#my process is. definitely made for the way i write. i don't think i would ever recommend anybody do what i do with my fics

[pyrriax]

6, 12, 30 for the writing asks ^_^

6. What’s the last line you wrote?

Shaking its head in what seems like disbelief before meeting his eyes again, almost like it wants to say something before it makes a noise like a growl, "oh, you're one of those seraphs, aren't you. A star-eater. No wonder you act like you've lost your mind."

(ignore that that's a couple sentences, the Thought is important)

12. Do you outline your fics?  If yes, how detailed are your outlines?  How far do you stray from them?

Oh yes! I outline my fics thoroughly. Though, I do allowed myself to deviate as much from the outline as I feel like when things go off the rails. Some snippets of planning from a couple fics & concepts:

My outlines are very... One for one. With some exceptions. I tend to basically write a very brief version of the fic and try to get the feelings and words right before I actually write it. This is... Also why it can and will take me a month to write a oneshot. I try to get things Right.

30. How much do you edit your fics?  Do you edit as you write or wait until you finish the first draft?

So! I edit them a bit? I edit while I work, but often I don't really touch anything I've already written unless it's something longer that might be taking a few months to get through. I think the fic I've edited the most is the prologue of Artificial Stars, which was originally a quickly written 2k oneshot into about 5k of actually decent fic.

Usually I don't edit to make something shorter/more concise, since I tend to only come up with more ways to bridge concepts when I go back to it. Also to be fair... There's usually no difference between first draft and final product. I cannot be asked to edit my fics after I write them, I just release them to the birds and pray for the best. (Unless I actually decide to show it to my beta reader in full instead of just sharing snippets as I... usually do.)

Conclusion: Rarely, those thangs are being given to the world as-is unless something is horrifically wrong with them

[mariasont]

That anon was living under a rock because your smut fics (all of your fics tbh!) I reread wayyy to many times, lol. But if you’re taking smut requests, I’d love to see more bimbo!reader and Hotch! I can’t get enough.

I’ll take anything!! But more specifically, their first time, all of that built up tension (that you write so perfectly!) finally breaks!

Anyways, I never send in requests but I saw a window of opportunity and had to take it, haha.

Third Date Rule - A.H

summary: the third date proves to be worth the wait when you and hotch experience your first time together. pairings: aaron hotchner x bimbo!assistant!reader warnings: 18+ MDNI, sexy time, fingering, oral fem receiving, p in v, they did not in fact wrap it before tapping it and it's not really discussed so yeah idk about that one, aftercare wc: 7.7k

This was so overdue.

Technically, it's only been three dates. Technically.

But if you count all the years you'd known him, the months spent daydreaming about this moment, the weeks of waiting while he played the world's longest game of restraint, then really, you should have had him naked ages ago.

And if Aaron (which still feels like a thrill to say — Aaron — because you're dating now and you can freely call him that) wasn't so stubborn and noble and insufferably gentlemanly, you would have.

But tonight was finally the night. The third date. The sacred, hallowed, much-debated, universally accepted gateway to getting into the sheets. And yes, okay, maybe you barely survived the wait without jumping his bones, but that's hardly relevant now. The point is, you did it.

And now you're in his lap, his tie wound tight around your fingers, his tongue deep in your mouth, and gods, if this night didn't end with him inside you, you might actually die. 

Like, literally. Heart failure. Sudden death.

This was premeditated. At least, for you. You moisturized like your life depended on it, doused yourself in perfume that could be classified as a controlled substance, and selected a bra that made your tits look so insane, it might actually be illegal in some states.

And then you spent an embarrassing amount of time picking the perfect dress that says oh, I'm classy, but also please take me home and rip this off with your teeth.

You pull away, just enough to see him. To take in the slow bloom of pink trailing from his cheeks to the tips of his ears, the way his pupils are so wide they’ve all but erased the brown of his eyes. And his lips — swollen and red from kissing you — part like he was debating how bad it would be to drag you right back in. You wouldn’t mind.

“Aaron,” you sigh, fingers burying into his hair, marveling at how absurdly soft it is, how freely he lets you have this piece of him. “We should go to bed.”

For a second, he locks up. Not hesitation but calibration, a body processing desire so sharp it might break him. You feel it in the way his chest expands, in the quiet exhale through his nose.

"This wasn't my plan for the night," he murmurs, voice softer now, not strained, but steeped in something much gentler. Something careful. "I wasn't —," He shakes his head, like the whole concept doesn’t sit right in his mouth. "I don't want you to think this is just —,"

"Sex?"

You can see the way he wants to argue, like he wants to carve the word out of the air and replace it with something that means more.

"Yes."

You can’t stop the stupid, lovestruck smile pulling at your lips. Maybe it’s the wine from dinner finally working its magic. (It’s not.) Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at you, all serious and earnest, like you’re the only thing in existence, and if he blinks, you might vanish. (It definitely is.)

A laugh bubbles up, light and giddy, body not knowing what to do with all this adoration. You lean in, pressing a kiss to his jaw, just to see if he’ll let you. (He does.)

“Are you serious? If you just wanted sex, you wouldn’t have spent actual years pretending my very dedicated, very expertly executed attempts to seduce you weren’t happening.”

His brow arches, but you see it for what it is — a stall. “Expertly, huh?”

"Remember that heatwave last summer? When I just had to eat a popsicle at my desk every afternoon?"

His eyes darken like the memory is playing in high definition behind his eyes.

"I remember."

"Do you?" Your fingers slip beneath his color. “Because —” You tilt your head. “I always seemed to finish them standing in front of your office —"

You don't even get to finish your sentence. 

One second, you’re speaking, the next, you’re airborne. Lifted clean off the couch, legs locking around his waist automatically, arms thrown around his shoulders like you planned this all along.

You didn’t, but you wish you had. 

Not that it matters, because he’s already moving, already walking straight to the bedroom.

You bury your smile against his jaw, letting your breath tickle against the shell of his ear as another giggle slips out. It couldn’t be helped.

"I really hope you know," you whisper, “that I am, like, stupidly excited for this. Like, counting down the days excited.”

Aaron sets you down on the mattress gently, but his body doesn’t follow right away, hovering over you.

"You're not making this easy for me."

You ignore him because you’re much more distracted by how insanely soft his sheets are. That was your first thought when your back hits the mattress, hair fanning across the pillows.

For a fleeting second, you wonder if he’ll catch the scent of your perfume tomorrow. If he’ll notice the ghost of you when he lays down alone.

Your second was that this is so not the time nor place to get emotional. 

But this is his space. His bed. His room.

It’s tidy, but somehow not sterile, everything having its place, but not afraid to be used. A book sits on the nightstand, a book mark sticking out mid-thought. A photo frame faces the bed, though from this angle you struggle to see what’s inside.

There’s his suit jacket from yesterday, draped over the back of a chair, a little rumpled. 

And maybe it's silly, but you feel weirdly honored to be here.

You should probably be processing this moment, what it means to be here, with him, like this. Instead, you take a second to admire the view.

The lamp softens the sharp lines of his face, making him look almost gentle — which is funny, considering how you hoped to be thoroughly destroyed by him.

Something expands inside you, stretching against the walls of your chest, something too big, something that terrifies you.

So you do what you do best. You deflect.

“I can’t believe I’m about to sleep with my boss.”

He doesn’t even try to hide his exasperation, his forehead dropping into the crook of your neck. “Sweetheart—,”

"What?" You giggle, letting your fingers slide through his hair, letting your nails rake lightly over his scalp. "It's true."

His sigh is nothing short of pained, but then he kisses your cheek anyway, then your jaw, then the corner of your mouth. You were starting to feel like each was a thinly veiled attempt to tame you.

"Please don't phrase it like that."

"Yes, Mr. Hotchner." 

Every self-satisfied thought evaporates the moment he kisses you – really kisses you.

It’s not just a meeting of lips but a focused intensity, tongue sweeping inside your mouth and suddenly nothing before this mattered, because clearly, clearly, every kiss you’ve ever had was just practice for this one. 

Your body responds before your mind can catch up, spine arching and he doesn’t stop you, just kisses you with a hunger that makes teasing obsolete, that makes breathing secondary to the way he’s taking from you, giving to you, all at once.

His lips wander, dragging across your jaw like he’s leaving invisible ink behind, pressing something permanent into your skin.

You hope you’ll wake up tomorrow and still feel him there.

Your hands move to the nape of his neck, drawn by craving, by the need circling inside you like a ribbon of fire.

It stretches outward, licking at your skin, threading through your veins. His hands hold you still, spanning over your rib. His breath fans over your pulse, and you swear he can feel how fast it’s racing.

You should be gloating right now. This is, after all, exactly what you wanted, what you worked for. A biting remark sits on the top of your tongue, but then his mouth moves, and he finds it.

That wicked, traitorous little dip beneath your jaw that turns your entire brain into pink, glittering static. He pauses, listening, feeling, before sealing his mouth over it again, tongue dragging over the sensitive skin like he’s testing a theory that he already knows the answer to.

Your fingers clench in his hair, a startled sound choking in your throat before you can stop it. And then, the bastard laughs. Not sweet, not kind, but low and sharp and smug because he knows exactly what he’s done. 

You had the upper hand. Past tense.

"There it is," he murmurs, pressing another kiss there, his tongue flattening over it just to make you squirm. "You want to know how I figured this out?"

You hum, or try to. But it’s pathetic because you’re barely conscious, every cell fried to uselessness by his mouth.

He mimics you, just to be an ass about it, mocking the dazed little sound like he hasn’t just reduced you to it. "You always reached for it when I looked at you too long."

Your mouth opens. Closes.

"Or," he continues, "when I stood too close to you at the coffee machine. You'd fidget, tuck your hair behind your ear like you weren't thinking about it." His exhale burns against your pulse. "Cute."

You gasp, a little offended, mostly turned on. "Oh, wow. Profiling me? At work? That's, like, wildly unethical."

"Didn't need to," he murmurs. "You were practically begging me to figure you out."

His mouth is perfect in the way lightning is perfect – striking, searing, and completely out of your control. It’s perfect enough that you can pretend not to hear him.

He sucks, slow and hard enough to tear a sound from your lips before you even know it’s there, something that feels like vulnerability in its purest form. Something you would never willingly give him.

His laugh is quiet, wrecking, as he pulls back, lips slick with your skin. "That good?"

His mouth makes quick work, over your collarbone, down, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses, down, branding every inch of skin he can reach. 

He stops at the neckline of your dress, and suddenly, you can't think about anything except how it's still on.

You want to strip it off, want to offer yourself up as a willing sacrifice, but you’re well aware that if you try, if you even reach, he’ll stop you. Or worse, he'll make you wait. He'll slow you down, draw it out just to watch you squirm because patience is his weapon of choice, because he lives for making you suffer.

His teeth graze the swell of your breast, just enough to sting, and whatever fragile grip you had on yourself disintegrates on impact. Your hands fumble blindly for his face, fingers shaking, needing to see his eyes.

"Please, Aaron.” It’s an exhale, a prayer. “Need you."

You see the ripple of tension along his throat. And for one tiny, blinding second you think this is when he finally snaps, abandons his tolerance and just takes you.

"You don't know how long I've wanted you like this," he rumbles. "I'm going to take my time."

You whine, frustration bleeding from your fingertips where they clutch his shoulders, fingers digging in like you can physically push him into moving faster.

He does not move faster. 

His hands slide up to the straps of your dress, as he drags it down with all the urgency of a leisurely Sunday stroll. 

Your mind is halfway through an exceptionally justified complaint about how slow he is moving when he folds the dress.

Folds it.

Sets it aside. Doesn't toss it.

And that may be the hottest thing he's ever done.

Because you know he knows. He’s always known. Known that your things aren’t just things — that your dresses, your heels, your overpriced lip glosses aren’t frivolous, aren’t some shallow indulgence, but tiny, curated pieces of you.

He has listened to you decide between two pairs of shoes that are, for all intent and purposes, identical. He knows jasmine is mysterious and vanilla is flirty, knows that you’ll debate your right to own the same three shades of pink. 

And instead of dismissing it, instead of rolling his eyes (though he does that too), he folds your dress. As if it matters.

You stare at him, somewhere between melting and spontaneous combustion, and he simply raises a brow. “Something wrong?”

"No." You shake your head for emphasis, voice a little too weak to get the point across. "Just thinking I might have to marry you."

His hands settle at your waist, fingers tracing over the pink lace like he’s trying to process it, like if he touches it enough times, it’ll confirm that this is actually happening and not some cruel illusion. His thumb brushes the scalloped edge, breathing shallow. You were pretty sure he’s currently having a full-scale existential meltdown over lingerie.

"Agreed," he murmurs, distracted, hooded eyes still glued to your chest. "I think the courthouse opens at eight."

Your giggle stutters, hiccups right out of you, because his hands are suddenly everywhere, roaming with no clear plan, just a man in crisis over how much of you he wants to touch first. His palms skate over your stomach, down your thighs, up over your breasts.

"So, this is all I had to do to convince you to do what I want?"

His mouth follows, retracting the path of his hands, rewriting, reworking, perfecting – because apparently, the first time wasn’t good enough, wasn’t thorough enough. 

"You think this is what did it for me?" His voice is hushed. "You could've walked into my office six months ago and told me to get on one knee.” A kiss, open-mouthed, starving, just below your navel. “I would've done it."

Six months ago. You don't know if you believed that.

Except now you're spiraling, backtracking, rewinding, piecing together little details like some lovesick conspiracy theorist with red string and a bulletin board. Every interaction, every loaded glance, every time he let you get away with high-level flirtation without so much as a blink. You thought you were testing him, but what if he was never fighting at all?

And before you can even recover from that, before you can file an official grievance about why no one told you sooner, his hands squeeze at your thighs, his mouth so close to exactly where you need him, and his voice —

"You're so beautiful."

His nose presses into the damp center of your panties, and your hands fly to his hair so fast it’s practically reflex, breath stalling in your chest like your body forgot how to function for a second. 

This is everything. What you've wanted, dreamed of, written in the margins of notebooks (hypothetically, of course).

It should be perfect, but suddenly, it isn't.

Uncertainty slips between the cracks, heat turning into something less solid. You don’t have time to find it, to name it, because he’s already there, already sensing it, already fixing it before you even know what’s wrong.

"Hey." His voice hooks into you, gently reeling you back from wherever your brain was about to go. "We don't have to do anything you're not ready for."

"No, I—," The words come out far too fast and desperate, and you can't decipher why it's so hard to say. "I do want to. Obviously." The nervous laugh that follows is definitely not your usual flirty confidence. "Have you met yourself? Because if you haven't, I would love to introduce you. Tall, devastatingly handsome — you'd love him."

His move curves, but his eyes stay patient and focused, giving you a second to breathe.

"It's just..." Another pause, another frustrated sigh. "I haven't been with anyone in a while."

"That's okay, we can take it slow." He moves so that he's hovering above you again, brushing a strand of hair out of your face, his smile just amused enough to leave you flustered. "How long?"

"May."

"May?"

"Yeah, like, May. Three years ago."

Aaron just stares at you, processing. You can see the gears turning, the little mental loading wheel spinning, his expression caught between stunned and deeply interested.

His fingers creep up, sliding under your ribs, just close enough to the heavy swell of your tits to remind you exactly where you are. What he was doing to you before you so rudely derailed this into actual conversation.

"Really?"

You pinch his arm. "Hey! That is not an absurd amount of time."

"No. I know. I didn’t say that," he says quickly. "I'm just... surprised."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

His lips part and he immediately shakes his head, exhaling like he's physically trying to dispel what just ran through your mind, knowing exactly where your thoughts were.

"I just mean — I don't know how every man you meet doesn't immediately worship the ground you walk on."

"Oh, well, they do." You smile. "But I was only ever planning on letting one of them take me to bed."

You reach for his dress shirt buttons, tugging insistently, but your hands refuse to cooperate, not properly communicating with your brain.

It's his fault, you decide.

He looks too good, and it was extremely hard to focus on anything but that.

You have no idea how you survived dinner. Or the car ride home. Or even the eternity it took to get past the door, because that was definitely a struggle considering your mouth was all over his, tasting the whiskey he’d barely touched, before he could even get the key in the lock.

You spent all night picturing this, the way his hands would feel in you, the way his mouth would taste, the way his suit would look crumpled on the floor.

Which, in hindsight, probably meant you were a pretty terrible dinner guest. Nodding, smiling, pretending to listen, all while barely holding back the need to ride him in public.

Aaron laughs, clearly entertained by your struggle, and then, because he’s nothing if not arrogant, he starts undoing the buttons one-handed, to be a show-off.

It’s rude, really. Because now all you can do is watch, helpless as he peels himself open to reveal golden skin, dark hair dusting over firm pecs, trailing lower, disappearing beneath his belt. 

Your manicured fingers glide over the broad expanse of his shoulders, pushing his shirt away like uncovering some lost Renaissance painting that scholars would kill to get their hands on — something that should be in a temperature-controlled glass case, not just here, sprawled above you like he belongs to you. Which, he does, because he’s just letting you do this, letting you look. And you look. He is art. No, better than art. Art is stationary, lifeless, some brushstroke interpretation of what beauty should be. But this, him, he is warmth and breath and muscle.

Museums wish they had something this valuable. They’d burn down in despair if they knew he existed just for you.

