#tumblr is very... off the cuff for me so it is by and LARGE my most disorganized presence

[tricitymonsters]

Its so weird seeing new people in here and them suddenly asking who are all these people in your game. While I'm here holding onto my pearls like Quickly now hide the sacred texts!

Me desperately trying to tidy this place up and make it hospitable to new followers. Please cum inside and read the sacred texts.

[tikus-library]

"The Visiting"

Avengers AU - Chapter 2

Previous

Characters: Loki x OC!Julia

Posted: Sept 30th

WARNINGS: ???

A/N: this one is snail updates, so sorry, thank you for those that have stuck around with my inconsistent updates to any of my stories! Yall are the best 🫶 (I really forgot to post here to tumblr)

Like, Comments, & Reblogs are always appreciated and loved. 

**Please Do Not Repost or 'Fix' My Work** 

“Is it fun?!”

Loki suppressed his grin entering his room to find her there once again. “Is what fun?” He asked, already knowing to what she referred to as he let out a long sigh. He had donned his best royal garments of course, he was used to the celebrations, yet his mother had machinations against him, keeping him on his feet and on the floor almost all night.

He did not dislike the women, he did not dislike men, the fact of the matter was that they did not hold the same honey colored eyes. Some had the same curls, yet lacked the length, others had the same color yet lacked the chaos and thickness - he had been tempted to reach out and capture her hair in his hand. Curious as to whether it was as soft as it seemed.

“Loki!” She called his name out, mixing it with her laughter, she twirled on her toes, huffing out a breath as she met his gaze, “DANCING!”

He tugged on the cord at his neck, loosening it to shake off his cloak. “Dancing, ahh?” He stepped closer to his bed, dropping the cloak to the floor. He watched as she continued to turn in circles, “what do you think? You were watching me?” he loosened the cuffs at his wrists, clothing loosening as he undressed, relieved as it no longer attempted to strangle him.

She couldn't hide the light blush that dusted her cheeks, “your my favorite to spy on,” she sang with mirth.

Loki paused, “then there are others?”

She faltered in her steps, “yes but…”

“But - ?” He pried, gaze intense as he waited for her answer. She watched other men?

“Well, most have more than three legs, or eight eyes, and they do not hold a conversation very well.”

Loki narrowed his eyes at her, “Julia, I thought you might bring up I was the most handsome.”

She stopped dancing and smiled at him, “you don't need me to remind you!”

“Perhaps I do,” he nearly pouted as he stripped off the heavy leathers and stood in front of her in just his undershirt and pants. Her eyes slid down his face to his chest and further before she managed to turn around. A wicked grin slid into place, “I have figured out where you are,” he hummed, setting the fire alight with a wave of his hand, the low light danced over her curves as she stepped towards the large windows of his rooms. He supposed she was giving him privacy, but did he truly want it?

“Have you?”

“A name like yours? Julia Reyes? You must be a Midgardian, I know some there…” he moved closer to her, “you wanted to dance?”

She sneaked a glance at him and satisfied he was dressed appropriately, nodded enthusiastically. “We don't do dances here,” she said, stepping towards him.

“How boring.”

“Did you like them?” She asked, looking up at him as he eased her into quick steps, hand curling on her waist and carefully gripping her hand in his.

She was real, he could find her. It wouldn't be much. “Who?”

Julia snickered at him, “one of those girls? You danced with so many!”

Loki’s face dropped, he sniffed, “not of my choosing, my mother was delegating and I had very little choice. “

“Who can say no to their mom?” She asked with a laugh.

Loki led her through the dance, his rooms quiet except the soft swish of their clothes, her quiet voice and their shared breaths. This was intimate on a different level. “Julia-”

She hushed him and pressed her cheek to his chest, “let me stay here” she whispered, “they're coming.”

Loki's eyes flicked up and he glanced around his rooms. “Who? Who Julia?”

She jerked out of his arms and he rushed forwards to grasp at her, reaching out with his magic, could he hold her here?

“Loki–” She reached out, her fingers grazing his and he was determined to keep her there to wrap her in his arms and hold her.

But he blinked and he was standing alone.

Read On Ao3

[karespocketboyfriends]

𝙿𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚔𝚝𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚛 2024 𝙳𝚊𝚢 𝚂𝚒𝚡

Sylus X Evie (OC)

Warnings -> 18+ NSFW (Punishment kink, oral male receiving, penetration via fingers, gentle throat fucking, light spanking, brat taming, use of ‘sir/kitten/sweetie’) situationship dynamic

An original fan-fiction for Love and Deepspace. I appreciate reblogs but reposting to Tumblr or any other site is not okay with me.

Oh, this sounds fun.

I can’t help but think such a thing as I flip the page of my latest smutty novel. This particular story has a very mild plot, but the spice is written so well, it more than makes up for it. The main characters can’t keep their hands off each other, and the scene right now…

Well, it has me crossing my legs and squeezing my thighs together, has ideas circling in my head. They say not to replicate what you read in books, but that’s a hard rule to follow when there’s a trusted partner at your disposal.

“Hey, Sylus?” I call, not looking up from the sinful things unfolding before me in ink.

From the corner of my vision, I see Sylus look up from the book in his hand. One that’s undoubtedly more tame than mine. It’s probably non-fiction. Boring. “What is it, Evie?”

I take my time placing my bookmark between the pages. Slowly close the book and set it on the small table next to the leather chair I’m sitting on. “Are you up for a game?”

He takes a minute to respond, and that tells me all I need to know. I’ve caught his attention. Though I’m always ready for a ‘game’, I’m rarely the one to initiate them. “Do you want to play right now, kitten?”

“I do.”

His calm, quiet demeanour shifts into something dominant. He, too, closes his book and sets it aside, placing his reading glasses on top of it. Sylus settles back in his chair and lifts a finger, the locks on the doors clicking shut. The only ones allowed in his private wing of the base are the twins and myself, and although Luke and Kieran are out taking care of some errands right now, those two goons have a bad habit of popping up unannounced.

“Tell me your safe-”

“Crow.” I cut him off while picking up my teacup.

Sylus chuckles. “Eager, are we?” Slowly, he rolls up the cuffs of his sleeves. “Come here, sweetie.”

I blow on the tea to cool it before taking a sip, trying my damn hardest to keep from smiling and giggling. He seems to be in a giving mood. It’s a shame that I’m about to ruin it. “No.”

One thick brow rises. “No?”

“No.” I place the cup back on its saucer. “If you want me so bad, you can come to me.”

We stare each other down for what feels like a millennia. Then, finally, someone cracks.

“Let’s try that again.” Sylus pushes to his feet, sticks his hands into the pockets of his slacks and strolls about halfway to me, stopping in front of the long couch. He curls his finger. “Come here, Evie.”

This time, I don’t bother to hide my smile. “No.”

One corner of his lips curl. Then, I’m being lifted off the couch and carried to him by red and black mist. It drops me on my feet in front of him, and suddenly, I don’t feel so powerful.

Am I going to give up? No. Absolutely not. I chose to play the part of a brat, and now I’m going to see it through.

“Really?” I eye him up and down. “The big, strong boss of Onychinus has to use his Evol to get me out of a chair?”

One of his ridiculously large hands wrap around my throat. He holds me in place while massaging my pulse points with his thumb on one side and his index finger on the other. It’s a possessive hold, one that adds fuel to the fire burning beneath my skin.

“I could have manhandled you out of that chair easily, sweetie.” Sylus leans in closer to my ear, the tickle of his breath making my toes curl in my shoes. “But seeing as this is the game you’ve decided on for the night, it’s only fair that I play along.”

I don’t even try to stop the moan that spills from me. “I’m feeling a little feisty. Are you sure you’ll be able to handle me?”

Sylus chuckles and, very, very gently, gives my neck the lightest of squeezes, nothing remotely close to cutting off my airway. It opens the floodgates, has me gasping against his lips as lowers his mouth to hover just above mine. “Feisty? More like disobedient.”

Already, it’s too much.

It’s not enough.

“Please.” I whimper, wrapping a hand around his wrist. Not to pull it away, but to keep it in place.

“Already changed your tune? That was fast.” He pulls me closer, the contact of his body making something in the pit of my stomach throb. Still, he doesn’t kiss me. “Now, how should I punish you for that show of disobedience earlier?”

Oh, fuck.

I should just roll with this, should be happy with dipping my toe in the water, but a little devil on my shoulder whispers to make it worse.

I listen to it. “I’m not apologizing.”

“You aren’t?” His nose skims his cheekbone as I shake my head in defiance. “Isn’t that a shame.”

A cry rips from my vocal cords as his other hand suddenly cups me between my thighs, the heel of his palm applying pressure. Even with my jeans as a barrier, it still feels incredible.

Just as quickly as his hand appeared, it disappears. I whine and rock against nothing, the tease only making my need spike higher.

Sylus chuckles the way only a man who’s in full control and knows it can. “I don’t think you’ve earned that.”

I huff and attempt to glare at him. It goes poorly. Very poorly, given how heavy my eyelids feel. “Considering all the work I do for you, Sir, I’ve more than earned it.”

“So we’re mixing business with pleasure now? You’ve always drawn the line at that, kitten.” He blows on my ear, making my entire body shiver. “By your standards, then, it doesn’t count.”

Damn him, but there are other strings I can pull, other buttons I can mash. “Don’t you owe me a punishment? Don’t tell me you’re going soft now.”

“I’m starting to wonder if you’re confusing punishments with rewards.” Sylus’ eyes narrow. He isn’t bantering anymore. He’s moving this thing along. “Get comfortable on your knees, Evie. You’ll be on them for a while.”

This command, I decide to obey. With a lick of my lips, I sink to the floor and practically glue my hands to the tops of my thighs.

“That’s better.” Sylus hums, working to unbuckle his belt. “Are you going to be good for me now?”

“Maybe.” I tease with an innocent smile. “If I feel like it.”

Pulling himself free, he runs the tip over my lips. “Open.”

I do, swallowing him down as deeply as my throat will allow. It burns at first, it always does, but memory has my muscles relaxing, my breath altering, all to be able to focus on pleasing him.

“That’s it.” Sylus praises, slowly and carefully sliding against my tongue, thrusting into my mouth. Despite all the threats of a punishment, he is being heartbreakingly gentle about this. Even more so as he gathers all my hair, holding it out of my face. “There’s my good girl.”

I moan around him, and it must feel good, because his fist tightens in my hair. It feels so filthy, the way his head bumps into the back of my throat, the wet sounds that follow every push and pull of his hips, the way my saliva coats his skin to make the glide easier.

A blizzard of flames swirls in my core, my arousal so heavy I can feel it trickling down the insides of my thighs. I love when he uses me, and when his breaths turn to pants and he’s openly enjoying himself, I love it even more.

The devil on my shoulder is still present. It whispers to me again.

I know he’s not going to like it, but I part my thighs a little and slide a hand between them. The tips of my fingers just ghost over my clit before my wrist is seized and pulled away by a familiar force. His damn Evol. Again.

Sylus pulls out of my mouth, still hard and standing at attention. He taps the side of my jaw before pinching my chin between his fingers and turning my head up to look at him. He doesn’t look happy, and if I should be ashamed of the things that look does to me, I’m not. “Did I give you permission to touch yourself?”

I shake my head, too busy gasping for air to answer with words.

He clicks his tongue. “Stand up.”

I do, and don’t move a muscle as he strips me bare, don’t resist as he spins my body and pushes me onto the couch. The cushions dip beneath my knees, the backrest sturdy enough to grab onto. Sylus pushes on my back until it arches, then glides his hands down my spine until they’re on my ass.

I moan at the feel of his rough hands on my soft skin, experience a new set of tingles at the bottom of my spine when grabs and lets go, over and over as if he were massaging them.

Or asking for permission.

“Please.” I whisper, arching a little more for him.

He takes one hand off my backside and runs it through my hair, gently gripping the roots. He turns my head just enough for me to be able to see him out of the corner of my eye. “Are you sure?”

I bite my lip and nod.

Still Sylus hesitates, gives me time to change my mind. When I don’t, the palm of his free hand connects with the right side of my ass.

I lurch forward with a long, drawled out moan. The sting is noticeable but far from painful, especially when he immediately soothes it with a firm caress. He does the same to the other side before driving his hand between my legs, groaning at how wet I am. “You’re a glutton for punishment, kitten.”

Sylus pulls me up until my back is pressed against his chest, knees still digging into the couch. He wraps a hand around my throat while the other returns to the space between my thighs. I gasp wildly as his fingers dip inside of me, the heel of his palm applying raw pressure to my clit.

“Oh, fuck!” I cry, grinding against his hand. “Fuck, please!”

“Give me one good reason,” Sylus growls into my ear, completely ignoring the way I writhe against him. “Why I should let you come?”

I bite my bottom lip so hard, I’m surprised no blood is drawn. “I-I’ll be good. I-I’ll be your good girl again, Sir.”

He laughs and presses a featherlight kiss to my neck. It’s torture. “I think it’s a little too late for that, sweetie.”

I scream in despair as his hand disappears, once again abruptly snapping the rope of my pleasure. “I’m sorry!”

