#space posting all over da place

[ms-demeanor]

You posted about adhd and I was hoping to follow up to clarify something. I’ve explained to my partner a million times about how the borderline-hoarding mess of his space is very mentally draining to me, and he understands but we’ve both essentially accepted he won’t clean his mess because he can’t because of his adhd. You’re saying he’s actually being a shit head?

This isn't necessarily an issue of him being a shithead, but it also isn't a sustainable situation. It's not good for you and there's a level of clutter that's probably not good for him either.

Large bastard is a lot more clutter-y than I am. The solution we've come to is trying to keep our messes at least isolated from one another; he can have his messes and I can have mine, but he can have those messes in his spaces, not all over the place. Sometimes those messes migrate, and that's when it's important for him to make the effort to rein them in rather than trying and failing to make a daily effort to keep our entire shared space tidy.

I think when you say "we've both essentially accepted he won't clean his mess" what I'm hearing is resignation; you're not happy about this but you don't know what to do so you've thrown up your hands and he feels helpless and unsure of what to do to improve the situation. This is the kind of "it's fine" that isn't really fine.

I think it would be worthwhile for you to each separately think about the mess and talk about it together. Are there areas that YOU *need* to have not-messy? Both for utility and your mental health? Are there areas where you can tolerate more mess than otherwise? Are there areas that are going to be harder for him to keep the mess out of than others? Are there things he doesn't *know* about cleaning up the mess?

I'm obviously a big "communication communication communication" person so I'm going to recommend a lot of talking about stuff, which is probably going to mean a lot of thinking about and interrogating stuff. I'm going to say "talk to him about why the mess bothers you" which means you also have to really articulate to yourself why the mess bothers you (for instance I'm not actually *bothered* by a messy kitchen, but I know it's going to reflect badly on us - and me specifically b/c of presumed gender roles - if someone pops by and the kitchen is a disaster, AND a messy kitchen is going to be harder to use). Genuinely, sometimes knowing *why* something is a problem might make it easier for someone with ADHD to do something. And it's not that he doesn't care that it upsets you, it's just that "Oh if I don't wash my breakfast dishes Anon won't have clear counterspace to make lunch" might be stickier in his brain (and less hard to look at emotionally) than "this thing I forget to do upsets my partner so I should do it."

For the record, I think that people with ADHD should read up on Demand Avoidance and see if it might explain some of the issues that they have in their day-to-day life; I've seen some really unfortunate situations with friends where trying to do things that their partner needed became the subject of demand avoidance. *I* have experienced negative outcomes of demand avoidance. The solution to that, however, isn't to stop making attempts to do the thing OR to simply try harder to do as they're asked/told (which reinforces the demand), it's to work on setting up a situation where the partners' needs are not interpreted as a demand. This is fuck-off difficult and requires a lot of patience and care and many attempts to succeed and will be different for each person and relationship.

(Also for the record demand avoidance isn't *super* strongly linked to ADHD and it's not a definitive symptom; like Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, it is something that occurs in some number of people with ADHD and can be a useful lens through which to examine various behaviors; you don't need to have DA or RSD to have ADHD, and having DA or RSD also doesn't invalidate your diagnosis; they're symptoms. For me, DA often feels like "if I don't look at it, it can't get me" - If I ignore all the messages I've got they aren't real and don't have real consequences so I'll just ignore my texts. If I don't look at the vendor email about the order, the problem with the order isn't real and it won't get added to my task list. If I don't look at the requests in my inbox I can't let people down when I don't do them. It's a self-protective coping mechanism but it's *maladaptive* and I can't just ignore the vendor email or all my texts. I need to work on a way of doing the stuff that I'm avoiding in a way that makes it less stressful and doesn't hurt the people relying on me. That takes a lot of effort, personal insight, trial and error, and )

But before I dive into specifics I want to be really really clear about one thing: sometimes people are simply incompatible. Sometimes one person has such a low tolerance for "mess" and the other person has such a high threshold for "mess" that it can't be reconciled. It sucks that this can end up being a thing that people break up over, but it is MUCH better to acknowledge incompatibility as early as possible instead of spending years and years building resentment.

There used to be a great forum called MiL's Anonymous that I spent a lot of time on. It had a lot of people in a lot of difficult situations struggling to get by and hold their relationships together. The question that was used as a litmus test to approach each situation was simple: If you knew today that everything about living with this person would be the same in five years, would you stay?

Because you can't control your partner. You can't control the future. You can only control yourself and your proximity to situations that are harmful to you. If you knew, 100%, that things wouldn't get better in five years, would you be okay with staying in this relationship? If the answer is "no," then that's that. Don't worry about questions of whether or not your boyfriend is a shithead, start the process of ending the relationship because there's a good chance the situation is going to be exactly the same in five years.

If the answer is "yes," and you'd stay in the relationship regardless of whether or not things changed, then it's time to take actions to improve your life within the context of the relationship.

(No judgement on that yes or no, btw. If you would hate living like this for another five years, and you would feel like you'd wasted your time and hadn't done the things you wanted to with your life, get out. Bail. Go. It will be better for you and better for your partner if you split instead of spending half a decade building resentments and and problems that you'll have to spend another half a decade healing from.)

Also, a note: you describe your boyfriend's mess as borderline hoarding - is the issue *mess* or is the issue *clutter*? I have friends who are very tidy, but whose homes are very cluttered. They like things, they have many things, they keep many things around, but their houses are always clean and well-dusted and orderly, just with a tremendous amount of *stuff.* I am addressing all of this as though the issue is mess, not clutter. If your boyfriend's situation is clutter (the space is busy and packed with things but it is functional and clean) and your issue isn't with *mess* (things out of place, things not having a place, things that need to be cleaned up gathering in stacks, falling behind on regular chores like laundry and dishes and taking out the trash) then you definitely need to assess whether or not you are compatible.

For instance here's a room that is messy but not cluttered compared to a room that is cluttered but not messy:

That first room is a *mess* but it would be very easy to clean up in under an hour. The second room is fairly tidy, but would take significant effort to pare down and declutter. BOTH of these can be difficult to live with but the second one is not dangerous or threatening to anyone's health. (The second one is QUITE cluttered and if every room in a house looks like this it can be overwhelming to live with; this is actually harder to deal with in a relationship than the first one in a lot of ways. I don't have a lot of advice for what to do if your partner is a high degree of tidy-but-cluttered because I don't actually think it's a problem or wrong to have thousands of books or bins full of lego or a million kitchen appliances as long as you have the space and can keep it safe and well-maintained; this is a really significant compatibility issue)

Okay, all that out of the way, here's the hard work.

Talk about this shit

Talk to your partner and define "mess." Make sure you are on the same page about what you mean when you're talking about what a messy room looks like versus what a tidy room looks like. Gather reference pictures. DRAW reference pictures.

Explain not just that the mess upsets you, but *why* and *how* it upsets you. In this context don't think of it as your boyfriend's mess, think of it as an unpleasant roommate. Discuss this using "I-statements". "When I have to pick up laundry all over the apartment, I feel like a parent more than a partner." "When there are piles of miniatures all over the table, I feel like I don't have anywhere to do things I'm interested in." "When there are dishes in the sink, I feel frustrated because I have to clean before I can feed myself."

Discuss, frankly and openly, whether he knows how to clean. I'm not trying to make excuses for him here but a lot of people with ADHD have a lot of stress and avoidance around cleaning because they spent a lot of time getting yelled at for not knowing how to clean properly.

Discuss your needs, be firm about what you require but willing to compromise. You *need* some spaces to be clean, and some spaces may be harder for him to keep clean than others. It may be MUCH harder for him to keep a bedroom tidy than it is to keep a kitchen tidy; if you need a clean and empty bedroom with everything put away and he simply cannot do that, that is a compatibility issue. But perhaps you need *your* side of the bedroom to be very orderly and can tolerate a moderate level of mess and clutter on his side. Maybe you're really really bothered by a messy kitchen, but it doesn't bug you if the dining table is covered with projects and papers. Figure out something more workable than "his mess goes everywhere and i live with it because he's incapable of cleaning" because he probably is not incapable of cleaning and you deserve to have places in your home that are comfortable for you.

Reduce friction for cleaning

Sometimes the problem isn't cleaning, the problem is the many many steps before cleaning, or not knowing where something should go when you are done cleaning. One of the absolute best things I've done for myself for cleaning my space is getting a broom holder and mounting the broom to the wall. Sweeping is now essentially thoughtless. I don't have to find the broom or pull it out from a pile of fans or go scrounging around for a dustpan it's right there on the wall, frictionless. So here are some ways to reduce the barriers to cleaning:

Make sure you and your partner both know how to use your cleaning supplies and know where those supplies are. When I switched dishwasher soap I had to re-show Large Bastard where I was storing it and how it was used, because to him what happened was the dishwasher tabs just vanished one day and he didn't know what I was putting in the machine or the process I used. He sometimes puts tools away in places that I can't see (he's more than a foot taller than me) so sometimes I can't get started on a maintenance project until he shows me where he put the battery pack for the drill.

Consider making a how-to chart to or having him make a how-to chart to keep someplace accessible so he can reference it while cleaning. Goblin.Tools Magic ToDo is great for this. Basically a lot of the time people with ADHD have trouble knowing what to do from step to step even if they've done something before, so having a step by step guide can make it easier (I have notebooks full of step-by-step guides for everything from paying for my tuition to removing licenses for my customers to weeding my yard)

Remove obstacles; don't keep cleaning chemicals in the garage in a box that's behind a stack of parts, keep them in the room you'll be cleaning. Don't keep the cleaning supplies that you use to clean the bathroom in the kitchen. Sometimes this means buying two bottles of bleach solution and two scrubbers and two sets of cleaning gloves but having fewer steps (fetch the windex, fetch the paper towels, fetch the gloves) is often the key to getting things done (open under-sink cabinet and grab windex, gloves, and paper towels that are there instead of in the kitchen).

This sort of overlaps with the next category, which is:

Create Dump Zones

One thing that I've found that seems very different between people with ADHD cleaning and neurotypical people cleaning is that neurotypical people are good at getting to a point where the cleaning is "done." They have checked off their tasks and they have finished and it is over. There are *SOME* chores that are like this (taking out the trash is a binary state, the trash has been taken out or it has not) and some chores are perpetual (horrid cursed dishes) but I think with people with ADHD, some chores that are binary for neurotypicals are actually perpetual chores. For instance "clean off the counter" is not a one and done for me. "Clean off the counter" may involve a three day reorganization project. "Clean off the counter" does not mean "wipe down the tile and put dishes away" it means assessing whether or not I need to make vegetable stock and bleaching three tea containers and reconsidering whether or not the sharps container should live somewhere else and going through the mail and figuring out what needs to be responded to and taking out the recycling and on and on and on.

We have had company at the house for the last two weeks, so I asked large bastard to clean off the dining room table, which is largely a project zone for him. Cleaning off the dining room table meant putting away his meds (and since he's a transplant patient that involves a 30 gallon rubbermade tote), throwing away some trash, and totally reorganizing his workshop. It also incidentally involved picking up a table from facebook marketplace and moving my plants, which has now involved moving my former plant rack outside (moving buckets, finding and organizing planters and gardening tools) and taking the former table to the thrift store (not done yet) and cleaning the rug that was under the former table. So "either the table is clean, or it isn't" isn't really true for us.

HOWEVER "hang on we can't eat until the table is clear so let's drive to Pico Rivera to get that console table right now" isn't a workable plan, so you create dumpzones as areas of holding between the start and the finish of the chore.

A dump zone can be a laundry basket. It can be a craft bin. It can be a back room or under your bed. It is a place to put things that you are going to deal with later because if you deal with them now it is going to derail the thing you are actually trying to do, which is set the table for dinner.

Dump zones are vital to cleaning with ADHD and I recommend them for day-to-day cleaning as well. The day-to-day dump zones might be more for you than for your boyfriend. For instance, Large Bastard works with bullets and he sheds bullets all over the house. I used to get stressed when I found bullets when I was cleaning because are these work bullets? Are these recreational bullets? Are they in testing? Do they need to be pulled? Do they go in the workshop or the office or the garage or does he need these today so they have to stay on the counter? And the answer now is "that's not my problem naughty bullets go in the jar." Which is perfectly sensible because he gets to say "mystery yarn goes in the bin" and "art supplies go in the bucket."

I feel helpless when cleaning a lot of the time. I'm frustrated and lost and I don't know where stuff goes and everything I pick up spins off into three projects in my head and every step feels like a wall to scale. Dump zones help me with that when there's pressure or a reason for cleaning beyond day to day home maintenance. People are coming over? The bedroom is a dump zone, I'll deal with that later. I'm just cleaning up because I need to? Okay I can find a permanent home for this new dish soap.

AS A VERY IMPORTANT COROLLARY TO THIS:

Active projects do not go in dump zones while you or your partner are cleaning. This may mean designating a project sanctuary area like a corner of the table or one particular chair in your main room where a project can be placed so as not to be disturbed. (if my current crochet project ends up in the yarn bin, that may mean that I don't pick the project up for another three months, it lives on the windowsill behind the couch because that's where it'll get worked on)

Do not put things away for your partner, put them in the dump zone for your partner. Your partner has to be the one to put their own stuff away in a way that works for them. I tend to find that this naturally puts a limit on the time stuff sits in the dump zone, because eventually you'll go "hey where's my thing?" and will put stuff away. If that doesn't happen, it's still generally better to have stuff in a dump zone than all over the home.

Do not decide you know what things go together from your partner's stuff and try to "put like things together." The neurotypical urge to put like things together is the mindkiller(j/k). You do not know which things are "similar" in your partner's organization schema and attempting to organize things on your own is going to end up with all of the things "organized" being functionally lost forever from your partner's perspective. Large Bastard's mom would do this and it was infuriating, she'd say "oh I put all the electronics stuff in one box" and she would mean soldering irons, transistors, ham radios, HDMI cables, and cellphone chargers. We are *still* going through boxes of stuff that she "tidied up" when he was hospitalized in 2020 and 2021.

To prevent the need for quite so many dump zones over time, you can work on setting up landing zones and "homes" for projects and tools.

Landing Zones

Landing zones are places where things go when you come inside from doing various things. Sometimes your landing zone only needs to be a tray for your wallet and keys, sometimes your landing zone needs to be a place to take off muddy boots and put a trowel and gloves down before you shower.

To make an effective landing zone, consider what behaviors you're trying to minimize and whether the people using it are ACTUALLY going to use it. For instance I was tired of the corner of my hearth getting cluttered with random junk so I hung up some hooks and put a shelf and a basket there and it became a really effective landing zone for my bag and keys and the mail, but it was VERY ineffective for Large Bastard because it's by a door that isn't the primary door he uses to enter the house. As a result I always know where my keys and bag are but he has trouble finding his keys and wallet. He tends to enter the house through our bedroom and has an overloaded valet next to the door and that's usually where his wallet ends up. Mounting a shelf to the wall above the valet and putting a basket and a hook on it will be a better place for his stuff to land. It's not that he's not using the first zone because he doesn't know that it's there, or because he doesn't care about lost time when I'm searching for my car keys after he borrows them, he's not using it because it's not by the door he uses. That's all.

I have a landing space for when I come in for gardening that's different than the one when I come in from grocery shopping. I have a landing space for when I walk into the dining room instead of the kitchen when I get home.

Landing spaces prevent stuff from piling up all over the place because they are a limited functional space that should be used frequently. Mail ONLY goes in the landing zone. If you have mystery mail or if you're not sure it's safe to toss, you put it in the landing zone. You can't let the mail get piled up too high or you won't have a space for your keys. You can't let the change in your wallet tray get too deep or your wallet is going to slide off, etc., but you also don't just put change on the coffee table or your nightstand because the landing zone is right there.

Homes for items are just what they sound like. They're the place the item goes. It lives there. My meds live on my nightstand. You would not believe how poorly I did with taking my meds on my vacation because they weren't on my nightstand. A while back large bastard lost one of his sets of sorted meds and we tore the house up looking for them because he couldn't find them in his nightstand, which is where they live. *I* found them in his nightstand because I emptied out the entire top drawer (he had only looked on the top layer) and found them underneath a radio and a hammock. Even though they were *hidden* they were in their home, so they were findable. I recently needed ink for an art class. Art supplies live in a dresser by my desk. Ink lives in the art bin or the top left drawer. The ink was not in either of these places (it was on a cabinet in the dining room behind a teacup) so it took me weeks to find it.

Sometimes the reason that ADHD spaces are so messy is because objects have been assigned homes in places that are visible and if they get moved they get lost. This is a genuinely difficult problem that requires a lot of effort to solve and can involve a lot of trial and error for creating a tidy living space. For some people, open shelving and visible storage might be a good solution. For some people, assigning a VERY clear home and inculcating that location by habit is the only way to clean up a space. For some people one very cluttered corner to at least isolate the chaos does the trick (for me and large bastard open shelving doesn't work because anything in one place for too long becomes invisible; that means that I rely on assigning things homes and large bastard relies on having contained chaos and a general idea of where to search but what that DOES NOT mean is that he is clean or tidy. His spaces look like an explosion. But he can mostly find his stuff and do what he needs to do and as long as that's limited to specific places in shared spaces I can live with it; the dining room table can be a disaster, the kitchen cannot).

People organize things differently. It often takes a while for neurotypical adults to settle into an organizational style that works for them and ADHD adults may need to settle into a new system every few months for it to continue working. The cleanup and declutter is most likely going to be a permanent project that is always going to demand some level of attention from everyone in a shared space, but "my ADHD means I can't do it" is not really going to fly. Maybe his ADHD means that he can't keep his space tidy, but it doesn't mean you can't move stuff from shared spaces into dump zones or that he can't do stuff around the house.

If he's insisting that his ADHD means that he can't clean it is possible that he's not being a shithead, he just feels helpless and doesn't know where to start and has adopted the belief that he's a useless piece of shit who can't even keep a tidy space like a grownup because he's internalized a lot of shitty attitudes (hello, my internal monologue about keeping a clean house). But it's also possible that he's just being a shithead.

