#okay this has the scene I've been wanting to write for FOUR YEARS

[likeamadonnau2]

A new chapter of You Wanted Me Alone, titled Probably, is here!

7500 words of Edge POV, set in August 2013 and Fall 1983.

[whipped-for-kpop-fics]

Troublemaker - C.SC

🚨Who: Choi Seungcheol (Seventeen) x female reader 🚨What: Gang au, smut, gang boss Seungcheol, gang member reader, angst, humour(low key crackish) and some fluff to top it all off. 🚨Wordcount: 15.9k 🚨Warnings: Do not take anything I write about police/law seriously, I don’t know shit about anything, okay. Reader is unhinged and shameless(and emotionally incompetent). Gang typical stuff; violence, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, theft etc. Handcuffs. Profanity. Degrading names. Unprotected sex, hair pulling, oral(both), multiple sex scenes/positions, breeding kink, choking, multiple orgasms, clit slapping, marking and potentially other fun things I’m likely forgetting about.

Summary: You're known for being able to get your hands on anything you want; drugs, weapons, money, cars. Except your boss, he's always been a little out of your reach, until the day you have him handcuffed in the backseat.

Minors do NOT interact, which means reblogging and/or commenting on this story. I WILL block any account that interacts without an age indicator in their bio.

-2024 Masterlist-

A/N- the image of Seungcheol on his knees with his hands behind his head getting arrested popped into my head and spawned this and i am not okay This story well and truly ran away from me, I cannot be held accountable for this shitshow. I planned a quick lil smut thing and then the fluff and angst appeared and here we are.

It's a beautiful sight to pull up to; the Choi Seungcheol on his knees, thick thighs spread wide with his fingers lacing together behind his head, biceps bulging in his plain white t-shirt. The same Choi Seungcheol who for the past four years has been running the most cunning, slippery gang that has graced the city in decades. 

Local law enforcement has been trying to get their mitts on him since before he even started the gang, but Seungcheol is smart, he's always made sure to keep his hands squeaky clean. 

Which is why when you heard the news come through on your police scanner that he's been spotted with some real nasty fuckers and this is the chance to get him cuffed, you wanted to get there asap to witness and join the scene.

Who wouldn't want to have the pleasure of slapping some cuffs on Choi Seungcheol and shove him around a little, afterall?

"What did you get him for?" You ask as you approach the scene with nothing but confidence, thumbs hooked into your belt casually. 

Seungcheol glances over at you and his jaw tightens with how hard he clenches his teeth; he takes you in from head to toe, dressed in uniform so crisp it's like you've just pulled it on. You have. He doesn't look impressed.

"Probable cause," the young, over-eager cop getting ready to handcuff Seungcheol informs, sounding almost proud while his partner keeps his gun pointed firmly at Seungcheol's head. 

Seungcheol isn't stupid, reckless at times, yeah; he's been known to get pretty injured and take some big risks with his own body in order to get what he wants, but even he wouldn't risk making a move in front of a trigger-happy rookie-cop.

"Oh, you fucking idiots," you laugh, walking over to snatch the cuffs into your own hold.

"What the fuck?" The younger cop baulks dumbstruck. "Who the fuck are you to just-" 

"You really think you're going to get brownie points with the Captain by brining him Choi Seungcheol with no solid fucking cause? You think you can just put the guy in cuffs and the rest will follow? You're fucking stupid, kid," 

"But we caught him," 

"Yeah and you know what his legal team is like? You're fucking lucky I turned up,"

"Why?" 

"Because I'm willing to take him off your hands and deal with it myself. I've had my eye on Choi for fucking years, boys; I've got quite the file on him. What have you got?" 

Admittedly, you take a hell of a lot of joy in grabbing Seungcheol's right forearm to force it down and around to his lower back where you can secure the cuff around his wrist. He grunts at the unexpected force yet doesn't fight you, just clenches his jaw tighter. 

"That's a good boy," you whisper into his ear while the two cops exchange lost, almost torn expressions as they attempt to silently communicate with one another what to do.

Clearly, they don't want to just hand the man over to you but you're right; they don't have shit on Seungcheol and it would only cause them a lot of hassle to arrest him. He's too smart to talk, even in holding and would just stare darkly at them, not moving a muscle until he's released. It happened before, once, over a year ago and his legal team tore apart the station so thoroughly that the cops who arrested him had to resign and get minimum wage jobs despite being the best the precinct had to offer. 

Once you've got Seungcheol securely in the cuffs, you grab his bicep and appreciatively squeeze it as you tug on him to signal him up. You have to bite back your pleased grin at the powerful man listening to your silent orders and obediently getting up. He glares at you over his shoulder.

"You boys better get back to your patrol before you get demoted," you warn, shoving Seungcheol towards your car. He stumbles a little and glares at you again but you ignore it to reach past him and open the back door. 

Seungcheol swears and mutters under his breath when you roughly push his head down and urge him into the back of the car. He almost falls flat on his face onto the cheap imitation-leather seats. You shut the door before his colourful language cussing you out, spills out any further. 

"What?" You ask the two young men still watching you dumbly. "I know, my ass looks great in these," you smirk smugly to yourself and smack your own ass making both men jump at the loud, sudden sound. 

"Yeah," the younger agrees mindlessly, eyes now glued to your ass as you open the driver's door. 

"Idiot," his partner hisses, backhanding him. "Don't fucking agree, now she's gonna report you for sexual harrassment!" 

"She started it!" 

While the pair are arguing, you take the chance to climb into your car and drive off with a pleased little cackle at causing the most chaos you could with so little to work with.

At the end of the street, Seungcheol kicks the back of your seat. You don't need to look at him to know he's glaring at you, you can feel the burn of his gaze on the side of your face. You love it.

"Now now, Mr Choi, please respect my car," he kicks the seat again making you snicker. "So ungrateful, I just saved you from being locked in an interrogation room for 24 hours. You'd think you'd be at least a little appreciative." 

"Like fuck am I," he grunts and shuffles closer to the criss cross of bars separating the two halves of the car. "Didn't have to be so fucking rough, you bitch." You lift your eyes to the rearview mirror to meet his gaze and grin smugly at him before returning your gaze to the road in front of you. "Sick fuck, you get off on it, don't you?" 

"Damn right," you confirm shamelessly with an almost twisted smirk. "Big boss man on his knees for ickle ol' me. Gets me all warm and tingly, Cheolie." 

"How many times have I got to tell you not to fucking call me that?" He's too close to the front seats to kick them again but he does knee the back of yours where his legs are spread as wide as possible in his pale ripped jeans to allow him so close. 

Fuck, you wish you could see his thighs right now. You quickly look over at him to test your range of sight but the fucking seats are in the way. Dammit. 

You sigh and turn back to the road forlornly. "Well, maybe if you ever punish me like you claim you will and then never stick to it, I might learn my lesson."

"You'd fucking like it," he grumbles. You just grin. Yeah, you definitely would. "Pull over and uncuff me." 

"Nope."

"I'm warning you, little one," 

"Pretty sure I'm the one in charge here," you chirp, unaffected by his low, warning tone. Though a second later you're choking on a laugh when his body jerks forward due to you suddenly breaking to join the queue of traffic at a red light. Seungcheol's forehead slams into the grate making him swear harshly. "Oops," you offer with false innocence and a big grin.

"You fucking-" he starts harshly, only to cut off when you pull away rapidly at the green light, sending him toppling back in the seats and cutting off with a surprised sound. You don't stop yourself from laughing that time.

"Now, here's what's gonna happen, Cheolie," you declare when you turn around in your seat to look at where the big gang boss is sitting quietly in the back seat, hands still cuffed behind him between his thick body and the backrest. His thick legs spread with his slouched position. 

Man, he's so fucking thick. You know it's true all over his body. You've conveniently walked in on him fucking enough people to know that the man's blessed with a diabolically thick cock too. 

Not forgetting the memorable time he didn't notice your very obvious spy camera in his bedroom for a full two months. For two glorious months you got to watch him wrap a hand around his cock and cum over his chest in live action and automatically recorded for your rewatch pleasure. 

You've never been more glad that he has a strict policy of not taking anyone to his home to fuck, you quite enjoyed his solo sessions and still watch them regularly. 

In fact, you had been watching one while spread over your own bed when the scanner had caught your attention. You didn't even have the chance to clean up, your thighs are still sticky. But that could also just be from having Seungcheol in handcuffs.

"You happened to interrupt my favourite hobby by almost getting arrested and making me come to your rescue." 

"If you say you were watching those fucking videos again-" he starts.

"I wouldn't have to if you didn't increase your security and make it harder for me to put up new cameras." 

"I did that so I don't have your perverted ass watching me in my private spaces!" He barks. "I swear, one day I'm going to actually choke you," 

"Do it," the sparkle in your eyes makes Seungcheol groan in frustration and tip his head back, eyes closing as he prays to a god he doesn't believe in for strength to handle you and your endless depravities. "Question," 

"What?" He sighs and lifts his head to look at you resignedly. After knowing you for so many years, he knows it's just easier to play along unless he wants to deal with you badgering him for the rest of the day. 

"Would you use your hands to choke me?" 

"What else?" 

"Your thighs-" 

"Shut up," he groans and pushes himself further upright. "Can you go a single day without making a remark about my thighs?" 

"No. Can you crush my head between them like you did that watermelon?" 

"I should've never done that. I thought playing along would make you shut the fuck up asking but no, you're even worse." 

"I appreciate art and those thighs, Choi Seungcheol are pure fucking art." 

"We have very different definitions of art," he deadpans. 

"Yes, I know," you roll your eyes. "You like silicone and spray tan," 

"Do I?" He raises an amused eyebrow at you when you look at him suspiciously.

"Every woman I've seen you fuck are more silicone than my dildo collection." 

"Not gonna comment on the collection," he mutters, looking more like he's convincing himself that his curiosity at how extensive your collection may be is not worth actually engaging you in a discussion about your sex life, which he knows heavily involves masturbating to those videos of him masturbating. 

"Do you want to see?" You offer brightly. "I have one that I think could compare to your cock," your gaze drops down to his crotch where there's an obvious bulge that you know is him flaccid. "Maybe..." you suck on your bottom lip thoughtfully as your mind runs wild with memories of the sight of his cock peeking through his fist as he chases his high. Or wrapped in rubber as he bent another woman with fake tits over his desk, or face first against a too-rough wall to take what he wants. 

You really don't know how he can claim to not have a type when you truly have only seen him actually having sex with one type of woman. You've seen him seduce and hit on a wide range of people, not even just women, but that's always to get his way and he doesn't fuck them, even if he does sometimes make out with them just to win them over.

"Stop thinking about my cock," Seungcheol deadpans, snapping you back to reality and looking up at him, though your gaze darts back down realising there's a change in the bulge. "Don't-"

"Are you getting hard?!" You gasp, shuffling onto your knees excitedly and gripping the grate. 

"No." 

"Liar," you grin, eyes sparkling. 

Seungcheol knows he's done for now; for years you've been trying to fuck him and now, now he's actually lost his usual firm grip on his own libido and let you see that he's not actually turned off by you in any way. 

"So, what's going to happen, Cheolie-" he swears at you, head tipping back to stare up at the ceiling. Of course, you ignore the interruption. "Seeing as you ruined my me-time, I'm going to come back there-" 

"And uncuff me." 

"No, silly boy," you giggle. "And ride your giant cock." 

Seungcheol curses under his breath and swallows before lifting his head to look at you.

For a few moments, you both just stare at each other. You, in wait for permission, because although you do a lot of questionable shit you'd never physically force yourself on anyone, and Seungcheol, clearly in thought.

"Get back here," he decides in a low, rough tone that makes your lower stomach twist and squeeze with genuine aroused excitement. 

"Fuck yeah," you exhale, climbing out of the car where minutes ago you parked in one of the many empty warehouses belongings to Seungcheol’s gang. 

Seungcheol watches through the window as you make short work of kicking off your shoes and removing your trousers and panties. He tries to look at you properly but that stupid fucking police uniform shirt you're wearing hangs to the top of your thighs and makes it so that he can't see shit. Not even once you've got the back door open and crawl into the backseat. 

"You got a condom?" He asks, letting out a harsh exhale when you start to palm at his cock without warning. 

"Nope," You shrug carelessly and use your free hand to open his belt before working on the button and zipper. "Got a problem with that?" 

"Fucking you raw?" You hum in confirmation and reluctantly let go of his cock so that you can yank down his jeans and boxers. Seungcheol helpfully lifts his hips off of the seat, leaning back onto his shoulders against the backrest for balance to let you get the clothing down to his knees and reveal his rapidly-hardening cock to your greedy gaze. "You may be fucking psychotic at the best of the times and fucking weirdly obsessed with me-" 

"Hey," you complain, pouting at him offendedly.

"Are you really pouting at me for calling you psychotic?" He deadpans in disbelief. He's called you worse before, much worse and you usually just giggle and act like he's given you a giant compliment. 

"What? No," you scoff and move over to straddle his thighs. "It's you saying weirdly obsessed as if you're not the single hottest person I've ever met. How dare you?"

Seungcheol licks his lips and looks down to watch at what he thought was you making a move to ride his cock like you said you would. But no, you adjust your position at the last second and sit right on his left thigh. 

"You're so fucking wet," he comments, voice thick with arousal and awe. His mouth drops open a little when you drag your slick pussy over his thigh and smear wetness over bare skin. "Fuck," 

"This is what you do to me, Cheolie," you complain and wrap your hand around his cock roughly. He groans and tips his head forward, thunking his forehead on your shoulder as you jerk him in time with the drag of your pussy up and down his thigh while he tenses it to make his muscles bulge and give you something firmer to grind your clit down on. 

It feels better than you could’ve imagined and you’ve fantasised about riding Seungcheol’s beefy thighs more times than you can count.

"You're so fucking shameless," he grunts after a moment of just watching your movements. You're torturing him with the too-rough, slow pull of your palm against his cock, never close enough to the top to catch any of the precum that's starting to dribble down the side. 

"For you, not anyone else," 

"You're going to give me a giant head," 

"It'll match your cock." 

Seungcheol huffs a laugh and lifts his head to look at you. "You gonna sit on it then?" 

"I'd love to, but you didn't actually say you're okay with not using a condom. I know you always do with those women." 

"You're not them," it's perhaps the softest fucking thing Seungcheol has ever said to you. Your movements slow to a stop as you stare at him in surprise. "I trust you with every fucking aspect of the gang, trust you to back me up more than I do anyone else. You think I'd put my life in your hands and not the health of my dick?" He scoffs. "I trust you to not do this if you have anything you could pass on and I know I sure as fuck don't." 

"And what if you knock me up?" Seungcheol raises his eyebrows at you bewilderedly, barely even noticing that you've stopped grinding on his thigh and have moved over to hover over his cock. "What?" 

Seungcheol opens his mouth to respond but you decide to drop down onto his cock, letting his thick length split you open harshly as you both moan at the sudden friction. "Fuck!" He exclaims, head tipped back and eyes screwed shut. "You-you fucking idiot," he lifts his head to look at you. "You didn't even take it slow! You could get fucking hurt!" 

"Good, I like it," you smirk, proud of yourself for getting the usually so put-together man so worked up. There's something beautifully wild in his dark eyes and a pretty pink smeared over his cheeks. 

You really wish you hadn’t left your phone in your trousers, you’d love to take a photo of him right now. You’d put it as your lock screen and he’d probably threaten to beat your ass if you don’t remove it, yet he never follows through with his threats to you.

"You're fucking crazy," 

"Yep." You grin and grind down against him, breath catching as his cock presses against multiple sensitive spots inside you that has you repeating the swirl of your hips again and again and again.

"Fu-fuck, just ride me, shit," he groans, trying to urge you to bounce by thrusting his hips up against you. 

"Don't you like this?" You pout at him, faux-offended and keep at it. You know he likes it. It's clear by the tightness of his expression; the pleasure is clear in his furrowed brows and tense jaw, shoulders pressed back against the seat and biceps bulging as he tries to free himself from the cuffs. 

You really hope he doesn't break them, you really fucking like him like this. Then again, the thought of Seungcheol using his stupidly beefy arms to break free from his binds so that he can grab your hips and force you to take the pummelling of his giant dick against your pussy walls, well that's a real fucking nice thought. 

It makes you clench down on him and he moans, head tipping back and showing you the unblemished expanse of his throat. You wonder if he'd let you bite him. 

"Can I bite you?" You ask, falling still. 

"What the fuck?" He looks at you as if you're insane. Which, not exactly a new expression on the man when he's faced with you. But this time he looks utterly offended too. 

"Is that a no?" You pout.

"I don't give a fuck, just keep going!" He demands, looking crazed. 

"Can I kiss you too?" Seungcheol rolls his eyes and instead of verbally responding he tilts forward to crash his lips to yours, desperation urging him to kiss you in such a filthy way that your pussy throbs. 

"Bounce," he growls against your lips before letting out a string of almost whispered praise when you obey and start to lift and drop yourself, finally riding his cock like both of you have been wanting for admittedly, longer than he's been in cuffs.

To your surprise, Seungcheol keeps kissing you and chases your lips every time you lean back or turn your head for breath, or just because you think he probably wants to stop and focus on your pussy dragging up and down his cock, soaking him with every wet smack of your thighs against his. 

"Che-cheol," you pant out, knotting your fingers in his head to force him back and allow you to actually breathe. He moans deeply and his eyes roll back. Very interesting reaction indeed. 

You never took Seungcheol to like having his hair pulled, but the filthy moans he lets out every time you experimentally tighten or yank on the strands now you've got the idea in your head, tell you that the man really fucking likes it. Not even mentioning how he fucks up into you harder every time too. 

"Good boy," you compliment breathlessly, looking down at his cock sliding into you as you pretty much just hover over him now, more interested in finding out what makes him tick and turns him on than actually riding him. Not that you need to when he's doing a good enough job fucking you even with his arms restrained. 

You just know he'd ruin you if he had full use of his body. He'd ruin you and you'd thank him for it and ask to repeat it every fucking day. He could break your hips and you'd thank him. 

"Oh, fuck I-I'm gonna cum," he warns making your eyes widen in alarm.

"No!" 

Seungcheol opens his eyes to look at you with equally as wide eyes yet doesn't stop fucking into you. "The fuck you mean no?" 

"You can't cum yet! I'm not done!" 

"I'm gonna-" 

"No!" 

