#it makes me so sad because it used to be different

[sleepynoons]

hi op feel free to ignore everything under - all you need to know is i love your writing *shakes head vigorously*

there are several things i think were immaculately done, but that'd require me to churn out an entire research paper, which i don't have the brain cells for anymore post-finals. so here are some scattered thoughts yep and yap

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i don't gravitate towards mysterious or reserved characters because my personality simply doesn't mesh well with them. in fact, when i was watching wbk, i was always so wary of suo, and felt lowkey a lil uncomfortable with him LMFAO

but strangely enough, i think this discomfort became a very integral and driving force throughout my reading experience. of course, this was already the case due to the violent and dark nature of yakuzas, underground sex work, etc., but emphasizing suo's yandere-ness and how he doesn't shy away from it really completed the tone of the story. also, i feel like i came to terms with suo's character, which i rarely ever experience in general. really, this is all to say that it makes total logical sense in my brain to imagine a route where suo evolves into a yandere, and part of me strongly believes his real background in the wbk manga/anime won't be too happy-go-lucky either (otherwise the alternative would be like him wearing an eyepatch for the shtick bc he's a chuuni??? idrk????).

anyway, the reoccurring theme of redirection in suo's tactics really sealed the deal for me, and i think it was a good way to tie in references to his relationship to his master, the martial arts that we know he's especially good at, and how all of these things he's kinda exploited and sullied to "become a worse person for you." suo being very knowing and intentional is so snakey and creepy but also, i get a lil fucked up when it comes to men who are obsessed, so also incredibly erotic LMFAO i also just want someone to buy me a luxury penthouse out of concern for my safety *sad fist bump*

one thing i did find unexpected is suo's leadership within the yakuza. yes, necessary for the plot, otherwise he wouldn't be able to pull any strings. but because source material heavily emphasizes leaders as individuals like umemiya or sakura or even hiiragi, it's interesting to place suo in juxtaposition with them. not sure if it's bc i don't find suo particularly reliable in general, but i think this fic made me realize that he's still wise beyond his years and very, very ruthless. it's def very telling that, throughout the story, suo resorts to fear to assert power. anyway, i j think it was a particularly interesting detail to add in his role in the succession conflict.

btw, i do like how suo's change and transition isn't fully told or revealed. it's not a story meant for us, as it's a truth really for suo and reader. but even reader can't really keep up with him at times, and i find that dynamic really charming, as sadistic as that sounds. i like that reader is so vulnerable. i like that reader is not afraid to be vulnerable around him in the ways that matter, even when she's aware that he's fucking insane. and i really like that reader is aware of how much it takes to be vulnerable, so she doesn't push him. i think reader restrains herself (un)knowingly, and that's her way of loving him. obv less romantic in real life lol (don't try to fix anyone, been there, done that, lost myself, and still finding myself), but i do like how reader is suo's salvation :,,, even if she doesn't think she's particularly patient, she really is - like girl, Fuck Him Already!!!!!!

(could go on and on about how juicy the friction and tension is between suo and reader but that's for pt 2 hehehe)

this is kinda my half-assed transition into talking about reader, and honestly, my thoughts from earlier encapsulate the general thesis i have about her: she's really a lot like suo, way more than she thinks. i think she operates in very similar ways, just goes about it differently.

i think reader is way more reckless. she's very self-sacrificing. she's very good at putting up a front, even when she's internally low in confidence and self-respect. i think she just wants to be happy with suo, and hopefully, with their other friends as well.

and truly, i think suo has very similar end goals. i just think, with how things turned out, suo made the very calculated yet risky (also aggressive?) decision to do the things that he did. making their underlying principals and values and reactions so oddly similar, from my perspective, is sooooo neat, and it adds more depth to why they go so well together.

also, reader is so brilliantly the comedic relief in this whole thing. usually, in storytelling, it's someone else and is used as fodder. i really like how reader is a lil awkward and bad with timing and everything else, cause it makes the reading experience flow so much better. really helped with the pacing of the story, gave it the character + breathing space needed to process everything. i also just like my readers a little fucking hilarious.

anyway, op, so beautifully written - see you in pt 2 gg

TOKYO VICE | part 1

You knew that if you agreed to move in with Suo, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these alarming behaviours were all signs that he desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good decision. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Unfortunately for you, you rarely made good decisions. (Or: After joining the yakuza, Suo develops the concerning habit of controlling every facet of your life. This is somehow less worrying to you than your uncontrollable lust around him.)

8.7k words. suo x fem reader. deeply unserious yakuza au. yandere suo (not abusive and reader is into it), dark comedy, a little angst, smut. warnings: borderline sex work, off-screen criminal violence. nsft – no actual smut in this chapter, but there are still graphic discussions of sex. mdni. thank you to @sleepyqinfei for beta reading and to @/cafekitsune for the banner!

sequel to sincerity and this sakura/reader wip

part 2 here

You’re not exactly sure why you and Suo have never fucked.

It’s certainly strange, given that you're pretty sure that Suo has expressed at least passing interest in you over the years, and you have felt a lot of interest in him. (By ‘interest’, you mean that you feel an insatiable lust around him that you fight to ignore on a daily basis.) You can't exactly pinpoint why nothing has ever happened despite this mutual attraction, especially given your profession and indifferent feelings toward casual sex.

You can think of a number of probable reasons, which are separate from those you classify as stupid reasons. The latter class comprises silly concerns like a fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of not being pretty enough, fear of not being good enough, et cetera. All very juvenile feelings—insecurities that you had in your teenage years, the days in which Suo ran around Makochi as a delinquent while you worked an honest job at a bar. (It was a girls’ bar in the red light district, but that's neither here nor there.) Your circumstances have since changed, and those anxieties have since faded. None of them have any material consequence for your current life, so you don't see any point in thinking about them.

The stupid reasons, then, definitely don't have anything to do with why you've never fucked Suo. But you can think of a few, more concrete reasons that may explain it. For one, Suo has been your friend since childhood and it’s generally a bad idea to have sex with your long-time friends. He was also your roommate for a while and it’s an even messier idea to have sex with your roommates. And now, in your adulthood, he’s your landlord in addition to being your boss, which makes him the worst possible person you could have sex with. You could lose both your home and your livelihood if things go south—both severe, material consequences that should theoretically keep your lust at bay.

Also, he's also a member of the yakuza.

Now, strictly speaking—you're not really opposed to having sex with violent criminals. It’s definitely not a good idea, but you don't usually have good ideas anyway. But for the past several years, you’ve been pissed at Suo for joining the yakuza in the first place, which actually does keep your blatant attraction to him in check. You simply dry up when you think too hard about all the feelings of betrayal.

When Suo was on the cusp of graduating from Furin and thinking about his future, you’d grabbed him by the collar and made him promise not to join the yakuza. They constantly tried to recruit from Bofurin, and they especially wanted Sakura, Suo, and Sugishita. You were adamant about chasing them off from Suo and Sakura whenever they approached—you had no need to worry about Sugishita, as Umemiya had already said he shouldn't talk to them, so there was no chance he was going to—and you begged Suo over and over not to join. Delinquency was fine, but a crime syndicate was something else altogether.

Suo seemed serious about it when he said he'd listen to you. He even applied to colleges, talked about maybe becoming a teacher and eventually supporting you so you could stop working in the mizu shobai industry. Back then, he often teased you by saying that you should marry him and be his housewife (or he could be your trophy husband, if you so wished). You thought he was joking, but with the way he always talked about his life after his degree, you wondered if he would seriously suggest it.

Of course, it was most likely just teasing, and you were fine with that. You were simply excited that he'd found a career that would make him happy. Nirei had also been accepted to university at that point, and even Sakura had an honest job lined up on Keisei Street. The future had looked bright for everyone.

Then Suo’s master died, and he lost his fucking mind.

The two of you buried Suo’s master in a Chinese funeral. He had never had children of his own, having satisfied his paternal instincts by picking up strays, and he didn't have much in the way of family in Japan either, so you and Suo performed the shou ling yourselves. One person kept a constant vigil over his body while the other searched on Google for what arrangements should be made next. After all, while Suo’s master had immersed his foremost disciple in his culture, he had never taught Suo any funerary customs. He hadn't thought there would be a need.

Suo didn't cry nearly as much as you, but he was probably in more pain. Your master had trained you a little bit when you were a kid, and he'd taken you in for a while after your parents kicked you out, so of course you were gutted. But he had practically raised Suo, so it was naturally worse for him. More shattering.

You often think about the first night you decided you'd sleep with him in the same futon because he was crying so much. He insisted he was fine, but he didn't complain when you got under the sheets with him and started thumbing away his tears. When you took off his eyepatch, you found, to your astonishment, that he was crying from his missing eye as well. Both of you thought the tear ducts had been destroyed in either the accident or the enucleation, but it appeared that not even that prior trauma could mask his grief over this one.

Nevertheless, by the time of the funeral procession, Suo had stopped crying.

“Master supported us and taught us to stand on our own two feet,” he said as the joss paper burned. He took your hand in his and smiled. “So it'll be fine. We’ll be okay on our own. I'll make sure of it.”

At the time, you had found this very comforting. You didn’t think too much of it, as you had a bad habit of relying on Suo for your emotional stability. His master had raised him to be an emotionally intelligent person, so it had been fine, even though you had a track record of reckless decisions. He’d still exercised endless patience with you. He never once got angry with you, nor did he ever force you to do what he felt was the right thing. Instead, he gently redirected your self-damaging behaviours—not so different from the martial art that he practised.

He disapproved of the run-down and lonely conditions of your apartment, so he spent a great deal of time there and helped make it into a proper home. He didn't like how dangerous your job at the girls’ bar was, so he walked you to and from work every night until you never left without him. He worried when you started having sex with your customers, especially when you began having nervous breakdowns over it (you were, after all, still a teenager and really only interested in having romantic vanilla sex with Suo), so he staged an intervention with Nirei and Sakura. In this way, Suo convinced you that you were loved and protected and didn't need to do something you hated so much. They would get you out if you felt trapped. And you didn't feel trapped, per se, so you left on your own—but it was still only because of them. You promised them afterwards that you'd never do it again.

This was Suo’s brand of kindness as a teenager. He always taught people, guided them away from harm rather than steering them—a behaviour he’d mimicked from your master. Your master, in general, had defined all of Suo’s values and his way of living, which was honest and gentle and conscientious. It was one where he used his abilities to protect the weak and care for his friends. He even kept his spiteful and alarmingly violent tendencies under control, though sometimes he slipped when fighting genuine assholes. But he still tried. He tried because he strived to be as kind as his master—who represented everything that Suo wanted to be in his adult life.

Thus, the death of Suo’s master meant the death of his principles. It changed the kind of man that Suo wanted to be. You don't want to say that he became a worse person, but he absolutely became a worse person.

He especially became a worse person with you.

As it turned out, Suo’s idea of making sure that the two of you would be fine on your own was, well, not really fine. It wasn’t that he became cruel to you, per se. It was more that whenever he saw a problem with your behaviour, his approaches to redirecting it became—put as nicely as possible—heavy-handed.

After your master’s death, you got a job at a high end, yakuza-owned club. Two weeks later, Suo broke his promise to you and joined the yakuza. So I can stay close to you, he explained gently, wiping away your tears as you cried hysterically, but you're convinced to this day that he did it partly out of spite. So a few years later, when you started having sex with your customers again and he tried to stop you, you decided to spite him back. I need to stay on top of the rankings, you'd explained dispassionately. The mamasan said it's fine, and the manager doesn't care. He even thinks it's good for business.

Suo’s response was to simply become the owner of your club.

This move was very extreme, but also very effective. Any customer who so much as brushed against you on the premises was instantly thrown out, and the mamasan started watching you like a hawk to make sure you weren’t going to any love hotels after work. Douhan were off-limits. For the first time since your teens, you became completely celibate—not only because of your new workplace circumstances, but because you simply didn't want to find out what Suo would do if you got together with a man he despised (and he despised every man you dated).

His most absurd play was when he became concerned about your living conditions again. Your latest apartment was too plain, too small, and the area was too dangerous. It didn't even have a shower, and the other tenants behaved concerningly toward you when you went to the bathhouse at night. But the rent was cheap, and it was still an upgrade from your last place, so you shrugged it off when Suo suggested that you move. Even when someone tried to accost you at night, you were nonchalant about it. You kicked the shit out of them in a fight and continued your routine unbothered.

The next month, Suo bought a luxury penthouse and suggested you move in with him.

His offer (command) came with conditions. One of the bigger ones was that you'd let him accompany you out at night if you ever needed to run errands in dangerous places. Or—nevermind, actually. He should really just accompany you everywhere at night. Maybe during the day too. And—ah, there was no way you'd be going to work alone, nor coming back by yourself—you were now always to be driven by someone in his organisation, if he wasn't available himself. Rent was a point of contention, when you asked about it: you wanted to pay at market rate, and he insisted that there was no need to pay at all. He ended up proposing a highly discounted price, which would give you ample financial freedom, but questionable financial independence.

These were insane terms. You knew that if you agreed, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these behaviours were all signs that Suo desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good idea. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Case in point—he was likely connected to the brutal accident that later befell the man who tried to assault you.

“I'm not sure what you're implying, but at least he didn't die,” Suo said cheerfully when you confronted him about it. Which really meant: At least I decided not to kill him. This was a flag bigger and redder than any other you've ever known, and you consider yourself an expert in red flags. You knew you should run in the other direction.

So naturally, you put your arms around him, tenderly said, I'm sorry I've been worrying you, and then you moved in the next day.

While Suo treats you with endless patience, you have personal limits to the patience that you exercise with him. Specifically, your patience with how he treats you.

You don't mind the lack of social freedom, nor the lack of personal freedom, nor the lack of freedom of movement. You also don't mind living with a man full of intractable trauma surrounding the death of every parental figure in his life; in fact, you'd rather be by his side than not, if he needs to cope with something so painful. And anyway, your friendship is otherwise unchanged if you ignore the heavy restrictions he's imposed on every facet of your life. So that's all fine.

But the celibate lifestyle that he's cornered you into? You simply aren't built for it. Holy shit, do you need to get laid.

