#it was actually mostly done for the past 2-3 months but there was a scene that wasn't quite finished and i re-wrote the bridge

[snezario]

Catch Me I'm Falling (Part 4); Vo/x

WOW. okay! honestly, i wasn't sure i was ever going to get around to finishing this installment and i did not proofread the latter half at all. at this point, i don't think i will be able to finish, mostly because of how burned out i am from work. that being said, i'm not entirely closed off to the idea of finishing because it really has been a labor of love and i do like what i had planned.

i don't know how coherent this is but it is what it is. also fair warning, this installment delves into the shippy stuff. i hope it's not too OOO but i rly wanted to subvert certain fandom/ship tropes abt them.

That evening, Alastor laid in bed staring at the ceiling. His mind was restless, he had been struggling to fall asleep for the better part of the past hour. He kept finding himself ruminating on his interaction with Vox from earlier that day–continuing to be perplexed by the whole ordeal, from his own actions to Vox’s fever-induced delirium.

When he finally drifted off, his last thought was of Vox. Most nights his sleep was a bit restless but typically dreamless. However, Vox stepping back into the picture seemed to have disrupted his subconscious. He shielded his eyes as a camera flash went off, finding himself in the midst of a vibrant and upscale social gathering.

Elegant chandeliers hung from the high ceiling, illuminating what appeared to be a spacious ballroom. From across the room he saw Vox, sporting his old unwieldy television monitor and donning a sleek navy suit. The television demon was conversing with someone, before he abruptly looked up and met Alastor’s gaze with an eager grin.

As Alastor tried to approach him, the bystanders twisted into shadows, not unlike those that he was capable of summoning. They whispered taunts and insults that became louder as they circled around him, blocking his way to Vox. Before long, darkness completely engulfed him.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed but the next thing he knew, he found himself in a dimly lit room, rain pelting the roof above him. Vox was standing in the doorway, again with his boxy monitor for a head. This time the expression on his face was starkly different from before. He was absolutely livid but there was an undercurrent of melancholy and desperation, tears welling at the corner of his eyes. As Alastor gazed at the other demon, a peculiar feeling started to bubble up within him. He couldn’t exactly place the feeling but one thing he was certain about - it was unsettling.

They continued to stare each other down, both of them frozen in place; although now he sensed the feeling evolving. He still had yet to figure out exactly what it was but it was definitely increasing in complexity and intensity. Before Alastor could say anything he jolted awake, his chest heaving up and down rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. There were beads of sweat along his hairline, which he quickly wiped away.

What was that? The nightmares seemed vaguely familiar, almost like long-forgotten, deeply buried memories. Preposterous! He shook his head as he dismissed the thought. Yes, he and Vox had a business partnership before but that’s all it ever was. Alastor didn’t regret how things turned out–the dissolution of their association was inevitable, they were always diametrically opposed. He certainly never felt a shred of anything beyond that. Never.

After taking a few measured breaths to get his heart rate under control, he glanced at the antique grandfather clock on the wall adjacent to him. It was already half past seven, a bit later than when he usually started the day.

It was probably best to check-in on Vox before he went on with his day. Alastor adjusted his tie in the mirror before slipping into the shadows.

“Ah you’re up!” Alastor remarked as he rematerialized in Vox’s room.

“Motherfucker–will you stop doing that?” Vox swore loudly, tripping backwards as Alastor fully re-formed, his shadow wearing the same sinister grin before appearing to laugh at having startled Vox. The television demon straightened out his hat with a huff, which had become askew, before fixing his intruder with a steely glare, who grinned back at him, nonplussed.

“What do you want now Alastor,” Vox glowered, folding his arms in front of his chest and trying to disregard the faint but annoying fluttering at the back of his head.

“I see you’re still ill-tempered as always.”

“And I see you’re sti–ihh! ihhHH!–” Vox’s retort was cut short as his breath caught. As much as he would have liked to push through the interruption, he knew his body would not give that kind of mercy. He at least had the good sense to cover as he forcefully pitched forward with the irritation that refused to be ignored.

“ihh’DZZSHHH! ehh… ehhHKTZZSHhiew!”

“Gesundheit. Emphasis on the ill,” Alastor added with a smirk, the contempt in his tone did not pass Vox by. Despite his frustratingly persistent grin, Alastor’s disgust was apparent– a painful reminder of the Overlord’s distaste towards himself, which seemed to have been increased ten-fold by his current health condition.

Vox sniffled damply as he straightened up, a faint blush to his screen’s usual blue hue. He grimaced–there was still a hint of irritation skittering along his circuitry.

“Can’t I just drop in on an old pal?”

“Ha yeah right,” Vox snorted, “I know you have some ulterior motive, so just gehh… gehhht–ehh’DSHHhuu! ISHHhieew!”

Vox groaned as he uncurled himself from the crook of his elbow. He saw that Alastor maintained his haughty demeanor. Well if he insisted on sticking around and refused to divulge anything further, Vox might as well try to get something from him.

“Snf! Fine, whatever. Are we ever going to talk about our deal?”

“I suppose so,” Alastor hummed, casually flicking off a loose thread from his suit, “As I promised before, I’ll help you get back into good graces with your former colleagues and you can go back to swindling sinners in no time–”

“Yes, I already know that. Skip to the end old timer,” Vox snapped, although the congestion reduced the biting quality of his interjection.

Alastor narrowed his eyes at the interruption but continued, the displeasure bleeding into his words, “Oho, how could I forget? Patience was never your strong suit. Anyways, once that’s all in order, all I ask from you is to borrow your power for a day.”

Wait what? Vox blinked rapidly, his brow furrowed as he slowly processed what Alastor said. He said so blasé as if he were merely commenting on the weather. It wasn’t uncommon for an Overlord to absorb another’s power after usurping them but borrowing it? That was unheard of. Could it even be done?

“Yes, it can,” Alastor said, reading his mind, the smug prick.

Vox scowled, placing his hands on his hips, “Okay well, if you know so much about this, please do enlighten me.”

Alastor shrugged, “There really isn’t much to tell, my dear. It’s quite simple really, it’s similar to owning another’s soul but without the immutable contract. And as soon as the day is over, your power will be reinstated. You’ll hardly notice it was gone in the first place!”

The crimson pinstriped demon continued to smile at him creepily, waiting for his response. Vox opened his mouth to inquire further, when he felt another distant but telltale tickle. Alastor’s ears flicked back when Vox inhaled sharply, his eyes watering as he tried to fight the urge. He brought a closed fist to the middle of his screen, an old habit.

“Again?”

Vox rolled his eyes, which was not an easy feat to do when his body was preoccupied with a decidedly urgent need. He brought a quivering fist to his screen as his breath caught in his throat. Why he attempted to speak was beyond him.

“Ihht’s not like I’m–hh! doing it…hhHH! ihhh? fuck–purpose.”

Stuck in an embarrassing and vulnerable position, Vox sniffled after another precarious hitch before dissolving into a frustrated bout of coughing when the sneeze failed to manifest. He scrubbed the back of his hand against his screen, knowing full well he would not be able to rid himself of the fuzzy tickle in his head, despite his best effort.

Alastor, who had previously looked expectant, was now regarding him with what was undoubtedly contempt, mixed with exasperation. He rolled his eyes when Vox stalls on the precipice of another sneeze.

“Must I do everything around here?” Alastor muttered before flicking out his hand towards Vox. 

“What are yo–”

Startled by the sudden movement, Vox flinched. The virus ravaging through his system made certain systems more susceptible, so Alastor when lightly dragged a claw along his sensitive vents the irritation swelled as it reached the threshold. His body provided no warning before he snapped forward with the release he had so desperately craved.

“ehHZTSHH’uhh! hh’KZZSHH! Oh fuhhck–ihh’ZZSHHhiew! ISHHuu!”

“Goodness, a trifle sensitive are we?” Alastor commented looking up briefly at the flickering light fixture on the ceiling before he narrowly sidestepped the bolt of electricity that shot out from Vox in his direction.

Vox lifted his head a fraction during a brief reprieve and barely managed to catch Alastor’s comment. He opened his mouth but wasn’t able to complete his snarky reply, as a hazy expression clouded his face and he jerked forward again.

“ihhh’DZZTSSH! ehhH…ehh’TSHHHhiew! snfsnf! hh’ZSHHh!”

While he didn’t see it, he heard the lightbulb from a nearby lamp burst. Vox cringed internally, hoping that losing control of his powers wasn’t affecting the rest of the hotel. He heard another snide exclamation from Alastor, but wasn’t able to comprehend any of it.

He collapsed in on himself as he attempted to fight the sensation and avoid a power outage to the hotel.

“NNGXXT! eh’GNXXTCHh!”

“Ah-ah, don’t do that. I’m afraid you might short circuit holding them in like that,” Alastor chided him.

As if to punish him for his act of defiance, Vox gasped before bending over with four rapid-fire sneezes, each one just as vicious as the previous one.

“ehHH’KZZTSH! ihhDTSHHHuhh! ISHHHhiew! hehKTSHHuu!”

After that disgusting and frankly embarrassing display, Vox felt like his body was finally content with the release. Jesus fucking Christ that was intense. Cracking open an eye, Vox was startled to see a handkerchief obscuring his vision. For once he was grateful for Alastor’s old-fashioned tendencies. Without looking at him, he accepted the extended cloth, immediately proceeding to bury his face in it.

“Would it have hurt you to give me just a little warning?” Vox muttered congestedly from behind the handkerchief, hoping that it also provided a visual barrier to his embarrassment.

“But that wouldn’t be fun at all would it?”

Vox’s mouth formed into an annoyed frown while a spark of electricity bounced between his antennae. Of course! What was his purpose if not to serve as Alastor’s entertainment? As Vox dabbed his vents, a thought crossed his mind. He side-eyed the radio demon, lowering the cloth.

"Why didn't you make it a soul deal?" The question slipped out of his mouth before he could think twice.

Alastor blinked, looking slightly taken aback at Vox’s question. He hummed thoughtfully, taking a second to think before answering.

"It is simply unnecessary for what I need from you."

“Sure… I bet mine was too powerful for you to handle,” Vox ribbed stuffily, elbowing him playfully.

Alastor rolled his eyes but surprisingly didn’t flinch away from the contact, “Nonsense. I see you’re also still as arrogant as ever.”

Vox narrowed his eyes, unconvinced but he let the matter drop. Truthfully, Alastor needed Vox's soul “free” so to speak. Having him locked into any contracts would make things complicated but he didn't need to know that.

“I must be off but why don’t we agree to meet this evening, half past six. Ta-ta for now and don’t be late,” Alastor’s demon form flashed as he warned Vox of being tardy before slipping into the shadows.

Vox pushed the door open and peeked his head in. No radio demon. Tapping his foot impatiently on the floor he contemplated his next plan of action. He could wander the halls and try to locate Alastor on his own but that sounded exhausting and he really wasn’t in any state to exert himself more than it had already been through the past few days. On the other hand if he got lost and kept Alastor waiting, he would most likely be chastised ‘Punctuality was never your strong suit and it would seem that is still the case.’ He bristled at the thought.

Perhaps it was better for him to just wait for Alastor here. Walking towards the center of the room he marveled at the eccentricity of it. The bayou section was kind of calming but still mildly disturbing.

Before Vox could explore further, he felt an all-too-familiar prickling at the back of his head that caused him to stop in his tracks. He sighed internally, he should have come to expect it now. As he uselessly scrubbed his wrist against his screen, an urgent gasp escaped his lips as the sensation grew.

“Fuhhck, not ag-hhehH! hehH’KZSHH! ihhDSHHiew! ehh?...ehh’Ẕ̴̡̱̮͙̱̞̇̈́̓̈̏͌̑̐̈́͠Ẑ̶̰̰͈T̷̨̙̮̱̰̗̪̫̮̍́͑̆̈́͑̈́͗̀̂̚͜Ĉ̴͙̣̆̾͌̾̿̚H̶̪̪͍̙͍̮̓́͌̔͘H̴̨̢͉̗͕͊̈́́͋͝͝huuu!

The last sneeze sent him stumbling backwards into one of the bookcases, knocking over several of Alastor’s knick knacks in the process. Fuckfuckfuck, he did not want Alastor thinking he was poking around his room.

When he finally regained his footing, Vox hastily began to put everything back in place before Alastor returned. As he started to adjust the placement of the last object he paused, feeling drawn to it. It was the picture frame that Alastor’s shadow wouldn’t let him get a good look at that night they made the deal. He removed it from the shelf and his eyes widened as examined the photograph nestled inside.

The sepia-tinted photo scrap, the ragged edge on one side, it was unmistakable. The only picture he ever managed to get Alastor to pose for.

No. Fucking. Way. Alastor actually kept it?

Gently tracing a claw along the glass separating the image from the outside world, Vox stared at his older self–the old unwieldy CRT tv screen for a head he had jarringly woken up in Hell with and the pale mustard turtleneck that he had been so fond of. He had kept the half with Alastor, who was as timeless as ever, looked almost exactly as he did in the present. It was buried at the bottom of one of his drawers and although he hadn’t looked at it in years, he never had the heart to get rid of it for good.

He gripped the frame tighter as the memory flooded his mind.

Vox beamed as he stepped into the spacious foyer where the annual Overlord gala was being held that evening. The marble floors glistened, crystal chandeliers above the guests twinkled, refracting the warm lighting throughout the space. It was everything he could ever have dreamed of. He glanced around, scanning for a familiar face amongst the sea of guests. He and Alastor agreed to meet at the gala rather than arrive together because according to Al, he

“Oh Vox, we are delighted to have you join us in the ranks of Overlords.”

Vox turned around at the sound of Carmilla Carmine’s voice. She approached him adorned in a chic black and white cocktail dress, Zestial at her side. His eyes widened, he shouldn’t have been so taken aback to see them but since becoming an Overlord he hadn’t hadn’t actually had much time to speak with any of the other Overlords let alone the legends themselves, Carmilla Carmine and Zestial.

“C-Car-Carmilla and Zestial,” Vox stammered as he fiddled with his bowtie, which seemed tighter than he remembered putting it on. He vigorously shook each of their hands, “A pleasure to meet you both in the flesh.”

“The pleasure is all ours. We just wanted to extend our hospitality and ensure that you are properly enjoying yourself,” Carmilla said with a rare grin.

“Your generosity is deeply appreciated. It really is an honor to be here, amongst you all. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my business partner, Alastor,” Vox responded enthusiastically and tried to fix them with his most charismatic smile but it felt unusually awkward and stilted.

“Where is your business partner? I heard you two were inseparable.”

Vox felt his screen heat up at Carmilla’s comment. He laughed self-consciously before whipping his head side-to-side as he tried to locate the famed radio demon.

“Ah well he should be here. We spoke about it yesterday. Alastor–”

“Oh dear, are my ears burning?”

At the sound of the familiar radio-filtered voice, Vox’s smile softened and the pit of anxiety in his stomach dissipated instantly. He turned in the direction that the voice came from to see Alastor right next to him. Jesus, he was going to give Vox a heart attack one day. Even though he looked exactly as he always did, Vox swore he seemed to exude a touch of radiance that he had never sensed from him before.

“Ah Vox, I see you’ve met Carmilla and Zestial. Now tell me, what gossip have I intruded upon?” Alastor asked brightly with his ever-present grin. Vox occasionally wondered if he ever got tired of smiling all the time.

“Alastor,” Carmilla nodded in acknowledgement, “We were just congratulating your friend on his new title.”

Vox had to bite back his surprise at Carmilla referring to him as Alastor’s friend. He was always quick to correct people when they made the assumption that they were nothing more than business partners. He studied Alastor’s face after she said it, but his expression remained neutral and to Vox’s astonishment he didn’t correct the weapons dealer.

