#no wonder girls and women are okay with sexualizing themselves

[cat-eye-nebula]

“Headless Women” in Film & TV Marketing

“The trope of decapitating women and fragmenting them into sexual parts is systematic. Women's bodies are made equivalent in the consumer's mind to other desired objects: boats, cars, gadgets. This dehumanization of women in our own mainstream culture hides in plain sight. It informs young women about themselves before they have learned to think critically about who they are and what they want.”

The Tumblr project Headless Women of Hollywood purpose is to showcase the way movie posters tend to market films using women’s bodies—minus that crucial bit with the brain and face. This is a strange marketing trend film-goers might not notice until someone points it out. So far it’s more than 100 “headless women” TV and film posters, with more being added daily. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Beauty, Crazy, Stupid, Love, and Minions all have used headless women in their ad campaigns. (Full article)

[nightxcreature]

Don't Call Me (SoldierboyxReader)

Summary: Reader and Ben have an altercation after an interview gone wrong.

Warnings: Cursing, Verbal Threats (Homicide), Sexually exploiting women, Jealousy, Anger, Angst

Pairing: Soldierboy x Jealous!Reader

A/N: Number two for @jacklesversebingo 2024! This one is based off the prompt: "Got something to say about that?" "No." "Well, you look like you do." Prompt is in bold. As always, edited as well as I can and this one has been proofread lol Criticism welcome, reposts, likes, and comments adored. 💕

Part Two is out now! It's titled "Payback".

My leg feels like it’s shaking a million miles an hour, electricity radiating down my arms. We had been sitting in Vought headquarters for the last three hours doing interview after interview with the flirtiest journalist. Her blonde hair bounced past her shoulders, her boobs on display no matter where she turned, and the sickly-sweet smiles she sent Ben sent bile up my throat every time. He was eating it up, of course, he always did. It didn’t matter how many times I let him fuck me, He always ate up these stupid interviews. They praised him, practically stripping themselves bare to please his ego. It was always the same statements, ‘You’re the world’s greatest hero, Soldier-Boy.’ ‘What would we ever do without you, Soldier-Boy?’ ‘What’s it like being the strongest man alive?’ ‘Do you want to sign my tits?’ Okay…that last one only happened once, but that doesn’t change the fact that they never have anything to say to me. If he had brought Mindstorm or Black Noir, hell even the twins, I’m sure this interview would be going a completely different way. The men are always front and center for these girls; Crimson Countess, Stormfront, and I are the last on the list, and the jealousy that boils in my veins at that knowledge is second to none.

                Of course, watching her throw herself at him wasn’t helping the situation. I can’t keep the little green monster at bay whether thinking about her ignoring me or about him wanting her. I always wondered if he thought of me when they were shoving themselves at him; I know the answer, but maybe in a perfect world he thinks of kissing my lips, of my hands on his body and his mouth on mine, of our bodies moving together and our minds melding as one when… “Hey! Hey! I’ve been yelling at you forever, Y/N!”  His voice snaps me out of my fog, and I turn to face him as he continues, “What? Have you got a dick up your ass? Pay attention!”

                The journalist laughs as I nod, rubbing a hand up his arm, and my eyes narrow, “Sorry, we’ve been doing this for hours and it feels like we’re getting nowhere. Are there any important questions left, Sweetheart, or are you just gonna sit here and keep theoretically sucking him off?”

                Her head snaps back and her jaw drops as she takes in what I asked, “Ex-excuse me?”

                “Do you have any important questions for me, or should I just leave the two of you alone?” I repeat slowly, “I’m getting a little sick of watching you two eye-fuck each other when I could be a fifth of Jack deep in my hotel room by now.”

                “I-I didn’t write down an-any questions for you.” She stutters out and flips through the papers in her lap, “I’m sure I can think of something though.”

                I roll my eyes and stand, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got better shit to do than this.” Turning on my heel, I storm out of the room and down the hallway. I barely make it to the elevator before I hear Ben’s heavy boots behind me. “Got something to say about that?” I ask turning to look at him, his features cold. Arms crossed and jaw set, the little muscle there jumping as he breathes.

                “No.” He responds curtly, a slight shake of his head the only change in his demeanor.

                “Well, you look like you do.” I snap, stepping into the elevator as the doors open. He shoves in behind me and we ride down in silence.

Just before we reach the ground floor, he slams a hand down onto the Emergency Stop button and corners me into the back of the small area. His eyes are blazing, breathing ragged, and his hands blocking me in, the epitome of anger all rolled into one man.

                “What, Ben?” I ask annoyed, glancing at his forearms above my head, “I have places to be.”

                “What the fuck is your problem?” He cuts me off, the vein in his neck bulging as he glares down at me, “Do you think just because I fuck you that you get to be a bitch to everyone else that wants to fuck me, too?”

                “I don’t give a shit who gets in your bed.”

                “Yeah? It sure seemed like it back there.” He nods behind him and his frown deepens, “What the fuck is your problem?”

                I sigh and duck underneath him to start the elevator back up, but he snatches me by the hair and shoves me back into the corner, “I’m not done talking to you.”

                I shove him back, standing taller to get in his face, “Well, I’m done talking to you. Hell, I’m done talking about you! That’s all anyone wants to talk about.” My breathing begins to shake, and I can feel my eyes blazing as my voice raises, “Do you think all this came from having a sexual relationship with you? From me being jealous that other women are in bed with you? No, Ben! That bitch didn’t even have questions for me. If I have to be there to watch you flirt with these stupid women over and over, the least they could do is ask me something more than how uncomfortable my suit is if I gain a few pounds!”

                He rolls his eyes and takes a step closer to me, towering over me, “You’re seriously going to act like this over her asking the face of Payback a few questions? Get it through your fucking skull,” He spits, tapping a finger against my temple, “I am not your boyfriend. I am not your friend. I’m your boss, I use you for a good time and I leave. That’s it.”

                “Fuck you, Ben!”

                “You already did.”  He smirks and slides a hand behind him to press the button, “And you’ll do it again.”

                Shock reverberates through my body, and I can feel the electricity building in my palms at a rapid pace. I hate him. I hate his cocky attitude. I hate his stupid face. I hate that he’s right. God, I hate him. Unconsciously, I reach out to grab his arms, but he steps to the side as the doors slide open. A raise of his brow tells me that he knows just as well I do, he was a centimeter away from the shock of his life.

                “That would be the last thing you do, Sweetheart.” He whispers maliciously, “You’re a great lay, Y/N, but I’ll kill you before you can blink, and we both know it. That sweet pussy isn’t worth all this trouble.”

                I smile sweetly, a sudden surprising confidence taking over my body. I blink once, twice, and finally a third time before staring him dead in the face, “I’m still breathing.” Flipping him off, I step out of the elevator and head down the hallway, “Don’t call me, Asshole.”

If he’s going to kill me, I’m going to give him a damn good reason.

______________________________________________________________

A/N: This one was a little easier to write without a tiny human running around the house, I actually got it finished while she was in school. I have been so nervous since dropping that smutty fic yesterday, so here's a little angst and anger to make me feel better lmaooo

[sluttyten]

You In My Arms

Chapter 1: The Tourist

full masterlist || haechan masterlist || YIMA chapter index

summary: Haechan doesn’t mind being a background character in someone else’s love story as long as he gets a front row seat to the love scenes. He’s in university, still learning about himself, still exploring his sexuality, and during his last year, he finally experiences an awakening, realizing a truth about himself: he likes to watch

length: 11,045

tags: slowburn, friends to lovers, voyeurism, exhibitionism, masturbation (public & in private), general perversion, smut

Haechan’s first real heartbreak happens when he’s at university.

The girl he has a giant crush on – she’s the most gorgeous girl he’s seen at their university, like a model with her perfect body that draws the attention of every red-blooded straight man on campus – kisses one of Haechan’s friends right in front of him. 

It’s not a peck, not a chaste kiss, not even a kiss in a game of truth or dare (though they do play that game regularly at their small parties, at the nights at Mark’s rented house, spent drinking themselves numb after a rough week). It’s a kiss, like hands on cheeks, bodies pressed together, and the moment Haechan sees a flicker of tongue, he’s done.

“Okay, gross. We get it!” He says, and he wonders if his voice is actually as loud as it sounds in his ears. His heart is pounding, stomach lurching. 

Mark, Chenle, Jungwoo, some of the others are all laughing. Haechan’s face feels slack, stomach tight, palms sweaty as he looks at the bright smile on Shotaro’s face. Haechan feels that sharp bite of jealousy in his belly as she gravitates to stay by Shotaro’s side.

He ignores it. Ignores the jealousy he feels – because he has no claim on her heart; he’s never had the guts to confess his feelings to her – as the days and weeks pass by. Haechan buries himself in other girls, fucking his way through all the girls on the dorm floor beneath his until they all know him as a manwhore and want nothing more to do with him.

Desperately looking for anything to focus on other than the moon-eyes that Shotaro keeps shooting at the girl Haechan has spent so long lusting after, Haechan turns to a little good, old-fashioned fantasy material. He uses Twitter mostly, digging up some good content to watch and jerk off to, hiding himself in his bed at the dorm, thankful that his roommate is almost never home. 

His airpods, his phone, and a bottle of lube become his near-constant companions while he’s tucked away in the dorm room. It’s not a problem because he makes sure it isn’t one. He can still have sex with real women and distinguish what’s happening from the way things play out in the videos he watches online. He’s not delusional, okay?

But he does quickly learn a few things about himself. He unburies a few kinks he didn’t realize were a thing for him.

Like, getting caught jerking off by his roommate. That’s one that he didn’t realize he liked until it happened. His roommate doesn’t seem to care too much the first time he walks in on Haechan with his hand wrapped around his own cock. Even the second time, a week or two later, it’s no big deal. It happens. But when he walks into their dorm room and finds Haechan making direct eye contact with him as he cums, then it’s a bit much.

“Dude, get the fuck out,” his roommate had said, and Haechan had obeyed. 

It’s awkward after that, every time they encounter each other, so Haechan begins to spend a lot more time at the house a few of his friends rent together. Their sofa is always open, sometimes a few of them let him sleep in their beds whether they’re in them or not. He still crashes in his dorm sometimes because all of his stuff is still there, and when he needs to focus on his coursework, it’s always a lot easier to get done there than at the house. But things between him and his roommate remain tense. There are many nights, he just hangs out at the house until everyone kinda falls asleep, or until they ask him to just stay the night.

This is particularly easy on nights when everyone is over at the house. Their whole friend group gathered around the living room on the floor and sofas, on armchairs and bean bag chairs. Once the alcohol comes out, Haechan knows he’ll be fine to stay the night tonight, even if it means snuggling up on the sofa between YangYang and Xiaojun, neither of which live in the house either, but who both are likely to pass out from overindulging in drinks.

Sometimes, if Haechan is really lucky, she stays the night too, folding her beautiful self onto the sofa or an armchair. He’s watched her curl up in one of the armchairs, still clinging to a half-empty bottle when she falls asleep. He’s been lucky enough to be on the sofa with her one night, her head resting on his shoulder, and his shirt still smelling like her perfume the next day. 

Tonight, he watches as the party dwindles around him, as his friends that don’t live here slowly leave, until only a few people are left. She’s one of them, giggling at something Renjun’s telling her. Her eyes are shiny, dancing around the room to look at the last few members of the party – Jaemin and Jeno, both of whom live here, one of the girls in their friend group who spent the first part of the night teasing Haechan about his flubbed presentation in one of their shared classes, Shotaro, Chenle, Sungchan, and Haechan. She smiles when she meets his gaze, and his heart does a foolish little flutter.

But then Shotaro passes by, and her smile grows infinitely brighter.

Haechan loses track of her when Jaemin starts squawking about whatever game he’s just lost against Chenle, and when Haechan next looks up, she’s gone. He doesn’t see her again, so he figures she’s left for the night along with everyone else after a short while longer.

He curls comfortably on one of the sofas, dozing lightly until some sound drags him out of his dreams. A creak of floorboards, the sound of rushing water tinkling against the kitchen sink. 

Haechan sits up, squinting in the dim light. It’s still the middle of the night. Who the hell is up right now?

He twists around, looking in the direction of the kitchen, and what he sees there freezes him to his core.

There she is, an absolute vision.

A vision of her in another man’s shirt.

Haechan’s fingers curl against his blanket. Jealousy turns his stomach. She’s wearing Shotaro’s shirt, the holey band t-shirt that he brought over with him from Japan, the one that Haechan and Renjun have both insisted he get rid of. She’s wearing it. And if Haechan isn’t mistaken, the shadowy mark on her neck is a hickey.

Suddenly, a lot of different things make connections in his mind.

That kiss he’d witnessed between her and Shotaro, the one that everyone had thought was just the one time kiss. The moony eyes Shotaro’s been making at her since then. And many little things from the past few weeks. Many little things from just tonight – they’d both vanished for a while earlier during the movie, but Haechan had just assumed she’d gone upstairs where some of the guys were gaming; the way they’d sat so close together for most of the rest of the evening. But mostly, the way that they’d had similar truths about sex during a game of truth or dare someone had brought up; the way she’d vanished entirely tonight, just shortly before Shotaro had turned in for the night.

He doesn’t know what he plans to do, not really. Even as he pushes the blanket off of himself, as he rises to his feet and walks towards the kitchen, Haechan doesn’t know what his next move is.

She looks up, startled. Her eyes are wide, open and innocent in the darkness, frightened even.

One of her hands drifts down to the hem of the shirt, tugging it down a little. The other holds a glass of water.

Haechan can’t help drinking the sight of her in, even if she is wearing Shotaro’s shirt. He folds his arms across his chest, leaning against the doorway to look at her. Gorgeous. And her thighs are beautiful, he just wants to feel them against his hips, he wants to bite them and kiss them, feel them squeezing against the sides of his head as he – 

No. 

He can’t do any of that. None of that will happen with her because she’s with Shotaro in whatever capacity. And Haechan isn’t going to infringe on that no matter how he feels. 

So, in the moment, Haechan puts on a brave face and decides to call her out on it. “So, you and our innocent Shotaro, huh?”

The way that she holds his gaze in challenge is truthfully very hot. He watches the way that she gulps down her water, a stray drop spilling from the corner of her mouth, trailing along her face to her jaw. Haechan struggles not to imagine catching that water droplet on his tongue, tracing it back to her lips, kissing her until she completely forgets whose bed she’s left.

And then she walks towards him, and all he can smell is her perfume or her shampoo or body wash or whatever it is, he’s just enveloped in a cloud of her. It drives him a little wild, forcing him to look away from her before he does something really stupid like kiss her. Because she’s not his to kiss; it’s Shotaro’s lips that she’s had all over her tonight because up this close, Haechan can definitely see a hickey low on her throat, almost hidden by the neck of the t-shirt. 

He makes his accusation, putting it out there into the world just to see if she’ll deny it. Her and Shotaro. It doesn’t make sense, not to him. The boy is an innocent, or at least he was up until he claimed otherwise tonight. What does she see in him? How good of a lover could inexperienced Shotaro really be?

To Haechan’s surprise, she doesn’t deny what he’s figured out. She’s got a bold, sharp look in her eye, though she’s avoiding looking directly at him. She doesn’t deny a thing about his assumptions about her and Shotaro, instead she asks, in a quiet voice that crackles with a challenge, “Are you going to tell everyone?”

No, he’s not going to tell everyone. That would be really fucking stupid of him. She’d be furious, and he’d be ruining any chance of her ever wanting to speak to him again. Ruining any tiny chance that if this thing with Shotaro goes sideways, she might someday consider Haechan, even though deep down he knows that if he ever stood a chance with her, it would’ve already happened. She’s gorgeous, she’s not been celibate in the while that he’s known her, so if she’s avoided his company and has instead found herself in Shotaro’s then that’s probably where she’d like to be. 

He doesn’t know what brings him to do it. Doesn’t know why he lets his arm brush against hers because the moment that he feels how soft her skin is, how warm she is, his brain short-circuits a little, and he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “I’m just glad Shotaro’s finally made his move. He’s had a crush on you since the first time he met you.” It’s the truth, but he’s not entirely sure why he’s telling her this right now. He can remember the first day that Renjun introduced Shotaro to all of them, the way that he’d fit right in, the way that she had come in at the last minute, running late because of something to do with the campus buses. She’d been windswept and a little sunburnt, wearing a sundress with one of the straps sliding over her shoulder.

