#i was planning to do this with old movies in general but i didn't remember disney having so many examples so i did this

[hauntedorpheum]

Disney having a gay old time!

+Bonus

[dollfacefantasy]

SINCE YOU'VE BEEN LIKE THIS ♡

pairing: light yagami x fem!reader x l lawliet

summary: you and light have been a pair for as long as you can remember, but lately he's been pulling away. in your time of uncertainty, you end up getting close to l, maybe a little too close. now light's back to normal though, and you're left to figure out how you want to fix the mess you've made.

cw: nsfw (18+), smut, p in v, double penetration, fingering, handjob, threesome, voyeurism/exhibitionism, praise/degradation, infidelity, messy behavior in general, light angst here and there

wc: 19.6k

a/n: finally it is here <3 sorry for the delay, it has been a rough couple weeks. reblogs, comments, and asks are always appreciated <3 also i just have to put out there that my main in mario kart is waluigi till the day i perish 🙏

kinktober slot: day 27 - double penetration

"Light, can you slow down a little? Or at least tell me where we're going?" you called out to your boyfriend walking three paces ahead of you. Three paces he seemed hellbent on keeping between you and him.

He didn't answer your plea. Didn't even spare you a glance. On the contrary, you were pretty sure he sped up ever so slightly.

With a petulant huff, you tried to follow him along the crowded street as best you could. It was just difficult when you didn't really know why you were here or what you were supposed to be looking for. He never kept you well-informed when it came to his plans. Most of the time, you were shocked he even let you tag along at all.

His eyes constantly darted around between groups of people lining the path in the most subtle way. His head didn't move at all, but his pupils bounced around in every direction. Yours remained on his figure. At first, you'd tried glancing around too, but you couldn't figure out for the life of you who or what he was trying to find. You decided to just focus on not getting lost instead.

Bounding up closer to him, your fingers brushed his own. His hands had always been so smooth and soft. No calluses, no blemishes. No mileage at all. You went to intertwine your fingers together. That was when he finally acknowledged you.

He pulled his hand away.

You frowned, choosing to believe it was accidental. That your boyfriend wouldn't reject you so purposefully. You tried again with more intention, clasping with your whole palm rather than hooking pinkies.

His response matched your increased effort. He bent his arm at the elbow and pulled his hand out of your reach, fully removing the opportunity for physical contact. Then, he scowled at you, and his lips curled into that sneer you were becoming more familiar with these days.

"What are you doing? We're here to work," he said, talking to you the same way he talks to anyone else who inconveniences him, "This isn't a date. Try to focus."

"Light, I-" you went to defend yourself. But he cut you off before you got the chance.

"If you're not interested in helping, then stay out of my way," he directed before turning away.

Your lips closed up again, any words wilting away in your throat like a bouquet of old roses. You swallowed the petals down hard. You couldn't get emotional, let alone cry. If you did that, your lover would never let you hear the end of his disappointment.

Your lover. You didn't even know if it was accurate to call him that anymore. More like you were the lover, and he was your beloved. Your Light.

The two of you had been together in a way for as long as you could remember. Friends as children, crushes in your teens, and now as adults, officially boyfriend and girlfriend. You'd wanted this for so long - to say he belonged to you, that you were the ones who owned each other's hearts. But now that you had that, it didn't feel how you imagined it would.

You looked down as you traversed through the crowd. 

The relationship between you and Light didn't feel like a fairy tale. It didn't resemble the romantic movies he used to tease you for liking. You could never imagine him kissing you in the rain or singing some love song or whatever else the guys in those movies did to win back the girls after hurting them.

When Light hurt you, either by brushing you off or saying words cold enough to freeze your pumping heart, he barely even said sorry. He'd give you the look, mutter a "I didn't mean it like that," and if you were lucky, half-hug you and kiss the crown of your head.

He hadn't always been so uncaring. A cloud had cast over him at some point during your teenage years, worse than any usual case of angst. His mental storm seemed to block out any rays of sunlight permanently. In recent months, it had gotten worse. Ever since the start of this investigation. 

The two of you were supposed to be entering the primes of your lives. Enrolled in university, beginning everything together. But he just grew darker by the day, and you didn't know how to stop it. You could feel him dissolving into ash between your fingers. Slipping away while you desperately tried to hold onto whatever you could.

Barbs started to form in your throat and clearing it didn't help any. Reflecting on your crumbling relationship always reduced you to a state of silence or tears. 

You counted the cracks in the street as you walked. It didn't matter to you if you lagged behind and got separated from Light at this point. He made it clear you weren't needed nor wanted. Getting lost wouldn't really mean anything. You could just make your way back to the task force earlier than you'd anticipated. He probably wouldn't even notice your absence.

A few steps ahead, you bumped into his back, earning another glare. He seemed to have come to a dead end in his search. Groaning in frustration, his eyes landed upon you, even harsher than before.

"Don't just stare at me!" he snapped, "Call back to the task force. Let them know we'll be returning soon."

The words struck you as if they were physical arrows. You turned away and pulled out your phone, flipping it open and dialing the number. The tone rang over the painful silence between you two. You tried to choke down any scratchiness your emotions could cause in your voice before someone answered the phone.

Suddenly, a calm voice echoed into your ear.

"Yes?"

L.

"Hi... me and Light will be back soon," you said. The less words you used, the less likely you were to crack.

There was a pause. You wondered if he could tell if something was wrong. You almost hoped that was the case.

"Alright. I take it you two didn't see our target?" he asked.

"No," you answered in the same quiet voice, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I didn't expect the two of you would be successful," he said. His voice was soft, like he truly didn't mind. The exact opposite of your boyfriend's. "We'll talk when the both of you return to the hotel."

He hung up first, and you flipped your phone shut seconds after. Turning to face Light, you found him already staring at you.

"He says he'll talk to us when we come back," you informed him.

All you got in response was a nod. He brushed past you in the direction of the hotel everyone was at for the day. Following along behind him, you didn't say anything. You folded your arms over your chest, not in defiance or anger. It felt defensive.

As you trailed him, the thoughts swirling through your mind consumed most of your attention. Why did you even continue doing this? You were just as much a member of the task force as Light, but he treated you like you were a secretary at best. 

In the past, your father had worked with Mr. Yagami as a detective. You'd grown up in the world of suspects and investigations, taught to solve puzzles since you were old enough to keep yourself upright on your dad's lap at his desk. 

L himself had approved you to work on the Kira investigation independent of that fact. He saw that you could keep up. But still, it felt like everyone treated you as Light's sidekick. You were cute! Smart for a girl. So sweet to dedicate all this time to helping your boyfriend.

By the time you reached the elevator, you were talking yourself up to quitting. You wanted to catch Kira. You believed in this job. But maybe if you cut your losses now, you could still salvage a relationship with Light. Or at least your perception of him. You wouldn't come to resent him if he wasn't yelling at you day in and day out.

You stayed behind him as the two of you walked down the hallway to the room. The lamps lining the walls flickered, making the already dim lighting worse. Your eyes stayed down on your shoes through the entryway and into the room. Light briefly caught up his dad on the day's events, and then you heard that same voice that talked to you over the phone.

You looked up. And suddenly, quitting didn't seem like such a perfect plan.

The syllables of your name rolled off his tongue like smooth billows of smoke. Something fluttered in your belly that you hadn't felt in a while. You used to feel it for Light until every time he spoke your name, it came out with disdain.

L talked, but you only half-registered the words. He was more focused on the points your boyfriend was firing at him anyway. You watched how his dark eyes focused as he absorbed everything about the conversation happening between them.

Your own gaze on him held nothing but admiration. You felt things about L that you wouldn't be able to articulate if asked. At first, you had the same reaction to him that everyone did. You thought he was strange. From the way he sat to his eating habits, you didn't understand him. But over the course of the investigation, you dedicated yourself to trying.

In a way, you looked to him as an aspiration. The pinnacle in the field of investigation. Quite possibly the smartest man in the world (though you'd bet Light would roll his eyes if he heard you say that out loud).

As you watched him now, his crooked posture and jaw rotating while he chewed on some saccharine treat, you began to mentally revise some of your earlier thoughts.

He was the only one who didn't view you as an extension of Light. When you were working with him, you weren't the feminine version of someone else. You were just you.

The only time you believed you deserved to be here just as much as Light was when you were sitting near L. You'd propose an idea or question something, and the way he would look at you made you feel like you weren't just a little kid everyone allowed to play dress up among adults. He'd give you a simple praise. "Nice work," or "Could be. Interesting." And you'd beam like you'd been given a trophy.

Right now though, even his proximity didn't help to brighten your mood. The clouds from your boyfriend snapping at you hadn't cleared just yet.

The conversation occurring in front of you came to a close. Light gave a quick goodbye and then turned to head out after his father. He clearly expected you to follow, but before you could, something else drew your focus. L, saying your name again.

"If you could, may I ask you to stay for a few moments?" he said, expression unchanging.

"What do you need to talk to her for?" Light interjected before you had the chance to answer.

Your head swiveled between the two of them. On one side was L, calm and unbothered by the clipped nature of your boyfriend's voice. On the other was the latter, his mouth twitching with the urge to scowl.

If you didn't know Light as well as you do, you might have thought this was a bout of jealousy. With the current state of things between you two, that might have even made you happy. A sign that he was still invested in you. But you did know him, so you knew that if anything, he was jealous of the fact that L had deemed information suitable for only you.

"It's nothing serious. Just a few questions about some files she brought to my attention last week," L further explained.

You stood there unmoving, as if you needed Light's permission to talk to your teammate. Looking back at him, you waited for some sign of approval.

He glanced at you and then back at the man behind you before shrugging.

"Fine. I'll see you later," he told you, barely saying goodbye as he exited.

The rest of the task force had also cleared the room for the day, leaving you and L in the cool hotel room alone. Your eyes glanced around to distract your mind from the awkwardness of the situation. The tacky pink wallpaper plastered all around you felt like it was closing in at the moment. The only sound between the four walls was the hum of the air conditioner. That was until he waved you over to the sitting area.

"Come here for a second. I wanted to talk to you." His voice sounded as though he didn't feel any of the tension you did.

You followed him as you had followed Light earlier, quiet and lagging behind a few steps. You took a seat on the ivory loveseat against the wall. He slid around the table. You expected him to sit in the chair at the end of the coffee table like he usually did, but instead, he landed next to you on the chiffon cushions. Your heart skipped a beat. You wondered if he was about to give you some sort of bad news. Maybe you'd made a mistake in your work. Maybe you were now a suspect too.

Regardless of what it was, he bent his legs up so his feet rested on the material. His normal crouching position put you at ease.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

You blinked at the question. "Um... no?" you said.

He hummed in acknowledgement. His process of studying one's features was slightly less endearing when you were the target.

"You seem upset. Are you sure you're alright?" he tried again.

"Yeah," you nodded. Your eyes cast down to your lap. "I'm ok, really. I'm sorry if I seem a little off. Just not a great day, I guess."

"Did something happen earlier when you were out?" he said, seeing right through the excuses.

You looked up again, bringing him back into your field of vision. "Not really..." you opted for, though you knew you sounded unconvincing.

"Nothing out of the ordinary?"

"Definitely not out of the ordinary," you sighed before you could stop yourself. Realizing you probably shouldn't have said that, you sunk back against the stiff backing of the sofa.

"What does that mean?" he asked from beside you.

You weren't totally sure why he was going down this line of questioning, but you answered anyway. L had never given you a reason not to trust him.

"It's just stupid stuff. Between me and Light. Nothing you'd want me to bother you with," you shrugged.

"Try me," he said.

You looked at him tentatively.

"Both of you are key members on this task force," he continued, "If something is affecting your ability to work with other members of this team, then I think it's in my best interest to know about it."

A moment of further hesitation passed before you sighed. Your hand rose to your eyes, stretching your fingers over your brow and rubbing at your frustration.

"He just doesn't seem like himself lately," you said, "Or he does, I guess. But he just... he's different with me."

You found your legs pulling closer to your body and your feet perching at the edge of your seat too. Maybe sitting like this did help you think.

"Distant?" L asked from his side of the furniture.

"Sort of... it's like he wants to be distant, but we work together so he can't be. I don't know," you said. You cut yourself short because you could feel your throat beginning to tighten, and you refused to let yourself cry in front of your teammate whose respect you so badly crave.

"Well. The stress of this whole case is probably weighing on Light, especially with him being a suspect..." he said, trailing off in the way he tended to do.

"I guess. It just feels like he can't even stand the sight of me anymore," you said. Your voice cracked the tiniest bit, but you knew he heard it. A shaky breath left you, and you tilted your head back, as if gravity could keep your tears at bay. "Not that long after we started dating, things just got different between us. It's just... disappointing."

The man beside you nodded as if trying to contemplate what to say next. "Have you talked to him about this?"

"Light doesn't do talks like this," you said, barely louder than a whisper.

Another plume of silence rose between the two of you. You swallowed hard, neck still against the back of the couch. Vaguely, you felt the pressure of the seats shifting, the weight on it redistributing.

You took your hand away from your brow and turned your head to find L much closer. His wide eyes stared at you from less than a foot away.

"Someone who cares about you shouldn't be making you so upset," he mused.

To stop your lip from wobbling, you held it between your teeth for a moment. Even though nothing audible came from you, a small drop of water rolled from the outer corner of your eye. Without missing a beat, his thumb came up to wipe it away. If you weren't yearning for someone to care about how you felt, maybe you would have been confused by it. But right then, it felt good.

"He's just so mean now. He was always sharp before but now... he looks at me like he hates me," you whispered.

He seemed to be the one hesitating now. His eyes rested on your features.

"You're an intelligent girl. Light is smart too, of course, but he has no right to order you around or insult you," he said, "I hope you don't feel like you have to put up with that because you work together."

The others had noticed it too then. You hadn't given any specific instances of how he treated you, but he still knew.

"I know I don't have to. I just... I don't know how to be without him," you said, feeling pathetic. You shouldn't need this guy you've only known for such a short amount of time to tell you this stuff. But as he spoke to you with such tenderness, you found yourself wishing he did it more often.

"You know you're a pretty girl. You're sweet and thoughtful. I'm sure there's a lot of people who would feel lucky if you gave them the time of day," he said. The words came out slow, as though he was traversing a field of landmines. "I'm only saying that because staying with someone out of obligation rarely pans out."

You simply nodded in response. What he was saying was the truth. Part of you already knew it. The other part just didn't want to quit yet. It was as if Light was another puzzle, and if you could just put the pieces together right, the picture would form in the end. But the part of you that had already been thinking what you just heard, that was the part that wanted to squirm when you heard the words pretty girl fall from L's lips.

"I know it's not really my place to comment on your relationship," he continued as though he could read your mind, "I just don't want to see you quit this. You're a valuable member of this task force. I would hate to see you run off by petty drama."

You nodded, his words steeling your resolve. "I won't quit this," you confirmed. You wouldn't let Light ruin this for you, but more than that, L wanted you here. And you wanted to be here with him.

"Good," he said while staring back at you. He leaned away from your body and brought his legs down to the floor like he was about to stand. "I don't have anything else to discuss with you. The files thing was just an excuse for Light. You're free to-"

And before you knew what you were really doing, you pushed yourself across the loveseat and crashed your lips against his. To your shock and relief, he didn't push you away. You heard a muffled noise burst out against your mouth, but then you felt him sink into it too. His hand cupped your cheek, and he reciprocated.

A breath you'd been holding since joining this case seeped from your lungs. His lips were so soft, his palm just as delicate. You scooted a little closer to him, feeling the rigidness of his side against your leg. You couldn't remember the last time Light had kissed you like this.

And as that thought crossed your mind, guilt washed over you in a tidal wave.

You pulled back, eyes heavy with the weight of your actions and lips parted so hot puffs of air could flow in and out.

"I'm sorry," you said immediately, "I shouldn't have done that."

He stared back at you, completely motionless for the moment. You started to get up, but he reached out and grabbed your forearm, stopping you.

"Don't be sorry," was all he said at first.

The both of you were trapped here together, locked in the haze of feelings and morals clashing. You wanted to go back in so badly. You wanted to taste him, to feel every detail of his mouth long enough to commit to memory. By the way he was keeping you here, it seemed that he too had some of the same desires.

"I'm sorry because it was unprofessional, not because I don't want to," you clarified softly.

"It was," he agreed, not unhanding you, "I know you're right. It's not a good idea. We should be focused on the case. I shouldn't have involved myself to this degree at all."

The words came out like they're meant to convince himself rather than you.

"Just tell me," he continued, "Did you mean it, or was it a mistake because you're upset?"

"It wasn't a mistake. I meant it. But I can't," you said. But fuck, you wanted to.

He looked so pretty sitting there. His shaggy black hair hung in his eyes which were just as wide and uncertain as yours.

You knew that even though Light could be a huge dick, this was wrong. This wasn't justified, and you should not continue. What you should've done was get up and walk out the door.

But something held you there across from L.

"I understand," he said simply. He wasn't going to force you to do anything. If you strayed from Light, that would be your decision.

'Get up. Get up. Get up,'  repeated in your head over and over. But you didn't follow your own mental advice.

"Did you want it? Or was it just the heat of the moment?" you asked softly.

You could see the indecision written all over his face. To make things more complicated with the truth or let them return to normal under the guise of a lie? The conversation lulled with the delay, but then his silken voice spoke the answer you'd been waiting for.

"I wanted it. I've been wanting it," he told you, "Everyday I see you, it gets harder to stand that I don't have you to myself."

And you knew you shouldn't, but now, you needed to. You pushed yourself forward and closed the gap. His thin arms encircled you to pull you toward him.

"Just this once, we can. Just for tonight, you can. Please," you whispered.

And who was he to deny you?

The problem with that night was that it hadn't turned out to be just once.

In the moment that you spoke those words, you meant them. You truly intended for it to be a one time thing. A small slice of pleasure you allowed yourself to indulge in. A secret that would weigh on your heart for the rest of your life. A brief lapse in judgment. A mistake.

But after the fact, what transpired between you and L felt like anything but.

One small kiss turned into several which whisked the two of you into a breathless makeout session on that loveseat. After a while, you'd crawled into his lap, and he'd slipped inside you. It was all a blur when you looked back on it now. A night of passion you'd never come close to experiencing before.

Quite honestly before that evening, you never imagined L to be capable of such romantic fervor. You imagined him as a much more distant lover. Similar to Light with the idea that his affection would be subtle. Different in that it wouldn't feel cold.

But for those hours, the word subtle hadn't crossed your mind once. Intense. Dedicated. All-consuming. Those seemed like more appropriate descriptors.

He'd been so good that you basically passed out next to him in the hotel bed afterwards. The two of you slept as if any of what had taken place was normal. Your limbs tangled with one another's while your dreams danced together overhead.

The next morning you came to slowly. You sat up and yawned, your hand lazily rubbing some of the sleep off your face. It took a few seconds of consciousness for panic to shoot through your body as you realized you needed to get up and go home.

Members of the task force would be there within the hour. You couldn't just be here before everyone else, wearing the same outfit as yesterday. It wouldn't take someone with Light's IQ to figure out what that meant.

You scrambled to put on your clothes and gather any belongings you'd need to make your re-arrival look fresh. L began to wake up from the sounds of your scuffling. He boosted himself up on the mattress and watched you for a moment. You'd never seen him so unfocused. It was beautiful in a way, his eyes lidded and tired, hazy with the remnants of a dream.

As quickly as you could without being rude, you explained what you were doing. To your pleasure, he didn't put up a fight. He helped you gather what you needed so you could go freshen up before coming back.

Before you left though, he brought you into a lingering kiss. He held your jaw tenderly and pulled away without any urgency, looking in your eyes while stroking your lip.

"I'll see you when you get back," he murmured.

And that was the beginning of many transgressions that shattered the illusion of 'just this once.'

You rushed home and hopped in the shower. The hot water washed away the rest of your drowsiness. The rising fog of steam enveloped you in warmth, bringing flashes of him back to your mind. How soft his dark locks had felt feathering against your neck. How tight his hands had gripped yours as he thrust into you. How sweet he'd sounded moaning in your ear.

Sighing, you leaned against the cool tile wall. You had to forget all that. It'd been nice, but it had to remain contained. Your work came first, and you would never hurt Light with the knowledge of any of that. It had happened and you didn't regret it. But it was over now.

At least that was what you told yourself.

On that day when you returned to the hotel in a new outfit, everything went as normal. There were no sly remarks from L. No tantalizing looks or teasing touches meant to operate under Light's nose. The both of you acted normal, went about your jobs and performed your duties as you're supposed to.

You weren't really sure what happened, but somewhere between then and now, your intentions to cut it off got muddled and faded away.

A few nights later, you had to stay late to review some aspects of the case with L. It started off professional but took no time to devolve. His fingers that had been so careful flipping through paperwork, eventually ended up beneath your skirt, toying with your clit as he had you continue to read off lines from the files before you.

After that, your entire relationship took on that tone. Your time together became filled with holding hands under the table, stolen kisses before others entered the room, and hushed moans as if one decibel too loud would result in you being found out.

But despite how good it all felt, you weren't heartless.

Every time you were alone with Light, the guilt crushed you. You began to act more like him, withdrawn and inattentive. If he noticed, he didn't complain, but that didn't alleviate your shame any.

You knew you had to end it with him. That was the only right way to go about this now.

And you planned to, you honestly did. You set a deadline in your head for when you would do it by. You stood in front of your mirror for nearly an hour, practicing what you were going to say. You imagined his reactions and tried to brace yourself in advance. 

Every last detail was penciled into place. You even told L about it beforehand. As if it were another task for your job, he offered support. His reaction and the way he went about giving you subtle comfort helped you feel like this was the right decision.

In a way, you still loved Light. You probably always would hold a sliver of affection for him. The forever fondness that comes with being your first love. But you were becoming increasingly certain that you loved L too.

The day you planned to cut Light loose, you woke up extra early. The lining of your stomach felt as though it was webbed with live wires. Anxiety coursed through you with every beat of your heart. You got ready for the day like you always did and then went about your routine as normal. You'd meet up with him at the hotel, and then you could do it afterwards when the two of you were alone.

But that day that you had so meticulously planned didn't end with the two of you in some secluded alcove in the lobby. You didn't get to explain anything. He didn't get to yell at you for betraying him or tell you to never speak to him again. None of that happened because instead, that day he came into the room, he didn't leave with you. He didn't go home afterwards.

He offered himself up for confinement. He ended the day in a cell before you ever got to tell him anything.

You sat near L with your head resting on your hands, glaring at the monitor with the image of Light on it. He was looking back at the camera. Even though there was no way for him to have known your plan, you felt like his coppery eyes gleamed with mockery.

L watched your expression, taking in your dire look. Only the two of you occupied the room right now. Everyone else had gone home for the night. He reached across the desk to take your hand. His thumb swiped over your knuckles tenderly.

You glanced at him in return. "Do you really think he could be Kira?" you asked weakly.

The answer you wanted wasn't so much to do with the exact question you asked. No matter how L explained it or whatever evidence he laid out, you could never bring yourself to fully commit to the idea that your boyfriend was this prolific serial killer. Instead, all you really needed in this moment was some reassurance that this stint in confinement wasn't for no reason.

He met your eyes, pausing before he spoke to consider his words.

"Yes. There's a chance he could be, one I'm partial to believe," he said, "But even if he isn't, that will show in time."

You nodded, pouting without realizing it and turning back to the screen. He was looking ahead now, not staring into your soul through the computer screen. You still felt stuck though.

