#not sure if it'll be any good but at least it'll be written

[duhragonball]

The Punt Trick

I've been kind of inactive lately because I'm doing a writing project this month and I sort of fell behind on it. My morale was kind of low this past week, but I managed to turn things around this weekend by writing 5280 words, which is more than a quarter of the goal. Not too shabby, so I want to capture how I did it.

Historically, I've been able to write a lot more than 5k in a single day, but I can't do it consistently. It really depends on what I'm writing, and if it's something I already have laid out pretty well in my head, the words will flow. The problem I've been having in August 2023 is that my plot is well laid out, but I'm struggling to put down the words. I know what to do but I'm less clear on how to do it. So it's been slow going.

Basically, I made an hourly schedule for the rest of the month, detailing how many words I would write. I've tried stuff like that before, but the trick this time is that I made the wordcount assignments very small. I didn't think it would help very much, but it turned out to make a big difference.

For years, I would write numbers on a calendar, like "Oh, I'll write 2000 words on Tuesday, and then I'll do 2500 words on Thursday!" and then it'll be 11:48pm on Thursday and I'm 4000 words behind schedule for some reason.

I've tried making it more granular, but that would mean doing things like "At 6pm I'll write 1000 words, and then at 8pm I'll write another 1000 words! Easy!" But then it'll be 7:55pm and I won't have the first thousand done, which just demoralizes me further for the next thousand.

This time, I just decided "to hell with it" and assigned myself 500 words per hour. This turns out to be much more realistic. When I'm doing well, I can bang out 500 words in twenty minutes, but when I'm struggling (like this month), 500 words can take me... about an hour. Well, more like thirty minutes, which is great because if I procrasinate for half of the time alotted, I still have time to get the goal met.

And 500 is small enough that it's easy to overshoot. So chances are that I'll clear the goal with a little more than I needed, which makes the next hour easier to tackle, and so on.

And now that I've had this productive weekend, the schedule I've laid out for tomorrow will be even lighter. Monday I'm doing 250 words for each hour, which is probably too lax, but that just means I'll finish ahead of schedule. The important thing is that I'm not just vaguely declaring my intent to write 1500 words after I get home from work. Normally, I can do that pretty easily, but that confidence turns into procrastination, and I'll put it off until 10:30 at night, and then one thing leads to another and I blow it off completely. With this system, I have to start at 6pm, because it's not about getting 1500 by midnight, it's about getting 250 every hour for six hours.

This is something I really, really need to keep in mind for the future, because even when my writing goes well, I'll still run into spells where it doesn't, and this seems like an effective way to break the logjam. And it might also be handy for smaller projects, which I could break down into even smaller chunks, like 100 words, or even less.

I suppose what inspired me to try this was when I kept looking up at my word-counter and expecting to see some big numbers, and ending up with something dinky like "83" or "112". But with what I'm doing now, those are actually pretty good signs of progress. Chain a few of those together, and I can actually get somewhere.

I'm not sure if this would be helpful for others, but it definitely seems to be working for me, so if you're reading this and you find yourself stuck with your writing, give it a try.

[bloomingbluebell]

so mad at the thing in my brain that makes me freak out whenever there is something gorey or honestly just medically gross like. do you know how many games, movies, and TV shows are entirely inaccessible to me because of this? how many i've had to stop watching because they went a bit too hard in the gore/body horror department? how much money i spent on games i'll never play again? (regretfully looks at resident evil 7 and 8 in my steam library. at least 7 was on sale)

[yuri-is-online]

Jade desperately googling and reading threads about mer x human pregnancies before he even dates yuu.

It differs from species to species, usually fem mer x male human results in viable pregnancies, there are a two articles about eels and humans, but none about morays.

His hope is dwindling, and the general consensus about deep sea folk relationships with humans isn't very good.

I HC that male mer x female human pregnancies don't last very long. After the sperm makes contact with an egg, it'll need a few months of growth before it's expelled from the body and put into the sea. Those kinds of couples usually have one child at a time, it depends on the number of available eggs.

Modern day people in twst have aquariums that are made to hold the clutches in a safe environment away from predators. The aquariums can be used both underwater and on land. After 'hatching' the babies are translucent, they are kept in the aquariums until they gain colour. Once they have enough colour they are let out.

The smallest aquariums need to hold at least one human adult, so that a parent can interact and communicate with their clutch during the growing process.

I think I read a post/fic with a similar headcannon to this? Long long ago, perhaps even before I even downloaded Twisted Wonderland. I don't fully remember... but it is something I have been thinking about a decent bit ever since you sent this ask because it raises so many questions.

I think it makes the most sense in human x mer relationships for one or the other to take a transformation potion and move onto the land/into the sea. In these cases pregnancy/egg laying would go as it would "normally" but what you're suggesting made me think about what would happen if a couple got it on raw in their normal forms and not transformed. Would that result in a viable pregnancy? If it did would it produce the sorts of offspring you are suggesting or would it result in some sort of hybrid child, barely held together by their own magic?

The aquariums are a good idea, the story seems to suggest that Jade and Floyd had other siblings once but they didn't make it. Their mother's obsession with checking up on them and teaching self defense makes a lot of sense if you think of that... she lost most of her babies, she wants the two she has to remain safe (i bet she's going feral rn, let Mama Leech into the enclosure S.T.Y.X. she'll put Malleus in his place ٩(๑`^´๑)۶) My question is whether or not that would interfere with the development of the eggs, especially on land. The deep ocean is very cold, recreating that on land could be problematic. With how few merfolk seem to bother with land (Azul mentions not many people bother with the free program in Book 6) there likely wouldn't be much of anyone thinking up a solution to this problem so few people have.

But Jade has that problem. Or will, he's sure of it but that's a minor detail- point is this is a problem he's actively thinking about. It keeps him awake at night, Jade strikes me as someone who would do a lot of research about this. It's part of how he loves, pouring through a pile of scientific articles that was slim to begin with but feel irrelevant now. None of these help him understand his chances because he is from the deep sea, Jade might be hardened towards the death of his siblings but he thinks of his own children and a rage unlike any he's ever known begins to stir in the pit of his stomach. Later, much later when he is explaining this all to you he will brush it off as him considering your human sensibilities, but the truth is written plain on his face. This little aquarium he has made was a solution painstakingly crafted with help from his own obsessions. It's the most important terrarium he has ever made because it will contain the most precious of all life forms, ones he watches grow in awe as he coos softly. These children were wanted long before they were ever born, their parents loved them to the point of invention and every second up until they hatch and forever after.

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddiesongfics.

Heat Waves

August Prompt: Heat Waves by Glass Animals (2020) | Word Count: 1500 | Rating: E | CW: Explicit Sexual Content | Tags: There's a Heat Wave in Hawkins, Eddie POV, Post S4, Eddie Munson Lives, Pining, Voyeurism, Masturbation

It's fucking hot. 

The fan is doing very little to keep up with this unbearable heat wave they're going through this summer. It's hotter than balls, and Eddie is absolutely certain it has something to do with the after effects of Vecna. Like cracking open the earth somehow unleashed the heat straight from hell itself. It's undeniable that this area of Indiana is ten or more degrees hotter this summer than the surrounding areas, and honestly, watching the meteorologists bend over backwards trying to explain the cause of it is often hilarious.

There is no explanation they are ever gonna come up with that makes any sense, but god bless 'em for continuing to try.

Eddie is laying in his bed, listening to music on his headphones, because the neighbors are far too eager to call the cops on him these days. So, Wayne gently suggested the headphones, and for Wayne, Eddie obliged. Tonight, it's just him and Iron Maiden, as he lays in his boxers, hair damp with sweat. Even now, in the middle of the night, the temperature inside the trailer is nothing short of miserable. 

The scars on his side are tight, and no matter how much lotion he rubs into them, he still worries that they are always gonna be this way. Feel this way. Look this way.

Just. Be this way.

At least no one will see him here in the dark.

Wayne's at work, Henderson's surely at home in bed, and Steve is gone for the night. 

Steve's here a lot, too much probably for Steve's sanity, but Eddie isn't about to shoo him away. No fucking way. But he doesn't blame him for not wanting to stay all night in a trailer with very little air movement. It's a hot box. 

The government is supposed to do better, this is allegedly just temporary, but Eddie knows better. They brushed them off into a trailer that's worse than the one that was ripped apart, and this is exactly where they'll stay.

He's sure of it.

Temporary his ass.

But he doesn't expect Steve to suffer through it, too. Not when he has a big empty house, with all that expensive central air.

Steve tried to get him to come back to his house, but Eddie hasn't done that since his parents showed up unannounced on weekend and freaked the fuck out that Eddie Munson, Murderer, was on their couch.

Assholes.

It's a goddamn miracle that Steve isn't one, at least not anymore. Maybe not ever. Eddie isn't sure. Not now. He always thought King Steve was the asshole, but maybe, just maybe, Eddie was the asshole. Maybe they both were, in different ways. Eddie can't decide what's true.

Eddie thinks about Steve all the time. Sometimes he's all Eddie thinks about. He shouldn't. He knows that. They're friends, and that's a miracle in itself. Even if Steve did have an interest in guys, Eddie's sure he's not Steve's type. Especially not now that he's damaged goods.

The fan blows across his body, back and forth, and his one remaining nipple comes to attention with the breeze. Eddie isn't even sure why. It's not cold in here, but he still rubs his thumb across it.

It feels good, and he doesn't take for granted that he can feel anything at all there. Not now.

His dick stirs, and it's too fucking hot for that. Unless he wants to go take a cool shower, and he really doesn't want to move from right where he is. Not tonight.

But his cock hardens, trapped against his thigh, and he slides his hand under the waistband of his boxers, pulling his cock upwards. Wrapping his hand around it loosely. Jacking slowly, eyes closed. He doesn't intend to take this anywhere, not really, but if he can just show it a little half-assed attention, maybe it'll settle down.

Lazy stroke, after lazy pull, and before he knows it, he's edging himself towards a slow, easy orgasm, even if his hand is way too fucking dry, and this wasn't how he intended on this going.

But it feels good, so he keeps it up. Loose grip, slow strokes. He prefers not to rub any additional skin off of his body, thanks. He's lost enough, as is.

He thinks about Steve. How it'd feel if it was his hand instead, breathing out his name, "Steve."

And that's when he hears it, a whine.

Eddie's eyes snap open, and Steve is standing in the shadows of the doorway.

He's a mirage. The heat wave faking him out.

But he's not shimmering. He's not moving an inch. Eddie can barely see him at all, just the familiar outline.

"Steve?" Eddie finally chokes out, voice scared, as he pulls his headphones off his ears and down around his neck.

"Yeah," Steve says, "it's me. Sorry. I was staring."

Eddie laughs. He was staring. Eddie wasn't gonna mention it, but if he wants to bring it up, that's fine.

"Never seen a man jerking it before?" Eddie asks, not pulling his hand out of his boxers. His dick is still hard, and very interested in the man in front of him.

Steve licks his lips, and Eddie's dick jumps against his palm, "Yeah. Sure. Just. Not you."

"Well, I'm only a man," Eddie says, slowly pulling his hand upwards, going to stop touching himself with Steve in the room, when Steve startles him.

"No. Don't."

"Don't?" Eddie questions, hand stilled. "You want to watch?"

Steve nods.

Fucking hell.

Eddie's not shy, but this is brand new territory, even for him. Letting his friend watch him finish jerk off is nothing he's ever dreamed of before.

Eddie rubs his palm over the head of his dick, gathering up the precum there, trying to help the glide in any way he can.

His eyes are still on Steve, and Steve's own palm is crushed against his jean-clad crotch. Goddamn. 

Eddie strokes himself, lazily, keeping eye contact with Steve. Steve's sweating, drops running down his forehead. This is the hottest thing that's ever happened to Eddie, and it's not even close. 

Steve's rubbing himself through his jeans, and his dick looks fucking huge, at least from here. Eddie wants to see it, touch it, taste it. Get fucked by it. Stroke it while he fucks Steve. Any of it. All of it. If he'd only be allowed,

And as much as Eddie wants to see Steve stand there stroking himself while fully-clothed until he comes in his goddamn jeans from watching him, Eddie wants more.

Eddie makes a decision, he tugs down his boxers, freeing his cock from the fabric confines. Showing all of himself to Steve. His scarred hips, his hard cock, all for Steve.

Steve's eyes are glued to him, watching as Eddie holds onto the base of his dick, cupping his balls, holding everything for Steve to see. 

"Goddamn," Steve breathes out.

"I've shown you mine," Eddie says, with a bravery he didn't know he had. He must be delirious from the heat, "Wanna show me yours?"

Steve's nodding, popping the button on his jeans, tugging the zipper, wiggling the tight denim down his thighs, taking his briefs with them.

Oh, fuck.

He's everything Eddie wished he might be, and more. 

"Look at you," Eddie says, "Can I touch?"

And that's all it takes, Steve is shimmying across the room, kicking off his shoes, getting fully undressed as Eddie yanks his boxers off, doing the same.

Then, Steve's naked body is covering his. His mouth finding Eddie's, tongue immediately sliding inside, as if they've been doing this together forever.

Eddie moans, hands rubbing up and down Steve's back, his ass, and they're both covered in a light sheen of sweat. Slick as they rub against each other, rutting their hard cocks skin-to-skin. Desperate. Hot.

This is a whole 'nother level of horny. Eddie's never felt like this in his whole life. He feels drunk, stoned, fucked up on this man who's rubbing off on him.

Eddie cups his ass cheek, squeezing, before brushing the tips of his fingers against Steve's asshole, and Steve bucks against him, coming.

Oh, fuck. They are gonna have so much fun together.

Steve leans back, and rubs his palm through his own come, and then wraps his fist around Eddie's dick, and starts jerking him off in earnest. Eddie can't decide what to look at. His own cock, being worked over by Steve. Steve's face. Or Steve's softening dick, laying against his thigh, thick and wet.

It's all so fucking good.

Steve twists his wrist, and Eddie comes, hips lifting off the bed.

And Steve smiles, laying back down on him. It's too hot for that, way, way too hot, but Eddie says nothing. He just rubs his fingers up and down Steve's slick back.

They're gonna need a shower, and soon. But right now, Eddie'll suffer through the heat wave to have this wet dream of a moment together.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddiesongfics and follow along with the fun! 🎶

[vasyandii]

Hello! I just wanted to say that I absolutely adore your IHNMAIMS oc. I'm a OC x canon enthusiast and seeing a character so well written and adapted to the story as Vernon is makes me so excited!! Plus your art is literally amazing. I've been curious since you mentioned how Vernon cuts potions of her meal to give them to AM and how the food improved since AM got his body, what food/meals do Vernon and AM like/dislike/have as favourite? -for AM, at least from what he has tasted- Whether if it's because of the taste, flavour, etc.

Howdy Anon! Thank you so much for the kind words, I've been giddy since I got it a few days ago! I'm glad my OC x Canon content gets your stamp of Approval >:D!! 💞💞

VernonAM 🏺🖥️ Food Preferences

I think Vernon is careful in choosing the food she shares with AM because he will eat literally ANYTHING. She would try to eat things to torture herself with, extremely spicy foods, live insects, raw organs, etc. but then remember that she has to "Feed AM". So she opts out for something normal so his taste buds don't get fucked.

Or as normal as it can get, the food kind of has the uncanny valley effect as well. It looks normal and tastes normal, but she feels there's something a bit off about it (kind of like airplane food). So she often leaves criticism to the Chef™ (AM) or asks to cook instead.

Vernon isn't particularly picky when it comes to food, she'll eat it and clean her plate. She likes her food balanced, vegetables/meat with sauce and all that. If it tastes good, she'll eat it, y'know?

AM is more... difficult. Sure, he'll eat anything, but if it tastes really bad, it'll traumatize him and he'll refuse to eat it for a while.

His food has to not be touching, if it's mixed in all together beforehand he'll eat it. If there's sauce it shouldn't be close enough to where it can contaminate the food AM's eating because he WILL taste it, no matter how small the amount is. His utensils need to be a specific size, and the food HAS to be hot/warm. He needs to be able to see or know every ingredient in it.

It's observed that AM likes fried foods/anything crunchy because of how consistent they are in taste, texture, and flavour. So what ends up happening is Vernon will just include those foods into her meal, just to not eat it and have it on a little plate for him.

Vernon asks him why he can't just make food for himself, his response is "I don't need to eat, I eat when when you eat."

But honestly it's a pretty dumb question now that she's looking back on it. AM has all the knowledge in the world about food, everything ever made, everything he's never tasted. So he's basically asking Her, indirectly, "I don't know where to start or what's good. But you do. I trust you. Feed me."

Now here's some of the meals They've had together (+ AM's comments):

Chicken soup ("Too wet", just ate the broth)

Caesar Salad ("Damp, Crunchy water")

Vanilla ice cream (experienced a brain freeze for the first time, thought his body was malfunctioning)

Spaghetti Bolognese ("No I will not be mixing it, you mix it for me")

Western beef stew (He picked out the potatoes and only ate those. Thought the meat was irritating to eat.)

Baby carrots. ("You know they bleach these, right?")

Asparagus (he likes them. Needs to be warm)

Broccoli (same thing)

Cheese Pizza (Ate it, ate too much. Tummy hurted.)

Tempura (Ate too much, tummy hurted)

Fish and chips (Ate too much, tummy hurted)

Coffee, black (spat it out)

Macaroni and cheese (Ate too much, tummy hurted)

Grilled chicken hearts skewers (He liked it, but kept poking the roof of his mouth with the skewer.)

Half a Hamburger (picked out the vegetables because he didn't like them, still tasted it and gave the rest to Vernon)

Half a cheeseburger (ate it with no fuss.)

Aaand that'll be all for now :) if you made it this far, thank you for reading! If you need any clarifications, feel free to tell me!

