#things that most people would consider to be bare minimum expectations

[omegapheromone]

Sometimes I forget I'm an Omega until I randomly get into playing an otome game for fun and a fictional man shows me just one single ounce of respect and kindness and genuine care, and I'm immediately planning a wedding and considering whether I'd be willing to give birth to his kids after all if he REALLY wanted kids and adoption wasn't an option.

[paganinpurple]

AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED

Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.

If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.

Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.

If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.

It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.

The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.

[a-killer-obsession]

Whoops, you got hit by a bus, and now you're in the world of One Piece. But not everything is quite as you remember it...

General Tags: afab reader, she/her reader pronouns, isekai, monsterfucker reader, vampire!kid, werewolf!killer, wyrm!heat, minotaur!wire, everyone has a human form, smut heavy, unhealthy relationships, dubious consent, serious violence, spoilers for Wano arc, starts pre-timeskip. There will be a lot of more intense kinks, please check AO3 for all current tags.

Chapter 8 - Wire's Turn

Sabaody continued.

WC: 3.5k

Masterlist | AO3 | Chapter 1

“Hurry the fuck up,” Wire growled, tugging on the chain leash that was attached to your metal collar. At least it wasn't explosive, small victories. You could only hope it would stay that way.

“I'm trying!” You pouted, practically jogging to keep up, “not all of us are eight feet tall!”

“You're not that much shorter than me,” Killer pointed out, “but I'm having no trouble.”

“I have a misleadingly long torso!” You whined, “I've only got little legs. Carry me if you're so bothered, I can't walk any faster, I'm basically running as it is.”

Wire grabbed you unceremoniously and threw you over his shoulder, making Killer snort a laugh as you squeaked in surprise. You crossed your arms against Wire's back with a pout, poking your tongue out at Killer walking behind as his shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I feel like a hunted deer,” you commented.

“Shut it or I'll drop you,” Wire replied flatly. You looked at the eight foot drop to the ground and quickly decided against that.

“Please don't,” you whispered.

You took some time to enjoy the view from all the way up there, finally taller than pretty much everyone around you. Killer's mask bobbed side to side, taking in the locals as well, while also no doubt staying on guard for potential trouble, considering where you were. For the “criminal” area of the archipelago, the town was pretty nice. Sure it was clear that most of the people here were more colourful than the usual Sabaody resident, and obviously on the rougher side. You saw a great deal of women, and the occasional man or child, wearing explosive collars, often being led by chains not dissimilar to your own.

The children were the hardest to look at, all clearly emaciated and abused. Your grand hope was that Luffy would become King of the Pirates and destroy the Red Line and all the disgusting pigs that lived in Mariejois on top, and put an end to this horrid human trade. If things went wrong and Kid decided to get rid of you, you desperately hoped Killer would take ownership of you. At least then you could expect the bare minimum care, though you still weren't sure if Killer would be the type to hit you. He was your favourite so you hoped not. Then again, Heat seemed like the type who couldn't hurt a fly, and yet you knew he burned people to death on a regular basis, a truly gruesome way to die. You tried not to think too hard about how many people Killer had murdered to get his epithet, or how many people had been impaled on the forks of the trident held only inches to your left.

Sabaody was certainly an amusing place. It was just as pretty in person as it had been in the anime, with the ground and bubble based structures all shimmering with a pretty iridescence, making everything sparkle. Bubbles floated from the ground and drew your attention to the giant trees surrounding you that formed the island, with their pale blue-grey striped trunks and vibrantly green leaves. Rays of light broke through between the trees, giving the whole archipelago an almost ethereal look, Killer's hair often glowing like he had a halo as he passed through the rays. You wondered if he knew how attractive he looked like that, with his cool fringed jeans and button-down shirt, opened to the chest to show off his muscles. It was a real shame he'd get rid of these clothes at some point in the next few years. Now there's a thought, I mean you'd confirmed it now that you'd seen him naked, but before you came here - when this world was still just fiction - what proof did you have that his arm hadn't always been scarred? It'd never even occurred to you now that he wore long sleeves, he could have been hiding those scars all along. Now that you were here though you knew that whatever caused that injury was still to happen. There was the comment Kid had made in Udon about one of Big Mom's pirates hurting one of his friends, maybe the burns would come from Charlotte Oven and his heating ability.

“Where are we going anyway?” You asked curiously. The commanders had already found an inn for the night and dropped off their stuff, as well as heading to a few different weapons stores to stock up, and cashing in some looted treasure for berri. Most supplies for the ship were taken care of by the lower ranked crewmates, which meant this was likely a personal trip.

“None of your business,” Wire huffed.

“Wire's just embarrassed cos his cocks too big for regular condoms,” Killer chuffed, “we're going out tonight, gotta be prepared.”

“Wait, so we're going to an adult store?” You perked up, “fun!”

“Don't get excited, we're not wasting any berri on you,” Killer spat back, making you pout. Still, you were curious to see what sort of things were available in this world. Sabaody was a hub city, you had no doubt it would have a wide range of the things available in this world, especially in this shadier area. You wondered what sort of toys were popular here, and what sort of technology they had. Did One Piece have vibrators? Suction toys? Remote controlled toys? Did they utilise den-dens? Now there was an intriguing prospect. Was it morally grey to use a snail for that?

“How big can it possibly be anyway?” You pondered aloud, “I thought those XL condoms were a marketing scam, I mean have you seen how big regular ones can blow up?”

“They break easier if they're too small,” Wire replied frankly, “I ain't risking that with random whores.”

“If you're so desperate for a lay why haven't you just fucked me?” You asked him, “My legs are wide open baby.” Wire was the only commander who hadn't taken advantage of your presence on the ship, in fact he'd barely interacted with you at all outside of Kid ordering him to jizz on you.

“You couldn't handle me,” Wire said smugly.

“What, I can take Kid's soda can cock but not you?” You asked.

“I'm bigger,” Wire replied with a cocky tint to his voice, “did you not see?”

“She was a little preoccupied,” Killer smirked.

“Someone was gagging me with his cock,” you frowned.

“And you loved every second of it, didn't you?” Killer teased, and you poked your tongue out at him again.

“Maybe if you're a good girl today I'll let you try,” Wire promised, “but don't come crying to me if you get hurt. I warned you.”

“Bet,” you smirked as Wire put you back down, “I'm not some inexperienced little virgin. I can take it.”

“We'll see,” Wire mumbled, coming to an open door that led to a stairwell, apparently the store was upstairs. There was only minimal signage outside, but once in the stairwell it was obvious what sort of store you were ascending to, the walls plastered with various posters of sexy, barely dressed - sometimes entirely nude - models advertising various products. There was even a sign that read ‘pets welcome’ with a stick figure pictogram of a human with a collar and leash. Ironic. The shop attendants would probably think Wire was your dom, not that you were opposed to that.

The shop held all the usual things you would expect; dildos, lingerie, anal play toys, lubricant, porn, basic BDSM gear. But there were things that you definitely didn't expect as well. For one, less vanilla dildos like the style you'd used on Killer seemed to be common, as well as many other monster themed dildos that you would more expect to have to buy online in your own world. There were all sorts of them, some you recognised that looked like Heat's, some even in pairs like his, others that looked like horse or cow, advertised as minotaur themed. You wondered if this was an effect of not having the internet here, whether it was easier in that case to just sell more exotic items in store, or if it was a result of being in a particularly shady area. There was a whole display of what you recognised to be dials, with a big cardboard cut out of some beautiful woman with purple hair in space buns, a strange visor, and barely any other clothing, advertising that these dials stored vibrations.

Wire selected his condoms fairly quickly but continued to peruse the store, so you followed him around, not that you had much choice as he tugged at your leash whenever you paused for too long. The store worker and other customers didn't even blink an eye at him leading you around, or your bound wrists. Killer was already off looking at the porn when Wire made his way to that section, and you were curious to see what sort of kinks were popular here. Once again you were suprised by the amount of monsterfucker targeted items, with magazines that featured all sorts of creatures on the front, often entangled with humans. It was strange how very photo realistic they were, were they just very good at costumes and special effects makeup in this world? You didn't think they had CGI here, because surely that would require computers. Maybe they were devil fruit users? Minks?

You picked up a magazine that intrigued you, the cover featuring a human woman not dissimilar looking to yourself, with a large werewolf and minotaur either side of her. You flicked through the pages looking at the various poses they put her in, quite impressed at the size of their cocks and how realistic they looked, surely they couldn't be dildos? They must be devil fruit users. The centrefold was an extra long page that could be flipped down, and you gasped as it revealed a almost to life scale image of the minotaur's massive cock.

“Oi, no free reads,” the shop attendant yelled from the counter, “either buy it or put it back.”

Killer and Wire both took note of the magazine you were holding and exchanged a look. “She'll buy it,” they both said in unison, making you extremely confused.

“What… but…” you stuttered as Wire took the mag from you, “I thought you weren't spending money on me?”

“We're making an exception,” Killer said quickly.

“Oh… okay,” you replied, still very confused.

The boys paid for their things and dragged you back out of the store, Wire putting you back over his shoulder to walk faster. “You liked that mag then?” Wire asked. Weird thing to ask when he'd already bought it for you.

“If you're asking if I'm a monsterfucker, or interested in fucking werewolves and minotaurs,” you replied, “my answer would be a resounding yes. You should see some of the dildos I have back home.”

“Interesting,” Wire hummed. Perhaps you could take him after all, if you were used to that sort of size. The thought of burying himself in you made his cock twitch, finding someone who could take him was a rarity, especially human. That's why he usually turned to professionals who knew their limits, no fucking around only to be disappointed when they tap out. It was unfair really that he hadn't gotten a chance to destroy your cunt, and with the clock ticking on your story being proven true or false, he might not have much time left to try you out before inevitably sold you off. Being from another world was a insane excuse for Wire, he didn't have a single inclination that you were telling the truth, but that didn't mean he wouldn't fuck you while he could. Making a snap decision he carried you to a nearby alleyway, still in broad daylight and in full sight of those walking past but he didn't give a shit. This was normal for this zone anyway, there were no kids in this area and besides, he'd seen at least three other couples going at it on the way here.

Killer followed you both into the alley and stood knowingly on watch towards the end, knowing full well what Wire wanted as the tall man put you back on your feet and rested his trident against the building. “Wire?” You asked hesitantly as he spun you to face the wall, “Oh,” you squeaked as he pushed his growing erection against your ass, pulling your hips away from the wall so he could unfasten your shorts. “Right here?” You questioned nervously, looking at all the people passing by at the end of the alleyway as he worked your shorts and panties down till they pooled at your ankles.

“Right here,” Wire confirmed, “you said you could take it, right? Don't come bitching to me if I hurt you.”

“You won't,” you replied confidently, the allure of being fucked in such a public area already making you wet. Wire grinned coyly as he pushed his fingers between your legs and felt your arousal.

“Dirty whore,” he purred, “so fucking wet already, I bet you'd let me fuck you in the middle of the street if I wanted.”

He wasn't wrong, but you didn't have time to respond before you were biting back a moan as his long fingers entered you, going straight to two of them. Wire knew exactly what he was doing, zeroing in on your g-spot while his other hand reached around your front to play with your clit as he worked at stretching you. He found it surprisingly easy to work you open to a third finger, your slick coating his fingers as your pussy tried to suck them in. His fingers were so long he may as well been fucking you with a dildo, and with the added simulation on your sensitive bud and the risk of being out in public, barely hidden in the alleyway by a watchdog Killer, it didn't take long for your pussy to clench around Wire's fingers. Your knees shook as you came, clawing at the brick wall of the building you were pinned against with a choked moan.

“Good whore,” Wire hummed, removing his fingers from your cunt and wiping them on your shirt, “now get on your knees bitch, this dick isn't gonna suck itself.”

Wire let go of your leash but as it landed he stood on it purposefully, pinning it beneath his boot and forcing you downwards by your collar. Your panties were still around your ankles as you knelt, and your mouth watered as Wire unfastened his tented shorts, pulling his impressive cock free.

“Oh fuck,” you gasped as you set your eyes on it. He wasn't fucking around, he was big. There was no fucking way you could take all of him in your mouth, and you had doubts that he'd be able to fit all of it inside you either.

“Change your mind already?” Wire chuffed.

You pouted at him out of feigned hurt before eagerly bringing your bound hands up to grasp him, unable to reach a single hand around his shaft. You stacked them one above the other to cover as much surface as possible while your tongue came out to lick the head of his cock, running your muscle over the smooth skin and up the underside of his shaft, letting the tip of your tongue slide along the slit. You did what you could to try and fit him, barely taking a quarter of him in your mouth before you were gagging, the corners of your mouth stinging from the stretch. Wire took your hair and wound it around his wrist to hold your head, making shallow thrusts into your warm mouth that made your eyes water as he pushed even deeper.

“There's a good whore,” he praised, “gag on it sweetheart, let me see those pretty tears.”

You took as much as you could into your throat, unable to take more than half of him even as your throat bulged and you struggled to control your gag reflex. There was no hope of breathing with him in your throat, his cock so thick that you felt like you were truly choking. He was clearly used to this though, giving you plenty of opportunity to catch your breath while drool ran down your neck.

“That'll do,” he said flatly, like he was bored, “stand up and take your shorts and panties the rest of the way off.”

You obediently did as he asked, noticing as you stood how people walking past would occasionally stop and try to watch, quickly deterred by a quick threatening whizz of Killer's punishers to encourage them to move along. You slipped your shorts and panties past your shoes and Wire picked you up like you weighed nothing, wrapping your legs around his hips and holding you far off the ground with your back pinned to the alley wall. His heavy cock was pinned between your stomachs as he rut the base of it against your mound. You whined in need, trying to roll your hips to rub your clit against him.

“Last chance,” Wire warned, “it's not too late to admit defeat “

“Give it to me,” you begged, “please Wire, fuck me, I want your massive cock stretching me open.”

“Alright then,” Wire smirked, pleased with your begging, and lifting you higher to line his tip up with your slick entrance, “don't say I didn't warn you.”

He watched smugly as he sank you down on his cock and your face contorted as you bit back the urge to scream. The stretch was almost too much, but it wasn't the first time you'd experienced such a large intrusion, having dildos back home that were about his size. Soon the pain melted to pleasure, but as you had guessed, he was unable to sheath himself entirely before you were gripping his shoulder painfully tight, warning him that you'd hit your limit as his tip bullied against your cervix.