Nearly two years without sex has brought you close to another nervous breakdown (there have been few better sources of entertainment or validation in your life), and worst of all, it has made your profound lust for Suo incredibly hard to ignore. Waking up every morning to him in a towel, his hair still wet from the shower and his broad silhouette exposed, tests the absolute limits of your self-control. The contours of his lean and muscled form are distracting enough; coupled with the vivid colours and lines of his irezumi, the sight of him becomes maddening. It is a horrible thing to be exposed to when you haven't gotten any dick nor strap in over a year. It gives you thoughts about him that are overtly sexual, which is bad, as you have materially consequential reasons for not wanting to fuck Suo.

Things with him must absolutely stay platonic. But with sexual frustration like yours, being platonic with him means that you need to get erotic with someone else. A boyfriend or girlfriend is out of the question; you don't want to be responsible for yet another brutal accident. So you instead decide to quit your job at his club and start working on Keisei Street. At least this way, you can start fucking your customers again.

It’s a perfect plan. Suo’s oyabun is very indulgent toward him, and everyone else in the family respects him too. He consequently has a tight grip on his organisation and the territory they control, despite his relatively young age. Not a single person is ever to touch Keisei Street—largely because Sakura is part of Roppo-Ichiza, and Suo is nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. Plus, many of his other fellow Furin alumni are in the gang as well. If Suo’s men ever started fucking with people on Keisei Street, it would not only have grave implications for gang relations—it would be personally upsetting for Suo. This means you can fuck all the Keisei Street customers you want, and not get a single one of them threatened or killed.

A pretty brilliant idea, if you do say so yourself.

Suo’s expression doesn't change when you break the news to him. He delicately places his teacup—custom-made from Yixing, just like the matching clay teapot—down on the mahogany tabletop, and he looks at you with a calm smile.

“Come again?”

“I'm quitting my job at Red Dragon,” you repeat. “I already gave the mamasan my resignation.”

“And she accepted it?” Suo asks, in a tone that is so carefully nonchalant that you know it means he is actually furious with her. “How interesting,” he muses. “What brought this on?”

“I've found a better paying opportunity on Keisei Street.”

“I'll give you a raise,” he says easily.

“A raise?” You cock a brow. “The pay is mostly commission-based at Red Dragon. You know that.”

“Then it would be unwise to leave. You have a loyal customer base at Red Dragon. All very rich, and”—his smile grows sharp—“very polite.”

Polite. An interesting word. It actually means: None of them will ever proposition or harass you because they know they'll be maimed if they do. An easy thought to use to your advantage.

“It's loyal but it's small. Everyone who's anyone in this part of town thinks that we’re married. Do you know how hard it is to pull new customers in when they're scared shitless of my yakuza husband? And anyway”—you frown, trying to look as pathetic as possible—“I'm lonely.”

Suo stares. He looks surprised, possibly because you absorb every minute of his free time with silly conversation, new restaurants, and skiing trips. (He likes snow, so you ask for these trips more for him to relax than anything else.) You also text him frequently on days he's working, and he very diligently replies, even if he's in the middle of something like a raid or a hit or brokering a massive deal. Suo still very strictly keeps to his rule of never touching his phone when in conversation with other people—unless he needs to text you.

So his suspicion is fair. Suo is very attentive and doesn't allow you much opportunity for loneliness. In turn, you’ve always been very happy spending time with him, even when it's only him.

“Lonely?” he repeats. “Are you, now?”

“Yes. You work so much,” you complain, which is not a lie, “and I don't have any friends to spend time with when you're gone.”

“You have friends from work.”

“No, I have competition at work. The hostesses are so cutthroat about rankings, they hate me. And each other.”

“You like Shuuhei and Hanzo,” he points out, referring to his men who most frequently chauffeur you.

“Yeah, they're friendly, and they're very funny. I like them, but I can't be their friend.” Suo stares at you, nonplussed, so you spell it out: “They're too scared of you to get close to me. What if it looks like they're trying to fuck the boss’ wife?”

“Hm…” Suo studies you, looking thoughtful. Perhaps for the first time, he's contemplating the consequences of restricting your freedoms and marking you as his. That is to say—maybe he's finally realising that you have no friends and no life.

The beads of his earrings glimmer as he tilts his head at you and frowns. Suo almost looks innocent with that confused face of his. “And how would working on Keisei Street help?” he asks.

“Because all our old friends are there!” you exclaim. “Sakura’s in Roppo-Ichiza now so he’ll definitely be coming by all the clubs. Tsubaki too. And Nirei and Kiryu visit them quite often—and even Tsugeura does sometimes, even though clubbing isn't one of his virtues.” You grab onto his arm, pull yourself close, and give him your most disarming, pleading expression. “Please, Suo?”

“Hm.” He strokes your cheek and looks at you fondly, in the way that one would do with an adorable and slightly annoying kitten. “I don’t think so. It’s not very safe there.”

He isn't wrong. Not only are you untouchable on his turf because of your association to him, Suo has also just crushed all the han-gure and petty criminals in his territory with brutal efficiency. His part of the red light district is, quite ironically, one of the safest places in the city, and certainly safer than Keisei Street.

But undeterred, you point out, “Shuuhei and Hanzo can still drive me there and back if you want. But I don't think it's necessary. Do you really think Sakura would let anything happen to me?”

This is the true brilliance of your plan: capitalising on the fact that Suo is as nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. He pauses as soon as you bring up the point, and you can practically see the gears turning. “Well, if it's him…”

“I even texted him about it. Look—here!” You whip out your phone, receipts ready. The corner of Suo's mouth lifts at your obviously rehearsed pitch. “He says he'd make sure I'm taken care of. And he says it'd be nice because he misses seeing us. Can you believe it—Sakura actually admitted that he misses us! Typed it with his own two hands and pressed send! I bet he was super embarrassed about it.”

“Huh. He even used a sticker. I've never seen him do that.” Suo smiles as he reads through the chat. He looks like his old self. You suddenly feel a little wistful, and also a lot bad. This started as a ploy to get laid, but it’s made you realise that you really do miss your friends—and Suo probably does too.

“If I worked on Keisei Street, then you would have plenty of reason to visit,” you point out, feeling somewhat tender.

“I guess that's true,” Suo says. Your heart aches a little bit at the look he gives you. It's a platonic ache, of course. Or at the very least, it isn't an erotic one. It doesn't really make you want to have sex with him anyway. But if you could lean forward and press your lips to his—platonically—then you definitely would.

Suo's civilian friendships are complicated by his double life. Quite unusually for yakuza, Suo’s syndicate insists on using pseudonyms and false histories to avoid anti-yakuza laws, on the off-chance that the police decide to do their jobs and actually enforce those laws someday. Lying for comedy is one of Suo’s greatest passions, so he was happy to manufacture an absurd backstory: his name is Yanzhao, and he learned kung fu in a Shaolin Temple before moving to Hong Kong and working for the triads. He wears the eyepatch because he lost his eye in an altercation with the cops, which he won. By the way, you're his criminally beautiful wife who he met in Macau. The two of you had to leave for Japan since he killed a police officer and now he's wanted by the governments of both China and Hong Kong. Also, he's a very devoted husband, so if anyone lays a hand on you, he’ll kill them too.

Somehow, everyone has bought into this story. Every criminal organisation in the red light district now fears a high-ranking yakuza known as Yanzhao, who is easily recognizable by his eyepatch and tassel earrings, and who is also homicidally obsessed with his beautiful wife.

In some ways, his infamy is convenient. No one wants to fuck with Suo, or with you by extension. But it also poses some issues: Suo has to keep a low profile in areas controlled by rival organisations, or else he might be ambushed. It also means he cannot easily go out and see his old friends. Even though he always masquerades as a civvie when he does, wearing stud earrings and a glass eye, it's still a little risky—especially since he likes to visit the strongest member of Roppo-Ichiza. While Roppo-Ichiza aren’t yakuza, they're still han-gure, so some of its more criminally entangled members might recognize him anyway.

But Sakura himself, bless him, has not put two and two together and figured out that Suo Hayato and Gui Yanzhao are the same person. This is partly because Suo lies very convincingly about his fictional career in the tea industry, but you think it's also because Sakura is so gullible it's endearing.

I use the glass eye now because it's better for networking, Suo had explained before Sakura could interrogate him too much, his voice too smooth and too quick for the other man to get in a word edgewise. My business partners find the eyepatch too silly. The tassel earrings too. By the way, would you like some Baimudan tea? I thought of you when I smelled it—I know you like fragrant things—so I picked some up for you on my last visit to China. I was there for business a couple of weeks ago.

He, of course, neglected to mention that said business involved meeting with the 14K triad.

Despite the enormity of Suo's omission (lie), Sakura is none the wiser whenever he meets with you. He thinks you're just a regular hostess who has freedom of movement and various other human rights, and that Suo’s just a regular guy who isn’t homicidally obsessed with you (a detail of Suo's fabricated life story that is unfortunately grounded in reality). All this to say, Sakura doesn't think twice about mentioning the fact that you have a routine of going to love hotels after work.

Suo, as always, remains calm in the face of unsettling information. He sets down his tea (just tea, without shochu), and politely says, “Pardon?” He's once again using the nonchalant kind of tone that suggests mortal danger.

“She's always going to love hotels after her shifts.” Sakura is frowning at you, pink but scowling. “I thought you said you were done with that stuff. You promised us you wouldn't do it anymore. Suo—are you really okay with this?”

On the one hand, you find it exceptionally sweet that Sakura, after all this time, remembers your promise and wishes to hold you to it. He was so worried about you when you started having those nervous breakdowns as a teenager, and he probably still is. On the other hand, you're shitting bricks at the fact that Suo is now aware of your activities. Because sure, he likely won't fuck with Keisei Street—but you realise, as he stares at you, that you can't be certain of this. After all, your fake yakuza husband has very real homicidal urges.

“Um,” you say. “It's just business.”

“Business,” Suo repeats.

“You don't have to do that stuff to keep good business,” Sakura grouses, unaware of Suo’s carefully suppressed rage. “You're real popular already.”

“Are you?” Suo asks, looking right at you.

“I mean—I told you the pay would be better, right?” you reply, voice oddly high and nervous, and this is when Sakura notices that something is wrong.

“Oh,” Sakura says, looking between the two of you. “Suo, you didn't know?”

“I didn't,” he says. “Actually, she told me specifically that she wasn't going to do that if she worked here.” He turns to you, still smiling. “That's the only reason why I allowed this at all, remember?”

A chill travels down your spine. You did, in fact, commit to a perpetually sexless lifestyle in order to be granted some semblance of freedom: Of course I won't sleep with any customers, you'd said. You know I don't really like doing that anyway. I promise I'll behave! I’ll be out of the clubs and right back home. Sakura said he’d make sure I’ll get to a cab safely after the bar closes and everything!

“Um,” you say again, but this time you have no follow-up.

“Wait,” Sakura demands, “what do you mean by ‘allowed her’? What, do you need to give her permission to work now or something?”

Suo smiles disarmingly at Sakura. Without missing a beat, he says, “Generally no. But we’re dating now, which complicates what she’s allowed to do with other men at her job.”

Sakura spits out his drink. You choke on your spit.

“I… um?!” Sakura’s staring at you, so you quickly recover. This is a mortifying lie, but it's better than Sakura finding out just how batshit Suo has become since his school days. “I thought we were going to keep that a secret, dear?”

“Ah, you're right. Sorry, I got too excited.” Suo gives you an endeared look before turning to Sakura. “We were going to keep it to ourselves unless we got serious about it. But we've been talking about marriage lately, so I thought it was fine to mention.”

“...”

You’re going to have an aneurysm. Why does every cover that Suo comes up with involve a marital relationship between the two of you?!

“Oh… holy shit.” Sakura’s expression is complicated—somehow, more complicated than yours, even though you’re the one getting cornered into a fake engagement. It's unbelievable how shy he still is about this kind of thing. Maybe it’s just particularly embarrassing since he's known you two for so long, you reason. Regardless, he remembers his social cues enough to say, “Congrats, guys. That's great. That's really great.”

Suo gazes fondly at you across the table. “We were thinking you could be our best man,” he adds, and you consider violently kicking his leg.

“O-oh. Uh, yeah! Sure! But what about Nirei?”

“Rather than having a maid of honour,” you say reflexively, used to lying through your teeth for Suo, “we’d like him to be our best man as well.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Thrown off guard, Sakura completely forgets about the love hotel business. He whips out his phone. “When were you thinking of having your wedding? I'll put it in my calendar.”

“I’m not sure.” Suo turns to you. “What were we thinking again, dear?”

You're going to die. You're going to die and it's a good thing because if you survive this embarrassment, your future will be bleak. As soon as Nirei finds out about this, he’ll want to start helping you with wedding planning, and then it would just be too awkward to cancel things. You’ll have to enter a fake marriage with Suo, which will be completely sexless, because even with a vow of everlasting love, there are still too many concrete and materially consequential reasons for not sleeping with him.

Condemning yourself to a lifetime of sexual frustration, you reply, “I think we were talking about a summer wedding.”

The drive home is awkward.

Hanzo and Shuuhei pick the two of you up. Suo mentioned that he wanted to talk to you and you alone, so they bring the Rolls Royce with the privacy suite. The two of them are entirely cut off from you thanks to the soundproofing, which traps you with Suo, who’s drinking a bottle of oolong tea as the two of you sit in complete silence. You think he's waiting for you to squirm—which you do.

You stay like that for five, agonising minutes before Suo finally says, “So you're sleeping with your customers.”

You swallow. “Yes.”

“For business?”

“Yes.”

“How much do you make?”

You blink. “Huh?”

“How much do you get paid for a single night of work, including gifts that your customers give you in exchange for sleeping with them?”

You're halfway through citing your earnings when you realise where he's going with this.

“So you make less than you did at Red Dragon,” Suo concludes, “and you're very smart with your money, so I know you know that, and you probably went into this knowing that you'd end up at a net loss.” He turns to you, gives you a look so sharp that it almost scares you. All made worse by his civilian disguise, which makes him feel unfamiliar. His glass eye shines strangely in the light, and his scar tissue is hidden by the makeup you helped apply. You wish he'd taken it all off before having this conversation.

“So,” he says, “what’s the real reason you changed jobs?”

Already knowing that he’ll figure you out sooner or later, you admit, “I just wanted to start having sex again.”

Suo blinks. “You… what?”

