would have broken out between the X and O teams while the fight raged on but in reality everyone just kinda of froze. There was nothing else to do really other than wait for the outcome.

- sadly the outcome you hoped for was too far fetched even for this reality

- once in ho turned and brought the hammer down he was primarily focused on hurting gi hun in the worse ways possible. He spent all his time in the games watching and learning about everything ‘gi hun’ is. He’s caring, compassionate and for the most part understanding was well as brave/daring and a tad foolish. He values people’s lives and stories, the nuance in every person. He believes in people. That’s probably why he cares for you (maybe even loves you) . because he knows your story and he believes in you anyway. He sees your mistakes and shortcomings and stills sees the person underneath it all.

- and you are one of the only people in the world to know the gi hun that once was. You are able to love both versions of himself, the old and the new. You bring balance between them both and help him remain stable and motivated. Just as much as he believes in you, you make him believe in him self.

- in ho was able to notice all of that in the short time he saw you both interact in the games. So he planned accordingly. You and Jung bae (aside from his daughter I suppose) were quite literally the all he had left of gi huns old life. The last fragments of when his life was even remotely normal.

- all in ho saw in you was the moment that happened just after the call was made. Pink soldiers rushed the dormitory and began firing. You hear the slow stop of gunfire upstairs. They found you by number after resecuring the area and lead you out into what was the battle field. You saw countless bodies of both gaurd and player, people you had come to know and some from the O team you had come to fear. Although in this moment you still mourned them as you felt there was no difference anymore. There was blood plastered from ceiling to walls to floor in semi dried blood that was beginning to congeal from the air and the smell was sickening.

- you were lead through a complex maze of colorful walls and doors until you reached a all purple area. It was at that time you heard two very familiar voices. You turned a corner to see Jung bae and gi hun held at gun point by a strange looking man in an all grey coat and black geometric maskon the ground. Jung baes eyes were watery and fearful while gi huns were filled with rage and hatered. Until he saw you at least, then it all locked into place. He wasn’t stupid, he could read between the lines. You were brought here for a reason.

- you were suddenly thrown to the ground and held down a gaurd in front of gi hun and Jung bae as you began to scream. The realization hit you as well of course. You began to beg as well as gi hun. You to spare your life and gi hun to save you by saying you had nothing to do with what was between them. He seemed unfazed, much to your horror.

- “look at the consequences of your little hero game” the figure said with the signature deep robotic voice changer as he pointed the gun to your writhing and sobbing form on the ground. You turned to gi him with wide eyes, crying relentlessly as he stared back at you. He began to fight against the guards holding him, and it took a few. Jung bae even tried but to no avail. All you could muster was a small and pathetic “gi hun-“

- and all he could do was watch the only person who really truly knew both sides of him. The person who was there for him before and after the games. All he could do was watch one who brought purpose and guidance to him and kept his head on straights skull get peirced by a single bullet barely a few feet away. He screamed his lungs out as he began to weep. He barely had a few seconds before the barrel was pointed at Jung bae and again everything was taken from him again by the same mysterious man and this cruel operation

- he felt as though his whole world just shattered into pieces and he was the sole survivor. Even though more of the people he tried to save still are alive and need saving gi hun still felt completely alone and lost. Within a few mere minutes everything he’d been fighting for and everything he loved vanished and he felt as though it was all his fault. All he could thing about as he was held down one more time and forced to look at the dead bodies of the closest people he had was how he could have done more.

- he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed while unknowingly in the same room with his dear friend young il. that actually he was the one to pull the trigger and betray everyone.

- he felt another part of him die as he looked at your dead body, still so beautiful and meaningful to him, even dead and gone. Your story and best memories along with everyone else he’s lost will be permanently engrained in his brain. Especially you, the person he was able to love after everything that happened.

_______

[gilbirda]

How to Write Women, a quick guide by me

Hello! I was recently inspired to write a series of educational posts so I thought maybe it would be useful for someone.

I want to preface this that there is no criticism intended. I understand that female characters in general have been neglected in media, and I don't blame fandom for not understanding how to write a woman if there hasn't been a good reference in their lives.

My objective is that you, the reader, finish this post with a basic structure and few questions to ask yourself when writing a female character; and with the terms and curiosity to research more if you'd like to expand.

I'm no professional writer, but I've been writing for more than 20 years at this point, and I specialize in writing female protagonists and writing organic romantic storylines.

Here we go.

I want to write a woman, where do I start?

Writing women, at the end of the day, is no different than writing a man. Really, that's the trick.

Disappointed I'm not giving some kind of hot takes about this?

Good.

Because it should be that simple, but to get to that point we should unravel some baseline thought process that can and will get in the way even if you try to write a good female character.

A few questions to ask yourself are:

Why am I writing this character?

Does she have agency in her own story?

Does she have her own goals and aspirations?

Let's break them down:

Why am I writing this character?

What do I like about her? Is she annoying? Is she a hero? A villain? An antagonist? What thing do I like about her canon characteristics (for fanfic writers)? What would I change?

As mentioned at the beginning, female characters usually are not very well written. They are usually fridged or used only as a reminder that MC (usually a man) has emotions and vulnerabilities.

Take a moment to think about it. Think about the feelings her character gives you, and what are the things you do know about her. Think about wasted potential, or unanswered questions about her actions and plot lines that left you wanting more.

If you find her annoying, wonder why — usually, a female character being "annoying" or "not interesting" is tied to her not being developed enough, and pushed into a one-dimensional role. Pay attention at how many speaking lines she has, that usually gives you a clue of how much her character is developed.

Once you have decided who you want to write, this is where it gets interesting.

What kind of story do you want to tell? What role does she play in it?

When making the structure of the story and developing the plot, wonder about how exactly the female character(s) add to the table. Again, female characters can fulfill any role in a story, but watch out!

Bitchy mean girl lesbian

Motherly mommy mom/sister/friend that takes care of everyone

The "healer" of the team

These 3 roles have been used as boxes to fit female characters for ages. Be careful if you think you are pushing her into one of these.

But how can you avoid the tropes?

Does she have agency in her own story?

Or: if you remove her from the story, nothing changes?

Go into your mind palace, and remove the interactions and scenes the female character is in. Does the story still work? Could her lines be easily delivered by someone else?

If the answer is yes, then she doesn't have any agency.

It doesn't matter if she is a main character or a supporting character — she should have a say on the events or some kind of influence in the development of the plot.