You couldn't launch into a relationship with L now because Light was gone. The others were already pretty up in arms about Light and Mr. Yagami being held. It was doubtful that seeing you and L use the time as an opportunity for your own benefit would lessen those feelings any.

But on the other hand, you figured it would be cruel and unusual to dump Light through the speaker that blasted into his cell.

You sighed and shook your head, casting your vision over to the screen that featured Misa Amane. Your eyes briefly scanned her features. She was pretty; though, it was hard to tell with the large shield they had her face covered in.

"Do you think she's the second Kira?" you asked with disinterest.

He nodded, much more invested in the stakes of these two pieces of the puzzle than you were at the moment.

"Yes. It's just a matter of getting her to admit it," he said.

You nodded again, inclined to agree with him on that. You didn't know Misa all that well, having only crossed paths with her once or twice. From what you could tell, she had a huge crush on your boyfriend. He didn't seem to reciprocate it necessarily, but he did act strange on the few occasions she came up in conversation.

At certain points, you wondered if he was cheating on you with her, but you figured that was your mind projecting.

"We'll figure it out, darling," L said from beside you, drawing you back to reality with his soft tone, "We just have to be patient."

You turned your head to look at him. Some of the tension in your neck and back eased up as you gazed into his eyes. The sight of him sitting there, scrunched up like usual, softened your pessimistic outlook ever so slightly. He made you believe that you could endure all of this simply because he was worth it.

Leaning over the armrest of your office chair, you pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. The images of Light and Misa glowed behind your heads as he furthered it, rolling your seat in his direction.

L had been right about one thing. The past couple months required intense patience.

Light's confinement stretched longer than you would have imagined. You predicted a month at most, and even then, you believed that was kind of a stretch. It shouldn't take that long to determine if he was Kira.

But the one month marker passed and it seemed there was still no end in sight.

You and L continued your affair, still in secret. It was odd having to hide when the main person you were shielding from your feelings sat in a cell under your surveillance twenty four hours a day.

Seeing him like that got to you some days. When he started begging and pleading to be set free, it killed you inside. You could barely stand to look at L when it happened. It felt like you were watching the version of Light you'd fallen in love with come back only to be put in agony. Your chest would ache as you watched the video feed, your lip between your teeth and your eyes brimming with a sheen of salty tears.

L understood as best he could. He had known when this all started that things with you wouldn't be so cut and dry. It still gnawed at him a bit to see you torn up, but he gave you space when you needed it and held you when you didn't.

Just as you were beginning to lose hope that this would ever end, the day came that L informed you he would be releasing Light.

A strange mixture of relief and dread flooded your mind. You hadn't gone this long without speaking to Light since the two of you met back when you were both missing your front teeth and taking notes in crayon. You'd be happy to see him free of course, and it was one step closer to untangling yourself from this twisted web you'd created. But the other part of you filled with uneasiness stemming from your guilt. That combined with the expectation that he wouldn't care one way or the other about being reunited with you.

But when the two of you met again in the new hotel, your predictions couldn't have been more wrong.

You reluctantly glanced up at him when you heard him enter the room. But it was when your eyes met that something felt different. Your racing thoughts came screeching to a halt, a head on collision of guilt and nostalgia.

He strode across the room, lacking the normal weight he seemed to constantly carry on his shoulders these days. You rose to your feet on impulse. His arms reached out, and you felt them wrapping around your body. He pulled you to his chest, holding you there as his nose brushed the crown of your head. He said your name against your scalp with more softness than you'd heard from him in months.

You returned the embrace. Your hands splayed across his back, feeling the lean muscles beneath his shirt. Before you knew what was happening, your eyes felt misty.

"I missed you," you choked out as a whisper, "I've missed you so much."

You'd been missing him longer than fifty days. The version of Light in your arms was the one you loved since you were old enough to really understand the concept. This was the one you thought you'd lost forever because of this investigation.

"I missed you too," he said in return. Even his voice sounded like it used to. He didn't speak with inherent disdain for your very being. The words came out with a soft lilt meant for a lover.

"I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I didn't do more to help you," you whimpered. The apology was meant for more than the crime you confessed to.

"It's alright. There was nothing you could do," he said, his hand rubbing the expanse between your shoulder blades.

You ran your fingers up his neck and threaded them in his sandy locks. Pulling back a few inches, you kissed his cheek a couple times. You felt the skin flush red with embarrassment, which brought a smile to your lips. He didn't scowl or push you off. He got flustered.

"I missed you a lot. Don't leave me like that again," you whispered, pulling him back in for one more tight hug.

Your heart ached with the knowledge that you had planned to break up with him soon. You didn't think you could go through with it anymore. Not when he was himself again. Your Light.

The two of you pulled away from each other, and then your eyes landed on L sitting on the couch. Either he was much more understanding than you ever thought possible for a human being, or he had a phenomenal poker face. He looked completely unaffected, faring much better than you would be if the roles were reversed.

In contrast to his unbothered appearance, your stomach turned. You felt more guilt building in the pit of your belly, each brick being laid there reminding you of the fact that you were a horrible person. It was the only truth you would accept about this situation. You were a horrible person whose selfishness had created this mess. Truly, the solution you probably needed was swearing off men. You should devote yourself solely to finding Kira because you didn't deserve anyone. Certainly not the two people in this room with you.

The two of them began to speak, but you could barely hear the words coming out. Each of them sat on one end of the orangey, vintage couch while you took your seat in the chair on the opposite side of the pale rug beneath you. All your mind could focus on were the questions swirling within. How could you have done this? How could you have been so self-centered and stupid?

Neither of them deserved this. They didn't deserve to be caught in the carnage of your emotional state. You should've broken up with Light when you fell for L, plain and simple. That would have been the cleanest exit strategy possible here. Now there was no clean option left. Anything you did was going to leave animosity and tension in its wake.

You didn't zone back into the conversation until the words that had been popping out every so often started to piece together. The arrangement they were planning began becoming clear to you.

"You're going to handcuff yourselves together?" you asked with disbelief.

They both took a break from conversing with each other to look at you. L nodded while Light verbalized an explanation.

"If this gets us closer to catching Kira, it will be worth it."

"But come on, do you really think this is necessary? Wasn't almost two months in confinement enough to prove your innocence? All this will do is drive each of you crazy," you argued. The part you left unsaid was that it would drive you crazy as well.

"I believe it's necessary," L told you, "I also believe it will increase our efficiency."

He stared into your eyes, trying to convince you without words. If he was anyone else, you would believe this was intentional. A strike to get back at you for your loving reunion with Light. But you didn't think L would do that. He'd never taint the integrity of his case with personal feelings, and he'd never hurt you like that. He'd never hurt you like you hurt him.

Before you know it, a long, silver chain with two shiny cuffs attached had been pulled out. Each of your lovers got one locked around his wrist. You glanced between them, your eyes following the links that connected them.

You had a bad feeling this would require even more patience than the last couple months did.

Though it wasn't his intention, L couldn't help but feel that this handcuff idea had turned into a punishment for him. His consequence for sleeping with a girl in a relationship, and then continuing the affair and allowing himself to grow attached.

When he came up with the plan, he thought he could handle it. He had put up with watching you and Light together for months when he believed his feelings were unrequited. But now that he had his own taste of you, it felt nearly unbearable.

Living in the task force building with the two of you and watching you lavish all your affection on Light felt like torture. Every stroke of the other man's soft hair from your loving fingers felt like a blade slicing his skin. Each kiss to his pale temple was a bullet piercing his own flesh. Every time he had to hear you speak to Light in a sappy tone of voice or pay him a compliment, he'd rather rip his own ear drums out.

It was brutal. He didn't even get the reprieve of your nights alone together anymore. Your contact with him had been reduced to emotional looks, double-edged words, or soft touches on the rare occasions that Light fell asleep first.

Those nights were few and far in between. The last time it had happened had been weeks ago. All of three of you had been watching a movie, some horror flick none of you had seen. You sat on the couch together, like this was a hang out and not a date. On the right side, Light leaned back into the cushions. L took up the left side while you were in the middle between them.

Light had you tucked to his side as the movie played in front of you three. It was a possessive gesture and that was obvious to L. The movie wasn't scary and you weren't cold. The other man wanted his relationship with you on display. If L was going to sit in on your dates, at least he would know he was the third wheel.

He tried to act casual about it, tried keeping his eyes solely on the screen showing the carved up victims of the film's killer. But he couldn't stop himself from noticing how you played with Light's fingers. You shuffled them between your own, bending his digits and stroking the smooth skin. You fidgeted with them thoughtlessly like it was the most natural thing in the world. And he realized for both of you, it probably was. He'd never felt so out of place.

The urge to get away from it coursed through him with such intensity that he considered popping his thumb out of place just to slip out of the cuffs and get some space. The air in here felt suffocating, weighing down heavier on him every second. He ran his hand through his sleek hair. This night couldn't be over soon enough.

It was about two-thirds of the way through the movie that he felt your hand on his instead. You inched across the cushions and looped your fingers over his. He turned to look at you and saw Light's head slumped over onto your shoulder.

Unease swirled in your eyes. You seemed almost apologetic, and that was confirmed when you spoke, keeping your voice quiet enough not to wake your sleeping boyfriend.

"I'm sorry," you whispered.

He blinked at you. "For what?"

A little sigh puffed from between your lips. "For this," you said, "I'm sorry for dragging you into this and stringing you along and not just breaking things off one way or the other."

"I was hardly unwilling," he responded. His hand flipped over and returned the hold you had on him.

His words made you smile a little, but sorrow still riddled your features. "You know what I mean. I just... I don't wanna make you feel like I'm leading you on. I don't regret being with you. I still care about you. A lot," you said. The L word stayed on the tip of your tongue. You were too mixed up to expel it.

He shook his head. "Don't apologize," he commanded gently, "If I expected something easy, I wouldn't have let this go as far as it did. I'm just as much to blame."

"But still," you replied, unconvinced, "I know I should just end things or leave you alone. It's just that he finally seems to like me again, and I don't know. It's hard to throw that away."

Sadness pervaded your words, and he hated it. It made sense. The tangled knots between the three of you didn't leave much room to feel happy.

"If Light is what you need right now, then that's ok. You don't need to feel an obligation to me-"

"I don't!" you interjected, almost forgetting to keep your volume down, "I don't. It's not like that. I love Light, but you're important to me too. I don't feel like I owe you anything. I feel attached to you because you're special. You mean so much to me. You're not like anyone I've ever known."

You were killing him, truly. He didn't want to let you go, but he figured giving you a way out would be easier. You just wouldn't take it. He didn't really know what to say. It wasn't like he could just join you and Light... the other man would never go for that.

"I love you too," he whispered, saying the words you wanted to without mincing them, "But feeling so torn isn't good for you. And it's not fair to Light."

Internally, your heart soared from the soft declaration. It would've been one of the most romantic moments of your life if it wasn't for the fact that you had made it so messy. But you had, so all you could do was nod because you knew he was right.

"Figure out what exactly you want, what will make you happy, and what will be best for you," he finished.

He then leaned in and gave you the smallest, softest kiss you'd ever received. Despite its fleeting nature, it struck you like a truck crashing into your body. It was the first time you'd kissed him in weeks, a reminder of how good he felt.

You stared into his eyes once the two of you had separated, running the tip of your tongue over your upper lip. Your heart fluttered in your chest for him. Your breaths came in and out with a little more effort.

Then, interrupting the exchange between you two, Light snuck his other arm around your waist and pulled you closer to his body like you were a beloved stuffed animal. The sudden reminder of his presence nearly caused you to jump out of your skin.

You ripped your eyes away from L and settled back in next to your boyfriend. Cuddling him closer, one of your hands ran through his hair and ensured he didn't wake himself up by moving.

And just like that the moment was over. Things went back to how they had been every other second the three of you spent in this arrangement. But L had gotten his fill and it was enough to keep him going for a while more.

Over the next couple days, he watched the two of you more closely. Part of him did it for selfish reasons. He wanted to find more time he could have you to himself. More moments he could steal from Light. But there was another part of him that was purely curious. It was the part of him always looking for a logical solution.

Through his observations, it became increasingly obvious to him that Light wasn't happy about this handcuffing arrangement in regards to his time with you either. He just seemed able to tolerate it much better than L could. Probably because he was the one with the official claim on you. He didn't have to hide his feelings.

Light could openly sit with his arm around your shoulders or your ass parked on his lap. He was the one that could stroke your head or kiss your cheek. He got to call you 'sweetheart' and be the recipient of your bright smiles.

At first he didn't take advantage of any of those things too often, but lately, the detective had noticed an uptick in all of those behaviors. The others had caught onto it too and found his rejuvenated affection for you slightly odd, but they chalked it up to almost two months apart. Two months without any form of physical contact would drive anyone to feel needy. And L agreed with that for the most part, though like with everything else, he had some theories of his own.

He also believed that Light's increase in attentiveness towards you stemmed from jealousy beginning to fester inside him. Maybe jealousy wasn't exactly the right word, but his actions toward you weren't purely romantic. They felt like warnings sometimes, reminders that you belonged to him.

He didn't think you had told your boyfriend about your affair. It was doubtful that he would've just let that slide and carried on with things as if they were totally fine. And he didn't think he was catching on either. As much as it pained him, you had been so inconspicuous. If he was anyone but himself, he didn't think he would paint you as attracted to anyone other than Light.

There was only one real instance he could identify that would qualify as Light catching scent of the truth.

The three of you had been working on the case in the evening, sitting side by side at the table in the main room of HQ. Your bodies lined up in their normal arrangement, Light on one side, you in the middle, and L on the other.

Over the crown of your boyfriend's brown hair, sat the band on a pair of headphones. The audio of last week's news coverage droned in his ears. Meanwhile you worked on taking notes on dates of killings and potential patterns and connections between them. L was scribbling some points down about names of victims.

It had been small, and he'd barely noticed it. But when his eyes drifted to the left side of his page, he caught a little marking on the right edge of yours.

A small pair of dots with a curved line beneath stared up at him. The little smiley face gave him the look you couldn't, spoke the words he didn't hear from you anymore.

He ended up drawing his own tiny ":)" on his paper. It rested right next to yours, only separated by the thin space between the two sheets.

It only took you a minute or so to notice. He acted like he was focused on his work, but he subtly watched in his peripheral for the smile that spread across your lips.

Continuing the game, you brought your pen back to the sight of your doodle and drew a little tongue sticking out of the mouth. He laughed under his breath. Thoughts of adding onto his filled his brain, but before he could, the third person in the room interjected.

"Are you guys passing notes now?" Light asked before nudging the headphones off one of his ears, both visibly and audibly unamused.

Your head whipped to face him. "Sorry. I just got a little distracted," you explained. You leaned in and placated him with a kiss to his cheek. Then your attention returned to the task in front of you.

L continued to watch as the interaction played out. Before he could refocus his own intentions, he caught Light giving him a look. It was only for a few seconds, but the suspicion shot across the back of your shoulders directly into L's skull.

But as far as he knew, that had been it. Neither of you had talked about it in front of him, so unless you discussed it while he slept, Light must have just let it go.

So the only other option left that could explain this shift in his level of affection was natural possessiveness. Whether he was conscious of it or not, Light had to share you with someone else 24/7 now. The two of you were never alone anymore. Even if L stayed quiet, forgetting his presence entirely was not an easy task with the way he stared. Private conversations and truly intimate moments were a thing of the past in your shared life. He supposed that would grate on anyone.

He still wasn't decided on that line of reasoning though, so he filed it away with the rest of the ways Light had changed during his confinement. He could figure out the source later. For now, he just needed to focus on you.

Quite honestly, he couldn't believe he had let any of this happen. He found himself wishing that he stopped on that first night. That part of his mind yearned for some way to go back in time and tell you the kiss was unprofessional and leave the tension to fizzle out. Everything would be so much easier in the universe where that actually happened.

But then again, in that universe, that version of himself would never get to experience you, and he didn't envy that in the slightest. Even with all the drama and secrets and heartache, he didn't regret you at all. It was the mess he hated, not the person at the center of it. No matter how hopeless things between the two of you seemed, he found himself unable to let go. You could trample his heart as much as you wanted and drag it through countless fields of broken glass, but at the end of the day, he'd still be there waiting for you to pick him from the carnage.

He knew it was pathetic. Childish even, believing in some sort of modern fairytale with you. But being aware of those things didn't curtail his feelings any.

If anything, it made them worse. Not having you to himself like he did for the time Light was gone created a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. Acidic resentment ready to spew at any moment toward the man toting you around as his possession.

The worst it felt was when you two did try to have a private moment while he slept.

Normally, you spent the nights in your own room in the task force building, but on occasion, you'd fall asleep before you could retire to your own space. In those cases, you'd sleep pressed to Light's side on one of the two beds in his and L's shared bedroom.

That night when the jealousy burned so hot inside him it felt like it would bubble over, it was because he woke up to the sound of the chain rustling. It dangled across the space between the two twin mattresses, the links clanking against each other and the floor. The sounds weren't erratic but just noisy enough to pull him from the comforts of unconsciousness.

His mind stayed hazy at first, ready to be lured back under. But then he heard a soft moan. Light's voice tenderly bursting into the otherwise quiet space. Then came you shushing him.

"I'm only gonna keep going if you stay quiet," you whispered.

That brought L to his senses a little more. He had been facing away from the two of you, so he couldn't see what was going on exactly. He blinked away his sleepiness and tried to focus on deducing that though. 

From there, he could hear the rhythmic strokes of your hand. The wet sound of you spitting onto your palm. Light's grunts as he presumably bit his lip and kept his face against your neck.

"You're so good at that," he choked out while gritting his teeth.

A quiet giggle trickled from your lips, and a part of L died inside. It felt kind of stupid. He knew you and Light were intimate. But knowing and bearing witness were two separate things.

"You still have to be quiet. If you wake him up, I'm never doing this for you again. If you get hard in the middle of the night, you'll have to rely on your own hand," you teased before connecting your lips with his.

L lied in bed as the rest of that played out. The delicate smooches and creaks of the bed. Light's strained whines and labored breaths.

Even after you'd finished him off and the two of you fell asleep again, he rested on the bed, moving as much as a stone. His eyes stared at the wall while his limbs felt like cement. Thoughts tangled up in his mind. The feelings of betrayal and envy and disgust and longing all muddled together.

Humiliating as it was, none of them killed his need for you. If you came to him tomorrow and informed him you and Light had split, he'd be as ready to embrace you as he was a few hours ago.

The desperate yearning for you was a disease, but as of now, it wasn't terminal. He could still function, could still even coexist with the subject of his hatred. That's what he was doing right now as the three of you played Mario Kart on the Wii hooked up to the tv in their shared room.

You and Light were curled up in the corner of the couch again while L sat a few feet away on the floor with his back against the structure. His shoulders tilted side to side as he maneuvered the controller in his hands.

Three of the small split screens showed your chosen characters weaving through Coconut Mall. You had a shitty race so far, lagging behind in fifth place. Light was up ahead in first with Toad while L trailed close behind in third as Dry Bones.

You already resigned to losing given that it was the third lap and you didn't have any good power ups. After winning the last cup, that was fine with you. One of them could have this one. 

The two men on either side of you didn't share your nonchalance. Both were dead silent, completely focused on the tv screen. They zipped their cars through the virtual parking lot, dodging the mini obstacles in the way. Glancing over at his corner of the screen, you could see Light basically had it in the bag. But then L jammed his thumb down on one of the wiimote buttons.

A blue shell flew out of the little skeleton turtle's hand and zipped up ahead to Toad. It slammed down with all the pettiness L felt inside, and Dry Bones passed by, smug with success.

"Damn!" Light huffed, dropping the controller in his lap.

He glared at the screen as you finished up the race. You came in fourth place rather than fifth. The feeling of slight achievement wasn't long lived though. You could tell out of the corner of your eye that your boyfriend had just barely resisted the urge to fling the plastic remote towards the wall.

L turned his head to look up at the both of you. His gossamer lashes kissed his cheeks as he blinked a few times. You looked at him awkwardly, hoping he could say something to cut through the tension.

"You know, Light. If you used the mushroom in your inventory, you could've avoided the blue shell. There's a trick you can do with the timing, but also, you would've been over the finish line if you sped up so it wouldn't have mattered if it hit you anyw-"

Light's head snapped in his direction, his stare even more agitated than before. Your eyes flitted between them like a scolded puppy even though you weren't on the receiving end of the icy look. If there was one thing about Light you knew, it was that he hated being shown up. And even more, he loathed being corrected afterwards.

"What happened to you pretending like you're not even here?" he said with a tight jaw, "This is supposed to be time for me and my girlfriend. And last I checked, that isn't you."

L shrugged in response, not reciprocating the annoyance. "It was your girlfriend who asked me to play. Maybe you should have checked with her about that," he said coolly.

You cringed a little, hearing the subtle assertion in his voice. He said your girlfriend, but you could sense the challenge. The unspoken dare to Light to make that more apparent so he could prove otherwise. You really really didn't want that to happen though, so you interrupt the exchange with forced laughter.

"Guys, chill out. It's just Mario Kart. No need to get all upset," you said.

L took your advice and turned his eyes back towards the television. Coconut Mall was only the second track in the cup after all. There were two more to go.

You looked up at Light who was relaxing now too and sinking back into the plush cushions of the couch. He still hadn't picked up the blue wiimote in his lap, and you weren't confident he was going to in the next few seconds.

As a preemptive strike, you leaned in and kissed his cheek. "You don't have to play anymore if you don't want to, baby," you murmured.

Baby.

The word stabbed at L. He peered back at your shared corner of the couch.

"Don't be a sore loser, Light. You know you don't have to be good at everything," he taunted.

In an instant, your boyfriend's face morphed into his previous harsh expression. You grabbed the controller from his lap, preventing him from lobbing it at L before the thought to do so could form in his mind.

"I actually have a lot of other games. We could all just play something else. There's Wii Sports, Just Dance. I even have this one where you're like a detective, so maybe you guys would like that..." you chattered.

"Can we just watch a movie instead? Something that involves less input from him," Light responded with a pointed gaze in L's direction.

"Sure!" you chirped, all too eager for another distraction.

You hopped up from the sofa, nearly tripping over the chain that connected their wrists. Your feet got their balance though and narrowly avoided an embarrassing fall. Once stable, you headed over to the little binder of disks you'd brought to HQ when you all moved in here and rifled through it to find something that could please both men.

L chewed the inside of his cheek. He had nothing to really be irritated about in this moment, but this whole situation wore on him. As a result, he felt like being a little pushy.

"Your girlfriend was excited to play that game, wasn't she?" L asked, still keeping the facade of casualness, "We really have to stop because you're not winning?"

The way Light gritted his teeth was nearly audible. "She's the one who suggested we do something else," he defended, "If she still wanted to play, she would tell me. She doesn't need you speaking on her behalf."

"Yeah, really. It's no big deal. I can play later," you said, trying your best to smooth things out.

L's pupils lingered on you, assessing and judging. He knew you were trying to defuse the situation above all else. He understood the motivation, but that didn't mean he liked it. Why couldn't you let the fuse burn down to the blow up? The explosion that could set everything straight. Let it clear this mess and leave nothing but rubble that the two of you could rise from to be together.

As of now though, that was nothing more than a wild pipe dream. He let go of it. It was probably best for the case anyway.

You popped a DVD into the player before standing and prancing back to the sofa. Taking your seat, you slotted yourself right under Light's arm, pressed against his side. L scooted up onto the couch too but maintained the distance of a single cushion. It was weird sharing the space with the two of you, yet he figured it was better than staying on the floor and feeling like a kid being babysat by a negligent couple.

