#iconic beta behavior

[brainrotcharacters]

Iconic of Asher Talbot to be the one to see David and Angel and instantly clock that Angel tops

[sohnric]

gold stars – e. sohn

pairing: eric sohn x fem! reader

genre: friends (idiots) to lovers au. fluff. a sprinkle of hurt/comfort in some parts, a hint of college au!!

wc: 9.3k

warnings: mentions of alcohol, swearing, mention of toxic family behaviors, a joke about a praise kink. eric is an embarrassing loserboy but i love him sm

listen to: risk by gracie abrams

where everything eric sohn does is search for your approval, and where you reward him with a gold star sticker for every act of kindness. will you ever see him as more than just a friend?

a/n: thank you best friend @csenke for beta reading as always (i miss you deeply btw</33). also thank you @from-izzy for brainstorming with me and listening to me while i gushed about this silly fic idea. thanks @strayed-quokka lennon for giving me eric's insta username idea i will keep using it from now on in all fics AHAHA TT

If Eric was asked to pinpoint the exact moment where he started to rely on your validation, he wouldn’t really be sure of his answer. The truth is, somewhere deep inside of his soul, he knows the yearning has been there ever since he can remember, but the instance that is rooted in his memory as the core one– the one that made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like a teenager in love for the first time (which he wasn’t! Nor a teenager, not in love for the first time… right..?) – was one Thursday afternoon after he came home from taking his last exam of the semester to find a message from you waiting in his Instagram DMs. 

Breathlessly clicking at the notification (and now, this should’ve been a sign of his growing feelings for you), he is welcomed with the sight of you sharing a post with him. Wholesome, but still a little silly, a picture of a yellow star poorly drawn onto a white background waves at him, the words ‘congratulation the stress didnt abolsultly kill u’ written in the Comic Sans font on the inside, making him giggle. Despite the typos and the poor grammar, his heart squeezes on itself, shaking his head at your adorable antics as he shoots you a quick message as a thank you. You’ve been helping him with the studies for the last couple of weeks (if constantly yelling out “you will murder this exam, Sohn’ and laughing at his miserable face counts as support), so it’s even more heartwarming to see his friend still be so supportive of him even after the hell already ended.

@ damnsohn [5:11 PM]: thank u i will now need to receive gold stars for everything tho

And see, he wasn’t really thinking before sending that message. He just needed to convey his gratitude without sounding too overly eager– without sounding too infatuated with your sheer existence and the validation of his efforts. (Failed)

What he didn’t expect was for you to actually follow up on his request. 

To make things even better, you pulled through with physical reminders. The poorly drawn golden star landing into his Instagram DMs was just the start of the habit you fall into with Eric Sohn, the man whose love language is words of affirmation– without him even realizing it. And so, what started out as a wholesome, innocent joke, now turned into a recurring thing that is slowly, but surely making the boy go absolutely insane.

The first time he receives a physical golden star sticker is one day when he comes over to your place to watch a movie with you. You made a list full of iconic films you haven’t seen before– a list you get clowned for at first dates with any man that is pretentious enough to talk about his love for Quentin Tarantino (Eric told you to stop going on dates with the aesthetic, ‘indie’ looking men you find on Tinder) – and little by little, you try to get through it with the help of the rest of your friend group. Since everyone gets bored easily of mediocre films they’ve seen before, Eric is the one that spends the majority of movie nights with you– and that’s only because he’s the only one that doesn’t mind watching the Titanic for the fifth time already, if it means he can spend some time with you.

“You brought popcorn?” you gasp upon his arrival, gazing at the plastic bag in his hold, eyes big and full of stars– one would say you were looking at your first love. You weren’t– it was just a salty treat. Isn’t that every girl’s first love, though?

“Yeah,” he nods.

“Pre-popped?” 

“Pre-popped,” he agrees as he takes off his shoes behind the door, watching as you jump up and down in excitement, taking the big bag out of his hands.

“I like it pre-popped the best, oh my god,” you hum, hugging the huge bag like it’s a teddy bear, going as far as pushing your cheek against it, making your face turn into an adorable pout. “They are a little stale and softer and–”

“And the salt is really settled into it’, yeah, I know, Y/N,” he snickers, finishing the sentence he’s heard you say about a million times already– he starts to wonder if you have short-term memory loss and don’t remember telling him every time you walk by the cinema. (And that’s a lot of times, since Sunwoo’s dad owns the place. Sometimes, Sunwoo makes Eric be his own delivery man– he would deny on most occasions, but ever since he learned that bringing Sunwoo his lunch to work means he can take home a bag of cinema popcorn, the one that admittedly, always tastes the best, he doesn’t complain much– he can use the stale bag as a leverage to make you do about anything.)

“Oh man,” you sigh, “aren’t you a dream. I was going to wait for a more serious occasion, but wait, let me just–” you say, running quickly into your room. Eric doesn’t question your antics, figuring out that he will know the reason for your disappearance soon enough anyway, and allows himself into the living room. Two cans of coca cola and a chocolate bar are already waiting on the coffee table, alongside the TV remote, and while he passes the couch and opens one of your kitchen cabinets to fish for a bowl to put the popcorn in, he hears your socked feet rumble against the floor, announcing your arrival.

Once he takes the big bowl he’s sure he’s seen you puke in before after a wild night out and settles it onto the kitchen counter, the bag of popcorn comes back into his view as you lazily throw it into the white plastic, still closed and sealed, waiting to be opened. As his hands move and go to rip it open, meaning to pour the snack in so you two can share while you watch the next movie on your list– which, just for the record, Eric never asks the title of before, afraid it might make him less excited for the movie night– you put something onto the back of his hand, giggling.

Eric curiously stops his movements, gazing at his own skin. There, shiny and glittery, is a sticker attached to his limb– a yellow star sticker, to be exact, making him look at you with a dumbfounded look, eyebrows furrowed, but lips still sealed into a wide grin.

“That’s a gold star for remembering my favorite snack,” you point, flicking his forehead as a way of swatting him away from you so you can open the bag yourself, “and for bringing it.”

When Eric doesn’t give you any coherent reply– despite his brain operating on a thousand miles per hour, thoughts just swirling around and silencing any rational words– you only laugh at his face, your nose scrunching in that adorable way that makes him want to reach over and squish both of your cheeks in between his fingers, crying out. 

“Wow, I didn’t know you were so serious about this,” you sigh, snickering. Eric was going to bring up the fact that you were the one serious enough about the sentiment to buy a full roll of star stickers to give him on various occasions, some more serious than others, but he kept his silence in fear of getting this advantage taken away from him. He doesn’t think he’d survive it. “If you manage to not eat the entire bowl before the movie starts, I’ll give you another one. Come on,” you call for him, body already disappearing back into the living room.

Eric follows you like a lost puppy. If he had a tail, at this moment, he would’ve been waggling it. After he drops to the sofa, he notices the movie paused on the TV in front of him to be none other than Dirty dancing. With a sigh, he recognises that he’s seen it about five times already with his mother and sister, and so he spends the hour and a half gazing at the star on his hand instead.

The next few stars he receives are gifts of a similar manner. Half-serious, but still enough to make Eric’s heart leap in his chest at your recognition.

One day, he says a joke in the middle of the conversation that nobody really appreciates. And see, it’s not really unexpected– he was already aware that his friend group doesn’t appreciate good humor– but the dead silence he receives after the lame joke still makes him feel kind of awkward. That’s only until he is greeted with the sound of your muffled chuckle, though– which is of amusement at the situation, and not his joke, just for the record– and the sight of you ruffling around your pockets. You take a roll of stickers out of your jean jacket, and before he knows it, a star sticker is glued onto his phone case, right in the corner of his phone laying screen down on the table. 

“A gold star for trying,” you hum, making the rest of the group holler out a laugh at the casual bullying, “not as bad as last time, keep it up, buddy.”

Eric gets red in his cheeks. When he looks up from the dark wood of the dinner table, he is met with the sight of Sunwoo and Juyeon looking at him with shit-eating grins on his faces, wiggling their eyebrows at the very obvious reaction Eric has at the half-assed praise. The boy wonders if you’re the only one that hasn’t noticed yet, or if you just don’t really care about the effect you have on him. The star sticker stays glued to his phone case at all times, though, even when it’s worn-down and peeling off at the edges.

Another gold star is won from you one day when the semester starts again and you two meet up in the library, working on your respective essays. Each of you major in a different thing, so there is not much actual help shared other than underlying emotional support, and despite the coffee Eric brings you upon his arrival and the bag of chips resting on the table waiting for you to munch on them, which you refuse to touch before you finish a segment of your essay to ‘motivate yourself’, as you say, he can see you’re still a bit stressed out.

The suspicion is only proven to be true when he speaks up suddenly, lost in thought and a little overwhelmed himself. “How do you spell ‘accommodate’?” he asks, scratching the back of his head.

He now admits that it’s a stupid question to ask, but somehow, getting advice from you is much easier than looking it up himself, or simply writing the word down to let Google docs do the editing. The answer you give him is short, sharp, and the tone of your voice stings the boy the tiniest bit. “Are you 5 years old, or something?”

“I–”

“I’m in the middle of writing an important paragraph, Eric, just Google it–”

“Jeez, okay,” he hums, rolling his eyes at your snappy composure. When your eyes meet only two seconds after, you look a little guilty. You say nothing, though, only continuing to focus on your essay– and Eric does the same, for the most part. (While he also tries to take his mind off the fact that you might think he’s a little bit stupid. You are a STEM major, after all– he’s the one studying media.)

After a while of typing away on your computer, though, you look at him with big eyes, chewing on the bottom of your lip. The subtle nerves and desperation in your face are enough to leave the man weak in his knees, and even though he’d like to reply to you in a similar manner to show you his disapproval with your previous tone, he can’t find it in himself to ever reject you as you mumble out a soft: “Switch?” having the man instantly nod, offering you his laptop.

This is standard practice for the two of you. While he doesn’t really know what you’re talking about in your essays– for all he knows, you could be pulling everything out of your ass– he enjoys reading the words you’ve written. You two often work on your essays together and switch from time to time to reread what the other one has so far– on a lookout for wrong word order, grammar, or anything sounding weird. It’s hard to rationally evaluate your work and find flaws in it after spending hours and hours on it, your brain desensitized to the content you’re writing. Having a helping pair of eyes is always for the better.

When the both of you are done and you switch the laptops back, there’s a gold sticker smiling back at him from the device settled right next to the Kirby sticker you’ve given him once after hearing him gushing about the game one night (Yes, he was tipsy and sentimental). He didn’t even notice you putting it on, and when he looks up at you with questioning eyes, you shrug at him, averting eye contact.

“A gold star for spelling ‘accommodate’ right,” you say, making the boy roll his eyes, snickering.

He doesn’t really question you further. Just the star sticker is enough for him now, if he’s being totally honest– even as unserious as they come. Had he pried more, though, maybe he’d find out that the gold star wasn’t just the prize for his spelling– but also for his patience and silent support he’s been sending you every single day. 

And so, the habit preserves itself at first in a joking, half-serious manner. A gold star sticker for him when he reminds you to water your plants (‘for having a good memory’). A gold sticker for him when he carries you home on his back after you get too drunk at the bar with your friends (‘for having strong muscles’). A star sticker for him when he picks you up after work and drives you home (‘for having a cool car’). Another one when he cooks you ramen when you’re sick and don’t have enough energy to make yourself something warm for dinner (‘for being a 5* Michelin cook’). For his birthday, alongside with other things, you give him a strip of the gold star stickers, 5 in a row all next to each other– ‘for bearing the old age well’. He’s not even that much older than you in the first place, but he takes the external validation and praise with open arms, not really dwelling deeper into the sentiment underlying your joking, unserious reasonings. 

He doesn’t really realize the stickers were a sign of gratitude for the fact that he listens to you and remembers what you have to say– not for having a good memory. They are for taking care of you on your lowest– not for having strong arms and a ‘fat ass’. They are a wordless thank you for his acts of service and protection of you, not for having a cool car and getting his driver’s license– although, the pride is the common undertone in some of the gold stars you give him. You give him gold stars on his birthday to tell him you’re proud of the man he’s growing into, not to make fun of him growing old. The boy is just too oblivious to realize it, it seems.

Some days are more difficult than others, though, and that’s when your star stickers gain more value and seriousness. 

The day after he has a family reunion with the distant relatives that always pry too much into his business– ‘Do you have a girlfriend yet?’, ‘What will you end up doing with that useless degree of yours?’, ‘Do you still share a flat with that friend of yours? What about getting your own place?’ – he is met with the sight of you waiting for him after class, on one of the bean bags outside of the lecture room. His department is a solid 20 minute walk away from yours, so the sight of you there surprises him, but the shock is only intensified when you call him over with a wave of your hand and present him with a pack of M&M’s with a gold star stuck to the packaging.

“What’s that for?” he says, but opens the candy nonetheless. After he takes a few into his mouth, he offers you some– to which you shake your head and shrug.

“For being the coolest one out of your family,” you say close to his ear, like it’s a secret, before you ruffle his hair and stand up from the bean bag, strutting towards the exit. “Come on, I have beer over at my place. You can come over and rant about them being stupid, if you want.”

Eric smiles at your sincerity. Trying hard to tame his hair back into place, he follows you with his backpack hanging off one of his shoulders, and even though he’d love to finish the candy you’ve given him, he forces himself to leave at least three pieces inside of the bag, saving it for later– just so he can keep holding on to the star-adorning wrapper for some more.

One day is particularly hard for the boy as he locks himself out of the apartment, having to wait for his roommate Jake to come back from his hometown the other day, leaving him no place to stay– before you invite him over and force him to sleep over on the couch. You can tell there is something more bugging him, though– and so you push the boy for answers.

“What’s up? Locking yourself out is not the end of the world, y’know,” you say, trying to lighten up the situation.

Eric looks at you with tired eyes, shrugging. Truth be told, his mood has been gradually falling over the last couple of days– this incident was just what really tipped him over the edge and nudged him closer to a nervous breakdown. He’s been overwhelmed with work (too many people having high expectations of him that he is scared he cannot meet), with school (too many assignments he is afraid he can’t manage to get done in time) and also with his family constantly being at his neck about everything he does and chooses for his future– only fueling the burning pit of anxiety and insecurity crawling outside of the big hole inside of his chest.

“It’s nothing,” still, he notes. “I’ve just been having a bit of a rough time, really, ‘s all.”

You answer him with a slight pout of your lips, a saddened expression taking over your face. There is sympathy oozing off your presence, and Eric can’t tell if he dislikes it, or yearns too much for your caring words and gentle encouragement. He can’t tell if it’s natural or pathetic, to want, to need your compliments and validation so much– or if he’s just fallen into a hole he can’t crawl back out of, too hungry after every bit of your attention. You’ve completely enchanted the boy, made his heart both soft and erratically running whenever you’re around, and the things he constantly does for you are not only because he wants you to tell him he’s doing well, but also because he wants you to think of him as someone that you can lean on. He wants you to think of him as someone good enough for you. 

Today, though, maybe he just needs a bit of validation. Maybe he just selfishly strives for your encouragement. It’s okay to just want to be loved on from time to time, no?

You coo, taking a seat next to him on the sofa you’ve spent countless movie nights on together, slotted side by side. Eric plays with his fingers in his lap, a heavy cloud hanging over his face. You know your friend isn’t really good at talking about his emotions– something akin to a mental block inside of him preventing him from ever fully opening up– but despite it all, it seems like he’s completely see-through in your eyes, handling you all the unspoken words on a silver platter. You know him too well.

