#were their gay awakenings lmao

[thebluebygracieabrams]

okay okay queer people on tumblr please put in the tags how you came out to yourself/ realised you were queer

[dice-of-rolling]

GIRL KISSING ??! In my TARGARYEN!!?

🙏🙏I prayed for times like these 🙏🙏

[jackienautism]

love how the game is like. makes it ABUNDANTLY clear that the goddess tower legend is between and MAN and a WOMAN and meanwhile my lesbian byleth isjust ............

i get this game takes place in the 1100s and straight is the norm blah blah blah but sometimes i just wanna play a game without being reminded of that you know? this game has magical swords and people who can turn into dragons for fucks sake, why can't i just talk to and dance with and marry the character i want?

[mandalhoerian]

the shape of grief.

as far as rafayel is concerned, pygmalion's is a horror story, not a myth. guy decides all women are beneath him, quite literally designs and builds one for himself, and somehow his narcissistic prayers for her to live are granted. what humans define as love and the stories they tell about it are always so revealing of their selfish nature. he only ever gets the appeal of it when he looks at his faceless galatea unable to take shape in his clay-sodden hands, and thinks, what wouldn't i give for you to open your eyes so that i could remember their exact color.

♯ ⸻ pure angst, sfw, 3.7k, read on ao3

note: directly inspired by this post about rafayel trying to sculpt mc/reader but not remembering her face. a bit late to this but i was hit with the procrastination fairies LMAO . i wrote this in a feverish delirium without caring for any canon at all, i apologize if rafayel is ooc !! this work assumes he has his memories of his life as the god of tides, you can think it as an AU if you believe he has no memories of it in the main timeline (yet.) This also takes place before the Addictive Pain anectode (if you like nitpicking and think why he doesn't have a photo of her and that this could have been avoided HAHA)

but without further ado, i hope you enjoy, please let me know what you thought!

The gallery Thomas had to basically bribe him to attend was cold with intention. Whitewashed walls were almost blinding beneath the overhead lights, each fixture angled to make the sculptures glow faintly at the edges like relics, a violin track playing at a volume calibrated for reverent hush with the crowd adjusting its voice accordingly. Somehow, the worst of it was that they'd scented the room with something floral and expensive, and it was clinging so offensively to the back of Rafayel’s throat and wouldn't go away no matter how much he swallowed or sipped on the drink glued to his hand.  

The exhibit was titled Breathed to Life: The Divine Muse in Modern Form. He’d read the placard twice, though once would’ve been enough. Wherever he looked, Rafayel couldn't escape from the oozed hauteur for the attempts at capturing a miracle, sculptures of taxidermied epiphanies resting under glass that was tempered with more care in Rafayel's opinion, preserved with just enough light to make the delusion shine. Words like transcendence, revelation, and worship had been worked into the catalog copy, and even the bubbles of champagne he was swirling in the flute glass was more interesting as he idly moved through the space.

He passed a piece labeled Galatea No. IV — a full-bodied woman in bronze, lips parted in awakening, arms half-lifted as if to greet the man who had imagined her, the texture of her skin smoothed to impossible precision, idealized down to the the pores with not a single wrinkle or mole.

One of the critics standing nearby called it sublime. Another said, "She looks so real I almost expect her to blink."

Rafayel said nothing. He kept walking.

A curator caught him between rooms. She was in something backless, dark green, dripping with confidence. “You must feel at home here,” she said, beaming. “Mr. Rafayel, you're the Pygmalion of our time."

He looked past her to one of his own works, mounted near the final archway. A man slouched on a low stone, arms folded, spine curved with a kind of refusal, turned away from something but looking up at it at the same time in criticism, his face gaunt with a pinch of displeasure, half-shielded by a fall of hair. No awe or supplication.

His was the only Pygmalion in the entire exhibit, and no one seemed to realize it. Rafayel had heard some talk about how progressive it was to genderbend Galatea for gay representation, or that this could be the moment Galatea came to life and rejected her maker in a plot twist. 

Rafayel had left it up to interpretation if his Pygmalion was looking at Galatea at all. He was staring past her — past all of them, really. Every woman he ever imagined beneath him, too dull or too much or too sharp to matter. A man convinced that the thing he made was a compromise, that he’d been forced to shape it because nothing real had measured up. Neither a lover, nor a muse. A reflection bent to fit him. And maybe resenting how much of himself had ended up in the marble anyway. Nothing of the yearning saint the myth preferred. 

The gallery had tried to soften this image of human ugliness within the divine benevolence of Galateas all around, projecting wind through bare branches beside the figure, trying to frame the posture as meditative. They titled the piece Invocation. Rafayel wasn't even asked before they changed the name and he was definitely having a talk about it with Thomas after.

He offered the curator a a dismissive hand. “A flattering comparison. Though I hear his success rate depended entirely on divine intervention.”

She laughed, unsure whether it was flirtation or rebuke. “Still, what an honor. So many of us see ourselves in the myth, don’t we? The ones who love so deeply we bring our muses to life.”

He excused himself with a nod that meant nothing. Her perfume followed him down the corridor.

The flowing hallway was a blur of marble, alabaster, glass, bronze, the women luminous and soft, the men always absent — except in the titles. The Sculptor’s Prayer. In the Hands of the Maker. Love Before Breath. One artist had suspended a torso in resin, veins threaded with copper, the heart cavity open and waiting with the accompanying quote that read: “She lives because I saw her clearly enough.”

Rafayel stopped in front of it. The figure inside was beautiful and fragile, designed to be admired.

He traced the edge of the plinth with one fingertip and thought: She lives because you needed her to. Not because she wanted to.

He left the gallery floor and stepped into the auxiliary corridor lined with donor plaques and black-and-white photographs. One showed a young couple posed beside a sculpture mid-process. The woman’s face was amicable, and the man looked directly into the camera, his hand on the small of her back. The caption read: The original Galatea — forever immortalized by love.

He looked at it until the focus dissolved, and the polished surface of the frame stopped reflecting anything but his own cold expression.

Pygmalion was granted his wish. That alone was enough to make Rafayel despise him. 

A man shapes greed with his hands, pulls at the skirts of heavens like a petulant child, and the gods — watching from a distance they rarely breach — clap their hands in glee and say yes.

The myth pretended that mercy could be earned by longing, that a body sculpted by a beholder who sees himself so above others is owed because he called it love. There was no weight in that kind of miracle, only cruelty dressed as grace, a prayer granted just to mock the millions that weren't. 

Pygmalion was the epitome of human selfishness, the final limit where want transformed into greed for more than the world could grant. Only his statue, made by his own greedy hands and given life through someone else's breath, was beautiful, because only she embodied perfection to him, not because she was worth desiring but because he desired her. Pygmalion's love didn't reach past his self, it served only to feed himself and satiate him with the sight of his narcissism, like any other creation brought to life by humans for their own benefit; machines built to kill, guns painted gold so they look like art when killing — all just tools made to feed men's hunger for more.

But he would have never cared about Pygmalion if it wasn't for the gods.

Because Rafayel envied those gods, all too human in their vanity, for the power and might they wielded to give so easily like that. Their ability to move mountains without ever being touched by grief, to pull strings that bind worlds without fearing losing something of theirs; it was unfathomable to someone so bound in mortal tethers such as he.

It must feel so freeing, living like that, he thought. Must feel so good, pulling at other lives like they are your playthings. So easy to get lost in those dreams.

The same way he did back then.

The disdain covering Rafayel in a second skin as if he was an oil-soaked seagull was fuel enough to get back to work after that travesty of a gallery.

He’d been developing a concept for a painting — a large-scale composition of a coral-devoured, bleeding cathedral submerged in the sea, its steeples fractured and stretching toward the surface in a gesture that evoked both surrender and yearning, an image meant to convey the contradictions of loss and reverence, a symbolic convergence of decay and devotion. At least that’s what the so-called critics were about to yammer on about. It in fact was the fate of a certain buyer Rafayel was targeting, and the message was meant for his people and his people only.

The draft lived on the sketchbook propped against his raised knees, his legs crossed on the high stool, charcoal gripped tightly in one hand and smudging downwards the length of a pillar as he added textures and shadows to create depth. It was a hasty thing, but effective at illustrating what he envisioned, complete with notes scribbled around the edges, jotted reminders for little details here and there he needed to add to truly flesh out the piece later on. Rafayel was so distracted by a couple more things to add to the sketch that the canvas already prepared beneath the dome skylight felt neglected despite the brushes sitting ready and dipped in paint atop a palette of bruised violet scraped from stormclouds, diluted ultramarine, blue fog, a soft grime green of oxidized copper, rotten ivory, a sliver of warm rust, a cold pink scraped from the underbelly of spent roses, and more.

And yet, when he finally got up to start for good, his gaze drifted elsewhere.

Toward the bust armature.

Rafayel stood beside it, hands in the pockets of his black suit pants, head tilted sideways with one hand playing with it in thought. He loosened the buttons of the white dress shirt he wore after flinging off that horrid tie, sleeves pushed to mid forearms as he dragged a stool and took a seat before the armature, right elbow propped atop the round table to the side holding supplies, chin resting on knuckles, now gazing up at the base of the clay cast while chewing the inside of his cheek.

He had always told himself he would return to it when he was ready, when time had softened the raw, exposed nerve endings of loss, when he could render your likeness with a steady hand instead of a shaking one.

But then months stretched into a year, days faded into seasons which blended together into a period of numbness broken occasionally by an intrusive thought here and there while he focused on Lemuria and Lemuria only, and then — nothing. Until it was easier not to think about it at all. He became absorbed in his mission, dedicated to getting revenge, and avoided thoughts of you, for all intents and purposes, until moments like these where he simply sat in silence looking up at a form without feature to remind him why exactly he did what he did.

Galatea, huh?

He crossed the room with the same distracted focus he used to summon bruyous, hands rummaging through the storage shelves until he found the sealed bag of clay, not expecting it to be heavier than he remembered, dense with neglect. Dumping it unceremoniously beside the armature, he sliced it open, letting the block fall onto the slab table with a dull, resistant thud, finding it cold to the touch, too stiff to yield immediately, so he pressed it between his palms, wetting them, working the material slowly until the top layer lost its brittleness.

He didn't sit right away, hovering over the lump with furrowed brows, kneading it down into something usable, folding in water from the bowl on the side, rotating it as he moved, pushing and turning until the tension bled out. Once softened, he dunked the mass onto the metal plate mounted over the dented and sluggish, old man of a banding wheel. Only then did he sit, lowering himself onto a battered wooden stool, one bare foot braced against the leg of the wheel’s base while the other nudged gently to angle it.

All done. He reached for the wire loop tool without thinking or looking over, fingers already coated in the dull slip of moisture and clay.

The first lines came quick and confident. Indents for the eyes. The line of a nose. Just scaffolding, clearing a space where you might return to him, the only sound in the room the soft grind of his tools and his breathing. 

He narrowed the chin, adjusted the brow. Then sat back, frowning.

Too young. This was closer to the child at the beach who had hooked pinkies with him. 

He scraped the forehead flat again, thumb dragging clay down like peeling skin. The smoothed face stared up at him in blank reprieve, a temporary erasure before he tried again, less baby fat on the cheeks, sharper cheekbones this time, a more adult curve to the jaw, something more defined around the eyes, though he wasn’t sure what. A firmer mouth, perhaps. A stronger line. He reworked the nose — it ended up being too straight the first time and he chided himself for the mistake, then he decided it was too narrow, crooked it just slightly at the bridge, something he'd sworn felt right.

It wasn't long before the moment slipped from his fingers, and all the revisions felt more like mistakes than anything, tilting the whole balance of the face into something uncanny. He could pretend it was nearly familiar, but only in the way dreams pretended to be memory.

With an annoyed click of his tongue, Rafayel tilted the wheel. Leaning in with an emotion-tense strain in his spine, he angled the bust toward the overhead light until the shadows shifted and spilled away from the features he’d laid out like a confession.

He stood up for a burning stretch to contemplate, stepped back, squinted with his head tilted, and stepped forward again.

Was it just him? The angle? The lighting? The fatigue of the gallery distorting everything?

After he sat back down with more determination to get over whatever this slump was that made him get you wrong over and over again, one adjustment in the temple led to a collapse in the jawline, and the later correction to the mouth made the chin too long.