Only a few moments passed before the menu screen appeared. The cheesy looped music sounded for a couple seconds before you tapped the button to play your selection. It was some 90s movie. One that despite its star-studded cast, was still filled to the brim with atrocious acting.

All three of you were silent through the beginning even though none of you held much interest in the film. The plot panned out predictably; the characters fighting over petty qualms and falling in love at the drop of the hat while the end of the world decorated the background of their lives.

L let out a quiet sigh, a section of his dark tresses swaying with the force of his breath. The heel of his palm squished against his cheek while boredom swirled in his eyes and spread across his other features.

Meanwhile on your side of the couch, you remained relieved you'd avoided imminent catastrophe. Your head leaned against Light's shoulder while his fingers twirled absent-mindedly on your bicep. About forty-five minutes into the film, he turned and kissed your forehead.

You peeked up at him. The act would've been unusual for the Light you'd become accustomed to months ago, but for this updated version, it was fairly in line. You gave him a tiny smile and snuggled further into his side. Relaxation permeated the both of you as you sat there and watched the stupid movie in front of you. To you, it was the end of conflict. This acted as a time killer to fill the rest of the night before you could go to sleep.

But your boyfriend seemed to view the situation through a different lens.

His fingers continued to massage your upper arm in light ministrations. They were barely noticeable. So casual they almost felt inherent.

But that was only until they dragged upward to your neck and collar. The smooth pads of his fingertips trailed over the little bump of your clavicle. They dusted over you with the most gentle care you'd ever seen from the man holding you close. His digits traced with intention, with subtle desire. They delved downward and teased the top of your breasts, bringing heat creeping up from the pit of your belly into your cheeks.

Carefully, you readjusted your position, brushing him off in the most inadvertent way possible. In contrast to the way he pulled away from your hand all those months ago, this could truly appear to be accidental. It didn't matter though because it didn't deter him any.

His head ducked in, and he kissed the skin beneath your earlobe. He pulled you a little closer to his body, allowing you to feel the definition of his form. An involuntary shudder swept over you. You tried to fight it, but the provocative touches had an effect whether you wanted them to or not.

He moved his lips down, licking and nipping from your earlobe onto your throat. That was when you almost lost it, nearly letting a moan escape you. It would have been soft and quiet, but at any volume, it wasn't a sound you wanted getting out right now.

Your eyes fluttered. All his touches felt so good. Light knew your body. Even though he was a dick for most of the beginning of your relationship, he was still observant. He knew all the spots that made you melt. He knew the area below your pulse point caused you to squirm and whimper while grazing the divot in your hips made them buck as a chill overtook you.

He kept his kisses quiet. Not quiet enough for someone attempting to hide them, but to the point that he wasn't slobbering all over your neck.

Either way, L noticed what the two of you were up to. He felt jealousy taking root inside of him. Ugly, brutal, all-consuming envy. He hated it, didn't want it at all, but it still made itself known.

He kept his eyes locked on the screen. He could feel you two shifting around in your corner. He could hear your breath hitch like it did for him. He could see in his peripheral how Light held you, in the way he wished he could.

"Light, quit it," you whispered.

You really tried to keep this between you and him, but he kept going. One set of his fingers swept down over your curves and gripped the dip in your waist. They squeezed the soft flesh, keeping you close.

"Shhh," he hushed you before nipping at the sensitive skin of your throat, "Relax, baby. This is supposed to be a date, yeah?"

Suppressing a whimper in your throat, you nodded weakly. You decide to just let him mess around a little more. Maybe he could work out his frustration and then mellow out.

At first, you thought that worked. He eased his efforts, laying some tender pecks on your neck. His kisses hit your skin with alluring care. You felt lulled into a sense of security. Your body calmed itself and cooled the fires of arousal beginning to burn. But then his lips parted and his tongue snuck out, licking a stripe up your neck before his mouth engulfed the wet area.

Simultaneously, his hand coasted back up and landed on your breast. This time the touch wasn't teasing. He grabbed the mound of flesh with intention. He kneaded it with unmistakable desire. Heat blossomed between your legs like it would when the two of you were alone. But instead of sinking into that feeling and spreading your thighs for him, you squeaked and tried to sit up.

"Stop," you whined. You were still trying to keep quiet, but you had to raise your volume somewhat to be forceful.

You grabbed his hand on your chest and pushed it back down onto your stomach. Though all that did was give him the leverage to pull you onto his lap entirely. The chain connecting him to L rattled as your body scraped across it.

Finally, L turned his head and looked at the two of you straight on. He observed the way Light held you to his chest and continued ravishing your throat. His eyes scanned over the way you squirmed and tried shutting him down without making a scene. The thing that stood out the most though was Light's eyes staring back at him. They gleamed with self-satisfaction, smugness to a level that dared L to try something. The glow of the tv hit his copper irises in a way that made them look closer to a deep shade of red.

L swallowed hard, taking a few more moments to watch. He could see from your expression you were embarrassed but not entirely displeased with the affection. It felt like a swarm of insects tearing him apart from the inside, the knowledge you could still enjoy touches that came from someone else. He didn't think he had that ability anymore.

"She told you to stop," he cut in, bitterness dripping from each word.

Pulling his mouth away from your neck for a few moments, your boyfriend's attention zeroed in entirely on the other man in the room.

"And was she talking to you when she said it?" he asked pointedly.

A pause filled the gap in conversation after those words. Both men stared one another down, contemplating the next move in the verbal chess match. Light's arms remained firm around you. He didn't let you scoot back to the neutral position between the both of them.

"I thought you said we could do whatever we wanted in front of you. That we shouldn't pay you any mind. Act 'like you're not even here,'" Light continued.

"Maybe it's better that I am here if you don't know what the word 'stop' means," he fired back.

You finally found the courage to cut in after watching the two of them go back and forth.

"It's fine, Ryuzaki. We were just messing around. I'm sorry if we made you uncomfortable," you said, diplomatic as ever.

"It's not fine," he challenged you. For the first time ever, you saw L lose his cool. His eyes blazed with ire for both you and Light. He stood from the couch, maintaining his glare. "You never stand up to him and then wonder why he never changes!"

Your eyes widened at the outburst, but your expression quickly melted into that of an ashamed child. On the other hand, your boyfriend lost his sense of superiority and now just looked confused.

"What is he talking about?" he asked.

"I- It's not-" you started to stammer, but you're unsure of who to even address, let alone what to say.

L could see you were struggling. A small part of him felt some guilt for lashing out, but the whole of him knew he needed to. This game between the three of you had grown tiresome. All he did to help was stay quiet and give you the room to collect your thoughts.

Light didn't offer that courtesy though and spoke again. "What is he talking about? You wonder why I never change?" he echoed.

"It's not like that," you defended with urgency, "I don't wish you would change."

Disgust crept into L's eyes. Before, he'd always found your timidity endearing. It was like an extension of your intelligence. Modesty that you projected because you wrongfully believed you didn't fit in with everyone else.

Though this exposed the truth of that characteristic. It wasn't inherently precious or just some part of you that came from the desire not to hurt others.

Right now, it was cowardice.

"Maybe not anymore. His confinement must have changed you too," L said.

His words hollowed out your insides, leaving the cavern of your chest bare, spare the remaining shards of your heart. The room around you felt like a sinking ship. Everything you knew would soon be lost underwater.

"I haven't changed," you said, your initial defensiveness fizzling out, "You don't understand."

"My confinement?" Light repeated, ignoring your words to the other man, "Did something happen between you two while I was locked up?"

It was hard to keep up when accusations were flying at you from both sides.

"No! Just let me explain," you denied, "When you were gone, me and Ryuzaki got kind of close because there's no one else around here to really talk to, you know?"

"Talk," L choked out, "That's all we did, huh? Talk?"

"I didn't mean- I just... It's not-" you tried to continue. You could feel your throat closing up as your eyes began stinging with tears.

There was no way you were going to let yourself cry. Not when you knew you were so undisputedly in the wrong. It would probably just make this situation worse. The pain you caused wasn't hypothetical anymore, but there were still salvageable pieces of the shattered whole.

You took a deep breath before scooting off of Light's lap. His arms had long gone limp around your waist. Sitting between them on the sofa, you stared down at your thighs for a few moments. When you finally felt some semblance of courage, you brought your head back up.

Both of them were watching you in anticipation. L still had broken hearts gleaming in his eyes while angry confusion dominated Light's features.

"While you were in confinement, Ryuzaki and I..." you started softly. Even though trailing off left your crimes unspoken, you knew the implication was obvious to Light. You forced yourself to continue anyways, needing to take responsibility. "It started a little before that actually. We got close. And we did a lot more than talk."

You sucked in a shaky breath, conjuring the will to expel the next set of words.

"I was unfaithful. And I'm so sorry."

Your head hung in shame. The room fell silent, spare for the quiet dialogue coming from the characters on the television.

"You... you cheated?" Light finally sputtered, "You cheated on me?"

Turning your head, you looked at him before nodding. "I'm so sorry, Light. I know it sounds like a cliche, but I never meant to hurt either of you."

The words came out like a broken record as your eyes watered to the point of overflow. With stiff fingers, you brushed away the stray tear.

"Why?" he asked, his tone settling into anger.

"I felt alone. And you were so distant. And I didn't know how to talk to you. But I didn't even try," you explained. It felt cheap to try and provide an excuse.

"How the hell am I distant? We're with each other every single day!" he snapped.

"Yeah, but before... you were different before. You were so mean all the time!" you responded.

He didn't have anything to say back to that because part of him knew it was true. And as shitty as it felt trying to justify yourself, he still had never offered up a reason as to why that was. He left you to wonder what you had done even now that he acted like he actually wanted to be in a relationship with you.

"It just started as advice. That was it, I swear. He just offered to help me because he saw how I was feeling. Then it became something more, and I was wrong for letting it while we were still together. But then you went away and I couldn't do anything about it and we just got even closer. And I'm just so sorry," you whispered, "I don't expect you to forgive me."

L shifted back and forth on his feet before lowering himself onto the sofa again. He still said nothing. He just observed, waiting to see what Light would say next.

"Do you still... have feelings for him?" he asked, "Do you still love me?"

"Yeah, I still love you," you said and looked back up at him, "I know I did a shitty job of showing it, but I never wanted to lose you. I... I couldn't just let you go. We've always been each other's."

He diverted his focus when you whispered out your words of endearment for him. "You didn't answer both questions," he muttered.

Sighing, you paused. You mentally tried to decide how to answer. Speaking as if only you and Light were in the room would hurt L, but addressing him rather than your boyfriend probably wouldn't bode well for you either.

"What do you guys want me to say?" you whispered.

"Tell the truth. Be honest. Say what it is you want," L finally joined in.

"Say it instead of just taking it," Light added.

Even though their directions were clear, it still took a few moments to find the words you wanted to use.

"I want both of you," you answered, "I don't want to pick. I don't want to hurt either of you any more than I already have."

The room stayed quiet after your declaration. You could feel the weight of Light's stare, but L simply seemed resigned. Reaching out on both sides of yourself, you took their hands.

You wrapped your fingers around their palms. Your digits could feel the subtle differences in each appendage. Both were smooth and slender, though L's knuckles protruded more than Light's. Luckily, neither one of them made the move to pull away.

"I know it's stupid and childish and selfish, and you can call me all that stuff. Just please don't leave," you begged softly.

The lone tear from before was no longer a stray. More followed its path and trailed down the smooth curves of your cheeks.

After a few moments, you felt L's thumb begin to swipe back and forth over your knuckles. Always the more lenient of the two, he was already caving a little bit to the sight of you weeping.

"I can't leave," Light grumbled and raised his hand, reminding you of the binds that kept him here. 

He wasn't as swayed by your display of emotion. His jaw remained clenched with his eyes set in a harsh glare. You could hear the process of his thoughts piecing together in his head, you just couldn't decipher what exactly they were.

"So what?" he said when he finally spoke again, "I'm not good enough for you anymore. I have to share you with him?"

"No. You are good enough for me. That's not why," you reassured. Squeezing his hand, you continued, "You don't have to share. If you want to dump me, I would understand. I just... I can't just pretend me and Ryuzaki never happened."

Blinking at you, he took in each word and let it float through his mind. He mostly understood your point despite the murderous anger flowing through him in that moment. And on top of that, the small piece of him that knew the smart thing would be to break up with you was dominated by the larger part of his psyche that refused to let L win.

If he broke up with you, there was no doubt in his mind that L would accept you with ease. Why should he get to have that? Why should Light be the one who ended up alone in this situation? You were his first, and you still wanted him. You'd strayed for a moment, but your heart still belonged to him. He was sure that in time he could erase any remnants of your infidelity. He just had to be patient.

"What does Ryuzaki think?" he asked before looking at the other man, "He's been so quiet. Does he think we should have you choose? Does he want you all to himself?"

L returned his stare past you. "I said what I think. I want her to have what she wants," he replied.

"Don't give me that," Light sneered, "This isn't a case. There's nothing you have to put together before coming up with a conclusion. Do you still want her? Do you still want her even if she can't make up her mind and thinks she deserves you and me?"

You cringed at the wording of his questions but decided not to interject. Instead, you waited for L's response.

"Yes. I still want her. Even under those circumstances," he admitted.

The revelation made Light both smug and bitter. Knowing someone else coveted what was his felt good, but realizing that same person had some success obtaining it ate away at him. He wouldn't make that apparent though.

"I just think it would be easier if we worked on solving the case first," you added, "If I pick one way or the other, someone will end up hurt and that would only cut into our chances of catching Kira."

"So what do you suggest we do instead then?" Light asked, "Do we all pretend like everything is normal? That neither of us feel anything for you, and you don't feel for us?"

"No, Light-" you tried to defend, but he kept going.

"Or is it that you really want us to share? You wanna sleep between us at night? Want us both to tell you how proud we are when you do something good? Want both of our attention focused on you?" he mocked.

"No, I just think we should talk about it," you offered. You felt your cheeks starting to burn.

"Talk about what? What plan did you have in mind?" he carried on, grabbing your jaw and making you look into his eyes.

"I don't know..." you acquiesced.

From your other side, L hardened his gaze a bit. "She already apologized and offered to come up with a solution, Light. Don't just try making her feel worse," he warned.

"I'm not. I'm just trying to get some clarity on the situation," he said, "I just want to know what she means."

You didn't have an answer for him because in all honesty, you didn't really know what you meant. This wasn't a daydream. It wasn't realistic to expect both men to just magically forgive your betrayals. This wasn't a fantasy world in which their love for you would overpower all other negatives. But you didn't want to contend with a reality that wasn't that way, so you remained silent.

That didn't deter Light from coming after you some more though.

"Just say what you were thinking," he encouraged, "Is it that you want both of us to call you baby and pretty girl and all those other sweet names I know you like? Or maybe it's less innocent. Do you have a thing for two guys at once that you never told me about?"

The warmth of embarrassment flooded your face in full force. You could barely think with the hot air swirling around inside your skull.

"No, Light-" you asserted. But again, he keeps going.

"No? Maybe you like being watched then? I know you love almost being caught. But do you want someone actually watching you?" he taunted.

"Light, this isn't doing anything to-" L tried to intervene on your behalf. But your boyfriend didn't want to hear it.

"Do you wanna show Ryuzaki how you like to be touched? Or is it that you wanna show me what I'm missing out on now?" he asked.

"That's not why!" you said and yanked your hand away.

He laughed in response. He had no problem continuing to stare you down either.

"Maybe not entirely, but I know you. I know there's a small part of you that gets off on being caught." he accused.

And that was true. Having known you for so long, he knew what revved your engine. You'd told him all your dirty little secrets and darkest desires. Now that he was openly using them against you, you weren't sure how to refute him.

"Yeah, but this is more..." you said.

"I know it is, but you don't want it to be more right now, do you? That was your point. That we should save deeper discussion until after the case."

You nodded, hoping he would maybe ease up now.

But his grin only grew more severe. He mimicked your nod.

"Alright. I think I could come around to accept that idea," he told you, "I just need some more convincing. Maybe you and Ryuzaki could persuade me."

You eyed him nervously, wondering what exactly it was he planned on as methods of temptation. Turning your head, you found that L was just as lost as you.

"How?" you asked.

"Show me. Show me what I missed out on when I was off proving my innocence. Show me what you can't just throw away. Show me what was worth risking everything for," he commanded.

Your lips parted as the thunder of your heart pounding boomed through your ears. His request was pretty obvious, but you just couldn't believe it. It didn't sound like anything Light would have ever asked for. But then again, he probably would have marked cheating down as something you'd never do.

You moved your eyes to L in an attempt to gauge his reaction. He seemed just as stunned and uncertain as you though.

"C'mon. Don't act all shy now. I doubt you two had any problems when you were doing it behind my back," Light said.

"Light," you pleaded, your lip jutting out a bit.

"What?" he asked, colder than before.

"Are you sure you want us to... do that?" you checked.

"You're only going to hurt yourself more," L added.

"I don't need you speaking on my wellbeing," he said to the other man before redirecting to you, "I'm sure. I want to see what I'll be getting out of sharing you. So go ahead. I'm sure you've been missing him since I came back."

A pit formed in your stomach. Your vision shifted from one guy to the other. It was true that you'd missed L a lot as of late, but this was not how you'd envisioned your reunion at all. You didn't want to lose either of them though, and if this is how you went about that, then so be it.

"You want me to..."

"Kiss him," he directed.

A spasm overtook your heart, but you suppressed it with a deep breath. You then turned to L. He was right there, seemingly waiting for you to take that step. With one last look at Light, you refocused completely on him.

You scooted a little closer to his side of the couch and started to lean in.

"Are you sure?" he murmured before your arrival.

You only nodded in response before pressing your lips to his.

Your eyes fluttered shut and then so did his. You melted into the exchange with no real issue. You hadn't really kissed L in what felt like forever. Even under the awkward circumstances, you wouldn't let a chance to have him like this slip through your fingers.

He cupped one of your cheeks with his hand, the other slid around your waist. His lips moved in tandem with yours. In no time, your mouths found a perfect rhythm to share. He guided you into his lap now, situating you between his thighs.

Your quiet moan spilled into the air. You ran your hands up his chest, fingers caressing his lean figure through his clothing. His hand on your back squeezed your flesh and pulled you closer.

"She has a spot on her back that makes her go crazy," Light offered from the sidelines.

"I know," L said back before locking you into another kiss.

You glanced over at Light with shyness clouding your eyes. He had leaned back into the corner of the couch and openly watched you make out with L. His legs were spread while his arms draped over the backing and arm rest.

Butterflies erupted in a constant stream in your belly. Being observed by one while being kissed by the other felt like nothing you'd ever experienced before.

If L minded as much as you, he didn't show it. He kept himself focused entirely on kissing you. His tongue traced the seam of your lips before sliding into your mouth and dancing with your own. The hand that had been massaging your back moved to grope your hips.

You whimpered for him before leaning into his body more. He took your eagerness for him in stride and cradled you in the perfect position to make out.

For a while, it felt just like before. Like it was just you and him. You wrapped your arms over his shoulders and reciprocated his movements like it was the most natural thing in the world.

After a while of kissing, his right set of fingers trailed down your body. They delved beneath the waistband of your sweatpants, finding their place between your thighs. Over your panties, they stroked your cunt. The sudden burst of stimulation made you gasp against his lips.

With another little whine, you parted your legs a few inches for him. His digits took advantage and worked with more skill to stroke your clit and tease your slit.

"Is this how it started?" Light asked, reminding you of his presence again.

Reluctantly, you pulled away from L and turned to look at him. With droopy eyes and puffy lips, you tried to register the question.

"Kinda," you mumbled.

Even though you were talking, L didn't stop petting your pussy. He only seemed more dedicated to the task. He hooked his chin over your shoulder and laid some kisses along your jawline.

More little noises of pleasure seeped out of you, but Light continued with his questions.

"Kind of? Did you just kiss the first time? Or did you let him touch you like this too? Maybe even more?" Light mocked.

"I didn't-" you started to defend, but L nipped at your throat, making you stutter. You whined before continuing, "It was just different."

"I'm sure," Light mocked.

You wanted to argue more, but L tugged the damp cloth of your underwear aside and slotted his fingers against your folds. He swirled them around your little bundle of nerves as his mouth worked on your neck. You arched your back, pressing your ass against his thigh.

"No more lying," he whispered near your ear, "Be honest about how good I make you feel."

Your eyes fluttered at the command while his fingertips continued toying with the most sensitive part of you. They rubbed a little more before sliding down and dipping into your entrance.

"It feels so good," you whimpered, sinking further into his embrace.

"That's right," he purred.

His fingers worked into your dripping hole with ease. He pumped two in and out, stroking your inner walls as they scissored inside you.

From the other end of the sofa, Light watched the outline of L's hand move beneath your pants. He studied the way your head fell back and how your shoulders relaxed. It was like being able to watch your shared intimate moments from another perspective. Anger and betrayal still brewed inside him, but they were becoming less volatile with every little squeak you made.

"I missed feeling this perfect pussy. So soft and wet for me," L whispered. He nosed at your neck for a moment before licking up to your earlobe.

You shuddered in response. "I missed you more," you breathed.

Your hips bucked against his wrist when his fingers curled within and brushed up against a sweet spot. You mewled without any regard for volume. The sensations he brought you were your only concern.

Light bit the inside of his bottom lip. His breathing became a little heavier. He had never been with anyone but you. And you'd never been with anyone but him until L. Seeing someone else explore you like this made him feel something he couldn't articulate.

While watching, he imagined a few months ago when your relationship wasn't in the best place. He envisioned the days his words left you with tears in your eyes and a broken heart thumping between your ribs. Those were the days that brought you to L. He tried picturing it now, you after work, finding comfort in the other man. Finding refuge from the one who was supposed to love you more than anyone in this world.

But Light did love you. Even after all of this, he was sure of it. And more than that, he still believed he was the best person for you. He'd known you forever after all. Longer than anyone else in his life or yours besides parents. When he looked at you these days, sometimes he still saw the girl who used to write her initials on the tips of his sneakers during recess. You'd get the same look in your eyes working on the case now that you used to get filling out study guides in school. When you laughed, it rang out the same, and when you cried, your lip quivered like it did the time you skinned your knee on the way to his house. 

He couldn't forget any of that even if this did hurt him worse than anything else he'd ever felt before, and he wouldn't let this thing with L take you away from him. He'd just have to hold out until you all caught Kira, and the two of you could move on.

The only thing he felt a little alarmed by right now was that holding out didn't seem like such a chore any more. Despite his pain, he couldn't deny the way his cock was filling out in his pants as he watched you get felt up and pleasured by someone else.

"My turn," he mumbled as he forced himself to return to his senses, "I want a turn with her before we share."

You blinked yourself back to reality as you felt his voice wedging between you and L. The man who'd been kneading your breasts while fingering you reluctantly pulled his digits out of your cunt and then removed his hand from your sweatpants. He gave you a few more gentle pecks to your throat before giving you a nudge back to your boyfriend.

Crawling towards Light, you didn't make it all the way there before his arms came out and dragged you close. His lips crashed against yours in an instant. Your noses bumped and his hands squeezed you tight. Despite the haste of it all, you had no problem matching his movements. You knew Light's body as well as you knew your own.

Your hand slid up into his hair, giving it a soft tug in the way you knew he liked. He moaned against your lips and kissed harder. Everything he was doing felt familiar, just at an increased volume.

"You're still mine," he whispered against your lips before making out with you in full again. He didn't give you a chance to respond before his mouth was back on yours.

You whined into the kisses, sinking into the cushions below you as he laid you out across them. His lips worked down over your neck in a similar pattern to L. He worked on marking the side of your throat the other man hadn't touched while his hands roamed your torso.