“I wanted to have sex with people,” you repeat. “I hadn't been touched for nearly two years, okay? I needed to get laid or else I'd go insane.” You cross your arms and look away, suddenly feeling petulant. “I'm sure you've noticed that our arrangement makes it impossible for me to see people.”

He doesn't answer, because of course he's noticed. He’d designed his house rules with precisely this intent. If he accompanies you everywhere you go, then you can't exactly go on dates, and you definitely can't meet people for sex. Not unless you feel like having Suo watch as some anonymous guy fucks you, and you don't. As hot as the idea is, it’s definitely not platonic behaviour, and it would probably trigger the whole homicidal obsession thing.

“Do you like it?” Suo asks, startling you. You look at him, confused.

“What?”

“Do you enjoy having sex with your customers?” he asks. His voice and gaze are even. Unrelenting. “Does it make you happy?”

You stare at him, a deer caught in headlights. You didn't expect Suo to actually care about whether you enjoyed it or not, and you didn't really expect to care yourself either. But truthfully, you hated it. You simply weren't feeling it with most of your customers and avoided intercourse with all but one. Then in that one case you let someone earnestly fuck you, it was a complete letdown. Possibly the worst sex you'd ever had. You spent the whole time watching the clock, wondering how long it would take, and it turned out that your hookup had remarkable stamina but absolutely no technique. To pass the time, and in an attempt to feel something, you tried to imagine it was someone else who was inside you. You cycled through a whole list of people, including all of your exes, a few of your past customers, every single member of BTS, and then—finally, inevitably—your long-time friend, roommate, and landlord.

To your complete horror, when you imagined that it was Suo who had you folded in half, his cock so deep inside you that you could feel it in your throat, you came so hard that you drenched the sheets.

You lay there afterward as your customer showered, alone in the bed. Normally you'd be getting dressed at that point, but you were too distracted. You kept thinking about what it would feel like to be held by Suo after having your guts rearranged by him—embraced tenderly like you know he would do with you, kissing him platonically like you've always wanted to do with him—and you realised that you didn’t actually want to have sex with anyone else. Despite all your life experience, sexual experience, and job experience—in that moment, you felt like a lonely nineteen year old girl who wanted nothing more than to have romantic, vanilla sex with her best friend, but who was instead having impersonal, disappointing sex with various salarymen.

This was a feeling so disgusting that you’ve decided to never tell anyone at any cost.

“Yeah, it's fine. I guess I like it.” You pretend to study your nails. “Sometimes I cum, which is all I really want.”

Suo keeps staring at you. “That’s it?” he asks, voice measured and careful. You raise a brow, playing dumb.

“What do you mean?”

“That's all you want? Just to get off?”

You gaze out the window, trying not to look at his lips.

“Yes, that's all.”

No matter how batshit Suo gets, he always maintains a certain kindness and maturity in how he handles conflict with you. It's a lesson that he learned from his master, which has perhaps been distorted over time, but remains important to him nevertheless.

If you do something upsetting, Suo is never forceful about getting you to act differently. Sure, he has fucked up ways of either getting you to behave or making you understand the consequences of your actions, and perhaps he has his manipulative moments. It was probably not a good thing that he coaxed you into indefinite house arrest, for instance. But he never threatens you, and he never hits you, and he never disrespects you. In fact, more than anything, he makes it a point to never let you feel like you aren't loved.

So when Suo abandons you after that conversation in the Rolls Royce, you lose your fucking mind.

Suo doesn’t come home in the days following that evening, without any note nor explanation. For the first time in years, he stops replying to your texts. Your immediate thought is that he's been gravely injured or perhaps even killed, which sends you into a panicked spiral. But every one of his men who's come by to check on you has implied otherwise—but I'm not allowed to tell you anything else, anesan, I’m sorry, they all say. And when you realise that Suo is actually fine and he's just playing a fucked up mind game with you, one that makes you feel distinctly unloved, you feel simultaneously heartbroken and apoplectic. The man is not allowed to corner you into de facto imprisonment and then just fucking leave. In fact, if he tries, you might imprison him.

You spend a few days sitting at home and crying over this, as well as torturing yourself by thinking about useless things (fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, et cetera). But eventually, you get tired of wallowing in self-inflicted misery, and you decide to just track your fake husband down. His men have been adamant about not letting you out of their sight—presumably so you don’t fuck any more of your customers, because Suo can be spiteful like that—so you have to be strategic about your plan to find him.

You decide to do it during work. You tap out in the middle of a shift, feigning illness, so nobody bats an eye when you put on the most shapeless hoodie you own and throw on a face mask. Your chauffeurs (handlers) don't notice as you sneak off—and for the first time in years, you walk through the red light district all alone.

It feels strange not to be protected, and even stranger not to be surveilled. You marvel at the unfamiliar experience of complete freedom, and at the possibility of being able to run off and disappear if you so wished. But you don't, of course. Not only do you care too deeply for Suo to abandon him, you're also pretty sure he has your driver’s licence and ID card locked up somewhere. At least you haven't been able to find them, and Suo was oddly evasive about it when you asked. (I haven't seen them, he'd said, but I don't think you’d need either of those things immediately, anyway, do you? And you nodded in response, because it was true that you liked being his passenger princess too much to care about your licence.)

So rather than bolting for the subway, you head straight to your old workplace. The gleaming doors of Red Dragon welcome you as you cross its threshold, and you're greeted immediately by the scent of luxury colognes and expensive cigars—both evoking a strange nostalgia in you. Even the click of your heels against the marble floor feels familiar. You realise that you've missed the place despite its cutthroat culture and its owner’s authoritarian control over you, which you suppose isn't surprising. This club was more or less your home for years and, thanks to said owner, was the safest place you've ever worked.

And being that you feel you've returned to your very safe home, you don't expect it when you're abruptly stopped by the bouncer.

“Can I help you?” he asks, his arm in your way. You don't recognize him, but you see the edges of his irezumi peeking out from the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt.

“Yeah, actually,” you say. “I'm looking for Gui Yanzhao. Is he here right now?”

The bouncer—or chinpira, you guess—bristles.

“You're looking for who?”

“Yanzhao?” you say impatiently. “Eyepatch, tassel earrings? Owner of the club? Probably your boss?”

The bouncer steps forward and reaches for something in his pocket, which makes you suddenly nervous, and also makes you realise that in a hoodie and a face mask, you ordinarily wouldn't be allowed in this club, let alone into the room of its yakuza owner. You're so used to VIP treatment here that you simply forgot.

You take a step back. “Um. I think there's been a misunderstanding.” You lower your face mask, which doesn't help as you've never met this man, and he must be new. You’ll need to complain to Suo about his onboarding process later, if you aren't killed before you can find him.

It turns out that this yakuza rookie has a knife in his pocket, which is not the worst thing he could have been carrying, but is also not the best. You're getting ready to run in the other direction when a more senior member of the gang comes by. He gives you a startled look, which then turns alarmed when he sees his younger brother’s knife.

“Anesan!” he yells hurriedly, and he snatches the chinpira’s knife straight from his hand. His lunge for the weapon turns into a hurried bow. He pulls his colleague—whose face has turned very white in a very short amount of time—into an even deeper one. They look on the verge of prostrating.

“Oh, Yamashita. Hi! Is this guy new?”

“Yes! My sincerest apologies for my younger brother’s idiocy, and his insolence in raising a weapon at you.” There's a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck. “If you would like him to atone, then he would be more than happy to—”

“No, that's fine. I'd really like him to keep all his fingers.” If you have to see a rookie cut off his pinkie today, you think you might actually change your mind on running away. Fuck your documents—Suo can keep them. Surely life without proof of identity can't be that hard. “By the way,” you say, trying to change the topic before Yamashita can suggest alternative acts of atonement, “have you seen my husband?”

Yamashita hesitates at your question, looks conflicted. You feel a little bad for him, and for every other gang member who needs to worry about accidentally offending Suo. You watch him sweat for a full ten seconds before he says, “You can follow me. But anesan, you might find it unpleasant upstairs. I can find someone to drive you home instead, if you'd like.”

You give him a funny look. This was your workplace for a very long time—you can’t think of many things that would happen here that might seriously upset you. “What, is he cheating on me?” you guess.

“What? No! Aniki would never!” Yamashita seems genuinely shocked at the suggestion. “He's crazy about you!”

“Then I'm sure he’ll be happy to see me,” you say, although given that he's ignored your texts for four days straight, you aren't so sure. Regardless, this seems to be good enough reasoning for Yamashita, and you’re taken to the top floor of Red Dragon. You ponder the whole time, on the elevator ride up, just what exactly Suo’s been up to that's made Yamashita this nervous about letting you see him.

Then the door opens, and you’re given your answer in the form of several body bags—all cleanly zipped up and conscientiously laid out in front of the elevators in a single, neat row. A sight that is significantly worse than a rookie cutting off his pinkie finger.

“Oh,” you say faintly. You try not to throw up. “So this is why he hasn't been home.”

“Exactly!” Yamashita replies, beaming. “See, anesan, I told you. He'd never cheat on you!”

Suo is in the lounge of the top floor, which has been cleared of both civilians and corpses for the night. He's sitting on one of the couches, leaning back with his one eye closed, as if asleep. The golden tassels of his earrings are draped over the expensive leather of his seat, intertwined with his dark hair. A cup of tea sits in front of him, steaming. Even this far away, you recognize it by the scent alone: jasmine, probably from Longjing. One of the most expensive blends he has, and that which he saves for days he’s stressed, though he never admits it when he is.

The sight of him would almost look tranquil, except for all the blood on his knuckles and his cuffs.

Off to the side, two of his younger brothers are chatting away. One is pouring cups of some doubtlessly expensive liquor, and the other is smoking a cigar. There's karaage on the table too. You recognize all of this as part of a ritual that some of the guys like to do after a hit or a shootout, not dissimilar to getting ramen or McDonald’s after going to a club.

You catch a bit of their conversation as you approach. One of them holds up the liquor bottle (Isojiman sake, you now recognise from your girls’ bar days, one of the rarer bottles costing around nine million yen) and asks Suo if he wants to join. “No thanks,” he says predictably, “I'm on a diet.” Then he turns and looks right at you—startling you, because you had thought you were being fairly quiet—and gives you a smile so genuine that it reminds you of his Furin days. “Would my beautiful wife like to drink for me, though?”

“No thanks,” you reply, “but your beautiful wife would like to talk to you.”

The two guys clear out to give you some privacy. You’re left alone with Suo, feeling awkward after several days of resenting him for no reason. (You’d rather die than go to therapy, but the whole fear of abandonment thing is probably something you should start addressing.) You don't even know where you want to sit. Eventually, you settle for placing yourself next to him, which is a decision that Suo quickly overturns by pulling you into his lap.

A flutter erupts in your stomach as he settles you on top of him. This physiological reaction is absurd, as not even ten minutes ago, you were trying not to throw up at the line of corpses in front of the elevator. It should also scare you somewhat that Suo’s hands—delicately adjusting your body—are still covered in blood. But truthfully, you can't help but be happy when he makes you feel so loved.

You take one of the napkins on the table and start wiping at his knuckles. Tenderly, in case they're bruised or skinned.

“You didn't call or come home,” you start.

“I thought it would be too dangerous.”

You frown, thinking of all the bodies outside. “Was this a rival organisation?”

“No. They were ours.” He sighs. “A succession conflict. There are a few people who don't like how I'll run things if I take over.”

You nod. Suo is very old-fashioned in his ideals about the yakuza, which you think is an imprint of his master’s influence, and something that appeals to his current ‘father’. He values chivalry. He likes protecting the weak. His filial devotion to his deceased master has now extended to every member of his yakuza family, especially his oyassan. He’s almost certainly the top candidate for taking over after the oyabun dies, but being that part of his old-fashioned principles excludes lucrative projects such as sex trafficking, you suppose it’s natural that some people in his organisation would prefer him dead rather than in charge.

“You’ve never ghosted me during violent conflicts before though,” you say. “I was worried that something happened to you. Or that you were upset with me.”

Suo’s hand drops to your waist, pulling you a little closer.

“They knew where we live. They tried to get to you, you know.” Your eyes widen in alarm, so he cups your face with a palm. His thumb glides along your cheek, and your response is almost Pavlovian: your heart rate immediately slows at the comfort of his touch. “It’s fine. They won't bother you ever again.” The cheerful smile returns. “And if anyone else ever does, I'll handle them too.”

Your heart swells. Enthusiastic pledges of murder are not a healthy sign of affection, but after so much loneliness—whether from the past several days, or the years before that, you aren't sure—you can't find it in yourself to be disturbed. You feel and sound painfully fond when you reply, “I know.”

Suo’s expression dims a little then. “I thought you'd like the space anyway.”

“What?” You give him a confused look. You have never once given him any indication that you want even an inch of space from him. You'd crawl into his ribcage if you could. “Why would you think that?”

“I thought you felt suffocated. You left my club just so you could have sex with other people.” You blink, lingering on his wording. Other people. He continues before you can ask about it, sighing, “You didn't even ask me who I'd give permission to touch you. You just went ahead and decided on your own.”

“...”

You try not to look disturbed. Suo’s apparent wish to control your sexual decisions is news to you, and somehow more alarming than the murder pledge. And even worse—you immediately clench in response to his words. The thought of Suo dictating who does and doesn't get to touch your cunt is… well, your mind is heading in a distinctly non-platonic direction.

Trying to ignore the heat in between your thighs (but at the same time encouraging it), you ask: “Who would you have been, um, okay with touching me?”

“Sakura or Nirei,” he says immediately. “Though only Sakura would be interested.”

“What.” You gape at him, all arousal forgotten. “Bullshit. He would never.”

“Yes, he would.” Suo tilts his head. “Haven't you noticed?”

“I don't think there's anything to notice? And also—he’s so shy, I don't think he'd ever agree even if he were interested!” You give him a bewildered look. “He couldn't even look at us when we said we were getting married, he was so embarrassed!”

“Embarrassed?” Suo stares at you, an amused glint in his eye. “Is that what you thought was going on?”

“Was there anything else?”

He studies you for a moment, clearly entertained but not explaining why. “Well—it’s fine,” he says. “It doesn't matter for now. Especially since he's helping us plan a wedding and all.”

You make a face. “I still can't believe that's the cover you went for.”