The realization that the eyes looked distant now and he couldn’t tell if it was him failing the depth or the absence of something deeper was particularly worrying. Rafayel had always trusted the process, but this didn’t feel like a detour into arriving at the same destination, the clay was actually resisting him in a non-art block way and it was starting to actually bother him. 

He scraped again, set the brow differently, ignoring the thing niggling at him at the back of his head and brushing against some the internal nerve. Was it ever really that shape? Or had he once wanted it to be, and kept telling you about how doing your brows that way would compliment your features better when Algie had sat you down before the vanity in your room to try out some dresses for the ceremony and work on make-up to go along with each one of them?

The clay warped gently beneath his fingers as he tried to trust the sensation, but every stroke seemed to subtract rather than add. The frustration Rafayel hadn't sensed had made its way into his hands like fire following the path of a wick, making the cheekbone dip under the tool, and he had to sit back straighter with a huff from his nose. 

His eyes flew all over the features of the bust, the whole incomplete face. Rafayel couldn't even call it yours. One mistake or two could be expected, even pictures could be unflattering. But it was worse than that — he couldn’t figure out where it had gone wrong. The structure was exactly the same, proportions were what he remembered. The surface was close to reality enough to breathe, but the person who would come to life if they did wasn’t you, and he didn't know where he had gone wrong. 

Rafayel stared longer. A pressure grew behind his ribs, and it was beginning to feel like trying to hum a melody he hadn’t heard in years. The more he reached for it, the more the silence beneath it yawned open.

He reached up and pressed his palm against the clay, not to shape, just to feel if it might suddenly remember for him.

It didn’t.

This was someone else. Too much of him.

He looked down at his hands, coated in slip and streaked with fine dust, and flexed the fingers slowly as though wondering how long they’d been disobeying him.

He pressed the backs of the base knuckles of his thumbs into the inner corners of his eyes. Into the tear ducts.

Where was the scar you used to trace absently while thinking? He tried to recall the way your mouth moved when you were amused but trying not to smile. Was it one side that curled first? Or both? He had drawn it once, years ago, sketched it from memory with absolute certainty. But when he reached for it now, he found only doubt.

The chair scraped backwards and nearly toppled as he sprang to his feet, crossing to the small cabinet beside the canvas where he kept what little he dared to revisit. He almost flung the drawer halfway through the room when he yanked it open, pulled the first sketchpad he could reach, pages flipping too and frenzied to register until he paused and kept going through them slower to make sense of it. 

Eyes, alone. Dozens of them. Glancing sideways, gazing directly, lowered in thought, every single one of them slightly different in expression, none of them quite right. A nose rendered in three-quarter view with a soft crease that might have been tension. The arch of a brow, mid-expression — concern, maybe? Hair texture studies in every style you wore it that he remembers. A mouth caught in a smile with no cause. Hands more frequently than anything else — folded gently, held in motion, reaching out. The gesture of a wrist mid-turn, the curve of a knuckle mid-thought. A sketch of a nape that vanished into the shadows of the page’s lower edge.

None of them carried your name. But they were you. Bits of you. Shards. And every one of them had been committed to the page when he hadn’t even meant to — absentminded, between tasks, in the margins of other projects. A fragmented archive of heartbreak he’d been too cowardly to complete. As if assembling you would demand an answer to where you had gone, as if seeing it finished would require confronting what it meant for him to have stayed, inviting something too vast and unhealed to fit back inside him without breaking something else a lie in full.

Rafayel had underestimated the sheer amount of notebooks he'd gone through for years now, like paper towels one would wipe away their tears with. The grudges he'd immortalized left to collect dust and avoided religiously.

He could only look through a draft of your eyes and hold on to the sketchbook for dear life when his vision blurred and something trickled down his cheek. One by one, the tears solidified into pearls, striking the floor and rolling away into obscurity among the chaos of his studio.

Dropped right into the throes of a realization far bigger than he could accept.

Like a dream that slipped away upon waking, your face had receded to the place where Lemuria had sunk — unable to be grasped fully or played back clearly unless he called them forth, the rest reduced to snippets and gestures instead, images that flickered through his mind like slides projected on a screen, ephemeral and fading faster the harder he fought to keep hold of them. What remained was abstraction — softness that used to be hair, the dimple of an incisor tooth, a tilt of the mouth that belonged to laughter. Those fragments still possessed color. What they lacked were definitions that would allow him to shape the clay in your image.

He went through more sketchbooks until the last of it joined the pile around him and he was left standing motionless in the wreckage of graphite and paper spilling open across the floor like overturned reliquaries, pages fluttering mockingly gentle under the breeze nudging through the half-cracked windows, reflecting back a half-you, or an almost-you. He stared at them for a long time without moving, eyes dragging from shape to shape, as if willing one to speak with your voice.

What answered was a notification pinging in his pocket, a sound so mundane amid the shambles of his misery. He pulled his phone out in a detached daze, swiping at it with no thought.

Thomas: Pygmalion and Galatea gallery photos are up on their page! Your attendance was well publicized and people are talking about your piece, so I expect requests for interviews soon. Just letting you know 😃

 His knees gave out before the grief did, he caught the armrest at the very last possible second, and slid down the length of the sofa's side.

She lives because I saw her clearly enough. Those words barricaded his mind like blood rushing to fill a bruise.

Rafayel was a creature built from ripples, shaped by a lineage of memory so ancient it existed without written record, a primordial awareness of past pains and future sufferings alike, generations upon generations worth of invisible scar tissues patching him up like a rag doll. Cities had fallen and crumbled behind him, yet he could name their street corners and the songs sung during their funerals.

So why — how — had you slipped from him this way?

The thought unspooled inside him slowly, a wet thread tugged from a wound so raw that Rafayel didn’t dare touch it. He had thought, in some arrogant, buried part of him, that if he ever tried, truly allowed himself to miss you more than he mourned his people, and stopped tormenting himself by creating puzzle pieces of you out of scraps in his refusal to obtain a photo of you living your new life, he would be able to rebuild you perfectly. Even the gods who breathed life into Galatea would turn green with envy.

His gaze crawled back to the Frankenstein's monster of a bust, all unrelated bits and pieces that had looked like you when isolated but made no sense when he put them together, taking the shape of grief itself.

She lives because I saw her clearly enough.

He tossed the phone aside without giving Thomas an answer, threw his head back to lean on the lip of the couch, and covered his face with a forearm.

And at last, bitterly, he realized he was no different than Pygmalion: longing for the memory of a woman to etch itself into life.

[jamesgreycaster]

SCREAM yes please omg thank you!!

[spockandawe]

Guys for real though I simply HAVE to scream about 'the hunter's gonna lay low,' because the hunter genre is giving me all the emotionally rich superhero content the western pop culture sphere has been gradually sapped of in favor of commercialized multiverse, but it is ALSO giving me all the emotionally rich gay yearning that is a crucial part of my diet, AND it's hurting my heart with burnout and trauma and the way people change in the face of the inevitable passage of time, and--

Let me back up. This is actually the first korean webnovel I've read so thoroughly! It's not finished yet, because the original novel isn't finished yet, but there's a solid 450k of text and I'm pretty sure the ending is imminent. Technically, i started orv before this (but paused/stalled about a hundred chapters in) and also started the novel for 'the guild member next door' (and then lost my internet tab lmao). So i really did intend to try to stick to first-in-first-out reading, but oh man. This story GOT to me, i was incapable of putting it down.

Technically, i started with the manhwa, just something casual to check out while I was bored on my business trip. But the comic is brand new, there were only fourteen chapters at the time, and I finished and didn't even pump the brakes before powering on to the novel. No regrets at all, i even used my in-flight wifi to keep reading as i came home.

I can only give you a sprinkling of the plot without wandering into plot points I don't think should be spoiled, but i REALLY want to encourage people to check it out, I'm also in the middle of 'i became a god in a horror game' and 'evil as humans,' both of which are EXTREMELY good, and this one effortlessly shouldered them out of the way

The genre! If you're not familiar with the hunter genre, the oversimplified explanation is that some people awaken as 'hunters,' who have super powers of various strengths and rarity, typically administered by a system of some kind. They usually use these to fight monsters, sometimes in dungeon-esque settings, often with magical tools and weapons either dropping in these dungeons or being made from monster materials.

The story! In THIS hunter setting, eleven years ago, a magical rift of some kind opened, and monsters came out and started wreaking havoc on the world. However, gradually, among the survivors, some of them began to awaken with new powers that gave them the ability to fight back. Our hero, cha eui-jae, was the first S-class hunter to awaken in south korea, in the aftermath of one of these early attacks where his parents were killed and he (age 17) narrowly survived.

As an S-class hero, and one with combat-oriented abilities, he had immeasurable value, as a weapon, as a figurehead, as a symbol for the people to rally around. By a significant margin, he was the most capable fighter in the country, and he worked hard to live up to those needs and expectations as the hunter "J". Again, he was seventeen. The one saving grace was that he had an adoptive aunt who helped shield him as much as she could, and a mask that hid his face and changed his voice.

This lasted three years. At the end of that period, among all the other dungeons and rifts popping up, there was a strange new rift, one that was expanding, and would start eating into the country eventually. Cha eui-jae led dozens of hunters in, and eventually the rift closed, but none of those hunters ever came out.

Until! Eight years later! Cha eui-jae wakes up outside the rift, back in seoul, lying in a pile of garbage, with NO idea how he got there or what happened in those intervening years.

In some ways things are.... good. Authorities have the ability to predict rifts now, and push alerts to people's phones to warn them to seek shelter. Kids ignore the warnings to stick around and film videos of cool fights to upload online. All the monster- and human-driven chaos of the early days is gone. And that's good, right? That's all cha eui-jae dreamed of all this time.

Cool! Things are under control! They don't need him. When he woke up, he was starving, and stumbled into a nearby hangover soup restaurant (a classic korean comfort food) to ask for something to eat. Now, he's helping out the elderly owner and helping look after her granddaughter and basically running the whole restaurant to let the old lady rest. The place is a major hunter hangout spot, but whatever, it's not like anyone ever knew his face, and most of these people awakened long after he left the scene. He's just a normal! regular! guy!

Yeah, when is that ever allowed to last 😂

Eventually, he ends up showing that he has SOME kind of powers in front of the wrong person, another rare s-rank, the number one ranked hunter in south korea, lee sa-young. If you look up this series and see an edgy try-hard hot topic guy with purple eyes and a purple gas mask, that's him. He's perfect. I would DIE for him.

He's also a mouthy motherfucker with a bad attitude! And he is also, non-metaphorically, extremely poisonous. And venomous, I assume. Restaurants have to throw out the utensils after he uses them, so it's safe to assume it's bad news either way! And folks... i didn't think the bratty little brother archetype was ever going to be my thing, but i was so very wrong. He's perfect, he's fascinating, he's engaging as HELL. Cha eui-jae is a WONDERFUL protagonist, i was happy to read whatever he was up to, but lee sa-young is an amazing foil, and the chemistry is great. I love the manhwa, but their dynamic in the book... chefkiss. And also the manhwa currently cuts off while they're still getting to know each other.

But for now! Lee sa-young actually needs someone like cha eui-jae. It's illegal to be an unregistered awakened person, but lee sa-young is trying to hunt down a drug ring right now, but he's a big-name celebrity and needs someone totally off the radar to work with him. Also, even if cha eui-jae is living quietly, the system knows that J is back. And besides, nobody ever figured out what the deal was with that expanding rift. Sure, it closed, but what CAUSED it? Annnnd I'm going to stop there.

This story is very much its own thing, but to me, it hits emotionally like the love child of svsss and madoka and no I won't elaborate. Cha eui-jae's backstory is one of burnout and trauma, and he himself struggles to recognize that, but he emerges into a world with a MUCH more nuanced understanding of trauma than when he went missing, and none of the chaos that made everyone who was asking him to step up to the plate over and over look the other way. He's in a world where he's a celebrity and a formative aspirational figure to many modern hunters, but also feels adrift in a world where he was left behind! He's still the same person he was before, but time has inevitably changed everything and everyone he knew.