“Right, well don’t let me get in the way of such scintillating conversation,” Alastor said breezily, as he made eye contact with Rosie. He dipped his head a fraction, turning back slightly towards Vox as he spoke, “Do join us when you’re finished, hm?”

Before Vox could ask him to stay, he was already halfway to the cannibal Overlord, leaving Vox feeling slightly awkward. He grinned sheepishly at Carmilla and Zestiall and shrugged.

The rest of the night was a whirlwind, Vox was constantly being congratulated or introduced to other influential demons. None of which he had any qualms about, but he was starting to feel just a little weary when he vaguely heard someone ask him about Alastor.

Actually, Vox hadn’t seen him since he’d first arrived and realized that he had been so wrapped up in the glitz and glamor of it all that he had forgotten to link back up with Alastor…  He scanned the ballroom until his eyes fell on a scarlet demon in a similarly colored, pinstriped suit. He nodded curtly and excused himself from the present conversation, not that he had been paying much attention for a while.

“And here I was telling Rosie, you’d blown us off,” Alastor hummed as Vox pushed his way through the crowd to the table where he and Rosie were occupying. The radio demon looked understandably perturbed, but Rosie flashed him a sympathetic smile. Vox felt a flush creep up his screen.

“Sorry, I got a little distracted with everything–”

“Excuses, excuses…” Alastor chastised him mildly. Snapping his staff back into existence as he stood, he nodded at Rosie, “A pleasure as always, my dear, but it’s about time we head out for the evening.”

Vox trailed behind him, feeling guilty for forgetting about Alastor during the gala. He held Alastor in such high regard that the palpable disappointment weighed on him more than he’d like to admit. As they made their way across the floor, Vox heard his name being called and he turned around to see a photographer looking at him eagerly.

“Mr. Vox! Would you and Alastor mind posing for a picture for the–”

“I’m afraid not,” Alastor replied snippily, continuing to head to the exit, “We were just on our way out, if you’ll excu–”

“Come on Al, just one picture! It’s the least you could do,” Vox whined playfully as he dragged Alastor back, an action which earned him a look of displeasure and an irritated radio wave pulse through their shared connection. But Alastor compiled, rolling his eyes as the photographer lined up the shot.

Vox beamed as the flash went off, basking in the exhilarating energy of the social gathering. If he could relive any moment in the afterlife over and over again, it would be this one.

“There. Satisfied?” Alastor said tersely, fiddling with his cufflinks–a behavior that he did when he was anxious or distracted. It didn’t happen often and Alastor was too prideful to ever admit it, but Vox knew otherwise. He downed the rest of his champagne and thanked the photographer before turning his attention back to his business partner.

“Oh come on, Al. It wasn’t that bad,” Vox responded exasperatedly, before linking his arm with Alastor’s. His pulse quickened as he turned his head to ask Alastor something that had been on his mind for a while–

“And here I thought you got it all out of your system.”

Shit!

Vox fumbled with the photo, he had been so absorbed in nostalgia that he didn’t hear Alastor approach. So much for avoiding detection. “Al! I-I was looking for you–”

“Yes, I am aware. Apologies for my tardiness but unfortunately, we will have to cancel today’s plans. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to,” Alastor cut him off and stepped into his room.

As Alastor stepped into a more illuminated position, he could now see that Alastor’s smile was overly taut and he stood with an unusual stiffness. Again, he wouldn’t say he was a radio demon whisperer, but being in his presence again seemed to have re-awakened a few of the subtleties he used to be able to clock with ease.

“Is… is something wrong?”

“Aha! No! Whatever gave you that ridiculous idea?”

Vox’s mouth flattened into a thin line. He thought they had moved past all this. It wasn’t perfect by any means but their relationship hadn’t been as antagonistic as it was a few days ago. Vox sighed as Alastor continued to grin patronizingly at him. He was a fool to think that his former business partner was remotely capable of even thinking about dropping the mask or showing an ounce of humanity. In fact, Vox doubted Alastor had any in his human life.

“No wonder you ran away after the fight with Adam, you were always too pussy to face anything head on,” Vox muttered bitterly under his breath.

When Alastor’s eyes flashed dangerously Vox realized he struck a nerve. In a split second, the radio demon was up in his space, towering over him in his partial demon form with several shadowy tentacles raised behind him.

“I will not tolerate your continued impudence and attempts to undermine me!”

Despite every warning bell going off in his head, Vox stood his ground. 

“I wouldn’t need to if you just let down your guard for once,” he countered, puffing out his chest defiantly. Boy he wasn’t just walking a fine line, he was throwing all caution to the wind and stomping on it like it was nothing. Furthermore, he stepped towards Alastor with such brash confidence he almost thought someone else was controlling him.

Vox saw Alastor’s lips moving but the increased radio distortion made it difficult to hear, let alone to understand what Alastor was saying. A tentacle forcefully shoved Vox against the wall, while the radio demon stared at him menacingly.

Although Vox hadn’t understood a word Alastor had said in the past thirty seconds, his intentions were clear.

Vox closed his eyes and braced himself for the inevitable shadow tentacle to smack him to the floor or asphyxiate him. Except it never came. After a few tense heartbeats he decided to hazard a peek. To his surprise, he opened his eyes to find Alastor pressed up against him. No, not just that  his mouth was on Vox’s mouth. After a moment’s hesitation, he leaned into the kiss, his eyes closing once again.

[juyeonszn]

SACRIFICE (EAT ME UP)

PAIRING lee hyunjae x f!reader

WORD COUNT 9.17k

GENRES horror ﹒ smut ﹒ angst ﹒ fluff ig?

WARNINGS 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, mature language, mentions of murder, descriptions of crime scenes, mentions of blood, mentions of knifes, graphic description of stab wounds, mentions of potential mental illness, THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS THAT CONSTITUTE WARNINGS BUT ?!1?1 I DONT WANT TO SPOIL !1!2!2, Lots of Kissing, mutual masturbation (f! receiving fingering & m! receiving hand job), pillow talk ig, big dick hyunjae 😈, um unprotected sex lol be safe u silly geese, car sex, cowgirl position yeehaw, creampie, this entire fic is just a whole fucking roller coaster i stg it’s gonna haunt me forever

SUMMARY with a serial killer running rampant on campus, everyone around you seems to be dropping like flies. but, hey, at least you have hyunjae to protect you.

MORE omg.. my first written work for tbz 🙀 extra super fun fact; this was originally an idea i had for hyunjin from skz on my other blog that i actually started writing the week before halloween last year (the reason it’s a horror fic), but i never finished and sort of felt like there was no point in continuing it after a while— that is until i stumbled upon the draft a few weeks ago and decided to revamp, edit, and complete it 😋 i kept going back and rereading and then blanking when i wanted to add to it until last night when i said fuck it and drank two cups of coffee to power through the end 🙌 anyways.. here u all go, my baby that i never thought would see the light of day and my first time writing a genuine horror piece <3 also special shoutout to rina my soulmate @tsukidou for beta reading 🫶

PLAYLIST sacrifice (eat me up) — enhypen, awake — the boyz, roar — the boyz, fever — enhypen, fate — enhypen, taste — stray kids, wake up — ateez, white noise — pvris, heaven — pvris

“Alright, that’s all for today’s lecture. If this was your last of the day, make sure to find someone to go home with and remember the curfew rules!” Your English professor says, concluding the class.

The students around you rush to pack up their things and get off of campus as soon as possible. You don’t seem to be in a hurry, though, taking your time to put away your notebook and laptop. Your roommates were still in their music production class, so you didn’t want to go home alone, deciding to wait until they were done.

“Y/N, don’t you wanna get home?” Professor Park asks, her voice echoing in the now empty lecture hall. She throws the strap of her bag over her shoulder and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“I do, but I have to wait for my roommates. They’re in a class right now and I’d rather not go by myself.” You let out an awkward laugh. She nods at your reasoning, giving you a small smile for comfort.

“Okay, you be careful! I’ll see you on Thursday.”

You raise your hand in a silent salutation, watching as she exits the room, leaving you completely alone. Though a public space, in a public building, the fact that there’s no one else nearby leaves you utterly unsettled. Your stomach churns with a twinge of fear and you start to feel a bit claustrophobic despite being in such a spacious area, so you choose this point to hurriedly collect your belongings and get the hell out of there.

The past couple of months have been in this weird state of limbo. You don’t recall exactly when the killings started, but once the police noticed a pattern, everyone knew sooner or later that the presence of a serial murderer would be announced on the local news. Your town enforced a citywide curfew to protect its citizens, but mostly the students at your university.

Every single one of the killer’s victims were university students. You were friends with a bunch of guys and while it was nice having big strong men surrounding you, you knew that could hardly do anything to quell the lingering anxiety you’ve felt ever since the spree began.

The police seemed to be having trouble coming up with any possible suspects, or even gaining any leads, thanks to the killer’s unusual victimology and the cool down time between murders always varying. If the people in charge of protecting you couldn’t do that, how were you supposed to feel safe?

In an attempt to get to the building where Jacob, Kevin, and Eric were as fast as you could, you speed walk out of the lecture hall, accidentally bumping into someone. You bow at a nearly ninety-degree angle and hurl out apology after apology following the collision, not trying to make any enemies in this day and time.

“Watch where you’re going, idiot.” The stranger spits, waiting for you to glance up at him to give you a nasty glare. He looks like the kind of guy who thought he was all that, despite peaking in high school. You feel your bottom lip quiver and you avoid eye contact.

“I—”

“Woah, dude, chill the fuck out. It was an accident, I’m sure she didn’t— wait, N/N, is that you? Hey it’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

There’s a familiar voice in your ears and a hand under your chin, forcing you to stand upright. Whoever you bumped into walks away with a scoff. You meet eyes with Lee Hyunjae, one of your dearest friends. He recognizes that hint of panic in your features and he frowns.

“I’m so sorry, Jae, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going—” Your breath is caught in your throat and you fumble over your words.

“Hey, hey, slow down,” he keeps a hold on your biceps. “It’s alright, I promise. He’s gone. What’s wrong?”

You shut your eyes tightly, feeling pathetic for causing such a scene for no apparent reason. Hyunjae guides you through your breathing, his focus trained on you the whole time. He always made you feel so comfortable.

“With everything that’s been going on, I’m just so paranoid and afraid of being alone. I wanted to go to the music department building and wait for the boys.” You finally explain once you’ve calmed down and the rise of your chest is even.

“How about this? I’ll take you home so you don’t have to stay on campus any longer.” He suggests, bringing up a hand to tuck some hair behind your ear. You nod slowly, gathering your bearings.

Hyunjae leads you to his car that’s parked in the lot closest to the building you were just in and the two of you make your way to your apartment. You’d been friends with your roommates for years now, meeting in eighth grade. You had just moved schools and happened to be put into a class with Eric Sohn, the most rambunctious boy you’d ever met. He thought you seemed really sweet upon first impression and decided to befriend you, introducing you to all of his friends in turn.

Aside from Eric, there was Sangyeon, Jacob, Younghoon, Hyunjae, Juyeon, Kevin, Changmin, Chanhee, Haknyeon, and Sunwoo. While it was a little overwhelming, it was nice going from zero friends to eleven in the span of just a couple days. You were pretty close to all of them, but you and Hyunjae initially hit it off the best. You understood each other on a different level than everyone else and to this day, you still don't know the exact reason why.

Towards the end of high school, your friendship with Hyunjae transformed into something that wasn’t purely platonic. You weren’t entirely sure when it started to change, but your feelings for him grew exponentially. You tried to keep them to yourself, hidden from the world to preserve your fragile teenage heart. Though you’d already been friends with them a few years at that point, you still had that inkling of dread in the pit of your stomach that one day they’d choose to stop talking to you. You especially didn’t want a silly crush to be the cause of that.

After a while, however, the lines began to blur together anyway and everyone could tell you felt for him romantically. Once, Eric had made a comment about it being so painfully obvious that Hyunjae was just as into you and it nearly shook your whole world.

When college time rolled around, you all knew you’d be attending the same university, so picking roommates was a bit of a tricky situation. You chose yours solely based on the fact that you were majoring in similar things, so it’d be easy to fit schedules together. (You also couldn’t handle being roommates with Hyunjae; it’d be too much for your heart.) Hyunjae lived with Juyeon, Changmin, and Sunwoo, while Sangyeon, Younghoon, Chanhee, and Haknyeon lived together.

Hyunjae parks in a spot near the stairs that lead to your unit. The car is still running when you unbuckle your seatbelt and you stare at the steps blankly. Though the close proximity with him has your pulse racing, you want nothing more than some company until your roommates get home. You turn to him shyly, balling up a fistful of your sweater.

“Jae, do you— do you think you could stay with me for a bit before the boys come back? I don’t— I really don’t wanna be alone right now.”

The look he gives you is full of adoration, like you personally put the stars in the sky. He smiles softly and nods, reaching across the center console to place a comforting hand on top of yours. The two of you keep them intertwined as you go inside your apartment, locking all the locks carefully before sitting on your couch.

You don’t make a comment about him not letting go despite already being in the safety of your home. You don’t say anything about him pulling you into his side either, mostly because you want him to.

With all that’s been happening recently, you’ve felt so hollow. There was this indescribable emptiness expanding in you and even though you so desperately wanted to chalk it up to something else, you knew it was due to the fact that there was growing anxiety that you could be next, that any of your friends could be next. You were starting to move like you were in a simulation, doing everything in your daily routine without a single emotion. Sure, you’d laugh when Eric made a stupid joke but that’s about the most anyone could get from you aside from the occasional panic attack.

Hyunjae being here and holding you is exactly what you needed to feel some semblance of warmth again.

There’s a soft knock on your bedroom door around eight that same night, waking you from your slumber. You don’t remember falling asleep or being moved to your bed, so you’re not too sure when Hyunjae left. You rub the sleep from your eyes as you get up to open your door.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to wake you, but we got some takeout if you’re hungry.” Jacob says with an apologetic smile, leaning on the door frame.

You give him a bleary look as you nod, following him into the dining room where your other two roommates were sitting at the table. Eric greets you through a full mouth. A small laugh escapes you when you sit across from him, Kevin adjacent to your seat. The sound of the TV in the living room plays as background noise as the four of you eat.

“So when’d you get home? I thought you were gonna wait for us.” Kevin asks.

“I was, but then I ran into Hyunjae when I was on my way to your building and he offered to bring me home,” you shrug, taking some tteokbokki with your chopsticks. “It was a whole thing, please don’t ask.”

Eric hums to himself, a mischievous grin on his face as he takes a sip of his cola. “Interesting. And you say he’s not into you…”

Heat blooms over your cheeks and you accidentally drop your chopsticks on your plate, their clacking against the ceramic garnering your roommates’ attention. Eric Sohn was now number one on your hit list. Kevin elbows him in the side and tells him to be quiet, despite the tiny upwards curve of his lips.

“If he cares about you as much as he seems like he does, he wouldn’t have left you here alone after you fell asleep,” Jacob mutters, looking at you from his peripherals. “What was the point of escorting you home if—”

“Jacob shut the fuck up,” Eric suddenly blurts, the three of you stare at him as he clambers over to the living room, turning up the volume on the TV. “Look!”

You turn in your chair, your stomach churning at the news report unfolding before you.

“We’re live just outside SNU, where another victim has been found. The body hasn’t been identified yet, but from what we do know, he was a student that attended the school,” the female reporter says into the microphone she’s holding, a glazed over expression in her eyes. “Crime Scene Investigators believe he was murdered at around six this evening, and was assumed to have been making his way home from campus. Updates are expected to come later tonight once we have more information.”

You know that far away, checked out gaze she had all too well. She’s reported on the killings for a while now, no doubt numb to the way things were at this point.