Squirming a little beneath him, your head tilted back against the couch, and you found yourself looking up at L. When your eyes met, his hand came out and stroked your cheek. He swiped his thumb back and forth over the curve of it.

"Can't have you forgetting about me," Light muttered between pecks to your neck.

"I didn't," you breathed. You wrapped your legs around his waist and tightened them.

He hummed in acknowledgement before rolling his hips against you, allowing you to feel his bulge grind between your thighs.

"Since you want us both, I'm gonna let you have us both," he whispered.

You turned your head and kissed along his cheek and temple. It didn't feel right saying 'thank you' to something like that, so you could only hope your touches would fill their place.

"Go sit in his lap. With your back against his chest," he commanded.

He then pulled off of you and allowed you to get up. Slowly, you rose off of your back and scooted in L's direction. He was ready to take you into his arms again. He positioned himself against the armrest of the couch and sat you on his lap like Light wanted. You could feel his stiff length poking against your ass as you did.

Once you were in place, Light leaned forward again and hooked his index fingers over the waistband of your pants. He pulled them down with your panties, leaving you exposed on top of L.

"Spread your legs, baby. I wanna see if you're ready," he said softly.

You obeyed and opened your thighs for him. L's hands dipped in and stroked the smooth skin on your inner legs, causing your cheeks to fill with heat again. Even though both men had seen you naked and felt every part of your body before, both of them doing it together was different.

Light's eyes trailed down your figure before landing on your center. They stared at the wetness gathered there, trying to judge if you could take them.

"Who knew you were so greedy? Almost soaked through your panties at the thought of two cocks at the same time," he mocked.

"At the same time?" you repeated. You knew you asked to be shared, but you didn't think he'd take it so literally.

"Mhm. You want us both, don't you? How else did you think this would work?" he smirked.

"I don't know. I thought you guys would like take turns or be on different sides or something..." you explained.

"No. If you want both, you're gonna really take both," he responded.

Shaking his head, he stood up and pulled his shirt off. L did the same behind you, letting it fall to the flood next to the couch. From there, Light unbuttoned his pants and let them crumple to the floor. He didn't show any awkwardness about revealing his body in front of another guy.

"Do you want your shirt off?" L asked, kissing the space behind your ear.

You nodded, and the both of you peeled it off your upper body before discarding it with his.

Light palmed himself over his boxers before sliding those down as well and letting his dick spring free. He gave his shaft a few lazy strokes while gazing at you. Below your body, L worked on pushing his jeans off and freeing himself from the confines of his pants.

"Think I'll let Ryuzaki have you first, and then I'll slide in too. I wanna see if you take him like you take me," he said.

L's dark eyes stared up at the other man. He didn't want to take orders from him, but then again, he couldn't really complain about the sentiment.

"Are you good with that?" Light asked, cocking his head while looking down at the man behind you.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he responded.

His arm wrapped around your waist, reaching down between your legs to rub at your clit a few more times.

"Are you ready, sweetheart?" he murmured to you in a much softer tone.

With nervous eyes, you nodded. You pressed your lips to his for a few more soft kisses. While you were occupied, he took the chance to adjust his position and line himself up between your legs. You felt the swollen head brush your entrance. The tip slid up through your folds, feeling your wetness before dragging back down.

Your heart pounded in your chest. This was really going to happen.

And then it did. He boosted his hips the slightest bit and popped it in. You whined as your walls fluttered, embracing his familiar length with ease.

He grunted and pushed forward. Slowly, his shaft entered you, sliding forward until he bottomed out. You let your head fall back onto his shoulder where you could nuzzle into his neck. His hands swept up over your curves and kneaded your malleable flesh.

Light watched from the same position, stroking himself as he watched someone else have you in a way he thought would forever only be for him.

"Does that feel good?" he breathed, "Does he know how to do it right? Just how you like it?"

A soft whimper puffed from your lips before you gave him a shy nod. L did know all the things you liked by now. He knew the perfect angle to rock his hips at and what speed you preferred. He knew how to make your mind melt out your ears by suckling on your pulse point. He knew all the dirty things to whisper in your ear that made you tighten up on him like a vise.

Light continued to observe. His eyes scanned over how L's hips began pumping into you. How his hands cradled your legs behind the knees. He listened for every wet squelch his cock brought out of you. Every hitched breath and whiny crack in your voice.

His length throbbed at the sight. It was the most fucked-up, perverse sense of pleasure he'd ever felt. It made him sick with lust. His hands trembled with the urge to reach out and interrupt, but he made himself wait.

He let L have a little more time with you. The other man sighed, nestling his face in the crook of your neck as he enjoyed the hot, tight euphoria wrapped around his cock.

Your eyes had fluttered shut after a few good nudges to your sweet spot. You lay against his chest, held up by his arms, totally pliable. Though even in your hazy state, you could feel Light's eyes bearing down on you, examining your every move.

But despite feeling his presence, it still sent a shockwave through you when he brushed the tip of his cock against your clit.

Your back arched off of the man beneath you as a sharp whine burst from your mouth. Smearing his sticky precum over your pulsing bud, he dragged the flushed end of his length back and forth. He moved at a slower pace than L. His movements only intended to tease you, not cause any true pleasure.

"L-Light," you moaned. You squirmed your hips, trying to entice him into giving you more.

His lips curled into a small smirk. "Hold still, babe," he chided, "I know patience isn't your strong suit, but you can wait a little more."

Whining again, you gyrated your hips a few more times. L groaned at the added stimulation; the motions worked your walls around him just right. He rutted up into you with more force, which only drew more noises from you.

Light took a deep breath, working himself up. He reached forward and grabbed your calves with precise fingers. His touch was gentle but calculated like it always was. Even in what was supposed to be the heat of passion, he made sure things played out according to his plans.

One of his hands dropped to guide his cock down to your entrance. A quiet moan escaped him as L's shaft brushed his sensitive ridge. He shuddered, but he didn't back away. He pushed with more intention and watched as you started to split open around him too.

A gasp tore through you. Your pussy burned as it struggled to take both of them. You writhed desperately, trying to find a position of reprieve. L came to a stop inside you and adjusted to hold onto your hips to keep you in place.

"Shhh, you're doing so good," he cooed while his digits rubbed small circles into your skin, "You can take it."

Light's jaw clenched as he ground his teeth. His breaths became more labored as he worked himself in all the way. It was so fucking tight. The feeling of L's dick pressed up against his own was also something he'd never felt before, but something he found himself really really liking.

"You wanted us to share," he grunted, "This is how it feels."

After a few moments, you started to settle again. Four sets of fingers coasted across your body, leaving little chills in their wake. The stretch between your thighs still stung, but pleasure began overriding it as L started moving again.

He thrust a few times, letting you get used to the sensation again. Then Light worked his hips back and forth. Your toes curled, and your breaths puffed out with broken whines in between.

Both of them found a rhythm that worked in tandem with the other. Grunts, groans, and sighs echoed all around you. Every inch of your body was in contact with one of them. Your head spun from the total overstimulation along with the ecstasy burning in the pit of your belly.

"Fuck... so much... feels like so much..." you babbled.

"Yeah? A little whore like you was made for it though," Light mocked.

Your eyes rolled back and you gushed around him. The words shot through with flaring sparks of bliss. In the past, Light could get a little bold with you sometimes, but never like that. He could see the effect his tone had on you, but he didn't make any move to lessen it. He only fucked into you harder.

"You're so pretty," L added from behind your ear, "You're being such a good girl for us."

With Light now holding your legs, he moved his hands to toy with your breasts again. He pinches and tweaks your nipples, getting you to recreate those cute little squirms from before.

"So fucking needy," Light taunted, "Can't even hold still."

"It's not my fault," you pouted.

L chuckled and kissed your ear, continuing to play with the tender nubs on your chest.

"It's alright, sweetheart. Feels good when you move like that," he soothed.

Another whiny sound of need flowed from your lips before you melted back against the man behind you. Coherent thoughts could no longer form in your head. Not when you felt so full. So fucking stretched to the limit.

Light could see you fading. He pumped himself in harder, his balls swinging and brushing against the base of L's cock. His rich eyes watched the man below you. He took in his slight changes in expression when you clamped around them. He noted how his eyes softened when you let out a little squeak.

After a few moments of his staring, L finally looked up at Light. He could tell he had something to say from the intensity in his gaze

"I thought you said we were friends," Light grunted, "Do friends fuck their friend's girlfriend behind his back?"

"I didn't lie. If I didn't consider you my friend, I wouldn't have hesitated to take her all for myself," L answered, calm in spite of the situation.

Your boyfriend's glare hardened, but a fire burned within him. He wasn't sure what it was. The carelessness? The challenge? He couldn't pinpoint it, yet something about what L said worked him closer to the edge. He felt the coils of release constricting within him.

 His focus shifted to you. He saw the way your head bobbled around as though you weren't even conscious. Reaching out, he grabbed your face. Your cheeks squished under the pressure of his fingertips, and your glossy eyes opened again.

"Sluts don't get to pass out, baby. Keep those pretty eyes open. Want you looking at me when you lose it," he said.

"Sorry..." you hummed as you came back to reality.

L's hands hadn't stopped groping at your tits. After Light finished talking, he swooped in with his gentler voice.

"Are you getting close? You gonna cum all over both of us?"

You mewled and nodded, harsh breaths leaving you. Seeing how eager you are, Light's hand released your jaw and found your cunt instead. His fingers roughly rubbed at your clit, ripping more cries out of you. He spit down onto your already soaked folds.

"Let go then," he directed, "Cum for us. Let's see you finish."

His commanding words struck you and spurred you onward towards the finish line. Your hips bucked as your body quivered with the need to explode.

You finally found release when both of them thrust in unison, striking the right spots to throw you over the edge. Your body rolled with the waves of pleasure crashing over you. You could feel their hands still on you. Their palms rubbed while their fingers caressed and teased you through it. Both of their breathing became stilted as you squeezed around them impossibly tight.

L was the first to let go and allow himself to ride out the high with you. He spilled himself inside you with a few jerks of his hips and a whine erupting from his mouth. Burying his face against your throat, his arms encircled you tight.

Light kept thrusting, working you both through it. He hit his own high as you both began to come down from yours. A strangled groan fell from his lips. He tilted his head back before leaning forward and collapsing into your chest. His hips rutted forward, pumping the last of his spend into you.

It was a little difficult with Light's added weight on top of you, but L managed to wriggle his hips and pull himself out. As soon as his length popped out, you felt the stinging subside almost instantly. A dull ache replaced it. You didn't imagine walking anywhere far for at least the next twenty-four hours. Their shared loads leaked from you, seeping out around your boyfriend's softening length.

L was the most lucid of the three of you. With care, he shifted his position and held you against his chest from the side. Light still lied with his head over your pounding heart. Eventually, he eased his cock out of you. He didn't worry about the mess right now. You all could clean up in a little bit.

He turned his head to look up at you. His eyes met yours, and for the first time since he found out, he looked more hurt than anything else. You studied the expression before stroking his cheek and planting a tender peck on his lips.

"I'm sorry," you whispered.

He didn't say anything back. Instead, he closed the centimeter gap again and kissed you once more. The few seconds your lips were connected could feel like none of this mess was real. When your skin was on his, it was just you and him.

Your fingers threaded into his soft hair as L's digits rubbed your back. He sighed at the gentle touch, allowing himself to enjoy it for a few moments before he rose and leaned back.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he looked at the two of you.

"So... you really want to try and just... do this? Until we find Kira?" he asked.

"If it's ok with you..." you replied. You half expected him to laugh in your face before walking out. But he doesn't do anything so bitter.

He nodded. Worse than anything else, you could see on his face he really did intend on trying. He was going to try his hardest at this for you.

You reached forward and took his hand, guiding him closer to you again. "We can figure it out as we go. And then when we're done, we can all decide what to do together," you offered. You glanced up at L to make sure he was ok with that too, but the quick nod he gave you told you he was.

"Alright," Light agreed.

As a seal, you gave them each a soft kiss before smiling a little. Once you began to settle back in and grabbed the remote to change what played on the tv, both men's eyes found each other's in a silent, temporary truce.

Then Light looked to you again.

"Maybe you'd wanna play that game again?" he suggested, trying not to seem too soft about it.

Your eyes lit up, and you straightened out a little. "That would be so fun. Maybe you guys will be more relaxed about it this time," you teased.

He rolled his eyes and shook his head but didn't protest too much.

"You could try out that thing I told you with the shell. Maybe you'll win this time around," L added to Light as you got up to fix your clothes and start up the game.

"Maybe. You can't finish first every time, you know," he responded.

They both settled back into the couch after readjusting their own clothing. The familiar music started up on the tv as you handed them both controllers. Even though the situation between the three of you wasn't completely resolved, for the first time in months, you didn't feel the weight of secrecy across your shoulders.

[writervaul-t]

something about you

chapter two: benji

summary: [name] can't seem to shake off benjicot blackwood even with every precaution she takes to avoid him.

pairing: modern!benjicot blackwood x f!reader

notes: if any of you are british, please dm me and tell me i used the right terms for schools 😃 i live for accuracy. also yes, reader is meek and shy and i want to hear NOTHING from any of you.

masterlist | playlist

The rumors circled faster than [Name] running home the same day she had announced she was dating Benjicot Blackwood at Nyra's Nook. When she had gotten home, she texted her boss, apologizing for the commotion and explained a white lie about eating a bad pasta for lunch finally getting to her that afternoon.

Luckily enough, Rhaenyra was more than sympathetic and told her to have the following day off. [Name] spent the day doing what she knew best: hiding out in her room and watching horror movies to avoid hearing anything about what her loud mouth said the previous day.

She hadn't heard anything up until Chiara had barged into her room, howling, "YOU'RE GOING ON A DATE WITH BENJICOT BLACKWOOD?"

"Any louder and the deaf old women two doors down will hear you." [Name] replies, pausing the Babadook.

Chiara ignores her, shoving her friends feet off on her bed to make space for herself. Chiara Tyrell had been one of the many students who came from affluent families - her's being well known for their sustainable food production company - but had hit it off when they were assigned as roommates. She had never hid the fact that she was a Tyrell but also didn't treat [Name] like a piece of gum under her shoe for being a scholarship student, the latter appreciating the treatment.

Still, Chiara always managed to learn about circling gossip and would tell [Name] whether she wanted to or not. Now with the newest information revolving her own roommate, Chiara looked more than pleased to hear directly from the source.

"How'd that happen? Didn't we have plans to watch the movies? Not to mention - Benjicot Blackwood of all people? This is rich."

[Name] dug herself further into her blanket. "Well, first we are still watching movies that and second we aren't going on a date..."

She explains to her friend what had happened, to which she nearly fell over laughing after hearing the whole situation. [Name] swung a pillow at Chiara's face when she wouldn't cease her howling and warned her about their neighbors again.

After taking a few heaving breaths, Chiara stopped, gasping out every word she could think. "That's amazing - and to avoid Aeron of all people? This is even better than the horror movie!"

"What's the deal anyways with those two? I wasn't sure if they wanted to kill or kiss each other." [Name] comments, remembering the scene in front of her.

"Well, they might as well have done either. Their families do similar businesses in trading and unfortunately have property close by so they've always been at each other's throats. Father to son usually. Its like an inherited right to want provoke the next generation." Chiara explains. "Those two, however..."

A look of amused contemplation falls on her face before she giggles. Leave it up to Chiara to not take anything seriously, though [Name] enjoyed their differences, unlike Benjicot and Aeron. "Get on with it!"

"Aeron and Benjicot went to the same schools, all the way up to Sixth Form." Chiara continues. "And anything one had, the other wanted - that included girls and guys. Them coming to university at the same time just about caught everyone's interest. I was hoping one of them would fight again but it seems like Benjicot's pulled back since he entered uni. No one's seen him with anyone that way since we started our first year."

"Why?"

Chiara shrugged. "Who knows. He does have a group of friends he hangs around with nowadays; doesn't hang off with his cousins as much and never floats around groups anymore. At least, according to Janna Terrick."

[Name] nodded, staring at the ceiling as she finally asked herself what had she gotten into? For once her political science lessons finally taught her something and that she just put herself between a family feud and more likely than not brought a couple of monsters out the closet.

"I'm so excited," Chiara continues, laying her body on top of [Name]'s. She just about choked on her curly brown hair and attempted to push her off when all her weight was placed on top of her. "My roommate - my cute little roommate of all people to be in this!"

"This cute little roommate will hit you with another pillow if you don't get off me!" [Name] counters, shoving her off. She turns to the wall, her anxiety building in her chest as she thinks about having to face one of them the next say. "And its not like I wanted this to happen. It just came out because Aeron is such a prick!"

"I'm only joking. If you really do need help, just let me know. I know a few people that can do something about this." Chiara offers ominously, patting [Name]'s arm. [Name] eyes her suspiciously, trying to decide if she wanted to know what she meant or not. She kept her eyes on the wall instead.

"I'm sure another issue will come up soon to mask what happened; besides, almost all the Targaryens and Hightowers are in this year too. There's more than enough drama to go around." Chiara reassures before a mischevious smile comes on her face. "Although it would be fun watching you finally do something outside of studying and working--"

"Chiara."

"Right, I'll leave."

For some reason, [Name] prayed to the gods, old and new, for something to happen to the Targaryens and Hightowers like Chiara mentioned. It had been about two and a half weeks since her blunder and she was still getting strange looks from classmates that just about ignored her until now.

One of them, a Tully brother she couldn't distinguish from, had been brave enough to ask her during her shift at the library, "Is it really true? You got Ben to finally go on a date? Y'know I hadn't pegged him to be the type to date someone like you but I'm glad!"

If she hadn't been so mortified, she would have told Kermit/Oscar off but was beaten to it by the other Kermit/Oscar who smacked his head after he had heard the end his brother's sentence. He sent [Name] an apologetic look.

"My brother was dropped when he was a babe. I'm so sorry. He means well; we're all glad Ben isn't as gloomy as he was before." He offers with a smile before grabbing his brother by the scruff of his shirt like an alleycat and walking away to the other side of the library.

[Name] had just about dropped everything and hid away into the archives section after that. It was embarrassing enough she kept remembering the conversation; it was even worse when people came up to her and ask abouf it.

Still, she made use of her two jobs always finds herself hiding in the archives room or the back of the bookstore whenever she caught sight of Benjicot or Aeron these past few weeks.

The day she had come back to the store, Aeron hadn't shown up but Benjicot had, setting down the books he wanted to buy the first time he was there. "I wanted to get them but Nyra sent me away after you left." He explained to which she only offered a nod as she scanned his selections and packed it quickly into a bag. "Look, I--"

"Thank you for shopping with us, come again. Bye!" [Name] said hurriedly, the guilt of bringing him out of his built in shell overcoming her. She walked away to the back, not coming out until the next customer had come in and she was sure Benjicot was gone. Any time they would be in the same vicinity to one another, he was tried to talk to her but she evaded every attempt he made and seemingly found new routes to her usual spots around campus.

Aeron, surprisingly, pulled back, only giving her long looks across the campus grass during sunset. Still, she wasn't sure the trade in with Benjicot was any better, even though the latter significantly less pushy and condescending as his sworn enemy (though she wouldn't know that much since she never gave him a chance to speak with her).

The archives had been her biggest form of respite from the world it seemed; the silence was a welcome change to the every bustling college town of King's Landing. There were no customers or library patrons to ask her of anything, no nosy classmates staring or making comments, and there was no Benjicot Blackwood or Aeron Bracken to bother/or glare at her.

She sat at one of the long tables down there, contemplating nothing and enjoying it as much as she can before reminding herself that the head librarian, Alicent, would be looking for her soon. As she made her way out the door, she nearly slammed into another body.

"I'm so sorry--"

"Its fine--"

"But I was in the way and I should have been looking forward--!" She started before her mouth clamped shut and met Benjicot Blackwood's brown eyes.

He gave her a reassuring smile as he repeated, "Like I said its fine. I was looking for you anyways." He frowned to himself before correcting himself. "No, well, I was looking for the archives for a class project but I was looking for you. I wasn't following, I promise. I wouldn't do that."

His nervousness seemed to outweigh his appearance - still in the learher bomber jacket and dark clothes. A fashion sense polar opposite to him right now. For some reason this eased [Name] a bit more, though not enough to keep eye contact with him. Her sneakers were a bit more entertaining to look at over Benjicot.

"Um, right." [Name] started, not sure where the conversation should go next. "I'm, uh, sorry. By the way."

"Whatever for?"

"Pulling you into that mess with Aeron. I panicked and wanted him off my back. If I'd known both of you knew each other, let alone hate each other, I wouldn't have brought you in this mess." [Name] explains, finally glancing up at him, fighting the urge to look down again after realizing he had been watching her the whole time as she spoke, listening to every word she said. She adds quietly, "Now we're both pulled into some ridiculous scandal with the school."

Benjicot blinks at her before asking, "You really didn't know about our families? So you didn't just pull me into all of that because you knew about us?"

"No!" [Name] nearly shouts. She wasn't the perfect person but bringing people into her problems hadn't been something she was proud of. "I panicked and you walked in at a seriously unfortunate time."

He nods, seemingly taking on everything she said becore shaking his head and laughing. [Name] frowned, unsure how to take the reaction. Was he mad? Confused?

"Are you upset?" She asks, relief flooding through her as he shook his head.

"No not at all. I just uh..." He starts, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Feel a little embarrassed now."

Huh? "Why?"

"Well I was going to propose we continue--"

"What?" [Name] says, her voice echoing in the empty hall. Benjicot nodded. "What? Why? Aren't you sick of having to answer questions about us already?"

"No actually, I've just been giving vague answers to keep everyone guessing." Benjicot admits, smiling in amusement as [Name] stared at him in shock. "Its fun when you're bored. What have you been saying?"

Nothing. I've been avoiding everyone. "That's not the point. Why do you want to even continue?"

"Ah well, you seem familiar with our families a bit, right?" He starts. "I'm not looking for any trouble but I just enjoy getting under Bracken's skin a lot. Its our second year here and I don't go and poke around with him as much as I did when we were kids. He's on edge and overconfident. I just wanted to remind him that I'm still here to knock him down a bit, yeah? Also, he doesn't seem to hang around the bookstore anymore so you haven't been dealing with him lately."

"Yeah." [Name] said, a little dizzy. He wanted to continue this? Even with the explanation, she had a hard time wrapping her head around it. "So if we pretend to go out a little longer, it irritates Aeron and he'll leave me alone?"

"Something like that, yeah. You don't have to agree to it. Not after you said you knew nothing about the fueds. I know you didn't like him that much either so I thought you bringing me in on that was part of some plan." Benjicot says hurriedly. "I just thought it'd be fun for a little bit - a couple weeks at best - and you'll get time away from that prick forever if we continue."

A bit of the Benjicot from a few weeks ago had came up at that moment when he mentioned Aeron. He really did hate him. Enough to propose to a stranger they should continue "dating" just for some laughs. [Name] stood for a minute, staring down at her shoes again as if they had the answer to this problem.

Now, she could have just told Aeron off but what would that do for someone as dense and self absorbed as him? If she followed Benjicot's suggestion and continued this ruse, it would mean he'd leave her alone since Benjicot is around.

She chewed her lip, following the pit in her stomach as she said, "Fine."

Benjicot's eyes widened, looking like a new person from the sudden agreement. "Seriously?"

[Name] nodded. "On some conditions." She held her fingers up each time she spoke. "One, we only do this on campus and at the bookstore. And try not to be seen with other people around Aeron and his friends; they might get suspicious."