"Fuck," his eyes roll back and he lets out a string of porn-worthy moans as he jerks up into you a few times harshly while filling you with cum. 

You can only gawp at him in disbelief, one hand still in his hair and the other braced on his heaving chest. "Are you fucking kidding me?!" You exclaim, slapping his chest as he slouches against the seat while trying to catch his breath back. "You useless man!" You pinch his nipple where it's pressing against his t-shirt making him yelp and shoot his eyes open to look at you.

"What the fuck?" 

"What kind of a gang boss are you, huh?" You berate, climbing off of him and wincing at the feel of his softening cock slipping out of you, trailing cum with it. You don't even care that it's getting all over him and the seats as you move. "To bust in minutes, you that pussy whipped, Choi Seungcheol?" You tut and shove him down on the seats. 

"Ow, you fucking-" he cuts off, awkwardly wriggling to get on his back instead of laying painfully on his right shoulder. "I'm gonna beat your ass as soon as these cuffs are off, bitch," he warns, watching you with dark eyes, half warning, half aroused, as you clamber over his body. 

"Ooh, call me more names, my likey," you wiggle your eyebrows at him as you plant your knees either side of his face. 

It visibly takes everything in Seungcheol to keep his eyes on your face and not look at your pussy that's inches from his face and dripping cum down your slick inner-thighs. "You're clinically fucking insane, aren't you?" 

"I work for you, comes with the job," you coo, leaning over to plant your left hand on the door above his head to get your balance, your right hand knotting into his hair making him let out a groan that travels through your body as your pussy meets his parted lips. "Now, make me cum like a good boy, Cheolie," 

To your utter delight, the words are barely out of your mouth before Seungcheol's tongue is dragging through your folds, uncaring that he's swallowing down his own cum as he enthusiastically starts to eat you out like a man starved.

Honestly, you've never seen Seungcheol do this. You've never known if he's the type of man to eat pussy and if so, if he does it as a means to get his dick wet or because he actually enjoys it. But now? Now you fucking know. 

Seungcheol is making more noise than you are as he greedily laps and sucks at your pussy, alternating between thrusting his tongue into your hole and suckling on your clit. You swear, the man is determined to suck your soul out through your clit, he's not gentle about it at all but you can't lie, you really fucking enjoy the rough, messy actions.

"T-that's it," you encourage when his tongue is back inside of you as deep as he can get it to lick at your inner walls greedily, nose grinding against your clit with every movement of his head and his eyes closed, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. 

His face is buried so deep between your thighs that you're positive he can't breathe but even when you loosen your hold on his hair and stop moving your hips against his face to let him have space, he dives in even deeper somehow. 

The pure unfiltered enthusiasm he devours your pussy with sends you hurtling to a powerful orgasm that takes you a bit by surprise when he gets a little too into it and his teeth drag over your skin. You didn't know you like that, but now you certainly do as you shudder and gasp over him, fingers tightening in his hair and letting the vibration of his groans and moans help ride you through as you smother him in your pussy. 

Your legs feel like jelly when you shakily clamber off of his face and drop to sit on his still exposed thighs. His cock is making a valiant effort to get hard again. It's very distracting but you're both breathing too hard and trying to remember how to get air into your lungs to even consider going for round two. Well, mostly. 

"Please tell me you have a key for these," Seungcheol says once he's caught his breath a few minutes later, still laid back with his eyes closed. 

"No," you snigger at the pissed off look he gives you as he lifts his head enough to look at you. "Since when have I needed keys to open locks?" 

"Good point," he drops back down, though immediately lifts his head again when you dance your fingers teasingly over his semi-erect dick. "Don't." 

"Why not?" You pout and wrap your hand around his cock, thumbing at the head a little harshly but he clearly likes it judging by the way he gets harder in your hold and hisses, hips pushing up automatically to encourage you.

"Because I'll fucking dislocate my shoulders," he points out, trying to roll his shoulders but not really doing a good job thanks to his forced position. "And I can't hold you down and fuck you if my arms don't fucking work, can I?" 

"You actually want to do that?" 

"Always have," he shrugs and slumps in relief when you let go of him and shuffle back. 

"No, you've never wanted to fuck me." You frown confusedly at him as he sits up with a few little grunts from the effort and release of pressure against his arms from being laid on them. 

"I've always wanted to fuck your insane ass, which I guess makes me insane too. I know you're into some fucked up shit, I've seen the porn you watch." 

"Don't kinkshame me," 

"Don't fucking use my computer to watch porn then!" 

"But your office chair is big enough that I can spread my legs comfortably on to touch myself." 

"You've masturbated in my office chair?" He deadpans, looking unimpressed. Yet when you nod in confirmation, you notice the flicker of arousal in his gaze. "Great, now I'm going to be thinking about that when I'm supposed to be working." 

"You can always call me and I'll happily sit under your desk with your cock in my mouth, keep it warm and ready to sit on when you're done working." 

"This is why I never fucking let you know." He shuffles towards the still open door, making you back out until you're standing on still slightly trembling legs. "Knew I'd never be able to stop once I had you." Seungcheol gets out of the car and turns his back to you. "Get these off me so I can bend you over and fuck you until you can't walk." 

"Don't need to tell me twice," you quickly grab your lock-picking set from your trouser pocket before kneeling down behind Seungcheol to unpick the cuffs. 

It takes you longer than it should to pick the lock because you're very distracted by his bare, plump ass right in front of your face. As soon as he moves his hands to roll his shoulders and rub his red-raw wrists, you lean forward and bite his asscheek.

"What the fuck?!" He shrieks, jolting away and turning to face you with wide eyes and red cheeks. "Did you just bite my ass?" 

"Yes," your confirmation is utterly shameless as you stare up at him from still on your knees. 

Seungcheol stares back at you for a moment, before sliding his hand into your hair and tugging you forward, smirking as your mouth opens wide to accept his cock without question or complaint. 

"Good girl," he breathes out as you immediately start to suck and lick at him, humming and making appreciative noises at having his cock in your mouth finally. It's only taken five years.

Though Seungcheol doesn't let you enjoy him as thoroughly as you'd like. As soon as his tip touches your throat at your attempt to start deepthroating him, he pulls you off and yanks you up. 

You're not given time to even complain or whine, or beg for his cock back, before he's got you with your hands on the roof of the car and chest bowing into the open doorway so that he can grind his cock against your still sopping wet pussy. 

"You never explained the knocked up comment," he informs as he crowds up against your back, one big hand holding your wrists by the edge of the roof and the other gripping your hip tight. 

"What?" 

"You said about me getting you knocked up." 

"And?" 

"We both got done, on the same fucking day, remember? We’re medically infertile," He nips at your earlobe on the harder side and grins smugly when your breath catches and you press back against his cock. 

"Never heard of a breeding kink, Cheolie?" 

"Huh, you're into that?" 

"I'm into anything if it's you." 

He pauses his movements, lips parted against your ear for a few seconds before he suddenly lets go of your hip and pulls his own back to grab his cock and lead it to your entrance. He feeds it into you just far enough that he can let go and take your hip back into his hold before he thrusts forward, burying his cock into you in one quick, hard thrust. It jolts you forward and makes you moan loudly.

"Gonna fill you up every fucking day, baby," he promises, sounding far more affected than he did moments ago. "Gonna fill you with my cum until it sticks. Gonna breed you so fucking good, yeah?" 

"Fuck, yeah, yeah, fuck me full, Cheolie," you agree, nodding madly and arching your back to push back against him while widening your stance to get him deeper, even if it means you have to push up onto your tiptoes to account for the height difference. 

"That's my good fucking girl," he approves, pushing your shirt up and holding it at your waist to give him full view of your ass as he begins to fuck into you harshly. 

Honestly, you have no idea if you're truly alone in the warehouse, you know that various gang members use the warehouses for meets and their own trysts but you do not give a single flying fuck. 

You moan loud and shameless as Seungcheol fucks all thoughts from your head. He clearly doesn't care if anyone hears either, he moans and grunts without care, growling dirty words at you that you can barely babble a response at with the quickly growing pleasure in your body. 

“Never letting anyone touch this pussy again,” he declares in amongst his moans and panting, not slowing down once in his determination to ruin you. “You’re mine, understand?” 

You nod rapidly but can’t answer as that ball of pleasure in your belly clenches so tightly at his possessive words. As soon as his palm comes down on your ass with the intention of prompting you to verbally respond, that ball bursts; sending pleasure through your whole body and making your consistent moans turn higher in pitch, babbling his name repeatedly as your pussy convulses around his still-pistoning cock.

“Fuck, baby,” he groans, fucking into you a few more times before he slows to a gradual stop. You can feel that he’s still hard within you and whine a little, pushing your hips back against him to try and get him back to work. “You’re shaking,” he points out, pulling out and carefully helping you down onto flat feet, taking some pressure off of your thighs. You melt back against him when he winds his arms around your waist supportively and kisses your head. 

The two of you remain like that for a few minutes as you catch your breath back and your body stops shaking like a fucking leaf. 

“You okay?” He asks softly, lips trailing over your cheek and temple. It’s much too tender. You like it, yeah, but you hadn’t been prepared for the care he’s giving you. 

He has always cussed at you and called you names with disturbed expressions. You’ve never cared about that, the names and harsh words have truly never bothered you and amused you more than anything. Seungcheol has never actually hurt you even when he’s slapped you away from him or thrown items at you, he has always purposely near-missed you. His aim is too good to unintentionally miss you all the time.

But this, the fingers trailing over you mindlessly, the lips brushing against your skin and the words spoken in a fond voice you’ve never fucking heard the man use, well that’s a lot to take in.

“No,” you reply.

“Oh, what can I do? Did I hurt-” 

“You can go back to fucking me,” 

“You’re still shaking,” 

“That’s because you were doing a good job! Gold star Seungcheol!” 

“What happened to Cheolie?” 

“You don’t even fucking like it!” You groan and wriggle out of his arms with every intention of pushing him away and getting your clothes back on but he pulls you right back in, chest to chest and looks at you so devastatingly fucking adoringly your breath catches in your throat in a giant ball of what the fuck Choi Seungcheol.

“I like it,” he murmurs. “I like it because it’s you. I just…couldn’t let you know that.” 

“And now you can? You fucked me and now suddenly everything changes?” 

“You wanted things to be the same?” He frowns, hurt trickling onto his expression as his arms fall away from you. 

“I thought it was just sex,” you admit.

“Right,” he scoffs, yanking his boxers and jeans up as he steps away from you, dick sadly deflated despite being hard and pressed against your ass a minute ago. “See this is why I never fucking wanted this!” He exclaims, turning angry now as he reaches down to grab your panties and trousers to toss at you harshly. You wince when the police-issue gun and holster smack into your ribs. 

Seungcheol pauses for a split second noticing that he hurt you but then he carries on, throwing your boots at you next. You don’t even bother trying to catch them and let them collide painfully with your thighs then topple down, the hard edges of the soles sending pain through the tops of your feet.

“Why are you just fucking standing there?!” He snaps, stalking over to yank the items from your hands and get to his knees to roughly force your feet into the trousers and panties at once. 

“Seungcheol-” 

“Shut the fuck up,” he snaps. For the first time, you listen to him.

A few minutes later, you’re in the passenger seat of the car as Seungcheol drives recklessly through the back streets. You don’t even have it in you to tell him to slow down because you both would get arrested and you don’t think even his lawyers could talk him out of getting locked up for driving a fake police car with fake licence plates and over the speed limits without either of you wearing seat belts.

He drives to a side street behind his apartment building and doesn’t even put the car in park, just stops it and gets out, slamming the door behind him before storming off. You take it for the harsh dismissal it is and climb over the centre console to get into the drivers’ seat to head off.

For the first time in years, you don’t see Seungcheol for days. You don’t think it’s wise to test him right now. You still don’t think he’d hurt you, but you think your presence would hurt him and you don’t want that. 

Despite what Seungcheol obviously thinks, and with good reason too because you didn’t say anything otherwise, you do care about the man. A hell of a fucking lot. 

It wasn’t instant, there wasn’t a moment where your eyes locked across the table on that set-up blind-date between you that was really both of your little groups of criminals and deviants trying to get information on the other group. You had both clocked each other and although it could’ve gone badly, Seungcheol had asked you to team up on a job and the gang was born shortly after.

Your connection was about work from day one, but spending time with the man even when he told you to fuck off when you would jokingly hit on him, it kind of really gave you a giant fucking weak spot in the shape of his stupid, charming face. 

The relentless flirting and sexual remarks, although they are all genuine, became your way to hide the truth of your feelings. Lean into lust to hide the love. It just seems that it worked too fucking well. 

You had honestly forgotten that the flutter in your stomach when your eyes meet Seungcheol’s isn’t all lust; that it isn’t just horny little demons running rampant and trying to tell you to get his cock in you, but butterflies too. Excited, pretty little butterflies flapping their wings and trying to lift you up into the clouds to where you and Seungcheol can skip merrily through the meadows together hand in hand like that scene in Shrek before the villagers chased the ogres down with pitchforks. 

But that isn’t realistic. You can’t skip hand in hand through a meadow, mostly because Seungcheol has damaged his knees from throwing himself around too much to skip anywhere, though it would be funny to watch his hobbling attempt. 

Well, at least up until a few days ago you thought it wasn’t realistic. You didn’t think Seungcheol had anything but a respect for you as one of his gang members and a good fucking one too. He often turns to you to get shit done when others have failed or if it’s too risky, too important to send others in, you’re the one he goes to. You thought that’s all your relationship equates to.

But apparently, you haven’t paid enough attention to Seungcheol to have missed the man apparently having some kind of feelings for you. 

You’re not going to assume he’s in love with you, it’s now obvious to you that he holds some kind of candle for you, but you’re not naive or hopeless enough to assume his tender touches that turned to hurt anger, to be love.

Choi Seungcheol likes you. Romantically. Sexually too. That part was great, top marks. Gold star indeed. If that’s all it had been, you’re pretty sure you’d have been spread over his desk every day since or tucked under it like you offered to cockwarm him with your mouth. That would’ve been great.

But nope, feelings. And not the touching each other up kind of ones.

All in all, it’s a giant fucking shitshow and not in the way you purposely orchestrate for your own twisted amusement. You hope things will fix themselves shortly because you don’t know how much more of this you can handle. But honestly, you really don’t think they will.

“So,” Minghao starts as he invites himself to join you in the car you’ve borrowed for the fun of it. You look at him with noodles hanging out of your mouth and wide eyes. “What the fuck did you do to piss Seungcheol off so much?” 

“Me?” You garble around your food still hanging out of your mouth and pointing at your own chest. The look the man gives you is utterly disgusted and it makes you snigger before you actually chew and swallow your food. “Why do you assume I did something to piss him off?” 

“Maybe the fact you haven’t been around in a week and every time I’ve suggested he asks for your help like we need, he pretends to have never heard of you while breaking yet another fucking pen in his fist.”

“Sounds like you need to stop getting cheap pens,” you mutter, reaching for your drink in the cup holder but he takes it. 

You watch as Minghao noisily slurps up the liquid through the straw, defiantly holding eye contact with you. But then he gags and quickly puts the cup in your awaiting hand so that he can turn, open the car door and spit the drink out onto the parking lot of the restaurant you’re parked in to enjoy your lunch. 

“What the fuck is in that?!” He shrieks when he’s done sputtering, turning to look at you with wide eyes behind his wire-framed glasses. 

“Coke,”

“That is not coke,” 

“Both kinds, and mint schnapps,” 

“I fucking hate you.” 

“Valid.” You nod and slurp at your unholy concoction. 

It wasn’t even your choice, you accidentally dropped a badly sealed baggie of the white powder into your cup when you tipped the contents of the hip flask from the glovebox into the cup. You had assumed it was whiskey or vodka or something normal, not fucking mint schnapps of all things. That’s what you get for tipping out the contents of a stolen hip flask from a stolen car into your drink without at least giving it a cursory sniff-test first. 

Minghao watches you with something like fear on his features as you don’t even flinch at the truly disgusting flavour that coats your tongue. You’ve had worse things in your mouth, you can say that much. 

Mostly thanks to Soonyoung’s own habit of shoving any food and drink into his mouth to consume like some kind of tastebud-less heathen. There’s probably a reason you’ve been friends for so long. One that doesn’t involve a bloodpact you made as idiot children that you’re both too stubborn to turn your back on first.

“So, what did you do? Ask to put something questionable in his ass?” Minghao soldiers on as he steals the unopened chocolate bar from the dashboard to open and bite into, looking very relieved at having the haunting taste of your drink covered by the sweet on his tongue. “Ask him to put something questionable in your ass?” 

“No,” you scoff, poking at your noodles with your chopsticks.

Minghao pauses in his rapid chewing to watch you consideringly. He’s never seen you like this, like you have actual human emotions beside lust and maniacal joy at making others suffer in various ways borne of your chaotic ideas. 

“It’s serious,” he realises in a mutter. You shrug and give up with your lunch, suddenly not hungry for it and pass it over to him so that you can start the car up. “What happened?” 

“What’s the job?” You ask as you drive out of the lot in a way that closes the car door he hadn’t fully closed. The slam of the door makes Minghao jolt, he had forgotten it was even open and rolls his eyes a little at you not asking him to shut it before driving off. 

“He’s dealing with it,” 

“That’s stupid if you think I should be doing it.” 

“Yeah, well, according to him, you don’t exist so he’s the best chance.” 

“If you wanted to send me in, that means it requires a delicate touch-” 

“You set a warehouse on fire last month, that’s not a delicate touch.” 

“That wasn’t for a job, that was for fun, leave me alone.” 

“You…whatever. He can handle the job, it’s just a different direction than you’d take.” 

“Has he gone in fists swinging?” 

“No. He’s seducing someone for information.” 

“Ah, dick swinging,” you mutter, feeling a sourness in your chest and rising up your throat. You’ve not felt this before when you’ve heard of Seungcheol seducing someone to get the job done. 

You haven’t even felt it when you’ve literally walked in on him balls-deep in some woman over his desk; you would just stand there until he noticed you, then annoy him by dragging out whatever it was you turned up for. It was all fun and games. This burning tickling your throat isn’t.

Jealousy is not something you’re familiar with and you immediately decide you hate it.

“You know he doesn’t…” he trails off, expression twisting as he recalls something based on his expression. “Well, usually he doesn’t fuck his marks but-” 

“What?!” You exclaim, slamming on the breaks and looking at Minghao with crazed eyes. 