“Are you upset with it?” he asks smoothly, and you huff and say yes, but from his sly look, you think he knows it's a lie.

Naturally, you deflect before he can further interrogate you. “So, given that you are now my fiancé, am I no longer allowed to work on Keisei Street and see customers after my shifts?”

You don’t expect it when Suo says, “No, you can.”

You stare. “What?”

“You can keep seeing customers if you'd like. You said it makes you happy, so why would I stop you?” Suo’s brow furrows, his usual calm replaced with concern. “Do you really think I do the things I do to make you miserable?”

Guilt gnaws at your heart. He looks so disappointed. “No,” you tell him. “I just thought it'd make you miserable that I was sleeping with people without your permission.” It is partly why you hid it from him in the first place, after all. You don't like to see him sad—you’re still haunted by the deep grief he was in, after your master died—and also, his misery tends to bring bodily harm to other people these days.

Cognizant of both concerns, you ask, “You’re really okay with me sleeping with my customers? I can stop, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. I still don't like it, but you can continue for now if you want.”

Suo’s mouth curls—not in a gentle way, as has been his expression since seeing you walk in, but in a way that sets off your flight or fight response.

“I'm sure we’ll reach a mutual understanding soon enough.”

END PART 1

thank you genuinely if you read all that because this is a deranged au and I still can't believe I wrote it sldfkjsldfkj. please do let me know if you enjoyed my yandere suo delusions. sorry there was no smut in this chapter. I promise there is a ton in the next one (probably too much... lol. it's a 10k chapter and literally half of those words are about orgasm denial sldfkjalskdjdf). it's completely written and I hope to edit and have it up by next week!

also here is glossary of terms and world building notes if you are interested!

tagging @kweenkatsuki-fics !! <3

[peppermintquartz]

Continuation of this

"Why do I keep thinking about shellfish?" Evan asks after he's eaten breakfast and downed half the bottle of water along with the painkillers.

Tommy pulls up a chair. "You were going on and on about oysters and the sea last night."

"Oysters?" Evan's brow creases adorably. "Why oysters?"

How is it that I can't let you go? Tommy doesn't voice the thought, though he does smile at Evan. "Beats me. You were the one who was fixated on it."

Scowling, Evan pouts as he tugs on the hem of his old tee. The color used to be a dark green but it's been washed so often that it's faded. "It musta made sense. Otherwise I wouldn't be talking about it." Then his brow clears. "You!"

"Me?"

"I was comparing you to oysters!"

Tommy grimaces. Yeah, Chimney did say something to that effect. "You don't like oysters, Ev- Buck."

"Not the ones here in LA, they're fucking overpriced and not fresh enough. Peruvian seafood is among the best in the world, and I had this amazing oyster ceviche once that blew my mind." Evan pauses, then smacks Tommy's arm. "And don't distract me. I'm trying to remember my analogy. Okay, so you're like an oyster. How are you like an oyster?"

"I have the consistency of snot?"

Evan glares at him. It's a cute glare. Tommy coughs into his hand, trying not to show that he is charmed. With a huff, Evan starts with, "Okay. You have cultivated a hard exterior to survive a difficult environment."

Tommy nods. "Fair enough."

"And in response to the difficult environment, you cling to the familiar and try to hide because you're actually full of soft and tender delicious goodness." Evan raises an eyebrow in challenge.

Tommy pretends not to be perturbed by the read. "I guess you'd know exactly how I taste," he jokes flatly. Evan ignores it.

"You hide in plain sight," Evan continues, on a roll now, "and it will take skill to pry you out from your chosen rock." He reaches over to grasp Tommy's forearm. "But there's something that's different between you and oysters."

Tommy can't look at him. "I'm not a mollusc?"

Evan's tone is infinitely gentle. "Yeah. Showing me vulnerable side won't kill you, Tommy."

Clenching his jaw, Tommy stands and takes the tray from the bed. "You can take a shower if you want. I've washed and dried your clothes. A-and you have the other clothes you left here."

"You didn't pack them up," Evan points out when Tommy's nearly to the door. "You could've packed them up with my stuff and returned them. But you didn't." He cocks his head and a sad yet hopeful smile crosses his face. "The way I didn't pack up yours. Because we still want each other in our lives."

Tommy can't breathe. He flees the bedroom.

---

Now that he is here, Buck plans to stay until Tommy really opens up to him. Even if he has to camp here forever. Even if Tommy throws him out physically and changes the locks.

He knows how to pick locks now - thank you, Lockpicking Lawyer - and he will not leave Tommy's home until that uncomfortable conversation about the breakup is held. Maybe several.

Oysters aren't shut forever. At some point they open up. And Buck is going to be there when Tommy does. He's done waiting for Tommy to make the first move. He's done waiting, period. Now he is going to act.

"I'm driving you home," Tommy declares at noon. He is resolutely not making eye contact.

"Good luck doing that," Buck says. "Are you going to carry me out of here? Big strong firefighter pilot like you, I'm sure you can do it."

"I could... I could report you to the police for-for home invasion."

"You brought me home, Tommy. Hen and Chim will vouch for that, and I'm sure there's security footage." Buck isn't smirking, not that Tommy will know since he isn't looking. He gentles his tone. "All I'm asking is for us to talk about our relationship. Why can't we do that?"

His face red, Tommy shuts his eyes. Then he mutters, "Fine. Fine, we'll talk about it. But please put some clothes on."

"You've literally eaten me out for hours before."

"That's when we were dating!"

"If I put some clothes on, promise you won't try to get me out of your house?" Buck says, deliberately shifting in the bed so his legs fall apart a little more. Watching Tommy squirm is kind of fun. (So sue him, Buck's feeling rather vindictive about the entire matter.) "Because I can and will strip in your car and have us both arrested. Then we'll have to spend the night in a jail cell together."

Tommy inhales sharply. "Fine. I promise. Now... now cover yourself up."

First chink in the armor. Buck grabs Tommy's LAFD T-shirt and pulls it on, appreciating the way it hugs his body, and pulls on his briefs. He's been shameless before, he can be shameless again. He'll show Tommy that it's perfectly okay to be vulnerable and open to the people he loves through visual metaphor if his words won't cut it.

Anything to get Tommy to be his again.

[scoriarose]

There's something important I've been wanting to share with fellow snake caretakers, and it's that if you have been sweet to your snake and love them, they have probably told you hundreds of times they love you- but because we speak different languages most won't understand. It makes me a little sad thinking how hard they try to tell us, and some folks just don't recognize that and they hope their serpentine friends love them but never know for sure- or even believe the lie snakes aren't even capable of love at all. They are, they have brain structures similar to birds and not only are physically capable of feeling love, they also regularly display traits associated with love including empathy and self sacrifice to protect others they care about both in captivity and the wild.

Snakes express love through touch. Through cuddling, and vibing (being near someone not touching just happy to be in their company). There's another outdated lie that snakes cannot and will never enjoy being pet - likely this comes from someone seeing cats and dogs lick their young and enjoying being pet because it feels similar to what is natural to them but since snakes do not lick their young it was believed they could not enjoy this sensation outside of their nature.

But that's wrong. It IS their nature! They just don't use their tongue, they use their whole body! Thing is, a lot of people who see them slither over another snake don't realize it's more than just them going somewhere, and they think they're carelessly going over another snake. Sometimes that may be the case, but touch is also how they bond. I read an article detailing how a mother snake was tolerant of her babies climbing all over her. Tolerant? It's like if a toddler hugged their mommy and said they loved her- tolerant would be such a strange word to use. They are telling their mommy they love her through their very limited means of communication.

Isn't it incredibly sweet that a creature who is so so limited in communication made sure to have a way to say, "I love you." I think that's just the best news ever.

If you doubt what I'm saying well, a number of snake keepers can vouch for me they've also accidentally discovered that touch can also be romantic if you touch the wrong place where most wouldn't expect it to be.

But the point I'm trying to make is, I bet there's tons of people with pet snakes who are telling them over and over they love them, hoping their human understands. If your snake doesn't do this action it doesn't need they don't love you- it would come from them not having figured it out. They learn not just from instinct, but from each other. Not having a parent snake to teach them (like some species including rattlesnakes) they have to figure out everything on their own for the most part.

Many figure out how to express, "I love you" through touch. Most snake caretakers I imagine don't recognize the attempt to communicate as anything more than the animal slithering around- but if you look for it you might see your pet telling you! If they are on you and start slithering around but not going anywhere in particular (sometimes back and forth) ESPECIALLY if you pet your snake and they relax/enjoy it- they are probably trying to pet you. And in doing so, show they care about you too, that they love you.

Scoria pets me with her chin, and I've never heard of anyone else's snake do this. She has, however, taught this to her sister who now pets me both ways.

It would be neat to hear if anyone sees their snake doing this and realizing what it really means. (Your snake might have even learned another way if you don't pet them and show them love another way- sometimes they learn by copying us too.)

Hope this helps someone- please share if your snake has a way they show they love you, I see very little on this from other caretakers and would be so happy to hear if others have similar experiences.

[octospace]

The impact of people so young being so sex negative it’s scary when we look at how some of you react to the Arcane sex scene in episode 8. I always think about how dangerous and weird the internet is for putting a lot of people together from different backgrounds and ages in the same room talking and reacting about the same things. Of course me as a 30 years old lesbian and a 15 year old person discovering themselves will have different feelings about the same story, the same media will mean different things for us.

But to see young people thinking they are nailing it while writing about sex and system of oppression because Vi goes down on Caitlyn it’s really sad. The connection between sex and power it’s a male x female reading of relationships were one of the people involved in a sex act it’s seen as a lesser person so they will perform things considered less.

That’s not what Caitvi sex scene it’s about, being greedy and wanting someone so desperately that you want to touch and feel every piece of their body it’s not a weird or bad thing, want to make someone else feel good it’s not a sign of being less of a person in a deeper social level, sex it’s just complex if you put it under the lens of religion and patriarchy were a woman needs to choose and safe guard herself to the right man who will be her husband and they will have kids and stay together for life. But outside that sex between two adults, who can consent and are madly into each other, it’s just fun.

[wichu-wrld]

NCT DREAM — them having a crush on you and how they act whenever you are around

from wichu-wrld: finals are done yay! so expect a bunch of posts from this day on :) requests are open!

pairing: fem!reader x nct dream

MARK LEE

HUANG RENJUN

he would just say the most random things to you, especially if he really wanted to join the conversation. he tried once but failed (he was embarrassed and sad.) he would stutter and laugh uncontrollably just so he could see you smile. every time he comes home from school, he would immediately regret the things he did for you but gaslights himself that seeing your smile makes him forget all of the embarrassing things.

LEE JENO

suddenly, he's acting cute around you ?!?!?? cuteness comes naturally to renjun, but when he's with you, it's a different side of cuteness. he lets you play with his hair, and he lets you hold his hand; he is enjoying every moment of it. he would take really cute pictures of you and post you on his stories, tagging you, of course.

LEE HAECHAN

he tries to act tough. he has a bad boy aura to him, but that's only when YOU are around. he's nonchalant and just stays quiet for most of the time, and this really intimidated you... i'm talking about you, unable to approach him when you need something from him, you needing his friends to talk to him, but he realized that and he starts talking to you, making you feel like you two are getting close. because of this, you started liking him, too.

NA JAEMIN

teasing is his way of showing how much he likes you. he likes it when you get annoyed because he's going to make up for it by buying you lunch— which is every day. you already knew he likes you the moment you realized that you're the one getting teased by lee haechan, but you are NOT really sure. whenever you are around, he always finds his way to sit next to you and "accidentally" let your hands touch each other. this man texts their gc after the day... he goes crazy; sending long vms, excessive use of reaction pics whenever his friends sends pics of you and him.

ZHONG CHENLE

HYPER JAEMIN AROUND YOU! he doesn't let anyone stop him from expressing his feelings for you. he has been crushing on you since 10th grade, you guys are now in college, 2nd year. he tried his best to uncrush you, but every time you appear, he fails lol (this is me). he becomes so hyper, as in full battery jaemin. one time he confessed to you through NGL. you knew it was jaemin bc of the way he types, but you fr thought he was messing with you.

PARK JISUNG

as the yap master of the group, chenle doesn't speak that much when you are around. he gets tensed up when you are around. you, knowing that chenle is a talkative boy, are quite surprise how chenle gets quiet, and you think he has always been like that, until you accidentally eavesdropped during their conversation in the study hall, and only heard chenle's voice.

if he gets shy around you, then imagine how shy he even got when he started having feelings for you. whenever he sees you walk towards him, he starts running away, and this leaves you confused af. his hands become sweaty, and he stutters whenever he's talking to you, so sometimes he just stops talking. but he did think of gathering some balls to actually talk to you.

[ghostpebble]

SONIC MOVIE 3 SPOILERS AND RANT BELOW :)

SOBBING. SOBBING. SOBBING. WATCHED IT YESTERDAY AND I WAS CRYING THE WHOLE MOVIE BECAUSE THEY USED IT. THEY USED LIVE AND LEARN. AND NOT JUST ONCE. A MOTIF. THEY GAVE SHADOW A LIVE AND LEARN MOTIF. I AM EXTREMELY INDESCRIBABLY HAPPY. LET'S FUCKING GO

PLUS: EGGMAN'S MOTIF!!! IT WAS HERE!! THEY USED IT!! AND IT WAS ORCHESTRAL. BEAUTIFUL.

SONIC'S ESCAPE FROM THE CITY PLAYED, TOO, BUT NOT AS CONSISTENTLY. BUT ALSO, WHOEVER WROTE IN HAVING SONIC SAY "FOLLOW ME" UH HUH. I SAW YOU. YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE AND I LOVED IT

I WANT THE DONUT LORD SWEATER. THAT NEEDS TO BE MERCH. I DONT CARE HOW MUCH IT IS. IF SOMEONE MAKES IT DM ME I WANT ONE THANK YOU

SPEAKING OF DONUT LORD. I KNEW THEY WOULDN'T KILL HIM OUTRIGHT BUT OH MY GOD WAS I CONFLICTED. BECAUSE ON ONE HAND, OH MY GOD. SHADOW JUST BROKE LIKE ALL OF TOM'S RIBS. NO PLEASE NO. BUT ON THE OTHER HAND... OH MY GOD. YES. THIS WILL BE PERFECT FOR SONIC AND SHADOW'S PARALLEL.

