#so of course bucket tool

[some-bunniii]

Lucifer meeting an artist reader

・❥ The King of Hell admires your paintings

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |

x: reader is g/n :) no use of pronouns or y/n

warnings: some raunchy details of your painting & mild swearing

When you arrived in Hell, the first thing you did was scream.

Where were you? Why was it so hot? What happened to your bed?!

“You’re in Hell, kid.” A blue bat-faced man had broke the news, as you stood helpless and confused on the street.

Hell? Like, demons and dark satanic magic kind of Hell?

That couldn’t be right. Were you that bad of a person to deserve such a fate? Did the few times you passed the Salvation Army donation bucket without dropping a coin damn you to this place?

Your death was fuzzy, a trail of shattered memories that could only give you bits and pieces of your final days. Did you go quickly in your sleep? Maybe, you hit your head so hard it caused you some kind of post-death amnesia?

Whatever had happened, you were here now with no way out.

During your first few days scouring for answers, you began to notice that Hell had an eerie similarity to life above ground. There were clubs, casinos, concerts. Heck, even TV! Sure, the things broadcasted were dark and sometimes disgusting.. but at least you had something to watch.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all? At least, compared to being thrown into dark, fiery pits for all of eternity like some cruel game of sink or swim.

Minus the people, of course. Most of them were pretty bad. Your first day watching a man get shot in the chest and lines of cocaine across tables in a diner made you decide to stay away from the streets of the city.

Which meant you had to get busy making a life for yourself. It started with working odd jobs as a bartender or a bell-hopper. You’d scrap together enough money to head to the nearest art supply store, and fill your bag with paints and charcoal pencils.

“You an artist or something?” The clerk had asked you as she scanned your items, taking note of your vast amount of diverse tools you were slowly collecting every time you stopped by.

“I usually paint, but yes, I used to do all kinds of mediums professionally when I was.. alive,” You had whispered that last part out with a pang of sadness, the reality of your situation still a fresh wound in your mind.

You had found an ad for an art studio, ran by a demon named Alexandre. You had showed him a few of your pieces, some pretty landscapes, a rendition of the Starry Night Sky which you had replaced the backdrop to be Pentagram city instead of whatever little village it was originally, and a self portrait.

“You got talent, i’ll give you that,” He had hummed, as his eyes scanned your paintings with intrigue, “But the subject? Not really what we’re looking for.”

“What do you mean?” You had asked, confusion evident in your voice.

“We’re in Hell, demons ain’t into pretty ponies and happy, little trees. They want more— eh how do i put this — sinful behavior?”

“Like…?”

“Like tits or anything that can be turned into a kink. They like blood and guts, and dead people splayed around. Dead angels too. Stuff like that.”

Tits? Dead people? You didn’t have much practice with that! At least not enough to make a career out of it.

But you had agreed anyway, this was your only shot. You stayed up late into the night, sometimes even into the early mornings, perfecting your skill when it came to much more risqué visuals. You would buy stacks of pornograohic magazines, flipping through for poses to memorize.

Slowly, you began to master the craft, and your time at the studio increased as you finally settled into life in Hell.

All you had to do was churn out painting after pastel after acrylic in the little cramped room you now called home. Alexandre would then take your pieces and sell them to the highest bidder. You’d get a percentage of the commission, using the money for whatever necessary.

Seeing as you could be mugged at literally any point in time, or anywhere for that matter, you made sure to keep a large sum of cash locked away in a double-bolted safe.

“You know Ozzie’s, that club down in the Lust Ring?” Alexandre had approached you one day, excitement in his eyes.

You shook your head as you sat behind the easel, your brush an inch from the canvas.

“Run by Asmodeus, one of the literal seven deadly sins?”

You shook your head once more.

“Fuck, you still have a lot to learn. Well, he really likes your art. He wants to buy a bunch of paintings for his club, and he’ll drop a shit ton of cash too. Ya think you can handle it?”

Your eyes had widened when he told you the exact price this sin guy was willing to pay. You had jumped from your seat, shaking his hand in profuse thanks, before scurrying off to gather more supplies.

And for a time, that’s how it went. You’d sell your steamiest paintings to Asmodeus, and other private commissions you took one after the other.

Apparently, your painting hung up in Ozzie’s was getting a lot of attention. Especially from a certain spider demon named Angel Dust.

After hearing Charlie’s decision to look for another member of their staff— someone who’d be in charge of decorating the premise with promises of love and tranquility up in Heaven— Angel Dust had taken a few snaps of your work with his phone, before showing it to Vaggie and Charlie. He had complimented your work, claiming it was ‘the best’ oil paintings he’d ever seen.

Although, in his line of work, he probably hadn’t seen many to compare yours so.

“ls this what we want in our hotel?" Vaggie had asked, motioning to a woman on the canvas that was drenched in sweat and white fluid, her private parts exposed to the audience as she posed suggestively on a stripper pole.

To which Charlie has responded, "I think it's... unique! You can definitely see she knows how to, um, really bring the scene to life! l'm sure she'll be open to creating our vision!"

Your phone had rung one night, with a voice on the other end begging you to come to her hotel and at least hear her offer for a new job.

Which lead you to the Hazbin Hotel, a slightly run down building that obviously needed more work. Inside and out.

“Oh my gosh! Hi there! My name is Charlie, and this is my hotel! it’s such a pleasure to meet you!”

“Thanks.. but I don’t see many guests around.” You had told her, your eyes darting around the lobby as you absorbed your surroundings.

“Well, we’re still trying to get our name out there. We’re not just any hotel, we’re a hotel set on redeeming sinners!” She exclaimed with pride.

“Redeem?” You had asked her, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

She shook her head vigorously, “This hotel.. it’s going to be amazing! We’re going to turn Sinners into well.. non-sinners! They’ll be rehabilitated, and have morals! And honor! Heaven won’t be able to do anything but welcome them as angels!”

This idea had sounded a little far-fetched when you first heard it.

“You’ll be in charge of making art that reflects such views! Something that will make Sinners go, ‘Wow! Now that’s where I want to go!’”

“What’s in it for me?” You had asked.

“Well you’ll have your own room, and your own little studio too! I’m sure it’s much bigger than the one you already have. Plus we have a bar, and good company!”

You turned your head to the small crowd of demons a few feet away. A pornstar, a gambler, a snake guy with weird little walking eggs, and a really creepy man in a red coat that shot you a wide smile with eyes that seemed to stare right through your soul.

This was good company?

You contemplated her words, thinking deeply. Did you really need to leave the studio you were already a part of? You already had a room and place to paint, anyway.

Charlie must have noticed your hesitation to accept before quickly adding,

“Anddd you can sell your pieces here too! Plus, you can keep a hundred percent of the earnings.”

You perked up at that, the money made from your art would be... all yours? And, you’d get a breather from the drawing people having sex? That didn’t sound so bad after all!

“Deal!” You had reached out a hand, shaking hers with delight.

It had taken you a day or two to map out the interior of the hotel and figure out what could go where. You began to slowly brainstorm, what could make a sinner stare at a canvas and want to redeem themselves?

During your time on earth, you studied many artists through history. Most notably however, were those from the Renaissance. You remembered walking through the Sistine Chapel when you were younger,

staring at awe of the paintings of winged angels and heavenly skies.

You perked at that thought. That was it! The inspiration for your paintings, an ethereal perspective on what one would find in heaven. The feelings of bliss and care-free joy.

You spent your first few days in an undisturbed area of the hotel, it was a large room on the farthest side of the lobby. It must’ve been a guest room at one point, but other than a bed and few cushions that the ‘Radio Demon’ had placed for you, it was empty.

It was quiet enough that you could sit there, undisturbed, as you drew upon your memories and vast knowledge of histories in art as you slowly began to bring your ideas to life. Slowly, the room also took form into being yours, personal knick-knacks and stacks upon stacks of blank canvases waiting to bring your visions to life.

At the end of every day, you'd come out with your hands covered in charcoal and paint, your hard work on full display.

You had even grown closer to the other residents in the hotel, beginning to see them as more than their initial appearance. Even Alastor, who still kind of gave you the creeps, you had regarded as someone you could speak to without hesitation.

You’d sit on the couches with Angel Dust, drowning in popcorn as you watched whatever was on TV for the night. Sometimes, you’d sit with Husk at the bar as you listened to his stories from his days at the casino and as an Overlord.

It was there, when Charlie had summoned the courage to call her father, Lucifer, the King of Hell, to come visit the hotel and decide on getting her that meeting with the higher powers in Heaven.

Upon hearing about Lucifer's impending visit, you felta mixture of nerves and excitement. You've heardstories about him-his charisma, his power--but you never expected to meet him, let alone showcase your art to him. Would he even like them? He's no doubt seen much more beautiful sights.

As preparations for Lucifer's visit got more chaotic by the minute, you found yourself back in your Atelier, quickly cleaning up your room and berating yourself for any little mistakes you found in your paintings. Each stroke of the brush carried with it a sense of urgency, a desire to impress not just your friends at the hotel, but also the King of Hell himself.

The current piece you were working on was your most intense one yet. It depicted that of an almost nude man, flying high in the skies. His back was faced towards you, his face hidden from view. He was faced towards the sun, which bathed him in a warm glow. Arms outstretched, knees curled in, it seemed as if the angel was going to give the sun a large bear-hug.

It wasn’t until you heard loud commotion in the lobby did you realize Lucifer had arrived. Quickly dropping the brush you were holding, you sneaked down the stairs and quickly neared the archway of the lobby.

Peaking your head out, you canned the large room. Until your eyes locked in a pale figure. Lucifer.

He was beautiful, definitely held the looks of an angel that fell from heaven. His light blonde hair curled elegantly around his face. The candles from the chandelier above basked him in an ethereal glow, as though he could replace the sun itself. Just like the angel from your painting.

His eyes reminded you mostly of a snake. Calculating and cold, but holding so much wisdom and depth. There was a slight sadness there as well, as though itate at him slowly, consuming his soul. It was masked incredibly well though, and you only caught a glimpse before it disappeared.

His attitude toward his daughter made your heartmelt, it was obvious he cared about her in the way heacted and spoke to Charlie, even if his absence didn't speak so fondly of him.

As Lucifer and Alastor butted heads, you quickly scurried back to your room. You had hoped to finish your work-in-progress by the time he arrived, but the struggle to get those damn angel wings to be anatomically correct was a pain.

You hurriedly continued your work, trying to calm your nerves by busying yourself with the painting in front of you.

Charlie's voice broke you out of your concentration soon after, multiple footsteps closing in on where your room lay. You shot up from your seat, and stood up straight, ready to meet the man of the hour.

You couldn't help but feel a flutter of anticipation mixed with apprehension as they approached your make-shift gallery.

Charlie, Vaggie, and— wow, he looked so much better up close— Lucifer stepped through the doorway.

“Dad, this is the newest addition to our staff! They are in charge of helping to inspire our future guests through the power of art!" Charlie proclaimed with glee, pulling you by the arm towards her father.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, your majesty. I apologize for being so messy, I was just finishing up another painting." You had greeted him softly.

"Don't worry, you look great," He assured, a gleam in his eyes, "and the pleasure is all mine, anyone who is willing to help my little girl is someone worth meeting,"

You stood there for a moment. Unsure of where to go next, before you felt a slight nudge from Charlie that pulled you back to reality, "Why don't we take a look at your paintings? I promise you, Dad, they are amazing!" She squealed softly.

Beckoning Lucifer forward, you took him through each painting. You described your feelings for each piece, and what made you choose them for the hotel.

You rambled on and on, and Lucifer never said anything, he just listened as you spoke.

Which made you nervous, what was he thinking? Did he like them, or was he just waiting for you to stop talking so he could quickly escape to something of more interest to him? The thought made sweat dribble down your forehead.

To your surprise, Lucifer's reaction to your art was not what you expected. Instead of dismissing it as mere frivolity, he studied each piece with genuine interest, his expression thoughtful and contemplative.

He mostly stayed quiet, but once in awhile would throw in a joke here and there if he noticed anything of interest in the paintings.

His goofy nature that you caught onto watching him earlier was barely evident though, unlike when he was trying to impress his daughter.

After finishing the small tour, you turned to him in anticipation. Your hands nervously rubbing together, as you shot a glance to Charlie, and she gave you an uncertain look. You both held the same question in your gaze: What is he thinking?

"These paintings.." Lucifer began, his voice low and melodic, "Are different than most i've seen down here, not just some scandalous display, but with real meaning. They evoke emotions long buried, memories of a time before.. all this."

His words caught you off guard, and you found yourself nodding in agreement, unable to tear your gaze away from his intense eyes.

The one he was staring at in particular was a recreation of The Garden of Eden by Jan Breghal, a painting that depicted the place where humanity was birthed, and where it fell.

“Does it look like.. how you remembered?" You had asked slowly, if anyone could validate the truth in your work, it would be him.

"Actually, this is much prettier. The real deal doesn't do your painting justice," He replied, "It was so boring, just green on green."

Also," He added, "An unfortunate lack of ducks. Humanity should be grateful that I got them out of that forest, so they could see something actually worthwhile.. and with ducks."

You giggled softly at his words, have you ever met someone that seemed to love ducks as much as him?

As Lucifer continued to explore the room, you couldn’t help but notice the way he lingered on certain paintings, his fingers tracing the delicate lines with reverence. It was as if he saw something in your art that no one else did, something profound and personal.

Perhaps your choice of baby-faced angels, and ethereal landscapes brought back memories of his time in Heaven. Hopefully, that wasn't a bad thing.

When Lucifer finally turned to you, his gaze softened, a hint of something unreadable lurking beneath the surface. "You have a rare gift," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "To create beauty in a place like this... it's truly remarkable."

He looked at you for a moment, before a smile crept onto his lips. He was Lucifer, he knew exactly what you meant. It's what drove him to manipulate Eve to eat from the Tree of Life in the first place.

Was he finally getting a glimpse of the good free will brought to humanity? Was there actually meaning in his past actions that sent him to the depths of Hell?

His gaze narrowed in on the canvas behind you, and he slipped past you. "What is this?" He asked with intrigue, pointing towards your unfinished painting.

“My final piece. I've been working on it for days, but I just can't get the wings right.. believe it or not, i've never actually seen angel wings in person." You said that last bit as a joke.

His smile sent butterflies fluttering in your stomach. For the King of Hell, it was surprisingly warm, and kind.

Then an idea struck you, but you tried to desperately to push it down. Except it seemed like the only time you could ask someone with angel wings to let you use them as a reference. How many fallen angels were in Hell, anyway?

"I'm so sorry if this is out of line, but. could I, um, borrow you for a little bit? I've just been having trouble drawing the wings correctly and you, well, have them?”

His eyes widened, and his chest puffed slightly at your question. He shot you a toothy grin, “Paint me? Why didn't you mention that earlier?! I have the perfect figure for such a thing.”

Behind him, Charlie rolled her eyes, a hint of a smile on her lips. You smiled too, you should've known he'd have no problem with it, he was the embodiment of pride after all.

He plopped down on a stool before you, and removed his overcoat. Beneath what seemed to be a red and white gatsby vest that hugged his frame perfectly. Jeez, he was almost too good looking.

He stretched out his large wings, folding the otherfour behind him, only revealing the two much largerones. They were breathtaking, truly. They looked so fluffy too!

You guided him on the exact position you needed them to be in, before making your way to the canvas and getting to work.

Assuring the group you only needed to get a visual on the canvas, the actual work you would do on your own. Slowly, you traced the frame of his wings, etching out the soft lines of his feathers and the curvatures of its form.

You could only imagine how soft those feathers were and what it would be like to curl around them like a pillo-

You shook your head to rid those thoughts. Why were you thinking such things about Lucifer like that? It's not like he would even want to let you go anywhere near him or his wings.

Would he?

You continued your painting, trying not to meet his gaze as you would occasionally peak your head from behind the large canvas to get another good look at his wings.

There was a moment when you two did lock eyes, and he sent a half-lidded smirk in your direction. Thankfully the large object between you two helped hide your growing blush. He was obviously just trying to get you worked up, you assured yourself. Just like he did with Alastor. In a different way, of course.

"This reminds me of when Charlie was younger" Lucifer began, filling the silence, "We sat for a good few hours trying to get a family portrait painted and she would just not sit still!”

“Dad.. please, not right now." Charlie growled out in embarrassment, her cheeks flushed. Vaggie only smiled beside her, listening intently as Lucifer filled everyone in on her younger years.

“lt got to the point where I had to summon her favorite toy to get her to stop squirming, everything was smooth sailing after that.

"And what was her favorite toy?" You inquired softly behind the canvas

“A rubber duck! Like the ones you play with in the bath? She could not get enough of it whenever it squeaked. One time the squeaker broke, and I went to my workshop and crafted her a magical one that meowed instead! Haha!"

Okay, this family really has a thing for ducks!

“She hated it, but that only inspired me to keep making more. Sometimes, we'd sit together on the work bench, and I would just come up with ideas like confetti-spitting, or color changing ducks. She wasn't too good at speaking at that time, so every time she'd laugh that was my clue that she liked it!"

It was sweet, the way he rambled about his daughter. He never spoke of himself or his accomplishments, despite embodying the sin of pride. It was almost like his only pride was his best creation, Charlie.

He continued, the room full of jokes and laughter, even from Vaggie, regarding Charlie's life as a youngling. You listened intently to his stories, his voice dripping with amusement as he recounted story after story.

lt was so sappy and you loved it. Which made you grumble quietly to yourself, why did you have to have a thing for DILFS?! Concentrate on the painting!

After a moment, Lucifer's eyes turned back to the paintings around him, his gaze scanning each painting once more. "I've noticed that you seem to have a repetition in your work.. not that that's a bad thing!" He quickly corrected.

“But in all of your paintings featuring angels, there's always a swan swimming or resting nearby. Do they hold any significance, or are they just a passion for you?"

You looked up from the canvas, and also traced the angelic figures across the room. He was right, with the images of the divine beings also came the appearance of the large, white water fowl. Lying lazily beside the angels, or swimming across pools of water as the care-free beings danced and frolicked.

You contemplated for a moment, before speaking truthfully.

“I just think Swans are elegant and ethereal creatures. They embody the purest of souls, untouched by the taint of sin that consumes the world, just like how their feathers remain untouched from the waters they glide on"

Lucifer's eyes lit up slightly, drinking up your words.

“Plus," You continue, "they mate for life, and allow themselves to just.. decay once their significant other departs from the world. It's very romantic, and love is one of the purest emotions in the world."

Lucifer wasn't looking at you when your eyes met his again, his stare was far off. Past the room entirely, as your words echoed through him. There it was again, the glimpse of sadness that he tried to hide so painfully well.

“Does such love like that exist?," he murmured so softly you had to strain your ears.

There was a few moments of deathly silence before Charlie piped up, asking her father something about heaven. You tried to listen, but your mind was stuck on his words. Lucifer was in heaven once, and he still didn't fully believe in such things?

If there weren't others in the room, perhaps you would’ve asked him.

It took a few more minutes before you were able to wrap up fully, but you had no regrets of asking this man for help, the angel on the canvas actually looked like he had wings, not just stumps of white tuft.

You got up from your seat and walked towards him, noticing that Charlie and her girlfriend were not present anymore. It was just you and Lucifer in theroom now.

“Well, thank you, Your Majesty. You really helped me out here, and it'll go a long way to make the hotel look even better"

“Please, call me Lucifer. The formalities are only for subjects, not friends," he replied, "l did really enjoy getting to see your paintings, you are quite a phenomenal artist. I wasn't lying when I said your work was different from the rest. If only you were around for those family portraits."

You were so taken aback by his praise that you only shrugged it off, like it was no big deal. Even though, coming from the King of Hell, it was.

Glancing behind him, you saw Charlie and Vaggie whispering to each other in the hallway outside of the door. You assumed they probably wanted to finish up so they could get him to agree to the meeting with Heaven.

lgnoring his previous statement of formalities— he was the king, you thought, you weren't going to just pat him on the back and say 'see ya! —you lowered your head and bent down to curtsy, just like you were taught when you were younger, placing your hand slightly in front of you.

Usually, you'd use that hand to shake or grasp the other person's, but it felt wrong to treat this powerful angel like any other man.

Suddenly, you felt the soft touch of fingers gliding across your hand. In confusion, you looked up at those golden eyes and that charming smile. Trying to get a glimpse of what he was thinking.

His hand gripped yours gently, and with a bow of his own, lowered his lips, and pressed a soft kiss your knuckles.

Your breath caught in your throat, and you feared to blink, soaking in his beauty for as long as you could before he had the chance to pull away. You wanted to say something, but your tongue was refusing to work as your mouth opened and closed silently.

When he finally released your hand, he adjusted his hat and turned towards the door. Leaving you standing there, your face burning hot

He cleared his throat, and turned his head slightly, his eye catching yours. A playful smile dancing on his lips.

“l look forward to our next portrait together, hopefully where I am the motivation behind your strokes. Not just these dull wings."

And with his words hanging in the air, you were left alone, with the growing itch to press your face into a pillow and squeal.

——————

awww man, my first fic! I was trying to make this more dating-centric, but i couldn’t stop writing for their first meeting and it got too long haha! If y’all like this one enough, i’ll make a dating version!

let me know what you think 🙏 i reallyyyy appreciate all comments and criticisms!!

wonderful art i commissioned by DawnDrawnS on twitter! <3

[chlix]

sharpest tool

bf! chan x fem! reader: chan doesn't love you like you love him. you're not planning on doing anything about it

genre: angst, suggestive (but not actually very fun or sexy)

word count: 2.9k

warnings/tags: toxic relationships/situationships, arguing, self-worth issues

a/n: this fic is inspired by "sharpest tool" off sabrina carpenter's new album! i heard it and immediately knew i wanted to write for it. i also plan on doing other songs off the album with other members but we'll see if i get to that before the album loses all relevance 💀

“What’s new with you then?” your coworker Seohyeon asks once the lunch rush dies down. You’re wiping spilled coffee off the bar and she’s pretending to reorganize the stacks by the till, but really, you’re both just trying to look busy while you recover from the last round of customers. Seohyeon has already bitched about her evil landlord and snitched on your manager for critiquing the way the new girl set up the cup display. Now, it’s your turn to overshare. Unfortunately, your life is scant of any juicy details.

“Nothing. You know I have no life outside this job,” you say.

“So not true,” she says. “What about that guy who keeps hanging around waiting for you to get off every day? How’s that going?”

You stiffen. “It’s going.”