“You’re doing well, Eric. Don’t let the doubts get into your head, yeah?” you hum, meeting eyes with the boy. 

“Am I, though?” 

The face you give him is stern, acting upset with him. “Of course you are! Stop saying that,” you shake your head at him, sighing when he doesn’t comply with your hard love. After a heartbeat of silence, you turn your head away from him and face the turned-off TV, instinctively wrapping your arm around the boy first, tucking him to your side, before you cradle his head and move it so it sits in the crook of your shoulder. 

Patting his hair, ruffling it and gently playing with the strands before you move to scratch on his scalp, the actions all unarm the poor boy. He almost feels like he could cry and fall apart right there in front of you, right there in your hold, but his pride is oftentimes bigger than his need to let it all out– so he just stares ahead of him, teething at his bottom lip in silence.

After a moment, you rustle around your pocket with your free hand, seemingly searching for something. Eric watches you with curious eyes, big eyes reminiscent of ponds of water waiting to overflow when you take out a strip of star stickers from the inside of your sweatpants, gently taking one of them and sticking the golden star onto the fabric of his pants, right on his knee, before patting it affectionately.

“What’s that for?” he asks, voice a bit hoarse. He’s glad you don’t mention it.

“Just in general,” you shrug, hand coming back up to play with his hair, “a gold star because I’m proud of you.”

“There’s nothing to be proud of, though..?”

“Of course there is!” you argue, raising your voice at him. He doesn’t make much effort to show you that he agrees or understands your point, so you gently take his hand into yours and wave it around in mock-joy– although you’re kind of serious about the sentiment. “Proud of you, because you’re alive and surviving! Yay!”

Eric snorts. It’s not enough to cure his mood completely, but it warms his heart up enough to make him forget about his tears.

“Do you just carry these on you at all times?” he asks, pointing towards the sticker on his leg.

“You never know when you need them,” you innocently agree. After your continuous doting, the boy finds himself falling asleep on your shoulder. When he wakes up in the morning, there’s a blanket thrown over his body he didn’t see in the room before, and he feels a thousand times better.

So far, Eric’s never asked for the gold star stickers. They always come to him by your initiative– and although he has to admit that sometimes he does stuff for you and expects a reward for it (in the form of the sticker, of course) – he never once begged to receive one himself. Sometimes, you surprise him. Sometimes, it’s obvious there is one coming– like after he helps you send out your psychology survey to every single person he knows (and he knows a lot of them. He is a born extrovert, after all.). 

Much like the day of his football match. 

He’s not really the biggest fan of the sport– he much prefers baseball, but his university no longer has a baseball team and he needs to get additional credit somehow– but when you add up the fact that it makes him popular with the fact that he ends up spending time playing around the field with his friends and over the course of the season gets actually better at the sport the more he practices, it’s not as bad as he expected.

The last match of the season turned out well– with their team winning– and although Eric wasn’t the one in charge of the winning goal (damn Kim Sunwoo and Jake Sim for collectively beating him to the victory), he was still ecstatic about the whole thing. After celebrating with his teammates, dubbing them up and screaming in victory, his eyes scan the crowd to find the rest of his friend group that he knows is there, watching him and Sunwoo play. (In reality, he’s just looking for you– he won’t admit that out loud, though.)

Running up to you with sparkles in his eyes, he watches as you cheer on your other friend, Sunwoo, when he beats him to the bleachers. (Not cool of him, if you ask Eric. His crush is literally right there.)

The taller boy enthusiastically talks about the match– as if you, Jihoon, Ryujin and Jay haven’t been on the bleachers the whole time, watching– and after a while, Eric hears your enthusiastic praise aimed towards his best friend, making his blood turn green in envy.

“Yo, that goal was so good, though!” you gush, patting Sunwoo on the shoulder.

“I know, right? Jake passed the ball to me in the perfect time, that other guy couldn’t even register what was happening,” he boosts, grinning to himself.

All attention is drawn on Kim Sunwoo, and Eric doesn’t like it. Not when it’s your attention we’re talking about. He doesn’t care if the whole university drools over the handsome fire sign (as if he doesn’t have a girlfriend anyway– although Eric is still surprised by the fact, after the way he treated the part-timer at his father’s movie theater in the first few weeks of their acquaintance). Believe me, Eric is completely content standing in the shadow whenever someone gushes about Kim Sunwoo, the star player of the team– until you’re involved, of course.

So, he sulks. And it’s apparent– or at least he thinks so. It doesn’t seem to clock in with any of his friends, though, as they all walk away from the football field, aiming to celebrate together in the cheap restaurant downtown. Eric walks behind the group like a lost puppy, and it takes exactly 5 minutes and 35 seconds (not that he’s counting) for you to finally notice the absence of his lame jokes and loud comments to just about everything.

“What’s up?” you ask when you trail behind the group to join his side, laughing at the pout on his face. “You look like you just lost the match. Which you didn’t. Not sure if you caught that…” you joke, bumping your hips with him.

“Well, you seem to be acting like it,” he comments, his words leaving a sour taste in your mouth.

“Huh?” you ask, genuine confusion tinting your expression. “We’re literally going to celebrate, I don’t get what you– is this because you want that stupid star sticker?” you cut yourself off mid-sentence, the boy already too readable to you after so much time.

Eric gasps in shock. He’s not really sure what he wanted out of mentioning it so openly to you, but to be called out like this surely wasn’t on the list. He feels heat rising to his cheeks with lightning speed, his eyes averting your gaze in the instant. Maybe the voices inside of his head were right. Maybe he is embarrassing.

“Well,” he shrugs, only digging the hole under himself deeper, “did I not do well too?” he mutters under his breath, the humiliation fully settling into his bones after you laugh straight at his face.

“Wow…” you hum, shaking your head in disbelief. “If I knew I was fueling your praise kink this much with the stickers, I would’ve stopped a long time ago–”

“I don’t have a praise kink–” he screams, battling you as you suddenly scramble after him with the sticker on your finger, waiting to be plastered somewhere onto his figure. He’s sure the whole commotion heard his poor attempt at defending himself, but he’s not willing to back down without a fight– anything to prove that he doesn’t depend on the stickers as much as one would think. He doesn’t want the sticker anymore. He doesn’t need it.

As you fight him and womanhandle him on the street, though, hands all over him, trying to get close as he desperately tries to push you away and fight the allegations, he finds himself unarmed when you get in close proximity of his body, pushing him against the wall. He’s sure he has more muscle power than you do, but the mental power in him is lacking– he just can’t make himself push you away from him. Your face is close to his, your breathing tickling his nose. His heart is stammering hard against his chest, your hands still clutching his wrists against the wall, making him feel like a horny teenager. His breathing is heavy– he doesn’t think he’s done much physical labor, though?

Before he has a chance to collect himself and physically unglue his eyes off your lips– glossy and pink, inviting him in– you make the boy’s brain short circuit even further when you lean close to his ear, whispering so no one else can hear.

“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, by the way.”

You know just which buttons to push. Maybe you’re a bit sadistic– with how knowledgeable you are of his feelings, but of how much you’re enjoying him being completely oblivious to the fact that you’re aware. You have him at your mercy, all yours to keep, his heart all yours to play with and scan in the palm of your hands.

A star sticker is pressed into the skin below his ear, right at the pulse point. With that, you unstick yourself from the boy, running back to the rest of the group. It takes Eric a moment to collect himself enough to rejoin his friends– so much he has to run (which is good, in hindsight– at least he has something to blame for his breathlessness)– but after this, he swears he’s never asking for validation from you ever again.

It’s too dangerous.

Almost as dangerous as you trying to ride his skateboard for the first time, it seems. He’s met with the fact only two weeks after the football match. When you texted him and convinced him you’re going to be fine and that he should definitely bring the board with him when you hang out later in the day– ‘I’m not a five year old, I can handle it! I bet it’s going to be fun!’ – he didn’t really expect you to be this bad at it. You seemed a little too confident for him to believe otherwise, and, well, in Eric’s eyes, you are perfect at just about everything. 

This really shattered the image of you he had in his mind. Not in a bad way, no– the man has and always will worship the sheer ground you walk on– it’s just that more than admiration, the feeling flowing through his veins right now seems to be adoration. Eric always admired your every move, every single sentence that ever came out of your mouth. But now, he just can’t seem to contain himself as he watches you stumble over your own feet and try to balance yourself on the unmoving skateboard in the middle of the empty park, hands waving around your figure in a desperate need to not fall over and break your neck. (Which would never happen under Eric’s watch anyway. His reflexes are fast.)

“You look like a baby learning how to walk for the first time,” he gushes from the bench, your bags waiting at his feet. A wide grin is plastered onto his face as he watches you, his cheeks beginning to hurt from the constant stretch of the muscles.

“Very funny,” you sigh, stumbling over once again, making the board move with the kinetic motion of you stepping off of it, leaving Eric to stop it with his outstretched leg.

“You were so confident before,” he shakes his head, mocking you.

“Well, I tend to overestimate my abilities sometimes,” you shrug, a pout slowly appearing on your face as you move closer towards the male, obviously going to sit at the bench next to him. “It’s whatever, I don’t feel like skateboarding anymore–”

“You’re giving up already?” 

“Yes.”

“No, you’re not,” he shakes his head, standing up and offering you his hand to take so he can bring you back up to your feet, “never back down, never what?”

“Eric, I’m not going to finish your TikTok references right now–”

“I said never back down never what?!” he hollers, forcefully tugging you to a standing position, the sigh escaping your lips only fueling him further with his ridiculous antics. “Never give up! That’s right, Y/N, very well. Now, let me help you, I promise it’s not as hard as it seems.”

“I mean, given the fact that even you can do it–”

Eric flashes you a stone cold look as a warning. He doesn’t really think the teasing is at place right now– you’re the one not capable of keeping balance on the skateboard. It’s not like you have any right to joke right now.

“Okay, I take it back.”

“Leave the jokes for when your legs don’t look like a freshy born horse’s with how much they’re shaking when you’re up on this thing, yeah?” he chuckles, hearing you snort out a laugh at the accuracy of his comment.

Eric should’ve known he was the one miscalculating his abilities to efficiently teach you how to skateboard before the act itself happened. He didn’t, though, and the thought only occurred to him the moment you started latching onto him like a koala to its favorite tree– all just so you could hold balance on the board beneath your feet.

Your legs are a little shaky– and so are Eric’s hands when they instinctively land on your waist as you latch onto his shoulders, steadying yourself. The boy is painfully aware of the layers of clothing preventing him from touching your bare skin, yet, his fingertips still tingle as they bear into your midriff, holding you steady and preventing you from falling.

“Now, this isn’t so hard,” you conclude, chuckling. Eric doesn’t find it in himself to look up at your face, knowing he’d go painfully red the second your eyes would meet. The close proximity of your body still makes him shy sometimes, despite the years of friendship you share, and so he keeps his gaze glued to the ground instead, clearing his throat before he speaks up again, trying to seem nonchalant and casual.

“I’ll move now, yeah?”

Without really waiting for your reply, his feet shift their position on the ground, dragging you across the road with him. Gentle steps at first, making sure you’re not too overwhelmed, then picking up speed so you move a little faster on the board. “Will you be okay if I let go?”

“I don’t know..? Hopefully…?” you say, voice wavering a little, nerves seeping through your tone.

“I’ll catch you if you fall, don’t worry,” he hums, feeling how you squeeze his shoulders for one last time before he lets go of your waist, watching the way you slide away on the skateboard. The pace isn’t too fast, yet, it’s still enough to make you grin widely at the boy, your body now used to the feeling, balance finally finding its way to you. 

“Do you want me to push you around for a bit?” he offers, relishing in the way you nod eagerly at him, the grin on your face making his heart squeeze on itself. If he could carve the muscle out of his chest and offer it to you, he would. In his eyes, you deserve everything in this world– how could he not just try and give it to you, little by little, all by himself?

Light steps nearing your figure, he gently pushes you in the back, watching as you slide farther and farther away from him. Every time he gently nudges you in the right direction, he earns himself a hearty giggle from you, the motion making you feel free and reckless– just like teenagers do when discovering the activity for the first time. “I was right! It’s fun!”

Eric can feel himself relishing in the moment fully. Your smile is the prettiest thing he’s ever seen, and he wishes he could engrave the sight of it into his memory forever. He knows that’s not possible, though, and so he pledges to try his hardest to make it appear on your face so much and so often that he has no chance to forget how it looks.

After you’re done and exhausted with the day, Eric makes it his quest to get you home safely before heading to his place. You complain about your feet hurting, and although the boy is doubtful of your whining, he still offers to drag you home as you stand on the skateboard, holding your hand the whole way. When he’s almost at your apartment complex, he feels the familiar star sticker glued to the back of his hand before you intertwine your fingers with his, running a thumb proudly over the gold plastic.

“A gold star for being a good teacher,” you note when your eyes meet, making the boy chuckle.

“Shouldn’t I be giving you one for being a good student? Is that not how things usually work?” 

“I give credit where credit is due,” you hum, nodding to yourself. “Besides, that’s not only for that. I just…” you trail off, as if too nervous to say the next words. “I just wanted to show gratitude to you, ‘cause I had a really good time today,” you say nonchalantly, still, shrugging. Eric feels his stomach churning. How can you be so casual with saying words that make his heart skip a beat?

“I should show my gratitude to you more often too, y’know.”

You shake your head at him, laughing like it’s funny. “Oh, Eric. You do it so often you don’t even realize it. You just have a different way of showing it than I do.”

Eric averts his gaze from you, chewing on his bottom lip in nervousness. He starts to wonder if he’s been too obvious with his feelings. Do you see him differently now?

The questions almost drown him out on the way towards your house. Somewhere along the way, he realizes the act of holding your hand feels natural to him now. Gazing at your interlocked fingers, he smiles to himself. He could get used to it– all of it.

He could get used to the people smiling at him and you on the street when they see you with fingers interlocked. He could get used to holding your hand every day, keeping you close. He could get used to your touches, hugs and skinship. He could get used to waking up to you in the same apartment as him, like that one time he locked himself out and you let him sleep over at your place. And to a certain extent, he already has gotten used to you– all of you. 

He’s used to texting you every day. He’s used to seeing you multiple times a week– because if he doesn’t, he misses you a little too much. He’s used to your movie nights and dancing with you in bars, shielding you from the looks of other greedy men wanting to get a piece of you. He’s used to the gold stickers you constantly provide him with as a gentle reminder of the unsaid feelings shared between the two of you. He’s used to your presence and your energy, he’s used to your teasing words and the memes you send in his Instagram DMs. If you were suddenly removed out of his life, he knows he’ll find it hard. It would feel like a piece of him was missing.

Some days, he tries to make himself believe that he’s content with what you two have right now. And he is, for the most part– but deep down, he knows he wants more. He always wanted something a bit more.

It shines through his actions on most days. It’s visible to everyone– the longing looks, the gentle touches. Jake once said Eric would jump out of a window if you asked him to, and after careful consideration, the boy had to shamefully agree with his roommate. Eric gets laughed at every time his cheeks blush when you give him too much special attention. He’s used to being called the ‘lover boy’ whenever you’re around. 

In front of you, he tries to hide his feelings as much as possible, though.

Sometimes, it slips out of him, though. In moments where the day slowly comes to its end and the atmosphere turns more tender. On days when the movie nights get moved to his apartment, because it’s closer to your university and you claim you’re too tired to walk all the way back to your place. Eric claims you’re just lazy, but the pout on your face tells him otherwise. 