[educatedsimps]

hello!!! I love your fics! Can I request a kenma x reader? where he does things he hates but still does it for the reader because the reader loves it? eg: getting wet in the rain etc? thank you if do!!

≪ back to fics masterlist

kozume kenma x reader

a/n: HI ANONNN i'm so glad you like our stuff! and ofc bae :) yes kenma would 100% do stuff he doesn’t like just for his partner because they love it.

cw: not exactly the usual type of fic with a storyline, it's kind of like headcanons? mostly? but written headcanons? i think ????? idk man. anyway it's all fluff and kenma being ridiculously in love with you :)

wc: 1.7k

fic below!

the following is based on true events: lyssa: *sends yves a screenshot of the request* look there's another kenma req! yves: he's a literal cat lyssa: yeah! wait but that's not the point of the- yves: hold on i have a tweet for this lyssa: LMAO ofc u do

okay, on to the real stuff!

"Kenmaaaaa, let's go (insert activity of choice)!"

"...do we have to?"

"Yes! It'll be fun, I promise!"

"...are you sure?"

"Yes, come on!"

"...you really wanna?"

"Yes! And I promise to spend a whole day gaming with you. We can play literally any game you want. Now, can we go? Pleaseeee?"

Sigh. "Alright."

This was the usual conversation between the two of you whenever you wanted to do something Kenma didn't necessarily enjoy. In other words, you’d bribe him with a full day of gaming together.

You knew he'd much rather stay in any day of the week instead of go out and engage in such uncomfortable, sweaty and outdoor (derogatory) activities. Anyone who even remotely knew him would know that. However, you genuinely thought that doing more physical activities together would be good for the both of you.

Hence your increasingly frequent pleas for him to join you in doing said activities.

The first time you asked him out on such a date, it was to go swimming together. He looked at you with a blank expression, but you could read his thoughts exactly. "Do you even like me? Do you even know me?" was what he seemed to be saying. With his eyes, at least.

To be honest, most of his reasons for not wanting to go swimming were pretty valid. Why would he wanna get soaked just to take another shower after that? Why would he go swimming when there are gonna be people around to witness him flap around in the water? And his hair is already bleached, so why would he want to ruin it further by going into a pool practically loaded with chlorine? Out of everything, chlorine had to be the bacteria killer? Why couldn't it have been something nicer, like chocolate or something?!

Fair enough, you thought. But by the time the two of you were out of the pool that day (you don't even remember if you just played in the water or if you actually swam laps together), the sun was literally shining down on him, yet his smile seemed brighter than the sun itself. You weren't sure exactly what about swimming had made him smile like that the first time, but since then, every time you suggested going swimming together, you'd remind him how much fun he had the last time and he'd be less opposed to the idea.

Even though he'd probably never admit it to you, he actually enjoyed going swimming with you that first time because of you. The way you laughed and the way you seemed so comfortable in the water honestly captivated him. Then he started to notice how the sun reflected off the water and onto your skin, casting a golden glow around you.

So damn pretty, he remembered thinking to himself.

Soon, you started going swimming at night - to not "die of UV rays", in his words - and the way the moonlight reflected off your skin was simply ethereal. He couldn't have used any other word to describe you in that state. You reminded him of a siren, and if real sirens were even half as beautiful as you, he’d understand why those pirates and sailors were so easily lured out to sea.

Even if you couldn't swim swim, you still looked so content in the water that slowly, he couldn't say no to going swimming with you anymore.

The next kind of activity you asked him to do together was to go to the beach. And of course, you were met with the usual resistance at first. The way his face lightened when you said "swimming" then pinched together when you said "at the beach" told you exactly what he was thinking.

Ew. Sand. Everywhere.

Honestly? Valid. Sand gets everywhere - and I mean everywhere. The sand gets scorching hot in the daytime so why would anyone wanna go there? To get sand up your ass? To burn your feet off?? Like, can't you just do that over the kitchen stove or something?

That was until you were spending the day together at the beach, building sandcastles and sunbathing and just hanging out by the water. You could never forget how relaxed he looked by the end of it.

Sure, there were tons of other people at the beach that day, but he completely forgot about that when he was with you. You just did that somehow - make him feel like it was just the two of you even in a crowded room.

"It's not that bad, right, Kenma?"

"Eh..."

It's "not that bad" only because of you but I'm not admitting that, is what he was thinking.

This process continued with several more activities - cycling, hiking, even going to the gym.

When you asked him to go cycling together, his face told you, "What makes you think I'd enjoy cycling when there isn't even water to help me cool off this time? And what if I lose balance and fall?"

When you asked him to go hiking together, his expression screamed, "There aren't even gonna be wheels this time, are you kidding me? My legs are gonna give out. You're gonna have to haul me back home by yourself and it's not gonna be my problem."

And when you asked to go to the gym together, he muttered, "Kuroo and Yamamoto are rubbing off on you."

Despite these complaints, Kenma always came home looking more refreshed than ever. Even though he still didn’t love those sports, he didn’t hate them either, thanks to you. But that wasn't the point.

To him, the point was just seeing you do what made you happy. And as much as he hated getting all sweaty and sore and tired, he absolutely loved watching you go about the activities you had planned. Sure, you were just as sweaty and sore and tired as he was, but he didn't care. He honestly just cared that you were happy, and he knew then that he would do anything just to make you smile like that for the rest of your lives.

As for non-physical activities, if you love doing things like going to the museum, painting, gardening, yoga or meditation, board games, photography, he'd definitely be less resistant even though he doesn't particularly love those activities, and of course he'd just enjoy spending that time with you. Honestly, he's just glad you didn't pick something physically draining this time.

One time, you dragged him away from his video game and out of his bedroom to go play in the rain together. When you told him you wanted to go out into the rain, he had half a mind to drag you back into the house and lock you in the bedroom with him. But he was also kinda curious as to what you could possibly find so exciting in the middle of a rainstorm, so he followed you outside with just his hoodie, sweatpants and house slippers.

As raindrops pelted against his skin and clothes, he looked up to see you standing in front of him with your arms held out to the side and your head tilted slightly upward.

It was cool and rainy night, and Kenma would typically be in the comfort of his bed or gaming chair, safely sheltered from the rain. Why the hell would you wanna go out in the rain when you have a perfectly good house to stay in? He thought earlier.

Now, he finally had an answer to that. Two, in fact.

One, it was beautiful. He's obviously seen rain before, but only from his window. He had never been in the rain like this before. He's been caught in the rain on the way home from school or practice, sure, but never deliberately in the rain.

Looking up, the night sky was splattered with stars, barely visible behind metallic grey storm clouds. Silvery droplets raced towards the ground and glistening specks of water started to collect on his lashes. Blinking them away, he could see you in front of him.

The second answer to his earlier question was simple. You.

Dressed in one of his old volleyball jerseys, home shorts and slippers, you still looked so goddamn beautiful to him. You were laughing wholeheartedly even as raindrops assaulted your skin from above. You were somehow glowing even with just the dim streetlights nearby. Turning towards him, you grabbed his hands and pulled him towards you, further out onto the empty street.

"Come on, babe, have some fun!" You yelled, making sure he could hear you through the downpour. He could feel the rainwater slowly soaking through the material of his hoodie and onto his skin. He watched as you started kicking your feet and jumping into puddles of water on the road, and soon, the two of you were in the middle of an all-out puddle war.

Sooner or later you'd both be out of breath, and you'd end up with your arms wrapped around his neck and his around your waist. As the two of you swayed slowly back and forth, everything seemed to be in slow motion. The falling of rain around you, the steady beating of your heart, your slow breaths and the quiet rumble of thunder nearby added to the overall ambience.

Thinking back, he wasn't sure if this experience was beautiful because of the rain or because of you. Probably the latter, he thought. Furthermore, if he had to describe this experience in one word, he'd say it was magical. Simply and absolutely magical, and all thanks to you.

That day, he also decided that going out into the rain with you was worth an extra shower, and eventually this became a habit for the two of you whenever it rained heavily at night. If you moved to an apartment, you'd stand on the balcony together and stay there while it rained. Sometimes you'd dance, sometimes you'd play around with the puddles of rainwater on the ground, and sometimes you'd just be in each other's arms talking about anything and everything.

Main point is, he’s in love with you and he would do anything for you - even if it means getting sweaty and tired. Though I don’t think he’d complain that much if you asked to play volleyball HAHAHA

© educatedsimps 2024. do not repost, copy, translate or plagiarize any work from this blog on tumblr or any other platforms. if you do, the simps will hunt you down. likes and reblogs are appreciated!

[seafoamreadings]

week of august 11th, 2024

these are written predominantly for the *rising* signs but they are also intuitively "channeled" enough that they should work for any dominant energy you have! (try your sun if you don't know rising, or more advanced readers can try moon, anywhere you have a stellium, etc and see what works best for you!)

aries: mars on jupiter is no small thing, especially for you. but it's much more benevolent than the fairly recent mars-uranus conjunction even with saturn involved. your appetites are large and your impulses likely feel very urgent. it's good to listen to them, but be sure to think before acting or even speaking.

taurus: you may feel pressure to spend money or resources (including time or too much thought). even if it's worth it, it'll most likely wait until a time of less pressure so you can get your mind clear. try to spend only on real emergencies and basic necessities for now. i know i can't talk a taurus (such as myself) into not having a little treat though... just keep it small.

gemini: mars and jupiter meet up in your sign for what promises to be an intense set of urges. it does make you look powerful to others; no need to put on any displays because it just radiates off of you. if it's contrived it actually looks weaker. anyway, use that to your advantage this week but don't think you have to act on anything just yet. it's okay to just sit and look intimidating for now.

cancerians: there's a lot going on and you're sensitive enough that you've definitely noticed. yet you have your act together so well that others may view you as unshaken and utterly unperturbed which is not a bad situation to be in. let your finances show it; mercury back into leo this week can have you tempted with bad investments. just hold on to the cash for now.

leo: seems like just yesterday mercury was in your sign... well, he's back already thanks to his retrograde. as long as you've been good with your traditional mercury retrograde protocols, this benefits you, and slow movements and delays also benefit you. you are regal, eloquent, and charismatic as long as you don't let your nerves show.

virgo: while it's true that mercury retrogrades almost flamboyantly back into leo this week, it doesn't mean you get to return to ease just yet. relationships and your reputation are, at least in small ways and possibly in quite large ways, on the line. if you want to experiment with cutting something off, this is a good time to give it a tentative try. it will likely come back and when it does you can re-evaluate if you want to welcome it back or send it away for good.

libra: this week is broadly supportive to you but at the same time it is tense and probably encased in a strange aura. the tension makes for growth and the strange aura is mostly just a sign of the times. lean into academic pursuits and broad, new horizons.

scorpio: your sign gets described as intense a lot, but even you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the tension and high weirdness of this week. take nothing for granted and expect the unexpected. things come and things go and they're going to happen fast for a while.

sagittarius: the weird vibes of the week may kind of suit you. that's weird as in wyrd, not weird as in some creep... weird in a good way in this case, although you can expect upheaval and many changes. they may well not be permanent though, as mercury is smack in the middle of the retrograde.

capricorn: your ruling planet saturn is up to a lot of quiet activity in a tumultuous time. changes made need backbones to stay around. if something happens you don't like, give it no structure. if something happens you do like, give it a steady foundation to continue. when mercury goes direct again many feeble things disappear.

aquarius: one thing you cannot do at this time is expect relationships to make sense. and this is not at all restricted to romantic relationships, but all kinds - the axis between yourself and 'the other.' and even your relationship to the world around you. you relative to the sky, the trees, and gravity. it's not going to be logical this week (or probably next either). that actually is probably cool with you since although you appreciate reason, you know the value of the unconventional.

pisces: neptune sextile pluto (they're both in retrograde) IS old magic. you are the magickian. you don't even have to try. but if you do try, it is more orderly. meanwhile saturn is providing a lot of structure for the magic to stick to, to give it form in the tangible world around you. it's NOT all in your head. this is unification of all ethereal realms and the condensate realm in front of your eyes. do with that information whatever you will.

[zoeykallus]

Hm? *gets hit in the face with a note* GAH- *opens the note* another request? But it’s with- *ahem* “I request Reader x Crosshair but make it with Pheromones please-” Oh no…

Aloha!

You are getting a lot of those notes, aren't you? 😁 Well, as it happens, I actually have an idea for a scenario like this, I'm telling you I gathered the wildest ideas in my fever dreams 😅

Crosshair x Fem!Reader One-shot -

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Warnings: 'Good old' Pollen Trope/ Smut/ 18+/ Bondage/ Dubious Consent/PiV Sex/ Dirty Talk/ Strong Language/ Oral/ Feral Crosshair/ Graphic Description Of Sexual Actions/Overstimulating

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Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

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AC: I feel like I've not written anything like this in years. Which of course isn't true, but it still feels like it. But I think I like what came out of this.

Crosshair keeps sneezing as you make your way back from your little expedition. The rest of the group is on an errand with Rex and his shuttle. You and Crosshair have stayed behind. Curiosity has driven you into the surrounding landscape of the Marauders' landing site. Even though Crosshair has no interest in the surrounding flora and fauna, he reluctantly came along, saying, "I guess I can't let you go off on your own. If anything happens to you, I will never hear the end of it when the others come back" You take off your gear when you get back, at least the things you don't need at the moment, as he sneezes again. Crosshair sighs and rubs his temples. You frown critically and say, "You should have used an air filter, like me" "Nonsense," he grumbles. "Well, I don't have to sneeze," you reply, shrugging your shoulders. He rolls his eyes and waves you off. "Just some pollen, nothing more, it'll be over in a minute" You pick up your data pad and say, "Some pollen can be dangerous, Cross"

When you call him by the pet name you're the only one to use, he rolls his eyes again, but he doesn't complain. He doesn't want to admit it, but somehow he likes that you've given him a nickname. It shows that you like him, and he likes the idea, but he won't admit that either. You browse through some information about the planet, especially the fauna, and suddenly stop. Something you've discovered makes you nervous. "See," he says contentedly, "it's stopped already, I don't have to sneeze anymore, it's all half as bad" When you don't answer, he turns back to you after taking off his armor. "Since when are you so quiet?" Again, you don't answer, you're engrossed in the information about a particular plant you've found. "Hey, Kitten," he says impatiently, "are you even listening to me?" You look up and ask him critically, "Why did you take off your armor? It's the middle of the day" Crosshair shrugs and says, "It's warm in here, and it's more comfortable without it" You say critically, "I don't think it's warm in here" He grumbles, "Well, I do"

"Any other symptoms?" you ask, a little alarmed. Crosshair reaches for your holopad, takes it from your hand, and skims the article you've just read. Depending on the amount of pollen inhaled...Heat flushes, sneezing, headache, followed by extremely increased libido, sexual desire bordering on animalistic proportions, loss of control... High probability of becoming a danger to yourself and those around you. If left untreated, the condition ends in extremely high fever, which can lead to brain damage or even death. No medical treatment options. Only treatment option is sexual relief (sexual intercourse/sexual acts that lead to repeated orgasms) "What the hell are you reading? Is that a guide to one of those dirty little stories you sometimes write?" Startled, you stare at him. "What?" Crosshair smirks, shrugging his shoulders in a suggestive manner. "Well, you fell asleep writing the other day and your pad was still on, just lying there. I took a quick look over it. It was pretty clear quickly what you were writing" You feel hot and cold, you're not sure exactly how much he's read, and you wonder if he realizes that you're imagining him as you write. But another thought outweighs your shame, your worry.

You scroll back up a bit on the pad that's still in his hands, point to the picture of a flower and say, "No, that's an article about this plant. We walked through a field of these flowers earlier while you weren't using an air filter. You're already showing symptoms" Crosshair blinks, skims the text again. "Oh," he says quietly. He tosses the holopad onto your bunk, rubs his temples again and looks around. He can feel it now, slowly at first, gradually but steadily increasing. His body temperature is getting higher, his thoughts are getting mixed up, there is a penetrating buzzing behind his temples, and there is clearly a very physical desire. "I need you to cuff me, for your safety. Where are my handcuffs?" Crosshair hears a click, then feels cold metal. You've cuffed his own wrist and chained him to the weapon rack. "I'm ahead of you," you say softly. "Clever girl. But that won't be enough. You have to tie me up properly"

„Properly?“, you ask, frowning.

Crosshair nods and says, "Yeah, I can open handcuffs without a key if I have one hand free" You mumble with a grin, "Sneaky bastard" "Shut up, kitten," he says calmly, with a little smirk, pointing to the other bunks, "Better find something to tie me up before the symptoms get worse" Unsure, you go to the drawers and side compartments of the other bunks. You find some more handcuffs and chain his other wrist to the weapon rack on the wall. Crosshair groans softly, a bulge has already formed in his Black's pants. He is far too warm in his skin and his cock is as hard as a diamond.

For a second you just look at him, his slender, wiry but stealed figure chained to the weapons rack at the wall. His shoulders down to his hips forming an apetizing V-line. "Okay, so far so good," he says tensely, "But that's not enough" You frown, but finally get two more cable ties and tie his legs to the frame on the wall. Crosshair stands there, as if nailed to a cross or pilloried, except that it is a weapon rack that is firmly anchored to the wall. "Fuck," he moans softly. Automatically, he writhes in his restraints, his clothes, the pants of his Blacks rubbing over his hard cock, eliciting another soft moan. He is extremely sensitive at the moment.

"But what now?" you ask anxiously, straining not to look down between his legs. "I can't hurt anyone now," Crosshair says and swallows. He means you, he can't hurt you now, he can't do anything against your will, you realize. "But... We have to do something, you could die or suffer permanent damage from this condition," you say nervously. You can see that he can barely think straight, that he would love to tear himself away if he could. But he smiles at you and says, "You're not worried about me, are you?" "Of course I'm worried", you say, almost indignant he might question this. He licks his lips, his mind a jumble of images of nudity, physical contact, of him sinking his cock inside you, in pretty much any of your holes that would do. Crosshair blinks a few times, trying to collect himself. "Well, you can help me now, but on your terms. I can't force you to do anything, that was important to me. Hence, the shackles. It was clear to both of us long ago that I still need your help now. Unless you want me to die, or my mind to turn in to a vegetable" Heat rises in your cheeks. You've imagined being with him so many times, but not like this.