It's something that's worthwhile to investigate with him. If he's unwilling to make an attempt, then he's being a shithead.

It is also not your responsibility to rehabilitate another person. If he wants to clean and it's something he feels bad about and needs some help and support with the way that someone might need help or support for learning to use a mobility aid, that is fine but you don't have to be the one who gives him that support if it's detrimental to your health, and you don't have to be the one to teach him that stuff if it's not something you're capable of. And if he is NOT interested in working on making your shared living space more accessible for you, that is not your suitcase to unpack and you just have to ask yourself the question from the start: would I stay with this person if I knew the situation was never going to change?

IDK, I'm sure a lot of this reads like "anon you must take on the emotional labor of training your partner to be an adult" but it's really meant to be more of a way of assessing yourself and your relationship. If you created landing zones do you think he'd use them? Would he get angry if you assigned a laundry basket as a dump zone for his stuff while you tidy the living room? Is living with him long-term going to be comfortable for you if nothing changes? Do you have enough of a shared definition of "mess" that you're at least in the ballpark for what counts as a clean house?

anyway good luck, and a reminder to folks that I'm compiling a bunch of adhd resources and other information on my personal website, ms-demeanor.com. It's coming along slowly but it will eventually include stuff like ADHD cleaning tips and how to tackle a hoard, so maybe keep your eye on that space.

[bananayuyu]

Walker, Stalker

Pairing: Yunho x f reader

Genre: smut

Word count: 6.6k

Summary: The captain of the soccer team and the strange new girl who'd just moved in next door. Who would have thought that you and Yunho had the same fucked up fantasies?

Warnings: MDNI, smut, reader is short, size kink kinda, voyeurism, masturbation, sex toys, collars, stalking, degradation, mean yunho, unprotected sex, cnc vibes, please don't read if that isn't your thing!

A/n: this is inspired by that video above of Yunho walking and also this instagram post that had me losing my damn mind. @yuyusbabygirl thanks for making me insane. I hope you all enjoy <333

The air was cool and crisp the day you moved into your new dorm, campus nearly empty for spring break. As your beat up sedan pulled up to the curb you sighed, taking in the rare moment of silence.

It had been a harsh two weeks following your expulsion. And in all of the hiding and lying, you'd worn yourself thin. But what were you to do, tell the truth? If anyone here now, or anyone there then, heard the true reason for your transfer, you knew you'd never be able to show your face anywhere. Your accomplice had promised to keep his mouth shut too, promised to keep this whole thing a secret just as you had. And you had reason to believe him; his job was on the line, not just his reputation.

By then you were a jaded sophomore, already over everything about college; the power dynamics, the social expectations, the politics and bureaucracy that hung over all the professors. You'd learned too much about that, getting involved with him. It had been a bad idea, of course. But you had an insatiable need to fulfill certain fantasies, and try as you might you were never able to make the rational choice when it really mattered.

Moving in all on your own made for a tough day, but you were thankful for the solitude. Your friends and professors at your last school had been constantly asking you why for weeks; I thought you hated that school? All it's really got going for it is it's sports program.

You should have been more sad to leave them all behind; yes, you should have been, but your brain didn't seem to work the way it should, and you'd never been very attached to anyone. No one in the world could understand your true desires; and though you always tried to live as normally as you could, you'd realized this last year there was little point in truly trying to suppress it. The suppressing had only made it worse, which led to the shit storm you'd just passed through; you were determined not to make that mistake again.

The week passed in relative peace; with campus nearly empty you could walk about and get used to your new space, the new routes you'd have to take to your classes, the drive to the nearest grocery store. You'd heard mixed things about this place, but the cooler, wetter weather here meant that trees and bushes grew in abundance, and the grass by the student union building was actually soft enough to lay on. Your birthday was about to come, at the end of the week, and you resolved to buy yourself a little gift to celebrate. You'd done well to escape that potentially disastrous situation; you deserved a little treat for being so positive about the ridiculous move you'd just had to make.

You woke the morning of Friday with anticipation coursing through you, your legs and core already tingling with delight. The package wasn't set to arrive until the afternoon, so you busied yourself with what you could; going for another walk to double check your new routes, stopping by the store again to buy yourself a little cake to have with dinner. No one knew you were turning twenty today, but you didn't mind; you were going to celebrate tonight in your own way, in the way you liked, and that was all that mattered.

When you arrived back at the dorm in the mid afternoon the parking lot still looked relatively empty save for a few cars that you'd not yet seen. You had been so alone these few days, already growing used to it; but that was to change as soon as you entered the front doors and headed through the kitchen towards the stairs. As you walked past the refrigerator door slammed sharply; you jumped and peered back, locking eyes with a tall and broad man, his brown hair floppy and messily pushed back, his grey hoodie adorned with the school's bright green logo.

The eyes he fixed you with were dark and domineering, but he obviously looked surprised, seeing a new face here. The building wasn't tiny, but it wasn't huge by any means; you'd always imagined dorms to be massive enough for relative anonymity, but the one you'd been selected for housed only about twenty people, few enough that he'd certainly know everyone well by now. You snapped your eyes away from his quick and made for the stairs, your small cake clasped between your hands, your whole body trembling for some unknown reason. Maybe these few days you'd gotten so used to solitude that simply seeing another human ws scaring you; but really, if you were honest with yourself, it was something about the look in his eyes, the way they looked intense and dead all at the same time.

It was roughly an hour later that there was a knock on your door; opening it you found his face again, eyes still piercing yours when they met. Up close he looked massive, towering over you so much you had to look nearly straight up to see him, his shoulders so wide you couldn't see them all with the door only partially ajar.

"This came for you," he said, holding up your package, and your heart about fell out of your ass.

"Oh, thanks," you responded, swallowing hard, your mind racing with the knowledge of what was inside and his huge hands that somehow reached around the entire box. Your eyes fixed on the package as you grabbed it from him; your hands brushed, and a jolt of static snapped between your fingers. You jumped back, breath knocked out of you, before you stared back at him. He was staring at you too, eyebrows low, but his lips were turned up in the whisper of a smirk. You couldn't read him at all; you gaped as you watched him walk back to his room, the one right next to yours, and close his door without another word.

As you placed the package down it was obvious in an instant; there were multiple lines of tape that had graced the cardboard box, residue lines that were unmistakably in different spots that the current tape. Had he fucked with your package, had he opened it? You shook your head, feeling crazy; it was probably just a mistake that had been made at the warehouse, and the package had to be opened and taped up again. You didn't understand what it was about this guy that was shaking you so deeply. You were tired of feeling on edge, that was all the last few weeks had been. You needed to finally relax, that had been your plan for tonight; you pushed your worries from your mind and ripped open your package, immediately forgetting them all as you stared at the beauty in front of you.

A collar, with tiny spikes on the inside, that tightened if you pulled on the leash. And a stunning eight-inch dildo, purple and sparkly, a massive suction cup on the end. You'd had a routine down for months but had thrown out all your old toys during that period of suppression; now it was time to start building your collection again, and taking care of these sexual needs yourself. Your cake sat tantalizing you on your desk; but it would have to wait, you needed to try out your new toys.

You tied the leash to the back corner of your bed, making sure the rope was quite short; already the process was bringing you to the dark and sultry place your head liked to be, and you could feel yourself getting wet even before you'd grabbed the dildo, suctioning to the wall at just the right height. You started licking it, teasing it, getting lost trying to take it down your throat as far as you could; after gagging it was soaked with your spit, and in an instant you ripped off all your clothes and turned around, securing the collar around your neck carefully and tugging on the leash to make sure all was secure.

Then you positioned yourself in front of it; lining up your soaking entrance with the dildo you sunk onto it slowly, groaning at the stretch it was giving you, a sensation you hadn't felt in far too long. You liked feeling like you were splitting open from the inside, liked when it felt a bit painful, like it was too much for you to take. As you rocked forward your body weight pulled at the leash, squeezing the collar against the side of your throat deliciously, relenting slightly as you thrust back again. You started keeping a rhythm, the collar squeezing on the upswing, the dildo hitting your cervix the other way. This was what you'd needed to relax; the mix of pain and pleasure was numbing your mind just right, and as you continued to thrust your pleasure grew, your moans gentle as you tried your best to keep your volume down in this building you were no longer alone in.

You ripped several orgasms from yourself, over and over again, before you heard it. You'd lost count at that point; you were about to have another when you heard the unmistakable sound of metal creaking outside your window, and flashed up your eyes to see a grey hoodie moving past the glass, someone clearly on the fire escape outside. It all happened so fast, it didn't seem real; you didn't want to lose the pleasure you were feeling, so you started up your movements again, this time keeping your eyes trained in that direction. You'd lost it momentarily but the orgasm was building again; your mouth was slack open as you breathed hard, trying still to keep your noises soft, the tension in your core building even harder than it had earlier. This was bound to be a hard one, you knew it, and just as it started to wash over you, just as your legs began to tremble and your whole body erupted in flames of pleasure, you saw his face at the side of your window, his intense dead eyes meeting yours. Unable to stop yourself you came; right here infront of him, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed, and as soon as you pulled off he vanished, his face disappearing from view.

It was undeniably awkward the next time you saw him in the kitchen, later that night, putting the left over half of your cake in the fridge. He was still in his hoodie, still looked exactly the same; you'd showered, changed, tried to wipe yourself clean of the slight debauchery of your evening. Compared to some of the things you'd done in your life it was nothing, but you were so scared of getting kicked out again, you had tried to recalibrate your understanding of where the line should really be.

He just stared at you again. No greeting, no hello, those dark eyes never leaving you as you walked past. You too, said nothing; what could you say? You were so convinced of your own insanity that you were questioning if you had really seen his face. Maybe you'd just wanted to, had hoped he'd be there watching. He was by all accounts your type; you like them huge and tall, like them to scare you and intimidate you.

Over the next weeks you learned just how intimidating he was; when he stalked around campus he could part a sea of other students, no one daring to step in his way. His shoulders swaggered and his head hung down a bit, and all it gave off was a sense of complete confidence and superiority. He dressed nice, was clearly doing well for himself. It took some time, but soon you learned he was captain of the school's soccer team, played right back, was feared by everyone, and was all that any girl around seemed to want to talk to you about.

You didn't even have to be subtle about your questions; people wanted to offer up everything they knew, from minor injuries he'd had, how the last game on the road had gone for him, who his parents were, his class schedule, everything. People on campus basically stalked him, you realized; which wasn't exactly uncommon these days, especially as he posted on socials enough to provide the dots to be connected. But to everyone he seemed uninterested in them; he barely followed anyone else, only his family and a few other boys on the team, and was never seen to be leaving comments on anyone's posts. He didn't give a fuck to know everyone else; that he'd made clear over his four years here, and as he was set to play professionally come the fall, everyone figured his attention was laser focused on his sport.

It would have shocked them all to know what really had started to fill his evenings; you had a regular schedule of masturbating, that he'd figured out right away, and it was all too easy for him to sneak out on the fire escape between your windows and catch a glimpse of you, complete ecstasy on your face as that collar bore down on your neck, your eyes rolling back. Behind your building a line of massive pine trees lay like a wall, and out here he could touch himself without a soul seeing, so long as none of the other students in this building looked out windows that faced this direction. He didn't know what had come over him, other than you'd unlocked that dark disturbed part that he'd hid away years ago; that first day he'd seen you in the kitchen he was awe-struck, your body impeccably curvy, your height minute compared to his, the slightly frightened look in your eye going straight to his crotch.

When he opened your package later and inspected the contents, his mind spun at the thought that not only was the girl who moved in next to him unbelievably hot, she was a glutton for pain, from the looks of it. Unfulfilled fantasies ran through his mind, fantasies he'd always known were wrong, disturbing. But your frightened little presence had him constantly thinking of them; he couldn't help it, he needed to know more. He'd always been one to use his computer skills for his own gain; it took a while, but he finally tracked down the name of the new girl just assigned to this dorm building a week ago, and with that he was up and running, searching far and wide to find anything he could about you.

Nothing about your family or friends was findable; you'd barely ever posted pictures with other people, but he could tell from the jump that there was something off about you, something strange about the way you'd just shown up here during spring break. He'd found the name of your old school easily; but breaking into their system would be a project, and with classes and practices of the upmost importance now, he'd have to be patient to find out why'd you'd left. Ordering you a little present, however, wouldn't take much time, and soon enough he was standing at your door and knocking again.

Not a word had passed between the two of you in weeks; just fearful and tense glances, or the fierce look you gave if you caught him in your window. You were used to it by now, and appreciated the intrusion; it added to your little escapades, and while you took time building up your toy collection again, you were grateful for it.

You opened your door as you had that first day, slowly and deliberately. As soon as you spotted him your eyes widened a bit, your grip on the handle tightening, your face turned up to look at him.

"This package came for you," he said, almost identical to your first interaction. He had to hold back laughter at the look of pure confusion that crossed your face; you hadn't ordered anything, and were positively vexed. But soon you saw the the package was addressed wrong; this address, but his room number, and the name Jeong Yunho.

You swallowed, grabbing the package from him and nearly slamming your door shut. Inside you sat on the floor, heaving. What the fuck he was playing at, you weren't sure. If this was a joke, he'd surely be knocking on your door again now, right? You set the package down and pushed it away from you, trying to collect yourself. More than ever your demeanor was one of panic and unassuredness; even with your daily ministrations you hadn't been able to completely calm yourself. You needed more, you needed to order more actual packages for yourself and get yourself off the way you needed.

You left it until evening, until your homework was done and your body was begging you to satiate it's needs. You opened it gingerly; a new collar sat inside, bright pink with a bell on it, and a long line of pink rope. As you lifted it you found a page of instructions; under that, what looked like a small box-cutting knife.

Follow these instructions, were the only words written in pen; everything else was printed, words explaining how to tie your own wrist restraint and tighten it down by pulling with your feet. You peered over at the knife, at the collar, and you could see plain as day what all this meant. For a moment you felt an almost sobering sickness come over you; the fact that this wasn't making you go and report him immediately was all the indication you needed that you hadn't really changed at all. It was in your nature, to like this kind of attention; attention you shouldn't want, attention that was wrong and invasive and all together disturbing.

You set the box aside and went to sleep that night without a bit of sexual pleasure, Yunho sticking his head around your window only to find your room dark and your small form curled up underneath your bed sheets.

He panicked, a bit, that night. Maybe it had been way too far, of course it had been way to far; what a crazy thing to do when the two of you had barely spoken any words to each other. You clearly were a bit kinky, but maybe he'd read it all wrong; maybe you weren't as depraved as him, maybe that little spiked collar didn't really hurt as bad as he thought it did. You made it a remarkable week without masturbating; your longest record in many years, and it had his edginess slowly building. You swore you could see it on him when you passed him in the kitchen or the hall; even once out by the fountain, as you walked towards the fine arts building, you saw his jaw set in tension as you walked by him, eyeing him only for a moment before turning your head away and smirking, acting with all your might like you weren't affected by him one bit.

You were only waiting to make it more fun for yourself, in the end. That Saturday you broke, doing just as the instructions had told, and as you pumped your hips back against that purple dildo the little bell on your collar rang and rang, loud enough that you worried a house mate might hear and come knocking about it. As soon as he heard rustling in your room he was up and outside; watching the whole scene unfold, watching you mess up the knot three times before finally getting it right. You eyed him nearly the whole time this time, and he didn't even reach into his pants, instead enjoying the view for all it was and stamping it permanently in his memory to use for as long as he could.

When you'd finally finished, the sun well and truly set and the air cool outside, you looked at him pathetically, the knife in hand. How you were going to get the knot off yourself, you weren't sure; even with the knife it was a struggle, for the angle your hand needed to reach was virtually impossible. You tried several times over, but failed each time; his smile grew and grew, and it was the first time you'd ever seen any expression on his face other than that of pure anger. His lips curled up at the corners slightly, his cheek bones popped; he looked positively terrifying and it made you actually whimper in response, your eyes darting away. You tried for the next hour to get the ropes cut off, but there was no way you could; you went to bed that night without peeing, your wrists still bound. There was no way to get dressed, no way in hell that you'd be leaving this room even if you could. You'd finally started to spark up a few casual friendships with two girls who lived downstairs, and on the off chance that they or anyone saw you scrambling to the bathroom, you decided to stay in.

Your sleep was fretful, but more for how turned on you were than anything; you couldn't stop putting your bound hands between your legs, feeling how fucking wet you still were, coming somehow again and again. It must have been early morning when you finally fell asleep; and then it was only a few hours later when he snuck into your room, your eyes barely opening and your consciousness barely there as he sliced you free of the restraint, running back to his room with the knife and rope in hand. All you'd felt was a large hand on yours and your restraints falling away; later when you woke you had no recollection of it, confused when you tried to find the rope and knife and couldn't see them anywhere in your small room.

Your wrists were badly bruised form it all; you'd had to wear long sleeve shirts for weeks even though the weather was heating up. The packages continued too, and you realized he was very selective with when he gave you them, only coming when the two other boys who lived down the hall from you were gone. Both were on the soccer team as well, so he knew they were at their study group for Japanese, one they never missed because the grad student who ran it was one they both had the hots for.

It was weeks of debauchery; more gifts, more collars and dildos, once a beautiful, bright pink shiny vibrator that must have cost hundreds of dollars. That became your favorite; along with the collar with the bell, which you combined with your spiked collar for the pain, you stuck that vibrator between your legs and rubbed yourself forward and back, coming harder than you had in ages. It was almost getting you there to that point you needed to be; but you still always made him wait, still never used these new toys too soon after you'd received them. His frustration was clearly only growing; a few times he'd left short notes in the boxes, I own you or Your secret is safe with me, slut. But you never responded to them, never said a thing. You eyed him if you passed by, by chance; but by then he was starting to try to strike up conversation with you. You never responded, only looked at him with those pathetic scared eyes and maybe scratched at your arm, pulling back the fabric of your shirt to reveal your bruises, or wore a low cut top and pushed your tits together "accidentally," eyeing him afterwards.