She hums sympathetically. “That bad, huh?”

You drop your rag in the bucket of sanitizer water and take a long breath.

“It’s not bad. It’s not really anything right now.”

“You know, I mentioned how he’s always waiting for you, but I haven’t really seen him in a couple of weeks.”

“You and me both,” you mutter. Unwittingly, your hands drift to your phone in your apron pocket, hoping it’ll buzz and you’ll get a text from Chan, as if he’d sense you thinking about him and give you the attention that you’ve been craving. When you first met, the two of you had that kind of psychic connection. It was like you were of one mind. He was everything you wanted in a guy. He still is.

That’s what makes this all so difficult.

The idea of Chan using you as a warm body isn’t inherently distressing. Or, it wouldn’t have been, if he’d posed the idea initially. Maybe if he’d asked you for that up front, then you would’ve known better than to catch feelings. Or at least if you had, then you could take all the blame unto yourself for being softhearted, overly optimistic. He could be blameless. This would be easier if he was a bad person. Or maybe he is, and you just love him too much to care.

“If you want to talk about it, I’m all ears,” Seohyeon says.

“There’s not much to say. We weren’t really even dating. I think. I mean, he doesn’t owe me anything.”

Seohyeon gives you a knowing look, and it makes anything else you were planning on saying stick in your throat.

“Get well soon, girl,” she says, and turns back to the till. You swallow, pick up the bucket of dirty water, and go to dump it out in the sink in the back.

Chan does not come in at the end of your shift and wait for you. Of course not. He does text you, though.

Hey, he says. It’s the first time he’s spoken to you in a week. The casual nature of it swallows you alive.

Hey

Busy tonight?

Never for you <3

My place? 8?

It’s almost pathetic of you to keep falling for the same old trick. Can it even be called a trick if you’re neither fooled nor impressed? You always knew you were just a placeholder, filling in the gaps for when he can’t have the girls he really wants. He doesn’t have to make it so obvious, though.

Placeholder. It’s one of those thoughts that as soon as it crosses your mind, you know you’ve already lost. You’re not sure if Chan realizes that’s what he’s turned you into. You can’t really blame him. You only recently realized it yourself. You’ve been hooking up for months, you’ve been hanging out with his friends, you’ve been posting each other and having cozy nights in with long conversations that last until the early morning. He’s your baby. You’re his girl. But you’re not his girlfriend. Six missing letters and suddenly, you’re the crazy one.

You wonder if Chan knows how these periods of long silence make you feel like a cheap lay, like someone he doesn’t even know. Maybe he does, and this is all an elaborate manipulation tactic that’s working distressingly well. Maybe he doesn’t know, and you’re projecting malice onto his thoughtlessness.

It doesn’t matter either way. You know it, and you’re still going to go.

Ok <3

You put your phone away and start walking to the bus. You need to go home and get ready.

You arrive at his apartment just before eight pm. He hates it when people aren’t punctual, and you hate it when he’s upset, so here you are, shaved and showered and dressed all pretty. You’ve developed a scarcity mindset around him- you need to make sure every time he sees you is perfect because the incidents are so few and far between. You need to look irresistible, so enticing that he’ll be begging to come see you again. It’s so pathetic that you piss yourself off on a daily basis.

You fix your hair and clothes, ring his doorbell. He answers the door, all smiles and muscle tees, and it almost makes you forget that you haven’t seen him since the last full moon. It’s like a thirst that doesn’t make itself known until that first drop of water.

“Hey, baby,” he says, drawing you into his arms. He kisses you deeply, not lustful but loving and you let yourself fall into it.

“Missed you,” he says, low in your ear. He smells like aftershave, like sandalwood and pine.

“Missed you more.”

He pulls you into his apartment and closes the door behind you so he can press you up against it and kiss you again. He licks into your mouth, and you let him, bringing your own hands up to cup his face. The barest bit of his stubble tickles against your palms. His body is warm and solid against you, it makes your knees weak, makes your heart race. For the moment, you forget every grievance you’ve ever had with him. You forget how upset you were at work today, and Seohyeon’s pity, and how empty your phone has been lately. The world outside the two of you might as well not exist.

Chan’s hands slide up under your shirt, pressed against your stomach. Your gut twists.

The illusion shatters.

You pull your lips away from him.

“Chan,” you say, trying to be authoritative, but you’re breathless. He moves away from your mouth and latches onto your neck, and your body reacts without your permission, arching into the touch, but you pull your hands away and press on his chest.

“Chan, stop.”

He lets you push him, taking a step back and looking down at you with blown wide eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just…not feeling it.”

“Right, sorry. Didn’t mean to pounce on you. We can move to the bedroom if you want?”

“No…” That sticky feeling is building in your throat again. “I’m just not really in the mood for sex at all, right now.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Awkward silence stretches between you. He’s just looking at you, unsure how to proceed, and you want to die a little more every minute.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I’ll just- I’ll go-”

“No, wait!” He catches your arm as you go to turn away. “You don’t have to leave. I’m the one who’s sorry. You shouldn’t have to apologize for something like this.”

“Okay…”

He kisses your forehead again, affectionate and chaste. “I’m glad you came. I wasn’t lying about missing you, yeah? Let’s just have a chill night in.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’ll order in. It’ll be nice.”

You let out a long breath and pull him into a hug. He embraces you, and your ear ends up pressed against his chest. You can hear his heartbeat thrumming under his ear, soothing, reassuring.

Okay. Okay okay okay.

You try to have a good night, you really do. You want to be happy when you’re around him, but it’s like a switch has flipped in your head and it’s impossible to truly relax. He orders food from your favorite place without you having to even ask.

“You want your usual?” he asks.

“You still remember my usual?”

“I remember everything about you, love.”

You think about earlier, how he’d known to text you as soon as you got off work yet hadn’t made the effort to actually show up like he used to. You tell him your usual is fine and kiss him on the cheek.

When the food arrives, you curl together on the couch under blankets and put on some show as background noise. There was a drama you were watching together, but he doesn’t bring it up and neither do you. As he pulls up Netflix, you notice the title card in his Recently Watched, but you haven’t been over in so long that you know it can’t be from the last time you were together. He doesn’t pause, skipping over it completely to select another random thumbnail.

“This okay?”

You hum an affirmative and the Netflix logo appears on the screen, signaling the start of the episode. You eat your food and try to focus on how good it tastes instead of how leaden your stomach feels.

As the night wears on, you realize that he’s being cagey. He asks you questions about your life and your job, about your sister and her baby and your plans for the holidays. He’s always been a good listener, always attentive and empathetic and curious. He’s been good at getting secrets out of you as long as you’ve known him.

I’ve never told anyone this before, you would start sentences, but I feel like I can trust you.

You can, he’d respond. I’d never judge you. I care about all of you, even the parts you might not care about yourself.

Always so welcoming, so loving. It had you spilling your guts after only the third date.

I’m rambling, I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear about all my baggage.

Y/n, I want to know anything you’re willing to tell me. Communication is important in relationships. It builds strong foundations.

And yet here he is, only a few months later, dodging all your questions about where he’s been or what he’s been up to.

“How’s work?”

“It’s been alright.”

“You’re pretty busy around this time of year, aren’t you?”

Chan shrugs. “Yeah, but I’m used to it by now.”

You nod around the fork in your mouth, unsure how to continue the line of inquiry. You try again, another topic this time.

“Did you hear about that giant pile up downtown? There were like ten cars involved.”

“I haven’t been watching the news much lately.”

“Well what have you been watching?”

“I’ve kind of had other things going on. Not much time for leisure.”

“Right. You said you were busy with work.”

He doesn’t reply to this. You want to shrink into the couch cushions and coil inside one of the springs.

You eat in silence for a while, eyes flittering between the screen and his face. Once or twice, his phone will ding, and he’ll pick up and scroll through it, shoot back a quick reply. You don’t ask who’s contacting him. When he’s done, he sets his phone face down on the table, out of your reach.

When you’re both done, he takes the empty containers from you and goes to dispose them. His hair bounces as he moves, curling around his ears and the tops of his brows.

“Your hair’s getting long.”

“Is it?” He pulls at a loose curl, stretching it out in front of him critically. “Guess I should get it cut.”

“Nooo, I like it. It suits you.”

He glances at you shyly. “You think?”

“I know. You look adorable.”

“I can’t be walking around adorable. What would that do to my image?”

“Right. Mr. Tough Guy Bang Chan, who always has short hair and thick biceps. There’s a brand image to consider.”

“Exactly! I knew you’d understand.” His cheeks dimple in his smile, but it’s shaky, and it disappears as quickly as it came. “And anyway, I just don’t think…” He trails off.

“Don’t think what?”

Chan stays quiet for a while, lost in thought. You’re unsure whether or not to push, but before you can say anything else, he snaps out of it. He shakes his head as if to clear it and throws an apologetic look your way.

“Never mind. Just getting too into my head.”

Concerned, you rise from the couch and cross the room to his kitchen.

“Is everything okay?”

“Of course. Don’t worry about me.”

“Of course I worry about you. I care about you.”

Chan isn’t meeting your eyes. “Just leave it alone, y/n. It’s stupid anyway.”

“Something bothering you could never be stupid.”

“I said just leave it alone.” His voice is harsh now, face hardened in the way he does when he’s not being nice anymore. He’s putting his walls up and you don’t understand why, and it’s tearing at you, the cumulative weight of all this distance.

“Okay. Whatever then.”

You turn around and start walking back towards the couch.

“Whatever?”

The audacity to sound offended after the way he’s been treating you.

“I can’t make you talk to me. If you don’t want to tell me anything then why keep asking?”

“Don’t be dramatic. I’ve been talking to you all night.”

“No, you haven’t. You’re shutting me out.”

“Shutting you out?” He sounds genuinely confused. You stop halfway back to the living room and turn to look at him.

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

He lets out a short laugh and pushes his curly bangs away from his forehead, hands alight with anxious energy.

“Y/n I invited you over here. We’ve been talking and watching the show. I thought we were having a good night. Now I want to keep one thought to myself and I’m ‘shutting you out’?”

That same twisting in your gut starts up again.

“You’re making me sound so unreasonable.”

“I mean, can’t you see how this looks from my perspective?” He turns away from you and pinches the bridge of his nose, like he’s developing a headache. Like he’s the one being tormented. “Sometimes I feel like you and I are living in different realities.”

It’s like a dagger in your chest. All your indignation leaves you, leaking out of you and pooling at your feet in a sad little puddle of self-respect.

“Don’t say that.”

“I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

You set out of your ring of self-loathing and approach the island where he is, still turned away from him. You reach out a shaking hand and turn him to face you. When you meet his eyes, you see frustration, confusion, and helplessness.

You’re a placeholder. You know it, Seohyeon knows it, the girl he’s been texting all night knows it. It’s possible Chan doesn’t.

That’s fine. You know it, and you’re in love with him anyway.

You press your hands against his chest, leaning up so you can look right in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “You’re right. I’ve been on edge lately; I didn’t mean it.” You smile, self-deprecating, embarrassed. “Forgive me?”

Chan lets out a long breath. He grabs your hand and kisses it, then keeps holding on to it, his grip strong and secure.

“Nothing to forgive. I’ve been all over the place too. But we’re here now, together. So let’s just relax, yeah?”

You nod. He leans down and kisses you. The twisting in your gut persists, but you don’t pull away until he does.

“Let’s go finish this episode,” he says, and goes to lead you both back to the living room.

The night feels like a failure. You can’t figure out why, but the thought of just finishing your show and then putting your coat and boots back on and leaving feels like accepting defeat. Your legs are unstable underneath you, but not in the way they were earlier, when Chan was kissing you like his life depended on it. Now, you are standing at the top of a very tall hill, fighting against gravity to remain upright on the slope.

Get well soon, girl.

You close your eyes tightly, then reach forward and grab the back of Chan’s shirt. He jolts, surprised, then turns back to you. You release his jacket as he turns and grab his hand instead, lacing your fingers together.

“Forget the show,” you say. “Take me to bed.”

His eyes widen. “Are you sure? Earlier you said-”

“I’m too in my head. You’re right. I should try to relax. I haven’t seen you in weeks.” You get on tiptoe and lean up to his ear and whisper. “You can make me feel better, right Channie?”

Chan’s fingers tighten around yours. When you lower yourself back onto your heels, he’s looking down at you with dark eyes. You push down your unease, leave it abandoned on the floor with your anger and ego and heartbreak.

“You’re sure.”

“Never surer. Unless you don’t want-”

He effectively silences you by sweeping you into his arms, lifting you up like you weigh nothing.

“Baby, you have no idea the things I want.”

You laugh, shocked at the display of strength, and wrap your arms around him as he carries you away. The last thing you see before he shuts the bedroom door is his phone on the table, vibrating with an unanswered call.

[slytherinshua]

BEACH DATES WITH TWS !

genre. fluff. headcanons. warnings. none. pairing. boyfriend!tws x reader. wc. 614 (100 each). request. requested by anon. a/n. fun fact i love beaches sm the beach is my ideal date spot (if only i wasn't single 👹) so writing this was so fun :(

shinyu would have a mission from the second he stepped foot on the sand: to be the best looking couple. you had bought matching swimsuits in the past and your boyfriend is excited to finally be able to wear them. he sets up a comfy beach blanket with an umbrella, making sure his princess has the perfect spot to lie down. he’s constantly glaring down any other men who dare to even look in your general direction and admiring how pretty you look matching with him. he’d take a million photos to save the memory.

dohoon would immediately spot the beach volleyball net and beeline towards it like a cartoon character. he's so excited to show off his athletic skills, and also to beat the other couple who agree to play against you two. he's so cocky and confident at the beginning, boasting about how perfect his teamwork is with you. but he's painfully proven wrong almost immediately as he constantly goes for the ball that you had already claimed and ends up tripping over you many times. you have to give him a lot of kisses afterwards to cheer him up after your embarrassing loss.

youngjae would find a few pieces of driftwood where you were setting up and start building with them without any real idea of where it was going to lead. when you find the start to his little project, you suggest that he build a hut with it, and your boyfriend lights up at the idea. so you start your search for the best sized pieces of wood for him to assemble. he's so excited when it’s finished, and proclaims it as your first home together (even though it can barely fit a 10 year old’s body, much less 2 adults). 

hanjin would be so mesmerized when you showed him a cool conch shell you found on the shoreline. he joins in with you, of course, and you both start searching for the best shells, wading deeper and deeper into the water for a better sample size. you don't care that you both end up getting soaked, because you end up with a good-sized collection of shells. you start sorting them into different categories based on shape and colour, and hanjin loves every second of it. not only is he proud of how many you collected, but he stashes away the prettiest one in his back pocket to make into a necklace for you later.

jihoon would challenge you to a sandcastle building competition and be brutal trying to win no matter what. you’re both competitive and it all starts out when you get a cheating head start running for the shoreline. he steals your bucket of water and tools after that, constantly provoking you until you smash his sandcastle in retaliation. the squabble would end up with you underneath him, sand all over both of your swimsuits and hair. but he still kisses you nonetheless (and makes sure that you know he still won since you blatantly cheated).

kyungmin would pack a picnic to eat on the beach and carefully feed you. you can’t protest him since you know it’s his love language. he just loves doting on you and making sure you eat well— admiring how pretty you look against the backdrop of the ocean and clear sky. he forgot to bring any tools to make sandcastles, so he tries to substitute by digging out the wet sand from the shoreline and bringing it back to a safer distance. but it doesn't work very well and in the end he's soaked from the waist down with nothing but a lump of wet sand to show for it.

↳ tws taglist (bolded could not be tagged): @eternalgyu,, @seunghancore,, @sobun1est,, @talkingsaxy,, @talking-saxy

[aesthetic-bbyg]

PAINT AND WINE ~ BILL K.

BASED OF THIS POST!

Bill Kaulitz x nailtech!reader

in which your favorite client comes to you to decorate his nails and leave you flustered by the end of the session.

FOR WHAT FELT LIKE THE 50th time you sprayed down your supplies, wiping each individual tool till you saw your reflection. You scurried around the room, reaching for the cherry scented air freshener and spraying it everywhere. You checked yourself in the large mirror, scrunching your hair, fixing your smudged lipgloss, adjusting the your shirt, you had a client coming in. Not just any other client, your favorite client, the famous lead singer of a German band that had slid into your dm’s and eventually became your regular client. Not to mention the fact that he was cute, beautiful bleach blond hair reaching his shoulder, he always had on dangly jewelry that jingled with each step, a bright outfit and the occasional platforms.

He had booked an appointment a week prior, texting you a frowny face and his outgrown nails that you remember doing just a month beforehand. You immediately pushed back any plans, clearing up the whole day just for him, was a bit excessive, yes, but at least your were self aware of it. You pulled the wine out from the fridge and added it into a bucket of ice, two shiny glasses stood next to it. You took a look around the room, making sure that everything was perfect, then a knock softly came from your front door. You smiled, rushing towards it and swirling as his familiar face came into sight. You immediately grinned back, opening his arms and lowering his tall figure to connect your bodies in a hug.

As you expected, he had a glittery outfit and a bright expression on his face. “It’s so good to see you, schatz!” He mumbled into your hair, lightly swaying your bodies side to side as you giggled.

“It’s amazing see you.” You hled his hands and pulled him into your apartment, he took in the open windows that let the natural light in, the bowls on the floor for your dog, and the tidy living area that lead into your mini setup. “How’s my favorite client doing?” You questioned with a knowing smile, walking towards the cold wine bottle and opening it.

“Oh, your so sweet.” He blushed, setting down his mini hand-bag onto your couch, helping you pour in the liquid to the glasses. “I’ve been doing very good, the band and I are meeting up soon to start practicing for the show. And, I’m hosting the German Barbie premiere!”

You gasp happily, smiling at him and clapping your hands, “That’s amazing, Billy, I can only assume that your outfit will absolutely gorgeous.” As if your words sparked a reminder in his head he rushed to his hand bag and pulled out his phone.

“Oh, you must see what I’m going to wear, it’s stunning and I want to have matching nails with it.” His grown out nails clicked on his screen as he swiped through his photos and flipped to you, in the photo he revealed his sparkly, sequin one piece that was displayed on a mannequin. “And then I was thinking of some pink platform to go with it.”

Your eyes widened, taking the device into your hands you zoomed in on piece. “That’s beautiful, Bill.” You mumbled looking up at the blonde, “Sit down we have to start now, a pretty design for a pretty man.” You winked, handing him back the phone as his face flushed with a red tint.

You immediately began, sanitizing your hands and slipping on pink gloves as Bill described his idea for the look. It incorporated a lot of pink—obviously the premiere would be centered around Barbie’s iconic color— and green. Of course, he always let you have some creative freedom when it came to doing his nails, you were the artist of course. Your took buzzed as you swiped it I’ve the old design, giving you a brand new canvas to deal with.

“And when I first pitched the idea to my designer he totally didn’t agree, he was talking about how the green wasn’t right, the sparkles didn’t look good..” Bill ranted on like usual as you listened in, humming occasionally to acknowledge your attention while always working up his nails.

“Bill, just fire him at this point.” You spoke up, sipping the wine and placing it back down before reaching for a brush. “Your stylist hasn’t done anything but disagree with your options, a professional one would listen to you and Mickey add in their opinions.”

The man let out a sigh, throwing his head back in a groan, you smirked, softly chuckling to yourself at his antics. “I know, I know, I just don’t know how to fire people, I’ve never done it before.”

“Sometimes you have to be mean in order to get your message across, don’t let people take advantage of your kindness, learn to draw line.” You replied softly when a ding rang from your phone, you glanced over and smiled. “Our food is here!”

Bill gasped, as you stood up. “You got me food?” He stared up at you admiringly, voice so soft and happy. You nodded, walking towards the door before he caught your hands, tightly holding it. “You are the best nail tech ever.”

“You are my favorite client ever.” You smiled, squeezing his hand and pulling away to pick up the food that was dropped off on your front door. Once you collected it you walked back into the room only to be met with a phone camera recording you as you walked ack to your seat. “What?”

“You are amazing, truly.” He said, putting his phone down, “I’m posting that on my Instagram to show people just how mama isn’t you are.”

“I do my best.” You winked, handing him a few boxes of food, and fizzy drink to keep him company as you continued your work. “Are we thinking about gems for the look.”

“Of course, it is a requirement at this point.” The blonde replied, sipping away at his drink while watching you. “You know we have a show coming up soon, you should come.”

“Really? I can’t even remember the last time you guys have preformed.” You smiled, dipping into the light pink acrylic with a wet brush and gently swiping it from his nail bed to the top of his previous nail. “Where will it be at?”

“In Germany, but don’t worry I can pay for the hotel the flight, everything.” He ushered out quickly, awaiting you reaction while you work skillfully on his hand.

“I’ll see if my schedule is busy that week.” You replied, “I’ll do my best, especially if you’ll be wearing my nails out there.”

Bill smiled, revealing his pearly as a giant dimple indented his cheek. “You know your my only girl.”

His words made such a bubbly feeling flutter within your stomach as you kept your head low and focused on his hand to hide the blush on your face. Once you’d refilled all ten fingers you reached for your phone for inspiration, flipping through multiple designs and colors that would match his outfit but also be cute enough to wear out for any occasion. “I think a sharp stiletto shape could be good, and we could do two separate colors on each nail.”

You nodded as you listened to his words, reaching for your nail file and buffer, he was already looking through multiple tester nails to choose what colors he wanted. “So should we do a different design on each nail to keep the theme going or keep them all the same just change the color?”

“To make your job easier, I say we keep them all the same.” Bill replied before shaking you a bright neon color that caught his eyes. “Let’s do this one,” You noted the color before he switched to another shade of pink, “and this one.”

“Amazing choice.” You smiled, running the file against the nail, shaping the plastic into a sharp pointed as the blonde admired your passionate concentration. The way you leaned in, eyes focusing on how even the edges were despite Bill not caring whether they were symmetrical or not. You could’ve given him the worst possible set with an unflattering color and he’d still tip you a ridiculous amount of money.

You purposely took far to long buffing his nails, making dumb small talk and stopping your movements so that you could engage with him more. You played dumb when you connected your drill, pretending that one didn’t work or it was busted just so he’d lean forward a little in an attempt to help despite not having a clue on what the issue even was (Which was nothing).

“Are you finished?” You questioned, pointing at the cup that had been sitting by his arm for the past thirty minutes, he snapped out of his mini trance and grabbed it.