He laughs softly as a drop of sweat rolls off his forehead. "Now you can live out some of the fantasies you love to write about. Honestly, I always knew you had a naughty spirit in you" The thought, the question of how much he has really read of your stories and perhaps even diary entries that are on the same data pad, comes to mind. You swallow and look at him, chained there. Your gaze does wander down to the enormous bulge in his blacks. You hear him purr, "Okay kitten, your attention is already going in the right direction" He strains against his restraints, automatically wanting to reach for you, but to no avail. A small frustrated growl comes out of his throat as he realizes once again that he is not able to touch you right now. No matter what you do now, no matter what you're both about to do, this isn't going to be romantic, nothing loving, that much you both realize. But contrary to your expectations, the thought doesn't repel you, actually, there's something appealingly wicked about it. As you sink to your knees in front of him, a shiver runs through his body in aroused anticipation. He can barely move, only his pelvis has a little room to move forward, and he stretches out towards you in invitation. "Be a good girl, help me"

You look up at him uncertainly, in his gaze you not only find confirmation of what you are about to do, it is a feverishly hot gaze, full of expectation and challenge with which Crosshair looks down at you. You reach for the waistband of his Blacks' pants and slowly pull them down. As the fabric brushes over his skin, over his hard cock as you free it, he trembles excitedly. It stands right in front of your face, thick, veiny, with a slightly reddened, swollen tip. His testicles are bulging. His cock twitches with every breath you take, because he can feel every waft of air. "Do it," he demands in a smoky voice, his eyes glazed over with desire, "suck me good" You wonder how he would talk to you at a moment like this if he wasn't under the influence of the pollen, but only for a second. You've always been curious about a sexual encounter with Crosshair, and his cock looks gorgeous. Your hand reaches for it automatically, and you're almost shocked at how red-hot it feels. His temperature is rising, no time to hesitate. Your tongue twitches over his velvety, swollen tip, catching a salty drop of pre-cum. "Fuck," Crosshair growls, his pelvis twitching, "come on, kitten, it's getting unbearably hot under my skin"

You don't think about it for long. Your lips open, your tongue outstretched, pressed against the underside of his cock, you take him into your mouth. Your head moves back and forth, bobbing back and forth with his cock between your lips. At first, you're so far back that, despite his relative freedom of movement with his pelvis, he has no control over how deep he penetrates your mouth. But it feels surprisingly wonderful, the sounds he makes, moaning, growling, whimpering. You can feel your panties getting wet and a tingling sensation between your thighs. Your pearl swells, pulsating gently at first, but demanding, longing to be touched, stimulated. On impulse, you move closer, giving him more room to move. As soon as he realizes that he can penetrate deeper on his own, he greedily pushes his cock deeper into your mouth, down your throat, almost to the hilt. Your eyes immediately start to water, but you don't pull back, you let him have his way with your mouth. He pulls his pelvis back and forth, thrusting deep again and again until your face is wet with tears and saliva drips from your chin because you can't swallow everything around his thick cock. Crosshair stares down at you, his gaze full of fire, glassy and dark.

He gasps excitedly, "I knew there was a dirty thing somewhere inside you, look at you eagerly sucking my cock. I wish I could record this, so I could watch it over and over again, how perfect this image looks" You don't have the time or the opportunity to object, nor do you want to. Your hand automatically slips into your pants and under the fabric of your panties. You can feel the heat emanating from your pubic area on your fingertips even before you touch your clit. There it is, finally, the touch, a shiver runs through your body. The touch your pearl has been longing for. Your fingertips glide over the sensitive bundle of nerves, faster and faster, as Crosshair's cock pushes up to the gag reflex again and again. You keep sucking at him, almost hungrily, like there is no tomorrow. Crosshair fucks your mouth restlessly, his pelvis shaking with every thrust, his arms tugging at the handcuffs again and again. Then he sees your hand in your pants, something about the sight pulls him over the edge, with a low growl, he spurts his load down your throat. You swallow hastily as he leaves your mouth and take a deep breath.

"A good little dirty thing you are. Look at you, not only did you suck my cock like an addict, you touched yourself" His gaze is still glassy, feverish, full of heat, a dangerous, knowing grin on his face. "Untie me, kitten, and I'll give you what your little pussy needs," he coos. His words roll over your skin and down into your pussy, where they trigger a pulsing, demanding twitch. Contrary to any fear or uncertainty about his condition, you cut the cable ties on his ankles. Then you grab the key for the handcuffs, you hesitate only briefly, barely noticeably, but then you unlock the handcuffs. You don't even have time to be surprised. Crosshair immediately peels you out of your clothes, partially tearing them as he loses his patience. He pushes you towards the bunk in front of you until you automatically climb onto it on all fours to avoid falling over. "That's it, keep sticking your gorgeous ass up, show me your little pussy," he growls in a smoky voice.

With the flat of his hand, he gives you a gentle pat between your legs. "There it is," he coos contentedly, "soft, warm and wet" One of his fingers slides along your velvety folds to your heated opening and sinks greedily inside. You moan as he sinks a second finger between your slick walls. "You're hungry for my cock, aren't you?" You moan a yes as you thrust your buttocks towards him. All you hear from him in response is a growl. You feel him pull his fingers from you and as you look over your shoulder, you see him licking your juices from his knuckles. "Actually, I'd love to lick your little honey pot, but I just can't wait, I can't," Crosshair says a little breathlessly as he parts your wet folds with his tip and with a smooth thrust fills your pussy to the brim with his cock. The sensation is intense, his hard, thick length filling you up, stretching your wet hole.

His fingers claw into your hips, not exactly gently, as he begins to move, pulling his pelvis back only to thrust into you again. He moans and curses, the feel of your wet heat enveloping him so incredibly intense, his cock so incredibly, unusually sensitive. His grip, his nails, are sure to leave a mark, but you're far too horny to mind. His thrusts are short, he never pulls far out of you, but he thrusts into you quickly, panting, clutching at you. His pelvis slaps your backside again and again, the sound fills the room, accompanied by moans, growls, whimpers. Crosshair doesn't feel like his temperature is dropping, he's more in control than he expected, but his hunger hasn't abated one bit. He growls, gives you a slap on the ass and murmurs, "You like that, you've always wanted my cock inside you" You are so lost in your excitement that at first you don't even realize what he is saying. When you don't answer immediately, he grabs your neck and pulls you towards him so that the back of your head is against his shoulder.

"Say it!" he growls, his hand still on your neck. Crosshair doesn't really squeeze, just applies enough pressure to make it clear that he wants your attention. "What?" you ask hoarsely, the feeling of his cock thrusting into you again and again taking over your entire mind. "You've always wanted my cock inside you. Say it! I want to hear it," he moans urgently. You gasp. "Fuck. Yes, I've always wanted your cock inside me, deep inside me," you croak, moaning. You yelp as he gives you a particularly hard, deep thrust and pauses in this position for a few seconds. His thighs tremble for a moment, a half-suppressed moan comes from his throat, then you feel his semen shoot into you. You're both breathing heavily, Crosshair growls softly. "Still feverish, still hard, I guess I'll have to make your wet dreams come true a little longer"

He pushes you off him, onto the bunk you're kneeling on, and turns you around, gripping your hips. Crosshair grabs the back of your knees to hold your legs up and apart. The next second, he's thrusting his cock into you again, accompanied by the dirty, wet sound his hard length makes in your pussy filled with your juices and his seed. Each thrust makes that lewd, wet sound, you feel his seed and your juices partially dripping out of you, onto your buns and onto the sheet beneath you. After all, you're in your own bunk. But this fact startles you all the more as Crosshair reaches purposefully to his right and pulls open a small drawer. He pulls out a small object and grins with satisfaction. "I knew you had toys here, I heard them vibrating under your blanket the other night" He moves his cock slowly inside you as he looks at the toy, and the heat of shame rises in your face. "What exactly does that thing do?" he wants to know, his gaze fascinated but still feverish, glassy. You swallow and say meekly, "It sucks the clitoris into this little opening and vibrates as it does so"

He raises his eyebrows and looks past the toy at you. "Is that good?" "My favorite toy," you say, still meekly. He looks down, positions the toy so that it can suck your clit perfectly and turns it on, turning the power up quite high. The toy sucks in your clit and vibrates on the sensitive bundle of nerves, immediately sending a pulse through your whole body. You let out a startled squeak. In combination with his thick cock inside you, the additional stimulation from the toy is very intense. Your hands claw into the mattress and sheets as he starts to thrust into you again. "Fuuuuck," you moan out. Crosshair takes you again faster, harder and growls, "That's more like it"

Your mind dissolves into nothing, the thought of how he sees you right now, that he knows about the toy, that he knows you've been secretly masturbating here under the covers, all swept away in one swoop. The stimulation is too intense, your whole body vibrates, trembles, tenses with arousal. "You're close," he moans, realizing, "I can feel your sweet pussy contracting" The stimulation, his words, the sound of his voice, all at once your climax washes you over the edge, and you fall into a pulsating tangle of over-stimulation. Automatically, you want to reach for the toy to remove it, but Crosshair's hands shoot forward, grabbing your wrists and pinning them above your head. "Fuck! Crosshair, that's too much, the toy!" you gasp breathlessly, twitching and writhing, the sensation far too intense.

He pushes himself deeper into your lap, takes you faster, with shorter, firmer thrusts. He stares at you, something about the way you squirm and twitch, the thought that you are helplessly at the mercy of this over-stimulation turns him on. It doesn't take long, his thrusts become irregular, his lap trembles between your twitching thighs, and he cums inside you again. You're still whimpering and squirming, finally he lets go of you, and before you can remove it, Crosshair releases you from the toy. You breathe heavily, sighing with relief. You look up, his gaze no longer glassy and feverish, more scrutinizing, brooding, as you know him to be. "Sorry," he says, shrugging his shoulders, "but it was incredibly hot to have you under me while you were twitching under the over-stimulation, one hell of a turn on." You roll your eyes and sigh, "I'm glad you enjoyed it" "You had your fun too, didn't you?" he growls sarcastically, "Or did you just get me untied to see what would happen?"

You can almost feel an argument brewing, but you don't want to argue, especially not now. You try to distract him. "How are you feeling now? Headache, fever?" Crosshair senses that you're trying to avoid the discussion, but he answers you anyway, "I'm fine, I think, no fever, no headache, no other symptoms either." You nod, climb out of the bunk and say, "Good, I need to use the refresher for a while, I need to clean myself up" But Crosshair blocks your path to the refresher. You hastily grab your bathrobe and put it on as you realize you're both still naked. "You haven't answered me yet," he says stubbornly. "What?" "Whether you had fun"

You clear your throat and say, "I had an orgasm, if that's what you mean" Crosshair frowns. "No, that's not what I meant, at least not exclusively." You lick your lips and avoid his gaze, but he gently but firmly grabs your chin, yet your eyes continue to avoid his. "Kitten? Look at me." His voice sounds so unusually gentle that you automatically look at him. "I just want to be sure that I didn't overstep any boundaries and that you didn't come away unsatisfied, as you know I didn't really have complete control over what happened." You look at him wide-eyed, then feel heat rising in your cheeks as you say meekly, "I had more fun than I want to admit"

A smile creeps onto his face. "I knew that. Good girl. Come on now, let us go wash you" You raise your eyebrows questioningly. "Us?" Crosshair grabs your hand and pulls you into the refresher with him. He winks at you, "We made the mess together, so let's remove it together. Come on, don't act like you don't want to be sponge-washed by me"

@rintheemolion

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[onyourowndaisymae]

hiii could i request a fic/headcannon thingy with the OM brothers and the dateables trying to impress the mc's older sibling? tysm have a great day :))))))

obey me characters meeting and trying to impress your older sibling

hi anon! i hope this request is what you were looking for! i tried to keep it in character for who would actually try to impress your sibling vs. who would just roll with the punches and see what happens. i hope you enjoy!

prompt: you're hanging out alone one night with your partner. a knot twists in your gut. you know he can tell something is wrong, but it seems he's waiting for you to say something first. eventually, you crack, sitting him down in preparation for what you've got to say. he watches you nervously twist your fingers together for a moment before finally speaking your mind.

"do you think you could... meet my older sibling?"

you fill him in on all the details, explaining how your sibling has grown more and more insistent the longer you've been together. he laughs and asks why you were so nervous. well, you see, your sibling isn't exactly the most friendly with anyone you've dated in the past, and you're a little nervous they might, y'know... hate your boyfriend?

Lucifer

interesting.

well, it's not like he's going to worry about it. lucifer has been alive for millennia, met more people than he can count. he is absolutely certain that your sibling will like him. he'll be on his best behavior, bring a gift for good measure, show them just how committed you are to each other. it'll be easy.

at least, that's what he tells himself to stop the incoming stress migraine.

this proud demon needs your older sibling to like him. it's not like they have any say in the relationship, sure, but what if their opinion sways yours? what if your sibling disapproves of him, and you yourself slowly start to grow tired the flaws your sibling finds in him?

he swings from cocky to stress-addled every day until he finally meets your sibling. behind his stoic face, his nerves are starting to get the better of them-- mammon catches him before you both depart and gives him a quiet pep talk to soothe his anxieties. somehow, it works.

but lucifer didn't need any help either way. at the end of the day, the morningstar is a perfect gentleman. he's amazing with your sibling-- attentive, polite, even a bit funny when the mood strikes-- and by the end of the night, your sibling praises your choice in partner. there's a massive weight gone from both of your shoulders as you return to the devildom hand-in-hand.

... not that he was nervous or anything in the first place.

Mammon

he's the great mammon! of course they'll like him! no, his hands aren't shaking, he's just... cold! yeah! it's freezing over here! look over there-- he's totally not distracting you from that terrified look on his face, because the great mammon is not scared of anything!

lies. he's terrified.

he knows that he's a scumbag. as much as he denies it when his brothers toss around insults, he knows there's a long list of flaws written for him and him alone. you, in your infinite kindness and love, might have grown to overlook them. but your sibling? nah, he couldn't sell himself twice. your sibling is going to see right through him.

but the great mammon is not going to give up without trying, hell no! cue an absurd training montage as mammon tries to prepare himself for this meeting. he won't let you see what he's doing-- shoo! shoo! you'll throw him off! you're gonna be so impressed, babe, you'll swoon when you see how cool he is!

the loud music and louder crashing noises coming from behind his locked door do not make you feel any better.

mammon's saving grace is this strange charisma he has. it's what got you interested in him from the beginning, despite his bad attitude and mixed signals. it's honestly what's kept him alive thus far-- if he wasn't charming in his odd, mammon-ish sort of way, there's no way lucifer wouldn't have chopped him up and sold his bones to make furniture by now.

he spends the night trying to impress your sibling in grand, over-the-top ways. this, in and of itself, is charming. it's like watching an enthusiastic puppy wipe out on the hardwood and get up to try again over and over, never once losing the childish optimism behind its big, dumb eyes. at least, that's how your sibling described it.

they ultimately develop a pitying fondness of mammon. he's trying so hard that you can't help but find it endearing, y'know?

Leviathan

this man is scared. shitless.

levi tries to get out of it, then gets mad at himself for being a bad partner, then spirals and thinks they won't like him anyways, then worries that you're going to break up with him because his sibling will hate you and think you're too good for him-- he agrees, but still, he can't bear to see you go--

you're going to have to talk him off the ledge of an impending panic attack at this point. remind him that regardless of what your sibling thinks, you love him. it calms him just enough to get through the rest of the conversation.

honestly, it would be wise of you to wait until closer to the meeting to invite levi, because every single day since your conversation is a unique form of emotional hell for him. he's grieving a relationship that hasn't even ended yet-- he's just certain he's going to screw things up with your sibling.

lucifer has to step in at some point and have a talk with him to make sure he doesn't, y'know... explode into a million pieces in the hallway at RAD or something. he gives him some advice on how to make a good first impression and sends him on his way. that poor guy is so anxious that it's starting to wear off on other members of the house.

when the day finally comes, levi makes absolutely certain that he is as presentable as possible. freshly showered, surprisingly well-dressed (well, by levi standards), and ready to get this over with.

he's... stiff at first, no doubt. he's honestly starting to give your sibling the wrong impression...

somehow, some way, an interest of levi's comes up. maybe it's an anime he likes, or some obscure sea creature he knows a lot about, or something else entirely. but a switch flips in him. leviathan lights up the room as he passionately rambles about whatever interest of his is the current topic.

your sibling, with their initial negative impression of him, ultimately approves after he stops being so damn awkward. it's not like they bite, y'know?

Satan

satan takes your worries in stride and assures you that everything will work out in the end. he feels an unfamiliar hum of what must be anxiety in his chest, but he puts it aside to keep the conversation going.

he addresses a lot of his anxieties with logic. he is smart, well-spoken, attractive... there shouldn't be much about him that puts your family off. yet why does he still feel on edge?

poor thing has yet to learn that many emotions, like love and anxiety, are at times completely and utterly irrational.

he goes to his safe space-- books-- for help. he revisits his favorite "meeting the family" moments in his library and uses those for inspiration. these scenes in the books are never awkward. the protagonist is always suave and perfect, walking through every social situation with practiced grace. that's the energy he aims to channel into meeting your sibling for the first time.

he does his best primping to make sure he feel confident enough to make it through the night. there's a good chance he'll have to shoo asmodeus away, who just adores watching his older brother get all dressed up for a date! satan's just a little embarrassed by the amount of effort he puts in. he's trying to seem effortlessly charming, y'know? anyone knowing just how much work he put in really ruins the effect.

he relaxes a bit when you're by his side. it's a good reminder what this evening is really all about-- you, being proud enough of him as your partner to introduce you to your family. regardless of how things go, you're the most important part of this whole thing.

what can i say, he's charming! satan's very well-spoken and down to earth. your sibling likes him a lot, commenting that you and (the fake name you gave satan, since, y'know, his name is satan) your partner seem like a wonderful pair. he has to agree himself, too.

there's a chance that you might hear them doting over you if you exit the room-- nothing brings people together quite like the things they love.