"May," he muses, letting the word roll off his tongue, turning it over in his mind. "That's an oddly specific answer."

You make a vague sound of agreement, mostly just to acknowledge that yes, technically, he did say words, but you’re too busy to actually care. Too busy with spreading your hands over the planes of his chest, with grabbing at his belt.

"You were hired in May three years ago."

Your hands freeze. 

"That's... um weird." A slow blink. "Weird that you know that. Weirder that you noticed."

You work his belt loose, tugging it free. It’s meant to be a distraction, a well-placed touch to shift his focus from his revelation.

But then your plan backfires spectacularly because he’s hard, thick, unreasonably big and suddenly your fingers feel useless.

Aaron makes a sound — half a hiss, half a laugh — and his hands snap to your wrist, catching you before you can explore further, like he knew you were going to do that. "It’s okay, honey."

"I—I don't—," You blink up at him, floundering, desperately trying to sound casual. "That's, uh, I don't know what that's supposed to mean."

Aaron’s smirk deepens, his grip on you slackening just enough to trick you into thinking he’s going to be nice.

But then his other hand moves, slipping between your bodies, sliding beneath the heat trapped between your thighs, finding the neediest part of you, and pressing.

Your whole body jerks, a startled gasp catching in your throat as sensation flares — hot, sharp, mercilessly good.

His fingers start to move, rubbing tight circles against you. Your hands cling, one locked onto his bare shoulders, the other pressing against his dick, desperate to make him feel even a fraction of what he's doing to you.

It earns you a groan, low and gritty, hips twitching against your palm, his breath is hot against your lips, his mouth hovering just barely out of reach.

"I won't tease," he promises, but the way he bites at your bottom lip feels like a lie. His tongue is quick to follow, flicking over the welt he’s just left, soothing the burn before sealing it with a kiss, just this side of messy. “Three years… that’s a long time.” His lips skim yours again. “For both of us.”

A pleased sound bubbles up from your throat, slipping between his lips, that makes it obnoxiously clear just how much you love those words. That is a sentence you’d like embroidered on a pillow. Maybe cross-stitched into a nice, elegant frame for your future shared bedroom. 

"Oh," you sigh, a smile stretching against his lips. "I really, really, like knowing that. That's, like, incredible news."

Your brows scrunch, and you pull back just an inch. 

"Just to be clear, though, you do mean in a wow, you've ruined me for other women way, and not in a I've been to busy for a sex life way, right? Because those are two different things, and I need to know which one we're working with here—"

Aaron huffs a laugh and instead of answering with words, his hands slip into your panties, fingers finding your clit without prelude. Skin to skin now, no fabric, no flimsy barrier. Just touch.

His fingers dip lower, dragging through the slick, indecent in how easily he moves through the mess of you. He makes a noise — nearly a groan, mostly a hum of appreciation, of possession — before he spreads it, smearing your own arousal over your clit, rolling circles.

"Oh, wow, sweetheart."

Your thighs fall open like you have no say in it — because you don’t, because every instinct in you is reaching for him, needing it like a fix.

And maybe, maybe that should be embarrassing — the obvious, shameless way you seek him out — but it’s a gorgeous kind of humiliation, a flush that spreads lower.

"Well," you gasp, chest rising in stuttering little pants. "Y—you kept me waiting forever."

Aaron hushes you with a soft tsk, his fingers pressing, stroking, coaxing you into sweet, mindless submission. Every movement feels preordained, like he already knows your body, like he’s a man who’s spent years thinking about this.

"I know, sweetheart," he soothes, murmuring it against the fragile skin beneath your ear, punctuating it with a kiss. "But I think I'm making up for lost time pretty well."

"I guess," you manage. "Th—that's acceptable."

Aaron chuckles, the vibration traveling straight into your skin. His lips descend, an idolization thing, but it’s the kind of devotion that sets you on fire.

His hands spread over your thighs, parting them gently.

Your underwear drags down, slipping over your thighs, grazing the curve of your knees, and then off. And suddenly, there's nothing separating you from his eyes, from the way the air licks over you, cool against the sticky heat between your thighs.

His lips part like he wasn't expecting to fall apart so easily. Like he thought he'd have more time, more control. And the power in it, the sheer, intoxicating power of knowing he's just as affected as you are, that this is breaking him open, makes your skin fizz, burn, ache for him even more.

If someone had told you a year ago that Aaron Hotchner, mister all-business-all-the-time, would be between your legs, staring at you like he's never seen anything more perfect, you would have said something nonsensical. Something about fate. Or destiny.

And you would have been right. Because you always knew this was a definite.

"Oh, honey.... You're gorgeous," It's almost a whisper, like the words were dragged out of him against his will, stolen straight from his lungs the second his eyes landed on you. His gaze drinks you in, head tilting, lips parting, tongue skating over the swell of his bottom lip. “I knew you would be, but…”

A sharp, sizzling spark races up your spine, white-hot and unbearable, but when it should tip over into relief, it withers into frustration. The kind that makes your body revolt against the absence of touch. Your hips buck, thighs squeezing as if you can somehow force the friction you’re being deprived of.

"Give me a second, baby," he teases, caressing his nose along the inside of your thigh. "Just wanna look at you."

His mouth moves in decadent passes, open-mouthed kisses pressed into your inner thigh.

Another kiss. Then another. So close.

Then he detours. Veers off, pressing his lips into the dip of your hip instead, dragging his tongue along something that is not your clit.

"So perfect."

His fingers prod through your folds, parting you, fingertips wading through the slickness pooling at your entrance. The sound that spills from him is sinful.

All of your muscles coiling tight, every inch of you scorching with unmet need and just when you think you're going to have to beg him, just when the words start to form —

He gives in. 

His tongue is there first, dragging a flat, broad stripe through your center, licking over every hypersensitive inch of you before looking up at you through hooded eyes. You swear you nearly come from the sight alone.

"Knew you'd be sweet."

Aaron doesn't waste another second, burying himself in you, mouth moving like he's been ravenous for this. 

His grip is firm as he spreads you wider, keeping you at his mercy. His lips wrap around your clit for a split second before he moves again, tasing, licking, humming, lapping up everything you're giving him.

It's messy. Wet. Dripping. His mouth moves as he tries to wreck himself on you. Each second convincing you that he wouldn’t mind suffocating here if it meant another taste.

His nose nudges against you, the angle so cruelly perfect it sends another violent tremor through your body, legs jumping against his shoulders. Your fingers grasp blindly for purchase, gripping the sheets, tangling in his hair, at anything you can reach. 

"That's it, sweetheart," he murmurs into you, words muffled by your pussy. "Let me hear you."

"Oh — " The sound falls from your lips, your eyes squeezing shut like you can block out the overwhelming pleasure if you just try hard enough.  "Oh, that's — "

Your hips stutter, thighs tightening around his face.

Aaron chuckles darkly, and you feel it more than you hear it, the sound pulsing through your core.

You’re not sure you have a body anymore, not sure you exist outside of this moment. You’re just sensation, just trembling atoms held together only by his hands, his breath, his voice. There’s no past or future – just now, just him.

If this is what it means to transcend, to be unraveled and rewritten in the same breath, then let it consume you whole. You could die like this, and it would be the kindest death you could ever ask for.

A single finger ghosts over your entrance, teasing but never quite committing. He dips in, just the barest of intrusion, and you shudder, clenching around nothing because it’s gone just as fast. 

He waits, just long enough to hear the next breathy fussing before finally spearing back in. Your eyes flutter shut, breath breaking apart in little puffs.

The sounds coming from your cunt should embarrass you, sticky, so shockingly loud that if your brain was working, you’d be mortified. But it’s not working. Not even a little. 

His hand flattens over your stomach and suddenly the pressure doubles, triples.

"Tell me, baby," he murmurs, "feels good, doesn't it?"

"Yes, yes, oh my gods, Aaron, I—"

Your normal senses have left the building. Packed its bags, hit the road, abandoned you to whatever dark magic this is. Because this —this isn’t how your body works. This isn’t how guys work. You don’t come from this. 

But here you are, hurtling toward it at full speed and all because he decided you would.

It’s happening too fast, the pressure stacking. Your thighs shake open, stomach clenching so hard it aches. Your mind is lagging behind, still reeling, still trying to rationalize but it doesn’t matter because your body has already made its choice, has already given in, has already decided this is happening, whether you’re ready for it or not.

"Aaron, I think—,"

Aaron just groans, finishing your sentence for you, lapping up your confession with his tongue,

"I know, baby." Hot air blows against your swollen clit. "Let me feel it."

It crashes over you, back bowing off the bed. Your body splinters apart, thighs trembling so hard you couldn’t stop them if you tried. The edges of your vision smear into nothing as the pleasure consumes everything in its path. 

His mouth stays on you, tongue and fingers pushing you through the aftershocks until you’re clawing at the sheets, until that pleasure tilts so far into oversensitivity that makes you unaware if you’re pulling him closer or pushing him away.

Your limbs feel like liquid, consolidating into every inch of your body, melting into the mattress as Aaron moves to be face to face with you.

He's looking at you like he's the only thing keeping you tethered to this planet, and maybe he is, because when his lips get close enough, you tug him the rest of the way down, crashing your mouth into his in a way that's all sloppy desperation.

You can taste yourself on him, can feel the way he groans into it when you sigh against his mouth, all soft and dreamy and drunk on gratification. 

When you pull back, your fingers card through his hair, fixing nothing but feeling everything.

"Oh my gosh," you gasp, dissolving into giggles, toes curling as you flop back against the pillows. "I knew you'd be good at that, obviously, but I wasn't expecting all that. Like wow, you should get a certificate of excellence or something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," you sigh dramatically, "Or like, a trophy, a raise, a sash that says best head giver in gold letters—," You pause for a breath, sucking in air like you just realized how winded you are.

"— and I mean, I've never come like that before. So. You should probably put that on your résumé."

When Aaron presses against you, you feel every inch of him. Thick and unfortunately still restrained. His slacks are a cruel barrier, the rough drag of the fabric catching your clit in a way that rips a whimper straight from your throat.

His teeth scrape along your jaw, then he's mouthing at your neck, sucking, teasing, marking you.

"Firstly," he murmurs. "I hate the idea of anyone else touching you."

An involuntary shiver rolls through you.

"And secondly," he continues, "the fact that they didn't even know how."

Your hands are frantic as they fly to his waistband, fumbling a bit, the last hindrance between you offensive in its existence. 

"Well, yeah," you sigh, looking up at him through fluttering lashes, glossy lips parted just for him. "I mean, you're literally the only one who's ever known what to do with me. That has to mean something, right? Like, cosmic destiny or whatever."

Aaron shoves his pants and briefs off, barely sparing them a second thought, and then he's back, fitted between your thighs.

"You already know the answer to that." His lips brush your temple. "I'm the only one who knows how to handle you. And I plan on proving it."

"Yeah, okay," you say, squirming beneath him. "Not gonna argue when that sounds like the best idea ever."

You've seen a lot of versions of Aaron. You've seen work Aaron, serious and bossy, looking at crime scenes like he can hear the evidence whispering just to him. You've seen grumpy Aaron, glaring over his coffee when you talk too much at morning briefings (but you know he likes it, he just won't say). You've seen soft Aaron, the one who lets you steal his jacket even though you definitely don't need it.

But you've never seen this Aaron. This post-kissing-you Aaron. Lips slick, still damp with you, evidence of where he’s been, what he’s done.

His eyes flick to yours, and there’s no shame, no rush to wipe it away. If anything, he tilts his head, letting you see it from a better angle.

"You're so handsome, Aaron." Your voice trembles. You don't even know if you said it out loud or just thought it so hard he must have heard it anyway.

"And you,” he murmurs, tracing his thumb over your cheek, “are so damn sweet, honey."

You beam at that, overwhelmed, so unbelievably happy that your thoughts are practically spilling out faster than you can catch them.

"Okay so I just need to say — this is so exciting, like, you do realize I've had a crush on you for years, right? And now this is actually happening, and that's just — wow."

You suck in a sharp breath, nails dragging over the thick muscles of his arms, across his shoulders.

"I mean, it's us, Aaron. Can you believe that? Like, I feel like this has been building for so long and now I'm just — gods, you're so hot, this is actually distracting me. I can't even finish my own thought —,"

You laugh, because you already feel so full of him and he isn't even inside you yet.

"And I know you're being all careful and slow because you're sweet and romantic and, like, the most perfect man alive, but also —,"

You grind up, chasing friction, his cock sliding just right over your clit. Your breath stutters, hands fisting at the nape of his neck as you try to remember what you were saying.

" — I'm literally at your mercy right now, so you should probably take advantage of that before I —,"

"You talk so much, baby."

And then he shuts you up. Hard.

His mouth rams into yours, ingesting the comment, the breath, everything.

He doesn't rush. 

The head of his cock nudges at your entrance before he finally, slowly, pushes inside.

It knocks the breath from your lungs. Your mouth parts against his, lips catching on his as a little sigh slips out. Your nails dig into his shoulders, helpless against the way he's opening you up. 

He stills, a sharp, fractured inhale slicing through the air, fingers digging into your hips — hard. He is struggling. You can feel it. The way his cock twitches inside you, like his body is screaming at him to move.

"I-I'm good." Your laugh wobbles, catches at the edges, barely disguising how badly you want him to believe you. "You can keep going."

"You're tensing because it's been a while." You don't mean to, but your body reacts before your brain can tell it not to, stiffening. Stupid, stupid. His exhale is shaky, and his lips press against your cheek. "I know that. I expected that."

You swallow, but it doesn't help.

"I also know that you think if I notice, I'll stop." His forehead rests against yours. "But I need you to hear me, baby. I'm not stopping."

His lips graze yours.

"I'm going to work you through this. Just let me in, princess."

And the second you do, the second you finally give in —

He groans, pushing deeper, stretching you completely, filling you to the hilt. 

"There we go," he breathes, wrecked with praise. His hand presses to your lower belly, feeling how deep he is, how well you take him. "That's my good girl."

Your head tilts back, lips parting, body doing the melty thing that feels really, really nice but also really, really dangerous because you swear you're seconds away from levitating straight out of your own skin.

"Okay, so I did think this would feel good —," Your fingers twitch against his chest, nails raking lightly over sweat-damp skin as another sharp moan tumbles free. "— but, um, wow, this is like — this is so —,"

Your words taper off, get lost somewhere between your psyche and your mouth, because oh. Oh, wow. He's so deep, so heavy inside you, pressing into places you didn't even know existed.

"Go on, baby," he murmurs, a smirk plastered across handsome features as he dips his head. "You were saying?"

"You know," you gasp, words all flimsy and loose, like they've been shaken up inside you, "I kinda always wondered how big you were —"

Your breath hooks halfway through, hiccups on a moan, brain scrambling to keep up with your mouth, your mouth scrambling to keep up with — him.

"Not that I, um — I stared at your pants or anything —" Another sharp inhale, another desperate moan, your walls fluctuating and squeezing around something too thick. "I mean, I try not to because I'm a professional —"

An involuntary clench makes him curse, makes his fingers dip into your hips, makes his head plunge forward hard against your shoulder.

"Honey, shit—,"

Your lashes flutter. "What?"

"Sweetheart, if you keep squeezing me like that while you ramble about my cock, I'm not going to last."

Your mouth clicks shut promptly.

"That's what I thought."

Hotch rocks his hips, just once, a sharp gasp fissuring from your lips like you weren't expecting it. 

"Jesus, sweetheart. You're trembling." He cups your cheek, his thumb skimming over your bottom lip, eyes dark and aflame. "Does it feel that good?"

You nod, and he hums, dragging his cock almost all the way out before pushing back in. 

His hand drags down your waist, spans over your belly, fingers pressing like he's charting the way he fits inside you.

"I used to tell myself I wouldn't do this," he admits. "That I wouldn't touch you. Wouldn't ruin you like this."

Your head lolls back, eyes fluttering, lips parted prettily, gasping as he rocks into you again, and again, and again. You shake your head, or at least, you think you do.

"You don't —" You try to shape words, but they liquefy on your tongue. "Don't ruin me, Aaron, you — oh, you make me —"

Hotch's throat bobs, his pupils blown.

"You make me so, so good, so soft, so perfect."

His hand cups your jaw. "You're already all of those things, sweetheart."

"Not before you," you sigh. "I've been waiting so long, Aaron, so, so long —"

"I know, baby," he groans. "I know."

His hand veers between your bodies, his fingers finding the swollen, neglected bundle of nerves.

“Aaron — oh, wait, wait, wait —,” Your hands shoot up to his shoulders. “I don’t know if I can, I mean, I can, but it’s just —,”

His cock throbs inside you, his rhythm stuttering for half a second before he finds it again, harder this time, his fingers matching the pace.

“Too much?”

“Yes, no, kind of? I don’t know, I can’t—,” You choke on your own breath as another thrust knocks every last rumination from your head. “I can’t think.”

“Good.” His forehead presses against yours, his lips parting against your mouth, panting, his control slipping. “I don’t want you thinking. Just feel me, sweetheart. Feel what I’m doing to you.”

Your body is shaking, shaking so hard that you don’t even know if you’re moving or if he’s just pushing you through it. 

“I know, baby. But you can take it, can’t you?”

“Y-Yeah,” you stutter, body twitching. 

“That’s my girl,” he praises, groaning as he grinds into you, stretching it. “One more, honey. You can give me one more.”