Sylus shushes me, brushes my bangs from my forehead. “I know.” He puts me back on the previous position. “I’ll make sure of it.”

SFW Masterlist || NSFW Masterlist || Kinktober

[monstersandmaw]

Male orc x male reader - monthly Patreon story (nsfw, 9.6k words)

Greetings! Apologies for this being a little later in the month than I wanted it to be. I have been occupied with reopening my Etsy shop (Patreon discount by the way!), and this orc lad had so many iterations before a random prompt on Tumblr gave me this Reddit-worthy angst fest with a very happy ending. Do check the warnings just in case, but there's nothing in huge detail.

I will not be charging Patrons for next month (November 2024) because things are going to get a bit more bonkers, with my mum moving across the country and I'm gonna have to be there a lot for her, so there'll be no story next month. I'll keep updating the not-yautja story (ShipMates) as and when though :).

The idea/prompt that sparked this final version was this:

_

Story content: Set in the Starfall Springs universe, in the university town of Old Trollbridge. The male reader (nerdy academic type) spots a big and very wealthy male orc having a very bad day (see warnings below, light story spoilers) and checks in on him. A deep friendship is kindled, which develops over time into a nice mutual crush, which is eventually resolved... :)

Warnings/nsfw content: orc is cheated on by long term boyfriend with his brother in law, falsely accused of attempted SA, and is not believed by his own family and is instead ostracised and denied contact for a while. Reader supports him through that and helps him move on and get back to his life. NSFW content: big male orc prefers to bottom and is on the receiving end of anal fingering and penetrative sex.

Preview:

The spattering of liquid falling from a fairly decent height, and the fizzing hiss of a billion tiny bubbles bursting on the pavement, was not the sort of thing you’d expected to hear upon coming out of the Medieval Research Library.

Confused, you looked across the street in the general direction of the bus stop and a multi-species daycare and, of all things, spotted a huge orc upending an extremely large — at least large by human reckoning — bottle of Silkfoot Valley sparkling wine into the gutter beside the bus stop. At four in the afternoon. Those bottles were not. cheap.

The bus stop had no bench for waiting, and the actual town centre of Old Trollbridge was a fair walk from your department’s new library building, so what on earth was he doing wearing an expensive suit and wasting expensive wine here of all places?

You needed to catch a bus home though, so you hoped he wasn’t going to cause you any trouble. He didn’t look drunk — he was pouring it all down the drain after all — and as you drew in a deep breath and crossed the road, he didn’t look up at you. He just stayed with his body leaning against the edge of the shelter and this dead, empty look in his dark brown eyes while the bottle dangled upside down from his fingertips.

He looked… defeated.

Seven or so feet tall, and as broad at the shoulder as the bus for which you were waiting, he looked pretty traditional for an orc: black hair plaited back off his face in two braids and left long and loose down his back; thick, tapered ears pierced all the way up and adorned with little silver and gold rings. From his earlobes hung — again traditional — bone or ivory amulets, and around both of his huge tusks he had a cuff of worked silver. He had on a gorgeous, forget-me-not blue, button-up shirt and deliciously-fitted, slate grey suit trousers. His shiny black shoes might even have been vintage dragon hide. He didn’t look like the kind of person who would normally be waiting there for a bus. He looked like the kind of person who owned a company and should be picked up in a limo.

Still, you joined him and he didn’t look at you. He seemed totally lost. Finally he set down the wine bottle, careful lest it topple off the kerb and shatter, and he tipped his head up to the sky. When he did that, the long black hair spilling down his back brushed his buttocks.

Not that you were looking at his buttocks.

Because you weren’t.

Ok, you were.

Damn though.

When he let out a long, heavy sigh though, you felt your heart squeeze, and you realised with a jolt that the big orc was crying.

“Hey,” you murmured softly, approaching and coming to a halt a few feet from him, in case he reacted badly to the interruption. “You… You alright?”

When his head turned slowly to regard you, you saw that his beautiful, doleful brown eyes were red from crying, and he took one look at you and his expression crumpled. He turned away, cuffing at his face with the sleeve of his shirt, and just hissed, “No.”

“You want someone to talk to?”

“No.”

“Ok,” you said, stepping back. “I’m here if you change your mind before the bus comes.”

He went still, and as you walked to the other end of the shelter to give him at least a pretence of privacy, you heard him let out another shuddering sigh, followed by a cavernous inhale, and a grunt that sounded like he was trying to pull himself together.

You risked another glance at him, and found he was looking at you. You offered him a gentle smile, your heart breaking for this poor man, whatever had just happened.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was rude of me.”

“I think I can probably cut you some slack,” you smiled. “You look like you’re having a tough time of things.”

He nodded. “You could say that.”

You kept eye contact with him, but didn’t push. His lip wobbled and tears rimmed his lovely eyes again, and he swallowed thickly, throat working as he wrangled himself back into a semblance of control.

“I, uh, I just found out that my boyfriend of six years has been screwing my brother in law.”

Read the whole thing right now on Patreon!

[hailqiqi]

Don't Let Them In

The BBC wants their money.

Notes: Absolute crack inspired by a short conversation in the Chaos server. Also, because I wanted to write Lucy playing a part like she did at Winkman's in the books.

Tags: Gen, Crack, Brits writing Very British Things, First Person POV (because that's how the books are written and it works for Lucy idk), one or two swear words Words: 2297

Read on AO3 here, or read on tumblr under the cut

'Television licence inspection, open up!'

Lockwood halted and whirled around, blocking the kitchen doorway. 'I told you it was their van, George!' he hissed.

'And I told you, my brother says that's impossible—'

'Don't be ridiculous, everyone knows they send out TV detector vans—'

'And how exactly are they supposed to detect TVs?'

Lockwood huffed. 'How am I supposed to know?! But everyone knows it's a thing, right Luce?'

'Yeah, actually, my mam was always worried when—'

'See?'

'Oh for God's sake.' The banging on the door had continued throughout our whispered conversation, but George ignored it, instead removing his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt with a huff. 'Whatever you two numpties believe, the facts are that we have a TV with no licence. We can't let him in.'

'Do we have to let him in?' I asked, glancing at the door. 'Mary said Andrew's boss says you can just tell them to sod off and they'll leave.'

The banging grew louder, now accompanied by flicks of the letterbox and shouts of 'I know you're in there! I can see you through the glass!'

Lockwood winced. 'He doesn't sound too happy,' he said, eyes darting around before landing on our offending TV set. 'Right, okay, here's what we'll—'

'Open up already!'

'Just a minute! I can't find the key!' he shouted a response at the door, then turned to us. 'Okay, so, we'll put the set in the high-security storage room. He's an adult, he won't want to go in there.'

'He'll probably leg it the second he sees our kit,' George said, snorting.

'Exactly. So, Lucy, you answer the door and stall him, while we carry the TV down the stairs.'

I ignored George's groaning in favour of staring at Lockwood, incredulous. 'Why should I be the one to open the door? You're much better at the whole people thing!'

Lockwood shrugged. 'It's a man, just smile and give him the pretty girl look — don't look at me like that, you do it to me all the time!'

At my shoulder, George made a choking sound; I felt my face flush. 'I'm sorry, what—'

The banging at the door intensified and Lockwood gave me a blinding smile, the same bright, dazzling grin he'd give me when trying to convince me to face off with a Wraith without flares. 'Come on, Lucy, you've got this.'

Warmth fluttered through my chest, and the next thing I knew the boys were fumbling the set out of the sitting room while I (slowly) headed for the door. Dangerous things, Lockwood's smiles; they tended to spark momentary insanity in whoever he turned them on — child, colleague, client, adult. George alone seemed immune, with all his surliness, but I hadn't built any sort of immunity up in my ten or so months at the company and could only hope that would come with time. Though we all know how that turned out, I'm sure.

The banging on the door was echoing in the hall so loudly I was surprised the door hadn't been knocked off its hinges. I watched the crystal skull on the key table vibrate for two more bangs as the boys manhandled our illicit TV into the kitchen, then summoned my most vapid smile and opened the door.

A man stood on the top step, his hand raised mid-knock. He was balding and wore a wrinkled white shirt with visible sweat stains large enough to rival George's rapier training shirt, and the tie loosely-knotted at his collar was over-large — perhaps in an attempt to compensate for his lack of neck, who knows. His sleeves were rolled up over meaty arms against the unseasonable weather, the cuffs tight and reminiscent of bread dough exploding from a loaf tin, and he carried a clipboard and small, black box in the hand that was not currently raised in a fist at my head-height. If a gorilla with mange had been stuffed into a suit, you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that he wasn't currently standing at our door.

He narrowed his small eyes further at me, and I gave him a simpering smile. 'Hello! I'm sorry it took me so long, I couldn't find the key for the door!'

A pause followed, in which his eyes grew so small they should by all rights have imploded. I kept my smile fixed firmly in place and hoped the inspector wouldn't notice the door was a latch lock.

'You were a bloke a second ago.'

Shit. 'No, I wasn't!' I pitched my voice higher than usual and feigned offence. 'I certainly am not a boy!'

'Yeah, you was. You weren't a Manc, either.'

I didn't have to feign it now. 'Excuse you, I'm from Northumbria.'

'What's it matter? You lot are all the same, anyhow.' I glared at him and considered the benefits of shoving him down the steps and slamming the door, but then I’d probably have to deal with DEPRAC and the police instead of just the BBC. The man cleared his throat, unperturbed, and started what was obviously a practised spiel. 'Right, I'm here to check for TVs. We don't have a licence on file for the property, so I'll need to take a look around to make sure you're not doing anything illegal.'

I fluttered my eyelashes in an attempt to recover. 'Of course we're not doing anything illegal! We don't even own a TV!'

We were, in fact, doing multiple things DEPRAC would take issue with, but that wasn't the point.

'Then you won't mind me taking a look around.'

'Normally, yes, but I'm home alone and that would be terribly improper…'

He peered around me and down the hall. 'You lose ten stone between that door and this one, then?'

'What?'

'Your shadow was a lot larger a minute ago. It's just a quick look love, then I'll be on my way.' 

The inspector moved to walk around me and I draped myself against the doorframe to block his way, desperately wishing I knew what 'pretty girl' nonsense Lockwood had been on about. Maybe Floating Joe had got him in the head earlier, because the inspector simply rolled his eyes.

'If you'd just—' a yell from the kitchen interrupted him, and he raised an eyebrow at me. 'Home alone, are you, love?'

'Yes,' I said, nodding enthusiastically. 'That was my cat.'

'Odd-sounding cat.'

'No, it isn't.' More yells came from behind me and a smug smirk slowly settled on the man's face which, if you remember his gorilla-esque looks, made me want to vomit more than it made me want to let him in. I gritted my teeth; the boys obviously needed more time, and my dignity was shot anyway. With what I hoped was a dainty gasp, I widened my eyes theatrically and summoned my most injured cry: 'Are those my keys?'

He paused. 'Sorry?'

'There!' I pointed to the keychain hooked at his waistband, which was quite clearly his own. 'You've got my keys!'

'What?! No, these are my—'

'I can't believe you!' I wailed. 'I looked everywhere for them! No wonder I couldn't find them!'

'Look, love, these—'

'You rotten thief! I bet you're not even a TV man after all! You're nothing but a—'

Alas, neither of us got to find out what nonsense I was about to spout next as at that moment a gigantic crash sounded from the kitchen, the noise reverberating in the hall and cutting me off quite effectively. Raised voices followed — though who was shouting at who, I couldn't tell — and, without thinking, I abandoned the door and dashed towards the commotion.

Lockwood and George both stood half-way down the basement stairs, locked in a shouting match and completely oblivious to my arrival. The source of the crash I’d heard was not immediately obvious, but when I chanced a vertigo-inducing glance over the bannister there on the floor was our TV set, face down and surrounded by shattered glass, looking somewhat like a large-bottomed lady after an over-indulgent afternoon at the pub. It was no wonder they were both so upset about it — while our set was ancient, there was no way we could afford a new TV if we couldn’t afford the licence fee in the first place, and both boys liked to watch the football when they could.

Heavy footsteps sounded behind me. ‘Home alone, were you, love?’

I turned meekly to face the inspector, who stood at the top of the stairs looking thoroughly unimpressed, clipboard at the ready. The boys were still wrapped up in their blame game, and the inspector had clearly noticed the broken TV on the floor, and there I was trapped on the stairs between an argument and authority — but I did my best to muster up a winning smile and tried my luck anyway, because that’s what we did at Lockwood and Co.

‘See? I was telling the truth when I said we don’t have a TV!’

— — — 

A year later saw us huddled in the corridor outside the kitchen door, older, wiser, and more competent, yet reliving a hushed argument from the past (albeit with one extra player).

‘What do you mean you haven’t paid the licence fee? I saw you in the papers all winter, I know you can afford it!’

‘Look, there was so much going on that I completely forgot once we brought it home—’

‘Shouldn’t Hol have done it?’

A delicate snort. ‘Normally, George, yes — but I distinctly remember Lockwood saying he would take care of it himself.’

‘Did I? It was all a bit of a blur, really, what with—’

More bangs reverberated down the hall, accompanied by shouted threats that made me wince.