She’d been enchanting.

Apparently, Haechan hadn’t been the only one caught under her spell that day. 

Hours later, after she’d left, Shotaro was sitting there, talking with Renjun, YangYang, and Haechan. He’d been pretty quiet up until someone mentioned her name, and then his eyes had lit up. It was obvious right away that Shotaro liked her, and he liked her in a different way than Haechan usually heard guys talk about her. Haechan himself was a bad example since he was lusting after her, in love with her body more than anything else. But when Shotaro talked about her he was wanting to know more about her, wanting to repeat all the things she’d said that he’d found funny; he liked her for her personality and didn’t even mention how great her tits had looked.

Haechan had assumed it was just the innocence of Shotaro, but tonight he’s seeing that Shotaro clearly harbors lusty feelings for her too. 

“I thought his heart would’ve exploded that day you kissed him in front of us,” Haechan tells her, watching the way that her gaze flicks up to meet his briefly before dancing away again. In truth, Haechan’s heart had nearly burst that day too, but surely Shotaro’s had as well. It had been Shotaro’s first kiss, with the girl of his dreams. Haechan still could only wish that he and Shotaro could have switched places that day. What he wouldn’t have given to be the one kissing her in front of all of their friends, to have them all know that he’d bagged the hottest woman on campus; he wanted to be the cause for her blush; he wanted to be the one who had walked away with her at his side.

He doesn’t know what he expects from her at this moment. What her reaction would really be to him telling her that Shotaro’s had a silly schoolboy crush on her for the past year and a half, but he doesn’t expect this.

Her shoulder knocks roughly against Haechan’s, pushing by him to escape the doorway. “You should go home, Haechan. Stop crashing on their couch,” she says. She walks away, crossing the living room towards the stairs, heading back to Shotaro instead of lingering for even a moment longer to talk to Haechan.

“Yeah, yeah.” Haechan feels a new burst of jealousy, thinking about her climbing those stairs, crawling back into Shotaro’s bed, pressing herself up against him in that t-shirt. Or, even worse, maybe without it. And again, he doesn’t know why he says it when he calls out in a voice just above a whisper, “Go crawl back in his bed!”

She’s going to do exactly that.

The sight of her extended middle finger draws a laugh from Haechan, but she doesn’t look back. She climbs the stairs and vanishes from sight. 

He collapses back down onto the sofa, trying to stop straining his ears for any sounds overhead. What is he trying to hear, anyway? The creaking of the floorboards? The squeak of the mattress springs as she rejoins Shotaro in bed? Or what, her waking Shotaro and them making sounds together.

A strange pit opens in Haechan’s belly, twisted full of complex knots that he can’t even begin to untangle the meaning of. 

Somehow, he eventually falls asleep, though his dreams are possessed with jealous scenarios. Her face, Shotaro’s, his own. Scenarios where he gets her, only to find her taken away in Shotaro’s arms. Dreams where he’s trapped outside the room while the sounds of her and Shotaro having sex echo in his ears. He wouldn’t necessarily call them nightmares. 

He doesn’t know exactly what wakes him in the morning, but something startles him awake, finding himself with a face full of bright sunlight on the sofa in the living room. His blanket is tucked up beneath his chin, and there are voices everywhere. Mainly though, he hears Shotaro’s voice, telling some story, and as the words come together in Haechan’s still half-asleep brain, he realizes that the story Shotaro is telling is a lie. An excuse for why he’s come down from his room this morning with company.

Haechan opens his eyes, catching sight of her standing on the stairs. She’s wearing her own clothes now, that hickey from the night before hidden away. He remembers one of his dreams when he’d been the one to give her that mark. 

The others seem to buy the bullshit story about her being drunk, vomiting and passing out in Shotaro’s bed. Haechan hears the quiet exchange of words between her and Shotaro in a soft, lovey-dovey tone that makes Haechan want to be sick. He sees them leave the stairs, making for the door and their smooth escape, and he can’t help it. He wants to make himself known to them before they leave.

“Such a gentleman, our Shotaro.” He says, “Letting her sleep in your bed. So sweet.”

She turns her head around so quickly, Haechan would be surprised if it didn’t hurt her neck. There’s venom in her eyes, but at the moment, Haechan can’t feel the sting of it. Especially when he’s instead blinded by the bright, bright sunlight as Shotaro throws open the front door. To combat her glare, Haechan responds with a wink and a wave, though that just makes her pretty face tighten.

“You should go home, Haechan,” she repeats her parting words from the night before. “Stop crashing on their couch.”

He laughs, because what else is there to do? 

She and Shotaro step out into the daylight, closing the door behind them. He laughs again, chuckling to himself as he remembers her words, the look on her face. 

A pillow smacks him full in the face. 

Haechan swears, bringing his hands up to ward off the possibility of a second attack as the pillow falls away. He looks up to see Renjun standing over him, glaring down at him. “She’s got a point. Either pay rent, dude, or get off our couch. Figure out the deal with your roommate.”

It’s impossible to figure things out with his roommate, but luckily, the other guy gets a girlfriend — the lucky bastard — and he starts spending all of his time at her apartment. Haechan returns to his ways of jerking off every chance he gets just so he can attempt to forget about those dreams he’s been having about Shotaro and her tangled together in bed. 

Weeks pass, and he manages to do a pretty good job of avoiding them. It helps that most of his nights are spent in his own bed at his own dorm now, but even when all of their friends are together, he always manages to miss being one-on-one with her and Shotaro. Until one weekend. 

The camping trip to the lake. 

All day long, Haechan was tortured by the sight of her bathed in sunlight, wind blowing through her hair, her face constantly lit up with smiles and laughter. All of the girls were wearing bikinis which had been a delightful sight to his eyes, and Haechan had even found his attention drifting to a few of the guys to admire the way their muscles moved and glistened with sweat in the sunlight. But his attention kept returning to her and the way she filled out her bikini. She easily could be a model, so gorgeous that he can imagine her as one of the models on the cover of a swimsuit catalogue, a Victoria Secret runway, or a Playboy magazine. 

He purposely puts himself close to her all day, though he also notices the way that she keeps gravitating toward wherever Shotaro is. 

Sometimes Haechan allows himself other distractions. He wrestles with Mark and Renjun in the shallows. He plays beach volleyball with several of them. He flirts with Karina where she floats on a pool float tied to the dock. He spends a short while sunbathing on the dock with one of the girls and Xiaojun, all three of them staring up at the clouds. 

And then comes the time in the early afternoon when a few of them start playing chicken. Shotaro is nowhere in sight, so Haechan takes the opportunity to ask the object of his lust if she would like to play. And to his luck and surprise, she agrees to partner with Haechan, letting him hold her on his shoulders. Her bare thighs rest over his shoulders, her fingers in his hair, and he knows it’s probably just his imagination, but he could swear he can smell her — sweet temptation tucked just beneath the scent of sunscreen and sweat and those fruity drinks Xiaojun and YangYang had been mixing up and passing out all day. 

They lost the game of chicken, but Haechan didn’t even care because for those few moments he’d had her. Or at least, it had felt like he did. Her fingers had tugged at his hair as she said his name with her thighs on his shoulders. And maybe his imagination got a little carried away. It was a good thing he was up to his waist in the lake so no one could see the trouble rising in his shorts thinking about all of her sun kissed skin against his. 

It wasn’t until hours and hours later, when the sun was plunging towards the horizon, when some of the other guys were busy grilling meat, that Haechan sat down beside the bright bonfire, pulling on a hoodie to ward off the chill sweeping in. Some of the others drift inside to rinse off after the day spent on the lake, the others start dinner preparations, and Haechan helps out some, mostly as a mood-maker, trying to draw laughs out of those whose faces have grown grim with hunger and irritability after being in the sun all day. 

When Haechan looks across the fire after a while, he finds her sitting there. Her hair is damp, her cheeks ruddy from the sun, but she’s freshly showered, dressed warmer now. Gone is all of that gorgeous exposed skin, the bikini that had felt like nothing when he’d held her on his shoulders earlier. He watches as Shotaro passes by her, brushing his hand over her shoulders. Haechan witnesses the little grin she throws towards Shotaro as he keeps walking into the house. She makes a move like she could just follow, and Haechan’s imagination takes that and runs with it, envisioning the two of them sneaking off and fucking in the house, imagining how he could walk in….

“This is a nice break, huh?” A girl drops down into the seat beside him. She smiles, wrapping her arms around her knees as she draws them up towards her chest. “I don’t know about you, but I feel like this semester is kicking my ass.”

Haechan welcomes the distraction. 

“Professor Kang especially,” Haechan agrees. He and this girl have several classes together since they’re in the same major, and the course that Professor Kang teaches is one required for the major, but if it wasn’t Haechan would have dropped it by now. 

She laughs. “Kang’s class is a little rough. But I’m doing pretty well in it right now if you need any help.”

Haechan isn’t even surprised by that. The girl sitting beside him is probably the smartest in their year. She does well all the time; the professors compliment her on it in class. Haechan’s definitely sought her out before for help dozens of times since they met as freshmen. 

“I might take you up on that,” he sighs, tipping his head back to look up at the sky. “But like you said, this is a nice break. I feel like this weekend we can all just relax and let loose a little.”

She’s smiling when he looks over at him. “When do you ever hold back from letting loose, Lee Donghyuck?” 

The sound of his full name from her lips makes his stomach do a flip. People so rarely use it, and when they do he’s often in trouble. But that’s not how she said it, with her voice warm and happy, full of laughter. 

She is laughing, Haechan realizes, and he laughs too. She’s not wrong. Haechan takes pretty much every opportunity he can to crack jokes, to relax, to bring a little brightness to the days of the people around him.

Xiaojun comes over to see what’s so funny, and he draws her attention away until Haechan feels like he’s been cut out of the conversation. He decides to go help finish up the last of the meal prep. 

He does his best to try to rile up some of the others as they all eat. Trying to get a round of dares going because he wants to see someone have to go skinny dipping in the lake tonight even though the night air is quite cold now. No one’s up to play his game unfortunately, but as the night sinks in around everyone at the fire, Haechan does convince YangYang to drink with him, to see which of them can drink the most. 

The more he drinks, the harder it is for Haechan to keep his eyes from drifting across the fire. The harder it is to ignore the way Shotaro and the girl are so wrapped up in each other. And Haechan Isn't blind, although all of their friends might be, so he can see that Shotaro has stolen her heart, and that unsettles Haechan. 

For as long as Haechan has known her she hasn’t been tied down in a relationship, but now he can see that if she isn’t already, then she’s about to be fully in one. 

It throws off the balance of the world he knows, shutting out any possibility of him getting to experience any fun with her. 

Unsettled, jealous, a little drunk maybe (though Haechan refuses to admit that YangYang might have beat him), that’s what drives Haechan to say what he does. 

His words leap over the fire as everyone’s making jokes about Mark and one of their other friends finally jumping over the line between just friends and fuckbuddies. 

Haechan’s eyes are fixed on her and Shotaro, his heavy tongue lifts, mouth open to draw everyone’s attention to the secret couple in their midst. 

He can tell from the look in her eyes then that he’s done for. There’s no going back from these words he’s speaking, but it’s too late. Drunken words are sober thoughts, and all that, but it just keeps spilling out of him while the others around the fire look on. 

“Shotaro has obviously been in love with you from the start,” Haechan can hear himself saying, “Literally that very first day you met each other. He wouldn’t stop talking about you that night on the way back to our dorm, and kept trying to get Renjun and Mark to invite him to places where you would be. Absolutely lovesick. And then you were his first kiss? How romantic! Did you take his virginity too?”

Jaemin spits his drink out when he laughs, and several of the others laugh as well, someone spouts out their own teasing comment aimed at Shotaro. The night crawls over Haechan’s skin, but he’s staring at her. At no one else but her and the fire reflected in her eyes. She’s beautiful. She’s pissed off, but she’s beautiful. 

It’s the sound of the others around him joining in, it’s the alcohol soaking through his veins, he doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore, just anything to embarrass Shotaro honestly, because Haechan can see their fingers knitted together now, and he knows that Shotaro is the one that she wants and Haechan hates that, he absolutely hates it. He was here first, he should’ve taken his chance while he could. 

The jealousy eats at him, so he goes on and on, attacking everything from Shotaro’s lack of experience to the high likelihood of him being bad in bed. 

Even when she rises to her feet, the fire in her eyes no longer just a reflection of the bonfire, but her own blazing anger, Haechan leans back in his seat and smirks. She uses his full name, and its the second time he’s heard it used today, but this time is certainly the more familiar usage — with the tone of anger and followed by her telling him to fuck off, an accusation of him being drunk. 

He does start to feel a little bad about it when he notices the tears swimming in her eyes as she rails at him for bullying Shotaro. Haechan’s gaze flicks over to the other man, and he finds Shotaro looking a little embarrassed, but they all tease him about this stuff all the time, and Haechan’s drunk, so he can’t really be held accountable for what he’s saying right now. He and Shotaro will still be friends in the morning. 

Haechan isn’t really listening to what she says, not until he hears her say, “We don’t all ask about your sex life, or lack thereof. It’s not like you’re getting a lot of action.” 

That starts a fire in Haechan’s belly. It’s not like he never gets laid anymore. He can if he wants to, but it seems like since he found out about her and Shotaro his fantasies have starred the two of them more often than not, and he can’t have her, so it’s just a lot easier to settle for his hand and a fantasy. 

But she’s not finished yet. 

“Maybe you should be worried about your own skills instead of Shotaro’s.” She takes a half step forward, and Haechan is once again thinking about how hot she is even while she’s angry. She’s gorgeous, and maybe if she weren’t so obsessed with Shotaro, Haechan could redirect this anger she’s feeling into something more productive. 

Or so he thinks, drunkenly, until her next words. 

“Maybe if you were a semi-decent fuck, you’d not be sleeping on the sofa at their house every night.”

Those words finally hit home. 

He’s not a bad fuck. 

He’s more than a semi-decent fuck, thank you very much. 

But hearing that insult from her is more than he can take at the moment. It’s annoying, is what it is. She doesn’t have any idea what she’s talking about. Just last week, at a party, he’d fucked a sorority girl boneless and she’d still begged him for more. He’s a good fuck. 

He sits forward in his seat, fingertips digging into the edges of the arm as he tries to haul himself forward. 

He at least has the sobriety of mind to bite his tongue from saying the first thing that springs to mind. He holds in the offer to show her firsthand his skills although the words dance right there on the tip of his tongue. 

Instead, he says something else. 

“You want to talk about what I’m up to every night?” He could tell her a thing or two — the kinks he’d awakened in his weeks of video-watching trying to get over her, the things he’s already been experimenting on with people he’s met on a hook-up app. She doesn’t need to worry about what he’s up to. “Why don’t we talk about how every night you’re there fu—“

Shotaro rocks to his feet, face twisted with anger that Haechan has never seen from him before. A shout leaves his lips, drowning out the rest of Haechan’s words, leaving them floundering in the taste of vodka on Haechan’s tongue. 

Maybe this time they won’t be friends in the morning. Haechan can see that in the way Shotaro glares at him. At the possessive way that Shotaro puts his hand on her shoulder, moving her away from the fire, away from Haechan. 

She goes. 

Shotaro follows. 

Haechan rises to his feet, wanting to follow because he’s not done. 

Renjun’s there in an instant, and although he’s smaller than Haechan, he’s easily able to manhandle him. Especially since Renjun’s relatively sober and Haechan…. He’s had more than enough. He knows that. Renjun’s telling him as much as he corrals him inside the cabin, rambling to him and lecturing him about the things he’s said. 

He doesn’t want a lecture. Doesn’t want to think about anything else. He definitely doesn’t want to sit inside this cabin and pretend like he can’t hear the muffled sounds of Mark and their other friend fucking in the back bedroom. 

Renjun forces Haechan to sit at the kitchen table. He puts a glass of water down in front of him. 

“Drink, Donghyuckie.” He collapses into the seat beside Haechan, rubbing at his forehead like he’s got a headache. “Why do you always have to stir up shit with Shotaro, huh? Just because he genuinely likes the girl you just want to fuck? Because she kissed him? Move on, buddy. She’s clearly not into you. There are plenty of other people that are.”