AGAIN, SPEAKING OF: PARALLELS, SPECIFICALLY THE TIME HOPS IN SHADOW'S MEMORIES OF MARIA. BRUTAL. CRIED THE WHOLE TIME. THAT RECORD PLAYER ONE REALLY GOT ME. GOD DAMN. PLUS, THE PARALLELS FROM TOM'S HEART TALK THE ENTIRE MOVIE AND ESPECIALLY THE MOON SCENE. CRYING. I KNEW IT THE WHOLE TIME BUT STILL. CRYING.

ALSO, OPEN YOUR HEART. SPEAK WITH YOUR HEART. WE'RE WINNING

DAMN: WHY DID EGGMAN GET TO SAY DAMN BUT NOT SHADOW

AND ALSO, NO FAKER! THERE WAS THE CONVO ABOUT WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE ME, BUT NO FAKER :(( MAYBE NEXT TIME

I MIGHT BE REMEMBERING WRONG, IT MIGHTVE BEEN FROM THE KNUCKLES SERIES I WATCHED BEFORE, BUT OH MY GOD. THE WACHOWSKI KIDS' BEDS. KNUCKLES AND SONIC IN THEIR CARS ARE CUTE, BUT OH MY GOD TAILS AND HIS AIRPLANE.

OSSIE!! MORE OSSIE!! LOVE OSSIE. THANK YOU

CHAO GARDEN! AGENT STONE BEING A BADASS CONSISTENTLY. I LOVED AGENT STONE THIS WHOLE MOVIE. HE REALLY GOT A LOT OF DEVELOPMENT. LOVE HIM. ALSO A LITTLE SAD SONIC DIDN'T END UP WEARING A SPEED OR DARK CHAO MASK TO LOOK LIKE HIMSELF OR SHADOW, MISSED POTENTIAL :( STILL FUNNY

WALTERS' DEATH WAS UNEXPECTED TO ME NGL, JUST BECAUSE IT WAS SO ABRUPT. LIKE... OKAY. I GUESS. COOL. MAN'S DEAD.

THE MARIA BEING PULLED BY SHADOW ON SKATES. EVERYTHING MARIA. EVEN WITHOUT THE ILLNESS, THAT WAS THE PERFECT MARIA AND SHADOW DUO. YES

TBH, I LIKED THE GERALD AND IVO DUO. IT WAS SILLY. THEY WERE THE COMEDY IN AN OTHERWISE VERY HEAVY MOVIE STILL SOMEWHAT AIMED AT KIDS. SOME THINGS HAD ME LAUGHING BECAUSE IT WAS SO WRONG, LIKE THE SPANKING AND HOW GERALD JUST GOT ZAPPED LIKE A FLY IN AN ELECTRIC SWATTER. ALSO, EASY TO EXPLAIN GERALD'S AGE, HE KEPT LICKING SHADOW'S QUILL, WHICH IS LIKELY WHAT KEPT HIM ALIVE SO LONG. SO YEAH. I DIDNT THINK IT WAS BAD, MAYBE A LITTLE WEIRD, BUT THATS THE ROBOTNIK FAMILY'S THING

SHADOW'S "BOO." ENOUGH SAID

DID SHADOW REALLY HAVE TO SLAM SONIC'S FACE INTO THE GLASS LIKE THAT LMAO

ALSO SHADOW KICKED TAILS!!! THE STREAK CONTINUES

IT IS NOT LOST ON ME THAT SONIC'S POV BEGINS AT HIS B-EARTH-DAY PARTY. FUN REFERENCE TO GENERATIONS

LIVE AND LEARN. STILL HAPPY. JUST WANTED TO SAY IT AGAIN. THE WHOLE DOUBLE SUPER SCENE AND THEIR OWN FIGHT AND THE FIGHT AGAINST THE BOTS. EVERYTHING. PERFECTION. SOBBED. THE SUN RISE AND LOVE STILL EXISTING EVEN AFTER THE SOURCE IS GONE LIKE THE LIGHT. STILL SOBBING

THE WAY THEY HAD ROBOTNIK LEFT ON THE STATION LEAVES ME TO BELIEVE THEY LEFT IT OPEN ENDED ON IF HE LIVED SO THAT JIM CARREY HAD THE OPTION TO COME BACK, AND THATS FINE BY ME :)

PISSED ON THE MOON AND THE BROADCAST?? AND IT WAS A BROADCAST FOR STONE SPECIFICALLY??? WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK

SHADOW'S INHIBITORS. YES. HIM FALLING TO EARTH, ALTHOUGH DIFFERENT FROM THE GAME. YES. YES. YES.

1ST POST CREDIT OF METAL SONIC AND THE MISS AMY ROSE. HELL YEAH. IM SO HYPED. METAL LOOKS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING AND AMY IS SO CUTE. WONDERING HOW THAT'LL LEAD INTO THE NEXT MOVIE THOUGH?? WHO KNOWS

2ND POST CREDIT WITH PARALLELS?? WITH SHADOW LANDING ON EARTH IN A FIELD ALL ALONE FOR A SECOND TIME, THIS TIME MAYBE AMNESIAC AND HAVING TO ADJUST TO EARTH AGAIN?? OH MY GOD?? I WAS SO HAPPY THEY DIDN'T END UP JUST KILLING HIM OFF, ALTHOUGH IT WOULDVE BEEN REALLY GOOD. IF HE HAD DIED THOUGH, HE PROBABLY WOULDVE GOTTEN A LAST WORD IN TO MARIA ANYWAY, BUT STILL GLAD HE'S IN IT TO WIN IT

PLUS SHADOW SPIN OFF SERIES!! AND NEXT MOVIE IN 2027. THANK YOU KEANU FOR MAKING OUR FIRST MOVIE DREAMS COME TRUE, THANK YOU SONIC MOVIE TEAM, THANK YOU ALL CAST

THIS WAS MY TED TALK THANK YOU FOR READING

[pharawee]

I usually don't do yearly recaps because my memory sucks December is one of the busiest months for me and I'm lucky if I get to gif at all but this year I thought I'd take a look at all of the gifsets I did in 2024 and see which shows, pairings and moments I liked the most.

✨FAV BLS OF 2024

1000 Years Old: 2024 was supposed to be the year of vampire BL (going by all the announcements and pilot trailers) but in the end only this one aired (edit: wait, I forgot about OMG! Vampire to protect myself 🥴) - and it was neither spicy nor particularly spooky. Instead, it was all heart and quirkiness and when it was over I cried for a week because of the bittersweet ending.

Playboyy: This show is truly a masterpiece, with layers of subtext and social commentary. Also, it's fun and camp and sexy and ridiculous. I'm so glad it's going to get a second season.

Caged Again: How come that a little show about a penguin and a panther is legit one of the best - if not THE BEST - Thai BL of the year?

Knock Knock, Boys: I came for Best and Seng and Pak but then Almond and Latte bewitched me body and soul. Kongthup now owns me.

Every You, Every Me: I don't know what I was expecting (well, okay, a whole lot of Mick & Top - which is exactly what I got) but it surely wasn't crying my eyes out for two episodes right in the middle of the show.

Spare Me Your Mercy: Long awaited and currently still airing - I actually love this show a lot because it reminds me of all the detective dramas (esp Endeavour and Grantchester) I used to binge. Morse but make it queer is actually all I ever wanted.

7 Days Before Valentine: This show's depth and artistry and stageplay-like character absolutely blew me away.

I Saw You in My Dream: WeTV absolutely blew it out of the water this year with their many diverse productions, and this unassuming and charming little show with a supernatural twist (love me one of those!) was no exception.

Monster Next Door: Big Thanakorn in his first main role with his first acting partner in an extremely fun and all around lovely Kongthup/WeTV production. And I just love how nuanced it was when they could have just stuck with the whole introvert/extrovert cliché.

✨FAV PAIRINGS OF 2024

Hope x Save (Jack & Joker): These two completely took me by surprise, especially because I had such an intense reaction to Pee Phiravich's character in La Pluie. I had originally set my eyes on PromMark and while I definitely ate up their crumbs, HopeSave just checked all of my boxes: morally grey antagonists (at least for a while there), doomed by the narrative (until they actually got their happy ending, yay!) and ride and die for each other.

Pete x Kenta (Pit Babe): I'll be a PeteKenta truther until the day I die (see all of the checkboxes above), and if Change2561 didn't subscribe to the branded pair model, they'd agree with me. As things are I'm actually kind of meh about Pit Babe 2. I bet KentaKim won't have knives at each other's throats!! (PeteWay is delicious though.)

Prom x Nont (Playboyy): Uhhh, that's a lot of the same checked boxes. So maybe I have a type. Thanks 2024 for making me realise. Also, I hope these two make each other worse in season 2 (before they get their HEA because ultimately I'm vanilla like that).

Latte x Almond (Knock Knock, Boys!): Oh God, these two. I was prepared to be ride or die for Thanwa and Peak but then LatteAlmond barged in with a pink sex toy and it was over for me. They just have so much heart and so much sincerity between them (and while their dynamics are different in Caged Again I'm really enjoying Nokia and Jaonine there too for pretty much the same reason + their incredible comedic timing).

X x Namping (Every Me, Every You): It's probably a good thing we got these two for two episodes only because we might not have survived a whole 8 or 10 or even 12 episodes of them. Plus, the anthology-like character of the series made a sad ending possible in the first place, and I really appreciate it - even if it almost destroyed me.

✨FAV MOMENTS OF 2024

Twins: For a moment there we had FrameRyan and it was beautiful.

The Sign: Chalothorn stole the whole show for me and then when he inexplicably vanished I kind of stopped watching. Whoops.

Deep Night: I have seen the throuple light thanks to SeijiPanKen.

The Rebound: Frank Thanatsaran's acting (but also that scene...) overshadowing pretty much everything else (and now he's with Star Hunter which... you know... ehnnnn 🥲)

To Be Continued: Fluke Pongsapat and Junior Khajbhunditt starring in a way underrated 8-episode netflix show with one of the most beautiful love scenes ever, and I've been wanting more of them ever since.

Two Worlds: Kongthup giveth and Kongthup taketh away (aka for one and a half episodes I had Phupha and Khram and now I will never know peace).

Century of Love: Offroad Kantapon as a sultry fox spirit.

Sunset x Vibes: When Star Hunter remembered Fong and JJ exist and then they stole the whole entire show (there really wasn't much to steal though...).

The Sign: Whatever was going on between Heng Asavarid and Nat Sakdatorn in this scene BUT I NEED MORE (pls Idolfactory I'm begging you release Heng from his solo actor prison).

Two Worlds: Kongthup choosing violence by giving Pak and Mon one of the spiciest love scenes of the year.

The Rebound: THESE TWO (boxes checked!! But also I need more Nammon in my life).

Kidnap: GMMTV's strategic placement of Papang in a suit.

The Hidden Moon: Whenever that tiny low-budget show got surprisingly deep and artsy (and also spicy).

My Stand-In: When I watched a whole show for one (1) character that wasn't really a character at all. Oh, the tragedy of it all (and yes, I'm still scared of Ming).

Pit Babe: When I made several posts about the Pit Babe novel but then I actually ended up loving the villains more than the main characters. I'm watching Pit Babe 2 for them and them only. Winner of my heart here I come!

Aaand that's it, my first ever yearly (Thai) BL recap - which actually ended up way longer than planned (guess my memory isn't as bad as I thought. Then again, I had my gifs to fall back on).

2024 was an amazingly diverse year for Thai QL (along with the wonderful news of marriage equality in Thailand finally becoming a reality) and looking back I now realise (not that I was ever seriously worried) that gmmtv's monopoly is actually way more of a blessing than a curse because not only did it cause WeTV to heavily invest in their own productions, it also leaves more than enough room for innovation and creativity via smaller and indie companies (along with the truly big players finally paying more attention - see: Spare Me Your Mercy). Innovation which in turn enriches gmmtv's portfolio as well (judging by their line-up for 2025 the years to come). In short: the Thai BL ecosystem is truly thriving.

And with that, may 2025 be even queerer than 2024 with tons of marriage proposals and actual marriages (PorschArm here we go!), and a favourite little (or in gmmtv's case not so little lmao) BL niche for everyone.

I hope you had as much fun with BL in 2024 as I had. I really appreciate everyone's commentary posts and meta and fanart and gifsets and tag games and reaction posts, even if I didn't spend as much time on my dashboard this year as I wanted to. I'm so glad tumblr BL fandom exists. ILU guys. Only the bestest and kindest things for you in 2025!🌈✨

[sylenth-l]

Ok I have a technical question today because I want to understand the media you use more. I’m looking at this fantastic portrait/study you just did of Colovance again and I’ve registered you included color swatches for it. But what got me kind of wondering here is the peripheral images: it’s obvious you used the same palate for them but they’re paler. Is this one of those cases where you have to use bleach for to lighten the pigments, or do they thin out just with water for that faded look?

(As an aside, that green you have for his robes is just SO luscious! Man what a pretty color…!!! 💚)

It's just the same colors diluted with water, yes! The same dark green mixed with bleach is used there too however; but it's in the place you probably don't expect :D I have an expanded palette of color swatches glued to the previous page. The horizontal strokes are done with different amount of water added and vertical lines is bleach (don't mind the drops, I've accidently splashed dirty water all over this OTL):

As you can see, bleach works differently on every ink here - it makes reddish colors almost white and barely works on caramel yellow at all. And this super dark rich green unexpectedly turns blue when subjected to bleach. Depending on mixing proportions, it goes from grayish warm blue to very bright electric blue! And this same bright blue also shows up when you drop the ink wet-on-wet. Here's a clearer demonstration done in my mixing sketchbook:

So actually Timur's shirt is the same green ink, just bleached out :D I think it's very fitting and I'm quite happy with how this mix turned out, I want to use it more. I also used bleach and a tiny brush to draw ornament on the books, especially the black one - it's my favorite black ink that easily turns gold when bleached, and looks almost like it's glowing. Absolutely in love with this thing. Such curious properties are the reason why I love working with inks so much, you can't achieve this with any other media.