Suddenly the term was almost over, and you couldn't believe it; you weren't doing amazingly by any means, but you were set to pass all of your classes, as long as you didn't bomb any finals. It was a stressful week but you made it through, barely thinking of Yunho and his gifts, not having time for it.

"How are your finals going?" he asked you when you passed him on the stairs; you only ran away, sprinting up to your room, closing the door quickly. Later a note slid under your door; stop pretending like you can run from me. You only chuckled at it, slipping inside and taping it in your journal. He loved to be threatening in his notes or with the looks he gave you, but you were pretty sure at this point he didn't have the balls to actually do anything about it. On the whole it was probably a good thing; summer was about to come, and you'd stay to complete extra credits, but he'd be gone for good and graduated, and you'd never have to worry that he'd get you in trouble all over again.

"The final soccer game of the season is this Saturday, you should come!" your two friends told you as you sipped coffees in the student union building, your last final behind you.

"Wait, tomorrow Saturday?" you asked, and they nodded.

"I know you don't like to come out on the weekends but they're so fun, and the dance team performs during half time, they have fireworks usually for the last game of the year too. And there's always a big party afterwards at the huge frat by the stadium, Wooyoung texted me yesterday about it," one said, voice bright as can be.

"Wooyoung?" you asked.

"Wait, you seriously don't know who Wooyoung is?" she asked you.

"No, should I?" you said, trying to keep the sarcasm from your tone.

"He's the one who lives in the room next to Yunho's, just down the hall from you," she said, and it brought forth the image of long shaggy black hair and chiseled abs, the boy loving to walk around half naked whenever he had the chance.

"Oh, yeah, of course," you laughed, smiling at her.

"You should come to the party, seriously, it's so much fun," your other friend added.

"I don't love frat houses-"

"This one isn't like most of them, seriously, it's very nice and the parties are always actually fun," she said, cutting you off.

"I'll think about it," you chuckled, thinking of the healing bruises on your neck, your last bout with your collar having been a bit on the rough side. What you'd wear to the game and party to cover it all up, you had no idea.

But by Saturday you'd thought enough about it, and with the stress of finals behind you, there was enough of your brain trying to push you towards the health and normality of being involved in college life that you decided to go. You'd wear your favorite green hoodie; it wasn't officially school merch, but the color was close enough, and it covered the fading bruises on the side of your neck well enough. Paired with short spandex shorts and your white tennis shoes, you looked preppy and in spirit enough to fit in. The bus to the stadium was uncomfortably packed but your friends knew the best seats; they ushered you through everywhere with ease because they came for every game, and thankfully didn't make you sit in the student section like you'd expected.

Down near one of the corners you had a wonderful view, and as the players started to exit the tunnel the stands erupted in rumbling, everyone stamping their feet against the metal bleachers and waving school flags high and proud. Most of the players ran out; but then you spotted Yunho with a number nine on his back, walking in that way he always did, his shoulders swaying, his eyes fixed to the ground some distance in front of him, his jersey hanging off his lean broad frame in the most tantalizing way. His swagger from his angle was too much to handle; his back to you, you knew he had no idea you were there, would never expect it. He looked massive next to the other players; you didn't know much about the sport, but looking down now it seemed like soccer wasn't typically played by tall guys. His frame was a scary sight to the other team, it was obvious; as the game started it seemed they all dreaded when they came into contact with him, and as the minutes rolled on by you couldn't help the visceral reaction you were having to seeing just how good he was.

After a while, a whistle was blown; players started walking off the field as the dance team walked on, and your friend answered your look of confusion by telling you it was halftime. Like before most of the players ran back to the tunnel, but Yunho walked behind, talking with one of the coaches. He was facing you now and you stared at his face, flushed a bit but set in such a stony look of concentration. Suddenly he turned his head as if to stretch his neck; he caught sight of you, and he stopped momentarily in his tracks, doing a double take. His coach seemed to asked him what he'd seen; he looked away quickly and waved his hand while undoubtedly saying it was nothing. But the whole second half he was shooting daggers your way; now that the two teams had switched sides he was mostly facing you, and somehow even so far away you felt yourself shivering under his glare, the intensity of it not lost no matter how big the distance between you was.

Fine, you'd said, agreeing to go to the party. Your friends were so excited as you'd never been out with them before, and you too were excited if you really were honest, having missed letting loose a little, getting in the spirit of the true college experience. You had sworn you hated it all a few months ago; but that was before and during expulsion, when everything was blowing up in your face. As strange as it had felt you'd enjoyed the game, and as your friends showed you the way across the street, you were baffled by just how many people were walking that way with you, this house no doubt very large.

You all waited for a while in the backyard, the house apparently not ready for action just yet. Behind the frat was a large forest, and already people were drinking beers they'd snuck from the stadium, the air buzzing with anticipation. Finally the back doors were opened; there stood the entire soccer team, most still in part or all of their jersey's, and the group in the backyard cheered for them, their effort tonight apparently something worth celebrating. You weren't even sure if they'd won; you were preoccupied, and knew so little about most sports that it was hard to keep up. But you were having fun, the whole point of the evening.

It got off to a comfortable start, and you were feeling good with these two girls, giggling about your lack of knowledge as you sipped a seltzer, your first drink out in too long. Inside the house was beautiful, and though it was filled with many people you weren't being bothered. You fell into a calm state, almost forgetting any reason to be worried; that was until you spotted Yunho plodding down the stairs, clearly having showered, his hair only slightly damp and his clothes fresh and clean.

You were sure he hadn't spotted you, as your height often kept you hidden in groups. But you couldn't have been more wrong; as soon as he made it to the floor he was walking towards the kitchen, then back to greet everyone in a slow dance of moving closer and closer to you and your little group.

"Can we move outside?" you asked them, sensing the danger, his head sticking up above most of the rest of the crowd. He wasn't being obvious by any means, but you could see it; he was sneaking glances at you, was keeping an eye on your whereabouts the whole time.

"Yeah, you feeling hot?" one asked you.

"Yeah, and I can't take my hoodie off, I didn't wear anything under it," you joked, using the excuse she'd just put in your lap to cover up the real reason you wanted to move. As you three snaked between people you caught his eye only briefly; it was a blunt and scary look, and you could almost see the fires lighting in his brain, his anger at your movement so obvious. But you were just doing what felt right; just following your gut, following the instincts inside you.

Once outside you resumed sipping your drinks and chatting away; a few other people had already had the same idea as you, though everyone stuck to the paved area out back, the forest now dark and spooky with the sun fully set. Things were peaceful again for a moment, the air still and quiet out here, only the distant call of some bird disturbing the silence.

But then he exited the house too; now he was stalking towards you, unmistakably, his eyes fixed on you as he swayed the way he always did, his steps deliberate and strong and fast, his gaze as dead and dark as you'd ever seen it. Before you could register what was happening he grabbed you by the arm; your seltzer flew off into the bushes and you scrambled to keep up with him.

"I'm tired of these fucking games," he growled, his grip tight and painful.

"What games?" you whispered, running along to keep up with his huge strides, your eyes wide as you looked at him.

"You know what fucking games," he said, voice low and dark as you both stumbled onto the grass, the forest coming into view in all of it's darkness and mystery.

"What- what are you doing?" you asked, trying to pull away from him now, the grip starting to feel truly painful even though the sleeve of your hoodie was protecting your arm.

"What the fuck do you think?" he spit, spinning you around and hitting your back against the trunk of a tree, his features almost obscured in the faint light from the house behind.

"I- I don't know," you cried as he pinned your wrists together with one hand, holding them in front of you as he caged you in against the tree.

"Don't pretend like you didn't know what you were doing tonight," he growled, face only inches from yours now.

"I d-don't know what you m-mean," you stuttered, your body trembling hard now, your chest rising and falling fast as your breaths became almost hyperventilation.

"Coming to my last game? The most important game all season? Distracting me on the one day I needed to be perfect??"

"I had no idea, I-"

"You love to act all innocent, don't you?" he said, looking down at your outfit, something he'd seen so many freshman girls wearing.

"I'm not trying to," you responded, your blood pumping through you fast, your body alight with adrenaline. You tried wrenching your hands free; you felt strong, but it was no match for his strength, and he only doubled down on his grip, nearly crushing your wrist bones. "Ow, ow," you cried, trying to use your body weight to your advantage, only hurting yourself in the process.

"I bet that's turning you on, isn't it?" he spit, running his free hand over your parted lips, your eyes wide and your whole body cowering from him.

"N-no, not at all," you all but whispered, trying to steady your breathing.

"You're not a good liar, you know," he growled, face closer and closer to yours, before his lips smashed over yours and he fully crushed you against the hard bark of the tree, ravaging you.

Your breath was knocked from your throat in an instant; your body was tingling with excitement, every bit of you so happy that he'd finally broke, finally taken matters into his own hand. You hated to be the one responsible; you liked that this was his fault, that whatever messed up shit was about to unfold was his responsibility. You continued to twist and pull at him, but only enough to egg him on more; really you wanted this, your thin shorts already soaked, your hips bucking against his thigh that was pressed between your legs.

"See, I knew you liked it," he said, pulling back harshly, biting at your bottom lip. You let out a squeal of pleasure at that; it was hard enough that now you tasted blood, and the sharp metallic taste was making your head spin even more. You had no words to retaliate with; he chuckled in knowing he'd won, spinning you around and pulling at your shorts, pushing them down your legs just far enough to see your flushed pussy glistening at him, barely illuminated.

"Wait, not out here, they can all see-"

You were cut off by his cock slamming into you, the feeling more painful that pleasurable at first, and you let out a guttural scream, Yunho's hand coming up to cover your mouth as he pulled back and pounded into you slowly again.

"I know what you did with that professor, doll. I know you like when people are watching," he growled in your ear, hips slamming into yours repeatedly, your cunt struggling to adjust to the size of him. He was somehow bigger than that dildo you'd been using; how you were taking him without any warm up you had no idea. Your wetness was no doubt helping, but the severity of the feeling was leaving you almost limp against the tree, as you clung on to the bark for dear life and tried with your might not to collapse.

"Fuck, you're so tight," he grunted behind you, hand still on your mouth, the other pushing on your back and holding you against the tree in front of you. It was only another few strokes and you were coming undone; squeezing down on him sharply, your legs shaking and making it even harder to stand. The pain inside was now met with a sweet warmth, your whole body erupting in shakiness as the pleasure rolled through you. Your eyes rolled back, and then closed; you forgot entirely where you were in the darkness as he fucked you to that pleasure again, this time his hot load filling you, trailing down your legs after he'd pulled out.

He scooped you up as you started to collapse, your hands and face scratched from the tree bark, your shorts completely and obviously stained. You were slack against him, your head resting against his shoulder as he carried you bridal style; only a few more steps and he was lowering you into his car, driving you both back to your dorm. Again he carried you upstairs; it was totally empty, thankfully, for everyone was still at the frat party down the road. He cleaned you up in the bathroom, put a bandaid over a particularly bad cut on your left hand. You'd had to respond to some very worried texts from your two friends, assuring them you were home and fine; you knew that there'd be far more explaining to do the next few days.

You fell asleep as he cradled you in his bed; you felt at peace, finally seeing the way he kept things, feeling like you were stepping into a part of his mind and getting to have a look around. Calm, you felt so calm that night, finally; you were quite sad now that he'd be leaving so soon, and had a sinking feeling that you'd never meet someone who understood your fantasies as much as he did.

[lovrx-s]

Unheard Cries

Jenna Ortega x F!Reader

Contains: contains themes of depression, self-harm, and suicide.

a/n: [Please proceed with caution and seek help if you’re struggling :(] I have a part two of this! Idk if i should still post it or not

The light in the apartment had dimmed over the past few months, and so had you.

You and Jenna used to fill this space with laughter and late-night conversations, but lately, it felt like she wasn’t really there anymore. Physically, sure—her bags in the hallway, her perfume lingering in the bathroom—but her presence, the love and warmth you once felt, seemed to have disappeared.

You’d started feeling like a ghost in your own home.

Day One

You stared at the bedroom ceiling as the morning light filtered through the blinds. Jenna was already gone. Again.

She had left early, as she often did, muttering something about a meeting or an interview. She didn’t even kiss you goodbye.

You tried to shake it off, telling yourself that she was just busy. That this distance wasn’t personal. But as the hours dragged on and the silence of the apartment grew deafening, you couldn’t ignore the ache in your chest.

By the time Jenna returned, you were sitting on the couch, your arms wrapped around yourself for comfort.

“Hey,” you greeted her softly, but your voice came out weaker than intended.

“Hey,” she replied absentmindedly, her attention already on her phone as she kicked off her shoes.

“Can we talk?” you asked, the words sticking in your throat.

“Not now,” she said sharply, not even looking up. “I’m exhausted.”

Your heart sank as you watched her retreat to the bedroom, leaving you behind with nothing but the growing weight of your loneliness.

Day Three

You tried to reach out again. Tried to let her know that you were drowning in your own head.

“Jenna,” you began hesitantly, watching her sip her coffee across the table. “I’ve been feeling… off lately. Like, really off.”

She sighed, placing the mug down a little too hard. “Can we not do this right now? I just got back from a 12-hour shoot.”

“I know, but—”

“No, you don’t know,” she snapped, her voice cutting through the air like a whip. “You don’t understand how hard this is for me, okay? You just sit here all day while I’m out working my ass off, and then you want to unload all your problems on me? It’s too much.”

The words hit you like a slap. Your chest tightened, and for a moment, you couldn’t breathe.

“Forget it,” you mumbled, standing up from the table.

“Good,” she muttered under her breath, grabbing her coffee and walking away.

Day Five

You stayed in bed most of the day, staring at the ceiling, replaying Jenna’s words over and over. Clingy. Too much. Annoying.

She hadn’t come home the night before, and she didn’t bother to text you.

The apartment felt emptier than ever.

You got up only to look at the small collection of pills in the medicine cabinet. The thought lingered, but you shook it off, telling yourself, Not yet.

Day Nine

Jenna’s absence had become your new normal. She was always out—at work, with friends, anywhere but with you.

When she was home, she was distant, distracted, and irritable.

That night, you tried again. You sat beside her on the couch, your hands trembling as you reached for hers.

“Jenna, can we talk?” you asked quietly.

“What is it now?” she groaned, pulling her hand away.

“I’m not okay,” you admitted, tears welling up in your eyes. “I feel like I’m falling apart, and I don’t know how to stop it.”

She looked at you then, her expression hard and cold. “You’re always like this. Do you even hear yourself? It’s exhausting, Y/N. You’re so clingy and needy all the time, and honestly? I can’t deal with it.”

You stared at her, your chest tightening as the tears spilled over.

“Do you even love me anymore?” you asked, your voice barely audible.

She hesitated, and that pause was louder than any answer she could’ve given.

“I don’t know,” she finally said, standing up and leaving you alone on the couch.

Day Fourteen

You hadn’t eaten in two days. Your body felt weak, but the heaviness in your chest was worse.

Jenna had left early that morning without saying goodbye. Again.

You sat on the bathroom floor, staring at the blade in your hand. The thought had been creeping closer every day, and now, it felt impossible to ignore.

But a small voice inside you whispered, One more chance. Just one.

You stood up and cleaned yourself up.

Day Fifteen

When Jenna walked through the door that evening, you approached her cautiously.

“Hey,” you said, your voice trembling. “Can we talk? Please?”

“God, what is it now?” she snapped, throwing her bag on the couch.

“I just… I need you,” you said, tears brimming in your eyes. “I need you to listen to me, to be here for me.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re so dramatic, Y/N. You act like the whole world revolves around you. I can’t keep doing this.”

Your heart broke into pieces, each word cutting deeper than the last.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, stepping back. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

She sighed and walked past you, heading to the bedroom.

You watched her go, the final thread of hope snapping inside you.

That night, Jenna woke up to an eerie silence. She rolled over, expecting to find you beside her, but the bed was cold and empty.

“Y/N?” she called out, but there was no answer.

Panic set in as she searched the apartment, finally finding the bathroom door locked.

“Y/N! Open the door!” she shouted, banging on it desperately.

When she finally forced it open, her heart stopped at the sight of you on the floor, lifeless, a crumpled note beside you.

Tears streamed down her face as she dropped to her knees, cradling your lifeless body.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it.”

But it was too late.

You were gone.

And Jenna was left with nothing but guilt and the memory of every cruel word she’d ever said.

[yandere-sins]

“he follows until you are pressed to the cold wall, his arm around you, pulling you back so you wouldn’t have to be cold all night”

this made me remember that bed post, of how couples sleep Vs how single ppl sleep. Single ppl often have their bed up against the wall, cause it saves space and they don’t need to worry about falling off the bed, while couple usually have their bed in the middle with the headboard against the wall and the sides not touching anything, and that makes it easier for one of them to get up without having to disturb the other. This made me think… it would be such a yandere thing to do to have the bed pressed up against the wall anyways, so their darling can’t leave without them knowing or waking up. It just feels like such a subtly controlling action, where the darling wouldn’t be able to even go to the washroom in the middle of the night without the yandere allowing it. I mean, they prob would have had to wake up the yandere anyways if the yandere hugs them in their sleep, but this is still make the darling feel even more confined mentally, because they know that there is no way that they could sneak out so they would stress over whether they should wake up the yandere or if they would be able to tolerate it till morning comes. It makes you wonder if the yandere did it on purpose or by accident, especially if the yandere lives in a spacious house so there is no actual need to press the bed against the wall… ah, I just think it makes for a very nice small detail in this kind of scenario ☺️

(Sorry if this is rambling, I just woke up so my brain is muddled lol)

I haven't heard about that theory before! But it makes sense, now that I think about it :D

(Warning: Yandere, Sexual Mentions)

I can totally see yans taking advantage of that. Two entrances to the same bed are just taking up sooo much space (even if the room is completely empty otherwise, hehe). Why not make sure the darling has to do impossible aerobics to get on top and over their captor if they want to get out? Oh, the darling is such a tease, accidentally loosing their footing and waking the yandere with the beautiful sight of their darling on top of them. And then there's the wonderful spiel of:

"I just need to go to the toilet."