Haechan glares but doesn’t say a word, just downs the glass of water as quickly as he can. Renjun just picks it up and refills it for him. 

He doesn’t want to talk about this with Renjun. Doesn’t want to talk about it with anyone. So he just sits there silently and sullenly, allowing Renjun to all but waterboard him in an attempt at sobering him up. 

By the time the couple in the back room stumble out to the kitchen, looking a little bit rough and blushing, Haechan does feel a whole lot less drunk. Some of the others have started to drift inside, toting in their blankets and their drinks and snacks. Calling it a night.

Haechan can hear someone singing out by the fire though, and Renjun wanders back out there, his voice joining in. Haechan can’t just sit inside and be miserable, and he doesn’t feel tired yet, so when Mark heads back to the fire, Haechan follows. 

Wherever her and Shotaro had gone while Renjun dragged Haechan off, they’ve returned. She sits tucked into Shotaro���s side. They look happy, and Haechan feels like shit.

And his mind is a lot more clear now. The jealous haze is gone, except for a tiny wrinkle of it in the back of his mind, so he has the clarity to at least stop by where the two of them sit. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, ducking his head. “I was a dick before, and I know it. I just — I don’t really have any excuse, other than that I was just being an asshole.” He lowers his voice a little, glancing at where their hands now sit intertwined above the blanket that covers their laps. “But, hey, now it’s not a secret anymore, right?”

That thought doesn’t seem to reassure either of them too much, so Haechan walks away, snuggling into the spot between Mark and Renjun. The girl Haechan had talked with about school earlier is sitting across the fire  shooting looks at him, and he can’t help wondering if he was that much of an asshole earlier that she’s wary of him; he and her have always gotten along, but now when he looks at her, she avoids eye contact.

Haechan steers away from the bottle of whiskey that is getting passed around, and slowly the rest of the night passes. The crowd around the bonfire shrinks as his friends disappear inside, and soon there are only a core few of them left. 

The night wind whistles in off the lake, biting at his bare legs where he’s still wearing his swim trunks from earlier today. 

Jeno laughs, then he turns to look at Haechan, at the other few still left. It’s only Shotaro and his girlfriend, Jeno, Haechan, Xiaojun, Mark, and the girl from earlier left around the fire now. 

It’s grown cold out even with the bonfire. Haechan wishes he’d opted to put on warmer clothes earlier in the evening instead of just his thin swim trunks and a hoodie. Several of the others are bundled up in jackets and pants and blankets. As Haechan looks around the fire, the girl he has class with shivers, tucking her feet under the blanket covering her lap. Xiaojun is still sitting beside her and he drapes another blanket across her lap. 

Jeno smiles around the fire at all of them as he says, “Maybe before we all head in, we take a dip in the hot tub.”

“I think I’m done for the night.” Mark stands up, stretching his arms above his head. “It’s too cold.”

“It helps that you’ve got someone new to warm your bed, though, I bet,” Jeno calls at Mark’s retreating back. Mark just flips him off.

Haechan is chilled to the bone, so it sounds good to him. Xiaojun also heads in for the night, but all of the others agree, and before he knows it, he’s stripped down to his boxers, sitting in the boiling hot water of the tub up on the deck. He’d almost forgotten about it since it’s tucked off to the side of the house. 

He’s entirely sober now. He’s downed enough water over the last two hours that he’s probably fully replenished any of the dehydrating effects of what he’d drunk earlier in the night. But tragically, as he realizes after he’s been stewing in the hot tub for a little while, he needs to piss. 

He’s not so much of a dick that he’d do it in here, so he gets up. Internally he curses at how cold the air is on his bare skin, but externally he doesn’t say anything even as he can see the steam rising from his skin, even as his swim trunks cling tight to his hips and ass. He just grabs his sweatshirt from where he dumped it with everyone else’s clothes, and he heads inside. 

He just goes in to take a piss, expecting he’ll be back out there with the rest of them in a minute. There is no way Haechan’s gone for longer than five minutes, but when he steps into the kitchen on his way back outside, he finds the girl who’d been in the hot tub now sitting at the table. Jeno’s clothes are on the floor, which means he’s probably not out there either. Did they all come in?

She’s got her head pillowed on her arms, but she turns her head to the side as Haechan approaches. Her eyes look heavy, sleepy, as if she’d been about to doze off. 

“Are you just gonna sleep out here?” Haechan asks. 

There are plenty of rooms in this house to sleep in, not to mention those nice tents out there by the fire. If it’s her roommates she’s trying to avoid — which he would also avoid rooming with Karina and Winter, like she was supposed to be — his room on the second floor is still open. 

“You know the King bed upstairs is still open,” Haechan tells her without really knowing why he’s offering. He’d won that single room fair and square from the other guys. But maybe it’s because he’s slept with Karina before — actually slept with her, not just fucked her, though he has done that too — in a room shared with Winter, and he knows the sparks of jealousy that Winter can ignite when her space is infringed upon. “If it's the idea of rooming with Karina and Winter that has you scared to sleep in there, you’re welcome to the room up there.”

Her eyes go wide for a second, mouth forming a soft o, and she shakes her head a little. She looks cute like that, and Haechan feels a little smile rise to his lips. He’s not saying that he’s never really thought of her that way, but it’s never really struck him much. Not when there was someone around to overshadow her like Shotaro’s girlfriend. But right now, she looks cute, open and vulnerable in her expression. Not to mention the open and vulnerable way that she’s still barely dressed from the dip in the hot tub. Haechan can’t fight the urge to sweep his gaze over her, all the skin exposed by the little bra she’s wearing and her underwear that are still wet and a tiny bit see-through. 

He notices the way she draws her arms closer to her body, pressing the bundle of her clothes against her chest as she stands. 

“Why is no one sleeping up there?” She asks, and it takes Haechan a second too long to remember that he’d just offered up his bed to her for the night. 

Haechan explains quickly that he won the single room, and it’s still unoccupied because he’s not tired yet. And then he repeats his offer for her to take it. She just looks at him with these wide, pretty eyes, then she asks, “And what about when you do get tired? Where are you gonna sleep then?” 

He just shrugs. He’s really not tired at all right now. He could use a good long soak in the hot tub, especially if the rest of them have abandoned it. Or maybe he’ll just go sit by the fire, pick up one of the beers someone surely left out there. And he’s pretty sure that YangYang left half a bag of marshmallows out there for roasting. So right now the thought of where he’s going to sleep isn’t really something he’s too concerned about. “That’s a problem for then.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, so Haechan reaches for the door to step back outside, and the doorknob has just turned beneath his hand when he hears her quiet voice behind him.

“When you get tired Haechan….” She pauses just long enough that Haechan turns to look back at her. 

She’s twisting her shirt in her hands like she’s nervous, and Haechan can’t help smiling at that. Does he make her nervous? They’ve been friends for a while now, sharing classes, study rooms, meals and conversations. When they’d talked earlier today she hadn’t seemed nervous at all, but right now she does, and Haechan knows that when they first became friends she had a crush on him, but he thought she grew out of it. Maybe not. Her cheeks grow a little warm, her gaze dipping away from his before returning. 

“Well, it’s a big bed,” she says, “I’m happy to share.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Haechan pulls the door open, still watching her. 

He sees something there in her eyes, buried deep. Just a flicker of some deeper hunger, a small spark in the dark.

Interesting.

But it’s gone just as quickly, and Haechan looks away, murmuring a quiet “goodnight” to her, and then he’s stepping out through the doorway. 

Just as he rounds the corner of the house to return to the hot tub, Haechan freezes in place. 

The hot tub, which had held four people when he left, and which he believed would now be empty, still holds two people. 

Haechan shrinks back around the corner of the house, but he doesn’t withdraw completely. Doesn’t look away. 

How could he look away from the sight of one of his fantasies playing out right in front of his eyes? The girl he’d just finally relinquished his lustful crush on now straddling Shotaro? Her shoulders steam as she drapes her arms over Shotaro’s shoulders, as he draws a hand up out of the water to touch her back. Haechan can’t look away, transfixed by the way that she shivers into Shotaro, the way her back arches slightly against his light touch. And she’s smiling, holding Shotaro’s gaze when Haechan sees the other man’s wrist flick, and then his breath catches in his throat. 

Her bra falls away, and Haechan has dreamed of her tits. He has had very, very specific fantasies about fucking them, fondling them, resting his head on them during post-coital bliss. 

But he’s never seen them in person. Not until right now. 

Shotaro drops her bra over the edge of the hot tub, and Haechan can only stare, like a fucking pervert, at her bare tits. They’re perfect. Her nipples stand to attention in the cool air, and then Shotaro’s hands are on them, just like Haechan wishes his were. His hands flex at his sides, curling into fists, trying to rid himself of the phantom feeling of soft boobs in his hands. 

And then Shotaro’s lips are on her neck, and Haechan watches the way her eyes flutter shut, her mouth falls open. 

He should stop looking. 

Look away, he tells himself. Just go inside, and stop being a pervert.

But he likes watching. 

He likes to see the way her body reacts. The way she gasps and shifts in Shotaro’s lap as he kisses her neck, as he trails his kisses down. The soft moan she lets out when he scrapes his teeth over her collarbone. 

Fuck. 

Haechan feels his cock stirring in interest. 

He notices when she shifts higher in Shotaro’s lap, when her mouth falls open on a sigh that becomes a moan of Shotaro’s name. And then she starts moving, rolling her hips, and Haechan realizes that Shotaro must have his fingers inside her right now. She clutches at Shotaro’s shoulders, and Haechan wishes with all his being that he could be Shotaro right then. To have his fingers buried inside her soft, tight heat. To have his lips on her tits, her writhing in his lap and saying his name. 

Haechan can tell Shotaro isn’t holding back. He’s not teasing, not drawing it out. He’s just giving it to her exactly like she wants it. And Haechan drinks in the show, the way she rides Shotaro’s fingers, her face flushing and eyes aglow when she looks at Shotaro’s face. And then, Haechan gets to witness her cumming, falling apart on Shotaro’s fingers, beneath Shotaro’s lips. She pulls at his hair so tightly. 

Haechan doesn’t even notice at first that his hand has risen to his own hair. That he’s knotted his fingers through it. He tugs, and it’s only at the jolt of pleasure that goes straight to his cock that he realizes what he’s doing. 

He’s so damn hard in his pants right now. 

Even watching her kiss another man, in this context, Haechan feels nothing but arousal. He watches, knowing that it’s wrong, but also knowing that he likes it. 

He likes watching her with her guard down, uninhibited and raw with Shotaro, unaware that Haechan’s watching. The thought makes his cock throb a little, and Haechan reaches down, just offering his cock a little squeeze. 

They’re moving again in the hot tub. Her and Shotaro are making out, and Haechan, from his vantage point twenty feet away, can only barely hear Shotaro moaning into the kiss. More importantly, Haechan’s focused on the way her body moves, on how she’s clearly grinding down on Shotaro, but Haechan wonders if he missed the moment when she started riding Shotaro, or if she’s really only teasing him right now. 

Another squeeze of his hand around his cock, the glide of his palm over the tip. 

Fuck, she’s so sexy right now. On top. In charge. 

The wind whips around the corner of the house towards Haechan, carrying with it the sound of Shotaro whining. His head thumps against the side of the hot tub, just gazing up at her. Haechan wishes, again, that he was in Shotaro’s spot, looking up at her like she’s a star in the night sky, like she’s the moon, like she’s all that matters in the universe with her pussy so tight around him. 

He shivers, his foot moving. 

His toes knock into a small branch on the deck, and it makes a small scraping sound, rolling away across the boards. 

Haechan moves, drawing further back around the corner, but lingers close enough to peek around. 

For a moment he thinks he sees her look in his direction, but there’s no shout of anger, no look of surprise. 

She just dips her head to kiss Shotaro’s cheek or his neck. Her hair falls in a curtain obscuring Haechan’s view a little bit until she sits up a moment later. She shivers in Shotaro’s lap, goosebumps rising on her skin and her fucking nipples look like they would feel so good in Haechan’s mouth. 

Damn it all. 

He pushes his hand down the front of his swim trunks, fingertips moving over his abdomen, down to wrap his hand around his bare cock at last. 

Now Haechan can see that she was definitely just grinding on Shotaro before. He can see the way she rises up a little bit, the way she reaches down beneath the water, this look of mischievousness and delight in her eyes as she sinks down on Shotaro’s cock. 

And then she moans, and Haechan’s entire body goes numb. 

That sound. 

It’s unmistakable and so loud that probably half of his friends heard it in the house. Not that her or Shotaro seem to care. 

Judging by the way that she moans, Haechan feels a new brand of jealousy. Is Shotaro’s cock really that good? Haechan has never seen it, obviously he’s never heard any tales about it, but if just sinking down on him has her making a sound like that then Shotaro must have a dreamy cock. 

Haechan thumbs at his tip, smearing a bit of precum around, reminding himself that he shouldn’t be doing this. Shouldn’t be jerking off to the sight of his friends fucking unwittingly in front of him. 

But then she starts moving, starts kissing Shotaro in an absolutely filthy way with visible tongue and moaning from both of them. He can see Shotaro with his hands on her ass, her back, her tits. 

Haechan just leans against the wall of the house, hand fisting his cock as he starts jerking off, moving his hand at the same pace that she’s moving on Shotaro.

And when she starts bouncing? Tits jumping on her chest, Haechan feels a new jolt of lust and lets a fantasy overlay reality. He’s still watching her with Shotaro, but he’s also envisioning himself beneath her, her pussy hugging his cock, her ass smacking against his thighs, and his lips wrapped around her tit, his hand at her hip to keep her moving. In his fantasy, Haechan is making her moan, but in reality, he’s mostly just hearing Shotaro, which should probably be a turn-off, but something about everything combined means that Haechan’s cock is growing harder, more wet at the tip as he twists his wrist, imagining his face buried in her tits. 

He thinks about earlier today, when she’d sat on his shoulders for the game of chicken, the scenario his mind had come up with then of eating her out, her taste on his lips as he’d imagined the smell of her all around him. 

Haechan bites his bottom lip, feeling a tug in his belly, the tightness in his balls. 

And when he refocuses on the sight in front of him, he watches Shotaro standing up, lifting her out of the water with her legs twisted around his hips. She laughs a little, her voice carrying clear over to Haechan as she says, “Fuck me, Taro! It’s cold out here.”

Shotaro laughs too, turning to sit her ass down on the edge of the tub. 

Not that either of them could possibly be aware of it, but doing this has made Haechan’s view just that much better. Although now he’s getting an eye full of Shotaro’s ass, Haechan can also see where their bodies join. Can watch her thighs tighten against Shotaro’s hips as he drives into her, can catch a glimpse of his cock pushing into her and — oh, fuck, Haechan can barely hold in a moan as he sees her pussy. Pretty, perfect. Again, he imagines licking her out, his tongue swirling circles on her clit, her voice moaning his name. 

“Taro!” She cries out, shattering that little bit of Haechan’s fantasy. But still. 

Her nails rake over Shotaro’s back, and Haechan feels phantom zings of pleasure down to his lower back. 

Shotaro fucks her like he’s got experience, and fuck, Haechan supposes that he does have experience right here with her. He knows exactly where to touch, where to kiss, what angles and how deep and everything that Haechan doesn’t know in this situation. He fucks her with confidence, and with the ability to show her so much pleasure that Haechan can tell she’s on the brink of orgasm. 

He’s close too, seeing her like this. All laid out like a vision as Shotaro works her to the edge. 

And then it happens. 

There’s no denying it now, not when she glances his way, and their eyes catch. 

Haechan thinks that this is it. That he’s done for. 

But she doesn’t look away. She doesn’t yell and make Shotaro stop so they can kill Haechan for being a pervert. She locks eyes with him, and there’s something there in her gaze that makes him reevaluate everything that’s happened in the last few minutes. Earlier when he thought he’d narrowly avoided being caught, had he actually been spotted? Had they put on a show for him?

Fuck, that thought alone, that any part of what he’s witnessing had been done with him in mind, even just a little bit. 

Shotaro grabs her chin, dragging her mouth back to his. Her eyes flutter shut, Haechan forgotten. 

Haechan doubles down on his cock, and his orgasm hits right as hers rocks through her. He cums over his fist inside his swim trunks, watching her toes curl, her fingers dragging through Shotaro’s hair and down over his shoulders. 

