#when they ask for help that's when you can engage

[imastoryteller]

Writing Angry Scenes: Tips to Avoid Melodrama and Make It Real

Anger can be one of the most intense, relatable emotions to read—and one of the trickiest to write. When handled well, an angry scene can pull readers deep into the emotional world of a character, building tension and driving the story forward. But when handled poorly, anger can easily slip into melodrama, making the character’s feelings seem overblown, forced, or even cringe-worthy.

So how can you avoid these pitfalls and write anger that feels real and compelling? Here are some tips to make angry scenes powerful without overdoing it.

1. Understand What Fuels Your Character’s Anger

To write anger authentically, you need to understand its roots. People get angry for complex reasons—fear, frustration, betrayal, grief, and even love. Ask yourself what’s truly driving your character’s anger. Are they afraid of losing control? Do they feel abandoned or misunderstood? Are they hurt by someone they trusted? Anger rarely exists in isolation, so dig into the deeper emotions fueling it.

When you understand the core reasons behind a character’s anger, you can weave those nuances into the scene, making the anger more relatable and layered. Readers will feel the depth of the character's rage, not just the surface heat of it.

2. Show, Don’t Tell—But Don’t Overdo It

“Show, don’t tell” is classic writing advice, but it’s especially crucial in angry scenes. Don’t rely on generic phrases like “She was furious” or “He clenched his fists in anger.” Instead, look for unique ways to convey how this specific character experiences anger. Maybe their voice drops to a deadly calm, or their eyes narrow in a way that makes everyone around them uncomfortable.

That said, showing too much can backfire, especially with exaggerated descriptions. Over-the-top body language, excessive shouting, or too many “flaring nostrils” can tip the scene into melodrama. Use body language and physical cues sparingly and mix them with subtler reactions for a more realistic portrayal.

3. Use Dialogue to Reveal Hidden Layers

People rarely say exactly what they feel, especially when they’re angry. Angry dialogue isn’t just about yelling or throwing out insults; it’s an opportunity to show the character’s deeper thoughts and vulnerabilities.

Consider using controlled, icy responses or unexpected silences. Maybe your character says something hurtful in a low voice rather than screaming. They might express sarcasm, avoidance, or even laugh at the wrong moment. Anger often carries hidden layers, and using these nuances can help your character’s dialogue feel genuine, even haunting, without falling into dramatic clichés.

4. Control the Pacing of the Scene

The pacing of an angry scene can be the difference between a powerful moment and a melodramatic one. In real life, anger doesn’t always erupt instantly; it can simmer, spike, or deflate depending on the situation and the character’s personality. Experiment with different pacing techniques to create tension.

You might build the anger slowly, with small signs that something’s brewing. Or maybe the character explodes suddenly, only to calm down just as quickly, leaving a chill in the air. Controlling the pace helps you control the reader’s emotional engagement, drawing them in without overwhelming them.

5. Avoid Clichéd Expressions and Overused Reactions

When writing anger, avoid falling back on clichés like “seeing red,” “boiling with rage,” or “blood boiling.” These phrases have been overused to the point that they lose their impact. Instead, get creative and think about how your character’s anger might feel specifically to them.

Maybe their skin feels prickly, or their jaw aches from clenching it. Think about details that are unique to the character and to the moment. By focusing on small, unique sensory details, you’ll help readers feel the anger rather than just reading about it.

6. Let the Setting Reflect the Emotion

The setting can be an effective tool to amplify a character’s anger without overstating it. Small details in the environment—such as the hum of a refrigerator, the slow ticking of a clock, or the distant sounds of laughter—can create a sense of contrast or isolation that heightens the character’s rage.

For example, imagine a character seething in a peaceful park or a quiet library. The calm of the surroundings can make their anger feel more potent. Or maybe they’re in a crowded, noisy room where they feel unseen and unheard, which fuels their frustration further. This use of setting can add depth to the scene without the need for dramatic gestures.

7. Let Consequences Speak for Themselves

An effective way to avoid melodrama is to let the consequences of the anger show its intensity. Characters don’t always have to yell or physically react; sometimes, a single choice can convey more than any outburst.

Perhaps your character cuts off a close friend or says something they can’t take back. Maybe they throw away a meaningful object or walk out in silence. By focusing on the consequences of their anger, you can reveal the impact without over-explaining it.

8. Let the Emotion Simmer After the Scene Ends

Anger is rarely resolved in a single moment, and its effects often linger. When writing an angry scene, think about how it will affect your character moving forward. Are they holding onto grudges? Do they feel guilty or exhausted afterward? Does their anger transform into something else, like sadness or regret?

Allowing the anger to simmer in your character’s mind even after the scene ends creates a more authentic and layered portrayal. It shows that anger is complex and doesn’t just disappear the moment the scene is over, adding emotional weight to both the character and the story.

[endursent]

- My Partner Turned Into A Cat And I Don't Know How To Fix It

【 content; established relationship , fluff , humour , angst if you squint(?) , gn!reader 】

【 characters; aventurine , blade , dr. ratio , jiaoqiu , jing yuan , moze , sunday 】

【 premise; " Your partner has been struck with a curse of some sort which has turned him into a cat, you have no idea how to fix it nor how long it might take. Yet you also cannot help but be rather amused by the situation despite the uncertainty…" 】

【 note; might make more parts, who knows. also two one-shots/fics between gss chapters? in this writing economy? 】

【 word count; 3.303 | read on ao3 】

Aventurine;

You thought he’d be more agitated than this—usually Aventurine doesn’t stay still for long periods of time, always out and about, as if resting for too long or standing still raises the hairs on his neck as something rapidly approaches from behind him, unseen to anyone else.

  And yet now… he sleeps curled on the sofa in his apartment, you continue to scratch your head over the situation and how to fix it—you tried to ask Dr. Ratio, who you’ve only met once by chance with Aventurine, but he seemed knowledgeable, and you’ve seen some of his theses cited in arguments online…

  But all he replied with to your very concerned and urgent text message from Aventurine’s phone was; “lol”

  So you’re officially on your own, it’s bad enough that Ratio has rejected your plea for help and now knows about this, if it gets out to Aventurine’s coworkers…

  You sigh and plop yourself down on the sofa next to his curled form, yellow-orange fur swaying at your movements as he doesn’t even look up. For a moment, you’re a bit concerned… hopefully he’s still breathing.

  Reaching a hand out, one finger pointed straighter than others, Aventurine suddenly looks up—and closes his jaw around your finger. It’s a gentle hold, not exactly a bite despite the way it looks and the prick of his teeth. You blink at him, he slow blinks at you. “You’re so sleepy,” you note. Aventurine just licks your finger, letting go of it—though it was barely a hold.

  After having gotten what seemed to be a long-awaited proper rest over the span of two days, Aventurine seems to spring to life, not in the way he’s zooming all over the oversized apartment or knocking things over, he just seems very excited to see you when you come home from work—your partner might have turned into a cat for real, but your superior will NOT believe you—he sits on your thighs whether you’re on the couch, by the dinner table, kneeling to fix something under a shelf, anything. 

  He’s usually quite independent, so this somewhat clingy behaviour is surprising, but you don’t entirely mind, his fur is very soft.

  Aventurine didn’t even make a single sound when you bathed him after accidentally spilling some bolognese sauce on his back—he was wandering around your feet and nearly tripped you when you turned around. 

  Perhaps this temporary (hopefully) form has made him more confident in seeking the closeness to you he craves, the need for connection that he’s too reluctant to engage in most times despite being together for so long. 

Blade;

You squint your eyes open in the darkness of the night, why is it so hard to breathe suddenly? It woke you up, as if there was something hot and heavy on your chest.

  And there is, when your eyes adjust to the darkness, you see large flame-coloured eyes staring at you. Blade’s pitch black fur blends into the darkness of the night, but his eyes do not—if you didn’t know better you’d think there were two eyes floating in front of your face, but the body attached to them is very much standing on your chest.

  “... what?” you mumble sleepily, why is he staring at you like that? He doesn’t do this normally… you think. Maybe… does he?

  No response—you’re not sure what to expect, it’s not like he can talk in this form. 

  He does this every night, to a point you’ve started laying on your side so he at least has to stand on the bed. One night, you even reach out and grab him, pulling him into your arms so he’s unable to stand and stare like that. You come out with scratched arms, but it was worth the somewhat peaceful sleep when he finally settles. 

  It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, he’s always been in the corner of your eyes, sometimes waiting for you to finish what you’re doing, sometimes just standing there—not necessarily even looking at you or engaging with you in any way. He just likes to stand in the same room. 

  Except now he’s perched on shelves, under sofas or chairs, looming behind a corner so you almost step on him.

  Over time, he becomes a bit restless, but other than hiding away in warm, dark spots… but as you settle into bed, he’s always ready and hops onto your stomach as soon as your back hits the mattress. 

  The other Stellaron Hunters’ reactions range from curious concern to finding it hilarious. Firefly mentioned they have two cat members now, Blade wasn’t very happy about it… the day after she offhandedly mentioned that she could barely sleep and felt like someone was watching her the entire time. You decided not to mention his habit. 

  Blade doesn’t quite follow you at your heel the entire time… but he does always seem to be in the same general area, as he always has. It’s a bit of a relief, you thought you might get lonely without his constant presence. 

  He sometimes doesn’t run off when you pet him. Sometimes. 

Dr. Ratio;

Ratio is appalled by this development, he hates it. He doesn’t have opposable thumbs, he can’t communicate properly, and you won’t stop pinching his ears. You’re lucky he doesn’t bite you. 

  He, in his infinite wisdom, developed a way for him to communicate with you. He may be a cat now, but his work doesn’t have space to halt for even a day! And so it’s up to you to continue it under his guidance, because he will not be seen like this by his assistants. 

  His way is quite funny, for complex explanations or lengthy dialogue, he will slap his paws on a holo-keyboard to type it out, but otherwise he presses buttons laid out on one of his workbenches for general commands. “Write”, “Open drawer”, “Fetch tool” (he then vaguely gestures which one), and even “Eat” and “Nap”.

  You asked him if he wanted to add a voice-over to the buttons so you wouldn’t just have to listen to a buzzer made to catch your attention, but he just stared at you blankly.

  You pinch and rub his ears, despite protests.

  To ensure subtlety, he demands you carry him in your bag in and out of the lab and past the reception… and you can’t in good faith deny that it’s adorable to see his head poke out of your bag and squint around to make sure the coast is clear once you’re outside. 

  Ratio had never imagined to hear as absurd of a suggestion as when you asked him if you should ask any of his Intelligentsia Guild colleagues about this, surely they can put their brains together and come up with a solution? 

  Absolutely not, he says, by knocking an empty coffee paper cup over. 

  You caught him staring longingly at his own bathtub and asked if he wanted to take a dip, you can wash him. The idea sounded good… until he stuck his purple paw into the soapy water and felt the spine-shattering feeling of his fur sticking together and immediately wriggled so aggressively out of your grip—startling you of course—that you both went tumbling into the water.

  He sat on his bed, towel under his body and over his back with a traumatised expression on his face for about forty eight minutes straight. Not even an offering of some nice cheese from the fridge brought him out of it. 

Jiaoqiu;

Different from the rest of the cast, Jiaoqiu has found himself in the form of an extremely furry fox, matched exactly to the colour of his hair. He’s so soft that you can’t help but run your fingers through it, messing up the direction of the coat and requiring Jiaoqiu to stand up and shake himself a few times to right it out. It comes to a point he will nip at your fingers if your hand comes too close.

  One afternoon, you’re wondering where he went off to—he has a chronic tendency to wander off, even in regular foxian form—you go into the pantry to see his tail swaying excitedly, half of his body disappearing into a woven bag of peanuts. Startled for a moment that he might not be able to digest that—you’ve never had to take care of an actual fox before—you hurry towards him and pull him out, holding Jiaoqiu up.

  He screams in such a disturbingly human way you almost drop him. Whether the scream was of surprise or protest is hard to tell.

  You stand in front of him, sat on the divan in your home and try to look stern… but the smile and closed eyes he makes even in this form is so eerily similar to how he normally would with his usual expression that it almost freaks you out. You shouldn’t be surprised, he’s basically just a furry version of himself… but it’s too close! 

  And he got away with it too, damn him. 

  Despite the pale pink fur, the tip of his tail and ears, his legs and paws are all dark, and you can’t help but hold them, stroke through the fur through the change of colour and Jiaoqiu—though normally not liking his tail or ears to be touched, in this form he seems to accept it… he can’t lie to you with turning his snout up, you see his tail sway when your hand comes close, despite how he would nip at them before—you’ve cracked the code, smooth the fur back down after ruffling it, and it’s acceptable.

  Don’t think for a second that you’re safe to indulge in any unhealthy habits or dumb decisions even though his “warning smile” is absent, he will bite your pants and pull so hard they might rip. You were about to be roped into some nonsense by Feixiao, seeing the perfect opportunity to borrow you for some “racing”, when Jiaoqiu comes running at breakneck speed, bites your pants, and effectively drags you away.

  Feixiao just watches with a grin. Good luck next time.

  He sulks a bit about not being able to do his job for such an extended period of time, he has a good sense of responsibility and doesn't like to sway from his sworn duties too much.

  Also, he can tell by the smell alone that the food you make for yourself in the absence of his skilled work is severely lacking in critical ingredients, and is also plated wrong. But that’s more of a subjective nitpick—maybe he’s just getting restless.

  He decides to hide one of your shoes and watch in amusement as you search high and low through the house the next morning. Sitting on the carpet with a foxy smile. 

Jing Yuan;

Jing Yuan is delighted. He plops himself down on you no matter what you’re doing, if there is no surface to curl up, he will lie down by your feet, or anywhere he can be touching you with at least a part of his body. 

  Raking your hand through his thick fur, you pull your hand back and it’s covered in white hairs, he sheds more than Mimi.

  You vehemently vetoed his decision to rename Mimi to Wave-Treading Snow Lion when it began growing and showing signs of not being a grimalkin like he suspected it was.

  Speaking of Mimi, you walk into the Seat of Divine Foresight and see the two of them splayed out by the massive windows, artificial sunlight bathing them in warmth as Mimi lies on the floor belly up�� and Jing Yuan lies on Mimi’s belly, his own facing up towards the sun. You don’t dare disturb them—mostly because you worry that Mimi will roll over and crush poor Jing Yuan under it. 

  So you set the documents on his desk slowly and sneak back out, the Cloud Knights always present in the room stand still and try not to do more than whisper between themselves.

  If you thought Jing Yuan was sleepy before, you were in for a surprise. As soon as his hands turned to paws, he was lounging around as lazily as he could get away with, which was infinite in this form—perhaps this was the taste of retirement he needed, and it might convince him to go through with it… you hope. For his sake. 

  Unfortunately, your partner is cursed with a perpetual disturbance of his naps, and a problem comes up in regards to an illegal trade of magically-charged artefacts—one of which having the potential to explode if handled wrong, which could hurt innocents during the exchange. He circles the Seat of Divine Foresight like he would normally in thought… except instead of his boots touching the ground in a rhythmic thump, it’s small paws padding on the floor.

  It’s cute—but then again, he’s always cute.

  Thankfully the problem is resolved due to the Cloud Knights having previously acquired knowledge of suspicious movements over the last weeks and are able to intercept the exchange.

  As a reward for his hard work, you make a big bowl of juicy fruits for him to dive into—though Mimi’s snout got in before him, and stole about half of it… you snooze you lose, dozing general. 

  Of course, he didn’t let you off that easy, cuddles were demanded with headbutts and loud meows of protest if you turned to do anything else, so you were stuck with two cats hogging your attention for the rest of the night, good thing you have two hands to scratch behind both of their ears at the same time.

Moze;

You thought for a moment he didn’t actually retain his senses, and had ran off somewhere, you dragged Feixiao with you to search the entirety of the Xianzhou Yaoqing… only to return home several hours later, exhausted and disappointed, to see Moze sitting on the kitchen counter with a fish in his mouth, tail swaying contently as he ate it off the bones.

  He would just randomly wander off and return at odd times, once you saw some blood on his paw and worried he had hurt himself, but no matter how you looked or poked and prodded, there was no wound. It must have been the capture of another fish or another… because, surely, Feixiao doesn’t have him doing work like this?

  You suppose it’s quite a good cover… no one would suspect a cat…?

  After locking him in your room for the workday to ensure he doesn’t go off somewhere, as you had asked an elder of the Alchemy Commission to come over and have a look at him, you came back with the old man to find the room empty.

  Given cat form, Moze has become the perfect escape artist—not that there’s much anyone can do to hold him down in his normal form. 

  Try as you might, it becomes somewhat of a game of you trying to keep him in one single place, and him disappearing like a leaf on the wind, only to show up later with a treat… usually for himself, but once he brought you a pouch of sesame balls. You hope he paid for it somehow, but you don’t hold your breath either.

  He sleeps exclusively by your feet, circles a few times and wriggles into a comfortable position against either leg that’s closer. You tried to get him to sleep closer to your torso or on your inviting arm, but he always stood up and returned to the spot by your legs after a few minutes. 

  One time, you were stroking his tail absentmindedly and accidentally pinched it only slightly—yet he still jumped into the air like you had just stepped on it with a loud yeowl, making you yourself jump as he suddenly sped off across the room and almost slammed himself into the door leading to the study.

  You decided not to play with his tail after that, he even left scratches on the floor with his hurried scuttling across the room. 