Maybe she has a skill that is needed multiple times during the story, or maybe she has past experiences that are a mystery and unraveling her secrets reveals a plot twist, or maybe turns out she was the traitor all along. Make her MATTER.

Does she have her own goals and aspirations?

Or: Is she existing for someone else's sake?

This one is useful for the "mommy" character or the "healer" character.

Go into your mind palace again and think if you remove the female character's loved ones from the equation, does she have something to do?

If the answer is no, then she doesn't exist for herself.

She could still love and take care of others, but she has to exist for something else than that. Make her dream and yearn, and make mistakes, and sacrifice thing for selfish reasons.

Romance is usually a goal given for female characters (and that's a whole other topic I hope to write another post about), and it's a good one! Just be careful with falling for the trap of swapping the people (usually men) she exists for.

Give her hidden agendas, convoluted selfish secret reasons, make her want to destroy the world! Make her want to pursue the truth, chase someone for revenge, be a thrill seeker. Make her HUMAN.

In Conclusion

A quick trick I use when I write female characters is: If I swap her gender, nothing changes?

Of course there's nuance, but that keeps me grounded when even the questions I went over in this post are not enough for me.

Again, writing female characters should not be that different from writing men. If it feels different, ask yourself why and try to understand where the thought comes from.

NOTE: If the point of the story is to discuss the problem of codependency, or portray a toxic relationship, by all means skip checking about agency or her having goals. Rules are there to break them, but first you have to understand them.

I hope this helps someone and I will add and edit this post as needed, maybe to add useful links.

Happy writing!

[pamwritessometimes]

I saw your requests were open, and I love your writing. I was kind of thinking of something with soldier boy finally meeting someone who matches his energy a little Too well, in his opinion. Like readers stubborn as shit and ben has almost zero clue how to handle it other than being aggressive, which she just doubles and gives to the next person type of shit. Idk, I love your writing, and just had this thought. Thank you <3

A/N: Hey, lovely! First off, thank you for sending in my very first request (!!) 🤍 I’m honestly obsessed with this idea and it was such a blast to write! Your request was the main inspiration for this, though I might’ve veered a little from the whole she gives it to the next person angle. But I hope you still enjoy the story!!!

PS: Sorry, it took me a while to write this. I had an unplanned vacay at the hospital last week.🙃

Lights, Camera, Fuck Off

Soldier Boy x supe!fem!reader

Warnings: language, SB and the reader both being stubborn assholes, sexual references, violence

Set in the 80s.

Y/S/N stands for your supe name.

You weren’t exactly sure how you ended up here, stuffed into an overpriced dress that clung to every goddamn inch of your body, standing under the blinding lights of the red carpet while Soldier Boy hovered a little too close to you. (Okay, maybe that was a stretch. Maybe you didn’t mind it all that much.)

You hated to admit it, but you kind of enjoyed this. The spotlight, the way people looked up to you, the whole whoop-de-fucking-doo.

Soldier Boy, on the contrary, looked like he was ready to punch a hole through the nearest wall.

The flashing cameras, the reporters shouting questions, the never-ending buzz of excitement — this was Vought’s idea of a PR masterpiece. Your debut as the newest member of Payback, packaged neatly with the release of your first movie. It was supposed to be a big moment, the kind of neat and flawless event that solidified you as not just a supe, but a star.

And Vought, being the manipulative assholes they were, had decided there was no better way to sell that image than by pairing you with their crown jewel— the so-called greatest supe America had ever seen.

Hah. More like America’s Greatest Asshole.

But you didn’t mind. You knew damn well that you needed him to get what you wanted.

It’s just too bad he didn’t get the memo that he wasn’t the main attraction anymore.

“Smile, sweetheart” Ben grunted out of the corner of his mouth, his jaw clenched so tight you could practically hear his teeth grinding. He had all the money to replace all of his teeth anyway. He slung an arm around your shoulders, his grip a little too firm (dickhead), like he was daring you to try something.

You plastered on the fakest smile you could muster, tilting your head just enough to make it look like you were thrilled to be standing next to him. “Oh, I’m smiling, gramps” you shot back, low enough that the cameras wouldn’t pick it up, but loud enough for him to feel every ounce of your sarcasm. “Try not to throw your back out posing for these guys.”

His fingers tightened for a split second before he let go, stepping back just enough to keep up appearances without strangling you on the spot.

God, you infuriated him.

The problem with you wasn’t that you were reckless. Or loud. Or impossible to shut up once you got going.

The problem was that you were all of those things at the same damn time, and Ben had no fucking clue what to do with that.

It wasn’t like he’d never met a stubborn woman before. Hell, he’d dated them. Slept with them. Been yelled at by them when he inevitably did something to piss them off. But you? You weren’t just stubborn. You were a force. Well, literally. Your superpowers were one of a kind. Energy absorption — like a freaking human battery. You could take a hit, soak up the energy, and throw it right back when you felt like it.

Both physically and linguistically, really.

So yeah, an unstoppable, immovable and downright insufferable force.

And for some goddamn reason, you’d decided to point that force directly at him.

The reporters were eating it up. To them, it probably looked like playful banter — two teammates ribbing each other like old friends. But anyone who’d spent five minutes in a room with you two knew better. (If they got out alive.)

This wasn’t friendly.

This was war.

The afterparty was somehow worse.

You’d managed to ditch Ben for a grand total of ten glorious minutes before he found you again, like a goddamn heat-seeking missile. He spotted you across the room, chatting with some low-level Vought exec who was trying a little too hard to flirt, and you saw that familiar tick in his jaw start up again.

Great.

One, two, three—

You barely had time to brace yourself before Ben shoved his way between you and the exec, his infuriatingly broad shoulders cutting off your view like a wall of smug masculinity.

“Beat it, pencil dick” Ben snapped, not even sparing the guy a glance.

The exec sputtered, muttering something about getting a drink, but you didn’t miss how fast he bolted in the opposite direction. You sighed, crossing your arms and glaring up at Ben.

“Wow” you deadpanned. “Real subtle. You jealous or just an asshole?”

(Both, actually.)

Ben snorted, grabbing a drink from a passing tray and downing it in one go. “Like I give a fuck who you talk to.”

You raised an eyebrow, refusing to back down. “Could’ve fooled me.”

The tension between you was thick enough to choke on, but neither of you moved. This was the dance you’d been doing since day one — pushing, pulling, seeing who’d crack first. And Ben? He hated that he hadn’t figured out how to make you fall in line yet.