He’s still pumping his cock, his body wracked with pleasure, when she slips off Shotaro’s cock to sink into the water, and Haechan watches her give the most intense, sloppiest head to Shotaro. Maybe Haechan cums again a bit, watching her bob her head on another man’s cock, and perhaps he feels a bit filthy for it too, but there’s a deeper satisfaction to be found there. 

Haechan doesn’t hang around to watch Shotaro cum in her mouth. He slips back around the house, down the stairs from the deck, and he walks over to the bonfire. They really should’ve put it out before they walked away, but it’s dying now anyway. The last burning embers of it flicker in the wind off the lake, and Haechan takes a seat, wipes his cum-covered hand off on a towel that someone left slung over this chair, and he stares into the embers to process what the fuck just happened. 

How is he going to be able to look either of them in the eye again after tonight? If Shotaro knew that he was watching, then their friendship is probably definitely over. 

He can’t believe he just stayed there and watched. 

Of course, he knew he was a bit of a perv, maybe an exhibitionist when his roommate walked in on him the first time and Haechan liked it. He definitely knew he was into it when he held eye contact with his roommate while cumming that other time. And, sure, his interest in watching porn definitely stemmed from him enjoying watching other people going at it. 

But this? 

“Haechan.” 

It’s the sound of his name that finally snaps him out of his stupor. 

He has to blink away the afterimage of the embers imposed on his eyes, but when it clears enough, he sees her and Shotaro both standing there staring at him. Hands clasped, still wet and flushed from the hot tub. 

He doesn’t know if they’re here to talk or if they’re claiming one of the nice tents out here to sleep in tonight. Either way, Haechan doesn’t want to be here. 

He stands up, not making eye contact, brushing right by them with nothing more than a goodnight. 

Inside the cabin, it’s very quiet. Everyone is asleep, and Haechan can feel the need to sleep finally catching up with him, the big bed upstairs calling his name. 

Shit, he remembers, the bed isn’t empty anymore. 

He does his best to open the door quietly, but even with his caution, he has barely pushed the door open before he hears the sound of a startled movement from the bed. She’s half-lifted herself up, and she’s just staring at him in the dark.

“Sorry,” he apologizes as he steps inside. “It’s just me.”

She sighs and sinks back down into the bed, and that’s when Haechan realizes she’s lying on his side of the bed. He prefers the left side, but it seems rude to ask her to move now. He closes the door again behind himself, and he does his best to keep quiet as he moves around the room towards the ensuite bathroom. He needs to rinse off – or at the very least clean up his jizz. 

Haechan pulls his hoodie off, letting it fall to the floor, and then he casts a quick glance at the girl laying in his bed. Her back is to him, so he feels fine about it as he drops his swim trunks and takes those last few steps into the bathroom fully nude.

He flicks the light on in the bathroom and takes a look down at himself. Gross. He grabs a wad of toilet paper to clean himself up, then decides the still slightly damp washcloth draped over the edge of the bathtub will be better. It takes only a moment to wipe his tacky cum off his skin, then he turns the light off again, and steps back out into the room. She’s still got her back to him, and she doesn’t move at all when he walks across the room to reach the desk where he’d sat his baggage for the weekend. 

It’s pitch black in there anyway, so even if she were to look over at him, it’s not like she would really see anything. And it’s not like Haechan isn’t confident in how he looks. He is. But… this is different.

His bag is sitting on the desk, and he quickly grabs out a pair of sweatpants, slips them on, then walks over to the wrong side of the bed.   

“You smell like lake water, bonfire smoke, and chlorine.” Her voice is half-muffled.

“I’ll shower in the morning,” Haechan says, pressing his face into the pillow. It’s not right. This pillow isn’t as comfortable, but that’s probably because he brought the pillow on his side of the bed from home. It’s perfectly formed for him, and he’s half-tempted to drag it out from beneath her head or maybe make her switch him sides of the bed. “You’re on my side of the bed, by the way.”

She snorts a tiny sound of amusement. 

Haechan moves just slightly, and he feels his foot bump against some part of her. Possibly her calf – he doesn’t know, all he knows is that whatever part of her it is is soft and warm.

“You’re the one that invited me,” she teases, “Guess you should’ve been more specific about where you wanted me.” 

She turns over to face Haechan then, and the movement sends a tiny puff of air in his direction. She smells nice, and he breathes in again, noticing that she doesn’t smell like nasty lake water or chlorine, and she only smells a tiny bit like smoke from the fire, but there’s something else sweet and aromatic about her that makes his mouth water just a tiny bit. 

And maybe his dick grows a little hard too, if he’s being honest. 

She’s already in his bed, so it doesn’t take a whole lot for his imagination to get carried away, especially not when he notices that now that his eyes have adjusted to the light level, it’s not nearly as dark in this room as he’d first thought. There are two uncovered windows, and light comes in through both of them – from the fading bonfire and from the lights over the hot tub on the deck below.

In that small amount of light, he can see her face now, and when his eyes briefly dip lower he can see that she is still only wearing that clingy thin bra that she’d worn in the hot tub. Her tits look perfect right now, like they would feel perfect in his hands or beneath his lips. He can just imagine rolling her onto her back, tugging the top edge of that material down, taking one of her nipples into his mouth….

But no. He’s not going to fuck her tonight. 

They’re just friends, and he might be a manwhore but he’s not an asshole. Making a move on her when it’s already so late and she’s clearly half-asleep, when he’s the one that told her that she could just sleep in this bed, that would obviously be a dick move. 

So no, not tonight. But he’s not saying never.

“Next time I’ll make it clear where I want you,” Haechan says, and he hopes she hears the promise that if they someday find themselves in a position at all similar to this one, he’ll be glad to position her exactly how he might want her. 

In the morning, Haechan gets rudely awoken by YangYang shoving into the room, not even bothering to knock in his rush to use this room’s bathroom. Haechan just groans and rolls over, stretching his limbs out across the bed as far as they can go, and it takes him a moment to realize why all of the space tickles some part of his brain as strange. Because then he remembers that this bed wasn’t empty when he fell asleep last night. 

Haechan lifts his head to squint at the side of the bed that prior to last night had been his. Empty. Sheets rumpled, but empty of the girl who had filled them.

He just drops his head back down, and he rolls over, sliding onto that half of the bed to get comfortable on his own pillow from home.

The only thing is that it doesn’t smell like home right now. 

It smells like her, like that pretty attractive scent he’d breathed in last night. He feels a little perverted when he buries his nose in the pillow to take a whiff. There’s one spot that stimulates something deep in his brain, and he wonders if that’s where she’d laid her head for most of the night, if that’s her shampoo that he’s smelling the most right there. He groans a little.

Yeah.

He’s definitely a perv because he’s getting hard again.

First the hot tub voyeurism and now this?

God damn, he’s a freak.

Willfully ignoring the rising problem, Haechan gets out of bed and heads down to the kitchen, determined to start the day off either with a coffee if someone’s got some brewing or a beer or maybe even something stronger if it’s available. 

Renjun squints at Haechan when he comes down, complaining about how he’d been woken up by Jeno nearly puking on him, hungover as hell. He lays all the blame on Haechan, since he’d been Jeno’s drinking buddy earlier in the night yesterday, and he’d also been one of the last ones hanging out with him last night, so he should’ve at least gotten him to trade out the alcohol for water.  But thinking of Jeno makes Haechan think of the hot tub, and thinking of the hot tub makes him think about the scene he’d witnessed, and that is something he can’t think about right now. 

He can’t risk it showing on his face somehow, and he refuses to admit to anyone else about his perverted moment last night. He can’t even face the happy couple. Not over breakfast when they appear in the kitchen hand-in-hand, blushing and bright-eyed from outside where they’d slept in one of those tents. 

He avoids them until he can’t anymore. 

For some reason, YangYang is the one allowed to steer the boat that had come with this rented property on the lake, which YangYang thinks makes him the Captain. He stands on the dock, waving everyone on board until the boat is at maximum capacity minus one. 

Haechan lingers on the dock as Shotaro and his girlfriend step onto the boat. 

YangYang stands there, watching Haechan, waiting. “Dude, are you not coming?”

To everyone’s surprise, but no one more so than Haechan, Shotaro answers. “Oh, no. Haechannie likes to just watch.”

Heat flashes through Haechan’s face. 

So they both knew about last night. 

And Shotaro is making jokes about it. 

Her face is lit up with laughter. Everyone else brushes the comment off, but Shotaro smiles, looking at Haechan with forgiveness in his eyes, even amusement. 

Haechan rocks past YangYang and onto the boat. He puts his arm around Shotaro’s shoulders, and he glances first at her where she’s watching the two of them, and then he meets Shotaro’s gaze so close to his own. 

“Consider me a tourist,” Haechan says, and the feeling of his words resound in his bones. “I just want to enjoy the view.”

That brings a laugh from both of them, Shotaro pushes him away, but Haechan moves further onto the boat. And then YangYang hops on board, unmoors it from the dock, and moments later he’s Captaining everyone across the lake.��

And Haechan looks around at his friends, his gaze lingering a little extra long on the happy couple, where Shotaro’s hand rests so low on her waist that it’s pretty much on her ass. His gaze passes momentarily over his friend who’d shared his bed last night; his attention pauses on Jeno where he’s wrestling with Jaemin, both of them shirtless and dripping with the beer that Jaemin had just dumped over Jeno. Haechan sees Karina and Winter drinking with Chenle. There’s Renjun grinning down at his phone at the far end of the boat. And Haechan again Haechan’s attention returns to the girl who had fled his bed this morning, she sits now with her head tipped back to soak in the sun while Xiaojun talks to her and flexes his muscles

Yes, Haechan thinks as he takes it all in, he’s certainly something of a tourist, enjoying the view.

YIMA chapter index || next chapter -> 

a/n: Chapter 1 done! If you’d like another perspective of this chapter, you should check out kiss kiss (fall in love) which is a 3 part Shotaro x Y/N fic, and that scene in the hot tub occurs in part 3! 

[multiplicity-positivity]

Here’s some positivity for systems and headmates with conflicting and/or contradictory queer labels!

System life and queer identity can both be confusing, messy, and complicated. Often, headmates in a system may have unique or uncommon experiences and ways of relating to their body, headmates, the world around them, and even themselves - but this in no way invalidates the ways they identify! This post is for all the systems and headmates whose queer labels seem conflicting and/or contradictory!

🏳️‍🌈 Shoutout to systems and headmates who are mspec gays and lesbians!

🏳️‍⚧️ Shoutout to headmates who are AMAB transmasc, AFAB transfem, transfemmasc, or transfemneumasc!

🏳️‍🌈 Shoutout to systems and headmates who are sex-favorable asexuals, or who tolerate, engage in, or enjoy sex while still being asexual!

🏳️‍⚧️ Shoutout to systems and headmates who are aromantic while still having and loving their romantic partners and relationships!

🏳️‍🌈 Shoutout to systems and headmates who are bigender, trigender, boygirls, girlboys, or who are multigender in some other way!

🏳️‍⚧️ Shoutout to systems and headmates who are aplatonic while still having friends, wanting friends, or who wish they wanted friends!

🏳️‍🌈 Shoutout to systems whose plurality complicates their understanding of gender, sexuality, romantic attraction, and queer identity!

🏳️‍⚧️ Shoutout to systems and headmates who choose not to label their queer identity due to its complex nature!

🏳️‍🌈 Shoutout to systems and headmates with conflicting or contradictory xenogenders, or who use conflicting or contradictory neopronouns!

🏳️‍⚧️ Shoutout to those who have been fakeclaimed, bullied, or told they are harmful because of their conflicting/contradictory labels - you did not deserve that mistreatment and you are wonderful as you are!

🏳️‍🌈 Shoutout to systems and headmates who use conflicting or contradictory labels as they are still questioning or unsure about their queer identity!

🏳️‍⚧️ Shoutout to systems and headmates who are both boys/men and lesbians, or both girls/women and gay!

There is no one right or wrong way to be queer or plural. It’s okay to have labels and identify in ways that may seem or are conflicting or contradictory! Identifying in this way does not invalidate you as a system, headmate, or member of the queer community. You belong here and you make both plural and queer spaces more beautiful simply by existing in them!

We hope that you and your system can come to accept and embrace your queer labels and identities, even and especially if they are conflicting or contradictory. Know that you aren’t harming anyone by identifying in the ways that you do, and in fact, you are spreading warmth, joy, and hope by becoming your authentic self! Regardless of your queer identities or what labels you use, we love you and we want to support and uplift you however we can. Thank you so much for reading, and have a great day!

[floridakilo]

one thing i will stand by when it comes to dating and sex… as someone who is a firm believer in fucking on the first night i cannot imagine why you wojld go through a so called “talking stage” trying to convince yourself if you want to sleep with someone or not… in many ways i think women are gaslighting themselves into liking men they are NOT sexually attracted to and for those who say they wait for other reasons (building trust, “self respect”,whatever) like okay valid but what if you put all of your emotional energy into weeks or months or years of dating and then you fuck and realize you have no sexual chemistry or the guy is just atrociously bad in bed… and then it was all for nothing… just Speaking my truth here but i always wonder what life is like for these girls bc im mostly friends with hoes

[daimyosprincess]

SOME REX AND RELAXATION

—PAIRING: Rebels!Captain Rex x F!Reader

—SUMMARY: After a hard week, Rex makes it his mission to see that you forget all about it.

—WORD COUNT: 3.3k

—RATING: Explicit, 18+ only — MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

—TAGS & WARNINGS: second person narration, no use of y/n, explicit sexual content, Rebels!Rex, age gap relationship between an older man and younger woman (reader is an adult), Dom/sub vibes, Daddy kink (bc I can’t help myself), nipple play, oral sex (fem receiving), fingering

Please let me know if I missed anything! Mando'a translations are at the end.

—AUTHOR'S NOTES: I miss Rex so this is getting posted today!!! After a rough week a bit ago, I started writing this as a comfort fic to make myself feel better and boy howdy, by the the end of it I was feeling way better 😈 Also: Rex, Wolffe, and Gregor deserve to live in comfy cottages in pastoral peace for the rest of their beautiful days. And I've decided that the clones age normally after the age of 25 so they have nice long lives ahead of them :)

This is my first ever Rex fic and I want to give a big shout out to my resident Rexpert @rexxdjarin for betaing this fic, I hope I did our captain justice 💙 Also thank you to @cloned-eyes for letting me use their amazing Rex art in my header!! That fresh out the shower Rex was some delicious inspo for this fic 🫠

Read on AO3 — Masterlist — Taglist

The only thing worse than the day you’ve had was this week as a whole. Nothing had gone right with the New Republic school going up in town, and somehow the solution to several of those problems was what you’d said a week ago… but only when that bureaucratic sop from Coruscant said it. Not to mention the pipes burst in your apartment, you slipped down some stairs in front of a street full of people (with the worst bruise of your entire life to prove it), and to top it all off, you dropped your overpriced caf all over your shoes this morning.

Not a great week.

At this point, you’re only one minor inconvenience away from snapping—the fact that it’s the end of the work week is the only thing keeping you together. And, of course, your perfect, wonderful captain of a boyfriend, Rex. You’ve been staying at his farmhouse while repairs are made to the water lines that caused the damage at your place. 

He and his brothers, Gregor and Wolffe, had come to your quiet little agricultural planet a couple years ago and fixed up a few of the old houses at the edge town to live in. They mostly keep to themselves, but are always willing to lend a helping hand when it’s needed, whether it’s making repairs after the annual monsoon, donating fresh produce for school meals, or digging out flooded irrigation ditches. They are good men and the town accepts them as part of their own, even if Wolffe is a little grumpy and Gregor turns all the local women into giggling messes when he’s around.

The three of them are mending a fence on the far side of the property when you arrive at the farmstead. Usually you would have taken your speeder over for a chat, but you don’t think you have it in you after today. All you want to do is take off your bra and flop face-down on Rex’s couch to wait for the world to stop sucking—which is exactly how Rex finds you when he comes inside a few minutes later. 

“Another great day then, mesh’la?” he teases with the mirth of a man who already knows his question’s answer. His work boots make a thud on the stone tiles as he pulls them off.

Without looking up, you grunt a “no” into the cushions and shake your head.