“Fuck, look at you,” Wire praised, leaning back a little so he could admire the way your abdomen bulged. No human could take all of him, but he was thoroughly impressed with how much you had managed to take. “What a good girl, I'm gonna enjoy ruining this cunt.”

Not wanting to waste his time, he started a brutal pace, your overstuffed cunt making obscene sounds as Wire made quiet grunts and used you. You looped your bound wrists over his head and clawed at his back, burying your face in his cloaked shoulder to muffle your moans as your body was bounced up and down. You would no doubt have scratches all over your ass after this from the brick wall, overly thankful that he'd at least let you keep your shirt on to protect your back from the rough surface. Wire's hands holding you by your ass at least protected you a little. With his body so close to yours there was a slight grind against your clit every time he thrust up into you, raising and lowering you in time with his movements to get as deep as he could, showing off his incredible strength and control as he continuously avoided smashing into your cervix. The way he stretched and filled you meant every sensitive spot inside you was being rubbed against, your entrance stretched to its limit around him. With all that stimulation it didn't take long for him to have you close to your peak again, crying into his shoulder at the overwhelming pleasure as he used you like a ragdoll.

“Mmmph,” you mumbled into his shoulder, leaving a wet patch on his cloak from your combined tears and drool, “cu-cumming!”

There was a pattering of fluid hitting the concrete pathway below you as you gushed on Wire's cock, and you let out a stuttered whine that caught the attention of a few passersby that Killer had to clear away. “Good girl, mouse,” Wire praised, not letting up for a moment, still chasing his own high, “gonna cum soon too.”

Wire pulled out and put you back on your feet, pulling your arms over his head to unhook you but holding you under an armpit to keep you upright, unbelievably shakey on your legs from the hard orgasm. He pulled up your panties up most of the way with his other hand before jerking himself off, cumming with a grunt into the gusset of your underwear. The hot white fluid was thick against the fabric and you whined as he pulled your panties the rest of the way up, making the fabric stick to your cunt. He pulled up your shorts as well, fastening them before throwing you back over his shoulder. He spanked your ass as he made his way out of the alley, but you were too tired to respond, now truly looking like a hunted deer as you went slack over his shoulder.

“We're done here,” Wire stated as he passed Killer. The shorter man huffed a short silent laugh and followed on behind, not at all surprised to see you had already fallen asleep on Wire's shoulder.

[Next Chapter]

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[neptunes-sol-angel]

Can they match your freak? 👀 Think of a person that you're interested in, then pick the picture that you feel drawn to the most to find the corresponding message about how the sexual chemistry would be like between you guys.

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Pile One

The person on your mind comes across as formal, polite, but not interested in being in everyone’s face or being the center of attention. They could be considered a bit odd, maybe the timeline in which their beliefs, speech, and hobbies are not common in their age group. They could be assumed as a nerd because of how serious they take most things, like if you were to joke with them or use sarcasm, they’ll turn what’s not supposed to be literal into something pragmatic which is kind of cute in an innocent way. But they’re not rude or dismissive, because if you stick with them long enough they’ll eventually catch up with your sense of humor, even if the jokes don’t land, the fact that they’re trying makes it hilarious. They’re great at guiding people and teaching someone without looking down on others. They could come from a big family and are actually really nurturing and considerate which leaves them feeling more selective with who they choose to be their friend or romantic partner, and are content with spending a lot of time alone. They’re really “slow moving”, they don’t like to be rushed in anything, and for a good reason. They don’t like to compromise their stability, and love to have a work-life balance, even if they are an overachiever.

When it comes to doing the deed, it feels like intimacy is heightened because it feels as if you’re with a whole different person. Their sexual energy feels electric and eccentric. I feel like they’re a music junkie. They’re a lover of all genres, but pay attention mostly to the artists and bands that don’t get a lot of appreciation. I keep picking up on music theory, which could of course hint more about what they like to learn about, but I see this more as them effortlessly knowing the right note, the right rhythm, and the right scale to successfully lead their partners into an orgasm. They’re absolutely magical with their fingers, but feral with their stamina. They’re competitive when it comes to showing their partner who can go round for round, and they’re determined to make sure they’re at the top. Speaking of top, they love to be dominant in the bedroom. Their sex talks chains and whips! Just kidding, but it’s an art for them to see the many ways in how pain brings their partner pleasure. They’re down for almost anything in sex, as long as it’s consensual. Outdoor sex could be a favorite of theirs. Should you have sex with them? I feel that sex with them will be better than anything if you’ve had with anyone else, which can be addictive. Make sure that the relationship is something solid with this person, if it’s a situationship, it can be problematic, especially around issues with possessiveness, unhealthy attachments, and a lack of boundaries.

Pile Two

Sol cherubs…I’m sorry but I’m going to have to roast this person. I feel like they’re the kind to wine and dine a person. Dinner dates are nice, yes, but this person is very cheap, and likes to do the bare minimum while thinking that the other party should give them something back in return. They talk themselves up a lot, and could even get carried away with dirty talk in the bed because THEY think they’re doing something. Like this person could think that they’re a total freak, but their sex talks vanilla…They do basic positions, they’re repetitive, which is not the problem, the problem is that it’s not doing anything for the other person, and the only thing freaky about them is their gross personality. They’re self-serving, it’s not to say that you can’t experience pleasure with this person in sex, but if you expect for them to care about making sure that you finish too, don’t. They’re cheap with their wallet and in the bedroom. DO NOT have sex with this person, you won’t feel satisfied, and their energy in general is creepy and the epitome of what a loser looks like. If they’re a man, they have a toxic patriarchal mindset, weak in reality, but prowls for individuals who they think that they can control. They’re an energy vampire. Sex is an ego booster for them. It excites them more when they come across a person who’s strong in personality, or harbors a lot of potential to be a star, so that they can seduce them in order to feel better about themselves.

Sex should be an equal thing, where both parties are respected, having fun, and feeling good. You should both feel empowered rather than seeing it as taking power from another person. I’m also getting the feeling that this could be a past person for certain individuals. The message is also for you guys to know that sex isn’t supposed to be a shameful thing either if you’re still in regret about giving it to the wrong individual or even individuals. You’re not less of a person because you had sex so don’t let anyone try to punish you for it, and that includes yourself. Heal the negative beliefs you have about sex within yourself by not seeing yourself as a body count, limiting yourself to people who don’t satisfy you, and to trust in yourself to keep your stance in not doing something if you don’t want to just because someone gave you something and speaking up about what you want and how you want to be treated.

Pile Three

The person on your mind is spontaneous. You could play hard to get with them on the outside, but on the inside they’re very alluring to you, and lowkey they know this. Your chemistry in general with this person is breathtaking, if you aren’t a couple, people wonder why you aren’t one yet because of how close you guys are with each other and how obvious your attraction towards one another is. There’s heavy sexual tension here, partly because of how racy things get when you guys flirt with each other or how compatible you guys are to the point where you feel comfortable just yapping about almost anything, and the other part being the elephant in the room, which is something just feels forbidden about this relationship. Maybe this is a coworker which I understand why it wouldn’t be appropriate. You could consider this person a goofball, someone you always have fun with, or can count on to put a smile on your face, but the friendship between you guys is strong. Y’all get each other emotionally and are generally supportive, I would be shocked if you guys weren’t best friends. I’m not even picking up their individual sexual energy, my intuition just keeps pointing to how it would be if you guys were to ever have an encounter. I just keep getting “yes, yes!, YES!” go for it with this person, because it doesn’t feel at all like something you would regret. Ya’ll complete each other in so many ways that it just feels right. The sexual chemistry would be stable, you wouldn’t get bored of each other because it brings you guys closer rather than apart. This won’t be for everyone, but some people in the pile might have a theme of knowing right then and there that this is the person that they would want to spend the rest of their life with. Be wary though if you aren’t in the position of wanting to have kids or having enough to support a child, because you guys are going to be on each other like rabbits.

[isalisewrites]

A Deep Dive into JKR's Terrible, Amateur Writing - Part Two

Welcome to my ballsy series where I will prove to you, dear reader, that J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and resident Twitter TERF, is actually a very, very poor writer.

And when I say ‘poor writer,’ I’m talking about her prose, her sentence structure, and her scenes. I am not going to discuss anything about the HP world nor the overall plot of the books. 

This is all about the nitty gritty in the craft of writing itself.

Part One Link.

Disclaimer for all readers of this series: 

I’m going to sound very confident in my posts where I work under the assumption I’m a better writer than JKR; because I am. My apologies if this rubs you the wrong way. You’re simply witnessing the culmination of over two and half decades of experience with the intensity from a neurodivergent who is hyperfocused on her special interest. I didn’t just learn how to create stories; I learned the craft of writing to a minutia of details.

I’m not a perfect writer. No one is. I’m not a talented writer either. I’m experienced and skilled through years of study and practice.

I don’t care about J.K. Rowling. At all.

If you’re triggered by the concept and fact that JKR is a terrible crafter of writing, then you might want to take a step back and self reflect on that personal issue.

I still very much love and adore Harry Potter; you’re still allowed to love Harry Potter.

This is not a series to bitch or bash. This isn’t a shitpost. This isn’t an attack on JKR, no matter the disgusting bullshit she spews forth on Twitter. However, my hope is people awaken to the fact that JKR isn’t the goddess of writing we’ve all been led to believe.

This is a place of study and learning, where the purpose is to help students gain critical thinking skills and writing analysis tools to become better in their craft.

And, sorry, one more disclaimer for this specific post: 

Fanfiction is written for fun and is posted for free. I put most of my effort into my main fanfic, Terrible, But Great. (Yes, I intend to update Moon Rite soon, too) However, I also have two fanfics that are cowritten with another author; thus, the style of Shall I Stay and Badger Prey are understandably different. I spend three to four times the hours to edit a chapter versus drafting it. My process for fanfiction: I draft. I do one expansion edit. I do one proofread edit. I post.

However, if I were to publish a novel where people are expected to drop money on said book, my work flow would be vastly more extensive. To be clear, I’d do all of the following myself. I would not outsource. My process for published novels: I would draft. I would do three to four expansion edits. I would do two to three cutting edits. I would do three proofread edits. 

See the difference?

Because I don’t go through a cutting edit for my fanfiction, I’ll often come back later and see things I think are weak. I’m constantly seeing where I can tighten my work. There’s always room for improvement.

Remember: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a paperback book that costs $10. My fanfics are free. If I, someone who writes for free and puts what she considers the bare minimum of effort into them, have a higher standard in the quality of my writing than a paid traditionally published novelist, there’s a problem here. 

All right, with that nonsense out of the way, buckle up, my writing friends. Grab a snack. Hydrate. Remember to take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. Let’s begin.

Class is in session.

In this post, we’re going to discuss these five pages from HP5 and dissect one paragraph and a line from page 731. All dialogue is highlighted in blue.

(My favorite book in the series, btw. I fucking love fifth year the most. JKR did a damn good job with Umbridge.)

Since a certain anon lacked the skill to comprehend the difference between too much dialogue and stories driven by a high saturation of dialogue, let's go into further depth about dialogue.

What did I mean last week when I said: "Too much fucking dialogue!"

Today’s lesson will focus on the overall issue in JKR’s dialogue and in the prose surrounding those dialogue lines.

And since, apparently, I “lack the self awareness” to know most of my fics are “oversaturated with dialogue,” I’m going to use weaker examples of my own writing. Chapter 24 of TBG is heavily driven by dialogue with twenty-one named characters to juggle, something that's very difficult for me to manage. Though the chapter is lovely, I do feel it's some of my weaker work. In the end, I just didn’t have the energy to edit it a second time nor go through cutting edit.

Here are three different pages (some connected, some not) from Chapter 24 of Terrible, But Great. All dialogue is highlighted in blue.

You can already see the difference, I'm sure.

So, what’s the difference between a scene that has 'too much fucking dialogue' versus a scene that is highly saturated with dialogue?

Because there is one.

Let's set the scene for HP5. In the middle of an OWL exam, Harry received a vision from Voldemort, showing him that Sirius has been captured. He's being tortured to get something from a shelf, but Sirius refuses. Harry believes the vision is real. He tells Ron and Hermione, then asks for their advice on how to rescue Sirius. Ron and Hermione are both like, pardon, wtf, sir? (As they should be.)

We have five pages of this fight between them. These five pages are mostly dialogue with very little else surrounding it.

Also, note the final page where it has the worst sins of adverb usage. That page is what triggered me to begin writing this series in the first place, btw.

There's too much dialogue here. There's no description. I'm being told stuff, but I'm not being shown anything. There are no emotional anchors to Harry either. The more I reread this scene, the more I realized what was wrong.

There’s an emotional disconnect from Harry in the prose.

Do not misunderstand me: it is NOT to say that Harry isn’t emotional here. It's that the prose doesn’t grip me, the reader, by the chest and twist my heart with his overwhelming emotions. The prose doesn't prove anything, doesn't show me anything. This is an intense, terrifying moment for Harry. It should feel visceral. It should feel tangible. I should be able to taste his fear.

We also don’t get too much information about the emotional states of Ron and Hermione. We have hints, of course. But we can’t feel them. The emotions of the scene are dampened, muffled, dull even.

With an untrained eye, you might disagree. It's okay. You'll see what I mean soon.

Page 731 exact quote:

"I dunno how," said Harry. "But I know exactly where. There's a room in the Department of Mysteries full of shelves covered in these little glass balls, and they're at the end of row ninety-seven...He's trying to use Sirius to get whatever it is he wants from in there....He's torturing him....Says he'll end by killing him..." Harry found his voice shaking, as were his knees. He moved over to a desk and sat down on it, trying to master himself.

(Btw, punctuation issue: you do not use an ellipsis and a period together and there should be a space after the ellipsis.)

This is the only instance in the five pages where we get any information about Harry's physical state.

And it's written in such a weak 'telling' instead of 'showing' way, too.

How and where was his voice shaking? How are his knees shaking? Are they knocking together in a weird way that's kind of physically improbable? Or was it actually his legs were shaking? Isn't he leaning against the door? If his weight was resting against the door, then there'd be less shaking in his knees or legs because his knees would be locked to brace his body against the door. His arms and hands would be shaking, though.