  You spotted Jiaoqiu trying to feed him some of the ‘concoction’ he was making, which Moze sniffed curiously at—but you’re fairly certain there are not many things in that broth that will settle well—or at all—in his kitty stomach, and thus you swoop in and feign extreme interest in Jiaoqiu’s dish. Of course, the foxian sees through you easily and smiles widely. “Ah, why don’t you try it then?”

  You got yourself into this position, and so, you resign yourself to burnt taste buds for the next few hours. It’s delicious as always, but your poor mouth… Moze rubs his furry head against your legs in comfort. 

Sunday;

He couldn’t believe it. Sunday stared at himself in the reflecting mirror of the Astral Express’ windows for about ten whole minutes after being brought back to it in the state he was in. His ears flatten to his head and he glares at anyone that tries to approach, he doesn’t want to interact with anyone like this!

  He flees to his room and stays under the bed for several hours before you manage to lure him out with some delicious smelling grilled fish. Sunday reluctantly pokes his head out to grab it—which is when you grab him. 

  He flails and meows, struggling and squirming as you pick him up and stand… only to coo at him and rub his cheeks with your thumbs, musing how cute he is.

  Cute?! This is a horror scenario! 

  Despite his displeased meowing and nibbling on your fingers when you try to pet him, Sunday eventually gives up when he learns that you just find his struggling adorable. Suddenly your staring when he gets annoyed with small things start to make sense. Like when he hit his head on the ridge of a table after bending under it to fetch a pen he dropped, and the brief surge of frustration and annoyance he felt—only for you to swoop in to rub his head and see if it hurt. 

  He sulks the entire time, he doesn’t like it one bit. 

  March asks him if she can put him in outfits like she does with Pom-Pom, and he strategically avoids her for several days. Not a chance. 

  Thankfully, despite you ‘tormenting’ him on the first day, Sunday does seek comfort in you… you’re warm, and somehow you know exactly where to scratch behind his ears and under his chin where he can’t quite reach well enough. 

  You almost pull him in and rub your face into his furry torso when Sunday kneads at your shirt when you lay down to sleep, but decide that watching him is much cuter. You get such cuteness aggression when he does the smallest things. He purrs when you massage his paws or draw your fingers all the way down his back—and get a fistful of hair while you’re at it—and eventually he starts to do it at the smallest gestures… Pom-Pom once brought up concerns to Himeko that they thought that the train might have a problem, some kind of motor malfunction.

  Turns out Sunday was napping in the warm engine room and purring so loudly that when Pom-Pom leaned close to his hiding spot, they thought it was the engine. 

  He doesn’t let anyone pet him properly except you, not because he doesn’t trust the rest of the Express members—trust is a strong word in any case—but because when he closes his eyes in comfort, he wants to open them again and see you stroking through his fur. Nothing personal, though March does take it a bit personally.

[tartrazeen]

For people who've been asking how to get involved in their community: WATCH THIS!

I'm not saying you have to be the one to work this job - it's not for everybody, and there aren't enough jobs available.

But what you can do is:

Advocate for more resources for the people doing these jobs (more funding for clean supplies, more space and locations, more salary budgets to hire people who can do this work)

Engage with any municipal budget talks or planning. Ask your representatives to push for funding for this, ensure it's got something earmarked, fight against reductions, fight for increases.

Proactively write to your council or representatives in support of programs like these. If it's not currently being discussed, bring it up for discussion!

BUDGETS ARE BEING ACTIVELY DISCUSSED RIGHT NOW. November is many areas' budget month. Go check your city council's website to see what exists, what's scheduled, what's discussed, and what your own representative is saying - and then give your support for programs like this wherever there's an option to give feedback.

Adopt the mindset. Most importantly, the way this lady broke down meeting somee where they're at, setting goals, celebrating them, not shaming the use but encouraging safe use, and ensuring they have the supplies and access to get help when they're ready. That's the attitude you want to spread! Share that! Definitely make sure you tell your local representatives, but this one you can share over Instagram or Facebook or whatever. It's a mindset that you want to have catch on.

Advice if you love/care about an addict but they're not ready for abstinence. This is meeting people where they're at- the most important part of harm reduction

[thealbatrovss]

waiting // logan howlett x reader

summary: scott and jean get engaged. logan seems happy for them. but old insecurities start bubbling to the surface.

one shot: angstyyyyyy, insecure reader, happy ending of course, not proofread

word count: 1k+

authors note: getting back into writing so here’s a quick one for ya’ll. Enjoy!!!

masterlist

When he made his way towards her, with a big grin on his face, you had to get out of there.

You bumped past friends and colleagues, weaving through the bodies like a hedge maze. The room closed in. Your stomach was raging with alcohol and fire.

It was so childish. Running away from your friend's own engagement party. This night was about them, not you.

But, Logan wouldn't stop talking about how happy he was for them since they made the announcement. You were happy too. Of course you were. They were like family to you. But, was he really content with everything? Sometimes, thoughts that he was settling would cloud your mind.

You’d only been dating for little over a year now, and well, Jean was still Jean. The Jean he loves. Or loved. It was becoming too hard to tell, your head starting spinning.

The night air hit your face. It was cold, too cold to be out at a time like this. But at least there was space. Space to hold yourself on the mansion's steps and think about everything swirling in your mind.

You knew holding her up on this pedestal wasn’t fair to her, to Logan and especially yourself. But sometimes, wounds that were once sealed up and packed away, came around visiting again.

He spent years harboring feelings for her. You just stood there and watched it. Until one day, you were grabbing a late night snack from the kitchen and saw Logan sitting at the table.

And he was no longer sulking. No longer chasing after someone who was always going to pick someone else. He smiled, and told you to sit and have a beer with him.

It wasn’t an odd request. You too were friends after all. But, you ended up spending the entire night talking. You asked him about his past and he was completely honest. He asked you about yours, barely ever looking away from you as you rambled on. Logan had a soft smile on his face the entire time you talked.

The two of you moved closer together as the night progressed into the early morning. By the time students began pouring in for breakfast, your chairs and shoulders were touching. He walked you to your room that day, asked you out to dinner. You had your first date at a bar. Jalapeno poppers and chicken sandwiches. The waiter accidentally spilt his tray of drinks on Logan trying to squeeze through the aisle.

When Logan kissed you for the first time in his car, you could feel the sticky drinks stuck to his leather jacket and skin.

The door creaked open behind you. Footsteps stopped at the steps above. You could smell that familiar wood and cigar smoke. It has stuck to you ever since that night in his car. “Its fucking freezing out here.”

You brushed away a fresh well of tears, hoping they’d dry quickly so he couldn’t tell. “You’re right about that.” You sniffed. But it was your voice that gave it away.

“Whats going on?” He sat down next to you. “Could you look at me?” He moved your hair away from your face, fingers grazing the wet skin. He paused. “Can you please talk to me? Why are you crying?”

You tried brushing his hand away, making yourself smaller against the stone wall. You pushed the side of your face into the rock, like it would magically make you disappear.

“I can’t help you if I don’t know whats going on.”

“I’m just drunk.” You tried to play it off. Not good enough.

Logan shook his head. “No. That's bullshit. You’ve been acting weird all day.”

The air kept getting colder. You started shivering. Logan cursed underneath his breath, taking his jacket off and draped it over your shaking shoulders. The simple gesture made you feel even smaller. “Do you ever wish things could be different?”

Logan looked at you confused. “What kinds of things?”

You sat up, knees facing away from your boyfriend. “The people you let into your life.”

“No.” He answered quickly. “I only let in people who let in me. Like you.” He smiled at the memory of spilt beer and messy kisses in the parking lot. “So no. Why? Do you?”

You huffed. “I find that hard to believe and I hate myself for it.”

Logan sat there bewildered. You’d always been open and honest with him about everything. You even opened up to him about your insecurities surrounding his relationship with Jean the first few months into dating. The realization washed over him as he watched the party goers mingle inside. “You still think I have feelings for Jean.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

The wind picked up, sending its sharp claws against your wet cheeks. “It’s stupid, I know.”

“No. I just don’t understand.” He sighed. “Why would you think that? I’m with you. I wouldn’t be if I didn’t want to be.”

The drinks settling in your stomach did the talking for you. “Well, if she wasn't with him things would be a lot different, wouldn’t they?” Your tone was as cold as the wind. You didn’t mean it to be.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You gripped his jacket tight around you. Holding onto it like you did when you first kissed. “Sometimes, it’s hard to accept your love.”

He didn’t respond, just let you continue. His hand started rubbing circles on your back.

“I feel like I’m taking something that isn’t mine.” Maybe if you were sober you could explain it better, but you carried on. “Or, I’m just holding my breath. Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

You’d feel more embarrassed without the alcohol running through your veins. But you sat there as tall as you could. Letting the insecurities bubble out in circles of angry shades of red. It wasn’t pretty, but it was real. It was what you’ve been bottling up for years now. “Waiting for it to go to its true destination.”

Logan looked up at the night sky. The wind ruffled his short hair. He looked so handsome in that all black suit he wore. One that you picked out just for him. He chuckled to himself, his eyes finding yours with a piercing gaze. He faced those words, seeing past the surface.

“I loved Jean once. That's the truth. But I’ve loved people before her. I’ve been alive for a long time.” He moved strains of hair from your face, resting his hand on your cheek. “But here’s another truth. I love you. Can’t you see that? Right here and now?”

You could see the genuine look in his eyes. You could always see it.

“And that’s not something I just give away. It’s also taken from me. You’ve taken it from me. And I’ve never been happier for you to have it, like I have yours.”

You nodded, sniffling. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, pulling you against his chest. “Don’t be. Just maybe next time, talk to me about this instead of holding it all in.”

You buried your head into his chest. Voice muffled against the dark fabric. “Says Mr. Wall builder himself.”

Logan kissed your head, fighting back the wind and a fit of laughter. “You got me there.”

[frownyalfred]

Why is it so hard to find ppl that actually understand bruce? I am tired of either finding ppl that see him as an abuser or others that only love wfa version of him I am really tired of this like really I can't even join a Fandom without getting my favorite character not getting mischaracterized left and right 😔

I'm going to rant a little bit here, and I apologize in advance. This isn't really directed at you. But I'm kind of tired of this flavor of ask. I get it a lot -- half of these asks are praising me for having a "good" interpretation of canon, and the other half are blasting me for being too "fanon" and bending too much to fandom tropes in my posts and writing. And of course the nonstop WFA hatred in my inbox is tiring.

Be the change you want to see in the world. If you don't like what the fandom is doing to your blorbo, write him your way. But sitting at the edge of the playpen complaining about how someone else is playing with their toys isn't useful. And it's really getting annoying to me, as a content creator.

I'm also tired of the superiority some canon-adherents have over those who write/draw more fanon tropes. So many of you are SO bitter over the idea that fandom is "ruining" Bruce or your other Batfamily blorbo because how DARE they write your blorbo in that way that is so OOC. How DARE they! And yet, you sit on the sidelines and create bitchy tumblr posts about how those fandom participants are stupid, or ill-informed, or simply don't have the higher thinking ability to understand your blorbo like you do.

And yet. You don't write Bruce the way you "enjoy." You don't create content or share posts or promote those canon characteristics you so highly value. Instead, you write posts complaining about the others in this fandom and deride them for being stupid like adhering to canon strictly somehow makes you better than anyone else. You mock their acceptance of fanon tropes as canon as if there is required reading in this fandom, entirely dismissing the idea that the line between DC fanon/canon is confusing as hell on a good day, and ignoring that the natural progression of engaging in fandom is finding out -- sometimes on your own timeline -- what actually happened in canon. Especially when canon is so vast.

And guess what? At the end of the day, we are all on the fandom website(s). You're still reading fanfiction at the end of the day. Canon or fanon or some blend of the in-between, you are still a fan participating in fandom content in some way or another. And we are all equal in that respect.

We are all here to enjoy these characters. Fanfiction is a medium that allows us to further explore canon, yes, But it is also a way to explore the OOC, the what-if's, the out of character but fandom-fave ideas and tropes people want. The fact that OTHER people enjoy those things should never impact your enjoyment of fandom.

If you cannot handle someone else playing with the same toys as you, but playing with them in a way you don't like, you need to go back to preschool. And if someone won't give you your toy back, find another one. Write the story. Create the post. Build your own engagement from the ground up, finding likeminded people if you can. They are definitely on here.

But I get the impression that when people complain about fanon "ruining" fandom, what they're actually saying is "I'm upset that canon content isn't as popular as fanon content." And that, I can't help you with. We can't always change what other people love or want to engage with.

I'm sorry that this rant is blunt, but it's been simmering inside me for a while. I'm really tired of getting and deleting this ask 15 times a day. You will not find much sympathy on this blog for canon purism and the derision of fanon/fandom, and for that I apologize. But it's the truth.

I enjoy consuming content about both "fanon" and canon Bruce. I like the contrast and complexities. But I have seriously had to stop following a ton of blogs in the last year who don't create "canon" content anymore and instead spend their time complaining about other people in the fandom who are just enjoying themselves and creating their own content. It's incredibly disheartening and frustrating.

[feeder86]

Guy and a Gain...Again!

“Fancy doing this with me?” Guy asked his housemate, holding up an advertisement for a triathlon in the Spring.

Baz winced slightly. He was certainly a very fit man, but there was no point in trying to compare his athleticism with the likes of Guy. Guy was an absolute machine; his body a temple; a testament to years of tireless dedication and training. “Nah…” he replied with a sigh. “It’s right around the time of Lucy’s birthday. She’ll probably want to do something special.”

Guy nodded and resisted the urge to complain. Baz had been so much more fun before he got with Lucy. Soon it would be just like all the rest of his old friends: engagements, weddings and children. How boring! In Guy’s opinion, it was always far better to keep things casual and pursue your own interests in life, rather than getting tied down. He’d only fallen in love once, and that hadn’t exactly ended well. The only person he could ever truly rely on was himself.

“That’s fine,” Guy smiled. “I think they do another one later in June.”

Baz shook his head. “No thanks, Buddy.”

Guy sighed as he watched his housemate disappear into his bedroom. It wasn’t that Guy needed any help paying the mortgage on this condo; he’d sweet talked his way up to quite a level of seniority in his job and was always looking about for the next jump into something better. No, Guy had always had a housemate for the simple fact that he hated being there on his own. He craved interaction and the glory days, when he lived in the college dorms, with plenty of people about, at all times of the day.

Despite how messy and occasionally disorganised Guy had been in college, his apartment was a perfect utopia of minimalistic calm. He excitedly plumped up the sofa cushion and set some frozen pizzas to heat up in the oven as his buddies Christian and Harry were back in town for the night. He’d met them years ago, back when he was still seeing Mikey, his best friend in college. With Mikey’s interest in gaining weight, the pair of them had visited a few feedism events in their time; with Guy picking up more than a few friends that he still kept in touch with.

“Look at you!” Guy swooned, seeing Harry as he strolled in, belly first. He’d gone softer and jigglier, purposefully bouncing as he walked as if to emphasise it further.

“I’m up 45lbs since you last saw me,” he boasted, kissing Guy on his cheek. “I’m only fifteen away from the big four hundred!”

“Impressive!” Guy laughed. There was just something so joyful about the way guys like him shamelessly enjoyed their bodies. He didn’t care what anyone said - it was a definite turn-on.

Sloping in behind Harry was his feeder boyfriend, Christian. Usually stick thin and trendy, he appeared that day to be more than a little bloated. A thickness had begun to encircle his waist and his handsome face had puffed up with a doughiness that was surprisingly distracting.

“What happened to you?” Guy teased, patting Christian on his under-exercised butt and failing to find the tightness he was used to. “All the feeding finally got the better of you, huh?”

Giant Harry turned around, smirking. “His fast metabolism crashed,” he explained, failing to hold back a chuckle. “Ten pounds was all it took and his little dick was craving more and more blubber.”

Guy laughed and looked over his buddy, Christian. When he’d met him a few years ago, he’d been one of the kinkiest and least compromising feeders Guy had ever come across. He’d taken chubby Harry and poured gallons and gallons of fattening shakes down his throat until he’d swelled into the rounded blob that he was today. Yet, now look at him; his kinks turning inwards. “What is it about you feeders?” Guy asked, full of disbelief for what had become of Christian. “It’s like you all have some sort of expiration date before you start going all soft.”

Christian shrugged. “What can I say?” he smiled. “It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever done,” he nodded, raising his t-shirt a little to reveal the swollen, pot bellied middle on him.

“Jeez!” Guy marvelled, having never imagined such a thing on the boy before. “Look at that!”

“That’s not all,” Harry grinned, stepping around Christian and pulling back his lover’s sweatpants to uncover the top half of his broad butt and lifting his shirt up from the back.

Guy couldn’t help but laugh when he saw what Harry was showing him. He reached out and stroked the skin where Christian had had a brand new tattoo of a small pig tale inked onto his body. “You boys are such kinky little fuckers!” he marveled, instantly getting an erection.

“I wanted something that would ensure there was no going back,” Christian explained, equally aroused to be leaning forward and showing this off to Guy.

“And how do you feel about this?” Guy asked Harry. He had always been the submissive one in the relationship, despite seeming to enjoy a slightly more empowered status at present.

“I love it!” Harry laughed, grabbing a full roll of blubber from Christian’s side and jiggling it. “I’m going to triple every pound he put on me, sending it straight back onto him!”