“Do you want to come shower with me or do you need some alone time?”

“Alone time,” your muffled voice answers, “then Rex time. Lots and lots of Rex time.”

His warm chuckle and beard graze delightfully over the back of your neck as he bends to press a kiss to your hair. “Alright then, pretty girl. Just relax and I’ll be back to give you all the time in the world, okay?” You give him another muffled affirmative and he squeezes your calf affectionately before heading to the ‘fresher. 

Maker, he’s good to you. 

A year ago you would have never thought you’d find yourself in a long-term relationship with an ex-clone trooper who’s old enough to be your father, or that you would be calling said ex-clone trooper Daddy while he makes you see stars. The Force works in mysterious ways, you suppose… not that you’re complaining. Far from it. 

Your relationship with Rex might have come as a surprise but you’ve never been happier: things with him are as close to perfect as they can get. He cares for you, makes you feel so safe and loved and warm that you could melt into a puddle at his feet, and you adore him. He’s kind, strong, and compassionate, a good leader through and through. The galaxy has never made a finer man, and not to mention, a finer lover.

Eventually, you muster the strength to roll yourself off the couch and ditch your work clothes for your much more comfortable loungewear, deciding to forgo panties as a nice little surprise for your boyfriend. Snuggling under his covers that smell of him, you flip onto your stomach to scroll through your datapad. Efficient as always, Rex doesn’t make you wait long, the ‘fresher door sliding open a few minutes later. The comforting, woody smell of his soap fills your nose as you take in his broad frame glistening from his shower. 

Kark, he looks good. All broad shoulders and bronze skin, thick and perfect. How has no one made a statue of this man?

Noticing your interested stare, he winks as he hangs his towel on its hook. “Feeling better, mesh’la?”

You hum your delight and click off your tablet to give him your full attention. “Yeah, could be better, though,” you add with a sneaky smile.

“Oh yeah? How?” Flicking off the ‘fresher light, he starts towards you. The mischievous glint in your boyfriend’s eye is more than enough to get your blood pumping, especially combined with his shirtless upper half. 

You flip up the covers next to you, grinning up at him. “Well for starters, you could get in the bed with me, handsome.” His brown eyes sparkle when he returns the expression, the corners of his eyes crinkling fondly. “And then you can hold me and make me forget all about this entire kriffing week.” 

Your captain is quite good at making you forget things, whether it be a bad day or your own name.

Obliging as always, Rex slides in behind you and loops an arm around your waist to pull you flush against his bare chest. Your body reacts immediately to his touch, the tension in your muscles slacking. He nuzzles into your neck, making you giggle from the way his beard tickles the sensitive skin there, and starts kissing every bit of you his lips can reach. When you try to squirm away from him and his beard, squealing and panting from your laughter, he just locks his big arms around you and keeps going.

“Eeee! Rex! S-stop, you’re tickling me-you’re tickling me!”

In between smacking kisses, he chuckles into your ear. “I thought you said you want me to make you forget about this week, mesh’la.” His hold loosens enough for you to wriggle around to face him, wrapping your arms around his neck and admiring how handsome he is up close.

You brush your lips over his, gently running your nails down the back of his neck and savoring the way he shivers at your soft touches; knowing you have such an effect on him makes your skin hot. “Well Captain,” you drawl with syrupy sweetness, “I was thinking something more along the lines of… this.” You roll your hips against his, sighing at the pleasant sensation. 

Rex groans his rumbling approval and drops his large hands to your ass to grind you harder against his center. “Anything you want, baby, just tell me and it’s yours.”

You know what you want: to be taken care of after this shit-show of a week, to be kissed and loved and cherished like only he can, doted on and held safe in his arms. You want to completely let go and surrender—no more thoughts, no more worries, just him. Just Rex. Your perfect, perfect Rex. 

Capturing his lips in an indulgent kiss, you whine your desire into his mouth when you break for air, not caring how needy you sound. 

He shushes you with gentle sounds, stroking over your hair. “Of course, sweetheart,” he coos in a sinfully sweet voice, cradling your face between his palms, “you’ve had a hard week… yeah, I know, I know. You need Daddy to make it all better, don’t you?” He pulls you crushingly tight against the strong line of his body, just how he knows you like, holding all your pieces together so you don’t have to.

“Please,” you gasp, burrowing deeper into him, “Don’t wanna… don’t wanna be anymore. Just wanna be yours.” The ache of existence in your chest is already beginning to melt underneath his weight, replaced by the tender warmth of his devoted attention. The edges of your mind go liquid as you let him pour you into his mold.

“Daddy’s going to take care of you, all you have to do is listen and let him make you feel good, okay, babygirl?” You bob your head in a nod, your eyes starry and wide as you await his next instruction. Rubbing the back of your neck, Rex places an affectionate kiss on your forehead for your obedience. “Good girl. Now turn over, face out and back to me… lift your arms… yeah, just like that,” he murmurs as he slides your top off, planting wet kisses on the new skin exposed to him.

His battle-worn hands skim up the swell of your tummy to take in breasts. You’re already buzzing in eager anticipation. You push into his touch, pressing your chest out in an offer of more, and you’re to be quickly rewarded with a low groan and his fingers rolling your sensitive nipples deliciously slow. Wanting heat rises through you like a flame catching to dry tender while little mewls of pleasure fall from your lips. 

“So beautiful, so warm, my sweet cyar’ika,” he purrs between more lush kisses, “I know this makes you feel good… I’m going to give those perfect tits the attention they deserve.” He gives your peaked tips a gentle pinch and you moan, the electric sensation shooting straight to swollen clit. Smiling at your vocal pleasure, Rex begins an erotic rhythm that has you bucking your hips as his fingers alternate between pinching and rolling.

“Ooohhh, y-you feel so… you feel s-so good,” you whine, writhing against his ministrations. With the way his breathing has gone hot and ragged in your ear, you swear it could be enough to make you come untouched. 

“That’s it, pretty girl, just feel the pleasure… just concentrate on how good you feel, nothing else,” he instructs, his deep voice like golden honey to your ears. “Daddy’s got you now, he’s gonna take care of everything. He doesn’t like seeing his baby so stressed and unhappy.” Rex latches onto your pulse point, sucking your heated flesh into his mouth and sending waves of pleasure throbbing through your nerves.

“Nev-never unhappy with you,” you pant, reaching your hand back to push him deeper into your neck. Rex is your shining sun who banishes all of life’s many darknesses, and the match which lights the fire of your loins. He’s everything to you, and right now, he’s all you can feel and see and smell. It’s utterly divine. 

“Mmm, that makes me so happy to hear, you know why? Making you happy, taking care of my beautiful babygirl… it makes me happy. Daddy loves being there for his cyar’ika and he’d do anything to put a smile on her face, you know that?” Cupping your jaw, he tilts your head back to steal the little gasps of delight dripping sugary-thick from your lips. As hot and heavy as things have become, Rex doesn’t rush. He takes his time licking into your mouth and nibbling on your slicked bottom lip, all the while kneading and rolling your breasts, ever the man to keep his word.

Molten heat rushes through your veins as his words pour over your skin, spurring you onto new heights under his generous hands—the deep swell of his voice loosens the taunt aggravation of the week still stowed in your muscles. You’re like lavish wax under his care, worked pliable by him then molded into a work of weightless art, your very existence something to be admired.

His calloused fingertips sweep over the plushness of your lower belly, the shimmering heat of your arousal converging at his touch. When he dips below the fabric of your waistband, he sucks in a breath. “No panties, pretty girl? Now you’re the one spoiling me,” he groans, his cock twitching against the cage of your back. 

You let out a delighted, breathy giggle at his body’s reaction to the discovery. “I thought you might like that,” you breathe out fond and pleased, “I did it just for you.” 

He brushes lower, his middle finger tracing over the damp seam of your folds and a whimper sneaks through your smile at the feathery sensation. It’s these light, almost subatomic touches that make you come loose at the seams—and he knows it. Inside the year that you’ve been together, Rex has learned your body intimately, its history and inner workings revealed in the hours you spent in his arms.

“I love to hear your sweet little laugh, and I love to know that you’re smiling,” he murmurs affectionately, cupping your slick mound, “I’m so proud of you for letting me take some of the weight off you after this difficult week.” He takes a moment to plant kisses in the soft crook of your neck and up to your ear before continuing. “Now, just lie back, let me make you feel all warm and sweet. I want to watch you melt for me… melt and leave me with all your sweet honey to lick up.”

Each word shaped by his rich rasp further unmoors you from your senses. That sensual tingling feeling of submission bubbles pleasantly across your mind, your bones softening to downey cotton as you lose yourself to the sound of Rex’s voice. You can’t tell where the vibration of your own sounds of pleasure end and his begin, but it doesn’t matter. You’re safe, so, so safe and happy here in the glowing space between his arms. If only you could have him inside, too…

“C-can I have more, please? Want more of you, baby,” you pant, grinding into his palm between your thighs.

“Of course, mesh’la, you can have whatever you like. Anything and everything, all you have to do is ask.” Pressing into your lower lips, he spreads you apart. Your teeth immediately catch your lip when his trigger finger begins languidly sliding over your buzzing clit; the delicious friction fans the flames of your desire, heating you from the inside out. A rumble of satisfaction rolls up his chest when your head falls back against his shoulder with a contented sigh. 

Rex takes advantage of the new access you allowed him, dragging his hot lips over your collarbone to nip and suck little marks onto your heated skin. “Mmm, I love touching you, I love feeling you,” he hums, thick and heady, “I want you to feel how much I care about you…” He scrapes his teeth up your tender throat to capture your mouth with his own.

Stars-Maker-kriff does he kiss like a god. A king amongst men, really, who- “Oh!”

Your eyes fly open as your captain easily flips you under him like a ragdoll, pulling your pants down and flinging them over his shoulder in one fluid motion that has you gushing.

“That’s better,” he mutters between hot mouthed-kisses down your sternum and over your tummy. The way his beard scrapes over your skin has chillbumps flowering all over. “It fills me up with so much happiness when I get to love on my sweet cyar’ika and take care of her. Makes everything else go away for me, too, sweetheart. I get to just focus on you.” 

His large hands skate down your ribs then down the curve of your hips to massage the fullness of your thighs. “I’ve been waiting to worship this perfect pussy, pull all those pretty sounds out of you while you come over and over… just like you deserve.”

You’re nothing more than a warm soup of sparkling sensation, swirling around the ache building in your core. Rex isn’t usually one to tease you, but it feels like he’s taking an eternity to make it between your-

“Ohhhh, Reeeex!”

Wrapping his thick arms around your thighs, he literally lifts you up to his mouth, moaning like a man tasting some paradisic fruit after months in the desert. “Fuck, babygirl, your little pussy… I could feel hot and needy it was when you were rubbing up against me, how wet and messy you were… but this? Kark. I’m so lucky to be able to kiss all over this beautiful cunt. So lucky to have this pussy, this ass,” he gives an appreciative squeeze to your behind, “and this sweet little girl all to myself.”

The air is suctioned from your lungs by the gravity of his pleasure; it’s unrelenting and all-consuming, it’s all you can comprehend. Squeezing your eyes shut in focus, you manage a reply. “S-so l-lucky to have you, Rex. You’re s-so good to me… love you… love you so much.” You cut off with a shuddering cry when he sucks your bud between his lips, not caring that you’re swiftly losing a battle you don’t want to win.

“I love you so much, my mesh’la,” he pants into your heat. “My sweet, precious girl, I’m going to give you my fingers, okay? Gonna give you just what you need so you can come all over my face.” He slips two of his fingers in his mouth, sucking and releasing them with pop before easing into your soaked entrance. The twin sounds of your satisfaction fill the room, the stout stretch of his fingers making you moan while the clutch of your cunt has your captain grunting praises against your clit. 

“Kark, you’re so tight and wet, so perfect… clenching around me,” he crooks his fingers as much as he can in the restrictive walls, “Don’t hold back, beautiful, let me hear you. Let me hear how good you feel.”

His words scorch your nerves to ash with a molten magma of pleasure that erupts from your core. Your spine bows up, making Rex find the soul-shattering spot that makes you scream in ecstasy. The world around you snaps into sharp focus, bright and loud before exploding in a shower of stars and lambent energy. You’re unmade, unwound down to your most basal form of hot-blooded, carnal need where time and worldly matters no longer reign in your existence. Primal satisfaction and the thrill of euphoria rule you instead for several effervescent moments.

When the flood of electricity flowing from every cell and synapse begins to ebb to jolting aftershocks, the sweet praise of your lover floats over you in warm waves. “So beautiful like this… keep going mesh’la, take what you need… I love you so much… love making you feel good, love feeling your perfect pussy on my fingers…”

Reverent kisses are bestowed like offerings to the divinity of your pleasure as you materialize back into reality one pounding heartbeat at a time. Joy radiates from every molecule in your body, the stress of the mortal coil dissolved and washed far away, leaving you light, free, and happy. You want nothing more than to revel in this glorious sensation with the love of your life, and you call out to your captain with a breezy sigh, “Rex…”

“Cyare…”

“Want you close, my love, want you to hold me.”

You barely register his movement in your hazy after-glow, but soon your chest is pressed against a familiar wall of muscle and there’s a blanket wrapped around your shoulders. Snuggling into his open warmth, you nuzzle into his neck and inhale Rex’s timber-fresh scent. 

Safe… happy… love. Him. Forever. 

Your hazy thoughts drift across the clear sky of your mind, eventually coalescing into a nebulous sentiment your lips can form around. “Rex… love you so much… thank you, baby.”

Curling around you tighter, Rex’s beard brushes over your shoulder as he leans in to kiss your temple. “Anything for you, my sweet, perfect girl,” he smiles into your hair, “You are everything to me, the light of an old soldier’s life. I will always take care of you, my mesh’la, no matter what.”

And with the certainty only love can bring, you know him to be true.   

MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS

cyare - beloved, love

cyar’ika - sweetheart, darling, (a diminutive of cyare)

mesh'la - beautiful

[everlasting-rainfall]

I didn't see anywhere that requests are closed, so I was wondering if you could write something for your pages au with Boa Hancock? She's my favorite female character, so thank you!

Okay so I’m gonna have to come clean about something and it’s that I haven’t yet reached Amazon Lily like most of my knowledge about One Piece characters comes from a lot of outside sources and for why I haven’t reached it yet?

That’s a simple answer as I have a very bad attention span so if I’m not watching with a friend then my brain wanders and suddenly the episode is over but I promise that I’ll do my absolute best to write her for you!

As Boa is honestly a really cool character like she isn’t my favorite female character as that honor goes to Rouge a lot of the time but I do love that girl regardless!

So before I start rambling too much and making an absolute fool out of myself, let’s get into it. Yeah?

Also since I do know what Boa’s backstory is, I can’t see her trying to actively force someone into a relationship but she is probably willing to keep them if it means they’re safe

!-MINORS DO NOT INTERACT AT ALL-!

!-POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNINGS-!

Manipulation, Copying of Work, Workplace Sexism, Implied Homophobia (?), Delusions, Kidnapping (?)

!-POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNINGS-!

!-MINORS DO NOT INTERACT AT ALL-!

Okay so let’s imagine that you wrote a book, it was a romance novel of course and it was pretty good like it didn’t sell well but it was seen as pretty good by those who did read it

But about a year later while you’re working on the sequel story that you managed to convince the publisher to give you, something happens as a book is released into the market that looks so much like yours except… bad…

The main character on the cover is grossly sexualized when they’re supposed to be someone that the reader can project themselves onto and the two love interests have basically been turned into big muscle men with no personality compared to how you had them as powerful women with quite a lot of personality and complex backstories that helped to shape their characters

You took some time to read it and found yourself absolutely disgusted with it as it was exactly your book just if every trope from R/MenWritingWomen was stuck onto it, certain important plot points were changed and romantic scenes were either completely changed or removed

Attempting to talk to the publisher didn’t do anything as they simply told you that your book hadn’t been copied and clearly you were seeing things if you thought that… You should just get back to what you were writing and be quiet about it…

This was humiliating but there wasn’t much you could do except hope that your next book would absolutely blow this gross copy out of the water especially as when the reviews came in, you found that most people loved it with very people pointing out that it was a gross copy of you

Eventually when you did release your sequel book, it had some moderate success but not as much as the copy… It was truly discouraging…

When you tried to ask your publisher to at least push it a bit more with advertising, they were reluctant but decided to do it in the end to just get to be quiet so they started doing some advertising on other islands and quite a few people picked up the book

Your book achieved more success! It was great!