Bonus photo of the full spread with a junk-ish mood board (??? Or however you call this 😅 I had no energy to actually draw something here and an empty page looked way too sad, so it's this):

PS: I had a tiny visitor outside my window while taking pictures for this post, so have her too:

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

(DATV thoughts with spoilers ahead; i think my tags will keep it filtered but just in case it doesn't since i dont want this in the actual game tags)

i just... man. i don't have a well formulated thought for this yet (and its my PERSONAL OPINION and other people can feel as different as they want, this is not an attack) but it keeps bouncing around my head, so. i know the popular thing right now is coming up with in-universe justifications for The Pantry Almost-Kiss Scene in ways that imply Lucanis didn't mean it/it doesn't represent him as a person/he was Faking It.

and i just don't like any of them. they make me sad!!!!!! i don't like the idea that one of the like 4 romance scenes we get in this game is him Pretending in some way, even if he does at that point like Rook back at least somewhat. None of the justifications i've seen make me feel Better about that being the point where we declare him as a romantic interest, which is what it is in the game, functionally. It doesn't lock you in yet but that point IS where the game says "they will take your flirting more seriously now". I did those same scenes for Davrin, Emmrich, and Taash and this is the formula the game uses (the "interrupted almost-kiss/confession" happens for almost all of the companions).

so if the answer for Lucanis' is "actually he stopped because he Didn't like what he was doing/feel that way yet" or that he felt he had to pretend for Rook's sake... it's kind of a letdown you know? esspecially when it comes right after what seems like an actually authentic moment (dispelling his "perfectly gathered clouds of doom"). Because, at that point in the game from my/Rook's perspective, it was like he finally was reciprocating. It made me hope that he'd acknowledge whatever was between him & Rook more in future scenes, especially because you get so little else from him at any other point, in terms of flirting back/showing you he IS interested. like up to that point I felt kind of bad for continuing to flirt at him, when he'd just change the subject right after! if someone did that in real life i would take it as a hint to stop. This is pixels and not real people so I didn't but they have done "reluctant/fearful interest" better in other characters if that's truly what they were going for in this one.

so after finishing the romance and getting the rest of content... idk. I don't like saying "one of the major chunks of characterization we get needs to be Thrown Out Actually because he was Pretending". because it's not like he or Rook ever actually address it in game--you just don't get to talk about feelings until some dialogue choices only in the act 3 romance scene, and then his speech at endgame (not even a full conversation, so much as his personal declaration). like it takes until the VERY end of the game for him to say the thing about "he was afraid to want you", but that comes after you've already hooked up, even.

I think truly what annoys me is that it's a story choice that can only make sense in HINDSIGHT not AS PLAYING. Only once you have all the scenes can you say "this one is out of character" and then you either have to accept it as bad writing, or come up with some in-universe justification to explain it... and so far none of the in universe ones feel good to me. i wish they did because maybe then I'd be less annoyed, rip. but at the end of the day i think even if there was some intent there, it was a poor choice for his story arc, because it doesn't effectively convey anything... and the reason why we can project a lot of different explanations onto it is simply because it is never addressed again (and again, Lucanis Dellamorte is NOT A PERSON he is a CHARACTER used to further a story for you the player, and so the reasons I don't like this choice are story-level and not a dig at how real life people feel or act).

So yeah at the end of the day. that is simply not a narrative device I would ever personally use in this way on a player/reader. certain kinds of hindsight revelations have their place (see: what the devs tried to do with Varric though I also think that falls apart on close inspection, but at least it has justification in-universe), but for a romance it just makes me embarrassed for Rook. In a game where you don't have nearly as many back-and-forth conversations with characters and have to resort to eavesdropping on them talking to each other, it's sad that one of the like 5 times you actually get to talk to Lucanis one on one we're maybe supposed to believe he wasn't being authentic, and also that Rook can't respond to this ever. It would be different if it had any kind of follow up, imo. or honestly as i've said before i would rather it have been swapped out with something entirely different or where we get to talk about their feelings instead, before i get labeled as one of the "people mad he's not Zevran 2.0/a sexy latin sterotype".

But having to step back to player-level analysis versus in-character analysis when looking at his whole romance arc just feels sloppy. but i'd much rather stick to "bad writing" than "intentional character choice" in terms of how to interpret the scene I guess, at this point, for poor Rook's sake. and i know people disagree with when I've said that before bc as much as I love Mary Kirby in other areas, she has said many times that she doesn't like writing romance, and I think it really does show here. As much as I love Lucanis and the scraps we got I wish I didn't have to do so much filling-in-the-blanks on our own.

[perseephoneee]

secret santa [ficmas day 12] [stiles stilinski x afab!reader]

↳ masterlist ↳ ship exchange ↳ taglist ↳ ficmas 2024

@mayfieldss: Since you're extending ficmas may I request stiles stilinski and secret santa plssssss

author's note: my boyfriend said that if teen wolf had modern slang it would be one of the worst things he'd ever watch

playlist:

buy me presents -- sabrina carpenter

christmas caller -- beach bunny

santa, can't you hear me -- kelly clarkson & ariana grande

"Why did Lydia think this was a good idea?" Stiles groaned, opening the 'Secret Santa email.' Scott was sitting on his bed doing homework while Stiles debated the merits of ignoring the email. 

"Because she says this is cheaper than us all having to get gifts for each other."

Stiles ignored that comment and opened the email to receive his assignment. He could think of a few different ideas for the various people in his life. Scott was easy; they were best friends. Isaac could get an embroidered scarf that said, 'I'm bitter for no reason.' Derek could get a new personality, although Stiles didn't know how much that would cost. 

He watched the wheel spin on the automated Secret Santa email, and against his best wishes, he got your name. 

"No, no, no," Stiles kept trying to refresh the page, hoping for a different answer. Scott looked up in personality, getting off the bed to see his screen. He started laughing when he saw your name. 

"You're screwed."

"This is awful!" Stiles spun around in his chair. "I can't get the girl I like a gift; she's going to hate it."

"Probably."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're not helpful?" Stiles looked at Scott, raising his brow. Scott patted him on the shoulder. Stiles hit his shoulder, and it quickly devolved into a wrestling match with Stiles in a headlock and Scott getting kicked in the face. Sheriff Stilinski entered a second later. He took one look at the scene and left a second later. 

After Stiles lost in wrestling, they ended up at the mall. They agreed that it was the most likely place to find a gift. Scott had to shop for Isaac, which Stiles was weirdly envying at this moment. 

"Okay, we're going to split up. Meet in an hour at the food court."

"For food?"

"Yes," Stiles sighed. "And to check progress."

"But also for food?" Scott questioned. "I've been craving a corndog."

"Scott, I need you to lock in," Stiles groaned. He had been staring out at the bright expanse of the mall and was already developing a migraine. "We have a mission."

"You have a mission," Scott nudged Stiles with his shoulder. "I'm doing fine."

"I really hate you," Stiles muttered as Scott took off towards whatever he smelled. Likely a pretzel. He was strangely food-motivated. 

Stiles checked out Bath and Body Works first, but after feeling like he would pass out from the smells, he elected to leave. He wandered into a Brandy Melville and got offended by the sizing (or lack thereof). He then sat on a bench outside the darkest clothing store he'd ever seen. Just as Stiles wished for divine intervention, Lydia came into sight. She beelined over to him immediately. 

"Do I want to know why you're here?" she asked, arms crossed. Stiles squinted up at her.

"Because of your stupid Secret Santa and my stupid assignment," Stiles said, sinking further into his bench. Lydia sat down next to him. 

"You got Y/N, didn't you?"

"How–"

"I know things," Lydia pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. Stiles glared at her. She crossed her legs, looking over at Stiles. "I'm going to help you because you make me sad."

"Thanks."

"What have you thought of so far?"

Stiles pondered for a second.

"A sexy candle."

"Okay, I'm going to say no to that immediately," Lydia opened her purse, grabbed out a lipgloss, and reapplied it. Stiles had no idea why she needed to reapply it. "Let's go look around at a few places."

Stiles wished for Scott in that moment. Scott didn't stress him out to no end. Lydia dragged him to eleven different stores and shot down almost all of his ideas. He was ready to quit, move to a different state, and change his name in order to avoid disappointing you at Secret Santa. You were too important to him to disappoint. Right as Stiles' legs started hurting, he saw one store that gave him pause. 

"I'm going in there," Stiles announced, ignoring Lydia's protests. It was a traditional gift store with various accessories, gag gifts, home decor, and more. He avoided the seasonal aisle and the stupid kitchen towels with quotes on them to make a beeline for the kids' section, specifically the stuffed animal section. 

He saw a floppy Snoopy and pulled it off the top shelf. Stiles showed Lydia. 

"What do you think?" Stiles asked. He was out of breath from his quick run into the store. "She loves Snoopy; she mentions it whenever there's a Snoopy thing."

Lydia smiled, taking the Snoopy from him. She gave it a few squishes for good measure. 

"It's perfect; nice job, Stiles."

"Thank you," Stiles beamed. He tossed the Snoopy back and forth between his hands. "Who did you get for Secret Santa?"

"Derek."

"Just get him a new personality."

"I hope you know that both you and Y/N said that," Lydia rolled her eyes. Stiles grinned, moving to the cash register to buy his Snoopy. He paid a little extra to get it wrapped (he can't wrap it for his life) and skipped out of the store. Stiles pulled out his phone to check the time, guessing he should probably be catching back up with Scott. He, of course, ran into you at that exact moment. 

Literally ran into it. 

"Hey, Stiles," you laughed, catching him by the shoulders. His cheeks burned red as he saw who it was. 

"Hey!" he grimaced. "What are you doing here?"

"Probably the same as you, Secret Santa shopping," you shrugged. He liked whatever you did with your hair today. However, Stiles has always loved whatever you did. You eyed the bag in his hand. "Did you get something already?"

"Yeah…I had help from Lydia," Stiles scratched the back of his neck. 

"I'll see you around, Stilinski," you punched his shoulder, running off to who knows where. Stiles was still frozen in place a second later. He shook himself out of his stupor, immediately running to the food court to look for Scott. 

~

Scott and Stiles showed up in matching ugly Christmas sweaters to Lydia's Secret Santa party. They were very proud that they found not one but two of them at Goodwill and felt it was a theme to show up in. Lydia was not amused. 

She almost refused to let them in. 

Stiles was excited to see that you were already there. You had on sparkly tights and a sweater dress, and Stiles was once again struck by the thought that you were the prettiest girl in the room. He suddenly felt very stupid in his sweater. You took notice as he approached. 

"Oh, that's hilarious," you laughed, reading his top. It had all the reindeer decorating the tree on top of each other, saying 'Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, on top of Vixen.'

"That's what I thought. Lydia disagrees," Stiles sat down next to you. You curled up your legs underneath you. 

"Lydia is stressed about the party."

"She throws the best parties; why is she stressed?" Stiles saw a platter of cookies out on the coffee table and took one for himself. He offered you half. 

"Probably because you have to constantly be stressed to throw the best parties." You accepted half of his cookie.

"Touche."

Stiles was gleeful that he could talk to you until the present reveals started. Everyone else showed up, and at forty-five minutes past the hour, Lydia called everyone to attention to exchange gifts. Suddenly, Stiles felt very nervous. 

It was easy for him to get caught up in everyone else's excitement and forget about his own doom, so when he received his gift (some nice plaid shirts from Allison), he got all clammy as he handed you yours. Your eyes lit up as you saw the bag. 

"I knew it was for me," you whispered, recognizing the bag from the mall. Stiles shrugged, wringing his hands. You unwrapped it carefully and then let out a squeal of delight as you saw the Snoopy. Stiles let out a sigh of relief. 

"I know you love Snoopy."

"Not just any Snoopy, Joe Cool Snoopy," you grinned, hugging the plush to your chest. "He's really cool."

"That's why they call him Joe Cool," Stiles answered. Lydia gave him a subtle nod from the other side of the room. Everyone else got to open their gifts, which is when Lydia brought out the champagne she stole from her Mom's stash. Very quickly, everyone got a pleasant buzz that only made the conversation louder. You nudged Stiles and gestured towards the kitchen, Snoopy still in hand. He followed after you. 

You launched yourself at him as soon as you got in the kitchen. 

"The gift is perfect," you mumbled, voice blocked by his shirt. Stiles thought you smelled like peppermint. You pulled away to look at him. "Thank you."

"A-Anything for you," Stiles stuttered, struck by how close you guys were. You didn't seem to notice or mind. 

"I have a gift for you."

"You didn't get me in Secret Santa," Stiles asked, confused. You just shook your head. 

"A gift of my own volition."

You leaned up and kissed him, lips still tasting of champagne. Stiles could do nothing but melt into you. He was dumbstruck when you parted. 

"Merry Christmas, Stiles," you hummed. Stiles grinned, kissing you again. 

"Merry Christmas, Y/N."

[knivestothroats]

The Professionals - Overdraft Fee

(Because it comes after Withdrawals) The Pros Masterlist || ITWS Masterlist || Pro/Vic Masterlist CW: drug addiction/withdrawls, vomiting, hallucinations

Fletcher eased the door open and peered in at Tommy. He was pale and sweaty, squirming in discomfort on top of the bedsheets.

“Hey,” Fletcher shut the door behind them. “How are you doing?”

Tommy’s eyes snapped open to glare at Fletcher, but he held his tongue.

“Drink more water,” Fletcher said, nodding to the still mostly full bottle on his bedside table. “You don't need to ration it. It’ll help with the aches.”

“It’ll help with the aches?” Tommy repeated scornfully. “I can think of something that would help more.”

Fletcher put their hands on their hips. “Okay, I understand that you’re going through it right now, so-”

“You don't understand what I’m going through!” Tommy snapped. Some of the anger dissipated from his features under Fletcher’s cold stare, replaced by fear and misery. He pressed his hands over his eyes. “I’m sorry, just… I can be useful to you if I’m not sick. Please, just… give me something.”

“Look, I can get you methadone tomorrow - probably. You just have to make it ‘til then.”

“I don’t believe that you don’t have anything.”

“Why would I withhold that?”

“No, drugs!” Tommy snapped again. “You have to have something!”

“I never said that I don’t have any painkillers,” Fletcher responded evenly. “I don’t keep recreational drugs in the house, though. So no coke. And no antidepressants, either, although we can… figure that out later if we need to.”

Tommy scoffed. “Maybe you should.”