"Sure you do, darling."

Even if he yan knows the truth they just grip their darling's waist, keeping them in place and teasing them a little before allowing them to finally get off their captor and to the bathroom, the yan always following of course, yawning but excited to be up with their darling.

Or the very clingy yans that cannot imagine sleeping separately from their darling, even if the darling is sweating bullets because it's so damn hot in the room and locked in the yan's arms around them. They already abstain from drinking before going to bed, knowing they won't be able to free themselves of the yan's hold, so now they just hope to pass out from heatstroke or dehydration 'cause they are so fucking tired but can't sleep.

And then, of course, there's the aspect of being able to watch their darling all night long. It might take them a while with their captor staring down at them for hours to no end. How could they sleep with their sweet love right next to them? Pass up the chance to leave fluttering touches all over their bodies and whisper sweet nothings into their ear while they dream (hopefully of the yandere)? Never! They're just looking out for you—protecting you even! But the pleasure is all theirs, and the yan soaks up ever little utter or whimper from their darling, drunk on the vulnerable sight of their most precious darling. ♥

Oh, and can you imagine, those really mean yandere that drug their darlings? They are so freaking overjoyed when their darling is searching for any kind of comfort, after the yan put them into bed, while their brain is a huge mess. Darlings that cry and sob, but then bury their face in the yan's chest and the yan just instantly has a huge grin on their face as they pat their darlings head and rub their back, telling them everything is okay. They try to be empathetic but they just can't stop grinning, loosing their freaking mind from excitement. Yans who get so fucking hard/wet from their darling inching as close as possible to them, scared of some imaginary monsters they are trying to hide from, not realizing the monster is right in front of them.

Last but not least, sharing a bed doesn't just mean sharing a mattress. There's also just one blanket and one pillow, and the darling will be forced to stay near and rest their head on the yan's arm or chest. There's no escaping that, so they'll eventually admit defeat due to being so tired. But the morning after is when things get really interesting. When the mood shifts from sleepy to horny real quick, the yan not wanting to lose the warmth they shared all night, as always insatiable for their darling.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[vashtijoy]

Hi! I was wondering if you’ve translated the “this is no small potatoes” line from 2/2, where it later got changed to “this isn’t trivial” ? I love the scene so I’m curious if there is another layer of nuance in their discussion in the Japanese version

(Wow, this post was just hanging out in my drafts, totally written. Be free, little post. yeah, it's not little)

Hi anon! I currently have no thoughts of any kind and have forgotten most of what I ever knew, but I love this small sequence so much that I'm going to try to elaborate on it.

In short: these lines are the capstone of Joker and Akechi's arc. They run right back through the third semester to the Jazz Club, and right back to his confidant. They're the emotional heart of them.

Akechi 君は変わらず、丸喜と戦う道を選べばいい。 kimi wa kawarazu, Maruki to chigau michi o erabeba ii All you have to do is stick to your guns and challenge Maruki. [lit. if you choose a different path to Maruki without wavering, it'll be fine.]

First off, here's another instance of that "choose your own path" motif, elided from the localisation. This is not just associated with Akechi in P5, but he really does hammer it home.

now freeze: the callback to conf 7

Conf 7 is probably my favourite confidant stage, and I've discussed it before at some length. Specifically, we're looking at the phone call afterwards, where Akechi sums up what they've discussed:

Akechi 僕らにはお互い譲れないものがあって、そのためにも負けられない。 bokura ni wa otagai yuzurenai mono ga atte, sono tame ni mo makerarenai Neither of us can afford to lose, because we fight in service of our principles. It's the same for both of us. Neither of us can afford to lose, because of these principles we won't concede. ⋯だからこそ、もしも君が自分を曲げたりしたら絶対に赦さないよ。 … dakara koso, moshi mo kimi ga jibun o magetari shitara zettai ni yurusanai yo And that is precisely why… I cannot allow you to change. … And that's precisely why, if you betrayed yourself that way… I couldn't allow it. だって、僕が負けたくないのは『君』なんだから。 datte, boku ga maketakunai no wa "kimi" nan da kara As you are now, as you think now… I cannot allow you to win over me.

This phone call, which likely takes place the evening after Akechi's murder phone call, summarises how Akechi sees Joker, at the start of the Sae mission—and it's a remarkably positive vision. Conf 7 highlights the similarities between Joker and Akechi, before conf 8 casts their differences into sharp relief.

In fact, in his determination to illustrate why the two of them can never be friends, Akechi reveals something he may not quite have intended: the things he most admires about Joker are his loyalty and his devotion to his friends.

Seriously. Joker's devotion to his confidants is the thing Akechi sets alongside his own obsession that has driven him to murder. I don't have space to lay the whole thing out here, but you should check the conf 7 essay out if you have time.

january in the jazz club

This image of Joker as an impenetrable fortress with indomitable will comes up again in the jazz club, and rather indirectly:

Akechi こんな異常事態でも 君がまともで助かったよ。 konna ijou jitai demo kimi ga matomo de tasukatta yo I'm glad you're still normal, even in this bizarre situation. Even in such a bizarre situation as this, you've saved your sanity. Akechi 君まで正気を失ってたら… まあ、その時は叩き起こしてただろうけど。 kimi made shouki o ushinattetara... maa, sono toki wa tatakiokoshiteta darou kedo If even you had lost it… Well, if that happened, I would have slapped you awake.

The logic of the first line has been slightly altered in translation. It's not a huge shift, but it's changed the emphasis—rather than being glad Joker hasn't lost it like the others, Akechi is observing it. He expected it. He would have expected no less of his rival. (That matomo de, by the way, is far more often seen as matomo de nai, and it means that someone is not sane.)

This follows straight on from conf 7—from the idea Akechi has that Joker is someone dependable. And more than that—if Joker should cease to be that way, Akechi views it as his duty to set him straight.

He said so in conf 7's phone call (that "I cannot allow you to change", which is actually far more like, "if you gave way, I couldn't allow it") And he's saying the same thing here: "if you lose yourself, I'll slap you awake."

This gives us a little additional context for 2/2.

back to 2/2

Here's Akechi's next line:

Akechi それとも、君はこの程度で意志を曲げるようなやつなのか? soretomo, kimi wa kono teido de ishi o mageru you na yatsu na no ka? Or, are you really so spineless that you’d fold over some bullshit, trivial threat on my life?

There is a small linguistic callback here to that conf 7 phone call—Akechi uses the same verb 曲げる mageru, meaning to bend or distort, or to give way on a point of principle. The localisation has it as "fold", which does call back to conf 7, but to the wrong part! In conf 7, mageru referred to Joker's principles yielding under pressure, giving way under influence; here, it's in the extended form ishi o mageru—literally to bend one's will, to have it give way or crumble.

This word 意志 ishi is the "will" of Will Seeds, of the will to rebellion; this is the thing Akechi is calling Joker out on sacrificing. This is the thing he believes is so much more important than his own life. This is the callback here, through the jazz club and the phone call to that November night outside Penguin Sniper, to "You're my rival."

Literally, Akechi's line here is "or are you the sort of guy whose will crumbles for as little as this?". Compared to his image of Joker, Akechi's life is nothing. Compared to his image of Joker, the whole world is probably nothing. Again, it's the ideal and the real; 2/2 is when Akechi's image of Joker runs headlong into the reality of him, of a real, breathing, living boy who hurts and cries and bleeds and dies, rather than an icon. Even 11/20 never truly brings this home, because Joker escapes—just as conf 7 suggests Akechi expected him to. It is integral to the pedestal Akechi has Joker on that he would never throw the world aside for Akechi.

This is why it's only rank 10 promise Akechi, primed for the third awakening, who shows up to Leblanc to defend that pedestal. This is why the translation I return to for this line is "Or are you telling me you'd throw away everything you believe in for nothing at all?" Akechi's life is not the point here; he barely mentions it. The point here is supposed to be what Joker is throwing away.

And it's Joker, of course, not Akechi, who refocuses the conversation to what—to who—is really being thrown away.

joker's response

Joker 『この程度』じゃない “kono teido” ja nai This isn't "trivial"! You're not "nothing"!

There are other responses, of course, but this is the big one. This is the one that used to be "This isn't small potatoes"—and I hope I've illustrated why that translation was so bad that Atlus went back in and changed it. Because as well as gutting Akechi's lines of their context, that line gutted this whole moment, the pinnacle of Joker and Akechi's story, of its emotional impact.

Joker simply was not saying that things were a little bit serious—not small potatoes. He was saying Akechi mattered. You could easily render that kono teido ja nai as, simply, "But you matter." and that really isn't small potatoes

An overlooked response here is the third one, the only one Akechi will accept:

[Joker] 意思は曲げない ishi wa magenai I won't fold. My will won't break.

Yep. This one bypasses all Akechi's complaints about mercy, about betrayal, as he cuts to the chase:

Akechi なら、もう���かってるだろ? nara, mou wakatteru daro? Then you already know what needs to be done…

Note that the Japanese is a question—"Then you already know what needs to be done, right?". And it leads directly into Akechi's final demand: "What do you intend to do?"

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (22nd February 2025)—first posted.

v1.1 (22nd February 2025)—correct kanji for ishi.

[mosaickiwi]

Patience

hi i really like this post so i wrote it!!! (my hobbies include robbing sai)

warning: Angel coming down from a panic/anxiety attack while Ren waits in da hallway. Also a little self loathing if u squint?

14 Days With You is an 18+ Yandere Visual Novel. MINORS DNI

💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤

The tightness in your chest was finally waning. You took a deep breath—the easiest one you'd had in what seemed like hours. 

It felt cold on the floor now. Or maybe it'd been like that since the moment you locked yourself in. But you were more aware of it, at least. You leaned back against the wall with a sigh, closing your puffy eyes. Though your hand trembled, you gently rapped your knuckles on the marble flooring.

A faint knock on the door to your right came in response.

[REDACTED] had been there the whole time while you cried. They never said a word, but always answered you in some form. I'm here.

Vulnerability was shameful according to the voice in your head. You were making gradual progress to get rid of that voice, to give yourself the grace you gave others to seek comfort when needed. And if he couldn't see you, letting it all out didn't feel so bad. All you needed was to know that they were close by.

You tried to speak and only managed to throw yourself into a coughing fit from how raw your throat was. Hunching over with your head on your knees, you could only wait until it was over. There were hurried footsteps from the other side of the door that you barely heard over the haggard sounds.

This time, they reached out first. It wasn't a knock like usual, but your phone vibrating atop the marble. You felt around on the floor until it was within your grasp. The simple message on screen turned clear as you gently wiped at your eyes, still blurry from earlier.

water?

Despite your exhaustion, you laughed, then silently winced at the slight pain it caused. Any help or care he could offer was always within seconds when it came to you. 

It took you a few measured breaths to gather yourself enough to unlock the door. Along with a thin line of light, a water bottle slid through the small gap, only the tips of his scarred fingers coming into view before they disappeared altogether. You opened the door a little wider and tilted your head to peek out at him.

His dark mess of hair greeted you, rather than his face. [REDACTED] was sitting on the floor, almost the same as you were minutes ago with his back to the wall, knees bent and arms crossed over them. They made sure to keep their head turned away. He knew you didn’t want anyone to see you like this.

You stretched out into the hallway to touch his shoulder. It was the only way you thought to offer some form of a thank you in the moment. Their muscles flexed and shifted under your fingers, but otherwise, they didn’t acknowledge you.

The room seemed stuffy now, so you kept the door open just a crack for a little fresh air. You scooted back to your place beside the door, then slowly drank the water in peaceful silence, the man that sat still as a statue within arms reach at the corner of your vision. Everything still ached in some way from the crying session. But it wasn’t as long as usual. You tapped on the floor and watched him.

Through the space no bigger than your pinky finger, you saw your partner immediately put one hand to the wall, and knock back.

[honey-crypt]

elliott that sings his heart out while drunk asf x gn/m farmer? You know the drill :3

also saying that again, ur writing makes me giggle n kick my feet have a great day dude

a/n: i went all out if you couldn’t tell, only the best for the queen of elliott art herself!!! also attaching the drunk singing elliott art she posted for visualization reasons lol. this was a literal blast to write, i had to rewind somethin’ stupid like a hundred times to get the flow right. also follow @fuerrziah cuz her art is the best and she is da best <3 

word count: 2.1k

warnings: alcohol, drunk antics, suggestive ending

summary: you knew elliott got a bit silly and unfiltered when drunk, but you didn’t realize that the man could belt it like the best of them until you witness him sing frank sinatra's somethin’ stupid.

★ sinatra - elliott x farmer ★

The Stardrop Saloon was the heart of Pelican Town, a bar and restaurant full of laughter and chatter every night, as Gus brewed pretty cocktails and Emily bounced from room to room taking and delivering orders. To some, it was a place to unwind after a hard day or to spend time with friends while to others, it was a second home. 

Often, you frequented the saloon to treat yourself to a meal and a drink, and tonight was no different. You were too exhausted from harvesting melons, chasing after chickens, and so on to bother microwaving something, much less cooking an actual meal. With a heavy sigh, you plopped down at your usual spot and waved Emily over with a tired smile, “Hey Em.”

“(Y/N)!” the waitress greeted you with her usual sunshine demeanor, “Good to see you tonight!” she clicked her glitter pen and hovered it over her notebook, “The usual tonight?”

“You know me well,” you chuckled softly. Emily scribbled down a few lines and stated, “Should be ready in fifteen. Can I get you a drink beforehand?”

“Water with lemon,” you answered, your mouth drier than the Calico Desert from the summer heat. Emily nodded and went behind the bar, pouring you a tall glass of ice water with a lemon garnish. She returned to your table and set the drink down on the wooden coaster, “Drink up and have a good night.”

“You as well, Em,” you hummed, watching the blue haired woman disappear into the crowd of bar patrons. The walls of the saloon vibrated from the amount of noise produced in such a small space. You weren’t surprised at the amount of people present at the Stardrop Saloon; after all, it was Friday, the busiest night. At least, Emily and Gus will get some good tips. You down your water without care, as some of the liquid spilled from your lips and down your chin onto your overalls.

“Parched?” a deep but honey-like voice hummed. You looked up and locked eyes with your closest friend, Elliott, hovering next to you. Ink stained his strong calloused hands, presumably a remnant of a hours-long writing session. 

“Absolutely,” you exhaled, “It’s hotter than Hades’ taint.”

Elliott snorted, emerald eyes crinkling up while he smiled down upon you, “I can agree with you on that, my friend. I fear that if it gets any degree warmer, I must forgo my long sleeves.”

You side-eyed Eliott’s sleeved arms, as he borrowed the seat across from you, seeing the outline of toned muscle. You could take your suspenders off, too. you thought to yourself, waving a passing Emily over and requesting another water with lemon, For a beachfront Hemingway, you sure have the physique of a Greek God.

“How did your day on the farm go?” the writer asked, resting his elbows on the table. You plucked your glass off the table and pressed it against your forehead, “I shoulda taken today off, but the mayor just had to request two dozen melons for his outing with the governor,” you grumbled, annoyed at Mayor Lewis but more so at the sweltering heat that suddenly enveloped the room. 

“Rest days are always good,” the redhead let out a low hum of agreement, “Perhaps, you can do so tomorrow?”

“I doubt it. Shane ordered three dozen hot peppers,” you sent daggers to the man in question from across the room, as Shane drank his beer by Gus’s prized wooden bear statue. Elliott’s lips formed a frown, “The life of a farmer, one of never ending labor,” he laughed. 

Emily approached your table and set down another glass of water with lemon for you, “Here’s your usual,” she added before placing a plate of spaghetti by your water, “Want some parmesan?”

“What is this, the Gotoro Empire? Of course, I want some,” you jested. Emily giggled and handed you the shaker of parmesan, “Just let me know if you need more,” she then directed her attention to Elliott, “Hi Elliott! You looking for your usual tonight, too?”

“Yes, please, my dear,” he answered, adjusting his suspenders, “And a pale ale for my friend, as well.”

“Coming right!” the waitress skipped off to the back of the bar. You raised an eyebrow at Elliott while you drowned your spaghetti in heaps and heaps of parmesan, “What’s the occasion?”

“Can I not treat one of my closest friends to a nice drink after a hard day’s work?” the writer clutched his heart, “You wound me, (Y/N).”

“You’re so fucking cheesy,” you rolled your eyes with a playful twinkle in your eyes, “You know I don’t object to anything free, especially a free drink.”

Emily returned with Elliott’s usual, a pint of beer and a crab cake, as well as a pale ale for you, “Enjoy your meals!” she gave the two of you a thumbs up, “Wave me down if you need anything.”

You touched your lips to the cool glass and drank, the hot and ice sensation of alcohol coating your throat, “Shit,” you exhaled, “I needed that, thanks.”

“Of course,” your friend offered you a smile, that stupid smile you often saw on the cover of a romance novel, “How about a toast?” he held his beer up, “To friendship and a hard day’s work?”

“I’ll cheers to that,” you chuckled and clinked glasses together. As the night went on, one glass turned into two, then three, and so on. You tapped out after two glasses, as for Elliott, the Scot in him already finished four glasses of beer. His cheeks were flushed like the color of his hair, his eyes fluttering while he held back a hiccup, “Oh Yoba…” your friend tucked some loose hair behind his pierced ear, “I think… I think I went overboard.”

“You think?” you questioned. Emily returned with Elliott’s fifth glass of the night and you mouthed to her, “Cut him off for tonight,” to which she nodded in agreement. 