It hits you slowly, unwinding through your organs like smelted honey.

“Oh, oh —,” Your breath falters, mind going blank, the pleasure overwhelming every nerve in your body until you can’t do anything but let it consume you.

“Christ,” he groans, feeling you clench around him so tight it nearly undoes him.

You barely register the way you’re gasping, twitching, babbling out breathless little moans, vision blurring, and for a second you think you might black out.

“That’s it, princess,” he rasps, fucking you through it the reverberations. “So, so good for me.”

His pace turns shallow, sharp, chasing the tight, perfect squeezing of you still thrashing around him.

“You’re so tight, honey,” he grits, hands bruising your hips, your breath still catching from your own orgasm.

You’re too gone to respond, too wrung out to do anything but whimper as he takes you, using your body to pull himself over the edge.

He groans, low and deep, his fingers tangling in your hair, his mouth ghosting over your cheek as he finally breaks.

A shudder, a muttered curse, his body jerking, hips slamming into yours as he spills inside you.

He doesn’t mean to collapse, you know that, because even as his body gives out, his arms brace, still trying to be careful, even now. You want to cling to him, lock your legs around his waist, but you barely remember how to move, so you just let out a sleepy sound, nuzzling blindly at his throat. 

He murmurs something low, something that sounds like praise, maybe worship.

His lips press to the side of your face, half-gone and still recovering, and then his muscles tense, trying to lift himself off you.

Your arms wind around his neck before he can get too far. 

“Sweetheart,” he rasps, “I’m crushing you.”

“Don’t care,” you mumble, voice a little hoarse. “Feels nice.”

“You did so good.”

When he finally pulls out, you feel the loss and everything that comes with it, his release sticky and warm beneath your thighs. 

Aaron disappears into the bathroom, and you barely have time to miss him before he’s back with a warm cloth in hand.

You giggle, squirming before he even touches you, already restless, and the second he presses the cloth to your inner thighs, you jerk, laughing helplessly.

“Oh, wait —,”

Aaron sighs, one hand pressing against your hip to keep you still. “Sweetheart. You have to let me clean you up”

“But it tickles—,”

He smirks and continues his work. “How do you feel?”

“Like I saw god actually,” you ramble, kicking your feet against the sheets. “Or, like, like, if I had to describe it, I’d say I transcended reality for a little bit —,”

Aaron just chuckles, pressing a kiss to your knee as he finishes cleaning you up. Each swipe reminds you that your legs might not be on speaking terms with you tomorrow.

When he’s done his mouth finds yours again. It’s easy to kiss him. If it were physically possible to stay attached to him, twenty-four hours a day, you’d gladly test the theory.

“Worth the wait,” he breathes into your mouth.

“Well, yeah,” you murmur, smirking up at him. “I figured it would be for you.”

He laughs.

“Yeah, baby, you were good,” he mutters, kissing right over your stuttering pulse. “You were so good.” Another kiss. “So good I’m already thinking about the next time.”

Your heart hasn’t even slowed down, and you’re already thinking about the next time. Already plotting, already ready to drag him back down and see just how quickly that next time could turn into right now. But before you can so much as tug at him — Aaron is rolling out of bed, pulling on his pants, disappearing into the kitchen.

You mean to protest, to demand why he left you alone in a post-bliss haze, but then he’s back, pressing a glass of water into your hand, watching you drink it like it’s his personal responsibility.

Then comes food, something light and something he feeds you between kisses, between lazy murmurs about nothing. 

At some point, the blankets are back over you, his lips pressing against your forehead, his voice saying something about getting some sleep before you got any ideas, before pulling you against him.

You hum, content and drowsy, shifting a little, rolling over to get more comfortable —

And then your eyes land on that photo frame from earlier. You had a clear view of it now.

It was you.

It takes you a second to place it, but once you do, you almost laugh. You know this photo — because Garcia took it. She printed it out months ago, probably as some ridiculous gag, and stuck it to Aaron’s office wall with a bright sticky note that read your favorite obviously. You’d rolled your eyes at the time, called it workplace favoritism, but he’d never taken it down. 

And now, somehow, it’s framed. On his nightstand, like he’s been looking at you every night for —

You don’t finish the thought.

Instead, you just smile, huge and uncontrollable.

He doesn’t say anything.

And you don’t need him to.

Because you already know.

💌 masterlist taglist has been disbanned! if you want to get updates about my writings follow and turn notifications on for my account strictly for reblogging my works! @mariasreblogs

[captainfantasticalright]

In 1985, one of the only persons interested in an interview with a “new” writer called Terry Pratchett, after his publication of the Colour of Magic, was one Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman was writing for Space Voyager at the time. "The Colour of Pratchett" was the name given here:

It ran exactly one page inside the June/July issue of that year. The interview took place in a Chinese restaurant in London.

Here is Neil many years later holding that issue. You can see it here if you want. Warning: extremely emotional video.

Neil arrived wearing a grey homburg hat. “Sort of like the ones Humphrey Bogart wears in movies” he later wrote. (Before saying that in fact he did not look like him, but like someone wearing a grown-up’s hat). Terry Pratchett, photo courtesy of one @neil-gaiman, was in a Lenin-style leather cap and a harlequin-patterned pullover. At this point, Terry was already a hat person, although not that hat.

Terry offered Neil this : "An interview needn't last more than 15 minutes. A good quote for the beginning, a good quote for the end, and the rest you make up back at the office"*. (Terry Pratchett had worked many years in journalism by this point ).

But the meeting went terribly well. The two of them realized they had "the same sort of brains". So well indeed, that in 1985, Neil had shown Terry a file containing 5282 words, exploring a scenario in which Richmal Crompton's William Brown had somehow become the Antichrist. Was a collaboration in the cards as of that moment? Not really. But Terry found in Neil someone to whom he could send disks of work in progress and to whom he could pick up the phone sometimes when he hit a brick in the road of his writing.

Terry loved it and the concept stayed in his mind. A couple of years later, he rang Neil to ask him if he had done any more work on it. Neil had been busy with The Sandman, he had not really given it another thought. Terry said, "Well I know what happens next, so either you sell me the idea or we can write it together". **

On collaborating together:

Here is a video of Sir Terry saying why he chose to collaborate with Neil, another video talking about the technical difficulties of writing a book when the two of them where miles apart ,and some pages from Interzone Magazine Issue 207 published December 2006:

An Interview with Sir Terry Pratchett and his works- and Neil Gaiman, where he shortly addresses the process of writing Good Omens.

Terry shortly mentions,

“Neil doesn't rule out another book with me and he was good to write with...yep, it could happen. With anyone else? I don't know, but probably not.?”

Neil says,

"Terry took that initial 5,000 words of mine and ran it through the computer (because I’d lost the files in a computer crash) and made it the first 10,000 words, and it was definitely Good Omens at that point. Neither one thing nor the other, but a third thing.”

"I think Terry could do a very good impersonation of me if he needed to, and I could do a very good impersonation of him; so we knew the area of the Venn diagram in which we were working. But mostly the book found its own voice very quickly. It helped that we were both scarred by the William books when we were kids...”

And as you know, unless you’ve been living in Alpha Centauri, the rest is history. That was the beginning of what would become William the Antichrist and later would get the name Good Omens:The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. (Title provided by Neil Gaiman and subtitle by Terry Pratchett).

More about the writing process:

Terry took the first 5,000 words and typed them into his word processor, and by the time he had finished they were the first 10,000 words. Terry had borrowed all the things about me that he thought were amusing, like my tendency back then to wear sunglasses even when it wasn't sunny, and given them, along with a vintage Bentley, to Crawleigh, who had now become Crowley. The Satanic Nurses were Satanic Nuns.

The book was under way.

We wrote the first draft in about nine weeks. Nine weeks of gloriously long phone calls, in which we would read each other what we'd written, and try to make the other one laugh. We'd plot, delightedly, and then hurry off the phone, determined to get to the next good bit before the other one could. We'd rewrite each other, footnote each other's pages, sometimes even footnote each other's footnotes. We would throw characters in, hand them off when we got stuck. We finished the book and decided we would only tell people a little about the writing process - we would tell them that Agnes Nutter was Terry's, and the Four Horsemen (and the Other Four Motorcyclists) were mine.

From the introduction to William the Antichrist:

“In the summer of 1987 several odd ideas came together: (..)I found myself imagining a book called William the Antichrist, in which a hapless demon was going to be responsible for swapping the wrong baby over, and the son of the US Ambassador would be completely undemonic, while William Brown would grow up to be the Antichrist, and the demon would need to stop him ending the world. The unfortunate demon, whom I called Crawleigh, because Crawley was a nearby town with an unfortunate name, would have to sort it all out as best he could.

It felt like a story with legs.

Terry took the 5,000 words, and rewrote them, calling me to tell me what he was doing and what he was planning to do. The biggest thing he was going to do, he told me, was split the hapless demon into two characters – a would-be-cool demon in dark glasses (which was, I think, Terry’s way of making fun of me, a never-actually- cool journalist in dark glasses) who had renamed himself Crowley, and a rare-book dealer and angel called Aziraphale, who would embody all the English awkwardness that either of us could conceive.”

William the Antichrist being a direct inspiration of the 1976 film The Omen. If the baby swap had just been a little bit messier and the kid had gone off somewhere else he would have grown up as somebody else. “And then there was a beat and I thought, I should write it, it will be called William the Antichrist” says Neil. ***

“The first draft of Good Omens was a William-book. It was absolutely in every way it could be a William book. It had Violet Elizabeth Bott, it had William and the Outlaws, it had Mr. Brown”.

Over time they realized that they would have more creative freedom if they in their own words filed off the serial numbers. William and the Outlaws becoming Adam and the Them.

But the spirit of Just William was never far away.

The joy for Neil was to construct “perfectly William sentences”. The one when Anathema tells Adam that she has lost the Book, and he tells her that he has written a book about a pirate who became a famous detective and it is 8 pages long… that’s “a William sentence”.

If you want to read more details about William The Antichrist, here are some slides I made.

Good Omens was also inspired by a particularly antisemitic moment in The Jew of Malta and John le Carre's spy novels. (Neil’s ask)

 Then I was reading The Jew of Malta by Kit Marlowe, and it has a bit where the three (cartoonishly evil) Jews compare notes on all the well-poisoning and suchlike they’d done that day, and as a Jew who never quite gets his act together, it occurred to me that if I were the third Jew I’d just be apologizing for having failed to poison a well… And suddenly I had the opening of a book. It would be called William the Antichrist. And it would begin with three Demons in a graveyard… (x).

“When we finished the book we estimated that the words were 60% Terry’s and 40% mine, and the plot, such as it was, was entirely ours.” -Neil Gaiman

"Neil and I had known each other since early 1985. Doing it was our idea, not a publisher's deal." "I think this is an honest account of the process of writing Good Omens. It was fairly easy to keep track of because of the way we sent discs to one another, and because I was Keeper of the Official Master Copy I can say that I wrote a bit over two thirds of Good Omens. However, we were on the phone to each other every day, at least once. If you have an idea during a brainstorming session with another guy, whose idea is it? One guy goes and writes 2,000 words after thirty minutes on the phone, what exactly is the process that's happening? I did most of the physical writing because: 1) I had to. Neil had to keep Sandman going -- I could take time off from the DW; 2) One person has to be overall editor, and do all the stitching and filling and slicing and, as I've said before, it was me by agreement -- if it had been a graphic novel, it would have been Neil taking the chair for exactly the same reasons it was me for a novel; 3) I'm a selfish bastard and tried to write ahead to get to the good bits before Neil. Initially, I did most of Adam and the Them and Neil did most of the Four Horsemen, and everything else kind of got done by whoever -- by the end, large sections were being done by a composite creature called Terryandneil, whoever was actually hitting the keys. By agreement, I am allowed to say that Agnes Nutter, her life and death, was completely and utterly mine. And Neil proudly claims responsibility for the maggots. Neil's had a major influence on the opening scenes, me on the ending. In the end, it was this book done by two guys, who shared the money equally and did it for fun and wouldn't do it again for a big clock." "Yes, the maggot reversal was by me, with a gun to Neil's head (although he understood the reasons, it's just that he likes maggots). There couldn't be blood on Adam's hands, even blood spilled by third parties. No-one should die because he was alive." -("Terry Pratchett : His World”)

(Here are some slides of mine where I go into some other details concerning the origins of Good Omens).

Another wonderful insight with Rob Wilkins in "The Worlds of Terry Pratchett".

*Quote: from Terry Pratchett A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins, but said by Terry of course.

** All the quotes, facts listed here : see above.

***all other quotes by Neil Gaiman from various interviews and asks I’ll link.

[l-starsz]

could you please write some smut where r and billie are coming home from a party theyre both drunk and end up fucking in the pool late at night (the pool has red led lights) (add strap please🙏🏼) r has been a brat all night so billie is like kinda mean and degrades her

THANK YOU

a/n: IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK AGES FOR ME TO WRITE BUT I HOPE THIS IS GOOD🫶

as i rushed to get ready, billie was laying on our bed. she was completely chilled out whilst i was stressing about how i was going to make us late. billie had previously been rushing me, since we had to be there soon in order to not be too late. she eventually resorted to waiting in bed whilst scrolling through her phone, glancing over to me every so often.

"cmon angelll, are you nearly ready?" she practically whined.

"i'm about to be ready bil, promise." i giggled, "can you help me with my eyeliner please?"

"of course, pretty girl." she smiled, getting up from the bed and walking towards me.

i held the eyeliner pencil out towards her, which she soon enough took. she was about to start when she gave me a questioning look, and i knew exactly what she was thinking.

"sit on my lap." i whispered, gently holding her hips and pulling her closer to me.

she didn't complain, and let me practically pull her onto me, before taking the lid off my eyeliner and getting closer to my face. she was being so gentle, careful not to hurt me or poke me with it. after a few short minutes, she was completely finished.

i looked in the mirror with a smile on my face.

"perfect, thank you, baby." i thanked her, then placed a gentle kiss on her lips, my lipstick and lipgloss transferring slightly onto her lips.

i pulled her further into my arms for a minute or so, before she whispered to me that we needed to leave. we were both finally ready, and it was looking like we would still be pretty on time, so we left as quick as we could.

hours passed, we stuck together the whole time we were there, but were both a little drunk. we'd definitely had too much to drink. we were practically all over eachother, whilst the music echoed loud, making us even more touchy.

"can we go somewhere quieter, love?" i heard her whisper into my ear as my back pressed against her chest.

"hmmm, i don't know, i'm quite happy staying here." i smirked.

i'd been planning to tease her, and be bratty. i needed to see how she'd react. and i was hoping she'd maybe punish me too.

the whole night i had been talking back to her, trying to get a reaction from her. but she didn't react. all i got was her rolling her eyes at my words, or her grip tightening on my skin. she didn't push me, but i could tell that she was getting impatient. the alcohol running through us wasn't helping either.

obviously i was desperate for her, but i needed to keep my act up. i needed to make sure i got some sort of reaction from her.

it was only a matter of time before one of our friends came over to us, offering to drop us off on their way home. we hesitated at first, wanting to stay longer and continue our fun, but when our friend brought up how drunk we were, we accepted.

it didn't take long to get home at all, since we lived nearby. we thanked our friend as we got out, letting out drunken giggles as we walked up the driveway towards the front door.

billie had the keys, and she fiddled with them for a bit, trying to find the right one whilst almost dropping them on the floor in the process. this just made us laugh more, and when she finally managed to open the door, get us both inside, and then lock the door behind her, we stumbled straight upstairs.

i flopped onto the bed, whilst billie looked for comfier clothes. i was waiting for her, when i got an idea. a small smirk appeared on my face when i opened my mouth to speak.

"bils? can we go in the pool?"

she turned around with a smile, but then her eyebrows furrowed.

"we don't have anything to wear.. i have no idea where our swimming costumes are."

i groaned and threw my head back out of frustration. i wanted to tease her more. i knew exactly what i wanted to wear to push her over the edge, but obviously that wasnt happening. however, another brilliant idea popped into my mind as i was trying to think of solutions. why did neither of us think of it before?

"we can always go in naked?" i suggested, rolling onto my side and reaching my hands out for her to come towards me.

as my hands landed on her waist, i tugged at her clothes. i was getting desperate for her. i was supposed to be bratty, and instead i was needy. i needed to change my attitude. i had time to be needy later. at least i hoped.

she moved away from my slightly, and pulled me up onto my feet, attempting to pull my clothes off. i shook my head and moved back.

"hmm i think i changed my mind.. it'll be more fun with our clothes on."

i knew that she wanted my clothes off. as much as she loved my outfit, which consisted of the shortest skirt i could find, it only just covered me up, but one wrong movement and everyone would've seen my underwear, which billie had picked out for me before we left. i was also wearing a tight shirt, and no bra, so it was safe to say billie was worked up. and it didn't help that i was talking back, and ignoring her requests. the alcohol made both of us needy, but my defiance made her want need to punish me, and fuck some sense into me somehow.

her tongue poked the inside of her cheek, and i could tell she was getting frustrated.