“Yeah, I’m done.” He smiled kindly as you tossed it into the trash can behind you, where all the rest of the empty boxes of food resided. “So, how has life been?”

You chuckled softly, reaching for a bottle of nail polish. He’d asked the same questions three times now. “Pretty good.” You nodded, coating a thin layer of black onto his nails.

Bill clicked his tongue, eyes wandering around the room in a desperate attempt to find another topic to talk about. “Has Bruno gotten better?” He glanced at the picture frame sitting on a shelf, a fluffy shih tzu posing for the camera.

You beamed at the sound of your dogs name, lifting your head up from his nails and leaning over to grab your phone. “Yes, the last vet visit went really well! Look, he even starting eat regularly now.” You pearly teeth practically sparkled from your big grin as you showed him a video the the dog grubbing on the cylinder treats in a metal bowl.

“Aww, look at the baby boy.” Bill muttered, taking your phone as you went back to painting the design onto his nails. “Thinking about getting another one?”

“Thinking about, but I don’t know yet, I really want to though.” You replied, squinting your eyes and steadying you hand as you swirled the thin brush onto the acrylic. For the next hour you worked diligently in perfecting the colorful neon colors and giggling when the blonde made immature jokes before the room fell into a comfortable silence. Bill could only stare in awe as you hands worked in such smooth movements, everything about you so elegant and beautiful.

Even the concentrated look on your face that you swore was stupid made him smile, such supple features carved out that he could only describe as perfect. Gentle and soft skin, such a silky voice that hummed with the music, it was ridiculous just how many things he could find that he’d admire. From the color of your irises to the different moles on your face, he’d sat in the same chair so many times and admired you for so long that you practically engraved in his mind. And as the space in his brain began to fill up, it quickly leaked in the core of his heart, he couldn’t say that it belonged to him anymore because it only beat for you.

“You like the way it’s looking?” You spoke up, Bill’s mind fogged up with so many thoughts that he’d spaced out for a while. You’d already begun placing the rhinestones, for what he thought was seconds was actually hours.

“Oh my.” He mumbled, taking in the sparkly jewels that were placed onto his thumb. “I love it!”

“Perfect.” You blushed, going back to your work, and so you finished after another half hour, finishing up by rubbing some cuticle oil scented in sweet watermelon. Immediately, Bill walked over to your couch, retrieving his mini back and digging through to find his wallet. Your hands came up, gripping his wrist as he pulled out a large sum of bills. “It’s on me, I insist, Billy.”

“No, no, I can’t let you do that!” The blonde whined, knowing that you were far too stubborn when it came to paying for his nails. “Just this once, let me pay you the money you deserve.”

“I’ve told you before, I don’t want your money, keep it.” You lightly pushed away his hands that were offering you the money as he frowned, sighing heavily. “When I have you here, it doesn’t feel like I’m working, it feels like joy, so keep the money.”

Bill groaned, “Fine, I keep the money but you must promise me something.” You smiled as he placed the cash into his bag.

“Anything.”

“Sometime this week, you and me are going to find someone to make you a dress for the premiere.” He smirked, crossing his arms as your mouth slightly hung open ajar.

“But I have to check my—“

“Sweetie, your going with me, and that’s it.”

“Is this your way of asking me on a date?” You teased, your tone only half joking as you giggled.

He shrugged, hair bouncing of his shoulder while he smirked. “You could say that, the plus one ticket could go to you, my date.”

You grinned, “Your date? So does this mean you like me, Billy?”

“I really like you, sweetie, otherwise I would’ve invited Tom.” He chuckled softly, “Though I don’t think he’d want to wear pink.”

For what felt like the millionth time, you smiled so big and wide that you were sure your mouth would get stuck in that position. “How about a kiss and some wine, in honor our first date.”

Bill’s spark nails clicked as it wrapped around the wine glass. The red liquid swishing as he sipped it before passing it to you, you drank what was left before placing it onto the table. As soon as the liquid passed down your throat he leaned forward, red stained lips connecting with yours. The taste of wine lingering between your intertwining tongues as you desperately leaned in closer, arms around around his neck.

After months of waiting you finally got your own taste of heaven.

y’all this took way to long to make and I’m sorry but ur girl has been busy w school and after school I’m sleeping so this took way long to write then usual. ALSO, I need to spill the tea abt this mf in my class that’s like an ugly-hot typa dude but his personality is a 15/10. But the worst part is that he had a gf— but like we have a connection I swear he wants me fr.

[saikira999]

~ Headcannons for TWST characters playing Minecraft

This is a continuation to the answer to the last request!

I also remind you that English is not my native language, and if you find any errors, please let me know.

Another parts about:

Azul and Lilia!

Idia and Malleus!

Riddle and Leona!

[Jade]

One day, Jade was offered to play Minecraft....:

1) "A game about blocks...? Haha, it's a really cute idea, but I don't think I can find the time for it."

“There are huge mushrooms the size of trees, and You can live on a mushroom island and collect mushroom soup from mushroom cows...”

"...😊"

2) He downloaded the game that evening.

3) Before the game, briefly studied it and the topic of minecraft mushrooms, and when He went to the server, the first thing He did was go look for mushroom biomes.

Azul tried to persuade Him to settle in His village (Not in any case for to exploit the eel in a cubic version of the Mostro Lounge, or at least make a workbench to begin with), But Jade simply left.

leech wandered around the server, and soon found the nearest mushroom biome, adjacent to the village of Riddle (Poor Riddle), and quickly occupied it, starting to build a base right under the huge red mushroom.

4) When he learned that mushroom blocks cannot be obtained by hand or with ordinary tools, His reaction was literally: "....😊.....💀"

5) Fortunately, the kind-hearted Riddle gave Him a pickaxe enchanted with silk touch, in exchange for the fact that Jade would not allow her beloved brother to wander around Their and Riddle’s territories.

6) Now, He can get more huge mushrooms to build a GIANT mushroom and live in Him!

7) As mentioned above, His home is a giant red mushroom, proudly towering above the other mushrooms and the neighboring birch grove. The inside of his hat may not be so spacious, but over the course of the game, Jade will significantly expand it so that only the most necessary things can fit: a turquoise bed, chests, a workbench, stoves, decorative pots with mushrooms, etc. You can climb the stairs, and below, around the mushroom king, the Leech will build a mushroom garden (there are never too many mushrooms) with a small lake into which he will place a couple of fish from a bucket.

8) It’s even a pity that no one wants to come to visit Him.... One day, when Yuu came to visit the eel, He fed Them a couple of bowls of mushroom stew and gave Them a couple of dozen more bowls with Him, because His chests were already bursting with stews.

9) It seems that in this game, Jade is not interested in anything other than His mushroom kingdom, but sometimes, He gets out to other players to exchange, trade mushroom stew (No one buys it) or just out of curiosity. Once, an eel even walked along the seabed and found an underwater temple, but soon, He got bored with the ocean and He climbed out to the shore again, looking for mushrooms. He also often walks in the mountains, but believes that real mountains are much more interesting.

10) In general, Jade is a neutral player, but this does not mean that it is worth angering him or destroying his mushroom house... No, He certainly will not grief in response, or start a sword fight with an idiot in the game...

...He would just find and visit Him in reality....

11) The main goal for Jade is not even to kill the dragon, but to find a mushroom island on which He will build a second base and breed mooshroom...And when He, after driving a boat across the ocean for hours, finally finds muddy water and an island of the same color with mushrooms and creepy-looking cows, His smile for a split minute becomes truly sincere.

Expect that you will not get Him out of there for the next few days.

12) He built a new base, similar to the first one, and squandered all the tags on mooshrooms, naming Them all after mushrooms known to Him.

13) His favorite is Boletus. One day, She was struck by lightning, which turned the red cow brown and this made Her stand out from the crowd. Boletus lives right above, in the cap of a giant mushroom, along with Jade (Don't ask how He got Her there).

14) In a sudden change of mood, Floyd once shorn more than half of Jade's cows, making them ordinary, and almost killed a Boletus. In response to this, Jade simply left the game.... And then Floyd left the game...

And then, Floyd, for some reason unknown to anyone, did not enter the game for two weeks....

15) When the eel has completely conquered the mushrooms of the upper world, it’s time to conquer the fungi of the lower world!

Jade quickly found the crimson and warped forests and killed a decent number of the local inhabitants, so that no one would interfere with Him collecting precious fungi and their huge versions... Although, of course, He did not really understand why the Large distorted and crimson fungi were more like trees, but on the other hand, He will be able to update the interior (Jade will decorate His bases mainly with turquoise boards and decorations of warped mushrooms).

16) Oh, those long-legged ugly guys flopping around in the lava also like mushrooms? Great, so Jade will have new pets....

Jade will make a separate, third base in Nether, after He tried to drag several striders to his mushroom island, but They all died due to the rain... But in His new one, more spacious and richly decorated with various hellish vines, mushrooms and the items house will make lava pool for His new friends, whom Jade periodically feeds and breeds.

17) Jade made his own flags with mushrooms on them and hung them wherever possible.

18) Didn’t go to fight the dragon because there were no mushrooms in the End, which means there was nothing interesting.

19) Most likely, He will get bored with the game in a month or two, and each time He will go there less and less, until he finally leave, leaving His beloved mushroom cows and striders to wait for His master for eternity...

20) ...Unless Yuu accidentally mentions next to Him the existence of various mods and add-ons, and the eel goes to delicately request (This looks more like a polite threat than a request) Idia for to install a couple of mods on a dozen new mushrooms and related with them biomes, mobs and even decorative items and food...

[Floyd]

Despite the threat of being strangled, the Yuu still approached Floyd to call Him to Minecraft:

1) "Ahhh...? Shrimpy wants to play with blocks? Hehehe, this game looks stupid... You're lucky that I'm bored, otherwise I would have squeezed you long ago...~ Although... Come here, little shrimp! Play with ME, not with these stupid blocks!

(Insert aggressively tender Floyd sounds here)

2) After a session of tight hugs, after which all of Yuu’s bones began to crack, Floyd finally downloaded the game and, logging into the server, brought with him fear and horror to all the players in the area (Especially Riddle).

3) Definitely homeless. Floyd is not interested in construction and mostly hangs around, sometimes intimidating other players.

Of course, Azul invited Him to settle in His village, still naively wanting to exploit another eel in the second Mostro, but after Floyd started a fight there and blew up the wall of the restaurant (I beg you, don’t ask where this damned eel dug up dynamite at the very beginning of the game ), Azul kicked out politely sent Floyd outside to play.

4) Floyd is an unstable player. At first He is quite peaceful and calm, wanders aimlessly from side to side, watching the others and sometimes scaring other players, and after a couple of minutes, he brutally beats mobs or players, causes brawls and joins griefer raids. Floyd is the second villain of the server after Leona and the players are really afraid of him and even a couple of times, Idia had to kick him out of the server, but Floyd always came back using His brother or Azul as a ticket to enter.

5) If Jade is a tactical and careful player who uses tactics, evasion and shields during the battle, then Floyd is a tank who crushes everything in His path, not leaving alive a single monster or innocent animal he sees... And sometimes players.

6) Once, He beat Idia, armed to the teeth and dressed in netherite armor, with raw salmon to death.

7) Constantly forgets that he cannot breathe and swim quickly underwater, and is sincerely indignant when he dies at the bottom due to lack of oxygen.

8) Periodically, Floyd spends the night either with other players (Sometimes without their permission), or in the open air.

9) His favorite pastime is parkour and climbing everything possible. Sometimes Floyd jumps on the buildings of other players, original buildings in Minecraft, or a couple of times he even builds a “challenge path” for himself so as not to get bored. Sometimes Jade and Yuu help Him with construction.

10) Ortho will teach Him how to create his own worlds and install mods and parkour maps, which, surprisingly, will keep the eel busy for a long time.

11) He is absolutely invincible in joint parkour competitions held on the server and even beat Idia and Lilia in a surprisingly short time, for which he received a well-enchanted set of netherite armor... Which He almost never uses.

12) He spends a lot of time at the bottom and has already killed all the drowned people and even took a couple of tridents from them, which, however, he hardly uses and hits his enemies with the first thing that comes to hand.

13) He openly hates mushroom biomes, and only went to visit his brother a couple of times, and only because other players didn’t let him spend the night, and he didn’t want to sleep outside... And also because, there’s a little goldfish cute village nearby.

14) Of all the players, he most often pesters Riddle, sometimes starting playful fuss with Him, which usually ends in a fight or destruction of His village.

15) He also likes to mischief and mix things up in Riddle’s chests, interfere with Jamil in His kitchen on the server, distract Azul or mess with Jade... Yuu, He also often annoys, preventing Them from doing what they love and begging for attention.

16) He constantly dies and gets very angry about it.

17) Single-handedly killed the wither... With the same raw salmon...

18) Enters the server with volatile interest. Sometimes, the game suddenly becomes boring for him and Floyd doesn't log in for a few days, and then suddenly returns to make a new mess.

19) Floyd was among those players who went to kill the dragon (Ortho persuaded Him to put on armor and take with Him at least something other than raw salmon)...

And He took the raw cod.

And in The End, He was mainly busy gnawing the endermen running after other players and the dragon and sometimes switching to the dragon, continuing the aggressive beating of everyone possible... After the endermen and the dragon, He would switch to the players.

20) After defeating the dragon, Floyd played Minecraft for some time until He finally got tired of it and forgot about the server.

Perhaps He will still occasionally enter the game for the sake of parkour, but parkour in the game will never compare to the flight of a free eel on the walls and roofs of a college, under the loud cursing of teachers and the director, in reality.

Thank you for your requests! I will also be happy to receive new requests and reblogs! :D

I was asked to make headcanons about freshmen. I'll deal with it a little later~

[artificial-transmutations]

Moving into the haunted House

The ghost was idly floating in the dusty air of the attic. Well, that was not technically correct. He had fashioned himself a hammock out of his own ghostly glowing ectoplasm in which he was swinging slowly from left to right. The ghost, whose real name had been forgotten by even himself, was reading the latest edition of "Ghost Magazine", the leading periodical of the spirit world.

"Another successful year for our dear readers." the cover read. The ghost flipped through the pages, past the many ads for various ghost products, such as "Ghost Toasters" and "Ghost Bars" (whatever they might be) and went straight to the centerfold. Here was his favorite part: the annual "Ghostly Studs" page. He whistled as he looked at the various ghosts pictured. All were naked, and all were flexing their muscles in various poses, showing off their ectoplasm. Some were glowing with a green light, others blue or orange.

The ghost in the hammock could hardly be called a "ghostly stud". To be quite honest, he was pretty much the opposite. He wasn't very tall but broad in the worst sense of the word: His body was formed like a sack and ended in a comical tip not much below his hefty belly. On top of the blubber sat a fat, bald head, which was sporting an ever present smile, and on the neck, a round, pudgy face, with a button nose. This appearance was what earned him his nickname, Chunker, which was pretty much how the rest of the ghost world called him.

Chunker was a good-natured ghost, who liked to be lazy, eat, read and do not too much else. Of course, that was when he was alone or in the ghostly company of his housemates. In the rare occasions that he was confronted with mortals...

Chunker couldn't finish the thought because a noise from downstairs disrupted the silence: The door of the old house opened with a creaking sound and the muffled voices of some people entering could be heard. What was that? No living soul had entered the haunted house for at least 3 years now!

Chunker got up with some effort and reintegrated the hammock and the magazine into his body. He had to check that out at once! He floated downstairs, following the sound of the voices, and found himself in a dark and dusty hallway. At the end of it, the door to the dining room was ajar and Chunker could see two young adult men entering. Both were dressed in work clothes and were carrying various tools. One of them, a slightly taller brown haired individual, was carrying a ladder, while the other one, who had blonde hair, had a bucket of paint in his hand.

"Are you serious, Finn?", the blonde one asked. "You said your new house needs a bit of tidying up and some paint. This place is a dump!"

"Oh, come on, Brody. It's not that bad." Finn answered.

"I just hope you didn't pay too much for... this." Brody gestured around to the dusty interior.

"No, in fact the previous owner was really glad to be rid of it. Said it was haunted or something like that. So, yes, I got it really cheap!"

"That's something at least. And you said there'll be pizza and beer?"

"Absolutely. Now, let's get to work!"

The two young men began to look around the house. Chunker, meanwhile, had listened with interest. It wasn't the first time a fleshy had bought the house. Usually, Chunker and his housemates got rid of them pretty quickly. What was different this time, however, was, that the other two ghosts were currently on holiday on a Caribbean Island, leaving Chunker to take care of everything. The smile on his face broadened considerably. That meant he got to play with those two meat bags all by himself!

Chunker didn't have to wait too long. It was obvious that the two young men were planning to renovate the whole house and were now beginning with the living room.

"Hey, Finn?" Brody asked. "Could you pass me the paint roller?"

"Sure."

Finn was rummaging in the box they had carried into the room, and pulled out a roller, a tray and a brush.

As they started painting the room, Chunker, who was hiding in the ceiling, was able to get a better look at the two men. They were both in their early twenties and lean, though clearly not working out much. Finn was slightly taller and had an ever so slightly more muscular build, but the difference was not that big. Chunker's gaze lingered a bit on their firm asses. Both had a nice bubble butt. Chunker could tell from the bantering that the two were probably friends, straight friends from what he could tell. Even when Brody climbed up the ladder to paint the wall, Finn didn't seem to be ogling his friend. Chunker grinned and started to think about what to do with the two of them.

About an hour later, he had the perfect idea. He watched as the two men continued their work, occasionally drinking water and chatting. Just when Brody was taking a sip out of the water bottle while still on the ladder, with Finn underneath it, Chunker made his move. There was a tray of paint on the ladder with Brody, near to the edge. All it needed was a bit of a ghostly push to send it down, right on top of Finn, covering the surprised man in a thick layer of white paint.

"Aaaaaahhhh! Fuck! Brody!"

Finn stumbled back in surprise and tripped over the bucket of white paint that had been standing there. He didn't topple it over completely, but another part of his clothing got a new layer of paint, namely his ass.

Chunker, who was floating above the mess, chuckled. The two men were flustered, and Finn was trying to clean the paint off of his face, while Brody was looking on from his vantage point.

"Can't you watch what you're doing?", Finn asked.

"It's not my fault! I didn't even touch the tray."

"Oh, shut up, will you. Of course, you knocked it over with your fat ass."

Brody couldn't come up with another explanation and shrugged. "Well, sorry man."

He climbed down the ladder and watched Finn try to clean himself up with a rag. It didn't really work, and, when he turned around, Brody was unable to hold back a snort of laughter.

"What is it?", Finn asked.

"Nothing. I mean, you are really white now."

"Ha. Ha."

"Seriously, man. It's everywhere."

"Yeah, yeah." Finn said and pulled the wet cloth over his face.

"But seriously, there's no way you're going to get that out when it's dry. Does this house have a shower?"

"There should be. Let's try it."

Brody nodded. "Alright. You take a shower and I try to clean up the mess here."

"Thanks, man."

"Don't worry. But, hey. Try to be quick. I want my pizza!"

"Okay, okay."

Finn made his way to the bathroom which had, indeed, an old shower installed. He carefully closed and locked the door before he started to strip out of his paint stained clothing.

Chunker, who was hovering a bit behind him, was watching. As Finn pulled down his pants, Chunker could finally get a good look at the man's naked ass. He had to admit that it was a fine ass, a tight bubble butt. What really baffled him however was the front department. Chunker hadn't been sure which of the two men would be his main toy, but the size of Finn's manhood made the decision pretty easy.

Finn stepped into the shower and turned on the hot water, which started spraying on him in a nice, strong stream.

"Ahh. That's good."

When Chunker was sure that Finn was busy enjoying the shower, he floated out of his hiding place towards the door. Finn had locked it to have some privacy but as far as Chunker was concerned, Finn should present his assets a bit more proudly. Silently, Chunker's ghostly fingers unlocked the door and swung it open entirely, which would give everyone passing by a real good look on the showering man. Then, Chunker quickly squeezed himself into the pipework and made his way to the shower.

Meanwhile, Finn was enjoying the hot, steamy water. Modern showers didn't get all that hot, but this one here was old and the water temperature was pleasantly high. Some of the paint had already started to dry, so Finn was rubbing his face and hair with his eyes closed and thus did not notice the faintly blue glowing ectoplasm dripping out of the showerhead, somewhat solidifying into Chunker’s massive, yet spectral form behind the young man.

Carefully not to be too obvious, Chunker extended his ghostly arms around Finn's waist and started rubbing his hands over the firm chest, feeling the young man's nipples ever so slightly. Finn didn't notice consciously, but Chunker could feel the man's body reacting under his hands. Slowly, he moved his hands lower. Finn's body was a work of art, a finely crafted piece of art. Chunker took his time feeling the muscles under the wet skin, the firm pecs, the well-defined abs, and then, finally, the pubic hair and, underneath, Finn's large cock.

It took all the self-control Chunker had to only apply the lightest touches to the man's dick, but Chunker had other plans still. So, he only caressed the soft dick very carefully, not strong enough for Finn to be recognizable in the conscious part of his mind, but absolutely enough for his subconscious to notice.

Finn moaned quietly and unconsciously and leaned against the cold tile wall next to him. Meanwhile, Chunker was stroking and tickling the half-hard cock, playing with it and teasing the head, while Finn was still leaning against the wall, his eyes still closed.

The moaning intensified, and soon, Finn's cock was fully hard. Careful not to overdo it, Chunker continued to stimulate the young man, who was now bucking his hips back and forth, his eyes still closed when, just as planned, Chunker heard Brody walk the corridor leading to the bathroom. That was his cue to disappear into the pipes again!

"Okay, I've got the mess cleaned up somewha- woha." Brody had just arrived in front of the wide open door and had a good look on the other man bucking his hips, displaying his erect manhood for the world to see.

"I... oh, ehm. Sorry to interrupt." Brody backed away quickly.

Finn, on the other hand, had been taken aback and his eyes flew open quickly. "Brody! Oh, shit. Sorry, man."

"Yeah, no, it's fine. Just, you know, I can still see you."

Finn scrambled for the towel, wrapped it around his waist and left the shower. "Just a second."

"Sure, sure."

Brody stood awkwardly a few steps down the corridor, just enough to give Finn some privacy despite the wide open door. There was an awkward silence until Brody remarked: "You know, when I suggested you enjoy a shower, I didn't mean..."

"Brody. Don't."

"Right. Sorry."