On days when there is no one else in the apartment, just you two, and your conversation dies down. The boy is usually a chatterbox when it comes to watching movies with you– commenting on every single scene, making fun of the characters, teasingly spoiling bits and chunks of the plot for you– but it was a Friday night and you were snuggled up in your favorite hoodie, your bodies stuck tightly to each other on the sofa. There is a cloud of comfort, a huge curtain of intimacy falling over you two, and Eric is afraid that speaking up would ruin the sentiment. 

After a few minutes, he feels your head lay on his shoulder. The crown of your head is instantly more interesting than the movie playing on the TV, his eyes glossing over your relaxed expression. There is hair falling into your face and your eyelashes are kissing your cheekbones, your brain no longer focusing on the movie, but slowly dozing off instead. Eric mentally coos– it’s not often you fall asleep next to him, and so he somehow finds himself treasuring the moment. You look so peaceful, so beautiful– yet so unaware of it. His heart squeezes with tenderness, making sink a little into the sofa cushions so you’re more comfortable in using him as your head rest. He knows waking you up or moving you so you’re resting against the back of the sofa would be more convenient for your neck, but he selfishly relishes in the fact that you found comfort in the crook of his shoulder instead.

He can’t help but smile widely at your composure. You look small and vulnerable. You look like the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. Eric indulges in the fact that he’s not watched right now, letting himself fully enjoy and admire your sheer existence. 

He acts on impulse when his lips softly land onto your forehead. Not much thought goes into the sentiment– he just sheerly answered his heart’s calling. 

You look dreamy. You look lovely. He’s in love with you, he thinks.

He lets himself settle deeper into the couch cushions. After no longer having to entertain you with his comments on the movie he’s seen 4 times already– The matrix– he finds himself bored enough of the familiar plot to doze off himself, forgetting about the promise he made to you to drive you home after the movie is over. 

He sleeps through your smile and the shake of your head, as well as you detaching your head off his shoulder, smiling at the unaware boy. Not yet asleep– just resting your eyes for a bit– you were a witness of the boy’s tender, loving ministrations. You disappear out of the apartment after the movie is over, crossing paths with Jake in the entrance hall giving you a quiet wave and a point towards his roommate sitting on the sofa, a gold star adorning the tip of his nose.

You just shrug before leaving. Jake just shakes his head at both of you, wondering when your time will finally come. Eric wakes up in the middle of the night to the TV off, asking himself if he should consider the sticker a silent invitation.

And after a while of careful consideration– laying awake and wondering of all the what-ifs, replaying every moment spent with you over and over in his mind, looking for the very obvious signs of reciprocation– he decides to just go for it. He decides to be the brave man he claims he is, and finally makes the first step.

Well, at least tries to. Because as it turns out, it’s much more difficult to invite someone out on a date if you’re already friends with them for a prolonged amount of time. Not only is it more nerve-wrecking, but also much more confusing to the other party– and after inviting you out to get boba in the new place downtown, he’s not so sure you are aware that you’re on a date with him. 

Not that Eric expected anything to change between the two of you instantly after going on a date– no, he’s completely fine with the dynamic you two have, and it’s one of the things he values the most about your friendship– he just thought the atmosphere would be… a little different.

Which is why he decides to start dropping not so subtle hints about his intentions. Brave, isn’t he?

First of all, he pays for your order. All after the 20 minutes you take standing outside of the boba store searching through the menu to find out what you’re going to get– and although Eric finds it endearing, he is also starting to get a little nervous.

“Didn’t know you were so indecisive,” he hums, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“I’m not!” you grunt, shaking your head at your own antics. “I just don’t know what tastes good together. Should I just get one of the premade drinks on the menu? But I’m not really in the mood for any of these–”

“I’ll just get you a random one,” he sighs, “and you will have no other choice than to drink it.”

“What if I don’t like it?”

“Then at least you have someone to blame,” he snickers, pushing the glass door open and entering the quiet boba store. He orders you a kiwi bubble tea with strawberry popping pearls– because he knows you enjoy how they come apart in your mouth– and after he comes outside with both of the drinks in either of his hands, he waves you off when you ask him how much yours was so you can pay him back.

“It’s on me,” he hums.

An over-exaggerated sigh escapes your mouth at that. “You’re paying? You never pay,” you exclaim and take the straw in between your lips, ready to taste the drink. You and Eric both know that what you said is a lie– he has no issue with paying for you, and he brings you random treats all the time– but for the sake of the next line, he decides to go along with it.

“Well, today is a different occasion, I guess,” he shrugs.

With that, you stop and stare at him with stars in your eyes, a teasing smile slowly overtaking your lips. You’re not stupid– you’re not oblivious the way he is– and so Eric thinks you finally got the hint. Or, at least he hopes so. “Is it?”

Suddenly too shy under your gaze, cheeks tinting light pink, the boy averts his gaze from you and walks down the street, expecting you to follow him. He might be brave enough to drop hints, but still not brave enough to admit to it explicitly.

Not when he drags you to the park and sits with you on the bench, people watching. Not when he casually drops his arm on the back of the bench behind you, gluing himself particularly close to your body. Not when he lets you try his drink, battling away the annoying voice inside of his head telling him that you just shared an indirect kiss. (‘Come on, Eric. You’re not a teenager anymore. Get it together.’)

He doesn’t admit to it in words, but he sure does in actions when he gives you his jacket when the evening gets chilly. He swears you look the most adorable in his red windbreaker, and in a moment of weakness, he puts his arm around your shoulders as you walk down the street, a selfish need of having you close to him winning above everything else.

“And what was so different about today, Eric?” you ask on the way to your apartment, gazing up at the beaming boy next to you. Are you teasing him again? Do you enjoy watching his misery?

Eric figures it’s for the best to tell you, though. He thinks it’s important to set the tone– because after today, it’s almost like nothing changed at all. The dynamic stays the same– and while he doesn’t think he hates it, he admits he’d just rather call you his.

So, despite the embarrassment, he chews on the bottom of his lip. You’re almost at your place already, and so he thinks it won’t hurt to talk about it now. If things go wrong, you can just go home and he can run to his apartment and violently cry into his pillow. 

“Well, I was thinking…” he starts, clearing his throat to buy himself some time and also trying to bite down the excessive nerves clawing at him from the inside, “I… you… I was hoping this wasn’t just like… a regular day out, you know…?”

Blinking at him a few times– because you must love to torture him, there is no other explanation– you shake you head at him. “No, Eric. I don’t know what you mean by that.”

Eric physically tears himself off you, your apartment complex now directly in front of him. Cracking his knuckles and taking a deep breath in to calm himself, he tries again. “I meant to… invite you out on a date today,” he proposes simply.

And in that moment, it’s like the whole world stops turning for a minute. Not only do you not give him any verbal answer, but your expression also stays the same as before– completely stoic and neutral, giving him no window into the way you feel about his suggestion. And you know what they say about Eric Sohn– he talks too much. Not only in situations where it’s inappropriate, but also in moments where he feels like there is nothing better to do than to fill the suffocating void that is the silence hanging over him– much like right now.

Eric rambles. “And- and I know I should’ve said that before making you go with me, but god, you don’t know how hard it is to make it clear to you that I’m trying to be more than friends with you without sounding absolutely fucking awkward!” he sighs, wetting his dry, chapped lips. 

“And I’m sorry if this changes your view of me, or something, but trust me, our friendship means to me so much more than just trying to make you date me, that was never my intention behind things, I do everything out of care for you, because you’re– you’re just everything to me–”

After the last line, he hears you chuckle. Your eyes finally meet, and he feels like he wants a car to run him over approximately 15 times to make sure all his bones are broken and his skull is smashed into pieces– he’s sure it would be more comfortable than the situation he put himself in right now.

“That was so cheesy,” you say, Eric’s stomach making a flip that might as well force acid up his throat. He won’t throw up, he won’t throw up, he won’t embarrass himself even more–

His hands shake. Suddenly, you take them into yours. 

He watches you carefully, ready to be let down. You step closer to him– surely, you’re going to give him a comforting hug as you tell him he read all the signs wrong and you don’t feel the same– before you lean into him, face inches away from his. Blinking, Eric suddenly registers your lips locking with his for a mere second, a soft, sweet caress of your mouth on his not giving him a chance to react– a chance to reciprocate– before you pull away, making him freeze.

“You always make things more complicated than they need to be,” you laugh, shaking your head in disbelief.

“Uh…” he lets out, like he lost all the words in his vocabulary. It’s the first time Eric Sohn has nothing to say– and it feels like a miracle. In reality, he’s taken aback and still processing.

The sight of him like this only makes you grin wider. It’s no question that you find him adorable like this, so bashful and surprised, cheeks turning red and lips slightly ajar, big eyes staring into yours. “Cat got your tongue?” you tease, letting go off his hands and placing your palms onto his cheeks instead, thumbs tracing his cheekbones. His brain might be blank right now, but his orbs still hold so many emotions– ones that make you soften and cave in on yourself, overflowing with tenderness. Hands automatically resting on your waist, Eric holds you close to his chest.

“Put your mouth to use in a different way, then,” you joke, watching the boy in front of you go into factory reset.

Lips crashing against yours, the boy kisses you like you’re his lifeline. Chasing after you, he puts all the words he’s said before and the ones he keeps hidden inside for now into the action, having you melt in his hold. He feels your breathing on his face, making him deeply aware of every detail, of every miniscule shift of your figure, every tiniest movement of your lips and the almost inaudible sound you let out when his teeth tug on your bottom lip as he pulls away for air, being a little overly-excited.

Foreheads resting together, the two of you in your own little bubble no one gets to peer into even on the busy street, Eric watches as you look down and take something out of your pocket– something he so deeply recognises, making his heart thump a thousand miles an hour, if it wasn’t already.

Another kiss is given to his lips– for good measure– before you press another one to the tip of his nose and one more peck into the middle of his forehead, making his legs feel like jelly. You follow your lips with the star sticker attached to your thumb, sticking it to your lover’s skin. 

“That’s a gold star for being adorable,” you say, making him roll his eyes. “And for the nice date.”

“Don’t I get one for being a good kisser too?” he pries, watching as you scoff at his prideful question.

“I don’t know, Sohn,” you shrug, “I’m not sure yet, but I could be convinced–”

He cuts you off by locking your lips again, ready to prove you of his abilities. With the gold sticker proudly glimmering on his forehead, he realizes that maybe you were right– and all along, it has always been this simple.

[absolutebl]

Pit Babe - it's time for a Trash Watch!

I had to. Well, no I didn't, but COME ON. It's like Thailand is negging me. Let's burn rubber, shall we? Burn rubbers...?

The things I had been told going in about this show:

it's about car racing (this bores me)

it stars Pavel (my BL ult bias, he is my icon for a reason)

it started as an omegaverse y-novel but the A/B/O aspects would be stripped from the BL series

it's high heat

(There some chatter about whether point 3 was a mistranslation of something the author said, but don't bother me with trifles.)

Here's a definition of omegaverse:

Omegaverse, also known as A/B/O (alpha/beta/omega), is a subgenre of speculative erotic fiction, and originally a subgenre of erotic slash fan fiction. Its premise is that a dominance hierarchy exists in humans, which are divided into dominant "alphas", neutral "betas", and submissive "omegas".[1] This hierarchy determines how people interact with one another in romantic, erotic and sexual contexts.[2] (Wikipedia)

In my experience and opinion, omegaverse archetypes and tropes are often used to strip out female characters (and The Feminine) and as a tool to excuse extreme hyper-masculine behaviors without a critical feminist lens (leading to lazy characterization). Just as heat is an excuse to get nkd quickly, A/O/B is often an excuse for taboo and dubious consent actions and behaviors. Do I get why writers/readers enjoy it? Yes I do. Do I personally like it? Not particularly. (Although there are always exceptions.)

Putting all that aside, the above represents my foundational knowledge before Pit Babe started.

Oh and that the familiar BL faces appearing in this show were follows:

Pavel Naret (aka Pavel Phoom) from 2 Moons 2 & Coffee Melody - Pavel is a fluent English speaker, a bit of a drama monger, and a motorcycle rider/car-dude, this role suits him

Nut Supanut from Oxygen & Something in My Room - has an amazing voice, his somewhat wooden acting has improved steadily since Oxygen

Pon Thanapon - one of Star Hunter's stable first seen in the Gen Y series (where he stole the appeal of an intended pair), also v good in Make a Wish, I wish he'd get a lead role as he has a likable screen presence

Pop Pataraphol from La Cuisine - he's playing the Alpha rival and I'm not convinced he's suited to this role

Michael Kiettisak from Love Sick, Oxygen, Call it What You Want, Till the World Ends - playing the comic relief this time rather than his usual tortured stoic... huh

All the rest are either fresh faces or older experienced actors. Interesting mix. They must have some money behind this.

And now, get out your marshmallows! The dumpster is on fire! Let's start the roast.

Episode 1 - Platypus, Pickles, Pavel, & other Smoking Hot Problems

This first segment told with a 4 day retrospect, because I decided to do a trash watch only after @aliceisathome said I should.

My initial reaction:

the sheer audacity of Thailand being like "PitBabe is not omegaverse" and then serving "Alpha" to us on a platter in the first sex scene is

how dare

but also

what the actual fuck is going on? what world are we living in where a/b/o is LIVE ACTION ON OUR SCREENS?

we getting heat, knotting & mpreg next?

apparently this is my reality now

I'm not sure what weird quantum time stream I've jumped into but someone was all,

yes the whole world is hella screwed, but also...

Thailand has decided live action mm fanfic is gonna win it the culture wars

and I'm beginning to think they may be right

BL is now the platypus of the film industry

4 days later:

Considering how much chatter this caused there's a part of me that wondered if it was all intentional and a marketing ploy (to say it wasn't omegaverse when obviously it is). In which case... brilliant Machiavellian tactics, production.

But Thai studios are rarely this calculated in their promo. So I think it's all accidental. But it certainly caused a raucous few days on Tumblr.

On a completely different note, Babe's house looks like it started life as a particularly inventive Olive Garden. Or is that just me?

More random thoughts:

Pavel has had work done, why honey? You were the definition of perfect.

The smell thing is great, I love stuff to do with scent and necks. If omegaverse brings this to the table, fine. But...

Being all Alpha perfect butch manly man = I do not like Babe at all, I kinda want him to be brought down a peg. (Woo... pegging!) I never like narratives that glorify the captain of the football team (side eyes Cdrama CEO romances and Love O2O), Babe better have depth and damage (forget the pegging) of some kind or his behavior will get old FAST, faster than he drives (also, forget the pegging idea)

Nut is ideal in the Beta role. I mean, that's Way's character right? We all can see that. If it's not intentional, it's a miscast. I love how soft he is as as screen presence. He's great in this part.

None of the other characters are sticking out to me yet, but I'm prepared to love the side dishes in this, please make them swoon worthy!

I'm glad they didn't hold the Charlie = trickster reveal off, I like knowing he is a double agent up front.

Finally, with respect to an adequate trash watch, I'm in a pickle.

How am I going to drink for this show when there is so much else airing on Frigay? I can't keep track, if I'm drunk.

I need a strategy for this trash fire if the puns and snark are to spout forth! (HA Fourth!)

Controlled burn?

Anygay, see you all next week.

Episode 2 - Side Dish Addiction + Second Lead Syndrome are both infecting me at once

[FYI I gotta have my backup computer to watch this so that's why Imma sometimes be delayed getting the trash out to the curb.]

3 minutes! 3 minutes in and I needed to pause and wax snarkful. (Ouch, bet that hurts. Is waxing snark similar to a Brazilian but for BL? Is that why they all so hairless in The Sign?... I digress, where was I?)

Okay so the subber said Daddy but I don't think that word means what they think it means. Because Way said simply nong paa.