‘Look, I don’t know what happened while I was gone but I’ve been telling you all week that that van on the corner looked dodgy and you need to check the licence has been paid—’

‘Lucy, how many times do I have to tell you that TV detector vans aren’t real.’

‘They are real! They’re in the papers and everything!’

‘Not everything in the papers is true, we all—’

‘No, no, I recall my aunt forgetting to pay her licence fee and a van was parked on her street the next week.’

‘Holly!’ George let out an exasperated huff. ‘Not you, too? Anyway, that van’s been there because the Johnsons are having some work done, it’s not a mythical bloody—’

‘Is nobody going to answer the door?’ Kipps wandered out of the kitchen and leant against the doorframe, arms crossed and frowning. ‘It’s a bit hard to enjoy my tea with all this racket.’

‘I can see you in there!’

‘We really should stop having these kinds of discussions in the hallway,’ Lockwood mused, running a hand through his hair before turning to me with one of those smiles. You know, the ones that light up the whole room, make his eyes twinkle, and somehow leave me both weak-kneed and furious at the same time. ‘Lucy, do you think you can…?’

I backed away towards the stairs, my hands up to ward him and his blasted smiles off. ‘Oh, no. No way. Don’t you remember what happened last time?’

Kipps sighed. ‘I’ll get the door.’

‘Stall him for a moment, me and Lockwood will have to move the telly—’

‘Absolutely not, not after what happened to the last one! Holly, how much is the fine?’

Holly looked offended at the mere notion she’d ever had to pay it. ‘I have no idea.’

Suddenly the banging stopped and sunlight flooded the hall — as one, we turned to where Kipps had opened the door, his reedy figure silhouetted in the glare. ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

It was the same gorilla-esque man from last time, again caught with one meaty fist raised mid-knock. However, he quickly lowered his hand, smoothed his shirt out and pronounced, ‘I'm here to check for TVs. We don't have a licence on file for the property, so I'll need to take a look around to make sure you're not doing anything illegal.’

We held our breath. There was no way we’d move the TV in time now — especially not the gigantic monstrosity that had been purchased during my time away — so our only hope was that the fine was in the hundreds rather than thousands. Or, less likely, that Kipps had some modicum of charm hidden somewhere at the very bottom of his pointy shoes, and that the inspector would be more susceptible to it than he had been to my own.

‘Thank you for the offer, but I don’t think you’ll be doing that.’

The inspector towered over him, moving closer so that his figure almost completely blocked the doorway. Kipps appeared unperturbed, a thin, willowy figure facing off against a giant.

‘It’s the law that you must have a TV licence if you have a TV, and it’s my job to check for TVs if you don’t have a licence.’

If anything, Kipps’ posture looked bored. ‘I think you’ll find it’s the law that we don’t have to grant you access, and considering that this is an active psychical investigation agency we could even argue that it’s for your own safety. Have a good day.’ 

And with that, he shut the door in the gorilla’s face.

Things remained tense for a moment — the man certainly hadn’t seemed the type to back down from a fight when we’d met him the year prior — but much to my surprise, the giant shadow lurking on the other side slowly diminished, until the inspector was completely gone. We gazed at Kipps in shock.

‘What? You don’t have to let them in, you know.’

[indignantlemur]

Hi! Apparently i unfollowed you at some point? But now that that's rectified :3c I'm a follower in your inbox asking about which thing you learned from writing Emigre helped you the most for tackling Hoarfrost?

Oh, that's so weird! You showed up as a mutual in my feed this whole time! I'm gonna assume Tumblr did a Tumblr. Happy to have you back on board, my dear!

As for your question, I think I'd have to say that the biggest things were 1) scene planning and, 2) letting the characters shine on their terms.

I used to write Emigre completely off the cuff in a mad state of hyperfixation. That's great for churning out chapters on rapid succession, but it's not sustainable. Learning to work around that and have a system to fall back on when the writing frenzy wasn't upon me has been invaluable.

As for letting my characters shine on their terms, I'd have to say that learning to let my plans shift as I write to accommodate my characters has been invaluable, especially when dealing with the stronger personalities. Hoarfrost is meant to be an examination of Thoris and Dagmar's relationship as superior and subordinate, as colleagues, and even as friends of a sort. As much as these two work together and see each other every day, Dagmar and Thoris rarely interact purely one-on-one, and I wanted to see how these two personalities would cope with each other in unusual circumstances.

When I write, I've found that Thoris in particular has a tendency to do whatever the hell he feels like when he's in a scene, regardless of my plans. This is both a very enjoyable challenge to work around and also why I don't give him the spotlight more often. Give that man an inch and he'll run off and retake the territory lost in the Vulcan-Andorian Territorial Compromise. Dagmar, meanwhile, at least bothers to read the script notes and is largely more cooperative when I write her, but even she goes off-script now and then.

I've learned through a lot of trial and error that forcing either of these characters into boxes and refusing to be flexible with them has never resulted in anything but writer's block for me. They won't have any part of it, and it's surprisingly hard to write a scene when the characters are arguing with you. By contrast, giving those two the spotlight together without any interference from other personalities has been a real treat to write, and I think folks will quite enjoy the results!

[funeralgrove]

♔ and ☼ for any or all: Darian, Gladys, Wilhelmine

Tumblr is forcing me to split this answer into two parts, sorry!

☼ — How does your character usually dress in daily life? . . . / . . . ♔ — What (if any) jewelry does your character usually wear?

Darian

Darian has absolutely zero sense of fashion. He dresses like one of the most guys ever.

Darian's mode of dress is a nod to 70s and 80s rocker looks as well as biker fashion from the same decades. Jeans, big boots, and often a short sleeved shirt that is either a band or novelty shirt. Lots of times his clothes are a little worn out, or intentionally distressed in some way. Sometimes he'll crop a shirt or rip the sleeves off to make a muscle shirt.

Very rarely does he wear long sleeves, but when he does, the cuffs are ripped off or have been chewed on and stretched to make them less restrictive of his hands. The only long sleeves that do not receive this treatment would be those of his leather jackets and winter coat.

Here are some outfits of his that I have either drawn or would like to draw him in someday!

As for his jewelry preferences, despite having quite a few facial piercings as well as his nipples done, his jewelry is very plain. He goes for stainless steel with no designs or gemstones. If by chance he is wearing a bracelet or a necklace it was something given to him by Ira.

Gladys

Gladys is definitely one of my most varied characters when it comes to looks, so there's quite a few options for what she considers to be 'every day' outfits! Generally speaking, though, she sticks to reds, blacks and pinks for all of her clothing. She leans heavily into motifs of love/Valentine's Day as well as certain elements of the gothic subculture, and to a degree is inspired by both the 1930s and the 1960s. I've seen people talk about an aesthetic called coquette, I believe? And I think she sort of falls into that depending on the outfit.

She likes clothes that show off her figure (and some skin) in some way, and she likes to be extra even when she's casual.

She's also a bit of a DIY-or-die girly, so a lot of her clothes she has made herself and are completely original or based off of hard to come by patterns and pieces.

Here's some outfits I have already or have mean meaning to draw her in that can fall under everyday wear!

Gladys has quite the extensive jewelry collection, and is always wearing earrings. She's fond of big, clunky novelty earrings especially, and has specific earrings to match specific outfits. She likes rose gold jewelry the most, but will settle for any metal.

Outside of earrings, she wears a large choker around her neck to hide the scar from her decapitation [a very recent addition to her character, as she's currently being rewritten.] and occasionally some rings.

Here are either some of her craziest earrings or earrings that would be matched to the outfits above!

[newgenog]

REVENGE

Notes: This is part one of chapter three. If you're just stumbling across this, and haven't already done so, please stop and start by reading part one of chapter one.

This is a #Batwoman AU based on the ABC tv series #Revenge. The character parallels are pretty neat. So I'm reimagining a world where Ryan Wilder has a more intentional pursuit of vengeance.

Spoiler alert: she is not the caped crusader in this #fanfic. 

Each Friday, I post portions of my (very long 😅) chapters on Tumblr, and post their conclusion (the final part) on A03 with the complete chapter.

Okay, enough reminders and such. Y'all ready? Here it goes!

CHAPTER THREE - BETRAYAL (Part One)

Summary: Before he can announce his intent to run for Mayor, Robyn Wilde makes it her mission to destroy the life of the District Attorney that decided to bring criminal charges against her for the events that led to her mother’s death when she was the child known as Ryan Wilder.

PRESS DAY

DA Sionis: “Thank you all for joining me here for this press conference. Some of you have been supporting me in any way you could since I became District Attorney. I’ve had to make some tough calls, and you’ve always trusted my judgment. We know government and law enforcement isn’t for the weak, and I’ve always been committed to standing strong in our shared value system, for you, my friends and constituents. I know everyone has been wondering if I’m going to announce my run for mayor. Mayor Castellanos was at times short sighted, and limited his influence. We need a mayor that values our law enforcement. We need to eliminate those responsible for making Gotham wild, run down, drug infested, and unsafe. We need to get back to the structure that came from traditional families. These progressives who have no regard for the principles Gotham was built upon, and these criminals who don’t contribute to our society and instead bleed us dry with their subsidized living, have taken over our city. We need to take it back.”

Roman Sionis pauses to allow the audience to applaud for his heavy handed approach to law enforcement. He’s been reading a script off of a tablet on the podium in front of him. The screen turns black and large, white font appears where his lines once were. 

ROMAN SIONIS! IF YOU ANNOUNCE YOUR CANDIDACY TONIGHT THE WORLD WILL SEE THIS. 

~~~~~

3 DAYS EARLIER

Ryan walks down the stairway that lands in the back of The Hold Up, near the manager’s office. The door is closed, and the lights are off. She continues towards the center of the bar, and no one is around. It’s night time, and it's odd that there isn’t an evening crowd. She continues towards the front doors, and before she can exit, lights flash through the opaque windows, and the doors burst open with armed, bullet proof vested men. Jacob Kane is at the center of them. 

Jacob: “Ryan Wilder, you’re under arrest for identity theft, fraud, and perjury. We know everything. And if you thought for one minute that you could destroy my family without me figuring you out, you were sadly mistaken.”

One of the men captures her arm, placing it behind her back, and turns her around, so that he can cuff both wrists. Sophie is behind the bar with a confused, heartbroken expression. Her eyes well, and Ryan can see her choke out the word 'Ryan' in the form of a question. 

Ryan shoots up in a cold sweat, her sheets tossed to the floor. Selina bounds onto her bed and climbs into her lap, meowing in concern. 

Ryan: “It’s okay Selly. It was just a dream. We’re okay.”

She pets the cat’s head, comforting them both, and the feline crawls up so that she can nuzzle into Ryan’s neck. 

Ryan: “I’m glad you’re here too.” 

Ryan looks over at the clock, while rubbing Selina’s back, and sees that it’s after 8 a.m. 

Ryan: “Should we go check on your mom?”

She accepts the purr as an agreement, and sets Selina down so that she can pull herself together and prepare to head downstairs, while trying to shake the feeling that her world is about to be rocked. 

~~~~~

Ryan takes the same path down the stairs that she did the night before, and then again in her dream, reminding herself that the last time was just that: a dream. When she hits the landing, the office door is open, and the lights are on. She drops Selly off, and continues towards the bar, looking for whomever is around to check-in with. 

She finds the Moore sisters sitting at a round table for four. Sophie is trying to convince Jordan that she’s not responsible for her mother’s current state. Ryan leans against the bar, waiting for them to finish their conversation, appreciating Sophie's natural caregiver tendencies. She's not the lanky teen that stayed out of trouble, yet tried to save Ryan from herself more than once anymore, but she's still doing what she can to support everyone around her. 

Jordan: “You were right. I did this. I’ve been immature and selfish.”

Sophie: “No offense, but you’ve been a teenager…”

Jordan: “If I was more like you, I would have been here to help out. Mom wouldn’t have run herself into the ground trying to do everything by herself.” 

Sophie: “You know that’s not true. I was here last night, and she was still driving everyone in the kitchen crazy. Mom’s going to do what she wants.” 

Jordan: “I don’t even understand how we got here.”

Sophie: “We’re really not great at talking about health stuff. It’s pretty common for Black moms to be strong for everyone, and only share what’s going on when it’s an emergency, or when they’re not the ones telling the story. I think Mom’s been keeping how serious things are from us to protect us.” 

Jordan: “How is this protecting us? Being completely caught off guard, feeling like I could have done more…that’s not helpful!” 

Sophie: “I know Jordan. Trust me.”

Ryan doesn’t want to interrupt, but she also doesn’t want to pry. This seems like the best moment to make her presence known.

Ryan: “Hey…”

Sophie: “Robyn! Hey!”

Sophie looks at Ryan as though seeing her is the first good thing to happen in a while. 

Ryan: “Are you ladies doing okay? How’s Ms. Moore?”

Sophie: “She’s alright, but also not great. She had a mild stroke last night. Apparently, her blood pressure has been out of whack for a while, and she was at increasing risk for something like this to happen. But she's going to be fine.”

It's clear she doesn't want to worry her sister, but Sophie's poker face wouldn't have helped her hide that the deck was stacked against her. Ryan moves closer to the table, automatically, but stops short, fighting back the urge to reach out.