How does Harry master himself? What does that look like? Slow breaths? Running a hand through his hair? Rubbing his face and eyes? How is Harry mastering himself? Is it mentally? Then, where are those mastering thoughts? What are they and why do those thoughts in particular help Harry 'master' himself?

What's Harry's tone as he talking about Voldemort threatening to kill Sirius? How is Harry feeling about this? Give me MORE!

The dialogue is presented to the reader in a bland, empty fashion. Harry is relating something to Ron and Hermione. I could switch the dialogue out with anything and it'd still make sense.

There is little surrounding the dialogue to anchor it.

So, let's rewrite this, shall we?

"I dunno how," said Harry, letting out a shaky breath. His hands clenched into fists against the door of the classroom. "But I know where—they're in a room in the Department of Mysteries that's filled with rows of shelves holding these... weird little glass balls. They're in row ninety-seven. Voldemort, he's—" Harry's voice broke. His breath caught in his throat. The memory of the vision returned full force into his mind, the image of Sirius on the floor at Voldemort's feet stark in his mind. He ducked his chin; his chest inhaled in a desperate breath and the edges of his eyes burned. He's torturing Sirius—I can't just wait around. I can't lose him. Harry looked up at Ron, whose face had grown pale, while Hermione stared at him with wide, terrified eyes. The strength in Harry's legs weakened. "He needs Sirius to get whatever it is he wants and he's—" Harry sucked in a gasp, his voice trembling like an autumn leaf in a thunderstorm. "—he's torturing Sirius... says he'll kill him in the end." His knees buckled. Harry stumbled to the nearest desk; Ron reached out with a steadying hand on Harry's upper arm and silent gratitude filled Harry's heart. With shaky arms, Harry lifted himself onto the desk to sit and twisted around to face Ron and Hermione. He licked his dry lips, rubbed his eyes with a hand, and took slow, deep breaths to master his fraying emotions.

The original canon text has 57 words of dialogue with a total of 83 words.

My rewritten version uses 56 words of dialogue with a total of 247 words.

I'm going to drill this concept into your heads, my lovely students: this is what I mean when I keep saying JKR's writing is both bloated and underwritten.

I only rewrote a single paragraph and its following line. The five pages I've provided are filled with this kind of empty dialogue.

So, what have I done here? Can you see the difference? Can you feel the difference?

Let's analyze what I focused on in this scene to show Harry's body language and his thoughts. I upped the physical effects on Harry's body. His fear causes his voice to break in the middle of explaining what's going on. He's terrified of losing Sirius, the only father figure he's ever known. Voldemort might take another parental figure from him. 

And now the prose reflects these feelings, not just in his thoughts, but also in how he speaks and reacts to what is around him. He is not just speaking at the reader.

Harry exists in his world. 

And you can feel it.

When he stumbles to the desk, Ron is there for him. Hermione reacting could also be added here. There is a lot that can be added to this scene, if one wanted to expand this further. 

Yes, what I've done has increased the word count, yet it strengthens this short moment—and I'd do this for the entire scene.

What I did to the scene is merely one version of its potential. It could be rewritten in a multitude of ways and go in various directions. I spent 10mins to 20mins on it. I haven't edited it or refined it.

Can you finally see what I mean now?

If you compare the highlighted pages of HP5 to the highlighted pages of Chp 24 of TBG, you can visually see the difference in the density of the dialogue. JKR is the one whose writing is oversaturated with dialogue. My writing will always be highly saturated with dialogue because my stories are character driven. I prefer stories like that. But I also need the dialogue to be interesting and engaging, where the character feels alive in their world.

When I say there's too much dialogue, this scene is such a good example of this because Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all over the place in their interactions with each other. Yes, you want your characters to sound realistic, but you're also the author curating an experience for the reader.

There's a balancing tightrope act between having realistic dialogue and unnecessary dialogue.

There's a thin line between showing too much and telling too little.

Lastly, if I were to improve the overall scene, I would center the focus on Harry's desperation to rescue Sirius. As Ron and Hermione try to talk him out of it, where Hermione delivers that iconic line of 'you have a people saving thing,' I'd have Harry explode with something like this:

"You don't know what's it like! You both have your parents—I-I don't... You'd feel the same as me if it were either of your parents being tortured by Voldemort, yeah? I can't lose him—I can't lose Sirius."

I'm not bothering with description around it right now. I just wanted to give the baseline dialogue to show you the theme I'd carry through this scene. It's all about Sirius. It's all about the fear of losing him. It's about showing the emotion of the character and making the reader feel that deeply.

And that's what matters the most.

All right then.

We have come to an end of Part Two in this series. We have discussed fives pages in JKR's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The pages in question are 731 - 735 should you wish to look it up and study the scene yourself.

And so, please do the world the greatest of favors and write better than J.K. Rowling. I promise, it's not that hard once you see the differences.

Until next time.

Isa

[justatalkingface]

In Lack Of Defense to Aizawa

-And to varying extents literally every other UA staff member, and basiclly anyone in any sort of authority or who just exists in MHA at all.

Something I saw recently (when I started this post, months ago, anyways) that kind of pissed me of (that I'm posting here, with no connections to where it happened, because it was on a nice fic I like and I don't want to bring crap into the comments just because I don't agree with the author's view on something) is the idea that Aizawa is... how do I put this, more excusable because he doesn't know the full story behind Izuku and Bakugou.

And... to some extent, that isn't wrong, is the thing. He doesn't know that Bakugou systematically made Izuku's life hell, so he can't be expected to react to it (you can question how he would react to it, and that's a completely fair thing to be concerned about, all things considered, though that isn't the point of all this)... but. The thing is, he can be expected to react to what he does know/see, and that's the vastly justifiable criticism of him as a teacher comes from.

Day One: Bakugou attacks Izuku for.... existing with a Quirk. And here's the thing, Aizawa does stop that, but Izuku, and most people who read the story, phrase that as, 'Aizawa stopped Bakugou! Good job Aizawa!'. That's not the right response. The right response is: Aizawa stopped Bakugou, as is his literal job; it's not something that should be acknowledged as unique or impressive. Aizawa being the only person in Izuku's life to stop Bakugou is not glowing praise for Aizawa, it's blistering condemnation for everyone else. Not letting your students try to kill each in front of you is, in fact, the bare fucking minimum.

And here's the where the problem starts: Aizawa does that... and nothing else. Good Old 'Expel 'Em All' Aizawa watches a student attack a fellow student in front of him (after, for the record, sabotaging the same student in the race by blasting him with his explosions, which... is also something that, at least, should be something discussed, if not be summarily expelled over, since being happy is expulsion worthy in Aizawa Land, or being someone that reminds him of All Might) and his response is complaining that Bakugou is making him do more work. Which. You know, is bad. He doesn't even scold Bakugou, or warn him, or do anything to punish him for this.

'You're giving me dry eye, damn it!'

Yes. Because, when one student attacks another, that is the concerning point. How it inconveniences you.

(For the record, I'll touch on all the other problems with this chunk of time, which are present but not actually on target for this post, just to be thorough: doing this test at all, when they already passed, doing it on day one, doing it, apparently, because they were excited and/or because he reminded Eraserhead of All Might, threatening to expel Izuku for daring to not having control of his Quirk, being proud he only broke one finger, not doing anything to help him stop breaking his bones, teaching his students that he'll only lie to them by his whole, 'Logical Ruse' bit, (which if anything should make his threats have less bite when he fails to follow through on them every time), and sabotaging the score when, as I've discussed before, there's no way Toru, at the very least, could outperform Izuku on a test around the physical abilities of her Quirk when her Quirk is invisibility.... a test that, for extra hypocrite points, he couldn't have passed as a student.)

Day Two: Bakugou actually tries to murder Izuku in a training exercise. And I say murder deliberately; All Might explained what would happen if he hit Izuku with his gauntlet, and doesn't even argue with that assessment, instead saying, 'He won't die if he dodges!'.

In other words, Bakugou is saying, 'He'll die if I hit him!'

The next day, after reviewing the test, Aizawa says.... 'Bakugou, stop acting like a seven year old.'

Not: we're taking away your gauntlets until you can use them responsibly. Not: killing people is wrong. Not: disobey a teacher again and I'll expel you. Not: Any form of punishment or disciplinary action for, again, an actual murder attempt.

Grow up.

...Do you see where the problem is here?

Beyond this point, there's god knows how many times Bakugou yells at and/or attacks Izuku for Reasons(TM) throughout their entire school life, none of which is actually hidden from anyone, culminating in the Final Exam where Aizawa admits they have problems working together.... which is, in itself, phrasing that puts the burden as much on Izuku as it does on Bakugou. That is, needless to say, bullshit: the problem is completely on Bakugou's side, because Izuku would be pathetically grateful to his abuser if they could work together, and he constantly does his best to make that happen, no matter how often that never actually works for him.

This phrasing fits Aizawa's 'solution', which is to pair them together for their exam against All Might, again putting the burden for Bakugou's attitude on Izuku rather than dealing with it himself, with the (again, lied about) consequences of not going with the rest of the class on their summer outing, along with probably being closer to flunking out of school. This attitude culminates, ultimately, in BvD2, where Bakugou does everything to start the fight, including launching the first blow, Izuku is defending himself, yet they are both held equally responsible.

So. In Aizawa Land, if I walk up to someone with a crowbar, start hitting them, and they hit me back so I don't crack their skull open, we're both to blame for the fight; after all, they hit me, right? Seriously. Has he arrested civilians for fighting back against people trying to rob/rape/murder them? Because under this logic? The victim is just as much to blame as the robber/rapist/murder.

Alright, so as much as these posts are generally scathing criticisms, I do strive to be somewhat fair. All of these points? All of these points apply to All Might. And to Nezu. And Midnight. And Present Mic. And Class 1A. And Class 1B. And... you know what, let me sum it up: this applies to everyone who has seen Bakugou and Izuku interact, and went, 'Aww..., they're rivals!'. Which. Is basiclly every named character with any screen time, barring maybe the original version of Best Jeanist, before he became an empty shell whose only job is to praise Bakugou.

This isn't a unique problem. This is a Bakugou Problem. This is because no one can hold Bakugou accountable for anything he does, ever, and because of his quantum characterization, Bakugou lives in a consequence free reality where he says and does one thing, and literally the entire world goes selectively blind to act like he did something else entirely. It makes him come out of every situation smelling like roses, even if he spent the entire time bathing in shit, and it makes everyone around him pay the price for him instead. I'm only focusing on Aizawa for one reason: because the fandom worships him.

People love the Kakashi replacement more than they did the original model, and unlike Bakugou this isn't contentious; Bakugou may be more popular but Eraserhead's love is far more universal.

Dadzawa, despite being blatant falsehoods, is the most common take on him, but it's not even that that sparked this rant; it's that people look at him as an actual, flawed, person who makes mistakes, but refuse to go to the next logical step on those mistakes because he's 'doing his best'.

Because he's not.

He has never done his best, because he is falling asleep in class. There is no way for me to look at this disaster, sleeping in class, threatening his students, constantly eroding their trust in his words, and think, 'he's doing his best', because he isn't.

'Doing your best' means, basiclly, you never could have done this, because of some inability, but your trying anyways. All Might is trying his best, because he doesn't know how to teach at all (now that he's done training up Izuku, anyways). He's failing, yes, but he's clearly trying.

Aizawa isn't, because he's not trying. Unlike All Might, he can teach, is the thing, he's just choosing not too. Once in a blue moon, when the school administration puts it's baleful eye on him he actually does teach; he did help Momo and Shoto, for example. Problem being, he only did it then, when he was forced to test them, instead of... any time before their exam (while still somehow missing Shoto's entire everything at the same time, which is failure on such a enormous level it's kind of impressive). Then, of course, there's his mini-me, who he took from a skinny branch of a scrub to being able to use his combat scarf proficiently in battle, an absurdly exotic weapon who having an even a basic mastery must have taken months of difficult, intensive training. If Aizawa was 'trying his best', he'd be doing that teaching... you know, at all, basiclly and not when he's being held at professional gun point, or when it's for his one favorite who isn't even in his class.

Aizawa isn't doing his best, he's doing the absolute minimum he can to keep this position.

And just... look. I get that he's tired. I get he has two full time jobs. I get that that's easily the most sympathetic emotion for basiclly everyone these days, that everyone can vibe to existential exhaustion on a soul deep level. But the thing is, every Hero teacher we've seen, period, is an actual Hero. Beyond Aizawa, the only person we see having trouble with that is All Might who is, A, a new teacher, B, canonly shit with his time management and has a long, storied history of overdoing it, and C, is missing most of his internal organs. Forget teaching, every morning the man wakes up vaguely surprised he's still alive! All Might has a great excuse for being tired and overworked. Everyone else? Everyone is also working two jobs, with Present Mic working three, and still handling it a lot better than Eraserhead is.

No one made Eraserhead come in the next day after being brutally beaten to the point where he had permanent damage and was still covered in bandages, which probably set back his recovery by weeks, realistically. No one is making him work so hard he has to take naps in class to stay functional. And yet, he's the only one who can't seem to keep that schedule up.

He chose to have two jobs, and unlike most people with two jobs, he doesn't need them; he's not being a teacher so he can get a steady paycheck and have food to eat, this is a luxury to him, a choice he's willingly making for fun, not to support himself.

What I'm saying is: if the man can't handle being both a full time hero and a full time teacher, then maybe he should stop doing both at the same time. Aizawa being tired doesn't make him a good teacher, it just makes him bad at time management.