“You usually max out at three, is something on your mind?” your ears rang and your head throbbed from the noise of overlapping conversations around the saloon. Elliott finished his fourth glass of beer, a bit of foam smeared on the right corner of his lips, “Oh, (Y/N), I won’t bore you-” he hiccuped, “-with my woes. I’m simply a tortured artist destined to be consumed by my work.”

You grabbed a napkin and leaned down towards Elliott, “Hold still,” you whispered, as you dabbed away the foam from his lips. His face turned to a darker shade of red, “You’re so close,” he whispered back, eyes hazy. You pulled away and set the used napkin aside, “Sorry, you had foam on your face,” you mumbled, averting your gaze.

Behind you, Pam dragged herself towards the jukebox and slammed a quarter in its slot, grumbling to herself about hating the cheerful swing of the current song, “Shit,” you heard her curse, “Wrong button,” the atmosphere of the saloon abruptly switched from chaotic to sombre, as a light guitar riff filled the air. 

“Oh!” Elliott leapt to his feet, “I know,” he covered his mouth to hiccup, “I know this song!” he then approached the jukebox and leaned on it for support, swaying his index finger from side to side to the rhythm of the music. You smiled to yourself and sipped your water, only to choke on it like a Yoba damn fool the moment Elliott began to sing.

“I know I stand in line… Until you think you have the time… To spend an evening with me,” his voice was a neat match to the original singer, a light baritone, “And if we go someplace to dance… I know that there’s a chance you won’t be leaving with me…” 

Elliott unbuttoned a few notches on his sea blue dress shirt, exposing his defined collarbone and a bit of wispy chest hair, “Then afterwards we drop into a quiet place and have a drink or two…” he glazed over your face and body with a drunken smile, “And then I go and spoil it by saying somethin' stupid like I love you…” Elliott untied his ponytail, luscious locks free from their confinement and resting against his shoulders.

Your pupils dilated; no longer was the saloon filled with static chatter and the slamming of glasses, but instead everyone ogled silently at Elliott, his vocals amplified. He pushed himself off the jukebox and stumbled a bit, taking your hands in his, “I see it in your eyes, that you still despise the same old lies you heard the night before…” he touched one of his hands to your cheek and cupped it, “And though it’s just a line to you; for me, it’s true and never so right before…”

“Elliott?” your voice croaked, your blood rushing to your extremities and your heartbeat overwhelmingly rapid. He gave you a lopsided smile and continued to sing, “I practice every day to find some clever lines, to make the meaning come true…” 

No, no. He’s just singing the song. This doesn’t mean anything, you tried to reason with yourself, but it fell short, as Elliott serenaded the next few lyrics, “But then I think I’ll wait until evening gets late and I’m alone with you… The time is right, your perfume fills my head-” he leaned closer to you and inhaled your musk, “-The stars get red and, oh, the night’s so blue… And then I go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid like-” you could feel Elliott’s breath against the side of your neck, as he sang in your ear, “I love you…” 

You couldn’t move, you couldn’t breathe. The alcohol in your system, the summer heat, Elliott’s closeness, made your mind go foggy; you were hanging onto every single word that spilled from the redhead’s pretty little lips. Elliott passionately belted out the instrumental pause, trying his best not to laugh, earning a laugh from you, nonetheless. 

He stood back up and pulled you off your feet with him, repeating the chorus, “The time is right, your perfume fills my head,” he twirled you around, “The stars get red, and, oh, the night's so blue… And then I go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid like I love you…” even when intoxicated, Elliott was a true Casanova, holding onto you and swaying you side to side to the music.

“I love you…” 

You met his eyes, oh how they shined like gemstones.

“I love you…”

Your knees turned to jelly, you clung to your friend for dear life.

“I love you…”

Your surroundings vanished; no more saloon, no more patrons, just you and Elliott.

“I love you…”

You leaned closer, your chest against his.

“I love you…”

You pressed your lips against Elliott’s, savoring the aftertaste of beer and crab cakes, as the jukebox switched to the next song and the world around you returned to its original state. Elliott kissed you back, you weren’t sure if it was the alcohol in control but Yoba, did he taste divine. Oh, to have the confidence of a drunken fool at all hours of the day, you grabbed at his hair and tugged on the strands, Elliott moaning against your wet lips. 

“Hey, you two!” Pam’s voice snapped you back into reality and broke the kiss, “Get a room!” Her words garnered a few similar statements from other bar patrons.

Through glossy eyes and clouded minds, you leaned your body against Elliott’s and asked, “Well… should we?” to which he pecked you on the lips, “That’s a splendid idea,” you tossed your own wallet on the table to pay for the two of you’s meals and interlocked arms with one another, supporting one another’s uncoordinated bodies. To the door and out you went, as you and Elliott roamed the streets of Pelican Town towards his cabin, exchanging laughs and kisses. 

…

…

…

bonus:

Back in the Stardrop Saloon, Pam plopped her ass back in her seat, relieved that the farmer and Elliott were finally gone. She gestured to Gus for another beer and commented aloud, “About time those two lovebirds figured it out.”

“Indeed,” answered Gus, as he dropped Pam a foamy beer, “They make a cute couple.”

“Oh, dear!” Emily walked up to Gus with the farmer’s wallet in hand, “They left their wallet here, should I run after them?”

Gus chuckled to himself and shook his head, “Put it in lost and found, I don’t think we should disturb those two tonight. 

[tyxoxo]

Feel It

pairing: jaehyun x fem!reader

genre: smut, pornstar!jaehyun au, 00’ dream inserts

words: 5.1k

warnings: pure filth, exhibitionism/voyeurism, degrading, choking/breath play, humiliation, dacryphilia, sex toys, ball gag, shibari, allusion to cum play, unprotected sex

a/n: san francisco armory, das the setting lolol (thanks kink.com 🫡)  also!! since the reader would have no way of knowing the names of 00’, hopefully i did a good enough job describing them for you all to know who is who sksks.

—

“okay, we’ll just have you sign this.” the producer with the name tag K said as he handed you a clipboard with a pen; the two of you sitting across each other in a large auditorium. 

you were fidgeting the more you sat there in the middle of the “playroom”, excitement rising with every glance of the various s&m props placed on  antique plaques. whether it was the torture rack, assorted floggers, or cattle prods, you couldn’t wait to try it all.

never in your years of living did you expect to be at an armory-turned-BDSM studio, preparing to do your first adult scene. yet here you were, only wearing a pair or your underwear, completely bare everywhere else. 

the use of a National Guard armory was oddly fitting for the company—20th century Moorish Revival architecture, albeit refurbished, still gave a sense of “grittiness” and rustic charm.

 “i know that you already submitted your online waiver but we just like to have an additional one for in-person. physical signatures are always preferred.” K snapped you out of your thoughts for a second, though your mind couldn’t help but drift back into the depths—thinking yet again to your upcoming scene.

the single sheet of paper reiterated everything you read through just a week prior:

“Mission Statement and Company Values”

typical header to start a waiver…littered with the expectations to provide a “consensual and safe space for all participants.”

your eyes scanned further down, taking a few minutes to read their “Right to Distribute Media:

By signing here, you agree to having any and all media in your presence posted to our website Kink.com, with potential distribution to other pornographic partnerships…”

you provided your signature for the two spots provided, officially sealing away what modesty you had left.  

as soon as you handed the clipboard back to K, he spoke into his bluetooth earpiece, presumably notifying the other producers of your newly sealed fate, “you guys are good to head this way.” he said before placing the clipboard on the floor next to his water bottle. 

“in a moment you’ll be able to meet your partner, and go over the do’s and don'ts, that kind of stuff.” he said, followed by a closed-mouth smile.

you smiled back, trying to hide the anxiety creeping under your skin. there was no telling what kind of man would appear through those doors, meters away from where you sat.

you kept your eyes trained on the entrance, tapping your leg up and down to pass what seemed like hours.

but then again, this was a four story building…maybe it was just taking them a while to get to where you were. 

just as you looked down at your twiddling thumbs, the heavy sound of the double-doors filled the room. the man that appeared was unlike anyone you’ve ever seen. 

he was gorgeous…

and he smiled as soon as he laid eyes on you. his dimples being the first feature that caught your attention. 

he strutted towards you, confidence exuding with every step. he only sported boxer briefs, definitely nowhere near as self-conscious as you, now that you saw his toned body. 

you tried not to make it obvious that you were eyeing his subtle six-pack. but it was hard. his body was perfect; not too overbearing, not too ordinary. still, his biceps and his quads showcased the work he put in to maintain his physique. 

the last you could observe before he stopped in front of you, was his happy trail, leading all the way to the package he had confined in his briefs. he completely ignored K, standing right in front of his field of view. 

your eyes slowly made their way to his face, still smiling so bright, with ivory teeth to match. 

“hello, my name is jaehyun. nice to meet you.” 

his voice was velvety deep, baritone. 

another surprise to you. 

jaehyun held out his right hand, but you noted the single platinum band adorned on his left ring finger, to your disappointment. 

your thoughts were outlandish, there’s no way you’d have a chance with him even if he wasn’t taken.

you returned the handshake, voice visibly shaken as you gave him your name.

“i’ll go ahead and let you guys have the floor. i’ll be back in 10.” K said with a clear of his throat. he then gave up his seat for jaehyun, making his leave towards the double-doors.

jaehyun looked back at the medieval-styled chair before sitting down, chiseled thighs growing in size once he found a comfortable position.

“so tell me a bit about yourself…”

he leaned forward in his seat, placing his hands criss-cross in between his thighs. 

the simple action of trying to close the distance between the two of you, paired with his now sultry-tone, caused you to gulp quite noticeably.

“i uhhh, this is—s-sorry i can’t form my words today.” you covered your mouth as you laughed, embarrassed by the effect jaehyun had on your intelligibility.

if only you noticed his faint smile. 

“would it be better if i asked you something different?” he spoke with a tilt of his head, bangs sweeping softly across his eyelashes.

“no its not that…i’m just not super interesting.” you pursed your lips together, shameless in admitting how average you were. 

“i highly doubt that. for you to come here, i know that you’re more interesting than you let on.”

he smirked to himself, dimples even more pronounced as he looked down at your feet.

“so what do you like…don’t like? or what are you willing to try today?” 

he looked back up at you, but the ability to maintain eye contact with him was becoming harder and harder.

but for you to have come this far, sitting almost-nude in front of a stranger…there was no use in being shy anymore.

“i’ve just always wanted to be controlled, dominated, humiliated…reduced to nothing, pretty much.” you spoke matter-of-factly, knowing he’s probably heard this all before. 

you decided to keep your eyes on his mouth, and then his sharp canine’s that gleamed under the warm sepia light as he licked his lips. 

“what about degrading?”

“definitely.”

“shibari?”

“yes.”

he continued to list everything that came to mind, making it somewhat easier for you to communicate your needs and expectations.

by now, barely 7-minutes in, jaehyun learned that you were practically open to anything. 

“one last thing. the most important.”

you raised your eyebrows at his sudden announcement, already having an idea of what it could be.

“what’s your safeword?”

“olive.”

                           —☽༓☾—

“alright, we’ll go ahead and get started. if you at any time need to take a break, just let us know. remember, there is no time limit, and most of all, enjoy yourselves.” one of the producers said while adjusting his camera.

now in the auditorium with you and jaehyun, were two different producers, with the names I and N; an obvious attempt to mirror their company, which definitely made it easier to recall. K was nowhere to be found this time. but you weren’t concerned about that anymore. 

the entire auditorium was now your’s, filled with all the props to make your fantasies come true. the chairs were pushed away, and the camera’s were now rolling.

jaehyun stood face-to-face, still in only his boxer briefs. he studied the floor beneath you, seeming to psych himself up with a smirk. 

you didn’t even really know how to stand, or carry yourself, fearing that too much focus on the lesser details would ruin your adrenaline. 

just as you watched his head rise to your level, you were swept away by a kiss.

he was as spirited as you hoped, using his left hand to hold onto your cheek, and the other to rest against your hip. still through the shock of how soft his lips were, you managed to taste the balm that he chose to wear—peach with a hint of vanilla. 

you raised your hand to wrap around the wrist that kept hold of your cheek, eventually closing more of the gap between the two of you. 

despite how delicate the kisses were at first, you could hear them echo throughout the auditorium, surely to get louder once you could taste more of him.

you tried your best to keep up with the different angles that his head moved, but thinking back to the fact that these were among the first kisses you shared, you could bear the inconsistencies until you found a proper rhythm. 

so far, he did everything right. starting off slow just how you liked it… just how you told him just a few minutes prior. 

his left hand caressed your cheek back and forth, brushing against the small hairs in front of your ear. the other made its way down to your ass, gripping tightly, but not without your breath hitching through the fiery embrace.

he took the opportunity like you had guessed, to brush his tongue against your own, finally gaining more out of the subtle start towards your undoing. 

you had only known him for roughly half an hour, yet you already felt in tune with his way of leading you to pure bliss. 

he intertwined with you effortlessly, regardless of the mess the two of you made with just your lips. combined saliva pooled at the corners of your mouth, and you found yourself whimpering at his attempts to clean up the remnants with his warm tongue.

“you’re making a mess already?”

he spoke against the corner of your mouth, the smell of vanilla becoming even more evident from his suckled lips. 

you didn’t want to give in so soon to his early teasing. he needed to do more.

though you realized within a flutter of your hooded eyes, that he needed just as much as you. without any warning, he flipped his warm persona, the hand that held your cheek moving down to grip your throat tight. 

his fingertips knew exactly where to apply pressure, causing you to wince as the sting resonated on both sides of your neck. your hands immediately wrapped around his, knowing he liked to see you struggle.

you had made a point of that too. 

“you won’t say anything? what about when i do this?” his face remained mere centimeters away from you, denying you of any further kisses. 

you could see through the haze that his dimples were still just as evident from his now-sinister smile. 

his right hand cupped your clothed core, causing you to shudder against his palm. 

he would definitely be able to feel your growing arousal through the thin material. 

“maybe you don’t deserve any of this…i should just leave you here.”

he backed up his shaming effortlessly, all the while palming you through your damp underwear. 

the friction felt electric against your clit, causing you to buck against his touch.

“ride my fucking hand.” he smirked right in front of your face, like a complete switch from the gentleman you just met.

you were sure that you looked pathetic, getting off to just the palm of his hand. practically humping to get some sort of release. 

being self-conscious no longer mattered, not when he provided you with a means to an end. proving not only to yourself, but to future viewers that you were outwardly desperate.

the more zealous you got with your gyrating hips, the more jaehyun was inclined to stop and just watch you yearn for it.

he decided immediately, stilling his movements. 

for the first time, you whined.

“please let m-me cum.” your voice barely produced any sound, restricted from his hold on your throat. 

“should i?” 

“mmh, yes. please…” 

you hoped that your look of pity was convincing enough. 

“go on and show me then. show me that you deserve it.” 

he gave you free reign, lessening the hold on your throat, and continuing to keep his palm still against your aching core.

you were practically salivating, trying your hardest to hit a certain spot along your sensitive nub. with a few more hellish rolls of your hips, you succeeded, feeling that familiar high surge through your body. 

jaehyun was beyond satisfied, enjoying how you broke down from barely nothing. his eyes drifted over every part of your trembling body, mentally noting the parts that would be destroyed by the time he was done with you.

as you started to come down, he had already tugged your underwear off, even taking a moment to smell the now-ruined fabric. he could’ve spent longer doing so, showing off his guise for as long as he wanted.

but you were fidgeting quite noticeably, shifting your thighs to subdue the constant throbbing of your clit. it was obvious there was more to come.

once he tossed the flimsy fabric to the side, he ushered you towards the far left of the room where two red velvet sofas were positioned against the wall, and a small antique dresser sat in between. 

you could barely keep up with his stride as he interlocked your hands together. but you let him control your movements, until you were centered in the middle of the makeshift formal room.  

on top of the dresser were bundles of rope, a ball gag and a vibrating wand, with images of all the ways you would be ruined flooding your brain. your eyes then drifted up towards the ceiling, immediately catching sight of the metal ring hanging just above you.

the cameras were paused momentarily; had the recording continued, the producers would’ve captured your look of wonder as you watched jaehyun gather the jute material onto his arm to begin the process. 

you’d only had a few experiences with bondage, but all of the preparation seemed to come naturally as you followed jaehyun’s instructions. he was patient and soft-spoken with his directions, all the while marveling at how pretty you looked while listening to him. 

it was evident he was experienced in the art of shibari, as he adjusted the intricate designs to fit the contour of your body within minutes. your eyes were conflicted on where to look, whether it was his concentration or the way the rope cupped your breasts perfectly. either way, you felt beautiful. 

“take deep breaths for me, you’re doing great.” 

his sultry tone was enough to relax you as you felt gravity disappear under your feet.

your eyes remained shut as you inhaled and exhaled, gradually soaking in the feeling of complete ascension. 

you were in the most exposed position—frogtied. suspended upwards, arms secured behind your back, knees bent, and ankles bound to your thighs. 

even though it took a while to get into this arrangement, he made you feel comfortable, and you were still just as wet, eagerly awaiting his next move.

“how do you feel? talk to me.” he stood in front of your suspended body, watching your face for any signs of discomfort. there was anything but, you surprisingly felt purified, as if a literal weight had been lifted. 

“i feel good.” 

you weren’t the best at exclaiming your feelings, but you could tell that jaehyun sensed your approval.

“anything pinching or pulling?” he asked again, leaning in close to inspect the knots littered across your body. 

“nope.” 