Ryan: “I’m so sorry…”

Sophie: “Me too. She’s still at the hospital, but just under observation to make sure her blood pressure is stable. Thank you by the way, for your help last night, and for taking care of our little runaway cat.” 

Sophie's phone rings before Ryan can respond. She turns the phone around so the other women can see the name of the caller.

Ryan: "Guess her ears were burning."

Sophie gets up, too anxious to sit while she talks to her mom, and Ryan finally closes the distance to take her vacant seat. 

Ryan: “How are you holding up?” 

Jordan: “I’m not really.” 

Ryan places a hand on top of Jordan’s. She feels like she knows her. Sophie used to talk about her all the time.

Ryan: “I lost my mom when I was younger than you are. So, I get that this is really scary. I also know what it’s like to have a mom who is willing to die for you. It’s a blessing to be loved that much by someone. So, we can be angry at them for putting our lives ahead of theirs, or we can choose to love on them as hard as possible, because we never really know how long we have with anyone, and the time we do have is a gift.” 

This is the advice her mama would want her to give: to help Jordan choose to love instead of being angry with herself and her mom. Jordan nods, understanding, and wipes away the tears that had finally fallen. 

Jordan: “Thanks. I should probably help Sophie get us ready. Mom would hate it if she ended up in the hospital trying to keep this place running and we didn’t even open the doors because of that.”

Ryan grins at her, and then her phone vibrates. She pulls it out of her back pocket to read the notification. 

Kate's cell: Hope you don't mind that I'm bringing Mary with me to brunch. She insists on getting to know you better. See you at 10.

Ryan: "I've got to get going anyway. Tell Sophie…"

Jordan gives Ryan time to search for what she wants to say, and watches her tighten her lips like she’s trying to keep the words she comes up with from spilling out. Ryan knows she's walking a thin line, and can already hear Luke's disappointed warning. Jordan decides to offer a suggestion.

Jordan: "You'll check on us later."

Ryan cracks a grateful smile, and Jordan raises with a bigger, knowing smile. 

Ryan: "I will check on you…"

Jordan: "See you later, then."

~~~~~

MARY KATE'S, 10AM ON SUNDAY

Ryan’s seated at Mary Kate’s, listening to the voices floating around her for any useful keywords worth tuning into. She's at a table set for four, angled so that she can see every corner of the dining room, as always. Some people don't like having their backs to the door. That isn't enough for Ryan. 

When her two brunchmates arrive, there's an addition to their party. Ryan imagines tossing the table in front of her over, and bounding across the room so she can hem the woman with the bob up by her trench coat, and slam her back against the wall until she’s struggling to breathe. Instead, she grips her seat, cocks her head to the side, and smiles, inviting an explanation. 

Kate: “Robyn! You beat us! Surprise?!”

Ryan raises her eyebrows, expecting her to expound, as Kate and Mary approach the table, and Beth trails behind them.

Mary: “Our parents are supporting who they believe will be the future Mayor in his campaign. He’s over our house strategizing. My mom wanted me and Kate to stay, to show off her well-to-do kids, and something about our generation demonstrating we take an interest in politics, but we told her we had plans. So thanks for letting me crash.”

Kate: “He’s an ass. I’d just end up arguing with him anyway.”

Ryan nods, somewhat following along, and Beth fills in what they’ve omitted. 

Beth: “Catherine didn’t want me to embarrass her. Without Marcia and Cindy there to manage Jan, our bunch isn’t so Brady. But don’t worry. Your theorizing about making responsible decisions that have a positive impact on society bores me. So I’ll be at the bar.”

Kate rolls her eyes at Beth's back as she purposefully strides over and plops onto a bar stool.

Kate: “Sisters…”

Ryan: “I wouldn’t know.”

Ryan forces herself to relax her shoulders, and picks up the menu, to busy her hands.

Mary: “It’s not all bad.” 

Mary grins towards Kate, who mirrors her smile. It’s obvious it means a lot to Mary to be included. Kate seems not to mind having her younger sister around, but Ryan gets the feeling she needs reminders to bring her along. 

Kate takes her seat, but Mary freezes in front of hers when she sees who Beth is sitting next to. Ryan follows her stare to the back of a long-haired brunette covered in leather from wrist to to knee boot, in the middle of summer. She returns to Mary, curiously.

Ryan: “Friend of yours?”

Mary: “Hardly.”

Kate finally looks up and, if it’s possible, becomes paler. 

Kate: “What the hell is she doing here?”

Mary: “And Beth would run straight to her…Unless she told her to come…”

Mary looks as though she’s considering backtracking to the door. 

Ryan: “Does someone want to fill me in?”

Mary and Kate turn to communicate with their eyes, and Mary finally takes her seat. 

Mary: “That’s Natalia Knight. She and Kate have history.”

Ryan: “An ex?”

Kate: “That’s too generous a label.” 

Ryan: “Consider me on the edge of my seat.” 

Ryan puts the menu down, and leans back in her chair, excited for the unexpected tea at this brunch.

Mary: “Nat and Beth partied together in high school. Nat wanted to be with Kate, and claimed she was going to leave behind her bad girl ways to win her over. But she’s a trickster with a knack for chemistry.”

Ryan: “What does that mean?”

Kate: “Ketamine. It’s her drug of choice. She’s like a siren, praying on anyone with the means to take care of her. She lures them in, and dopes them up with drugs she’s baked into her lipstick. One kiss, and you’re doing her bidding. Once you’re at her mercy, she keeps you there by slipping more into your drinks.”

Ryan: “And she’s still roaming the streets how?”

Kate: “There’s nothing concrete enough to stick. No one remembers what’s happened. No witnesses have ever come forward. It all just sounds like rumors and judgment against an emo girl who has less than the rich girls she hangs out with.” 

Mary: “No one remembers but me.” 

Ryan: “So, something happened.” 

Mary glances at Kate, who's looking through the menu as though it's transparent and she can see past the table to her shoes.

Mary: “The kiss worked on Kate. She agreed to go out with Beth and Nat one night, and I’d always ask to come-with when Kate and Beth were going out. This time Kate said yes, which I should have realized was off.”

Kate responds without looking up, sounding guilty but also defensive. 

Kate: “Two years is a lot in high school, and those kids were always getting into shit...” 

Mary: “Right…Anyway, Beth and I were in the back, so she could drink. Kate was driving, but Nat was all over her, trying to make out at stop lights. At some point, Kate was either too out of it, or too distracted, but she veered into oncoming traffic, lost control of the car, and we flipped.” 

Ryan: “Wow.”

Kate’s voice lowers and her words run together.

Kate: “Mary, being the only sober one to see what was happening, tensed and took on the most impact.” 

Mary: “Clearly I’m fine.” 

Kate finally looks at Mary, frustrated. 

Kate: “But you weren’t…”

They've had this argument before, so Mary is unmoved and continues looking at and talking to Ryan.

Mary: “Broken bones are a right of passage for kids. And I heal fast.” 

Kate runs her fingers through her hair, anxiously, and is saved by the server.

Server: “Can I get you ladies started with any drinks.” 

Ryan: “I’m thinking yes.”

They all order, and then Mary picks back up where she left off. 

Mary: “Anyway, we’ve heard her interests have developed, and now she’s into some even weirder activities.”

Ryan: “Like…?”

Mary: “Look, I’m not one to judge. People can get down in the dark however they want, but when you’re not coherent enough to agree to those activities, that’s a whole other story.” 

Ryan thinks she knows what Mary’s getting at, but she needs someone to say it out loud, because she won’t believe it otherwise. 

Kate: “Nat’s taken S&M to the extreme. Word is she’s into what they call blood play. She’s this dom who drugs her partners so much that they beg for pain until they bleed.”

Ryan: “Oh-kaay… That’s different.”

Mary: “It’s worse than you think…supposedly she likes the taste.” 

Ryan: “OF BLOOD!”

Mary and Kate’s eyes widen in a uniformed warning, because Ryan’s volume had increased in shock. She puts her hands up in apology.

Mary: “That’s what’s going around. They call her Nocturna now.” 

Ryan: “Gotham is weirder than I thought.” 

Kate’s flipping through the menu, looking somewhat ashamed. Ryan sees this as another opportunity to build some trust, and throws her a bone.

Ryan: “Hey. We all do shit in high school. I have my fair share of horror stories, but I think we’ve gotten dark enough for this time of day. So, maybe we should shift gears, and save vampire stories for Halloween.”

Their drinks arrive right then, and Kate responds in an appreciative half-smile.

Kate: “I’ll drink to that. Besides, you wanted to run an idea by me?”

Mary: "You guys talk shop over mimosas? I thought we were here to have fun!" 

Ryan laughs, surprising herself. Mary is not a part of the plan. She was almost inconsequential when Ryan was preparing, like white noise playing in the background. And she's starting to understand how that came to be… Mary deserves better, but while she has no role in Ryan's mission, she can't become Ryan's problem either. 

Kate: "I guess we kinda do, don't we?"

Ryan: "I think it's a little more therapy than business."

Kate: "Ha. Fair."

Mary: "I've got shopping for that."

Mary's smile is warming, and Ryan feels lighter than she can remember feeling in a long time. She recalls her mom talking about the girl her age at the Kane's, and it's as if two hands rest on her shoulders, gently encouraging her to lean-in. She doesn't want Mary mixed up in this, but…

Ryan: "I might need to try out your style of therapy, and Evan's been asking me when we're meeting up, next…"

Kate: "I think I'll stick to seeing you at kickboxing."

Mary: "You're not invited anyway. You bring down the vibe."

Ryan laughs a real laugh, which should be impossible given who's sitting within reach behind her. She tries to hold onto this feeling, because she doesn't know when it'll come again. And it's a better way to transition back to what brought her here. Ryan has decided that, with all the harm the Kanes have caused, their undoing isn't enough. One way or another, she'll make them put something good back into the communities that they've neglected and exploited.

Ryan: "I did have an idea, Kate. I think I've figured out what Gotham is missing, and after our last chat about how you want to be different than your parents, I thought you might want to team up on it."

Kate: "A Jeturian-Wayne collaboration? They'll hate that!" 

Kate seems intrigued.

Mary: "Which means you love it."

Ryan: "But you're right, Mary. It's a Sunday, and I had a hell of a night. So, maybe we can meet after work this week and I can do this for real with a pitch?"

Kate: "I'm good with that. It just can't be Wednesday. My parents are hosting the D.A.'s constituents at our house, and my dad wants us there. We're choosing our battles, you know…? 

Ryan: "I get it. Tomorrow night work?" 

Kate: "Works for me. Want to come by our house around 7, or is this an in-office kind of meeting?"

Ryan knows being invited to their home is necessary and pivotal, but that happening so soon has made her appetite non-existent. She powers through.

Ryan: "Sounds like you have a full week…No need to get stuck in the office."

Kate: "Thanks for the mercy. So, want to tell us about your night?"

Ryan's eyes fall to her menu. She's not sure how to navigate this - she doesn't want to discuss Sophie more than she has to - but it seems Mary's going to take care of that for her.

Mary: "It's Diane. She ended up in the hospital last night. Robyn was there when she passed out and helped Sophie until they left in the ambulance. She even closed up the bar."

Ryan: "She told you…?"

Mary: "Sophie's my girl…it meant a lot to her."

Kate's clearly not in love with being the last to know, but she decides to try to cover, and raises her glass.

Kate: "To Robyn, then, for coming into our lives at just the right time, and being exactly what we all didn't realize we needed."

Ryan smiles wide at the compliment, which is founded in more truth than anyone realizes. She's become what Kate needs due to calculated precision. For Sophie and Mary, though…she's exactly what they don't need. 

All three glasses clink, and Ryan makes a promise to herself. The Moores and Mary will not become collateral damage. She must protect them, especially from her.

~~~~~

Ryan is the last to leave Mary Kate's. She used the excuse of needing to run to the ladies' to make sure her brunch mates and their callous tagalong were gone before she walked out. She immediately calls Luke.

Luke: "To what do I owe this afternoon cold call."

Ryan: "I need to know everything about the event the Kane's are hosting Wednesday night. They're helping with the DA's campaign for Mayor."

Ryan listens as Luke moves into position at his desk and begins keying in the characters required to fulfill Ryan's request.

Luke: "It's basically a press conference. He hasn't officially announced his intent to run, but it seems he's going to do that Wednesday night."

Ryan: "Alright. Find out when the next flight from London to Gotham is."

Luke: "Are you expecting someone?"

Ryan: "Yes. You're going to email Circe Sionis from Roman saying it's safe for her to return home and attach a full itinerary so she can be present to publicly support her father's announcement."

Luke: "And what are you going to do?"