Your appetite spoils immediately and you excuse yourself from the table, making your way back to your room. You sit on your bed and bring your knees to your chest, taking a deep breath in, then covering your mouth when you breathe out to muffle the sob that follows. It was becoming too overwhelming for you and there was nothing you could do about it besides sit back and watch.

It was understandable for anyone in your situation to feel hopeless, how could they not? With someone terrorizing the city in an unpredictable manner, there was no sense of normalcy in anyone’s life. You shudder when you finally bring yourself to stop crying, digging your nails into the fat of your calves.

Through the walls, you can hear the boys talking, voices solemn.

“Why’d you have to put the TV louder, dumbass?”

“Sorry, I just like being up to date on the case, you know? I want to be prepared. What if I need to learn clone jutsu to take out the guy?”

“Eric, you’re such a clown, oh my god.”

“I get that you’re interested and all, but you have to be mindful of Y/N. You know how much this has affected her both emotionally and physically, she doesn’t need the constant reminder that it’s happening. And I’d appreciate if you apologized for telling me to ‘shut the fuck up’.”

There’s a snort in between.

“My bad, I didn’t mean to be rude about it. But while we’re on the topic, I think we both need to admit our mistakes. What you said about Hyunjae to her wasn’t cool either. I know we’re all friends, but it just came across too—”

“It was really snappy, Jacob. And a bit petty.”

“Yeah! What Kevin said.”

“I— you’re right. I just don’t want her getting hurt, in more ways than one.”

You don’t hear much else from the trio and sigh heavily, dragging your hands down your face and wiping your eyes with the heels of your palms. You grab your phone from your nightstand and hesitantly search for Hyunjae’s contact, the line ringing a couple times before he answers.

“Y/N? Is everything okay? Did something happen?”

“N-no, I’m fine. I was just— I wanted to check on you and make sure you were okay,” you mess with your bottom lip. “I heard there was another victim and I didn’t know when you left the apartment, so I just— uh— I just needed to know that you were safe. I called to see if you’d answer.”

You squeeze your eyes shut out of embarrassment, even if he can’t exactly see you. The stuttering was enough to make you go into hiding for the rest of your life if this serial killer didn’t.

“Oh,” you can hear the slight chuckle in his response from the way his breath hits the speaker. “It means a lot that you’d do that, N/N. Really, I appreciate you so much.”

Your lip finds itself between your teeth and your heart is pounding unbearably fast, you think you might be having a heart attack. You bring a hand up to clutch at your chest as a fuzzy feeling courses through your whole being.

Now you were scared for an entirely different reason.

(The main one occupies your mind again later that night when you scroll through your Twitter feed, only to find out the most recent victim was the guy you accidentally bumped into. You feel like some sick version of a guardian angel was looking after you. It makes it hard to fall asleep after that.)

A couple days passed and you found yourself thinking about Lee Hyunjae more than usual.

Not to say that you didn’t already think about him at least once a day, but now it was worse. When you woke up, you wondered if he was still asleep. While you drank your morning coffee, you wondered if it’d taste sweeter had he made it for you. When you had lunch, you wondered if he’d like the spam musubi you made yourself. When you attended your other classes, you wondered which courses he was struggling with this semester.

As you were walking out of your English class, you recalled running into him. Had he not been there, you might’ve driven yourself insane trying to rush over to the music building while diffusing the issue with that stranger.

When you first began to harbor feelings for him, you assumed it would become nothing more than a silly schoolgirl crush. He was attractive and kind to you, but that was just the bare minimum— you thought you’d grow out of it. However, as time went on, what you thought was just puppy love had blossomed into something stronger. It was a force to be reckoned with.

Of course, all of that had been tossed on the back burner with everything that’s going on. Recently you’ve been too afraid for your own safety and well-being to over analyze your interactions with Hyunjae, but now you’re back to square one.

All because he’d done something nice for you.

God, the bar was so low. Was it really too much to ask for someone who was decent? Someone who wasn’t a serial killer?

You were on your way to the music building to wait for Jacob, Kevin, and Eric once again, when you see Hyunjae coming down the hall. He’s on his phone, not paying any mind to his surroundings. You’re about to call out to him when someone stops you, tugging on the sleeve of your sweater gently.

“Hey, Y/N right?” The tall boy asks, a charming smile on his face.

“Uh— yeah,” you nod, tucking some hair behind your ear. “Y-you are?”

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry! I must seem like a total weirdo,” he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “I’m Mingyu! We have English together.”

“Oh, you’re Mingyu? Professor Park told me about you before class today,” you give him a small comforting smile. “I don’t mind helping you!”

“Ah, that’s great to hear. I was a bit worried you’d be more annoyed about having to tutor someone so late in the semester.” Though he’s much taller than you and approached you first, Mingyu comes across as a little shy in nature. It puts you at ease in a way.

“No, not at all! English isn’t always the easiest, I get that. I wanna help as much as I can before finals. Look,” you pause, pulling your backpack off one shoulder to rip out a sheet of paper. “I’ll give you my number so we can arrange meet up dates! I’d prefer if we met at the library if that’s okay with you?”

Mingyu grins and sports a thumbs up in agreement. “That sounds perfect. Thank you so much, Y/N!”

You scribble your phone number onto the paper and hand it to him before parting ways. With the off guard conversation, you nearly forgot about Hyunjae, who was nowhere to be seen now. You feel your lips droop into a frown, since you were hoping you could talk with him for a second.

As you’re walking across the quad to the music building, a wind chill blows past you, making you wrap your arms around yourself. It was mid November and for some stupid reason, you were only wearing a small cardigan.

When you squint up at the sky, you also realize it’s more overcast than anything. There’s an angry grey cloud right above you and you curse yourself for not having an umbrella or a raincoat. You should've been more prepared, especially because of the inconsistent weather this time of year.

Suddenly, the sky is blocked from your view and you furrow your brows, spinning around. Hyunjae stares back at you with a smile ten times warmer than the frigid air surrounding you and a thicker jacket in one hand. The other holds up an umbrella just as tiny droplets begin to fall from above.

His timing couldn’t have been better.

“Heading to the music building?” He asks, skillfully placing the coat on your shoulders.

“Mhm… was gonna wait for the boys.” You respond, a little awestruck by how gorgeous he was. Especially up close. Your eyes fixate on the freckle on his nose rather than his own. He hums, keeping an arm around your shoulders as he leads you in a different direction.

“I can take you home again,” he glances down at you. “I don’t mind one bit.”

“O-okay!”

During the car ride to your apartment, you send a quick text to your roommates about not waiting up. You were happy that your relationship with Hyunjae was evolving. The past couple semesters had been rough, and you hadn’t seen him or any of the other guys nearly as much as Jacob, Kevin, and Eric. (And that was only because you lived with them.)

You toss your keys on to the mini table beside the front door, taking off your shoes with a small groan. The boots were cute, but not very comfortable. Hyunjae follows suit, his sock clad feet shuffling against the floor to sit on the couch.

After switching on the TV, you find a random Hallmark Christmas movie to play in the background, knowing full well that his presence beside you was too distracting. The brunette turns to face you, placing a hand on your thigh gently to get your attention.

“So, who was the dude you were talking to earlier?”

You blink at his question. So he saw you after all. Was he perhaps jealous? The idea shouldn’t make you giddy, but it does. “My professor asked me to tutor him ‘cause he’s struggling with English. Why?”

“Just curious. He seemed a little touchy.” Hyunjae plays with the hem of your sweater.

“O-oh. It’s fine, he wasn’t a random perv, if that’s what you were wondering.”

He scoots a little closer to you, tucking some hair behind your ear. You feel your face flush impossibly hotter. Your heart is racing and your breath is caught in your throat. His body heat radiates off of him with the new proximity.

“Good. It drives me crazy seeing other guys put their hands on you.” He admits bluntly, his hand resting at the junction where your neck meets your shoulder.

You know you look insane, your chest heaving up and down and your eyes widened a little. Like a baby deer caught by a predator. Who knew sweet sweet Hyunjae had a rather risqué side to him? You swallow thickly, not daring to move an inch. His thumb caresses your skin gently, goosebumps littering in its wake.

“Hyunjae…” You breathe, lips parting as you finally make eye contact with him.

“You’re so pretty, Y/N.”

You want to scream into the cushion behind you, your hands clamming up. Hyunjae looks like he could swallow you whole if he wanted to, his bottom lip between his teeth as he leans in a bit more. This moment was something straight out of one of your darkest fantasies. You never thought this would ever happen, that either of you would ever actually make a move on the other.

The sound of the front door unlocking catches both of your attention. Hyunjae pulls away from you faster than your brain can comprehend what exactly just occurred. Jacob is the first to walk in, laughing at something Eric said. The three males pause when they see you’re not alone.

The greetings are quick, Hyunjae dapping up the boys as if nothing. He’s also quick to say goodbye, ensuring them that he’ll make sure you’re safe when they’re not around. He gives you that smile of his, the one where his eyes form crescents, and then he’s gone.

You don’t know how much more of this you could take.

“So, Y/N…” Eric starts in the middle of dinner, side eyeing you as he shovels rice into his mouth. “You and Hyunjae have been together an awful lot lately.”

Kevin snorts, kicking the blonde under the table. You suppose it was going to come up eventually. This ‘Will They, Won’t They’ back and forth shit was starting to tire you out. You weren’t getting any younger. Time was passing you up the longer you waited to just say something. And with all that’s been going on, it was silly to be afraid of admitting your feelings.

“He’s being a good friend, Eric,” Jacob sighs, reaching across to flick him on the forehead. “It’s actually really nice that he watches over Y/N when we’re gone.”

Eric grimaces, rubbing the spot that Jacob assaulted. You frown a bit when you realize that he had a point. Hyunjae was treating you like a child that had to be tended to, babysitting you like you weren’t capable of holding your own. Granted, both times he’s come over, you asked him to. So you couldn’t really blame him for assuming you wanted him around to protect you.

“Do y’all think Hyunjae actually likes me? In a non-platonic way?”

Kevin’s spoon clatters onto the floor and they all pause their banter to look at you. Every time your feelings for Hyunjae were brought up, you chose to ignore them and switch the subject. You can’t keep running away.

“Uh— yeah. Duh. Of course he does. I don’t know anyone else who would go out of their way to stay with someone they saw as just a friend multiple times a week so she felt safe.” Kevin finally answers after a moment.

“Okay.” You settle on, taking a sip of your water.

“What do you mean ‘okay’?” He raises an eyebrow at you, but you just shrug.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

As you’re washing the dishes after dinner, you hear the news broadcast over the faucet. Another victim had just been found behind the campus library. The camera shows the scene behind the reporter, something that would’ve made you queasy a couple days ago, but now you feel nothing— just a dull ache in your chest. It’s messy, almost like the killer was in a hurry to get it over with.

The body is covered with a black tarp, paramedics wheeling it away in the corner of the screen. The reporter still wears that dissociated expression on her face as she goes over the details of this victim. She explains that because the murder was done so haphazardly, they were able to identify the body easily.

Twenty three year old Kim Mingyu, Sports Med Major.

The rest of the news report sounds like static in your ears as you scrub away at the dishes mindlessly. Your fingers have pruned and the water was burning the backs of your hands, but you don’t feel it, too checked out to care. It seemed like the killings were getting closer and closer to you. Part of you thought you’d be next every single time.

You had to tell Hyunjae how you felt. It was now or never.

Fifteen minutes later, he’s waiting outside of your apartment complex, leaning against his car. You take careful steps down the stairs, nearly fainting at the sight of him in a hoodie and grey sweatpants. He runs around the car to open the passenger door for you, only shutting it when you’re all buckled up. It’s not long after that he revs the engine and drives off to nowhere in particular, just like you requested. (Curfew ignored.)

It’s silent at first, save for the low hum of his music, R&B that resonates somewhere within your soul. You can’t help but steal a glance from your peripheral, fisting your sweatshirt when you see how concentrated he looks while driving. He has his right hand resting on the gear shift, the other gripping the wheel. You could’ve had this view all to yourself so long ago had you just spoken up.

“Hyunjae,” your voice is wobbly, but you steel yourself to continue. “I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?” He asks, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Do you think— uh— do you think you could pull over?” If you were going to confess, you wanted him to look at you. Besides, the drive was starting to make you jittery.

He nods and goes a bit further, before pulling into an empty lot. He shifts into park, unbuckling his seatbelt so he could turn his body towards you, giving you his undivided attention. You mirror him, tightening your hold on your sweater when he wets his lips, smiling at you. “Is this what you called me for?”

“Yeah, actually,” you force yourself to keep eye contact, pushing the lump back down your throat. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for years now, if I’m being honest with both of us.”

He chuckles, much like he did the other night over the phone. It drives you just a little crazy. “I’m listening.”

“I— I don’t know how to word this properly…” You wipe your palms on your legs. Come on, Y/N, spit it out already. “Fuck, okay, I like you Hyunjae. Like, really like you. In the way that I sometimes wish you would kiss me until I can’t breathe. I’ve been so afraid of admitting that to myself, but I’ve realized that life is way too short to dwell over the fear of rejection. But please, tell me you feel the same.”

He stares at you with an indecipherable look in his eyes. You feel like throwing up now, you stomach twisting and churning at the thought that you just ruined everything between you. There was no going back after this. He knew.

It’s as if months have passed by in utter silence with Hyunjae just sitting there, no words coming out of his mouth, until finally, he just leans across the center console, cupping your cheek with one of his hands. His vision is trained on your lips, his face close enough that his lashes flutter against your skin. God, he was even more gorgeous from this distance.

Instead of saying anything, he presses his lips to yours, a sweet but desperate kiss that melts away all the worries tucked into your head. They feel so soft on your own, molding together in near perfect timing. It’s like you’d been living for a year without rain and this kiss was the shower that saved you from a drought. It’s all you’ve ever wanted and needed and more.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that,” he breathes when he pulls away slightly. “The real thing is so much better than I imagined it would be.”

For once, time slows down in this moment, almost like the world stopped spinning on its axis. Everything slips from your mind and it’s just you and Hyunjae, here in his car in the middle of an empty parking lot. Nothing else matters. You smile at his confession, a genuine smile that was spurred on by contentment rather than force. You felt light and airy, no longer weighed down by such a trivial problem.

“I think I have an idea,” you giggle, reaching up to brush a stray hair from his face. “I’m not too sure, though, I could be wrong. Could you do that again to help jog my memory?”

Hyunjae laughs, (it’s the most melodic sound you’ve ever heard) but doesn’t hesitate to kiss you. You reciprocate his passion, tangling your fingers in his dark hair. He sighs into the kiss, pulling you on top of him. Your legs straddle his lap as best as they can and he reaches down to recline his seat, scooting it as far as it can go from the wheel. The thin material of your fleece shorts hardly hide the feeling of him under you, a low moan pushing into his mouth.

He nips at your bottom lip, tugging at it with his teeth gently before peppering kisses along your jaw and neck, sucking along the exposed skin from your sweatshirt. You whine, throwing your head back as his tongue soothes over the bruising area. His hands slide under your top, rubbing up and down your sides before moving them down to your thighs, repeating the action.

“You’re so gorgeous on top of me like this, Y/N.” Hyunjae says, just above a whisper like someone else might hear this intimate conversation. He grips your hips and bucks upwards to grind into your clothed core. Your eyes widen and you involuntarily moan at the sensation. This wasn’t what you were expecting when you planned to confess, but you didn’t hate the outcome. He grins at your response, reconnecting your mouths sloppily.

If you were given the choice, you were wholeheartedly satisfied with just this. You would’ve been plenty okay with just making out. Had you been asked years ago that you’d even get this far, you would’ve snorted in your own face, so why should you be greedy and want more than what you had? (That’s not to say that you didn’t.)