"you know what? go wait by the pool i'll be out in a few minutes."

i was confused, but i had to keep my act up.

i crossed my arms and shook my head, walking back over to sit on the edge of the bed. my hips swayed as i walked, making sure she saw.

a sigh left her mouth, before she grabbed something from the wardrbe, and walked downstairs without me. i decided it would make her more mad if i didn't follow at all, so i stayed put, looking for my phone which i must've misplaced. i was always more forgetful when i was drunk.

i waited for about five minutes, before realising she wasn't coming back. she was waiting downstairs and wasn't coming to get me. she knew exactly what i was up to. she'd known all night.

i groaned, then headed downstairs, straight outside to where our pool was. there were two towels folded and waiting on one of the chairs by the pool, and i took notice of them before my eyes drifted over to billie, who was completely naked in the pool.

i could only make out her tits under the water, and my eyes were glued to them.

"coming in, angel?" i saw her smirk, the red lights surrounding the pool making it slightly more difficult for me to see her.

"i.. yeah." i managed to stutter out.

i walked over to the side of the pool which was closest to her, before removing my clothes as slow as i possibly could. i first started with my shirt, taking my time to lift it up so that it sat just under my boobs. i pushed the waistband of my skirt down, exposing my underwear slightly, but not quite enough for her liking.

i could see on her face that she was mad, but she was trying her best to hide it. i could see right through her though. i eventually took my top off, letting it fall to the floor.

my skirt slowly followed, and all that was left was my underwear. i thought about leaving them on, but i knew that as much as it would tease billie and test her limits, it would be so uncomfortable.

i slid them off my body, being careful not to lose my balance as i wandered over to the edge of the pool. we were obviously still pretty drunk, so i knew that the second i was next to her, we would be all over eachother once again.

i made my way over to the steps, slowly getting closer to her, whilst she stayed exactly where she was. i made sure to take my time, but as soon as i was facing her, her hands attached to my waist like a magnet, pulling me close.

"you think you're smart teasing me, hm? being a brat? such a needy fucking slut for my attention."

her words were slightly slurred as the gap almost closed between us. i couldn't hold back any longer. i practically pounced on her, my lips finding hers straight away.

she kissed back slightly, before pulling away. she lifted me into her arms, my legs wrapped around her waist, but i felt something. had she kept her underwear on? i was about to ask, when something was slammed inside me. and it would only be one thing.

she had her strap attached around her waist. the one she knew was just that tiny bit too big for me, that made me overstimulated in a matter of seconds. a moan echoed from my mouth, straight down her ear.

she wasted no time speeding her movements to pleasure me, but not for long. i knew it wasn't going to be so simple. i didn't know what she had in mind, but i just needed her. her grip on my waist was enough to leave marks, and her speech was slurred as she thrusted into me. it was a good job i was so wet, otherwise it would've made things more difficult.

"such a desperate, needy slut, isn't that right, love?"

my cries and moans grew so much louder upon hearing her words, my body limp in her arms as i was so close to finishing.

"cmon, need you to answer me. can't just ignore me, baby. that's not nice, is it?"

my moans sounded like sobs as i tried so hard to get the words out for her. i was hoping that our neighbours were sleeping, because i was definitely loud enough for anyone to hear me.

"i'm not even going to think about letting you cum if you don't answer me."

her speech was slurred from the alcohol, but also muffled as her lips pressed against my neck. i felt her sucking marks over me, whilst one of her hands reached my clit, adding onto the other sensations, bringing me right to the edge.

part of me wanted to say it, so that she'd let me cum. but the other part of me was more desperate to continue being bratty.

i threw my head back and held onto her shoulders as tight as i could.

"going to carry on being a brat? suit yourself.." she mumbled with a smirk, before pulling out with no warning.

"no!! no pleaseee. billie, baby, please i'll do anything!! i was going to say it i swear!" i cried out, pulling myself closer to her and hiding my face in her neck.

"nuh-uh. you wanted to be bratty and tease me all night? this is what you get. maybe if you can prove to me that you can be a good girl then i'll let you cum."

her voice was calm. much calmer than mine. i was a whiny mess, trying to convince her to touch me more, to make me cum, but she wasn't having any of it. not until i proved it to her.

"how?! i'll do anything bil!"

"let me fuck you until i finish, yeah? then you can cum. you're gonna take it, and be good for me, okay?"

"yes!! of course! i'll be good for you."

the strap broke through my tight walls once again, the familiar feeling so perfect yet overwhelming at the same time. her thrusts met her previous pace immeiately, making us both feel good. i squeezed my eyes shut tight, letting her basically use me for her own pleasure, and waiting for her to let me finish. the water slightly splashed and made waves around us from our movements.

it felt like ages, but definitely wasn't long before her moans increased in pitch. she sounded so beautiful, it was getting difficult for me to hold onto my orgasm, hearing her whines and feeling her inside me was making the pleasure build up inside me quicker.

as soon as her moans was louder, and more high pitched, i knew she was ready to cum. my own moans mixed with hers, and i let out breathy whines into her ear.

"please, bil. cum for me. i want to cum for you, please. you sound so pretty. so perfect. my beautiful girl." my voice was almost a whisper, but at the same time it sounded so powerful as it echoed through her mind.

that was all it took for billie to cum, the friction of the strap rubbing against her clit helped, but my words threw her over the edge. her voice was so breathy that i almost didn't hear her speak. i was clenching around the strap whilst my nails dug into her shoulder, sure to leave scratches or bruises for her to wake up to in the morning.

"you can cum for me baby! fuck! le- let go for me."

that was the only thing i needed to hear. i'd never came so hard in my life, not bothering to even attempt to keep myself quiet. i didn't care who heard, or who i woke up. we both needed this, and that was all that mattered in our minds in that moment.

as we both slowly came down from our highs, my moans turned into sobs once i started to get overstimulated. she stopped her movements, making sure to hold me closer and pepper my exposed skin in kisses.

i did the same to her, having no intentions of moving away from her yet. but i felt the strap being slowly pulled out of me. her hands ran along my back to soothe me whilst she pulled completely out, somehow managing to take the strap off and throw it on the side of the pool. we stayed where we were, just holding eachother for a while until i was falling asleep, and of course billie noticed when my body slowly grew heavier and slumped against her.

"cmon angel. lets get cleaned up. i've got you." i heard her whisper, before placing a little kiss to my head.

we were soon upstairs in the bathroom, a towel draped over each of our bodies, and while i clung onto her still naked body, she started running a nice warm bath for the both of us. i so badly wanted to help her, and take care of her just like she was doing for me, but i was almost asleep. i was exhausted. still drunk. and fucked out. although billie was also still drunk, and tired, and fucked out, she could handle it better than me. i could barely keep my eyes open.

she added some lavender scented bubble bath, which made my eyes feel even heavier as the smell filled the room. she was still somehow holding me whilst making sure everything was perfect for us. she laid out some clean clothes, fresh towels, and skincare for afterwards.

we finally got in the nice hot bubble bath, our muscles relaxing and tiredness practically taking over us. although i was struggling to keep my eyes open, i insisted that billie laid against me. i wanted her to feel as though i was taking care of her as much as she was taking care of me. so, whilst we were in the bath, i helped her clean her body, wash her hair, and made sure she was relaxed and calm.

she did the same for me, and we spent time letting the water warm us up and pull us further into our sleepiness. we eventually got out, wrapped in the fluffy towels, and fighting to stay awake. we rushed to do skincare, and put our pyjamas on, before we were in bed. sleepy and slurred i love yous, and goodnights, came from us before we were fast asleep.

neither of us woke up once in the night, we were completely worn out, and felt as though all we needed was eachother. it took us a while to actually get out of bed when we woke up, our heads were hurting and the sun seemed way too bright shining through the blinds. when i finally decided to get up, i glanced out of the window after getting dressed. something caught my eye laying on the side of the pool. oh.

[issybee06]

Trust the process pt 2

By popular demand! Part 2!

I provide 🫶

This panel of him crashing out like a toddler is so funny, I enjoy him so much

Like bro stop your diva is showing you little brat

He might be a littleeeeee ooc but I enjoyed writing this so 😝 the thought that all Viltrumites slowly began to change as they are on earth is cannon so I thought I'd have Earth change Thragg…not completely just enough so he doesn't become an asshole.

Comic spoilers! You have been warned so don't stone me

………………………..………………………..…………………………

Your eye twitched when you opened your fridge, absolutely done with this shit. You had been gone for two months on an assignment Cecil put you on and before you left you made sure to clear out the fridge and the cupboards of tarnishable food.

They were full now.

“Fucking weird-ohhhh, hi. You’re here…again.”

He was on your balcony, that ever present frown on his stupidly perfect face. He wasn’t in his dressy robes, preferring a more comfortable appearance to great you in.

“…you had no food.”

“Yeah���it was purposeful.” You muttered, crossing your arms as you walk out to meet him. His jaw tightened at your lake of pants, you had chosen just a college sweatshirt and some boy shorts. He looked away from you, out at the city.

He did that a lot, not look at you. It was like it wounded his pride that he had lowered himself so much as to want a human…and you didn’t want him back.

That made him angry above all else, you not wanting him back. He could literally provide you with EVERYTHING yet you refuse him time and time again, unimpressed with him.

He doesn’t get it. All his other subordinates have families now, some with multiple partners with multiple children on the way or already here, why can’t he convince one fucking human to be his? If he wasn’t so stubborn he would have abandoned this game of yours, go after another human female who he could probably charm with little effort. But he’d grow bored, he knows this.

You? You intrigued him.

He silently turns to you, walking forward until you almost touched. You stiffened, he saw, on defense if he tried anything. Stupid, really, you had no chance of he actually wanted to force himself on you…but he wouldn’t.

He grasped your wrist, gently for someone of his nature, and placed something in your hand.

“I won’t stop. Not at this point.”

You furrowed your brows, opening your hand as he steps back. Your heart stuttered, staring down at the gift. It was a pretty necklace, metal crafted with care, the jewel was definitely not of earth origin.

“W…what is thi-“

“Courting gift, it’s from a planet I conquered.”

Your lips formed a line, “ah.”

He glares, fists clenching, “my gift…displeases you?”

You stare at him, dumbfounded. You squinted at him, vaguely picturing your old cat. He glare at you too as you groaned and whined at the little presents he’d present on your bed in a bloody mess.

“It’s not that-no, I-i like it. I like it.” Please don’t crush my windpipe.

He nods, pleased. He watched you again, expectantly.

“Oh.” You put it on, and he relaxed.

“…so you accept?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He glared at you, offended, “you put the gift o-“

You raise your hand, and he surprisingly quiets, “…why do you keep trying?”

He sighs, hands clasped behind his back. He’s frowning again, you didn’t think he could ever bring himself to smile.

“My people are dwindling…humans have the same genetic makeup as Viltrumites-“

“No. No…why do you keep trying with me?” You cross your arms, the movement causing your breasts to-

His jaw tightens again, “you…fascinate me. No human woman has been able to even capture my interest…not one.”

You sigh, flattered but really done with all this stalking, “look, uh…Grand Regent Thra-” “Thragg.”

You physically pull back, surprised, “what?”

He doesn't move, dark eyes staring at you like he was trying to memorize your genetic makeup.

“Thragg is just fine.”

“Okay…Thragg, um, look, we…i just don't think we'd work out. I'm...a hero on earth…youre kinda a bad guy but not really but yes you are, I mean you did try to kill my best friend a couple of times-” he frowns “-im in college! I can't marry someone, let alone have a baby! Oh god what would I tell my parents… “hey guys! You know how I went and became a hero? Now look what I brought home! My billions of years old baby daddy alien Columbus!”

“…Columbus?”

“Not important right now- the point is that…i don't think you understand what you actually want from me.”

“I know exactly what I want,” he says firmly, “I want you to become my mate and produce my offsprings-”

“That! Yes! That right there! You can do that with anyone! Fuck, just go down to a club and you'll have girls swarming you!”

“I already told you, I want you-”

“You can't have me!”

You both go silent and you're now 100% convinced he's going to kill you now in a hissy fit of rage. This is it. Marks gonna find your body mangled and unrecognizable. Your poor plants. Your poor student dept!

“I…understand.”

What the what now?

“I understand you feel unsure of my pursuit of you as my mate…please…let me convince you in the fashion of two individuals going to a respective establishment to partake in the consumption of edible delicacies.”

“…do you mean going out to eat?”

He nods once, “yes.”

“Youre…asking me on a date?” a small unconscious smile rises on your lips, and you step forward a bit.

“Would you accept if I did?” he watches you, eyes lidded.

“I…”

“You can say no…and I won't try anymore. I will…respect your denial of my offer.”

Fucking pathetic black cat core men…

“I…we can go for coffee.”

…………………..…………………..…………………..……………….

Coffee turned to ice cream, ice cream turned to breakfast, breakfast turned to lunches, lunches turned to midnight trips to burgerMart(much to the displeasure of the Grand Regent). You two had grown on each other, patience complementing understanding and acceptance of your two completely different backgrounds.

It was rocky at first, lots of screaming and ignoring and gifts left on your windowsill.

And now, finally, dinner.

“WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO WEAR?!”

Mark was wide-eyed, never in all the years he's known you has he seen you get this worked up over a date. He seen you worry, seen you excited, but never has he seen you panic.

“(y/n)…i thought you didn't even like him-”

“I DONT!”

You pause, eyes narrowed at him.

“Why…why the fuck did I invite you? Get your girlfriend on the phone she's smarter than both of us.”

“Rude, but okay.”

“Hey (Y/n)-oh my god what the fuck are you wearing?” Eves green eyes widened, moving into the bedroom as Mark leads her in and being mindful of her pregnant belly.

“Eveeeee your stupid boyfriend has no style and its rubbing off on me, save me from my own devices.”

She laughed at your pittiful look, patting your head, “Babe if I had my powers right now I'd make you look like a goddess…but I don't do were gonna have to work with your closet.”

“I haven't had a hot outfit since I was a virgin slut in highschool EVE SAVE MY UNLAID ASS ITS BEDN SO LONG SINCE IVE BEEN TAPPED!”

“I could have sworn you hated this guy-”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP MARK!” “MARK GET THE HINT!”

You show up late, fashionable of course, but still sweating bullets as you scan the room for the 6’10 piece of ass you were definitely hitting tonig-oh, there he is. That actually was so hard.

You walk over to the bar, heels clicking softly.

He groans into his glass, “for the last time, no I am not going to go up to your roo—(Y/n).”

He breaths your name and it has you combusting, he was so different than when you first met…earth really changes people.

“Sorry, I'm late…and that you had to deal with getting hit on.” you chuckled, sliding into the chair next to him. His eyes shamelessly rank over you, drinking you in and swallowing.

“You look like stardust.” he grinned softly, holding your hand up gently to kiss your pulse and ohhhhh

You guys might not even make it back to your apartment.

You blush, surprised by him. A year ago, he wouldn't be sitting next to you right now looking at you like you hung the fabric that shaped the universe. He'd...changed.

You smile at him, playing with the straw of the drink.

Maybe being his wouldn't be so bad?

Ask to be apart of the tag list!

@xzmickeyzx

[copticcowgirl]

Fanbinding: BLOODY, SLUTTY, AND PATHETIC

This bind took a hot minute to finish. I made it my goal to complete two copies of BSP during the month of February, for @renegadeguild's 2025 Binderary. One for myself, and one for the author, who gave me permission in late January.

BSP is my first official author copy, gifted to and recently received by WhatMurdah, whom I can't thank enough for both writing this stellar fic and for allowing me to bind them a copy. I read BSP in mid-2024 and have been thinking about it as a bind since.

Lots of firsts with this one. First-ever typeset. Have a long way to go on that front, as it's definitely not my favorite part of binding. I prefer getting into the nitty-gritty of the bind itself instead of staring at a laptop screen for hours and agonizing over fonts and scene break flourishes. I kept it simple and still learned a lot, so that's a win!

I also had the honor of receiving the "Found Typo(s) After Printing" badge.

However, my dedication page to WhatMurdah made the entire typeset worthwhile.

It was also my first time attempting Renaissance chevron endbands (another goal for binderary! aaand there's a reason you don't see them on the bind itself, ha). When those didn't turn out as I'd hoped, it was my first time doing "random chaos" endbands, a la @maleekamolscreates.

Thank you, Maleeka and Marissa, for holding my hands through that one. I like to know what's coming, so letting go of structure to embrace the chaos of go-with-your-gut-feeling-for-your-endband-pattern was...hard.

But gorgeous, no? Can I get a "good girl," Maleeka??

Another first was creating a full-fledged dust jacket that looks like it came from a professional. I owe that to @phoenixortheflame, who sat with me on a Zoom call for 2+ hours and guided me through her artistic process. We worked in tandem in Canva so that I could pepper her with questions like, "You can pull the rulers across the page like that?!" Thank you for showing me how to center align correctly and for gently critiquing my choice of keep-all-fonts-the-same.

The before/after must be shown because honestly, every time I look at it I want to cry happy tears.

And while I know she will say, "But you had the vision, I just gave you some structure!" I'll still heap praise all over her because JUST LOOK AT IT.

Art by the incredible @jjuuppiter, who posted this work well before BSP was published but somehow must have KNOWN it would be written into existence one day. Please go check out their page. I fell in love with their art for "The Politician's Wife" first, and eventually found "Bloody Witch and Her Worshipper."

And finally, details of the bind itself below and behind-the-scenes photos (my favorite to look back on!) below that.