"Easy enough."

"Two, no kissing on the mouth or anything of that sort." Benjicot sent her a confused look.

"How would we convince them then? You act like you've never been kissed before--" He stops himself as [Name] sent him a scathing look.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She says defensively. "Not all of us had time for relationships if we wanted to get into a good university."

"No, I just - you're um, really pretty?" He says the statement like a question, but that only set a fire in [Name]'s chest as she glared at him. He shakes his head in panic. "I'm sorry. I didn't meant to make it sound like an insult. Its just uh... Yeah." He ends whatever he says, clearly not wanting to piss [Name] off anymore. "How about no mouth to mouth of any kind? Just head kisses? That's still convincing enough."

[Name] stared at him, narrowing her eyes in suspicion to see if he gave that suggestion for real or just to appease her. "Fine. Head kisses and that's it."

She held up a third finger. "Two months at best with this. Six weeks basically. We pretend to date, 'break up' and we go on with our days like before."

"We can't even be friends?" Benjicot jokes, though she can hear the hint of genuineness behind it. Given what she head about Benjicot Blackwood, he seemed like nothing but trouble. But being in front him now, so quiet and considerate of her feelings, she wasn't sure what to think anymore.

This time, she was the one to give a reassuring smile. "Let's see in a couple months, Benjicot."

"Just call me Benji. I don't get called Benjicot unless I'm in trouble."

"Sure. Benji."

After laying all their ground rules, Benji offered to walk her home ("Its almost dark and now's a good time to start since everyone's walking home!"). The walk was silent, both unsure of what to say to each other at that moment in time.

Between the both of them, Benji seemed the most natural about acting everything out. He kept an arm around her and often glanced her way, as if completely enamored by her appearance even if she looked like she crawled out of a sewer after a long day of pushing heavy books around all day.

Regardless, she could feel staring again but she didn't mind this time now that she had Benji around to be in on this. By the time they reached her apartment, she pulled away from him. She looked at him and for once she seemed to have a good look at him.

His brown hair was messed up from the autumn wind. The leather jacket fit him well but he clearly seemed to have just grown into it from how he awkwardly kept his hands shoved into his pockets and moved his shoulders around it with uncertainty. In that moment, Benji was just like any other person and not some lone wolf with a rakeish history.

"Thanks for walking me home." [Name] says before pausing. "Benji."

Benji grins. "No problem. [Name]."

The door swings open, Chiara stepping out through the door. Her eyes dart between the two before stepping askde to let [Name] walk in. They both wave at Benji, who reciprocates before turning to walk back to his own place. After he'd been far away enough, Chiara pulls [Name] by her sweater into their apartment.

"What happened?"

The question itself wouldn't give a clear enough answer for her friend. [Name] puts her bag down as she speaks, "I think you'll need to sit down for this. You might faint after you hear everything."

taglist

@not-a-glad-gladiator @opheliaas-stuff @sahvlren @nikki-is-a-nerd @weird-things-i-think-about @cxcilla @anakilusmos @haydee5010 @waystarkia

[mysticheathenn]

Why Are You Ugly? Your Traits, Habits, Etc...

Hi, Hexlings!

This pick-a-card is really just for fun. Please don't take most of what is here seriously unless it resonates. This is just to show some of your features or traits that others deem unattractive. Again this is meant to be fun and not a dig at you..unless you like shit like that then by all means do you.

This is a general reading, remember to take what resonates and leave what does not. This reading does not supplement your need to seek professional help.

Take your time when choosing your pile. Ask yourself the question and choose the picture that you can’t stop looking at. Listen to your intuition.

Pile l:

Tarot: 5 of Swords, 5 of Cups / Strength (reversed), 2 of Swords

Pile l others find you "ugly" because you are a coward who lack direction in their life. The phrase from the movie Clueless "You're a virgin who can't drive" just popped into my head. Not only that but you like to cry wolf while also not doing anything with your life. Ex. "I'm so lazy, a fatass, etc" but then you continue to scroll on TikTok and not apply yourself in areas of your life you want to change. You may also like to point fingers at other people whenever something doesn't happen the way you want it to go and blame everyone else except for the matter for what it is, sometimes yourself.

Oracle: Talent/Dreams (Reversed), Life Purpose The TikTok meme "You are looking so cute doing ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING GET YOUR ASS UP. GET YOUR ASS UP." For those who don't know the meme here is the link to the original video: http://tinyurl.com/3fa4xth2

Pile ll:

Tarot: 3 of Swords / The Magician / 6 of Swords (All Reversed), 5 of Pentacles.

The only thing you like to let go of is money pile ll. Anything else in your life you like to hold onto especially toxic people and grudges and sometimes for no dam reason. Someone could step on your 5-year-old shoes and say sorry but because they stepped on your shoe you're out for revenge...okay maybe some of you may not be that petty but you still like to hold grudges and then wonder why no one or barely anyone is in your life...it's because you let people go for breathing wrong pile ll. Someone says your name in a tone you aren't familiar with, blocked. Someone didn't bring you food even though you said you weren't hungry, block. Again maybe not this crazy for some of you but you get it. You may have also been attracted a bit to pile one because you also don't like to do sh*t with your life and when you do decide to do sh*t with your life if it doesn't happen fast enough for you, you give up as if everything is supposed to bend you to your will when, where, and how you want it.

Oracle: Prosperity/Love (reversed), Trust

There's a lyric to a song that I can't think of but the song part that is playing in my head is "That's why you believe in lies..."...I wish I knew the song but that is the only part of it that keeps playing with no melody in my head. Learn to trust...not only yourself but others and love yourself. Let love in your life without treating everything like a checklist or transaction. Also, stop overspending, pick up a Financial literacy book or course and learn how to save, plan, and budget your money properly.

Pile lll:

Tarot: Death, 8 of Wands, The Fool, Knight of Wands

Pile lll your trait that others may deem "ugly/unappealing" isn't so much of a bad thing. you were probably told when you were younger that you always were "Acting fast" or if not people as an adult tell you all the time that you are always on the move as if you are on the run. You can't sit still maybe you have or deal with ADHD. Every time you get a new idea, or opportunity, or you see something that could possibly get you ahead in life you are on it and you never think about whether this is the right move for you? Is this opportunity legit? or anything else substantial that you need to make sure that you land safely, if not safely at least have a parachute when you jump. You may also move from job to job similar to pile ll anytime you see even a milligram of bullsh*t you are out of there. "Miller when you are done running and want to make a home, make it with me." Book Quote from the book Caught Up by Liz Tomforde (love that book) it's about a female who is always on the run and she does a favor for her dad and nanny one of his teammate's son and when they start falling for each other he says that to her. I am getting this is more so from your higher self pile lll. When you are done running from your past, inner thoughts, poverty, chasing gimmicks, and temporary people go back to yourself and actually see what exactly do you want to do, what is your purpose, what is something you can build for your life that is stable and secure than these fleeting moments you keep trying to create for yourself. Some of you may be either in situationships that you hate or like to have a lot of flings only to feel lonely afterward.

Oracle: Boundaries, Life Purpose, Compassion

This goes back to the quote in your reading pile lll. Stop running from yourself and the things you really want vs the things you chase.... I may do a reading on this let me know if you want that or not. Either way show yourself more compassion and place boundaries on yourself not others. You have no problem in that department for a lot of you but others you need boundaries for yourself and others.

REMEMBER THIS IS MEANT TO BE A FUN READING AND NOT AN ATTACK.

Thank you to everyone who are subscribed to my Patreon and those who like and reblog my pick-a-card readings. I always appreciate you. I hope you enjoyed this reading.

Until next time, stay safe and blessed.

[dr-spectre]

Guys, i wanna preach something to y'all.

If you really love a character and if they are really important to you, but you feel like a large majority of fans treat them poorly and they mischaracterise them. Don't be scared to talk about it.

PLEASE!

This is not even focused on Splatoon, no, this is just in general. If you genuinely love a character so much and they are treated in a way where you feel like it doesn't represent the character's true personality, events, arcs, etc, then speak up about it. Make a post on any social media platform or forum. Speak your peace, share your evidence, do what you can to say "hey guys. I think you should all take a second look at this character i really like! They have some cool stuff about them that not a lot of people talk about!"

I think a really great example of a character who's been really mischaracterised is Deadpool. In the comics he's a sad clown sort of guy where he hides his pain, suicidality and depression behind jokes and 4th wall breaks. He's a bad dude who tries his hardest to be a good person, but he fails over and over again and he doesn't believe he can ever be loved or respected. He's funny but he also has depth and layers which is so important to create an everlasting character. Or at least that's what I've heard he's like from comic fans. I haven't read the comics but i plan on to some day because I'm fascinated by his depth and i wanna experience that.

However in his first major solo appearance, which was the game, he was treated as only a loud mouth jokester who sees every woman he comes across as "awooga! boobies and ass!!!!" and all the depth and nuance is gone. Even though they had a comic writer who worked on Deadpool comics for years, he didn't fucking ATTEMPT to give the character any form of intrigue. Just... nothing. Only memes and pop culture references that'll become dated in 5 years.

And a lot of people think that's just who Deadpool is... That's how so many people got introduced to this character which caused misinformation to spread about him for so long... And that fucking sucks dude.

Thankfully the movies have some form of an emotional center with Wade and Vanessa's relationship and they give the character... SOMETHING!!!!! At least the comic fans seem to be pretty okay with movie Deadpool from my knowledge, which is good.

ANYWAYS! BACK TO SPLATOON!

Do you guys remember when Pearl and Marina used to be treated like this? Pearl as some big forehead joke of a character, while Marina was some bimbo with huge honkers and a giant waist.

Oh yeah, this was how they were treated for years. I remember it man, i fucking remember it all. I was there. Sorry to tell the new fans who joined from Splatoon 3. Even after Octo Expansion gave them detailed backstories and further explored their personalities, they were still mischaracterised as flanderised jokes and nothing more in the community.

But after people took the time to get to know these two, after people spent 7 years with them and discussed the interesting things about them online, they are now portrayed significantly better than how they used to be treated in the community and are celebrated as some of the best characters in the franchise. As they fucking deserve to be treated. Fans don't treat them as jokes anymore, casuals don't make tired old jokes anymore. Everyone loves these two now and for the right reasons.

And all it took was a small section of people to praise their best attributes and eventually overshadow the misinformation about them. Pearl is celebrated because she is genuinely a great character with a heart of gold and a want to care for the people around her. To make every day chaotic and to have fun with her CANONICAL GIRLFRIEND!

Marina is celebrated as a character who autistic people can look up to and find comfort in. AND THAT IS FUCKING AWESOME!!! AND IT ALMOST NEVER HAPPENED! If no one bothered to look deeper at her character then maybe many peoples lives could have never been changed for the better... Isn't that crazy to think about?

If you can change one person's perspective on a character you love, and they feel that energy and they wanna help you share that energy with more people, then i think you've done something truly amazing. Eventually that shit is gonna spread further and further AND FURTHER!!!!!!

Remember when Shiver and Frye were treated as jokes similar to Pearl and Marina at the start of Splatoon 3? Frye with her big forehead jokes and people calling her ugly due to... well... i'm gonna make some wild accusations here but... there might be an undertone of racism when people call Frye ugly... like... i'm just saying... I'm scared of what these people think about Indian women in the real world... What views they share about them... Frye is inspired by Indian culture and by proxy, Indian women. I'm just saying...

And, of course, fans gooning over Shiver because god forbid a woman exposes her midriff and has curvy hips... ugh...

BUT THANKFULLY IT'S CHANGED NOW! Lots of people see Shiver as a silly yet fun character who has the potential for depth down the line, which people are excited to see. People adore Frye and love her personality and her family.

There are people out there who say that Frye is actually cute and beautiful, AND YOU KNOW WHAT!?? I FUCKING AGREE! If people didn't share their love and takes on Frye then maybe she wouldn't become my favourite Deep Cut member.

Now... To tie it all back to me, I'm seeing this change in perspective for a character.... with Callie Cuttlefish.

During the years 2017 to 2022, Callie was always mischaracterised as some airheaded idiot who ended up getting herself "kidnapped" and "brainwashed" and had to be saved as she was some stupid helpless victim. This was seen in official material and fan comics too. I remember it man, i really do. Hell it STILL happens till this day. That fucking summer 2024 Nintendo magazine? Jesus christ dude...

But now? That perspective is changing... Sure not everyone is gonna fully agree and there probably isn't gonna be massive change in official media, social media such as YouTube and twitter, and of course wikis. Not everyone is gonna know about what Callie is truly like and what she has truly gone through. But....

That's okay.

I really don't wanna come across as some sort of gatekeeping fan, i really hate those kinds of """fans""" so much. I just wanna educate and share my love for a comfort character of mine. Eventually the perspective shared by me and others will be spread to other social media platforms and many more people. Because that's how the internet works baby!!!!

The perspective that Callie was just a girl suffering from fame and loneliness, a girl who wanted an escape from it all, a girl who went under hypnosis to numb her pain and stay in the corruptive darkness she built up for so long, a girl who wanted to help her enemies rather than stay in her current life with a cousin who isn't there for her anymore... A girl who didn't need to be saved, but a girl who needed to be reminded of the good memories she had with her cousin, to remember what she truly stood for and the love she wants to share with everyone via music... A girl who just needed... a fresh start....

She was never kidnapped despite what official sources say... She was never brainwashed despite what they tell you... Callie had agency... Callie was suffering... Just in a more nuanced and fascinating way.

that perspective... is spreading and... I'm so happy about it...

Anyways, that's all i have for you guys. Please share your love for a character with others, share your unique perspectives to the world, you have a voice, USE IT! I DON'T CARE IF IT'LL REACH TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE! ONE THOUSAND! A HUNDRED! ONE PERSON! DON'T FUCKING MATTER!

USE YOUR VOICE! PLEASEEEE!!!!!!!!

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Now that there's an animated adaptation of Midnight Sun coming, and given the industry's recent track record (see: Minecraft Movie), what's the worst, bad faith, cash grab adaptation idea you can imagine? I figure if we inoculate ourselves then the reality won't suck so much.

My nightmare: Streaming has a long history of making shitty attempts at "adult animation", so we'll get an Edward who constantly cusses and does lewd jokes. It'll be like the HBO adult animated Velma (Scooby Doo) show where the writers' disdain for the characters fills every scene. The first episode will focus on how Carlisle helps plan a murder of some overly suspicious deputy so they can keep living in Forks.

Anyways, worst case theories? So we can feel better when it's not THAT bad? Or else use the apollo prophecy meme on your post a year or two from now.

My 'realistic' prediction

Twilight: The Edgy Animated Adult Series with Twelve Times More Drugs and Swearing

Oh man, yours is worse than mine. I mean this guessing the future business is a little silly in general, but I think that wouldn't happen as Twilight's not...

How do I put this?

Scooby Doo is a beloved, vintage, IP that's so well-known it's a part of American culture/Americana. It's in that weird place where it's acceptable to do edgy reboots of it because everyone already knows the premise of the Scooby gang, each individual character, the bad guys, and their mysteries.

You don't have to explain who any of the characters are supposed to be, so you get a "ah ha ha ha isn't it funny that Velma swears now?" because you know she's from a 1960's cartoon.

Twilight's not quite old enough for that and, at least in my opinion, not pervasive enough for that. It was a huge sensation, but was never as big as HP, and dominated only a subset of the YA audience (female-targeted YA romance). Ask a person off the street and the most they can probably, maybe, tell you is "sparkly vampires and Team Edward and Team Jacob". So, at best you get riffs like we saw when Twilight came out with the Simpsons and various other parodies where the parodies... really didn't know what to do with the characters or what it was even about. "Milhouse turns into a poodle, I guess? Is that funny? It's funny, right?"

Twilight just isn't old enough and as big as it was, I don't think was widespread enough.

So, I think we're going to get an earnest reboot.

But you do now have me concerned. And I may be eating my words later on this post and reblogging with a clown face.

Other Theories

Alright, let's see what we've got/what we can come up with:

Yours: HBO adult comedy horror fest

Mine: Boring, Snoozeville, Tame, Generically Arted Palatable Twilight that is Designed to Be as Appealing as Possible

Other options I can think of are...

Interview with a Vampirepalooza/Oh God I Don't Know What's Popular: given the recent success of Interview with a Vampire, an edgier adult story with adult characters, Netflix will look to make Twilight their exact own version of that. Except they won't understand what made it work there. We sexy it up but in a CW way, the kids are all still in high school but the fact that the Cullens are fucking each other is brought up relentlessly in an edgy way. The vampires all look hot, hot, hot but in a normal human way where you're not terrified they're some crystal robot out to eat your limbs. We'll keep some of the artsy weird dialogue, but Edward will be both somehow made more sympathetic (as he is the lead we end up with) and 'dark' where he's dangerous in a sexy way and not in a "you smell like my personal heroin way".

The Buffy Route: remember that one teen show from the 90's that was so good it spun off an entire genre of television that essentially hadn't existed before? Twilight becomes a fun teen oriented show where the characters say witty, fun, teenage-like things and get into episodic mysteries while somehow trying to remain in the realm of Twilight. Edward loses his edge, Bella loses her unrelatable nature, and we really play up every time a character has a funny line and write a lot more in there. Unfortunately, it's not a well written teen comedy show and so the lines are just generally bad and the plot never seems to go anywhere and it's just boring.

Hannibal the Twilight: some really artsy director gets involved and we now have a show where the symbolism of Edward walking around as a man-deer takes over the entire fucking thing. Nothing ever happens, Edward just shows up in Bella's dreams as a snarling man deer. When characters talk to each other, it's in artsy nonsense dialogue where it feels like both are reading 2000's era chatbot scripts to one another as they mix metaphors about ponies, china pottery, and dust motes. The plot is so non-existant the only important episodes to watch in a season are the premier and finale, except even then it's unclear what happened.

Audience Input

Anyone else got any wild guesses here?

[abrcmswrld]

Treacherous | Mike Schmidt x Reader

Summary: Reader and Mike have been best friends since childhood. After a fight, Reader is given a surprise visit.

Warnings: General Angst, General Fluff, a suggestive make out scene in the nude but nothing too crazy, mentions of feminine clothing in one part but overall gender neutral

Author's Note: IM EDITING THIS RN SO PLEASE JUST IGNORE THE MISTAKES AND LIKE DUMB STUFF This is my first fic for Mike so bear with me! I tried so hard to adhere to the movie timeline but if it seems shaky please just ignore it lmao. I'm also bad at pacing sorry. I’d love to make this a series cause I’m in love with a good friends to lovers trope.

Mike had always been a bit of a mess. All of the time that you've known him, this has never changed. You can recall times on the playground of boys calling him names for his sensitivities. How were they to know the gravity of his situation? How were you to know? But you always felt called to stand up for him either way.

So you'd hound them off. You'd grab his hand and pull him off the dirt and to a quiet corner of the playground. The two of you would sit on the wooden border, picking at the grass and watching the other kids play.

His sensitivities would quickly turn to a certain hardness that you'd never fully come to understand, even in your late twenties. He'd open up the tiniest bit in high school, after his mother had passed away. He was only 17 years old. You were still children.

You have memories of standing uncomfortably in the dress your mother had insisted you wear to the funeral. You didn't know how to approach him then. He sat alone in a chair on the far side of the funeral home, a blank expression on his face. You couldn't say a word as you took tiny footsteps towards him. And he didn't say a word either, just looked up with bloodshot eyes. You'd hugged him then, feeling his shoulders shakes against you.

Soon it was time for the two of you to start thinking about college and your lives outside of the scope of small town high school. Talks of plans to find something new and excited were quickly stomped out by the failures of his father. You can recall a 23 year old Mike begging for your company on late nights when his father's drinking had reached a climax.

And you'd gladly show up for him. Abby was only six by that time, and Mike was all she had. Mike spoke about his father with disdain to you. Never crying the way he had as child, but you could see a sad anger within the conversations. And really, you couldn't blame him.

You can remember a night on the roof of your childhood home. It wasn’t your first time sneaking Mike through the window of your bedroom. It was a cold December night, and you were home for the holidays.

“I don’t think my dad’s coming back.”

Your knees were pulled up and under your chin as you rest your head and listened to his worries. “What do you mean?”

He sighed. “I mean, he hasn’t been back for three days and I think this might finally be it.”

You furrowed your brows and met his gaze.

“I’ll move back here.”

In that moment he had begged you not to. You were so close to finishing your degree and he insisted that he could not be the reason you didn’t finish. So you heeded to his wishes. You finished your final semester.

In the 6 months that you were gone after that night, his dad had not returned. Mike had stepped up to be a guardian for his sister. Family court would later assure this in legal documentation.

You had hugged him tightly the first night you were home and assured him that you would be there, for the both of them.

━━━

You would prove that to him when his original babysitter had ghosted him.

“Probably got tired of not being paid.” He had said when you asked why.

You don’t ask for pay. You had a day job that kept you stable enough to live. And as Mike’s hours were night shift, there was really no problem with the arrangement.

It would go on for a few weeks. You hadn’t seen pay, but you didn’t mind. Mike would cook you breakfast when he got home. That was payment enough for you.

But you could notice he wasn’t doing well. Dark circles had formed under his eyes. He had confided in you about the actions of his Aunt Jane. He showed you the papers with bold letters proclaiming a request for a change of custody. His stress and worry made sense to you now.

He would have to prove he was fit, a big ask in a court setting, especially for someone like Mike. You had encouraged him the best you could.

But everything had come to a head on a night when Mike had intended to actually pay you.

He woke you from your light sleep on his couch, alerting you that he was home. He sat his tired body on the recliner.

“There’s a 20 dollar bill in my jacket pocket.”

His eyes are closed as he speaks. It seems the night has been a rough one for him. “You don’t have to, but thank you.” You find the jacket lying on the kitchen table. You feel slightly bad as you reach your hand in to find the bill, but your guilt falls into confusion as your fingers brush the tiny bottle inside.

You let your eyes travel over the orange bottle in your hands. You furrow your brows. You turn to face the recliner he sits in.

"Mike."

He turns his head to face you, tired eyes falling on yours. He sees the bottle in your hands and you can see a sense of uncertainty and dread fall across his features.

"What are these? Sleeping pills?"

He immediately tenses, as if he had been avoiding this topic with everyone. But he responds quietly, “Yes.”

You fall silent for a moment, unsure of what to say. Realistically, there was nothing wrong with sleeping pills. People use them all of the time to sleep. But Mike seems hesitant to cover the topic of these pills and why he uses them.

An additional concern comes up in the way he had stuffed them in his jacket pocket. Why was he taking them to work? You hate the way your thoughts sound like the micromanagement of a mother, but all you can see is the bright yellow of the custody papers and Abby’s sweet face in your mind.

“Have you been taking these at work?”

He’s silent. It’s enough of an answer for you. You sigh as you sit the bottle down on the kitchen counter. You’ve known he wasn’t well. The incident that had gotten him fired from his last job, the dark circles under his eyes, the hardness about him, it all worried you. But you had always chose to let him live. Let him make his mistakes.

“Mike, talk to me. What’s going on with you?”

He lets out a spiteful scoff as if the conversation is beneath his worries at the moment. He lets out a shaky sigh. “I feel connected to him there. I don’t know why, but I do.”

There’s no doubt in your mind who he is referring to. His baby brother. The one he couldn’t save. You let him continue.

“If I can put myself into the right state of mind, I can see it. I can watch it over and over. And if I try hard enough maybe I might see who took him.”

He voice drifts off to a quiet and weak tone, “That’s all that matters to me.”