“H-Hyunjae,” you stutter, your brain foggy from all of the kissing you just did. “Do you…?”

You trail off, not sure how to word your question. You didn’t want to come off like a sex crazed maniac, but you didn’t want to come off like an amateur virgin either. Truth of the matter is, you were neither, but it had been a while since you indulged yourself in something of this sort. And this time it would be with Hyunjae, the one person you never thought you’d do this with. You were nervous.

All you wanted was to be entwined with him in more ways than one. You wanted all of him— the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the sick, the healthy. He could do no wrong on your eyes and you wanted to show him that.

“Do I…?” Hyunjae trails off, waiting for you to continue.

“Do you want to make love… with me?” This had to be the single most mortifying moment of your life. You cover your face in humiliation, shying away from him when he sits up on his elbows.

“What kind of question is that?” He asks with a chuckle, prying your hands from your face so he could look you in the eyes. “If I could make love to you every hour of the day, for seven days a week, I would. I want you all the time, Y/N. Earlier today, before we got interrupted, I wanted to do unimaginable things to you.”

You hide yourself in the crook of his neck, your skin flushing hotter. Weren't you wearing too many layers? The car was starting to feel stuffy. Hyunjae’s chest rumbles with laughter beneath you, pressing his lips to the shell of your ear. This is probably the gentlest he’d be with you all night, because from what you could infer, he was a manhandler.

“Take care of me,” you breathe, mouth brushing against his pulse point. “Please.”

Hyunjae stops holding himself back. He’d do whatever you asked of him, only hoping you’d be tied to him in every lifetime, just like this one. He kisses you again with an unrivaled fervor, slipping his hands inside your sweatshirt and touching you everywhere physically possible. They’re warm on your skin, palming your breasts over the flimsy fabric of your bralette.

He helps you get rid of your top and shorts, leaving you in just undergarments. The sight of you barely clothed sends him into a frenzy, especially knowing it’s for his eyes only. You aid Hyunjae in pulling off his hoodie and yanking his sweatpants down his long legs. The minute most of your restrictions are gone, Hyunjae brings you closer to him. He hisses at the contact, the warmth of your cunt through your panties putting him under a spell.

You whimper when his touch travels down your front, sneaking into the waistband of your underwear. The pads of his middle and ring fingers apply the lightest amount of pressure onto your clit the second he finds it, circling the sensitive bundle of nerves. Your nails on one hand dig into his shoulder while the other trails down his abdomen, rubbing up and down his length through his boxer briefs.

Hyunjae groans into your kiss and you gasp for air as you tear from him, resting your forehead on his to watch as you get each other off through your clothes. If earlier was something taken from one of your wet dreams, what did this constitute as? You clench around nothing when he pushes up into you, your wrists clashing. Knowing he was just as down bad for you as you were for him just made this all that much more real.

“I need to feel you around me,” he mumbles in your ear, dipping his fingers in and out of you languidly as if to explain what he meant. “Let me stretch you out.”

You nod in response, fumbling with his briefs. Hyunjae lifts his hips enough for you to help him out of them. You groan when he reveals his impressive size, wondering how exactly he expected you to take him. He pushes your panties to the side, mimicking the sound you just made when he sees your bare pussy drooling for him. You eventually get frustrated and line him up with your hole, sinking down in one fluid motion. A voluminous moan escapes from the back of your throat, his dick throbbing achingly inside of you. At first you stay still like that, your pelvises touching as you adjust to his length and girth.

“H-holy shit— you’re s-so deep, Jae,” you cry, resting your forehead against his yet again. He pecks your lips, holding onto your hips to help you bounce on his cock, practically impaling you every single time.

“Fuck, you’re taking me so well. Such a good fucking girl,” Hyunjae grunts, the warmth of your walls drawing him in even further. “So tight, too.”

Your thighs begin to burn and your movements become slower, which he takes note of instantaneously. He bends his knees and forces your upper half impossibly closer to him, thrusting up into you. This new angle allows him to find that one spongy spot that has you seeing stars, fogging up your brain and even your vision.

You cast a downward glance at the minimal space between where the two of you are connected. Your moans and whines grow louder with the view of every thrust of his hips into yours. Hyunjae sneaks his hand in the middle of you, his fingers expertly toying with your clit. Any more stimulation and the band in your stomach is snapping.

You’ve had sex before. You’ve slept with a handful of other guys in the past, but nothing could ever compare to this moment. Your cunt had already memorized his size and every vein, effectively ruining the chances of any other man doing this with you. Lee Hyunjae had you in a chokehold whether he realized it or not. He had you wrapped around his finger without really trying, but you could never complain.

Your walls squeeze his cock and he knows he won’t last much longer, shutting his eyes tightly. “C’mon baby, you gonna cum for me?”

“Mhm,” you whimper, your skin flush on his own. “Wanna cum so bad for you, Hyunjae.”

“Yeah? Me too, sweetheart,” he pants, the thumb on your hip pressing against the bone. “Where do you want me?”

“Inside,” you babble. “Please, please. I want you to cum inside me, Hyunjae.”

He kisses you softly just then, swallowing your pretty moans with something completely opposite of what he’s already given you, and that’s what sends you spiraling, fluttering around him. He groans, spilling into you and letting you milk him dry of everything he has to offer, painting your insides just like you asked him to.

You lay like that for a while, Hyunjae’s dick still buried in you to the hilt. Both of you attempt to catch your breaths and bring yourselves down from the well-anticipated euphoric state you just visited. You giggle at the condensation coating the windows of his car, extending your arm to draw a heart and a smiley face with your finger. He slowly pulls himself out, hissing at the sensitivity, but doesn’t make a move to get you off of his chest.

Where do you go from here? A line had just been crossed and you weren’t entirely sure you knew what he wanted from you. It’s one thing to imagine kissing and fucking someone extensively. But it was another to actually want a tangible, romantic relationship from them, to actually capacitate feelings for them.

“I love you,”

You jolt up and stare at him with widened eyes. Did those words really just come out of his mouth? As if he can read your mind, he nods. There’s a dragged out sigh, followed by him sitting up slightly with you perched on his lap.

“I really do, Y/N. I’ve felt this way for years and I’m willing to do anything for you.” He admits, tucking some of your hair behind your ear. You kiss him gently, the pad of your thumb swiping across his cheekbone.

“I love you, too.”

The Saturday after your night in Hyunjae’s car brought everything into perspective for you.

You hadn’t spoken to him since he dropped you off at your apartment and it was beginning to worry you. Even though you made sure he reciprocated your emotions, there still could’ve been a misunderstanding. Had you been too forward? Did you scare him away? Did something happen to him? Whatever the explanation was, you didn’t like the eerie feeling it started brewing in your stomach— it was foreboding.

In spite of not talking to them at all in what seemed to be a month or so, you tried calling each of your mutual friends to see if you could get some answers. Not even his roommates picked up their phones and this made you much more uneasy. You pace back and forth in your living room, nicking at your bottom lip with your nails. Why did he choose now of all times to ghost you? What went wrong?

Kevin comes out of his bedroom a couple minutes later, expecting to grab his morning coffee as usual. When he finds you nearly on the brink of insanity instead, he decides to intervene. He supposed his caffeine could wait until his best friend was calmed down. You jump in surprise, holding a fist to your chest. He raises his hands in mock surrender.

“Didn’t mean to startle you, my bad. What’s up? Why do you look like you’re going through a quarter life crisis?” Kevin asks you, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Is everything okay?”

“I—“ you pause and take a deep breath. “I don’t know…”

His eyebrows furrow and he guides you to the sofa so you could sit down. “What do you mean ‘you don’t know’?”

“Hyunjae hasn’t talked to me since Thursday night, after he brought me back here,” your voice is hoarser than you’d like it to be. “I-I texted and called him a bunch but he hasn’t replied. I even— I even tried Juyo, Sunwoo, and Changmin. No luck with them either. I’m concerned, Kev.”

Kevin combs through his hair, pursing his lips in thought. “Yeah, okay, I would be too. It's a little weird that none of them are responding. Have you thought of just showing up at his place to check in on him?”

You shake your head. “No, I didn’t want him to think I’m clingy and annoying in case he was there. What if he just wants to get me off of his back and he’s telling them to ignore me?”

“I don’t think that’s the case at all, Y/N,” your friend sighs, putting his glasses on top of his head and running a hand down his face. “Hyunjae has never been that kind of person in all the years we’ve known him. I highly doubt he’d switch up now. Plus, he’s literally crazy about you. I’m pretty sure the guy would move heaven and earth for you if he could. I think there’s a very real and genuine possibility that something is seriously wrong. It’s like— it’s just a gut feeling, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” If Kevin felt this way, too, that would only mean one thing, right? You had to get to the bottom of this. There was a chance that lives depended on it. A quick roll of your neck and you’re standing. “I’m gonna go over there. I can’t leave things unanswered. I can’t wait for a fucking news report.”

The ravenette pats the top of your head. “Be careful, N/N. Please.”

You give him a nod before you’re slipping into your shoes and grabbing his car keys. You’re not exactly dressed for a confrontation if there is one— clad in a pair of sweatpants, an oversized sweatshirt with your university’s crest on it, and socks with sandals— but you were too preoccupied to care.

The drive itself was mentally taxing, your brain dissociating most of the ride. You’re not sure how many of the lights you passed were actually green. The closer you got to Hyunjae’s apartment, the more that trepidation settling in your lower abdomen grew. Throughout your life, you’d never been the type of person who acted on instinct or had a nagging voice in the rear of your head warning you about situations you got into. You usually went with the flow and if you made a mistake, you allowed yourself to learn from it.

However, that was prior to being thrown into a period of uncertainty like this one. Now, all you could do was act on instinct. All you could do was listen to the stupid nagging voice in the rear of your head yelling at you. All you could do was follow the blaring alarms and caution signs in your field of vision. And this time they were almost deafening.

Kevin’s car rolls to a stop outside of Hyunjae’s building, occupying an empty spot three away from the front of the stairs. Your pulse races when you step out of the vehicle and immediately recognize the cars in the spaces beside yours. Hyunjae’s, Juyeon’s, and Changmin’s. You notice a thin layer of dirt caking Juyeon and Changmin’s, as if they’d remained unmoved for a long time. Perturbed wasn’t a big enough word to describe what was going through your mind.

Half of you was terrified to take a step towards the stairs, let alone ascend them to Hyunjae’s floor. What would go down when you reached his apartment? What would happen the moment that door opened?

You ball your hands into fists, the edges of your nails jabbing the skin of your palms. The pain steels you enough to move forward, walking up the stairs slowly. There’s a chill tiptoeing along your spine the whole trip up, like your body knew what you were getting yourself into before you did. Maybe you were stupid. Only an idiot would lead themselves blindly into a scenario without knowing the outcome.

It’s been minutes of you staring at the slightly rusted numbers on Hyunjae’s door before you register that you’re standing in front of it. If you're being honest, you have no idea what you’re doing. You were acting on autopilot— progressing without a thought of what’s coming next. A shuddered breath leaves your lips and you raise your knuckles to the door.

The first knock is too soft to hear if the inhabitants were in their bedrooms, so you apply more force the second time. The sound reverberates through the hall, a wince appearing on your features. If someone was inside, surely they had to have heard that one. You wait a little longer for the door to swing open and reveal one of your friends looking perfectly fine. For Juyeon to showcase that grin of his that reaches his eyes and ask what you were doing here. For Changmin to give you that sweet smile that puffed up his cheeks and ask what you needed. For Sunwoo to blow a raspberry before he laughed at how silly you were for stressing over them. For Hyunjae to reassure you that it was all going to be okay, that he loved you. You were praying for that.

But no one showed up on the other end of that doorway and you were stuck glaring at that same painted board of wood.

That’s what sends your instincts into overdrive. Your hand grabs the knob, twisting it just in case. It makes a full rotation, pushing open the door the tiniest bit. You peek inside carefully and find all the lights in the living room and kitchen off. Your teeth bite down on your lip as you enter the apartment. One of the things you hated about it, was the annoying buzz of the fluorescent lights in their bathroom. And for some reason, that was all that infiltrated your ears.

The door for said bathroom was cracked just a tad at the end of the hallway, but what caught your attention was the room closest to you— also cracked the most miniscule amount. You see light filtering through, an almost orange glow like that of a desk lamp. Your stupidity would be your downfall, you conclude, your feet gravitating to the room. It’s Hyunjae’s you recall when you’re outside of it. They always say curiosity killed the cat, and you couldn’t help but revert to a feline and nudge it open with your foot.

You really wished that saying was just that— a saying.

Eric sits ahead of you, tied to a chair in the middle of the room. There’s a piece of fabric gagging his mouth and his clothes are tattered, blood staining nearly every inch. A long gash runs along his left bicep and a myriad of smaller cuts litter his face and arms. What your focus lands on first are the several deep stab wounds on his thighs.

A hand comes up to cup your mouth to keep yourself from screaming at the sight of your best friend in this position. He struggles against his restraints, muffled cries for your assistance shattering your heart into a thousand pieces like broken shards of glass. Tear streaks mixed with dried blood cover the apples of his cheeks.

“Oh my god, Eric,” your voice wobbles as you scramble to free him. “Oh my god…”

You pull down the fabric in his mouth first and he gasps for air. His eyes widen at something behind you and he warns, “Y/N—!” before he’s interrupted by your yelp. The person pressed into your back has their arm around your neck with a hold tight enough that you can’t escape, but loose enough that you can breathe, the blunt edge of a knife grazing the column of your throat.

“Tsk tsk, Youngjae. You should know that making so much noise when your killer’s not in the room just alerts them of suspicious activity. That’s survival 101, my friend. Isn’t that right, sweet sweet Y/N?”

No.

No. No. No. No. No.

This wasn’t happening.

This couldn’t be happening.

“Please, let her go, Hyunjae.” Eric begs. Hyunjae hums, nuzzling his nose in your hair. He rolls his eyes and scoffs after inhaling your scent, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“God, you’re a mouthy one. Not even Juyeon and Sunwoo were this chatty when I slit their throats— then again, it's not like they could talk much anyway.” He snorts.

You felt sick. You were lightheaded now, just at the thought of your friends gone. “W-why are you doing this?”

Hyunjae grumbles, pouting his lips. “Time for me to unravel my evil villain monologue, huh?” He slips a hand under your sweatshirt and pinches the side of your waist. “Well here it is; what you’re dying to know. The first incident was by complete accident, we were simply having a discussion about why he shouldn’t have been staring at your ass while his girlfriend was next to him at Jeong Jaehyun’s end of summer bonfire. The dude got pissed off that I called him out and tried to start a fight, but I shoved him so hard, he fell and hit his head on a rock. I just couldn’t find it in myself to feel bad about it so I left him there like nothing. From then on, anyone who came between us or remotely hurt you in any way wound up on the receiving end of this knife. Funny isn’t it? How you’re the one beneath it this time?”

It all began to fall into place once he laid the cards out on the table for you to read. The guy you ran into Tuesday after class. Poor Kim Mingyu, who just wanted to pass his English final. Your friends not picking up their phones. And supposedly it was all in the name of love.

“Y-you did that for me?”

“Of course, baby,” Hyunjae mutters into the shell of your ear. “I said I’d protect you didn’t I? I just want you all to myself.”

“What the fuck does that possessive bullshit have to do with me? What did it have to do with Juyo or Changmin or Sunwoo?” Eric cries. “Oh god, what about—?”

“Sangyeon, Hoon, Chanhee, Hak? Yeah, those four were taken care of way before my own roommates. You, obviously, were the chosen one this go around. Then it would be Kevin and lastly, Jacob. I planned on stopping after you three unless absolutely necessary.”