Fletcher stepped closer. “What?”

Tommy scowled and looked away. “Nothing,” he muttered.

“No, what did you mean?”

Tommy looked at them now, hate burning in his eyes.

“Maybe you should be medicated. Or at least take something that makes you fun to be around, instead of being some sad asshole who lives in the woods out of-”

Fletcher slapped him hard enough to make his head spin. Before Tommy could curl up in a defensive position, Fletcher grabbed his face and brought it close to theirs.

“Out of what?” they hissed.

Tommy averted his eyes and gritted out, “Sorry,” despite still looking pissed.

“No,” Fletcher gave his head a little shake. “Out of what? Tell me what you were gonna say.”

Tommy wasn’t out of his head enough to finish his sentence. He knew it was better to keep his mouth shut. But they were digging their fingers into his cheeks and demanding a response and they weren’t even letting him beg or bargain for pain relief and….

Tommy began to cry, still caught in Fletcher’s grip. He didn’t mean to, but his head was pounding and his body ached and he was hot and cold at the same time and he never stopped feeling like he was on the verge of throwing up and Fletcher wouldn’t even let him do anything to get drugs. They wouldn’t give him anything at all. 

Fletcher made a noise of disgust and released him.

“Give me a shout if you think you’re gonna die,” they said over their shoulder as they stormed out of the room, leaving Tommy alone again.

I just have to get through the break, Tommy kept telling himself. This fever - the withdrawals - they had to break at some point, right? 

God, he missed the internet. WebMD, save me now. He wasn’t sure what would happen, or how long it would take. Would he really die? 

The idea of Fletcher letting him die, purely out of spite, just because they wouldn’t give him drugs, was a funny thought. Funny enough that he laughed about it. It felt like a real possibility, real and close to happening, and he was just snorting and giggling about it on his sweat-soaked sheets. 

Maybe they’ll do it. It might as well happen. He’d had his fun, got to play for a few hours thinking maybe this new life could be okay, could be better. Only to have it snatched away, the dwindling drugs leaving him dying here would be a poignant last kiss goodbye from Caius. He stopped laughing. He laid there in silence and wished things were different. That maybe he could have been someone else.

He hated Caius. He hated Fletcher. To his surprise, Caius visited first. 

Tommy didn’t hear him come in. There was a hand on his face, cradling his chin, another pushing the hair back from his sweaty forehead. He smelled like clean cotton and sandalwood. He was put together as always, beautiful as he was the first day they met. He was wearing that soft linen shirt Tommy liked, that he would rub his cheek on when he pulled it out of the laundry just because it felt nice. So few things in Caius’s home made him feel nice. 

There were no eyes past his clear rimmed glasses, replaced with glowing circles, just like spots in his vision when he’d stared at the sun for too long. The hands on his face were hot, too close, his skin felt unbearably sensitive to his touch - but Caius had come back for him, he wouldn’t let Fletcher leave him to die.

“Caius,” he breathed, and a sob of relief bubbled in his chest. “You - you came back for me.”

“You look awful. Is this any way to behave for one of my friends?” His tone was deceptively gentle, the way it always was, chastising him softly.

“Nooo,” Tommy wheezed, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

“They’re sending you home with me. They don’t want you, either.”

Tommy whimpered, sneaking a peek back at the window, at the sunlight streaming in. He felt a pang of remorse for snapping at Fletcher, after all they’d done for him. Caius’s hands pulled his face back, forcing him to stare back into those hollow eyes.

“It’s okay now Tommy, I can make it stop.”

Tommy clutched at his wrists, needed to feel he was real.

“You can?” The whole room was swimming, and all he could do was drown. 

“Please, please, make it stop, please, I’m so sorry,” he begged. He could go home with him happily if he would just stop the pain.

“What are you sorry for?”

Caius’s voice turned cold. So did his hands, suddenly freezing against his skin. He feared they might stick, like a tongue to a frozen pole. He couldn’t speak. He was frozen, too.

“For ruining everything we had? How about that, Tommy, is that it?”

“Yes,” Tommy gasped, as Caius’s nails grew into talons sharp against his face. “Yes, Caius, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Look at me,” Caius snarled, and he gripped the sides of Tommy’s face, looming in closer. Those fingernails burrowed into his scalp. Tommy couldn’t look away, staring into the blinding suns of Caius’s eyes. It burned a searing pain, his eyes were on fire, but he was paralyzed with fear. Caius pressed his thumbs under Tommy’s eyes, pulling the lower lids down as if to peel them from his face. His fingers were long and needle-like now, the sharp tips hovering only a hair’s breadth away from Tommy’s eyes. 

“I’m going to make sure you never see the sun again,” Caius hissed, and he plunged his armored thumbs into his eyes, turning the whole world black in an explosion of pain. 

Tommy screamed and thrashed. A shadow moved in Caius’s eyes and suddenly he wasn’t there. Forming in his place was Fletcher leaning over him, blocking the harsh glow of his ceiling light.

“Hey, hey.”

The hands on his face were human again. He reached up and grabbed onto Fletcher’s wrists. They felt more real.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he wailed. “I’m sorry for what I said. I don’t want to go back, I don’t want to go back in the dark…”

“Alright, alright, calm down,” Fletcher assured him. “You’re not going anywhere, okay?”

Caius peered down at him from over Fletcher’s shoulder.

“I can make the pain stop if you come home with me,” he promised.

Tommy wanted the pain to stop. He wanted it more than anything. But he knew going back with Caius meant being locked back in the dark, cold basement. He knew he would be trading this pain now for more pain in the future. He had made Caius so angry… but still…

“How could you get rid of me?” Tommy sobbed. “How could you… how could you not even say goodbye… after everything… after everything you did to me…”

Fletcher’s brows knit together as they watched Tommy babble to no one, eyes unfocused and drifting. His body jerked suddenly and he rolled over to throw up into the garbage. 

At least he had the wherewithal not to asphyxiate. Fletcher pushed his hair off his face as he heaved again. He was hot to the touch.

The door opened and Williams poked his head in.

“What’s going on in here?”

“Do you need something?” Fletcher asked impatiently. 

“I heard screaming; are you torturing him or something?”

“Willy, you thought I was torturing him in here and you just walked in?”

Williams bristled. “It’s Billy.”

“What do you want?” Fletcher repeated.

Williams nodded towards Tommy. “What’s the matter with him?”

“He’s going through withdrawals.”

Williams blanched slightly. “Oh, yeah? What, uh, kind of stuff was he on?”

Fletcher sighed and shook their head, watching Tommy spit into the can. “I don’t know. Opioids mostly.”

“Methadone helps with that.”

Fletcher sighed louder. “If I had methadone, I would be using it. I have a hook up, but I can’t get it until tomorrow.”

Williams studied Tommy for a moment. “You buy this guy on the black market or something?”

“…Something like that,” Fletcher conceded. “Last time I’m going to ask you if you need something, otherwise leave.”

Williams put up his hands in surrender and left, closing the door once more. 

Fletcher turned their attention to Tommy again. He seemed to be done retching, and at least wasn’t begging to empty air anymore. 

“Okay, try to stand up.”

Fletcher took Tommy’s arms and gently pulled him up. They put an arm around his waist to guide him onto his feet. Tommy grabbed onto their shirt to steady himself, leaning against them as he wobbled through the first few steps across the room.

“Easy, Model-T,” Fletcher cooed. They kept him steady as they led him to the bathroom and shut the door behind them. 

“Alright, get out of your clothes.”

Numbly, Tommy disrobed, refusing to look at Fletcher. He was sweating and shivering at the same time, too empty to retch again. He was distinctly aware that he was not impressing Fletcher. 

Fletcher looked him over with a clinical eye. They’d noticed the new scar on his face, and some uneven marbling of his skin, but they had assumed them to be more scars, or a skin condition. Whatever it was, it was brought to stark relief with him nude in the bathroom light. He was dappled all over in patchy white marks, so bleached they looked almost translucent. His ribs jutted out, clearly underfed and malnourished from years of neglect. Whatever the hell they had done to him, his body had taken a severe toll. But now was not the time to interrogate him.

“Okay, get in the tub. You can sit if you need to.”

Fletcher turned the water on as they gave the instructions, putting their hand in the stream to check the temperature. 

Tommy teetered as he lifted each leg to step into the tub, and kept a hand on the tiled wall as he lowered himself down. 

“Okay, it’s gonna be cold,” Fletcher warned before pulling the diverter and switching the stream of water to the shower head. 

Tommy flinched as the water hit him. It wasn’t hard, and it wasn’t freezing, but it was a shock against his feverish skin. After a moment, it became a relief, grounding him. 

Tommy leaned against the wall, resting his temple on the tiles. He pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms under his knees.

“‘M sorry,” he murmured.

“You don’t have to keep saying that,” Fletcher responded, sitting on the closed toilet. “I don’t even think you know what you’re apologizing for.”

“No… I’m sorry you have to do all this for me. I’m sure this isn’t what you wanted… when you bought me.”

Fletcher said nothing.

“I, um,” Tommy swallowed. “I’ll make it up to you. When I’m better.”

Fletcher sighed. “Alright. I’m sure you’ll be cussing me out for not giving you drugs in like ten minutes.”

They both sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the rush of the falling water.

“Are you going to send me back?” Tommy asked in a small voice.

“No.” Fletcher didn’t hesitate.

All things considered - at least until the next wave of pain and nausea hit and the cravings took over his system - Tommy hoped they were telling the truth.

Fletcher stopped the shower before Tommy got too cold. They let him towel off and returned with clean clothes before leading him back to his room. 

“Try to get some sleep. I’ll be back around.”

Sleep wasn’t on the table for Tommy. Not in this state. He tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable.

When the door opened again, it wasn’t Fletcher - it was Williams.

He slipped carefully into Tommy’s room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

“What were you on before?” he asked. “Percs, oxy?”

“I don’t know,” Tommy groaned, turning his head away. “Probably.”

Williams leaned down close. He took hold of Tommy’s chin with two fingers, turning it towards himself and guiding it down. Tommy dutifully opened without much thought. Williams placed something on his tongue.

Tommy’s eyes widened.

It was a pill.

“Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya.”

Tommy grabbed his water and drank down the pill as Williams slipped out again.

Maybe it was foolish not to spit it out and check what it was. He wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to tell. But at this point, he didn’t really care. He just wanted to feel good enough to return to his chores. 

Whatever happened, he couldn’t lose the light again.

@suspicious-whumping-egg @whumpyourdamnpears @generic-whumperz @lonesome--hunter

@whumplr-reader @theelvishcowgirl @sunshiline-writes @dont-be-gentle-please @galesgallery

@2in1whump @sparrowsage @apokolyps @whumpinggrounds

@morning-star-whump @leviiio @alexmundaythrufriday

@defire @jumpywhumpywriter @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees

@light-me-on-pyre @slightlydisturbedbeans @dislexiher @paperprinxe @desert-dyke

@just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @burtlederp @whatwasmyprevioususername @cursedandtired

@whump-only @misspelledwitch @redstainedsocks @thehopelessopus @im-just-here-for-the-whump

@thatsthewhump @utopian819 @pretty-face-breaker @thesuffererrrr @victimeyez

[katies-top-hat]

Okay I need to get this out of my system before I pop. I've been letting Sonic 3 marinate in my head for a few days and god Movie!Shadow makes me so fucking sad.

Spoilers below the cut. I'm also mainly going to be talking about Movie!Shadow here and his story is a tiny bit different from the games. Just a heads up

Shadow is treated like a freak of nature and a weapon of destruction the moment he wakes up on Earth despite not having done anything at that point but because he's essentially an alien with a crazy amount of power, everyone is afraid of him and what he could potentially do but at the same time, they want to experiment on him to see how they could use his power for their own personal gain. Dude was never even given a chance and he probably doesn't even know what he's doing wrong other than his mere existance.

The only person who even makes an attempt to see beyond his rough exterior and get to know him as a "person" (he's an anthropormorphic hedgehog, but you get my point. He has human emotions and feelings) is Maria, a young girl who only happens to be there because her grandfather wants to have her around while he does his work. Maria ends up ultimately dying while trying to escape with Shadow because G.U.N was so terrified of him and ended up raiding the base in an effort to capture Shadow and seal him away and was willing to kill even a child if they interfered in this process. What's even more fucked is G.U.N ended up blaming Shadow for the incident essentially using him as a scapegoat to cover up their horrible actions and arggh fuck G.U.N that's all I gotta say.

Shadow's story in the games is also tragic as hell when you consider that he was created to help find a cure for Maria only for her to die tragically before he could fulfill that purpose and while unfortunately that aspect is lost in the movie since Maria doesn't seem to be sick here, I still think this version of Shadow is great and this story still hits me almost just as hard.

[vidavalor]

Oh, no... *looks around nervously* The Beard Debate? You want me to wade into The Beard Debate? When I said you all could tag me into virtually anything and I'd eventually pop up, I might have spoken too soon...😂 Alright, fine, in the spirit of holidays, I'll throw up an opinion so someone can have the seasonal joy of yelling at me over how wrong I am about at least one aspect of this. 😜

If some people are suggesting that having a beard would go along with "taking charge" in Heaven, as the OP is saying is the vibe they're picking up on with some of the discussion? I would agree that that's very sad and concerning. Equating a hyper-traditional definition of masculinity with leadership is very worrisome. It's also not showing a great understanding of Aziraphale.

I really do not ultimately care what Aziraphale's look is because he'd be delectable any which way to Sunday. He's a bamf with or without a beard. Having one or not having one wouldn't make him more or less masculine-- that's lunacy. It shows just how much these traditional gender ideas are baked into many people's minds because this stuff in the Good Omens fandom, of all places, is... *sigh*

While I agree with the OP saying that they don't need to change their looks to be reflective of taking on new roles, I think it's more about what they're doing reflecting where they're at in their lives and we do change as people so I don't really have an issue with Aziraphale's look changing. I just have a different idea of why it might, I think, because I have never actually thought that Aziraphale is going to be taking Gabriel's job.

I've never thought much about what he'd be wearing up there because I don't believe the villain's temptation job offer is really the plot. I see the story as Satan appearing to Aziraphale as The Metatron to tempt him with the fake job offer and that Aziraphale just was successfully tempted at the end of S2. As a result?