Ryan: "What I always do. Prepare."

~~~~~

To be continued...

The Reminders:

I'll be back here next Friday with another update.

All #Batwoman things I do now are in the name of #SaveBatwoman. Go follow all the social handles and support the cause, please. Have you signed the petition? https://www.change.org/p/savebatwoman

[punisheddonjuan]

A Reintroduction

Brendan; Male; mid-30s; Toronto, Canada.

In December of 2023 my decade old blog donjuan-auxenfers was unexpectedly terminated for unknown reasons, and I've given up on trying to get it back. I never had a very large following, but I did have a long history over there. If you followed me, you probably know some of it, but for those who are new or who have forgotten, a brief (re)introduction.

In a past life I was a graduate student in Classics(1), a classically trained guitarist, a punk venue semi-regular, a bookshop browser, a record store prowler, a nighttime stroller, a cinema goer, a snappy dresser, and an Anarchist who read more Marx than most Marxists. In short, I was an altogether more interesting person. A little over six years ago my health started to nosedive; I'd had chronic health issues going back to childhood, but I was clearly and precipitously deteriorating. I wound diagnosed with ME/CFS, and have since become mostly housebound and unable to do most of the things I used to do. These days I mostly just putter around the apartment. It's very boring.

This is a personal blog. I write about what's going on in my life and what I'm interested in, that having been said, my interests incline towards the catholic so expect posts about anything and everything delivered in a mix of off-the-cuff observations and longer essays (more of the former than the latter). As a rule, I tend not to reblog unless I have something to add; it's an affectation which almost certainly limits my appeal and reach, but it's how I've always done things. I treat Tumblr more as an open journal than a scrapbook.

If you want to shoot me a message, my DMs are always open and you're welcome to leave a message in the ask box. New followers are always welcome. I'm a pretty approachable guy. Just note that it may take me a little while to get back to you. Please be patient, I'm often in bed. If you're under 18 I'm going to be keeping you at arm's length (for obvious reasons), but you're otherwise welcome to follow and engage.

Some of my posts which are worth checking out (this list subject to future expansion/changes):

My history of ME/CFS: Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Part Four; Appendix and Bibliography. (Coming soon)

My comprehensive tutorial on setting up a personal media streaming server with Ubuntu and Plex.

My collected annual best music lists from 2013 to 2023.

A brief introduction to using Usenet for piracy.

My guide to the best and most useful Firefox Add-Ons.

My guide to the best and most useful freeware programs for Windows (and a few for Mac OS X too). (Coming soon)

If you enjoyed something I wrote or found it useful and you're feeling especially generous feel free to send me a tip or donation. I'm unable to work and rely on family support, so it's very much appreciated. Tipping is in no way expected or even encouraged, but if you want to throw me a few bones here are your options:

Ko-fi (Unavailable until I get an Ontario photo ID card.)

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1. Research interests: Greek intellectual history from the 5th century BCE through to the Second Sophistic but focused on the Hellenistic, Hellenistic poetry, the Greek novels, Homer, Thucydides.

[slightly-nibbled-orange-e]

Reading notes from Essential Principles

I'm reading the Essential Principles of Graphic Design by Debbie Millman as an attempt to:

-prep myself for pivoting into graphic design

-get around to understanding things I had a fuzzy intuition for in years, but don't really quite have vocabulary to describe and verbalize

-trying to develop a habit of reading a little bit everyday

Anyhoo I'll be using Tumblr to keep track of my progress. Almost all my notes are hastily written without much deep reflection, most of the bullet points are information verbatim from the book + my own off-the-cuff impressions about what I just read. This is scratchpad-level stuff, definitely not meant to be very sophisticated. Anyhoo. I shall start now. Below are the notes from the first section I read today, on typography.

Notes for Typography:

-graphic design has the unique ability to reflect the culture in which we participate (note to self: this is a generic statement that can be applied to any humanities-related thing, elaborate a bit more on what's unique to graphic design that makes it a barometer for cultural norms)

-Wow! I learned that primes are different from quotation marks! Primes should be straight marks like how Tumblr displays ' or ", but quotation marks are generally like 6's and 9's... Primes should be used to denote inches and feet e.g. 5'2"=5 feet 2 inches. Quotation marks should be used to...indicate quotes. I have never heard of this distinction until now so I checked the year of the book's publication, which turned out to be 2008. Now this baffles me slightly because it appears that web typography conventions today treat primes to be the same as quotations, or at the very least the typography used in Tumblr's body text. In this section, the author specifically said she will only spell out typography disasters that should be avoided, not best practices to follow. Many, many websites today are guilty of committing this major typography sin, if it is correct that primes are indeed a separate punctuation from quotes.

-Hyphens at the end of sentences to connect a word broken by lines is fine! Apparently the corporate world has an aversion to this

-Default justification should be zero percent, i.e. the spacing between your letters should neither squeeze nor wander, should be consistent

-Using shorter line lengths can cause problems with word spacing. If you're getting gappy lines in justified (?) text, increase line length, reduce type size, add hyphenation. When in doubt, set text ragged

-Excessive leading (?) is bad. Look like stripes, according to the author

-The text block should be cohesive, with just enough room to breathe between the lines

-Bullets and hangs: don't use bullets, numbered lists without making sure the hang aligns correctly under the first line. Set a tab on the right so your numbers align to the last digit/punctuation. Set a tab an en or em (?) on the left

-Style sheets

-Capitals: use a little letter spacing (50-100 units?) if body text, more if it's a header

-On header text: if very large, most type needs some adjustment, usually overall letter tightening. Fuss! Fuss over it! Add space if letters are too close!

[kaetor]

[ID: a drawing of five DGS characters drawn front facing, in a simple, lineless style. Their faces are minimalist to show off the clothes they're wearing. The first character is Ryunosuke, wearing an outfit similar to his official DLC outfit. Instead of a double breasted coat, his blue coat is open at the front, and goes down to his mid thighs in the back, and his waist in the front. It's designed after a 1900s morning coat. Under the coat, he's wearing a warm gray waistcoat, a red tie, white shirt, and pinstriped pants that are a similar color to his jacket, but lighter. Karuma is attached to a belt at his waist, and he's wearing Sholmes style goggles on his head. The second character is Susato. She's wearing a dress modeled after her DLC outfit, but with many large changes made. It's in 1890s-1900s style, with a white, ruffly shirt on top and a floor length, A-line burgundy skirt. Over her shirt is a jacket, the same color of her skirt. It comes down to mid-chest, and has long sleeves that are puffed at the top.  The sleeves are just short enough to show the ruffles at the ends of her shirt sleeves under them.The coat is trimmed in black, with heart shaped buttons down the front and on the sleeve cuffs. At the base of each puffed part of her sleeves is a bit of tan detailing. The third character is Herlock Sholmes. Sholmes is wearing an open caped greatcoat, reminiscencent of Sherlock Holmes's stereotypical dress. It's the same tan as his original coat, and has a double layered cape that goes down to a bit above his wrist, and a bit below his biceps. The coat itself goes down to his mid calves. The coat has the same flower like symbols on its shoulders as Sholmes's original coat. Under the coat he is wearing a pink waistcoat, trimmed with gold, over a white shirt and dark purple cravat. He's wearing gray pinstriped pants, and two belts (one across his chest and one around his waist) to hold various supplies. On his head is his deerstalker cap and goggles. After Sholmes is Iris Wilson. Iris is wearing a white and brown skirt. The shirt long sleeves that are puffed at the top, and a high collar. There is a V shape going from her shoulders to chest, in ribbon, and the inside part of the v is filled with lines and ruffles. There are buttons going from her collar to the end of the V and at her sleeve cuffs. Her skirt is A-Line, a dark, warm gray, and goes down to her knees. It has ruffles at the bottom, and dark horizontal stripes. She's wearing a belt, with various chemical supplies on it, and dark black tights and boots. Her hair is tied up in two buns, with single ringlets coming down from each one. She's also wearing some goggles on her head. The last character is Barok van Zieks. He's wearing clothing in the style of the 1800s-1810s. He's wearing a dark, almost black, blue jacket, that cuts off in the front at the waist and slopes down into squared tails at the back. It has a very high collar, with the top part of the lapels standing straight up, and the bottom lying flat against his chest. The coat is trimmed with gold, double breasted, and has small gold epaulets at the shoulders. Under the coat he is wearing light tan tightly fitted pants, white gloves, and a dark purple cravat. The collar of his shirt is standing high enough to reach his chin, and you can see a little bit of his waistcoat collar standing up from between the jacket and his cravat. He's wearing black boots with gold lining the tops, and a sword hanging off of a belt at his waist. /End ID]

hello tumblr i already posted some of these on my sideblog but here they are all finished and with an id! some of the dgs outfits redesigned to be a little bit more historically accurate, not because i dislike the dgs designs in general but more because 1800s-1910s historical fashion is my Thing so i needed to take this opportunity. please ask me things about these designs i wanna talk about them i want to talk about historical fashion

[olderthannetfic]

Ah, I do see your points, anon. I'm not going to post all your asks publicly because if you really feel that unsafe, it's probably best not to have a bigass chunk of your text for people to analyze and try to guess your identity from. I think one of the best points you made is about how close to home it hits when the non-fave is not only your fave but is similar to you in some way like demographic. You're not wrong for having those emotions. I do wonder if they make it hard to see how some other people feel similarly embattled on other axes.

TBH, I think one of the big problems here is that the large aggregate patterns you're talking about are racist, but most individual fics and fans are not really the problem. It's hard to know how to talk about this or who to tell to "fix" it when we're looking at free, hobbyist art.

A lot of people's tastes are certainly formed by shitty society, but once they're formed, they don't change fast if at all. Asking someone to rewrite their libido is a big ask, yet tumblr does it all the time as though it's as simple as snapping your fingers.

This leaves me with the sense that a lot of tumblr is... like... the political lesbians of porn fic or something: desire is not real, only choosing based on logic and politics. Or maybe people are so asexual that they just don't understand the lizard brain's "YES!" at some porn things and complete indifference to others?

I don't think it's great if great swaths of people feel like bottom!Nicky is super hot and top!Nicky fundamentally isn't, but I also don't think they can necessarily just turn it off like flipping a switch.

(If someone reading this doesn't like their current tastes and wants to attempt to alter them, I do think it's possible. What you should do is line up a large slate of media that prominently features characters of the ethnicity or whatever that you don't find hot/interesting. These should be leads whose emotional development drives the plot and is supposed to be central to the audience's enjoyment of the media. Watch/read/etc. this media all the time. All. The. Time. Try out many pieces because you won't like every character or every show, and we're looking for genuine enjoyment, not the fandom equivalent of a pity fuck. Spend enough time on this, and your unconscious sense of who's hot and interesting will eventually shift somewhat. This is a project you should expect to take a few years.)

But I digress.

The one tweet thing is a very toxic pattern. If TOG fandom is doing that, guys, please try to be more conscious of holding the actors of color to a higher standard (or the women or whomever). I know this often comes from a place of paying more attention to our own and wanting to set a good standard, but the effect is that minorities can't fuck up ever while white dudes get infinite passes.

Okay, on to the fic thing... Gotta say, my instant reaction to that description is "Ooh!"--as it would be for the same scenario with the characters reversed. (Ships who start out trying to kill each other are my favorite! x1000 if they're resurrecting style immortals and they literally do.) I can see how it would feel like slamming into a brick wall if you aren't kinky in just the right way and you didn't know it was coming though.

Part of why I react so strongly to a lot of discourse that runs along these lines is that I am a naturally extremely kinky person. It's not so much about what I do (which as a deeply lazy person in a long distance relationship is essentially nothing), but it's absolutely how I'm wired.

And I can tell you that my quotidian experience in fandom is sharing something I don't even realize is a big deal only to have someone I like, respect, and trust react in horror and tell me that it's triggering and awful and should not be allowed in fandom spaces because it makes "people" unsafe. It's such an instant, kneejerk reaction they don't even realize I was sharing it because it spoke to the very core of me. Lesson learned, friend. Lesson learned.

That sounds a bit off topic, I know, but bear with me: The point of that anecdote is that it's pretty common for me to get people trying to raise my awareness of things I have already thought deeply about while denying my essential humanity and not even realizing. As a kinky person who likes to make my fave the top (and generally a conflicted sadist), this constant request to explain and justify is exhausting.

I doubt most of the top!Joe fans have this precise problem simply because people who make their fave the top are much less common in fandom than people who make their fave the bottom, but I see a similar pattern with fans who are just fundamentally wired for rape fantasies (one of the most common fantasies that exists) vs. fans who just don't get rape fantasies at all. Or substitute your BDSM/kinky/messed up fantasy trope of choice. Covertly radical feminist attitudes towards kink and power are on the rise in fandom, and as a naturally kinky person, boy do I notice it!