“How is any of this fucking necessary? You’re psychotic,” the blonde exclaims, still wriggling in his restraints. “Why would Y/N want you after all of this? Did you really believe she’d never find out about what you’ve done?”

Hyunjae glides the smooth edge of the blade against your skin and releases you from his grip, but takes a hold of your wrist, placing the handle in your grasp. He urges you forward, closer to Eric. “If she was scared of me, don’t you think she would’ve tried harder to escape me? Didn’t even blink when I held the knife to her neck.”

The brunette kisses your temple and you watch the fear in Eric’s eyes morph into defeat. “After everything we’ve been through? I’ve known you since eighth grade, Y/N. Eighth fucking grade. And this is how it ends?”

“H-he loves me,” you stutter, glancing at Hyunjae. “Don’t you?”

“You don’t kill your best friends out of love, Y/N! He’s insane! Please, don’t let him get into your head. You’re not that kind of person.” Eric attempts to reason.

Maybe you weren’t. Maybe you were. Who knows? That didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that Hyunjae loved you. He loved you so much that he’d kill for you. Over and over and over again.

It was kind of comical that you loved him all the same. You, too, would kill for him. Over and over and over again.

© juyeonszn. do not steal, claim, or repost.

[genericpuff]

Scamlords is at it again.

A few nights ago, there was a sudden blow-up in the /r/webtoons server showing a new announcement from Snailords -

For anyone unaware, Death : Rescheduled has been on mid-season hiatus since October. And it's now, and only now, that Snailords has suddenly decided the comic is ending after it returns, but readers can get an extra 20 episodes... if they fork over $1k in merch sales.

Now, this could be a lot worse. They could be threatening not to return to the series at all unless their readers hand over money. But considering it's practically just one degree away from that, it's still pretty nasty. Not to mention, the further they divulged in their reasoning around this "idea", the more confusing it got.

They also even revived their @snailordsrant account on IG which, for those of you who were there and can recall, was the same account they used to put one of their own fans on blast over some very mild criticism.

None of this makes any actual sense, for several reasons:

1.) I literally fail to see how getting $1k in less than 24 hours is worth shoving in an extra mini arc of 10 episodes if you don't even have it planned out. Why do that to your audience or to yourself? Why drag things out just to scrounge up an emergency $1k? Why not just be honest with your audience and run a GoFundMe or just say , "Hey everyone, I've run into some financial troubles, I would really appreciate it if you could FastPass my newest episodes or donate to my Patreon or buy some merch so I can cover the costs". It's really telling that this shithead doesn't have enough confidence in themselves or their audience that practically worships them that they have to resort to this kind of underhanded shit to get the money they need. I wanna make it clear that this is NOT like a Kickstarter stretch goal or anything that incentivizes readers to support their work, they're instead holding the length and future of their series over their audiences' head (which they've done before) for money. That's not an incentive, it's an ultimatum.

2.) Maybe I'm misreading / being stupid (someone pls explain if I'm missing something here) but I literally don't see how their comment about working 50 hours a week explains why they're suddenly getting their fans to pay out $1k worth of merch in less than 24 hours. For anyone who doesn't know, $1k per episode is an example Webtoons uses in its post discussing how they pay out creators (this came after the platform got called out 2 years ago for paying creators too little, there are undoubtedly creators getting paid less). And yet for some reason $1k is apparently the difference between 10 episodes and 20? How does that add up? And is the bit about them wanting to buy boba supposed to be a joke? Where's the punchline here?

3.) They say they have writer's block and they want to use the money to "motivate them", but then just a few slides later they say 10-15 episodes is what would make them the "happiest" so which is it? Do they want to write 10 episodes or do they want people to pay them to write 20 episodes so they can draw the fluff scenes that they apparently want to draw? If you have an ending planned out, why rush it or drag it out depending on how this "fundraiser" goes? Why not just write the ending you want to write that will serve your story best? Why shove in an extra mini arc that you don't even have full confidence in writing and then try to compare it to a "super expensive cake"? What are you doing? Speaking as someone who's had trouble getting motivated in the past, suddenly getting a month's rent worth of money to do it doesn't necessarily solve that, it just turns up the pressure, and if you're not someone who deals with pressure well, then you're more likely to wind up just burning out entirely rather than fulfilling that goal.

4.) The fact that they did, in fact, hit their goal just makes it all the shittier to think about because their audience is mostly made up of teenagers who worship the ground that they walk on. It's horrifying that they keep pulling these stunts with their audience, and getting away with it to boot - and Webtoons, as a company, keeps enabling it by allowing it to happen by hosting and promoting people like this.

Anyways, there's already a lot going on here that's sketchy, but then... they went and deleted their posts. At the time of this happening (as I was there to witness it all play out in real time) I assumed this meant that they had hit their $1k goal - especially as they had been showing their progress on their IG and they were already at $900 after just a couple hours - but it gave me a sinking feeling seeing them delete it because they had also been called out by some brave readers telling them that it wasn't exactly a good look to essentially blackmail their audience through their own content into giving them money.

Snailords deleting it gave me a stronger impression of "burying the evidence", especially now that they had the money. By all accounts, they could do whatever they wanted now.

So what did they decide to do?

. . . Huh?

Okay, take a second to actually think about what Snailords has done here. Because I know some of you will go "oh, it was for charity all along! that was nice of them!" but . . . I don't know about the legalities of collecting donation funds under false pretenses, but morally speaking, it's a really shitty thing to do. They stripped away the choices - limiting them to three - of what their readers could donate to, and what I think their readers don't understand - due to being mostly teenagers - is that they're tax-exempt individuals and they just unknowingly gave Snailords an easy $1k tax write-off. You really, really shouldn't collect donation funds like this without being honest, it's just a shitty thing to do, especially after you've already collected the money. It mostly just comes across as damage control on Snailords' part to make it seem like they were always planning to donate to charity, when in reality, if they wanted to donate to charity, they would have been honest about that at the start. Again, even if they wanted to do that from the start, it goes to show how little confidence they have in themselves or their audience that they have to stoop to methods like these instead of just doing it honestly.

And do you really think Snailords will actually do those extra episodes? Or donate that money? This is the same asshole who has manipulated their readers for money not once but twice, and now seems intent on doing it a third time just for the charm. This is the same person who practically sabotaged their own comic, Freaking Romance, because they apparently didn't like the romance genre and may as well have only done it for clout / views / etc.

What was especially odd - and I found this out from folks who actually read Death : Rescheduled (I do not) - was finding out that it wouldn't make sense for D : R to end in as many as 25 episodes, because apparently, the plot has basically just gotten going.

So it does seem like this is foreshadowing that D : R will wind up just like Freaking Romance, rushed into an ending that wasn't expected. And this, of course, has the people who read their work confused because D : R was supposed to be Snailords' passion project, their magnum opus, the project they wanted to do. So them holding the timing of an ending that shouldn't even be happening yet for ransom contradicts that original intention. Really, it just goes to show that Snailords has no passion, they're just in it purely for the money, to a degree that I can't even cheer them on for being a hustler because it's missing the honesty and integrity.

And of course, every single time Snailords finds a way to backpedal and take his audience for a ride, they hop right in without a single thought for themselves.

And no, none of this is to hate on the readers directly, I hold Snailords entirely responsible for this - they have an audience of impressionable, naive, gullible teenagers, and they know it, and take advantage of it every chance they get. It's why they weren't just honest about wanting to collect money for charity from the start. It's why they resorted to basically holding their own comic's progression for ransom during its midseason hiatus. It's why the deadline was 24 hours and why the posts are now gone.

Thankfully the Internet does what it does - any evidence that Snailords was trying to bury is now all over reddit, and hey, just for good measure, here's a post on Tumblr that's been sitting in my drafts for days now, days after people have already seemingly stopped talking about it. Don't let anyone bury or forget about the stunts Snailords is pulling on their audience, with a platform that they've been consistently given by Webtoons, because that's what they want you to do.

[galadrieljones]

Zabel Interview, Team Delusional Round-up, re: the past few weeks (months?) 💫

(Based on an ask from @natural-blue-26! This post contains spoilers, pertaining to the script leak. If you don't want them, turn back!!)

First, let me say that @twdmusicboxmystery has posted an excellent video covering this topic over at her youtube channel. This post is jumping off of that, with some additional takes and analysis by me!

Also, note that I wanted to wait to post or to talk about this too much publicly until today, as I think there are a lot of genuine shippers who might be let down right now. Not all c*rylers are unhappy, unruly people. Many are shippers just like us, and even though I don't ship it, I support them. I am only putting this in the Team Delusional tag, so anyone who sees this is seeing it either because they follow me, follow the tag, follow someone who follows me, or they went looking for it themselves. I am not making drama or inciting a "ship war." If you're here out of anger, I suggest you turn back. I am just going to go over what I see.

The Facts

There has been a recent spate of events that have lead Team Delusional to a rare and more than modest resurgence. Until now, we were mostly just working with templates and symbolism, with a healthy dose of informed meta and speculation: We were seeing how the season 4/5 template was beginning to unfold toward the Grady arc, which includes Carol in a major role.

BUT. Let's check in with what's been going on over the past six months. A lot of this new resurgence starts with Emily's multiple trips to Europe for TWD cons in the past six months, integrated with her (yet unrealized) insinuation that she has been in studio recording one or more songs that Beth sang on TWD. Massive financial burdens aside, these are unusual undertakings for Emily. While she has done many fan cons over the years, visiting Europe twice in a four month period is bizarre (as well as expensive). She also talked openly and excitedly in the panel at French comic-con about how cool it would be if Beth returned. Further, Emily's "re-recording" of "Parting Glass" and possibly other TWD songs was a fairly big announcement for us at the time, but we haven't seen any more on it since. Speculation went everywhere from "She'll be singing in a flashback in Daryl Dixon season 2" to "Her songs will be part of the soundtrack" to "She'll actually BE in season 2, singing, in the present moment."

A lot of these things, if they were spread out over a 5 year period, wouldn't matter at all. But the fact that they're all taking place in the six-month run-up to Daryl Dixon s. 2, when we've already been able to speculate her tenuous return based on templates and other tells, is exciting. It's been almost ten years to the day of Beth's *death.* Why now? The timing on all of this is very suspicious.

Now, a few weeks ago, there was a LEAKED SCRIPT excerpt, which was claimed to be the final scene of DD 2.6. In the script, we learn that Isabelle has died and is appearing to Daryl in the form of a hallucination while he fights walkers in the Chunnel. This was confusing for many reasons. First, we already know, given their ruthless advertisement of the fact, that season 3 is already being filmed in Spain. So why are they headed to England? Also, where the hell is Laurent? Further, Isabelle's death, while unsurprising to many of us, creates some new questions. Many members of a certain *other* ship were ecstatic to learn about Isabelle's death, as Daryl/Isabelle ship rumors have been rampant in the fandom basically since season 1. Forget the fact that the same ship FREAKED out over Daryl/Leah three years ago (a clear nothingburger). Any time another female character even comes into contact with Daryl, a notable portion of fans must make their "displeasure" widely known.

Moving on. Yesterday, an article came out summarizing a yet-unreleased interview with David Zabel in SFX magazine. You can read it here. In the interview, Zabel makes the following comment about "C*ryl":

"The obvious thing to do, and the easier thing to do would be, 'Okay, now they're falling in love and they're a couple.' But I always felt like that would be a mistake, because it would feel like you were going into the TV book of tricks," he explains. "To me, there was never a question that [their connection] was something other than what it is, and what it seems to want to be, and why it works so well."

Zabel then goes on to hint at a highly-contentious romance with Daryl and Isabelle:

"What happened in season one was that you could see a connection forming, for sure," he says. "We didn't manufacture that but we left room for it. A lot of season two is about the development of that and where that relationship goes, and that little surrogate family of Isabelle, Daryl and Laurent."

Now, the full interview doesn't come out until September 4, at which point, we may get a clearer picture of what's going on. However, it seems that Zabel is politely declining the "C*ryl as romance" narrative. In the quote, he uses the excuse of wanting to avoid TV tropes; however, he then goes on to say (in a portion of the quote that is being wildly misinterpreted among the c*ryl ship) that "To [him]," there was "never a question that [their connection was something other than what it is." He then equates "what it is" with "what it seems to want to be" and "why it works so well." The misinterpretation is coming with that second part. "What it is" = friendship. Zabel is clearly saying that c*ryl "seems to want to be" exactly "what it is," aka: a sacred friendship and nothing more. He's basically saying that this already "works so well," and so why fix what ain't broke? Why create a romance between two characters who are clearly just very, very good friends when he could go another, more interesting direction?

Certain c*ryl accounts have misinterpreted that section of the quote. They seem to think he's saying that the c*ryl ship "seems to want to be" something else, something other than what it is. But if you follow the grammatical logic of the sentence, you can see that they're wrong here. It wants to be what it already is, which is friendship. Of course, to c*rylers, what it already is = romance, but that isn't canon. There's no proof of this. In fact, there's more proof to the contrary, that they're best friends. They're family. Carol was married to somebody else, raised a child with him, still holds a contentious relationship with the other man, allowed Daryl to toil away in the woods alone for five years because she needed to stay with her husband...

In addition to factual evidence from the show, the C*ryl Friendship Campaign has been going strong on social media for MONTHS. In her video this morning, twdmusicboxmystery also goes over quasi-recent comments from Angela Kang which are UNSUPPORTIVE of a c*ryl romance. The notion that this perspective is coming out of nowhere, which some fans are claiming as a way of blaming Zabel for either lying or betraying his fanbase (and the actors), is, frankly, absurd.

Please note that I'm not saying that nobody should ship c*ryl just because it isn't canon. That would be silly. I ship non-canon ships all the time. BETHYL is a non-canon ship! I've written whole fanfics for Beth and Daryl (well, I've tried lol, but most remain unfinished). It's one of the funnest parts of being in a fandom.

What I'm saying is that c*ryl is NOT CANON. It never has been. And the people who get angry about this, who want to get professionals fired over this, who think that they're entitled to getting exactly what they want, lest the show perish, are wrong. They're doing it wrong. It's totalitarian and, frankly, obsessive. This is not how you be in a fandom, and my interpretation here of the Zabel interview in conjunction with the C*ryl Friendship Campaign is that they are TRYING to let this highly volatile and frankly unpleasant faction of the fandom down lightly in an effort to get them off tptb's AND the actors' backs. They don't want to deal with this shit anymore. And by the way, they're actually not leading anyone on. They've been insanely clear here, in their rebranding of c*ryl to a platonic ship, as to what's happening and what's going on, and while I really do feel for the good people who may feel let down by this, I am GLAD to see that the showrunners aren't going to heed the demands of one tiny, loud faction of a giant fandom, and that despite the haters, they're going to tell the story they want to tell.

ANYWAY.

Over the past 48 hours, things have gotten...weird. Zabel's interview dropped less than a day after the TWD Skybound social media accounts appear to have...posted a Bethyl edit out of nowhere. @sweetz1919 also posted early this morning, bringing together a few more Beth-related posts on either official accounts or *near* official accounts, which post promotional material, and which are followed by AMC TWD. One of these posts is a repost on twitter by Scott Gimple, who so rarely posts on social media, that any time he does, it's like a unicorn, symbolically notable and certainly important.

Now, pertaining to the Zabel interview, another wide complaint taking place in the c*ryl camp is that Zabel is likely LYING or he is being taken grossly out of context, because if c*ryl isn't happening, AND Isabelle is going to die, then how could Daryl POSSIBLY get his happy ending?