[chaifootsteps]

we now have a Stolas bashing tag on A03! idk why it took so long, maybe no one was tagging that before

side note, it surprises me that writers have to put 'bashing' for stories that just literally address how he behaved in the show. Stolas is demonstrably selfish and petty yet writers sometimes feel the need to call it like an 'evil Stolas AU' or 'dark Stolas AU' just so fans don't jump down their throats when like

no, the last episodes have proven he just is self centred, mean and petty with an abuser's selective memory; we've gone way past plausible deniability for 'innocent misunderstanding' when his reaction to Blitz chewing him out for stuff he did is to avoid considering if Blitz has a point then spend all episode treating him like he's seriously wronged Stolas for expressing his feelings.

it's not the fandom's fault Viv is so bad at writing a sympathetic character that she made him the most dislikeable one in the entire show

also side note, it's impressive how many writers I'm seeing say some variation of 'I liked Stol1tz but the last two episodes have killed it for me'. like no one wants a ship where Blitz is expected to be a doormat for the meanest creature in all of Hell. or at the very least they want to see Stolas address some of the things he did wrong

even some of the fans who are the most likely to give Stolas way too much grace here are getting turned off by how Viv is going about this. even if they're buying all the retcons Viv shoved in to make him look better, they know the story still doesn't sit right as it is now. and I hope they ask for more from the story if Stolas doesn't address his wrongs or the writers do it in the most insulting way possible. now more people are seeing what I saw from the beginning of s2 I hope they stop settling for the bare minimum from Viv

the ones that make me saddest are the fix-its where the two talk and Stolas has an actually modicum of emotional maturity to see things from Blitz's perspective. this is the Stolas the fandom thought existed because the show kept insisting it was the case

yet every time Stolas has had the chance to prove he's that person, he's bungled it and proven himself not just void of empathy but vindictive and spiteful on top of it. I fell off Stolitz a long time ago but I know how much it would suck if the writers did that to one of my OTPs.

It's sad that it's reached a point where a character people had such high hopes for, that used to be half of an OTP for a lot of them -- myself included -- now has a bashing tag and an audience who increasingly wants to see him dead, but the Stolas we saw in Apology Tour just isn't a character worth hoping for anymore. I'm glad all those richly deserved fics have somewhere organized to be.

[generalluxun]

Hey. Asking about how Chloe was abused. My knowldge of abuse is fairly limited to general pop knowledge so I'm curious as to what abuse was done to her.

Okay caveats first:

I am not a medical professional, I am simply someone with a vested interest in the topic who has done more research than the average person.

There are many definitions of abuse. Legal definitions are rarely useful, as they are limited to concrete, provable, gross violations. Just as you can inflict a lot of pain on someone without leaving the marks to prove assault, you can do a lot of damage to a child without it being legally 'provable'. Medical definitions are much more helpful for discussions.

Lastly some level of extrapolation is required as it is a show. We take what we are shown. For example:We actually only have Felix's word that he was ever abused, and his first character traits sre being deceitful and manipulative. We still take his word though, because it's a show. (And also we should give weight to victim accounts!)

So both parents are guilty in different ways. We will start with Audrey, the simpler one. There's clear verbal and emotional abuse demonstrated on screen. Mis-naming your child is a form of abuse:please ask the trans community about the impact of deadnaming even in full grown adults.

Beyond that she is constantly dismissive and belittling of her child- to the exclusion of all else. Style Queen/Queen Wasp is rife with examples. There is also the clear behavior shift in Chloé. The wheeling, approval seeking, hunched posture expecting rejection. This is a *pattern* not a one off. Audrey may live in NY, but no fashion movil would be away from Paris for 13yrs straight. We are simply seeing the most recent interaction. This culminates im a child having to ask 'Why don't you love me mother?' and the response is telling

Audrey barely chokes out the strange word when trying to contradict the question. It takes Marinette literally making them both mad at her to get a bare minimum of interaction on Audrey's part. It doesn't last though. Audrey falls back into her negation behaviors and is now present to inflict them more regularly on Chloé, while also being a constant target for/model of behavior for Chloé. (Seriously it was such a misstep to write Marinette reuniting a victim with an abuser) We know the show itself considers Audrey'ss care as a bad thing because the original script had André divorcing her and takin Zoé because Zoé 'doesn't deserve you' so Chloé being in an abusive parenting situation in Representation is supposed to be 'punishment'(ewww)

André is not off the hook either. People look at him 'spoiling' her and leave it at that. Well, 'spoiling' can in fact be abusive too. Let's look at what we see:

André has been her primary caregiver for 14 years now, so he has had the most responsibility in molding what we see for good or bad(mostly bad). She does learn from him too. Darkblade she proudly announces she learned everything about winning elections from watching her father. He's also excessively arrogant (I'm the symbol of Paris!) and quite willing to abuse his power for his own ends(having Roger round up protestors etc) which explains where Chloé learned where power is to be abused.

André is also extremely neglectful as a parent, extreeeeemely. Let's hit a bunch of points in the order they come to me.

Chloé lives *alone* in a hotel suite. There's no shared space, no family area. It's not even really her room. It's commercial, sterile. Where sre her hobbies? Posters? Even her *colors*? She is so used to being ignored at home that the girl who is loud as heck everywhere else doesn't make a single mark on her living space.

A hotel employee seems to think he needs to step in to raise Chloé. Let that sink in. An employee can see how bad it is and tried to make some kind of change, (he's working against a lifetime of ingrained behavior and is not very good at it himself). He doesn't even think to you know... Get Andre in to do this.

André was unaware or didn't care his daughter hasn't done schoolwork since Sabrina *learned to write*(5/6 yrs old) that is a shocking level of disinterest in your child. 6yr olds aren't criminal masterminds.

Andre supplants actual attention and affection with *stuff* he gives material possessions in *place* of parenting. This is somewhat similar to spoiling but not the same. André's method denies the child something vital. You see- things aren't a substitute for affection/attention, developmentally. And so while they may delight they never satisfy the need. They never validate the emotional attachment. So after the shine wears off, the hole is still there. So, like someone with an addiction, the child needs more, and more, and more. Since the needs are never met, it is never enough. And this is what the child views as *normal* this is simply *how it is*. They rarely know they are being given inadequate care because it's just life to them. Seeing something different in a one off doesn't make a dent vs a whole life.

This sort of thing makes a potent cocktail when mixed with the abandonment issues from her mother too. See- if her mother left, and daddy doesn't pay attention, anyone can leave. This leads to a cycle of pushing/demanding/hurting. The child expects to be left and let down, so they both try to reassure themselves it won't happen, and *make* it happen on their own terms (because they believe deep down it will) so more outrageous demands, because when those demands are met, it shows that you are still 'loved' and when they are not met, then there you go, you are not loved and they will leave you. It's a self-destructive spiral.

You see it play out with her interactions with her classmates and Sabrina specifically. How does she express affection? Gifts. What does she do? Push. Push and push and find the breaking point because if she can make Sabrina actually leave then it shows that she herself is worthless and her mother was right to leave her and her father is right to ignore her. Pretty messed up right? Yeah. Child abuse does horrible things to kids.

We're not done with André yet. Some people might say 'he expresses love for Chloé!' and to that I say- performatively.

André likes the idea of being a father. It's what respectable people do. It looks good on camera. It's someone to love him unconditionally. It's an ally against his wife.(broken home dynamics are horrible too) André just doesn't like having to parent for more than a snapshot.

We can see his interactions with Zoé highlight this too. He's delighted she's here!(a potential person on his side vs his wife and daughter) what's his first parenting advice? 'lock your dreams away and get on with life' A+ André.

What's he do in Queen Banana? He uses his power to let Chloé manipulate the movie *kicking Zoé out of it* This is the guy who is supposed to be supporting her? He only draws the line when it comes to sending Zoé away... Why? He doesn't want to lose an 'ally'. It's power dynamics. Not parenting. Where was he when Zoé was stuck in boarding school? He was going to keep Zoé in the divorce so clearly Mr Lee isn't in the picture, Audrey probably forgot Zoé existed, why didn't André bring Zoé to France and let the sisters grow up together? Oh, right, that might be work.

André likes Zoé because she comes pre-raised(boarding school was probably better than either parent) he doesn't have to put in work and he gets a free good kid to make him look like a father. She's his 'do over' as he throws the one he raised in the trash.

André shows his true colors when he's lamenting to Gabe about his corruption and abuse and blames ot on his 'heartless daughter' you know... The child he raised. The grown man is actually shoving his own corruption and misdeeds onto his child. You really don't need much more than that.

So, via neglect, verbal abuse, and emotional abuse the Bourgeois parents raised an incredibly messed up child. Chloé is not a 'good victim' like Adrien, she doesn't sulk quietly under abuse. She lashes out. She is hurt and angry and she passes the pain on. This is why they call it the cycle of abuse.

The end of Revolution illustrates this perfectly. Audrey throws verbal abuse at her on the plane. Angry that Chloé embarrassed her(not that she did wrong, Audrey loved the power grab) and calls her a loser by implication. You *see* it hit, the physical cringe. Then Chloé immedietely goes to try and pass on the pain. She is hurt and making someone else hurt is the only way to lessen it. She calls Marinette. Marinette breaks the cycle though, and good for her. But the show seems to have forgotten there's still one hurt child in this scene, and it doesn't seem to care.

I'm going to stop here for now. I probably left a bunch out, but I do have other things I need to do. Feel free to ask more questions. Thanks for taking the time to seek answers.

[barcalover86]

My heart can't take it-Pablo Gavi

Part 2 here

Summary: Pablo trying to live with the idea that you can never be his.

This is my favourite one. Read this🤍

Pure fluff + a little of angst

Pablito in love..

Masterlist

You were Aurora's friend, that being the reason you and Gavi met. Since the first time he saw you, he couldn't take his eyes off you. Since then, even if his friends were pushing him at some club to go talk to some girl, he would refuse, only thinking about you.

You were his sister friend, that being one of the reasons he never told anyone that his feelings are going crazy because of you.

You weren't a flirty girl at all, but the sweetest person that someone could meet. You were so nice to everyone, smiling and laughing almost all the time.

Pablo loves your smile. How your teeth are showing when you find happiness. You were the most optimistic girl he ever met and in everything you saw something good.

Now, your friends group and Pablo's were at the beach, in Barcelona. It was already late, the sunset being seen. You were chatting with your friends when you asked Aurora if she could take some photos of you with the sunset. The truth is that it was one of the most beautiful sunsets you've ever seen and you wanted to capture the moment.

She agreed and you two went in the water so that the pictures would be more prettier. You went to the other part of the beach, walking for about 10 minutes, wanting to be alone. You were shy to pose when people were looking at you and Rora didn't mind to walk with you.

You were talking about girl stuff and how you would want to be the pictures.

When the two of you drift from the others slowly, Pablo was watching you. He couldn't take his eyes off your beautiful figure that was shining in the sunset. The kindness of your soul made you even beautiful than you already were.

He slowly went after you and sat at some stone to watch what you two were doing. He wanted to be there if something was happening to his sister and you.

While you were posing for the photos, you couldn't help but laugh. He loves that sound. It's something that if he would hear, would instantly make his day better than ever.

"Y/n, stay serious! We'll stay here forever!!" His sister smiled at your silliness.

The sunset really was beautiful, but for Gavi, you were the most beautiful thing ever. How could he fall in love with you. Someone that he knows that doesn't feel the same way.

You two never even really talked. You never payed attention to him at all, only the bare minimum. You were saying to him "hola" or "goodbye", but never hugged or stayed at least next to each other.

One time, you asked Pablo if he could give you your phone who was closer to him. When he gave it to you, he blushed so hard that he had to hide his face so no one could see him. That was the closest thing he did with you.

He never touched you or feel your skin on his and that made him so sad.

After Aurora showed you the photos she took of you, she left leaving you alone in the water, telling her that you want to look at the sunset for some time.

Now, Gavi was really concerned. He was ready to jump for you if something happened to you. While you were swimming, he was looking at you. All his emotions got him and now his eyes were tearing. How could he fall in love with you..someone that never really looked at him, someone that never payed attention to him. For her, he was only her friend's brother.

When you were done swimming, you got out and went to your friends to chat again. Your voice was calming for him.

He decided to stay where he was for a few more minutes to calm himself done. Why was he so stupid for loving her? She clearly doesn't feel the same way, she doesn't even consider him as her friend.

"Where's Pablo?" asked Aurora

"He is at the stones. He was looking for y/n so that nothing happens to her. Don't tell him you know that from me" her boyfriend told her.

"Oh, really?" You asked shocked.

You didn't expect him to look after you. You didn't even see him standing there. You two never talked much and his behaviour was weird, but you appreciated it a lot and decided to thank him when he'll come back.

After a long time, he came to his friend group, far away from you. You went to him and he thought that you could hear his heart beat pounding faster than ever with each step you took to come closer to him.

"Hola" you said with a soft smile on your face.

The clasic hola.

"Hola" he replied softly with a shaky voice.

God, he was so cute when he was nervous.

"Thank you for looking out for me back there. I appreciate your concern for me"

At this moment, he didn't even realise that you know that he was trying to protect you. He was only concentrating on the fact that you talked to him...more than ever.

He only smiled not saying anything more.

"Want to come with me swimming so that you can be closer if anything happens to me?" you said while laughing sweetly.

Ah, your laughter

Pablo wanted to say yes with all his heart, but one of your friends said that it was really late and you should head home.

He was now really sad and angry because faith never let him be with you.

You were sad and wanting to apologise to him, but he spoke first.

"It's alright, it's not like we would have talked "

You could hear his heart breaking while he was saying those words to you.

"Lo siento, Gavi"

You said his name for the first time and that made him a bit happier. You knew his name.

You went to pack your things while again, he was looking at you with sad eyes.

He was so hurt and when you left, he started to cry. No one ever saw him like that, not even his sister. They went to see what happened to their friend, but answers couldn't be found because he didn't want to talk at all. They only hugged him trying to calm him down.

He knew that this was the last moment with you, because after this day, you were going at your normal lifestyle.

Being polite to him and saying the bare minimum, but not giving him any attention. This love can really destroy people. And the love he was feeling for you, was one of the strongest that ever exists.

He loves that you are nice, but he wanted you to be nice to him..and only to him.

All night he imagined how would have been if you two had got to the ocean. Kissing while the sunset was behind and how your hands would have been in his hair and his hands on your waist and cheek.

He couldn't even think that you would ever think about him, but at night, you dreamed about him. About how he was there, looking out for you while being alone in the ocean. How he would have reacted if you actually were in danger. Your mind couldn't stop thinking about him. His face, his eyes, his hands..his lips.

What got into you all of the sudden?

Ahh, how was this??

[theemporium]

click 'here' to unlock the other boyfriends!

.

Steve Harrington didn’t show it easily, but he was a pretty lonely guy.

Not that anybody would’ve ever expected as much. He was Steve Harrington, one of the most—if not the most—popular boy of Hawkins High. He had parties almost every weekend, had people always following him, had people fawning over him. 

There was no one in the world that seemed more admired than him. 

But the smiles and laughs and large crowd of admirers didn’t mean much when he returned home to a large, empty house. 