Guy grinned, his eyes dancing with delight. He simply loved the kinky talk between these two. He always had. They knew exactly who they were, and were proud to embrace it.

An hour later, the three boys were lying in Guy’s supersized bed. Sweat pouring off them, pizza and crumbs filled the bed sheets as Guy lay back with the two chubs resting their heads on his broad shoulders. It had been the first time Christain had wanted to be fucked by him and, although he had made a valiant effort, he’d found Guy’s size too challenging to take. Instead, Harry had stepped up, bending over beautifully whilst a horny Chritain gorged his chubby face on everything available as he watched.

“Do you ever hear from Mikey these days?” Harry asked.

Guy sighed at the mention of Mikey’s name, but it hurt a lot less than it used to. “Not for a few years now,” he answered. It had been his own fault. He had been the one to stop replying to messages and never picking up the phone. However, he’d needed to step away for his own mental health. It didn’t do to dwell on a lost love.

“You should see him now,” Harry laughed, handing over his cell phone with a clear picture of Mikey from his gainer socials: enormously fat, rounded and bursting with lard. “He’s well over five hundred pounds these days.”

Guy studied the picture with awe. There was the boy he had once adored, now consumed by his own hunger and lust for fat; his neck a distant memory, his arms giant sacks of blubber. 

“Good for him!” Guy smiled fondly, remembering the skinny boy he had once fooled around with. “This is exactly the sort of shape he always wanted.”

“You should come with us to the gainer evening tomorrow,” Christian suggested just as Guy handed back the cell phone. 

Guy chuckled at the idea. “I haven’t been to one of those in years.”

“You do like gainers though,” Harry smiled, noticing that Guy’s hardness had been resurrected after seeing Mikey’s picture.

“My dick likes a lot of stuff,” Guy simply replied. “Body confidence most of all.” But as the boys talked and talked, he was gradually persuaded, agreeing to meet them there the next evening after his date with a girl from his gym.

Upon arriving past midnight, Guy left his shirt with the bartender, setting about to flirt and enjoy the attention of all the fat men who were ogling him. The gainer scene had come a long way since he’d last been out. The pot-bellied boys had been replaced by extreme superchubs with at least one scrawny-looking feeder under their giant arms. Guy flirted and played with them all, happy to indulge their fat kinks. Yet, there was one younger man, standing to the side who kept catching his attention: tall, handsome, with strong, rounded shoulders and a slim waist. Throughout the early hours of the morning he stood alone, watching from the sidelines, nursing a beer and not getting involved. 

Perhaps the gainer scene had become more insular and harder to break into as an outsider, Guy thought to himself. It wasn’t a problem that Guy had personally. Harry and Christian could both vouch for him, and his strapping body caught the attention of any he didn’t yet know. Guy, it could be said, had never been shy. Even as a non-drinker, he never failed to insert himself, front and center, into any social event.

“So, what brings you here?” Guy asked, heading over to the handsome boy and introducing himself, seeing as no one else seemed to be making an effort.

The man stood up a little straighter, as if on high alert. He shifted his feet and passed his beer from one hand to the other, looking as if he was unsure whether to give his real name or not. “Dillon,” he finally offered. “And… Oh… I don’t know…I was just curious,” he mumbled, as if he hadn’t expected anyone to come and speak to him, let alone ask him why he was there.

Guy smiled, finding the awkwardness surprisingly cute. If the boy was here, at this gainer event, there was going to be something kinky about him; something just waiting to be unlocked. “Have you slept with many fat boys, Dillon?” he asked, knowing his forward question would continue to make the boy squirm with such amusing awkwardness.

Dillon shook his head. “No… I’ve… I’ve not long been out of a relationship.”

Guy nodded knowingly. “Ah, so now the shackles are off and you’re free to explore?” he laughed, feeling like he was getting somewhere at last.”Well, if you’re looking for a good fatty to fuck, I can highly recommend that one over there,” he pointed. “Just shy of three hundred pounds, growing fast and as kinky as they come. Want me to introduce you?”

Dillon shook his head quickly. “No, no… that’s okay,” he shot back shyly.

Again, Guy grinned, knowing that he still hadn’t quite hit upon the reason why such a conventionally good looking boy was there that evening. “Or… if you want…” he offered slowly and teasingly, “...I could introduce you to some good feeders,” he smiled, giving Dillon’s flat stomach a little pat.

Dillon stared back at him with wide, wondrous and almost childlike eyes. Bingo! There it was: the real reason Dillon had come along that night. 

“So, how long have you wanted to be a porker?” Guy rolled on, deciding to take it all in his stride. Of all the arousing conversations he had had that night, nothing had turned him on like this. There was just something so exciting about finding genuinely fresh meat in this scene.

“What makes you think I want to get fat?” Dillon asked, giving Guy more eye contact than he had managed before.

“Hmm, let me see!” Guy smiled “The little bulge in your pants when I mentioned it. The slightly higher pitch of your voice just now,” he shot back at him, chuckling.

Dillon looked around the room and back to Guy. “Do you think anyone else knows?” he asked shyly.

Guy laughed once again and swept his large arm over Dillon’s shoulders. “Well, you just told the biggest blabbermouth in the room, so… yeah, pretty soon everyone is going to know that you want to be a little lardass too!” he teased. He looked at the boy up and down and smiled. “You’ve really never told anyone before, have you?”

Dillon shook his head once more. Then he followed without question as Guy led him out of the venue and into a cab, heading back to his apartment. His prize, secret catch for the evening.

Guy awoke the next morning with Dillon lying on his front next to him, still naked and splayed. As Guy had teased him about his gainer kinks, the boy had seemed to submit more and more; sucking him off with excellent skills and finally bending over and letting Guy fuck him without reservations.

“Morning, Sleepy Head!” Guy teased as the boy rolled over and realised he was waking up in a stranger’s bed.

Dillon looked at Guy, clearly piecing everything back together from the night before. “I can’t believe we did all that last night,” he chuckled.

“I can,” Guy smirked back. He’d inserted his dick so deeply into Dillon’s butt after making him down a protein shake, he almost panicked when the boy came; so intense and extreme was his moaning. “So…” he began playfully, leaning on his side and looking directly into Dillon’s eyes, “...Is today the start of a whole new era for you?”

“What do you mean?” Dillon replie/d.

“Well, you said last night you’d never even been with a guy before, let alone had your gainer kinks indulged like that.” He smirked, remembering just how hard he had gotten Dillon. His erection had been like concrete. “I know you can talk the talk when it comes to letting go and getting fat, but do you really have what it takes?”

Already, Dillon’s dick was starting to levitate and stiffen.”Oh, I have no worries there,” he nodded. “I love food. What turns me on is the idea of being able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want it.”

“Genuine greed,” Guy smiled knowingly.

Dillon nodded once again. “I mean, being fed by someone to the point of being absolutely stuffed just doesn’t appeal to me as much as the idea of just…”

“Letting go,” Guy finished for him. The idea was appealing, especially for Guy who had never been much of a feeder himself. He’d tried several times in the past to pretend that forcing food down a gainer’s throat turned him on. However, the reality had always been that he didn’t have the patience for it. Fattening, for him, was something a gainer should do in their own time. He only wanted to enjoy the horniness that derived from the evolving transformation. Not that he had ever come across a gainer who felt that way.

Dillon had had to grab and tug at his hardness. “Letting go,” he repeated. “That’s exactly it!”

Guy smiled, watching the lust taking over the pretty boy. “You know your job as a gardener will have to go, don’t you?” he asked. “If you want to grow your ass, you’re going to need something where you can sit down on it throughout the day.”

“You think I should quit my job?” Dillon asked, turned on that Guy had even remembered how he earned his living.

“Of course I do,” Guy chuckled back, still just watching as Dillon’s fantastic arousal sent him to higher and higher levels of submission to his kink. “Trust me, as a guy who has fucked so many fatties in my time, letting go is more than just eating. It’s about letting that entire softening process take over your body. Laziness. Lethargy.”

Dillon was tugging at himself at a faster rate than ever as Guy spoke. “I’m going to hand in my notice first thing tomorrow morning,” he declared, seeming to get closer to climaxing as the words left his mouth. “I’m actually going to do this!”

“Good boy!” Guy grinned, watching the kink consuming Dillon and sending him into a frenzy of lust. He didn’t even flinch as Dillon squealed and ejaculated all over the bedsheets in every direction. How fucking sexy! That shy, quiet guy back in the club now making a great mess and freeing his secret desires. There was simply nothing better.

Guy could have kicked himself for not giving Dillon his real number when he left. At least, he certainly thought that’s what he had done. It was a force of habit. As the weeks went on, he often thought back to Dillon, wondering what had become of him. There was no doubt in Guy’s mind that his date that night wouldn’t have actually started gaining. He was too pretty and far too reserved outside of the bedroom to actually do that to himself. Still, his kinkiness for it had given Guy a boner more than once when he’d thought back to their night together.

Months had gone by before Guy saw Dillon again. He’d actually been on a date with a girl from his new gym when he’d spotted Dillon working behind the bar at the club he had taken her to. He’d recognised the handsome face right away, but his breath caught in his chest when he took in the boy’s body. The fattening had clearly started. Dressed in a smart white shirt, the cheap material clung to the emerging love handles that puffed themselves over the tight waistband of Dillon’s pants. An overall thickness had spread into his stomach and chest, whilst a slight padding appeared to have amassed itself under his chin. It was a decent forty pound gain if ever Guy had seen one; no added muscle, just clear laziness and overindulgence.

Guy sat his date at a table and headed straight over to the bar, losing all interest in anything else. As he approached, he witnessed Dillon at the bar, turning around to the ice bucket and observed the beauty of his swollen glutes, rounded and bulbous, without taking on the complete broadness that came with the obesity that could come later. Having not been with any other men since their night together, Guy’s mind was able to return to the memory their night with ease; picturing those small, tight little glutes as they had been. Now his dick felt more alive than it had all evening, and when Dillon turned to serve him, Guy only had one question: “What time do you finish tonight?”

Dillon laughed and raised an eyebrow. “What about your date over there?” he asked, pointing across the room. He’d clearly spotted Guy from the moment he’d entered the bar.

Guy looked back as well. His date was pretty and surprisingly intelligent, judging by their conversations that evening. But it wasn’t her he wanted to take home that night. He turned back to Dillon and simply repeated his question.

Dillon seemed to consider it for a second. “Midnight,” he simply replied, knowing that Guy would be waiting outside to pick him up as soon as the clock struck twelve.

Getting rid of Guy’s date had been easy. He’d simply dialled back to flirtation and acted as a gentleman, taking her home with only a sweet kiss on her doorstep. Making her wait for a second date for anything more would only guarantee that she would be more eager next time.

“Well, well, well…” Guy grinned, leaning against the roof of his sports car as he witnessed an almost chubby-looking Dillon strolling out of the bar later that night. “Look at you!”

Dillon smiled and rubbed at his torso, seeing that they were going to bypass all the usual pleasantries. “I’m getting there,” he nodded. “It’s all just very slow. I feel like I should be bigger than this by now.”

Guy rocked his head to the side, inviting Dillon to climb into his car. Then the pair of them set off.

“I need to stop for something to eat first,” Dillon pointed, highlighting a fast food place only a few yards down the street.

Guy resisted sighing. He’d been waiting to get his hands on that bigger butt for some time. Now he had to wait whilst Dillon did the typically boring gainer stuffing? Nonetheless, he dutifully pulled over and followed the guy inside. He noticed a couple of the guys nodding at each other with a smirk at the sight of Dillon, as if they knew him all too well as a fixture around here. Then one attendant went to the cash register, bracing himself against it, as if preparing for something quite extreme from Dillon.

“Good evening,” he smiled dutifully. “What’ll it be tonight?”

A greedy little tongue slipped very subtly out of Dillon’s mouth, moistening his lips and he swallowed at the smell of everything cooking behind the counter. He began listing off a great number of items with ease that made Guy realise just how long they were going to be stuck here.

“Anything for you, Sir?” the young worker asked, seeming to know that everything that had come before it would be consumed entirely by Dillon.

Guy declined. He never ate at these sorts of places, but dutifully paid with his card, much like he would do with any of his dates. A great mountain of food began piling up on the tray and the two men soon retreated to a quiet table in the corner so that Guy could wait for Dillon to gorge himself.

“I see you quit the gardening job,” Guy smiled, appreciating how handsome Dillon looked in a shirt.

Dillon nodded; his eyes only on his food as he began throwing fries and nuggets into his mouth. “You were right. It was the perfect first step. I needed to cut the excessive calorie expenditure, day-to-day.”

Although Guy had come across more than a few gainers in his time, none of them had set about eating in the way that Dillon did. The boy seemed genuinely hungry, attacking the food in a cold and almost calculating manner, as if to ensure it was consumed in the most rapid way possible. He didn’t care that his mouth was sometimes full as he replied to their conversation, and he didn’t whimper with submission or lust as he started the third and then fourth burger. Nothing about the scenario was in any way theatrical, making this, by anyone’s standards, an act of pure greed. A chubby boy who simply loved his food.

“So that’s how I came to work at the bar,” Dillon finished fifteen minutes later, wiping his mouth with a napkin and sighing with relief as his stomach bloated more than ever before. “Are you ready to leave?” he asked, not even pausing to burp or appreciate his immense gluttony.

Unpeeling Dillon from his tight clothes that night had been one of the most erotic things Guy had done in years. A plush layer of fat had spread across the boy’s body, but pooled especially well in his love handles, chest and stomach. Guy growled with lust as he saw those doughy glutes and the pair set to pleasuring each other as if they had an expertise on how to make the other moan with lust.

Falling asleep with a hand resting on Dillon’s hip, Guy had felt more content than he had in quite some time. However, he awoke a couple of hours later, noticing that his date had slipped out unnoticed. He got up, pulling his underwear back on, just in case his roommate was sleeping there that night, even though he doubted that would be the case. Then he strolled into the living space hearing the sound of crunching over by the counter and the hunched silhouette of Dillion, sitting at a bar stool. He’d helped himself to a large bowl of sugary cereal that definitely didn’t belong to Guy and was busy munching away.

“It’s three in the morning!” Guy whispered, coming up behind the chubby boy, slipping his hands around his torso and kissing him on the side of his neck. “What are you doing up?”

Dillon chewed and swallowed. “I always get hungry at night,” he explained. “When I was growing up, my parents taught me to just ignore it. They said it wasn’t good for me to eat in the middle of the night. Now I don’t need to worry about that.”

Guy chuckled, nuzzling into Dillon even more and rubbing his protruding stomach. The more stories like this he heard, the more he realised that Dillon hah always been a fat boy, trapped in the body of a thin person. Slouched as he was now, his stomach fat seemed even more developed than Guy had realised, with his buttery nipples beginning to balloon and sag every so slightly onto the shelf below.

“Has anyone played with your tits yet?” Guy asked, beginning to massage them as Dillon resumed his eating. He’d remembered gainers telling him in the past how sensitive the nipples became as boys fattened up; he’d made more than one fatty climax simply by playing with them in the same way he would stimulate all the girls he had slept with.

Dillon moaned a little and twitched with stimulation. Guy could tell he’d never experienced anything like it before; perhaps not even realised that he had been developing such an erogenous zone. “That feels really nice,” he sighed, leaning back into Guy’s muscular chest.

“You wait until I have even more fat to play with here,” Guy teased. “If you think this feels good now…”

Dillon sighed with contentment at the idea. One thing was for certain: there was no way he was leaving without Guy’s real number that time.

“I want you to meet, Dillon,” Guy smiled, moving out of the way so that he could push Dillon forward. It had been a good few months since the last gainer event where Dillon had failed to make an impression. It was the reason why Guy had cleared his diary to make sure he could take him to this next one; holding his hand as they walked in.

Like a piece of meat, the eyes of all the men went up and down Dillon’s body. Guy stood back with pride. The boy’s love handles and protrusive stomach were some of his greatest features, but his butt too had developed a mass to it that was anything but athletic. However, more than anything else, the ring of freshly shaved fat that was starting to wrap itself under Dillon’s chin was undoubtedly the finest achievement of all. This wasn’t just a chubby boy they were dealing with; this was a true fat-boy glutton.

They hadn’t believed Guy when he’d explained how quickly Dillon had packed on his now eighty pounds of excess blubber, but the angry looking stretch marks surrounding Dillon’s belly button had gone some way to convincing them that he hadn’t just made it all up. Although he and Dillon were not officially an item at this event, Guy stuck close to him, feeling oddly protective. Usually, at events like these, Guy would have pulled his shirt off and enjoyed as much attention for his strapping body as possible. However, that night was all about Dillon and getting him connected with as many in the scene as possible.

Guy looked around seeing how many of the gainers and admirers were checking Dillon out; his handsome face and doughy body that seemed to cry out that this was a recent and rapid weight gain. Guy wanted them to look and see for themselves,but then another emotion began creeping in as well. Dillon was his discovery. He was the one who had helped him unleash the gainer and the one with a dominant hand on that big, wide rear. Why should anyone else feel they had a chance with him?

“So, how was it?” Guy asked afterwards, leading the way back to his car and secretly glad to be getting out of there’ especially after Dillon had told him he wanted to leave and get some food instead.

“Pretty great,” Dillon smiled, hopping into the passenger seat. “There were some very tight clothes on show though.”

Guy nodded. Dillon wasn’t the type to advertise his weight gain with figure hugging t-shirts or pants. “Well, some guys just like to show off,” he explained diplomatically. “Wearing tight clothes makes them feel even bigger and fatter than they are.”