THIS is where Team Delusional comes in. Of course, we have our theories. Most people think WE'RE the delusional ones. And maybe we are! Lol. I don't really care. Most of our theories are crafted through a TON of hard, circumstantial, pattern-driven, and symbolic evidence, evidence taken from IRL sources, and hypotheses made after paying very close attention to what's been going on and making LOTS and LOTS of connections over a period of many years. Me, myself, I've only been here for four, but some of you guys have been doing this for almost ten, and for that, I salute you! As I said earlier, TD has been theorizing Beth's "return" in DD2 based greatly on symbolic and template-driven evidence alone for a while. A lot of what we're seeing now on social media is playing directly into our hand.

Emily in Europe multiple times in a 4mo period, including a trip to Paris, with her latest stint being just a week before "official" filming for season 3 was set to begin? Emily re-recording tracks from TWD? Leaked script pages in which Daryl mentions Beth specifically AND suggest that Isabelle is going to die? Romantic!C*ryl = not happening? HOW could Daryl possibly get his happy ending now? The rest is TD theory, ie: WHY we think Beth will come back to manifest Daryl's "happy ending." Speculation and theories on how she could come back, the connection to Spain/England/France, that's basically all we talk about lol, each of us with our own interests and niche perspectives, all arriving at the same point.

SO while there is still no proof that she is coming back, all of this is a Good thing, actually. For us. Because while everyone is looking around, freaking out, wondering what's going to happen next, we are seeing and able to read a LOT of signs that others ignore. And rightly so! There's no reason the rest of the GA needs to think that Beth is legitimately coming back. That would overshadow Carol's role in season 2, which is significant. It's just important that the GA REMEMBERS who Beth IS, that she was important to Daryl, and that hey, people used to really like Beth, and they liked Beth and Daryl together, and that was hopeful, and nice for him, and he hasn't had much "hope" or "niceness" since, and wouldn't it be nice if he could have that again...? All of these things are really there to do just this: let the c*ryl ship down easy, and remind people that Daryl once held a very strong connection to a woman whose life "ended" too soon, and who has really never been mentioned again.

While I really have no idea what's coming next, I wonder if we'll begin to see more astroturfed discussion on Beth's *death.* How weird it was, what the hell was going on at Grady, etc. If we don't see it in promotional material, we may hear about it in-show. Because if Daryl is casually mentioning Beth (along with Merle and Glenn) to Isabelle's ghost/vision in episode 2.6, then this likely implies that he's told her about Beth before, and that he's talked to her about what happened. It implies that Isabelle knows who Beth is, which would be a truly insane development, since he's literally never talked about her to anyone, including Carol, as far as we know.

So anyway, as usual, we should all just keep our heads down, chins to our chest, keep hope alive, but with a balanced sense of anticipation. We still really don't know what's going to happen, so it's important to be rational, but it also won't hurt to have a little faith 💫

[kaiowut99]

ARC-V Dubbed Episode 1... “Uncut”?! (Re-Edited 4K Dub/Japanese OST)

Swing Into Action/”A Trail of Light -- The Pendulum Summon″ [WIP #1 | WIP #2 | WIP #3 | Release WIP #4 (New!)]

Ladies and gentlemen! (And everyone in between, of course)

Finally time to get this edit off my project backburner, haha. After plugging away at this for more than a year--or I may have actually started this a little in 2022 at some point, but due to my SSD dying on me in October of that year, I pretty much lost everything and eventually had to restart this--my "dub-uncut" take on ARC-V episode 1's dub is all done! As when I worked on those 5D's "dub-uncut" episodes, I find that there's some potential in the 4K/KCM dubs, but overall it's hampered by the dub's music [which especially hurts for ARC-V given the awesome Japanese score by Kotaro Nakagawa], some writing/voice-direction choices, and other little oddities/cuts; like with that mini-project, the goal of this, as a successor to the dub-with-JP-OST take on episode 10's first 10-or-so minutes I worked on years back which served as the project's catalyst (now with better voice-isolating tech available), is to re-score the dub with the Japanese soundtrack, while also modifying the dialogue in spots to be closer to the Japanese dialogue (using either dialogue from other episodes or Duel Links/Cross Duel voicelines as needed) while editing it to the Japanese footage.

I'd been chipping away at this mostly for the past year, but worked a bit more on finalizing it and leveling the audio over the past few months to get it off the backburner, lol, along with revamping my subs for BelieveXBelieve and One Step (the former including a revamped edit of Sawatari's cards being hidden [as V1 of this OP with that was never released textless officially] and reprising my edit during the chorus to translate "KABA CARNIVAL" sliding in under the Hippo Tokens to "HIPPO CARNIVAL"; both also use the singable translations I worked on years back, though One Step's is shortened in spots). I also looked into commissioning a voiceover artist to provide voiceovers for the undubbed pre-OP prologues throughout ARC-V, and I'm very happy with the results provided by mattsindt over on Fiverr! 😄

As for the episode itself, overall they did a good job sticking to the original dialogue, so my edits were more to bring them in line with the original dialogue in those spots where they weren't. Gong[enzaka] gets his early line modified to include the names of the Monsters he's tributing; I removed Yuzu's "what do you have to say for yourself"/"figures" pre-OP; Yuya's "boulder" crack at Gong was removed; Nico gets his "as in free" line edited slightly to fit that part over the hand motion he does that was cut; I did have to slightly recycle some of Yusho's dialogue in the flashback because it was shortened some in the dub; I kept Yuya quiet as Sledgehammer [Ishijima] reacts to seeing him in the clown getup; I grabbed some Nico lines from the Maiami Championship arc to remove the added computer voice as the Action Cards get dispersed after the eyecatch; added in a missing "Ladies and gentlemen!" for Yuya as he swings towards making his first move; Yoko's lines during the Yuya flashbacks were swapped a bit since the dub swapped the scenes; I stitched together a "I tribute Hip Hippo to Tribute-Summon" line before Yuya summons Odd-Eyes Dragon, timing his hype line for it closer to JP Yuya's line; due to the aforementioned Yusho-flashback trimming, I had to get a little creative with his lines in the pre-Pendulum scene as Yuya remembers his words; I stitched together a full line about Yuya using the Magicians to set the Pendulum Scale to remove the "I'm taking control" bit; I added his "Pendulum Summon!" shout from episode 6 and shortened his "My Monsters [are ready to] swing into action!"; during the preview, I used lines from ep. 2 [or DL] that were similar to the JP dialogue, using a recycled "How'd he do that?" from ep 1 for Yuzu where it came up; and other little things here/there. Oh, and also, I've replaced and will be replacing every mention of "Zuzu" back to "Yuzu." 💁🏽‍♂️ (Still A Choice to change her name for a reference five people would get...) I might also be doing the same with mentions of "LID" to "LDS" depending on what audio works, to be consistent with the visuals [and later "Lancer Defense Soldiers"], while still keeping "Leo Institute" as an alternate name for it. (There will likely be some scenes that'll be in Japanese with hardsubs as 4K cut them, as opposed to trimming; Sora's Synchro-explanation scene in 10 or 11 comes to mind; we'll see what audio's available to make something work. Also, if Ishijima ever comes to Duel Links, I'll revise this to add in some "My turn! Draw!" lines lol.)

And speaking of visuals, I've also applied a few visual translation edits to help enhance the "what if dubbed straighter" feel to this; I translated the destination sign on the bus early in the episode, the Yusho poster at You Show, the Fan Appreciation Day poster that Nico shows to Yuya/co--a leftover from when I planned to sub ARC-V like I do my GX subs, before Crunchyroll took the wheel, though I had to revamp it (thankfully had it posted here so it survived my drive failure) and newly do the Yuya/"Special Match" closeup--and the sign on the building behind Yuya as he's crying during his flashback. I thought of resuming my attempt to translate the billboards during the early panning shot of the downtown area, but I couldn't find good enough reference shots for some of the further away/smaller ones (saves me some madness in the end, no doubt); I'll be translating stuff as feasible in future episodes, like location references in establishing shots/etc.

Footage-wise, I also chose to work off the DVD video I've had for years (with encodes for episodes 1-4 provided by GX_ST), largely because they have touchups done to the art/animation after the episodes' airings on TV that aren't used in the Crunchyroll or Amazon TV masters that make up the 1080p downloads available. (I do think the dub itself works off the DVD masters overall, and I may see if it's feasible to try and splice that footage as needed with the 1080p downloads, since the DVD masters are unfortunately not at their total best [how do you have a show airing in HD but release 480p DVDs and not BluRays guys pls save us Discotek].) I'd love to see proper/touched-up DVD rips made of ARC-V sometime, but as it is, none are available (not even from Astral_Union or NW-Sartiend who did rips for GX/ZEXAL and 5D's).

So, as with the 5D's project, I'll be releasing these over on NeoArkCradle (where I also post my GX work), as both an .mkv with the original video and a hardsubbed .avi with the visual edits, and I'll be making a Masterpost to compile the hardsub/visually-edited streaming links. The .mkv files will be dual-audio with this and the Japanese audio, with subs for the full JP audio (sourced from Crunchyroll with edits by me, as credited at the start), Signs/Lyrics per the dub audio, and Signs/Lyrics per the JP audio (It is funny how I didn't plan to sub ARC-V given CR being on it, but in revising their subs for this, I still made more than a few edits to effectively make it my own take, so I guess I am kinda 🙃 [how is their sub timing so bad])

Aaanywho, with all that establishing info out of the way, hopefully this came out nicely! Am definitely planning to work on more episodes, so stay tuned as I get those started. The fun's just swinging into action!

[labourofego]

day # 6 = past

a part of my character's world is the live music scene of their local area. this involves live shows from local bands most weeks. a big part of this culture is a local record label, Relapse Records, run in 2003 (the story's present day) by Ehren. i thought it would be fun to talk about the label's history for this prompt :^)

relapse records was founded in 1997 by Kristian Laukkanen and Loretta Louise. the two met through ehren, a mutual friend. both loretta and kristian were ambitious and hard-working, though kristian was more ambitious than hardworking and loretta more hardworking than ambitious. kristian kept the label afloat with mostly his own money, constantly dreaming up new things to do with the business (most of which never came to fruition), and fancied himself as sort of the head of the ship, whereas loretta's natural inclination towards archiving things and her comparatively stellar math grades had her play a role more similar to that of a treasurer.

the first band signed to relapse records all the way back in '97 was Cat Shit Sliver, a ska band headed by long-time friend of ehren's, stevie, as containing four other members. they looked to put out their first record with relapse's support, and so ehren & another friend of his, David from the Netherlands, on as a sort of 'art department' to deal with the creative parts of the album's release. ehren's drawing & painting skills where put through their paces trying to graphic-ly design, but it all worked out in the end, especially with the help of david's skills in photography as well as his experience working professionally in a local photography shop. pictured above (left) is the first logo of relapse records, drawn in april of 1997 by ehren at kristian's request.

at the end of the year 2000, kristian had been in talks with a norweigan black metal band, Behead, about signing them to relapse records and, in accordance with this plan, flew out to see them for a months-long trip in 2001. david also came with on this trip, to document things for propriety (& for the CD insert on whatever they would release first). during this time, communication between kristian & david and loretta & ehren was pretty much non-existent, except for maybe a couple of post cards. needless to say, loretta & ehren were shocked when only david returned, telling stories of how one of the Behead members suffered a nervous breakdown or something and totally murdered kristian out of no-where.

ownership of relapse records briefly was in loretta's possession before she also carked it in 2001. in her will, she had bequeathed it to ehren.

in early 2003, relapse signed their first band since kristian's death: Power, a goth rockish four-piece that are decently locally popular (locally hated). ehren & david at this point basically own relapse 50/50, and divide the work about the same. around this time, ehren changes the label's logo from his own work to a concept drawing done by loretta in a private notebook from 1997, presumably a concept drawing from when the first logo was being requested from ehren.

...and that brings us to the story's present day :^3. i intend to add 2-3 more bands to relapse's roster over the years, but those will have to wait until i actually know what i want to do with them. the members of both cat shit sliver & power belong to me, but behead don't, they belong to hatedmaggot.

[losersroom]

twenty questions for fic writers

tagged by @tetrapod7! thanks man, this was a fun one.

1. how many works do you have on ao3? 17 on my current account. there's more on my old one and obviously that doesn't count everything i published on other platforms (livejournal, ff.net) in the ancient days, lol

2. what's your total ao3 wordcount? again just on the wolfspider account, 168,153. i cant tell if that feels low or high to me

3. what fandoms do you write for? right now, just wild hrpf. in the past it's been mostly anime and various cartoons.

4. top five fics by kudos: i'm hitting the skip button on this because like. wrt my own work i think it's not a very good metric of EITHER how popular those stories actually were OR the quality of them; they're mostly the TUA ones and im chalking that up to that fandom being Huge when i was active. my most kudos'd fic of all time is still how much was mine to keep, though, and i think that one holds up.

5. do you respond to comments? i try to now. i went through a long phase of not engaging with comments due to Social Anxiety and also being kind of fed up with the hyper-combative culture in the fandoms i was in. like i wanted to just yeet my work out there and be done with it. in hrpf fandom i'm actually interested in the community aspect though so ive been trying to get over myself and respond as best i can.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? the brodsfabes time loop fic, hands down. it's weird because as a reader i am um. not very into unhappy endings or unconsummated angst but every once in a while when i'm writing i'll get into a Mood and write something viscerally upsetting. anyway that one was pretty clearly me processing some grief that was happening in my real life, lol.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? probably entangled, from my spiderverse days. ngl i kind of hate it now though so let's move on from this. i think most of my fic has happy or at least ambiguously-positive endings, though.

8. do you get hate on fics? only one time ever and it was someone complaining that a ship i tagged for wasn't present in the story after One Chapter so. we're discounting that one. i've been pretty lucky!

9. do you write smut? yeah. my relationship with writing pornography ebbs and flows, like. sometimes i'll be really into it but sometimes i'll just stick a sex scene into a story where i feel like it's the least interesting thing that happens because people expect it and aren't going to read a romance that isn't leading up to that. i'm a horrible pervert and building up to a sex scene is an easy way to give your story a climax (...in multiple senses of the word) though so. why not.

10. craziest crossover: i don't write crossovers but if i did it would be the insane one ive been thinking about lately where the minnesota wild are stuck in the dungeon from dungeon meshi

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? not to a degree that i can prove it but part of the reason i left TUA fandom was somebody, in my opinion, ripped off large chunks of one of my fics and did just enough massaging of the language to make it defensible as Not Plagiarism. ruined the whole experience for me though.

12. have you ever had a fic translated? no, i think that would be one of the highest honors i could receive as a writer though. i wish i knew enough of a second language to translate my own work, but i'm still at like a kindergarten level in japanese so that will. Not happen.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before? tried to once with someone i am no longer friends with, it was a disaster. never gonna do that again. i am just too much of a control freak to relinquish any amount of creative decisionmaking i think.

14. all time favorite ship? don't have one! i tend to like hyperfixate on one ship for anywhere from one month to a year and a half and then when the brain juice runs out im Done and i never want to think about this concept again. im giving check please jackparse a point for being a ship i can read about post-fixation without getting bored but other than that. right now it's 725, in the future, who can say.

15. what's a wip you want to finish but never will? [stares at my overflowing gdocs draft folder. stares at the camera] i do not see it

16. what are your writing strengths? i like my prose, most of the time, and i think i'm pretty good at descriptive writing and like, internal character voice. sometimes i can accidentally stumble into excellent pacing

17. what are your writing weaknesses? INTENTIONALLY good pacing. writing dialogue that sounds like a human said it and not a sitcom character. i'm decent at line-by-line editing but awful at structural editing. recently ive become aware that i tend to subconsciously reuse certain plot beats a lot.