Minghao yells which only grows when a car audibly swerves behind you to not rear-end you. “Fucking drive you idiot!” 

“He’s fucked the mark?” You ask, voice eerily level in a way that makes Minghao look at you and swallow thickly. 

For the first time, Minghao is genuinely scared of you. He knows you are an unhinged, unrelenting mess at the best of times and in a way, you do always scare him because he never knows what you’re going to do. You could easily hurt him or anyone but you haven’t, you’re usually too busy making sexual remarks to Seungcheol, or someone about Seungcheol, loudly enough that the man himself can clearly hear. 

And Minghao knows you’re a competent fighter, he’s seen proof of it but he’s never seen you fight yourself. He’s never seen you look so serious and pissed before either.

The carnage he’s seen the after effects of, the destruction you’ve caused, yet you’ve always had a grin on your face afterwards as if you’ve just been to an amusement park and had the time of your life splattered with blood. He knows how much damage you can cause in a good mood. So Minghao is genuinely terrified of what hell you can create when you’re in a foul mood, and right now? He thinks you would burn the world down and anyone who gets in your way.

“He-he hasn’t but he said he will if he needs to.” 

“Where is he?” 

The apartment you let yourself into is familiar and really not where you expected to end up when Minghao had given you his phone to let you use the app he and Seungcheol use to track each other. You hadn’t known about this app and you can only assume Seungcheol had made sure you didn’t know so that you couldn’t use it to stalk him. Which…valid worry. You definitely would’ve stalked him.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” You demand as you step into the living room and find Seungcheol slouched on the couch with a glass of whiskey in one hand, the bottle in the other and balanced on his thick thigh. 

“This is my home,” he points out. “The fuck are you doing here?” 

“Where is she?” You ask, peering around before inviting yourself to walk through the apartment, slamming open doors to rooms as you go in search of the woman Seungcheol was seducing for information. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He retorts, following after you once he’s put the glass and bottle down on the coffee table. “Who?” 

“The mark, Hao said you were planning to fuck her for information.” 

“And you thought I’d bring her here?” 

“Well how the fuck should I know?!” You turn to face him. “You don’t fuck your marks, Seungcheol! But you were going to, or have…” You eye him over, black shirt unbuttoned to his chest tucked into black trousers that show off his thick thighs and plump ass. Trousers you’ve told him you hold he never stops wearing, and then he promptly did stop to your disappointment. At least you thought he had. 

“I didn’t,” he replies, shoving his hands into his pockets after they twitch at his sides.

“No?” You lift your gaze up to meet his eyes, or at least try to but he’s pointedly looking at the wall beside your left shoulder. “Did you get what you needed without fucking her?” 

“No,” he admits and tenses his jaw a few times.

“Then what?” 

“I don’t want to fuck her! I thought I could do it but I can’t.” He huffs and turns to storm back to the living room. Of course, you follow and watch as he downs the contents of his glass before pouring out more. 

“Why did you suddenly think you could when you’ve never wanted to fuck for a job? You said that to me before, that you don’t ever want to fuck for work.” 

“Because…it doesn’t fucking matter,”

“Obviously it does.” You walk over and take the glass from him after he’s swallowed down the contents again. “This isn’t you, Seungcheol. I’m the one who drinks at 1pm, not you.” 

“Well maybe I should be allowed to be the fucked up asshole for once, huh?” He stares down at you darkly. “Why are you allowed to be a fuck up and I can’t?” 

“Because you’re better than me, you always have been.” You pick up the bottle and turn to take it to the kitchen. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologises as he follows you. “I don’t mean that, you’re not a fuck up.” 

“I am, you know it, I know it, everyone knows it, Seungcheol so-” 

“Please stop calling me that,” he breathes out. 

You finish putting the lid on the bottle and put it in the liquor cabinet before putting the dirty glass in the dishwasher, and then you turn to look at him while leaning back against the counter behind you with your arms crossed loosely over your chest. 

He looks…sad. You hate it.

“That’s your name, that’s what everyone calls you. That’s what you’ve been trying to get me to call you for years.” 

“And you never fucking listened. Can’t…can’t we go back to that?” 

“I don’t know, can we?” 

Seungcheol does nothing but look at you for what feels like more than enough time for him to come to a definite answer hours ago. But he just keeps looking at you with those giant sad fucking eyes and his fingers gripping the edge of the island counter in front of him as if he needs to hold on to something and what he wants to hold isn’t in reach. 

“I can try,” he offers. “Can you?” 

“I’m not the one who has been denying the other’s existence,” 

“You’re not the one who got their heart broken,” he retorts sharply before taking a deep breath as he closes his eyes. A clear sign of trying to calm himself. “No, I can’t, I can’t do this,” he decides, opening his eyes to land them back on you. “You need to leave.” 

“For how long?” 

“This is my apartment-” 

“That’s not what I meant,” you uncross your arms and walk the few steps to the island in front of you, on Seungcheol’s adjacent right and close enough that either of you could easily reach out and touch. Neither of you do. “I’ll leave your apartment, I won’t argue about leaving now. But I need to know if this is the end of everything, Seungcheol. The past five years of working together, does it end now?” 

“Is that all you care about? The fucking gang? Not our relationship? But the fucking gang?” 

“That is our relationship,” you give him a bewildered look. “Before last week there’s never been anything but the gang.” 

“You’re serious,” he mutters in disbelief. 

“Well, yeah,”

“Get out.” 

“That doesn’t answer-” 

“Are you seriously that fucking stupid?!” He snaps, poking his own head. “You got nothing going on up here past work, huh?” 

You just stare at him, not sure how to respond because admittedly, the things he’s been saying to you today have been hurting. Five years of insults and degrading names hasn’t once bothered you. But he’s never said hurtful things like this before.

“How Soonyoung has put up with you for so fucking long is beyond me.” He scoffs and steps back, away from you with a nasty expression on his face, eyes dark and cold in a way he has never looked at you. “He must be as fucking stupid as you.” 

“Don’t you dare talk about him like that,” you warn, your own expression turning hard in defence of your best friend. “Say whatever you want about me but do not say a bad word against him.” 

“Why not? Hurt your feelings?” He taunts. “Didn’t know you have those. Sure fucking fooled me.” 

“Of course I have feelings, you dick, some of us just know how to keep them to ourselves and not let them rule our mouths.” 

“Well you’ve kept yours really fucking close, great fucking job there. Gold fucking star. You’ve kept to yourself so much nobody knows shit about how you feel. I thought I did but obviously I was fucking wrong.” He turns to walk off yet turns back around and stalks right back to lean his palms on the counter and stare intently at you. “Just tell me this, did I ever mean fucking anything to you? Did you ever even think of me as a friend? I thought you did but you’ve dismissed this so fucking easily, you’re so fucking willing to walk away and only ask about the gang that I’m pretty sure I’ve been a naive fucking idiot this whole time.” 

“Friends?” You mumble in surprise because honestly, you’ve never thought of Seungcheol as your friend. You’ve never tried to name what he is to you but you’re not sure you could if you tried. 

Soonyoung is your friend, even Minghao you’d consider a friend. But Seungcheol? Perhaps at one point you could’ve thought of him in such a way but now you’ve been pushing down your true feelings for him for so long that you don’t even know how to classify him. Friend doesn’t feel right. 

“Yes, friends, you know, people you like being around, people you can talk to about stuff other than work, get a drink with and have fun with.” 

“Have we ever done any of that?” You genuinely wonder quietly. 

You watch as the realisation dawns on Seungcheol and his anger melts into something pained. “No,” he admits quietly. “We haven’t.”

“Well, I guess there’s the answer,” you mumble, chest aching at what you know this means. That you and Seungcheol have never truly had a relationship of any kind outside of work. You’ve never realised that before, never before had to consider what that means. You wish you had, maybe then things now would be different.

“Right,” he huffs a humourless laugh as he backs up, eyes looking anywhere but you even as he turns. “Show yourself out and don’t…don’t come back.” 

You can’t be certain, he talks too quietly and moves out of the kitchen and down the hall too quickly, but you think you catch the glint of tears on his cheeks.

Weeks pass as you go about your life, as you try to make a new life without Seungcheol or his gang playing such a pivotal part in it. You listened to his wishes, you left and didn’t return, you deleted his number and told Minghao it’s probably wise if he tells everyone that you’ve left the gang and won’t return; and then you deleted and blocked all of their numbers too once they started calling and texting to ask what the fuck happened.

Soonyoung didn’t know what happened at first, but he loyally left the gang too and then you both decided to just get new numbers to avoid the hassle of blocking everyone you’ve ever known in relation to the gang.

And then they started to turn up at your apartments so you packed up and left the city and Soonyoung still didn’t ask what happened. 

Of course, you did tell him though. You told him everything that happened with you and Seungcheol and had to talk Soonyoung down from driving back to the city to try and beat up Seungcheol for the things he said to you in his apartment. 

Try being the keyword, because although Soonyoung is more than a competent fighter and plenty strong enough, one of Seungcheol’s biceps is likely bigger than Soonyoung’s head. 

But Soonyoung did calm enough to slap you around the head and call you an idiot for not telling Seungcheol the truth about your feelings when the man was clearly trying to start a relationship with you after fucking you dumb. You argue that the man had just fucked you dumb so your brain wasn’t working. Soonyoung said your brain doesn’t work full stop. Which…is kind of valid, at least where human relationships are involved.

And that leads us to your new life with your best friend in another town a two hour drive from the city and where Soonyoung has already made friends with a man who it took Soonyoung a worryingly long time to realise is a hooker. 

You quite like his new friend and like to play bodyguard with Soonyoung when Junhui dresses up in expensive clothes to bag expensive clients his pimp sends him to meet. Junhui loves it too; having the two of you dressed up in suits and following behind him to keep him safe. He doesn’t even mind that you both stay at the edge of the room when he gets to work.

“This guy is a friend of Jeonghan’s,” Junhui explains from the backseat of the fancy car you can proudly say you didn’t even steal. Soonyoung stole it. You’re so proud of him. 

“Which is why daddy Hannie is joining,” Soonyoung hums in understanding, nodding his head and almost hitting a lamppost before swerving at the last second after peering over the top of his dark sunglasses. 

“Remove the fucking glasses, Soonyoung,” Jeonghan, Junhui’s pimp, sighs from Junhui’s right with both hands gripping the leather seats under him. Which is very understandable. “And please stop lying to me that you have your driver’s licence.”

“Told you it’s obvious,” you mutter to your best friend who slaps your tit as he childishly mocks you. So you backhand him in the dick making him groan and double over, one hand over his crotch and his other arm hugging the steering wheel he’s leaning his chest against while biting the top of it in pain. 

Junhui sniggers at the antics between you and your best friend, as amused as he ever is by you two. While Jeonghan, not for the first time, wonders what kind of circus Junhui found the pair of you in and if they’d take you back.

“So, what’s the deal with this dude?” You ask a few minutes later when Soonyoung parks over three spaces in the hotel parking lot and Junhui cheers at Soonyoung remembering to apply the breaks in time for once. 

“He’s an old friend in town for business and wants to sweeten the guy he’s meeting tonight, so he asked me to bring my best.” Jeonghan replies while checking he has everything in his pockets by patting his clothing down thoroughly. 

“Aw, Junnie, you’re daddy’s best,” Soonyoung coos, grinning over at Junhui who preens proudly. 

“I don’t remember giving you permission to call me daddy, Soonyoung. I said that to her, not you.” The pimp points out as you all get out of the car. 

“What’s hers is mine and mine is hers,” your best friend replies airily. 

“You’re married?” 

“What? Ew, gross, no,” Soonyoung retches and then stumbles when you shove him. He collides with the wall of the hotel making you snort a laugh, until he turns and you notice his glasses are broken and can see his unimpressed glare through the missing section of the lens. “I just got these!” He exclaims, taking off the sunglasses and tosses them into the bushes. 

“I’ll get you another pair,” 

“Better do. I want Gucci ones,” 

“I’ll see what I can do,” 

When Jeonghan looks over at the pair of you in the elevator up to the penthouse suite, he has to do a double take at the Gucci sunglasses perched on Soonyoung’s nose. “Where did you get those?” Soonyoung points at you. Jeonghan gives you a flat look. “Well?” 

“They were just sitting there,” you shrug. 

“Where?” 

You stare back at Jeonghan, making your expression innocent knowing how much Jeonghan hates it when you pickpocket people for the fun of it. “Some guy’s head,” 

“You stole sunglasses while someone was wearing them?” 

“It was really impressive,” Soonyoung nods, entirely missing the point of Jeonghan’s gawping. “Jun’s really good at distracting, they make a good team.” 

“You fucking helped?” Jeonghan gawps at Junhui who just smiles sweetly at his pimp. “I’m banning you from hanging out with them.” 

“You’re my daddy not my father,” Junhui scoffs. 

Jeonghan clearly wants to argue more but the ding echoes in the metal box signalling you’ve arrived at the suite, so he just takes a breath and schools his expression in an impressively short time while the doors open. 

Then you four step out into the little lobby before the suite entrance doors and you swear, recognising the suited men standing guard outside of the suite. 

“Oh, fuck,” Soonyoung whispers. 

“You assholes!” One of the men exclaims, stalking over to flying-kick Soonyoung in the back of his thigh. “You fucking ghosted us!” 

“Ow, ow, Kwan, stop it!” Soonyoung cries out, trying to stop Seungkwan’s furious kicks and slaps. “I need my legs to protect my slut!” 

“Hey!” Junhui exclaims and slaps Soonyoung too. “I am not yours.” 

“Ow, attack her!” Soonyoung tries to shove Seungkwan over to you but he takes one look at you and shrinks back before going back to hitting Soonyoung while hissing that you scare him too much to try to hit. 

“Were you part of the gang?” Jeonghan asks, looking at you. 

“You could say that,” you murmur and look over to the grand double doors then back to him. “You’re meeting Seungcheol?” 

“Yes,” 

“We shouldn’t be there, me especially.” 

“Do you owe him money?” 

“No, nothing like that we just…aren’t on good terms, I guess you could say.” 

“Yeah, what happened anyway?” Seungkwan wonders, suddenly at your side and linking his arm with yours. “What’s the gossip?” 

“I assume you enjoy having the use of your hands,” you speak, raising an eyebrow at Seungkwan who backs away with his hands held up in surrender. “Good boy.” 

“How much issue would it cause to take you in there?” Jeonghan asks, looking between you, Soonyoung, Junhui and his watch then the doors and back again.

“Oh, a shit ton,” Soonyoung answers with a hum. “We moved two hours away for a reason,” he face falls and he looks at you with a sad pout. “Do we have to move again now that they know where we live?” 

“No!” Junhui whines, wrapping his arms around you. “You have to stay. You’re my bodyguards! I feel so much safer with you watching over me and I like having you watch too!” 

“You can discuss this later, we need to meet Seungcheol before he gets sulky at us for being late,” Jeonghan sighs, tugging Junhui to his side. “You two wait out here. I’ll have to discuss this with Seungcheol to see if he will be against you doing what I fucking pay you for.” 

“You pay us?” Soonyoung mutters confusedly while you just nod at Jeonghan in agreement so he and Junhui go into the room. “He pays us?” 

It all goes a lot better than you expect. You don’t even need to be in the same room as Seungcheol and, in fact, you don’t even see him until 3 am the next morning when you’re pulling him off of the man he was supposed to be making a business contract with but apparently, Seungcheol found it necessary to beat the shit out of him in the hotel lobby.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You ask once you’ve got Seungcheol outside and around the side of the building. He’s seething, blood smeared over his hands and splattered on his face. “You were supposed to be making an ally and I thought it was going well! What the fuck happened?!” 

“You! It’s always fucking you!” Seungcheol turns to you and puts a hand on your upper chest to roughly pin you against the wall. You let him. “It was going well until he fucking- why are you even here? You’re not a bodyguard!” 

“Yes I am,” you frown. “I’m here to keep Junhui safe and I’m good at it.” 

“Not in the eyes of assholes like that. You’re just more eye candy bastards like him think they can have. “

“Is that why you beat the shit out of him and ruined the past hours of work? Because he said some remarks about me?” You scoff. “I can handle that, Seungcheol, I-” You cut off when his hand is suddenly at your throat. He’s not squeezing or applying any pressure but it’s a solid warning that he could. 

You should probably be scared, but you’re not, even if the man looks utterly psychotic with blood smeared over him and wide eyes staring down at you. It’s probably really fucked up how hot you find it. 

“Don’t fucking call me that,” he growls, crowding you further against the wall, getting so close that his thick thigh slots between yours and his left forearm leans on the wall above your head. “What’s my name?” You raise your eyebrow. “Well?” 

“Seungcheol,” your defiant response has his fingers curling around your throat and starting to cut off your air flow. It just makes your excitement grow and show in the sparkle of your eyes. 

“Try that again,” he warns in a murmur, moving even closer and pressing his thigh up against your crotch. “Go on,” 

“Seungcheol,” 

“Bitch,” and then he’s kissing you with the same desperation he first kissed you. His hold is firm around your throat and his thigh is already rubbing against you in a way that has you grinding down while gripping his waist in one hand and hip in the other over those fucking trousers that drive you insane. Well, more insane than you already are where Choi Seungcheol is involved.

“Uh,” of course, of fucking course it’s Soonyoung who interrupts you, making you both look at him with matching pissed off expressions. “We should go, that dude is getting taken to the hospital and the hotel is willing to look the other way thanks to Hannie, provided we all leave and you never show your face again here. Hannie and Jun have already gone.” 

“She’s coming with me,” Seungcheol informs. “You go.” 

“Can’t. Daddy’s banned me from driving,” 

“Then fucking walk, Soonyoung.”

“We live so far away,” Soonyoung whines. 

“I’m going to break his face if he doesn’t leave right fucking now,” Seungcheol warns as he looks at you. 

“Just drive, daddy’s gone,” you point out with a shrug. 

“Good point.” Soonyoung nods then turns and walks off just like that without another word or complaint. 

You hope he won’t crash on the way home or forget that he’s driving a stolen car meaning that he shouldn’t take it to your shared apartment. But you can never be too sure with Soonyoung. Oh well, he already knows you won’t visit him in jail, just like he wouldn’t you. Your bloodpact never said anything about prison after all. 