This story is also about loneliness and community. Lee sa-young is made of poison and is hazardous to even the most powerful of his peers. Despite that, and despite his personality, he's a little brother to the third power, and has founded a guild of hunters who care for him and look out for him. He also looks out for the people around him, despite how rarely he chooses to get close. Korea has recently had its fifth all-time S-ranked hunter awaken - but her identity is under wraps because she's still seventeen and in high school, so she's going to graduate before they even THINK of giving her work, and cha eui-jae has a lot of complicated feelings he doesn't want to examine about that.

(there is also an artisan character whose abilities are adhd (positive) and adhd (negative) and I've never seen such a personal callout for me specifically i love him so much dhjgjhjh)

I started reading this book for fun, but it genuinely has themes I'm still chewing on as i start reading the translation again. I'm not done thinking about this, I'm not NEARLY done. And i promise that my summary stops before most of the plot even starts spinning up. The flow of how the worldbuilding and story and characters are gradually revealed it's absolutely wonderful, and I can't rec this book strongly enough

Belatedly, here's a link to the translator's site!

[crazyyluvr]

Hello! I have a request if that's okay? Could you maybe do a James Potter x male!reader (with the reader being Ravenclaw) where they end up being partnered together in potions and afterwards James is like 'shit. I think I might be gay.'

Basically where the reader is his gay awakening haha

A Revelation in Potions (Not Through Amortentia, That's too Generic)

pairing: james potter x male!ravenclaw!reader

summary: in which James never knew men could be so attractive until he gets paired up with you in a Potions activity.

genre: fluff, gay awakening, crushing

wc: 2.1k

warning/s: cursing, reader is a little taller than james, he/him pronouns, gay panic, james is a lil shy here, potion nonsense that i made up on the spot, reader is good in potions, mention of boobs lmao

note: oooh, interesting request anon. i like it. i hope you enjoy!!

oneshot under the cut :: not edited :: part 1 | part 2

James Potter was dying.

No, not literally. But he did feel like he was literally dying.

This is what a painful death felt like, didn't it? The inability to properly take in air, the painful pounding of his racing heart, the stumble of his tongue as he tried and failed to properly speak.

On the contrary, James Potter was not just dying. He was dying of embarrassment.

Let's rewind a little bit for some context.

Gryffindor and Ravenclaw were stuck in the dungeons of a double Potions class together. As usual, James sat beside his friend Sirius Black, and as usual, they were noisy with sniggers and poorly muted whispers.

"Black, Potter, do you have something that you'd like to share?" Professor Slughorn called to the two boys sitting in the back after a wheeze from Sirius was too loud for the professor to ignore.

"No sir, we're — we're fine," James said, sounding slightly out if breath from containing his laughter at a joke Sirius had made. "Just a little hot in here, isn't it?"

Slughorn sighed. "It's less hot here in the front, Potter, so why don't you switch with Shelby here?"

The girl sitting beside you perked up at the mention of her name, looking back and blushing when she realized that she was going to be sitting beside Sirius Black.

"On the contrary sir, I think I feel slightly colder already," James grinned. "I'm fine with staying at the back."

"I insist, Potter," Slughorn held a strained smile, displaying the fact that James had no choice but to follow.

The boy sighed, giving Sirius an exaggerated mournful look before picking up his things and walking over to the now vacant seat in the front, messing up his hair along the way out of habit.

He set his things down beside his chair and slumped into it, sparing a glance at his new seatmate. "Hello. I guess you're stuck with me for today," James said quietly, not wanting to disrupt Slughorn's lesson again.

You turned to face him, giving him a small smile. "I guess so. Nice to meet you."

James nodded, and you looked away to jot down some notes as Slughorn wrote on the board.

James did a double take, his brain just processing the face he saw.

Woah, he's handsome.

He couldn't stop himself from looking at you again, taking in your features from the side; your focused eyes, your cheeks, your jawline, your lips.

James had to make himself blink twice to snap himself out of his trance. I'm straight. So what if he's handsome? I'm handsome too.

"Now that we're done with our lesson, you will use the rest of the period to brew a simple Sleeping Draught with your seatmate," Slughorn announced. "Go through your books for the procedure, and don't hesitate to ask me any questions you may have."

With a wave of his wand, a cauldron appeared on the side of each pair's table. "The ingredients are in the cupboard behind me," he continued, waving his wand once more to open the cupboard doors. "You may begin."

James went to stand up, but you put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. He looked at you and saw that you got to your feet. "I'll go get the ingredients. Can you partially fill the cauldron with water and heat it up please?" You asked.

"Uh — sure," James responded, making you smile and pat his shoulder twice before leaving with you Potions book in hand.

James stared after you, shook his head to focus. You gave him a task, and he had the weird goal to not let you down. He muttered “aguamenti” under his breath and water spilled out of the tip of his wand, filling the the cauldron. He flicked his wand upward to stop the flow once the water was halfway.

He ignited a fire under the cauldron and stayed standing over it, watching bubbles appear in the water.

“I’m back,” you greeted, gently putting down the ingredients on the empty part of their table.

James turned his head to look at you, his breath hitching when he noticed that you had a few inches over him, the top of his head reaching a little bit above your eyebrows.

He watched you pull the sleeves of your uniform upwards to your elbows, revealing your forearms. He swallowed with difficulty.

Get your head in the game, Potter, James thought, mentally slapping himself. He’s just a random boy from Ravenclaw whose taller than you and has really nice arms. Big deal.

“I’ll cut the ingredients up, you put them in the cauldron and follow the stirring. Is that okay?” You asked, giving him a glance before you put the ingredients on the cutting board in front of you.

“You’re doing an awful lot of work, huh?” James said, chuckling breathily, making you laugh slightly in response.

“Stirring properly and putting the ingredients in is also important, is it not?” You smiled teasingly, cutting the plant root with as much accuracy as possible.

He watched your fingers glide over the root and how the veins on the back of your palm popped to life when you gripped the knife.

Holy shit, James, control yourself, the messy-haired boy scolded himself. Think boobs. Boobs!

“Are you ready for the Quidditch match tomorrow?” You asked, attempting to break the semi-awkward silence between you two.

“Ah,” James remembered that Gryffindor had a match against Hufflepuff. In truth, he wasn't all that worried about it, since he's seen their Seeker and he isn't much (NO HATE ON HUFFLEPUFF, I LOVE HUFFLEPUFF <33).

"I think I'm ready," James said after a moment of silence. "I don't feel all that worried about it," he grinned, sending the boy a wink. Why he did that when he normally only did it to girls (with the exception of his own friend group) he had no idea why. I guess being with you made him full of even more surprises.

You rolled your eyes playfully at him. "Sure." You handed him the chopping board with your evenly cut plant roots on it. "Time for you to shine, Mister Potter. Pour it and stir it properly."

James took the board with an exaggerated bow. "It's my pleasure, good sir." He tossed the roots in the boiling cauldron almost carelessly, some of the water splashing onto the back of his hand.

You, who was supposed to be grinding some mineral to powder, immediately set down your mortar and pestle to check on the boy who winced in pain as the hot water made contact with his skin.

"Be careful!" You scolded, gently grabbing his hand and examining it. "It's not that bad of a burn, but we're gonna have to rinse it with warm water."

James nodded dumbly, the pain numbing slightly as soon as his hand made contact with yours.

Soft hands, he noted.

You dragged him over to the sink on the other side of the room and let the faucet run for a little while before guiding his hand under the running water, your focus blinding you from James's stare.

I'm straight. I'm straight. Straight as a wand.

"Does it hurt, Potter?"

"James," He answered absentmindedly.

"What?"

"Call me James. Not Potter."

You looked up, his big brown eyes staring at you behind round, silver-rimmed glasses. "Okay, James," he totally did not shiver at the sound of his first name rolling off your tongue, "does it hurt?"

James shook his head. "It feels way better now."

"Are you sure?" You questioned, brows creasing in concern.

"Yeah — yep, I'm fine," he answered, his eyes unblinking as he maintained eye contact with you despite his small stumble over his own words. "We can just continue brewing the potion, yeah?"

Which brings us to the present moment, where he felt like he was dying.

"Okay, as long as you're sure..." You said, not entirely convinced but letting it slide for now.

You pulled down your sleeve on one arm to use it to wipe the extra water that lingered on his hand before letting it go entirely. James was already missing the warmth.

"Let's head back," you said, checking your watch as you turned around to return to your table and to resume your tasks of preparing the ingredients.

Your work commenced in silence. Your potion was a little messed up from the lack of stirring and addition of the other ingredients, but it wasn't unsalvageable. You just added some bark and leaves to balance it out a little.

You hesitantly handed the ingredients to James, worried that he was going to hurt himself again, but this time he was gentle, smiling at you victoriously as if not getting burned again was an accomplishment — which it was, you guess.

"You're stirring too quickly, James," you said, laughing slightly at his somewhat aggressive stirring.

"It didn't say that speed mattered," he replied cheekily, continuing his ministrations.

You sighed, shaking your head slightly with a smile on your face as you took a step towards him and grabbed his stirring hand, the one that wasn't burned. James eyes widened a fraction at the contact, but said nothing.

"Slow down," you murmured, guiding his hand to a much slower pace compared to the one he had set moments before. "No need to rush."

James didn't reply, too busy trying to tame the redness of his cheeks. In order to guide him, you had to stand close behind him, your chest grazing his back and your breath fanning his ear and part of his neck. Goosebumps trailed over the skin that your hot breath caressed.

"'Stir clockwise until potion turns a light shade of blue,'" you read from the instructions in your book. "What do you think, James? Is our potion ready yet?" You hummed the question almost directly in his ear.

This damn man. No way is he not doing this on purpose.

"It — No, not yet," He said, mentally whacking himself in the back of his head for his stammering.

"Alright, we keep stirring then."

You could have let go of his hand already and let him stir on his own, but you didn't. You kept your hand over his, clutching it in a gentle grip, until your potion turned from purple into a light blue.

You smiled. James, for some reason, could feel that smile despite not seeing it. It tingled in the back of his brain.

"Okay, we're done."

You let go of his hand, moving to the side to grab a dropper and a vial. James pulled the stirrer out of the cauldron and set it aside, watching you collect some of your potion and putting it in the vial.

"The Sleeping Draught can be deadly in large amounts," you said, collecting more of the potion as a bit of your Ravenclaw brain slipped out. "If you take too much of it, your calming sleep will also turn into an endless one."

You put down the dropped and took a stopper to seal the vial. You looked up at James with a smile that James could only interpret as mischievous. "Everything can kill you if you have too much of it, don't you agree?"

You don't wait for him to reply before going to the front and placing your vial in the empty rack on Slughorn's table, holding a small conversation with Slughorn before returning to get your things.

"We can leave early," you informed James, grinning. You shouldered your bag and adjusted your blue tie to not choke you as much, the hot atmosphere of the Potions room getting to you a little. "See you around, James."

You left him staring at your back, mouth slightly open and eyes wide.

Sirius passed him to get some ingredients his partner forgot to retrieve earlier and noticed his dumbfounded expression. "You good, Prongs? What happened to your hand?" He asked, looking at James's hand as he raised it to ruffle his own hair.

"Pads," he said, his voice cracking slightly. "Pads, I think I'm in love."

"Huh?" He followed his best mate's gaze, catching a glimpse of your uniform before you disappeared completely. Sirius looked back at the bespectacled boy with a cheeky grin on his face.

"Nah mate, I think you just got your gay awakening. Welcome to the club, Prongs."

"Yeah..." James's eyes were still fixed on the doorway where you once were, before his eyes snapped to Sirius's when his words fully processed in his brain. "Wait, you're gay??"

Sirius shrugged. "I'd be disappointed in myself if I wasn't," he joked, clapping James on the back. "You got good taste for your first boy crush," Sirius said before leaving James to his unpacked things and his own thoughts.

Can't argue with Padfoot about that: I definitely got good taste in men for my first guy crush...