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language? like anything else, there's a way to do this that's fine and interesting and a way to do it that's insultingly terrible and it all depends on intent and execution. like if you're peppering in phrases in a second language just to show off that a character Is Foreign, don't do that. try to do it in a way that's realistic for how people talk. do it purposefully, i suppose

19. first fandom you wrote in? god dude i do NOT remember this was literally 21 years ago but probably either naruto or fullmetal alchemist.

20. favorite fic you've written? probably one of the unpublishable ones tbh. or the time loop one again. honestly i really like all my hrpf work, ive been putting out some bangers lately. it's nice to feel like ive been growing as an ~artist~ or whatever.

[missaphelion]

M/M Book Recs (mostly alien/human for some reason???)

I have been on a book reading binge this entire year since I've sorta just been in and out of my old fandoms, and I've found some really good ones (and some really bad ones) so I thought I would share the good! Most are available on Kindle Unlimited, though I think at least one is only available for sale!

1 Pykh Series by Eileen Glass

To look at the covers, this looks like any other cheesy alien romance on Kindle Unlimited (which are fine if that's what you're looking for- sometimes I am too!), but it's actually an amazing story of relationships and worldbuilding and probably in my top twenty of all time favorites for how much I love it. I generally don't like polyamory in my stories, either, but I am a believer after this. It also has omega dynamics - of a sort. Carter, the stranded human, is not an omega in the fanfic sense but he is treated as one by the aliens. It does still end in mpreg, if that's a deal breaker for you!

This amazing outright saga starts with a huge language barrier that lasts through book two, and uses shifting POVs to an amazing effect. Generally I get bored and impatient when they can't understand each other, but this uses their inability to communicate, and the ways they do find to communicate, just amazingly. I really love everything about it. I'm on book three on a reread and I just read them for the first time a couple of months ago. I cannot recommend this enough!

2 The Devils of Vitality by Chani Lynn Feener

This one is very dark, so be warned! The author includes extensive warnings at the beginning of each book, which should be read if you have any triggers at all or even if you just want to know what you're getting into. It is basically a story about space mafia and space royalty and the people they decide will be theirs no matter what. The worldbuilding spills into other books by the author as well and take place on other planets in the same universe, which I find fascinating. I read them all and in order, but These Silent Stars and Devil May Care are by far my favorites (Devil May Care also has another book related the author wrote under a pen name, of one of the characters brothers His Dark Paradox). If obsessive leads, touch him and you die tropes, and very dysfunctional relationships are your thing, you'll probably love this series as much as I do. However, most of them do include rape between the main pairings so give this one a pass if you cannot suspend your disbelief that they will end up happily ever after!

3 A Whisper in the Dark by Chani Lynn Feener

Takes place in the universe from Devils of Vitality but a different world, and I might love this one most of all. It works as a sort of prequel to the dynamics of the 'Shouts' who have powers in the series and introduces a not before seen secret counterpart. There is such a fascinating and tragic backstory for the characters where you can see how things could have been so different if just a couple things had changed, but everything went wrong so it ends up an enemies to lovers brilliantly and seamlessly done. I have read the big 'reveal' scene of this story about eight times. I am obsessed. I would also say it's not as dark as the other series, even though they still do horrible things to each other they have good reasons in this, the enemies part is no joke in the beginning!

4 Guiding Desire by Alexa Piper

This series is AMAZING. Anyone that has stalked the "Sentinels and Guides are Known" tag on A03 is almost guaranteed to adore this. They are 'Guardians' and 'Conduits' instead, but the dynamics and set up is very similar and so enthralling. I can't remember ever seeing anything like this in an original novel before (if anyone else has, please let me know!). This starts with one of my favorite tropes, hidden powers revealed! When a Guardian randomly stumbles on his Conduit who somehow slipped past the required testing, he gets swept away into the new world. Quick warning though, the third book just left us on a terrible cliffhanger! I was devastated. So if you can't stand cliffhangers like me, book 2 mostly ends at a better stopping point while we wait for the next book.

5 How to Train Your Human Omega by Arden Fox

You are probably reading this list thinking I have a type, and yes, I am now discovering that as well. It shouldn't be shocking based on my usual fanfic selections, but somehow it is. Apparently surprise alien abduction romances are my thing now, and I regret nothing. This one is another one that just has such great characters it transcends the genre, and it also has no mpreg if that scared you off the Pyhk series! Clay is just an ordinary human, but out of the whole human ship he's on that gets boarded, he's the only one that an alien is claiming is an omega and therefore his.

Honorable Mentions for alien romances (alien abduction romances??)!

The Alien's Omega by Sienna Sway is sort of like a super fun, less stakes version of the Pykh series. I've enjoyed every one of them and a fourth is coming out soon focusing on the alien culture. The characters are likable, the world is very cool, and progression in the series is perfection. It's not just the same thing again and again, things are evolving as it goes on.

The Star Marked Warriors Book 1 is basically more of the same, but again it was a quick, fun read! And a great nod to cat lovers like me. Not included on the list because I didn't actually read past the first book in the trilogy, but I may end up revisiting it! This one is probably the healthiest relationship dynamics for an alien abduction type story that I've seen, if you're not a fan of the darker stuff.

Akar Chronicles by Kiki Burrelli. The first book had me completely hooked, but not included on the list because I liked the second book a bit less and the third book almost not at all. None of that was for the writing, which is still great across the board, and just because I tend to attach to characters and Phoenix, the main character of the first book, was my absolute favorite, and is in the next two books much less. I'm still considering binding this one, since it's not available in print yet, and I want Phoenix's story on my shelf. The first book definitely made the whole series worth it for me.

Note: If anyone is interested in more recs of the less alien more human mafia/shifter recs, let me know!

[groenendaelfic]

What I've been up to, upcoming fic updates and changes to The Prince and the Barista

(the next paragraph is not fun and merely an irl update for those who've been asking, so don't worry about skipping it)

As some of you might have noticed I've been mostly offline for the past one and a half months. I've spent most of that time attending funerals, dealing with bureaucracy and trying not to have a breakdown, but I am finally back to feeling like writing again and that is surprisingly cathartic. Writing 'happy easter fun times with the Erikssons' is something I've been looking forward to all year, and I want to do that justice, but I also can't get myself into the right mindset for that right now, so I'll post what I wrote back in May of chapter 20 later today (aka the Micke phone call) and will then put that fic aside for a bit. (Again, I know, and I'm sorry, but irl rarely goes as planned. The goal to come as close to finishing this fic before S3 drops still stands though.)

Funnily enought what brought me back to writing was The Prince and the Barista. To the joy of at least two commenters I've decided to revise my outline and go a slightly different route than initially planned with the fic. A funnier one with less angst and sadness and lying.

This means that I'll change the ending of chapter 3 in the upcoming days and remove everything post wilmon retiring for a nap, which means that in the new version Simon will not find out that Wilhelm is a prince in chapter 3, but rather later on.

The old ending to chapter 3 will not be lost though, I'll instead add it to my Young Royals Tumblr Ficlets fic collection on ao3 and also link to it from the chapter 4 author's notes.

In the meantime I've reread chapter 1 to refresh my memory, and done some very minor prodding and poking as I went along, which somehow added 1,546 words to said chapter. Somehow. Magically. Don't ask me how, nothing's actually changed except that the fic is now explicit. Also somehow magically?

I'll be doing the same to chapters 2 and 3 in the upcoming days (doing minor edits, not adding explicit scenes--I think) but in the meantime you can go check out the edited version of chapter 1 here should the mood strike you. (also please feel free to let me know if I added any bonus typos or missed a paragraph break or something, this new version is unbetaed).

[aelaer]

writing update yay

Write Every Day June was a smashing success. Even on days I really wasn't feeling it due to being tired or having a crappy day (which definitely happened more than once), just rereading the part before the section I was about to write helped get me in the mood to go.

On the first and possibly the second day I wrote for a one-shot that likely won't see the light of day for ages, but the rest of the month was dedicated to Fic 5 in my series which I'm pretty sure I'm calling Above the Shadows. The fic doc was at 57k when I started this month, and in the wee hours of July 1st it's at 96k, so 39k new words (probably more as I deleted a lot of notes too, but many of those words are more notes so it evens out).

This is by far the most success I've had in writing for one piece of fiction in a month. I completed NaNo once by accident writing for Whumptober 2019, but that was across 31 fics. The other times I was recording how much I was writing in the past was 29k for a July NaNo back in like, 2010, and then last August for this same fic where I wrote a bit every day and got about 20ish-k done then.

As for actual fic progress, well, this month had me finishing the mostly-complete 6 and 7, fully writing out chapters 8-11, writing an interlude, mostly-completing 12 and 13, and writing a handful of pages for 14. Though throughout this whole process items kept being put in and events kept on being shifted to a newly labeled chapter, leaving the chapter count to grow ever larger.

If I had to guess (and again, it's definitely a bit hard to guess), I think the final chapter count is going to be 18-19 full chapters (which are like 5k-8k a pop) and 2 shorter interlude chapters. And I think at 96k, about 7k of that is just notes and A/Ns, so I really have 89k of fic. Looking at what scenes I have past the current chapter 13, and if I keep it to 19 chapters at 6.5k average I'm maybe... 2/3rds done with the fic.

I'll have a better idea once I have 14 and 15 solidified, I think.

Unfortunately I can't continue Write Every Day trends with July as most weekends I'm going out of town this month, including a whole jaunt to Comic Con. But I'll do my best to write each day on the weekdays I'm in town.

As for publishing, I am seriously considering a slow rollout to start with publishing a chapter like every 3 weeks at around the 80% mark which honestly, I'd really hope would be in August if July's as successful as last August. It'd give my beta plenty of time to work too on the last chapters, and by then I shouldn't suddenly stumble into a plothole that needs to be fixed 10 chapters previous. Then once everything's done it'd change probably to once a week.

So yeah! We'll see what life brings. But I'm crossing fingers to have something public by the end of the summer if I go the slow rollout route.

[adventureofthedancinggirl]

WIP Update 04.05.2024

I've been mostly offline recently because there's been a lot going on, but since we're officially done with the first quarter of the year (how did that happen?) I thought that now would be a good time to post an update so I can track my works in progress.

Here are the fics I've been working on lately:

1) See You After

(tdbk, post-war, epistolary fic, slow burn, healing, hurt/comfort with moments of humor)

Status: In progress on AO3, published WC is 50,642 words. Chapter 45 wrapped up Part II: "Rebuilding the bridges that were burned".

There are still some things I'm figuring out for the timeline of Part III, and specific details, but I have the first couple of chapters and some of the major scenes set.

I actually spent quite a bit of time writing/revising a certain set of chapters that are in Part IV instead, because I was in the mood for angst. Aiming to resume regular updates by the middle of this month.

2) Everything's Upside Down (unless I'm in your arms)

(tdbk, established relationship, 3rd year, fluff, literal sleeping together, aspec shouto & katsuki) see this post for the tentative summary

Status: Not posted yet. Draft is almost complete (currently ~10k words)

This turned out to be way longer than I thought it was going to be, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. I think I just really needed this blend of fluff and snarkiness after all the emotional stuff I've been writing lately.

Since the aspec aspect turned out to be an important part of this fic, I was hoping to post this for Ace Day (Apr. 6) but we'll see. I haven't decided if I want to split it into a couple of chapters or just post it all at once, so I guess that will be the deciding factor.

3) Post-it Promises

This fic popped up out of nowhere and took up several unexpected late-night writing sessions two weeks ago. All I'm going to say for now is that it's another tdbk fic (is anyone actually surprised?), set in the future when they're pro heroes and living together. It seems like it's turning into a 2-part thing but we'll see.

Status: drafting whenever the mood strikes. I have scattered notes and a rough outline, but already wrote a full draft of the final scene.

Also, the YT algorithm recently reminded me that the 8bit dorm video exists, so that's been my background music for the past few nights. This particular screenshot is somewhat relevant to "Everything's Upside Down":

[chayscribbles]

chayscribbles’ monthly writing update ☆ february 2023

☆ STATISTICS.

words written: 11 606

projects worked on: Andromeda Rogue; The Gemini Heist; and a Third, Secret WIP

proudest accomplishment: i'm about halfway through with AR1 draft 2! and i finished like, a bunch of drawings

books read: Architects of Memory by Karen Osborne; All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells;

☆ GENERAL COMMENTS.

why do i feel like i wrote a lot less than i actually did. like i looked at my total and thought "now that can't be right... there's no way i wrote that much."

things are going better for some wips (AR) than they are for others (GH) so maybe my head is cancelling it out lol.

reading comments: Architects of Memory was basically "a corporate war over alien weapons featuring messy sapphics in space" and i liked it but it wasn't quite a coup de coeur, 4/5 stars. All Systems Red was an absolute delight, 5/5 stars, will be reading the rest of the series once my holds on Libby come through.

(also i started reading Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo this past weekend, and i blame it + it's precursor Ninth House for putting me in the mood to work on Third Secret WIP lately, as Ninth House is partially responsible for the genre shift in Third Secret WIP.)

more specific wip-related comments + featured excerpt below.

☆ COMMENTS: ANDROMEDA ROGUE (draft 2)

i'm about halfway through this draft! i've passed 40k this month!

things are going super well. when i have the magical combo of time and energy and motivation to write i can get through scenes pretty easily, now that i don't have to worry about overall plot as much. plus i get to add little things here and there to beef it up.

i've mostly worked on the second act this month, which is where the team really starts going through things together.

there's one particular Azami chapter right before the midpoint that's a monster of lore-dropping. i had to rework it several times as i had an entire page of editing notes to make sure everything is coherent... and i'm still not entirely sure i've gotten it right 😭

☆ COMMENTS: THE GEMINI HEIST (outlining / draft 0.5)

not much to say about this one. didn't work on it as much. the plot for this wip continues to frustrate me. i'll find myself coming up with little ideas for the characters and the world... but when i try to sit down and come up with actual scenes and plot, my brain turns to soup.

☆ COMMENTS: THIRD, SECRET WIP

this wip is consuming me. devouring me with its teeth. i'm surprised to find i may actually have a plot. turns out letting it hibernate for 3 years and tweaking with the genre has done some good.

i might cave and post an intro in the next month. stay tuned...

☆ FEATURED EXCERPT.

this is from the like, one scene i wrote for gemini heist this month. i just think it's funny. for context, Leo and Gabi are trying to get access to some archives in a university library, and are posing as students.

As [Leo and the archivist] talked, Gabi slipped her hand into the pocket of her ridiculous jacket. Her fingers closed around a small round device. She glanced around. While Leo was doing a great job at keeping the archivist distracted, the commotion had caught the attention of nearly everyone in the room.

Just be normal, she told herself. She inched her hand out of her pocket.

“Which archives exactly do you need access to?” [the archivist] asked.

“Art of the early Viheldan Empiric era,” Leo said. “My paper is on the Gemini statuettes.”

“Ah, that might be why. You need a special authorization form from a professor or another faculty member to access those.”

Leo pouted. “But my professor said he got access for me!”

“Perhaps you can message him—”

“Ugh— can’t you just call him right now and ask? I don’t have time for this.”

“Alright. I’ll give him a call.”

Shit. Gabi wasn’t ready. She fumbled to take out the device, concealing it as best as she could in the palm of her hand. All she needed was to place it on the archivist’s computer terminal without him seeing a thing before he made that call.

The archivist’s fingers hovered over the screen for a second before pressing an icon at the bottom. With a starburst motion of his hand, he expanded a search window and began typing in the name of the professor. Panicking, Gabi slammed the device in her hand onto the side of the terminal.

The already quiet room went completely silent. All eyes turned towards her. The archivist’s were wide and stunned. Leo’s were sharp and furious.

“I, uh,” Gabi sputtered, awkwardly keeping her hand glued to the terminal. The device whirred to life, vibrating softly under her palm. “I-I thought I saw a bug.”