Dillon nodded, noting some appeal in it. “But it’s just a fact of life,” he shrugged. “You overeat and your clothes get too small. What’s the big deal?”

“Oh, really?” Guy laughed. “Just a fact of life, huh? Maybe I’ll say that to you next time I notice your dick getting even shorter,” he teased, having witnessed Dillon squirting everywhere even at the mere mention of the groin fat that was starting to take off down there. He leaned in and kissed the fat boy, letting his large hand slide down the protrusive tummy and in-between his legs. There it was, the ever shrinking hardness, ready to go yet again.

“A point well made,” Dillon smirked back in surrender.

Guy smiled and started the engine. He’d stop off at a fast food place and buy a load of stuff for Dillon to gorge himself on as he drove home. It was one of the things Guy liked best about him; Dillon didn’t need or want him forcing the food down his throat. He was more than capable of feeding his ravenous appetite himself. All Guy needed to do was place a gentle, encouraging hand on his thigh every now and then as he drove. Then, once they made it home, Dillon would be more than stuffed and wound up like a tightly coiled spring, bursting with arousal and more than ready to head straight to the bedroom with him.

“Who are you messaging?” Guy asked a few months later as he came in with a tray of breakfast pastries for his lover.

“No one,” shrugged Dillon, hastily dropping his cell phone in favor of the food.

Guy felt a little uncomfortable. It was a new feeling to him, this gnawing sense of jealousy. He’d first noticed it at the last gainer event they went to, and it had plagued his mind ever since. It was a selfish impulse, he reasoned. He himself had certainly got around with multiple people since he had started seeing Dillon. They were in no way exclusive and neither of them had ever expressed an interest in being so. So why did Guy have to fight back an unreasonable urge to check Dillon’s phone as the chub trotted off to the bathroom?

“I love having you here,” Guy whispered into Dillon’s ear as the pair still lay in bed, even as lunchtime approached. He had his hand draped over Dillon’s chubby belly and he rocked it, full of admiration for how much the guy had transformed himself in the last eighteen months. “How about you stay here tonight as well? We could watch a movie, order in some pizzas….”

“I can’t,” Dillon replied straight away. “I’m meeting up with a friend.”

Guy nodded. “Nice!” he smiled, knowing that he wasn’t supposed to pry. He didn’t have the right to feel the strange jealousy that had swept over him. “Are you up to something fun?”

Dillon nodded. “He’s going to teach me how to boost my capacity with pizza,” he chuckled, patting his large, padded stomach.

Guy nodded and pulled his lips back into a false smile, as if this all didn’t bother him, especially seeing Dillon getting aroused by just the idea of what was to come. “You’ve got to eat like a five hundred pound fatty if you hope to become one!” he nodded, repeating one of Dillon’s favorite mantras back to him whilst rubbing the boy’s rounded stomach.

Although the opportunity to work in London had been something Guy had wanted ever since he had joined his company, the month-long placement couldn’t have come at a worse time in his eyes. As Dillon became more involved with other gainers, Guy felt like he was less important in the man’s life. He was also going to be away when Dillon finally started his new office job and disliked the thought of missing out on such an important step in his lover’s life.

The girls in London had a sexy, alluring sophistication about them. However, no matter how many of them he bedded, Guy’s mind kept thinking of Dillon. He felt utterly smitten, messaging him as much as he could, always eager for updates.

Guy had been a victim of his own success. The project he had started at work began to take on a life of its own, building incredible momentum. He remembered the bittersweet feeling when he realised he was going to be away far longer than the original month he had planned. However, by the end of the fourth month, Guy knew that the scheme was ready to be handed over; with plenty of scope for him to implement similar changes back home. 

With a week off from work after getting back, Guy headed straight over to see Dillon. He carried with him a large bag filled with treats and presents from London and was excited to see how the fattening man was going to react to them all. He knocked on the apartment door, his breath catching in his throat with anticipation.

Suddenly, Dillon was standing there looking remarkably changed. The fat under his neck had swollen immensely, giving Dillon one of the largest double chins he’d seen on a gainer of his size in quite some time. His beautiful eyes had seemed smaller, as large, puffy cheeks dominated his face and his plump, kissable lips now looked like the gateway to a greedy, gluttonous mouth that would consume anything it came across.

The pair hugged and kissed; Guy’s hands roaming across all areas of the remarkably fatter and softer body. Lard had spilled into areas where Guy had never seen it before. Dillon spun around and posed for him, excited by his own remarkable transformation. With a desk job, the gainer’s glutes had seemed to shed all remaining muscle and bloat with pure blubber. He wanted it touched, handled and jiggled, directing an already aroused Guy on how best to experience the new softness. Three hundred and eighty pounds had never seemed so erotic when the person carrying it all loved it so much.

“I was half expecting you to have gained a few pounds after working so hard in London all those months,” Dillon chuckled, gazing upon the immortal physical perfection of Guy; unchanged. 

Guy slipped off his underwear and delighted in taking the kinky boy into his bedroom for a session he would never forget.

Being intimate with Dillon had cemented the feelings Guy had had during their separation. He was in love with him; utterly and completely: the easy way they communicated, the confidence with which they both held their vastly contrasting bodies. Dillon was touched by the gifts and how much Guy had remembered about his tastes and interests. Guy held him sweetly as the both drifted off to sleep.

“I’ve been thinking,” Guy began, feeling decidedly nervous later that night. “I want to talk to you about something.”

“So do I…” Dillon smiled back, acting as if he knew exactly what Guy was going to say.

“I know you’re doing so well with your weight gain now,” Guy smiled, unable to resist rubbing the fattened gut in appreciation; marvelling at the sagging nipples that had bounced and jumped the entire time Guy had been fucking him. “Your next milestone is so close. But, how would you feel about hitting four hundred… in London?”

“In London?” Dillon parroted back in surprise.

“They made me quite the lucrative offer before I left. I don’t have to take it, of course, but… come on! Don’t you think it would be so exciting?” he cheered, smiling brightly. “You and me, living in London together? All those restaurants and famous landmarks? I thought of all the places I want to take you. You can grow enormous there. I can give you everything you want. You don’t even need to work, given how much they want to pay me.”

“Guy, this is...” Dillon mumbled, overwhelmed.

“I know, I know… this is huge! But these last four months without you…” he sighed, remembering how utterly miserable he’d been at times. He’d only felt this way about one other person in his life, and he had lost out because he had never managed to build up the courage to say how he felt. Not this time…

“Yeah, it was a long time,” Dillon agreed, unprepared for what Guy was about to say to him next.

“I’m in love with you!” Guy blurted, staring deeply into Dillon’s eyes and wrapping his large hands around his bloated face.

Dillon was stunned into silence. “Guy.. that’s amazing… that’s…” he stumbled. 

“You don’t feel the same way…” Guy sighed in stark realisation.

“Well, it’s not as black and white as that…” Dillon mumbled on, clearly trying to catch his brain up with his mouth. “I think it could really work, us living together in London. I really do! But I have so much going on here now. I’m having so much fun supporting other gainers. You not being around gave me time to really lean in hard to all this. It’s the reason why I already broke my desk chair at work,” he chuckled, mentioning it for the third time since Guy had arrived.

“You didn’t miss me?” Guy shot back, feeling like his heart was about to be shattered.

“I did!” Dillon replied unconvincingly. “I was just…” he rambled, still figuring out what he wanted to say. He sighed deeply. “If I’m honest… I was just a little disappointed that you didn’t come back from London a little heavier than when you left.”

Guy looked down at his flat, chiselled stomach. “What?” he blasted.

“I’ve wanted you to gain weight for the longest time. I thought, the more we hung out together, the more likely it would be for my bad habits to rub off on you.”

Guy sat back a little, rethinking everything he thought he knew about Dillon.

“I’m not the only one,” Dillon marched on. “All the gainers we’ve met together say the same thing. We all can’t wait for you to give up the gym and start pushing out a gut.”

“Is that so?” Guy huffed back.

“It’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You’d look so fucking hot! You’ve got the build for it. If we moved to London, I could make you huge!”

Guy stood up and started dressing, suddenly realising how badly he had misread his relationship with Dillon. “Gaining is your thing, not mine,” he explained calmly. “I like the way I look and I fell for you because I loved giving you the sort of confidence that I feel in my own skin.”

“But, trust me… when you start putting on your first few pounds…” Dillon retorted, like an all-knowing sage.

“It’s not me!” Guy shot back, cutting him short. “And you’d know that had you been paying any attention at all to me over the last couple of years.” He felt a sudden surge of annoyance. “Tell me… where did I grow up? What’s my middle name? When’s my birthday? Where did I go to college?”

Dillon looked blankly back. He really didn’t remember the answer to any of those questions. And so he watched as Dillon slipped his shirt on, then made his way out of the apartment for the last time.

“Jeff…” Guy said down the phone the moment he made it down the stairs. “I’m sorry to call when it’s so early in the morning there. I wanted to tell you that I’ve thought about your offer…” he explained.

Guy took a breath. This was a huge decision that would change everything.

“I accept,” he stated with absolute certainty. “How soon do you want me back in London?”

[writerdownbookworder]

The princess smiled at him happily from across the battlefield as she rode away. 

Edmund smiled back and waved. The minute she was out of sight, his hand dropped and he ran it through his hair nervously as he returned to work, carting away the bodies of the enemy and friends alike. It was hard, emotional work, and thankfully, it took his mind off of the explanation he would have to give his family in a few short hours.

Finally, he was able to go home. As soon as Edmund walked in the door, he was bombarded with hugs from all six of his little siblings. They were all between the ages of 2 and 10, and the smaller ones tried climbing him like monkeys. Edmund laughed as he hugged them all, then his parents and grandparents who all lived with them in the four bedroom house. 

After Edmund finally got the little ones calmed down and regaled them with some of the tamer stories he had, he looked at his mother. 

Reading his mind, she started corralling the kids. “Come on, everyone,” she called. “Bedtime!” She ignored the groans and moans that came as she whisked them into their bedroom.

Edmund shifted awkwardly in his chair as he waited for her to come back. When she did, taking a seat beside his father, Edmund took a deep breath.

“I have some news to share,” he began. “I am…engaged.”

His grandmother hooted with joy. “Ha! Finally!”

“Really, Mabel,” Edmund’s mother said reproachfully. “Let the boy speak.”

His father turned to him. “Do we know the girl?”

Edmund wouldn’t meet any of their eyes as he mumbled, “Sort of.”

His grandfather crossed his arms. “It’s not that Katrina, is it? You do know she’s a bit strange. I don’t think you should marry her. Can you call it off?”

Edmund sighed and rubbed his forehead. “It’s not Katrina. And that’s not very nice, Grandfather.”

“Hmph!” his grandfather pouted. “Well, then, who is it?”

“Itstheoldestprincessprincessisolde!” Edmund said, all in a rush.

His grandmother put a hand to her ear. “Eh?”

Edmund took a deep breath. “It’s Princess Isolde.”

“What?!” came a shriek from behind them. Everyone whipped around, only to find seven-year-old Avalie peeking around the corner and eavesdropping. 

She started bouncing on her toes with excitement. “You’re gonna marry Princess Isolde?! She’s my favorite!”

Edmund’s mother put her hands on her hips. “Young lady, you are not supposed to be up. You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

Edmund sighed. “She might as well stay now.”

Avalie ran over and jumped on his lap. “You’re my favorite! How did it happen?!” she asked eagerly.

He couldn’t help grinning at her. “Well, last year, remember when I was gone for so long? I was one of her personal guards. A few days ago, we ended up near each other again, out on the battlefield. I thought…” he let his voice trail off, remembering he was talking to a seven year old. The adults in the room knew what he meant, so he continued his story. “I knew I loved her, and I was pretty sure she loved me too. We grew close last year. I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. And…here we are.”

“Are you gonna go live in the palace?!” Avalie shrieked, ignoring when five adults shushed her. “That’s so exciting!”

Edmund laughed. “Yes, I suppose it is. I believe she said she would send word in a few days. I’m…not too sure what to do next. We did just get out of a war.”

Avalie clutched him tightly. “Can I come with you?” 

He laughed again. “Fine by me! You’ll have to ask Isolde though.”

Avalie’s eyes went wide.

She, Avalie, was going to meet a princess! And not just any princess. Her very favorite one!

And Princess Isolde was going to marry her own brother!

That would make them sisters!!!

The rest of the adults were not as excited as Avalie, to say the least. The minute she was shooed off to bed for a second time, the questions resumed.

“How?”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“What in the world possessed you?”

“Her?”

“She’s the heir to the throne! What does that make you?”

“Why would she even say yes?”

Edmund glared at his grandmother, who had asked that particular question. “Gee, thanks.”

She shrugged. “Don’t mention it.”

The soldier had proposed to the princess out of a mix of getting it out now and the belief he wouldn't make it. Now that the two are alive after the final battle, she intends to make good on what he promised and he's now wondering on how to explain it to his family.

[sugawhaaa]

Taehyun Smut Headcanons

Sex with Taehyun would be like...

NSFW content

Pairing:: Taehyun x fem!reader

Genre:: auralism, bdsm, groping, choking, ownership, pet play (?) Shower sex, temperature play, oral, fingering

A/N:: writing this low-key made me realize a kink I have...auralism. I never knew it was an actual thing but apparently it is 😭

🎧::

KINKS

Auralism-sexual arousal when hearing specific things

Taehyun's auralism kink is definitely one of his more hidden kinks, as in he doesn't express it as much as the others verbally or physically, but it's more something that he just enjoys so much about sex. Your pretty little moans, the way you try to pull his name past your lips, your heavy breathing in his ear, and most of all the sounds of your pussy slicking him up inside you. He likes missionary sex because you have the opportunity to lean up close to him and weakly moan in his ears. He also loves to set you on his lap, your back facing his chest, and finger you. That way whenever you tip your head back and moan your heart out the strings of music flutter right to his ears.

"Good girl, cry out my name baby,"

Physical touch-speaks for itself

Terry loves being all pressed up against you, a clingy baby at times, but during intimacy when he gets his hands all over you and your hands all over him he can't control himself. His favorite endogenous zones are his hips/waist, thighs, neck, chest, and anywhere on his face. Making out before sex is always huge with him too, he can get a little aggressive, pushing you down against the bed and grabbing your shoulders harshly as he forces his tongue into your mouth. He might also grab your throat or jaw, forcing you to make eye contact when you cum together 🤭 during day-to-day life he can't keep his hands to himself, wrapping his arms around your waist or nuzzling his head into your neck, which is all innocent but sometimes he likes to grope you at random times just for fun. How can he help it? You're just so plump and squishy~

"Look at me baby, show me that pretty face. Yes~ there's that pretty face,"

Power dynamic-having certain roles in bed that fluctuate in this case

Taehyun is adaptable, he will be the sub or dom depending on the mood, though he leans towards dominant. He's typically not rough though, only spitting and growling dirty remarks here and there if he's really into it, but often times he just loves to have that control over you. He knows that if he asks you to do anything you will. He feels like he's trained you, almost like a dog and its owner. Terry loves to be able to praise you, reward you and deliver the pleasure you deserve. It's quite a confidence boost knowing he has this much sexual control over you.

"Fuck you're so irresistible, get on your knees baby; good girl,"

Teasing/verbal edging-talking dirty to your partner about what they will eventually do to you, resulting in putting you on edge

Teasing and verbal edging would be something Taehyun originally did subconsciously. He would kinda just say what he's thinking or try and get you riled up but he noticed that he felt more engaged in sex with you when he'd talk like that, so he did. He also likes to talk you through it, telling you step by step what he's doing. "Gonna stretch you out now baby," "Good girl, keep your legs open just like that,"

He'd like to talk to you beforehand as well whispering in your ears about how he wants to fuck you when you get home or to a private place.

"I can't wait to spread these legs and eat like a king,"

LOCATIONS

shower/bath/washroom

Something about the warmth and comfort in a bathroom is very appealing to Taehyun. The two of you can be completely bare without judgment, get a little wet, and play around. Taehyun doesn't just fuck you in the shower though, no no, he goes the extra mile by changing the temperature to increase the pleasure of your orgasm or make his fingers colder before dipping inside you. Not to mention he'll grab the shower head and put it up to your clit (or make you hold it) as he fucks you and then change the temperature as well. Clothes can be used as gags, blindfolds, or restraints and if you're into it there's also scent play. The steam can also create another level of sexual pleasure, everything else blurred out besides the two of you in pure passion.

"Mmm, you like that hm? You like it when I cool you down from the inside out huh?"

Chair sex

This one may sound weird but just listen. He wouldn't really fuck you with his cock in the chair but he'd love to sorta strap you down to the chair, or if your willing to stay still just sit in the chair, and eat you out, finger you, or use some toys. He'd like to keep chair sex very romantic and gentle, slowly eating you out as you moan over and over without fail. There's no one real reason Tae likes this so much, it's just a thing about him. Perhaps there's something more romantic about him being below you while you sit above him, looking down on him.

"I could eat this pussy all night,"

Bedroom...ofc

Something about having sex in bed with the curtains open is so romantic to Taehyun. Whether it's the moon shining full and the dark blank curtain covering the sky, decorated with stars, or if it's the break of dawn and the sun is gleaming through the curtains onto your nude bodies Taehyun loves to have sex in the bedroom.

"Couldn't wait until night to feel my love?"