I know that it feels like crucial activism to share these insights about why the ratio of top!Joe is hurtful, and the pain you feel is real. But it's also the case that it's a big ask to want people to listen. (Not me. Obviously, I routinely choose to engage with discourse. I mean overall.) The reason for that is that you're only seeing a fraction of what they do or who they are, and you don't know how many previous people they've listened to how many previous times. It's a very different situation from someone whose job is making some major TV series or movie or something. That person does, in my opinion, owe you some amount of listening.

Now, I'm not saying no top Joe fan was ever a jerk. I'll bet they were. There's a tendency to be rude and to publicly air your schadenfreude when you feel like everyone has been yelling at you. What I am saying is that a lot of the problem here boils down to conflicting needs, and that means there isn't a good solution. It's a situation where people are genuinely hurt, but I don't necessarily agree that other people have harmed them.

I like that you did an actual count of the explicit fics, btw. It's good to look at the real numbers. I see too little of that in these situations. My off the cuff reaction is that 2/3 to 1/3 is not a bad ratio at all compared to many fandoms, but yeah, it definitely shows a strong trend, and that can be painful. (I have a fandom where I think there's maybe like 1 bottom so-and-so fic in the entire zine era fandom. One. It's pretty extreme.)

I guess my thinking here overall is: What is the practical solution? What are we hoping to gain? What is reasonable to ask of people?

And it can't be "Well, if they would just listen..." That's just a sneaky way of saying "If you haven't done it my way, it's because you haven't listened to me yet."

So the question I would ask of people is this:

What does a non-racist fic where Joe tops look like?

What does a non-racist sex pollen, dubcon, or even noncon fic where Joe tops look like?

And if you say the latter is impossible... well... sadists exist everywhere in the world. So do doms. So do people who prefer to top in a purely physical sense. People with rape fantasies where they're the rapist exist (people who are not actually rapists, I mean). None of this is restricted to any one group. We can't categorically say fic like that about Joe is coming from a place of racism without denying the fundamental humanity of kinky MENA people who'd want to make Joe like themselves or like their ideal partner. (Yes, I agree this won't be the majority of fic writers writing top!Joe, but this is a place to start for figuring out what the better version would look like.)

IDK, maybe you're that kinkster yourself, but your asks gave me the vibe that you don't really get the drive towards those darker kinds of fics and what might be motivating it besides stereotypes and shittiness.

If we can answer these kinds of questions, we can better critique the way people write what they write without telling them all of their taste is bad and they should just stop writing. Even if we think the latter is true, it isn't going to get us anywhere. Figuring out how to make Joe more multidimensional in the fic they already want to write or finding very specific wording that should be avoided might actually work.

Beyond that, the actions I think are productive would be running prompt fests, exchanges, or other events for bottom!Joe or for top!Joe where he's the main character and the fics are required to be from his POV. Themed collections and recs lists are great. (I've seen a bit of this going around in TOG fandom in the past, and that's an excellent approach! Keep it up!) Positive actions tend to work better here. Make more of what you want. Promote what you want to see.

I don't mean this in some fluffy magical thinking way: you aren't going to change that ratio radically just by the power of positivity. But I've seen this kind of thing play out in many, many fandoms, and going after the people who write what you don't like, even in a well-intentioned effort to educate and even in a polite, kind way doesn't do much. A few people feel guilty. A few feel defensive. A lot ignore you. The overall fic doesn't change. It's not a good use of your limited time and energy.

I'm off to look up that fic to see what I think of it in practice, but I'm going to post this before tumblr manages to eat it.

[imgucciking]

Mmmh [KAI]

Listen as you read

Pairing: Idol!Boyfriend!Kai X Fan!Reader 

Genre: Smut, Smut, Smut. After care fluff. And some fluff at the start.

Words: 2k

Warning: Masturbation! Cursing! Marking! Eating out! Penetration! Size kink! Unprotected sex! [stay safe y'all] 

A/N: My first work on tumblr, I wanted to start of with Kai.

Kai was your boyfriend, and he had been for a total of 3 years last month. You had spent the time well at home, he had even cooked some dinner for the both of you! A surprise cake was baked by him as well, in the flavour of chocoltae, your favorite [ You didn't tell him how you found a few egg shells in it]

But right now though, the pair of you were separated. You lived near the outskirts of Seoul, while the headquarters of SM, as well as Kai's house was in the middle of the busy city. Kai was busy with the preparation of his new solo, whiich he hadn't even revealed the name for to you.

He said it was super secret and it would be ruined if he revealed. You of course had pouted, and even tried some aegyo, which you never did in order to get him to tell you what the song was called, atleast. Somehow though, he never told you. On the november 25, the teaser of mmmh had been revealed. 

You had watched the video, then went straight to your bed, your phone in hand, already dialling kai. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? WHY YOU GOTTA KILL ME?" He had laughed. He fucking laughed. That. Was. It

You were so excited for today! Mmmh was finally getting released and of course you were excited! You got your big computer ready, put it on full screen, 4k quality and the volume was full on. Your phone was right beside ou incase kai decided that he was going to kill you in this mv like the teaser. 

You used the phone a lot. You called him the moment the song started, and of course, he was there, like the sweet boyfriend he was to listen to you fangirl over him, and then gasp and pretend to die when he revealed his abs. He found it very endearing that you did all this. Then, once you were done watching the mv for about the 100th time, he asked ou to always call him like this cause he found it awesome.

You blushed before replying with an ok and then cutting the call. 

It had been a month since then. You were going through the many memories you and Kai had created right now, looking through the million selfies and photos on your phone, your background music being a 10 hour version of mmmh. Bless the soul which made such an awesome repeat.

"You make me feel so mmmh hmmm~" You mouthed the words. All of a sudden, the repeat got over. You pouted to yourself, your hands reaching over to your phone to see what was going on. But suddenly, the song played again, only this time his voice sounded deeper, sexier. Your thighs automatically came closer, his deep voice doing something to your inside. 

Tentatively, you let your hand travel lower down your body, underneath jong-in's hoodie which you had on. You let out a breathy gasp as your fingers came in contact with your heat. You allowed your hands to travel the rim, but not deep in. You wanted to tease yourself. 

And oh were you doing a good job at it. You lied your body more comfortably on the bed, then spread your legs wide, your/kai's hoodie pulled up until it was bunched up underneath your neck. Your nipples had formed hard pebbles due to the cold air in the room, and your left hand was currently playing around with your left breast, twisting it around, rubbing it, and playing with your tits. 

One hand still rested comfortably within the folds of your clit, gently flicking it and pinching at the sensitive nub. One important rule of kai's was that you never played with yourself, because he wanted to be the one to please you, but the thought was long gone from your head, and besides, it wasn't like kai was coming home today, was he?

Oh how wrong could you have been.

The door clicked open loudly, as Jong-In stepped into the house. "I'm home baby!" His words, however were left to drift into the silence, as you were far too lost in the pleasure your fingers were causing you. Granted, they weren't as large as Kai's, but it did the deed and that's all you wanted. 

You were edging closer and closer to your high. "O-Oh! Kai!~" You screeched, as you finally cummed all over your fingers, the white sticky substance coating your hand. Kai heard you. And judging by the way you sounded, he also knew what you were doing right now. 

His cock twitched in his pants, like waking up from a long nap. "God Y/N..." He groaned, before pulling his shoulder back off and placing it on the table. Unbuttoning the top 2 buttons of his top, he walked into your shared bedroom. God how you lay on the bed, his hoodie all bunched up on you, your fingers still buried deep within your cunt. The tent in his pants became painful to handle as he stalked closer to you.

Your eyes were shut from how you rode out your high, your breathing heavy as you rested. Jong In edged closer to your body, before he put his lips very close to your ears. "Didn't I teach you to not touch yourself?" Your eyes shot open as you looked up at his figure hovering over your tiny self. 

His lips were curved up in a smirk. "K-Kai I-" You were cut of by him placing his finger on your lips. "Hush...." He removed his finger once he was sure you would keep quiet, his fingers now wrapped around your airpods, as he plugged one of them off your ear. "What were you listening to, baby?"

He puts one into his ear, greeted by his voice singing out. "Ahh baby.... My song?" You nod furiously, not wanting to do anything that might displease him. He let out a groan seeing you so submissive. He pulled it out, then curled his fingers round your phone which lay forgotten beside you. 

He disconnected the earphones, allowing his voice to sing out loud. "I'm going to fuck you, with my voice in the background. Is that okay babygirl?" You nod once more. His fingers curl around your neck, a tight grip. "Use your voice~" You quickly let it out. "Yes, kai!"

"Ah ah!" He tutts, his grip around your neck tightening. "What is my name?" Your eyes widen before you remember. "Yes s-sir!" He nods, before smiling, his fingers unravelling from you neck, to your hair as he gently strokes it. "Such a good girl for me, aren't you?" His tugs at your hair, pulling you up into a sitting position. 

"Such a good, good girl.... But you've been bad now.... Should I punish you?" Your eyes widen. "No sir! I'm s-sorry!" He smirks, before pulling the hoodie of your body entirely. He inches close to you, and you think he is about to kiss you so you pucker your lips. "Ah ah! Only good girls get kisses!" You pout, and Jong in almost wants to kiss you now.

"I'm sorry!" You say again, as you try to pull him towards you. But he, is able to resist, and he buries his face deep into your neck, gently breathing in and out your scent, his breath hitting right on your sensitive area. He knew how crazy you get when he does that.

"Sir!" You moan, your voice sounding foreign to even yourself. Kai's teeth sink into your soft unmarked skin, as he paint art on you. He was the artist, and you were the canvas, nothing you could do would get you out of this. Once he was done with the hickeys covering your neck, he stood up and went to the chest of drawers were you stored your... toys..

Kai was a bit overexcited with the usage of toys and such, so the pair of you had bought an entire cupboard to keep in the stock of your sex toys. 

He selects a black blindfold, and fuzzy cuffs. Mmmh...Your favorite.

He ties the blindfold around your eyes, and seats you up on the bed, with your hands cuffed tightly. Not too tight enough for it to hurt, but tight enough to not allow you to escape its grasp. You struggle a bit, adjusting your body, till you feel a flat muscle lick against your cunt. 

Your body goes rigid and you stop moving around. He smirks against you, and he knows you can feel him right there. He lets out a soft groan, when you start grinding yourself onto his face, but his hands go to your thighs and he quickly stops you by holding your thighs. 

You whine and whimper at the sudden hold, but he teases you by letting his tongue wander all over your heat, but not where you want it this most. "Kai!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Please!" He suddenly stops. "Ah, ah... What's my name?" "Sir!!!!!"

"Good girl, I'll award you, shall I?"

He starts lapping at your juices, sucking, pinching, and stroking at your cunt. Your eyes had rolled back so far into your sockets, that you thought it might get stuck right there. His tongue was much better at pleasing you than your fingers, and the tightening in your stomach only increased. 

"Jong In!! I'm gonna c-" His warmth suddenly leave you. You look up at him, to see him smirking at you. You whine at not being able to release. "I think you've been stretched quite enough, right Jagi?" He unlocks the handcuffs, before tying it again onto you, except this time its not against the bed.

He undresses himself quickly, and as soon as he gets his underwear off, his large member flips against his lower abdomen. Your eyes feast on his naked body, all the ripped muscles on it. You want to trace your fingers over him, but your hands are unfortunately locked. 

You groan at this fact. His hands curl around his member as he strokes it, coating it with his pre cum. Once its enough, he bends over and produres his head into your heat. You groan at the feeling, clenching him and trying to pull him. "So thirsty for my dick, babygirl? Well then, I'll give you what you want!" 

He suddenly pounds into you, thrusting hard and not even allowing you to adjust to his length and girth. "God!" You screech, the pain and pleasure mixing together to cause something totally new. Your hands tug of your blindfold, wanting to see Kai fuck you deep. 

He lifts your left leg up, and places is onto his shoulders, reaching to places within you that had never been touched. "Feel me there? Right in that pretty little stomach of yours baby?" "Oh god yes! You scream, and you know your neighbours will be able to hear you quite well. 

But Kai liked that. He liked to show them all who you belonged to.

He grunts as you clench tightly around him, nearly not allowing to thrust. You were close and he got that. He pound into you even harsher, like an animal unleashed and allowed to do whatever it wanted with your body. He reaches over to your hair, and tugs you up. 

You comply, placing your head on his chest as he continues his work. These move was all you needed for you to come, and you let your cum flow, your eyes rolling to the back of your socket and all you can see for awhile is white. 

He continues pounding into you, chasing his own high. You, being hypersensitive clench tightly around him. This pulled him over the edge, and he cummed into you, releasing his load well. 

He lied next to you, both of you panting and sweaty. His cum flows a bit out of you, wetting the bed below. "That was-" Kai smiles at you. "I love you, Jagi" 

You grin, feeling a bit sleepy. "I love you too baby" 

[recurring-polynya]

i’m gonna try out my luck for the renji bday thing😭

- renji being a mediator between rukia and ichika(idk why i feel like rukia and ichika would get into rly dumb arguments and just fight like they’re the same age)

- renji and ichika get a tattoo

- jealous rukia(of course)

- anything that takes place in inuzuri, i loved your ‘dumb teens stealing kisses’ snippet so much 😭

- more of the tattoo artist renji falls for a client AU

I hope you’ll forgive me for cheating a bit, but when I saw this, I said, “what if I just gave you more of the dumb teens stealing kisses” fic? because honestly, it’s just sitting here.