“This is stupid,” Minghao mutters, glancing over to where Seungcheol has a possessive arm around you in the lift of the hotel they’re staying in for the night, a much less fancy one than the meeting happened in. “You told her to leave and now you’ve fucking glued yourself to her and lost a lucrative deal to defend her honour or some bullshit.” 

“Did I ask for your opinion?” Seungcheol retorts, giving Minghao a look that his right hand just rolls his eyes at.

“Whatever, just don’t expect me to walk on eggshells around you anymore. You’re hurting yourself here and you know it.” 

“I’m the one who’s going to get choked,” you point out earning a disgusted look from Minghao. “What? I know you’re into choking, don’t look at me like that.” 

“How do you know what he’s into?” Seungcheol asks, looking between you. 

“How do you not know?” You scoff, looking at Seungcheol as if he’s the weird one. 

“Because I’ve never had sex with him,” 

“Neither have I.”

“Or watched him have sex,” 

“I haven’t…okay once or twice…maybe thrice…” Your expression twists thoughtfully as you try to recall every instance where you’ve watched Minghao have sex, intentionally or not. 

“What the fuck?!” Seungcheol glares at Minghao who holds up his hands placatingly.

“She’s a voyeur and I’m an exhibitionist, it just made sense when it happened. She usually walked in anyway. You know she has no sense of personal boundaries and invites herself wherever the fuck she wants to go.” 

“You should’ve stopped!” 

“You never did,” you point out and push away from the wall when the doors open and let the three of you enter the corridor. “You never stopped when I walked in on you.” 

“That’s different.” 

“How? Sex is sex.” 

“Right.” 

“And I’m leaving, quickly,” Minghao informs and all but runs down the hallway ahead of you two to get to his room. 

Seungcheol doesn’t say anything until you’re both in his hotel room en suite and he’s leaning back against the sink counter while you clean his split knuckles for him. “Is sex really just sex to you?” 

“What else would it be?” 

“It means nothing?” 

“Is it supposed to?” You raise an eyebrow at him when you lift your head to meet his gaze. He’s got that sad puppy look again that twists your heart painfully. “Don’t look at me like that.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like…” you sigh and focus back on his hand. “Why did you kiss me, Seungcheol?” 

“Because I can’t stop thinking about you and I don’t want you to leave.” 

“And that means choking and kissing me?” 

“That’s what you want from me, right? Sex? Just meaningless fucking.” 

“No,” 

“Oh.” You don’t need to be looking at Seungcheol to know his expression has fallen further into depths that would drag painful claws across your pitiful little heart if you witness it. “You don’t want me anymore?” 

“I didn’t say that,” 

“Then what are you saying? I don’t know how to fucking read you, you know? I need you to talk to me. Every time I try to have an honest fucking conversation with you about this you just stare at me and break my heart without even saying a word, at least have the fucking balls to do it verbally this time.” 

“I don’t want to hurt you, it hurts me too, seeing you with that fucking kicked puppy dog look.” You give up cleaning his hand and toss the blood stained cloth into the sink to step back with your hands on your hips. “And I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say. I’m fucking…emotionally incompetent!” 

“What?” 

“I don’t know, that’s what Soonyoung called me when I explained all this to him.” 

“Emotionally incompetent?” You nod. “Why did he call you that? I mean, he’s probably right but he’s usually the first to defend you, so for him to call you that means you fucked up.” 

“I hurt you, of course I fucked up.” 

“Not returning my feelings doesn’t mean-” 

“Cheol,” he immediately cuts off, eyes rounding out at the nickname you haven’t called him in so long. Granted, you haven’t seen him to call him anything in so long but the point still stands. “When did I actually say I don’t have feelings for you?” 

“You said we’re not even friends.” 

“We’re not, we might’ve been at one point years ago but…I can’t think of you like that. You…” you sigh and drop your arms to your sides. “You mean too much to me. I don’t know how to put any of it into words and I was too shocked that day at the warehouse to say anything. And then you got pissed off and threw shit at me and I just didn’t know how to navigate that. It was a lot.” 

“You didn’t even show your face after,” he pretty much whispers, hands gripping the counter either side of his hips to try and ground himself. It reminds you of the day in his kitchen, the last day you saw him, when he was holding the island so tightly to stop himself from reaching for you. “You could’ve come to me and explained and then we could’ve…things would be different.” 

“I thought giving you space would be best. I didn’t want to make you worse. I thought that space would help but Hao found me and said you were denying my fucking existance and planning to fuck a mark and obviously you weren’t any better with the space.” 

“I was a fucking wreck. I can’t do this, I can’t not have you there turning up to make remarks about my thighs or ass or whatever. I need you there by my side so come back, please.” 

“Just like that? I come back and things go back to how they were?” 

“No. You come back and we figure out what works for us.” 

“Sex works great, that was good.”

He chuckles and nods a little in agreement. “It was and I’d really fucking love to do that more, I’m sure you’ve probably got an endless list of fucked up shit you want to do to me.” 

“Oh, hell yeah I do,” you confirm, eyes widening as you think of your endless fantasies involving the man in front of you. “How do you feel about taxidermy?” 

“We’re not involving taxidermy into our sex life, no fucking way,” he replies firmly. “That’s a hard fucking no, you keep that in your freaky head.” 

“Noted. What about anal?” 

“You went from taxidermy to anal how exactly?” 

“Stuffing,” 

Seungcheol tries not to laugh but breaks into an amused smile and motions for you to get closer. “You’re seriously insane, aren’t you?” 

“Yes, we discovered this years ago, Cheolie,” 

“Mm,” he slides his hands onto your hips as he smiles at you in a soft kind of way that makes your heart race. 

“Cheol?” He hums. “Is…I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you for years.” 

Seungcheol’s eyes widen in surprise before they soften back out and he takes a gentle hold of your face and presses a sweet, lingering kiss to your lips. “I love you too,” 

“Oh, really?” He nods and you grin happily at him. “That’s cool. We should get married or something.” 

“Fucking hell, you can’t just spring that on me,” he groans, hiding his blushing face into your neck as his arms wind around your waist to hold you close.

“But we’re in love, we love each other, why should we wait?” You’re genuinely confused and it makes him chuckle a little. “I’m serious, Cheol! Why should we wait to get married if that’s what’s going to happen anyway?”

“Alright, baby, let’s get married,” he agrees, straightening up, beaming at you so happily that you can’t help but smile back at him. “We’ll start arranging it as soon as we’re home, hm? But for now-” 

“Sex, lots of sex,” you finish for him. 

“I was going to say let’s sleep but you’re right, who even needs sleep?” He hoists you up with a cheeky grin while you giggle and wrap your arms and legs around him to make it easier for him to take you into the bedroom. 

“You didn’t answer me about anal,” 

“I don’t have anal lube, babe,” he chuckles, laying you down onto the bed and climbing between your thighs while removing his shirt.

“I don’t have a dildo or strap either,” you pout at the reminder.

“Wait, you meant my ass?” 

“Yeah, I really want to fuck your ass, it’s made to be fucked.” 

“Uh, I’ll consider it.” 

“Okay.” You reach out to pull him back down and slot your lips together shortly. “Now, you owe me,” 

“What, why?” 

“You said you were going to fuck me until I can’t walk and that never happened.” 

“Because you let me think you don’t want me for more than just sex!” 

“All I’m hearing is excuses and not enough action to put your cock in me,” 

“Yeah yeah, get naked.” He slaps your thigh a few times in encouragement while leaning back on his knees to unbuckle his belt. 

You make zero effort to move at all, except to prop yourself up on your elbows and watch intently as he slowly unbuttons his belt.

“Are you seriously just going to watch me strip?” He asks while teasingly dragging his fingers along his skin along the edge of his waistband with a cocky smirk once his belt is open.

“Dance for me, pretty boy,”

Seungcheol puts his hands on his hips and waits until you’ve dragged your gaze up from staring at the outline of his cock, over his bare torso and to his face. He’s raising an eyebrow at you. “Did you just call me pretty boy?” 

“Yes,” 

“Fucking crazy,” he huffs a short laugh.

“Hey!” You lean up just enough to slap his thigh scoldingly then sit up so that you can grope at his thighs with both hands while he just watches with an amused, fond little smile at your utterly shameless actions. “You are pretty, my pretty boy,” 

“Mm, I can accept that,” he agrees, holding your jaw with one hand firmly to tilt you up as he leans in to brush his lips over yours teasingly. “So long as I’m your pretty boy, I don’t mind being called that. So long as I’m yours, you can call me anything.” 

“Okay, sugarplum.” You cackle at the world-weary sigh that Seungcheol lets out against your lips before he leans back to look at you unimpressed. “What’s the matter, pookie?” 

“Why did you have to ruin the mood?” 

“I ruined the mood?” You smirk and slide one hand up his thigh to grip his cock firmly, making him hiss through his teeth at the sudden, tight pressure. “Feels like you’re still in the mood to me, pretty boy.” 

“I really must be insane,” 

“We match well then, huh?” 

“Mm,” he leans down to kiss you shortly. “Good thing we’re never having kids, they’d be sectioned before they reach adulthood.” 

“Our neighbours would hate us,” 

“They would,” he chuckles. “We’ll find somewhere new to live together once we’re married, away from noisy ass neighbours, and with a garden so I can fuck you outside and see how gorgeous you’ll look with the sun shining on you when you’re covered in my cum.” 

“There’s a park down the road,” 

“No,” he scoffs and shoves you back to make you lay down before his hands move to roughly yank his belt free. “You’re mine, I’m not letting anyone else see you like that.” 

“Even knowing they can look but not touch?” 

“Maybe once I’ve covered you in marks and made up for the past five years of not being able to fuck you.” 

“Sounds like a party,” you grin, and then wiggle excitedly as he taps the folded middle of his leather belt against your inner thigh. “That’d leave pretty marks.” 

“Mm, it would, you need to be naked for that though, baby,”

“You need to dance for me first,” you remind matter-of-factly before lacing your fingers together behind your head comfortably. 

“You really want me to dance for you?” 

“I’ve dreamed about you giving me a strip tease, don’t kill my boner, Cheolie.” 

“You’re going to kill my boner if you keep saying shit like this.” 

“Guess we need to invest in some gags,” 

“Guess we do,” he murmurs and licks his lips automatically at the thought of your lips stretched around a gag and drool running down your chin as you moan for him. “I’ll give you a strip tease another day, I need to fuck you too much.” 

“Promise?” 

“I promise, baby,” 

“Okay.” You sit up and get to work, quickly stripping off your clothes so Seungcheol climbs off of the bed to force his fitted trousers off of his body along with his boxers.

When he kneels back on the bed naked, he finds you already laid there utterly nude with legs spread in wait for him to join you.

“How the fuck did you strip so fast?” He gawps, running his hands reverently over your thighs as he settles between them on his knees. 

“Years of practise,” 

“Stripping?” 

“Had to be prepared for the day you give in to my seduction.” 

“Well…good job,” he leans down over you, hands propping himself on the mattress so that he can kiss you. 

“Thank you,” you preen and run your hands up his sides to take the chance to touch as much of his strong torso as you can for the first time. You can’t fucking wait to spend the rest of your life touching him up. It’s going to be great. “Now, cock please,” 

Seungcheol chokes on a short laugh at your words. “Good use of manners, sweetheart,” 

“I thought so too. Definitely deserves a reward,” 

“Mm,” he shuffles down a little so that he can wrap his full lips around your left nipple and suck harshly, intent on starting his plan to cover you in hickies and hand prints to mark his property. 

“That’ll work,” you mutter, lacing fingers in his hair to encourage his mouth against your breast. “Not cock but it’ll do for now.” 

“Shut up,” he laughs against your skin. 

“Make me,” 

“Brat,” 

“You like it,” 

“I do,” he sighs before moving one hand over your chest and throat until he can press against your parted lips. There’s no resistance at all, your jaw dropping enough to allow his middle and ring finger to slide into your mouth. “Good fucking girl,” Seungcheol praises in a low, rough voice as you instantly start to suck at his fingers, swirling your tongue around and between them with happy little moans. 

Seungcheol keeps his mouth against your body, sucking and biting violent looking marks into your skin until he’s satisfied with his artwork. He moves down, dragging the fingers from your mouth as he does, smearing your own saliva in a trail all the way until he’s laid on his stomach between your thighs and attaching his mouth to your clit in the same moment he pushes those two wet fingers into you. 

“Cheol,” you breathe out, pushing down against his fingers so that he doesn’t even dare think of waiting. He hums against your clit, making your thighs tighten momentarily before he starts to work his fingers in rapid movements that make your eyes flutter and fingers grip at him. 

As your nails drag over his shoulder lightly, Seungcheol moans and arches up towards your hand, urging you on, encouraging you to grasp at him. Dig your nails in until he hisses and fucks his fingers into you harder and faster. 

“H-how much can you take?” He asks, leaning up on his free hand, mouth and chin smeared with your arousal. 

“Anything,” you promise, feeling as desperate as the wild darkness in his eyes tells you he feels. 

Seungcheol nods and pulls his fingers from you as he moves up onto his knees. He doesn’t even ask you to move, just grabs you and manhandles you onto your front, chest against the mattress and hips up just enough to give him a better angle to begin sliding his thick cock into you. 

Maybe you hadn’t been quite as ready as you could’ve been. As you perhaps should’ve been. It’s been a while since you put anything but your fingers in your pussy for a quick session since moving away from the city.

Living with your nosey ass best friend doesn’t give you the freedom to get your toys out as he seems to have the uncanny ability of popping up and making a big deal out of it. Lots of screaming and acting like he’s been visually assaulted. You do the same to him. Your relationship is full of a lot of love and mutual, mature respect, clearly.

It’s a tight fit and Seungcheol grips your hips tight as he painstakingly splits you open with his mouth parted and eyebrows furrowed as if in pain. Not that you can see. Or have the mental capacity to do anything but grip the pillow and almost suffocate yourself in it with the way you press your open mouth against the material. 

“Shit, you’re so fucking tight,” he pants when he stops before he’s even buried his entire length in you. “Baby, I don’t-I don’t know if this is a good idea, fuck,” 

“Don’t you fucking dare,” you warn, turning your head to glare over your shoulder at him while reaching back to grab his ass and stop him from pulling out like he starts to. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” 

“Then I’ll do it,” you huff and push yourself up onto your hands. Admittedly, shaky hands but you’re too focused on your task to care. Too stubborn and desperate to get obliterated by his cock. 

“Babe-” 

“Shut the fuck up, Choi Seungchol,” you demand, pushing yourself back harsh enough that he flails and drops down onto his haunches as he swears, hands still gripping you though. His mouth says one thing and his body another. 

It’s a task getting your body upright until you’re on your knees, hands free to hold onto his forearm and thigh but when you do, you only take a moment to stop the spinning of your mind before you start to bounce on his cock. 

“Fuck,” he groans, spreading his thighs a little wider and rolling his hips in time with your bouncing. He’s not thrusting but his minute movements help to open you up a little more with every slap of your skin against his. 

This position isn’t very practical for you, not with Seungcheol. Not when it makes his cock feel even bigger than it actually is and your whole body trembles as it presses and drags against your walls in ways that feel like utter sin. You’re dripping all over him, ruining the bed and you don’t even care. Neither does he. 

“Your turn,” you murmur, falling still on his lap as you lean back against his chest to catch your breath at least a little and give your burning thighs a break. It’s a lot more work to ride him like that than you expected. You’ll have to take up a new workout routine so that you can do it for longer next time. You’re determined.

Seungcheol takes the moment of calm stillness to brush his lips over your shoulder and let his hands explore over your chest and spread-thighs. 

One of his hands trails between your legs to feel at where your pussy is spread around his cock. He makes a low, pleased sound before abruptly rubbing quick harsh circles over your clit. You shriek in surprise, body tensing at the sudden attack and nails digging into the skin of his thighs under your own.

“You gotta cum first,” he informs, stopping his circles for only a second to bring his hand back then down, landing a firm slap to your clit and making your body jerk as you moan brokenly. “That’s my dirty girl, fucking knew you’d like this,” his tone is nothing but aroused and approving as he slaps your clit again while holding you in place with his other arm wrapped securely around your waist with his hand on your chest. “You’re gonna cum like this, understand?” 

“Cheol-” 

“I said, do you understand?” Another slap, this one harsher in a toe-curling way, before he drags his palm and fingers over your clit in a way that could be considered almost soothing if he wasn’t pressing as firmly as he is. 

“Fuck, y-yeah. Don’t stop.” You agree, nodding where your head is tilted back against his shoulder. “But,” 

“What?” You don’t answer verbally and instead grip his left wrist to pull his hand up from your chest and to your throat. “I fucking love you,” he declares before squeezing your throat at the same time as he sucks on the side of your neck to create a new claim, his right hand moving to slap your clit in rapid succession. 

It’s only a few seconds of the combination, the intense pleasure from all melding together and sending a sharp orgasm through your body. Your body moves naturally as if trying to fight it and get away as you gasp for air you can’t get yet. Your nails drag deep red marks over his skin that only encourages him to fuck up into your convulsing walls. 

“Good, good,” he breathes against your neck and drops his palm from your throat back to your chest, both so that you can breathe clearly and so that he can hold you to him. He doesn’t stop playing with your clit though, his hips humping up into you and barely moving his cock but it’s still almost too much stimulation. 

The first orgasm is barely even over before another rocks through your body. 

This time, Seungcheol removes his hand from your clit, giving you some respite and murmurs praise against your shoulder the entire time it takes you to come down from the combination of both climaxes.

“You okay?” He asks gently when you turn your head to blink your eyes open and peer at him. You hum and nod, giving him a dopey, sated smile that makes him laugh. “Can you take more?” 

“Whatever you’ve got,” comes your confident response. 

“That’s my girl,” he smirks, looking nothing but proud of you and your pussy for being able to handle his thick cock. You’d puff like a peacock if, you know, you weren’t human.

Seungcheol takes a moment to just kiss you, lips and tongue meeting languidly as best as you both can considering the angle. You personally think it works very well and you’d give you both top marks.

And then he pushes you down against the mattress, one hand on the back of your neck to keep your cheek smushed against the pillow and his other hand holding your hip firmly to fuck into you in a brutal manner.

The headboard knocks harshly against the wall with every powerful stroke of his hips. The back of your thighs and ass are already starting to sting with the strength of his thrusts. His fingers bruise marks into your hip and neck as he hold you securely in place and forces you to just fucking take it. 