POSITIONS

Sitting face-to-face: similar to cowgirl except both partners are sitting up facing each other.

Taehyun loves to be close to his love and how much closer can you get when he's inside you? Still, skin-on-skin contact is so meaningful to him so in this position he can hug you the entire time if he wants. Another perk is that there is not really a top or bottom, just two people making love while gazing into each other's eyes. He also has access to any parts of your body, as well as you have access to him, so he can grope you, rub your clit, make out with you, hold your hand, and so on.

"Yes baby, hold my hair just like that,"

Missionary-the "traditional" sex position

He likes this one because it also allows him to have full access to your body and a little more control over you. It's also easier to thrust into certain areas of your pussy and have more focused control of his thrusts. Not to mention he gets to see your beautiful face, which helps indicate if you're enjoying it, and you can grab onto him if needed. This position tends to shake the bed a little bit too because of the direction of force and stuff which kinda plays a part in Taehyuns auralism kink. The sound of the bed creaking and hitting the wall 🥴

"Show me that pretty face, doll"

Overall Taehyun is very open to any positions and will use his surroundings to assist with positions

[bratzkoo]

merging arrangements | wonwoo pt. 3

Author: bratzkoo Pairing: chaebol heir! wonwoo x chaebol heiress!/ nurse! reader Genre: angst, fluff, smut Rating: NC-17 Word count: 4k~ Warnings/note: for my Anna, my beautiful nurse. No smut scene here but I'll keep the rating NC-17. I'm sorry for rushing the fic but I'm planning on taking a break for a while and want to queue up as many fics as i can so my blog will update even if i'm technically on hiatus.

summary: Jeon Wonwoo's been smitten with you for years, as the two of you enter an arranged marriage, he hopes you'll feel the same.

taglist (hit me up if you wanna be added): @escoupseu , @yanabaaaaaaarysheva , @spnyin , @sousydive , @gyuguys , @gyubakeries , @childish-fear

requests are open, but you can just say hi! | masterlist

The Seoul skyline glittered in the early evening light as Wonwoo stood at the window of his office, a tumbler of whiskey untouched in his hand. The past few weeks since returning from his honeymoon with Y/N had been a whirlwind of business meetings, family dinners, and stolen moments with his new wife. Yet despite the growing comfort between them, Wonwoo couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. Y/N seemed distracted lately, her smiles not quite reaching her eyes.

A knock at the door interrupted his musings. "Come in," he called, turning to see Mingyu enter, looking uncharacteristically nervous.

"Hey," Mingyu said, fidgeting with his tie. "Got a minute? There's something I need to talk to you about."

Wonwoo nodded, gesturing to the plush leather chairs in the corner of his office. As they sat, he noticed the tension in his friend's shoulders, the way Mingyu's eyes darted around the room, avoiding direct contact.

"What's going on, Mingyu? You look like you're about to confess to a crime," Wonwoo joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Mingyu let out a strained laugh. "Not a crime, exactly, but... well, it's complicated." He took a deep breath, then blurted out, "I'm married. To Ela. We've been married for six months."

The words hung in the air between them. Wonwoo blinked, trying to process the information. "Married? To Dr. Ela? But... how? When?"

Mingyu ran a hand through his hair, a gesture Wonwoo recognized as a sign of his friend's agitation. "It happened fast. We've been dating for a while, and when her father started pressuring her to consider an arranged marriage with some businessman's son, we just... we couldn't bear the thought of being separated. So we eloped."

"Six months ago," Wonwoo repeated, his mind racing. "That was right before..."

"Right before your engagement to Y/N was announced," Mingyu finished. "I wanted to tell you, but with everything happening so fast with your marriage, and the merger... it never seemed like the right time."

Wonwoo leaned back in his chair, trying to reconcile this new information with what he thought he knew about his best friend. "Does anyone else know?"

Mingyu shook his head. "Just Y/N. Ela told her recently. We've been keeping it quiet because of Ela's family. Her father... he wouldn't approve of her marrying someone who isn't from old money."

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on Wonwoo. Here he was, in an arranged marriage that was slowly evolving into something real, while his best friend had secretly married for love and was forced to hide it.

"Why tell me now?" Wonwoo asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

Mingyu's expression softened. "Because you're my best friend, Wonwoo. And because... well, I've seen how things are developing between you and Y/N. I thought maybe, if you knew about Ela and me, it might give you hope. That love can grow in unexpected places."

Wonwoo felt a warmth spread through his chest at Mingyu's words. Despite the shock of the revelation, he couldn't help but feel happy for his friend. "I'm glad you told me," he said softly. "And I'm happy for you, truly. But Mingyu, you can't keep living like this. Hiding your marriage, sneaking around... it's not fair to either of you."

Mingyu nodded, looking relieved to have finally shared his secret. "I know. We're working on a plan. Ela's making a name for herself at the hospital, building her own reputation separate from her family. Once she's more established, we're hoping her father might be more accepting."

As they continued to talk, Mingyu sharing stories of his secret romance and married life, Wonwoo found himself reflecting on his own relationship with Y/N. They had started as strangers, brought together by family obligations and business interests. But now, weeks into their marriage, he was beginning to see glimpses of something deeper, something that made his heart race and his palms sweat like a schoolboy with his first crush.

Later that evening, as Wonwoo made his way home, his mind was still buzzing with thoughts of Mingyu's revelation. He entered the apartment he shared with Y/N, calling out a greeting as he removed his shoes.

"In here," Y/N's voice came from the living room. Wonwoo followed the sound, finding her curled up on the couch with a medical journal. The sight of her, glasses perched on her nose, hair pulled back in a messy bun, made his heart skip a beat.

"How was your day?" he asked, loosening his tie as he sat beside her.

Y/N marked her place in the journal and set it aside. "Busy. There was a multi-car pileup on the highway, so the ER was chaos for most of the afternoon." She rubbed her temples, and Wonwoo resisted the urge to pull her into his arms. They were still navigating the boundaries of their physical affection outside of the bedroom.

"Sounds stressful," he said instead. "Have you eaten? I could order something in."

Y/N shook her head. "I grabbed something at the hospital. But thank you." She paused, studying his face. "Is everything okay? You look... preoccupied."

Wonwoo debated for a moment whether to share Mingyu's secret, but decided against it. It wasn't his story to tell. "Just a long day," he said with a small smile. "How about we watch one of those medical dramas you like? I could use a good laugh at their inaccuracies."

Y/N chuckled, the sound warming Wonwoo from the inside out. "Alright, but don't blame me when you start yelling at the TV about improper CPR techniques."

As they settled in to watch, Wonwoo couldn't help but marvel at how comfortable this felt. Sitting with Y/N, laughing at the ridiculous plot twists of the drama, occasionally brushing hands as they reached for the snacks between them. It wasn't the passionate romance of Mingyu and Ela's secret marriage, but it was something. Something real, something growing.

Little did Wonwoo know, the peace of this moment was about to be shattered by revelations that would shake the very foundation of their budding relationship.

---

The next day found Y/N in the break room of the hospital, her head in her hands as she tried to make sense of the turmoil in her heart. The door opened, and she looked up to see Alexys and Ela enter, deep in conversation.

"I'm telling you, that new resident is a disaster waiting to happen," Alexys was saying. "I swear, if he mixes up another blood sample, I'm going to— Y/N? Are you okay?"

Y/N tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. "I'm fine, just... thinking."

Ela, ever perceptive, sat down beside her. "Thinking about what? You look like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders."

The concern in her friends' eyes broke something in Y/N. Before she could stop herself, the words came tumbling out. "I think I still have feelings for Seung-cheol."

The silence that followed her confession was deafening. Alexys, who had been reaching for a cup of coffee, froze mid-motion. Ela's eyes widened, her mouth forming a perfect 'O' of surprise.

"But... but you're married," Alexys sputtered, finally finding her voice. "To Wonwoo. Tall, handsome, ridiculously rich Wonwoo. Who, might I add, looks at you like you hung the moon and stars."

Y/N groaned, burying her face in her hands again. "I know, I know. God, don't you think I know that? It's just... Seung-cheol and I, we have history. And being around him every day, seeing him care for patients, remembering all the plans we used to make..."

"Oh, Y/N," Ela said softly, rubbing soothing circles on her friend's back. "How long have you been feeling like this?"

"Since the wedding, I think," Y/N admitted. "Maybe even before. I thought it would go away, that once I got to know Wonwoo better, these feelings for Seung-cheol would fade. And they have, in a way. Wonwoo is... he's wonderful. Kind, supportive, everything I never expected in an arranged marriage. But then Seung-cheol will do something, say something, and it all comes rushing back."

Alexys, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, suddenly exploded. "Are you kidding me right now? Y/N, do you have any idea how complicated this is? You're married! To a chaebol heir! Your families have merged companies! And now you're telling us you have feelings for the guy from ward?"

"Paid department," Y/N corrected weakly, but Alexys wasn't finished.

"Whatever! The point is, this isn't some drama where you can just follow your heart and everything works out. There are real consequences here. For you, for Wonwoo, for both your families. Not to mention poor Seung-cheol, who's probably been pining away this whole time thinking he missed his chance."

Ela shot Alexys a warning look. "What Alexys is trying to say, in her uniquely tactless way, is that this is a very delicate situation. Y/N, have you talked to Wonwoo about any of this?"

Y/N shook her head, feeling tears prick at her eyes. "How can I? We're just starting to build something real. If I tell him I have feelings for someone else... it would destroy him. And probably end our marriage before it's really begun."

"Okay, okay, let's all take a deep breath," Ela said, ever the voice of reason. "Y/N, you need to really think about what you want here. Are these feelings for Seung-cheol just nostalgia for what might have been? Or are they something deeper?"

"I don't know," Y/N whispered, her voice breaking. "That's the problem. I don't know what I feel anymore."

Alexys, who had been pacing the break room, suddenly stopped. "Oh my god," she said, her voice rising in pitch. "Oh my god. This is insane. We're in the middle of a real-life love triangle. A married love triangle. With chaebols and secret feelings and... oh my god, I think I'm having a panic attack."

"You're having a panic attack?" Y/N said incredulously. "I'm the one living this nightmare!"

"Ladies, please," Ela interjected, but her own composure was starting to crack. "We need to stay calm and— oh, who am I kidding? This is a disaster. Y/N, how did we end up here? First Mingyu and I with our secret marriage, and now you with your secret feelings, and... oh god, is this karma? Is the universe punishing us for all those times we sneaked extra pudding cups from the cafeteria?"

Despite the gravity of the situation, Y/N couldn't help but let out a watery laugh. "I'm pretty sure the universe has bigger concerns than stolen pudding cups, Ela."

"You'd be surprised," Alexys muttered. "Those things are like gold around here." She took a deep breath, visibly trying to collect herself. "Okay, so let me get this straight. You're married to Wonwoo, who you're starting to have real feelings for, but you also have lingering feelings for Seung-cheol, who you've known longer and had a connection with before your arranged marriage. Meanwhile, Ela here is secretly married to Wonwoo's best friend, which adds a whole other layer of complication to this mess. Did I miss anything?"

"Just the part where both our families are expecting an heir to secure the company merger," Y/N added glumly.

"Right, because this situation needed more pressure," Alexys said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Anything else? Any other bombs you want to drop? Maybe you're secretly a long-lost princess or something?"

Y/N shook her head, a hysterical giggle bubbling up in her throat. "No, I think that about covers it."

The three friends looked at each other, the full weight of the situation settling over them. Then, as if on cue, they all burst into laughter. It wasn't happy laughter, but rather the kind that comes when a situation is so absurd, so overwhelming, that the only response left is to laugh or cry.

"Oh god," Ela gasped between giggles, wiping tears from her eyes. "What are we going to do?"

"I have no idea," Y/N admitted, her own laughter subsiding into hiccups. "I just... I needed to tell someone. To get it off my chest before I exploded."

Alexys, who had slid down the wall to sit on the floor, shook her head in disbelief. "Well, consider it thoroughly off your chest and splattered all over this break room. Seriously, Y/N, only you could turn an arranged marriage into a K-drama worthy love triangle."

"It's not like I planned this," Y/N protested weakly.

"Of course not," Ela soothed. "But Y/N, you know you're going to have to make a decision eventually, right? You can't keep going on like this, torn between Wonwoo and Seung-cheol. It's not fair to either of them, and it's certainly not fair to you."

Y/N nodded, feeling the weight of her friend's words. "I know. I just... I need time to sort out my feelings. To figure out what's real and what's just... nostalgia or fear or whatever this is."

"Well, you've got us," Alexys said, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. "Whatever you decide, whatever happens, we've got your back. Even if I think you're certifiably insane for getting yourself into this situation in the first place."

"Thanks, I think," Y/N said dryly. She looked at her friends, feeling a rush of affection for these women who were willing to weather this storm with her. "I don't know what I'd do without you two."

"Probably make much more sensible life choices," Ela quipped, earning a weak smile from Y/N.

As the three friends sat in the break room, the gravity of Y/N's confession settling around them like a heavy blanket, none of them noticed the shadow that passed by the partially open door. None of them saw Wonwoo, who had come to surprise Y/N with lunch, freeze in his tracks at the sound of his wife's voice. And none of them saw the play of emotions across his face – shock, hurt, confusion, and finally, a deep, aching sadness – as he quietly backed away from the door, Y/N's words echoing in his mind.

"I think I still have feelings for Seung-cheol."

The lunch in Wonwoo's hand suddenly felt like a lead weight. He turned and walked away, his mind reeling, his heart breaking with every step. The truth had been unveiled, but at what cost?

---

Wonwoo found himself wandering the streets of Seoul, the bustling city a blur around him as Y/N's words played on repeat in his mind. He had come to the hospital on a whim, wanting to surprise Y/N with lunch from her favorite café. Now, he wished he had never set foot in the place.

He replayed every interaction he'd had with Y/N since their wedding, searching for signs he might have missed. Had her smiles been forced? Her laughter hollow? Had every tender moment between them been a lie?

No, he decided. Whatever Y/N's feelings for Seung-cheol, Wonwoo couldn't believe that everything between them had been false. He had seen the genuine surprise in her eyes when he supported her career, felt the real warmth in her embrace when they lay together at night. There was something there, something real growing between them. But was it enough to overcome her history with Seung-cheol?

As the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the city, Wonwoo found himself in a small park. He sat heavily on a bench, his head in his hands. What was he supposed to do with this information? Confront Y/N? Pretend he had never heard? The thought of facing her, of seeing the guilt in her eyes when she realized he knew, made his stomach churn.

"Wonwoo-ssi? Are you alright?"

The voice startled him, and he looked up to see Seung-cheol standing before him, concern etched on his features. For a moment, Wonwoo felt a surge of irrational anger. This was the man his wife had feelings for, the one who might steal her away. But as quickly as it came, the anger faded, replaced by a bone-deep weariness.

"Seung-cheol-ssi," Wonwoo acknowledged, straightening up. He gestured to the empty space beside him. "Please, sit."

Seung-cheol hesitated for a moment before taking a seat, maintaining a respectful distance. An awkward silence fell between them, the air heavy with unspoken words and shared history.

"I didn't expect to see you here," Seung-cheol finally said, his voice carefully neutral. "Is everything okay? You looked... troubled."

Wonwoo let out a bitter laugh. "Troubled. Yes, I suppose that's one way to put it." He turned to look at Seung-cheol, really look at him. This was the man Y/N had history with, the one who still held a piece of her heart. Wonwoo searched his face, trying to see what Y/N saw.

"Can I ask you something, Seung-cheol-ssi?" Wonwoo said abruptly.

Seung-cheol nodded, a wary look in his eyes. "Of course."

"Did you love her? Before... before our marriage was arranged. Did you love Y/N?"

The question hung in the air between them, charged with emotion. Seung-cheol's eyes widened, a myriad of emotions flashing across his face – surprise, pain, regret.

"I... yes," Seung-cheol admitted softly. "I did. I do. But Wonwoo-ssi, you have to understand, I never—"

Wonwoo held up a hand, cutting him off. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I just... I needed to know." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I heard Y/N talking to her friends today. She still has feelings for you."

Seung-cheol's sharp intake of breath was the only sound in the quiet park. "Wonwoo-ssi, I... I don't know what to say. I never meant to come between you and Y/N. When your marriage was announced, I stepped back. I've tried to be respectful, to maintain proper boundaries."

"I know," Wonwoo said, surprising himself with the lack of anger in his voice. "I've seen how you interact with her at the hospital. You've been... a good friend to her. A support."

"She's an amazing woman," Seung-cheol said softly. "Brilliant, compassionate. Any man would be lucky to have her love."

Wonwoo nodded, feeling a strange mix of pride and pain at Seung-cheol's words. "She is. And that's why... that's why I can't just let her go without a fight."

Seung-cheol looked at him, surprise evident in his expression. "What do you mean?"

Wonwoo took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. "The truth is, Seung-cheol-ssi, I've been in love with Y/N for years. Long before our marriage was arranged. I fell for her at a charity gala years ago, watching her passionately discuss her dreams of becoming a nurse. Her determination, her compassion... I was captivated from that moment on."

Seung-cheol's eyes widened in surprise, clearly not expecting this revelation.

Wonwoo continued, his voice soft but filled with emotion. "When our families arranged this marriage, I thought it was a dream come true. A chance to finally be close to her, to build a life together. But I never wanted it to be just a business arrangement. These past weeks, getting to know her, seeing all the sides of her I'd only imagined before... it's only made me fall deeper in love with her."