For people who don’t obsessively follow my incoherent ramblings about my own WIPs, this is an excerpt for i can’t believe i found you in that town, a story that takes place during Renji and Rukia’s last year in Inuzuri. Two out of their three friends have passed away, their powers are growing steadily stronger, and they are starting to face the fact that they aren’t children anymore. I have two more parts of Heart is a Muscle to get through first, so I never work on it, but it is very close to my heart.

PS: This is not going on ao3 at this time, because I really do intend to finish it eventually, so consider this a Tumblr exclusive.

❄    ❄     ❄

In a strange confluence, all three of them have found gainful employment at the same time.

Renji is guarding crates. He does not ask what is in the crates. He does not want to know what is in the crates. He stands next to the crates and his size deters most people. Occasionally, he is called upon to punch someone in the face. It’s good work.

Fujimaru got him this gig, actually. Mameji was good with numbers and he taught Fujimaru a lot, and now Fujimaru has a gig keeping the books for the guys who own the crates. That seems like pretty good work to Renji, too. Fujimaru says he wishes it involved more punching people. Renji wishes his job involved punching fewer people. Everyone’s got complaints.

Rukia has found work in a shop. This is charming and hilarious to both boys. It’s a pawn shop that paradoxically seems to buy about three times as much junk as it sells. It’s obvious that the only reason the owner hired Rukia is because the clientele likes to come in and look at her, but the fact is, she’s an amazing bargainer, and she’s making him a ton of change.

Renji stops in one late afternoon when his own shift is over, and watches her sell a man a knife that looks like it will break if he looks at it funny. She offers to throw in a shitty ball of twine and the man agrees to pay what is easily four times what the knife is worth, and leaves smiling. Amazing.

The shop owner eyes Renji warily. Renji never starts trouble, and he’s even stopped it once or twice, but at the same time, his presence is cramping the appeal of the pretty shopgirl.

“I’m off,” Rukia tells her boss.

“See y’tomorrow,” the seedy man grumbles.

“You don’t get paid every day?” Renji asks Rukia loudly. “I get paid at the end of every shift.”

“She gets paid at the end of the week,” the shopkeeper grouses.

Renji flexes one arm experimentally, admiring his own bicep. “It’s nice getting paid every day. Makes you want to come back the next day, y’know.”

“She comes back every day so she can get paid at the end of the week.”

Rukia’s eyes dart between them.

“Ah, you must be a great boss, very trustworthy,” Renji comments, stretching his back. “Although gettin’ paid every day is a nice way to show trust, too. Hey, Ru, you wanna stop at Takahashi’s on the way home? I heard they got in some dried mackerel and I,” he winks at Rukia’s boss, “got paid today.”

“Pfft,” Rukia huffs, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders. “I’m sure it’s a scam. We need rice, though, and more water.”

“Hey, girl,” Rukia’s boss spits out. “You had a good shift! Here’s your pay for today, as a reward for doing so well. Come back tomorrow, okay?”

“Of course,” Rukia agrees, taking the coins with a sly smile.

As they head out of town, she jabs him in the ribs with her elbows. “You’re so obvious.”

“Got you paid, didn’t I?”

“You did, thank you. He hates you, you know.”

Renji sighs dramatically. “How can I live with myself?”

Rukia snorts. “He’s gross, I hate him. I hate that whole job. Smiling at people. Acting kind to horrible people. It’s so fake. I don’t know why you like working so much, I’d rather just steal.”

“I’ve seen you working, what you do is not much different from stealing.” Renji rubs his hands together. It’s getting cold, especially with the sun setting. “I appreciate the effort, though. I mean, we do. Me and Fujimaru. I like this. Having money, that is. It’s nice.”

Rukia regards him out of the corner of her eye.

“Do you? Do you appreciate it?”

Renji frowns. “Yeah, of course I do. I know you don’t like it.”

Rukia stops walking and turns to him. “C’mere.” She gestures toward herself and makes the pointing motion she does when she wants him to bend down to her level. Even though this results in a cuff to the back of his head more often than not, Renji obeys. “If you really appreciate it, I think you should do something nice for me.”

Renji should know by now to be wary of such an ominous statement, but he falls for it anyway. “Sure. Name it.”

“I want to kiss you again.”

Renji tugs at his ponytail. “Again? Really?”

It was probably six years between the first and second time she had wanted to kiss him, but the second time had only been a few months ago, last spring, after he broke his arm saving her from a large, angry man she had attempted to pickpocket.

“You said you were open to the idea,” Rukia scowled.

“I...did,” Renji stammered. To be fair, he had been in immense pain at the time and probably would have agreed to just about anything. He could have used that as an excuse. It seemed like Rukia was thinking the same, he could tell she was already getting herself wound up to be hurt at his rejection. That stung a little, the idea that she expected so little of him. “No problem. Anything for you. Go for it.” He bent his knees a little deeper and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact.

“You gotta relax a little, man, it’s not a punch in the nards,” Rukia scolded, grabbing ahold of his ears and laying one on him.

Renji didn’t fantasize about kissing girls. He liked girls well enough, but he liked guys more. There was one exception to that rule, and that was Rukia. He liked her more than anyone. It wasn’t right to fantasize about Rukia, though, in his opinion, because he lived with her and it wasn’t respectful and also… also, if he spent too much time thinking about things like kissing her, he might want to do it. So, he avoided the slippery slope of girls in general, and restricted his spicy kissing fantasies to the lean, knife-eyed Rukongai punks that hung out on street corners and had really sexy ways of saying “heeeeeey.” Renji was perpetually working on his “heeeeeeys.”

But Rukia was kissing him now, and it seemed equally disrespectful to pretend she wasn’t. Her lips were soft against his, and curious. Her fingers relaxed their painful grip on his ears and snuck around to rest on the back of his neck. She must have been keeping her hands in her sleeves, because they were warm, and they felt so good and this was good, this was so, so good and it occurred to Renji that maybe he was meant to kiss her back, she had never mentioned anything about--

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it, Abarai?” Rukia was saying.

It was over.

Renji blew air out his cheeks. “Naw, it was fine. Ah, did you, uh… was it everything you hoped and dreamed?”

“It was okay,” she shrugged, but her eyes twinkled. She started walking again and Renji had to do a little skip and a jump to catch up. “Fujimaru’s probably home already. How come he didn’t come with you to pick me up?”

“Oh, there were extra crates today, so he’s working late. But we can have the rice ready and surprise him!”

“Mm, yes, that sounds nice,” Rukia agreed. She hummed a little as she walked. “Hey, Renji?”

“Yeah?”

“Back at the shop-- did you call me Ru? What was that?”

Renji made a face. “I dunno. I thought it was cute.” You’re cute, his brain added, and suddenly, he couldn’t unsee it. She was unbearably cute, wrapped up in her shawl, that little piece of hair hanging between her eyes, those beautiful eyes. “If you don’t like it, I’ll--”

“You’ve known me for nine years and you decide, just now, to give me a nickname?”

He shrugged. “Things can change, right? Even out here in the ass end of Rukongai?”

She regarded him for a moment. “It is cute. I will allow it, but only from you, and don’t do it around gross people like my greasy boss.”

“Yeah, no prob,” he agreed, squeezing his hands under his armpits. He had a bad feeling that they were in for a brutal winter this year.

“Hey!” Rukia said, and he realized she was holding out his hand to him. Gingerly, he took it, hoping she wouldn’t mind his own cold fingers. She didn’t seem to.

[soggy-platee]

What Do We Do Now?- Chp. 4

Rating: M

Pairing: Din x Fem!Reader

Summary: Din learns more about you.

Note: All chapters are on ao3, just posting here if anyone likes it on Tumblr better! Ao3 here.

You had learned several things since taking off. Mainly, that the child was incredibly interested in you.

From the moment the Mandalorian, Mando, as you heard Peli call him, had brought him aboard, he had been desperately trying to get to you.

Still magnetized to the side of the ship, you had managed to slide your cuffs down far enough so you could sit on the floor, not comfortably, you noted, but still able to. The child had managed to squirm his way over to you for the second time in the several hours you had been flying, pulling on your pant leg in a desperate bid for attention. You offered him a small smile, hoping to convey that your hands were tied. Literally. He babbled at you and you feigned interest, quizzically tilting your head and nodding as he vocalized. He squealed in delight at your actions, which alerted his less adorable, just as mysterious father to his location.

A loud thud sounded as the Mandalorian dismounted the ladder from the cockpit, head jerking toward the location of the child at your feet. He huffed loudly and stalked over to you, reaching down and picking up the child with a carefulness that almost made you think he had a soul under all that metal. Almost.

He was still bringing you to your death, no matter how attractive he was or how cute his kid could be.

You had been trying to rectify your situation in your head as you flew. Maybe that old bastard wouldn’t kill you. Maybe he had gotten his wife back and he just wanted to... punish you? You stopped yourself from hoping for that outcome, both because you knew deep down it was impossible, and because you hoped that your efforts to free that woman were not in vain.

You hadn’t seen her since you parted ways a few klicks from the mansion, you had simply wished her luck. She wouldn’t have been any safer with you.

Clearly.

Mando was turning around to leave you alone in the hull once again when you dared to ask him,

“W-What planet are you taking me to?”

No response, he just kept moving back toward the ladder.

“H-Hey!”, you said louder, “Where are you taking me?”

He stopped then, and faced you, the child still held in one arm.

“Nevarro”

Nevarro?

“What?” you asked, dumbfounded.

Why the hell would he be on Nevarro?

“The man that placed my bounty, he’s there?”

No response again, he had reached the ladder now.

“Wait!” you yelled, a little too forcefully while tugging on your bindings to get his attention. You immediately regretted your tone when he turned quickly back toward you and glowered. Well, you figured he must have been under the helmet.

“I can still put you in carbonite, no more questions.”

It was the most words he had strung together since his initial threat in the cantina. You went quiet.

He climbed the ladder and you were once again alone in the hull of the ship. The time to yourself allowed you to realize just how tired you were. Your very bones ached with exhaustion. You hadn’t slept since you had initially fled from your flat the day before. That had been over a day ago, and the near-constant panic had not helped with your tiredness. You leaned your head back against the cool metal of the ship’s interior, your eyes slipping closed. You were worried. You were scared. But your current exhaustion overrode these feelings and you feel into a fitful sleep.

…

In your dreams, you felt the Mandalorian. His iron grip on your arm, pushing you further and further toward the freezer, nothing but inky blackness beyond the metal frame. You tried to plead, to fight. You screamed, you cried, you begged. The interior of the ship melted away and was replaced by the dull walls of your childhood home. No. Your blood ran cold. You looked down at the hand holding your arm. There was no glove. No beskar. Just rough and bloody knuckles. You wrenched yourself around to look into the face of the person holding you. Into eyes that looked too much like yours-

You awoke to your head crashing violently into the wall behind you. Lights danced behind your eyes on impact, and before you had time to process your dream or the pain now blossoming at the base of your skull, the entire ship flipped. The cuffs held tight, so your shoulders were left to take the brunt of your shifting body. You screamed in pain as you felt one of them for sure pop out of place as your entire weight was held with them. Your ass was slammed back into the ground as the ship righted itself, your right shoulder still burning with pain. You heard the sound of guns firing, and were jolted once more when one bolt impacted the ship. The lightning flickered, and then the hull was plunged into darkness.

Several sounds from above reminded you of the Mandalorian’s presence. A gruff curse, an opening hatch, and the sounds of Mando descending the ladder distracted you from the pulsing pain in your arm. You looked blindly out at the pitch blackness, head darting to follow the heavy footsteps that filled the hull. From what you could gather, he was nearly directly across for you. You heard a panel open, a grunt as sparks flittered from some wires, and suddenly the lights returned. You winced against the harsh light as your vision focused on the armored form in front of you. He turned to you now, closing the hatch and tucking the wires back inside.

You were panting, with both the stress of being flipped and the pain in your shoulder nearly overwhelming you. He noticed. He walked over to you and stood above you, studying you silently.

“What?” you gritted out.

“Are you hurt?”, he asked after a beat.

You were annoyed. Who is this bounty hunter to kidnap you, threaten your life, and then ask if you were hurt?

Of course you were.

Your anger boiled over, “Why would you care?” you spat.

He simply continued to look down at you.

You held out for several seconds, before sighing and saying, “My shoulder, I think it’s dislocated”.

He crouched then, helmet almost level with your face. He tilted his head and inspected your shoulder. He must have agreed, as he reached one hand behind your back to grip your cuffs. He used his other hand to grip the front of your tunic tightly.

“Don’t try anything”

Did he think you were that stupid?

He released the cuffs and your arms groaned in protest as your moved your hands to rest in your lap. He reached forward and gently grabbed your right shoulder. You hissed in pain at the contact but he didn’t stop his probing, moving his gloved fingers along the joint.

“It is.”

Yeah, I know, you thought. But you stayed silent, looking into his visor. You felt heat rise to your face as his gaze held yours with his body so close.

“I’m going to set it, get ready”

You nodded slightly, and as you readied yourself to draw in a breath, he snapped the joint back into place.

The lack of warning made you scream, a short sound that echoed through the hull but did not seem to affect Mando in the slightest.

After your ragged breathing had evened out, he removed his hands from your shoulder and stood up, glancing around the ship. You wanted to ask what happened, who had been shooting at you, but your nerves made the words catch in your throat.

He made his way back to the cockpit, and after a moment, you felt the ship begin to descend. You were nowhere close to Nevarro, so the ship must need repairing. You felt both a sense of relief and dread at this development. On one hand, it gave you more time to think of a plan. You still needed to get yourself out of this mess.