Bind details:

bind style: full cloth bind, rounded and backed, sewn endpapers, ramie bands

endpapers: "french marble strawberry" from Hollanders, chosen in mid-2024 after reading BSP for the first time 

cover material: "love dove" fabric, designed by Kathy Doughty. chosen solely for its bold colors. 

book edge decoration: head & tail edges hand sanded to 1,000 grit, DIY'd maroon acrylic ink to match fabric, applied in layers, then burnished with Renaissance wax & agate stone. maroon acrylic ink applied directly to deckled fore-edge for author copy. we don't talk about the fore-edge for my own copy.

endbands: double faux core, 4mm leather core, Japanese silk thread

typeset: this was my first-ever typeset, which meant I spent hours meticulously ensuring I didn't mess anything up (full disclosure: I did, but those mistakes are all my own)

dust jacket: designed in Canva; title font, Villanelle; author font, ITC Blaze; body & flap fonts, IBM Plex Serif; art by jjuuppiter 

Did you know? To make a deep maroon color, take 1 drop blue, 11 drops red, and 2 drops yellow. Voila! Deep maroon.

Now you know.

These copies were made for personal use only; no profit was made and all associated costs came from my own pocket. Please abide by the code of binding fanfiction, which amounts to: if you want it on your shelf, bind it yourself.

[pastafossa]

Thoughts on Matt's 'This all feels fake' line from the last DDBA episode and why it was a genius move

I've had a night to think and process the episode last night, and the more I think about it, the more I think that line was the absolute best way to go.

Obviously, spoilers ahead.

Let's set aside 'is the show good or bad' for a moment since everyone's vibing with it differently (we know where I stand, I'm happy and having a grand old time, but that's not important). Let's instead think about where Scardapane and the new writers found themselves when they were hired on to do the rewrites and reshooting.

Imagine being a cook. A good one. And someone comes to you, with an absolute dumpster fire of a cake. 'Hey man, we got the potluck in a few hours. It's really important there's a cake since it's someone's birthday. If you fix this, I'll let you bake the next one.'

Except the cake is a mess. Parts of it are burned, the flavor's all wrong, it's unfinished, and you have no idea why it's shaped the way it is.

You don't have the time or all the ingredients needed to entirely make a new cake. Your only option is to save what you can and cut off what you can't, and then build from there.

But how do you do that?

That's essentially where they were, writing-wise. The OG writers had created an absolute mess, something that didn't feel like Matt at all, something that had no respect for all of the lore and character building that came before. And it's definitely not the Netflix vibe show that Feige had asked for (which was why that team was fired, shocker). But reshooting the entire season would have thrown off the larger schedule, it would have required contract changes, and it'd be expensive as hell. That meant they had to use at least some of the footage that had already been shot, and build onto it rather than sweeping it away. But what do you do when the new footage you want to shoot has a very different vibe than the old footage? Especially when those two energies are very, very different?

Answer: you acknowledge it.

There's a technique in writing known as lampshade hanging, when instead of ignoring something that's implausible or weird, you point it out instead and move on, while also sometimes using it to advance the narrative. It's one of my favorite tropes! I love to use it, and I love to see it used.

Even better? They made it feel weird, which is something multiple people have brought up as a theory, this idea that it's intentional, and I agree with them. Even some of the teaser trailers before DDBA came out even played off of that feeling, Matt's voice hoarse and dark as a monologue while beneath his voice you get an eerily soundtracked montage of him going through his new 'normal' life day after day after day in a way that makes it clear this new life doesn't fit, and it never will.

I've been fascinated by how they've played it over this first season, both the writers and Charlie himself, using these jarring tonal differences to leave you intentionally unsettled. Sometimes it's done with music, like that early scene where Matt's getting ready for his day, clearly repressing and disassociating his way through life, all while more upbeat music is playing, or the slight alteration to our OG Daredevil theme. Sometimes it's a subtle pattern, these little ticks and tells from Charlie's portrayal - Matt always wearing his glasses even in softer scenes because he doesn't feel safe with these new people around him that are supposedly his friends, hell, even in his own apartment when he's entirely alone because it's not a home like his last place was.

And then there are moments like last night, when Matt literally came out and said it: this all feels fake sometimes. It's not my home. This isn't my life.

We know he doesn't belong there. And they managed to change the original story so that Matt? Matt knows that, too. He's known the entire time.

It weaves a thread through all the original footage, the tonal differences, and Matt's behavior. It's a thread that not only amounts to the new writers saying to us, the audience, 'trust us, we know,' but it's also one that reinforces this idea that Matt is literally just fucking faking it in the hopes that it will keep him away from Daredevil, in the hopes that he can be the man he thinks Foggy would have wanted. He's trying so hard to live that perfect, happy, wonderful life while repressing all of his trauma and depression and it's left him in this bizarre otherworld that he doesn't recognize. He's not himself. It grates on him every day.

And it makes that creeping darkness, that gritty reality, that dirt on his hands and the blood on his lips and his visceral screams all the more thrilling when it edges in, because that? That is the real Matt, his true self, the Devil tearing its way out of the prison he's trapped it in just long enough to bare its teeth and snap and bite before he forces it back into its cell.

And god does it feel real compared to the moments where Matt is just pretending this is all fine, all bright, all good.

I fucking love that they went in that direction. It's the best thing they could have done when locked into reusing the old footage which was different in tone than the Netflix vibe they want to bring back. It was always going to be jarring mashing both of them together. So they ran with it.

Like I said, I'm already really happy with DDBA. Some eps nailed it for me better than others (Ep 6 is just an absolute blast), but even when it gets a little rough, there's this sense of Scardapane and the new writers giving us a wink going, 'yup, we know. Just hang in there until we're not bound by old footage and we can take you on a fucking ride.'

They want what we want. And they're going to take us there. That line solidified it for me. I'm so fucking pumped for Season 2 when the chains are off and they're free to come out swinging.

Anyway thanks for coming to my rambling ted talk.

[sirfrogsworth]

I had no idea you're a professional photographer! I mostly follow your other blog for Corgis - if you posted your work there and I missed it, I apologize.

Your photography is AMAZING and thank you for sharing tips on light!

Bonus if you have time: when did you develop (haha!) interest for it and what's your favorite thing about this medium? ☆

Thank you. I have been trying to go back to my older work and edit things with my current skills and I have been posting that on occasion.

I also have an Instagram which is sort of like my current portfolio until I have the energy to create a proper website.

It's funny you mention corgis because Otis was the reason I got a proper camera. My followers helped me raise the money to get him and I felt like he belonged to everyone. So I wanted to make sure I took lots of photos of his shenanigans for people to enjoy. If they couldn't have a corgi of their own, I wanted them to live vicariously.

I never do anything halfway. I always go quite overboard. I filled my brain with everything I could possibly learn about photography so I could take the best possible photos of Otis.

In the process of doing that, I realized I loved the art form. So even though Otis isn't around anymore, I owe him for giving me this wonderful creative outlet.

I took a long hiatus from photography when my parents got sick and I had to take care of them. Even though I stopped taking photos, I would watch photography education to help me relax. And it felt a bit like that meme of the dude studying the blade. I was learning some very advanced stuff.

Once my parents both passed I found myself with a giant hole in my life. And photography called me once again. I was a bit rusty operating the camera for a day or two, but because I had continued my learning, it all came back pretty quick. And I realized I was orders of magnitude better at photography, lighting, and post processing than I used to be.

My first photoshoot after 7 years was of my aunt and uncle. I didn't have much in the way of lighting equipment (I sold it to help my family), so I bounced a little flash off one of those science fair trifold thingies.

These shots made me realize I definitely needed photography back in my life. I figured if I could do that with cardboard I found at Walmart, I would have great potential with proper equipment. So I'm in the process of building a new studio and getting some new gear so I can show off what I'm capable of now.

I ran into a little medical hiccup a few months ago which put everything on pause. While I'm recovering I'm not really able to take any photos. So I've decided to try and write some photography education and help others with their photographic journeys as best I can. And I am still continuing to learn and planning what I want to photograph when my health is in better shape.

I really want to do high quality animal portraiture. Not just cats and dogs. I want to find other exotic pets too. And I also want to do an art project where I help people take high quality photos of their parents. One of the things I was most grateful for after my folks died was the photos I took of them.

And also this one I took of my grandmother.

Having a really high quality photo of people you love is so important. And I don't think everyone realizes that. So I'm hoping I can help folks capture these important memories.

Oh, my favorite thing. I almost forgot. I would say it is the problem solving. Every photo is a new puzzle for me. Especially if I am working with artificial lighting and modifiers. I enjoy imagining a photo in my head and then going through the process, solving problems, and realizing what I imagined in real life. It's a great feeling.

This photo of my friend Ryan comes to mind. I just had this vision of someone reading in the middle of a forest. And so we dragged lights to my neighbors yard and I taped a flash inside the lampshade.

[akanemnon]

I was bored, so I decided to create Dark World versions of DR!Asriel and DR!Chara! (Even though they’ll never actually go to the Dark World in Twins Runes… but details).

Of course, since I love making my life more complicated, instead of just showing them to you, I’ve decided to write out my entire "creative process" as well.

Brace yourself, because this is gonna be loooong.

---

• Asriel

At first, I thought about making him look similar to Asriel from Deltarune Chapter Rewritten, adding a few details from an old Dark World design of Asriel you made a while back. It would have been simple, effective, and overall made perfect sense...

But obviously, NOPE.

Taking the easy way out? Couldn't be me.

So instead, I went for something a bit more "colorful", still taking inspiration from Asriel’s "God of Hyperdeath" version in Undertale.

For his class, I went with bard. Something like this:

[Bard for D&D]

I don’t know why, but the idea of a bard in Deltarune has always cracked me up. Plus, I think it fits his personality as a "fake tough guy with a heart of gold."

Now, onto his weapon. I took Asriel's Chaos Buster from his "God of Hyperdeath" form and turned it into… a lyre.

I know, not exactly a groundbreaking idea, but I can’t stop laughing at the thought of a lyre that, every time it hits someone, plays a dramatic music note… or maybe an electric guitar riff. I haven’t decided yet.

---

• Chara

If I had a lot of inspiration for Asriel, Chara was a whole different struggle. There aren’t many reference images (and no, UT!Chara doesn’t count, because from what you told me, they should have a completely different outfit).

The only real starting point was this drawing, which was super helpful:

[By @Unabashedconnoisseurtwitt / @UCNSFW (One of these should be fine...)]

Aside from that, I had to improvise, taking inspiration from Deltaswap Kris’ outfit:

[By @panpan]

For their class, I went with thief/assassin (kinda like UT!Chara). Something like this:

[D&D Assassin]

Now, let’s talk about their weapon.

This part was easy: a knife.

But not just any knife.

A knife shaped like the Delta Rune. (No clue why, but I thought it looked awesome.)

I picture them having a dynamic similar to Susie and Ralsei in Chapter 1: Asriel happily playing music to spare enemies, while Chara… just stabs them repeatedly.

---

And that’s it! After months of pure artistic nothingness, I finally managed to draw something Twins Runes-related!

I really hope you like the drawings and that my endless explanation didn’t bore you too much.

Now, after this sudden burst of creativity, it’s time for me to disappear for another 3-4 months, just for consistency.

BYEEEEEE!

(PS: Thank you again for creating Twins Runes! It’s been forever since I worked on something this detailed, but your art really inspired me!)

These are really nice! I like the thought process that went into these! Really like the idea of turning Asriel's blaster into a lyre!

Funnily enough, I HAVE already created Dark World designs for these two, but never showed them off. Maybe some other day and definitely not under this ask. Don't wanna take away from your lovely fanart!

[crownedinmarigolds]

CrownedinMarigolds Commission information as of February 2025!

Hello all! Sorry for the long post - but my commissions are re-opened until I feel like I have enough! Thank you to everyone who is interested!! The "rules" for my commissions are below the break, as I know this post is long enough already!

I am using KO-FI's commission tab to keep track of how many slots I have for each type, as well as occasionally introduce a different style or so if I feel like it/come up with one. This is to make things easier for me in regards to tracking, and to make things more visible to you all so you know how busy or available I may be!

My quick sketch commissions are always open on my KO-FI! Please note that aside from light tweaks, I will not overhaul draw the quick sketches or the group quick sketches.

Prices may slightly vary depending on specific details, but that is something we can discuss in private. The prices shown are pretty solidly what I will charge!

PLEASE NOTE: I will not start work until payment is made.

The prices above include the character + a simple background color/texture chosen by me unless otherwise requested by you. The group portraits will require a bit more in-depth discussion - such as if you don't want them just standing together and want them to be doing something as a group. That may change the price slightly depending on what they're up to. If you'd like to add a specific background, we can talk about that as well! I keep you very up to date through most of the process, and I have a few extra rounds of concept sketches prepared if needed for larger portraits. I will happily provide my Discord in private if we need to really talk things out, it's definitely easier that way!

Disclaimers: I have a very sketchy and not 100% clean art style, so please expect that in the finished product! I am absolutely happy to draw not safe for work scenes or subjects like sex, violence, blood, etc - but obviously the more gross end of the spectrum I won't touch. That can be discussed in private! I am not very good at drawing mechs, cars, or animals, so while you can ask me to, I may deny it just to ensure you don't get a subpar final drawing.

Also, I work full time and am a wife and mother! I like to think I'm fast and incredibly attentive but just please be respectful that I may have to step away to take care of my family. I have to save drawing for after I am off work and when my child is asleep.

If you'd like to commission me, go ahead and grab your slot through my KO-FI. Feel free to also send me a direct message through Tumblr or email me at ladyofsilks@gmail.com! Just noting again, I am using KO-FI to keep track of the slots taken and to keep all my record-keeping in one place. If you miss the window for a slot, I can of course write your idea and information down and inform you when I'm about to open slots again. You will be getting concept sketches, updates as I go, and of course the high res copy of your image at the very end. I would ask that you speak with me before using my work for public use or on paid programming. Otherwise, these images are yours and you feel free to use them as you please!

I am on KO-FI, and here is my Art Tumblr Tag for more examples of my work!

Thank you all so much!!

[cheapshrimpysheep]

Romantic Experiment

SUMMARY: They want you to assist them with a simple experiment. They'll show you how it's done, maybe try to convince you to join the science club and definitely flirt along the way.

CHARACTERS: Science Club 🧪 (Trey Clover / Rook Hunt)

TAGS: Fluff; GN Reader; Dating; Romantic Relationship; Flirting

WARNING: Do Not try Rook's experiment at home! Mercury is very Toxic! Trey's experiment is safe, tho.

WORD COUNT: An average of 1.330 words per character.

COMMENTS: If you follow me, you know that if I write more than 1k it's because I got excited and had more ideas than I expected. I relied on this page to learn about and describe the experiments. If I made a mistake somewhere, I studied arts, not science, ok? I’m sorry. 😅

I hope you enjoy 😉

OTHER CLUBS:

But… We Lost… - Basketball Club (Ace / Floyd / Jamil)

For a Quarter of a Second - Track and Field Club (Deuce / Jack)

Unlucky Overtime - Spelldrive Club (Leona / Ruggie / Epel)

A Rainy Walk - Mountain Lover Club (Jade) / Gargoyle Studies Club (Malleus)

CONTEXT: Either you two are dating or already at the beginning of your relationship, so you're still in that flirting phase.

Trey and you were talking about the school clubs because you were wondering if you should join one. So, Trey suggests that you go with him to the science club one day to see if you like it and are interested in joining. But thinking about how demanding Professor Crewel can be, you comment that perhaps it is too difficult for you.

“Too difficult?” He smiled, that smile the other Heartslabyul students usually described as a protective older brother smile. “Don't worry, it's just a visit. And even if you want to join the club, no one will force you to do anything you can't do. We are free to do the experiences that interest us most. And of course, if you need help I will always be there for you.”

You met Trey at the classroom door just before the science club meeting started. Like you, he was already wearing his lab coat too.

“We're not going in yet.” He tells you. “I had an idea for a simple experiment that you might like. And I wanted you to participate in all the steps, or as many as possible, so I need you to come with me to get the components. Shall we?”

First you two go to Sam's Mystery Shop to buy yellow, cyan and magenta professional floral dyes and tonic water. You ask if the experiment is to make colorful flowers.

“I can't make that part a surprise, can I?” He says with a smile and his eyebrows arched in pity. “Let's say we're going to paint the roses but not just red. And speaking of which, they are the ones we are going to get now before going back to the classroom.”

Then he takes you to the botanical garden and leads you to a corner where white rose buds are growing.

“I took the liberty of planting them beforehand so we could start the experiment straight away.” He explains. “What you see are three different rose cultivars. Vendela, La Belle and Avalanche.” He indicates each one while saying the name. “They are said to be the best for absorbing dye. The dyeing process can take a few days, so an open bloom won’t last long enough. That's why we're going to use buds that have not fully opened. Could you help me pick them?” he asks rhetorically, just being the well-mannered man that he is.

If you take a moment to look at him concentrating on cutting the stems of the roses, he will smile at you, without taking his eyes off the flowers, and say: “As flattered as I am with you admiring me, I would really prefer it if you were more worried about not cutting yourself.” You were wearing gloves, so the rose thorns weren't as much of a concern as the scissors you were using to cut them.

He will finish picking his share of the roses faster than you pick yours, and he will stop to look at you. If you notice and look at him, he will say with a smirk: “I've already finished my part. Now it's my turn to admire you at work. You really are more attractive when you're focused.” and he will laugh at your reaction to that sudden comment. “Fine, I'll help you.” He says with his calm smile “Like I said, I don't want you to cut yourself.”