“Look” he finally growled, leaning in close enough that you could smell the whiskey on his breath. “You think you’re hot shit ‘cause Vought’s got you playing dress-up and kissing babies for the cameras. But out there?” He jabbed a finger toward the door, his eyes narrowing. “You’re still just a rookie. You’ve got nothing on me.”

You tilted your head, your smile slow and dangerous. “You done?”

He opened his mouth to say something else but you didn’t give him the chance.

Cause listen up, asshole.

“Because the way I see it” you continued, stepping in until there was barely an inch between you, “you’re pissed that I’m here. Not because I’m a rookie. Not because I’m new. But because for the first time in your miserable, overhyped, long-ass life, someone’s not kissing your ass.”

His nostrils flared, and for a second, you thought he might actually lose it. You could almost see the steam coming out of his ears as his fists were clenching at his sides like he was trying to hold himself back from decking you right then and there.

But he didn’t.

Instead he spun on his heel and stormed off, shoving people out of his way like a very handsome and very furious wrecking ball.

And you just watched him go, grinning from ear to ear like the cat that ate the canary.

The next morning, you were rudely awakened by a pounding on your hotel room door that sounded like the goddamn apocalypse.

You groaned, dragging yourself out of bed and stumbling to the door in nothing but an oversized t-shirt. You yanked it open, ready to chew out whoever was dumb enough to wake you up this early — only to come face-to-face with Ben, looking like he hadn’t slept a wink. And not because of his usual use of night escort service.

His hair was even a mess which was uncharacteristic of him, his eyes bloodshot, and his jaw clenched so tight you were surprised he hadn’t shattered a molar.

“Oh good” you muttered, rubbing the sleep from your eyes. “It’s you. I was worried it might be someone important.”

Ben didn’t even blink. He just shoved his way into your suite, slamming the door shut behind him.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he snapped, turning on you with a glare that could’ve melted steel.

You arched an eyebrow, unfazed. “You’re gonna have to be more specific, gramps. With the country? The government? Vought? My maid service? I’ve got a lot of problems.”

He took a step closer, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “You think you’re so fucking funny, huh? Running your mouth like you’re hot shit.”

You crossed your arms, matching his glare with one of your own. “Funny how you keep showing up if I’m such a pain in the ass.”

That did it.

Ben exploded, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, his hands flying as he ranted.

“You’re fucking impossible!” he shouted. “Every goddamn time I try to put you in your place, you just come back with more of that bullshit! You don’t know when to quit!”

You watched him for a moment, letting him stew in his own frustration before you spoke.

“Maybe because I don’t need to quit” you said quietly, but with enough steel in your voice to make him stop dead in his tracks. “You’re used to people backing down. To people being scared of you. But guess what, Ben? I can call you that, right? Anyway, Ben, I’m not scared of you. I’m not impressed. And I’m sure as hell not gonna roll over just because you bark loud.”

He stared at you, his chest heaving, his face a mix of confusion and rage. You could see it in his eyes — the war going on in his head. He didn’t know what to do with you. He didn’t know how to handle you.

And that scared him more than he’d ever admit.

For a long, tense moment, the room was silent except for the sound of his heavy breathing. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel and punched a hole straight through the wall of your hotel room.

Plaster rained down around his fist, dusting the floor like snow.

You blinked, staring at the hole in the wall, then back at him.

“Well” you said dryly, “that’s one way to deal with your feelings.”

Ben yanked his hand out of the wall, flexing his fingers like nothing had happened. He shot you one last murderous glare before storming out of your suite, slamming the door behind him so hard the walls shook.

You stood there for a moment, staring at the door, then burst out laughing.

Yeah.

This was gonna be fun.

Later that day, Vought had the nerve to send you both to a live TV interview.

You showed up to the studio with a smug grin, still riding high from the morning’s meeting. Ben, on the other hand, looked like he’d been chewing on glass all day.

The host was a a perky blonde with a smile so fake and sweet it made your teeth hurt. She ushered you both onto the couch, vibrating with excitement.

“We are so thrilled to have the stars of Vought’s latest blockbuster here with us today!” she gushed once the red dot appeared on the sign. It was showtime. Her eyes darted between you and Ben. “Soldier Boy, Y/S/N, thank you for coming to chat with us. Now, rumor has it you two have quite the dynamic on and off-screen. Tell us about it!”

Ben grunted, crossing his arms and staring at the floor like the couch might swallow him whole, but he quickly tried to compose himself. He ain’t gonna look like a fool on live television because of some bratty little chick he can’t fucking tame.

You, however, leaned forward with a grin disguised as a pageant queen’s smile.

“Oh, dynamic is one way to put it” you purred, shooting Ben a sideways glance. Your smile and bright tone was just as fake as the host’s tits and nose, but she didn’t catch any of it. Nobody did, other than Soldier Boy. “I’d say it’s more like… explosive.”

The host giggled like you’d told the funniest joke in the world, absolutely and endearingly oblivious to the murderous tension simmering between you and Ben.

“Well, whatever it is” she said brightly, “the fans love it. There’s already talk of a sequel!”

Ben’s eye twitched.

A sequel? A fucking sequel?

And nobody was man enough to inform him before this?

He didn’t hate being near you, but damn, sometimes he felt like diving off a bridge and staying underwater until even his superhuman lungs gave out.

You were a problem he couldn’t solve, a riddle that pissed him off just by existing. Did he keep playing this stupid cat-and-mouse game? Try to break you, make you bend? Or should he switch it up, try something different? Because every time you were near, there was this part of his brain that got dangerously louder and louder.

He wanted to throttle you. He wanted to bend you over the coffee table right in front of you. He wanted to fucking tame you.

But most of all, he just wanted you.

And he felt absolutely crazy for that.

You smirked. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realized you were having the time of your life driving him absolutely fucking batshit insane.

Because the truth was, Ben could huff and puff all he wanted. He could punch holes in walls, snap at everyone around him and act like the world’s biggest hardass.

However, at the end of the day, he couldn’t ignore you.

And one thing was damn sure.

He was gonna die trying to fuck this attitude out of you.

Alright, I love love LOVE the way Ben and the reader interacts. 😭😭 I had so much fun writing this, it’s insane.