[paigebueckersmommy]

guilty as sin? pt. 1

part 2 here

paige bueckers x fem!reader

warnings: gay awakening?? toxic relationship, slightly suggestive if you squint

a/n: bc this song is the only thing i think abt and it’s so paige coded

you grew up not religious, but in a religious family. you were told that being gay was wrong, and ignoring the voice inside you, you told yourself you were straight.

you were in a toxic relationship which you knew was toxic beucase of the things people had told you. when you started classses at uconn in 2021, you boyfriend was also attending uconn. you knew about paige, but had never been much into basketball although your boyfriend was.

he took you to a uconn wbb game and sat there as you waited for the game to start. and suddenly, you saw paige. you never seen her looking so beautiful, and felt like soemthing about you had been changed when suddenly you and paige made eye contact as you were sitting pretty close to the court.

uconn won the game, and you acted you payed attention on the ride your boyfriend gave you up your dorm knowing you only had eyes for paige the entire game. “yea i had fun,” you say tiredly.

the next day you had a 11 am class, and as you walked into the lecture hall you spotted someone across the hall from you. paige. you looked over to her in the crowded hallway, and quickly looked back. you walked into the lecture hall before paige, as you sped up the pace of your walk in the hallway.

you sat down closer to the back in the middle of a empty row. you sat down and got your computer out of your bookbag, when you heard someone. “hey, can i sit here?” you heard a deep voice say, it was paige. “oh uh yea that’s fine.” you say with a smirk, paige sits down also with a smirk. while you wait for the professor to arrive to class, you and paige had conjured up some small talk, when suddenly paige turned to you, “wait, were you at my game last night?” paige says with a grin curling in the corner of her mouth.

“oh yea i was. you did good out there.” you say with slight panic. “oh thanks, who was that guy with you?” paige says leaning back. “that was my boyfriend.” you say with slight embarassment.

“ohhhh.. okay.” paige said with a slight giggle. you heard her murmur something under her breath, “i could change that.” you heard. “what was that?” you say with even more embarassment than before. “oh nothing sorry,” paige said as the professor started talking.

you and paige didn’t talk the rest of the class since you were taking notes. as you two stood up and started packing up to leave she looked at you, “hey what’s your name?” paige said. “oh ny name is (yn),” you say with a smirk. paige starts away with a smile. “well it was nice talking to u see you later.”

as you walk back to your dorm, your mind is overstimulated with thiughta about paige. was she filming with you? what did she muffle under her breath that i couldn’t hear? and is paige my gay awakening?

later that night you lay in your bed watching instagram reels when suddenly you see a small ‘1’ appear on your notification box. you tap on it,

“@paigebueckers started following you”

you smile and quickly follow her back. when you get a notification from dms and you assumed it was paige.

P: yo

Y: hey how’d you find my instagram? lmao not complaining just wondering.

P: ma you told me your name

ma. the word paige typed sent chills down your spine and wetness in between your thighs.

P: what’s ur number?

Y: *** *** **** :)

*over texts*

P: do you have any classes tmrw?

Y: yea one at 9

P: wanna come over at 5?

Y: yea that sounds good :)

P: see u then ma good night

there it was again. ‘ma’

you smile into your pillow and when your done, you pick up your phone, scrolling in your phone app to find your boyfriends contact and press call.

B: hey ba-

Y: hey yea we’re over

B: what the fuc-

you hang up.

[potatotrash0]

also i wish we could play as a sassier mc bc it would be so much funnier to mess with kaito and jin that way. mc you have a voice STAND UP………

…….frostheim i know what you are

[cheolaholic]

ring of love; csc (06)

summary; agreeing to join vernon spectate an underground boxing match wasn't how you'd expect to spend your friday night. you also didn't expect to see seungcheol, someone you've lost contact with for years, become a part of the ring.

modern! au • boxer! au • hhu focused • multiple kinds of tropes • fluff, angst, smut

chapter warnings: brief mentions of crimes (drugs, robbery, abduction), brief mentions of sex and hormones

a/n;; i have risen from the dead, everyone. I know it's been a while since I last updated (4 months 💀) But, please enjoy this chapter and hope that I do not disappear for another few more months until the next update lmao. Also posting this update while I'm on my lunchbreak lmao

You didn’t think that figuring out a place to meetup with Seungcheol would be difficult, but alas, it was. The places Seungcheol had initially suggested were either too far or the price range of their menus could amount to at least a month’s worth of your rent. Maybe it was the years of not seeing him that you had forgotten his parents had their own businesses, which obviously, means money is never an issue for Seungcheol.

After telling him you had to commute to some of the places or either needing to Uber or have Vernon pick you up, Seungcheol found a decently priced cafe near your place with a cosy looking interior design. Having finally settled down on a place to meetup, you now began to stress about an outfit.

You tore through your entire wardrobe before finally panic-calling Aki who agreed to help, on the condition that you tell her everything that will go down at the meetup. You agreed and after hours of outfit try-ons, you settled on a brown oversized sweater, a black pleated skirt, paired together with doc martens loafers.

“Are you sure this looks okay…?” your voice full of uncertainty as you stared at your reflection. Aki, who was on video call on your phone that’s propped up on your dresser, rolls her eyes at your question. “Babes, you’re literally so pretty right now that you could be someone’s gay or bi-awakening. Don’t worry, okay? I'm sure he’s equally nervous of finally seeing you again after what? Almost half a decade?”

“That's a dramatic way to say almost 5 years, but okay.”

“Just be your normal self, ___. Even if he’s changed appearance or physique wise, I'm sure he’s still the same ol’ Seungcheol from more than a decade ago. Well, at least for you, it’s more than a decade.”

“That is true… thanks for helping me out, Aki.”

“Anything for my bestie. Now, go and see your prince charming!”

“Can you and my parents stop calling him my prince charming?” you whined, only for Aki to shoo you through your phone.

“Tell me the deets afterwards! I want all the nitty-gritty - don’t you dare leave anything out!”

Seungcheol got to the cafe an hour earlier than the agreed meeting time. He tried to get some sleep but the adrenaline of being able to see you again kept him up. Sitting at the booth and occasionally glancing at the door, he would try to come up with things to talk about. Of course, he knew he had to explain why he dropped off the face of the earth for years without contacting you. But, he still needed to think of other ways to fix the rift between you both.

“Seungcheol…?”

When he hears his name being called, he lifts up his head and it was as if time had stopped. There you were, shyly standing in front of him as you fiddled with the hem of your skirt. A few seconds after he realised he was staring, Seungcheol snapped back into reality. “Have a seat, __.” Ushering to the seat across him, flashing you that gummy smile that still sent your heart running for miles.

You did as told and after placing both your orders to the waitress who came over, Seungcheol nervously rubbed the back of his neck. “So… I didn’t know you were friends with Vernon…” he began, “Let alone a best friend since, y’know, Aki.”

“Yeah, I didn't really have a choice when he came up to me with that awful tie-dye during orientation. I was so glad when he got rid of it with how much my eyes were hurting.”

“That's Vernon for you,” he chuckles, “When he said he invited a friend, I was expecting maybe a classmate since Mingyu did the same with him.”

As you fidget, Seungcheol takes notice and leans his elbows on the table, reaching out a hand. “Hey, no need to be scared, okay? I know it’s been years and you’re most likely overthinking things right now, but I'm still me.”

“Where did you go…?” you asked in a shaky voice, “You just… ghosted me and later on, I found out you’ve been in Seoul for a while. Why… why didn’t you try to reach out?”

Withdrawing his hand and thrumming his fingers against the surface of the table, Seungcheol was silent for a moment before explaining himself. “That weekend when I headed to Seoul to check out Pledis, they had told my parents I qualified for one of their pre-u programmes. But, the slots in Korea were full, and if I did want to join the programme, I had to join their partnering unis abroad. They had Carat University in Japan and An Ode University in Melbourne.”

You quietly listened to Seungcheol as he continued.

While he wouldn’t mind waiting for an empty slot to be available in Pledis but, his parents had encouraged him to enrol into An Ode as they had an apartment in Melbourne. In the event he didn’t want to stay on his own, they’d be more than willing to pay for his dormitory. “They said the enrolment opportunities for pre-u programmes like these are rare… And, since I was given the opportunity, they encouraged me to take the chance.”

“… And you did…”

“I missed you like crazy, _. But, I couldn't get your calls or texts, not even reply nor call you back because I had to wait two weeks to be able to get a new phone and sim card. When I finally did get them, you had changed your number…”

Your face went red with embarrassment at the memory. A few days after your return from Jeju, your parents had brought you to go shop for a new phone and you’ve decided to change your number in the process. Since Seungcheol had dropped off the face of the earth at the time, you thought it wouldn’t matter anyway if you had changed your number since what were the chances of him calling you?

Turns out you were wrong.

“When I finished the programme, I stayed in Melbourne for a year and a half for their business course before transferring back to Korea to finish it in Pledis.”

“That was… that was at least two and a half years ago. Seungcheol, are you… are you telling me within those two years you never bothered to even look for me?”

“I did! I went back to Daegu to look for you, but your parents had told me you went to Pledis! I tried finding you all over the place, but for some reason you were never in my line of sight!”

“Wait, wait,” holding up your hand in disbelief to stop him from talking, “you went to see my parents? They never told me anything!”

“I begged them not to tell you!” he defended, “I wanted it to be a surprise! I wasn’t expecting our first meeting after years to be you witnessing me boxing!”

“How did you get into it in the first place though?” you asked, the waitress arriving with a tray of drinks and some cakes, “I heard you’ve been underground boxing for a year now.” Taking a sip from his drink, Seungcheol stared out the window, watching random cars and pedestrians pass by.

“I’ve been underground boxing for two years, actually, when I was back in Melbourne.” he answered. “A senior saw me during one of my Taekwondo matches during pre-u and invited me to try boxing. A few months later, he introduced me to this trainer who was looking to coach someone for a boxing match and everything just kinda fell into place.”

As a blanket of silence fell over the table, you muttered out a small “I missed you…”. Seungcheol gives you a smile, reaching out his hands to hold yours as he brings them to his lips, placing a kiss on your knuckles – an action that causes you to blush. “Well, I’m here now. I’ll make it up to you, alright?”

“I expect good food.”

And he replies with a sentence that has the butterflies you thought had died start fluttering again.

“Anything for you, pup.”

“...No…”

“Yes.”

“No… You’re lying…‘

“___, I swear on my life, I am not lying.”

“Ew, Cheol, that’s gross!” You whined, pushing at his shoulder with a disgusted expression, “I don’t need to hear about your sex life – much less a three way you had!”

Seungcheol laughs at your reaction, “Hey, if you think mine’s gross, you sure hear Mingyu’s. Who knew models were so… hormonal.”

“Lalala, I’m not listening!”

After your catch-up lunch at the cafe, you brought Seungcheol to the park near your apartment. The area enroute… was sketchy, to say the least, and that was putting it lightly. If you were to remove the sugarcoating, it looks as though you could get mugged or abducted if you lady luck was having a bad day and decided to take it out on you.

“No offence, pup –”

“Non taken.”

“But, at least three blocks of your housing area looks like they’re being used for drug operations. I know you can fight for yourself – I mean, I taught you how to defend yourself when we grew up together. But, have you ever thought about… y’know, moving to a safer area?” 

You had thought about moving out, but with the current rent prices being equivalent to a monthly mortgage payment, the dingy area is the best you got.

“I mean… It can’t be that bad, right…?”

“___, look at the place… I know you value your independence but, surely there are studios or apartments for rent that are safer and more… well lit, y’know?” Seungcheol notices how you began to pick at your nails, a habit he’s noticed when you both grew up and a sign that you were either anxious, nervous or both.

“Budget restraints?”

“Yeah… This is the best I got, Cheollie… Anywhere close to campus is expensive, and a decent apartment is… well… if I had a mortgage, I could pay that off, y’know…? I have a part-time job – I work as a barista at one of the cafes near campus. It pays decently, kind of higher than the usual amount part-timers get per hour but, let’s say I move out and rent an apartment near campus – I wouldn’t be left with much money after paying for rent and the utility bills…”

“Ever thought of getting roommates?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, Mr Choi, I am not a people’s person. Ask Hansol, it took me a year to actually open up to him, even after he’s been introducing me as his best friend for months.”

“Your parents should have property in Seoul, right? Why don’t you stay there instead?”

“Because I’m an only child, Seungcheol. My parents will pay the bills even if I was willing to fork up my own cash!”

Adding on the fact that you had no transport of your own, the dingy little apartment area really did seem like the best option for you – at least, for Seungcheol he was still… iffy (rightfully so, he wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you).