You only took the rose buds, but some of the other roses were already open. He picks one, hands it to you and in front of your eyes "Doodle Suit" the rose petals turn into your favorite color(s) with a soft whisper. You take the flower with a smile and he kisses your cheek.

He gets up, picks up the shopping bag with one hand and the dozen roses that you two picked with the other. “We can go back now. Everything else we need is already in the classroom.”

You were in the classroom with other science club members, but there was room for everyone. Trey was right, it was a simple and kind of relaxing experiment. You used a sharp blade to cut the stem of the roses into 3 sections. If you didn't feel confident using it, Trey would have no problem cutting the stems for you. You added dye and tonic water to three plastic bags. If you ask if you couldn't use regular water, he’ll say:

“Yes, regular water is commonly used, but tonic water creates a special effect that I want to be a surprise when I show it to you. So be patient okay?” he winks.

You carefully separated each section of stem and place it in its own bag of dyed water, used a rubber band to secure the bags to the roses and placed the flowers in a bud vase to keep them upright. You needed to place the flowers in a cool place, away from direct sunlight, so Trey suggested placing them under the table and making a sign warning other students to be careful.

“The petals will begin to change color within a couple of hours, but it may take a few days to achieve the best color.” He explains. “During this time, we need to make certain the roses don’t run out of liquid. Therefore, we may need to add more dyed water from time to time.”

For a couple of days you and Trey texted each other to arrange shifts to check the flowers and add more dye water. You saw the roses opening slowly and the the white petals turning into increasingly more vivid colors. The mixture of yellow, cyan and magenta made them a perfect rainbow color. You would often also find a small note written by Trey, usually inviting you to have tea and try some sweet treat that he made or was going to make for you.

And then one night, the two of you agreed to meet in the classroom because Trey thought the roses were ready. It was just the two of you. He turned on the lights and went to get the bouquet of rainbow roses. They were absolutely beautiful! He took out a flashlight and handed it to you.

“Do you want to find out what tonic water does?” He asked you with a quite excited smile. He takes his magic pen, points it at the lights in the room and turns them off. “Turn on the flashlight and point it at the roses.”

You do it. It was a black light that when pointed at the roses made them glow. The more amazed you are, the happier he will be. He hands you the bouquet and holds the lantern himself.

“I know this is going to sound a lot like Cater, but can I take a photo of you holding the roses? After all this was an experiment and I need to record the experiments I do.” You agree and he takes a photo with his cell phone while pointing the black light at the flowers. He looks at the photo with a smug smile.

“I can't wait to see Rook's face when he sees this photo.” You ask why. After all, this was a simple experiment. “It's not because of the experiment, it's because of the photo itself. It's a beautiful photo and he won't be able to deny it. And I'm not just talking about the roses.” He smirks.

You ask if it wouldn't be a good idea to take a photo with him too, after all he was the main scientist. He laughs, and agrees, and the two of you take a selfie with the flowers, the black light on the table and pointed at the two of you. He looked even more attractive with the rainbow glow of the roses pointing at him. And in the middle of the night. He looked at you with the same thought.

“So what you say? You'll join me at the science club. There are more exciting experiments we can do together.” He smirks, takes the bouquet and places it carefully on the table without taking his eyes off you, and breaking the distance that the roses were causing between the two of you. “What do you think about being my assistant? Tempting? Or is that just my lips?” You were indied looking at them, the same way he was looking at yours.

“My Dear Trickster!” Rook appeared out of nowhere, as he does so often, and with his lab coat on. He held your hand with one of his, your waist with the other and lovingly pulled you closer to him. “Fate is so generous in making me meet you at this moment!” He kisses your cheek.

“I was just now heading to the classroom where the science club meets and thinking about all the possibilities of new experiments I could do when I saw one on my list that would be merveilleuse to do with you of all people! S'il te plaît, come with me mon amour. I'll show you how much my heart beats for you!”

Instead of taking you to the classroom, he first took you to Mr. S's Mystery Shop, as you needed to buy the main component for that experiment.

“Welcome, little imps! Looking for a last-minute forgotten item perhaps?” Sam assumed from Rook's lab coat. And maybe he also knew about the science club meeting.

“A specific ingredient for a last-minute decided to be done experiment, would be more accurate.” Rook smiled. “As far as I know, such things are not an enemy to your stock, correct?”

“On the contrary! Name it and I'll tell you where and how much it is.” Sam winked.

“Liquid Mercury.” Rook responds naturally.

“Mercury?!” Sam was surprised but not shocked. “You know it's toxic right? And relatively expensive.”

“I am very aware of that, oui.” He was still smiling, but with that sly half-closed look of his. “It's for the science club. I had already informed Professor Crewel and he authorized me to purchase it.”

“He did... without a paper...” Sam whispered to himself, before talking to Rook again. “You are of age then?”

“Oui je suis.” He handed Sam his ID. “You would have enough for a simple experiment, non?”

“How many grams do you need?” Sam asked, handing back the ID and smiling like the helpful salesman he is.

On the way back to the classroom, you expressed your concerns and apprehension regarding Rook's experiment. You weren't a member of the science club, how could you help? And about the toxic mercury?

“Worry not, Trickster.” He smiled confidently. “The amount of mercury we will be using is safe, especially while wearing coats, gloves and glasses. The only ingredient I will ever intoxicate you with is love, mon cher.” He puts his hand on your waist and gently pulls you to kiss your cheek. “And as for why I want you to be with me when I do the experiment... he he... you'll find out when you see it.”

“Bon après-midi!” He greets, as soon as he enter the classroom. He didn't explain why you were with him, but no one asked either. The other club members asked each other, but it seemed like no one had much courage to ask Rook directly. Except one person.

“Hi Rook, (Y/N).” Trey greeted you. “You had never come to a club meeting before. Are you thinking about joining or did you just come to assist Rook?”

You say you came because Rook asked you, but now that he was talking about it, you could also see what the club was like and think about whether you would like to join.

“You will always be welcome!” Rook says. “Oh, but Chevalier des Roses you are very cruel to me.”

“Why? What did I say?”

“Now you've put the merveilleuse image of (Y/N) and I here, doing experiments together. How heartbreaking it will be now to have that fantasy destroyed. You truly underestimate the thorns in your words.”

Trey smiled like he was thinking that Rook was just being dramatic again. “Well, I apologize, but aren't you putting (Y/N) in a position where it will now be difficult to refuse the invitation?”

“Non. There is nothing more charming than the free will of one's heart. I will be happy with whatever my dear Trickster decides.” his usual smile became sly. “Are you perhaps trying to pass the blame for your words onto someone else?”

“Of course not. Don't distort my intentions.” Trey adjusts his glasses, still smiling politely. “I'll leave you to your experiment. I also have something I want to test.” He walked away.

He puts what you bought on a table and goes to get the rest of the materials that were already in the room. A petri dish, pipettes, a new nail and a small bottle with a transparent liquid.

When he went to get the second bottle, the glass was dark, so he had to read the label. He picked up one that made several heads turn and a collective sigh of concern was heard. “Potassium chlorate...” He read to himself, but with the silence in the classroom, the others could also hear him. “Ups... not chlorate, dichromate.” He put the bottle back in the cabinet and took out another like it with the label: Potassium dichromate. A sigh of relief was heard in the room and the students returned to focusing on their projects.

Rook returned to the table laughing. You ask him why the other members reacted that way to the first bottle.

“Potassium Chlorate.” he explains. “Is a strong oxidizing agent that has a wide variety of uses. It is or has been a component of explosives, fireworks, safety matches, and disinfectants. I think they were afraid I was going to make explosives.” he leans in and whispers in your ear. “Don't tell them that it is a possibility for another day.”

You begin the experiment. He place a drop of mercury in the petri dish. Then he pour transparent liquid over the drop to cover it. He explains to you that it is sulfuric acid. He then add a small amount of what is on the second bottle. They look like little red crystals, almost as small as dust. That was potassium dichromate. He waits some time before giving you the new nail.

He stands behind you and holds your hand that is holding the nail with his. “Now let's see if it works. Shall we?” He practically whispered that in your ear. He makes you slowly bring the tip of the nail closer to the drop of mercury. And before you touch it, the drop starts to move and... beat like a heart. The mercury drop will beat for about 20 seconds before stopping.

“Mercury Beating Heart.” He explains sweetly. “Is a popular chemistry demonstration based on an an electrochemical redox reaction that causes a blob of mercury to oscillate, resembling a beating heart. Simple, dangerous, and beautiful.”

He frees your hand and lets you continue the experiment on your own if you want. The tip of the nail never touches the mercury and the heart will always beat for a few seconds before you try again.

“The club wants to hold a small fair to demonstrate some experiments. I thought this would be a simple but interesting demo to show potential new members. So, you tell me, what do you think?”

You can tell him it's an excellent idea, but if you're concentrating on the mercury heart, making it beat gently, he won't need any verbal response.

He laughs. “Beauté! I could watch your fascinated look all day. However...” He brings his face closer to yours. You move the nail away from the mercury, and he places a finger under your chin, moving your head slightly. Your lips very close. “I would hunt to have that look on me instead.”

If you want to know more, here are the links to the experiments:

Trey -> Rainbow Roses

Rook -> Mercury Beating Heart

And if you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[choerypetal]

Love at first Sight / Steve Harrington x Winchester!Sister

Summary: The reader, as the younger sister of the Winchesters, moves to Hawkins to investigate a hunt after losing contact with their father, John. Unbeknownst to them, Hawkins harbors dark secrets, particularly when a certain boy rescues them from the monsters.

ps: This is my longest story to date, and I had so much fun writing it. I hope you enjoy it just as much! Since English isn't my first language, I apologize for any minor grammar errors.

word count; 6ks.

tag list ; @figurantedefilme

“Father, hasn’t come back.” 

Dean’s words reiterate in your mind as you sat in the passenger seat. Sam, your twin, understood the potential consequences of bringing you along. You vividly recalled his argument about the test you had the next morning, how he had done everything possible to support your decision not to get involved. The thought of dragging their little sister, on the brink of graduating high school, into family matters made him troubled. "And where exactly is the location?" he asked, struggling to conceal his irritation while casting worried glances in your direction. 

Dean understood he had no alternative. If given the opportunity, there was no doubt he would have ventured alone. However, giving John's unequivocal instructions left no room for debate on the matter. When family, particularly your father, was concerned, it was imperative for everyone to participate, regardless of their preferences. Dean's grasp on the steering wheel tightened as he disclosed the destination you were bound for.

 “Hawkins.” 

Hawkins was nothing like Kansas. After an eight-hour drive with multiple stops, your brothers took turns at the wheel. For once, you all agreed that your father should be immensely grateful when you finally rescued him, especially given the uncertainty about where to start. It wasn't until you checked into a motel near Hawkins that the research on the haunting began in earnest.

Dean had gone to buy some food while Sam and you continued your search. The sun had set, giving way to the shimmering stars of the night. One of the things you couldn't help but admire about Hawkins was the luminous presence of its own scenery. You were stargazing from your motel window when you heard the door creak open and Sam's voice, poised to relay any information about your father's whereabouts. But it was Dean who spoke first, interrupting Sam's rambling about anything he could find useful. "So, you're telling me there are no official records, just a stupid student article about the incident that happened, what, a year ago? When it all started with a boy going missing?"

"Maybe we should ask for the chief," you suggested, recalling the man around your father's age whom your brothers had seen at the gas station an hour earlier. One who could definitely be a source of information. However, your brothers dismissed the notion, unwilling to involve others. "No, no, no," Dean said, pulling food from the plastic bag and placing it on the table. Sam, still engrossed in his laptop, grabbed the first item his hand found. "The one thing we definitely can't do is involve the cops, especially the sheriff."

And he was right, much as you hated to admit it. Dealing with the cops had never been your brother's strongest suits. Recalling numerous arrests, all tied to their hunting activities, with your father or Bobby often being the one to bail them out.

"I think I found something," Sam said, capturing your attention. Dean snatching the laptop from him, causing Sam to roll his eyes and start munching on his sandwich. "Demogorgon, really?" Dean said, almost offended by the article. What struck him, though, was how off the situation felt with the missing boy and the lab in Hawkins.

"I don't know, man. Don't look at me like that. Just read further," Sam insisted as Dean tried to process the information. Despite their extensive hunting experience, from Wendigo's to the King of Hell, Dean was on the verge of dismissing the student article entirely. This seemed like a stretch even for them.

"And you're telling me Dad went missing because of a half-man, half-creature that feeds on human powers?" Dean asked incredulously. Sam chuckled at his brother's disbelief and nodded. "That's what the article says," he confirmed, though Dean remained unconvinced. He needed more evidence, which meant by morning they will have to start questioning anyone around Hawkins. "Tomorrow, first thing. If the rumors are true, and as much as I hate to admit. Dad might be the creature's next snack anytime soon."

The next morning in Hawkins, you and your brothers headed to the nearest diner. Unlike other places you'd visited, Hawkins had a surprising calmness to it. You were particularly excited to visit the DVD store that had caught your eye, likely the only other place of interest besides the arcade. You always made a point to bring something back from each mission—a habit your brothers found odd yet endearing.

"Please," you begged Dean as the three of you walked into the diner. He rolled his eyes as you all sat down and ordered the usual breakfast: two coffees and an orange juice for you. "What do you even need at a DVD store?" he asked. "Maybe it could also be a good excuse for you and Sam to investigate," you replied with a hint of amusement. Your brothers exchanged a glance and thanked the waitress as she brought the food. "She isn't wrong, you know," Sam agreed, seeing the potential in the idea. "And if it makes Y/N feel at home..." 

"Fine," Dean finally conceded with a sigh. "But after that, we're heading to the trailer park." He insisted, knowing it was one of the areas where the creature had reportedly lingered and the last place your father was apparently seen.

"Robin, I told you, the last time I flirted with a woman, I couldn't even avoid making her cringe," Steve sighed as he brought the DVD tray to restock returns. Behind the counter, Robin mentally tallied her best friend's countless failures, a smile playing on her lips. “I call dibs on the next client.” As she noticed three silhouettes entering the store, her attention shifted entirely to them. "Welcome!" she greeted them, her tone ambiguous enough to make it unclear whether she enjoyed her job or not. "May I help you?"

Your brother wore an expression of determination. Sam, ever the polite one, smiled first and quickly refocused on their primary mission: finding your father. "We just need a few pieces of information," he said, presenting their fake FBI cards. You leaned forward, peeking between your brothers. Immediately catching Steve's attention. Outside, Max and Billy, being new in town, added to the unusual sight of newcomers, especially at this time of year. Steve couldn't help but admire this in awe. "I'll go look for a souvenir. Don't wait for me," you said, glancing at them one last time before heading off. 

"Alright, Chipmunk, just don't take long," Dean replied, prompting you to roll your eyes. Steve noted the nickname, remembering it all too well. As you made your way toward the shelves of tapes, Steve remained with your brothers, soon summoned by Robin.

"It's about their father," Robin had filled Steve in on the situation. Wherever their father was, it didn't sound promising, especially with everything happening—the Demogorgon, Vecna—anything could be connected. Observing Dean's expression shift from annoyance to complete shock, as Sam realized that dismissing the student article might have been their first mistake.

"So... you're saying you fought one of them?" Sam directed his question to Steve. Usually, Steve couldn't resist a bit of ego-boosting, but the serious expression on Dean's face and his repeated glances in your direction, ensuring you wouldn't make a mess, made Steve reconsider. Perhaps setting aside the flirting was the wisest choice. Thus, he simply nodded. "Yes, thanks to Dustin, who obtained the information initially. Even the police are clueless about what's truly occurring."

The Winchester brothers exchanged glances. "Dustin?" they asked simultaneously. Steve nodded in confirmation. "Yes, and not just Dustin. We also have El, who possesses superpowers. She's been instrumental, but given your father's disappearance, someone would have found his body by now or—" Steve hesitated, unwilling to entertain darker possibilities, especially after their experience in the Upside Down. He shared a concerned look with Robin, who shrugged, considering various scenarios. "Wait—let me just process all of this," Dean interjected, taking a step back. Robin offered him a seat at the counter, which he gratefully accepted as he attempted to piece everything together.

"So, let me get this straight: first, this kid Will goes missing, then you guys run into some Demo-whatever-the-hell-it's-called, and now there's this girl with random powers who was held captive in a lab by some Vecna creep?" Dean recalled how vague his father had been on the phone the previous night, mentioning he'd be at some sort of lab. The thought worried him, prompting Sam to give his brother a concerned look. "Are you okay?" Sam inquired. Dean hummed a yes and locked eyes with Steve, who swallowed nervously. Despite only meeting briefly that day, something about your older brother made Steve fidgety. Dean paused momentarily, then retrieved an article from his back pocket and placed it on the counter. Steve immediately recognized Nancy's handwriting.

"Not to sound arrogant, but that's your source?" Steve gestured towards the paper, blinking twice. While Nancy's article was informative, she had to simplify and spice it up to attract readers for her publication, not to mention keep the whole Upside Down ordeal a secret. Steve distinctly recalled her mentioning that. However, he hadn't anticipated it would attract a group of hunters brandishing fake FBI badges. Despite his reservations, he refrained from commenting on it. "Also," he added, indicating their badges, "this whole fake badge charade doesn't fool us. We've already dealt with the Russians trying that stunt," he remarked smugly. Just as you arrived with a stack of DVDs, you couldn't help but laugh. "See? I told you those FBI badges were outdated."