Usually they'll use the English word Daddy (pronounced Dah-deee) for, ya know, Actual Daddies (tm).

Wait wait:

Calling Daddy Actual

(My dumb sci-fi loving arse will see myself out the back before I start drawing Battlestar Galactica = Pit Babe connections. TOO FAR ABL. Too far.)

Look, I like the tension in this show. It's good to set up an unlikeable Alpha dog and then immediately turn him into an underdog, makes him a bit more likable. I still don't like Babe, but now at least I'm on his side.

Charlie = cute but v sus. Fortunately for him, Babe = cute but v thick.

Everyone calls Charlie Babe's dek. Yes sounds a bit like what you think but also means kid/child and SHOULD be translated as boy in this show. Why doesn't the subber get that? They a sub...ber after all. (I'll see myself out.)

Honestly, the script writers might know what they are doing with abo but our eng sub translator sadly does NOT. I'm so glad this is coming now in my BL watching life. When my ear and knowledge of Thai is so much better than it once was. Others much be SO CONFUSED.

Snicker. They just fucking with us, but it's fun to watch the mpeg speculation abound.

File this one under: Thailand's trouble with ESL plurals and also "you should have Pavel helping with these subs" sweethearts.

Production knows entirely what it's doing with this show and its omegaverse shizz (even if the subber doesn't) and I am very much enjoying the online carnage that results.

This dumpster fire continues off screen into the blogosphere and I continue to roast things over it.

Meanwhile, hi Pon! You so adorable! When you gonna lead out a BL for us?

Is Idol Factory stealing all of Star Hunter's talent? Are they the Red Racers of the BL world? These are the questions I ask myself as I watch this.

Is that AGE GAP I smell before me?

Is the 20 yr old college kid meant for the pit boss? Cause you all know I am a slut for age gaps.

Moment of a/b/o: Jeff's fear of touch/heightened personal space would be a plot marker for "baby doesn't want Alphas close cause he smells like an omega" but of course this show it not omegaverse. Not omegaverse at all.

nuh-uh

Linguistic corner!

Lung (sounds a bit like loo) is uncle(ish) it means basically a male relation older than phi. So Alan is the oldest in the crew.

Alan calls Jeff nu (which the subber translated as boy I would have gone with cutie or little one). Nu is a diminutive affectionate term that's technically gender neutral but is most often used by/on cute girls/women. Jeff did NOT like it. Then Alan sort of dodges through pronouns/particles settling on phi for I, ger for you, and ja for a particle. This is interesting because ger & ja kinda lower his age and status into a casual sphere. Not more intimate more equal to jeff... fascinating.

I love the new "Korean" red racer, he drinks my brand of soy milk. He is now my baby snake in the grass.

Get it? Snake.

He and Babe should end up together.

The fight wasn't bad, do both actors have kickbox training in their backgrounds?

Who am I kidding, I care only about Uncle Alan and Nu Jeff now. All others are irrelevant to me.

Also...

WHERE IS A BOY FOR WAY?!!! Or a Daddy. I do not care. (Methinks nether does he.)

I am now captain of the Way Appreciation Society. Let's all find a way... to get him some dick.

Also the BTS stingers are tons of fun. Looks like the set was a blast.

Finally, and I mean this kindly. Why isn't Noh Phouluang in this? He should have been cast as Winner. Bah. I'm biased.

But one should be with Noh.

Episode 3 - Side Dishes Delux

Gayest bridge n Thailand has made its obligatory appearance.

How much do I love uncle & nu? They are SO damn cute. Also nu flustered is the best kind of nu.

I could not care less about Babe and Charlie. Except I do love the smell thing.

Way will break my heart by getting his broken. He is right tho.

Tra la la. I feel like this is a bit like KP 2.0.

Charlie is a such a princess (and ace manipulator). Good thing Babe clearly likes being buttered up.

Babe's backstory was more interesting than I expected, I didn't think we would go so far into the paranormal side of a/b/o. I like it and I hope they lean into it quite a bit more. Make it part of the plot.

Unlike the kissing thing which seems to have been gotten over rather quickly.

I gotta say I'm enjoying the corporate sponsorship jockeying and tension more than I thought I would. I'm curious as to who Jef and Charlie are working for and what their motivation is. The plot itself is keeping me intrigued and that is rare for me with BL.

So no trash talk this ep, I was largely absorbed and entertained. I didn't event need booze. Shocking behavior on my part.

#giveWayaboy2023

Episode 4 - I (who never ship) am shipping the impossible

Here’s the thing. I just want this to be a better story than it is. Right now it’s kind of like a soap opera. I don’t hate lakorn, I really don't. To Sir With Love is a glorious chewing of the diamanté scenery (completed with death glitter). But...

If this is gonna be a soap opera it needs to lean into the messy side more than the tailored high concept side. Support characters and evil needs more screen time.

Instead, right now, I don’t know where I am with this show because it doesn't know where it wants to be. I’m kind of dangling in the middle of a dirty situation. It’s uncomfortable for me, and the show feels uncomfortable for the performers. 

Also... I have questions.

Yes, of course I want to know what Charlie & Jeff are up to. Why can Jeff see the future?

But more importantly I NEED to know why Babe has a flying saucer bed?

That kind of lighting makes nobody look good, especially not at that angle. It’s very traumatic and I’m not wild about the shag rug either. I have concerns about Babe's taste. I guess is what I am saying. 

On a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT note:

There’s absolutely no chemistry to justify this, but I have decided that I am going to personally advocate for, and ship, Way and the interloping not-really-Korean. They are both sort of own-moral-code types. I have tiny crush on Kim, and Nut is the prettiest, and Way is Best Boy so there it is, I would like them to hook up, please & thank you.

#giveWay2Kim2023

Arrow guy is cute, too. Will we get to see him bone?

Is he going to be another one of the adopted alpha super-kid pets?

What the hell, throw Arrow Boy a bone! All hot boys in BLs deserve bones.

Plot thickens.

Hah.

Thickens.

(I am an immature idiot.)

Episode 5 - wait wait way-t, can arrow boy have Way?

Look, BLabies, I didn’t get any screen caps this episode because frankly there wasn’t anything worth capturing.

I guess Charlie really does love Babe? Very dramatic if idiotic saving from the burning car. But Babe has gone to the broken Alpha place of extremely unlikeablability (frankly he was almost there at the start). If I were Charles B Spectacled I would be OUT by now. 

Is that?

NO.

Don't get the plastic bowl.

No white towel sponge bath. Please kill this trope.  

I mean, it's not as bad as singing, but that's because NOTHING is as bad as singing in a Thai BL.

AND the main boys are back together.

I don’t find their relationship or Babe’s lack of senses a particularly interesting aspect of the plot.

Unless, of course, Babe is pregnant and that's why he lost his Alpha sniffer.

BUT I do love the sides.

Jeff = the introvert precog who can’t/wont do people and Alan = the extrovert people person who WANTS but doesn’t understand him. 

Were Jeff and Charlie ALSO raised by Evil Daddy MacEvilPants? 

I liked the way Arrow CEO & Way looked at each other. Way, hon, give up on Babe (he sucks) and get thyself a billionaire bf with great aim and BDE.

On a completely different note, the best thing about this show is the blooper reel. That thing with the green smoothie going down his pants was hilarious!

In conclusion, this was a green smoothie down the pants episode. I was entertained, and it’s probably gonna be good for the plot in retrospect, but it was kind of squishy and unpleasant at the time.

Episode 6 - Are they actually listening to us now? Is Tumblr bugged?

This was a fun ep full of like actual racing and shizz.

Whatever.

Charlie is on the team now. All the teams, apparently.

Can we talk about Jeff and Alan?

The apology scene! Did you hear that Alan dropped to chan/ger? Eeeee!!! So cute. (He equalized their relationship in a soft way.)

Get it with that language play hottie. Next up: lengua play.

Please & thank you. 

Meanwhile, as all of the Internet knows, they went fully in for omegaverse - no bars.

I have to say, one of the greatest typos (or whatever) in existence is enigma instead of omega.

That's where I personally would rank in the omegaverse.

Hello, my gender is... enigma.

 Apparently it's a/b/o and sometimes e!  Also sometimes switch-ee 

Oh I'm very proud of myself with that one.

Funfunfun

Charlie. Babes. When a man asks to be thrown up against the wall. You throw him against that wall.

OMG is that arrow boy looking at Way in the bar?

3 seconds later.

Noooo.

Wait come back.

Noooooo.

That’s what I actually want to watch! 

OMG. Who said nu was the first step to teelak?

I flipping love Alan. 

Ah the boyfriend ep. Thank you, but I still don't trust Charlie.

Poor Way.

But nice crying jag, and I don’t say that often in Thai BL.

Now let him go, Way.

A boy with his arrows is waiting. 

(source)

Note for the future: tumblr has a bug that stops allowing edits after a certain time/number, thus my full trash often occur in 2 segments as a result. Click on the "abl trash watches bl" tag for the full thing if you're reading this and later episodes are missing.

[malec-ao3feed]

Is it better to speak or to die?

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/lOArzDb by zestylemoncurd "Now," Magnus sighs, leaning back against the many pillows on the bed, "what do you have planned for us tonight, my darling?" "I-well, I mean-" Of their own accord, Alec's hands flapped uselessly around his head, as they usually did when he was in close proximity to Magnus. "-Just, the usual. Painting. You, painting you." He took a deep breath, "all of you." Magnus' grin widened to resemble that of the Cheshire Cat on the cover of some of Alec's childhood story books. Magnus had always had a feline quality to him, what with his swaying hips and purring voice, but they only added to his already seductive character. "Very well." He murmured, and his hands delicately wrapped around the ties of his ornate satin robe, letting it fall open. Or: Alec is a nobleman in Victorian England who, despite his intentions, becomes quickly addicted to the charms of his new muse, a street worker. Or: Alec is a bumbling gay disaster for 11k and Magnus is amusedly charmed. Words: 11389, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: M/M Characters: Magnus Bane, Alec Lightwood, Isabelle Lightwood, Jace Wayland, Chairman Meow (Shadowhunter Chronicles) Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Regency, Regency Romance, Alec Lightwood Loves Magnus Bane, Friends With Benefits, kind of??, How Do I Tag, Not Beta Read, Artist Alec Lightwood, Secret Relationship, Period-Typical Homophobia, Forbidden Love, Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Magnus Bane Is a Nice Thing, Possessive Behavior, Sort of? - Freeform, not in a toxic way i hope, Thirsty Alec Lightwood, Magnus Bane Is Quite Magical, Non-Explicit Sex, barely though - Freeform, ive tried to keep my digintiy here, Light Angst, Domestic Bliss, First Kiss, First Time, Sex Work, they just really love eachother okay?, Chairman Meow is an icon, oh and theres some slight voyerism btw, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, The Author Regrets Nothing, Overuse of italics read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/lOArzDb

[kmgkmg]

GIFT FROM VIRGO - BOO SEUNGKWAN

word count: 3.2k...

pairing: seungkwan x gn!reader x hansol (iconic platonic trio!)

synopsis: you and hansol decided to help seungkwan out with some shopping, except it's a bit more demanding than you originally thought.

genre/s: fluff, secretly-crushing!seungkwan, idol!svt, non-idol!reader

warnings: none!

rating: pg

a/n: a cute little platonic fic for y'all!! thank you once again @playmetheclassics for being the beta reader for this fic! <33 fic inspired by gift from virgo by beyoncé.

“And so Operation: Gift from Virgo is still a go?” Seungkwan asks with expectant eyes at his friends in front of him.

“We wouldn’t be up at 7 am if we weren’t going to help you, Kwan,” Hansol yawns before furrowing his brows, “but what’s up with the name?”

“Isn’t it named after his favorite Beyoncé song?” You infer, reaching over for a bite of the pancakes left over on Seungkwan’s plate. 

Seungkwan’s face beams with happiness, indicating that you guessed correctly, and he moves his plate closer to your spot. He warmly pats your head while proudly smiling. If anyone else saw the two of you, it would appear as if you were a dog-turned-human that he was rewarding and petting. “See Hansol, and this is why Y/N will always be my favorite.” 

You return a smile to your friend before going back to focusing on the plate in front of you. You couldn’t help but be persuaded to help when Kwan promised to treat you to breakfast at your favorite brunch spot. The fact that he purposefully left an entire blackberry and white chocolate pancake for you to eat is truly the cherry on top. Or would blackberry on top be a more proper expression to use? Completely absorbed in your own thoughts, you were unaware of the glaring between your two friends. 

“That doesn’t even make sense; you’re a Capricorn,” Hansol retorts. He truly was not cut out for the mornings. He continues to give Seungkwan a doubting look but quickly gives up because his energy level cannot compete with Seungkwan’s. 

“So everyone knows their tasks?” Seungkwan double-checks, pulling out his phone to review the extensive spreadsheet he created specifically for today. What is it that he is taking so seriously? His periodic ‘Premium Shopping Day’. It had approached quicker than usual and he somehow had managed to rope you and Hansol into helping him this time. One thing you can always count on with Seungkwan is to take advantage of discounts and sales. While your motivation for helping him could be explained by the pancakes you were currently devouring, Hansol's reason still remained a mystery to you. 

You notice Hansol eyeing the pancakes that you were nearly done with and you begrudgingly cut off a piece for him. He knew this was your favorite food. Why was he pulling on your heartstrings so early in the morning? As if a lightbulb turned on above you, you started waving your fork in the air and ‘flying’ it to Hansol’s mouth. He may have made you feel guilty for not sharing, but you weren’t going to just give him a bite without anything in return. The price for a bite? Embarrassment obviously. Hansol laughs at your behavior, before opening his mouth and taking a bite. He nods his head in approval with an expression of satisfaction that he reserved only for food that he really loved. You nod back at him, glad that you could make him a bit more energized through the power of the pancake. 

Seungkwan snapped his fingers in front of your faces, making you both break out of your food trance. He had an expression of disapproval at Hansol acting cute, nevertheless he was still awaiting your responses to his question. 

Clearing your throat, you prepared to answer Seungkwan. 

“I’m in charge of going to Aēsop, Hera,” you pause to look at the smudged writing on your palm, attempting to decipher the faded letters you wrote last night. “Sulwhasoo, um, there was one more but I can’t read it.” You embarrassedly confess, causing Seungkwan to facepalm. You both look to Hansol, expecting him to be more organized with the stores he needed to visit.

“And I’m going everywhere luxury clothes related? Balenciaga, Gucci…” Hansol trails off before turning silent, exposing that he hadn’t memorized the places Seungkwan had assigned to him either. 

“Y/N, you forgot Lancôme. Use Mingyu’s discount code that he texted in the group chat. Members being ambassadors of famous brands do have perks at times when they’re not bragging about the deals. Chwe, don’t worry I’ll send you a text with the names of the stores you need to go to,” Seungkwan rambles while you make a mental note to visit Lancôme. 

The restaurant’s warm lighting was making you drowsy and although you were fully aware you needed to start waking up, it was impossible after eating. Combining your satisfied appetite, the lighting, the relaxing music playing, and the final seal of the deal being Hansol’s subtle cologne, you found your eyelids becoming heavier and heavier. You were scrolling on your phones waiting for the mall to open anyways, so you didn’t think a quick snooze would hurt. 

Seungkwan looks at the two of you across from him, leaning on each other’s shoulders while closing your eyes. He knew when the two least morning people offered to help him shop, it would only end in a headache for him, but he couldn’t help blushing at how cute your face looked when you were dozing off. He had managed to keep his crush on you a secret from all the members which only made it harder for him to hide his heart eyes towards you whenever you did anything. Remembering the task at hand, he stops admiring you and sits up straight to recite the speech he prepared. 