Hope you enjoyed, love!

xx Pam

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

When it comes to miraculous and how the holders get chosen to be heroes, I just don't really like it. It's literally "hey kid. Here's a magical jewelry that makes you into a hero for this time. Why you? Because you happened to be the closest and I may or may not be friends with you in my civilian form."

Since Miraculous Ladybug is suppose to be influenced by magical girl shows, why not make it so the holders need to show themselves worthy of the gods (kwamis) and they become the new chosen one. Making it more special and less "you're a hero now, but we can simply use your miraculous ourselves or give it to someone else if you're not available, but it's still yours." Like, really? One magical girl franchise I like the getting chosen trope in is Precure. There the girls show themselves worthy to become a precure and their transformation item actually gets linked with their souls, so only them can use them.

That would have been a better way in miraculous, the heroes actually getting chosen by a higher force and are the only ones able to use the miraculous. And with the butterfly, like I suggested previously. Make it different from a miraculous, or have an evil force choose Gabe because of his sorrow over losing Emelie.

In other words, Miraculous Ladybug should take inspiration from precure and other magical girl shows when it comes to being chosen to become a hero.

I will give canon a little grace for how Marinette and Adrien got their miraculous. While I fully agree that it feels too easy, Origins only had ~45 minutes to do everything it needed to do. In that context, speed running the miraculous acquisition make sense. I would have personally implied that Fu already had Marinette and Adrien in mind somehow, but I can forgive canon for not doing that and just add it in as a somewhat forced headcanon. Fu goes on to be Adrien's backup Mandarin tutor, after all. Maybe he'd done that before or maybe Adrien's usual tutor is Fu's informant about potential candidates since they clearly have a relationship of some kind. Either way, It's an easy enough fix and there are plenty of ways Fu could have met Marinette pre-canon.

I'm way more judgmental of the way the temp heroes were chosen. The show had seasons to set up these characters as the perfect choices for their various miraculous and yet most of it feels incredibly last minute. Rose is about the only character who feels like she was perfectly setup for her miraculous. Everyone else feels interchangeable. Outside of Anansi, I don't think that Nino ever acts like a protector. And Alya's tendency to jump to conclusions has been shown as a bad thing, not a strength, making her a questionable choice for Illusion. If that was always the plan, then she should have been shown to come up with logical, good-quality stories and not stories like, "Chloe has a spotted yo-yo so she's obviously Ladybug even though that makes zero sense for her character."

I also fully agree that the kwamis should be the ones who make the call. The guardian is just there to protect the miraculous and pick potential holders that are then presented to the kwamis who make the final yes or no choice. But then, there are a lot of elements of the kwamis writing that bother me. Canon basically presents them as slaves who have to do whatever they're told. They just have to hope that their current master is a good one. I get why the choice was made - they needed to explain why Nooroo couldn't escape - but I personally come up with other ways to explain that element while keeping the other kwamis free when I'm doing anything lore heavy. The only way I'd keep the slavery aspect is if I was actually going to address it in the story as I'm personally of the opinion that slaves should only be introduced if you plan to free them especially in the context of children's shows. (Yes, they're fine in historical settings and dark settings and probably a few others, too. Don't be pedantic.)

[wishcamper]

happy @sjmromanceweek!

here is my entry for day three: First "I Love You

Under the Egg Moon

A modern Nessian AU ft archaeologist!Nesta and boat captain!Cassian

Read here or on ao3!

CW: explicit consensual sexual content

---

wishcamper lore: when i was a college student (re: lost as fuck, re: no long-term thinking) through a series of random events i ended up on an archaeological dig in Cyprus. much of this fic is inspired by that summer, including a lot of the details of dig life, schedules, antagonistic animals, and how it ping-pongs from utterly boring to genuinely life-changing. and while i was unfortunately too consumed with my shitty boyfriend to hook up with the hot boat captain, fiction has the power to right all wrongs. and now: her.

(See the end of the work for more notes!)

Nesta sends a curse to whatever god made the sun so fucking hot.

She hopes it isn’t the one the ancient peoples of this island once worshiped, because she really needs this dig to be productive. But six weeks in the Cesere summer and all they have to show for it are a few shards of pottery, a blank amulet, and a fuckton of dirt. Not enough to write anything publishable, and nowhere close to what she needs to get funded for another year.

Nesta makes another pass over her three-by-three section, pickax chipping away one centimeter-thick layer of red earth at a time.

The trappings of a productive site are all here—isolated island off the mainland, no way to reach it except by boat. The ruins even abut a protected wildlife area, some ancestral seagull nesting ground, though the birds haven’t gotten the memo about leaving their side of the island alone. Every surreptitious trip into the high grass to use the bathroom becomes a WWII style air raid, feathery Luftwaffe dive-bombing from above.

She sends a curse to them, too.

“Let’s break here,” Nesta pants, and Gwyn nods from where she squints over her theodolite. At least they’ll have a CG map of the building’s visible walls by the end of the summer, if nothing else.

“I can’t tell if my eyes are wobbling or there’s an impeding earthquake.” Gwyn swipes a freckled arm across her forehead.

“It would get us out of explaining this fucking fiasco.”

A sharp pull on the whistle around her neck and a relieved groan echoes across from every corner of the excavation pit. Sweat-soaked students pour the last of their water bottles over their heads before they begin to pack all their equipment into thick black tubs. Nesta makes her way over to their makeshift staging area under a tarp to survey the artifacts from the day: more random shards of pottery, and a rock vaguely shaped like a triangle.

“I thought it looked like an arrowhead,” a sandy-haired boy offers as he hovers behind her. She should really get better with names.

“It’s a rock,” Nesta assures him. “And no one used stone arrows in the era we’re studying, anyway.”

Whatshisname deflates. Then works himself back up again, clearly having practiced whatever speech comes next.

“Dr. Archeron, do you think we could have the day off tomorrow?” he asks.

Nesta feels the expression fall over her face—the one that sends students shuffling from her office mumbling apologies after she makes her stance on grade-grubbing very clear.

“No.”

“It’s just that there’s this concert in Greater Cesere tonight, and we've already figured out the carpool—”

“I don’t care how hungover you are. You’re expected at the dock at 5:45, just like every morning.”

“Yeah. Of course.” His eyes go shifty. “We’ll all be there.”

This is the part of the dig when the less-dedicated get squirrely, when they get tired of instant coffee and dirt in their teeth and lizards in their beds. Nesta knows it’s normal, but she feels the heat rise in her throat, their mission on the edge of a chasm of underfunded failure. It would feel good to tear into him, but there are course evals to think of, after all.