It felt quite stupid to complain about, and he was very aware of that. There were bigger problems in the world, in other people’s lives. It felt a bit privileged to whine about the fact his parents were never around and he grew up in a mansion that felt like a ghost town most of his life. It felt like such a miniscule objection in the grand scheme of things but it was so fucking lonely. 

Even the nannies he had growing up were detached, barely even acknowledging him as a child. He was just a paycheque in their eyes. And even they stopped after his parents thought he was old enough to keep himself alive at the big age of twelve years old. 

Steve couldn’t help it. He was a people’s person. He craved to have people around him. The loneliness was suffocating and he sometimes felt like he was scrambling to hold onto the people in his life—his friends, his girlfriends, his teammates. He felt like he was pushing and pushing and not really receiving much in return. 

A lot of people assumed that meant Steve came off quite clingy but, truthfully, you just found it endearing. 

“Back again, Harrington?” 

“Couldn’t leave my favourite girl to bore to death.”

You snorted, the sound only making Steve’s grin widen as he rounded the counter and jumped up on a spot right next to where you were situated. You glanced over his attire, taking in the bright blue shorts that stretched across his thighs before your eyes snapped back up to him. 

“Come to die with me then?” You questioned, eyeing the empty store (the one that had been empty since you started your shift) before looking back at the boy. 

“Oh yeah,” he nodded his head. “Like Romeo and Julia.” 

“Juliet,” you corrected. 

His grin widened. “Book nerd.” 

“Comes with the job,” you retorted as you halfheartedly waved at the store around you. 

It was funny, really. Never in a million years would you have ever considered yourself and Steve Harrington to be friends in school. And yet, all it took was a summer full of minimum wage jobs and and sympathy on neither of you having a fucking clue what to do with your lives after school.  

All it took was one broken car and an offer to carpool for the two weeks yours was in the garage for you and Steve to become friends. 

Him working in Scoops Ahoy and yourself working in Willy’s Bookstore—you were quite a pair. 

And without fail, whether he was working or not, Steve always showed up to entertain you at work. Whether it was during his own breaks or on his day off, you didn’t think a day had passed where you hadn’t seen the boy this summer. 

“You don’t have to come here,” you said eventually as Steve began to thumb through a random book beside him. “It’s boring but I’ll survive a shift.” 

“I know,” he answered with a shrug of his shoulders, his gaze focused on the words on the page. “But I like chilling here with you.” 

You tried to bite back your grin. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he lifted his head, a light tint to his cheeks. “Plus, I was thinking…” 

“Never a good sign,” you teased. 

He rolled his eyes, but the nerves were still there as he tapped them against his thigh. “I was thinking we could do something after your shift ends.” 

You raised your brows at the boy. It wasn’t unusual for you and Steve to do something after both your days were done. Though, more often that not, it resulted in the two of you grabbing something from the food court and eating it in his car, or him coming back to your apartment to crash on the couch. 

You never went to his place. You never really questioned it. You had asked once, casually one night when you were sitting on the couch watching some movie he had brought with him, and he had just said his place wasn’t as ‘homey’ as yours. You didn’t push the topic after that, you quite enjoyed having him in your space. 

“You got another movie for us?” You asked. 

“No, I mean—” He paused, letting out a long breath before continuing. “I thought we could do something different.” 

You raised your brows. “Like what?” 

“I—” He faltered for a second. “I didn’t think that far ahead.” 

You stared at him with an odd expression. 

“God, right, fuck. I didn’t do this right,” he muttered, mostly to himself. He cleared his throat as he slid off the counter, turning to look at you as he tried again. “I want to go on a date with you.” 

You blinked in surprise. 

“That sounded demanding,” he winced a little. “I mean, will you go on a date with me?” 

You opened your mouth to say something, but no words came out. 

“We can do whatever you want!” Steve continued, seeming lost in his own rambles and slight fear that you’ll reject him. “I don’t mind, really! I just…I wanna hang out with you. I mean, I know we already hang out. But I wanna do more than hang out with you. I wanna be more than friends—if you want to. Shit, I didn’t even give you a chance to say—“

You didn’t give him a chance to continue before you grabbed his shirt, hands fisted in the material of the stupid sailor costume before you yanked him down to kiss him. 

Steve stood frozen for one, two, three seconds before he finally reacted. His hands dropped to your waist, pulling you closer and tilting his head to the side as he deepened the kiss. 

There was a voice in the back of your head reminding you that you were at work, that anyone could come and see you, that your manager could walk in and see you both. But you didn’t care. You really, really didn’t care. 

“I want that date, Harrington,” you murmured against his lips when you finally pulled away, when you finally needed to breathe. “I don’t care whatever we do either, as long as it’s with you.” 

His face brightened, in a smile so wide that you swore you had never seen him that happy before. “Yeah…yeah, brilliant. I’ll, uh, plan something and meet you after your shift, yeah?”

“You gonna keep the sailor suit on?”

He raised his brows. “You want me to?” 

“The shorts can stay,” you decided, a cheeky smile on your lips. “The shorts can definitely stay.” 

He snorted. “Noted, baby, noted.”

.

[diot05]

Most Genshin Impact fans are racist and it shows.

As a Brazilian person, i was INCREDIBLY hyped for Natlan. Not only because of the mystery and lore, or the fact my favorite Harbinger would show up there. But also because Brazil and South America in general are often depicted as just the Amazon Rainforest and ig a bit of Mexican stereotypes because no one who uses stereotypes bothers to research anything.

And to open up the trailer just to see these bland, uninspired, downright ugly designs? It kinda broke my heart. And then i noticed the elephant in the room, the thing that reminded me that no one cares about us unless they're one of us. The fact these characters are as white as the fucking sun. And to see people treat those fighting against it like whiny nitpickers? It made me lose what little faith i had in this game as a whole. My expectations are now EXTREMELY low for Natlan, and honestly if they don't outright do a colonizer apologist storyline i'll be extremely surprised, because the bare minimum level of respect is clearly not the expected norm for this game.

And don't you dare even considering playing the "Oh but it's a chinese company!!" card, because they've proven VERY capable of designing and writing amazing black characters through Jeht, who's one of the most beloved NPCs in the game. If they WANTED to make any character black, they could. They just choose not to because it'll piss off the majority of the fandom. The racist, narrow-minded assholes who care about no culture but their own.

[rainhadaenerys]

One of the things I've seen from Dany antis is the argument that, since Daenerys will eventually leave Slaver's Bay behind, instead of staying there forever to keep helping the slaves, that means that she doesn't really care about the slaves, that she is not really a selfless person and that she is not really a hero. And I really don't agree.

First, because we are in Dany's head and we have plenty of evidence in her thoughts that she does care about the slaves.

Second, because staying in Slaver's Bay was already selfless on Dany's part. Staying in Slaver's Bay brought her no benefit whatsoever, if she was a selfish person she would just have taken the Unsullied to Westeros and left all the rest of the freedmen that were of no use to her behind, but she didn't do this. She stayed in Slaver's Bay to protect people who were of no use to her, to protect people who would not become her soldiers, and staying in Slaver's Bay would only squander her army, because the Sons of the Harpy keep murdering them, and because staying in Slaver's Bay means using her resources in Meereen and depleting her army to fight against the slavers.

Third, just because Dany will eventually leave Slaver's Bay to pursue her own personal desires, doesn't mean what she did in Slaver's Bay wasn't selfless. A hero doesn't have to be 100% selfless and abnegate all of their personal desires in order to be a real hero. Dany already did for Slaver's Bay more than any other person would have done, and she had zero obligation to do so. She had zero obligation to free slaves, she had zero obligation to stay to protect the slaves, and yet she did all of that. Dany already did more for the freedmen than she had any obligation to, and she did all of that out of pure selflessness. Just because she will not dedicate her whole life to fighting slavery and to giving herself to others, doesn't mean she wasn't selfless. Just because at some point she will decide to pursue her own personal goals, doesn't mean she becomes a less selfless person, it just means she is a human being who can't be expected to abnegate her entire life and dedicate it to others. Leaving Essos behind doesn't erase Dany's heroism, she already did more for the slaves than anyone else. A character shouldn't have to be perfectly selfless and abnegate everything to be considered a hero.

P.S.: It's really something seeing people say that Daenerys is not a hero because she won't spend her entire life fighting slavery, when other characters doing the bare minimum are considered heroic by the fandom. I've seen metas in the fandom talking about how Sansa is such an amazing hero because she calmed Sweetrobin. So Sansa is a hero for such a small moment of empathy, but Dany is not a hero because she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life fighting slavery, even though she already did plenty and more than any other person would do.

P.S. 2: Also, if Dany antis think she is "evil" just because she won't spend her entire life dedicated to the slaves, then by their own logic, any person who doesn't spend their entire life fighting for a social justice cause is also "evil". So by their own "logic", their faves are "evil" as well, because most of them aren't really dedicating their lives to fight the status quo.

[sonicreferencephotos]

Why I Dislike Sonic Speed Simulator

I sometimes see people in the notes of Speed Sim refs saying that maybe they should start playing it/get back into it. I want to ask, for your sakes, that you do not. The only reason I still play it is for this blog. I would love to stop. I keep going so that no one else will have to play to unlock characters for references. I will also be adding a disclaimer to future Speed Sim posts. Maybe this is a bit excessive, but this game is starting to break me.

I understand that some people like the game, and you all control what games you choose to play. In my opinion however, playing Speed Sim is really, really not worth it.

If you want a specific explanation of the problems, you can read it below the cut

Problem 1: Gameplay

The gameplay of SSS is simple, to put it kindly. There are a few different aspects of the game, each of which has only the bare minimum amount to do.

You can run around the world. This lets you collect rings and experience. You can also destroy badniks, which exclusively consists of doing repeated homing attacks until you destroy them. They can technically hit you, but all that does is knock you back.

You can do time trials. Actually somewhat fun. Not much more to say about them.

You can enter races. PvP races which are fine. Fun at first, get boring when you have to grind for race tickets.

You can fight bosses. By "bosses" I of course mean "Eggman" and "Eggman but with more health." It is almost exactly the same fight. You run around breaking shield generators, dodging the same two attacks, and then deal a set amount of damage to him before the shield returns. Repeat. Your prize is spins on (one of) the gacha wheels.

You can complete quests. Actually decent! At least until you run out of quests. Good thing there are daily quests to keep you "entertained" with their repetitive tasks. Also, ignore the fact that the tasks for quests are just engaging with the rest of the mediocre game.

All of the above mechanics grow dull and grind-y very quickly. Soon, every part of the game becomes a chore. The game itself even seems to have realized this, and thus includes an auto-run feature, so you can collect rings and xp without needing to do anything!

I am generally of the opinion that it's a bad sign if a game is un-fun enough it needs to add in the ability to skip the gameplay, but that's just me (that's part of why I stopped playing Star Rail).

Problem 2: Skins

We all know the real reason people play SSS isn't the game itself: it's the cool outfits! 95% of which are only available during limited events and/or by spending actual money. You can also expect to do a lot of boring grinding if you don't spend money. Speaking of spending money...

Problem 3: Microtransactions

Time to talk about the true "heart" of the game: Robux. Now, I will give Speed Sim itself half a pass on this one, as from what I've seen, Roblox as a whole has what I would consider an unsavory emphasis on microtransactions, especially for a game with a playerbase of 50% children aged 12 or under, and another 15% between 13 and 16 (Statista: Roblox user distribution worldwide 2022, by age group). With that being said though, Sonic Speed Simulator doesn't seem to have any qualms about asking for money wherever they can.

I could make a whole other post about all the ways this game offers for you to spend money. You want more spins on the gacha wheels? Spend money! You want to get three gacha eggs for the price of one (certain vending machines only)? Spend money! You want to skip the animation you have to watch every time you buy an egg from said gacha machines? Spend money! You want to do less grinding for xp/race tickets/event objectives/candy/whatever? Money, money, money!!!

The game has a lot of the trademark warning signs for a cash grab gacha game:

Several different kinds of currency, most or all of which can be purchased with premium currency

Many different skins to unlock, using the assorted currencies mentioned above (including ones that are specifically only purchasable with premium currency)

Gacha wheels. Many, many gacha wheels. (Not counting the dozens of vending machines, I can think of at least four)

Grindy gameplay that can largely be skipped by spending money

Again, if a game is un-fun enough to have an option for players to spend real money to skip the gameplay, that's a bad sign.

Problem 4: Crunch

I haven't done much looking into it myself, but I've seen many people say that GameFam (the company that creates Speed Sim) treats its employees very poorly. The game advertises its weekly updates, which requires a lot of crunch in order to get content out quickly. This is obviously bad for the people involved, and also has negative effects on the game.

Many features are clearly rushed, and there's a general lack of polish. From glitching through the map, to races starting several seconds before or after the countdown ends, to untextured models, to many small bugs, it's clear that the developers are not given enough time to clean things up before they have to move on to the next week's content.

*

Thank you to anyone who actually read this far. This was a long post, but I wanted to be thorough in my explanation. This is probably the last dedicated post I will make about this, since this is really not what this account is for, but I still think it's an important one.

You are welcome to ask questions about any of this — preferably in the replies so as not to clutter the sonicreferencephotos feed — but otherwise the disclaimers are all I'll be saying on the topic for the foreseeable future. Take care of yourselves.

[starseungs]

➳ invisible ties. ksm

pairing — kim seungmin x gn!reader

not all childhood friends are known as such. those with invisible ties also exist, a bittersweet reminder of such friendship.

genre — hurt-comfort, angst, fluff, childhood friends to lovers, highschool au, popular!seungmin • 2.6k words

warnings — self doubt, a whole lot of doubts in general, misunderstandings (with a happy ending)

note — #1 on your love through the ages series | tbh i didn't think i was going to like how i wrote this as much as i actually do but its one of my favorites now-

2022 ⓒ starseungs on tumblr. do not steal, repost, or edit.

Kim Seungmin had always been a talented guy. He had a knack for being good at whatever you would throw at him, proving to you that he could, in fact, probably do anything. But if there was one thing Seungmin was a total master at, it would be getting on people's good sides—heck, even just the bare minimum of gaining their attention. He was a shining star in everyone's eyes. That was the kind of guy Seungmin was.

So it was to absolutely no one's surprise that he was always considered popular, even as a kid in kindergarten.