“Any public transport nearby?”

“There’s a bus stop that’s a 5 minute walk away from my place.”

“Okay…”

What you forgot to mention however, was the lack of reliable or functioning light source of said bus stop to your apartment’s lobby. But, surely, it wasn’t a detail worth mentioning to Seungcheol, you thought to yourself.

“Y’know, I thought your crush on Seungcheol would actually die down within those 5 years of no-contact.” Aki confessed as you typed on your laptop, phone propped up against one of your pen organisers. “I mean, it kind of did? But, instead of you being over over him, it’s more like… it’s more like your feelings weren't as obvious as back then.”

“Was it that obvious though?” you asked, turning your head to look at her as she shrugged her shoulders, “Not gonna lie, you’re pretty good at hiding it. I only noticed it after spending more time with you and noticing the subtle signs. If anyone was observant enough, they’d notice. But, to those that just look over the surface, not really.”

“...Do you think Cheol noticed…?”

“___, I might offend you and almost all the male species out there with this statement but, boys are dumb.” Aki moves her position from her desk to her bed, lying down on her stomach. “You both have been friends since you were kids so he should be picking up the signs. If he doesn’t then he’s either dumb or playing dumb.”

There was a moment of silence between the two of you before you asked, “Do you think he knows I like him and he’s just playing me?”

“You and I both know Seungcheol isn’t like that,” Aki began, “Your well-being is a priority to him – you’re a priority to him. Maybe he’s never thought about it, y’know? You both grew up together, maybe the lines were blurred to him.”

“But… what if he is, and he’s just really good at hiding it?” you asked again, the anxiety and nervousness eating you up as you thought about Seungcheol taking advantage of your feelings.

“___, darling, you and I both know Seungcheol always puts his loved ones above him – he makes them a priority. And, he’s always put you first, even up to the point he dropped off the face of the earth!”

Aki could still see the uncertainty on your face, which by all means, you had every right to feel that way. After all, Seungcheol had gone no-contact for 5 years and a person can change a lot within those 5 years. Who’s to say he actually is just a bastard who would step on people’s heads just to get what he wants. “Why don’t you start spending more time with him? Like the good ol’ times!” Aki suggested.

“Rekindle the friendship, y’know? Sure, you both had a catch up session today, but you and I both know that isn’t enough. 5 years worth of catching up – and not to mention, I need to kick his ass.”

You let out a small laugh, “You’ll need to fly over to do that, Aki.”

“Hey, don’t tempt me, ___.” Aki playfully warns, narrowing her eyes at you and pointing a finger at the screen, “I have the money to do so, and I will.”

“God, Aki…”

"Hey, Seungcheol isn't the only one that would do anything for you and has the money to do so."

[0212] cheollie: hey, ik it's pretty late rn [0213] cheollie: but, i just wanted to text you this before i forget [0213] cheollie: thanks for agreeing to meet up with me today and hear me out about my whole disappearance and lost all contact [0213] cheollie: and i'm really, really, really glad that you still see me as that boy you grew up with all those years ago [0214] cheollie: and i really had a great time catching up with you today [0214] cheollie: and i'll always be here for you if you ever need me, ok?

Seungcheol stared at the text he's about to send out.

i'm always going to be right by your side no matter what

After silently debating with himself, he deleted the draft and set his phone on his nightstand, laying in his bed as he stared at the ceiling of his dark bedroom - contemplating as he slowly drifted off to sleep.

taglist (unable to tag a few ㅠㅠ)

@yoonclip @1004luvangel @catjunhui @mystikha @spk93 @tinkerbell460 @yoozuku @dnylwooo @christinewithluv @limbomoon @plutoxxxworld @i-give-up-1234 @m1ngyuc0re @yunloyal @leclercloverbot @bettybeako @billboard-singer @ocyeanicc @krupyadoorrahe @seobinnieshi @xcynthiaaa @k411z @disneyprincesshuri @sunnyapp @khxsh @staygenezy @loufi8iepuff @ursweetener @noisypapergalaxy @wonwootakemyheart @sugainpinksweater @leah-rose03 @thisisnotthelastofus @yearnoclock @kwonhoeshi @ohmygodwhyareallusernamestaken @ru-lin @deobiforever @belladaises @cheoliekkuma @duskunt1ldawn @hyneyedfiz @marshmallowshouse @ak6ko @chwevernonlover @jejuboo-s @tsukinluv @atinytinaa @gyros-cum-sock @soupbinlily @jungwoos-luvr @ener-energy @watermelon-sugars-things @cyberpunkhwx @ddaengpotate @nightwingsrobbinhoods @chaerrylov3r @joshuaahong @wonussmile @uliceeeeeeee @wonwoo24 @shinetogether17 @simplejihoon @luvkpopp @minhui896

[professorspork]

Do you have any new gelphie pairing faves or analyses from your Great Wicked Watch?

OOH THANK YOU FOR ASKING

things are still In Progress, so really the only true conclusion I've reached so far is one I already could have told you: the earlier gelphies are way less gay. Like, mad respect bc they were what we had at the time and there's still plenty there to dream on, but compared to how later actresses play them it's really NOT that queer of an interpretation of either role, and isn't as much to my taste. Chenzel just doesn't Do It for me; Megan Hilty's Glinda is deeply affectionate but it's in such an obvious "hey soul sister" way I don't see My Glinda in her.

some random thoughts in no particular order:

I was very taken with Julia Murney and Kendra Kassebaum's chemistry, though I didn't find any one performance of theirs where I felt like it sustained throughout both acts the way I'd like.

I can now say with confidence it's no WONDER I didn't realize I was a Glinda Girlie in my youth, bc my first live Glinda was Jennifer Laura Thompson and her Glinda is among the colder ones (though not as cold as Kate Reinders SHE DOESN'T EVEN TOUCH ANA GASTEYER ONCE IN FOR GOOD GIRL WHAT GIVES). like it does make me LAUGH when, for example, Galinda says "but that was the milkflowers' fault" as though it ends in "you moron" but it is not my Preferred Reading

(on the other hands Nessas who embrace being a self-absorbed cunt start to finish are fabulous and I love them)

I've surprised myself with how fondly I latched onto Shoshana "Smol Bean" Bean's portrayal of Elphaba bc I usually prefer my Elphies far more acerbic, but her view of the character is so crystal-clear and consistent throughout I can't help but be taken with it

more Elphabas should do the "I'm melting" pose during "so happy I could melt" the way Stephanie J Block does

it is very hard to find a good Fiyero who actually has chemistry with BOTH girls, but a bad Boq will lowkey ruin the show in a way a bad Fiyero honestly doesn't

more Dr Dillamonds should refrain from touching their students sir you are a PROFESSOR, SIR--

my inventing something post was inspired by Annaleigh Ashford's first Popular, which I feel really captured something critical in how it unfolded of like... it's like you can almost watch Galinda start getting addicted, it's this compulsion, how the touches become more frequent and more intimate and she doesn't understand why but can't seem to control herself, and it's such a classic pre-gay-awakening "I don't know I just think she's REALLY COOL and want to be her BEST FRIEND" take on it that I loved

our rewatch has just entered the Katie Rose Clarke era, and as someone who started with her and Willemijn it's fascinating to go back to her first tour with Carmen and see how genuinely she WAS trying to play the scenes with Fiyero straight which she eventually gave up on lmao

okay I could probably keep yammering but I'm gonna cut it off there for now

[matan4il]

911 ep 704 first watch reactions

IDK if anyone else will talk about this, but Josh and Maddie were a great comedic start to this ep! XD Also. Interesting choice to give Josh, the currently only openly gay male character on the show, more lines again. Is it a reminder he's there, so he can be a part of Buck's journey later on? *eyes emoji* We'll see.

All of these pretty women (I should also mention that as a non-American, all the gasped, "It's Joey!" "It's you!" "It's me!" are missing me by a kilometer. Whoever Joey is, he's not Madonna yet, if you want me to get excited about him, 911, you're gonna have to give me a bit more than a single name), hitting on Buck and Eddie, and the ease with which both men turn them down... Sure, this is a part of the set up regarding Buck, and Eddie technically has an excuse, but also. Most straight, taken men would at least be tempted. They'd at least bite their lips with frustration. Have some reaction. But not Eddie. And when you remember that he was distinctly not taken in ep 204, but still had the same reaction to pretty young women hitting on him and Buck... I know this ep is all about celebrating the 'oh' moment of another guy, but that's not gonna stop me from rooting for Eddie to have similar realizations eventually (and get together with that certain other guy *cough*).

LMAO So, Buck is meeting up with the guy who's gonna be his sexual awakening, a man who's good looking, gave him a thrill already, is an impressive fighter pilot, and the first thing he can think of to say, is blurt out Eddie's name? LMAO Oh, this boy really is down bad...

Man, that bit where Tommy tells Buck he can have it both ways, he can get certified and continue to serve with the 118. Thanks for the beautiful foreshadowing, 911. Buck saying he's keeping his options fluid... Holy shit, the show really wasn't holding any punches back.

OMG, why is Harry old enough to be making Bathena waffles (and then turn out to be involved in an altercation)? I swear, he was still on baby formula just a second ago. How did 7 seasons just fly by!?

Buck getting jealous over Eddie and Tommy sparring. Considering the fact that Buck was the one getting all hot and bothered over semi-naked Eddie in the gym in 201, and ready to jump into a boxing match with him, this is making me wanna punch a wall myself. The symbolism in this ep is NOT very veiled. Add to that Eddie mentioning how he and Tommy met and just... clicked. In the same conversation that reminds us of Buddie' in 201's first meeting, where they clicked? (even though they were both too dumb to realize in what way) 911, just let me catch my breath for a second challenge! Also, Eddie is dating Tommy more intensely than he is Marisol? Okay. Duly noted. These firefighters are both so freaking hetero, I'm sure that's exactly what every casual viewer was telling themselves at this point. And poor Buck, getting his hopes up that Eddie is asking him when he's free, so they can go on a date themselves, only to be let down. Poor baby boy. But this feels like it's spelling out the answer to whether Buck's jealous over Tommy or Eddie. So, yay for Tommy helping him with his bi awakening. But it's clear who's really occupying Buck's heart and mind, and whose time he wants. FOR SIX FREAKING SEASONS NOW.

Oh, it's continuing, the show really is trying to kill me, having Buck complain to Maddie about how often Eddie has been seeing Tommy. The annoyance with how cool Tommy is, that's exactly Buck's reaction to Eddie in 201. So, if Buck and Tommy will then kiss, what does that say about what Buck didn't even realize he wanted to happen with Eddie back then, hmmm? I also love that Buck wants to be the cooler "dad's friend" in Christopher's eyes. That's his son, you can't take that away from him. And of course, Maddie was his first confidante about his feels for Eddie, she was the first one to call out his boy crush (in 204) and to hear Buck automatically think about Eddie, when he hears, "He's cute!" (in 206). It's so freaking right that she is now the witness to Buck's bi jealousy meltdown. I love her calling him out on it. "Is it circled with a heart around it?" Honestly, this is better than front row seats at the Bachelor mansion. I'm just disappointed in Chimney and his imaginary popcorn that he doesn't get to witness all of this firsthand and get what it means. Letting down all Bachelor fans out there, Chim. -_-

And then Buck's back in the gym, staring at Eddie, feathers ruffled. Am I going to make it to the end of this ep? Who cares? This is fantastic! XD He tries to catch Eddie's attention with the little weightlifting without a spotter stunt, and it's specifically him. Chim turned out to also be impressed by how cool Tommy is, but Buck is circling Eddie, like a clueless Jane Austen heroine, about to become a hit teen romance movie. Ravi falling for Buck's weightlifting attention trap is just getting in the way. Chim asking about Buck's weird basketball hugging session is nothing but a way to get to the ball game with Eddie. Okay, I'm at the point where I need to be chewing on imaginary popcorn.