“Go help Dr. Berdara with the surveying equipment,” she grouses instead.

“Yes, Dr. Archeron.”

Whatshisname scurries off. Nesta can’t help but smirking to herself, knowing she’s just given him enough fodder to become the prince of whatever night out they’re about to have, enough sympathy to get laid, even.

As a woman among arrogant Indiana Jones cosplayers, the scary reputation is a necessary evil. As is the horrid plod down the side of the island where their boat awaits, laden with trowels and tarps and empty jugs of water.

The Ceserean Historical Bureau earns the curse for that one.

Everything in, everything out, every day.

What a fucking mess.

But nothing this summer compares to the utter disaster that waves from the bow of the modest motorboat. Every six-foot-four, tanned, tattooed bit of him.

“Find any treasure today?” Cassian asks, as always. Nesta ignores the hand he offers to help her onboard, brushing past to take her usual seat in the back.

She made the mistake the first morning of sitting on the bow of The Windhaven, wanting to be visible among her students, a guidepost. But it put her directly in the line of burning hazel eyes, ones that danced with all of the terrible things Nesta would let him do to her if she gave less of a shit.

She needs to ask Emerie about curse tablets after the next department meeting.

“There’s a legend about this island, you know.” Cassian hops up onto the side of the boat and braces against the center console, students streaming to and fro. “That it used to be the nest of a great bird. One day an egg appeared, only it never hatched. A wave came and swept it into the sky, where it became the moon.”

“Charming. Wish the birds up there now had a bit more reverence.”

“Are you using the trick I taught you?”

She boarded one afternoon with a nick on her ear from not dodging quickly enough. Cassian advised her to hold a metal dustpan over her head. Nesta felt like an idiot the first time, but even she had to admit that it worked.

What didn’t work was how flustered she got when he insisted on cleaning her cut, weathered hands so gentle when they brushed her skin.

“I see.” That idiotic smirk made her cheeks heat. “You are, but you’re mad about it.”

And as the boat bumps through the surf back to shore, Nesta tries to convince herself of anything but that.

After their first week on the dig, she and Gwyn shared a very drunken and giggly night when Nesta confessed her attraction to their roguish captain. It’s been a while since she’s really had her world rocked, and the breakneck pace of the semester left opportunities for dating thin on the ground. Gwyn decided he would manhandle her like the flowing-haired men on the covers of grocery store harlequin romances. They’d laughed and laughed as the bottle of brandy drained, quoting their favorite lines from the days they’d get stoned with Emerie and do dramatic readings to stave off grad school delirium.

His growls of pleasure filled the tent,  drowning out the screams of the wounded and dying.  

“But Cassian would definitely put those big-ass hands to good use,” Gwyn affirmed. “Respectfully. Like pulling up an anchor.”

What a horrible mistake. Now it’s all Nesta can think about as the big-ass hand in question closes around her upper arm once they disembark, once the students are busy grumbling in the apothiki.

“Go out with me tonight.”

Cassian is smiling crookedly, as if ready to protect his face with a dustpan if this doesn’t go well.

“No,” Nesta answers without thinking. It’s not worth the trouble, especially with her own crew on the verge of mutiny. It's not the first time he's asked, and it won't be the last. Cassian’s smile widens, undeterred.

“Stay in with me, then.”

A huff escapes her, and he’s still holding her arm, somehow hotter than the sun that's driving rivulets of sweat down her back.

“Your students will all be gone, I heard them talking about that show in Greater Cesere.”

Nesta swallows.

“No one has to know.” He’s inches from her now, so tall he casts a shadow over her face. “You should see the things we do in my dreams.”

Fantasies flash through her mind, that strong body pressing her back against a door. Cassian’s full lips on her neck, hands roaming lower.

Wanting, wanting so thick and sharp it almost hurts spears its way through her. The desires Nesta pushes away come roaring back, an angry sea kept at bay by the levees she’s built around her heart. The hard outer shell, the layers of dirt under which she’s buried the very idea of wanting.

It’s an escape for her, rifling through the lives of people long-dead. There are parts of the past she’d like to let go of. Childhood shit, disappointing men. Hurts too unwieldy to even think in words. Her sister Feyre says Nesta is an ice queen, but she feels more like a golem, a being of earth and stone piloted only by what’s expected of her.

Nesta doesn’t get to want this. Can’t stand the idea of it being used against her.

“Ignorance is my only refuge, then.”

His eyebrow quirks, and there’s a scar through it, she notices, a tiny slash where the hair no longer grows. Cassian is looking at her like she’s just revealed something, though she can’t imagine what. A lemon-scented wind blows through the docks, setting the boats to rocking. Setting her heart to galloping.

What a mess.

“See you in the morning, Dr. Archeron,” Cassian says before releasing her, sauntering back toward The Windhaven to prep it for the next day.

After clearing the bathroom of its resident lizards, Nesta spends the next hour letting a cool shower hit her in the face, trying to determine what on earth he’s just discovered.

At dawn, the dock at is deserted.

“Of course. Of fucking course!” Nesta grouses as she throws her hands in the air. “I’m failing all those little shits.”

“Cmon Nes,” Gwyn says blearily, rubbing at her eyes. “We’ve been going nonstop for weeks. They deserve to let off a little steam.”

Good professor showing up again to play her part. Gwyn has always been the more forgiving of the two of them. Nesta rips out the rubber band to redo her braid, hair already frizzing in the humid morning air.

“They can do that at the dig wrap party. At this rate there won’t be anything to celebrate.”

“What are we celebrating?”

As if summoned by her ire, Cassian appears then, swinging his boat keys on a long lanyard. Curly black hair flows down to his shoulders, hips loose in the swagger of a man who’s either been up for hours or never went to bed at all.

Gwyn beams. “The dig party next week! You’re invited! Everyone who’s helped out can come, not just us. We couldn’t have done this without you!”

“Which isn’t saying much. Can we get going?” Nesta says impatiently. “I’d like to get this day over with before I want to kill anyone else.”

Cassian grins and fall into step with Nesta as they trudge toward the storehouse, murmuring, “I thought I was the only one you wanted to kill, sweetheart.”

Nesta has to concentrate hard on the rocky path beneath them, to keep from tripping.

It takes a while to shuttle all the equipment from the apothiki with only three of them, and by the time the mainland starts to recede Nesta is sweaty, grouchy, and already plotting the anti-recommendation letters she’ll write when asked.