That small neighborhood kindergarten was also where you met Seungmin. At the age of five, your little brain had already decided that making friends was a social construct, stubbornly refusing to interact with the other kids for more than three minutes. You were quite an interesting child, to say the least. And maybe that was why five-year-old Seungmin quickly took an interest in you—making it his life's goal to befriend the "shy kid" in class. The teachers would actually beg to differ with that title. You weren't shy, they said. Just "troubled."

As if that changed anything (and it really didn't.)

Yet, Seungmin did what no other kid would have dreamed of attempting, aka, interacting with you. And boy, did he do it with the passion of an Olympic athlete desperate for a medal. The five-year-old was determined to make you his friend—which, now that you think about it, maybe could have just been his pride; not wanting to accept that he couldn't charm someone. Kim Seungmin was the center of attention; that was just his natural role in life. But he stuck to his goal anyway, so you applaud him for his determination on that one. There were a lot of things to describe Seungmin, and being persistent was certainly on the list.

From sitting with you during activities to following you around on the playground, Seungmin would not leave you alone at all. He would trail behind you like a lost puppy (to be fair, he does resemble one) throughout most of the day, even though you barely looked back and acknowledged him. The only time you ever did so was when you got annoyed and told him to go away. And he did.

For about six minutes, before you had someone tailing you again. 

One day, you'd just had enough of his antics, already planning to blow up without a single remorse on the poor guy to stop all this nonsense—up until he suddenly presented you with a pen with your favorite cartoon character on it, saying it was a gift he got you. Apparently, he begged his mom to buy it as a gift for you because you were the first thing he thought of the moment he saw the pen's design. Young you immediately felt so bad for plotting war on him only a few minutes back, your resolve folding only seconds later.

Seungmin wasn't that bad, you remember convincing yourself.

Your view of Seungmin turned a complete one-eighty after that event. It was then that you finally accepted his advances and allowed the friendship to start. Surprisingly, it survived past kindergarten all the way to elementary—something you probably should have expected since you even ended up in the same grade school (courtesy of your dear mother, who—like everyone else—took a liking to Seungmin and wanted you to keep being friends with him.)

Seungmin was as popular as ever, earning countless recognitions left and right for anything and everything under the sun. The complete opposite of you, who your classmates often forget was even there in the first place. You didn't mind, of course—still bearing the same mindset you had in kindergarten. As long as you had Seungmin, everything was fine. You didn't need anyone else; you'd already made it through life without your only friend before he even remembered your name. It's not like they were really needed.

Right? 

That's what you originally thought, anyway. Yet, there was something you failed to notice up until the two of you reached middle school. And boy, were you in for a rude awakening. One that was worse than hearing your father turn the TV on at the break of dawn, with a volume louder than you flushing the toilet at midnight.

The first seed of doubt was planted during ninth grade, when you overheard a group of girls from your class talking about Seungmin. It wasn't long 'til you understood that they were his admirers, seeing as they were blatantly conversing about how Seungmin looked very attractive during baseball practice yesterday. How they could find him handsome in all his sweaty glory is beyond you. He honestly just looked like a whole bucket of water was dumped on him. But you guess there was always something for everyone, and continued to listen in. After all, even you knew that the Kim Seungmin of your school was pretty well-known as the "campus crush."

So when one of the girls mentioned wanting to give him a drink during today's practice break, you decided to give them money-worthy information—revealing your best friend's favorite drink. You knew that Seungmin wasn't very vocal about his own preferences, very much aware of how that would only cause more problems for him—his words, not yours. If his middle school fan club heard him complaining about them at the kitchen counter, shuddering over the sheer thought of what they could and are capable of doing, they'd be floored.

It was merely a short comment. "Seungmin likes coffee beverages," was all you inserted into their (rather loud) conversation. You had no particular expectation of the response you were going to get, but the one you actually got caught you off guard. That was because instead of focusing on the detail you had just dropped, they were more dumbfounded by the fact that you even knew that at all. What, did they think you were a stalker or something? Seungmin's fangirl deep inside? You knew what drinks he liked because he was your best friend—oh.

That was the exact moment you realized: in the eyes of almost everyone else, you and Seungmin had no connection other than being schoolmates in the same batch.

All your interactions with Seungmin were after school: you would go to school and home together, as well as hang out on free days. But you had little to no contact once you entered the school gates, which was where Seungmin normally bid you farewell to head straight towards his other friends. And that was fine with you. Not everything has to be shoved in people's faces.

You could survive even without your and Seungmin's friendship being public knowledge.

Except you soon come to the conclusion that you actually do—because that ugly green and sticky feeling in your stomach (which you later recognized as envy) was loudly screaming every time you heard one of his friends get addressed as "Seungmin's friend." Now, getting your identity watered down to being classified as merely a friend of another person is something that would greatly piss other people off, but you could care less. Your brain was experiencing tunnel vision on the fact that these people could be seen as Seungmin's friends by everyone else while you were stuck hiding in the shadows. It was eating you alive at that point; you wanted to stand right beside him too, like the "best friend" you claimed you were.

The ache grew even more during high school, when you found out you had formed romantic feelings towards Seungmin. It was sudden—or maybe not. Who knows? All you did know was that the realization crashed into you like a speeding bullet train. Seungmin wasn't even doing anything noteworthy—simply on the verge of dozing off during one of your many study sessions. But you found yourself focusing on little intricate details, such as the way he held the pen in a way that made him look like he was ready to write anytime in the next second despite his eyelids drooping oh-so-endearingly to the point that it warmed your heart (and face.)

Something about him that day was making you feel things you knew you shouldn't be feeling. And the mere knowledge of this terrified you, because how could you? If you couldn't even be known as his friend, how could you ever become his lover? And so you chose the most rational course of action.

To distance yourself from him.

Fine, maybe that wasn't the best decision you ever made. Especially not when the Kim Seungmin himself starts chasing you around school just to get you to talk to him. The whole deal greatly reminded you of your younger years, when it all started. And maybe that was why you folded once again, exactly like you did back then.

"Y/N, just talk to me," you remember his exhausted plea along the school's covered pathway, the one connected to the gym where the rest of your classmates were. Why was he even here? His class didn't have the same PE schedule as yours—if anything, you remember from the short conversation you had with Seungmin back at the start of the school year that they had math during this time (a detail you scolded yourself over, because why did you know that?)

His softening grip on your arm brought you back to reality, effectively making you turn and finally look at him. What you saw broke your heart entirely. Seungmin, the Kim Seungmin, campus crush, the main character of everyone's lives, was barely holding back his tears from escaping his glistening eyes, swirling with anxiousness and fear. "Did I do something wrong?" He asked in a fragile tone, his voice so small and soft it was practically a whisper—almost as if he were any louder, you'd fade away into the wind and leave him. "If I did, please tell me. I—I don't want to lose you," Seungmin choked out, the words feeling so heavy on his mouth. The same words he spent days dreading the implications of, nights he lost sleep over from the overwhelming emotion.

To you and everyone else who knew him, Kim Seungmin was a bright light. Yet, right now, only for your eyes—he was the dimmest he had ever been.

"No. There's nothing wrong," you lied through your teeth, tearing yourself apart inside for subjecting him to another kind of pain; one that he wasn't even aware of yet. All you had to do was cover it up with a white lie, "I was just—I was just being stupid. This thing... It was bothering me so much. So, I just wanted to be alone. That's all."

"I'm sorry," were the final words of your guilt-laced excuse. You didn't know how you even got through the whole thing. At this point, you don't even think you deserved to be called Seungmin's friend anymore. He trusted you, but you betrayed him with lies. Maybe the shadows really were the right place for you. A place where you could enjoy everything you desired, even in the midst of complete darkness.

These thoughts stayed as you relayed every single detail of your fully made-up concern to Seungmin after school.

Both of your lives returned to normal after that. Or at least, how normal it would be for you after the shocking revelation. You often found yourself worrying over almost everything, overthinking even the smallest of details. It certainly didn't help that Seungmin had been acting all weird lately—unconsciously avoiding your eyes when you spoke to him, and getting all fidgety when you two were alone. Maybe it was the weeks of silently doubting the validity of your friendship, or the dismay of feeling like he wanted to be anywhere else other than with you during your hangouts, that you finally burst out crying in front of him one day.

Seungmin was completely rattled, not expecting you to suddenly break down in his room while you two were watching a comedy movie. One would think that you were supposed to be laughing; that's because you actually should have been—not full on sobbing. Yet when he eventually got you to pour out everything you've been holding back, his mind went into static.

All he could say was that his thoughts greatly differed from yours.

This whole time, he believed that just like in kindergarten, you would have preferred him to stay away from you in school—wanting to attract as little attention as possible; something that was unavoidable if you were to be known as someone connected to him. So, for that reason, he kept his distance, opting to make up for the time you spent practically ignoring each other by walking you to and from school, treating you to small meals and snacks along the way, and hanging out whenever you both were free.

Don't get him wrong, though; his actions weren't just purely platonic. Seungmin had actually liked you since elementary school but decided to keep it to himself until you showed any signs of returning the sentiment. Admittedly, he first approached you with the aim of being friends for a petty reason. "Y/N doesn't seem to like you, Seungmin," he recalls as clearly as a bright day. The observation came from one of his classmates back in kindergarten, and as a child used to receiving only love, Seungmin was not about to accept not earning yours.

Yet, as time went on, he soon realized that you were the only one who actually stuck by him (aside from his family, of course.) Seungmin never wanted to admit it, but he grew quite attached to you—to the point that if someone asked him if he saw you in his future, he would one-hundred percent say yes without any hesitation at all.

You were a very precious person to him, and there was no denying it.

During elementary years, Seungmin's fondness turned into something more. He wasn't ignorant, even as a child; he knew well what crushes were and had no issue classifying you as his. At that time, though, just like any other kid, he didn't dwell too much on it—opting to enjoy growing up with you rather than bother himself with feelings that he believed didn't need to be complicated.

Seungmin's not-so-platonic emotions directed towards you were placed to the side, unmoving and silenced. It stayed there until high school—when they pushed their way back to the forefront of his mind, where there was no escaping it. The reason? Your decision to distance yourself from him.

In school was one thing, but for you to avoid him outside of it? Unheard of. There was only one time you two were separated for this long, and that was back before you even became friends. Seungmin was definitely suffering with each passing day, but he still chased you. Giving up was not a choice when you were probably hurting too. The thought pained him more than he wanted it to be.

Though the memory of him revealing his raw emotions to you in such a manner was sort of humiliating (but because it was you, he felt less judged); Seungmin didn't regret it one bit. Still, he found it hard to act normally after all that. Having his romantic feelings out in a place where he could barely contain them was more difficult than he thought. Every moment with you just felt so overwhelming—he had to restrain himself from smothering you in a tight hug and never letting you go.

But he didn't need to hide it anymore. 

"You're worth more to me than you'll ever know," he says, cupping your face gently as you hiccup through muffled apologies, unable to stop the tears from streaming down your cheeks like waves. Seungmin placed a feathery kiss on your forehead, the unexpected feeling taking you out of your own spiraling thoughts of negativity to notice that his hands were trembling—along with his wavering voice. "I'm sorry too," he swallowed, sensing his emotions rising as a result of your sniffling. "I'll do my best to never let you feel that way again."

"So give us another chance, please."

mastertag 🏷️ :

@h0neydewmoon @starzzns @lhskokoro @bookishcalls

— let me know if you want to be added or removed^^

[tenderlyrenjun]

Golden Hour

minors + inactive/empty blogs do not interact

includes … celebrity chef!reader x idol-producer!mark, height difference, flirting, themes related to golden hour and child, kitchen sex, fingering, making out, light choking, oral sex (f receiving), penetration, safe sex ... I got a little inspired (?) and wrote this literally today after I got off work.

wc: 5,2k (two scenes)

“So …” You lean across the cluttered counter, most of the cooking utensils used thus far, since the class finished past your instruction ten minutes ago, the other party guests having already moved on to mingling and eating their bibimbap dishes, garnished by a simple omelette. “… how do you like your eggs?”

Mark licks his bottom lip, dragging it behind his teeth, and turns a brown egg, uncracked, in his hands, smoothly gliding the entire oval across his dorsal veins. He opens his mouth, but so many factors surface, once he takes everything into consideration – fried egg sandwiches during 9 AM business meetings at the studio; feta frittata eggs with a Sunday brunch mimosa; fluffy scrambled omelettes, adding an extra dash of protein, before the gym. And those are just scenarios, the last one mostly inspired by the matching, scanty gym outfit you gatekeep below that long apron, making you appear a little more exposed than his hippocampus can handle: crop top tank pushing up your chest, leggings laying so flat that he saw the outline of your thong when you spun the straps around your waist, fastening the long strands twice. Conversely, if he considers just the ingredients – of an omelette – or just the egg, ignoring his personal skill level, as shown by the pulped bibimbap dish nearly starting a fire on the hot plate at the end of his table, Mark … still has too many options.

So, he taps his neatly cut fingernail on one of the three eggs he’d been allotted at the beginning of the class and answers, “Scrambled,” slowly, because he’s used to it, to that technique. A scrambled egg is simple; no finesse. And he can cook it at any convenience, with the bare minimum number of utensils – in a pan, whisked by a fork; cracked over a steaming bowl of ramen, mixed by wooden chopsticks; heated in a microwave, nearly exploding after he sets the timer for five minutes.

Mark puts his egg back in the dispenser, sighs, and glances around the room. He honestly did not know what to expect from this “party”. Three rows of two long kitchen islands stand, placed equidistant in Renjun’s penthouse dining room, extending all the way to the living room where Jisung’s, his roommate, guitar accessories scatter across the coffee table. On his way up the elevator – actually a little before that, too, when he was at the studio, still evicting this tune he got stuck in his head, Mark considered the party to be a casual hangout, having heard that maybe 15 people, max, would be in attendance, not some theatre production, complete with a whole stage refurbishment. Ah, maybe he got his hopes up too high, relying more on the intimacy of a small party to keep him from a spatula, possibly wrapped up in conversation over a potential collaboration, like a networking event, rather than an actual cooking lesson from the youngest celebrity chef in the country’s largest metropolis with peers who doing the same as him, better than him. Mark thought he might excel, once he saw bibimbap on the schedule, the most basic breakfast dish, even though his stomach’s morning routine has been limited to toast or cereal for nearly a decade (much to Haechan’s grievance). Then, he overcooked the steak, resulting in you giving him yours; and he cooked his mushrooms first, the most potent flavor seeping down to the carrots, again resulting in you handing off your dish. The rice, really, was the only thing unscathed, mostly because he threw two cups in a cooker, leaving it untouched for 20 minutes.