On the other hand, it left you more time at the mercy of his overbearing, terrifying presence.

You craned your neck in an attempt to look out the small porthole. You managed to get a glimpse of the planet, covered almost entirely in snow and ice. Great, this is what you get for complaining so much about the heat of Tatooine.

As the ship continued its descent, you wondered about how this was going to work, exactly. The damage you figured must be pretty extensive, so what would become of you as it was repaired? What would he do with the child? You glanced across to the carbon freezer. You realized that it was the simplest solution for the hunter and shuttered.

He had relented before, he had to do it again, right? You figured there was no way that old man cared if you were alive or dead, however.

“I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold”

He really might just kill you this time.

Your shoulder still throbbed dully as you heard Mando descend from the cockpit once more. He had his back to you, but you assumed he held the child in his free arm. He moved over to a hatch on the far side of the ship and pressed a button on his right vambrace to reveal a…cubby?

His bed, you realized.

He deposited the child in a small hammock hanging inside.

Okay, that was cute.

You saw his large eyes meet with the Mandalorian’s helmet before the hatch snapped shut with him inside. He turned to face you. It was only now that you realized that he had never put the cuffs back on.

Maker, I’m an idiot, you thought. You missed your chance! You had this entire time to… to…

Escape?

What the hell were you going to even do?

You were trapped on a junker you had no idea how to operate with a living weapon and a green bean. Escape wasn't really an option you could entertain.

He was standing in front of you now, a slightly defensive stance with a hand hovering over his blaster as he looked at your cuffless hands. You paused and realized what he wanted. You held your hands out limply, grunting against the pain in your shoulder.

“Can you at least cuff me in front? I think I’ll pass out if you try to touch my arm right now."

He moved his hands from his blaster to the cuffs deftly and slapped them on your wrists and pushed them toward the wall, once again trapping you.

You wondered why you had given up so easily.

He stood again and said one word before striding to the mouth of the ship, opening the bay doors,

“Stay.”

You were really getting tired of him saying that to you.

As he was walking down the ramp, you suddenly realized,

“What about the kid? You’re just gonna leave him shut up in there?”

No response. Big surprise.

You rolled your eyes at the back of his head as the bay doors closed and you were trapped in silence once again.

...

You fall in and out of consciousness to the sound of work on the outside of the ship. In your moments of waking, you feel hunger gnaw at you. You think back to the last time you ate, the night before you had originally run from the Mandalorian. You wonder if he’ll feed you, or deliver you as skin and bones to his client.

You are shaken from your thoughts when you hear cooing from the sleeping hatch. You had almost forgotten about the child.

Some dad he is, you thought, leaving a baby all alone in a ship with a criminal.

Well, criminal in the least dangerous sense of the word.

It had to have been at least half a day since the hunter had left you two alone on the ship, no wonder he was getting fussy. You wished you could do something about it.

Mostly, you wished you could get out of the cuffs. They were really killing your wrists, as you had them on for Maker knows how long now.

The cooing got louder, escalating into what you could almost call crying. Small hiccupped breaths followed by loud wines emanated through the ship. You had never been the maternal type (now that you think of it, you don’t even think you’ve ever held a baby), but his cries were tugging on your heartstrings.

Suddenly, the cries stopped, followed by an eerie silence, before the hatch came open. The child, still in his hammock, squealed happily when his eyes found you.

You smiled back at him, confused.

How did he do that?

You peered inside the cubby, trying to see if there were buttons within his reach that you couldn’t see. Before you could do so, the child half climbing/half falling out of his hammock caught your attention. He made his way down to the cot, and then down to the floor with what, you had to admit, were some impressive climbing skills for such a little body.

He practically tripped over his own little feet in his attempt to get to you as fast as possible. You couldn’t help but grin widely, wondering how this little ball of joy ended up with such a joyless father.

He reached your legs, you were currently sitting cross-legged on the ground which he interpreted as an invitation to crawl into your lap. You attempted to use your elbows, pulled across your front due to your cuffs held tight to the wall, to pat the little one on the head. It hadn’t worked as well as you had hoped, but he seemed delighted, reaching up and pulling them down in order to climb closer to your face. He scrambled up your arms, grabbing too tight on your still burning shoulder. You gasped in pain. He stopped then, removing his little hand from your arm, he looked up at you with big, wide eyes.

You smiled back to him, “It’s okay little one, it’s not your fault”, hoping to convey that you weren’t mad.

He still stared silently back at you.

“It just hurts a little, that’s all. Your dad isn’t the best piolet, is he?”

You wondered if he had any idea what you were saying.

Slowly, he returned his attention to your hurt shoulder. He moved his hand toward it and you were about to object before he touched it ever so gently, laying his three fingers at the base of the joint.

You stopped, confused for a moment before a warmth suddenly ran through your arm. You gasped and almost pulled away before you felt the dull ache leave your shoulder like flowing water. You relaxed into the touch, eyes slipping closed, allowing the last of the discomfort to slip away.

Before you had time to react, the little one fell backward, eyes closed, from his place perched on your elbows to your crossed knees below.

Your brief panic was quelled by his eyes blinking back open, staring up at you with a soft coo.

You looked down at the child in your lap with eyes wide.

What?

No, really, What?!

You experimentally rolled your shoulder, feeling absolutely no pain. In fact, it felt better than you could ever remember it feeling.

Maybe you were imagining things. It was impossible, right? Right? There was no wa-

The next thing you knew, the hull was open and the Mandalorian was standing there, blaster pointed directly at you. You looked back at him dumbfounded. What had you done? You raised your hands in the cuffs as a sign of peace, still confused about his sudden threat.

Once your mind caught up, you looked into your lap. Um, hello?

His son was in the lap of the person who was currently his prisoner for crime, you know, a criminal!?

You immediately began speaking frantically,

“N-No, it’s not what it looks like! He just… I didn’t hurt-, I wouldn’t-“

He stalked over to you and grabbed the child quickly, blaster level with your brow now.

“Explain.”

This guy is really a fan of single-word orders.

You stumble over your words,

“He-He was crying. In the hatch. And then he stopped, I don’t know how…he got out and came over to me. He was just having f-fun, then he saw I was hurt and he…with his hand…”

You trailed off and lowered your head, unable to explain what had happened in words.

“He healed you?”

Your eyes jerked to his visor.

He knew?

Was this something that was common in the galaxy? And this was just the biggest oversight of your entire existence?

No. No way.

“…Yes? I think so. My shoulder... it doesn’t hurt anymore, at all.”

He just huffed and walked away, holstering his blaster and reaching his other hand up to check up on the child, tilting his little chin up to his.

Um, no. He didn’t just get to not explain that.

“How can he do that? What is that? Wh-what is he?”

“He’s a child”

No shit.

You were about to speak again, demanding he answer your questions when he beat you to it.

“It’s just something he does, it won’t affect you any further.”

Okay, he somehow managed to answer none of your actual questions. You sat and watched as he deposited the kid back in the hammock. He turned back to you.

“Were going to be here overnight, get some sleep.”

You looked at him, wondering how the hell he just brushed over that whole event so quickly. He turned his back, preparing to crawl into the hatch with the child, you realized.

“Wait!”

Silence, then “What?”

“I-uh”

“Spit it out.”

“I-uh…need to use the fresher”

Silence. A sigh.

Then he was walking over to you, demagnetizing your cuffs and hauling you to your feet. He stopped you at the door of the small fresher, pushing you toward the opening slightly. You turned to look up into his visor.

Maker, had he always a head taller than you?

“Can you take the cuffs off?”

“Your hands are in front”

It was worth a shot. You walked into the fresher and he slid the door closed behind you.

Though you really did have to relieve yourself, you also wanted to look at yourself in the mirror. Call it a strange curiosity, but you wanted to see what you looked like after the insanity of the last two days. Your eyes had deeper circles than you had ever seen. Your hair was still tucked tightly into your long braid but pieces had fallen out to frame your face. Oh, you were also covered in dirt from head to toe. Your little fence scuffle with Mando had left you dirty, and you clearly had no time to clean up. You hadn’t noticed, but your tunic had also ripped at the sleeve, revealing a little bit of skin. The thin pale line of a scar shone through the torn material. You shivered. The last person you needed to think about right now was him. Hey, things could be worse. You could be given over to him. If he was still alive. The idea of him dead warmed you a little, at least. You finished up in the fresher and desperately tried to wipe some of the dirt off yourself before you heard a heavy fist on the door.

Yeah, Yeah.

You pushed open the door the best you could with your cuffed hands and stepped out.

He looked you up and down. What? You thought irritably. His gaze lingered on your shoulder, at least that's where you thought he was looking. Seconds ticked by and you grew more confused. Then, he started moving you again.

Instead of leading you back to the wall, however, he led you to the right, beyond his sleeping quarters to a larger hatch. You looked up at him, a question on your lips when he opened the hatch and ushered you inside. It was a small storage room with a single mat on the floor, crates surrounding the area. You turned back to him, tilting your head in confusion.

“The door locks from the outside, don’t try anything.”

The door shut behind you, plunging you into near-total darkness. Wasn’t he just about to let you sleep on the cold floor of the ship with your hands still cuffed to the wall?

Why did he change his mind?

[drivingsideways]

ALL of them for TMTTAL? Pretty please?

Aww, thanks, Gin! Tell Me The Truth (About Love) is definitely one of my fave things to have written, so I'm happy to yap about it!

☼: how i came up with the idea

I think it started with just an off-the-cuff tumblr ficlet that I wrote, not very well thought out- but that eventually became the official meet cute in Chapter 7 of the fic, where Hyeon-min confronts his STALKER. But then I got thinking about it, like, not in a very structured way- just trying to figure out how I'd get the characters to that one scene, and then @rain-hat was the best enabler, so I just started writing and then...just didn't stop for a long time.

☄: what the writing process was like

It was delightful and exhausting! I was definitely on a roll- by that time I think I'd been almost continuously writing in one fandom or the other for like five months straight- which was extraordinarily productive by my standards- but! Hot girl summer! I loved the story and I believed in it, but I think I went through all the usual emotions of "why" and "when will this torture end" and "oh my god this is all crap". I really wouldn't have made it through if not for the wonderful and generous Rain, who cheered and cried and was, I think, at some point at least 50% more invested in the fic than I was (because I was a tired rodent by then).

✄: something i deleted before the final draft

Oh man, I realized just now that I deleted all my drafts in one of my rare instances of laptop-housekeeping, so I'm sorry, I don't have anything to show for this! I didn't delete a lot (that I remember- but that's also because I often edit as I go along!) but there was a back story for Sister Lee as a labour rights activist, and there was a longish office-comedy scene at the start where Hyeon-min goes to check about his leave pay with HR, and I think the hardest was cutting out a small scene about Kang Hyeon-min's mom- I cut it for pacing, and couldn't find a place for it later, but I wish I had managed it somehow. Oh, and there was an entire backstory about Hyeon-min's realizing he's bi, and his first boyfriend.

♡: my favorite part

You're going to laugh, but eventually my favourite parts of this story were NOT the scenes between Hyeon-min and Yeong, it was the Koo-Kang family- they were the gift the story gave me- because I honestly had no idea I was going to write them that way until I wrote the first line: "It’s Koo Seo-ryeong who susses him out first, and if Kang Hyeon-min were a little less incensed with her, he might have paid attention."

I just love all the scenes I wrote for them, and I can't particularly choose, but I think this bit stands out as what (I think) is good characterization work? :D

She'd sat up, suddenly, and climbed over him, picking up her clothes from the floor.

Hand propped on the pillow, he'd watched her dress—not hurried, but efficient.

“I think we’re done here, don’t you?” she'd asked, casually, as she'd belted the wide buckle of her dress.

He had wanted to ask her what he'd done wrong—but then, he’d never known what he’d done right either .

and maybe my fave exchange (technically: text) I've ever written:

Gyeongie got me a Kit-Kat today, he writes, so Song & Kim had better get you out soon or I’m going to have a new favourite Koo sister.

As if, comes the reply, within seconds. I made a man of you, baby, never forget.

☠: something i found challenging

This was definitely the "case fic" part of the story- for someone who grew up on a diet of whoddunits, I just couldn't make it work, and a large part of my tension during writing it was the resultant feeling that I'm just plain dumb? Eventually I had to stop stressing about being *clever * about it, because, after all, it was just a plot device for the things I wanted to get at.

☾: how i thought people would respond to the fic

Lol, I thought a handful of people might enjoy it- or so I hoped- but it was a long, slow burn for a niche pairing in a relatively tiny fandom, so I wasn't expecting many readers. (But I'm thrilled so many people enjoyed it and I sometimes go back and read the comments on it when I'm feeling low. Thanks y'all!)

☽: how people *actually* responded

I think it has a small, but devoted fanbase! *blows kisses at you all *

∞: something i wish i’d done differently

Hmm, you know, this is one of the few fics I've written that I'm largely satisfied with? Well, yes, the case fic part was probably something that should have been better, and I always find my prose utilitarian- but on the whole, I think it came together pretty well!

★: something i’m proud to have accomplished

Idk if there's anything I *have * with this particular fic- personally, I'm just happy if I can get a reader to click through to the next chapter. :D