“okay good. just wanted to check before i put this on.” he replied while giving the “ok” hand signal for the producers to resume rolling. 

he stepped over to the dresser, grabbing the black leathered ball gag. your pussy involuntarily clenched around air at the sight of the large red ball, and the realization that you were now being filmed in suspension, every bit of your cunt on display for the world to see.

you licked your lips one last time before he placed the gag. the taste of plastic overtook your senses, unfortunately masking the remnants of his lips balm. nonetheless, you felt complete, relishing in your own fantasy being brought to life.

saliva managed to escape not even seconds later, dribbling onto your chin. jaehyun eyes grew dark, switching back to the sadist he truly was.

your eyes tracked his every move, watching as he finally exposed himself.

you wished you were well-spoken enough to describe how perfect he was. but you could only manage whimpers through your restraints, hoping that he heard your reaction to seeing his lower half for the first and probably only time.

you were finally able to see where his happy trail ended, branched out into a sea of nicely trimmed hair. his length stood proud, snapping back onto his outie bellybutton as he kicked his briefs off to the side.

he stepped over to the dresser one last time, grabbing the vibrating wand. you were expecting the sound of the device to come to life, even squinting your eyes to brace for the feeling of it hitting your clit. but instead he kept it down by his left side, while his right finger came up to collect the saliva that had now leaked down your neck. 

“not yet…you’ll have to prove that you’re worth my time. i don’t reward sluts that whine in my face.” his words hit you hard, but his finger worked even harder.

your body began to shake as he used his slicked forefinger to paint a trail down the center of your chest. he eventually found your nipple that had swelled through the coarse rope, pinching hard.

he released quickly, doing the same to the other. 

his right finger continued its descent, now finding your cunt that was glistening under the warm lighting. he seemed satisfied enough from the sight of your juices dripping onto the floor meters below you. 

your breathing grew ragged as you felt him group his digits together to press against your sensitive nub. he leaned further into you, preventing you from seeing him work your pussy into overdrive.

the filthy sounds of your essence sloshing against the flesh of his fingers filled the room, even overpowering the pathetic moans that tried to escape through the soaked ball gag.

“think you could cum again? hmm?” 

he cooed against your ear, determined to kick all of your senses over the edge.

you failed miserably at producing a coherent “yes” through the pleasure, and you feared this would have consequences.

the high was building up a second time, but unfortunately it was met with jaehyun’s cruelty.

he backed away from you completely, leaving you there to wiggle in the ropes that kept you hungry and docile.

“yes…i can do it.” you words were muffled at best, barely audible. but your body showed enough of your desperation, trying to move within the confines of your unrelenting submission. 

“fucking filthy whore…you’re too late.” 

jaehyun tortured you by staying back, twirling the vibrating wand in his hands. 

regardless of the fact you were granted an orgasm moments ago, you made it known that you deserved another.  

tears began to pool in your eyes, eventually flowing from your eyelids onto your warm cheeks. breathing seemed more difficult, as you sniffled and heaved against the ball gag.

jaehyun looked down at the floor, in awe at the amount of your juices that had hit the floor. you were more than soaked, practically painting the floor in an abstract design of delicious filth. usually he was able to drag out teasing for a while with his other “co-stars” but for you, his patience was wearing thin; not out of distaste, but out of the eagerness to finally feel your walls around his cock. he would have to fuck you soon, so he could see if you felt just as good as you looked.

he had done plenty of scenes, even similar to this; more than he could count. and none short of bragging, he ruined every single one of them, and you were no exception. 

without a second thought, jaehyun stepped up to you, placing the vibrator on your engorged clit. a shriek escaped through the gag as you slumped in the ropes, head falling backwards as a wave of relief hit you. 

finally, you were given more.

through your hooded eyes, you were unable to see his erect tip awaiting your entrance. 

“are you happy now? what do you say?” he gripped your jaw hard, forcing your head forward to stare into his dark eyes. 

“thank you s-so much…thank-...”

your gratitude was cut short as he pushed himself inside you. 

a guttural groan fell from his glossy lips as he paused halfway, utterly amazed by the way your walls welcomed his cock, trying his best to draw out the way you sucked him in. 

he could’ve stayed like this forever, relishing in your ability to grip him for dear life. 

“you’re so fucking tight…did you save this pussy for me?” his voice was just as shaky as yours, completely high off the energy that filled the room.

you nodded your head up and down, mind too absorbed in the pleasure that overtook your body.  

your eyes blew wide as he continued to inch himself further inside your dripping hole; beyond satisfied from being stretched full. 

you watched his jaw go slack as he bottomed out, pupils dilating not only in front of you, but the cameras too. 

the realization that everyone would witness his transformation, caused you to contract around his length; the vibrator intensifying your actions as if you no longer had control. 

he wasted no time thrusting inside you, hips snapping against yours in an immediate, steady rhythm. your body recoiled against his tireless momentum, eventually swinging from the metal ring every time he connected his tip to your cervix. 

“do you think you could hold out sweetheart?” 

you were sure that you could, but you couldn’t help but entertain the idea that it was much deeper than that. 

nonetheless, you mumbled “yes”, hoping to prove your worth so that he would never stop fucking you senseless. 

yet again, your head fell back, pitiful howls escaping through the gag as you felt your orgasm building up a second time. 

“come on, look at me. watch me fuck this pussy.” he used his non occupied hand to usher your head forward, watching you choke up as many moans as you could through the soiled gag. 

he continued to support your head, and it became obvious that it was done for a reason. the sound of the double-doors caught your attention soon after, echoing through the auditorium. your eyes looked past jaehyun’s broad shoulders to catch sight of the four attractive figures that appeared. 

their presence would be burned inside your mind forever—an aura of complete deviance, walking towards your suspended frame with an obvious intent to ravage you beyond repair. 

your eyes couldn’t look away, not even with jaehyun still drilling inside your pussy. 

you noted the two tallest, one with wavy silver hair, and bangs long enough to cover his dark eyes. he had the most  chiseled features out of the four, with full lips to complement his sharp jawline. the other didn’t look nearly as intimidating as the first, with rounded facial features despite having a broader frame. he adorned blue eyes, which you assumed to be contacts. either way, the sky blue color fit his chocolate hair, setting him apart from his yang counterpart.

the third reminded you of a sunset, with golden skin that radiated far beyond his charming presence. his jet black hair offered contrast to his warm exterior. 

the final one—the blonde, surprised you the most, he didn’t seem like the type to present himself in this type of environment, but maybe that was his ruse—to deceive anyone into thinking he wasn’t as filthy as the next. he made sure to be the last one following behind in the ensemble, but you still noted his elfen-like appearance, seeming delicate yet playful. 

they were all just as flawless as jaehyun. 

you would have to refer to them by their features, as there was no indication of their names. truthfully, the idea that you may never know, made this all the more fulfilling. letting four strangers do whatever they wanted to you, was the pinnacle of desire. 

the silver-haired boy made sure to greet you first, standing next to your right side. though you weren’t sure if gripping your chest through the rope was a proper greeting, it still caused you to whimper from his robust touch. he squeezed your nipples harder than jaehyun, watching you crumble from his assault. 

“another slut for me to fuck with hmm? you better hope you make this worth my while.” he snarled against your ear, taking the time to tug your earlobe between his teeth. the kisses that followed were messier than the brunette that stood to your left. you made sure to make eye contact with him and acknowledge his existence despite his silver-haired fiend stealing the show with his unhinged words. the blue-eyed boy had a smug grin on his face, caressing your cheek with no care in the world that your saliva had covered his fingers. 

he began to pecker along your collarbone, keeping his eyes locked onto your own, tongue swiping upwards to taste the sweat that had formed on your flushed skin. 

“i bet she’s been good so far?” the brunette’s voice caught you off guard, completely teasing, even mocking your predicament. you saw him look forward at jaehyun, then down at the vibrator that was still pressed against your clit.

you hoped to god that he would grab and use it on you. that any of them would use it on you.

“hell yeah she’s been good. taking my cock like a good little slut.” jaehyun licked along his upper lip, baring his canine’s again. 

“here...i know she’s close.”

jaehyun offered the vibrator to the brunette, the sensation temporarily leaving your core. you whined in dissatisfaction, hoping it wouldn’t be off you for too long. 

“you’re so pretty…” 

the blonde haired boy soothed your worries, coming up beside the brunette. his hands were noticeably smaller than the rest, but still just as skillful. he took his slender fingers and began to rub your abused clit in circles. the pads of his fingers were a few degrees colder, but it soon warmed up after making contact with your heated skin. 

you jumped, as best as you could, when he increased the pace, and began swiping his entire hand across your wet mound. the sounds of your juices splashing past his digits bounced off of the walls of the auditorium. 

he truly proved your point of his devious nature. 

the golden boy rushed to jaehyun’s left side, getting a clear view of the mess you kept making. his hands trailed down to palm himself through his black denim jeans. even through your tears, you watched him bite his lip, hard enough to make the skin underneath go pale.

you were so close. 

“pl…please. i’m cl…” you thought your words had drifted off into the void, overpowered by the multitude of bodies in the room, but they didn’t go unnoticed. 

“awwh, she’s gonna cum. so wet, so pretty…” the fairy teased, taking the time to lower his mouth to your knee, making sure that he had made at least one mark on your skin by the time the evening was over.

the familiar band from within your core snapped. a wave of pleasure surged from your core all the way up to where the silver-haired boy had gripped your throat. moans managed to escape through the hold he had on your neck, stinging against his palms as he squeezed harder and harder.

the sea of white that flashed across your vision had turned red when the fairy’s hand left you and the vibrator took his place. the brunette’s smile grew wide when he witnessed first-hand what overstimulation looked like, and for him to be the one to blame, made an obvious power trip show across his cheshire grin. 

you were completely ruined. it was evident by the way you began to convulse, the way you cried out, the way your walls continued to contract around jaehyun’s cock. 

“fuckkk, just like that. you're sucking me in so hard. keep doing that sweetheart…”

jaehyun chanted out, an indication that he was close to exploding inside of you.

“take that ball gag off, i wanna hear her scream…” the golden boy directed the fairy to do his bidding, not wanting to pause on his own self-gratification. he had already freed his cock from his boxers, nowhere near patient enough to pull his pants the rest of the way down. 

you weren’t still enough for the blonde as he tried freeing the clasp behind your head. eventually with the help of his silver-haired friend, you were finally able to voice your sounds of another orgasm. 

“i’m gonna cum again!!” you screamed out, making the rest of them smirk with pride.

“are you even gonna say thank you? ungrateful whore…” the same one that had been giving you the most hell, spat against your ear. his words made it all the more damning; you enjoyed how he tested your mental stability. 

“thank you! thank you so much!” 

you were sure that you looked broken, slumped from the actions of these four strangers and of course, jaehyun, who was just as close.

his thrusts were beginning to show cracks, losing the rhythm he had held onto for so long. the two of you stared at each other, in your own world as you both came. 

with one final snap of his hips, he let out a moan, pumping you full of his seed with every inhale and exhale. 

your voice gave out, vocal chords spent from all of the prior screams you produced during your time of luxury.

your mouth hung open as you felt him fill your walls to the brim, creating a salacious mixture that bubbled inside your painted walls.  

even though the vibrator had stopped, a phantom sensation caused you to tremble against the now-still wand. 

all that remained was the comedown. and you weren’t sure you wanted it to end.

jaehyun remained inside you, drawing out the aftermath of your back-to-back orgasm. a thin sheet of sweat decorated his chest, illuminating under the tan lights.

your breathing had finally calmed down, and by the time you tried to get a good look at everyone, they were already huddled around jaehyun, waiting to see the creampie. 

their eyes followed jaehyun’s every move, watching as he exited you with a single plop.

“i’m first.” the silver-haired boy spoke quickly, immediately lowering himself to be level with your weeping hole. 

it was obvious that this wasn’t over. and you were more than okay with that.

_

//tagging: @pradajaehyun @glitchfiles @stargrll13 @the-universe-in-you-jjh

[acti-veg]

hello! im vegan; I love our nonhuman friends and hate speciesism. but like what is to be done about cockroaches. i have an infestation in my apartment. i recognize that humans are a minority on this great big planet, that we have taken space that belonged first to insects and animals, but. cockroaches. are there ethical ways to make them stay outta my place? is that an ethical desire in the first place. also great blog you are eloquent and patient and i tell all my vegan friends about your posts in da group chat

Thank you for the support, I really appreciate that! This is a common ethical dilemma for vegans, and I've answered it in general terms in my FAQs here, but I'll offer some more specific advice as well.

With cockroaches, prevention is the best thing you can do. I realise that it is too late for this for your apartment now, but you should start doing these things regardless, if you don't already, since they may drive out the roaches already there:

Do a deep clean immediately. That means disinfecting everything, paying special attention to areas like the top of your fridge and behind it, the backs of cupboards, behind the oven (if you can move it), under your bed, the tops of doors, behind furniture. Anywhere that you don't clean on a regular basis. Get all your furniture and appliances out and clean thoroughly. If you're doing this properly, it should take a full day of work.

Once you have done a deep clean, throw out or seal away any clutter that cockroaches could live and nest in. Paper is especially attractive to them - so any books, letters, cardboard, but also linens, piles of clothes, dishrags, tea towels etc. Get rid of it or seal it away in plastic boxes. You want your space to be as empty as possible, at least until they are gone.

While we're on throwing out, look up what their eggs look like. If you find anything with their eggs on it, sterilise it or throw it away. If it is something like a book, you will not be able to sufficiently sterilise and you'll need to throw it away (in an outside bin). Check all of the books you own, even if they look pretty clean on the shelf.

Keep your space extremely sterile after this, you need to go overboard on this now. Especially make sure you clean all surfaces that you have prepared food on, or eaten nearby. Do this daily, or as often as you can.

Wash plates and utensils immediately after use. Dry them and put them away, don't leave them on the rack.

Keep bins completely covered, clean, and empty them regularly. A separate bin for food waste (emptied daily) is a good idea. This applies to pet bowls as well.

Cockroaches are most active at night, so before you go to bed, check all the above has been done. Leave nothing out over night that they can shelter in, eat, or drink. Make the environment as inhospitable for them as you can.

With you being in an apartment, they may be coming from a neighbouring property. Seal gaps around doors and windows to prevent entry - you may need to speak to the landlord or property manager about this if you're renting.

Cockroaches need water, so take a look at whether you have any leaks around water pipes that could be providing them with a drinking source. Things like mop buckets, wet toothbrushes, drip trays in the fridge, the bottom of the bath/shower, and wet sponges also count. Anything moist needs to be covered up, or dried off after use.

This alone may well be enough to drive them out and prevent them from returning, but there are also natural deterrents (and chemical ones) that you can use. This includes bay leaves, pepper, garlic powder, dishwashing liquid, essential oils and baking soda. There are many pre-made natural ones online too, if you're concerned about chemicals.

Try these things over a period of weeks, but if that doesn't work, you need to call an exterminator as your last resort. You just cannot live in close proximity with cockroaches, they pose a health risk and they may damage the property. Your landlord or housing association may be able to pay for it or at least help with the costs, especially if you can get one or more neighbour to come out and say that they have cockroaches as well. The law requires this in many places.

Hopefully it won't come to that, exhaust everything else here before you call a professional, but don't feel bad if that is what you have to do. So long as you're doing everything possible and practicable to try and drive them out humanely, then you really don't have any other choice available to you. Just know that even if you do call an exterminator, if you don’t do everything else on this list, they will almost definitely come back

It speaks well of you that you’re concerned about this from an ethical perspective, but remember that veganism has to be practical for it to work. You have to look after your own wellbeing first, and it just isn’t reasonable to expect anyone to tolerate cockroaches in their home purely on ethical grounds.

[muaka-safari]

May I ask, did you get around to writing that essay about ga-matoran in Metru Nui and their connection to the Great Temple? Not expecting anything! Just curious!

Oh, I think I wrote a bullet-pointed list on ga-matoran and their connection to the Great Temple, specifically looking at how it affects their concept of gender here, but I never wrote anything long-hand.

If a quick rundown is what you're looking for, follow that link. If you do enjoy long(ish), rambling essays from someone making far too extensive headcanons for fictional worlds, read on.

So. Ga-Metru. The metru of the ga, the metru specifically for the ga, that metru. Now, I could launch straight into the impact of Ga-Metru being Mata Nui-favoured... but this is my essay, so I'm gonna roll this a bit further back and delve into a possible reason of why Ga-Metru is favoured.

Because I have a personal headcanon that Ga-Metru's favoured status was very much a byproduct of the natural resources.

Look at it this way: You need to build a protodermis purification facility on Metru Nui. You've already built the forges and furnaces; now you need to be able to source the building material for these smithies. So you need somewhere with a lot of liquid protodermis readily at hand - somewhere, for example, like Ga-Metru.

And then, because you probably shouldn't put all your important masks in a place full of burny, melty fire, you store your kanohi mask here (instead of Ta-Metru) as the other major building in this budding metru.

So, ta-da, you now have your second major site in Metru Nui, and over time that becomes Ga-Metru, home to the Ga-Matoran. Second-eldest metru, not out of any holy significance, but because it provided an important resource.

Time passes, and your purification/storage facility becomes a place of spiritual importance. I mean, it makes sense. It's an old, vital building, storing items of power, and isn't the hot, noisy space of Ta-Metru, plus the act of purifying carries a kind of holiness to it.

So, the next logical train of thought: if Ga-Metru is home to the temple of your god, then - obviously - god must like this metru best.

Next, next logical train of thought: if Ga-Metru is the favoured metru, then those who live there must be Mata Nui's favoured matorans. Or, at least, they are spiritually closer to Mata Nui, living basically on the doorstep of your connection to him.

By this point, matoran have certainly been granted sentience, and with that comes all the messy irrationality of thinking for yourself. What a lot of religions like to do is recognise those singled out, spiritually, with a title. Father. Reverend. Back in the medieval era, catholic priests were called "Sir" the same way a knight was.

Regardless, the point is: you need a name or a title to recognise that Ga-Matoran are different. And (headcanon going strong here) because Matoran weren't programmed with a sense of gender, they only really have "he/him" for daily use, with "brother" as a title of respect.