Sam's lips curved into a playful smile as he observed your reaction. Despite disliking that you were traveling with them and missing out on a normal life outside of hunting, it was gratifying to see you interacting with people your age. Your formal demeanor while conversing with Steve, who nodded in response to your comment, was refreshing, as were the small interactions you shared with Robin. "Cash?" Steve inquired next, prompting an eager nod from you as Dean stepped in to pay. "But I have enough!" you protested, pouting adorably—a sight that Steve found strangely endearing. He snapped back to reality as your brother impatiently waited for him to retrieve the cash. "Want-Want the receipt?" Steve asked stuttering slightly, to which your brother shook his head. As the three of you prepared to leave the store, thanking the two employees one last time, Dean paused, causing Sam and you to exchange a curious glance. Dean clearly had something in mind.

"Can we arrange a meeting spot?" he inquired. Steve and Robin shared a glance, aware that the next day they would be assisting Dustin in searching for his friend Eddie. It appeared to be an ideal opportunity, particularly since your brothers intended to explore Hawkins' forest as well. "Skull Rock?" the younger boy proposed. Neither your brothers nor you were aware that you would have more company than anticipated. Dean hesitated, but upon seeing your radiant expression as you held the stack of DVDs you had purchased, you spoke up on their behalf before he could respond. "We'll be there!"

Steve's prediction proved accurate. The following morning arrived, and he remained uncertain whether you would indeed appear, let alone bring your brothers along. The previous night, after interviewing numerous locals, you had practically pleaded with them to join, convinced it was an excellent idea. Considering your father's tendencies, initiating the search in the forest seemed logical. "If this is because of that Steve boy again," Dean interjected with disdain evident in his tone, prompting you to roll your eyes. "It has nothing to do with him! Besides, he's taken down one of these creatures before. I'd sooner trust a DVD seller than a random sheriff at this point." You made a valid argument, and upon witnessing the resolve in your expression, Sam concurred, "She's got a point." With a sigh, Dean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel before starting the engine without another word and directing the car toward Skull Rock.

"So who are we waiting for exactly?" Dustin inquired impatiently, observing Steve's restless pacing. "And what's with the sudden nerves?" Robin teased with a smirk. "It's Y/N." "Y/N?" Steve spoke your name, almost offended. "Oh, so you know her name?" Robin enjoyed Steve's irritation and couldn't resist teasing him further. "She mentioned it before they departed, in case you were paying attention, lover boy."

"They?" Dustin regarded the two adults before him, clearly perplexed by the situation and the strangers they had involved. "Her father vanished, and her brothers, who are apparently hunters, were dispatched here. We're just hoping we don't stumble upon their father's lifeless body along the way," Steve explained. He hadn't intended to sound so severe, but his nerves had taken over, leading him to adopt a touch of sarcasm. His confidence faltered as he heard your brother's voice drawing nearer. "Y/N, this is nonsense. We should've contacted Castiel."

"Yes, but remember, Castiel's at the hospital right now. He needs the rest," you reminded them, recalling the events of the last hunt. "Come on, grumpy old man," you added, grabbing Dean's arm, eliciting a whine from him, while Sam chuckled, enjoying the moment. As your eyes met Robin’s, you waved at her. "Robin!"

Robin was the first to notice your arrival and approached you with a hug. You were introduced to Dustin, whom they described as the clever one, and who had some knowledge about the creatures and your father's potential whereabouts. Lucky for him, he had mentioned about seeing a man whose description bore a striking resemblance to your father's, which he promptly relayed to Dean. "So, that's how you stumbled upon this entire Russian trap?" you inquired. They all nodded in agreement, but their conversation was interrupted as Eddie emerged from his hiding spot, causing you to startle slightly.

"Dustin, you rascal," Eddie's voice reverberated in your thoughts. Amidst the chaos of your missing father and the onslaught of curses from Max and Eddie, whom you had only just met, Eddie extended his hand to shake yours, his fingers lightly brushing against yours as he flashed a smile. "Haven't seen you around before, sweets," he remarked, managing to find humor in the situation despite its gravity, prompting a slight cringe from Steve, who had been the first to encounter you. Yet, you couldn't deny that Eddie exuded a certain charm of his own. "We've been sent on a mission. My father disappeared around here a few days ago, and my brothers, who are hunters, insisted I come," you explained, introducing Dean and Sam to everyone present, including Lucas, Max, and Nancy, all of whom reciprocated with their own introductions.

"And I assume you're familiar with me," the metalhead sighed at his presence, wishing for a more auspicious introduction. You shook your head, seeking confirmation from Robin and then Steve. "Eddie," Steve answered, somewhat irritated. "The 'supposed boy' who was involved in the cheerleader's death?" your brother recited from a news article. But quickly flinched and groaned in discomfort as you took the crumpled article and hit it against his chest. "Good Lord, Y/N, what was that for?" he protested as you gave him a knowing glance. 

"Do you get a serial killer vibe from him?" you questioned, coming to Eddie's defense. “It’s alright, Y/N, there’s no need…” Observing the unfolding scene, Steve couldn't help but wish he were in Eddie's position, but circumstances had changed since your meeting with him the day before. Determined to contribute, he spoke up. "Shouldn't we be, you know, taking action instead of just standing around? Especially for their father, Dustin, and everything?" 

Dustin briefly glanced at Steve, recognizing that familiar look of jealousy. First, it was with Nancy, and now it seemed directed toward a complete stranger. Amused, Dustin couldn't resist teasing him and feigned ignorance, only serving to make Steve's jealousy even more evident. Meanwhile, you were completely absorbed in Eddie's presence, oblivious to Steve's inner turmoil. Dean, always the vigilant brother, interjected, "Come on, lover boy, no time to waste," playfully tousling your hair as he noticed Steve's uneasy glance. You muttered a few choice words before smoothing down your hair. It was endearing to witness the two men vying for your attention, but it also put Dean, the protective brother, on edge. "Sammy?" he called out, turning to Sam, who was already assisting Dustin in plotting the next course of action. "Ready?"

You, on the other hand, gave a final glance to Eddie, who appeared ready. "Lead the way, sweetheart," you encouraged. The walk proved lengthier than anticipated, and as the sun began to set, the sky revealed the first twinkling stars, a sight you never failed to appreciate. Steve made a point to remain by your side throughout. "Look!" you exclaimed, prompting Steve to recall the way your smile lit up your face. Your observation caused everyone, including your brothers, to pause in their tracks. "The stars seem larger tonight," you remarked in awe. "Are you a fan of astrology?" Eddie inquired, leaning closer to you, and you turned to regard him. "And you?" you countered. He shrugged. "Not particularly, but now that you mention it, Hawkins nights do hold a certain allure, don't they, Steve?"

"Indeed," Steve responded, the faint edge of irritation apparent in his tone. Eddie noticed, recognizing the signs of infatuation, and chose not to press the matter further. "Perhaps," he suggested, "rather than discussing stars, we should direct our attention to..."

An interruption broke the silence—a familiar screech that caused Dustin to halt abruptly, prompting everyone to freeze in place. He listened intently, ensuring it wasn't merely his imagination. "Do you all hear that?" he whispered, the sound growing louder. Your brothers remained nearby, while Steve stood steadfastly by your side. You could have sworn you felt his fingers graze yours, prompting you, out of habit, to reach for his hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. In that moment, he was your knight in shining armor.

Dean swiftly seized the flashlight, his actions quickened by a piercing scream resonating through the air. As you turned to confront the creature lurking in the shadows, a chill of fear gripped you, compounded by the sight of blood dripping from its jaw. Paralyzed, you sensed its menacing presence drawing nearer with each passing second. In the blink of an eye, it lunged towards you. "Y/N!" Steve's urgent voice reverberated in your mind as Dean barked orders at Sam to take the first shot. Yet, the gunfire proved futile against the relentless creature. "Steve!" Robin's frantic shout pierced through the chaos as she tossed him the bat. Everything unfolded too swiftly to comprehend.

Overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the creature, you found your knees giving way, sending you tumbling to the ground. In a swift response, Eddie rushed to your side, offering reassurance in a soothing tone. "It's alright, it's gone," he repeated, his words a steady anchor amidst the chaos. With trembling hands, you instinctively shielded your face, attempting to suppress the rising tide of screams threatening to escape.

Unbeknownst to the group, your father had been silently observing from the shadows all along. With keen interest, he monitored the actions of his two sons and daughter, though the sight of you among them caught him off guard. This situation served as a test, one that Dean might soon recall—it was designed to assess whether the two boys were prepared to tackle cases beyond their usual scope. However, your involvement was an unexpected twist, not part of the original plan. Little did John know, another version of himself had been lurking much closer than anticipated.

Sam was the first to discern John's presence. His disbelief was palpable, tinged with a hint of revulsion at the sight of his father seemingly unscathed, contrary to the myriad theories the three Winchesters had fervently debated in recent days. "Dad? Dad?" Dean's puzzled expression mirrored Sam's confusion, just as Steve swiftly dispatched the Demogorgon with a well-timed blow. 

"Boys," John greeted with a smile that felt forced. Max, sensing an underlying unease, found herself growing suspicious. Though not intimately acquainted with the Winchesters' father, her own encounters with flayed individuals had honed her instincts. "Guys," she interjected, attempting to capture Steve's attention, "I have my doubts about him." Steve, casting a brief glance at Hargrove, immediately redirected his focus upon hearing your faint cries, ensuring your well-being as he knelt beside Eddie. Meanwhile, your brothers stood frozen in astonishment at the sight of their impostor father.

"Dean?" Max's voice reverberated in your brother's mind, prompting him to turn towards her. "Yes?" he replied, noting the concern etched on her features. An instinctual feeling swept over him, suggesting that the figure before them wasn't their father. With Sam in close proximity, Dean couldn't resist beckoning him over, yet there was no response. "I don't believe it's your father," Max murmured softly, her words carrying a weight of conviction. "And what leads you to that conclusion?" Dean inquired, though inwardly he harbored similar suspicions. Despite clinging to a glimmer of hope, he remained open to Max's insight. "Do you notice any discrepancies?" Bingo. Dean scrutinized the man masquerading as their father, discerning subtle nuances in his smile, his gaze, and the feigned affection. It became increasingly apparent that whatever entity had taken control was failing miserably at replicating their father's mannerisms.

"I'm relieved to find you all here. I was growing concerned," the voice emanated, its tone unsettling. Max's intuition proved correct. Sensing trouble, Sam moved closer while Dean hastened towards him, their actions synchronized with the abrupt sound of another gunshot. The bullet found its mark, striking the impostor masquerading as John. A sickly green fluid oozed from his mouth, portending imminent danger. His once-human eyes now glowed an eerie white. In a stroke of luck, John had managed to discharge a bullet into his counterfeit form. Sam's eyes widened in horror as he cried out for his father.

Dean's grip tightened on his firearm, grappling with the uncertainty of the situation, questioning the authenticity of the figure before him. John's eyes met yours, a silent challenge conveyed through his gaze. Despite the tension, you managed to steady your breathing, feeling the weight of the moment. With Steve's presence lending you reassurance, you stood your ground, determined to maintain composure amidst the uncertainty.

"Bringing Y/N along, really?" Your father's tone dripped with a mix of disgust and shame, causing Sam to sense the weight of the situation. Understanding the pressure you were under, he rose to stand by your side. Meanwhile, Eddie and Steve, recognizing the need for composure, subtly suggested maintaining distance, hinting at the gravity of family matters. Despite their advice, you clung to their shirts, silently pleading for their support. "Please," your eyes implored. Thus, you, Sam, Eddie, Steve, Max, Lucas, Dustin, Robin, and Nancy maintained a respectful distance, observing the unfolding events.

Dean harbored discontent towards his father's stance on involving you in the discussion. While it had been acknowledged that reaching a certain age would inevitably draw you into the hunting lifestyle, akin to Sam's trajectory, Dean remained disheartened by the prospect. He often cited Sam's own journey, pointing out how it led him to abandon Stanford and commit to hunting full-time. Unlike Dean, Sam advocated for a conventional life for you, one filled with relationships and camaraderie. The time spent in Hawkins only solidified this perspective for you. "She's prepared," Dean asserted, though John's skepticism was evident.

"Y/N, return to the car," your father's voice rang out, commanding attention as all eyes turned towards where you knelt, shaking your head in defiance. "I said, return to the vehicle," he reiterated, employing the same authoritative tone he used on Sam during the vampire hunt. Just as you were about to interject, Sam's figure materialized beside you. Sensing the escalating tension, Steve cautiously ushered Eddie away, allowing space for Sam to intervene.

 He knelt beside you, meeting your gaze with familiarity, recognizing the turmoil reflected in your eyes—a familiar sight during conflicts between your father and himself. Understanding the need to address the situation decisively, not only for his own sake but for yours as well, he inquired, "Do you want me to speak to him, instead?"

A silent sob and a nod conveyed everything. "No, Dad," Sam's voice, grave and resonant, shattered the stillness. He reserved that tone for moments of utmost gravity. Dean attempted to interject, "Sam!" but his words fell on deaf ears; Sam had already approached their father. "She's not prepared," Sam asserted, his gaze penetrating the darkness of the night. Towering slightly over their father, he leaned in, exuding an air of palpable tension. "You are the reason she departed in the first place. In any case."

"What did you just say?" John's voice carried the weight of authority, now laced with a menacing undertone aimed at both his son and daughter for their insubordination. "You heard me," Sam retorted unwaveringly, his gaze hovering dangerously close to his father's collar, poised for confrontation. Yet, he refrained from physical action, mindful of the precarious situation in Hawkins. The tension between the two men simmered, with Dean positioned between them, striving to defuse the escalating conflict. "Yes, you left when your brother and I needed you. You chose her over us! Sam! You—"

"And let's not forget, Dad, you're the one who said, 'Don't come back.' You slammed that door shut on her, not me! You were just angry because you couldn't control her anymore!" Dean interjected, seizing his brother's collar to preempt any potential altercation. John, their father, fixed his gaze on you. Sam's accusation hit home. Despite your love for him, the scars from his domineering nature and the dangers of the hunt still haunted you. Was it all to prove a point about strength? Even now, the memories of that day haunted your dreams. 

"We're all exhausted," Dean interjected, attempting to diffuse the tension. "Now that we've found you, maybe we can head back to the motel." Sam's expression betrayed his reluctance, but it seemed like the most prudent course of action. With their father located, the Winchesters knew their business in Hawkins was concluded. However, your intentions were different. You had someone else in mind: Steve.

Steve observed the scene with mounting fury. The family conflict played out before him, and seeing you curled up, trying to hide your distress, fueled his anger. He was furious at your father for forcing you into a life you hadn't chosen, for making you feel trapped by the family legacy. Watching your brother stand up for you only deepened his ire. Later that night, while your brothers tried to calm your father. From how you would see him gently caressed your cheek, wiping away any lingering tears, and let you collapse into his arms. Murmuring soothing words such as, "Hey, it’s going to be alright. I’m here." And he meant it. He stayed with you all night, knowing that by tomorrow, you might be gone. Or so he thought.

The following night, you faintly recalled your brothers arguing, their voices rising until they stepped outside to avoid waking you. The hunt had left you drained, but your father's harsh words lingered in your mind. With your eyes closed, feigning sleep, you heard the front door of the motel room creak open. Your father entered and knelt beside you, gently brushing the hair from your face. The look on his face, one you couldn't forget, made you wonder if Sam had managed to get through to him. "I am so sorry..." he murmured softly.

His voice was hoarse from crying. Whatever they had discussed was more significant than you had imagined, affecting not just you but Sam as well. As his twin, you had always stood by his side, through thick and thin. Your father, recognizing this bond, finally broke the silence, "If you want to go to college," he said, his voice laden with emotion, "then you can. I love you."

He hadn't wanted to wake you, but his genuine words stirred you. You couldn't help but lean in and wrap your arm around his waist just as he was about to leave. Initially thinking you were asleep, his eyes widened in surprise, then softened as he smiled and returned your embrace. When your brothers returned with food, Sam smiled but refrained from teasing, not wanting to embarrass you. "Dinner?" he asked simply, the warmth of the moment lingering in the air.

Your father glanced at you as you wiped away the last of your dried tears. Nodding, you joined the three men at the dinner table. As you ate, your thoughts drifted to Steve and the longing to see him one last time. "I know we're leaving tomorrow, but..." you began, cheeks flushing. Dean, catching on immediately, spoke through a mouthful of sandwich, "The lover boy?" He raised an eyebrow. Both Sam and your father chuckled, with your father raising an eyebrow in mock confusion. "Who?" he asked, though he clearly knew. "Steve," you murmured, so softly that your family made you repeat it. "Who?" they echoed, smirking. "Steve! Alright, jeez. Anyway, I have to return my DVDs anyway."

Dean rolled his eyes, even though he was notoriously inept when it came to romance. Seeing you with someone, especially someone like Steve, was undeniably endearing. He knew Steve was a good guy—after all, he had helped a complete stranger in the woods, which had led to more than just uncovering their father's disappearance. Now they knew their dad had been flayed. While Dean hated the idea of leaving so soon, he understood that helping Hawkins was necessary. And if it meant you could spend a little more time with Steve, he didn’t mind at all. "You know," he said in a suggestive tone, "I talked with this Dustin kid..."