You can tell he’s hurt by the way that his voice comes out strained and weak, and it hurts you too. It’s not as if you couldn’t understand the pain of the situation. He’d cried to you all those years back when it first occurred. What you can’t understand is how he could let it ruin his relationship with Abby. Abby who is alive and well. Abby who, even if discreet, sees Mike as the moon and stars.

“And what about that little girl who sits around and draws you all day long?”

It makes you feel like a bitch to even say such a thing to him, but if it gives him a shake maybe it’d be worth it. “What about her?”

He stands still as a statue, emotions shifting across his face as he processes the words you’ve shot at him. You’re sure they strike like a bullet. His mouth opens and closes again, so you speak again.

“I know how badly you want to bring him back, Mike. To bring him back and be able to pretend none of that ever happened.”

He furrows his brows and you can the see the hurt flood his expression.

“But you’re going to lose them both if you don’t get your shit together.”

You sigh. You hate the way you sound like a mother scolding a child. You take a shaky breath. “Do you think that this job is really good for you? I mean-“ He cuts you off with a scoff and a laugh.

His tense attitude has you uncomfortable and defensive. You hate the way your voice becomes strained as you speak. “I just think it’s taking a toll on you.”

“I need this job, otherwise I’m never gonna see her again.”

And of course you know that. He needs a job to look good for a court that’s supposed to be able to decide if he’s right to take care of his sister. But what good does a job do on paper if the court can clearly see the way his mental stability is shaky? He hesitates and meets your eyes with a tense look as he speaks,

“You’re here to babysit Abby, not me.”

You stand silently in front of him for a moment before grabbing your coat. You turn toward him. You can see the quirk of regret on his expression, but he doesn’t speak, doesn’t take it back.

“It’s gonna take more than a shitty job that drives you crazy to keep her. I think you should find somebody else to babysit Abby.”

There’s malice in your tone and you hate it. But you can’t make excuses for him. You ignore his voice as he says your name quietly. You just let the door close behind you a you walk to your car. You wait for the door to open again behind your back. It doesn’t.

He doesn’t text you either. In fact, you don’t hear from him for another week and you wonder if he’s already replaced you and plans on holding the grudge.

You assume he must have. He must have found another babysitter for Abby. It seemed he was saving money to actually pay whoever took that role.

You can’t stop yourself from becoming more and more sad as the week goes on. You find yourself worrying more and more about Mike. And Abby. There’s no doubt in your mind that Jane was still adamant on proving in court that Mike was an unfit guardian.

You don’t know why you feel as though your presence could somehow remedy that. You don’t know why you feel an ache so deep in your heart. Friendship breakups are common. But Mike was different.

You still don’t let yourself text him. You would give him the power to choose that route. To choose you and the friendship you had given him since you were both children. And by the end of the week you have to force yourself to sleep.

And by the end of the week you get what you had secretly hoped for.

━━━

The knock on your door is urgent. You're half asleep as you rise out of the comfort of your bed. Your feet press against the cold floor as you rush to see who it could be. As you glance through the peephole you're met with those familiar black curls.

You open the door swiftly, shivering at the cool breeze that flows in. He looks like hell. Abby stands at his side. You're stunned, "Oh my God." You open the door wider and usher the two of them in.

Abby seems to be physically uninjured, while Mike's face is bloodied and bruised. You whisper to Mike,

"What the hell happened?"

He looks to Abby before he answers. "Abby should get some rest while we talk." You nod immediately. "Of course. She can sleep in my bed while I patch you up."

You lead the young girl to the bed and ensure she's tucked in. She thanks you quietly before you leave the room. You grab some first aid supplies from the bathroom cabinet on your way back.

"Sit."

You point Mike in the direction of the couch. He winces as you wipe the open cuts with alcohol wipes. You raise an eyebrow, “ You look like hell, Mike.” He scoffs in response.

“So you gonna tell me who did this to you, or am I just gonna have to keep wondering?”

Mike hesitates. You stop your movements to look at him with concern. He shakes his head, “You’re gonna think I’m crazy.” You sigh,

“Mike, I know you. Just tell me.”

And so he does. He explains everything down to the little details he can remember. It sounds crazy, it absolutely does. But you can’t bring yourself to think he’s faking it.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I know what I saw. She knows what she saw.” He points in the direction of the room Abby was soundly sleeping in.

“I believe you.”

He closes his eyes and exhales a large breath. You continue to clean the cuts along his face and head. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches.” He nods. There’s still an awkward tension between the two of you. He’s upset with himself for letting you leave the way you had, and you’re ashamed of yourself for letting him push you away. You break the silence at the same time,

“You know-“

“I’m sorry-“

You can’t help but laugh a little, and he smiles weakly back at you.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry too.” You continue.

He shrugs. “You were just looking out for me. I understand that now.” It means a lot coming from Mike. He’s stubborn, not usually one to admit when he’s wrong. It makes the moment all the more sincere. You smile slightly, letting a hand brush his cheek where a bruise is blossoming under the skin.

“I wouldn’t have said what I did if I didn’t care about you.”

He nods slowly and leans his cheek into your caress. You can feel the warmth of his hand as he lets it fall to your hip. His voice falls to a whisper.

“I care about you too.”

You smile and swipe a thumb over his bottom lip, where the plush skin has split from impact and smeared blood across his pale chin. He groans as he leans up, it’s only then that you notice the large gash on his side.

He attempts to stand, hobbling on his injured leg. “Mike,” He turns toward your bedroom, ready to grab Abby and get out of your hair. When he turns his back, you can see the blood seeping through his shirt and the large tear across his back. You grab his hand,

“Mike.”

He faces you again, letting a quick glance fall to your now connected hands. “Let her sleep, she’s alright. Let me help you.”

He stands awkwardly in front of your bathroom counter. His muscles flex with each touch of your fingers around his wounds, his fingers gripping the counter until his knuckles are white.

“I think it’d be best if you took this off.”

You’re awkwardly fiddling with the hem of his long sleeve shirt. He meets your gaze in the mirror and you feel small. Your voice is nearly a whisper, “I- I just can’t see.”

You stare at the floor as he pulls the shirt over his head. The gash is messy, but not deep enough to require stitches. Regardless, it’s covered in a thick layer of blood and sweat. You usher him to turn, and you see that the cut on his side is not better.

He can see the way your eyebrows screw together. “Is it that bad?” His voice has a touch of dread hidden in its tone. “I mean,” You glance at him.

“I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but you need to clean them or they’re gonna get infected.”

He swallows and nods. You walk to the shower, turning the knobs and adjusting the water to an appropriate and comfortable temperature. You clear your throat, “Here. I’ll, uh, I’ll let you…do your thing.”

You turn on your heels to give him privacy. As soon as your fingers touch the metallic surface of the doorknob, his hand catches your free hand, pulling gently. You turn toward him, meeting his eye. He pulls you closer and carefully pulls you into an embrace. You’re worried you’ll catch his wounds with your hands so you let them hover above his skin, not actually touching. But you want to.

You can feel his breath on your neck where he’s buried his face. He speaks into the sensitive skin, “Thank you. I don’t thank you enough.” That’s the moment you finally let your hands rest on his skin.

“You don’t have to thank me, Mike. I do it because I care about you.” You gently brush your fingers across his upper back, avoiding his cut. “Besides, you’d do it for me.”

He pulls himself from your neck, and you drop your hands from his back gently, expecting him to pull out of the embrace. But he stays close to you and only pulls back enough to see your face. Your cheeks are so hot. You can feel it and you know he can probably see it. He keeps his hands at your sides, just above your hips in a way that feels respectful. You allow yourself to put your hands on his forearms, thumbs resting in the bend of his elbows.

“Your water is gonna get cold.”

It’s a whisper as it comes out. He simply nods but doesn’t drop his hands from your sides. You smile shyly at him.

“Come with me.”

Your face is instantly hot and you’re suddenly hyper aware of the steam that’s building in the room and around the two of you. With your eyes wide and your mouth opening but no words coming out, he looks at you with hesitation, like he can’t believe the words actually left his mouth.

You can see the fear building on his expression the longer the silence drags on. Thoughts are racing through your head. You’d be lying if you said you’d never thought of this. You loved him. There’d always been a flutter in your stomach and a heat in your cheeks that let you know that perhaps it could be more than a friendship. You want that. But is this really how it’s going to happen?

You imagine the two of you going from childhood friends to becoming well acquainted with each other’s bodies in the span of one stressful night after not speaking for nearly a week. But there are no alarm bells going off in your head. You can’t bring yourself to feel ashamed.

So you kiss him. With his arms still around you and the heat from his bare chest creating a sense of protection from everything. With the whirl of water hitting the tub filling your ears. With the image of Abby sleeping soundly in your bedroom in your mind.

When you pull away, he looks at you with a sense of longing you’ve not seen on him before. You don’t want to say a word, not right now. It’ll be complicated. You know it will be. And you’ll have to have that conversation eventually, but right now the only thing you want is the heat of the water and the silk of his skin against yours.

So you finally unwrap yourself from him to begin working the buttons on your shirt. You’ve turned your brain off momentarily. Your fingers are on autopilot as they remove each article of clothing. If you allowed yourself to think, you’d surely turn in on yourself from the shame.

But when you’re finally bare and displayed in front of him, he doesn’t speak. He only looks with a fondness in his eyes that goes beyond a lustful stare. He slowly works his pants off his injured figure, wincing in the process, and soon he’s just as bare as you.

You’re shaking and cursing yourself internally for doing so. God, why were you shaking? You know he notices as he reaches his hand out to touch your arm lightly, grounding you in reality, and speaks, “Are you okay?”

You nod. More than okay.

The water feels heavenly as it beats against the skin of your back. Mike hobbles into the shower after you. He’s hesitant as you usher him to switch with you. It’s gonna hurt, but it’s necessary.

Your fingers lightly brush the wound on his back. He'd already been wincing slightly from the sting of the water, but your touch has him tensing immediately. You grab a cloth and dampen it enough to be effective in cleaning the general blood and grime from the afflicted wound.

The moment your cloth cover hand touches the  wound, he cries out through closed teeth, "Fucking- fuck!" His hands are planted against the shower wall in front of him. He bites his lip, holding in the whimpers of pain, trying his hardest not to wake Abby.

"Shh. It's okay, Mikey."

You let a gentle hand fall to his non injured side, brushing his skin. You're trying to sooth his tense and pained form as much as possible.

Soon enough you have both gashes cleaned up and ready to be bandaged. Mike turns to face you in the shower. His face still has a slight touch of discomfort to it, but he smiles weakly at you.

“Thank you.”

You smile back and nod. You’ve hardly said a word outside of attempting to sooth his pain with sweet words. The cold is starting to seep in from the tiny crack in the shower curtain. You can feel tiny goosebumps beginning to form on your skin. He frowns slightly and breaks the silence again.

“Did I cross a line…with this?”

Your head is already shaking before you can even comprehend the question. Like your body knows the answer before your mind does. “No, Mike.” He hesitates in his response, standing still and quiet before stepping towards you.

He seems to be able to move around a little better. You’re not sure if it’s the water cleaning the previously irritated wounds or if it’s the adrenaline pumping through his body. Either way you’re thankful as his hands are grabbing at your face and pulling you into another kiss.

It’s sloppier than the previous kiss you had shared, and he’s pushed you back so far that your back is hitting the cold tile of the shower wall. A fog has taken over your mind as you reach around his shoulders, digging your fingers into the plush muscle of his back.

The feeling of his tongue swiping into your mouth has sent you entirely mad. You’re whining slightly at the feeling and your eyes are half lidded. You can’t even think of the fact that this is your childhood best friend kissing you. Making you shudder. You can’t find it in you to care, you want him.

“Mikey…”

It’s a whispered moan as you let your head fall back against the tile, exposing the delicate skin of your neck to his wandering mouth.

Despite his injured form, his hands are tight around you. You'd thought of this before, in the heat of the night alone in your high school bedroom, hormones taking over completely.

You'd imagined the strong grip of his hands and the contrast of his plush lips. The bite of white teeth and soothing warmth of the hot water.

It’s absolutely divine, you think. He is divine. You know you’ll have dark bruises on your neck from the way he bites. You can’t help but run a hand through the hair on the back of his head and tug slightly. The moan is elicits rumbles through your neck and you want more.

You’re absolutely drunk off of the feeling of his body being this close to yours, nearly intertwined. You don’t even think when your nails swipe the cut on his back. That is until he lets out a yelp in the crook of your neck and promptly jump back.

You’re wide eyed immediately, realizing what you’d just done.

“I’m- I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Mike.”

You can still see the remnants of a wince on his face but he laughs. And you find yourself letting out a nervous laugh with him. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

You laugh again, holding the palm of your head to your forehead.

“We should probably get out. It’s getting cold.”

You nod.

━━━

You manage to sneak past Abby’s sleeping figure long enough to grab old clothes from your room. You find yourself thanking the universe than Abby is a heavy sleeper.

You’re also thankful that you hadn’t given Mike back an old t-shirt that he had left in your home years ago. He smiles at you when you hand it to him. He puts it on and examines the familiar print on the front.

“You’ve been holding this one hostage, huh?”

You gently nudge his shoulder and let out a chuckle. “Shut up.”

You’ve layered blankets in the middle of your living room floor. You speak as you lay pillows down on the makeshift palette. “Abby is sleeping peacefully, I’m not letting you drive home tonight, and there’s no way I’m letting you sleep on my tiny couch.”

You point exaggeratedly at the “bed” you’ve created for the two of you. “Ta-da.” You let yourself fall back onto the layers of pillows and blankets. It’s surprisingly cushioned. You sigh. “Actually not that bad, Mikey.”

He watches you with a smile from his seat on your couch. “You’ve really out done yourself.” He slides off the couch and into the layers of blankets and pillows next to you. He turns to rest on his uninjured side, facing you. It’s dark in the room, but you’ve left one lamp on. You can see his features glow under the warm light. You brush a hand on his cheek lightly.

“I’m glad you didn’t die tonight, Mike.”

He snickers, but you’re serious. The thought of his face on the news, just another tragedy at Freddy’s, haunts you. “I’m serious.”

He simply stares at you. “You’re not gonna go back there, right?” He closes his eyes and shakes his head slowly.

“I don’t know how I’m gonna take care of her. I can’t keep a job.”

Your thumb brushes at his cheek, soothing his tension. “I’ll help you. When have I ever left you alone in this?” You shiver as you think of the only time you’d walked out on him after that heated argument. You push the thought away and close your eyes.

“Really love you, Mike. You’re my best friend.”

You open your eyes hesitantly and you can see the shine of moisture in his. “Love you too.”

You place a kiss on his lips. It’s chaste, but full of a deep warmth. It leaves you wondering what comes next.

You tuck yourself in close to him.

“Goodnight, Mike.”

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Apr 2nd

~*~

1. hi there, can yall help me find a modern au fic where wwx was kicked out of the jiang household and he started to spend his nights within his school premesis? i remember lqr, lxc and nmj being the ones to find him one night. thank you for yalls hard work 💐

FOUND? Where is home? by SpicyRamen_10969 (M, 80k, WIP, WangXian, Modern AU, High School, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Coming Out, Not Jiang Family Friendly, Supportive LQR, Good Sibling LXC, Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, JC Being an Asshole, Possible Smut?)

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2. Do you know fiction where wei ying travelled back to past but lan zhan feeling also travel back.

FOUND? 💖 Come Back to Me by s6115 (M, 9k, wangxian, time travel, fix-it, soulmates)

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3. Nsfw ask but this fic was one where wwx and lwj helps jc and lxc (jc was the one asking) how to have fun/ painless sex. They try multiple times but end up getting cockblocked or something of that sort @thatperson0-0

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4. Hi! I'm looking for a fic where during the Lotus Pier seige there is an array or something set up that protects it and results in a baby for WWX and LWJ that is about the same age as A-Yuan - they already know (can't remember how). As a result of that array, the baby, A-Yuan, and people involved can shift into animals. Thank you! @hpikachu2003

FOUND! 💖 Magical Marriage Ribbons Series by starandrea (Varies, 1m, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Accidental Marriage, Fluff, Happy Ending, Telepathic bond, Kink Negotiation, Family Drama, Magical Pregnancy, Dual Cultivation, Shapeshifters, Modern with Magic, Immortality, Yilling Wei Sect) has LWJ continuously struggling to vocalize nearly ANY of his sexual wants even well after wangxian get together

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5. looking for a fic that I thought I'd saved and hope i didn't dream it up... in this fic, I think wwx and lwj aren't tgt, but slept tgt? wwx finds out he is expecting, and instead of letting lwj know, he goes to the wens for refuge (I believe granny wen is mentioned in the description!) I don't know much else, other than it might be a modern au fic. thank you!

FOUND? Nothing but your heart by airinshaw (E, 21k, WangXian, Modern AU, A/B/O Dynamics, Implied Mpreg, First Time, Getting Together, Angst and Drama, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anal Sex, Whump, Breeding Kink)

FOUND? The Winner Takes It All by YilingSani (M, 46k, WangXian, Modern AU, Single Parent WWX, Old Friends, One Night Stands, No Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Forgiveness, Second Chances, Inspired by Mamma Mia! (Movies) Teen Pregnancy, Mpreg, mention of miscarriage, Birth Trauma, amniotic fluid embolism) although Granny Wen isn't in the list of characters but she features in the story?

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6. Hi i am searching for a particular fic but it seems to have disappeared on me so the storyline was that LWJ and WWX were married but WWX wasn't happy in the marriage and LWJ comes to know this by hearing it from some where that WWX said so when he had gone to a flower house/brothel and then LWJ calls upon WQ to confirm if what he heard was true which she does and so he makes a decision to go leave planning to head to Yilling or CR and when he was travelling he encounters XXC and SL but doesn't reveal his identity of being WWX's husband just says that he is a disciple of the Lan and the 3 of them work on this night hunt where out of 3 wishes one would be fulfilled, is a curse related to i think some sisters also JWY was the emperor and WWX's post was either a general crown prince or a marquis and after WWX comes to know about LWJ leaving asks LWJ's maids who go with LWJ whenever he visits CR if they know where has he gone— with him also going to CR in search for LWJ (unsure) and JWY in a scene tells WWX some thing along the lines of that it wasn't probably also LWJ's choice, was being pressured into the marriage or so. most likely was muti-chaptered don't remember much of it and was on ao3. Thank you. @1p1rose1

FOUND! 💖 Eat, Pray, Night Hunt by Itszero (G, 29k, wangxian, Arranged Marriage, Reconciliation, Getting Together, YLLZ WWX, Misunderstandings, Royalty, Historical Inaccuracy, Happy Ending, Fluff, Imperial AU, palace au, Dual POV, Fluff and Angst, Historical Fantasy, Xianxia but also court drama ya know?)

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7. Hi! I'm looking for a CQL!verse fic in which people can choose to tie a red string between them when they get married (sort of a soulmate au, but not really). When wei wuxian falls off the cliff to his death, lwj ties a string between them. when wwx comes back, the string is how lwj recognizes him. when the canon plot is over, lwj thinks he has to cut the string between them. i think this fic might have been deleted, though, but any help you can give would be welcome. thanks

FOUND! 💖 a trail of blood to find your way back home by blackelement7 (T, 19k, wangxian, JC & WWX, what if a soulmate string au, but without the soulmates aspect of it, a reflection on the nature of marriage, WWX is full of regrets, so is LWJ, Mutual Pining, Miscommunication, JC & WWX Reconciliation, JC is trying his best but words are hard and his brother is stupid, Siblings, Canonical Character Death, but it's just WWX, accidental 3zun feels, WWX as the most unreliable of narrators)

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8. hi! thx so much for your work in the fandom. i'm looking for a fic where wwx is a sect leader and towards the end of the fic (I think) he's at a cultivation conference where someone tries to set fire to his rooms and he and lwj go into a qiankun box. i think at the very end wwx summons a phoenix born from the flames of his burned rooms. thx so much!

FOUND? A Phoenix Rising - An Untamed Story by AitchNKay (E, 130k, WangXian, The Untamed (TV) Ending, Angst, Porn With Plot, Anal Sex, jerking off, Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch WangXian, junior ducklings, Oral Sex, Post canon, Not everyone is gay, Family is everything, so many feelings, Introduction of New Characters, porn with feeling, Friendship, Healing, Suibian/Bichen/Chenqing/WangJi, 3 weddings and a funeral)

~*~

9. hello, thanks for your work!

i was trying to search for this fic where wwx from post-canon travels back in time and is in around the yllz time, he keeps doting on lwj and yllz (past wwx) gets a bit jealous but doesn't know what to name it. he refuses to believe that he married lwj in the future and the future wwx gets mad at him and tells him not to hurt lwj. can't seem to find it anywhere.

FOUND? From the Future for the Past by friedchickenlord (G, 27k, wangxian, time travel, fluff, humor, love confessions, pining, happy ending, denial)

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10. Hi buddy, I have one request. If you have came across a wangxian fic where Wei Wuxian is reincarnated and came to Gusu with Lan Wanji ( I think LWJ is the chief cultivator here) and realised that LWJ was getting marriage proposals from around the (cultivation) World a lot. And he propose to conduct a competition to find the most suitable candidate from the available lot while being secretly heartbroken that he could not have LWJ. I'm not sure if it's ABO or not. A-yuan also has an important role in this fic. Plz help..... @grrumpywoof

FOUND? a morbid longing by sunandseas (E, 24k, WIP, WangXian, Mutual Pining Misunderstandings, Porn with Feelings, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega LWJ, Alpha WWX, Bottom LWJ, Possessive WWX, BAMF WWX, Protective WWX, Hurt LWJ, Dark WWX)

is that the one where the suitors have to steal a token from lwj, and lwj gives it to wwx, but wwx thinks it was just the gusu jade access pass and was really sad about someone winning the token?? 🤔 (based on the comic about the witch's cat?)

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11. Hii, I'm looking for a fic. It was about wwx wished that he does not exist in the life of people he love, because of what happens with jiang yanli, jin ling, jiang cheng and everyone he loves. So he live, but not with his parents, jc,lwj and so on. And there's one time his parents come to an inn and met wwx, they dont know who wwx is because they never have a kid. But wwx and his father, has a similar face, so when he look at wwx, he feel like wwx is his kid that he never have.. I hope that u know this fic is, because I have been trying to remember where and what fic it is but I cant. Thankyou for your hard work.

Pretty sure #11 is a twitter thread by cerbykerby but I don't have a twitter account any more and thus searching is hard

FOUND? For 11, this is the cerbykerby fic unrolled

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12. heyy admins! i'm looking for a fic where wei ying's parents turns out to be alive. from what i remember they somehow escaped the burial mounds after many years and they learned about wei ying from people then they made their way to the cloud recesses and they stayed there a bit. thanks in advance! <3

FOUND? The Long Winding Road Home by Admiranda (T, 13k, CSSR/WCZ, wangxian, flash forwards, Time Travel, Post canon, WWX's parents come to post canon mdzs, not for JC fans, fluffy family reunions, mocking LQR to his face, mocking JC to his face, wild rumors abound)

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13. Hello, I was wondering if you could help me find a fic. It was a pacific rim and atla fusion au where I think wwx was transferred to the station lwj was at. Then they were attacked and wangxian were either forced or called to go into a Jaeger together to attack the kaiju. @xo-minx

FOUND? The Weight of the World by KouriArashi (T, 67k, WangXian, XiYao, Pacific Rim Fusion, Robots, Monsters, robots fighting monsters, Family, Romance, Developing Relationship, Angst, (but not about the romances), Hurt/Comfort, Politics, Happy Ending)

FOUND? Thunder's Coming Over Me by phnelt (E, 38k, WIP, WangXian, Avatar & Benders Setting, Pacific Rim Fusion, temporary character death (wwx's), Angst with a Happy Ending, Action & Romance)

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14. Hello ! First of all, THANK YOU for your hard work on this blog and WangxianFicRecs, I really enjoy my time on both ! :) This is a first for me so I hope I'm asking properly (otherwise, please, excuse me^^'). I'm looking for a fic I think was on a list in FicRecs last month but I can't seem to find it back... I just skimmed through it at the time and thought that it was great and that I would come back to it later... except I forgot to bookmark it and had not luck searching my AO3 history so far :'(. It was a Wangxian AO3 fic and the only thing I remember clearly is a sentence where Wei Ying thinks about the way Lan Zhan smells and says that he decides LZ's scent smells like love.