Asmodeus

asmodeus laughs in the face of this challenge. ha! ha ha! silly you, don't you remember how charming he is? no need to worry, mc. he'll win them over in no time.

asmo needs everyone to like him so much, all the time. this is especially true for your older sibling. clearly they mean a lot to you, otherwise you wouldn't be so nervous about this upcoming dinner. he can't imagine a world where he doesn't win your sibling's heart by the end of the night.

he's genuinely not worried about it in the slightest... until someone makes an unassuming little jab at him. he's telling everyone about the dinner he's so looking forward to, boasting about how he'll have your sibling wrapped around his finger by the end of the night for sure.

maybe it's mammon tossing in a snarky "let's hope they don't find you obnoxious", or satan mumbling a "oh yes, because charming a family member to make them like you is totally boyfriend material", or even levi mumbling something about how people don't usually find narcissism very likeable. regardless of who makes the comment or what it actually is, it cuts deep.

now. we know asmo. under that thick, thick layer of narcissism is someone who is deeply vulnerable, scared, and terrified of rejection. doubt starts to creep in. is asmodeus himself all charm, no substance? do people not actually like him? are all of his accomplishments a product of manipulation?

he decides one night, in a quiet, tear-stained panic, that he will not charm your sibling. he will show them the most genuine version of himself he can muster and hope that it's enough for them-- that it's enough for you.

even without his powers, asmodeus passes your sibling's test with flying colors. he genuinely just likes being around people, and they like him too-- even when he's not using his powers, he still has this magnetic charm that makes you fond of him. this is especially true when he's not putting up airs or going the extra mile to make everyone swoon over him like usual.

there's a massive weight lifted off his shoulders as your sibling bids you both farewell and asks to do this sort of thing again sometime soon. that's approval, baby!

when the evening is over, you best believe he is absolutely going home to rub his success in his brothers' faces. serves them right for making him worry!

Beelzebub

immediately very nervous about the food situation. in the devildom, he can eat whatever he wants. but on earth?? he can't!! what if he gets you kicked out of somewhere, or his stomach starts growling, or, or--

you have to reassure him that you've got a backup plan in case of emergency, and that you'll make sure he doesn't starve. after all, you don't have the funds to clean up a mess like that on earth. only with your reassurance can he focus on what the meeting actually entails.

family is everything to beelzebub. he's honestly really happy that you love him enough to introduce him to yours. so rest assured that he will do everything in his power to ensure he makes a good first impression.

he spends a lot of time at the gym to work off his nervous energy. this teddy bear just really loves you so much and wants the night to go just how you want it that sometimes it makes his hands shake a little.

there's a good chance that he goes to belphegor to ask for advice. belphegor is famously unhelpful with these kinds of things, but he does pass along a good nugget of wisdom from underneath a thick blanket-- "they love you already, right? just show their sibling why. be yourself or whatever that corny ass saying says."

the execution could use some work, but at the end of the day the sentiment still stands. be yourself, beel, because you're a sweetheart!

and a sweetheart he is the entire meeting. bonus points if your older sibling has a dog or children-- he's fantastic with those. kids love to climb all over him like a jungle gym. a little foot to the stomach or side doesn't phase him one bit.

he's also just very kind and thankful to your sibling for making the time to meet him, as well as thanks them for taking care of you growing up. he's just really happy things turned out this way. of all the millions of different timelines that could have happened, he's glad he's in this one, with you, watching the sun set and enjoying an evening with those you love the most.

Belphegor

belphegor, in all honesty, doesn't really care what your sibling thinks. what're they going to do, march down to the devildom and split you up? demand you break up like a controlling parent? he doesn't have the energy to worry about such inane bullshit.

like a lot of things with belphie, he finds himself caring explicitly because you care.

you want your sibling to like him? fine. he can't promise prince charming or anything, but he'll give it a try for you.

he doesn't really do a whole lot of mental prep. he's lucky in that way-- less strung out and anxious about things he can't control than some of his other brothers. he does, however, physically prepare more than any of the others.

by that, i mean he practically hibernates a few days before meeting your sibling. he knows one of his biggest flaws is how often he sleeps, so he's hoping he can get enough sleep to fend it off for one day.

one major advantage belphegor has is his sense of humor. this man is funny. his jokes are dry and snarky, easy to miss at times; if your sibling has a sarcastic sense of humor, they think he's hilarious. if, for some reason, his jokes don't land, he'll tone them down for the night. you'll get to hear all of them on the way home, though.

the evening ends as belphie's energy truly runs out. he leans into your shoulder and fights hard against his dropping eyelids. if your sibling asks, he mumbles something about being anemic and tries to force himself to wake up. this is your cue to wrap the night up.

your sibling walks away with the impression that belphegor is a bit of a shithead (correct). whether or not they say this with affection is another thing entirely. regardless, though, he's a shithead that loves you and makes you happy, so really, what more can they ask for?

Diavolo

there are two concurrent thoughts happening when you share this information with him.

one part of him is already sure that your sibling will approve of him without a doubt. he's royalty, after all-- he's got amazing manners, he's well-spoken, and very respectful of anyone he meets. these are some of the most essential qualities to making a future king.

the other part of him is very invested in your sibling liking him for one main reason: diavolo absolutely intends to be your family one day and he wants to establish a good relationship with his in-laws from the jump.

he doesn't spend nearly as much time preparing for anything as he does dreaming about how the meeting will go between stacks of the most boring paperwork in all of the three realms. this man craves domesticity because it was so limited as he grew up in the castle. he wants dinner with in-laws, visiting your aging grandparents, waking up early to attend your niece or nephew's soccer games. he's selfish in that way and he knows it. he wants everything with you.

unfortunately for him, diavolo cannot change certain things about himself to blend in better in the human world. most notably, he's massive. it's certainly a bit off-putting to even the most open minded people when you walk in hand-in-hand with goliath. hopefully your sibling doesn't comment on it.

but diavolo's booming laugh and high-beam grin are sure to enchant the most stubborn of older siblings. there's a certain electricity in watching him let his hair down, abandoning the weight of the "future king" title and spending the evening not as a ruler but your partner. he's effortlessly fun and charming. you find yourself enchanted with him again by the end of the night. he's really incredible, huh?

diavolo is already asking to do this again soon as you guys say your goodbyes. with those hopeful eyes staring at them in anticipation, how could your sibling ever refuse such an attractive offer?

Barbatos

... is there any universe in which your sibling wouldn't like barbatos? look at him. he's perfect.

the only issue i could see arising here is if your sibling is very animated and finds your partner quite stiff and humorless. a shame, because barbatos has a sharp wit and sharper tongue-- but i digress.

barbatos is not anxious about this meeting. this is mostly because of who he is as a person. anxieties roll off of him like water off a duck's back. he's comforting in that way. it helps that his hands are always busy.

he spends the night before making the best cake you've ever tasted, along with a few other offerings, to the meeting. he's not worried about making a bad impression, of course, but he's not opposed to greasing the wheels a little either.

he looks wonderful when you go to leave. there's an air of sophistication around him at all times, and yet when he's of-duty, you notice something else about him: a sense of ease as he takes your hand. a small, almost humored smile pulls at his lips. in that moment, you know there's nothing to worry about.

and of course, you're right. barbatos is a true gentleman. he strikes a perfect balance between offering his help and letting your sibling flex their hosting skills. truly a perfect houseguest.

the only dubious moment comes when your sibling, after barbatos once again wows with his effortless perfection, calls him an angel. the demon's lips quirk into a small smile at the irony, just for a moment, before thanking your sibling and continuing the conversation. your sibling seems to notice the strange reaction but thankfully does not press further. he does bring it up on the way home, though-- that smile returns, this time intentional and humored as the corners of his mouth turn upwards. angel. how interesting.

diavolo bypasses the butler immediately and asks you how the meeting went, knowing barbatos won't provide him with the juicy details he wants. you hate to disappoint his highness, but the evening went swimmingly.

Simeon

simeon is an angel of the lord. hand-crafted by god, built as an ideal specimen, he does not fret over the opinions of many.

then why, pray tell, does he care so much about your older sibling liking him?

there is a supernatural charm about him. even the most irritable of people soon find themselves fond of the angel. in that regard, he's grateful. but he doesn't want to rely on his blessing. he wants your sibling to like him for who he actually is. their approval quickly becomes a symbol of prosperity for your relationship-- if your sibling somehow took issue with him, then that must be a sign from Father that your love wasn't made to be. he trusted in the heavenly plan, after all.

that trust did come with a lot of nausea, though. this angel did not like the idea that someone could think you shouldn't be together.

his mood in the coming days is a little off. he's less quick-witted, a bit more distracted, just generally sort of out of it all. it starts scaring luke and solomon. the vibes in purgatory hall are completely off when simeon's not in a good mood like usual.

he spends the night before baking with luke to make some treats to bring to the meeting. he's hoping that your sibling has a sweet tooth-- if not, he's screwed.

simeon, of course, has nothing to worry about. he's just so damn likeable! he's sweet and polite to everyone, no matter how abrasive your sibling may be. watching him interact with them makes you fall in love with him all over again.

your sibling likes him. of course they do. he's wonderful to them and to you all day. if they particularly like him, they might even mention that he's a keeper-- bonus points if it's in front of him. that'd make his whole month.

Solomon

solomon doesn't really care much about the whole "meeting the family" dance other couples have to worry about. he's been around your much longer than any other human could hope to live. that sort of existence doesn't foster a family or long-term friendships. he doesn't really have anyone that matters enough to him to gain their approval of your relationship, so, in a sense, he doesn't think about how important meeting your older sibling is to you.

when you explain it, he sort of passively agrees to the meeting. he'll try his best, stay on his best behavior, yadda yadda, but there's no part of him that would be heartbroken if something came up and you had to cancel. he just doesn't have those strong familial attachments that you do.

he doesn't seem very invested in the whole thing-- that is, until you say you're worried your older sibling might not like him, seeing as how they haven't been fond of anyone else you've dated.

oh. oh. so that's a challenge, is it?

solomon will not be losing, in that case. you best believe from this moment onward that he's putting in maximum effort to get your sibling to be his #1 fan. his social skills are a bit rusty at times-- that's why many call him "devious" and "off-putting" and "a menace to the three realms", whatever that's all about-- but he'll brush them off and prepare to charm the shit out of your older sibling.

when the meeting finally comes, he's all smiles. if they knew him better, the kindness would make him seem like a wolf in sheep's clothing, all razor sharp teeth as he lulls you into a false sense of security. it's not that he's trying to be manipulative or anything. solomon just has this way about him that makes everything he does seem at least a little shady. but you can tell that he is actually trying to be friendly and kind, even if it is just for the sense of satisfaction that comes from winning.

he'll tease you on the way home about how you doubted him from the beginning. your sibling likes him, so what were you so worried about, silly? solomon would never let something like that slide.

that night, you catch his expression shift when he thinks you're not looking-- just for a moment, there's a sense of real, genuine relief on his face from knowing that he made a good impression.

[mytheoristavenue]

Can you maybe do one of one piece men hearing their shy s/o yell at them for the first time? Or first time their shy s/o acts bratty ? Can be fluff , agnst or NSFW, whatever you'd like my love. I'm sure it'll turn out good , I loved your other ones that you've written!! ❤️❤️ BTW that sanji speaking French got my good 😫😫🤌 *chefs kiss*

I'll do all three! I hope it's alright that I only do Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp for this one! Since I'm going to do three separate scenarios for each, it would be a lot of work to do that for as many characters as I included in my last post! If I missed anyone you specifically wanted, let me know!

Straw Hat Men + Shy!S/O Yelling for the First Time 🍋

Summary: How your Straw Hat boyfriend reacts to hearing you raise your voice for the first time in an angsty, fluffy, and NSFW scenario.

Waring: NSFW, MDNI, fluff, angst, fem!reader

Note: I did mark this one with a lemon as I usually do with NSFW content, but only 1/3rd of it will be! The different scenarios will be marked with a '💕💔🍋', for fluff, angst, and smut respectively. If you've seen any of my masterlists, they also operate under this same key.

Monkey D. Luffy:

💕 Your least favorite part of being a pirate was the fact that your boyfriend was your captain. If you could leave and join a different crew without it being a relationship ending action, you would most certainly consider it. It wasn't always bad of course, but with it was bad- it was awful.

As your lover, Luffy was stubborn, but as your captain it was ten fold. once he settled on a bad idea, there was no changing his mind, no matter how much your opinion as his partner mattered to him. Typically, it was something you could look pasted, but you had to admit, his last bright idea had left you bitter with him, and the way he hounded you for answers as you why you were ignoring him was doing him no favors.

"Awe, c'mon, babe!" he giggled, wrapping his elastic arms around your waist, pulling you back to him after you'd walked away from him. "I'm sorry you got all wet!" he offered, only receiving a sharp glare form over your shoulder.

Earlier that day, he had decided that everyone would go into the town to do some shopping on the island you'd ported on. You picked out a lovely floral sundress, and worn it out of the store after buying it, excited to show him how pretty it looked on you. To your surprise, and later anger, he enthusiastically scooped you up and tried to swing you along with him back to the Sunny, only to miss. Not only did you both collide with the ship's hull, but you also fell into the water, making his survival your responsibility.

"Luffy, that dress was very expensive. I rarely buy myself nice things, and the one time I did, I didn't even have it for ten minutes before you ruined it." you pouted quietly, still unwillingly wrapped in his arms.

"I'm sure it's not ruined, babe, we can wash it." he dismissed, making your blood boil. You couldn't contain your frustration at him.

"No, we can't!" you snapped, pushing him away to glare at him with hands on hips. "It's silk, you can't just toss it in the washing machine! I has to be professionally cleaned, and you just had us set sail away from the only place I could take it to! Who knows how long it'll take us to find another island with a dry cleaners', and even if we found one tomorrow, it wouldn't matter! The stain is already set!"

Luffy simply blinked at your ranting. He didn't understand any of what you'd just said. He wasn't even entirely sure what silk was or why it was so different from regular fabric, but he could recognize that he'd upset you, which he felt bad for. "Awe...I'm sorry babe." he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck shamefully.

"You should be!" you huffed, crossing your arms and turning your back on him.

"Tell you what," he smiled, wrapping his arms around you again, this time laying his head on your shoulder. "Next time we port, we'll go out- just you and me and I'll take you shopping again. I'll have Nami set some of my money aside and it'll me my treat. And I'll see if Franky can build something that can wash silk." he negotiated, melting the tough coating around your heart. "We'll get you all the expensive clothes you want, and that way, you'll be able to to clean them if you need to."

"Luffy..." you swooned, turning in his arms to face him. "You promise?" He nodded with a ear to ear grin, and you threw yourself into his embrace. "Oh, I can't stay mad at you, you're too sweet!"

💔 The second time Luffy heard you raise you voice at him, it was a gut wrenching scream, accompanied by tears. The part that disturbed him most, however, was the fact that it wasn't really at him, but more for him.

"Stop it!" your voice rang out across a smoking battlefield, crack and desperate. "Please, stop, you'll kill him!" You were yards away, but you could still see the light leaving your boyfriend's eyes as he laid motionless on the ground from where you were being subdued.

The marines had ambushed the crew while at an island you'd stopped at for supplies. Kizaru stood over him, glancing over at you when he'd heard, his signature smug grin unfaltering as he made his way over to you. "That's the point, dollface."he cooed. "Dead or alive, or so the saying goes."

"P-Please," you negotiated. "Please, you can have me instead. I-I'm worth something right?" You struggled to remember your current bounty.

"You want me to give up one of the most wanted men on the seas," he chuckled, looming over you. "For a measly ten million berries?Honey," he smirked, eyes darting to Luffy, still unmoving, and back to you. "The only thing that makes you worth anything is your value to him. Now that we've got Straw Hat, we don't have a use for you."

"That's...not true..." a broken and tired voice graveled from where he once lay. Your hopefully eyes snapped to your partner as he slowly rose to face the admiral in your stead.

"Luffy!" you shrieked, relieved tears streaming down your cheeks.

"Still kickin', huh?" Kizaru laughed, turning his attention back.

"That's not true, (Y/N)." your captain continued, entirely ignoring his enemy, yet still walking towards him and not you. "You're worth so much more than being my girlfriend. You're a Straw Hat, and that means so much more!"

🍋 Luffy had never known you to be the most verbal person when it came to physical pleasures, and the silent sighs and tiny gasps became a common song that he learned to enjoy above all others. that was until he heard what you were really capable of.

"Oh, fuck, Luffy!" you cried, tossing your head back in eustasy. He froze entirely for a moment, gazing up at you in awe as you rode him, bouncing with delight, and cursing his name like the sailor you were. You were so entranced that you failed out notice his lack of participation as he watched you put in all the work he normally would.

Hearing those loud, dirty words tumble over your lips did something to him- snapped some sort of line that tethered him to his control. "(Y/N), baby?" he spoke lowly, breaking you of your spell. You immediately began apologizing, bringing your hands to cover your blushing face, only to be caught by the wrists. "What have you never moaned for me like that before?"

"I-I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me!" you sputtered, humiliated by your lewd behaviors.