Most of Finn's clothes were still covered in half-wet paint. There was really no use in putting them on, so, Finn decided to just put on his boxer shorts and carry the rest of his clothes in front of him to hide as much as he could. Not that it was necessary, though. Finn's cock had very quickly gotten soft again when Brody had caught him... doing what exactly?

"I don't think we can do anything more today." Finn broke the tension. "I mean, I need a new set of clothes and all."

Chunker, who was listening in from a wall behind Brody shook his head. No, no, the fun had only just begun. Quickly, he made a noise like a rumbling stomach, just when Brody agreed.

"Oh, right. On the other hand, I still promised pizza and beer, right?" Finn quickly added in reaction to his friends supposed hunger reaction.

"Right! Great idea!" Brody had a tendency to leave the situation as quickly as possible but also didn't want his friend to feel bad. So, he suggested: "Maybe we can watch something on the TV if it still works while eating?"

Finn gladly agreed. That would surely stop any awkward conversation.

Both friends slumped down in the couch in the living room and settled on a rerun of some old Buff the Vampire Slayer episode. They ordered pizza and beer which quickly arrived. Of course, with Finn being half naked, Brody had to go to the door to receive it.

When the two of them were finally relaxing a bit, Chunker, who had floated into the couch could finally make his move. Again, he started slowly. Not unlike before, small tendrils of blue ectoplasm crept into Finn's boxer shorts and brushed ever so slightly against the flaccid man-meat inside.

Finn reacted instantly, just as Chunker had hoped. A tingling sensation spread through his lower body, and a small moan escaped him.

"Everything alright?", Brody asked.

"Yeah, sure." Finn answered and tried to readjust himself without Brody noticing.

Chunker couldn't really see what was going on, but he could feel it. He was faintly stroking the half-hard dick, tickling it and massaging the balls with his ghostly appendages.

Even though Brody tried to focus on the television, it became harder and harder for him to ignore Finn. The other man tried to subtly readjust the contents of his boxer shorts often and even though Brody really didn't want to look, he could see said contents moving and twitching slightly even when Finn did not touch them.

Of course, Finn tried to hide it as best as he could, but certain facts cannot be hidden very well, especially, when the facts are already quite large in their flaccid state. So, not only did Brody notice some twitching in his friends groin but also a growing half-hard boner that made a rather clear outline against the fabric of the shorts.

Chunker knew that now, the real fun would be about to begin. When Finns hand moved for his beer bottle the next time, Chunker quickly squeezed his massive form into the small bottle, ready to start.

"So...", Brody asked carefully. "You okay, buddy?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, are you, I dunno, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

Finn moved the bottle to his mouth to take a big sip, when Brody sighed and spoke again.

"Look, I really don't know how to ask this and I'm sorry, but... Are you, like, gay, Finn?"

Finn spit out his beer - and Chunker, who had just prepared to enter the young man's body with the beer - in surprise.

"What?! No! Why do you ask that?"

"I'm really, really sorry, but, dude, I saw you in the bathroom, and I didn't mean to, but, well, you had a hard on, and, you know, if you need someone to talk to, I'm always here. To talk, of course, not for anything else. And now..." Brody gestured towards Finns crotch but his courage left him again, so he continued: " I'll stop talking."

Chunker, who had reformed in the couch, was laughing his ass off. If only his housemates would have seen this! He would never hear the end of this!

Finn was tomato-red by now and tried to cover himself with his hands.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, I just feel so weird today. But I'm not gay, I promise!"

"Okay. I'm not gonna judge you, okay? You're my best friend, and, you know, I'm cool with it if you're gay or bi or whatever."

"Yeah, but I'm not."

Let's see about that, decided Chunker. He didn't get in the usual way, so he had to take another route. With a sudden push of his ectoplasmic essence, he squeezed himself into the tight virgin asshole of Finn that was firmly planted on the couch.

All of a sudden, Finn, who had felt some unusual sensation on his behind, jolted up. "Brody! Did you just grab my ass?!"

Brody was flabbergasted. "What? No!"

"I just felt... oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!"

Chunker, who was still not visible, had started to stimulate Finn's prostate from the inside while working his way upward, filling up the man's body with his essence.

"Are you... okay?", Brody asked again.

"I... oh..." moaned Finn again, as his right arm started to act seemingly on its own, spreading out on the back of the couch, around Brody's shoulders.

"What are you doing man?", asked Brody.

"Nothing, I..." Finn started but was interrupted by a sudden sensation of lust and longing. At the same time, his right arm tried to pull Brody in but was met with considerable resistance. Even though Brody was a bit smaller than Finn, he was just as strong.

Chunker, who was almost in full control of Finn's body now frowned. But this wasn't anything a little ectoplasm injection couldn't fix. Brody stared at Finn's arm, transfixed as it started to rapidly grow more muscular, quickly reaching bodybuilder-like dimensions. However, it was only Finn's arm that was changing. At the shoulder, the comically large arm still connected to the same torso. Brody was so enthralled that he wasn't able to react when the now considerably stronger arm pulled him in again. A big fat grin was now plastered on Finn's face, and he said, with a voice that didn't quite seem to belong to him: "Oh, we're gonna have so much fun!"

Before Brody could react, he was pulled into a kiss, too perplex to even struggle. Inside Finn, Chunker prepared for what was to come. He was proud to be pretty good at possessing fleshies, but he had rarely tried two at once. When the lips of the two men locked, Chunker sent a part of his essence into the other man, who was still too surprised to struggle.

Chunker felt Brody's body react to the new sensation. He immediately got into it and Chunker felt the other man's cock growing hard quickly as well. Possessing two people at once was difficult, nearly impossible really. But in this case, the pent up sexual desires of the two made things easier. Chunker just had to give some direction and watch "his boys" go at it full force.

Finn pushed Brody's head down, and Chunker felt the hot, wet mouth enveloping Finn's dick. It was an incredible sensation, the soft lips of the other man and the wetness of his tongue. At the same time, Chunker could feel the somewhat salty and manly precum marinated cock on Brody's tongue as he began to suck. It took all of Chunker's strength to keep the two men under his control and not get swept away.

Finn, meanwhile, was getting lost in the sensation. All his senses were occupied by the blowjob he was receiving and the warm wetness and the incredible feeling on his cock. Even the sounds, Brody's heavy breathing, the moans of the two, the gagging sound as the thick shaft was shoved into his mouth, it was almost too much for the man. However, with a sheer feat of will, Chunker prevented the young man from cumming right here and then. Instead, he made Finn shove Brody's head away and get up.

It almost didn't need any impulse from Chunker for Brody to turn around and stick his bubble butt in the air, offering his virgin ass. Chunker quickly positioned the hard and ready cock of his puppet against the tight entrance and pushed forward, while Finn's hands practically ripped the work pants down.

Chunker couldn't believe how amazing it felt. He was not a virgin by any means, but the tight virgin hole, combined with the hot and tight insides, the incredible sensation on his cock and the moans and feelings of the man taking it was almost too much for him.

"Oh, shit!", Finn groaned. "This is the best fucking thing ever!"

Chunker could only agree. His puppets were fucking each other hard, and the sensations were almost overwhelming him. Straight boys his ass. The two of them were so into it, it was obvious that some unspoken desire had pent up for most of their adult lives.

Finn was pounding into the other man as hard as he could, and Brody was thrusting back, his own dick swinging free and dripping copious amounts of pre-cum on the sofa below. Finally, the two men were at their limit.

"Finn, oh shit, I'm gonna cum."

"Do it, man, fucking shoot it!"

Brody let out a scream and his dick began spurting thick loads of white cum all over the sofa.

"Fuck!", moaned Finn.

And then, the orgasm hit him. He felt his balls contracting and his dick twitching and a huge amount of cum being released from his dick, straight into Brody's ass, who was still thrusting back on his cock, riding out his own orgasm.

With the double orgasm, Chunker couldn't hold on any longer. He was forcefully ejected from two bodies at once, experiencing the intense rollercoaster of emotions as if he just cummed himself.

Before the two men could recover, Chunker flew off to his attic. That had been a great possession session. He just hoped that the two men would return for more.

This is my contribution to the annual great story gift exchange, for @thepossessionmaster.

[defrosted69]

My Laker star (Lesserafim)

++++++

I had this custom story made when I was watching the game and realized that Lesserafim was at the building. so it may not be perfect and I have decided to change it up a bit. (7k words)

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"Y/N McDaniels with the ball. He faces up against his opponent and goes into a smooth crossover, faking right and then slicing diagonally to his left. His defender is slow to react, and he blows past him with a step to his right, going up with the layup. He puts it up with authority, sinking the shot, and the crowd goes wild as the Lakers take the lead!"

"McDaniels on defense now, his opponent trying to drive to the hoop, but Y/N stands his ground and uses his superior length to contest the shot, and it's a miss!"

"McDaniels has been on fire tonight; nobody has been able to stop him. He gets the ball on the break, and he's one-on-one against his defender. He puts the ball down and drives, beating his man and going up for the layup, but his opponent puts a hand on the ball and tries to block the shot. It could have been a foul, but the refs let the play go on! McDaniels brings it down and puts it up again, sinking the shot! Another bucket for McDaniels!"

"McDaniels has it at the top of the key. He sees LeBron James open down low, and he makes the perfect pass, whipping it down the court with lightning speed. LeBron jumps up to meet it, and he throws the ball down with authority, and the crowd goes wild as the Lakers stretch out their lead. McDaniels and James are working great together tonight, and the crowd loves it!"

The huge ovation from the audience caused Kazuha's phone to ring, surprising her members who were gathering their breath after packing their belongings. With their hard work and sacrifice, the world has gradually acknowledged the ability of six girls who only wanted to play on stage.

"Zuha, What are you watching? Sounds like a parade there?"

Chaewon, their leader, inquired as she sipped her drink. When the firm gave them a ton of work, they didn't grumble and instead went out to perform with their hearts out, giving as much as their fans gave to them. To them, being an artist is not as simple as it appears. Some must make significant sacrifices in order to make their debut and demonstrate their skills. Because the sacrifices often may not equal the return, being a successful artist sometimes need luck.

"Ah, Sorry Unnie…my bad hehe.."

As a brilliant smile came on Kazuha's face, she murmured humbly. She was so engrossed in what she was viewing that she forgot about her surroundings, but can she really blame herself? When someone is completely absorbed in what they are doing. They tend to lose sight of the people around them and concentrate only on what they are doing. In this example, Kazuha was watching a thrilling Los Angeles Lakers game.

"Hearing the sounds…is that a basketball game Zuha?"

"Oh yeah Unnie."

"Eeeppp!! Is that the Lakers?! Girl let me watch!"

Yunjin dropped her luggage and sat next to Kazuha, her gaze fixed on her phone. The viewing tool for the game was minimal, but for die-hard fans like Kazuha and Yunjin, it was far superior to watching streams with so many strange adverts plastered left and right on a website.

"Eh? Yunjin, you watch basketball?"

Sakura inquired, closing her suitcase carefully. Sakura has already checked her suitcase three times to ensure that everything she needs for their short holiday is in there. Her suitcase was more ordered than their Maknae's luggage, who wasn't even packing and was sleeping. Sakura sighed as she began organizing their Maknae's stuff and placing everything in her suitcase.

"Of course Kkura Unnie. I have a few friends in New York who are basketball Junkies. Heck, I used to play basketball with them a few times before."

Sakura nodded in agreement as Yunjin's response demonstrated his familiarity with basketball. Given that she grew up in New York and discovered that their culture was much different from the society to which they were used. Sakura, on the other hand, knows basketball for two reasons. One is that in the early phases of her career, she was urged to do insane things in order to be elected, and basketball was one of them. She still suffers nightmares when she tries to remember those events. The second is that her childhood pal is now a basketball player. She last heard from him when he moved to the United States to play collegiate basketball, and after that, all forms of communication were cut off.

"Eh? You used to play Basketball Unnie?"

"The opposing team is looking to get an easy layup off of a fast break. McDaniels races back down the court to do his best to stop the play, but the defender is already airborne, ready to dunk the ball into the basket. McDaniels jumps, putting his body on the line to try to reach the ball. He tips it with his fingertips, and LeBron James comes soaring in from behind, blocking the ball and preventing the opposing team from scoring. McDaniels and LeBron high five as they force a turnover."

Yunjin nodded her head as her mouth formed an oh shape as she just saw an amazing play from the king, Lebron James.

"Yeah. Basket is literally a part of American culture there so yeah. Anyway, What's the age of Lebron again? He isn't suppose to be doing this things at year 21! My god…"

Yunjin was left speechless and at awe by the amazing feat Lebron James was showing. But Kazuha was more focused on the efforts of the other player. Y/N McDaniels. Kazuha knew that Lebron was the one who erased that easy layup but she knows that Your the one who prevented it to even making it graze the rim at all.

"Well He's Lebron Unnie. What can you say?"

As the opposition team requested a timeout, Kazuha laughed gently. Growing up, Kazuha was a tremendous basketball lover since her father was a huge basketball fan. Either the A or the B. The NBA or the Premier League. She recalls becoming exposed to the game of basketball during the 2009 NBA Finals. It was Game 6 of the NBA Finals, and Kobe and the Los Angeles Lakers were giving the Boston Celtics a fight for their money. Kazuha saw his father so engrossed in the game that she imagined herself in the stadium with her father, watching the game. Some would claim it's dull to watch, and who could blame them?

10 guys try to get a ball and score on each other and it just repeats over and over again. What's so fun about that? Add in the stereo type that Girls don't like basketball because it's too simple just makes Kazuha love the game even more.

Basketball became her method to hang out and interact with her father over time, since they were both die-hard Lakers fans. The Lakers have long been popular across the world, thanks to Kobe Bryant. His fame, combined with his influence, made the Lakers renowned all over the world, as it is constantly rated first in the world. So it's no surprise that the majority of the individuals Kazuha knows are huge Lakers fans. It is, after all, the city of angels..

"Hmm.. That guy McDaniels seems familiar and good too don't you think Zuha?"

Yunjin inquired as Kazuha nodded. Throughout the game, Kazuha was analyzing every player's mistakes and excellent plays, and in her opinion, you were the one with the fewest bad plays and the most team plays. Of course, she recognized your name; after all, you were the first rookie to lead your team to the Western Conference without any assistance.

"Of course Unnie. He's actually the only rookie to bring the lakers to the west conference finals when Lebron, AD, Dlo and Reaves were all injured. He went head to head with the Golden State warriors and got the respect from Curry, Klay, Draymond and even Kerr. Obviously the lakers lost because He was just a rookie but he made Golden state question their defensive scheme to stop him. "

Kazuha's words were full of pride in them as she spoke with confidence. She will never forget the headlines you made during that series and it was the buzz until the season ended. Expectations were set high for you following your next season and you didn't dissapoint at all.

"Oooh he sounds like a problem. So did he perform well his next season? Last year? Did he?"

Yunjin eagerly asked as Kazuha smiled and nodded her head.

"Yeah Unnie. He actually destroyed all expectations and showed the world and the team that he's legit. There were concerns about his fit with Lebron and AD but he showed them that he's a team player."

Everyone was taken aback by her remark. Few individuals can swallow their pride, especially in basketball, where many players are overly full of themselves and want to prove that they belong in the NBA. With the added pressure of playing with LeBron, your faith in yourself was unshaken, and it just fueled your desire to win.

"Seems like an amazing player. Also… He's kinda cute in a way.."

Yunjin said as she eyes you from Kazuha's phone. Chaewon sighed and gently smacked her arm reminding her that they are idols and not any ordinary people.

"Yah Huh Yunjin. Don't do anything stupid when we go to the states got it? We're still idols remember that."

Chaewon's leader side was showing as Yunjin could only laugh at her remark. Of course Yunjin was only half joking about her comment on you. Again, the word there is Half joking meaning, in a sense, she was admitting a small truth in her words.

"I know I know. I'm just half Joking Unnie hehehe~"

"Yah Yunjin."

The two began to do a playful banter as Kazuha was once again focused on the game. Sakura finally finished fixing the luggage of Eunchae who happens to wake up from all the noise her Unnies were doing.

"Did..did I miss something?"

Eunchae yawned as she slowly stretched her arms up trying to wake her body up.

"Not much. Just the typical chaos your used to Eunchae. Also, try to lessen your clothes in your bag. You have more clothes than me."

Sakura scolded their youngest who just cutely smiled at her as she knows that Sakura would listen to her no matter how much she scolds her. After all, Sakura loves her too much.

"It's fine Kkura Unnie. It's cold there in America and it's better to have thick clothing right? Hehehe~"

Eunchae did have a point as autumn has finally started in that country. But then again, Sakura knows that Eunchae would be spending a lot of her allowance in buying clothes there so what's the point of her grabbing many clothes when she will just buy new ones there? This somehow confused Sakura but she still had to scold her for it.

Meanwhile, the game concluded for the victory of the Lakers despite them struggling earlier on with their shooting which was always been the problem. There was this crazy conspiracy that all shooters that come to play for the Lakers suddenly forgot how to shoot the ball into the net. Of course seeing the terrible 3 point shooting of the Lakers pissed Kazuha off. But then again, the lights are the brightess in Los Angeles so that could be a huge contributor to why some of their players shoot bricks.

"Everyone! Have you all packed your stuff? Remember, we're going to watch the Lakers game in a few days from now after our short vacation in New York."

Their manager arrived in their dorm suprising everyone with what she just said. Kazuha's eyes widen hoping that she wasn't hearing things just now. Everyone was frozen shut as Chaewon tried to confirm what they all heard.

"Wait Unnie. We're.. We're going to watch an NBA Game? The lakers?"

Their manager nodded her head confirming that they infact heard the right thing.

"They Invited you girls to watch their game against the Clippers. And they also have you girls buy whatever you want in Los Angeles NBA store."

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"Shit Man I'm tired.."

You sat in your place behind your locker as the squad pulled off a hard-fought triumph against the opposition. Playing on the road has always been difficult since the supporters would be cheering on their squad, which may be detrimental to any team. So you have to be prepared to perform well and bring your best against road opponents, otherwise the media will either condemn or acclaim you. There was no middle ground.

"Well we got the dub, that's all that matters. Now we have a 3 day rest before we return home and play against the Clippers"

Austin Reaves, your teammates spoke making you sigh deeply. Even though that team was in the same city as yours, they have been quite the nuisance with all the noise they have been making in social media. Sure some of those don't really affect you too much but the fact that ESPN always hype them up like that have achieve something annoyed you. For you personally, your a person who doesn't really have a talent to basketball at all.

You just worked your ass off to where you have been.

"Nah like they probably gonna play like it's Game 7 or something against us again."

Anthony Davis added to the group. Even though AD was a very dominant starting this season, there was. A few instances where he would dissappear in the 2nd half of the game and it's either Lebron, Dlo, Austin or you has to carry that slack up. But considering the start of this season, he's playing like a Defensive player of the year so far and the most important thing is that he's healthy to start the season.

"Don't let all that get in your heads. They wanna start putting all this in your head so that when the game arrives, you will be shaken"

As LeBron talked, the atmosphere in the room calmed down. He has always been admired and idolized by many people, and his skill set at his age just serves to reinforce why he is regarded as an all-time great in the sport of basketball. Not only that, but he has been an excellent mentor to you from your first year with the team. His training routines were difficult, but you kept going because you didn't want to be pleased with an alright outcome; you wanted a greater result.

"Alright Guys. Great win today but for now, let's all rest and pick up our practice once we returned to LA okay?"

Coach Darvin said as everyone nodded at him. He may have been doing some questionable lineup for the past 3 seasons but right now, with you at the starting lineup, he finally found the recipe to win games and close them out. Coach Darvin also has been a big part of your rise to all star level as he has been training you on and off the court about Basketball and about life as a whole. You got nothing but respect for him. As everyone was preparing to leave the arena and head to their hotel, Austin pulled you to the side confusing you.

"Hey man, let's walk around New York shall we?"

"For what?"

"Oh come on don't be a party pooper. This is the only time we get to New York you know. Come in dawg, I just wanna walk man."

You sighed at his recommendation. As weird as it sounds, This was the only time you'll visit the Knicks this season as the second time you'll meet would be in your home court. Most of the time, you'll face a team at least 3 times but for this season, You'll only face the Knicks twice. And New York has always been an iconic place in the whole world so why not visit it around right?

"Alright, alright."

"That's my brotha right there. Alright let's go."

Austin Changed his outfit to his regular clothes and by that, it mean his hoodie and pants. No fancy clothing or anything like that. Austin in your eyes has always been a simple man but you could guess that a huge part of that is his place of birth and growing up in.

As you two exited the arena, you were welcomed with a massive edifice and a plethora of lights that represented New York City's nightlife. You were surprised at how many people flocked to this location despite the large crowds. The numerous digital billboards drew your attention as award shows and musicians were advertised on the colorful billboard.

"This is so different than LA…"

Austin could only laugh at you remark as he couldn't help but add in his own joke.

"You should visit Arkansas, you'll be greeted by cows and beautiful grass than this."

"Sounds relaxing in my opinon."

He laughed as both of you continued to walk. Many kinds of act was caught by your eyes ranging from magic tricks, mimes and the one that caught your eye is a bunch of people dancing to some Korean music.

"Hey, why are there so many people dancing to a song they can't understand."

Austin looked at you rather annoyed and in disbelief. He was kinda caught off guard with your question as he took a few seconds to answer you.

"Dude, Music transcends language. It's a universal language that no words needed."

"Right…."

You realized how stupid you looked asking that question so you just decided to ask a different question this time. Something more reasonable.

"Then what music is that?"

"That's Kpop bro haven't heard of it?"

He looked at you with an eye raised eyebrow. He looked rather quite suprised by you not knowing Kpop since it's kinda blowing up in the west. Even kids nowadays nows Kpop and have many Kpop artist on their Spotify Playlist.

"Sorry I haven't. Educate me AR"

"Fuck you man. I'm older than you, But basically Kpop is Korean Pop. That's it. It has many groups doing many category of that genre."

"Such as?"

"Cute, girl crush, retro and many more. Some are experimental"

You were quiet suprised by the many genres of one music has but you have to consider that Kpop is a pop music and pop Music can vary from time to time depending on what the listener wants.

"I see…I wonder if Jen achieved being an Idol…"

"Who?"

You shook your head not wanting to confuse AR further. You just smiled and nodded your head.

"Sounds intriguing"

"Oh it is. Anyway, buy me a New York Hotdog rookie"

"But I'm already in my Sophomore year."

"Did I stutter?"