And you’re in heaven.

If you weren’t in love with the man before, you sure as fuck are now.

Nobody has ever fucked you like this. Nobody has handled you so well in every way. And you just know with everything in you that nobody else ever will. 

You’re definitely gonna marry the fuck out of Choi Seungcheol.

It doesn’t last much longer really, not that you can really blame Seungcheol considering he sat there and felt your pussy squeeze and cream over his cock twice already; and now he’s battering your walls so perfectly in a way that borders on pain in the most delicious of ways so you’re squeezing him all over again in minutes and almost screaming into the pillow as he forces another strong climax from your body.

You don’t even have the mental clarity to realise he’s stopped, his hips juddering against you as he cums as deep in you as possible with a string of low, rough moans with your name sprinkled in. 

“Oh, fuck,” you grunt when he lowers your hips to the mattress without pulling out just so that he can almost flatten you under his own body weight. You know he’s not entirely laid on you, you can feel the bulge of his biceps against your upper arms as he holds himself up just enough to not squish you.

“Shut up, you said you can take anything I give you,” he reminds in between pressing sweet, lingering kisses to your neck. 

“Meant your giant cock, not giant ass.” 

“You love my giant ass.”

“Mm. So, can I peg you?” 

“Can’t we just enjoy the post-sex bliss without you ruining it?” 

“No.” You wiggle your ass making him groan and then bite your shoulder in retaliation. 

“Don’t get me hard again, I’ll pass out if we go again before I sleep.” 

“That’s not a problem, unless you squish me, or go soft.” 

“Are you implying you’d carry on fucking even if I pass out?” 

“What? Because you wimp out, I have to suffer?” You scoff and wiggle again. “Got a problem with me using your body when you’re unconscious?” 

Seungcheol is silent for a moment in thought. “Just don’t stick anything in my ass.” 

“Mm, I can accept that. I want you to be awake when I ruin you anyway.” 

“I really don’t know what I’ve got myself into with you, do I?” 

“Nope.” You grin over your shoulder at him. “You said you’ll marry me, you’re stuck with me forever.” 

“I think I’m okay with that,” there’s a smile on his face as he moves off of you so that he can turn you enough to comfortably kiss you in a way that feels something like a promise. 

A promise to be okay with your endless depravities. A promise to marry you as soon as possible and buy a house together. A promise to spend the rest of his life loving you, his utterly bat-shit crazy troublemaker.

Don’t forget to reblog if you liked to help spread the story and let others read it too! And don't be shy to leave comments or send an ask so I can see your thoughts 🥺 💖

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[robin-evry]

Hi, i really like your writings, so I was wondering if I could request a yuu based on Shuri Von Neuschwastein, if you don't know, she's a girl who was forced by her parents to marry very young (14) to a man who was twice her age, so she had to mature very quickly. When her husband dies, ( she was 16) she has to take care of everything and look after this man's children. She also had a very bad reputation since people believed that she only wanted this man's fortune¿ ☠️ Sooo maybe when Yuu was taken to Twisted Wonderland she was desperate to go back to take care of her family because she genuinely thought it was her responsibility to take care of them, and despite her age she is very mature so she could handle many things (It is not healthy for someone of her age to talk and act as if as if she were 30)

And no more because God, what a long message, an apology in advance because English is not my first language and I am doing it with a translator.

If you don't want to write this that's fine ‼️‼️

I've been wanting to read A Stepmother's Märchen manhwa for so long but I've been too busy to start it. PS : sorry for the long wait as well if it's not accurate

Anyway, ask and you shall receive

𝐓𝐖𝐒𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀 𝐒𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐈 𝐕𝐎𝐍 𝐍𝐄𝐔𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐈𝐍!𝐘𝐔𝐔 🌷👨‍👩‍👦‍👦

Marchioness Shuri Von Neuschwanstein is one of the main characters of The Fantasie of a Stepmother manhwa. She is the second wife of Marquess Johannes von Neuschwanstein and the stepmother of his four children, Jeremy, Elias, Leon and Rachel. She is the current head of the Neuschwanstein Family. She is formerly of the Ighöfer Family. She is the daughter of lower Viscount Ighöfer and Stella von Ighöfer and the younger sister of Lucas von Ighöfer.

( English is not my first language )

Day 5 : Shuri Von Neuschwanstein!yuu

Shuri!yuu would be so desperate to go back home, every at the end of the day they would ask Crowley had he found a way back. To the point it really got in his nerve he told them to relax. And enjoy it NRC before they went back home

Would be a mother figure to grim. They would take care of him, feed him, give them food and just literally be motherly for him, grim would be so protective of them refusing any harm gets in their way.

A top student at NRC, even tho magic is pretty new but they adapted to the environment very quickly, they are able to get one of the highest scores in NRC competing with Azul and riddle. Professor trein treats shuri!yuu are like one of his daughters after learning about their past he is pretty concerned about them going back to their home due to how much they suffer so much.

The first years after learning about shuri!yuu being married when she was 14. They were shocked and asked if shes okay. When Ace and deuce ask about a former marquess and where are his whereabouts, shuri!yuu replied that he passed away from pneumonia and when they asked why, the first years looked at them like "because it's pedophilia".

But during their time shuri!yuu finally have time for themselves. They are finally free from the responsibility of a mother for the first time. They tried new hobbies, interests and for once they are free from responsibility but they keep reminding themselves they had to go back because of their responsibilities. But they will enjoy this moment of freedom before going back to work.

Cater will teach them how to use a cellphone, they start to post and take photos as a documentary for their time in twst, and it manages to gain popularity and gain many sponsorship, they ask for the help of vil because they don't know how to do these things.

Lilia will feel pity and respect for shuri!yuu ability to stay strong even at the age at a young age. No one at that age should experience being a mother at that age.

During their time NRC shuri!yuu finally have the time to enjoy their childhood and be free from their responsibility of being the leader of the house of Neuschwanstein.

And these scenes are being seen by Jeremy von Neuschwanstein after his stepmother has mysteriously disappeared and all searches have gone dried and the nobleman and woman have been saying good riddance, during one night a mirror in his bedroom emits a glow and when he takes a closer look at it. It's shuri!yuu sleeps peacefully at the ramshackle dorm with grim next to them.

he screamed and called for their name trying to get their attention towards the mirror until his voice dried. Everyday he goes to the mirror and looks at the mirror working like a one way mirror towards them, so close and yet so far. He saw them enjoying their life, laughing and the largest smile he ever saw more than when they were in here. He started to think it would be better for them to be there than here, in twst they would find true happiness and enjoy life for the first time, and they can marry whoever they want and love whoever they want. Right now he's just gonna be watching from the sidelines for now.

[esvvel]

one year, two months and four days

Lila

It feels like I'm going crazy. The platforms are blurring into each other in my mind, I can't remember how many of them I've seen already, I can't navigate my memories anymore. Five is still trying to rely on the map, but I don't think it makes any sense since we've been coming back to the same stations over and over again a few times; or maybe they were different and I just didn't notice… I found this weird (as if anything in this shithole could be normal) old-fashioned radio. It only gets one station with only one song playing 24/7 and it only works if you hang it right under the ceiling. But it is the best thing in this purgatory. It plays music, FUCKING REAL MUSIC. If Five is right, it's been at least a year since we got lost. And since then, it is the first time I can listen to something other than his boring lectures on the art of apocalypse survival or the subway announcements delivered by that hellish robotic voice in an encrypted language; sometimes I'm not sure which pisses me off more.

one year, two months and five days

Lila

Spent the whole night listening to this song, it made me think of Gracie and the twins. Looked like even this old man was glad to find something that reminded him of a real, normal life. We had to move on and leave the radio behind. If we see it again we'll realize we are going in circles, and anyway I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work in any other timeline. We danced. Like that time at Luther’s wedding. Didn’t expect Five to be able to do that sober actually, which makes me think I’m not the only one going bananas here. I don’t know why I did it, why I keep pretending that things aren’t as bad as they are. I know Five’s right, fuck he’s right most of the time. But I can’t just admit that we’re stuck, that we’re completely lost, that I’ve come a lot further than I thought, that it’s all my fault. He’s never directly blamed me for any of it, but we both know the truth. And I can feel that we’re almost home, we’re so close.

It has to be that way.

okay there are a lot of words 😭 i've never written anything like this before so i hope this isn't too bad lol, i just wanted to give these sketches more context and yes they are highly inspired by harry and hermione's dance scene in deathly hallows (i love that scene so much). you can think of it as Lila's internal monologue or maybe she has some kind of journal(?) where she writes her thoughts while being in the subway to keep track of events. i have a LOT of headcanons and ideas for more fivelila sketches like this so maybe i'll make a series out of this if you're interested!!

[writingquestionsanswered]

So whilst I know you're not a therapist or psychologist, but you're a damn good writer with great advice; what can I do to tackle this? Could I know your own process? When you develop a plot and get to a part that needs something new - what do you actually do? How do you brainstorm effectively and... trust your decisions? I think my issue is a combo of autism (like going down a research rabbit hole just for shopping new things...) but also feeling distrustful because of past bad choices... 2/2

My Plotting Process

I think part one got eaten by the Tumblr goblins, because I couldn't find it anywhere. Unless I already answered part one and it isn't obviously related to this one, but I'll do my best here. :)

Just as there are people who can hop into the car with no map and no planning, and just drive across the country to some destination, there are writers who can sit down without an outline or plan, and write a story that somehow manages to hit all the requisite plot points. I'm not that person, in either case. I used Google Maps today to get to a place less than two miles from my house that I've been to twenty times, because I wasn't 100% sure exactly where it was or where I needed to turn for it. I'm the same way with writing. It doesn't matter how many novels I write, I still need the damn map. That's why I always outline and use various story structures as reference, according to feels right for the story I want to tell.

For people who are ND like you and me, and for other people prone to falling down rabbit holes, outlines have the added benefit of keeping you on track. If you're following a road map that tells you to stay on this road for two miles and turn left at the intersection, you're much less likely to turn down random roads and end up inadvertently exploring hidden neighborhoods and back country lanes. Outlines work the same way. If you know exactly what scene you're writing, what's going to happen in that scene and why, and what major plot point it fulfills or helps build toward, you're not going to get lost along the way.

So, when I get a story idea, the first thing I do is write out an exhaustive beginning to end summary with everything I know. Then, I look at Save the Cat! and start plotting out the story according to the plot points. Quite often, when I get to a plot hole, I can fill it out based on the previous or upcoming plot point. If not, I'll start looking at other story structures to see if that jogs something loose. Sometimes I'll realize that structure just works better for the story I'm trying to tell, and I'll replot the whole thing according to that structure. I might plot my story using three or four different structures or a combination of a few before I settle on one that works for the story. Once I have the structure hammered out, I start making a list of necessary scenes to encapsulate, build-up to, or ramp down from the various plot points. Once I have my scene list, I write out a beginning to end scene summary for each scene so I know what has to happen. I think about things like conflict of the scene, how it begins, what happens in the middle, and how it ends. I think about the character's goal in the scene, and how the scene builds upon the scene before it and leads up to the scene after it. And, with my scene list in hand, I'm usually good to start writing. If I hit things that don't quite work out or need more fleshing out, I might refer to other story structures, or I might even write out my scenes on scene cards and see if moving things around makes a difference. The important rule is I never let myself feel limited by the structure I'm using or have created. I know it's just there as a guide, and it's okay to stray from it if need be. I always follow my gut, and knowing when to trust my gut is just something I've learned over many, many years of writing. You'll get there, too, but you have to take calculated risks before you can build up that sort of trust with yourself.

I hope that answers your question well enough! ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[steamberrystudio]

31/12/2023 Devlog

Hey everyone! Time for the bi-weekly tumblr update for Steamberry stuff! Except I skipped one because I can't remember why.

I half-wrote it but I think I just wasn't feeling up to finishing and posting.

I haven't been doing extremely well health-wise lately but still powering through.

Summary

Finished writing Chapter 5.5 (the new chapter in WSC)

Finished editing Chapters 6, 7, and 8 of Asher's path

Finished all the profiles for the GS lore book

Have started wrapping up the "side stories" and additional content for the GS lore book

Ramble

Okay so in my last update I was in the middle of editing chapter 5 and was nearly to the start of chapter six in editing Asher's route. I finished up chapter 5...

At that point when I was looking ahead, I started feeling like I wanted to add in a transition scene to move between Chapter 5 and Chapter 6.

As I started plotting out this scene, one of my ideas took on a life of its own and I realised that it might be better to interject a new, fleshed out story incident that would allow me to slow the pacing as well as flesh out the setting and universe a little more. This incident would also let me tie into some earlier events and connect them to something that occurs in chapter 6, also foreshadowing the chapter 6 incident.

Ultimately, this became too much to call a "scene" and I decided to branch it off into a supplementary chapter (IE a chapter a bit shorter than the others and meant to be released along with another chapter.)

Then that chapter ended up being 30,000 words.

So that happened.

After finishing that I went on to finish editing chapters 6, 7, and 8. I am currently on chapter 9. I only have a few more chapters before I'm finished editing Asher's path. As always, during my edits, one of the main things I do is flesh things out.

So obviously the word count has grown from that (and, you know, the 30k extra chapter I invented).

Currently the word count is 468,000 words.

Other Stuff:

I have received several new BGs and a new BG sketch. BGs are continuing to come in at a fairly steady pace.

I now have all the BGs for The Ophelia and the artists are working on other locations finally. OwO

I've also been, here and there, doing small tweaks to the sprites, small additions and fixes.

Gilded Shadows:

As I mentioned, I finally got through all the character profiles. There are so many more characters than I remembered in this game.

Then I got halfway through and realised that I forgot five. And had to insert them, which...meant rearranging pages, which is a pain in the butt. However, that is now complete.

What I'm working on now is finishing up some of the short stories and drabbles I have planned or partially written out and getting them into the lore book. 

As well as gathering any other content. The lore book is currently about 350 pages. And I am really hoping to wrap it up soon.

Upcoming Weeks:

Next couple of weeks I will be trying to wrap up the lore book and wrap up editing Asher's Path.

When I finish editing Asher's path I'll be moving on to finish drafting the end sequences for the four remaining characters. I'm starting to have an idea of where the word count is going to end up but will have a better idea for sure when Asher's edit is complete.

I have written over 100,000 words since mid-August, just plugging away and trying to hit at least 1000 words a day.

I hit my year end word count goal of 466,000 words for When Stars Collide but unfortunately did not finish the draft because the draft has grown in size.

But I am really hoping to finish it early next year so we can fully move into phase 2 of When Stars Collide.

I am also hoping to get the final KS stuff resolved for Gilded Shadows early next year as well (the lore book, art book, and some residual art and stuff).

For now, I shall just keep plucking away at it until it's all done.

And that is all for now. I will see you all next year.

[rose-of-the-underworld]

What are your favorite shoujo shows? I just started watching anime and would love recommendations.

AAAAAAAAAAAA! First of all, I'm sorry that this took two months to write up, but I am honestly touched that you asked me! Okay, so disclaimer that I wasn't deep into the anime scene until a few years ago (I'm a late bloomer), but shoujo is my bread and butter so to speak, so I'm happy to give some reccs! Note that this isn't ranked in any particular order, it's just as they come to me! Will give a summary and my thoughts on each. Also, most of these anime don't cover the entirety of the story published in their corresponding manga, but they're all a good starting point if you want to dive into reading the rest!

Putting under a read more because I'm more long-winded than I thought I would be

1.) Sailor Moon: The magical action-adventures of a teenage girl who learns of her destiny as the legendary warrior Sailor Moon and must band together with the other Sailor Scouts to defend the Earth and Galaxy.

Had to start with the original!! Now my love for Sailor Moon goes back to before I knew what anime even was. I caught wind of it when I was five years old and it was airing on TV for the first time, but I adored the show and my Princess Serenity doll. Now, please note that I really did not absorb much outside of the aesthetics and the insane dialogue of the 90s English dub before it stopped airing on tv and I forgot about it for a while, always meaning to get back into it, but never quite managing. Then during 2020 lockdown, my good friend and Sailor Moon expert @pollyannaisms started streaming little watch parties of Sailor Moon Crystal and boy did I fall in love all over again. I'm so happy that it came back into my life when I needed it most, tbh. It really is such a hopeful and optimistic series with some of the most lovely female friendships, one of the most beautiful and romantic love stories I've ever seen, and wonderful messages about loving yourself.

If you want a more streamlined plot with less episodes, I recommend starting with Sailor Moon Crystal since it follows the manga very closely and it's relatively short. 39 episodes across three seasons and then four movies - Sailor Moon Eternal parts 1&2 and Sailor Moon Cosmos part 1&2. Cosmos is FINALLY being released internationally on August 24th and I can't wait to finally see it, I've been rotting for it.

Now, the original 90s anime is also fantastic, it is just incredibly long with I believe 200 episodes and a few movies. It was airing as Naoko Takeuchi was publishing the manga so there's a lot of filler and the monster of the week format can get a little monotonous if you're trying to binge. I would say to take your time with it, but I do believe it's worth the watch because you get some wonderful character development episodes that are absent from Crystal. It's not perfect and there are some....odd choices made, but I do love it. Please note, that if you watch it in English through official streaming services, you'll be seeing a re-dub that Viz did with the Crystal cast when they bought the rights. It's a good dub! But man, I wish I could watch the original 90s English dub more easily (pirating such a long series is kind of an ordeal) because it has some of the funniest dialogue I've ever heard. Lots of people hate it, but I love the nostalgia factor and I personally find it hilarious.

2.) Ouran High School Host Club: Haruhi Fujioka is a studious girl who has recently enrolled at the prestigious Ouran Academy. One day, while looking for a quiet and peaceful place to study, she stumbles across a seemingly unused music room. Upon entering, Haruhi is welcomed by the members of the well-known Host Club: a club in which attractive boys amuse girls from across the entire school. However, when Tamaki Suoh—the founder and president of the club—startles the bright scholarship student, she accidentally breaks an expensive vase.

With repayment looking difficult for Haruhi, the Host Club members come up with the perfect solution to the girl's problem: work for the club and ultimately become a Host herself! Mistaken for a boy by her peers, Haruhi has to entertain various female students while coping with her fellow Hosts' extravagant personalities.