"Well," he decided, guiding your trembling hands to his hair, before winding his rubber arms around your waist and clenching your doughy thighs as hard as he could without doing actual damage. "We're gonna fuckin' find out!"

Roronoa Zoro:

💕 You had been ignoring Zoro all day long and it was starting to drive him crazy, though he wasn't going to let you on to that fact. He eyed from from across the deck as you chatted with Nami about something he didn't care about. Anytime you would catch him looking at you, you'd huff, turn your nose at him, and make it a point to very sweetly ask Sanji for something. Every time, the doting chef would give into your every whim, bringing you parfaits, making you something special for lunch, or even a fancy glass of water with cucumber and mint. Finally, your boyfriend decided he'd had enough.

"Why are you acting like such a brat today?" he grilled sternly, looming over your lounge chair as you tanned. "You better not be trying to make me jealous of that damn cook."

You gasped dramatically, sharing a shocked looked with Nami, before you both rolled your eyes at him. "You've got some nerve calling me a brat." you spat back at him, turning your attention back to your magazine.

"Well, you're acting like one!" Zoro protested.

"Yeah, well," you huffed. "At least Sanji's nice to me and gives me attention when I want it!" Nami silently agreed with you, nodding her head as you spoke.

"Oh my God," your boyfriend groaned, rolling his eyes and slumping his shoulders. "Is that what this is about? Damn, you're so annoying."

You scowled at him, throwing your magazine onto the floor in a fit. "No, Zoro, you know what's annoying? Trying to spend time with your boyfriend, only to get passed up for lifting stupid weights!" you shouted, collecting the attention of many of your nakamas, which embarrassed him quite a bit. "All you do is work out or clean your damn swords! I wake up, and you're not in bed because your training, I go to bed and- same thing!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry I have to train to keep you protected you highness!" he snarled back at you. "It's not like I've saved your life or anything."

"Oh, thank you for not letting me die! Boyfriend of the damn year!"

"Jesus Christ," he growled, finally giving in under all the stares of his crewmates. "I'll skip work out tonight and we can cuddle all night, okay?"

"Okie dokie!" you beamed, demeanor immediately shifting back to the kind, sweet girl everyone knew you as. Zoro sighed, exhausted by your manipulation tactics; he needed a nap.

💔 Zoro's body froze solid, hearing you're voice from a location he couldn't pinpoint. His mind went into fight or flight mode as the fear and desperation in your voice struck him like a pendent in a church bell, sending vibrations all throughout him. "Zoro!"

"(Y/N)?!" he called back, spinning as he took in his surroundings. He could see so many people, but none of them were you. Where were you?

"Zoro!" Suddenly, you broke through the crowd, making a mad dash for him, leaping into his arms before he could register it. "Oh my gosh, I thought I'd lost you!" you cried into his chest. "I was so worried!"

He was still frozen, for the first time in his life unable to act. "Y-you were worried about me?" he stammered, having trouble wrapping his head around the idea.

"Yes!" you replied, nuzzling into his throat. "There's marines on the island, and when I turned around and you weren't there I thought you were in trouble!"

"If that's the case, you should have gone back to the ship." he scolded you lightly, trying to mask how much his heart melted at your concern. "Now we're both in danger."

You shook your head quickly. "No, I'm not going anywhere without you! We'll go back together!" You insisted. "What if you get lost again?"

His stern face softened into a loving smile, reflecting his feelings in the moment, before grabbing you by the hand. "Fine, let's go. You lead the way."

🍋 Zoro had never heard anything more lewd that the sounds he was extracting from you now. You were laid out in his arms, across his lap, his fingers reaching for invisible buttons inside you, making your tummy do flips. Each breath you took was ragged and punctuated a needy whine. Typically, you sang a song of soft hums, using his name as a refrain every so often, and he did adore that, but nothing could compare to the arousal he got from hearing you curse.

"Shit, Zoro, I-I-!" you were beyond the point of forming fully coherent sentences, most of them fading after a few words. His own breathing quickened as he worked you better and better by the minute.

"Yeah, baby," he groaned, his face contorting into a frustrated snarl. "Tell me all those dirty words you know."

God Usopp:

💕 "I said I'm sorry!" he squeaked, following you out of his workshop and into the bathroom. "It was an accident!" You ignored his pleas for your forgiveness as you walked up to the sink, leaning over to dip your head under the faucet. He had been showing you his newest star, when he shot it at a shelf, which in turn shook, knocking a bottle to toad oil onto your head. Your silence terrified him as he stood idly by watching you try to rinse it from your scalp. "I-If you let me take a bath with you, I'll wash it all out-" His nervous negotiations were cut short by your harsh glare.

He wrung his hands, pacing back and forth as you disrobed and slipped into the washroom, heading straight for the shower in the corner. Reluctantly, he followed you, fully clothed, unsure if he was meant to or not. "I really am sorry," he admitted, stepping up behind you as you say on the stool and poured a bucket of water over your head. "Here, let me." he insisted, thoroughly rinsing your hair before massaging product into it. You wordlessly allowed him to was the oil out of your hair, enjoying the quiet of the moment, until he ruined that too.

"A-Are you gonna break up with me?" he piped up anxiously.

"No!" you shouted with an exaggerated sigh. "I'm not going to break up with you over this, Usopp, I'm just mad!"

"Sorry," he replied, embarrassed at his silly question. "Thank you..."

"For what?" you snapped, wishing he would simply stop talking for a few minutes.

"Giving me another chance." he answered quietly. You felt your heart tear a bit at his insecurity.

"Usopp, I would never leave you over something this small." you confirmed, glancing at him over the shoulder. "I know it was just an accident, and I forgive you. I just need a few little quiet time to cool off."

He nodded, prompting you to relax as he lathered your scalp. Within minutes, you were putty in his hands, and happy as a clam again.

💔 The way his name came out of you mouth tore Usopp apart. Though you weren't together yet at this time, he still held so much undying love for you, but his pride had gotten the better of him. He ignored your sobs as he walked away from the crew, choosing a broken ship over everyone who cared for him- including you.

"Usopp, you stop right there!" you commanded, tears steaming down your face as you struggled to run after him. You'd seen him respond when Kaya did this, and you genuinely thought it would work, but obviously, given the circumstances, his love for her was much stronger than what he had claimed to have for you. "Please, come back! Usopp!"

You tumbled to the rocky shore of Water 7, having tripped over your own feet, your vision too obscured by tears to see straight. "Please!"

"C'mon, (Y/N)," Nami sniffled, pulling you to your feet only to hold you back from pursuing him further. "He's made his choice."

🍋 Usopp marveled up at you from between your thighs as you sat perched atop his face. As you rode, bucking your his against his chin, you failed to notice the escalation of your volume, but he didn't. He adored your shy, soft moans- even thought of them in his sleep but this was entirely new, and so much better.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" you chanted. "Love riding your pretty face, baby!" He melted beneath you as you writhed, crying out in ecstasy, using him the way you wanted. He watched as you raised your arms, tangling your fingers in your hair. "Wanna cum all over your face!" you sighed, entranced.

"Do it, angel." he purred, voice muffled by your heat as he ate his fill. Your eyes shot open as you realized your dirty thoughts had spilled into the open air.

"Oh my God!" you squealed, instantly pushing yourself away form his face, leaving a snail trail down his chest to where you currently sat at his pelvis. "I'm so embarrassed, I'm so sorry!"

Usopp's fingers delicately laced with yours as he pulled at your hand. "Get back up here," he cooed, guiding you back to your previous position. "Please cum all over my pretty face."

Vinsmoke Sanji:

💕 You pouted in the corner of the dining room as Sanji served dinner, setting your plate down in from of you, and delicately tying your napkin around your neck as he always did. "What's wrong, Mon amour?" he asked, softly petting your hair, only to have you turn your nose up at him. The rest of the crew looked on in curiosity as the chef continued to serve, all the while struggling to get you to give him time of day.

After the meal was finished and everyone else had left the table, you stayed to help him clean up as usual. "Mon trésor, talk to me." he insisted. Once again you ignored him, prompting him to take the dishes from your hands and set them aside, before cupping your cheek to ensure that your focus was only on him. "What's the matter?"

"Oh nothing," you scoffed. "Just wish I had a boyfriend that was only my boyfriend is all."

Sanji stared at you blankly, puzzled by your sudden aggression towards him. "I'm all yours, amour, why would you think otherwise?"

"You seem to be pretty friendly with every other girl you come across," you muttered bitterly.

"Are you jealous?" he smirked, only to find that, to you, this was no amusing matter.

"I shouldn't have to be!" you snapped, sniffling a bit. "I shouldn't have to feel like I have to compete for your attention..." He stood in front of you, lips ajar from surprise at your level of emotion on the matter. After a moment, he softened, pulling you into his chest.

"This world is full of beautiful people, male and female," he soothed as you resisted the urge to cry in front of him. "We can never simply turn off our attraction to people, but at the end of the day, you should know that you take up all the space in my heart."

"Some apology," you scoffed, trying to push his affections away.

"It's not an apology," he corrected. "Though, maybe it should be. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings, amour." he cooed, petting your hair and letting you be frustrated with him. Sanji was never one to try and sort out a problem immediately. He knew emotions took time to ease through, and how unhealthy rushing that could be. "Would you like some time to yourself?" he offered, pulling away from you to look into your eyes. You shook your head lightly, before nuzzling back into his chest. "Would you give me a chance to make it up to you?" You nodded shallowly, your hair getting mussed and collecting static from his shirt.

He smiled sweetly, parting from you, and holding you at arms' length. "Tell you what," he began, glancing over to the sink full of dishes. "Give me a few minutes to clean this up, you go get in the tub and wait for me."

💔 You stood in the pouring rain, outside looking in on a private moment. Sanji, the man who'd sworn his eternal love for you was there, embracing his wife to be the day before their wedding. His face was battered and bruised as he whispered to her. "Let's get married tomorrow."

Against all your better judgement, your shattered heart forced agonized screams from your throat as you sobbed, slamming your fists on the glass. Your shoulders shook as the rain mixed with your tears as they slid down your face. Just beyond, you watched as Pudding, the woman who'd taken your place nearly jump from her skin, fearfully snuggling deeper into his embrace as she eyed you as if you'd hurt her.

Sanji however never bothered to look. He heard you, he was just choosing to ignore your cries, no matter how deeply they bothered him. He could feel his decisions effect you in the form of guilty sweat dripping down his spine. Eventually, he turned his back to you, pulling his bride away as they exited the room. He couldn't stand the pitiful sight of you any longer, lest he begin to weep himself.

🍋 Sanji stared down at you, love and passion exuding from his pores as he made love to you. He held your legs securely over his shoulders as he eased in and out of you, counting how many times your breath would hitch before you could exhale. "Me prends si bien, chérie." he purred, leaning into your ear, nearly folding you in half.

"S-Sanji..." you whimpered, face numb from the overwhelming pleasure you were under. You couldn't hold back the way your volume was increasing, no matter how humiliating. He was worth being embarrassed for.

"Oui, mon amour?"

"F-Feels so good!" you affirmed, the need to feel useful swallowing you whole. You wanted to be an active participant, not simply a toy, but the way he loved on you left you paralyzed. "Wanna make you feel good too..."

"Tu me fais me sentir divine, chérie." he soothed, letting go of a weighted breath. "Continue juste à chanter comme ça pour moi, d'accord?"

Translations:

Mon amour/amour = My love/love

Trésor = Treasure

"Me prends si bien, chérie." = "Taking me so well, darling."

"Oui, mon amour?" = "Yes, my love?"

"Tu me fais me sentir divine, chérie." = "You make me feel divine, darling."

"Continue juste à chanter comme ça pour moi, d'accord?" = "Just keep singing like that for me, okay?"

[dysfunctionalupsidedown]

An Analysis Of "STurn": My Turn

Hello, everyone! This is my first real post/analysis of anything Stranger Things related, so please keep that in mind while reading. I'm sure there are quite a few analyses about this playlist already (I'm definitely late to the party,) but I still wanted to add my two cents.

Feel free to let me know if any information I've provided is incorrect. My main source is Genius.com, which isn't at all the most reliable; even still, it'll help to give a clearer picture of each track's meaning and how the general public (which includes Finn) interprets them. I'm attempting to go by what I think Finn's intentions were.

Also, don't forget that this analysis was done under the assumption that the "STurn" playlist is a somewhat play-by-play outline of how specifically Mike Wheeler's S5 arcs might happen. The playlist could be entirely unrelated to ST5. It could be related to all the characters and arcs in ST5. It could be out of order, or based on vibes -- We really have no way of knowing until the full season comes out.

Finally, I tried my best to keep the analysis somewhat objective and reasonable, and I hope I've at least partly succeeded. This is all in good fun, in the end. Now that I've finished housekeeping, please enjoy my thoughts and feel free to chime in with your ideas in the comments! I'm always open to changing my perspective.

1. Ballad of the Texas King

Let's begin! This song starts with the lyrics, "No one saw / Nothing at all, no law was there to fight / All dressed down / Walkin' out in the California night". I believe this is a more surface-level vibe-setting song, considering where Mike ended in S4. It may also imply that the start of S5 begins where S4 left off. A lot of car imagery is also present throughout, which was a big part of Mike's S4 journey.

There are ideas of being separated as well, with lyrics like "My heart won't beat / 'Til we meet again together". This may allude to Mike's feelings towards the end of S4, having been separated from Hawkins/his family.

2. What You're Doing - Remastered 2009

Genius.com claims this song was written about Paul McCartney's then-rocky relationship at the time. The lyrics make this very clear, so there's really no alternate angle from which I can read. Let me know in the comments if you interpreted it differently.

In specific, the lyrics "You got me running / And there's no fun in it / Why should it be so much to ask of you / What you're doing to me?", "Please stop your lying / You got me crying, girl", and "I've been waiting here for you / Wondering what you're gonna do / And should you need a love that's true / It's me" really intrigue me. This could refer to Mike's relationship.

The song suggests that the partner may be withdrawing in multiple ways, with the singer grieving over it and attempting to prove their love. El may be starting to distance herself, and Mike could be struggling with it. At the end of S4, El was understandably focused on her failure, to the point where she hadn't really spoken to Mike in the days following it.

I don't think it would be surprising if everything was too much and she ends up pushing herself away from him. I wouldn't say it's implying a break-up, but maybe distancing issues.

3. After The Earthquake

Again, it's pretty surface-level in the beginning. There was a devastating earthquake in-universe, which supports the theory that "STurn" connects to ST5 in some way. The song tells a story, though, and I recommend looking up it's inspiration.

Despite the choice seeming surface-level at first, After The Earthquake may be implying more for Mike in ST5. Genius.com's contributors interpret the song's narrative as, "[Molly Rankin applying the] concept of post-catastrophe clarity to a couple that got into a major disagreement before one of them falls into a coma from a car crash... In a metaphorical sense, [the song] could describe a more mild situation in which Rankin must put their conflict on hold because something more important turns up." I don't think it's too far-fetched to say that Finn picked up on this. The idea of a disagreeing couple and coma is also prevalent in ST, but like I said in the beginning, I'm going to try to connect these songs to Mike Wheeler specifically.

Although this may be me reading too deeply into it, the metaphorical meaning of the track pairs pretty well with the implications of What You're Doing. It also fits in well narratively, considering that more important things are happening aside from the drama -- the earthquake being one of them. Mike could be putting all of his current issues (internal-conflict-related, relationship, or otherwise) on hold for the moment. He continues to struggle with suppressing his problems later on in the playlist, as well.

4. Promises I've Made

This song is about mourning a lost or ex-lover. The opening lyrics, "Ever since you have gone, the days don't seem so bright / And I wish I could forget you but I can't / Ever since you have gone, I haven't felt quite right / And I promised I'd forget all that you meant" address this quite directly.

At this point, it's possible that Mike has either been broken up with or the pair have gone their separate ways for some reason. It wouldn't be too crazy to say something like that will occur and he'll grieve it, keeping in mind that one of Mike's main fears is losing El. I just don't know why they'd continue to make it the subject of conflict in S5 (unless it hasn't been fully resolved yet.)

Physical distance between the two also makes sense when considering that Mike is, supposedly, teaming up with other characters next season. Personally, I'm leaning slightly more towards a break-up because of what the previous songs have set up, but, ultimately, it's up to interpretation. It's possible they've just been physically distanced while in a bad spot.

5. Angst In My Pants

This song is about a person attempting to be someone they're not, suppressing who they really are, and it ultimately leading to dissatisfaction. The lyrics, "You can dress nautical / Learn to tie knots / Take lots of Dramamine / Out on your yacht" describe a faux lifestyle one lives that only serves to hurt them in the end: The idea of putting on a self-harming persona. This could be what Mike is going through in S5, and his teased wardrobe change from S4 supports this.

The lyrics, "I hope it doesn't show / It'll go away / It's just a passing phase / It'll go away" and, "I hope it doesn't show / It'll go 'way / Give it a hundred years / It won't go 'way" are particularly fascinating and can have multiple interpretations.

For one, it could be Mike trying to hide his real personality following Eddie's death and the collective panic by acting out a more "normal" and "idealized" life -- painfully repressing his true self in the process. This is supported by the lyrics I first discussed. Hiding and embracing differences is a theme in Stranger Things, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is where they take Mike in S5.

Another interpretation involves the previous lyrics, as well as, "But when you think you made it disappear / It comes again, 'Hello, I'm here'". This sounds more like someone trying and failing to suppress a thought. Coupled with "It's just a passing phase", it appears to be a feeling or belief instead of someone's true personality, although I do believe that's a big part of it, too.

Whatever it may be, Mike is definitely struggling with something at this point. He's pushing it down, hiding it, and hoping "..it doesn't show" and that "It'll go away".