“Sorry,” Mark apologizes. He winces, realizing how much of your time he monopolized during class – whether it was messing up a step in the recipe or staring at you too long until you noticed him again.

“It’s okay,” you tell him gently, bumping his arm, quickly, to scoot him down the counter. He complies, feet shuffling tinily, and watches you officially take over his project. “It happens. I think most people tend to, like, really develop their cooking skills around the same time their cells start dying,” you joke, giving him a light grin while you pull a clean glass bowl into frame.

“Mmhmm.”

Mark passes off all three eggs to you, and his fingers brush your hands, nails grazing, briefly, between your knuckles. He glances down at where they meet but jumps back to your face, stumbling at your chest, a consequence of the height difference, sternum hidden by both your boobs squished together and the apron holding them in place, albeit low-cut. You say nothing, instruct nothing, since the class is practically over (and he stays, like a teacher’s pet), so he leans back, checking out the gap in your apron, just to make sure you really do wear, like, actual clothes, including that thong he saw earlier, small triangle branded on your lower back like a tramp stamp. And you do! – wear clothes, which, at least, concludes one of his spinning thoughts today (it’s not even six o’clock yet, the time work usually ends). Then, his stomach rumbles, reminding him that breakfast was 12-hours ago.

“You’re, um, really good at this,” he brings his attention back to the purpose of this party.

“Yeah, thanks,” you accept, tone vocally light, which almost has him thanking you, too – be-because you have given him something to focus on this afternoon, temporarily relieving himself from the mental journalling his brain has been writing since 4 AM (would that be weird?; he doesn’t do it anyways). “I have a degree in physical chemistry,” you tell him, sharply whisking the eggs into a consistent yellow solution. “I’m making them eggs fluffy. I hope that’s okay.” You look at him, pausing the wooden sticks between your fingers, bowl pressed into your stomach, below your chest, and he has to look, bouncing from your eyes to boobs bowl.

Mark nods, twice, eyes widening downward, like a baby cheetah, half his bottom lip inside his mouth again, teeth chewing at the seam. He can’t trust himself not to stutter, not when his tongue falls numbly over his lower incisors and his toes bear his entire body weight, palms pushed into the edge of the counter to balance him.

“Sorry,” you apologize, reflexively, in the silence. And he winces, involuntarily stepping forward to revoke his silence, to verbally answer you so that you don’t have to take your eyes off the food. But you talk again and explain, “I’m not really used to the, like, customer service yet.” Your arms tense again, restarting the whisking, blending out the albumen on the perimeter. His fingers, too, strain, flexed wide enough to display his webbed metacarpal. If you were like his other friends, like Renjun, Mark might have already started massaging your shoulders, getting you to relax. But you’re not. And he barely knows you, mostly knows of you, from all the interviews preceding him in the magazine, little tidbits floating around the Internet as if fact without giving you the opportunity to confirm or deny them. “Sometimes, I just start cooking and forget to ask people – customers –“ You point at him, and he wishes you wouldn’t. It adds to the distance between you, making him count the millimeters you retracted when your fingers brushed tips. “– about their preferences.” You turn the electric stove top on, over medium heat, then reach for aluminium-wrapped slice of butter, unwrapping it at the back and pushing the soggy square (Mark winces again; that is probably his fault, having waiting too long to use it) into the pan via chopsticks. “But I’m, uh, I’m working on it.” You pull the pan off the stove, butter halfway melted, easy for you to slip and slide, coating the entire surface. And once you finish, putting it back to melt the rest, you glance around the room, small whisper drawing his ear to your lips. “It’s just hard … being the youngest person in the room, always obligated to absorb everyone’s opinions, everyone’s advice – whether solicited or not, kinda balancing this dichotomy where people want to guide you into what they think is the right direction or completely takeover the thing you’re doing.” You stab at the remaining butter with your chopstick, wood thumping the metal pan, then, lower the stove heat and sigh, “Sorry, that sounds weird, I know.”

“No, I, uh, I get it,” Mark croaks, stuttering getting even worse after you hand the glass bowl of whisked eggs to him. He tries to, like, replace you in front of the stove, but you stand still and guide both his hands on the rim, fingers filling in the gaps between his. You face the bowl toward his chest, a little lower than he would do on his own, but he keeps quiet at the discomfort, body stiffened, diaphragm concaved all the way. He tilts the eggs out fast, faster than you probably intended because you put up more resistance against him, slowing the pour until the curds form gently in the pan. You pull away first, completing his plan – in which he stands at the stove, you at the side. And Mark smacks his lips, tongue pushing on his bottom lip. “You’re trying to find some equilibrium between your environment – the people, the setting, whatever – and your own identity.” You hand him the cooking chopsticks, temporarily distracting his train of thought, but he bounces back quickly when you nudge his hand over the pan, directing him through scrambling the egg curds, through pushing the eggs outward to inward. “S-sometimes,” he breathes, shakily, grounding his body in cooking, “people will tell me that I’m, like, mature for my age, or – or, like, an old soul, and give me more responsibilities than I know what to do with. And it’s not like I can’t ask for help or anything; everyone gives me enough unsolicited advice to make me feel, like, okay, or whatever, with asking for help. But other times, people feel this need to, like, take care of me.” You hand him a rubber spatula and take away the chopsticks, which slightly proves his point, but he keeps to that point, using the spatula to put around the eggs evenly, fluffing them edges to middle. “Thanks.”

“Mmhmm,” you acknowledge before sitting on the counter, blue Nikes swinging against a cabinet door. And Mark copies you, leaning on the counter, just right of the electric stove and pan, eyeing you up. “Eyes on the pan, Mark.”

“Right, yeah.”

Mark uncrosses his arms and turns back to the last step of his bibimbap, folding the eggs over itself. But they look complete, a little wet, yellow dark and runny, but still, complete.

“Do I, um, do I do anything else?” he asks, holding both the handles of the pan and spatula. He cautiously looks up at you, through his own lashes, careful not to stutter at your chest again (even though you sit with your palms digging into your knees, biceps supporting their weight higher). You stare at him a second, something indiscernible crossing your mouth, then you shake your head, fringe falling in front of your ears, prompting you to tuck them back.

“Is there something else you want to do?”

Ask you out.

Maybe.

A beat passes.

“I don’t know,” Mark answers, nervously laughing to himself, under his breath. “I, uh, usually see people add stuff at the end – like, sprinkle some cilantro or squirt a side of ketchup.”

You hop down the counter and walk around his side, putting the pan between the two of you, which makes Mark tilt his head left, almost bonking his long blond hair (really his shoulder) on your head, if the height difference hadn’t returned. And the spatula drops from his hand, involuntarily he tells himself, when you nudge into his personal space. You catch it, not so easily, he notices – and apologizes, then you undo his folds to the omelette.

“People usually add spices and veggies to taste,” you start, not looking at him. “The eggs should be slightly wet when you’re adding the final ingredients, so you need to act quick –”

Mark jumps behind you, arm reaching across the counter, toward the far side, at the bowl of diced vegetables mixed with crushed pepper. He shakes it across the eggs, like he’s seen TV chefs do on Netflix. The silence, as you watch him top off the omelette with a literal pinch of salt, is a deafening few seconds, and he feels a sense of pride, that expectation of him excelling returning to the scene as he hoped before the class. But it leaves his body, the next second, when he realizes how close he stands to you – his chest pressed against your shoulders; your neck bending backwards, nearly resting on his bicep just to see his face.

“Ye-yeah,” you stutter, and suddenly, he sees you less confidently, and his mouth dries, preventing him from both apologizing for the intimacy and moving. “Just like that.” You swallow, thickly, fleetingly dipping your gaze to his lips; so quick, he thinks he hallucinated it.

“Th-then, does it, um, does it look done now?”

Mark’s shoulders stagger to his ears, tucking his chin to chest. He pulls his stomach backward, without the rest of his body, standing like a geometric abstract painting, limbs stacked one on top of the other.

You snap your head back to the pan, hair hitting his shirt. “Wh – Yeah, no, yeah, you were perf – good; you did good.” You kick up your elbow, outside his oblique, parenthetically trapping him tightly in place (otherwise, he’d fall). He watches you repeat his fold in the eggs, this time with ingredients sandwiched in the middle, yolk running less and less, tucking bell peppers and mushrooms inside. It’s a basic dish – the omelette – not even complete, since it will top the bibimbap.

Making an omelette takes longer than he thought it would, to be honest; well, making a good omelette. And this is probably the reason why he never makes one himself. All the recipes say 5-10 minutes, including prep time, but he has been here, with you, probably longer than that. Although, it could be his fault, needing to fill the silence with words, to say something – because he really cannot talk and check you out at the same time. You keep the conversation going, always articulating something interesting or relatable, to him, beyond the simple stuck-in-a-matrix TikTok clickbait that Renjun sends him at three in the morning. So, when you start moving again, shutting down the stove, plating his bibimbap, and untying your apron, Mark grabs your arm, fast, just strong enough to catch your attention; he releases immediately upon receiving your eye contact.

“Don’t,” he breathes, somehow winded. Then, he inhales, sharply, filling his lungs. “Eat with me?” he asks, “un-unless you have somewhere else to be.”

You turn around, at a better angle, back pushed against the stove buttons, apron hanging half an inch off your body. And Mark grabs you by the waist, hauling you into his chest, away from the sparking stove. But you both push each other away again, noticing the intimacy, hands rubbing into where you touched each other – you at your hips, him at his chest. And the two meter distance returns.

“No, I, um, I was just going to the gym after this.” You look him up and down, and his eyes sparkle. “But, no, yeah.” You take off the apron completely, folding it onto the counter. “I c-can eat with you. Just let me get a spoon.”

Mark produces one nearly out of thin air (really, he swiped one of the three off the counter to make space for your apron). “We can share,” he nods at the ceramic bowl, “this bibimbap. Yours is probably cold by now,” he reasons, because, if you go, you might not come back, and he doesn’t want to let this be a mirage or, worse, be a dream; dreams can become nightmares. And as another beat overtakes the conversation, overtakes his request and explanation, Mark thinks he fell into another night with the same nightmare. The bibimbap is only a single serving, if that, drowned by three servings of eggs. You barely know him, only revealing maybe one or two vulnerable thoughts, on which he piggybacked his own apprehensions. And really, Mark should feel bad, about monopolizing your time both during and after class, even though this is technically a party and he has yet to say more than three words to his best friend, Renjun. He phrased his request, less like a question, more like a demand, and he can’t find a reason why you would agree, his brain already lined up three objections for you to reject –

“Okay.”

Mark freezes, hand clenching around the air, since you took the spoon away from him (he hadn’t noticed  you did that, to be honest). He only moves after you squeeze his arm, guiding him away from the stove too, like he did you, except the stove is really off right now. And everything rushes out at once – he follows you to the side, still far from the rest of the party guests, who he, frankly, forgot were in the room still, despite this not being his apartment; and he repeats, “Okay.” Mark tilts his head to the side, you blurring the rest of his vision. “Okay? Okay. Cool, cool, okay, cool.” You hop back on the counter and skulk your foot between his thighs, bringing him a little bit closer, out of the aisle. His hands fall on both your sides, lowering him down your chest, which looks about the same without the apron – pushed up and compressed together. “Actually …”

Mark’s request for you to eat with him changes.

In terms of location and subject.

He brought up that the bibimbap might not be an ideal meal to share, and that he wants to share a meal with you. It took a couple minutes, skirting around the whole date question, since he literally only knew you a couple hours, but if you know, you know. And Mark knew that he really wanted to see you more … privately. So, eventually, he got through the question, getting you back to his apartment on the lie that he has more food at home. But you never confirmed his lie, or maybe you never doubted him (he’ll clear it up later), because you shove him against the wall, kissing him between the photos of his friends and family, who he definitely does not want to see him railing the girl of his dreams.

Mark changes the position, scratching his nails up your scalp, behind your head, coiling thick strands around his fingers while he walks you down the living room to his bed, never letting up on the embrace.

However, the two of you fall on the ground, in the kitchen, Mark’s elbow slamming into the ground first as he tries to protect you from the hard wood floors. He yelps in pain, too, but you poke your tongue in his mouth, arms wrapping around his neck. You stumble toward his lips, chest beating on his, your back coming off the ground, nearly toppling him over. And Mark fumbles, hand feeling around the floor until he can sit upright, sloped against the island cabinets, which seem to have a lot of use today. He raises his chin higher, trying to match the way you bounce on his lap, cupping his face still. And, Jesus Christ, Mark compares your lips to every other person he has ever kissed before – his newest hairstylist a year after he became an adult; the concessions stand clerk at the movie theatre when he was 17; another idol he met through a mixed-up sandwich. You’re better than all of them, he concludes, swollen lips as pliant at his half-lidded eyes, puckering repeatedly to give you a sounding board each time you dive into his face. He grabs your ass, like an anchor, heels of his palms kneading into the muscles.

“Mm – Mark,” you moan, not breaking apart, hot breath exhaling down his tongue. You stand on your knees, and your nails drag into his hair, tugging at the roots.

“Fuck.”

Mark kisses you again, harder, bending you across his legs, one hand belting behind your waist, the other slamming into the ground. You hang off his neck, nearly dragging him on the floor with you, had he not already set himself up for support. Then, he starts falling back into the island, repeatedly pecking you, one last lick on your teeth before pulling away. He needs the reprieve, to organize his thoughts, figure out the first way he can fuck you tonight without blundering like a clumsy virgin. And when he peaks an eye open, he sees yours still closed; sees your chest heaving, the neckline somehow lower. So, Mark kisses you again, more chaste, patting down the side of your hair until his palm rests on your cheek.

“Why – why did you stop?” you ask, sinking your ass onto his thighs.

“I –“ Mark swallows. He wants you in his bed now, thrusting into you so rough that his blue sheets tear off the corners. He also wants you on his couch, the next immediate mattress, rubbing his boner up your tight, giving each other tight hand jobs, clinging to each other just to save room. But as he darts across your now flushed face, Mark is momentarily returned to that first moment when he saw you walk into Renjun’s apartment, a confident chef who eventually gave him your full attention, and he answers, “On the counter.” He taps your ass, getting you both to stand. He helps you jump on the granite, hands around your waist to place you perfectly in front of him.