Ouran was the first anime that I ever watched on purpose at age 17, and it is very near and dear to my heart. It does come with some caveats, though. While this was the perfect starter anime for me (the friend who recc'd it knows me very well), it's not a good starter anime for everyone. It is incredibly over the top and is also a parody anime of shoujo romances, so some of the jokes might not land if you're a newbie. While I loved it at first viewing, I found it MUCH funnier when I rewatched it ten years later after having seen much more shoujo anime. Also, please note that Ouran aired in 2006, and while it was very progressive for the early 2000s, there is a lot of outdated terminology when it comes to LGBT topics, so tread with care and know that its heart was in the right place and we've come a long way in the last 20 years.

That being said, this series will always be one of my favorites. Aside from being insanely hilarious (and wildly out of pocket), the show has a lot of heart and characters who all genuinely love each other. It touches on feminism and gender and I credit it with making me bisexual.

3.) Fruits Basket: After a family tragedy turns her life upside down, high schooler Tohru Honda takes matters into her own hands and moves out...into a tent. Unfortunately for her, she pitches her new home on private land belonging to the mysterious Sohma clan, and it isn't long before the owners discover her secret. But, as Tohru quickly finds out when the family offers to take her in, the Sohmas have a secret of their own--when hugged by the opposite sex, they turn into the animals of the Chinese Zodiac.

God. Fruits Basket is everything to me. This was the second anime I ever watched on purpose, recc'd by the same friend who showed me Ouran. She lent me her DVDs of the 2001 anime adaptation when I was 18 and it took me a few months to actually watch it but MAN. When I tell you that I was crying during the finale with my 8 week old kitten on my chest, and then when the 2019 reboot aired their version of the season finale, I was crying AGAIN with the same cat who was at that point 14 lbs and still snuggling on my chest. Full circle. It will never not be good. I would absolutely recommend that you watch the 2019 reboot over the 2001 version because it encompasses the whole story and has the budget for a much higher quality production. The animation is beautiful and I really like the music. The storytelling is phenomenal, thank you, Natsuki Takaya for my life.

Tohru Honda is truly one of my favorite characters of all time. There is so much depth to her, so much kindness and sadness and a heart full of love. She changes the lives of everyone she meets by just loving them unconditionally and has a legion of friends who would do anything for her. This is another story that features the struggle to love yourself, but it is also about the struggle to let others love you as well. The main romance is another top tier love story for me, and all of the side romances are compelling as well. I will warn you that the series deals heavily with familial abuse and with grief. For every laugh and heartwarming moment, there is a punch to the gut right around the corner. But god, it's worth it in the end. Fruits Basket is full of bittersweet moments of catharsis and it never fails to make me insane (affectionate). Fantastic characters and an excellent plot, it's one of the most compelling series I've ever seen.

4.) Kimi Ni Todoke: Sawako Kuronuma has had a difficult time fitting in, due to her shy nature and her similarity in name and appearance to Sadako from The Ring. On her first day of high school, Sawako meets the one boy who treats her like a normal girl-Shota Kazehaya. Through his selfless aid, Sawako slowly learns to come out of her shell and even begins to make friends for the first time in her life. However, with a new social life come social pressures. As she grows into her new identity, Sawako must learn to deal with such pressures as well as start to understand the unfamiliar feelings inside of her, especially in regards to the boy who made her new start possible.

This is probably THEEEEE sweetest thing I've ever seen. I watched it for the first time last year and I was legitimately crying happy tears in episode 1. If this is your first time watching, you're in luck! Season 3 just premiered after a 13 year hiatus! I've only watched an episode and a half so far, and I already love it so much. It has the exact same energy as the first two seasons. Sawako and Kazehaya are too adorable for words, and Sawako's two best friends are wonderful. This series does a great job of handling the real struggles of adolescents while also being full of optimism and love of all sorts.

5.) Kamisama Kiss: newly homeless teenager Nanami Momozono is trying to figure out her next move when she helps a stranger in need. Out of gratitude, he offers Nanami his home, a rundown shrine, and also his job as a land god. Now, Nanami must juggle high school along with the duties of a deity with the help of Tomoe, a reformed fox demon who reluctantly becomes her familiar in a contract sealed with a kiss. As the headstrong Tomoe tries to whip her into shape, Nanami finds that love just might have cute, pointed fox ears. With romance in the air, will the human deity be able to prove herself worthy of her new title?

This series made me CRAZY!!!!!!! Nanami and Tomoe are such a good nuisances to lovers story with a really interesting twist that I genuinely did not see coming! Nanami is adorable and Tomoe is the perfect house husband, I love them so much. This series is such a fun little romp through the supernatural world of gods, demons, and spirits, with an incredibly interesting cast of characters. The anime has two seasons and a few OVAs, but in order to see the latter, you're going to have to search the less than legal sites because they were never licensed internationally. Definitely worth it in my opinion to see the end of the story.

6.) Yona of the Dawn: Sheltered and spoiled Princess Yona is the only heir to the throne of Kouka. Yona's perfect world comes crashing down when a heinous act of treason threatens to erase all that she holds dear, including her birthright as the princess of Kouka. Left with no one to trust but her childhood friend and loyal bodyguard Son Hak, she is forced to flee the palace. Faced with the perils of surviving in the wild with a target on her back, Yona realizes that her kingdom is no longer the safe haven it once was.

Free from the shackles of naivety, Yona vows to do everything in her power to become strong enough to crush her enemies. With Hak by her side, she must piece together the remains of an ancient legend that might be the key to reclaiming her kingdom from those who conspired to steal it from her.

THIS SERIES MADE ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yona of the Dawn honestly ticks all of my boxes -- sheltered princess who needs to learn how to fight, political intrigue, betrayal, heartbreak, ancient magical legends, and a princess/bodyguard romance. The anime (and OVAs) are only a very small part of the story, but it was excellent regardless. The manga is incredibly long and actually just celebrated its 15th anniversary; it's regarded one of the greatest shoujo manga of all time. I had started reading the manga a few years back, and I REALLY need to get back into it, especially since it seems to be inching closer to the end. But if you love action packed fantasy adventures, this is the story for you!

7.) Inuyasha*: Suddenly finding herself in feudal Japan, schoolgirl Kagome teams up with half-demon Inuyasha to retrieve the scattered shards of a sacred jewel.

*Technically, a shounen, but has the vibes of a shoujo. I need you to know that last year when I had covid, I watched 50 episodes of this series and the first movie. And then I was compelled to make the following image:

Inuyasha is a long one so I suggest pacing yourself, but it is so so worth it! This is another action packed fantasy series with awesome characters, fantastic writing, and a heart stopping romance. The creator, Rumiko Takahashi was already an experienced mangaka when she made Inuyasha, and it shows. She's excellent at naturally weaving the romance into the overarching narrative and there's a maturity to her writing that makes this story about young people feel so intense and complex in the best way.

8.) Maid-Sama!: Misaki is class president of a formerly all-male school. A beacon of hope to the female students as well as teachers, she rules over the boys with an iron fist and a heart of ice. A popular male student stumbles on to her secret double life- working part-time as an upbeat and cheery waitress at a maid cafe! Misaki is forced to make a deal: spend some time with him, or have her hard earned reputation destroyed by revealing her embarrassing secret.

I will warn you, there are elements to this anime that have not aged well since its airing in 2010. A lot of it is very feminist in that early 2000s way! But it also includes that early 2000s brand of "problematic" possessive (and maybe a little too inappropriate) love interest and some outdated romance anime tropes. But all in all, I think it's worth a view. I really love Misaki as a character so much, and her relationship with Usui is fun and frustrating and very, very sweet.

9.) My Love Story!!: With his muscular build and tall stature, Takeo Gouda is no ordinary high school freshman. However, behind Takeo's intimidating appearance lies a pure heart of gold. Unfortunately for Takeo, his appearance does not bode well for his love life. As if his looks were not already enough to scare girls away, Takeo's cool, handsome best friend and constant companion Makoto Sunakawa easily, and unintentionally, steals the hearts of the female students—including every girl Takeo has ever liked.

One day, when Takeo saves cute Rinko Yamato from a creep on the train, he falls in love with her instantly. But with handsome Sunakawa around, does Takeo even stand a chance?

It's rare to see a shoujo series with a male protagonist, but Takeo is honestly perfect for the role and deserves everything good in the world. This is such an adorable anime with the sweetest couple on Earth and the best friend that anyone could ever ask for. Takeo and Rinko are both down so bad for each other and they're both adorable, awkward clowns. They were truly meant to be! Takeo's friendship with Sunakawa is also such a vital and lovely part of the series and shows that your platonic relationships are just as important as your romantic ones.

10.) My Little Monster: Shizuku Mizutani is apathetic toward her classmates, only caring about her grades. However, her cold view of life begins to change when she meets Haru Yoshida, a violent troublemaker who stopped attending class after getting into a fight early in the school year. He is not much different from her, though—he too understands little about human nature and does not have any friends. Much to Shizuku's surprise, he proclaims that she will be his friend and immediately confesses his feelings toward her upon meeting her.

Because of her lack of friends and social interaction, Shizuku has a hard time understanding her relationship with Haru. But slowly, their friendship begins to progress, and she discovers that there is more to Haru than violence. She begins to develop feelings for him, but is unsure what kind of emotions she is experiencing. Together, Shizuku and Haru explore the true nature of their relationship and emotions.

This is a story about a boy and a girl who struggle with love and friendship. Opening yourself up to other people forces you to be honest with yourself.

Here's another "problematique" anime that I fell head over heels in love with in spite of certain things that didn't age well. I'm a simple woman, give me a cold girl and a feral boy who are obsessed with each other and don't know how to function in society and I'm sold. While Shizuku and Haru's bizarre, never-on-the-same-page romance is the overarching narrative, an important part of the series is the two of them learning how to make friends and find community with other socially dysfunctional weirdos. The friends that they make are just as interesting as the two of them and are equally important to the story.

This is another series that I highly recommend reading the manga for, since the one season anime doesn't get far enough into the story for a satisfying ending. Shizuku's revelations about herself and her character development in the manga genuinely made me cry, and Haru gets some good development as well. Their relationship progresses in a very sweet way as they work to understand each other and respect boundaries and communicate.

11.) Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun:

Chiyo Sakura is a cheerful high school girl who has fallen head over heels for the oblivious Umetarou Nozaki. Much to Chiyo's confusion, when she confesses to her beloved Nozaki, he hands her an unfamiliar autograph. As it turns out, the stoic teenage boy is actually a respected shoujo manga artist, publishing under a pen name. A series of misunderstandings leads to Chiyo becoming one of Nozaki's manga assistants and befriending many of her quirky schoolmates. This slice of life comedy follows Chiyo as she strives to help Nozaki with his manga and hopes that he will eventually notice her feelings.

I adore this series to the moon and back. Both adorable and absolutely HILARIOUS, Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, is a wild ride from start to finish. The slow burn to end all slow burns, this ongoing 4-panel, slice of life manga has been ongoing since 2011, yet remains hilarious and so does the one season anime. This is another parody shoujo anime where some jokes might go over your head if you're a beginner, but I think it's easier to digest than Ouran, and would be a fine starter anime. This is another clown4clown romance, but Chiyo and Nozaki aren't the only ones. Their friends are a vibrant cast of characters who tend to fall into classic shoujo manga tropes (though not always in the ways you'd expect) and all have their own incredibly silly and off the wall will-they-won't-they romances.

This is such a fun series that never fails to make me laugh, and often makes me swoon. It's both ridiculous and relatable and you can't help but root for every single character.

And I'll end it there! I have quite a few other series that are near and dear to my heart but these are probably the ones I talk about the most. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading. Anon, I hope that you enjoy your adventures in shoujo anime!

If anyone ever wants to talk about any of these series, my inbox is always open. Seriously, I am always dying to talk about all of these!

[kiefbowl]

I've been embarrassed so I haven't been blogging about it...but I've been watching himym for the past couple months. but the reason is not because I like it (bease pelieve me I'm crying), but because I find it a fascinating cultural artifact, and I wanted to write a more thorough post on tv and misogyny than the one offs I wrote oh like 2.5 years ago when I watched a couple episodes.

but gyns, I can't get though season 8. I can't do it. I've gotten this far and you might think oh it's just a little further...you can do it but season 8 is straight up hot garbage. truly abysmal. how did anyone hang on. Even though I've been pacing this little project over months to not want to krill myself, season 8 is taking corporeal form and strangling me and laughing about it. It's not even the ~wacky rape jokes~ that are doing me in. I knew that was 80% of the show and the bulk of barney's character. I was prepared. It's not even that jason segal looks weird and seems to be astral projecting himself back to the freaks and geeks set every second he can to take back his life of acting for a quiet career as an accountant to avoid this miserable, god awful job in the future, though he makes every horrible scene he's in just that much horrible because of it. It's because I can't fucking stand to watch robin's life slowly be picked apart for shit by these four loser friends. I just can't do it anymore. The writers HATE ROBIN. They hate her. The main love interest. Of two men. They think she's wrong. They think she's stupid. They think she should be punished. Even though they write her, and center her, and she's the linchpin of this entire stupid fucking show.

And when the writing is this abysmal in season 8, a show that has been sometimes okay, a lot of times mid, many many times already awful, I just can't watch her character be assassinated for the sake of sitcom concepts like "let's host a game show in our apartment to decide our baby's legal guardian in the event of our deaths" or ideas like what if barney picked up a random dog. can't do it. Can't do it!!! this is my essay, I'm deleting all my notes. This show Sucks. I was going to give it a teeeeny bit of credit at the end for some things, but fuck that. Fuck you for writing Robin in episode one so you could gleefully dismember her piece by piece over nine years like some sort of spit pig in service of ted and barney's rape escapades. truly fuck this piece of shit show.

[n7punk]

I accidentally drafted this instead of scheduling it for the start of October BUT I wanna talk about the scrapbusting aspect of Sapphic September for me now it's done because it was really successful for me.

Oh to start, let me actually explain scrapbusting: it's going through your scraps/fabric pile and finally sewing the pieces you've stocked up there. Usually it's more of a quilters thing since they can much more easily use small scraps, but the term has spread through the entire sewing community now and I've also seen it used for finally completing projects you may have cut out but never sewn and such.

So a lot of my SS ideas came out of nowhere (what is Ritual. Like actually) but this event was also so good for convincing myself to finally do things I'd been holding on to forever and I wanna go over those! I'm also gonna include a little of AU-ctober/Sheratober in here at the end

highlights / fault lines (OotW) [teeth]: i have had the highlights document sitting in my WIPs folder for 2 years (Oct 2022), starting with the first paragraph in the second scene for the final fic, and then just a little blurb of what the fic would be about (adora struggling to adjust/with her depression after joining the rebellion to explore how unhealthy she managed to be in secret). when I started writing the teeth prompt, i wrote that first scene and went, wait, this could actually tie into that old idea, so i pasted it into that old doc and just went from there. I'm so glad to have finally gotten that idea out there and it was basically accidental lol.

Sickfic (the Greys) [UFO]: another file I've had sitting around for two years (Nov 2022), I wrote the first paragraph and then immediately switched over to what the first chapter of Recycled Stardust ended up being, the museum gallery opening. I was writing it for a friend who was sick, so "sickfic" made sense, but then I had the other idea and asked them which idea they'd prefer, and they chose the art gallery, so that other idea just sat there in my WIPs folder titled simply "sickfic.docx" for two years. When I saw UFO on the list I IMMEDIATELY went oh my god I'm going to finally finish this thing.

the bones of what you believe (OotW) [bones]: This is a partial hit. I came up with the idea for the broken bones thing just for this prompt, but as I started writing it, it naturally morphed into a reality break, and I had the following stub in my OotW ideas folder (titled 'delirium'): "Cognitive dissonance, catra adjusting to bright moon but its so pastel, and soft, and breezy, and smells like open air and flowers, it feels like a halucination, it’s difficult to tell what’s real". I ended up incorporating those aspects into this reality break, which I think works better than trying to turn that into its own fic separately, so another idea down!

Backseat Beast (Trade Today for Tomorrow) [moonlight]: I've had the catcrumbs drawing that inspired this sitting in my drafts, with those tags attached (minus Sapphic September lol), since the 4th of July... 2023. Yeah. I told you this was scrapbusting lol. I knew I wanted to do something with Catra, being far too aware for a kid her age, using it to listen in and be a bit of a little shit, but I never came up with more for it and had the idea it had to be multiple vignettes to make a new installment but like... it doesn't. It can just be one, lol, so as soon as I saw 'moonlight' I thought of TTfT since it's tied into immortality in that verse and I ended up using this idea even though there isn't actually any moonlight directly tied into this idea. I was going to try to write another scene that actually had the moonlight glow, but what I learned this month was that I need to give myself permission to write smaller things more.

mirrorworld (a left turn somewhere around etheria) (OotW) [surreal]: okay obviously I made that original tumblr post four years ago, but I had no intention of actually writing it. I happened to rediscover it two years later though (not really sure when) and decided I should actually write it. Well I wrote one paragraph and then never picked it back up. When I saw both the surreal and mirror prompts I knew I had to actually do this fucking idea now or just delete the damn file lmao.

Starlight (somewhere between the sand & stardust) [the divine/awakening]: This was intended to be my next project after Slipstream before Sapphic September grasped my attention with that fucking ghost prompt. Anyway just a glance at the prompt list told me I could fit in the Lightbeam sequel with these themes somewhere so hey, problem solved! I was a little burnt out on kidfic right after Slipsteam so the break to write all the stupid stuff gave me the room I needed to actually write Starlight.

A Prophecy from an Angry God [prophecy]: Oh boy this one. I don't normally like crossover fic because most of the time the themes of the two things just don't mesh, nevermind the plot, but I do sometimes like AUs just using another universe's rules (thus letting you make your own themes & plot) so that's what I wanted to do with this. The avatar fic came to me as a fever dream in the later house or early morning, I don't remember which, and I made the file in my Scrivener ideas folder on March 24th in 2023, but I wasn't sure I was actually ever going to write it. I remembered it when thinking about prophecy/fate in regards to the Avatar's role, though, and I was like. I'm not deleting this file ever, so I either need to write it now or look at it forever. So I finally wrote it LOL.

In AU-ctober, I've been seeing on the idea for Somewhere Beautiful, We Can Finally Meet for 7 months. I started working on it here and there, but AU-ctober planning started back in early September and I thought this would be a good way to close it out, even if it ended up being much longer than the five days that made up that week.

Rain or Shine I've been sitting on for AGES and the Sheratober prompts helped push me on ideas to finally get it out.