☆ TAGLISTS. let me know if you want to be added/removed to any of them.

general taglist:

@nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @retrogayyde @quilloftheclouds @ashen-crest @writeblrfantasy @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @extra-magichours @avi-why @lefttigerobservation @chazzawrites @bardolatrycore @innocentlymacabre

andromeda trilogy taglist:

@bebewrites @nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @retrogayyde @akindofmagictoo @quilloftheclouds @nora-theteawriter @ashen-crest @corpsepng @writeblrfantasy @toboldlywrite @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @cheerfulmelancholies @extra-magichours @writeouswriter @cilly-the-writer @lefttigerobservation @rose-bookblood @drowsy-quill @chazzawrites @cynic-and-chief @enchanted-lightning-aes @aesa

gemini heist taglist:

@florraisons @akindofmagictoo @cream-and-tea @nicola-writes @memento-morri-writes @antique-symbolism @rose-bookblood @afoolandathief @pepperdee @avi-why @zonnemaagd @chazzawrites @analogued @enchanted-lightning-aes @innocentlymacabre @kahvilahuhut @celestepens @cilly-the-writer @extra-magichours @retrogayyde

[ten-thousand-year-elegy]

Book 2: Leviathans, Part 3: The Darkness is DONE! There are only two sections left. I think I might actually finish the fic in 2024?!??!

There's going to be a little break as I sort out Part 4: The Wasteland. Hopefully not too long of a break, I'm hoping less than a month before I start putting out chapters again!

I think The Wasteland will cap out at 7-8 chapters - so shorter than the other sections in Book 2, and also the most complex from a behind-the-scenes perspective, as it's tying up a lot of lore & plot threads. Writing this section is a lot of fun right now! I'm past all the agonizing and second-guessing as I tried to reconcile all of the TOTK lore, and I have a really solid outline that I feel great about. So it's mostly just a matter of pushing through. MAN is it satisfying to see all the little seeds I've been planting finally sprout! (Thank god for Scrivener's side-by-side window function, absolute lifesaver for me and my hamster-length memory recall.)

P.S. Don't worry, The Wasteland won't be complex and difficult from a reader perspective. A large part of the work going into this section is making sure it reads well and is easy to follow. As always: you won't need to be 'terminally online marinating in 30 years of Zelda lore' to understand what's going on, AND there will be lots of lore easter eggs for those who love them ( ಠ ͜ʖರೃ)

[liminalpsych-in-teyvat]

Notes for A Matter of Duty - Chapter 17 - Like a fish to water

The patron had kissed him—hesitant at first, then sharp with yearning. Lost in the memory, Thoma drew a finger across his lower lip. Softly, gently, like the patron’s first shy fumblings. He traced his upper lip too, remembering the touch of a stranger's on his own, and wondered. Wondered about the texture of a beauty mark, and the taste of his lord's mouth.

Thoma has twenty days to get information out of a prisoner before Ayato takes over the interrogation. Twenty days to spare Ayato from losing more of himself. He throws himself into the investigation with a desperate will.

- - -

Aaand we're back! I give up on estimating how long things are going to take; I should know better by this point. However, my frantic writing deadlines are done. I was writing every spare minute for the past 2-3 months for a project that finished up in late Feb/early Mar (and went really well!) and it's finally over, so I can put my focus back on Genshin fanfic.

Any guesses as to who Thoma's patrons were? The Liyue sailor and the Liyue merchant are both actual Genshin NPCs.

This chapter was a bit of an experiment. I'm not sure if it worked or not, but I needed to get through a lot of plot points very quickly and didn't want to spend *tons of chapters* doing so.

(I might write out some of the more interesting Sakura-za scenes in a spinoff at some point. You know... this fic was originally meant to be kinky porn with some angst, and some handwaved plot in the background. Now I keep cutting out the porn because it'd bog down the plot. Siiigh.)

Back to a more traditional format next chapter. Thanks to: PancakeBeast for beta reading, and the Hidden Akasha Records discord for all the general support!

Notes and references:

Characteristics of Japanese block-printed books in the Edo period: 1603-1867: This is mostly for block-printed books, though I don't see why blank journals would be constructed any differently. (Also some nifty stuff on a particular book binder's books.)

Sugoroku: Probably dice games were more popular by this point, but board games have a certain sedateness to them that's valuable for conversation—yet I didn't want to use something too cerebral like shōgi or Go, so sugoroku it is.

My math. Conversion rates grabbed off of... some forum thread or another; fees for actors sourced from The Great Mirror of Male Love by Ihara Saikaku, a collection of m/m short stories published in 1687.

- Sleeping with apprentice actors cost 1 bu of gold (1/4 ryu of gold, about 25k yen or 170 usd) - $1 USD = 297.52 mora. So 1 bu = 50k mora - 5 ryō of silver = 66,665 yen = 455.98 usd or 423.10 euro = 135k mora for a night with a full fledged onnagata actor of no particular stardom

Studies in Kabuki: Its acting, music, and historical context - Specifically page 46 talking about dance (but I've referenced this whole piece heavily).

Summary of the fic itself with content warnings, tags, etc so you can decide if you want to read it or not before you click on the link.

A Matter of Duty

A year after the death of Ayato and Ayaka's parents, the clan succession is contested from within and without. Kamisato Ayato will do anything—_anything_—to ensure the safety of his family and the stability of his clan.

But powerful supporters come at an unimaginable price. When Ayato's own sacrifices aren't enough, he is forced to involve Thoma in a web of intrigue and exploitation that will push them to the breaking points of their bodies, their minds, and their very hearts.

or: Kushiel's Dart meets Genshin Impact in a quick-scorch-to-slow-burn romantic drama of court intrigue, sexual politics, and sacrifice.

Note: Mind the tags. More specific content warnings will be given at the beginning of each chapter, and the story tags will be updated as needed. All characters in sex scenes are adults.

Rating: Explicit. It's porn with plot. Porn as a vehicle for plot, or plot as a vehicle for porn, you can interpret it either way. (I prefer: porn and plot as a vehicle for ~feels~)

Tags that I'm not actually turning into tags here, but it gives you an idea of what you're in for: Kamisato Ayato/Thoma (Genshin Impact), dubious consent but not between Ayato and Thoma, slow burn, sex ed, first time, self-sacrifice, humiliation, exhibitionism, oral sex, anal sex, bdsm, bad bdsm etiquette, rough sex, breath play, impact play, bondage, service kink, abuse, sadism, codependency, shame, guilt, jealousy, possessiveness, trauma, ptsd, dissociation, political sex work, or sex work for political maneuvering, or political survival sex work if that’s a thing, exploitation, blackmail, political machinations, political intrigue, no aftercare, maybe someday some aftercare, hurt/comfort, mostly hurt for a long time but eventually comfort, oblivious disaster gays, for such socially savvy people they are terrible at personal relationships, dominant Ayato, submissive Thoma, top Ayato, bottom Thoma, Ayato is incredibly parentified, Thoma has no sense of self-preservation, self-sacrifice isn't a contest but don't tell Ayato and Thoma that, it's like the snipe-the-check game at restaurants but with sex and politics, Kushiel's Impact, no really this was in my drafts for the longest time as Kusheline Thomato Fic, everyone's an adult in this timeline except Ayaka, she gets protected at all costs, original characters out of necessity, finding appropriate existing Inazuma npcs for some of these roles was impossible

Full fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47604337?view_full_work=true

Chapter 17 - Like a fish to water

Thoma has twenty days to get information out of a prisoner before Ayato takes over the interrogation. Twenty days to spare Ayato from losing more of himself. He throws himself into the investigation with a desperate will.

Chapter contains: sex work, bdsm

[claudiajcregg]

S5 Pregnancy AU - I’d love to hear about!

Welp, this is embarrassing – mostly because this has been sitting in my inbox for almost two weeks, and I kept saying “I need to write something up!” and then… I didn't. (Or rather, I did, then I forgot to post it.) Sorry for the wait, Lil! Thank you for asking <3 (I'll divide this up because I keep writing about the process and how it came to be, instead of any actual, interesting facts.)

I have talked about this one in the past though I don't have a tag for it. The gist is what it says… (Early) S5 but CJ is pregnant. I had this idea over a year ago when I hit mid/late S4 in my rewatch. I thought it'd be interesting to explore some of her disappointment at that time if you added an unexpected pregnancy to it, even if I had the idea before even getting there, lol. Think, the ending-ish of Han, or parts of Disaster Relief. (Both of which do feature! I surprisingly focus a lot on Disaster Relief.)

The thing with S5 is that the timeline is so weird, and I feel I've also created one that isn't entirely realistic but I think it works within the story. (IIRC, the season starts in “May” but also July, then the Shutdown is in November, lmao. A few of the episodes are sneaky two-parters that flow into each other… See 5-6, 7-8.) I've finally gotten out of the no-man's-land I wrote myself into and the next chapter or two, knowing myself, will deal with 7-8! There are a couple of scenes that should be fun to write! (There are so many details I want to mention that are technically spoilers for early twists…)

Every time I had the urge to write it, I'd edit whatever outline I was working in, and though I kept some details… my muse decided to make a big change early on that completely changed the fic's direction. That, and my inability to write anything succinctly. No reason why this story will cross the 100k barrier in a couple of chapters, tops. (It's sitting at 85k across 12 chapters. I think it'll be less than 20 chapters total. Hopefully.)

This might be too long to share snippets, but I've shared some either on the server or here, a couple of months ago.

For more irrelevant details on the “process”…

As I hinted at, I wrote an outline or two around this time last year, because I couldn't stop thinking about it. When I say outlines, it's a general path for the story to follow – ideas, suggestions of dialogue and/or scenes I write to myself; all focused around some sort of chapter structure. I find it much easier to write if I write down where a chapter might go, even if it's just a few lines saying “This happens → then this → finally this;” otherwise, it takes me months. Some would say that I should post it and get encouragement that way but… I hate being dependent on something I can control even less than my muse? That's not for me, thank you. Mad respect for those who work like that.

It was meant to be short – 1-2 “long” chapters per trimester, more if needed, but then interludes in between trimesters. It's not that. Most chapters currently cover 1-2 weeks, but there is not really a pattern. I was afraid of having a fic that would take over my life like the WOWO did three years ago… And it has, but I've also taken breaks and not felt too guilty about them. I definitely don't want this one to sit in my drive and have me wondering what to do with it.

(The novel, aka WOWO, aka IM AU (2021): 150k written in a little over five months, even with extended breaks over the summer. Still hits, even with all its crazy decisions, maybe because of them, but it's also been too long, and it will always remind me of someone who kinda hurt me. Attempts to replace those memories by sharing the story with others, trying to gather whether it's worth posting, have failed, lmao. One day! Maybe!)

But yeah. Uuuuuhhhh. As I've said… Twelve chapters in ten months, 85k words… It's still not done. In fact, I've repeatedly said I am unsure of how to end it (beyond the obvious), but I'd estimate it to be under 20 chapters. I'm not posting it anywhere yet because I want to be able to edit it as a whole and try to make it more consistent; to add little details as I come up with them. There's also the fact that I am not skilled enough to write a compelling story that mixes politics and emotion into something remotely engaging. As a result, the story's politics are very surface-level, and probably repetitive at points, but it's also true I've always been more interested and focused on the emotional journey and the relationship(s) at its center. (Which should surprise exactly no one who's ever read one of my stories.)

But, as critical as I might sound of myself here, I am having fun writing this and I'm committed to seeing it through. I just keep having ideas for stories down the line, putting actual show events through a 'but she also has a kid' perspective.

[a-swiss-and-a-spaniard]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks for thinking of me @yoellglia ! I had fun reading your answers and even more so trying to answer myself :)

1. How many works do you have on A03?

Jeez, should I consider both of my accounts? Let's do it, why not.

I have 12 fics in total. 7 for Tennis RPF and 5 for the DC Universe.

2. What's your total A03 word count?

37,211 words combined. Ngl, I thought it would be less than that as there are only two multi-chaptered fics and the rest are one-shots. Hopefully, I'll add some more words in the upcoming months :)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently, I only write Tennis RPF. I've been toying with a few ideas for the Good Omens fandom, but I haven't opened a new doc yet. And I used to write for the DC Universe, but I haven't done that in ages.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

(I’m gonna keep this Tennis RPF only bc this blog is tennis themed)

Waking in the Night Light: Fedal share their first kiss in a parking lot.

A New Target: Fedal have sex in the locker room.

Moonlight in Paris: Rafa goes to Roger's hotel room.

Strawberry & Dulce de Leche: Roger and Rafa get ice cream.

Somewhere or Other: Fedal phone call.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes yes yes! At least I try to. Although more often than not I get the notification, reply in my head, then forget to actually write back, and I'm too embarrassed to answer if more than a week has gone by… so apologies for that. That doesn't mean I don’t appreciate every single comment I have ever gotten, they always make my day in fact.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Mmh… perhaps Moonlight in Paris. It's not angst per se but it does have an overall sense of uncertainty.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Strawberry & Dulce de Leche, definitely. Rafa's joy at the possibility of Roger going to his birthday party is everything.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, thankfully. I’m glad I haven't unlocked that side of fandom yet.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, but I consider myself a newbie at it (smut writers, pls teach me your ways).

Generally speaking, I prefer it when smut has a little plot. It doesn't have to be anything complicated or serious, I just need a bit of a story behind what's happening for it to feel more organic. I also like it when the focus is on the emotional aspect of it, though descriptive can be nice as well. And I don't mind wordy smut as longs as it doesn't mess with the flow.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Nope, and I'm not a big fan of those tbh

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Story time! Yes 💀 Although it wasn't the whole thing, just a fragment. The fic in question was None but the Lonely Heart for the DCEU. And I only found out bc a lovely person left a comment on my fic, letting me know what had happened and the link to the other fic. I checked and the writer had indeed literally copied and pasted one of my scenes, they'd just changed the names of the characters. So I reached out to the AO3 team and they took care of everything.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. Stef and I had an idea for a Fedal fic, but who knows if we'll ever get to actually write it lol

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

I don't think I have one, really. I would say my main ones/the ones I keep coming back to are Fedal (Roger Federer/Rafael Nadal) and Superbat (Superman/Batman). Though right now I've been reading almost exclusively Ineffable Husbands (Aziraphale/Crowley), so it mostly depends on my hyperfixation at the time

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Oof, that might be a Superbat (long) fic set post BvS, where resurrected Clark has lost his powers (and the sun seems to actually make him sick now), so Bruce helps him to get back on his feet and of course they fall in love in the process. I have the whole thing outlined, sheets of dialogues and a couple of scenes already fleshed out, but I took a break from the fandom bc it was draining me out. Idk, maybe one day I'll get back to it. I mean, never say never and all that, but it's looking highly improbable right now

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I'm good at setting the tone of scenes, be it fluffy, angsty, whatever.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I tend to write in long, long sentences. Seriously, you should see my drafts, sometimes a whole paragraph can be a single sentence. I don't know if it's due to my Spanish hard-wired brain or what, but I’m working on breaking things up a bit more.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I love it! But you need to make sure readers will still get the message through context, so I think it's best to stick to single words and/or common phrases. Unless, of course, you want to leave your character (and thus your readers) feeling confused.

I do it often when I’m writing Rafa and it's part of the reason I love writing him so much.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

DC Universe

20. Favourite fic you've written?

Tough question… can I say an unpublished one? I have this sort of introspection/character study of Domi, his struggles coming back on tour after the wrist injury and dealing with all the ups and downs. There's not a story to it per se, like I'm not trying to get him from A to B. It's just a dive into his mind, where it gets kinda dark real quick, and it's unlike what I usually go for in tennis fics (fluff), so I've been enjoying the challenge of getting out of my comfort zone there