You met your brother's gaze, eyebrows furrowed, sensing he was onto something significant. "Spill," Sam demanded.

"Well, I also talked to Dad," Dean began. "We discovered something more sinister lurking beneath Hawkins. They need all the help they can get, so I offered our assistance. We’ll be staying a few days to start our search." Your eyes widened in shock and joy as you processed your brother's words. This meant you might be staying for weeks, even months, given the seriousness of the Upside Down situation. And it also meant more time with Steve. “So, we’re staying?” you asked, excitement evident in your voice. Dean nodded with a smile, ruffling your hair. "Don't get too excited, Chipmunk. But yes, and Dad is joining in."

You couldn't be more grateful, and as the three of you settled into bed that night, only one thought occupied your mind: Steve.

The next morning, your brothers and father decided to eat at the nearest café in Hawkins. Over breakfast, you managed to gather more information: one piece related to Max's curse and another concerning Eddie's possible connection to Chrissy's murder, a name you learned only afterward. “And I thought vampires were bad,” you quipped, eliciting chuckles from your brothers. Given your extensive hunting records and those of your brothers and father, it was evident that this situation in Hawkins was unlike anything you had faced before.

After breakfast, while your family was investigating with Dustin's help, you decided to visit the store. Steve was nowhere to be found, so you gently placed the DVDs on the counter and waited. As time passed, your patience waned. With a sigh, you left the DVDs and some cash on the table, resigning yourself to the thought that Steve might already be thinking of someone else, perhaps even kissing another girl. Just as you were about to leave, a familiar voice called out, “Y/N! So sorry, it was my break shift. I didn’t–”

Your face brightened at his presence, a wave of relief washing over you for not considering his break earlier. You watched him clumsily put on his vest and walk toward you for a hug. “You okay?” he asked, releasing you and focusing entirely on you, his eyes filled with affection. You nodded, a small smile playing on your lips. “Yes, we finally managed to talk it out with my father,” you murmured, still processing the emotional weight of the conversation.

Steve's concern was palpable, but relief washed over his face as you spoke. “Also,” he added, a smile spreading across his lips, “I heard you’ll be staying here for a while, huh?” His teasing tone made you roll your eyes, but you couldn’t help but smile, nodding your head and murmuring a soft, “Mhm.”

"Yep, my brothers insisted on helping as much as they can," you said, appreciating their unwavering support, even in the gravest situations. It was one of the many reasons you wanted to join their hunts; balancing college and hunting didn't seem so daunting after all. "This means seeing your face all day," you added with a teasing pout, trying to feign offense. Steve's chuckle and eye roll, however, told you he saw right through your playful act.

"Ouch, I am hurt," he said sarcastically, stepping closer. It was now or never, he thought. If he waited another day, another week, who knew when he'd get another chance to express his feelings. "You know," his voice became slightly hoarse as his eyes roamed over your face and body. His fingers gently brushed your chin, lifting your gaze to meet his. Up close, you realized how striking Steve's eyes were—something you'd have to get used to. "I don't have anything planned for tonight," he purred, making you tilt your head in feigned innocence. You knew Steve had something in mind, even if he wasn't saying it outright.

"I was thinking of inviting you over for a movie night at my place. I'll cover the pizza," he offered, his words causing your cheeks to warm. While you felt the urge to inform your brothers, you decided to wait until later, until you were at Steve's house. "Alright, lover boy," you said, using the nickname your brother had coined for him. Steve grunted and rolled his eyes, dismissing the teasing. "So, tonight at 8, Chipmunk?" he added with a smirk, to which you responded with a playful glare.

"Eight o'clock it is," you agreed. Just as you felt the warmth of Steve's proximity, the door swung open. In walked Dustin, Max, Eddie, and your brothers. Dean, unable to resist, was the first to comment. "Alright, lovebirds, we've got some research to do. If you want my sister by eight, we need to get started immediately."

"Dean!" you protested, turning to face your brother with a glare. He smirked and followed Dustin to the DVD computer, while Steve protested for more carefulness. As everyone crowded around the screen, Sam approached you, leaving the two of you momentarily alone. "You know," he said with a genuine smile, "if you want to go to college—" You shook your head. Despite your father’s agreement, you couldn’t leave your family behind; you loved them too much. "No, I really think I'm ready," you replied. Sam raised an eyebrow, taken aback but relieved, and wrapped one arm around you in a quick hug.

"Then let’s kill this thing," Sam said, and you nodded, following him. Who would have thought that a place you initially hoped would hold clues about your father's whereabouts would also be where you'd find friends and someone to count on—Steve Harrington. "You okay?" Steve murmured as you joined him, noticing your brief discussion with Sam. "Yes, I am," you replied with a smile, feeling his hand gently squeeze yours. "I just can’t wait for tonight as well," you confessed, and you could have sworn you saw Steve's cheeks warm at your comment, which you found adorably endearing. He leaned in to press a kiss on your cheek, returning the favor.

"I am too," he said.

[meanbossart]

Ask Compilation: Blondes, feet, bowl-cut guardian lady.

He did not, they never had sex. But he was in love with her.

For sure. I think she struck him more like a teenager with the black hair and bangs, after the change (both visual and in attitude) she became a far more mature AND attractive person in his eyes.

PFFT, well, if you're saying they meet ALL of the criteria, I assume you mean both in looks and personality and hence be damn near his soulmate. DU drow could overlook weird feet (and a lot of other things, actually) if he were in love with the person in question. He would probably gently request they take better care of them, though.

Nothing special there, I'm afraid! He just has human-like skin - perhaps a little on the oily side but completely within the bounds of normality.

He runs a little hot, if that's anything. Oh! His hair is shockingly soft.

Correct! DU drow only (arguably) looks like a drow. He doesn't have their usual bone structure, height, or associated magical proclivities. He has some dark vision but its nowhere near as good as a drow's either.

I don't necessarily think all Bhaalspawn are the same way, but the Dark Urge IS quite different from the previous game's iterations. DU isn't simply Bhaal's child conceived with a partner, he's a piece of the god that supposedly slobbed off and grew legs and a face, pretty much. So yes, I do think that the Dark Urge at least is it's own unique thing.

The reason why he looks like a drow, is because he was placed in the Underdark upon creation. The metaphor I always use here is that if you place something infantile in a biome that is alien to it, it may try to adapt to it's environment to survive as it develops, to different degrees of success. This is why DU drow looks the way he does.

[MORE UNDER THE CUT]

You're welcome!

I've received a few snippets here that you can find through the #gift art tag! There is also the fic I'm in the process of writing called A Novel Experience on AO3.

It was just something I was compelled to do when I first drew him! The facial scars felt like they should lead into something else so I just made up a pattern on the spot, minus a tiny tweak here or there, it has stuck basically unchanged. All and any lore relating to the scars came later.

I get a lot of sweet messages but "thanks for your man's penis size" has to be one of my favorites. Thank you!

HELLO!

Thank you so much for the kind message! And that sounds like a fun dream, I love that your Tav got jealous of the attention ASTARION was receiving instead of mad that he had to share in the first place LOL

DU drow is desperately monogamous. He doesn't care what other people do with their lives but he's very much a "one and done" kind of person.

He would be willingly to participate in a threeway/have group sex with a partner, assuming the rules and regulations of said encounter were laid out clearly before or at least mutually understood between them. He would never want to see these people again after the fact though.

She does not, naturally I had no idea that this character was going to turn into anything when i made him, so I just... Made a lady. And since she was supposed to be a "guardian" I gave her a Joan of Arc type of look.

I've occasionally thought about changing this, but... Y'know, sometimes you don't need lore to be that in-depth, LOL.

The emperor gave everyone else a nondescript hottie he assumed they would trust, DU drow just got the same treatment. She's not even DU drow's type but definitely someone he would be compelled to take seriously yet not feel threatened by - so ultimately, her design does make sense.

---

That's all I have the energy for tonight folks, as always thank you for the many encouraging and sweet messages you send me, I'm sorry I can't reply to all of them! 😭

Have yourselves a great week!

[canmom]

one of the people i most looked up to when i was first transing has, many years later, pretty hard disidentified with words like 'trans woman', 'transfem' and so on. they still write to an audience of mostly dolls, but they're doing some other gender thing now, and tend not to like being put in the trans woman/transfem box.

chewing on this and other things. fundamentally I don't think gender is real. I have called it an egregore, and that still seems apt. and yet, words like 'trans', 'autistic' and so on are a pretty powerful correlate with the sort of person I tend to vibe with.

transing isn't revealing some inner girl essence. the forces that produce a trans woman when enacted on the eager-to-reshape-itself human brain don't necessarily only produce trannies: it is one of a number of moves available to you.

it is, however, a really big play in the game. given how ludicrously much gender infects every social interaction, going off-script in a big way is going to affect your psychology hugely. doing that activates the feedback loops, the self-exciting instability, a set of rituals let you become something more 'real', or perhaps more precisely, something you have actively defined. the unpredictable outcome of that process is both the entire point and not the point at all.

rachel pollack spoke of transing in terms of religious ecstasy. "I would argue that transsexuality arises from a passion so powerful that it transcends issues of happiness. The word passion originally meant suffering, not pleasure."

so having made a declaration like, i am this sort of creature, you break everything down and start to rebuild. you go on to take actions to affirm it, or even simply build an inner, secret core, and doing this - physically, socially - transforms the resonances of your thinking.

we have constructed many rituals to make the declaration of transness more definite. a lot of them will affect your sensory experience: the immediate effect of hrt on how your skin responds to touch is surely one of the great virtues. take surgery, for example - do you need to get your penis turned inside out? well: the drama of making a drastic alteration to your body, and the sheer difficulty of getting it, makes it an especially powerful ritual. but it's not the only way to go. indeed, most girls I know haven't done it (whether or not they want to), and instead, the symbol of woman-with-penis has become one of our core subculture-images. in the last few years, the word faggot has come back in a big way, with a real gendered connotation now, sorta like what the girls on here were trying to get at with baeddel before all the shit happened. that's also a move.

so this phenomenon, this new game we're building together, includes surgeries as a move. but it also includes a lot of the subculture-building classics: weird fashions, radical politics, drugs, kinky sex, making noises on the computer, and so on.

and since the whole point of this thing is a process of defining yourself into existence, as soon as something starts to become a cliché, an orthodoxy, a mandated practice, it starts to break down. everything is stupid fucking contextual. if everyone around you is desperately pursuing genital surgery, saying 'I like my dick and want to keep it' becomes a potent move. but if the pendulum swings the other way, once everyone is saying 'do you really need surgery, you know you don't need it to Be Trans, please stay as you are since it's easier for us that way', maybe that ritual regains some of its power. it's perverse. perversity is kind of necessary to it.

so the meta evolves.

i am speaking about transness here, but i think similar forces are at work with other self-id games, autism and so on. there is like, actual biological variation, but far more important is the ideas we're playing with on top of that. what concepts are activated when I think 'autism', now largely positive associations: sensory this, obsession that; not the same as twenty years ago. thankfully my fellow autists made an interesting game to make of it: a space to express something.

[thatfeelinwhenyou]

safe & sound recap! (spoilers)

so.

i did it. i actually finished this series. honestly, i went into this with zero confidence i’d see it through, so i planned to write everything in advance before posting. . but… my self-control? nonexistent. cause i ended up posting prematurely. when i first announced the series on my blog, i had up to part 4 written. i thought, “hey, it’s just two more parts” (at that point of time i only had plans to write 6 parts). i figured i could get it done on time. i was wrong 😀

i had a plan, sure, but the more i wrote, the less certain i felt about the direction i was taking. even up until the very end, i wasn’t sure it was something i wanted to release. hence, why part 7 took so long.

and for everyone who was convinced y/n was going to die… you weren’t completely wrong. i was supposed to kill her off. i actually have a whole draft written in my docs. but it felt wrong to write about humanity and human nature without offering second chances.

i mentioned somewhere before that the core notion that inspired the creation of safe & sound was, “would i still be capable of falling in love if the world was ending?” and i wanted the reader to feel this dilemma for themselves. killing her off would’ve made it impossible to explore this idea.

because isn’t it human to fuck up and try to redeem yourself? hope was the central theme of this fic—hope as the driving force for survival. killing her off would’ve made all that hope meaningless. and that’s when i realised i wasn’t writing the story i wanted to tell. so i rewrote the entire ending and delayed part 7. and i’m so glad i did because i’m proud of the way it turned out. so in case anyone is planning to ask, i will not be posting the draft 😂

i also took on a new form of writing. with safe & sound, i was writing it in a loose first-person pov. i'm pretty sure many of you noticed, i wasn’t diving into jungwon’s or anyone else’s internal monologues. everything was filtered through y/n’s perspective because i wanted the reader to learn new information at the same time as her. this approach was intentional in the sense that i wanted to heighten the sense of isolation and fear. in a zombie apocalypse, survival is rooted in what you directly experience and perceive—there’s no omniscient clarity, no clear insight into what others are feeling or planning. it’s all about y/n’s limited understanding of the world around her.

this pov choice also reflects y/n’s own internal struggle—how she processes trauma, how she pieces together hope and love amid chaos. it was a deliberate attempt to keep the reader emotionally tethered to her journey. but with that also comes the struggle of justifying the actions of other characters. even now, i don't think i did a very good job. but it is what it is. let me know if you guys prefer this style of writing, may or may not explore it in future projects!

but of course, the most important reason i even managed to finish this series is you guys!! a huge part of my motivation came from all the love and support i received from all of you. every time i post a part, i’m just sitting there, waiting to see what you guys think. maybe that sounds superficial, but it genuinely feels good to be praised and appreciated.

it still amazes me that people take time out of their busy schedules to leave me reviews and send me asks about how much they enjoy my works. i know i’m not the most active author on tumblr. i take forever to reply to anything, and i know some of you try to catch me when i’m online. it really, really means a lot to me. just know that all the energy i receive, i put right back into writing!

so, with that, i’m excited to let you guys know i’m working on a one-shot (still undecided on the member) and maybe even another ot7 series. who knows? 🤔

i’ll also be replying to asks and reblogging some of your posts, so feel free to mute me LOL. i'll definitely be taking a big fat break but don't worry, i'll still be coming online and replying to any comments and asks! until then, please stay hydrated, happy, safe, and sound! ❤️

xo, nat

[didyougaming]

Hi, gamers. I know the results of the Sandwich Poll have been gnawing at you. So many people wondering whether they answered correctly, which as a reminder is a very important factor in determining which afterlife you end up in when you die. Please understand that I needed a lot of time to internally process these poll results and also that I've been kinda busy/tired. But the people need to know, so here we go.

In total, we received 372 responses. I also spent a lot of my weekend annoying anyone who would listen to me in person about these questions, but I didn't write those answers down.

Question 1 was fairly non-controversial, as it should be. It is worth noting that 3.2% of respondents chose to write-in an answer, and most of these write-in answers were what scientists would call "bad" and "not really useful." So you can assume a 3.2% margin of error on everything in this survey. That's how statistics works.

Question 2 is where we see a real divide. Most respondents consider a sandwich cut into two separate but equal pieces to be one sandwich. This is a real shame, because it's the wrong answer. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Question 3 considers whether one piece of bread cut in half and used for sandwich-making results in a sandwich, and surprisingly the majority of respondents do consider this to be one sandwich. This is really interesting, because despite ending up with functionally and aesthetically the same result as one of the pieces of the sandwich from question 2, a significant number of respondents believe the results to be inherently different. I wish there was a way to better track how much overlap there was for those two seemingly contradictory answers, but the big Sheets page Google Docs is daunting and I don't feel like figuring out how to parse that data, so we just need to accept that we'll never have that exact number. That's how statistics works.

Question 4 mostly just cements the findings of the previous two questions. I do want to point out the one person who answered "who the fuck does this". Sandwich shops do this. Go to a sandwich shop for once in your life and really watch them do their work. Open your eyes.

Question 5 did not get me a lot of useful data, as it turns out having a question that only allowed for write-in answers was a bad idea. However, there are more or less two camps for people who really took these questions seriously and gave it their all. The first school of thought suggests that intent is the most important factor, and if you deem what you've made to be a sandwich, it's a sandwich. While I appreciate the critical thinking on display here, I believe in the other school of thought, which is that when you put ingredients between two breads that's a sandwich, baby. There is a sub-school of thought here that requires those two pieces to be whole pieces, but that's wrong.

One question that I should have included in the survey I think proves my point. If you order a sandwich platter from a deli and they use a single really long piece of bread (think like a several foot long hero) into multiple sections, you would say that you have sandwiches, plural. If you wanted to grab one, you wouldn't say "I'm going to grab a 64th of a sandwich" because you would sound deranged. Despite being parts of a larger whole, they are still ingredients between pieces of bread, and thus fit the definition of "sandwich."

Anyway, thank you for coming on this non-gaming detour with me. It was extremely important that I prove a friend wrong on this topic, and even though I don't think I did that and I think he's choosing to double down on his incorrect opinions, I'm still choosing to spin this as a personal and moral victory. New actual DidYouGamings will come out as soon as I discover any new facts about video games (right now there's only a couple hundred facts about video games at all and I've basically covered all of them.)