So language does what it always does in these circumstances - it adapts. Except, well, the Matoran may not have a concept of gender, but the Great Beings who created them did. So, somewhere in that pesky programming and superfluous data, there's a not-memory of "sister" being an equivalent title to "brother" - they don't understand how it relates to gender, they just know it feels right. And with "sister" comes the pronouns "she/her" so suddenly you have a whole metru with their own special pronouns and titles.

And, ta-da! Matorans have now accidentally ungendered gendered pronouns.

I also think it adds an interesting sense of irony for any (head)canons that Ga-Matorans consider themselves above or better than other Matorans (because then their importance is built on a coincidence, rather than actual Mata Nui favour) but that's for another day - or for other people to take a crack at, if they'd like. (I know I've certainly seen some interesting posts about Ga-Matoran self-importance!)

I personally was just fascinated by the fact that the "female" Matoran are the "holy" Matoran, despite gender being nonexistant, and examining one possible reason for Ga-Metru gaining its favoured reputation. (What can I say? I love clawing my way into the cracks of existing world-building.) Feel free to agree, disagree, whatever, but these are my personal headcanons and I hope people enjoyed reading about them!

[asher-agere]

Little kunikida hc and cg Dazai/yosano'/fukuzawa

Ooo I love this! Though I think they’d all be very separate, so I’m gonna try splitting this post up! If that makes sense- You’ll see!

Little Kunikida +Caregivers Dazai, Yosano, and Fukuzawa

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

First up! ₊ ⊹ Caregiver Dazai₊ ⊹

✧₊⁺ Kunikida works a lot. Like a lot a lot. Like- To much a lot. Dazai however is the opposite! He’ll happily step in and tell Kunikida he’s been working to much! Babies don’t need to work. He’ll get Kunikida to slip to make the little one stop working! Subtly putting on a kids show, fidgeting with a plushy, and drawing! Baby Kunikida looooves drawing! He feels very very productive. The second Kunikida looks up its over for him, surrounded by all this subtly baby stuff then looking at his fun and loving caregiver? Yeah, that’s a baby right there your honor

ᝰ.ᐟ I haven’t done little Kunikida stuff yet so age range! I think he’d be from like 2-4, he’s just a tiny little guy that really needs a break. The nicknames that Dazai uses range from teasing, names like “Busy Baby”, babying Kunikida, names like “Tiny”, or just versions of Kunikida’s name! This includes nicknames like “Kuni” Kunikida absolutely insists on trying to say his caregivers full name! He’s a stubborn baby and he can do this! His pronunciations ends up like “Da-Dazzzz-ai!” He’s trying his best

✧₊⁺ Dazai often tries to encourage the breaking of rules. A little bit more candy, staying up late, but even baby Kunikida refuses to break rules! More candy? Nuh uh he’s full. Stay up later? He will get so cranky and fussy that even Dazai admits it’s sleepy time. Dazai tries to encourage that they don’t need to clean up and Kunikida starts crying. Cleaning up is fun! He makes everything nice and neat and organized and it looks nice. The way everything perfectly lines up… A lot of the time his playing literally consists of just lining up toys in different arrangements

Next up! ⊹ ࣪ ˖ Caregiver Yosano ⊹ ࣪ ˖

⟡ Yosano has a very calm atmosphere with a baby! She’s pretty factual, which is soothing for Kunikida. If he’s overworking himself she won’t just say that. She’ll say he’s tired, dehydrated, not eating enough, etc. Something that can be proven, and she’ll provide a solution. She’ll explain why her suggestion is necessary and help Kunikida through it. Get him some snacks, some watered down juice in a sippy cup, then let him draw for a bit until he gets sleepy

ᝰ.ᐟ Pet names time! Yosano knows that Kunikida can get frustrated if he feels like he’s being babied to much, so she picks nicknames that could be used in any context, mainly just his name “Kuni” it’s his favorite. But she’ll also use nicknames like “Dear” and “Darling” Soft pet names that make him feel so comfortable and loved, but not overwhelmingly baby like. Yosano isn’t above babying him when he needs it, but she does try to avoid it

⟡ Yosano’s office is the best place ever! Kunikida is at work as often as he can be, so when he gets overwhelmed, he’s usually not at home in his safe space. Luckily Yosano has a nice big doctors office! She’ll bring the baby in and lock the door to prevent interruptions. She’ll give him a blanket, a pacifier, then some paper to draw on. She’ll put on cartoons on the TV too. Happy little baby! Yosano can keep working like this so he doesn’t feel like a bother. Of course sometimes he needs the extra attention! But most of the time just being in the same room is enough for him

And lastly! ₊˚⊹♡ Caregiver Fukuzawa ₊˚⊹♡

★ I love Fukuzawa being just… There for the little one he’s taking care of. It’s a very mutual atmosphere. This is perfect for little Kunikida who insists on being productive! Kunikida will grab paperwork eagerly trying to work and Fukuzawa will look over it, very serious, then take it away “I don’t believe that’s necessary at the moment… How about you work on this for me instead?” Then he’ll hand Kunikida a connect the dots puzzle! (9 times out of 10, it’s gonna be a cat) While Kunikida does his work (Baby stuff) Fukuzawa sits at his desk and does his own (Adult stuff)!

ᝰ.ᐟ I almost don’t want to add his paragraph because I feel like Fukuzawa uses the exact same pet names Yosano does… But I’ll still explain! “Kuni” of course is the babies favorite. Everyone must use that one “Dear” and “Darling” I think Fukuzawa uses because they’re classics! They just. Match his vibe? I can’t explain it. But I can so vividly picture Fukuzawa saying “Good job Dear” to baby Kunikida

★ Fukuzawa is just the master of helping the baby feel productive! Since Kunikida looks up to the president so much being handed something like a coloring book feels like an assignment! But he likes work! So it’s in a good way, working is soothing to him! Fukuzawa will get a chair that he can buckle Kunikida into to let them sit together, he makes sure to only put on cartoons that are educational, he lets Kunikida try to read his own bedtime stories! And if Kunikida gets every single word wrong that’s ok, he’ll never say anything hehe

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Yay I love getting to write stuff for multiple caregivers! This was supposed to be up last night but then last night I couldn’t focus cause of like, a lot of reasons. But it’s up now! Finally!

[writer-ace]

I recently watched some video where someone was acting out skits on how autistic people feel like neurotypical people are talking in code, and one example was the NT person asking the autistic person to check if the dishwasher was done and then getting annoyed when the autistic person checked but didn't empty the dishwasher. This got me thinking about emotional labor and domestic division of duties.

[caveat because people got mad at me about the small talk post: this is an autistic person talking about how I (and potentially other autistic people) can maybe be more supportive of our spouses, domestic partners, or other people we live with, not about shaming autistic people or saying that we just need to be less autistic]

Over the last decade or so, I've seen a lot of people (mostly though not exclusively women) talking about emotional labor and invisible labor in the household, and one thing that pops up a lot is when men say I would just know what she wants if she would give me a list or how am I suppose to know what's needed? people very rightfully point out that they are both members of the same domestic space and relationship and that women don't have some superpower that makes it so they magically know what needs to happen.

And that brings me back to the skit and the dishwasher.

Something sort of inherent in that skit is that idea that the NT person is being unreasonable for expecting their autistic partner to divine that the dishwasher needed to be emptied and that the autistic partner should be emptying the dishwasher, and that the NT partner couldn't reasonably expect that because they hadn't asked the autistic person to empty the dishwasher, only to check if it was done. The NT person was "speaking in code" for asking for one thing and expecting another.

Built into that is the baseline idea that the accountability for the dishwasher becoming empty lies on the NT person, either by doing it themselves or by directly asking the autistic person to do it, every single time.

Which sounds a whole lot like the mental load expected of female partners in many M/F relationships.

Now obviously there are differences between having a disability that can impact things like executive functioning and the ability to do household tasks and simply being male, but I think it's reasonable to think through whether and how autistic people can work within their household (if they live with someone else) to mitigate some of this mental load on the other people living there.

Why is the NT partner accountable for the dishwasher being emptied (or any other equivalent household task)? If the autistic person knows that clean dishes need to go into the cabinet/drawer, why is it the responsibility of their NT partner to explicitly ask them to empty the dishwasher?

I think that there may be a few ways to mitigate against this mental load being placed primarily or exclusively on an NT/allistic partner in a shared household (obvious disclaimer, not all autistic people are the same, what works for one might not work for another, etc.):

Clearly establish and delineate responsibilities for household chores (e.g., NT partner fills dishwasher, autistic partner empties dishwasher) to avoid requiring the NT partner to always have to ask

Map out process flows and if/then statements that can be applied consistently for household tasks (e.g., IF dishwasher is finished, THEN check if it is cool enough to touch, IF dishes are cool enough to touch, THEN person who checked dishwasher empties it; IF washing machine is finished, THEN closest person not actively doing a different task moves clothes to the dryer)

Identify which tasks can be done without prompting and which tasks require prompting. In my parents' house, for example, dishes are done immediately following dinner. When I was growing up, if all four of us were there, the parent who wasn't the primary cook cleaned, as well as either me or my sibling, depending on the day (I had even days, my brother had odd days, because he was older and there are slightly more odd days). This didn't require prompting because it was preset rules and we were doing it together. However, laundry and tidying up didn't have the same preset structure, so they would require prompting

Confirm requests if you're not sure. If someone asks if you can look at or check on something, you can ask or confirm what they want you to do once you've done that. Do they want you to tell them the answer, grab the thing for you (if it's small), or take an action with it? This doesn't eliminate the initial mental load on the partner but can minimize the frustration and later back-and-forth

Work on identifying what household tasks exist. Is your NT partner getting annoyed that you didn't do a task that you weren't tracking needed to be done (e.g., they said "go check on the plants" and then got annoyed you didn't water them)? Write that task down or otherwise add it to your list of household tasks that exist, so next time it comes up, you know that it is a task that needs to happen and can, for example, ask as a follow up "do you want me to water them if they look dry?"

I live alone, but I think a lot about the ways in which I would be an increased mental load on any partner that I lived with, because I struggle a lot with keeping up with household tasks (especially cleaning). And we are absolutely allowed to be a burden on others. We are allowed to require help from others. We are allowed to be in relationships with unequal distributions of labor because of our disability.

But when possible I also want to be able to mitigate against that and reduce that mental load.

[cheesycatz]

INSTAGRAM ASKS BELOW WOOHOO I CAN NOT SHUT UP ABOUT THIS FREAK

(I updated the lore posts on here in like May because there was outdated stuff I completely missed and finally updated it on instagram too woopsies🧍‍♂️)

He draws. In used school notebooks, across old books, over discarded mail. Broken pencils, dried up markers, dull crayons, chewed pens. He draws the trees he will never climb, fields and fields of flowers, discolored leaves and vines. Sometimes he adds himself.

He keeps a faded journal in one of the jacket's many hidden pockets. A way to pass the time while waiting for prey to… sell to. He only draws “Spamton” in it, not himself. Nothing incriminating.

…never drawn an addison before.

In all seriousness, I've dedicated a lot of thought to Wormton's art style and what he draws. It's relevant to the fic; as foreshadowing, as angst, as fluff, as a plot device. It's meant to appear childish—as in, made by someone who just wanted to make something without caring about what it looks like. The lines are jagged and dig into the page, often ripping through. I held the pencil with three fingers, and used my right (nondominant) hand to write the text and color. His face is drawn in an abstract way where it doesn't resemble his mask, but anyone who hasn't seen his real face would assume it is the mask. He draws himself bigger than he really is, draws his three fingers in place of his mittens, and colors his eyes in the wrong order because he uses his mirrored reflection as reference. He draws Blue's face nearly the exact same as his because he doesn't know how to draw anyone but himself, and forgets their fourth fingers and scribbles them on after the fact. His spelling and handwriting is incomprehensible half the time.

Other than drawing, he also spends a lot of time hunting for food. He explores the Trash Zone, looking for things to sell or keep. He spends time performing maintenance on his disguise, either attempting to clean it or do repairs. He takes time to groom his fur, genuinely hating how filthy his costume and having to look in dumpsters makes him. He likes to inspect and rearrange all the trinkets in his nest before he burrows into his vast pile of shredded blankets, stuffing, and old pillows for the night (or morning? He's not quite nocturnal but he goes to sleep at like 3 am).

Blue's fear definitely does not go away. They might not be as grossed out by certain things (like if they saw an insect or centipede rubbing its legs against its antennae, they'd now understand that it’s simply grooming itself in the same way Wormton cleans his nose). But, I think that the majority of their fear for “creepy crawlies” (and Wormton initially) come from how unpredictable and fast they can be. They're hard to keep track of, you can't tell if they're crawling on your face or if your brain is being paranoid, spiders and centipedes specifically come out when the lights are off, Wasps will sting you for doing absolutely nothing, it goes on. They invade your safe space, you can't tell which can kill you and which are harmless, and nothing you do will convince them to leave your home.

Fortunately for Blue, Wormton's pheromones scare away pretty much any animal with a sense of smell, and he eats whatever is left. There's no birdsong around their home. He's the only one they have to worry about raiding the pantry, building nests in the walls, and crawling on the ceiling.

Yeah, I imagine that Ralsei and/or Queen would have to announce to the general public that Spamton is under protection so that he can finally exist without his disguise. Out of the volunteer researchers who weren't killed and didn't leave Cyber City before Deltarune takes place, I don't think they would dare enter his presence. Personally I would not try to speak to the last surviving member of a genocide if I had previously experimented on and killed thousands of their people's children

There's a lot of hatred for invasive species, especially ones that cause severe damage to both property and people, like malworms do. Some take joy in killing as many as possible. But, I think it's important to remember that species don't choose to be invasive. This is especially apparent with malworms, since they're sapient (though that information isn't really known by darkners). They've been taken out of their natural cave-like environment in the Deep Web and thrown onto the Surface Web with no hope of returning. The bright lights, loud sounds, and open areas of the city are disorienting and terrifying. But, without natural predators or competition, malworms multiply quickly. They destroy buildings, chew power lines, and kill anything they come across. But, the malworms can't stay, can't be reasoned with, and eradicating them was the only option Cyber City had. I suppose it's a miserable fight on both ends. Nobody really wins.

Technically, the only plastic required in a malworm's diet is polyethylene, and gift cards are usually made of polyvinyl chloride acetate. But, malworms like chewing and eating inedible things in general, so it wouldn't be surprising if one did eat a gift card. They like stealing/eating physical money because it annoys people and because Cyber World's dark dollars happen to be made out of the plastic they need.

[felassan]

A former BioWare Design Director has tweeted his take on the recent BioWare and SW:TOR news. tweet compilation, as it's interesting and illuminating insight:

"My take on the SWTOR/BioWare split For SWTOR: This is a Good Thing For BioWare: This is a Big Loss A thread:

My point of view is someone who worked for BioWare Austin on SWTOR from 2009 as an Assistant World Designer through 2022 as Design Director (with some Anthem, Shadow Realms, and <NDA> years sprinkled about).

BioWare Austin (BWA) was its own studio for many years, founded in order to make that game. MMO’s are expensive, y’all.

We didn’t really collaborate with BioWare Edmonton (BWE) on the dev side much, because there was no need to (with some exceptions – they had built the original on-rails space shooting component, for example).

As a business, in this model all revenue and expenses roll up into the greater whole (BioWare), which then roll into EA’s Group, and so on.

After many years, this model shifted and changed, for a large variety of reasons I won’t get into. BWA would no longer be a separate entity, but under the same core leadership as BWE – One BioWare (BW).

What this meant realistically was you had a boxed product business that had been tried and true for years, combined with a live service MMO business that wasn’t really understood by the boxed product folks. Arguably by EA either, to be fair.

You see, MMO’s can be fairly predictable if they run long enough. We knew the SWTOR business very well. We knew how to turn every dollar invested in the game into several more. SWTOR was (and continues to be) a very profitable business, with loads of heart behind it.

But an older game isn’t sexy. It’s not new. It doesn’t get marketing orgs excited or social media teams jazzed. It’s a ‘legacy game’, despite the mountains of income coming in that other franchises are built off of.

And you FELT it, as a member of the team. It’s a fantastic dev team, filled with incredible talent. How then, with such a close-knit team, did you always feel less-than?

Well, just take a look around. Look at BW’s social media posts and count the proportion of SWTOR game/fan/anything posts compared to ME or DA. Remember that BioWare 25th anniversary book? The beautiful 328 page recollection of BioWare’s history, and celebration of all franchises?

For a game like SWTOR that had been live already for 9 of those 25 years at the time of publication, how many pages, dear reader, do you think had any SWTOR imagery or content at all? Ten. Teams notice this. They feel it, and it feels like shit.

Does BW despise SWTOR? I don’t think so – they don’t understand it, and it was someone else’s game. Does EA despise SWTOR? I don’t think so – it’s a legacy live service, and again, was someone else’s game.

As a dev on SWTOR, you feel like your game is a burden to all of the layers above you, but you persist. You put so much heart and passion into the game, and you thrive on the fans and tremendous partnership with LucasFilm.

So to bring us back to current news, imagine a team excited about a game, with incredible plans, that have felt ‘less-than’ by their own studio and company for years, being unleashed.

Being part of an org that KNOWS the MMO business, and understands those player communities and the incredible stories and connections they form.

This feels like an exciting new chapter to me, and I’m optimistic about what this means for that team and the game. SWTOR is, to the best of my knowledge, the longest-running Star Wars anything, ever. It’s a special game and I’m so happy to see where the team takes it.

As far as BW, it would have certainly be in their best interest as a business to maximize exposure and support for SWTOR publicly over the years, since the SWTOR revenue has allowed for the…unusually long…dev cycles to continue for the last several games.

But now without SWTOR, there will be less places to hide heads, R&D, and time. You’ve got blockbuster single-player experiences hitting high Metacritic scores with…2-3 year dev cycles? And the BW pattern has been…double? Triple that?