Athena is one of the strongest characters on television, ever. Precisely because she's not just tough when she has to be, she has a heart, too. The scene where she told the woman she accidentally killed her own son was hard to just watch. IDK how she actually did that. I'm not sure if viewers who aren't moms get it, 'coz I didn't until I went with my sister through her pregnancy. Motherhood changes you forever. You feel your kid moving inside you. You bond with them in the most intimate way possible before they're even born. You go on a wild journey with them after, where every second counts, let alone every hour and every day, when they're hungry, when they're cold, when they struggle to sleep, when they finally do, when they take their first step, when they fail and fall... The love and protectiveness are something different to anything else in life. IDK how Athena, who gets all of this, managed to break the news to this mother, that she had unknowingly killed her own kid. I think to me, this has to be the most devastating scene in the entire history of the show. IDK if I'll be able to watch it again.

When basketball game scene starts, and Chimney knows something's up, I was already chuckling. But then Eddie sees them, and the first thing isn't expressing joy that his best friend is there, it's asking how did Chim talk him into this. "He always says no to me." They BOTH always talk about each other in romantic coded language, it's not just Buck, and in the same ep where we get bi Buck confirmed, that makes me froth at the mouth...

"So I'm your basketball beard. I feel so bonded." Not Chimney calling Buck out, while using the term for closeted gay guys using someone as a cover. I AM SCREAMING. Thank you, 911 gods!

That montage with Eddie and Tommy high fiving each other right in front of Buck's salad face, while their muscles glisten in the sun, and Top Gun-like music plays in the background, like the biggest nod to the volleyball scene from that gayest movie ever made, which we already had Buddie paraphrasing in 201. I am fine, this is fine. I love this burning kitchen I'm sitting in.

Buck causing Eddie's injury because of his jealousy (which again, is not about Tommy. He made an impression on Chim as well, who was screaming, "Buck, I'm open! I'm OPEN!") and not even getting to offer some help, because Tommy's already on it... I hope ABC is happy with their viewership dropping next week, because they've killed every Buddie shipper in the fandom.

"Well, I'm not a 14 year old girl..." Both Buck and Maddie together: "So stop acting like one." Love this scene, love these siblings, love that the reference with the two blonde Sarahs sounds platonic, but it's also from a past season on the Bachelor. 911 really wants you to know this is romantic, and Buck's going through a late sexual awakening in his 30's, instead of in his teens, even before he's able to see it.

So, the conclusion to Buck and Maddie's convo is that he needs to talk to Eddie, to make it better, yet the person he ends up talking to is Tommy, and that leads to the bi awakening kiss... It's a classic rom com switch, we hear a knock at the door, we expect it to be THE love interest, showing up at the right time, and it's someone else, making the protagonist's romantic journey so close, but about to get longer. It's further emphasized by a shot over Tommy's shoulder, in a way that he can easily be confused for Eddie, and which is reminiscent of moment when we saw Buck standing at Eddie's door, or both of them there toegther.

It was a nice talk, I loved Tommy saying he can't replace Buck, I def noticed how he went to talk about it in the context of Chris instead of Eddie (hmmm... I wonder why), but my fave part was how Buck glowed when he heard his son doesn't shut up about him. ^u^ He even took a second to look away from Tommy, to take it in with a huge grin. Then Buck and Tommy start warming up to each other, moving towards flirtation, and what comes out of Buck's mouth? "You don't have to tell me how great Eddie is." That's not how you flirt with a guy, Buck. I liked Tommy kissing him, and Buck not recoiling. Like he's always known on some level, but could never do anything about it. "That's better than fake mouth static." LOL The stuff that great romance is made of.

I'm SO happy Buck is getting this storyline of realization he's bi, I've thought it would be important and that the show has laid some groundwork for it since 107, and I don't mind that Tommy is the "romantic other" who helps him with it. I do believe this is important bi representation in and of itself, away from Buddie, and if nothing else ever comes of it, this is still beyond wonderful. In 2024, we still barely have any characters who start out presumed straight, and are allowed the freedom to figure out that maybe their sexual orientation is different than what they thought, despite the fact that in reality, human sexuality is complex and confusing and a mess. So this really matters to me, as a human being, and as a queer person. That said, I can't ignore the past 5 seasons, and the way this storyline played out, with Tommy kissing Buck, but the whole thing being emotionally centered around Buck's feelings for Eddie, it means that whether they go canon or not (and at this point, I find it hard to believe they'd make Buck canonically bi, taking this HUGE risk of homophobic backlash, and not go there with him and Eddie, but just in case they don't, I wanna say this), it'll always be Buddie for me.

Thank you for reading! If you're looking for more, you can find my s7 reactions tag here, and more of my Buddie meta and content in my pinned post. xoxox

[whatonearthisgoingon]

Part 1. of Aaro's Hear Me Out List!!!

Some of my moots (@/werewolfadmirere) were concerned about a Hear Me Out I did recently, and did not expect that level of freak from me. Well moot, I am a freak, and you're gonna see how bad it is! We are strictly doing the non-human characters for the first two parts of this list; if I feel like it, I'll keep going from there!

This is not ranked, this is just as I think of them. No real order.

Sadly only 30 pictures are allowed per post, so I'm going to reblog and continue this list for a while, and will link all the other parts on each part. Each part will have 15 characters, as I'm giving each character 2 pics.

I was also informed I must tag the moots. You will be tagged underneath all this.

TW: Sex talk, obviously, it's a hear me out cake.

Part 1. Part 2.

(Please remember viewers, I am a teenager, meaning other teenagers on the list isn't creepy af.)

#1. Venom from Marvel

Alright, if you follow me, this is probably not a surprise to you at all. I mean, I literally run a side blog of this idiot.

But man, what can those tendrils and tongue do? (Hint from fanfiction: a lot!!)

#2. Sarah Kerrigan, Queen of Blades from StarCraft 2

The original hear me out that started this. Queen of Blades Kerrigan was an awakening when I played her as a kid. Her story is also just sick af. But yeah; mama that could kill me. Would let her infest my terran ass and turn me into a weird little alien creature. Just hopefully prettier than Alexei.

#3. Sadako Yamamura/Samara Morgan

I don't know; her coming out of the well and then the TV was cool as shit to 11 year old me. Would let her kill me if she felt like it. She's a vibe I'm down for.

#4. Xenomorph from Alien (1979/1986)

Diva. They cool, and I'm down to hit. Would I die? Yeah. Would it be painful. Incredibly. But still; damn.

#5. Genya Shinazugawa, specifically in his demon form.

My traumatized baby turns into a traumatized and angry king (even more than normal, lmao). And he just looks adorable and I love him so much. Would be down to hit so hard.

#6. Koro-sensei from Assassination Classroom

Is it the personality? Is it the setting? I don't know. It's probably once again the tentacles- Anyway he's a vibe and I love it; would so hit.

#7. La Muerte from Book of Life

Queen of the Land of the Remembered! Not only was this movie a vibe, she was a vibe! Is she a skeleton? Yeah; but I would take her out and let her hit. She can take my life early and I'd go to the Land of the Dead with her!

#8. Sammy Lawrence from Bendy and the Ink Machine

I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the murder axe; I do love a good killer. But yeah, during that video game phase, he got on the list.

#9. G.I Robot

No, cause why is he such a sweetheart. I don't care what he's done- I love him. There are of course a few different ones, but I love him and I'm so down. I mainly saw him when he was working with Bride; speaking of-

#10. The Bride from DC.

The Queen always slays, and she's fine as hell. Love her. Would let her sleep with me, or shoot my brains out. Whatever works.

#11. Death from Puss in Boots

That boy slayed, and he's such a presence, y'know? Like, the Death Whistle scene in the movie!? God damn; take me down to hell hun.

#12. Maleficent both movies.

Evil fairy with a tragic backstory? Sign me up. Evil fairy who's just evil fairy? Even better. Just, she's, like, always looking good I swear. Slay (me)

#13. Rosie from Hazbin Hotel

Cannibal Demon Queen; would let her have a bite. She's a vibe, and I love her, and we would bitch about Susan together.

#14. Lady Alcina Dimitrescu from Resident Evil.

I'm pretty sure she was every gay girls awakening, right? At least one of them. Yeah, she can step on me, drink my blood, kill me, fuck me, whatever. I am down. Yes, this includes the final form, but I couldn't get any good pics with good resolution; just look it up

#15. Proxima Midnight from Marvel.

Love her. She's a queen. Would let her stab me with that staff- She was beautiful in Infinity War, and the comics. Again, love her.

@acelovesremuslupin @adanmwere @alizardsusername @astrawantssleep @bikisser23 @birdiefromafar @blitzstoneshouldbecanon @bluebasie @cool-lesbian-is-here @cuculoooo @destroy-the-binary @getsuuna @gigiyuu @gimmiecandy @harrietthespywastaken @hey-look-at-the-stars @ineffablelyqueerwolfstarshipper @lllaced @lookitsabooknook @love-hate-love00 @luna---lovegood @mentallyillwacko @mikeywaysbass @mochamoony @moonchild311 @moonsrunes @moonyscribe @mrecury42 @mxlovey32 @my-castles-crumbling @not-a-gay-fangodess @olympushaze @permetutotheworld @reaperlight @reggblkk @serpentine-starlight @siriuslyobsessed394 @siriuslysirius101 @sk1llz-heeler @starman-01 @studying-n-running @symbiotic-slime @tired-writer-in-progress @tistheraven @theduchessr @the-stars-in-between @thepicklekingog @unnecessaryheadache @urpants @welcometoh0rr0rwood @werewolfadmirer @whos-fin-anyway @xxlady-lunaxx @yes-ofc-i-bite

[ryuttaeng]

could you possibly do either hcs or a fic of new itzy member reader who was the each of the girls gay awakening?? i feel like chaeryeong would be panicking and really nervous because she hasnt felt something like this and so strongly too 😭🥹

okay so you were added to the group members lineup at the very last moment, you barely knew any basic info about each members and nearly freaked out when you first actually met them. itzy’s reaction wasn’t so bad, but wasn’t very pleasant either…. at least at first. ever since you performed together, you grew closer to each members. how could they not notice how insanely beautiful you are??? and you were also kind but had a struggle with opening up to new people but anyway, you’re their bff now! or at least for now.

i guess yeji would be so dumbfounded when she realizes that she likes you??? and not in a friendly way??? girlie is so nervous about that fact and she just can’t handle it but to tell to her members but she can’t because they’ve never discussed same-sex relationship before 😭 she always thought she was into guys only, and even if she liked a girl, she would think it was just a friendly sympathy. yeji would also get so smiley around you and will often just smile to her own thoughts. if she will have enough courage to confess to you, she will make her best to do that in private, and also would try to be romantic. but my pookie is just so nervous, she will stutter and almost tripped over when she came 😭🤞🏻🤞🏻 thank goodness you just simply kissed yeji and asked her to be your girlfriend faster than her.

LIA MY BELOVED 😞😞😞 i think she will just simply accept the fact that you’re the first girl she ever liked as not a friend. eventually she’ll ask her gay friends how to confess to you properly and will ask some advices how to give you hints that she likes you lmao 😭 she will always touch your hand, always leaning on your shoulder during breaks on practices and just will rub circles on your arm while holding your hand and you’re just like 🤷🏻‍♀️ you’re okay w it and don’t really pay attention to it. lia would reveal her feelings by getting jealous when one of members were jokingly flirting with you 😭 she would just storm out of the room, making you confused and go after her. asking her what’s wrong and she will kiss you quickly, and after that lia would get so shy 😭😭🤞🏻 but you just chuckle and hug her tightly, kissing her cheek.

ryujin will just go 🧍🏻‍♀️ when she realizes that she have feelings for you. girl would occasionally flirt with you but you just laughed it off, thinking it’s just her personality and she will just be like “oh well yep 🧍🏻‍♀️”. she would complain to other members that it would be easier to have feelings for some guy and not you instead, but you come into the room with “have feelings for who?” and bae will just be “no one 🧍🏻‍♀️” help 😭😭🤞🏻how she would confess? she would get so wistful one day and it made you feel worried for her. “are you okay ryu?” and she will just automatically nod and not pay attention to anyone. at the end of the day you’ll sit down beside ryujin, telling her that you’re worried about her, and she will just go “i think i like you, y/n. no- i don’t think, just- oh well….” 😭😭😭 she’s so nervous but you calm her down by kissing her nose aww

I AGREE W YOU ON CHAERYEONG. she’s my cutie that nearly freaks out when her friend told her that she has feelings for you 🤞🏻😭 i also think that she will distance herself from you to reflect about her feeling towards you and it will also affect you by making you worried about chae. members would notice that something about you two is wrong and would try to do something about it, for example, they would interrogate chaer that is there’s bad blood between her and you? but she would get so nervous that she would just straight say that she has feeling for you 😭😭 other members would support ryeong and tell some advices how to get closer w you and how to confess. one day members would call you to help them out with something but once you’re at the place, you see only chaeryeong in the room, beautifully dressed and nervously fidgeting her fingers 😭 she would confess to you after a few minutes of overthinking, so scared about your reaction but! you took her hands in yours, telling her that her feelings are mutual and she’s just so happy to hear that 😭😭😭🤞🏻

bae yuna would giggle whenever looking at you and leaving you wondering what was that. she would feel so lightheaded about her feelings to you, that she almost forgot to do or take something. i feel like she would have some diary where she writes about you, her feelings for you and overall just you. she would hide it really hard, thinking that you would think she’s some freak 😭 but aye ryujin would’ve find it first and tease younger shin for that 🤞🏻😭😭😭 but i’m sure ryu would’ve helped yuna to confess to you, giving her some advices. yuna would ask you out to the restaurant, and will calmly confess to you after eating. after hearing your ‘yes’ yuna’s face lit up and she just started kissing your face 🤞🏻😞

[frenchfrywrites]

it keeps repeating, will you please complete me?