She doesn’t want to care this much, to be this hurt. Maybe that’s why she accepts Cassian’s offer to help them disembark after only two refusals. It’s definitely not because his biceps look delicious when he hefts a plastic tub full of Gwyn’s surveying equipment over his head, tanned thighs flexing under faded shorts as he climbs the steep slope.

And how is she supposed to refuse his curious questions after that, when he’s looking around the empty dirt pit like he’s never seen something so interesting? When he picks up a chisel and says, Put me to work, Doc, in that magical, wavy accent, how is she supposed to say no?

Nesta blames her students.

They go to work in the same corner where she was toiling yesterday. Nesta shows him how to read the earth for signs of disturbance, the right pressure to apply to his pickax. He’s a fast learner, thank god, and he tells her about his childhood on the mainland while they sift through layers of nothing, leading to a very unfortunate discovery.

Cassian is funny. And not like the men in Velaris she’s used to who think they’re funny, who took an improv class once and think that qualifies them to muse about taking up stand-up comedy for the next decade. He’s quick, unruffled by the heat and the boredom, perfectly content to narrate their work from the perspective of the seagulls like the two of them are subject of a nature documentary. Nesta thinks the day would be entirely wasted if not for the laughs he pulls from her creaky lungs, the ones no one outside her close friends have heard in years.

It's dangerous, to get so carried away. The earth blurs before her, panic igniting even as she never wants this to stop.

Until she chips away in one spot, and a pinkish shard of pottery emerges.

The piece is strange, disjointed. A seam runs through the middle as if it’s been repaired, three small holes drilled in a triangular pattern. She picks up another piece and finds the same just as Cassian brushes away at a grooved stone, a pair of praying hands etched into the surface.

“That’s the symbol for the Mother.” Bits of information whiz through her brain, snippets of lectures and articles. She’s seen a piece like this before at the National Museum of Velaris, in their room dedicated to the ancient Cesereans.

“It’s a hearthstone.” The kind that only sat in permanent dwellings, the heart of a house. Nesta can’t hold back the tremble in her voice when her eyes connect with Cassian’s and she says, “We’re in the kitchen.”

Excitement crackles.

As if traveling through time, Nesta sees in her imagination how it must’ve risen around them.

And the pottery shard she’s still holding starts to take shape too, the form of a bowl following the curves, layers of time peeling back. And despite what her undergrad Classics professor said, peering into the past is not at all like looking down into a well.

It’s like a hand reaching out and grabbing hers. Thrilling and terrifying, the long stretch of history condensed to a door that’s just been opened.

“Look at this,” she says, tracing the line as Cassian hovers over her shoulder. “It broke, and someone repaired it. Turned it into a strainer.” No visitor would’ve bothered. “Think about the last person who touched this.”

Nesta pictures a woman washing apricots, like the ones candied in sugar she eats from the fruit stall when they get off the dig site every day. Of the mug Emerie bought her on clearance in an airport that says I’m a pretty big deal in the spearfishing community, the one she glued the handle back onto because it makes her laugh so much. She pictures someone digging that mug from the wreckage of Velaris two thousand years from now, holding that mended handle and laughing, too.

Cassian’s eyes are bright when she steals a glance back at him, emotion shimmering.

“I could be related to them.”

“You could.”

He swipes at his face, arm coming away wet. Clears his throat. “Why would someone come all the way out here?”

“That’s the question. It must’ve been significant.”

Her theory is that some ritual activity occurred here, she tells him. Watches a quiet admiration creep across his face as she details her rationale. Whether he understands a word of it or not, she can feel the pull between their bodies, the dusty air charged between them.

“They had lives and feelings,” Nesta finds herself saying. “They wanted things. I think that deserves to be remembered.”

Cassian keeps staring at her in that sun-bright way, and Nesta doesn’t know what they’re talking about anymore. Doesn’t know what to do when he reaches to take her hand, closing his own around it and the pottery shard she still holds.

“Thank you for this.” Gravel lines his voice, and she wants to run it through a sifter to find all the meaning inside. “I’m glad none of your students showed up today.”

“Why, so you can take credit?”

“No. I don’t want to share this with anyone else.” He’s blocking out the glare now, leaving her cool in his shadow. “You make me feel greedy, Nesta.”

A gull cries far-off, but Nesta can only hear the sound of her own heart racing. Cassian tips his head toward the sun and it shines down on his smiling face, warming down through the stone.

It’s only the beginning, more and more pieces unearthed from the ruins of the kitchen over the rest of the morning, a veritable treasure trove. He helps them load everything into apothiki once ashore, whistling as he carries out Nesta’s militant instructions. With an eye on the door for hungover students, Cassian pulls her in with sea-rough hands and kisses her like he wants to do much more.

His mouth tastes like earth.

Nesta doesn’t sleep that night. Instead she catalogs every piece as a high moon rises, a waxing gibbous near to hatching.

The dig wrap party is euphoric, and not just because everyone’s been over-served. There are bigwigs from the Historical Bureau here to marvel over their finds, a whole kitchen’s worth, and the students can see the dollars raining down like the leaves of the cypress trees strung with lights.

It should feel good. Better than this, anyway, because as Nesta nurses her lone glass of wine, she can’t help wondering why the place inside her that should be swollen with pride is empty.

An old feeling, one she’s never been able to make sense of.

“Is your boyfriend here yet?” Gwyn smirks when Nesta shoves at her friend’s shoulder. They don’t have to wait long before a crowd of students forms around one end of the bar, a familiar curly-haired head poking well above the rest.

“Can I steal you?” Cassian says once he finally makes his way over, after extricating himself from a gaggle of doe-eyed undergrads. Nesta feels like she’s swallowed a huge dirt clod, but Gwyn answers for her.

“Of course you can! Nesta hates these things, don’t you, Nes?”

“I do,” Nesta barely manages before his big-ass hand is closing around her own, pulling her out back of the restaurant they’ve rented to a small goat path that leads toward the sea.

The Windhaven bobs in the current, bumping gently against the dock. After many reassurances, Nesta lets him pilot them to a secluded cove, the hull cutting through the black water like a sharpened blade, the past and present dividing.

“The land speaks to you here,” Cassian says when he tosses down the anchor at last, pulling the extra line taut. “I thought you might like to hear what it has to say.”

“Why?”

The wind tugs at the hem of her sundress.