The admission hung in the air between them, a challenge and a confession all at once.

"So what now?" Seung-cheol asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Wonwoo stood, brushing off his pants. "Now, I go home to my wife. I fight for our marriage, for the love that I've carried for years and that I hope can grow between us. And you... you respect her choice, whatever that may be."

Seung-cheol nodded slowly, standing as well. "For what it's worth, Wonwoo-ssi, I think you're a good man. Y/N is lucky to have you."

"Thank you," Wonwoo said, extending his hand. Seung-cheol took it, the handshake firm and respectful. As they parted ways, Wonwoo felt a strange sense of clarity. The path ahead wouldn't be easy, but he knew what he had to do.

When Wonwoo arrived home, the apartment was dark and quiet. For a moment, he thought Y/N might not be home, but then he saw a sliver of light under the bedroom door. Taking a deep breath, he made his way down the hallway, each step feeling heavier than the last.

He knocked softly before entering. Y/N was sitting on the bed, still in her scrubs, her hair a mess as if she'd been running her hands through it repeatedly. She looked up as he entered, and Wonwoo's heart clenched at the sight of her red-rimmed eyes.

"Wonwoo," she said, her voice hoarse. "Where have you been? I was worried."

He moved to sit beside her on the bed, maintaining a small distance between them. "I'm sorry. I needed some time to think."

Y/N nodded, twisting her hands in her lap. "Wonwoo, there's something I need to tell you. I—"

"I know," he interrupted gently. "About your feelings for Seung-cheol. I overheard you talking to Alexys and Ela at the hospital today."

Y/N's sharp intake of breath was loud in the quiet room. "Oh god," she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. "Wonwoo, I'm so sorry. I never meant... I didn't want you to find out like this."

Wonwoo reached out, taking her hand in his. "I know. And I'm not angry, Y/N. I'm hurt, yes. Confused. But not angry."

"You should be," Y/N said, a sob breaking free. "I'm a terrible wife. We're just starting to build something real, and I'm ruining it with these... these lingering feelings."

Wonwoo squeezed her hand, waiting until she met his gaze. "You're not a terrible wife, Y/N. You're human. We entered this marriage as strangers, with our own histories, our own emotional baggage. It's natural that there would be... complications."

Y/N stared at him, disbelief written across her features. "How can you be so understanding? I just admitted to having feelings for another man."

"Because I love you," Wonwoo said simply, the words falling from his lips with surprising ease. "I'm in love with you, Y/N. And I believe that what we're building together is worth fighting for."

Y/N's breath caught, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. "Wonwoo, I... I don't know what to say. I care for you, deeply. What's growing between us, it's real and beautiful and I don't want to lose it. But these feelings for Seung-cheol, they're confusing everything."

Wonwoo nodded, reaching up to wipe away her tears. "I know. And I'm not asking you to make a decision right now. I'm not giving you an ultimatum. What I'm saying is... I'm here. I'm committed to us, to our marriage. And I'm willing to work through this, together, if you are."

Y/N leaned into his touch, her eyes closing briefly. When she opened them, Wonwoo saw a mix of gratitude, affection, and determination in their depths. "I want to try," she whispered. "I want to work through this. With you."

Wonwoo felt a weight lift from his chest at her words. He pulled her into his arms, holding her close as she cried, her tears soaking into his shirt. They had a long road ahead of them, full of difficult conversations and emotional hurdles. But as he held his wife, feeling her heartbeat against his chest, Wonwoo felt a spark of hope.

Their marriage may have started as an arrangement, but it had become something more. Something worth fighting for. And fight they would, together, against all odds.

As the night deepened around them, Wonwoo and Y/N remained entwined, the first truthful words of their new chapter hanging in the air between them. The truths had been unveiled, painful and raw. But with those truths came the possibility of a deeper understanding, a stronger bond.

The future was uncertain, but for now, they had this moment. This honesty. This chance to build something real from the ashes of their arranged beginning.

And for now, that was enough.

[sepublic]

As I talk about Luz visiting a host culture and learning to appreciate it, to respect and submit to the grace of her hosts, I think there’s similar potential in Vee doing the same in a reverse way; She’s a demon entering the human world, she’s engaging in human culture and learns how to be human on their terms.

Now granted, some of that human culture Vee encounters has issues of assimilation and imperialism and the like, so the onus on Vee to be respectful is much smaller. Plus she’s a refugee who had little choice, persecuted by an older branch of that culture in Belos, so really she’s entitled to do as she pleases with Gravesfield; She’s not like the Coven Heads, who expected to fuse the realms, and be treated like royalty for it by both inhabitants.

But then we get to the Noceda family, who aren’t from there, who are Dominican immigrants, whose forebearers come from a country that struggles with imperialism, whose struggles in this American society hearken back to that. With Luz needing to learn magic on the terms of the witches and the Titan and whatnot, I think there’s potential in Vee acclimating herself to the Nocedas’ Dominican customs, learning Spanish, all of that. Camila very much chose to adopt this scared child who had to go along to survive, but it’d be neat to explore Vee understanding Luz in hindsight, and how her decision to leave home was informed by racism and other factors.

Like imagine Vee getting to apologize/make it up to Luz for saying she had it good and abandoned her mother for nothing; Imagine Vee reflecting on how she didn’t even want to be here specifically, just away from someplace else so she could survive. But now Vee can catch her breath and find stability, so now what? Does she do the same as Luz and embrace another world?

Imagine Vee taking Spanish lessons, imagine Vee partaking in the family traditions and music and culture. Appreciating what the Dominican heritage that adopted her is like. Being grateful to be included, wondering if she even belongs or deserves to, if she’s just an impersonating thief like her creator. Eda tells Luz to her own kind of witch, maybe Luz and Camila comfort Vee in a similar way.

I can see it being a touchy subject that requires care, but it could be something the Noceda sisters bond over, that question if they really belong and if their presence is inherently harmful; Luz wanting to do her witch fantasy led her to helping Belos find what he needed to become an emperor and enact the draining spell, to establish a genocidal regime.

Vee stole Luz’s life and contributed to a lie that devastated Camila when she found out, created a temporary rift between mother and daughter that contributed so much to Luz’s suicidal depression, which of course pained Camila. Luz and Vee both hurt people who took them in, who they grew to love and vice versa, without meaning to in a grand butterfly effect.

Because again, people understand Luz, a lot more than she realizes, it’s her greatest comfort, a fantasy even deeper than being Azura because even that was about finding people who shared the same interest in magic as her. Camila knows what it’s like to make mistakes, Willow knows what it’s like struggling to be the perfect friend everyone can depend upon; Amity knows what it’s like to hide your greatest sin for fear your new friend will reject you for it. Etc.

So Vee knows what it’s like to have to leave a place, finding a new one, stumbling your way into the arms of a mother and learning enthusiastically about how to be this world’s people as you make friends from them. But all the while you question yourself if you belong, if you’re some impersonating thief. Luz saw herself in Belos, maybe Vee saw herself in other white colonizers like him, the ones who came shortly before in conquering the Americas, contributing to the Dominican culture as a side-effect.

Vee’s ability to shapeshift could make her ask, Am I just an imitator? This makes me think of how Hunter is really good for episodes where he and another character bond over similarities; We were both cloned by Belos to aid in his genocide (While Hunter was technically in the spotlight and meant to be a nephew, Vee was hidden at all times and a loathsome tool). We both feel the weight of being colonial in some regard. We both have to rely on the identities of others, so who does that make us? In a timeline where Gus was not as mindful about the Grimwalker secret, I could see Vee helping Gus with Hunter’s clone angst.

And if there’d been more time, maybe Vee could’ve helped Luz with her own guilt, her own worry of being an outsider who doesn’t belong and is inherently harmful whether she means to be or not. Camila could bring up Vee and say that it’s not the same, there’s a difference between an immigrant and a colonizer, esp when the native chooses to accept. And Vee would feel validation as an example, but still wonder anyway. Shouldn’t they be conscious of it?

But maybe that’s what they’ve already done, with Luz learning to earn magic the way wild witches do, treating witches and demons as people and not side character tropes in her story. Those friends affirm that she’s already done the work, and the butterfly effect of being manipulated is not equivalent to malicious, intentional colonization. And if Vee feels she hasn’t done it, she can begin now, when it comes to Dominican culture and being a Noceda. And the Nocedas have always loved weirdness, so Vee’s already halfway there! Manny would’ve loved her and appreciated the joy Vee brought to his family.

Between everything that needed to be established for the plot and for Luz’s own depression, plus clone troubles, and Camila’s backstory and like. Yeah there was no time for a Vee storyline like this when Luz was isolating herself the whole time, and would only start to let people in when she was returning to the Demon Realm or was there. But imagine a full S3 where we could’ve it all…

This could make good grounds for a fanfic, the Noceda sisters bonding. It’d have to take some cultural sensitivity that the characters would have in-universe, but a writer might struggle out-of-universe. I could see this being after the finale, when Luz has a relapse because that’s always a possibility and has happened before; And for Vee, her storyline isn’t necessarily addressed and they can both bond over a shared fear together!!!

[avelera]

Distinguished Innovators (5472 words) by Avelera Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jayce/Viktor (League of Legends) Characters: Jayce (League of Legends), Viktor (League of Legends) Additional Tags: POV Jayce (League of Legends), Missing Scene, Insomnia, Eventual Smut, Pre-Relationship, Early Days, Jayce Needs a Hug (League of Legends), Mutual Pining, Overworking, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Domestic, Slice of Life, Late Night Conversations, Sharing a Bed, There Was Only One Bed, Betaed

Summary: It is the early years of Jayce and Viktor's scientific partnership, and the Distinguished Innovators competition is only three days away. That is, if they can get all the work done for it in time when Jayce is exhausted, overworked, and at risk of burning out entirely before they even make it there. So when Jayce jokingly asks Viktor to take control and tell him what to do, in the hopes that it will help Jayce relax and get some much needed sleep before the competition, he was not expecting Viktor to so readily oblige. Nor was he expecting what happened after.

--

Chapter 1 of 2 is live! After the angst of Season 2, I needed to roll around a bit in the early days of Viktor and Jayce's partnership. Y'know, when there was still hope in their eyes.

I hope you all enjoy this fun (for me) little slice of life exploration how they became closer, started their possibly romantic-but-we'd-never-label-it situationship, and engaged in some mild kink while not realizing they're engaging in mild kink. (The actual smut part will be in ch. 2, sorry!)

[pointedextr]

it’s that time of year (when the world falls in love)

poly!wolfstar x reader inspired by the christmas waltz by laufey (also thrown together, kinda messy, but it's cutie)

“Happy Christmas!”

Lily’s hair is dotted with fresh snowflakes, Harry’s dark little head peeking out from her arms in the soft glow of the twinkling coloured lights Sirius had insisted on hanging outside. You can see James loaded with presents a few steps behind his wife, face barely visible behind the brightly wrapped packages. You bring Lily into a warm hug, shuffling her inside while keeping in mind the toddler who laughs at the affection, patting your cheeks with small, chilly hands. 

“Happy Christmas, Jamie.” You call as Lily and Harry toddle further into the warmth, hands outstretched to help with his mountain of gifts but he side-steps you with ease, smacking a kiss to the top of your head.

“Oi, Padfoot!” He yells into the open doorway, pausing to adjust his grip. “Come help me!”

“Happy Christmas to you, too, Prongs, love you as well, Prongs, happy to see you, Prongs.” Sirius calls back, sarcasm dripping from every word, but you still watch him round the corner of the living room and pluck a sizable amount of presents from his friend’s arms, kissing your nose before following his best friend inside. You trail after them, securing the door shut, shiny Mary Janes making a soft noise against the wood of your entryway as you duck beneath a low hanging string of popcorn. 

Lily is busying herself with pouring a drink into a delicate glass, Marlene and Dorcas engaging her in bustling conversation as soon as they spot her. Alice, Frank, and little Neville are corralled around your plush loveseat, Neville waving around a cherry red toy car with blinking lights and moving windshield wipers, and next to them, Mary and Peter are giggling with heads bent together. Emmeline twirls a lock of dark hair around her finger, currently flicking through the snack tray and plucking every strawberry out of the fruit you’d painstakingly prepared earlier that day. 

James and Sirius had taken it upon themselves to stack the new additions to the present stash in an elaborate tower that looks like it’d fall at the slightest breath.

“Be careful, Pads.” Remus calls across the room from where you’d left him to answer the doorbell, one of the slim glasses you’d set out for drinks balanced on his knee as long, deft fingers trace the lip of the thing. You sidle up next to him, perching yourself on the armrest of the chair, and his free hand comes up to rest on your thigh.

“I’m walking on eggshells, Moony, I swear!” As he says this, however, a particularly heavy gift bag thumps onto the ground at his feet. 

“Alright, you two, I think we can leave the presents as they are.” You placate, a smile playing at your lips. “It looks great.” Sirius smiles a dazzlingly boyish grin at your praise, and you feel a flush heat the tips of your ears at the attention.

“You went all out, huh?” Lily asks, flicking at the garland you’d secured to the tops of your kitchen cabinets.

“I go all out every year!” You crow. “You just never knew because I never had a big enough place to deck out, and we always went to yours, or Frank and Alice’s to celebrate.”

“Thank Godric you didn’t try to do all this when we were in school. If I’d woken up to tinsel in my knickers, you’d have been hexed halfway to Spain.” Marlene quips, springing a laugh from the group. 

Everyone turns conversation back inward, and you melt just that little bit more into Remus, bending down to press your lips to the side of his head.

“What was that for?” It’s teasingly gentle, his thumb rubbing comfortingly over your tights, and your chest feels warm. 

“Just because. I’m feeling the giving spirit.” You smile, shifting closer so your hip knocks into his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll snog Sirius under the mistletoe. He put it under every doorway.” 

“I’m an opportunist.” The man in question swipes Remus’ drink from his hands after abandoning James across the room, a devilish smile hidden behind the glass as he drains the rest of the contents of it.

“Oh, so if you were caught in the doorway with, say, Dorcas?” Remus teases, snatching his empty cup back and vanishing it into the sink with a wave of his hand.

Sirius thumps his chest, an attempt of a valiant hero persona shrouding his features playfully, and he salutes to Dorcas, who’d narrowed her eyes in your direction as soon as she heard her name. 

“If Father Christmas demands it, it must be so.”

“I doubt Father Christmas is jonesing for you to pash a lesbian, but I’m not exactly Mrs. Claus, so what do I know?” You make to slip from under Remus’ hand to get him a new glass, but he tightens his hold just the smallest bit before you can get anywhere, tilting his face up just so. You know he’s handsome; you try to tell him this any chance you get, tracing the line of his nose, the dip of his mouth, the apples of his cheeks, but you’re struck by it in the fuzzy lights of your home, the candle-like warmth of your Christmas tree casting his face in such a way that your breath hitches. Before he even speaks, you’re darting forward to kiss him, just a small brush of your lips across his so your lipstick doesn’t smudge.

“Still in the giving spirit?” 

You hum, offering your abandoned seat to Sirius, who slides easily against Remus, wrapping their hands together tightly, and slinking into the kitchen. Harry’s attached to James at the hip, munching quite happily on a cracker he’d been given, and making grabby hands at the cube of cheese James has halfway to his mouth. 

“Dada, can I have some?” He’s quite good at speaking, more eloquent than Ron Weasley, who has a touch of a lisp and usually strings together just the important words. 

“Let’s split it, huh, Haz?” The orange cube is small, but James succeeds at halving it, and offers the bigger piece to his son. 

“Excited to open presents, Haz?” You ask, flicking your wand to the top shelf where Sirius thinks it's funny to store things so he can laugh as you jump to retrieve them. A tube of chocolate wands floats down to the counter, and you open the container to snap one in thirds and hand two pieces to James so he can give it to Harry when he sees fit and popping the final third into your mouth. 

The boy lights up like he’d been plugged in, emerald eyes widening as if he’d forgotten what today was.

“We got my presents from Santa at home, and I got a new broomstick! It’s p’olly more bigger than Uncle Padfoot’s, it’s almost as tall as Dad! Mummy says I can’t use it until I’m bigger, but I think I’m big enough, you think I’m big enough, right, Auntie?” He’s rambling around the cheese, and you laugh, nodding along to his story as he tells you all the things Santa brought him as you pour a heavy hand into a glass for Sirius and mix a sweeter concoction for Remus, along with chocolate wands for the both of them. Harry clutches your skirt as you pad back into the living room, still rambling on about his presents. “But mummy said Santa forgot to give me something called pay-tense. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds so boring, I’m glad he forgot it.” 

“That does sound quite boring, Haz.” Across the room, Remus and Sirius have relocated to the couch closest to the tree, and Sirius is impatiently palming a small present, shaking it against his ear like he could hear something through the box.  With a quirk of your lips, you lean down to whisper to Harry: “I think Santa forgot to bring your Uncle some this year, too, but I also think Santa has been forgetting to give it to him since he was a baby.” 

You nudge him toward Lily and James, who have a pile of presents sitting in front of them for Harry; you spot your present wrapped in Gryffindor red and gold with an expert bow you’d spent at least thirty minutes on, a mini handmade plush set of the Quidditch balls enchanted to actually work and a pendant that said ‘Future Captain!’ There’s a space on the couch that you go to slide into, but Sirius catches your waist, settling you comfortably across his legs, chin perched on your shoulder.