6. The Better Side - Audiotree Live Version

Half way through! This one gave me more of a challenge because there aren't any written lyrics to analyze. From what I can gather, the track is about a person yearning for someone who is a better fit(?) The lyrics that best support this interpretation are, "You're on the better side / You're always the better one for me" and "Don't make me do the falling when I'm drinking of you". Again, if you have any alternate interpretations, please let me know. I'd like to take all ideas into account.

The final lyrics are interesting, "And you're all that I need / I'm not gonna miss you anymore". This can be read as the narrator longing to accept a person into their life and bring them closer. I'm especially interested in the final line because it implies there was something to miss, as if an emotional rift or gap was there.

Mike has come to a realization about something, as shown in Angst In My Pants, and it might partly be about a new thought he's trying to push down, "It'll go away". It's possible the "thought" is about newly developing feelings he isn't ready to accept(?) I don't want to say for certain, though. Nonetheless, it seems like he recognizes this person's importance and "better fit" for him, despite trying to repress it. A fairly surface-level read, but it's the only conclusion I'm able to come to.

Alternatively, it might be about El. The distance apart could be what gets him to solidify how he feels about her. However, Angst In My Pants and multiple songs establishing a separation precede The Better Side. The track is about a better option, as well. Those facts alone make me think of this interpretation as unlikely, so it's not one I personally hold.

7. Don't Ask Me to Explain

Don't Ask Me to Explain is about two people who are afraid to confess their true feelings to one another, so instead they hide them; with one of the two seemingly more uncertain. It's also, from what I've researched, supposedly about two people of the same gender. There's a possibility that this is irrelevant to the track's purpose in the playlist, but I kept it in mind considering the other songs and my personal interpretation. It's also important to note that these "true feelings" could be about a multitude of things.

The lyrics, "How will I ever know you enough to love you / If you're hiding who you are?", "How am I supposed to let it show / When I don't even know?", and, "Besides, I don't want to be the one who's coming out first / I'd really like to but I'm just too shy" support this reading.

I interpreted the last line, "It's so easy to laugh to myself / And pretend that I could love you but I can't" in two different ways. Either it's the narrator doubting their feelings for someone else, or it's the narrator recognizing that they can't let themselves embrace their love for someone, for one reason or another.

As for Mike, his progression makes the most sense to me in the following interpretation. There are multiple and, again, please let me know your ideas in the comments. I narrowed it down to just the one so I don't start nit-picking.

Mike went from a realization, "It's just a passing phase / It'll go away" (Angst In My Pants) to a sort of acceptance, "You're always the better one for me" (The Better Side) to struggling to admit it out loud, "How am I supposed to let it show / When I don't even know?"

An LGBTQ+ or "new love interest" interpretation is what I'm able to gather from this. It could describe Mike falling for 'someone' and not knowing how to be open about it due to fear and doubt; with the other person feeling the same way. It may be a surface-level reading, and I'm sure there are several other ways to interpret the track, but that's what I've been able to conclude thus far.

8. What Do You Want Me To Do?

This one might be the most difficult for me to figure out, but I'm going to try.

The song and the lyrics, "You walked out, took your chance / You turned your back on our romance / You said you found somebody new / You said the change'd do you good" and "You never even gave me a thought / You figured that would be all right / I nevеr had a chance to persuade you / You nеver let me put up a fight" remind me a lot of What You're Doing.

One way to look at it is that it might have the same purpose as What You're Doing -- adding a sort of angsty frustration vibe. I don't know if it would be used to set up a "come crawling back" moment because I don't think that would make sense (especially in Stranger Things), but it's a random possibility I'm throwing out there.

Alternatively, the 'person' that Mike has feelings for could have rejected him for someone else(?) Again, I don't think this would make much narrative sense in Stranger Things, but we don't know what the next season's going to look like.

I'm personally reading it as the former because there are other songs in the playlist used to set the tone. Keeping What You're Doing and Promises I've Made in mind, an additional break-up song is on theme. There's still the possibility of another conflict, though. If anyone else has different thoughts on what the song could be implying, I'd appreciate the input.

9. Substitute - Live

This track is about an idealized version of someone being put in place of their true self. The narrator describes a scenario in which their partner sees a version of them, "I'm a substitute for another guy / I look pretty tall but my heels are high / The simple things you see are all complicated / I look bloody young, but I'm just back-dated, yeah", that is unrealistic and put on, as seen in the lyrics "Substitute your lies for fact / I see right through your plastic mac / I look all white, but my dad was black / My fine-looking suit is really made out of sack" The couple also seem to be having issues with this, or in general, that they're not addressing, "It's a genuine problem, you won't try / To work it out at all, just pass it by, pass it by"

The concept of a guise applies well to Mike, as referenced in Angst In My Pants. A recurring theme of hiding oneself really makes me think Mike is going to completely abandon his interests for a different lifestyle. I believe Finn has also mentioned that Mike wants to be as "normal" as possible, so I can't wait to see where they take that idea. It could also be him realizing how he's been acting, and admitting that this "romanticized" version isn't true to him. I have hope that Mike will eventually learn to embrace his differences and what he enjoys.

While this part is a bit nit-picky, I feel it's fun to mention that the song was inspired by a lyric in The Tracks of My Tears by Smokey Robinson; the lyric being, "Although she may be cute / She's just a substitute". The line following this (which is also referenced in Substitute's Genius.com entry) is, "Because you're the permanent one". Funnily enough, these lyrics also fit into the narrative the playlist is laying out. They remind me a lot of what The Better Side represents.

Out of context, the lines from The Tracks of My Tears may imply that someone is either using another person as a substitute for an ex, or that someone is realizing they've been using their previous partner as a substitute for someone better. Both routes have the potential to happen in ST5. Although, I don't know if the idea of a literal substitute fits with what The Who was going for. The Tracks of My Tears is also not on "STurn", so take this part as a fun fact with a grain of salt on the side.

At the end of the day, we don't know Finn's motivation for adding Substitute, so this is what we'll have to go off of for now. I feel as though the former interpretation, a less literal "substitute," holds the most merit considering the theme of personas.

10. The Rebel Kind

Like The Better Side, I couldn't find any lyrics, so I'm doing it by ear. Though, I'm happy to say that this song is about a desire to embrace differences and rebellion. "We'll be free to run with the rebel kind" and "It's not easy, but I don't mind / I just want to run with the rebel kind" establish that. The track appears to tie into Mike's insecurity struggles throughout the playlist.

The lyric "They call us the rebel kind" hints to the panic brewing at the end of S4. Mike might start to embrace and stand behind his true self at whatever point this is in the season. The line following, "But they don't understand / The things a man must do to prove that he's a man", can be taken in different ways depending on how the lyrics are read.

It could be the narrator's struggle to keep up with societal norms before finally giving in to their truth instead of trying to conform, read as "they call us rebels but don't get how hard it is to for us to keep up." On the other hand, it could be the narrator commenting on how society doesn't understand people like them, and, by embracing their true self, it proves more about who they are than conforming ever would; read as, "you think we're the rebellious ones, but you don't understand that we're more self-secure and strong than you'll ever be."

I can see both of these interpretations working for Mike and his connection to the Party. The progression of insecurity in Angst In My Pants and potential realization of this guise in Substitute is wrapped up by Mike's self-acceptance here. I really hope this is how it plays out in S5.

11. Block Rockin' Beats

There's not much to analyze because this track has one repeated line of lyrics, but it's definitely here to set a tone. The song may have a similar vibe-setting purpose as What Do You Want Me To Do? and Ballad of the Texas King. That's just my theory, though. (A ST5 theoryyy!)

Perhaps this is a climax of sorts where the cast fight the "big bad." The music's tone is intense and sort of aggressive. It's definitely a fun addition to the playlist, whatever the song's purpose in it may be.

12. Just What I Needed

Finally, we have Just What I Needed. I read this song in two different ways.

The first way I interpreted it was as a love song about the narrator not caring about who this person is, and realizing they need them in spite of it all. The lyrics, "It's not the perfume that you wear / It's not the ribbons in your hair / And I don't mind you comin' here / And wastin' all my time", "Cause when you're standin' oh so near / I kinda lose my mind, yeah", and "I needed someone to bleed / Yeah, yeah, so bleed me" support this.

The second possible reading is that the narrator realizes they were/are in a codependent relationship and they still love the person. The lyrics, "I guess you're just what I needed / I needed someone to feed / I guess you're just what I needed / I needed someone to bleed" and "I don't mind you hangin' out / And talkin' in your sleep / It doesn't matter where you've been / As long as it was deep, yeah", could be read as more of a "you're what I needed at the time, but I still love you and want you in my life." With this reading, it's unclear whether or not the love is romantic or platonic. Maybe I'm looking too far into it, but this is what some Genius.com contributors brought up, and it would feel wrong to not include this understanding of the song.

I'm just assuming, since The Rebel Kind seemed to tie up Mike's self-security problem, that this track is supposed to imply a resolution with his romantic issues. Under that impression, there are a few ways we can look at it.

It could be an acceptance for who he has feelings for. He went from mourning a loss in Promises I've Made, noticing something and hoping it goes away in Angst In My Pants, potentially coming to terms with the fact that this person is his "better" choice in The Better Side, wanting to admit a truth but feeling doubtful in Don't Ask Me to Explain, comprehending that he's able to embrace his authentic self in The Rebel Kind, to now admitting, possibly out loud, that this person was "just what [he] needed". That could be far-fetched, but it's just what I picked up on throughout the playlist.

However, it may also pertain to his self-identity struggle that's hinted at throughout (can you tell that I love this part of Mike?) while also tying into his romance issues. He went through a difficult separation with someone in What You're Doing and Promises I've Made, put on a persona and suppressed his true self in Angst In My Pants, realized he couldn't keep it going and needed to address it in Substitute, embraced himself in The Rebel Kind, and now recognizes that the relationship may have been codependent and holding him back from fully dropping the facade: "I guess you're just what I needed" -- in the moment. I don't know if that's too in-depth of a read, but it's a possibility.

While not relevant to the playlist in it's context, it's fun to bring up the fact that Just What I Needed was apparently also the final track listed on the 'official' "Will's Castle Byers Classics" playlist created by Spotify. It's not available anymore, so I can't really say it as a fact. Although, recreations of the playlist have been made long before "STurn" was a thing, and the song was added as the last track as far back as 2018. I suppose that's proof enough that it was at least on the playlist.

Finn listing it as the final track may be a reference to "Will's Castle Byers Classics", but it's also likely that there's no association. That's why I gave the song an equal amount of analysis instead of writing it off as a reference. As to how canon those playlists are, I don't think it particularly matters. It's true that Finn could've seen Just What I Needed in the Will playlist and put it on "STurn", thinking of it as a fun easter egg. There could or could not be implications for that and I'd be remiss to ignore it. I don't know if this rings true for any of the other songs on "STurn" as well -- if they're connected to any other character playlists. Feel free to let me know if they are!

TL;DR

This was really hefty post, and I apologize for that, so here's a summary/recap of what I think S5 may have in store for Mike Wheeler.

Summary:

The season likely starts off at the end of S4, with us seeing Mike react to everything that's happened in Hawkins and reuniting with his family. Tension or unresolved conflicts may be arising in his relationship(s) as well, but he puts it aside to focus on the more important tasks at hand. Either his relationship is put aside with this, or there's an eventual separation that occurs, and he mourns it. After, he tries to maintain normalcy and puts on a guise to appease others. During this time, he may start to have a realization about something that he attempts to repress. He eventually comes to terms with it, though, recognizing that there's someone (maybe something?) better for him. He wants to admit to these true feelings, but he'll struggle with hiding, doubting, and fearing them; thinking he can't allow himself to fully love this person or, at least, admit to whatever feelings or "truth" he possesses. Mike will most likely continue to struggle with mixed feelings and hiding his true personality after this, eventually admitting to not being fully authentic. He'll then accept his true self for what it is. This will lead into a climax, where the main conflict of the show will be resolved. Finally, he'll accept and admit his true feelings, realizing that all he needed to do in the end was be entirely honest with (and about) himself.

In Conclusion

I really want this to be where they take Mike in ST5. It would be such a satisfying thing to watch, especially with how he's acted the past two seasons. I think he deserves to have a self-love/acceptance arc because the show has made it clear he's insecure and inauthentic.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know your thoughts and interpretations in the comments, as well as if there's anything you think I should add/fix. I'd love to hear what others have to say about "STurn" and it's connections to ST :)!

[boba-beom]

· ° . ࿐𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 | C.BG

pairing: beomgyu x gn!reader

genre: fluff, comfort, bsf2l | one-shot

synopsis: when the love of a best friend exceeds, it's time to confess to him first. however, you never knew he had fallen for you from the very start.

warning(s): reader a little oblivious, breakdowns, mentions of jealousy, mentions of a breakup, mentions being cheated on (not beomgyu), confessions, physical affection, and a few kisses.

wc: 1.5k

a/n: 12th March 3pm GMT is always 13th March 12am KST, so from one birthday celebrant to the other, happy 22nd birthday to the loml, choi beomgyu. to turn 22 with you is a privilege and I hope this chapter will be good to you. I was listening to NewJeans - Ditto while writing this, so if you want to listen to that too it'll kick in the extra feels :>

choi beomgyu. the name that has never left your mind since the day you met.

you remember the first time you introduced yourselves; meeting by chance at a music shop. the sound of someone testing out an electro-acoustic guitar had you walking around the corner, past the wide variety of guitar brands until you were standing a few metres away from the seated male. his hands were plucking the strings and you were so intrigued by his talent, you were wanting to learn to play the guitar again.

"oh, hi there. are you wanting to try this one out too?" his smile was genuine. he was in the process of pulling the strap over his head and lifted the guitar in your direction.

"no no! it's okay, I was just listening in." you reciprocated the smile, "I hope that's okay with you."

he patted the seat beside him for you to sit, and you followed suit.

"I'm beomgyu by the way." he held out his hand and you accepted it with a soft shake.

"nice to meet you, beomgyu. I'm yn."

choi beomgyu. the name you look for in your contacts when you were in need of company.

"hi beomgyu, I'm sorry to bother you, I know it's late but I really need a friend right now." you were sitting on the floor, back leaning against the side of your bed.

the excessive stress in life was too overwhelming for you that you didn't know what to or who to talk to. but after being friends with beomgyu for a while you had hoped it was safe to assume it was the right decision to make. and it was.

"yn? I'm on my way there, okay?"

after a few minutes you heard him leave his bike by the front of your house and you opened the door for him. he approached you slowly, observing you for any hesitation towards him, but you crashed your chests together, wrapping your arms around him until your tears soaked into the material of his hoodie.

"hey, it's okay. everything will be okay, I'm here now." his arms were wrapped around you, bringing one hand up so his palm was cradling the back of your head, alternating between still holds and slow caresses.

choi beomgyu. the one who was jealous when you received an anonymous valentine's card that wasn't from him.

"omg beomgyu!! look what I got through the post." you held up a pretty, handwritten card in front of him. you were giggling from the sweet words written on the paper and inside the envelope was a heart-shaped chocolate wrapped in pink tin-foil.

"you got a card?" he huffed. he didn't look as fascinated as you were, taking the card from your fingers and reading the contents of it. let's just say his face wasn't good at hiding how he felt about that.

"oh come on, at least be happy for me. I hardly receive these things." you pout at him, poking his sides until he let out an airy chuckle.

"yeah sure, who wouldn't give you a valentine's day card?" he crossed his arms over his chest, raising a brow at you.

"you?" you joked, nudging his arm. too enamoured by the anonymous card, you read its contents once again before unwrapping the chocolate that came with it.

"ah, yeah ha ha." he faked a laugh, looking down at his open backpack on the floor with a single rose and a valentine's card.

choi beomgyu. the one who helped you get over your first 'relationship'.

"I can't believe they gave you flowers and bought you gifts and still managed to cheat on you." he was shouting at no one in particular. he took you to the top of the hill just in the outskirts of the city where you could watch the sunset over the busy buildings from afar. he'd just be watching you sit cross-legged in the passenger seat, calming yourself down and wiping away the falling tears.

"just say 'I told you so'. I know you want to." you sniffled into the tissue, hiccupping from bawling your eyes out after you called it off with them.

"now why would I do that? hm?" he reached out his hand and took ahold of yours, his thumb rubbing the back of your hand, back and forth. "you deserve so much better than that, yn. someone who would respect you and love you, unlike them. understood?"

you slowly nodded your head, taking in each and every one of his comforting words.

"thank you, gyu." you pushed yourself to give him a genuine smile, and he leaned forward to leave a peck on your temple. "what would I do without you?"

choi beomgyu. the one you shared your first kiss with.

"why'd you call me over? is everything alright?" he sits on your bed, making himself comfortable as he hugs one of your plushies.

"yeah I'm fine. just wanted to hang out with you. it's been a while, you know?" you twiddle with your thumbs, sitting on the opposite end of your bed.

he looks at you with so much adoration and lets out a small humorous huff.

"so... you missed me?" he shuffles closer, placing the plushie on your lap.

"what? pffft, no-" you cross your arms, your eyes falling upon anything and anywhere in your room but at him.

"then I'm okay to just walk out of here-" he gets up but you grab ahold of his wrist, softly tugging him to sit back down.

"no!" you clear your throat, "I mean, please stay."

"then why did you really call me here, yn?" he studies your face, waiting for your eyes to steadily meet his.

you sigh. you had been debating this decision for the longest time, not wanting to ruin what this unexpected friendship had started. and now here you are, scared that you could potentially lose this person you call your best friend.

"I like you." you finally lift your head, locking eyes with his warm, brown ones. "I like you, choi beomgyu. I like the way you play your guitar like it's no one's business. I like how comforting and supportive you've been towards me. I like how you joke around with me and make me laugh. I like how genuine you are with me." your hold loosens around his wrist and your fingers slide down to hook onto his. "and I like that you accept me for who I am."

he looks down at your interlaced fingers, silence on his end.