MINORS DNI

Warnings: top cis male reader (implied switch), bottom Leona Kingscholar, internalized homophobia, self discovery, mild angst maybe?, gay awakening, very lowkey armpit/scent kink (?), blowjobs, eating ass, safe sex (a lil? Could be safer lmao), situationship turned relationship

“You've been staring at me a lot lately,” you'd meant it playfully, flirting with him as you've been doing for months, finally working up the nerve to call him on it. It started with little glances now and then, but for the last few weeks he's hardly taken his eyes off you. You've jerked yourself off too many nights in a row thinking about his beautiful brown eyes staring you down in the locker room.

Leona only ever willingly studies if you're there with him. He's a godawful study partner, when he does cram with you. He'll do anything but study. Usually he sleeps or bitches about something unimportant, but today he's been gazing at you— nearly unblinking— for the last 5 minutes. It's distracting.

You'd meant it lightly, trying to be cute, expecting him to blush and confess, but Leona looks scared. So often he boasts about being a predator, but right now he looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

“No I haven't,” he growls, “I'm not-” he swallows, his gaze hardening, “I haven't.”

This is not the reaction you'd thought you'd get, so your brows furrow in confusion.

“Uh yes you have? It's okay,” you smile, touching his hand with your own, “I've been looking too, you know” Leona jerks his hand away.

“I'm not gay,” he insists. And that makes you pause.

“I never said you were,” you reassure, “I only said you've been looking. That's okay,” relief slowly returns to his body. He clears his throat,

“Yeah? It's not weird?” He asks, sounding so unsure it makes your heart break. You remember this, what it felt like to start looking— so to speak— for the first time.

“Not at all. You can look all you want,” you hum, smiling softly, “I'd let you touch if you wanted, too,” you admit with a hum. Leona flushes, gazing at you openly now that he has permission.

The two of you leave it at that for now. You'll bet money that whatever this is will snowball into something more, but you're content if all he wants to do is look for now. 

-

The conversation comes back up again, as you thought (hoped) it might. Leona comes to you after gym, once the locker room has been cleared out. His hair is up, which is an unnecessary detail to note, except for the fact that it makes him look all the more handsome in your eyes. It also reveals his face to you, leaving him nothing to hide behind. 

He stands there silently for a second, completely still beside you, his gaze heavy and predatory. Your bag is packed, and you go to grab it and leave, since he hasn't said or done anything, but the sound of Leona's voice stops you.

“You said it was okay to touch.” It isn't a question. Confusion lasts for a second and then you're nodding, remembering exactly what it was that you said to him.

“Sure.” You set your bag down and turn to him, offering your body to his curious eyes and hands.

“It's fine, as long as we don't kiss,” he decides, placing his hands hesitantly on your pecs. You hum, absentmindedly. Whatever it takes not to scare him away.

“Take your shirt off,” he demands, tugging at the fabric. You do as you're told, your hands trembling slightly and your cheeks hot with flush.

Leona pokes and prods, pressing a finger against your nipple, cupping your chest like they’re boobs, feeling up your biceps, then lifting your arm to inspect your pits. He steps into your personal space— so close you could kiss him, but you won't— squinting at the hair there.

Then his face is pressed oh so close to your armpit, and he's smelling you. You almost can't believe that he's doing this and claiming not to be into you, or men in general. It takes everything in you not to laugh at how this seems like a bad gay porno come to life.

“You smell so much different than the girls I've been with,” he hums, pulling away to look at you as he says it.

“I imagine,” your voice comes out deep and quiet. Leona licks his lips, his tail flicking from side to side. Before you can say anything more he busies himself elsewhere, taking notice of your cock tenting your gym shorts.

He tugs your pants open, peering inside, then hums, impressed. He looks up at you, seemingly for permission; you nod, granting it.

Tugging your waistband down, he wraps his hand around your cock. You sigh softly, leaning against the lockers, and reaching out to hold onto his arm to ground yourself. As if magnetized to you, Leona leans further into your space, so close you can feel his breath against your skin as he holds you in his hand.

“It's weird touching another guy's…” he trails off, leaving the words unfinished as he rubs his thumb over your tip.

“None of the girls…” he trails off again, “well, maybe some of them did have dicks, I dunno,” he seems to be talking to himself, but you hum as if you're listening, “sometimes they just wanted to suck me off, y'know?” Your heartbeat is pounding so hard in your ears that you can barely even hear him, but you nod anyway. You choke on your spit before stammering,

“Is that something you'd want to do?” And you know you're pushing hard against the lines of the imagined box that Leona has trapped himself in, but the look he's giving you right now emboldens you.

He holds you tight in his fist, glaring you down, thinking it through, and then he's shrugging and falling to his knees before you.

“Whatever, sure,” he scoffs, “I just want to see what all the fuss is about.” You nearly laugh at that, instead giving him a sincere smile.

“Yeah, I get it,” you reach over to dig a condom out of your bag, “I like giving head,” you add, passing it to him. Shock morphs into frustration on Leona's face so quickly, if you blinked you would've missed it. He snatches the condom from your hand.

“Whose dicks are you sucking?” and oh, ain't that cute. He's jealous.

“Nun'ya,” Leona scoffs, and opens the condom, ignoring your bait. As he rolls the condom onto your length you mumble “nun'ya business,” to yourself, despite him not falling for your bit.

“If you keep annoying me, I'll bite you,” he threatens, smirking while showing off his canines. You tug on his hair, and Leona laughs out loud.

“So…” he hesitates now that he's so close to your cock, “what do I do?”

“What do you like?” you prompt, holding his head softly, mostly to have something to do with your sweaty, shaking hands. Leona returns his attention to your dick, sizing it up, before kissing his way from your tip down to the base. His hands station themselves awkwardly on your thighs, his thumbs digging into your inner thighs, causing a tingle to run along your skin.

Leona inhales your scent, completely beside himself, then sucks your head into his mouth. He'd joked earlier about his teeth, but he's very conscious of keeping them clear of your dick as he sinks you deeper into his throat.

He's a natural, taking you deep into his throat, sucking and swallowing around you like he's been dying to get a taste of you. His eyes flutter shut and his tail sways steadily from side to side as he begins to bob his head up and down along your length.

“Fuck,” you hiss, “feels good.” Leona hums at the praise, laving his tongue along the underside of your cock. He pulls up to suckle on your tip, taking a moment to catch his breath. His hand comes to stroke the bit of you that's not occupying his mouth.

You're unable to hold back soft moans and whimpers as he sucks you off, and they echo along the locker room walls. Thank god you're the only two in here.

Leona's quick to get you back down his throat, choking a bit along the way, but quickly recovering. If you weren't so focused on him you might've missed it, but you catch the soft purring coming from him. You rub the spot behind his ears, far too affectionate for what he's doing and how he came about doing it, but Leona leans into your touch, moaning along your length.

“Shit, I'm not gonna last much— hah — longer,” you confess. Leona hums in acknowledgement, bringing one hand to fondle your balls. “Leona,” you gasp, warning him as a shudder courses its way through your body, and then you curl forward, caging him in and holding his head flush against your cock while you fill the condom.

It's only when your body feels limp and sluggish with post-orgasmic haze that you release him and lean back against the lockers.

Leona coughs once your soft cock leaves his mouth, peeling off the condom, tying it off, before tossing it into the nearest trash can. You reach a hand out to help him up, and Leona takes it, shakily rising to his feet. He's hard, his cheeks flushed as he wipes drool from his chin. Pride is radiating from him as he gives you a smug grin.

“Yeah,” he coughs again, his voice thoroughly fucked, “I get why girls wanna do that.” Again, Leona doesn’t give you the chance to get a word in edgewise before he's turned around, and is swiftly making his way out of the locker room. “Thanks,” he calls just before the door can close behind him.

You stare at the door for a solid minute before tucking yourself back into your pants and sighing so loudly it echoes against the walls. You're so fucked for indulging in whatever the hell you've got going on with him. But if it leads to him blowing you more, you really can't complain.

-

“You said you suck dick?” Leona's question comes so suddenly out of nowhere, and he says it so nonchalantly that for a moment you honestly believe you've misheard him. The two of you are in the middle of a chess game in Leona's room, having not spoken about him sucking on your dick since it happened a couple of days ago. If it weren't for the evidence of your missing condom, you might've written it off as a particularly good and realistic wet dream.

“Yeah,” you move your rook, capturing his knight. Leona growls at your success, and goes quiet as he thinks. Naively, you assume that's the end of it.

“You'd suck mine?” he asks, finally moving his bishop near one of your pawns. It takes everything inside of you not to rush out a “yes,” showing him just how desperate you are. You pretend to think about it for a moment.

“Yeah,” you push your chair away from the table, “right now?” Leona shrugs,

“If you want to.” He sounds like he's doing you a favor, but his tail wagging excitedly and the excited grin on his face gives him away. He pushes his chair back and you get yourself between his legs.

Gently, you undo his pants, and pull his cock out. You drool, finally getting a good look at him. All you've had up until this point are crumbs, glances when he's changing before gym, and the tent you caught when he'd walked away with a hard on after sucking you off.

“Nice,” you hum, to quell any insecurity he may be having. Leona grins, his chest puffing up with pride. You stroke him to full hardness easily (a little too easily. You seriously wonder how long he's going to claim he's not into men).

“You got a condom?” you ask. Leona bristles,

“Shit—”

“When's the last time you had sex?” you ask, despite part of you not wanting to know the answer. He avoids eye contact,

“Been a couple'a months,” he huffs. You continue stroking him,

“You've gotten tested?” He nods,

“Yeah, 'm good,” you grin up at him,

“Me too,” you state before taking him into your mouth. Leona swears, his hands flying to your head. Hid dick may be impressive, but you're a good cocksucker, and take him down your throat with ease.

“Oh fuck,” he groans, staring down at you with wide eyes as you start sucking him off properly. Your hands roam, massaging his hairy thighs, rubbing circles into his flesh as you drool and swallow along his length. Even if you weren't harboring a dangerous crush on him, you think you'd worship Leona's cock all the same; his dick fits so nicely in your mouth, and his reactions have you hard and leaking in your pants, it'd only make sense to give him your best.

He's moaning your name, his voice cracking and pleading, leaking pre into your mouth, his hips jerking involuntarily, his hands tight on your head, purring up a storm. Selfishly, you want him changed from your blowjob. You don't want him looking at girls any more, you want him addicted to your mouth. You want to do something special for him.

You pull off his cock suddenly, and Leona whines openly, a “please,” nearly falling from his lips. He swallows his words when you rub his tip against your lips, stroking him, then kissing his groin. Your other hand, the one not stroking his cock, presses lightly against his rim.

Leona twitches, looking down at you with wide eyes. He looks fucked dumb just from having your mouth on him. Sweat drenched hair clings to his forehead, his mouth is open and panting, his chest heaving.