“You’ve been giving Moony love all night.” He whines, a bit histrionically, and you smack a kiss to his cheek in response. A lip print stands out starkly against his skin, deep red on his pale cheeks, and he makes no move to wipe anything away. 

“So whiney, Sirius.” Remus’ lips twist into a half smirk, taking his drink and chocolate wand from your hands. 

“You love it.” Sirius accepts the kiss Remus gives him as apology.

Harry’s ripping through his presents with Neville close behind, a pile of wrapping paper and crepe slowly forming around the boys that Frank and James can’t help but vanish intermittently. Neville laughs as a large butterfly flutters around his head, a present from Emmeline, its textile wings softly batting his hair as it floats. From Sirius, Harry pulls out play quidditch robes, and a note telling him to open your present next. Remus gave him and Neville picture books he’d charmed to help them learn how to read (though Harry’s had a special spell on it that insulted James if he picked up the book, so when he bent to gather Harry’s things together, it called him a ‘big piece of stag dung’ which Lily found quite funny.)

Harry delighted in your present, the soft bludgers bouncing off his head as he smiled widely at you. The kids finished with their lot, sizable piles of toys, books, and clothes stacked beside them. 

“Oh, Remus, it’s perfect!” Lily held a muggle video camera, pressing at buttons and pointing the lens at her son, then at the smiling man who’d gifted it to her. 

“Oi, what about my gift, Lilyflower?” James whined, though it was all in good fun. She cuffed the back of his neck with a slightly irritated blush at whatever she found in the wrapping, sending him reeling forwards. Covering her son’s eyes, she held up gold lingerie with little white bows holding it all together, and everyone burst out in awkward laughter.

James had given Sirius a heaping of personally designed gag gifts, a few of which were muggle made, a limp whoopee cushion thrown across the room to smack Peter in the face on accident. Underneath the mountain of fake vomit, dungbombs, and a suspicious looking potion with a label that said 'Gut-Be-Gone’, there was a small envelope with a silver wax seal. 

“You’re joking, Prongs!” Inside the envelope, Sirius produced three tickets to AC/DC’s tour, picking back up in the new year. He clapped James on the back firmly, a fond smile and a blush to the high points of his cheeks, flashing a huge smile at Remus and you.

You’re struck with how beautiful he is, similar to the feeling you’d had with Remus. Sirius settles right back in, pulling you firmly onto his lap and you trace the planes of his face with your gaze, the pretty pink of his cheeks with a bit of drink in him, the foggy paleness that makes up his eyes; the dichotomy of him is breathtaking, the dark ink that peeks over the collar of his shirt and circles his long fingers, the silver glint of piercings that almost match the hue of his iris. You find yourself pressing light kisses to the side of his nose, the dip of his upper lip, the hinge of his jaw, the beauty mark next to his right eye, which he lets you do without comment or question.

You were so wrapped up, forgive the pun, in watching your loved ones and the joy the day was bringing to them, you hardly remembered your own pile until everyone was finished, the muffled sound of Peter’s gift from James (a card that sang the most annoying Christmas carols Lily could think of that had held a ticket to a special screening of the Star Wars trilogy, Peter’s favourite movie) ringing in the air. 

“Dove, it’s your turn.” Remus nudges your hand towards the presents, guiding you to a nicely wrapped present that reads Alice and Mary in Alice’s precise scrawl.

You pick at the tape with the blunt of your nail, peeling it delicately until it comes undone in your hands. Inside is something you’d never think Alice or Mary would give you as a gift; delicate lace fabric unfurls in your hand. It’s a long length, and if the texture didn’t tell you it’s ancient, the fading of the white would have done it in. Nevertheless, it’s gorgeous, intricate and detailed and you can’t help but brush your fingers over it with the utmost care. Your brows furrow as you look at them, but they smile a knowing smile, and you thank them wholeheartedly.

“Next gift.” Sirius is speaking very softly, and as he passes the present, he presses a kiss to your cheek with similar gentleness.

It’s a package from Marlene, and you look up to see her smiling, though she’s biting at her nail beds nervously.

“I’m sure I’ll love it, Marlene.” 

And you do, though you have similar sentiments to Marlene’s gift you'd had to the previous present. It’s lovely, a pair of stunning earrings that float in an invisible wind, petal-like and iridescent, with misshapen pearls dangling from the posts . Holding them to the light, you can see little spirally veins running through the thin membrane, and you cast an incredulous look at your friend, the black polish on her nail very obviously chipping from the bite of her teeth. 

“They’re spidersilk mimicry of fairy wings, we saw a pair similar in Hogsmeade that one time during our sixth year. I thought, hey, what the hell, why not.” 

“Marlene, they’re gorgeous, absolutely. Thank you so much.”

Remus passes you the fourth present, an odd look in his brown eyes, almost anticipatory though you know it has little to do with the present, because the label doesn’t read Remus, it reads Lily.

Lily is your absolute best friend in the world, and you know she echoes the sentiment by the misty look in her eyes as you pull her present out, a small, square, and featherlight box.

“Lillian Jane Evans-Potter, what in the fresh hell?”

It’s a picture of her and James on their wedding day, moving and smiling and only looking at each other. Sirius is behind them, smiling a devilish smile at the camera, and he winks at you from the photograph. You turn the picture over in the box, and something jingles out onto your lap. It’s a dragonfly brooch, it’s Lily’s mother’s dragonfly brooch, and Lily’s since added a locket charm that’s empty and pings lightly against the brooch. You have no time to question her present before you’re being proffered a fourth present, oddly, your final present aside from a huge box with no label.

It’s from James and Peter, the former flashes a wide, toothy smile, and the latter looks at you very expectantly, albeit with warmth. 

You very carefully open the final package, expecting to be shot in the face with a horrid smell or turned into a giant blueberry, but there’s a simple handkerchief folded over four times. It’s blank, plain white, and it’s the only thing in the package, and you look at it very expectantly, as if it’ll blow up.

“C’mon, daredevil, pick it up!” James crows, and you gingerly prod it with a finger, flipping it over.

“Not like that,” Peter says, cringing. “You have to pick it up fully, or it won’t work.”

You shoot Remus and Sirius questioning looks, and they look almost nervous at your reaction, but you pick the handkerchief up anyhow and almost drop it as it bleeds from your touch; the stark white slowly turns a beautiful shimmery shade of blue, revealing white words seemingly etched into the corner: Happy Christmas! Say yes! - James and Peter

These presents are lovely, yet, you’re so puzzled. None of them make much sense to you, maybe Marlene’s can be explained away, but they’re extravagant earrings, and the thought makes you sweat because all you’d gotten her was a Stevie Nicks record and a black leather choker from a market you and Sirius had gone to. Lily offering her dead mother’s brooch? The lacey fabric from Alice and Mary? And the very, very odd blue handkerchief that turned white again as soon as you set it down. A furrow developed between your brows, and Remus stretched a hand out to soothe it down, kissing the side of your mouth before handing you the giant present you had left.

It was huge. It took up almost all of your upper body, coming to a stop just at your nose. Despite the side, the package was light, and when you jokingly shook it, nothing happened.

“Open it, love.” Sirius prompted.

You notched the tape with your finger, and automatically, the box disappeared, a floating, tiny jewellery box taking its place. Small little stars, like the lights on your Christmas tree, floated along with it, circling it, then dancing away, then back again, like nothing could keep still in the anticipation. Your fingers warmed when they made contact with the small thing, and the stars rushed into your being, floating warmly and playfully through your hair, along your shoulders and down your nose. For lack of better words, it was breathtakingly beautiful. 

It seemed like the whole room was holding its breath, Alice was clenching her chair with white knuckles, Lily and James leaned so close it looked like they were almost out of their seats. Marlene bit the sides of her nails raw, and Dorcas’s nose was wrinkled. Mary, Peter, Frank, and Emmeline all tensed like windup toys. Harry and Neville didn’t seem to care, both sharing sugar quills among themselves.

You opened the box, and gasped.

A ring sat among plus red velvet, the stone twinkling and gleaming as your eyes wet. 

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” Your words were tight with the closing of your throat, like something was tugging your oesophagus into a pinch. “Oh, my.” It was all you could say.

Sirius’ fingers came into your vision, plucking the ring from its bed of elegance and passing his thumb over the stone, his entire body tense against yours like a violin string pulled taught.

“I don’t want to profess all the things I want to say in front of this lot,” His voice is a whisper, rough and low and so very filled with emotion. “But I love you. We love you. We wanted you to be first.”

You’d discussed marriage, one night, all lying together and limbs tangled so tightly you couldn’t tell where you ended and someone else began. You remember saying you wanted to get on a knee and give someone a ring, that you didn’t want to be the only one with a symbol of love, so you all agreed to plan engagements when the time came. You promised, with great vigour through the sleepy haze you were under, to propose like nobody's business. You were so sure that Remus chuckling into your hair was an agreement, not an appeasement because they were already planning something so lovely, something that made your insides warm, something that made you want to kick everyone out so you could do some very lovely things to your very lovely lovers.

“Oh, give me the ring before I punch you.”

You kiss him so violently when it slides home on your left hand, your teeth knock together and he falls into the couch with a noise that sends the room hooting with laughter. You turn to Remus, who’s looking at your hand like it’s been touched by Midas, and launch yourself towards him with a sickening speed, lips and teeth and tongue all at play as you clutch his face in your hands, running a thumb over a scar that pulls taught across his cheek as he kisses you back. 

“I’m going to propose the hell out of you, just you wait.” 

“Looking forward to it.”

[xoxoavenger]

The Devil You Forgot

pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader

summary: Y/N gets captured by a group of demons with a strange pattern.

word count: 2506

warnings: canon typical injuries, low-grade torture (like punching and non-graphic knife stuff)

a new player has entered the ring. welcome to the party, Dean Winchester

masterlist

"It's almost like you don't think I can handle myself."

"You know that's not true."

"Okay, then let me go."

"Y/N,"

"Dean," Y/N took a deep breath, hoping she wouldn't hurt her boyfriend in the next couple seconds. "Babe, it's just food. I think I can pull it off." Dean breathed through his nose and pulled his lips in, and she knew this wasn't the last of their argument.

"You don't understand. These are-"

"Demons?" She cuts him off, wanting to slap him. "You mean the same creatures I've killed multiple of? By myself? Or is there a new breed that I'm unaware of?" She steps forward, and Dean takes a step back. He's been slapped by her before, he knows when he's crossed a line.

"I just want you to be safe, that's all." He says with his hands up. She rolls her eyes, grabs her Glock loaded with the demon-trap bullets she carved herself, and walks out.

"Oh man, you really handled that well." Sam says from his spot on his bed, computer in his lap. Dean lifts his head up and looked at the ceiling, wondering why his girlfriend was so hellbent on going to the diner alone. She doesn't need to, they could use this as some alone time, but no, God forbid Dean ever gets any alone time with her.

"These demons are just smart, is all. Smarter than the ones we usually fight. It'd be better to go in pairs." Dean tells his brother, who just shakes his head as he goes back to tapping away on his computer. They were trying to figure out why the demons would be here, in the middle of nowhere, Texas. So far, Sam didn't have any leads at all, but it wasn't like Dean was helping.

"She'll be fine, you know her. She's great at this stuff." Sam offhandedly said. Dean knows he's right, and that's what makes him upset.

"I know, but why would she not want me to come with?" Dean asks, shucking off his jacket and sitting on his bed. He puts his head in his hands, not sure what to do alone.

"Holy shit," Sam says, causing Dean to look over. His brother is staring at the laptop, concern etched on his face.

"What? What did you find?" Dean moves over, wanting to see the action.

"I'm comparing all the victims," Sam starts, grabbing some papers of the missing and murdered people. "I mean, we knew they were all women, but I just found this article about Fatima, and apparently her boyfriend had just asked her dad for permission."

"Permission for what?" Dean asked, and Sam almost hit him for the stupid question.

"To marry her, dumbass." Sam said, and Dean just blinks. "And when we went to the Kapnen's house, Loreli's sister said that her boyfriend was planning on proposing. Had the ring and everything."

"Fuck," Dean mutters, getting off the bed. He's in a daze as he begins to grab his jacket.

"But why are the demons taking women who are about to be engaged? How would they even know?" Sam is still looking through the town's papers online, trying to see if there was anything about the third missing woman.

"We have to find Y/N." Dean growls, emotion threatening to crawl up his throat. He's pulling it back, making sure to bottle that shit up for another time; this is something he's usually great at, but right now he's having trouble forcing the emotion down.

"What? Why? I just told you that the demons are going after women who are about to be engaged." Now Sam's the one who's about to be slapped, and he feels sick as he realizes what Dean is about to say just before he says it. His eyes go wide, even before his brother turns around. 

"Sam, Y/N is about to be engaged." Dean holds up a box he's been carrying around for approximately half a year, on the inside pocket of his jacket so Y/N couldn't feel it.

"Shit."

~

Y/N's not quite sure how the demons got the up on her, but she's now in some dingy warehouse basement with a bag over her head. She owes Dean a big apology and probably some sort of makeup-food-sex that she's been denying him for about a year.

They take the bag off and it scratches her face. Her hands are tied behind her back, her legs tied to the legs of the chair. Her mouth has also been bound, and she thinks the demons expected her to have been crying. But she stares at them angrily, blinking as they all furrow their eyebrows.

One of them slaps her, hard, and she keeps her head turned that way so they don't see the tears brimming. She will not cry in front of these demons, even if the moisture in her eyes is soley from the shock of nerves on her face.

"Feisty one, she is." One of them growls, and she smirks through the mouth binding as she turns back to them.

"Let's see if that mouth has the same attitude?" Another demon says, and she accidentally winces as they roughly rip the gag from her jaw. She cocks her head as she rights herself, wishing she could brush the hair out of her face.

"Why so quiet, honey?" Another demon smirks, grabbing her face. She looks around and realizes they're all men, which is a little weird for demons. They usually come in different genders, but she doesn't have time to think about why. She goes back to staring at the man holding her, maintaining eye contact. "What, you don't have anything to say?"

"You haven't asked me anything, dumbass." She grunts out, ripping her face from him. He just leans back as his friends seem to think that was at least a little funny, if the smiles on their faces are anything to go by.

"We don't need to ask anything, sweetheart." A demon said, and she just frowned sarcastically.

"Right, okay." She nods, laughing just to piss them all off. "Then what am I here for? Is it because you want him to come here? Because believe me, this little trap wouldn't have fooled him even when he was a teenager. So I'm gonna give you the chance to untie me and maybe he'll let you live. But even then, I honestly don't know that he will." They all stare at her, before one starts laughing and sets them all into a bought of laughter. She just blinks, not sure what they're laughing at. Is this not a trap? They have to know who Dean is, what he'll do to them.

"You stupid bitch." One of them laughs, and then he flicks a knife open. She lets her eyes widen a little bit, but besides that she doesn't move, not wanting to give anything away. She can't help the whimper that escapes when he snatches her jaw, squeezing too hard and pulling her head to the side so that her neck is exposed. The horrible thought creeps in that they're going to slit her throat, and she can't even wiggle out of these stupid cords around her wrists because her legs are still tied to metal and she would just be dead before she could take a step.

The blade slices across her collarbone, and she grits her teeth. She will not scream, she refuses to, but she lets out a grunt of pain. Her breathing is more like a wheeze through her teeth, and she doesn't even notice that they've finished slicing into her until the demon lets her head go. She lets it drop and then picks it up immediately, taking in a deep breath and looking at the other demons, forcing herself to smile.

"What're you smilin' about, darlin'?" Another one asks, and she doesn't let herself falter even as the cut burns her skin and the blood drips down her chest.

"You either want something from me, or you like playing with your food." She says. She's just stalling until Dean gets there, which should be soon knowing her boyfriend. "Which is fine, I'm not kink shaming you. But come on, it's like you don't know who I am." This earns her a hard punch to the face, one that leaves her seeing stars. She's pretty sure she blacks out for a moment, neck stretching and causing her cut to pull open more. She hisses, keeping everything else inside. She doesn't breathe until she can feel her face again, pain radiating through her eye socket and cheek bone.

"How's that for playing with food?" A demon asks, but this time before she can respond she's being hit again by another demon.

"Got a leftie. Helpful, don't ya think?" He says, and Y/N can feel the blood on her cheek as she hits the cut on her chest with her chin. She yelps, but tries to laugh it off.

Dean will be here soon. He's gotta be close.

"What's so goddamn funny?" One of them asks, and she just shakes her head as much as she can.

"He's gonna kill you." She tries to take pleasure through the pain, but someone with a bunch of fucking rings decides to hit her and she whimpers in pain. She can't scream, can't let them have it.

"Who is?" One of them chuckles - the one with the knife. She looks at the knife for only a moment before she looks back at the monster's face. "Your fiancé?" They all laugh, and she would crinkle her eyes in confusion if one weren't swollen shut.

"He isn't my fiancé," She says first, not sure why she feels the need to tell the demons of all creatures. She's about to tell them just who she's dating when they all start laughing like she said the funniest joke ever.

"Not yet, isn't that right?" One yells to the others, who continue their laughter. He turns to her, sighing and wiping his tears away. He leans against the back of Y/N's chair, knife pressing into her left cheek. She breathes in through her teeth as she tenses, feeling the knife break the skin. "You boyfriend hasn't popped the question. But he's had that damn thing for - how long did you say it was, Kaleb?" He turns back, and a demon on the side has a face red with laughter.