“You both need to be more hyped about this, you don’t understand today is literally the best day of the year to score deals on stuff. The holidays of December are over, and we still have over a week before Lunar New Year! Sure, there might be a lot of Valentine’s Day related products being promoted, but our goal is clear. Get. All. The. Discounts.” Seungkwan emphasizes the final ‘goal,’ and finishes the long winded speech. 

You and Hansol sleepily applaud him while laughing at his exaggerated tone of urgency. 

“We can see how much these days mean to you, my boo, we’ll be sure to get everything on your spreadsheet. You can believe in us!” You encourage Seungkwan as you try to perk up, nudging Hansol with your elbow to back you up. 

Seungkwan looks away from the two of you, still not used to the nickname you gave him. He was positive that he was beet red but tried his best to conceal it by fanning himself, pretending to be hot. He thanked his ancestors for his last name before paying attention to the conversation again. 

“Yeah, totally. We might’ve forgotten what stores we’re going to-”

Your eyes darted to the man on your right, surprised by how he was choosing to comfort Seungkwan. “Why would you include that?”

“Let me finish, we might’ve forgotten what stores we’re going to, but that just means it’ll be that much fresher in our minds.” Hansol smiles innocently at you and Seungkwan, unable to tell that neither of you were pleased with how he ended his sentence. 

Seungkwan purses his lips, unamused at his friend, checking the time and noticing it was already 8. “How am I friends with you idiots?”

Hansol and you shrug before all three of you smile at each other. 

Getting up from the booth, Seungkwan motions for the two of you to follow him. “Anyways, we should head out since the mall is twenty minutes away, and I want to have a head start with the line.” 

The car ride to the mall was uneventful, besides the usual routine of Seungkwan putting on a girl group song and turning his car into a makeshift karaoke room. Hansol was sitting in the passenger seat and made a fist to function as a microphone for Seungkwan. Something that you always loved about your friendship with them is that you never dispelled each other’s energy, only ever feeding into each other’s moods and making the time you spent together that much more enjoyable. 

You get to the mall’s parking lot in no time and Seungkwan continues his motivational speech by highlighting how you all needed to divide and conquer to obtain everything on the spreadsheet. Hansol and you both salute Seungkwan in a joking manner, picking up on his eagerness to enter the mall. Like Seungkwan had predicted, there was a small line of people already forming at the doors. Being the celebrities that they are, Seungkwan put on a cap while Hansol put on a beanie to try and hide their identities. Sure, everyone was wearing masks due to the ongoing pandemic, but it still was hard to disguise themselves with regular people when they both emitted extraordinary auras. While there had been some chatter from other people waiting, all of them were understanding in Seungkwan and Hansol’s request not to be photographed. Still, they needed to maintain their images as kind idols so they conversed with fans and tried to be as polite as possible. 

The doors finally opened after a little over two hours and you could notice the instant shift in attitude of the friends beside you. Their small talk with fans ceased and you knew it was about to turn into a survival game with the other customers. Shopping was never your favorite pastime, but you didn’t mind today since it would make Seungkwan happy. 

Seungkwan was speed walking to the next store on his list, but he saw your figure in the distance struggling to carry all of your bags and immediately he stopped and chose to help you. Seeing the efforts you were taking to help him only made him fall for you more and he took a couple deep breaths to calm his heart before making his way over to you. 

You had been running around the mall’s various floors for nearly three hours, fighting tooth and nail with people over fragrances and skincare. This is definitely not how you expected your weekday morning to go and it was tiring you out at an alarming rate. You ended up carrying a ton of bags, having your wrists feel like they could fall off at any second. However, you were not going to quit on Seungkwan’s mission. You attempt to hoist the bags up from the ground to continue your tasks, but get stopped by a hand that you were acquainted with. Looking up, you see Seungkwan grabbing one-third of the bags you were responsible for. 

You try to high-five him, relieved to see a familiar face but instantly regret it as the bags you still had made it hard for you to raise your arm entirely. He also was not capable of raising either of his arms to high-five you, so you awkwardly put your hand back down before looking him properly in the face. 

“Did you get all of the stuff you wanted yet? Sorry that I’m so slow with buying things, I didn’t think it would be this intense and hardcore.” 

Seungkwan can see that you’re worn out and opts to lie to you. A harmless lie, really. 

“Yeah, I got everything I wanted. How about we take a break at that cafe?” He suggests, tilting his head in the direction of a nearby cafe. 

The fact that he was able to complete his shopping didn’t surprise you, but finishing it all in three hours made you raise an eyebrow at your friend. You’re reluctant to say yes to his offer because you still want to finish helping him out, but he doesn’t give you more time to think. He notices your hesitation and takes more of the bags you were holding to put them into his bags. Logically, it did make sense because shopping bags for clothes are bigger than the ones they give for fragrances and skincare. Yet, you couldn’t help but feel sorry that he was quite literally carrying your weight. 

You try to grab them back, but he lightly hits your hand, stopping you from doing so. 

“I’m the one who practically dragged you and Hansol to go here with me, the least I can do is carry the bags," He insists with a stern look, serious enough for you to tell that this was not an issue up for argument. 

His sudden seriousness makes you realize once again that Seungkwan is always the decision maker for your group, something that you usually preferred, but you knew that the bags were probably extremely heavy. Your hands went to grab the bags back one last time, but after you realized you had been zoning out, you also realized Seungkwan was already making his way towards the cafe. With Seungkwan walking in front of you, you finally give up and head to the cafe like he originally suggested. While following him, you were hit with an immense sense of appreciation at how much of a caring friend he is to you. You don’t know who you saved in your past life to end up with a best friend as sweet as Seungkwan.

On the walk to the cafe he talked about things besides shopping, such as how Mingyu annoyed him last night, and when you eventually arrive at the cafe he sets all the bags down on an empty table with a sigh. 

“See! The bags were too heavy for you to carry all by yourself,” You scold, resulting in Seungkwan scratching the back of his neck in an avoiding fashion. 

“Well, you looked like you were really having a hard time-”

“You didn’t drag us. We both love spending time with you, you’re our best friend. Of course we would want to help you,” You huff, leaving him speechless at your words. 

“Oh? It’s not bothersome to be with me?” He asks, in a tone more surprised than you would ever expect from him. 

“No! Why would you ever feel that way? We love you, Boo Seungkwan. Hansol and the rest of Seventeen, they’re like your family, and well for me, you’re my boo. Nobody can replace you,” You reassure him, noticing his reddened cheeks at your words. He always was weak to compliments, but you loved seeing your best friend know that he was appreciated and loved by you and his members.

Unable to bear the silence between the two of you, you rush to the counter to order Seungkwan an iced americano and a sandwich to share. He carried your bags, the least you can do is pay for his coffee. You still hadn’t decided what you were going to order, overwhelmed at the large menu. Usually before going to a new place you would look at the menu online first, but Seungkwan’s spontaneity has you thinking quickly on your feet. You ponder on what to get for a couple moments while in line, before reaching the cashier. 

As he’s sitting down, Seungkwan can’t help but feel jealous that the cashier was flirting with you and you were seemingly reciprocating. Reality hits and he acknowledges that since he doesn’t want to confess, he’s left with his one-sided love towards you forever. He wishes that he could confess, but he’s too scared that his confession would only ruin the dynamic between the three of you. 

After waiting for your number to be called, you headed back to the table with your drinks and the sandwich. You were oblivious to the inner conflict occurring in your friend’s mind. You placed the order down, arranging it on the table and taking a picture of Seungkwan and the food out of habit. Seungkwan and Vernon were always the stars of your aesthetically taken photos, something that you pride yourself on. It always made the picture better when there were handsome models to photograph. Idols as best friends did have their perks. 

As you scan the pictures you just took, you notice that Seungkwan looks down. You figure that he’s sulking because as you placed the order, he probably looked at the bags and realized that you didn’t finish shopping. Muttering a quiet thanks, he takes a sip of his iced americano and looks out the window, staring at the other shoppers in the mall.

You knew how to handle his sulkiness, he was your best friend after all. 

“I swear on my life that I will get everything on this spreadsheet!” Yes, matching his dramaticness was a sure-fire way to catch his attention. You put a hand on your heart, proving your sincerity to your best friend.

Seungkwan doesn’t know what to say since he didn’t realize his emotions could be read so easily, so he blinks at you a while before saying anything. Eventually he decides to humor you by pretending that he’s upset over you not finishing your shopping. “While I’m upset that you didn’t finish your shopping, don’t fret over it. I actually didn’t finish mine either…”

“I knew that it wasn’t humanly possible to finish all that you wrote in three hours! Seungkwan, your spreadsheet would be hard to achieve even with all of your other members,” You liven up, glad that you hadn’t disappointed him as much as you originally thought you had. You take a bite of your half of the sandwich, soon forgetting Seungkwan’s brief gloomy mood. 

Something that he did have to admit is that your obliviousness towards his crush was just another charm that made you lovable to him. He gazes at you lovingly, once again thankful that he was fortunate enough to be friends with you. 

“No way y’all are taking a break without me,” You see Vernon’s shock of betrayal at the two of you as he makes his way over to your table. He sits next to Seungkwan, grabbing the half of the sandwich in your friend’s hand and taking a bite. 

“It was incidental, I swear,” You defend, making Hansol chuckle at your earnest words. 

“You’re doing a lot of swearing today,” Seungkwan teases, causing you to roll your eyes at him. 

“Well, let’s go back to the dorms and give the members some gifts,” Hansol yawns while stretching his arms. “This way I can go back to the dorms and nap, too.” 

“Typical Hansol,” You and Seungkwan say at the same time. You then pointed at each other in awe at your thoughts being in synch. 

Hansol shakes his head, used to your behavior and grabs some of the bags to start heading back to the car. 

“Why did you want to come today anyways, Hansol?” You hit his shoulder, curious since he never explained why he tagged along.

“For these,” He shows off a box set of A24 films in a gloating manner. Now it was adding up, the movie buff needed to get his collector’s items.

Your mouth makes an ‘O’ shape, finally grasping his motives as he restarts walking to the parking lot.

“Was Operation: Gift from Virgo a failure?” You ask your other friend cautiously, picking up some bags after having the sandwich re-energize you. 

“Not completely! Plus, we can always come back whenever it’s most convenient to turn it into a total success,” Seungkwan replies, grinning at you and Hansol. 

You grin back, causing Seungkwan to nearly have a heart attack seeing you smile. He knew that he would never confess to you, but moments like these made him yearn for more. He hoped in some alternate reality you were together, and the possibility of that being true allowed him to accept his friend status in your life. He was your boo after all.

[p5x-theories]

What We Know About Fleuret

(as of the third beta; last updated 1/23/24!)

Seiji Shiratori, codename Fleuret, is a second-year at a currently unknown high school. He joins the team as a "Phantom Idol", or cognitive teammate.

Previously, in the first two betas, his codename was simply "Seiji", however it was changed to Fleuret in the third beta. His files are named with the codename "Comte" (French word for Count, like the title) instead of his canon codename Fleuret or even previous codename Seiji, though the exact significance of this, if any, is unknown.

His All Out Attack finisher text translates as "Are you ready", referring to either a group or formally to a single person. His All Out Attack finisher art was also changed for the third beta, and previously looked like this.

His Japanese voice actor is Toshiyuki Toyonaga.

A text icon appears for him in the files, suggesting he will eventually appear in the real world and have some contact with Wonder. With this, and also as he is a Phantom Idol, he's likely to be a Confidant of Wonder's eventually.

Info on him in the real world has been translated as: "Part of a fencing club. He comes from a rich family and has been receiving a cold, elite education. On the outside, he may look polite, but his behavior is very detached. Inside, he longs for genuine affection."

Beyond this, his personality and situation are largely unknown, as he hasn't been present in any beta outside of being a Phantom Idol.

His Persona is Leucothea (based on a Greek sea goddess) and has Wind skills, resisting Wind while being weak to Psychic in the third beta.

In combat, his melee weapon is a rapier, while his ranged weapon is a flintlock pistol. His highlight attack is shown from 1:09 - 1:23 in this video.

[houseoftricky]

RULES

Welcome to HOUSE OF TRICKY: Network, a network dedicated to fan-created content for xikers. Before you join us, please make sure you meet the following criteria.

➠ All members must be 18 or older. ➠ Follow the network blog. ➠ Create content for xikers. ➠ Joining our Discord server is mandatory to keep up with announcements, but you are not required to be active in it (although we do encourage it!). ➠ Discourse including but not limited to fan wars, racism, homophobia, islamaphobia, other religious discourse, misogyny, and terf behaviors is prohibited. ➠ Plagiarism and reposting will not be tolerated. ➠ Use the tag #houseoftrickynet in order for your content to be reblogged. ➠ Admins hold the right to deny acceptance for any reason.

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➠ Visual content: GIFs, GFX, edits, moodboards, fanart, banners, icons, wallpapers ➠ Written content: drabbles, headcanons, one-shots, series, SMAUs (both either once a week or each chapter), masterlists, teasers, mini-series ➠ In order to be reblogged, fics must contain the following information: member(s), pairing, genre, rating, trigger/content warnings, word count, summary ➠ All NSFW content or content that is over 500 words (3 pictures for SMAUs) must be under a read more ➠ We will not reblog anything concerning: romantic interaction with minors, incest, pedophilia, glamorization of self-destructive behaviors, graphic abuse or sexual assault, glamorization of saesang behaviors, animal abuse or dub/non-con. Light yandere may be considered on a case-by-case basis and only with proper trigger warnings. ➠ Credit all beta readers, graphics makers and sources!

Ready to join us? Apply here!

[strangledwires]

The Sims 2 Console Prototype Masterpost (part 1)

Here is everything I've found in The Sims 2 M4 20 / July 29th build so far! This is part 1 'cos I'm still playing the game, and I might find new stuff later! (I did today!) It just takes me a while 'cos this game tends to be pretty unplayable due to being very unfinished :') It's prone to randomly freezing (due to Captain Catastrophe!) and terrible lag!

Blue Ring

The circle ring around other Sims are blue. In the Final Release, they're green!

Added 100 to kill level

This beta is very prone to random occurrences with no triggers at all. This dialogue box popped up from nowhere whilst I was playing today! I have no clue what "kill level" is supposed to be, nor do I believe it's ever been in the Urbz. Sounds out of place for a Sims game!

Bustin' Out Jobs & other Sims leftovers

Although this prototype is brimmed with scrapped Urbz content, there are some from Bustin' Out. The Newspaper offers the jobs from Bustin' Out rather than the ones from Sims 2.

The Repair(wo)man uses a sim from the first Sims(?) as a placeholder icon.

Leftover Urb Characters

I've already talked about Kiki Blunt and Captain Catastrophe a few times on this blog! To avoid the image limit, you can view them on their own posts here: Kiki Blunt & Captain Catastrophe GIFS.

But to add a little more to Captain Catastrophe; before I was confused as to what triggered him, playing this again -- it appears as though he just randomly pops up at times, and whenever he does, it's in the same place (middle of the lot?) and he always has the same behavior; completely freezes the simulation except for himself, who only twitches. Whenever he appears, the game must be restarted. (Remember to save often whilst playing the beta!)

In Freeplay, when you look into the available families to move into lots, there is a family named "Bradley" -- they use J.J. Bradley and Bobo Hobo's icons from the Urbz. Although when played, they are both clones of the default male sim.

Despite this, they still have the icon & even the same name of the characters in gameplay!