Soon enough, word of this book had reached Amazon Lily and it was raising quite a few eyebrows in interest as although it did have a few male characters in it but the story and what they heard about it was truly what interested them

A female marine captain saving the MC from certain doom at the hands of pirates by holding them close with one arm and defending them with the other even despite their injuries? A pirate captain who promised to give the MC the world and much more if she would simply take that first step and set out to sea with them on their ship?

All these things that they were hearing were quite interesting and after hearing about one scene in particular where both of the love interests put aside their differences to save the MC from a dragon? Interests peaked!

So a request from so many was given to Boa as they asked her to please make it so that a shipment of the specific book would be sent to Amazon Lily, it took her a bit but she soon made a request and sent it out

The publisher picked it up and within the week, a small shipment of the book had been delivered to Amazon Lily. So many were excited to read the book that they had heard about but there was one problem with it…

This wasn’t the book that they expected, everyone was so confused as the book was awful to the point where most dropped it within the first few minutes of reading it as what had been delivered wasn’t your book but instead the copy

When Boa found out about this, it was safe enough to say that she was quite irritated as in all honesty based on the way that the story had been described to her

She was getting excited to read it as well only for this to be what was delivered so she had the shipment be taken back away from their island alongside a message detailing how disgusted she was and how she demanded every last beli that she spent on this shipment to be refunded or there would be hell to pay

Of course, the publishers listened as who wants an angry pirate empress after them? But they fucked up yet again and instead of realizing that they sent the wrong book, they gave you the message thinking your book had disgusted the women of Amazon Lily that badly

Upon reading the entirety of the message, your heart sank and you got ready to reply as you started writing an apology along with an explanation of what had happened

You took your own personal copy of the book at home and attached the apology to it alongside a gift before sending it to Boa Hancock herself who almost threw it away the second that she saw it until she noticed the cover and stopped

A close look at the cover revealed that this was the true version of the story as there was the MC laying down in the bed of flowers with her hands clasped with the pirate captain laying facing towards her on her left with a red rose in hand while the marine was laying on the opposite side with a blue rose in hand

This was not the same story… The title was even different so she sighed and decided to at least give it’s first page a read to see if it was truly different…

It was and she found herself hooked, she read through the entire thing and couldn’t stop a smile at the scenes that you had written alongside the part where the pirate captain and marine saving you from a greedy dragon despite the fact that they may fail? It was lovely

When finishing the book, she took another look at the note accompanied with the book and reread the explanation. She was honestly unsurprised about learning the truth and set it aside before opening the gift

It was the only piece of merch to ever exist for the book and it was because you had made it yourself only to give it to her as a truly sincere apology, it was a pair of fake roses with their stems tied together. A red rose and a blue rose tied together with a lovely white ribbon, a physical version of the books very last illustration

Part of her was touched by this and in all honesty, she found herself thinking about it for a good while as you had taken the fall for the shoddy knock off created by the gross imitator and the publishers hadn’t even been willing to help you sort things out

It was downright deplorable in her personal opinion and she knew that you weren’t the MC from the story but part of her started to feel like she wanted to rescue you

Rescue you from your life dealing with the publisher on that island where no one would ever appreciate your work just like how the MC had been rescued from the dragon, she would keep you safe and keep you in a place with people who actually appreciate your work and wouldn’t just disregard it in favor of someone’s fantasy

She would keep you safe from the prying eyes of anyone who wanted to harm you, she wouldn’t even let anyone brand you as theirs and do horrible unspeakable acts to you

If you wanted then the two of you could even become friends and maybe potentially something more which she grew to like the thought of more and more until she started to imagine the two of you going on nice walks together, laughing together and having fun

Ah yes, that was the life that would be perfect for you in the end…

All that she needed to do was get you here and she knew exactly the way to go about it…

It was a few weeks after sending your own letter when you received one from Boa Hancock, it was a request to come to Amazon Lily with copies of your book as she no longer trusted the publisher to send them the right ones

She also requested for you to bring your things as well as she would like you to stay on the island for an undisclosed amount of time, you didn’t want to potentially make the pirate empress any angrier than she already was so you packed some things and took a large box full of book copies of the first book and the sequel and headed off

A few days were spent at sea before you finally reached your destination, you were greeted and the books were quickly taken off of your hands in order to be enjoyed by everyone who had been so excited to read it

Meanwhile you were taken off to meet with Boa herself, she was a scary lady and more than intimidating but she was kind to you despite everything and had a smile on her face when you offered her the sequel story

Your time on Amazon Lily started on that very day, a lot of it would be spent with Boa simply spending time together as she took her time getting through the sequel story as she always stopped to ask you questions about it

As time progressed however and Boa continued to read the story, she found that it was wrapped up in the end with a neat little bow and the person the MC chose got married in the end. The MC had wound up marrying the pirate in the end and symbolically tied a ribbon around the stem of a red rose as a sign that they would always be together

Boa found herself enjoying the scene of the wedding and she smiled to herself as she reread the chapter only to notice certain things this time around like how the pirate had her hair done in a similar fashion to Boa’s and not only that but the way that the outfit was described? It sounded like her…

Part of her tried to write the entire thing of as a simple coincidence until she reread the line “The beauty of the two was so strong that it could turn anyone who laid eyes upon them to stone”

…Oh my god…

That was all that Boa needed to see and she quickly closed the book and set it aside, she honestly wasn’t sure what to think as this couldn’t be a coincidence anymore as the one who had won over the MC in the end was a Pirate Captain who would do anything for her…

It couldn’t have been just a coincidence now and she had to be sure that you didn’t write about some sort of deep hidden feeling for her… So she picked up the other book and spent quite a bit of time searching it for answers…

And as they say, if you’re looking for something hard enough then you’re gonna find it regardless of whether or not it’s there

Slowly Boa becomes convinced that you wrote about some sort of feeling that you had for her despite the fact that you could have never known her before this point…

And she would confront you about this, she would tell you off for doing this and make you leave but something in her refuses to do so

You don’t see Boa for days as she deals with these emotions, you aren’t sure why this has happened but you don’t bother her simply thinking that she’s busy while she attempts to figure out what’s going on

Until it hits her… She returns your feelings…

And when this happens, this is when things start as she starts to attempt to show you that she feels the exact same way about you that you do her

It starts with her trying to spend more time with you, it progresses into her getting jealous when other people speak with you, it progresses even further to her actually touching you with hand holding and the occasional caress

When it reaches its peak? That’s when Boa starts to greet you with a red flower of some kind whenever the two of you meet, she hopes that you’ll get the hint and finally realize

But hey, it’s not so bad that you aren’t getting it as your smile is heavenly to her to the point where she could look at it all day and has even caught herself staring at your smile for long periods of time when the two of you are together only breaking out of it when you point it out to her

Eventually you’ll start wanting to return home and back to your old life but Boa will insist that you stay, the world off of Amazon Lily is dangerous for someone like you after all and she wants to keep you right where she can absolutely make sure that you’re safe

You might try to insist on returning to your old life and that’s when Boa will start to manipulate you, I can’t see her turning violent but she probably would tell you things like “If something were to happen to you out there then I simply wouldn’t be able to live with myself”

She’ll trap you into staying on Amazon Lily this way until you’re ready to stay of your own accord…

It’s for the best after all and once you finally realize that she returns the feelings that you oh so clearly have for her, everything will be perfect…

A pair whose beauty is strong enough to turn people to stone…

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Hi! You're brilliant. Literature major here and someone who's loved Swift a lot growing up. I absolutely loathe who she is as a person now that the blinders have been off for a year and also the utter embarrassment that is TTPD. I'm seeing Swifties say "actually Taylor IS allowed to use female rage because she's had AI porn of her, been sexually harassed multiple times and won the court case for it, belittled for her art and is never taken seriously despite being stolen from" and despite the very obvious argument that "the TTPD setlist has 0 songs alluding to any of this to supposedly be about her female rage", I would LOVE to hear your take on this argument. My perspective is that despite these being very real experiences *building* to female rage Taylor has been through, she has never once spoken about them seriously outside of how they have impacted her as an individual. In this very album she's the epitome of a pick-me with her "you said other girls were boring" and "i can fix him" lines in her songs about the rat. This is opposed to the deep rooted community backing that comes with representing female rage as a topic (again, Paris Paloma's Labor is so good at representing that). Anyway I just have been subject to too many Swifties claiming Taylor has every right to co-opt Female Rage and it's making *me* rage. I don't have plans to battle anyone about it cuz the critical thinkers are coming to these conclusions themselves but I would love to hear your very well articulated thoughts on this supposed "argument" Swifties have about her being allowed to use the term. The fact that she's been through sexual harassment in the past and continues to despite being the biggest artist in the world.

Hello! First, I am so happy to hear you are a fellow Literature major <3 <3 Wonderful! And thank you for your kind words, I appreciate it. I hope you enjoy your study while finding it all as beautiful and important as I do!!!!! Sorry, it took me so long to write back- I was busy thinking it all through. I understand your frustration though, believe me. I feel it too.

Okay, let’s talk about your question. It’s an intense question- but I do think that just shying away from the conceptual point within the Swifties argument would be to give a shield against criticism- and I truly believe that nothing is above criticism. Criticism keeps us grounded in reality- but more than that it keeps us humble in self-reflexivity.  

The argument is as follows: Taylor Swift is allowed to claim the term “Female Rage” because she has experienced harassment based on sex classification- correct? The swifies then levy four pieces of evidence for her experience of sex-based harassment, 1- she has had AI porn made of her, and 2- that she was in a sexual harassment lawsuit, 3- her art is often belittled, 4- her masters were never owned by her. 

Okay, now that I’ve laid out Swifties argument- I am about to go full Analytic Philosophy major on it. <3.  

The first piece of evidence is about the AI porn scandal. I want to express that the current mess of AI porn being made of women is despicable- there are sick, sick men out there who seem to think themselves entitled to viewing any womans naked body- real or fake. I am firmly against the creation of AI porn- and truly feel empathy for Swift having experienced it. I am sure that it was a negative experience. However, how exactly is this evidence in favor of her using the term “Female Rage” to describe her work when in fact none of her work addresses the AI Porn issue? Her work never even describes or addresses any of the issues implicit to the patriarchally permissive culture that allows for men to feel entitled to create AI porn in the first place. If this is to be a direct defense of her calling her actual body of work “female Rage” then I am going to need to see evidence of her being mad about the AI porn in her work.  

She literally never even condemns the patriarchy in her music. Not even one of her songs is about how the patriarchy, in connection with the digital age, allows for men entitlement to bleed over in the creation of AI porn. It is a systemic issue too- more than just Swift experiences AI porn being made of them without consent- so it could be the subject of song to express “Female Rage” at this being a systemic issue- yet Swift did not do this. Thus, it is not an accurate defense for calling her work “Female Rage” 

It is much the same case for the second piece of evidence. The closest we get is her singing “Clean” in Denver a year after her trial concluded, and during the time leading up to “Lover” in which a “dollar” was an Easter Egg. She famously wanted only a dollar for winning her trial. That easter egg, however, never had anything to do with the trial. In any case, there is still nothing in her work to suggest “female Rage” about being sexually assaulted. As far as I can tell- and I’ve listened to every song she’s ever written multiple times- there are only a few songs that can be loosely interpreted as dealing with anxiety and sadness. If we want to give benefit of doubt here- anxiety could tie into her experiences; I find this loose tie, however, uncompelling, because most of her music about anxiety- directly ties into some proto-capitalistic fear she is expressing.  

Again, I’m sure that she did experience something negative during her trial- and did feel passionate about its verdict; however, there is nothing in her music about this instance- nothing. There’s no Paris Paloma style call-to-arms against the Patriarchy for enabling men to commit sexual assaults.  

Before I move on- about the first two pieces of evidence- Swift is not obligated to write music about it- but if she is going to claim her work is “Female Rage” based on her experiences with either of the two things above- then I would expect to see reflection of these experiences in her work.  

Onto evidence three and four. The claim is that her art is belittled based on sex-discrimination thus qualifying it as female rage. The connecting claim is that she was never given the opportunity to own her masters.  

Her art is often regarded as simple pop-music made for adolescents- because that is what it is. I failed to see how this is belittling. It’s saying that the music does what Swift wants it to do- which is entertain children, teenagers, and those among us who want “family-friendly” pop-music. What’s the problem? I like simple pop music. I listen to a lot of pop music, because it’s fun and easy and simple. It does what it sets out to do- how am I belittling her by saying she writes basic pop music- not poetry.  

People often only draw issue with her music when she tries to claim it is more than simple pop music. I draw an issue here- because it doesn’t live up to the standards of real, robust artistic music. It just doesn’t- again it’s not really belittling anything. This is the difference between belittling- and giving legitimate criticism. None of these complaints against Swift’s musical ability, lack thereof, or lacking creativity as a groundbreaking talent is at all related to discrimination based on sex or on her identity as a woman. It literally has nothing to do with her being a woman- she's just not a serious writer. She’s clearly not even a classically trained musician.  

The fourth piece of evidence is again predicated on industry standard injustice. She did not own her master's- and was not offered the chance to own her master's. I, however, don’t really believe she was never offered to buy her own catalogue- I think she just gave a low-ball offer and got rejected. Personally, I feel like the amount of capitalistic rage that was unleashed after that- and the spiteful nature of her re-record issue- is because she was angry about getting her offer rejected. We all know, by this point, Swift can’t stand being told no. In any case, her not owning the masters of her catalogue is industry standard.  

It could be likely that perhaps the two men buying and selling her music were rather sexist- I do recall the “I own Taylor Swift” Scooter incident. While that is clearly a sexist remark, I do think that Swift’s response to this incident is less directly correlated to feminist effort and more in line with her own personal feelings of dejection- and feeling capitalistic rage. If anyone want further detail on that- it's all in my previous post on Swift’s rage in my discussion on “Mad Woman” (2020).  

The closest we get to a feminist-forward remark is her saying “Master of spin has a couple side flings” in which she is essentially outing Scooter as a cheater. That can only loosely be described as female rage- if you squint and look at it sideways. Otherwise, it’s just her trying to denotate a bomb in his life- it's very “eye for an eye” revenge that really doesn’t correlate to feminism or female rage. Because “revenge” is not the point of “Female Rage” or Feminism- The Point is JUSTICE and Showcasing WOMEN as Equals To MEN! AHHHH! It’s not like the guy was even cheating on her- she literally just wanted to ruin his life. (Not that I have sympathy for him. I’m just saying this situation was a personal vendetta for Swift- not some grand feminist declaration). But again, the interior motivations of her rage at Scooter- and the rage of women for centuries culminating into Female Rage as a movement- are drastically different motivating factors. In this instance she is lashing out with personal rage in which she is only advocating for her own point of view and personal hurts - not the community-driven concept of female rage. 

I do also find it strange that only on point three and four, the two points directly connected to her power and money, are the only two things we can directly trace into her music and her work. She literally only gets angry about threats to her money and power-  

Thus, I support my conclusion from my other post on Swift’s so-called female rage, that she is expressing corporate rage, or capitalistic rage. It is a different thing altogether, because, as I said in my other post:  

Female Rage is grounded in experiences of oppression and injustice- yet marked too by its ability to clearly advocate for women’s rights in systemic, patriarchal issues. Female Rage necessitates extending empathy to other women- who have suffered the patriarchy too. It’s a call to community and a call-to-arms against intersectional forms of patriarchal abuse.  

Never, in any of her four points of evidence, does she legitimately utilize her music to critique the patriarchy- which is an implicit necessity for art relaying themes of female rage.  

If she ever did actually broach the subject in her music in a way that gives legitimate criticism to the patriarchal standards she claims to hate- then I will change my mind.

Where exactly has Taylor Swift ever really advocated for anything? She gives us the world's most lazy, throw away lines about “Girl Power” and “Being a Boss” and even a few “you can want who you want/ girls and girls and boys and boys” (“Welcome to New York” 2014) - yet never does it culminate into any remark upon injustice in society. She never once modulates into a reflection into the mores of society in which some demographics are considered lesser- it's all just bleak pop-music wherein she appeals only to the most populist- surface level aspects of social issues. Notice too- that she only ever mentions social issues when it becomes most likely to have good reception from the public. She only became a feminist- after it became popular on social media.  