You groan at him and walked away from where he was standing. You can see him enjoying the people dancing to Kpop songs and for you, it was interesting to say the least. It's music was something you haven't heard yet and it's not bad to try something new once in a while. Perhaps you should take this Kpop music a thing a chance and who knows, you could end up enjoying it.

As you approached the food truck with Hotdog on the menu, your eyes searched for the neighboring hotdog stand. But something else drew your attention away from the menu. You noticed the merchant attempting to communicate in English with a female wearing a hat and mask. You could see the bewilderment and fear in her eyes. You sighed as you noticed a long queue forming behind her, so you sped your feet and stood behind her, hoping to assist her.

"Is everything okay Miss?"

You asked as she look behind you and you saw her look up from her height as her changes to look of confusion and worry to amazement.

"Uhh… Food.. Eerr….want..This.."

She was trying her best to communicate with her broken English as she pointed at the Hotdog with bacon in them. You immedietly knew what she was trying to say as you nodded and spoke her order.

"Sir, she's ordering 5 Hotdogs with bacon toppings in them."

And just like that, the vendor sold her 5 hotdogs which she payed well for. It wasn't much of a big deal for you helping her but in her eyes, she was so glad someone from a foreign land helped her.

"Ah thank you very much~"

Her voice was high pitched and you would though that she was a singer with how her voice sounded.

"It's no problem miss. Hope you enjoy your food"

"Ah, You too."

It was preety obvious that English wasn't her primary language as you can hear the forces accent in her words but you didn't pay mind to it as you just nodded your head as she left with her food and you ordered your own. You pulled out your wallet hoping that it wad empty but you forgot your a millionaire athlete as you cursed AR.

"Damn you Austin!"

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Kazuha was lounging on her bed, watching highlights of the Lakers vs. Knicks game that had just ended. Despite their hunger, they waited for Chaewon to return with their New York Hot dogs with patience. Kazuha was so engrossed in the game highlights that she couldn't help but replay the highlight of the Lakers' action every time. But her heart would race as the scoreboard went from 2 to 7 down in an instant.

She is aware that the Lakers have a tendency to forget how to shoot, especially in crucial times, but based on the clips she was viewing, the Lakers were able to hold themselves to catch or tie the score. But, among the Lakers players she was watching on the phone, her gaze was drawn to you since your team's performance usually amazes her. She knows you had the ability to take over and fire as many rounds as you want, but you weren't pressing the trigger. Kazuha understands that basketball is a team sport, not an individual sport, and that getting the team involved in a play is what important in basketball.

"I'm back!"

Chaewon's voice made everyone look at her with a grin as their leader was back safely with food at hand. Eunchae ran out of her bed quickly as she rushed towards Chaewon sniffing the food in her hand.

"Gimme gimme gimme please~~"

Eunchae's cuteness was over the roof for Chaewon but Sakura once again scolded her.

"Yah, Eunchae Wait for everyone okay?"

Eunchae could only pout her lips as Kazuha pauses the video on her phone and went towards Chaewon with a small grin seeing her safe.

"Welcome home Unnie. How was your English skills?"

Yunjin smirked hoping to hear great news from her but Chaewon just simply chuckled and scratched the back of her head signaling that something didn't go well for her.

"Hehe… I kinda fumbled my English when I was speaking with a local. Hehehe…"

Chaewon shyly smiled as she felt embarrassed by what happened earlier. Everyone knew that Chaewon was confident in her English as she was practicing really hard for it and Kazuha knows it too. So for her to say that she failed means that Chaewon needed more practice. Sakura distrubuted the food to each one of them as Yunjin asked Chaewon.

"So how were you able to order this then Unnie?"

Their attention went to Chaewon who suddenly got embarrassed with their stares. For her, it felt she was the center of attention and she wasn't familiar with such feelings.

"Oh umm.. A tall person helped me out. I was kinda scared at first since he looked so tall but he ended up helping me out."

"A tall person? What does he look like Unnie?"

Eunchae asked seemingly intrigued as everyone else. Chaewon tried to recall your feature but the only thing she could remember was how nice you were to her.

"He's tall. I feel like he's an athlete and he's nice too."

Sakura widen her eyes as she immediately asked

"Does he look Japanese?!"

Chaewon shook her head making Sakura sigh and look away dissapointed. Kazuha noticed this and perhaps there was something more than what meets the eye for her.

"Well anyway, we should start getting ready after we eat as our flight will be tonight alright?"

Chaewon reminded them all that they still need to fly to LA since the Lakers invited them to their game. Kazuha suddenly got excited once again as the though of seeing you and the team as whole got her feeling excited and nervous at the same time.

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After a few days of seeing Los Angeles and shopping at the NBA store, it was finally time to meet the Lakers and witness their game versus their hometown rivals, the Los Angeles Clippers. When they arrived to the Staples Center, Kazuha was overjoyed. She never imagined witnessing a statue of Magic Johnson in front of her eyes, yet here she is. She took out her phone and began photographing the iconic Magic Johnson, but she was surprised when Mr. Magic appeared in front of them.

They were all looking uo to him who showed a sweet smile at them as they all shook their hands with him. Lesserafim was one of the tallest kpop idol group in south Korea especially Yunjin and Kazuha but standing next to Magic Johnson made them look like average people.

"It's nice to see and meet you girls. Congratulations to your shows Ladies. Can we take a picture?"

Despite him being tall, in their eyes, Magic Johnson was a big ball of sunshine who's smile radiates infront of them. But Kazuha was the most thrilled one when Magic himself asked for a picture with them. Her smile was reaching her ears as Magic Johnson told them to enjoy the lakers game which they will.

Their Manager told them to follow them as they will be guided to the Lakers court which at this point, everyone was excited to see but Kazuha was the most thrilled one. Wearing a custom jersey given to them by the Lakers, getting welcomed by a laker legend, taking a picture with him and now seeing the court first? This was a dream come true for Kazuha.

"Zuha your excitement is showing through your smile."

Sakura said as a chuckle escape from her mouth. Kazuha shyly blushed but smiled happily as her excitement was just off the roof right now. From watching the Laker on her TV and Phone to actually sitting Courtside and walking in the laker court was her dream come true.

"How can I Unnie? This feels so surreal and its my dream come true!"

Sakura could only laugh at her as they were walking the halls of the Lakers. Painting of the great players who wore the purple and gold was hanged on the walls as Yunjin and Kazuha were happily explaining who these players are. The rest were happily listening as they finally arrived at the court of the lakers. The arena was empty as the game wasn't until 10pm tonight. It was here that the girls realized how small they really are compared to NBA players.

"Wow… The rim is so tall.."

Eunchae said as she looked up the rim like it was a big giant tree infront of her. Yunjin chuckled and patted her shoulder.

"Thats why the NBA athlete are crazy good. Imagine shooting so far or even getting into the rim."

Eunchae nodded as the group spotted a few of their fans as well as they greeted them and had a chance to interact with them. Sakura smile quickly dissappeared when she noticed their fans jersey number familiar with her and a name that she was familiar with. Chaewon noticed this as she talked to her.

"Is everything Okay Unnie?"

"H-Huh? O-Oh yeah.."

Sakura returned her smile like usual but something didn't sit well with Chaewon. Meanwhile, Yunjin decided to take picture of them as a whole with the Lakers logo behind them. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for them to step foot on an NBA court and even walk on it. Their manager told them that the lakers have a suprise for them which got the girls intrigued. Eunchae wanted to know what the suprise is but instead, their manager told them that she can't reveal it yet as it will happen during the game.

The girls then went to their seats waiting for the game to start as the crowd was finally filling up the arena. One by one the players were coming out of the locker room and into the court as Chaewon and Yunjin gasped seeing a familiar face. Kazuha smiled happily to see her favorite player out and Sakura gasped seeing a ghost of her past.

"Y/N?!! YOU'RE AN NBA PLAYER NOW?!!"

Yujin's voice was so loud that despite the many people, you heard her as your eyes landed on her. You widen your eyes in suprise seeing Jennifer on the Courtside with a different hair color but you were damn sure she was that Girl you know back in New York. You smiled and went near her seat as Yunjin did the same. Kazuha was shocked that her favorite player was acquainted with Yunjin as Yunjin Rushes towards you hugging you tightly making the girls shocked.

"Y/N! It really is you!!"

Her tight embrace made you feel your chest getting crushed and the air shortening as you breath.

"J-Jen.. I.. Can't breath.."

"Opps. My bad hehe."

Yunjin chuckled as she let go of you. She looked you up and down looking so proud of you as her smile was the proof of that.

"Wow look at you, already an NBA player huh? Damn Daniels, I didn't know you were like that."

"What can I say? I'm guessing you made it too right?"

"You bet! Look look! My jersey is custom gifted by your team!"

Yunjin happily showed you her jersey which you were at awe from. You begin to question why the office didn't told you that a Kpop artist was in the building and more importantly, it was your friend Jennifer. Yunjin called upon her members as they made their way towards you. Chaewon was shocked because the person that helped her out back in New York was you.

"Hey guys meet my friend Y/N McDaniels."

They waved at you as Chaewon smiled at you cutely. Your eyes landed on Chaewon and her eyes immediately made you feel like you have seen her before.

"Have I… Seen you before Miss?"

Chaewon nodded as Yunjin gasped in suprised.

"Oh my! So your that tall person that helped her in that Hotdog stand?"

You nodded your head as Chaewon smiled and bowed at you thanking you for that time of helping her.

"I'm Kim Chaewon. Nice to meet you and thank you"

Her voice made you blush right away since you thought it was charming. Your face flushed with embarrassment as you realized what had happened. You were staring at five attractive females in front of you, and the notion made you feel self-conscious.

"Oh umm.. N-Nice to meet you too.. I-I mean nice to meet you all…"

Yunjin noticed your shy demeanor as a smirk appeared on her face. She playfully nudged you as she found a way to tease you.

"Hohoho~ Look at this, this guy is getting flustered~"

"W-Well why wouldn't I? I'm infront of 5 beautiful ladies."

Yunjin was taken aback by your response, as her cheeks grew rose-colored and her eyes widened. Her heart began to beat faster, and her pupils became wider. This sensation was familiar to her, but she didn't expect it to happen to you.

Kazuha decided to take over as she smiled and offered you a handshake which you accepted.

"Hi, I'm Nakamura Kazuha. I'm a fan of yours."

Kazuha brightly smiled and that alone made you blush even more. There was this pulling string towards Kazuha that got you staring at her beauty. Her smile was so bright that it lighten up your mood even though your not sad yourself.

Chaewon saw that you and Kazuha were staring at each other as she decided to grab your attention with a cough. That snapped both of you as you and Kazuha pulled each other's hand away from each other. Both your cheeks were blushing as Chaewon smiled and offered a handshake.

"Hi again. My name is Chaewon~"

Her cute voice reall got your heart racing and it got you feeling different. You shook her hand and just like Kazuha and Yunjin, her hand was soft and fluffy to touch as your blush only gotten redder.

"Thank you again for helping me."

"A-ah no it's nothing.. Anything to help."

"That's so cute to hear. Hehehe~"

If your think your cheeks couldn't get any redder, it just got redder. Chaewon has this cuteness factor which got you captivated and cling to her. In all honesty, she's quite dangerous for your heart as she could effortlessly grab your heart without you resisting.

"Me! Me! My turn! Me next!"

Eunchae was enthusiastic to meet you as Chaewon pulled away shyly. She herself felt lost in those eyes of yours as she blushes a little and looks away. Eunchae happily and energetically shook your hand which made you smile happily.

"Hong Eunchae!! Hehehe~"

She was really cute with her smile but what got you was her energetic aura that she was showing. She was like a pure ball of energy that just make you smile. In a sense, it made you feel like you need to protect her from the harshness of the world.

Last but not the least was Sakura who smiled happily at you as you shook her hand.

"I'm Miyawaki Sakura. Nice to meet you."

"Hi Ms. Sakura. Are you Japanese?"

"Yes I am."

"Ohhh just like Rui."

Sakura stood frozen upon hearing your word. Everything was starting to line up for her as to why she was given the jersey number by the lakers. Her suspicions could have been answered as You notice her staring blankly at you.

"Sakura? You alright?"

"H-Huh? O-Oh yeah. I'm fine. Is this Rui… Named Rui Hachimura?"

"Yeah."

That was it. Sakura was right all along. Rui Hachimura is here in the NBA. Her eyes began to dart everyone trying to look for him as Yunjin decided to slip in to talk to you again.

"Well you know our seat Y/N, that means you know where to look at hehe~"

Yunjin's words was kinda filled with teasing and a little bit flirty as Kazuha and Chaewon got what Yunjin was planning too. Chaewon was filled with worry about her Idol career if she was to get into a scandal with you. Kazuha on the other hand felt jealous that Yunjin was a step ahead of her when it comes to getting to know you. She pouted her cheeks as she looked down a little annoyed by herself.

"Alright, alright. Well I hope you enjoy the game guys."

You smiled once again before returning to the court warming up with your teammates. They returned to their seat as all of them began asking Yunjin how she was familiar with you. Sakura on the other hand was solely focusing her stare at one player, and his jersey number 28. She was feeling a mixed emotions seeing him as she has many questions more than answers.

"どうして私を捨てたの?"

(Why did you leave me?)

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The buzzer sounded and the atmosphere was filled with energy coming from the lakers fan as a whole. Lesserafim was shocked to see how passionate the fans of the lakers were but they immediately got themselves immerse into the game.

When your name was introduced, Lesserafim was hyped up cheering you on as Yunjin and Kazuha took Out their phones taking a picture of you on the big screen.

After trailing and suffering from the 1st half, Lesserafim realized how stressful it is to watch a game for the Lakers and how great it feels to comeback from a huge lead. They could feel the intensity of the game and the support of the fan cheering on.

"Wow this is… So this is the feeling of Live NBA basketball.."

Kazuha said as her dream of being in the NBA has finally happened. It was dream come true for her seeing NBA players up live and seeing you up close.

"I think my throat is getting dry from screaming earlier…"

Eunchae remarked, making the others laugh. What she claimed was correct since they had entirely forgotten that they were Kpop Idols while immersed in the game. Sakura was screaming her lungs out trying to defend the Lakers from questionable fouls, Chaewon was trying to understand the game but she was also cheering and defending the Lakers, Kazuha was explaining the game to her but she was also cheering you on, and finally Yunjin was cheering and reacting to every play with her heart. Her expressions were spot on.

But despite the hardship, the Lakers managed to take a win against their hometown rival and was able to snap their 11 losing game streak with them. Their manager then decided that it was time for them to get the suprise they were anticipating. She smirked as she called Lesserafim over. Excitement was evident on their faces as they suddenly walked down to the tunnel as they were standing waiting for something.

And that something was unexpected to say the least. You came out holding their Album and a pen as your sweet smile made them know what your goal was. Yunjin was more than ecstatic to sign the album as she slowly began planning on how she'll write her number on the album. Kazuha was blushing as this was her one chance to get you more than just a player and as a friend. Perhaps down the line that friendship could evolve to something beautiful. Chaewon was feeling a little nervous as she was contemplating on whether or not she should be bold or keep her thoughts to herself. She wanted to know you more and be friends with you because she has this weird attraction towards you. Eunchae wants to have an NBA all star friend so she can boast it to her friends back at home.

But Sakura found this as an opportunity to find more about Rui. So when you went towards them holding their latest album, you kinda felt self conscious about yourself.

"Heh, Lesserafim Huh? Guess you girls have an NBA fan now."

Your words was all the thing they need to feel like they are on top of the world. Kazuha couldn't be more happier when you spoke those words. To her, this was the biggest dream come true for her. She couldn't be more proud of herself.

Chaewon was smiling ear to ear because she felt proud of their team as a whole. All their hardship and sacrifices has been paid off because now, they are being recognized by people who are adored and idolized in the world. That's not a feat that should be overlooked.

Yunjin on the other hand couldn't help but be proud of herself and to you. She knows the hardship you went through to get through here and she also have to give herself a pat on the back for this one. Her journey wasn't easy as well and there were many times where she though of quiting but she didn't. She pushed through and her determination proved to be rewarded.

"Can I have your autographs?"

You asked them and they happily complied. You were feeling nervous about getting your album signed by the artist themselves but you noticed how Yunjin turned the album around and wrote something else as a Smriks appeared on her face.

"Don't show this to the camera okay? It's my number~"

That made you blush as your eyes widen looking at her. Kazuha knew Yunjin already did something to make you blush so she did the same thing. After signing from the front, she turned it around and wrote her own number as she looked up to you blushing shyly. She quickly turned away with a blushing face but no words were needed to know her intentions.

Chaewon sighed as she already knew what those 2 did but she ended up doing it as well. After all she also has her own goals with you so this time, she choose to be a little selfish.

"That's my gift for winning tonight. Hehe~"

Again, Chaewon's cute voice really got you like a blushing mess as she was very dangerous for your heart. Eunchae followed what her Unnies did but instead of her number, she placed her IG account there.

"You have my permission to talk to me hehe~"

Eunchae's silliness made you chuckle as you almost forgot that 3 beautiful idols handed you their number like it was nothing. Sakura wrote her signature and didn't turn the album instead she asked you.

"Is Number 28 gonna walk here?"

"Oh Rui? Yeah he will. He's just busy doing some interview right now but he'll be here"

"Thank you and congrats on the win."

Sakura smiled as you thanked her and smiled as well. You took picture with the group and signed their custom jersey as well before they could depart in the arena. Yunjin and Kazuha wanted to stay with you more but their manager told them that they have to return back to their hotel now. As sad as it seems, everything wasn't in vain as they gave you a way to connect with them. It made you feel a little sad that you could have spent more time with them but that little time was enough for you.

You looked back at the album and you smiled a little knowing that something could start with this chance. But as you look further on the album, you saw an unfamiliar hand writing that says…

"MY LAKER STAR"

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Rui just finished his interview and was feeling great after that win. He was smiling ear to ear until a familiar person made him stop walking. Sakura closed her eyed before opening them and showing a bittersweet smile. A smile that hold so much emotion but has no happiness.

"It's been a while… Rui.."

"Sakura…."

[lets-try-some-writing]

Just read what you wrote about autobots reacting to rain, and now I'm wondering what would happen if they saw the kids jump into a pool full of chemicals (chlorine and whatever else they use to maintain a pool).

Basically, on a hot summer day the kids were complaining about the heat, so agent fowler got a pool for them to cool down in. The bots saw what the people assembling the pool put in the pool, and they freak out when the kids jump in with no hesitation.

Ooooooooooooooooh boy.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙

The bots do not like rain. On Cybertron, the stuff was acidic and capable of killing a mech through prolonged exposure. Even on Earth, they still aren't fond of it. Big bodies of water have received the same treatment. Not a spark likes them. Bumblebee may appreciate the rain and running in it off and on, but not a single Autobot enjoys any large body of water. Its wet, gets everywhere, and most notably, could hide any number of threats that they cannot see. Not to mention their very code demands they remain away from anything that even resembles and acid pool. Optimus is especially wary due to his time growing up in the wilds.

These fears were largely not an issue due to the bone dry nature of Jasper. But one hot summer day, the children decided it would be a grand idea to swim. The team knew in theory what the concept was. They had seen enough videos and were largely alright with the children swimming in purified water. If Ratchet could run scans and have them come back with nothing but majority H2O, the team could be content. As such when Agent Fowler finally caved in and got the children a pool for the base as well as all the necessary cleaning tools, the children were thrilled.

They constructed the pool in the training room just to make sure they didn't mess with any of Ratchet's stuff and promptly began filling it up. Bulkhead and Bumblebee were roped into getting buckets to help fill it up faster while the rest of the team hovered nearby to watch. Once the pool was ready, Miko threw in the filter and got the pool cleaning systems running before scurrying away with the others to get her suit on. The team didn't know what she had done but remained passive for a long moment until Ratchet got suspicious. He dipped a chemical tester into the pool water and scowled at it as he waited for the results. By the time he read them, the children had already canon balled into the water and begun laughing.

But of course that joy was short-lived as Ratchet all but screamed and demanded the team get the children out NOW. The medic hurried to try and do something but skidded on the water on the ground and promptly lost his balance. Upon reading the results of Ratchet's scan for themselves, the rest of the team lost their minds.

Smokescreen who had not wanted anything to do with the pool backed away screaming as the children splashed him. He scrubbed down his armor in terror and flew toward the washracks. Ultra Magnus, Wheeljack, and Bulkhead were too large to get near to the children and all three were similarly terrified of the "Contaminated' liquid. Bumblebee and Arcee were the only ones small enough to take one for the team and put a pede into the pool and carefully scoop up the children. They shrieked as the liquid seeped into their seams and both dropped to the ground as soon as the children were handed to Optimus. The Prime for his part mentally prepared himself to have mangled servos for the remainder of his functioning as he rushed to the nearest pure water source and sprayed down the children with the hose.

The children were not pleased at all to say the least. However as they watched the team huddle around staring at them and their own frames in horror, their anger faded quickly. They instead felt guilty as Smokescreen began wailing about how he was too young to end up like a mech called Kup. The entire team was lamenting their fates as Ratchet checked them all, the medic having already come to terms with the possible mutilation of his back if the "contaminated" liquid was as bad as he initially thought. Miko fussed over her Wreckers, Jack went to Arcee and tried to comfort her as she looked at her leg sadly, and Rafael did his best to explain.

It was only after the team had quite a while to realize that they were not about to be mutilated for life that they looked over the children and came to the conclusion that, like rain, the water wasn't going to kill them.

Rafael: "What your scans picked up were just some cleaning chemicals. Chlorine and a few other things."

Ratchet: "Those are dangerous aren't they?"

Rafael: "Well they can be in large quantities and some people's skin don't handle it well, but it won't kill a person unless they eat it or something."

Smokescreen: "So... we aren't about to die?"

Jack: "Well I think you would be dead already if that were the case."

Yet another instance of the team nearly losing their minds over a simple thing. The Wreckers almost passed out from relief and while Optimus will never admit it, he was genuinely terrified of losing his servos. Bumblebee and Arcee looked at each other with completely deadpan expressions, both murmuring about how they "should have expected this". Ratchet merely grumbled and shakily stopped planning how to tell June and Fowler that the children died from being turned into sludge under his supervision. At the same time Smokescreen had to hastily wipe his face to try and act as though he weren't two seconds from a breakdown.