“Anyone ever put their mouth here?” you purr. Leona shakes his head dumbly. “Want me to?” He audibly gulps before nodding.

With his permission, you nestle yourself under his dick, and lick his hole.

“Fuck” he gasps, pre leaks like a faucet from his tip as you lick and massage his rim. You get him wet with saliva and drool. It'd be better with lube, and you'll apologize for the dull ache that will come later, but you're able to slip in a finger. At first, Leona tenses at the intrusion, and then as you lick and wiggle your finger he relaxes and opens up for you. He melts into the chair, his cock twitching as you continue to stroke him off.

He's close, and you'd rather not get cum in your hair or on your face, so you keep fingering him as your mouth returns to his cock. You take him down your throat, and curl your finger towards his prostate.

“Fuck— fuck, oh god, cumming, gonna cum, ah,” his orgasm must've sneaked up on him, because that's all the warning you get before he's filling your mouth. He flutters around your finger, his hips weakly thrusting his cock further down your throat as he rides out his orgasm. You steal a glance up at him as you swallow his cum, and you know you're going to be committing his face to memory, and jacking off thinking about it later.

“Off,” he murmurs softly once he goes soft in your mouth. You let his cock out of your mouth slowly, gently pulling your finger from his ass.

“Good?” you check, doing him the favor of pulling his pants up. Leona wipes the sweat from his brow, nodding.

“Yeah, you were alright,” he states. You laugh (because you know damn well that was better than “alright”) getting to your feet. Leona immediately looks at your hard cock tenting your pants. You almost expect him to ask to return the favor, but he pulls his gaze away from you, and back to the chessboard.

“Your turn,” he mumbles.

With a smile, you sit back down in your chair, and think about everything and anything that'd make your erection go away.

-

It only takes a day for Leona to knock on your door. He looks slightly awkward, a little embarrassed, but not ashamed.

“Can I come in?” he asks. You step back to let him in. He's quiet for a good second, avoiding eye contact.

“I can't stop thinking about it,” he finally states.

“It” of course being your finger in his ass.

“Neither could I, when I first tried anal,” you admit, plopping yourself down on a chair in the living room. Leona follows you, sitting stiffly on a chair close to yours. His typical lazy attitude is all gone right now, and honestly it's a little unsettling.

“You've tried it?” He asks.

You give him a look, one that says “are you kidding?” without you ever having to say the words. Leona huffs, knowing the question was a dumb one.

“How 'm I supposed to know you bottom,” he mumbles to himself, then turns to you, trying (and failing) to look smug and confident, “can I fuck you?” His lack of tact makes you crinkle your nose with ire.

“No,” you pause for a moment, considering it, imagining it. Your cock twitches with interest. “Not yet at least. You've done enough of sticking your dick in holes,” and now Leona's looking more comfortable. He looks hungry, staring you down. You try not to think too hard about how that’s all this all started.

“Anyways,” you rest your head on your hand, looking him down, “aren't you here to get fucked?” He chokes on his spit,

“No,” he snaps, then swallows and looks away, “I mean, I don't know, maybe?” and then he's looking at you all hopeful. He's so cute it makes you want to scream.

“C'mere,” you pat your lap, testing him. Leona does as he's told, straddling you, clearly very unsure of himself. You can't have that.

You let one hand hold his thigh gently, as one goes to touch the spot behind his ear, the place you petted when he sucked you off and purred. That seems to calm him down a bit, and he looks at you expectantly.

“Listen, if you want this, that's alright, but you gotta stop pretending you're something you're not,” Leona bites his lip, “I don't want you acting like you don't want this.” He nods, understanding. He swallows heavily,

“I don't know what I am,” he confesses quietly, barely above a whisper, “I don't know, I just know I—” he nearly looks like he's going to bolt. “I just like you, and I like how you make me feel. I want this,” with a shaky breath he continues, “I want you to fuck me.” You give him a reassuring smile,

“That's all I needed to hear, sweetheart,” Leona visibly relaxes at the pet name, “you don't have to know what you are, or whatever, I just needed to hear you be honest with yourself,”

“Fuckin' corny,” he huffs, but he's smiling down at you, more relaxed than you've seen him in weeks. You think he needed to be honest with himself more than you needed to hear it. You squeeze his thigh and ignore his comment,

“I like you too, and I want to kiss you,” you add. Leona nods, leaning down to capture your lips. It's sweet, and you're grateful you're able to do this before you fuck him stupid.

He takes the lead, deepening the kiss by licking against your lips. You tug on his hair, pressing your tongue into his mouth, licking inside until the two of you are panting. When you pull back to get a good look at him, a string of saliva connects your mouths. Leona's pupils are blown wide, and his hands hold onto the front of your shirt.

“I couldn't stop thinking about your mouth,” he whispers, whimpering when your hand comes down from his head to cup his face. He leans into your touch, opening his mouth when you press your finger against his bottom lip.

It's astounding how much more eager and pliant he is now that he's open with how he feels. He wants you bad, and it's obvious.

“Tell me more,” you prompt, caressing his face as your other hand presses against the tent in the front of his pants.

“As soon as you left, I had to jerk off again. I—” he hiccups a moan, grinding into your touch, “I tried to put my fingers inside again, but it didn't feel the same. It was good, but not enough,” his claws dig into the fabric of your shirt.

“Cute,” you murmur, and Leona's eyes widen. You wonder if any of the girls he's slept with ever dared to call him cute before. “I wanna take my time with you,” Leona whines at this, shaking his head in protest, “hey,” you squeeze his cock roughly, and he keens, “I said I want to take my time with you, but I guess I'll go slow next time, because you're aching for it, huh darling?” you coo, teasing him. Leona nods all the same, letting out a purr at the promise of a next time.

“You've waited so long already, haven't you?” you murmur, tugging on the hem of his shirt. Leona practically tears it off for you. The hand that was on his face moves to play with one of his nipples as you kiss him again.

“Fuck me,” he demands, against your lips, “fuckin' please,” he adds, halfheartedly.

“Get undressed for me,” you help him off your lap, smirking at how he takes a moment to find the strength to stand, and leave him— with a kiss before you go of course— to grab condoms and lube. Before you know it, you're naked on the chair, with Leona in your lap, holding onto your shoulders, slightly digging his nails into your skin.

“Alright baby, lift your hips a bit,” you instruct, so you can slip your now lubed fingers between his cheeks. Leona does as he's told, sighing when you press your fingers against his hole.

“Gotta relax,” you remind him, moving his hair to the side so you can kiss at the place where his shoulder and neck meet. Leona wraps his arms further around your neck and slumps his weight against you, his cock hard and leaking against your abdomen.

“Yes,” he gasps as one finger slips past his tight ring of muscle and inside of him. “Yeah,” he moans, as it sinks deeper into him. You rub and press against his insides, and it's not long before you can slip in another finger.

“Ungh,’ he chokes when you scissor and fuck your fingers deeper into him, curling into his prostate, “yeah, yeah, more, fuck,” he babbles, grinding himself against your hand. His tail flicks from side to side, and he nuzzles into your skin, letting his canines graze your flesh as you stretch him open for your cock.

“Fuck me, I want it, I need it, please,” he whines once you get a third finger inside of him.

“Just a little longer,” you promise, feeling him rut and leak against your stomach. Leona growls, his patience running thin. You keep your word, and after a minute or so you slowly slip your fingers from him.

Leona sits back on your lap, quickly tearing open a condom and sliding it over your cock. He messily slathers lube along your shaft and then hoists himself up. With your help, your cock slides between his ass, and the tip presses against his hole.

“Let me know if it hurts,” you state, kissing his cheek gently. Leona purrs, lowering himself onto your cock. He cries out when the tip of your cock pops into him, and slides down fairly quickly onto your dick. He takes it like a champ, gasping and moaning like a bitch in heat as you fill him up.

“Oh my god,” he whispers once he's fully seated in your lap. You bite your lip, using every inch of energy to not thrust your hips up and fuck him. You let him adjust to the sensation.

Leona clings to you, panting, eyes wide. “Oh my god,” he whines again, “there's so much— it feels so— hah,” he buries his face into your shoulder, moaning your name, “move, please, fuck me,” he begs softly.

“Leona,” you moan, holding his hips gently and bucking your hips into him. Leona goes limp on top of you, which you expected. Part of you wishes you'd moved this to the bedroom, that you had him in missionary, or even doggy style instead, because fucking him like this is a lot of work. Luckily, you don’t think either of you will last long. 

“You’re doing so well for me,” you pant, squeezing and massaging his hips, “taking me so good, like you’re made for takin’ my dick, baby,” Leona flutters around you, keening at that. He’s purring and moaning and drooling on your shoulder, taking all you give him. 

It doesn’t take long at all for Leona. You wonder if he’ll be embarrassed about it later, but he cums within minutes, without warning, spilling all over your stomach with a weak moan of your name. You fuck him through it, and then still when he shivers. He moans, then whines, then finally groans, 

“Don’t you dare fuckin’ take your cock out of me.” Your hips twitch at his words, and lust pools within your loins. You don’t know how long you sit like that, with Leona warming your cock, catching his breath. 

“Keep fucking me,” it’s supposed to come off like a demand, but it sounds more like a plea. You obey, slowly fucking him, getting closer and closer to finishing. “Cum, inside of me, fuck me ‘til–” he chokes as your head brushes against his prostate, “until you’ve cum, fuck me,” he moans. 

“Gonna-ah cum,” you murmur, as you fuck him faster with each thrust, chasing your orgasm. Leona whimpers, 

“Please,” and it sends you over, lodging yourself deep inside of him and fucking your cum into the condom. 

“Good?” you ask once your hips still and you find your voice again. Leona nods, 

“Yeah, I guess,” he finally dislodges himself from your shoulder, leaning back and smiling at you, “I don’t know though. Maybe you should fuck me again so I can see if I really like it or not,” he flips his hair over his shoulder, and you’re half surprised he doesn’t wink to really sell the act he’s putting on. 

“You’re lucky I like you,” you huff, slapping his thigh gently. Leona laughs, his nose scrunching up cutely. “Let me clean you up, and then I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll forget your name.” 

Leona stops laughing at that, and instead licks his lips. “I’ll hold you to it,” he says gruffly, sealing the promise by leaning in and kissing you.

[alicentsgf]

I think the care and thought the yellowjackets writers put into this show re jackie shauna was hard for me to believe at first purely because of negative experiences from other shows- writers of other shows have made me feel sooooo dumb in the past for 'reading into things' with what I really thought were queer relationships (just an example, I shipped faberry pretty hard, idk if you were ever into glee, but one of those character's actions genuinely made no sense UNLESS she was in love with the other girl....and yet the writers mocked us in-show for even thinking that, cos they were dickheads). I'm not used to the showrunners being proffesionals and like, respecting the fans

Yeah i think the wlw community especially has always been treated very badly in this and we've just learnt to expect very little. We're so used to being gaslit and underprioritised its a struggle to believe what we're seeing with our own eyes sometimes lmao. No matter how obvious it all seems. I'm gonna be honest I watched glee but it was so long ago/I only watched a few seasons (and not even every episode fo them) so I don't know about that but I know it wouldn't be the only example of that kinda queerbaiting I've seen and its ... just shit honestly.

Its funny because I got that question about if its fanservice maybe, and like I get why people would wonder that i suppose, Jackieshauna is one of the key relationships fans are invested in. but a part of me is also like how can it be fanservice when its so in line with the literal pilot of the show? The thing that was created before a single fan had seen a second of the story. And then the whole first season just continuously gives us more context to strengthen the subtext that was in that pilot.

Idk. Like yeah I have criticisms of the show and writers but I do so far respect the seemingly genuine thought put into this particular aspect. I think for me its feels like they had a vision for Shaunas character and thats what the story has always revolved around. I personally don't think that vision has changed much since the pilot, her story was always going to play out the way it has, wilderness gay awakening and all, she was always meant to be read as queer. The writers denying it previously for the purpose of keeping the fans guessing because they do mean to address it, as they have this season, is not the same as them playing into it onscreen and then denying it when asked with no intention of having it evolve in any way, aka queerbaiting. Even if the two things can feel the same to fans who've learnt to expect the later.