The Green Line idea is only a month old, but it was just "subway AU" and the Sleep prompt came along as a great way to spur interaction by falling asleep on public transit.

[constelationprize]

Last line tag!

Thanks for @codename-adler for tagging me! I'm having a bit of a moment right now where I hate everything I write (and I'm not cool, and I'm not smart, and I can't even parallel park). Anyway these days I've been hammering around Kayleigh's POV for my Challengers-inspired prequel fic. This scene is supposed to be the start, when Tetsuji first announces the Ravens, but I'm not sure if it's flowing the way I wanted.

1990

Stage lights are so much hotter than they appear. It's like twin suns are trained on Kayleigh's face, making her sweat to the point she isn't sure the heavy makeup they applied on her will survive the night. It's not the first time she's done this – Tetsu and her are old dogs at the press junket by now – but it rankles as if it was.

The host of Late Night with Sam Carter, still unfortunately the titular Sam Carter, has asked his last four questions to Tetsuji alone. That's four questions past her usual limit, but today’s about Tetsuji, mostly, so she's exerting some degree of patience.

She taps her heels against the fake wood floor. Kayleigh can spot Kevin from here, sitting cross-legged behind the cameras, coloring his picture book. Riko is kneeling by his side, eyeing the crayons as if they were a new invention. Kayleigh hums, noting to herself what to get the boy for his birthday, so Tetsuji’s color allergy won’t prove hereditary.

Tetsuji discreetly knocks his knee against hers, and when she turns back, it's to see that Carter has finally deigned to ask her a question.

The reporter laughs at her face.

“It’s very charming to see you so enamored by motherhood, Kayleigh,” she hates the familiarity in his tone. Tetsuji preemptively lays his foot on top of hers, ready to press down if Carter sets her off. “Couple years ago, your priorities were completely different. Not that anyone would blame, you of course – cameras, can you show us a look of young Kevin Day, please?”

Kayleigh calms herself down by thinking about how much of a fuss murdering a man on live television would cause.

“Do not.” She orders through a gritted teeth smile, “My son is not the one your wonderful crew spent time and effort to prepare for the cameras today.”

“Oh, but he's such a darling child!” Carter laughs again, but he does wave the cameramen off. “It's no wonder you have decided to dedicate your time to him. Raising a child on your own must be very challenging.”

He poises it as a question, arching his brows. This has come up in every other interview Kayleigh gave since news of the pregnancy broke out, though she usually can avoid them by forbidding the question on her briefing or ordering them to edit the footage out when they tried to press it. Sam Carter, of course, thought he could get away with saying anything just because he was a live show host.

“I find it very easy, actually,” Kayleigh shrugs, “I am not the first single parent to manage a career and a child, and if you think I am, Sam, I suggest you take your head out of your ass.”

She makes sure to keep on smiling, to let the silence sit long enough that Carter feels forced to laugh as if she told a joke. Tetsuji sighs next to her tiredly, but low enough the microphones won't pick up.

“I have, in fact, just finished teaching a three-month intensive exy training camp in Santiago. Tetsuji has also done wonderfully, helping raise his nephew and setting up the exy collegiate sports bracket with the NCAA. Which, if you don't mind the reminder, is what we were supposed to talk about today.” Kayleigh clears her throat, “So, do you mind repeating your question?”

Carter is not quite red, but she will settle for the quiet fury in his eyes. His hands are firm on the notecards, which is a pity, because she likes to get them to shake a bit.

Well, the night is still young.

I invite @jaywalkers @dayurno @queer-lovebot and anyone else that feels like it to join in if they want to!!!! Okay bye

[destinysbounty]

The whole time travel thing? The fact that getting rid of the golden weapons in the past means the mega weapon should've never been made means the devourer wouldn't have been defeated means Lloyd shouldn't have aged up means the entire episode wouldn't have happened

Help

Ooooh, I've been wanting to talk about this for a long time (as in, since middle school). So thank you for giving me an excuse to rant about this subject!

First, let's identify all the issues with the s2 time travel situation:

They went back in time and shot the Golden Weapons into space - not just the ones from that episode in season 2 (taking the form of the Mega Weapon), but also the ones from the pilots-era that Kai had found in the past.

If the Golden Weapons were destroyed in the past, Garmadon wouldn't have used them to escape the Underworld and head for the Realm of Madness, which is where he acquired his four arms. He also wouldn't have any motivation to grow two extra arms in the first place (remember that he only gave himself four so he could hold all the Weapons at once).

On a related note, Samukai wouldn't have died from wielding all four of them at once. So if not for the Weapons, he'd...probably still be alive.

Garmadon also used the Golden Weapons to defeat the Devourer. Like, I'm sure he could have killed it with a different weapon, but this definitely changes how that scene would've gone down

Without the Golden Weapons existing anywhere in Ninjago, past or present, Garmadon couldn't have been able to create the Mega Weapon.

This means all the Mega Weapon's effects are now defunct. He wouldn't have used it to rebuild the Bounty. Soto wouldn't have been resurrected, thereby nullifying his involvement in Skybound. Not to mention the Bizarro Ninja wouldn't have been created, which...doesn't have a big impact on things, honestly, but still kinda makes me a little sad.

And of course, as we're all mutually confused by, Lloyd wouldn't have had any reason to take the Tomorrow's Tea, and as such should have spent the rest of the series aging up much more normally.

When coming up with a theory to explain the s2 time travel situation, we need to make sure whatever we come up with provides reasonable rationale for all (or at least most) of the above-mentioned points. Which...okay, that's a bit of a tall order. But I think we can do it!

In the end, I've come upon a theory I personally consider to be the most believable:

Alternative History Theory

These events - Garmadon growing four arms, Lloyd growing up, all of it - was meant to be. They were simply machinations of destiny, setting up the Final Battle to happen exactly as it was intended to. These events had to happen. They were part of a master design as planned out by the Cloud Kingdom and the Overlord alike, a plan over a thousand years in the making.

Garmadon has to eventually grow four arms and Lloyd has to eventually grow up and defeat him. So long as the events occur, destiny doesn't care about how we get there.

What I'm saying is that the timeline rewrote itself to ensure things stay fundamentally the same, in an act of preserving destiny. The journey changed, but the destination remained the same. These events that had to happen, still happened, but the way they happened is now suddenly different.

In other words, Lloyd still took the Tomorrow's Tea, but now the reasons and context for his decision are different.

What messes with my head about this theory is the possibility that there's an entirely different, alternate version of the first half of season 2 that we don't know and will never see. S2 shows us the timeline the og4 got to experience, but not the timeline Lloyd and Nya remember living through.

(I admit I've always kinda wanted to write a fic exploring what that alternate timeline would look like, but I've never figured out a good way to write the premise without first writing an essay to explain the theory behind it)

So then with that in mind, let's consider how such a timeline would transpire. What would a Golden Weapons-free version of s1-2 look like?

...huh. It's actually surprisingly easy to imagine.

When you think about it, none of these events strictly necessitate the use of the Golden Weapons:

Samukai could have died another way.

While we don't entirely know the terms of his banishment, it's reasonable to assume Garmadon could've found another way to the Realm of Madness.

So long as Garmadon hit the Devourer at her weak spot, he still could have killed her with any other weapon.

Nya and Jay could have rebuilt the Bounty instead of Garmadon using the Mega Weapon to do it. They've done it several times throughout the series already, so this is well within the realm of possibility.

The Mega Weapon isn't the only means of resurrection present in this series. Even if it didn't happen by Garmadon's hand, there's a myriad of other ways Soto's crew could be brought back to life. It wouldn't even have to happen during s2 specifically.

Strictly speaking, Lloyd was only aged up because of the Tomorrow's Tea. The events leading up to this don't necessarily require the presence of the Mega Weapon. Something else entirely could've happened to require him to take the Tea, or maybe it happened on accident. Or maybe his friends were in danger and Lloyd was the only one able to save them, so he deliberately sought out and used the Tea in order to be strong enough to rescue them. Anything is possible here.

Ninjago is consistently a story about doomed narratives and the inescapable nature of destiny. No matter how something happens doesn't change the fact that it will happen. The Serpentine were meant to open the Stone Warriors' crypt - so if Lloyd hadn't released them, they would have escaped another way. The Devourer's venom was what awakened the Stone Warriors - even if Pythor hadn't awakened her, someone would have. If Garmadon didn't get his extra arms in the Realm of Madness, it still would have happened some other way.

And if the Grundle didn't force Lloyd into taking the Tomorrow's Tea, something else would have.

So yeah. Blah blah blah, destiny is inevitable, everyone is doomed by the narrative and it sucks, you get the idea. Make sense?

Wow, that was fun. Thanks for the ask <3

[amethystina]

Fanfic Tag Thingie

I am choosing to be tagged by @miss-ingno because this sounded like fun and I need an escape from the realisation that I am literally on the edge of burnout and my life is a mess. So here we go! :D

How many works do you have on AO3?

76

What's your total AO3 word count?

2 237 636

... and I have around 200k more just sitting in my WIP folders. I can't write short things x'D

What fandoms do you write for?

Right now it's mainly various Kdramas (The Devil Judge, Black Knight, plus my bold venture into Strangers From Hell) but, before that, it was mostly The Losers, Marvel, Pacific Rim, and Teen Wolf. With the occasional detour here and there.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Who Holds the Devil (The Devil Judge, Gahan) at 3 390

Tech Support (MCU, Winteriron) at 3 217

Autonomy (MCU, Winteriron) at 3 137

I Won't Hold My Breath (MCU, Winteriron) at 2 914

Conflict of Interest (MCU, Winteriron) at 2 173

It's honestly a little wild to me that Who Holds the Devil has somehow managed to race to the top despite the other fics being at least four years older (sometimes more). And for a much bigger fandom, at that. You guys are not fucking around.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! Every single one if I can, though it can sometimes take a while before I get to all of them. And I just can't help it, I guess? Partly because I want to show that I've read the comment and appreciate the time and effort that went into writing it, but also because it often gives me an opportunity to talk about my writing and the choices I made in the fic.

And, apparently, the fact that I reply to all comments has become a bit of a thing at least when it comes to Who Holds the Devil, where readers will search through my replies looking for tidbits and extra information about the fic, characters etc.

(you guys are so weird and so dedicated and I love all of you xD)

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Grief (The Losers (Comics)). Because it is, predictably, about grief and how to keep living after someone you love has died. Though I would argue that the ending has a hint of hopefulness to it since it's also about moving on from said grief?

But yeah. Definitely that one since it's Major Character Death that I choose not to fix.

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

Literally every single fic except for the one above xD I LOVE my happy endings, okay? And it's kind of difficult to rank them since it depends a lot on the setting, characters, and the personal preference of the reader.

Heck, I even managed to give my Strangers From Hell fanfic a sugary sweet happy ending! That's dedication right there!

Do you get hate on fics?

Yeah, from time to time. I've gotten everything from childish insults calling me a bad writer to backhanded comments questioning my choices, writing style, grammar, spelling, dedication, intelligence, etc. I've even received more targeted, personal hate where people I thought I could trust were making fun of me behind my back in private chat rooms.

Most recently, though, it's less hate and more the "I simply must tell you that you're not writing this fic as I want you to write it" type of deal. Often paired with "It's my personal opinion and I have every right to express it." Which, fair enough. But that means I get to do the same, which I've noticed is something those kinds of commenters kind of hate. Especially when I point out that they've now made me a lot less keen to write the fanfic they're supposedly so fond of.

Turns out people don't like being reminded that their actions have consequences.

All in all, though, I've learned to just delete the comments I find too offensive or hateful.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Oh god no. Sex scenes are the bane of my existence and I spend the entire time writing them looking like this: ლ(ಥ益ಥლ)

I've been told I'm not bad at writing them (the ones in Until Death Do Us Unite were quite appreciated) but anything involving sex or sexual tension is just a nightmare for me. Even more so when it's supposed to be kinky or extra spicy.

So why is one of the main ships I write for right now clearly a Dom/sub ship, you ask?

Because I'm an idiot. That's why.

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

I rarely do. The only crossover I've written is Resurrection where Derek Hale ends up in Purgatory together with Dean Winchester and they fight their way back to the world of the living (so Derek replaces Benny, basically).

I also have this one random fic (yet unposted) where Tony Stark and Eddie Brock are a couple (from the MCU and Venom movies, that is). But they're technically both in the Marvel universe so I'm not sure if that counts?

Long story short, crossovers aren't really my thing. I rarely write or read them.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of, no.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! Several, in fact, from various fandoms. Mostly into Russian, Spanish, or Mandarin. And I am honestly so flattered every time someone asks me if they can translate one of my fics 💜

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not, no. I made plans to write a fic with a friend once, but we never got to the point of actually writing it. And, in all honesty, I think that might be just as well. I'm a perfectionist and writing a fic with me would probably be very exhausting for the other party xD

What's your all-time favourite ship?

I really don't know. Like, I'm tempted to say Jensen and Cougar from The Losers, or maybe Destiel or Stony, but I think that's partly founded in comfort and nostalgia. My ships change as I do and I really can't pinpoint an all-time favourite.

But CURRENT favourite? Definitely Kang Yo Han and Kim Ga On because they present such a wonderful challenge to someone like me, who loves to go real deep into character motivations, behaviour etc. They're a delight.

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

I'm not sure. I plan to finish all the ones I've started posting but there might be some in my folders that I'll decide to abandon if I truly can't revive my interest in them. But, usually, I can.

And, speaking of that, to all my MCU peeps (if there are any of you still out there): I know you've waited six years for the Tech Support sequel but it's finally been written and just needs to be edited. It's coming, my darlings. I promise.

Basically, when I say I'll do something, I will do it — even if it takes me six goddamn years, apparently x'D

What are your writing strengths?

Characters, tone, and emotions. I'm good at capturing the essence of the characters and write them in a way that feels believable and close to canon. I'm also really good at making people feel things with my writing, I've been told. According to testimonials, my readers can often see what's happening play out inside their heads like a movie, and feel the characters' emotions as they're living through them.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Aside from the aforementioned sex scenes? I think it's my inability to keep things short. I use a lot of unnecessary words and could definitely get better at being more concise. In a similar vein, I sometimes focus so much on the details with lengthy, wordy descriptions that I accidentally forget about the big picture, which is understandably confusing to my readers.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've done it from time to time (since my man Cougar speaks Spanish) but I'm pretty careful with it. And if it's longer sentences I always make sure to double-check with a native speaker.

First fandom you wrote for?

Teen Wolf! Which, admittedly, was because I didn't care if I fucked it up x'D I enjoyed the first two seasons of Teen Wolf, make no mistake! But I chose it mainly because it wasn't the ship I was the most emotionally invested in and so I figured it wouldn't feel as bad if it turned out that I sucked. Luckily enough for me, I didn't xD

Favourite fic you've written?

Just like with the all-time favourite ship, I'm not sure if I can answer this one. Because I like all of my fics but in different ways.

I'll always have a fondness for that first huge Teen Wolf series I wrote, for example, and had a lot of fun with Autonomy because of the world-building. Same goes with Hyperborean. But Who Holds the Devil is definitely my favourite when it comes to character work. While Allies is my favourite when it comes to tone, since it ended up just the way I wanted it to. And Until Death Do Us Unite was an absolute BLAST because I got to write horror and some really weirdass shit, which I've never done before.

So, truly, I can't say. Each one I've written has something I cherish and while some definitely stand out more than others, I wouldn't be able to just pick one.

___

And that's that! I tag whoever wants to do it! :D

[hecatesbroom]

I finished watching The Golden Girls last night and I have Thoughts about those final two episodes. So here's a little elaborate analysis because I have to get them off my chest lol

(under the cut because unfortunately I'm too long-winded for anyone's good)

Usually I despise final episodes of shows where they're saying goodbye and things are changing forever. Because the characters' lives are being upturned, often out of the blue, and it usually feels so unsatisfying. But something about the way this was done made it such a good, fitting ending, that there really couldn't have been a better way to finish things off.

It's like, there really was no other way this should've ended -- because yeah, everything is changing, but it's also okay, because everything is changing thanks to, rather than in spite of, the past 7 seasons.

It's an ending that wraps everything up pretty neatly, and it seems that every character got their own emotional arc. For a show with basically no continuity it's amazing how they managed to make it feel like all seven seasons had been building up to this conclusion all along.

Dorothy gets married and she leaves, because of course she does. There's no way she could've stayed there with them and her husband. And as much as I would've loved to imagine the four girls living together in that house forever, the way they handled it, the way Dorothy was able to open up to a new, serious relationship only because she had lived with Blanche and Rose (and Sophia) for so long, only solidified how much these four women mean to each other. It's like, by marrying Lucas, Dorothy is able to show just how much her friends (who at this point have become her family) mean to her.

And that's such a huge part of why I loved this ending so much. It's not just a farewell, it's not just a way to get Dorothy out of the way and leave a window open for a possible spin-off with the remaining three girls. It's an ending that does not only her justice, but all of them. It's a little tribute to everything they meant to each other over the years, and a reassurance that sure, life has changed and so have their circumstances, but even in her marriage to Lucas, Dorothy is carrying Rose and Blanche and Sophia's love with her. Because she wouldn't have been able to marry him if they hadn't loved her so much, and she hadn't loved them in return.

Rose, Blanche, and even Sophia are left together, and it could've been handled so, so much worse. The writing team could've taken it for granted so easily: of course Dorothy leaves because she gets married, so of course Rose and Blanche (and maybe Sophia) stay together. It just makes sense!

But instead of taking the easy route and paying barely no attention to any potential for an emotional conclusion there, the writers took the opportunity to put Rose and Blanche in a position of almost having to say goodbye to each other, too, and gave Sophia the opportunity to make them realise just how much they need each other. Which, in turn, showed her (and them) how much they need Sophia, too.

It leaves the three of them feeling not as the leftovers, or the people who were ditched because Dorothy went off with someone else, but as three women who very consciously, very lovingly chose each other in spite of this big change. And you're left feeling happy for them staying together instead of bitter about them being left behind.

And that final scene? Where Dorothy leaves and she keeps coming back again because she misses them already, and she really doesn't want to say goodbye? When finally, Rose and Blanche and Sophia are left waiting there, in silence, and they realise Dorothy really isn't coming back this time? I loved that. I've seen plenty of scenes where characters have to say goodbye at the end of a show, and every single one of them left me with the bitter aftertaste of what felt like an unresolved ending.