The team never spoke of the incident again and collectively acted as though nothing happened whenever the children brought it up. It was agitating to the children, but they got back at the team once they were allowed back into the pool again. There was always a bot there to watch them just in case they started melting or something, and whoever the poor bot on duty was, they got splashed. Most flinched or stepped away, but Smokescreen always. screamed.

The children find it hilarious to this day.

[whimsicalpolitical]

Garden - Ross Macdonald

18+mdni in which ross and you spend a lovely evening planting vegetables, unlocking the ‘garden daddy’ in him. the day ends with soft loving on the couch

content warning: chest riding, mild dirty talk, fluff, p in v,riding

The sun dips gently below the horizon, casting a warm, golden light over the garden. You push open the door and step out onto the cool grass, the scent of blooming flowers and freshly cut lawn enveloping you in a fragrant embrace. The potting soil and cucumber seedlings, neatly packed in their delivery box, lie at your feet.

"Ross!" you call out, your voice carrying a mix of excitement and urgency. "Help me get this in.”

From around the corner, you hear a familiar chuckle, and Ross appears, his eyes twinkling. He's wiping his hands on a rag, a casual grin spreading across his face. "Eh, what’s all this then?" he asks.

“I ordered stuff for our garden remember?” You say, nodding your head at the big packages on your door step.

“Ah-ha stuff,” he chuckles, “let’s get this in then, you need to help me though, s’not like I can carry this alone.”

“Of course, let’s do this then,” you sound very exciting and you are. Gardening is one of the hobbies you love the most.

You and Ross struggle to maneuver the heavy bags of potting soil and cucumber seedlings, huffing and puffing as you lug them into the yard. The weight of the load strains your muscles, and a bead of sweat trickles down your forehead.

“Whew,” you gasp, fanning yourself with your hand. “This is already a workout.”

Ross laughs, wiping his brow. I think we’re going to need some wine to get through this evening.”

You chuckle, nodding in agreement. "Wine sounds perfect right about now."

He raises an eyebrow, his eyes twinkling mischievously. "Alright then, let’s make a deal. I’ll grab the wine, and you start unpacking these bags. Deal?"

"Deal," you reply, still catching your breath.

As Ross heads inside to fetch the wine, you set to work unpacking the seedlings and potting soil. You glance at the small, green cucumber plants, already envisioning the lush vines and crisp cucumbers they will soon yield. By the time Ross returns, a bottle of wine and two glasses in hand, you’ve arranged everything neatly on the ground.

"Here we go," he says, pouring each of you a generous glass. "To gardening and making it through with some semblance of sanity."

You clink your glass against his, the sound ringing out like a promise of teamwork. "To gardening," you agree, taking a refreshing sip.

Ross glances at the array of gardening tools and plants spread out before you. "So, what’s next, love?" he asks, his tone light.

"Next, we get these cucumbers planted," you say with a grin. "And don’t worry, it’s easier than it looks."

He raises an eyebrow, still skeptical but clearly amused. "You do remember that I'm absolute rubbish at gardening, right?"

"Last time, I managed to ruin everything. Everything, love.”

You shake your head, a smile tugging at your lips. "Nonsense," you reply, waving off his concern. "You just need the right teacher. Besides, how hard can it be to plant a few cucumbers?"

He lets out a laugh, taking another sip of his wine. "Alright, alright. Let’s give it a go then. Just promise you won't laugh too hard when I muck it up."

You roll your eyes playfully. "No promises. But let’s get to it. These cucumbers aren’t going to plant themselves."

Ross takes your glass from your hand and sets both on the table. He puts the bottle of wine in a huge ice bucket so it won’t get hot outside.

You kneel beside the garden bed and open the bags of soil, inhaling the earthy scent that wafts up. You start scooping the rich, dark soil into the garden bed, spreading it evenly with your hands. Ross watches for a moment, then follows your lead, albeit with a bit more hesitation.

"Just like this?" he asks, mimicking your movements.

"Yep, just like that," you assure him. "See? You're a natural."

As you work, you can’t help but laugh at the way Ross tentatively handles the soil, his brow furrowed in concentration. You show him how to create small mounds for the cucumber plants, spacing them carefully to give each one room to grow.

Next, you both set to planting the seedlings. You gently tease the young plants from their trays, careful not to damage their delicate roots. Ross watches, his eyes wide with fascination as you show him how to plant each one in its own little mound of soil.

“Just like this,” you say, demonstrating how to nestle the plant gently into the earth and pat the soil around it. “Easy, right?”

He nods, a little more confident now, and carefully plants his first cucumber seedling. "Look at that," he says with a grin. "Not bad for someone who can’t keep a houseplant alive."

"See? You're doing great!" you reply, smiling at his enthusiasm.

“Hm,” he hums, “thanks to my amazingly gorgeous teacher.”

You both continue planting, working side by side, occasionally standing up to take a sip of your wine.

Taking a break from the gardening, you sink onto the cool grass, legs stretched out and hands behind you, propping yourself up. You take a moment to catch your breath, enjoying the serene atmosphere and the scent of earth and greenery that fills the air.

Ross is still at it, kneeling in the garden bed with an amused determination. You watch him as he carefully pats down the soil around a seedling, his hands moving with a mix of hesitation and newfound confidence. He glances over at you, a smile playing at the corners of his lips, his eyes twinkling with that familiar warmth.

“I see how it is,” he says, “showing me what to do until you’re budging out f’ this, no?” He laughs.

You shake your head offensively, “can’t I catch my breath for a second? Besides, looks like you’re having fun.”

Ross snorts, “just want to get this done before it’s getting dark.” He hides the fact that this is amusing. He likes to spend time with you no matter what you’re doing, appreciating the precious time after tour.

As he shifts to grab the watering can, you notice the way his T-shirt clings to his frame, a testament to the effort he’s put in today. His broad shoulders and strong arms are slightly smudged with dirt, giving him an effortlessly handsome, earthy appeal. There’s something incredibly charming about seeing him in this natural, unguarded state, fully immersed in the simple task of nurturing young plants.

As you stand up, brushing the grass from your hands, you take one last sip of wine before setting the glass aside. You stretch your arms above your head, feeling a pleasant ache from the day's work, and then stride over to join Ross, who looks up with a welcoming smile.

“Back for more?” he asks, handing you a trowel with a playful glint in his eyes.

“Of course.”

Together, you resume the task of planting. You sink your hands into the cool earth, feeling the satisfying resistance of the soil as you carve out small holes for the next set of seedlings. The rhythm of planting becomes almost meditative, each movement deliberate and unhurried. You carefully place a tender cucumber plant into its new home, covering its roots gently with soil and patting it down with a reassuring touch.

Ross works beside you, occasionally glancing over to check your progress or to share a lighthearted comment. You watch as he tends to each plant with surprising attentiveness, his earlier apprehension replaced by a quiet confidence. There's a natural grace to his movements now, a balance of strength and gentleness that mirrors his personality.

The garden is taking shape around you, each row of plants standing tall and hopeful in the fading light. You pause for a moment, your hands resting in the soil, and look at Ross. His features are softened by the golden hues of the setting sun, the dirt smudges on his face adding a rugged charm to his look. His hair, dark and slightly tousled, falls just over his brow, and his eyes, warm and kind, meet yours with a look of shared satisfaction.

“We make a pretty good team,” you say, a note of pride in your voice.

He nods, smiling broadly. “Yeah, I think we do. Who knew gardening could be this fun?” He leans in, obviously wanting to kiss you but you laugh and cover his mouth with your hand.

“Have you seen yourself.” You laugh, his whole face and yours covered in dirt and sweat.

“So? C’mere.” Ross takes a step towards you and before you can flee, he wraps his arms around your waist, trapping you against his body.

He leans his head down, to capture your lips in a kiss. You groan as he smiles into the kiss, aware of the feeling on your lips. “Ross,” you whine, backing away from him.

“What?” He laughs, throwing his hands in the air, “it’s just a bit of dirt.”

“Well yes, that’s kind of the point.”

“Alright,” he says, turning away from you. He picks up the garden hose and you think he’s just going to water the freshly planted cucumbers. Instead he directs the hose at you before he turns it on. “Now better?” He jokes, laughing like a teenage boy at your wet face, water dripping down your shirt.

“Ross!” You yell, “are you serious?!”

You run towards him to take the weapon away from him, getting himself wet in the process. His now blue shirt looks more like black and his bun is ruined.

You’re standing closely together, in a truce, the soil abandoned on the floor and your bodies pressed together. You shudder at the disgusting feeling, not liking when your shirt is wet.

“Look what you’ve done,” you look down at yourselves.

He raises an eyebrow, his hands trailing down to squeeze your ass shamelessly. “What I’ve done?” He laughs, pulling you in for another kiss.

It’s more urgent now, his tongue sliding through your lips.

You find yourself lost in the kiss, the warmth of Ross's mouth mingling with the cool evening air. His hands roam over your back, pulling you closer, and you respond with equal fervor, savoring the moment. The garden around you fades into the background, your world narrowing to the heat of his body and the taste of his lips.

But then, a stray thought of the scattered tools and dirt-covered gloves brings you back to reality. You pull away reluctantly, your breath coming in soft gasps. “Ross, we need to clean up,” you murmur, glancing around at the garden bed littered with gardening tools and half-empty wine glasses.

Ross groans, his forehead resting against yours. “Do we have to?” he asks, his voice tinged with playful exasperation.

You chuckle, giving him a gentle nudge. “Yes, we do. Come on, you know we’ll regret it if we leave everything like this.”

With a resigned sigh, Ross releases you and takes a step back. He grabs the wine glass, tipping it back and taking a long sip, his eyes still smoldering with desire. “Alright, alright. Let’s clean up, but we’re picking up where we left off later,” he says, a mischievous smile playing on his lips.

You laugh, feeling a pleasant warmth spread through you at the thought. Together, you set about tidying the garden. You gather the scattered tools, placing them back in the storage box while Ross rolls up the garden hose, shaking out the excess water. The rhythmic tasks are soothing, a grounding counterpoint to the earlier heat of your embrace.

After a while, the garden is back in order. The tools are neatly stored, the plants are watered, and the wine glasses are empty but set aside for washing. You both stand back, surveying your handiwork with a shared sense of pride.

Ross wipes his hands on his jeans, smudging the dirt already there. He turns to you with a grin, his earlier frustration forgotten. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

You smile, feeling a deep sense of contentment. “No, it wasn’t. And now we have a beautiful garden to show for it.”

You smile and open the backyard door to go inside when you look down at each other.

“We need to get out of these clothes before we track dirt everywhere.” You laugh at the state of you.

Ross nods, a smirk playing on his lips as he surveys the dirt streaks on his own clothes. “Good idea. Wouldn’t want to ruin the floors.”

You start peeling off your grimy shirt, revealing a tanned, sweat-slicked body underneath. Ross follows suit, tugging his shirt over his head and exposing his broad chest, still glistening slightly from the exertion. He tosses the shirt aside with a flourish, a playful look in his eyes.

You can’t help but smile at his antics, feeling a flutter of excitement despite the dirt and exhaustion. As you reach for the button on your jeans, you catch Ross’s gaze lingering on you, his eyes darkening with that familiar heat. You slip out of your jeans, leaving them in a heap on the floor, and look up to find Ross doing the same, his jeans joining the pile with a quick, careless motion.

You can’t stand the heat, that’s why you mumble a quiet ‘gonna take a shower’ before you try to head inside.

Ross is faster though, his strong arms are around you, pulling you close. You yelp in surprise as he lifts you off your feet, your heart racing as he carries you effortlessly into the living room.

“Ross, what are you—” you start to protest, but your words are cut off as he lowers you onto the couch, his grin widening. The cushions sink beneath your weight, and before you can catch your breath, Ross is on top of you, his hands finding your hips and pulling you into his lap.

You gasp as you feel the warmth of his body against yours, the dirt and sweat mingling in a way that’s oddly intimate. Ross’s fingers trace patterns on your skin, his touch both gentle and possessive. “I can’t,” he murmurs, his voice low and husky. “You look ravishing like this.”

“Like this?” You chuckle, knowing that he means you looking like mud.

“Exactly like this.”

His hand on your cheek moves to the back of your neck, pulling you in for a kiss. It's soft, loving, his lips giving and taking everything at once. Your hands grip him, one in his hair, the other on his shoulder. His tongue runs over your top lip, asking for permission, you accept, holding onto his shoulder as tight as you can when his tongue begins sliding against yours.

His hands begin to roam, sliding over your naked body, fingers digging into your skin. You press more into the kiss, whimpering softly when he nips at your bottom lip. One of his hands moves down, ready to slip beneath the waistband of your underwear, you grab his wrist, breaking away from the kiss, “We can't, we’re getting the couch all dirty.

His brows furrow, one hand still holding onto your bare side, the sensation of his fingers makes you tremble.

He chuckles, shaking his wrist free from your grasp, “Too late, love, just stop worrying f’me.” His voice is low and breathy, making everything in your body tense and release.

“I-” you stutter against his neck, feeling his hands grasp your hips once more.

“Get up for a second,” he says, releasing you.

You stand up, looking at him confused. He smiles, moving back into the couch a bit, spreading his legs wider. Your eyes drift to the bulge in his pants, wondering if he wants you on your knees, but instead he moves you closer and pulls your panties down.

He pulls you onto his boxers.

He places a finger under your chin, making you look at him, using his other hand to grab your side again, god his hands are so big on your body. He pulls you into a bruising kiss, encouraging you to start moving your hips. You melt into the kiss, grinding against his bulge.

“Just like that, darling,” he groans, getting the friction.

Ross’ crotch is warm and firm between your legs, the pressure from your movements and the drag of your clit against his cock has you gasping. He kisses you wet and sloppy, moaning into it.

“Ross-“

You think when he grabs your hips and pulls you upwards he’ll grind you on his crotch again, but when he pulls you onto his belly you frown. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like, hm? C’mon, grind.”

You begin rolling your hips slowly, trying to get a feel for it. You are doing slow movements, grinding yourself up and down as you took your time.

The hairs on his stomach give you the extra friction that you didn't even know you needed, making you moan in pleasure.

Ross grabs onto your ass while he smirks at you. “Y’like that?”

"Uh huh, it feels so good," you mutter as your voice shakes from overwhelming pleasure.

You continue sliding yourself up and down on Ross’ stomach, while his hands hold onto your hips.

Ross enjoys watching your reaction, so much so, his boxers start to become hot and uncomfortable.

He lets go of your hips and grabs the waistband of his boxers. Ross wiggles a bit underneath you as he takes it off, kicking them off onto the floor.

"Ahh, that's more like it," Ross says as he sighs in relief.

"Feeling better?" you chuckle, reaching behind you, you give a quick tug on his cock.

Ross lets out a groan, followed by a small laugh. "S’much better.”

"Good," you drawl out with a smile. Leaning in, you press your lips against his, kissing him lovingly, and moaning into each other's mouths.

Pulling back from the kiss, you sit up, place your hands on his chest, and continue grinding on his stomach. After a few more minutes of you mewling in pleasure as you ride his stomach, you slide down far enough to where you feel the tip of his cock just barely entere inside you.

Ross clenches his teeth and digs his fingers into your skin as he moans, feeling the warmth and wetness from you, enveloping the head of his cock.

A small smug appears on your lips, you know he wants more. But of course, you couldn't just give it to him all now.

Deciding to mess with Ross, you don’t go down far enough and pull away.

Ross sighs out a 'fuck' followed by a groan of frustration. You continues to do this a couple more times, riding his big, hairy, doughy belly and then barely sliding the head of his dick in for just a few moments, only to be pulled out again.

You can tell Ross can’t take much more of the teasing anymore. He is whispering and moaning out pleas. His cock is uncontrollably twitching and dribbling with pre-cum.

“No teasing, missus,” he says, “wanted to do you a favor and you’re being’ unfair.”

You giggle and slide back down, right onto his dick. “Don’t want to, need you right now.”

“But-“

Ross never even thinks about his own pleasure before you didn’t finish and he rarely lets you take him without convincing.

“Feel me, I’m ready Ross, really really need you.”

Before he can object you’re already lining up your entrance with his tip.

“Christ, love, alright, you got me," Ross grunts when you lower yourself onto his shaft, your arms trembling as you use your thighs to hold yourself up with your head tucked into his shoulder.

“Take what you need.”

Ross lets you set your own pace, his hands holding your hips as his face scutches in bliss from the feeling of you.

The feeling of your heart beating so hard that he can feel it against his chest, his arm snaking around the curve of your waist to help you balance yourself out, listening to every small nose that parts from your lips.

“I love you Ross,” you whine.

As you shift your hips to slowly take all of him, coaxing the same moan from each other, Ross rests his head against your chest, pulling you in closer, practically hugging you as if his entire cock isn’t buried inside of you.

The feeling of him stretching the warmth of your walls makes you feel light-headed. Most of the time sex is like this with Ross. Sweet and slow and loving no matter who’s on top.

“I love you, darling,” he half groans pulling back to give you a sweet kiss on the lips.

Your hips stutter, raising them slowly before starting a more stable pace.

He tightens his grip around your waist, restarting himself to not snap his hips to match your pace, wanting you to have full control this time.

"Ross, fuck,” you mumble, the fan of your breath against his ear, slamming your hips and grinding against him. He feels like he is going to pass out.

"You feel so good," Ross rasps. "So fucking perfect." His words of encouragement make you feel drunk just from his words.

Your hips rocking at your own pace, it is starting to become unbearable on Ross’ side of things. His hips are trembling to the sound of your wet folds struggling to take him all the way down to the base.

The cool metal from his fingers brush against the warm skin of your thighs, his hips shifting up almost like he is struggling to restrain himself.

You look down and instantly recognized the pleading look, the look that tells you that he needed every inch of you. Your lips meet in approval as his hips bucked up into yours at his own pace.

“Keep going.”

Ross groans in agreement.

Your head drops in pleasure, resting your forehead against his shoulder, your moans echoing like a sweet tone in his ears.

He can feel the trembling in your legs, struggling to hold yourself up as he has his way with you.

“Forgive me, I’ll make it better in a second.”

The moment he pulls out of you, your insides feel weird, like a ghost of him still lingering inside of you pulling away as he picks you up by your thighs with a grunt, shifting your position so that you lie with your back against the couch.

There is a cute moment when the tip of his cock pressed against your opening, a dopey grin on his face being replaced with a moan that fell in rhythm with yours. You both feel reconnected, he slides his entire length back inside of you where you thought he belonged all along.

"S’better like this f’you, don’t have to hold yourself up," Ross explains, his voice low. "You gotta let yourself go, love. Come on, I know you want to." leaning down as you chase after his lips, kissing him deeply.

His tongue slides into your mouth, parting your lips as the rough skin of his thumb rubbed rough circles against your clit.

“Ross- I- fuck,” you moan against his mouth, too high on the edge to kiss him back. It’s just your lips against each other, messily trying to connect.

The new sensation is enough to drive you over the edge, and Ross is watching your body tense and tighten from under him. “S’good, darlin’ show me how good I make you feel.”

The feeling of you squeezing around his cock, drawing out his own orgasm, his thrusts stuttering as he continued to ride out yours.

His fist clench around the couch just beside your head as he ducks into the crook of your neck.

“jesus christ.”Grunting against your neck with every thrust, his orgasm un tumble the feeling from his eyelashes fluttering from squeezing his eyes closed as he falls limp against your chest, a breath being thrown from your lungs.

The feeling of Ross laying his entire weight against you comforts you and soothes you immediately.

He doesn’t pull out yet, kissing your shoulder up to your neck. “I can get used to planting shit ‘f it ends like this.”

You giggle and hit his lower back lightly but wrapping your legs around it at the same time, making sure he doesn’t leave. Ross is already familiar with how cuddly you are after sex and he doesn’t mind.

“I’m joking,” even though you can’t see it, you know he’s smiling against your skin in between kisses, “but we really need that shower now.”

Your gaze drops to the couch which is fully covered with dirty. Your eyes widen, “fuck,” you whisper which draws a chuckle out of ross, “how will we get this clean?”

“Don’t worry, I know how. Matty’s a proper child, I can’t tell you how many times he spilled things onto a carpet or couch.”

“Fine.” You’re not convinced but you have no other choice than to wait and see what he’s going to do.

For a few more minutes you stay like this, ross softening inside of you, giggling and keep kissing to show you just how much you love each other.

The both of you hiss when he pulls out of you but you’re close again when he lifts you into his arms again. “Let’s shower and then we’ll take a look at our masterpiece, yeah?”

“Mhm,” you hum, too tired to really say anything else. You let yourself fall against him, enjoying his presence in your home finally after he was gone so long. “S’go.”

“Think you’re a bit knackered.”

You shake your head but he’s right, he knows it and you know it.

“Alright then, let’s just stay awake for the shower okay?”

You manage until you both washed the dirt and sweat off of you, but when your back hits the bed you’re deep gone in sleep. Exhausted from all kinds of activities today.

[asolareclipses]

(Previous Part)

Taking a bus halfway across Maine was not on Nicos bucket list. Yet, there he was in a stuffy bus that looked, and smelled, like it had been made back in the 20’s—which Nico would know, he was there. Next to him Leo sat anything but still, his fingers drumming against the arm rests and occasionally grabbing things from his tool belt to tinker with. Sometimes he looked like a toddler hyped up on too much sugar. His constant movement comforted Nico though, it was a reminder that he wasn’t alone.

Of course he was still mad at Leo for ruining his genius plan to face a goddess alone, or at least he was trying to convince himself he was mad.

“Dude, this bus needs so much work.” Leo said, as he held up his freshly made penguin that consisted of various screws. “I’m not sure how they got it to last this long, it’s like beyond messed up.”

“Probably why the tickets were so cheap,” Nico replied as he watched the screw penguin’s head bobble around.

“I give it about an hour before it breaks down,” Leo suddenly paused, titling his head as if he were hearing something. “Scratch that she’s going down now.”

As soon as he said that the bus sputtered, losing speed as the driver pulled over to the side of the road.

“Sorry everyone, we seem to be having some problems.” The bus driver grumpily announced, he acted as if this were a regular occasion.

“It’s my time to shine,” Leo grinned as he stood up from the seat. “Don’t worry mortals, Leo’s got this all under control.”

“Please ignore him,” Nico gave the few confused passengers a smile as he pushed Leo towards the door. “You can just call people mortals.”

“Oops,” Leo shrugged as he hopped down from the last bus step onto the pavement. “Anyways let’s see what’s up with this bad boy.”

Nico rolled his eyes as Leo popped open the hood of the bus to reveal the engine. The driver appeared shocked, as Leo shouldn’t have been able to just open it without releasing the latch.