Aaaaand I'm sorry because I know this isn't much, but if by any chance someone happened to know which fic it is and I could stop racking my brain, I would be super grateful for that ! :)

I wish you all a wonderful day/night !

I was #14 in the April 2nd FicFinder. I finally went through all of February posts and found again the fic I was looking for! It was in fact in your Crossdressing comp and it wasn't about LZ smelling like love but LZ's kiss tasting like love 😅.

Anyway, here's the fic : only the dead (have seen the end of war) by comforting_monachopsis.

Sorry to have bothered you and thanks again ! ❤️

FOUND? only the dead (have seen the end of war) by comforting_monachopsis (T, 42k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, temporary amnesia, BAMF WWX, sad LWJ, grief/mourning, loneliness, mild gore, secret identity, loss of identity, identity porn, angst, humor, crossdressing)

~*~

15. Hi!! For next ficfinder, can you help me find this two fic?

A) a fic where Qin su is the one that resurrected Wei Wuxian and she give him a detail instruction. I remember a scene where Wei Wuxian try to seduce Jin Guangyao so that he can get out from Koi tower. If I'm not mistaken, Qin su and Lan Xichen is best friend and Xichen really sad and disappointed at himself for not realising his best friend is long dead. There are also part where wwx try to sunburn Qin su face so it become unrecognisable.

B) a fic where Lan Qiren is mistakenly drink wine in his teapot and he is doting to Wei Wuxian and told about marriage arrangement that has been sign by Cangse Sanren and Lan Wangji when they are a little kid.

Thank you and Have a nice day😘 @chibiizzy

15A)

FOUND! The Tales of Despereaux (CH 1-23) by stiltonbasket (T, 50k, wangxian, LXC/NMJ, JC & WWX, JYL/JZX, JC/WQ, Canon DivergenceAdditional Warnings In Author's Note, major ships are listed but others might pop up!)

15B)

FOUND! 🔒 Who gave Lan-xiansheng alcohol?! by HeloSoph (Not Rated, 14k, wangxian, LQR & WWX, CSSR & LQR, CSSR/WCZ, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Canon Divergence, POV LQR, Drunk LQR, WWX is Loved, Jiāng Family Bashing, YZY Bashing, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Engaged WangXian, Gūsū Lán Forehead Ribbon, Cloud Recesses Shenanigans, Character Death, Self-Indulgent, Wedding Planning, Fluff and Humor, Married WangXian, Good Uncle LQR, CSSR & LQR Friendship)

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16. Hi I really need help but there’s this wangxian fic where basically lan zhan keeps complimenting Wei wuxian and wwx tells him he has to give him notice before doing it so lan zhan gives him a time frame or writes him a letter etc. and i cannot for the life of me find it please help me find it 😭😭😭 @vilethot

FOUND! Content Warning: Romance by Ariaste (M, 5k, WangXian, BDSM, Praise Kink, nonsexual kink, which turns into sexual kink, wwx's canonical fetishes, Kink Negotiation, basically my ongoing mission to demonstrate to fandom that Kink Can Be Unbearably Soft Actually)

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17. Hi! How are y'all doing? for the next fic finder, I'm looking for a modern au, no magic, where fem!wwx goes to live with lwj after she turns 18 and her main goal is to get together with lwj so she's very shameless to the point that lwj has to tell her that he'll have to set rules if she continues like that, and asks if she's aware that he's a man

anyone knows it? I'm scared that it was deleted. Thanks! I hope y'all have a wonderful day!

FOUND! tell me what's your motive by sweetlolixo (E, 7k, wangxian, F/M, Modern, Genderbending, Female WWX, Male LWJ, Penis In Vagina Sex, Dirty Talk, Oral Sex, Breeding Kink, Masturbation, Size Difference, Stomach Bulge, JYL and LWJ best friends agenda, Older LWJ)

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18. Fic Finder: I'm looking for a fic where LWJ is cursed to his young child self. In Yiling, WWX sees a Lan boy with the forehead ribbon surrounded by people, and then he recognizes child LWJ. Child LWJ refuses to leave the nearby inn because he's waiting for his uncle and brother, who do not come. WWX waits with him and says he was a student of LQR, but LWJ doesn't believe him because his uncle did not teach when LWJ was young. Eventually WWX convinces LWJ to go to the burial mounds with him, and he writes a letter to LXC but he isn't sure if LWJ will recognize his brother as an adult.

Thanks in advance!

FOUND? I think this fic is the deleted "Staying close to you" by Venon. I couldn't find it on the wayback machine but I have a copy.

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19. Hi! I forgot to bookmark this time travel fic and the only thing i can remember is he came back during lan qiren’s class and he cried and suddenly fainted?? thank you!! @gideonmorningstar

FOUND? Wish Me Luck by Starlight1395 (Not Rated, 164k, WangXian, Fix It, Time Travel, Angst, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Nightmares, Slight fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Lots of tears, cannon levels of blood/violence, Minor Character Death, secondary character death, Sibling Bonding, semi mild smut, mild Self-harm)

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20. hello!! i’m looking for a thread fic on twitter. lwj is feral alpha who’s been checked into a rehabilitation centre. i don’t remember exactly but there was yiling in the name. wwx is his assigned omega social worker who is the only one who can calm him down and the only one lwj listens to. i can’t remember all the details but I remember wwx giving lwj a rabbit and donkey soft toy. wwx would also play chess with him occasionally. lwj’s episode was triggered by his uncle’s discussion of getting him a mate. eventually lwj gets loose, wwx gets pregnant and gets in trouble for it even though there was some foul play. wen ning is also an alpha at the centre and wen qing visits him occasionally. thank you so much 💖 i never got to finish it and i really want to know how it ended!!

FOUND! come closer (i might not bite) by celerydragon (E, 4k, wangxian, WIP, A/B/O, Medical AU, Feral Behavior, Drama, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Mpreg) is being posted to ao3 now / this the original twitter thread for the rest of the story. unfortunately the thread is broken in a few parts so i’m glad the writer is starting to move it to ao3

~*~

[fanhackers]

I interviewed the organizers of the Media Fandom Oral History Project, and they shared about the project and what makes it important! The project collects oral histories (interviews) from fans about their fannish experiences. Oral histories help fans define for ourselves what it means to a fan, and they help preserve our histories for future generations. 

The project needs volunteers! Email oralhistoryfandom (at) gmail (dot) com if you want to get involved. 

The full interview can be found under the cut. 

-Lianne, Fanhackers volunteer

Q: Can you briefly introduce yourself, the project, and its purpose?

Morgan Dawn: I am Morgan Dawn and have been a slash fanfiction fan since the 1990s. I entered fandom during the last years of paper fanfiction and the beginning era of online fandom. 

The Media Fandom Oral History Project’s goal is to capture our history in our own words and with our own voices. The idea came when I was sitting at our kitchen table with my friend Sandy Herrold. We realized that fans talking to other fans in informal settings was the perfect way to showcase our community and our connections. What could be more fannish than talking about and sharing the things we love? We started interviewing fans at conventions, then moved to phone interviews and have finally switched the project into a Do-It-Yourself Mode with fans taking the lead interviewing their friends and choosing what they want to preserve.

The recordings are submitted to the University of Iowa's oral history collection and are available online. We are hoping to provide transcripts for all of the interviews. The University of Iowa has one of the world's largest fanfiction fanzine collections. You can see the list of interviews at Fanlore, one of the OTW’s projects. 

Franzeska Dickson: I am Franzeska Dickson and have also been a slash fan since the 90s. In my case, I started as a 13-year-old screaming about Scully on alt.tv.x-files during the first season. (I was a NoRomo, as I recall, mostly because I thought Mulder wasn't nearly good enough for her.) I remember being floored when I was told about fanfic. I have no memory of being told that slash existed. I guess it didn't seem like a big deal. I spent the late 90s and early 00s in anime fandom before swinging back to oldschool Media Fandom and later to other Asian fandoms.

I ran into Morgan at a con and informed her that her recording plans were all wrong and she needed the type of voice recorder that linguists use in the field… I ended up with the recorder and the bulk of the early interviewing work.

Q: Speaking as if to someone unfamiliar with oral history and your project, why is the Media Fandom Oral History Project important?

MD: The recordings allow us to speak directly to future generations of fans and control the discussion of what it means to be a ‘fan.’ By having fans talk to other fans we bypass the dominant narrative of how fans interact with the TV, movies, books and comics. It is also an opportunity for marginalized members of our community to talk about their experiences. There has been much scholarship surrounding live action and anime fandoms. Some of it has been done by academics who are fans themselves and it has been wonderful to see the growth of Fandom Studies. But oral history offers every fan the ability to use their own words to talk about the things they remember and what matters to them.

FD: The early zine generation is rapidly dropping dead, and even when they aren't, I'm always running into younger fans trying to do research who have zero clue who's still alive or where to find them. If we wait for people to do their secondary academic research, it will be too late. Primary sources now or we won't have them!

The scope of fans who are interested in fandom history is much wider than the people who can make the right connections to talk to someone older. It's particularly true for early zines, but it's even true for something like Livejournal: I could rustle up thirty people in five minutes who'd be able to speak cogently on that fandom history. A lot of would-be history researchers currently in undergrad would not. For the future academics, the meta writers, or merely our curious fellow fans, it behooves us to record our history in our own words.

Q: What has the Media Fandom Oral History Project accomplished so far?

MD: We have completed 57 interviews. The first few years we went to in-person conventions and used a digital recorder to interview anyone who was interested. In 2017, a graduate student named Megan Genovese obtained funding and did 24 interviews over the phone in a single summer. During the pandemic, we moved into a DIY (do it yourself) phase - instead of a single person doing the interviewing, we now invite fans to contact their friends and spend an hour chatting about their fandom history. They can use their smartphones, Zoom/video conference recording or reserve a time slot on our international audio conference system. 

We have recorded the history of some of the earliest slash writers, publishers and artists. We have preserved the memories of the first fan who created the first fanvid using a slide project and cassette audio tape. We have heard from fans who organized conventions and started letter writing campaigns to save shows. The interviews include filk singers, fans whose passion is meta, and fans who created and ran some of the first fiction archives. These fans are creators, organizers, supporters, and devotees and have so many stories to tell.

Q: In what ways do you hope the project will grow in the coming years? Or, what are your hopes for the project's future?

MD: We’re a small project and it is difficult to scale with our current resources. By shifting to the DIY phase we’re hoping to encourage fans to take the reins of their fandom history and never stop telling their personal fannish stories. The DIY project also allows fandom communities to leverage off our existing “infrastructure” - we can offer permission forms, an international recording platform (if needed), and a place to archive the interviews.

FD: All fandom history resources suffer from a strong predilection for the researcher's friends or their part of fandom to be the main focus. I hope people from very different parts of fandom will interview their friends about areas other people haven't found important or accessible enough to record.

Q: What help is needed, and how can people get involved?

MD: We need 2 intake coordinators to answer questions, e-mail and collect permission forms (Participants must sign a permission form allowing their recordings to be archived at the University of Iowa). We also need help with outreach to communities that may not be aware of the project - anime, BL fans, cosplayers, filkers, fans in other countries. This is not just a historical project looking backwards. We want to capture our community as it is today and hear from fans whose experiences differ. The central focus has not changed - fans participating in transformative fandom - reading, writing, creating fanfiction, fanvids, podfic, art, managing discord communities. But it all starts with intake coordinators who can keep track of participants and follow up to get the recordings. Each oral history also has a written transcription, as we want this project to be as accessible to as many people as possible. We’ve tried some automated transcription services, and the results are very uneven. This means there’s another opportunity for volunteers, people to listen to the recordings and to help transcribe the contents. 

Q: Is there anything else you'd like people to know about the Media Fandom Oral History Project?

MD: It's a way for fans to be heard. They can describe their experiences on their own terms, in their own words, and take back some of the power of storytelling, rather than having others tell their stories for them.

It's a way to help preserve and honor fan experiences and fan history.

Envision you and your friends, talking about the things you love, your community, and what they mean to you, and describing and preserving these things for history. 

Plus, it's really fun!

FD: If you don't want 'fandom history' to mean just one kind of fandom history, speak up while you can, whether that's here or in essays or in your own projects!

[notmorbid]

happiness falls.

dialogue prompts from happiness falls by angie kim.

there's a fine line, if any, between optimism and willful idiocy.

why would you assume things can't go wrong just because they haven't yet?

hanging up an iphone isn't nearly as satisfying as slamming down a landline.

hope is dangerous.

intuition trumps intellect every time.

it isn't like i was keeping it a secret.

i'm working on seeming less bossy.

you are too old for this juvenile bullshit.

bring a first aid kit, just in case.

i never read the articles, only the cartoons.

i know what you're thinking. i'm thinking it, too.

i won't tell you not to worry, but take care of yourself.

sometimes it's the tiniest difference that can make the most difference.

are you a spy?

my life just isn't that interesting.

no shutting me out and trying to do everything yourself.

i have no idea what you're thinking, but i'm thinking i need coffee asap.

'greetings'? who in hell says 'greetings'?

i'll never scare you like that again.

don't force me to ask.

i wanted to just fucking die.

i feel badly about how we left things.

i thought we were open with each other.

shame is the most powerful and long-lasting emotion we have.

the best defense is a good offense.

stop talking. don't make it worse.

it's easy to be generous when you've taken so much.

i can't fall apart. someone has to get shit done.

i care more about authenticity and honesty than tact.

i didn't realize you still did that.

sometimes, in moments of great stress, we revert to childhood behaviors.

i love your sarcasm when it isn't pointed at me.

thinking and planning are luxuries we can't afford.

'no withholding anything from anyone'. that's my new mantra.

you have to save the highest penalty sin for last. build up slowly.

slow down. start from the beginning. what happened?

i don't care if i never find out what happened.

have you ever noticed how different things sound out loud instead of inside your head?

you can be honest without being cruel.

what are you hiding? i can see it behind you. what is it?

when you can't talk, people assume you can't understand.

i am a different person in english.

can you blame me?

sometimes semantics matter. words matter.

i'd rather give you the benefit of the doubt.

i would be horrible at your job.

you know a lot more than anyone's given you credit for.

a fucking break is what i want.

it did not feel 'rare', living through it.

everyone thought they were next.

there are some things you can't say out loud.

i'm glad we tried.

anger feels so much better than grief.

i don't like remembering it.

it's okay if the answer is no.

god, we're a mess.

this isn't a movie. this is real life.

if this was a 'choose your own adventure' book, what would you hope for?

when did you wake up?

there's no harm in hoping.

how long will i feel this way?

the first try is always the hardest, right?

the world should have to accommodate you, for once.

you can squeeze my hand when it hurts too much.

stop playing games and say what you mean.

you've been doubted long enough.

you doubted me, didn't you? just a little.

i don't want to forget. i want to remember.

i still have good days and bad.

[fists-on-up]

I started this blog when Twitter looked like it was going down so I could keep up with my gaylor friends. Most of them are still on Twitter, but as a writer I am a wordy motherfucker & I hate character limits. So, rather than let this blog lay dormant I am going to use it for more personal gaylor related things & more abstract/complex perspectives.

I might as well start by explaining how I stumbled upon the gaylor community because I feel like my journey here was much different than most.

I am a little older than Taylor & have mostly listed to rock & EDM my whole life. I don't hate pop, but I don't really seek it out & I don't care much about trends or pop culture. I had heard the most popular Taylor Swift songs in passing. I didn't hate Taylor at all, I just never looked further into her music.

I do vaguely remember feeling like YBWM sounded very much like being in love with your high school best friend who doesn't consider you an option because you're a girl, and as a Shakespeare obsessed lesbian Love Story pinged the ol' gaydar because forbidden love is way more common for queer people. It's not impossible, though, for a girl's family to not approve of a particular boy so I chalked it up to a specific situation she faced coupled with me viewing lyrics through my own (very gay) experiences. Especially given the fact that Romeo & Juliet tends to be referenced often based upon a very surface-level understanding of the story.

These thoughts did stick with me subconsciously, as it turns out. One day I was listening to a Spotify generated playlist I was really digging and Don't Blame Me came on while I was in the shower. I thought "Wow, this is a very sexy, Sapphic song who the hell is this??" I checked when I got out of the shower & was so confused. I LOVED it and listened to it frequently, but it still hadn't clicked completely.

Then I heard only the bridge to Cruel Summer in a TikTok & said "Oh my God, she's gay!" I immediately recognized how painful & difficult it is to play the part of "friends" in public and the sense of doom that comes with realizing you're in love with a girl while closeted. If you've never had that experience, I envy you. How we treat people we're in love with isn't really planned out, it's automatic. Trying to catch that & substitute "friendly" behavior when you don't even know HOW to be her friend is very hard. It's hard to not feel insecure when the woman you love treats you like a friend, too. It's hard to hide the love and the pain if you wear your heart on your sleeve. In short, it's torture. A unique torture you can only really describe or recognize if you've experienced it. I have, and immediately knew Taylor had too.

As soon as this clicked I immediately devoured her entire discography over & over again. For days it was all I did, starting before I got out of bed and ending when I fell asleep with a notepad on my bed listening to evermore (again). I was 100% certain she is queer before I ever Googled "Taylor Swift gay?". I didn't even know there was lore or a community at first.

I didn't just recognize her queerness because I'm queer, however. I recognized it because I'm a writer. Not by profession. By passion, I suppose. And what really made it clear was what Taylor doesn't say.

I realized I was gay when I was 14 years old and when I did I wasn't scared, I was excited. I had come to the conclusion that the entire world was just... faking it. Girls would kiss boys & go on & on about it, almost every song, movie, & book was about love, and I just couldn't relate. I had kissed more than a few boys, but I seriously did not understand. I would pretend to fit in, but it was not at all appealing to me.

Then a friend stayed the night & kissed me. A friend that I wasn't consciously attracted to at all, and yet - fireworks. Suddenly I realized that people weren't exaggerating or lying about attraction & love. I realized that the concept of attraction wasn't merely recognizing that a boy was conventionally attractive, it was attraction like two magnets pulled together. Like gravity. I wasn't broken, the world wasn't a lie, and I was fucking ecstatic about it.

But then I told some close friends and most of them immediately stopped talking to me. Some became hostile. This was around 1999-2000 in Small Town, Texas where there were no out queer people. Looking back I understand that it was just a matter of kids being ignorant and uneducated and, well, kids but at the time it was confusing. I tried to backpedal and told the friends who stayed that I was bisexual. I even tried to be bisexual (spoiler: I am not). The excitement I initially felt quickly turned to fear & I chose to hide it from anyone else.

To cope with the constant overflow of my newly-activated heart and the isolation of having no one who understands, I poured myself into poetry. I started reading Shakespeare at 11 and had read most classical works by the same age. By 14 I had multiple poems published in collections, had read every work of Shakespeare & Poe, and had memorized the Chorus to Romeo & Juliet. Using poetry to cope was kind of my brand. So cope I did.

I wrote thousands of poems. I filled binders & spirals & journals. I was always writing. Most people knew I was published young & knew I was writing like crazy, so it wasn't uncommon for other kids to read what I was working on. Sometimes they'd commission a poem from me.

The fear of anyone finding out (including my parents) meant that I had to be very, very careful with how I worded things. No she/her pronouns. Nothing that would give me away. The occasional red herring. I would be specific enough that the muse would know it was about her, but no one else would.

I almost always wrote to the muse, using "you" more than anything. Poetry is like a love letter, so it comes naturally, but it also prevented the need for gendered pronouns. I wrote that way so much I still default to it now (and I have a hard time NOT pouring my heart out to anyone I care about). I didn't realize it at the time, but my writing was inherently queer coded despite my efforts to conceal it because, well, I'm queer. Sound familiar?

There are simply some things that are upside down when you're queer & you don't even recognize it because you've never NOT been queer. Things you say straight girls wouldn't. Things you don't say that straight girls would. Straight people don't see it because they've never NOT been straight. Hell, queer men won't recognize Sapphic language because they've never been attracted to a woman OR been a woman.

There are subtle, inherent tells separate from intentional tells or flags. I didn't realize that, and neither did the kids (or adults) who read my work semi-regularly.

One day my close friend borrowed my poetry journal to catch up on what I had written. This was an especially vulnerable journal, but it was just as obfuscated as everything else. I thought nothing of it and went about my day.

Hours later, during lunch, I was outside probably bumming a cigarette off of an equally punkass kid or smoking a bit of weed from a pipe crafted out of a soda can when I heard a girl shouting my name. I left the hidden corner and walked to the main area to see a girl I didn't know walking around, calling my name loudly over and over. I called back to her, confused but glad it wasn't a teacher busting me smoking.

When we were finally face to face she confirmed that I am in fact me & I realized that she was holding my journal. She pulled me to a more secluded area, looked me in my eyes, and said "these are about girls, right?"

Fuck.

Shit.

Fuck shit.

I was a sophomore. 15 years old. She was a senior. A beautiful black girl named Lovely who I only knew of because it was a small school. And here she was just... straight up asking me. No one had ever asked me before. I had never had to answer this question before. I was caught off guard & wholly unprepared for this.

The closet is an awful place when you hate lying.

So, I didn't lie. For some reason I looked right into this girl's eyes and reluctantly, fearfully, said "Yes." Then I held my breath.

But she didn't laugh at me, didn't call me a dyke, didn't preach at me. She just... fucking cried.

This lovely girl named Lovely completely broke down in front of me, a complete stranger, and I did not realize what was happening.

Turns out Lovely wasn't just lovely, she was queer. And scared. And so, so lonely. She thought she was the only one, until she heard what my poetry didn't say. She recognized the inherent queerness in my writing because she identified with it and immediately came to find me.

I consider that conversation to be one of the most pivotal, defining interactions of my life. The entire time I thought I was alone & Lovely was there. Lovely thought she was alone & I was there, and I suddenly realized coming out wasn't really about me. It wasn't about the friends and family who would reject me. It was also about being visible. Being brave. Being proud. It was about the other queer kids who thought they were the only one. The other kids who couldn't come out. With this realization, from this conversation, I found purpose.

The very next day, Lovely came to school in baggy jeans and a basketball jersey - a huge departure from the very feminine presentation she always had. We never talked about it again, just exchanged fond smiles and nods in the hallway, but she came out to some extent. I came out within a week of our conversation, and I made a conscious decision that I was going to be loud about it.

My mom was great when I came out & I knew she'd have my back. Before the word "privilege" was commonplace, I at least understood that my supportive mom gave me an advantage others didn't have. I felt like I had not only the ability but the responsibility to be visible and unapologetic.

I was a rebellious little shit. I would make out with girls in the hallway. I lined the inside of my locker with Playboy pictures. I wrote "gay" on my forehead in hot pink lipstick when I got sick of being asked if I was "fully gay".