"gyu, please say something." you worry he's about to reject you. did you just make it weird? was it because you joked he would never give you a valentine's card, and you found the rose and his card after he left your house? is it too late?

in one swift movement, he pulls his fingers away from yours, engulfing you in his arms. he buries his face in the side of your neck, knocking a bit of your breath out of you with a light gasp.

"I've always liked you, yn." he mumbles your neck. "ever since you appeared around the corner in the music shop, I've liked you since then."

you hug him back, smiling to yourself as you shut your eyes. you felt safe in his arms, your breathing matching each other's as you sigh in relief.

"huh- why didn't you say anything?"

"I wear my heart on my sleeve, yn. I'm surprised you never noticed." he chuckles as he pulls back and cups your cheek, his thumb skimming across the warmth of your skin.

he adores you. only you have seen how much he cares, how much effort he puts into his hobbies. only you have shown him what it's like to be with somebody who reciprocates the same emotions.

"I'm sorry I've put you through so much, I'm such a mess sometimes." you struggle to make eye contact with him again.

"if this is about you thinking I would never give you anything for valentine's then stop being silly. I do these things because I like you so so much that I would do them all again in a heartbeat."

"would you really?" you tease, lifting a brow at his statement.

"yes, really." he leans forward to kiss your forehead, something you're familiar with. "I'd go through that again," he kisses the tip of your nose. "and again," placing a kiss on your right cheek. "and again." lastly placing a kiss on your left cheek.

"gyu, I'm so lucky to have met you." your foreheads rest against each other. your eyes flickering from his and then to the cupid's bow of his lips and back to his eyes again.

"if you would let me, can I be your person?" he whispers, his lips inching closer to yours.

"be my person, gyu." you whisper back.

you both slowly lean in until your lips touch, moving slowly in tandem to your hearts beating in sync. it feels soft and gentle, yet you could feel so much emotion at the same time. a smile on his lips was forming against yours, making you chuckle in the kiss.

choi beomgyu. your best friend who you call your first love.

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© boba-beom ; all rights reserved. do not repost, copy, alter or translate in any way or platform.

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest.

Bandmates Wanted

Day #2 - Prompt: In the Beginning | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: T | CW: None | POV: Jeff | Pairing: None | Tags: Forming Corroded Coffin, Meeting Each Other, Shoutout to Mr. Clarke For Supporting Kids and Their Dreams

It's probably overkill, but Jeff sticks another piece of tape on the flyer, making sure it'll stay put in the school hallway. When he's done, he takes a step back and looks at his handiwork. 

It's a little crooked. Damn.

Oh well, it still gets the point across, he supposes. 

He's not sure how this will go. There might not be any bites, and if there are, they might all suck. Mr. Clarke said he'd supervise the auditions, even if they fell out of his purview, whatever that is. Jeff's glad. He's nervous, and having someone else there, looking like they're in charge, might help. 

The AV room is small, but Jeff isn't expecting much of a turn out, but he'll just have to wait and see what Friday brings.

"Is this Jeff?" the voice on the phone asks, a woman.

"Yes?"

"Hi, Jeff. I'm Carolyn Jones. I'm calling about your band auditions."

"Oh, um. They're really only for kids," he says, unsure.

She laughs, "Yes, I'm aware. I'm calling for my son. He was interested, and I just wanted to know more, before I gave him the okay."

What kind of sissy baby needs his mommy to call for him? Probably nobody that belongs in a heavy metal band, that's for sure. But Jeff's mom would kill him if he isn't polite, especially to another adult, so he bites his tongue. He definitely doesn't have to let the kid in the band, though, that's for dang sure.

"Um, okay, what questions do you have?" he asks, kind of regretting that he ever put his number on the flyer. 

"Well, I'm not really sure," she says with a laugh, and it's warm, kind. He doesn't feel like she's judging him, somehow.

"Okay. Um, I'm Jeff. Williams. I'm in the seventh grade. I play the guitar, and sing a little bit. But if someone better comes along, I'm totally fine with giving that up."

"Well, Gareth doesn't sing, I don't think. He plays the drums, and is a year younger than you."

"Does he have drums?" Jeff asks.

"He does."

"Is he good?" Jeff asks, and she laughs.

"Well, I'm his mother, so I'm a little biased. But I think so."

Jeff laughs, "Have him come to Mr. Clarke's room on Friday. He doesn't need to bring his own drums. Mr. Clarke is borrowing a kit from the band room."

She asks a few more questions, and then finally hangs up.

Jeff goes and digs out his sister's yearbook from last year, so he can see what this kid looks like. 

And there he is, a tiny twerp with a mop of messy curls. Jeff sure hopes he's grown since then. Or, maybe Jeff will have other options, better options, and won't have to let this little kid in his band. 

Come Friday, Jeff's nervous. Really nervous. Only one slip has been taken from the flyer, and he suspects that went home with Gareth to his mommy.

It's five after six, and nobody showed up.

"It's okay, Jeffery. It's still early, don't worry yet," Mr. Clarke says, and Jeff nods. He hopes that's true. 

Then they both hear a commotion, and a cymbal crashing against the tile floor in the hallway.

Jeff jumps up, and Mr. Clarke follows, where they find a little kid, Gareth, trying to drag his own drums into the school, even after Jeff said that he didn't need to do that. Dummy.

The boy's mom is with him, bringing up the rear. Of course she is.

"Whoa, hey, you didn't need to bring those," Jeff says, looking over the huge handful of equipment both are trying to carry, and not very well.

"I told him you said that, dear, but he was adamant that he play his own drums," his mom says, and Jeff nods, because they're here now, and at least somebody showed up. And Jeff gets that. He'd want to play his own guitar, too.

"Okay, let us help then," Jeff says as he reaches for a piece, and Mr. Clarke does the same. 

Then Jeff sees Goodie Goodwin, the snarky, dry-witted kid from his homeroom carrying in a bass. He didn't even know Goodie played the bass. They aren't friends, not really, but they are friendly enough that Jeff would have asked him, if he'd known.

"Hey, we're right in there," Jeff tells him.

And Goodie just looks at him as he walks by, "Yeah, I know where Mr. Clarke's room is."

Well, fair enough, Jeff supposes.

They get everything set up, and then just all three look at each other, like, well, what do we do now? Pick a song, Jeff supposes, but after some back-and-forth, they settle and get started. It's rough, but it's not bad. It could be way, way worse.

And so they play, until they've broken a sweat and Mr. Clarke has put big, heavy earphones over his head, probably tired of the racket.

"I need a drink," Jeff says, "gimme a sec."

He's headed for the water fountain, when Jeff sees Eddie Munson lurking at the edge of the hallway, the new transfer student with a buzz cut, bad attitude and reputation, a guitar case over his shoulder. 

"Are you here for…?" Jeff trails off. Eddie just kind of nods, so Jeff walks towards him, "Why didn't you come in?" 

"You weren't asking for a guitar player," Eddie answers, "but I do like metal. And I play."

"Well, maybe we could have two guitar players," Jeff offers, "that's pretty normal, I think."

Eddie smiles, just barely, but it is a smile.

"Did you have a big turnout?" Eddie asks, and Jeff shakes his head no, being honest. He didn't. Not at all.

"No. One drummer, one bass player, and you, if you want to come play with us. We're not half bad."

Eddie nods, running his hand over his buzzed head like he's nervous, but he finally agrees with a soft, "Okay."

Okay, Jeff thinks, let's do this.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @corrodedcoffinfest and follow along with the fun! 🦇

[a-memory-a-distant-echo]

it's time for the long-threatened post about how to get subtitles (including translated ones) for videos that don't have subtitles.

in my experience, the methods in this post can probably get you solidly 75% or more of the content of many videos (caveats inside). i've tested this on videos that are originally in chinese, english, french, german, hindi, japanese, korean, spanish, and honestly probably some languages that i'm forgetting. my experience is that it works adequately in all of them. not great, necessarily, but well enough that you can probably follow along.

this is a very long post because this is the overexplaining things website, and because i talk about several different ways to get the captions. this isn't actually difficult, though, or even especially time consuming—the worst of it is pushing a button and ignoring things for a while. actual hands-on work is probably five minutes tops, no matter how long the video is.

i've attempted to format this post understandably, and i hope it's useful to someone.

first up, some disclaimers.

this is just my experience with things, and your experience might be different. the tools used for (and available for) this kind of thing change all the time, and if you're reading this six months after i wrote it, your options might be different. this post is probably still a decent starting place.

background about my biases in this: i work in the creative industries. mostly i'm a fiction editor. i've also been a writer, a technical editor and writer, a transcriptionist, a copyeditor, and something i've seen called a 'translation facilitator' or 'rewrite editor', where something is translated fairly literally (by a person or a machine) and then a native speaker of the target language goes through and rewrites/restructures as needed to make the piece read more naturally in the target language. i've needed to get information out of business meetings that were conducted in a language i didn't speak, and have done a lot of work on things that were written in (or translated into) the writer's second or sixth language, but needed to be presented in natural english.

so to start, most importantly: machine translation is never going to be as good as a translation done by an actual human. human translators can reflect cultural context and nuanced meanings and the artistry of the work in a way that machines will never be able to emulate. that said, if machine translation is your only option, it's better than nothing. i also find it really useful for videos in languages where i have enough knowledge that i'm like, 75% sure that i'm mostly following, and just want something that i can glance at to confirm that.

creating subs like this relies heavily on voice-to-text, which—unfortunately—works a lot better in some situations than it does in others. you'll get the best, cleanest results from videos that have slow, clear speech in a 'neutral' accent, and only one person speaking at a time. (most scripted programs fall into this category, as do many vlogs and single-person interviews.) the results will get worse as voices speed up, overlap more, and vary in volume. that said, i've used this to get captions for cast concerts, reality shows, and variety shows, and the results are imperfect but solidly readable, especially if you have an idea of what's happening in the plot and/or can follow along even a little in the broadcast language.

this also works best when most of the video is in a single language, and you select that language first. the auto detect option sometimes works totally fine, but in my experience there's a nonzero chance that it'll at least occasionally start 'detecting' random other languages in correctly, or someone will say a few words in spanish or whatever, but the automatic detection engine will keep trying to translate from spanish for another three minutes, even tho everything's actually in korean. if there's any way to do so, select the primary language, even if it means that you miss a couple sentences that are in a different language.

two places where these techniques don't work, or don't work without a lot of manual effort on your part: translating words that appear on the screen (introductions, captions, little textual asides, etc), and music. if you're incredibly dedicated, you can do this and add it manually yourself, but honestly, i'm not usually this dedicated. getting captions for the words on the screen will involve either actually editing the video or adding manually translated content to the subs, which is annoying, and lyrics are...complicated. it's possible, and i'm happy to talk about it in another post if anyone is interested, but for the sake of this post, let's call it out of scope, ok? ok. bring up the lyrics on your phone and call it good enough.

places where these techniques are not great: names. it's bad with names. names are going to be mangled. resign yourself to it now. also, in languages that don't have strongly gendered speech, you're going to learn some real fun stuff about the way that the algorithms gender things. (spoiler: not actually fun.) bengali, chinese, and turkish are at least moderately well supported for voice-to-text, but you will get weird pronouns about it.

obligatory caveat about ai and voice-to-text functionality. as far as i'm aware, basically every voice-to-text function is ~ai powered~. i, a person who has spent twenty years working in the creative industries, have a lot of hate for generative ai, and i'm sure that many of you do, too. however, if voice-to-text (or machine translation software) that doesn't rely on it exists anymore, i'm not aware of it.

what we're doing here is the same as what douyin/tiktok/your phone's voice-to-text does, using the same sorts of technology. i mention this because if you look at the tools mentioned in this post, at least some of them will be like 'our great ai stuff lets you transcribe things accurately', and i want you to know why. chat gpt (etc) are basically glorified predictive text, right? so for questions, they're fucking useless, but for things like machine transcription and machine translation, those predictions make it more likely that you get the correct words for things that could have multiple translations, or for words that the software can only partially make out. it's what enables 'he has muscles' vs 'he has mussels', even though muscles and mussels are generally pronounced the same way. i am old enough to have used voice to text back when it was called dictation software, and must grudgingly admit that this is, in fact, much better.

ok! disclaimers over.

let's talk about getting videos

for the most part, this post will assume that you have a video file and nothing else. cobalt.tools is the easiest way i'm aware of to download videos from most sources, though there are other (more robust) options if you're happy to do it from the command line. i assume most people are not, and if you are, you probably don't need this guide anyhow.

i'm going to use 'youtube' as the default 'get a video from' place, but generally speaking, most of this works with basically any source that you can figure out how to download from—your bilibili downloads and torrents and whatever else will work the same way. i'm shorthanding things because this post is already so so long.

if the video you're using has any official (not autogenerated) subtitles that aren't burned in, grab that file, too, regardless of the language. starting from something that a human eye has looked over at some point is always going to give you better results. cobalt.tools doesn't pull subtitles, but plugging the video url into downsub or getsubs and then downloading the srt option is an easy way to get them for most places. (if you use downsub, it'll suggest that you download the full video with subtitles. that's a link to some other software, and i've never used it, so i'm not recommending it one way or the other. the srts are legit, tho.)

the subtitle downloaders also have auto translation options, and they're often (not always) no worse than anything else that we're going to do here—try them and see if they're good enough for your purposes. unfortunately, this only works for things that already have subtitles, which is…not that many things, honestly. so let's move on.

force-translating, lowest stress mode.

this first option is kind of a cheat, but who cares. youtube will auto-caption things in some languages (not you, chinese) assuming that the uploader has enabled it. as ever, the quality is kinda variable, and the likelihood that it's enabled at all seems to vary widely, but if it is, you're in for a much easier time of things, because you turn it on, select whatever language you want it translated to, and youtube…does its best, anyhow.

if you're a weird media hoarder like me and you want to download the autogenerated captions, the best tool that i've found for this is hyprscribr. plug in the video url, select 'download captions via caption grabber', then go to the .srt data tab, copy it out, and paste it into a text file. save this as [name of downloaded video].[language code].srt, and now you have captions! …that you need to translate, which is actually easy. if it's a short video, just grab the text, throw it in google translate (timestamps and all), and then paste the output into a new text file. so if you downloaded cooking.mp4, which is in french, you'll have three files: cooking.mp4, cooking.fr.srt, and cooking.en.srt. this one's done! it's easy! you're free!

but yeah, ok, most stuff isn't quite that easy, and auto-captioning has to be enabled, and it has some very obvious gaps in the langauges it supports. which is sort of weird, because my phone actually has pretty great multilingual support, even for things that youtube does not. which brings us to low-stress force translation option two.

use your phone

this seems a little obvious, but i've surprised several people with this information recently, so just in case. for this option, you don't even need to have downloaded the video—if it's a video you can play on your phone, the phone will almost definitely attempt real-time translation for you. i'm sure iphones have this ability, but i'm an android person, so can only provide directions for that: go into settings and search for (and enable) live translation. the phone will do its best to pick up what's being said and translate it on the fly for you, and if 'what's being said' is a random video on the internet, your phone isn't gonna ask questions. somewhat inexplicably, this works even if the video is muted. i do this a lot at like four a.m. when i'm too lazy to grab earbuds but don't want to wake up my wife.

this is the single least efficient way to force sub/translate things, in my opinion, but it's fast and easy, and really useful for those videos that are like a minute long and probably not that interesting, but like…what if it is, you know? sometimes i'll do this to decide if i'm going to bother more complicated ways of translating things.

similarly—and i feel silly even mentioning this, but that i didn't think of it for an embarrassingly long time—if you're watching something on a device with speakers, you can try just…opening the 'translate' app on your phone. they all accept voice input. like before, it'll translate whatever it picks up.

neither of these methods are especially useful for longer videos, and in my experience, the phone-translation option generally gives the least accurate translation, because in attempting to do things in real time, you lose some of the predicative ability that i was talking about earlier. (filling in the blank for 'he has [muscles/mussels]' is a lot harder if you don't know if the next sentence is about the gym or about dinner.)

one more lazy way

this is more work than the last few options, but often gives better results. with not much effort, you can feed a video playing on your computer directly into google translate. there's a youtube video by yosef k that explains it very quickly and clearly. this will probably give you better translation output than any of the on-the-fly phone things described above, but it won't give you something that you can use as actual subs—it just produces text output that you can read while you watch the video. again, though, really useful for things that you're not totally convinced you care about, or for things where there aren't a lot of visuals, or for stuff where you don't care about keeping your eyes glued to the screen.

but probably you want to watch stuff on the screen at the same time.

let's talk about capcut!

this is probably not a new one for most people, but using it like this is a little weird, so here we go. ahead of time: i'm doing this on an actual computer. i think you probably can do it on your phone, but i have no idea how, and honestly this is already a really long guide so i'm not going to figure it out right now. download capcut and put it on an actual computer. i'm sorry.

anyhow. open up capcut, click new project. import the file that you downloaded, and then drag it down to the editing area. go over to captions, auto captions, and select the spoken language. if you want bilingual captions, pick the language for that, as well, and the captions will be auto-translated into whatever the second language you choose is. (more notes on this later.)

if i remember right, this is the point at which you get told that you can't caption a video that's more than an hour long. however. you have video editing software, and it is open. split the video in two pieces and caption them separately. problem solved.

now the complicated part: saving these subs. (don't panic; it's not actually that complicated.) as everyone is probably aware, exporting captions is a premium feature, and i dunno about the rest of you, but i'm unemployed, so let's assume that's not gonna happen.

the good news is that since you've generated the captions, they're already saved to your computer, they're just kinda secret right now. there are a couple ways to dig them out, but the easiest i'm aware of is the biyaoyun srt generator. you'll have to select the draft file of your project, which is auto-saved once a minute or something. the website tells you where the file is saved by default on your computer. (i realised after writing this entire post that they also have a step-by-step tutorial on how to generate the subtitles, with pictures, so if you're feeling lost, you can check that out here.)