“Hey kid, what do you think you’re doing?” The driver called out as he slowly made his way out of the bus.

“Just fixing up some stuff, don’t mind me.” Leo didn’t even look up as he pulled some tools out of his belt.

Nico was about to try and mediate the situation when he realized something was wrong. Back in the bus he hadn’t noticed it due to the overpowering musk of age, but the driver was most definitely a monster.

By the change of expression on the drivers face, Nico saw that he too realized they weren’t just regular mortals. Leo was, of course, oblivious to this.

“Looks like I have a rat problem,” The bus driver snarled in their direction.

“Nope, not rats, just a really rusted battery.” Leo offhandedly replied.

“Leo, he’s not talking about the bus.” Nico nudged him, as the mist around the driver began to evaporate, morphing his two eyes into one.

“Then what is he-holy smokes!” Leo dropped his wrench in surprise as he saw the undercover cyclopes be revealed.

“Should’ve known you demigods would’ve snuck in here sooner or later,” The driver clenched his bulky fists as if preparing himself to attack.

Nico scanned the area for any makeshift weapon, he was really regretting leaving his sword behind.

“Hey buddy,” Leo raised his hands in attempt to reason, “I’ll fix your bus for free, how about you don’t kill us?”

“Killing you is much better than driving this piece of junk,” His eye was focused on Nico as he spoke. “Especially you, you reek of the underworld.”

“And you reek of spoiled eggs,” Nico snapped back, “at least I have an excuse, what’s yours?”

The cyclopes didn’t like that, which was made apparent by him grabbing a chunk of dirt and lobbing it towards them.

“Hit the deck!” Leo called, which didn’t really apply to them as there was no ‘deck’ but Nico didn’t point that out. Instead, he dropped to the floor as the piece of earth sailed past their heads.

“Leo, does your tool belt supply weapons?” Nico asked while the cyclopes reloaded on dirt.

Leo rummaged for a moment before pulling out a weird hatchet-hammer tool, which later Nico found out was a drywall hammer. “How’s this?”

“Good enough,” Nico said as he grabbed the hammer thing.

Another mound of dirt flew towards them but it was blasted to dust when Leo shot a ball of fire towards it. “Take that dirt boy!” He screamed.

Using Leo as a distraction Nico bolted off to the side, running around the bus so that he ended up behind the cyclopes. Unfortunately the cyclopes seemed to have predicted this as he quickly spun around, his arm slamming into Nico resulting in him being thrown into the side of the bus.

Before the cyclopes could do anymore damage Leo screamed, “Take this dirt face!” Then a wrench bounced off the back of the cyclopes’s head.

A flash of rage appeared on the cyclopes’s face as he turned towards Leo, grabbing an extra large chunk of dirt. “Oh you’re going to regret that.”

“I am?” Leo asked with a grin.

The cyclopes had forgotten about Nico leaving him the perfect opportunity, “I will crush you-” The cyclopes stopped mid sentence as Nico stabbed the hatchet into his back. Then with a look of shock, he erupted into dust.

“Nice!” Leo called out.

“Yeah..” Nico winced as he looked down at his arm, the bandages had been soaked through with blood after the hard hit he took.

“Dude, ouch.” Leo’s smile dropped as his eyes moved over the once white gauze.

“It’s fine,” Nico sighed looking back towards the bus, “more importantly. What are we going to do now?”

Leo seemed to realize they were now faced with a bus full of angry commuters, with no bus driver, and still had about 150 miles to go. “Right, looks like we’re taking a ride on the Leo express!”

—

Leo knew how to drive, mostly.

While he’d never taken the time to get an official license, he knew machines better than anyone. A bus was certainly easier to handle than a giant flying ship.

Fixing the engine was also a piece of cake.

The difficult part was the passengers, turns out they weren’t thrilled by the sudden staff change.

“There’s no way we can just let a 15 year old drive!”

“Hey!” Leo snapped at the lady who looked like she was about to demand to speak to his supervisor. “I’ll have you know i’m 18!”

“Do you even have a license?”

“Now now, everyone calm down. Listen, i’m a trained professional.” Leo shrugged with his palms up, “I mean, do you want to stay on the side of the road forever?”

The bus went quiet with defeat.

“Right, well then sit down, get comfortable, because the Leo train is leaving the station!” Leo didn’t get the cheers and applause he expected from that statement, just a few groans and unpleasant mutters.

Soon, the bus was driving smoothly across the roads and Leo barely had to pay attention as he’d fixed up a temporary autopilot gadget. Beside him, Nico winced as he removed the bandages from his scratches. Somehow the wound looked worse.

“Dude, that looks really bad,” Leo frowned as he pulled out more bandages from his tool belt.

“It’s fine,” Nico mumbled, not even looking up at Leo.

“Yeah you keep saying that but I’ve yet to start believing it.”

Nico wrapped the bandages carefully around his arm, gritting his teeth as he tried to hide the pain. “It’s just a scratch, i’ve seen worse.”

That didn’t comfort Leo, in fact in made him feel worse. Of course, it’s only expected that a demigod face some pretty rough injuries here and there—Leo himself had seen quite a few. But Nico’s insistence on ignoring his pain made Leo worried that if it were to be serious, he’d never know.

Despite that, he knew arguing would just make Nico more annoyed, so he tried to liven up the atmosphere. “You know, if we were in an episode of the Magic School Bus right now you’d be Arnold.”

“What the Hades is the Magic School Bus?” Nico looked at Leo as if he were crazy.

Leo threw his head back in exasperation, “You’ve got to be joking! You don’t know the Frizz?”

“The what?”

“That’s it, i’m making a list of all the things you need to watch when we get back to camp.”

“Whatever,” Nico rolled his eyes, “as long as you don’t put Twilight on there i’m happy.”

“Hold up, Twilight?” Leo tried and failed to hold back a smile.

“Yeah, Will told me it was iconic, or whatever.” Nico paused as if remembering something unpleasant, “If iconic means torturous, then it surely was.”

Leo burst into laughter at the thought of Nico actually watching Twilight, “Dont worry, we will not be watching any vampire shows.”

The rest of the ride was spent with Leo determining what things Nico had and hadn’t watched. Turns out Will had caught him up on quite a lot, but Leo still developed a lengthy list of things he would bless Nico with. In a way Nico’s unawareness of modern culture reminded him of Jason, due to his upbringing by wolves he was a bit out of the loop when it came to many popular things. Leo figured he’d do a “modern culture” class at camp, maybe invite Hazel. The idea made him smile, it was something to look forward to.

Eventually, they made it to the bus station, where he and Nico quickly snuck away to avoid suspicion. To their luck no one at the station had realized what happened until they were long gone.

Not to their luck, they still had a five mile walk ahead of them.

They spent a large part of the walk in silence, as it was hard to focus on anything other than the heat. Eventually, Leo got bored and tried to think about anything else, his mind wandering back to their previous conversation.

“I’m really wishing I had a magic school bus right about now,” Leo whined as he trudged forward. The warm air was now unpleasant as the sun beamed down upon him.

“And i’m really wishing I left you back at camp.”

“Hey!” Leo glared at Nico who bit back a smile, “You’re lucky! I blessed you with my company.”

Nico scoffed, “Right, blessed, that’s the word I was looking for.”

“Why does this place have to be out in the middle of nowhere?” Leo asked as he peered into the distance in hopes of seeing the outline of the school.

“Guess they didn’t want any kids running off,” Nico shrugged. “Honestly I don’t remember much about it, I was only there for like a year?” He seemed to think about it for a moment before giving up.

“That was after the casino?” Leo asked, he decided to take this as a chance to ask more about Nico’s past. It was the one topic Nico avoided, or maybe Leo was the one who avoided it, after all he knew how much old memories could hurt.

“Yeah, time felt so messed up back then. I mean it was like seventy years? But then suddenly i’m in the 20th century at some school in a state i’d never heard of before.” Nico sighed, “Not sure how I wasn’t more confused, it just felt normal, or whatever I thought normal was.”

Leo nodded, he was afraid to speak, careful to not scare Nico away.

“You don’t have to be so on edge,” Nico turned to look at him, almost as if he’d read his mind.

“I’m not...” Leo paused, “It’s just you’ve never talked in depth about this stuff with me before.”

“Yeah, I hadn’t talked about it with anyone until Will. But Mr. D says ‘talking is good,’ so might as well take his advice for once.”

The idea of Mr. D being a therapist threw Leo for a loop but he didn’t say anything about it, “Yeah, I guess I never really told anyone about all my stuff until Jason.”

Nico suddenly smirked, “You too seem pretty close.”

Leo’s face flushed red as he avoided Nico’s eyes, “What? No-I mean, of course we’re close, we’re best friends. Totally platonic best friends.”

“Right, and I totally believe you.” Nico rolled his eyes with a grin. There was a peaceful silence for a split second before Nico’s smile faded. Now, in the distance the outline of a large school could be seen.

Nico sighed, a hesitant look flashing across his face before he spoke, “We’re here. Welcome to Westover.”

Part Six

[sunnydaze4ever]

this might like seem strange or not a very forward idea but can you do qiu and tamarack with a reader who has a bunch of chalk? like they go outside and just use their chalk all the time?

I decided to make headcanons out of this, lmk if you meant a Drabble!

Qiu Lin x Reader, Tamarack Baumann x reader

Them with an MC who uses lots of chalk

Fluff, Platonic/could be romantic

———————

Them seeing your chalk for the first time:

- Tamarack learned this fun fact on a Sunday afternoon

- Honestly, it’s surprising she didn’t find out earlier

- There were no plans with the boy’s club that day, no shopping to do, and not many ideas in your head

- So you went to your last resort; Chalk.

- A while back, on a boring shopping trip with your mom before even Golden Grove, you spotted a large bucket of chalk. Not only that, a cheap large bucket of chalk

- One cheap enough for your money to afford on your own! So your mom ended up letting you buy it

- Anyway, back to that sunday

- You were currently drawing some mushrooms you had seen in the forest the previous day along with other doodles

- Until Tamarack popped up

- She had been walking out to go to the forest. She was going to ask if you wanted to explore around until she peeked over your shoulder and saw your doodles

- Let me tell you, she lit up.

- “That looks so cool!” She said. You two spent the rest of the day doodling away on the sidewalk

- Qiu had found out when he had returned home from Darren’s house to find you and Tamarack huddled over a bit of the sidewalk

- Honestly, you looked like you were scheming.

- So he, of course, asked what you were doing.

- To which you and Tamarack revealed your masterpiece of pastel pink and yellow and blues.

- After a few compliments from Qiu’s end, he ended up joining in till dinner!

- Which is one of the few times you’ve seen him so far without his gloves (he didn’t want chalk on them)

———————

Now more general stuff:

- Tamarack, as she stated, thinks it's pretty cool!

- I like to think she has some chalk, but nowhere near the range of colors you do!

- And she doesn’t use them nearly as frequently

- Anyway! She likes to doodle with you sometimes

- Even more she likes to watch you cover the sidewalk all the way from her house to Qiu’s in chalk (If your determined/bored enough to do that much)

- Lets just say both of you are disappointed when it rains

- If you draw her, she’ll be super happy!

- She also likes drawing you sometimes if your both using the chalk

- If she’s drawing with you, she likes using red and yellow because it reminds her of the forest

- Qiu also thinks it’s pretty nice

- Doodle buddies? Doodle buddies.

- The only difference is yours are more colorful and on the ground while his end up on the ground

- Sometimes the two of you will draw similar things but you with chalk usually and him with his notebook

- He likes using your chalk too! But he doesn’t as much as Tamarack might.

- He’ll laugh if he sees you’ve covered the whole houses area with chalk

- If your sad about it washing away, he might suggest using a more permanent drawing tool

- He’ll compliment your drawings and if you bring them up compliment them to Baxter and Darren!

- If he’s using your chalks, he’ll mostly use the yellows and oranges

———————

[bomberqueen17]

deep in the obsession

ok so IDK how much I've talked about my Special Interest in the Bronze Age on here. At one point (like nanowrimo of 2003 or so) I was trying to write a novel set in the British Isles Bronze Age and I researched as much as I could and there just wasn't much information and I wrote some stuff anyway but it petered out. And ever since then I've kept checking back on various avenues of research and every time there's a new find I'd read as much as I could find about it. And then they discovered the remains of a pile-dwelling settlement in the Fens in England and they've finally just now published the results of that? Well of course I've been obsessively reading about it. (I had actually emailed the Cambridge Archaeology Unit a couple of months ago to ask where I could find the publications, so the timing was good.)

I mean the long and short of it is, they've got a site exposed by modern quarrying activity, which consists of five remaining buildings, which burned down and collapsed into the river channel with all their contents in the 9th century BC; the inhabitants escaped with very few of their possessions, and the rest of the assembly of the items they used in their daily lives are largely present, very well-preserved; whole sets of pots and woodworking tools, as well as textiles and textile-processing materials, foodstuffs, wooden tools, and enough building materials to almost entirely reconstruct their dwellings; a enormous wealth of information about their diets, their ways of living, even some feel for their aesthetic sensibilities. The circumstances of the buildings' collapse even means we know how they laid out their living spaces.

So I am going to infodump about what I've pulled out of these rather dense and dry reports (I have zero complaints, they're perfectly appropriately-written), so buckle up.

Firstly, if you want to read these yourself, the publications are open access PDFs hosted on the Cambridge Archaeology Unit's website here.

There are also a fantastic series of blog posts both from during the excavation and from during the initial analytical "post-ex" phase on the site's website, which I devoured while waiting for the final reports.

I admit I was first drawn to the whole thing, when I first saw stories about it, because of the mystery. It seems to have been a whole settlement, a village maybe, and it all burned down at once, and no humans seem to have died in it, but everyone left everything behind, even leaving a dog in one of the buildings, and some penned little lambs in a couple of them-- what caused this? Were they attacked? Were they forced out of it? It had a palisade around it as if for defense, did they build it because they were afraid, and rightfully so?? Why did they not come back to try to salvage anything? The water would have been shallow, surely they could at least get their axe-heads and things back.

But the thing that has sustained my interest now is that it appears to have been an unexceptional village after all. There's no evidence that these were elite people living here. There weren't any unambiguous weapons found-- part of a broken sword, in what was obviously a recycle bin (a wooden bucket), waiting along with some broken chisels and a bent axe and part of a broken bronze bucket for a trip back to the nearest metalworker. Some spears, but likely used for hunting, stored outside the houses all together leaned up against the palisade under an overhanging roof eave. Axes, but the sheer quantity of woodworking in the site means they were very obviously woodworking tools, and weapons only by technicality.

Other contemporaneous sites are preserved so incompletely that there are always "was this a place people dwelled or was it a ceremonial gathering place" kinds of questions. Artifacts are found either discarded in middens, broken, or deposited in hoards, "ceremonially?". But all this stuff is in-context, in the house, which burned down and collapsed straight down. This was the kitchen area, obviously; all the houses had most of their pots in the same approximate spot, caches of grain in the same area. This corner is where we find stuff they were working on-- one house has probably a loom, and tons of textile-related stuff scattered around it. (There's only evidence for a loom in one or maybe two of the buildings, but there are spindle whorls and bobbins of thread in three; several spinners providing one weaver, as is common throughout history.)

Some of the pots had been broken before the fire, and some of them had been partially discarded and partially kept, like for example a well-shaped broken bit of rim was being used as a scoop or something, while the little unusable shards had gotten chucked into the river where they threw their trash; the archaeologists could reunite fragments to prove this, and could derive the information that these shards would all be associated with the same house; they weren't shared, they were using the broken pot in the same house where they'd used it before it was broken; they seem to have cooked their meals separately, and kept separate inventory of basic household necessities. But the extra stuff seems to have been stored in the communal storage shed, so they could all get to it.

There's a large but incomplete sheet of bark that in places has a second sheet adhered to it with moss in between, which was likely bedding.

There are textiles, not just woven ones but also weft-twined ones made from lime bast cord-- mats, or hats, or capes. There's a knotted fishing net that was rolled up and in a pile with other things in an area that seems to have been a storage shed of sorts. (Near the "recycle bin" full of broken metal.) There's a collection of prepared fiber, ready to be made into cordage or spun into thread, and it's all prepared the same way in standard-sized bundles-- tantalizingly, regular enough as if for trade, stored in that storage shed next to a nested set of new pots-- like somebody had bought or made them and they weren't put to use yet, OR someone had made extra they intended to trade offsite for stuff they couldn't make themselves.

The whole sets of pots are broadly the same among households-- similar numbers of large vs. small, coarse vs. fine. They all resemble one another, though some are better-made than others-- as if several people made them, but under the guidance of one experienced worker.

Several pots and wooden containers have food residues. Hauntingly, there's a ceramic pot that was still half-full of porridge, with a wooden spatula/spoon still stuck in it. The porridge was made of ground wheat cooked in a liquid containing animal fats from a ruminant-- either sheep/goat or red deer-- possibly an early example of frumenty.

Enough of the structural timbers remain from the buildings, many with markings on them from where other structural elements were touching them and alternately exposed/protected them from fire so it is possible to reconstruct shapes and connections in more detail than if they were unburnt ruins, that the buildings can be nearly completely reconstructed, which is novel because most buildings of this era are known only from footprints/post holes. Almost no material survived from the walls, but because of these ghost "protection marks" it's possible to know that the walls existed, how wide they were, that they were attached in a particular spot, that they were made of a series of small uprights-- and to then surmise that some of the fragments of "wattle", woven panels, must have come from the walls in some cases. And it's possible to reconstruct the innovative, never-elsewhere-seen sprung floor system of bowed joists that kept the floors securely above the water below.

Anyway, I've devoured Vol I and am most of the way through scouring Vol II for interesting tidbits.

Yes of course I want to write a novel with this as the setting but I also am just completely fascinated.

[l3xdrigo]

I had silly thoughts run into my mind, Regulus igniting Vertin's passion to do art again by showing her an abandoned wall and bringing spray paint.

Vertin is more traditionally on painting but she has known about spray paint and has been wanting to try them for a long time and Regulus gives her the opportunity to test them out.

When first picking up one of the spray cans, she's not sure what she wants to create, what type of mural or artwork. Vertin is pretty unfamiliar on how to work with such a big canvas, and with a tool she hasn't quite got the grasp of yet. Regulus comes back with a bunch of paint buckets and big and small paintbrushes "What are these for? " "To help us with the painting of course, I may not be the best at any painting stuff but this pirate is passionate in anything art based and the freedom of expression! " Regulus happily chimed.

Vertin was grateful but she's not sure what to make yet, so she asked Regulus who gave her one of the buckets of paint, puzzled, she looks at Regulus "what am I supposed to do with this? "

"Throw it of course! Throw it against the wall and watch it splatter, let it be messy, let your artwork be free. It has been awhile since you last painted yes? So why not let all your creative ideas out now? "

Vertin looks at Regulus and then to the paint bucket in her hands, the swirling color inside it, she knows what she needs to do. Taking a slight step back, she throws the paint out of the bucket towards the wall, making a huge splatter to it and some to themselves as well. Regulus let's out a cheer "There ya go! Now, Let's get painting!"

Splashes of colors added to the wall, the more added, the more Vertin felt free. The paint flowing down like raindrops, the lines of contrasting colors overlapping each other, using the spray paints to add more texture and little designs and details. It was messy yes, but it was free, Regulus smiling wildly as she continues to paint the already very colorful wall, this felt nice, it felt great. Vertin was smiling, laughing even at times where they get hit with splashes of paint, Regulus's joy has been contagious and seeing Vertin happy made Regulus even more joyful.

After finally finishing their artwork, both sat down on the ground, facing what they've created. It was a messy mural, with designs of their interest, a music disk, some doves, a golden thread, butterflies and much more. Both were covered in paint and colors, it'll take a while to get them off but that's the least of their worries for now. "I think this pirate can say that, that is one beautiful mural" "It is, thank you Regulus, for bringing me out here and doing this" "No problem, you've been cooped up in that office for days now, I think you deserved a break.. And you did tell me you liked painting so, this was the best idea I could come up with" "One of the ideas you had that didn't end in disaster *pfft*" "Oi-"

Both bickered for a bit, laughing and giggling like children. It's moments like these that make all the work and sacrifices worth it, even with the weight of responsibility of being the timekeeper, others are lending a hand to carry the weight, just like Regulus. Both sat there, as the sun sets and hope rebuilds.

(Or platonic soulmate Reguvert my beloveds<333)

Bonus:

As both sat quietly, a song from the radio that Regulus brought suddenly plays "Oh hell yeah! I love this song.. Say Vertin, do you dance? "

The timekeeper pondered for a bit and gave her an answer "I do, why? "

"Well, would you like to dance with this pirate? I think that'll be fun"Regulus stood up and stretched out her hand, Vertin, slightly surprised by the sudden request, but accepted it, taking Regulus's hand into hers.

" Though be aware that this pirate may not be the best at dancing, but will certainly try her best" It's been awhile since both had danced, and more so with someone but none of that mattered right now, they're just here to have fun. Dancing to the beat of the music, as both moved to the rhythm, a few slip up's here and there but is still going strong. Going with the flow of the music, both have actually made a good dancing pair, being able to move to the rhythm easily and adjusting their movements to near perfection. Despite not even having steps in mind, both have their own, synchronized and adapting as the music goes on. It felt like walking on air as they continued to dance, they kept this on till the music ended and both were exhausted.

"I must say, you're a great dancer Regulus"

"Thanks, you're not half bad yourself, we should do this more often" "I'll check if my schedule can free up a bit"

They realized that it was near dark soon, both headed back into the suitcase, walking and talking about their interest, plans and anything really. They've grown into each other's company, and they wouldn't have it any other way, a captain and her second best mate, a bellwether and her first follower.

[kishdoodles]

Treebark Week 2024 - A Post-Mortem

Hi! If you haven’t seen, I have released seven (7!) videos for Treebark Week 2024! This wall of text is my behind the scenes and also post-mortem thoughts on the project, which I found worth documenting.

Even if you don’t end up reading the text, I appreciate every comment, tag, and view my videos get. I did it for the fun of it and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do it for the attention. I did, because I think these videos are the funniest things I’ve ever released. Shoutout to @thefluxqueen for being my partner in crime and confidant for these. You saw my vision.

I wanted to do something for Treebark week but admittedly I had noooo idea. So this whole gimmick was a fun set up for me to stretch my creativity in. What started as “I’m just going to do everything in mspaint with a mouse” spiraled to “I think it’s going to get boring if everything’s in the same style, so I’m going to have to do something different everyday.”