People probably already know that with the cheat gnome, you can summon the pets from the Urbz in this build. They lack a model, cannot really be interacted with, and causes the game to slow down. (Curiously, they still create puddles / "pee" on the floor like they do in the Urbz) but did you know that they can just randomly appear without you using the cheat gnome ever? So far, it seems like the Monkey is the only one with this behavior -- as whilst I was playing, he was the only one to randomly appear in both Freeplay and Story Mode.

The maid also uses J.J.'s portrait. (She's VERY broken here lol!)

The ability to change grandparents?

In the final release, you can randomize your sim, and it'll randomize the grandparents & parents' portraits to help choose your sim's appearance. But in this prototype, after randomizing the sim, you can move up to the portraits and choose whichever "grandparent" you want. I don't know if this is a scrapped feature, or simply a debug feature for the devs to test the randomization in this build.

Different Designs

The Montys had slightly different designs in the prototype compared to the final release. Isabella wears a different jacket and Patrizio's shirt is set to a different material. He also has no glasses, but that could be the result of him being unfinished. (Isabella has the same hair, it's just broken)

The Sara Tonin material on the default shirt was originally pink, not black.

The comfort icon curiously shows a cat on it.

Other Broken Sims

What looks like a regular firefighter sim came to visit the lot. His textures are broken just like Captain Catastrophe's -- but unlike the Captain, this sim can be interacted with like a normal sim. I'm unsure what he was supposed to be or if he's just a random placeholder sim.

I'm not sure who or what this is supposed to be? This sim is broken similar to Kiki Blunt. But I'm pretty sure this is a Sim model and not an Urb model. I also can't really tell what jacket(?) he has on or if he's a pre-existing premade character at all. Since he was just walking down the sidewalk, I could not interact with him to learn more information.

The infamous & elusive Paul Holder exists in this build, but their name is Placeholder 4.

Random Breaking

This game is very unstable and is prone to graphical glitches, even when they were fine before. Here's the Kiki model, but just in bits! Even though in the GIFs I've shown before, she was completely fine. (Except missing textures, but she misses those by default)

Crispin Sim randomly getting a hole in his chest despite his model being fine throughout most of the gameplay...

Unused Object?

Whilst I haven't noticed anything else different when going through the lots in the build (other than many of the lots being unfinished) I did notice this one in Sunset Canyon. Although I already posted about this one, thought it was interesting enough to include in this masterpost. This looks like something to hang someone with. I have no clue if this was gonna be functional, or if it was meant to be pure decorative (since Sunset is supposed to be a movie set) Either way, it was likely scrapped for being too morbid.

Other details not mentioned on this post

CAS has a lot of differences in this game that it would go past Tumblr's image limit, and it would take a very long time to explain them all. ^^; Most of it's just broken meshes, though. I have recorded myself looking thru every single piece, so I might just upload that to YouTube.

There are also a lot of unused dialogue boxes, most of which are just Urbz leftovers. But I put them all in a few pics (as to not reach tumblr image limit LOL!) and post 'em here, or also just record them all. (Which I may have already done?)

And then there are very miniscule differences that I didn't think were all that interesting. Those being prices of various objects differ from the ones in final release, the needs bars do not work (needs lower but the bars never actually show this -- making it difficult to play properly) many wants are broken (note the X's in the images) Many objects do not work or function differently (painting always cycles through every painting possibility before giving you the Best Painting even if your sim has low creativity skill)

The Prototype has "The Sims Theme (Lemon Jelly Remix) in it, which never appears in the final release. I think it's in place of Arch of the Sims (Lemon Jelly Remix) but I can't quite remember. It also plays music every time you pause the simulation, gets annoying fast!

Along with the Monkey, Kiki Blunt, and Captain Catastrophe -- other NPCs tend to randomly appear for no reason. The Repairwoman will enter the house and repair the TV... even if the TV isn't broken. The Newspaper boy seems to appear to place down a newspaper, even if it's not 7am. More will likely appear, but I haven't seen them yet!

Final note

I will be (TRYING) playing more! Hopefully I can find more interesting stuff. But as of now, this is everything I've discovered by playing the game normally. When I find enough new stuff, I will be making a part 2 to this post!

[raccoon-eyed-rebel]

Part 14 - Thalia

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Part 13 -- Part 15

Pairing: Geralt x ofc

Summary: Geralt and Solveig are beginning to realize what Sol's move means for their relationship.

Warnings: SMUT, NSFW, 18+, MINORS DNI, p-in-v sex, fingering, some angst, lots of feelings... I think that's it?

Word count: 4.3k

A/N: I did NOT beta this. And I'm sorry for the way I ended this. And I'm sorry for this in general, I'm not entirely happy with it, it's not what it was in my head AT ALL. At this point, I'm just happy it's out of the way.

@deandoesthingstome @geralts-yenn @keanureevesisbae @peaches1958

Today was December 24th and you planned to spent most of it in bed with absolutely no obligations. It was fantastic. The past few years, any holiday had been a mess of family, friends, dinner, dressing up, hurrying, panicking and your mother - bless her - complaining about the length of Geralt’s hair when she thought he couldn’t hear her. That was still a step up from the years before you met him, when the complaining had been about your lack of a boyfriend, and that hadn’t just been your mom talking. Your family was fond of Geralt, and he got along with them better than he did with most people, which was far more than you had ever dared to ask for when you first started going out. You had very little to complain about in terms of family gatherings, yet you were incredibly grateful that you got to spend this year’s holidays in a more private setting. You started your day curled up in bed with Geralt, which was precisely how you liked it, and planned on spending the rest of your day, too.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Geralt said. He finally sounded tired - which was reasonable, after two days of fucking each other senseless, honestly - but it didn’t stop him from extending an invitation for you to join him, which you declined. Over the course of the past two days, you had spent an awful lot of time in bed, but gotten disastrously little sleep. You dozed off again while Geralt took his shower. Even after three years together, you still dreamt of him, though not usually when you were with him. Today was different. 

Your dreams were a rerun of the past two days. The way he looked at you while you read with your head resting in his lap. The way he silently mouthed the words he was reading when there was so much noise around him that he couldn’t focus anymore. The familiar - borderline iconic - sigh when he finally reached for a pair of noise-canceling headphones. His content sigh as he pulled you closer to his body in his sleep, and the slightly possessive grip that pulled you back in when you so much as dared to think about moving away from him. The way his hold on you loosened again when you softly talked to him. The way he knew you, inside and out, picking up on the tiniest little changes in your behavior, even when you were apart. He paid closer attention to you than to anyone else. You had once asked him why, and he had answered that you quieted his thoughts. At the time you hadn’t realized just what that meant to him, but you knew better now. 

By the time you woke up it was well into the afternoon. Geralt didn’t need to turn around to know you were awake. 

“You’re up.” It wasn’t a question - or a great conversation starter. Then again, he was never good at striking up a conversation with anyone. 

“If I tell you I’m not, will you believe me?” You loved that he didn’t mind it when you teased him. In fact, he loved how much you enjoyed teasing him. Sometimes you wondered if he only laughed because he knew how you always longed to hear that wonderful sound. A pleased sigh escaped you as you looked at him while he continued to work on whatever it was he was working on. 

“Are you studying?” From the looks of it, he wasn’t. 

“I was just summoned to arrange tickets for the new year’s concert,” he replied, “which I cannot do yet.” 

“Why?” Somehow, a generic question always got you the most specific answers from this man.

“The whole house agreed to go to see Sherlock perform - and Elena, I suppose, though none of us are really familiar with her - but August just texted that Anjelica would like to join, and I was wondering if you might, too?”

“That sounds lovely, when exactly is it?”

“Next Friday,” he replied. His head turned towards the door before the knock came. 

“No,” Geralt snapped immediately before nodding at you. You quickly found a big sweater and a pair of sweatpants to put on. “Come in, Danielle.” You relaxed a little when you heard the person on the other side of the door was a girl. Any of the boys would have flung the door open carelessly after being given permission, but it opened very hesitantly. 

“Is this a bad time?” Her voice was kind - which was all you could say for now, as you couldn’t see her yet. Geralt chuckled. 

“Not at all, Danielle,” he said. 

“Oh, because you sounded… kinda mad?” she said hesitantly as she stepped into the room. She was pretty, and she looked a bit shy.

“‘No’ is code for ‘someone’s naked’,” you laughed, “it works for the whole house.”

“Did ‘don’t come in’ not work?” 

“It didn’t,” Geralt now also laughed, no doubt remembering some embarrassing instances from the past. “Danielle, this is Solveig, Sol, Danielle.” 

“Hi!” She just smiled and waved, which you were grateful for. You weren’t exactly in the mood for a hug - or dressed properly for one. Her eyes revealed that not all of her questions were answered by that simple introduction. 

“I’m his girlfriend,” you said while a smile took over your face, “Mikey didn’t say anything, did he?” 

“Not a word.” She sighed before speaking again. “Have you guys been together for a long time?”

“Three years,” you answered. 

“Why haven’t I heard anyone mention her?” she asked Geralt, who was trying to hide behind his computer - and failing, as he was far too large to make himself invisible behind the small screen. 

“We don’t see each other very often,” he answered. He looked as if he felt he should be talking about you more often. The fact of the matter, however, was that whenever you weren’t together, your lives were very much separate. Danielle seemed to piece a few things together about last night’s encounter in the hallway. Then there was Geralt, who pieced absolutely nothing together when it came to the notion that curious women were more likely to leave when they had nothing to be curious about anymore, and had resorted to glaring. It was his favorite reaction to most things, and it hardly ever worked. 

“I’m from Sweden, we met when Geralt did a semester abroad,” you chuckled. 

“That’s really cool! I want to hear all about that when your boyfriend isn’t busy death-staring me out of his room.” Geralt didn’t look amused when she said it, but that didn’t matter, because you found it funny enough for the both of you. You liked this girl, and the fact that she was with Mike made you curious. He didn’t necessarily have a great track record when it came to steady relationships. From what you’d heard - and seen, but only briefly - he was a bit too all over the place for something long term. The kind of guy who was easily bored of something - or at least far too easily distracted. It made you wonder how these two were holding up, and very glad to finally have enough time to find out.

“Why are you here?” Geralt growled. For some reason, he seemed to want Danielle gone sooner rather than later. Or he was of the impression that you were the one who wanted her to leave…

“So impolite, Geralt!” She pretended to be shocked, which was oddly comical. 

“Danielle!” Oh, he definitely wanted her out… 

“Lighten up, would you?” No, he wouldn’t. “Mike mentioned you were all going to see the orchestra on Friday, asked if I wanted to tag along, told me I should talk to you about tickets? So count me in, okay?” 

“Noted,” he said curtly. 

“Nice to meet you, Solveig,” Danielle said as she took a step back to reach for the door, “if you ever get tired of him, I’m down the hall!”

“Bye, Danielle,” Geralt sighed as he practically chased her out of the room.

“Call me Dani, please,” she said before stepping back into the hallway. Geralt agreed before he shut the door. 

“Geralt?” You looked at him like he had gone crazy and made a mental note to apologize to Danielle when you saw her again. “That was rude, even for you.”

“The last time I didn’t get rid of a roommate fast enough you got angry.” You were pretty sure he was faking his innocence to annoy you, but on the off chance he wasn’t…

“That’s because I was naked and it was a noise complaint, Geralt.” The memory of a mildly agitated Marshall who had shown up at the door to ask you to keep it down was definitely not your fondest. Especially not because Geralt had spent just a little too much time making conversation while you were still naked in his bed, dying of embarrassment. 

“Hmm, that does sound like it would make a difference.” He struggled to keep the corners of his mouth from curling up. Geralt found that story a lot funnier than you did. 

You paid him no mind and picked up your book while he dealt with the concert-business. When he was done he joined you on his bed, sitting cross-legged near your feet, tenderly rubbing your legs. It felt nice. “Does it bother you,” he suddenly said, “that I don’t talk about you much?”

“Geralt, you hate talking to people about your day, I hardly expect you to talk to them about mine,” you laughed, “besides, what would you tell them?”

“It’s not just that.” He shook his head while he spoke. “If I talk about you often, I miss you more.” 

His words left you stupefied - your discussions of your feelings when you were away from each other rarely went further than the actual ‘I miss you’ over the phone. Hearing him say it like this gave you butterflies, but there was one other thing…

“Now it does bother me,” you said with a mischievous laugh. Geralt raised an eyebrow at you. “You’re telling me we missed out on a lot of fantastic phone sex because you didn’t want to miss me?” He laughed, knowing you were right. Your phone calls did get better when he really missed you. Before you realized he had even moved, you felt him next to you, nestling into your side. His hand rested on your stomach, underneath your sweater, as he liked to feel your skin. 

“I’ll miss those calls,” he sighed as he squeezed you lightly. “What’s the point if you live close enough for me to just come over?” 

He tickled you, which caused you to throw your book across the room - it was one of his, so it didn’t bother you as much. Trying to fight  him off was - as always - a fruitless effort: he had you pinned down on the bed in no time. 

You looked into his eyes as his face hovered over yours. They were mesmerizing, giving you a look that you knew was for you and no one else. Warm, kind, soft and full of adoration. Comfortable and familiar. For the past three years he had been the harbor where you anchored your heart, each time you saw him, taking most of it with you again each time you left. But not this time. This time was different because you weren’t leaving, and it changed everything, including the man before you. He was no longer your haven, he was your home.

Lips brushed against yours in the softest kiss before withdrawing, and soon his eyes were all you could focus on again. You raised a hand to carefully stroke a thumb across his cheek, and he leaned into the touch with a faint smile. 

“Hey,” you whispered before you realized it. You couldn’t help yourself: it was as if you saw him for the first time. 

“Hi,” he answered, his smile growing wider before it disappeared when you slowly pulled him in for another kiss. It was slow and tender, and overflowing with love. Not passion, not lust, not the furious yearning for that sweet lovers’ embrace. Just love. Of course you did long for him, but that longing now lay still within you, like a frozen lake rather than a vicious riptide. You opened your mouth to allow him entrance, and you remained calm, as tongues patiently wandered. In him, you missed every bit of the ravenous desire he was normally overcome by. When he pulled away, he smiled as he had before, not plagued by lust burning in his eyes, or labored breathing, just that same smile. 

“I love you,” he said. It was soft, but not a whisper; firm, but not harsh; and most of all: it was true. Of course you knew. He showed you in every imaginable way - often in his own peculiar ways, but still. And he’d said it before, though the moments were few and far between that he expressed it so directly, yet this time was different. Beneath the promise of love, there was also the promise of stability, permanence, eternity, even. And the feeling was mutual. 

You stumbled into paradise when your lips touched again. The kiss was once again soft and slow, and it seemed to last forever. You had finally found peace, and the patience to allow you to take things wherever they may. Of course you eventually took it where you always did; naked in bed, moaning into the other’s ear as Geralt made you see stars with even the simplest of movements. Soon after your kiss ended, his lips began to wander, exploring your neck and shoulders. His fingers explored the skin underneath your sweater, gently caressing every inch of you as if he’d never touched you before. And in a way it was true. He had never touched you like this, calmly and without hurry, and so extremely careful to steer clear of your bruises. Your sweater inched towards your chest, which eventually prompted you to take it off. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever taken this much time to undress you,” Geralt said. He was probably right. Even your first night together had been more hurried than this. 

“There was that time during spring break last year,” you remembered. Geralt laughed. 

“I don’t remember undressing you at all, that night, love.” He was right about that, too: You hadn’t been wearing more than a lace bodysuit when you invited him into your apartment that night, and he hadn’t bothered to get you out of that. The warmth of his hand on your skin made you hum with contentment. 