“It’s probably saying thank you. For not letting those people be forgotten.”

He says it so simply, like it’s nothing. Nesta braces her hands against the bow, trying to find some sense in the spaces between the stars.

It’s completely cloudless, and this far out there’s no light pollution, so she can see meteors cascading across the sky like rain. Cassian comes to stand beside her, shoulders brushing.

“Look look, it’s the space station!” he says after a moment, tracking a finger across the sky before he raises a hand and waves. Nesta snorts.

“You know there’s no way the astronauts can see you.”

“I know,” Cassian says, shrugging, and god she wants to kiss him. “But just in case, I don’t want to leave them hanging.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Nesta asks, more harshly than she means to. His answering smile is nervous, tight.

“Cassian.”

“No, I mean—never mind. It doesn't matter.”

It’s a very early mid-life crisis. It must be. Why else should she be so fixated on the way this weird-ass man’s mind works, how he seems to find wonder in the smallest things? And why is she jealous?

This is a mistake, undoubtedly. Nesta has ground herself down to the bone to get where she is. Fought her way through school, through the sludge of academia, been called difficult and prickly and a bitch in her quest to be taken seriously. Worn every label as a badge of bloody honor. Suffocated the part of her that just wants to let go and say fuck it all, to do something she wants instead of what she has to.

"Doesn't it?"

Cassian is backlit by the half moon glinting off the water, stray curls springing free from the bun atop his head.

And then he’s kissing her, and his mouth tastes like lemon and something else, something addictive. It’s the brandy sours that are as bizarre as they are popular here, that Nesta now doesn’t know how she’s gone so long without. Her fingers skate down skin so warm, like it’s drunk in the sunlight and trapped it inside him.

“Nes,” he breathes once they finally part, and she digs her nails into his shoulders, drawing a sharp inhale.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Yes, Dr. Archeron.”

Exhaustion collides with her better judgment, and Nesta pushes him back to sit on the bow, swings a leg over his hips so she’s straddling his lap. Plunges her hands into all that lush, dark hair, and says, “Fuck it.”

It all flows from somewhere deep within her, the brush of hands against skin, lips against lips. She stays so locked away, never allowed to feel the good things she works so hard to achieve. Locked up, locked out, looking into everything that feels like it should belong to her but she can never reach.

Nesta doesn’t know why this is the moment everything shifts for her, and even when she looks back years later it’ll never quite make sense. The alchemy of the island breeze, the deep black night between the stars, all greater than the sum of its parts.

And she lets herself have it. Each wicked, wild bit of her comes out of their dark corners and she’s laughing, head tipped back in euphoria and who the fuck cares that she has no idea where her bra is, whether or not she’ll get tenure. It doesn’t fucking matter. There’s value in being stupid, she thinks, wondering why she’s tried all this time to be so smart.

“You look like you’re swimming in a sea of stars,” Cassian says, looking up at her. Nesta smiles when he tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, fingers of his other hand tangling with hers.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a poet.”

The half moon hangs above them, cracked open.

“Every man can be a poet with the right inspiration.”

His hands are on her breasts then, pinching and squeezing, and she doesn’t have to force the moans that travel up her throat. They sound different like this, when they’re not for show.

It’s a kind of madness, being touched by Cassian. Like he’s weaving some spell through every cell in her body, enchanting them all to crave him, to want more more more even as she can barely take it.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” he insists between nips at her throat, the sensitive spot behind her ear.

“No, but I’m feeling good about myself tonight so I’ll guess it was the first time you saw me.”

He laughs against her chest, hands squeezing her hips. “Close. It was the first time I watched you walk away.” Cassian squeezes her hips again for emphasis, roaming down to grab a handful of her ass.

“I should’ve left you on the island.”

“Good. Then you’d have to come back for me.”

Of course he has a condom in the boat’s center console, and he grins when she rolls her eyes.

“Sailors have to be prepared, I suppose?”

“I’m a poet, not a saint, sweetheart.”

The boat rocks them both as she sinks down onto his lap again. All velvety, warm softness in the night air, the breeze dancing, swirling upward, igniting.

They both want to go slow, want to savor it, but their discipline is beginning to tire. Nesta can’t help picking up her pace, fissures of pleasure splitting her apart. She tells herself there will be time to indulge later, hoping it’s not a lie.

It’s not.

Students trickle out over the next few days, flights home or to other far-flung destinations to decompress before fall semester. Nesta pushes her flight back once, and then again. It’s hard to remember why she wants to go back, when everything she’s been looking for is right here.

They swim in grottos, pick lemons from the tree outside his door and spritz them over fresh-caught fish, in the brandy sours she’s finally perfected. One night he licks the juice off her finger before hoisting her onto the counter, going to his knees between her spread thighs a moment later, his favorite place to be.

“I’ll visit you,” Cassian promises against her skin when they’re splayed out in his bed later, her temporary home the last two weeks. “I’ll do whatever it takes so this doesn’t end here.”

I love you, Nesta thinks as they stand outside his car at the Arrivals gate. Doesn’t say it, because this isn’t a fucking Hallmark movie. You haven’t been able to see someone off inside the airport in twenty years. No one is running past families and old ladies and men with briefcases, but they still kiss just as desperately amidst the smell of gasoline from idling cars, the unrelenting eye of the midday sun.

I love you.

She’s not ready to unearth it yet. It sits quietly beneath to soil of her mind, waiting to be dug up.

But the shape of the thought must reach him, for when he pulls back, Cassian smiles like he already knows.

Nesta smiles too, in case whoever’s strainer is packed in her carry-on can feel it travel down her arm through the handle, in case the astronauts are up there somewhere in the blue, smiling back.