The important factor to me throughout all of this is earnesty.

Even if its life started as a joke, this project is a love letter in every respect. This is what I grew up on, this is the YouTube that is precious to me. Capturing this era of time in 7 videos is all at once easy, yet surprisingly laborious.

First I planned the songs. Fitting the songs with the prompts was a brain scratcher, but once we (me and Spain) had a few in the rest slotted in pretty easily. Common thread was, of course, any popular song from the mid-late 2000s.

The first confirmed song was Sugar, Sugar for Sweet (Day 2) courtesy of Spain, given the Eddsworld video. We had a few songs for Burn (Day 3) or Infernal (Day 4) which we threw out (Elli Goulding’s Burn, 2NE1’s Fire, Steam Powered Giraffe’s Fire Fire, etc.) I ended up digging through my old playlist and listened to 20% Cooler, which after a realization I immediately slotted it for Frost (Day 1). Spain brought up the Heat Waves parody (Cold Spells) for Frost too, to which I realized I could just do regular Heat Waves, so that became what I did for Burn.

Bring Me To Life was brought to my attention (I forgot how, maybe Youtube recommendations?) and with the lyrics, it became the song for Blood (Day 7). The all time classic, Angel with a Shotgun, fit in nicely with the prompt of Divine (Day 4), so there was no contest. Another classic, Everytime We Touch, was harder to fit but I eventually reasoned through the prompts enough to fit it with Lips (Day 5) (the everytime we kiss part).

At this point, nothing I’ve found fit Day 6 (picnic/garden/strawberry) at ALL. So I decided the only way I knew how. RANDOM CHOICE!

Mad World won but that was a trap, for I have biased myself toward Animal I’ve Become at that point and it almost won, so I went with that instead. This is a lawless land. 

-

The actual video ideas really came to me in piecemeal, so I’ll explain how I got each idea as I cover each day in order of when I completed them. 

20% Cooler (Day 1) was the most straightforward of the days. It was done in 1 hour and 30 minutes and I was purposefully being extremely literal about the lyrics. I already had the vision for what I want, and I didn’t want to care about quality all that much, so it came together really fast. 

For my process, I lined with mspaint brush and then bucket tooled with default colours. I took advantage of the new layer system mspaint added for some scenes, but otherwise it was as simple as just drawing. (Pictured, 3 layers for 2 scenes.)

It was really easy to just quickly edit in Windows Movie Maker 6 too, I just dragged the pictures in, slapped effects, roughly timed everything and it’s done.

Programs used: mspaint, Windows Movie Maker 6

-

Sugar, Sugar (Day 2) was an honest effort at avoiding any complicated animations. I initially thought of doing an animation similar to the original video that inspired the song choice, but eventually scaled back because. I don’t want to animate. 

Thus came the decision of subject matter. I ended up settling on the demon roleplay because I thought it was the campiest thing in the world. And it was a sweet reunion, no? The lyrics just fit the vibe, and in a moment of brilliance (hitting the showers) I thought to make a visual novel. One reflective of old flash games and like the visual novels of cultural zeitgeist at the time.

I’ve known about Ren’py for quite some time now, but I’ve never properly learned how to use it. For this my task was simple. Find out how to change sprites, backgrounds, and move people into the scene.

Sprites and backgrounds were easy, so those were the first things I did. Ren’s sprites were inspired in design by Demon Hunters in the Warcraft world, mostly because I was playing a lot of Hearthstone and liked the idea. Martyn’s sprite style was inspired by early 2000s anime visual novels, like Higurashi (though I’ve personally never consumed it nor do I actually recommend consuming this piece of media (neutral) its ripple throughout the anime community was felt. Notably, parodies of the anime’s opening were very popular.) I toned back the stylizations, but trust me when I say that Martyn’s hands were purposefully big to be yaoi hands. It didn’t end up that big, and I did not give him the dorito chin here so, immense self control on my part (or cowardice?). False and Joel were just my regular style. For all this I used my tablet instead of my mouse.

The programming part was a little troublesome, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t google, so it got done pretty fast. There’s other small bits, like how I mismatched the background sizes, the sprite sizes (with each other)(minorly) but for the most part it came together pretty quick. Once the VN was done, it was just about recording it. So I put on the song, and danced along.

[You can download the VN here]

Programs used: Ren’Py, OBS, mspaint, After Effects (just to move the scene over at the beginning)

-

So I knew I wanted a classic style AMV, so that eventually became Everytime We Touch (Day 5). 

The pictures mostly come from a discord server I’m in (hi [redacted]!!!!) and I thought of it like a nice homage to the insanity we had in there. Bless all of you guys, you guys were the ones I wanted this series to be made for the most.

Not much to say beyond that, besides me just editing it all on movie maker as usual.

Programs used: Windows Movie Maker 6

-

Angel With a Shotgun (Day 4) was the last to be planned for. I predicted it was going to be the easiest to make on the fly (it was) and just kind of winged it. I wanted a unique style still for it though, and the idea of drawing their cubitos came pretty late. 

I was not exempt from this trend in my youth (my art in mspaint, age 11, me and my sister)

The rest was history. Just kidding, I really wanted something to do with the shotgun thing so I literally searched “shotgun” in Curseforge and got MrCrayfish’s gun mod just for the shotgun. I loaded up the 3rd Life world I had from my Broken Lives animatic (it’s a custom made world using the seed) and just got to work with FreeCam and OBS (it’s my first time with FreeCam too!)

A rejected clip I didn’t use because of skin consistency / continuity.

Programs used: Minecraft, mspaint, Windows Movie Maker 6

-

Heat Waves (Day 3) acquired a pixel art style as an homage to its original lyric video. People have said it reminded them of Homestuck, which I honestly don’t mind. It fits the era and I did grow up with it. It kinda looped back in on itself that way.

I blame this frame, here's it as a gif which lies unused.

For the video, the more I rewatched bits of Last Life for it (it’s been a while!) I realized it had a lot more potential than I initially thought. Though I doubt most of it didn’t come through in the final product (I limit these videos to a minute or less, if possible, excepting credits and allowing few more seconds over the minute mark so long as it felt warranted), I tried to cram in what I thought fitting to the prompt the whole time.

The watch tower burning was an easy pick, a classic Treebark moment you might say. For the rest of it, the nuance laid a lot in how Martyn presented the Shadow Alliance. “The Dog, The Shadow, The Roots. We make this place burn.” Under the eyes of the moon, it witnessed this pact form, and its resolution for the server. The moon is included in multiple frames because of this, as a stand-in for the eye of the Watcher(s) I included at the start, watching Martyn through the series.

In a lot of ways, how Lizzie and BigB turned red I also found fascinating. Lava and explosions you could argue are an extension of burning and fire, and an explosion was also how Martyn left the series. Ren, from the start of this alliance, inexplicably committed to and saw through what ultimately rips the people he was loyal to away from him. 

Martyn on the other hand, I drew in the later portions quite aware of the position he’s in, hence only his eye in the frame with the last 4 folks. This to me starts a path for him toward where he goes in the later serieses (notably in Limited Life). This is all very “vibes” and instinctual kind of “trust me on this” sort of read on c!Martyn honestly.

On missed opportunities, I’m almost upset at how I never brought up the moment Martyn buys a love crystal from Scar (never used, it got blown up) which I (and a lot of other) may have delusionally thought it was for Ren. Besides that, I never had a chance to desaturate the colours in the video leaving only red (which Ren did upon the encounter of the establishment of the Moon Cult)(it really emphasized Martyn’s lips!), I tried just plain desaturating, but ended up ditching it since it never felt like it jived well with the rest of the video.

All that aside, I finished this one really late (for me, which was past midnight on the day it was going to be posted), so I’m glad it was out on time. It’s the one I put in the most effort for, and I’m glad to see people enjoy it.

The eye on its own, which reveals the Watcher symbol I accidentally did in the wrong orientation. Oops!

Programs used: Aseprite, After Effects

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Animal I Have Become (Day 6) was thought on for a while. Eventually I have my eureka moment and I thought it was a nice shout out to the Bannedstory community who I’ve followed in my early days, where I’d watch animations of people’s custom OCs (original characters) made with Maplestory sprites animated to audio clips that I really wasn’t supposed to be listening to at the time lol. That, and all the online games and the like I grew up with on the early internet. I personally didn’t partake in it, but roleplaying on those was a common sight, and I found it endearing. 

My partner in crime for this day in particular was @thefluxqueen, because I really can’t be bothered with character customization for a lot of these games (I respect the craft but I lack the patience), but I knew who LOVED doing that. He really knocked it out of the park, helping me do the Gachalife, Club Penguin, and the characters for Animal Jam and Ponytown. For the latter, they handed me the account information and we just went to town.

A Treebark stream in a just world.

I can’t tell you exactly how I assigned the lyrics, but I definitely assigned the animal sections during the chorus so it was a surprise (and so it also fit the lyrics). I did have fun recording and we had a fun time in Ponytown. We were shown where other mcyt fans are by a Grian pony (Hermit Hill) and then we hung out there sitting down while we workshopped the Bannedstory segments with both our sonas together. All in all a great time.

It took a few takes.

Programs used: Bannedstory 3 (I would’ve loved to use 4, I grew up with that!), Gachalife, Club Penguin, Animal Jam, Ponytown, Windows Movie Maker 6, OBS

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For Bring Me to Life (Day 7)... I ended up getting more attached to the thought of it the longer this project went on. 

I wanted it to be the end all be all, go out with a bang and everything. I kept thinking and thinking, how do I end Treebark week? After a week of homages, how do I make the last one?

What’s beyond my childhood? It was just growing up. But it’s not like I had to let anything go. My artistic endeavors are influenced by all of my experiences. I saw good reason to bring it all home, do a callback to the styles of the entire week, it’s my victory lap.

And why not call back every instance of Treebark through the entire series then? This evolved into me learning more about Martyn’s lore because I want to be informed! I want to make this as someone who earnestly loves the narrative of these characters, and the stories they’ve told.

From a story perspective, it felt like Martyn was always doomed to tragedy. Suppose the life series always does end tragically, but Martyn’s Vtuber in relation to all this has its own inherent tragedy to it. In my eyes, this roamer of cyberspace constantly has to live through different lives with familiar people. The people he loved and cared for in one world will always be ripped from him, and he knows that.

Amongst everything the Unguided Hand gets me the most. In the video I drew the Ren he chases as a shadow. He’ll never get the Ren he knew then, back. Even if he meets another Ren in another world, it's never going to be The Red King. To me, Limited Life is the snapping point, a point of selfishness above all else in the comfortable knowledge that he wins, without ever needing to experience the same closeness and loyalty he had in lives past. The realization that this is what the game was about. Winning at all costs. I wanted the progression to reflect that.

Deep down, maybe he yearns to be saved from all that. The song echoes that sentiment. I tried to match the lyrics to how I saw the timeline of events as close as possible for that to hit. In this, Ren is his anchor, someone that he gets drawn to no matter the incarnation. The tragedy is that Ren, even if he knows about what Martyn’s going through, can’t join him in this journey. Martyn will always be alone in this experience, and Ren can only be a short comfort before the cycle starts anew. 

I quite liked the pixel art I did for LimLife!Martyn

From a meta perspective, this video (and by extension, the whole series) is about art and creating. I have been obsessed with art for 14 years now, and as time goes on I’ve grown fond of every way that we, as people, have evolved our storytelling. The multitudes of mediums that we have developed to express ourselves and share narratives will continue to fascinate me endlessly. Cringe be damned, there is a universal desire to create and enjoy stories of all folds. From the smallest story told from painstakingly typing chat boxes for little custom-made characters to say, to the highest production play put on for multiple hours in a game of Minecraft. 

And at the beginning of my journey lay paper and pencil. Bring Me To Life is an elaborate pun on my end, yes, but also a reflection of my roots. I started my journey as an artist endlessly doodling the adventures of tiny magical girls fighting demons, drawing fanart of costumes in MMO games I found cool, and sharing them with my friends at school. I find myself still drawing, still creating, for hundreds, if not thousands of eyes to see. Still I get inspired by the stories others tell, and I create in turn. In appreciation, in love. 

Bring Me To Life as a song, is a slate that, to me, reflected what I saw in the relationship of Treebark. Bring Me To Life is also a demand, of a piece of art that I had a vision for, that I wanted to bring to life. I struggled at how to end it for a while. Closing the book became very straightforward. It’s the end of this video, this saga, and another way that me, as a Watcher myself (as what they’re originally meant to represent) exercises control over stories in my own unique way. Creation is never limited to a select few. I think everyone should keep getting inspired by the things around them, and keep making art in turn.

To the people who’ve made it til the end here, make art, keep creating. Do shitty doodles, write whatever you want, make sounds and crafts and keep living. That’s all I really want, and this was what this whole series was about.

Programs used: mspaint, Aseprite, Blockbench, Bannedstory 3, Pencil and paper, After Effects

[izzyhandswhore]

Would love to see your hcs of reader taking Izzy out on a date at the beach! :3

((What a cute idea!! Poor man needs to relax a bit. Also is anyone going absolutely FERAL at that new clip?? Because sdbaekfasjfd)) Taking Izzy for a date at the beach!

So after arguing with Stede that pirates don't actually take vacations and time spent docked at a beach is time wasted, Izzy turns to you for backup.. Only to find you've already swapped your weapons for one of Stede's lace parasols. With a heavy sigh, he's defeated.

You take him by the hand and happily drag him away from the rest of the crew to have a private beach day away from the explosives testing, quite public make out sessions and makeshift, boisterous games (not naming any names). You even bring along some sandwiches Roach made, a bottle of rum and some other beachy supplies all carried in a little bucket (that's a secret mousketool we'll use later).

He still tries to argue that this is pointless and the two of you have seen a million beaches over the years, but you still point out how nice the sunshine is, how beautiful the sea looks and generally how peaceful it all is. He'd usually find relentless optimism annoying, but it's different with you. Eventually you get him to admit that the quiet is nice at least.

The two of you sit on the sand and look out at the horizon, hand in hand, letting him have his peace and quiet for a while. You toe your boots off and dig your feet in the sand, just enjoying the feeling. Izzy argues that him taking his shoes off would give him a disadvantage if an ambush or something was to occur but of course he can never really say no to you. If you pay close attention you can see him visibly relax as his feet sink into the sand. He squeezes your hand just that little bit tighter.

After some rest, food/drink and light conversation it's like Izzy is a completely different person in the best way. You didn't realise how much you missed his laugh and smile until now... He laughs at you even more when you take the bucket and start teaching him how to make sandcastles.

Okay hear me out. At first Izzy is laughing at you and insisting that this is completely childish and affectionately calling you mad.. And then you lose him to the sandcastle. The man is running back and forth to the sea to get water for better structure. He's digging moats. You hunt down seashells and driftwood and he makes little windows and defenses from them. He has such an intense look of concentration on his face but you can tell that he's so happy.. This is probably the first time he's allowed himself to "play" since he was a child, though of course you don't point this out to him or he'd probably stop.

By the time you're done you've built an entire sand fortress which is pretty impressive considering your lack of tools. You've both also got yourselves hot and sweaty, especially Izzy with his leather. So next stop is a quick dip in the sea. He may also need a bit of coaxing for this one, but it's a lot easier than it was at the start of the day. You take him by the hand again and the two of you step into the cold water, taking the piss out of each other for any gasps or hesitations, daring each other to go further and further..

Once he's up to about his knees he insists he's not going any further until you go beyond his reach and "lose your footing". Immediately he's by your side and pulling you up, seriously worried until he sees that you're laughing. You think he's going to be angry with you but instead he initiates what becomes a full-blown water fight. You're both splashing each other and hurling stupid affectionate insults and eventually it devolves into just wrestling each other into the water. He wins every time of course, but he never actually hurts you. Eventually you call a breathless truce and are left just holding each other in the water as the sun starts to set.

Izzy looks at you like you're his whole world then. He touches your face so gently and thanks you for the day, telling you he knows what he's like and how it's been worse since joining the Revenge and everything. He tells you he's not ungrateful for you and everything you do for him. He knows. You just smile and shut him up with a kiss that tastes like salt and rum. He only pulls away when the sea breeze finally makes you shiver and he realises he should get you home.

The two of you leave your sandcastle standing and return to the crew. You notice him sneaking glances at you in your wet clothing and the way it clings to your skin.. He stammers and gets all flustered if you or the crew point it out though. He takes you back aboard the ship to change clothes and get you all warmed up.. How you guys go about that is up to you <3

The night ends with a big bonfire on the beach with the whole crew. Frenchie starts a sing-along, rum is shared around and all in all it's just good vibes.

[markantonys]

WoT Up had a new video which is of course take it with a grain of salt as with most of his videos however this one was super interesting. It's about the Choedan Kal and how supposedly in the show they're getting renamed to Sarkanen (which is a sa'angreal Demandred uses in River of Souls I guess?) and in s3, Moiraine finds one of them in Rhuidean and is sucked into using it outside of her control.

Which sounds very interesting but of course there's the Rand stans who are like "Here they go again taking things away from Rand and giving them to other characters!" Rand doesn't even use the Choedan Kal til Winter's Heart. Like calm down lol

Plus I definitely feel like like this will would be to show/foreshadow for the audience that they're dangerous to use for whenever they do the Cleansing. And even getting into the differences between Saidar and Saidin?

re: the name change. To avoid people on the show saying "chode" is my guess. Which is a slang term I didn't even know about until today 😂

thank you for bringing me the TLDR so i don't have to watch a 10-minute video for 2 sentences of "news" haha when it comes to WoT Up i'm taking it with a bucket of salt rather than just a grain, but that aside, let's engage with this hypothetical show change!

name change: no issue for me! lmao it's very true that the show might change some terms here and there to avoid running into slang that has developed in the time since the books came out. no discussions of the dark one's taint here!

if those rand stans had their way, he would be the only character in the entire show. yes moirane is likely transitioning into a more supporting role in s3 (just as she was less in the spotlight in s2 compared to s1), but she's still a main character and needs something to do besides just hanging around in the background giving rand advice. us getting to actually witness moiraine's rhuidean trip onscreen feels like a no-brainer, and her having a mini-adventure with a dangerous sa'angreal is a neat idea for giving her a good story beat! AND in doing so we get a preview of how dangerous sa'angreal can be for even a channeler as disciplined and highly trained as moiraine, which would be very useful for us to see. it's important to set up stakes & risks early on so that the audience will already be conscious of them when the time comes to challenge those stakes and take those risks!

and there's no reason for rand to already start acquiring a whole hoard of Surprise Tools To Help Us Later that he won't use for 3 more seasons lmao i'd entirely forgotten rhuidean even was where he got the choedan kal until it started coming up in s3 speculation discussions, because it's sooooo far removed from when he actually starts using them. and same for callandor ofc, where just because he didn't get it pre-waste doesn't mean it's cut from the show, maybe he's just going to get it later closer to when he actually needs it (i'd be surprised if the stone is cut since it was foreshadowed twice in s1, but i don't have a strong sense either way about callandor itself just yet).

i really like @butterflydm's idea that maybe callandor could be the only super-powerful male sa'angreal in the show, and rand's Dark Power Temptation is instead the true power rather than supernova levels of saidin via the choedan kal. so in this theory, maybe moiraine picks up the one and only super-powerful female sa'angreal in rhuidean which nynaeve eventually uses for the cleansing, and rand gets the one and only super-powerful male sa'angreal from the stone at a later date. now we're all geared up for the cleansing, we still get the "saidin & saidar teamwork" theme even if the 2 cleansing sa'angreal aren't twins of each other, callandor could still have its flaw but they could reason that it doesn't come into play in the cleansing since he's linked with a saidar channeler (ik it has to be 2 saidar channelers in the book version but we can finagle that) and oh, then that actually sets up a method for them to be able to figure out how to use callandor properly that isn't just "min, who has 0 knowledge of angreal or the power, supposedly figured it out offscreen from reading the wikipedia article on philosophy" haha if rand already did use it successfully once, it would be doable for min or whoever to compare his successful & unsuccessful uses and determine what the deciding factor is.

although maybe there's still a male sarkanen too in the show and rand finds it later in a different location! plenty of possibilities.

re: the differences between saidar and saidin, the show has already very clearly shown how different the channeling experience is for men and women and very clearly established that they are using 2 different halves of the one power. and it's done all this just using generic terms like "the male/female half of the source" to make it easier for show-onlys to learn and understand the magic system. so it's now well-positioned to start dropping in the official terminology saidar and saidin now that show-onlys are very solid on the gender-based magic system and will be less at risk for mixing up two very similar fantasy jargon words (i know it took ME a while to keep straight which was which of saidar & saidin when i started the books, and keeping track of fantasy jargon is even harder in an auditory medium imo). but even if they don't ever use the words saidar & saidin, i will not gaf because the show is so clearly following the book magic system and explaining it accurately to viewers even if it doesn't use the specific fantasy jargon terms for it.

i saw somebody say that cutting the pool of saidin at the eye was yet another example of the show diminishing the importance of rand & male channelers, and i was like...........the pool of saidin? the pool of saidin that is never seen or mentioned again after book 1? the pool of saidin that i'd argue doesn't even fit with the magic system RJ later established more firmly since i don't think it should be possible for there to exist a physical pool of tangible one power? THAT pool of saidin? lmao some people are just being so insane about the show ~diminishing rand~ and ~propping up women~

it always reminds me of that workplace study that found that when men & women each talk for 50% of the time in a meeting, the majority perception is that women dominated the conversation, whereas the perception of an equal conversation was one where men spoke for the majority and women the minority (i forget the exact percentages). this is kinda what we're seeing in the book-to-show translation. in my opinion, in the books, men dominated but the narrative purported it as men & women being equal and readers think so too (some even claim book!randland is a matriarchy which is absolutely laughable), whereas the show is trying to make it actually 50/50 and this is causing the perception that women are dominating and rand is getting shafted. i am now going to make this post unrebloggable because every time i state my personal opinion about the books not being perfectly feminist 100% of the time, somebody inevitably tries to come in and peer-review my personal opinion and booksplain to me how my personal opinion is incorrect lmao (@ everybody who insisted to my early-reader self that i was wrong to be mad about the girls not being ta'veren in the books and that it is actually anti-feminist & agency-reducing for them to be ta'veren in the show and i would understand that once i read farther - guess what, i read all the books and it did not change my opinion by a single iota!)