I think it will be interesting to see how the EA/BW relationship continues to evolve in this new world. /end"

[source]

[mumms-the-word]

A Room in Redcliffe

Part 1

Characters: Warden Alistair x Warden Amell (Lucy) Summary: It's 9:42 Dragon and Lucy Amell has finally returned from her quest out west to search for a cure to the Calling. In the last letter she wrote to her husband, Alistair, she asked him to meet her at Redcliffe at the start of summer. She's just arrived to get a room in Redcliffe for the two of them...and hope that he shows up. A/N: A (late-posted) gift for the AWESOME AND TALENTED @elspethdekarios! Glad you've joined me in my DA obsession and that you love Alistair as much as I do! This fic is a continuation of sorts of these Love Letters. Part 2 is here!

“One room, please,” Lucy said, placing a few coins on the tavern bar. “For three nights, if possible.”

“Aye, it’s possible,” the innkeeper said, scooping the coins into his hand. “Just gimme a moment, these old eyes, you know…”

He began to sift through the coins in his palm, counting them out. As he counted, Lucy let her eyes trail over the room, slowly taking in the guests, the furniture, the space. It had been some time since she last set foot in this old tavern. So much had changed since then.

The old Gull and Lantern. She had barely noticed the name or the sign the first time she’d walked in, all those years ago. Too busy trying to prepare the village for a horde of undead to notice things like tavern signs, and then too busy arguing with the owner at the time to ask him the name of the place. She’d been certain that the tavern would be destroyed by dawn, no matter how well they fought the shambling corpses. Names hadn’t mattered at the time.

But it was a hardy old building. It had made it through the attack of undead and the Fifth Blight, as well as every conflict that had cropped up since then—including the drama of the last year, all of which she had missed entirely. Mages versus Templars, holes in the sky, mage refugees in the village, Venatori plots, and who knew what else. And that was just in Redcliffe. It was strange to hear about it all secondhand.

She wondered what that greedy old bastard of an innkeeper would think, knowing his humble tavern had made it through the end of the world two or three times over? Thanks in part to the woman who’d come in threatening him to get him to defend the village, plus a dozen other heroes he’d never met in the years following.

Thankfully this new innkeeper was not that man. She didn’t recognize him in the slightest, thank the Maker, which meant he hadn’t the faintest idea who she was either. Even so, she kept her cloak hood up. Better to stay unnoticed for now.

He sniffed loudly and pocketed the coins. “Looks to be in order, ma’am. Now ye said three nights? Got a room just down the hall there, and then another in the back. Which would ye like?”

“Is the first upstairs room available? The first one on the left. If so, I’d prefer that one.” She allowed herself a small smile. “I think it has a better view.”

The innkeeper scratched his stubbled cheek and shrugged. “Does it? I never much noticed the view meself. Let me check the keys, one moment.”

As he moved off to sift through the keys in an old cabinet behind the bar, she looked around the room again. It was a little strange coming back to find it so unchanged and yet so different. The bar looked as greasy as ever, but the dining area was bigger. They had more rooms now, but it sounded like her usual room had been left alone. Not that the room was anything special. The “view” was little more than the branches of some hardy old tree too stubborn to let Blights or Breaches bring it down. But then, they’d never selected it for the view.

It felt wrong, now, to rent the room alone.

“Yer in luck,” the innkeeper said, placing a key on the counter. “Looks like that room is available for the takin’. But I’ll cost ye extra. For the view, o’ course.”

She snorted softly, but produced another few silvers. “Of course.” She could haggle, she knew that, but she had coin to spare and…well if a few extra silvers would pay for privacy…

“Thank ye kindly,” the innkeeper said, gathering up the coins. As he did so, hunching a bit over the bar, he glanced up at her, eyes searching beneath her hood. Before she could pull her hood further over her face, his face shifted to an expression of shock. “Hey, ain’t you—”

“Nobody important, I promise,” she said. She picked up the key from the counter and shouldered her bag. “Have a good evening.”

Without waiting for him to respond, she made her way up the stairs to the second floor. Though it had been a few years, she could find her way to the room they always rented even if she were blindfolded. There were so many good memories here. Now, those memories jostled for attention as she fit the key in the lock and turned the bolt, pushing the door open and stepping inside.

Just as she remembered it…give or take some new furniture and a new quilt on the bed. She took a deep breath as she closed the door behind her and set her bag down by the bed.

“Welcome home, Luce,” she whispered to herself. “Now we wait.”

Wait. With nothing but her memories to keep her company.

———

Dawn streamed in through the open windows, spilling hazy golden light over a pair of bodies half-tangled in the sheets on the bed. They’d pulled the newly-painted shutters wide open hours before to let in the night breeze, hoping for some relief from the heat of the summer’s day, something to cool the sweat that slicked their skin from a night of impassioned lovemaking.

Lovemaking. Lucy smiled into Alistair’s shoulder as the dreamy, waking thought came to mind. There truly was no better word for it, was there? Not when it was her and him, her Alistair, her would-be husband.

She breathed deeply of his scent, unwilling to open her eyes just yet. Just days ago, the pair of them had smelled little better than road dust, blackened darkspawn blood, metal, and acrid smoke. Now he smelled faintly of his natural musk and the soap they had used last night in their shared bath. Something earthy and lightly floral. It suited him. She had half a mind to purchase a few bars of the soap from whoever made it locally here in Redcliffe.

Hopefully they’d survived the darkspawn. Or the undead.

The room continued to brighten as the sun rose slowly, waiting for no one, a brand new day in a nation that had the two of them to thank for it surviving the Fifth Blight. As the light grew too bright to ignore, Lucy gave up on dozing and stretched, careful not to wake her sleeping lover, and then lightly rested her hand on Alistair’s chest and her chin on top of her hand, watching him. Waiting for him to wake up.

He was so handsome, especially in this light. Tanned skin with a faint dusting of freckles on his nose, a gorgeous, expressive mouth that she loved to kiss. As he dozed, she tilted her head, admiring the brush of his lashes against his cheek and the fine mess his hair had turned into. She so rarely got to see him this vulnerable. He was usually awake before she was.

A flicker of his eyelids warned her that he might not be as deeply asleep as she thought. She bit her lip against a smile and reached up, lightly tracing a finger down the bridge of his nose to the tip. No reaction. She traced the curve of his lips next, fully expecting him to react with a kiss. But he “slept” on.

She brushed his cheek next, her touch trailing back to his ear. A soft pinch of his earlobe—she was certain she saw his expression shift—then a light touch along the shell of his ear, slowly, slowly, up to the slightly pointed, almost elfin tip—

He gave a dramatic shiver and, in a flash, grabbed her wrist to stop her. “Maker’s breath, woman, you don’t have to torture me like that,” he said, cracking one eye open to squint at her. “I’m awake!”

But he ruined any sulky irritation he was faking with the smile that threatened to take over his lips. She laughed, sitting up, her wrist still caught in his grip.

“Just checking.”

“Suuure,” he said, dragging the word out, the doubt in his tone obvious. But even so, he smiled at last, pulling her arm up and pressing a few kisses to the thin skin of her wrist. He kissed her palm, next, and finally laid her hand flat against his chest, over his heart.

“Good morning, my love,” he said softly, gazing up at her with such blatant adoration that it made her cheeks flush.

She giggled. “Good morning, my darling. Ready to start a brand new, Blight-free day?”

“Mmm, in a moment,” he murmured. He switched his hold on her, looping an arm around her waist, and pulled her on top of him. “I’m not done admiring my beautiful wife.”

“I’m not your wife yet, Alistair,” she reminded him, untangling their legs to straddle him. She sat up, shaking her dark hair back over her shoulders, and couldn’t resist a smirk as she saw his eyes trailing down the length of her body, lingering over her breasts especially. “But admire away, darling.”

He grinned, his hands smoothing up her sides, his touch already raising gooseflesh on her skin.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

———

Lucy sighed, eyes open and staring at the dark ceiling overhead. She turned to lay on her side, but that brought the empty side of the bed into view, and the rest of the empty room beyond. She rolled over to her other side, facing the wall instead. If she stared hard enough, long enough, she might be able to find images in the rough texture of the aged plaster. Maybe that would lull her to sleep.

It had yet to work.

Instead, she stared at the wall, thinking back on that first morning here in this room. How the world had seemed so simple in those days. The threat of a major evil had been eliminated. They were the heroes of the Fifth Blight. Nothing could possibly be worse than what they had already faced, surely.

She scoffed softly to herself. They’d been so young at the time. So naive. There had been no Calling ringing in their ears in those days. No ancient god-like darkspawn to contend with, not yet. The future had seemed so bright.

Twenty or thirty more years to live had seemed so long.

She sighed again, shifting to lay on her back again, her hand absently smoothing over the empty side of the bed. A cool breeze slipped through the crack between the shutters, which she had kept closed for tonight. Old travel habits died hard after more than ten years on the go. Ten years of attempting to avoid as much notice as possible, for safety, for privacy, for peace. Heroism wasn’t all it was cracked up to be—she had realized that long ago. Not when everyone wanted you to fix their problems.

Maybe she ought to open the shutters now. Now that there were other heroes that people wanted. Inquisitors and Champions and the like.

She mulled the thought over in her mind before dismissing it. Not tonight. Not while she slept alone. But tomorrow…

Her love would be by her side again tomorrow.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

That’s why she wouldn’t sleep. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. The thought kept her awake even when she knew sleep would bring the dawn faster than anything else. But still sleep wouldn’t come.

Because of course those darkest hours before the dawn played cruel tricks on her mind. Whispers of doubts. Dark visions. Her imagination ran wild with worry, if she didn’t keep it distracted. What should have been a night tossing and turning with anticipation and excitement was instead a slow crawl of hours filled with a churning dread.

What if he didn’t come?

She squeezed her eyes shut and rolled over again, grabbing one of the pillows. Stop thinking like that. She wrapped her arms tightly around the pillow, the way she would if he were here, if the pillow were her husband instead of a sack filled with downy feathers. Time for another distraction.

Memories. Back to that first rosy dawn in Redcliffe after the Blight. Back when she thought the two of them were invincible, and nothing would ever drive them apart.

———

“You know,” Alistair said, murmuring the words lazily into Lucy’s hair as they lay, spent, her body on top of his, the mid-morning sun warming the room around them. “If you think about it, we don’t have any orders. Nothing major to save. No big tasks to accomplish. For the first time, maybe ever, we can do whatever we please. At least for a little while.”

Lucy lifted her head from his chest, curious what he was getting at. “What do you mean?”

He half-shrugged his shoulders. “I mean that it will take weeks for word of the end of the Blight to reach Weisshaupt, and several weeks more for them to issue any orders to the two of us. Assuming they even know what to do with the two of us. I don’t see any need to jump into our next adventure immediately if you don’t.”

“Does that mean you want to stay here?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows. “In Redcliffe?”

He gave another shrug. “We could.”

“And get married here?” she asked, grinning like a giddy schoolgirl.

A slow smile stole over his lips as he skimmed his fingers up and down her back. “I’m sure Eamon wouldn’t mind hosting a small wedding, if we ask him. If here is where you want a ceremony, that is.”

She sat up, then, straddling him again, her excitement getting the better of her. Ideas were crowding in her mind now, dreamy visions of idyllic futures starring just the two of them, a whole variety of domestic adventures and adventurous domesticity. “And we could get a house?”

He laughed, his hands resting on her hips. “Is that what you want?” he asked, squeezing her curves affectionately. “A house in Redcliffe?”

“I want a house with you,” she said, taking both of his hands and lifting them over his head. She pressed them into the mattress beneath him, using his hands as leverage to keep herself upright. She let her hair fall like a curtain to one side, the ends brushing over his chest and shoulder. “Is that too much to ask?”

“Not if you ask it like that,” he murmured with a crooked smile. He lifted his head to try and snag a kiss from her lips but fell just a few inches short. He flopped back with a pout, making effective use of those big brown eyes she loved so much. The message was obvious.

She rolled her eyes fondly but leaned in and gave him a kiss. “Is that a yes?” she asked, pulling away but keeping his wrists pressed to the mattress. “To finding a house?”

He made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat. “It’s a maybe. Grey Wardens rarely stay in one place, you know.” He tilted his head to one side. “Are you sure you want to get a house you might not spend that much time in? I thought you liked to travel. After so long in that tower…”

“I do,” she said. “But I…I don’t know, I like the thought of having a house here, too. Somewhere that’s ours, where we’re free to come and go. Where we can hide from the world for a bit and just be ourselves. Does that make sense?”

“Why Redcliffe, though?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “Why not Amaranthine or some remote village to the east? Not that I’m advocating for any specific place or anything, I’m just curious.”

“I don’t know. Because here is…special?” At his dubious look, she sighed and let go of him, sitting up again.

“Look, maybe the whole idea is silly,” she said, her fingers absently drawing circles in his skin, over his chest. “And maybe it’s really impractical, but…you were raised here. This is your hometown. It’s not terribly far from my mother, if we travel by boat. It’s quiet here. Well, now it is, anyway. It just…seems like a pleasant place to settle down. Eventually. If you want.”

She could feel her cheeks burning to admit so much to him all at once, but at the same time, she didn’t care to take any of it back. Maybe it was too much to ask. Maybe he’d call her foolish. Maybe he’d dismiss the whole idea. But at least she had tried.

And a girl could dream, couldn’t she? She hadn’t had cause to craft little dreams like these in years. Even though mages could marry, weddings were rare in the Circle. Houses were impossible. Families…

Well…she would have to think about that later.

With his hands now free, he rested them on her thighs again, palms warm and slightly rough with callouses from years of wielding a sword and shield in training and in battle. She loved the feel of them on her skin, no matter where he put them.

“A place to settle down?” he asked softly.

She nodded. “Eventually.”

A smile flickered on his lips. “I think I’d like that very much,” he murmured. He reached up with one hand and sank his fingers in her hair, his gaze softening on her face as he played with her dark waves, winding a lock of hair around his finger. “A home somewhere with you? It sounds perfect.”

He brought her down for another kiss, and she could taste the promise on his lips before he even uttered it.

“We’ll find our forever home one day soon. I promise.”

[tyxoxo]

Feel It - teaser.

pairing: jaehyun x fem!reader teaser, find full fic here.

genre: smut, pornstar!jaehyun au, 00’ dream inserts

words: loading…

warnings: pure filth, oral, cum play, exhibitionism/voyeurism, degrading, humiliation, dacryphilia, shibari, unprotected sex

a/n: san francisco armory, das the setting lolol (thanks kink.com 🫡)

—

“okay, we’ll just have you sign this.” the producer with the name tag K said as he handed you a clipboard with a pen; the two of you sitting across each other in a large auditorium.

you were fidgeting the more you sat there in the middle of the “playroom”, excitement rising with every glance of the various s&m props placed on antique plaques. whether it was the torture rack, assorted floggers, or cattle prods, you couldn’t wait to try it all.

never in your years of living did you expect to be at an armory-turned-BDSM studio, preparing to do your first adult scene. yet here you were, only wearing a pair or your underwear, completely bare everywhere else.

the use of a National Guard armory was oddly fitting for the company—20th century Moorish Revival architecture, albeit refurbished, still gave a sense of “grittiness” and “rustic charm.”

“i know that you already submitted your online waiver but we just like to have an additional one for in-person. physical signatures are always preferred.” K snapped you out of your thoughts for a second, though your mind couldn’t help but drift back into the gutter, thinking yet again to your upcoming scene.

the single sheet of paper reiterated everything you read through just a week prior:

“Mission Statement and Company Values”

typical header to start a waiver…littered with the expectations to provide a “consensual and safe space for all participants.”

your eyes scanned further down, taking a few minutes to read their “Right to Distribute Media:”

“By signing here, you agree to having any and all media in your presence posted to our website Kink.com, with potential distribution to other pornographic partnerships…”

you provided your signature for the two spots provided, officially sealing the deal…

as soon as you handed the clipboard back to K, he spoke into his bluetooth earpiece, presumably notifying the other producers of your newly sealed fate.

“you guys are good to head this way.” he said before placing the clipboard on the floor next to his water bottle.

“in a moment you’ll be able to meet your partner, and go over the do’s and don'ts, that kind of stuff.” he said, followed by a closed-mouth smile.

you smiled back, trying to hide the anxiety creeping under your skin. there was no telling what kind of man would appear through the doors, meters away from where you sat.

you kept your eyes trained on the double-doors, tapping your leg up and down to pass what seemed like hours.

but then again, this was a four story building…maybe it was just taking them a while to get to where you were.

just as you looked down at your twiddling thumbs, the heavy sound of the double-doors echoed throughout the room. the man that appeared was unlike anyone you’ve ever seen.

he was gorgeous…

and he smiled as soon as he laid eyes on you. his dimples being the first feature that caught your attention.

he strutted towards you, confidence exuding with every step. he only sported boxer briefs, definitely nowhere near as self-conscious as you, now that you saw his toned body.

you tried not to make it obvious that you were eyeing his subtle six-pack. but it was hard. his body was perfect; not too overbearing, not too ordinary. still, his biceps and his quads showcased the work he put in to maintain his physique.

the last thing you could observe before he stopped in front of you, was his happy trail, leading all the way to the package he had confined in his briefs. he completely ignored K, standing right in front of his field of view.

your eyes slowly made their way to his face, still smiling so bright, with ivory teeth to match.

“hello, my name is jaehyun. nice to meet you.”

his voice was velvety deep, baritone.

another surprise to you.

jaehyun held out his right hand, but you noted the single platinum band adorned on his left ring finger…to your disappointment. your thoughts were outlandish, there’s no way you’d have a chance with him even if he wasn’t taken.

you returned the handshake, voice visibly shaken as you gave him your name.

“i’ll go ahead and let you guys have the floor. i’ll be back in 10.” K said with a clear of his throat. he then gave up his seat for jaehyun, making his leave towards the double-doors.

jaehyun looked back at the medieval-styled chair before sitting down, chiseled thighs growing in size once he found a comfortable position.

“so tell me a bit about yourself…”

—

//tagging: @pradajaehyun