Notes:

History fun facts: the amulet mentioned in the beginning is not always what we typically think of as a talisman or protective charm. some amulets during the Ptolemaic period served more like seals or signatures, where a carving would be done in the bottom of a small stone block. The amulet could then be dipped in ink and stamped on contracts, letters, and bills of sale. Many amulets have been found with holes drilled through the top, suggesting they may have been worn on strings around the neck or on a belt. Very helpful for lay people who didn’t know how to write. I also chose Cesere as the fictional location as a nod to the actual dig site I worked on, which was a temple of Apollo commissioned by Cleopatra. She commissioned a number of them across Cyprus to commemorate the birth of her son, Caesarion, whose father of course was Julius Caesar. Historical record tells us these temples were places where young boys (age 3-4) would go for the first time to spend the night away from their mothers. There they would engage in various rituals and ceremonies to symbolize their transition, kind of like Boy Scout camp. During the dig I found a blank amulet, which suggests people could’ve been carving them on the island, perhaps a token of the boys’ entry into the next phase of life. Caesarion himself was named co-ruler of the Egypt by Cleopatra in 44BC, at the age of 3. He unfortunately only lived to the age of 16/17, when he was captured by Julius Caesar’s successor, Octavion, in Alexandria (Caesar had already burned the library by this point). Upon Caesarion’s capture, Octavion is purported to have said “"Too many Caesars is not good”, a play on the famous Homeric idiom “too may rulers is not good”, aka too many cooks in the kitchen. After conquering Alexandria, Octavion likely had Caesarion executed to avoid challenges to his status as emperor, ending the once-powerful Ptolemaic dynasty and officially absorbing Egypt into the Roman Empire. Finally, the mug Nesta mentions is based on a real-life mug I thought of the first time I pulled a piece of Cypriot sigillata out of the ground. Only mine was a 2008 Sarah Palin mug my dad found at the airport in Anchorage. Yes, I still have it.

[dystopicjumpsuit]

Update 2025/2/10

I was really hoping to never have to update this post again, but...

Yeah.

TLDR: my partner's medical issues in the previous post have come back, and we now know that it's genetic and incurable. It can be managed with medication, so if they make it through the next several weeks, their prognosis is good.

I'm not taking a formal hiatus, but I will be much less active, and I can no longer commit to any kind of posting or writing schedule. I'll update if and when I'm able, but right now I don't have the mental or emotional energy to create, nor do I feel any spark of inspiration.

More info below the cut for anyone who's curious.

My partner noticed a recurrence of one of their symptoms on Feb. 2. They set up an appointment with their doctor as quickly as possible, and unfortunately confirmed that the problem was back and once again life-threatening. They ran a battery of tests over the next few days and also confirmed that in my partner's case, this is genetic and will never resolve. All we can do is try to get through the immediate danger in the next few weeks, and once those are past, we'll transition to a treatment plan for the rest of their life.

The medication has side effects of its own, but since the alternative is basically a death sentence, we don't really have an option.

In some ways, it's almost a relief to have this diagnosis: it means we can take precautions to avoid it becoming life-threatening in the future, and it reassures us that it was entirely outside our control. Lifestyle and environment are not factors in this case; it's purely a matter of genetics. Which sucks, but at least it makes us stop questioning ourselves and asking What could we have done differently to prevent this? The answer is nothing. It was always going to happen.

All of this comes at a time when we are trying to navigate a massive life change that requires an intense amount of planning and coordination, so we were already stressed from that. On top of which, as I am a federally funded employee and a member of several minoritized groups that are being actively targeted by the incumbent administration, the past three weeks have been a nonstop barrage of executive orders that directly affect the safety and livelihood of myself and/or my loved ones. It feels like I wake up every single day to a reminder that I am unwelcome in this country.

It's probably no surprise, then, that I have been unable to write or draw for some time now. I'm not sure if or when I will feel inspired again. That said, I'm not going to take a formal hiatus. All of these stressors appear to be of indefinite duration, and I don't want to give up something that brings me as much joy and escapism as Star Wars and this fandom. So I'll still be around (albeit in a significantly reduced capacity), and hopefully I'll still have some stories in me in the future. I will likely be slow to respond to messages and tags, but I will do my best. I only ask that you be patient with me if it takes several days for me to get back to you.

Big hugs to you all, and I hope life is treating you kindly. 🩵

Hiatus announcement.

Hi friends. I've got some stuff I need to focus on in my personal life right now, and I'm not able to balance that with keeping up with Tumblr and Discord. I'll be taking a hiatus starting immediately. I'm not sure when I'll be back, but hopefully it won't be too long. If you have submitted a request for a fic, design, or artwork, please know I'll do my absolute best to fill it when I'm back, but for now, I need to be present in my real life.

I love you all, and I'll miss you, and I can't wait to come back! I'll put a few more details below the cut in case you're interested. CW for medical issues.

My partner has been unwell recently, and this week, we discovered that they have a blood clot in their leg. Further testing revealed they have a serious heart condition. Unfortunately, they also have a preexisting vascular condition that makes blood thinners risky, but their PCP went ahead and prescribed a three-month course of medication for the clot since it's an immediate issue. We are waiting to hear if insurance will cover the meds; apparently this prescription gets rejected by insurers frequently due to the cost. (Thinking about the fact that some analyst in a cubicle could decide that my partner's life is worth less than a three-month course of medication is making me feel absolutely sick.)

They have more appointments scheduled with a cardiologist and a vascular surgeon, so for now, we're just kind of stuck in limbo. Their PCP gave us a long list of, "If x happens, go to the emergency room immediately. If y happens, go to the emergency room immediately. If z happens - you guessed it - go to the emergency room immediately."

At this point, I'm still trying to come to terms with it. My partner just turned 44. We have an active lifestyle; we eat healthfully; we don't drink to excess. We just got fucked over by genetic risk factors.

The scariest part is that we wouldn't have found out about any of this if they hadn't gone to the doctor for a completely unrelated issue. I'm trying not to think about it too hard, or my imagination starts to send me into a spiral.

Please allow me to get sappy for a moment:

If you've read much of my work, you probably know my partner better than you might think, as they inspire a lot of my characterization, either directly or indirectly. If you enjoyed the way I wrote Waxer in "The Sixth Language" or Jesse in "In Which Jesse Gets What He Deserves," then you have a good idea of their personality. They are extraordinarily kind and patient, funny and sweet. They have been here for me consistently for twenty years, first as my friend, and later as my everything. They've held me when I cried, and they've made me laugh every single day since I met them. They know me better than anyone in the world, and I trust them with my soul.

They are the only person IRL who even knows that I write fanfiction, and they have read every single fic I've ever written. They've served as my guinea pig when I needed to work through the physical mechanics of a scene, and they've listened to me ramble for hours on end about plotting and characterization. They've supported and encouraged me in this and so many other areas, and now it's my turn to support them through this.

If you've read this far, I just want to say thank you for all the love, support, encouragement, and kindness you've given me over the past year. This fandom community has truly changed my life, and I am more grateful than words can communicate. I hope to see you all again very soon, hopefully with good news. But in the meantime, please know that I love you all.

May the Force be with you. 🩵