Where was she when I was a young lesbian feminist fighting for my life in the early 2000’s? Oh yeah, she was writing homophobic versions of her debut singles- and adding lines like “My Daddy’s gonna show you how sorry you’ll be” (“Picture to Burn” 2006) as an appeal to the patriarchy - I forgot. LOL. Where was she when feminism couldn’t be commodified- made fluffily and easy to “copy and paste” into her shitty pop-songs? Nowhere. 

It’s not about feminism, or female rage, for her- or standing up for anything at all in the face of the larger social system. For her, it’s about commodification and economic power.  

She's literally not a feminist. She’s not a LGBT activist- She's a goddamned opportunist and that has made her incredibly rich.  

Anyway, about TTPD, specifically, I need a whole separate post to talk about the overt anti-feminist, pro-patriarchy messaging of that album. Can’t do it here- I've rambled long enough. And I have a boat load of textual evidence to incorporate into my discussion on Swift so-called “feminist music” that I want to discuss in depth soon. I also have a Feminist-Marxist analysis lined up- that one I did just for fun 😊 

Ps- If you like any aspect of this argument or think that it might be true feel free to use it if anyone brings up the argument with you again. Sharing is caring. 

If you disagree and wish to burn me in effigy- Well, catch me if you can. <3 hahaha 

[daddy-kinard]

I shockingly wrote something that isn’t explicit smut. I don’t know if I’m happy with it, I don’t even know if it’s finished finished. But I’m trying to be less precious about things so here it is I guess. Maybe it will make it to ao3 at some point.

bucktommy, 1.6k, M (sexual acts implied but not actually written)

Tommy gets it now.

Having the scars impresses women, getting ‘em freaks ‘em out.

Tommy has cataloged Evan’s scars, with his hands, with his mouth. And he might not go so far as to say they impress him, not in the same way as the way his did with the girls he’d pick up at bars because he thought he had to. The fascination, the fetishization of his perceived heroics.

No, Tommy sees, in each of Evan’s scars, what this man, this ridiculous, improbable man, has overcome. So maybe the scars themselves don’t impress him exactly, but he admires them for what they represent. And the way it makes Evan gasp when he puts his lips to them. That helps too.

But the reality of him getting them, yeah, that definitely freaks him out, as it turns out.

The call comes from Eddie, left to go to voicemail as Tommy’s in the showers after a shift.

“Hey man, so Buck mentioned he had plans with you after shift? Just letting you know you might have to rearrange. We’re at Cedars. Could be a while.”

Tommy doesn’t really think once he’s changed and has heard it. Grabs his keys and wallet automatically, shoves his feet into a pair of sneakers, phone still pressed to his ear asking if he wants to delete the message or replay it. He wishes he could delete its contents from having become reality somehow. He drives on autopilot, then curses as he has to circle the parking lot two, three, times to find a spot.

He doesn’t even need to make it to the reception desk before he spots them, Evan’s little 118 family. Eddie’s leaning against the wall talking to Howie, both of them doing a good job of looking relaxed if nothing else. Bobby’s sitting, leaning back in the chair, legs wide, actually relaxed. It’s Hen who spots him first.

“Tommy?”

“I, uh, got Eddie’s message.” He waves the hand holding his phone. “What happened? What…is he, is he okay?”

And Bobby must see something in his face, because he stands, claps a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. And Tommy feels, suddenly, about 10 years younger again.

“First time on the other side of it, huh?”

And Tommy’s lost guys on the job, he’s had colleagues who’ve ended up in hospitals after calls, same as any of them. But this is different, those weren’t guys who’s plush lips he’d felt beneath his own, who’s blue eyes he’d watched blink open in wonder.

“Guess so.” He concedes, shifting his eyes to the side at the admission that this isn’t the same, that this is something more, out of habit more than actual concern for what he’d see in Bobby’s face.

“He’s going to be fine.” Bobby says, voice calm and authoritative. It soothes a little bit of the swirling something inside of him. “Shard of wood ripped up his forearm pretty good, but no deeper damage.”

And Tommy looks around at their little crew again. Sure they’re all here, but there’s a lack of panic, none of the anguish he feels inside visible in any of their faces.

“I’m, uh, I’ve overreacted haven’t I?” He rubs the back of his neck, a little nervously.

“It’s never easy to hear that someone we care about is in pain,” Bobby starts, “but we’ve seen Buck go through a lot, and, at least this time he’s not coughing up blood in my backyard.” He finishes wryly.

“Yeah, a few stitches are nothing compared to surgery on a crushed leg.” Howie pipes in.

“He didn’t…he didn’t die today.” Eddie adds, although though it sounds like it pains him to even say the words.

“But none of that means you don’t get to be worried, Tommy.” Hen offers. “You just better get used to terrible hospital coffee if you plan on sticking around.” He laughs despite himself, settling into the chair opposite Hen.

“Hey, guys, good as new.” Tommy twists his neck until he can see Evan coming from behind him, as Eddie makes a skeptical sort of a cough and Evan continues almost in the same breath, “well, maybe not new new, but, good as I was when I woke up today I guess.” He finishes with a shrug and a bashful smile - one of many that Tommy is so, so, fond of. It’s almost like an act though, a routine, as if they’ve done this together a whole bunch of times before, the way Evan doesn’t even pause to take a breath. “So, Bobby, what are the chances I can persuade you to use the lights on the way back to the station? Because I am going to be so late for…oh.” He cuts himself off abruptly as he notices Tommy. Tommy who’s suddenly aware that nobody, not Eddie when he left the message, and definitely not Evan, actually asked him to come. He doesn’t know if Evan’s sudden silence is a bad thing.

“Sorry, I kind of showed up uninvited.” he offers sheepishly. “Eddie called.”

Buck smiles now, this one clearly no part of an act; soft, and bright, and genuine.

“Don’t be. It’s nice that you’re here. That you wanted to be here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He swerves to meet Tommy where he’s now standing, still rooted to the spot, and tangles the fingers of his good hand with Tommy’s. They’re warm, moving, alive, and it comforts Tommy in a way he never expected to need.

“How bad is it?” He asks quietly.

“Well,” Evan blinks up at him, eyes bright and shining, “I might be limited to using my mouth for a couple weeks. Good thing we figured out that thing with my gag reflex I guess.”

Hen chokes on air. Howie splutters. Bobby, surprisingly, simply looks mildly amused.

“Got you on the good painkillers have they, Buckaroo?”

Tommy just squeezes his ridiculous - he wants to say boyfriend? partner? he just doesn’t know if he’s earned that yet - close into to his side. One arm curved around his broad shoulders.

“C’mon, I’ll drive you home. You need to go back to the station for your stuff? Or, I can pick it up later?”

“I can drop it off,” Bobby offers, “unless there’s anything you need right now, Buck?”

He shakes his head.

“Nah, got everything I need right here.”

And it’s corny, it’s so corny. But Tommy is hopelessly charmed regardless. Evan refuses to let go of his hand to let Tommy go bring the car around, insisting that he’s honestly fine, that he can definitely walk, and, as much as part of Tommy wants to protest, the feeling of Evan’s hand in his is a comfort he’s happy to hold on to.

Evan is not a good passenger at the best of times, but Tommy’s mostly expecting him to zone out as he drives him home - out of pain or exhaustion, or some combination of both - but he’s exactly as infuriating as usual. Tommy worries, at first, that it’s irritability borne from discomfort, but he turns to watch him at every red light they hit, and his face doesn’t show any signs of it. The third time he’s slow to start driving again, too busy searching Evan’s face for signs of pain, Evan sighs and turns to him instead of making his usual comment about reaction times slowing with age.

“Honestly, Tommy, I really am okay. I promise.”

“Evan, it was enough for them to give you pain pills. It’s okay to admit you’re hurting.” Especially to me. He wants to add.

“I never said they gave me pain pills.”

Tommy’s first instinct is to argue with him, but then he thinks back, quickly replays the conversation in his mind, and Evan hadn’t actually confirmed or denied Bobby’s assumption. Which means -

“So, you’re always that open about your sex life with your whole team?” He splutters.

“I mean, yeah I kinda have a reputation for oversharing, I suppose? But, it’s not just that, not really.”

“Then what?” He prompts gently.

“I don’t know, it’s like, it’s like everyone’s just…they’re so okay with it. With me. Dating you. Which is, y’know, great, obviously. But they’re so good at acting like nothing is different. And maybe I, maybe I feel different, Tommy, and I don’t want to just pretend like it’s the same.”

“Mmm, so…you’re combatting that by telling your boss you can deepthroat now?” He raises an eyebrow as he glances over to the passenger seat, but he thinks he gets it, what Evan’s saying. That him dating a guy might not be a big deal to anyone else, but it’s significant to him, and, ridiculous as it is, this is a way for him to highlight an example of how not-the-same it is. If he’d thought about it before he opened his mouth, he’d have expected Evan to laugh it off, to throw out some joke and move on, but instead Tommy can see him start to fidget in his peripheral vision, picking at a loose thread, or the skin around his nails, Tommy can’t actually turn to look at him properly, but he’s picking at something. He reaches over to try and still him.

“At least stop using your injured arm, hey, babe.”

“Sorry, sorry. It, uh, it probably wasn’t cool for me to say that, was it? Because they know you, and I, I did not check you were okay with them knowing.”

And. Oh. He’s overthinking Tommy’s feelings instead of his own.

“Hey, no, Evan. Maybe I was a little surprised. And it’s definitely not what would pass for appropriate conversation with my captain. But if it’s not going to get you in trouble, you can tell whoever you want about how I get to have you.”

Because, really, that is all that matters to Tommy these days. That he gets to experience life with Evan - so alive and imperfect, with all his scars and his insecurities. Real. For however long they get this.

[90363462]

Right FOH with all the hand holding of a grown ass man. This shit wack and weak as fuck!

then drake throws the white flag in heart pt 6 but not before making light of csa(molestation ) as if he hasn’t been inappropriate with teenage girls (no he’s not a molester but his actions are not okay for being inappropriate with somebody’s daughter) I’m also annoyed that some of these dudes only point to the pedo allegation being too far like Drake punk ass ain’t call that man an abuser first. Mf really don’t care if women get beat , because he be a heaux for the abusers smh he's a disgusting piece of shit!

And what if Kendrick was actually a victim of csa which by the way if Drake had properly listened to this song , tells he was never a victim of csa , he’ll just be outting a victim of child molestation .

You remember when on the long running reality tv series Survivor where Jeff Varner said that Zeke smith was “being deceptive “ because he never told anybody that he was a transgender person?

That same reaction from the tribe members and the viewers at home watching is the reaction I felt when Drake was using something as serious as child sexual abuse (molestation) to deny pedophile accusation because he was loud and wrong either way and even if he wasn’t wrong about his rival being molested as a child, he’s still in the wrong because what kind of person would use a traumatic experience as a weapon against someone to make themselves look good? Also what kind of person would out someone as a victim of a traumatic event as a child like molestation to say that they’re not downloading pdf files… oops I meant they’re not pedophiles?

and that reaction , in case you wondered, was outraged.

i dont feel no sorry for this clown he deserved everything that came his way

I'm glad NLU existed

[melancholypancakes]

Dream of The Endless & Witch of Mortals

Author’s Note: This is going to be another Morpheus x Ancestor! Y/n, I just adore young dork Morpheus who is still brooding, and a young mortal witch woman is falling for him. 

This is how Morpheus met Witch! Y/n’s Ancestor when covens were barely made along with spells and Witches were rumored to be evil beings and sexual who bewitches animals, men, and women for their flesh and bones to make spells.

The Rumors were not true of course, mortals made it up while witches were minding their own business back in those days and at best, witches used frogs for spells. 

I still have the headcanon that witches are seen as evil beings by mortals but in reality, they are just trying to help mortals and use their power for good and their daily lives. 

(Unfortunately for the witches that did not work in their favor AKA “Witch trials”) 

This takes place in 1682 a couple of years before witches were haunted down and hanged or burned at the stake.  

This video inspired this idea :) 

https://youtu.be/GfpR32Z-e9A

A young woman was collecting herbs and flowers and carrying a basket in the fields before heading into town to grab some ingredients for potions. 

This young woman was a witch and was doing these tasks for her mentor, she is a successor to the mortals when her predecessor could no longer do this task. 

Her Mentor had told her to take being a successor very seriously. For the young woman would be dealing with immortal beings, Gods, and The Endless. 

For you see this young woman was an ambassador for Mortals so her kind and Mortals would not be erased from existence and to be proven worthy to live and be useful to higher beings and themselves. 

So you can tell this job wasn’t given to any witch, the high priestess just hope mankind would not be so arrogant mistakes made by Mortals.

In Truth, the witches were good people and kept the peace but then again, like all beings, not all witches were good or bad… 

Anyway, The young woman paid for individual materials and placed them in the bag, but not until minutes after leaving the town did she bump into passers-by and drop her bag. 

She sighs and did her best to collect the fallen items as people walked past her until someone picked up one of her items and handed it to her. 

The Young woman looked up to see a very, very handsome man with raven long hair wearing a black cassock. 

At first, she didn’t think anything of it and said “Thank you…”. She then collected her items and the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. 

“Oh….Oh!” She quickly got up holding her basket close clearly startled by who the “man” actually was. 

The “Man” just looked at her confused and wondering if the mortal was alright although he was not known for deliberately helping mortals like this but something told him he needed to…

“You…aren’t you Morpheus?” she asked as he confirmed it by awkwardly saying yes. As for the witch, she was freaking out. 

This was Morpheus of The Endless, Dream of The Endless, Oneiros, part of the Endless, and was created by the Night and Time Itself.

This wasn’t a Mortal or a god He was an endless one of the most powerful beings that could wipe out life in a matter of seconds. 

So as ambassador of mortals, Y/n must take this job seriously and should not anger an Endless. 

The Young woman was intimated what he was but stood her ground well she tried to, she was a strong woman but was now nervous of an endless. 

“You’re an Endless!...” She squeaks as she gets embarrassed in front of Morpheus, “I..um” he says awkwardly as he realizes he made the poor girl uncomfortable without even trying. 

Morpheus didn’t even know mortals knew of him, it was strange to him how a young mortal woman knew…maybe someone told her? 

“Oh dear..this is so embarrassing” she nervously says as she quickly tries to walk away. 

“I’m so sorry…I had no idea!” She continues “Your endlessness…” she says as she was about to escape she felt his hand on hers holding her back. 

“Wait! Please…It’s okay.” He says as she covers her face with her hands and nervously talks. 

“I’m such a mess!” she says blushing, “No, you’re not…” he says trying to reassure the mortal woman. 

Suddenly, Morpheus smells a beautiful scent from the Mortal woman’s hair smelling like lavender. 

“You…Smell really…pretty” he suddenly says and the woman blushes red at what he just said. 

“I uh…I mean you smell good!” he says as Morpheus feels embarrassed, “She turns to him and nervously smiles. 

“Wow…this is awkward.” she says looking at him sheepishly then he looks at her, “Um…are we okay now? Miss…” he asks. 

“Oh! Y/n, I’m a witch of the Dreaming realm” she says as Morpheus looks at her with amusement in a way. 

The Young girl was indeed a Witch but she claimed her specialty lay within the dreaming was...very interesting, to say the least.

“Really?...me too.” He says as she giggles at him, “You don’t seem very…Witch like.” Y/n says. 

Morpheus chuckles, “You’re funny, no I’m part of the Dreaming as well,” he tells her and she suddenly gets excited. 

“No way!” she giggles and gets close to him. “Trust me, I’ve heard many stories about you Morpheus.” 