Demon!Aziraphale is upon us. He's really always been here because the demons are all just angels but being officially deemed one might yield a new look.

So, others might be talking about some sort of "leadership beard", whatever that is, but I've been back on Ye Olde TV Trope of The Weirdly Hot Depression Beard. 😂 I've been thinking of it more with the idea of it reflecting him adjusting to being officially the Demon!Aziraphale he's always been and it being a part of the look that reflects that.

I will admit that I want them to show the severity of what Aziraphale is undergoing in a way that involves his look, especially his clothes, because I think it would be the more impactful move. Aziraphale wearing the same clothes for so long is his choice and they have personal meaning to him. There can be some magical ways to maybe get some of it back by the end of things, if that's what Aziraphale decides he wants. He ultimately will have the power to present himself as he wants. One of the most powerful ways to underscore this fall for the audience, though, would be to change Aziraphale's appearance pretty dramatically.

I'm Team Beard but understand that I didn't join for any of that Supreme Archangel Aziraphale stuff or any sense of masculinity-related nonsense. I just think it'd make a fun contrast to Aziraphale being more fastidious before to have him look as a demon more like, well... like Michael Sheen, honestly. 😂 I want the salt 'n pepper beard and wild curls. This (with less murder) for Demon! Aziraphale, please:

Unpopular Opinion

(At least from what I've seen in the fandom)

Okay. It's time for me to confess. I kind of hate the idea of Aziraphale having a beard in s3. There, I said it. But I have reasons.

So, first of all, I don't really think it suits the character. Don't get me wrong, I love how Michael Sheen looks with a beard, but Aziraphale? I don't know, I don't see it going very well with their style. But this could also be related to my personal taste. I have more intricate reasons.

The thing is, every time I've read about people hoping Aziraphale will have a beard in s3, they were also connecting it to Aziraphale being badass in Heaven, taking the lead, showing their protective streak in a stronger way, having a more...masculine behaviour? Maybe? That's what I got from those posts most of the time.

And hey, I'm all for Aziraphale fighting to make a change in Heaven, but I don't really like the implication that, in order to show their protective side more, they also need to change their looks to appear stronger/bossier and all that jazz.

It would actually be kind of a comfort to me to see them act that way and still be themself, as we've always known them. Especially considering that this part of them is not new. It's true that, until now, we've always seen Aziraphale protect what (and who) they love in a more subtle way, but it's still protection and it's always been there.

That's why I think they don't necessarily need a new look. But, if we do get one, I actually hope it will be something more similar to how we saw them in the Bastille episode, or giving the same vibes they were giving in the changing room with that feathered boa. I mean, they were playing like that one second and delivered that "Aziraphale" to Furfur the next! They can act tough AND look all pretty and silly (in a good way).

With all that being said, I won't be mad, disappointed, or anything like that if Aziraphale ends up with a beard. It's not something that bothers me at such a level. What I've never really liked were the implications some people were writing around the concept of the beard. If it makes any sense.

So, that's my end-of-the-year confession. Don't hate me, please.

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

How do you think ghouls would react or cope with their(maybe occasional) impotence. Cause I have to imagine it’s hard enough trying to cling to yr libido amidst a fallout, & even w/ apathy/desensitization like… ghouls have endured Major nerve damage— burns are one thing, but radioactive burns from enough gamma ray exposure… anyway we take major liberties as fallout fans & I adore (most) every ghoul across the games(god they Always have to have a sad backstory…) but I keep getting hung up on like. The emotional toll, Especially concerning new budding relationships

Friend, I owe you a huge thank you, because this ask came at a perfect time for me; I got it when I was ironing out the finer details of the newest Raul long-form piece and it really helped gel things together for me . I had given this topic some thought before, especially with characters like Cooper and Raul (who are very similar men who have very similar reactions to their traumas IMO...maybe more on that later), who I think would neglect their sexual needs for decades on end.

The physical stuff almost goes without saying. Almost. Yes, I think a large part of the fandom, me included, usually takes liberties with how well most of our favorite ghouls can jump straight into the fray, but too much realism and none of our protagonists would survive very many intimate ghoul encounters. You'd literally have to die for the dick (or metaphorical dick), and not a sexy death, either. I often try to include some of the more realistic physical aspects of ghoulification, though, especially for older ghouls who would definitely be feeling the impact of their age at a few centuries old.

I'd say that the scarring and the nerve damage would tie for first in how much potential they have to hamper your sex life, but I suppose they sort of hold hands. Scar tissue often has nerve damage and hence is less sensitive (except to things like heat and cold, the sensation of which can be amplified by the presence of scarring). The lack of sensation could make it difficult to become fully physically aroused, even with proper stimulation, and it could make sex feel different than it did before, even if you're perceiving the sensations. Some aspects of it could even be unpleasant, painful. I think "outercourse" is probably a big hit with ghouls, honestly.

Scarring isn't the worst situation you could end up in as a ghoul, though. Gamma radiation is incredibly hard on connective and soft tissues, so if you live long enough, well...needless to say, many of the nude feral ghouls you see in-universe have no genitals. Those who are "flash-ghoulified" by a single massive dose of radiation like John Hancock also run the risk of coming out with burns so bad they cause contractures (an injury where the length of your muscle/tendon/skin is shortened and stiffened, causing it to lose much of its function), or burns so bad that flesh fuses to flesh. Ghouls have a wide range of bodies and injuries that decorate those bodies, some much more unfortunate than others. They all still want to be loved on some level.

In terms of the potential emotional roots to impotence, you'd think that that would be just as large a hurdle as the physiological stuff, honestly. I don't think there's a character in the Fallout universe that hasn't experienced significant personal loss and hardship at some point in their lives. For many, life is loss and hardship. Overall, it's a very un-erotic world full of emotionally unwell people. "Apathetic" is a great word to describe the average person you meet. It's not like you can just schedule an appointment with a therapist downtown, either, or call the crisis hotline when things are at their worst. Unfortunately, the most effective way of dealing with one's emotions while continuing to stay alive is to simply swallow them down or drink/use them away. That sort of emotional constipation can have unforeseen physical consequences, especially if it goes on for years and years.

But, as I've pointed out before, love often finds us at the most unexpected times in our lives. It's both a blessing and a curse if you're a ghoul; even those who don't hate ghouls often have no love for them, so actually being desired feels amazing, but to be loved is to be truly known, seen...a level of vulnerability most ghouls actively avoid, lest it be used against them. Tender emotions and sex are both massive, easy cudgels to wield. Ghouls also have to navigate the hostile waters of fetishization when it comes to people who do express attraction to them. Still, the temptation of love, true companionship is enough to make most risk it, and taking that risk makes it sting even more when your body doesn't want to cooperate.

It would be a bit of a vicious cycle: a lack of confidence and too many insecurities causes issues with one's performance in bed, which takes a further toll on your confidence and plays into your insecurities, which makes the issues in bed worse...and on and on. For many, it would definitely be an uphill battle. I imagine that for some, sex with other ghouls would be preferable simply for the fact that you both understand that sometimes your brain and body don't want to be team players. Though, I also imagine there are some who can't stand sex with other ghouls and consider it "depressing". Self-hatred is easy when the whole world seems to hate you, too.

[rebelgrrlvsu]

It makes me so sad when I see women trying to conform to male standards and making it their entire life because I USED TO BE THEM, AND I WAS MISERABLE! And I know they’re miserable and I just want to tell them that they’re perfect the way they are and shouldn’t feel the need to do all of that and fake their entire personalities. At the same time, I can’t force them to choose differently.

[danishphoner]

The Last Shadow Puppets: fulfilling your kinkiest fantasies

Alex Turner and Miles Kane stand on one side of the success of The Last Shadow Puppets, who played Open'er Festival. On the other, you can see multitudes of fans trying to find evidence of the so-called ‘bromance’ of their favourites. And they, as if out of spite, only provoke further fantasies of their admirers. Even during the interview, they talked to me about fulfilling their kinkiest fantasies. See what else I managed to talk to them about!

Written by Katarzyna Gawęska Originally translated by everybodytriesbeinghuman on Tumblr

Translation below

Your duet is comparable to John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry’s. Let’s start from compliments – what do you appreciate most in a teamwork?

MK: I think, it won’t be anything new, if I say, it’s thanks to Alex that our every song is so polished – no one else could make them better. Thanks to him, I am trying to push my own boundaries and, to be honest, I wouldn’t be so eager to do that without Alex. I suppose both of us could say that about our teamwork. We just understand in what creative direction each of us is heading towards. It’s difficult to explain, because we don’t need words to describe our thoughts, which melody each one is working on, which song he’s trying to make – cheerful or sad. I don’t know how it works – it’s just that sort of chemistry between us.

How is your work different from the Arctic Monkeys one or from your solo career, Miles?

MK: When I’m working solo, I’m sad, because I turn into a little frightened boy.

AT: When we are working on The Last Shadow Puppets records, we don’t know who's going to sing what. And because of that, we surely have to change our ways of writing, we don’t know everything from the get-go. It’s easier for me to write a song aimed towards myself – I’m writing a certain lyric, melody and I know I am going to sing it, so I’m already aware of my own possibilities. And the way Miles plays the guitar gets me really excited – his music takes me into a whole new world. When it disappears, this excitement is gone. It may sound like working with AM wouldn’t give me any satisfaction – I want to highlight it isn’t like that. With Miles, it’s just… different.

MK: I remember, one time Alex came up to me and said, “I want to see how you spit, while singing >>sick puppy<< in >>Bad Habits<<”. I called him a madman afterwards.

AT: Yeah…

MK: But he was right. No one else would say something like that to me, It was beautiful.

AT: You see, Kasia, I just tell Miles about my fantasies, and he tries to fulfill them, even when they are very kinky, like in that case.

Alex, you just explained, why your fans are suspecting you two of having a romance. You are very close to each other, but an artist needs a little more space and freedom to create, right?

MK: While making this record, we gave each other lots of space. EYCTE is the last song which we wrote. It was created from other unfinished pieces. It was supposed to be thousands of different tunes, but we made it into a one. Before I came into the studio, Alex sent me a demo on which he played the organs and then added different lyrics to it. That’s how it came out, and it’s a great example that Alex had a lot of space. When we played this song, I felt like I’ve never heard it before, which obviously wasn’t true. I was listening to the same thing as before but in a completely different form. And because of that, I started to feel excited again.

“EYCTE” is also your album’s title. Did you give your fans what they were expecting?

AT: Definitely! We hid it behind a red curtain, and underneath is everything they desired.

And what were your expectations for this record?

MK: We tried to bring something fresh into our work. We wanted to make this album different from the previous one. In some way, we got over with it and decided to not force things. It’s just me and Alex, that’s how we are and we don’t wanna change. And I think it turned out very well.

Your album cover turned out very well as well. When people see it, they want to give it a listen.

AT: I think when an artist decides to put something on the album cover or its booklet, they do it in order to show the listeners exactly what they’re gonna get from it. Actually, I don’t really know why I just said that, because it’s pretty obvious. Sorry, I’ll stop binding my time. Let’s say I made six albums, maybe five of them succeeded. The photography on the cover is a dancing Tina Turner. I’ve discovered it a few years ago and immediately thought it would fit perfectly, especially after changing the background to gold. There is a lot of grace in this picture, which is an element in TLSP’s music. It’s a dynamic portrait, which reflects our work brilliantly. As you may have noticed, it’s hard for me to describe some spectrums. Right now, I don’t know how to explain the fact that this cover is an amazing picture. The emotions you start to feel when you see it. Well, you’ve mentioned it by yourself, and I’m very glad you’ve noticed something so wonderful. I can only hope that more people will follow your thinking, and this cover picture will eventually make them listen to it. And yeah, maybe the sounds won’t disappoint them, either.

When I am listening to your tunes, I feel relaxed and calm. Then it hits me and I start wondering how it had come, if the lyrics are so aggressive and sexual. What does going from one extreme to another bring to your work?

AT: Another interesting thing you’ve noticed! It’s incredible that someone gets what’s happening inside my head! I’m telling you how it is. I very often find myself thinking that if the lyric drags on the right and the music on the left, then if we make both of those elements function we’ll create a balance. None of the elements will lean too much on it’s side, because it will be balanced by the opposite. Despite that I won’t generalize and in the “Bad Habits” case it’s the other way around – everything is dragged to the one side. I mean, there are some bows, which create a totally different impression of what our band is like. Not all the time everything has to be black and white – grays in our music are also very welcome. Personally, I’d rather listen for the rest of my life to what you’ve mentioned: meeting extremes in any song. I love that feeling when I turn on a tune and I think I know where how it’s all gonna go, and then the creator shows that he's playing with me and that, in reality, I know nothing. I don’t like predictable tunes.

Talking about lyrics, I couldn’t resist asking. Alex, there are very little lyric-writers better than you. People describe your style as poetic yet simple. Personally, I would agree with that. But how you would describe your writing style?

AT: You ask questions, which require thinking! Maybe… No, that’s not it. Or maybe… That one not as well…

Miles, maybe you’ll try to help him?

MK: For me it’s easy. Alex’s lyrics are like attempts to cross the Nile river on a raft. That’s how surreal they seem to me.

[Laughs] I think that’s the best comparison out there.

AT: [Laughs] Miles has a talent.

MK: No need to thank!

AT: And I still don’t know how to answer it. Miles handled it good, and I think that you [Miles] would describe me better than I could myself.

I’ll let go of descriptions, but I’ll ask you about the general sound of the album. Do you pay lots of attention to the technical side of making music? This album doesn’t seem modern, it’s more like…

AT: Something from the future?

I planned to say, like something from a few decades back, but your different perspective seems very interesting.

AT: [Laughs] We cut a deal then! But it’s a really fascinating situation! We were very excited that for the first record to make everything in an old-fashioned way. This time we weren’t so stubborn about making it so retro-like. We didn’t cut it off completely, but it just wasn’t as important. There are some old-fashion sounds on this record, but if you hear them on the radio, you’ll notice they sound modern. But I get your point! So remember that we still get excited over old amplifiers and such [laugh].

I know that you make new music all the time, so any plans for a new album?

AT: Oh yeah, absolutely! It’s like our… resolution. Resolution to make a new record. Now we are considering various options, we think a lot about the direction we should head to. I am working on a melodic scenario. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We won’t disappear that easily.