“We’ve really never taken it slow, have we?” you asked. The longer you thought about it, the more it surprised you. Three years, and not once? 

“Not once,” Geralt said as if he could read your mind, “we never had time.”

“Never had the time,” you wondered, “or never took the time?”

“Perhaps a bit of both,” Geralt chuckled as he softly kissed your collarbone, “will you let me make up for it?” Now, that didn’t sound too bad. 

“I’ll help you make up for it,” you replied. Geralt grinned at you. 

He turned his attention to your neck, mapping it more thoroughly than he ever had before. It was still sensitive from two nights ago, but he went about it carefully. Before long, you were moaning in his ear and squirming beneath his touch. His hands explored your chest, before eventually, his mouth ventured there, too. That freed up his hand to slip into your - technically his - sweatpants. He didn’t seem the least bit surprised by the wetness he found between your legs. Of course he wasn’t; he could probably smell your arousal. You chuckled at the memory of the first time you learned of his extraordinary senses. 

“What’s wrong, love?” Geralt asked, raising his hand back up to lay on your hip. 

“Nothing, just remembered something,” you said, “about the day you told me about your… perceptive abilities.” His laugh filled the room, and was without a doubt louder than he had intended. It had taken him two weeks to convince you that he didn’t think you smelled bad. After those two weeks, it became a full time job to effectively ignore what he was capable of - save the occasional curious question. You’d never asked him the question that was on your lips right now, despite having thought about it countless times. 

“What’s this like for you?” 

“Three years and your curiosity finally got the better of you, huh?” He grinned. You could have known he’d guessed long ago that you were curious about it, even if you never asked. 

“I mean… I know I’ve asked before what you sense at any given time, but…” 

“You mean, when we’re together?”

“Having sex, specifically,” you buried your head against his chest when you said it, somehow too embarrassed by your curiosity to look at him. He hummed softly as he contemplated his answer. 

“I can hear your heartbeat,” he started, “feel your pulse. I can tell when it speeds up, I don’t have to explain to you why that’s very helpful.” You chuckled softly; that definitely sounded like it could be useful at times.

“And there’s the smell. It’s intoxicating…” He mumbled the words into your hair. Intoxicating… You liked the sound of that. 

“And then all the sensations you also feel. Warmth, sweat, breathing, movement, all of that.”

“It sounds intense,” you said, unsure whether that meant better or worse. 

“Isn’t that the point?” Geralt laughed. Of course he was right; it was intense for you, too, after all. And he was used to all those sensations… “That being said, I tend to focus on whatever sensation I need, and more or less tune the rest out…” 

“What happens if you don’t?” you asked. He looked at you inquisitively. 

“You mean if I give in to all of it?” He thought about it for a moment. “I have no idea, let’s find out.” That definitely wasn’t something you were inclined to say ‘no’ to. In the back of your mind, a voice reminded you that there was a chance it would turn him absolutely feral, but you pushed the thought away. It wasn’t as if you had places to be tomorrow, or the day after that…

Geralt’s hand slipped back beneath the waistband of your sweatpants. You gasped when his fingers passed your clit. Moans escaped him as he took his time exploring your wet heat. The sounds turned into growls when he slipped the first finger inside, and not long after it the second. 

“I love how fucking wet you get for me.” His voice was hoarse and rife with arousal. He knew exactly how to curl his fingers to hit the right spot inside of you. Soon, you were squirming and whining in his arms. You had hoped that your request for him to give in to his senses would have prompted him to pick up the pace, but unfortunately for you, he didn’t. He still seemed hellbent on going slow; teasing you by slowing his movements at exactly the right times, clearly relying on his skills as a heart-monitor. 

“I’ve decided that I consider what you do cheating, Geralt,” you gasped after he skillfully denied you your fourth orgasm. He chuckled in reply. 

“Forgive me, my love,” he said as he kissed a trail up your neck to your ear, “if I don’t take that too seriously, coming from the woman who sucked me dry in under three minutes yesterday.” The playful nip at your earlobe almost sent you into a fit, but you heard his words a little too clearly. Three minutes. That was pretty impressive, especially considering you didn’t have super senses. It was also just the so-manieth example of the constant rush the two of you had been in until now. Geralt fingering you into oblivion didn’t make it easy to think straight, but you somehow managed. Whether the conclusion of your pondering was something that desperately needed to be shared now was utterly debatable - a discussion leaning heavily towards the side of ‘definitely not’ - but you did it anyway. Because, well, he asked!

“What are you thinking?”

“Why do we never make love?” Your question seemed to surprise him, judging from the hum/growl he let out. “We always go at it like either animals or enemies. Either way it’s practically a fight.” Geralt considered your words for a moment. From his face, you could tell he slowly came to the same conclusions you had. 

“The way I see it,” he started his response, “we can blame the lack of time, or strong personalities.”

“I’m so glad you’re joking about this! Here I was, scared we might end up having an actual serious conversation about something important!” You elbowed him in the ribs - which unequivocally hurt your elbow more than it did his ribs. 

“I wish to change my answer. It’s definitely the last thing, because your sarcastic attitude makes me want to knock you down a peg.” His voice was gruff and his fingers pressed into your walls in an almost punishing way. You raised an eyebrow at him. It was the only thing you could do to prevent yourself from thanking him for proving your point, which would no doubt set him on edge more. He understood what you were trying to say perfectly, though, judging from the laughter that followed your gesture. Then, you also started laughing, and all attempts at ‘adult activity’ were halted until further notice. 

“Sol, why do you all of a sudden want to have normal sex?” Geralt asked. “It sounds quite boring, to be honest.”

“We can’t always have spectacular sex, Geralt.” You glared at him as you struggled to find the right words to use to string together a clear explanation. 

“We have been doing exactly that for three years,” he said as he shrugged. You shook your head - clearly, he wasn’t getting this.

“We were always making up for something. Time spent apart. Time we were about to spend apart. What if…” Your voice hitched as a sudden wave of anxiety wrapped its long, icy fingers around your throat. When you spoke again, it was barely more than a whisper. “What if we run out of things to make up for?” Your eyes begged him for a serious answer, because in all fairness, you were scared to death that you were about to find out your relationship didn’t work at all. He picked up on your distress even though you didn’t say anything - of course he did. His hand cupped your face - and you leaned into the touch. 

“If you want to take it slow for a change, I’m on board with that,” Geralt said softly, “but if you don’t stop talking like that I’m going to interpret ‘take it slow’ in the worst possible way for you. I love you.” And that was all that mattered to him. You wanted to protest, which didn’t escape his attention. 

“I will gag you if need be, Sol.” By means of a warning, he shut you up with a kiss. 

As his tongue slipped past your lips and explored your mouth, his hand made its way down your stomach - again. This time, Geralt’s determination was obvious, despite his commitment to his promise to take it slow. He rubbed tight circles around your clit - his movements were determined and the rhythm steady - and he had you moaning loudly into his mouth in no time. As you inched closer and closer to your climax, you noticed how Geralt’s breathing changed along with your own. His lips never left yours, and his kiss changed, too, as his breath evolved from controlled to labored and frantic over the course of minutes. 

“Come for me,” he growled into your mouth, “I want to hear you.” In all honesty - and being dishonest about it would be fairly pointless, because anyone would know you for the liar you’d be - he didn’t have to ask you twice. Just after he replaced the fingers on your clit with his thumb, and slipped two fingers into you with ease, he pulled you apart. Your cries were muffled by his mouth, which was still on yours - now crushing more than anything else. It was probably for the better, because the slew of profanities you uttered weren’t suitable for… well, for anyone, quite frankly. Geralt didn’t stop when you came, instead he unraveled you with care, guiding you down from your high gently. The volume of his moans and growls rivaled that of the sounds you made, and it was an incredible turn on for you, as always.

“I need you,” he growled, teeth digging into your bottom lip, “now, please.” The talking was new; Geralt would rarely utter more than the occasional expletive, unless he was trying to get a rise out of you. The begging… That was even more surprising: Geralt didn’t beg. You realized for the first time just how much of his senses he always ignored when you were together - and he was still holding back. As luck would have it, you needed the exact same thing. 

“What are you waiting for?” As soon as you said it, Geralt’s lips pulled into a wide grin. Even now, you couldn’t help but tease him a little. To your surprise, he didn’t tease you back. Instead, he pulled his fingers out of you - which made you moan - and maneuvered himself between your legs. He didn’t tease, he didn’t wait; he just sank into you with ease. You absolutely relished his reaction. Put bluntly, it was as if it was the first time he ever got his dick wet. His breathing revealed that he was having more than a little trouble keeping himself in check. 

“I’ll go slow, Sol, because you asked me to,” he growled into your ear, “but the next round is going to be on my terms.”

-> Part 15

[boppinbabe]

❰ #BOPPINBABE ❱ —— An independent, non-selective GIRLFRIEND from FRIDAY NIGHT FUNKIN', written with love by BEE. At  this  point  in  time,  blog  is  dash  only,  uses  minimal  but  neat  formatting  and  90x90  cartoon  icons  exclusively.  Crossover, duplicate,  multiverse  and  original  character  friendly.  Uses  the  Beta  Editor  and XKit  Rewritten to trim posts.  18+  only,  but  not  strictly  NSFW.  Multi-ship,  ships  with  Boyfriend  or  chemistry.  All  ships  exist  in  alternate  universes  unless  stated  otherwise  to  avoid  conflict.  Established  in  November  of  2023.  Please  do  not  reblog.

      MINORS AND PERSONAL BLOGS, DO NOT INTERACT. As stated above, this blog is an 18+ space. The admin is an adult and not comfortable roleplaying with minors. Please respect that.

      Personal blogs, I don't mind if you follow me, but please do not interact with my posts or attempt to start a roleplay with me. You may ask Girlfriend questions if you wish, but I will not roleplay with you. Any attempts to start a roleplay with me may result in a block.

      DO NOT INTERACT if you are prone to starting drama or are any shade of bigoted. I'm too old to deal with petty bullshit. I'm just here to roleplay.

      If you do not wish to interact with me or have me follow you, you're welcome to soft or hard block me so I know you're not interested. It won't hurt my feelings and you don't have to explain yourself. It's preferred on my end, actually.

      While I am a fan of the game and (obviously) roleplay as Girlfriend, I do not condone any gross or unsavory behavior from the creators/devs. I separate the art from the artist. If this is a problem for you, you're more than welcome to block me, but I am very attached to the series, it's one of the only things that actively brings me joy, so for the sake of my mental health, I do not interact with the fandom or support the bad apples within it. I understand completely if the series and characters makes you uncomfortable. You are well within your right to block me for your own comfort if you choose to do so.

      If I like your promo but don't follow, I am likely tentative to do so first because I get anxiety following first sometimes. Liking your promo is my way of saying I'm interested in roleplaying with you without the anxiety of following first. Sometimes I'm able to break through this anxiety, but not often. Regardless, if I like anything of yours, I'm likely interested in interacting!

      CONTENT WARNING: Canon typical dark themes will be present on this blog. These themes include, but are not limited to alcohol, blood, cursing, drug usage, gore, mental illness, objectification, religious themes, sexual themes, underage drinking, underage drug usage, violence, etc. I will tag major triggers, but if there is something specific you need me to tag, or if I forget to tag a post, please let me know. Triggers will be tagged in the following formats: tw [trigger], [trigger] tw, cw [trigger] and [trigger] cw.

      My portrayal will be a healthy mixture of canon and headcanon. I take heavy inspiration from the fandom's portrayal of Girlfriend whilst also staying faithful to what little we know about her, whilst also putting my own spin on her. Basically, you can expect some canon divergence, especially in the future when the full ass game comes out.

      Mun goes by Bee, is 24 years old, uses any pronouns and lives in the EST time zone. There's not much to know about me. I'm a simple Boyfriend/Girlfriend kinnie who enjoys roleplaying, voice acting and writing. I will share my Discord with mutuals if prompted to. I promise I am much warmer when I'm not writing an intro to my blog.

      Please read my Carrd before interacting. If you've read this far, consider giving this post a like to let me know. Here are my tags. Also, consider filling out my interest checker and liking my interaction post to let me know you're cool with me interacting with you. Finally, click here to see art credit for all of the icons I use. Thank you! I appreciate you! ヾ(˶ᵔ ᗜ ᵔ˶)

[claire-starsword]

Shining Force Pre Release Coverage Part 2

"Claire didn't you just say you didn't have time to look at this now" didn't I also say recently I have no self control? Exactly. Also there's not much new so I might as well just get it out of the way.

Part 1 here

This time we'll be looking at recently scanned volumes of another magazine, Mega Drive Fan. Scans are here and here. Also despite the obvious enthusiasm I sure am busy lately so I won't be pointing out everything, I'm here more for translations as you can see the pictures yourself.

November 1991

okay I lied I need to start with the most important pictures

Meow

They owe me this so bad.

Also it has its tail up like in the final unused version, I don't know what's the deal with that footage I showed at the end of the previous post.

We get a better scan of Max's beta portrait. He has no Egress, which I think I have already pointed out in the previous post, I don't know it was a big post okay. He has a short sword with a weird icon, and two iconless items (the placeholders seem to be showing the item's index): the Hex Whip from Shining in the Darkness, and, uh,

"Ring of Infidelity".

Care to explain, Max???

According to my searching this isn't any carry over from SiTD, but I haven't played that in japanese yet so, grain of salt here. I was gonna say, why is a likely joke item so early in the game, and then I remembered the bunny girl in SFII so yeah, this is regular SF dev behavior.

[Edit: I'm reviewing this now and I might have misread the ring's name, it seems like the うわき (infidelity) is directly applied as an adjective so Infidel/Cheater/Fickle Ring would be better translations, which matches the japanese name for the Hex Whip, which is something like Fickle/Whimsical/Moody Whip, but with a different word that has no "cheating on your partner" connotations as far as I know. So maaaybe it's just implying the ring is cursed and does effects of its own, but by all my searching うわき is still far, far more associated with these cheating connotations at least nowadays, so either the word's usage changed a lot in the past decades or it's still a cheeky joke name]

Also, in the previous post I was clearly too taken by Mae's smile to do my job and didn't talk about the items there, so let's talk about them, or rather it, now. Max and Mae in those screenshots have the inventory full of item index 9, "Old Medical Herb". Perhaps there was some sort of expiring mechanic for the herbs. Max also has the same Short Sword and Mae has a Bronze Lance with a sword icon.

In the final version, the indexes 7, 8, and 9 became the Legs of Haste, Turbo Pepper, and Bread of Life respectively.

The item shop has a different sign. Also it seems to be just an item shop, while in final Guardiana the item and weapon shops are combined, with two sellers.

The other magazine showed yet another item shop and sign, either these are actually different towns, or different builds, which actually they sure are given the next picture.

I have been long looking for you... I have heard of the situation. Please, you must let me join you.

While both magazine issues are from the same month, here we have Arthur portrait for this character instead of Varios, and more than that, he is joining the team, there's even another screenshot in the magazine with the "has joined the force" message. Given that this is Arthur's map sprite, and Mae has been described since the start as having a dead father, I feel this is the intended version. Perhaps Varios' portrait was done first and used as placeholder?

Also I need to correct something from the previous post. This isn't a generic NPC sprite, it's just Arthur's knight sprite. The generic centaur NPC sprites are... Arthur's paladin sprite. Like, the exact same sprite. I never looked too close so I assumed there had to be some small difference, but no, they can reuse whatever sprites they want.

Arthur is not given a profile in any of these magazines so it does feel he started as a very generic recruit. Very funny considering he's now the specialest most magical centaur in the block.