The young Witch seem to be getting really comfortable with the Endless and he seemed relieved and comforted by the witch girl as her cherry attitude was something wasn’t used to… 

[woahjo]

calllll, can i get some recommendations for your fav women authors? i’m okay w anything <33

YESSSS OF COURSE!!!!

so my number one favorite author right now is mieko kawakami. she primarily writes contemporary feminist fiction about women in their 30s and 40s. i know i've spoken about her a lot, but she writes beautifully about the experience of being a "non-conventional" woman within a patriarchal society. and she writes about loneliness so perfectly. god she's wonderful.

book recs by her: - heaven, this novel is actually outside of what i think she's most recognized for since the characters are younger, but it's a book about two bullied teenagers and the way they make sense of why it happens to them. a lot of it is an exploration of philosophy through fiction and it has one of the most frustrating (in a good way) scenes that i've read. just so so good - breasts and eggs, a book about a woman who wants to have a child without a husband, without marrying, and without a man involved. explores motherhood, families, sexuality, womanhood, and the ethics of having children with a surrogate father who is not involved in the child's life. asks a lot of questions of what it means to be a woman. also worth noting that in japan it is illegal for a single woman to do IVF (and a same-sex couple) and the book explores that. it's DELIGHTFULLY human. i love this book.

another one of my fav authors is octavia butler. she's a science fiction novelist and she often includes allegories about social and racial injustice, capitalism, and colonialism. i even feel like allegory isn't the right word because a lot of it is very in your face. she's a brilliant writer and her work is SO relevant to today's social climate (especially her earthseed duology). her work really draws you into the world that she builds, almost to the point that the taboos she includes no longer feel like taboos by the time you put the book down.

book recs by her (they're series): - lilith's brood / xenogenesis, this is a trilogy and im not joking when i say that it's probably the best series of books i've read. it's about humanity and the aliens that come to "rescue" them on the verge of extinction, humans having practically wiped themselves out with nuclear war. it's really difficult to describe the book any further without feeling like i'm spoiling it, but the novel is an allegory for colonialism and the idea of cultural identity. it's incredible. i was asked to read the first seven chapters for a class and then i finished the whole series in three days. i could not put it down. it's fantastic and by the end of it, you're so drawn into this world she's created that the things that once felt incredibly taboo become so normal. it's fantastic i cannot say enough good things about this series. (the first book is called dawn) - parable of the sower, this one is from a duology, but i'm gonna talk about the first one because i haven't finished the second. it's about a post-capitalism america. it's set in california in 2024, when the american government, currency, and systems have all but collapsed in everything but name. it's absolutely HARROWING the parallels this book has to the current state of america, despite being written in 1993. honestly, she told the future a little bit and it's really frightening. it's told through the eyes of a teenage girl as she starts the religion "earthseed" in an attempt to make sense of the world. the book is absolutely phenomenal. so so so so good.

[silverstarfics]

Here’s my fic for @thunder-pride​ lesbian day in which Kayo and Gordon are disasters and Penelope is just very confused.

AO3 link

The first twelve years of Kayo’s life passed blissfully unaware of all the complicated aspects of identity. She had a vague idea of romantic love and had already decided that she wanted nothing to do with the notion for a number of reasons but mostly because the idea of kissing a guy was gross.

Besides, she had to put up with enough boys at home where her brothers were loud and annoying and did disgusting things like dare each other to eat bugs or (even worse) Grandma’s cookies. The boys at school were even worse - at least her brothers could be nice. So, no, she was quite happy by herself thank you very much.

And then Gordon chose to watch Pirates of the Caribbean for movie night and she was introduced to Elizabeth Swann.

Kayo wasn’t sure if she wanted to be with her or be her. She was everything; beautiful, clever, feisty, could handle herself and okay, so maybe the idea of kissing Elizabeth Swann sounded quite nice actually. This posed an issue because girls weren’t supposed to want to kiss other girls… were they?

She stuffed her mouth with popcorn to give herself an excuse not to talk and proceeded to ignore those feelings, which worked brilliantly until several years later when a certain Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward smiled at her for the first time and a swarm of butterflies immediately materialised in her stomach.

Oh no.

In her defence, she wasn’t entirely oblivious. She had come to accept the fact that she was attracted to women even if the idea still scared her. She was different enough already, what if this was the final straw? Sorry, you’re too much. God, no. There was a reason why she’d tried to repress her feelings for so many years with the exception of one high school party featuring underage drinking and fumbled hands in a dark room with one another sworn to secrecy.

Unfortunately, her sexuality was the one thing she couldn’t run from, as was fast becoming clear as her vocal chords spontaneously decided to strangle themselves. She opened her mouth and let out a curious squeak.

There was a flash of something in Penelope’s eyes. “Are you quite alright?”

“I…”

John had once rambled about event horizons. It was the boundary around a black hole beyond which no radiation or light could escape; a point which no longer affected the observer. Kayo absently wondered whether she could fall into her own event horizon if she internally cringed any harder.

Um, hello? Voice? Brain? Form words, please.

“You’re nice. I mean, it’s nice. To meet you.”

Oh my god. Kill me now.

Penelope frowned.

“I don’t mean that you’re not nice,” Kayo hastily amended. “I’m sure you’re very nice. Not that I’m assuming. We don’t know each other yet. But I’d like to get to know you.”

Stop talking, Tanusha, oh my god.

“As friends. Not in a weird way.”

Oh yeah, totally saved it.

Penelope’s expression twitched as she attempted to refrain from laughing. “I look forward to getting to know you too. Something tells me that we’re going to make an excellent team.”

Kayo bit back her immediate question of what exactly do you mean by that? She imagined physically clawing back the words, locking them away in her chest where they couldn’t embarrass her. God knew she could already feel heat prickling across her neck which couldn’t be blamed on sunburn.

She wiped her hands against her jeans – oh my god, did my handshake seem weirdly sweaty? – and fixed a neutral expression on her face. Penelope’s gaze remained fixed on her and for a brief moment her world consisted entirely of impossibly blue irises until her heart sort of hiccupped and she was jolted back into the present. Oh god, why couldn’t she stop staring? She tore her gaze away and spied a distraction… or, you know, a victim. She had never been so glad to see Gordon in her life.

“Have you met Lady Penelope?”

It was miracle that her voice managed to remain steady. An even greater miracle was the way Gordon also forgot how to speak and promptly resembled a ripe tomato. Somehow, he made an even greater fool of himself than she had. At least she’d managed to stay on her feet. Really, it was Gordon’s own fault for wearing those stupid sandals everywhere; he’d worn down the soles so much that they caught on the slightest rough surface and sent him head-over-heels, such as right now.

“Careful!” Penelope caught him before he could faceplant. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, hey.” Gordon grinned wolfishly at her. “Looks like I fell for you.”

Yes, Kayo silently cheered. This is great! Keep embarrassing yourself! Make me seem like I’ve got my life together in comparison.

There was a brief silence in which Gordon slowly registered what he’d just said. That stern warning from Grandma that his mouth running faster than his brain would eventually get him into trouble suddenly seemed very real. He jolted backwards with a strangled yelp.

“I mean, uh, I- Thanks. I… have to go.”

“What a coincidence,” Kayo said sunnily, grabbing his arm before he could bolt. “So do I. We have… that thing.”

“Right!” Gordon nodded frantically. “That super important thing which we should definitely go and do. Like, right this second.”

Penelope stared after them, utterly bemused. “It was lovely meeting you!”

“Likewise,” Kayo called over her shoulder as Gordon dragged her out of the room.

Nothing was said until they had fled to his bedroom and closed the door behind them. Gordon flopped facedown on the floor and spread his arms like a grieving octopus, complete with a desolate wail. Kayo dropped onto the bed and drew her feet up to sit cross-legged. Maybe the sheer act of sitting in the lotus position would have calming properties even if she didn’t meditate.

“So,” she ventured after a few seconds of silence. “That could have gone better.”

Gordon made a vague, pitiful sound not unlike a dog when someone trod on its tail. Kayo was torn between laughing and screaming. She tipped onto her back and stared up at the ceiling with a heavy sigh.

“I’m a useless lesbian,” she declared.

“I’m just useless,” Gordon mumbled into the carpet.

She rolled onto her front and propped her chin in her hands. Gordon made no attempt to move from the floor which was a bold decision give his room could be considered a certified biohazard. Kayo could spy at least five wrappers and a mouldy plate from here alone.

“It’s fine,” she decided aloud. “She probably meets lots of people every day. I doubt she’ll even remember us by this time next week.”

“Really?”

“Nope. We suck.” Kayo buried her head in her hands with a slowly dawning sense of utter humiliation. “People make first impressions within seven seconds or less of meeting someone. She’s never going to forget us and not in a good way.”

There was another pause.

Gordon let out an exaggerated groan. “You know what I love about you, Kay? Your eternal optimism.”

[bibliophiliac-bisexual-disaster]

Okay, let's get something straight (or rather, gay). This goes out to all kpop fans.

If I have to see one more comment or tweet talking about how weird/gross it is for fans to discuss an idol's sexuality, or come after other fans for suggesting an idol might be queer, or act all holier-than-thou and talk about how we shouldn't "assume people's sexuality, I am going to fucking scream.

And before you come at me with wild accusations, let me get this out of the way - in no way do I condone the hypersexualization or objectification of idols. Or anyone for that matter. But discussing someone's possible orientation or seeing something that points to queerness isn't inherently sexual or fetishizing and to equate those two things is disgustingly homophobic on levels I cannot even begin to unpack here. Sexualities of all kinds (gay, straight, bi, ace, pan etc) are all celebrations of humanity and while it is up to every individual how public or private they want to be with their identity, it is not wrong to playfully guess or acknowledge signs of queerness (especially when so often there are explicit signs of queercoding!)

I encounter people's internalized homophobia and heteronormativity everyday both online and in person but the level of cognitive dissonance people have about this subject sometimes in the kpop fandoms I'm in is ASTOUNDING. So here I am writing this post to deconstruct some of shit.

First of all, the "oh, we shouldn't assume their sexuality" bullshit. People assume sexuality all the time. Literally, so much of the kpop industry itself is built on performative heterosexuality. We see in this in how commonly idols are asked about their "ideal type" (usually clearly implying the opposite gender). In how the slightest interactions between idols of different genders leads to dating rumors. In how it's assumed, especially for boy groups, that the fandom is mostly women/girls. In how it's normal for fans to pretend they are in a relationship with their bias. Like, be so for fucking real, kpop fan culture is literally where the word DELULU comes from. So it's okay to assume sexuality with all of this, but it's not okay if someone teases or so much as suggests that an idol might not be straight? The only time assuming sexuality is cast as being wrong is when the sexuality in question is anything but heterosexuality. And coming from a queer person, if you have ever said this, disrespectfully, fuck you.

Because in the process of saying shit like that you are essentially insinuating, intentionally or unintentionally, that not being straight is bad or abnormal. Because why else would you treat the suggestion of someone's queerness as an insult? Why would the idea that an idol is not straight be offensive or demeaning?

Even worse, this bullshit, patronizing, hetero-morality complex shuts down any discourse queer kpop fans want to have about queercoding in the industry. And there is a LOT of that. Korea is conservative, coming out isn't the only way to affirm queerness. And not wanting, not being able to be out and proud does not negate someone's possible queerness, idol or not. So queercoding is often an important form of self expression for some idols and to deny that discourse is denying those very idols you claim to be protecting their right to express themselves, their personhood and humanity.

And the cherry on top of the fucking cake is that of all places to do this, KPOP? An entertainment business model that has literally been built on queerbaiting? As much as I enjoy kpop, as a queer fan, this is one of the less than savory aspects of industry I have to be aware of and contend with. And if you find yourself wondering how kpop queerbaits, think about the concept of "fan service" between members of an idol group. Fan service includes all instances of a group encouraged to perform "skinship" or flirt with each other to amuse the fans. Fan service is literally an euphemistic way of referring to queerbaiting and it is unbelievable how people don't even realize it. It's even more frustrating to see some fans having the audacity to brush things off as "fan service" when fans playfully (emphasis on playfully) engage in shipping. They don't even realize how problematic it is that such "fan service" is used for the viewing pleasure of straight fans and baits queer fans but simultaneously denies queer fans their space and voice and shuts down actual queerness in the industry. If you enjoy fan service (and nothing wrong with that by itself), but also demonize shippers or shut down queer fans discussing queercoding, you are part of the problem. Don't come up trying to say you wish the kpop industry would be a little less severe on idols dating or being queer, because you are part of the reason why the industry is the way it is.

To all my fellow queer fans, be absolutely unapologetic for your jokes or memes or ships or thought-provoking discussions on queerness and queercoding. There is no shame in our joy, we are not wrong or twisted for it. Because we know that we would celebrate our idols for who they are or want to be no matter how they choose to express themselves. Do not let people who would twist it into something perverted or bad, as an excuse for their own homophobia, shame you for the innocent joy of celebrating queerness. Do not let yourself be ashamed of it. As long as you are kind and respectful, love what you love and be queer and proud and happy.

[guangchuans]

okay and now a total 180 because i will cry if i think about this any second longer so now a completely different train of thought that’s honestly equally upsetting but it’s been sitting in my mind since last night. taemin related ofc. sometimes i wonder how often the absolutely creepy and sexualised way he was treated near debut and up to juliette and lucifer and sherlock was excused because he “was actually a man” – as in, the sexual comments, the inappropriate touches, the constant feminisation too, all made less… offensive because at the end of the day, he is a boy! what a silly joke! which of course just shows how much humiliation and degradation and constant sexualisation women go through in the entertainment industry (and ofc outside too but that’s what we are talking about now).

it oftentimes seems people forget taemin became a legal adult 3 Three year into his career (if we treat it with the korean age system that is) and even before that happened, his youth was constantly sexualised, in a very… well. Too Normal for child celebrities way. the image of innocence and not knowing better, with talk show hosts and alike sometimes even physically pointing it out. and when they (the entertainment business people in this case let’s say) began to see him as a man, with shinee’s more masculine concepts too and his own solo debut being so hyper masculine (which i could talk about for ages the progression from ace to press it to move), they still saw him as an effeminate man. it helped, In A Way. and oh god sorry just remembered. that like, predebut-debut era “crossdressing” photos of him. i really hope i don’t have to unpack why a “pretty girl is actually a pretty boy in disguise how scandalous!” scheme is disgusting. taking something he had no control over, Being, You Know, 14-16 years of age, and twisting it into yet another fantasy they could sell, this once again innocent school “girl” image… i need to work better at organising my thoughts because i don’t know how to end this rant it is simply something i noticed last night when doing various sleuthing and all and it just… some of the clips i saw were so Uncomfortable with adult men draping themselves over teenage taemin it’s genuinely upsetting to know how much of the disrespect he experienced was Televised.

[griseldagimpel]

CW: Discussion of rape and incest

I hate the notion that something doesn't matter because it's "just fiction", as if stories haven't been reinforcing or challenging social norms since forever. Like, if stories truly didn't matter, no one would care about queer rep. No one would be talking about how stories helped them understand themselves and accept themselves. Stories have a great deal of power.

Okay. In addition to the insipid If You Like the Bad Stories You're a Bad Person notion that crops up on tumblr (which, no, stop focusing on some unobtainable notion of individual purity and get a better praxis) I also get frustrated with the way in which the influence of stories is treated as something happening in a frictionless vacuum.

Like, there was a post I saw about how Game of Thrones hadn't normalized incest. Except, here's the thing: historically, for the aristocracy and royal families, incest WAS normalized. Ask the Hapsburgs.

(Because this is tumblr and clarifications are necessary, no, I didn't have an issue with HOW GoT depicted incest in the few episodes that I saw before I bailed. And since I stopped watching a few episodes in, I cannot speak to anything that happened after that point.)

And, like, I live in a country where the rates of rape (completed and attempted combined) is 1 in 6 for girls/women and 1 in 33 for boys/men. (Source: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence) My culture is very hostile to ideas of consent and bodily autonomy.

Rape is normalized in my country! A convicted rapist - and it's so fucking hard to get a conviction at all - can get off with a slap on the wrist if he's a good athlete! Society's fucked up already, actually.

So when some writer creates a story where the victim secretly likes it or the severity of the trauma of rape is downplayed, that's not anything transgressive. That's literally the same rape culture bullshit the society I live in runs on.

I gave Game of Thrones a shot and bailed after it did "Your husband will stop raping you if you just do anal with him." as an honest to goodness plotline.

While talking to a co-worker about why I didn't watch, I said I couldn't handle the rape scenes. In response, he looked at me in wide-eyed confusion and didn't know what rape scenes I meant. I ended up having to explain to my co-worker - to my married co-worker - that, yes, it's still rape if a husband rapes his wife.

Because we're like fish swimming through the ocean, wondering what this "water" that's being talked about is.