As a result, the varsity quarterback would call me in tears to talk through his struggles with his sexuality. I knew the most popular boys all of the girls wanted were actually very in love with each other. Girls who would laugh along with their friends who called me a dyke would hook their fingers into mine when they passed me in the hallway & pull me into dark rooms at parties when no one was looking.

I became the keeper of secrets. Society makes queer people lie & uses the guilt of that "deception" to keep people closeted. We lie to ourselves, then to everyone else, then to all but a few trusted people, then even when we're out we lie on behalf of others. I still hold secrets, even for those who don't "deserve" my loyalty. It's part of it, like an unspoken code. Closeting is lying, whether we like that or not. But lying is morally neutral. Intent & impact matter.

That time of my life was hard. Teachers would treat me differently. One flat out told me I would go to hell in front of the class. Another refused to intervene when my girlfriend was physically attacked by another girl who was pissed about her dating me. The school tried, for a time, to force me to use the boys locker room so other girls wouldn't feel uncomfortable. The school tried to ban me from taking a girl to prom (even though I was taking a friend, my girlfriend's family wouldn't allow her to go with me). A group of boys chanted "1, 2, 3, 4, death to the lesbian whore" when I got to school every morning. I got in a lot of fist fights. Mostly with that group of boys. Someone broke into my locker and wrote "dyke" all over & inside of my text books in huge magic marker. I remember telling one of my teachers I couldn't read part of an assignment because of it & trying not to cry. I was preached at constantly by kids & a few teachers who saw me as an opportunity to "save a soul". I have a lot of stories.

But you know what? I got the teacher that told me I would go to hell fired. I fought back when they tried to make me use the boys locker room. When they tried to ban me from prom, I printed hundreds of pages of court rulings from cases in which schools tried to do that to other gay kids, stormed into the principal's office, dropped it on her desk and threatened her. I went to prom with my friend. And after I had graduated, my high school girlfriend (who was a grade below me) finally got to take me to hers. A gay boy I'd never met won prom king and he thanked me for it. I didn't even know him, but he knew me. I won every single fist fight. I didn't cry about the slurs written in my books in front of people & I protested when they washed it off of the front of my locker. I wanted it to be the dyke locker. I took everything they gave me with a smile & asked for more, because it showed other kids it was possible. I made myself a lightning rod for hate on purpose, because then the "less problematic" queer kids were seen in a better light. It protected them. It also made sure they knew I was there. And they came to me & I did my best to help. I chased girls & have so many stories about drunken hookups and falling in love. Wild nights & happy days.

Don't get me wrong, I fucked up plenty too. I certainly wasn't a hero, and I put myself in very real danger multiple times. There were a lot of failures & mistakes. There was a lot of pain. But it was absolutely, positively fucking worth it. Despite it all I look back on that time fondly & I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. And I'd do it the same.

That time of my life shaped who I am in every way. I'm still that punkass kid (even though I'm pushing 40 now). Still a fighter who doesn't care how much pain I endure if I'm doing the right thing. And I never would have become that person if a girl named Lovely hadn't picked up on the queer themes in my writing that I wasn't even intentionally adding. So for me, it's kind of serendipitous that the very thing that led me to becoming everything I am today is the thing that I saw & heard in Taylor. That led me to so much beautiful art, beautiful love stories, and beautiful people in the gaylor community that is so, so dear to me now.

It takes one to know one, but sometimes knowing one puts you on the path to knowing yourself.

[tobiasdrake]

FUN FACT: Namekian Dracula wants to buy a car.

Also, the ending to Lord Slug is the deepest cut of a continuity reference Toei has ever made and I'm super suspicious about it.

(This is the best Z movie. I SAID WHAT I SAID.)

It's pretty well-known that the Z movies aped the hell out of the original story arcs.. Pretty much every Z movie is Playing The Hits, remixing story elements from existing Dragon Ball arcs into an "original" Frankenstein's Monster of derivative material.

Lord Slug is the most on-the-nose it ever gets, in the sense that this guy is Piccolo.

Like. It's so on-the-nose, Kaio even says multiple times "He's JUST LIKE PICCOLO!"

He's JUST LIKE PICCOLO.

JUST LIKE PICCOLO.

It's amazing how shameless this is. They aren't even pretending this is an Original Character Do Not Steal, the way they do with most of the other movie villains. He's just Piccolo Again. We made Piccolo Again. Do you want to see Goku fight Piccolo Again?

So. What's his deal, exactly?

Slug has a birth defect where he's evil.

He just. He was born evil. I don't know what to tell ya. On rare occasions, Namekians will be born pure evil. And not just any evil, but Mazoku evil.

There are a number of words in Japanese that mean demon, spirit, wicked thing, etc. Most of them are derived from the word 'ma', which can mean demon or evil or magic or just... general occult stuff. Piccolo is the Dai-ma-o or Great Demon King. His offspring are Ma-zoku, or the Demon Clan.

Slug's followers are also Mazoku. It's never clearly explained how, exactly, Slug creates his Mazoku. I guess being made pure evil as a birth defect means he's a demon. The movie is aggressively disinterested in explaining Slug. He just. Is.

But Slug's Mazoku aren't just any kind of demon. The movie gives them a peculiar trait that Piccolo's Mazoku never had.

They're vampires.

When Slug and his forces arrive on Earth, they're initially forced to wear all of this protective gear to shield them from the purifying light of the sun. Even Slug himself, despite being more resilient than the others, is forced to remain under this giant Dracula cloak to protect him from being destroyed by it.(T

(Thank you, Medamatcha, for spontaneously explaining vampire weaknesses to Vampire Zarbon and Vampire Dodoria.)

Fortunately for them, they're old-hat when it comes to terraforming. They didn't come to Earth to conquer. Though they do pay lip service to the idea that Slug is some sort of galactic monarch....

His intentions for Earth are a bit more... oddball. You see, Slug's in the market for a new car.

I think they came up with this idea as a way to distinguish him from Frieza. Because, in addition to being Piccolo, Slug is also Frieza. Frieza's a real estate mogul who kills planets to sell them at markup, so they came up with the idea that Slug's killing planets for automotive manufacturing.

Slug travels the universe in a vehicle called the Planet Cruiser, which is precisely what it sounds like: A rogue planet retrofitted into being a spaceship. The process of manufacturing a Planet Cruiser is, however, quite lethal to the inhabitants of the world.

But that's fine because hostile conditions for people are optimal for space vampires. Also they blot out the sun for obvious reasons.

And that's the plot of Lord Slug. Namekian Dracula wants to buy a car - and also happens to find Dragon Balls here to restore his youth by happenstance. His plans are thwarted when Goku and Piccolo wipe out his Mazoku forces, and when Goku remembers a cut of Dragon Ball lore so deep and obscure that I'm honestly startled by it.

During Goku's training under Kaio, he learns to form the Genki-Dama or Spirit Bomb. This is Goku's most iconic desperation move. In addition to its three canon appearances, it shows up in a lot of these movies and GT. But there's an... interesting quality to it that the manga just plum forgot about.

When Kaio teaches Goku the technique, he explains it like this:

The Genki-Dama can borrow energy from inanimate objects, the atmosphere, people, animals, trees... all kinds of things. And, with this technique, Goku could even learn to tap into the immeasurable power of the sun itself.

Toriyama seems to have forgotten he wrote that. It never comes up again. And that's weird because there is one particular situation where it should have come up again.

This was it. The time to take that gun down off the shelf and fire it was here. Toriyama's written Goku into a position where he needs to somehow form a Genki-Dama vastly more powerful than the one from Earth, on a dead planet with little to work with... orbiting three suns.

If there was ever a time for Goku to fulfill Kaio's foreshadowing and whip out a Solar Genki-Dama, it was here.

I honestly wonder if Toei swiped the idea of a Solar Genki-Dama from Toriyama. We know they tried to jump the gun on Goku becoming a Super Saiyan. That's what this is about.

This was supposed to be the Super Saiyan transformation in its entirety. Toei wanted Goku to become a Super Saiyan in the movie first, prior to it happening in the manga, but the design hadn't been finalized so the final product doesn't look quite right.

The movie's even called "Dragon Ball Z: Super Saiyan Son Goku". That's the title of the film, even though it's only in the movie for like two minutes and barely accomplishes anything before the fight moves on like this never happened.

If they'd succeeded in making this the debut appearance of the Super Saiyan it would be horribly disappointing.

Toei later did it again, when they scooped Goku and Vegeta performing the Fusion Dance out from under Toriyama, forcing him to come up with Potara to make his fusion in the manga distinctive.

So I genuinely wonder if they scooped the Solar Genki-Dama from him. Because Toei's nowhere near good enough at Dragon Ball continuity for a cut this deep. It is bafflingly original, creative, and consistent to established canon.

Nonetheless, here we are. Faced with the power of Namekian Dracula, Goku remembers this special characteristic of his technique and hits Slug with the raw vampire-destroying might of the sun.

Goku does a lot of Genki-Damas throughout these films and they tend to blur together.

But this? This is such a perfect way to kill Namekian Dracula. If this is the character you're going to make Goku face, I can think of no better way to end the fight than by punching him in the face with the goddamn sun.

[ria-777]

There is not enough letters in the alphabet for me to tell you how much I love you

D - Danger

Keith was angry. And sad, but he didn't want to admit this.

It wasn't his fault.

Why did they all have to act like it was?

If only it was possible, he'd take that part of himself that he wasn't even aware existed until recently, and delete it in an instant.

Like he was sure Allura would absolutely love.

Losing Shiro, getting kicked out of the garrison, finding Shiro after he suddenly fell down from the stars and then the blue lion, being roped into fighting a war that was thousands of years old...

And now, discovering he was half-galra, making the people he was beginning to see as his family act so... weird toward him.

Even Pidge. Was he really that stupid to think they had something special going on? Was he really that delusional? Was he-

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Who could it be? Should he answer? What if whoever stood on the other side of his door was only there to insult him? Or to ask if him hiding in his room was a Galra thing? What should he do?

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Keith, I know you're in there." Her voice softened. "Can we talk?"

Pidge. What did she want now? Did she finally process the truth and was there to scream at him? After all, the galras were what caused her family to be torn apart. He wasn't sure if he wished to take the risk and let her in. Viewing the hatred in her eyes would make his heart ache way too much.

More than anyone could.

"Please. I know you're hurting and that it's partially my fault. I'm here to help you as much as I can... If you want me to."

She sounded genuine, but what if the others started distancing themself from her too after seeing them hang out? As if she could read his brain from the opposite side of the door, she responded to his question. Maybe it was thanks to their paladin's link. "I don't care about what anyone has to say concerning me. I just want to be a good friend to you."

Friends. Right. Keith remembered Shiro telling him you could always confide in those who are precious to you when there are things plaguing your mind. "I'm not sure what I want to say." He could hear the smile in her voice. "That's fine, I brought my computer so we can view movies. No need to talk to me about anything if that isn't your wish."

When Keith finally opened the door, there stood Pidge, a gentle grin on her face that was so... her. "Ever watched ParaNorman?"

He smiled back. "No, I haven't."

*******

Not a word was exchanged between the teammates since they settled down on Keith's bed, not as close as they usually would. Should he say something? The boy knew he didn't have to, but wouldn't it be considered rude if he just ignored her generous offer to help ease things off his mind in the middle of the night.

What if, for once, she was planning on sleeping, but her concern over his well-being overtook the urge to rest?

The thought made his face flush.

Opening up to someone, even if it was only a little bit couldn't be that bad? Right?

"Pidge." She hummed but paused the movie to look his way when he didn't add any other words. "Don't you believe I'm a danger for your safety and the others? You know, since I'm half-galra and all."

She stared at him for some ticks. Did she agree? Did she find him stupid to specify why he could be a danger? Finally, she reacted and out of all he imagined her to do, Keith hadn't expected Pidge to outright laugh in his face and then proceed to lean her head on his shoulder after she scooted closer.

"Keith, it's not like you knew all along and chose to keep it a secret from the rest of us. Plus, who your parents are doesn't define what type of person you'll grow up to be. And, if the blade belonged to your mother, then doesn't this mean that she was fighting on the right side of the war? Even if she wasn't, you're still, in my eyes, our emo Keith. Whatever race you descend from has no importance for me."

Quiznack, he actually felt like he was about to cry and for some reason, the thought of Pidge seeing him in such a vulnerable state didn't bother him at all. How the next words came out of his mouth while being accompanied by tears would forever be a complete mystery to the boy. "But the Galra took away your family..." "Exactly, them, not you," responded Pidge with absolutely no hesitation.

She realized he wasn't persuaded yet. "If I followed your current logic, does that mean that you were involved in them kidnapping Shiro too? »

Tears were beginning to escape from his eyes as he shook his head. "I promise I will keep convincing you I have nothing against your heritage for as long as you need me to. Whenever you feel doubts, my door will always be open for you."

She reached for her laptop and closed it before setting it on the floor. Then, Pidge arranged the pillow and cover on his bed before lying down, patting the spot next to her.

At any other time, Keith would have hesitated. Was he really comfortable sleeping with someone so close to his personal space? Is Pidge actually okay with this? Is this appropriate for him to do? Does she feel forced to do this?

His mind was completely empty as he rested his head on the pillow, melting into her embrace as her arms didn't waste a second wrapping around him, bringing him impossibly close to her small body.

Keith knew his heart was racing at an unhealthy pace, being this close to Pidge, his face practically buried in her chest was definitely not proper between two friends, but he didn't care that much.

She didn't say anything as his own arms brought her closer by holding her waist tight.On the contrary, the girl sighed calmly, she probably longed for this too. Shiro vanishing must be hard for her too. He was the only hope she had that her father and brother were alive and now...

"Pidge, thank you. If you ever need to talk, I'll be there for you just like you are for me."

She moved to be able to gaze in his eyes before placing a soft kiss on his forehead.

"Thank you."

********

(Posted on Wattpad and ao3)

Note: Guess who’s still alive!! Hope you liked it and sorry if there’s any mistakes <3

[sunflowhamato]

ROTTMNT Curiosities Part.4

The difficult part of the series was fitting the entire plot into 11 minutes for one episode, there were great things that were eliminated for this reason, the general opinion (from high ranks) was that action shows lasted 22 minutes to sell toys, while comedies got ratings

The soundtrack of the series is not much, so it is likely that an official soundtrack will not come out Some episodes were broadcast out of order

Even if you don't have a conceptual art book,

If they were Animal Crossing villagers. Leo would be a cheetah, Raph something cute and furry, Mikey something fierce like a badger, Donnie an immortal jellyfish

Big Mama is a mix of Headey's role as Ma-Ma in the movie Dredd and Mary Poppins

Russ imagines that Splinter had some kind of naming ceremony for them and made their own birth certificates, or some kind of formal Hamato Clan indoctrination scroll.

Stockboy's design was based on Egghead Jr

Splinter's mother's Guardian's job was probably to make sure the Foot Clan didn't get the Dark Armor teapot.

The words Hypno says in The Clothes Don't Make the Turtle are the surnames of those who worked on the series

Russ intended Don Suave to look like a young Ricardo Montalbán

In the chapter of The Hidden City Job, Don Suave says “Machismo”, however the writers were looking for a word of “exaggerated masculinity”, but that was interpreted in other ways, that is why it was changed in Spanish (Russ apologized for the confusion)

Russ appears in two episodes in Mascot Melee and Breaking Purple

In Pizza Puffs when Leo comes in sick with the baker, Ben (Leo) was asked to do 2 takes with what he would say, then he was asked not to read the script and say what he remembered. The result was sicker and stranger

If you have Google Home you can set Rise alarms (All written by Josh Riley Brown) Say “Hey Google, set a Donatello alarm for a minute” to try (This is years old, so I don't know if it works yet)

Carol is April's neighbor (she is not her mother)

Originally in "Shadow of Evil", Draxum was about to execute April and Splinter, and also Donnie and Mikey had a rock-paper-scissors fight to see who would be next to fight Splinter (This in homage to TMNT movie 1990)

The boys appeared in “Always Be Brownies”, this was discarded to give April the lead role.

It is up to each Hamato member to look after Shredder's return. It was Grandpa Sho's turn when he was young, but unfortunately Splinter's mother died under his watch.

None of the Foot recruits have a name.

A chapter had been thought of where it was told how Mikey and Raph were close as children

Cassandra was not planned to be Casey, that came up throughout the series

As for the boys' design, it is shadows that are seen, not black pants

There were no plans to do a crossover with Usagi, but the idea of one in the future has not been ruled out

The ideas of making and ending the series through IDW comic would be easy to do

[antianakin]

what are your opinions on the sequels? specifically how luke (and his new jedi order) is portrayed. but also like just the jedi stuff in general, the training and everyone becoming force ghosts and somehow palpatine

Oh gosh, it has been a MINUTE since I've even watched the Sequels. I'm planning on rewatching them sometime early next year for Reasons, but for both episodes 8 and 9, it'll be the first time I've seen them since I saw them in the theaters. I MIGHT have seen episode 7 after its theater release, but not often. I can definitely say I haven't watched a single one of them since 2019 lol.

All of that to say, I don't remember them super well. I liked episode 7, but didn't care AT ALL for TLJ and was ho hum on TROS. My overall opinion is that it's too bad these characters didn't have anyone writing for them who seemed to actually CARE about them at any point and that nobody bothered to create a fucking blueprint for the entire trilogy and then stick to it. Say what you will about the execution of the Prequels, but Lucas had a damn vision in mind and a clear end goal for the story and the characters and he STUCK TO IT. You can go back to those films and rewatch them and find that story and see the arc he was trying to take the characters on. You may not LIKE what he chose to do or feel like it worked very well, but it's clearly THERE. The same cannot be said for the Sequels. The characters change personalities in basically every film, the primary motivations and intended end goals for them are never consistent, the relationships aren't built up well, and the theme and message of the Sequels is so muddied with all of these changes that they may as well not exist.

All of that is very broad, though, and doesn't touch much on your specific question about the Jedi and Luke and how they were portrayed in the Sequels. To be honest, I don't remember it very well, and when I saw these films, I was a pretty casual Star Wars fan who was still what I would now consider Jedi critical. I didn't hate them by any means, but I had absorbed the fandom osmosis of the Jedi having been too repressive/old-fashioned and how they caused their own doom. So I haven't watched them from a more pro Jedi lens yet in order to comment on it with any level of authority.

What I DO remember feeling was that making Luke bitter was a bad choice. There's undoing a character a little in order to allow them to develop somewhere, and then there's complete and utter character assassination and TLJ's characterization of Luke falls closer to the latter for me. The biggest thing anyone remembers about Luke is that he chose not to kill Anakin in ROTJ. That's his big climactic triumph. He goes on an entire journey towards understanding Anakin and having to accept that Anakin was a person making evil choices so that he could believe in Anakin's ability to be BETTER. That's kind-of the core of Luke's WHOLE JOURNEY. So I don't really get the entire concept of Luke reacting so violently to "feeling some darkness" in his teenaged nephew. He's already sort-of worked through that particular flaw of his and overcome it, why is he suddenly reacting this way? What's the point of that? And why would Luke just completely lose himself to cynicism and bitterness in the aftermath of that kind of failure? What was the point of leaving a piece of map behind or whatever? None of it really seems to make any sense to me and you can just FEEL Rian Johnson sort-of tossing things in the trash as he wrote this so that he could do his own thing.

All of that being said, what I've seen other people comment on is that there's a lot of shit Luke says in TLJ that are pretty anti-Jedi, but that the whole point is that Luke is wrong. Luke is succumbing to despair and so he feels like he's defeated and there's no point to anything and he's WRONG. The movie does pretty strongly emphasize that he's WRONG to feel this way and act like this. So I think a lot of people take what Luke says in this film sort-of at face value without taking into account that context that you're not SUPPOSED to agree with him any more than Rey does. I'm interested to see how I feel about it when I do end up rewatching them in a few months, but it rings relatively true to what I can remember.

It doesn't seem wrong that Luke and Leia could end up being able to ghost, it doesn't make any sense that Han can ghost but we all know that that happened specifically because Carrie Fisher died mid-filming and they had to figure out how to work around that, so I'm willing to give a little bit of slack to TROS for that exact reason.

I don't remember much training even HAPPENING on screen. I remember Luke barely teaching Rey anything at all in the one week she spends with him and Leia sending Rey on an obstacle course at the beginning of TROS. I wish they'd chosen to spend more time really showcasing more of Rey's actual training (or, ya know, FINN training in Force abilities at all), but I don't have any strong feelings about it at this point.

And as for Palpatine, I think everybody knows it was a bad choice to make at this point. It was lazy, it was silly, and it doesn't work. It feels like a direct response to Snoke having been killed off too early and disagreements between the directors and the studio execs about whether Kylo Ren should be a villain or not. It doesn't work and nobody likes it.

So, yeah, my feelings are a little faded at this point because I disliked them enough that when I do my Star Wars marathons, I never include the Sequels in it and I just stop at ROTJ. I feel like that says enough on its own.

[argusthecat]

The storyline of Duskmourn is interesting to me, because it feels like it's struggling to contain multiple different plots, some of which the author didn't want to write. I don't want to really speculate wildly about corporate interference or forced changes or anything, but I do think I have an interesting way to take what to me feels like a story missing a spark, and fix at least a little of it.

Make Jace the main character.

Go with me on this odd journey.

In Duskmourn, a group of plucky adventurers that supposedly fit the tropes of horror movie characters are assembled and go into the house dimension to save Nashi. Nashi is there with a bunch of expendables chasing his mom's memory scroll thing, which has been stolen. Jace is also in the house, chasing Loot, who has been stolen. There's some side stories that are really really good.

A lot of this story doesn't work for me, but weirdly, I think it's because the story is trying to remind the audience of Magic in general that Jace exists and matters, while not actually leaning into his existence. And one simple change could put him (and Vraska please) front and center. Just take away the macguffin of Tamiyo's memory scroll, and make Loot the only macguffin that matters. Functionally they serve the same narrative purpose, so not much of the rest of the story actually needs to change.

You can even keep most of the characters the same! Jace can go looking for help retrieving his fuzzy son, and find that Tamiyo is dead, but meet Nashi in the process. Nashi volunteers to come with him, maybe planning to take revenge on Jace for the whole phyrexian thing, maybe just because he feels like he's lost without his mom around and remembers that old conversation with Ajani and wants to do something to help. This pulls in the wandering emperor, and also Kaito, her second best puppy dog who goes woof woof whenever she needs anything.

The whole thing would recontextualize the participation of Niv, and it would also open up a fucking hilarious conversation with Ral who has been stalking Jace this whole time and Jace just walks in and goes "yo, I need help with some doors, I know there's some bad blood but my fuzzy son is at risk, and soon everyone else will be too if we don't get moving". But that also means that bringing in Zimone and Tyvar and Niko can be more about finding people willing to trust Jace - or at least not care about his past - which adds another layer to them.

Pros to this solution : a main character. Having a protagonist isn't bad. Having a protagonist and pretending you don't is stupid, and that's what they're doing with Jace anyway. This fixes that. Also, Nashi doesn't get a bunch of people who love and support him killed before we even learn their names. Also Nashi doesn't appear to cold-bloodedly not give a shit about people who care about him so much they'd dive into a haunted house. Instead, Nashi gets agency, and can still have his own arc with the emperor where he learns to move past his mom's death and grow as a person on his own. Also, this sets up to more people that Loot is actually kinda important, and it lets them have Valgavoth be a big bad in a way that's different from all the other big bads in a fun way.

Cons. Some people don't like Jace. That's fine, these people can be given an outlet through Ral punching Jace. I think everyone kinda wants that a little bit.