Character profiles this month don't have much so I won't translate them in full. Max is referred to as capable of using magic. Lowe is again referred to as a dwarf even though the magazine points out how similar he is to Milo, and wonders if he's an ancestor of him. No mention of Mae's personality, Gort mentioned as an old servant of hers again. Hans' bio states many elves who live in forests choose bows as their weapon because they have excellent vision. This a regular fantasy thing but I don't remember seeing it in Shining content before.

There's one battle screenshot where Max has less HP and is named Hans so I feel his battle sprite wasn't done at this point. Also I didn't bring attention to it in the previous post but a lot of these battle scenes have misnamed enemies as well, it seems this skeleton was a placeholder for a lot.

December 1991

Again Max has his final portrait at this point. He has 99MP and Blaze and Heal 4, Heal having a placeholder icon. He carries the Sword of Darkness, which has a different icon, the Power Ring, and the Forbidden Box, a well documented debug item.

Nothing new in character profiles, Guntz is again referred to as a beastman, Tao is again referred to as a forest elf unlike the others. I will again bring up that the term is used for Nigel in Landstalker, and Tao and Princess Lara there have basically the same art. Does this mean something? Likely no.

Also something I failed to notice in the previous post: at this point, Tao's shoulder gems are miscolored in her portrait. Her art is already done so I assume it's a small mistake.

Enemy descriptions are mostly the same, and again the Mimic shows up.

Again there's a section dedicated to Yogurt, which is mostly the same. It specifies he eats bugs besides berries, and says he "understand human speech, but can't (won't) talk". In the JP version he does say only a single sentence, "I don't get it", so perhaps this was dropped, or he is learning.

It is also said that he's kinda popular with the force members, especially the girls, but again no one could make him a pet. We then get doodles of his secret events, and yes different doodles than last time.

January 1992

This issue gives a good look into the beta menu icons. I won't show them all here, but the icon for putting characters on the active team shows a centaur which, really gets what the game's about i guess.

There's a screenshot with Earnest's portrait but the name is actually Vankar, perhaps his portrait wasn't done yet. Or these guys changed names during production.

On the screens showing off battle graphics, Hans has Diane's palette. That is to say, the exact same palette but pink hair.

Also not to get distracted but I took a quick look at the editor and yes, despite being one of the first characters, the archer sprites are index 9 in the data, preceded by Gong and Khris, and more curiously, Guntz and Domingo, who are at index 3 and 5 respectively.

February 1992

This one was already scanned in Sega Retro and is actually how I started looking into these things. The new scans are likely better quality though, they're really good.

March 1992

The game's released, but unlike the other magazine, early build material still slipped into this one.

"Am I being of service to you? Since I'm fighting to the ends of my MP..."

Tao had this goofy, less immersive line at HQ (remember to compare it to the final JP one, the english version is its own beast). Curiously, the GBA version changed her first line back to a question. Note also that she still has the wrong portrait here.

Veeeery small detail but there's a screenshot of the Rune Knight at the first battle talking only to goblins as opposed to goblins and dwarves. Coupled with all the screenshots we see from this battle it's safe to say the dwarves were a late addition.

Finally, minister Ward had his own portrait.

[wonderlandnet]

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[gojos-thot-patrol]

I hope you know how wrong you are for messing with my hormones like you did with that last Sukuna fic. 😩💖 absolutely iconic. And beta Noaya had me dyingggg lmfaooo.

Sorry babes, Sukuna himself told me to do it to get you ready for him 💙💙💙 I'm just following orders

And, look, as far as I'm concerned Noaya thinks the clitoris is a dinosaur, and THAT is Beta behavior if I've ever heard of it 🤷‍♂️

[hellocutty]

❰   #HELLOCUTTY   ❱   —— An  independent,  non-selective  and  canon  divergent Nene  from  Nene Interactive Suicide,  as  loved  by  Bee.  Blog  is  dash  only,  uses  minimal  but  neat  formatting  and  occasionally  90x90  icons.  Crossover,  duplicate,  multiverse  and  original  character  friendly.  Uses  the  Beta  Editor  and  XKit  Rewritten  to  trim  posts.  18+  only,  but  not  strictly  NSFW.  Multi-ship, ships with chem.  Established  February 2024.

     Blog information, links and rules below the cut. Please read thoroughly!

      MINORS  AND  PERSONAL  BLOGS,  DO  NOT  INTERACT.  As  stated  above,  this  blog  is  an  18+  space.  The  admin  is  an  adult  and  not  comfortable  roleplaying  with  minors.  Please  respect  that.

      Personal  blogs,  I  don't  mind  if  you  follow  me,  but  please  do  not  interact  with  my  posts  or  attempt  to  start  a  roleplay  with  me.  You  may  ask  Blake  questions  if  you  wish,  but  I  will  not  roleplay  with  you.  Any  attempts  to  start  a  roleplay  with  me  may  result  in  a  block.

      DO  NOT  INTERACT  if  you  are  prone  to  starting  drama  or  are  any  shade  of  bigoted.  I'm  too  old  to  deal  with  petty  bullshit.  I'm  just  here  to  roleplay.

      If  you  do  not  wish  to  interact  with  me  or  have  me  follow  you,  you're  welcome  to  soft  or  hard  block  me  so  I  know  you're  not  interested.  It  won't  hurt  my  feelings  and  you  don't  have  to  explain  yourself.

      Let  it  be  known  that  I  do  not  condone  any  gross  or  unsavory  behavior  from  the  creators  or  anyone  involved  in  the  Friday  Night  Funkin'  fandom.  I  separate  the  art  from  the  artist.  If  this  is  a  problem  for  you,  you're  more  than  welcome  to  block  me,  but  again,  I  do  not  support  the  bad  apples  within  the  fandom.  I  understand  completely  if  it  makes  you  uncomfortable,  though.  You're  well  within your  right  to  block  me  for  your  own  comfort  if  you  choose  to  do  so,  but  please  do  not  police  my  interests.  Thank  you.

      If  I  like  your  promo  but  don't  follow,  I  am  likely  tentative  to  do  so  first  because  of  my  anxiety.  Liking  your  promo  is  my  way  of  saying  I'm  interested  in  roleplaying  with  you  without  the  anxiety  of  following  first.  Bottom  line  is,  if  I  like  anything  of  yours,  I'm  interested  in  interacting!

      Canon  typical  dark  themes  will  be  present  on  this  blog.  These  themes  include,  but  are  not  limited  to:  abuse,  alcohol,  blood,  cursing,  drug  usage,  eating  disorders,  gore,  mental  illness,  neglect,  religious  themes,  self-harm,  sexual  themes,  underage  drinking,  underage  drug  usage, smoking/vaping, suicide,  violence,  etc.  I  will  tag  major  triggers,  but  if  there  is  something  you  need  me  to  tag,  please  let  me  know.  Triggers  will  be  tagged  in  the  following  formats:  tw  [trigger],  [trigger]  tw,  cw  [trigger]  and  [trigger]  cw.

      Mun  goes  by  Bee,  is  24  years  old,  uses  any  pronouns  (genderfluid)  and  lives  in  the  EST  timezone.  There's  not  much  to  know  about  me.  I'm  a  simple  Boyfriend  kinnie  who  enjoys  roleplaying,  voice  acting  and  writing.  I  will  share  my  Discord  with  mutuals  if  prompted  to.  I  promise  I'm  much  warmer  when  I'm  not  writing  an  intro  to  my  blog!

      Blog roll: @beemused, @liarking, @ribbeats!

      Please  read  my Carrd and  rules  before  interacting. Here  are  my  tags.  Please  consider filling out my interest checker and  liking  my  interaction  post  to  let  me  know  you're  cool  with  me  approaching  you  for  roleplays.  I  like  to  think  I'm  pretty  approachable,  so  please  don't  be  afraid  to  strike  up  a  conversation  with  me! Thanks  for  reading this far!  I  appreciate  you! ヾ(˶ᵔ  ᗜ  ᵔ˶)

[beemused-a]

❰   #BEEMUSED   ❱   ——   An independent,  non-selective  multi-muse  blog  featuring  muses  from  Friday  Night  Funkin',  Newgrounds  and  other  franchises. Loved by BEE. Blog is dash only, uses minimal but neat formatting and no longer uses icons due to the hassle of editing them. I just don't have the time. Crossover, duplicate, multiverse and original character friendly. Uses the Beta Editor and XKit Rewritten to   trim posts. 18+ only, but not strictly NSFW. Multi-ship. Established in January of 2024.

      Blog information, links and rules below the cut. Please read thoroughly!

      MINORS AND  PERSONAL BLOGS,  DO  NOT  INTERACT.  As  stated  above,  this  blog  is  an  18+  space.  The  admin  is  an  adult  and  not  comfortable  roleplaying  with  minors.  Please  respect  that.

      Personal  blogs,  I  don't  mind  if  you  follow  me,  but  please  do  not  interact  with  my  posts  or  attempt  to  start  a  roleplay  with  me.  You  may  ask  my muses  questions  if  you  wish,  but  I  will  not  roleplay  with  you.  Any  attempts  to  start  a  roleplay  with  me  may  result  in  a  block.

      DO  NOT  INTERACT  if  you  are  prone  to  starting  drama  or  are  any  shade  of  bigoted.  I'm  too  old  to  deal  with  petty  bullshit.  I'm  just  here  to  roleplay.

      If  you  do  not  wish  to  interact  with  me  or  have  me  follow  you,  you're  welcome  to  soft  or  hard  block  me  so  I  know  you're  not  interested.  It  won't  hurt  my  feelings  and  you  don't  have  to  explain  yourself.

      I  do  not  condone  any  gross  or  unsavory  behavior  from  the  creators or anyone  involved  with  the  fandoms  I  roleplay  in.  I  separate  the  art  from  the  artist.  If  this  is  a  problem  for  you,  you're  more  than  welcome  to  block  me,  but  I  do  not  support  the  bad  apples  within  these spaces.  I  understand  completely  if  any  of  the  franchises  I  roleplay  in  make  you  uncomfortable,  though.  You  are  well  within  your  right  to  block  me  for  your  own  comfort  if  you  choose to do so, but please do not police my interests. Thank you.

      If  I  like  your  promo  but  don't  follow, I  am  likely  tentative  to  do  so  first  because  of my anxiety.  Liking  your  promo  is  my  way  of  saying  I'm  interested  in  roleplaying  with  you  without  the  anxiety  of  following  first.  Bottom line is, if  I  like  anything  of  yours,  I'm  interested  in  interacting!

      CONTENT  WARNING:  Canon  typical  dark  themes  will  be  present  on  this  blog.  These  themes  include,  but  are  not  limited  to  abuse, alcohol,  blood,  cursing,  drug  usage,  eating disorders, gore,  mental  illness, neglect, religious  themes, self-harm, sexual  themes,  underage  drinking,  underage  drug  usage,  violence,  etc.  I  will  tag  major  triggers,  but  if  there  is  something  specific  you  need  me  to  tag, please  let  me  know. Triggers  will  be  tagged  in  the  following  formats:  tw  [trigger],  [trigger]  tw,  cw  [trigger]  and  [trigger]  cw.

      This  blog  contains  the  following  muses:  canon  divergent  /  my  personal  versions  of  B3  Boyfriend,  D-Sides  Boyfriend,  Soft  Boyfriend,  base  game  Boyfriend  and  base  game  Girlfriend  from  Friday  Night  Funkin',  who I treat like my own original characters, Daphne from Scooby-Doo, Lacey  from  the  Lacey  games  series,  four completely original  characters  for  Friday  Night  Funkin',  an  original  character  for  TANKMEN  and some request muses.

      Mun  goes  by  Bee,  is  24  years  old,  uses  any  pronouns (genderfluid)  and  lives  in  the  EST  timezone.  There's  not  much  to  know  about  me.  I'm  a  simple  Boyfriend / Girlfriend  kinnie  who  enjoys  roleplaying,  voice  acting  and  writing.  I  will  share  my  Discord  with  mutuals  if  prompted  to.  I  promise  I  am  much  warmer  when  I'm  not  writing  an  intro  to  my  blog!

      Blog roll: @hellocutty, @ribbeats!

      Please  read  my  Carrd  before  interacting.  If  you've  read  this  far,  consider  giving  this  post  a  like  to  let  me  know.  Here  are  my  tags. Consider  filling  out  my  interest  checker  and  liking  my  interaction  post  to  let  me  know  you're  cool  with  me  interacting  with  you. Thanks for reading!  I  appreciate  you!  ヾ(˶ᵔ  ᗜ  ᵔ˶)

[p5x-theories]

What We Know About Fleuret

(last updated 9/24/24!)

Seiji Shiratori, codename Fleuret, is a second-year at a currently unknown high school. His Arcana is listed in the files as Freedom, which seems to come from angel decks. He joins the team as a “Phantom Idol”, or cognitive teammate.

Previously, in the first two betas, his codename was simply “Seiji”, however it was changed to Fleuret from the third beta onward. His files are named with the codename “Comte” (French word for Count, like the title) instead of his canon codename Fleuret, or even previous codename Seiji, though the exact significance of this, if any, is unknown.

His All Out Attack finisher text translates as “Are you ready”, referring to either a group or formally to a single person. His All Out Attack finisher art has also changed multiple times- it initially looked like this in the first two betas, then changed to this in the third beta, and finally was changed to the art featured above in the official launch.

His Japanese voice actor is Toshiyuki Toyonaga.

A text icon appears for him in the files, and he has a real-world 3D model, suggesting he might eventually appear in the real world and have some contact with Wonder. With this, and also as he is a Phantom Idol, he’s likely to be featured as either a Confidant or side story eventually, though this is uncertain.

Info on him in the real world has been translated as: “Part of a fencing club. He comes from a rich family and has been receiving a cold, elite education. On the outside, he may look polite, but his behavior is very detached. Inside, he longs for genuine affection.”

Later, his in-game description was changed to: "A boy in the second year of high school. He attends a different school from the protagonist. As the ace member of the fencing club, his strength has reached the level of winning tournaments, but because he is too serious about club activities, his relationship with his clubmates is not very good. He is a fan of the novelist Toshiya Sumi, and likes to read his works." The "Toshiya Sumi" here is written differently than Toshiya Sumi (Sepia)'s name is, but they're read the same way.

Beyond this, his personality and situation are largely unknown, as he wasn’t present in any beta outside of being a Phantom Idol, and has not yet made a real-world appearance in the official release.

Fleuret's Persona Leucothea (based on a Greek sea goddess) is categorized as a Wind type, and resists Wind while being weak to Psychokinesis.

Leucothea is a Resist Persona, meaning he’s good at targeting single enemies, and his trait makes it so that whenever he uses a skill, he has a chance to gain a level of "Inspiration", which boosts his attack power and speed. He has three wind attack skills: the first hits one enemy four times, with a chance to inflict the wind status effect, the second hits all enemies three times (and the more enemies he hits, the higher the chance of him gaining Inspiration), and the third hits one enemy three times (four if he has at least three levels of Inspiration) and increases his critical rate. His passive skills cause his third wind skill to hit an additional time if the enemy is inflicted with the wind status effect, and give him a chance of gaining another level of Inspiration at the end of each round.

In combat, his melee weapon is a rapier, while his ranged weapon is a flintlock pistol. His Highlight is shown from 2:21 - 2:33 in this video, and hits one enemy with a wind attack four times (or five, if he has at least three levels of Inspiration).

His recommended card sets are 1) 6 of Wands (Victory) + Queen of Coins (Harmony), 2) 4 of Coins (Power) + Page of Coins (Growth).

The game recommends teaming him up with 1) Sepia and Riddle, 2) Mona.