select the project file titled 'draft_content', then click generate. you want the file name to be the same as the video name, and again, i'd suggest srt format, because it seems to be more broadly compatible with media players. click 'save to local' and you now have a subtitle file!

translating your subtitles

you probably still need to translate the subtitles. there are plenty of auto-translation options out there. many of them are fee- or subscription-based, or allow a very limited number of characters, or are like 'we provide amazing free translations' and then in the fine print it says that they provide these translations through the magic of uhhhh google translate. so we're just going to skip to google translate, which has the bonus of being widely available and free.

for shorter video, or one that doesn't have a ton of spoken stuff, you can just copy/paste the contents of the .srt file into the translation software of your choice. the web version of google translate will do 5000 characters in one go, as will systran. that's the most generous allocation that i'm aware of, and will usually get you a couple minutes of video.

the timestamps eat up a ton of characters, though, so for anything longer than a couple minutes, it's easier to upload the whole thing, and google translate is the best for that, because it is, to my knowledge, the only service that allows you to do it. to upload the whole file, you need a .doc or .rtf file.

an .srt file is basically just a text file, so you can just open it in word (or gdocs or whatever), save it as a .doc, and then feed it through google translate. download the output, open it, and save it as an .srt.

you're done! you now have your video and a subtitle file in the language of your choice.

time for vibe, the last option in this post.

vibe is a transcription app (not a sex thing, even tho it sounds like one), and it will also auto-translate the transcribed words to english, if you want.

open vibe and select your file, then select the language. if you want it translated to english, hit advanced and toggle 'translate to english'. click translate and wait a while. after a few minutes (or longer, depending on how long the file is), you'll get the text. the save icon is a folder with a down arrow on it, and i understand why people are moving away from tiny floppy disks, but also: i hate it. anyhow, save the output, and now you have your subs file, which you can translate or edit or whatever, as desired.

vibe and capcom sometimes get very different results. vibe seems to be a little bit better at picking up overlapping speech, or speech when there are other noises happening; capcom seems to be better at getting all the worlds in a sentence. i feel like capcom maybe has a slightly better translation engine, of the two of them, but i usually end up just doing the translation separately. again, it can be worth trying both ways and seeing which gives better results.

special notes about dual/bilingual subs

first: i know that bilingual subs are controversial. if you think they're bad, you don't have to use them! just skip this section.

as with everything else, automatically generating gives mixed results. sometimes the translations are great, and sometimes they're not. i like having dual subs, but for stuff that Matters To Me, for whatever reason, i'll usually generate both just the original and a bilingual version, and then try some other translation methods on the original or parts thereof to see what works best.

not everything displays bilingual subs very well. plex and windows media player both work great, vlc and the default video handler on ubuntu only display whatever the first language is, etc. i'm guessing that if you want dual subbed stuff you already have a system for it.

i'll also point out that if you want dual subs and have gone a route other than capcom, you can create dual subs by pasting the translated version and the untranslated version into a single file. leave the timestamps as they are, delete the line numbers if there are any (sometimes they seem to cause problems when you have dual subs, and i haven't figured out why) and then literally just paste the whole sub file for the first language into a new file. then paste in the whole sub file for the second language. yes, as a single chunk, the whole thing, right under the first language's subs. save the file as [video name].[zh-en].srt (or whatever), and use it like any other sub file.

notes on translation, especially since we're talking about lengthy machine-translations of things.

i default to translation options that allow for translating in large chunks, mostly because i'm lazy. but since an .srt is, again, literally just a text file, they're easy to edit, and if you feel like some of the lines are weird or questionable or whatever, it's easy to change them if you can find a better translation.

so: some fast notes on machine translation options, because i don't know how much time most people spend thinking about this kind of stuff.

one sort of interesting thing to check out is the bing translator. it'll only do 1000 characters at once, but offers the rather interesting option of picking a level of formality. i can't always get it to work, mind, but it's useful especially for times when you're like 'this one line sounds weird'—sometimes the difference between what the translator feels is standard vs formal vs casual english will make a big difference.

very fast illustration of the difference in translations. the random video that i used to make sure i didn't miss any steps explaining things starts with '所以你第二季来'. here's how it got translated:

google: So you come to season 2

google's top alternative: So you come in the second season

bing's standard tone: So here you come for the second season

bing set to casual: So you're coming for the second season, huh?

reverso default guess: So you come in season two

reverso alternate guess: You'll be participating in season two

capcom: So you come in season two

yandex: So you come in the second season

systran: That's why you come in season two

deepl: That's why you're here in season two

vibe: So your second season is here

technically all conveying the same information, but the vibes are very different. sometimes one translator or another will give you a clearly superior translation, so if you feel like the results you're getting are kinda crap, try running a handful of lines through another option and see if it's better.

ok! this was an incredibly long post, and i've almost definitely explained something poorly. again, there are almost certainly better ways to do this, but these ways are free and mostly effective, and they work most of the time, and are better than nothing.

feel free to ask questions and i'll answer as best i can. (the answer to any questions about macs or iphones is 'i'm so sorry, i have no idea tho.' please do not ask those questions.)

[celestialholz]

The Resurrectionist (or 'Crowley's dying briefly because character-building, and here's why')

I should start off by saying, friends, that I have written exactly zero books. (Bloody lot of fanfiction, but no actual novels). And I like coffee, but not particularly with oat milk. (The poison's metaphorical, not physical), but... well, you guys can keep both of 'em, because they're just not relevant to this conversation. I am also, as you may have already guessed, not Neil Gaiman. A chick can only speculate, but she does like to back it up with actual evidence.

No, I'm simply here to ask you a question.

What's the single worst thing Heaven could ever do to Aziraphale?

What would drive our angel so far from the clutches of Heaven that he would never, ever wish to return? What would set him unequivocally free from six millenia of assumed responsibility; what would make him realise that God can never change? What would strip everything away from him?

Because of course, this is what we have to do next series. This is Aziraphale's whole arc. If he doesn't try and change things and fail, he will always wonder. Always have a 'what if.' Will never be able to truly move on, will never be free from the eternal abuse cycle.

And so the severing has to be monumental, and everlasting. Then we get our happy ending. Storytelling, loves, done flawlessly. (Again, not a novelist... just a girl who's been writing for over half of her lifetime.)

And so, I ask again:

What's the single worst thing Heaven could ever do to Aziraphale?

And, well, it's a manifold question isn't it, with lots of potential ans - no I'm just kidding. Very simple question, very simple answer.

So congratulations to the very likely hundreds of you who have just said 'murder Crowley,' because a. you're very much correct and b. we've all just predicted the end of series three.

(... I mean, probably not the very end. But the emotional crux, definitely.)

And naturally, I'm not talking discorporation. I'm talking 'wiped from the universe altogether, leaving our angel eternally alone' kinda murder. The real shit. The good shit. Never mind any of this 'editing the Book of Life leading to an ineffable paradox' kinda bullshit - this is Heaven, the natural source point of holy water. One miracled Supersoaker and our demon's ancient history, friends.

Because y'see guys, severing Aziraphale's connection isn't the only problem we face in terms of narrative romance. We've also got Crowley, who has spent six millennia being in love with a guy who just takes, takes, takes... him for granted.

And this is NOT to say that Aziraphale gives him nothing back - he so very clearly does. (I am a consummate Aziraphale apologist, Crowley's just as much of a fool post-series two as our angel is, and Aziraphale needs this, as I've mentioned.) But... Crowley is his teacher. His moral guide. His protector. It mostly goes one way, and despite all of that and him being happy to be that guy for all this time... right when it matters most, Aziraphale (to Crowley, at least) has abandoned him. He's told him he isn't good enough.

(... Which is bollocks. That's not what Aziraphale's said at all, they're both as overprotective as each other and have a desperate, painful longing to keep one another safe in their own best way. But it sure fucking looks like it to CROWLEY, which is what matters.)

And so, we have two issues in achieving our happy-ever-after.

Sundering Aziraphale from Heaven forever;

Ensuring Crowley trusts him fully and knows completely that he is Aziraphale's only choice.

(And also by GOD do they need to have a proper conversation, but that one kinda goes without saying. It'll happen.) We have to even up this relationship; we have to make it absolute narrative equilibrium, and I am absolutely sure Neil knows this probably far better than I do.

... And so, how do we achieve both these things in one hit, whilst also telling a Second Coming story and holding a celestial war?

Well, we kill Crowley. Obviously. Not until episode five or six and after an emotional, romantic reunion of mutual understanding, but... we kill Crowley.

... And then Aziraphale brings him back. Yes, from complete death.

I would like at this juncture to remind you that miracles, apparently (and this is a thing we've just learned guys, almost like it's suddenly going to be relevant ongoing) are measured in Lazarii.

(Great thanks to the Aziraphale to my Crowley, @porgthespacepenguin, for these few screenshots I'm showing off here today. You'd never leave me, not even for my own good. <3)

Lazarii is very obviously named after Jesus' apparently greatest miracle, of raising Lazarus from the dead in the book of John. They managed to achieve twenty-five times the necessary amount of energy it takes to bring someone back from death... without actually fucking trying.

Let's take a look at the book of John a sec. Or more specifically, its eleventh chapter and twenty-fifth verse.

Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. The person who believes in me, even though he dies, will live."

My thanks to Neil once again for murdering me like Heaven's going to murder Crowley. Cold blood, point-blank.

'Who believes in me.' Huh. Only for the past six thousand years, Aziraphale dear...

Here's a little of what the internet has to say about the number 25 in numerology, by the way.

And may I also remind you at this stage that there is a pub in this series called The Resurrectionist, and only Aziraphale goes into it.

I mean sure, Crowley's booksitting and trying to make the ladies hilariously like him and Aziraphale fall in love in the same way he himself did, but the fact remains... one relevant pub name. One guy. (We all need a narrative excuse sometimes Neil, I get you.)

Considering all this, friends, let me ask you another question. This one's a little more wordy, that's on me.

What do you think would happen when a being capable of raising someone from the dead twelve and a half times over for the sake of his beloved's protection loses said beloved beyond all doubt?

... And this will be after he gains the ultimate celestial power-up, by the way. In case we'd forgotten that that alone is also about to boost Aziraphale to the fucking stratosphere, and finally put him on an equal footing with Crowley. (Who is clearly an ex-archangel, but not Lucifer, so Neil's since said.)

... And I think we know the answer, don't we? The kind of miracle that

(You can't see me, but I'm staring into the camera like I'm one of The Office main cast right now.)

This is the kind of power that fucks with reality - the kind of power that scares Heaven and Hell to absolute death, hence Metatron being in the DMs. And crucially, this miracle was boosted because of love. Because of a desire to keep the status quo, their 'own side'. You amplify both those conditions to the nth degree by destroying one of them? It's over, lads. Resurrection is the beginning.

Resurrection evens up a playing field. It destroys Aziraphale and renews him in one hit; it proves to Crowley once and for all that Aziraphale loves him exactly as he is.

... It's a no-brainer, pals.

And what do they do after this? Well, fuck up the celestial order, naturally. I have theories, the main one of them being that they're going to be God and Satan respectively and unite Heaven and Hell in eternal marriage, but... that's just a theory. A television theory.

The resurrection thing? Not so much.

... See, this is the thing, my friends. You don't need to have written a 16k essay to predict the future.

All you need is the ability to tell a story, an observant eye for that which is already present, and a simple question. (Followed by a mildly more complex one. It's a working allegory.)

... I'm just going to leave you with this one shot of Aziraphale picking up his own destiny. Because poetic cinema.

[muniimyg]

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹ teacher assistant!jimin ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹

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//

teacher assistant!jimin always grades your paper first so it'll be last in the pile when he gives them out the next day. oh and let’s not forget the golden star he puts on your paper. it’s an inside joke…. kind of. from the corner of his eye, he would watch as you anxiously wait for him to call your name. alas, when he finally does; he dismisses everyone else. as everyone packs up and leaves, you happily skip to him and thank him for his notes on your draft. he smiles warmly and tells you, "you deserve it. you worked hard." you laugh. “just say my writing is your favourite.” jimin rolls his eyes but agrees. “yes, ___. your writing is my favourite.” then, just as you're about to flatter him, your best friend tugs you over and whines, "how many more A's are you gonna give ___? kinda offensive since she's more of a D cup—"

teacher assistant!jimin never really knows what your schedule is like. every day, you have something to do after his class. today, as you're rushing to leave, you take a moment to stop in front of his desk and open your bag. you take out a container filled with cookies. "i made these for you!" you begin. "i hope you're not allergic to nuts... they're white macadamia cookies. i think i saw you eating one before class the other day s-so i just thought—" he takes them. "thank you. they look good." you take a breath in and giggle. "g-good. i... uhm, i have to get going b-but yeah.. enjoy the cookies, jimin." when you leave, he smiles to himself and takes a cookie out of the baggie. he bites into it, and thinks to himself... this is the best cookie he has ever eaten.

teacher assistant!jimin saves the last few cookies for the evening. on his way home, he bumps into nam joon. "oh, you got cookies too?" nam joon beams, as he takes a baggie of cookies out of his hoodie pocket. nam joon gives jimin a toothy smile. "is it ta appreciation day or something? did ___ give you some too? she's cute, huh? i didn't know she was taking a class of yours." jimin feels his chest tighten. why did nam joon get cookies too? didn't you make these just for him? you mentioned knowing it was his favourite. white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are not nam joon's favourite. in all honesty, jimin isn't sure what is nam joon's favourite but it just can't be his favourite. because those fucking cookies aren't for him. oh. jimin is pissed. trying to keep it together, he answered nam joon; "she takes my 10AM." nam joon munches on his cookie. "that's cool. she's in my 12PM—ah, shit. is this white chocolate macadamia? isn't this your favourite? i'm more of an oatmeal chocolate chip kind of guy but this is sooo fucking good." jimin's lips curve into a half smile. so... the cookies must've really been for him—"i bet the others really like this cookie though. she has that jin guy as her professor professor and you know what all the girls here say about him—" nam joon swallows the rest of the cookie. "he likes girls with D cups."

teacher assistant!jimin would be the pettiest little shit to you the next time he sees you. he’d ignore you as you walked in and said good morning to him. then, every time you raised your hand, he’d pick someone who didn’t even have their hand raised. at all costs, he was avoiding eye contact with you. like what??? rude…. also, he gave you your paper FIRST. there wasn’t even any written feedback. no. gold. star. yet, you have to give him some credit. at least his bitter feelings towards you didn’t effect your—a D????? he gave you a D????? this is WRONG. this is unacceptable. as the class is dismissed, you gather your things to talk to him. jus as you approach him, he swings his bag over his bag and bumps into you. “oh shit, sorry—“ “i got a D.” “yeah… that sucks.” with a frown, you confront him. “you’ve never given me a D.” “it was nothing personal, ms. ___… your writing lacked. it wasn’t good. anyways, i gotta get going. i’ll see you next class. if you really want, take it up with prof. he takes re-submissions for one assignment per student.” as he moves past you, under your breath you huff; “nothing personal? bullshit.”

teacher assistant!jimin doesn’t know what to do when you yell his name in the middle of campus. at first, he wants to believe it’s all his head. so, he continues to walk away. but then… everyone starts to turn their heads and look at him… why? because of you. you’re storming to him with no thoughts—just a tired heart. “jimin!” you yell with the kind of tone that has everyone intimidated. finally, he stops. he turns around and stands still as you approach him. you huff, “did i do something?” he tilts his head at you. “what?” you roll your eyes at him, shoving your paper to his chest. “d stands for did i do something.” jimin takes your paper and shrugs. “ms. ___, like i said… take it up with prof. i’m clocked out—“ “bullshit.” “ms.___—“ “oh my god, jimin! you know my name. you have my number—which is a waste since i’m still waiting for you to text me—and you always look at me in class like you could—“ jimin grabs your wrists and drags you to a tree nearby. at least here, people would have to squint to watch what happens next. “let go—“ you shake his grip off of you. he glares at you in return. “if you have a problem with me, figure it out. drop out of the class, talk to the prof or—“ “we’re almost finished the sem, why the hell would i drop this class—“ jimin hates this. he feels like he could hate you. “i don’t have time to deal with you acting like a child—“ in disbelief, you poke his chest. “like a child? oh come on! i spend all my class time looking at you with heart eyes and my free time baking you cookies. my writing is your favourite. there’s no way it deserved a D. also, i’ve been waiting for like… EVER. waiting for your text—now, on a random wednesday morning—you think i’m a child? now? really? are you mad at me or something—“ he gulps. “yes.” your eyes widen. “yes?” jimin sighs, letting himself sound ridiculous, “yes. i’m mad at you. you do all that shit and have these cute conversations with me—and then do this whole cookie gesture… but it wasn’t for me.” “what are you talking about?” “you made cookies for all your ta’s.” you hold back your smile. “that’s it? you gave me a D because you were jealous? over cookies?” jimin hisses and just as he’s about to turn and walk away from you, you run up in front of him. “hey, hey, hey,” you giggle. “i didn’t lie. i made those cookies for you. the other girls i have class with made their own batch and gave them out to their ta’s. is this about nam joon? i only gave him cookies because there were the uglier ones and i wanted to suck up to him… he’s your friend. i want your friends to like me.” jimin raises a brow. “what about jin? isn’t he your favourite?” you shrug. “you’re my favourite.” jimin chuckles, not believing your truth. trying to convince him, you plead with your eyes. “and what’s this all about? like, what about him? he gave me the recipe. he told me your favourite cookie. said we’d be cute together so he wanted to help me out. god, are you actually this jealous? is it bad that i’m really into it?” jimin’s heart skips a beat. ”s-so… you have a crush on me or something?” you throw your head back, laughing at his cuteness. wrapping your arms around him, you tiptop and kiss his cheek. “depends. can you reconsider my D while i consider yours?”