But this? This works, because this time it's not just the audience being left behind. It's Dorothy, who keeps coming back because she's going to miss them so much. It's the three remaining girls, standing in that room, waiting for Dorothy to return and slowly realising she's really gone this time.

And this time, as an audience, you're not the only one being left behind. You're standing there, right next to Rose, Blanche, and Sophia. You're sharing the characters' hurt, in fact they're probably feeling even worse than you are, and that's what makes it such a good ending to me: it's an ending that empathises with the audience.

[astramachina]

For those of you who've been following me for a while now, there's a good chance you got to experience my journey reading the Remembrance of Earth's Past series last year. I loved Three-Body Problem, but The Dark Forest and Death's End were like pulling teeth. Both books had their very very good moments, but getting through them was a tedious experience I considered giving up on on multiple occasions. I will give it to Cixin Liu tho, I needed to know how the series ended and that alone was the sole reason I pushed towards the finish line. Any author that can make me tough out bad writing for the sake of seeing the end deserves some kind of award (and he won a ton anyway, so).

I approached the Netflix series with zero expectations given their propensity for shitty adaptations (One Piece notwithstanding), but after watching the first episode I was left cautiously optimistic.

Having watched all 8 episode I'm still unsure how to feel about it. I spent most of the series hitting pause to rant at my roommate about it, both positively and negatively.

I had many issues with the books, but some of the more obvious ones came from a writing standpoint. I love hard sci-fi. I could not excuse the sheer length of those final two books. The atrocious treatment of women as objects to romance and use as bartering for the main character. The abysmal MCs (specifically Luo Ji) that made me want to yell to the high heavens due to annoying they were. The lack of human connection between characters.

For books so steeped in sociopolitical and ethical commentaries, the flagrant misogyny and homophobia was eye-rolling. And not even in a "This is Bad" sort of way, just in a "This is So Fucking Boring" kind of way. I cannot speak for the author's biases, because the contents of a book in no way reflects the views of an author or their character.

Where the books shone the brightest were during the battle scenes, the looming dread, genuinely horrific thought experiments.

And, surprisingly? It feels like the people at Netflix thought the same.

I've never watched Game of Thrones but I understood why people were against it from the get-go. That, along with the whole "whitewashing" thing which I consider to be interesting. For starters, you're using whitewashed wrong. Yes, they moved the central story from China to England which was... a fascinating choice, but of the core five (that quickly became the core four), only two of them are white. I'm not saying it was okay for a western adaptation to take a cast and further diversify it, I'm just saying that that's not whitewashing.

That aside, I did like some of the choices that were made from a narrative standpoint. Reshuffling and streamlining events, for one. Removing the whole plot line about Luo Ji hunting down a woman who he invented in his head in order to marry her? I'm not entirely sold on the idea of taking core events and divvying them up between four different people, but I do understand what they're trying to do.

The book series failed at crafting believable and impactful relationships between its human characters, which made the narrative feel hollow and one-dimensional. This adaptation aimed to change this by slapping a band-aid over the issue. Like I said, I'm still unsure of how I feel about this.

A lot of unnecessary stuffing was removed to make a suitable run time, and I say unnecessary because there's really no scenes that are making me go "oh, I wish this had been included". Was some stuff rushed? Yes. The passage of time could have been outlined a little better, but that's a small nitpick on my end.

The scale of things was toned down, and I don't think Netflix has the capability (or budget) to tackle space battles.

Honestly? I don't really see this getting a second season for a variety of reasons, and I'd be okay with that.

It was an "okay" watch, in the end.

Tho, I'm still flabbergasted by the random "gory scary jumpscare" scenes????? Where did those come from??? I don't remember anything like that being in the books but, you know. I've read a lot more books since finishing these, so.

[misc-obeyme]

I'm going on a tangent because i thought of silly things, I think I might try writing the next part tonight after work. This probably takes place way before what's currently going on in my rambles.

I'm imagining I impulsively bought something online and had to cut down on coffee (what did I buy? Who knows. Probably concert tickets for fob. I was scraping by when I bought those tickets last year 💀). I think it'd take Mammon two weeks before he finally caves and texts to ask if I'm okay. I sheepishly explain my purchase and why I haven't been around, and get left on read.

Later in the day, Mammon shows up to the shop with a coffee and a box of various pastries. He's blushing hard as he shoves the box towards me but gently sets the coffee down. I'm completely puzzled, and it's the first time Mammon has ever set foot in my shop. He goes on to ramble that he wasn't worried or anything, just had some leftovers and decided they should be able to tide me over and make up for lost orders.

The longest I've ever gone without stopping in is a week when I went on vacation maybe in the summer to visit family? But I had let him know ahead of time. And the other time was four days, and I texted him "i promkse ill wakenip ealry timorrow" and it was sent at 3 am, typed exactly like that. He texted back "ya better be asleep by now. Dumbass. Not like i miss ya or anything either." He replied back after 5:30 ish when getting up for the day. I did keep my promise and showed up, even if I definitely looked out of it.

That was supposed to be a silly scenario but now I'm thinking of the actual concert date taking place after they start realizing their feelings for each other (the cutting back scene was during the presale). And them getting worried about me going alone. But ticket prices are insane the closer to the date since I originally bought mine during the presale, and the seat I snagged managed to be on the floor. So even if they wanted to join, they'd have to shell out a lot of money, and wouldn't be sat next to me.

Unless ....... Mammon had an older brother, who was working for someone else.... who was the ceo of a company, and said company was sponsoring the tour.....and could get them front row seats together...... Only in fiction can things work out like this !! 🤣 Imagine your first concert also being a date. Crazy.

also thinking about nicknames. The most common one is 'treasure' from Mammon, and I usually use that for my character. Maybe 'lucky charm' for solomon? as long as it is, it's cute. I gotta brainstorm

- ✨ anon

OHHHHH but I love Mams being all cute and blushy and bringing you pastries! Absolutely adorable! And that text... not like I miss ya or anything!! Yeah yeah, you keep tellin yourself that buddy!! LOL.

Concert date concert date!!! I am all about it lol!

Isn't it amazing how convenient things can be in fiction?? Listen, it's not like it'd never happen irl! People always complain about how things seem to "work out" just right in fiction, but yo. That happens in real life too, friends. Just nobody's complaining about it because there is no Almighty Author pulling the strings!

Anyway, slight tangent there but the point is I say it's perfect!!

I think "lucky charm" is cute! Maybe it sometimes gets shortened to just "lucky" I think that's cute, too! Ahh nicknames make me soft lol!

[itsbenedict]

okay fine i played Fire Emblem Engage

That's where I've been for the past, like, week. It wasn't a great decision. I would call it a purchase made in a moment of weakness.

The conventional wisdom I've heard is "yeah the story and characters are Bad and Nothing, but the gameplay is really good", and that was kind of accurate to my experience. But it was... weirdly not as bad as I was expecting? It had some redeeming qualities, narratively! I enjoyed it more than, say, Fates by a mile.

It was still extremely stupid, though. Wow. It's not as actively infuriating as some recent FE has been, but it's certainly a completely braindead narrative.

You can open this readmore if you want to hear all about that.

So the plot of the game: there's an evil dragon man who wants to take over the world. He got sealed away a thousand years ago but now he's back and wants to take over the world. You Have To Stop Him. (There are epicycles to this, but all of them are dumb and very few of them matter.)

Toothpaste Lord, Alear, is the [son/daughter, in my game daughter] of the Divine Dragon, a very nice queen lady who the people of [setting] worship as a goddess. A thousand years ago she got mortally wounded sealing away the evil dragon man, and went to sleep for a thousand years to recover. Fast forward to now, and she wakes up, except she has amnesia and doesn't remember jack shit including her mother. This is concealing one (1) twist, which doesn't really affect anything, and mainly the amnesia is so that there's a reason for people to be constantly introducing concepts to her. Standard fare.

So she wakes up, and almost immediately, evil dragon man's zombie army is inexplicably invading the palace. He kills Divine Dragon queen mom in a very tragic scene where Healing Doesn't Work (at least they bother having the healer try, so points there) and she dies in your arms and there's like five solid minutes of poorly-paced anguish and angst over this character you've known for all of five minutes.

I want to stop and note- this is a beat this game fucking loves. The scene where a loved one dies tragically in someone's arms while delivering some inspiring last words happens- if my count is right- eight times in this god damn game, sometimes for the same character twice. They do it constantly, for characters that do not matter and you do not have any investment in. I'm halfway to thinking this is someone's fetish somehow- but more realistically it's just hack writing.

After that, the Prince of Somewhere shows up to save you, and you escape the palace and go on a journey to recruit allies and stop the evil dragon man. The journey involves traveling across four continents, each of which has a kingdom in it, which have two princes/princesses apiece, each of which have two loyal retainers apiece. Add the player and their own three loyal retainers for a total of 28 playable characters who are just there because they're On Your Side and otherwise have no investment in the conflict besides not wanting to get killed by zombie armies. There's eight other playable characters that have any other motivation at all, and most of them are bad.

(Actually that's not true. Two of the princesses have other motivations- they're princesses of Evil Cultistopia, which starts the game on evil dragon man's side, and they have a sort of journey to a face turn that would be kind of interesting if either of them were good characters. Evil Cultistopia's state religion is the worship of evil dragon man, except it's been a thousand years since he was sealed away so they're sort of just a normal country with a normal religion now. The idea of a country suddenly face-to-face with their god, who's asking them to wage war on the entire world with zombie armies, and it being politically impossible to not do that despite no one really wanting to do that? Cool idea! If only they fucking used or explored it in the slightest.)

Anyway, the big bad's evil plan is to gather the 12 Emblem Rings, macguffins that if collected together will grant INFINITE POWER. Again, standard stuff. But the rings in question are the central mechanical gimmick of the game, and the focus of the plot in and of themselves, and I have to talk about them because they're so dumb.

Each ring has the spirit of a protagonist of a previous Fire Emblem game in it!

Why? What are they doing here? How did they end up in magic rings? Do Not Ask Questions. They're here for fanservice reasons and we will be exploring precisely zero of the implications of their existence.

None of them are characters even slightly. They're there, they follow people around as stando powerghosts, they can talk and stuff- but like... Fire Emblem protagonists struggle with having personalities even at the best of times, and this is not the best of times. Every single one of them is reduced to vapid friendship speeches, even the ones that weren't already just a human collection of friendship speeches.

Most of the plot, such as it is, concerns the collection of these rings, and occasional dramatic turnabouts when the bad guys take the rings from you. Oh, shit!

Oh no! They took Marth! Y'know, Marth! That character, who had traits and stuff! Aren't you horrified that the bad guys have Marth now? Isn't it so sad that his hair is red? Please buy it when Alear is so, so crying about Marth getting kidnapped! They had such a close friendship, which you can tell from how the only thing they ever talked about was how close their friendship was!

(Also, every single one of these twelve non-characters has their own Paralogue chapter, where they encounter a random ancient ruin or fort or something on the map, and they're like "whoa! this random location looks weirdly like a fan-favorite plot-important map from my game! Let me spend eight seconds recapping its plot, and then challenge you to a duel here to Strengthen Our Bonds somehow!". They're all exactly the same and drag out the game way longer than it needs to be.)

It's all very stupid! I hate it terribly.

Which is why it's a shame that the Emblem Rings are the coolest fucking mechanic that's ever been in Fire Emblem.

You equip a ring to a unit- any unit- and they confer fucking busted abilities, like teleporting halfway across the map and nuking something, or making seven consecutive attacks, or getting tons of extra movement and movement actions so you can be anywhere when you need to be there.

One lets you do the "give four adjacent allies an extra turn" thing that Reyson let you do in FE9/10, except you can put it on anyone and not just a frail bird-man you have to keep out of danger. And since there's another actual Dancer in the game, you can bust the action economy wide open.

Here's this overpowered tanky flier who can't just divebomb enemy back ranks because she dies in one hit to arrows or wind magic! Oh, but she has the ring equipped that makes sure she survives attacks that would kill her unless her health is already low! Bye, giant wall of enemy mages!

Here's my armor knight who's an unstoppable brick wall! He's balanced by being so slow that you can't get him in position to use him reliably, but- oh, hey, here's the ring that just puts him on a fucking horse!

One just lets the unit equip healing staves even if they weren't magic at all before. You can staple utility roles that are normally balanced by making the unit itself shitty and fragile... to units that already kick ass normally. My assassin can heal people now! I am become the master of both life and death!

It's so goofy and lets you have so much fun with it. You can also inherit skills from Emblems to keep them after you swap the ring from someone else- so if you want someone to get the mounted unit post-combat reposition thing, just have 'em hang out with Sigurd a bit!

It's also, like... an effective bit of fanservice, because they put an inordinate amount of work into fleshing out the system. Every character gets a unique insane magic superhero outfit and color scheme and combat voice lines for when they merge with each of the twelve emblems. You can make anyone say "I fight for my friends" and "You'll get no sympathy from me!" by equipping Ike. It's bizarrely high-effort.

That's the good part, mechanically. The bad part, mechanically, is this thing called the Somniel- a magical floating island in the sky you can fast-travel to, which is just Garreg Mach again.

Run around the same too-big 3D environment doing pointless bullshit between every map! Don't you want to go to every glowing spot on the minimap to collect the free items that spawned there? You might miss out on some Rare Fruit, which you can add as an extra ingredient in the fucking cooking system to increase the odds the dish will be higher-rarity! Surely you want to collect random wildlife from maps after you beat them so they can hang out in a pasture and generate random drops for you to collect between maps! Do the fishing minigame, which has two more steps than last time for no reason, in order to get Minced Fish and Bond Fragments! Spend the Bond Fragments to pull from the Bond Rings gachapon, to get jpegs of old-ass art assets of Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Game that you can equip for incredibly marginal stat bonuses! Watch your horribly-designed anime soldiers in their swimsuits going back and forth in the pool for extra support progress! Cram your inventory with literal horseshit because it looks exactly the same sparkling on the ground as the stuff you want! Play a rail shooter! Do some push-ups! Feed this stupid-looking dog thing to max out its affection meter for no benefit whatsoever! I hate you! I HATE you! I HATE YOU! 𝐈 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔! DON'T DESIGN YOUR VIDEOGAME THIS WAY!! IT'S BORING AND SUCKS SHIT!!! I'LL PUNCH OFF YOUR LEGS!!!!!!!!!

...haaaaah. I need to calm down. It's just- it's so bad. It's so much extra development effort to create all these extraneous systems that you could've just not had and it would've been better. So many wasted manhours of effort put into building and polishing unfun time-wasting garbage because some suit thought "more features = more sales". I feel sorry for the devs that were forced to work on that!

...

Okay. Okay I think that's the end of the review. What else is there to say that I didn't say?

No, wait, right. I said the plot had redeeming qualities. I said it didn't piss me off as much as Fates. Okay. What are those redeeming qualities?

Well... first off, while the plot is braindead and tropey and nothing, it at the very least passes the bare minimum bar of the characters' actions making sense. It's not hard for their actions to make sense, since it's a dead simple goodguys-versus-badguys situation where the main villain is an evil dragon man with a zombie army, but so many things fail to clear this bar. The characters are almost never interesting, but rarely do they make me go "what the fuck are you talking about? why would you make that decision?", and after Fates and Three Houses that is a breath of fresh air.

Secondly: they're kind of smart about their antagonists. Evil dragon man is so obviously not a compelling character, just a force in the plot, that they don't bother putting him onscreen more than necessary. We mostly follow his Four Elite Generals that Fire Emblem big bads always have, except instead of elite generals they're just a bunch of fuckin' weirdos who've been tasked with babysitting his split-personality daughter. They get up to some infighting and have approximately believable motives and you get to kind of care about what's going on with them! The writer gave at least half a shit about what motivates the villains as people, despite the overarching villain being a stock evil demon king guy.

(In particular, there's this one really good death scene after you beat a couple of them- one of them has a heel face turn when they're dying, complete with yet another tragic dying-in-your-arms inspiring speech... and then after the heroes leave and pledge to always remember them, you get a scene where another one, who also got fatally wounded in the same battle, goes "so what was that all about. that sappy stuff was obviously bullshit. what gives, why betray the boss right at the end?" And they're like "yeah, no, i mainly did that to say fuck you to the boss for sending me on this suicide mission instead of rewarding me for my loyal service. but i figured if i was doing that i'd make up something more noble-sounding so they remember me fondly instead of as a petty asshole." Then they have a truly fucked-up conversation about their mommy issues before dying. It's a good scene!)

Thirdly, they do this really fun thing in the big climax before the final gauntlet, where... I mean, a lot of it is nonsense, but they're doing a fairly standard fakeout bit where the protagonist gets killed by the big bad but some kind of deus ex machina brings them back to life, right? But the way they do that, specifically, is... there's this character who did the zombie-army raising who eventually turns good and joins you, and while the protagonist is dying, she's like "hey, I have an idea- how about use your dark magics to bind my soul to my corpse as a zombie, and then just don't suborn my will?" And then they do that, and it works and it's kind of fucked up and makes everyone uncomfortable! A very cool moment. (Then a different deus ex machina brings you back as a ghost instead of a zombie and your hair turns completely blue, which I was hyped about purely for color scheme reasons since it's otherwise pretty stupid.)

I should probably also say something about the characters? They're usually a pretty big draw for Fire Emblem, and this game does go whole hog on having a large cast with lots and lots of support conversations. But, uh... they're mostly bad. The character designs are over-the-top and anime in a way that doesn't convey anything useful about them, and they tend to just be "character trait A meets incongruous character trait B and we will do the bare minimum to reconcile this". Pretty bad voice direction and dialogue pacing sucks a lot of the charm out of it, too. The fact that most characters are just there to Be A Character You Get and don't organically get involved in your quest doesn't help.

(There are a few that are functional- Yunaka's a good one, as one of the few that isn't just some prince's retainer and has a motive to be with the party. I like her "dark superassassin past but embarrassed about it" shtick, and her VA manages to make her cutesy catchphrases not annoying somehow. I don't know that anyone in the cast is above like a B-tier character, though.)

So... that's Engage. It wasn't ambitious, but it basically worked. It's not a game that has anything to say beyond "it is virtuous to be a really big fan of Fire Emblem, please go whale in the gacha", and it didn't have two brain cells to rub together- but it was pretty and fun and mostly didn't piss me off.