“Like this?”

You wrap your legs and arms around him, nearly falling off, so Mark scoots closer to the edge, his mostly hard cock grazing the edge and your knee.

“Yeah,” he hisses, hands traveling down your calves, like a massage. “Good girl,” he praises. Mark brings one up your thigh, between your thighs, not quite touching the middle just yet. “Can I?” he asks, thumb resting on your stomach, above the waist band he already folded down your belly button. You both stare at each other, delicately grinding the paper-thin air between you two. Then, you roll down the counter, humping his abs so tightly that his shirt rides up.

“Yeah, Mark, please,” you moan again. “You c-can touch.”

Mark, impatient, doesn’t take your pants off, sliding all five digits down your stomach, palm facing you. His longest fingers trace your underwear, mentally drawing himself a picture of the thong you kept hidden from him for hours. It’s thinner than he imagined, wetter, too, the skinny string disappearing between your pussy lips, choking your clit. Mark breathes down your lips, inhaling through his nose as your breath hitches repeatedly, open-mouthed, staccato ah’s decreasing in octaves from moans to groans. He pads his index and ring finger on either side of your cunt, middle finger stroking your clit lightly. Actually, he tries not to touch you directly, wanting the ghost of his fingers to burn your loins first, but you keep grinding closer and closer to him; eventually, his fingers slip inside, starting with two interphalangeal creases. The tightness of your leggings holds his wrist against your lower stomach, but his fingers have some range, able to gesture for your G-spot to come hither, to find him.

“Wanna fuck you so bad,” he whimpers, kissing you again before you can retort – because it’s not a request; he’s not asking. Mark is telling you that he wants to fuck you so bad, right now, monster cock straining his jeans fully.

“You can,” you tell him between a kiss. Mark’s free hand holds you around the neck, palm on your jugular, thumb reaching across your larynx. Nothing supports your head, so you keep rocking forward, incidentally dropping further down his fingers in your cunt, stifling your voice box in his hand. “You can f-fuck – fuck – me, Mark.”

He almost takes you up on it, even stripping the both of you down to your underwear. And he finds out that your bra has been holding up your boobs, not your crop top, not the apron, your bra. He hopes you have a duplicate of this one, because he’s going to rip it.

Not actually though.

In reality, outside his thoughts, Mark hesitates. His cock twitches on his stomach, smooth tip leaking under the waistband, as he debates how he wants to get between your legs. Either way – stuffing you with his cock or lapping at your walls – would sprawl you across his kitchen counter, displaying you like a perfect meal prepared by his Michelin charisma, having moved the appetizer (flirting) from Renjun’s apartment into a main dish at his place. His place. Oh, yeah, you definitely have all night. So, Mark settles between your thighs, pushing your knees more open.

“No more teasing,” he tells you.

“What – Oh, fuck, just like that, Mark!”

You fall onto your forearms, over the counter, as Mark licks his way into your pussy, one finger holding the tiny thong string off to the side. He extends his tongue, all the way, angling his head diagonally. He keeps his wet muscle still and shakes his head, side-to-side, nose rubbing just outside your labia, more on your thigh, pushing your pussy lips together so tightly that your clit bears most of the tension. You moan his name, repeatedly, growing louder and louder over each passing syllable, encouraging him further – or, rather, deeper.

Mark pulls his dick out of his pants, stroking down only once, holding the pulsing base firmly, prematurely lining himself with the thought of your cunt.

“Ah, Mark,” you scream, palm slamming into the counter. Mark throws his glance at your face and sees your lips form a giant ‘O’ – God, he could fuck your mouth pussy. And he strokes himself again. The way you squirm on his kitchen island realigns your clit with his nose, and you grind the little nub on his nub, the hard ball jingling wetly. Your ass, too, bounces on the table, practically spanking yourself on the granite. Mark bites his lips higher, catching your clit in a hard suction, drinking the shaky nerves, tongue abrading the entire surface area. You return your hands to his hair, scratching into his scalp, never tugging him away, only yanking him tighter. And your thighs quiver, squeezing his cheeks, knees outlining his ears. “Mark, Mark,” you chant, “Mark, I’m gonna – I’m gonna – Oh, my God, I’m gonna – “

Then, he pulls away.

And you nearly scream again.

“Mark,” you whine for a good few seconds.

“Wait for me,” he tells you, holding your chin between his thumb and index finger to press a quick kiss on your lips. You try to elongate the kiss again, your sweaty ass adhering on the counter, but he pulls away fully after the one quick kiss. “Good girls wait,” he mumbles.

Mark leaves for a second, heading into his bathroom for a condom.

He catches himself in the mirror, toned abs full on display, lengthy cock flopping sans balls outside his briefs. His hair, too, has more volume than it normally does, even when his stylist fixes it up for concerts or stages (who knew sex hair looked this good?). Mark checks himself out another minute, then grabs a neatly packed L-condom. He exhales, jumping once, only to realize that it was a mistake when his dick hits his thigh. And he takes a moment, to just breathe, before going back to you, cock now wrapped up with protection.

In the kitchen, Mark finds you fingering yourself, writhing on the counter, opposite hand covering your mouth. He watches a little bit longer (but not long enough to be a pervert), then stalks between your thighs. You gasp, eyes widening.

“I thought I told you, ‘Good girls wait’.”

Your chest heaves a few seconds, and he realizes that he probably disturbed your orgasm a second time.

“I – I need to prep myself,” you explain, weakly, but he lets it go with the next half of your sentence boosting his ego, “Your dick is too big.”

“Mmhmm,” he nods. Mark wraps your thong around his dick, the little tiny crotch part choking his length, and rubs the new apparatus on your vulva, until you whine again, writhe again. “You’re gonna like it big,” he mumbles before untangling himself and impaling his cock all the way inside your cunt. “Oh, fuck,” he groans, shallowly thrusting half an inch out your labia, the acute angle between your bodies chafing his cock under your clit. Your pussy throbs at a 3010 tempo, practically squeezing him out, which gives him an excuse to thrust again, to bottom out again, the furthest part in your uterus clinching his leaky tip. “You – you feel s-so close,” Mark lisps, “T-to cumming.”

“I am,” you confirm, voice tight, moans asphyxiating your throat. “Mm – Mark, close.”

“Go ahead,” he tells you. “Come on, baby, you can cum. Be a good girl, cum.” Mark abuses your cunt harder, holding your waist lowly, sliding your ass off the counter as he pounds you harder and harder, cock driving up your pussy at the perfect angle, for what seems like the both of you. He tries continuously accelerating his speed, but as your pussy strangles him, and his thighs bruise on your ass, his cock flops around inside your cunt, spinning clockwise, ricocheting your walls.

“Ah, ah, ah!”

Mark weighs down your hips with one hand, the other tilting your chin up to look at him, to watch just him make you feel so damn good. Somewhere along the moaning and the sloshing, Mark squeezes his eyes shut, a familiar pressure building in his ears; he chases it, bucking his hips faster, spanking his thighs on your ass, your pussy ultimately trapping his tip deep in your uterus, only letting his shaft spring back and forth, veins stinging your velvety walls.

“Fuck, fuck, yeah, good girl,” Mark raps in one breath, all the music in his head building up and up and up, until the bass drops, and white noise backs up your screams like an instrumental. He digs his thumbs into your waist, grinding his hips on your labia, burying his cum as far as it can go, though impeded by the condom. And he lays down on the counter with you, feet floating off the ground.

You curl into his side, his arm wrapping around your shoulders. He can hear you steady your breathing, and it slows his, too. The moment hangs in the air, much like his feet, and Mark doesn’t know how much time passes, only enough for him to close his eyes, not a single thought behind those lids.

But you break the silence, mumbling something into his naked shoulder.

“Hmm? What was that?”

Mark lifts his head up, opening his eyes to stare at your newly shy smile.

“I just noticed you never asked me how I liked my eggs,” you laugh.

And Mark laughs too. “Okay, so how do you like your eggs then?” he plays along.

“Fertilized.”

[7nsomnia]

can i ask, what’s wrong with dcc? i always hear that they kinda suck as a company, but from the vlogs i’ve seen, they’re one of the better companies. i’m not really as into dreamcatcher as some of the blogs on here even though i consider myself a stan, so i might not have the right information

okay. I feel like this is like opening my personal pandora box so this might be long. I'm pretty tired today so apologies in advance if this isn't very coherent asdkjh

dcc are a pretty decent company on a surface level, they treat the members well (which should be like the bare minimum for any company but I know that in this industry that's something to genuinely praise) and they actually change according/respond to negative feedback from the fandom etc when they or the members mess up (or they used to anyway).

for me it started in 2020 and how they handled handong's return. like the way they handled her absence was fine (good even, I would say), but the lack of hype for her actual return made things feel so underwhelming even though it was supposed to feel like a relief that she was finally back. I can't remember all the details anymore, but I do remember that the first time I felt like things were actually alright with dc was when they did the online concert crossroads in march of 2021. on that note I think most ppl were expecting ttol and dlm to be repackaged with ot7 versions and yet it's 2024 and they still haven't released them.

the handong stuff atp is water under the bridge tho, the group is fine, the members are fine, etc, I'm only mentioning it because that's when things started to feel really off for me.

so now we get into the actual things that happened that have left the fandom feeling burned out/frustrated/disconnected etc etc, whereas this happened to me at the end of 2022, I'm seeing more people now going through what I did back then:

I think the most pressing thing was that dcc didn't capitalize at all on dc's first win. they got their first win in april 2022 and didn't even do anything special in korea to commemorate it. it was a HUGE moment and they did nothing with it. usually after a group gets a first win you'll see them getting more promotions in korea, magazine photoshoots, mc deals, etc but dc just went on ahead to do festivals in europe and have a usa tour, these things are not bad but it was the lack of promotion in korea that in turn just made it all feel useless. that year dc also weren't invited to any end of year awards if I'm not mistaken so it all felt really disappointing and like all of the work we had as a fandom had been for nothing. I have to reiterate, dc/insomnias had been getting screwed over on music shows since 2019 with deja vu to get that first win, like I don't want to talk about the injustices the group and this fandom suffered through the years but it was a true story of resilience, so getting that first win in 2022 was a huge relief. to see it all going to waste was just... heartbreaking honestly.

when it comes to tours...... god I don't wanna get too much into it, but 4 tours in the usa in the span of 2 years is not normal. specially when they're prioritizing that over having a proper asia tour and the likes (AND promoting in korea??). latam tour is practically sold out rn and they're getting no merch or m&g benefits like the usa tour. I don't think doing exclusive things for a specific tour is bad per say, but you have to treat all your fans semi equally at least, specially for a group whose fanbase is majorly international (this will be important later), or it will happen what is happening rn which is ppl will leave the fandom. This is the first latam tour since 2019 (2017 for brazil!)... they've waited a really long time so personally (even tho this doesn't affect me bc I'm european) I feel like it's really disrespectful but wtv, onto other things.

now, speaking of the fanbase being majorly international, if this is the case, you'd think the company would make an effort to stream important events to their fans, like hmm the 7th anniversary concert perhaps? but nop, that didn't get streamed. a repetition of the dumbassery they did in 2022 where they split the concert and the members' solos in 2 days and only streamed one and so intl fans couldn't watch half the solo stages? and don't get me wrong, I think it's important that they have events that are korea only like they have the fansigns etc, but something as major as their 7th anniversary? when they've gotten here thanks to their international fans? that stings a little.

and lastly (maybe), we have dcc's usual lack of promotion during comebacks. fans always paying for ads, intl fans always doing the most for digitals even when it's Not their place (because this is smth that the korean fandom and dcc should be responsible for), fans having to reach out for vendors etc... Justice cb truly has been the culmination of the very worst promotions dcc has done tho and there have been some really bad promotions before... no radio shows, minimum interviews, barely any variety... were there even any ads? usually it's always fans paying out of pocket for ads. it just feels like throwing the members' and the company's work out the window for no good reason? Virtuous is one of their best albums and yet it feels like they just dumped it to go on tour again. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing btw, having short promotions in korea is fine but like... promote for real? give your fandom content that they can watch and rewatch for however long it takes your group to have another cb? specially now that it seems that they're shifting to one album per year (not sure this is their wisest decision tho all things considered), you have to make sure that you promote that album properly? which kinda also goes with like, giving your fandom enough time to save for what you release and put out, specially if you're not trying to grow the fandom anymore. if they're dropping an album then don't announce a tour on top of that, and if they're announcing a tour then don't announce a photobook on top of that, and if they've just released an album then wait longer than a month to announce a photobook, and if they've just dropped a photobook then wait a bit longer until announcing the re print of albums the fans have been begging you for 6 years to re print LOL bc all this does is frustrate fans who can't make that much money in such a short time and it's stupid. like. in 2018 I dropped like 200 euros for like their very first photobook BECAUSE I had time to save that amount from their you and I cb (may) to whenever it was announced (I think it was august), and that was the highest tier (so you could get it for much cheaper) and bc back then it was like. well they barely release anything other than albums, so it's fine (also shipping was sooooooo much cheaper I miss it everyday, ofc this is not their fault tho but anyways).

lastly actually, oh my god. that stupid ass app where fans pay a subscription to message the members privately? has been the fucking worst thing to happen to this fandom and the members imo. if fans weren't respecting their boundaries before, it's even worse now. but it's also like. yeah the members should be reinforcing those boundaries, and I get wanting to at least make a buck of those problematic type of fans but I just don't think it has been good for the members at all. I won't elaborate too much on this because it will genuinely piss me the hell off but bottom line: that app has been hell for everyone genuinely there is no bright side to it other than dcc makes money out of it. and there's better ways to make money :))))))))

anyway this is over 1k words atp and somehow I feel like this all just the tip of the iceberg and I probably have forgotten many things bc tbh in the past year I've just. been trying to make peace with it all and just accept things for what they are because dc have been really special to me for such a long time and I just don't want dcc's decisions to make me throw all of that away (like I almost did). I love their music, I love the members, and so I will continue to celebrate wtv right decisions dcc makes but I'm not going to pretend that they're a good company when it comes to business decisions bc they're really not