"Seven months!" He screams, and Y/N forgets about the pain for a moment. She looks at them all, not sure if they're telling the truth or not. She would have noticed, right? With the amount of hotels they're in and out of and the fact that they have shared a bed for years now. She would have noticed at the bunker, because they share a room, and she's sure there's not a hiding place she doesn't know of. She doesn't remember what it's like to sleep on her own, and Dean doesn't sleep in sweatpants. So where was he keeping it? If, of course, he actually had it. Because demons lie.

And it's not like she was expecting Dean to ask. She knows he wants it - the whole American Dream, Nuclear Family shit - but he hasn't talked about it, so she assumed he wasn't ready. She knew he didn't want a family while he was hunting, which may mean never, but she also knows that Dean wants to be with her forever. So yeah, she thought about it, but she didn't want to push him.

"You're lying." She chuckled, face hurting as it scrunched. "You must have the wrong man. His name is Dean Winchester, may have heard of him?" Where is he?

"Wait," The demon in front of her pauses, and she's a little confused why they're not laughing anymore. Did they actually have the wrong man? The demon turns to one other demon in particular, who looks like he's about to piss his pants. "The man you've been watching is Dean fucking Winchester?" He screams, and Y/N blinks in surprise; they actually didn't know it was Dean.

"I only knew his name, not what he looked like! How was I supposed to know that idiot was him?" The demon hissed, and they looked actually scared.

"We're dead." One of others said, a hand going to cover his mouth. "He's gonna kill us all. He's probably already here-" The demon cuts himself off as blood starts to pour from his chest, light exploding from the space. He falls to the ground, and there Dean is, looking like the righteous hand of God. Blood is splattered over his face, but he's not hurt at all.

"He said it, darlin'," Y/N laughs, even though it hurts. "You're dead."

Dean uses the knife, and just the knife, to go through each demon. Y/N can feel her skull pounding, and by the time Dean gets over to her she has her head bowed.

"I'm here, baby, I'm here." He mutters to her, immediately cutting her bindings. He sees the leg bindings and knows that they did it so she couldn't slip out. He cuts those first, then moves up.

"Dean," She whispers, still not lifting her head. When he cuts her wrists she falls forward, and he grabs her.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. Get up, baby, come on." He holds her, one hand moving to her face to lift it up. "Oh, I'm gonna summon those sons of bitches to kill them again." He mutters as he takes in her wounds. He killed them with the demon knife, so he couldn't anyway, but it's a nice sentiment.

"Do you have a ring?" She asks, hoping he understands through the mottled words she was able to gargle out around the pain.

"What?" He heard her, but he's hoping her didn't actually hear her. "Come on, let's go, sweetheart. I gotcha." He kisses her forehead and begins to help her up, and she never breaks eye contact with him.

"Dean," She grabs onto his jacket with one hand, breathing heavily. He pauses, holding her as he surveys her injuries. She's got a couple cuts, bruises across her face, and he wants to stick the knife into himself for letting her go alone. "What's this?" She smiles crookedly, holding up the box that she had snagged from his pocket. He can't help but let his jaw drop slightly, shocked she slipped one by on him.

"You should give that back so I don't have to do this in a goddamn demon lair," He tries to smirk, but his heart is racing. He can tell his hand is shaking when she hands the box back, and he puts it in his pocket quickly before he starts helping her walk out of there.

"You're not even gonna let me see it?" She whines, and he just laughs into the cool air as they walk out the door.

"Not until we have a case on the coast." He tells her, helping her into the car.

"Fuck!" She yells, half a laugh behind it. "I'm never getting married!"

//

tags: @avada-kedavra-bitch-187  @one-sweet-gubler

[holybasementdweller]

wanted to add my two cents because shipping discourse is just all over recently. Forgive me rambling a bit here. I have a lot of thoughts on this topic and would like to get them out there in some form.

Stop harassing CC's about their boundaries.

Would you go up to a random person whom you've never met before in your life, who has never met you either, and likely has no idea who you are, purely to ask them if you can draw/write/ship them with one of their co-workers?

No! It's a wildly uncomfortable question to a lot of people, it puts them on the spot, and some CC's may not care as long as they never see it. Now that the concept has been shoved in their face, they're forced to view the idea.

I feel like a large part of the issue is the divide between younger, newer fandom members and older, traditional ones. Primarily the concept that fan content is not intended for CCs, but for fans specifically. Most 'traditional' and older fandom participants follow this view because that's what fandom is. You get to make cool things, and ramble about different head cannons and ideas with your friends and maybe find other fans who become your friends along the way. Maybe you want to throw these characters you really like into this elaborate superhero AU, or draw them in costume, or explore relationship dynamics because it's fun and you get to ramble with fellow fans. It's called a fandom for a reason!

I'd like to clarify here that this post is not meant to target anyone in particular; it's going off a general trend I've noticed.

There's been an influx of people who create fan works or fanart that seems to be aimed more to gain clout or to be noticed by CCs. It's something they wanted to make, but is leaving the realm of "by fans, for fans," in a sense that it seems to have lost more of that "for fans." The work is then shoved at the CC more aggressively than if it was just for friends.

There's a reason that spaces like AO3 and Tumblr exist with such large fan communities- because the communities are meant for fans. It's all well and good when CC's decide to take a peek or participate in said fan spaces of their own volition. They're the ones making the choice to engage. It's NOT all well and good when someone, as a fan, is trying to make that choice FOR them by shoving fanworks at the CC begging for clarification on what is okay with them. You're not going to help anyone in that way. Fan spaces exist separately from the CC spaces for a reason. The CC is a person behind the screen who you don't know. The character or role they play in the series you watch? You might know just about everything there is to know about them!

If a CC has laid out a boundary that they aren't comfortable with X Y Z, then there's a really, really simple solution here. Don't show it to them.

Don't put it in main tags, don't tag them in the post, hell, block the CC so you know they won't be able to view something that makes them uncomfortable.

There's a lot of what comes across as almost puritanical virtue signaling I've seen lately, where people are talking about CC boundaries everywhere and trying to police fanwork. I will again refer you to the point above. The fanwork is not made for the CC. It is made for fans, and if it is something the CC isn't comfortable with, then don't go posting it where they might regularly look at things (such as main fanart/fanwork tags.)

Yes, there are CCs who are over here. Yes, they look through fan works. This app is primarily a fan-oriented space and it has tags that CC's (or anyone else!!) can block to avoid things they are uncomfortable with. Though at this point the few that are over here either were already gay dot com natives or have basically become one.

I may have gone a bit off my original topic but TL;DR:

KEEP FAN WORKS TO FAN SPACES, AND STOP HARASSING THE CC'S PLEASE. LET THEM EXIST IN PEACE.

[simp-ly-writes]

Jenga, Jokes & Comfort

─────── · · A Smosh FanFic

Pairing: Gentleman!Boyfriend!Spencer Agnew x gn!Partner!Reader

─ · · SUMMARY: You are starring in your first Gentleman video, anxious beyond belief and worried for Spencers jokes and your relationship. Spencer is right there to make sure you are having fun and to comfort you afterwards!

─ · · TAGS: gender-neutral pronouns, part social-media au, established relationship, fluff, emotional hurt/comfort, attempt at humour, kissing, sickly-sweet.

─ · · MASTERLIST | TAGLIST REQUEST | WORDCOUNT: 1,508

─ · · A/N: Asks are still closed, sorry everyone! 😬 life is just hell rn

─────── · ·

You were on edge while readying yourself for your next shoot. Applying the last touches and fixing your crooked bow-tie, you leaned forwards on the vanity staring into the mirror. Closing your eyes and taking a deep breath, you turned on a smile and walked towards the studio. Your tuxedo flaps waving behind you as you walked, top-hat under your arm.

You knew that the fans loved these videos, they often showed the best engagement statistics and you were worried that as your first time as a "gentleman," you would not live up to the fans standards. Amanda was already sat at the table, the Jenga tower standing tall and proud at its centre.

Alex was off-camera, constantly keeping an eye on the tower to ensure every brick was perfectly placed before they were ready to start filming.

"Hey (name)! You ready to get your ass kicked in Jenga?" Amanda challenged with a large smile. Shaking your head at your friend, you placed your hat atop your head before taking an empty seat beside her.

"More like are you not going to cry when I kick your ass?" you retorted, giving her shoe a light tap with your own underneath the table. "We will just have to see, but we all must remember, we are gentlemen after all- Hello everyone! and welcome back to the table where us gentle-fellows will be trying to disassemble this tower."

Your head flipped around, hat almost flying off your head by how quickly you moved to face the camera, cheeks warming as you did not hear Alex call for the cameras to roll. Spencer, your boyfriend, had taken a seat beside you as usual.

You met his stare with wide eyes as he grabbed your shoulder and laughed, you couldn't help but smile in return loving to hear the chime of it. "If you gentlemen are done grasping each other's garments we really must make haste of this game, I have a meeting with my accountant at noon and another with my mistress from across the pod at three!" Shayne announces from across the table, his shoes upon the wood surface, blocking his face from view as he tips on nearly falling backwards and out of his chair.

Your eye go wide, welling with tears as you try and hold back your laughter from the double-eyed wink he gives you that has Spencer pointing you a look. "Don't tell me you're actually going to listen to this unchivalrous, undefined, uncivil, and highly impolite individual? We will start when we start for it is the man that determines the time."

You stare at Spencer, that anxiety coming back to your chest as you laugh it off and look towards the camera as a means of fake support, staring at it for a long while as you can imagine an eire noise playing and a slow zoom towards your face.

"Now if the real gentlemen could please step forwards, I am going to pull the first brick! Hmm let us see..." Amanda holds a finger to her chin, tapping it in contemplation, "pulling it from the top will not make the tower drop so I shall do just that!"

You lean in to whisper-shout into her ear, "You're saying your thoughts aloud!"

"Oh, sorry I did not realize, thank you gentleman. And do you know you are shouting?"

"SHOUTING?" you question.

"YES, YOU JUST DID SO NOW!" Amanda shouts back.

"AH, WELL, I messed up my hearing when doing a most chivalrous deed while serving. Now that I think about it... I can't remember much of it except for the screams and the blood..."

Amanda appears to stare through you, not knowing what to say before Shayne falls backwards and out of his chair, the room exploding into laughter as he waves his top hat above the table to show that he's alright.

─────── · ·

The game progresses, Amanda nearly knocking the whole tower over and you all are running out of possible moves. "Well shit," you say, standing and walking towards the front of the table where the cameras face. Squatting down to level your eyesight to the game you strategize your move.

"If I may offer you a tidbit of advice, good friend," Spencer asks, fingers taping against the wood of the table as you nod your head once in his direction, preparing yourself mentally for whatever crazy line he had cooked up next, "Every word that comes out of his mouth this vid makes me a little scared for our relationship..." you joke with nervous laughter.

Spencer opens and closes his mouth, his head tilting forward in a silent ask, are you okay? we can stop? Character immediately dropped. All you do is not your head, grabbing his forearm gentle as he places his hand on top of your own.

"Pulling a brick should work, any brick. My old man would say its all up to luck now." Nothing actually too crazy... you think to yourself, thankful that Spencer was toning it down a bit yet how wrong you would be in the text moment when Shayne was to pull next.

"Good move, good move, Gentleman," Shayne compliments your flicking technique of a brick from the bottom of the tower. It had slightly shaken the organization now appearing like the leaning tower of Pisa.

Leaning in to pull a piece, the tower falls before Shayne's fingers even touch a piece, the game over yet Spencer appeared to still had a few lines to share.

"Well when I blow on things that tends to happen as well, wind in the sails and all that," Spencer comments with a smirk, fixing his glasses as the table erupts in laughter once more.

Mouth agape you don't know how to respond to your boyfriend as him and Shayne have a playful sparring match off to the side. Top hats long forgotten as they pull their punches and grab each other's neckties.

"It seems we know who the real gentleman are here," Amanda makes an offhand comment you both leaning on the table watching the two wrestle. A camera pans over your shoulder before cutting to both of your faces. "Say, gentleman. How's a drink sound right now?"

"A drink, you say?"

"Yeah."

"Then I would have to say yes-"

"Oi!" Spencers head flicks up, starring between you and Amanda. "They are MY drinkin' buddy!" The camera cuts to black.

─────── · ·

After the shoot, Spencer is hot on your heels walking towards the break room before he pulls you into a random empty office. "Hey, you are doing okay... right? You know that nothing I say while wearing this," his fingers point up and down his body, "means anything real."

"I know, I know, and thank you for trying to tone it down today. I-just, I really want the fans to like the episode but I feel like I ruined it being my over-anxious self. I just-"

"Hey, hey," Spencer wraps his arms around you as tears well in your eyes, his hand rubs up and down your back in a soothing motion. "The fans are going to love it just because they love you, I mean there's a reason I clickbait you in almost every episode..."

You both laugh, "I hate that you always find a way to make me laugh, Spence."

"And I hate that you hate me, what can I do to fix that?"

"Well... you could kiss me?" Spencer places a kiss to your forehead. "No- I mean like-"

"Mean what?"

"Now you're just being mean, Spence." Spencer chuckles before picking up your chin and pulling you in for a kiss. You sigh content against his lips loving the way you can feel Spencer physically relax as you fall into each others arms before pulling away.

─────── · ·

Gentlemen x Jenga!!

Smosh Games ✓ [Subscribed] 👍 26k | 👎 7.78M subscribers 93k views 2 days ago London bridge is falling down... click to read more

410 Comments

username01 Spencer's immediately dropping character to support their partner (name) is the most wholesome thing on the internet besides puppies and kittens. 🥹💕

↳ username46 ehh, I think (yourshipname) has them beat by a longshot

username24 Okay but Shayne falling out of his chair doesn't need to be THAT funny 😆

username88 (name) not being able to hear and shouting at Amanda (playfully) is one of the greatest comedic pieces on this channel, love the lore update!

username39 15:45 "Don't tell me you're actually going to listen to this unchivalrous, undefined, uncivil, and highly impolite individual?" Okay but why does this line kinda go hard???

username70 PLEASE BRING BACK ANGELA AND TREVOR!!!

username03 Not Spencer getting jealous over Angela at the end 🤣

username50 15:01 "If you gentlemen are done grasping each other's garments we really must make haste of this game..." - Shayne Topp, 2024 everyone 👏

username27 That shot of Amanda and (name) standing and watching over Spencer and Shayne was SOOO cinematic, Alex was cooking on this one!! 🧑‍🍳☝️

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[johanna-swann]

The annoying thing about the break up is that it would have made so much more sense if they'd had Tommy break it off because of any of the multiple things Buck says in that conversation that are kind of weird. The vibe that Buck also kind of wants to be Tommy, which isn't helped by him replacing Tommy twice over. The fact that it's been six months of Tommy apparently being open about the kind of work he had to do on himself to get to this point but Buck still hasn't really taken Tommy off the pedestal. Asking someone who probably has a house to move in to a loft. Springing a mention of a possible future marriage on him when it doesn't seem like it's come up before. The writing in this episode was so bad but they still managed to unintentionally give Tommy actual reasons to decide he was done.

I'm not sure what Buck "replacing Tommy" is referring to here, but a lot of the other stuff I agree with. Even upon first glance that break-up made so little sense to me that I immediately jumped to the conclusion that this was merely one of the "hurdles" we were promised and they'd get back together in season 8b.

It was always a possibility that Tommy wouldn't be Buck's "forever love", but the way they broke up was... strange, to say the least.

First of all the Abby thing makes zero sense. It doesn't fit with the way Abby talked about her ex. Even if she didn't want to talk to Buck about being engaged before, she would've at least mentioned to Carla that the terrible break-up she had to relive over and over again came from her fiancé, not just a boyfriend. It doesn't make sense that Tommy never mentioned her to the 118 either. She was basically his beard, right? Isn't the point of those relationships that you can pretend to be straight in front of others? And then Tommy actively hid his relationship with her instead?

This only served as a conversation starter though, it wasn't the reason they broke up. In his conversation with Josh Buck didn't feel comfortable using the l-word, but he did admit seeing and wanting a future with Tommy. Which he later also said to Tommy himself.

Then the very moment Buck said the words "move in" I immediately went "not a-fucking-gain!!" Because this rushed, overcorrecting clinging - throwing ideas of marriage and so on around without even having exchanged "I love you"s yet - is such a Buck 2.0 thing to do. He didn't even take into consideration that Tommy lives in an entire ass house. You promised us Buck would get off the Hamster wheel Tim! He has been more grounded than I've ever seen him in a relationship, but then suddenly, nope. Character growth who?

And lastly Tommy's answer. Maybe he just got cold feet, but. Why did he even give Buck a second chance in the first place when he already thought this wasn't going to go anywhere. If he thought what Buck needed were more casual queer experiences, then why did he stay with Buck for six months? And if he liked Buck enough to be afraid of getting his heart broken, wouldn't he have left that relationship earlier?

I mean. They ended up breaking things off over liking each other too much, essentially. Find the sense in that.

And maybe while Tommy was too pessimistic and scared, Buck was still viewing the relationship too much through rose-tinted glasses. But that's when you say: "Hey, we kind of want the same thing here, but I think we still have a lot to talk about and to figure out about each other. Maybe let's just date a little longer and come back to this conversation in two or three months."

(Though I think Tommy struggling and working on himself is one of the very things Buck so admires about him. It's not that Buck is (love-) blind to this information, it's part of what makes Tommy's confidence so attractive to Buck.)